Household Names of History

Since the War of 1812, there has been only one foreigner to attack the United States and get away with it.  In this episode, we follow the story of fascinating Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa.  We focus on the events that led to his attack on the United States, and the ensuing game of cat and mouse played between U.S. Army  and Villa. 

In the 1780s, groups of New England farmers took up arms against a government unsympathetic to their needs.  They didn't call themselves minutemen, but regulators.  And the government they were opposing was not King George's, but that of the state of Massachusetts.  This episode explores why 3 years after the end of the American Revolutionary War, some believed that another one was necessary.          

Hawaii was the last state to be admitted to the United States in 1959, after having been a U.S. territory since 1898.  Before that time, the Hawaiian Archipelago had existed as an independent political entity for almost a century.   This episode centers on the founding of the Kingdom of Hawaii.  It follows the events surrounding the life of Hawaii's first monarch, Kamehameha, and the series of wars that transformed the Hawaiian Islands from a series of small feudal chiefdoms into a unified kingdom.