Recent Favorite: Franklin in France (1776) w/ Mike Duncan

This Day in Esoteric Political History

Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

History

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2023

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’re re-running some favorite recent episodes this week, and will be back with brand new episodes very soon!

It’s October 4th. In 1776, Benjamin Franklin is headed to France as the Continental Congress’s first diplomat, looking to secure support for the American independence movement.

Jody and Kellie are joined by Mike Duncan, history podcaster behind series such as “Revolutions” and “The Fall of Rome.” They discuss Franklin’s diplomatic goal, his taste for the Parisian nightlife — and why the values of the Founding Fathers continue to be contested and politicized.

Check out Mike’s book “Hero of Two Worlds.”

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And don’t forget about Oprahdemics, hosted by Kellie, out now from Radiotopia.

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Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone Jody here. Over the next few episodes we're going to bring you some recent favorite conversations
0:05.2	They're worth listening to again if you've already heard them and for many of you you'll be hearing them for the very first time
0:11.4	Look we're giving ourselves a little bit of a break
0:13.9	over the next week or so.
0:15.1	I'm at the TED conference all week,
0:17.0	doing some stuff related to that new series of mine, good sports.
0:20.6	Nicky and Kelly are in the home stretch of the academic year and most importantly our
0:25.5	researcher Jacob Feldman is getting married so a much deserved break and
0:30.1	congratulations to Jacob we're all very excited about that. Okay, here we go with a
0:34.6	recent favorite episode and we will be back very soon with brand new episodes.
0:39.9	Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.
0:46.7	My name is Jody Avregand.
0:51.5	This day, early October 1776, Benjamin Franklin has just been named the first American
0:57.8	diplomat by the Continental Congress and is preparing for a trip to France.
1:03.0	Franklin was 70 years old, very much an elder statesman of sorts at this point,
1:07.5	and I don't know, sometimes we think about these late career diplomatic appointments
1:11.2	as cushy gigs, like, hey, your new job is to go to Paris and
1:14.4	attend fancy dinners and there is a little bit of that in this story as we will
1:18.2	discuss but of course this is 1776 revolution is in air. The ink has barely dried on the Declaration of Independence
1:26.3	and France is a key ally in the fight for American independence.
1:31.2	So let's talk about why Franklin goes to France just as war is breaking out at home
1:36.7	our very special guest for this episode is Mike Duncan history podcast royalty I would say
	...

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