American History Tellers

The job of guarding the President’s life belongs to the men and women of the United States Secret Service. There have been many highs and lows in the agency’s more than 150-year history – most poignantly the assassination of JFK in 1963. On today’s show Pulitzer Prize-winning Was ...  Show more

On April 14th, 1865, John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. Lincoln died hours later, shocking the war-torn nation and becoming the first President to be assassinated in office. But he would not be the last. Sixteen years later, no ...  Show more

Description: August 19, 1991. A group of Communist Party hardliners attempt to save the collapsing Soviet Union by staging a coup against party leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. This episode originally aired in 2022. You can listen ad-free in the Wondery or Amazon Music app. Or for all ...  Show more

In September 1901, President William McKinley visited the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York to deliver a speech celebrating American achievements at home and abroad. But waiting in the crowd in Buffalo was an embittered Polish-American laborer seeking to prove his comm ...  Show more

On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was shot and killed while riding in his presidential limo through downtown Dallas. His violent and public death became one of the most traumatic moments in the nation’s history — and one of the most controversial, as Americans debated the mys ...  Show more