History Unplugged Podcast

Fiction abounds with stories of Nazi Superscience: From Captain America's nemesis Red Skull to the B-movie treasure Iron Sky (which suggests the Third Reich established a moon base after the war). But the trope is based in some fact. Nazis did aggressively research cutting edge weapons to turn the tide of a war they were increasingly losing. Some weapons, such as the V2 rocket, did see production and terrorized the Allies. Others were advanced but impractical, such as 1000-ton tanks. Still others existed completely in the realm of science fiction, such as an orbital mirror that could focus enough solar energy to create a laser that could incinerate a city or fry an ocean.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With the endless talk of COVID-19, many think we are facing an unprecedented threat of the collapse of our civilization. But Dan Carlin, host of Hardcore History, doesn’t believe anything we are facing is unprecedented. He’s spent years looking at apocalyptic moments from the past as a way to understand the challenges of the future.Dan joins us on today’s episode to discuss some of the biggest questions in history. Do tough times create tougher people? Can humanity handle the power of its weapons without destroying itself? Will human technology or capabilities ever peak or regress? Will our world ever become a ruin for future archaeologists to dig up and explore? The questions themselves are both philosophical and like something out of The Twilight Zone.We go all over the place in this episode, from the collapse of the Bronze Age to the challenges of the nuclear era the issue, which has hung over humanity like a persistent Sword of Damocles. But just as he does on his own show, Dan manages to make the most complicated stories engaging and entertaining.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Before the 1900s, solving a murder was done using conjectural theories or flimsy psychological notions of what makes a killer a killer. That all changed with the development of forensic techniques employed at crime scenes, but few know the origin story of these now taken-for-granted methods of solving murders and other misdeeds. It all changed with the revolutionary contributions of Edward Oscar Heinrich who pioneered many of the forensic techniques used today. Today’s guest is Kate Dawson, author of the book American Sherlock, who gives Heinrich his due with an account of his work on some of the most perplexing and notorious cases of the first half of the twentieth century. The press at the time dubbed Edward Oscar Heinrich ‘America’s Sherlock Holmes’ thanks to his brilliance in the lab, his cool demeanor at crime scenes, and his expertise in the witness chair. He invented new forensic techniques. A CSI in the field and inside the lab before the acronym existed. And he was a nascent innovator of criminal profiling fifty years before the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit invented its methodology.Never a member of a police force, Heinrich was brought in to consult on many high profile cases, including the legendary rape and manslaughter trial of movie comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle (a case the prosecution ultimately lost when the jury neglected to accept Heinrich’s finger print evidence). Bloodstain pattern analysis, ballistics, the use of UV rays to detect blood, hair and fiber evidence, handwriting analysis—all were virtually unheard of methods that Heinrich employed to bring criminals to justice. Often the cutting-edge techniques that Heinrich engaged in the lab and brought to the courtroom as an expert witness would rile the authorities, even as they galvanized the public. Edward Oscar Heinrich quietly and unassumingly offered a revolutionary approach—the immutable proof that science and reason could provide to the thrilling, often messy world of crime solving.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A listener named Liam requested an episode looking at a deep dive into his hometown of Montreal and how it came to be a center of commerce and culture in North America. We’ll do that, but rather than talk about historical buildings and fountains (and other facts you'd find in a Frommers Guide) we’ll look way deeper and see how Montreal was a cultural powerhouse in its long history, everything from an underground railroad destination to a Prohibition-era hot spot with jazz clubs and cabarets, all the way up to its present-day status as a bilingual mecca.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Go to www.historyunpluggedpodcast.com to learn about Scott's new upcoming book "History's 9 Most Insane Rulers" and how you can get exclusive content.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The 1920s in Florida was a time of incredible excess, immense wealth, and precipitous collapse. The decade there produced the largest human migration in American history, far exceeding the settlement of the West, as millions flocked to the grand hotels and the new cities that rose rapidly from the teeming wetlands. The boom spawned a new subdivision civilization—and the most egregious large-scale assault on the environment in the name of “progress.” Nowhere was the glitz and froth of the Roaring Twenties more excessive than in Florida. Here was Vegas before there was a Vegas: gambling was condoned and so was drinking, since prohibition was not enforced. Tycoons, crooks, and celebrities arrived en masse to promote or exploit this new and dazzling American frontier in the sunshine. Yet, the import and deep impact of these historical events have never been explored thoroughly until now. Today's guest is Christopher Knowlton, author of Bubble in the Sun. He discusses the grand artistic and entrepreneurial visions behind Coral Gables, Boca Raton, Miami Beach, and other storied sites, as well as the darker side of the frenzy. For while giant fortunes were being made and lost and the nightlife raged more raucously than anywhere else, the pure beauty of the Everglades suffered wanton ruination and the workers, mostly black, who built and maintained the boom, endured grievous abuses. Knowlton discusses the forces that made and wrecked Florida during the decade: the real estate moguls Carl Fisher, George Merrick, and Addison Mizner, and the once-in-a-century hurricane whose aftermath triggered the stock market crash.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Quarantines are nothing new: they've been used since at least the Bronze Age to prevent the spread of leprosy. In this episode (rebroadcasted from a Facebook Livestream), we'll look at the various ways that humans rode out the plague and other disease.Some panicked, like the Flagellators during the Black Death. But others took advantage of the time and bunkered down with friends, taking long walks, enjoying delicious meals, and each telling stories (like in the Italian Renaissance work "The Decameron"). Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV retreated to his rural estates and went on long hunting trips when the bubonic plague struck Istanbul. Shakespeare took the opportunity to write poetry, and Isaac Newton invented physics.Hopefully this will give us plenty of ideas of what to do as we ride out COVID-19.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When people think of the American Civil War, specific images spring to mind—Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Scarlett O’Hara escaping a burning Atlanta in a hoop skirt, and blue and grey uniforms clashing on bloodied battlefields. The war is well researched, but there is still the little-known, yet still vastly important, history of the Civil War in the American West.I’m talking today with Megan Kate Nelson, author of The Three Cornered-War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West. Both the Union and Confederacy had their eyes on the prize that was the American West; making up more than 40 percent of the United States landmass, the territory would give whoever controlled it access to gold and Pacific ports. For the North, it was also imperative to protect its interests in New Mexico in particular, since that territory was not only the gateway to Southern California, but it also shared a border with the Confederacy, making it vulnerable to invasion by pro-slavery forces. As Nelson explains, the battles that took place in the region “illuminate the ways that the Southwest became a pivotal theater of the Civil War and the center of a larger struggle for the future of the nation, of Native peoples, and of the West.”The Western Theatre saw the complex interplay between the Civil War, the Indian wars, and western expansion, reframing this struggle as a truly national conflict. Today’s political conflicts over immigration have created chaos along the Southwest’s border with Mexico. This region has long been a site of contention, however—a place in which struggles for power have sparked armed conflict and determined federal policies regarding who, exactly, is an American.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nearly 1,600 years after Patrick arrived on Ireland (first as a slave, then as a missionary who brought Christianity to the island), he is celebrated as the patron saint of the Emerald Isle and apocryphally believed to have eliminated snakes from the island (which he didn't, but the belief makes sense if you replace snakes with pre-Christian paganistic beliefs). But what exactly are patron saints? Why is a deceased man or woman somebody who receives prayers related to travel, taxes, marriage, and telling a joke? To sort out these questions, we are joined by Michael Foley a three-time guest and a Professor of Patristics in the Great Texts Program at Baylor University in Texas. But more than tell us about the history of patron saints, Michael includes his stories with mixology, making drinks dedicated to these men and women of the cloth. Michael is author of the new book Drinking with Your Patron Saints: The Sinner’s Guide to Honoring Namesakes and Protectors. Have a problem with the IRS? Pray to St. Matthew and mix up a classic Income Tax cocktail to toast the tax collector apostle. Afraid of a snake in your basement? Imbibe an Irish whiskey and ask St. Patrick for his extermination advice. Wish there were better choices for political candidates? Plead with St. Thomas More, who presides over statesmen, as you sip on cognac to honor his nobility.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

COVID19, aka - the coronavirus, has triggered mass quarantines and spooked markets across the globe. To date, over 3,000 have died and over 100,000 infected. But however dangerous this virus ends up being, it doesn't belong in the same galaxy as Spanish Flu, which killed up to 100 million in 1918, which was 5 percent of the earth's population.Today's guest is Dr. Jeremy Brown, director of emergency care at the National Institute of Health and author of Influenza: The 100-Year Hunt to Cure the Deadliest Disease in History. He notes that great strides have been made in medicine the last century, and whatever happens next, it won’t be a second 1918.We discuss the quarantine methods used in the ancient and medieval worlds during epidemics and pandemics; how the Spanish Flu pandemic began; what it was it like for an average person in 1918 and whether there was an omnipresent fear of death, or were people mostly resigned to their fate; how the Spanish flu pandemic ended; and finally, lessons from 1918 we should heed today.Here's the bottom line: with coronavirus, you will definitely have it much, much better than your great grandpappy did with Spanish flu.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Always remember—you’re a Madison. You come from African slaves and a president”This was Betty Kearse's family motto; a way to remember that they were descended from James Madison, but also Coreen, a slave who worked on the Montpelier plantation whom her descendants believe had a child with the fourth president.Kearse, a pediatrician and author of the book “The Other Madisons: The Lost History of a President's Black Family” talks to us today about her family's 200-year journey from a slave-holding fortress in Ghana, to New York City to a brick walkway at James Madison’s Virginia plantation. In it she tries to reconcile a past that includes Madison, a giant of early America who authored the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, along with the abuses of slavery and rape. It's a complicated story but a critical one to hear to understand the complex origins of the United States.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Cold War existed vaguely in a fifty-year stretch and lacked the defining moments of a major military conflict. However, there is a strong argument to be made that it defined the 20th century. While most point to World Wars One and Two as the most important events of the century, the institutions that dominate today's nations are by-products of the Cold War: the military-industrial complex, their political systems (whether capitalist, socialist, or something in between), funding for scientific research, and even space programs.Fundamentally at stake was a question of whether the world would accept the political beliefs of Soviet Union of collectivism and communism, or the principles of economic and political democracy supported by the United States. The Cold War established America as the leader of the free world and a global superpower. It shaped U.S. military strategy, economic policy, and domestic politics for nearly 50 years.In this episode, we recount the pivotal events of this protracted struggle and explain the strategies that eventually led to its end. This includes the development and implementation of containment, détente, and finally President Reagan's philosophy: "they lose, we win."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Some American presidents appear to do their jobs in a more organized way than others, but the White House has always been filled with ambitious people playing for the highest stakes and bearing bitter grudges. There is a myth that staffs all compromise and put aside petty differences for the greater good. But behind the scenes, staff members leaked stories to gain an upper hand in policy fights, tried to get each other fired, all while seeking the favor of the president.Today's guest is presidential historian Tevi Troy, a former White House staffer and author of the new book Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump. We discuss the dramatic clashes within both Republican and Democratic administrations as their heavyweight personalities went head-to-head.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Clarence Smoyer is assigned to the gunner’s seat of his Sherman tank, his crewmates discover that the gentle giant from Pennsylvania has a hidden talent: He’s a natural born shooter.At first, Clarence and his fellow crews in the legendary 3rd Armored Division—“Spearhead”—thought their tanks were invincible.Then they met the German Panther, with a gun so murderous it could shoot through one Sherman and into the next. Soon a pattern emerged: The lead tank always gets hit.After Clarence sees his friends cut down breaching the West Wall and holding the line in the Battle of the Bulge, he and his crew are given a weapon with the power to avenge their fallen brothers: the Pershing, a state-of-the-art “super tank,” one of twenty in the European theater.But with it came a harrowing new responsibility: Now they will spearhead every attack.In this episode I'm speaking with Adam Makos, author of “Spearhead.” It's the story of an American tank gunner’s journey into the heart of the Third Reich, where he will meet destiny in an iconic armor duel—and forge an enduring bond with his enemy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you visit New York, your waiter, your cabbie, or the lady on the train playing Candy Crush could very well not be who they appear to be. That's because there are more spies working in New York City today than ever before, according to H. Keith Melton, the espionage advisor on The Americans, and Robert Wallace, the former chief of the CIA’s Office of Technical Service. But, as today's guests and the authors of the new book Spy Sites of New York City argue, the city has always been a hotbed of international intrigue. From George Washington's downtown spy ring to Alger Hiss meeting his handler in a Park Slope movie theater to the hundreds of agents using the UN as a cover at this very moment. Espionage is as much a part of the city as honking horns and delayed subways. In this episode we discuss centuries of spying in the five boroughs and beyond, walking the reader through surprising meeting places, secret drop-sites, and the everyday bars, hotels, and park benches where so much shadowy history has been made.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In July 1881, Lt. A.W. Greely and his crew of 24 scientists and explorers were bound for the last region unmarked on global maps. Their goal: Farthest North. What would follow was one of the most extraordinary and terrible voyages ever made.Greely and his men confronted every possible challenge―vicious wolves, sub-zero temperatures, and months of total darkness―as they set about exploring one of the most remote, unrelenting environments on the planet. In May 1882, they broke the 300-year-old record, and returned to camp to eagerly await the resupply ship scheduled to return at the end of the year. Only nothing came.250 miles south, a wall of ice prevented any rescue from reaching them. Provisions thinned and a second winter descended. Back home, Greely’s wife worked tirelessly against government resistance to rally a rescue mission.Today I’m speaking with Buddy Levy, author of “Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition.” We look at this story and what came after: Months passed, and Greely made a drastic choice—he and his men loaded the remaining provisions and tools onto their five small boats, and pushed off into the treacherous waters. After just two weeks, dangerous floes surrounded them. Now new dangers awaited: insanity, threats of mutiny, and cannibalism. As food dwindled and the men weakened, Greely's expedition clung desperately to life.We discuss the story of the heroic lives and deaths of these voyagers hell-bent on fame and fortune―at any cost―and how their journey changed the world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hannibal ad portas! The phrase was enough to terrify anyone in the Roman Republic and became an adage for parents to scare their children at nights: “Hannibal is at the gates.” The Carthaginian commander nearly destroyed Rome in the 3rd century BC and posed the republic's greatest threat until the empire collapsed in the fifth century AD. What made the general such a formidable foe? His genius for military strategy, willingness to use any level of violence necessary (Hannibal's religion called for child sacrifice), and clever use of resources.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Many people think the Negro Leagues as a sad, somber part of America's legacy of racial division. In many ways it is, says Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro League Baseball Museum. But on the 100th anniversary of its founding, he stresses that it is moreover a triumphant story about what came out of segregation, and the result was a much richer, stronger country. It was the Negro Leagues that introduced baseball to Japan and Latin America when black players played in exhibition matches at those places (they went on a goodwill tour to Japan in 1927, years before Babe Ruth and others came, winning the hearts of locals). And, he says, it was the Negro League that kickstarted the Civil Rights Movement by its players breaking the baseball color barrier of the Major Leagues with Jackie Robinson in 1947. This was years before the Birmingham Bus Boycott (1956) or the Freedom Riders (1961). Today I'm speaking with Kendrick about the 100th anniversary of the Negro Leagues, which were formed on February 13, 1920, in Kansas City, Missouri. For the next several decades, black players competed on Negro League teams every bit as competent as their white counterparts (Hank Aaron got his start in the Negro Leagues; Joe DiMaggio called Satchel Paige “the best and fastest pitcher I have ever faced.”)We discuss legends of the sport, such as Buck O'Neil, a first baseman for the Kansas City Monarchs, who became the first black scout for Major League Baseball and was a major player in establishing the museum itself (he was also a fixture on Ken Burns' documentary on baseball).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“The Hands of the King are the Hands of a Healer” -- this phrase appears in the Lord of the Rings, referring to how Aragorn was identified as the king of Gondor by his healing powers. Tolkien likely based this ability on an actual ceremony in England and France where thousands would gather to be touched by the king and be healed of their illnesses. From the eleventh to nineteenth centuries, it was believed that a monarch could heal scrofula – called “The King's Evil” – by laying hands on the infected area. The belief of the Royal Touch began in the Middle Ages but survived, and even thrived, well into the Protestant Reformation, when other types of sacramental ceremonies were erased. It was enormously popular with the public. Charles II touch nearly 92,000 during his reign – over 4,500 a year. So many wanted the royal touch that officials demanded the afflicted produce a certificate to prove they had not already received it and were coming back for seconds.The ritual persisted through very different eras and religious periods because kings and queens all used it to claim that God supported their reign.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The 1949-50 City College Beavers basketball team were incredible underdogs who experienced an incredible rise and subsequent fall from grace. At a time when the National Basketball Association was still segregated, the Beavers team was composed entirely of minority players – eight Jews and four African Americans. In 1950 the City College Beavers became the only basketball team in history to win both the NIT and NCAA tournaments in the same year. But one year later the team’s star players were arrested for conspiring with gamblers to shave points. Overnight the players went from heroes to villains.Today's guest is Matthew Goodman, author of the book “The City Game.” He argues these players were actually caught in a much larger web of corruption that stretched across major social institutions from City Hall to the police department, sports arenas, and even the universities themselves. It’s a historical story of duplicity and cynicism that’s all too relevant to big-money college sports today.But it's also a story of redemption, particularly Floyd Layne, one of the players implicated in the scandal. Floyd Layne was raised by a single mother in the Bronx, an immigrant from Barbados. He was a popular, talented, cheerful kid who loved basketball and jazz. Time and again he resisted the urgings of his teammates to take money from gamblers, but finally he relented because he wanted to buy his mother a $110 washing machine for Christmas. After he was arrested, he and the other players were blacklisted from the NBA – but unlike the other players, Floyd spent years trying unsuccessfully to join the league. Eventually he gave up and began coaching youth basketball in the Bronx, where his mentees included the future Hall of Famer Nate “Tiny” Archibald. In 1975 the job of head basketball coach of City College became available, and Floyd applied and got the job – after a quarter century, he was back at City College.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Civil War historians have asked if the South could have won the Civil War (or at least fought to a stalemate) since 1866. If they would have won, then what then? What would a divided states of America have looked like? Would a USA and a CSA have a happy peace and maintain a cooperative co-existence, like North and South Dakota, or maintain a cold war that threatened to go hot at any moment, like North and South Korea?In this episode, we look at an alternate timeline of the Confederate States of America, whether emancipation would have happened, which foreign alliances would be forged, and how the two Americas would react to World War Two and the rise of Hitler. Suffice it to say, in the infinite timelines that exist, there is a large number that includes the CSA, and nearly all of them are bad.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today's episode features a special guest, James Stavridis, a four-star U.S. Navy Admiral and former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. He joins us to discuss the ten greatest admirals in history and looks at their examples of leadership and resourcefulness. Case studies include Themistocles, English Sea Captain Francis Drake, Chinese explorer Zheng He, Horatio Nelson, WW2 Pacific Theatre Commander Chester Nimitz, and Rear Admiral Grace Hopper.Most of all, we get at what it's like to look down on a carrier strike group (made up of 7,500 personnel, an aircraft carrier, at least one cruiser, a flotilla of six to 10 destroyers and/or frigates, and a carrier air wing of 65 to 70 aircraft) and know that you have absolute command over the fates of everyone and everything below you and how that feeling would affect the lives of these people.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Could one American diplomat have prevented the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor? The answer might be yes. America’s ambassador to Japan in 1941, Joseph Grew, certainly thought so. He saw the writing on the wall—economic sanctions were crippling Japan, rice was rationed, consumer goods were limited, and oil was scarce as America’s noose tightened around Japan’s neck. Japan and the U.S. were locked in a battle of wills, yet Japan refused to yield to American demands. In this episode, I speak with Lew Paper, author of "In the Cauldron: Terror, Tension, and the American Ambassador’s Struggle to Avoid Pearl Harbor." He describes how the United States and Japan were locked in a cauldron of boiling tensions and of one man’s desperate effort to prevent the Pearl Harbor attacks before they happened.Through "In the Cauldron," Paper reveals new information—mined from Grew’s diaries, letters, official papers, the diplomatic archives, and interviews with Grew’s family and the families of his staff—to present a compelling narrative of how the militaristic policies of Imperial Japan collided with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s determination to punish Japanese aggression in the Far East.We look at Pearl Harbor attack inside the ambassador’s perspective through Paper’s revelation of: • Grew’s personal diaries detailing the events leading up to the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor • Personal interviews with Grew’s family and staff, giving the inside look into Grew’s struggle to prevent the attacks • Detailed accounts of the correspondence between Grew and other State Department officials about the warning signs leading up to the Pearl Harbor attacks • An in-depth look into the fast-depreciating lives of the Japanese people and how their struggles and cultural ideology contributed to the fatal attacksSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On October 15, 1950, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of UN troops in Korea, convinced President Harry Truman that the Communist forces of Kim Il-sung would be utterly defeated by Thanksgiving. The Chinese, he said with near certainty, would not intervene in the war.As he was speaking, 300,000 Red Chinese soldiers began secretly crossing the Manchurian border. Led by some 20,000 men of the First Marine Division, the Americans moved deep into the snowy mountains of North Korea, toward the trap Mao had set for the vainglorious MacArthur along the frozen shores of the Chosin Reservoir. What followed was one of the most heroic--and harrowing--operations in American military history, and one of the classic battles of all time. Faced with probable annihilation, and temperatures plunging to 20 degrees below zero, the surrounded, and hugely outnumbered, Marines fought through the enemy forces with ferocity, ingenuity, and nearly unimaginable courage as they marched their way to the sea.Today I'm speaking with Hampton Sides, author of the account On Desperate Ground a soldier's eye view of this conflict that chronicle of the extraordinary feats of heroism performed by the beleaguered Marines, who were called upon to do the impossible in some of the most unforgiving terrain on earth.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You don't have to read the ancient folklore of China, Sumeria, or anywhere else long before you encounter a dragon. Sometimes they guard treasure. Sometimes they kidnap local maidens. Sometimes they are the primary antagonist for a hero to conquer. Mostly they perform all three roles. But the problem is they never existed. Outside of a handful of cryptozoologists, nobody argues that they are real. So why do cultures that had no contact with each other produce remarkably similar myths?This episode looks into the theories of the spread of dragon myths. Perhaps there was an Ur-myth in Egypt or Mesopotamia that slowly spread across the world. Or it's an anthropological reaction to the fear that most humans have of lizards. More exotic theories claim dragons are the genetic memory of dinosaurs. Even more exotic theories claim they are the embodiment of rainbows (we'll explain that last one in more detail).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For more than one thousand years, Christians and Muslims lived side by side, sometimes at peace and sometimes at war. When Christian armies seized Jerusalem in 1099, they began the most notorious period of conflict between the two religions. Depending on who you ask, the fall of the holy city was either an inspiring legend or the greatest of horrors.In this episode I’m speaking with Dan Jones, author of Crusaders: The Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands. In Crusaders, Dan Jones interrogates the many sides of the larger story, charting a deeply human and avowedly pluralist path through the crusading era. Expanding the usual timeframe, Jones looks to the roots of Christian-Muslim relations in the eighth century and tracks the influence of crusading to present day. He widens the geographical focus to far-flung regions home to so-called enemies of the Church, including Spain, North Africa, southern France, and the Baltic states. By telling intimate stories of individual journeys, Jones illuminates these centuries of war not only from the perspective of popes and kings, but from Arab-Sicilian poets, Byzantine princesses, Sunni scholars, Shi'ite viziers, Mamluk slave soldiers, Mongol chieftains, and barefoot friarSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Once the Nazi Party took power in Germany, they managed to end democracy and turned the nation into a one-party dictatorship, launching an endless propaganda campaign to mobilize the public for war. Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda arranged book burnings, lists of banned literature, and the release of films that exalted Aryan values and demonized Jews.Before the rise of the Nazis, Germany was the most educated society on Earth, producing the finest literature, film, and university programs of any advanced nation. How did it succumb to such a simplistic propaganda program? The answer has to do with the ancient story of propaganda and how the masses swallow almost any message if it's repeated enough and speaks to their deepest fears.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two years before the Civil War, Congressman Daniel Sickles and his lovely wife Teresa were popular fixtures in Washington, D.C. society. Their house sat on Lafayette Square across from White House grounds, and the president himself was godfather to the Sickleses’ six-year-old daughter. Because Congressman Sickles is frequently out of town, he trusted his friend, U.S. Attorney Philip Barton Key—son of Francis Scott Key—to escort the beautiful Mrs. Sickles to parties in his absence. Revelers in D.C. were accustomed to the sight of the congressman’s wife with the tall, Apollo-like Philip Barton Key.Then one day Daniel Sickles received an anonymous note suggesting his wife's infidelity. It sets into motion a tragic course of events that culminated in a shocking murder in broad daylight in Lafayette Square.Today's guest is Chris DeRose, author of the book Star Spangled Scandal, about the biggest media sensation in Civil War America. The press couldn't get enough of the trial, which had a play based on the events hit the stage as the trial was in progress. The trial introduced the concepts of the insanity defense, challenged ideas of chivalry and masculinity, and ensconced ideas of an unwritten law, where “honor crimes” were tolerated by judges for nearly a century after the trial.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are few events that would shake the world order like the success of the American Revolution. Some changes would be felt immediately. English traditions such as land inheritance laws were swept away. Other changes took longer. Slavery would not be abolished for another hundred years. Americans began to feel that their fight for liberty was a global fight. Future democracies would model their governments on the United States'.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Spycraft was seen as a treacherous craft, but it was necessary to win a war. Washington knew this, as his early attempts to gather intelligence on British-occupied New York led to an execution of Nathan Hale, a young school teacher. More sophisticated networks developed, particularly the Culper Spy ring, which involved a farmer, a whaleboat captain, a tavern owner, and a slave.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.