HISTORY This Week

July 31, 1492. In cities, towns and villages across late medieval Spain, whole districts have emptied out. Houses abandoned, stores closed, and synagogues—which until recently had been alive with singing and prayer—now sit quiet. Exactly four months earlier, the King and Queen of Spain issued an edict: by royal decree, all Jewish people in Spain must convert to Catholicism or leave the country -- for good. Why were the Jews expelled from Spain? How did Spaniards, and then the world, start to think of religion as something inherited, not just by tradition, but by blood? And how does this moment help us understand the challenge of assimilation today?

Thank you to our guest, Professor Jonathan Ray from Georgetown University and author of "After Expulsion: 1492 and the Making of Sephardic Jewry" (2013).

To our listeners, thank you for subscribing to History This Week. We want to hear your feedback: https://bit.ly/3a4FGqJ

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

November 5, 1998. Using DNA evidence, the scientific journal Nature publishes findings that put to rest a centuries-old mystery: Was Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman at Monticello, the mother of six of Thomas Jefferson’s children? Until then, the historical consensus had been this: “The Jefferson-Hemings relationship can be neither refuted nor substantiated.” Jefferson’s white descendants were more categorical: they flatly denied it. But now the truth was out. Why was this story denied for so long, and what does that say about whose version of history is believed? And how did it revise our understanding of America’s third president?

Special thanks to our guests: Professor Annette Gordon-Reed, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family as well as the book, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: an American Controversy. And Gayle Jessup White, a descendant of Thomas Jefferson

and Sally Hemings and author of the book, Reclamation: Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson, and a Descendant’s Search for her Family’s Lasting Legacy.

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

August 14, 2023. The HTW team is ready to talk. In a special episode that wraps up Season 4, Sally asks the people behind the scenes about lessons they've learned from telling hundreds of true stories about the past. It’s a great conversation you’re not going to want to miss.

And when you’re finished, please fill out our listener survey: bit.ly/htw2023.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

July 22, 1934. John Dillinger, America's most famous outlaw, is gunned down by federal agents outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago. Dillinger's death is the final act in a crime spree that involved multiple prison breaks, dozens of bank robberies, and more than one violent shootout. But despite all the money Dillinger stole and the deaths he caused along the way, the public still adored him. How did a man named “Public Enemy #1” become a national darling? And how did the pursuit of John Dillinger make way for the modern FBI?

Special thanks to Elliott Gorn, author of Dillinger's Wild Ride.

To our listeners, thank you for subscribing to History This Week. We want to hear your feedback: https://bit.ly/3a4FGqJ

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

June 21, 1964. James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, three civil rights activists in their early twenties, are reported missing in Mississippi. They are part of the first wave of Freedom Summer, a massive voter registration campaign in the racist heart of the South, Mississippi. The first interracial movement of its kind, the project was led by black southern organizers and staffed by both black and white volunteers. The movement’s leader, Bob Moses, joins this episode to explain how the disappearance of those three men brought the Civil Rights movement into the homes of white Americans – and what Freedom Summer can teach us about moving the wheels of progress today.

To our listeners, thank you for subscribing to History This Week. We want to hear your feedback: https://bit.ly/3a4FGqJ

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices