American History Tellers

Before the Wright Brothers made their historic flight at Kitty Hawk in December 1903, other air enthusiasts had tried to find the answer to powered, controlled human flight. And once Wilbur and Orvill...

January 13, 1842. William Brydon is the last man standing after a disastrous British army retreat during the First Anglo-Afghan War. You can listen ad-free in the Wondery or Amazon Music app. Or for a...

January 27, 1944. Soviet forces defeat the German army outside Leningrad, ending an 872-day siege. You can listen ad-free in the Wondery or Amazon Music app. Or for all that and more, go to IntoHisto...

On January 15, 1919 a giant storage tank holding more than two million gallons of molasses collapsed, sending a deadly wave crashing into the streets of Boston’s busy North End. The flood was over in ...

December 30, 1941. In a rousing speech to the Canadian Parliament, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill celebrates his success in holding off Nazi Germany in the Battle of Britain and the Blitz. Y...

Great Britain and the United States have always enjoyed a special bond, and nowhere has that been more evident than in the friendship between President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Prime Minister Win...

In October 1860, railroad engineer Theodore Judah looked out across California’s Sierra Nevada range, dreaming of a railroad that would connect the United States from coast to coast. It was the start ...

In the summer of 1863, an unscrupulous businessman named Thomas Durant gained control of the Union Pacific Railroad, the company chartered by Congress to build the transcontinental railroad westward f...

In early 1866, Central Pacific workers were stalled in California, facing the monumental task of blasting 15 tunnels through solid granite in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Thousands of Chinese laborers...

In January 1869, leaders of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific met in Washington, D.C. to discuss the final stretch of construction. For years, the two railroads had been advancing toward each othe...