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#114: Teddy Roosevelt’s Journey Through Uncharted Amazonian Jungle

Teddy Roosevelt was not afraid to tempt death. He hiked the Matterhorn during his honeymoon. He arrested outlaws on the Dakota Frontier. He hunted rhinos in Africa. But his most dangerous journey came after his failure in 1912 to retake the presidency as a third-party candidate on the Bull Moose…

#113: How Teddy Roosevelt Gave a 90-minute Speech After Being Shot

Theodore Roosevelt was hell bent on becoming president in 1912. He ran as a third-party candidate for the Progressive Party, a splinter group of Republicans dissatisfied with William Howard Taft. He was so committed to winning that he gave a 90-minute speech…immediately after being shot in the chest by a…

#112: When Teddy Roosevelt Arrested Three Boat Thieves

Perhaps no president has as many unbelievable stories about his life than Teddy Roosevelt. He was an amateur boxer. He was the first American politician to learn judo. He summited the Matterhorn during his honeymoon. He joined an expedition to log data about an unchartered river in the Amazon. But perhaps…

#111: Carrie Nation—The Hatch-Wielding Prohibitionist

Nothing supports the Prohibition movement like a hatchet-wielding radical ready to smash in a Midwestern saloon. Carrie Amelia Nation would know. She made a career out of physical assaulting the alcohol industry in the years before Prohibition (1920).   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your…

#110: Discovering Embarrassing Family Secrets and Famous Third Cousins with Genealogist Crista Cowan

Shake a family tree long enough and something embarrassing secret is sure to drop out: a felon uncle here, an illegitimate nephew there, a grandfather arrested for indecent exposure there. Genealogy can reveal all sorts of unexpected surprises. But it can also help you find second and third cousins that…

#109: Why Does American Give Automatic Birthright Citizenship?

Anyone born on American soil gets automatic citizenship. This isn't true in the rest of the world. Few other nations in the world practice jus soli (right of the soil). Rather, your parents have to be citizens. Why is this the case? It has to do with New World senses of…

#108: What Was It Like To Be Enrolled at the University of Constantinople?

The Pandidakterion (University of Constantinople) was the empire's imperial school. It can trace its origins to 425 AD to Emperor Theodosius II. Learn what it was like to be enrolled in the ancient world's premier "university." TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews…

#107: John Birch-The First Death in the Cold War

The first death of the Cold War quickly became an anti-communist icon and symbol of the American far right from the 1950s onward.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

#106: George Washington Wasn’t the First President. He Was the Ninth

George Washington was the First President of the United States. This is the most basic fact that an American school child can learn. Only it isn't true. He wasn’t the first. Nor the second. He was actually the ninth president of the United States. How can that be? It all…

#105: Anthony Esolen on Translating Dante’s Divine Comedy and Dan Brown’s Supercilious Stupidity

‘Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them: there is no third’ —T.S Elliot The most towering epic poem in Western literature, save perhaps the works of Homer, is Dante's Divine Comedy. In this episode we are going to talk about the history of the poem, how it was…