American History Tellers

After six long years of war, the Continental Army was exhausted, and Congress had run out of money. George Washington feared that without a decisive victory, the cause of independence would be lost. But there was fresh cause for hope in the summer of 1781, as a massive French fleet sailed for the Chesapeake Bay. French and American commanders devised a plan to trap the British Army on a peninsula...

In the aftermath of America’s victory at Saratoga, France entered the Revolutionary War, transforming the colonial rebellion into a global conflict. British officials decided that the path to victory lay in the South. As the fighting shifted to the Carolinas, a brutal civil war erupted, pitting families and neighbors against one another in cycles of violence and retribution. By 1779, the Patriot c...

In 1777, as Americans sought the support of France, Benjamin Franklin struggled to convince officials in Paris to form a military alliance with the new United States. Meanwhile, British General John Burgoyne planned a grand strategy to crush the rebellion by conquering the Hudson River Valley. That summer, his troops fought the Continental Army in a battle that would turn the tide of the American...

Ed is the grandson of footballing legend Gordon Banks. He was a national icon, the only goalkeeper ever to win the soccer World Cup for England. But Ed’s heard a rumour: that in 1970, while defending the title, his granddad, his hero, was poisoned… by the CIA. All part of a Cold War plot to bolster a military dictatorship in Latin America, supposedly. Could this possibly be true? Banks did get ill...

In July 1776, the British Royal Navy began landing a massive armada in New York Harbor, setting up the biggest battle of the Revolutionary War. In response, General George Washington faced the daunting challenge of preparing his motley army to defend New York and keep the colonists’ hopes alive. In the months that followed, faith in the cause of independence began to waver, and the Continental Arm...

In the aftermath of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, colonial militiamen converged on Boston to confront the veteran British Army. But over the next six months, newly appointed commander-in-chief George Washington struggled to transform a patchwork of amateur militias into a unified national army. As the conflict wore on, Americans debated whether to escalate the fight and take the unpreceden...

In 1765, King George III and his ministers in the British Parliament sparked outrage in the American Colonies when they announced they were issuing the Stamp Act, the first direct tax on the Colonies. American critics decried the “taxation without representation,” and Boston radicals staged protests, boycotts, and attacks on tax collectors. After a decade of growing tension over taxes, representat...

Thomas Edison is one of the most celebrated inventors in American history, having helped transform a world lit by candles and gas lamps into one powered by electricity. Over his lifetime he was granted more than a thousand patents, and pioneered the very idea of organized innovation at his ground-breaking research and development laboratories. But the story of how he did it is complicated. So, to...

By 1888, the race to power America's cities had become a battle between the rival visions of Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. But when the powerful industrialist George Westinghouse threw his weight behind Tesla and his AC system, what had been a personal falling out became something far larger – a war over the future of electricity itself. Their bitter fight spilled into courtrooms, ignited a nati...

In the spring of 1884, a little-known Serbian immigrant named Nikola Tesla arrived in America with little more than a letter of introduction to the most famous inventor in the world – Thomas Edison. Tesla went to work for Edison, impressing his new employer with his intelligence and work ethic. But the two men were too different, too stubborn, and too convinced of their own vision to coexist for l...

In the 1870s, the age of artificial light was still in its infancy. Gas lamps cast a dim glow on city streets, and early arc lights were just beginning to appear in a handful of public spaces. But reliable, practical light for homes and businesses remained out of reach for most people. Then, in 1878, America’s most famous inventor, Thomas Edison, witnessed a demonstration of a novel electric gener...

The devastation of the 1900 Galveston hurricane left thousands dead and a city in ruins — but it also set in motion a remarkable story of recovery and reinvention. As survivors buried their dead and relief poured in, city leaders adopted an entirely new form of government to steer the rebuilding effort.  In this episode, Lindsay is joined by historian Dr. Patricia Bixel, who shares how Galves...

On September 9, 1900, the residents of Galveston, Texas woke up to find their island in ruins. Entire neighborhoods had vanished overnight. Telegraph, telephone, and electrical lines were destroyed, as were the four bridges connecting Galveston to the mainland. Bloodied men, women, and children stumbled through the streets. And thousands of corpses were strewn amongst the wreckage, victims of what...

As a catastrophic hurricane approached Galveston, Texas on the morning of September 8, 1900, residents continued to go about their daily lives, with little warning of what was to come. Children played in the surf at the beach, and workers clocked in for their shifts downtown. But when the full strength of the storm hit, water from the Gulf of Mexico flooded the streets of the island city, and 100...

At the turn of the 20th century, a booming cotton trade had made the Gulf Coast city of Galveston, Texas an economic powerhouse. Located just a few feet above sea level on a narrow barrier island, it was prone to flooding. But in a time before sophisticated weather forecasting, residents failed to grasp the danger lurking in their midst. In early September 1900, as a tropical storm gathered streng...

In 1949, aspiring writer Nelle Harper Lee moved from her home in small-town Alabama to New York City. She was following in the footsteps of her childhood friend, author Truman Capote. Within a few years she had penned a novel of her own, and called it To Kill a Mockingbird. To Kill a Mockingbird catapulted Harper Lee to the heights of literary fame. But just as she found success, she withdrew, ove...

Born into poverty in Harlem in 1924, James Baldwin rose to become a celebrated novelist, essayist, playwright, and poet, and a leading voice in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. In his debut novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, and in his essay collections, Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time, Baldwin wrote eloquently and provocatively about race, religion, sexuality, politics and cla...

Growing up in the Salinas Valley of Northern California, John Steinbeck dreamed of becoming a professional writer. In his youth he took on odd jobs and worked amongst ranch hands and migrant workers, who would inspire some of his greatest work, including The Grapes of Wrath. Published in 1939, the book captured the struggles of everyday Americans during the Great Depression, and Steinbeck became f...

In the late 1850s, a young man named Samuel Clemens started out piloting steamboats on the Mississippi River. Within a few years, he embarked on a writing career, adopting the pen name that became famous: Mark Twain. Armed with a wry sense of humor and a natural flair for storytelling, Twain gained wide acclaim for his short stories, travel sketches, and novels. In 1885, he published The Adventure...

In 1840, eight-year-old Louisa May Alcott moved to the small town of Concord, Massachusetts with her family. There, she spent her days wandering through the woods, putting on plays with her sisters, and learning from famed writers and philosophers such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. For years, Alcott struggled to achieve success as a writer. Then in 1868, she drew inspiration from...

In February 1826, 17-year-old Edgar Allan Poe was a promising student at the University of Virginia. But within a few months, gambling debts forced him to abandon his studies. It was just one of many setbacks Poe endured in a life marked by financial struggle, alcoholism, and personal tragedy. But Poe launched a remarkable career in writing, helping to establish American literature with a bold, ne...

In the aftermath of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, authorities faced mounting pressure to clean up Chicago and take down the violent mobsters who overran the city – most notoriously, Al Capone. The federal government took on the challenge, pursuing Capone relentlessly. In the end, Capone did go down – not for murder, but for tax evasion. And since Capone’s conviction in the 1930s, this unorthod...

On Valentine’s Day 1929, seven men were gunned down in a Chicago garage in an attack that stunned the nation. Photographs of the bloody scene appeared on front pages across the country, and the public reacted with horror. Even in Chicago—a city hardened by daily gang violence—the message was clear: this was different. City officials were under intense pressure to respond, and suspicion quickly fel...

In 1920, a young Al Capone arrived in Chicago looking for a fresh start, and his timing couldn’t have been better. That same year, Prohibition outlawed the manufacture and sale of alcohol, turning America’s thirst into a criminal gold rush. Chicago quickly became the epicenter of bootlegging, and Capone was determined to seize the moment and make himself rich beyond imagination. But the city was a...

In the early 1950s, Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin were in a race to develop a vaccine against polio. While Salk’s killed-virus vaccine was the first to be distributed, Sabin continued working to perfect his own approach. In the end, Sabin’s oral polio vaccine—made from a weakened live virus—proved easier to administer and was ultimately distributed far more widely, though his name never achieved the...