Woodrow Wilson: The Professor-President Whose Stroke Created a Secret Presidency and Whose Racism Re-Segregated Washington
Woodrow Wilson was the most educated president in American history — a political science professor who won the Nobel Peace Prize for creating the League of Nations. He was also the president who re-se...
16 Jun 21min
J. Edgar Hoover: The Librarian Who Blackmailed Eight Presidents and Built the FBI Into a Secret Police
J. Edgar Hoover ran the FBI for forty-eight years — through eight presidencies — and no president dared fire him because he had files on all of them. The former Library of Congress clerk turned a smal...
16 Jun 23min
Jefferson Davis: The Contradictions of the Confederate President Who Never Accepted Defeat
Jefferson Davis was a West Point graduate, a Mexican War hero, a respected U.S. senator, and the president of the Confederate States of America. He led a rebellion to preserve slavery, managed the Con...
16 Jun 20min
Alexander Hamilton: The Forgotten Architect of Modern America Who Built the System Everyone Takes for Granted
Before the musical made him famous again, Alexander Hamilton was the most underappreciated Founding Father — the man who designed the financial system, the national bank, the customs service, the Coas...
16 Jun 23min
Benito Juarez: The Zapotec Orphan Who Toppled an Empire and Built Modern Mexico
Benito Juarez was an orphaned Zapotec Indian who did not speak Spanish until he was twelve. He became Mexico's greatest president, defended the republic against a French invasion, defeated the Emperor...
16 Jun 24min
Ronald Reagan: The Actor Who Became President and Reshaped American Conservatism
Ronald Reagan was a New Deal Democrat, a Hollywood union president, and a GE corporate spokesman before he became the most consequential conservative president of the twentieth century. His evolution ...
16 Jun 21min
Hugo Chavez: The Charismatic Populist Whose Bolivarian Revolution Destroyed Venezuela
Hugo Chavez rode a wave of popular fury against Venezuelan inequality into the presidency, funded a social revolution with oil money, and positioned himself as the Western hemisphere's most visible ch...
16 Jun 21min
Giuseppe Garibaldi: The Revolutionary Swordsman Who Unified Italy With Passion and a Thousand Red Shirts
Giuseppe Garibaldi conquered the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies with a thousand volunteers in red shirts — one of the most improbable military campaigns in modern history. While Cavour manipulated from b...
16 Jun 21min
