Dave Does History

On this episode of Dave Does History , we go back to July 20, 1976, a day that lit the fuse on a lifetime passion for space. At just twelve years old, I watched as Viking 1 became the first American spacecraft to land safely on Mars. It wasn’t a movie. It wasn’t science fiction. It was real, and it was glorious. Viking wasn’t just a piece of hardware. It was a question on legs, asking the Red Plan...

Before sunrise on July 19, 1845 , Lower Manhattan stirred under the weight of another blistering summer. Most of the city slept, unaware that a moment of carelessness or perhaps a faulty flame in a whale oil shop would turn calm into catastrophe. The fire began in the early hours inside J.L. Van Doren’s candle and whale oil business at 34 New Street. A single blaze, born in a building filled with...

On this episode of Dave Does History , we take a sobering look at one of the most haunting nights of the 20th century: the brutal execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his entire family by Bolshevik revolutionaries on July 17, 1918 . It wasn’t a battlefield. It wasn’t a courtroom. And it certainly wasn’t justice. It was a dark cellar, a lie about a photograph, and a hail of bullets that ended over 300...

On July 16, 1950, in the early chaos of the Korean War, a Catholic chaplain named Father Herman Felhoelter made a choice that would define the very idea of sacrifice. Surrounded by wounded American soldiers who could not be moved, he stayed behind as the enemy advanced. He knelt to pray over the dying and was gunned down mid-prayer, alongside the men he refused to leave. This is the story of the C...

This week on Dave Does History on Bill Mick Live , we take you back to the morning that changed the world—April 19, 1775. It didn’t begin with a declaration. It began with whispers, riders, and a few dozen men standing on Lexington Green. These weren’t revolutionaries yet. They were farmers, tradesmen, and teenagers who had simply had enough. Dave brings a personal lens to the story, tracing the f...

In the summer of 1798, the young American republic faced a moment of crisis. Gripped by fear of foreign enemies and internal dissent, Congress passed a series of laws that would become known as the Alien and Sedition Acts. Pitched as national security measures during the undeclared Quasi-War with France, these laws instead became a hammer used against political opponents and a direct challenge to...

In the summer of 1787, while America’s greatest political minds were huddled in Philadelphia crafting the Constitution, another crucial act of nation-building was quietly unfolding in New York. The Confederation Congress, often remembered more for its failures than its triumphs, passed the Northwest Ordinance—one of the most influential pieces of legislation in American history. This wasn’t just a...

On July 12, 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt rolled into Pueblo, Colorado aboard his special train, stood on the rear platform, and delivered a brief but memorable speech. The weather was pleasant, the crowd was cheerful, and FDR, ever the showman, tossed out a line that still echoes today: “We want to make democracy work.” It sounded noble. It sounded patriotic. But what did he mean by it? A...

On this episode of Dave Does History, we set our sights on one of the toughest warships to ever sail under the American flag—the USS Nevada. Launched in 1914 and sunk, finally, in 1948, the Nevada wasn’t just a battleship. She was a brawler. She took a torpedo at Pearl Harbor, shook off six bombs, stood back up, and got back into the fight. She bombarded beaches from Normandy to Okinawa and even s...

Today on Dave Does History, we’re cracking open one of the dustier chapters of the American presidency—one that begins not with fireworks and fanfare, but with cherries and spoiled milk. When President Zachary Taylor died unexpectedly on July 9, 1850, the nation turned to a man most Americans barely knew: Vice President Millard Fillmore. What followed was a presidency built on compromise, cautious...

July 9, 1755. The forests of western Pennsylvania echoed with musket fire, panic, and the cries of wounded men as the mighty British Empire came face to face with a kind of war it didn’t understand. At the center of it all was a proud general who wouldn’t listen, an outnumbered enemy who knew the terrain, and a young Virginian named George Washington who refused to break. The Battle of the Mononga...

On July 8, 1898, one of the Wild West’s most infamous con men met his end not in a saloon or a courtroom, but on a weathered dock at the edge of Skagway, Alaska. Jefferson Randolph “Soapy” Smith had made a career out of charming suckers and swindling prospectors, running everything from fake lotteries to rigged card games. He called himself a protector of order, but the people of Skagway saw throu...

On this episode of Dave Does History , we’re heading back to the summer of 1520, deep into the heart of Mesoamerica, where a broken band of Spanish conquistadors found themselves surrounded by thousands of Aztec warriors on the dusty plains of Otumba. Hernán Cortés was battered, outnumbered, and on the brink of ruin. What happened next wasn’t a miracle—it was desperation, steel nerves, and a reckl...

He’s remembered for one of the boldest lines in American history— “I have not yet begun to fight!” —but the real John Paul Jones was far more complicated than a single quote. In this episode of Dave Does History , we sail straight into the stormy life of the man who took the American Revolution to Britain’s own shores, fought a burning ship into legend, and became both a national hero and an inter...

Before America declared its independence, before anyone started talking seriously about revolution, the colonists made one last desperate appeal to their king. It was called the Olive Branch Petition, and it wasn’t a threat. It was a love letter. In this episode of Dave Does History , we’re going back to the summer of 1775, when American leaders still believed King George III might save them from...

On this episode of Dave Does History , we’re headed down to the bluffs of Mississippi, where, on July 4th, 1863, the city of Vicksburg surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant. While the cannons still cooled in Gettysburg, Grant’s army delivered the blow that split the Confederacy in two and gave President Lincoln reason to declare that “the Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.” It wasn’...

In July 1913, fifty years after the cannons fell silent at Gettysburg, something astonishing happened. More than 53,000 Civil War veterans—old enemies who once charged at each other with bayonets and bullets—returned to the battlefield not for war, but for peace. They came with canes instead of rifles, shaking hands across the same stone walls where they once fought and fell. The 50th Anniversary...

Caesar Rodney was no ordinary man. He was a physician, a farmer, and a military officer who had served in the Delaware Assembly. He was also one of the most ardent supporters of independence, but on the day of the vote, he was in Delaware, a 70-mile journey away from Philadelphia. Rodney had been in poor health and had been unable to attend the Continental Congress for some time. But on the day of...

In this episode of Dave Does History , we travel back to 1774 and examine the moment when the British Crown pushed too far and the American colonies finally stood together. Dave Bowman joins Bill Mick Live to explore the Intolerable Acts, a series of harsh laws meant to punish Massachusetts but which instead united the colonies in defiance. From the closure of Boston’s port to the often-overlooked...

On this episode of Dave Does History , we’re heading back to the summer of 1497, when a blacksmith and a lawyer led a march of 15,000 angry Cornishmen across southern England toward the gates of London. Their mission? To protest a tax they didn’t believe in, imposed by a king they barely recognized, for a war they had no stake in. It all ended in blood at Blackheath, and with two bodies swinging a...

In June of 1963, the Cold War stood like a concrete wall between freedom and tyranny—quite literally in Berlin. President John F. Kennedy, in one of the most electrifying moments of his presidency, traveled to the divided city to deliver a message not just to Germans, but to the world. With the phrase "Ich bin ein Berliner," he declared solidarity with those trapped behind the Iron Curta...

On a sweltering summer night in 1906, the rooftop theatre of Madison Square Garden became the stage for one of the most infamous murders in American history. Architect Stanford White, a towering figure of Gilded Age New York, was gunned down in front of hundreds by millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw. The motive? A beautiful young model named Evelyn Nesbit, caught in a web of seduction, obsession, and...

In this episode of Liberty 250 , we follow Benjamin Franklin’s journey from loyal servant of the British Crown to committed American revolutionary. It begins with the Hutchinson Letter Scandal, where Franklin’s attempt to ease tensions by quietly exposing colonial corruption backfires, igniting public fury and British outrage. Then comes the Boston Tea Party—a dramatic protest Franklin condemns as...

Before there were keyboards, before there were screens, there was the rhythmic clatter of metal keys striking paper. In this episode of Dave Does History , we’re rolling back to June 23, 1868—the day Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for a curious contraption called the “Type-Writer.” What started as a tinkerer’s solution to sloppy handwriting became one of the most transformative invent...

On this episode of Dave Does History , we dive into one of the most chilling coincidences in military history. Twice on June 22nd, Europe’s greatest powers launched full-scale invasions of Russia. First, it was Napoleon in 1812, leading the mighty Grande Armée into the East. Then, in 1941, Hitler unleashed Operation Barbarossa, the largest invasion force the world had ever seen. Both men promised...