Buzzkillers have been asking lots of questions about the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s that brought down the Nixon presidency. And Buzzkill Nation clearly wants to know whether the common and well-known stories about Watergate are true and historically sound. The details of that tense period in American history have been steamrolled by those…

The history of immigration to the United States is very complicated, Buzzkillers! Millions of people came from all over the world to the United States, and there are almost as many myths about immigration as there were immigrants. What did it mean to come to the United States “legally” during the high points of the…

Was the Nazi high command, including Hitler, soaked in hard drug use? Over the course of the war, Hitler became increasingly dependent on injections of a cocktail of drug (including a form of heroin) administered by his personal doctor. Drugs alone cannot explain the Nazis’ toxic racial theories or the events of World War II,…

President Roosevelt’s “Fireside Chats” are famous for breaking new ground in how political leaders communicate with their people. But where they really as ground-breaking as we all tend to believe? Did they really help the American people get through the Great Depression and World War II? Was it FDR’s tone and confidence that connected to…

How “clean” was the regular German army (Wehrmacht) during World War II? The Nazis and the SS usually get all the blame for war crimes and for the Holocaust. How much blame can be placed at the feet of “ordinary” German military units? Turns out that the “clean Wehrmacht” story is not only a myth,…

Huge numbers of listeners have flooded the Buzzkill Institute with emails, faxes, texts, and Tweets, asking about President Donald Trump’s Executive Orders. They’ve come so fast and furious! With a little help from Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan, we explain the nature and operation of Executive Orders, as well as the history behind this fascinating…

The Big Short is a great film about the drama leading up to the housing bubble and the financial crisis of 2007-2008. It also contains a reference to our myth du jour. In one scene, two financial analysts visit a real estate development where over-extended home-owners have stopped playing their mortgages. Touring a house abandoned…

German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel has gone down in history not only as a genius soldier and commander, but also as a military leader above politics, and a hero because he participated in the plot to kill Hitler. How much of this is true, and how much of this is myth? How much of the…

Who was Andrew Jackson? Youngest POW in the Revolutionary War. War hero in the War of 1812. Passionate dueler. Senator. Seventh President of the United States. Highly controversial historical figure. All these things! Listen as Professor Perry Blatz and I disentangle the history and the mythology surrounding this towering icon of American history. Buzzkill Bookshelf…

It seems that every time there’s an election in the United States (and especially when there’s a non-traditional candidate), this question comes up: are the candidates temperamentally fit to have the power to “push the nuclear button” or to “be trusted with the nuclear codes”? The problem is, journalists and commentators use those phrases as…