Our American Stories

On this episode of Our American Stories, before anyone understood the reach of Star Wars, a small toy company stepped in with an idea that would alter the future of licensing. The first run of 1977 Star Wars figures was modest, yet the response from children and collectors revealed something larger. These toys made the galaxy feel close enough to hold, and that closeness turned the franchise into a merchandising powerhous...

On this episode of Our American Stories, long before Ruth Handler created Barbie, she was a girl standing behind the counter of her family’s Denver deli, learning how people reveal themselves in the smallest choices. She carried that intuition with her as she and her husband began building Mattel from almost nothing.

Years later, it was her daughter who brought that old instinct into focus. As Ruth watched her play with her d...

On this episode of Our American Stories, a short-term mission trip can feel predictable—until the moment it is not. Stephen Rusiniak shares a story written by his daughter, who traveled to West Virginia expecting hard work and good memories, nothing more. What she found instead was a barefoot child standing in a doorway and a reminder of how acts of kindness can reshape our sense of what matters.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, at Fort Irwin, where military training exercises push soldiers to the edge of real combat, the line between routine drills and genuine danger can blur without warning. Our American Stories regular contributor Richard Muniz remembers a night when that line vanished. A single misjudged moment during a live-fire military exercise sent a round into the wrong vehicle and forced a small crew ...

On this episode of Our American Stories, by the start of 1864, the Civil War had dragged the country into exhaustion. Union armies faced setback after setback, and Lincoln watched public confidence slip as the Confederacy pressed its advantage. The outcome of the presidential election during wartime hung on the direction of the fighting, which turned the battlefield into a measure of Lincoln’s strength. Charles Bracelen Flood...

On this episode of Our American Stories, when Blair and Cat Cornell learned their son would be born with special needs, they braced themselves for a future they could not quite picture. The early years brought long appointments and days that seemed to rise and fall on small breakthroughs. One evening, after a day that had worn their son down, Blair took him for a quiet drive. The shift was immediate. The tension left his face, and ...

On this episode of Our American Stories, long before travelers lined up for brisket sandwiches or bags of Beaver Nuggets, Buc-ee’s began as Arch “Beaver” Aplin’s attempt to rethink what a roadside stop could feel like. He believed that even a quick break on a long drive deserved care, and the first Texas store reflected that instinct. Over the years, the idea grew until people started talking about the large...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in the spring of 1961, McDonald County opened its highway map and discovered that it had simply vanished. The resort towns that depended on summer travelers were nowhere to be found, and what looked like a clerical mistake carried real consequences for the people who lived there. County leaders announced that McDonald County would symbolically secede from Missouri until someone paid attentio...

On this episode of Our American Stories, long before Glory brought the 54th Massachusetts to modern audiences, Robert Gould Shaw felt the pull of a story that had already begun to shape him. A quiet moment with Uncle Tom’s Cabin set him on a path that would place him at the head of one of the first Black Civil War regiments to see combat. The challenges he faced, the men who followed him, and the final march th...

On this episode of Our American Stories, when Dr. David Berry lost his newborn daughter, the world around him narrowed until grief became the only thing he could feel. What began as an attempt to quiet that pain led him first to alcohol, then to cough syrup, and eventually to the stolen prescriptions that pushed him out of his home, his marriage, and the profession he loved. Dr. Berry shares how he reached the lowest point of subst...

On this episode of Our American Stories, as part of his ongoing series on the origins of everyday expressions, Andrew Thompson—author of Hair of the Dog to Paint the Town Red—shares the fascinating backstory behind the phrase “apple of your eye” and several others we still use without thinking. These familiar sayings carry histories shaped by religion, literature, and everyday life in earlier centuries....

On this episode of Our American Stories, Ralphie’s fantasy villain in A Christmas Story came from a dime novel that turned a real outlaw into a cartoon desperado. The actual Black Bart was nothing like the character on screen. In the 1870s, he robbed stagecoaches with a courtesy that puzzled sheriffs and captivated the public, leaving polite poems instead of violence. Roger McGrath looks back at the life of Charles ...

On this episode of Our American Stories, when Jeff Katz wrote a birthday note to his daughter Julia, he was marking a moment she would not recognize. Julia lives with global developmental delays, and her days move with a rhythm that has stayed the same for years. Still, the note gave Jeff a place to set down what life with her has looked like, from the small routines she loves to the concerns he quietly carries. As he reads it alou...

On this episode of Our American Stories, Scot Bertram and Christian Schneider have spent years tracing the unlikely beginnings of Saturday Night Live, and they return to share how the show first took shape. They follow its earliest days, when a quiet Canadian named Lorne Michaels gathered a scattered group of young performers and tried to build something that didn’t exist yet. What emerged was a late-night experiment tha...

On this episode of Our American Stories, back when Lorna Jean was struggling through the darkest stretch of her life, she didn’t expect anyone to come close. Then Allison, the wife of her doctor, paused on her rounds one afternoon and stepped into Lorna’s room. What started as a hesitant conversation slowly turned into a place Lorna could trust. Over the years, that friendship helped her weather crises, make sense of he...

On this episode of Our American Stories, when immigrant Osiris Hoil lost his construction job during the economic downturn of 2008, it felt like the kind of setback that ends a dream. He had left Mexico with hope for something better, only to find himself caught in the same financial crisis that pushed so many families to the brink. What he still had was his cooking, his mother’s standards, and a neighbor who believed he coul...

On this episode of Our American Stories, in September 1813, Oliver Hazard Perry sailed into the Battle of Lake Erie carrying a flag stitched with a promise not to give up the ship. He was young, outmatched on paper, and facing a British fleet that had dominated the early naval battles of the War of 1812. What followed was a decisive victory that reshaped the conflict and secured Perry’s place as one of its defining figures.

C...