Shows / History Unplugged Podcast
History Unplugged Podcast
For history lovers who listen to podcasts, History Unplugged is the most comprehensive show of its kind. It's the only show that dedicates episodes to both interviewing experts and answering questions from its audience. First, it features a call-in show where you can ask our resident historian (Scott Rank, PhD) absolutely anything (What was it like to be a Turkish sultan with four wives and twelve concubines? If you were sent back in time, how would you kill Hitler?). Second, it features…
Episodes
History Unplugged PodcastFailed Futures: The Confederacy Had Colossal Plans After the Civil War to Spread Slavery Across the Globe And Become Fabulously Wealthy
Confederate leaders were nothing if not dreamers. They did not merely want to maintain slavery in a quiet corner of the world and hold onto antiquated…
History Unplugged PodcastFailed Futures: The Post-War Plans of Alexander the Great, the Confederacy, and the Soviet Union that Never Happened
This is a preview of an upcoming series on this podcast that looks at the detailed post-war plans from generals and heads of state that never came about…
History Unplugged PodcastThomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and the Other Brilliant But Eccentric Characters That Electrified Our World
You flick on a light without thinking about it. But what about the fascinating and bizarre stories hidden behind that simple action? Fortunes were made and…
History Unplugged PodcastRepublicans Controlled 1920s America But Were Later Crushed By the New Deal Coalition. How Do These Realignments Happen?
The pendulum in American electoral politics never swung harder than the 1920s to 1930s. In the 1924 presidential election, Democrats lost every state outside…
History Unplugged PodcastF. Scott Fitzgerald was Every Bit the Alcoholic, Grandiose Delusional Dreamer as His Fictional Character Jay Gatsby
The Great Gatsby has sold 25 million copies worldwide and sells 500,000 copies annually. The book has been made into three movies and produced for the theatre…
History Unplugged PodcastThe Most Underrated People in History Include a U.S. President, Soviet Officer, and a Farmer Who Saved 2 Billion Lives
Today’s episode is a round table of the podcasters who make up the Parthenon Podcast Network (Steve Guerra from Beyond the Big Screen; Josh Cohen from…
History Unplugged PodcastHow a Founding Father and His Family Went From Slave Owners to Radical Abolitionists
John Jay was a giant in the Founding Fathers generation. He was a diplomat, Supreme Court justice, coauthor of the Federalist Papers, and key negotiator at the…
History Unplugged PodcastGrowing Up as the Daughter of WW2 Spies
As a child, Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop, along with her five brothers, was raised to revere the tribal legends of the Alsop and Roosevelt families. Her parents’…
History Unplugged PodcastEntrepreneurs in the Ancient World: From Neolithic Fashion Tycoons to Babylon’s 'Silicon Valley' Startup Founders
Entrepreneurship didn’t begin with Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, or Adam Smith. Depending on how one interprets the archeological record, it goes back…
History Unplugged PodcastThe Abolitionist Who Was Chaplain to Black Civil War Soldiers and Started a College Burned Down by the KKK
George Richardson (1824-1911) was a traveling Methodist preacher who rode on a circuit across the antebellum Midwestern frontier and became increasingly caught…
History Unplugged PodcastThe Russian-Jewish Woman Who Voluntarily Interred Herself in a WW2 Japanese Internment Camp
During World War II, Elaine Black Yoneda [1906-1988], the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, spent eight months in a concentration camp—not in Europe, but…
History Unplugged PodcastIn 1963, A Stuttering, Nebbish Magazine Editor Negotiated a Secret Deal Between JFK and Khrushchev, Averting Nuclear War
As the editor of the Saturday Review for more than thirty years, Norman Cousins had a powerful platform to shape American public debate during the height of…
History Unplugged PodcastA Traumatized Civil War Vet -- Suffering Crippling Alcoholism and PTSD -- Spent 40 Years Wandering America as a Hobo
William Aspinwal was many things. A child soldier. A ladies’ man. A mechanic. A tramp. A drunkard. A husband married five times. Each of these descriptions…
History Unplugged PodcastThe Secret Role of Japanese Americans Who Fought in the WW2 Pacific Theatre
Several thousand Japanese Americans were trained by the US Military Intelligence Service and sent to the Pacific to serve as interpreters, translators, and…
History Unplugged PodcastFDR’s Polio Made Him Wheelchair Bound, But Also an Incredible Orator and Strategic Mastermind
The qualities that made Franklin Roosevelt great weren’t things that he was born with but arguable the things that he had to learn in the hardest years of his…
History Unplugged PodcastJohn Donne: The Genius Priest/Poet Who Saw Infinity and Triggered Stampedes At His Sermons
John Donne was not a typical English clergyman. Before his ordination, the 17th century Anglican priest had worked as a poet, lawyer, pirate, satirist…
History Unplugged PodcastSigmund Freud Deluded Himself Into Thinking The Nazis Weren’t A Threat Until It Was Nearly Too Late
“The ‘uncanny’ is that class of the terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar.” This is a quote from Sigmund Freud, the…
History Unplugged PodcastThe Most Important Diplomat in 1700s North America was a Cherokee Woman Who Saved Washington’s Life and Introduced Dairy to Her Tribe
A Cherokee woman named Nanyehi, which means “One Who Goes About” was born in the 1730s in modern-day Tennessee. She stood out at an early age: At 17, she led…
History Unplugged PodcastDo Racial Preferences in U.S. College Admissions Process Date Back to Ivy League Attempts to Limit Jewish Enrollment?
Much of what we know about the college admissions process in the United States -- eg. requiring interviews to gauge "character"; seeking diversity of interest…
History Unplugged PodcastUber Succeed in the US but Failed in the UK and China Because of Jefferson and Hamilton’s Fight Over State Licensing
Why was Uber able to destroy the taxi cab industry in the United States, but it failed to get any sort of market share in the United Kingdom and China? The…
History Unplugged PodcastJames Early Explains Why the War of 1812 Turned America Into an Expansionist Military Power
We are joined by James Early, the co-host of some of the best series on this show, including our Key Battles Series (World War One, the Civl War, the…
History Unplugged PodcastHow to Escape From a Nazi Prison Fortress
Looking at Colditz Castle, it was no surprise why the Nazi’s chose the towering fortress as their prison-of-war camp for the most defiant Allied prisoners…
History Unplugged PodcastThomas Jefferson’s European Travel Guide Includes Architectural Sketches, Farming Tips, and an Astronomical Wine Expense Report
In 1784, Thomas Jefferson was a broken man. Reeling from the loss of his wife and humiliated from a political scandal during the Revolutionary war, he needed…
History Unplugged PodcastThe Michigan Politician Who Created a Proto-New Deal, Defeated the KKK in Court, and Defended Interred Japanese-Americans
Frank Murphy was a public servant that achieved the highest levels of civilian success in the early 20th century. After serving in World War I, he served as…
History Unplugged PodcastThe Rag-Tag Art Renegades that Brought Picasso and Modernist Art to the United States
Today we think of New York as the center of the twentieth century art world, but it took three determined men, two world wars, and one singular artist to…
History Unplugged PodcastThe Oldest Stories of King Arthur Have Female Warriors, Black Knights, and Whole Lot of Supernatural Encounters
The stories of King Arthur and Merlin, Lancelot and Guinevere, Galahad, Gawain, Tristan and the rest of the Knights of the Roundtable, and the search for the…
History Unplugged PodcastSteve Guerra on Freemasonry, The Catholic Church, and the Modern World
This is a sample of a recent episode of Steve Guerra's History of the Papacy Podcast (https://www.parthenonpodcast.com/history-of-the-papacy-podcast/) about…
History Unplugged PodcastMata Hari Was Either the World’s Greatest Female Spy or a WWI Exotic Dancer Way In Over Her Head
Even before Mata Hari (née Margaretha Zelle) was executed by a French firing squad in 1917 for spying on behalf of the Germans, her life had already become…
History Unplugged PodcastVikings Definitely Came to the New World Before Columbus. Did Celtic Monks, the Chinese, and Phoenicians Do So Also?
Many brave sailors arrived in North and South America long before Columbus, suggesting that trans-oceanic voyages could be accomplished centuries before his…
History Unplugged PodcastHow America Chooses to Remember Itself: 200 Years of U.S. Museums, and Presenting the Civil War, Spanish Flu, and the Culture Wars
On an afternoon in January 1865, a roaring fire swept through the Smithsonian Institution. The New York Times wrote that “the destruction of so many of its…
History Unplugged PodcastThe Many Ways To Die While Building an Aircraft Carrier
Tip the Empire State Building onto its side and you’ll have a sense of the length of the United States Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, the most powerful in the…
History Unplugged PodcastThe Divorce Colony: Why Women Fled to South Dakota in the 1880s to End Their Troubled Marriages
No-fault divorce laws began spreading across the globe in the 1970s, in which neither party had to prove wrong-doing. Before this time, somebody had to prove…
History Unplugged PodcastAmerica's Universal Education System Exists From a Coalition of Progressives, the Know-Nothing Party, and the Ku Klux Klan
In a remarkably short span of time, American children went from laboring on family farms to spending their days in classrooms. The change came from optimistic…
History Unplugged PodcastHow 2 Men Escaped Auschwitz, Exposed the Holocaust to the World, and Saved Hundreds of Thousands of Hungarian Jews
Europe’s Jewish population suffered during every stage of the Holocaust, but by the time the Third Reich occupied Hungary and targeted its Jews for deportation…
History Unplugged PodcastJosie Underwood: The Civil War-Era Socialite Who Owned Slaves, Hated Lincoln, and Loved the Union
A well-educated, outspoken member of a politically prominent family in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Josie Underwood (1840–1923) left behind one of the few intimate…
History Unplugged PodcastThe American Revolution Would Have Been Lost Without a Ragtag Fleet of Thousands of Privateers
Privateers were a cross between an enlisted sailor and an outright pirate. But they were crucial in winning the Revolutionary War. As John Lehman, former…
History Unplugged PodcastGen. George Marshall and Henry Stimson Built America’s WW2 War Machine and Created the Postwar Global Order
Five years after World War II ended, Winston Churchill said he was still amazed that the United States, which before WWII had a tiny military and was fully…
History Unplugged PodcastBruce Lee Became a Global Celebrity by Embodying 400 Years of Western-Chinese Cultural Trade
An Asian and Asian American icon of unimaginable stature and influence, Bruce Lee revolutionized the martial arts by combining influences drawn from around the…
History Unplugged PodcastJohn McWhorter Describes Human Language's 20,000-Year Journey from Proto-Sumerian to Ebonics
Language not only defines humans as a species, placing us head and shoulders above even the most proficient animal communicators, but it also beguiles us with…
History Unplugged PodcastNo Supply Chain Was More Complicated Than the Allies’ During WW2. How Did They Maintain It?
World War 2 was won due to Allied bravery, superior strategy, better technology, and more supplies. But the true unsung hero of the war effort is the Allied…
History Unplugged PodcastNew Yorkers Feared Jack the Ripper Invaded the City in 1891 After a Prostitute Was Found Brutally Murdered
Jack the Ripper’s serial killing spree of 1888 shocked the world, triggering panic from Paris to South America that he could strike anywhere, anytime. New…
History Unplugged PodcastWhen a Soldier’s Bravery is So Great His Comrades Fear Him: The Story of Band of Brothers’ Ronald “Killer “ Spiers
No paratrooper in the legendary “Band of Brothers” – a WW2 parachute rifle company part of the 101st Airborne Division in the U.S. Army -- was more enigmatic…
History Unplugged PodcastDid Pope Pius XII Collaborate With the Nazis? This Historian Viewed the Vatican Archives and Has the Answer
One of the biggest unresolved World War 2 debates is the Vatican’s complicity in the Holocaust – did Pope Pius XII sit back and do nothing as Nazi Germany…
History Unplugged PodcastEating Roman Mouse-on-a-Stick, Shakespeare's Tavern Bread, and Other Forgotten Culinary "Treats" From the Past
You and your ancestor from 1,000 years ago have almost nothing in common. Your clothes are different. Your worship rituals are different. Your thoughts about…
History Unplugged PodcastBeyond Camelot: What It Was Like to Live Through the JFK Era
For those that have no living memory of JFK, it’s nearly impossible to think of his presidency as anything but a few preordained moments that move inevitably…
History Unplugged PodcastAfter Custer’s Last Stand, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse Fought an Impossible Battle To Preserve the Sioux Nation
Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull were two Lakota chiefs born in the final generation of Plains Indians who grew up in the manner similar to their ancestors…
History Unplugged PodcastIntroducing the Vlogging Through History Podcast
Please enjoy this preview of the Vlogging Through History Podcast, hosted by Chris Mowery. In his show, Chris tells the story of the private soldier as much as…
History Unplugged PodcastHow a WW2 Soldier Persevered Through Concentration Camps, Death Marches, and Starvation
One of the most widely read books of the 20th century is Viktor Frank’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” In it, the author, a survivor of Nazi concentration camps…
History Unplugged PodcastDid Thomas Edison Murder The Real Inventor of the Motion Picture Camera and Steal His Invention?
In the late 1800s, there was an all-out sprint among inventors and tinkerers to create the first motion picture camera. The first across the finish line would…
History Unplugged PodcastCars Are the Id of the Countries that Built Them. What Do The Model T and Pontiac Aztek Tell Us About the US?
The earliest cars were nothing more than horse buggies with motors (the first Oldsmobile was a horseless carriage with a one-cylinder engine plunked in). But…
History Unplugged PodcastMaking Sense of America’s Worst Moments: Jon Meacham on Understanding -- But Not Excusing -- Slavery and the Indian Removal Act
John F. Kennedy once told a presidential biographer that rating presidents from best to worst that it was impossible without a deep appreciation of the office…
History Unplugged PodcastParthenon Roundtable: Which Single Event Would You Eliminate From History
All of us have terrible regrets. Accepting that job that became dead-end. Marry someone from high school who ended up being a kleptomaniac with halitosis…
History Unplugged PodcastThe Worst Movie Ever Made Cast John Wayne as Genghis Khan and Exposed the Cast to Nuclear Radiation
John Wayne’s 1956 film The Conqueror was a historical biopic about Genghis Khan far worse than you can imagine. The All-American legend was in full Fu Manchu…
History Unplugged PodcastThe Arsenal of Democracy: How the Revolver and Repeating Rifle Democratized Gun Ownership and Armed the United States
The United States is the most heavily armed nation in the world, with an estimated 400 million guns in private hands. But few know that this legacy can be…
History Unplugged PodcastSeeking Hitler’s Horses: How a WW2 Infantryman Rescued Equines Caught Up Germany’s “Super Horse” Breeding Program
Growing up in the 1930s in Memphis, Tennessee, Phil Larimore is the ultimate Boy Scout—able to read maps, put a compass to good use, and traverse wild swamps…
History Unplugged PodcastAlmost President: Stephen Douglas, Thomas Dewey, and Other Failed Candidates That Would’ve Altered History Most by Winning
Dozens of American leaders captured their party’s nomination for the presidency but never reached the Oval Office. How would history have changed if they had…
History Unplugged Podcast4 Foreign Correspondents Spent the 30s Warning About European Fascism. Why Didn't More Listen?
In the 1930s, the biggest American media celebrities were four foreign correspondents: Dorothy Thompson, John Gunther, H.R. Knickerbocker, and Vincent Sheehan…
History Unplugged PodcastIn 1970, a Cyclone Killed 500,000 in Pakistan, Triggered a Genocide, and Nearly Started a Nuclear War.
One of the worst natural disasters of the 20th century happened in 1990, when cyclone struck the most densely populated coastline on Earth in today’s…
History Unplugged PodcastNazi Billionaires: The Business Dynasties That Built Hitler’s War Machine and Still Profit Today
After the Allies defeated Germany in WW2, high-ranking Nazis and collaborators lived in a long, strange twilight. The lucky ones were recruited by the Allies…
History Unplugged PodcastWar Isn’t the Natural State of Human Affairs: It Shouldn’t Happen, and Most of the Time It Doesn't.
War is assumed to be one of the chief features of human history. Plenty of ancient and modern writers back up this perspective (Plato said that only the dead…