Podcast History Talk From Origins

Across human history and throughout this very diverse planet, water has defined every aspect of human life: from the molecular, biological and ecological to the cultural, religious, economic and political. Water stands at the foundation of most of what we do as humans. At the same time, water resources — the need for clean and accessible water supp…

Andy Warhol’s 32 Campbell’s Soup Cans have become a canonical symbol of American Pop Art. Warhol, an American commercial illustrator from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania turned fine artist, author, publisher, painter, and film director, first showed the work on July 9, 1962 in the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, California. It was his first solo exhibition.…

Created by writer Joe Simon and artist Jack Kirby in the eponymous Captain America Comics #1, the patriotic hero became a breakout star for Timely Comics.Written by R. Joseph Parrott. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Video production by Cody Patton, Laura Seeger, and Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual version of this video is available at …

This episode has been published and can be heard everywhere your podcast is available.Barely three years after independence from British colonial rule, Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa, collapsed into a civil war. Written by Ousman Murzik Kobo. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Audio production by Svetlana Ter-Grigoryan, Laura Seeg…

New York Times bestselling author and acclaimed presidential historian Douglas Brinkley talks about his new book, "Silent Spring Revolution," which chronicles the rise of environmental activism during the Long Sixties (1960-1973), telling the story of an indomitable generation that saved the natural world under the leadership of John F. Kennedy, Ly…

Between 1946-1948, around 1,500 people in Guatemala—including prisoners, soldiers, prostitutes, psychiatric patients, and children—were enrolled without consent in unethical studies related to the testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including syphilis, gonorrhea and chancroid.Written by Lydia Dixon. Narration by Dr. Nich…

In July 1956, the international order was disrupted by the Suez Crisis, a complicated imbroglio marked by the intersection of European decolonization, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Cold War, and the growth of U.S. power.Written by Peter Hahn. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Video production by Laura Seeger and Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A …

We're back! When and where did the War on Drugs really begin? Join us as we explore how a century of drug wars fought around the world informs today's conversations about marijuana use, abuse, and legalization. Season II of Prologued on The Global War on Drugs premieres on November 2, 2021, with new episodes airing every Tuesday, wherever you get y…

Today, on our season finale, on we reflect on the stories we’ve heard about drug wars around the world, to determine how knowing where we’ve been in our past can direct us in our present and future.Host:Brionna Mendoza (@brionna_mendoza)Guests:Alexander AviñaDan Weimer Michelle ParanzinoMiriam Kingsberg Kadia James BradfordIsaac CamposSarah Brady S…

On this episode of Prologued, we continue our examine of how the War on Drugs intersected with the Cold War by examining domestic politics in Thailand and Mexico during the 1960s and 1970s. Host:Brionna Mendoza (@brionna_mendoza)Guests:Daniel Weimer Alexander Aviña (@Alexander_Avina)Aileen Teague (@AileenTTeague)Want to learn more about how history…

On this episode of Prologued, we follow the Global War on Drugs to Afghanistan. Opium has played a significant role in its history and, as we discuss, shaped how Afghan policymakers have negotiated its position in the world throughout its history. Host:Brionna Mendoza (@brionna_mendoza)Guests:Matthew R. Pembleton (@mattpembleton)James Bradford Mich…

On this episode of Prologued, we turn our attention back to the nation that ultimately made a global War on Drugs possible: the United States. Learn with us how, during the 1930s and 1940s, the U.S. began to establish a global model for pursuing drug prohibition both at home and abroad.Host:Brionna Mendoza (@brionna_mendoza)Guests:Sarah Brady Siff …

On this episode of Prologued, we discuss 19th-century antecedents to the modern U.S. War on Drugs. As we will see, the United States doesn't have a monopoly on drug wars. Our investigation takes us to late imperial China, colonial Mexico, and turn-of-the-century California. Ultimately, a international perspective helps us to understand why the worl…

Welcome to Season Two of Prologued, where we're doing a deep dive into the history of the Global War on Drugs over the past century. On the season premiere, we explore the idea of the "modern" War on Drugs waged by Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan in the 1970s and 1980s. As we will see, the development of the US drug war was deeply informed by exper…

World War II was a total war—a mobilization of nearly all human and natural resources. That meant it was also a war that shaped and was shaped by nature. Written by Thomas B. Robertson. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Audio production by Cody Patton, Laura Seeger, and Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual version of this podcast is available…

The region of western Ukraine makes up just a small percentage of the territory and population of present-day Ukraine, but has historically played an outsized role in the 20th century struggles for control of eastern Europe. Written by Kathryn David. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Audio production by Svetlana Ter-Grigoryan, Laura Seeger, a…

On July 21, 1969, American astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human being to set foot on an entirely different world. His famous words crackled across 238,900 miles of space and electrified those listening back home on Earth: “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.” Written by Lisa Ruth Rand. Narration by Dr. Nicholas…

The Second Opium War not only forced that narcotic drug deep into China’s politics, public health, and economics but also cemented the country’s status as both a prize and a battleground for Euro-American imperialist powers.Written by Miriam Kingsberg Kadia. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Audio production by Svetlana Ter-Grigoryan, Laura S…

Russian President Vladimir Putin has gone to extraordinary lengths to commemorate the Second World War. Even though the war ended over 77 years ago, Putin has made World War II memory central to contemporary Russian national identity.This talk will explore how war remembrance serves Putin’s interests, including with regard to his war in Ukraine.Pan…

It is undeniable that some individuals do change the course of history through sheer force of will – not to mention a remarkable degree of luck. Such a person was Liu Bang, who rose from obscurity to be crowned emperor of China 2215 years ago on the 28th of February, 202 BCE.Written by Benjamin Breen. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Audio p…

The United States was a nation forged in the ideological fires of a democratic revolution to overturn monarchy and imperial control. Yet many American leaders and citizens ever since have denied or rejected a foreign policy guided by ideology.Why? If ideas and ideologies help us to order and explain the world, often serving as rationales for (in)ac…

Süleyman, who would be known to the west as “the Magnificent,” began his reign as sultan of the Ottoman Empire in September 1520.Written by Colin Jude Murtha. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual version of this video is available at https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/suleyman-suleiman-the-magnificent-ottoman-empire…

When the Second World War (WWII) ended in 1945 and the rest of Europe was beginning to rebuild itself, Greece entered into a second war, more vicious than that fought against the Axis powers.Written by Amikam Nachmani. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. The author dedicates this video in memory of Prof. Andre Gerolymatos (1951-2019).A textual …

December 16, 1971 marked the end of the Bangladesh Liberation War, a short-lived conflict between India and Pakistan that established the People’s Republic of Bangladesh from the territory of the former province of East Pakistan.Written by Eric A. Strahorn. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual version of this video is available at http…

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring shocked the American public when it was published in the summer of 1962. Carson hooked readers by describing a fictional town where spring no longer marked the singing of birds, the buzzing of bees, or the laughter of children. Written by Cody Patton. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual version of this vi…

Architecture is a way of understanding the world: recording its history, sharing its culture, and connecting with people. We need to consider Ukraine’s architecture during war first and foremost because it is important to the Ukrainian people. Ukrainians are not only fighting for the right to live on their territory, they are fighting to preserve t…

Although Americans today may take the tactical and operational brilliance of their military forces for granted, such has not always been the case. Perhaps no historical event illustrates the potential disaster awaiting military forces put in a hopeless strategic situation than the fall of the Philippines in the spring of 1942.Written by Peter Manso…

On a summer day in August 1920, in the middle of war, a group of Ukrainians performed Macbeth. In these wartime conditions, they did a play about the murder of a king and the ensuing chaos and devastation, painfully relevant to all audiences who had endured not only World War I, but also the fierce battles for control of this region after the Roman…

After a brutal 75-day siege, the Mexica capital of Tenochtitlan surrendered on August 13, 1521. The war cost tens of thousands of lives, civilian and warrior alike. It was a war of atrocity, massacre, and systematic violence. By the end, a few thousand Spaniards under the command of Hernando Cortés fighting alongside many times more Indigenous warr…

When Ukrainian troops liberated the town of Borodyanka from Russian occupation in early April, 2022 they discovered the damage done to its Taras Shevchenko monument. Bullets had hit the great poet’s forehead. The pillar holding him up had been damaged by shells.The symbolism of the Russian attack on the monument was obvious. Taras Shevchenko is not…

The decade of war and revolution between 1914 and 1924 is critical for understanding both Russian and Ukrainian statehood up to the present day. Written by Joshua A. Sanborn. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual version of this video is available at https://origins.osu.edu/read/ukraine-war-and-revolution.This is a production of Origins…

When the Russian Empire collapsed in 1917 during World War I, the lands of today’s Ukraine became a battleground of violence and instability until 1922. Multiple communities of former tsarist imperial subjects imagined the future in radically different ways.Written by Mayhill Fowler. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual version of this…

Emily Channell-Justice explores the goals and lived experiences of Ukraine’s watershed Euromaidan protests of 2013-14. The dreams, values, and actions of Maidan’s heroes remain a driving force in Ukraine’s perseverance today, and they will empower Ukrainians to rebuild their country after the war. Written and narrated by Emily Channell-Justice. A t…

On January 1st, 1818, Mary Shelley, at age nineteen, published the gothic novel Frankenstein. The novel dramatizes the clash of two cultures—the Enlightenment that celebrated reason and science and the Romantic age that celebrated passion and art. Our video highlights how Mary Shelley's family and those around her influenced her creation of the nov…

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine has returned to its pre-revolutionary position as a major agricultural exporter of key commodities. With Russia currently controlling a large portion of Ukraine’s cultivated agricultural land in the south, as well as blockading ports on the Black Sea, a significant amount of grain for export i…

The Russian government’s rationale for the war in Ukraine is not about oil, coal, or natural resources. It is about asserting specious historical claims. However, It is important to understand the history of Rus to place this conflict in its proper historical context. Written by Christian Raffensperger. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A tex…

On December 2, 1980, four churchwomen—Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel, and lay missionary Jean Donovan—became victims of escalating violence toward church members who sided with the poor in El Salvador.Written by Stephanie M. Huezo. Narration by Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Textual and video version of this podc…

In 1919, Eugene Christophe was awarded the first yellow jersey, but he did not win the Tour de France that year. Learn about the history of the yellow jersey and why it was adopted as a symbol of the race. [Correction: As of 2022, France has held 7 races solely in France since 1947.]Written by Darcy Benson. Narration by Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A tex…

On September 20, 1519, five ships carrying about 270 men sailed westward from the Spanish port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda. Their goal was to reach the Spice Islands of Maluku and open a new trading route for Spain.An in-text version of this podcast episode can be found at: https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/magellan-circumnavigation-earth…

As the hazards of carbon emissions increase and governments around the world seek to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, the search for clean and affordable alternate energies has become an increasing priority in the twenty-first century. However, one nation has already been producing such a fuel for almost a century: Brazil. Its sugarcane-based ethan…

In February-March 1616, the Catholic Church issued a prohibition against the Copernican theory of the earth’s motion. This led later (1633) to the Inquisition trial and condemnation of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) as a suspected heretic.Written by Maurice A. Finocchiaro. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual version of this video is avai…

...And Water For All is an educational documentary about water affordability in Ohio. The film aims to amplify the voices of those who work toward providing clean, affordable water for all. Even though the movie is set in Ohio, many of its lessons will be relevant for those concerned with water affordability in other places. This project was made p…

Ohio State University History Professor David Hoffmann examines some key moments in recent Russian and Ukrainian history, with particular attention to the breakup of the Soviet Union, Putin’s rise to power in Russia, and the 2014 Revolution in Ukraine. Speaker | David L. Hoffmann, College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of History. Pro…

Bart Elmore takes us on an authoritative and eye-opening journey into how the company Monsanto came to have outsized influence over our food system. Monsanto, a St. Louis chemical firm that became the world’s largest maker of genetically engineered seeds, merged with German pharma-biotech giant Bayer in 2018―but its Roundup Ready® seeds, introduced…

On June 28, 1914, one event changed the world. A Bosnian-Serb youth Gavrilo Princip, aged only 19, shot and killed the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir apparent to the Austrian throne, and his wife Sophie as their motorcade passed by on the streets of Sarajevo.Written by Brenna Miller. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual version of …

Learn about an exciting new collaboration that marries photographs and words to bring Black history to life. Picturing Black History https://www.picturingblackhistory.org/ is a collaborative project between Getty Images and Ohio State’s Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective http://origins.osu.edu that contributes to the ongoing public d…

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been described as a “a crime against peace” and “Europe’s Darkest Hour” since World War II. It is an attack that is sure to restructure the international order along with the lives of all Ukrainian citizens. Our panelists assist us in understanding these tragic and world-changing events.This webinar addresses the…

In 2006 a small group of historians startled the world by announcing the discovery and publication of a Gospel of Judas. Could the disciple who betrayed Jesus be a hero? Sixteen years later we can see the true significance of this strange text, which reveals to us the amazing diversity of Christianity only one hundred years after Jesus.A presentati…

The atomic age began between heartbeats at 8:15 am on August 6, 1945 when the Japanese city of Hiroshima was leveled by an atomic bomb. Three days later, the United States dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki, marking the first time humanity broke atoms in anger.Written by Craig Nelson. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual version of this…

Our panel of historians reevaluates what we think we know about the War on Drugs. When and where did it really begin? Why has it persisted? And perhaps most importantly, will we ever be able to quit? They uncover how the centuries-long history of global drug prohibition prologues today's discussions of drug use, abuse, and legalization.An in-text v…