History That Doesn't Suck
HTDS is a bi-weekly podcast, delivering a legit, seriously researched, hard-hitting survey of American history through entertaining stories. To keep up with History That Doesn’t Suck news, check us out htdspodcast.com or follow on Facebook and Instagram: @Historythatdoesntsuck; on Twitter/X: @HTDSpod. Become a premium member to support our work, receive ad-free episodes and bonus episodes.
Episodes
“I felt no distress whatever…I was perspiring freely and was as limber and helpless as a wet rag. It was an exhilarating experience.... It was then and there that I first conceived the idea of the reclamation of the desert.”
This is the story of the Hoover Dam.
A wild, precarious, and dangerous river, the Colorado tears across the American southwest’s otherwise arid and largely uninhabitable desert. Yet, if tamed, the Colorado...
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April 21, 2025 • 63 mins
This is a conversation to kick off the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. Retired U.S. Army Major General and history buff, Bill Rapp, drops some knowledge on how the colonies weren't exactly gung-ho for a full-blown revolution before April 1775. Turns out, they were mostly ticked off and feeling rebellious in response to intolerable British policies. But a tense situation and an itchy trigger finger set it off.
The epi...
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April 7, 2025 • 54 mins
A discussion of the recent HTDS narrative episodes on FDR and the New Deal. Think of it as a book club for additional insights into these latest chapters of the HTDS chronological story of America.
Professor Greg Jackson is joined by Professor Lindsey Cormack to discuss the government's response to the Great Depression and the legacy of the New Deal. They explore the causes of the Depression, the government's initial missteps, and...
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March 24, 2025 • 71 mins
“No matter how great and good a man may be, executive aggrandizement is not safe for democracy.”
This is the story of Franklin’s second term and his battle with the Supreme Court.
It’s no secret that SCOTUS hasn’t really been ruling in the New Deal’s favor. But with such an overwhelming victory at the polls, Franklin feels confident that he can circumvent that by upping the number of judges from nine to fifteen and appointing pe...
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March 10, 2025 • 71 mins
“I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet.”
This is the story of FDR’s first term after facing down the initial emergency.
100 days down, about 1,300 more to go—for this term at least. After the whirlwind of new bills and “alphabet agencies” (AAA, CCC, etc.), the nation is adjusting to and examining FDR’s New Deal. As they do, the NIRA is upsetting both ends of the spectrum: company owners do...
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February 24, 2025 • 67 mins
“[We] had forgotten to be Republicans or Democrats. We were just a bunch of men trying to save the banking system.”
This is the story of FDR’s first 100 days in office.
In early 1933, banks foreclose on thousands upon thousands of homes and farms every month. The banks have little choice–they too are failing! Meanwhile, unemployment is hovering near 25%. It’s a catastrophe. Capitalism itself and the American way of life appears ...
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February 10, 2025 • 71 mins
“First of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself-–nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
This is the story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s journey to the White House.
Even as a young boy, Franklin admires his fifth cousin Theodore Roosevelt and wants to follow in his footsteps. He seems to have a knack for it too. He a...
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December 16, 2024 • 66 mins
"Too much praise cannot be given to the President for the prompt and resolute and skillful way in which he has set about reassuring the country after the financial collapse.”
This is the story of Herbert Hoover’s facing the early years of the Great Depression.
Just after the stock market crash of 1929, people aren’t expecting the worst. Most, including the experts, believe that this little downturn will blow over with time, just...
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December 2, 2024 • 34 mins
“There is a million dollars here for the asking!”
This is the story of Christmas in the 1920s.
Yeah, the whole decade—why not? One hundred years ago, people were just beginning (or reviving) traditions that are entrenched in our holiday celebrations today. Charitable giving at Christmas is ever present, and the winter of 1920 features the Great Humanitarian Herbert Hoover’s efforts to feed children in Europe with his “Invisible ...
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November 18, 2024 • 66 mins
“A wise man never sells out at the first sign of trouble. That’s for the pikers.”
This is the story of the 1929 Wall Street Crash.
On October 24, or “Black Thursday,” stock prices plunge unexpectedly. Early the next week, whatever was left of the bottom falls out on “Black Tuesday.” The New York Stock Exchange has crashed. The Roaring 20s are over.
But what exactly is a stock market? How does the American financial system work i...
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November 4, 2024 • 44 mins
Our last few episodes have reveled in stories of the popularization of movies, music and sports during the Roaring 1920s. In this epilogue episode, Professor Jackson steps out of storytelling mode and into classroom mode (that doesn’t suck).
To help us better understand the lasting cultural impact of this period, he’s invited Dr. Sarah Churchwell who has written extensively about 1920s American culture, including her acclaimed boo...
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October 21, 2024 • 40 mins
“His Lordship from Transylvania would like to purchase a nice house in our small town . . . it will take a bit of effort . . . a bit of sweat and perhaps . . . a bit of blood . . .”
This is the story of the Great Death in Wisborg in 1838.
Nosferatu is a 1922 classic horror film, one of the first ever made. It sort of recalls Bram Stoker’s Dracula—enough to build a copyright lawsuit—but, fortunately for us, Nosferatu weathered th...
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October 7, 2024 • 59 mins
“We have a basket and a ball, and it seems to me that would be a good name for it.”
This is the story of America’s varied athletic endeavors (besides baseball). Though each sport could provide enough material for an entire episode, it would probably run us into overtime, and the 1920s are drawing to a close. As Black Thursday approaches, it’s time for some last-minute fun and games.
The 1920s is the Golden Age of Sports—fans can...
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September 30, 2024 • 52 mins
As a follow up to episode 165 America’s Favorite Pastime: Baseball, we’re proud to share an interview with Bob Kendrick, the President of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, MO. Founded in 1990, the NLBM is the world’s only museum dedicated to preserving and celebrating the rich history of African-American baseball and its profound impact on the social advancement of America.
It’s the perfect time to share more about ...
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September 23, 2024 • 62 mins
"As I hit the ball, every muscle in my system, every sense I had, told me that I had never hit a better one . . . I didn't have to look. But I did. That ball . . . hit . . . exactly the spot I had pointed to."
This is the story of the most American sport: baseball.
Americans have been playing ball for a good long while now—even General Washington enjoyed an occasional game of catch—but baseball as we know it only emerged around th...
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September 9, 2024 • 64 mins
“Harlem is the queen of the black belts, drawing Aframericans together in a vast humming hive . . . from the different states, from the islands of the Caribbean, and from Africa . . . It is the Negro capital of the world.”
This is the story of the Harlem Renaissance.
In the early twentieth century, many Black families and individuals down South are finding that the only way out is up—to the North. Driven by Jim Crow discriminatio...
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August 26, 2024 • 61 mins
“Miller, Lyles, and I were standing near the exit door . . . Blake stuck out there in front, leading the orchestra—his bald head would get the brunt of the tomatoes and rotten eggs.”
This is the story of American musical theater and the dawn of modern Broadway.
Popular entertainment is evolving fast in the early twentieth century. Minstrel shows just aren’t drawing the same numbers anymore (for good reason), and burlesque and vari...
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August 12, 2024 • 64 mins
“Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothing yet!”
This is the story of the silver screen.
In the late nineteenth century, technology is advancing rapidly. Eadweard Muybridge’s trip-wire camera work, made famous by a “motion study” of a galloping horse, is giving way to smoother and longer projections. Some see these short films simply as a curiosity, an “invention without a future” as early filmmaker Louis Lumière famo...
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July 29, 2024 • 39 mins
Cheers to Professor Jackson’s post Prohibition conversation with distinguished author Daniel Okrent! Dan is the the author of Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, winner of the American Historical Association’s prize for the year’s best book of American History when it was published in 2011. Last Call was a go-to book in the HTDS bibliography for episodes 157-160 as we researched and selected the stories to tell in these fo...
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July 15, 2024 • 65 mins
“Only Capone kills like that.”
This is the story of the rise and fall of Al Capone, and the last gasps of Prohibition.
No other gangster compares to Scarface. He’s remained prominent in the American consciousness for 100 years due to his overt violence and lavish lifestyle, funded by *ahem* unsavory business practices. He brazenly orders murders like the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, but he also doesn’t hesitate to get his own h...
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