History Unplugged Podcast

Cable news pundits tell you everything is “breaking news.” TV pundits discuss politics in a vacuum. But in nearly every case, the politics of today have long roots in history. This includes media celebrities winning elections by manipulating the press and lobbing gross insults (Huey Long in the 1920s), breakdowns in the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico (the 1840s Mexican-American War) and fears of presidential executive overreach (the 1780s with George Washington).In this episode I talk with Bruce Carlson, host of the My History Can Beat Up Your Politics podcast about how nearly every issue in U.S. politics has an analogue in the past. He uses history to elevate the discussion of today's politics.

The © symbol (or "Copyright") is a completely forgettable character ignored by all but lawyers. It is buried at the bottom of legal notices that your brain reflexively skips over. But this little symbol represents a war that has raged for centuries between authorities that want to restrict dangerous information, publishers that want to profit by it, artists that want to stop plagiarists, and open-information activists that want to make everything public domain.In this episode I look at the history of copyright, the battle over how much information should cost. What is the line between protecting the rights of publishers and artists so they can make a living, and depriving society of crucial information and sentencing them to ignorance and illiteracy?The battle includesVenetian Printer Aldus Manutius, who invented Italic font in 1500s Venice. He complained of French plagiarists, who copied his techniques in order to trick book buyers, even though “[t]he lettering, upon closer inspection, betrays a certain Frenchiness” and were “produced on foul paper, ‘with [a] strange odor.”Miguel Cervantes, who battled unauthorized sequels to Don Quixote by inserting those characters into his actual sequel and mocking them.England's Statue of Anne, the first copyright law that inadvertently led to a cartel of London book publishers who artificially limited production and drove book prices through the roof.America's lax prosecution of illegal printers of British literature, leading to a boom in education.Aaron Swart'z 2010 hack of MIT's network in order to illegally download five million academic articles and “liberate” them to the Internet

A century-long blood feud between two Cherokee chiefs shaped the history of the Cherokee tribe far more than anyone, even the reviled President Andrew Jackson. They were John Ross and the Ridge. Today I'm talking with John Sedgwick about the fall of the Cherokee Nation due to the clash of these two figures.The Ridge (1771–1839)—or He Who Walks on Mountains—was a Cherokee chief and warrior who spoke no English but whose exploits on the battlefield were legendary. John Ross (1790–1866) was the Cherokees’ primary chief for nearly forty years yet spoke not a word of Cherokee and proudly displayed the Scottish side of his mixed-blood heritage. To protect their sacred landholdings from American encroachment, these two men negotiated with almost every American president from George Washington through Abraham Lincoln. At first friends and allies, they worked together to establish the modern Cherokee Nation in 1827. However, the two founders eventually broke on the subject of removal; the Ridge believed resisting President Jackson and his army would be hopeless, while Ross wanted to stay and fight for the lands the Cherokee had occupied since long before the white settlers’ arrival.The failure of these two respected leaders to compromise bred a hatred that led to a bloody civil war within the Cherokee Nation, the tragedy of the Trail of Tears, and finally, the two factions battling each other on opposite sides of the Civil War. Sedgwick writes, “It is the work of politics to resolve such conflicts peacefully, but Cherokee politics were not up to the job. For a society that had always operated by consensus, there was little tradition of compromise.” Although the Cherokee were one of the most culturally and socially advanced Native American tribes in history, with their own government, language, newspapers, and religion, Sedgwick notes, “The warrior culture offered few gradations between war and peace, all or nothing.”

Norman Borlaug and Robert Noyce aren't household names. But these two Iowans influenced the 20th century more than anyone else on Planet Earth. Borlaug created drought and disease-resistant varieties of wheat that thrived in poor soils throughout the planet. Because of him, billions in the developing world avoided starvation (they probably only missed it by about a decade). Noyce invented the integrated circuit and founded Intel. He is the father of Silicon Valley, the digital revolution, and the Internet economy that connects the world.Both men owe their success to their farm roots in Iowa.

Learn how to get access to bonus episodes of History Unplugged (including a multi-part series on Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier in WW2), the entire History Unplugged back catalogue, and even shout-outs at the end of each episode. Learn more by going to https://patreon.com/unplugged

What happened to Jews after they were liberated from concentration camps? Some tried to return to their homes, only to find them occupied by neighbors who thought them dead and refused to give up their new dwellings. Others went on to build lives in the United States, but never truly found a place to call home. They wanted to tell their new compatriots about their experiences, but were silenced. “You’re in America now, put it behind you” is what they were told. Today I'm speaking with Jon Kean, director of the new documentary After Auschwitz, a “Post-Holocaust” documentary that follows six women after their liberation from Nazi concentration camps. The women Kean follows became mothers and wives with successful careers, but never fully healed from the scars of the past. His film captures what it means to move from tragedy and trauma towards life.

This is an anthology episode that looks at the experiences of Winston Churchill and Gen. George S. Patton before and during World War Two. Specifically this episode will explorePatton's experiences in World War One as a tank commanderChurchill's wilderness years in the 30s in which many thought his career was overPatton's theatrical entrance into German in 1945America's (and FDR's) first reaction to the Pearl Harbor bombing

Remember when we did the 44-episode series on this show called Presidential Fight Club that imagined what would happen if every president fought each other one-on-one? Now it has been re-released as its own podcast, and you can find it on https://presidentialfightclub.com. Please rate and review it on Apple Podcasts!

Falling comrades, savagery of war, and the intense will to prevail in battle faced young Bill Chapman when he stormed the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944. For the following eleven months Chapman served in the most hazardous duty in the Army—dodging Nazi captures and fighting for his and his brothers-in-arms’ survival.To talk about Bill's story on today's episode of History Unplugged is his son, retired infantry officer and author Craig Chapman. Craig reveals his father’s first-hand account of the horror, fear, and danger from the front lines of WWII’s most momentous events, from his mortar unit's landing at Utah Beach on D-Day, through the brutal fighting in southern Germany against SS holdouts and Nazi extremists in the spring of 1945, to VE Day.  

The D-Day landing of June 6, 1944, ranks as the boldest and most successful large-scale invasion in military history.On June 6, as Operation Overlord went forward, roughly 160,000 Allied troops crossed the English Channel, supported by seven thousand ships and boats, and landed on the coast of Normandy.The seaborne invasion included nearly 5,000 landing and assault craft, 289 escort vessels, and 277 minesweepers. They established a beachhead from which the Germans were unable to dislodge them. Within ten days, there were half a million troops ashore, and within three weeks there were two million.In this episode I take a comprehensive look at the largest amphibious assault in history

Benjamin Franklin was a world traveler, consummate learner, and a polymath extraordinaire; the Founding Father was a printer, scientist, inventor, diplomat, postmaster general, educator, philosopher, entrepreneur, library curator, and America's first researcher to win an international scientific reputation for his studies in electrical theory. He even made contributions to knowledge of the Gulf Stream.But he was just as much a product of his extraordinary world as he contributed to it. Neither Colonial North America nor the embryonic United States developed apart from the rest of the world. They were active participants in the politics, economics, and culture of the Atlantic World. The events in Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and South America affected the way North Americans lived, dressed, worshipped, conducted business, and exercised diplomacy.Today's guest is Elizabeth Covart, host of Ben Frankin's World podcast. She is here to talk about how Benjamin Franklin took an active part in the Atlantic World. He helped found the United States and influenced technological developments after his death. 

In a remarkably short span of time, American children went from laboring on family farms to spending their days in classrooms. The change came from optimistic reformers like Horace Mann, who in the early 1800s dreamed of education, literacy, and science spreading throughout all levels of American society. But other supporters of universal education had darker motives. They feared the influx of Irish Catholic immigrants and thought they'd bring their papist ideas to the young republic. Only compulsory education could break these European children of their Catholic ways and transform them into obedient, patriotic Americans with a Protestant outlook in their worldview if not in their theology.This episode explores the origins of compulsory education, from the Protestant Reformation (and how it was used as a weapon in the religious arms races of sixteenth-century Europe), Prussia's role as the first nation with universal schooling, how America adopted compulsory K-12 education, and whether modern-day schools are actually based on a factory from the 1800s.  

According to medieval accounts, a woman named Joan reigned as pope, 855-857 A.D., by disguising herself as a man. The story is widely thought to be fiction, but almost everyone took it as fact in the Middle Ages, up to the point that the Siena Cathedral featured a bust of Joan among other pontiffs.Where did the story of Joan come from, what is the purpose of creating this legend, and what narrative function does it fulfill? Moreover, is it even possible that this story is true?Joining us to dig into the incredibly messy history of the medieval papacy is Stephen Guerra, host of the History of the Papacy podcast. We find out whether a woman ever did wear the papal tiara.  

This is Part 2 of an exploration of the live of the most productive people in history. We will look at the life, times, and work habits of medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas (the most prolific writer before the invention of the word processor), composer Georg Philipp Telemann (who produced thousands of music compositions), sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov (who wrote 500 books in nine out of the 10 major categories of the Dewey Decimal System) and Thomas Edison, who had over 1,000 patents to his name.  

They never knew how he did it. Few composers write more than one or two symphonies in their lifetimes. Beethoven spent a year on his shorter symphonies but more than six years on his 9th Symphony. But Georg Philipp Telemann composed at least 200 overtures in a two-year period. Over his lifetime Telemann's oeuvre consists of more than 3,000 pieces, although “only” 800 survive to this day.He was not the only person whose productivity defied all reason. Greek scientist Archimedes discovered mathematical phenomena that weren't confirmed for 17 centuries. Isaac Newton invented classical physics and was one of the inventors of calculus. Benjamin Franklin wrote, published, politicked, invented, experimented, and humored, sometimes all at the same time.This episode is part one of two that explores the lives of the most productive people in history. We will look at the cultures into which they were born and see the methods that they used to achieve such sweeping results.