Why American Troops Mutinied After VE Day
The war was over—but for thousands of American soldiers stationed overseas, the fight felt far from finished. In late 1945 and early 1946, frustration boiled over among U.S. troops waiting to be broug...
12 Mar 9min
The Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was a vast, secret network of safe houses, guides, abolitionists, and ordinary citizens who risked fines, imprisonment, and even death to help enslaved people escape bondage i...
11 Mar 9min
What did the Founders Think About Religion?
Were America's Founding Fathers devout Christians, skeptical deists, or something more complicated? The answer is far less simple—and far more interesting—than modern debates often suggest. Figures li...
10 Mar 9min
The Flying Tigers
Before the United States officially entered World War II, a small band of American volunteer pilots took to the skies over China to fight a war that wasn't yet theirs. Known as the Flying Tigers, this...
9 Mar 10min
The Man Who Jumped from Space
In the thin, freezing edge of Earth's atmosphere, long before private spaceflight captured headlines, one man stepped out of a balloon gondola and fell toward the planet below. Joseph Kittinger, a U.S...
8 Mar 8min
The Patty Hearst Kidnapping Ordeal
In 1974, America watched in shock as newspaper heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped from her California apartment by a radical group calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army. What began as a high-p...
7 Mar 10min
Conversations: Berlin During WWII, w/ Ian Buruma
In this special Conversation Series episode of History Shorts, host Peter Zablocki sits down with acclaimed historian and author Ian Buruma to discuss his powerful new book, Stay Alive: Berlin, 1939-1...
6 Mar 24min
The Man Who Exposed the Mafia
For decades, the American Mafia thrived in secrecy—its structure hidden behind silence, fear, and a strict code of loyalty. That began to change in the early 1960s when one man decided to talk. Joe Va...
5 Mar 8min
