History Unplugged Podcast

Scientists have always been rivals—for priority, prizes, and positions within science, and for fame and funding. This can be seen when Newton and Leibniz fought over who invented calculus (and the former destroyed the reputation of the latter), or Tycho Brahe losing part of his nose in a duel with his third cousin over a differing opinion on a mathematical formula, or when Thomas Edison publicly electrocuted animals to prove Nikola Tesla’s alternating current was dangerous. Yet, scientific rivals must co-operate in order for progress to be made, especially on massive projects that require international teams. But how?Today’s guest, Lorraine Daston, author of Rivals: How Scientists Learned to Cooperate,” guides us through a few major efforts of scientific collaboration over the ages, including the creation of the map of the stars and the Cloud Atlas, both of which we still use today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The British Army won a convincing series of victories between 1916 and 1918. But by 1939 the British Army was an entirely different animal. The hard-won knowledge, experience and strategic vision that delivered victory after victory in the closing stages of the First World War had been lost. In the inter-war years there was plenty of talking, but very little focus on who Britain might have to fight, and how. The British Army wasn’t prepared to fight a first-class European Army in 1939 for the simple reason that as a country Britain hadn’t prepared itself to do so. The failure of the army’s leadership led directly to its abysmal performance in Norway and France in 1940.Today’s guest is General Lord Richard Dannat, author of “Victory to Defeat: The British Army 1918-40.” The discussion issues a stark warning that we neglect to understand who our enemy might be, and how to defeat him, at the peril of our country. The British Army is now to be cut to its smallest size since 1714. Are we, this book asks, repeating the same mistakes again?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A century after Theodore Roosevelt’s death, the personal attributes that endeared him to Americans have become obscured.He is mostly known for his many accomplishments in conservation, as a solider and explorer, and a successful presidency. Most photos of Roosevelt are formal portraits as we he was seldom recorded in motion pictures, and cartoonists often portrayed him as overexaggerated and hyperactive.Today’s guest is Rick Marschall, and he has mined old newspapers, memoirs, diaries and letters for personal impressions to share almost five hundred vital and interesting accounts of the fascinating man who captivated a nation in his day in his new book, The Most Interesting American: Personal Encounters, Quotations, and First-Hand Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The most tried-and-true method of kings or politicians justifying their hold on power is by promising equality (this was the slogan of the French Revolution, along with liberty and brotherhood). All societies promise equality (regardless of how poorly they delivery), from the dawn of humanity through the Enlightenment to today.Equality has been reimagined continually, in the great world religions and the politics of the ancient world, by revolutionaries and socialists, Nazis and fascists, and postwar reformers and activists. Today’s guest is Darrin McMahon, author of Equality: The History of an Elusive Idea. We trace equality’s global origins and spread from the dawn of humanity through the Enlightenment to today. Equality has been reimagined continually, in the great world religions and the politics of the ancient world, by revolutionaries and socialists, Nazis and fascists, and postwar reformers and activists.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For 2,000 years, Catholicism – the largest branch of Christianity and – has shaped global history on a scale unequal by any other institution. It created the university, modern health care, reinvigorated philosophy in the West, and funded scientific enterprises. Today’s guest is H.W. Crocker, author of Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church – A 2,000 Year History. We discuss Roman legions, crusades, epic battles, and toppled empires, the Catholic church midwifing Europe through the lowest points of the medieval period, the Renaissance popes, the Reformation, and the present and future of the Catholic church.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For close to half a century after World War II, Marty Glickman was the voice of New York sports. His distinctive style of broadcasting, on television and especially on the radio, garnered for him legions of fans who would not miss his play-by-play accounts. From the 1940s through the 1990s, he was as iconic a sports figure in town as the Yankees’ Mickey Mantle, the Knicks’ Walt Frazier, or the Jets’ Joe Namath. In addition to the stories of how he became a master of American sports airwaves, Marty Glickman has also been remembered as a Jewish athlete who, a decade before he sat in front of a microphone, was cynically barred from running in a signature track event in the 1936 Olympics by anti-Semitic American Olympic officials. Glickman’s story underscores the complexities that faced his generation of American Jews as these children of immigrants emerged from their ethnic cocoons and strove to succeed in America amid challenges to their professional and social advancement. To explore Glickman’s story is today’s guest, Jeffrey Gurock, author of Marty Glickman: The Life of an American Jewish Sports Legend.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The conquest of Indian land in the eastern United States happened through decades of the U.S. government’s military victories, along with questionable treaties and violence. This conflict between two civilization came to head in 1813 in a little-known but consequential struggle between two extraordinary leaders.William Henry Harrison was born to a prominent Virginia family, the son of a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He journeyed west, became governor of the vast Indiana Territory, and sought statehood by attracting settlers and imposing one-sided treaties.Tecumseh, by all accounts one of the nineteenth century’s greatest leaders, belonged to an honored line of Shawnee warriors and chiefs. His father, killed while fighting the Virginians flooding into Kentucky, extracted a promise from his sons to “never give in” to American settkers . An eloquent speaker, Tecumseh traveled from Minnesota to Florida and west to the Great Plains convincing far-flung tribes to join a great confederacy and face down their common enemy. Eager to stop U.S. expansion, the British backed Tecumseh’s confederacy in a series of battles during the forgotten western front of the War of 1812 that would determine control over the North American continent.Today’s guest, Peter Stark, discusses these battles and diplomacy. He’s the author of “Gallop Toward the Sun: Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison’s Struggle for the Destiny of a Nation.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In October of 1871, Chicagoans knew they were due for the “big one”—a massive, uncontrollable fire that would decimate the city. There hadn’t been a meaningful rain since July, and several big blazes had nearly outstripped the fire department’s scant resources. On October 8, when Kate Leary’s barn caught fire, so began a catastrophe that would forever change the soul of the city.Leary was a diligent, hardworking Irish woman, no more responsible for the fire than anyone else in the city at that time. But the conflagration that spread from her property quickly overtook the neighborhood, and before too long the floating embers had spread to the far reaches of the city. Families took to the streets with everything they could carry. Grain towers threatened to blow. The Chicago River boiled. Over the course of the next forty-eight hours, Chicago saw the biggest and most destructive disaster the United States had ever endured, and Leary would be its scapegoat.Out of the ashes rose not just new skyscrapers, tenements, and homes, but also a new political order. The city’s elite saw an opportunity to rebuild on their terms, cracking down on crime and licentiousness and fortifying a business-friendly environment. But the city’s working class recognized a naked power grab that would challenge their traditions, hurt their chances of rebuilding, and move power out of elected officials’ hands and into private interests. As quickly as the firefight ended, another battle for the future of the city began between the town’s business elites and the poor and immigrant working class.Today’s guest is Scott Berg, author of “The Burning of the World: The Great Chicago Fire and the War for a City’s Soul.” Beginning with the fire’s origin on the property of Irish immigrant Kate Leary, we explore how a simple barn fire brought Chicago to its knees and ushered in a new political order in which immigrants wrested control of the city from the business class and birthed the machine politics for which the city is known today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

November 22nd marked the 60th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. To commemorate this pivotal event in American history, learn more about Kennedy's 1963 Texas visit, reelection campaign, assassination, and legacy, with this excerpt from This American President.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

About four years ago Times of London journalist Daniel Finkelstein undertook an effort to tell his parents’ stories of survival in WW2 Europe. They met at a Jewish youth club in London in the Spring of 1956. He was twenty-six years old and she was twenty-two. Between them, they had lived in ten countries and survived years of hunger, disease, and the barest of survivals. Daniel’s mother Mirjam Wiener was the youngest of three daughters born in Germany to Alfred and Margarete Wiener. Alfred, a decorated hero from the Great War, is now widely acknowledged to have been the first person to recognize the existential danger Hitler posed to the Jews and began, in 1933, to catalogue in detail Nazi crimes. After moving his family to Amsterdam, he relocated his library to London and was preparing to bring over his wife and children when Germany invaded Holland. Before long, the family was rounded up, robbed, humiliated, and sent to Bergen-Belsen. Daniel’s father Ludwik was born in Lwow, (now Lviv) the only child of a prosperous Jewish family. In 1939, after Hitler and Stalin carved up Poland, the family was rounded up by the communists and sent to do hard labor in a Siberian gulag. Working as slave laborers on a collective farm, his father survived the freezing winters in a tiny house they built from cow dung. Finkelstein is today’s guest and he’s here to discuss his new book “Two Roads Home: Hitler, Stalin, and the Miraculous Survival of My Family.” It is both a family story and a larger exploration of how an entire continent came apart.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.