90 Second Narratives

Sky Michael Johnston

1 Creator

90 Second Narratives is a podcast featuring engaging true stories told by trained historians. Each episode includes a short story interwoven with expert analysis of the story’s historical significance. The concise length and storytelling format of the episodes make history accessible, dynamic, and entertaining. The subjects of the stories are diverse—spanning the globe and ranging from the pre-historic to the modern age. While individual stories stand alone, the episodes in each season are linked thematically and combine to offer comparative perspectives that illuminate connections from across the human experience. Every episode also includes recommendations for further reading. 90 Second Narratives provides a novel way to hear historians share the wonders of the past in their own voices.

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Top 10 90 Second Narratives Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best 90 Second Narratives episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to 90 Second Narratives for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite 90 Second Narratives episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Martin Luther Goes Undercover

90 Second Narratives

04/13/20 • 2 min

“You know Martin Luther, as the German monk who challenged the teaching of the Roman Church and sparked the Protestant Reformation. In late 1521, however, Luther was hiding for his life...”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Sky Michael Johnston.

For further reading:
Martin Luther: Visionary Reformer by Scott H. Hendrix (Yale University Press, 2015)
Reformation Europe, 2nd ed. by Ulinka Rublack (Cambridge University Press, 2017)

4 Listeners

2 Comments

Making Cow Brains Your Oyster

90 Second Narratives

03/30/20 • 2 min

“About one hundred and fifty years ago, ‘looking the part’ of being middle class in German lands, involved eating organs...”
So begins today’s story from Dr. Claudia Kreklau.
For further reading:
Beyond Bratwurst: A History of Food in Germany by Ursula Heinzelmann (Reaktion Books, 2014)

“‘‘Organic’ Tools for Social Standing: Oehm’s and Allestein’s Recipes for Brain, Lung, and Udders, 1850-60s” by Claudia Kreklau (H-Net.org)

4 Listeners

1 Comment

The Answered Prayer of Wang Mingdao

90 Second Narratives

05/25/20 • 3 min

“If you have heard of the Chinese Christian preacher Wang Mingdao...”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Amy O’Keefe.

For further reading:
Amy O’Keefe, “Walking the Enlightened Path: Wang Mingdao’s Road to Independent Christianity under Japanese Occupation,” in 1943: China at the Crossroads (East Asia Program, Cornell University, 2015).

3 Listeners

Two Doctors, Two Paths in Cold War Brazil

90 Second Narratives

05/11/20 • 2 min

“How does a story about two doctors reveal the social, political, and ethical divisions that typified Brazil during the Cold War?”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Eyal Weinberg.

For further reading:
Eyal Weinberg, “‘With colleagues like that, who needs enemies?’: Doctors and Repression under Military and Post-Authoritarian Brazil,” The Americas 76 (2019): 467-505.

3 Listeners

1 Comment

Atlantis: Plato, Myth, and History

90 Second Narratives

06/22/20 • 3 min

“I’d like to talk about the lost city of Atlantis. Well, it is not lost. It is simply missing...”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Benjamin B. Olshin.

For further reading:
Lost Knowledge: The Concept of Vanished Technologies and Other Human Histories by Benjamin B. Olshin (Brill, 2019)

2 Listeners

1 Comment

90secNARRATIVES Promo

90 Second Narratives

03/21/20 • 1 min

Hello and welcome to 90 Second Narratives, a new weekly podcast featuring "little stories with BIG historical significance." In each episode, a trained historian shares an engaging true story that includes a brief explanation of the story’s historical importance. New stories are released every Monday.

2 Listeners

Lawmakers in the Spanish Empire

90 Second Narratives

04/20/20 • 3 min

“Pedro Rengifo was a part-Indian, part-Spanish man from the La Paz area of what is today Bolivia, who around 1583 sailed from Lima for Madrid. He had an important message for King Philip the Second...”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Adrian Masters.

For further reading:
Adrian Masters, “A Thousand Invisible Architects: Vassals, the Petition -and-Response System,and the Creation of Spanish Imperial Caste Legislation,” Hispanic American Historical Review 98 (2018): 377-406
Felipe E. Ruan, “Andean Activism and the Reformulation of Mestizo Agency and Identity in Early Colonial Peru,” Colonial Latin American Review 21 (2012): 209-237

2 Listeners

2 Comments

A Catholic in Confucian Robes

90 Second Narratives

05/04/20 • 2 min

“What in the world was a Jesuit priest doing in Beijing’s Forbidden City dressed like a Confucian?”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Sky Michael Johnston.

For further reading:
The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci by Jonathan D. Spence (Viking, 1984)
A Jesuit in the Forbidden City: Matteo Ricci 1552-1610 by Ronnie Po-chia Hsia (Oxford University Press 2010)

2 Listeners

1 Comment

A Puritan Tells Ghost Stories

90 Second Narratives

04/27/20 • 3 min

“Do you believe in the immortality of your soul? If not, the colonial New England Puritan minister Cotton Mather would like to tell you some ghost stories...”

So begins today’s story from Ryan Hoselton.

For further reading:
The Threefold Paradise of Cotton Mather: An Edition of “Triparadisus” edited by Reiner Smolinski (University of Georgia Press, 1995)
The Life and Times of Cotton Mather by Kenneth Silverman (Harper & Row, 1984)

2 Listeners

1 Comment

Baltimore: Housing Exclusion in Action

90 Second Narratives

06/08/20 • 3 min

“On January 10, 1928 Assistant City Solicitor William Laukaitis told a real estate salesman he wanted to buy an expensive lot in the suburban Baltimore neighborhood of Homeland...”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Paige Glotzer.

For further reading:
How the Suburbs Were Segregated: Developers and the Business of Exclusionary Housing, 1890–1960 by Paige Glotzer (Columbia University Press, 2020)

2 Listeners

1 Comment

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