The Road to Now

You might know Bushwick Bill as a member of the iconic Houston rap group The Geto Boys, but his contributions to rap music, his role in the debates over free speech in the 1990s, and his overall influence are far more substantial than you probably realize. In this episode, we welcome Charles Hughes back to the show to discuss his new book Why Bushwick Bill Matters (Univ. of Texas Press) and to get a better und...

Jonah Goldberg is one of America’s most well-known conservative intellectuals, with a resume that includes more than two decades at The National Review, twelve years as a commentator on Fox News, and two New York Times Bestsellers. In recent years, however, the changing definition of “conservative” in American politics has put Jonah at odds with the party that they once called home. In this episode, recorded li...

Can learning the skills required to do good history serve as an antidote to conspiracy theory? Cathy Gorn & Don Wildman think so, and in this episode they join us to discuss their work to teach those skills in the 6^th-12^th grade classroom through National History Day, a program that reaches more than half a million students and tens of thousands of teachers each year. We agree with them an...

Ben and Bob are heading to Tallahassee on April 27 for a live recording at Word of South Festival and the show is free! Click here for details.

The Harlem Globetrotters are one of those great parts of American culture that almost everyone knows and loves. For most of us today, the Globetrotters are outstanding entertainers. But did you know that in the mid-20th century the Globetrotters were probably the single best basketball team...

The election of 2016 was a lot of things. It was a showdown between two candidates who had been household names for decades. It was the second time in five elections where the winning candidate lost the popular vote. And, most relevant here, it was eight years ago and one of the candidates in that election is running again in 2024, so we’ve still got a long time before we can see the full impact it had on US hi...

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On December 13, 2000, Democratic Candidate Al Gore conceded that year’s Presidential Election to Republican George W. Bush. Gore’s concession speech marked a dramatic conclusion to an election that had been contested for more than a month, with partisans from both m...

In 1992, President George Bush’s bid for a second term did not go well. Despite taking 79% of the electoral vote in 1988, holding office during the collapse of communism in Europe, and serving as commander-in-chief during the US victory in the first Iraq War, Bush found himself flanked by a smooth talking former Arkansas governor and a Texas businessman armed with a personal fortune and a lot of charts. When it...

On November 4, 1980, California Republican Ronald Reagan trounced Jimmy Carter at the polls, beating the incumbent by almost 10 percentage points in the popular election and winning 489 of 538 electors. That type of victory combined with Reagan’s larger than life place in modern political history might lead you to believe the 1980 campaign was never in doubt. But it was. And in early 1980, both men faced viable...

The famous image of a victorious Harry Truman holding up a newspaper headlined “Dewey defeats Truman” is clear evidence that the 1948 Presidential election did not turn out the way many people had expected. That April, Truman’s approval rating had sunk to 37%, causing even many in his party to consider dumping him from the ballot. That summer, a rebellion by southern Democrats led by South Carolina segregationi...

The Presidential election of 1912 was an unusual moment in American history. It featured an embattled incumbent President facing criticism from his former allies. It offered voters a choice between the sitting President and his predecessor. And when it was all done, the two men who had previously won the Presidency found themselves bested by a college professor with just a few years of experience in politics.

The Presidential election of 1860 is one we Americans know well. That election sent 
Abraham Lincoln to the White House, southern enslavers to the exit door, and the United States into a bloody Civil War. Lincoln’s leadership in those years and his tragic assassination in the last days of the war propelled the railsplitter into the pantheon of American Presidents.

But sometimes we forget that just a few months before the election,...

The Election of 1824 was a turning point in American history. Long before the fall of 1824, Americans understood that the winner would be the first in America’s second generation to hold the Presidency. When the election began, all four viable candidates were technically from the same party. By the time it was over, the election had generated the rivalries and passions that formed the groundwork for a new natio...

The Constitution empowers the electoral college to select the President, but the process for counting electors’ votes remains in the hands of Congress. In this episode, Constitutional Law Professor Edward Foley explains the origins of the electoral college, how and why the 12^th Amendment changed the process for electing Presidents, and the concerns that led Congress to codify the procedure for counti...

The inalienable right to “the pursuit of happiness” is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, but what exactly does that phrase mean? While Americans today may associate it with the right to own land, opulence or some other act of acquisition, many prominent founders understood it to mean something quite different. In this episode National Constitution Center President & CEO Jeffrey Rosen returns to the...

One episode. Two historians/podcasters. Four stories from American history that you’ve probably never heard. And an unknown number of listeners that we hope will find these stories as fascinating and surprising as we do.

Greg Jackson is the creator of History That Doesn’t Suck and a Professor at Utah Valley University. Ben Sawyer hosts this podcast and has been teach...