History As It Happens

Subscribe today to History As It Happens Premium for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content! This is the 70th year of Sudanese independence, but there is little to celebrate and much to lament as the country continues to tear itself apart. Three major civil wars have consumed 43 years of Sudan's seven decades, not counting the many years of violence and genocide in Darfur from 2003. Th...

Subscribe now to listen to the entire 17-minute episode (or preview 7 minutes). The precarious international consensus on nuclear non-proliferation is cracking. The Trump administration announced a civilian nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia — long sought by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — which experts fear could lead to the Saudis pursuing nuclear weapons in violation of the Nuclear Non-Prol...

Subscribe now to listen to the entire 16-minute episode (or preview 5 minutes). President Trump seems helpless. All the bombs and missiles he flings at Iran cannot solve his problems — problems he created by attacking Iran on the magical belief that the Islamic regime would crumble and be replaced by people whom Trump could control. It was a fantasy, and now, as the war enters its sixth month, Ira...

Become a subscriber for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. Was it possible for the leaders of the new American republic to end slavery entirely? Was the violent dispossession of Native peoples inevitable? These questions are integral to the eminent historian Joseph Ellis' new book about what he calls the two major failures of the revolutionary generation, " The Great Contradiction...

Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. Is Congress irreparably broken or temporarily stuck as it fails to act as a co-equal branch of government willing to check a rogue executive? And how did it get this way? In the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate, the winds of political change swept young, ambitious reformers into the halls of Congress, and they left an importan...

The podcast needs your support. Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. Have too many liberals and leftists given up on patriotism? Have they forgotten the tradition of social movements striving for equal political and economic rights as expressed in the country's founding ideals? Historian Michael Kazin says these ideals can be used "as both a benchmark against which...

Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. Now well into its fifth year, Russia's invasion of Ukraine appears to be a stalemate on the ground while the combatants seek a decisive edge in the air with drones and missiles. Diplomacy to end the war seems to be going nowhere. No one can say with any certainty how or when the war may end. Do the war's origins point toward an...

Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. Herman Melville's masterpiece Moby-Dick has something to teach us about democracy, citizenship, and the rule of law. A flop when published in the mid-nineteenth century, Moby-Dick has long been considered a quintessential American novel — an epic adventure story layered with allegory. In this episode, historian Michael Kimmage r...

This is a special episode of History As It Happens. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham is dead. His office says Graham died from "a brief and sudden illness" on Saturday night in Washington. He was 71. Graham was first elected to the U.S. House in 1994 and the Senate in 2002. He was seeking a fifth term in the midterm elections this November. After first condemning Donald Trump during the 2016...

Keep the narrative flow going while supporting the show! Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. The discourse is drowning in  -isms . President Trump is railing against an imaginary resurgence of communism. Many of its critics say the Trump administration is putting the country on the road to fascism. Others are trying to define something called Trumpism. In this epi...

Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. When the Trump administration attacked Iran in late February, some war backers dreamt that the Iranian people would rise en masse and take control of their country. It proved to be a dangerous fantasy. But then the history of U.S.-Iran relations is full of cruel ironies. More than 70 years ago, a democrat and nationalist named M...

Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. This is the eighth episode in a series marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, America's semiquincentennial. By the time the delegates at the Continental Congress formally declared independence in July 1776, the armed rebellion had been underway for more than a year. General George Washington had been i...

Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. Enjoy this special episode of History As It Happens! On June 26, podcast host Martin Di Caro attended a screening of "Young Washington" at  Mount Vernon in Virginia. The new film tells the story of George Washington's formative years as an officer in the Virginia militia at the outbreak of the French & Indian War (1754-1763). "Y...

Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. As the president's approval ratings sink to a low ahead of the midterm elections, is the end of the Age of Trump in sight, or will his politics endure? What of Donald Trump's presidency might last? When it comes to ideology, Trump is as difficult to pin down today as he was when he announced his first presidential run in 2015. A...

Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. This is the seventh episode in a series marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, America's semiquincentennial. He was the indispensable American. George Washington held together the Continental Army as its commander-in-chief during the Revolutionary War. Then he answered his countrymen's call to serve as...

Subscribe now to listen to the entire 24-minute episode (or preview 8 minutes). One of the most influential central bankers in U.S. history, Alan Greenspan, who chaired the Federal Reserve for 19 years, died on June 22. He was 100. Greenspan was once treated as an oracle whose policies and arcane pronouncements moved markets. After the '08 crash, however, his legacy was badly tarnished because he...

Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. This is the sixth episode in a series marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, America's semiquincentennial. The American Revolution was deeply rooted in Enlightenment philosophy and inspired by the principle of natural rights. Even before the fighting broke out at Lexington and Concord, some Americans w...

Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. The national mood was dour. Political scandals and a lost war cast long shadows. The economy was mired in stagflation. Americans were losing confidence in the future. It was the summer of '76 — 1976! Yet despite the tough times, millions celebrated the nation's bicentennial, which was both patriotic and a bit schlocky. Historian...

Enjoy this entire 49-minute bonus episode! To listen to future bonus content and get early access to ad-free episodes,  become a subscriber  today. History As It Happens  Premium costs $5 per month. **** On June 7, 2026, the historian Gordon Wood died at 92. He was one of the greatest scholars of the American Revolution and early Republic, who did "as much as anyone to deepen understanding and cha...

Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. Chuck Todd is our special guest in this episode. He explains how changes in mass media and the journalism business led to the Trump presidency, and how Trump himself exploited the new media landscape to achieve power. Chuck Todd hosts  The Chuck ToddCast on YouTube. He is the former NBC News political director and moderator of "...

Never listen to ads again! Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. Our memories of D-Day usually center on the courage and grit of the infantrymen who stormed the Normandy beaches under German fire. We don't talk much about the weatherman. But without Group Captain James Stagg's forecast, there would have been few heroes to remember from June 6, 1944. In this episode,...

Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content! President Donald Trump's corruption and abuse of power are staggering. In his second term, he has prioritized enriching himself and his family in broad daylight, while weaponizing the Department of Justice to go after his enemies. In this episode, historian Ken Hughes, an expert on Nixon's secret White House tapes and Watergate,...

Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content! What was Cold War liberalism? What is its lasting significance? Does it live on as a zombie ideology? In this episode, historians Daniel Bessner and Michael Brenes trace the origins of this powerful ideology to the 1930s and 40s. It soon reached the apogee of its influence, only to decline after the tragedy of Vietnam. As Americ...

Enjoy this entire 30-minute bonus episode! To listen to future bonus content and get early access to ad-free episodes, become a subscriber today. History As It Happens Premium costs $5 per month. Why do some opponents of the abandoned JCPOA, also known as the Iran nuclear deal of 2015, continue to lie about it? Many of these critics are now the most vocal backers of President Trump and Israeli Pri...

Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content! This is the fifth episode in an occasional series for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, America's semiquincentennial. Americans have always contested the meanings and purpose of the Revolution. During the 1850s, both unionists and secessionists, the anti-slavery movement and pro-slavery stalwarts, cited t...