Our American Stories

On this episode of Our American Stories, Christopher Columbus sailed west in 1492, convinced he could reach Asia across the Atlantic. He was wrong about where he was going, wrong about the size of the world, and yet skilled and determined enough to complete a voyage that would change it forever. Over four expeditions, Columbus explored the Caribbean, encountered peoples unknown to Europeans, pursued gold and converts, and struggled disastrously to govern the colonies he helped establish.

Laurence Bergreen, author of Columbus: The Four Voyages, shares the complicated story of the ambitious mariner behind the legend.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, Andrea Ludden’s mother was an archaeologist who began collecting salt and pepper shakers after moving to the United States in the 1980s. What started with a search for pepper mills grew into a collection of thousands as she realized that these ordinary household objects could reveal changing fashions, technology, travel, manufacturing, and everyday life.

Andrea shares how the family’s 35-year collecting adventure eventually became the Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, home to 20,000 shaker sets and 1,500 pepper mills, and how carrying on the museum after her mother’s death became a way of preserving both American history and her mother’s legacy.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, before Yogi Berra became one of the greatest catchers in baseball history, he was an 18-year-old U.S. Navy sailor headed toward Omaha Beach on D-Day. After World War II, the son of Italian immigrants from St. Louis helped build one of the greatest careers in American sports, winning 10 World Series championships with the New York Yankees and becoming one of the most beloved figures in baseball.

Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist George Will shares how Berra's remarkable career reflected not only excellence on the field, but also the story of immigration, opportunity, and America itself.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, at 17 years old, Pino Lella was helping Jewish families escape Nazi-occupied Italy by guiding them across the Alps into Switzerland. A year later, after being drafted into the German military, he found himself assigned as the personal driver to one of the most powerful Nazi commanders in Italy.

Secretly working for the Italian resistance and the Allies, Pino used his position to gather intelligence on German troop movements and military defenses. Then, in the final days of World War II, he did the unthinkable: he arrested the very general he had been driving. Michael Lella shares the remarkable true story of his father, a teenage resistance fighter whose courage helped save lives and fight tyranny during one of history's darkest chapters.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, The Age of Discovery launched European exploration across the Atlantic, but Columbus’s motivations were more complicated than simple curiosity or greed. He wrote about prophecy, Christian expansion, and the belief that history was moving toward a final reckoning.

George Grant, author of The Last Crusader: The Untold Story of Christopher Columbus, shares how faith, medieval politics, and apocalyptic expectation shaped Columbus' vision, and why the man saw himself not as a navigator, but as a servant in a divine plan.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, Dick Erickson was a young Marine helicopter pilot flying over Vietnam when everything went quiet. His radio was dead, his instruments were failing, and the jungle below offered no clear place to land. Alone in the cockpit, he began to pray. What happened next stayed with him for life. In that silence, he felt a calm that didn’t come from training or instinct.

Dick joins us to tell his remarkable story.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, before haunted houses filled October nights, Halloween in America was a mess. In the early twentieth century, it was less about candy and costumes and more about broken fences, stolen gates, and angry neighbors. Communities were desperate for order, and their answer came from an unexpected place. Schools, churches, and civic clubs began creating haunted attractions: small events meant to channel mischief into something creative.

Author Lisa Morton, whose Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween remains a definitive account, traces how those first haunted houses grew into the elaborate haunted attractions we know today.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1846, a group of pioneers set out for California with dreams of a better life. Known as the Donner Party, they fell behind on the trail, took a disastrous shortcut, and became trapped in the Sierra Nevada as winter storms closed in. With supplies gone and snow piling up, survival came at a great cost.

Here’s their remarkable and tragic story.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, Frankie Avalon became a household name before he turned twenty. With hits like “Venus” and “Why,” he dominated the Billboard charts during the golden age of American pop. But while many teen idols faded, Avalon evolved. He starred alongside Annette Funicello in a string of beach party films that captured the imagination of a generation. Decades later, he returned to the spotlight in Grease, performing “Beauty School Dropout” as Teen Angel, a moment that introduced him to millions of new fans.

Frankie Avalon reflects on his music career and how he kept performing from the 1950s through today.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, along the shores of Lake Michigan is a story stranger than fiction: a man preserved in a glass coffin. He was part of the House of David, a communal religious group whose followers built amusement parks, baseball teams, and their own legends. Visitors came from across the country to see him, but not all of them came with good intentions. Thieves once tried to steal the diamond necklace that lay inside the coffin.

For decades, the figure has fascinated locals and outsiders alike, raising questions about faith, spectacle, and how we remember the dead. Chris Siriano tells the story of America’s man in the glass coffin.

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