HISTORY This Week

July 26, 1775. In a stately mansion turned rebel headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, George Washington sits down at a dining room table and writes out his orders for the day. The brand-new commander-in-chief has a problem: his army is outfunded, outmanned, and outgunned — and if he can't communicate, he can't win.
What Washington doesn't know is that on this very day, the Congress in Philadelphia is appointing a different kind of general to help him. A postmaster general: Benjamin Franklin. It's a strange homecoming. Franklin spent forty years building the colonial post into a marvel of efficiency… until the Crown humiliated him before the Privy Council and fired him from the job. Now, the rebels are handing it back.
How did a runaway teenage printer end up running the mail for a continent? Why did the Crown fire its best postmaster? And how did a network of post riders help win the Revolutionary War?
Special thanks to USPS Historian Steve Kochersperger, and Smithsonian National Postal Museum curators Dan Piazza and Lynn Heidelbaugh. Dan and Lynn’s new book for the Postal Museum, Routes to a New Nation, will be out in October and is currently available for pre-order.
You can find all the books we’ve used to make recent HISTORY This Week episodes at historythisweekpodcast.com.
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We have been told the American Revolution was fought over taxation and representation. But that's not what the Declaration of Independence says. According to our founders, in their own words, what they were most upset about was Native Americans. How does a whole country miss a point of its own founding document? That's the question at the heart of a new podcast called First America. Hosted and reported by Rebecca Nagle, an Indigenous author and the former host of Crooked’s This Land podcast, and featuring leading Native historians, First America unveils how our current political moment was 250 years in the making and how the founders’ treatment of Indigenous nations—and their resistance—shaped US democracy. Here’s the first episode. Find First America wherever you get podcasts.

July 14, 1850. At a swanky hotel in Apalachicola, Florida, the French consul is throwing a Bastille Day party, and he's promised his guests ice-cold champagne. There's just one problem: the town's ice shipment is delayed, and in 1850, you can't simply make ice. Or can you? Enter Dr. John Gorrie, a country physician who's spent years waging a private war against heat itself, convinced that cooling the air could stop the deadly fevers ravaging his town.
How did a doctor on the Florida frontier invent artificial cooling and take on the "Ice King" of New England? And why has history nearly erased his name?
Special thanks to Bern Nagengast, technology historian and author; and Linda Thompson, docent at the Raney House Museum in Apalachicola, Florida.
You can find all the books we’ve used to make recent HISTORY This Week episodes at historythisweekpodcast.com.

July, 1845. Dr. Smith Boughton, the man behind the mask of "Big Thunder," is sitting in a Hudson jail after a trial that ended in a hung jury.
The Anti-Renters had to celebrate Independence Day with cannon fire and readings of the Declaration, but without their leader.
The rebellion across Upstate New York is escalating: an undersheriff with a bully's reputation is terrorizing farm families in the Catskills, masked Calico Indians are massing at rent sales, and before summer's end, a lawman will lie dying in a tenant farmer's bed. New York now has to decide: are these rebels murderers, or is the system they're fighting the real crime?
What happens when the Anti-Renters trade their tin horns for the ballot box? And how does a local revolt over rent end up shaping the politics of a nation?
Special thanks Reeve Huston, emeritus associate professor of history at Duke University and author of Land and Freedom: Rural Society, Popular Protest, and Party Politics in Antebellum New York; Victoria Kupchinetsky and Misha Gutkin, director and producer of the film Calico Rebellion; David Fleming, the town supervisor of Nassau, NY; Nancy Newman, professor at SUNY Albany and author of the book Songs and Sounds of the Anti-Rent Movement in Upstate New York; and the Association of Public Historians of New York State.
You can find all the books we’ve used to make recent HISTORY This Week episodes at historythisweekpodcast.com.

Today, to celebrate America's 250th birthday, we have a special announcement: we are launching HISTORY This Week+ to all of our followers! (historythisweekpodcast.com/subscribe)
This is something we’ve wanted to do for a while… we’ve been listening to your feedback: you don’t love the ads, you want more history. Well, HTW+ solves both of those problems.
We are offering two tiers of our premium subscription, allowing you to unlock ad-free listening and gain access to bonus content, especially extended cuts of our interviews.
When producing these episodes, the majority of our interview tape is left on the cutting room floor, and our interview with Ken Burns is no exception. We spent over an hour with Ken and his producing partner, Sarah Botstein, discussing the launch of their documentary, The American Revolution.
As a preview of what you’ll get with an HTW+ subscription, we’re bringing you this interview in its (mostly) original form. Enjoy Sally’s conversation with Ken and Sarah, and sign up for HTW+ at historythisweekpodcast.com/subscribe.
Reach out with any questions at historythisweek@history.com.