To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we've re-recorded an episode from season 1 entitled "Their Safety and Happiness," which looks at the historical and philosophical roots of the document.

We hope you all have a happy Independence Day!

Winston Churchill's insights into the Second World War's outbreak are a fascinating combination of prediction and justification. He knew Germany was a threat, but his postwar memoirs also include knowledge learned during and after the conflict that make it difficult for historians to judge how much he knew as Hitler rose to power. In this episode, Joe asks about how the war could have been prevented and what Churchill knew, and when he knew it.

Join us every Thursday this summer for pop quizzes, and on Mondays for rebroadcast episodes!

How did the Central Intelligence Agency both flourish and decline during the Cold War? What effects did both the Suez Crisis and Hungarian Revolution have on the wider world? And how might the world look different in a few years now that the post-Cold War international order is breaking down?

Welcome back to Sketches in History! This segment, just for kids, shows that history isn't just a story; it's an adventure. Join Lottie Archer as she dives into her extraordinary notebook, where sketches from history come to life!

In this episode, Lottie finds a torn piece of paper tucked beneath a heavy book on her grandfather's desk: a handwritten note in small, slanted pencil, with no name and no date, just two sentences and a small drawing that looks like a sun, or maybe a star. In this episode, your kids will discover what it looks like when an entire country decides it is done being afraid, why students with a piece of paper and a list of sixteen demands can change the sound of a city street, and what sovereignty really means when you tear a symbol out of your own flag because it was never yours to begin with.

Listen and subscribe to the 15-Minute History podcast to hear Sketches in History every other Thursday. Got a favorite historical moment? Share it with us at [email protected], and it might just make its way into the notebook!

Presidents have always had to balance economic costs with national security. In the 1950s, Dwight Eisenhower took what he called a "new look" at defense policy, which made fundamental changes to how the United States confronted worldwide threats--and had dramatic consequences for allies, enemies, and innocent bystanders.

Join us every Monday for episodes and discussions, and on Thursdays for pop quizzes and Sketches in History!

How close has America actually come to falling apart? Not in the way politicians throw the word "crisis" around today, but in real, documented, military-was-deployed, states-were-leaving moments. In this Pop Quiz episode, Jon walks through the moments that nearly broke the republic, what these moments had in common, and the one thread that kept pulling us back from the edge each time.

Join us every Thursday for pop quizzes and Sketches in History!

In today's episode, Joe and Jon discuss King Henry VIII's "Great Debasement" (which has nothing to do with his palace's root cellar) and how it shaped our understanding of monetary policy.

Join us as we discuss the trial of Alger Hiss, why Whittaker Chambers became disillusioned with communism, the Rosenbergs, and the effects of the Red Scare on American society.

Join us every Monday for episodes and discussions and on Thursdays for pop quizzes and Sketches in History!

Welcome back to Sketches in History! This segment, just for kids, shows that history isn't just a story; it's an adventure. Join Lottie Archer as she dives into her extraordinary notebook, where sketches from history come to life!

In this episode, Lottie finds two things tucked beneath the lamp on her grandfather's desk: a folded newspaper with the headline HISS CONVICTED OF PERJURY and a black-and-white photograph of two men in suits at a table full of microphones, both of them looking like they've been sitting there a very long time. In this episode, your kids will discover what it means to stand up in front of a whole country and say something no one expects to hear, why the question of who is telling the truth can outlast a courtroom verdict, and how the word "testimony" can carry more weight than almost any other word in history.

Listen and subscribe to the 15-Minute History podcast to hear Sketches in History every other Thursday. Got a favorite historical moment? Share it with us at [email protected], and it might just make its way into the notebook!

It is August 3, 1948, and a former Communist Party member named Whittaker Chambers walks into a House committee room in Washington, D.C., and says something that no one in the room ever expected to hear.

Alger Hiss is a spy. Hiss was not some offhand bureaucrat. He had helped organize the United Nations and attended Yalta. He had been, for much of the 1940s, one of the most respected foreign policy figures in the American government: Harvard-educated, polished, and credentialed, exactly the kind of man that postwar Washington was built by. The question of who was telling the truth would consume the country for years and leave damage that ran in both directions.

Join us every Monday for episodes and discussions and on Thursdays for pop quizzes and Sketches in History!