American History Tellers

By Wondery

Society & Culture History Kids & Family

What's American History Tellers about?

The words you speak. The ideas you share. The freedoms you defend. Every part of your life can be traced to our shared history, but how well do you really know the stories that made America? We’ll take you to the events, the times and the people that shaped our nation and Americans. And we’ll show you how our history affected them, their families and affects you today.

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Billy the Kid | Born to Los...

01.12.2022

Henry McCarty was born in an Irish slum in New York City in 1859. By the time he died from a lawman’s bullet twenty-one years later in New Mexico, he was notorious throughout the world under a different name: Billy ...

American History Tellers episodes:

01.12.2022 Billy the Kid \| Born to Lose \| 1 Henry McCarty was born in an Irish slum in New York City in 1859. By the time he died from a lawman’s bullet twenty-one years later in New Mexico, he was notorious throughout the world under a different name: Billy ...
01.05.2022 Philippine-American War \| The Path to Independence \| 5 The Philippine-American War marked the emergence of America as a global power. But what has been the legacy of the war in the country in which it was fought? How did the war set the stage for Philippine independence, and ...
12.29.2021 Philippine-American War \| Acts of Sedition \| 4 With the war officially over, William Howard Taft took over authority as the Governor of the Philippines. Taft was a deep believer in the U.S. policy of “benevolent assimilation” and turned to schooling and political attraction to draw Filipinos to ...
12.22.2021 Philippine-American War \| A Howling Wilderness \| 3 In March 1901, American forces launched a daring raid to capture the Filipino revolutionary leader Emilio Aguinaldo. Head of U.S. Philippine forces, General Arthur MacArthur, hoped that his surrender would finally break the resistance and bring the war to an ...
12.15.2021 Philippine-American War \| Under the Free Flag \| 2 In 1898, America’s victory over Spanish forces in the Philippines suddenly thrust the United States onto the global stage. It also drew the country into a more complicated conflict with the very people it claimed to be liberating. As the ...
12.08.2021 Philippine-American War \| Into the Jaws of a Dragon \| 1 On February 4th, 1899, war broke out between the United States and the Philippines. The two nations had begun as allies against Spain the previous year, during the Spanish-American War. The Spanish had occupied the Philippines for three centuries, and ...
12.01.2021 Traitors \| Accomplice or Martyr \| 5 Not every case of treason is open and shut. With some accused traitors, questions of their guilt or innocence can linger for generations. That’s certainly the case with Mary Surratt. Even before she was hanged in 1865 for her alleged ...
11.24.2021 Traitors \| Nightmover \| 4 On June 13, 1985, Aldrich Ames packed up six pounds of top secret documents into a plastic bag and walked out the door of the CIA headquarters. He drove to lunch, where he gave the documents to a Soviet diplomat. ...
11.17.2021 Traitors \| The Atomic Spies \| 3 In September 1949, the world was shocked to learn that the Soviet Union had conducted its first nuclear weapons test, just four years after the United States dropped the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. U.S. authorities thought there ...
11.10.2021 Traitors \| The Widow and the Assassin \| 2 On the night of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth stepped into the presidential box at Washington’s Ford’s Theatre, raised a pistol at President Abraham Lincoln, and squeezed the trigger. Lincoln would soon die of his wounds, making him the ...
11.03.2021 Traitors \| Treason of the Blackest Dye \| 1 Early in the Revolutionary War, Major General Benedict Arnold built a reputation as a courageous commander. He was a favorite of George Washington’s. But he also revealed a fragile ego and a penchant for holding grudges. As the war went ...
10.27.2021 Roaring Twenties \| Anxious Decade \| 5 The Roaring 20s are often described as a time of optimism and decadence, teeming with flappers, jazz and bootlegged liquor. It was the decade that birthed modern America. But with that birth came growing tensions over civil rights, the urban-rural ...
10.20.2021 Roaring Twenties \| The Great Crash \| 4 On a misty morning in May 1927, Charles Lindbergh climbed into the cramped cockpit of his single engine plane, The Spirit of St. Louis. After a bumpy taxi and takeoff at a New York runway, he took to the skies, ...
10.13.2021 Roaring Twenties \| How the Money Rolls In \| 3 In 1921, Republican President Warren G. Harding entered the White House, ushering in a new era of conservative government. Harding was elected by Americans yearning for tradition and old-fashioned values. But they put in power one of the most scandal-ridden ...
10.06.2021 Roaring Twenties \| The Age of Jazz \| 2 In the 1920s, Americans moved to the city in droves, and a new, diverse generation sparked an era of dizzying social change. It was the Age of Jazz, a time when Black Americans brought a revolutionary new musical style to ...
09.29.2021 Roaring Twenties \| Rise of the Radicals \| 1 In 1919, American soldiers returned from the battlefields of Europe to face a nation torn apart by a different war. One-fifth of the nation’s workforce put down their tools and went on strike. Anarchists sent deadly bombs in the mail ...
09.22.2021 Encore: National Parks \| Fire and Ice \| 6 Alaska: big, open, frozen and wild. In 1867, the acquisition of Alaska from the Russian Empire was widely derided as “folly.” But early explorers like John Muir saw its potential, and clamored for its preservation in the face of increasing ...
09.15.2021 Encore: National Parks \| Playgrounds of the People \| 5 In 1914, America’s National Parks had a problem: no one was using them. And those few that were faced unmaintained roads, trails strewn with garbage, and a lack of amenities that made it hard for the average American to enjoy ...
09.08.2021 Encore: National Parks \| The Great Disaster \| 4 In the early morning hours of Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the city of San Francisco was torn apart by a huge earthquake and devastating fire. As the city rebuilt, it also sought to ensure that if fire were to strike ...
09.01.2021 Encore: National Parks \| Rough Rider \| 3 Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was atop a mountain when he heard the news: an assassin’s bullet would likely take President McKinley’s life, and make Roosevelt president. Upon his inauguration shortly thereafter, Roosevelt brought his lifelong love of the natural world ...
08.25.2021 Encore: National Parks \| Calling in the Cavalry \| 2 Yellowstone was our nation’s first national park. Its strange, wondrous landscapes were perfect for exploration - and exploitation. Upon Yellowstone’s discovery by white Americans, two races began: one to build a railroad to the park to capture its commercial potential, ...
08.18.2021 Encore: National Parks \| The Business of Nature \| 1 America's national parks are truly among our country's greatest treasures. But many of these beautiful landmarks have ugly pasts. On this series, we’ll explore the often forgotten histories of some of America’s most breathtaking natural wonders, starting with the park ...
08.11.2021 The Fight for the First U.S. Olympics \| Passing the Torch \| 4 The 1904 St. Louis Olympics were marred by controversy and poorly organized events like the marathon. But at least they took place as scheduled. In 1916, after the outbreak of World War I, they were canceled entirely. A century later, ...
08.04.2021 The Fight for the First U.S. Olympics \| The Home Stretch \| 3 In the summer of 1904, the young women of the Fort Shaw Indian School basketball team took the St. Louis Olympics and the World’s Fair by storm with their fast-paced, dynamic play. But could they keep their undefeated record and ...
07.28.2021 The Fight for the First U.S. Olympics \| Let the Games Begin \| 2 In 1904, St. Louis was thrust into the national spotlight, as it played host to both the World’s Fair and America’s first Olympic Games. After a bitter fight over which American city would host, Olympic founder Pierre De Coubertin had ...
07.21.2021 The Fight for the First U.S. Olympics \| A Tale of Two Cities \| 1 In the late 1800s, European fascination with the culture of ancient Greece, and a growing interest in physical education and fitness, led to the idea of resurrecting the Olympic Games of antiquity. A French nobleman named Pierre de Coubertin took ...
07.14.2021 Lost Colony of Roanoke \| Searching for Traces \| 3 The mystery of what became of the first English colonists has baffled historians for centuries. But over the past decade, archaeologists have uncovered some compelling clues, including parts of a 16th century gun, and fragments of English pottery at a ...
07.07.2021 Lost Colony of Roanoke \| The Vanishing \| 2 On April 26, 1587, 117 colonists sailed from England to establish a permanent settlement on the east coast of North America. After a long voyage fraught with storms and spoiled food, they landed on the island of Roanoke, in the ...
06.30.2021 Lost Colony of Roanoke \| In the Name of the Queen \| 1 In the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth the First of England was locked in a battle for global dominance with Spain. She picked her favorite advisor, Walter Raleigh, to claim land in North America. In the coming years, Raleigh’s men made ...
06.25.2021 The Walker Affair \| The Gray-Eyed Man of Destiny \| 1 In the mid-1800s, the United States was a young nation awash with mercenaries, adventurers, and entrepreneurs looking to take advantage of the country’s ever-expanding boundaries. Into this chaotic atmosphere stepped a young lawyer and newspaper editor from Tennessee named William ...
06.23.2021 Encore: Tulsa Race Massacre \| Bearing Witness \| 5 Like many Americans, Anneliese Bruner didn’t hear about the Tulsa Race Massacre growing up. But what made it surprising in her case was that her grandmother and great-grandmother were survivors of the massacre. Still, a conspiracy of silence surrounded the ...
06.16.2021 Encore: Tulsa Race Massacre \| Rebirth \| 4 On June 2, 1921, thousands of black Tulsans interned at the Tulsa Fairgrounds woke under armed guard. Many had no idea where their loved ones were or if they were still alive; they didn’t know whether their homes were still ...
06.09.2021 Encore: Tulsa Race Massacre \| The Invasion \| 3 On the night of Tuesday, May 31, 1921, a violent white mob attacked the prosperous Black neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. As the night progressed, the disorganized mob transformed into something even more deadly: a highly organized force led ...
06.02.2021 Encore: Tulsa Race Massacre \| The Powder Keg \| 2 As Black teenager Dick Rowland sat in a jail cell at the Tulsa courthouse, news of his arrest flew through the town. Egged on by rumors about his alleged rape of white teenager Sarah Page, a white mob bent on ...
05.26.2021 Encore: Tulsa Race Massacre \| The Promised Land \| 1 In 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma boasted one of the nation’s most prosperous African-American communities. Greenwood was home to 108 Black-owned businesses, two theaters, 15 physicians, two newspapers, and a luxury hotel. It was nicknamed “the Black Wall Street.” Then, on May ...
05.19.2021 The Mystery of D.B. Cooper \| The Man in Row 18 \| 1 On November 24th, 1971, a man on a Boeing 727 bound for Seattle handed a flight attendant a note that read, “Miss, I have a bomb here.” No one knew the man’s real name. But soon, the press was calling ...
05.12.2021 Bleeding Kansas \| The Man Who Sparked the Civil War \| 5 John Brown has been called many things: fanatic, hero, terrorist, martyr, zealot. Some of his contemporaries, including Frederick Douglass, believed that were it not for his raid on Harpers Ferry, the Civil War would never have started. But did Brown’s ...
05.05.2021 Bleeding Kansas \| His Soul Goes Marching On \| 4 On October 17th, 1859, John Brown was barricaded inside the federal armory at Harpers Ferry with his hostages and his remaining followers. His attempt to lead an antislavery insurrection had failed. A detachment of U.S. Marines led by Colonel Robert ...
04.28.2021 Bleeding Kansas \| The Raid on Harpers Ferry \| 3 In December 1858, John Brown was back in Kansas and Missouri, making headlines for dramatic and deadly raids on plantations. He and his followers freed 11 enslaved men and women and led them on an 1,100-mile journey to freedom in ...
04.21.2021 Bleeding Kansas \| The Pottawatomie Massacre \| 2 On the night of May 24th, 1856, radical abolitionist John Brown and seven of his followers crept along the banks of Kansas’s Pottawatomie Creek and stormed a proslavery settlement. They dragged five men from their cabins and killed them in ...
04.14.2021 Bleeding Kansas \| John Brown's Crusade \| 1 In the 1850s, the United States was lurching toward a crisis over slavery -- and abolitionist John Brown stepped into the fray. Brown believed it was his God-given destiny to destroy slavery. His crusade took him from abolitionist meetings in ...
04.07.2021 America's Monuments \| The Trouble With Confederate Statues \| 7 In recent years, there’s been a movement to remove statues of Confederate leaders and other monuments that some see as celebrations of America’s racist history. But does taking down these statues help address the racial inequities that plague our nation ...
03.31.2021 America's Monuments \| 58,000 Names \| 6 The Vietnam War was one of the most divisive conflicts in American history. Over 58,000 Americans died in the fighting; many more returned home with wounds both visible and hidden. When veterans lobbied for a memorial to honor American soldiers ...
03.24.2021 America's Monuments \| The Mansion of the King \| 5 Few historic residences are more synonymous with their owners than Graceland. Purchased by Elvis Presley in 1957, the stately Memphis mansion was the heart of his private world and his most prized possession. He always swore he’d never sell it. ...
03.17.2021 America's Monuments \| The Longest Bridge \| 4 In the early 1920s, San Francisco was a picturesque city on a narrow, isolated peninsula. Known for its scenic, natural beauty, it had the potential to become one of America’s leading metropolises. But to fuel its economic growth, it needed ...
03.10.2021 America's Monuments \| Four Faces \| 3 In 1927, workers began blasting granite rock off a towering cliff in South Dakota’s Black Hills. It was the start of an arduous 14-year struggle to carve the portraits of four American presidents into Mount Rushmore. The feat required grueling ...
03.03.2021 America’s Monuments \| A Passage Through Panama \| 2 For centuries, sailors and merchants dreamed of finding a passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans across the narrow isthmus of Central America. But no natural passage existed. To get ships across the fifty-mile stretch of land, someone would have ...
02.24.2021 America’s Monuments \| The Colossus of New York Harbor \| 1 It’s perhaps the most iconic of American monuments -- the Statue of Liberty. A towering 305-foot sculpture of copper and steel that is synonymous with American values of liberty, freedom and self-determination. But it began as a gift from France. ...
02.17.2021 Great Chicago Fire \| Out of the Ashes \| 4 After the 1871 fire destroyed a third of their city, Chicagoans wanted to do more than rebuild. They wanted to envision a new kind of American city. That included everything from changes to fire codes and labor laws to an ...
02.10.2021 Great Chicago Fire \| The Great Rebuilding \| 3 As dawn broke on October 10, 1871, the dazed survivors of the Great Chicago Fire stumbled through their burned and battered city. A 30-hour inferno had reduced Chicago to ashes. Homes and business were replaced by gaping holes and smoldering ...

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