Click here to listen to HNN's own podcasts and to see our list of prominent podcasts about history and historians.
Harlem vs. Columbia University [video 1 hour, 53 minutes, and 39 seconds]
Kwatsi Alibaruho, First Black NASA Flight Director [audio 5 minutes 5 seconds]
Martin Kramer on Radical Islam and Superfluous Young Men [video 6 minutes 3 seconds]
Zheng He Ranks Among the World's Greatest Seafarers [video 22 minutes 22 seconds]
Archeologist Zahi Hawass Unlocks the Secrets of Egypt [video 28 minutes 43 seconds]
The Steam-Powered, Coal-Fired Vibrator [video 6 minutes 59 seconds]
“Unaccommodated Man” in Vietnam [video 4 minutes 51 seconds]
Oral Histories: Wisconsin Holocaust Survivors [24 Audio clips]
A gold elixir of youth in the 16th century French court [video 12 minutes]
Holidays at War: Recollections from the Front (Canada) [audio 7 clips]
Against the Grain: Frida Kahlo [audio 48 minutes 19 seconds combined]
In Germany, 'National Guilt' Stirs Against Afghan War [video 7 minutes 48 seconds]
A 19th-Century Mathematician Finally Proves Himself [audio 5 minutes 59 seconds]
Celebrating 350 Years Of Notable Scientific Papers [audio 5 minutes 33 seconds]
From Dickens Himself, Notes On 'A Christmas Carol' [audio 3 minutes 19 seconds]
Naughty & Nice: A History of The Holiday Season [podcast 54 minutes 56 seconds]
The Pearl Harbor Attack Remembered (”The Back Door to War Theory”) [video 8 minutes, 45 seconds]
Niall Ferguson moderated conversation with Kissinger [video 50 minutes, 21 seconds]
Henry Kissinger On The President's Afghanistan Speech [video]
Source: C-Span (11-16-09)
Stefan Bradley, history and African American studies professor at Saint Louis University, recalls the efforts by African-American students and the residents of Harlem to stop Columbia University from building a private gymnasium and expanding the University's footprint in 1968-69. Mr. Bradley focuses on the residents of Harlem's protest and the radicalization of portions of Columbia's student body, including the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) led by Mark Rudd and the SAS (Students' Afro American Society). Stefan Bradley discusses his book at the Brecht Forum in New York City.
Source: NPR (11-16-06)
Ed Gordon talks with Kwatsi Alibaruho, the first African American to lead NASA's Mission Control as a flight director for the International Space Station.
Source: Sandbox Blog (2-7-10)
You get six minutes at the Herzliya Conference to say something memorable (and there is a clock ticking away at your feet, facing the audience). So I made a memorable argument for the role of population growth in radicalization, a clip of which is embedded below. It's memorable—but not at all original. I first encountered the idea in the stimulating work of Gunnar Heinsohn (here is one example of many).
There is also one error in my popularized recycling of his thesis. Heinsohn's rule of thumb is that when 30 percent or more of the total male population is between 15-29 (fighting age), violence ensues. In my talk, I added that I would put it higher, at 40 percent. But that 40 percent should be of the total adult male population (15-64). I doubt that in any of the countries of the region, the 15-29 range accounts for 40 percent of total male population. Heinsohn is right....
Source: BBC (2-5-10)
Nearly a century before European explorers started out, he was commanding great fleets of huge ships
The ships groaned with valuable cargo and travelled epic distances, from China to the coast of Africa.
China has been through periods of overlooking Zheng He. But since the 1980s, he has had a revival in the People's Republic.
Nick Baker finds out more about the man who was a eunuch, a Muslim, possibly a giant, and one of the world's most important historic naval figures.
Source: FORA.tv (12-12-08)
Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass discusses his work using "science to reconstruct history" in uncovering the mysteries of the pyramids, identifying mummies, and excavating the Valley of the Kings.
Source: Big Think (1-4-10)
The “Technology of Orgasm” author recounts the outrageous history of female genital “manipulators,” from water-powered turbines to the contraption called the Chattanooga.
Source: Big Think (12-29-09)
Robert Stone’s experience as a war correspondent is forever linked in his mind with a haunting passage from “King Lear.”
Source: Wisconsin Historical Society (1-1-10)
Each oral history presents a vivid eyewitness account of an odyssey through the Holocaust of World War II. Roll your cursor over a photo or name to see a brief biography. Click on a photo or name to access the full biography, transcript, audio recordings and pictures.
Source: BMJ (12-31-09)
Miracle beauty products may be a staple Christmas present today, but they're not a recent invention. Diane de Poitiers, a French noble woman and mistress of Henry II of France, tried to use gold to preserve her looks - in alchemical law, gold was immutable, and alchemists and apothecaries created various potions to pass this gift onto their customers.
For Christmas, the BMJ has made a video about a French research team's investigations of Diane's remains, and its discovery that the gold she used to preserve her youth was actually slowly poisoning her.
Source: The Memory Project (12-31-69)
Between 1939 and 1945, more than 1 million Canadians and Newfoundlanders served either on the home front or overseas, fighting for king and country. During that time, most would spend the holidays on the frontlines of war rather than at home with their families. Today seven veterans share their recollections of the holidays during the Second World War.
Source: The Memory Palace (11-9-09)
The placebo effect can be effective even with crazy remedies like surgery to place goat testicles in male subjects to cure impotence. This is not a medieval remedy, but one from the history of the United States of America in the 20th Century. John Romulus Brinkley not only specialized in this operation, but reached every day Americans with his radio station giving medical "advice".
Source: Talking History (12-3-09)
From Against the Grain we bring you a discussion of the life and work of Frida Kahlo -- one that focuses on "what has become of the Mexican artist's radical politics? Art historian Margaret A. Lindauer argues that Kahlo's artistic legacy has been done a disservice by those who would read the painter's works off her personal life, instead of looking at the complex intellectual and political processes that created them." Margaret A. Lindauer is the author of Devouring Frida: The Art History and Popular Celebrity of Frida Kahlo (Wesleyan U. Press, 1999). For more information on Kahlo (and links to other sites as well) see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frida_Kahlo.
Source: PBS - NewsHour (12-11-09)
Germany has the third largest contingent of forces in Afghanistan, yet among a population still haunted by World War II a deep-rooted anti-war sentiment persists. Margaret Warner reports.
Source: NPR - Morning Edition (12-10-09)
Charles Babbage, the man whom many consider to be the father of modern computing, never got to complete any of his life's work. The Victorian gentleman was a brilliant mathematician, but he wasn't very good at politics and fundraising, so he never got the financial backing to finish any of his elaborate machine designs. For decades, even his fans weren't certain whether his computing machines would have worked.
Source: NPR - All Things Considered (12-6-09)
To celebrate its 350th birthday, the Royal Society of London selected 60 of the most notable scientific papers it's published over the past four centuries. And it's posting them online — with images of the original manuscripts. These are many of the biggest names in scientific history — Isaac Newton to Ben Franklin to Stephen Hawking. Host Guy Raz reviews a few of them with Michael Thompson, the man in charge of choosing from the society's 60,000-paper collection.
Source: NPR - All Things Considered (12-4-09)
Tis the season — every year at this time — for the various renderings of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. This year, the current animated version in the cinema — starring a computer-generated Jim Carrey in multiple roles — has won some plaudits for sticking with the spirit of the Dickens original.
So it might come as some surprise to learn that when Dickens himself performed A Christmas Carol, he didn't do it as it's written. And during this holiday season, you can see the proof.
Source: BackStory with the American History Guys (12-6-09)
Christmas may be the big kahuna of American holy days, but it wasn’t always so. It used to be a time of drunken rowdiness, when the poor would demand food and money from the rich. The Puritans banned Christmas altogether. It wasn’t until the 1820s that the holiday was re-invented as the peaceful, family-oriented, and consumeristic ritual we celebrate today.
In this episode, the History Guys examine the history of the “holiday season” in America. Has Christmas grown more or less religious? How has the holiday evolved and changed here? To what extent was Hanukkah a reaction to Christmas, and how have American Jews shaped and reshaped their own wintertime rituals?
Source: Britannica Blog (12-7-09)
Today is Pearl Harbor Day in the United States, when the country remembers the surprise Japanese attack on this day in 1941 that temporarily crippled the U.S. Fleet and resulted in the United States’ entry into World War II. The video below describes the events of that momentous day.
But was there a “back door to war,” as revisionist historians have long claimed?
According to this view, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, inhibited by the American public’s opposition to direct U.S. involvement in the fighting and determined to save Great Britain from a Nazi victory in Europe, manipulated events in the Pacific in order to provoke a Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, thereby forcing the United States to enter the war on the side of Britain. Click here for details.
Source: C-Span (10-8-09)
The International Republican Institute honors former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger with its 2009 Freedom Award at an awards dinner for his contribution to the security and progress of the United States. IRI Chairman Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) presented the award to Sec. Kissinger, followed by a conversation with Kissinger moderated by Niall Ferguson.
Source: The New Nixon (12-2-09)
Richard Nixon’s National Security Adviser and Secretary of State evaluates President Obama’s Afghanistan strategy.