This week on History Happy Hour: We'll examine the most transformative year in American history -- when a battered nation would emerge from the Great Depression and reinvent itself under the skilled leadership of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But that’s only one thing that happened in a year cram-packed with fascinating characters and happenings.

Chris and Rick welcome is Scott Martelle, author of the brand-new book 1932: FDR, Hoover and the Dawn of a New America.

Scott Martelle is a former Los Angeles Times staff writer and member of the editorial board. He also is the author of six nonfiction books on such disparate subjects as the Ludlow Massacre and 1913-14 Colorado coalfield war, the history of Detroit, and William Walker, the pre-Civil War American adventurer who for a brief time made himself president of Nicaragua.