Hello and welcome to this day, a history show from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan.

It is 50 weeks that shaped America, our look at America 250, the semi-Quincentennial, and this is week

three. We are off to early January of 1815 and the Battle

of New Orleans. Now, this is the culminating battle of the War of 1812, a battle between U.S. and

British troops that was actually conducted after the war had formally ended. But before news of the

peace treaty reached the United States.

On that foggy day in January, just a few miles south of New Orleans, American troops beat back

the British advance, putting an exclamation point on the war. And as interesting, a tactical

encounter as this was, it was the story of the Battle of New Orleans

that really shaped America. A generation after the war for independence, the United States

had vanquished the British yet again. And this time, the battle was not in the north and the

east, but in the south and the west. And all of a sudden, the country was all about the frontier.

In the aftermath of the battle, a star was born.

Andrew Jackson, who led American troops on that day, would go on, of course, to be elected president,

and in many ways help define a new American century. So let's get into it. Here, as always,

Nicole Hammer of Randobot and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there. Hello, Jody. Hey there.

This is a fascinating story, but can I also flag that to my mind, it fits into two categories of

stories that I think we will revisit from time to time throughout this series. So one is like stories

that are like one page in your middle school history textbook, right? I feel like this is the quintessential one. Or like even like the little sidebar that's like shaded a different color. Yes. The battle of New Orleans is like exactly that. Yes. I see it clearly in the textbook. Yes. Yeah. And you're like, I got it, but I'm just going to keep it moving. So we will be revisiting those.

And we will also be revisiting a number of stories that fall squarely into the dad history

category.

And this one, you know, troop movements, battles, pirates.

...