This past September saw the sixty-eighth anniversary of one of the European Theater of Operations’ most familiar operations. Conceived by Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, MARKET GARDEN was the Western Allies’ great gamble in the fall of 1944. With the Nazi war machine appearing to be on the ropes following its ignominious collapse in France, victory see ... Show More
Yesterday
Jochen Hellbeck, "World Enemy No. 1: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Fate of the Jews" (Penguin Group, 2025)
In the West, World War II is commonly understood as the Allies’ struggle against Nazism. Often elided, if not simply forgotten, is the Soviet Union’s crucial role in that fight. With this book, acclaimed historian Jochen Hellbeck rectifies this omission by relocating the ideologi ... Show More
1h 27m
Yesterday
Nina Wilen, "Securitizing the Sahel: Analyzing External Interventions and Their Consequences" (Oxford UP, 2025)
The Sahel has become a focal point of international security interventions, with external actors providing extensive security force assistance (SFA) to local military, police, and paramilitary forces. Securitizing the Sahel: Analyzing External Interventions and Their Consequences ... Show More
52m 1s
Nov 24
Marek Kohn, "The Stories Old Towns Tell: A Journey Through Cities at the Heart of Europe" (Yale UP, 2023)
Historic quarters in cities and towns across the middle of Europe were devastated during the Second World War—some, like those of Warsaw and Frankfurt, had to be rebuilt almost completely. They are now centers of peace and civility that attract millions of tourists, but the stori ... Show More
59m 34s
Jan 2024
The Ghost Army of World War 2
In the summer of 1944, a handpicked group of young GIs—including such future luminaries such as Bill Blass, Ellsworth Kelly, Arthur Singer, Victor Dowd, Art Kane, and Jack Masey—landed in France to conduct a secret mission. From Normandy to the Rhine, the 1,100 men of the 23rd He ... Show More
41m 39s
May 2024
452. Custer's Last Stand: The Battle of the Little Bighorn (Part 7)
“You and I are going home today, and by a trail that is strange to us both…”
The Battle of The Little Bighorn is one of the totemic moments of American frontier history. However, it is also mysterious, with the exact events of that blood-soaked day difficult to trace. On the 22nd ... Show More
1h 1m
May 2024
451. Custer's Last Stand: The Charge of the 7th Cavalry (Part 6)
The U.S. was cast into a spiralling panic following the economic depression of 1873, and waves of paramilitary violence swept through the south as the debates surrounding Reconstruction swirled on. Amidst this uncertainty, the government, under the leadership of Ulysses S. Grant ... Show More
1 h
Apr 2023
Unearthing World War II mass graves and the Boston bombing
<p>Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History and Sporting Witness episodes from the BBC World Service.</p><p>We hear about the unearthing of a mass grave in Sernyky, Ukraine, in 1990, and when the Boston Marathon was the target of a terror attack in 2013.</ ... Show More
51m 13s