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Today I speak with Eric Jay Dolin about his recent book Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution. **If you would like to listen to Eric's previous appearances on Can't Make This Up, listen to Black Flags, Blue Waters and A Furious Sky. "The heroic story of the founding of the U.S. Navy during the Revolution has been told many times, yet largely missing from maritime histories of America’s first war is the ragtag fleet of private vessels that truly revealed the new nation’s character―above all, its ambition and entrepreneurial ethos. In Rebels at Sea, best-selling historian Eric Jay Dolin corrects that significant omission, and contends that privateers, as they were called, were in fact critical to the American victory. Privateers were privately owned vessels, mostly refitted merchant ships, that were granted permission by the new government to seize British merchantmen and men of war. As Dolin stirringly demonstrates, at a time when the young Continental Navy numbered no more than about sixty vessels all told, privateers rushed to fill the gaps. Nearly 2,000 set sail over the course of the war, with tens of thousands of Americans serving on them and capturing some 1,800 British ships. Privateers came in all shapes and sizes, from twenty-five foot long whaleboats to full-rigged ships more than 100 feet long. Bristling with cannons, swivel guns, muskets, and pikes, they tormented their foes on the broad Atlantic and in bays and harbors on both sides of the ocean. The men who owned the ships, as well as their captains and crew, would divide the profits of a successful cruise―and suffer all the more if their ship was captured or sunk, with privateersmen facing hellish conditions on British prison hulks, where they were treated not as enemy combatants but as pirates. Some Americans viewed them similarly, as cynical opportunists whose only aim was loot. Yet Dolin shows that privateersmen were as patriotic as their fellow Americans, and moreover that they greatly contributed to the war’s success: diverting critical British resources to protecting their shipping, playing a key role in bringing France into the war on the side of the United States, providing much-needed supplies at home, and bolstering the new nation’s confidence that it might actually defeat the most powerful military force in the world. Creating an entirely new pantheon of Revolutionary heroes, Dolin reclaims such forgotten privateersmen as Captain Jonathan Haraden and Offin Boardman, putting their exploits, and sacrifices, at the very center of the conflict. Abounding in tales of daring maneuvers and deadly encounters, Rebels at Sea presents this nation’s first war as we have rarely seen it before." If you would like to help Can't Make This Up (and check out some cool extras), consider becoming a supporter of the podcast on Patreon! Like the podcast? Please subscribe and leave a review! Follow @CMTUHistory on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & TikTok --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cmtuhistory/support

Today I speak with Dean Jobb about his recent book The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream: The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer. **If you would like to listen to Dean's previous appearances on Can't Make This Up, listen to Empire of Deception and Daring, Devious & Deadly. "When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals,” Sherlock Holmes observed during one of his most baffling investigations. “He has nerve and he has knowledge.” In the span of fifteen years, Dr. Thomas Neill Cream murdered as many as ten people in the United States, Britain, and Canada, a death toll with almost no precedent. Poison was his weapon of choice. Largely forgotten today, this villain was as brazen as the notorious Jack the Ripper. Structured around the doctor’s London murder trial in 1892, when he was finally brought to justice, The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream exposes the blind trust given to medical practitioners, as well as the flawed detection methods, bungled investigations, corrupt officials, and stifling morality of Victorian society that allowed Dr. Cream to prey on vulnerable and desperate women, many of whom had turned to him for medical help. Dean Jobb transports readers to the late nineteenth century as Scotland Yard traces Dr. Cream’s life through Canada and Chicago and finally to London, where new investigative tools called forensics were just coming into use, even as most police departments still scoffed at using science to solve crimes. But then, most investigators could hardly imagine that serial killers existed—the term was unknown. As the Chicago Tribune wrote, Dr. Cream’s crimes marked the emergence of a new breed of killer: one who operated without motive or remorse, who “murdered simply for the sake of murder.” For fans of Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City, all things Sherlock Holmes, or the podcast My Favorite Murder, The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream is an unforgettable true crime story from a master of the genre" Dean Jobb is an author, journalist, and member of the faculty of the MFA in Creative Nonfiction program at the University of King’s College in Halifax. His latest book, The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream (Algonquin Books and HarperCollins Canada) won the inaugural CrimeCon Clue Award for True Crime Book of the Year and was longlisted for the American Library Association’s Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. Empire of Deception, his previous book, the true story of a 1920s Chicago swindler, won the Crime Writers of Canada nonfiction award and was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize, Canada’s top award for nonfiction. He writes a monthly column on true crime for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and reviews books for The Irish Times and other publications. If you would like to help Can't Make This Up (and check out some cool extras), consider becoming a supporter of the podcast on Patreon! Like the podcast? Please subscribe and leave a review! Follow @CMTUHistory on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & TikTok --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cmtuhistory/support

First time little guest Ellis gives us a crash course on dinosaurs and Jurassic World. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cmtuhistory/support

Returning guest Natalie is back to share her thoughts on UFOs and to fangirl over Queen Elizabeth II. Your Majesty, if you’re listening we’re on Twitter @CMTUHistory! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cmtuhistory/support

Today I speak with Sarah Scoles about her new book They Are Already Here: UFO Culture and Why We See Saucers.  "An anthropological look at the UFO community, told through first-person experiences with researchers in their element as they pursue what they see as a solvable mystery—both terrestrial and cosmic.  More than half a century since Roswell, UFOs have been making headlines once again. On December 17, 2017, the New York Times ran a front-page story about an approximately five-year Pentagon program called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. The article hinted, and its sources clearly said in subsequent television interviews, that some of the ships in question couldn’t be linked to any country. The implication, of course, was that they might be linked to other solar systems.  The UFO community—those who had been thinking about, seeing, and analyzing supposed flying saucers (or triangles or chevrons) for years—was surprisingly skeptical of the revelation. Their incredulity and doubt rippled across the internet. Many of the people most invested in UFO reality weren’t really buying it. And as Scoles did her own digging, she ventured to dark, conspiracy-filled corners of the internet, to a former paranormal research center in Utah, and to the hallways of the Pentagon.  In They Are Already Here we meet the bigwigs, the scrappy upstarts, the field investigators, the rational people, and the unhinged kooks of this sprawling community. How do they interact with each other? How do they interact with “anomalous phenomena”? And how do they (as any group must) reflect the politics and culture of the larger world around them?  We will travel along the Extraterrestrial Highway (next to Area 51) and visit the UFO Watchtower, where seeking lights in the sky is more of a spiritual quest than a “gotcha” one. We meet someone who, for a while, believes they may have communicated with aliens. Where do these alleged encounters stem from? What are the emotional effects on the experiencers? Funny and colorful, and told in a way that doesn’t require one to believe, Scoles brings humanity to an often derided and misunderstood community. After all, the truth is out there . . ."  Sarah Scoles is a science writer whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Slate, Smithsonian, the Washington Post, Scientific American, Popular Science, Discover, New Scientist, Aeon, and Wired. A former editor at Astronomy magazine, Scoles worked at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the location of the first-ever SETI project. She lives in Denver, Colorado.  Want to listen to new episodes a week earlier and get exclusive bonus content? Consider becoming a supporter of the podcast on Patreon! Like the podcast? Please subscribe and leave a review! Follow @CMTUHistory on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & TikTok --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cmtuhistory/support

Today I speak with Michael Fabey about his new book Heavy Metal: The Hard Days and Nights of the Shipyard Workers Who Build America's Supercarriers. "An extraordinary story of American can-do, an inside look at the building of the most dangerous aircraft carrier in the world, the John F. Kennedy. Tip the Empire State Building onto its side and you’ll have a sense of the length of the United States Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, the most powerful in the world: the USS John F. Kennedy. Weighing 100,000 tons, Kennedy features the most futuristic technology ever put to sea, making it the most agile and lethal global weapon of war. Only one place possesses the brawn, brains and brass to transform naval warfare with such a creation – the Newport News Shipbuilding yard in Virginia and its 30,000 employees and shipyard workers. This is their story, the riggers, fitters, welders, electricians, machinists and other steelworkers who built the next-generation aircraft carrier. Heavy Metal puts us on the waterfront and into the lives of these men and women as they battle layoffs, the elements, impossible deadlines, extraordinary pressure, workplace dangers and a pandemic to complete a ship that will be essential to protect America’s way of life. The city of Newport News owes its very existence to the company that bears its name. The shipyard dominates the town—physically, politically, financially, socially, and culturally. Thanks to the yard, the city grew from a backwater to be the home of the premier naval contractor in the United States. Heavy Metal captures an indelible moment in the history of a shipyard, a city, and a country." Michael Fabey has reported on military and naval affairs for most of his career. In his work for National Geographic Traveler, the Economist Group, Defense News, Aviation Week, and Janes, he has collected more than two dozen reporting awards, including the prestigious Timothy White Award. Few journalists have had as much firsthand experience of America’s naval ships and aircraft and the officers who command them. He is the author of Crashback: The Power Clash Between the US and China in the Pacific. A Philadelphia native, he currently resides in Spotsylvania, Virginia. Want to listen to new episodes a week earlier and get exclusive bonus content? Consider becoming a supporter of the podcast on Patreon! Like the podcast? Please subscribe and leave a review! Follow @CMTUHistory on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & TikTok --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cmtuhistory/support

Today I speak with Lucy Ward about her new book The Empress and the English Doctor: How Catherine the Great Defied a Deadly Virus. "A killer virus…an all-powerful Empress…an encounter cloaked in secrecy…the astonishing true story. Within living memory, smallpox was a dreaded disease. Over human history it has killed untold millions. Back in the eighteenth century, as epidemics swept Europe, the first rumours emerged of an effective treatment: a mysterious method called inoculation. But a key problem remained: convincing people to accept the preventative remedy, the forerunner of vaccination. Arguments raged over risks and benefits, and public resistance ran high. As smallpox ravaged her empire and threatened her court, Catherine the Great took the momentous decision to summon the Quaker physician Thomas Dimsdale to St Petersburg to carry out a secret mission that would transform both their lives. Lucy Ward expertly unveils the extraordinary story of Enlightenment ideals, female leadership and the fight to promote science over superstition." Lucy Ward is a writer and former journalist for the Guardian and Independent. As a Westminster Lobby correspondent, she campaigned for greater women’s representation. From 2010–12, she lived with her family in Moscow, renewing her interest in Russian history. After growing up in Manchester, she studied Early and Middle English at Balliol College, Oxford. She now lives in Essex. Want to listen to new episodes a week earlier and get exclusive bonus content? Consider becoming a supporter of the podcast on Patreon! Like the podcast? Please subscribe and leave a review! Follow @CMTUHistory on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & TikTok --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cmtuhistory/support

Today I speak with Paul Craddock about his new book Spare Parts: The Story of Medicine Through the History of Transplant Surgery. "Paul Craddock's Spare Parts offers an original look at the history of medicine itself through the rich, compelling, and delightfully macabre story of transplant surgery from ancient times to the present day. How did an architect help pioneer blood transfusion in the 1660's? Why did eighteenth-century dentists buy the live teeth of poor children? And what role did a sausage skin and an enamel bath play in making kidney transplants a reality? We think of transplant surgery as one of the medical wonders of the modern world. But transplant surgery is as ancient as the pyramids, with a history more surprising than we might expect. Paul Craddock takes us on a journey - from sixteenth-century skin grafting to contemporary stem cell transplants - uncovering stories of operations performed by unexpected people in unexpected places. Bringing together philosophy, science and cultural history, Spare Parts explores how transplant surgery constantly tested the boundaries between human, animal, and machine, and continues to do so today. Witty, entertaining, and illuminating, Spare Parts shows us that the history - and future - of transplant surgery is tied up with questions about not only who we are, but also what we are, and what we might become." Paul Craddock is Honorary Senior Research Associate in the Division of Surgery and Interventional Sciences at UCL Medical School in London. His PhD explored how transplants have for centuries invited reflection on human identity, a subject on which he has also lectured internationally. Spare Parts is his first book. Visit his website at https://paulcraddock.com/  Want to listen to new episodes a week earlier and get exclusive bonus content? Consider becoming a supporter of the podcast on Patreon! Like the podcast? Please subscribe and leave a review! Follow @CMTUHistory on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & TikTok --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cmtuhistory/support

Today I speak with bestselling author Boyd Morrison and medieval historian Beth Morrison, PhD., about their new historical fiction novel The Lawless Land.  "Live by the sword. Die for the truth. England, 1351. The Pestilence has ravaged the land. Villages lie abandoned but for crows and corpses. Highways are patrolled by marauders and murderers. In these dark and dangerous times, the wise keep to themselves. But Gerard Fox cannot afford to be wise. The young knight has been robbed of his ancestral home, his family name tarnished. To regain his lands and reputation, he sets forth to petition the one man who can restore them. Fate places Fox on the wrong road at the wrong time as he hurtles towards a chance encounter. It will entangle him with an enigmatic woman, a relic of incalculable value, and a dark family secret. It will lead him far from home and set him on a collision course with one of the most ambitious and dangerous men in Europe – a man on the cusp of seizing Christendom's highest office. And now, Fox is the only one standing in his way..."  Want to listen to new episodes a week earlier and get exclusive bonus content? Consider becoming a supporter of the podcast on Patreon! Like the podcast? Please subscribe and leave a review! Follow @CMTUHistory on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & TikTok --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cmtuhistory/support

Today I speak with James Carl Nelson about his book, The York Patrol: The Real Story of Alvin York and the Unsung Heroes Who Made Him World War I's Most Famous Soldier. "October 8, 1918 was a banner day for heroes of the American Expeditionary Force. Thirteen men performed heroic deeds that would earn them Medals of Honor. Of this group, one man emerged as the single greatest American hero of the Great War: Alvin Cullum York. A poor young farmer from Tennessee, Sergeant York was said to have single-handedly killed two dozen Germans and captured another 132 of the enemy plus thirty-five machine guns before noon on that fateful Day of Valor. York would become an American legend, celebrated in magazines, books, and a blockbuster biopic starring Gary Cooper. The film, Sergeant York, told of a hell-raiser from backwoods Tennessee who had a come-to-Jesus moment, then wrestled with his newfound Christian convictions to become one of the greatest heroes the U.S. Army had ever known. It was a great story—but not the whole story. In this absorbing history, James Carl Nelson unspools, for the first time, the complete story of Alvin York and the events that occurred in the Argonne Forest on that day. Nelson gives voice, in particular, to the sixteen “others” who fought beside York. Hailing from big cities and small towns across the U.S. as well as several foreign countries, these soldiers included a patrician Connecticut farmer whose lineage could be traced back to the American Revolution, a poor runaway from Massachusetts who joined the Army under a false name, and a Polish immigrant who enlisted in hopes of expediting his citizenship. The York Patrol shines a long overdue spotlight on these men and York, and pays homage to their bravery and sacrifice." Check out James Carl Nelson's first appearance on CMTU in June 2019 where we discussed his book The Polar Bear Expedition! Want to listen to new episodes a week earlier and get exclusive bonus content? Consider becoming a supporter of the podcast on Patreon! Like the podcast? Please subscribe and leave a review! Follow @CMTUHistory on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & TikTok --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cmtuhistory/support

"The Transcendentalists and Their World offers a fresh view of the thinkers whose outsize impact on philosophy and literature would spread from tiny Concord to all corners of the earth. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the Alcotts called this New England town home, and Thoreau drew on its life extensively in his classic Walden. But Concord from the 1820s through the 1840s was no pastoral place fit for poets and philosophers. The Transcendentalists and their neighbors lived through a transformative epoch of American life. A place of two thousand–plus souls in the antebellum era, Concord was a community in ferment, whose small, ordered society founded by Puritans and defended by Minutemen was dramatically unsettled through the expansive forces of capitalism and democracy and tightly integrated into the wider world. These changes challenged a world of inherited institutions and involuntary associations with a new premium on autonomy and choice. They exposed people to cosmopolitan currents of thought and endowed them with unparalleled opportunities. They fostered uncertainties, raised new hopes, stirred dreams of perfection, and created an audience for new ideas of individual freedom and democratic equality deeply resonant today. The Transcendentalists and Their World is both an intimate journey into the life of a community and a searching cultural study of major American writers as they plumbed the depths of the universe for spiritual truths and surveyed the rapidly changing contours of their own neighborhoods. It shows us familiar figures in American literature alongside their neighbors at every level of the social order, and it reveals how this common life in Concord entered powerfully into their works. No American community of the nineteenth century has been recovered so richly and with so acute an awareness of its place in the larger American story. Robert A. Gross is the James L. and Shirley A. Draper Professor of Early American History Emeritus at the University of Connecticut. He is the author of The Minutemen and Their World (1976), which won the Bancroft Prize, and of Books and Libraries in Thoreau’s Concord (1988); with Mary Kelley, he is the coeditor of An Extensive Republic: Print, Culture, and Society in the New Nation, 1790–1840 (2010). A former assistant editor of Newsweek, he has written for such periodicals as Esquire, Harper’s Magazine, The Boston Globe, and The New York Times, and his essays have appeared in The American Scholar, The New England Quarterly, Raritan, and The Yale Review. His most recent book is The Transcendentalists and Their World (2021)." Want to listen to new episodes a week earlier and get exclusive bonus content? Consider becoming a supporter of the podcast on Patreon! Like the podcast? Please subscribe and leave a review! Follow @CMTUHistory on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & TikTok --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cmtuhistory/support

Today I speak with Rosemary J. Brown about her new book Following Nellie Bly: Her Record-Breaking Race Around the World. "Intrepid journalist Nellie Bly raced through a ‘man’s world’ — alone and literally with just the clothes on her back — to beat the fictional record set by Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days. She won the race on 25 January 1890, covering 21,740 miles by ocean liner and train in 72 days, and became a global celebrity. Although best known for her record-breaking journey, even more importantly Nellie Bly pioneered investigative journalism and paved the way for women in the newsroom. Her undercover reporting, advocacy for women's rights, crusades for vulnerable children, campaigns against oppression and steadfast conviction that 'nothing is impossible' makes the world that she circled a better place. Adventurer, journalist and author, Rosemary J Brown, set off 125 years later to retrace Nellie Bly’s footsteps in an expedition registered with the Royal Geographical Society. Through her recreation of that epic global journey, she brings to life Nellie Bly’s remarkable achievements and shines a light on one of the world's greatest female adventurers and a forgotten heroine of history." Rosemary J Brown is a journalist for newspapers and magazines in the UK, USA and France. An avid traveller, she is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Churchill Fellow. In her quest to put female adventurers 'back on the map' she speaks at the Globetrotters Club, Women of the World festivals and schools, and helped to organise The Heritage of Women in Exploration conference at the Royal Geographical Society. Want to listen to new episodes a week earlier and get exclusive bonus content? Consider becoming a supporter of the podcast on Patreon! Like the podcast? Please subscribe and leave a review! Follow @CMTUHistory on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & TikTok --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cmtuhistory/support

Today, I speak with Laurence Bergreen about his book In Search of a Kingdom: Francis Drake, Elizabeth I, and the Perilous Birth of the British Empire. "Before he was secretly dispatched by Queen Elizabeth to circumnavigate the globe, or was called upon to save England from the Spanish Armada, Francis Drake was perhaps the most wanted—and successful—pirate ever to sail. Nicknamed “El Draque” by the Spaniards who placed a bounty on his head, the notorious red-haired, hot-tempered Drake pillaged galleons laden with New World gold and silver, stealing a vast fortune for his queen—and himself. For Elizabeth, Drake made the impossible real, serving as a crucial and brilliantly adaptable instrument of her ambitions to transform England from a third-rate island kingdom into a global imperial power. In 1580, sailing on Elizabeth’s covert orders, Drake became the first captain to circumnavigate the earth successfully. (Ferdinand Magellan had died in his attempt.) Part exploring expedition, part raiding mission, Drake’s audacious around-the-world journey in the Golden Hind reached Patagonia, the Pacific Coast of present-day California and Oregon, the Spice Islands, Java, and Africa. Almost a decade later, Elizabeth called upon Drake again. As the devil-may-care vice admiral of the English fleet, Drake dramatically defeated the once-invincible Spanish Armada, spurring the British Empire’s ascent and permanently wounding its greatest rival.  The relationship between Drake and Elizabeth is the missing link in our understanding of the rise of the British Empire, and its importance has not been fully described or appreciated. Framed around Drake’s key voyages as a window into this crucial moment in British history, In Search of a Kingdom is a rousing adventure narrative entwining epic historical themes with intimate passions." Laurence Bergreen is the bestselling author of Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe. His other books include Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492–1504; Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu; and Voyage to Mars: NASA’s Search for Life Beyond Earth. A graduate of Harvard, Bergreen lives in Manhattan.  For more information about Laurence, visit www.laurencebergreen.com Want to listen to new episodes a week earlier and get exclusive bonus content? Consider becoming a supporter of the podcast on Patreon! Like the podcast? Please subscribe and leave a review! Follow @CMTUHistory on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & TikTok --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cmtuhistory/support

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My guest today is Julia Cooke who joins me to discuss her new book Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan-Am. "Required to have a college education, speak two languages, and possess the political savvy of a Foreign Service officer, a jet-age stewardess serving on iconic Pan Am between 1966 and 1975 also had to be between 5′3" and 5′9", between 105 and 140 pounds, and under 26 years of age at the time of hire. Cooke’s intimate storytelling weaves together the real-life stories of a memorable cast of characters, from small-town girl Lynne Totten, a science major who decided life in a lab was not for her, to Hazel Bowie, one of the relatively few Black stewardesses of the era, as they embraced the liberation of their new jet-set life. Cooke brings to light the story of Pan Am stewardesses’ role in the Vietnam War, as the airline added runs from Saigon to Hong Kong for planeloads of weary young soldiers straight from the battlefields, who were off for five days of R&R, and then flown back to war. Finally, with Operation Babylift—the dramatic evacuation of 2,000 children during the fall of Saigon—the book’s special cast of stewardesses unites to play an extraordinary role on the world stage." Julia Cooke's essays have been published in A Public Space, Salon, The Threepenny Review, Smithsonian, Tin House, and Virginia Quarterly Review, where she is a contributing editor. She holds an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and an MFA from Columbia University. Come Fly the World is her second book. Please consider supporting the podcast by becoming a Patron and gain access to bonus content - www.patreon.com/CMTUHistory. Twitter -  Facebook - Instagram - TikTok This podcast is part of Straight Up Strange Productions. Check out www.straightupstrange.com for more shows like this one.  --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cmtuhistory/support

Today, I speak with Michael Gerhardt about his book Lincoln's Mentors. In national polling among presidential historians (as well as among the general public), Abraham Lincoln consistently ranks in the top two greatest presidents in American history. As his leadership preserved the Union during its most pressing hour, this praise is well deserved. But how did Lincoln become such a good leader? Was he simply born that way or was it something he learned? My guest today is Michael Gerhardt is the Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law. One of the nation's most respected authorities on the Constitution, Michael has been called upon to testify before both chambers of Congress to offer his expertise on constitutional issues, including the impeachment proceedings for Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, as well as during the nomination hearings for several Supreme Court Justices. He is the author of the brand new book "Lincoln's Mentors: The Education of a Leader" in which he argues that it was Lincoln's dispassionate ability to learn from other people in his life that built him into the great president history remembers today. In this episode, Michael and I walk through five prominent figures from Abraham Lincoln's life, ranging from political figures to personal friends, whom Lincoln seemed to learn a great deal from and allowed to influence his leadership style. Please consider supporting the podcast by becoming a Patron and gain access to bonus content - www.patreon.com/CMTUHistory. Twitter -  Facebook - Instagram This podcast is part of Straight Up Strange Productions. Check out www.straightupstrange.com for more shows like this one.  --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cmtuhistory/support

You have likely heard the story before: "Mrs. O'Leary's cow knocked over a lantern and started the Great Chicago Fire." While the Great Fire was a real disaster that occurred in October, 1871, we remember it much like a quaint American folk tale. To add a little clarity to this famous event, I am joined by Carl Smith, Emeritus Professor of History, English, and American Studies at Northwestern University, to talk about his recent book, "Chicago's Great Fire: The Destruction and Resurrection of an Iconic American City." During our time together, Carl and I discuss what made Chicago one of America's largest cities in the 19th century, the status of fire safety in urban areas at the time, the tragic events that unfolded over a three day period in 1871, and how Chicago's resolve led to the city being resurrected. Want to listen to new episodes a week earlier and get exclusive bonus content? Consider becoming a supporter of the podcast on Patreon! Like the podcast? Please subscribe and leave a review! Follow @CMTUHistory on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & TikTok   --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cmtuhistory/support

Today I speak with A'Lelia Bundles about her book On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam CJ Walker In 1867, Sarah Breedlove was the first in her family to be born into freedom after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation had abolished slavery four years earlier. It is doubtful that any of her family could have guessed the remarkable course her life would take. Sarah came of age working as a domestic servant and a washerwoman. But she had far grander dreams and was determined her young daughter would receive a formal education. So she became an entrepreneur and developed her own haircare product. Ultimately, she became Madam C.J. Walker, owner of a successful company that employed thousands of women, a philanthropist, a social activist, and the first woman to become a millionaire.    Today, I am joined by Madam C.J. Walker's biographer and great-great-granddaughter, A'Lelia Bundles to discuss her book, "On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker." Before becoming a historian, A'Lelia had a 30-year career in journalism as an Emmy Award-winning producer for ABC News and NBC News. "On her Own Ground" has received numerous awards since its publication in 2001 and was adapted into the 4-part fictionalized miniseries by Netflix in 2020 titled "Self-Made" starring Octavia Spencer. Today, A'Lelia and I discuss what made her great-great-grandmother such a successful businesswoman, how she engaged with her contemporaries in the emerging civil rights movement like Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, and Ida B. Wells, and how her legacy is remembered today. For more information about A'Lelia Bundles' research visit: www.aleliabundles.com and www.madamcjwalker.com Want to listen to new episodes a week earlier and get exclusive bonus content? Consider becoming a supporter of the podcast on Patreon! Like the podcast? Please subscribe and leave a review! Follow @CMTUHistory on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & TikTok --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cmtuhistory/support

There is something about the Old West that calls to the American heart. There is something about life on the wild frontier that is still compelling a century and a half later.  Maybe its all the Louis L'Amour novels and Clint Eastwood movies that romanticize the cowboy era in popular culture.  One legendary town that has become synonymous with the Old West is Tombstone. My guest today is bestselling author Tom Clavin who joins me talk about his book "Tombstone: The Earp Brothers, Doc Holliday, and the Vendetta Ride from Hell." Today Tom and I unpack the story of a frontier boomtown that is so much more than its famous shootout at the O.K. Corral. We discuss the first settlement of Arizona Territory, the lives of the Earp Brothers and Doc Holliday, what frontier law looked like, and how Tombstone was caught up in the transition from the chaotic Old West to the more orderly New West. Want to listen to new episodes a week earlier and get exclusive bonus content? Consider becoming a supporter of the podcast on Patreon! Like the podcast? Please subscribe and leave a review! Follow @CMTUHistory on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & TikTok --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cmtuhistory/support

After what has definitely become an election for the history books, ideas like the peaceful transfer of power, the Constitution, democracy, voting rights, representation, and the separation of powers are on everyone's minds. These are the fundamentals that form our government and they were placed there by our nation's Founders. Well, where did the Founders get these ideas? What books were they reading? What were they thinking about? What were they discussing amongst themselves as they decided to forge a new country? My guest today has immersed himself in the intellectual world of the late 18th century in order to think long and hard about these questions. Thomas E. Ricks was a journalist for twenty years during which time his reporting won two Pulitzer Prizes. Tom joins me to discuss his new, timely book, "First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Roman and How That Shaped Our Country." Tom and I discuss how George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison were well versed in the political and philosophical ideas of the Ancient Greece and Rome and built those concepts into the framework of the American government.   Want to listen to new episodes a week earlier and get exclusive bonus content? Consider becoming a supporter of the podcast on Patreon! Like the podcast? Please subscribe and leave a review! Follow @CMTUHistory on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & TikTok --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cmtuhistory/support