Episodes

  • The Battle of Okinawa
    May 27 2024

    Please note, this episode contains discussion of suicide.


    On 1 April 1945, as the Second World War in Europe was reaching its end, one of the bloodiest battles in the whole conflict commenced on a small island south of mainland Japan. It was the Battle of Okinawa.


    Saul David joined Dan Snow on our sister podcast, Dan Snow's History Hit, to provide a fascinating rundown of this truly horrific battle.


    Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for $1 per month for 3 months with code AMERICANHISTORY sign up at https://historyhit.com/subscription/


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    28 mins
  • President Chester A. Arthur: Redemption in Office?
    May 23 2024

    Vice President to a narrow election winner, Chester Arthur was a very unlikely President. But on September 20th 1881 he took his seat as the 21st President of the United States at the dawn of the modern administrative state and presidency.


    So what kind of President did he become? Was he progressive? What was his role in the creation of the Civil Service? And how did the Presidency impact him as a person?


    Don is joined by Michael J. Gerhardt for this episode in our Presidential series. Michael is the Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill. He is the author of The Forgotten Presidents: Their Untold Constitutional Legacy and FDR's Mentors: Navigating the Path to Greatness.


    Produced by Sophie Gee and Freddy Chick. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.


    Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for $1 per month for 3 months with code AMERICANHISTORY sign up at https://historyhit.com/subscription/


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    33 mins
  • The Real Hamilton: An American Myth?
    May 19 2024

    11 Tonys, a Grammy, a Pulitzer Prize and broken box office records - there's no denying the impact of Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton.


    Throughout this series on the real Hamilton, we have been trying to uncover the man the musical is based on. But how much of the show and its production is truthful? And how much does this matter?


    Renee Romano joins Don to look into this new American Myth. Renee is a writer, historian and professor, and one of the editors of 'Historians on Hamilton: How a Blockbuster Musical is Restaging America's Past'. She can be found here.


    Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.


    Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for $1 per month for 3 months with code AMERICANHISTORY sign up at https://historyhit.com/subscription/


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    36 mins
  • American Castaways: Treachery & Survival in the Falklands
    May 16 2024

    Today we dive into the little-known true story of American castaways abandoned on the Falkland Islands during the War of 1812 ― a tale of treachery, shipwreck, isolation and a desperate struggle for survival.


    In this fascinating episode, best-selling author Eric Jay Dolan joins Don to explore this wild encounter between an American sealing vessel, a shipwrecked British brig and a British warship in the desolate Falklands, all while the two nations remained at war. Fraught with misunderstandings and mistrust, this bizarre incident left three British sailors and two Americans adrift for eighteen months, and is the subject of Eric's new book Left for Dead: Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World.


    Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.


    Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for $1 per month for 3 months with code AMERICANHISTORY sign up at https://historyhit.com/subscription/


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    33 mins
  • The Real Hamilton: Downfall, Duel & Death
    May 13 2024

    When Alexander Hamilton took a bullet to the abdomen on the morning of the 11th July 1804, he joined a long list of people who had fallen foul of this very strange practice. So where did duelling come from? And how did these two revolutionary American politicians find themselves with pistols in their hands?


    Don is joined for this third episode of our Real Hamilton series by Mike Loades, British author and presenter of History Hit's new series of documentaries about the tradition of duelling, first with swords, then with pistols.


    Find 'Duelling, with Mike Loades' on History Hit TV.


    Produced and edited by Sophie Gee. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.


    Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for $1 per month for 3 months with code AMERICANHISTORY sign up at https://historyhit.com/subscription/


    You can take part in our listener survey here.

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    40 mins
  • President James A. Garfield: Sex Cults & Assassination
    May 8 2024

    This may have been the second shortest Presidency in the history of the United States, but the term of James Garfield is definitely not one to miss.


    From his dark horse nomination to his assassination by Charles Guiteau, Don is speaking with bestselling author of ‘An Assassin in Utopia,' Susan Wels.


    Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.


    Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for $1 per month for 3 months with code AMERICANHISTORY sign up at https://historyhit.com/subscription/


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    42 mins
  • The Real Hamilton: Lover, Adulterer, Family Man?
    May 6 2024

    Founding Father, first Secretary of the Treasury and focus of one of the world's first political sex scandals - we couldn't do a series about Alexander Hamilton without touching on his personal life.


    Don is joined by Elizabeth Cobbs in this episode to explore the private lives of the Hamiltons. Who was Elizabeth Schuyler? Did her sister have an affair with her husband? And was the Reynolds affair an elaborate plot or an unhappy coincidence?


    Produced and edited by Sophie Gee. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.


    Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for $1 per month for 3 months with code AMERICANHISTORY sign up at https://historyhit/subscription/


    You can take part in our listener survey here.

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    38 mins
  • Teddy Roosevelt: The Making of the Rough Rider President
    May 2 2024

    Theodore Roosevelt is arguably the most masculine president in American history. So how was he influenced by the women around him? And how was he impacted by the deaths of two of them on the same day?


    In this episode, Edward O'Keefe introduces us to Theodore Roosevelt's mother, two sisters, and two wives: Mittie, Bamie, Conie, Alice and Edith.


    Edward O'Keefe, Prime Time Emmy award and Peabody winner, CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, is the author of 'The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt: The Women Who Created a President'.


    Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.


    Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for $1 per month for 3 months with code AMERICANHISTORY sign up at https://historyhit/subscription/


    You can take part in our listener survey here.

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    33 mins