History Talk, the history podcast from Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective

We're back! When and where did the War on Drugs really begin? Join us as we explore how a century of drug wars fought around the world informs today's conversations about marijuana use, abuse, and legalization. Season II of Prologued on The Global War on Drugs premieres on November 2, 2021, with new episodes airing every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts. Host: Brionna Mendoza (@brionna_mend...

Today, on our season finale, on we reflect on the stories we’ve heard about drug wars around the world, to determine how knowing where we’ve been in our past can direct us in our present and future. Host: Brionna Mendoza (@brionna_mendoza) Guests: Alexander Aviña Dan Weimer Michelle Paranzino Miriam Kingsberg Kadia James Bradford Isaac Campos Sarah Brady Siff Want to learn more about how history s...

On this episode of Prologued, we continue our examine of how the War on Drugs intersected with the Cold War by examining domestic politics in Thailand and Mexico during the 1960s and 1970s. Host: Brionna Mendoza (@brionna_mendoza) Guests: Daniel Weimer Alexander Aviña (@Alexander_Avina) Aileen Teague (@AileenTTeague) Want to learn more about how history shapes our world today? Connect with us! Twi...

On this episode of Prologued, we follow the Global War on Drugs to Afghanistan. Opium has played a significant role in its history and, as we discuss, shaped how Afghan policymakers have negotiated its position in the world throughout its history. Host: Brionna Mendoza (@brionna_mendoza) Guests: Matthew R. Pembleton (@mattpembleton) James Bradford Michelle Parazino (@aucontrarian) Want to learn mo...

On this episode of Prologued, we turn our attention back to the nation that ultimately made a global War on Drugs possible: the United States. Learn with us how, during the 1930s and 1940s, the U.S. began to establish a global model for pursuing drug prohibition both at home and abroad. Host: Brionna Mendoza (@brionna_mendoza) Guests: Sarah Brady Siff (@SarahBradySiff) Kathleen Frydl (@KFrydl) Mat...

On this episode of Prologued, we discuss 19th-century antecedents to the modern U.S. War on Drugs. As we will see, the United States doesn't have a monopoly on drug wars. Our investigation takes us to late imperial China, colonial Mexico, and turn-of-the-century California. Ultimately, a international perspective helps us to understand why the world was ripe was a U.S.-led War on Drugs in the late...

Welcome to Season Two of Prologued, where we're doing a deep dive into the history of the Global War on Drugs over the past century. On the season premiere, we explore the idea of the "modern" War on Drugs waged by Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan in the 1970s and 1980s. As we will see, the development of the US drug war was deeply informed by experiences abroad...and to understand why the War on D...

World War II was a total war—a mobilization of nearly all human and natural resources. That meant it was also a war that shaped and was shaped by nature. Written by Thomas B. Robertson. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Audio production by Cody Patton, Laura Seeger, and Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual version of this podcast is available at https://origins.osu.edu/connecting-history/nat...

The region of western Ukraine makes up just a small percentage of the territory and population of present-day Ukraine, but has historically played an outsized role in the 20th century struggles for control of eastern Europe. Written by Kathryn David. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Audio production by Svetlana Ter-Grigoryan, Laura Seeger, and Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual version of...

On July 21, 1969, American astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human being to set foot on an entirely different world. His famous words crackled across 238,900 miles of space and electrified those listening back home on Earth: “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.” Written by Lisa Ruth Rand. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Audio production by Cody Patton, La...

The Second Opium War not only forced that narcotic drug deep into China’s politics, public health, and economics but also cemented the country’s status as both a prize and a battleground for Euro-American imperialist powers. Written by Miriam Kingsberg Kadia. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Audio production by Svetlana Ter-Grigoryan, Laura Seeger and Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual ve...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has gone to extraordinary lengths to commemorate the Second World War. Even though the war ended over 77 years ago, Putin has made World War II memory central to contemporary Russian national identity. This talk will explore how war remembrance serves Putin’s interests, including with regard to his war in Ukraine. Panelists: David L. Hoffmann, College of Arts and S...

It is undeniable that some individuals do change the course of history through sheer force of will – not to mention a remarkable degree of luck. Such a person was Liu Bang, who rose from obscurity to be crowned emperor of China 2215 years ago on the 28th of February, 202 BCE. Written by Benjamin Breen. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Audio production by Cody Patton, Laura Seeger and Dr. Ni...

The United States was a nation forged in the ideological fires of a democratic revolution to overturn monarchy and imperial control. Yet many American leaders and citizens ever since have denied or rejected a foreign policy guided by ideology. Why? If ideas and ideologies help us to order and explain the world, often serving as rationales for (in)action as well as explanations for success or failu...

Süleyman, who would be known to the west as “the Magnificent,” began his reign as sultan of the Ottoman Empire in September 1520. Written by Colin Jude Murtha. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual version of this video is available at https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/suleyman-suleiman-the-magnificent-ottoman-empire

When the Second World War (WWII) ended in 1945 and the rest of Europe was beginning to rebuild itself, Greece entered into a second war, more vicious than that fought against the Axis powers. Written by Amikam Nachmani. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. The author dedicates this video in memory of Prof. Andre Gerolymatos (1951-2019). A textual version of this video is available at https://or...

December 16, 1971 marked the end of the Bangladesh Liberation War, a short-lived conflict between India and Pakistan that established the People’s Republic of Bangladesh from the territory of the former province of East Pakistan. Written by Eric A. Strahorn. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual version of this video is available at https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/bangladesh-liberat...

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring shocked the American public when it was published in the summer of 1962. Carson hooked readers by describing a fictional town where spring no longer marked the singing of birds, the buzzing of bees, or the laughter of children. Written by Cody Patton. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual version of this video is available at https://origins.osu.edu/read/w...

Architecture is a way of understanding the world: recording its history, sharing its culture, and connecting with people. We need to consider Ukraine’s architecture during war first and foremost because it is important to the Ukrainian people. Ukrainians are not only fighting for the right to live on their territory, they are fighting to preserve their heritage and collective memory. Written and n...

Although Americans today may take the tactical and operational brilliance of their military forces for granted, such has not always been the case. Perhaps no historical event illustrates the potential disaster awaiting military forces put in a hopeless strategic situation than the fall of the Philippines in the spring of 1942. Written by Peter Mansoor. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A tex...

On a summer day in August 1920, in the middle of war, a group of Ukrainians performed Macbeth. In these wartime conditions, they did a play about the murder of a king and the ensuing chaos and devastation, painfully relevant to all audiences who had endured not only World War I, but also the fierce battles for control of this region after the Romanov and Habsburg empires collapsed. Audiences and a...

After a brutal 75-day siege, the Mexica capital of Tenochtitlan surrendered on August 13, 1521. The war cost tens of thousands of lives, civilian and warrior alike. It was a war of atrocity, massacre, and systematic violence. By the end, a few thousand Spaniards under the command of Hernando Cortés fighting alongside many times more Indigenous warriors from places like Tlaxcala and Huexotzinco had...

When Ukrainian troops liberated the town of Borodyanka from Russian occupation in early April, 2022 they discovered the damage done to its Taras Shevchenko monument. Bullets had hit the great poet’s forehead. The pillar holding him up had been damaged by shells. The symbolism of the Russian attack on the monument was obvious. Taras Shevchenko is not just the founder of the modern Ukrainian literar...

The decade of war and revolution between 1914 and 1924 is critical for understanding both Russian and Ukrainian statehood up to the present day. Written by Joshua A. Sanborn. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual version of this video is available at https://origins.osu.edu/read/ukraine-war-and-revolution. This is a production of Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective at the...

When the Russian Empire collapsed in 1917 during World War I, the lands of today’s Ukraine became a battleground of violence and instability until 1922. Multiple communities of former tsarist imperial subjects imagined the future in radically different ways. Written by Mayhill Fowler. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual version of this video is available at https://origins.osu.edu/re...