Muse

July 20, 2026 | 00:32:23 | History, Society & Culture

July 26, 1775. In a stately mansion turned rebel headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, George Washington sits down at a dining room table and writes out his orders for the day. The brand-new commander-in-chief has a problem: his army is outfunded, outmanned, and outgunned — and if he can't communicate, he can't win. What Washington doesn't know is that on this very day, the Congress in Philadelphia is appointing a different kind of general to help him. A postmaster general: Benjamin Franklin. It's a strange homecoming. Franklin spent forty years building the colonial post into a marvel of efficiency… until the Crown humiliated him before the Privy Council and fired him from the job. Now, the rebels are handing it back. How did a runaway teenage printer end up running the mail for a continent? Why did the Crown fire its best postmaster? And how did a network of post riders help win the Revolutionary War? Special thanks to USPS Historian Steve Kochersperger, and Smithsonian National Postal Museum curators Dan Piazza and Lynn Heidelbaugh. Dan and Lynn’s new book for the Postal Museum, Routes to a New Nation , will be out in October and is currently available for pre-order. You can find all the books we’ve used to make recent HISTORY This Week episodes at historythisweekpodcast.com . Get in touch: [email protected] Follow on Instagram: @historythisweekpodcast Follow on Facebook: ⁠HISTORY This Week Podcast⁠ To stay updated: http://historythisweekpodcast.com

July 16, 2026 | 00:37:26 | History, Society & Culture

We have been told the American Revolution was fought over taxation and representation. But that's not what the Declaration of Independence says. According to our founders, in their own words, what they were most upset about was Native Americans. How does a whole country miss a point of its own founding document? That's the question at the heart of a new podcast called First America. Hosted and reported by Rebecca Nagle, an Indigenous author and the former host of Crooked’s This Land podcast, and featuring leading Native historians, First America unveils how our current political moment was 250 years in the making and how the founders’ treatment of Indigenous nations—and their resistance—shaped US democracy. Here’s the first episode. Find First America wherever you get podcasts.

July 13, 2026 | 00:27:54 | History, Society & Culture

July 14, 1850. At a swanky hotel in Apalachicola, Florida, the French consul is throwing a Bastille Day party, and he's promised his guests ice-cold champagne. There's just one problem: the town's ice shipment is delayed, and in 1850, you can't simply make ice. Or can you? Enter Dr. John Gorrie, a country physician who's spent years waging a private war against heat itself, convinced that cooling the air could stop the deadly fevers ravaging his town. How did a doctor on the Florida frontier invent artificial cooling and take on the "Ice King" of New England? And why has history nearly erased his name? Special thanks to Bern Nagengast, technology historian and author; and Linda Thompson, docent at the Raney House Museum in Apalachicola, Florida. You can find all the books we’ve used to make recent HISTORY This Week episodes at historythisweekpodcast.com .

July 6, 2026 | 00:22:43 | History, Society & Culture

July, 1845. Dr. Smith Boughton, the man behind the mask of "Big Thunder," is sitting in a Hudson jail after a trial that ended in a hung jury. The Anti-Renters had to celebrate Independence Day with cannon fire and readings of the Declaration, but without their leader. The rebellion across Upstate New York is escalating: an undersheriff with a bully's reputation is terrorizing farm families in the Catskills, masked Calico Indians are massing at rent sales, and before summer's end, a lawman will lie dying in a tenant farmer's bed. New York now has to decide: are these rebels murderers, or is the system they're fighting the real crime? What happens when the Anti-Renters trade their tin horns for the ballot box? And how does a local revolt over rent end up shaping the politics of a nation? Special thanks Reeve Huston, emeritus associate professor of history at Duke University and author of Land and Freedom: Rural Society, Popular Protest, and Party Politics in Antebellum New York ; Victoria Kupchinetsky and Misha Gutkin, director and producer of the film Calico Rebellion ; David Fleming, the town supervisor of Nassau, NY; Nancy Newman, professor at SUNY Albany and author of the book Songs and Sounds of the Anti-Rent Movement in Upstate New York ; and the Association of Public Historians of New York State. You can find all the books we’ve used to make recent HISTORY This Week episodes at historythisweekpodcast.com .

July 3, 2026 | 00:58:23 | History, Society & Culture

Today, to celebrate America's 250th birthday, we have a special announcement: we are launching HISTORY This Week+ to all of our followers! ( historythisweekpodcast.com/subscribe ) This is something we’ve wanted to do for a while… we’ve been listening to your feedback: you don’t love the ads, you want more history. Well, HTW+ solves both of those problems. We are offering two tiers of our premium subscription, allowing you to unlock ad-free listening and gain access to bonus content, especially extended cuts of our interviews. When producing these episodes, the majority of our interview tape is left on the cutting room floor, and our interview with Ken Burns is no exception. We spent over an hour with Ken and his producing partner, Sarah Botstein, discussing the launch of their documentary, The American Revolution . As a preview of what you’ll get with an HTW+ subscription, we’re bringing you this interview in its (mostly) original form. Enjoy Sally’s conversation with Ken and Sarah, and sign up for HTW+ at historythisweekpodcast.com/subscribe . Reach out with any questions at [email protected].

June 29, 2026 | 00:30:08 | History, Society & Culture

July 4, 1839. Sixty-three years after 1776—and centuries after the medieval period—feudalism is alive and well in the United States. High on a rocky plain in upstate New York, a crowd of tenant farmers gathers in the village of Berne to read aloud a declaration of independence… but not the one you're thinking of. These families are still bound to a landlord by perpetual leases their grandfathers signed, owing bushels of wheat and a share of every sale for as long as the land exists. Today they're done. They call their leases "voluntary slavery" and vow to "take up the ball of the Revolution where our fathers stopped it." It's the opening shot of the Anti-Rent War,  a revolt that will pit disguised farmers against sheriffs and posses across the Hudson Valley, and force New York to ask whether a feudal bargain has any place in a republic. How did manor lords survive the Revolution? And what would it finally take to break their grip? Special thanks Reeve Huston, emeritus associate professor of history at Duke University and author of Land and Freedom: Rural Society, Popular Protest, and Party Politics in Antebellum New York ; Victoria Kupchinetsky and Misha Gutkin, director and producer of the film Calico Rebellion ; David Fleming, the town supervisor of Nassau, NY; Nancy Newman, professor at SUNY Albany and author of Songs and Sounds of the Anti-Rent Movement in Upstate New York ; and the Association of Public Historians of New York State. You can find all the books we’ve used to make recent HISTORY This Week episodes at historythisweekpodcast.com .

June 22, 2026 | 00:29:44 | History, Society & Culture

June 28, 1971. It’s the second annual “Unity Day” rally at Columbus Circle in New York City, organized by the Italian American Civil Rights League. Joe Colombo is the very public face of the League, a group that actively fights discrimination and ugly stereotypes against the Italian-American community, such as their association with organized crime and the Mafia. The problem? That same Joe Colombo is a leader of the Mafia, one of the heads of the “Five Families” in New York. It’s an open secret; many people across the city know who he really is, and the FBI is hot on his tail, trying to catch him in the act. On this day, Colombo’s dual life—as a media-facing advocate and as an underground criminal—will come crashing down in a violent display. Special thanks to Don Capria, co-author of Colombo: The Unsolved Murder ; Selwyn Raab, veteran Mafia reporter and author of Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires ; and Geoff Schumacher, vice president of exhibits and programs for The Mob Museum in Las Vegas. You can find all the books we’ve used to make recent HISTORY This Week episodes at historythisweekpodcast.com . **This episode originally aired June 28, 2021.

June 19, 2026 | 00:17:52 | History, Society & Culture

Malcolm Gladwell and President Barack Obama introduce us to one of the most chaotic, complicated, and fascinating times in American history, revealing why Reconstruction still defines our country today. Listen to Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise on Audible, or wherever you get your podcasts. Reconstruction begins where, for most Americans, the story of the Civil War ends: The North is victorious and slavery is abolished. But what happened next was one of the most important decades in American history, a moment when our country grappled with its original sin and imagined — and briefly enacted — a more perfect union. Drawing from archives, letters, diaries, court records, eyewitness testimonies and some of America’s most accomplished scholars and storytellers, Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise explores this unprecedented historical moment in rich, kaleidoscopic detail. The series unpacks a time when a determined band of reformers attempted to radically reimagine American society — from the Constitution to the roots of its economy to the very nature of citizenship itself. Reconstruction was a time when Americans struggled over fundamental questions about our country. Who gets to be a citizen? Who has the right to vote? Who can own property? In short, who belongs? Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise explores what America might have looked like if Reconstruction had truly succeeded, and how the ultimate backlash to Reconstruction prevented our country from becoming a truly multiracial democracy. Guiding us through this extraordinary moment in American history is best-selling author and host of Revisionist History Malcolm Gladwell. He’ll have help from luminaries, historians, and storytellers such as President Barack Obama, Jelani Cobb, Wyatt Cenac, David Blight, Kai Wright, Kellie Carter Jackson, Ashley C. Ford, Manisha Sinha, Kidada Williams, and Eric Foner. This is a series about why America has yet to make good on the promise of Reconstruction, and how it still might. An Audible Original in partnership with History Channel. Produced by Higher Ground and Pushkin Industries.

June 15, 2026 | 00:35:29 | History, Society & Culture

June 15, 1865. German-American statesman Carl Schurz is traveling to Washington to meet with President Andrew Johnson when he stops at a friend’s home in Philadelphia. That night, during a séance, a teenage medium claims to summon the spirit of Abraham Lincoln… and delivers Schurz a mysterious command from beyond the grave. Soon, Johnson sends Schurz on a fact-finding mission through the defeated South. What he discovers will help shape the course of Reconstruction and expose the violence threatening America’s fragile new democracy. Today, Sally speaks with bestselling author and podcaster Malcolm Gladwell about Reconstruction’s forgotten history, the battle over how it has been remembered, and why the questions it raised remain unfinished today. Listen to Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise now on Audible , or anywhere you get your podcasts , starting June 18th. Link: https://lnk.to/reconstructionHW Get in touch: [email protected] Follow on Instagram: @historythisweekpodcast Follow on Facebook: ⁠HISTORY This Week Podcast⁠ To stay updated: http://historythisweekpodcast.com

June 8, 2026 | 00:26:59 | History, Society & Culture

June 8, 1191. The Crusaders and Muslim forces are locked in battle over the city of Acre. On one side is Saladin, the great Muslim leader who has already recaptured Jerusalem. On the other, an armada arrives carrying England’s king: Richard the Lionheart. The Crusades will become one of the defining conflicts of the Middle Ages. But for centuries, their history fades into legend… until a Scottish writer named Walter Scott brings them roaring back. His novels turn knights, tournaments, and holy war into blockbuster entertainment. But Scott’s message was more complicated than simple nostalgia: he saw the Crusades as reckless, violent, and hollow. His readers mostly saw the armor. How did a Scottish poet revive this religious war and turn it into an international phenomenon? And how did his underlying message get lost, warped, and then repurposed to justify even more violence? Special thanks to Ian Duncan,  professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of Scott's Shadow: The Novel in Romantic Edinburgh . You can find the rest of the books we used to research this episode at historythisweekpodcast.com . Get in touch: [email protected] Follow on Instagram: @historythisweekpodcast Follow on Facebook: ⁠HISTORY This Week Podcast⁠ To stay updated: http://historythisweekpodcast.com