Trapped in History

Within this episode I take a deep dive into the topic of the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell, and the profound effect of the event.Trapped in History Email Links:robert.malcomson@logan.kyschools.ustrappedinhistorypodcast@gmail.comSocial Media Outlets:Facebook Group Link: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/zr3rKGzVG2ZN4x8n/TikTok Link: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZP881jy21/Instagram: robertmalcomsonSubstack Link: trappedinhistory.substack.com / @trappedinhistoryRecommended Websites:Preston Stewart YouTube Channel (Military/History/Global Events)https://www.youtube.com/@PrestonStewartForeign Policy Research Institute Link:https://www.fpri.org/Council on Foreign Relationshttps://www.cfr.org/Global Conflict Trackerhttps://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-trackerInstitute for the Study of Warhttps://www.understandingwar.org/

This is a long form conversation within an content creator who has greatly helped me and influenced me over the past year. I invited him on to discuss his outlook on the JFK assassination, his TikTok experience, and his views on wrestling with history. Enjoy!Trapped in History Email Links:robert.malcomson@logan.kyschools.ustrappedinhistorypodcast@gmail.comSocial Media Outlets:Facebook Group Link: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/zr3rKGzVG2ZN4x8n/TikTok Link: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZP881jy21/Instagram: robertmalcomsonSubstack Link: trappedinhistory.substack.com / @trappedinhistoryRecommended Websites:Preston Stewart YouTube Channel (Military/History/Global Events)https://www.youtube.com/@PrestonStewartForeign Policy Research Institute Link:https://www.fpri.org/Council on Foreign Relationshttps://www.cfr.org/Global Conflict Trackerhttps://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-trackerInstitute for the Study of Warhttps://www.understandingwar.org/

This is a conversation amongst history enthusiasts and teachers about why should we wrestle with history?My Narrative:We ought to wrestle with history because it helps define who we are and who we want to become. To wrestle with history is to spar with it. When I read, I don’t just underline or highlight. I step into the ring with the text. I annotate like I’m having a conversation, or even an argument, with the author.I question what I’m reading, not just circling key terms or defining unfamiliar ones, but challenging the ideas themselves. I get sarcastic with the text when I need to. I draw connections between eras, find nuance in what might seem simple, and look for the deeper complexity underneath it all. I ask myself: Why does this matter? Why should it matter to me, or to us, as Americans? What’s happening globally when this event takes place?I think about who the author was writing for, their purpose, their potential bias, their point of view. I try to put the work into its historical context to understand both the moment and the mindset behind it.And at the heart of all of this is the Socratic Method dialogue. It is how we push ourselves and our students to think critically and actively. Wrestling with history isn’t just about memorizing facts; it’s about engaging in a living conversation with the past. It’s about learning to think with courage, humility, and curiosity, because that’s how we understand not only where we came from, but where we’re going.Trapped in History Email Links:robert.malcomson@logan.kyschools.ustrappedinhistorypodcast@gmail.comSocial Media Outlets:Facebook Group Link: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/zr3rKGzVG2ZN4x8n/TikTok Link: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZP881jy21/Instagram: robertmalcomsonSubstack Link: trappedinhistory.substack.com / @trappedinhistoryRecommended Websites:Preston Stewart YouTube Channel (Military/History/Global Events)https://www.youtube.com/@PrestonStewartForeign Policy Research Institute Link:https://www.fpri.org/Council on Foreign Relationshttps://www.cfr.org/Global Conflict Trackerhttps://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-trackerInstitute for the Study of Warhttps://www.understandingwar.org/

Within this episode, I take a deep dive into the rise and fall of Charles I of England and the elements of the English Civil War (next episode). This continues my series on the English Tudor and Stuart Dynasties and the Divine Right of Kings. Primary Source I: PaintingCharles West Cope, British painter, The Burial of Charles I” 1900.Link: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-burial-of-charles-i-213799Primary Source II:Excerpts from Charles I, Speech at His Trial, January 1649. In The Trial of Charles I: A Complete Collection of His Speeches and Papers (London, 1737), pp. 33–34.I am your king; I was born a free man; and this liberty I must tell you, that I have not forfeited it by any law of the land. Therefore, I would know by what authority I do stand here to answer. Remember, I am your king, your lawful king, and what sins you bring upon your heads, and the judgment of God upon this land, think well upon it before you proceed any further from one sin to a greater......Princes are not bound to give account of their actions but to God; and therefore their people cannot judge them. It is not my case alone, it is the freedom and liberty of all the people of England; and do you pretend what you will, I stand more for their liberties. For if power without law may make laws, may alter the fundamental laws of the kingdom, I do not know what subject he is in England that can be sure of his life or anything that he calls his own...Primary Source III:Charles I, Final Speech on the Scaffold, Whitehall Gate, January 30, 1649 (from King Charles His Speech Made Upon the Scaffold at Whitehall-Gate, Immediately Before His Execution) “Now for to show you that I am a good Christian: I hope there is a good man that will bear me witness, that I have forgiven all the world, and even those in particular that have been the chief causers of my death… … I shall go from a corruptible Crown to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the world.” Philosophical Questions:Philosophical Discussion Questions1. If a ruler believes he is accountable only to God, can moral sincerity excuse political failure?2. Was Charles I defending divine order, or denying the political evolution that earlier monarchs had set in motion?3. Can a leader be both hero and villain in the same story, depending on who writes the history?Trapped in History Email Links:robert.malcomson@logan.kyschools.ustrappedinhistorypodcast@gmail.comSocial Media Outlets:Facebook Group Link: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/zr3rKGzVG2ZN4x8n/TikTok Link: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZP881jy21/Instagram: robertmalcomsonSubstack Link: trappedinhistory.substack.com / @trappedinhistoryRecommended Websites:Preston Stewart YouTube Channel (Military/History/Global Events)https://www.youtube.com/@PrestonStewartForeign Policy Research Institute Link:https://www.fpri.org/Council on Foreign Relationshttps://www.cfr.org/Global Conflict Trackerhttps://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-trackerInstitute for the Study of Warhttps://www.understandingwar.org/

This is my 50th podcast episode and I am celebrating it with one of the more influential guests for my as a history content creator and teacher. My guest is JD Huitt from The History Underground . This is an introductory episode into the origin of his beginning in history, teaching, and the development of his YouTube channel since 2019.Links for JD and The History Underground:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheHistoryUndergroundFacebook facebook.com/thehistoryundergroundInstagram instagram.com/the_history_undergroundPatreon patreon.com/historyundergroundPayPal Donation paypal.me/historyundergroundThe Store thehistoryundergroundstore.comTrapped in History Email Links:robert.malcomson@logan.kyschools.ustrappedinhistorypodcast@gmail.comSocial Media Outlets:Facebook Group Link: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/zr3rKGzVG2ZN4x8n/TikTok Link: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZP881jy21/Instagram: robertmalcomsonSubstack Link: trappedinhistory.substack.com / @trappedinhistoryRecommended Websites:Preston Stewart YouTube Channel (Military/History/Global Events)https://www.youtube.com/@PrestonStewartForeign Policy Research Institute Link:https://www.fpri.org/Council on Foreign Relationshttps://www.cfr.org/Global Conflict Trackerhttps://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-trackerInstitute for the Study of Warhttps://www.understandingwar.org/

This episode will cover James I and the Divine Right of Kings.Primary Source I:James VI, King of Scotland, The True Law of Free Monarchies, 1598.“Kings are called gods by the prophetical King David, because they sit upon God his throne in the earth, and have the count of their administration to give unto Him. Their office is to minister justice and judgment to their subjects, to maintain the religion presently professed, and to rule all estates and degrees under them, according to their laws. So as a king, being a speaking law, ought to be a pattern to his people, that their acts may be framed according to the example of his virtue.”James I, King of England and Scotland, Excerpt from a Speech to Parliament, March 21, 1609.“The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth; for kings are not only God’s lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God’s throne, but even by God himself they are called gods. … They make and unmake their subjects, they have power of raising and casting down, of life and of death, of judgment and of mercy, and yet are accountable to none but God only.” Secondary Source I:Source: Pauline Croft, a leading modern Stuart historian, writes amid 21st-century reassessments that see James as both learned and out of step with England’s evolving constitutionalism, King James (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p. 45.“James VI and I was an intellectual monarch who sought to harmonize theology and politics in an age of division, but his insistence on the divine right of kings often undermined his own objectives. His conviction that monarchy was sacred, and that resistance equaled sin, left him ill-equipped to navigate the constitutional realities of England. Yet James was not a despot; he preferred persuasion to coercion, peace to war. His tragedy was that his ideals belonged to a fading medieval order, while his subjects increasingly inhabited the modern political world of bargaining, consent, and law.”Trapped in History Email Links:robert.malcomson@logan.kyschools.ustrappedinhistorypodcast@gmail.comSocial Media Outlets:Facebook Group Link: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/zr3rKGzVG2ZN4x8n/TikTok Link: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZP881jy21/Instagram: robertmalcomsonSubstack Link: trappedinhistory.substack.com / @trappedinhistoryRecommended Websites:Preston Stewart YouTube Channel (Military/History/Global Events)⁠https://www.youtube.com/@PrestonStewart⁠Foreign Policy Research Institute Link:⁠https://www.fpri.org/⁠Council on Foreign Relations⁠https://www.cfr.org/⁠Global Conflict Tracker⁠https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker⁠Institute for the Study of War⁠https://www.understandingwar.org/⁠

This episode focuses on the reign of Elizabeth I of England. It is a great connection to our last episode about Henry VIII. This could be a great way to gain contextualization for understanding how to teach about Elizabeth I in class and for just having a better understanding of her political reign as a sovereign queen.Sources Used in the Episode:Primary Source I:“Was I not born in the realm? Were my parents born in any foreign country? Is not my kingdom here? Whom have I oppressed? Whom have I enriched to other’s harm? What turmoil have I made in this commonwealth that I should be suspected to have no regard to the same? … I will be tried by envy itself. I need not to use many words, for my deeds do try me.” — Response to Parliamentary Delegation on Her Marriage, 1566.Primary Source II:“I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too … to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood … I myself will be your general…” - Speech to the Troops at Tilbury, August 9, 1588.Secondary Source:Janel Mueller, a professor of English language and literature at the University of Chicago, with a specialization in English Renaissance and Reformation literature in its historical context, she published extensively on rulers such as Elizabeth I, Virtue and Virtuality: Queen Elizabeth I and the Cult of the Body Politic (2001), University of Chicago Press (excerpted and slightly condensed for clarity):“Elizabeth shows uncharacteristic anxiety about her feminine gender at intermittent points in her reign when courage is concerned, but for the most part she represents herself as transcending the social and biological mandates associated with womanhood. She insists that, although being a woman by birth, she may exercise the prerogatives of the crown ‘without doubt, ambiguity, scruple, or question,’ that is, with the full authority of a sovereign of either sex. In her Parliamentary speeches, she turns back suggestions of marriage by arguing that her gender is irrelevant to her capacity to rule and positing a benevolent affective bond between herself and her subjects. In one speech, she declares: ‘Though I be a woman, yet I have as good a courage answerable to my place as ever my father had.’ By these rhetorical strategies, Elizabeth negotiates her legitimacy as a queen in a male world: she claims divine sanction, regal office, and virtue to override gendered expectations, while sometimes acknowledging the tension involved.”(Mueller, Virtue and Virtuality, 2001, pp. 3–5)Trapped in History Email Links:robert.malcomson@logan.kyschools.ustrappedinhistorypodcast@gmail.comSocial Media Outlets:Facebook Group Link: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/zr3rKGzVG2ZN4x8n/TikTok Link: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZP881jy21/Instagram: robertmalcomsonSubstack Link: trappedinhistory.substack.com / @trappedinhistoryRecommended Websites:Preston Stewart YouTube Channel (Military/History/Global Events)https://www.youtube.com/@PrestonStewartForeign Policy Research Institute Link:https://www.fpri.org/Council on Foreign Relationshttps://www.cfr.org/Global Conflict Trackerhttps://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-trackerInstitute for the Study of Warhttps://www.understandingwar.org/

Philosophical Questions:1. If authority over both religion and politics rests in the same hands, can that authority ever truly be legitimate, or does combining the two inevitably lead to corruption and tyranny? 2. Does history show us that great political shifts (like Henry’s Act of Supremacy) are the result of individual willpower and ambition, or are they the inevitable products of larger institutional and social forces?3. Is it better for a society to have a single, unquestioned authority that provides order and unity (as Henry, Hobbes, and Machiavelli claimed), or a divided authority that might create instability, but preserves space for individual freedom of thought?Trapped in History Email Links:robert.malcomson@logan.kyschools.ustrappedinhistorypodcast@gmail.comSocial Media Outlets:Facebook Group Link: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/zr3rKGzVG2ZN4x8n/TikTok Link: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZP881jy21/Instagram: robertmalcomsonSubstack Link: trappedinhistory.substack.com / @trappedinhistoryRecommended Websites:Preston Stewart YouTube Channel (Military/History/Global Events)https://www.youtube.com/@PrestonStewartForeign Policy Research Institute Link:https://www.fpri.org/Council on Foreign Relationshttps://www.cfr.org/Global Conflict Trackerhttps://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-trackerInstitute for the Study of Warhttps://www.understandingwar.org/

This episode will take a deeper dive into these events to not only help students and teachers, but to also help those who love history. I hope that you find value within this. Thank you for your support.Painting Source:Václav Brožík (1851-1901), The Defenestration, 1618, 1889-1890. National Art Gallery of VictoriaTrapped in History Email Links:robert.malcomson@logan.kyschools.ustrappedinhistorypodcast@gmail.comSocial Media Outlets:Facebook Group Link: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/zr3rKGzVG2ZN4x8n/TikTok Link: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZP881jy21/Instagram: robertmalcomsonSubstack Link: trappedinhistory.substack.com / @trappedinhistoryRecommended Websites:Preston Stewart YouTube Channel (Military/History/Global Events)https://www.youtube.com/@PrestonStewartForeign Policy Research Institute Link:https://www.fpri.org/Council on Foreign Relationshttps://www.cfr.org/Global Conflict Trackerhttps://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-trackerInstitute for the Study of Warhttps://www.understandingwar.org/

This is my second attempt at posting for this episode correctly. I am back after a long break and hoping to continue on a consistent basis. Join me along my adventure to share my continued journey in history. Thank you for your support. Next episode will be posted soon.

On this episode, we spend time overviewing Unit 6 of AP European History to help students with their upcoming unit test. I think this could be an interesting episode for anyone interested in the Industrial Revolution from a European point of view. In the future, I will do more of a deep dive over these topics. Thank you for any and all support. Trapped in History Email Links: robert.malcomson@logan.kyschools.us trappedinhistorypodcast@gmail.com Social Media Outlets: Facebook Group Link: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/zr3rKGzVG2ZN4x8n/ TikTok Link: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZP881jy21/ Instagram: robertmalcomson Substack Link: trappedinhistory.substack.com / @trappedinhistory Recommended Websites: Preston Stewart YouTube Channel (Military/History/Global Events) https://www.youtube.com/@PrestonStewart Foreign Policy Research Institute Link: https://www.fpri.org/ Council on Foreign Relations https://www.cfr.org/ Global Conflict Tracker https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker Institute for the Study of War https://www.understandingwar.org/

Within this episode, I generally explain why I have not posted for over a month. However, the main point of this episode is to highlight a project and competition that I do in my classes annually entitled the Country Competition. I am excited to share the general structure of it. There will be a three to tor your support! Trapped in History Email Links: robert.malcomson@logan.kyschools.us trappedinhistorypodcast@gmail.com Social Media Outlets: Facebook Group Link: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/zr3rKGzVG2ZN4x8n/ TikTok Link: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZP881jy21/ Instagram: robertmalcomson Substack Link: trappedinhistory.substack.com / @trappedinhistory Recommended Websites: Preston Stewart YouTube Channel (Military/History/Global Events) https://www.youtube.com/@PrestonStewart Foreign Policy Research Institute Link: https://www.fpri.org/ Council on Foreign Relations https://www.cfr.org/ Global Conflict Tracker https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker Institute for the Study of War https://www.understandingwar.org/

Within this episode, I attempt to go through the causes, events, and consequences of the French Revolution to help teachers, students, and history enthusiasts better understand the content for Unit 5 in AP European History. Trapped in History Email Links: robert.malcomson@logan.kyschools.us trappedinhistorypodcast@gmail.com Social Media Outlets: Facebook Group Link: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/zr3rKGzVG2ZN4x8n/ TikTok Link: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZP881jy21/ Instagram: robertmalcomson Substack Link: trappedinhistory.substack.com / @trappedinhistory

Within this episode, we introduce the first three sections of Unit 5: Conflict, Crisis, and Reaction in the Late 18th Century in AP European History. This is a longer episode that deep dives into the context before and after the French Revolution. Trapped in History Email Links: robert.malcomson@logan.kyschools.us trappedinhistorypodcast@gmail.com Social Media Outlets: Facebook Group Link: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/zr3rKGzVG2ZN4x8n/ TikTok Link: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZP881jy21/ Instagram: robertmalcomson Substack Link: trappedinhistory.substack.com / @trappedinhistory

Within this episode, we discussed Connor's pathway to teaching, his admiration history, and his advice for other AP history teachers. Trapped in History Email Links: robert.malcomson@logan.kyschools.us trappedinhistorypodcast@gmail.com Social Media Outlets: Facebook Group Link: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/zr3rKGzVG2ZN4x8n/ TikTok Link: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZP881jy21/ Instagram: robertmalcomson Substack Link: trappedinhistory.substack.com / @trappedinhistory