The Dave Bowman Show

On June 8, 1967, in the sunlit waters of the eastern Mediterranean, an American ship flew the Stars and Stripes over calm seas. Her name was the USS Liberty, a lightly armed intelligence vessel serving under the National Security Agency. She carried 294 crew members, including sailors, Marines, and NSA linguists trained in Arabic and Russian. That morning, the Liberty cruised peacefully, 13 miles...

It was June 7, 1776, a heavy summer day in Philadelphia. The streets simmered with tension, and inside the State House, the Second Continental Congress sat on the edge of history. The men in that room had argued, pleaded, and petitioned for peace, but now the moment had come to talk about war. Not just war with muskets, but a war of ideas, a war of separation. That morning, a tall Virginian named...

On a warm morning in early June 1918, somewhere amid the rolling farmland and wooded clearings of northern France, a handful of American Marines fixed bayonets, whispered prayers, and stepped into the wheat. It was June 6, 1918 and the woods they faced were called Belleau. Before sunset that day, more United States Marines would be killed or wounded than had fallen in every battle of the Corps’ pr...

On this episode of Dave Does History, we take a long, hard look at one of the most controversial figures of the American West—Pat Garrett. You probably know him as the man who shot Billy the Kid, but Garrett’s story runs far deeper than that single, fateful moment in a darkened New Mexico bedroom. Born in Alabama, raised in Louisiana, and forged by the chaos of post-Civil War America, Garrett rose...

When most Americans think of George III, they picture a tyrant in a powdered wig, raving about taxes and trying to crush the spirit of liberty. That image, baked into our national memory by revolution and rebellion, is not entirely wrong—but it is far from the whole story. George III, born in 1738 and crowned king in 1760, was a complicated man trying to steer a sprawling empire through one of the...

In Virginia’s House of Burgesses, a 29-year-old lawyer with a sharp tongue and a sharper sense of justice stood up and gave a speech that shook the walls of the chamber—and the foundations of British authority in America. As he warned his fellow legislators about the dangers of unchecked power, Henry’s words grew bold. Too bold, some thought. When he suggested that even King George III could becom...

Today on *Dave Does History*, we are digging into a law that did not just ruffle feathers—it rattled rafters. The Quartering Act of 1774, passed by a distant Parliament, gave royal governors the power to house British soldiers in uninhabited buildings across the colonies. To many Americans, it felt like a military boot stomping through the front gate. While it never quite put redcoats in the famil...

On this episode of *Dave Does History*, we set sail into the heart of the Atlantic for one of the bloodiest naval battles you have never heard of—the Glorious First of June. It is 1794, and Revolutionary France is starving. A massive grain convoy from America becomes a lifeline, and the British Royal Navy is determined to cut it off. What follows is a brutal, chaotic clash between two great fleets...

**What The Frock? – Podcast Introduction (150 Words)** This week on *What The Frock?*, Rabbi Dave and Friar Rod explore the fiery temper of the sun and the flaky madness of humanity. Rabbi Dave kicks things off with a surprise medical drama, proving once again that technology may be smart, but it’s not very thoughtful. From there, the holy duo turns their gaze skyward as a coronal mass ejection th...

It is one of the most overlooked inventions in modern science—a simple glass dish with a lid that quietly revolutionized the world. In this episode of *Dave Does History*, we explore the life of Julius Richard Petri, the man whose name lives on in labs and classrooms everywhere. From his work alongside Robert Koch to the dish that bears his name, Petri’s story is a reminder that sometimes the grea...

On this episode of *Dave Does History*, we travel back to the smoke-filled streets of Rouen in the spring of 1431. It is here, on May 30, that a nineteen-year-old peasant girl named Joan of Arc faced her final hour—chained to a stake, surrounded by fire, and steadfast in her faith. But Joan’s death was not the end of her story. It was the spark that lit centuries of legend, politics, and devotion....

In this episode of *Dave Does History*, we revisit one of the most overlooked maritime tragedies of the 20th century—the sinking of the RMS *Empress of Ireland*. On May 29, 1914, just weeks before the world would plunge into war, the great liner went down in the frigid waters of the St. Lawrence River, taking 1,012 souls with her. Among the dead were 133 members of The Salvation Army, including ma...

The morning of May 28, 585 BCE, must have felt like any other on the plains near the Halys River. For six long years, the Lydians and the Medes had been at war, clashing over territory and pride. There had been victories on both sides, defeats as well, and even a curious battle fought in the dark of night. But on this day, the two armies met once again, swords drawn and shields raised, unaware tha...

On this episode of *Dave Does History*, Dave Bowman joins *Bill Mick Live* to explore how molasses, monarchs, and mismanagement helped ignite the American Revolution. From a failed cobra bounty in colonial India to the British government’s disastrous molasses tax in the 1700s, Dave draws a straight line from economic blunders to revolutionary fervor. He unpacks the moral rigidity of King George II...

King Edmund I ruled with courage and clarity during one of England’s most volatile eras. In just seven years, he beat back Viking invasions, secured alliances, and strengthened royal justice—only to die suddenly during mass. Discover the story of Edmund the Magnificent, the king history almost forgot.

Rabbi Dave and Friar Rod explore the blurred lines between faith, technology, and identity in this thought-provoking episode. From AI-written sermons to synthetic news anchors, they ask: what’s real, what’s righteous, and what’s just cleverly coded? A hilarious and insightful look at the digital age through sacred (and skeptical) eyes.

Before the colonies ever turned their attention toward revolution, before a single musket was fired at Lexington or Concord, two of Britain’s American provinces nearly came to blows with each other. The conflict was not about tea or taxes, but about maps, egos, and one particularly hard-headed frontiersman named Thomas Cresap. His name would come to define a little-known but bloody land dispute th...

Before there was freedom of religion in America, before Thomas Jefferson penned the Virginia Statute, before James Madison hammered out the First Amendment, there was a moment in 1688 when England, ever so cautiously, took a step toward religious tolerance. The Toleration Act of 1688, often referenced by its date of royal assent in 1689, was not a dramatic leap into liberty. It was more like loose...

On a crisp May morning in 1939, the crew of the USS Squalus set out from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, unaware that they were about to write one of the most remarkable chapters in submarine history. The Squalus was new. She was sleek, modern, and powerful. A Sargo-class submarine, she had been launched only the previous September, and commissioned into service just two months before. Her commander, L...

Alexander Pope was many things, but above all, he was a survivor. Born in London on May 21, 1688, he entered a world that was not built for a boy like him. His family was Roman Catholic at a time when that faith all but guaranteed exclusion from the institutions of power, education, and polite society. Thanks to the penal laws of the day, Pope could not attend university, hold public office, or ev...

Long before the thunder of muskets at Lexington or the echo of Jefferson’s pen across the pages of the Declaration of Independence, the American colonies were already engulfed in a struggle that would change the world. In this week’s episode of Dave Does History on Bill Mick Live, we trace the origins of that struggle—not to July 1776, but back to the tangled frontier of 1754. That’s when a 22-yea...

When most people hear the name Johns Hopkins, they think of hospitals, white coats, and maybe a university that sounds a little like a typo. But behind the name is a story worth telling—a story of grit, generosity, contradiction, and vision. Johns Hopkins was a man whose life shaped the very city he called home, and whose legacy continues to shape medicine, education, and philanthropy in America.

This week on *What The Frock?*, Rabbi Dave and Friar Rod tackle the fallout from Jake Tapper’s new book *Original Sin*, which bravely reveals everything we already knew—but couldn’t say—about President Biden’s cognitive decline. From media complicity to George Clooney’s suspiciously timed “epiphany,” the guys unpack how the press and the political class gaslit America into silence… until it was ti...

Omar Khayyam, the man behind the Rubáiyát, was no ordinary poet. He was born on May 18, 1048, in Nishapur, in what is now northeastern Iran. His surname, “Khayyam,” meaning tentmaker, likely described his father’s profession. But young Omar quickly outgrew any legacy of canvas and rope. His teachers recognized a prodigious intellect, and he was sent to study with the most respected scholar in the...

It began with a piece of parchment and a declaration. On May 17, 1756, the Kingdom of Great Britain formally declared war on the Kingdom of France. For anyone watching the slow-burning tensions of the past decade, it was hardly a surprise. But the significance of that declaration cannot be overstated. In that moment, what had been a series of regional conflicts transformed into a single, globe-spa...