History Shorts

In the final throes of the Civil War, a chilling discovery near Richmond sent shockwaves through both Union and Confederate camps. On the body of a slain young Union officer—Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, Co...

23 Jul 202511min

To some, Jesse James was a gallant outlaw, a populist folk hero who struck back at greedy railroads and corrupt institutions, sharing his loot with poor farmers in a manner befitting a prairie Robin H...

22 Jul 202511min

Before dawn on December 15, 1890, a gunshot rang out on the Standing Rock Reservation, and Sitting Bull, the legendary Lakota chief, was dead. His assassination, carried out by Native police under U.S...

22 Jul 202510min

Benedict Arnold: the name alone still echoes with betrayal. But behind the infamous label of "traitor" lies a story that's far more complex, and far more human. Once hailed as a hero of the American R...

21 Jul 202511min

On a cold November morning in 1865, just months after the Civil War's end, a Confederate officer stood on the gallows in Washington, D.C. His name was Henry Wirz, the former commandant of the notoriou...

20 Jul 202510min

Barbed wire began as a humble solution to a humble problem: fencing the vast, treeless expanses of the American West. But this simple invention—two twisted strands studded with sharp steel barbs - wou...

19 Jul 202510min

In this thought-provoking episode of History Shorts, bestselling author John Green joins us, not to talk about fiction, but about the real-world epidemic that once shaped everything from art to archit...

18 Jul 202521min

Between 1866 and 1871, a secretive Irish-American paramilitary group known as the Fenians launched a series of bizarre and audacious cross-border attacks from the U.S. into Canada. Their mission? To s...

17 Jul 20259min