The Cold War, Prohibition, the Gold Rush, the Space Race. Every part of your life - the words you speak, the ideas you share - can be traced to our history, but how well do you really know the stories that made America? We'll take you to the events, the times and the people that shaped our nation. And we'll show you how our history affected them, their families and affects you today. Hosted by Lindsay Graham (not the Senator). From Wondery, the network behind American Scandal, Tides of History, American Innovations and more.Audible subscribers can listen to all...
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Sep 28, 2026 · 5:18
Lauren Malloy was a baby when her mother, Lori, was murdered in East Providence, Rhode Island. For thirty years, no one told her. Everyone said Lori died of natural causes. Then…
Sep 23, 2026 · 47:18
After a late-night police raid on the Stonewall Inn in June 1969, the LGBTQ community fought back in the streets of Greenwich Village. Suddenly, the LGBTQ rights movement found…
Sep 16, 2026 · 39:38
Resistance at restaurants in San Francisco and Philadelphia showcased the building tension as trans activists challenged long-standing policies of discrimination. But leading gay…
Sep 9, 2026 · 44:52
As the 1960s dawned, LGBTQ activists began to voice frustration with the gradual approach to civil rights advocated by groups like the Mattachine Society. If LGBTQ people wanted…
Sep 2, 2026 · 39:45
In the summer of 1969, a police raid on the Stonewall Inn sparked a riot on the streets of Greenwich Village. The protest marked a turning point in the gay rights movement. But…
Aug 26, 2026 · 39:26
Few people are more closely associated with the Western Frontier than William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody. Born in 1846, Cody came of age during the era of Westward expansion. As a…
Aug 19, 2026 · 35:50
As a young girl in Ohio, Annie Oakley learned to hunt game to keep her impoverished family fed. By the time she was a teenager she’d grown skilled enough to easily beat a…
Aug 12, 2026 · 37:36
In 1894, a young Utah ranch hand named Robert LeRoy Parker – already going by the alias "Butch Cassidy" – was convicted of horse theft and sent to a Wyoming penitentiary. It was…
Aug 5, 2026 · 37:13
In 1875, Bass Reeves became one of the first Black men to serve as a deputy U.S. marshal in the West. Reeves had been born into slavery, but after a violent confrontation with…
Jul 29, 2026 · 38:58
In 1865, James Butler Hickok, an Army scout and itinerant gambler better known as “Wild Bill,” shot a man dead in the town square of Springfield, Missouri. The gunfight became…
Jul 22, 2026 · 42:18
In 1821, a little-known backwoods hunter named David Crockett won a seat in the Tennessee legislature, despite having little formal education and virtually no political…
Jul 15, 2026 · 38:25
Today George Washington is remembered as the quintessential “Founding Father,” but his path to becoming an American hero was far from certain. Throughout the Revolution,…
Jul 8, 2026 · 39:54
After six long years of war, the Continental Army was exhausted, and Congress had run out of money. George Washington feared that without a decisive victory, the cause of…
Jul 1, 2026 · 41:12
In the aftermath of America’s victory at Saratoga, France entered the Revolutionary War, transforming the colonial rebellion into a global conflict. British officials decided…
Jun 24, 2026 · 39:21
In 1777, as Americans sought the support of France, Benjamin Franklin struggled to convince officials in Paris to form a military alliance with the new United States. Meanwhile,…
Jun 17, 2026 · 37:56
In July 1776, the British Royal Navy began landing a massive armada in New York Harbor, setting up the biggest battle of the Revolutionary War. In response, General George…
Jun 10, 2026 · 41:45
In the aftermath of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, colonial militiamen converged on Boston to confront the veteran British Army. But over the next six months, newly…
Jun 3, 2026 · 42:51
In 1765, King George III and his ministers in the British Parliament sparked outrage in the American Colonies when they announced they were issuing the Stamp Act, the first…
May 27, 2026 · 37:55
Thomas Edison is one of the most celebrated inventors in American history, having helped transform a world lit by candles and gas lamps into one powered by electricity. Over his…
May 20, 2026 · 42:31
By 1888, the race to power America's cities had become a battle between the rival visions of Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. But when the powerful industrialist George…
May 13, 2026 · 41:03
In the spring of 1884, a little-known Serbian immigrant named Nikola Tesla arrived in America with little more than a letter of introduction to the most famous inventor in the…
May 6, 2026 · 40:17
In the 1870s, the age of artificial light was still in its infancy. Gas lamps cast a dim glow on city streets, and early arc lights were just beginning to appear in a handful of…
Apr 29, 2026 · 38:11
The devastation of the 1900 Galveston hurricane left thousands dead and a city in ruins — but it also set in motion a remarkable story of recovery and reinvention. As survivors…
Apr 22, 2026 · 37:57
On September 9, 1900, the residents of Galveston, Texas woke up to find their island in ruins. Entire neighborhoods had vanished overnight. Telegraph, telephone, and electrical…
Apr 15, 2026 · 33:24
As a catastrophic hurricane approached Galveston, Texas on the morning of September 8, 1900, residents continued to go about their daily lives, with little warning of what was to…
Apr 8, 2026 · 34:12
At the turn of the 20th century, a booming cotton trade had made the Gulf Coast city of Galveston, Texas an economic powerhouse. Located just a few feet above sea level on a…
Apr 1, 2026 · 40:41
In 1949, aspiring writer Nelle Harper Lee moved from her home in small-town Alabama to New York City. She was following in the footsteps of her childhood friend, author Truman…
Mar 25, 2026 · 41:10
Born into poverty in Harlem in 1924, James Baldwin rose to become a celebrated novelist, essayist, playwright, and poet, and a leading voice in the Civil Rights movement of the…
Mar 18, 2026 · 40:41
Growing up in the Salinas Valley of Northern California, John Steinbeck dreamed of becoming a professional writer. In his youth he took on odd jobs and worked amongst ranch hands…
Mar 11, 2026 · 41:53
In the late 1850s, a young man named Samuel Clemens started out piloting steamboats on the Mississippi River. Within a few years, he embarked on a writing career, adopting the…
Mar 4, 2026 · 39:03
In 1840, eight-year-old Louisa May Alcott moved to the small town of Concord, Massachusetts with her family. There, she spent her days wandering through the woods, putting on…
Feb 25, 2026 · 41:50
In February 1826, 17-year-old Edgar Allan Poe was a promising student at the University of Virginia. But within a few months, gambling debts forced him to abandon his studies. It…
Feb 18, 2026 · 36:07
In the aftermath of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, authorities faced mounting pressure to clean up Chicago and take down the violent mobsters who overran the city – most…
Feb 11, 2026 · 38:36
On Valentine’s Day 1929, seven men were gunned down in a Chicago garage in an attack that stunned the nation. Photographs of the bloody scene appeared on front pages across the…
Feb 4, 2026 · 39:08
In 1920, a young Al Capone arrived in Chicago looking for a fresh start, and his timing couldn’t have been better. That same year, Prohibition outlawed the manufacture and sale…
Jan 28, 2026 · 36:17
In the early 1950s, Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin were in a race to develop a vaccine against polio. While Salk’s killed-virus vaccine was the first to be distributed, Sabin…
Jan 21, 2026 · 36:08
In April 1954, a group of first graders lined up in the gymnasium of an elementary school in McLean, Virginia for the start of the Salk polio vaccine trials. In an era before…
Jan 14, 2026 · 39:35
By the late 1940s, the National Institute of Infantile Paralysis had raised millions of dollars to pay for patient care and laboratory research. But polio cases were reaching…
Jan 7, 2026 · 36:11
After two turbulent decades in the ice trade, Frederic Tudor had finally made it. Expanding into the American South had paid off, with cities like New Orleans delivering steady…
Jan 7, 2026 · 40:48
In the summer of 1921, 39-year-old Franklin Delano Roosevelt was on vacation with his family when he developed a fever, muscle aches, and chills. Pain spread to his legs, and…
Dec 24, 2025 · 33:56
By 1816, Frederic Tudor had spent a decade shipping New England ice to Cuba—with little to show for it. Setbacks and vanished profits nearly ruined him, and a gamble on shipping…
Dec 17, 2025 · 34:35
In 1806, Frederic Tudor set out to build a fortune by shipping ice from his family’s pond near Boston to the tropical Caribbean—an audacious idea no one believed in. But turning…
Dec 10, 2025 · 35:44
In 1801, a young Boston merchant named Frederic Tudor made a life-changing visit to Cuba. There he had a wildly ambitious idea: he would ship New England ice to the sweltering…
Dec 3, 2025 · 39:38
In 1620 the Pilgrims arrived in a land already shaped by centuries of Native history. For the people who lived there, the Wampanoag, it was Patuxet—a place with its own stories,…
Dec 1, 2025 · 20:04
December 1, 1934. Leningrad mayor Sergei Kirov is assassinated by a lone gunman, giving Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin the justification to purge the Communist Party of his rivals.…
Nov 26, 2025 · 35:53
In May 1622, the Pilgrims were still reeling from Squanto’s betrayal when a ship appeared in Plymouth Harbor, carrying an advance party for a rival English colony. Governor…
Nov 24, 2025 · 15:51
November 24, 1859. Charles Darwin sparks a scientific revolution by introducing the theory of evolution in his book On the Origin of Species. You can listen ad-free in the…
Nov 19, 2025 · 34:34
"The winter of 1620-21 took a deadly toll on Plymouth Colony. The Pilgrims had only just begun to construct their homes when illness began spreading through the settlement. Their…
Nov 12, 2025 · 35:41
"In the fall of 1620, the Mayflower embarked on a 3,000-mile journey across the Atlantic Ocean. Over the next nine weeks, its passengers and crew battled fierce storms and…
Nov 5, 2025 · 33:41
In the early 1600s, an orphaned teenager named William Bradford joined a clandestine congregation of passionate Puritan worshipers in the village of Scrooby, England. Every…
Oct 29, 2025 · 37:46
In the aftermath of the deadly shootout at the OK Corral, the residents of Tombstone are sharply divided over whether to indict the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday. As the town…
Oct 22, 2025 · 37:39
Tensions boil over in Tombstone, Arizona as the Earp brothers confront the Clanton and McLaury outlaw gang, resulting in a 30-second shootout that leaves several dead. With the…
Oct 15, 2025 · 35:26
After several months of anxiety, the tensions in Tombstone finally explode into violence as Ike Clanton and his friends provoke the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday into a deadly…
Oct 8, 2025 · 38:13
In the 1880s the booming silver mining town of Tombstone, Arizona was home to one of the most famous gunfights in American history. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Wyatt's brothers…
Oct 1, 2025 · 40:41
In early 1864, a group of Union prisoners made a daring escape from Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia - the capital of the Confederacy. Known for its sadistic guards and…
Sep 24, 2025 · 37:00
During World War II, the United States housed hundreds of thousands of enemy soldiers who had been captured as prisoners of war. Camp Papago Park, located in Phoenix, was built…
Sep 17, 2025 · 34:03
In 1909, a young convicted train robber named Frank Grigware began a life sentence at the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. Leavenworth was the nation’s first…
Sep 10, 2025 · 35:56
Located amid the treacherous waters of the San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary was designed to hold the most-wanted prisoners in America, and developed a reputation…
Sep 3, 2025 · 40:25
In February 1864, more than 100 Union Army officers broke out of Libby Prison, an infamous Confederate prisoner of war compound in Richmond, Virginia. It was the largest prison…
Aug 29, 2025 · 35:04
In the early 1850s, as people continued to flood West, California’s booming cities experienced rapid growth, but also turmoil. Fires regularly swept through hastily erected…
Aug 27, 2025 · 40:16
For white settlers, the Gold Rush offered a chance for fortune, but for California’s Native inhabitants, the sudden hunger for gold spelled disaster. As the numbers of miners…
Aug 27, 2025 · 41:04
In the summer of 1807, Richmond, Virginia hosted the most sensational trial in the young nation’s history. At stake was the life of Aaron Burr, who stood accused of plotting an…
Aug 22, 2025 · 37:46
In early 1849, thousands of gold-hungry Americans began pouring into California from the eastern United States. But most of the so-called 49ers were wildly unprepared for the…
Aug 20, 2025 · 40:51
In August 1806, Aaron Burr began the final preparations for his mysterious expedition to the western frontier. As he traveled, rumors that he was plotting a dangerous conspiracy…
Aug 20, 2025 · 37:17
After the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1848, hundreds of thousands of prospectors poured into California, hoping to strike it rich. In the early days, rather than coming…
Aug 13, 2025 · 41:31
In the summer of 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr was wanted for the murder of Alexander Hamilton. The fatal duel made him a political pariah and the target of widespread public…
Aug 6, 2025 · 39:19
In July 1804, Aaron Burr faced political rival Alexander Hamilton on the cliffs of Weehawken, New Jersey, in a legendary duel that would change Burr’s life forever. As a young…
Jul 30, 2025 · 38:08
The Scopes ""Monkey"" Trial was set against the backdrop of the roaring twenties, a time of both cultural upheaval and deep social tensions. While ostensibly about science versus…
Jul 28, 2025 · 15:36
July 28, 1540. King Henry VIII of England marries his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, 32 years his junior. You can listen ad-free in the Wondery or Amazon Music app. Or for all…
Jul 23, 2025 · 38:28
On July 20, 1925, the trial of John Scopes continued in the stifling heat of the overcrowded county courthouse in Dayton, Tennessee. Tempers flared as the defense and prosecution…
Jul 16, 2025 · 37:04
On the sweltering morning of July 10, 1925, 200 newspaper reporters, newsreel film producers, and radio broadcasters flooded the county courthouse in Dayton, Tennessee. Hot dog…
Jul 14, 2025 · 14:04
July 14, 1970. A group of Puerto Rican activists stage an occupation demanding better health care at the Lincoln Hospital in South Bronx, New York City. You can listen ad-free in…
Jul 9, 2025 · 38:28
In 1925, the famous politician and presidential contender William Jennings Bryan returned to the limelight to lead a new crusade against the teaching of evolution. With Bryan’s…
Jul 2, 2025 · 41:02
In 1906, a New York health department investigation into an outbreak of typhoid fever led to the discovery that a cook, Mary Mallon, was an unsuspecting ""healthy carrier"" of…
Jun 25, 2025 · 34:28
After spending two years in forced isolation on a remote island in the East River, Mary Mallon fought back, insisting that she posed no danger to the public and city officials…
Jun 18, 2025 · 40:41
In the fall of 1906, a mysterious outbreak of typhoid fever struck a wealthy New York family vacationing in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Suspicion soon fell on the family's Irish…
Jun 16, 2025 · 17:39
June 16, 1963. After months of rigorous training, Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space, orbiting the Earth for just under three days. You can…
Jun 11, 2025 · 38:27
As president, Theodore Roosevelt pursued a progressive agenda. He worked to break up the monopolies of the Gilded Age, created a federal agency to inspect food and medicine, and…
Jun 4, 2025 · 37:41
In 1913, Woodrow Wilson entered the White House, ready to fulfill his promise of a “New Freedom.” It was a vision of domestic reform that aimed to wrest power away from special…
Jun 2, 2025 · 15:16
June 2, 1967. Benno Ohnesorg, a West German student, is killed by a police officer while attending a protest in West Berlin. You can listen ad-free in the Wondery or Amazon Music…
May 28, 2025 · 37:58
In 1909, William Howard Taft entered the White House, pledging to preserve and expand the Progressive policies of his predecessor Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt, in turn, promised…
May 21, 2025 · 37:26
In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt discharged 167 soldiers of the all-Black 25th Infantry stationed in Brownsville, Texas. The men were accused of shooting up the town. But…
May 19, 2025 · 16:10
May 19, 1649. After the English Civil War, an Act of Parliament makes England a Republic. You can listen ad-free in the Wondery or Amazon Music app. Or for all that and more, go…
May 14, 2025 · 38:36
In the early 1900s, a new generation of crusading writers and journalists captured the nation’s attention by digging up dirt on big business and government and advocating for…
May 7, 2025 · 40:17
In the late 1890s, Theodore Roosevelt emerged as a hero of the Spanish-American War and embarked on a meteoric rise through the political ranks. His bold leadership and restless…
May 5, 2025 · 18:52
May 5, 1862. Following the French invasion of Mexico, Mexican soldiers succeed in defending the town of Puebla, sealing a victory that will be commemorated by the national…
Apr 30, 2025 · 37:15
On November 4th, 1979, Iranian students overran the U.S. embassy in Tehran intending to stage a short sit-in protest. But after they detained embassy staff, what started out as a…
Apr 23, 2025 · 36:21
In his final year in office, President Jimmy Carter was forced to navigate crisis after crisis, as American hostages remained captive in Iran and news broke of his brother…
Apr 21, 2025 · 15:22
April 21, 1934. The Daily Mail publishes an alleged photo of the Loch Ness Monster, sparking an international sensation around one of the world’s most enduring modern legends.…
Apr 16, 2025 · 34:25
In 1979, after two years in office, President Jimmy Carter faced a series of crushing challenges: a deepening energy crisis, soaring inflation, rising oil and gas prices, and…
Apr 9, 2025 · 41:55
In 1976, as America struggled to recover from the twin traumas of the Watergate scandal and the war in Vietnam, an unlikely figure emerged from the Georgia countryside promising…
Apr 7, 2025 · 16:22
April 7, 1739. In York, England, the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin is hanged for stealing horses. You can listen ad-free in the Wondery or Amazon Music app. Or for all that…
Apr 2, 2025 · 41:35
As America entered World War I, the suffrage movement split into a two-pronged attack. Alice Paul and her National Woman’s Party took their protests to the White House gates.…
Mar 26, 2025 · 40:45
In March 1913, thousands of suffrage activists converged on Washington, D.C. for a new form of protest. They were going to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to demand an amendment…
Mar 24, 2025 · 18:08
March 24, 1603. After a reign of 44 years, Queen Elizabeth I of England dies, bringing the Tudor dynasty to an end. You can listen ad-free in the Wondery or Amazon Music app. Or…
Mar 19, 2025 · 40:49
As the 20th century dawned, a new generation of women rose to take control of the suffrage cause. These young activists were going to college, delaying marriage, and pursuing…
Mar 12, 2025 · 39:26
On Election Day 1872, Susan B. Anthony walked into a polling place in Rochester, New York and boldly cast her ballot. Her action was an escalation in women’s fight for the vote.…
Mar 10, 2025 · 16:47
March 10, 1876. Inventor Alexander Graham Bell makes the first successful telephone call in history, revolutionizing human communication. You can listen ad-free in the Wondery or…
Mar 5, 2025 · 41:44
On July 19th, 1848, 300 female and male delegates gathered in a church in Seneca Falls, New York for America’s first women’s rights convention. After two days, 100 of the…
Feb 26, 2025 · 37:45
Between 1870 and 1899, only twelve Black cadets were admitted to the US military academy at West Point, and of those twelve, only three went on to graduate. Of the Black cadets…
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