15-Minute History

Join us as we talk about the era of industrial titans. In this discussion, we trace the Gilded Age from Carnegie's steel mills and Rockefeller's stranglehold on oil to the garages and server farms of Amazon, Google, and Apple. Join us every Monday for episodes and discussions, and Thursdays for pop quizzes and Sketches in History. We love hearing from you, so leave a comment below!

On Halloween night in 1938, a radio drama shocked the American people by describing a Martian invasion. This event demonstrated the power of the spoken word delivered electronically as much as FDR's "fireside chats." Joe is a big fan of the show, so Jon asked him about it (while also getting the date wrong--so please shame him in the comments below).

A brisk history of industrial titans from Carnegie and Rockefeller to Bezos and the big tech firms. Listens look at how control of key chokepoints drove empires. The story traces shifts from brutal labor tactics to modern platform dominance and the return of regulatory pushback.

Welcome back to Sketches in History! This segment, just for kids, shows that history isn't just a story, it's an adventure. Join Lottie Archer as she dives into her extraordinary notebook, where sketches from history come to life.In this episode, Lottie finds an old chrome microphone on her grandfather's shelf, with a handwritten card tucked beneath it: This Sunday. Ten o'clock. The President speaks. In this episode, your kids will discover what persuasion looks like, why the way a message is delivered can matter just as much as the message itself, and how the tools a leader uses to reach people can shape what those people believe.Listen and subscribe to the 15-Minute History podcast to hear Sketches in History every other Thursday. Got a favorite historical moment? Share it with us at 15minutehistory@gmail.com, and it might just make its way into the notebook!

Join Jon and Joe as they discuss how presidents have used, and sometimes botched, major communication mediums from radio to social media, and what it tells us about leadership in modern America.

Welcome back to Sketches in History! This segment, just for kids, shows that history isn't just a story, it's an adventure. Join Lottie Archer as she dives into her extraordinary notebook, where sketches from history come to life.In this episode, Lottie finds a mysterious bottle of oil and a folded newspaper and follows. The notebook takes her to the Wyoming plains of 1922, where a powerful government official is making a very secret deal beside a rock that looks just like a teapot. But secrets like this can't stay hidden forever. What happens when they are discovered? In this episode, your kids will discover what it means to hold public trust, why integrity matters most when no one seems to be watching, and how honest people doing unglamorous work can hold powerful people accountable.Listen and subscribe to the 15-Minute History podcast to hear Sketches in History every other Thursday. Got a favorite historical moment? Share it with us at 15minutehistory@gmail.com, and it might just make its way into the notebook!

A tour of how changing technologies remade presidential communication across eras. It looks at radio's intimacy, television's image power, and the rise of websites and social platforms. The conversation examines who now controls presidential speech and how each medium amplifies character over simple facts.

Remember the California Wildfires? Most of us watched the footage, maybe donated to the cause, and moved on. But what happened after the cameras left? Are the homes rebuilt? Why are permits nearly impossible to get? And where did the FireAid concert money go? The people who lost everything are still waiting for answers. It may feel like yesterday, but this is already history, and it's exactly the kind of history we can't afford to forget.Join us on Thursdays for pop quizzes and Sketches in History and on Mondays for episodes and discussions. Send us your thoughts in the comments below.

The modern presidency's power is beyond anything our founders could have dreamed. Its limits often seem ill-defined, as are efforts to hold elected officials accountable for their actions. So what can be done?Join us every Monday for episodes and discussions, and check out our Thursday pop quizzes and Sketches in History episodes!

What happens when a powerful nation attacks a long-standing rival? No, we aren't talking about the United States and Iran (though that conversation is coming). What would happen if China tried to retake the island of Taiwan as it as long planned to do so. What are the historical forces in play? And how would America and the world respond to this kind of aggression?Join us on Thursdays for pop quizzes and Sketches in History and on Mondays for episodes and discussions. Send us your thoughts in the comments below.