American History Hit
Episodes
Harriet Tubman
16 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Harriet Tubman is perhaps the most famous African American woman in the world, but she’s usually remembered in two-dimensions - the hero of the unde...
A History of New York in 3 Hotels
13 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Waldorf-Astoria, the Plaza and the Algonquin all tell their own stories of New York City. Don talks to Anthony Melchiorri, host of Travel Channel'...
The Battle of Valcour Island
09 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The first naval engagement of the American War of Independence took place on Lake Champlain, which straddles modern-day New York state and Vermont and...
Jamestown
06 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In late April 1607, three ships carrying a hundred men and boys arrived in Chesapeake Bay, having set sail from London four months earlier. They trave...
The First American in Space
02 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Spring 1961, the Space Race between the US and Soviet Union was well underway. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in Space in A...
Yellowstone
30 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For thousands of years, nomadic Native American peoples crossed the Yellowstone River basin, in awe of its stunning landscape and geothermal wond...
The Fall of J. Edgar Hoover
26 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From 1956 to 1971, J. Edgar Hoover ran COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program). A series of covert and illegal FBI operations aimed at surveilling, i...
The Rise of J. Edgar Hoover
23 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
J. Edgar Hoover was the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 48 years. He grew the FBI from a small, obscure operation to one that empl...
Ellis Island
19 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From the 1880s to the 1920s the United States experienced a huge wave of immigration. People fleeing poverty and political instability in Europe, plus...
Dr Martin Luther King Jr
16 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Martin Luther King Jr was one of the figureheads of the civil rights movement in America. On 28th August 1963, he made one of the greatest English ...
Charles Dickens in America
12 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
One of the most famous writers ever to have lived, Charles Dickens travelled twice to the US, in 1842 and 1867. This made him one of the first transat...
Inside Benjamin Franklin's House
09 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Join Don as he visits Benjamin Franklin's home of nearly 16 years: 36 Craven Street, London. Now a museum, its director Marcia Balisciano explains wha...
Lessons from the Civil War
05 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Gone with the Wind, released in 1939, is the highest-grossing film of all time. Based on Margaret Mitchell's novel published a few years earlier, it i...
Downton Abbey
29 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It’s December 1912 and we’re joining in with the festivities at Highclere Castle, in London England. The prime minister is Herbert H. Asquith and ...
The First Americans
22 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Modern humans thrived in the Americas for thousands of years before the first European colonists arrived, but how and when did they get there?What's m...
The French & Indian War with Dan Snow
19 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the British and French colonies in North America expanded in the middle of the 18th century, they inevitably clashed. Fighting between the two side...
The War of 1812
15 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 19th century, amidst the Napoleonic wars, the British began restricting the United States’ trade with Europe. On top of this, the Briti...
The Assassination of President McKinley
12 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On 5th September, 1901, President William McKinley attended a public reception at the Pan American Exposition, a 6-month-long World’s Fair, in Buffa...
Pearl Harbor
08 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On the morning of 7th December 1941, hundreds of Japanese planes took off from aircraft carriers and attacked Pearl Harbor, on Oahu island, Hawaii. Th...
Start of the Space Race
05 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Space historian Jay Gallentine tells Don how World War 2 weapons paved the way for space rockets, igniting a space race between the USA and the USSR t...
Capturing Lincoln’s Assassin
01 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On shooting President Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth fled Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC on horseback, eventually heading south. But Lincoln’...
The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
28 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On the evening of 14th April, 1865, the Union was celebrating victory in the civil war, won 5 days earlier with General Lee's surrender at Appomattox....
The First Thanksgiving
24 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the fall of 1621, a year after the pilgrim ship the Mayflower landed on the coast of New England, the settlers of the Plymouth Colony celebrated th...
Ronald Reagan: The Peacemaker
21 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Ronald Reagan became President in 1981, he was initially written off by many as a reckless B movie cowboy who would lead the US to nuclear war.Ho...
Who Really Invented the Light Bulb?
17 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
While Thomas Edison is widely credited as the inventor of the electric lightbulb in 1879, it had existed in one form or another since the the beginnin...
The Whiskey Rebellion
14 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Whiskey Tax, imposed in 1791, was the first federal tax on a domestic product by a United States government. It was introduced by Alexander Hamilt...
African Americans in WW2
10 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The experience of African Americans in World War 2 was, to say the least, a gross double standard. While fascism was confronted in the name of liberty...
The Race for the North Pole
07 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On April 6th 1909, deep inside the Artic Circle after months on the ice, Robert Peary, Matthew Henson and their four Inuit guides reached what they th...
Becoming FDR
03 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In August 1921, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was 39 years old, he contracted Polio, paralysing him from the waist down. Jonathan Darman tells Don how, d...
Sleepy Hollow & the Haunted Hudson
31 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On Halloween, Elizabeth Bradley tells Don about Washington Irving's famous story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, its headless horseman and the influence...
America's Psychedelic '60s: Timothy Leary and LSD
27 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1963, a Gilded Age estate in Millbrook, New York, became a venue for academic research into therapeutic uses for LSD, led by psychologist Timothy L...
The Oregon Trail
24 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From the 1830s until the arrival of the transcontinental railroad, hundreds of thousands of people packed their possessions into wagons and headed wes...
CIA: The History
20 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When the Central Intelligence Agency was created by President Truman in 1947, it was the latest incarnation of an American intelligence-gathering serv...
The US Marines' Pacific War
17 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When US Marines landed on the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific, in August 1942, they were taking part in the first US ground offensive of World Wa...
Edward Rulloff: The Gilded Age Hannibal Lecter
13 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Edward Rulloff was described as “a monster imbued by the spirit of the devil”. In 1844, he murdered his wife, likely killing his daughter at the s...
Cuban Missile Crisis
10 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In October 1962, the United States confirmed that Soviet missiles were being deployed in Cuba. President John F. Kennedy had to contemplate the conseq...
Central Park: What Lies Beneath
06 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Central Park is an oasis of nature in New York City, amidst the countless skyscrapers and gridded streets of Manhattan. Over 800 acres of sweeping fie...
Pontiac's Rebellion
03 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1763, Native American tribes in the Great Lakes region began fighting British expansion and rule in their territory, attacking forts and settlement...
Battle of Midway
29 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Battle of Midway took place between the US and Japan in June 1942. The US victory, after 4 days of fighting in the air and sea around the Pacific ...
Hollywood Blacklist
26 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
After World War 2 ended, the Nazis defeated, America feared communist infiltration of its institutions, among them, Hollywood. In November 1947, a num...
Declaration of Independence
22 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
While the Revolutionary War was being fought in July 1776, the 13 British colonies in America came together to approve their Declaration of Independen...
The Atomic Bomb & the Secret City
22 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1939 Franklin D Roosevelt received a letter from Albert Einstein, warning him that the Nazis might be developing nuclear weapons. Am...
The Queen & US Presidents
12 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We had plans today to release the first two episodes of American History Hit but due to the news of the death of Queen Elizabeth II last week, we’ve...
Welcome to American History Hit
23 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Join Don Wildman twice a week for your hit of American history, as he explores the past to help us understand the United States of today. We’ll...