Thomas Jefferson is one of the most complex figures in the whole American Revolution. A child of the enlightenment, it was he who wrote 'we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are born equal'. Yet, throughout his life he possessed over 600 enslaved people and had sexual relations with some, including Sally Hemings. Listen as William and Anita d ... Show More
Nov 20
309. Tintin, Nazis, & Soviets
What was the origin story of Hergé, the Belgian illustrator who created The Adventures of Tintin? How did an unlikely friendship transform Hergé’s life and lead him to draw Tintin crying in a comic strip for the first and only time?
Anita and William navigate the turbulent hot w ... Show More
45m 37s
Oct 2022
The Truth About Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings
November 5, 1998. Using DNA evidence, the scientific journal Nature publishes findings that put to rest a centuries-old mystery: Was Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman at Monticello, the mother of six of Thomas Jefferson’s children? Until then, the historical consensus had been thi ... Show More
37m 51s
Jun 2020
The Founding Contradiction
<p>"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." These words, penned by Thomas Jefferson more than 240 years ago, continue to inspire many Americans. And yet they were written by a man who owned hundreds of slaves, and fathered six children ... Show More
45m 33s
Aug 2022
The Widower Jefferson and the Women He Loved
On today’s episode of Here's Where It Gets Interesting, we hear about the wife of Thomas Jefferson, Martha, who is listed as an official First Lady, but who passed away nearly twenty years before Jefferson’s presidency. Thomas Jefferson never remarried, but he did rely on two ver ... Show More
27m 45s
Jul 2023
349: The Birth of the United States (Part 3)
“O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth!” The U.S. Congress votes for independence on the 2nd of July 1776, and George Washington reads the Declaration of Independence to his troops a few days later, after which they pull do ... Show More
48m 8s
Mar 2020
The Trials of Phillis Wheatley
In 1773, Phillis Wheatley became the first person of African descent to publish a book of poems in the English language. It was yet another milestone in Wheatley's extraordinary life, which began with a childhood in Africa, a passage on a slave ship, twelve years in Boston living ... Show More
1h 28m