History Author Show

  June 28, 2021 – We all know the name of John Henry “Doc” Holliday, but who was he in that lifetime beyond the fences of the O.K. Corral, standing guns drawn with Wyatt Earp? Our time machine travels back to meet this icon of the Old West, before and after his moment of destiny in Tombstone, Arizona, at the O.K. Corral. Our guide on this journey is Victoria Wilcox , who brings us The W...

  June 14, 2021 – In 1982, the military junta in Buenos Aires had an idea to boost its sagging popularity: Invade the Falkland Islands, a British territory that Argentines called Las Malvinas . Only 60 Royal Marines stood in the way, 8,000 miles from home and cut off from support. In this week’s episode, we bring you “the book they said couldn’t be written about the battle t...

    May 17, 2021 – When we think of George Washington, we see him carved onto Mount Rushmore — above all of us and certainly above anything as oily as politics. But how did he get up there? Joining us to shine new light on the warrior-statesman’s career from a mere state legislator to the single most dominant force in the creation of the United States, is David O. Stewa...

  May 3, 2021 – Who was the Roman general Marc Antony before he became a legend, before he rose as a man in full, forever linked in history with Cleopatra? We’ll meet a boy struggling to redeem his disgraced family name in this week’s novel, Antonius: Son of Rome . It’s book one in Brook Allen’s Antonius Trilogy, followed by Antonius: Second in Command and the co...

  April 19, 2021 – How did the trauma of the First World War follow a baseball legend home, sending both his game and his life into downward spirals? Returning to introduce us to this tragic Hall of Famer is Jim Leeke, who brings us The Best Team Over There: The Untold Story of Grover Cleveland Alexander and the Great War . Grover Cleveland “Pete” Alexander is a legendary na...

  The New York Sun – General Petraeus Headlines Celebration of the Birth of U. S. Grant – Dean Karayanis The New York Sun – Greatness of U.S. Grant Comes Into Sharp Relief at 200 – Dean Karayanis April 5, 2021 – How did the general who saved the Union and served two terms as president, earn so much love from the nation that they memorialized him with what’s...

< &#160; March 22, 2021 &#8211; If you don&#8217;t know the name Marion Miley, then prepare to meet someone you&#8217;ll never forget. The young golfer had it all: brains, power, beauty, and a winning personality. It seemed only a matter of time before this 27-year-old phenom earned immortality on the links with a national championship. But fate had other plans. Three burglars cut Marion&#8217;s l...

&#160; March 8, 2021 &#8211; What happens when a legendary historian aims his keen eye in the rearview mirror, examining the places, people, and experiences that made him a great storyteller? Well, when the historian is David Pietrusza , the answer is the rich, funny and poignant memoir Too Long Ago: A Childhood Memory. A Vanished World . Before returning us to the Amsterdam, NY, of Upstate New Yo...

&#160; The New York Sun &#8211; McKinley High: Cancel Culture Targets Assassinated President in Hawaii &#8211; Dean Karayanis February 15, 2021 &#8211; There has been no more noble fight in all of history than the one guaranteeing equal rights for formerly enslaved people. So how did America forget the Black congressman and a Civil War veteran president to ensure that all those Union soldiers hadn...

&#160; February 8, 2012 &#8211; The U.S. Navy builds modern marvels: 100,000-ton hunks of metal that glide across the ocean rather than sinking like rocks. But how do they do it? The short answer is &#8220;computers.&#8221; But it was Raye Montague who first designed a ship with that technology, doing so as a single mother during the height of the Cold War, and as a Black woman born into the segre...

&#160; January 25, 2021 &#8211; When George Washington accepted the responsibility of being the first president of a new nation, he felt the weight of history on his broad shoulders, knowing that every step he took, would set precedents for generations. So, how did he pick a team of advisers to keep his path straight on the long march to nationhood? We explore how he pioneered the presidential cab...

&#160; January 11, 2021 &#8211; In 2017, Sports Illustrated named Mike &#8220;Doc&#8221; Emrick the greatest sportscaster of all time. But how did a kid from a tiny town in the American Midwest, grow up to be a voice synonymous with Canada&#8217;s game, the first media member inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, a TV heavyweight, and the winner of eight Sports Emmys? How did Doc sound just...

December 28, 2020 &#8211; What&#8217;s it like being the great-grandson of one of the greatest leaders of the 20th Century, the man called &#8220;the Greatest Briton&#8221;? In this episode, we pay tribute to Jonathan Sandys , Winston Churchill&#8217;s great-grandson, who passed away at just 43 years old on December 29, 2018. With the two-year remembrance upon us, we reached back into the archives...

&#160; December 14, 2020 &#8211; In 1880, Maria Longworth Nichols Storer founded Rookwood Pottery in Cincinnati, aiming to give American artists a place to produce quality pieces to beautify the home, but also practical ceramics and tile. It grew into a world-renowned success, one that endures to this day. Spinning the pottery wheel for us is Bob Batchelor who brings us the illustrated history Roo...

&#160; November 30, 2020 -What are your favorite stories from growing up? Well, make room on your bookshelf for the chickens who dreamed of speaking Yiddish. We dive into a treasure trove of children&#8217;s literature, brought together here for the first time by Miriam Udel . Her book is Honey on the Page: A Treasury of Yiddish Children&#8217;s Literature .  Perfect for anyone on your Hanukah or...

November 16, 2020 &#8211; &#8220;Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.&#8221; The phrase is the stuff of legend, but who wrote that memorable lyric? In this episode, we meet the street poet with a heart of gold, Drew &#8220;Bundini&#8221; Brown, Jr., one of boxing’s most mysterious and misunderstood figures &#8212; and the one who motivated Muhammad Ali to be the greatest. Join us in the corne...

November 2, 2020 &#8211; One of Europe&#8217;s greatest monsters. One of America&#8217;s greatest presidents. We&#8217;ll dig into the parallel paths that led these men and their nations to very different final destinations with renowned historian David Pietrusza. We sat down at the FDR Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, N.Y., to discuss his book 1932: The Rise of Hitler and FDR ―Two Ta...

October 19, 2020 &#8211; In 1887, the New York World newspaper laughed off 23-year-old Elizabeth Cochrane&#8217;s dreams of being a reporter. Today, she&#8217;s a New York City legend, known to history by the pen name Nellie Bly. But to sew up that dream job, Nellie had to go undercover in the closest thing Gilded Age Gotham had to hell: The asylums of Blackwell&#8217;s Island on the East River. T...

October 5, 2020 &#8211; In 1881, an assassin shot President James A. Garfield just four months into his term, ending this noble leader&#8217;s plans for carrying out Abraham Lincoln&#8217;s legacy of equality for formerly enslaved Americans. But how did he get into the big chair? Our time machine heads into the hurly burley of the 1880 election, the only time two Civil War veterans faced off acros...

September 21, 2020 &#8211; The Great War is over, but the Spanish Influenza continues to deliver the butcher&#8217;s bill. Everywhere, children are dying. But in Philadelphia, they&#8217;re also disappearing &#8212; and they all have one thing in common: They&#8217;re immigrants. We dive into a riveting novel set 100 years ago that&#8217;s eerily familiar today with acclaimed novelist Ellen Marie...

Sep 7, 2020 &#8211; On September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda sought to break the American union, aiming at what they saw as fatal flaws in our democratic system. Two decades later, the man who was governor of the Empire State on that day of infamy dares to ask, &#8220;Did the terrorists win?&#8221; In this episode, the 53rd governor of New York, George E. Pataki, joins us to discuss Beyond the Great Divide...

Aug 24, 2020 &#8211; What if your grandparents had narrowly escaped a genocide that left one million people dead, just because they shared your faith and ethnic background? That&#8217;s part of the Karayanis family story, in the mass murder of Greeks by Ottoman Turkey that followed the Great War. Our guide back to the 20th Century&#8217;s first genocide, is Greek-Australian Aris Tsifidis, who brin...

August 10, 2020 &#8211; Lizzie Borden has been testified against by generations of children in a nursery rhyme, and continually convicted in the court of public opinion. But did she swing the axe that whacked her parents, or didn&#8217;t she? We dig into the 1893 murder trial with first-time author Cara Robertson. She brings us The Trial of Lizzie Borden: A True Story . Based on transcripts of the...

July 27, 2020 &#8211; Video killed the radio star, and the talkies killed Vaudeville, but some legends adapt to changing times. In this episode, we meet one such innovator, who made a series of leaps from New York City&#8217;s Hippodrome to Hollywood, with many entertaining stops and in between. Born in the San Francisco of 1883 as Katherine Gertrude Hay, Gertrude Hoffman broke into show business...

July 13, 2020 &#8211; He&#8217;s the ultimate Civil War baby gone bad, born in 1866 with the modest handle of Robert Leroy Parker. So how did that dirt-poor son of a Mormon farmer grow up into a horse thief, rustler, and bank robber who ran with the Wild Bunch? Charles Leerhsen explores the origin story of a famous outlaw who never killed a soul in Butch Cassidy: The True Story of an American Outl...