May 30, 1855. Five thousand Native Americans come to Walla Walla to negotiate a treaty. However, it’s not exactly a fair negotiation – the territorial governor basically tells these tribes that they have no choice but to live on reservations in order to maintain peace.
This moment comes in the wake of a violent time in the Pacific Northwest, a period starte ... Show More
Nov 24
A Meteorite Hits Ann Hodges
November 30, 1954. At about 12:45 in the afternoon, a space rock comes plummeting through the roof of a house in Sylacauga, Alabama. It bounces off a stand-up radio, ricochets around the living room, and collides with the thigh of Mrs. Ann Hodges, who’s been napping on the couch. ... Show More
37m 23s
Nov 17
Ken Burns Reimagines the American Revolution | A Conversation with Ken Burns & Sarah Botstein
November 16, 1776. George Washington rows toward Manhattan to inspect the fort that bears his name, only to meet a full-scale British assault already underway. By afternoon, Fort Washington has fallen, and General Washington is forced to abandon New York City.
The Continental A ... Show More
38m 45s
Nov 10
The Grinnell 14 Take On the Bomb (feat. Peter Coyote)
November 16, 1961. Fourteen college students from Iowa have driven nearly a thousand miles to the White House. They’re fasting, protesting, and calling for an end to nuclear bomb testing. These students, later known as the Grinnell 14, will help ignite the student peace movement ... Show More
27m 56s
Jul 2019
Rachel B. Herrmann, "No Useless Mouth: Waging War and Fighting Hunger in the American Revolution" (Cornell UP, 2019)
When the British explored the Atlantic coast of America in the 1580s, their relations with indigenous peoples were structured by food. The newcomers, unable to sustain themselves through agriculture, relied on the local Algonquian people for resources. This led to tension, and th ... Show More
43m 28s
Aug 26
The Code They Killed For — Honor, Manhood, and the American Gunfighter
<p>When you picture a gunfighter, you probably think of a Hollywood cowboy — spurs jangling, six-shooter on his hip, squaring off at high noon in a dusty frontier town. But gunfighters weren’t just products of Hollywood. They were real men who lived and died by a code: one rooted ... Show More
51m 21s
Nov 2024
The Rainbow Murders: The Serial Killer Theory
Nancy Santomero and Vicki Durian hitchhiked from Arizona to West Virginia in the summer of 1980. They planned to attend the Rainbow Gathering, an annual event where like-minded, free spirits could peacefully gather and celebrate. Just before they arrived, someone killed them. The ... Show More
47 m
Jul 2021
Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, "Slave Revolt on Screen: The Haitian Revolution in Film and Video Games" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)
Michel-Rolph Trouillot wrote that “the silencing of the Haitian Revolution is only a chapter within a narrative of global domination. It is part of the history of the West and it is likely to persist, even in attenuated form, as long as the history of the West is not retold in wa ... Show More
1h 10m
Feb 2021
James Skillen, "This Land is My Land: Rebellion in the West" (Oxford UP, 2020)
On January 6th, 2021, when right wing supporters of Donald Trump staged an insurrection at the US Capitol building, they were participating in a long tradition of conservative rebellion with its roots in the West. Dr. James Skillen, associate professor of environmental studies at ... Show More
1h 6m