The Long Death of Slavery
19 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We celebrate abolition - in the United States during the Civil War and on Juneteenth, in Haiti af...
Louisiana's Ancient Mystery: Poverty Point
15 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
There are no other historic sites like this one on the planet. The concentric semi circles and mound...
The Lavender Scare: Being Gay in Washington DC
12 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why were gay federal employees seen as a national security threat during the 20th century? How might...
The Wright Brothers
08 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Approximately 100 thousand flights take off and land each and every day. A months long journey on a ...
White Women Slave Owners
05 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Of all of the people enslaved in the southern United States over time, 40% of them were owned by wom...
California Gold Rush
01 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From the rings on our fingers, to coins in our pockets and, for a select few, the medals hanging aro...
Lincoln & God: Scepticism to Spiritualism
29 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
He's the best president that the United States has ever had ... at least according to one 2021 C-spa...
The Birth of the American Flag
25 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
13 equal horizontal stripes in red and white, with a navy blue square in the top left bearing 50 sma...
America Prepares for War: FDR & WW2
22 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Was the USA already a superpower when it joined the Second World War? How did it turn from an isolat...
Serial Killer Family on the Frontier
18 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Between 1871 and 1872, Labette County, Kansas became a source of mystery. Several people have gone m...
LBJ's Legacy
15 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Vietnam War or the Great Society? Which event looms larger in the history of the United States?&...
The Rise of Buffalo Bill
11 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
He was the most famous man in the world at the turn of the 20th century, bringing the American front...
Roanoke: The Lost English Colony
08 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When it was founded in 1585, Roanoke was intended to be the first permanent English outpost in Ameri...
The King & FDR: The Birth of the Special Relationship
04 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1939, on the invitation of Franklin D. Roosevelt, King George VI became the first reigning Britis...
Battle of Amiens
01 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In August 1918, the battle of Amiens brought the German army's 'black day' and the beginning of the ...
Cahokia: The Medieval Mississippian City
27 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Nearly a thousand years ago, America's first city appeared in the Mississippi flood plain. Don finds...
How Horses Conquered America (Twice)
24 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Horses have been a bulwark of American culture and society for centuries. Think of cowboys in the Mi...
Becoming Benjamin Franklin
20 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Benjamin Franklin is considered by many to be one of the first to live the American Dream. He came f...
America's Top Secrets: Manhattan Project to Drone Warfare
17 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Much of American history has been redacted. Since the World War 2, the number of secrets the US gove...
The Moon Landing
13 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
July 20th, 1969. Neil Armstrong descends from Lunar Module Eagle to the Moon's surface. A momen...
The Road to Civil Rights
10 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Under segregation, African Americans' lives were severely limited. Restricted entry to public places...
Hudson River: America's First Art Movement
06 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
English-born artist Thomas Cole emigrated to the United States in 1818. Six years later he began wha...
Espionage & Enslavement in the Revolution
03 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Claire Bellerjeau tells Don the the story of Liss, an enslaved Black woman in 18th century New York,...
French Spies in the American Revolution
30 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The story of the American Revolution is one of the best known in American history. But it could have...
The White House Chief of Staff
27 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
While the President of the United States is often seen as the most powerful person in the world, the...
A History of America in 5 Foods
23 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
You are what you eat - and so is America. Various foods have played their part in the country’s hi...
Iroquois Confederacy
20 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
At its height the Iroquois Confederacy (or Haudenosaunee) - a union of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga,...
Empire State Building
16 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When it was completed in 1931, the Empire State Building became the tallest building in the world. W...
The Erie Canal
13 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Completed in 1825, the Erie Canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to ...
First Ladies of the United States
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Don talks to former White House reporter Kate Andersen Brower about how the role of First Lady has c...
New Amsterdam
06 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Before New York was New York, it was New Amsterdam. Dutch colonists arrived on the East Coast in the...
George III - The Last King of America
02 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
George III is forever known as the king who lost the 13 American colonies. In the US he is thought o...
The Race That Sold The Car To America
27 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On a cold winter morning in February 1908, six cars lined up in Times Square, attempting to be the f...
America and the Haiti Revolution
23 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The revolution in Haiti freed the country from French control and created the first Black republic a...
Samuel Adams
20 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
One of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Samuel Adams was a political force of nature. Stac...
Harriet Tubman
16 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Harriet Tubman is perhaps the most famous African American woman in the world, but she’s usually r...
A History of New York in 3 Hotels
13 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Waldorf-Astoria, the Plaza and the Algonquin all tell their own stories of New York City. Don ta...
The Battle of Valcour Island
09 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The first naval engagement of the American War of Independence took place on Lake Champlain, which s...
Jamestown
06 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In late April 1607, three ships carrying a hundred men and boys arrived in Chesapeake Bay, having se...
The First American in Space
02 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Spring 1961, the Space Race between the US and Soviet Union was well underway. Russian cosmonaut ...
Yellowstone
30 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For thousands of years, nomadic Native American peoples crossed the Yellowstone River basin, in awe ...
The Fall of J. Edgar Hoover
26 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From 1956 to 1971, J. Edgar Hoover ran COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program). A series of covert ...
The Rise of J. Edgar Hoover
23 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
J. Edgar Hoover was the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 48 years. He grew the FB...
Ellis Island
19 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From the 1880s to the 1920s the United States experienced a huge wave of immigration. People fleeing...
Dr Martin Luther King Jr
16 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Martin Luther King Jr was one of the figureheads of the civil rights movement in America. On 28th...
Charles Dickens in America
12 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
One of the most famous writers ever to have lived, Charles Dickens travelled twice to the US, in 184...
Inside Benjamin Franklin's House
09 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Join Don as he visits Benjamin Franklin's home of nearly 16 years: 36 Craven Street, London. Now a m...
Lessons from the Civil War
05 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Gone with the Wind, released in 1939, is the highest-grossing film of all time. Based on Margaret Mi...
Downton Abbey
29 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It’s December 1912 and we’re joining in with the festivities at Highclere Castle, in London Engl...
The First Americans
22 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Modern humans thrived in the Americas for thousands of years before the first European colonists arr...
The French & Indian War with Dan Snow
19 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the British and French colonies in North America expanded in the middle of the 18th century, they...
The War of 1812
15 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 19th century, amidst the Napoleonic wars, the British began restricting the United Stat...
The Assassination of President McKinley
12 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On 5th September, 1901, President William McKinley attended a public reception at the Pan American E...
Pearl Harbor
08 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On the morning of 7th December 1941, hundreds of Japanese planes took off from aircraft carriers and...
Start of the Space Race
05 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Space historian Jay Gallentine tells Don how World War 2 weapons paved the way for space rockets, ig...
Capturing Lincoln’s Assassin
01 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On shooting President Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth fled Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC on ...
The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
28 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On the evening of 14th April, 1865, the Union was celebrating victory in the civil war, won 5 days e...
The First Thanksgiving
24 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the fall of 1621, a year after the pilgrim ship the Mayflower landed on the coast of New England,...
Ronald Reagan: The Peacemaker
21 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Ronald Reagan became President in 1981, he was initially written off by many as a reckless B mo...
Who Really Invented the Light Bulb?
17 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
While Thomas Edison is widely credited as the inventor of the electric lightbulb in 1879, it had exi...
The Whiskey Rebellion
14 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Whiskey Tax, imposed in 1791, was the first federal tax on a domestic product by a United States...
African Americans in WW2
10 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The experience of African Americans in World War 2 was, to say the least, a gross double standard. W...
The Race for the North Pole
07 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On April 6th 1909, deep inside the Artic Circle after months on the ice, Robert Peary, Matthew Henso...
Becoming FDR
03 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In August 1921, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was 39 years old, he contracted Polio, paralysing him fro...
Sleepy Hollow & the Haunted Hudson
31 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On Halloween, Elizabeth Bradley tells Don about Washington Irving's famous story, The Legend of Slee...
America's Psychedelic '60s: Timothy Leary and LSD
27 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1963, a Gilded Age estate in Millbrook, New York, became a venue for academic research into thera...
The Oregon Trail
24 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From the 1830s until the arrival of the transcontinental railroad, hundreds of thousands of people p...
CIA: The History
20 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When the Central Intelligence Agency was created by President Truman in 1947, it was the latest inca...
The US Marines' Pacific War
17 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When US Marines landed on the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific, in August 1942, they were taking...
Edward Rulloff: The Gilded Age Hannibal Lecter
13 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Edward Rulloff was described as “a monster imbued by the spirit of the devil”. In 1844, he murde...
Cuban Missile Crisis
10 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In October 1962, the United States confirmed that Soviet missiles were being deployed in Cuba. Presi...
Central Park: What Lies Beneath
06 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Central Park is an oasis of nature in New York City, amidst the countless skyscrapers and gridded st...
Pontiac's Rebellion
03 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1763, Native American tribes in the Great Lakes region began fighting British expansion and rule ...
Battle of Midway
29 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Battle of Midway took place between the US and Japan in June 1942. The US victory, after 4 days ...
Hollywood Blacklist
26 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
After World War 2 ended, the Nazis defeated, America feared communist infiltration of its institutio...
Declaration of Independence
22 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
While the Revolutionary War was being fought in July 1776, the 13 British colonies in America came t...
The Atomic Bomb & the Secret City
22 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1939 Franklin D Roosevelt received a letter from Albert Einstein, warning him that the ...
The Queen & US Presidents
12 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We had plans today to release the first two episodes of American History Hit but due to the news of ...
Welcome to American History Hit
23 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Join Don Wildman twice a week for your hit of American history, as he explores the past to help us u...