WHEN WOMEN WON THE RIGHT TO VOTE: History, Myth, and Memory How well do you know the 19th Amendment? When women achieved passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, they did not win the right to vote—despite repeated claims that they did. Just what, then, did the women’s suffrage amendment do? Join Dr. Lisa Tetrault for a discussion of this often misinterpreted and misunderstood history and discover how 1920 is part of a much larger and longer story about the…

EINSTEIN'S WAR: How Relativity Trimphed Amid the Vicious Nationalism of World War "Stanley is a storyteller par excellence."--The Washington Post The Great War, the industrialized slaughter that bled Europe from 1914 to 1918, shaped Albert Einstein’s life and work.  Although he never held a rifle, he formulated the mind-bending theory of general relativity while blockaded—and literally starving--in Berlin. While some of his colleagues were fighting against rabid nationalism or inventing chemical warfare, Einstein was struggling to craft relativity and persuade…

DEMAGOGUE The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy He’s been called the most dangerous demagogue in American history. Perhaps no other man has caused so much damage in such a short time. When Joe McCarthy finally made it to the Senate, he flailed around in search of an agenda. Finally, after three years, he hit upon one: anti-communism. By recklessly charging everyone from George Marshall to much of the State Department with treason, he whipped the nation into…

BELVA LOCKWOOD FOR PRESIDENT Anne Barrett as the First Woman Presidential Candidate A woman president? Why not? After all, it's 1884! Meet the indomitable Belva Ann Lockwood: American attorney, politician, educator and author, and the first woman to run a full national presidential campaign. She once said, "I cannot vote but I can be voted for." Listen to her lively campaign speech, detailing her early struggles to break free of social conventions, her fight to be admitted to the Supreme…

FURIOUS HOURS Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee There are two stories here. The first goes back to the 1970s, down into the Deep South. Reverend Willie Maxwell, a rural preacher, was accused of murdering five of his family members to collect the money from the insurance policies he took out on them. With the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last…

WASTELAND: The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror The War to End all Wars remade the world’s map and created new global powers. It also brought destruction and carnage no one had ever seen before.  The apocalyptic-like world of 1918 was nothing like the world of 1914. Four years of machine guns, poison gas and mortar shells wrought a new reign of suffering and terror. Millions were injured. Millions more were killed. By war’s end, its horrors had…

THE CABINET: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution George Washington took his oath of office as the first President of the United States in 1789.  Two and a half years later, he called his first cabinet meeting. Seriously?  That’s right.  The US Constitution hadn’t created or provided for such a body. In fact, the delegates to the Constitution Convention had explicitly rejected the idea. Faced with diplomatic crises, domestic insurrections, constitutional challenges and a Congress lacking help,…