The SAS Began as a Lie but Became Britain’s Most Elite WW2 Commando Unit
Created during the World War II, the SAS was a small band of men brought together in the North African desert. They were the toughest and brightest of their cohort, the most resilient, most capable in close combat and most careful in surveillance. Winning approval for this radical new form of warfare was no small feat, but eventually it was achieved. The SAS was born, their mission to take on small-scale but often devastating raids and risks behind enemy lines. Today’s guest is Joshua Levine, author of “SAS: The Authorized Illustrated History of the SAS.” We discuss what it was like to fight and train in the SAS during the World War II by exploring individual stories and personal testimonies of the wartime experience.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
26 Sep 202351min
Eyewitnesses of History Share Stories of the 1980 Miracle on Ice, Pablo Escobar, Jonestown, and Much More
In this special compilation episode, Josh Cohen of Eyewitness History shares his favorite interview moments and stories from people who witnessed some of history’s most extraordinary events.First up, revisit his conversation with Frank DeAngelis, former principal of Columbine High School, recounting the harrowing events of the 1999 massacre.Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3Ow8UF0 / Spotify: https://sptfy.com/OWMr Next, dive into the world of podcasting with the podfather himself, Adam Curry. Discover the fascinating tale of his MTV days and presenting an award to Michael Jackson.Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3Df7jgn / Spotify: https://sptfy.com/OWMt CIA Agent Valerie Plame takes the spotlight in the next segment, shedding light on the notorious 'Plame Affair' of 2003.Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/48gSyYx / Spotify: https://sptfy.com/OWMw Sports enthusiasts, get ready! HBO Boxing legend Jim Lampley shares his experiences covering the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, including the unforgettable 'Miracle on Ice.'Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3YeyxNZ / Spotify: https://sptfy.com/OWMx Jonestown cult survivor and writer Eugene Smith takes a solemn turn as he revisits his journey through tragedy and survival.Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/451VIgu / Spotify: https://sptfy.com/OWMz Rock music lovers, stay tuned for insights from Ken Caillat, the record producer behind Fleetwood Mac's iconic albums, including the Emmy-winning 'Rumors.'Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3rhuyEb / Spotify: https://sptfy.com/OWMB Hear from DEA Agents Steve Murphy and Javier Peña, the real-life heroes who took down Pablo Escobar, inspiring the hit Netflix series 'Narcos.'Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3r5Cf0h / Spotify: https://sptfy.com/OWMD Podcasting sensation Jordan Harbinger shares his adventures and observations in North Korea.Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3JXYmfe / Spotify: https://sptfy.com/OWMF And finally, wrap up with a legendary performance – an interview with Queen's keyboardist, Spike Edney, discussing their iconic set at Live Aid in 1985.Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3Roxxp6 / Spotify: https://sptfy.com/OWMHSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
22 Sep 202344min
In 1864, Nine Union Officers Escaped from a POW Camp and Trekked 300 Miles to the North
At the height of the Civil War in November 1864, nine Union prisoners-of-war escaped from a Confederate Prison known as Camp Sorghum in Columbia, South Carolina. They scrambled north on foot in rags that had once been uniforms of blue. Traveling in brutal winter conditions more than 300 miles with search parties and bloodhounds hot on their trail. On the difficult journey they relied on the help of enslaved men and women, as well as Southerners who sympathized with the North, before finally reaching Union lines on New Years Day 1865.After arriving in Knoxville, Tennessee, and checking in with Union authorities, one of the men had a wonderful idea. The nine officers and their three mountain guides found a local photographer, hoping to commemorate what they had accomplished by posing together for a photograph. The instant, frozen in time, showed twelve ragged men with determination strong on their faces. It was a Civil War selfie. A moment that Captured Freedom.Steve Procko, a documentarian, received a copy of the more than 150-year-old photograph from a descendant of one of the mountain guides. Upon identifying and researching the men in the photograph, he realized their remarkable story had never been told. Procko is today’s guest, and he’s here to tell the story. He’s also the author of “Captured Freedom: The Epic True Civil War Story of Union POW Officers Escaping From a South Prison.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
21 Sep 202353min
Teddy Roosevelt Nearly Died in a Cavalry Charge Against German Machine Guns in WW1
Teddy Roosevelt faced many challenges at the end of his life. Racked by rheumatism, a ticking embolism, pathogens in his blood, a bad leg from an accident, and a bullet in his chest from an assassination attempt. But none of that stopped Roosevelt from attempting to reassemble the Rough Riders for a final charge against the Germans in World War One, pushing them into a likely suicide mission of a cavalry attack against 50 caliber machine guns. Suffering from grief and guilt, marginalized by world events, the great glow that had been his life was now but a dimming lantern. But TR’s final years were productive ones as well: he churned out several “instant” books that promoted U.S. entry into the Great War, and he was making plans for another run at the Presidency in 1920 at the time of his death. Indeed, his political influence was so great that his opposition to the policies of Woodrow Wilson helped the Republican Party take back the Congress in 1918. To look at Roosevelt’s final years is today’s guest Bill Hazelgrove, author of “The Last Charge of the Rough Rider.” It was Roosevelt’s quest for the “vigorous life” that, ironically, may have led to his early demise at the age of sixty. "The Old Lion is dead,” TR’s son Archie cabled his brother on January 6, 1919, and so, too, ended a historic era in American life and politics.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
19 Sep 202339min
Beyond the Wall: What Life Was Really Like in East Germany
When the Iron Curtain fell in 1990, East Germany ceased to be. For over forty years, from the ruin of the Second World War to the cusp of a new millennium, the German Democratic Republic presented a radically different Germany than what had come before and what exists today. Socialist solidarity, secret police, central planning, barbed wire: this was a Germany forged on the fault lines of ideology and geopolitics. Today’s guest is Katja Hoyer, author of “Beyond the Wall,” who was born in the GDR. She saw beyond the usual Cold War caricatures of the GDR and experienced the political, social, and cultural landscape that existed amid oppression and hardship to see the other Germany, beyond the Wall.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
14 Sep 202343min
How An Unlikely Cohort of Black Nurses at a New York Sanatorium Helped Cure Tuberculosis
Nearly a century before the COVID-19 pandemic upended life as we know it, a devastating tuberculosis epidemic was ravaging hospitals across the country. In those dark, pre-antibiotic days, the disease claimed the lives of 1 in 7 Americans; in the United States alone, it killed over 5.6 million people in the first half of the twentieth century. Nowhere was TB more rampant than in New York City, where it spread like wildfire through the tenements, decimating the city’s poorest residents. The city’s hospital system was already overwhelmed when, in 1929, the white nurses at Staten Island’s Sea View Hospital began quitting en masse. Pushed to the brink of a major labor crisis and fearing a public health catastrophe, city health officials made a call for black female nurses seeking to work on the frontlines, promising them good pay, education, housing, and employment free from the constraints of Jim Crow. Today’s guest is Maria Smilios, author of “The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis.” We look at the unlikely ways in which public health developed in America, by means of these nurses who put in 14-hour days caring for people who lay waiting to die or, worse, become “guinea pigs” to test experimental (and often deadly) drugs at a facility that was understaffed and unregulated.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
12 Sep 202354min
The Mississippi Was First Mapped by a Polyglot Priest and a College Dropout-Turned-Fur Trapper
Perhaps the most consequential expedition in North American history wasn’t the Lewis and Clark Expedition. It was one that happened 130 years earlier and undertaken by a Catholic priest fluent in multiple Indian languages and a philosophy-student-drop-out-turned fur trapper. This was the 1673 Jolliet and Marquette expedition – in which French explorers mapped out the Mississippi Valley and confirmed that the river led to the Gulf of Mexico, not the Pacific or Atlantic – and it took place against a sprawling backdrop that encompassed everything from ancient Native American cities to French colonial machinations.Today’s guest, Mark Walczynski, author of “Jolliet and Marquette: A New History of the 1673 Expedition“ place the explorers and their journey within seventeenth-century North America. His account takes readers among the region’s diverse Native American peoples and into a vanished natural world of treacherous waterways and native flora and fauna.Walczynski also charts the little-known exploits of the French-Canadian officials, explorers, traders, soldiers, and missionaries who created the political and religious environment that formed Jolliet and Marquette and shaped European colonization of the heartland. A multifaceted voyage into the past, Jolliet and Marquette expands and updates the oft-told story of a pivotal event in North American history.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
7 Sep 202356min
The Eurasian Steppes Gave Us Atilla the Hun, Genghis Khan, Global Trade and Hybrid Camels
The barbarian nomads of the Eurasian steppes have played a decisive role in world history, but their impact has gone largely unnoticed. These nomadic tribes have produced some of the world’s greatest conquerors: Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, among others. And their deeds still resonate today.These nomads built long-lasting empires, facilitated the first global trade of the Silk Road and disseminated religions, technology, knowledge and goods of every description that enriched and changed the lives of so many across Europe, China and the Middle East. From a single region emerged a great many peoples – the Huns, the Mongols, the Magyars, the Turks, the Xiongnu, the Scythians, the Goths – all of whom went on to profoundly and irrevocably shape the modern world. But their legacy is also death. An estimated 100 million died in the Mongol conquests, include 90 percent of Iran’s population, which only recovered in the 20th century.To discuss these legacies is Kenneth Harl, author of “Empires of the Steppes.” He draws on a lifetime of scholarship to vividly recreate the lives and world of these often-forgotten peoples from their beginnings to the early modern age.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
5 Sep 20231h 6min
