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.

This Week on History Happy Hour: Today most people remember little more about John Hancock than his signature, but 250 years ago this Boston businessman was a powerful and popular patriot leader who, on multiple occasions, played a vital role in the fight for Independence.

In this encore episode, Chris and Rick dive back into the Revolution (or is it the War of Independence?) and talking to Brooke Barbier, author of King Hancock: The Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father.

Brooke Barbier is a public historian who received her PhD in American history from Boston College, specifically researching Boston’s social and cultural life during and after the American Revolution. Two of Brooke's favorite things are history and beer, so in 2013 she founded Ye Olde Tavern Tours, which offers tours of Boston’s historic sites and taverns (beer is included!). She is the author of two books about revolutionary Boston and has been interviewed by the New York Times, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, and Boston.com. She is originally from San Diego, CA but has lived in Boston for many years.

This Week on History Happy Hour: During WWII, the legendary First Division, “The Big Red One,” fought in North Africa, Sicily, landed on Omaha Beach and drove across Europe and into Germany. It served 443 days in combat, with more than 20,000 casualties.

Chris and Rick will explore the rich history of the division with Gregory Fontenot, author of the new book, No Sacrifice Too Great: The 1st Infantry Division in World War II. The story of how the men of this division learned how to adapt, improvise and innovate on the job as they took on the Nazis on two continents.

Gregory Fontenot is a retired Colonel of the US Army. He is currently a consultant on for the Army and a working historian. He was the lead author of On Point: The US Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He is also the author of The 1st Infantry Division and the US Army Transformed: Road to Victory in Desert Storm, 1970–1991, winner of the 2017 Army Historical Foundation award for Unit History, as well as Loss and Redemption at St. Vith: The 7th Armored Division in the Battle of the Bulge.

This Week on History Happy Hour: Author Helen Fry returns to HHH for third time to talk about her book Women in Intelligence: The Hidden History of Two World Wars. It tells the groundbreaking history of women in British intelligence, revealing their pivotal role across the first half of the twentieth century. Across both world wars, far from being a small part of covert operations, women ran spy networks and escape lines, parachuted behind enemy lines, and interrogated prisoners.

The stories of incredible women who defied convention and made history. Sunday at 4PM ET on History Happy Hour, where history is always on tap.

Dr. Helen Fry is an ambassador for the National Centre for Military Intelligence (NCMI). She has authored and edited over 25 books covering the social history of the Second World War, including British Intelligence and the secret war, espionage and spies, and MI9 escape and evasion. She is the foremost authority on the "secret listeners," who worked at special eavesdropping sites operated by British Intelligence during WWII, and is the official biographer of MI6 spymaster, Colonel Thomas Joseph Kendrick. She has also extensively written about the 10,000 Germans who fought for Britain during WWII.  

Helen has appeared in a number of documentaries, including David Jason’s Secret Service (Channel 5), Spying on Hitler's Army (Channel 4), and Secrets of the Spies (Britbox).

This Week on History Happy Hour: In 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third major voyage to the Pacific. The incredible journey that followed took Cook from Australia to Alaska, and involved the first substantial European contact with the Hawaiian Islands…as well as the confrontation that led to his death.

Chris and Rick welcome Hampton Sides (making his second appearance on HHH) author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook.

Hampton Sides is an award-winning editor of Outside and the author of the bestselling histories The Kingdom of Ice, Hellhound on his Trial, Blood and Thunder and Ghost Soldiers. He lives in New Mexico with his wife, Anne, and their three sons.