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The First Barbary War began in response to decades of harassment of American traders by North African pirates. Before becoming president, Thomas Jefferson faced renewed Barbary pirate attacks, with the Pasha of Tripoli threatening war unless more tribute was paid. Despite being known for his frugality and opposition to a naval buildup, Jefferson deployed a naval squadron, believing military force was cheaper and more effective than paying tribute.
In 1801, after the U.S. failed to meet the Pasha’s demands, Tripoli declared war, leading to naval skirmishes, including a decisive early victory by the USS Enterprise. Jefferson's efforts to blockade Tripoli faced setbacks, including the capture of the American frigate Philadelphia and its crew. This loss raised the stakes, with the Pasha demanding an even larger ransom, complicating efforts to resolve the conflict.
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It’s been fifty years since the end of the Vietnam War, yet the memory of the war lives on, the nationwide protests of the 1970s mirroring ones happening on college campuses today. In today’s episode we take a panoptic overview of the political debates in Washington, the ground and air operations in Southeast Asia, and the shocking erosion of American defense capabilities. We also dive into the five-decade-old question of whether the Vietnam War could have been won (proponents say victory could come by such strategy as Americans invading Laos and Cambodia and cutting off the Ho Chi Minh Trail; opponents say such policies as “search and destroy” led to recruitment of more Viet Cong soldiers rather than reduce their numbers).
We’re joined by Geoffrey Wawro, author of “The Vietnam War: A Military History.” We discuss whether the American war in Vietnam was a war of choice, pursued for all the wrong reasons. Shedding light on the inner workings of three presidential administrations and their field commanders, we look at political power, its limits, and the devastation that arises when power is compounded by willful delusion and carelessness in the White House, Congress, and the Pentagon.
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The Barbary States (Morocco, Tripoli, Algiers, Tunis) were the greatest thorn in the side of the young American republic after it won independence, preying on trade ships, enslaving American crews, and demanding levels of ransom that consumed much of the federal budget. But why did the Barbary states rely on piracy for economic survival and why couldn't they engage in typical commerce?
In the 16th century, the Barbary States transitioned from Mediterranean trade to piracy after Spain's conquests and Ottoman expansion disrupted their economy. Algiers and other North African ports became notorious bases for corsairs, launching raids on European shipping under the protection of the Ottoman Empire. By the early 17th century, piracy became central to their economy, with hundreds of corsair vessels operating from Algerine ports, capturing ships and enslaving crews. However, by the late 1800s, the Barbary States' power had waned due to European naval interventions, reducing their fleets and influence significantly.
But they were still a major threat, as the newborn United States was soon to find out. In this episode, James and Scott look at the origins of the Barbary States and understand their perspective in the Barbary Wars.
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Churches are many things to us - they are places of worship, vibrant community hubs and oases of calm reflection. To know a church is to hold a key to the past that unlocks an understanding of our shared history.
Andrew Ziminski, today’s guest and author of “Church Going – A Stonemason’s Guide” has spent decades as a stonemason and church conservator, acting as an informal guide to curious visitors He has restored medieval churches across the British Isles, in which he reveals their fascinating histories, features and furnishings, from flying buttresses to rood screens, lichgates to chancels.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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The American Navy was birthed in the Barbary Wars. Sure, there was a token navy in the Revolutionary War, but battles were mostly won in that war by American privateers (or, if you were British, pirates). To understand where the U.S. Navy came from, we need to take a step back and look at the stake of naval warfare in the 18th century.
The early American Navy resembled the British Navy in its use of British ship designs, naval tactics, and organizational structures, largely inherited from the colonial period when the colonies relied on British maritime power. Many American naval officers had British training or were influenced by British traditions, such as ship discipline, officer ranks, and the use of frigates for protecting trade routes.
However, the U.S. Navy was different in its focus and scale. While the British Navy was a vast global force designed for empire-building and large-scale warfare, the early American Navy was smaller and more focused on defending American merchant ships, often relying on nimble frigates rather than large ships-of-the-line. Additionally, the U.S. Navy operated with a more democratic ethos, as naval officers in America were often more accountable to elected officials, reflecting the values of the new republic.
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On May 29, 1453, Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II captured Constantinople, bringing an end to over a thousand years of Byzantine rule. The city's formidable walls, which had stood nearly impenetrable for eight centuries, finally fell to hisforces. With its conquest, Constantinople was declared the new capital of the Ottoman Empire. Some historians marked this conquest as the end of the Middle Ages.
Built by Theodosius II to safeguard the "New Rome," these walls stretched from the Golden Horn to the Sea of Marmara, marking the borders of ancient Istanbul. Through centuries of earthquakes, sieges, and urban expansion, their gates and fortifications have endured, preserving the legacy of the city's past.
To discuss the world-history importance of this conquest is today’s guest, Alexander Christie-Miller, author of “To The City: Life and Death Along the Ancient Walls of Istanbul.”
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In this new mini-series, Scott Rank is rejoined by James Early (his co-host on many other military history mini-series, covering the Civil War, World War One, and the Revolutionary War) to look at a little-known war that pitted the infant United States against the Barbary States of North Africa.
The Barbary Wars were a series of conflicts between the United States and the Barbary States of North Africa (modern-day Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya) from 1801 to 1815, fought over the piracy and tribute demands imposed on American ships. These wars marked the U.S. Navy's first significant overseas military engagements and helped establish American maritime power. We also see the birth of of the U.S. Marines and how they literally fought on the shore of Tripoli.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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James Early and Scott will be doing a nine-part series starting tomorrow called Key Battles of the Barbary Wars (1801-1815). We look at an infant United States try to assert itself in the Atlantic World, as North African pirates demand tribute, capture crews, and do everything it can to humiliate the nation as European powers looked on, wondering if the new nation would be project any sort of power beyond its shores.
New episodes every Thursday.
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The Civil War wrought horrible devastation on its soldiers: Nearly 500,000 were wounded by bullets, shrapnel or sabers and bayonets. Medicine was still primited, and often a doctor could do little more than amputee an injured limb. As a result, thousands of veterans were left missing one to four limbs, yet still needed to attempt providing for their families despite few job prospects and even fewer resources available to the disable3d.
In this episode we will look at profiles of seven veterans―six soldiers and one physician―and how they coped with their changed bodies in their postwar lives.
Today’s guest is Robert Hicks, author of “Wounded for Life.” We look at how these soldiers were shaped by the trauma of the battlefield and hospital, and the construction of a postwar identity in relation to that trauma.In particular we discuss:
Electrical treatments during the Civil War to revive damaged bodies -- part of the founding of American neurology by the physician S. Weir Mitchell Phantom limb syndrome and how the veterans still suffered from these wounds decades after the war The collective experiences of the veterans profiled in the book show how they dealt with common expectations after the injuriesHow this story relates to today's war veterans
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The pirates that exist in our imagination are not just any pirates. Violent sea-raiding has occurred in most parts of the world throughout history, but our popular stereotype of pirates has been defined by one historical moment: the period from the 1660s to the 1730s, the so-called "golden age of piracy."
The Caribbean and American colonies of Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands—where piracy surged across these decades—are the main theater for buccaneering, but this is a global story. From London, Paris, and Amsterdam to Curaçao, Port Royal, Tortuga, and Charleston, from Ireland and the Mediterranean to Madagascar and India, from the Arabian Gulf to the Pacific Ocean.
Familiar characters like Drake, Morgan, Blackbeard, Bonny and Read, Henry Every, and Captain Kidd all feature here, but so too will the less well-known figures from the history of piracy, their crew-members, shipmates, and their confederates ashore; the men and women whose transatlantic lives were bound up with the rise and fall of piracy.
To explore this story is today’s guest, Richard Blakemore, author of “Enemies of All: The Rise and Fall of the Golden Age of Piracy.”
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Genghis Khan built a formidable land empire, but he never crossed the sea. Yet by the time his grandson Kublai Khan had defeated the last vestiges of the Song empire and established the Yuan dynasty in 1279, the Mongols controlled the most powerful navy in the world. How did a nomad come to conquer China and master the sea?
Kublai Khan is one of history's most fascinating characters. He brought Islamic mathematicians to his court, where they invented modern cartography and celestial measurement. He transformed the world's largest land mass into a unified, diverse and economically progressive empire, introducing paper money. And, after bitter early setbacks, he transformed China into an outward looking sea-faring empire.
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Aesop’s fables are among the most familiar and best-loved stories in the world. Tales like “The Tortoise and the Hare,” “The Dog in the Manger,” and “Sour Grapes” have captivated audiences for roughly 2,600 years. Written by a non-Greek slave (who may not have existed but was reported to be very ugly), Aesop was an outsider who knew how to skerwer Greek society and identify many of the contraditions of antiquity. HIs tales offer us a world fundamentally simpler to ours—one with clear good and plain evil—but nonetheless one that is marked by political nuance and literary complexity.
Today’s guest is Robin Waterfield, author of “Aesop’s Fables: A New Translation.” Newly translated and annotated by renowned scholar Robin Waterfield, this definitive translation shines a new light on four hundred of Aesop’s most enduring fables. We look at historical accounts of Aesop, how his tales were recorded, and shine a new light on four hundred of Aesop’s most enduring fables.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Since the dawn of the Greek Classical Era up to World War II, thousands have lost their lives fighting over the pass at Thermopylae.. The epic events of 480 BC when 300 Spartans attempted to hold the pass has been immortalized in poetry, art, literature and film. But that is not the only battle fought there. Twenty-six other battles and holding actions took place, and they were fought by Romans, Byzantines, Huns and Ottomans during the early and late medieval periods and finally the two desperate struggles against German occupying forces during World War II.
To discuss it is today’s guest, Michael Livingston, author of “The Killing Ground: A Biography of Thermopylae” The Killing Ground details the background and history of each conflict, the personalities and decision making of the commanders, the arms and tactics of the troops, and how each battle played out.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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In 1864, a young Austrian archduke by the name of Maximilian crossed the Atlantic to assume a faraway throne. He had been lured into the voyage by a duplicitous Napoleon III (the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte). Keen to spread his own interests abroad, the French emperor had promised Maximilian a hero's welcome. Instead, he walked into a bloody guerrilla war. With a head full of impractical ideals - and a penchant for pomp and butterflies - the new 'emperor' was singularly ill-equipped for what lay in store.
In this episode we are looking at this barely known, barely believable episode - a bloody tragedy of operatic proportions, the effects of which would be felt into the twentieth century and beyond. To discuss his life is today’s guest, Edward Shawcross, author of “The Last Emperor of Mexico: The Dramatic Story of the Habsburg Archduke Who Created a Kingdom in the New World
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Over the past few years, much has been written and created around Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project, but little attention is paid to those whose lives were ended or forever changed when the bombs dropped in Japan.
In this episode, we delve into the experiences of the hibakusha, the survivors of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. On that day the Enola Gay released its devastating payload, ushering in the nuclear age. The survivors, now with an average age of over 90, provide some of the last living testimonies of the horrors that unfolded in the seconds, minutes, and hours following the explosion.
Today’s guest is M.G. Sheftall, author of The Stories of Hibakusha. Sheftall has spent years interviewing those who were young adolescents at the time of the bombing, now elderly but still haunted by their memories.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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The original Harlem Globetrotters weren’t from Harlem, and they didn’t start out as globetrotters. The talented team, started by Jewish immigrant Abe Saperstein, was from Chicago’s South Side and toured the Midwest in Saperstein’s model-T. But with Saperstein’s savvy and the players’ skills, the Globetrotters would become a worldwide sensation
At 5’3”, Saperstein is not who we might imagine would bring the sport of basketball to the entire world, pioneer the three-point shot, or to befriend the likes of Jesse Owens, Satchel Paige, and Wilt Chamberlain to name a few. Born in 1902 in London’s Whitechapel slum neighborhood to parents who had immigrated from Poland, Saperstein and his family then immigrated to America in 1906. He founded the team in the 1920s, steadily building a reputation for talent and comedy until their footprint covered the entire world.
Abe Saperstein’s impact went well beyond the Harlem Globetrotters. He helped keep baseball’s Negro Leagues alive, was a force in getting pitching great Satchel Paige his shot at the majors, and befriended Olympic star Jesse Owens when he fell on hard times. When Saperstein started the American Basketball League, he pioneered the three-point shot, which has dramatically changed the sport. Today’s guests, Mark Jacob and Matthew Jacob, authors of “Globetrotter: How Abe Saperstein Shook Up the World of Sports” piece together the of his life.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Was Harry Truman really our poorest president or simply a man up at 2 a.m. struggling with financial anxiety? Did Calvin Coolidge get bad advice from his stockbroker to buy stocks in 1930 as the market continued to crash? Is it true George Washington enhanced his net worth by marrying up?
We often think of the US presidents as being above the fray. But the truth is, the presidents are just like us—worried about money, trying to keep a budget, and chasing the American financial dream. While some presidents like Herbert Hoover and Gerald Ford became wildly successful with money, others like Thomas Jefferson and Joe Biden struggled to sustain their lifestyle. The ability to win the presidency is no guarantee of financial security, although today it’s a much easier path to monetize.
Today’s guest is Megan Gorman, author of “All the Presidents’ Money.” We look at the different personal money stories of the presidents. Grit, education, and risk are just some of the different ways that the presidents over the last 250 years have made (or lost) money.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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From the taking of the holy city of Jerusalem in the 7th century AD by Caliph Umar, to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following the end of World War I, Christian popes, emperors and kings, and Muslim caliphs and sultans were locked in a 1300-year battle for political, military, ideological, economic and religious supremacy.
Some of the most significant clashes of arms in human history include the taking and retaking of Jerusalem and the collapse of the Crusader states; the fall of Constantinople; the sieges of Rhodes and Malta; the assault on Vienna and the 'high-water mark' of Ottoman advance into Europe; culminating in the Allied capture of Jerusalem in World War I, the final collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the dissolution of the sultanate and the caliphate, and the formation of modern Europe and the modern Middle East.
To explore this history is today’s guest, Simon Mayall, author of “The House of War: The Struggle between Christendom and the Caliphate.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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More Americans have peanut allergies today than at any point in history. Why? In 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a strict recommendation that parents avoid giving their children peanut products until they're three years old. Getting the science perfectly backward, triggering intolerance with lack of early exposure, the US now leads the world in peanut allergies-and this misinformation is still rearing its head today.
How could the experts have gotten it so wrong? Could it be that many modern-day health crises have been caused by the hubris of the medical establishment? Experts said for decades that opioids were not addictive, igniting the opioid crisis. They demonized natural fat in foods, driving Americans to processed carbohydrates as obesity rates soared.
These failures of medical groupthink have been seen throughout history. Philosophers of the 16th century who claimed that blood circulated throughout the body (instead of resting in a layer below the epidermis) faced capital punishment. James Lind, who discovered that Vitamin C prevented scurvy, was ignored for 40 years. Ignaz Semmelweis was rejected by the medical community for suggesting that doctors should perhaps wash their hands before operating on patients.
Today’s guest is Marty Makary, author of “Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What it Means for Our Health.” We see how when modern medicine issues recommendations based on good scientific studies, it shines. Conversely, when medicine is interpreted through the harsh lens of opinion and edict, it can mold beliefs that harm patients and stunt research for decades.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Appleton Oaksmith was a swashbuckling Civil War-era sea captain whose life intersected with some of the most important moments, movements, and individuals of the mid-19th century, from the California Gold Rush, filibustering schemes in Nicaragua, Cuban liberation, and the Civil War and Reconstruction. But in his life we also see the extraordinary lengths the Lincoln Administration went to destroy the illegal trans-Atlantic slave trade. That’s because he spent years working as an outlaw mariner for the Confederacy and later against the Klan.
Oaksmith lived in the murky underworld of New York City, where federal marshals plied the docks in lower Manhattan in search of evidence of slave trading. Once they suspected Oaksmith, federal authorities had him arrested and convicted, but in 1862 he escaped from jail and became a Confederate blockade-runner in Havana. The Lincoln Administration tried to have him kidnapped in violation of international law, but the attempt was foiled. Always claiming innocence, Oaksmith spent the next decade in exile until he received a presidential pardon from U.S. Grant, at which point he moved to North Carolina and became an anti-Klan politician.
To look at this story is today’s guest, Jonathan White, author of “Shipwrecked: A True Civil War Story of Mutinies, Jailbreaks, Blockade-Running, and the Slave Trade.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
- Se mer
