Our American Stories

On this episode of Our American Stories, in December 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe and the 101st Airborne Division were surrounded by German forces in Bastogne, Belgium. Outnumbered, freezing, and running low on food and ammunition, they received a demand to surrender. McAuliffe's answer became one of the most famous one-word replies in American military history: "Nuts!"

Kirk Higgins of the Bill of Rights Institute shares the remarkable story of the young officer who helped develop the bazooka, parachuted into Normandy and the Netherlands, and led his men through one of World War II's greatest acts of defiance.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, Wayne Gretzky didn't have the size or speed most scouts looked for. But what he did have couldn't be measured. With unmatched vision, timing, and instinct, he rewrote what was possible on the ice. He holds more than 60 NHL records and remains the only player to score over 200 points in a season, a feat he accomplished four times.

We take a look at the life and legacy of "The Great One," a player who saw the game differently and left behind a record book no one has come close to matching.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution can both be read in just a few minutes, but together they transformed the course of history. Dr. Larry P. Arnn explains why America's founding documents were unlike anything the world had ever seen and why they still matter today.

Dr. Arnn, president of Hillsdale College and author of The Founders' Key, explores the timeless principles of limited government, representative democracy, and natural rights that continue to define the American experiment.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, in the 1950s, the Soviet Union seemed to have an insurmountable lead in the Space Race. American rockets exploded, astronauts lost their lives, and many doubted the United States would ever reach the Moon. Yet less than 12 years after Sputnik, Neil Armstrong took humanity's first steps onto another world.

Space historian Steve Kates, better known as Dr. Sky, tells the remarkable story of the Apollo program, from Sputnik and Apollo 1 to Apollo 8's daring journey around the Moon and the triumph of Apollo 11.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, during the American Revolution, the British converted the HMS Jersey into a floating prison off Brooklyn, New York. Disease, starvation, contaminated water, and deliberate cruelty turned the ship into what its prisoners called “Hell Afloat,” where more Americans died than in all the war’s battles combined.

Historian Robert P. Watson, author of The Ghost Ship of Brooklyn: An Untold Story of the American Revolution, shares the forgotten story of the prisoners who suffered aboard the HMS Jersey and the remarkable discovery of a 13-year-old survivor’s diary more than two centuries later.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, Ken Kendrick grew up in Princeton, West Virginia, where lifelong friendships, youth baseball, and small-town values shaped the course of his life. Long before he became the principal owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks and won a World Series, he learned lessons about leadership, failure, perseverance, and character that never left him.

Ken shares remarkable stories about building a software company from scratch, owning one of baseball's greatest card collections, and the people who taught him that success is measured by far more than championships.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, in the late 1970s, the NBA was struggling to capture America's attention. The league was failing to make money, the talent wasn't great, and storylines were hard to come by. Then two young superstars from remarkably different worlds entered the league and transformed professional basketball forever.

Larry Bird grew up in the tiny town of French Lick, Indiana. Magic Johnson came from Lansing, Michigan. Their fierce rivalry fueled one of the greatest eras in sports history before giving way to an unlikely friendship that changed both men forever. Our own Greg Hengler shares the story.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1943, the U.S. government transformed farmland outside Oak Ridge, Tennessee, into a top-secret city of 75,000 people racing to build the atomic bomb before Nazi Germany. Cameras were forbidden, except for one.

Richard Cook, author of Ignored Heroes of World War II: The Manhattan Project Workers of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, shares the remarkable story of photographer Ed Westcott, whose images became the definitive visual record of America's greatest wartime secret.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1971, Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard famously hit two golf balls on the Moon. For decades, NASA never revealed their brand, and Shepard never publicly told the story.

Then an estate sale in Rogers, Arkansas, uncovered a signed photograph that led Joe Murfin to an extraordinary discovery involving Daisy Outdoor Products, a longtime public relations executive, and what may be one of the greatest untold stories of the Apollo program. Joe himself tells the tale.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, picture a crowded parlor in the 1800s. The air is heavy, the fire is roaring, and the women are laced into corsets that leave little room to breathe. In moments like these, fainting became common, so common that homes often had special couches set aside for recovery. What we now think of as a Victorian cliché was, for many women, an ordinary interruption to daily life.

Simon Whistler, host of Today I Found Out, explains how fainting reflected the health, fashion, and culture of the nineteenth century.

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