History Unplugged Podcast

Nearly a century of Cold War tensions between the United States and Russia hide the incredibly close friendship that the two nations enjoyed before this period. From America’s colonial founding in the 1600s to the eve of World War One, the two distant nations relied on each other in a surprising number of ways. Each country was searching for allies on the world stage, and this culminated in...

One of the worst nautical disasters in recent American history is the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. On November 10, 1975, the “storm of the century” threw 100 mile-per-hour winds and 50-foot waves on Lake Superior. The ship found itself at the worst possible place, at the worst possible time. When she sank, she took all 29 men onboard down with her, leaving the tragedy shrouded...

Over the course of World War II, Germany’s submariners sank over three thousand Allied ships, nearly three-quarters of Allied shipping losses in all theaters of the war. Winston Churchill famously declared the only thing that truly frightened him during World War II was the U-boat threat. But the treat was more imagined than real. The actual capability of the German Navy was somewhat limited...

America’s growth from a rugged frontier nation to the globe’s industrial superpower in the space of 100 years can be explained by one word: coal. Before coal dominance, American buildings were defined by height limits imposed by stonework. The tallest building in the 1830s was Baltimore’s 235-foot tall Phoenix Shot Tower. Transportation also worked poorly without coal. The early...

For almost two centuries, Ancient Athens—the most successful democracy in history—selected citizens by lottery to fill government positions. Athens adopted sortition—a random lottery system—to select most public officials and the members of the Council of 500, a reform pioneered in 508 BC to break aristocratic control and distribute power equally among ordinary citizens. So...

The "Madman Theory" was Richard Nixon's foreign policy strategy during the Vietnam War era, where he deliberately cultivated an image of being unpredictable and irrational—hinting he might escalate to nuclear extremes—to intimidate adversaries like North Vietnam and the Soviet Union into concessions. Nixon instructed aides like Henry Kissinger to spread rumors that he was volatile enou...

The famous street artist Banksy shocked the art world in 2018 when his painting, Girl with Balloon , partially shredded itself moments after selling it for over a million dollars. at a Sotheby's auction in London. Banksy had secretly built a mechanical shredder into the painting's ornate frame, turning the destruction into a piece of performance art which was later authenticated and renamed Love I...

The greatest energy source for civilization before the steam engine was wind. It powered the global economy in the Age of Sail. Wind-powered sail ships made global shipping fast and cheap by harnessing free, reliable ocean winds to propel large cargo loads over vast distances without needing fuel or frequent stops. It also powered windmills, the factories of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Windmi...

Maps have always had problems. Five hundred years ago, maps were wildly inaccurate simply because cartographers were drawing the edge of the known world, limited by slow ships and nonexistent satellite data, resulting in continents that were too large, too small, or entirely misplaced. All of those problems have been solved thanks to new technology, but now there are new ones. Even though we know...

In the 1800s, it seemed like mathematics was a solved problem. The paradoxes in the field were resolved, and even areas like advanced calculus could be taught consistently and reliably at any school. It was clearly understandable in a way that abstract fields like philosophy weren’t, and it was on its way to solving humanity’s problems. Mathematical work on electromagnetism made modern...

The Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, known as the "shot heard round the world," marked the first military engagements of the American Revolution. Ralph Waldo Emerson named it that because it launched revolutionary movements in Europe and beyond, marking it as a key moment in the fight for liberty and self-governance. But this moment was global in more ways than inspiring other natio...

The brain acts in strange ways during wartime.  Even in active combat situations, when soldiers are one mistake away from death, many can’t fire on their enemies because their brain is triggering compassion centers against other soldiers. Studies of World War II show that while soldiers were willing to risk death, only 15% to 20% fired their weapons in intense combat, indicating a reluc...

William F. Buckley Jr., the charismatic intellectual who defined modern American conservatism, was famously skilled at forging friendships across the ideological divide, a talent that helped him both shape the political landscape and navigate public opinion. His capacity for personal charm allowed him to be a public extremist and a private moderate, keeping him in the good graces of the liberal el...

The Collapse of the Soviet Union was twice as devastating as the Great Depression for those who lived there. It immediately led to widespread economic chaos and a breakdown of public services, plunging millions into a difficult period where mere survival was the priority. As one Russian described, after hyperinflation wiped out their family's savings, "my parents still had the same 50,000 rubles.....

From Shakespeare's 'band of brothers' speech to its appearances in numerous films, Agincourt rightfully has a place among a handful of conflicts whose names are immediately recognized around the world. The Battle of Agincourt, fought in 1415, is famous for the decisive role of the English and Welsh longbowmen, who—despite being significantly outnumbered and exhausted—decimated the heav...

J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Charles E. Mitchell are names that come to mind when thinking of the most prominent icons of wealth and influence during the Roaring Twenties. Yet the one figure who has escaped notice is an enigmatic banker by the name of Clarence Dillon. In the 1920s, as he rose in wealth and influence, Dillon became one of the original behind-the-scenes players in Hollywood...

The American Indian leader Wakara was among the most influential and feared men in the nineteenth-century American West. He and his pan-tribal cavalry of horse thieves and slave traders dominated the Old Spanish Trail, the region’s most important overland route. They widened the trail and expanded its watering holes, reshaping the environmental and geographical boundaries of the region. They...

Rome began as a pagan, Latin-speaking city state in central Italy during the early Iron Age and ended as a Christian, Greek-speaking empire as the age of gunpowder dawned. Everything about it changed, except its Roman identity. This was due to a unique willingness among Romans to include new people as citizens, an openness to new ideas, and an unparalleled adaptability that ena...

Gunslinging, gold-panning, stagecoach robbing, whiskey guzzling – the myth and infamy of the American West is synonymous with its most famous town: Deadwood, South Dakota. The storied mining town sprang up in early 1876 and came raining down in ashes only three years later, destined to become food for the imagination and a nostalgic landmark that now brings in more than two and a half millio...

Clara Barton, the founder of the Red Cross, was in Havana in 1898, investigating the terrible conditions endured by Cubans whom the Spanish government had forced into concentration camps, where an estimated 425,000 people died of disease and starvation. While she was there, the American warship USS Maine exploded in Havana's harbor, which served as the pretext for an American invasion, leading to...

Nearly 16.4 million Americans served in the U.S. Armed Forces in World War II, and for millions of survivors, the fighting left many of them physically and mentally broken for life. There was a 25% death rate in Japanese POW camps like Bataan, where starvation and torture were rampant, and fierce battles against suicidal Imperial Japanese forces, like at Iwo Jima, where 6,800 Americans died. Addit...

Robert S. McNamara, who was Secretary of Defense during JFK and LBJ’s administrations, and one of the chief architects of the Vietnam war, made a shocking confession in his 1995 memoir. He said “We were wrong, terribly wrong.” McNamara believed this as early as 1965, that the Vietnam War was unwinnable. Yet, instead of urging U.S. forces to exit, he continued to preside over the...

The October 7th attacks of Hamas on Israel were an unprecedented, surprise incursion by land, sea, and air that stunned the world and prompted Israel to declare war. The attacks, which included massacres in Israeli communities and a music festival, resulted in the deaths of over 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals and the capture of some 251 hostages. This deadly terrorist attack was years in the...

The Peloponnesian War is considered one of the most famous wars of the ancient world not only because it was a massive and devastating conflict that reshaped the Greek world, but also because its thorough documentation by the historian Thucydides transformed how we understand history and war. On the face of it, the Peloponnesian War, fought over 2000 years ago in a corner of the Mediterranean, sho...

One of the principal architects of Allied Victory in North Africa during World War Two was French General Louis Dio. His importance in North Africa lies in his role as a key leader of the Free French forces and a trusted subordinate to General Philippe Leclerc. He participated in every battle from Douala to the Fezzan Campaigns in the early 1940s. The most heroic moment of General Louis Dio came d...