Battle of Blair Mt. and the Origins of 'Redneck'
History Shorts
In 1921, thousands of armed coal miners marched through the mountains of West Virginia. Many wore red bandanas around their necks—one historical association behind the term “redneck.” Their destination was Blair Mountain, where company-backed forces waited. What followed became the largest armed labor uprising in American history. For days, miners and defenders exchanged gunfire across the mountains while private aircraft dropped bombs. Eventually, federal troops arrived, and the miners surrendered rather than fight U.S. soldiers. SUPPORT THE SHOW: ...
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Ishi Walks Out of the Foothills
History Shorts
In August 1911, a starving man walked out of the foothills near Oroville, California—and into a world that believed his people had disappeared. He became known as Ishi, a member of the Yahi people whose community had been devastated by disease, displacement, and violence during California’s settlement. Ishi was taken to San Francisco, where anthropologists studied his language, traditions, and knowledge while he lived at the University of California’s museum. To the public, he became a sensation—the so-called “last wild Indian.” But behind that label was a man navigating profound...
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The Crazy 1904 St. Louis Olympic Marathon
History Shorts
The 1904 Olympic marathon may have been the strangest race in history. Runners battled brutal heat, choking dust, and almost no drinking water. One competitor was chased off course by wild dogs. Another stopped along the way to eat rotten apples. Then there was Thomas Hicks, whose trainers kept him moving with doses of strychnine, egg whites, and brandy. And the apparent winner? Fred Lorz crossed the finish line first—after riding roughly eleven miles in a car. Only 14 of 32 runners finished. SUPPORT THE SHOW: ADVERTISE: LEARN MORE: SPONSORED...
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The Truth About the Mad Queen of Madagascar
History Shorts
In 1828, Queen Ranavalona I took the throne of Madagascar—and began one of the most controversial reigns in African history. Determined to preserve Malagasy independence from growing European influence, Ranavalona expelled missionaries, restricted Christianity, resisted foreign powers, and fiercely defended traditional customs. Her methods could be brutal. Forced labor, military campaigns, executions, and the infamous tangena ordeal contributed to enormous suffering and population loss. European writers branded her the “Mad Queen of Madagascar,” portraying her as a bloodthirsty tyrant....
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Dearfield: A Microcosm of Great Depression's Ghost Towns
History Shorts
In 1910, Dearfield, Colorado, was founded on the High Plains as an agricultural community where Black Americans could build something largely denied to them elsewhere: land, independence, and economic opportunity. Against difficult odds, Dearfield grew. Families farmed the surrounding land, businesses opened, and the settlement became one of the most important Black homesteading communities in the American West. Then the economy collapsed. Drought, falling crop prices, and the Great Depression devastated the town. Residents left in search of work, farms were abandoned, and a community that had...
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The Poison Squad
History Shorts
At the turn of the twentieth century, America's food supply could be terrifying. Manufacturers routinely added chemicals and preservatives to food—with little regulation and few requirements to tell consumers what they were eating. So government chemist Harvey Wiley conducted an extraordinary experiment. Beginning in 1902, a group of young men volunteered to eat meals deliberately laced with substances like borax, formaldehyde, and salicylic acid. Newspapers gave them an unforgettable nickname: the Poison Squad. The volunteers were carefully monitored as Wiley gathered evidence about what...
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Fascism Didn’t Come From Europe, w/ Joseph Kelly
History Shorts
When Americans watched fascists march down Main Street in the 1930s, they told themselves it was a European import—new, foreign, un-American. Joseph Kelly says that story is wrong. In The Biggest Lie: The Prehistory of American Fascism, 1818–1915, Kelly traces a homegrown political tradition from the Missouri crisis through a Southern police state and Jim Crow, then out across the nation after the Spanish-American War as Anglo-Saxon nationalism: the claim that this country belongs to a master race. By 1915, he argues, the Confederacy was gone. The lie had gone national. SUPPORT THE...
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The Cold War's Most Extraordinary Spy w/ Ben Macintyre
History Shorts
Ben Macintyre joins History Shorts to discuss his new book Redwood: The Untold Story of the Cold War’s Most Extraordinary Spy. In 1981, Tehran was still reeling from the Iranian Revolution. The Shah was gone, Ayatollah Khomeini’s regime was consolidating power, and the Soviet Union was actively working to exploit the chaos. Into this dangerous environment stepped KGB Major Vladimir Kuzichkin—a highly skilled Soviet intelligence officer who would become one of the most important double agents of the late Cold War. Codename: Redwood. In this conversation, Ben Macintyre reveals the...
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Princess Caraboo Fools England
History Shorts
In 1817, a mysterious young woman appeared in an English village speaking an unknown language and wearing exotic clothing. She claimed to be Princess Caraboo, royalty from the distant island of Javasu who had been kidnapped by pirates and escaped by jumping overboard near England. High society was captivated. Newspapers reported her story. Scholars examined her strange language. She performed unusual rituals and entertained fascinated aristocrats. There was just one problem. Princess Caraboo was actually Mary Baker, an English cobbler's daughter. In this episode of History Shorts, we uncover...
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The Complicated History of the Pinkertons
History Shorts
Before the FBI or Secret Service became household names, there were the Pinkertons. Founded by Scottish immigrant Allan Pinkerton in 1850, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency hunted train robbers, infiltrated criminal gangs, protected Abraham Lincoln, and developed an enormous network of private investigators. Their famous logo—a watchful eye above the words “We Never Sleep”—helped give us the term “private eye.” But the Pinkertons had a darker role. Industrialists hired them to infiltrate unions, break strikes, and confront workers. At their height, the agency reportedly...
info_outlineIn August 1911, a starving man walked out of the foothills near Oroville, California—and into a world that believed his people had disappeared.
He became known as Ishi, a member of the Yahi people whose community had been devastated by disease, displacement, and violence during California’s settlement.
Ishi was taken to San Francisco, where anthropologists studied his language, traditions, and knowledge while he lived at the University of California’s museum. To the public, he became a sensation—the so-called “last wild Indian.”
But behind that label was a man navigating profound loss while preserving what he could of his culture.
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