The Unknown Martin Luther King

  Martin Luther King did so much more for American society, and wanted so much more from the US government and US elite, than most people realize. Popular history has airbrushed out far too much about his life and work. Professor Phil Nash reminds us of the importance of King’s work, especially during the forgotten…

Read More

MCM Robert Sherrod

  Reporters and photographers rarely get discussed on this show. And that’s a pity because, in one way at least, reporters and photographers help provide a lot of the original material that historians use to study events and try to build up as full a picture as possible about the past. But one of the…

Read More

Civil War Medicine

We usually hear that surgery and medical treatment during the Civil War was backward butchery. But was it? Historian Nic Hoffman from Kennesaw State University tells us how complicated it really was. We discuss: medical care before the war; the shock of Civil War carnage and how medics initially reacted; and changes in medical treatment…

Read More

Benjamin Lay, Quakerism, and Anti-Slavery

We interview Professor Marcus Rediker about his new book, Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist. Benjamin Lay was one of the most famous anti-slavery protesters in colonial Pennsylvania in the early 1700s. He agitated against slavery and the slave trade in very unusual ways, and was eventually kicked out of…

Read More

WCW Alison Palmer

  It’s a Woman Crush Wednesday! Alison Palmer was a pioneer in gaining increased women’s rights and human rights in the American State Department. While working there in the 1950s and 1960s, Palmer ran up against the glass ceiling when trying to advance in the civil service at the State Department. She found it almost…

Read More

The Pentagon Papers

The Pentagon Papers Professor Phil Nash helps us explain the complicated and much-mythologized history of the Pentagon Papers, which is shorthand for the government-funded study of US involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. According to New York Times in 1996, the Pentagon Papers showed that the government had, “systematically lied, not only to the…

Read More

St. Francis of Assisi

Three types of myths about St. Francis St. Francis of Assisi is one of the most popular saints in the Christian religion. He’s known as a lover of animals, the first eco-warrior, and a peace-negotiator during the crusades. How much of this is true, and how much is myth? “Make me the instrument of your…

Read More

The Rise of Cowboy Hats

“I never trust a man who doesn’t wear a cowboy hat.”-Professor Buzzkill Everyone loves the cowboy hat. Even if you don’t wear one, you want to see your cowboy movie heroes wearing one. Anything else would be un-American, right? Wrong. The classic, iconic cowboy hat design didn’t appear until 1865 and didn’t become popular until…

Read More

The Many Myths about Rosa Parks

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks Jeanne Theoharis

“The Only Tired I was, was Tired of Giving In” The general story we’re all taught about Rosa Parks was that she was a meek and mild housewife who refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus in 1950s Alabama because she was just tired after a long day at work. She was…

Read More