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.  

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...

Newark N.J. suffered a brutal and consuming riot, or rebellion, depending on how you see things, in the hot summer of 1967. Through the voices of history, we hear about those events, what caused it, and the musician who got caught up and became an...

George Washington did not get a Cabinet as President. He created it. His precedents forged the institution and the President's relationship to the Executive Departments. Washington didn't fire a cabinet member, but he set the precedents in this area...

What caused The Great Depression, did FDR do anything to fix it, and how does it compare to our recent recessions? A 2008 cast that holds up well...As events started to take shape in '08, , I remember sitting down in a park and scribbling the base of...

We talk about Idi Amin, Kim Jong-il and other despots with Scott Rank of History Unplugged Podcast.  He joins us to talk about his book History's Nine Most Insane Rulers.  We get into Amin's awful suppression of opposition, deportation of...

Godwin's Law is Not a Law.  And yet, it probably should be followed in most cases.  (re-do of past episode that contained an error).  The surprising history of the rule that one should not discuss Nazis in debates, and the person who is...

The May 4, 1970 shootings at Kent State killed 4 students and wounded 9. Paula Stone Tucker was a student going through her work and studies on campus when she witnessed a historic event. We talk about Kent State, how the 4 days unfolded, and get...

When we aired this last year, the topic of commerce shutting down did not seem timely.  Thus a re-run of our fourth of a series on American commerce, a look at three instances of when U.S. commerce was stopped seems appropriate.  From an...

In this episode we look at a historic campaign episode and try to solve a mystery of history of the 1884 election.  Did GOP candidate Blaine hear the bigoted comments of a supporter, or didn't he?   We also get an insider's view from a...

We speak with Laura Spinney, science journalist and author of "Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World" and discuss the dreadful disease that claimed 50-100 million lives, more than the Great War that preceded it....

A stubborn impeached governor, odd caucus locations, real estate and politics. Bruce talks about the Iowa Caucus, how it works, changes in 2020, its history and influence and what things look like this year. Impeachment and the current universe of...

The history of the federal holiday starts with a strike and ends with a battle between President and Senate

A look at Grover Cleveland, the only president in American history to serve two non-consecutive terms in office.