Podcasts · History · Society & Culture

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

300 episodes

For history lovers who listen to podcasts, History Unplugged is the most comprehensive show of its kind. It's the only show that dedicates episodes to both interviewing experts and answering questions from its audience. First, it features a call-in show where you can ask our resident historian (Scott Rank, PhD) absolutely anything (What was it like to be a Turkish sultan with four wives and twelve concubines? If you were sent back in time, how would you kill Hitler?). Second, it features long-form interviews with best-selling authors who have written about everything. Topics include gruff World War II generals who flew with airmen on bombing raids, a war horse who gained the rank of sergeant, and presidents who gave their best speeches while drunk.

Episodes page 5 of 6

  1. The Scramble for More Aircraft Carriers in WW2 Meant Retrofitting Cruisers Into These Sorts of Ships

    · 54 min

    With the Japanese taking control around the Pacific in early 1941, it became apparent that more resources and ships would be needed if there was any hope to defend against and defeat those forces. It was determined…

  2. Key Battles of the Barbary War, Episode 6: Swashbuckling Ship Battles and 500-Mile Desert Marches Won the First Barbary War

    · 41 min

    In Episode 6, we dive into two pivotal battles in the First Barbary War: Tripoli and Derne. It starts with Stephen Decatur's dramatic assault on Tripoli Harbor in August 1804, where he led American gunboats against a…

  3. Knights Could Still Be Found on English Battlefields in the 1640s. What Were They Doing There?

    · 42 min

    The 17th-century battlefield ushered in a new era, with formed musketeers and pistol-wielding cavalry gradually taking over from the knights and men-at-arms that had dominated the European battlefield. But knights…

  4. Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 5: The Destruction of the USS Philadelphia

    · 37 min

    The USS Philadelphia, launched in 1799, played a crucial role in early American naval history but was captured by Tripolitan forces in 1803 after running aground near Tripoli during the Barbary Wars. Captain William…

  5. The Jewish Confederates

    · 57 min

    Over a 100,000 Jewish Americans lived in the Old South before the Civil War. They were active members of society, involved in farming, business, and politics (one Secretary of State of the Confederacy was Jewish). One…

  6. Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 4: The First Barbary War (1801-05)

    · 37 min

    The First Barbary War began in response to decades of harassment of American traders by North African pirates. Before becoming president, Thomas Jefferson faced renewed Barbary pirate attacks, with the Pasha of Tripoli…

  7. Was The Vietnam War Unwinnable?

    · 59 min

    It’s been fifty years since the end of the Vietnam War, yet the memory of the war lives on, the nationwide protests of the 1970s mirroring ones happening on college campuses today. In today’s episode we take a panoptic…

  8. Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 3: The Barbary States and Their 300-Year Reign of Mediterranean Piracy

    · 38 min

    The Barbary States (Morocco, Tripoli, Algiers, Tunis) were the greatest thorn in the side of the young American republic after it won independence, preying on trade ships, enslaving American crews, and demanding levels…

  9. What a Modern-Day Stonemason Can Tell Us About Hand Building 13th- Century Gothic Cathedrals and Carving Gargoyles

    · 41 min

    Churches are many things to us - they are places of worship, vibrant community hubs and oases of calm reflection. To know a church is to hold a key to the past that unlocks an understanding of our shared history.…

  10. Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 2: The British Origins of the US Navy

    · 41 min

    The American Navy was birthed in the Barbary Wars. Sure, there was a token navy in the Revolutionary War, but battles were mostly won in that war by American privateers (or, if you were British, pirates). To understand…

  11. The Conquest of Constantinople in 1453 Permanently Altered Siege Warfare, Middle Eastern Demographics, and Global Trade

    · 40 min

    On May 29, 1453, Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II captured Constantinople, bringing an end to over a thousand years of Byzantine rule. The city's formidable walls, which had stood nearly impenetrable for eight centuries,…

  12. Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 1: America Wanted to Take 1776 to the High Seas. North African Pirates Disagreed.

    · 30 min

    In this new mini-series, Scott Rank is rejoined by James Early (his co-host on many other military history mini-series, covering the Civil War, World War One, and the Revolutionary War) to look at a little-known war…

  13. New Series Launches Tomorrow: Key Battles of the Barbary Wars (with James Early)

    · 1:20

    James Early and Scott will be doing a nine-part series starting tomorrow called Key Battles of the Barbary Wars (1801-1815). We look at an infant United States try to assert itself in the Atlantic World, as North…

  14. How Civil War Vets Continued Living Despite Being Double, Triple, or Even Quadruple Amputees

    · 55 min

    The Civil War wrought horrible devastation on its soldiers: Nearly 500,000 were wounded by bullets, shrapnel or sabers and bayonets. Medicine was still primited, and often a doctor could do little more than amputee an…

  15. What’s the Difference Between a Pirate, a Privateer, and a Naval Officer? In the 1700s, Very Little

    · 55 min

    The pirates that exist in our imagination are not just any pirates. Violent sea-raiding has occurred in most parts of the world throughout history, but our popular stereotype of pirates has been defined by one…

  16. After Genghis Khan Conquered the Earth, Kublai Khan Conquered the Seas

    · 50 min

    Genghis Khan built a formidable land empire, but he never crossed the sea. Yet by the time his grandson Kublai Khan had defeated the last vestiges of the Song empire and established the Yuan dynasty in 1279, the…

  17. Aesop’s Fables and Whether They Were Written By an Ugly, Enslaved “Barbarian” Who Discretely Mocked His Masters

    · 33 min

    Aesop’s fables are among the most familiar and best-loved stories in the world. Tales like “The Tortoise and the Hare,” “The Dog in the Manger,” and “Sour Grapes” have captivated audiences for roughly 2,600 years.…

  18. "Thermopylae, the “300” Spartans, and the 26 Other Battles Fought There Over the Last 2,400 Years

    · 51 min

    Since the dawn of the Greek Classical Era up to World War II, thousands have lost their lives fighting over the pass at Thermopylae.. The epic events of 480 BC when 300 Spartans attempted to hold the pass has been…

  19. The Last Emperor of Mexico: How a Habsburg Archduke Set Up a Kingdom in the New World in the 1860s

    · 51 min

    In 1864, a young Austrian archduke by the name of Maximilian crossed the Atlantic to assume a faraway throne. He had been lured into the voyage by a duplicitous Napoleon III (the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte). Keen to…

  20. First-Hand Account of Hiroshima: Before, During, and After the Atomic Bomb Drop

    · 40 min

    Over the past few years, much has been written and created around Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project, but little attention is paid to those whose lives were ended or forever changed when the bombs dropped in Japan.…

  21. America’s Professional Sports Grew From Farm Teams to Multi-Billion Dollar Franches Thanks to the Harlem Globetrotters Founder

    · 38 min

    The original Harlem Globetrotters weren’t from Harlem, and they didn’t start out as globetrotters. The talented team, started by Jewish immigrant Abe Saperstein, was from Chicago’s South Side and toured the Midwest in…

  22. Why Did Presidents Seem Incredibly Rich Yet Were Completely Broke Most of the Time?

    · 49 min

    Was Harry Truman really our poorest president or simply a man up at 2 a.m. struggling with financial anxiety? Did Calvin Coolidge get bad advice from his stockbroker to buy stocks in 1930 as the market continued to…

  23. A 1,300 History of the Middle East in Seven Religious Wars

    · 49 min

    From the taking of the holy city of Jerusalem in the 7th century AD by Caliph Umar, to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following the end of World War I, Christian popes, emperors and kings, and Muslim caliphs and…

  24. When Good Ideas Were Bad Medicine: Why Vitamin C and Handwashing was Rejected by the Medical Establishment

    · 44 min

    More Americans have peanut allergies today than at any point in history. Why? In 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a strict recommendation that parents avoid giving their children peanut products until…

  25. Appleton Oaksmith: The Confederate Blockade Runner Who Became Lincoln’s Public Enemy #1

    · 50 min

    Appleton Oaksmith was a swashbuckling Civil War-era sea captain whose life intersected with some of the most important moments, movements, and individuals of the mid-19th century, from the California Gold Rush,…

  26. The Bible Triggered Two Communications Revolutions: The Codex and the Printing Press

    · 52 min

    For Christians, the Bible is a book inspired by God. But it has been received by different cultures and language groups in (sometimes) radically different ways. Following Jesus’s departing instruction to go out into…

  27. Steering an Aerial Plywood Box Through Enemy Fire: The Glider Pilots of WW2

    · 42 min

    In World War II, there were no C-130s or large cargo aircraft that could deliver heavy equipment – such as a truck or artillery piece – in advance of an airborne invasion. For that, you needed to put that equipment,…

  28. Why Few Presidents Had Beards, And Only One Had a Mullet

    · 35 min

    From George Washington’s powdered pigtail to John Quincy Adams’ bushy side-whiskers and from James Polk’s masterful mullet to John F. Kennedy’s refined Ivy League coif, the tresses of American leaders have long…

  29. How Much Did Average Germans Know About the Holocaust During World War Two?

    · 40 min

    This is the question that historians have argued since the end of World War Two. How much did an average person know, and, more importantly, how responsible were they? What made people “perpetrators,” “bystanders,” and…

  30. Carthage Lost the 2nd Punic War from Hannibal’s Logistics Failure and His Brother’s Bad Strategy

    · 48 min

    Iberia was one of three crucial theatres of the Second Punic War between Carthage and Rome. Hannibal of Carthage’s siege of Saguntum in 219 BC triggered a conflict that led to immense human and material losses on both…

  31. The Real Robin Hood May Have Been an Anglo-Saxon Hitman Who Killed an English King

    · 43 min

    Contrary to popular belief, Robin Hood may not have been the merry medieval outlaw of Sherwood Forest. Rather, a look at real historical figures who inspired the legend are narrowed down to the most unlikely suspect:…

  32. Civilization Owes Its Existence to the Horse

    · 40 min

    The use of horses by humans began roughly 5,500 years ago on the windswept grasslands of the Pontic- Caspian Steppe when a daring man (or a woman – we have no way of knowing) jumped on the back of a docile mare. Thus…

  33. Charles Cowlam: The Civil War Con-Man Who Received Presidential Pardons From Both Lincoln and Jefferson Davis

    · 36 min

    Charles Cowlam’s career as a convict, spy, detective, congressional candidate, adventurer, and con artist spanned the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Gilded Age. His life touched many of the most prominent figures of…

  34. The Extent of Soviet Infiltration Into Depression and Cold War America

    · 50 min

    Soviet espionage existed in the United States since the U.S.S.R.’s founding and continued until its dissolution in the 1990s. It reached its height in World War 2 and the early Cold War, especially to steam atomic…

  35. America’s First Crime Boss Was Female Immigrant-Turned-Criminal Mastermind

    · 43 min

    In 1850, an impoverished twenty-five-year-old named Fredericka Mandelbaum came to New York in steerage and worked as a peddler on the streets of Lower Manhattan. By the 1870s she was a fixture of high society and an…

  36. The War Under No-Man’s Land: Military Mining and Tunnel Combat in World War One

    · 45 min

    Beneath the trench warfare of World War One existed an entirely separate war underground: battles in the mines and dugouts between the Great Powers. In 1914–17, the underground war was a product of static trench…

  37. Eisenhower’s Logistics and Diplomatic Nightmare: Planning and Executing D-Day

    · 1 h 02 min

    In the months leading up to D-Day, Eisenhower’s attention was in relentless demand, whether he was negotiating, rallying troops, or solving crises from his headquarters in Bushy Park, London. He projected optimism…

  38. 53 Days on Starvation Island: How The US Marines Fought on Guadalcanal While Completely Surrounded

    · 59 min

    On August 20, 1942, twelve Marine dive-bombers and nineteen Marine fighters landed at Guadalcanal. Their mission: defeat the Japanese navy and prevent it from sending more men and supplies to "Starvation Island," as…

  39. Taiwan’s 100-Year Rise From Japanese Colony to Monopoly Producer of Microchips

    · 43 min

    When global supply chains were shut down in 2020 and messily rebooted after COVID lockdowns ceased, one island nation emerged as the most important player in getting critical components to factories around the world.…

  40. When States Rights Were Emancipatory and Federalism was Restrictive: The Interbellum Constitution of 1812-1865

    · 48 min

    Today, the words “federalism” and “originalism” are bandied about in the news almost daily, but to get at the underpinnings of these modern interpretations of constitutional law, it is essential to look at how the…

  41. Is America Going Through a Late Roman Moment of Its Own?

    · 47 min

    Every citizen of every state for the last two thousand years has compared his nation to Rome at some point. Americans considered Geroge Washington their Cincinnatus for taking on supreme power and giving it up once his…

  42. How Five Castaways Survived After Being Left for Dead on the Falklands in 1812

    · 45 min

    Charles H. Barnard, captain of the American sealing brig Nanina, had only the best of intentions. His aim was to ensure the survival of the people under his care. On June 11, 1813, Barnard and four other volunteers…

  43. The Capetians: The Dynasty That Made Medieval France and Gave Us the Fleur-De-Lys

    · 56 min

    If Gothic cathedrals, troubadours, and the Crusades evoke a certain picture of medieval Europe, you might be surprised that these foundations of a shared French culture continue to shape European society, all beginning…

  44. Why the Book is Humanity’s Most Important Invention

    · 49 min

    Even in our increasingly digitized world, the print book endures as a technology at the heart of human culture. Throughout its 550-yearhistory, the book has transformed at the hands of countless printers, bookbinders,…

  45. How and Why Humans Started Speaking

    · 53 min

    Most people know at least 50,000 words and speak around 16,000 per day. We speak between 120 and 200 words per minute and read them at twice that speed. We invent word games like crosswords, Scrabble, and Wordle, and…

  46. The American Detective Who Fought the Kaiser’s Spy Ring and an Anarchist Bombing Syndicate

    · 43 min

    America in the early twentieth century was rife with threats. Organized crime groups like the Mafia, German spies embedded behind enemy lines ahead of World War I, package bombs sent throughout the country, and the…

  47. Patton’s Tactician: Geoffrey Keys, “The Best Tactical Mind” of WWII

    · 40 min

    Nineteen months after Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor and forced the United States to enter World War II, boats carrying the 7th US Army landed on the shores of southern Sicily. Dubbed Operation Husky, the…

  48. The Seven Cleopatras Who Ruled Egypt

    · 47 min

    Behind the legendary, singular figure of Cleopatra stood six other women who bore her name. The infamous Cleopatra we think we know was actually the seventh queen in a long line of powerful female rulers whose stories…

  49. Modern Black Ops Warfare Began with a British WW2 Operation to Steal Boats Off Africa’s Coast

    · 53 min

    When France fell to the Nazis in 1940, Churchill declared that Britain would resist the advance of the German army--alone if necessary. Churchill commanded the Special Operations Executive to secretly develop of a very…

  50. The 7 Wonders of the Ancient World Were Colossal, Prone to Destruction, and Not All May Have Existed

    · 47 min

    For millennia, the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World have been known for their aesthetic sublimity, ingenious engineering, and sheer, audacious magnitude: The Great Pyramids of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,…

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them. Explicit shows are for adult profiles only, and children’s profiles hear only children’s shows. More about this list.