American History Tellers
Episodes
Salem Witch Trials | Specter of Injustice | 3
04 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In May 1692, William Phips, the new royal governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, sailed into Boston Harbor and was immediately faced with an unprec...
Salem Witch Trials | The Devil Against Us | 2
27 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
By the first week of March 1692, three Salem women had been jailed for witchcraft, and accusations continued to spread. Authorities publicly questione...
Salem Witch Trials | An Evil Hand | 1
20 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In January 1692, two young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts began behaving strangely. They screamed, barked like dogs, and writhed on the floor. ...
Encore: The WWII Home Front | United We Win | 2
13 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As the nation’s factories and shipyards ramped up production for the war, the demand for labor exploded. Millions of women and minorities entered th...
Encore: The WWII Home Front | Arsenal of Democracy | 1
06 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On December 7, 1941, hundreds of Japanese warplanes rained death and destruction down on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor—shocking the nation and...
Encore: Supreme Court Landmarks | Jane Roe | 7
30 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1970, a 22-year-old woman in Texas named Norma McCorvey tried and failed to get an abortion from her doctor. Abortion was illegal in Texas, just as...
Encore: Supreme Court Landmarks | A Recount in Florida | 6
23 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The morning of Nov. 8, 2000, Americans woke up to an undecided election. Pollsters had predicted a close race between Vice President Al Gore and Texas...
Encore: Supreme Court Landmarks | The Warren Court | 5
16 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Before the 1950s, the Supreme Court was best known as an institution that adhered to the status quo. It often sought to protect the rights of property...
Encore: Supreme Court Landmarks | Loaded Weapon | 4
09 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Through most of 1941, as fighting raged across Europe, the United States held back from entering the war. That all changed in December, when Japanese ...
Encore: Supreme Court Landmarks | Separate and Unequal | 3
02 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After the Civil War, America began to rebuild a shattered nation. For the first time, the country could create a society without slavery, and a nation...
Encore: Supreme Court Landmarks | The Cherokee Cases | 2
26 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 1800s, the United States was growing rapidly, seeking land and resources for its expanding population. But the growth threatened Native A...
Encore: Supreme Court Landmarks | The Predicament of John Marshall | 1
19 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After the War of Independence, the new American government created the Supreme Court to be the final word on disputes that the states couldn’t settl...
Reconstruction Era | Counter Narratives | 7
12 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After Federal troops withdrew from the South in 1877, Reconstruction officially came to an end, and the battle to control the narrative began. For the...
Reconstruction Era | The Great Betrayal | 6
05 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1876, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden vied for the presidency. But when Election Day was over, no clear winner emerged. A...
Reconstruction Era | The Panic | 5
28 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On Easter Sunday, 1873, an armed white mob battled a Black militia over control of a courthouse in a rural Louisiana parish. In the end, as many as 15...
Reconstruction Era | The Bloody Chasm | 4
21 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1870, the ratification of the 15th Amendment enshrined Black men’s right to vote in the Constitution. Senator Hiram Revels became the first Black...
Reconstruction Era | Impeachment | 3
14 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the spring of 1867, over President Andrew Johnson’s veto, the Republican-controlled Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts, putting the U.S. Arm...
Reconstruction Era | The Radical Revolution | 2
07 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In December 1865, the first postwar Congress convened in Washington, D.C. With Black Southerners still facing rampant violence and discrimination, the...
Reconstruction Era | From the Ashes of War | 1
31 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the spring of 1865, the United States celebrated the end of four years of Civil War. As American soldiers laid down their weapons, four million for...
United Farm Workers | The Fall | 3
24 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
By the early 1970s the United Farm Workers had won a series of successes in California and were attempting to extend their reach into other states. Bu...
United Farm Workers | The Grape Strike | 2
17 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1964, the United States finally ended the controversial Bracero Program, which had flooded American farms with millions of low-paid guest workers f...
United Farm Workers | Birth of a Movement | 1
10 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1940s and ‘50s, farm laborers in California, many of them Mexican and Filipino, faced low wages and brutal working conditions. Their demands ...
Boston Molasses Disaster | The Legend and the Legacy | 2
03 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The 1919 Molasses Flood was a terrifying and telling moment in the history of Boston’s North End. It was also a snapshot of a developing city in the...
Boston Molasses Disaster | A Deadly Deluge | 1
26 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On January 15, 1919 a giant storage tank holding more than two million gallons of molasses collapsed, sending a deadly wave crashing into the streets ...
Hawai'i's Journey to Statehood | Lost Kingdom | 5
19 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After she was deposed by powerful American business interests, Hawai’i’s Queen Liliʻuokalani lived out the rest of her days advocating for her pe...
Hawai'i's Journey to Statehood | Day of Infamy | 4
12 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On December 7, 1941, Hawai’i was hit by one of the most unexpected military assaults in modern warfare. More than 300 Japanese fighter planes and di...
Hawaiʻi's Journey to Statehood | Waves of Change | 3
05 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After Hawai’i became a U.S. Territory in 1900, tourism to the islands exploded. Luxury steamships brought tourists eager to buy fashionable Hawaiian...
Hawaiʻi's Journey to Statehood | The Pineapple King | 2
29 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 1900s, an enterprising young American named James Dole introduced pineapples to a windy plateau in Central Oahu. He’d been warned that ...
Hawaiʻi's Journey to Statehood | The Last Queen | 1
22 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1893 the independent island kingdom of Hawaiʻi flourished under the leadership of its monarch, Queen Lili’uokalani. But as the leaders of Hawaiʻ...
Insurrection of Aaron Burr | Fears of a Young Republic | 5
15 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Was Aaron Burr raising an army to invade Mexico? Plotting to break apart the Union? Overthrow the government? Or was his trial for treason – the gre...
Insurrection of Aaron Burr | Treason on Trial | 4
08 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the summer of 1807, Richmond, Virginia hosted the most sensational trial in the young nation’s history. At stake was the life of Aaron Burr, who ...
Insurrection of Aaron Burr | The Severance of the Union | 3
01 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In August 1806, Aaron Burr began the final preparations for his mysterious expedition to the western frontier. As he traveled, rumors that he was plot...
Insurrection of Aaron Burr | Gathering Forces | 2
22 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the summer of 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr was wanted for the murder of Alexander Hamilton. The fatal duel made him a political pariah and the t...
Insurrection of Aaron Burr | An Affair of Honor | 1
15 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In July 1804, Aaron Burr faced political rival Alexander Hamilton on the cliffs of Weehawken, New Jersey, in a legendary duel that would change Burr’...
California Gold Rush | Gold Mountains | 5
08 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
News of the 1848 discovery of gold in California spread quickly, and thousands of Chinese migrants flocked to California to seek a better life in the ...
California Gold Rush | Digging Deeper | 4
01 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 1850s, as people continued to flood West, California’s booming cities experienced rapid growth, but also turmoil. Fires regularly swept...
California Gold Rush | Battlelines | 3
25 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For white settlers, the Gold Rush offered a chance for fortune, but for California’s Native inhabitants, the sudden hunger for gold spelled disaster...
California Gold Rush | The Forty Niners | 2
18 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In early 1849, thousands of gold-hungry Americans began pouring into California from the eastern United States. But most of the so-called 49ers were w...
California Gold Rush | The First Strike | 1
11 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1848, hundreds of thousands of prospectors poured into California, hoping to strike it rich. I...
Presidential Assassinations | Interview | 5
04 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The job of guarding the President’s life belongs to the men and women of the United States Secret Service. There have been many highs and lows in th...
Presidential Assassinations | Ricochet | 4
28 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1981, a gunman fired six shots at Ronald Reagan after the president gave a speech at a Washington D.C. hotel. Over the next several hours, split-se...
Presidential Assassinations | Three Shots in Dallas | 3
21 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was shot and killed while riding in his presidential limo through downtown Dallas. His violent and public death ...
Presidential Assassinations | Anarchist at the Exposition | 2
14 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In September 1901, President William McKinley visited the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York to deliver a speech celebrating American achiev...
Presidential Assassinations | Murder for Spoils | 1
07 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On April 14th, 1865, John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. Lincoln died hours later, shocking the w...
Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 | The Great Debate | 4
30 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The yellow fever epidemic of 1793 posed one of the greatest threats to the young United States. Doctors and scientists couldn’t agree on the cause o...
Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 | Friends We Have Lost | 3
23 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1793, Philadelphia served as the nation’s temporary capital, and the yellow fever epidemic crippled the federal government. After fleeing the cap...
Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 | Fears & Falsehoods | 2
16 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In September 1793, yellow fever continued to ravage Philadelphia. As the death toll mounted, Dr. Benjamin Rush raced to find a cure. Rush used an aggr...
Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 | Outbreak | 1
09 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the hot and humid summer of 1793, a deadly epidemic struck Philadelphia, then the capital of the United States. Thousands suffered high fevers, yel...
The Age of Pirates | Women of the High Seas | 4
02 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
During the Golden Age of Piracy, two female pirates became infamous despite their short careers. Anne Bonny and Mary Read went down as some of the fie...
The Age of Pirates | Blackbeard and the Flying Gang | 3
26 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1717, the pirate known as Blackbeard launched an attack along the Atlantic seaboard, disrupting international trade and striking terror into sea ca...
The Age of Pirates | Captain Kid's Adventure | 2
19 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As England waged war against France in 1689, Scottish sailor William Kidd led a deadly mutiny aboard a French privateer in the Caribbean. It was his f...
The Age of Pirates | A Gold Chain Or A Wooden Leg | 1
12 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
At the end of the 17th century, pirates stalked the coast of North America and the waters of the Caribbean, attacking merchant vessels from every nati...
Encore: The Walker Affair | The Last Filibuster | 3
05 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When he escaped Nicaragua in 1857, American William Walker was a failed despot responsible for the death of thousands of people and the destabilizatio...
Encore: The Walker Affair | Nicaragua's Yankee President | 2
28 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1855, William Walker faced a criminal trial in the United States for his illegal, and unsuccessful, invasion of Mexico. But he emerged from court f...
Encore: The Walker Affair | The Gray-Eyed Man of Destiny | 1
21 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the mid-1800s, the United States was full of adventurers and entrepreneurs looking to take advantage of the country’s ever-expanding boundaries. ...
Civil War | Finding Freedom | 8
14 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
During the Civil War, Black people in America took the opportunity to free themselves and to serve the Union cause. At great personal risk, tens of th...
Civil War | Bind Up the Nation's Wounds | 7
07 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In early 1865, after four long years of bloodshed, the Confederacy was on the brink of defeat. General William Tecumseh Sherman marched his army throu...
Civil War | March To The Sea | 6
31 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1864, Ulysses S. Grant took charge of the entire Union Army and laid out his ambitious plans to finally win the war. Grant pursued Lee in Virginia ...
Civil War | Gettysburg | 5
24 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the summer of 1863, General Robert E. Lee made a daring bid for victory. He marched his army north to invade Pennsylvania. For three sweltering day...
Civil War | The Fires at Home | 4
17 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the Civil War raged on, families on the homefront faced increasingly heavy tolls, enduring crippling economic turmoil, food shortages and explosive...
Civil War | Emancipation | 3
10 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Civil War began as an effort to hold the country together. Few Northern soldiers marched into battle to end slavery. But tens of thousands of ensl...
Civil War | First Blood | 2
03 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On April 19th, 1861, an angry mob of Confederate sympathizers in Baltimore tried to stop a regiment of Union soldiers rushing to protect the capitol. ...
Civil War | The Gathering Storm | 1
27 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Over the first decades of the 19th century, Americans fought over whether slavery should be allowed to expand into newly settled western territories. ...
Encore: The Age of Jackson | A Nation Divided | 7
20 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Age of Jackson was a time of intense change and tremendous growth in the United States. But it was not without controversy. In the years leading u...
Encore: The Age of Jackson | Manifest Destiny | 6
13 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1845, newly inaugurated President James Polk made America’s westward expansion a centerpiece of his administration. Before long, the phrase “Ma...
Encore: The Age of Jackson | The Little Magician | 5
06 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
During the last years of Andrew Jackson’s presidency, the American economy flourished. But when his successor, Martin Van Buren, took office, he inh...
Encore: The Age of Jackson | Great White Father | 4
29 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
During his military career, Andrew Jackson won several ruthless victories over indigenous people. After becoming president in 1829, he waged political...
Encore: The Age of Jackson | King Mob | 3
22 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On Andrew Jackson’s inauguration day, citizens mobbed the White House, breaking furniture and fine china. It was a sign of troubles to come. Elected...
Encore: The Age of Jackson | Good Feelings | 2
15 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the summer of 1817, President James Monroe toured the country in an effort to unify the ever-growing United States. His optimistic presidency usher...
Encore: The Age of Jackson | Washington Burns | 1
08 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1814, British troops burned down the White House. That fire would be extinguished, and the Executive Mansion would be rebuilt. But another fire smo...
The Great Mississippi Flood | Media Storm | 4
01 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1927, a slow-moving catastrophe like the Great Mississippi Flood was perfect material for a relatively new medium: radio. Over the airwaves, the fl...
The Great Mississippi Flood | Master of Emergencies | 3
25 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Herbert Hoover’s management of the flood relief garnered widespread praise and put him in position to secure the Republican nomination for President...
The Great Mississippi Flood | Dirty Water | 2
18 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Early in the morning on April 22nd, 1927, flood waters from a break in the Mound Landing levee entered the town of Greenville, Mississippi. Within hou...
The Great Mississippi Flood | When the Levee Breaks | 1
11 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the winter and spring of 1927, record-setting rain fell across the central United States. The Mississippi River swelled to capacity, and by April, ...
Lewis and Clark | The Journey and the Journals | 4
04 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Lewis and Clark expedition changed the course of American history. But after its bold, charismatic leader, Meriwether Lewis, ended his life in an ...
Lewis and Clark | The Long Way Home | 3
27 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
After 18 months and over two thousand miles, Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery had reached the Pacific Ocean. Now, they would have to find their ...
Lewis and Clark | Across the Rockies | 2
20 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the spring of 1805, Lewis and Clark resumed their journey up the Missouri River in search of the Pacific. But to reach the ocean, they would have t...
Lewis and Clark | Into the Wild | 1
13 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1803, Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark began a westward journey that would transform America. Their mission was to head up the Missouri ...
The Fight for Women's Suffrage | Portrait of a Struggle | 6
06 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For Alice Paul and other leading white suffragists, image was important. They published their own newspapers and staged dramatic public protests to ga...
The Fight for Women's Suffrage | The 19th Amendment | 5
30 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As America entered World War I, the suffrage movement split into a two-pronged attack. Alice Paul and her National Woman’s Party took their protests...
The Fight for Women's Suffrage | Silent Sentinels | 4
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In March 1913, thousands of suffrage activists converged on Washington, D.C. for a new form of protest. They were going to march down Pennsylvania Ave...
The Fight for Women's Suffrage | Passing the Torch | 3
16 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the 20th century dawned, a new generation of women rose to take control of the suffrage cause. These young activists were going to college, delayin...
The Fight for Women's Suffrage | The Trial of Susan B. Anthony | 2
09 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On Election Day 1872, Susan B. Anthony walked into a polling place in Rochester, New York and boldly cast her ballot. Her action was an escalation in ...
The Fight for Women's Suffrage | Created Equal | 1
02 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On July 19th, 1848, 300 female and male delegates gathered in a church in Seneca Falls, New York for America’s first women’s rights convention. Af...
The Plot to Steal Lincoln's Body | The Manhunt | 3
23 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
By 1876, criminal boss Big Jim Kennally was ready to put his Lincoln body-snatching plan into motion. But his gang of thieves needed one more member b...
The Plot to Steal Lincoln's Body | The Roper | 2
16 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
By 1876, criminal boss Big Jim Kennally was ready to put his Lincoln body-snatching plan into motion. But his gang of thieves needed one more member b...
The Plot to Steal Lincoln's Body | The Counterfeiters | 1
09 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1870s, a gang from Chicago hatched one of the most audacious criminal plots in American history. They planned to steal the body of Abraham Linc...
Billy the Kid | Man, Myth, Legend | 4
02 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Billy the Kid has become one of the most iconic figures of the American West. But many details of his life remain unknown or heavily debated among sch...
Billy the Kid | Dead or Alive | 3
26 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
With the bloody Lincoln County War finally over, Billy the Kid tried to make a truce with his arch enemy, Jimmy Dolan. But his plan backfired, and he ...
Billy the Kid | The Lincoln County War | 2
19 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1877, Billy the Kid was saved from a life of crime by a wealthy Englishman named John Tunstall, who saw potential in the teenage outlaw. Soon, howe...
Billy the Kid | Born to Lose | 1
12 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Henry McCarty was born in an Irish slum in New York City in 1859. By the time he died from a lawman’s bullet twenty-one years later in New Mexico, h...
Philippine-American War | The Path to Independence | 5
05 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Philippine-American War marked the emergence of America as a global power. But what has been the legacy of the war in the country in which it was ...
Philippine-American War | Acts of Sedition | 4
29 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
With the war officially over, William Howard Taft took over authority as the Governor of the Philippines. Taft was a deep believer in the U.S. policy ...
Philippine-American War | A Howling Wilderness | 3
22 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In March 1901, American forces launched a daring raid to capture the Filipino revolutionary leader Emilio Aguinaldo. Head of U.S. Philippine forces, G...
Philippine-American War | Under the Free Flag | 2
15 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1898, America’s victory over Spanish forces in the Philippines suddenly thrust the United States onto the global stage. It also drew the country ...
Philippine-American War | Into the Jaws of a Dragon | 1
08 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On February 4th, 1899, war broke out between the United States and the Philippines. The two nations had begun as allies against Spain the previous yea...
Traitors | Accomplice or Martyr | 5
01 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Not every case of treason is open and shut. With some accused traitors, questions of their guilt or innocence can linger for generations. That’s cer...
Traitors | Nightmover | 4
24 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On June 13, 1985, Aldrich Ames packed up six pounds of top secret documents into a plastic bag and walked out the door of the CIA headquarters. He dro...
Traitors | The Atomic Spies | 3
17 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In September 1949, the world was shocked to learn that the Soviet Union had conducted its first nuclear weapons test, just four years after the United...
Traitors | The Widow and the Assassin | 2
10 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On the night of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth stepped into the presidential box at Washington’s Ford’s Theatre, raised a pistol at President A...