Dave Does History

He wasn’t a household name, but Brigadier General Enoch Poor was one of George Washington’s most trusted officers and a hero of the American Revolution. Born a humble cabinetmaker, Poor became a successful shipbuilder, an early patriot, and a battlefield leader whose courage helped turn the tide at Saratoga and Monmouth. But his death in 1780—officially from typhus, possibly from a secret duel—rem...

In the summer of 1980, I was sixteen years old when I stepped into a theater and watched The Blues Brothers —my first R-rated film—and it knocked me flat in the best way. This wasn’t just a comedy. It was a riotous collision of rhythm, rebellion, and redemption. On this episode of Dave Does History , we’re diving headfirst into the madness behind the music, the wrecked police cruisers, and the rea...

In the middle of World War II, when pro football was scraping for survival and young men were trading helmets for helmets of a different kind, the NFL cooked up one of the strangest solutions in sports history: the Steagles. That’s right — the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers merged into one team for the 1943 season. It was awkward, gritty, and surprisingly successful. Coaches who could...

On June 18, 1815 , in the muddy farmlands near a quiet Belgian village, the fate of Europe thundered to a climax. The Battle of Waterloo wasn’t just a clash of armies—it was the final, defiant gamble of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican general who had once crowned himself emperor and shaken the world. This episode of Dave Does History unpacks the drama, chaos, and consequences of that pivotal day....

In this explosive episode of Dave Does History , Dave Bowman joins Bill Mick to dissect the chain of events that lit the fuse of the American Revolution. From the biting street politics of the Sons of Liberty to the fatal musket blast on a snowy Boston night, Dave walks us through the Boston Massacre with sharp insight and sharp elbows. You'll meet a wigmaker’s apprentice, a furious redcoat, a...

They didn’t call it the United States Army, not yet. They called it the Continental Army. It wasn’t much to look at. Ragtag farmers and tradesmen with worn boots and mismatched coats, some carrying their grandfather’s musket, others with nothing but a pitchfork and righteous anger. But it was the beginning of something that still stands strong today.

On this episode of Dave Does History , we take a royal detour into the wonderfully weird coincidence of two medieval monarchs who shared more than a bloodline—they shared a birthday. June 13 gave us Charles the Bald and Charles the Fat, two kings from the Carolingian dynasty who ruled over fractured empires with wildly different styles and very different waistlines. One rebuilt cavalry and outwitt...

On June 12, 1775, just days before the Battle of Bunker Hill, British General Thomas Gage made a desperate move. Surrounded in Boston by angry colonial militias, Gage issued a formal proclamation declaring martial law across Massachusetts. It was a bold attempt to restore order, offering pardons to rebels—except for two: Samuel Adams and John Hancock. But rather than break the back of the rebellio...

In the summer of 1776, as the colonies stood on the edge of revolution, five men were tasked with putting the cause of liberty into words. They weren’t soldiers or generals, but thinkers, writers, and statesmen. Together, they formed what history remembers as the Committee of Five. Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Sherman, and Livingston weren’t just drafting a political statement—they were writing the...

If you think the revolution started with Jefferson’s pen, this hour will make you rethink everything. Listen now to “The Sons of Liberty” and find out what really happened when rebellion wore gang colors and carried torches through Boston’s streets.

It’s tempting to look at this as ancient history, dusty and irrelevant. But there’s a lesson here that still echoes. Democracies don’t die in flames. They die in whispers. In backroom deals. In the slow erosion of trust. They die when people give up, when elites conspire, when fear replaces conviction.

On  June 8, 1967 , in the sunlit waters of the eastern Mediterranean, an American ship flew the Stars and Stripes over calm seas. Her name was the USS Liberty, a lightly armed intelligence vessel serving under the National Security Agency. She carried 294 crew members, including sailors, Marines, and NSA linguists trained in Arabic and Russian. That morning, the Liberty cruised peacefully, 13 mile...

It was  June 7, 1776 , a heavy summer day in Philadelphia. The streets simmered with tension, and inside the State House, the Second Continental Congress sat on the edge of history. The men in that room had argued, pleaded, and petitioned for peace, but now the moment had come to talk about war. Not just war with muskets, but a war of ideas, a war of separation. That morning, a tall Virginian name...

On June 6, 1918, in a quiet forest just thirty-nine miles from Paris, the United States Marine Corps stepped into history—and hell. At Belleau Wood, fresh American forces met a hardened German enemy in a battle that would come to define the character of the Corps and the cost of liberty. It was the deadliest single day in Marine Corps history up to that time, with more than a thousand casualties s...

On this episode of Dave Does History , we take a long, hard look at one of the most controversial figures of the American West—Pat Garrett. You probably know him as the man who shot Billy the Kid, but Garrett’s story runs far deeper than that single, fateful moment in a darkened New Mexico bedroom. Born in Alabama, raised in Louisiana, and forged by the chaos of post-Civil War America, Garrett ros...

On this episode of Dave Does History , we take a closer look at one of the most misunderstood figures of the American Revolution, King George III. To many Americans, he is the villain in powdered wigs and red coats, the tyrant Jefferson scorned in the Declaration. But the real George was far more complex, a young man thrust into power, wrestling with political chaos abroad and personal demons at h...

In this episode of Dave Does History on Bill Mick Live , we venture back to a sweltering chamber in colonial Virginia, where a fiery young legislator named Patrick Henry took the floor and lit a spark that would soon roar into revolution. With the Stamp Act threatening colonial autonomy and the Sugar Act deepening imperial control, Henry stood defiant and drew a dangerous comparison—likening King...

Today on Dave Does History , we are digging into a law that did not just ruffle feathers—it rattled rafters. The Quartering Act of 1774, passed by a distant Parliament, gave royal governors the power to house British soldiers in uninhabited buildings across the colonies. To many Americans, it felt like a military boot stomping through the front gate. While it never quite put redcoats in the family...

On this episode of Dave Does History , we set sail into the heart of the Atlantic for one of the bloodiest naval battles you have never heard of—the Glorious First of June. It is 1794, and Revolutionary France is starving. A massive grain convoy from America becomes a lifeline, and the British Royal Navy is determined to cut it off. What follows is a brutal, chaotic clash between two great fleets,...

It is one of the most overlooked inventions in modern science—a simple glass dish with a lid that quietly revolutionized the world. In this episode of Dave Does History , we explore the life of Julius Richard Petri, the man whose name lives on in labs and classrooms everywhere. From his work alongside Robert Koch to the dish that bears his name, Petri’s story is a reminder that sometimes the great...

On this edition of Dave Does History , we revisit one of the most haunting and heroic moments of the medieval world: the execution of Joan of Arc on May 30, 1431 . She was just nineteen years old, a peasant girl who claimed to hear the voices of saints and turned the tide of the Hundred Years' War. She led armies, crowned a king, and frightened the powerful. Then, betrayed by allies and condem...

In this episode of Dave Does History , we revisit one of the most overlooked maritime tragedies of the 20th century—the sinking of the RMS Empress of Ireland . On May 29, 1914, just weeks before the world would plunge into war, the great liner went down in the frigid waters of the St. Lawrence River, taking 1,012 souls with her. Among the dead were 133 members of The Salvation Army, including many...

On this episode of Dave Does History , we journey back to 585 BCE, when a war between the Medes and the Lydians came to a sudden halt. Not by treaty or triumph, but by an unexpected eclipse of the sun. Ancient sources claim the philosopher Thales of Miletus predicted it. Was it science, sheer luck, or a legend crafted over time? We will explore what really happened during the Battle of the Eclipse...

On this episode of Dave Does History , Dave Bowman joins Bill Mick Live to explore how molasses, monarchs, and mismanagement helped ignite the American Revolution. From a failed cobra bounty in colonial India to the British government’s disastrous molasses tax in the 1700s, Dave draws a straight line from economic blunders to revolutionary fervor. He unpacks the moral rigidity of King George III,...

King Edmund I ruled with courage and clarity during one of England’s most volatile eras. In just seven years, he beat back Viking invasions, secured alliances, and strengthened royal justice—only to die suddenly during mass. Discover the story of Edmund the Magnificent, the king history almost forgot.