Our American Stories

On this episode of Our American Stories, in the early years of the United States, Washington Irving became one of the first writers to achieve both national and international fame. His stories, including  Rip Van Winkle  and  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow , helped define early American literature and introduced elements of Gothic fiction and Romanticism to a wider audience. He also he...

On this episode of Our American Stories, during a quiet family visit, Brent Timmons, our regular contributor from Connecticut, found himself pulled out of conversation and into a situation with his young son that escalated quickly. A simple attempt to fix a small cut created a problem he hadn’t anticipated. He literally glued his finger to his son’s face. Brent shares the story of the...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Bob Keeshan, a Marine, created  Captain Kangaroo  in 1955, at a time when television was still new and largely unstructured. He built the program around a simple idea: speak directly to children and hold their attention without noise or chaos. The show ran for decades and became one of the longest-running and most influential children’s prog...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Thomas A. Dorsey helped bridge blues and church music, but his most famous hymn came from tragedy. In 1932, after losing his wife and child, he sat at the piano and wrote “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” The song would go on to become one of the most recognized gospel hymns. For our  Story of a Song  series, our own Lee Habeeb shares the...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Henry Ford did not invent the automobile, but he changed its place in American life. By making the car affordable and reshaping the factory around speed and precision, he turned a rare machine into something millions of people could own. Historian Richard Snow, author of  The Rise of Henry Ford , shares the spellbinding story of how Ford transformed ma...

On this episode of Our American Stories, before World War I, the suffrage movement had been fighting for decades without success. The war changed that. Women stepped into visible, demanding roles tied directly to the military and daily life at the front. Kara Dixon Vuic, author of  The Girls Next Door: Bringing the Home Front to the Front Lines , explains how those experiences shifted public...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Aron Marquez’s story begins in the fields, working long hours and learning firsthand what hard work really looks like. Years later, he would go on to build WildCat Oil Tools, a Texas-based company generating over $100 million in annual revenue and employing hundreds of people. But for Marquez, success was about people, not just profit. From doing the...

On this episode of Our American Stories, the early United States faced deep uncertainty after the American Revolutionary War, and the Constitution had yet to prove itself in practice. George Washington entered office knowing that every decision would set a precedent, especially as the revolutionary ties that bound the nation began to break down along emerging party lines. As part of our ongoing&nb...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1984, a contestant named Michael Larson, an ice cream man from Ohio, stepped onto the set of  Press Your Luck  and walked away with over $110,000, becoming one of the biggest winners in game show history. His run looked like pure luck, but behind the scenes, Larson had figured out how the game really worked. Comedian and mathematician Matt Park...

On this episode of Our American Stories, during World War I, one unlikely hero stood out among the soldiers, and he walked on four legs! Sergeant Stubby started as a stray dog before becoming a beloved mascot and eventually one of the most decorated war dogs in American history. Jeremy Swick of the College Football Hall of Fame shares the remarkable true story of how Stubby became a national symbo...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Reignite Hope began with a simple question about how to help people move forward when life has fallen apart. Steve Bunyard turned to welding as a way to create opportunity, building a program that trains people, certifies them, and connects them to meaningful work. Today, the program reaches far beyond Skid Row, helping people struggling with homelessness,...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Iin September 1965, a quiet stretch of road in New Hampshire became the setting for what many still consider one of the most compelling UFO sightings in the United States. The Incident at Exeter began when a teenager reported a large object with red flashing lights hovering in the distance, an account that quickly drew the attention of local police and, eve...

On this episode of Our American Stories, The Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883 and quickly became one of the most remarkable engineering achievements in the world. Spanning the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn, it created a lasting connection between two rapidly growing communities. But the bridge’s story is also the story of a family. After its designer, John Roebling, died during con...

On this episode of Our American Stories, after watching Saving Private Ryan , Jay Moore walked into a bookstore in Texas and struck up a conversation with an older man browsing a World War II book. That man was Joe Brown, a Marine veteran whose service took him through Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, and Tinian, some of the hardest fighting in the Pacific. What began as a brief exchange turned into a...

On this episode of Our American Stories, from 1945 to 1992, the United States conducted more than a thousand nuclear weapons tests. Many took place in Nevada, where young Marines were ordered into trenches to observe what would happen when the bomb went off. Among them was Toby Madrid. For decades, he stayed silent, sharing his memories only once with his son and a trusted co-worker, Richard Muniz...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in the 1970s, a UCLA student named Steve Stoliar set out to track down a missing piece of Hollywood history. The film was  Animal Crackers  (1930), one of the early Marx Brothers movies starring Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, and Chico Marx. But because of a copyright issue, the film had disappeared from circulation and was nearly impossible to see. Hi...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in the winter of 1838, a political argument in Congress crossed a line few thought possible. Maine Representative Jonathan Cilley and Kentucky’s William Graves met on a field just outside Washington, rifles in hand. The nation watched in disbelief as two elected officials prepared to settle a dispute the old-fashioned way. When the smoke cleared, one...

On this episode of Our American Stories, during the American Revolution, few family divisions ran deeper than the one between Benjamin Franklin and his son, William Franklin. While Benjamin Franklin became a leading voice for independence, William Franklin remained loyal to Britain, serving as a royal governor and standing firmly on the Loyalist side. Our own Lee Habeeb shares the astonishing stor...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Billy Graham became one of the most influential Christian evangelists in American history, preaching to millions through large-scale crusades, radio, and television. What began with small gatherings grew into a global ministry that reached audiences across continents and generations. Over the course of his life, Graham met with and offered counsel to every...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Chloe Howard was born with a congenital clubfoot, a condition known medically as talipes equinovarus that affects how the foot develops before birth. From infancy through her teenage years, she underwent repeated treatments and surgeries to correct it, spending much of her childhood in casts, on crutches, and in recovery. Chloe shares what it was like to gr...

On this episode of Our American Stories, when the U.S. Constitution was drafted, it created a new national government but left many Americans uneasy. There was no clear statement of individual rights, and critics feared that without one, the federal government could overstep its authority. These debates shaped what are now our first ten amendments, also known as the Bill of Rights. As part of our...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in December 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, Allied forces fought through one of the most dangerous stretches of World War II in Europe. Cecil Wax, a young American soldier, was ordered to drive a supply truck loaded with fuel and ammunition down a frozen mountain road in the dark. But when the truck began to slide toward disaster, Cecil turned to pray...

On this episode of Our American Stories, when a major deal with Mercedes-Benz went wrong, Roger Penske didn’t send an email or a team of lawyers. He took the seats out of his own private jet to fit a race car inside, then flew across the world to deliver both the car and a personal apology. Here’s Penske with his incredible story. Support the show ( https://www.ouramericanstories.com/d...

On this episode of Our American Stories, when Walter Isaacson began working on his biography of Steve Jobs, he quickly saw that Jobs approached Apple with a different kind of discipline. He believed a product should be built with care from start to finish, even if the customer would never see it. Walter Isaacson shares how that mindset shaped Apple’s growth, from its early days with Steve Wo...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Tyler Hamilton spent years competing at the highest level of professional cycling, including riding alongside Lance Armstrong at the peak of his Tour de France career. As one of Armstrong’s teammates on the U.S. Postal Service cycling team, he saw firsthand how widespread doping in cycling had become. Eventually, he chose to speak publicly about what...