Conversations: 1970s - The Decade that Made the Marathon Cool
Release Date: 05/01/2026
The Green Children of Woolpit
History Shorts
Sometime in the twelfth century, reapers in the English village of Woolpit found two children at the edge of a field. Their skin was green. They spoke a language no one understood and would eat nothing but raw beans. The boy soon died, but the girl survived, learned English, and described a twilight land where the sun never rose. In this episode, we look at what two medieval chroniclers recorded, why a famously skeptical historian believed it, and the theories — from malnutrition to Flemish refugees — that have tried to explain the Green Children of Woolpit. 🎙️ History Shorts is a...
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The Zoot Suit Riots
History Shorts
In the early 1940s, the zoot suit — high-waisted, wide-shouldered, and impossible to miss — was a badge of pride for many young Mexican American, Black, and Filipino Americans. In June 1943, it made them targets. For about a week, mobs of sailors, soldiers, and Marines attacked young men across Los Angeles while police arrested the victims and newspapers cheered. In this episode, we explore the wartime rationing, the Sleepy Lagoon trial, and the press coverage that set the stage for the Zoot Suit Riots — and how long it took Los Angeles to admit what really happened. 🎙️ History...
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How Battles Shaped Lincoln’s Political Decisions
History Shorts
In August 1864, Abraham Lincoln was so sure he would lose re-election that he wrote it down, sealed the note, and had his cabinet sign it without reading it. In this episode, we follow how the battles of the Civil War shaped Lincoln's biggest political decisions — from the shock of Bull Run, to the bloodshed at Antietam that made the Emancipation Proclamation possible, to the turning point of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and the fall of Atlanta that rescued his presidency. And we find out what Lincoln did with that sealed envelope after the votes were counted. 🎙️ History Shorts is a daily...
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What Happened to Jimmy Hoffa?
History Shorts
On July 30, 1975, Jimmy Hoffa waited in the parking lot of a restaurant outside Detroit for a meeting with two mobsters. They never showed. He called his wife from a pay phone — and was never seen again. In this episode, we trace Hoffa's rise from Detroit warehouse worker to the most powerful labor leader in America, his feud with Robert Kennedy, his prison sentence and Nixon's commutation, and his doomed attempt to take back the Teamsters. Then we look at the evidence, the theories, and the fifty years of digging that have never turned up a body. 🎙️ History Shorts is a daily history...
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The Dodleston Messages
History Shorts
In 1984, a schoolteacher in the English village of Dodleston borrowed a BBC Micro computer from work and took it home. Then messages began appearing on it that nobody in the house had written. Most came from a man named Tomas Harden, who claimed to live in the same cottage in the 1540s, under Henry VIII. Then a group calling itself "2109" joined the conversation. In this episode, we look at one of the strangest paranormal stories of the computer age — and test it against the historical record, from Oxford college archives to the way people really spoke in Tudor England. 🎙️ History...
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Saint Brendan the Navigator
History Shorts
Sometime in the sixth century, according to legend, an Irish abbot named Brendan set out into the Atlantic in a boat of ox hides, searching for the Promised Land of the Saints. The story of his seven-year voyage — with a whale mistaken for an island, a pillar of crystal, and an island that hurled fire — became a medieval bestseller and put Saint Brendan's Island on European maps for centuries. In this episode, we separate the man from the legend, look at the evidence that Irish monks really did reach Iceland, and follow the explorer who sailed a leather boat to Newfoundland in 1977....
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THE HISTORIANS #3: History's Myth of the Lone Hero, w/ Hampton Sides & H.W. Brands
History Shorts
Welcome back to THE HISTORIANS — the series here on History Shorts where I sit down with two leading historians for an unscripted conversation about the questions that have shaped how we understand our past. We love turning history into a one-man show. One name on the cover. One figure on the horse. One genius who saw it all and did it alone. But look two inches to the left and there is almost always a crowd. In this episode of The Historians, H.W. Brands and Hampton Sides take up that tension. Brands has written the biographies we reach for when we want the man himself — Roosevelt, Grant,...
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Hayes’s Dry White House
History Shorts
From 1877 to 1881, the White House served no alcohol — not at state dinners, not at receptions. For more than a century, the credit and the blame went to First Lady Lucy Hayes, remembered as "Lemonade Lucy." But the decision belonged to her husband, Rutherford B. Hayes, fresh off one of the most disputed elections in American history and determined to hold on to temperance voters. In this episode, we explore the politics behind the dry White House, the rumor of rum-spiked punch at state dinners, and how Lucy Hayes ended up with a nickname nobody seems to have used while she was alive....
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Trailer: The Historians — America’s Lone Hero Myth (H.W. Brands & Hampton Sides)
History Shorts
One name on the cover. One figure on the horse. One genius who saw it all and did it alone. This Friday, H.W. Brands and Hampton Sides sit down for The Historians to ask whether that story still holds — or whether we keep giving one person credit for the crowd standing next to him. A short preview of the full conversation, dropping November 6 on History Shorts. Listen to the complete episode this Friday wherever you get your podcasts, or at historyshortspodcast.com.
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The Statue of Liberty Crowdfunding Hustle
History Shorts
We remember the Statue of Liberty as a gift from France. The reality was a decade-long scramble for money on both sides of the Atlantic. In France, ordinary citizens paid for the statue through banquets, concerts, and a national lottery. In America, nobody wanted to pay for the pedestal. Congress wouldn't help, New York's governor vetoed state funds, and the statue's arm spent years as a tourist attraction charging admission. In this episode, we tell the story of the 19th-century crowdfunding hustle — and how Joseph Pulitzer, his newspaper, and more than a hundred thousand small donors...
info_outlineWhat transformed marathon running from a fringe obsession into a cultural phenomenon—and why did it happen in the 1970s? In this episode of History Shorts, I’m joined by bestselling author Martin Dugard to explore his latest book, The Long Run, and the remarkable decade that reshaped endurance sports forever.
We dive into the lives and legacies of icons like Steve Prefontaine, Frank Shorter, Joan Benoit, and Grete Waitz—athletes who didn’t just compete, but challenged norms, broke barriers, and helped spark a nationwide running boom. Set against the backdrop of post-Vietnam War disillusionment and the fallout of the Watergate scandal, this conversation reveals how running became something bigger than sport—it became a form of identity, rebellion, and renewal.
From Olympic triumphs to grassroots races, from gender barriers to the commercialization of modern marathons, this episode uncovers the deeper story behind why millions laced up their shoes—and never looked back.
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