logo
episode-header-image
Jan 2021
38m 55s

Harry Truman

CROWD NETWORK
About this episode
This brand new pop culture history podcast is nothing like anything you've heard before, and it's everything you need to understand the modern world. This is the start of an epic journey where Tom Fordyce and Katie Puckrik take each of the 120 people, places and things mentioned in 'We Didn't Start The Fire', the smash hit by Billy Joel, and record an episod ... Show More
Up next
Jun 2023
The Finale: Rock 'n' Roller Cola Wars
The time has finally come... we’ve made it to the end of the song. This episode description is being written on a tearstained laptop as we speak. But we PROMISE we’re going out with a very fizzy bang. The cola wars was a tense battle between soda giants Coca Cola and Pepsi, as th ... Show More
55m 53s
Jun 2023
China's Under Martial Law
It’s the penultimate episode, and Billy’s taken us back to China to talk about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, and the massacre that followed. In classic To this day, discussion of the events are strictly censored in China but in this episode we’ll explore it all. What happen ... Show More
1h 1m
Jun 2023
Hypodermics on the Shore
When you head to the beach, you expect to find some leftover sandcastles and nasty sunburns - not a tide of used syringes. But that’s what was found on the coast of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut in 1987-88. It destroyed tourism and caused drastic changes in local waste dis ... Show More
34m 3s
Recommended Episodes
Dec 2023
Bomb Power (w/ Erik Baker)
For our final main episode of 2023, we're dipping back into the Wills well to discuss Garry's under-appreciated 2010 book, Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State.  Joining us is our great friend Erik Baker, lecturer in the History of Science Department ... Show More
1h 28m
Sep 2023
Oppenheimer: What If America Never Dropped the Atomic Bomb?
The new Oppenheimer movie has everyone asking questions about the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945 - were two bombs necessary? Would the war have ended without it? Was there an ulterior motive? Would the Americans have dropped a third if they had it? To answer some of the qu ... Show More
47m 12s
Jul 2023
Oppenheimer: What If America Never Dropped the Atomic Bomb?
The new Oppenheimer movie has everyone asking questions about the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945 - were two bombs necessary? Would the war have ended without it? Was there an ulterior motive? Would the Americans have dropped a third if they had it? At the end of WWII, the ... Show More
43m 51s
Jul 2023
Oppenheimer
Often referred to as the father of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer's work in the field of theoretical physics changed the world as we knew it. Working in Los Alamos, New Mexico during the Second World War, the Manhattan Project and the scientific advancements achieved ther ... Show More
29m 51s
Jul 2023
Oppenheimer: “destroyer of worlds”
When the atom bomb was dropped in 1945, how did its inventor, J Robert Oppenheimer, feel? To mark the release of Christopher Nolan’s new blockbuster Oppenheimer, biographer Kai Bird joins Elinor Evans to discuss the man behind the creation of nuclear weaponry, and the difficult m ... Show More
37m 56s
Jul 2023
Oppenheimer
On a summer morning in 1945, a device known simply as 'Gadget' was detonated. An enormous explosion tore a crater into the New Mexico desert, melting sand into radioactive green glass and sending a mushroom cloud 7.5 miles into the sky. This was the first controlled detonation of ... Show More
33m 21s
Jun 2023
344: Oppenheimer: The Witch Hunt (Part 2)
Following the use of the atomic bomb in Japan and the end of the Second World War, Oppenheimer pushes for an international approach to nuclear power. This attitude towards nuclear secrets, alongside his history of close relationships with known communists, results in all his secu ... Show More
56m 9s
Aug 2022
100 Years of British Political Nightmares
Over Britain’s first century of mass democracy, from the Great Depression to the pandemic, politics has lurched from crisis to crisis. How does this history of political agony illuminate our current age of upheaval? Phil Tinline is a leading producer and presenter of historical n ... Show More
29m 19s
Jun 2023
343: Oppenheimer: The Father of the Atom Bomb (Part 1)
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” This was J. Robert Oppenheimer’s reaction to the first atomic bomb test in July 1945, marking the beginning of the nuclear age. Oppenheimer, an American theoretical physicist of Jewish-German descent, was in charge of the American ... Show More
58m 8s
Apr 2021
The Brink of World War III
April 19, 1951. General Douglas MacArthur's plane touches down in DC just after midnight. He’s coming home from fighting the Korean War. Over twelve thousand people are there to greet this person who the American people consider to be a national war hero. It’s quite the welcome f ... Show More
31m 12s