Dave Does History

On the night of August 18, 1944, the Pacific Ocean erupted into chaos. USS Rasher, a Gato class submarine, prowled off the coast of Luzon under black skies and driving rain. What she found was one of the largest Japanese convoys of the war, a formation of tankers, transports, and escorts moving through the darkness. The conditions were perfect for a submarine on the hunt. The storm and overcast sk...

I stood on the cliff at Cape Disappointment, wind in my face, the Pacific grumbling below. Behind me, the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center kept watch like a lighthouse for memory. This is where the Corps of Discovery met saltwater and fog, where maps ran out and America looked bigger than any drawing on parchment. I went to touch that edge, and to meet the shadow of a man who helped find it. To...

In August of 1942, as American forces were battling to hold their ground on Guadalcanal, another group of Marines was slipping quietly across the Pacific with a very different mission. Packed inside two submarines, Carlson’s Raiders of the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion set out to strike the Japanese on a remote atoll called Makin. Their raid was meant to destroy outposts, capture intelligence, and d...

On August 13, 1961, Berliners awoke to find their city transformed. Overnight, East German troops and police had moved into position, stringing coils of barbed wire across streets, tearing up roads, and blocking rail lines. The open crossings between East and West Berlin were suddenly sealed. The day would become known as Barbed Wire Sunday. For years, Berlin had been the last escape route from th...

In this episode of Dave Does History on Bill Mick Live , the Liberty 250 series explores the Declaration of Independence as a masterfully constructed work of political design. Dave Bowman asks listeners to picture the document not as a relic locked behind glass, but as a building made to stand for centuries. Each section, from the preamble to the conclusion, serves a specific purpose, fitting toge...

In the early morning hours of August 9, 1942 , the waters off Guadalcanal erupted in chaos and fire. The Battle of Savo Island would become one of the worst defeats in the history of the United States Navy, a brutal reminder that the Pacific War was far from won. Only two days earlier, the Marines had landed on Guadalcanal and nearby islands, seizing a nearly finished Japanese airfield. Their foot...

On August 8, 1988, Wrigley Field lit up for the first time in its long and storied history. The Cubs were finally playing under the lights, ending decades of sunlit baseball tradition on Chicago’s North Side. It was a moment fans had waited for, some reluctantly, others eagerly. Television demanded it, the league supported it, and even the city council finally agreed to it. But as history would ha...

In the summer of 1959, as Cold War tensions brewed and the space race gained momentum, a small American satellite quietly made history. Explorer 6, a modest sphere bristling with solar paddles and scientific instruments, launched from Cape Canaveral with little fanfare. Its mission was technical, its goals ambitious, but what it accomplished transcended science and touched something deeper. On Aug...

On this episode of Dave Does History , Bill Mick sits in for Dave as we travel to the thick woods of upstate New York, where on August 6, 1777, one of the bloodiest and most personal battles of the American Revolution erupted. The Battle of Oriskany wasn’t fought by foreign armies or distant kings. It was neighbors against neighbors, families torn apart, and Native nations forced to choose sides....

On this week’s episode of Dave Does History , we head back to the sweltering summer of 1776 and the most famous group project in American history. With independence already voted on, the task of putting it all into words fell to Thomas Jefferson. But as Dave explains, writing the Declaration of Independence was anything but simple. From Jefferson’s philosophical struggles to the brutal edits made...

In August 1972, Uganda's dictator Idi Amin issued a chilling ultimatum. He gave the country’s Asian population just 90 days to leave. No hearings, no negotiations, no appeals. Seventy thousand people, many of them Ugandan citizens, were suddenly unwanted in the only home they had ever known. What followed wasn’t just an expulsion. It was organized theft, driven by racism and hunger for power. Busi...

In the summer of 1936, under the shadow of swastikas and the watchful gaze of Adolf Hitler, two American sprinters lined up for a race that would shake the foundations of Nazi propaganda. Everyone remembers Jesse Owens crossing the line first. Few recall who finished second. Ralph Metcalfe, a man shaped by grit, faith, and speed, ran the race of his life in Berlin. But his story didn’t end on that...

Certainly. Here's the 150-word podcast introduction with proper paragraph formatting and no em dash marks: On today's episode of Dave Does History , we're pulling up a chair at a Deadwood poker table and watching the final moments of one of the West’s most iconic figures. James Butler Hickok, known to the world as Wild Bill, wasn’t looking for a fight that day. He was just trying to wi...

In 1963, the battle over civil rights reached a boiling point, and President John F. Kennedy stood at the edge of a political cliff. For years, he had played it safe, balancing ideals with cold electoral math. But that year, something shifted. From the fire hoses of Birmingham to the death of Medgar Evers, the moral weight of the moment pressed hard. Kennedy stepped forward with a national address...

On this episode of Dave Does History , we turn our attention to a man who stood his ground when the entire Union line was collapsing. General George Henry Thomas, The Rock of Chickamauga, isn't a name you hear as often as Grant or Sherman. But maybe you should. Born in Virginia and raised in the slaveholding South, Thomas made the unthinkable decision to stay loyal to the Union. His family dis...

On this episode of Dave Does History , we travel back to 1863 and uncover the story behind the Treaty of Box Elder, a forgotten agreement born from bloodshed and broken under the weight of legal fine print. Signed just months after the Bear River Massacre, this treaty promised peace and relief to the Northwestern Shoshone, a people left destitute after U.S. troops slaughtered hundreds of their kin...

In this episode of Dave Does History on Bill Mick Live , we head into the winter of 1775, a moment when America stood at the edge of decision but hadn’t yet taken the leap. The muskets had fired at Lexington and Concord. The King had declared the colonies in rebellion. But most Americans still clung to the hope of reconciliation. That changed with the arrival of one powerful pamphlet. Thomas Paine...

On this episode of Dave Does History , we saddle up for one of the strangest spectacles ever to grace the American sporting landscape: Donkey Baseball. That is right. In towns across the country during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, people paid good money to watch their neighbors try to play ball while riding reluctant, ornery donkeys. What started as a Depression-era gimmick turned into a fundraising s...

In today’s episode of Dave Does History , we journey back to a summer day in 1900, when Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II stepped onto a platform in Bremerhaven and let loose one of the most infamous speeches in modern imperial history. As German troops prepared to sail for China to join the fight against the Boxer Rebellion, the Kaiser delivered what has come to be known as the "Hun Speech."...

In the summer of 1958, the United States quietly launched a small satellite that carried a very big secret. Explorer 4 wasn’t just another science mission. It was part of a classified effort to understand what happens when nuclear weapons are detonated in space. Designed by Dr. James Van Allen’s team and launched aboard a Juno I rocket, Explorer 4 became the first satellite to observe both natural...

Wyoming has always held a special place in my heart. It is one of those rare places that still feels untamed, where the sky stretches without apology and the land remembers everything. If life ever lines up just right, I’d love to settle there, not just visit, but stay and listen to what the wind has to say. In this episode of Dave Does History , we’re heading back to July 25, 1868 , when the Terr...

Amelia Earhart wasn’t just a pilot. She was a force of nature wrapped in leather and sky. In this episode of Dave Does History , we trace the arc of her remarkable life—from her bold, tomboy beginnings in Kansas to the cockpit of the Lockheed Electra that carried her into legend. She didn’t break barriers gently. She tore through them at altitude, shattering expectations for what women could do in...

On this episode of Dave Does History , we’re taking a bite out of something sweet, simple, and surprisingly historic: vanilla ice cream. July 23 is National Vanilla Ice Cream Day, and while some folks might shrug at vanilla as “plain,” the truth is anything but. This flavor has roots that stretch from the ancient empires of Mesoamerica to the refined kitchens of Monticello. Along the way, it gathe...

In this episode of Dave Does History , we step into the uneasy months before independence, when not everyone in the colonies was ready to break with the Crown. Some still believed King George III could be reasoned with, that he might rise above Parliament and become the kind of monarch Enlightenment thinkers dreamed of. John Dickinson’s Olive Branch Petition was a final appeal to that idea, a hope...

On this episode of Dave Does History , we go back to a moment when the Civil War still wore a fresh coat of naivety. July 21, 1861. The first major clash between North and South unfolds near a muddy Virginia stream called Bull Run. People thought this would be over quickly. They brought picnic baskets. They brought their kids. What they got instead was a violent wake-up call. Union troops, raw and...