Hello History This Week listeners, it is Sally here. Before we start this episode, we just have a quick update for you.

We are hard at work on great new episodes for 2022, and in the meantime, we wanted to bring you some of our favorite episodes from the past two years.

So this month, we will be visiting some history this week hits and be back on January 31st with brand new episodes. We hope you enjoy.

History This Week January 8th 1964. I'm Sally Helm.

Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States.

A joint session of Congress. The chamber is full of men in dark suits. They all rise to applaud President Lyndon Baines Johnson as he makes his way through the crowd.

Johnson is here to give his State of the Union address. I want to begin to speak. He sounds subdued, even a little mournful.

My fellow Americans, I will be brief for our time is necessarily short and our agenda is already long.

Johnson has at this point been President for less than 50 days.

John F. Kennedy was assassinated just weeks ago on November 22nd in Dallas, Texas. Vice President Johnson was riding in a car behind Kennedy when the shots were fired. He was sworn in hours later on Air Force One.

And today, he addresses a still grieving nation.

In folks Kennedy's name early on.

Let us carry forward the plans and programs of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Not because of our sorrow or sympathy, but because they are right.

But then, over the course of the next 30 odd minutes, he says Kennedy's name only twice more. Johnson is at this point immensely popular in the country. His approval rating is over 75%.

He's stepped up to lead in a time of crisis. And he's here to introduce his own agenda to the world, not simply to carry on Kennedy's legacy. Johnson wants to define his own presidency.

And about 10 minutes into his speech, he comes out with a declaration of war.

This administration today here and now declares unconditional war on poverty in America.

Today, Johnson's war on poverty. At this traumatic moment in American history, why did the president choose poverty as his defining issue? And what is the legacy of the war he started?

On a spring evening in 1967, 24-year-old Doris Kerns is in a ballroom at the White House. And President Lyndon Baines Johnson walks right up to her.

That's the first time I'd ever seen him. And he came over and asked me to dance.

By the time we talked to her for this episode, Doris Kerns Goodwin had come a long way from that young person in the White House ballroom.

She's a Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian, a foremost expert on President Johnson. We were so excited to talk to her for this episode.

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