History Unplugged Podcast

• John Adams: The Most Influential Yet Overlooked Founding Father?

  John Adams is arguably America’s most underrated Founding Father. He has no currency that bears his image. No national holidays celebrate his birth. He’s nearly never named as anyone’s favorite president. And he has no dedicated memorial in Washington, D.C. Despite this, he was perhaps the most influential early American, rivaling Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin. Adams was a key advocate for American independence, nominating Washington as commander of the Continental Army and helping draft the Declaration of Independence. As president, he averted war with France through the Convention of 1800, prioritizing peace despite political backlash. He also defended British soldiers in the Boston Massacre trial, showcasing his commitment to justice, and laid the foundation for the U.S. Navy by establishing the Department of the Navy in 1798. How can this be remedied? Today’s guest, Jackie Cushman, is the Chair of the Adams Memorial Commission, created by Congress to establish a Washington, DC memorial to John Adams and his family. She seeks to commemorate the lives of him and his descendants, as the original philosopher-statesmen of America.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Why Thomas More -- Henry VIII’s Hatchet Man and Heretic Hunter -- Was Himself Executed For Heresy After the English Reformation

  Thomas More was one of the most famous—and notorious—figures in English history. Born into the era of the Wars of the Roses, educated during the European Renaissance, rising to become Chancellor of England, and ultimately destroyed by Henry VIII, he hunted Protestants for heresy and had them burnt at the stake in the final years of Catholic England, but after the English Reformation, he was executed himself when he refused to support Henry VIII as the Supreme Head of the English Church. He also achieved literary immortality for his book Utopia, which describes an ideal, imaginary island society with communal property, religious tolerance, and social harmony, critiquing the political and social issues of 16th-century Europe. Was he a saintly scholar and an inspiration for statesmen and intellectuals even today? The Catholic Church would say ‘yes’, as they canonized him and made him the patron saint of statesmen. Or was he the cruel zealot who only wanted to burn Protestants alive and hold back England’s progress? Today’s guest is Joanne Paul, author of Thomas More: A Life. We look at a man who, more than four hundred years after his execution, remains one of the most brilliant minds of the Renaissance. He also shows us the limits of passive resistance and how somebody can achieve posthumous fame but also fail to affect the events of his day.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Don’t Look to 1903s Germany to Understand American Populism. Look to 1830s New York Revivals Instead.

  Something strange happened in Upstate New York during the 1830s. This area was called the "Burned-Over District" because so many fiery religious revivals swept through that it was metaphorically burned over. This region became a key source of the Second Great Awakening, a Protestant revival movement marked by emotional preaching and mass conversions, as preachers like Charles Finney inspired thousands to seek personal salvation and social reform. The revival spirit also birthed new movements: Mormonism emerged with Joseph Smith's founding of the Latter Day Saint movement in 1830, the Jehovah’s Witnesses trace their roots to the Bible Student movement that gained traction later in the century, and Spiritualism took hold in the 1840s with the Fox sisters’ claims of communicating with spirits in Hydesville, New York. This episode, however, isn’t just about the Burned-Over District. It’s about how these revivalists tapped into a distinctly American form of power, one not built on title or lineage, but on pure, raw charisma. From Puritan prophets and prophetesses in the 1600s to big-tent revivalists in the 1800s, and even to modern self-help gurus like Tony Robbins and Oprah Winfrey, charisma has shaped influence across time. It empowers figures like presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama to amass followings, sustain authority, and shape the national narrative through sheer personal appeal. Today’s guest is Molly Worthen, author of Spellbound: How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump. We explore the roots of charisma and power in American democracy, whether it’s necessarily bad or can be used for good, and how to avoid falling under the spell of a charismatic demagogue.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Operation Barbarossa Saw Millions of POW Executions, Civilian Murders, and Starvation Deaths

  Operation Barbarossa, launched by Nazi Germany on June 22, 1941, aimed to swiftly conquer the Soviet Union, targeting key cities like Moscow, Leningrad, and Kyiv. Hitler reportedly said a meeting with his generals before the campaign began "We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down," With German forces advancing up to 200 miles per week in the first two months, it looked like Germany would accomplish this goal, nearly reaching Moscow by August. The operation’s rapid pace saw the Wehrmacht encircle and capture millions of Soviet troops, bringing Germany close to victory, though fierce resistance and logistical challenges stalled their progress short of total conquest. The campaign devastated civilian populations, with millions killed through bombings, mass executions, and starvation policies, particularly in occupied regions like Ukraine and Belarus. The Nazis’ brutal tactics, including the Einsatzgruppen death squads, systematically murdered Jews, Romani people, and others, contributing to an estimated 10-14 million civilian deaths across the Soviet Union by the war’s end. To look at these months of fighting in Eastern Eruope, some of the most devastating times in that region’s history, is today’s guest, Richard Hargreaves, author of Opening the Gates of Hell. The combination of unprecedented, rapid military victories coupled with state-sponsored and spontaneous atrocities makes the opening fortnight of the invasion of the Soviet Union unique in the annals of modern warfare.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Pistol Duels Existed Across the 19th-Century World, But Only the Chaos of the American West Produced Gunfighters

  To understand American history and its deep-seated relationship with violence, we must look to the last three decades of the 1800s in the American West, which had the highest murder rate per capita in American history. And it all boils down to one place: Texas. Texas was born in violence, on two fronts, with Mexico to the south and the Comanche to the north, and the invention of the Colt revolver only made the area wilder and less orderly. Across the nineteenth-century frontier defending one’s honor and reputation often resulted in duels and bitter feuds. After the cattle business boom, this sensation spilled into the greater West from Arizona to Wyoming to Kansas. The trigger-happy assortment of rustlers, hustlers, gamblers, and freelance lawmen, and their desire to defend their honor caught the eye of newspapers, igniting a firestorm of mythmaking. The word “gun-man” first appears in a newspaper in 1874, followed by an explosion of Western biographies and memoirs in the 1920s. 1940s-1950s Hollywood reimagined these gunfighters as leading men, introducing Billy the Kid and Wyatt Earp to a new generation. Today’s guest is Bryan Burrough, author of “The Gunfighters: How Texas Made the West Wild.” We explore how only in the American West could gunfighters exist, and what led to the death of this unique period in time.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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