Now It's History

On June 13, 1936, the German Navy launched a steel-hulled tall ship at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg while Adolf Hitler and other Nazi officials looked on. The 295-foot long ship was one of five such vessels the Nazi regime commissioned to “circumvent the military restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, using maritime training as a front to quietly rebuild naval strength,” as Will...

When the New York Times published its annual list of “52 Places to Go” in 2026, traditional travel destinations like Los Angeles, Bangkok, Memphis, Big Sur and Iceland were included. But so was Medora, North Dakota — in the heart of the state’s Badlands. That is where — on July 4, 2026, more than 107 years since Theodore Roosevelt died —the nation’s 26th president will finally be honored with a pr...

Through his books and podcasts, constitutional law professor Corey Brettschneider has been a keen observer of how presidents can overturn constitutional safeguards — and how citizens can work together to restore them. I asked Corey where we are on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being a normal U.S. government, 5 representing a constitutional crisis and 10 being the end of democracy. His answer: we’re...

Sailing a small boat confidently takes knowledge of how tides and currents, winds and waves can shape your course. So who would have been better than Albert Einstein, the greatest physicist of the 20th century, at piloting a small boat — his 17-foot craft, the Tinef (Yiddish, for junk) — in the waters around Long Island Sound? It turns out that the creator of the Theory of Relativity wasn’t a very...

On so many levels, U.S. democracy is being tested and so is the party named for it. The Democrats are facing tough choices on how to respond to the second Trump presidency, around the upcoming prospect of a government shutdown as well as next year’s midterm elections. It was a great pleasure to chat today with one of the most insightful scholars of democracy and my colleague at New America, Lee Dr...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nowitshistory.com From the Alaska summit to the White House visit of European leaders, the extraordinary events of the last week have been a “masterclass in manipulation,” according to Frida Ghitis. The object: to persuade President Donald Trump to back one side or the other in Russia’s war against Ukraine. We hope you’ll listen to...

Corey Brettschneider finished his latest book on presidential power last year, long after Donald Trump left the White House in defeat in 2021. The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It won the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award. It tells the stories of such presidents as John Adams, Andrew Johnson and Woodrow Wilson who...

As a young commuter, John McPhee would stop by an orange juice stand at New York’s Penn Station. “From late autumn and on through winter and spring,” he wrote, “I noticed a gradual deepening of the color of the expressed juice. December was pale cadmium, April marigold, and June a Persian orange.” That set him to wondering about the different varieties of the fruit. “I didn't linger over the quest...

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video with Alexis Coe ! It was fascinating to get the perspective of one of the most insightful authors of presidential history. We’re approaching the 250th birthday of the United States and marking the 100th day of the second Donald Trump presidency. Alexis is the author of You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington . Her next book,...

A four-story-tall statue in front of Rockefeller Center’s International Building depicts Atlas bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders. The burden carried by the figure from Greek mythology must have resonated with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. He had to shoulder a crushing degree of responsibility after Nazi Germany conquered much of Western Europe and the U.K. had to fight A...

John Hancock's bold and elegant signature on the Declaration of Independence is so famous that his name became a synonym for a signature. Put your John Hancock right there! But in many ways, it's one of the least significant things about his life. Hancock bore the title of president years before there were American presidents, when he became head of the Continental Congress. He was so reviled by t...

In 2016, Donald Trump narrowly beat Hillary Clinton in America's suburbs and won the White House. In 2020, Joe Biden turned that around. He captured 54 % of suburban voters, an improvement of nine percentage points over Clinton's performance. And that was key to putting Biden in the White House. This year, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are battling for that crucial suburban support. And there are...

Hillary Clinton got nearly three million more votes than Donald Trump in 2016. Why didn’t she become President of the United States? Four years later, Trump’s backers tried to alter the vote counting process in several states when they sought to invalidate Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. And in 2024, if the election is as close as the polls say it is, the popular vote winner may not be elected Presid...

A president botches a key debate. His rival survives an assassination attempt. A vice president steps in to replace the incumbent. Hasn’t Election 2024 already brought us enough political upheavals? Like it or not, with one month to go in the contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, there’s still the possibility of another surprise — an “October surprise” — t...

Now It’s History explores the roots of today’s political and social turmoil by examining the past. Hosted by journalist Richard Galant, each episode uncovers the hidden patterns behind revolutions, protests, and power struggles, showing how events like President Richard Nixon’s resignation, the rise of social media and the election of Barack Obama  continue to shape our world.  Grounded in histori...