War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Music host, James Early. Hello and welcome to another episode of key films of World War II in Europe.

This is your host, James Early.

As always, this week, we are going to be looking at the 1995 made-for-TV movie, the Tuskegee

Airman. This is designed to go along with the episode that I did, the interview episode I did,

on African-Americans in World War II. So let's talk about the basics of the movie, as we always do,

and then Sean will talk a little bit about the background and anything else that comes to mind. The movie, given that it's a made for TV movie, it's a little shorter

than some of the other ones we have done. It's an hour and 46 minutes. It has an 88% positive

rating on Rotten Tomatoes from the critics and 79% from the fans. The average rating on

IMDB is 7.1.

The director is Robert Markowitz, and the movie stars a lot of young African-American men who would go on to be pretty big stars in the future.

Some of these were already established stars.

And they, well, let's just say who they are.

So Lawrence Fishburn,

Alan Payne, Malcolm Jamal Warner, Courtney B. Vance, Andre Brower, Christopher McDonald, Daniel

Hugh Kelly, John Lithgow, and Cuba Gooding Jr. This is John Lithgow's second appearance on the podcast.

He was also in Memphis Bell.

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