History Unplugged Podcast

After Yorktown, a truce was declared in America, although some skirmishes did break out until final peace was negotiated in Paris in 1783. In this episode, Scott and James looks at what happened to the British and American generals and politicians involved in the war.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On October 14, 1781, Washington and French General Comte de Rochambeau attacked on October 14th, capturing two British defense. British Gen. Cornwallis surrendered two days later.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Battle of Yorktown sealed the fate of the Revolutionary War. In late 1781, American and French troops laid siege to the British Army at Yorktown, Virginia. First, a bit of backgroun. The partisan warfare that kept occurring in the upcountry of the Carolinas made it impossible for the British to obtain supplies from there. This in turn made it necessary for Cornwallis to keep his army relatively close to the coast. Greene kept his army far enough from Cornwallis to avoid a major pitched battle while constantly trying to lure Cornwallis away from the coast. Greene’s strategy was (in Allen Guelzo’s words) “dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” In this, he was assisted by a cavalry commander named Col. Henry (“Light Horse Harry”) Lee, as well as Francis Marion and Daniel Morgan. Skirmishers of the two armies occasionally fought each other, but the main armies never met.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Battles of King's Mountain and Cowpens were fought in 1781, between the Continental Army under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan and British forces under Lieutenant Colonel Sir Banastre Tarleton, as part of the campaign in the Carolinas. Daniel Morgan, who had been sent south by Washington, joined Nathanael Greene’s army. Greene decided to send Morgan with a force of militia and cavalry westward. This dividing of his army was risky, but Greene wrote “It makes the most of my inferior force for it compels my adversary to divide his.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1788, the battle lines of the Revolutionary War moved from New England to the southern colonies. Lord George Germain, the British secretary responsible for the war, wrote to Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton that capturing the southern colonies was "considered by the King as an object of great importance in the scale of the war" Germain and the king believed that the majority of southern colonists were loyalists and that if the British army could take key parts of the South, Loyalists would rise up to join the British and at the very least, the southern colonies could be brought back into the empire. In September 1778, the Continental Congress appointed Benjamin Lincoln as the commander of Continental forces in the South. In November of that year, British forces conducted several raids into Georgia. The next month, a force of about 3000 British regulars under Archibald Campbell arrived and captured Savannah on December 29. They took Augusta a month later but soon withdrew due to the presence of American forces nearby.Plus, we look at Benedict Arnold's treason.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Battle of Rhode Island (also known as the Battle of Quaker Hill and the Battle of Newport) took place on August 29, 1778. The battle was the first attempt at cooperation between French and American forces following France’s entry into the war as an American ally.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After the setbacks of 1777 and 1778, other American officers angled to take Washington's position as leader of the Continental Army. A conspiracy called the Conway Cable tried but failed to force him out. Washington shored up his support after victory at the Battle of Monmouth.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Philadelphia Campaign of 1777-8 was a British attempt to capture Philadelphia, then capital of the United States and seat of the Continental Congress, led by Gen. William Howe. They did capture the city, but British disaster loomed north in the Saratoga campaign, threatening any British gains.Correction: The Schuylkill River was pronounced "Sky-Kill", but it is actually pronounced "School - Kill."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Battle of Saratoga was incredible turn of fortunes for the United States. British , Gen. John Burgoyne thought he would cut off New England from the rest of the colonies. Instead, he lost the battle and was forced to surrender 20,000 troops. Saratoga was also Benedict Arnold's finest hour. He loathed American commander Horatio Gates, who relieved Arnold of his command. Nonetheless, at the Battle of Bemis Heights on October 7, 1777, Arnold took command of American soldiers whom he led in an assault against the British. Arnold’s fierce attack disordered the enemy and led to American victory. The decisive Patriot victory compelled France to enter the war as an ally with the United States.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 do with a 500-year-old story of emerging global trade, mistaken identity, foreign language confusion, and how the turkey took Europe by storm as a must-have status symbol for the ultra-wealthy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Saratoga campaign gave a decisive victory to the Americans over the British during the American Revolutionary War. The battle also saw great heroics by Benedict Arnold.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Washington and his men had their work cut out for them after crossing the Delaware River. Over the next ten days, they won two battles. First, the Patriots defeated a Hessian garrison on December 26th. They then returned to Trenton a week later to draw British force south, then launched a night attack to capture Princeton on January 3rd. With the victory, New Jersey fell into Patriot hands.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On July 4, 1826, as Americans lit firecrackers to celebrate the country’s fiftieth birthday, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were on their deathbeds. They would leave behind a groundbreaking political system and a growing economy—as well as the glaring inequalities that had undermined the American experiment from its beginning. The young nation had outlived the men who made it, but could it survive intensifying divisions over the very meaning of the land of the free?In today's episode, I'm speaking with Holly Jackson about her new book American Radicals, which looks at this new network of dissent—connecting firebrands and agitators on pastoral communes, in urban mobs, and in genteel parlors across the nation—that vowed to finish the revolution they claimed the Founding Fathers had only begun. They were men and women, black and white, fiercely devoted to causes that pitted them against mainstream America even while they fought to preserve the nation’s founding ideals: the brilliant heiress Frances Wright, whose shocking critiques of religion and the institution of marriage led to calls for her arrest; the radical Bostonian William Lloyd Garrison, whose commitment to nonviolence would be tested as the conflict over slavery pushed the nation to its breaking point; the Philadelphia businessman James Forten, who presided over the first mass political protest of free African Americans; Marx Lazarus, a vegan from Alabama whose calls for sexual liberation masked a dark secret; black nationalist Martin Delany, the would-be founding father of a West African colony who secretly supported John Brown’s treasonous raid on Harpers Ferry—only to ally himself with Southern Confederates after the Civil War.Though largely forgotten today, these figures were enormously influential in the pivotal period flanking the war, their lives and work entwined with reformers like Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Henry David Thoreau, as well as iconic leaders like Abraham Lincoln. Jackson writes them back into the story of the nation’s most formative and perilous era in all their heroism, outlandishness, and tragic shortcomings.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do historical “villains” like Benedict Arnold, Vidkun Quisling, and Emperor Caligula deserve their terrible reputations, or are they victims of biased accounts? In this rebroadcast of a live event in the History Unplugged Facebook Page, Scott gets into what makes somebody a true bad guy in the past (unsurprisingly, Hitler makes this list), somebody best described as misunderstood, and somebody who deserves a rehabilitation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ulysses S. Grant arrives to take command of all Union armies in March 1864 to the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox a year later. Over 180,000 black soldiers in the Union army. And most of all, William Tecumseh Sherman launches his scorched-earth March to the Sea. Other events include the rise of Clara Barton; the election of 1864 (which Lincoln nearly lost); the wild and violent guerrilla war in Missouri; and the dramatic final events of the war, including the surrender at Appomattox and the murder of Abraham Lincoln.Today I'm talking with S.C. Gwynne, author of Hymns of the Republic: The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War. We discuss unexpected angles and insights on the war. Ulysses S. Grant is known for his prowess as a field commander, but in the final year of the war he largely fails at that. His most amazing accomplishments actually began the moment he stopped fighting. William Tecumseh Sherman was a lousy general, but probably the single most brilliant man in the war. We also meet a different Clara Barton, one of the greatest and most compelling characters, who redefined the idea of medical care in wartime. And proper attention is paid to the role played by large numbers of black union soldiers—most of them former slaves. They changed the war and forced the South to come up with a plan to use its own black soldiers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Up until the recent past, if a soldier was wounded in battle, he remained in the field where he had fallen without hope of rescue. Maybe a comrade would drag him to safety, but more likely he would remain there for days, hoping for aid (or, barring that, death). Not that ancients knew nothing of combat medicine. Alexander the Great had tourniquets applied to soldiers with bleeding extremity wounds. Stretchers made of wicker were used in medieval battles. Triage was used in the Napoleonic corps. It was not until the Civil War that something like an ambulance service developed. Everything change in 1862 when Dr. Jonathan Letterman developed a three-tier evacuation system still used today. First was the field dressing station near the battlefield. The second was the field hospital (or MASH units). Finally a large hospital for those needing prolonged treatment.Today, death rates in battle have plummeted, thanks to the work of combat medics, who keep soldiers from dying at their most vulnerable time.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Confederacy won the early battles of the Civil War, led by brilliant generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee (to name a few) against blundering Union commanders like the endlessly dithering George McClellan. The war only turned after Lincoln found the right generals such as Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman. This Civil War narrative—that Union generals improved while Confederate ones worsened—is popular and well-supported. Is it accurate, or did circumstances of the war bring out the true character of each general?The answer isn't a simple 'yes' or 'no' but Scott will do his best to explain what makes a Civil War general a good one and how they improved or worsened over the course of the war.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

History Channel documentaries and pop historians have argued that when Constantine converted to Christianity in the fourth century, he was merely following the religious demographic trends of the Roman Empire and thought paganism to be a political dead end. The idea makes sense at first glance. But the story of Constantine's conversion—and later the entire empire's—goes far beyond political opportunism (although there is plenty of that). Constantine did not choose his new religion to chase after changing demographics in the Empire; Christianity was a lower-class religion disfavored by the pagans who overwhelmingly made up the Roman army and cavalry—the exact people that an emperor really needed to appease to hold onto power. Plus, recent studies on Constantine argue that Christianity would have spread regardless of the emperor's choice, although it would have happened at a later date. The Roman Catholic Church did drape itself in Roman symbolism and forged fictional lines of continuity between itself and the empire, but only after the sixth century, when the Western Roman Empire had completely collapsed and become a ghost that haunted Europe throughout the Middle Ages. Any resemblance between the empire and the church came after the former collapse and was largely coincidental.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Most Americans are unclear about their country’s contribution to victory in World War I. They figure we entered the conflict too late to claim much credit, or maybe they think our intervention was discreditable. Some say we had no compelling national interest to enter the Great War; worse, our intervention allowed Britain and France to force on Germany an unjust, punitive peace that made the rise of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers Party inevitable. Had we stayed out of the war, the argument goes, the Europeans would have been compelled to make a reasonable, negotiated peace, and postwar animosity would have been lessened. In this episode, we explore whether American involvement in World War One led to needless slaughter or served the purpose of creating a better future for Europe and the United States than would have been the case if Germany's Second Reich had dominated the continent.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hans Kammler was among the worst of the Nazis. He was responsible for the construction of Hitler’s slave labor sites and concentration camps. He personally altered the design of Auschwitz to increase crowding, ensuring that epidemic diseases would complement the work of the gas chambers. So pleased was Hitler by his work that he put him in charge of the Nazi rocket and nuclear weapons programs. At the end of the war he had more power than SS chief Heinrich Himmler. Even among the SS he was feared for his brutish nature.So why has the world never heard of him? Today I'm speaking with Dean Reuter, author of the new book “The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America’s Deal with the Devil” he and collaborators Colm Lowery and Keith Chester spent a combined decades tracking down Kammler's trail. Long believed to have committed suicide, they discovered that he may have escaped exposure and justice through a secret deal with America.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At the end of 1776 George Washington was in a desperate situation. The Continental Army had retreated completely out of New York after losing Long Island to British General William Howe. Many of his soldiers' contracts were set to expire at years end. He needed a dramatic victory, and fast. An opportunity arose when intelligence revealed Hessian forces camped in Trenton, New Jersey that were vulnerable to a sneak attack.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The New York Campaign ended in decisive victory for the British and terrible defeat for the Continental Army, which barely escaped destruction. It was completely driven out of New York fro the rest of the war, and the British used it as a base of attack against other targets for years to come.Correction: It was claimed the Turtle (the words first submersible sea vessel) was unmanned. In fact, it was manned by a pilot named Ezra Lee, who steered it toward its destination then got out of it prior to trying to detonate it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When the British left Boston, George Washington realized that their eventual destination would be New York City. He quickly traveled to NYC to oversee the building of defenses, organized the Continental Army into divisions, and prepared for the invasion. What happened next was the largest battle of the entire war and (if not for a miraculous stroke of good luck in the form of fog) the near-total defeat of the Patriots.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the background of the opening battles of the Revolutionary War, an assembly of colonial statesmen issued a document announcing their formal separation from the British Empire. How did this document come about, what did the British make of it, and how revolutionary were these ideas to an eighteenth century audience?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Battle of Quebec, fought on December 31, 1775, marked the end of American offensive operations in Canada. General Richard Montgomery was killed, Arnold wounded, and Daniel Morgan and more than four hundred American soldiers taken prisoner. Returning forces of the Continental Army arrived ragged and nearly starved.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Continental Army thought they could rally the French-speaking residents of Canada in their uprising against the British. Such thinking led to the Quebec Campaign. Although a major defeat for the Americans, it showed the dogged determinism of American commander Benedict Arnold, who also showed his bravery in the Battle of Saratoga before defecting to the British.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"Dont' fire till you see the white's of their eyes!" -- famous words, and smart strategy for using terribly inaccurate muskets, but what were the conditions that gave arise to that advice? Find out in this episode, as the Battle of Bunker hill wraps up.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With the Revolutionary War turning from cold to hot, the British made plans to send troops from Boston to break the Colonials' siege of that city and occupy the surrounding hills. About one thousand militiamen fortified Breed's Hill to prepare for the coming onslaught. It was the first serious battle that pitted the fiery but inexperienced colonists against the battle-hardened British.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Continental Army and the British Army were significantly different in their organizational structure, levels of experience, and funding. The Continental Army was an undisciplined, unprepared fighting force with makeshift uniforms and sloppy tactics (at least at the beginning of the war). The British Army was the world's elite fighting force and fresh of victory of the globe-spanning Seven Years War against France and her allies. What caused the Continental Army to prevail in the Revolutionary War?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Battles of Lexington and Concord were of minor military significance but of world-historical importance in the modern era. They were the first military engagements of the Revolutionary War, marking the outbreak of armed conflict between Great Britain and its thirteen colonies on the North American mainland. Fought on April 19, 1775, the battles of Lexington and Concord ruin British political strategy of ending colonial opposition to the Intolerable Acts and seizing weapons of rebels. Revolutionary leaders such as John Adams considered the battle to be a point of no return: “The Die was cast, the Rubicon crossed,” he said.Correction: Concord was pronounced "Con - cord," but locals pronounce it as "Con - Curd"See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our series is picking up steam as we jump to the years immediately prior to the Shot Heard 'Round the World. James and Scott discuss the interregnum between the French-Indian War and the Revolutionary War, the Sugar Act (1764), the Stamp Act (1765), then Townsend Acts (1767), the Boston Massacre (1770), the Tea Act (1773), and the Coercive Acts (1774).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Grab your musket and your portion of rum, Yankee, because we have a war to fight! James Early returns to the History Unplugged Podcast to kick off a massive series called Key Battles of the Revolutionary War. We get in-depth into the battles that determined the outcome of one of the most consequential wars in history. But we also go deep into the background of social, political, cultural, and theological aspects of the of the 18th century.Scott and James kick off this episode by talking about the global-level changes in society that made the Revolutionary War possible in the 1770s, and almost impossible anytime earlier. They have to do with changes in warfare and weapons, government/society, political philosophy, British governing policy, and the American colonies themselves.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Grab your tricorne hat and musket because next week we are kicking off a massive series called Key Battles of the Revolutionary War.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2017, over 47,000 Americans died as the result of opioid overdoses, more than died annually in this country during the peak of the AIDs epidemic, and more than die every year from breast cancer. But despite the unprecedented efforts of regulators, activists, politicians, and doctors to address the overdose epidemic, it has only become more deadly, the legion of quick fixes often falling into the very same traps that have foiled humans attempting to tame the scourge of opium addiction for centuries. To understand and combat the overdose crisis, we must understand how it came to be. Today I'm speaking with Dr. John Halpern and David Blistein, authors of the new book “Opium: How an Ancient Flower Shaped and Poisoned Our World.” The story begins with the discovery of poppy artifacts in ancient Mesopotamia, and goes on to explore how Greek physicians forgotten chemists discovered opium's effects and refined its power, how colonial empires marketed it around the world, and eventually how international drug companies developed a range of powerful synthetic opioids that led to an epidemic of addiction. Opium has played a fascinating role in building our modern world, from trade networks to medical protocols to drug enforcement policies.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dwight Eisenhower inaugurated the US. Interstate System, which now boasts more than 50,000 miles of roads. The idea came to a young Eisenhower in 1919 when he spent 62 days with a military convoy snaking across America on its primitive road system. But the idea for a trans-continental road network go back much further than Eisenhower. George Washington talked of the need for a vast system of roads to stitch together the nation. But the true genesis of the U.S. Interstate system is the Roman Empire's road network. The empire in the first century constructed a network of 50,000 miles of paved roads, connecting its capital to the farthest-flung provinces. This fostered trade and commerce but most importantly allowed the Roman army to march quickly. The United States built its network for largely the same reasons.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On August 9, 1974, Richard Nixon became the first and only U.S. president to resign from office—to avoid almost certain impeachment. Utterly disgraced, he was forced to flee the White House with a small cadre of advisors and family. Richard Nixon was a completely defeated man.Yet only a decade later, Nixon was a trusted advisor to presidents, dispensing wisdom on campaign strategy and foreign policy, shaping the course of U.S.-Soviet summit meetings, and representing the U.S. at state funerals—the model of an elder statesman. Kasey Pipes, author of “After the Fall: The Remarkable Comeback of Richard Nixon,” tells us about surprises like this: -- How Nixon’s advice on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) shaped Ronald Reagan’s negotiations with Gorbachev— and changed history-- How Nixon traveled to China after Tiananmen Square to help preserve the U.S.-Chinese relations that he had opened up years earlier-- The Saturday morning presidential radio address: a Nixon idea-- Nixon’s surprising friendship with Bill ClintonSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Vikings and African queens to cross-dressing military doctors and WWII Russian fighter pilots, battle was not a metaphor for women across history.But for the most part, women warriors have been pushed into the historical shadows, hidden in the footnotes, or half-erased. Yet women have always gone to war—or fought back when war came to them. They fought to avenge their families, defend their homes (or cities or nations), win independence from a foreign power, expand their kingdom's boundaries, or satisfy their ambition. They battled disguised as men. They fought, undisguised, on the ramparts of besieged cities. Some were skilled swordsmen or trained snipers, others fought with improvised weapons. They were hailed as heroines and cursed as witches, sluts, or harridans.In todays episode I'm speaking with Pamela Toler, author of the book Women Warriors. She uses both well known and obscure examples, drawn from the ancient world through the twentieth century and from Asia and Africa as well as from the West. Looking at specific examples of historical women warriors, she considers why they went to war, how those reasons related to their roles as mothers, daughters, wives, or widows, peacemakers, poets or queens—and what happened when women stepped outside their accepted roles to take on other identities.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dracula Untold has absolutely no right being as historically accurate as it is. Made in 2014, this was Universal Studio's first attempt to use the intellectual property of their 1930s monster movies and turn it into a Marvel-esque cinematic universe. As a result, it is full of X-men type superpowers, CGI, and what Scott calls "supernatural shenanigans." Despite all this, the film accurately describes Ottoman forms of imperial expansion in the fifteenth century, shows us period accurate costumes, and even has actors speaking in passable Turkish! Why on earth did this film do its history homework when other so-called serious historical dramas not even bother?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the final two episodes of this mini-series, Steve and Scott talk about movies that actually do a good job of conveying history, or at least as much as possible when handled by Hollywood producers enslaved to suggestions from marketing research reports. The first film is the Alamo (2004).The purported goal of the filmmakers was to have this movie be as historically accurate as possible, or at least more so than the John Wayne Alamo film of 1960. It stars Dennis Quaid as Sam Houston, Billy Bob Thornton as Davy Crockett, Patrick Wilson as William Travis, Jason Patric as Jim Bowie, and Jordi Molla as Juan Seguin.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Subscribe today for access to all premium episodes! https://patreon.com/unpluggedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Demi Moore did not win any Academy Awards for her portrayal of 17th-century Puritan Hester Prynne. But she did succeed in transforming Nathaniel Hawthorne's famous moral drama into a Cinemax movie that also features Indians, deadly fights, burning buildings, flaming arrows, and a rousing speech in which Dimmsdale calls for sexual freedom. Dear listeners, this is not a good film.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In our second John Wayne film, we watch the Duke put on a fake fu manchu mustache and yellow face makeup to play the role he was born NOT to play: Genghis Khan. Scott and Steve discuss the infamous film that, in addition to featuring the worst casting choice in Hollywood history, has hundreds of anachronisms and, worst of all, may have killed dozens of the cast and crew from radiation poisoning due to being filmed near a nuclear test site. The sins of this movie are many and we do our best to chronicle them all.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

John Wayne was 62 years old when he tried to portray a fit Vietnam War Green Beret colonel, but the obvious age gap isn't the only head scratcher in this film. Released in 1968, the film was Lyndon B. Johnson-approved attempt to shift American opinion on the Vietnam War. Listen to this episode to see if it worked.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Based on Dan Brown's mega best-selling instructional manual on how to write terrible English, Scott and Steve discuss "The Da Vinci Code," the 2006 Ron Howard film that dares to ask the question: Has the secret life of Jesus been hidden by the Catholic Church and heroically uncovered by half-baked conspiracy theorists who have an extremely poor understandings of the gnostic gospels? The answer will shock you!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the second episode of this series, Stephen tells us everything he doesn't like about the 2009 film Agora, which is a lot. The movie stars Rachel Weisz (maybe the only good thing about the film) as Hypatia, a real-life 4th/5th-century philosopher in Alexandria killed by political infighting among politicians and clergy. Her actual story is very interesting and tells us much about late Roman civic life, but this movie turns her into a genius that is one part Isaac Newton, two parts Tony Stark, ready to discover a heliocentric solar system a thousand years before Copernicus; however, an ignorant mob kills her and burns her scrolls before she has the chance. To put it very mildly, the film takes liberties with the truth.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode is the first in a mini-series that Scott is doing with fellow history podcaster Stephen Guerra (History of the Papacy, Beyond the Big Screen) about some of the most historically inaccurate movies that have ever appear. We kick off this series with Ridley Scott's 2005 Crusader epic Kingdom of Heaven. Scott really did not like this movie. He considers it the worst example of screenwriter wish fulfillment to go back in time and teach horribly intolerant historical figures how to live by 21st-century values, even though they make no sense in context. The movie is so anachronistic that Orlando Bloom's knight character might as well wear a "Coexist" T-shirt during the entire film. (originally broadcasted on Beyond the Big Screen)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Next week an eight-part mini-series called Hollywood Hates History launches. Scott co-hosts with fellow history podcaster Steve Guerra to look at some of the most historically inaccurate movies ever made. Offenders include "The Scarlet Letter," the 1995 Demi Moore atrocity; "The Conqueror," a Genghis Khan biopic starring John Wayne; and "Kingdom of Heaven," in which Legolas the Elf successfully creates universal religious harmony in the 12th century Middle East.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Americans and Europeans are confused by much about each other, especially their respective governmental systems. Europeans are baffled by American elections, the powers of the president, and most of all, the electoral college (how again is the popular vote winner not the president?). Americans are even more baffled by parliamentary politics, especially how the prime minister and even the entire ruling party can be removed before election time by this mystical tool of government called a “vote of no confidence.” What on earth does that mean? Scott's first encounter with this term was, sadly, in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, in which Natalie Portman's Queen Amidala removes the current chancellor for power for his failure to stop the Trade Federation's invasion of Naboo by such a vote. Getting beyond bad filmmaking and Jar Jar Binks, what does a vote of no confidence actually mean? Where does it come from? And how has it been used in the past? This episode goes over much more, especially the main differences with the British House of Commons vs. the American House of Representatives. Moreover, it looks at the differences between politicians being loyal to the nation vs. being loyal to their political party.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

George Washington is nearly as famous for his character as he is a general and statesman. In this episode we look at his famed attributes for leadership and doing such things as keeping together the fragile Continental Army in the hungriest, coldest days of the Revolutionary War. But perhaps the rarest quality of Washington was his ability not to seize power when he could. Many conquering generals – such as Napoleon – rode into the capital after great victories and took the throne. Washington was the opposite. He only assumed the presidency under great reluctance and refused to serve more than two terms – creating a status quo that lasted 150 years.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.