Our American Stories

On this episode of Our American Stories, John McCormack spent decades telling Americans he was the son of Irish immigrants who overcame poverty to become Speaker of the House. The truth was more complicated. To make his way to the top, McCormack reinvented his own family story before rising to become the first Catholic Speaker in American history. Professor and  Jack Miller Center  fello...

On this episode of Our American Stories, when Lieutenant Ernie Latham's B-24 crashed into the Adriatic Sea during World War II, he escaped the sinking bomber, rescued five members of his crew, and refused to leave the war when the Army wanted to send him home. All he wanted was another chance to fly. Our American Stories  regular contributor Roger Latham shares the story of his father, the Wo...

On this episode of Our American Stories, most Americans learn that the Revolutionary War ended at Yorktown. Fewer know the British Army occupied New York City for two more years before finally sailing away on November 25, 1783. For generations, New Yorkers celebrated that day as Evacuation Day, one of the city's biggest holidays. Our American Stories  regular contributor Bill Bryk shares the...

On this episode of Our American Stories, growing up in Bayonne, New Jersey, Giovanni Rocco was surrounded by mobsters, outlaw bikers, and the kind of street culture that most parents hope their children never experience. He was, in his own words, a pretty "bad" kid. Those same experiences eventually made him one of the FBI's National Covert Operations Unit's most successful undercover operatives,...

On this episode of Our American Stories, when Tyson Timbs used his $40,000 Land Rover to sell drugs to an undercover police officer, Indiana seized the vehicle through civil asset forfeiture. Getting it back should have been straightforward. Instead, it took seven years, three trips to the Indiana Supreme Court, and a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. For our  Rule of Law  ser...

On this episode of Our American Stories, it started with a dropped wrench. Moments later, a missile exploded inside its silo, launching a nuclear warhead into a roadside ditch outside Damascus, Arkansas. For hours, few people understood just how close the country had come to catastrophe. Former Arkansas newsman Randy Dixon was there from the beginning. He shares how one of America's most forg...

On this episode of Our American Stories, at thirteen years old, Rose Ann Forte took her first drink because she wanted to fit in. What began as teenage experimentation slowly became part of every stage of her life, from college and corporate America to marriage and motherhood, until one day she realized she'd crossed what she calls "the invisible line." When the COVID-19 pandemic forced her to con...

On this episode of Our American Stories, nearly every American knows Davy Crockett died at the Alamo. But before he ever crossed into Texas, he'd run away from home, survived on the untamed American frontier, fought in the War of 1812, and rose from six months of formal schooling to the halls of Congress. Our regular contributor Roger McGrath separates the folklore from the facts, sharing the real...

On this episode of Our American Stories, for generations of Americans, Mel Blanc's voice was childhood. As Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety, Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, and dozens of other unforgettable characters, he entertained millions and forever changed the art of voice acting. Through archival interviews with Mel Blanc himself and those who knew him best, we share the remarkable story...

On this episode of Our American Stories, before he became Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on  The Dukes of Hazzard , James Best lived a remarkable American life. Orphaned at the age of three and raised in Kentucky and Indiana, he served with the U.S. Army in war-torn Germany, where an unexpected visit to a stage production inspired him to become an actor. Best went on to appear in hundreds of telev...

On this episode of Our American Stories, today, Charles Carroll is one of America's most overlooked Founding Fathers. But during the Revolutionary era, he helped finance the fight for independence, shaped Maryland's government, influenced the creation of the U.S. Senate, and became the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence. Dr. Bradley J. Birzer, author of  American Cicero: Th...

On this episode of Our American Stories, today, Charles Carroll is one of America's most overlooked Founding Fathers. But during the Revolutionary era, he helped finance the fight for independence, shaped Maryland's government, influenced the creation of the U.S. Senate, and became the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence. Dr. Bradley J. Birzer, author of  American Cicero: Th...

On this episode of Our American Stories, John Newton lived one of the most extraordinary lives of the 18th century. He was a rebellious sailor, a slave trader, a slave ship captain, a pastor, a mentor to William Wilberforce, and the author of one of the world's most beloved hymns, "Amazing Grace." Drawing on the work of biographers Brian H. Edwards, Jonathan Aitken, and Tony Baker, our own Greg He...

On this episode of Our American Stories, for all 11 seasons of  M*A*S*H , Alan Alda wore the same set of military dog tags as Captain Hawkeye Pierce. Most viewers assumed they were Hollywood props. They weren't. Journalist Andy Lewis shares the remarkable true story of the two World War II veterans whose names appeared on those dog tags, revealing how a Black engineer from Mississippi and the...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Nathaniel Gordon of Portland, Maine, holds the distinction of being the only American ever executed for the crime of slave trading. Although many were caught in the act, sentences were often lenient, and most slave traders believed they had little to fear until Abraham Lincoln. Jonathan W. White, a regular contributor on  Our American Stories,  a...

On this episode of Our American Stories, inside the Los Angeles Police Museum sits a collection of worn photo albums that once served as one of the LAPD's most valuable crime-fighting tools. Filled with mugshots, notes, aliases, and criminal networks, these "mug books" belonged to the department's legendary Hat Squad, an elite unit created in 1946 to keep organized crime from taking over Los Angel...

On this episode of Our American Stories, when General Motors shifted to remote work in 2020, Emma McCormick realized she could work from anywhere. Instead of renting another apartment, the recent Hillsdale College graduate bought a 25-foot sailboat, moved to a marina in Florida, and made the sea her home. Emma shares how an Idaho native with no sailing background learned to navigate life afloat, w...

On this episode of Our American Stories, before Mary Kay became one of the most recognizable names in American business, she was a divorced mother, a widow, a lifelong saleswoman repeatedly passed over for promotion, and a woman who wasn't even allowed to open a bank account without her husband's permission. At 45, after losing her job and her husband just weeks before launching a new venture, she...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in March 1944, Lt. Bill Owen's crew wasn't supposed to make history. Flying one of the Eighth Air Force's secret radar-equipped Pathfinder B-17s, they pressed on toward Berlin after the rest of the bomber stream received a recall order. Through a remarkable twist of circumstance, their Flying Fortress became the first American Flying Fortress to bomb the he...

On this episode of Our American Stories, when 16-year-old Hector Boiardi arrived at Ellis Island from Italy in 1914, he couldn't have imagined that his face would one day appear on supermarket shelves across America. After becoming a celebrated chef, he turned his restaurant's most popular takeout meals into one of the country's most recognizable food brands, forever changing the way Americans ate...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1968, at the height of the Cold War, the USS Pueblo sat in international waters off the coast of North Korea. Then six North Korean vessels and two MiG fighters closed in. Outgunned and unable to escape, the U.S. Navy intelligence ship was captured, and its crew began eleven months of imprisonment, interrogation, torture, and defiance. James Duermeyer, a...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in the early 1980s, nearly everyone in the oil and gas industry believed producing natural gas from shale was a waste of time and money. George Mitchell disagreed. For 17 years, he poured hundreds of millions of dollars into an idea that even his own executives wanted to abandon, convinced it would secure America's energy future. Pulitzer Prize-winning hist...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Nan Aspinwall could rope, ride, shoot, and perform alongside the biggest stars of Buffalo Bill's Wild West. But in 1910, she accomplished something no woman had ever done before: she rode alone on horseback from San Francisco to New York, covering nearly 4,500 miles in 180 days. Our American Stories  regular contributor Ashley Hlebinsky shares the rema...

On this episode of Our American Stories, for years, Winter Prosapio couldn't stand  The Giving Tree . She saw it as the story of a tree that gave everything to someone who never seemed to appreciate it. Then she became a mother. In this heartfelt reflection, Winter shares how raising two daughters transformed the way she understood Shel Silverstein's classic. Along the way, she discovered tha...

On this episode of Our American Stories, when Catherine Thompson escaped slavery in Maryland, she built a new life in New Jersey and gave birth to a son born free. But after a slave catcher lured her into a trap in Philadelphia, she faced an impossible choice: surrender her child or risk them both being dragged back into slavery. She refused to let go. Her courage exposed the brutal reality of the...