Professor David Farber teaches twentieth-century American history at Temple University in Philadelphia. In this lecture to a history class he focused on the origin of the 1960s Vietnam anti-war movement, and his view of how it helped to expand the nation’s democratic process. This episode was recorded in 2010.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

History professor Marcus Rediker lectured during a course on Colonial America at the University of Pittsburgh in 2010. He talked about the origins of the slave trade to the Americas between 1640 and the early 1800s.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

University of Texas at Austin professor Jeremi Suri teaches an online class about President Ronald Reagan and the end of the Cold War.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Weber State University professor Branden Little teaches a class about the U.S. military in the 1890s. He covers reforms designed to make the officer corps more professional, a new focus on sea power, and an international incident with Chile.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Professor Natalia Mehlman Petrzela of the New School teaches a class about the 1980s fitness industry and culture in the United States.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor Joseph Glatthaar teaches a class on the 1898 Spanish-American War.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Duquesne University president Ken Gormley teaches a class looking at constitutional issues stemming from the Watergate scandal that arose during the presidencies of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

University of Tennessee College of Law professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds teaches a class about free speech and the legal cases that have impacted the courts' interpretation of this part of the First Amendment.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

George Mason University professor Sam Lebovic taught a class about U.S. politics and economics of the early Cold War period of the late-1940s and 1950s. He argued that with extreme ideologies such as fascism and communism completely discredited or out of favor, a consensus formed in the U.S. around centrist political views to the point where the political parties were barely distinguishable. On the economic front, a belief in a “mixed economy” ruled, meaning a broad acceptance of some government involvement in the market.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wellesley College professor Brenna Greer debunked some of the myths about Rosa Parks and the 1955-56 Montgomery bus boycott. She addressed that Parks was not the first African American woman who refused to give up her seat and that the boycott had planning and precedent. She also explored with the class why a simplified version of this history has become so widespread.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices