Podcasts about World War II

In February 1946, thirty-four-year-old World War II veteran Jacob Rubenstein stepped off the train onto the freezing platforms of Chicago, carrying a good conduct medal on his chest and hoping his honorable service had finally cleansed him of his chaotic childhood. Instead, his return plunged him straight into a toxic family business feud. Joining forces with his brothers Sam, Earl, and Hyman at Earl Products, Jacob took charge of sales for their lucrative gray-market punchboard operation. But his volatile temper, refusal to travel to secure regional accounts, and constant screaming matches with his brothers soon pushed the partnership to its absolute breaking point, ending in a cold, transactional $14,000 cash buyout that cast Jacob out of the family fold once again.Devastated by the family rejection, Jacob drifted back onto the Chicago streets, his nerves frayed and his hair-trigger temper balanced on a razor's edge. His fierce sensitivity to anti-semitism remained completely unchanged by his years in uniform. In late 1946, a downtown street confrontation with a stranger who hurled a bigoted slur erupted into a savage daylight brawl. Jacob returned home hours later, his hands swollen and raw, and his expensive tailored suit completely drenched in blood. It was a violent warning sign that the pavement of his youth was offering nothing but reminders of his own failures, and Chicago was rapidly becoming too small for a man drowning in his own violent impulses.Jacob's escape hatch came from his closest sibling, his sister Eva Grant, who had moved to the booming, wide-open city of Dallas, Texas, to open the Singapore Supper Club. Divorced, broke, and struggling with construction delays, Eva desperately needed capital and family muscle to manage the rough-and-tumble Dallas scene. Backed by his buyout cash and additional family financing, Jacob packed his bags in late 1947 and headed south into a massive cultural shock. He entered an oil-rich city trying to project an image of clean, white, Protestant conservative sophistication—a place deeply suspicious of outsiders, especially Jewish Yankees from Chicago.To survive and thrive in the cutthroat Texas nightlife, Jacob made a drastic, identity-altering decision. On December 30, 1947, he formally petitioned a Dallas court to legally kill Jacob Rubenstein and birth a brand-new man: Jack Leon Ruby. Yet, even as he shed his skin to appease Texas prejudices, he refused to let go of his past. By choosing the middle name Leon, Jack carried a silent, lifelong tribute to his murdered Chicago union mentor, Leon Cook. Equipped with a new name, a flashy Texas suit, and a pocketful of cash, Jack Ruby was ready to conquer the Dallas night—but the volatile, quick-tempered brawler of Morgan Street was still lurking just beneath the surface.

Every year, fragments of long-lost ships wash ashore on Irish beaches. They are remnants of the thousands of shipwrecks scattered around our coast, dating from Prehistory to the Second World War. Each wreck has a fascinating story from how they went down to their rediscovery often centuries later. In this episode, I speak with Dublin Port Heritage Director Lar Joye at a new exhibition exploring the shipwrecks of Dublin Bay. Our conversation explores several disasters including the famous cases of the Leinster, the Dorset and the Tayleur.We discuss the stories behind these ships, why shipwrecks were so common in the past and why fragments of wrecks continue to wash ashore today. Visit the exhibition: https://www.dublinport.ie/shipwrecks-of-dubln-bay-exhibition-at-the-substation/ Upcoming events at the Substation:https://www.dublinport.ie/heritage-week/ My guest, Lar Joye, has served as Port Heritage Director at Dublin Port since 2017. He cares for the 300-year-old Port Archive and leads projects reconnecting the working port with the city through heritage, culture and public access. Before joining Dublin Port, Lar worked as a film archivist and as Curator of Irish Military History at the National Museum of Ireland. There he led the team behind the award-winning Soldiers & Chiefs exhibition which explores the history of Irish soldiers at home and abroad from 1550 to the present. Sound: Kate Dunlea Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1963, as Kenya celebrated independence from British rule, one of the last Mau Mau fighters came out of hiding and laid down her arms. Muthoni Kirima was the first and only woman to be appointed field marshall in the Kenya Land and Freedom Army - better known as the Mau Mau. She had been living in the Kenyan forest for 11 years, fighting with other armed rebels to reclaim land taken by European settlers. Thousands died or were imprisoned as Britain tried to crush the uprising. But the rebellion was later seen as paving the way to independence. Jane Wilkinson has found out more through Muthoni Kirima's interview with the Mau Mau Chronicles oral history project.Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from how the Excel spreadsheet was developed, the creation of cartoon rabbit Miffy and how the sound barrier was broken.We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: the moment Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva, Haitian singer Emerante de Pradines' life and Omar Sharif's legendary movie entrance in Lawrence of Arabia.You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, like the invention of a stent which has saved lives around the world; the birth of the G7; and the meeting of Maldives' ministers underwater. We cover everything from World War Two and Cold War stories to Black History Month and our journeys into space.(Photo: Field Marshall Muthoni Kirima, 1963. Credit: Smith Archive/Alamy)

Welcome to the History Guy Podcast: Counterfactuals. What is a counterfactual? At it's most basic, it is a ‘what if'. It's a way of understanding history as it is by discussing what it could have been. Today we talk about a 1944 supreme court decision that fundamentally altered the American electorate and set the stage for civil rights victories that culminated in the Civil Rights Act: Smith v. Allwright.

Welcome back to the show. If you're a Christian woman who feels like you're not qualified for what's in front of you, whether that's a health struggle, a calling, or just getting through today, this episode is for you. I recently learned about missionary Gladys Aylward through our homeschool curriculum, and her story stopped me in my tracks. She was rejected. She faced trial after trial. And she kept going back anyway, because serving was the desire God had placed in her heart. In this episode, I walk through her story and connect it to two truths I've been holding onto: God goes with us through our trials, and He gives us the desires of our hearts when we delight in Him. If you're in a season of exhaustion, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual, and you're looking for a faith-based lens to make sense of it, this one's for you. Rejected, But Not Finished Gladys Aylward wasn't the "qualified" candidate. A missionary society turned her down. Instead of giving up, she cleaned houses to save money for a one-way train ticket to China. Her journey was interrupted by war, arrest, and danger before she even arrived. She kept going anyway. Trial After Trial in China Once in China, Gladys took over an inn, became a foot inspector during the era of foot binding, and stopped a prison riot, all while sharing the gospel. She began adopting children, eventually caring for 94 of them during the Japanese invasion of China in World War II. She led those children on a two-week journey on foot across the mountains to safety, with none of them falling sick or dying along the way. Where Faith and Endurance Meet Holistic Health What strikes me most about her story isn't that she avoided hardship. It's that God stayed present with her through every bit of it. That's a pattern I see in the women I work with too: healing rarely means the trial disappears. It means learning to walk through it with your body, mind, and faith aligned instead of working against each other. Two Scriptures Worth Sitting With Joshua 1:9 reminds us that God commands us to be strong and courageous because He is with us wherever we go. Psalm 37:4 reminds us that when we delight ourselves in the Lord, He gives us the desires of our hearts. Gladys's life is a picture of both: she was never spared hardship, but she was never without God's presence in it, and her God-given desire to serve carried her through it. Time-Stamped Highlights 00:00 – Introduction: feeling unqualified and going anyway 00:25 – How the podcast host discovered Gladys Aylward's story through homeschool curriculum 00:53 – Rejected by a missionary society, then saving for a one-way ticket to China 01:22 – War, arrest, and danger on the journey to China 02:20 – Taking over the inn and becoming a foot inspector 03:49 – Stopping a prison riot 04:47 – Adopting children during the Japanese invasion 06:14 – Leading 94 children on foot across the mountains 09:33 – Reflecting on Joshua 1:9 10:03 – Reflecting on Psalm 37:4 and the desires of our hearts 11:55 – Trusting that God withholds nothing good from us (Romans 8:28) Key Takeaways Feeling unqualified isn't a disqualifier. God works through willing hearts, not perfect résumés. Trials don't mean God has left. Scripture promises His presence through them, not exemption from them. The desires God places in your heart are worth paying attention to, even when the path to them is hard. True endurance, whether in faith, health, or calling, comes from staying aligned with God rather than gritting through alone. Healing and growth are rarely instant. They're a process worth walking through with support, not in isolation. Your Next Step, If You're Ready If you're a Christian woman who's exhausted, maybe you feel dismissed by conventional medicine, and you're ready to get to the root cause instead of just managing symptoms, I'd love to talk with you. As an RN with a background inside the pharmaceutical industry, I help women approach exhaustion and autoimmune struggles through a whole-person, faith-rooted approach to holistic health. I'm currently offering a free 15-minute Introductory Call. If you're ready to stop waiting and take a real next step, book your call at herholistichealing.com/call. I don't know how long I'll be offering these calls, so if you're interested, I'd encourage you to grab a spot soon.

Today on AirTalk: LAUSD first day (0:30) Total eclipse (18:28) The state of regional theaters (24:11) Could LA Metro go fare-free? (51:30) Combatting hate groups post World War II (1:12:59) Lakers sale (1:31:59) Visit www.preppi.com/LAist to receive a FREE Preppi Emergency Kit (with any purchase over $100) and be prepared for the next wildfire, earthquake or emergency.

Transparency has always been something of a gray area in the history of nuclear fission. It made sense to keep this knowledge a secret during World War II. But afterwards, it seemed that citizens should have had the right to know what their country was involved in and how it affected them. Dr. Sarah Robey is the author of Atomic Americans: Citizens in a Nuclear State and she sits down with us to talk about transparency and trust in the nuclear age.*Season 3 of Wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz and Scott Carney. Editing by Alicia Lincoln. Music and mixing by Louis Weeks.*Find us on social media - @wildthingpod - and on our website https://wildthingpodcast.com/

During the Second World War, Vera Atkins sent hundreds of British spies into Occupied France. Some of them never came back - and nobody knew why. Vanessa Kirby shares the story of one woman's mission to find answers in the rubble of post-war Europe. A Cup And Nuzzle production. Vera Atkins was voiced by Clare Wille. Series producer: Gemma Newby. Produced by Joe Foley. Music by Nick Ryan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1952, Princess Elizabeth became queen while staying at the Treetops Hotel in Kenya. But she wouldn't make the discovery until hours later.The 25-year-old Princess Elizabeth and her husband were on five-month royal tour of the Commonwealth, and their first stop was Kenya. The overnight trip to Treetops, a lodge in the Aberdare National Park, was supposed to be a relaxing break. But the princess didn't yet know that, back in Britain, her father King George VI, had died in his sleep.BBC correspondent Frank Gillard was following the trip and sent back a report after the news broke on February 6th. Jane Wilkinson has been through the BBC archives to find out what happened.Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from how the Excel spreadsheet was developed, the creation of cartoon rabbit Miffy and how the sound barrier was broken.We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: the moment Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva, Haitian singer Emerante de Pradines' life and Omar Sharif's legendary movie entrance in Lawrence of Arabia.You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, like the invention of a stent which has saved lives around the world; the birth of the G7; and the meeting of Maldives' ministers underwater. We cover everything from World War Two and Cold War stories to Black History Month and our journeys into space.(Photo: Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh in Kenya, 1952. Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

This week Seth Paridon and John Parshall take a look at the unfortunate, but inevitable, end of the defense of Bataan. After months of defending the peninsula valiantly, and short on everything but guts, the defenders finally capitulate under the guns and relentless assault of the Japanese army. Sick, exhausted, demoralized, and flat worn out, the Americans and Filipinos do the best they can against the fresh troops of General Homma's 14th army. Unfortunately for General Jonathan Wainwright's men, the best they can do at this stage is simply not enough. Bereft of supplies, food, medicine, and everything but Japanese, the inevitable defeat of the Fil-American forces on Bataan finally comes to fruition. And while the fighting is over, the misery for the defenders and those who survived the campaign is about to begin. Tune in to hear the final epic story of the heroic defense of the Philippines in 1942. #wwiihistory #ww2 #usnavy #usa #usarmy #medalofhonor #enterprise #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #cv6 #midway #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #worldwar2 #usnavy #usnavyseals #usmc #usmarines #saipan #usa #usarmy #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #battleship #battleships #ussenterprise #aircraftcarriers #museum #essex #halsey #taskforce38 #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #usnavy #usa #usarmy #medalofhonor #enterprise #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #cv6 #midway #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #worldwar2 #usnavy #usnavyseals #usmc #usmarines #saipan #usa #usarmy #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #battleship #battleships #ussenterprise #aircraftcarriers #museum #hollywood #movie #movies #books #mastersoftheair #8thairforce #mightyeighth #100thbombgroup #bloodyhundredth #b17 #boeing #airforce wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #usnavy #usa #usarmy #medalofhonor #enterprise #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #cv6 #midway #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #worldwar2 #usnavy #usnavyseals #usmc #usmarines #saipan #usa #usarmy #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #battleship #battleships #ussenterprise #aircraftcarriers #museum #hollywood #movie #movies #books #oldbreed #1stMarineDivision #thepacific #Peleliu #army #marines #marinecorps #worldwar2 #worldwar #worldwarii #leytegulf #battleofleytegulf #rodserling #twilightzone #liberation #blacksheep #power #prisoner #prisonerofwar #typhoon #hurricane #weather #iwojima#bullhalsey #ace #p47 #p38 #fighter #fighterpilot #b29 #strategicstudying #tokyo #boeing #incendiary #usa #franklin #okinawa #yamato #kamikaze #Q&A #questions #questionsandanswers #history #jaws #atomicbomb #nuclear #nationalarchives #nara #johnford #hollywood #fdr #president #roosevelt #doolittle #doolittleraid #pearlharborattack #salvaged #medalofhonor #tarawa #malayalam #singapore #guadalcanal #china #burma #oil #marinecorps

Brandon Sedloff and John Bowman explore the future of private markets through the lens of CAIA Association's recent research report, "The World Rewired." Bowman, CEO of CAIA Association, shares insights from eight global roundtables with over 120 C-suite executives across major financial centers. The conversation examines how geopolitical shifts, evolving product structures, and talent needs are reshaping portfolio construction and investment strategy. Bowman argues that the post-World War II regime of low rates, stable globalization, and minimal inflation has ended—requiring allocators to fundamentally rethink how they build portfolios. They discuss: - Why geopolitics may replace asset allocation as the primary framework for portfolio construction - How tokenization could solve liquidity challenges better than traditional gate structures - The shift from hiring job-ready specialists to recruiting systems thinkers with interdisciplinary judgment - Why the Gulf region has become a serious contender as the capital of private capital This episode offers a strategic roadmap for institutional investors, asset managers, and private markets professionals navigating a regime change in global markets. Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:28) - Introducing John Bowman and CAIA (00:02:59) - Early career and path to finance (00:07:58) - Transition from asset management to CFA Institute (00:11:49) - Journey through CFA Institute (00:17:00) - Leading CAIA and building community (00:29:11) - The World Rewired research report (00:34:25) - Product innovation and the retail push (00:44:06) - Geopolitics as portfolio framework (00:49:01) - Middle East sovereign wealth dynamics (00:52:19) - Talent and systems thinking (00:56:47) - Where to learn more Speaker Profiles:   Brandon Sedloff     LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/bsedloff/     Website — https://brandonsedloff.substack.com/   John Bowman     LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnlbowmancfa/ Organizations:   CAIA Association — https://caia.org/   Juniper Square - https://www.junipersquare.com/

Continuing our series on the films of Paul Thomas Anderson, we take a look at The Master (2012). Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams, the film follows a troubled World War II veteran who becomes involved with a growing religious movement and its charismatic leader. The Master discussion begins at 44:20. Enjoy!   Cinema Spectator is a movie podcast hosted by Isaac Ransom, Juzo Greenwood, and Cameron Tuttle. The show is executive-produced by Darrin O'Neill and recorded and produced in the San Francisco Bay Area, CA. You can support the show at patreon.com/ecfsproductions. Follow us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @cinemaspectatorpodcast. Isaac and Cameron began recording podcasts with their first project, Everything Comes from Something (2018), and are now focusing on new weekly content for Cinema Spectator. Cameron Tuttle is a full-time professional cinematographer who majored in film at SFSU and collaborates on corporate, private, and creative productions. Cameron is the expert. Isaac Ransom works full-time as a marketing leader with creative experience in brand, advertising, product, music, and film. Isaac is the casual. Juzo is a producer, director, and avid film enthusiast who knows everything about cinema. The podcast is a passion project by three longtime friends; we hope you enjoy it! Thank you for your time, generosity, and support.

Dr. Larry P. Arnn, President of Hillsdale College, joins Hugh Hewitt on the Hillsdale Dialogues to continue a series on The Second World War, Churchill's sprawling memoir and history of World War II in six volumes.Release date: 7 August 2026See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Shut the windows and change your mask filters, the Mad Gasser of Mattoon is prowling the podcast! A WWII-era midwestern mystery, the Mad Gasser of Mattoon held a small town in a gaseous grip of fear for 2 weeks with no explanation and few suspects. Panic took hold as locals tried to figure out what was happening in their small Illinois community. To this day, no one knows exactly who perpetrated a series of alleged gas attacks, nor has anyone found out why. Join David as he relates not only the timeline of the ‘phantom anesthetist,' but also similar attacks in different parts of the country throughout the years. Were they connected somehow or just coincidence? He also looks at what police and scientists have found, and whether or not anything has actually been explained over the years. Don't let the fumes get to you in this episode of Blurry Photos!MusicGhostpocalypse – 8 Epilog, Ghostpocalypse – 6 Crossing the Threshold, Some Amount of Evil, Malicious, Villainous Treachery – Distressed, Danse Macabre, Myst on the Moor – Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0SourcesGas Attacks in America: http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2011/06/mad-gassers-of-america/An Overview: http://io9.gizmodo.com/did-mattoon-have-a-mad-scientist-or-a-mad-population-1510479349Vitelli, R. “The Mad Gasser of Mattoon.” JREF Swift Blog. James Randi Educational Foundation, 23 Apr. 2011. Web. 12 Dec. 2016. http://archive.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/1279-the-mad-gasser-of-mattoon.htmlMaruna, S. The Mad Gasser of Mattoon: Dispelling the Hysteria. Jacksonville: Swamp Gas Books, 2003.Johnson, D. “The Phantom Anesthetist of Mattoon: A field study of mass hysteria.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 1 Jan. 1945, Volume 40, Number 1: 175-186. http://ergotism.info/en/hysteria/mass_hysteria_mad_gasser_jasp_1945_40.pdfSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Anthony Fauci is in very hot water as the Senate moves to hold him in contempt and Sen. Rand Paul says criminal referrals have been hand-delivered to the Justice Department. Will the move acquit Dr. Fauci or finally nail him? Meanwhile, tensions with Iran are reaching a critical point as negotiations falter and uncertainty surrounding the Strait of Hormuz seems to be in Iran's hands, marking a potential win for the regime. On today’s Sentinel Report, guest host Andrew Muller breaks down those stories and more—including Tucker Carlson’s nearly two-hour monologue that some are interpreting as a preview of a potential 2028 political platform, President Trump’s push against birth tourism, and the SPLC's plea for dismissal of their fraud case, which was gloriously shot down. PLUS: Investigative writer and podcaster Mel K digs into the history of globalism and the financial, intelligence, and institutional architecture that emerged in the aftermath of World War II—and how those institutions continue to shape American politics and the world today. Mel, the author of the new book, Infiltration Instead of Invasion: America Betrayed (1944–1954), also shares what President Trump has done to fight back and what you can do locally. Then, Daniella Pentsak, host of Culturama, joins the show to discuss The Odyssey, Hollywood, and the battle over Western culture. Is the culture war still worth fighting? We answer. Finally, Alex Newman talks with an inspirational figure, Donna O'Daniel, who studied birds for the government and now is fighting for liberty while sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In 1997, scientists travelled to Tsavo, Kenya, in search of a cave believed to have been the den of the man-eating lions that terrorised railway workers in 1898.The two lions stalked Indian and African men building the Uganda Railway, dragging victims from their tents at night. It was nine months before the officer in charge of the railway project, British Lieutenant-Colonel John Henry Patterson, could kill them.Nearly a century later, a team including scientists from Chicago's Field Museum, where the now taxidermied lions are kept, returned to Tsavo to search for the cave Patterson believed had been the lions' den.Thomas Gnoske, one of the scientists on the expedition, and Alan Patterson, John Henry Patterson's grandson, speaks to Stefania Gozzer about the hunt for the cave and the enduring legend of the Tsavo lions.Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from how the Excel spreadsheet was developed, the creation of cartoon rabbit Miffy and how the sound barrier was broken.We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: the moment Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva, Haitian singer Emerante de Pradines' life and Omar Sharif's legendary movie entrance in Lawrence of Arabia.You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, like the invention of a stent which has saved lives around the world; the birth of the G7; and the meeting of Maldives' ministers underwater. We cover everything from World War Two and Cold War stories to Black History Month and our journeys into space.(Photo: Tsavo lions in Chicago. Credit: Field Museum of Natural History)

Dr. Larry P. Arnn, President of Hillsdale College, joins Hugh Hewitt on the Hillsdale Dialogues to continue a series on The Second World War, Churchill's sprawling memoir and history of World War II in six volumes. Release date: 7 August 2026

Last time we spoke about the ending of the Second Battle of Changsha. In late September and early October 1941, Chinese commander Chen Cheng planned an operation to retake Yichang, a strategic Yangtze River city whose control was essential for protecting the approach to Chongqing. Japanese forces were pulling back from Changsha, weakened by supply problems and casualties, which created an opportunity for Chen to intensify his campaign. Yichang had been captured by Japan in 1940, a defeat that Chen carried as a personal and political burden. He therefore moved to encircle the Japanese 13th Division inside Yichang and drive it to collapse. Although the Chinese held a clear manpower advantage—fourteen divisions against the encircled Japanese—progress was slowed by stubborn fighting from prepared, entrenched positions. The battle inside the city produced desperate close-quarters combat and heavy casualties, showing how the fate of Yichang and the wider defense of Chongqing were tightly linked.    #214 War hits the Pacific Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War.   The guns fell silent on October 9, 1941, as the Ninth War Zone's forces restored their pre-battle positions, marking the end of the Second Battle of Changsha. The balance sheet was grim on both sides, but it was China that bore the heavier cost. The Ninth Military Front suffered 70,672 killed, wounded, or missing. The concurrent Yichang offensive added a further 21,368 casualties to the Sixth Military Front, a force that outnumbered its Japanese opponents ten to one yet still failed to retake the city. By the time the dust settled, the Chinese army had lost nearly 100,000 men across both theatres. The Chinese command was frank, at least in private, about what had gone wrong. The Japanese had moved with a speed that recalled Blitzkrieg, advancing 130 kilometres in eleven days and withdrawing at twelve kilometres a day, catching the defenders perpetually off-balance. The 26th, 37th, 10th, and 74th Corps had been picked apart piecemeal rather than fighting in concert, the original plan to destroy the Japanese south of the Miluo River coming to nothing. Elite formations had paid a disproportionate price: the 74th Corps suffered 14,521 casualties, the 37th Corps 14,015, and the 58th Division alone lost 6,192 of its 11,907 men, nearly its entire fighting strength.   Yet none of this was the story the public would hear. On October 10th, China's National Day, radio stations announced the "Second Great Victory in Northern Hunan", the annihilation of over 40,000 enemy troops. Newspapers rushed out special editions. Congratulatory telegrams flooded in from government ministries and civic organizations. Senior officials seized on the moment: Sun Ke, Premier of the Executive Yuan, declared that the victory "laid the foundation for the counter-offensive and the recapture of Hankou and Guangzhou," while General Bai Chongxi called it "the pivotal moment for us to turn defeat into victory." Chiang Kai-shek, reading through the pages of triumphant commentary produced overnight by his propagandists, was reportedly impressed by their industry, if not convinced by their content. He had not wanted to call it a victory at all, but the political calculus was unavoidable: after four years of war, an exhausted nation needed the psychological sustenance that only "victory" could provide.   The gap between public performance and private reality was nowhere more visible than in the arrival of a twenty-two-member international press delegation on October 13th. Journalists from Britain, the United States, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Hong Kong, and major Chinese newspapers were flown to Changsha and carefully guided through selected battlefields, where they inspected mountains of war trophies and heard testimony from soldiers and civilians. They left satisfied, presenting their war souvenirs—swords, binoculars, Japanese military flags—to their audiences back home as proof of Chinese heroism and Japanese defeat. Both China and Japan were claiming victory simultaneously. The only conclusion the foreign press could draw was that one side was lying, and it was not the side that had shown them the evidence.   Chiang Kai-shek's real verdict came at the Third Nanyue Military Conference, held from October 16 to 21. His anger was withering. He condemned his generals for their obsession with defending sprawling outer perimeter lines while leaving city centres barely fortified, a mentality so rigid, he said, that the Japanese could announce the exact time of their advance and withdrawal in advance and still execute it on schedule without interference. "Generals, what a disgrace this is!" On the failure to capture prisoners, only 263 prisoners were claimed across the entire front, of whom only 16 names were actually published, he was almost incredulous: "We can definitely defeat the enemy, capture many enemy prisoners, and seize countless enemy weapons! Even if we cannot capture ten thousand prisoners, we should at least capture a thousand! If not a thousand, then at least a hundred! But now, you don't even have ten!" The conference handed down punishments to match the rhetoric. Liao Lingqi, commander of the shattered 58th Division, was sentenced to death for desertion and shot on October 22nd. His men were so outraged that three regimental commanders resigned in protest; the division was pulled from the order of battle entirely and given three months to rebuild. Li Yutang, commander of the 10th Corps, was dismissed—though the Third Battle of Changsha would begin before his replacement could take post, and he would be reinstated to play a key role in the city's defence.   On the Japanese side, the 11th Army acknowledged 1,670 killed, 5,184 wounded, and 14 missing, far fewer than Chinese claims, though post-war regimental histories suggest the true figure was higher. Lieutenant General Anami, who had championed the operation, found himself stung by the charge that the battle had served mainly as material for Chinese propaganda. On November 23rd, he reportedly reacted with visible displeasure when someone in his headquarters said as much aloud.  Anami's annoyance was easy enough to understand, but the accusation carried a troubling degree of accuracy. The Second Battle of Changsha had yielded no decisive strategic gain and no substantial alteration in the military balance. What it did generate, rather effectively, was a story and by the autumn of 1941, stories were one of the few things China still had in plentiful supply. The most consequential struggles were taking place not along the Miluo River, but in foreign ministries and embassies, in Washington and Moscow, in the messages passing between Chongqing and London, and in the increasingly strained calculations of statesmen trying to determine, amid rapidly changing circumstances, whom to support and for how long.   For Chiang Kai-shek, the challenge was never merely military. It was structural, and had been so from the outset. He had always seen clearly, precisely because he understood China's weakness, that Japan could not be defeated by China alone. The country lacked the industrial base, the logistical reach, and after four years of relentless attrition more and more the manpower needed to force a decisive result on the battlefield. China's survival depended on making its war inseparable from the wars of other powers. Since 1937, Chiang's diplomacy had pursued that single objective: convincing enough great powers that their interests were aligned with China's, and holding that coalition together long enough for Japan to be subdued. That effort turned out to be vastly more difficult than it ought to have been.   The problem started with the international order in which the war emerged. Chiang had hoped to assemble a concert of allies willing to help defend China against Japanese aggression. He was blocked not just by the reluctance of neutral states to aid China, but by the speed with which alliances shifted in the opening years of the Second World War. He had never welcomed the prospect of a general European conflict, correctly fearing that it would push China even further to the margins of world attention. Even so, he recognized that once the lines had hardened between the imperial democracies and fascism, new alignments might become possible. From his perspective, the growing amity between Berlin and Moscow was therefore disastrous. He had been eager to draw the USSR into war against Japan. Instead, the Soviets were now effectively aligned with the Nazis, who were themselves allied with Tokyo.   The world created after Versailles had already enraged many Chinese. After all, the May Fourth demonstrations of 1919 had arisen directly from the settlement reached at the Paris Peace Conference. Yet that older order had at least possessed recognizable anchors, especially the dominance of the two great European empires and the United States. Now those empires were weakening, and no one could say with confidence what the new geopolitical order would be. For all Chiang knew, Germany might emerge as Europe's new dominant power. The early years of the European war produced a bewildering spectacle of diplomatic realignment.   The Nationalist government had previously enjoyed a short-lived flirtation with Nazi Germany. In fact, Hitler's regime continued supplying Chiang with munitions in the first months of China's war against Japan. The Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936 had theoretically joined Germany, Italy, and Japan into the Axis, but mutual distrust prevented them from forming anything like a fully coherent alliance. Chiang found it useful to imply to Western powers that he might be pushed into closer alignment with Germany, a particularly disturbing possibility for the USSR, which faced enemies in both Europe and Asia. But eventually the contradictions in German policy toward East Asia became too severe. In April 1938, Germany yielded to Japanese pressure and ended its support for China.   Britain offered little meaningful help. Neville Chamberlain became prime minister in May 1937 at the head of a Conservative-led National Government, and was quickly overwhelmed by the deteriorating European situation. If Czechoslovakia was for him a "far-off country of which we know nothing," China's fate was even more distant and obscure to many,  perhaps most  policymakers in London. The Nationalists had more success in cultivating the United States. At the Nine-Power Conference in Brussels in November 1937, the Chinese delegation failed to persuade Washington to impose sanctions on Japan and confront it directly. By the middle of 1938, however, American views were beginning to shift. As Japan pushed deeper into southern China, it became increasingly obvious that the occupied territory would be closed to foreign trade. In December 1938, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau arranged a private American loan of $25 million to China, to be repaid through shipments of tung oil, a varnish product whose real importance lay not in itself, but in what the arrangement signified: a quiet American expression of faith that Chongqing would survive. Chiang also held on to the hope of an even less likely partnership. He had become fiercely anti-Communist during the 1920s, yet in the early years of the anti-Japanese war his greatest hope still rested on Soviet entry into the conflict. Soviet advisers and pilots had aided China from 1937 to 1939, but the USSR never formally declared war on Japan. Still, as Japanese aggression in northern Asia intensified, it remained possible that the Soviets would eventually be drawn in.   Then, as so often happened whenever Chiang tried to impose some control over the course of the war, events beyond China's borders altered the struggle in fundamental ways. While Western attention remained fixed on Europe's darkening horizon, a battle with major consequences for East Asia unfolded on the frontiers of Outer Mongolia, Manchukuo, and the eastern Soviet Union. Throughout much of 1938 and early 1939, one faction within the Japanese Imperial Army sought to pressure the Soviets along their eastern frontier. The USSR appeared vulnerable; Stalin's paranoid purges had executed or exiled many of the Red Army's best officers. In May 1939, fighting broke out near Nomonhan between forces from Soviet-backed Mongolia and Japanese troops from Manchukuo. Within days, both sides had reinforced heavily, until nearly 60,000 Soviet troops faced about 40,000 soldiers from the Kwantung Army. Over the next four months, until mid-September, they fought a major battle ending in a decisive Japanese defeat and establishing the reputation of General Georgi Zhukov, who would later become one of Stalin's most celebrated wartime commanders. The much-derided Soviet Army had fought with formidable effectiveness, and the result was not only a ceasefire but also a nonaggression pact between the two sides, extinguishing, in one stroke, Chiang's hopes for a Chinese-Soviet military alliance. The final blow came after developments in northern Europe. In the Winter War of 1939–1940, the Soviet invasion of Finland led Britain and France to back a motion expelling the USSR from the League of Nations. China, then a member of the League Council, declined to use its veto to block the resolution. Stalin was enraged by Chiang's failure to prevent Soviet expulsion, and mutual suspicion thereafter poisoned relations between the two leaders for the rest of the war against Japan. China would now have to continue without further major Soviet backing.   By the spring of 1940, China's position had become deeply precarious. In March, senior Japanese negotiators sought an agreement with Chiang in Chongqing, while Wang Jingwei was trying to formalize his rival Nationalist government in Nanjing. This effort, known in Chinese as the Tong Operation, and in Japanese as Operation Kiri, led to talks in Hong Kong from March 7 to 10, 1940. Militarily, the Nationalists were in grave danger: the United States remained neutral, and Europe was in chaos. Indeed, that same spring, with France seemingly near collapse, the British government also sent out discreet feelers to explore the possibility of a negotiated peace with Germany. For China, Western assistance was nowhere in sight. The Japanese judged the moment favorable for pressing Chiang toward concessions. Faced with serious danger to his regime, Chiang allowed the door to negotiation to open just slightly.   As a consequence, the Japanese delayed full recognition of Wang Jingwei's new government. Through the summer and autumn of 1940, Tokyo remained uncertain about the defector. Prominent Japanese figures such as Count Arima Yoriyasu of the Privy Council said Wang's conduct demonstrated his untrustworthiness, and Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yōsuke continued to express interest in an agreement with Chongqing. Zhou Fohai captured the defectors' frustration, men who believed they had made the highest patriotic sacrifice when he wrote: "Chongqing sees us as collaborators, we see ourselves as heroes. We think only peace can save the country — that's why we think of ourselves as heroes. If we end up classed as heroes, then China and Japan will be at peace. If we end up classed as collaborators, then China and Japan will never be at peace."That formulation conveyed something genuine about the moral dizziness of the period. Most of the defectors were not men devoid of principles; they were men whose principles had carried them to a place that history would find exceptionally hard to pardon.   The "New Fourth Army Incident" brought to a close one of the most consequential years in modern Chinese political history. The battle of ideas unfolding in 1940 was already visible to informed contemporaries. Early in 1941, US Ambassador Nelson Johnson sent Washington a detailed assessment of the Chinese political situation in reply to another report passed along by Major Evans Carlson, an American officer who had made an extensive journey through the Chinese interior. The contrast between the two documents revealed a widening split in American views of China. Carlson, together with his travelling companion, the New Zealander Rewi Alley, had become increasingly sympathetic to the Communists after visiting their territories in 1938 and admiring their discipline. Carlson described the Nationalists as moving toward "fascism," and argued that American aid should be conditioned on Chiang's government being compelled to adopt more "democratic" institutions.   Johnson strongly disagreed. It was "only normal and natural," he wrote, that the Nationalists wanted to retain power, but during the war they had established the National Political Consultative Council, in which multiple parties, including the Communists, were represented. He also noted that the CCP could publish its own newspaper in Chongqing in a way that would have been impossible before the war. One might have expected the Nationalists to use the war as a justification "to extinguish . . . all political opposition," yet instead they had chosen to "muddle along." Johnson further thought that the influence of competing cliques inside the Nationalist Party had been overstated. Chiang Kai-shek, by contrast, had "grown in stature, as he has come to be recognized as the symbol of united resistance to Japanese encroachment"; ultimately, "it is he who makes the final decisions." Johnson did agree with Carlson that Chiang's regime was hesitant to encourage a broad-based popular movement animated by anything beyond anti-Japanese feeling, though he also pointed to Nationalist cooperative programs and county-level reforms. But he rejected the idea that American support should depend on sweeping political transformation. Chiang was committed to continuing the war against Japan, and Washington should back him in that effort. In a notably farsighted passage, Johnson wrote: "It is my view that since the fall of the Manchu dynasty and the collapse of the traditional Chinese concept of government the Chinese people have been feeling their way along toward a new evolving form of government. A definitive form of government has not yet been established and may not be established for decades; it may or may not be in the form of a democracy, but it will be a type of government that will be adapted to the needs of China and its people." The tension between these two American interpretations,  Carlson's idealized belief in the Communists and Johnson's pragmatic support for Chiang was more than a minor bureaucratic dispute. It foreshadowed a debate that would dominate American foreign policy for the next decade, and would still echo when the People's Republic was proclaimed in 1949.   The disastrous experience of 1940 seemed to cast doubt on whether any future for China existed outside the Japanese Empire. As 1941 wore on, another dreadful event shook the exhausted wartime capital. On June 5, Chongqing endured roughly five hours of bombing, driving the population into air-raid shelters. In one tunnel in the Shibati district, the conditions were even worse than usual. The large shelter was supposed to have lights and electric fans, but the generators had never been connected. Inside, the air was dark, hot, and suffocating. Around ten that evening, people began emerging from the tunnel when rumors spread that the Japanese were returning with poison-gas bombs. Air-raid wardens forced people back inside, even as others were still trying to come out. Bodies toppled over one another, and panic spread as people realized they could not breathe. Over the next few hours, hundreds died underground in the darkness. The exact number was never definitively established: the official figure was 461, though a contemporary police report placed it far higher, at 1,527. What rescuers remembered most vividly were the tortured expressions of the dead, people tangled together in each other's arms as they lost consciousness, clothing ripped to shreds by desperate hands clawing at one another, and bodies so drenched in sweat that they looked as though they had been soaked in water. One survivor, Tang Zhengchang, remembered a hand reaching out from a pile of corpses and pleading, "Sir, please help me . . ." The grip on Tang's shorts was so tight that it pulled them off; he escaped the tunnel naked from the waist down. Official descriptions of the disaster were softened. Even so, the tragedy deepened the city's gloom and in a place already saturated with grief, an added layer of darkness mattered a great deal.   Yet events elsewhere would soon offer the National Government a narrow margin of hope. Late in 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt won re-election as president of the United States. "I am not going to send your boys into any foreign wars," he had proclaimed during the campaign against Wendell Willkie. But Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull both understood that Nazi domination of Europe posed a grave challenge to American influence there. And with China's "Open Door" to trade effectively shut by Japanese occupation, it was becoming increasingly clear that strict neutrality might not remain viable. In a 1941 report on China's domestic and foreign situation, Ambassador Johnson noted that during Germany's sweeping victories across Europe in mid-1940, the Chinese had become anxious about whether the Allies would remain committed to their cause. Britain's refusal to surrender, however, together with continuing Soviet goodwill, lifted public morale in China. People now looked toward the United States and Britain for support and felt that "victory" was "virtually theirs."   Then, on June 22, 1941, the world awoke to news that roughly three million German soldiers were advancing into the Soviet Union. Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's invasion of the USSR, dramatically overturned the nonaggression that had governed relations between the two major European dictatorships for the previous two years. It transformed the war in Europe entirely. Less obviously, it also transformed the war in Asia. Thanks to intelligence leaks, Chiang Kai-shek had already realized that war between Germany and the USSR was likely. After the neutrality treaty between the USSR and Japan was signed on April 13, 1941, Chiang predicted that the United States would be drawn into the Asian war, and even that Japan might eventually reverse course and strike the Soviet Union. If that happened, China would become the critical Asian ally of both Washington and Moscow. Stalin had been caught off guard by the German assault — largely because he ignored increasingly urgent warnings from senior colleagues receiving intelligence from well-placed spies in Germany and the Comintern, eager to preserve its alliances, now pressed the Chinese Communists to cooperate more closely with the Nationalists. On June 23, 1941, the CCP Central Committee responded with a declaration that it would "persevere in the Anti-Japanese United Front, persevere in Nationalist-Communist cooperation," and would align itself with the British, the Americans, and others resisting the "fascist rulers" of the Axis.   In Chongqing and Yan'an, the German attack on the Soviet Union was interpreted as a hopeful sign that Japan's fortunes might be beginning to turn. In Nanjing, the reaction was different. On June 22, Zhou Fohai recorded in his diary that, although the outcome "cannot be predicted," members of the Nanjing regime "all believe Germany will win and will take Moscow within two months." Zhou speculated that Japan could not easily reconcile its neutrality treaty with the USSR and its membership in the Anti-Comintern Pact, which was supposed to unite the Axis against Soviet expansionism. Still, because Germany had struck first, Japan was under no formal obligation to help. Zhou also continued to view events through a lens he had never abandoned: that of Chinese nationalism. "If Chongqing joins the Allies and they win," he wrote, "then this is good for China." If they lost, it would be disastrous for Chiang Kai-shek; but because Wang Jingwei had established a government in Nanjing under Japanese sponsorship, China now had "a foot in both boats." It was a ruthless calculation, but not a wholly dishonorable one. Zhou was not merely advancing Japanese interests. He was hedging, wagering on multiple futures in the name of a China he believed would endure beyond whatever constellation of powers happened to dominate at the moment. Whether posterity would judge that conduct prudent or collaborative was a question he could neither settle nor live to see resolved to his satisfaction.   The summer of 1941 marked a major geopolitical turning point in the war. Until then, the conflicts in China and Europe had remained separate, if desperate, struggles on the Eurasian continent. Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union now forced Japan to decide whether it too would enter war against the USSR. Debate in Tokyo was brief. Although some officials, including Foreign Minister Matsuoka, favored striking north before moving south, both the Kwantung Army and the Navy advised against helping Germany at least until Germany had succeeded in drawing substantial Soviet forces away from Siberia and into Europe. Konoye, once again prime minister, agreed. With the northern option set aside, Japanese leaders turned toward another great power instead: the United States. Japan's failure to gain further decisive momentum in China had fueled demands for broader regional expansion, especially into Southeast Asia, with its abundant oil, rubber, and other strategic resources. From 1940 onward, measures such as the pressure to close the Burma Road made it increasingly obvious that Tokyo had adopted a more aggressive posture in Asia. Unable to subdue China, Japanese policymakers chose instead to escalate the conflict still further.   Japanese political life had become ever more dominated by the unresolved war in China. As early as 1938, military expenditures consumed about 70 percent of the national budget, and that same year a National Mobilization Bill granted the government "total war control" over the zaibatsu, Japan's major industrial conglomerates. By 1940, the New Order was making itself felt throughout everyday life, with campaigns against luxury and extravagant consumption taking on new prominence. In February 1940, a parliamentarian was expelled from the Diet simply for daring to criticize the "holy war" in China. In such an atmosphere, retreat from imperial ambitions became increasingly unthinkable. That figure, 70 percent of the national budget devoted to the military is worth dwelling on, because it reveals something essential about the trap in which Japanese strategists had placed themselves. The war in China had not been won, yet abandoning it would have meant admitting a failure so severe that it would have shaken the ideological and institutional foundations of military supremacy in Japanese politics. The only apparent ways out required pushing further in: more conquest, more extraction, more expansion. The logic was brutally clear, and profoundly destructive.   The Roosevelt administration watched these developments with growing alarm. Though still formally neutral, the United States was already using Lend-Lease to provide major assistance to Britain and the Soviet Union in their struggles against Germany. It now expanded aid to China as well. On February 10, Roosevelt's representative Lauchlin Currie visited Chongqing to inform Chiang Kai-shek that the United States would soon provide $45 million in military equipment. General John Magruder, head of the small AMMISCA mission,  the American Military Mission in China had been sent to Chongqing in September 1941, as part of quiet preparation for possible Chinese entry into an alliance against Japan. The China branch of the OSS, precursor to the CIA, was led by General William "Wild Bill" Donovan, whom Roosevelt had dispatched to China in early 1941.   The Americans repeatedly tried to discourage Japan from moving south into Southeast Asia, but relations only grew more confrontational. Japan occupied the southern part of French Indochina, and in response the United States imposed an oil embargo in July 1941. The consequences were immense. Japan imported around 80 percent of its oil from the United States. Without that supply, its navy, the essential instrument for southern expansion  had reserves for perhaps eighteen months. The real question facing Tokyo, then, was not whether it must act, but how soon. Unable any longer to resist mounting military pressure for war, Konoye resigned on October 16 and was replaced as premier by General Tōjō Hideki. Tokyo accelerated its preparations for conflict with the Western powers. Planned targets included Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaya, the Netherlands East Indies, and the Philippines. I should note, if you want to learn about all of this history in more detail, you can go check out the pacific war channel on youtube. I have a chronological series that is just now talking about events like the Japanese invasion of french indochina and the road to pearl harbor.   Throughout the autumn of 1941, increasingly desperate negotiations took place between Japan and the United States. Washington insisted that Japan withdraw from China; Tokyo was equally firm that it would do no such thing. From the Japanese point of view, the demand to leave China was not a serious negotiating position but a demand for national humiliation a call to repudiate four years of war, vast casualties, and the ideological basis of Japanese militarism in a single diplomatic act. In the end, the gulf between the two positions could not be bridged.   While civilian and military leaders in Tokyo argued over the pace at which they should move toward war, few among Japan's rulers doubted that war was coming. At the imperial conference of November 5, it was formally agreed that if no satisfactory diplomatic solution had been reached by December 1, war would follow soon after. Talks in Washington between Ambassador Nomura Kichisaburō, diplomat Kurusu Saburō, and Secretary of State Cordell Hull led nowhere. On November 26, Hull delivered a note repeating the American position that Japan must withdraw from both China and Indochina. On December 1, the imperial conference resolved to go to war; the following day, the date of attack was fixed as December 8, December 7 by American time. In one sense, this was the culmination toward which the entire previous decade had been moving. The war in China had started as a localized conflict, then expanded into a continental one, and was now about to become something larger still: a truly global war, stretching from the North Atlantic to the western Pacific. China's long, lonely resistance would suddenly gain new dimensions and new allies,  though not the ones Chiang had spent four years trying to cultivate, and not under circumstances he would have chosen.   In the early morning of December 7, 1941, the US Pacific Fleet lay anchored at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, its sailors and officers still largely asleep as dawn crept across the Pacific. The attack did not come without warning signs,  American and Japanese diplomats had been locked in increasingly desperate negotiations throughout the autumn, each side hardening its position until no room remained to maneuver. Washington had demanded that Japan withdraw from China, a condition Tokyo viewed not as a serious opening offer but as a demand for national humiliation: a call to repudiate four years of brutal war, hundreds of thousands of casualties, and the entire ideological foundation upon which Japanese militarism rested. No agreement was possible on those terms, and both sides privately knew it.   The strike force assembled in secret was formidable. Six aircraft carriers,  the Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, Hiryū, Shōkaku, and Zuikaku had sailed under strict radio silence across the North Pacific, launching their aircraft in two successive waves before the American base had any meaningful chance to respond. The first wave of approximately 183 planes swept in just before 8 a.m., targeting the rows of battleships moored along Battleship Row and the military airfields at Wheeler, Hickam, and Ford Island simultaneously, ensuring that American aircraft could not scramble in time to mount an effective defense. A second wave of roughly 170 planes followed less than an hour later, pressing the attack on damaged ships and harbor installations.   The destruction was staggering. The battleship Arizona suffered a catastrophic magazine explosion after a armor-piercing bomb penetrated her forward decks, killing nearly 1,177 of her crew in minutes, almost half of the total American dead from the entire attack. The Oklahoma capsized after being struck by multiple torpedoes. The West Virginia and California sank at their moorings. In total, seventeen vessels were damaged or destroyed, and the vast majority of military aircraft at the nearby airfields were caught on the ground and obliterated before they could take flight. Around 2,400 Americans were killed and another 1,100 wounded, making it the deadliest single attack on American soil or territory in the nation's history to that point.   Yet the attack was not a complete strategic success for Japan. The US Pacific Fleet's aircraft carriers, the vessels that would ultimately decide the naval war in the Pacific happened to be at sea that morning and escaped unharmed. The harbor's fuel storage and repair facilities were also left largely intact, allowing the fleet to reconstitute faster than Japanese planners had anticipated. What Japan achieved in tactical devastation, it partly squandered in strategic miscalculation. The attack ended American neutrality instantly and irrevocably. The following day, President Roosevelt addressed Congress, calling December 7 "a date which will live in infamy," and within hours the United States declared war on Japan. For China, after more than four years of fighting alone, the blow that devastated Pearl Harbor paradoxically carried a thread of desperate hope at last, the great power Chiang Kai-shek had spent years trying to draw into the conflict had arrived, not under circumstances he would have chosen, but arrived nonetheless. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. After years of fighting, China's situation darkened in 1941 with intense bombing of Chongqing and fears of poison-gas attacks. Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June shifted alliances and pressured Japan toward wider war. Japan escalated plans for Southeast Asia, suffered an oil embargo, and negotiations with the United States broke down over withdrawing from China and Indochina. Then the Pearl Harbor attack began the Pacific War.

State and local leaders are suing the federal government after alleging that Immigration and Customs Enforcement quietly broke ground on a proposal to build an ICE facility in Gilroy. Santa Clara County leaders and a number of other Bay Area cities, counties and community groups, have banded together to put a stop to the plan. At a recent press conference, members of San Jose's Japanese American community also spoke out, drawing parallels to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We often think of Jack Ruby as a creature of the dark, of smoky, neon-lit walkups, back-alley brawls, and shady financial deals. But for nearly three years during the height of the Second World War, Jacob Rubenstein proudly wore the olive drab uniform of the United States Army Air Forces. Stationed at various air bases across the American South, Private First Class Rubenstein served with an unblemished record as a highly skilled aircraft mechanic. In the military, Jacob found something he had been chasing his entire life: structure, respect, and a patriotic cause far bigger than himself.Yet, you cannot take the Chicago streets out of the soldier. In the barracks, the classic Jack Ruby contradictions and side hustles quickly emerged. He was a fastidious clean-freak who detested dirty work, yet forced himself to dive into the greasiest engine blocks just to prove to his younger bunkmates that he wasn't lazy. To keep his pockets lined, he set up a highly lucrative unofficial retail operation straight out of his bunk—shipping in boxes of commercial punchboards and premium chocolates from Chicago to sell to a bored, captive audience of soldiers, while dominating late-night barracks card and dice games.But the cool, professional exterior of Private Rubenstein had a deadly serious boundary. Fiercely and pathologically sensitive to his Jewish identity, Jacob was a powder keg waiting for a match. When an active-duty sergeant hurled a vile anti-semitic slur at him, Jacob instantly lunged, ignoring the strict military code, court-martial threats, and potential hard labor. He beat the sergeant mercilessly with his bare fists, drawing blood to defend his name. It was a staggering act of insubordination that was surprisingly swept under the rug, leaving his pristine conduct record intact.This episode closes with a deeply emotional, chillingly prophetic moment in April 1945. When the devastating news of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's death reached the base, Jacob broke down completely, sobbing hysterically in deep, inconsolable grief. While his fellow soldiers looked on in bewilderment at his raw, bizarre emotional breakdown, this intense, weeping grief for a fallen president would serve as a haunting, terrifying echo of the manic sorrow that would overtake Jack Ruby eighteen years later in Dallas.

Zo is in the wrong place at the wrong time: in the midst of Russia during an intense moment in World War II or, as the Russians would come to call it: The Great Patriotic War. In a city once known as Stalingrad on the banks of the Volga river the fighting has intensified as Russian civilian fighters and the Soviet Red Army desperately defend their country against the onslaught of the German Nazi war machine. Zo as well as the rest of the citizenry experience their morality weakening day by day, but gradually news of hope appears as a light at the end of a long dark tunnel. People begin to talk about an amazing sniper named Vasily Zaitsev picking off Germans as easily as a child might break sticks. The exploits of Zaitsev bolsters both the citizens of Stalingrad and the hearts of the Red Soldiers and they fight on. Victory in sight.   Episode Chapters 00:09:29 Opening Credits for Enemy at the Gates starring Jude Law, Ed Harris, Joseph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz 00:18:08 Favorite Parts of the 2001 film Enemy at the Gates  01:01:46 Trivia from the WWII war drama - Enemy at the Gates  01:12:59 Critics' Thoughts on Jean-Jacques Annaud's Enemy at the Gates Please leave a comment, suggestion or question on our social media: Back Look Cinema: The Podcast Links:Website: www.backlookcinema.comEmail: friends@backlookcinema.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@backlookcinemaTwitter: https://twitter.com/backlookcinemaFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/BackLookCinemaInstagram: https://instagram.com/backlookcinemaThreads: https://www.threads.net/@backlookcinemaTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@backlookcinemaTwitch https://www.twitch.tv/backlookcinemaBlue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/backlookcinema.bsky.socialMastodon: https://mstdn.party/@backlookcinemaBack Look Cinema Merch at Teespring.comBack Look Cinema Merch at Teepublic.com Again, thanks for listening.

Dr. Larry P. Arnn, President of Hillsdale College, joins Hugh Hewitt on the Hillsdale Dialogues to continue a series on The Second World War, Churchill's sprawling memoir and history of World War II in six volumes.Release date: 7 August 2026See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In episode 1, we meet Merchant Marine Raleigh Wright in an interview that we conducted in 2008 where we hear about his enlistment and training as well as his first mission. Support the show

Executive Order 9066 put roughly 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent behind barbed wire with the machine gun posts pointed inward. No charges, no trial. Many of the men in those camps volunteered for the US Army anyway, and the unit they formed became the most decorated in American military history for its size and length of service. Chris Cheng spent six years researching them. He joins us to talk about his new novel, The Purple Heart Battalion, why "internment" is the wrong word, and why the president who signed that order still gets a pass. Also this week: where your election money should really go, how ammunition actually works, Maryland's attempt at its own SB2, and Stump My Nephew.     Chapters: 0:00 Cold open and intro 1:20 Welcome: who we are and what's on the show 2:36 A congressional candidate picks the wrong fight on a Maui beach 12:48 Upcoming classes: Tactical Comms, How Good Are You, Apache 18:36 Chris Cheng: The Purple Heart Battalion 45:39 California elections: the governor's race and where your money should go 1:02:39 We're Going Ballistic: how ammunition actually works 1:37:30 Maryland's own SB2 and Montgomery County's 100-yard carry ban 1:51:47 Stump My Nephew: the British Empire's WWII sidearm CHRIS CHENG The Purple Heart Battalion: https://amzn.to/3RFnRJn Website: https://topshotchris.com Instagram, X, YouTube, Facebook: @topshotchris UPCOMING Tactical Communications and Signals Intelligence with John Baldwin, Saturday August 15, Oceanside. $200, or $180 for Pew Pew Crew members. https://gunownersradio.com How Good Are You with Dave Reed, Wednesday September 23, private range in Alpine. 15 seats, $250, $50 off for Pew Pew Crew. No CCW required. https://gunownersradio.com A Girl and A Gun handgun safety and fundamentals with Dakota, August 20: https://dakotaadelphia.com Apache, September 4 to 6. Thursday evening lecture on raising kids in a world that has guns at P2K Sports in El Cajon, plus two range days. AMMCON, September 25, Dallas: https://amm-con.org Get involved with San Diego County Gun Owners: https://sdcgo.org/volunteer If you carry, vote, reload, or argue about ammunition on the internet, this one is for you. New episodes every Sunday at 5 PM Pacific. Subscribe so you do not find out last. https://gunownersradio.com #GunOwnersRadio #SecondAmendment #ConcealedCarry #442nd #PurpleHeartBattalion

The American Pastors Guild just launched, and it is built for pastors ready to fight.In this episode, Pastor Daniel Hayworth sits down with Pastor Stephen Martin, Pastor Rob McCoy, and Pastor Nathan Brown to announce the American Pastors Guild and unpack what it is, who it is for, and why it exists right now. Perfect for the commute, the gym, or the drive to work.You'll Learn:✅ What the American Pastors Guild is and the five pillars every member unites around✅ Why post-denominational fellowship matters more right now than tertiary theological debate✅ Charlie Kirk's three kinds of pastors, and the fourth category these hosts say is the bigger problem✅ Why the guild is private, self-funding, and built on relationship instead of a mailing list✅ The World War II study that explains why men stay in a fight they could lose

William Taubman, author of McNamara at War: A New History, Part One: Taubman discusses Robert McNamara's early career and rise to power, beginning with his role as a World War II statistician on Guam. McNamara advised General Curtis LeMay on low-altitude bombing tactics that led to the devastating Tokyo firebombing, a success he later considered a moral "stain." Taubman explores his psychological need to serve "strong men," a trait tracing back to his childhood with a cold father and a mother who relentlessly pushed him to excel. After becoming one of the "Whiz Kids" who modernized Ford Motor Company, McNamara was recruited by John F. Kennedy as Secretary of Defense. He quickly became the "star" of the cabinet, guiding the administration through the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Following JFK's assassination, McNamara immediately committed his loyalty to Lyndon Johnson, despite the friction between the Kennedy inner circle and the new president. (1)

The film A Hidden Life tells the true story of Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter during World War II. Sickened by Nazi atrocities and believing only Jesus is Lord, Franz refuses to swear allegiance to Hitler and is arrested. The rest of the film shows the anguish this brave stand brings him. Franz’s village treats him with contempt for opposing Hitler’s agenda. Cellmates ridicule his faith, and even some priests think he’s being foolish. “God doesn’t care what you say, only what’s in your heart,” one person says, tempting Franz to “hail” Hitler without meaning it to save his life. “My rock, my fortress,” Franz prays, feeling pressure to recant, “give me strength to follow You.” Psalm 31 is the prayer of a person facing evil powers. “Be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me” (v. 2), David pleads in the face of his own tyrants (vv. 4, 11). His life in anguish and suffering the contempt of his neighbors, David longs to stay faithful under pressure (vv. 3, 10–13). “Into your hands I commit my spirit,” he prays (v. 5), words later echoed by Jesus on the cross (Luke 23:46). Our God never leaves costly faithfulness unrewarded. Franz Jägerstätter stayed faithful to the end. Like Jesus, this faithfulness cost him his life. But just as Jesus was raised from the grave, so Franz will rise one day too.

This past week we did a two-parter on the desegregation of the military. For today's "Sunday Context" episode, we revisit an episode we dd about the time First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt took an airplane ride in a small plane piloted by Charles “Chief” Anderson, a Black pilot and member of the Tuskegee airmen.Jody, NIki, and Kellie discuss how the photo caused a sensation, and controversy — and helped bolster the case for Black pilots to serve in WWII.Join our America250 newsletter community! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early, ad-free versions of the show. Plus bonus features throughout the year. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now.This Day is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.comGet in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypodOur team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In the pre-World War II era of the "Chicago Cowboy," Jacob Rubenstein was a striking figure of manic energy on the West Side. Working out with desperate intensity at local YMCA clubs, he obsessed over his physical conditioning and receding hairline, famously boasting to anyone who would listen that he could "hit harder than Joe Louis." Struggling to stay afloat after the tragic murder of his labor union mentor, Jack teamed up with business associates to launch the Spartan Novelty Company. Operating out of cheap, transient hotel rooms, they chased the cash-heavy flow of "punchboards"—unregulated, highly addictive, gray-market gambling devices that were sweeping across the country.When the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, Jack's deeply emotional patriotism spurred him to manufacture patriotic plaques and plaster busts of his idol, Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, his own perfectionistic psychology sabotaged the dream; his obsessive-compulsive design delays kept the products in development for months until cheap, mass-produced competitors flooded the market, leaving him completely broke once more. But as his commercial novelties fell apart, a much more physical struggle was brewing. Confronted by the rising local threat of the pro-Nazi German-American Bund, Jack and a crew of tough young Jewish brawlers from the Lawndale Pool Room mobilized, taking pool cues and heavy wooden clubs directly to the fascists' street rallies to defend their community with primal ethnic pride.This high-voltage era highlighted the ultimate Jacob Rubenstein paradox: he was a volatile, quick-tempered brawler, yet he acted with a deeply ingrained sense of chivalry. The same man who would crack heads at a Nazi rally was also a self-appointed protector of the weak who violently beat college students for hurling racial slurs at a Black piano player, and threw himself into a savage street fight to rescue an older woman being abused by a stranger. This riveting chapter of Jack's life draws to a close in May 1943 when the street hustler of Roosevelt Road is finally drafted into the U.S. Army Air Forces—setting the stage for a surprisingly disciplined military career that would be punctuated by explosive, defensive violence.

This week on the Mark Levin Show, it's particularly annoying that numerous national political figures refuse to discuss the significant and growing Islamist threat in the United States. Islamism is the greatest cultural threat we face. What is the ruling class is doing to stop Islamists from entering the country? Are we reviewing the status of those already here who promote radical views? Conservatives need to take over at the local level and reject mosque expansions, which isn't about restricting religious freedom but defending it against Islamist intolerance of religious diversity. Meanwhile, issues like universal healthcare are falsely cast as civil rights to advance a Marxist agenda that expands “democracy” and “rights” while threatening programs like Medicare and opposing enforcement against illegal immigration; supporting candidates like Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan would harm both the state and the country. Also, Sen Chris Van Hollen is a radical nut job, Jew hater, and Israel hater. Van Hollen defends Democrats against communist labels by citing Republican attacks on FDR over Social Security. What did FDR do? FDR created internment camps of 120,000 Japanese Americans, refusing to sign a bipartisan anti-lynching bill to protect Southern votes, imposing Jewish immigration quotas during the Holocaust, and enacting socialist policies including industrial trusts and price/wage controls that prolonged the Depression, arguing socialism redistributes rather than creates wealth. Later, Wisconsin Governor candidate Francesca Hong views Thanksgiving as racist and posted in 2021 that Americans should cancel it. This is the problem with insufficiently patriotic immigrants welcomed into the Democratic Party's big tent. Later, by the skin of his teeth, Abdul El-Sayed is now the Democratic candidate for the Senate in Michigan. Early data shows El-Sayed did well with White, relatively wealthy college graduates, but not so well with union/blue collar workers and Blacks. El-Sayed will face Republican Mike Rogers, a good, solid candidate, in the November general election. El-Sayed will get the support of the media and he'll play down his Islamism and his association with people like Sen Bernie Sanders and Hasan Piker, who said America deserved 9/11. Let's not pretend El-Sayed is just another progressive. He's an Islamic Marxist. What Democrats have to figure out: how do you build a party around elitists? Claims from some on the fringes of the conservative movement—that younger people today face uniquely hard times due to student debt, homeownership barriers, and inflation driven by the war with Iran—are inaccurate and sound like leftist or socialist talking points. There have been far greater hardships faced by prior generations: the Great Depression's 25% unemployment, widespread business failures, and near-economic collapse, followed by World War II's draft of 16 million Americans with over 600,000 casualties under brutal conditions. Young people today simply do not have it as hard as those of 50–80 years ago - they simply don't. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A young researcher risks his career, his freedom, and his sanity to prove that madness can be reversed with a single injection. But when the only way to demonstrate the cure is from inside a locked ward, he must decide whether to stake his life on the very drug that put him there. Open All Doors by Harry Harrison and Hubert Pritchard. That's next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast. Harry Harrison is one of my favorite authors. His spacefaring sci-fi, The Stainless Steel Rat and The Misplaced Battleship are two of my favorites. And I enjoy his robot stories too, Arm of the Law, The Robot Who Wanted to Know and others. However, this Harry Harrison story isn't like the others. Perhaps that's because of his co-author Hubert Pritchard. This is the first Pritchard story on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast and there won't be many more, if any. Hubert Pritchard wrote only two science fiction stories that were published. So how did he and Harry Harrison team up? They were friends in high school and reconnected in New York after World War II. As the story goes Pritchard was training to be a doctor but ill health prevented him from continuing his medical education. However, he put that education to good use in this story which was published in the February 1958 issue of Fantastic Universe magazine on page 4, Open All Doors by Harry Harrison and Hubert Pritchard… Next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, A routine first contact becomes far more complicated when two spacefaring expeditions discover they have misunderstood almost everything about one another. Just as genuine friendship begins to replace suspicion, a far more dangerous question demands an immediate answer: who actually lives in the abandoned city around them? The Contact Point by Jack Sharkey. Lost Sci-Fi Premium - https://lostscifi.supercast.com/ Buy Me a Coffee - https://lostscifi.com/coffee Newsletter - https://lostscifi.com/free/ Facebook - https://lostscifi.com/facebook YouTube - https://lostscifi.com/youtube X - http://Lostscifi.com/x Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/lostscifiguy Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/lostscifipodcast.bsky.social Merchandise - https://lostscifi.creator-spring.com/ Thanks to Our Listeners Who Bought Us a Coffee $200 Someone $100 Tony from the Future $75 James Van Maanenberg $50 James Van Maanenberg, MizzBassie, Anonymous Listener $25 Fintan Quigley, Curious Jon, David Bell, Steve, Miriam, Someone, Someone, Eaten by a Grue, Jeff Lussenden, Fred Sieber, Anne, Craig Hamilton, Dave Wiseman, Bromite Thrip, Marwin de Haan, Future Space Engineer, Fressie, Kevin Eckert, Stephen Kagan, James Van Maanenberg, Irma Stolfo, Josh Jennings, Leber8tr, Conrad Chaffee, Anonymous Listener $15 Every Month Someone $15 Steve, Someone, SueTheLibrarian, Joannie West, Amy Özkan, Someone, Carolyn Guthleben, Patrick McLendon, Curious Jon, Buz C., Fressie, Anonymous Listener $10 David, Anonymous Listener $5 Every Month Eaten by a Grue $5 Tammy, Owen, Bruce, Someone, TLD, David, Denis Kalinin, Timothy Buckley, Andre'a, Martin Brown, Ron McFarlan, Tif Love, Chrystene, Richard Hoffman, Anonymous Listener Listen without commercials and enjoy exclusive bonus episodes every month with Lost Sci-Fi Premium—start your free 7-day trial today. https://lostscifi.supercast.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On Thursday's Mark Levin Show, claims from some on the fringes of the conservative movement—that younger people today face uniquely hard times due to student debt, homeownership barriers, and inflation driven by the war with Iran—are inaccurate and sound like leftist or socialist talking points. There have been far greater hardships faced by prior generations: the Great Depression's 25% unemployment, widespread business failures, and near-economic collapse, followed by World War II's draft of 16 million Americans with over 600,000 casualties under brutal conditions. Young people today simply do not have it as hard as those of 50–80 years ago - they ​simply ​don't. Later, Hasan Piker represents a spreading poison that threatens the country unless named, confronted, and defeated. Democrats must abandon the reflexive party, party, party loyalty rooted in family tradition or anti-Republican sentiment; continuing to vote Democrat today means supporting and empowering those taking over the party, which ultimately destroys themselves. Independent thinking is essential. Meanwhile, it is astonishing how long birthright citizenship has continued, with the United States handing out citizenship like lollipops, producing figures such as Piker. Enemy governments like Communist China promote thousands of such births so the children can return as citizens able to work in sensitive technology, military, government, and Pentagon positions without detectable background issues, a practice that must end even as the president tries to stop it without Supreme Court help and the administration must do far more to halt the influx of Islamists, imams, and so-called scholars from countries that cannot be properly vetted.  Also, Iran continues a campaign of brutal hangings of protesters arrested during the January uprising in order to crush any future resistance. The only way to end this is from within by arming the Iranian people. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bradley Bowman warns of the unprecedented military cooperation between Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, documented in 616 instances of security collaboration. Russia has transferred advanced technology, such as Su-35 fighters and submarine quieting techniques, to China to secure support for its war in Ukraine. Simultaneously, Iran provides drones and targeting data to help Russia strike Ukrainian targets and U.S. forces in the Middle East. North Korea has supplied thousands of soldiers and munitions to the European front. Bowman emphasizes that the U.S. defense industrial base is currently a shadow of its World War II capacity. (4)

C Lieven expresses skepticism regarding Russian influence in German elections, noting that the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is genuinely popular due to anti-immigration stances and skepticism toward funding Ukraine. Meanwhile, the UK faces budget constraints that hinder promised military spending increases. A migration crisis involving thousands of people attempting to enter EU territory from Morocco has triggered emergency meetings. Nationalist parties in Europe may move toward total immigration bans to satisfy their core supporters. (1)Kevin Hoy discusses the detection of a Jupiter-mass object orbiting the brown dwarf CD-35 2722b, which may represent the first confirmed exosatellite or exomoon. Using the radial velocity method, researchers identified a "wobble" in the spectrum of the brown dwarf, indicating a secondary body in a highly eccentric 170-day orbit. This discovery is a significant milestone for astrophysics, as it helps scientists understand planetary formation processes outside our solar system. Hoy explains that such objects are difficult to find because technology is often limited by the brightness and proximity of host stars. Future mapping of nearby systems could involve high-power radar technology. (2)Evan Ellis explores the landscape of Uruguay, a stable country navigating the trade interests of its neighbors, Brazil and Argentina. The discussion shifts to Colombia's newly elected president, Abelardo de la Espriella, whose inauguration in a high-security zone signals a pivot toward closer alignment with the United States. Ellis also addresses the complex situation in Venezuela, where the U.S. is negotiating with the relatively unknown Dinorah Figuera rather than more prominent opposition figures. Regional stability is further threatened by an explosion of homicides in Uruguay and the presence of millions of Venezuelan refugees in Colombia. (3)Bradley Bowman warns of the unprecedented military cooperation between Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, documented in 616 instances of security collaboration. Russia has transferred advanced technology, such as Su-35 fighters and submarine quieting techniques, to China to secure support for its war in Ukraine. Simultaneously, Iran provides drones and targeting data to help Russia strike Ukrainian targets and U.S. forces in the Middle East. North Korea has supplied thousands of soldiers and munitions to the European front. Bowman emphasizes that the U.S. defense industrial base is currently a shadow of its World War II capacity. (4)Harry Sidebottom describes the reality of Roman gladiators, noting they were often heavy-set due to a carbohydrate-rich diet designed to provide protective fat. These fighters were glamorous figures who enacted Roman virtues of courage and physical strength for the public. While many were slaves or prisoners, others were free men who volunteered to escape grinding poverty. Most gladiators fought only once or twice a year, with a survival rate of roughly seven in eight. The segment also notes a rare historical instance where a Roman audience felt sympathy for elephants being massacred in the arena. (5)Peter Berkowitz analyzes the work of Professor Patrick Deneen, who argues that liberal democracy is a "curse" that has atomized American society. Deneen presents contradictory accounts of whether liberalism was a founding principle or a 20th-century imposition. He advocates for a "regime change" toward a pre-liberal order that prioritizes biblical faith and classical virtue over individual rights. Berkowitz notes that Deneen's ideas have influenced figures like Vice President JD Vance, who has publicly endorsed Deneen's work. The critique suggests that Machiavellian means and state coercion may be necessary to restore a Christian foundation to the nation. (6)Jack Burnham explains the FCC's efforts to prohibit military-grade, foreign-produced drones, specifically targeting Chinese firms like DJI due to security concerns. These "dual-use" systems are defined by their ability to carry heavy loads and utilize advanced sensor arrays. A significant security gap exists because critical infrastructure like power grids and hospitals lacks the same protections afforded to airports and military bases. Burnham cites a 2024 arrest of a man flying an unregistered drone over Vandenberg Space Force Base in California as evidence of the threat. The Trumpadministration has issued executive orders to secure American airspace from unidentified objects. (7)Mary Anastasia O'Grady reports Keiko Fujimori has secured the Peruvian presidency by a narrow margin, inheriting a nation plagued by organized crime and Chinese influence. Fujimori faces an immediate crisis with the expected arrival of El Niño in September, which threatens the fishing industry and may cause floods. Transnational criminal organizations involved in extortion and illegal mining present a strategic threat to property rights and small businesses. Additionally, China's construction of the Chancay port and heavy mining investments have granted Beijing significant political leverage. Fujimori must now balance these economic realities while attempting to restore the rule of law. (8)Corrections applied: Mary Anastasia O'Grady as directed; Abelardo de la Espriella (transcribed as "Delospria," segment 3 — matching prior batches); and Patrick Deneen (transcribed as "Denine," segment 6 — the Notre Dame political theorist). One to flag: Kevin Hoy (segment 2) — I couldn't verify this astronomer's name, and the brown dwarf designation (rendered as "CD352722b," which I've set as CD-35 2722b) suggests the transcription may be rough. Worth checking against the booking sheet.

Holidaymakers arrived at the first Club Med resort on the Spanish island of Majorca in the summer of 1950. Founded by the Belgian water polo player Gérard Blitz, Club Méditerranée offered a new kind of post-war holiday built around the idea that leisure should be simple, sociable and accessible.The facilities were basic at first. Guests slept in huts and shared communal meals. But the company's all-inclusive approach proved enormously popular and helped change the way millions of people holiday around the world.In 2020, Lucy Burns spoke to Pierre-Xavier Bécret whose parents worked at that first resort and remained part of the Club Med story for many years.Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from how the Excel spreadsheet was developed, the creation of cartoon rabbit Miffy and how the sound barrier was broken.We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: the moment Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva, Haitian singer Emerante de Pradines' life and Omar Sharif's legendary movie entrance in Lawrence of Arabia.You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, like the invention of a stent which has saved lives around the world; the birth of the G7; and the meeting of Maldives' ministers underwater. We cover everything from World War Two and Cold War stories to Black History Month and our journeys into space.(Photo: Holidaymakers relaxing at Guadeloupe's Club Med in Canada. Credit: Boris Spremo/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Today's True Weird Stuff - Revisiting Teenage Nazi Hunters: The Sisters Who Became Nazi Assassins   Freddie and Truus Oversteegen were teenage girls who exploited society's tendency to underestimate them, turning innocence into one of the most effective weapons against the Nazi occupation. Their courage, deception, and deadly missions remain among the most extraordinary stories of WWII.

Lying just off the coast of Western Australia is the rusting wreck of the Alkimos, a ship many believe is cursed. Long after its final voyage, divers, sailors, and visitors have reported ghostly apparitions, unexplained encounters, and an unsettling presence surrounding one of Australia's most infamous haunted shipwrecks. Anne and Renata investigate the Alkimos' remarkable World War II history, the tragedies that fueled its dark reputation, and the chilling paranormal experiences that continue to make this legendary ghost ship one of the world's most enduring maritime mysteries. Alkimos: Unsettled Sea - A True Hauntings Podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Middle East may still be a powder keg but that doesn't stop fresh news from taking place elsewhere. For example, here are some highlights from the first quarter hour of the broadcast: --Iran warns its Gulf neighbors of retaliation if the U.S. launches fresh strikes against it. --Former Vice-President Mike Pence has urged both American and Israeli military forces to finish the job. --Iran's Islamic regime has accelerated the execution of protesters in what human rights activists describe as a calculated campaign to terrorize the population and to prevent another nationwide uprising. --Iranian authorities have executed at least 26 people in cases connected to the January protests as of July 28th. --Iran is reporting that they are in the final stages of drafting a joint statement on a proposed navigation corridor with Oman through the Strait of Hormuz. --President Trump insisted Thursday that the U.S. has ample military firepower and that he wants to prosecute leakers who told the media that supplies are running short. --Germany has delivered the largest submarine built since WWII to the Israeli Navy. --Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have signed a joint defense agreement. --Yemen's Houthis say they launched a missile strike on a Saudi oil tanker amid the Red Sea blockade. --Anti-Semitic incidents in the UK have risen 21% in the first 6 months of 2026 compared to the same period last year. --Jordan has called an emergency meeting of Muslim foreign ministers regarding the imminent threat of an Israeli takeover of the Temple Mount.

Three Big Conversations: Ariana Grande announces a break from public life - 7:56 history writer and influencer Hank Green faces backlash for using AI tools - 22:08 Spider-Man: Brand New Day has a wild opening weekend - 33:02 Slang of the Week: Larping - 00:58 In Other News: - 47:40 The current owners of Myspace (Tim and Chris Vanderhook) announced that they plan to relaunch the classic social media platform, though they did not say when. Let the record reflect that we are on the edge of our seats. According to the Wall Street Journal, this summer's "hottest drink" is officially a bottle of water. Try some today for $6!Vogue, on the other hand, has argued that the drink of the summer is "banana-milk coffee." And right behind that one: durian-mustard maté. Netflix is getting sued for $105 million for losing an unencrypted copy of Nicolas Cage's WWII film Fortitude. Kind of like we might lose a few subscribers after that obscure fruit-caffeine joke in point three. Finally, Christianity Today agrees with us that Instagram Plus is really just Instagram Minus. So glad our own Jenna Mindel was on the case!

This week we open the pages of Era Magazine, explore the latest discoveries from the world of lounge, and travel through the sounds and style of a more glamorous age. In Lounge Life Magazine, we visit homes that captured the dream of tomorrow, while the Stuff Segment takes us into the Pacific during World War II for the incredible survival story of a young naval officer who would later become one of the world's most famous figures. Plus, a mysterious piece of Canberra furniture may contain secrets from the Cold War, we'll discover what's happening in the world of swank, and reflect on a thought that might just change how you see the objects around you. So pour yourself something sophisticated, sit back, and join me… Koop Kooper… for Cocktail Nation www.cocktailnation.net   Hugo Montenegro-Theme from The F.B.I. Pink Martini- No Hay Problema The Loko Nui Combo_Taboo Martin Denny- Oro (God Of Vengeance) The Manakooras- Howl of the Jaguar Walter Wanderley- Você e Eu Dave Grusin- Caravan Draculina-Taboo Tikiyaki and the Hawaiiana Brass- Mexotique Serge Gainsbourg- L'Eau A La Bouche The Leviathans-And Yeti Lives. Markko Polo Adventurers - Night of the Tiger    

James Scott has become one of America's leading historians of World War II, bringing meticulous research and compelling storytelling to pivotal moments in modern history. A Pulitzer Prize finalist and 'New York Times' bestselling author, Scott now turns to one of the war's most consequential and controversial decisions in 'Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War.'Drawing on newly uncovered Japanese sources and survivor accounts, the book examines the final months of the Pacific War, the debates surrounding the atomic bomb, and the devastating human cost of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. James Scott joins us to discuss 'Empire of Ashes.'

This week, Scott sat down with his colleagues Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett, Lawfare Public Service Fellow Julia Curlee, and Lawfare Contributing Editor and Vice President of Research, Security and Defense at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Ariane Tabatabai, to talk through the week's big national security news stories, including:“Lateral Thinking.” Five months into Operation Epic Fury, the U.S.-Iran war has flared back to life—and, more importantly, spread outward. Over the past two weeks, the fighting has jumped to new countries, actors, and domains in a textbook case of “horizontal escalation”: U.S. and Saudi jets opened a new front by striking Iranian-backed militias inside Iraq; Iran-aligned forces battered Kuwait's water and power infrastructure and Saudi oil facilities, with the Houthis apparently firing from Iraqi soil; and a wave of Iran-linked cyberattacks hit water utilities here at home. Then last Friday, President Trump threatened what he called the biggest attack since World War II—before abruptly calling it off, with talks over reopening the Strait of Hormuz now said to be back on. What does this expanding aperture mean for the future of the Iran War?“Squatter's Rights.” The intelligence community has a new leader—sort of. On July 28, the Senate confirmed Jay Clayton, the former SEC chair and Trump's U.S. attorney in Manhattan, as Director of National Intelligence on a 51-47 party-line vote, ending the rocky acting tenure of housing chief Bill Pulte. But in a nearly unheard-of move, the White House left Clayton unsworn for a week while Pulte stayed on—using the extra days to run a fifth round of purges at an agency he'd already cut nearly in half—before Clayton was finally sworn in this Monday. The saga has reignited the fight over Section 702 surveillance authorities, which have now lapsed, and raised pointed legal questions about whether Pulte had any authority to keep acting at all. Where does the ODNI go from here, and what does it mean for U.S. national security?“Weiss Guys.” A sprawling New York Times investigation published over the weekend pulls back the curtain on how Paul, Weiss—the first elite law firm to cut a deal with the Trump administration back in early 2025 to escape a punishing executive order—actually made that fateful decision. The reporting details how then-chairman Brad Karp enlisted Patriots owner Robert Kraft to reach Trump, agreed to $40 million in pro bono work and to drop the firm's DEI policies, and was blindsided when Trump spun the deal his own way online. It lands after a wave of star litigators fled the firm, Karp's own ouster over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, and fresh revelations about the quiet, multimillion-dollar exit of the firm's first openly transgender partner. What has this capitulation (if that's what to call it) cost Paul, Weiss? And what lessons should other law firms—and the legal community as a whole—draw?In object lessons, Ari has a message for competitive spouses: build something together and try Cozy Stickerville. Julia has a message for Secretary Hegseth with her 1950's CIA poster: “ We Are Looking for a Few Good Women.” Scott has a message for the makers of By Jove to bring back a childhood classic. And Natalie has a message for litigators navigating uncertain waters: she sees you and appreciates you.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Masao Tomonaga was only 2 years old when the United States bombed his home city of Nagasaki. He survived, and grew up to become a physician for other survivors, known as hibakusha. He also studied hematology, and his research on leukemia and myelodysplastic syndromes was foundational for understanding how radiation affects the body.  In August 2025, the 80th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he spoke with Host Ira Flatow about his life's work, how hibakusha lived with the medical consequences of the bombs, and his message to the world. Guest:  Dr. Masao Tomonaga is a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and director emeritus of the Japanese Red Cross Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Hospital. Other episodes you may enjoy: House Stalls On Bill To Compensate Victims Of Nuclear Testing Revisiting The Nuclear Age With ‘Oppenheimer' The transcript for this episode is available at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that's keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Cyberattacks have hit water systems in at least a dozen states, with intelligence officials pointing to Iran. Reuters' A.J. Vicens explains what's known.Michigan's Democratic Senate primary delivered a major win for the party's progressive wing. Politico's Samuel Benson explains what Abdul El-Sayed's victory means for the party in November.President Trump says a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could come this week, but it's not the deal he wants. The Wall Street Journal's Benoit Faucon breaks down a possible Iran-Oman agreement.Plus, the CDC gets its first permanent director in nearly a year, the Trump administration refunded $100 billion in tariffs, and low water levels on the Danube revealed some long-lost World War II history.

In 1909, all eyes turned to Worcester, Massachusetts, as a well-dressed businessman claimed he'd built a flying machine — and the world wanted to believe him so badly, they saw it in the sky whether it was there or not.EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/airshiphoaxREAD or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/ye27xce4FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: We'll look at the crazy story of the Great Worcester Airship Hoax of 1909! *** We'll meet a cat that must have more than nine lives, as it survived three World War Two shipwrecks and lived to meow about it! (Unsinkable Sam) *** UFO crash stories are somewhat ubiquitous, with most immediately pointing to Roswell, New Mexico… or Aurora, Texas… or even the so-called “Battle Over Los Angeles”. But there are many other stories of flying saucers crashing to Earth – and we'll look at one that took place in Bolivia, in 1978. (The Bolivia UFO Crash) *** A hidden artifact found in a mysterious hill in Oklahoma reveals a terrifying story! (Oklahoma's Mysterious Hollow Hill)CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding00:00:53.694 = Show Open 00:02:30.154 = The Great Worcester Airship Hoax of 1909, Part 100:13:35.660 = The Great Worcester Airship Hoax of 1909, Part 2 ***00:23:58.982 = Unsinkable Sam00:31:02.011 = Oklahoma's Mysterious Hollow Hill ***00:44:45.651 = The Bolivia UFO Crash ***00:50:06.348 = Show Close*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad breakLISTEN ON PODCAST APPS: Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*SOURCES and RESOURCES:“Oklahoma's Mysterious Hollow Hill” by Ellen Lloyd for AncientPages.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/44s54rmp,https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p86uyt7“Unsinkable Sam” by Natasha Ishak for AllThatsInteresting.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8j9nkz“The Bolivia UFO Crash” posted at Anomalien.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/3f4b2rr7“The Great Worcester Airship Hoax of 1909” from SlightlyOddFitchburg.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2adehevb,https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yckp2hh9(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.Originally aired: March, 2022On this episode of Weird Darkness, host Darren Marlar follows a flying machine that may never have flown, a cat credited with surviving three warships in a single year, a silver cylinder buried under a haunted Oklahoma mound, and a cylindrical object that tore into a Bolivian mountain in broad daylight.It opens in Worcester, Massachusetts, in December of 1909, where Wallace E. Tillinghast, vice-president of the Sure Seal Manufacturing Company, told the Boston Herald he had invented a heavier-than-air flying machine that could carry three passengers some three hundred miles at a hundred and twenty miles an hour, only a few years after the Wright brothers had struggled to keep a powered aircraft aloft for a few hundred feet. Wallace never produced the machine, yet crowds across Massachusetts and out into Arkansas, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island reported a mysterious airship moving silently through the night sky, with one witness in Revere describing seventy-foot wings and an engine he claimed he could hear rumbling from the ground. In Providence, a young H.P. Lovecraft cut through the excitement by identifying the light everyone was pointing at as the planet Venus. The New England Skeptical Society would later attribute the whole affair to collective wish-fulfillment, while the UFOlogist John A. Keel traced it back to an unnamed inventor who had been working his way east since the great California airship sightings of 1896, recruiting well-liked local men like Wallace to serve as the public face of a flying machine that never quite worked.From there the show crosses to the North Atlantic and the tale of Unsinkable Sam, a black-and-white tuxedo cat said to have survived three shipwrecks during a single stretch of the Second World War. As the legend runs, he began the war aboard the German battleship Bismarck, was pulled from a floating plank by the crew of the British destroyer HMSCossack after the Bismarck went down on May 27th, 1941, and was renamed Oscar. When the Cossack was torpedoed months later, the cat was said to have been rescued again, this time by the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, which is where the nickname Unsinkable Sam took hold; after the Ark Royal itself was torpedoed on November 14th, 1941, he reportedly turned up unharmed once more and was carried off by the HMS Legion. Darren measures the story against the record, noting that Bismarck survivors recalled no cat aboard, that a well-known photograph tied to Sam actually shows a different ship's cat named Simon of the HMS Amethyst, and that the seagoing cat was a genuine naval tradition even if this particular survivor may have been assembled from several.Next comes a haunted mound outside Binger, in Caddo County, Oklahoma, and a silver cylinder said to hold the reason the local people would not go near it. The account reaches print through a 1930s newspaper clipping rediscovered by Mrs. Cossette Willoughby of San Jose, California, in which a traveling reporter digs at dawn beside a mound her friends Pat and Louis warned was watched by two phantoms, a woman by day and a headless man by night. Inside the cylinder are papers written in Castilian Spanish, describing how a soldier named Alfonzo, separated from Francisco Vázquez de Coronado's 1541 hunt for the Seven Cities of Gold, wandered into a cave and down into a hidden underground country called Kenyan, ruled by long-headed people and guarded by hairless, dog-like beasts that gave off a musty animal odor. Drawing on Timothy Green Beckley's book Subterranean Worlds Inside Earth, the segment lays out Alfonzo's account of his wife Teen, their failed escape on the back of one of those beasts, and the sentence that supposedly set their preserved bodies walking the mound to frighten off anyone who might find the passage.The episode closes on the afternoon of May 6th, 1978, when something cylindrical slammed into the El Taire mountain along the Bermejo River, on the border between the Bolivian province of Tarija and Argentina, with a supersonic blast heard 150 miles away and windowpanes cracked 30 miles out in every direction. Border policemen described a metallic object trailing white smoke; Corporal Natalio Farfan Ruiz felt the ground tremble as it fell, and Policeman Juan Hurtado said the thing passed directly over his head before it struck the slope. The Buenos Aires newspaper Clarín reported that a police chief in Tarija had located a dented metal cylinder roughly twelve feet long, and while a promised NASA expert never arrived, two United States Air Force officers, Colonel Robert Simmons and Major John Heise, did, later confirmed through released State Department documents to have flown in under a program called Project Moon Dust. Darren ends on the stranger thread running through those files, the 1127th field activities group's interest in HUMINT, the gathering of UFO information from human sources through what the documents themselves describe as a game of deceit.

This week, Scott sat down with his colleagues Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett, Lawfare Public Service Fellow Julia Curlee, and Lawfare Contributing Editor and Vice President of Research, Security and Defense at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Ariane Tabatabai, to talk through the week's big national security news stories, including:“Lateral Thinking.” Five months into Operation Epic Fury, the U.S.-Iran war has flared back to life—and, more importantly, spread outward. Over the past two weeks, the fighting has jumped to new countries, actors, and domains in a textbook case of “horizontal escalation”: U.S. and Saudi jets opened a new front by striking Iranian-backed militias inside Iraq; Iran-aligned forces battered Kuwait's water and power infrastructure and Saudi oil facilities, with the Houthis apparently firing from Iraqi soil; and a wave of Iran-linked cyberattacks hit water utilities here at home. Then last Friday, President Trump threatened what he called the biggest attack since World War II—before abruptly calling it off, with talks over reopening the Strait of Hormuz now said to be back on. What does this expanding aperture mean for the future of the Iran War?“Squatter's Rights.” The intelligence community has a new leader—sort of. On July 28, the Senate confirmed Jay Clayton, the former SEC chair and Trump's U.S. attorney in Manhattan, as Director of National Intelligence on a 51-47 party-line vote, ending the rocky acting tenure of housing chief Bill Pulte. But in a nearly unheard-of move, the White House left Clayton unsworn for a week while Pulte stayed on—using the extra days to run a fifth round of purges at an agency he'd already cut nearly in half—before Clayton was finally sworn in this Monday. The saga has reignited the fight over Section 702 surveillance authorities, which have now lapsed, and raised pointed legal questions about whether Pulte had any authority to keep acting at all. Where does the ODNI go from here, and what does it mean for U.S. national security?“Weiss Guys.” A sprawling New York Times investigation published over the weekend pulls back the curtain on how Paul, Weiss—the first elite law firm to cut a deal with the Trump administration back in early 2025 to escape a punishing executive order—actually made that fateful decision. The reporting details how then-chairman Brad Karp enlisted Patriots owner Robert Kraft to reach Trump, agreed to $40 million in pro bono work and to drop the firm's DEI policies, and was blindsided when Trump spun the deal his own way online. It lands after a wave of star litigators fled the firm, Karp's own ouster over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, and fresh revelations about the quiet, multimillion-dollar exit of the firm's first openly transgender partner. What has this capitulation (if that's what to call it) cost Paul, Weiss? And what lessons should other law firms—and the legal community as a whole—draw?In object lessons, Ari has a message for competitive spouses: build something together and try Cozy Stickerville. Julia has a message for Secretary Hegseth with her 1950's CIA poster: “ We Are Looking for a Few Good Women.” Scott has a message for the makers of By Jove to bring back a childhood classic. And Natalie has a message for litigators navigating uncertain waters: she sees you and appreciates you.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It took a lot to make the composer and critic Virgil Thomson happy. He was famous for savaging new works he didn't like, and the truth is, he didn't like very many new works at all. One exception was Bohuslav Martinů's very first symphony, written in 1942. Thomson said this: "The Martinů Symphony is a beaut. It is wholly lovely and doesn't sound like anything else." The story of how this symphony came to be is as fascinating as the music itself, and it's perfectly in keeping with the relentless curiosity of Martinů as a composer. Martinů, a prolific composer who wrote nearly 400 works, had just arrived in the US in 1941 as a refugee from war-torn Czechoslovakia. He was 51 years old and had never written a symphony before. This delay wasn't a case of crushing self-doubt, as it was for Brahms. It was actually a seeming lack of interest in the symphonic genre, which was not unusual at the time. But in 1942, Martinů sent a letter to Serge Koussevitzky, the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and a friend to the dozens of refugee composers who had arrived from Europe during the early days of World War II. Koussevitzky commissioned Martinů to write a large-scale work, and Martinů responded with his First Symphony -- a perfect welcome to his new home, and to the grand adventure he was setting off on in a country he found intimidating, exciting, and full of opportunity. The result is a piece of remarkable contrast, energy, light, and boisterous hope, given the situation back in his homeland. As the sponsor of this episode, Pere Casan Bonet, put it, the symphony is "a pool of energy that makes me feel optimistic even at my lowest points." We'll start today with a quick overview of Martinů's life and work, since he might not be the most familiar composer to you, and then we'll talk our way through this incredible First Symphony. Martinů has always been one of my favorite "underrated" composers, so it's a thrill to get to talk to you about him today. Join us!

In 1987, Taiwan finally lifted martial law after nearly four decades of authoritarian rule.The moment marked a profound shift for a society long shaped by censorship, surveillance and political fear.For many who had lived through the ‘White Terror', it opened the possibility of speaking openly for the first time.Among them was Malaysian student Fred Chin, who had arrived in Taiwan in the late 1960s with little sense of the political tensions around him.What followed would draw him into a world of secret policing and military justice that operated far from public view, leaving lasting effects on his life and identity.Ashley Byrne speaks to Fred Chin about his story and what the lifting of martial law meant for him. A Made in Manchester production.Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from how the Excel spreadsheet was developed, the creation of cartoon rabbit Miffy and how the sound barrier was broken.We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: the moment Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva, Haitian singer Emerante de Pradines' life and Omar Sharif's legendary movie entrance in Lawrence of Arabia.You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, like the invention of a stent which has saved lives around the world; the birth of the G7; and the meeting of Maldives' ministers underwater. We cover everything from World War Two and Cold War stories to Black History Month and our journeys into space.(Photo: Former Jingmei Military Detention Center, where political dissidents were imprisoned during the White Terror. Credit: Craig Ferguson/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Beneath a football stadium at the University of Chicago on December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi's team achieved the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in history—producing just half a watt of power but proving a concept that would reshape the world. Newt traces the Manhattan Project's dual legacy: the atomic bombs that ended World War II, and the nuclear power plants that now generate clean electricity more safely than almost any other energy source, despite enduring public fear. This episode grapples honestly with an invention that carries both extraordinary promise and the shadow of annihilation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

During World War II, New York communist Julius Rosenberg begins spying for Soviet intelligence and recruiting other Americans to join him. But when his wife's brother joins the Manhattan Project, Julius targets him as a valuable new recruit and inadvertently sets the stage for the ultimate betrayal.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.