HISTORY This Week

September 16, 1968. Richard Nixon isn't exactly seen as a comedian. But tonight, he's trying to change that by appearing on Laugh-In, a TV show similar to Saturday Night Live. Nixon needs every vote he can get in the 1968 election, facing off against Hubert Humphrey, the vice president who became the Democratic nominee after Lyndon Johnson withdrew from the ticket.

Nixon's Laugh-In appearance is a surprise, but soon, he'll pull off a move that no one would ever expect. How did back-channel dealings, unattended teleprompters, and Oval Office shouting matches turn this election into an all-time drama? And what do recently uncovered conversations reveal about how far Nixon was willing to go to secure victory?

Special thanks to David Farber, professor of history at the University of Kansas and author of Chicago ‘68; Lawrence O’Donnell, host of The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC and author of Playing with Fire: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics; and Luke Nichter, professor of history at Chapman University and author of The Year That Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968.

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HISTORY This week is back!
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HISTORY This Week returns with new episodes starting September 16th! In the meantime, listen to a favorite classic from the archives.

September 11, 2001. On a clear and sunny day, Captain Richard Thornton is piloting his ferry boat back and forth between New Jersey and New York City. But when he hears an airplane flying too low to the ground, he knows something is wrong. After the World Trade Center’s North Tower is struck, Thornton instinctively drives his ship down towards Lower Manhattan. He will soon be joined by countless other marine craft: ferries, fishing boats, tugboats, and more. With the roads, bridges, and trains that connect the island of Manhattan to the rest of the world shut down, this collection of civilian, commercial, and military boats manages to carry more than 500,000 survivors to safety. How did this impromptu evacuation, which was larger than Dunkirk during WWII, come together? And how does one ferry boat captain reflect on the shared sense of duty he felt on that fateful day?

This episode originally aired on September 6, 2021.

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HISTORY This Week returns with new episodes starting September 16th! In the meantime, listen to a favorite classic from the archives.

September 2, 31 BCE. Two camps prepare for battle off the coast of Greece. On one side is Octavian, Julius Caesar’s heir apparent. On the other, Marc Antony and his lover, the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. This battle won’t just determine the leader of Rome, but the fate of global civilization. How did Cleopatra wind up in the middle of a Roman game of tug of war? And how did the Battle of Actium change our world forever?

Special thanks to our guest, Barry Strauss, author of The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium.

This episode originally aired on August 29, 2022.

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HISTORY This Week returns with new episodes starting September 16th! In the meantime, listen to a favorite classic from the archives.

August 27, 1900. Dr. Jesse Lazear, a U.S. Army surgeon, walks into Las Animas Hospital Yellow Fever ward in Havana, Cuba, toting a brood of mosquitos. He has the system down: remove the cotton stopper that keeps the mosquito penned in its glass vial, turn the vial over, and seal it against a consenting infected patient’s skin. Chasing the source of Yellow Fever, scientists try to understand this deadly plague by running a high-stakes medical experiment on human subjects. But today, those subjects will include themselves. Why did ordinary people—and the doctors running the experiment—willingly and knowingly consent to take part in this study? And when we look back, should we be horrified... or impressed?

Special thanks to our guests: Dr. Kathryn Olivarius of Stanford University and author of, Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom, as well as Molly Crosby author of, The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever the Epidemic That Shaped Our History.

This episode originally aired on August 22, 2022.

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