Welcome to a journey into human history. This podcast will attempt to tell the whole human story. You may be asking yourself what is history? Is it simply a record of things people have done? Is it what writer Maya Angelou suggested—a way to meet the pain of the past and overcome it? Or is it, as Winston Churchill said, a chronicle by the victors, an interpretation by those who write it? History is all this and more. Above all else, it is a path to knowing why we are the way we are—all our greatness, all our faul...
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Sep 28, 2026 · 12:46
American involvement in World War I came late. Compared to the incredible carnage endured by Europe, the United States’ battles were brief and successful, although the appalling…
Sep 25, 2026 · 15:52
The First World War remade the world for all Americans, whether they served abroad or stayed at home. For some groups, such as women and Black people, the war provided…
Sep 23, 2026 · 12:21
Wilson might have entered the war unwillingly, but once it became inevitable, he quickly moved to use federal legislation and government oversight to put into place the…
Sep 21, 2026 · 19:52
President Wilson had no desire to embroil the United States in the bloody and lengthy war that was devastating Europe. His foreign policy, through his first term and his campaign…
Sep 18, 2026 · 4:51
All around the globe, Taft sought to use U.S. economic might as a lever in foreign policy. He relied less on military action, or the threat of such action, than McKinley or…
Sep 16, 2026 · 10:19
When Roosevelt succeeded McKinley as president, he implemented a key strategy for building an American empire: the threat, rather than the outright use, of military force.…
Sep 14, 2026 · 6:30
The United States shifted from isolationism to empire building with its involvement—and victory—in the Spanish-American War. But at the same time, the country sought to expand…
Sep 11, 2026 · 15:32
In the wake of the Civil War, American economic growth combined with the efforts of Evangelist missionaries to push for greater international influence and overseas presence. By…
Sep 9, 2026 · 15:26
In the last decades of the nineteenth century, after the Civil War, the United States pivoted from a profoundly isolationist approach to a distinct zeal for American expansion.…
Sep 7, 2026 · 19:25
Theodore Roosevelt became president only by historical accident, but his activism in the executive branch spoke to the Progressive spirit in the nation and transformed the…
Sep 4, 2026 · 14:58
The Progressive commitment to promoting democracy and social justice created an environment within which the movements for women’s and African American rights grew and…
Sep 2, 2026 · 16:48
Progressive campaigns stretched from the hurricane-ruined townships of Texas to the slums of New York, from the factory floor to the saloon door. But what tied together these…
Aug 31, 2026 · 5:35
In its first decade, the Progressive Era was a grassroots effort that ushered in reforms at state and local levels. At the beginning of the twentieth century, however,…
Aug 28, 2026 · 11:24
As the economy worsened, more Americans suffered; as the federal government continued to offer few solutions, the Populist movement began to grow. Populist groups approached the…
Aug 26, 2026 · 10:54
Factors such as overproduction and high tariffs left the country’s farmers in increasingly desperate straits, and the federal government’s inability to address their concerns…
Aug 24, 2026 · 18:18
All told, from 1872 through 1892, Gilded Age politics were little more than political showmanship. The political issues of the day, including the spoils system versus civil…
Jun 29, 2026 · 11:59
In the years following the Civil War, American politics were disjointed, corrupt, and, at the federal level, largely ineffective in terms of addressing the challenges that…
Jun 26, 2026 · 20:44
The burgeoning cities brought together both rich and poor, working class and upper class; however, the realities of urban dwellers’ lives varied dramatically based on where they…
Jun 24, 2026 · 12:08
For both African Americans migrating from the postwar South and immigrants arriving from southeastern Europe, a combination of “push” and “pull” factors influenced their…
Jun 22, 2026 · 14:18
Urbanization spread rapidly in the mid-nineteenth century due to a confluence of factors. New technologies, such as electricity and steam engines, transformed factory work,…
Jun 19, 2026 · 7:12
While tensions between owners and workers continued to grow, and wage earners struggled with the challenges of industrial work, the culture of American consumerism was changing.…
Jun 17, 2026 · 24:23
After the Civil War, as more and more people crowded into urban areas and joined the ranks of wage earners, the landscape of American labor changed. For the first time, the…
Jun 15, 2026 · 17:03
As the three tycoons profiled in this section illustrate, the end of the nineteenth century was a period in history that offered tremendous financial rewards to those who had the…
Jun 12, 2026 · 10:44
Inventors in the late nineteenth century flooded the market with new technological advances. Encouraged by Great Britain’s Industrial Revolution, and eager for economic…
Jun 10, 2026 · 9:05
In the nineteenth century, the Hispanic, Chinese, and White populations of the country collided. White people moved further west in search of land and riches, bolstered by…
Jun 8, 2026 · 13:29
Settlers encroaching on Native American land created an "Indian problem" in the American West, which increasingly required government intervention. Violence between the United…
Jun 5, 2026 · 13:27
While homesteading was the backbone of western expansion, mining and cattle also played significant roles in shaping the West. Much rougher in character and riskier in outcomes…
Jun 3, 2026 · 9:03
The concept of Manifest Destiny and the strong incentives to relocate sent hundreds of thousands of people west across the Mississippi. The rigors of this new way of life…
Jun 1, 2026 · 13:49
While a few bold settlers had moved westward before the middle of the nineteenth century, they were the exception, not the rule. The “great American desert,” as it was called,…
May 27, 2026 · 18:14
Though President Johnson declared Reconstruction complete less than a year after the Confederate surrender, members of Congress disagreed. Republicans in Congress began to…
May 25, 2026 · 11:06
The conflict between President Johnson and the Republican-controlled Congress over the proper steps to be taken with the defeated Confederacy grew in intensity in the years…
May 22, 2026 · 13:25
President Lincoln worked to reach his goal of reunifying the nation quickly and proposed a lenient plan to reintegrate the Confederate states. After his murder in 1865, Lincoln’s…
May 20, 2026 · 14:02
Having failed to win the support it expected from either Great Britain or France, the Confederacy faced a long war with limited resources and no allies. Lincoln won reelection in…
May 18, 2026 · 25:42
The year 1863 proved decisive in the Civil War for two major reasons. First, the Union transformed the purpose of the struggle from restoring the Union to ending slavery. While…
May 15, 2026 · 14:45
Many in both the North and the South believed that a short, decisive confrontation in 1861 would settle the question of the Confederacy. These expectations did not match reality,…
May 13, 2026 · 16:22
The election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in 1860 proved to be a watershed event. While it did not cause the Civil War, it was the culmination of increasing tensions…
May 11, 2026 · 7:09
A new level of animosity and distrust emerged in 1859 in the aftermath of John Brown’s raid. The South exploded in rage at the northern celebration of Brown as a heroic freedom…
May 8, 2026 · 7:17
The Dred Scott decision of 1857 went well beyond the question of whether or not Dred Scott gained his freedom. Instead, the Supreme Court delivered a far-reaching pronouncement…
May 6, 2026 · 16:00
The application of popular sovereignty to the organization of the Kansas and Nebraska territories ended the sectional truce that had prevailed since the Compromise of 1850.…
May 4, 2026 · 18:32
The difficult process of reaching a compromise on slavery in 1850 exposed the sectional fault lines in the United States. After several months of rancorous debate, Congress…
May 1, 2026 · 7:34
The spirit of religious awakening and reform in the antebellum era impacted women lives by allowing them to think about their lives and their society in new and empowering ways.…
Apr 29, 2026 · 15:01
Contrasting proposals were put forth to deal with slavery. Reformers in the antebellum United States addressed the thorny issue of slavery through contrasting proposals that…
Apr 27, 2026 · 11:30
Reformers targeted vices that corrupted the human body and society: the individual and the national soul. For many, alcohol appeared to be the most destructive and widespread.…
Apr 24, 2026 · 13:21
Reformers who engaged in communal experiments aimed to recast economic and social relationships by introducing innovations designed to create a more stable and equitable society.…
Apr 22, 2026 · 11:44
Evangelical Protestantism pervaded American culture in the antebellum era and fueled a belief in the possibility of changing society for the better. Leaders of the Second Great…
Apr 20, 2026 · 7:42
The decade of the 1850s witnessed various schemes to expand the American empire of slavery. The Ostend Manifesto articulated the right of the United States to forcefully seize…
Apr 17, 2026 · 18:06
Although a small White elite owned the vast majority of enslaved people in the South, and most other White people could only aspire to slaveholders’ wealth and status, slavery…
Apr 15, 2026 · 19:14
Slave labor in the antebellum South generated great wealth for plantation owners. Enslaved people, in contrast, endured daily traumas as human property. Enslaved people resisted…
Apr 13, 2026 · 14:46
In the years before the Civil War, the South produced the bulk of the world’s supply of cotton. The Mississippi River Valley slave states became the epicenter of cotton…
Apr 10, 2026 · 10:05
The acquisition of lands from Mexico in 1848 reawakened debates regarding slavery. The suggestion that slavery be barred from the Mexican Cession caused rancorous debate between…
Apr 8, 2026 · 16:51
President James K. Polk’s administration was a period of intensive expansion for the United States. After overseeing the final details regarding the annexation of Texas from…
Apr 6, 2026 · 13:42
The establishment of the Lone Star Republic formed a new chapter in the history of U.S. westward expansion. In contrast to the addition of the Louisiana Territory through…
Apr 3, 2026 · 6:55
The Missouri Crisis created a division over slavery that profoundly and ominously shaped sectional identities and rivalries as never before. Conflict over the uneasy balance…
Apr 1, 2026 · 11:26
In 1803, Thomas Jefferson appointed Meriwether Lewis to organize an expedition into the Louisiana Territory to explore and map the area but also to find an all-water route from…
Mar 30, 2026 · 6:32
American culture of the 1830s reflected the rise of democracy. The majority exercised a new type of power that went well beyond politics, leading Alexis de Tocqueville to write…
Mar 27, 2026 · 8:40
Popular culture in the Age of Jackson emphasized the perceived savagery of the Native peoples and shaped domestic policy. Popular animosity found expression in the Indian Removal…
Mar 25, 2026 · 10:52
Andrew Jackson’s election in 1832 signaled the rise of the Democratic Party and a new style of American politics. Jackson understood the views of the majority, and he skillfully…
Mar 23, 2026 · 6:30
The Democratic-Republicans’ “corrupt bargain” that brought John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay to office in 1824 also helped to push them out of office in 1828. Jackson used it to…
Mar 20, 2026 · 15:11
The early 1800s saw an age of deference give way to universal manhood suffrage and a new type of political organization based on loyalty to the party. The election of 1824 was a…
Mar 18, 2026 · 11:07
The creation of distinctive classes in the North drove striking new cultural developments. Even among the wealthy elites, northern business families, who had mainly inherited…
Mar 18, 2026 · 7:21
A transportation infrastructure rapidly took shape in the 1800s as American investors and the government began building roads, turnpikes, canals, and railroads. The time required…
Mar 16, 2026 · 14:27
The selling of the public domain was one of the key features of the early nineteenth century in the United States. Thousands rushed west to take part in the bounty. In the wild…
Mar 13, 2026 · 23:17
Industrialization led to radical changes in American life. New industrial towns, like Waltham, Lowell, and countless others, dotted the landscape of the Northeast. The mills…
Mar 11, 2026 · 8:55
The United States was drawn into its “Second War of Independence” against Great Britain when the British, engaged in the Napoleonic Wars against France, took liberties with the…
Mar 9, 2026 · 15:56
Partisan politics dominated the American political scene at the close of the eighteenth century. The Federalists’ and Democratic-Republicans’ views of the role of government were…
Mar 6, 2026 · 12:14
Federalists and Democratic-Republicans interpreted the execution of the French monarch and the violent establishment of a French republic in very different ways. Revolutionaries’…
Mar 4, 2026 · 18:43
While they did not yet constitute distinct political parties, Federalists and Anti-Federalists, shortly after the Revolution, found themselves at odds over the Constitution and…
Mar 2, 2026 · 14:47
The economic crisis of the 1780s, shortcomings of the Articles of Confederation, and outbreak of Shays’ Rebellion spurred delegates from twelve of the thirteen states to gather…
Feb 27, 2026 · 17:48
The late 1770s and 1780s witnessed one of the most creative political eras as each state drafted its own constitution. The Articles of Confederation, a weak national league among…
Feb 25, 2026 · 16:49
After the Revolution, the balance of power between women and men and between White, Black, and Native American people remained largely unchanged. Yet revolutionary principles,…
Feb 23, 2026 · 6:39
The guiding principle of republicanism was that the people themselves would appoint or select the leaders who would represent them. The debate over how much democracy (majority…
Feb 20, 2026 · 9:55
The American Revolution divided the colonists as much as it united them, with Loyalists (or Tories) joining the British forces against the Patriots (or revolutionaries). Both…
Feb 18, 2026 · 7:34
The British gained momentum in the war when they turned their military efforts against the southern colonies. They scored repeated victories in the coastal towns, where they…
Feb 16, 2026 · 10:30
The British successfully implemented the first part of their strategy to isolate New England when they took New York City in the fall of 1776. For the next seven years, they used…
Feb 13, 2026 · 15:03
Until Parliament passed the Coercive Acts in 1774, most colonists still thought of themselves as proud subjects of the strong British Empire. However, the Coercive (or…
Feb 11, 2026 · 6:25
The First Continental Congress, which comprised elected representatives from twelve of the thirteen American colonies, represented a direct challenge to British authority. In its…
Feb 9, 2026 · 10:20
The colonial rejection of the Tea Act, especially the destruction of the tea in Boston Harbor, recast the decade-long argument between British colonists and the home government…
Feb 6, 2026 · 14:23
Like the Stamp Act in 1765, the Townshend Acts led many colonists to work together against what they perceived to be an unconstitutional measure, generating the second major…
Feb 4, 2026 · 12:04
Though Parliament designed the 1765 Stamp Act to deal with the financial crisis in the Empire, it had unintended consequences. Outrage over the act created a degree of unity…
Feb 2, 2026 · 14:20
The British Empire had gained supremacy in North America with its victory over the French in 1763. Almost all of the North American territory east of the Mississippi fell under…
Jan 30, 2026 · 9:24
From 1688 to 1763, Great Britain engaged in almost continuous power struggles with France and Spain. Most of these conflicts originated in Europe, but their engagements spilled…
Jan 28, 2026 · 11:20
The eighteenth century saw a host of social, religious, and intellectual changes across the British Empire. While the Great Awakening emphasized vigorously emotional religiosity,…
Jan 26, 2026 · 10:06
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the expansion of slavery in the American colonies from South Carolina to Boston. The institution of slavery created a false sense of…
Jan 23, 2026 · 6:55
The threat of a Catholic absolute monarchy prompted not only the overthrow of James II but also the adoption of laws and policies that changed English government. The Glorious…
Jan 21, 2026 · 17:32
After the English Civil War and interregnum, England began to fashion a stronger and larger empire in North America. In addition to wresting control of New York and New Jersey…
Jan 19, 2026 · 11:58
The development of the Atlantic slave trade forever changed the course of European settlement in the Americas. Other transatlantic travelers, including diseases, goods, plants,…
Jan 16, 2026 · 30:55
The English came late to colonization of the Americas, establishing stable settlements in the 1600s after several unsuccessful attempts in the 1500s. After Roanoke Colony failed…
Jan 14, 2026 · 7:42
The French and Dutch established colonies in the northeastern part of North America: the Dutch in present-day New York, and the French in present-day Canada. Both colonies were…
Jan 12, 2026 · 7:23
In their outposts at St. Augustine and Santa Fe, the Spanish never found the fabled mountains of gold they sought. They did find many native people to convert to Catholicism, but…
Jan 9, 2026 · 14:05
In the minds of European rulers, colonies existed to create wealth for imperial powers. Guided by mercantilist ideas, European rulers and investors hoped to enrich their own…
Jan 7, 2026 · 14:17
By the beginning of the seventeenth century, Spain’s rivals—England, France, and the Dutch Republic—had each established an Atlantic presence, with greater or lesser success, in…
Jan 5, 2026 · 8:48
The sixteenth century witnessed a new challenge to the powerful Catholic Church. The reformist doctrines of Martin Luther and John Calvin attracted many people dissatisfied with…
Jan 2, 2026 · 16:29
Although Portugal opened the door to exploration of the Atlantic World, Spanish explorers quickly made inroads into the Americas. Spurred by Christopher Columbus’s glowing…
Dec 31, 2025 · 8:38
Before 1492, Africa, like the Americas, had experienced the rise and fall of many cultures, but the continent did not develop a centralized authority structure. African peoples…
Dec 29, 2025 · 16:48
One effect of the Crusades was that a larger portion of western Europe became familiar with the goods of the East. A lively trade subsequently developed along a variety of routes…
Dec 27, 2025 · 19:11
The Americas Great civilizations had risen and fallen in the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans. In North America, the complex Pueblo societies including the Mogollon,…
Nov 8, 2024 · 30:46
When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, it seemed possible to many in the West that the United States would lead the world into a new era of universal liberal…
Nov 6, 2024 · 23:38
By the 1990s, computers had become commonplace in developed countries, though fears about their potential impact on privacy grew with the rise of the internet and social media.…
Nov 4, 2024 · 17:47
In the 1950s and 1960s, some in developed countries began responding openly to the environmental problems they saw around them, including those caused by the Green Revolution.…
Nov 1, 2024 · 38:33
In the aftermath of World War II, countries began to open trade and communications around the world. In Europe, the EEC or Common Market eventually grew into the EU. In Asia,…
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