Ben Franklin's World

The American Revolution wasn’t just a colonial rebellion; it was a global conflict shaped by European rivalries and high-stakes diplomacy. Without the help of foreign allies like France and Spain, the United States might never have won its independence.

Historian John Ferling joins us to explore the international dimensions of the Revolutionary War. Drawing from his new book Shots Heard Round the World, Ferling reveals how secret aid, political gambles, and naval power from Europe (especially France) influenced the outcome of the war, and nearly derailed it.

John’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/432
 
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:01:06  Introduction
00:01:52 Why European Powers Intervened
00:08:02 International Interest in the American Revolution
00:14:20 French Reaction to the Outbreak of War
00:19:28 Initiation of Foreign Aid
00:23:46 British Expectations of a Quick Victory
00:25:35 Saratoga as a Turning Point
00:31:46 French Naval and Military Support
00:37:36 Spain's Ambitions and Entry into the War
00:42:55 Britain's War Fatigue and Missed Opportunities
00:51:31 Outcomes for France and Spain
00:54:53 Time Warp
00:59:20 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 046: The American Revolution and the War that Won It
🎧 Episode 112: The Tea Crisis of 1773
🎧 Episode 122: The Men Who Lost America
🎧 Episode 208: Turning Points of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 313: The Marquis de Lafayette
🎧 Episode 421: Loyalism & Revolution in Georgia
SUPPORT OUR WORK
🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World
REQUEST A TOPIC
📨 Topic Request Form
📫 [email protected]
WHEN YOU'RE READY
🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 
👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community
🌍 Join the History Explorers Club
TAKE THE QUIZ
🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes)
👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz
LISTEN 🎧
🍎 Apple Podcasts 
💚 Spotify 
🎶 Amazon Music
🛜 Pandora
CONNECT
🦋 Liz on Bluesky
👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn
🛜 Liz’s Website
SAY THANKS
💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
💚 Leave a rating on Spotify
*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before Common Sense could ignite a revolution, colonists had to be convinced they shared a cause worth fighting for. So how did Revolutionary leaders turn thirteen very different colonies into “Americans”—and what stories did they tell to make that unity feel real?

In this Ben Franklin’s World Revisited episode, historian Robert Parkinson returns to explore how newspapers and wartime messaging helped forge the Revolution’s “common cause”—and how that campaign leaned on fear, race, and exclusion to build a new national identity.

Rob’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/144
 
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 016: The Internal Enemy
🎧 Episode 122: The Men Who Lost America
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
🎧 Episode 243: Revolutionary Print Networks
🎧 Episode 375: Misinformation Nation: Fake News in Early America
🎧 Episode 431: Common Sense at 250: The Pamphlet That Sparked A Revolution
SUPPORT OUR WORK
🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World
REQUEST A TOPIC
📨 Topic Request Form
📫 [email protected]
WHEN YOU'RE READY
🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 
👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community
🌍 Join the History Explorers Club
TAKE THE QUIZ
🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes)
👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz
LISTEN 🎧
🍎 Apple Podcasts 
💚 Spotify 
🎶 Amazon Music
🛜 Pandora
CONNECT
🦋 Liz on Bluesky
👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn
🛜 Liz’s Website
SAY THANKS
💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
💚 Leave a rating on Spotify
*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thomas Paine’s Common Sense turned a colonial rebellion into a full-blown revolution. But how did one pamphlet move so many minds in 1776—and why does it still matter 250 years later?

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of Common Sense, historian and Director of the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies at Iona University, Nora Slonimsky, joins us to explore Paine’s life, the pamphlet’s explosive impact, and what this revolutionary text still teaches us about democracy, communication, and civic life.

ITPS Website 
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403
 
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00  Introduction
00:01:06 Thomas Pain's Early Life and Influences
00:05:53 The Institute for Thomas Paine Studies
00:07:51 Thomas Paine as an English Excise Man
00:13:34 Paine's Ideas for Reform of the British Government
00:19:27 Reception of Paine's First Pamphlet
00:21:48 Paine's Intellectual Life in England
00:27:30 Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin
00:31:44 Paine's Migration to Philadelphia
00:35:55 Paine's View of the American Revolution
00:39:15 The Story of Common Sense
00:50:34 Measuring the Reach of Common Sense
00:59:34 The Legacy of Common Sense and Thomas Paine
01:02:54 Time Warp
01:05:02 Commemorating the 250th Anniversary of Common Sense
01:08:17 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 127: American Enlightenments
🎧 Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
🎧 Episode 144: The Common Cause
🎧 Episode 156: The Power of the Press in the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 243: Revolutionary Print Networks
🎧 Episode 394: The Pursuit of Happiness
SUPPORT OUR WORK
🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World
REQUEST A TOPIC
📨 Topic Request Form
📫 [email protected]
WHEN YOU'RE READY
🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 
👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community
🌍 Join the History Explorers Club
TAKE THE QUIZ
🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes)
👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz
LISTEN 🎧
🍎 Apple Podcasts 
💚 Spotify 
🎶 Amazon Music
🛜 Pandora
CONNECT
🦋 Liz on Bluesky
👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn
🛜 Liz’s Website
SAY THANKS
💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
💚 Leave a rating on Spotify
*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Common Sense didn’t just make an argument for independence—it moved through a world of newspapers, pamphlets, and personal networks that carried revolutionary ideas from one doorstep to the next. So how did political news travel in 1776, and what made print such a powerful engine of persuasion?

As we approach the 250th anniversary of Common Sense, Ben Franklin’s World Revisited returns to Episode 156 to explore how early Americans shared, debated, and embraced revolutionary ideas. You’ll discover how print and networks spread the Revolution, what made Common Sense a publishing phenomenon, and how media shaped political debate and public opinion.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/156
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 091: Rumors, Legends, and Hoaxes in Early America
🎧 Episode 153: Committees and Congresses: Governments of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 144: The Common Cause
🎧 Episode 243: Revolutionary Print Networks
🎧 Episode 375: Misinformation Nation: Fake News in Early America
🎧 Episode 428: America's Forgotten Quest to Link Two Oceans
SUPPORT OUR WORK
🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World
REQUEST A TOPIC
📨 Topic Request Form
📫 [email protected]
WHEN YOU'RE READY
🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 
👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community
🌍 Join the History Explorers Club
TAKE THE QUIZ
🧭 Discover How You Explore History (under 2 minutes)
👉 https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/quiz
LISTEN 🎧
🍎 Apple Podcasts 
💚 Spotify 
🎶 Amazon Music
🛜 Pandora
CONNECT
🦋 Liz on Bluesky
👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn
🛜 Liz’s Website
SAY THANKS
💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
💚 Leave a rating on Spotify
*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Benjamin Rush was one of early America’s most fascinating figures. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a leading Philadelphia physician, and a thinker who believed that a healthy body was the foundation of a healthy republic.
In this episode, historian Sarah Naramore, author of Benjamin Rush, Civic Health and Human Illness in the Early American Republic, introduces us to Rush as both doctor and political philosopher.

We’ll explore:

Rush may be what Sarah calls a “B-list Founding Father,” but his influence on early American science, politics, and public health was anything but minor.

Sarah’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/430
 
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00  Introduction
00:01:06 Episode Introduction
00:04:48 Who Was Benjamin Rush
00:13:52 Benjamin Rush's Medical Practice
00:17:01 The American System of Medicine
00:22:30 Rush's Ideas about Civic Health
00:29:07 Rush's Approach to Mental Health
00:33:53 Rush's Views on Addiction
00:48:00 Rush's Legacy
00:52:13 Time Warp
00:55:00 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 174: Yellow Fever in the Early American Republic
🎧 Episode 193: Partisans: The Friendship & Rivalry of Adams & Jefferson
🎧 Episode 263: The Medical Imagination
🎧 Episode 279: Benjamin Rush, Founding Father
🎧 Episode 301: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Part 1
🎧 Episode 302: From Inoculation to Vaccination, Part 2
SUPPORT OUR WORK
🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World
REQUEST A TOPIC
📨 Topic Request Form
📫 [email protected]
WHEN YOU'RE READY
🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 
👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community
🌍 Join the History Explorers Club
LISTEN 🎧
🍎 Apple Podcasts 
💚 Spotify 
🎶 Amazon Music
🛜 Pandora
CONNECT
🦋 Liz on Bluesky
👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn
🛜 Liz’s Website
SAY THANKS
💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
💚 Leave a rating on Spotify
*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

British officials had a problem: Their American colonists wouldn't stop smuggling. Even after Parliament slashed tea prices and passed laws to make legal imports cheaper, colonists kept buying Dutch and French goods on the black market.
So what was really going on? If it wasn't just about saving money, what drove thousands of merchants and consumers to risk fines, seizure, and worse?
In this revisited episode, we follow the illicit trade networks that connected colonial port cities to the "Golden Rock,” Sint Eustatius, a tiny Dutch island that became the Atlantic World's busiest smuggling hub.
You'll discover why American merchants risked everything to trade there, how these underground networks shaped revolutionary resistance, and what Britain's crackdown on smuggling reveals about the deeper economic and political tensions that ignited the Revolution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/161
 
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 021: Smuggling in Colonial America & Living History
🎧 Episode 112: The Tea Crisis of 1773
🎧 Episode 121: The Dutch Moment in the 17th-Century Atlantic World
🎧 Episode 159: Dangerous Economies
🎧 Episode 160: The Politics of Tea
🎧 Episode 288: Smugglers & Pirates in the 18th-Century Atlantic World
SUPPORT OUR WORK
🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World
REQUEST A TOPIC
📨 Topic Request Form
📫 [email protected]
WHEN YOU'RE READY
🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 
👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community
🌍 Join the History Explorers Club
LISTEN 🎧
🍎 Apple Podcasts 
💚 Spotify 
🎶 Amazon Music
🛜 Pandora
CONNECT
🦋 Liz on Bluesky
👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn
🛜 Liz’s Website
SAY THANKS
💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
💚 Leave a rating on Spotify
*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Think the Boston Tea Party made America a coffee-drinking nation? Historian Michelle McDonald reveals the truth: colonists were already choosing coffee over tea because it was cheaper.

Michelle Craig McDonald, the Librarian/Director of the Library & Museum at the American Philosophical Society and author of Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States, explains how coffee shaped American identity long before the Revolution.

You'll hear about Revolutionary-era women storming a Boston warehouse to seize hoarded coffee and sell it at regulated prices. You'll discover why Parliament protected coffee while taxing tea. And you'll learn how enslaved Caribbean laborers made America's favorite beverage possible.

From colonial coffee houses to debates about caffeine addiction in the early republic, discover how one imported commodity became distinctly American.

Michelle's Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/429
 
EPISODE OUTLINE

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 160: The Politics of Tea
🎧 Episode 161: Smuggling and the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 288: Smugglers & Patriots in the 18th-Century Atlantic World
🎧 Episode 294: 1774, The Long Year of American Revolution
🎧 Episode 319: Cuba: An Early American History
🎧 Episode 401: Tea, Boycotts, & Revolution

SUPPORT OUR WORK
🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World
REQUEST A TOPIC
📨 Topic Request Form
📫 [email protected]
WHEN YOU'RE READY
🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 
👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community
🌍 Join the History Explorers Club
LISTEN 🎧
🍎 Apple Podcasts 
💚 Spotify 
🎶 Amazon Music
🛜 Pandora
CONNECT
🦋 Liz on Bluesky
👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn
🛜 Liz’s Website
SAY THANKS
💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
💚 Leave a rating on Spotify
*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the 1820s, American entrepreneurs, engineers, and politicians dared to dream big. They believed they could cut a canal, not through Panama, but through the wild, rain-soaked terrain of Nicaragua. Their goal: To link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and transform global trade forever.

But what inspired these ambitious "canal dreamers?” And why did they believe Nicaragua held the key to controlling the future of commerce? 

Jessica Lepler, Associate Professor of History at the University of New Hampshire and author of Canal Dreamers: The Epic Quest to Connect the Atlantic and Pacific in the Age of Revolutions, joins us to explore this nearly forgotten story of innovation, illusion, and international ambition in early American history.

Jessica’s Website | Book
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/428
 
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:01:00  Introduction
00:04:05 Desire to Build a Canal Across Central America
00:08:01 Political Landscape of Central America During the 1820s
00:09:55 Creating a Stable Central American Government
00:11:55 Geography of the Nicaraguan Canal Route
00:16:03 Economic Opportunities of an Interoceanic Canal
00:17:57 Individual vs. State Interest in a Nicaraguan Canal
00:21:58 Why Americans Sought A Private Canal Contract
00:26:44 Information Canal Dreamers Relied On to Build a Canal
00:33:12 Competitive Advantages of American Canal Dreamers
00:35:40 American Surveys of a Central American Canal Route
00:39:12 Influence of the Erie Canal
00:42:32 Why the Nicaraguan Canal Failed
00:44:50 What Canal Dreamers Reveal About the Early United States

0046:40 Overview of the Panama Canal
00:49:50 Time Warp
00:56:00 Conclusion
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 028: Building the Erie Canal
🎧 Episode 090: The Age of American Revolutions
🎧 Episode 113: Building the Empire State
🎧 Episode 165: The Age of Revolutions
🎧 Episode 186: The New Map of Empire
🎧 Episode 329: Freemasonry in Early America
SUPPORT OUR WORK
🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World
REQUEST A TOPIC
📨 Topic Request Form
📫 [email protected]
WHEN YOU'RE READY
🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 
👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community
🌍 Join the History Explorers Club
LISTEN 🎧
🍎 Apple Podcasts 
💚 Spotify 
🎶 Amazon Music
🛜 Pandora
CONNECT
🦋 Liz on Bluesky
👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn
🛜 Liz’s Website
SAY THANKS
💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
💚 Leave a rating on Spotify
*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As we look ahead to the 250th anniversary—the semiquincentennial—of the Declaration of Independence in 2026, communities and commissions across the United States are asking big questions:
How should we commemorate this historic milestone?
What’s the right balance between celebration and education? And how can this moment bring people together across political divides, generational gaps, and complex histories? 
To explore these questions, I’ve invited my friend, colleague, and Clio Digital Media co-founder Karin Wulf to guest host a special conversation with two people who are leading the way: Gregg Amore, Chair of the Rhode Island 250 Commission, and Carly Fiorina, Chair of the Virginia 250 Commission.
Together, they reveal how their states are planning commemorative programs that center civic engagement, local storytelling, and inclusive history—and how the 250th can be more than a moment. It can be a spark.

Karin’s Website | Book |
Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/427
 
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00:00  Introduction
00:01:10  Welcome & Episode Overview
00:04:45  Guest Introductions
00:07:32 Virginia & Rhode Island's Commemorative Plans
00:11:21 State Efforts and Collaborations
00:16:32 Engaging Young People
00:20:11 Educational Initiatives
00:22:13 Ken Burns's The American Revolution
00:24:30 Navigating the Political Climate
00:32:05 Reflections on the Bicentennial
00:35:00 Challenges to Achieving Commemorative Goals
00:42:51 Conclusion and Future Opportunities
00:46:53 Final Thoughts
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 250: Virginia, 1619
🎧 Episode 373: The Gaspee Affair
🎧 Episode 417: Roger Williams, Rogue Puritan
🎧 Episode 416: Lineage: Genealogy in Early America
🎧 Episode 424: Dunmore's Proclamation & the American Revolution in Virginia
🎧 Episode 425: Ken Burns's The American Revolution
SUPPORT OUR WORK
🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World
REQUEST A TOPIC
📨 Topic Request Form
📫 [email protected]
WHEN YOU'RE READY
🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 
👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community
🌍 Join the History Explorers Club
LISTEN 🎧
🍎 Apple Podcasts 
💚 Spotify 
🎶 Amazon Music
🛜 Pandora
CONNECT
🦋 Liz on Bluesky
👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn
🛜 Liz’s Website
SAY THANKS
💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
💚 Leave a rating on Spotify
*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Each November, we Americans come together to celebrate Thanksgiving, a holiday that invites us to reflect on gratitude, community, and the stories we tell about our past.

But what do we really know about the origins of this holiday? What did the “First Thanksgiving” look like, and who were the people who made it happen?

In honor of Thanksgiving, we’re revisiting our 2018 conversation with Rebecca Fraser, author of The Mayflower: The Families, The Voyage, and the Founding of America. This rich conversation offers a look at the English Separatists or Pilgrims who settled in Massachusetts. It explores who they were, why they came to North America, and what their life was like in the early years of Plymouth Colony.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/213
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
🎧 Episode 095: A Tale of Two Bostons
🎧 Episode 104: The Saltwater Frontier
🎧 Episode 121: The Dutch Moment in the 17th-Century Atlantic World
🎧 Episode 182: The Great Awakening in New England
🎧 Episode 290: The World of the Wampanoag, Part 1
🎧 Episode 291: The World of the Wampanoag, Part 2
SUPPORT OUR WORK
🎁 Make a Donation to Ben Franklin’s World
REQUEST A TOPIC
📨 Topic Request Form
📫 [email protected]
WHEN YOU'RE READY
🗞️ BFW Gazette Newsletter 
👩‍💻 Join the BFW Listener Community
🌍 Join the History Explorers Club
LISTEN 🎧
🍎 Apple Podcasts 
💚 Spotify 
🎶 Amazon Music
🛜 Pandora
CONNECT
🦋 Liz on Bluesky
👩‍💻 Liz on LinkedIn
🛜 Liz’s Website
SAY THANKS
💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
💚 Leave a rating on Spotify
*Book links are affiliate links. Every purchase supports the podcast.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices