Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined...

Introducing: HISTORY This Week: This week, something momentous happened. Whether or not it made the textbooks, it most certainly made history. Join HISTORY This Week as we meet the people, visit the places and witness the moments that led us to where we are today. by HISTORY This Week

1 min listen

Captain Kidd and the Nazis: May 23, 1701. Captain William Kidd is hanged at Execution Dock in London. His death sentence cements his legacy as one of history’s most notorious pirates, but he went to the gallows claiming to be an innocent man. And he may have bee... by HISTORY This Week

24 min listen

The Apple Ad That Changed the World: January 22, 1984. Apple launches the first Macintosh computer, with a showstopping Super Bowl commercial. The ad itself was revolutionary, but the product it launched almost single-handedly brought computers into the mainstream, changing the world as w... by HISTORY This Week

17 min listen

Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined...: January 11th, 1964. The US Surgeon General announces: smoking is killing us. This week we ask: why did it take so long for the public to learn this deadly truth? And why has it taken even longer for us to accept it? by HISTORY This Week

21 min listen

The First Flight Around the World: April 6, 1924. Eight American pilots begin a dangerous mission: to be the first to fly around the world. This will change our future in a way few could predict. What did it take to complete this historic flight? And what were its unintended consequences? by HISTORY This Week

22 min listen

The Deadliest Pandemic in Modern History: April 5, 1918. The first mention of a new influenza outbreak in Kansas appears in a public health report. That strain, later called the Spanish Flu, would go on to kill at least 50 million people worldwide. In a time before widespread global travel, ho... by HISTORY This Week

20 min listen

A Mole in the CIA: February 21, 1994. The FBI arrests one of the deadliest double agents in CIA history. He received almost $2 Million from the KGB, selling CIA secrets and lethally betraying undercover agents. Who was this man and why does a spy turn on their own country? by HISTORY This Week

22 min listen

Surviving Auschwitz: January 27, 1945. This week, we commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, one of Nazi Germany's largest concentration and extermination camps. But what did liberation actually mean and is the full story being forgotten? by HISTORY This Week

26 min listen

"Houston We’ve Had a Problem”: April 14, 1970. Apollo 13 is a quarter million miles from Earth, speeding towards the Moon, when a sudden explosion rocks the ship. Against all odds, the astronauts pull off one of the most remarkable survival missions in NASA history. On the 50th anni... by HISTORY This Week

27 min listen

How Lady Luck Saved Vegas: March 19, 1931. Las Vegas is a small town of a few thousand. It’s not doing so well. It might turn into a ghost town. But then Nevada legalizes gambling and the ground shifts beneath the city. But no one knows it, at first. How did Vegas become Vegas? by HISTORY This Week

21 min listen

The Real Assassination of Caesar: The Ides of March, 44 BC. Ancient Rome’s most powerful dictator, Julius Caesar, is running late to a senate meeting. When he arrives, senators surround him and stab him 23 times. The assassination of Caesar has been told and re-told for centuries, but ... by HISTORY This Week

19 min listen

When Black Men Won the Vote: February 3, 1870. The 15th Amendment is ratified, which establishes the right to vote for black men in America. While Jim Crow laws would grip the south by 1877, there was a brief, seven-year window of opportunity. Half a million black voters turned ou... by HISTORY This Week

19 min listen

The DNA Debate: February 28, 1953. Two scientists, James Watson and Francis Crick, burst into a bar and exclaim that they have discovered the secret of life. But there was another person involved in the discovery of DNA’s double helix, a scientist named Rosalind Frank... by HISTORY This Week

19 min listen

The Great Boston Molasses Flood: January 15, 1919. Boston PD receives a call: “Send all available rescue personnel...there's a wave of molasses coming down Commercial Street." The bizarre flood decimated Boston's North End. How did it happen? And why does it still affec... by HISTORY This Week

17 min listen

Freedom Summer, 1964: June 21, 1964. James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, three civil rights activists in their early twenties, are reported missing in Mississippi. They are part of the first wave of Freedom Summer, a massive voter registration campaign in th... by HISTORY This Week

28 min listen

Public Enemy #1: July 22, 1934. John Dillinger, America's most famous outlaw, is gunned down by federal agents outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago. Dillinger's death is the final act in a crime spree that involved multiple prison breaks, dozens of bank ro... by HISTORY This Week

24 min listen

A Century of Stigma for Black America and Mental Health: June 1, 1840. The very first time the U.S. government asks a question about mental health on the census. But this question will uphold a racist lie that is already spreading throughout America: that freedom causes black people to go insane. by HISTORY This Week

24 min listen

The Legacy of an Oscar: February 11, 1940. Hattie McDaniel becomes the first-ever African American to be nominated for, and then win, an Oscar. What did it take for McDaniel to win? And, 80 Oscar ceremonies later, how do we understand her legacy today? by HISTORY This Week

22 min listen

Lionel, Stevie and Tina Walk into a Studio…: March 7th, 1985. “We Are the World” hits the shelves. It makes music history. It featured 45 of the biggest singers of the era and raises millions of dollars for charity. What did it take to make it happen? And did it actually make a difference? by HISTORY This Week

24 min listen

When the Environment United Us: April 22, 1970. Nearly 20 million Americans come out in solidarity for one of the largest mass movements of the century: Earth Day. How did Earth Day 1970 bring Americans from across the political aisle out into the streets? And can we unite again? by HISTORY This Week

22 min listen

The Great Stink by HISTORY This Week

23 min listen

The Hunt for the Hunley: May 3, 1995. The Hunley has been missing for over 100 years. This Civil War submarine and all eight of her crew disappeared after completing the first successful submarine attack ever. When a team of divers finally locates the wreck in the mid ‘90s, it... by HISTORY This Week

23 min listen

When Basketball Meets Jim Crow: March 28, 1939. Two teams are facing off for the final game of World Professional Basketball Tournament in Chicago, the first professional tournament to feature both white and black basketball teams. This is several years before the start of the NBA, a... by HISTORY This Week

21 min listen

"Have You No Decency, Sir?": June 9, 1954. Senator Joseph McCarthy has accused the United States Army of having communists within its midst. But today, five simple words will take him down. What made McCarthy so powerful? And how did that very same thing bring him down? by HISTORY This Week

24 min listen

Introducing: It Was Said: It Was Said tells the stories of our most important public speeches, taking listeners back to inflection points ranging from the McCarthy era to our present time through the real-time rhetoric that shaped and suffused America. by HISTORY This Week

4 min listen

To Fight a Virus, and Win: May 14, 1796. Edward Jenner tests a theory: can contracting one disease save you from another? Jenner is crowned as the father of vaccination. But decades before Jenner, how did an unlikely trio pave the way for this great invention in modern medicine? by HISTORY This Week

27 min listen

Pride & Protest by HISTORY This Week

23 min listen

Introducing: Hope, Through History: Hope, Through History with Jon Meacham explores some of the most trying times in American history, and how we came through these moments a unified nation. by HISTORY This Week

4 min listen

Beethoven's Silent Symphony: May 7, 1824. One of the great musical icons in history, Ludwig Van Beethoven, steps onto stage at the Kärntnertor Theater in Vienna. The audience is electric, buzzing with anticipation for a brand new symphony from the legendary compo... by HISTORY This Week

30 min listen

The Inca's Last Stand: November 16, 1532. Atahualpa, the king of the Inca Empire, marches towards the city of Cajamarca in modern-day Peru, surrounded by 80,000 soldiers. Once he arrives, Atahualpa expects the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro to surrender in the town s... by HISTORY This Week

27 min listen

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Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined...

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