Dive into the past with award-winning historian Peter Zablocki in this captivating daily podcast! Uncover hidden stories you never knew existed. And don't miss Friday Conversations where Peter teams up with top experts for riveting, in-depth discussions that bring history to life.
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Nov 14, 2026 · 13:23
Pick almost any major moment in American politics between the War of 1812 and the Civil War, and look closely. Henry Clay is somewhere in the picture. In this episode, we go…
Nov 13, 2026 · 36:53
In this episode of History Shorts, I sit down with military historian Patrick K. O'Donnell to discuss his new book Revolutionary Snipers: Washington's Frontier Commandos Whose…
Nov 12, 2026 · 13:47
Sometime in the twelfth century, reapers in the English village of Woolpit found two children at the edge of a field. Their skin was green. They spoke a language no one…
Nov 11, 2026 · 11:43
In the early 1940s, the zoot suit — high-waisted, wide-shouldered, and impossible to miss — was a badge of pride for many young Mexican American, Black, and Filipino Americans.…
Nov 10, 2026 · 13:46
In August 1864, Abraham Lincoln was so sure he would lose re-election that he wrote it down, sealed the note, and had his cabinet sign it without reading it. In this episode, we…
Nov 9, 2026 · 13:15
On July 30, 1975, Jimmy Hoffa waited in the parking lot of a restaurant outside Detroit for a meeting with two mobsters. They never showed. He called his wife from a pay phone —…
Nov 8, 2026 · 12:45
In 1984, a schoolteacher in the English village of Dodleston borrowed a BBC Micro computer from work and took it home. Then messages began appearing on it that nobody in the…
Nov 7, 2026 · 13:00
Sometime in the sixth century, according to legend, an Irish abbot named Brendan set out into the Atlantic in a boat of ox hides, searching for the Promised Land of the Saints.…
Nov 6, 2026 · 35:15
Welcome back to THE HISTORIANS — the series here on History Shorts where I sit down with two leading historians for an unscripted conversation about the questions that have…
Nov 5, 2026 · 13:22
From 1877 to 1881, the White House served no alcohol — not at state dinners, not at receptions. For more than a century, the credit and the blame went to First Lady Lucy Hayes,…
Nov 4, 2026 · 3:00
One name on the cover. One figure on the horse. One genius who saw it all and did it alone. This Friday, H.W. Brands and Hampton Sides sit down for The Historians to ask whether…
Nov 4, 2026 · 13:01
We remember the Statue of Liberty as a gift from France. The reality was a decade-long scramble for money on both sides of the Atlantic. In France, ordinary citizens paid for the…
Nov 3, 2026 · 14:17
Violet Jessop was a stewardess for the White Star Line, and she was aboard for three of its worst days at sea. In 1911, the Olympic collided with a British warship. In 1912, she…
Nov 2, 2026 · 22:10
In this episode of History Shorts, I sit down with John Monsky, the creator, writer, and narrator of the American History Unbound series. Monsky has developed a distinctive way…
Nov 1, 2026 · 12:40
July 15, 1410. Before one of the largest battles of medieval Europe, the Teutonic Knights sent two naked swords to the King of Poland as an insult. By nightfall, their Grand…
Oct 31, 2026 · 12:23
In 1545, the Spanish found a mountain in the Andes that seemed to be made of silver. For the next century, Spain pulled more precious metal out of the Americas than anyone in…
Oct 30, 2026 · 28:38
Ulysses S. Grant is remembered as the general who saved the Union, and a growing number of historians rank him among the better presidents for what he tried to do during…
Oct 29, 2026 · 12:05
When Cleopatra died in 30 BC, she left behind a ten-year-old daughter named for the moon. Cleopatra Selene was marched through Rome as a prisoner, raised by the woman her father…
Oct 28, 2026 · 11:30
In February 1945, a brand-new German submarine slipped out of Norway bound for Japan, carrying jet engine parts, missile technology, two Japanese engineers, and about sixty-five…
Oct 27, 2026 · 13:27
In ancient Rome, a seizure during a public assembly could shut down the government — it was read as an omen from the gods. So what happens when the most powerful man in Rome is…
Oct 26, 2026 · 12:07
In November 1966, five American soldiers set out on patrol in Vietnam's Central Highlands. Four of them kidnapped and murdered a young Vietnamese woman named Phan Thi Mao. The…
Oct 25, 2026 · 12:59
Easter Mass, 1478. Assassins strike inside Florence's cathedral, and their targets are two brothers from a family of bankers. The plot has the backing of the Pope himself. In…
Oct 24, 2026 · 11:51
At Thermopylae and Salamis, Sparta and Athens fought side by side and beat the largest empire on earth. Fifty years later, they spent twenty-seven years trying to destroy each…
Oct 23, 2026 · 34:10
William Howard Taft is the only person who has been both president and chief justice, and he is still usually filed under mediocre. He called his own administration humdrum.…
Oct 22, 2026 · 14:09
In January 1920, Franklin Roosevelt wrote that Herbert Hoover was "certainly a wonder" — and that he wished "we could make him President." Before the Depression, Hoover was a…
Oct 21, 2026 · 12:29
Socrates never wrote a word. Most of Aristotle's polished writing is lost forever. And for six hundred years after Rome fell, Western Europe had barely any Aristotle at all. In…
Oct 20, 2026 · 13:12
Look up from the stage of a big-city American theater in the 1830s and you'd see three levels of seats. The pit. The family boxes. And the third tier — with its own staircase,…
Oct 19, 2026 · 15:07
For generations, nobody had to tell you what was in your medicine. Not the morphine in the syrup that quieted your teething baby. Not the arsenic in the wafers that promised a…
Oct 18, 2026 · 14:02
Most people say World War II is the most expensive war in American history — $4.5 trillion in today's money. But that's only direct military spending. Add veterans' care,…
Oct 17, 2026 · 13:30
On September 6th, 1901, President McKinley was shot twice at a World's Fair in Buffalo. His first instinct was to protect his attacker and spare his wife the news. He appeared to…
Oct 16, 2026 · 41:51
What does it take for a nation to survive after the state is gone? For 123 years, from 1795 to 1918, Poland did not exist on the map. It had been partitioned three times, divided…
Oct 15, 2026 · 13:43
The rebel yell — the Confederate battle cry that terrified Union soldiers across four years of war — was never recorded during the Civil War. The phonograph wasn't invented until…
Oct 14, 2026 · 12:37
Every time you use the word sideburns, you're accidentally commemorating one of the worst generals of the Civil War. Ambrose Burnside told Lincoln twice he wasn't the right man…
Oct 13, 2026 · 12:25
In 424 BCE, an Athenian general arrived too late to save a city from a Spartan attack. Athens exiled him for it. In that exile, he invented something that had never existed…
Oct 12, 2026 · 13:26
On December 11th, 1941 — just four days after Pearl Harbor — Adolf Hitler stood before the Reichstag and declared war on the United States. He wasn't obligated to. The Tripartite…
Oct 11, 2026 · 13:40
In 1894, French Army officer Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason and sentenced to imprisonment on Devil's Island. Dreyfus was Jewish. The evidence against him was deeply…
Oct 10, 2026 · 13:53
In July 1959, Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev stood inside a model American kitchen in Moscow and started arguing. The subject? Washing machines, refrigerators, dishwashers,…
Oct 9, 2026 · 30:33
Bestselling author A.J. Baime joins History Shorts for a full conversation about his upcoming book, Bird Men: The Rise of American Airpower and the Machine That Ended World War…
Oct 8, 2026 · 15:20
When Tsar Nicholas II and his family were killed in 1918, the Romanovs had been associated with staggering wealth accumulated over centuries of imperial rule. The Bolsheviks…
Oct 7, 2026 · 11:14
In 1889, 25-year-old journalist Nellie Bly boarded a steamship in New York carrying one small bag, one dress, and a remarkable assignment: Travel around the world faster than…
Oct 6, 2026 · 15:04
In 1637, some Dutch tulip bulbs really did sell for extraordinary prices. But the famous story of Tulip Mania—families ruined, homes exchanged for flowers, and the Dutch economy…
Oct 5, 2026 · 14:36
Genghis Khan built an empire that stretched across much of Eurasia. Then, in 1227, he died—and his burial place vanished from history. According to later traditions,…
Oct 4, 2026 · 15:30
In 332 BCE, Alexander the Great stood on the Mediterranean coast staring at a seemingly impossible target. Tyre sat on an island roughly half a mile offshore, protected by…
Oct 3, 2026 · 14:45
In 1806, the Lewis and Clark Expedition was finally heading home when one member asked permission to turn around. His name was John Colter. Over the next several years, Colter…
Oct 2, 2026 · 34:25
On May 6, 1937, the German airship Hindenburg came in to land at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Crowds were waiting. Radio was already rolling. Thirty-four seconds later the greatest…
Oct 1, 2026 · 16:56
In August 1920, the Red Army approached Warsaw , and the newly independent Polish state appeared to be on the verge of collapse. The stakes stretched far beyond Poland. Bolshevik…
Sep 30, 2026 · 13:07
In 415 BCE, Athens made an extraordinary decision: invade Sicily. The expedition was enormous. Confidence was high. And one of its chief architects was Alcibiades—a brilliant,…
Sep 29, 2026 · 13:15
In 1744, a 14-year-old German princess arrived in Russia to marry the heir to the Russian throne. She spoke little Russian, had few resources of her own, and barely knew the man…
Sep 28, 2026 · 15:41
In 1720, London was gripped by an investment frenzy. Companies appeared almost overnight, promising fortunes from everything imaginable—and sometimes from nothing at all. One…
Sep 27, 2026 · 17:10
On October 27, 1961, ten American tanks and ten Soviet tanks faced each other across Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin—loaded, ready, and separated by barely 100 meters. For sixteen…
Sep 26, 2026 · 16:36
At 4:00 a.m. on June 25, 1950, North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel and invaded South Korea. Within days, President Harry Truman moved from supplying the South Koreans…
Sep 25, 2026 · 29:52
Gouverneur Morris wrote "We the People." He fought slavery on the floor of the Constitutional Convention. Washington turned to him when the army was starving. Hamilton's widow…
Sep 24, 2026 · 16:36
On May 1, 1898, Commodore George Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay. Then the cable went silent. For nearly a week, Americans had no reliable news from the…
Sep 23, 2026 · 12:20
At 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861, Confederate artillery opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. For 34 hours, thousands of shells rained down on the fort. Remarkably, no…
Sep 22, 2026 · 15:57
On March 15, 44 BC, Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by a group of Roman senators who believed they were saving the Republic. Five days later, their plan was already…
Sep 21, 2026 · 16:34
In the early hours of August 15, 1945, Japanese officers stormed the Imperial Palace. Their target wasn't the emperor. It was a phonograph record. Recorded on August 14, it…
Sep 20, 2026 · 15:15
In the 1920s, members of the Osage Nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world, thanks to oil discovered beneath their Oklahoma reservation. Then they began…
Sep 19, 2026 · 14:33
On May 18, 1927, the small farming community of Bath, Michigan, suffered the deadliest school attack in American history. Explosives secretly planted beneath the local school…
Sep 18, 2026 · 35:09
Dr. Christopher Warren, Vice President of Curatorial Affairs and Chief Curator at the National WWI Museum and Memorial, joins History Shorts for a full conversation about the…
Sep 17, 2026 · 15:49
In 1921, thousands of armed coal miners marched through the mountains of West Virginia. Many wore red bandanas around their necks—one historical association behind the term…
Sep 16, 2026 · 11:10
In August 1911, a starving man walked out of the foothills near Oroville, California—and into a world that believed his people had disappeared. He became known as Ishi , a member…
Sep 15, 2026 · 15:43
The 1904 Olympic marathon may have been the strangest race in history. Runners battled brutal heat, choking dust, and almost no drinking water. One competitor was chased off…
Sep 14, 2026 · 13:23
In 1828, Queen Ranavalona I took the throne of Madagascar—and began one of the most controversial reigns in African history. Determined to preserve Malagasy independence from…
Sep 13, 2026 · 14:34
In 1910, Dearfield, Colorado, was founded on the High Plains as an agricultural community where Black Americans could build something largely denied to them elsewhere: land,…
Sep 12, 2026 · 13:41
At the turn of the twentieth century, America's food supply could be terrifying. Manufacturers routinely added chemicals and preservatives to food—with little regulation and few…
Sep 11, 2026 · 38:42
When Americans watched fascists march down Main Street in the 1930s, they told themselves it was a European import—new, foreign, un-American. Joseph Kelly says that story is…
Sep 10, 2026 · 26:32
Ben Macintyre joins History Shorts to discuss his new book Redwood: The Untold Story of the Cold War's Most Extraordinary Spy . In 1981, Tehran was still reeling from the Iranian…
Sep 10, 2026 · 14:06
In 1817, a mysterious young woman appeared in an English village speaking an unknown language and wearing exotic clothing. She claimed to be Princess Caraboo, royalty from the…
Sep 9, 2026 · 12:24
Before the FBI or Secret Service became household names, there were the Pinkertons. Founded by Scottish immigrant Allan Pinkerton in 1850, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency…
Sep 8, 2026 · 13:30
On October 30, 1938, Orson Welles interrupted America's radios with terrifying news: Martians had invaded New Jersey. Except they hadn't. Welles's War of the Worlds was a radio…
Sep 7, 2026 · 13:48
Before World War I, German was everywhere in America. Millions of Americans spoke it. German-language newspapers flourished. Schools taught it. Churches worshipped in it. Entire…
Sep 6, 2026 · 14:37
In 1940, with Nazi Germany sweeping across Europe and invasion seemingly possible, Britain faced an extraordinary question: What happens to the country's wealth if Hitler reaches…
Sep 5, 2026 · 14:15
He launched Sputnik. He sent Yuri Gagarin into space. He helped turn the Soviet Union into the world's first space superpower. And almost no one knew his name. Sergei Korolev was…
Sep 3, 2026 · 12:38
In 480 BC, Persian King Xerxes I was preparing one of the largest invasions of ancient Greece ever attempted. To move his enormous army into Europe, his engineers constructed…
Sep 2, 2026 · 21:02
In February 1915, with the First World War raging, hundreds of Indian soldiers serving the British Empire in Singapore suddenly mutinied. Men of the 5th Light Infantry turned…
Sep 1, 2026 · 12:50
During the Vietnam War, the United States launched a secret operation with an extraordinary objective: use the weather as a weapon. Beginning in the 1960s, American aircraft flew…
Aug 31, 2026 · 15:36
Benjamin Franklin was a printer, scientist, inventor, diplomat—and possibly one of the most effective intelligence operators of the American Revolution. While living in London,…
Aug 30, 2026 · 12:46
In August 1835, a New York newspaper announced an astonishing discovery: life had been found on the Moon. According to The Sun , famed astronomer Sir John Herschel had used a…
Aug 29, 2026 · 13:35
In October 1919, President Woodrow Wilson suffered a devastating stroke that left him partially paralyzed and severely impaired. But the full extent of his condition was kept…
Aug 28, 2026 · 20:56
Bestselling author Robert Harris joins History Shorts for a conversation about his newest novel, Agrippa . Harris returns to ancient Rome to tell the story of Marcus Agrippa —…
Aug 27, 2026 · 13:02
For decades, Geronimo resisted attempts by the United States and Mexico to confine the Apache people to reservations. His small band repeatedly escaped into the rugged mountains…
Aug 26, 2026 · 14:29
Did Franklin D. Roosevelt secretly maneuver the United States into World War II? Long before Pearl Harbor, FDR was determined to help Britain survive Nazi Germany. His…
Aug 25, 2026 · 15:08
In 1697, Tsar Peter the Great set out on one of history's most unusual diplomatic missions. Traveling across Europe under the alias "Peter Mikhailov," the towering Russian ruler…
Aug 24, 2026 · 14:08
Sometimes history turns on the most unexpected moments. In 1618, a group of Protestant nobles stormed Prague Castle and hurled three Catholic imperial officials from a…
Aug 23, 2026 · 12:48
In 1014, after a decisive victory over the Bulgarian Empire at the Battle of Kleidion , Byzantine Emperor Basil II made a decision that would echo through history. Thousands of…
Aug 22, 2026 · 11:42
In the summer of 1917, the U.S. Army stationed the Buffalo Soldiers of the 24th Infantry in Houston, Texas, where they encountered the harsh realities of Jim Crow segregation.…
Aug 21, 2026 · 39:58
Join me for an epic conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Eric Moskowitz about his gripping new book The Hardest, Longest Race: Henry Ford and the Cross-Country…
Aug 20, 2026 · 13:07
The word "assassination" is spoken around the world, but its origins are rooted in one of history's most misunderstood groups. The medieval Nizari Ismailis have long been…
Aug 19, 2026 · 12:01
While the Civil War raged on the battlefield, one of the Union's greatest victories came through espionage. In the heart of the Confederate capital, Elizabeth Van Lew quietly…
Aug 18, 2026 · 14:01
On March 25, 1911, flames tore through the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City, claiming the lives of 146 workers in just eighteen minutes. Most were young immigrant…
Aug 17, 2026 · 23:54
Today I'm thrilled to be joined by Kostya Kennedy — bestselling author, former Sports Illustrated senior writer, and the man who's brought us unforgettable portraits of legends…
Aug 16, 2026 · 12:45
In the final days of World War II, one of the war's most extraordinary battles unfolded inside a medieval Austrian castle. With Nazi Germany collapsing, a group of American…
Aug 15, 2026 · 13:26
Can you sue the Devil in federal court? In 1971, one prisoner decided to find out. Filing a civil rights lawsuit against "Satan and His Staff," the plaintiff claimed the Prince…
Aug 14, 2026 · 28:45
In this fascinating conversation, I sit down with author and researcher Alex Wright to explore his new book, Empire of Ink: The Printers, Rogues, and Radicals Who Invented the…
Aug 13, 2026 · 13:43
Did Sybil Ludington really make the legendary midnight ride of the American Revolution? According to tradition, the 16-year-old rode forty miles through a rainstorm in April 1777…
Aug 12, 2026 · 12:07
For nearly a century, Britain and Russia engaged in a silent struggle for power across Central Asia. Known as the Great Game , it was a contest of spies, diplomacy, military…
Aug 11, 2026 · 13:45
Before the Salem witch trials spiraled into one of the darkest episodes in American history, an unusual folk remedy set the stage. In February 1692, a witch cake —made from rye…
Aug 10, 2026 · 30:56
I'm joined by bestselling and award-winning historian Samuel Marquis. He's written widely on colonial America, the Golden Age of Piracy, and World War II — and he's also the…
Aug 9, 2026 · 14:19
The announcement of the Salk polio vaccine in April 1955 was met with celebration across America. But within weeks, that joy turned to fear when some vaccinated children…
Aug 8, 2026 · 14:44
In 1898, Wilmington, North Carolina, was home to one of the most prosperous and politically influential Black communities in the United States. Then, on November 10, everything…
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