409 Famous Players in Famous Plays
The history of Paramount Pictures, one of the oldest and most prominent film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age.
Jun 29, 2025•48 min•Season 4Ep. 409
The History of the Twentieth Century
A chronicle of the history of the twentieth century, including art, music, popular culture, science, religion, and, of course, politics and war.
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Episodes
408 The Great Retreat
The end of the Battle of Kursk did not mean the end of the Red Army advance. The Germans withdrew, but the Red Army just kept coming.
Jun 22, 2025•39 min•Season 4Ep. 408
407 The Siege of Leningrad II
Hundreds of thousands died in Leningrad during the winter of 1941-42, but with spring came new hope. Composer Dmitri Shostakovich's latest symphony became a patriotic anthem, and not only in the USSR.
Jun 15, 2025•49 min•Season 4Ep. 407
406 The Siege of Leningrad I
As war raged around the globe, the city of Leningrad suffered under a German siege that lasted 872 days.
Jun 08, 2025•57 min•Season 4Ep. 406
405 On the Good Ship Lollipop
In this episode, we look at Twentieth Century-Fox, John Ford, Shirley Temple, John Wayne, and Alfred Hitchcock.
May 25, 2025•44 min•Season 4Ep. 405
404 The Other Resistance
Resistance against the Nazis could take many forms.
May 18, 2025•43 min•Season 4Ep. 404
403 The Resistance II
Some of the biggest successes (and biggest failures) of European resistance movements and their guides in Britain.
May 11, 2025•41 min•Season 4Ep. 403
402 The Resistance I
In the occupied countries of Europe and Asia, resistance movements developed to oppose Axis occupations. In most cases, the resistance movements were divided between Communist and non-Communist.
May 04, 2025•47 min•Season 4Ep. 402
401 No Option But to Fight On
The U-boat war was going quite well for the Germans at the beginning of 1943, but by mid-year, the German Navy was on the verge of abandoning the effort.
Apr 20, 2025•45 min•Season 4Ep. 401
400 War in the Air II
The Hamburg bombing forced the German government to rethink its defense policies. In Québec, Churchill and Roosevelt cut a deal on atom bomb research.
Apr 06, 2025•41 min•Season 4Ep. 400
399 War in the Air I
After two years of trying, RAF Bomber Command at last perfected the techniques to inflict mass casualties and devastation on an enemy city. Meanwhile, the US Eighth Air Force struggled to develop their own strategies.
Mar 30, 2025•42 min•Season 4Ep. 399
398 An Incontrovertible Fact
As the war turned against them, the Japanese attempted to create allies among the nations it occupied, declaring the independence of Burma and the Philippines, while the US embraced China as a peer of the main Allied powers, alongside the US, UK, and USSR.
Mar 16, 2025•41 min•Season 4Ep. 398
397 Pop Goes the Weasel
The Japanese come to the reluctant conclusion that they have to abandon Guadalcanal and northeastern New Guinea. US submarine warfare begins to take a toll, and Admiral Yamamoto is killed.
Mar 02, 2025•46 min•Season 4Ep. 397
396 The Battle of Kursk
The German offenive failed. Then it was the Soviets' turn.
Feb 16, 2025•36 min•Season 4Ep. 396
395 A Definitive Mistake
Adolf Hitler begins his long-delayed 1943 offensive against the USSR, which fizzles in a matter of days.
Feb 02, 2025•44 min•Season 4Ep. 395
394 The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of
Warner Brothers was one of the minor studios until they introduced the first talking picture, which made the studio into one of the majors. In the Thirties, Warner Brothers, led by the irascible Jack L. Warner, was known for its glitzy musicals and crime dramas. In the early Forties, the studio released two films that are now regarded as among the best American films ever made: The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca.
Jan 19, 2025•43 min•Season 4Ep. 394
393 Everything Is Going to Be Fine
The Japanese claimed to be liberating their fellow Asians from Western oppression, but Japanese rule proved to be brutal and murderous.
Jan 05, 2025•46 min•Season 4Ep. 393
392 Warsaw and Katyn
In early 1943, the remaining residents of the Warsaw Ghetto rose up against the SS. Farther east, the German Army uncovers the mass grave where the Soviet NKVD buried thousands of murdered Polish Army officers.
Dec 29, 2024•40 min•Season 4Ep. 392
391 The Manhattan Project
After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the American atom bomb project kicked into high gear. Fearful that the Germans were already working on a bomb and had a head start, the US government built a huge program meant to approach the problem of building an atom bomb from several different angles all at once.
Dec 25, 2024•50 min•Season 4Ep. 391
390 Benito è finito
The Allies invade Sicily, which leads to the fall of Benito Mussolini.
Dec 22, 2024•55 min•Season 4Ep. 390
389 On the Defensive
Hitler himself said that he had "never been a man of the defensive," but in the aftermath of Stalingrad, he had no choice.
Dec 15, 2024•44 min•Season 4Ep. 389
388 Woman of the Year
RKO Radio Pictures had a reputation for producing second-rate films. Even so, this was the studio that signed Fred Astaire and Katharine Hepburn; it was the studio that released King Kong and Citizen Kane .
Dec 01, 2024•46 min•Season 4Ep. 388
387 Hooray for Hollywood
The first in a series looking at the American film industry in the 1930s and 1940s, the heyday of the "studio system."
Nov 24, 2024•50 min•Season 4Ep. 387
386 Do Or Die
The fall of Burma to the Japanese put India on the front lines of the war, posing hard questions for the Indian nationalist movement.
Nov 17, 2024•45 min•Season 4Ep. 386
385 The Thingamabob That's Going to Win the War
The BBC struggles to determine its role in wartime Britain.
Nov 10, 2024•50 min•Season 4Ep. 385
384 Do You Want Total War?
Stalingrad falls and Joseph Goebbels tries to spark a program to ramp up the German war effort.
Oct 27, 2024•47 min•Season 4Ep. 384
383 Casablanca
Roosevelt and Churchill met again in early 1943 to discuss the next stage of the war against the Axis, and they chose a provocative venue: Casablanca, a city their armies had only recently taken.
Oct 20, 2024•41 min•Season 4Ep. 383
382 Turning Point
In October and November 1942, the Japanese began their final push to drive the Americans off Guadalcanal.
Oct 06, 2024•55 min•Season 4Ep. 382
381 Der Manstein kommt!
The Germans began an operation to relieve the siege of Stalingrad, but the Red Army was already prepared with a counter attack.
Sep 29, 2024•51 min•Season 4Ep. 381
380 Operation Uranus
The battle for Stalingrad raged on for two months, then the situation was suddenly upended by a surprise Soviet offensive that surrounded the city.
Sep 15, 2024•41 min•Season 4Ep. 380
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