Showing results by publisher "audible originals" in Americas

Stories of "The American West" often rely on tired tropes of tough cowboys, but real history is much less straight and narrow and way more interesting. Join host Niecy Nash-Betts for a wild round-up of LGBTQ+ lives that got buried in the dust of popular culture and history, and a look at how queer people continue to shape the West today–from gay rodeo to two-spirit identity to trans truckers.

The history of the Boston Tea Party is a hidden one. Why? Since it was a clandestine operation, all sorts of rumors and legends grew up around the event—many collected decades after the American Revolution had ended. At its core, however, the night of December 16, 1773, when colonials dumped tea from British ships into Boston Harbor, was more than a fight over tea and taxes. It was a struggle over the very nature of democracy and self-governance.

Is bourbon the quintessential American liquor? Bourbon is not just alcohol - the amber-colored drink is deeply ingrained in American culture and tangled in American history. From the early days of raw corn liquor to the myriad distilleries that have proliferated around the country today, bourbon is a symbol of the United States. This course traces bourbon's entire history, from the 1700s, with Irish, Scottish, and French settlers setting up stills and making distilled spirits in the New World, through today's booming resurgence.

In the basement of one of the world's most prestigious universities, there was a classroom lined with a collection of human skulls from around the globe. Join award-winning journalist Marc Fennell (It Burns, Nut Jobs, Stuff the British Stole) as he takes you on a captivating global journey through the mysterious Morton Cranial Collection.

With an entirely fresh take on presidential history, James Swanson, author of the New York Times best-selling, Edgar Award-winning Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer, shares the story of his lifelong obsession with the murder of America’s most revered president and the frantic hunt for his assassin. The renowned Lincoln scholar treats listeners to an audible “walking tour” of the people, places, events, and artifacts that tell the story of those horrible days in April 1865. 

Mark Twain, beloved American writer, performer, and humorist, was a self-proclaimed glutton. With the help of a chef and some friends, Nick Offerman presents the story of Twain’s life through the lens of eight of Mark Twain’s favorite foods.

There’s a pattern to racial politics in America: We move two steps forward, and then one - even two - steps back. Why is it so hard for us, as a society, to embrace the egalitarian and compassionate aspects of our nature? The answer lies in the intricate links between race, politics, and policy that form what we’ve come to call “structural racism”, a concept that has played out in various domains in the decades since 1968 - in housing and education, in wealth and debt, and in policing and immigration.

How did a young tradesman in early 18th-century Philadelphia with no money, no connections, and no formal education end up as a leading scientist, an inventor, a master diplomat - and even a Founding Father of the United States of America? He used the same resource we have inside ourselves: a capacity for self-improvement.

Welcome to the era of true marriages of convenience. Discover the reality of trading someone’s hand in marriage, such as an American heiress, in exchange for money, power, or political clout through compelling history lectures. Showcased in novels such as Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence and in present day pop culture through works like Downtown Abbey, the Gilded Age was an era of contradictions. Life on both sides of the Atlantic was grimy and glamorous, prosperous and impoverished, traditional and revolutionary.

Dale Maharidge’s father, like many World War II veterans, never talked about “the good war”. There was just one clue to his dad’s experience as a US Marine - a portrait with a close friend that hung permanently in their home. In The Dead Drink First, Dale, now a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, recounts his 18-year quest to find and repatriate the missing remains of his dad’s buddy, Herman Walter Mulligan, 73 years after he was killed in action.

Every year has its share of notable events, but some years seem to capture the essence of a decade in a handful of months. The year 1954 is one such year. It began in January with a celebrity marriage heard round the world and then progressed through a series of major political, social, and cultural milestones that would echo through the next several decades. The years following World War II were a time of increased wealth and confidence, years that saw the rise of a solid, increasingly powerful middle class in America.

Welcome to the summer of 1985 in Philadelphia, when the city was rocked—in almost every sense of the word—by two unprecedented events: Mayor W. Wilson Goode’s May 13 decision to bomb the headquarters of MOVE, a controversial Philadelphia-based radical communal organization, and the July 13 Live Aid concert, where international rock royalty convened in Philly to raise money for victims of the Ethiopian famine. Separated by just two months and eight miles, these events would showcase both the best and the worst of the so-called City of Brotherly Love.

What is that mysterious thing we call charisma? Where does this magnetic quality come from? Why are we so drawn to it? Are people born charismatic - or do they become that way over time? Can charisma be just as much a force for evil as it is for good? Answers to questions like these are just as important now, in the 21st century, as they were during the earliest years of the American republic.

In these 10 eye-opening lectures by a practicing doctor and medical educator, you’ll walk through a series of medical mystery cases ripped from history and involving well-known historical figures whose identities are nevertheless hidden from you. Every one of these cases requires you to use your detective skills to identify and diagnose the mystery patient just like the doctors that attended them. In the process, you’ll learn fascinating insights into medicine: both the medicine that was practiced thousands of years ago and the medicine doctors practice today.

Malcolm X. Marcus Garvey. Charles Hamilton Houston. Diane Nash. For every well-known figure of the Civil Rights Movement, there are dozens of lesser-known, yet no less significant, activists who helped advance America’s social views and helped shape race relations in this country. Most listeners have only skimmed the surface of these deeply complex, influential, and world-changing figures. Dr. Hasan Kwame Jeffries of The Ohio State University delves into their stories, presenting an intimate study of the men and women who led half a century of social change.

What did the Founding Fathers think about religion? And why did a group of practicing Protestants create a republic with widespread religious liberty? The 12 lectures included in this fascinating course provide multi-layered insights into the vision, philosophies, politics, and deep-seated faith of these brilliant leaders - in their own time, in their own words.

Without John C. Houbolt, a mid-level engineer at NASA, Apollo 11 would never have made it to the moon. Top NASA engineers on the project, including Werner Von Braun, strongly advocated for a single, huge spacecraft to travel to the moon, land, and return to Earth. It's the scenario used in 1950s cartoons and horror movies about traveling to outer space. Houbolt had another idea: Lunar Orbit Rendezvous. LOR would link two spacecraft in orbit while the crafts were travelling at 3,600 miles an hour around the moon. His plan was ridiculed and considered unthinkable.

In 1984, as a New York City subway train made its way downtown, a white man named Bernhard Goetz shot four unarmed Black teenagers he believed were going to rob him.

If you look closely at the City of New York, you will find that it does not conform to a single, all-encompassing metropolitan identity. Rather, the city is made up of five boroughs—districts that operate almost like their own, smaller cities, with their own distinct identities and histories. Located on the western end of Long Island is the most populous of these singular regions: Brooklyn. And its rich and varied past deserves a closer look. Over the course of the 11 lectures, Professor Brian Purnell will lead you through the story of this vibrant settlement.

How did hip-hop happen? To understand that, we have to go back to before the ‘birth’ of the culture.