HISTORY This Week – Details, episodes & analysis

HISTORY This Week returns with new episodes starting September 16th! In the meantime, listen to a favorite classic from the archives. August 27, 1900. Dr. Jesse Lazear, a U.S. Army surgeon, walks into Las Animas Hospital Yellow Fever ward in Havana, Cuba, toting a brood of mosquitos. He has the system down: remove the cotton stopper that keeps the mosquito penned in its glass vial, turn the vial over, and seal it against a consenting infected patient’s skin. Chasing the source of Yellow Fever, scientists try to understand this deadly plague by running a high-stakes medical experiment on human subjects. But today, those subjects will include themselves. Why did ordinary people—and the doctors running the experiment—willingly and knowingly consent to take part in this study? And when we look back, should we be horrified... or impressed? Special thanks to our guests: Dr. Kathryn Olivarius of Stanford University and author of, Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom, as well as Molly Crosby author of, The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever the Epidemic That Shaped Our History. This episode originally aired on August 22, 2022. To stay updated: historythisweekpodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

HISTORY This Week returns with new episodes starting September 16th! In the meantime, listen to a favorite classic from the archives. August 21, 1911. On a Monday morning, a department store employee on a Paris street sees a man hurrying by. He carries a white-wrapped package and, as the employee watches, he throws something small and shiny over his shoulder...it’s a doorknob. Then the man disappears into the streets of Paris. That store employee has just witnessed a small part of what will soon become the world’s most famous crime. In that white-wrapped package was...the Mona Lisa. Why has the Mona Lisa enchanted so many people since the 1500s? And how did a struggling Italian handyman manage to steal it? Thank you to our guests, Martin Kemp, author of Mona Lisa. The People and the Painting, and Dr. Noah Charney, founder of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art. This episode originally aired on August 16, 2021. To stay updated: historythisweekpodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

July 16, 1945. It’s the summer of 1945 and World War II is underway. The USS Indianapolis has just set out from Mare Island on a top-secret mission. The famous vessel is delivering enriched uranium and other components of “Little Boy” to Tinian Island. The mission is technically a success, but for the men aboard the Indianapolis, the challenges are just beginning. On July 30, the ship is struck by two Japanese torpedoes, stranding its sailors at sea. For three and a half days, survivors are left floating in the Pacific Ocean, fending off sun exposure, dehydration, and shark attacks – and waiting for help. Were any able to survive? And could this attack have been prevented? Special thanks to our guest: Sara Vladic, co-author of Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man. She’s also the director of the documentary USS Indianapolis: The Legacy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

(EPISODE 100!) December 15, 1979. Two Canadian journalists are hanging out, drinking a beer, when they come up with an idea for a new game to test random knowledge – Trivial Pursuit. But this is far from the first time trivia has been gamified, and to explore the history behind these quizzing contests, we turned to the expert: Jeopardy! legend Ken Jennings. What are the origins of trivia? And what is it about recalling trivial facts that keeps people coming back for more? Special thanks to Ken Jennings, author of Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs and the host of the podcast Omnibus. Thanks also to Professor Peter Burke, author of What is the History of Knowledge? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

December 11, 1862. Union Army engineers are urgently constructing a bridge, one that will carry soldiers into the town of Fredericksburg, Virginia, a Confederate stronghold. Union leaders are banking on the element of surprise and are desperate for a victory. But, by the time it’s over, more than a thousand Union soldiers will perish in one of the worst defeats of the Civil War. How does the failed Battle of Fredericksburg threaten the future of the Emancipation Proclamation and Abraham Lincoln’s very presidency? And how does Lincoln manage to save both? Special thanks to our guest Professor John Matteson, author of "A Worse Place Than Hell: How the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg Changed a Nation." Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

December 1, 1564. Spanish vessels left a secret port in Mexico about two weeks ago. Their goal: to sail across the Pacific and back, charting a new route for international trade, and giving Spain an edge against its chief colonial rival, Portugal. But today, when a storm hits, the smallest ship is separated from the rest of the fleet. Now, that ship, the San Lucas, is on its own. The following year, when the San Lucas makes it back to Mexico, against all odds, its pilot—a Black mariner—is accused of treason. How did the San Lucas—the smallest ship in the fleet—complete a near-impossible journey that would connect the world? And how did the trailblazing mariner Lope Martín get erased from the story? Special thanks to our guest, Andrés Reséndez, author of Conquering the Pacific: An Unknown Mariner and the Final Great Voyage of the Age of Discovery. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

November 26, 1970. In Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival, protestors gather under a statue of Massasoit, the Wampanoag leader who had made peace with the Pilgrims, and partook in the legendary Thanksgiving meal. This protest was organized by Wamsutta Frank James, a Wampanoag activist who wanted to draw attention to the full story of Thanksgiving – a story of fear, violence, and oppression that spanned generations. America’s reckoning with the truth of Thanksgiving, James argued, would empower indigenous people to fight for their equal rights. This protest – a National Day of Mourning – continues to this day, now led by James’s granddaughter. So what is the true story of Thanksgiving? And why is it so important for us to remember?   Special thanks to Kisha James, Paula Peters, and David Silverman, author of This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

November 21, 1783. The garden at the Chateau de la Muette is full of expectant Parisians, looking up at the sky. They’re waiting to watch the first two human beings ever take free, untethered flight. After a gust of wind nearly derails the entire operation, some volunteer seamstresses help repair the 75 foot tall hot air balloon. Finally, two Frenchmen step into their wicker baskets and take off. This first human balloon flight is more than just a landmark in aviation history. For the crowds of huddled French masses looking up from below, it's a revolution in and of itself. How did two sons of a papermaker create the first successful aviation device in history? And how did the balloon come to symbolize the French Revolution?  Special thanks to our guests, Tom Crouch, author of Lighter Than Air: An Illustrated History of Balloons and Airships, and Mi Gyung Kim, author of The Imagined Empire: Balloon Enlightenments in Revolutionary Europe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

November 11, 1918. At exactly 11 AM local time, the shooting stops. It’s eerily quiet for the first time in a long time. World War I has finally come to an end today after Germany and the Allied nations signed an armistice not long before. The final battle of the war, known today as the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, saw an unexpected turn of events and a surprising victory. Today: the battle that ended the first world war. How did an inexperienced American army help turn the tides? And how did the Meuse-Argonne Offensive change the way America would fight future wars? Thank you to our guest, Professor Mitchel Yockelson, author of “Forty-Seven Days: How Pershing's Warriors Came of Age to Defeat the German Army in World War I.” Primary source letter from army doctor Stanhope Bayne-Jones can be found on the website of the Historical Collections of the US National Library of Medicine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

November 4, 1605. The king's men are conducting a search. They're making their way through the storerooms and cellars and vaults that cluster around and beneath the Palace of Westminster. They've gotten a tip in the form of a mysterious, anonymous letter that something bad is going to happen at the House of Lords tomorrow. And shortly before midnight, they find a ton of firewood, a suspicious man, and 36 barrels of gunpowder. What brought a group of conspirators together in a plot to kill the king? And in the 400 years since, how has an annual celebration of the failed plot, and the story of one of the plotters—Guy Fawkes—come to stand for something else entirely? Special thanks to our guests: James Sharpe, author of Remember Remember: A Cultural History of Guy Fawkes Day, and Mark Nicholls, author of Investigating Gunpowder Plot. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices