It’s History

It’s History

By Ryan SocashHistory
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It’s History episodes

  • New York's LOST marvel - The Story of Pennsylvania Station

    Today we explore the rise and fall of New York Cities famous Pennsylvania Station. This station was once one of the most beautiful structures in America, but now - little remains beyond photographs.

    Pennsylvania Station was a historic railroad station in New York City, named for the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), its builder and original tenant. The station occupied an 8-acre (3.2 ha) plot bounded by Seventh and Eighth Avenues and 31st and 33rd Streets in Midtown Manhattan. As the terminal shared its name with several stations in other cities, it was sometimes called New York Pennsylvania Station, or Penn Station for short.

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    15 min
  • New York's LOST Skyscraper - The Rise and Fall of SINGER TOWER

    Today we explore the famous Singer Tower, a New York City skyscraper that once defined an era, and has now been completely forgotten. Upon its completion it was the tallest building in the world, surpassing Philadelphia's city hall which was the previous record holder. The Singer building was one of the worlds most beautiful examples of urban architecture - now it is an example of poor historic preservation.

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    22 min
  • The Great War with Florian Wittig In Conversation

    Todays guest is Florian Wittig, known best for his work as creative producer of @TheGreatWar and Real Time History.

    The Great War is a history YouTube channel and web series which covered the events of World War I week-by-week from July 2014 to November 2018,[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][excessive citations] now focusing on the events that followed it in longer episodes. The series debuted on July 28, 2014. It is currently hosted and written by Jesse Alexander, a Canadian historian. It has been previously hosted by American historian and actor Indy Neidell. The channel produced weekly content that follows the events that occurred one hundred years prior during the war.[9] After the centennial's conclusion, Indy Neidell, the first host and writer of the series, left the project and now presents the World War Two channel.[10] Jesse Alexander was picked to replace Neidell. It currently focuses on World War I's aftermath, abandoning the week-by-week format and focusing on longer, more in-depth documentaries about events that followed it, such as the German Revolution and the Russian Civil War.

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    57 min
  • ABANDONED Underground Concourses of Philadelphia

    Deep below the streets of Philadelphia is a labyrinth of hidden tunnels and corridors developed over nearly a century ago. What few people realise, is that some sections of tunnel have been abandoned through out their entire history!

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    10 min
  • Hitler's Train Bunker

    More information about the Stępina train bunker provided by https://visitkrosno.pl/en/miejsca/stepina-0

    One of the most important military attractions in Poland and the biggest above-ground railway bunker in the world. Everybody knows it was visited by Hitler in 1941, but it is rarely mentioned that it was thanks to the airport in Krosno.
    When they were preparing for war, Germans already knew the value of the aviation training complex in Krosno, which was among the most modern ones in contemporary Europe. As part of the preparations for the attack on the USSR, to facilitate ammunition transport, a siding was built leading to the airport. The proximity of the excellent air base in Krosno, the best in this part of the country, informed the decision to build the famous railway bunkers nearby - the underground one in Strzyżów and the above-ground one in Stępina.
    The bunkers were to house the southernmost Nazi headquarters - Anlage Süd (Installation South) - which were to make it possible to manage the conquest of the USSR, probably planned even before the outbreak of the war. The building work began in the spring of 1940 and was entrusted to the famous Organisation Todt. It was kept strictly secret, the building site was surrounded with a fence several metres tall and the work was carried out exclusively by Germans, supported by several thousand forced labourers engaged for auxiliary work.
    The scope of the investment was impressive - the foundations were several metres deep and the channel of the local Stępinka River was moved on the length of almost a kilometre. In June 1941, everything was ready.
    The finished bunker was 393 metres long and slightly arched (which was to make a direct hit by an aerial bomb less likely), with 2-3 metres thick walls which could sustain a hit from even a half-ton missile. The bunker was also fitted with a system of airlocks and ventilation and filtering devices which secured it against a chemical attack. An underground passage connected it to the neighbouring technical and storage bunker. In all, the complex included several dozen buildings, watchtowers, combat bunkers and pillboxes, of which only seven have survived - those made with reinforced concrete. The reportedly beautiful wooden villa for the top ranking commanding officers has not survived. A grassy landing field for planes was situated 600 metres from the railway bunker.
    The famous meeting of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini took place here on 27-28 August 1941. At that time, Hitler landed at least three times at the Krosno airport. Even though Mussolini came to Stępina by train, they both flew from Krosno to inspect the Eastern front near Kiev. This is also where they concluded their inspection, welcomed with pomp by the German crew of the airport.
    It was the only visit of the Führer in Stępina, even though the place was kept in constant readiness for receiving a staff train or other special train through the war until August of 1944, when the bunker was taken over by the Soviets, who organised a field hospital there.

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    5 min
  • Exploring Hitler's Train Bunker (360°)

    Welcome to one of Europe's few existing train bunkers in Stępina Poland. This bunker was build by order of the German military, using forced labor during the second world war. This is also the famous site of Hitler's meeting with Mussolini. Both leaders arrived by train. Hitler's train (German: Führersonderzug) stayed in the bunker at Strzyżów while Mussolini's engine and carriages were at Stępina.

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    19 min
  • Forgotten Streetcar Tunnels of Chicago

    Today we discover Chicago's forgotten streetcar tunnels, built centuries ago, they run under the Chicago river at 3 points and are sealed off from any access to the public.

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    12 min
  • Going Viral in the 1920's (Flagpole Sitting to TikTok)

    Have you ever wondered when the phenomenon of going viral started? Perhaps it can be dated back to Flagpole sitting. Pole sitting is the practice of sitting on top of a pole (such as a flagpole) for extended lengths of time, generally used as a test of endurance. A small platform is typically placed at the top of the pole for the sitter.

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    6 min
  • When Germany attacked New Jersey | Black Tom explosion

    The FBI recalls, It was still dark in Manhattan on a Sunday morning, July 30, 1916, when the sky suddenly exploded with an unnatural brilliance.

    Two million tons of war materials packed into train cars had blown up in the Black Tom railroad yard on what is now a part of Liberty State Park.
    Thousands of windows shattered in lower Manhattan and Jersey City. Shrapnel pock-marked the Statue of Liberty. Three men and a baby were killed by the explosive energy that erupted from this act of sabotage.
    The culprits? German agents who were determined to prevent American munitions shippers from supplying its English enemy during the First World War. Never mind that the U.S. was officially neutral in the conflict at this point.
    How to respond? With difficulty. With few national security laws and no real intelligence community to thwart German agents, America was vulnerable. The Secret Service, by presidential order, was able to investigate some German attacks and intrigues. The Bureau of Investigation—the FBI's predecessor—likewise did what it could, but it was held back by its small size (260 employees in a handful of offices) and lack of jurisdiction. The most successful and experienced anti-sabotage investigators turned out to be the detectives of the New York Police Department's Bomb Squad—even so, the German agents who blew up Black Tom were not identified at the time.
    Congress addressed the vulnerability. The Black Tom explosion wasn't the only provocation. When Germany proposed to Mexico that it ally itself with the Kaiser against America...and when it resumed unrestricted submarine warfare on any enemy or neutral ship crossing the Atlantic...America declared war.
    Congress immediately passed the Espionage Act, which outlawed a variety of crimes associated with German agents; passed several other wartime laws; then the following year passed the Sabotage Act. And the Bureau exercised primary jurisdiction over all of these laws as it pursued a wide variety of national security investigations. How successful were they? Very. German intrigues on American soil essentially evaporated.
    Were the saboteurs ever identified? Yes, the Bureau and other agencies doggedly pursued the case after the war until the saboteurs were identified and, ultimately, reparations were paid for German attacks against our neutral country.

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    11 min

About It’s History

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IT’S HISTORY is a ride through history – join us in discovering the world’s most important eras, the minds that changed everything, and the most important inventions of our time through weekly tales of Urban Decay.