History Unplugged Podcast

Today's question comes from James Ganong: Could you please tell me the history of oldest university? I think it is in Egypt...   WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY? Click here to learn more.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

Today's question is about the Varangians, a group of Vikings that conquered Kievan Rus and became the first rulers of the Russian state. I'd love it if you could talk about Kievan-Rus, the Rurik dynasty, The Varangians...any of these would be great. WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY? Click here to learn more.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

Today's question comes from C. M. Ho: How much of history has been the figment of some power hungry person or group? Some historians or those that call themselves historians are not adhering to the truth either. The news, it is said, is also manipulated. Is this a new phenomena or has it always been like this? It scares me to think that truth is nowhere to be found. WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY? Click here to learn more.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher .

There are books about presidents. There are books about cocktails. Then there are books that create and attribute a cocktail to each of the 45 U.S. presidents. Journalist and editor Mark Will-Weber has written such a book. He actually written three: Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt: The Complete History of Presidential Drinking; Drinking with the Democrats; and Drinking with the Republicans What began as a fun exploration into Warren G. Harding's flask that he hid in his golf bag during the Prohibition years turned into a wide-ranging survey of America's love-hate relationship with alcohol...and how it affected each of its presidents. Some like George W. Bush and Donald Trump were complete tee-totalers. Others like Obama and Clinton drank in moderation. Still others imbibed so much that they gave inaugural addresses completely hammered or even went on drunk driving cruises with terrified Secret Service agents in tow. But most of all, Mark gets into America's complicated relationship with alcohol and how it transformed from the libertine years of the Founding Fathers to the alcoholic years of the Civil War to the stern years of Temperance. And he even offers suggestions for how Republicans and Democrats can use drink to get along in these divided times. In this episode we go over: Favorite libations of each president Richard Nixon's love of drunk dialing Mark's favorite cocktail: McKinley's Delight (whiskey, sweet vermouth, cherry liqueur and absinthe)   RESOURCES FOR THIS EPISODE Recipe for McKinley's Delight How Gary Hart's Downfall Forever Changed American Politics George Washington's Tavern Porter from Yard's Brewing Company   MARK'S BOOKS Mint Juleps With Teddy Roosevelt: The Complete History of Presidential Drinking Drinking with the Republicans: The Politically Incorrect History of Conservative Concoctions Drinking with the Democrats: The Party Animal's History of Liberal Libations ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mark Will-Weber, a seasoned journalist and magazine editor, is the author of Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt: The complete History of Presidential Drinking, The Quotable Runner, and The Running Trivia Book. He lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

Today's question comes from Suzanne: I would enjoy anything about the French in North America, Canada and the US, early American History of the Michigan Territory, Seven Years War, etc.   WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY?   Click here to learn more.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

Today's question comes from August Berkshire: Is it true that the person who invented the guillotine was guillotined himself? What the story behind both events? WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY?   Click here to learn more.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

Today's question comes from Goa Yong: Is Bloody Mary a real person?   WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY?   Click here to learn more.     TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

Today's question comes from Ryan: Was Leif Erikson really the first explorer of European descent to explore North America? WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY?   Click here to learn more.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

In the 21st century presidents can't stay out of the spotlight. Barack Obama released his NCAA tournament brackets every year on ESPN, was a regular guest on Jimmy Fallon and the rest of the late night circuit, and was the first president to use Twitter. Donald Trump has gone even further with social media, using Twitter as a permanent means to bypass traditional media channels. But they are not the first consumers, or producers, of popular culture in the White House. Throughout America’s history, occupants of the White House have interacted with and been shaped by popular culture. Our guest today, Dr. Tevi Troy, author of What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted: 200 Years of Popular Culture in the White House tells us fun and informative little-known anecdotes about everyone from George Washington to Donald Trump, revealing how each one has woven popular culture into different aspects of their leadership. In this episode we learn The literary works that shaped the political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson. Why Abraham Lincoln’s love of theater prompted him to ignore advice from advisors the night of his assassination. That voracious reader Teddy Roosevelt viewed books as job training and didn’t hesitate to read at parties. That Dwight D. Eisenhower loved Westerns so much that his staff struggled to keep him in supply. How Saturday Night Live irrevocably branded Gerald Ford as a klutz, contributing to his 1976 defeat. How Ronald Reagan identified the unifying role of film and often used movie quotes to rouse support. Why Barack Obama used celebrity endorsements to sell his policies to the American people. Tevi is not only a historian of U.S. politics. He was also a high-level player. In 2007 he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He was the chief operating officer of the largest civilian department in the federal government, with a budget of $716 billion and over 67,000 employees. Basically, he controlled Medicaid and Medicaid. In light of his experience Tevi has all sorts of fascinating stories about how the George W. Bush White House used history to dictate policy—in one instance all of Bush's advisors were requried to read a book on the 1918 Spanish influenza epidemic to develop public policy against disease outbreaks. In that position, he oversaw all operations, including Medicare, Medicaid, public health RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Tevi Troy's Website What Jefferson Read, Obama Watched, and Ike Tweeted Tevi on Twitter   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

Today's question comes from Melanie Padon: When did people start using last names and why? How did they come up with them? WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY?   Click here to learn more.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

Today's question comes to us from Peter Swanson. My question is what is the history of "salting the earth" after a military victory. How would an army in the ancient world have transported tons and tons and tons of salt and spread it everywhere? Isn't that a waste of time? WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY?   Click here to learn more.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

Today's question comes to us courtesy of Brandon. Here's his question: This is Brandon Wall, and I'm wondering what would have happened if Nixon beat JFK in the 1960 presidential election. How would the world be looking these days, for instance, if Nixon had handled the Cuban missile crisis instead? WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY?   Click here to learn more. TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

Today's question comes to us from Justin from the Generation Why Podcast. It's a true crime podcast that you should definitely check out. Here's his question: What murder or assassination through history do you think had the most impact on the world? From Cleopatra to Archduke Franz Ferdinand to JFK, which one do you think changed the world the most? WANT ME TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION ABOUT HISTORY? Click here to learn more.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

Historians can piece together the past with many tools: manuscripts, letters, first-hand accounts, archeology, and even DNA tests to study human migrations. But there's one historical research tool they used widely until about 100 years ago but has now fallen into complete disuse: the will of God. It was once a surprisingly commonplace way to approach history. The nineteenth century’s most eminent and influential historian, George Bancroft, captured the mainstream of national American thought with his ten-volume History of the United States of America, centered on the idea of the nation’s heaven-ordained destiny. In his introduction to this once ubiquitous series of tomes, embraced by every university, secondary school, and public library in the country, Bancroft declared: “It is the object of the present work to explain how the change in the condition of our land has been accomplished; and, as the fortunes of a nation are not under the control of a blind destiny, to follow the steps by which a favoring providence, calling our institutions into being, has conducted the country to its present happiness and glory.” But such an approach to history is nearly extinct among modern historians. The thinking goes that trying to claim that God intervened in human history—and that humans can deduce how it happened—is a sloppy research method. Medieval and early modern chroniclers may have sprinkled their accounts with frequent reference to the divine (and the whole discourse of Manifest Destiny was based on this sort of thinking), but such methods violate the material scientism of modern history. Best leave God to the theologians. It is literally using a deus ex machina, right? Michael Medved doesn't think so. In The American Miracle: Divine Providence in the Rise of the Republic, bestselling author and radio host Michael Medved recounts some of the most significant events in America’s rise to prosperity and power, revealing a record of improbabilities and amazements that demonstrate what the Founders believed all along: that events unfolded according to some master plan, with destiny playing an unmistakable role in lifting the nation to greatness. Medved argues that the history of the United States displays an uncanny pattern: at moments of crisis, when odds against success seem overwhelming and disaster looks imminent, fate intervenes to provide deliverance and progress. Historians may categorize these incidents as happy accidents, callous crimes or the product of brilliant leadership, but the most notable leaders of the last 300 years have identified this good fortune as something else – a reflection of divine providence. Among the illogical episodes he describes are... a beaten Revolutionary army, surrounded by a ruthless foe and on the verge of annihilation, manages an impossible escape due to a freakish change in the weather Napoleon, a famous conqueror known for seizing territory, frustrated by a slave rebellion and a frozen harbor, impulsively hands over a tract of land that doubles the size of the United States  A weary solider picks up three cigars left behind in an open field and notices the stogies have been wrapped in a hand-written description of the enemy’s secret battle plans—a revelation that gives Lincoln the supernatural sign he’s awaited in order to free the slaves Michael's theory is, of course, one that most secular people probably wouldn't accept. As such, I try to play devil's advocate in my interview with him (if God really keeps America on the straight path, how does that explain dark chapters in her history, like the brutal U.S. occupation of the Philippines in the 1890s?). But whatever you believe, this is an idea that many serious minds in history have believed. Nearly all the the Founding Fathers believed in America's divine destiny (even including deists such as Franklin and Jefferson). Every president up to Calvin Coolidge publicly declared that God gui...

How do we separate myth from fact in ancient history? How do we do this when it comes down to one of the most beloved and well-known stories of all time: The Nativity? Fr. Dwight Longenecker, a Catholic priest from Greenville, South Carolina, is attempting to do that. He has set out on a quest to investigate whether there is a kernel of historical truth beneath the many legends of the Magi story. Now he thinks he has found it. The Magi were real, but they weren't from the “Orient.” Nor were they kings. Rather, they were a political delegation from a mostly-forgotten kingdom to the south called the Nabateans. And they set out for Israel for reasons both religious and political. It wasn't an easy project for Fr. Longenecker to research. While he was always fascinated by the nativity story, he knew that plenty of legendary embellishment had filled in the gaps. Matthew's bare bones account only speaks of “wise men from the East” who see a star and journey to Jerusalem, winding up in Bethlehem to pay homage to the newborn Jesus Christ before returning to their country by a different route. There's no mention of three kings, lavish costumes, camels, nor where they came from in the biblical account. No start leads them through the desert to Bethlehem. They aren't even called kings (?!) Furthermore, most Biblical scholars outright reject that the magi were historical at all. The Catholic Bible scholar Raymond Brown in his monumental study, The Birth of the Messiah notes that it was a mark of modernist orthodoxy not to believe in the historicity of the Magi story. Fr. Longenecker found that as it turns out that because of scholars' assumption that the Magi story was a fairy tale very few scholars had taken the time to investigate thoroughly the possible identity of the wise men. His research brought him into contact with new technologies which shed light on the subject. Some fresh archeological findings and new understandings from the Dead Sea Scrolls also contributed to the quest. As it turns out, it is perfectly probable that there were wise men who had the motive, the means and the method to pay homage to Jesus Christ just as Matthew recorded.  The simple truth is that Matthew’s account is factual not fictional. His book The Mystery of the Magi—The Quest for the True Identity of the Three Wise Men will be published next Advent by Regnery Press. In this episode we answer the following questions: Did the wise men ride camels? What was the star of Bethlehem? Were they really called Balthasar, Melchoir and Kaspar? Are their relics preserved in Cologne Cathedral? Where do Anthony and Cleopatra fit into the story? Why did they bring gold, frankincense and myrrh? Was there really a magical star that led them across the desert? RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Fr. Longenecker's website Article: Beneath the mystery of the Three Wise Men lies history   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher