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Strife! History's Conflicts

Strife! History's Conflicts

By: John R. Huber
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About this listen

 Strife! History’s Conflicts immerses you in the chain reactions that shape nations, fuel wars, and ignite revolutions. Each episode kicks off with a gripping narrative, breathing life into the past through the eyes of those who experience it—beyond the cold dates and battlefield stats. Blending sharp historical insight, decision-making analysis, and deeply human stories, it provides a richer, more empathetic view of how history shapes lives.John R. Huber World
Episodes
  • The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: Forging American Myth in the Hudson Valley (1819)

    The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: Forging American Myth in the Hudson Valley (1819)
    Oct 22 2025
    STRIFE! History's Conflicts Podcast: A headless soldier from a European war gallops through the American night, chasing a superstitious schoolmaster. But this is more than a campfire tale; it is a nation’s dream of its own past, a ghost drafted into service to haunt a specific, contested piece of ground. In the wake of revolution and a second war with Britain, the United States possesses its independence but aches for a history, a folklore to call its own. Into this void steps Washington Irving, a man facing personal ruin, who discovers that the future of American storytelling lies not in inventing new heroes, but in weaponizing local memories. He transforms the real trauma of the Revolutionary War and the simmering tensions of a changing society into a narrative that feels ancient overnight. The resulting story gives a young country a thrilling, manageable past, but its creation demands a price—silencing the messy, complex truths upon which it was built. Listen, and you will never hear the thunder of phantom hooves in the same way again.
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    31 mins
  • The Silent Front: Audie Murphy and Italy’s Hidden War (1943-1945)

    The Silent Front: Audie Murphy and Italy’s Hidden War (1943-1945)
    Oct 15 2025

    STRIFE! History's Conflicts Podcast: Explore the secret front of Italy’s “shadow desertion,” where nearly sixty percent of POWs refuse to fight for Mussolini’s puppet army, instead undermining the Axis from within. Through declassified OSS files, we see partisans derailing trains, cutting communication lines, and delaying German reinforcements, directly shaping battles like Anzio. Italian gunners, labor conscripts, and civilians perform acts of strategic defiance—burying ammunition, misfiring artillery, or sabotaging supply chains—risking execution to save countless Allied lives. Audie Murphy’s celebrated heroism intersects with these unseen efforts, highlighting the irony of courage and the complexity of wartime ethics. The narrative emphasizes the blurred line between cowardice and bravery, showing how quiet acts of resistance can carry consequences as profound as open combat. Through diary entries, mission reports, and firsthand accounts, this story illuminates the calculated risks and moral decisions behind every missed shot and every delayed convoy. Witness a war fought in shadows, where choices to fail or to withhold fire become acts of survival and humanity. By revealing the invisible contributions of the Italians, the conventional understanding of heroism is reframed, showing that courage sometimes means choosing not to fire.
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    23 mins
  • Betrayed on Jackson Heights: The Borinqueneers and Korea’s Largest Court-Martial (October 1952)

    Betrayed on Jackson Heights: The Borinqueneers and Korea’s Largest Court-Martial (October 1952)
    Oct 8 2025
    STRIFE! History's Conflicts Podcast: In October 1952, the Battle of Jackson Heights became a defining trial for the65th Infantry Regiment, the Borinqueneers. This Puerto Rican unit was orderedto hold a contested outpost complex against determined Chinese assaults. Thefighting was a brutal, close-quarters struggle for tactically insignificanthills that commanded a high cost in blood. The ordeal of the 65th at Jackson Heights and the subsequent mass court-martial of its soldiers laid bare the harsh realities of a stalemated war, where immense human sacrifice was weighed against obscure tactical gains, and where the loyalties of colonial subjects were tested by the pressures of combat and discrimination.
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    46 mins
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