HISTORY This Week

The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios

Visit htwpod.com for ad-free listening and bonus content! This week, something big happened. You might have never heard of it, but this moment changed the course of history. A HISTORY Channel original podcast, HISTORY This Week gives you insight into the people—both famous and unknown—whose decisions reshaped the world we live in today. Through interviews with experts and eyewitnesses, each episode will give you a new perspective on how history is written. Stay up-to-date at historythisweekpodcast.com and to get in touch, email us at historythisweek@history.com.HISTORY This Week is a production of Back Pocket Studios in partnership with the History Channel.

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  1. 15 hr ago

    Did Homer Write the Odyssey? (Was He Even Real?)

    August, sometime in the 500s BCE. In Athens, the Great Panathenaia is in full swing: chariot races, boat races, a hundred cattle slaughtered for the feast. And at the center of it, a competition in which performers recite the work of one poet, and one poet only: Homer. But nobody recites the Odyssey alone. It takes some eighteen hours. So the performers hand it off in relay, each one picking up exactly where the last man stopped. That relay may be the closest thing we have to the truth about Homer. Almost no scholar today believes a single blind bard composed the Iliad and the Odyssey. So who made them? And what happens to a masterpiece when you accept that it never had an author? Special thanks to our guests: Mary Ebbott, professor of classics at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts; and Casey Dué, professor of classical studies at the University of Houston. They are the editors of the Homer Multitext Project, which you can find at homermultitext.org. To stay updated on all things HISTORY This Week, sign up at historythisweekpodcast.com. Have thoughts or questions? Email us at historythisweek@history.com. Sign up for ad-free listening and bonus episodes at htwpod.com.

    Did Homer Write the Odyssey? (Was He Even Real?)

  2. 17 Aug

    The Wire That Connected the World

    August 17, 1858. New York City wakes to a hundred-gun salute. Church bells ring, flags fly from public buildings, and by nightfall, fireworks light up the sky. The city is celebrating a telegram from Queen Victoria to President Buchanan. Not what it says, but how it traveled: along a 2,000-mile cable running under the Atlantic Ocean. Messages that once took two weeks by steamship now arrive in an instant. And the man behind the cable, a retired paper tycoon named Cyrus Field, is about to become the most famous person in America. But Field has a secret. His cable is already failing. Why did a bored millionaire attempt the moonshot of the Victorian era? And how did one fragile wire lay the foundation for our connected world? Special thanks to our guest, James M. Tabor, author of Lightning Beneath the Sea: The Race to Wire the World at the Dawn of the Information Age. To stay updated on all things HISTORY This Week, sign up at historythisweekpodcast.com. Have thoughts or questions? Email us at historythisweek@history.com. Sign up for ad-free listening and bonus episodes at htwpod.com.

    The Wire That Connected the World

  3. 14 Aug • Subscribers Only

    Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson as People, Not Symbols (HTW+ Interview)

    Annette Gordon-Reed first encountered Sally Hemings at age 12, in a book she found on her parents' shelf. Decades later, her research changed how America understands Thomas Jefferson, and how historians treat the words of the people he enslaved. In this full-length interview we recorded back in 2022, available exclusively to HTW+ subscribers, Sally sits down for an honest, sometimes difficult conversation with the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian to trace the whole story: Hemings' childhood at Monticello, the bargain she struck with Jefferson in Paris at just 16, the scandal James Callender ignited in 1802, and the phone call Gordon-Reed took while cooking dinner the night she learned the DNA results were in. Annette Gordon-Reed is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University and the author of "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy" and "The Hemingses of Monticello."

    Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson as People, Not Symbols (HTW+ Interview)

  4. 10 Aug

    The French Monarchy Falls in a Day

    August 10, 1792. At midnight, a single church bell begins to ring in Paris. Then another. And another. It's not a call to mass… it's a call to arms. For three years, King Louis XVI and his family have been living as prisoners in a palace, under virtual house arrest at the Tuileries, while France fights over one seething question: can the monarchy survive the Revolution? The radicals have issued a deadline: get rid of the king by the end of August 9th, or we'll take matters into our own hands. The deadline has just passed. Today, midnight for the monarchy. How did France, whose kings were once anointed with holy oil and believed to cure disease by touch, come to loathe Louis XVI so much? And how does centuries of royal rule come crashing down in a single day? Special thanks to our guests: David Andress, professor of modern history at the University of Portsmouth and author of The Terror: Civil War in the French Revolution; and Marisa Linton, professor of history turned prize-winning novelist. She's the author of Choosing Terror: Virtue, Friendship, and Authenticity in the French Revolution, and her latest novel, Domain of Darkness, will be published this December. To stay updated on all things HISTORY This Week, sign up at historythisweekpodcast.com. Have thoughts or questions? Email us at historythisweek@history.com. Sign up for ad-free listening and bonus episodes at htwpod.com.

    The French Monarchy Falls in a Day

  5. 3 Aug

    Arsenic, Adultery, and an American on Trial

    August 7, 1889. In Liverpool's St. George's Hall, an American woman named Florence Maybrick stands behind iron bars, dressed in mourning black… for the husband she's accused of murdering. The evidence against her is thin: James Maybrick was a longtime arsenic addict who bought the poison daily, and none was found in his stomach when he died. But Florence had committed another kind of crime in the eyes of Victorian society. She'd had an affair. And to many, that moral transgression was proof enough of murder. How did a 17-year-old American socialite end up married to a secret addict, and then put on trial for her life? How did her case ignite protests, half a million petition signatures, and the fury of Queen Victoria herself? And how did one wronged woman help change England's system of justice forever? Special thanks to our guest, Rick Hutto, attorney and author of A Poisoned Life: Florence Chandler Maybrick, the First American Woman Sentenced to Death in England; and to Andrea Hastings-Arroyo, graduate student and library specialist at the University of Wyoming, who helped with our research. You can find all the books we’ve used to make recent HISTORY This Week episodes at historythisweekpodcast.com. Subscribe for ad-free and bonus episodes at htwpod.com.

    Arsenic, Adultery, and an American on Trial

  6. 31 Jul • Subscribers Only

    Doris Kearns Goodwin's Time with LBJ (HTW+ Extended Interview)

    * Subscribe to HTW+ at htwpod.com * Doris Kearns Goodwin first met President Lyndon Johnson when she was just 24 years old, when he asked her to dance in the White House ballroom. This started a six-year working relationship; after the presidency, she went on to help Johnson write his memoirs before his death in 1973. Today, Goodwin is one of America's most prominent historians. We spoke to her in 2021 about her time with LBJ, how his War on Poverty was rooted in his own upbringing, and how his legacy is viewed today.

    Doris Kearns Goodwin's Time with LBJ (HTW+ Extended Interview)

  7. 30 Jul

    Fall Out (Finale)

    Listen to all 20 episodes of World War II with Tom Hanks wherever you get your podcasts! The war is over, and the Allies are triumphant. The United States and the Soviet Union initially work together to establish a new world order, but over the course of the next four years these two nations will go from Allies of convenience to ideological adversaries, launching the next phase of global conflict under the shadow of nuclear war. This episode features interviews with (in order of appearance): Michel Paradis, professor, Columbia UniversityJon Meacham, presidential historianSimon Sebag Montefiore, historian and authorTimothy Naftali, senior research scholar, Columbia UniversitySarada Peri, presidential speechwriter and political analystPhillips O’Brien, professor, University of St. AndrewsAlexandra Richie, professor, Collegium CivitasDan Carlin, podcaster, Hardcore HistoryMichael Kimmage, professor, Catholic University of AmericaMichael Neiberg, professor, US Army War CollegeDan Snow, historian and broadcasterA.J. Baime, journalist and authorRobert Citino, senior historian, National WWII Museum

    Fall Out (Finale)

  8. 27 Jul

    Washington: Hero of the Revolution, from The Rest is History

    Sharing an episode of a show we really love, called The Rest is History. Hosted by historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, the show brings the past to life through gripping storytelling, sharp analysis and a huge sense of drama. From the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the French Revolution and the Norman Conquest of 1066, to the sinking of the Titanic, the Second World War and the lives of history’s most powerful rulers, Tom and Dominic unpack the people, battles and world-changing events that shaped the modern world. Their latest series explores the Founding Fathers of the United States - the ideas, rivalries and revolutions behind the birth of America. In this episode, Dominic and Tom launch into the extraordinary life and origins of George Washington. Where did George Washington come from, and what was he like? How did he come to take on such a pivotal role in the American Revolution? And, was he really central to America’s triumphant struggle for independence?  You can find more episodes of The Rest Is History at https://linktr.ee/RestIshistory.

    Washington: Hero of the Revolution, from The Rest is History
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About

Visit htwpod.com for ad-free listening and bonus content! This week, something big happened. You might have never heard of it, but this moment changed the course of history. A HISTORY Channel original podcast, HISTORY This Week gives you insight into the people—both famous and unknown—whose decisions reshaped the world we live in today. Through interviews with experts and eyewitnesses, each episode will give you a new perspective on how history is written. Stay up-to-date at historythisweekpodcast.com and to get in touch, email us at historythisweek@history.com.HISTORY This Week is a production of Back Pocket Studios in partnership with the History Channel.

Information

  • Creator
    The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    343
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © A&E Television Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
  • Show Website
    HISTORY This Week
  • Provider
    Benjamin Dickstein

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