Thornton Kennedy and James Ottley dig deeper into the evidentiary inconsistencies surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the findings of the Warren Commission. From disputed fingerprints on the Carcano rifle and witnesses who reported seeing an Oswald look-alike, to the mysterious Nash Rambler sightings and the troubling fate of witnesses whose accounts conflicted with the FBI’s narrative, the episode explores questions that have fueled debate for decades. Kennedy and Ottley separate documented fact from speculation while examining why so many elements of the investigation still fail to neatly align. For listeners fascinated by history’s unresolved mysteries, this is an episode difficult to turn off.

In the latest episode of History for Cocktail Parties, hosts James Ottley and Thornton Kennedy dive into the lingering evidentiary inconsistencies surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the conclusions of the Warren Commission. From Lee Harvey Oswald’s movements inside the Texas School Book Depository to conflicting witness testimony and the mysterious second-floor encounter with Officer Marrion Baker, the questions begin almost immediately after the shots rang out in Dealey Plaza. More than sixty years later, the official narrative remains fiercely debated by historians, investigators, and the public alike. If you think you know the JFK story, this episode may change your mind.

In their second episode on New Orleans history, James Ottley and Thornton Kennedy unpack the high-stakes drama of the Louisiana Purchase and the clash that followed at the Battle of New Orleans. They trace how Thomas Jefferson wrestled with constitutional limits before seizing a once-in-a-generation deal that doubled the young nation’s size and secured the Mississippi River. The conversation moves from diplomacy to gunpowder, exploring how the Purchase set the stage for war and how Andrew Jackson turned a late-breaking battle into a defining American victory. As always, it’s history with a pour; big decisions, bigger consequences, and the city that sits at the center of it all.

James Ottley and Thornton Kennedy explore New Orleans through the life of Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the tattooed French officer who arrived in the New World as a teenager and pulled off one of the greatest bluffs in American history. They examine the period of Spanish control, including the violent crackdown led by Alejandro O'Reilly, “Bloody O’Reilly,” after French colonists staged a rebellion and ousted Spain’s first governor. The episode then turns to the high-stakes decision behind the Louisiana Purchase, and Jefferson’s internal conflict over executive power versus national survival. As always, the conversation is paired with a proper drink, the Sazerac, a fitting toast to a city shaped by ambition, intrigue and resilience.

Did Abraham Lincoln’s killer really die in that burning barn in Virginia, or did the manhunt miss its mark? In the gripping finale of the Hunt for John Wilkes Booth, Thornton Kennedy and James Ottley, joined by Atlanta raconteur Will Edmonds, unravel the contradictions, missing evidence and lingering whispers that have fueled one of America’s oldest conspiracy theories. From David Herold’s puzzling claims to the vanished post-mortem photo, this episode chases the truth through shadowy testimony and Southern lore, asking the question history never quite settled and leaving you to decide what really happened to John Wilkes Booth.

James Ottley and Thornton Kennedy bring the manhunt for  Abraham Lincoln’s assassin to its dramatic climax. As Union troops from the 16th New York Cavalry Regiment close in on John Wilkes Booth and his accomplice at Garrett's Farm, the fugitives find themselves trapped in a tobacco barn. When he refuses to surrender, the soldiers set the barn ablaze, triggering a chaotic and controversial final confrontation. What unfolds in those fiery moments marks the end of Booth’s flight but not the end of the story. Questions linger about exactly how he died, what happened to his body, and whether the official account tells the whole truth.

In Episode 2 of our series on the hunt for John Wilkes Booth following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, hack historians James Ottley and Thornton Kennedy introduce a new key player: Union intelligence chief Lafayette C. Baker, the man who directed the 12-day manhunt. Along the way, they explore the critical role Confederate sympathizers and soldiers played in Booth’s escape and pursuit as he made his way through Virginia. The chase intensifies as the web of conspiracy stretches wider than anyone expected.

In the chaotic days after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in April 1865, the United States launched what was then the largest manhunt in its history, chasing actor-turned-assassin John Wilkes Booth across Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia. Booth believed he’d scripted a heroic escape, but his grand plan unraveled as Southern sympathizers abandoned him and the dragnet tightened under the watch of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Over the next four episodes, hack historians James Ottley and Thornton Kennedy will follow the desperate flight that ended not in triumph, but in smoke, fire and a grim reckoning.

History for Cocktail Parties' hack historians James Ottley and Thornton Kennedy wrap their three-part series on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln with a look at the events inside Ford’s Theatre, the near-fatal attack on William Seward, and John Wilkes Booth’s dramatic escape. The hosts question whether Booth could really have sprinted from the theater and mounted his horse so quickly with a broken left fibula, an injury he claimed to have suffered when leaping from the president’s box to the stage during Our American Cousin. They explore how intimately Booth knew the theater, his time spent in the saloon next door, and the troubling dereliction of duty by Lincoln’s bodyguard that may have enabled the cowardly murder. The episode closes by reflecting on Ford’s Theatre as a place forever marked by tragedy and historical weight, while setting the stage for the next series on Booth’s 12-day flight from justice.

In this second episode on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, History for Cocktail Parties hosts James Ottley and Thornton Kennedy focus on the days leading up to April 14, 1865, when an initial kidnapping plot transformed into murder. They explore how actor and white supremacist John Wilkes Booth recruited co-conspirators for an abduction scheme — one that several members grew uneasy with as it shifted toward assassination. A meticulous planner, Booth stumbled by pure chance upon the knowledge that the president would attend Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre, a discovery that sealed history’s course. The episode reveals how ideology, ego, and opportunity collided in the final moments before the crime.