HISTORY This Week
221 episodes - English - Latest episode: 9 months ago - ★★★★★ - 3.7K ratingsThis week, something momentous happened. Whether or not it made the textbooks, it most certainly made history. Join HISTORY This Week as we turn back the clock to meet the people, visit the places and witness the moments that led us to where we are today.
To get in touch with story ideas or feedback, email us at [email protected], or leave us a voicemail at 212-351-0410.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
Reflecting on History
August 14, 2023 09:01 - 26 minutes - 61.1 MBAugust 14, 2023. The HTW team is ready to talk. In a special episode that wraps up Season 4, Sally asks the people behind the scenes about lessons they've learned from telling hundreds of true stories about the past. It’s a great conversation you’re not going to want to miss. And when you’re finished, please fill out our listener survey: bit.ly/htw2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
History’s Undelivered Speeches
August 07, 2023 09:01 - 35 minutes - 80.4 MBAugust 8, 1974. President Richard Nixon sits in the Oval Office, addressing the American people. He tells them: I’m going to resign. The news is shocking, but not unexpected. Today, it might even seem inevitable. But in the days leading up to the big decision, Nixon himself didn’t know what he would do. At night he roamed the halls of the White House, torturously weighing his options. He even ordered a speechwriter to draft a statement announcing his refusal to resign. Sally Helm sits down w...
Special Announcement
August 04, 2023 09:01 - 48 seconds - 1.11 MBWe’ll be back next week with a regular episode, but please listen to this for an important HTW update! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Donner Party Turns Deadly
July 31, 2023 13:02 - 28 minutes - 64.9 MBAugust 4, 1846. A few months into their journey from Illinois to California, a group of pioneers encounters trouble. They’ve just found a note from their guide. It essentially says, “That shortcut I told you to take through the Wasatch Mountains – don’t.” The setback disastrously delays their trip. Weeks later, when they reach the Sierra Nevada, it’s dangerously late in the season. Soon, a winter storm traps them in the mountains. What did they have to do to survive? And what’s the truth beh...
Destroyer of Worlds (Replay)
July 25, 2023 09:01 - 28 minutes - 38.9 MBJuly 16, 1945. It happened within a millionth of a second. In the New Mexico desert in the early morning hours, a group of scientists watched in anticipation as the countdown began. It was silent at first, yet hot and unbelievably bright. Then came the sound. The first-ever atomic bomb explosion... was a success. How did scientists working on the Manhattan Project create what was then the most powerful weapon in history? And how did the bomb’s existence forever change our sense of what human...
Barbie for President!
July 24, 2023 09:01 - 32 minutes - 74.1 MBJuly 29th, 1992. The Baltimore Sun runs a feature about a surprise candidate in the upcoming presidential race: Barbie. The 11.5-inch icon of girlhood and glamor is running for office – and flying off the shelves. But how did a plaything become important enough to make national news? To answer that question, we take you on a journey through doll history, from French porcelain beauties to cherubs that stood for women’s suffrage. And of course, the doll who taught us how fun life in plastic co...
John Muir’s Quest to Save the Great Outdoors
July 17, 2023 09:01 - 27 minutes - 63.1 MBJuly 19, 1869. Naturalist John Muir watches the sun rise over the Sierra Nevada mountains. He’ll write in his journal of the stirring birds, glowing treetops, and even rocks that “seem to thrill with life.” He’s so taken with this landscape that he’ll decide to stay in the Yosemite Valley and try to protect it with the only weapon he has: the pen. How did Muir collide with the political forces of his day and help bring about National Parks as we know them? And how did he change the way many ...
The USS Indianapolis’ Secret Mission Turns into Tragedy
July 10, 2023 09:01 - 27 minutes - 62.3 MBJuly 16, 1945. It’s the summer of 1945 and World War II is underway. The USS Indianapolis has just set out from Mare Island on a top-secret mission. The famous vessel is delivering enriched uranium and other components of “Little Boy” to Tinian Island. The mission is technically a success, but for the men aboard the Indianapolis, the challenges are just beginning. On July 30, the ship is struck by two Japanese torpedoes, stranding its sailors at sea. For three and a half days, survivors are ...
Chasing Utopia
July 03, 2023 09:01 - 26 minutes - 61.3 MBJuly 8, 1843. Amidst the rolling hills of rural Massachusetts, a group of Transcendentalists come together to form a collective built around self-perfection and reverence for nature. And on this day poet Ralph Waldo Emerson stops by for a visit. Their name for this experimental Eden? Fruitlands. But every Eden has its fall, and by the time autumn winds blow over their 90 acres, the Fruitlanders are in trouble. How did a group of thinkers, writers, and educators come together to form one of t...
The Tupperware Queen
June 26, 2023 09:01 - 29 minutes - 66.9 MBJuly 2, 1957. At the annual Tupperware jubilee in Florida, company VP Brownie Wise is admiring her handiwork. 1,200 people have convened on her private island for a luau—complete with live lobsters, orchid leis and prizes for Tupperware’s top sellers. Most of the people here owe their job to her. That's because Brownie perfected a sales strategy that has made the innovative plastic product famous. Not to mention a cash cow. She's famous, too: Fortune and CBS News have hailed her as a savvy c...
Two Fathers, One Fight (Replay)
June 19, 2023 09:03 - 32 minutes - 44.3 MBJune 21, 1998. Father's Day. At the Church of the Atonement in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, Jon and Michael Galluccio are ready to tie the knot, in front of family, friends, reporters, and one lone picketer. The Galluccios are already public figures—a few months earlier, they had secured the right for gay and unmarried couples to jointly adopt children. And today, they pull up to their wedding in a minivan, with their son in tow: as a family. How did this family come together? And how did their son...
Ma Rainey's Mic Drop
June 12, 2023 09:01 - 25 minutes - 57.9 MBJune 12, 1928. The great Blues singer Ma Rainey steps up to the microphone at a studio in Chicago. She’s there to record a scandalous song called “Prove It On Me Blues.” It’s her answer to the rumor that she’d once attended a party with a bunch of other half-clothed women – a party that got busted by the cops. It’s a rumor she doesn’t deny. The song is just the latest of Rainey’s boundary-pushing moves. Her audience, and her record label, eat it up. How did Ma Rainey talk about sex and sexua...
Mary Shelley Brings Frankenstein to Life
June 05, 2023 09:01 - 27 minutes - 63.1 MBJune 10, 1816. A storm settles over Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Stuck inside a romantic villa, five writers grow restless. Then one of them issues a challenge: Who among us can write the most terrifying ghost story? The group includes two of the most accomplished poets of the day – Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. But it’s Percy's lover, Mary, who creates an enduring masterpiece: the novel Frankenstein. How did Mary Shelley draw from her life to write this harrowing story? And why have we ...
FDR Tries to Pack the Court
May 29, 2023 09:01 - 26 minutes - 60 MBJune 1, 1936. The Supreme Court hands down its last decision of the term. The justices have dealt blow after blow to President Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation, and today is no different: they rule against FDR again. It’s the last straw. Roosevelt is going to do something drastic – try to reshape the Supreme Court itself. Will FDR’s bold move get him what he wants? And how will the Court try to stop him? Special thanks to our guests: Laura Kalman, professor of history at the University of C...
Bonnie and Clyde’s Final Ride
May 22, 2023 09:01 - 31 minutes - 72.4 MBMay 23, 1934. On a muggy Louisiana morning, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow speed toward the Texas border. They’ve been on the run for over a year—wanted for robbery and murder—and the lurid news accounts of their exploits have made them famous. But today, Bonnie and Clyde’s legendary crime spree comes to an end … in a hail of bullets. Why did some come to view these Depression Era outlaws as agents of chaos the country needed? And what was the real motivation behind their crimes? Special th...
A Teenage Girl Saves France
May 15, 2023 09:01 - 30 minutes - 70.3 MBMay 16, 1920. Tens of thousands of people surround St. Peter’s Basilica to honor Joan of Arc, a French peasant girl who died nearly five hundred years before. Joan’s feats in battle—and her visions of God—have become legendary since her heyday during The Hundred Years War. And today, the Catholic Church is making her a saint. But Joan was a real person – and while many supported her during her lifetime, many others wanted her dead. Who was this curious figure? And how did her faith turn the ...
The Spy Who Fooled the FBI
May 08, 2023 09:01 - 30 minutes - 70.6 MBMay 10, 2002. Former FBI agent Robert Hanssen is sentenced to life in prison without parole. His crime? Selling scads of top-secret information to the Soviets – and later, the Russians – over 22 years. How did Hanssen get away with his deception for so long, which led to the deaths of operatives working for the United States? Was he a criminal mastermind … or just a guy with incredible luck? Special thanks to our guests: Elaine Shannon, author of The Spy Next Door: The Extraordinary Secret...
Bonus: The Coronation of King Charles III (feat. Katie Nicholl)
May 05, 2023 09:01 - 17 minutes - 24.7 MBMay 6, 2023. For the first time in 70 years, Great Britain will crown a new monarch. King Charles III will officially take the throne, and his wife will be named Queen Camilla. The coronation itself is brimming with history, the first at Westminster Abbey held nearly 1,000 years ago. Today, Sally speaks to Katie Nicholl (royal correspondent for Vanity Fair and host of the Dynasty podcast) to unpack how this coronation came to be and what it signifies in the modern world. Hosted on Acast...
The World’s First Budget Airline Takes Off
May 01, 2023 09:01 - 29 minutes - 67.1 MBMay 6, 1949. On the runway at Lindbergh Field in San Diego, a scrappy upstart called Pacific Southwest Airlines, PSA, is about to take its first flight. PSA is a budget airline—the world’s first. Other jet age carriers will offer luxury in the sky, but PSA does not. It’s exploiting a loophole in the American flight system to do things very differently. How did PSA manage to offer flying to ordinary people at prices they could afford? And how did it force an entire industry to reimagine itsel...
A Concubine Rises to Rule China
April 24, 2023 09:01 - 35 minutes - 81 MBApril 27, 1856. In Beijing’s Forbidden City, one of the emperor’s consorts, a woman named Cixi, has given birth to a son – the emperor’s first heir. This landmark event is met with mass celebration. But in just five years time, the emperor will be dead and Cixi will be planning a coup to take power for herself. How will she ever succeed? Special thanks to our guests: Jung Chang, author of Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China and Professor Ying-chen Peng, author of ...
The Civil Rights Children’s Crusade
April 17, 2023 09:01 - 24 minutes - 55.5 MBApril 20, 1963. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. walks out of Alabama’s Birmingham Jail after being held for a week for peacefully protesting. He spent most of that time writing a letter that passionately defends the civil rights movements’s nonviolent tactics. But despite King’s passion, the movement’s progress has stalled. King needs a major victory in Birmingham, but he’s running out of people willing to risk their livelihoods and safety for this cause. So a new tactic starts taking shape: recr...
Ping Pong Diplomacy
April 10, 2023 09:01 - 35 minutes - 81.4 MBApril 10, 1971. A team of ping pong players leaves Hong Kong to step across a border and become the first group of Americans welcomed to China in over 20 years. These competitors find themselves becoming unlikely diplomats at the center of a media frenzy, and at the heart of one of the 20th century’s major geopolitical shifts. How did table tennis turn into a powerful tool of foreign policy? And how did these athletes leave an impact that went far beyond the ping pong table? Special thanks ...
148 Tornadoes in 18 Hours (Replay)
April 03, 2023 09:01 - 22 minutes - 31.6 MBApril 3, 1974. Across America, many people wake up this morning thinking it will be a normal day. But in the next 24 hours, almost 150 tornadoes will hit the United States. It will be then the largest tornado outbreak in the nation's history. Why did so many deadly tornadoes hit on this one day? And how did it spur life-saving changes that are still with us decades later? This episode originally aired in 2021. Thank you to our guests Greg Forbes, former severe weather expert with the Weath...
Bunnies, Baseball, and Aliens on the Moon
March 27, 2023 09:01 - 28 minutes - 431 MBApril 1, 2023. In honor of April Fools’ Day, we give you three historical tales of the bluff and the bamboozle. An autumn day in 1726, when an English peasant gives birth to something mysterious … and furry. Mets spring training in 1985, as the world meets an otherworldly baseball player with a superhuman arm. Finally, the summer of 1835 in NYC, when a scrappy start-up of a newspaper starts a frenzy about its exclusive: there’s life on the moon! Along the way, we’ll learn what it takes to pu...
Fire in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
March 20, 2023 09:01 - 34 minutes - 79.4 MBMarch 25, 1911. It’s quarter to five on a Saturday—closing time at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Someone on the cutting room floor lights a cigarette… that ignites a pile of scraps. Over the next fifteen minutes, hundreds of workers scramble to escape the top floors of this ten-story building by smoke-filled stairwell, crammed elevators, and an overloaded fire escape. 146 of them don’t make it out. How was this tragedy set in motion years before the fire itself? And how did reforms passed...
The Tragic Life of London’s Favorite Clown
March 13, 2023 09:01 - 33 minutes - 75.8 MBMarch 17, 1828. The celebrated clown, Joseph Grimaldi, rises from his sickbed. Once London’s most energetic performer, he’s gradually been crippled by decades of pratfalls and acrobatics. He can barely manage the short walk to Sadler’s Wells theater, where he’s about to star in a final show. Grimaldi dresses backstage as if he’s in a daze, burdened by a lifetime of personal sorrows. And yet, when the curtain rises, he’ll summon the old strength. He’ll entertain this last of his countless aud...
Axis Sally’s Nazi Radio
March 06, 2023 10:01 - 36 minutes - 82.5 MBMarch 10, 1949. Defendant Mildred Gillars arrives at a courthouse to hear her verdict. To trial-watchers, she’s known as Axis Sally—the American woman who broadcast Nazi propaganda from Berlin during World War II. In taunting tones, she spent years pushing anti-Semitic and anti-Allies messages aimed at weakening the morale of American soldiers. But Gillars insists that she’s misunderstood, even innocent. That she’s an artist, she loves her country, and was forced to do what she did… or die. ...
Introducing: American Football (Episode 1: Canton, Ohio)
March 03, 2023 10:01 - 40 minutes - 55.3 MBA new History Channel podcast, American Football is the untold tale of the rough-and-tumble origins of the National Football League. Produced and presented by Michael Strahan and narrated by actress and pro football enthusiast Kate Mara, this podcast reaches back into the past to explain the dirty, bloody, and tumultuous beginnings of America's most popular sport. In this first episode, the sport of American football begins as a stand-in for war – a place where young men at elite colleges c...
The Flight of the Concorde
February 27, 2023 10:01 - 28 minutes - 65.4 MBMarch 2, 1969. French pilot André Turcat takes to the skies above Toulouse-Blagnac airport. He’s flying an odd-looking plane: long and slender with triangular wings and a bent-down nose like a bird of prey. It’s called the Concorde – a jet designed to move supersonic flight from military to civilian use. If it works, paying passengers will be able to cross continents and oceans at fantastic speeds while sipping glasses of champagne. The crowd below watches, mesmerized, as Turcat puts the pla...
The Cold War Gets A Wall
February 20, 2023 10:01 - 30 minutes - 70.4 MBFebruary 22, 1962. The city of Berlin is cut in half by a concrete and barbed wire wall. On the west side, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy is giving a rousing speech when suddenly, what look like balloons explode above the crowd, revealing Soviet-red flags. “The Communists will let the balloons through,” Kennedy says. “But they won’t let their people through!” Meanwhile in the east, the streets are quiet. The people on both sides of the wall live in its shadow. They are family members a...
The Apollo Theater is Reborn
February 13, 2023 10:01 - 23 minutes - 54.6 MBFebruary 14, 1934. When Adelaide Hall steps onstage at The Apollo Theater, she’s greeted by an audience unlike those she’s experienced before. Hall is already famous—she’s been on Broadway and performed at Harlem’s Cotton Club. But those theaters are segregated. The Apollo has just recently opened its doors to Black audiences, and Hall’s performance there helps put the revamped theater on the map. It marks the beginning of the end of segregated shows. In this roundtable discussion with The A...
Anatomy of a Campus Heist
February 06, 2023 10:31 - 38 minutes - 87 MBFebruary 11, 2005. FBI agents bust down the door of a cinder block house near the University of Kentucky campus. Amid flash grenades and screaming teens, they arrest three students – plus a fourth student in a nearby dorm. The crime? Stealing almost $750,000 of rare books and manuscripts from the library at Transylvania University. Why did four freshmen decide to actually go through with their real life version of Ocean’s Eleven? And how did they plan to get away with it? Special thanks to...
Britain Axes the Monarchy
January 30, 2023 10:01 - 32 minutes - 74 MBJanuary 30, 1649 / 1661. London, 1649. King Charles I lays his head on a chopping block. The axe falls and, soon with it, the monarchy. What follows is Parliament’s grueling effort to set up a functioning republic – one of the first in history. It will be led by Oliver Cromwell, a brilliant military leader who becomes the country’s most powerful man. But on January 30, 1661 – exactly twelve years after the death of Charles I – royalist forces will use the same method to take their revenge: a...
The Dogs Who Saved Nome, Alaska
January 23, 2023 10:01 - 33 minutes - 77.2 MBJanuary 27, 1925. Musher “Wild Bill” Shannon and his team of sled dogs race off into the frigid Alaskan night. He’s carrying a package of life-saving serum, wrapped in fur to keep it from freezing. There’s no time to waste: nearly 700 miles away, in the snowed-in town of Nome, children are dying of diphtheria. Twenty mushers and hundreds of dogs are about to take part in an almost superhuman effort to ferry desperately needed medicine across the howling Alaskan wilderness. Who were they, and...
From Cautionary Tales: Martin Luther King Jr, the Jewelry Genius, and the Art of Public Speaking
January 16, 2023 10:01 - 36 minutes - 50.3 MBHere’s a special episode of Cautionary Tales, a podcast from our friends at Pushkin Industries. On Cautionary Tales, bestselling author Tim Harford shares stories of human error, natural disasters, and tragic catastrophes from history that contain important lessons for today. In today’s episode, we’ll learn about civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr and jewelry store owner Gerald Ratner. The two offer starkly contrasting stories on when you should stick to the script and when you should ta...
Tuskegee Top Gun
January 09, 2023 10:01 - 27 minutes - 63.3 MBJanuary 11, 2022. Lt. Col. James Harvey arrives at Nellis Air Force base in Nevada for the first time in 73 years. He’s there to accept a plaque celebrating the last time he was there—for the Air Force’s first ever weapons competition. Back then, Harvey and the other Tuskegee Airmen on his team had squared off against the best military pilots around. They tackled high-skill tests of simulated aerial warfare… and they won. But over the decades, the official record of their victory was lost or...
Uncovering Tutankhamun
January 02, 2023 10:01 - 35 minutes - 81.6 MBJanuary 3, 1924. Archeologists crowd into an ancient Egyptian tomb to uncover what awaits them in the unopened burial chamber. The world is waiting to find out. That’s because two years before, the discovery of the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun revealed antiquities so dazzling that a media frenzy ensued – newspapers, newsreels, and Hollywood movies vied to show audiences these wonders of ancient Egypt. Now, lead archaeologist Howard Carter pushes open the door to find a majestic stone sarc...
End of Year Pitch-A-Thon
December 26, 2022 10:01 - 20 minutes - 47.5 MBDecember 26, 2022. For the first time, a behind-the-scenes look at a key part of the History This Week episode-making process. Today, we’re inviting our listeners to pull up a chair and join one of our pitch sessions. Usually, an editor consults with the team to choose which story we'll be telling in a given episode. But this time… you'll decide! So listen, vote, and maybe win some History This Week swag. Tune in to learn how we make history. All voting should be sent to our email, HistoryT...
The Surprising History of Christmas Gifts
December 19, 2022 10:01 - 29 minutes - 67.2 MBChristmas Eve, 1913. For months, newspapers have been trumpeting an urgent message: Do your Christmas shopping early. It would be easy to assume this was the work of greedy department stores and slick ad companies. But it wasn’t – at least not at first. It started as the rallying cry of a labor reformer who was striving to improve the lives of retail workers. Ever since, Americans have been wrestling over the values at the heart of holiday shopping. But even the most earnest efforts at refor...
Samuel Adams Brews Rebellion
December 12, 2022 10:01 - 33 minutes - 76.9 MBDecember 16, 1773. Samuel Adams sits in a crowded meeting of American colonists at Boston’s Old South Meeting House. He’s watching small groups of men slip quietly out the door. Once outside, the men don disguises and make their way toward three ships moored in the harbor – each weighted down with chests of valuable British East India tea. The men climb aboard, tear open the chests and dump the tea in the water. Cheers fill the winter night. Back at the meeting, Samuel Adams waits. There’s n...
Irving Berlin’s Musical Revolution
December 05, 2022 10:01 - 36 minutes - 83.2 MBDecember 8, 1914. Crowds pour into the New Amsterdam Theater to see the opening night of a new show, “Watch Your Step.” It’s the first full-length revue written by the popular young songwriter, Irving Berlin. His songs show off Berlin’s signature wit and simplicity, but also his musical sophistication. As his fellow composer, Jerome Kern, would later put it: "Berlin has no place in American music—he is American music.” Who was Irving Berlin? And how did he utterly transform American songwrit...
A Meteorite Hits Ann Hodges
November 28, 2022 10:01 - 34 minutes - 78.6 MBNovember 30, 1954. At about 12:45 in the afternoon, a space rock comes plummeting through the roof of a house in Sylacauga, Alabama. It bounces off a standup radio, ricochets around the living room, and collides with the thigh of Mrs. Ann Hodges, who’s been napping on the couch. Newspapers declare: “experts agreed unanimously that Mrs. Hodges was the first person known to have been struck by a meteorite.” What happened to this space rock after it crashed to Earth and thrust itself into volat...
The Ballad of Blackbeard
November 21, 2022 10:01 - 35 minutes - 81.1 MBNovember 22, 1718. Early morning, off the North Carolina coast. The pirate Blackbeard, peering over the rail of his ship, is startled to discover that a pair of British naval ships are after him. He rouses his hungover crew and gives the order to flee to the open sea. The pirating life is treacherous: filled with double-crosses, shifting alliances, and violence. The best pirates cultivate harsh reputations in order to scare their foes into surrendering without a fight. And no one is feared m...
The Inca's Last Stand (Replay)
November 14, 2022 10:01 - 26 minutes - 36.8 MBNovember 16, 1532. Atahualpa, the king of the Inca Empire, marches towards the city of Cajamarca in modern-day Peru, surrounded by 80,000 soldiers. Once he arrives, Atahualpa expects the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro to surrender in the town square. But Pizarro has a plan of his own. With just 168 men, he will unleash a trap that destroys the Inca Empire, and brings thousands of years of indigenous rule to a violent end. What was happening in the Andes before Pizarro arrived that all...
Two Shawnee Brothers Hold Their Ground
November 07, 2022 10:01 - 39 minutes - 90.7 MBNovember 7, 1811. William Henry Harrison and his troops are camped near the Wabash river. They’ve been told to keep the peace—but Harrison wants land, and he’s come here to try and take it. Less than a mile away is a flourishing Native American settlement called Prophetstown. It’s led by Tecumseh, a skilled diplomat and warrior, and his brother Tenskwatawa, whose religious teachings have attracted indigenous people from across the newly-formed United States. Before dawn, these two sides will...
The Truth About Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings
October 31, 2022 09:01 - 34 minutes - 79.7 MBNovember 5, 1998. Using DNA evidence, the scientific journal Nature publishes findings that put to rest a centuries-old mystery: Was Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman at Monticello, the mother of six of Thomas Jefferson’s children? Until then, the historical consensus had been this: “The Jefferson-Hemings relationship can be neither refuted nor substantiated.” Jefferson’s white descendants were more categorical: they flatly denied it. But now the truth was out. Why was this story denied for s...
The Donora Death Fog
October 24, 2022 09:01 - 30 minutes - 69.3 MBOctober 26, 1948. A mysterious fog descends upon the valley town of Donora, Pennsylvania. Most of its residents work at the local steel mill and are used to murky air. But there’s something different about this miasma of acrid vapors. People begin to cough convulsively; some have trouble breathing. Residents crowd into local doctors’ offices, some arriving at the doorstep gasping for breath. They wonder, what is happening to us? The fog lifts from the valley 5 days later, leaving 20 people ...
Introducing: It Was Said Season 2
October 20, 2022 15:49 - 3 minutes - 8.5 MBIt Was Said, the 2021 Webby Award winner for Best Podcast Series, returns with a new season to look back on some of the most powerful, impactful, and timeless speeches in history. Written and narrated by Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author-historian Jon Meacham, this documentary podcast series takes you through another season of ten generation-defining speeches. Meacham, along with top historians, authors and journalists, offers expert insight and analysis into the origins, the orat...
Exploring Earth’s Evil Twin
October 17, 2022 09:01 - 34 minutes - 78.8 MBOctober 22, 1975. After traveling millions of miles through space, a Soviet spacecraft plunges through thick clouds of sulfuric acid to land on Venus. Its goal: take a photograph of another planet’s surface and send it back home—history’s first up-close glimpse at a world other than our own. Venus, our closest neighbor, is similar in size to Earth and may even share some planetary material. It’s why scientists sometimes call it our twin planet. Yet its rock-melting temperatures and poisonous...
Jim Thorpe's Lost Gold (w/ Sports History This Week)
October 10, 2022 09:01 - 33 minutes - 75.6 MBOctober 13, 1982. The announcement came from Switzerland, across the world from where Jim Thorpe was raised on Indian territory in Oklahoma. In his time, Thorpe was the most popular athlete in the world, winning two gold medals at the 1912 Olympics. But for a variety of reasons—including his Native American heritage—those medals were stripped away. But today, though Thorpe passed away years earlier, his children will receive the medals that their father rightly won. In a special collaborat...