The First Palestinian Uprising
History As It Happens
for early access, ad-free listening, and bonus content! A decade before the state of Israel was born, a revolt rocked the British mandate of Palestine. It was an uprising of Arab peasants directed at their colonial overlords, Zionist immigrants, and Arab elites. The Great Revolt of 1936-1939 nearly succeeded before it was crushed by overwhelming force, a setback from which the Palestinian national movement never truly recovered. When you listen to this episode, you'll hear its echoes in today's crisis. Our guest is Ted Swedenburg, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of...
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Paul Kennedy's Prophecy
History As It Happens
for early access, ad-free listening, and bonus content! subscribers got this episode (with no ads!) on Monday, May 4. The United States' failure to defeat Iran in an unprovoked, undeclared war is fueling the notion that the U.S. is in decline. Its security commitments cover the globe. The annual defense budget is approaching $1 trillion. But the Pentagon can neither defend its Persian Gulf bases from low-cost drone attacks nor reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Forty years ago, a Yale historian named Paul Kennedy argued in a best-selling book that the U.S., like all great powers, could...
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Madman Diplomacy, Nixon to Trump
History As It Happens
for early access, ad-free listening, and bonus content! Shortly after taking office in 1969, President Richard Nixon believed he might intimidate, through military threats, the Soviet Union and North Vietnam into making concessions at the peace table. In Nixon's words, it was "Madman theory." It didn't work. Today, President Trump has tried to bluster and bluff his way to victory over Iran, even threatening to wipe out Iranian civilization. Now the president hopes a naval blockade will force Tehran into surrendering the Strait of Hormuz and its nuclear ambitions. Historian Carolyn Eisenberg...
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Chernobyl, 40 Years On
History As It Happens
for early access, ad-free listening, and bonus content! In late April 1986, what should have been a routine test at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northeastern Ukraine turned into an epic disaster, the largest ever accidental release of deadly radiation. It contaminated the earth, exposed the rot in the Soviet system, and changed the course of history. To this day, Chernobyl is not only a place on a map. It's a symbol of death, destruction, and the terrible legacy of the USSR. Mariana Budjeryn is our guest. Mariana Budjeryn is a senior researcher with the Center for Nuclear Security...
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Where's Russia?
History As It Happens
for early access, ad-free listening, and bonus content! subscribers got this episode (with no ads!) on Thursday, April 23. When he took power 25 years ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to turn his country into a Great Power again, after it had endured a decade of poverty and humiliation following the collapse of the Soviet Union. But Russia is on the sidelines as wars and blockades in the Greater Middle East roil the global order. Yes, Russia has reportedly assisted Iran with satellite targeting intelligence, and its economy may benefit from the bump in oil prices. But...
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What is Greater Israel?
History As It Happens
for early access, ad-free listening, and bonus content! subscribers got this episode (with no ads!) on Monday, April 20. With Gaza destroyed and Jewish settlers rampaging the West Bank, and with the IDF occupying parts of southern Lebanon and Syria, talk of achieving "Greater Israel" is now commonplace among influential political and media figures in Israel, as well as the settlers who have their eyes set on annexing Palestinian territory. What does this Old Testament idea mean? And what current forces — religious, nationalist, and others — are driving it? Political scientist...
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Giulio Douhet's Kind of War
History As It Happens
for early access, ad-free listening, and bonus content! subscribers got this episode (with no ads!) on Thursday, April 16. There was an old idea behind President Trump's threats to annihilate Iran's bridges, power plants, and other civilian infrastructure. It's called strategic bombing, and it was devised more than a century ago by an Italian air power theorist with a French-sounding name. Giulio Douhet said air power should be used to destroy the enemy's capacity to make war while terrorizing its citizens to crush their will to persevere. In this episode, historian David M....
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Bonus Ep! Goodbye, Orbán
History As It Happens
to listen to the entire 20-minute episode (or preview 5 minutes). After 16 years in power, the self-described illiberal democrat Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz political party were trounced in Hungary's national elections. Critics of Orbán's authoritarian style had long become concerned that he had so tilted the electoral system in Fidesz's favor that he might never be beaten. So, what happened to MAGA darling Viktor Orbán? Political scientist Veronica Anghel of the European University Institute is our guest.
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American Suez
History As It Happens
for early access, ad-free listening, and bonus content! Great Britain, France, and Israel's secret plan in 1956 to invade Egypt, regain control of the Suez Canal, and force the nationalist strongman Gamal Nasser from power ended in strategic disaster. The Eisenhower administration angrily opposed the surprise attack and pressured the aggressors to withdraw, ensuring Egypt would maintain control of the vital waterway. Today, as the U.S. fights a war of choice against Iran with no easy way to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, some believe the United States is experiencing its own 'Suez moment,'...
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Martyrs and Survivors: The Iran-Iraq War
History As It Happens
Keep the narrative flow going in 2026. for early access, ad-free listening, and bonus content! Over eight long years in the 1980s, Iraq and Iran pulverized each other in an unwinnable, pointless war that nonetheless began as an existential threat to the new revolutionary government in Tehran. In the crucible of war, the Islamic Republic cemented hardline clerical rule, crushed dissent, forged an identity, demonstrated its resilience, ensured the country's independence, and created a powerful national narrative to challenge hostile "imperialists" in the West and East. In this...
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The Russian invasion of Ukraine is entering its fifth year with no end in sight despite several rounds of U.S.-mediated negotiating sessions. The battlefield dead and wounded have reportedly surpassed a million men, yet neither side is on the brink of military or political collapse. Neither side is close to victory. In this episode, historians Michael Kimmage and Mark Galeotti try to place this tragic and unnecessary conflict in historical perspective, as the opposing armies send a generation of their young to fight and die over piles of rubble in eastern Ukraine.
Michael Kimmage is the founding director of the independent Kennan Institute. He is the author of “Collisions: The War in Ukraine and the Origins of the New Global Instability.”
Mark Galeotti is an Honorary Professor at University College London, an expert on Russian military history, and the author of many books, including "Forged in War: A Military History of Russia From Its Beginnings to Today."
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