The Confederacy won the early battles of the Civil War, led by brilliant generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee (to name a few) against blundering Union commanders like the endlessly dithering George McClellan. The war only turned after Lincoln...
Feb 24
The East’s Auschwitz: How Imperial Japan’s Secret Experimenters Escaped Justice
During the Holocaust, Josef Mengele discarded every medical ethic to perform horrific human experiments at Auschwitz, including non-consensual vivisections, limb transplants, and agonizing surgeries conducted without anesthesia. Japan had its own program that is less known but eq ... Show More
44m 37s
Feb 2021
General Robert E Lee: US Civil War rebel
The US Civil War of 1861-65 left 700,000 troops dead. The Southern Confederate states rebelled against the Union of the North because the Confederates wanted to protect the right to own slaves. The hero of the rebel cause, General Robert E Lee, was charged with treason and had hi ... Show More
12m 28s
Dec 2021
How Lincoln Almost Lost it All
December 11, 1862. Union Army engineers are urgently constructing a bridge, one that will carry soldiers into the town of Fredericksburg, Virginia, a Confederate stronghold. Union leaders are banking on the element of surprise and are desperate for a victory. But, by the time it’ ... Show More
33m 56s
Nov 2021
Stephen Cushman, "The Generals' Civil War: What Their Memoirs Can Teach Us Today" (UNC Press, 2021)
In the decades following the American Civil War, several of the generals who had laid down their swords picked up their pens and published accounts of their service in the conflict. In The Generals’ Civil War: What Their Memoirs Can Teach Us Today (University of North Carolina Pr ... Show More
56m 37s
May 2019
President Ulysses S Grant
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the impact of Grant's presidency on Americans in the years after the Civil War in which he, with Lincoln, had led the Union Army to victory. His predecessor, Andrew Johnson, was prepared to let the Southern States decide for themselves which rights ... Show More
55m 12s
Feb 2024
Origins of the Civil War
<p>The war between the Union and the Confederacy is a major turning point in the history of the United States. But why did it happen?</p><br><p>From slavery and states' rights, to economic, legislative, moral, and political issues, in this episode, Don and Professor Adam Smith ex ... Show More
34m 54s
May 2023
Reconstruction: Why We Didn't Learn About It
The Reconstruction Era, a period in American history at the end of and immediately following the Civil War, is one of the single-most important and instructive periods in American history. It has also, historically, been one of the least taught. Why is that, and what are we missi ... Show More
40m 55s