History Shorts
Dive into the past with award-winning historian Peter Zablocki in this captivating daily podcast! Uncover hidden stories you never knew existed. And don't miss Friday Conversations where Peter teams up with top experts for riveting, in-depth discussions that bring history to life.
Episodes
For over two thousand years, the Silk Road shaped the destiny of continents. More than a single road, it was a vast web of caravan routes stretching from the imperial courts of China to the markets of the Mediterranean, carrying not just silk but ideas, religions, technologies, and entire worldviews. This episode explores how merchants, monks, soldiers, and nomads turned deserts and mountain passes into the most influe...
The Phoenix Program remains one of the most controversial and least understood operations of the Vietnam War, a shadow war fought in the alleys, jungles, and hidden villages of South Vietnam. Created jointly by the CIA and U.S. military intelligence, the program aimed to dismantle the Viet Cong's covert political infrastructure by any means necessary. Supporters saw it as a precise counterinsurgency tool that finally s...
In the final, collapsing chapter of World War II, Benito Mussolini re-emerged, not as the iron-fisted dictator who once ruled Italy, but as a puppet leader clinging to power in a crumbling regime known as the Italian Social Republic, or the Republic of Salò. Backed by Nazi Germany and despised by much of his own population, this fragile "state" became a dark, violent laboratory of fascist desperation.
DON'...
In the summer of 1945, a small farm in Fruita, Colorado, became the stage for one of the strangest true stories in American history. This is the tale of Mike, the chicken who lived for eighteen months without a head.
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What did America really declare in 1776, and why does it still matter today?
In this episode of History Shorts, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Edward J. Larson joins us to discuss his newest book, Declaring Independence: Why 1776 Matters. Together, we un...
She danced her way into the halls of Europe's elite, captivated generals and diplomats, and became the most infamous alleged double agent of World War I. But behind the veils, the rumors, and the sensational headlines, who was Mata Hari really?
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Long before private eyes stalked dimly lit alleys in pulp novels, America had a different kind of detective, one who didn't chase murderers or mobsters, but runaway maids, jewel thieves, con artists, adulterers, and anyone slipping in or out of a hotel under suspicious circumstances. They were called House Detectives, and from the 1890s through the 1950s, they w...
In this episode, we explore how a small band of Viking descendants from Normandy reshaped medieval Europe forever. From William the Conqueror's seismic victory at Hastings in 1066, which fused Scandinavian grit with French culture and permanently altered England's language, law, and aristocracy, to their lightning conquest of southern Italy and Sicily, the Normans built empires, revolutionized castle warfare, and kick...
He ruled Europe with an iron will, crowned himself emperor, and reshaped the modern world, but in the end, even Napoleon Bonaparte couldn't conquer fate. In this episode of History Shorts, we trace the extraordinary final chapters of Napoleon's life: from his first exile on the Mediterranean island of Elba, to his daring escape, his brief return to glory during the Hundred Days, and ...
Welcome to the second episode of the History Shorts Weekend Show, a soon-to-be weekly Patreon-exclusive variety series offering a lighter, more reflective companion to the main podcast. Think storyteller's lounge meets historian's notebook: part commentary, part narrative, part behind-the-scenes look at the stories shaping both past and present.
THIS WEEK:
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In the pivotal summer of 1863, three extraordinary paths converged on a small Pennsylvania town, forever altering the course of the American Civil War. Petert sits down with accl...
In this gripping episode, we tell the haunting story of Private Eddie Slovik, the only American soldier executed for desertion during World War II among tens of thousands who fled the front lines. Terrified of combat and repeatedly honest about his refusal to fight, Slovik wa...
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CHECK OUT RICHARD'S BOOKS: https://www.richard-bell.com/
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Long before the pyramids captured the world's imagination, ancient writers described a structure so vast, so mysterious, and so extraordinary that even the Egyptians considered it a marvel: the Labyrinth of Hawara. Said to contain thousands of chambers, secret passages, underground levels, and a hidden tomb, the Labyrinth became one of antiquity's greatest legends, and then it vanished.
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In the year 37 CE, Rome welcomed a new emperor who was young, charismatic, and adored by the people. Within months, that same emperor, Caligula, descended into a reign so unhinged, so theatrical, and so violently unpredictable that even Rome, a city used to tyrants, was stunned. This episode explores the wild myths and the documented madness: the war declared on Neptune, the assassination plots, real and imagined, the ...
In the late 1940s, as America entered the paranoid dawn of the Cold War, a brilliant young Justice Department analyst named Judith Coplon was accused of stealing classified FBI documents for the Soviet Union. Her arrest shocked Washington, not only because she was one of the earliest alleged Soviet moles inside the U.S. government, but because her trial revealed deep cracks in American justice, surveillance, and politi...
In 1894, a company town outside Chicago erupted into one of the most explosive labor battles in American history. When workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company walked off the job, their strike grew into a nationwide showdown between labor, capital, and the federal government — shutting down railroads across the country. This History Shorts episode explores the injustice that sparked the strike, ...
Welcome to the very first episode of the History Shorts Weekend Show: a soon-to-be weekly Patreon Exclusive, but for now, offered as a full public preview. This lighter-toned, less-scripted companion to the main History Shorts feed brings together storytelling, commentary, historical insight, and exclusive clips from the Conversation Series vault.
Think of it as your weekend coffee companion: part history ...
In this episode of History Shorts, I sit down with acclaimed author Jack El-Hai to explore the extraordinary true story behind his book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, now adapted into the 2025 film Nuremberg. We discuss the tense, unsettling relationship between U.S. Army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley and captured Nazi leaders like Hermann Göring, a...
In 1940, deep within Poland's Katyn Forest, thousands of Polish officers vanished, erased by Stalin's secret orders. For decades, the truth was buried beneath Soviet lies and Cold War silence. This History Shorts episode uncovers one of World War II's most shocking and politically explosive cover-ups, the massacre Moscow tried to erase from history.
DON'T ...
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