The John Batchelor Show

1815 THE GREAT STORM
Unpredictable El Niño Brings Unseasonable Storms
John Batchelor and Jeremy Zakis discuss how El Niño is producing chaotic, unpredictable weather across Australia, with severe unseasonable storms and flooding striking Queensland and Sydney as scientists study broader climate trends, while Australian households shift toward electric home heating backed by government solar rebates. (1)

1793
Robert G. Parkinson, author of Heart of American Darkness: Bewilderment and Horror on the Early Frontier, traces how Michael Cresap was transformed into a Revolutionary War hero and how Thomas Jefferson popularized “Logan’s Lament” in Notes on the State of Virginia. Parkinson details Logan’s murder in 1780, the lament’s place in 19th-century schoolbooks and monument battles, and how Revolutionary mythmaking justified Indian removal while shaping enduring themes of American national identity across the expanding early republic. (7)

1753
Frontier Violence and Logan’s Famous Lament — Part One
Robert G. Parkinson, author of Heart of American Darkness: Bewilderment and Horror on the Early Frontier, examines the violent 18th-century American frontier through the rivalry between land-speculating families such as the Cresaps and Native leaders such as Logan, son of Shikellamy. Parkinson details the 1774 Yellow Creek massacre of Logan’s family, the origins of “Logan’s Lament,” and how colonial land speculation by figures including George Washington fueled border conflict among Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Native nations across the Ohio River Valley. (6)

1910XIANJIANG
Nury Turkel, author of No Escape: The True Story of China’s Genocide of the Uyghurs, documents the Chinese Communist Party’s systematic campaign against the Uyghur population in East Turkestan (Xinjiang). Born in a Cultural Revolution re-education camp, Turkel interweaves his own biography with testimony on officials such as Zhu Hailun, forced labor, mass internment camps, and targeted sterilization of women, and outlines United States responses including sanctions and the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, urging decisive global action. (5)W

Destruction and Liberation of Nazi Berlin — Part Two
Ian Buruma, author of Stay Alive: Berlin 1939–1945, depicts the apocalyptic final years of Nazi Berlin under devastating Allied strategic bombing, covering cinematic distractions such as Münchhausen, the perilous existence of Jews living underground as “U-boats,” and the brutal crackdown following the failed July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler. Buruma concludes with the Red Army’s capture of the ruined capital, widespread mass sexual violence, and the harrowing survival stories of the chaotic post-war liberation. (4)