American History Hit

In April 1861, Union forces having lost the first battle of the Civil War, attention turned to the Confederacy's likely next target - Washington DC. Entirely unprepared, the American capital was to be...

President Herbert Hoover is synonymous with failure. As the Great Depression hit, shanty town across America were nicknamed 'Hoovervilles' in honour of the man held responsible for their birth. But th...

In this special episode, Don Wildman is joined by experts Jonathan Alter and Jefferson Cowie to delve into the remarkable life of the 39th president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, who has died at...

When the US turned to Japan for workers in the late 19th Century, they probably never foresaw that one day soon they would imprison those who arrived, their successors, and their families, en masse in...

The shot heard ‘round the world'; the start of the American Revolution. An event that would have profound consequences for world history, especially western democracy. Who’d have thought that somethin...

When fossils were discovered in the US during the 19th Century, it altered American understandings of science, religion, race and more. So what was the Hadrosaurus Foulkii, and why did it have such an...

What makes the ideal gangster hunter? In the 1930s, outlaws like John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Bonnie & Clyde were the scourge on the justice system of the United States. To bring them in, the ...

How did a couple's holiday save Kyoto from certain ruin? How did a landslide contribute to the Revolutionary War? Basically, how have chance encounters and decisions influenced the history of the Unit...

Sworn in after the death of President Harding by the light of a kerosene lamp, the 30th President of the United States led the country through 6 years of the prosperous roaring 1920s. Coolidge polled ...

76 people died on 19th April 1993 when the compound of a religious sect, the Branch Davidians, went up in flames. It had been under siege by government agencies for 51 days, but no one knows what star...