George Westinghouse was a man who refused to settle for “good enough.” Born on October 6, 1846, he became one of America’s greatest inventors and industrialists, a name forever linked with safety, innovation, and light itself. From the invention of the railroad air brake to the creation of the first natural gas distribution system, Westinghouse transformed how the world moved and powered itself.

While Thomas Edison fought to keep electricity confined to city blocks, Westinghouse looked to the horizon. By championing alternating current and teaming up with Nikola Tesla, he lit the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and proved that AC could carry power across miles, changing history forever.

In this episode of Dave Does History, we explore the life, work, and vision of the man whose name became a promise: “You can be sure if it’s Westinghouse.” His ideas didn’t just shape an industry. They built the modern world.

It began with the sound of a drum in the rain. On October 5, 1789, thousands of women left the markets of Paris and marched toward Versailles, hungry, furious, and unafraid. They demanded bread, but what they carried was something far heavier: the voice of a nation on the edge of change.

By the end of that march, the King and Queen would no longer rule from their gilded palace. They would be brought to Paris under the eyes of their people, and the balance of power in France would shift forever. The Women’s March on Versailles was not just a protest over hunger. It was the moment when ordinary citizens, led by women, forced the monarchy to face the Revolution it had tried to ignore.

This is the story of courage, desperation, and the day the people came for their King.

On October 4th, 1957, a polished silver sphere with four antennae rose into the night sky atop a Soviet rocket. Moments later, the world was listening to a sound that would echo through history: beep-beep, beep-beep. This was Sputnik, the first artificial satellite ever launched into orbit, and its success shocked the globe. To the Soviets, it was proof of scientific brilliance and a political coup. To the United States, it was a jolt of fear that revealed a potential missile gap and the unsettling reality that the Cold War had now extended into the heavens. Schools, scientists, and politicians scrambled to respond, and within a year, NASA was born. The launch of Sputnik was more than just a technological milestone. It was the starting gun for the Space Race, a moment when humanity left Earth behind and began a journey that would change the modern world forever.

On the night of October 3, 1775, in a drafty room at Cambridge, George Washington set a single ciphered letter on the table. By morning it would put a name to betrayal, Dr. Benjamin Church, the polished Boston physician who ran the army’s hospitals and wore patriot credentials like a second coat. The letter’s road curled through Newport, then into Washington’s hands, where Samuel West, Elbridge Gerry, and Elisha Porter teased its meaning from a tangle of symbols. Out spilled numbers, supplies, plans, and a plea for a safe channel. The council called it criminal. Congress soon sharpened the Articles of War, and the revolution taught itself to guard the inside of the camp as tightly as the lines outside. Tonight we follow the paper trail, weigh Church’s defense, and take the measure of Washington’s response. No melodrama, only facts, consequences, and the cold comfort that comes when a young cause learns to grow up.

On October 2, 1766, Nottingham’s famous Goose Fair turned from lively market to full-blown riot, and the cause was cheese. Prices had doubled, merchants were buying up entire wagonloads to haul away, and the townsfolk decided they would not stand for it. What followed was chaos, with stalls overturned, cheeses seized, and wheels rolled through the streets like weapons. The mayor, Robie Swann, tried to stop it and ended up sprawled on the cobblestones after being knocked flat by a rolling cheese.

The humor of the scene hides the desperation that drove it. Soldiers were called in, shots were fired, and a farmer named William Eggleston lost his life. Nottingham’s riot was part of a national wave of food protests, born from hunger and a demand for justice. In this episode we explore how a fairground skirmish over cheese revealed the fierce struggle of ordinary people to survive.

In the early hours of October 1, 1910, downtown Los Angeles was rocked by an explosion that tore through the Los Angeles Times building. The blast, fueled by dynamite hidden in a suitcase and ignited by barrels of ink and ruptured gas lines, turned the newsroom into an inferno. Twenty-one people were killed and more than a hundred injured. The city awoke not only to smoke and rubble, but to the opening act of what newspapers quickly called the crime of the century.

At the heart of it all was the long and bitter war between organized labor and the open shop crusade led by Times publisher Harrison Gray Otis. The McNamara brothers, backed by the Iron Workers Union, carried out the attack, and their capture set the stage for a sensational trial featuring Clarence Darrow. The fallout reshaped Los Angeles, crushed union hopes, and left scars on the American labor movement for decades.

In May 1774, Virginia stepped onto the stage of defiance and never looked back. When the House of Burgesses called for fasting and prayer in solidarity with Boston, Governor Lord Dunmore tried to silence them by dissolving the assembly. The Burgesses refused to be silenced. They gathered in the Apollo Room of the Raleigh Tavern, turning a tavern meeting into a spark of revolution. Dave and Bill explore how this act of defiance carried into the Virginia Association, a bold economic boycott that risked fortunes but strengthened unity. Benjamin Harrison, though not as fiery as Patrick Henry or Thomas Jefferson, emerged as a steady leader who understood sacrifice was necessary for liberty. These struggles fed directly into the Declaration of Independence, where Jefferson captured the same grievances Virginians had lived through. The episode reminds us that resistance often begins not in grand halls, but in ordinary rooms filled with extraordinary resolve.

In September 1918, the First World War was nearing its end, but no one on the Western Front could be certain of that. The German Army still clung to the Hindenburg Line, a massive belt of fortifications stretching across northern France. At St. Quentin Canal, this line was at its strongest, defended by concrete bunkers, deep wire, and the canal itself, which served as a natural moat. For years, German commanders had called it impregnable.

On September 29, Allied forces tested that claim. Americans, Australians, and British troops attacked together in one of the largest assaults of the war. The fighting was brutal and confused, but by nightfall the canal had been crossed, the defenses shattered, and German morale fatally broken. The breach convinced German leaders that victory was impossible. The Battle of St. Quentin Canal became the decisive moment that brought the Great War to its closing chapter.

When most of us hear the name “Good King Wenceslas,” we think of the Christmas carol that paints him as a benevolent monarch who braved the snow to help a poor man. The truth, however, is far darker and far more fascinating. Wenceslaus I was not a king but a duke of Bohemia, ruling in the early tenth century at a time when the nation stood at a crossroads between Christianity and pagan tradition, between independence and submission to stronger neighbors.

His reign was brief but significant. He strengthened the church, aligned Bohemia with Western Christendom, and kept the peace with the German kings through tribute. These choices secured stability, but they also earned him enemies among the nobility and, fatally, within his own family. On September 28, 935, he was betrayed and murdered by his brother Boleslav. That act of violence transformed Wenceslaus into a martyr, a saint, and an enduring national symbol.

On September 27, 1941, long before American troops landed on foreign shores, a different kind of weapon was launched in Baltimore. The SS Patrick Henry, the first Liberty ship, slid into the water at the Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard as bands played and President Franklin Roosevelt’s words echoed over the radio. It was a plain freighter, built not for beauty but for speed, economy, and purpose. Roosevelt admitted it looked like an ugly duckling, yet he knew what it represented.

The Patrick Henry was the beginning of something extraordinary. From that first ship came a fleet of 2,710 vessels that carried food, fuel, and troops across oceans filled with danger. They turned the tide in the Battle of the Atlantic and became the bridge of ships that made Allied victory possible.

Today we look back at the Patrick Henry and the Liberty fleet she began, ships that proved industry itself could win a war.