The Dave Bowman Show

On September 20, 1941, the Navy confirmed what many had feared since that summer. The wreck of the USS O-9 had been found, lying deep off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Three months earlier, on June 20, the old submarine had slipped beneath the waves during a routine test dive and never returned. Thirty-three men went with her, lost in an instant when the Atlantic crushed her beyond her l...

In September of 1519, five ships waited at Sanlúcar de Barrameda, their masts swaying above the tide. On board were nearly three hundred men. Some hoped for riches, others for redemption, and many had no choice at all. At their head was a man already carrying a limp and a grudge. Ferdinand Magellan had turned his back on Portugal, pledged himself to Spain, and promised King Charles he would find a...

In September of 1519, five ships waited at Sanlúcar de Barrameda, their masts swaying above the tide. On board were nearly three hundred men. Some hoped for riches, others for redemption, and many had no choice at all. At their head was a man already carrying a limp and a grudge. Ferdinand Magellan had turned his back on Portugal, pledged himself to Spain, and promised King Charles he would find a...

Jonathan Mercer and Dr. Eleanor Whitcombe debate the underlying reasons for the American victory at Saratoga

On September 19, 1903, the United States Navy brought a strange little boat into service. She was called USS Plunger, Submarine Torpedo Boat Number Two. At just over sixty feet long, with a gasoline engine that filled her hull with fumes and a single torpedo tube that may or may not have worked as advertised, she hardly looked like the future of naval power. But that is exactly what she became. Pl...

In the autumn of 1777, the American Revolution reached a crossroads on the fields near Saratoga, New York. Two battles, fought just weeks apart, would decide far more than who held the ground. They would determine whether the Revolution was a fragile rebellion or a cause that could stand against the might of the British Empire. General John Burgoyne marched south with confidence, but the wildernes...

On September 18, 1942, the USS Gurnard joined the fleet as one of the many Gato class submarines built to carry the war into enemy waters. She would go on to complete nine patrols across the Pacific, striking hard at Japanese shipping and earning her place among the hunters of the deep. The story of Gurnard is not only about steel and tonnage, but about the men who endured long weeks of silence an...

September 18, 96. Domitian wakes up afraid. He has been seeing signs everywhere, dreaming of his death, dreading the hour of noon. For years he has ruled Rome with fear, and now that fear has circled back on him. Friends are gone, trusted men executed, even his wife rumored against him. He is alone, surrounded by enemies who wear the faces of servants. That morning a man enters his chamber. His ar...

Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben was not born American, yet his influence helped secure American independence. A Prussian soldier trained under Frederick the Great, von Steuben arrived at Valley Forge in 1778 with nothing more than his experience, his determination, and a reputation that was perhaps a bit inflated by Benjamin Franklin’s pen. What he found was an army in rags, disorganized and nearly...

The USS Von Steuben was one of the silent sentinels of the Cold War, a ballistic missile submarine built not to fight battles but to prevent them. Commissioned in 1964, she carried her crews into the depths of the Atlantic on patrols that lasted months at a time, unseen and unheard, yet always ready. Her mission was deterrence, to make sure that any enemy understood an attack on the United States...

In this episode of Dave Does History, we turn to the third grievance of the Declaration of Independence, a charge that strikes at the very heart of liberty. Representation was not an abstract principle for the colonists. It was the difference between living as free men or being reduced to subjects of arbitrary power. From the seeds planted at Runnymede with Magna Carta to William Molyneux’s warnin...

On September 15, 1944, the crew of USS Guavina found themselves staring down the kind of target submariners rarely got a shot at. Anchored tight in Sarangani Strait was a Japanese light cruiser, sitting still but bristling with guns and men. What followed was not a quick strike or a clean kill. It was an all-day brawl against the sea, the current, and the stubborn will of a ship that refused to di...

A Venetian teenager leaves home with two older relatives and a bag of letters from the Pope. Twenty four years later he comes back with a head full of Asia, a coat lined with jewels, and a story that will rewrite how Europe pictures the world. Tonight we follow Marco Polo from Venice to Xanadu, through deserts that crack underfoot and courts where a wrong word can end you. We will hear how paper m...

This week on What the Frock?, Rabbi Dave and Friar Rod sit down to unpack one of the most chaotic stretches in recent memory. From shocking headlines to personal milestones, it has been a week that tested patience, faith, and the limits of common sense. Rabbi Dave reflects on his official retirement after 62 years, complete with lessons from Social Security and the VA, and more than a few surprise...

In the autumn of 1862, Robert E. Lee took the war north into Maryland, hoping to shake the Union and win foreign recognition for the Confederacy. What he did not count on was losing his battle plan, wrapped around a set of cigars, and having it fall into George McClellan’s hands. That stroke of luck set the stage for a clash in the mountain passes above the Maryland countryside. On September 14, t...

Butthe crooks don't...

In September of 1759, two armies faced each other on a plateau outside Quebec City, on land that belonged to a farmer named Abraham Martin. History remembers it as the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. James Wolfe, the young British general already dying of illness, gambled everything on a nighttime landing and a climb up a cliff the French thought was impassable. By dawn, four thousand redcoats st...

Nor is it candy... or fall...

On September 12, 1944, the USS Growler and her crew faced one of the most extraordinary days in submarine history. Operating as part of a wolf pack in the waters between Formosa and Luzon, Growler found herself in the middle of a heavily guarded Japanese convoy. What followed was a series of bold attacks that pushed both the submarine and her men to the limit. This was the day Commander Thomas B....

In September 1857, the SS *Central America* set out from Havana on what should have been a routine run to New York. She carried more than five hundred souls and a fortune in California gold, the kind of voyage that symbolized American progress and prosperity. But the Atlantic had other plans. For three days a hurricane tore at the ship, stripping away her sails, drowning her boilers, and reducing...

Freedom of speech is not there to make you happy

This episode takes us beneath the surface, into the hidden world of one of the Navy’s most formidable submarines. USS Michigan was commissioned on September 11, 1982, as part of the Ohio class, carrying the weight of America’s nuclear deterrent during the darkest days of the Cold War. Later, she was transformed into a guided missile submarine, bristling with Tomahawks and carrying special operatio...

The Romans thought they had seen it all. They had defeated Carthage, crushed Gaul, beaten the Macedonians, and turned the Mediterranean into a Roman lake. Their legions marched across Europe like a force of nature, leaving roads, cities, and tax collectors in their wake. And then, in September of the year 9 CE, three of those legions vanished into the forests of Germania. Not defeated, not scatter...

And ice cream...

To quote BTO, "You ain't seen nothing yet..."