History As It Happens

Henry Kissinger, sage of American diplomats, is celebrating his milestone 100th birthday on May 27. To some, Kissinger is the embodiment of realpolitik whose shrewd diplomatic efforts left an enduring mark on the global order. To others, he's a war criminal. During the Vietnam War, Kissinger was a driving force behind the secret bombing of neutral Cambodia in 1969. He also backed the coup that toppled the democratically-elected leader of Chile. In this episode, historian Thomas Schwartz parses Kissinger's record, as the man has become a symbol of what's right and wrong with U.S. hegemony. Why are views of Kissinger still so polarized decades after he left power? Does your opinion of Kissinger say more about you and your politics than it says about his actual deeds? Are your views of Kissinger an index of your broader worldview concerning U.S. foreign policy – or imperialism?

Martin Luther King Jr. had serious problems with American capitalism. He considered himself more of a democratic socialist as he demanded the federal government spend billions to eradicate poverty, and as he worked to build a multiracial working-class movement. Today, as the share of American workers in labor unions continues to decline and as income inequality worsens, one wonders if the country will undergo a national reckoning on class as it has with regard to race. Over recent years Americans have been debating the role of race and slavery in national origins, but there's been relative silence when it comes to class issues. This problem extends to popular remembrances of King. His crusade to end racism and legal segregation overshadows these other aspects of his philosophy and legacy. In this episode, historian Thomas Jackson discusses the importance of MLK's economic outlook in his overall civil rights agenda.

American allies in the Indo-Pacific are in a difficult spot. They have economic ties to Beijing, but China's rising influence and coercive methods underscore the importance of their long-standing military pacts and trade relationships with the United States. The visit by South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol to Washington in April opened a window into this complex diplomatic problem. The warm reception Mr. Yoon received and his moves to more closely align his nation's interests with the U.S., met a cooler response in his own country. The escalating friction between the U.S. and China also complicates Seoul's economic ties to the latter. In this episode, The Washington Times' national security team leader Guy Taylor and Asia editor Andrew Salmon talk about the complexities of a multipolar world, where America's days as the sole superpower in East Asia are over.

This is the fourth episode in a multiple-part series marking the 20th anniversary of the Iraq War, which began on March 20, 2003. Earlier episodes were published in March. From 1990 to 2003 the United States, through the U.N. Security Council, imposed the most punishing sanctions on a sovereign state in modern history. The sanctions on Iraq caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children from inadequate food, medicine, and public health infrastructure. They flattened Iraq's economy and tore at the fabric of its society. But the humanitarian catastrophe remains somewhat of an "invisible war." When Americans reflected on the twentieth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, their minds focused on what happened after March 20, 2003, rather than on the fourteen years of economic warfare that preceded it. In this episode, Sarhang Hamasaeed of the U.S. Institute of Peace discusses life under Saddam, surviving the sanctions, and his work as a peacebuilder in Iraq today.

Russian president Vladimir Putin, who sees himself as an astute student of history, once more exploited his nation's victory over Nazi Germany to justify his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. In his annual speech on May 9 – Victory Day in 1945 – Mr. Putin said Russia would continue its war against "torturers, death squads, and Nazis," repeating his fantasy version of reality. "Once again, we see war that is afoot, but we have been pushing back, fighting against international terrorism to protect the people in the Donbas region and to protect our country." Russia's autocrat is overlooking a more important, accurate history lesson. In the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, a Soviet leader impulsively gambled, brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, but then stepped back from the precipice by compromising a peaceful way out. In this episode, historians Sergey Radchenko and Vladislav Zubok discuss the origins of Nikita Khrushchev's move to send nuclear missiles to Cuba. They unearthed astonishing accounts of mishaps and miscalculations in recently declassified Soviet documents, which they detailed in an essay for Foreign Affairs, the official publication of the Council on Foreign Relations. Radchenko and Zubok say the "unlearned lessons" of the Cuban Missile Crisis include the roles of misperception, miscalculation, chance, and other unpredictable factors that influence the outcome of events. In 1962, they contend, the world got lucky.

Can the 14th Amendment save the U.S. from defaulting on its debts if Congress fails to raise the federal government's borrowing limit? That may depend on who you ask. Like so much else in the Constitution, Section 4 of the 14th Amendment means different things to different people today as it did in the 1860s when it was ratified. In this episode, historian Jeremi Suri discusses Section 4's enduring relevance, and the importance of civics in understanding past and present political conflict. The 14th Amendment is arguably the most consequential one ever ratified after the Bill of Rights. It was passed in a certain historical context – in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War – but its words stand for all time. It was designed to make a more perfect union.

This is the second in a two-part series of conversations recorded at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello as History As It Happens goes on location, with special guests historian Alan Taylor and Brandon Dillard, Monticello's director of historic interpretation and audience engagement. The "history wars" have reached Monticello. Visitors to Thomas Jefferson's old plantation in rural Virginia often bring their emotional or ideological baggage. But is it possible to talk too much about slavery at a historic plantation? How does an institution such as Monticello present Jefferson's successes and failures to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who visit each year, many of whom revere Jefferson, his radical ideals, and his remarkable mind? Listen to Alan Taylor and Brandon Dillard talk about the challenge of interpreting the past in our divisive political environment.

This is the first in a two-part series of conversations recorded at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello as History As It Happens goes on location, with special guests historian Alan Taylor and Brandon Dillard, Monticello's director of historic interpretation and audience engagement. Thomas Jefferson wrote the most famous, inspiring words in all of American history. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." From the moment the ink dried on the Declaration of Independence, Americans have been in a perpetual state of argument over its meaning. Democracy for whom? Freedom and equality for whom? No founding father better articulated the ideals or personified the paradox of the American Revolution. In this episode, Alan Taylor and Brandon Dillard discuss why Jefferson still matters, from his views on the nature of democracy to whether white and Black people might one day live together as equals.

As Ukraine prepares to launch its spring offensive to break the stalemate against the Russian invaders, it's unclear if Ukrainian forces will be able to reach Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula which for centuries has been of vital strategic importance. In this episode, the Quincy Institute's Anatol Lieven, who spent three weeks in Ukraine reporting on public opinion toward the war, talks about Crimea's historical relevance to today's conflict. First taken by the Tsarist Empire in the late-18th century, the Soviets transferred Crimea to the Ukraine S.S.R. in 1954. More than a half century later, the Kremlin seized it back in the aftermath of the 2014 revolution that ousted a pro-Russia president from Kyiv.

Fifty years ago the U.S. agreed to withdraw the last of its forces from Vietnam. After years of excruciating negotiations held as the combatants lost tens of thousands of casualties, the Paris Peace Accords of 1973 were heralded by President Richard Nixon as "peace with honor." But everyone who signed the accords knew peace was not in the offing. Two years later, in late April 1975, Saigon fell to the Communists. In this episode, historian Carolyn Eisenberg of Hofstra University and peace-building expert Andrew Wells-Dang of the U.S. Institute of Peace reflect on the meaning of the Paris Accords and the restoration of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Vietnam more than twenty years later. Is it possible to heal war's wounds?

Nearly 40 years before Russian security agents arrested Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and falsely charged him with spying, the KGB did the same to Nicholas Daniloff, whose plight became an international incident. The Moscow bureau chief for U.S. News and World Report, Daniloff was nabbed in the summer of 1986 as the Reagan White House was negotiating the terms of the next nuclear arms summit with the Kremlin, to be held in Iceland. Reagan personally pleaded with Gorbachev to free the American journalist. Today, President Biden and Russian leader Vladimir Putin are hardly on speaking terms. What will it take to free Evan Gershkovich?

April is Confederate Heritage Month in Mississippi. Since the Confederacy was created by secession with the aim of protecting human chattel slavery, one wonders what kind of heritage Mississippians are supposed to celebrate. Maybe Governor Tate Reeves' bland proclamation, which makes no mention of slavery, treason, or the ruin brought on by Confederate defeat, is less a statement about history than current politics. Americans are deeply divided across a range of issues, and many people view their own government as the enemy of freedom, an attitude that echoes in the words of Confederate leaders. Historian James Oakes discusses what the Confederacy was all about.

The 1990s began with the collapse of the Soviet Union and expulsion of Saddam Hussein's armies from Kuwait. As the world's only superpower, the U.S. would intervene militarily – on humanitarian grounds – in countries most Americans knew little about: Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo (but not Rwanda). President Clinton worked with Russian president Boris Yeltsin on establishing a stable U.S.-Russia relationship. China was welcomed into the world's rules-based trading system. Democracy and capitalism appeared to be on the march. The decade ended with Russia's economy in ruins and Vladimir Putin in charge of the Kremlin prosecuting a brutal war in Chechnya. In this episode, historian Michael Kimmage discusses the faulty assumptions that underpinned U.S. foreign policy during the pivotal decade between the Cold War and onset of the global war on terrorism. If the past 20 years of failed war-making and nation-building in the Greater Middle East are cause for reflection, the origins of this strategic drift may be found in the decade where U.S. leaders hoped to shape a "new world order."

Few things in life, let alone politics, are truly unprecedented. When it comes to the American presidency, Donald Trump did make history as the first former chief executive to be charged with a crime. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg got a grand jury to indict Trump on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records. Trump's case comes half a century after President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, preventing the latter from facing any legal consequences for the Watergate scandal. While Ford hoped to put the "long national nightmare" in the past, the pardon deprived the country of establishing any precedent for prosecuting rogue presidents. But no two cases will ever be the same, and in this episode, historian and Watergate chronicler Michael Dobbs discusses the major similarities and differences between then and now.

Historian Michael Kazin, a distinguished scholar of the American left, says American politics are caught in "the long 1960s." For decades Congress has been unable to pass sweeping measures desired by the progressive left to fundamentally reform American capitalism. They simply don't have the votes. In fact, neither major party recently has dominated Congress the way, for instance, Democrats did during the New Deal era, with more than 70 seats in the Senate and a massive advantage in the House. Why a partisan stalemate has endured since the 1960s is a complicated problem to unpack, but the answer leads to today's congressional math. Throughout U.S. history, very few periods of one-party dominance have occurred, periods where great legislative activity was possible.

Forty years ago, 'Return of the Jedi' opened in movie theaters, but 1983 also was a big year for another kind of 'Star Wars.' Two months before the movie premiered, President Ronald Reagan delivered a nationally televised address announcing an initiative to build a space-based missile shield that would use lasers to shoot down incoming ICBMs. Derisively dubbed "Star Wars" by skeptics -- skeptics who were right to doubt its feasibility -- Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative never amounted to anything useful. It was, however, part of Reagan's vision for a world free of nuclear weapons, a vision he successfully pursued in negotiations with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. In this episode, Joseph Cirincione, an expert on nuclear non-proliferation and national defense, discusses how the world has moved a long way in the wrong direction from the "golden age" of nuclear arms reduction treaties.

Former President Donald Trump held his first rally of the 2024 campaign near a special place in far-right mythology. Thirty years ago in Waco, Texas, federal agents lay siege to the Branch Davidian compound where charismatic religious leader David Koresh awaited the end of the world. In this episode, historian Nicole Hemmer contends Trump's choice of location was a deliberate move to stoke anti-government vibes among militias, white supremacists, sovereign citizens, and similar groups whose visibility dramatically grew during his presidency. Their ideas have bled into the mainstream of American political life, but their origins date to the 1970s -- mostly from the Mountain West and Pacific Northwest. Trump may be drawing a direct line from Waco to January 6 as a campaign motif. He ended his presidency by embracing political violence to attempt to overthrow the 2020 election, and then used his first rally of the 2024 election cycle to glorify the people serving time for the attack on the Capitol.

One consequence of the United States' massive military failures in the Greater Middle East is its waning influence in a region where U.S. leaders once dreamt democracy would spread outward from Kabul and Baghdad. As the U.S. presence and its credibility have shrunk, regional powers are looking elsewhere to resolve entrenched disputes. Enter Beijing. In this episode, the Quincy Institute's Trita Parsi discusses a potential paradigm shift that's been decades in the making. Without firing a shot or taking sides – without any military presence at all in the Middle East – China helped broker a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran that will restore diplomatic relations between the two nations. The U.S. has moved a long way in the wrong direction from the days of the Camp David Accords in 1978 and the Oslo Accords of 1993.

This is the third in a multi-part series of episodes examining the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which began on March 20, 2003. The video version of this episode will air on C-SPAN 2's American History TV on April 1. Melvin Leffler, an eminent historian of U.S. foreign policy, joins Martin Di Caro in a conversation about Leffler's new book, "Confronting Saddam Hussein." The historian argues the Bush administration was influenced by fear, overconfidence in U.S. power, and hubris rather than outright dishonesty when it drove the country to war in 2003.

This is the second in a multi-part series of episodes marking the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which began on March 20, 2003. Iraqi voices are largely absent from U.S. retrospectives on the war and its consequences. In this episode, Baghdad native and The Guardian journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad reflects on everything he witnessed over the past 20 years -- the fall of Saddam, military occupation, civil war, torture, the rise of ISIS -- through the eyes of the "liberated." Despite what some American commentators claim, Iraq is not a democracy today and neither is it "better off" thanks to the U.S. invasion. Corruption now reigns and the fabric of Iraqi society was permanently damaged. Abdul-Ahad's new book, "A Stranger in Your Own City," is a superb reporter's account of the catastrophe seen through Iraqi eyes.

This is the first in a multi-part series of episodes marking the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which began on March 20, 2003. Have Americans truly learned the lessons of the failed war in Iraq? Catherine Lutz at Brown University's Costs of War Project and historian Andrew Bacevich of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft contend that the war's disastrous consequences, including hundreds of thousands killed and millions displaced, have been memory-holed. Rather than reckon with a misplaced confidence in the efficacy of military power projection, most Americans are indifferent to or generally supportive of U.S. hegemony. In Bacevich's words, a reckoning that wasn't.

Conservative icon William F. Buckley died fifteen years ago as the George W. Bush presidency was in its last year. The movement to which Buckley had dedicated his prodigious energies and remarkable mind faced an ordeal as Bush's "compassionate conservatism" foundered on massive failures: the war, the response to Hurricane Katrina, the subprime mortgage crisis. Today, conservatives and populists are somewhat split over another major foreign policy question: should the U.S. continue to support Ukraine? Buckley's movement is also being pulled further to the right by populists, media personalities, and cranks. What would Buckley do? In this episode, National Review senior writer Daniel McLaughlin discusses the past and future of conservatism.

Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria killed at least 50,000 people. In four Turkish provinces, hundreds of buildings collapsed in seconds, trapping their occupants while government rescue teams failed to adequately respond. This was not entirely a natural disaster. Over the past several decades, Turkish governments offered builders "amnesties" allowing them to ignore safety codes, including the stronger building codes enacted after a devastating 1999 quake. The most recent amnesty occurred in 2018 under the increasingly despotic President Recep Erdogan, who now faces the most acute crisis of his two decades in power. In this episode, historian Howard Eissenstat discusses Turkey's history of shoddy construction and the political future of Erdogan's AKP party.

It's been three years since the unchecked spread of a novel coronavirus upended our daily lives. In March 2020, offices began closing, sporting events were canceled, and frightening numbers of people started dying from Covid-19. As of today, the virus has claimed the lives of more than one million Americans and at least seven million worldwide, although experts estimate as many as 20 million may have succumbed to the virus globally. In this episode, historian John Barry, an expert on the 1918 flu pandemic and a distinguished scholar at Tulane University, delves into what the world now knows about Covid's origins, masks, vaccines, and more.

As the race for the 2024 Republican nomination intensifies, it's unclear whether an important GOP constituency will continue steadfastly supporting Donald Trump, because his influence appears to be waning. Whoever wins the nomination, though, will need the backing of conservative evangelicals. They've become a dominant force in Republican politics, evidenced by the emphasis on appointing conservative judges and the relentless culture war against liberalism. In this episode, historian Darren Dochuk discusses the origins of evangelicals' rightward move and the politicization of faith -- from the aftermath of the First World War to the Cold War through the presidency of George W. Bush and the embrace of "faith-based" initiatives.

This episode was first published on June 30, 2022. New episodes of History As It Happens will resume next Tuesday, March 7, 2023. Make sure to sign up for our weekly newsletter at historyasithappens.com. On July 4, 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered remarks of enduring significance and American eloquence to an audience of abolitionists. He mixed condemnation of the nation's tolerance of slavery with hope and uplift. He embraced the founding fathers and defended the Constitution while attacking his fellow citizens for hypocrisy and inaction. "What, To The Slave, Is The Fourth Of July?" was quintessential Frederick Douglass. Historian James Oakes discusses the ideas behind Douglass' rhetorical tour de force, his relationship with Abraham Lincoln, and the critical importance of antislavery politics in bringing about the destruction of slavery.

This episode was first published on Dec. 13, 2022. New episodes of History As It Happens are coming soon. Since British prime minister Neville Chamberlain attempted to avoid war with Hitler in 1938, the word appeasement has been synonymous with moral weakness and wishful thinking. While the failure to appease the Nazi dictator offers important lessons, politicians -- and even some historians -- often invoke the infamous Munich Conference as a political cudgel with which to bash their foes. It happened during Vietnam, the wars in Iraq, and it's happening again to justify Western support for Ukraine, even though its predicament differs in significant ways from that of Czechoslovakia in 1938. In this episode, military historian Cathal Nolan differentiates propaganda from history.

This is the second episode in a two-part series marking the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022. The war in Eastern Europe will determine whether Ukraine can maintain its sovereign independence achieved in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia's war is a direct war against Ukraine, and an indirect conflict with the U.S., NATO, and "the West." Indeed, over the past year, it has become increasingly difficult to separate Ukraine's interests from those of the U.S., as both rhetoric about maintaining the liberal world order and material assistance for Ukraine's defense have flowed from Washington. Barack Obama, in an interview with The Atlantic near the end of his presidency, envisioned a different set of priorities for U.S. foreign policy. Ukraine was a core Russian interest, not an American one, he cautioned. Two years prior, Mr. Obama dismissed Russia as a "regional power" as it annexed Crimea. Fast forward to February, 2022. Days before Russia's invasion began, President Joseph R. Biden announced the U.S. would stand by Ukraine but not only for Ukraine's sake. Democracy itself was at stake. In this episode, Anatol Lieven of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft discusses what to expect as the war enters its second year and the dangers inherent in the potential escalation of conflict.

This is the first episode in a two-part series marking the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022. One year ago, Russian president Vladimir Putin may have believed he was on the precipice of a legacy-defining victory. His superior troops and tanks would roll into neighboring Ukraine – in a "special military operation" – beyond the areas of the eastern Donbas region, where Russian forces had been backing separatist groups in a stalemated conflict since 2014. Mr. Putin's armies would reach Kyiv in days, decapitate the Ukrainian government, and be greeted as liberators. Within weeks, Mr. Putin's war aims were exposed as a fantasy. In this episode, The Washington Times national security team leader Guy Taylor and Catholic University historian Michael Kimmage discuss what to expect in the coming year as well as the origins of the war, still a hotly debated topic on both sides of the Atlantic. Also, Mr. Kimmage, who worked on the Russia-Ukraine portfolio for the U.S. State Department in 2014-16, discusses the ways in which U.S. leaders talk about national interests, as Congress has approved billions in military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

No publication in recent memory has provoked more debate and political hand-wringing than the New York Times' 1619 Project. Much of the attention has focused on its specious claims that "some colonists" broke with the crown to defend slavery and its slighting of Abraham Lincoln. The 1619 Project is now a major Hulu docuseries, but it continues to present a distorted view of slavery and capitalism in an effort to showcase the importance of Black people in fighting for American democracy. In this episode, one of the project's most vocal critics, economic historian Phil Magness of the conservative American Institute for Economic Research, discusses what the New York Times' award-winning project still gets wrong.

Most Americans hadn't seen or heard the name of former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf for many years before news broke of his death earlier this month. Musharraf had been ill, living a quiet existence in self-imposed exile in Dubai, a long way in space and time from his once esteemed position as an important U.S. ally in the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Musharraf's reluctant embrace of the U.S. war helped lead to his downfall, as it riled segments of Pakistan's population of fundamentalist Islamists who opposed helping the U.S. oust the Taliban from Kabul. As the backlash to his policies escalated, Musharraf became increasingly despotic, ultimately suspending the Pakistani constitution and imposing emergency rule in 2007. In this episode, New America national security expert Peter Bergen discusses the legacy of a ruler who, after coming to power in a bloodless coup in 1999, relented to U.S. "with us or against us" ultimatums. In the end, American interests could never align with Pakistan's strategy of backing a Pashtun force in Afghanistan for strategic depth against India.

Seventy-three years ago today, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy delivered a watershed speech in his young political career in Wheeling, West Virginia. He told the Republican Women's Club that he knew of more than 200 known Communists who had infiltrated the U.S. government. "Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time. And, ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down—they are truly down," the Republican demagogue warned his audience. In this episode, historian and McCarthy biographer Rick Fried discusses his new book, "A Genius for Confusion," which illuminates the destructive power of lying in an atmosphere of heightened national angst and anti-communist paranoia. In our age of disinformation, McCarthyism has enduring relevance.

China's decision to fly a surveillance balloon over the United States led Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone his trip to Beijing at a time when U.S.-China relations are at a historic low point. But neither the balloon incident nor other recent controversies, such as Covid or the trade war, are solely responsible for wrecking once promising ties. The seeds of this burgeoning Great Power rivalry were planted decades ago, when U.S. policymakers believed helping China along its path to prosperity would lead to a more stable and peaceful world. It hasn't exactly turned out that way. In this episode, The Washington Times' Guy Taylor and Andrew Scobell of the U.S. Institute of Peace discuss the increasingly antagonistic relationship between two powers contending for primacy in the Pacific and beyond.

After weeks of criticism for refusing to send its tanks to Ukraine, Germany relented. Chancellor Olaf Schultz had hesitated in approving shipments of the Leopard 2 battle tank, although Germans citizens have steadfastly supported Ukraine in its war against Russia, and despite the fact that Schultz's government already delivered more than $1 billion in aid and arms to Ukraine the prior year. But the tank issue caused a rift in German politics over whether the country was going too far in its support for Ukraine in a war with no end in sight against a nuclear-armed foe. Germany, while not a pacifist nation, still has prominent pacifist or anti-interventionist voices in its politics who point to the country's history as the reason for avoiding deep involvement in foreign wars: Hitler, genocide, and catastrophic defeat in 1945. In this episode, historian Chris Browning brings his expertise on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust to a discussion about the burden of the German past on current politics.

When Ukraine acceded to Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1994, the country's leaders fulfilled a vow they had made as soon as Ukraine became an independent state in 1991. Ukraine would relinquish the thousands of nuclear warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles on its territory – it's "nuclear inheritance" after the collapse of the USSR. Looking back at that decision through the lens of Russia's invasion one year ago, some observers now contend that Ukraine made a mistake by voluntarily ceding its potential nuclear deterrence, although Ukraine never had independent operational command and control over the weapons. Moreover, as political scientist and nuclear historian Mariana Budjeryn demonstrates in her new book, "Inheriting the Bomb," the majority of Ukrainian political and military leaders in the early 1990s viewed holding onto the nukes as more dangerous than it might be worth. In this episode, Budjeryn discusses the momentous events and decisions that resulted in Ukraine transferring all its nuclear weapons to Russia to be dismantled. She illuminates an important chapter in international relations that left Ukraine in a diplomatic and political no man's land from which it could not completely extract itself over the next 30 years.

In these politically polarized times, Americans have a partisan media that suits the circumstances. Or do biased news and information sources drive the polarization? Whatever the case, public trust in the mass media to accurately report the news is about as low as pollsters have ever found it. The marked ebbing of trust comes as people consume information, credible or not, from more sources than ever before: social media, blogs, podcasts, web sites, YouTube channels, etc., etc. But before you pine for the good ol' days of a neutral press, the notion that journalism should be professional and independent rather than partisan, is relatively new in U.S. history. In fact, from the start of the republic, newspapers and pamphlets were openly partisan and often supported by political patronage. In this episode, historian Jeff Pasley talks about the ways in which the early partisan newspapers bolstered democracy, and how today's media landscape is corroding it.

One of the first moves House Republicans made upon assuming the chamber's majority was to create, in a party-line vote of 221-211, the "Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government." But rather than use that unwieldy moniker, GOP leaders appropriated the name of an iconic investigative committee from a bygone era. In 1975, in an 82-4 vote, the Senate created the Church committee, which was chaired by Idaho Democratic Sen. Frank Church, to investigate the FBI, CIA, and NSA. (Its official title was the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities). Church's panel examined decades of egregious abuses, which were brought to light as Americans recovered from the traumas of Vietnam and Watergate. In this episode, historian Sam Martin, the Frank and Bethine Church Endowed Chair of Public Affairs at Boise State University in Idaho, compares and contrasts the historically important work of the original Church committee with the aims of today's House GOP.

What if the U.S. had taken a more active and constructive role in international affairs after the First World War, rather than reject the Treaty of Versailles and refuse to join the League of Nations? In the view of historian Robert Kagan, another global conflict would have been avoided, and Adolph Hitler might never have been appointed German chancellor as he was in January 1933. This is the subject of Kagan's latest book, "The Ghost at the Feast," and in this episode, he defends his thesis concerning the importance of U.S. leadership, or its absence, after the seismic shifts in global power caused by the war of 1914-18. As Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, put it in a recent essay in Foreign Affairs about U.S. support for Ukraine, "Only American power can keep the natural forces of history at bay." Is that true today? Was it true between 1919 and 1939?

For all the legitimate concern about the fate of American democracy and our governing institutions, relatively little attention is paid to Congress' inability or unwillingness to check the war powers of the "imperial presidency." The War Powers Resolution of 1973, passed in the aftermath of the Johnson and Nixon administrations' abuses during the Vietnam War, was supposed to empower Congress to end endless wars, but a half century later we can see that the U.S. still intervened in many crises often with disastrous consequences. And the most recent attempt to use the war powers ended in failure, when Senator Bernie Sanders withdrew his resolution to stop U.S. support for Saudi Arabia's cruel war in Yemen, which has left thousands of civilians dead while producing an epic humanitarian crisis. In this episode, historians Jeremi Suri and Jeffrey Engel reveal the reasons why the War Powers Resolution has never been used to end a U.S. military adventure, and what might be done to end "endless American war".

As politics grew increasingly violent in the 1850s, Americans understood that unresolvable conflicts over the extension of slavery and the disproportionate political power of the slaveholders could lead to disunion and war. In the view of some historians, activism outside Congress, driven by radical abolitionists as well as pro-slavery ruffians, forced the major parties to seek compromises to hold the country together, only to fall short because of the immensity of the problem and intransigence of the Slave Power. This political turmoil produced prolonged and acrimonious contests for House speaker, a history that suddenly became relevant again when the House needed 15 ballots over five days to elect California Rep. Kevin McCarthy. In this episode, University of Connecticut historian Manisha Sinha, a leading authority on the history of slavery and abolition, talks about the parallels between past and present as Americans witness today's political polarization worsening.

The election of California Rep. Kevin McCarthy as House speaker after five days and 15 ballots exposed divisions within the Republican Party that may not portend well for the immediate future of his party, the chamber, or the country. With one exception (1923), no speakership election since the Civil War needed more than one ballot. And in the antebellum U.S. is where we might find parallels to today's political turmoil. Before the Civil War, speakership fights were often acrimonious, extended affairs reflecting the nation's violent, deep political divisions over slavery. The 1855-56 speakership election took 133 ballots! In this episode, historian Sean Wilentz, author of The Rise of American Democracy, discusses which lessons from those long-ago fights apply to today's crisis of democracy.

As President Biden enters the third year of his presidency, his only obvious foreign policy success lies in Ukraine, where U.S. and NATO support has proved decisive in stopping -- at least so far -- Russia's war of aggression. Mr. Biden has framed his foreign policy by saying the U.S. is in a global contest pitting democracies versus autocracies. Is that a Biden Doctrine? In this episode, we examine the history of presidential doctrines, and The Washington Times' reporters Guy Taylor and Ben Wolfgang talk about the foreign policy challenges that lie ahead for the Biden administration as 2023 unfolds.

January 1 marked the 160th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, a major step in a process of world historical importance, the abolition of slavery in the United States. Yet nowadays some historians argue that the proclamation was illegal, unconstitutional, or without important consequences for the enslaved. Others contend that the antislavery amendment that followed in 1865 was a betrayal of Black Americans, because it allowed for their "re-enslavement" in prisons. In this episode, historian James Oakes reminds us of the real meaning of Lincoln's proclamation, as it was part of a decades-long effort to rid the U.S. of human chattel slavery and fulfill the promise of our founding documents.

Note: This is the final episode of 2022. History As It Happens will be back with new episodes the first week of January, 2023. Enjoy the holidays! In his misguided drive to reassert Russian power by trying (and failing) to turn Ukraine into a vassal state, Vladimir Putin has exposed his country's weakness while doing incalculable damage to his neighbor. Yet despite his epic miscalculation, Putin retains the support of Russia's elites, some of whom fear that defeat in Ukraine will lead to state collapse in Moscow. In this episode, Russia expert Thomas Graham of the Council on Foreign Relations explains how history informs the Russian imagination about its place in the world and its relationship to Eastern Europe.

Since British prime minister Neville Chamberlain attempted to avoid war with Hitler in 1938 by agreeing to carve up Czechoslovakia, the word appeasement has been synonymous with moral weakness and wishful thinking. While the failure to appease the Nazi dictator offers important lessons, politicians -- and even some historians -- often invoke the infamous Munich Conference as a political cudgel with which to bash their foes. It happened during Vietnam, the wars in Iraq, and it's happening again as the West supports Ukraine. In this episode, military historian Cathal Nolan differentiates propaganda from history.

Since September thousands of ordinary Iranian citizens have risked their lives -- and hundreds have lost their lives -- protesting the ayatollahs' rule after the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old woman had been arrested by the clerical regimes' morality police for not wearing her hijab the way the clerics have prescribed. The street protests are said to be the biggest challenge for the regime since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, but it remains unclear if the demonstrators can compel their government to embrace fundamental change. In this episode, historian John Ghazvinian explains why the Islamic Republic's power has endured despite widespread domestic discontent and international isolation.

Merry Christmas! Or is it Happy Holidays?! Either way, the most intense shopping season of the year is underway. American consumers' senses are being assaulted by non-stop commercials for Christmas gifts. Songs, movies, and other forms of pop culture lend a secular element to what is for many Christians a religious celebration, too. There's also Santa Claus and Christmas trees and yule logs and more. Our modern version of Christmas is an amalgam of traditions that developed over many centuries with input from an array of cultures. And as historian Ruth McClelland-Nugent tells us in this episode, the commercialization that took off in the 19th century is what made Christmas so popular.

Remarkable scenes are unfolding across China. Ordinary citizens are taking to the streets to protest the regime's "Zero Covid" strategy that has locked millions of people in their homes and disrupted the country's economic output. The demonstrations are the largest show of resistance to the Communist Party's power since the pro-democracy movement that flowered in Tiananmen Square in 1989. In this episode, China analyst Weifeng Zhong of the Mercatus Center explains the roots of the regime's missteps under president Xi Jinping and whether the protests might coalesce into a movement for change.

It's a small group no one wants to be a member of. Since the dawn of the republic only 10 elected presidents have been rejected by voters in their bids for a second term. Only one of those, Grover Cleveland, was able to win a non-consecutive term after losing his first re-election campaign. This is another way of saying that history doesn't offer many guides to help us understand our turbulent politics today, as Donald Trump seeks another shot at the White House after his bitter 2020 defeat. And the man who unseated him, Joe Biden, has left open the door to stepping aside come 2024 -- another rarity in presidential politics. In this episode, historian Jeffrey Engel focuses our attention on the election of 1912 when a popular former president tried to win another term after four years away from the White House.

This conversation with George Washington University historian David Silverman was featured on C-SPAN's 'American History TV.' Silverman talks about the history of Thanksgiving and the importance of mythic origin stories in American society and culture.