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History Analyzed is a podcast which investigates both history's biggest moments and best kept secrets. Your host, Mark Palmer, draws upon a history degree from the University of Notre Dame and literal decades of informal study. He explains not only what happened, but also why and how historical events occurred. At times, he examines how these events have shaped the present and continue to affect us today.
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On May 6, 1937, the hydrogen filled zeppelin known as the Hindenburg exploded as it was landing in New Jersey. Surprisingly, 62 of the 97 people on board survived. Experts still argue as to what caused an airship the size of the Titanic to be destroyed in approximately 34 seconds.
For a few months in 1898, the United States was at war with Spain. This essentially marked the end of the Spanish Empire and the beginning of the U.S. as a world power. As a result of this brief war, Theodore Roosevelt became president, Cuba became an independent country, Puerto Rico and Guam became American territories, and the U.S. occupied the Philippines for 48 years. That occupation led to the much longer Philippine-American War (1899-1902).
On November 24, 1971, a man calling himself Dan Cooper (later known as D.B. Cooper) boarded a Northwest Orient flight from Portland to Seattle. He told the flight attendant that he had a bomb and demanded $200,000 in cash and 4 parachutes. His demands were met. Over a dense forest in a rainstorm, he parachuted out of the plane with the money, was never seen again, and became a legend.
Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable type printing press. The mass production of books and other printed texts revolutionized the world. Gutenberg created a transformation in knowledge acquisition and communication. This kicked off the first information age. The printing press had a bigger effect on the world than the computer or the internet.
Anne Frank is one of the most widely read authors in history, although she did not live to see the publication of her book. Anne was a German teenager who happened to be Jewish as well. She and her family spent 2 years in seclusion in Amsterdam during World War II. Anne's diary describes the horrors of hiding from the Nazis - before eventually being sent to concentration camps. The Wannsee Conference was a clandestine meeting of Nazi leaders in 1942 to outline the systematic murder of Jews in...
The deaths of presidents James Garfield and William McKinley are unjustly overlooked. Garfield's assassin thought he was acting on orders from God. Garfield did not die from the assassin's bullet but from the incompetence of his doctors. His successor, Chester Arthur, may have been born in Canada and ineligible to be president. McKinley was killed as part of the anarchist movement which was murdering world leaders at the turn of the 20th century. This episode also covers general presidential ...
The Great Depression was the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. Starting in 1929 there was widespread unemployment, poverty, and closing of businesses. The economy continued to spiral downward until 1933 when Franklin Roosevelt became president. His recovery program, known as the New Deal, put millions of people to work, saved millions from homelessness and starvation, rebuilt America's infrastructure, saved capitalism, and maybe even saved democracy in the U.S.
For 13 days in October 1962 the world was at the closest point in history to a nuclear war. A confrontation between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. over nuclear missiles in Cuba brought humankind to the abyss and the unthinkable: World War III.
At the start of World War II, France was still a world power. The U.S. and many other nations were relying on the French, along with their ally Britian, to stop Hitler. But in just 6 weeks in May and June 1940, the Germans conquered France, Belgium, and The Netherlands; and drove the British off of continental Europe. The incredibly swift German victory completely changed the balance of power in the world; and woke up the isolationist United States.
Just about everybody knows the story. A supposedly unsinkable ship hit an iceberg and sank, proving the folly of humans. But there are many facts which are not widely known as well as prevalent myths which need to be debunked. Learn what really happened, what caused the disaster, and who were the heroes and who were the villains.
After the Civil War, it took a century of protests, boycotts, demonstrations, and legal challenges to end the Jim Crow system of segregation and legal discrimination. Learn about the brave men, women, and children that risked their personal safety, and sometimes their lives, in the quest for Black Americans to achieve equal rights.
Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 and doubled the size of the United States. This set America on its expansion, known as Manifest Destiny, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This episode explores the history of colonization of North America, how the U.S. expanded, why Napoleon sold Louisiana, the Lewis and Clark expedition, and what would have happened if the Louisiana Purchase did not occur.
Augustus is the most significant nonreligious figure in history. He is probably the greatest political genius of all time. He created the Roman Empire which lasted for centuries and formed so much of the world we live in today, including our calendar, our system of time, our alphabet, the spread of Christianity, and a large percentage of modern languages.
The Western Allies' demand that the Axis Powers unconditionally surrender was essential to keep the Soviets and the Chinese in the war while enduring incredible losses, to keep up the morale of the western allies, and to achieve the elimination of the Nazi regime and reforming Japanese society.
Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were Depression Era outlaws who are just known by their first names. They have been romanticized as young lovers who stood by each other and lived life on their own terms. But in reality, Clyde was a thief and a murderer and Bonnie was his willing accomplice. For just over two years they went on a crime spree in the early 1930s robbing and killing. They were finally stopped when a 6 man posse headed by a former Texas Ranger shot and killed them with over 100 bul...
For years all immigrants were allowed into the U.S., but some could not become citizens. Later, certain nationalities were limited or completely banned from entering the U.S. This episode outlines those changes through the 1980s and discusses the pseudoscience of eugenics and how it was used to justify such bigotry and even involuntary sterilizations in the 20th Century.
Within 30 years in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Europe went from controlling 20% of Africa to 90%. It was called "the Scramble for Africa". Find out why Europeans colonized the Americas easily through unintentional germ warfare, but Africa was "the White Man's Grave". Discover how Europe finally conquered Africa; the horrors of the Congo; and the residual problems in Africa which exist today.
Adolf Hitler's insane and evil policies changed the world more than anybody since Christopher Columbus. This episode details the horrors of World War II; explains how Hitler is to blame for the war; illustrates how Hitler made WWII even worse than other wars; and analyzes the effects of WWII for the remainder of the 20th Century and today.
It was the bloodiest battle ever in the Western Hemisphere. For 3 days in July 1863 Americans slaughtered each other on a terrible scale around a small town in Pennsylvania, where the honored dead "gave the last full measure of devotion". Find out why Robert E. Lee invaded the north, and why he failed so terribly; why the civil war dragged on for almost two more years after this union victory; and how this conflict inspired one of the greatest speeches ever in the English language.
Galileo is considered the father of modern science. His discoveries included the laws of pendulums which led to the development of the first accurate clocks. But tragically, he was tried by the Inquisition of Rome for heresy. The science deniers of the Church threatened to burn him at the stake unless he recanted his claims that he could prove that Copernicus was right: that the Earth is not the center of the universe, that we live in a heliocentric system where the Earth and the other planet...
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