American History Tellers

March 10, 1876. Inventor Alexander Graham Bell makes the first successful telephone call in history, revolutionizing human communication. You can listen ad-free in the Wondery or Amazon Music app. Or...

March 24, 1603. After a reign of 44 years, Queen Elizabeth I of England dies, bringing the Tudor dynasty to an end. You can listen ad-free in the Wondery or Amazon Music app. Or for all that and more...

April 7, 1739. In York, England, the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin is hanged for stealing horses. You can listen ad-free in the Wondery or Amazon Music app. Or for all that and more, go to IntoHist...

In the spring of 1865, with the Civil War finally over, American lawmakers began to debate whether Black soldiers would have a permanent place in the peacetime Army. Some 180,000 Black men had fought ...

In May 1870, James Webster Smith arrived in West Point, New York, in the hopes of becoming the first Black cadet to attend the U.S. Military Academy. While facing West Point’s famously difficult curri...

On an April morning in 1880, West Point cadet Johnson Chestnut Whittaker failed to appear at 6 a.m. roll call. He had endured continuous abuse from his white classmates and was found unconscious and b...

Between 1870 and 1899, only twelve Black cadets were admitted to the US military academy at West Point, and of those twelve, only three went on to graduate. Of the Black cadets who persevered, all fac...

February 10, 1972. When his music career begins to stagnate, David Bowie reinvents himself with an alien alter-ego he names Ziggy Stardust. You can listen ad-free in the Wondery or Amazon Music app. O...

February 24, 1739. The Persian leader Nader Shah wins a decisive victory in India at the Battle of Karnal. The fallout from the battle shatters the Mughal Empire, leaving the sub-continent vulnerable ...

In the winter of 1846, Irish immigrants in America began to hear troubling news from their home country: a potato famine was ravaging the countryside and driving desperate farmers and families into th...