39: The California Gold Rush and the Compromi...

Professor Greg Jackson and co-host Riley Neubauer are joined by returning guest Captain Mac Caldwell, a Marine veteran, to dive deeper into the Pacific Theater of early World War II. The conversation reaps key wartime conferences, unpacks the strategic tensions between MacArthur ...  Show more

“If we ever lose Saipan, repeated air attacks on Tokyo will follow. No matter what it takes, we have to hold there.”As Operation Cartwheel neutralizes Japanese forces on Rabaul, American and British leaders meet with “Forgotten Allies” in Cairo—namely China’s nationalist leader C ...  Show more

For white settlers, the Gold Rush offered a chance for fortune, but for California’s Native inhabitants, the sudden hunger for gold spelled disaster. As the numbers of miners grew, they forced Native people off their ancestral lands, often starving or slaughtering them in the pro ...  Show more

On January 24th, 1848, a carpenter from Coloma plunges a hand into the American River and pulls out gold. This discovery triggers an explosion of findings, as people flock to the region seeking fortune and reinvention. But what were the chances of striking gold? What obstacles di ...  Show more

From the rings on our fingers, to coins in our pockets and, for a select few, the medals hanging around our necks. Gold is one of the most coveted metals in the world.

Gold still has the power to change lives, but in the mid 19th century, it also sparked the largest ...

The United States won the The Mexican–American War in the 1840s, and with it vast new stretches of western land. But in the 1850s, the question of what to do with this land – and whether to allow slavery in the new territories or not – became a redning issue for politicians of al ...  Show more