Professor Buzzkill History Podcast

The recent Oppenheimer film has prompted interest in the events surrounding the building and dropping of the atomic bombs. This Flashback Friday episode addresses whether there was an actual decision ...

28 Jul 202359min

In the mid-twentieth century, certain private religious choices became lightning rods for public outrage and debate. In talking about “public confessions,” Dr. Rebecca Davis reveals some of the contro...

25 Jul 202341min

The US government placed white lawyers at Japanese-American concentration camps during World War II. These lawyers were given contradictory instructions: provide legal counsel to the prisoners, and ke...

18 Jul 202338min

During the Civil War, his movements from battlefield to battlefield were followed in the North and in the South nearly as closely as those of generals. He was Absalom Markland, special agent of the Un...

17 Jul 202330min

Patrick Bringley’s new book, All the Beauty in the World: the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me, is one of the most popular books of the year. In this episode, he tells us about his experiences as a g...

11 Jul 202331min

Julius Streicher was the founder and publisher of the virulently antisemitic newspaper “Der Stürmer” – a central element of the Nazi propaganda machine. He was such a Piece of Sh*t that many Nazis tho...

8 Jul 202322min

In a time when the US flag, the Fourth of July, and historical sites have never been more contested, Professor Matthew Clavin reminds us that symbols are living artifacts whose power is derived from t...

4 Jul 202341min

Every July, American Buzzkillers get inundated with chain emails, Facebook posts, and Tweets that spread more myths about the Declaration of Independence. No matter how many times they’ve been disprov...

3 Jul 202337min