This Week on History Happy Hour: He never became as celebrated as his fellow commanders George Patton and Omar Bradley, but General William Simpson, commander of the 9th U.S. Army in WWII, built a superb combat record. General Dwight Eisenhower called him brilliant, adding: "If Simpson ever made a mistake as an Army Commander, it never came to my attention."

To explore his WWII command record, Chris and Rick will be joined by William Stuart Nance, author of a new book about Simpson and his Chief of Staff James Moore: Commanding Professionalism: Simpson, Moore, and the Ninth US Army.

This Week on History Happy Hour: Author Eric Jay Dolin returns for his second HHH to talk about his book Left For Dead: Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World. The true story of five castaways abandoned on the Falkland Islands during the War of 1812―a tale of treachery, shipwreck, isolation, and the desperate struggle for survival.

Dolan discusses the surprising twists and turns throughout—involving greed, lying, bullying, a hostile takeover, stellar leadership, ingenuity, severe privation, endurance, banishment, and the great value of a dog.

This Week on History Happy Hour: After its shocking defeat to the Nazis in 1940, how did France respond? In his book Resistance and Liberation: France at War, 1942-1945, historian Douglas Porch traces how Charles de Gaulle sought to forge a French army and prevent civil war.

Chris and Rick talk to Douglas about the experiences of ordinary French men and women caught up in war and defeat, the choices they made, the trials they endured, and how this has shaped France's memory of those traumatic years.

This Week on History Happy Hour: Civil War historian Scott Hartwig has been researching the Battle of Antietam for decades. Now he has written a definitive hour-by-hour tactical history of the battle, I Dread the Thought of the Place: The Battle of Antietam and the End of the Maryland Campaign. The memory of the Battle of Antietam was so haunting that when, nine months later, Major Rufus Dawes learned another Antietam battle might be on the horizon, he wrote, "I hope not, I dread the thought of the place."

Join us as Scott takes a deep dive into the bloodiest day in American military history.

This Week on History Happy Hour: Frederika Mandlebaum was a nice Jewish mother living in New York in the 1870s.  She was also America’s first great organized crime boss. She planned robberies throughout the country - handpicking a cadre of the finest bank robbers, housebreakers and shoplifters to turn street crime into big business.

Chris and Rick explore the story of this entrepreneurial criminal mastermind with HHH Alum Margalit Fox, author of The Talented Mrs. Mandlebaum.

This Week on History Happy Hour: Between 1941 and 1945, more than eight hundred shiploads of supplies were delivered to the Soviet Union protected by Allied naval forces. But more than 100 ships were lost in this duty. Each convoy was a battle against the elements, and the Germans - with both sides relying heavily on signals intelligence to intercept and break each other’s codes. The resulting ocean engagements involved aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers and submarines…and the frightening weather of the Arctic sea.

In this encore episode, we explore this dramatic story with Bletchley Park historian David Kenyon, author of Arctic Convoys: Bletchley Park and the War for the Seas.

David Kenyon is responsible for historical research in support of all public content at Bletchley Park. He also worked for a number of years as an archaeologist, and is one of the UK’s leading experts on the archaeology of the First World War. He has worked on numerous historical television and film projects, including acting as historical advisor to Warhorse in 2010. His books include Bletchley Park and D-Day and Horsemen in No Man’s Land.

This Week on History Happy Hour: Eighty years ago, The Allies liberated Paris. It was the biggest party of the century, as experienced by the likes of Ernest Hemingway, J. D. Salinger, Pablo Picasso, and Robert Capa. But there was nothing preordained about this happy ending. Had things transpired differently, Paris might have gone down as a ghastly monument to Nazi nihilism.

We welcome back HHH alum Patrick Bishop to talk about his new book Paris 1944: Occupation, Resistance, Liberation: A Social History.

Patrick Bishop spent twenty-five years as a foreign correspondent covering conflicts around the world. He is the author of Operation Jubilee: Dieppe 1944, as well as two hugely acclaimed books about the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, Fighter Boys and Bomber Boys. His other books include Wings, a history of the RAF; and Air Force Blue, which celebrated 100 years of the RAF and was a Sunday Times (UK) bestseller. This is his second time on History Happy Hour.

This Week on History Happy Hour: From 1925 to January 1941, Sigrid Schultz was The Chicago Tribune’s Berlin bureau chief. She witnessed Hitler’s rise to power and was one of the first reporters—male or female—to warn American readers of the growing dangers of Nazism. We explore her extraordinary time there with Pamela Toler, author of the new book "The Dragon From Chicago: The Untold Story of an American Reporter in Nazi Germany."

William Shirer summed up her career this way: “No other American correspondent in Berlin knew so much of what was going on behind the scene as did Sigrid Schultz.”

Pamela D. Toler, PhD is a historian who has written ten books of popular history for children and adults, including Heroines of Mercy Street: Real Nurses of the Civil War and Women Warriors: An Unexpected History. Her work has appeared in American Scholar, Aramco World, Calliope, History Channel Magazine, MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Ms., Time.com and The Washington Post.

This Week on History Happy Hour: With the Democrats convening later his month in Chicago, HHH turns to the city’s first political convention in 1860, where a team of outsiders plotted their way to a history-changing nomination for an underdog named Abraham Lincoln. Chris and Rick welcome Edward Achorn, author of The Lincoln Miracle: Inside the Republican Convention that Changed History.

From smoky hotel rooms to night marches by the Wide Awakes, to fiery speeches on the floor of the giant convention center called The Wigwam, discover a longshot effort carried out in a political climate just as contentious as our own today.

Edward Achorn is the author of two critically acclaimed books about Abraham Lincoln. His book, Every Drop of Blood: The Momentous Second Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, was named one of the best books of 2020 by the Economist magazine. He is also the author of two classic baseball books, The Summer of Beer and Whiskey and Fifty-Nine in ’84. He is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and recipient of the Yankee Quill Award for lifetime achievement in journalism.

This Week on History Happy Hour: How did one small island in the western Pacific make a huge contribution to the final phase of America’s war with Japan?

The island is Tinian, and our guest is fellow Stephen Ambrose Historical Tours historian Don Farrell, author of the new book, Seabees and Superforts at War: Tinian’s Critical Role in the Ultimate Defeat of Japan. From the invasion that took the island, to the construction of the largest and busiest airport in the world, and finally, the launching of the atomic bomb, 79 years ago this week.

Don Farrell is a historian and guide for Stephen Ambrose Historical Tours who has lived on Tinian for 33 years. He is the author of History of the Northern Mariana Islands and Tinian and the Bomb, among other books. Don credits his understanding of Marianas history to years of teaching on Guam and Tinian and 35 years of government service, including Chief of Staff to the Speaker of the Guam Legislature, and Chief of Staff to the Mayor of the Municipality of Tinian and Aguiguan.