PODCAST · history
History As It Happens
by Martin Di Caro
Discover how the past shapes the present with the best historians in the world. Everything happening today comes from something, somewhere. History As It Happens features interviews with today's top scholars and thinkers, interwoven with audio from history's archive.Subscribe for ad-free episodes, early access, and bonus content. https://historyasithappens.supercast.com/
Episodes
-
The Inflation Dragon
Subscribe now to skip ads and support the show! As inflation fuels a cost-of-living crisis, millions of Americans are getting a bitter taste of what past generations dealt with. From the mid-1960s into the Age of Reagan, high inflation (or stagflation) bedeviled economists, frustrated presidents,...
-
The Worst President? Meet Andrew Johnson
Subscribe now to skip ads! Keep the narrative flow going with ad-free listening. When John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln in April 1865, the United States would have its third accidental president. The Southern unionist and Democrat Andrew Johnson of Tennessee at first seemed to be an...
-
Inside Trump's Mind (Bonus)
Subscribe now to listen to the full 28-minute episode (or preview 14 minutes without a subscription). If any Washington journalist can take us inside President Donald Trump's mind, it's Edward Luce. The Financial Times columnist and astute observer of American politics has frequently talked to...
-
An Antiwar Speech For the Ages
Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and all of our bonus content! On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a powerful address at a New York City church. "Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence" was a searing indictment of a U.S. war on a poor country. King's expansive...
-
What the Saudis Knew About 9/11 (Bonus)
Subscribe now to listen to the full 28-minute episode (or preview 13 minutes without a subscription). The 9/11 families are still awaiting their day in court. In lawsuits, hundreds of victims’ relatives and injured survivors claim that Saudi government employees directly and knowingly assisted...
-
Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas
Subscribe now to skip ads, get early access, and enjoy all of our bonus content. Nicaragua has a dictator for life. President Daniel Ortega, 80, announced the country won’t hold elections anytime soon, underscoring his effort to extend his nearly 20-year rule and dashing the opposition's hopes…
more -
Who's Running Iran? (Bonus)
Subscribe now to listen to the full 18-minute episode (or preview the first 6 minutes). Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei remains invisible more than 7 months into an existential war for the regime's survival. He's yet to be seen in public and was reportedly seriously wounded on the…
more -
FDR's Fight With Fascism
Subscribe now to skip ads, get early access, and listen to all of our bonus content. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt entered the White House in 1933, the country was paralyzed by the Great Depression and fascist jackboots were trampling democracy in Europe. As the 1930s wore on, the president and...
-
The Rise and Fall of Political Islam
Subscribe now to skip ads, get early access, and listen to all of our bonus content. The Middle East is undergoing transformative changes. It's difficult, if not impossible, to see where things will end up. What is clear, however, is that political Islam — what the scholar Mohammed Ayoob says was...
-
Thomas Jefferson's DNA (Bonus)
Subscribe to listen to the full 28-minute episode (or preview the first 9 minutes). Scientists sequenced Thomas Jefferson’s genome from three strands of his hair for a project led by the Smithsonian Institution to prove that Jefferson fathered children with his slave Sally Hemings. According to…
more -
The Worst President? Meet James Buchanan
Subscribe for ad-free listening, early access, and all of our bonus content! In leafy Meridian Hill Park in Washington, D.C., there stands a bronze statue of the fifteenth president of the United States. Only an inscription etched in the surrounding marble identifies its subject: BUCHANAN. Yes, a...
-
Origins of 'Ethnic Cleansing'
Subscribe today to skip ads and get all of our bonus content. Help the podcast survive and thrive! As some Israeli government ministers call for the "voluntary migration" of all Palestinians from Gaza, the term ethnic cleansing is back in the news. Before the 1990s, international institutions and...
-
War Criminals of Kosovo
Subscribe to skip ads and get all of our bonus content. A special tribunal in The Hague convicted a hero of Kosovo's independence struggle of war crimes. Hashim Thaci was sentenced to 25 years for the crimes of arbitrary detention, torture, and murder. Three other former Kosovo Liberation Army...
-
Russia vs. the West
Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and all of our bonus content. Vladimir Putin and the Russian foreign policy establishment's goal is not to outlast the West only in Ukraine, but to create an alternate world order of anti-Western countries, a world where Russia can evade…
more -
Origins of the Imperial Presidency
Subscribe for ad-free listening, early access, and all of our bonus content! The Constitution created what were supposed to be three coequal branches, and only Congress was given the authority to declare war. Yet we are living in the age of the imperial presidency — of endless war, executive...
-
Here Come the Houthis (Bonus)
Subscribe to listen to the entire 22-minute episode (or preview 8 minutes). New developments in Yemen bode poorly for global oil flows or a peaceful settlement of the Greater Middle East's raging conflicts. The Associated Press reports the Houthi rebels have seized two strategic islands in the...
-
Martin at Monticello! Thomas Jefferson's World
Subscribe today to support the show and enjoy ad-free listening! History As It Happens is "on location" in this episode. Host Martin Di Caro visits Thomas Jefferson's historic Monticello estate in Virginia to talk to Brandon Dillard, its director of historic interpretation and audience…
more -
25 Years of Terror
Subscribe today to skip ads and get all of our bonus content! Twenty-five years ago, on September 11, 2001, nineteen al-Qaeda hijackers working for Osama bin Laden killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington, and a Pennsylvania field. The U.S. responded by launching a poorly defined war...
-
Structures of 'Forever War,' Revisited
Subscribe to enjoy ad-free episodes and early access, plus all our bonus content. Maybe U.S. presidents need to read a how-to manual on avoiding quagmires. Or maybe it wouldn't make much difference anyway. To understand why the United States keeps being sucked into protracted conflicts in the...
-
Origins of Israel's Lobby
Subscribe now to skip ads and get all of our bonus content. Since the aftermath of the Second World War and the establishment of an independent Jewish state of Israel in 1948, U.S. foreign policy has been in the "grip of a foreign power," according to the authors of "Israel's Lobby." Authors Eli...
-
Meet Roy Cohn, Donald Trump's Mentor
Subscribe today to skip ads and get all of our bonus content! Since the New York real estate developer-turned-realty TV star Donald Trump entered politics a decade ago, his personality has dominated Americans' lives. Where did Trump's malignant charisma come from? Where did he learn the art of…
more -
'The Battle of Algiers' 60 Years On
Subscribe to get ad-free listening, early access, and all of our bonus content! Sixty years ago, in late August 1966, a remarkable film premiered at the Venice Film Festival. The Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo's 'The Battle of Algiers' portrayed the brutal realities of the Algerian war for...
-
Iraq Between Washington and Tehran (Bonus)
Subscribe today to listen to this entire 20-minute episode (or preview 6 minutes). Subscribers enjoy all of our bonus content, early access, and ad-free listening. Some 23 years after the U.S. invaded Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, the country's stability and sovereignty remain compromised....
-
Myanmar's Long, Long, Long Civil War
Subscribe today for ad-free listening, early access, and all of our bonus content. Myanmar is not a country. It is a place of endless violence and ethnic strife, with its 50 million people trapped in another civil war, now in its fifth year, with no end in sight. Since its independence from Great...
-
American Empires
Subscribe today for ad-free listening and early access! Since returning to the White House in 2025, President Trump has threatened to annex Greenland by force, mused about making Canada the 51st state, claimed he was ready to retake the Panama Canal, and turned Venezuela into a vassal by…
more -
What Happened at Camp David?
Subscribe today for ad-free listening! The Oslo Peace Process seems like ancient history. Today, a truly just and durable peace between Israel and the Palestinians appears impossible, as Gaza has been destroyed and Jewish settler-terrorists rampage through the West Bank with the support of their...
-
Sen. Chris Van Hollen on Iran, Israel, and U.S. Hegemony
This special episode features an exclusive interview with United States Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat and potential 2028 presidential candidate. Congress' attempts to end the Trump administration's Iran war fiasco have thus far come up short. The same goes for the movement to end...
-
Quagmires
Subscribe to enjoy ad-free listening, early access, and all of our bonus content! The American way of war is broken. Like many of his White House predecessors, Donald Trump is stuck in a stalemate of his own making. In Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq — to name four major wars — the…
more -
Crushing Cuba, 1959 to Present
Subscribe for ad-free listening and early access! The Trump administration is attempting to topple Cuba's government through economic warfare. An oil embargo and other punitive measures have led to severe consequences, including massive blackouts and water shortages. Ordinary Cubans are…
more -
Blood and Soil: What is Ethnic Nationalism?
The world is aflame with endless wars and racial strife. Some societies are tearing themselves apart as mass migration fuels a nationalist backlash. Since the nineteenth century, ethnic nationalism has been a potent force, galvanizing peoples — imagined nations — around shared myths and…
more -
Sudan's Unrelenting Agony
Subscribe today to History As It Happens Premium for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content! This is the 70th year of Sudanese independence, but there is little to celebrate and much to lament as the country continues to tear itself apart. Three major civil wars have consumed 43 years...
-
Saudi Nukes (Bonus)
Subscribe now to listen to the entire 17-minute episode (or preview 7 minutes). The precarious international consensus on nuclear non-proliferation is cracking. The Trump administration announced a civilian nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia — long sought by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman —...
-
Iran Update w/ Trita Parsi (Bonus)
Subscribe now to listen to the entire 16-minute episode (or preview 5 minutes). President Trump seems helpless. All the bombs and missiles he flings at Iran cannot solve his problems — problems he created by attacking Iran on the magical belief that the Islamic regime would crumble and be…
more -
Joseph Ellis' "Tragic Side"
Become a subscriber for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. Was it possible for the leaders of the new American republic to end slavery entirely? Was the violent dispossession of Native peoples inevitable? These questions are integral to the eminent historian Joseph Ellis' new…
more -
Congress' Slide Into Irrelevance
Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. Is Congress irreparably broken or temporarily stuck as it fails to act as a co-equal branch of government willing to check a rogue executive? And how did it get this way? In the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate, the winds of...
-
Liberal Patriotism
The podcast needs your support. Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. Have too many liberals and leftists given up on patriotism? Have they forgotten the tradition of social movements striving for equal political and economic rights as expressed in the country's...
-
Origins of a Forever War
Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. Now well into its fifth year, Russia's invasion of Ukraine appears to be a stalemate on the ground while the combatants seek a decisive edge in the air with drones and missiles. Diplomacy to end the war seems to be going…
more -
Moby-Dick and Democracy
Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. Herman Melville's masterpiece Moby-Dick has something to teach us about democracy, citizenship, and the rule of law. A flop when published in the mid-nineteenth century, Moby-Dick has long been considered a quintessential...
-
The Death of Lindsey Graham
This is a special episode of History As It Happens. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham is dead. His office says Graham died from "a brief and sudden illness" on Saturday night in Washington. He was 71. Graham was first elected to the U.S. House in 1994 and the Senate in 2002. He was seeking a...
-
Roger Griffin, From Fascism to Trumpism
Keep the narrative flow going while supporting the show! Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. The discourse is drowning in -isms. President Trump is railing against an imaginary resurgence of communism. Many of its critics say the Trump administration is putting…
more -
Why Mossadegh Matters
Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. When the Trump administration attacked Iran in late February, some war backers dreamt that the Iranian people would rise en masse and take control of their country. It proved to be a dangerous fantasy. But then the history of...
-
America250! Day in the Life of a Soldier
Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. This is the eighth episode in a series marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, America's semiquincentennial. By the time the delegates at the Continental Congress formally declared independence in July...
-
Martin at the Movies: "Young Washington"
Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. Enjoy this special episode of History As It Happens! On June 26, podcast host Martin Di Caro attended a screening of "Young Washington" at Mount Vernon in Virginia. The new film tells the story of George Washington's formative...
-
The Rise and Fall of Trumpism
Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. As the president's approval ratings sink to a low ahead of the midterm elections, is the end of the Age of Trump in sight, or will his politics endure? What of Donald Trump's presidency might last? When it comes to ideology,...
-
America250! George Washington's World
Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. This is the seventh episode in a series marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, America's semiquincentennial. He was the indispensable American. George Washington held together the Continental Army as...
-
What Alan Greenspan Left Us (Bonus)
Subscribe now to listen to the entire 24-minute episode (or preview 8 minutes). One of the most influential central bankers in U.S. history, Alan Greenspan, who chaired the Federal Reserve for 19 years, died on June 22. He was 100. Greenspan was once treated as an oracle whose policies and arcane...
-
America250! Antislavery and the American Revolution
Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. This is the sixth episode in a series marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, America's semiquincentennial. The American Revolution was deeply rooted in Enlightenment philosophy and inspired by the...
-
What a Time To Be an American: The Bicentennial
Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. The national mood was dour. Political scandals and a lost war cast long shadows. The economy was mired in stagflation. Americans were losing confidence in the future. It was the summer of '76 — 1976! Yet despite the tough…
more -
Gordon Wood's Remarkable Legacy (Bonus)
Enjoy this entire 49-minute bonus episode! To listen to future bonus content and get early access to ad-free episodes, become a subscriber today. History As It Happens Premium costs $5 per month. **** On June 7, 2026, the historian Gordon Wood died at 92. He was one of the greatest scholars of…
more -
Journalism in the Age of Trump
Subscribe now for ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content. Chuck Todd is our special guest in this episode. He explains how changes in mass media and the journalism business led to the Trump presidency, and how Trump himself exploited the new media landscape to achieve power. Chuck…
more
We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.
No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.
No topics indexed yet for this podcast.
Loading reviews...
ABOUT THIS SHOW
Discover how the past shapes the present with the best historians in the world. Everything happening today comes from something, somewhere. History As It Happens features interviews with today's top scholars and thinkers, interwoven with audio from history's archive.Subscribe for ad-free episodes, early access, and bonus content. https://historyasithappens.supercast.com/
HOSTED BY
Martin Di Caro
Loading similar podcasts...
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does History As It Happens have?
History As It Happens currently has 600 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is History As It Happens about?
Discover how the past shapes the present with the best historians in the world. Everything happening today comes from something, somewhere. History As It Happens features interviews with today's top scholars and thinkers, interwoven with audio from history's archive.Subscribe for ad-free episodes,...
How often does History As It Happens release new episodes?
History As It Happens releases new episodes frequently with a large back catalog of 600 episodes. Check the episode list for recent publication dates.
Where can I listen to History As It Happens?
You can listen to History As It Happens on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts History As It Happens?
History As It Happens is created and hosted by Martin Di Caro.
URL copied to clipboard!