Umrao Singh was one of thirty-one British Indian Army soldiers awarded the Victoria Cross during WWII, and was the only NCO in Royal Artillery or Royal Indian Artillery to receive a VC during WWII. On the night of 15-16 Dec 1944, Singh commanded a field gun detachment close to front. His defense of his position…
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Puerto Rican nationalists tried to assassinate President Harry Truman in 1950. Then, in 1954, different Puerto Rican Nationalists opened fire in the House of Representatives, wounding Congressmen. Professor Perry Blatz joins us to explain the background to Puerto Rican nationalism and its impact on US political life in the mid-20th century. Listen and learn! —…
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Ah, I’m a Romantic at heart. And, apart from seeing the sunlight glinting through Lady Buzzkill’s golden tresses, the thing I like best in this world is hearing from you, dear listeners. And I’ve certainly heard from a lot of you recently. We did a Woman Crush Wednesday show on the great Chinese revolutionary writer,…
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Income Tax and Inequality in US History Income tax is a troubling issue in American politics and history. We explain its long and complicated history, and delve into the even more complicated history of how personal income tax has related to the question of equality and inequality in US society. Professor Nash tells us how…
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It’s a rare thing indeed to find someone in history who stands up and rebels against almost all the things she finds oppressive in society. Such a woman was Qiu Jin [Cho Jeen], the Chinese revolutionary whose short but dramatic life has led her to be called “China’s Joan of Arc.” Born in 1875 or…
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Was Jesse James a famous “western outlaw” or is the story more complicated than that? Listen as Professor Nash takes us through James’ life and explains the centrality of the Civil War, and how the bitterness enhanced by the civil war motivated his post-war life of crime. And how about Jesse James as a modern-day…
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It’s getting to be mid-March, and all good Buzzkillers’ minds turn towards things Irish. We have done shows before on St. Patrick and on the Irish Slaves Myth, which, of course, were quite serious and brought up important historical issues and themes. But this March we thought we’d be a little more light-hearted, yet probably…
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The “Non-Smoker” as a category of person seems obvious in the 21st century. But it wasn’t always this way. Professor Sarah Milov gives the history of the non-smoking movement, including the medical, legal, and political battles that eventually led to smoke-free public places. Hear about pressure groups like GASP, ASH, and the countless local movements…
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Why was Hitler’s fascist party named the “National-Socialist German Workers’ Party”? “Socialist” and “Fascist” usually have totally different, indeed opposite, meanings. How did they get combined and what did the “National Socialist” label mean in the 1930s and 1940s? And why are democratic socialists nowadays tarred with the “Nazi” brush by the talk radio circus…
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Current events seem to happen so fast these days, and the topics change so quickly, that it’s difficult for a history show to do sufficient research on a topic before it is replaced by something else as the hot topic in our media-obsessed age that seems to have the attention span of a gnat. Thank…
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