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PODCAST

Ben Franklin"s World

This is a multiple award-winning podcast about early American history. It’s a show for people who love history and who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world. Each episode features conversations with professional historians who help shed light on important people and events in early American history.

history

All Episodes

71:20

438 The American Revolution & the Fate of the World

Ben Franklin"s World ·

2026/04/07

What if the American Revolution didn't just create the United States, but also created Australia?Most of us learned about the Revolution as a story of thirteen North American colonies pushing back against a distant king. But this episode reveals something far wilder: a genuinely global war whose consequences rippled across every inhabited continent — reshaping empires, forcing migrations, and planting the seeds of more than a hundred declarations of independence that would follow over the next two

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70:04

BFW Revisited: British-Occupied Philadelphia, 1777–1778

Ben Franklin"s World ·

2026/03/31

In September 1777, just fourteen months after declaring independence, Philadelphia fell to the British Army. For nearly nine months, the new nation's capital was occupied territory.But what did that actually mean for the people who lived there? Not the generals, not the Congress: ordinary Philadelphians who had to decide whether to flee or stay, share their homes with British officers, watch their fences get chopped up for firewood, and figure out which neighbors to trust when it was all

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65:26

437 Civilian Life in America's Occupied Cities

Ben Franklin"s World ·

2026/03/24

The British Army is at your door. They need a room. What do you do? For thousands of civilians living in cities occupied during the American War for Independence — Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Newport, Charleston, Savannah — this wasn't a hypothetical. It was a reality that upended daily life and revealed a side of the revolution we rarely talk about. Lauren Duval, author of The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupations, and the Making of American Independence, joins us to

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61:18

BFW Revisited: Longfellow House-Washington's...

Ben Franklin"s World ·

2026/03/17

250 years ago, the British evacuated Boston: driven out by cannon that had traveled 300 miles from Fort Ticonderoga. But where did the plan for those cannons take shape?In this Revisited episode, we return to our conversation with Garrett Cloer, now Program Manager for Interpretation and Visitor Experience at Saratoga National Historical Park, to explore the Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site in Cambridge, Massachusetts.This Georgian mansion served as George

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53:17

BFW Revisited: The American Revolution's African...

Ben Franklin"s World ·

2026/02/17

More than 6,000 Black men—free and enslaved—served in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Yet their stories remain some of the least told of the war. In this revisited episode, we rejoin Judith Van Buskirk, Professor Emerita of History at SUNY Cortland and author of Standing in Their Own Light: African American Patriots in the American Revolution, to explore what motivated African American men to fight for the Revolutionary cause, how the Continental Army's policies toward Black

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69:06

433 Entangled Revolutions: Haiti, France, and the...

Ben Franklin"s World ·

2026/02/10

What if the American Revolution was never just an American story?Historian Ronald Angelo Johnson helps us uncover the deep connections between the American and Haitian Revolutions to reveal how both revolutions emerged from the same Atlantic imperial struggle for empire, racialized power, and war. Using details from his book Entangled Alliances, Ron will guide us from the Treaty of Paris in 1763 to the Siege of Savannah in 1779, where hundreds of Black soldiers from French Saint Domingue landed

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68:38

BFW Revisited: The Marquis de Lafayette

Ben Franklin"s World ·

2026/02/03

What does it take to become a revolutionary in more than one revolution? In this revisited conversation with Mike Duncan, we explore the life of the Marquis de Lafayette—an ambitious young Frenchman who crossed the Atlantic to fight for the American cause and later carried those lessons into the political storms of France. From early idealism to a complicated role in two upheavals, Lafayette’s story reveals how ideas, alliances, and personal relationships shaped the Age of Revolutions.You’ll hear

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64:43

432 How France and Spain Helped Win the American...

Ben Franklin"s World ·

2026/01/27

The American Revolution wasn’t just a colonial rebellion; it was a global conflict shaped by European rivalries and high-stakes diplomacy. Without the help of foreign allies like France and Spain, the United States might never have won its independence.Historian John Ferling joins us to explore the international dimensions of the Revolutionary War. Drawing from his new book Shots Heard Round the World, Ferling reveals how secret aid, political gambles, and naval power from Europe (especially

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58:03

BFW Revisited: The Common Cause

Ben Franklin"s World ·

2026/01/20

Before Common Sense could ignite a revolution, colonists had to be convinced they shared a cause worth fighting for. So how did Revolutionary leaders turn thirteen very different colonies into “Americans”—and what stories did they tell to make that unity feel real? In this Ben Franklin’s World Revisited episode, historian Robert Parkinson returns to explore how newspapers and wartime messaging helped forge the Revolution’s “common cause”—and how that campaign leaned on fear, race, and exclusion to

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74:12

431 Common Sense at 250: The Pamphlet That Sparked a...

Ben Franklin"s World ·

2026/01/13

Thomas Paine’s Common Sense turned a colonial rebellion into a full-blown revolution. But how did one pamphlet move so many minds in 1776—and why does it still matter 250 years later?To commemorate the 250th anniversary of Common Sense, historian and Director of the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies at Iona University, Nora Slonimsky, joins us to explore Paine’s life, the pamphlet’s explosive impact, and what this revolutionary text still teaches us about democracy, communication, and civic

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84:56

BFW Revisited: The Power of the Press in the American...

Ben Franklin"s World ·

2026/01/06

Common Sense didn’t just make an argument for independence—it moved through a world of newspapers, pamphlets, and personal networks that carried revolutionary ideas from one doorstep to the next. So how did political news travel in 1776, and what made print such a powerful engine of persuasion?As we approach the 250th anniversary of Common Sense, Ben Franklin’s World Revisited returns to Episode 156 to explore how early Americans shared, debated, and embraced revolutionary ideas. You’ll discover

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60:03

430 The Founding Father of American Medicine:...

Ben Franklin"s World ·

2025/12/30

Benjamin Rush was one of early America’s most fascinating figures. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a leading Philadelphia physician, and a thinker who believed that a healthy body was the foundation of a healthy republic. In this episode, historian Sarah Naramore, author of Benjamin Rush, Civic Health and Human Illness in the Early American Republic, introduces us to Rush as both doctor and political philosopher.We’ll explore: How Rush developed an “American system” of

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84:24

BFW Revisited: Smuggling and the American Revolution

Ben Franklin"s World ·

2025/12/23

British officials had a problem: Their American colonists wouldn't stop smuggling. Even after Parliament slashed tea prices and passed laws to make legal imports cheaper, colonists kept buying Dutch and French goods on the black market. So what was really going on? If it wasn't just about saving money, what drove thousands of merchants and consumers to risk fines, seizure, and worse? In this revisited episode, we follow the illicit trade networks that connected colonial port cities to the "Golden

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63:07

429 Coffee in Early America: Why Americans Really...

Ben Franklin"s World ·

2025/12/16

Think the Boston Tea Party made America a coffee-drinking nation? Historian Michelle McDonald reveals the truth: colonists were already choosing coffee over tea because it was cheaper.Michelle Craig McDonald, the Librarian/Director of the Library & Museum at the American Philosophical Society and author of Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States, explains how coffee shaped American identity long before the Revolution. You'll hear about Revolutionary-era women storming

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61:09

428 America's Forgotten Quest to Link Two Oceans

Ben Franklin"s World ·

2025/12/09

In the 1820s, American entrepreneurs, engineers, and politicians dared to dream big. They believed they could cut a canal, not through Panama, but through the wild, rain-soaked terrain of Nicaragua. Their goal: To link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and transform global trade forever.But what inspired these ambitious "canal dreamers?” And why did they believe Nicaragua held the key to controlling the future of commerce? Jessica Lepler, Associate Professor of History at the University of New

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51:48

427 How States Are Planning the 250th: Commemorating...

Ben Franklin"s World ·

2025/12/02

As we look ahead to the 250th anniversary—the semiquincentennial—of the Declaration of Independence in 2026, communities and commissions across the United States are asking big questions: How should we commemorate this historic milestone? What’s the right balance between celebration and education? And how can this moment bring people together across political divides, generational gaps, and complex histories? To explore these questions, I’ve invited my friend, colleague, and Clio Digital Media

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59:35

BFW Revisited: The Mayflower

Ben Franklin"s World ·

2025/11/25

Each November, we Americans come together to celebrate Thanksgiving, a holiday that invites us to reflect on gratitude, community, and the stories we tell about our past.But what do we really know about the origins of this holiday? What did the “First Thanksgiving” look like, and who were the people who made it happen? In honor of Thanksgiving, we’re revisiting our 2018 conversation with Rebecca Fraser, author of The Mayflower: The Families, The Voyage, and the Founding of America. This rich

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52:32

426 Indigenous Agriculture and the Hidden Science of...

Ben Franklin"s World ·

2025/11/18

As Thanksgiving approaches, many Americans are gathering to reflect on gratitude, family—and of course—food. It's the time of year when we may think about the so-called "First Thanksgiving" and imagine scenes of Pilgrims and Native peoples gathering in Massachusetts to share in the bounty of their fall harvests. But how much do we really know about the food systems and agricultural knowledge of Indigenous peoples of North America? In what ways were the Wampanoag people able to contribute to this

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55:14

425 Ken Burns' The American Revolution

Ben Franklin"s World ·

2025/11/11

What does it take to bring the American Revolution to life?How can an event that took place 250 years ago be conveyed to us through modern-day film? Ken Burns and his team worked to answer these questions in their new, epic six-part documentary, Ken Burns’ The American Revolution. Their work promises to deepen, complicate, and transform our understanding of the Revolution over 12 hours of film. But how did Burns and his team make this film? What stories did they choose to tell? And what

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66:04

424 Dunmore's Proclamation & the American Revolution...

Ben Franklin"s World ·

2025/11/04

In November 1775, as tensions between the British Empire and its rebellious colonies continued to escalate, Virginia’s royal governor made a radical—and to some, terrifying—proclamation: Any enslaved person who fled a revolutionary enslaver and joined the British Army would gain their freedom.Known to history as Dunmore’s Proclamation, this single decree changed the course of the American Revolution in the South. It offered a lifeline to thousands of enslaved men, women, and their families,

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495 results

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