This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is our American stories, and our next story comes to us from a man who's simply known as the History Guy. His videos are

watched by hundreds of thousands of people of all ages on YouTube. The History Guy is also heard

here at our American Stories. If at the height of his power in 1810 someone had approached Emperor

Napoleon Bonaparte and told him that in about 100 years,

his great nephew would be the Secretary of the United States Navy

and be responsible for setting up arguably the most successful law enforcement agency in the world

in the new country of America.

He probably would have laughed or had you sent to an asylum.

Here's the history guy with the story of the American Bonaparte's.

On June 18, 1815, one of the most important and well-known battles in history was fought

in Belgium between the French army of the Emperor Napoleon and armies of the 7th Coalition,

commanded by the Duke of Wellington. The battle, Waterloo. A significant part of that story battle occurred on Napoleon's left at a walled farmhouse called

Yugo Monde.

Napoleon sent a division to attack the farm, which Willington knew he must hold.

Historians today disagree whether that attack was merely a diversion intended to draw

Willington's reserves away from his center, or whether Napoleon thought that Yugo Mons

must be taken. But in either case, the battle started at the walls of Yagamon, and by many accounts,

was lost there, as the farm, although nearly destroyed, never fell. Willington observed after the battle that the success of the battle turned upon the closing of the gates at Yugamont.

The French commander, whose division was to take the farm, was Jerome Bonaparte, Napoleon's

youngest brother. And Jerome Bonaparte had a little known connection to his opponent, the Duke of

Wellington, through the nearly forgotten American Bonaparte's. It is a story that deserves to be

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