Our American Stories

On this episode of Our American Stories, for more than a century, horror movies have found new and terrifying ways to keep us on the edge of our seats. It began with the eerie shadows of German Expressionism and the unforgettable monsters of Universal’s Dracula and Frankenstein . Then came Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho , the supernatural terror of The Exorcist , the slasher craze of the 19...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Louis Prima never seemed to play a song so much as throw a party. It was a style he came by naturally, growing up among the Sicilian families, brass bands, and jazz funerals of New Orleans, with the sound of Louis Armstrong’s trumpet ringing in his ears. By the 1930s, Prima had taken that New Orleans spirit to the nightclubs of New York’s 52nd S...

On this episode of Our American Stories, most of us know the name Jacuzzi. We’ve seen it on hot tubs, bathtubs, and maybe even enjoyed a soak in one ourselves. But behind that familiar name is the remarkable story of an Italian immigrant family, two brothers who came to America in 1907, and a long history of inventions that had nothing to do with hot tubs. The Jacuzzis built airplanes, devel...

On this episode of Our American Stories, James Smithson was born into wealth but denied a name. As the illegitimate son of the Duke of Northumberland, he spent his life pursuing science instead of status, studying minerals and publishing quietly across Europe. In his will, Smithson made a choice no one expected: he left his fortune to the United States, a nation he had never visited, with the cond...

On this episode of Our American Stories, as a teenager on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, Valerie Habeeb endured years of sexual abuse by an older man who exploited the absence of her father and the vulnerability she carried with her. She kept what happened secret for years, carrying shame, anger, and pain into adulthood even as the people around her believed she had everything together. Lee Habee...

On this episode of Our American Stories, at 16, Russ Jones planned to spend his summer sleeping in. His mother had other ideas. One morning in 1976, she pulled off the covers and told him she did not want to see him again until he had found a job. After spending the day applying all over Kansas City, Russ finally walked into the Carriage Club and landed a job as a busboy. Russ reflects on the firs...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Olympian, World War II airman, Pacific castaway, and prisoner of war, Louis Zamperini lived one of the most extraordinary lives in American history. In this rare recording, he tells his own remarkable story—from his troubled childhood and the 1936 Berlin Olympics to surviving 47 days adrift at sea, enduring brutal captivity in Japan, and ultimately fi...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Robert Borelli once believed the Mafia offered the clearest path to power. As a teenager growing up in Brooklyn, he set out to become a gangster, drawn to the respect, money, and status he saw around him. Instead, that path led him in and out of prison, and eventually to rock bottom. But inside a jail cell, at his lowest point, Borelli cried out to God for...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan and Antonin Scalia often approached the Constitution from very different directions, but Kagan admired his intellect, his writing, and the enormous influence he had on American law. Speaking at the dedication of George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, Kagan reflects on Scalia’s role in advancing tex...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Darryl Strawberry reached the heights of Major League Baseball, but success could not heal the wounds he carried from childhood. Raised with an abusive, alcoholic father, Strawberry says rejection and anger helped drive him toward greatness on the field while leaving him vulnerable to addiction, broken relationships, and a life that eventually spiraled far...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Doc Holliday is one of the most famous figures of the American Old West, known for his friendship with Wyatt Earp and his role in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Movies and television have turned him into a legend, but the real Doc Holliday was far more complicated than the popular portrayals suggest. Historian Roger McGrath joins us to tell the true story...

On this episode of Our American Stories, John Cazale never became a movie star. He never received an Academy Award nomination, and his film career lasted only six years. Yet Al Pacino considered him an acting idol, Meryl Streep fell in love with him, and every one of the five films he appeared in was nominated for Best Picture. Jonjo Powers, author of A Small Perfection: John Cazale and the Art of...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Pat Boone was at the height of his career when television executives told him to cancel a guest. That guest was Harry Belafonte, the singer whose hit “Day-O” had made him famous around the world. Boone was warned that audiences in some parts of the country wouldn’t accept a Black artist on stage beside him. His answer was simple: if Belafo...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Joe DiMaggio became an American icon, but he was only one of three brothers who made it to the major leagues. Raised in a large Italian immigrant family near San Francisco, Vince, Joe, and Dom DiMaggio each defied their father’s hopes that they would become fishermen and instead chased a future in baseball. Four-time New York Times bestselling author...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Chet Leuliette came home from World War II with little money and no high school diploma, but with a determination to build a better life for his family. He sold potato chips, raised his son in a home where money was often scarce, and quietly spent his life helping the people around him. Former automotive executive Tim Leuliette remembers the father who woul...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Richard Muniz was not yet five years old when heavy rain stranded his family overnight at an old railroad station in the mountains of northern New Mexico. When the storm finally cleared, everyone stepped outside beneath a sky crowded with stars to watch for Echo, one of America’s earliest communications satellites. Richard remembers seeing that tiny p...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Al Capone became the most famous gangster in America, but Laurence Bergreen argues that his rise would have been almost unimaginable without Prohibition. Born to an Italian immigrant family in Brooklyn, Capone found his opportunity in the vast underground economy created when the government outlawed alcohol, eventually rising to the top of Chicago’s c...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in the spring of 1961, McDonald County opened its highway map and discovered that it had simply vanished. The resort towns that depended on summer travelers were nowhere to be found, and what looked like a clerical mistake carried real consequences for the people who lived there. County leaders announced that McDonald County would symbolically secede from M...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1819, as the Missouri Crisis stirred national debate over slavery and westward expansion, a private conversation between John Quincy Adams and John C. Calhoun became something much larger. Calhoun defended slavery as a necessary institution. Adams left the conversation deeply shaken and newly committed to abolition. This moment would fuel his work after...

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, Rudyard Kipling became one of the most famous writers of his age, giving the world The Jungle Book , Just So Stories , “Gunga Din,” and “If.” In 1907, he became the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. But behind that success was a life marked by an abusive childhood, controversy, and devastating loss. The Hist...

On this episode of Our American Stories, America entered World War I late, but its arrival helped change the course of the conflict. By the fall of 1918, more than a million American soldiers were fighting through the Argonne Forest as Allied forces pushed Germany toward collapse. On November 11, the guns finally fell silent. The United States and its allies had won the Great War, but deciding wha...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in 2017, Rhode Island grower Joe Jutras set a world record with a green squash weighing 2,118 pounds, earning a place among the largest fruits and vegetables ever grown. Reaching that milestone took years of experimenting with soil science and meticulous care from planting to harvest. Joe explains how patience, timing, and an understanding of growth cycles...

On this episode of Our American Stories, you may not know Tommy Tedesco’s name, but chances are you know his guitar. As one of the most in-demand session musicians in Los Angeles, Tedesco played on thousands of recordings, working with artists including the Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, the Mamas & the Papas, and countless others. He was also part of the loose collection of s...

On this episode of Our American Stories, for generations of Boston Red Sox fans, heartbreak became part of the experience. After winning the World Series in 1918, the team sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees and went 86 years without another championship, enduring crushing losses in 1946, 1967, 1975, 1986, and again in 2003. Boston Red Sox writer Sean McAdam tells how the so-called Curse of the...