June 15, 1865. German-American statesman Carl Schurz is traveling to Washington to meet with President Andrew Johnson when he stops at a friend’s home in Philadelphia. That night, during a séance, a teenage medium claims to summon the spirit of Abraham Lincoln… and delivers Schurz a mysterious command from beyond the grave.

Soon, Johnson sends Schurz on a fact-finding mission through the defeated South. What he discovers will help shape the course of Reconstruction and expose the violence threatening America’s fragile new democracy.

Today, Sally speaks with bestselling author and podcaster Malcolm Gladwell about Reconstruction’s forgotten history, the battle over how it has been remembered, and why the questions it raised remain unfinished today.

Listen to Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise now on Audible, or anywhere you get your podcasts, starting June 18th.

Get in touch: [email protected] 

Follow on Instagram: @historythisweekpodcast

Follow on Facebook: ⁠HISTORY This Week Podcast⁠

To stay updated: http://historythisweekpodcast.com

June 8, 1191. The Crusaders and Muslim forces are locked in battle over the city of Acre. On one side is Saladin, the great Muslim leader who has already recaptured Jerusalem. On the other, an armada arrives carrying England’s king: Richard the Lionheart.

The Crusades will become one of the defining conflicts of the Middle Ages. But for centuries, their history fades into legend… until a Scottish writer named Walter Scott brings them roaring back. His novels turn knights, tournaments, and holy war into blockbuster entertainment. But Scott’s message was more complicated than simple nostalgia: he saw the Crusades as reckless, violent, and hollow. His readers mostly saw the armor.

How did a Scottish poet revive this religious war and turn it into an international phenomenon? And how did his underlying message get lost, warped, and then repurposed to justify even more violence?

Special thanks to Ian Duncan,  professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of Scott's Shadow: The Novel in Romantic Edinburgh.

You can find the rest of the books we used to research this episode at historythisweekpodcast.com.

Get in touch: [email protected] 

Follow on Instagram: @historythisweekpodcast

Follow on Facebook: ⁠HISTORY This Week Podcast⁠

To stay updated: http://historythisweekpodcast.com

June 6, 1944. As thousands of Allied soldiers prepare to storm the beaches of Normandy, they climb down rope nets into small wooden landing craft bobbing in the dark waters of the English Channel. Within hours, these boats will carry them into the largest amphibious invasion in history.

The craft are known as Higgins boats, named for their inventor, Andrew Higgins: a hard-driving New Orleans boatbuilder who built his reputation designing vessels that could speed through swamps, crash through obstacles, and go places other boats couldn't. Higgins was stubborn, abrasive, and relentless. The Navy repeatedly dismissed his ideas. He refused to go away.

How does a small-time New Orleans boatbuilder force his way into the military industrial complex? And what exactly is so special about these boxy little Higgins boats?

Special thanks to Dr. John Curatola, Samuel Zemurray Stone Senior Historian at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana. His book is Armies Afloat: How the Development of Amphibious Operations in Europe Helped Win World War II.

You can find the rest of the books we used to research this episode at historythisweekpodcast.com.

Check out new episodes of History's Greatest Machines with Dolph Lundgren on the HISTORY Channel, premiering on June 1st. Stream the next day at History.com.

Get in touch: [email protected] 

Follow on Instagram: @historythisweekpodcast

Follow on Facebook: ⁠HISTORY This Week Podcast⁠

To stay updated: http://historythisweekpodcast.com

Search "World War II with Tom Hanks" wherever you get your podcasts! New episodes drop every Tuesday.

World War II with Tom Hanks reexamines history’s most devastating conflict for a new century. Across twenty hours, the series traces the war’s full arc–from the rise of fascism to Hiroshima–uncovering the decisions, hidden networks, and lasting consequences that continue to shape our world.

Episode 1 – The Beginning

In September 1939, enabled by a secret pact between Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin, Germany invades Poland with its lightning style of tank warfare, plunging Europe back into war. Adolf Hitler can now pursue his longed-for racial war, as the world watches in horror, and the stage is set for global conflict.

This episode features interviews with (in order of appearance):

May 30, 1945. In Washington, Secretary of War Henry Stimson calls General Leslie Groves to his office and demands answers: which Japanese cities are about to become targets for the atomic bomb? What follows will pull Stimson—a deeply religious statesman who believed in restraint, but also in overwhelming force—into a profound crisis over morality, destruction, and what modern war is becoming. 

How did Henry Stimson grapple with the bomb? And after helping usher in the atomic age, how did he reckon with what he’d done?

Special thanks to Evan Thomas, journalist and New York Times bestselling author of Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II.

You can find the rest of the books we used to research this episode at historythisweekpodcast.com.

Get in touch: [email protected] 

Follow on Instagram: @historythisweekpodcast

Follow on Facebook: ⁠HISTORY This Week Podcast⁠

To stay updated: http://historythisweekpodcast.com

May 23, 1934. On a muggy Louisiana morning, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow speed toward the Texas border. They’ve been on the run for over a year—wanted for robbery and murder—and the lurid news accounts of their exploits have made them famous. But today, Bonnie and Clyde’s legendary crime spree comes to an end … in a hail of bullets.

Why did some come to view these Depression Era outlaws as agents of chaos the country needed? And what was the real motivation behind their crimes?

Special thanks to our guest, John Neal Phillips, author of Running With Bonnie and Clyde: The Ten Fast Years of Ralph Fults.

** This episode originally aired May 22, 2023.

Get in touch: [email protected] 

Follow on Instagram: @historythisweekpodcast

Follow on Facebook: ⁠HISTORY This Week Podcast⁠

To stay updated: http://historythisweekpodcast.com

May 12, 1949. After eleven months under Soviet blockade, the people of West Berlin flood into the streets to celebrate. The lights are back on. The autobahn is open. The siege is over.

But just months earlier, West Berlin seemed doomed.

Surrounded deep inside Soviet-controlled territory, more than two million Berliners are suddenly cut off from food, fuel, electricity, and supplies after Joseph Stalin seals the city’s borders. Many fear the Western Allies will abandon Berlin altogether. Instead, American and British leaders gamble on something unprecedented: supplying an entire city by air.

In this episode, how the Berlin Airlift became the largest sustained airlift in history—and the first major showdown of the Cold War. Along the way: the flamboyant American commander known as “Howlin’ Mad” Howley, Soviet attempts to break the city’s spirit, pilots landing in near-zero visibility every few minutes, and the high-stakes crisis that helped create NATO and reshape the postwar world.

Special thanks to Giles Milton, author of  Checkmate in Berlin: The Cold War Showdown That Shaped the Modern World. 

You can find the rest of the books we used to research this episode at historythisweekpodcast.com.

Family Lore is a weekly narrative podcast that celebrates and investigates ancestral mystique. Each episode begins with a guest sharing a fascinating family legend, followed by a historical deep-dive to uncover the truth and meaning behind the tale. Available now: link.pscrb.fm/f0281/FLFD

May 9th, 1942. In the Lustgarten, a sprawling park in the center of Berlin, a strange new attraction opens to the public. It’s a maze of tents, glowing under red lightbulbs. Inside: a staged vision of the Soviet Union. Filthy streets, starving children, torture chambers. A horror show.

The man behind it all is Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda, and the most powerful figure in Berlin. Posters, radio broadcasts, films, classrooms… his message is everywhere. The enemy is at the gates. The war must be won. No matter the cost.

And Berliners are watching. Some believe it. Some look away. Some quietly resist.

Because beyond the spectacle, the war is beginning to close in. Bombs fall on the city. Neighbors disappear. Truth itself becomes something the regime can manufacture.

This is life inside Nazi Berlin at the center of World War II.

How do ordinary people live under a system built on propaganda and fear? And when the story begins to crack… what happens next?

Special thanks to Ian Buruma, professor of human rights and journalism at Bard College, and author of Stay Alive: Berlin, 1939-1945.

For more on this story, search for “Inside the Nazis’ Supernatural Obsession” on Apple, Spotify, or wherever else you listen to HISTORY This Week (aired Jun 2, 2025).

Get in touch: [email protected] 

Follow on Instagram: @historythisweekpodcast

Follow on Facebook: ⁠HISTORY This Week Podcast⁠

To stay updated: http://historythisweekpodcast.com

April 25, 1859. About 150 people have gathered on the shores of Lake Manzala in Egypt. And one of them, a mustachioed, retired French diplomat, steps forward. He raises his pickaxe and strikes a ceremonial blow.

The audacious goal is to cut through the desert to connect the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, creating a new trade route between the East and the West. Changing global trade and geopolitics forever. Today: the Suez Canal. Why did the tremendous efforts of a Frenchman end up enriching the British Empire? And how, decades later, did the canal play an unexpected role in the birth of modern Egypt?

​​Thank you to our guests, Ibrahim El-Houdaiby and Professor Aaron Jakes, for speaking with us for this episode. Thank you also to Dr. Bella Galil for talking with us. If you want to read more about the Suez Canal, Zachary Karabell's Parting the Desert: The Creation of the Suez Canal is a great resource. 

** This episode originally aired April 25, 2022.

Get in touch: [email protected] 

Follow on Instagram: @historythisweekpodcast

Follow on Facebook: ⁠HISTORY This Week Podcast⁠

To stay updated: http://historythisweekpodcast.com