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HISTORY This Week

HISTORY This Week

By: The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios
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 This week, something big happened. You might have never heard of it, but this moment changed the course of history. A HISTORY Channel original podcast, HISTORY This Week gives you insight into the people—both famous and unknown—whose decisions reshaped the world we live in today. Through interviews with experts and eyewitnesses, each episode will give you a new perspective on how history is written. Stay up-to-date at historythisweekpodcast.com and to get in touch, email us at historythisweek@history.com. HISTORY This Week is a production of Back Pocket Studios in partnership with the History Channel.© A&E Television Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Social Sciences World
Episodes
  • How To Dig a Train Tunnel Under the Hudson River

    How To Dig a Train Tunnel Under the Hudson River
    Feb 16 2026
    February 14, 1905. A stick of dynamite detonates under the Hudson River — and the ground above swallows a locomotive whole. It's the latest setback in an audacious plan to tunnel beneath the river and bring trains into Manhattan. The Pennsylvania Railroad is the largest corporation in the world, but the goopy riverbed keeps fighting back. How did they finally make it across? And why are these 115-year-old tunnels still the most critical infrastructure in America today? Special thanks to our guests: Polly Desjarlais, content and research manager at the New York Transit Museum; Jill Jonnes, author of Conquering Gotham: A Gilded Age Epic: The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels; and Andy Sparberg, former LIRR manager, transit historian, and author of From a Nickel to a Token: The Journey from Board of Transportation to MTA. -- Get in touch: historythisweekpodcast@history.com Follow on Instagram: @historythisweekpodcast Follow on Facebook: ⁠HISTORY This Week Podcast⁠ To stay updated: http://historythisweekpodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    36 mins
  • Trailer: HTW Season Premiere This Monday!

    Trailer: HTW Season Premiere This Monday!
    Feb 12 2026
    HISTORY This Week will return with new episodes this Monday, February 16th, with a story about the most vital train tunnels in the United States. The North River Tunnels—their formal name—connect New Jersey to Penn Station in New York City, carrying 200,000 passengers every day. These tunnels underneath the Hudson are now over 115 years old, and are in desperate need of repair. The tunnel rehabilitation effort will be the largest infrastructure project in the country. It’s just getting underway, but now, the funding has been tied up in a political battle between the Trump Administration, Amtrak, and the states of New York and New Jersey. The stakes could not be higher. If these tunnels were to fail, up to 20% of U.S. GDP could be at risk. In this episode, we will unpack just how difficult it was to dig these tunnels in the first place. One man, Pennsylvania Railroad President Alexander Cassatt, was determined to build this critical rail connection, ultimately linking the entire Eastern Seaboard via train for the first time, using engineering methods that had never been tried before. If he failed, his corporation—the largest in the world at the time—would have been doomed. 🎧 Stay tuned this Monday, February 16th, for the full story. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    2 mins
  • Shut Out of the Majors, They Created Their Own

    Shut Out of the Majors, They Created Their Own
    Feb 9 2026
    LINK TO OUR LIVE SHOW! (or visit historythisweekpodcast.com) Feb 13, 1920. For over thirty years, Black baseball players have been locked out of the major leagues. So on this day in Kansas City, Rube Foster, a former pitcher and now a team owner, is trying to make his own league just for Black players. He has gathered owners of other Black baseball teams, who currently play each other in one-off matchups or face independent teams in random games around the country. But Foster wants them to get organized, and soon, the Negro National League would be born. But up to this point, how did Black baseball survive after segregation became the unofficial policy of the major leagues? And how did Black players, owners, and managers join together to create something that no baseball fan could ignore? Special thanks to our guests, Phil S. Dixon, author and Negro Leagues researcher; and Bob Kendrick, President of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, MO. ** This episode originally aired Feb 7, 2022. Get in touch: historythisweekpodcast@history.com Follow on Instagram: @historythisweekpodcast Follow on Facebook: ⁠HISTORY This Week Podcast⁠ To stay updated: http://historythisweekpodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    31 mins
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