100 episodes

This is a podcast for people who want to think historically about current events. Everything happening today comes from something, somewhere. The past shapes the present. History As It Happens, hosted by award-winning broadcaster Martin Di Caro, features interviews with today's top scholars and thinkers, interwoven with audio from history's archive. New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.

History As It Happens Martin Di Caro

    • News
    • 4.6 • 41 Ratings

This is a podcast for people who want to think historically about current events. Everything happening today comes from something, somewhere. The past shapes the present. History As It Happens, hosted by award-winning broadcaster Martin Di Caro, features interviews with today's top scholars and thinkers, interwoven with audio from history's archive. New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.

    Anarchy in Haiti

    Anarchy in Haiti

    Haiti is collapsing under gang-fueled lawlessness. The central government has lost control of most of the capital, Port-au-Prince. The de facto prime minister Ariel Henry has agreed to resign under pressure. Ordinary citizens are being kidnapped by gangs and held for ransom. They have been gunned down in wild shootouts, and are desperate for basic necessities. Caribbean neighbors have agreed to create a transitional council to fill the power vacuum, but it faces internal opposition from rival factions within Haiti. In this episode, Keith Mines of the U.S. Institute of Peace discusses the sources of anarchy in a country that once appeared headed for a brighter future after the Duvalier dictatorship more than 30 years ago.  

    • 48 min
    Netanyahu's War

    Netanyahu's War

    Throughout his long political career -- as a diplomat, Likud party leader, or Israeli prime minister -- Benjamin Netanyahu has obsessed over his country's security while vehemently opposing Palestinian statehood and U.S.-Iran rapprochement. He promised his people they could be safe, have settlements, and co-exist with Palestinians marooned in permanent statelessness. Now 74 years old and fighting for his political survival, Netanyahu is prosecuting a war of immense destruction after Israel's "mowing the grass" strategy in Gaza was destroyed by the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7.  In this episode, the Middle East Institute's Nimrod Goren looks back on Netanyahu's time as soldier, statesman, and political survivor.

    • 58 min
    Historians vs. Trump, Revisited

    Historians vs. Trump, Revisited

    This is the follow-up episode to the one published on Feb. 6 previewing the oral arguments in the Colorado ballot case, Trump v. Anderson.
    The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a state may not disqualify a candidate for federal office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, whose Reconstruction-era framers sought to bar anyone from holding office who had violated their oath by engaging in insurrection. In doing so, the Supreme Court restored Donald J. Trump to the Colorado ballot. But the conservative majority also invented a rule that only Congress has the power to disqualify by passing legislation, something that has no constitutional basis. In this episode, University of Maryland constitutional scholar Mark Graber explains where the Supreme Court mangled U.S. history. Graber also provides a definition of insurrection based on his exhaustive research of centuries of relevant cases.

    • 50 min
    After Putin

    After Putin

    In power for nearly a quarter century, Vladimir Putin, 71, is a modern-day tsar -- an autocrat largely unaccountable to his people -- except he has no known successor. Whether the Russian president rules for another week or another decade, there will come a time when he’s gone. Who might replace him is a mystery. Also unclear is how Putin might be replaced: by a violent coup? Some legal way under the Russian constitution? In this episode, Liana Fix of the Council on Foreign Relations and Maria Snegovaya of the Center for Strategic & International Studies use the Soviet past as a guide to understanding possible scenarios under which a successor may emerge -- and what new leadership in the Kremlin means for Russia, Europe, and the United States.

    • 44 min
    Election of 1980

    Election of 1980

    Hey, 2024 is an election year! This is the first episode in an occasional series examining influential elections in U.S. history.
    The moralistic incumbent expressed anguish over soulless materialism. The optimistic challenger promised Americans they could overcome any and all problems. The election of 1980 pitted Democrat Jimmy Carter against Republican Ronald Reagan as Americans struggled with stagflation at home and crises abroad. Reagan's victory marked a sea change in U.S. politics, tilting the political landscape to the right. Reagan crusaded against big government and Soviet Communism. If the incumbent looked impotent in the face of these vexing problems, Reagan projected strength -- a timeless lesson of campaigning. In this episode, historians Jeremi Suri and Jeffrey Engel discuss why this election still matters.

    • 1 hr 21 min
    Who Was Alexei Navalny?

    Who Was Alexei Navalny?

    Alexei Navalny was Russia’s most prominent and effective opposition leader, an anti-corruption crusader and democratic politician who entered public life as a provocative blogger around the same time his future persecutor, Vladimir Putin, became Russia's president. Navalny died inside an Arctic penal colony on Feb. 16. He was 47. He leaves a legacy, setting an example of how to challenge the regime even while under constant state persecution. In this episode, Miriam Lanskoy of the National Endowment for Democracy explains who Navalny was, why his opposition movement was so effective, and what his death says about late Putinism. 

    • 38 min

Customer Reviews

4.6 out of 5
41 Ratings

41 Ratings

xepackob ,

Amazing podcast

Most intelligent guests sharing history details impacting current affairs. Truly great show!

Walcott <3 Bryn ,

The George Washington Times delivers

Excellently produced and extremely satisfied. My kind of content.

rwales10 ,

Feedback

Martin,

Thank you for your podcast. It is quite informative and I listen to many of the episodes.

Some feedback: occasionally you criticize other people, which is fine, but sometimes it isn’t backed up. Recently you had a negative comment about Glenn Beck with no specifics about what he said and why you objected to it. I have listened to some of his episodes and found nothing to object to. I’m open to valid criticism that is backed up with facts.

Nonetheless your material is quite good. I like the fact that you are willing to cover lesser known facts about people such as Martin Luther King’s communist tendencies.

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