David Chang talks about the history of indigenous Hawaiians (Kanaka Maoli) as explorers and geographers of the world. Chang is a professor of history at the University of Minnesota. He’s the author of The World and All the Things upon It: Native...

Ed Armston-Sheret talks about the mysterious disease of scurvy: how it affected expeditioners and why it was so difficult to understand. Armston-Sheret is a PhD candidate at Royal Holloway University of London. He’s the author of "Tainted bodies :...

Glen Asner and Stephen Garber talk about NASA’s efforts to plan ambitious missions in the face of huge political and financial challenges. Asner is the Deputy Chief Historian for the Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD)....

Jake Robins and Michael Robinson talk about the quest to explore Mars: how it compares to earlier eras of exploration in the West and in the Arctic as well as its power to capture the imagination of thousands of people. Robins is the host of...

Tina Adcock talks about the controversy over George Putnam's Baffin Land expedition and why it tells a bigger story about the changing culture of exploration in the 1920s. Adcock is an assistant professor of history at Simon Fraser University. She’s...

In Part II, Ruth Gruenthal continues her story of her family's escape from France in 1940. She also discusses the challenges of living in the United States after the war.  

Ruth Gruenthal talks about her life in Germany as the Nazi Party came to power in the 1930s. Gruenthal and her family – along with thousands of Jewish refugees -- raced to escape France when the Germans invaded in the summer of 1940. Gruenthal is a...

Claire Isabel Webb talks about the search for extraterrestrial life and the different strategies used by astronomers and exobiologists to look for it. Webb is a PhD candidate at MIT's History, Anthropology, Science, Technology, and Society Program....

Bruce Strickrott talks about the value of human exploration of the deep sea. Strickrott is the Program Manager and Senior Pilot of the United States’ deepest diving science submersible, the DSV Alvin which is owned by the US Navy and operated out of...

Catherine Newell talks about the religious roots of the final frontier, focusing on the collaboration of artist Chesley Bonestell, science writer Willy Ley, and the NASA rocket engineer Wernher von Braun. Newell is an assistant professor of religion...

Laura Waterman talks about her novel, Starvation Shore, which relies upon memoirs, letters, and diaries to reconstruct the life of the Greely Party as it attempted to survive impossible conditions. Waterman is a climber, conservationist, and...

Lukas Rieppel talks about dinosaur fossils in the Gilded Age  – from the discovery and excavation of fossils in the American West to the re-construction of fabulous creatures in museums that were the darlings of wealthy philanthropists. Rieppel...

Matthias Determann talks about the importance of the space sciences in the Arab World. Determann is an associate professor of history at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar. He is the author of Space Science and the Arab World: Astronauts,...

Lisa Ruth Rand talks about the Starlink satellite program. She also talks about Project West Ford, which attempted to create an artificial ionosphere in 1961 by launching millions of copper needles into orbit. Rand is the Haas Postdoctoral Fellow at...

Annette Joseph-Gabriel talks with Tiffany Gill about the history of African American travel in the late twentieth century and its importance to black communities across the lines of class and gender. Joseph-Gabriel is an assistant professor of French...

Radio host Kevin Fox interviews me about the history of American Arctic exploration. The disappearance of the Franklin Expedition in 1845 turned the Arctic into an object of fascination. By the end of the century, it had become an 'Arctic Fever.'

Adrian Wisnicki talks about the British expeditionary literature of the late 1800s. Wisnicki is the author of Fieldwork of Empire, 1840-1900: Intercultural Dynamics in the Production of British Expeditionary Literature.

Rachel Walker talks about physiognomy -- the study of the human face -- and why it was so popular among scientists and the general public. Walker is an assistant professor of history at the University of Hartford. She is completing a book based on her...

Alistair Sponsel talks about Darwin’s experiences on HMS Beagle and his early career as a naturalist. Sponsel’s close reading of Darwin’s journals and letters reveals insights about the man that would become known as the father of evolution....

David Woodman talks about his quest to find the missing wrecks of the Franklin Expedition, a mission that led him to the journals of the Arctic explorer Charles Hall who lived with the Inuit for four years and recorded their encounters with British...

Ingrid Horrocks talks about the way women travelers, specifically women wanderers, are represented in late-eighteenth century literature. Horrocks in an associate professor in the School of English and Media Studies at Massey University in Wellington,...

Sarah Qidwai talks about her research on Sayyid Ahmad Khan as well as her own journey to Mecca and Medina. Qidwai is a Ph.D candidate in the History of Science at the University of Toronto. Her essay “Reexamining Complexity: Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s...

Erika Milam talks about the scientific search for human nature, a project that captured the attention of paleontologists, anthropologists, and primatologists in the years after World War II. Milam is a professor of history at Princeton University. She...

Fiona Vernal talks about the migration stories of Hartford Connecticut’s many communities. Vernal is an associate professor of history at the University of Connecticut and the creator of the exhibition “From Human Rights to Civil Rights: African...

Dr. Vanessa Heggie talks about the history of biomedical research in extreme environments. Heggie is a Fellow of the Institute for Global Innovation at the University of Birmingham. She is the author of Higher and Colder: A History of Extreme...