As foretold by the prophecy—well, the one I made myself—I’m back, with the first episode of our series on All-Time, All-Star History’s Trainwrecks. Since I’m going in no particular order, I’m starting with Richard Nixon, our thirty-seventh president and first and only one thus far to resign before his term ended. Before I started my research, I had the same sense that most people who lived through the seventies did (though I had barely started solid food when Nixon went home in disgrace). In sho...
Feb 21, 2025•15 min•Season 1Ep. 69
If you've noticed my conspicuous absence, don't worry. I've been doing my whole history nerd thing. And I wrote a book about ancient Rome, because I just can't help myself. And it's got footnotes! Stay tuned for that, and our first episode of All Star History's Trainwrecks - Richard Nixon. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/historys-trainwrecks . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Aug 16, 2024•9 min
The Conway Cabal had been beaten. This unholy trinity of general slimeballs—General Horatio Gates, General Thomas Mifflin, and General Thomas Conway—had schemed to get rid of George Washington, his best generals, his staff of wunderkind (Alexander Hamilton, John Laurens, and the Marquis de Lafayette), and then take over the Continental Army, which was huddled at Valley Forge in the winter of 1778. George Washington proved himself to be no slouch at politics, using a combination of judicious sile...
Apr 05, 2024•26 min•Season 1Ep. 67
Supplies are running low and snow is running high at Valley Forge, along with desertions and resignations. The remaining officers are squabbling amongst themselves and the Congress is nearly no use at all, having fallen under the sway of the slimy and traitorous Conway Cabal. This band of cowardly malefactors has one goal—remove George Washington and his generals and take over the Continental Army. Along the way, they also come up with a plan to invade and conquer Canada, that longstanding pipe ...
Mar 22, 2024•29 min•Season 1Ep. 66
On our last episode, we left George Washington’s ragtag Continental Army without any shoes in the snow, marching their bloody way to Valley Forge in December, 1777. The year 1777 had been a lousy one for the American cause—Washington couldn’t seem to decisively win a battle against the British (who held the American capital of Philadelphia), other generals were actively conspiring to have Washington removed and replaced by themselves (most notably Horatio Gates, who actually had won a decisive b...
Jan 26, 2024•31 min•Season 1Ep. 65
You know how I love a good trainwreck, with all the self-inflicted calamity thereupon, but I found an episode of American history that could have been a massive fireball of a trainwreck, but then wasn’t. Its an inspiring story, one that should definitely not be lost on modern-day Americans. The enemy held the high ground, American unity was at a low point, and winter was coming. The cause of the United States hung in the balance, and everything was at stake. There’s a contest in the middle of th...
Jan 05, 2024•23 min•Season 1Ep. 64
If you’re a fan of the Presidencies of the United States podcast, you’re familiar with the special series host Jerry Landry does called Seat At The Table, in which he and a special guest cover the life of a Cabinet secretary. Most of whom you’ve never heard of. Jerry does this because no president accomplishes anything alone. The President of the United States is at the top, but he needs someone to run foreign policy, handle the money, and keep an eye on the army as well as all the ships at sea....
Nov 03, 2023•2 hr 21 min•Season 1Ep. 63
Building Hoover Dam was difficult and deadly work. But there was a Great Depression going on and dam work paid real money. If it could be said that there was a choice between your family starving to death or you risking your life on building the engineering marvel of the age, you chose the dam. Author Kelly Stone Gamble’s historical novel Ragtown tells the story of the dam and the desperate people who lived in its shadow. It’s a great story and great history. Ragtown is available for preorder no...
Sep 12, 2023•41 min•Season 1Ep. 62
On our last episode of History's Trainwrecks, we left our major characters in serious predicament: oppositionally-defiant crank Charles Lee was in British captivity, although he did have his dogs and thirty shillings a day in expenses. General Richard Prescott was unwisely spending his nights away from his army, and George Washington and the Continental Army were having a bad winter at Valley Forge. Colonel William Barton had a plan to fix everything. Please support our show on the History's Tra...
Aug 18, 2023•26 min•Season 1Ep. 61
American Major General Charles Lee had picked a great place to hide. Like big-city mobsters two centuries later, George Washington’s second in command had discovered that New Jersey was a great place to lay low if someone was after you. Charles had a lot of people after him in December 1776. First and foremost was the British Army, commanded in that area by Lord Charles Cornwallis. After a string of British successes against the Continentals in New York, it wasn’t George Washington the English h...
Aug 11, 2023•13 min•Season 1Ep. 60
There's an awful lot of testosterone on History's Trainwrecks. I tend to think it's because men are far more likely than women to self-sabotage in a big way. But as Abigail Adams told her husband John, we should always "remember the ladies." Samantha Wilcoxson, author of the phenomenal Women of the American Revolution, joins me to talk about her book and see how the stories we've always been told about the women of the founding generation are really just the beginning. In this book, you'll learn...
Feb 24, 2023•36 min•Season 1Ep. 59
It occurred to me that we’ve been doing quite a lot of talking about George Washington in this series—or more accurately, talking AROUND George, so I thought it would be a good time to stop and focus on the man himself, and delve into what made him so darn indispensable. I didn’t exactly HAVE a George Washington episode, but I knew someone who did. If you’ve been listening for a while, you know that I am a huge fan of the Drinks With Great Minds in History Podcast. The show is not only lots of f...
Jan 13, 2023•57 min•Season 1Ep. 58
American major general Charles Lee is free of British captivity and gets one more chance to redeem himself at the Battle of Monmouth Court House in summer, 1778. But he doesn't take it. By the time of the second anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Charles is facing a court martial. He never commands troops in the field again. Being Charles, he goes on the attack against Washington and the Congress, which doesn't work out for him. We reach the end of our series on Charl...
Jan 06, 2023•25 min•Season 1Ep. 57
Christmas 1776 wasn't such a great time for two American generals. George Washington was wrapping a Christmas present for the Hessian garrison at Trenton, New Jersey. He was going to cross the Delaware and drop it down their metaphorical chimney like some kind of badass Santa Claus. Second in command Charles Lee had checked into a tavern and sent his dogs and his army down the road a ways. With only a few guards and a dirty shirt, he was cooling his heels while waiting to decide to follow Washin...
Dec 30, 2022•17 min•Season 1Ep. 56
As Christmas, 1776 approached, it sure looked like the cause of American liberty was going to find a lump of coal under the tree. The British had taken New York and had George Washington's army on the run. They had a massive force pointed right at Philadelphia, the American capital. The Continental Congress had placed their hopes in one man to swoop in and save them. And it was NOT George Washington. This gave General Charles Lee the idea that he could be the man of the hour, and then take Georg...
Nov 04, 2022•21 min•Season 1Ep. 55
1776 was a great year for Charles Lee. He had overseen the defensive preparations in New York, Virginia, and North Carolina. The British didn't attack those places, which Charles called a win. He successfully led the defense of Charleston, South Carolina against a British assault, which he also put in his win column. Then he was ordered to New York, which was under serious threat from the British, and where he would be, for the first time in his Revolutionary War service, under the command of so...
Oct 28, 2022•22 min•Season 1Ep. 54
Brand new Major General Charles Lee was looking pretty darn indispensable in the early days of the American Revolution. After the British abandoned Boston, their next move was unclear. The Continentals believed that the next attack would either hit Canada, New York City, or the Southern colonies. It is worth noting that new General Charles Lee was appointed to each of these commands. He became the early Revolution's troubleshooter. And there was a lot of trouble to shoot. There were British Loya...
Oct 21, 2022•19 min•Season 1Ep. 53
If Charles Lee was alive today, he would be considered a master networker. That guy knew EVERYBODY. As we’ve seen in prior episodes, Charles was pals with a few kings and kings-in-waiting like Stanislaus of Poland, Frederick I of Prussia and his son, future king Frederick Wilhelm, as well as Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II. He wasn’t a fan of King George III, but still managed to get a meeting with him. Like any modern-day Wall Street capitalist on the make, Charles Lee could ALWAYS get the meeting...
Oct 14, 2022•17 min•Season 1Ep. 52
Major General Charles Lee was a complainer. It didn’t start when he joined the Continental Army in 1775. Charles was predisposed to crabbiness. His father was a British major general and his mother was descended from landed gentry. He was the youngest child, and the only son to survive to adulthood. A place of stature had been carved out for Charles, and he meant to have it. He pursued a career in the British Army and served in the colonies during the French and Indian War, where he met George W...
Oct 07, 2022•17 min•Season 1Ep. 51
Was George Washington truly America's indispensable man? John Adams thought so, and lots of later historians agreed. Washington had the qualities the country needed at the time - dignity, gravitas, and integrity. He was perceived to be above the kind of petty squabbles that would doom the newborn republic. But things very nearly didn't go his way. After his defeat at the Battle of New York in 1776, the war, and with it the Revolution, was nearly over. Had Washington not managed to get things bac...
Sep 24, 2022•18 min•Season 1Ep. 50
I’m trying to figure out who REALLY killed Huey Long. Don’t worry. Your favorite history podcast hasn’t suddenly turned into a true crime show. Neither has this one. There are few viable ways to stop a dictator. Julius Caesar and a disturbingly large number of Roman emperors were assassinated in order to end their reigns. Benito Mussolini’s execution and subsequent “corpse dragged through the streets of Milan and hung upside down at a gas station” party was, I suppose, a modern expression of the...
Sep 18, 2022•20 min•Season 1Ep. 49
Huey Long was losing political control of Louisiana, thanks to the Depression-era policies of the new President. Federal jobs, which were literal lifesavers, were given to Huey's opponents. Huey's own dictatorial behavior was costing him support among the people of the state, so he took his show on the road, appealing to masses of poor Americans and fueling the fire for a 1936 presidential run. FDR's Justice Department started investigating Huey's financial shenanigans, a trick that had worked o...
Sep 10, 2022•15 min•Season 1Ep. 48
We're counting down to number one - the biggest historical trainwreck of all time. Can you guess who it is? Check out the Beyond The Big Screen Podcast at the link below. https://www.atozhistorypage.com/beyond-the-big-screen/ George McClellan Aaron Burr Marcus Crassus Douglas MacArthur Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/historys-trainwrecks . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Aug 20, 2022•43 min•Season 1Ep. 47
I love a good trainwreck. I mean, who doesn’t? One day, historian and podcaster Steve Guerra, host of the Beyond the Big Screen Podcast, asked me what I call The Big Question: of all the trainwrecks you’ve studied so far, who is on your top ten list of all time? It gave us the opportunity to better define a historical trainwreck, and it got us thinking about who wasn’t on the list and who should be. Long time listeners of this show may not be surprised at the list, but then again…maybe you will....
Aug 13, 2022•41 min•Season 1Ep. 46
Huey Long was the bull in the United States Senate’s china shop. He stormed into the world’s greatest deliberative body in 1932 after it had already been in session for two months. In a room full of men in dour blue suits, Huey wore “flashy brown tweeds, beautiful white shirts of the finest fabric with his monogram embroidered on one sleeve, a bright red silk necktie, and, according to one chastising reporter, ‘a handkerchief regrettably on the pink side.” It wasn’t long, pun intended, before th...
Jul 30, 2022•15 min•Season 1Ep. 45
The most famous American in the world was about to have one of the worst days of his life, and everyone who was anyone in London wanted to be there to see it. Benjamin Franklin had been summoned to the Cockpit, a room King Henry VIII had once used for cockfighting, to appear before the King’s Privy Council in late January 1774. His ostensible purpose for being there was to deal with a petition sent by the Massachusetts colony to have their governor removed, but with the colonists getting all upp...
Jul 08, 2022•13 min•Season 1Ep. 44
As you surely know by now, I love history. I always have. If you do too, you know that studying history invariably leads to learning about politics. It’s inescapable. The Greek city-states, the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, monarchies and religious wars, the Enlightenment that led to the establishment of constitutional democracies, the growth of superpowers. Regionalism and factionalism and schisms and wars. If you study history, you’ve seen all this before. This is one of the 257 reasons I...
Jul 04, 2022•16 min•Season 1Ep. 43
England’s American colonists were a serious problem for the British Empire by 1774. Mad old King George was pretty…well…you know. Great Britain was the world’s foremost military power, which meant it had bills to pay. The American colonies were prosperous, what with all their self-starting go-getterism, so Parliament and the king decided they should bear some of the financial burden of being subjects of the world’s foremost military power. England did, after all, kick the French out of Canada an...
Jun 24, 2022•15 min•Season 1Ep. 42
On this special episode, I join Presidencies of the United States Podcast host Jerry Landry for his Seat at the Table series. This series covers the known and unknown Cabinet officers of American presidential administrations. No president can do it alone, and the early American Presidents alternately relied upon or avoided working with their Cabinet. In the early days of Federalists vs. Democratic Republicans, finding loyal Cabinet officers was rare. Benjamin Stoddert was one of the first and be...
Jun 06, 2022•1 hr 51 min•Season 1Ep. 41
Huey Long had won a seat in the United States Senate while still in office as Louisiana’s governor. His move to the national stage was a real threat to the re-election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936. Huey amassed dictatorial control over Louisiana in a very short time. He survived impeachment, neutralized his remaining opponents, and won a Senate seat. He became a driver of hard bargains. “He is always trying to trade us a biscuit for a barrel of flour,” one of his vanquished opponents complai...
May 19, 2022•14 min•Season 1Ep. 40
