HISTORY This Week

9/11: Rescue on the Water

September 11, 2001. On a clear and sunny day, Captain Richard Thornton is piloting his ferry boat back and forth between New Jersey and New York City. But when he hears a

The Radium Girls Fight Back

September 12, 1922. Twenty-four-year-old Mollie Maggia has a toothache. In less than a year, this otherwise healthy young woman will be dead. Others like her will soon fo

Free preview: How Las Vegas Made America a Gambling Nation (HTW+)

A five-minute taste of our full interview on how Las Vegas became Las Vegas. Subscribe to HTW+ to hear the rest at htwpod.com or in your Apple Podcasts app.

Did Homer Write the Odyssey? (Was He Even Real?)

August, sometime in the 500s BCE. In Athens, the Great Panathenaia is in full swing: chariot races, boat races, a hundred cattle slaughtered for the feast. And at the cen

The Wire That Connected the World

August 17, 1858. New York City wakes to a hundred-gun salute. Church bells ring, flags fly from public buildings, and by nightfall, fireworks light up the sky. The city i

The French Monarchy Falls in a Day

August 10, 1792. At midnight, a single church bell begins to ring in Paris. Then another. And another. It's not a call to mass… it's a call to arms. For three years, King

Arsenic, Adultery, and an American on Trial

August 7, 1889. In Liverpool's St. George's Hall, an American woman named Florence Maybrick stands behind iron bars, dressed in mourning black… for the husband she's accu

Fall Out (Finale)

Listen to all 20 episodes of World War II with Tom Hanks wherever you get your podcasts! The war is over, and the Allies are triumphant. The United States and the Soviet

Washington: Hero of the Revolution, from The Rest is History

Sharing an episode of a show we really love, called The Rest is History. Hosted by historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, the show brings the past to life through

Ben Franklin Gets Fired

July 26, 1775. In a stately mansion turned rebel headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, George Washington sits down at a dining room table and writes out his orders fo

From First America: "Merciless Indian Savages"

We have been told the American Revolution was fought over taxation and representation. But that's not what the Declaration of Independence says. According to our founders

The Forgotten Father of Air Conditioning

July 14, 1850. At a swanky hotel in Apalachicola, Florida, the French consul is throwing a Bastille Day party, and he's promised his guests ice-cold champagne. There's ju

The *Other* Declaration of Independence (Part II)

July, 1845. Dr. Smith Boughton, the man behind the mask of "Big Thunder," is sitting in a Hudson jail after a trial that ended in a hung jury. The Anti-Renters had to ce

Free HTW+ preview: Ken Burns on the American Revolution (Extended Interview)

Today, to celebrate America's 250th birthday, we have a special announcement: we are launching HISTORY This Week+ to all of our followers! (historythisweekpodcast.com/sub

The *Other* Declaration of Independence (Part I)

July 4, 1839. Sixty-three years after 1776—and centuries after the medieval period—feudalism is alive and well in the United States. High on a rocky plain in upstate New

A Mob Boss Starts A Movement

June 28, 1971. It’s the second annual “Unity Day” rally at Columbus Circle in New York City, organized by the Italian American Civil Rights League. Joe Colombo is the ver

Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise – Prologue

Malcolm Gladwell and President Barack Obama introduce us to one of the most chaotic, complicated, and fascinating times in American history, revealing why Reconstruction

Malcolm Gladwell on Reconstruction’s Unfinished Questions

June 15, 1865. German-American statesman Carl Schurz is traveling to Washington to meet with President Andrew Johnson when he stops at a friend’s home in Philadelphia. Th

Why the Crusades Became Cool Again

June 8, 1191. The Crusaders and Muslim forces are locked in battle over the city of Acre. On one side is Saladin, the great Muslim leader who has already recaptured Jerus

How Higgins and His Boats Won the War

June 6, 1944. As thousands of Allied soldiers prepare to storm the beaches of Normandy, they climb down rope nets into small wooden landing craft bobbing in the dark wate