Now It's History

When the New York Times published its annual list of “52 Places to Go” in 2026, traditional travel destinations like Los Angeles, Bangkok, Memphis, Big Sur and Iceland were included. But so was Medora, North Dakota — in the heart of the state’s Badlands. That is where — on July 4, 2026, more than 107 years since Theodore Roosevelt died —the nation’s 26th president will finally be honored with a presidential library. It will also be the day the U.S. celebrates its 250th anniversary.In my podcast with TR Library CEO Edward O’Keefe, we explore why the library is sited in North Dakota and how the Badlands helped shape TR’s character and career. Ed is also the author of The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt: The Women Who Created A President. He talks in this conversation about the profound influence several women had on Roosevelt, including his mother, two wives, two sisters and his irrepressible daughter Alice Roosevelt Longworth. More than most of the presidents of the early 20th century, Roosevelt feels relevant to our time. He presided over the country in an era of extreme inequality in wealth, when immigration stirred controversy and when a muscular foreign policy and the Monroe Doctrine were in the news. As Doris Kearns Goodwin has written, TR took hold of the “bully pulpit” of the presidency, building a strong relationship with journalists that helped him shape the messages he shared with the nation. No longer was the president a distant, dignified figure far away from the lives of most Americans. He now would become a flesh-and-blood personal leader who played a prominent role in the everyday lives of most people and whose idiosyncrasies would become the topic of talk around the dinner tables of families from coast to coast. One of the unforgettable scenes in Ed’s book recounts TR’s first bison hunt in the Badlands, in September, 1883. After days of looking, he and a hunting partner came across the “great beasts.” Roosevelt aimed for the largest animal’s shoulder but instead hit its ribs, and it galloped away. His partner managed to intercept the buffalo. TR fired again and missed. “As I urged the horse still closer — for it was very dark — the bull turned... and charged me,” Roosevelt wrote. “The lunge of the formidable looking brute frightened my pony, and as he went off he threw up his head and knocked the heavy rifle I was carrying against my head with such force that it gave me a pretty severe cut on the crown, from which the blood poured over my face and into my eyes so that it blinded me for the moment.” Then the “infernal beast escaped after all.”As with other reverses in his life, Roosevelt didn’t let this defeat deter him. He kept hunting and returned to New York with the head of a bison and other mounted creatures he would install in Sagamore Hill, his summer home in Oyster Bay, Long Island. On February 14 of 1884, TR suffered the unimaginable loss of his wife Alice and his mother on the same day in the same house in New York City. To cope with his grief, he journeyed later that year to the Badlands, where the epic scale and beauty of the landscape soothed Roosevelt’s mind.So did the women around him, including his childhood friend, second wife and future First Lady, Edith Kermit Carow. Ed O’Keefe, who was born in North Dakota, explains in our conversation how this mix of influences helped mold one of America’s most distinctive presidents. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nowitshistory.com/subscribe

Through his books and podcasts, constitutional law professor Corey Brettschneider has been a keen observer of how presidents can overturn constitutional safeguards — and how citizens can work together to restore them.I asked Corey where we are on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being a normal U.S. government, 5 representing a constitutional crisis and 10 being the end of democracy. His answer: we’re between a 7 and an 8 — in grave danger of losing our 250-year-old democratic form of government. I hope you will listen to our conversation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nowitshistory.com/subscribe

Sailing a small boat confidently takes knowledge of how tides and currents, winds and waves can shape your course. So who would have been better than Albert Einstein, the greatest physicist of the 20th century, at piloting a small boat — his 17-foot craft, the Tinef (Yiddish, for junk) — in the waters around Long Island Sound?It turns out that the creator of the Theory of Relativity wasn’t a very good sailor, and had to be rescued numerous times, as Steve Israel writes in his compelling new spy thriller, The Einstein Conspiracy.In August, 1935, the New York Times ran a front-page story headlined: “Relative Tide and Sand Bars Trap Einstein; He Runs His Sailboat Aground at Old Lyme.”Einstein’s sailing problem is far from the only part of Steve Israel’s new book that is based in fact. There really were plots by the Nazis to kill Einstein; there was a substantial pro-Nazi movement in 1930s America, including Camp Siegfried in Yaphank, where one street was named after Adolph Hitler. Crucially, Einstein not only sailed in the waters around Nassau Point on Long Island’s north fork. It was there that he wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt warning that the Nazis were working on the physics involved in creating a uniquely powerful bomb. That gave FDR the impetus to launch the Manhattan Project that developed atomic weapons.As Steve notes on the back cover of the book, he is the only member of Congress to retire to open an independent bookstore, Theodore’s, in Oyster Bay, Long Island. In my conversation with Steve, he explains how running a bookstore influenced the writing of his new book. I hope you enjoy the conversation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nowitshistory.com/subscribe

On so many levels, U.S. democracy is being tested and so is the party named for it. The Democrats are facing tough choices on how to respond to the second Trump presidency, around the upcoming prospect of a government shutdown as well as next year’s midterm elections. It was a great pleasure to chat today with one of the most insightful scholars of democracy and my colleague at New America, Lee Drutman. Lee is the author of Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America. His previous book, The Business of America is Lobbying won the 2016 American Political Science Association's Robert A. Dahl Award, given for "scholarship of the highest quality on the subject of democracy." He writes Undercurrent Events on Substack. I hope you enjoy the conversation.Now It's History is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nowitshistory.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nowitshistory.comFrom the Alaska summit to the White House visit of European leaders, the extraordinary events of the last week have been a “masterclass in manipulation,” according to Frida Ghitis. The object: to persuade President Donald Trump to back one side or the other in Russia’s war against Ukraine.We hope you’ll listen to this podcast conversation between Richar…

Corey Brettschneider finished his latest book on presidential power last year, long after Donald Trump left the White House in defeat in 2021. The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It won the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award. It tells the stories of such presidents as John Adams, Andrew Johnson and Woodrow Wilson who abused or ignored the limits set out in the Constitution, and it explains how activists, opposition politicians, journalists and lawyers were eventually able to restore some of the safeguards instituted by the founders. But when Trump won last November’s election, Brettschneider’s book of history also became a work of prophecy, describing the kinds of power grabs the new administration has put in place since taking office. It also foreshadowed how many of the traditional “checks and balances” inherent in Congress and the Supreme Court have failed to materialize. (The day after the book was published, the Supreme Court issued its “Trump v. U.S.” ruling, granting absolute immunity to presidents acting in their official capacity during their term in office.)It was a pleasure to chat with Corey Brettschneider on Now It’s History. He is a professor of political science at Brown University and the cohost, with John Fugelsgang, of the podcast The Oath and The Office.I hope you enjoy the conversation.And for more, please check out my recent post, The presidency is a loaded gun, for better or worse, in which I explored the problems with presidential power outlined in Corey’s book.Thanks for reading Now It's History! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nowitshistory.com/subscribe

As a young commuter, John McPhee would stop by an orange juice stand at New York’s Penn Station. “From late autumn and on through winter and spring,” he wrote, “I noticed a gradual deepening of the color of the expressed juice. December was pale cadmium, April marigold, and June a Persian orange.” That set him to wondering about the different varieties of the fruit. “I didn't linger over the question. I had to get to work.”After he left the staff of Time magazine for a freelance writing career, he remembered the oranges and pitched the topic to the editor of The New Yorker, William Shawn. “While mentioning a number of story possibilities to Mr. Shawn, I uttered the single word ‘oranges?’”The answer was yes, and the magazine article of a few hundred words grew into a book, as McPhee’s insatiable curiosity devoured the entire story of oranges throughout history.John McPhee’s eye for stories and his skill at telling them is at the heart of Noel Rubinton’s new book, Looking For A Story: A Complete Guide to the Writings of John McPhee, published by Princeton University Press. In a conversation with me today, Noel described the detective work he had to do to unearth McPhee’s full oeuvre, including years of compelling but unbylined writing for Time. I hope you enjoy our chat.Thanks for reading Now It's History! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nowitshistory.com/subscribe

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video with Alexis Coe! It was fascinating to get the perspective of one of the most insightful authors of presidential history. We’re approaching the 250th birthday of the United States and marking the 100th day of the second Donald Trump presidency. Alexis is the author of You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington. Her next book, Young Jack: A Biography of John F. Kennedy, 1917-1957, will be published in 2026.I hope you enjoy the conversation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nowitshistory.com/subscribe

A four-story-tall statue in front of Rockefeller Center’s International Building depicts Atlas bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders. The burden carried by the figure from Greek mythology must have resonated with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. He had to shoulder a crushing degree of responsibility after Nazi Germany conquered much of Western Europe and the U.K. had to fight Adolf Hitler on its own. In his determination to enlist American support, Churchill took the extraordinary step of creating a secret intelligence operation based on the 36th floor of the International Building, a short distance from Rockefeller Center’s famous Christmas tree and skating rink. My guest on episode 5 of the Now It’s History podcast is Thomas Maier, the author of a fascinating new book about that British operation and the American who helped make it happen. It’s called The Invisible Spy: Churchill’s Rockefeller Center Spy Ring and the First American Agent of World War II.Maier tells the story of the largest foreign spy operation in U.S. history, operating in the heart of Manhattan at a time when Nazi spies were walking through Times Square and landing on Long Island’s beaches. Britain’s intelligence agents used deception, break-ins and sex to infiltrate and expose German agents as well as to compromise others who opposed U.S. entry into World War II.In the middle of it all was “the invisible spy,” Ernest Cuneo, a former college football star and NFL player who developed the key personal relationships behind one of the most far-reaching intelligence operations of World War II, including a close friendship with the creator of James Bond, the British spy Ian Fleming. One of the James Bond books is dedicated to Cuneo, who Fleming called “my muse,” and another has a character named Ernest Cunio.Tom Maier and I worked together years ago at Newsday, where he was a first-rate investigative reporter. While Tom was breaking award-winning stories in his day job at Newsday, he was also starting to write the first few of his seven books.They cover topics as varied as the Kennedy and Newhouse families, Dr. Benjamin Spock, the sex experts Masters and Johnson, and the ties between mafia bosses and the CIA in the 1960s.Tom's career took on a new dimension when Showtime turned his Masters and Johnson book into the widely praised series Masters of Sex, and last year he registered another success with Paramount and Showtime's docuseries Mafia Spies based on Tom's book.Star player goes behind the scenes“I always liked to keep out of sight. Anonymity is freedom.” — Ernest Cuneo Ernest Cuneo was a football star at Columbia University who went on to play for an NFL team, the now-defunct Brooklyn Dodgers. But his professional football career fizzled, and the disappointing brush with fame convinced him that he could be more effective as a behind-the-scenes player.He studied law and got involved in politics, becoming an ally of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. Cuneo helped build support for the idea of Roosevelt running for an unprecedented third term. Meanwhile he made connections to powerful figures in the media, including the influential columnist Walter Winchell and Washington reporter Drew Pearson. At fashionable New York night spots like the Stork Club and 21, Cuneo also developed ties to politicos and power brokers, including FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.And when Churchill’s government established the Rockefeller Center office, Cuneo became a key supporter and liaison. He palled around with Ian Fleming and William Stephenson, the Canadian who headed the British spy office.Shaken, not stirred“Over time and over drinks,” Maier wrote, “Cuneo would become close friends with Stephenson and Fleming. He liked to share caviar, cocktails and confidential information with these undercover British agents while they sat beside the fireplace inside Stephenson’s posh Midtown duplex.”“Fleming, ever the wartime sophisticate, made sure the gin and dry vermouth he poured into his glass at their clubby meetings was prepared carefully, with what Cuneo described as the skill of a brain surgeon.”“Fleming preferred martinis — shaken, not stirred.”After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. entered the war. Cuneo played a key role in the creation of the Office of Strategic Services, a wartime spy agency that was the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency.Following the death of Roosevelt and the allies’ victory in World War II in 1945, Cuneo lost some of his political influence, but remained plugged in to the U.S. government’s power centers, including the CIA. He married a Canadian member of the British spy operation, Margaret Watson, and they had two children. Cuneo and Fleming became business associates, and Cuneo helped introduce the future novelist to the locales and personalities that would help shape the early James Bond novels and movies.Cuneo never published the memoir he wrote, but Maier was able to use it along with Cuneo’s papers, which are at the Franklin D. Roosevelt presidential library, to paint a portrait of this influential behind-the-scenes figure.There are hundreds, if not thousands, of books about the great leaders of the war years, including Churchill and Roosevelt. But it’s a service when a writer delves deeper and tells the story of hidden power brokers like Ernest Cuneo. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Thomas Maier.Thanks for reading Now It's History! Subscribe for free to receive new posts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nowitshistory.com/subscribe

John Hancock's bold and elegant signature on the Declaration of Independence is so famous that his name became a synonym for a signature.Put your John Hancock right there!But in many ways, it's one of the least significant things about his life. Hancock bore the title of president years before there were American presidents, when he became head of the Continental Congress. He was so reviled by the British and venerated by the Americans that they both called him King Hancock.He walked a narrow and perilous line between rebellion and conformity with British rule. But at a host of key moments in the years leading up to the revolution, Hancock wound up picking the side that would ultimately win — and he helped build not only the revolution, but the state of Massachusetts, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.My guest on episode four of the Now It’s History podcast is the author of King Hancock: The Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father, a critically acclaimed biography of John Hancock.Brooke Barbier is a public historian who received her PhD in American History from Boston College and taught for six years in college. She grew up on the West Coast but became fascinated with the history of the American Revolution, and that led her to Boston. Her first book was Boston in the American Revolution, a Town Versus an Empire.King Hancock is Brooke's second book. But she is not only a history scholar. Eleven years ago, she founded Ye Olde Tavern Tours, which offers tours of Boston's historic sites and taverns. And you'll be happy to know that beer is included.In this podcast, Brooke not only tells the story of John Hancock’s role in the fateful events that created the United State of America, but also explains why his role in history has relevance for our lives today. With the 250th anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord coming next spring, it’s an especially appropriate time to examine the life of John Hancock.Thanks for reading Now It's History! Subscribe for free to receive new posts. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nowitshistory.com/subscribe

In 2016, Donald Trump narrowly beat Hillary Clinton in America's suburbs and won the White House. In 2020, Joe Biden turned that around. He captured 54 % of suburban voters, an improvement of nine percentage points over Clinton's performance. And that was key to putting Biden in the White House.This year, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are battling for that crucial suburban support. And there are reasons to think that, for Harris, the suburbs are a land of opportunity. You can see the struggle playing out in competing lawn signs in the front yards of America's suburban neighborhoods.Thanks for reading Now It's History! Subscribe for free to receive new posts.As Lawrence Levy, executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, told me in episode three of the Now It’s History podcast, those voters have moved to the suburbs because they “want better schools for their kids. They want more space. They own their own little plot, their own portion of the suburban dream. And they’re optimistic…they tend to shy away from extremism of any stripe. So the party and the candidates that come across as a little too far out there make them nervous.”Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden Sunday gave a platform to extreme voices. The New York Times piece on the event was headlined, “Trump Rally Opens With Insults Aimed at Latino, Black, Jewish and Arab American Voters.”Harris leads Trump by seven percentage points in suburban areas, according to a Wall Street Journal poll of seven battleground states. The Journal’s John McCormick reported last week from Mequon, Wisconsin that “Trump has alienated a sizable share of college-educated suburban voters who help decide presidential elections, accelerating their drift from the Republican Party. Harris needs them to counteract softness in her support among Black and Hispanic men…As McCormick wrote, “The country’s political fault line was once the cleave between Democratic cities and Republican suburbs. That division now increasingly runs through the suburbs themselves, with inner-ring enclaves like this one turning purple or blue and outer ones—and rural areas—remaining red.”The shift away from Trump in the suburbs was “fairly dramatic” in the 2020 election, Levy noted. It came about “because Trump began to be seen not as a wealthy businessman who could help turn the economy around but as an extremist who frightened them.” In this podcast episode, Levy also describes the strategies that can win votes in the suburbs. He discusses the surprising importance of New York State’s competitive congressional races in potentially determining which party controls the House in the next Congress and explains why people from around the world are paying attention to what happens. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nowitshistory.com/subscribe

Hillary Clinton got nearly three million more votes than Donald Trump in 2016. Why didn’t she become President of the United States?Four years later, Trump’s backers tried to alter the vote counting process in several states when they sought to invalidate Joe Biden’s victory in 2020.And in 2024, if the election is as close as the polls say it is, the popular vote winner may not be elected President.When we think of democracy, we assume that whoever gets the most votes will win an election. But it doesn’t work exactly that way.  In the United States, the real winner is determined by an 18th century contraption called the Electoral College. There’s no one better at understanding and explaining the elector system than Robert Alexander, who literally wrote the book on it. I was delighted to welcome Rob to the second episode of our “Now It’s History” podcast.Thanks for reading Now It's History! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Robert Alexander is a professor of political science and the Founding Director of the Bowling Green State University Democracy and Public Policy Research Network. He is the author of the definitive study, Representation and the Electoral College, published in 2019 by Oxford University Press.  His research on electors was cited during arguments before the Supreme Court in 2020, and he has appeared as an expert on the Electoral College throughout the media.If we’re lucky, the popular vote margin of this year’s election will be big enough that we won’t have a “misfire” election like 2016, when Donald Trump’s strength in the Electoral College made Hillary Clinton’s popular vote edge essentially irrelevant. Or like 2000, when Al Gore beat George W. Bush by half a million popular votes only to lose in the Electoral College, with an assist by the US Supreme Court that put an end to a recount in Florida.But the incredibly close polls this year may well mean we’re headed back to Electoral College hell for the third time this century. We could even see a tie vote in the Electoral College, which would cause all kinds of mischief.In our conversation, Rob talks about how the electors are chosen, how they cast their votes, the problem of “faithless electors,” the many proposals to reform the Electoral College — and the music he listened to while writing his book. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nowitshistory.com/subscribe

A president botches a key debate. His rival survives an assassination attempt. A vice president steps in to replace the incumbent. Hasn’t Election 2024 already brought us enough political upheavals?Like it or not, with one month to go in the contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, there’s still the possibility of another surprise — an “October surprise” — that could sway undecided voters. In this episode, host Richard Galant chats with Princeton historian Julian Zelizer on the origin of the October surprise concept, the history of late-breaking election developments and the chances this month’s events could sway the Harris-Trump election. You’ll learn who coined the phrase “October surprise” and how it played a role in the 1980 race between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.This is Episode 1 of the “Now It’s History” podcast. We’ll be exploring the dividing line between the present and the past, speaking with people who have deeply studied history and have thoughts on how it shapes our world today. Please subscribe to the Now It’s History podcast on your favorite platform. If you like what you hear, please rate it. Sign up for regular updates at www.nowitshistory.comAnd thanks for listening! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nowitshistory.com/subscribe

Now It’s History explores the roots of today’s political and social turmoil by examining the past. Hosted by journalist Richard Galant, each episode uncovers the hidden patterns behind revolutions, protests, and power struggles, showing how events like President Richard Nixon’s resignation, the rise of social media and the election of Barack Obama  continue to shape our world.  Grounded in historical facts and expert interviews, this podcast reveals how history’s echoes influence our time. Discover how history rhymes, even if it doesn’t repeat. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nowitshistory.com/subscribe