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PODCAST

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

For history lovers who listen to podcasts, History Unplugged is the most comprehensive show of its kind. It"s the only show that dedicates episodes to both interviewing experts and answering questions from its audience. First, it features a call-in show where you can ask our resident historian (Scott Rank, PhD) absolutely anything (What was it like to be a Turkish sultan with four wives and twelve concubines? If you were sent back in time, how would you kill Hitler?). Second, it features long-form

history

All Episodes

47:55

The Civil War’s Brutal Finale: A War of Attrition as...

History Unplugged Podcast ·

2025/09/25

In 1864, the American Civil War reached a critical juncture with Ulysses S. Grant’s Overland Campaign, including the brutal battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania, which claimed over 60,000 casualties, surpassing Gettysburg as the Americas’ deadliest clash. Abraham Lincoln faced a contentious re-election against George B. McClellan, while Confederate General Jubal Early’s troops came within five miles of the White House. Abolitionists pushed for emancipation, and desperate

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41:42

Camp David Looks Like a 1970s Lakeside Retreat. Why...

History Unplugged Podcast ·

2025/09/23

Camp David, nestled in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains, spans about 125 acres, making it significantly smaller than other presidential getaways like Lyndon B. Johnson’s sprawling 2,700-acre Texas ranch or the vast 1,000-acre Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. Compared to grand diplomatic venues like the White House or international summit locations such as Versailles, its compact, rustic layout with a single main lodge and a handful of cabins offers a more intimate, secluded

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53:29

How British Scientists' Self-Experiments on...

History Unplugged Podcast ·

2025/09/18

In August 1942, over 7,000 Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, France, in a largely forgotten landing, with only a small fraction surviving unscathed. The raid failed due to poor planning and lack of underwater reconnaissance, which left the Allies unaware of strong German coastal defenses and underwater obstacles. Inadequate submersible technology prevented effective pre-landing surveys, leading to heavy casualties and the inability to secure a foothold. Scientists had a rudimentary

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41:20

Over 200,000 Allied Troops Tried and Failed to Crush...

History Unplugged Podcast ·

2025/09/16

The Allied Intervention into the Russian Civil War remains one of the most ambitious yet least talked about military ventures of the 20th century. Coinciding with the end of the first World War, some 180,000 troops from several countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Italy, Greece, Poland, and Romania, among others, were sent to fight alongside Russian “Whites” against the Red Army.Despite one victory for the Allied troops – independence for the

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60:19

How the U.S. Occupation of Japan After WW2 Forged the...

History Unplugged Podcast ·

2025/09/11

During World War II, the U.S. and Japan were locked in bitter hatred, fueled by propaganda portraying each other as ruthless enemies, exemplified by dehumanizing "Tokyo Woe" posters in the U.S. and Japanese depictions of Americans as barbaric invaders. After the war, the feelings seemed to turn 180 degrees overnight. By the early 1950s, American servicemen in the occupying forces learned about Japanese tea ceremonies and traditions during the U.S. occupation, fostering cultural appreciation. By the

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52:53

Homer Couldn't Have Written the Iliad, But He...

History Unplugged Podcast ·

2025/09/09

TheIliadis the world’s greatest epic poem—heroic battle and divine fate set against the Trojan War. Its beauty and profound bleakness are intensely moving, but great questions remain: Where, how, and when was it composed and why does it endure? To explore these questions is today’s guest, Robin Lane Fox, a scholar and teacher of Homer for over 40 years. He’s the author of “Homer and His Iliad” and he addresses these questions, drawing on a lifelong love and

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41:02

Depression-Era Planners Thought They’d End Poverty...

History Unplugged Podcast ·

2025/09/04

In the 1930s, New Deal-era technocrats devised a solution to homelessness and poverty itself. They believed that providing free or low-cost urban housing projects could completely eliminate housing scarcity. Planners envisioned urban communities that would propel their residents into the middle class, creating a flywheel of abundance where poverty was eradicated. However, once construction began after World War II, these projects quickly became dangerous, poorly maintained slums, serving as breeding

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49:01

The Alabaman Jacksonians Who Rejected the Confederacy...

History Unplugged Podcast ·

2025/09/02

As the popular narrative goes, the Civil War was won when courageous Yankees triumphed over the South. But an aspect of the war that has remained little-known for 160 years is the Alabamian Union soldiers who played a decisive role in the Civil War, only to be scrubbed from the history books. One such group was the First Alabama Calvary, formed in 1862. It went on raids that destroyed Confederate communications and also marched with Sherman’s forces across the South. They aided the fall of

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49:05

Frederick Douglass’s Private Writings on Abraham...

History Unplugged Podcast ·

2025/08/28

Frederick Douglass made the strongest arguments for abolition in antebellum America because he made the case that abolition was not a mutation of the Founding Father’s vision of America, but a fulfillment of their promises of liberty for all. He had a lot riding on this personally – Douglas was born into slavery in Maryland around 1818, escaped to the North in 1838, and became a renowned public speaker in Europe and the United States, captivating audiences with his powerful oratory and

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31:11

The Industrial Revolution Was Supposed to Lead to...

History Unplugged Podcast ·

2025/08/26

Free time, one of life’s most important commodities, often feels unfulfilling. But why? And how did leisure activities transition from strolling in the park for hours to “doomscrolling” on social media for thirty minutes? Despite the promise of modern industrialization, many people experience both a scarcity of free time and a disappointment in it. Here to explain why this is today’s guest Gary Cross, author of “Free Time: The History of an Elusive Ideal.” We

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56:56

James Cook Mapped the Globe Before Dying At the Hands...

History Unplugged Podcast ·

2025/08/21

Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan are known for discoveries, but it was Captain James Cook who made global travel truly possible. Cook was an 18th-century British explorer who mapped vast regions of the Pacific, including New Zealand and Australia’s eastern coast, with unprecedented accuracy. He meticulously conducted soundings to measure ocean depths and created highly detailed maps, providing accurate navigational charts that guided explorers and sailors for generations. His three

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39:37

American Anarchists: The Original Domestic Extremists

History Unplugged Podcast ·

2025/08/19

In the early twentieth century, anarchists like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman championed a radical vision of a world without states, laws, or private property. Militant and sometimes violent, anarchists were heroes to many working-class immigrants. But to many others, anarchism was a terrifyingly foreign ideology. Determined to crush it, government officials launched a decades-long “war on anarchy,” a brutal program of spying, censorship, and deportation that set the foundations of

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74:41

100 Years Before Ford v. Ferrari, a Horse Breeder...

History Unplugged Podcast ·

2025/08/14

Horse racing was the most popular sport in early America, drawing massive crowds and fueling a cultural obsession with horses’ speed and pedigree. In the early 1800s, every town in America with a few thousand people had a horse racing track, with major cities drawing crowds of up to 50,000. In the midst of this was Alexander Keene Richards (1827–1881), one of the nineteenth century’s most significant Thoroughbred importers and breeders. Richards was like automotive designer Carroll

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39:05

Western Rome Fell Due to Germanic Immigration, Mass...

History Unplugged Podcast ·

2025/08/12

It took little more than a single generation for the centuries-old Roman Empire to fall. In those critical decades, while Christians and pagans, legions and barbarians, generals and politicians squabbled over dwindling scraps of power, two men – former comrades on the battlefield – rose to prominence on opposite sides of the great game of empire. Roman general Flavius Stilicho, the man behind the Roman throne, dedicated himself to restoring imperial glory, only to find himself struggling

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52:29

Why the Atomic Bombing of Japan is as Justified in...

History Unplugged Podcast ·

2025/08/07

It's been 80 years since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the question of whether or not those bombings were justified has never been more contentious. That wasn't the case in the immediate aftermath: 85% of the American public approved the decision to bomb the cities in 1945, but this has dropped to 56% in more recent years, particularly among younger generations. Only 47% of 18- to 29-year-olds, versus 70% of those 65 and older—the World War II generation—thought it was

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46:54

Surviving the Siege of Leningrad with Sawdust Bread...

History Unplugged Podcast ·

2025/08/05

The first year of the siege of Leningrad that began in September 1941 marked the opening stage of a 900-day-long struggle for survival that left over a million dead. The capture of the city came tantalizingly close late that year, but Hitler paused to avoid costly urban fighting. Determined to starve Leningrad into submission, what followed was a winter of unimaginable suffering for ordinary citizens and defenders alike. First-hand accounts from Soviet and German soldiers, many never previously

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65:41

Depression-Era Governor Huey Long Wanted to...

History Unplugged Podcast ·

2025/07/31

The most radical piece of legislation in the 20th century was Louisiana Governor Huey Long’s “Share Our Wealth Plan,” a bold proposal to confiscate individual fortunes exceeding $1 million to fund healthcare, free college education, and a guaranteed minimum income for families struggling through the Great Depression—a plan so radical it sparked theories that his 1935 assassination was orchestrated to silence his challenge to the economic elite. From his early days as a

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55:36

Rope Equals Fire as Humanity’s Most Important...

History Unplugged Podcast ·

2025/07/29

“‘Rope!’ muttered Sam[wise Gamgee]. ‘I knew I’d want it, if I hadn’t got it!’” Sam knew in the Lord of the Rings that the quest would fail without rope, but he was inadvertently commenting on how civilization owes its existence to this three-strand tool. Humans first made rope 50,000 years ago and one of its earliest contributions to the rise of civilization was as a tool for domesticating animals for milk, meat, and work. ncient Egyptians were experts

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56:43

The Scopes Trial Was Entirely Orchestrated But Became...

History Unplugged Podcast ·

2025/07/24

July 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of the Scopes Trial – a trial that exposed profound divisions in America over religion, education, and public morality. This was a legal case in Dayton, Tennessee, where high school teacher John Scopes was prosecuted for teaching evolution, violating the state's Butler Act. The Butler Act was a 1925 Tennessee law that prohibited public school teachers from teaching any theory that denied the biblical account of human creation, specifically targeting the

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42:05

The Panda Was First Discovered By Theodore...

History Unplugged Podcast ·

2025/07/22

In the late 1920s, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and his younger brother Kermit, sons of President Theodore Roosevelt, wanted fame and glory apart from the family spotlight. They were seeking the “empty spots” on the maps, the areas that had yet to be explored and described by Westerners. From these remote places, they hoped to bring back exotic animals to aid the scientific community’s understanding of taxonomy, biological diversity, and its relatively recent theories of evolution. The

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1,020 results

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