Making a Book in the Middle Ages Took Years and Was Literally Physical Torture
Making a book in the Middle Ages was extremely hard work. It took the skin of several calves to make the vellum (a writing material), an army of monks in a scriptorium, rare ink for the illustrations,...
13 Aug 202046min
Martha Dodd: The American Soviet Spy and Hitler’s Would-Be Lover Who Dreamed of a Communist World
In 1933, Martha Dodd, a 24-year-old aspiring writer who had already had several affairs and a failed marriage embarked with her family to Berlin, where her father was America's ambassador to Hitler's ...
11 Aug 202042min
America’s First Black Fighter Pilot Was Also a Boxer, Night Club Owner, and WW2 Spy in France
One of the greatest unsung heroes of the twentieth century is Gene "Jacques" Bullard, a World War One fighter pilot, boxer, spy, and overall adventurer. He was the first American-born black fighter pi...
6 Aug 202046min
Sam Colt's Six-Shooter Launched The American Industrial Revolution and Sped Western Settlement
In August of 1831, a 16-year-old from Connecticut named Sam Colt boarded a ship of missionaries bound for a round-trip voyage to Calcutta. Restless and rambunctious, with a particular fondness for blo...
4 Aug 202049min
The Nazi Spy Ring in America: The Third Reich's Agents, the FBI, and the Case That Stirred the Nation
In the mid-1930s, just as the United States was embarking on a policy of neutrality, Nazi Germany embarked on a program of espionage against the unwary nation. Hitler’s attempts to interfere in Americ...
30 Jul 202048min
In 1200 AD, This Indian City on the Mississippi Was Larger Than London And On the Verge Of Starting an Advanced Civilization
Many great Mesoamerican civilizations existed before and long after the arrival of Christopher Columbus: The Incans, Mayas, and Aztecs. But there was one civilization in North America you likely never...
28 Jul 202051min
America's Hub of Global Trade and Culture Was and Is....the Midwest?
When Kristin L. Hoganson arrived in Champaign, Illinois, after teaching at Harvard, studying at Yale, and living in the D.C. metro area with various stints overseas, she expected to find her new home,...
23 Jul 202030min
How Hollywood First Depicted the Atomic Bomb and the Manhattan Project
Soon after atomic bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, MGM set out to make a movie studio chief Louis B. Mayer called “the most important story” he would ever film: a big budget dramati...
21 Jul 202049min
