On this episode of Dave Does History, we’re taking a bite out of something sweet, simple, and surprisingly historic: vanilla ice cream. July 23 is National Vanilla Ice Cream Day, and while some folks might shrug at vanilla as “plain,” the truth is anything but.

This flavor has roots that stretch from the ancient empires of Mesoamerica to the refined kitchens of Monticello. Along the way, it gathered tradition, technique, and meaning. It became a quiet classic on American tables, always there, never needing to shout.

For me, this one hits home. Vanilla was my dad’s favorite. It’s mine too. And now, I’ve got a photo of my son, spoon in hand, grinning the way only a toddler with ice cream can. Three generations, one flavor.

Today, we’ll trace the story of vanilla ice cream through time and memory. It’s a tale that’s deeper than dessert and richer than you’d expect. Stick around.

In this episode of Dave Does History, we step into the uneasy months before independence, when not everyone in the colonies was ready to break with the Crown. Some still believed King George III could be reasoned with, that he might rise above Parliament and become the kind of monarch Enlightenment thinkers dreamed of. John Dickinson’s Olive Branch Petition was a final appeal to that idea, a hope that the King would act as a Patriot King, as imagined by Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke.

But what happens when two sides read the same words and draw opposite meanings?

As Dave unpacks the theory of the Patriot King and the political storm surrounding the petition, we come to see how hope collided with power. The King believed he was already the answer. The colonists learned otherwise.

This was the moment the last bridge burned. After that, the only road left led to revolution.

On this episode of Dave Does History, we go back to a moment when the Civil War still wore a fresh coat of naivety. July 21, 1861.

The first major clash between North and South unfolds near a muddy Virginia stream called Bull Run. People thought this would be over quickly. They brought picnic baskets. They brought their kids.

What they got instead was a violent wake-up call. Union troops, raw and untested, marched straight into a Confederate trap and came undone in full view of the nation. This wasn’t a rebellion about to be squashed. This was a war. Long, bloody, and far from over.

Today, we’ll walk through that chaotic Sunday when innocence died and reality came roaring in like rebel cavalry. This is the story of Bull Run, the moment the Civil War stopped being a theory and started becoming a tragedy.

Stick around. This one gets real.

On this episode of Dave Does History, we go back to July 20, 1976, a day that lit the fuse on a lifetime passion for space.

At just twelve years old, I watched as Viking 1 became the first American spacecraft to land safely on Mars. It wasn’t a movie. It wasn’t science fiction. It was real, and it was glorious.

Viking wasn’t just a piece of hardware. It was a question on legs, asking the Red Planet if anything lived there. Backed by Carl Sagan’s vision and NASA’s engineering brilliance, Viking 1 carried out experiments that sparked decades of debate.

Did we find life? Did we miss it?

In this episode, we explore the Viking program, the science it conducted, and the legacy it left behind. From a grainy image of a footpad in Martian soil to a universe of unanswered questions, this is the story of Viking 1.

Before sunrise on July 19, 1845, Lower Manhattan stirred under the weight of another blistering summer. Most of the city slept, unaware that a moment of carelessness or perhaps a faulty flame in a whale oil shop would turn calm into catastrophe. The fire began in the early hours inside J.L. Van Doren’s candle and whale oil business at 34 New Street. A single blaze, born in a building filled with some of the most flammable materials imaginable, found plenty to feed on. Within minutes, flames spilled from building to building, hopping rooftops and crawling down alleys with frightening speed.

On this episode of Dave Does History, we take a sobering look at one of the most haunting nights of the 20th century: the brutal execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his entire family by Bolshevik revolutionaries on July 17, 1918.

It wasn’t a battlefield. It wasn’t a courtroom. And it certainly wasn’t justice. It was a dark cellar, a lie about a photograph, and a hail of bullets that ended over 300 years of Romanov rule in a single night.

This wasn’t just the fall of a monarchy. It was the violent birth of a regime willing to kill children to kill an idea.

We’ll explore who the Romanovs really were, how they came to be prisoners in their own land, and what this moment meant for Russia and for the world. This isn’t just history. It’s a reminder of what happens when power forgets its humanity.

On July 16, 1950, in the early chaos of the Korean War, a Catholic chaplain named Father Herman Felhoelter made a choice that would define the very idea of sacrifice. Surrounded by wounded American soldiers who could not be moved, he stayed behind as the enemy advanced.

He knelt to pray over the dying and was gunned down mid-prayer, alongside the men he refused to leave.

This is the story of the Chaplain–Medic Massacre, one of the first and most horrifying atrocities of the war. It is a story of faith, courage, and the cold brutality of battle.

But more than that, it is a story that reminds us what it means to stand for something greater than yourself. In this episode of Dave Does History, we remember the man who carried no weapon, wore a cross on his arm, and walked into eternity doing what he was called to do: pray.

This week on Dave Does History on Bill Mick Live, we take you back to the morning that changed the world—April 19, 1775. It didn’t begin with a declaration. It began with whispers, riders, and a few dozen men standing on Lexington Green. These weren’t revolutionaries yet. They were farmers, tradesmen, and teenagers who had simply had enough.

Dave brings a personal lens to the story, tracing the footsteps of his own ancestors—Ebenezer and Isaac Bowman—as they faced down the British Regulars. From Paul Revere’s midnight ride to the fierce resistance at Concord’s North Bridge, this episode explores the motivations, fears, and legacies of those who chose to stand.

It’s not about muskets and tactics. It’s about why ordinary people risk everything for freedom.

Join us as we explore the spark that lit the fire of the American Revolution, only on Dave Does History—right here on Bill Mick Live.

In the summer of 1798, the young American republic faced a moment of crisis. Gripped by fear of foreign enemies and internal dissent, Congress passed a series of laws that would become known as the Alien and Sedition Acts. Pitched as national security measures during the undeclared Quasi-War with France, these laws instead became a hammer used against political opponents and a direct challenge to the very freedoms the Revolution was fought to secure.

In today’s episode of Dave Does History, we’ll explore the origins, enforcement, and political fallout of the Alien and Sedition Acts. We’ll look at how Federalist judges weaponized the laws, why Jefferson didn’t fully repeal them, and how their ideological descendants, like the Espionage Act of 1917, continued the pattern of liberty under pressure. From 1798 to today, the story of these acts raises hard questions about what freedom really means when fear is in charge.

In the summer of 1787, while America’s greatest political minds were huddled in Philadelphia crafting the Constitution, another crucial act of nation-building was quietly unfolding in New York. The Confederation Congress, often remembered more for its failures than its triumphs, passed the Northwest Ordinance—one of the most influential pieces of legislation in American history.

This wasn’t just a law about land. It was a blueprint for how liberty could stretch westward. It promised new states, public education, religious freedom, and most striking of all, it outlawed slavery in the territory. It defined how the nation would grow, who would have rights, and where the line between slavery and freedom would be drawn.

Today on Dave Does History, we’re going to pull back the curtain on this powerful but often forgotten moment in our past. Because before there was a Bill of Rights, there was the Northwest Ordinance—and it changed everything.