15 Minute History The University of Texas at Austin

In February 1917, long summering tensions sparked a revolution that led to the overthrow of Russian Tsar Nicholas II and the establishment of a new government under Kerenski which was later overthrown by a group that became the Communist Party (the October Revolution).

Guest Joan Neuberger from UT’s Department of History discusses the long-simmering causes of the revolution and discontent in Russia, and what finally lit the spark that caused the uprising that toppled the three hundred-year old Romanov dynasty.

In this episode, we tackle “that pesky standard” in the Texas World History course that requires students to understand the development of “radical Islamic fundamentalism and the subsequent use of terrorism by some of its adherents.” This is especially tricky for educators: how to talk about such an emotional subject without resorting to stereotypes and demonizing? What drives some to turn to violent actions in the first place?

Guest Christopher Rose from UT’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies offers a few suggestions and some background information on how to keep the phenomenon in perspective.

What did colonialism look like before 1885, and how did the Berlin Conference change the ways Europeans behaved? What did colonialism look like in various regions of the continent? And what are the lingering legacies of colonialism and de-colonization that continue to have an impact on contemporary Africa?

Guest Cacee Hoyer from UT’s Department of History helps explain the Scramble for Africa.

American political discourse refers a lot to the ideals of the Founding Fathers, but the Founding Fathers often found themselves at odds with one another with very different religious, political, and economic ideas. In this episode, we’ll examine some of the lesser known Founding Fathers, and examine the ranges of opinions they held about issues from slavery to states’ rights and their opinions on the form of the new American Republic.

Guest Henry A. Wiencek from UT’s Department of History walks us through an era of American history that, it turns out, isn’t so easy to summarize as it might appear.

This episode looks at US perceptions of Mexico through map making during the US / Mexico War, in which a private publisher sold maps that were reissued annually to reflect ongoing progress in the campaign. Intended for a general, popular audience, these maps served as propaganda in aid of the conflict, but historians and military analysts alike have ignored them until recently—even though they may well have influenced the positioning of the border at the war’s end.

Guest Chloe Ireton looks at the intriguing history of maps as propaganda and the role of two publishing houses—J. Disturnell and Ensigns & Thayer—not only in rewriting the history of the Mexican-American war, but in influencing the outcome of the war even as it was still ongoing.

The Atlantic slave trade was one of the most important examples of forced migration in human history. While slavery in the U.S. is well-documented, only ten percent of the slaves imported from Africa came to the United States; the other ninety per cent were disbursed throughout the Americas—nearly half went to Brazil alone. Where did they go? What did slavery look like in other parts of the New World? And what are the lingering effects on the modern world?

Guest Natalie Arsenault from the University of Chicago explores the oft-ignored impact of the slave trade on other parts of the Americas.