How Beavers Built America, The 5 Habits of Hope, And Jackie Kennedy’s Christmas Legacy

The Preamble

Sharon McMahon

Government, History, Storytelling, Education

4.9 • 15.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Before railroads, revolutions, or even the idea of America itself, one animal with a grudge against running water built the foundations of our country. The beaver didn’t just shape rivers — it shaped history, and even sparked a war. Then Sharon talks with psychologist and author Dr. Julia Garcia, whose new book The Five Habits of Hope offers a practical way to find your way back to hope, especially when life feels heavy. Plus, how Jackie Kennedy reinvented Christmas at the White House, and began a tradition that still lives on today. If you’d like to submit a question for Sharon to answer, head to ThePreamble.com/podcast – we’d love to hear from you there. And be sure to read our weekly magazine at ThePreamble.com – it’s free! Join the 350,000 people who still believe understanding is an act of hope. Credits: Host and Executive Producer: Sharon McMahon Supervising Producer: Melanie Buck Parks Audio Producer: Craig Thompson To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Come in, shoes off.
0:02.0	What's the Wi-Fi? Most stream the new series I'm binging. Please can we listen to something that isn't Christmas music? Can you, um... You can't have such a T-Froster ticket quickly? Everyone! We're gonna video call Auntie Audrey now. Mom, Joe's talking to telly again. Can we share a video with a dog in his outfit? Hosting this Christmas? You need the UK's best broadband technology. E.E does more.
0:24.0	Full fibre is the UK's best broadband technology.
0:22.5	EE does more.
0:24.1	Full Fiber is the UK's most reliable broadband technology.
0:26.1	Offcoms broadband terminology research March 223, verify at e.com at e.combe.combe.
0:29.3	If you had wandered across North America several thousand years ago, you might have crossed
0:37.9	paths with a creature that looked like it belonged in the Princess Bride, a beaver, this size
0:44.7	of a black bear. Yes, you heard correctly. Giant beavers once roamed North America, Asia,
0:52.2	and Europe sharing the landscape with creatures like
0:55.5	Sabretooth Tigers.
0:57.3	Today's beavers are smaller and far more familiar, but they remain just as astonishing.
1:03.1	They have five fingers, a tail that seems customed designed by a committee.
1:08.9	And when they hear the sound of running water, something in their
1:12.3	brain simply says, no. Absolutely not. And they head off to stop it. Why they do any of this
1:23.7	is a scientific mystery. Researchers don't fully understand why beavers build dams or how
1:29.3	that behavior began. They don't know whether instinct drives them or whether their intelligence
1:34.4	pushes them toward these massive engineering projects. Their eyesight is poor. Their brains
1:41.1	are small. They navigate primarily by smell using the unique scent of each tree
1:48.1	to decide which one to bring down next. And yet, their impact on the landscape rivals anything
1:57.2	done by humans. I'll share the rest of that story in a moment, but first, welcome to
2:04.0	the preamble podcast. Each week, you'll hear some of the most interesting stories from our weekly
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