61: The Louisiana Native Guard, the 54th Mass...

With the December 1941 surprise attack on the US naval base Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, our story has officially come to the United States’ entry into the Second World War. Professor Jackson told that story in episode 194, and in 193 we covered the long buildup to the war with Japan; ...  Show more

“This year very few Hanukkah candles were lit.” / “This is a strange Christmas Eve.” This is the story of 1941’s wartime holiday season. It’s difficult to conjure up a more miserable picture than the Warsaw Ghetto, but Jewish residents are doing their best to stay close to their ...  Show more

Most Americans know of Harriet Tubman's legendary life: escaping enslavement in 1849, she led more than 60 others out of bondage via the Underground Railroad, gave instructions on getting to freedom to scores more, and went on to live a lifetime fighting for change. Yet the many ...  Show more

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

The Ku Klux Klan was arguably America’s first organized terrorist movement. It was a paramilitary unit that arose in the South during the early years of Reconstruction. At its peak in the early 1870s, the Klan boasted many tens of thousands of members, no small number of them lan ...  Show more

In 1962, a riot broke out in the University of Mississippi after African American student, James Meredith is enrolled. It essentially becomes the last stand of the Civil War, with people turning up with old Civil War muskets to defend the favoured institution of Southern elites. ...  Show more