American History Tellers

​​After the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1848, hundreds of thousands of prospectors poured into California, hoping to strike it rich. In the early days, rather than coming from within the U.S., most miners arrived from places like China, Hawaii, Chile, and Australia. But when President James K. Polk confirmed that newspaper reports of vast gold fields were true, it would kick the Gold Rush into high gear, transforming America and establishing California as a place for grand ambitions and big dreams.

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The job of guarding the President’s life belongs to the men and women of the United States Secret Service. There have been many highs and lows in the agency’s more than 150-year history – most poignantly the assassination of JFK in 1963. On today’s show Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig joins host Lindsay Graham to discuss the agency’s response to assassination attempts over the years, and her book Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service.

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In 1981, a gunman fired six shots at Ronald Reagan after the president gave a speech at a Washington D.C. hotel. Over the next several hours, split-second decisions made by Secret Service agents and D.C. hospital staff would determine whether Reagan would live or die. Amidst Cold War tensions, as Reagan lay unconscious in an operating room, questions would emerge over the presidential line of succession and who was actually running the government.

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On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was shot and killed while riding in his presidential limo through downtown Dallas. His violent and public death became one of the most traumatic moments in the nation’s history — and one of the most controversial, as Americans debated the mystery around his killer, Lee Harvey Oswald. The tragedy also thrust Vice President Lyndon Johnson into the White House, where he battled Kennedy’s brother Bobby for control of JFK’s legacy, and passed landmark legislation that would forever mark the tumultuous era.

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In September 1901, President William McKinley visited the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York to deliver a speech celebrating American achievements at home and abroad. But waiting in the crowd in Buffalo was an embittered Polish-American laborer seeking to prove his commitment to the anarchist cause. Leon Czolgosz fired two bullets, striking the 25th president and sparking a rush to save McKinley’s life. With the president’s life hanging in the balance, McKinley’s ambitious Vice President, Theodore Roosevelt, waited in the wings with a bold ambitions for expanding America’s imperial might.

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On April 14th, 1865, John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. Lincoln died hours later, shocking the war-torn nation and becoming the first President to be assassinated in office. But he would not be the last.

Sixteen years later, no action had been taken to protect the commander-in-chief. When James Garfield became president in March 1881, a disturbed and delusional former lawyer demanded a position in the new administration. Furious over his rejection, he began to stalk Garfield, determined to exact deadly revenge.

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The yellow fever epidemic of 1793 posed one of the greatest threats to the young United States. Doctors and scientists couldn’t agree on the cause or the treatment. They split into factions and debated their theories publicly. On today’s show, Thomas Apel, historian and author of Feverish Bodies, Enlightened Minds: Science and the Yellow Fever Controversy in the Early American Republic, joins host Lindsay Graham to discuss how science, religion and politics were intertwined in the controversy surrounding the epidemic.

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In 1793, Philadelphia served as the nation’s temporary capital, and the yellow fever epidemic crippled the federal government. After fleeing the capital, President George Washington struggled to make decisions and govern the young nation. Meanwhile, Philadelphia was running out of space to bury the dead. With the epidemic growing in strength, crime soared and jobless tenants were evicted from their homes. But soon, relief would come from an unexpected source.

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In September 1793, yellow fever continued to ravage Philadelphia. As the death toll mounted, Dr. Benjamin Rush raced to find a cure. Rush used an aggressive and controversial treatment to battle the grisly disease, sparking a political backlash. Soon Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and President George Washington were forced to flee the disease, leaving government on the verge of collapse. But the Mayor of Philadelphia, and ordinary citizens, stepped in to try to save their city from ruin.

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In the hot and humid summer of 1793, a deadly epidemic struck Philadelphia, then the capital of the United States. Thousands suffered high fevers, yellow skin, and bloody vomit. Many died within days.

At first, the cause of the illnesses was a mystery. Then the city’s leading physician, Dr. Benjamin Rush, identified it as yellow fever, one of the era’s deadliest diseases. Panic soon spread through Philadelphia. Schools, stores, and churches shut their doors, as the epidemic began to threaten the stability of the young nation.

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