Victory Gardens Produced Nearly Half of ...

Ramón Mercader expected to easily kill Leon Trotsky, silently and instantly. He had rehearsed the blow for months, practiced the angle, tailored a pocket into his raincoat to conceal the shortened ice axe. On August 20, 1940, he stood behind Trotsky -- who was the principle leade ... Show More

In 533, a twenty-eight-year-old general named Belisarius sailed from Constantinople with 15,000 men to reconquer North Africa from the Vandals, a kingdom that had held it for nearly a century since the sack of Rome. The last time the Eastern Empire had attempted the crossing, the ... Show More

A coast guardsman named Earl Cunningham froze to death on Lake Michigan trying to rescue five fishermen trapped on a drifting ice sheet. His last words were "I wish I could see my wife and three children once more." That was February 1936. A few months later, the same country tha ... Show More

Making do, digging for victory, the hedgerow harvest, the garden front: food and farming was front and centre during the Second World War, with hearty phrases like these encouraging the population to pull together and do their bit for the national diet.Now, 75 years after Victory ... Show More

In early March, slim pickings on grocery store shelves, news of meat plant shutdowns, skyrocketing demand for food bank services, predictions of supply chain breakdown and food shortages drove many Americans to do what we haven't collectively done since WWII: plant home gardens. ... Show More

World War I was known as the War to End All Wars due to its scale and loss of life. At the height of the fighting, when American soldiers on the front lines longed for home, an unlikely beacon of hope arrived. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for info ... Show More

As the nation’s factories and shipyards ramped up production for the war, the demand for labor exploded. Millions of women and minorities entered the workforce for the first time, finding a path to prosperity and opportunity.But as Americans joined in common purpose, strife and c ... Show More

Margaret talks with Kat Abu about the history of community gardening in New York City and elsewhere.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 

How did plants power imperialism? Gardening may be a quintessentially British hobby, but many of the familiar plants in our lives have a global – and colonial – history. From “fern-mania” leading wealthy Victorians to decimate environments around the world collecting ferns for t ... Show More

<p>Aisle upon aisle of fresh produce, cheap meat, and sugary cereal — a delicious embodiment of free-market capitalism, right? Not quite. The supermarket was in fact the endpoint of the U.S. government’s battle for agricultural abundance against the U.S.S.R. Our farm policies wer ... Show More

<p>Aisle upon aisle of fresh produce, cheap meat, and sugary cereal — a delicious embodiment of free-market capitalism, right? Not quite. The supermarket was in fact the endpoint of the U.S. government’s battle for agricultural abundance against the U.S.S.R. Our farm policies wer ... Show More

A successful military hinges on nutrition, and modern warfare is no different. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max dive to the strange deal Uncle Sam made with the Hershey chocolate company: creating a candy bar that tasted terrible -- on purpose.See omnystudio.com/listener for ... Show More