History Unplugged Podcast

• The Scopes Trial Was Entirely Orchestrated But Became an Unintended 1920s Culture War Touchpoint

  July 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of the Scopes Trial – a trial that exposed profound divisions in America over religion, education, and public morality. This was a legal case in Dayton, Tennessee, where high school teacher John Scopes was prosecuted for teaching evolution, violating the state's Butler Act. The Butler Act was a 1925 Tennessee law that prohibited public school teachers from teaching any theory that denied the biblical account of human creation, specifically targeting the teaching of evolution. But believe it or not, this entire trial was orchestrated. Local leaders had the teacher volunteer to be charged as a publicity stunt to boost the town's economy and gain national attention. But it soon gained far more attention than anyone expected, as it touch a nerve on the national clash between an increasingly secular scientific establishment and religious fundamentalists. Battle lines were drawn in the courtroom. Clarence Darrow, a renowned agnostic lawyer and advocate for civil liberties, defended Scopes, while William Jennings Bryan, a prominent Christian populist, three-time presidential candidate, and anti-evolution crusader, prosecuted, highlighting their contrasting worldviews. The trial became a media sensation due to its clash of science versus religion, drawing hundreds of reporters, radio broadcasts, and public fascination with the dramatic courtroom exchanges, particularly Darrow’s cross-examination of Bryan. To discuss the legacy of the case is today’s guest, Brenda Wineapple, author of “Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial that Riveted America.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• The Panda Was First Discovered By Theodore Roosevelt’s Sons During a 9-Month Expedition in Himalayan China

  In the late 1920s, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and his younger brother Kermit, sons of President Theodore Roosevelt, wanted fame and glory apart from the family spotlight. They were seeking the “empty spots” on the maps, the areas that had yet to be explored and described by Westerners. From these remote places, they hoped to bring back exotic animals to aid the scientific community’s understanding of taxonomy, biological diversity, and its relatively recent theories of evolution. The animal they most wanted was an elusive black and white bear that, at the time, was more legend than scientific fact. Today’s guest is Nathalia Holit, author of “The Beast in the Clouds.” She tells the full story of this expedition into China’s Himalayan wilderness.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• How Do We Really Know What Happened in the Past When Many Historians Were Propagandists and AI is Fabricating Everything Else?

  “History is written by the winners.” This aphorism is catchy and it makes an important point that a lot of what we know about history was written with an agenda, not for the purposes of informing us. Unfortunately, it isn’t true. There are many times that the so-called “losers” wrote the histories remembered today. After the American Civil War, Southern historians like Edward Pollard crafted "Lost Cause" narratives, romanticizing the Confederacy despite their defeat. Similarly, Chinese and Persian accounts of the Mongol invasions, such as those by Zhao Hong and Ata-Malik Juvayni, detailed Mongol brutality and cultural impacts from the perspective of the subjugated, challenging the victors' dominance. But this statement still gets to a fundament question: What if the history you learned was deliberately shaped by people with their own agendas? This question drives today’s guest, Richard Cohen, in his book “Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past.” We explore how historians and storytellers, from ancient Greece to the modern era, shape our understanding of history through their biases and agendas, featuring figures like Herodotus, who blended fact and fable, Edward Gibbon, whose Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire reflected his personal perspective, and William Randolph Hearst, whose yellow journalism distorted historical narratives. No history is truly objective, as personal, cultural, and political influences inevitably color the accounts of chroniclers like Thucydides, Tacitus, Voltaire, but we can still construct an understanding of the past that brings us closer to the truth.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Eugénie de Montijo: The Spanish Empress Who Built Modern Paris and is Blamed For Imperial France’s Downfall

  Thirty-three years after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Empire, his nephew (known as Napoleon III) became the first president of France before becoming emperor himself. Although he was a capable ruler and reformer, Napoleon III’s failed military campaigns, especially France’s loss to Germany in the Franco-Prussian War, led to his defeat, capture, and the fall of the Second French Empire and permanent eclipse of Germany in military power. Many historians have blamed Napoleon III’s wife for his failings. Eugénie de Montijo was a Spanish noblewoman who became the last French empress. She was a cultural tastemaker and activist for feminist equality, but many blame her blunders when she held power as regent for France’s worst failures and reckless rush into a ruinous war with Germany. But the story of her life has rarely been told in full. It was a career filled with glamour, achievement, and tragedy, as well as contributions that transformed the nation she ruled unlike any other royal noblewoman in Europe. She spearheaded movements in health and education to help transform France into a modern country. She pushed Parisian architecture toward steel and glass construction of buildings as well as for inclusion of green spaces throughout the city, many of which exist today. Most of all, she crafted much of the idea of what it means to be French in the modern era. Today’s guests are Petie Kladstrup and Evelyne Resnick, authors of “The Last Empress of France: The Rebellious Life of Eugénie de Montijo.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• John Adams: The Most Influential Yet Overlooked Founding Father?

  John Adams is arguably America’s most underrated Founding Father. He has no currency that bears his image. No national holidays celebrate his birth. He’s nearly never named as anyone’s favorite president. And he has no dedicated memorial in Washington, D.C. Despite this, he was perhaps the most influential early American, rivaling Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin. Adams was a key advocate for American independence, nominating Washington as commander of the Continental Army and helping draft the Declaration of Independence. As president, he averted war with France through the Convention of 1800, prioritizing peace despite political backlash. He also defended British soldiers in the Boston Massacre trial, showcasing his commitment to justice, and laid the foundation for the U.S. Navy by establishing the Department of the Navy in 1798. How can this be remedied? Today’s guest, Jackie Cushman, is the Chair of the Adams Memorial Commission, created by Congress to establish a Washington, DC memorial to John Adams and his family. She seeks to commemorate the lives of him and his descendants, as the original philosopher-statesmen of America.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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