History Unplugged Podcast

Free time, one of life’s most important commodities, often feels unfulfilling. But why? And how did leisure activities transition from strolling in the park for hours to “doomscrolling” on social media for thirty minutes? Despite the promise of modern industrialization, many people experience both a scarcity of free time and a disappointment in it. Here to explain why this is today’s guest  Gary Cross, author of “Free Time: The History of an Elusive Ideal.”  We discuss a broad historical explanation of why our affluent society does not afford more time away from work and why that time is often unsatisfying.  We begin with a survey of the past 250 years to understand the roots of our conception of free time and its use. By the end of the nineteenth century, a common expectation was that industrial innovations would lead to a progressive reduction of work time and a subsequent rise in free time devoted to self-development and social engagement. However, despite significant changes in the early twentieth century, both goals were frustrated, thus leading to the contemporary dilemma. Cross touches on leisure of all kinds, from peasant festivals and aristocratic pleasure gardens to amusement parks, movie theaters and organized sports to internet surfing, and even the use of alcohol and drugs. This wide-ranging cultural and social history explores the industrial-era origins of our modern obsession with work and productivity, but also the historical efforts to liberate time from work and cultivate free time for culture.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Published: 26 August 2025

Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan are known for discoveries, but it was Captain James Cook who made global travel truly possible. Cook was an 18th-century British explorer who mapped vast regions of the Pacific, including New Zealand and Australia’s eastern coast, with unprecedented accuracy. He meticulously conducted soundings to measure ocean depths and created highly detailed maps, providing accurate navigational charts that guided explorers and sailors for generations. His three voyages (1768–1779) also advanced scientific knowledge through detailed observations of astronomy, natural history, and indigenous cultures, earning him enduring recognition as one of history’s greatest navigators. Pacific Islanders literally worshipped him. In January 1779, when he sailed into a volcanic bay known by Hawaiians as “the Pathway of the Gods,” Cook beheld thousands of people seemingly waiting for him on shore. Once he came on land, people prostrated themselves and chanted “Lono,” the name of a Hawaiian deity. Today’s guest is Hampton Sides, author of “The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook.” We take a look at Cook’s third and final voyage (1776–1779), detailing his exploration of the Pacific, encounters with indigenous cultures, and tragic death in Hawaii Cook was a brilliant yet complex navigator grappling with the moral and cultural challenges of European exploration in an era of expanding empires.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Published: 21 August 2025

In the early twentieth century, anarchists like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman championed a radical vision of a world without states, laws, or private property. Militant and sometimes violent, anarchists were heroes to many working-class immigrants. But to many others, anarchism was a terrifyingly foreign ideology. Determined to crush it, government officials launched a decades-long “war on anarchy,” a brutal program of spying, censorship, and deportation that set the foundations of the modern surveillance state. The lawyers who came to the anarchists’ defense advanced groundbreaking arguments for free speech and due process, inspiring the emergence of the civil liberties movement. Today’s guest is Michael Willrich, author of “American Anarchy: The Epic Struggle between Immigrant Radicals and the US Government at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century.” We look at this tumultuous era and parallels with contemporary society.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 19 August 2025

Horse racing was the most popular sport in early America, drawing massive crowds and fueling a cultural obsession with horses’ speed and pedigree. In the early 1800s, every town in America with a few thousand people had a horse racing track, with major cities drawing crowds of up to 50,000. In the midst of this was Alexander Keene Richards (1827–1881), one of the nineteenth century’s most significant Thoroughbred importers and breeders. Richards was like automotive designer Carroll Shelby, Matt Damon’s character in Ford v. Ferrari, who revolutionized the sport by blending innovation with a relentless drive to perfect the breeding and training of Thoroughbreds. Today’s guest is Gary Odell, author of Reinventing the American Thoroughbred: The Arabian Adventures of Alexander Keene Richards. We explore how Richards traveled thousands of miles on expeditions into the heart of the Syrian desert to obtain Arabian stock of the purest blood. He became the first American to venture into the desert to bargain directly with nomadic tribesmen for their horses. The Civil War interrupted Richards’s equine breeding experiment. After the war, he was bankrupt and spent the rest of his life attempting to rebuild his Thoroughbred facility. But Richards’ willingness to look globally for solutions—traveling to the Middle East for superior bloodlines—parallels today’s international talent scouting and cross-cultural exchanges in sports, fostering a legacy of globalized athletic improvement that shapes how American sports, from horse racing to other disciplines, prioritize scientific innovation and cultural adaptability.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 14 August 2025

It took little more than a single generation for the centuries-old Roman Empire to fall. In those critical decades, while Christians and pagans, legions and barbarians, generals and politicians squabbled over dwindling scraps of power, two men – former comrades on the battlefield – rose to prominence on opposite sides of the great game of empire. Roman general Flavius Stilicho, the man behind the Roman throne, dedicated himself to restoring imperial glory, only to find himself struggling for his life against political foes. Alaric, King of the Goths, desired to be a friend of Rome, was betrayed by it, and given no choice but to become its enemy. Battling each other to a standstill, these two warriors ultimately overcame their differences in order to save the empire from enemies on all sides. And when Stilicho fell, Alaric took vengeance on Rome, sacking it in 410, triggering the ultimate downfall of the Western Empire. To discuss this critical decade in Western history is Don Hollway, author of “At the Gates of Rome: The Fall of the Eternal City, AD 410.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 12 August 2025

It's been 80 years since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the question of whether or not those bombings were justified has never been more contentious. That wasn't the case in the immediate aftermath: 85% of the American public approved the decision to bomb the cities in 1945, but this has dropped to 56% in more recent years, particularly among younger generations. Only 47% of 18- to 29-year-olds, versus 70% of those 65 and older—the World War II generation—thought it was justified, because there was no other way that Japan would surrender. But starting in the 1960s, newer generations of historians put forward revisionist histories. They argued that Japan was going to surrender anyway, or they were trying to negotiate a surrender, but the United States ignored them. Alternatively, they would say that the purpose of the atomic bombings was to put the United States and its allies on a strong footing in the opening stages of the Cold War. It would scare Russia and show that it was overwhelmingly overmatched in an arms and technology fight. Today's guest is one of the last nuclear-trained bomber pilots in the Navy, who received training and delved deeply into what exactly to do if he had to drop a nuclear payload on a city, and he spent a lot of time pondering these very questions. His name is Lou Casabianca, and he's the author of the book “Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Invasion of Japan: Case Closed.” He argues the decision to drop the bombs was the right one, and it's not a muddled issue. Incontrovertibly putting forth the case that, after all these decades since the bombings, the justification is largely the same as those made in 1945. We answer all the common objections to the dropping of the atomic bombs, what would have happened if they hadn't been used and the United States had to undertake an invasion of the Japanese mainland, and why these questions still matter today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 7 August 2025

The first year of the siege of Leningrad that began in September 1941 marked the opening stage of a 900-day-long struggle for survival that left over a million dead. The capture of the city came tantalizingly close late that year, but Hitler paused to avoid costly urban fighting. Determined to starve Leningrad into submission, what followed was a winter of unimaginable suffering for ordinary citizens and defenders alike. First-hand accounts from Soviet and German soldiers, many never previously published, together with those of the civilians trapped in the city detail the relentless specter of death which defined life in and around Leningrad. Today’s guest is Prit Buttar, author of “To Besiege a City: Leningrad 1941-42.” Personal vignettes give a glimpse into the reality of life in a city under siege. The teenage volunteer climbers, weak from hunger, scaling the slender spire of the Peter and Paul Fortress to shroud it in camouflage as the German bombers circle overhead like vultures. Or the soldier trombonist completing a long day on the front line to perform Shostakovich’s epic Seventh Symphony alongside a starving and sickly orchestra – an act of defiance broadcast to defenders and attackers alike.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 5 August 2025

The most radical piece of legislation in the 20th century was Louisiana Governor Huey Long’s “Share Our Wealth Plan,” a bold proposal to confiscate individual fortunes exceeding $1 million to fund healthcare, free college education, and a guaranteed minimum income for families struggling through the Great Depression—a plan so radical it sparked theories that his 1935 assassination was orchestrated to silence his challenge to the economic elite. From his early days as a plain-speaking lawyer to his transformative tenure as governor and U.S. senator, Long’s media mastery, colorful antics—like coaching LSU football from the sidelines and delivering drunken speeches—and relentless fight against oligarchies cemented his reputation as the greatest politician of the 20th century. His influence on Roosevelt’s New Deal and parallels to modern figures like Donal Trump and Bernike Sanders reveal a recurring pattern of populist fervor in American politics. Join Scott as he discusses these themes with Thomas E. Patterson, author of “American Populist: Huey Long of Louisiana, to uncover how Long’s vision continues to resonate today.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 31 July 2025

“‘Rope!’ muttered Sam[wise Gamgee]. ‘I knew I’d want  it, if I hadn’t got it!’” Sam knew in the Lord of the Rings that the quest would fail without rope, but he was inadvertently commenting on how civilization owes its existence to this three-strand tool. Humans first made rope 50,000 years ago and one of its earliest contributions to the rise of civilization was as a tool for domesticating animals for milk, meat, and work. ncient Egyptians were experts at making strong, three-strand rope from the halfa grass along the banks of the Nile. Rope allowed them to haul two-and-a-half ton limestone blocks to build the pyramids. They also used rope to tie together the planks of their graceful vessels that sailed without the need of a single nail. The Austronesian peoples spread across the islands of the Pacific in the most impressive and daring series of oceanic voyages in human history. And they did it using fast catamaran and outrigger boats held together with coconut fiber rope. Today’s guest is Tim Queeny, author of Rope: How a Bundle of Twisted Fibers Became the Backbone of Civilization. We look at the past, present, and future of this critical piece of technology.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 29 July 2025

July 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of the Scopes Trial – a trial that exposed profound divisions in America over religion, education, and public morality.  This was a legal case in Dayton, Tennessee, where high school teacher John Scopes was prosecuted for teaching evolution, violating the state's Butler Act. The Butler Act was a 1925 Tennessee law that prohibited public school teachers from teaching any theory that denied the biblical account of human creation, specifically targeting the teaching of evolution. But believe it or not, this entire trial was orchestrated. Local leaders had the teacher volunteer to be charged as a publicity stunt to boost the town's economy and gain national attention. But it soon gained far more attention than anyone expected, as it touch a nerve on the national clash between an increasingly secular scientific establishment and religious fundamentalists. Battle lines were drawn in the courtroom. Clarence Darrow, a renowned agnostic lawyer and advocate for civil liberties, defended Scopes, while William Jennings Bryan, a prominent Christian populist, three-time presidential candidate, and anti-evolution crusader, prosecuted, highlighting their contrasting worldviews. The trial became a media sensation due to its clash of science versus religion, drawing hundreds of reporters, radio broadcasts, and public fascination with the dramatic courtroom exchanges, particularly Darrow’s cross-examination of Bryan. To discuss the legacy of the case is today’s guest, Brenda Wineapple, author of “Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial that Riveted America.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 24 July 2025

In the late 1920s, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and his younger brother Kermit, sons of President Theodore Roosevelt, wanted fame and glory apart from the family spotlight. They were seeking the “empty spots” on the maps, the areas that had yet to be explored and described by Westerners. From these remote places, they hoped to bring back exotic animals to aid the scientific community’s understanding of taxonomy, biological diversity, and its relatively recent theories of evolution. The animal they most wanted was an elusive black and white bear that, at the time, was more legend than scientific fact. Today’s guest is Nathalia Holit, author of “The Beast in the Clouds.” She tells the full story of this expedition into China’s Himalayan wilderness.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 22 July 2025

“History is written by the winners.” This aphorism is catchy and it makes an important point that a lot of what we know about history was written with an agenda, not for the purposes of informing us. Unfortunately, it isn’t true. There are many times that the so-called “losers” wrote the histories remembered today. After the American Civil War, Southern historians like Edward Pollard crafted "Lost Cause" narratives, romanticizing the Confederacy despite their defeat. Similarly, Chinese and Persian accounts of the Mongol invasions, such as those by Zhao Hong and Ata-Malik Juvayni, detailed Mongol brutality and cultural impacts from the perspective of the subjugated, challenging the victors' dominance. But this statement still gets to a fundament question: What if the history you learned was deliberately shaped by people with their own agendas? This question drives today’s guest, Richard Cohen, in his book “Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past.”  We explore how historians and storytellers, from ancient Greece to the modern era, shape our understanding of history through their biases and agendas, featuring figures like Herodotus, who blended fact and fable, Edward Gibbon, whose Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire reflected his personal perspective, and William Randolph Hearst, whose yellow journalism distorted historical narratives. No history is truly objective, as personal, cultural, and political influences inevitably color the accounts of chroniclers like Thucydides, Tacitus, Voltaire, but we can still construct an understanding of the past that brings us closer to the truth.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 17 July 2025

Thirty-three years after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Empire, his nephew (known as Napoleon III) became the first president of France before becoming emperor himself. Although he was a capable ruler and reformer, Napoleon III’s failed military campaigns, especially France’s loss to Germany in the Franco-Prussian War, led to his defeat, capture, and the fall of the Second French Empire and permanent eclipse of Germany in military power.  Many historians have blamed Napoleon III’s wife for his failings. Eugénie de Montijo was a Spanish noblewoman who became the last French empress. She was a cultural tastemaker and activist for feminist equality, but many blame her blunders when she held power as regent for France’s worst failures and reckless rush into a ruinous war with Germany. But the story of her life has rarely been told in full. It was a career filled with glamour, achievement, and tragedy, as well as contributions that transformed the nation she ruled unlike any other royal noblewoman in Europe.  She spearheaded movements in health and education to help transform France into a modern country. She pushed Parisian architecture toward steel and glass construction of buildings as well as for inclusion of green spaces throughout the city, many of which exist today. Most of all, she crafted much of the idea of what it means to be French in the modern era.  Today’s guests are Petie Kladstrup and Evelyne Resnick, authors of “The Last Empress of France: The Rebellious Life of Eugénie de Montijo.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 15 July 2025

John Adams is arguably America’s most underrated Founding Father. He has no currency that bears his image. No national holidays celebrate his birth. He’s nearly never named as anyone’s favorite president. And he has no dedicated memorial in Washington, D.C.  Despite this, he was perhaps the most influential early American, rivaling Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin. Adams was a key advocate for American independence, nominating Washington as commander of the Continental Army and helping draft the Declaration of Independence. As president, he averted war with France through the Convention of 1800, prioritizing peace despite political backlash. He also defended British soldiers in the Boston Massacre trial, showcasing his commitment to justice, and laid the foundation for the U.S. Navy by establishing the Department of the Navy in 1798. How can this be remedied? Today’s guest, Jackie Cushman, is the Chair of the Adams Memorial Commission, created by Congress to establish a Washington, DC memorial to John Adams and his family. She seeks to commemorate the lives of him and his descendants, as the original philosopher-statesmen of America.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 10 July 2025

Thomas More was one of the most famous—and notorious—figures in English history. Born into the era of the Wars of the Roses, educated during the European Renaissance, rising to become Chancellor of England, and ultimately destroyed by Henry VIII, he hunted Protestants for heresy and had them burnt at the stake in the final years of Catholic England, but after the English Reformation, he was executed himself when he refused to support Henry VIII as the Supreme Head of the English Church. He also achieved literary immortality for his book Utopia, which describes an ideal, imaginary island society with communal property, religious tolerance, and social harmony, critiquing the political and social issues of 16th-century Europe. Was he a saintly scholar and an inspiration for statesmen and intellectuals even today? The Catholic Church would say ‘yes’, as they canonized him and made him the patron saint of statesmen. Or was he the cruel zealot who only wanted to burn Protestants alive and hold back England’s progress? Today’s guest is Joanne Paul, author of Thomas More: A Life. We look at a man who, more than four hundred years after his execution, remains one of the most brilliant minds of the Renaissance. He also shows us the limits of passive resistance and how somebody can achieve posthumous fame but also fail to affect the events of his day.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 8 July 2025

Something strange happened in Upstate New York during the 1830s. This area was called the "Burned-Over District" because so many fiery religious revivals swept through that it was metaphorically burned over. This region became a key source of the Second Great Awakening, a Protestant revival movement marked by emotional preaching and mass conversions, as preachers like Charles Finney inspired thousands to seek personal salvation and social reform. The revival spirit also birthed new movements: Mormonism emerged with Joseph Smith's founding of the Latter Day Saint movement in 1830, the Jehovah’s Witnesses trace their roots to the Bible Student movement that gained traction later in the century, and Spiritualism took hold in the 1840s with the Fox sisters’ claims of communicating with spirits in Hydesville, New York. This episode, however, isn’t just about the Burned-Over District. It’s about how these revivalists tapped into a distinctly American form of power, one not built on title or lineage, but on pure, raw charisma. From Puritan prophets and prophetesses in the 1600s to big-tent revivalists in the 1800s, and even to modern self-help gurus like Tony Robbins and Oprah Winfrey, charisma has shaped influence across time. It empowers figures like presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama to amass followings, sustain authority, and shape the national narrative through sheer personal appeal. Today’s guest is Molly Worthen, author of Spellbound: How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump. We explore the roots of charisma and power in American democracy, whether it’s necessarily bad or can be used for good, and how to avoid falling under the spell of a charismatic demagogue.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 3 July 2025

Operation Barbarossa, launched by Nazi Germany on June 22, 1941, aimed to swiftly conquer the Soviet Union, targeting key cities like Moscow, Leningrad, and Kyiv. Hitler reportedly said a meeting with his generals before the campaign began "We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down," With German forces advancing up to 200 miles per week in the first two months, it looked like Germany would accomplish this goal, nearly reaching Moscow by August. The operation’s rapid pace saw the Wehrmacht encircle and capture millions of Soviet troops, bringing Germany close to victory, though fierce resistance and logistical challenges stalled their progress short of total conquest. The campaign devastated civilian populations, with millions killed through bombings, mass executions, and starvation policies, particularly in occupied regions like Ukraine and Belarus. The Nazis’ brutal tactics, including the Einsatzgruppen death squads, systematically murdered Jews, Romani people, and others, contributing to an estimated 10-14 million civilian deaths across the Soviet Union by the war’s end. To look at these months of fighting in Eastern Eruope, some of the most devastating times in that region’s history, is today’s guest, Richard Hargreaves, author of Opening the Gates of Hell. The combination of unprecedented, rapid military victories coupled with state-sponsored and spontaneous atrocities makes the opening fortnight of the invasion of the Soviet Union unique in the annals of modern warfare.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 1 July 2025

To understand American history and its deep-seated relationship with violence, we must look to the last three decades of the 1800s in the American West, which had the highest murder rate per capita in American history. And it all boils down to one place: Texas. Texas was born in violence, on two fronts, with Mexico to the south and the Comanche to the north, and the invention of the Colt revolver only made the area wilder and less orderly. Across the nineteenth-century frontier defending one’s honor and reputation often resulted in duels and bitter feuds. After the cattle business boom, this sensation spilled into the greater West from Arizona to Wyoming to Kansas. The trigger-happy assortment of rustlers, hustlers, gamblers, and freelance lawmen, and their desire to defend their honor caught the eye of newspapers, igniting a firestorm of mythmaking. The word “gun-man” first appears in a newspaper in 1874, followed by an explosion of Western biographies and memoirs in the 1920s. 1940s-1950s Hollywood reimagined these gunfighters as leading men, introducing Billy the Kid and Wyatt Earp to a new generation. Today’s guest is Bryan Burrough, author of “The Gunfighters: How Texas Made the West Wild.” We explore how only in the American West could gunfighters exist, and what led to the death of this unique period in time.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 26 June 2025

The battle of Cynoscephalae represents a key moment in the history of the Greco-Roman world. In this one battle the Macedonian hold over mainland Greece was broken, with the Roman Republic rising in its place as the pre-eminent power in the Greek East. At Cynoscephalae, the proud Macedonian kingdom of Antigonid monarch Philip V was humbled, its army shattered. Yet the battle, and campaign leading up to it, was hard fought and protracted. Philip V had defied Rome and its allies in the First Macedonian War and was poised to do so again, with the pike phalanx continuing to be a daunting opponent for the Roman legionaries.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 24 June 2025

The RMS Titanic is history’s most famous shipwreck, but it wasn’t the only ship of its kind. The White Star Line built two other nearly identical vessels: The RMS Olympic and Britannic. The Olympic carried passengers until 1935 and can be visited today. The Brittanic sank only four years after her sister ship the Titanic off the Greek island of Kea in the Aegean Sea like due to striking a German mine while serving as a hospital ship during World War One. It sank in only 55 minutes (compared to 160 minutes for the Titanic) but only 30 of the 1066 passengers due to better lifeboat procedures, warmer waters, and being closer to land. What While the wreck of the Titanic is 2 miles below the surface and rapidly deteriorating, the Britannic is much more accessible (only 400ft down) and remains largely intact. It’s in “shallow” enough waters that divers can reach it, although submersibles do most of the investigation work. What can the ship tell us about the sinking of the Titanic, the lives of its passengers in the early 20th century, and whether something nefarious happened that caused it to sink, as some claim (like German sabotage). These are the questions that today’s guest, Simon Mills, tried to answer when bought the wreck of the Britannic in 1996. He is a maritime historian who has coordinated multiple expeditions into the underwater wreckage and most recently finished extensive internal surveys in 2021 and 2023. He’s also the author of the new book Inside the Britannic which is the sum of decades of work covering every inch of the ship. We discuss exactly how this ship sunk, what happened during the frantic 50 minutes of its sinking, what happened to the survivors, and other unanswered mysteries.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 19 June 2025

At a time when debates over tariffs, regulation, and the scope of government are back at center stage. Is this time in American history unprecedented, or can we find parallels in the past? For example, has  trade “hollowed out” U.S. manufacturing—or have fact tariffs like the Corn Laws in Britain hurt working-class families the most? Was the Great Depression a failure of capitalism—rather than a policy crisis worsened by poor monetary responses and overreach? Today’s guest is Phil Gramm, a former U.S. Senator and author of “The Triumph of Economic Freedom.” We look at five periods of American history—the Industrial Revolution, Progressive Era, Great Depression, decline of America’s postwar preeminence in world trade, and the Great Recession—along with the existing levels of income inequality and poverty, leads many to believe in expanding government in American life. Gramm argues that the evidence points to a contrary verdict: government interference and failed policies pose the most significant threat to economic freedom.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 17 June 2025

At a time when debates over tariffs, regulation, and the scope of government are back at center stage. Is this time in American history unprecedented, or can we find parallels in the past? For example, has  trade “hollowed out” U.S. manufacturing—or have fact tariffs like the Corn Laws in Britain hurt working-class families the most? Was the Great Depression a failure of capitalism—rather than a policy crisis worsened by poor monetary responses and overreach? Today’s guest is Phil Gramm, a former U.S. Senator and author of “The Triumph of Economic Freedom.” We look at five periods of American history—the Industrial Revolution, Progressive Era, Great Depression, decline of America’s postwar preeminence in world trade, and the Great Recession—along with the existing levels of income inequality and poverty, leads many to believe in expanding government in American life. Gramm argues that the evidence points to a contrary verdict: government interference and failed policies pose the most significant threat to economic freedom.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 17 June 2025

Alan Pinkerton is perhaps the most over-achieving barrel-maker who ever lived. After practicing his trade in rural Illinois for a few years in the 1850s, the Scottish immigrant busted up a counterfeiting ring, which got the attention of Chicago’s police department, offering him a job as a detective. From here he worked as an intelligence agent in the Civil War (preventing an assassination attempt on Lincoln’s life), then pursued high-profile outlaws like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and protected scabs in the Homestead lockout, for which his private detective agency became notorious. Pinkerton has been an enduring source of fascination since the nineteenth century. But the details of his impact, business empire, and private life have been incomplete. Today’s guest is Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, author of “Allan Pinkerton: America's Legendary Detective and the Birth of Private Security.” We discuss the accomplishments, contradictions, controversies, and legacies of the founder of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 12 June 2025

The Korean War came dangerously close to going nuclear, and if would have if Gen. Douglas MacArthur had gotten his way. He proposed using 30 to 50 nuclear primarily to targeting air bases, depots, and supply lines across the neck of Manchuria to create a radioactive barrier and halt Chinese and North Korean advances. This would have killed millions and almost definitely brought the Soviet Union into full-scale war against the United States. In this episode, we explore the Korean War’s pivotal role in shaping the Cold War, diving into the tense standoff between East and West. The conflict erupted with North Korea’s 1950 invasion, prompting a daring counteroffensive by MacArthur, whose strategic overreach drew Communist China into the fray. The rapid escalation pushed the U.S. to contemplate using nuclear weapons, a decision that could have reshaped the 20th century. To explore this is today’s guest, Robert Lyman, author of “Korea: War Without End.” The Korean War was not planned as a Communist offensive against the West. In turn, the East did not understand the principle at the core of the Western response to Kim Il-sung’s aggression, namely a refusal to appease an aggressor, the key mistake the West considered to be at the heart of the rise of Nazi Germany and militaristic Japan in the 1930s.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 10 June 2025

Rome’s Western Empire may have fallen 1,600 years ago, but its cultural impact has a radioactive half-life that would make xenon jealous. Over a billion people speak Latin (or at least a Latin-derived language). Governments around the world self-consciously copy Roman buildings and create governments that copy the imperial senate.  Every self-aggrandizing leader has compared himself to Caesar, including those with a strong claim (Charlemagne and Napoleon) and those with a weaker one (Idi Amin and Muammer Gaddafi). But what if the Roman Empire never truly fell? This is the perspective of today’s guest, Aldo Cazzullo, author of “The Neverending Empire: The Infinite Impact of Ancient Rome. Rome’s influence is not just a relic of history—it’s the foundation of the modern West and nowhere is that more evident than in the United States.  While many political empires throughout history have presented themselves as the true heirs of Rome, Cazzullo contends that it’s the US, that most resembles the Roman Empire. It’s an angle with which to view America’s story/where it’s heading and most importantly, what we can learn to ensure that we can look forward to another 3000 years.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 5 June 2025

In order to become rich, powerful, and prestigious in the pre-modern world, nothing mattered more than horses. They were the fundamental unit of warfare, enabling cavalry charges, and logistical support. They facilitated the creation of the Silk Road (which could arguably be called the “Horse Road”) since China largely built it to enable the purchase of millions of horses to fight its nomadic neighbors to the north.  The term "caballero," meaning a gentleman or knight in Spanish, derived from the Latin "caballus" (horse), reflecting how wealth, status, and the skilled ability to ride a horse defined chivalric ideals in medieval society. From the windswept Eurasian steppe to the royal stables of Persia and the warpaths of Genghis Khan, today’s guest, David Chaffetz, author of Raiders, Rulers, and Traders traces the story of how horses changed the world—not just in warfare, but in statecraft, commerce, and culture. Chaffetz makes the case that the so-called “Silk Road” might more accurately be remembered as the Horse Road. Horse-driven mobility shaped empires from Assyria and the Achaemenids to the Mughals and the Soviets.  Just as we rely on the Internet today, ancient societies depended on the horse as a transformative technology that shaped everything from warfare to governance.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 3 June 2025

The Prohibition era (1920–1933), enacted by the 18th Amendment, birthed an overnight economy of moonshiners who distilled and distributed homemade liquor to meet America’s insatiable demand for alcohol, transforming rural farmers and opportunists into underground entrepreneurs who supplied speakeasies. But this new economy didn’t disappear after Prohibition was repealed. If anything, it became stronger, at least in the South. Moonshining persisted due to persistent poverty, high liquor taxes, and entrenched cultural traditions in the rural South, where Bible Belt traditions meant respectable folks didn’t want themselves to be seen at bars or liquor stores. It grew in the 1940s and only disappeared when industrial distillers were able to produce spirits that undercut moonshine prices. To explore this topic is Chris Skates, author of “Moonshine Over Georgia.” A historical fiction novel, it pulls from the harrowing, exciting, and very real stories Chris’ grandfather would tell him growing up, working as a revenue agent in Prohibition-era Georgia.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 29 May 2025

What comes to mind when we think about the Sahara? Rippling sand dunes, sun-blasted expanses, camel drivers and their caravans perhaps. Or famine, climate change, civil war, desperate migrants stuck in a hostile environment. The Sahara stretches across 3.2 million square miles, hosting several million inhabitants and a corresponding variety of languages, cultures, and livelihoods. But beyond ready-made images of exoticism and squalor, we know surprisingly little about its history and the people who call it home.    That’s not for a lack of trying. The Romans tried to cross the Sahara, going back as least as far as Cornelius Balbus (19 BC): Starting from Sabratha in Libya, Balbus led a force of 10,000 legionaries to conquer the Garamantes in the Fezzan region (modern Libya). He then sent a smaller group south across the Ahaggar Mountains, likely reaching the Niger River near modern Timbuktu in Mali, traveling over 1,000 miles inland. Ibn Battuta, the medieval explorer, experienced the wealth of West Africa’s vast gold mines long before the Portuguese made their way down the African coast. Today’s guest is Judith Scheele, author of “Shifting Sands: A Human History of the Sahara.” We see how the desert is not the empty wasteland of the romantic imagination but the vast and highly differentiated space in which Saharan peoples and, increasingly, new arrivals from other parts of Africa live, work, and move. It takes us from the ancient Roman Empire through the colonial era, whose future holds implications for us all.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 27 May 2025

As many as 100,000 enslaved people fled successfully from the horrors of bondage in the antebellum South, finding safe harbor along a network of passageways across North America via the Underground Railroad. Yet many escapes took place not by land but by sea. William Grimes escaped slavery in 1815 by stowing away in a cotton bale on a ship from Savannah to New York, enduring days without food or water before settling in Connecticut. Frederick Douglass disguised himself as a free black sailor, using borrowed papers to board a train and then a steamboat from Baltimore to New York, reaching freedom in less than 24 hours. Thomas Jones, a formerly enslaved man from North Carolina, escaped in 1849 by hiding on a ship bound for New York, relying on his maritime knowledge as a steward to evade detection and later reuniting with his family in the North. This was a secret world of stowaways and the vessels that carried them to freedom across the North and into Canada. It sprawled through the intricate riverways of the Carolinas to the banks of the Chesapeake Bay to Boston’s harbors.  Today’s guest is Marcus Rediker, author of “Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea.”  We see the Atlantic waterfront as a place of conspiracy, mutiny, and liberation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 22 May 2025

2025 marks the eightieth anniversary of Germany’s surrender and the fall of the Third Reich. Likewise, World War II is the single most studied conflict in human history. But most Western accounts offer a one-dimensional interpretation: the war was a noble crusade against fascism, creating a convenient parable about good and evil. But this depiction ignores a far messier reality. But what went through the minds of the actual heads of state that led their nations through the war? Did they fight according to our understanding, or did they want to defend their nations’ global empires and ancient legacy? A case can be argued that   World War II was not a battle in which democracy triumphed over totalitarianism but rather a massive colonial war waged by rival empires. The war formally ended the era of British and Japanese colonialism but established in their places the highly militarized Soviet and American states, whose access to nuclear weapons threatened the possibility of annihilation. As we grapple with the legacy of the war and its influence on geopolitics today, historian and today’s guest Paul Thomas Chamberlin urges us to reconsider the conflict from a new perspective in his book “Scorched Earth: A Global History of World War II.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 20 May 2025

As the American Revolution broke out in New England in the spring of 1775, dramatic events unfolded in Virginia that proved every bit as decisive as the battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill in uniting the colonies against Britain. Virginia, the largest, wealthiest, and most populous province in British North America, was led by Lord Dunmore, who counted George Washington as his close friend. But the Scottish earl lacked troops, so when patriots imperiled the capital of Williamsburg, he threatened to free and arm enslaved Africans—two of every five Virginians—to fight for the Crown. Virginia’s tobacco elite was reluctant to go to war with Britain but outraged at this threat to their human property. Dunmore fled the capital to build a stronghold in the colony’s largest city, the port of Norfolk. As enslaved people flocked to his camp, skirmishes broke out. “Lord Dunmore has commenced hostilities in Virginia,” wrote Thomas Jefferson. “It has raised our countrymen into a perfect frenzy.” With a patriot army marching on Norfolk, the royal governor freed those enslaved and sent them into battle against their former owners. In retribution, and with Jefferson’s encouragement, furious rebels burned Norfolk to the ground on January 1, 1776, blaming the crime on Dunmore. The port’s destruction and Dunmore’s emancipation prompted Virginia’s patriot leaders to urge the Continental Congress to split from Britain, breaking the deadlock among the colonies and leading to adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Days later, Dunmore and his Black allies withdrew from Virginia, but the legacy of their fight would lead, ultimately, to Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. Chronicling these stunning and widely overlooked events in full for the first time is today’s guest, Andrew Lawler, author of A Perfect Frenzy: A Royal Governor, His Black Allies, and the Crisis that Spurred the American Revolution. He offers a new perspective on the American Revolution that reorients our understanding of its causes, highlights the radically different motivations between patriots in the North and South.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 15 May 2025

He was a gutsy old man.” “A corker,” said another. “You couldn’t find anyone better.” They talked about him in hushed tones. “This Major Carlson,” wrote one of the officers in a letter home, “is one of the finest men I have ever known.” These were the words of the young Marines training to be among the first U.S. troops to enter the Second World War—and the Major Carlson they spoke of was Evans Carlson, a man of mythical status even before the war that would make him a military legend. By December of 1941, at the age of forty-five, Carlson had already faced off against Sandinistas in the jungles of Nicaragua and served multiple tours in China, where he embedded with Mao’s Communist forces during the Sino-Japanese War. Inspired by their guerilla tactics and their collaborative spirit—which he’d call “gung ho,” introducing the term to the English language—and driven by his own Emersonian ideals of self-reliance, Carlson would go on to form his renowned Marine Raiders, the progenitors of today’s special operations forces, who fought behind Japanese lines on Makin Island and Guadalcanal, showing Americans a new way to do battle. Today’s guest is Stephen R. Platt, author of “  “The Raider: The Untold Story of a Renegade Marine and the Birth of U.S. Special Forces in World War II.” Tracing the rise and fall of an unlikely American war hero, The Raider is a story of exploration, of cultural (mis)understanding, and of one man’s awakening to the sheer breadth of the world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 13 May 2025

Scientists and enthusiastic amateurs first confirmed the existence of living things invisible to the human eye in the late sixteenth century. So why did it take two centuries to connect microbes to disease? As late as the Civil War in the 1860s, most soldiers who perished died not on the battlefield but of infected wounds, typhoid, and other diseases. Twenty years later, the outcome might have been different, following one of the most radical intellectual transformations in history: germ theory, the recognition that the tiniest forms of life have been humankind’s greatest killers. It was a discovery centuries in the making, and it transformed modern life and public health. As today’s guest, Thomas Levenson (author of “So Very Small: How Humans Discovered the Microcosmos, Defeated Germs—and May Still Lose the War Against Infectious Disease”) reveals in this globe-spanning history, it has everything to do with how we see ourselves. For centuries, people in the West, believing themselves to hold dominion over nature, thought too much of humanity and too little of microbes to believe they could take us down. When nineteenth-century scientists finally made the connection, life-saving methods to control infections and contain outbreaks soon followed. The next big break came with the birth of the antibiotic era in the 1930s. And yet, less than a century later, the promise of the antibiotic revolution is already receding due to years of overuse. Is our self-confidence getting the better of us again? So Very Small follows the thread of human ingenuity and hubris across centuries—along the way peering into microscopes, spelunking down sewers, visiting army hospitals, traipsing across sheep fields, and more—to show how we came to understand the microbial environment and how little we understand ourselves. Levenson traces how and why ideas are pursued, accepted, or ignored—and hence how human habits of mind can, so often, make it terribly hard to ask the right questions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 8 May 2025

The story of the atomic age began decades before Robert Oppenheimer watched a mushroom cloud form over the New Mexico desert at the Trinity nuclear test in mid 1945. It begins in 1895, with Henri Becquerel’s accidental discovery of radioactivity, setting in motion a series of remarkable and horrifying events. By the early 20th century, a brilliant group of scientists—including Ernest Rutherford, Leo Szilard, Enrico Fermi, and others—were pushing the boundaries of knowledge, seeking to answer fundamental questions about this source of energy that had 2 million times the energy density of oil: What is this mysterious radiation? Could it provide an infinite energy source, where a basketball of it was equal to an oil field? And, ominously, could it be weaponized? Today’s guest is nuclear physicist Frank Close, author of “Destroyer of Worlds: The Deep History of the Nuclear Age.” We look at the complete history of the atomic age, from the initial curiosity about radioactivity to the creation of the hydrogen bomb—a weapon of almost unimaginable destructive potential, capable of eradicating life on Earth. This is an account of the scientific discoveries that unlocked the atom’s power, the ethical dilemmas faced by scientists, and the horrifying realization that this newfound energy could lead to humanity’s undoing.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 6 May 2025

The B-29 Bomber led the Allied strategic bombing offensive against Japan, succeeding when US Bomber Command switched from high-level daytime precision bombing to low-level nighttime area bombing. The latter tactic required Superfortresses to attack their targets individually, without a formation or escorting fighters for protection. Despite this, Japanese night fighters proved unable to stop the B-29s. This success was a testament to the B-29’s incredible capabilities, including its ability to carry up to 20,000 pounds of bombs over vast distances exceeding 3,000 miles, and its advanced pressurized cabin, which allowed crews to operate effectively at altitudes above 30,000 feet—far beyond the reach of most enemy interceptors. Coupled with its sophisticated remote-controlled gun turrets and a top speed of 350 mph, the B-29’s design showcased an unmatched blend of range, payload, and defensive prowess that overwhelmed Japanese defenses. Today’s guest, Mark Lardas, author of “B-29 Superfortress vs Japanese Nightfighter.” He examines the capabilities of the aircraft involved, and reveals the conditions under which both sides fought. He evaluates the cutting-edge technology of both sides and how it affected the outcome of the battleSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 1 May 2025

Throughout the war on the Eastern Front, there were two consistent trends. The Red Army battled to learn how to fight and win, while involved in a struggle for its very survival. But by 1944 it had a leadership that was able to wield it with lethal effect and with far more effective equipment than before. By contrast, the Wehrmacht had commenced a slow process of decline after the invasion of the Soviet Union. Hitler became increasingly unwilling to delegate decision-making to commanders in the field, which had been crucial to earlier success. The long years of fighting had also taken a heavy toll. Thousands of irreplaceable junior officers and NCOs were dead, wounded or prisoners. Today’s guest is Prit Buttar, author of “Bagration 1944: The Great Soviet Offensive.” We look at these trends, which culminated in the huge battles of Bagration. In 1944, the Red Army finally put together a campaign that utterly destroyed the German Army Group Centre. The Wehrmacht suffered the loss of over 300,000 men killed, wounded or taken prisoner and the Red Army rolled forward across Belarus to the outskirts of Warsaw. The end of the war was still many months away, and the Germans managed to reconstruct their line on the Eastern Front, but final victory for the Soviet Union was now only a matter of time as a direct consequence of Bagration.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 29 April 2025

Pilgrimages are a universal phenomenon, from China’s bustling Tai Shan to the ancient Jewish treks to Jerusalem. But why? What is it about a grueling penitent march to an isolated temple that has become a prerequisite for a civilization of any size, whether Chicen Itza in the Mayan Empire or the holy sites of Mecca? To explore this is today’s guest, Kathryn Hurlock, author of “Holy Places: How Pilgrimages Changed the World.” We also look at whether pilgrimages have become too easy in the 21st century. Has jetting off to Mecca or Rome for a quick indulgence turned them into spiritual tourism, a la Disneyland?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 24 April 2025

Years before Jamestown planters made New World farming profitable by growing tobacco, and years before their countrymen up north in Plymouth Colony managed to overcome their starvation conditions and acclimate to New England’s growing conditions, there was an English settlement in Bermuda that was wealthier, larger, and more prosperous. It was established in 1612 on an island less than one square mile but grew to the heart of the Atlantic economy. Bermuda, once home to more settlers than Virginia or Massachusetts, became England’s first profitable plantation, pioneering tobacco cultivation and the use of enslaved Africans—practices that later spread to the mainland. In this episode, historian and archaeologist Michael Jarvis joins us to uncover the hidden history of Bermuda and its pivotal role in reshaping our understanding of colonial America. Jarvis, dubbed "Chainsaw Mike" by his students, has spent 14 years excavating Smith’s Island, clearing away endless brush, and unearthing one of the first English settlements in the New World. From supplying Jamestown with food to influencing early colonial economics, Jarvis argues Bermuda is a missing cornerstone of America’s origin story, far more than the historical footnote it’s often been relegated to.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 22 April 2025

The origins of the Hatfield-McCoy conflict (between the Hatfield family of West Virginia, led by William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield, and the McCoy family of Kentucky, led by Randolph "Old Randall" McCoy) begins with a dispute over a pig. From here, it escalated from minor disagreements to violent encounters that spanned decades, nearly sparking a war between the two states. Today’s guest is Jennifer Bennie, host of the Walk With History podcast. We look at the historical context of the feud, its escalation from minor disputes to violent encounters, and its significance in American folklore. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 17 April 2025

In 1845, a novel pathogen attacked potato fields across Europe, from Spain to Scandinavia—but only in Ireland were the effects apocalyptic. At least one million Irish people died, and millions more scattered across the globe, emigrating to new countries and continents. Less than fifty years after the union of Ireland with the rest of Great Britain, the newly formed United Kingdom—the most powerful country in the nineteenth-century world—failed millions of its own citizens, leading to decades of poverty, ecological ruin, and collective trauma. How did this happen? Today’s guest Padraic Scanlan recontextualizes the disaster’s origins, events, and consequences in his new book “Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine.” We situate the Irish Great Famine in a larger history of economic consolidation and exploitation caused by British policies toward Ireland. The blight that decimated the potato plants was biological, but the Famine itself was manmade, caused by the British government’s structures of land ownership, labor, and rent collection. The real tragedy of the Famine wasn’t that the British maliciously intended and propagated starvation, but that their efforts to address the “Irish Question” only exacerbated the problem.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 15 April 2025

Sitting high above the small community of Ripley, Ohio, a lantern shone in the front window of a small, red brick home at night. It was a signal to slaves just across the Ohio River. Anyone fleeing bondage could look to Reverend John Rankin’s home for hope. To the slaveholders they fled from, Rankin’s activities as a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad invoked rage. Mobs often pelted Rankin with eggs and rocks, bounties were placed on his head, and midnight assassins lurked in the darkness, waiting for the right opportunity to take out the “Father of Abolitionism.” Despite frequent threats, he remained committed to the freedom of his fellow man. Today’s guest is Caleb Franz, author of The Conductor: The Story of Rev. John Rankin, Abolitionism's Essential Founding Father, we look at the story of the man who served as a George Washington–type figure to the antislavery movement. Rankin’s leadership brought unity and clarity to the often factious abolitionists of the nineteenth century. William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and countless others found inspiration in his teachings. He also presented abolitionism as a moderate movement, helping to make it palpable to Southern centrists who considered most abolitionists Yankee radicals who wanted to watch America descend into a Haitian-style race war.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 10 April 2025

The biggest revolution in Benjamin Franklin’s lifetime was made to fit in a fireplace. Assembled from iron plates like a piece of flatpack furniture, the Franklin stove became one of the era's most iconic consumer products, spreading from Pennsylvania to England, Italy, and beyond. It was more than just a material object, however—it was also a hypothesis. Franklin was proposing that, armed with science, he could invent his way out of a climate crisis: a period of global cooling known as the Little Ice Age, when unusually bitter winters sometimes brought life to a standstill. He believed that his stove could provide snug indoor comfort despite another, related crisis: a shortage of wood caused by widespread deforestation. And he conceived of his invention as equal parts appliance and scientific instrument—a device that, by modifying how heat and air moved through indoor spaces, might reveal the workings of the atmosphere outside and explain why it seemed to be changing. Today’s guest is Joyce Chaplin, author of The Franklin Stove: An Unintended American Revolution, the story of this singular invention, and a revelatory new look at the Founding Father we thought we knew. We follow Franklin as he promotes his stove in Britain and France, while corresponding with the various experimenters who discovered the key gases in Earth's atmosphere, invented steam engines, and tried to clean up sooty urban air. During his travels back and forth across the Atlantic, we witness him taking measurements of the gulf stream and observing the cooling effect of volcanic ash from Iceland. And back in Philadelphia, we watch him hawk his invention while sparring with proponents of the popular theory that clearcutting forests would lead to warmer winters by reducing the amount of shade cover on the surface of the Earth.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 8 April 2025

For much of Christian history, the Church had little involvement in marriage, which was primarily a contract between families. It wasn’t until the fourth century that church weddings emerged, and even then, they were mostly reserved for the elite. Fast forward to the High Middle Ages, and marriage became a sacrament of the Roman Catholic Church. Since then, the church has been seen as inseparable with matrimony. What changed over the centuries? To explore this dynamic is today’s guest, historian Diarmaid MacCulloch, author of “Lower Than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity.” We explore how Christianity’s views on sex, marriage, and gender evolved over time; that early Christian marriage was not a universal sacrament but a social institution governed by authority figures. He highlights how for much of history, the Church was more concerned with celibacy than marital sexuality. The Reformation reshaped these ideas, introducing new roles for women in religious life, from pastor’s wives to Quaker preachers. We uncover how Christianity’s past can inform its present and future.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 3 April 2025

On the night of September 5, 1942, the USS Gregory (APD-3), a converted destroyer turned high-speed transport, was caught in a deadly ambush near Guadalcanal. The ship had been supporting U.S. Marine forces, ferrying troops and supplies, when it was mistaken for a larger threat by a group of Japanese destroyers. Outgunned and unable to escape, Gregory was hammered by shellfire, set ablaze, and ultimately sank in Ironbottom Sound. Lieutenant Commander Harry F. Bauer, refusing to abandon his men, fought to the end and was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. As the surviving crew struggled in the water, Mess Attendant Charles J. French emerged as an unlikely hero, tying a rope around his waist and towing wounded shipmates for hours through shark-infested waters to safety. Against overwhelming odds, he kept them together until they were finally rescued. Join us as we uncover this harrowing tale of sacrifice, heroism, and the unbreakable spirit of the USS Gregory’s crew. To discuss this story is today’s guest Carole Avriett, author of “Midnight in Ironbottom Sound: The Harrowing WWII Story of Heroism in the Shark-Infested Waters of Guadalcanal.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 1 April 2025

We are living through a period that is unique in human history. For the first time in more than ten thousand years, the rate of human population growth is slowing down. In the middle of this century population growth will stop, and the number of people on Earth will start to decline - fast. As Gee demonstrates, our population has peaked, and is declining; our environment is becoming inimical to human life in many locations; our core resources of water, arable land, and air are diminishing; and new diseases, simmering conflicts, and ambiguous technologies threaten our collective health. Can we still change our course? Or is our own extinction inevitable? There could be a way out, but the launch window is narrow. Unless Homo sapiens establishes successful colonies in space within the next two centuries, our species is likely to stay earthbound and will have vanished entirely within another ten thousand years, bringing the seven-million-year story of the human lineage to an end. To look at our escape options, we are joined by Henry Gee, author of “The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire.” He envisions new opportunities for the future of humanity—a future that will reward facing challenges with ingenuity, foresight, and cooperation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 27 March 2025

The determined attempt to thwart Ottoman dominance was fought by Muslims and Christians across five theaters from the Balkans to the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, from Persia to Russia. But this is not merely the story of a clash of civilizations between East and West. Europe was not united against the Turks; the scandal of the age was the alliance between King Francis I of France and Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. Meanwhile, the resistance of the Saadi dynasty of Morocco to Ottoman encroachment played a critical role in denying Constantinople direct access to the Atlantic Ocean. By the same token, though religious imperatives were critic al to the motivations of all the key actors involved, these in no way fell neatly along the Christian Muslim divide.  The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V desired nothing more than to eradicate the Protestant heresy metastasizing throughout his domains, but the threat of Turkish invasion forced him to stay his hand and indulge his Lutheran subjects to ensure a common defense. Nevertheless, the collective effort to constrain the expansion of the Ottoman superpower did succeed with the ultimate victory in 1571 the tipping point in reordering the trajectory of history. To explore these facets of medieval and early modern European history is today’s guest, Si Sheppard, author of “Crescent Dawn: The Rise of the Ottoman Empire and the Making of the Modern Age.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 25 March 2025

After a series of military defeats over the winter of 1776–1777, British military leaders developed a bold plan to gain control of the Hudson River and divide New England from the rest of the colonies. Three armies would converge on Albany: one under Lieutenant General John Burgoyne moving south from Quebec, one under General William Howe moving north from New York City, and a third under Lieutenant Colonel Barrimore St. Leger cutting east from Lake Ontario along the Mohawk River Fort Stanwix lay directly on the path of St. Leger's force, making it a key defensive position for the Continental Army. By delaying St. Leger's troops and forcing a retreat, the garrison's stand at Fort Stanwix contributed to Burgoyne's surrender at the Battles of Saratoga a month later, a major turning point in the course of the war. To look at this battle, we are joined by today’s guest William Kidder, author of Defending Fort Stanwix: A Story of the New York Frontier in the American Revolution. He offers an account of life in and around the fort in the months leading up to the siege, detailing the lives of soldiers and their families, civilians, and the Haudenosaunee peoples with a focus on both the mundane aspects of military life and the courageous actions that earned distinction.  We discuss the stories of local men and women, both white and Indian, who helped with the fort's defense before, during, and after the siege and showcases an overlooked story of bravery and cooperation on New York's frontier during the American Revolution.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 20 March 2025

No language is as inconsistent in spelling and pronunciation as English. Kernel and colonel rhyme, but read changes based on past or present tense. Ough has many pronunciations: ‘aw’ (thought), ‘ow’ (drought), ‘uff’ (tough), ‘off’ (cough), ‘oo’ (through). In response to this orthographic minefield, legions of rebel wordsmiths have died on the hill of spelling reform, risking their reputations to bring English into the realm of the rational: Mark Twain, Ben Franklin, Eliza Burnz, C. S. Lewis, George Bernard Shaw, Charles Darwin, and the innumerable others on both sides of the Atlantic who, for a time in their life, became fanatically occupied with writing thru instead of through, tho for though, laf for laugh (and tried futilely to get everyone around them to do it too).  This began with the “simplified spelling movement” starting with medieval England and continuing to Revolutionary America, from the birth of standup comedy to contemporary pop music, and lasting influence can still be seen in words like color (without a U), plow (without -ugh), and the iconic ’90s ballad “Nothing Compares 2 U.” To explore this history is today’s guest, Gabe Henry, author of “Enough is Enuf, Our Failed Attempts to Make English Easier to Spell.”  We look at the past and present of the digital age, where the swift pace of online exchanges (from emojis to social media) now pushes us all 2ward simplification. Simplified spelling may, at last, be having its day.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 18 March 2025

Slave, revolutionary, king, Henry Christophe was, in his time, popular and famous the world over. Born to an enslaved mother on the Caribbean island of Grenada, Christophe first fought to overthrow the British in North America, before helping his fellow enslaved Africans in Saint-Domingue, as Haiti was then called, to end slavery. Yet in an incredible twist of fate, Christophe began fighting with Napoleon's forces against the formerly enslaved men and women he had once fought alongside. Later, reuniting with those he had abandoned, he offered to lead them and made himself their king. But it all came to a sudden and tragic end when Christophe—after nine years of his rule as King Henry I—shot himself in the heart, some say with a silver bullet. But why did Christophe turn his back on Toussaint Louverture and the very revolution with which his name is so indelibly associated?  How did it come to pass that Christophe found himself accused of participating in the plot to assassinate Haiti's first ruler, Dessalines?  And what caused Haiti to eventually split into two countries, one ruled by Christophe in the north and the other led by President Pétion in the south?  To look at this story, we are joined by Marlene Daut, author of “The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe,” exploring the-still controversial enigma that he was.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 13 March 2025

The North Pole looms large in our collective psyche—the ultimate Otherland in a world mapped and traversed. It is the center of our planet’s rotation, and its sub-zero temperatures and strange year of one sunset and one sunrise make it an eerie, utterly disorienting place that challenges human endurance and understanding. Erling Kagge and his friend Børge Ousland became the first people “to ever reach the pole without dogs, without depots and without motorized aids,” skiing for 58 days from a drop off point on the ice edge of Canada’s northernmost island. Erling, today’s guest, describes his record-making journey, probing the physical challenges and psychological motivations for embarking on such an epic expedition, the history of the territory’s exploration, its place in legend and art, and the thrilling adventures he experienced during the trek. Erling also observes the key role that this place holds in our current geopolitical conversations. He is the author of the book After the North.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcribed - Published: 11 March 2025