We know Jefferson and Franklin, but what about the other signers - John Hart, John Penn, William Williams, Richard Stockton, William Whipple, John Morgan, William Floyd, George Read and others. I released this series as its own podcast in 2012, some...

In this episode, no big deal, we just tackle about every significant problem we have in our politics today.  norm-breaking, free-speech and free-speech limits, threats and violence, double impeachments, pushing envelopes and reverse virtue...

Edward Stettinius, Jr. served a short but important time as Secretary of State serving F.D.R. and Truman.  Without him, there may not have been a UN.  And because he got very little credit, he was able to be successful.   With...

In this episode, we speak with Cheryl Woodruff Brooks, author of  Washington was a cosmetic entrepreneur whose company turned her into one of of America's first black millionaires. She was founder and president of Apex Enterprises consisting of...

We know the globe-running, meeting master Vice President Cheney, but did you know his parents were hardcore Democrats?  or that he thought his father turned into a bird (albeit at a pretty young age).   As we discuss with Tim Pearson,...

The Constitution contains two possible forms of presidential removal outside of election, one is the much-discussed impeachment process. The other is the 25th Amendment's fourth section. We discuss 25 Section 4 with Professor Brian C. Kalt, Professor...

The 13th Vice President of the United States remains obscure. Where King's name does come up, it's often with the wrong picture. Or he's confused with Rufus King.  According to our guest, Thomas Balcerski, Associate Professor of History at...

In 1892, a dreaded disease caused a President to navigate local health situation and created a new law.  We look at the precedent-setting quarantine order of the 23rd President, Benjamin Harrison.  While we are at it, we look at Harrison's...

A look at the famous series of letters between Jefferson and Adams.  Friends as young diplomats, they 'unfriended' and 'refriended' from the time of their Presidencies and politics to their old age.

A look at the Senator's father, his 1968 run, and time as HUD secretary.

Who was Chester Arthur's secret pen pal?  How did Herbert Hoover spend his last day in office?  What was McKinley's obscure accomplishment?  What was Rutherford B. Hayes passionate hobby? What event hurt Taft's Presidency from the...

From Eugene Debs to Richard Nixon, from a previously run episode, the President's power to pardon is examined.  

We speak often of Democracy, but do we really know what it is?  We point to Athens as an example.  But what was Greek Democracy really like?  A conversation with Dr. Paul Cartledge, A.G. Leventis Senior Research Fellow at the University...

Host Bruce Carlson reflects on 14 years of the podcast, provides a show update.  Plus some listener questions on masks then and now, Presidents leaving (or not leaving) the Oval, and Kennedy's 1960 election and allegations of fraud.

Jessica Weisberg has traced Ben Franklin's early advice-writing, read the "Lord Chesterfield" letters that early Americans read to learn how to act, attended Dale Carnegie workshops and spoke with Miss Manners all in a quest to track down why...

America's fascination then and now with sea rebels, sea dogs, privateers, smugglers, and pirates by other names is pretty clear.  Books, movies and video games with pirates sell.  We talk with pirate expert and historian Rebecca Simon, Ph.D....

In this episode we look at an enduring mystery, one that didn't matter too much in the 1960 election but has since taken on significance. Could it be that Kennedy lost, and Nixon won, the popular vote nationally in 1960. We looked at it a decade ago,...

A look at the history of child labor and attempts, mostly unsuccessful for decades, at child labor restrictions.  From 2014.  

He's the President that is on the bottom of most lists.  But why?  And is it fair?  What did he think about his place in history?  We talk about POTUS 15 and look at the events of the run-up to the American Civil War, and we hear...

We discuss the tight election that elected the first Democratic President in 25 years and some comparisons and contrasts to the current election.  A President's umbrella, salutes for his "big foot," chain-armor clad parades, and the importance of...

From James Blaine's fainting spell days before Republicans chose a candidate, to Washington's extreme flu scare, to the SARS epidemic and a look at the Ever-So-Prescient Defoe's Journal of a Plague Year, Health and Sickness and Politics.

The 1880 election was close, with Democrats and Republicans seeking an advantage in its waning days when a letter hits a major city newspaper purporting to be in the hand of a candidate.  It is a letter that could turn the election.  With...

A bit of an American political story about politics, corn, common sense.  

Eagle Claw, popularly known as Desert One, was the unsuccessful attempt to rescue hostages in Iran in 1980, hostages that had been held since the storming of the embassy in 1979.  Replaying two previous podcasts on the topic, we look at the...

High political stakes, secret plots, Plug Uglies armed with sharp awls to help 'convince' voters... Baltimore in the 1850's was a fearsome place where politics and gangs were hard to separate.  Yet it was the connecting stop for new Presidents...