History Shorts

When three gleaming American B-29 Superfortresses made emergency landings in Soviet-held territory in 1944, it set in motion one of the most audacious acts of Cold War-era technological theft the worl...

21 Aug 202513min

The phrase "under God" was not part of the original Pledge of Allegiance written by Francis Bellamy in 1892, but was added in 1954 amid Cold War tensions as a symbolic stand against "godless communism...

20 Aug 202512min

The story of the G-Men begins in an era when America had no permanent federal detective force, relying instead on private agencies like the Pinkertons. Reformers pushed for an in-house corps, and in 1...

19 Aug 202513min

In 1919–1920, Johns Hopkins psychologist John B. Watson conducted the now-infamous "Little Albert" experiment to show that fear could be conditioned in humans, pairing a loud noise with a white rat un...

18 Aug 202511min

In this powerful and deeply human episode of History Shorts, historian Dr. Katarzyna Person, Director of the upcoming Warsaw Ghetto Museum and author of The Hour of Revenge, joins the show to explore ...

17 Aug 202523min

In 1811, Andrew Jackson, traveling with enslaved men along the Natchez Trace, confronted a challenge to his authority when a Native agent demanded proof of ownership for his slaves. In a dramatic resp...

16 Aug 20259min

In this episode, we sit down with Brenda Wineapple, acclaimed historian and author of The Impeachers and Ecstatic Nation, to discuss her latest work: Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial T...

15 Aug 202531min

In 1898, American author Morgan Robertson penned a novella titled Futility: Or the Wreck of the Titan. The plot centered around an enormous, luxurious ocean liner named the Titan that strikes an icebe...

14 Aug 202511min