American History Hit

In March 1862, wooden warships had dominated global warfare for centuries. In less than 48 hours off the coast of Virginia, two experimental metal monsters made every Navy on Earth obsolete overnight.Don Wildman is joined by Dr Howard Fuller reader in war studies at University of Wolverhampton, UK. His first book was Clad in Iron: The American Civil War and the Challenge of British Naval Power.Edited by Tim Artstall. Produced by Freddy Chick and Tomos Delargy.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast.

With the end of the Civil War, four million formerly enslaved people in the South were now free. It was the beginning of a remarkable experiment: rebuilding the South on the foundations of freedom and equal citizenship. For a brief moment, the United States of America begins its first real attempt at establishing a multi-racial democracy.Our guest today is Bradley Rebeiro, Associate Professor of Law at BYU Law School. He is the author of ‘Until the Last Yoke is Broke: The Constitutional Vision of Frederick Douglass’, which is out on September 29th of this year.Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Produced by Tomos Delargy. Senior Producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast.

In 1896 the Supreme Court ruled that Jim Crow segregation laws were not unconstitutional in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. This is the case that Brown v. Board of Education would eventually overturn but not until six decades of Jim Crow laws had been endured. Who was Plessy? Who was Ferguson? And how on earth did the Supreme Court reach its conclusions?Don Wildman's guest today is Dr Michael Ross, historian of constitutional history with a focus on Reconstruction era at the University of Maryland.Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Produced by Freddy Chick and Tomos Delargy.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast.

Across the defeated Confederacy, there had been an expectation that those who had taken up arms against their citizens would be punished. This did not happen however and instead ex-Confederates were gradually brought back into the fold. Decades later, they managed to cultivate a dangerous mythology that obscured the truth about the nature of the Confederacy and the Civil War in general...Our guest today is Brigadier General Ty Seidule, Professor Emeritus of History at West Point and teaches at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. He’s the author of ‘Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause.’Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Produced by Tomos Delargy. Senior Producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast.

Can you think of a time in history when a law has been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court?Having been used over 180 times, judicial review is one of the most important powers that the US Supreme Court has. So where did it come from?In this episode, Don and is joined by Professor Cliff Sloan to discuss the 1803 ruling of Marbury v. Madison. Cliff has served on all three branches of the Federal Government during his career. He now teaches at Georgetown Law, serves on the board of the Journal of Supreme Court History and is the author of 'The Court at War: FDR, His Justices and the World They Made'.Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Produced by Sophie Gee. Senior Producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast.

Just how dangerous was it to live in Chicago during the 1920s? Was it all gangsters, tommy guns and spilt moonshine?Don is finding out what it was like to exist alongside the likes of Al Capone with Paul Durica, Director of Exhibitions at Chicago History Museum.Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Produced by Sophie Gee. Senior Producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast.