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 PodcastWestern Religion of the 19th Century Competed with Darwin and Marx By Dabbling in Hinduism, Occultism, and Wellness
We often think of the late nineteenth century in Western societies as an era of immense technological and scientific change, moving from religion to…
History Unplugged PodcastThe 1541 Spanish Expedition Down the Amazon to Find the Imaginary “El Dorado” and Valley of Cinnamon
As Spanish conquistators slowly moved through Latin America, they encountered levels of wealth that were unimaginable. Most famously, Incan Emperor Atahualpa…
History Unplugged PodcastLost Airmen: The Epic Rescue of WWII U.S. Bomber Crews Stranded in the Yugoslavian Mountains
Late in 1944, thirteen U.S. B-24 bomber crews bailed from their cabins over the Yugoslavian wilderness. Bloodied and disoriented after a harrowing strike…
History Unplugged PodcastThe Way that Lincoln Financed the Civil War Led to Transcontinental Railroads, Public Colleges, the Homestead Act, and Income Tax
The financing of the Civil War was as crucial to the shaping of American history as the Emancipation Proclamation and the defeat of the Confederacy. Not only…
History Unplugged PodcastLt. Sonia Vagliano Helped Liberate Concentration Camp Victims, Repatriate WW2 Refugees, All While Avoiding Landmines and Kidnapping
Following the German occupation of France in 1940, French women moved deftly into the jobs and roles left by their male compatriots—even the role of soldier…
History Unplugged PodcastLittle Slaughterhouse on the Prairie: The Serial Killer Family Who Terrorized 1870s Kansas
Lone-wolf serial killers like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy live in infamy – it’s a familiar archetype in true crime. But a family of serial…
History Unplugged PodcastBenjamin Franklin – In the 200 Years After His Death – Funded New Businesses, Supported Boston and Philadelphia, and Play Pranks
When Benjamin Franklin died on April 12, 1790, he made a final bet on the future of the United States -- a gift of 2,000 pounds to Boston and Philadelphia, to…
History Unplugged PodcastThe Rise and Fall of 1970s Mob-Run Chicago
In 1970s America, no city was arguable under more mafia control than Chicago. Murderers operated without fear of retribution. Getting an “innocent” verdict…
History Unplugged PodcastAn Antebellum-Era Irish Maid’s Incredible Determination and Business Savvy Led to the Creation of the Kennedy Dynasty
The Kennedys are remembered the vanguard of wealth, power, and style. But their story begins in 1840s Boston, when a poor Irish refugee couple who were…
History Unplugged PodcastSix Kentucky Nuns Founded a Hospital in 1940s War-Torn India That Saved Hundreds of Thousands of Lives
The year was 1947, and the mother superior of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth had managed to keep her order safe from the perils of World War II, and…
History Unplugged PodcastA 1719 Prison Ship Transported Dozens of Women Accused of Sex Crimes to New Orleans. They Became the Founding Mothers of the Gulf
In 1719, a ship named La Mutine (the mutinous woman), sailed from the French port of Le Havre, bound for the Mississippi. It was loaded with urgently needed…
History Unplugged PodcastIntroducing the Eyewitness History Podcast
Please enjoy this preview of the Eyewitness History Podcast, hosted by Josh Cohen. This show features first-hand testimonials of people who witnessed…
History Unplugged PodcastThe Global Manhunt For The Confederate Ship That Sunk Union Supply Vessels, From the Caribbean to the South Pacific
Naval warfare is an overlooked factor of the Civil War, but it was a vitally important part of overall strategy for North and South, especially from the…
History Unplugged PodcastMost Historians Consider Warren G. Harding America’s Worst President. This One Thinks He Belongs in the Top 10
Most historians think of Warren G. Harding as a jazz-age hedonist who was much more of an empty suit than a serious president. Once in the White House, they…
History Unplugged PodcastWhy the Information Revolution Would Happened in Europe Even Without the Printing Press
After Johannes Gutenberg invented the moveable type printing press, Europe changed irrevocably. What happened was a shift in the generation, preservation and…
History Unplugged PodcastDeeply-Held Religious Beliefs Can’t Be Easily Eradicated. That’s Why Stalin Co-Opted Russian Orthodoxy As a Ruler.
The Russian Revolution is thought to have everything to do with the writings of Karl Marx. He predicted in the 19th century that history was marching…
History Unplugged PodcastWhat “Dear John” Letters Tell Us About the Fragility of Wartime Relationships…and How They Unexpectedly Lead to Greater Camaraderie
During World War II nearly one billion letters were sent to the front, but none struck more fear in the heart of the average soldier than the one that began…
History Unplugged PodcastCassie Chadwick Scammed the Gilded Age Elite Out of Millions and Convinced The World She Was Andrew Carnegie’s Bastard Daughter
Of all the self-made millionaires of the Gilded Age (and there were many, such as John Rockefeller, son of a literal snake oil salesman who became the world’s…
History Unplugged PodcastHow China Changed Its Language From Archaic Confucian Bureaucracy to the Lingua Franca of Globalization
After a meteoric rise, China today is one of the world’s most powerful nations. Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the…
History Unplugged PodcastWhich Statues Should We Take Down? How To Fairly Judge Historical Figures by Today’s Standards
In the United States, questions of how we celebrate – or condemn – leaders in the past have never been more contentious. In 2017, a statue of Robert E. Lee was…
History Unplugged PodcastOn the Eve of World War One, Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Suffragette Jane Addams Sought to Prevent Armageddon
In the early years of the twentieth century, the most famous Americans on the national stage were Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Jane Addams: two…
History Unplugged PodcastA Union Woman in Civil War Kentucky
Today’s episode is a look at the life of Frances Peter, a Civil War-era Kentuckian who witnessed all the major events of the conflict, and watched her hometown…
History Unplugged PodcastDoes Waging War Viciously Actually Save Lives? A Look at the WW2 Decisions to Firebomb Tokyo and Drop Atomic Bombs
This is a special episode, in which the microphone is turned around and Scott is interview. He was recently on Ray Harris’ History of World War Two Podcast. We…
History Unplugged PodcastSuccesses and Failures of The Last Century of U.S. Presidents, From Harding to Trump
Today’s Guest is Ronald Gunger, author of “We the Presidents: How American Presidents Shaped the Last Century. We explore the successes and failures of 100…
History Unplugged PodcastTeaser: Key Battles of WW2 Pacific - The Rise of Imperial Japan
Listen to this full episode by searching for "Key Battles of American History" on the podcast player of your choice or go to https://parthenonpodcast.com. See…
History Unplugged PodcastMutiny on the Rising Sun: A Tragic Tale of Slavery, Smuggling, and Chocolate
On the night of June 1, 1743, terror struck the schooner Rising Sun. After completing a routine smuggling voyage where the crew sold enslaved Africans in…
History Unplugged PodcastA Real-Life French Serial Killer Inspired Dostoyevsky to Write “Crime and Punishment”
As a young man, Fyodor Dostoevsky was a celebrated writer, but his involvement with the radical politics of his day that swept Europe during the Revolutions of…
History Unplugged PodcastThe NAACP Leader Who Passed As White, Infiltrated Lynching Rings, Architected ‘Brown v. Board of Education’, and Ended His Life in Scandal
One of the most important Civil Rights Leaders in the 20th century, behind perhaps only the giants of the movement such as Martin Luther King Jr. WEB DuBois…
History Unplugged PodcastHow Clocks Created Earth’s First Global Supply Chain in the 1700s – And Keep GPS Alive Today
Our modern lives are ruled by clocks and watches, smartphone apps and calendar programs. While our gadgets may be new, however, the drive to measure and master…
History Unplugged PodcastParthenon Roundtable: Which Person From History Would You Keep From Dying Too Soon? (And You Can’t Choose JFK)
A couple of months ago, the guys from Parthenon Podcast Network (James Early, Key Battles of American History; Steve Guerra, History of the Papacy; Richard…
History Unplugged PodcastAssassination Attempts of U.S. President – From JFK to Joe Biden
One of the most important – but overlooked – professions in U.S. history is a Secret Service agent assigned with presidential protection duty. That’s because…
History Unplugged PodcastNo, the Ancient Greeks Weren’t Color Blind. They Justed Had Unique Ways to Describe the World
Were ancients color-blind? They weren’t but this idea has been passed around for centuries, usually by classicists confused by the Greeks’ odd choice of…
History Unplugged PodcastThe Severing Of a Sea Captain’s Ear Led to a Global War Between Spain and Britain in the 1740s
In the early 1700s, decades of rising tensions between Spain and Britain culminated in a war that was fought all over the world. And it all started with a…
History Unplugged PodcastFuture History: The Story Behind '2001: A Space Odyssey'
Listen to the rest of this episode and others from Beyond the Big Screen at parthenonpodcast.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
History Unplugged PodcastThe Last King of America: George III, His Battles With Madness, and Being a Thoroughly Underrated Monarch
Most Americans dismiss George III as a buffoon: a heartless and terrible monarch with few, if any, redeeming qualities (picture the preening, spitting, and…
History Unplugged PodcastDragons Exist In Nearly Every Culture’s Mythology As a Mirror of Their Fears. What Are Ours?
We live in the golden age of dragons – they appear in Game of Thrones, most film adaptations of the works of J.R.R. Tolkein, and nearly everything tangentially…
History Unplugged PodcastHarry Guggenheim: The Elon Musk of the Gilded Age
Harry Guggenheim was a man of impressive achievements and staggering wealth. While most commonly known for the creation of the famed Solomon Guggenheim Museum…
History Unplugged PodcastAre Cities Humanity’s Greatest Invention or an Incubator of Disease, Crime, and Horrific Exploitation?
During the two hundred millennia of humanity’s existence, nothing has shaped us more profoundly than the city. From their very beginnings, cities created such…
History Unplugged PodcastRevolutionary Monsters: Why Lenin, Mao, Castro, and Others Turned Liberation into Tyranny
All sparked movements in the name of liberating their people from their oppressors—capitalists, foreign imperialists, or dictators in their own country. These…
History Unplugged PodcastRobert E. Lee Was America’s Most Gallant, Decorated Traitor
Robert E. Lee was one of the most confounding figures in American history. From Lee’s betrayal of his nation to defend his home state and uphold the slave…
History Unplugged PodcastFrederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Contentious Path to Emancipation
In a little-noted eulogy delivered shortly after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Frederick Douglass called the martyred president “emphatically the Black…
History Unplugged PodcastHenry Kissinger Used Cold Realpolitik to Create Order in the Middle East. Did it Work?
More than twenty years have elapsed since the United States last brokered a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians. In that time, three…
History Unplugged PodcastEurope’s Babylon: 16th-Century Antwerp was a City of Wealth, Vice, Heresy, and Freedom
Before Amsterdam, there was a dazzling North Sea port at the hub of the known world: the city of Antwerp. For half the sixteenth century, it was the place for…
History Unplugged PodcastParthenon Podcast Roundtable: Who Would You Eliminate From History? (And No, You Can’t Choose Hitler)
Today is a group discussion in which the four guys that make up the Parthenon Podcast Network (Steve Guerra from Beyond the Big Screen, Richard Lim from This…
History Unplugged PodcastWASPs: The Splendors and Miseries of an American Aristocracy
From politics to fashion, their style still intrigues us. WASPs produced brilliant reformers—Eleanor, Theodore, and Franklin Roosevelt—and inspired Cold…
History Unplugged PodcastThe Untold History of Earth: Hobbits Really Existed, Dinosaurs Had Feathers, and Yetis Roamed Our Planet
The Old English poem Beowulf is a vital source of information on history, language, story and belief from the darkest of the Dark Ages. Only one copy is known…
History Unplugged PodcastGeorge Washington’s 1789 Road Trip Across the New United States
In the fall of 1789, George Washington, only six months into his presidency, set out on the first of four road trips as he attempted to unite what were in…
History Unplugged PodcastThe Allied Race to Retake Paris in 1945 Before the Nazis Could Destroy It
In a stunning move, the armies of Nazi Germany annihilated the French military and captured Paris, the crown jewel of Europe, in a matter of a few weeks. As…
History Unplugged PodcastThe Son of Mississippi Slaves Who Fled to Russia and Brought Jazz to Istanbul
Frederick Bruce Thomas was born in 1872 to former slaves and spent his youth on his family’s prosperous farm in Mississippi. However, a resentful, rich white…
History Unplugged PodcastWhat the Middle Ages Can Teach Us About Pandemics, Mass Migration, and Tech Disruption
The medieval world – for all its plagues, papal indulgences, castles, and inquisition trials – has much in common with ours. People living the…
History Unplugged PodcastMarine Raiders: The WW2 Special Forces Who Conquered Pacific Islands One Knife Fight At a Time
At the beginning of World War II, military planners set out to form the most ruthless, skilled, and effective force the world had ever seen. The U.S. Marines…
History Unplugged PodcastThe Boer Wars: The South African Conflict That Created Winston Churchill and (Possibly) Concentration Camps
South Africa, despite abolishing apartheid in the 1990s, still stays very fraught with racial tension, making the United States' experience of 2020 pale in…
History Unplugged PodcastKim Philby: The KGB Mole Who Nearly Became the Leader of Britain’s MI6
Kim Philby—the master British spy and notorious KGB double agent—had an incredible amount of influence on the Cold War. He became the mentor, and later, mortal…
History Unplugged PodcastGeorge Washington: The First American Action Hero
This is an excerpt from an episode of This American President, a great history podcast that is the newest member of the Parthenon Podcast Network. You can find…
History Unplugged PodcastWhy the 1619 Project is Dangerous and Should Be Totally Rejected
The biggest and most controversial historical debate in 2021 is the 1619 Project. Released last year in a special issue of the New York Times Magazine, it is a…
History Unplugged PodcastRebroadcast: Turkey is Both a Bird and a Country. Which Came First?
It's no coincidence that the bird we eat for Thanksgiving and a Middle Eastern country are both called Turkey. One was named after the other, and it all has to…
History Unplugged PodcastThe 160-Minute Race to Save the Titanic
One hundred and sixty minutes. That is all the time rescuers would have before the largest ship in the world slipped beneath the icy Atlantic. There was…
History Unplugged PodcastAge of Discovery 2.0, Part 6: Will SpaceX Control Mars Like the British East India Company Controlled the Indian Subcontinent?
The British East India Company is perhaps the most powerful corporation in history. It was larger than several nations and acted as emperor of the Indian…
History Unplugged PodcastAge of Discovery 2.0, Part 5: Death Has Always Been an Inevitable Part of Discovery, Whether on Magellan’s Voyage or a Trip to Mars
The history of exploration and establishment of new lands, science and technologies has always entailed risk to the health and lives of the explorers. Yet…
History Unplugged PodcastAge of Discovery 2.0, Part 4: How Lessons From U.S. History Will Help Space Colonies Be More Like Star Trek and Less Like Blade Runner
The human race is about to go to the stars. Big rockets are being built, and nations and private citizens worldwide are planning the first permanent…