Shows
The Hamilton ReviewChristopher Flannery: Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute and Host of The American StoryWe are happy to welcome Christopher Flannery to The Hamilton Review Podcast! Christopher is a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute and the host of the podcast, The American Story. In this conversation, Christopher discusses his background, family values in today's world and more. Enjoy this episode! Christopher Flannery is a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute, contributing editor of the Claremont Review of Books, and author of The American Story podcast. He has published in academic periodicals including the Claremont Review of Books, Academic Questions, Interpretation, and The American Scholar, as wel...
2023-08-0936 min
The digital construction skills podcast.The beginner's guide to Machine Control and Telematics- with Chris Matthew and Paul Tuohy from Flannery PlantJoining us for our latest podcast episode are Chris Matthew, Strategic Manager, and Paul Tuohy, Digital Plant Manager from Flannery Plant. In this podcast, we explore Machine Control and Telematics Technology and why it is a game changer for Flannery and its Clients.
If you don't have time to listen to the whole podcast then you can always scroll to the sections most relevant to you below:
00:00 Introduction, background to Flannery Plant and Chris and Paul's role in the business.
03:50 What we mean by machine control.
05:30 The key differences between 2D...
2022-11-0253 min
John Flannery, “LET FREEDOM RING”Episode 2 - Critical Race Theory - what's that all about? - with guest, Fr. Christopher J. Devron, S.J., interviewed by Host: John P. FlanneryFather Christopher J. Devron, the President of Fordham Prep, a Jesuit High School for Young Men, wrote an article, "Should Catholic Schools Teach Critical Race Theory? - he has agreed to talk about how he worked his way through what is critical race theory and what it meant for Catholic Schools. Most significantly, Father Devron speaks to us as an educator navigating our changing times including critical race theory. Host: John P. Flannery, II, jonflan@aol.com, @jonflan
2021-10-3141 min
Tipping Point with Kara McKinneyApril 15, 2021: Raheem Kassam, Julie Kelly, Lila Rose, Christopher Flannery, Will Ruger, Kyle Shideler, and Lt. Col. James CarafanoJoin Kara McKinney as she sits down with Raheem Kassam, Julie Kelly, Lila Rose, Christopher Flannery, Will Ruger, Kyle Shideler, and Lt. Col. James Carafano to talk about the issues of the day.
2021-04-1653 min
The American StoryWe Are All AmericansEly Parker was born in 1828 to Elizabeth and William Parker of the Tonawanda Seneca tribe of the Iroquois confederacy in western New York. Parker became a leader in his tribe at a very young age, trained as a civil engineer, and earned himself a reputation in that field. In 1857, when he was 29 years old, he moved to Galena, Illinois as a civil engineer working for the treasury department, and there his life took a fateful turn. He became friends with a fellow named Ulysses S. Grant.
2021-04-1305 minTipping Point with Kara McKinneyApril 8, 2021: Andy Ngo, Christopher Flannery, Drew Hernandez, Tim Schmidt, Andrea Kaye, and Gretchen SmithJoin Kara McKinney as she sits down with Andy Ngo, Christopher Flannery, Drew Hernandez, Tim Schmidt, Andrea Kaye, and Gretchen Smith to talk about the issues of the day.
2021-04-0953 min
The American StoryPurple Mountain MajestiesThis story is about a teacher from a college in the East who was inspired by her travels West, especially by her experience summiting Pikes Peak, to write a poem that became an American anthem.
2021-04-0606 minTipping Point with Kara McKinneyApril 1, 2021: Andy Ngo, Christopher Flannery, Rep. Brian Babin, Cory Mills, Hany Ghoraba, and Leslie RutledgeJoin Kara McKinney as she sits down with Andy Ngo, Christopher Flannery, Rep. Brian Babin, Cory Mills, Hany Ghoraba, and Leslie Rutledge to talk about the issues of the day.
2021-04-0253 min
The American StoryA Decent RespectThe “real American Revolution,” as John Adams said, took place in the minds and hearts of the American people in the years leading up to 1776. This Revolution of thought gave birth to a Revolution of words and deeds; and Revolutionary thought, word, and deed together became the American Founding, a “human event” unsurpassed in the history of the world. This Founding remains eternally the earthly source of all America’s blessings of liberty. It is also America’s eternal earthly measure of itself.
2021-03-3006 minTipping Point with Kara McKinneyMarch 25, 2021: Daniel Horowitz, Christopher Flannery, James Lindsay, Joe Kent, Victoria Coates, and Brandon MorseJoin Kara McKinney as she sits down with Daniel Horowitz, Christopher Flannery, James Lindsay, Joe Kent, Victoria Coates, and Brandon Morse to talk about the issues of the day.
2021-03-2652 min
The American StoryMichael Patrick MurphyThis episode is about an American warrior and the warship that carries on his name. The ship and her crew operate in more than 48 million square miles of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The area is more than 14 times the size of the continental United States; it includes 36 maritime countries, 50% of the world’s population, and the world’s 5 largest foreign armed forces.
2021-03-2308 min
The American StoryField Photo FarmLate in 1939, the eminent Hollywood movie director John Ford, who happened also to be an officer in the Naval Reserve, began organizing and training what became the Eleventh Naval District Motion Picture and Still Photographic Group. Their mission would be to record on film the history of the war that was coming. From Pearl Harbor to VJ-Day, Ford and his crews traveled the world, from Midway, to North Africa, to Normandy, documenting the great battles of the war, often heroically.
2021-03-1607 min
The American StoryBattle Hymn of the RepublicIt’s not every day that a poet sits down and writes a poem that becomes a national hymn. But that’s what happened to Julia Ward Howe in November 1861. The country was a year and a half into the Civil War when she and her husband visited Union Army camps with a friend, passing time in the carriage singing army marching songs, including the popular “John Brown’s Body.” The friend suggested that Mrs. Howe consider writing her own, more elevated, lyrics to the song. And she did.
2021-03-0905 min
The American StoryBeauty and BrainsHedy Lamarr was born to Jewish parents in Austria in 1914. She became an actress and married by the time she was 20. In 1937, she escaped her domineering husband and rising anti-Semitism in Europe, and made her way to America, where she became a Hollywood star celebrated as the most beautiful woman in the world. During WWII, in hopes of aiding America’s war effort, Hedy invented a technology that would eventually be used in cell phones, GPS, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi. She had beauty and brains in spades.
2021-03-0207 min
The American StoryPaul Revere’s RideHenry Wadsworth Longfellow has been called, “the most popular poet in American history.” When Longfellow wrote, few Americans remained who had a living memory of the American Revolution. With his poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride” he succeeded in preserving part of that heroic memory in verse for many generations to come, the way Homer did for ancient Greeks, or Shakespeare for Englishmen in more recent times.
2021-02-2307 min
The American StoryThe Right StuffChuck Yeager was born in West Virginia in 1923, was shooting and skinning squirrels and rabbits for family dinners by the time he was six, flying fighter planes in WWII by the time he was twenty, flew 127 missions during the Vietnam War, retired as a highly decorated brigadier general in 1975, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. But what made Chuck Yeager famous was something he did between wars, as a test pilot.
2021-02-1606 min
The American StorySail On!A poem comes to a poet, and he sends it orphaned out into the world, to take its chances. It never knows who or what it might inspire or how it might become part of the world it has stepped into. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Building of the Ship” made its way from schoolboys to Lincoln to Roosevelt to Churchill and the world. It continues to inspire lovers of liberty everywhere.
2021-02-0908 min
The American StoryTo See the RightBy July 1776, American revolutionary John Dickinson maintained that he did not entertain any doubt whether America should declare independence, only when. He opposed, in his words, “only the time of the declaration, and not independence itself.” His reasons for this opposition were weighty, well-considered, and shared by many. For one last time, he presented those reasons to his fellow delegates in the Continental Congress.
2021-02-0207 min
The American StoryHonor and OblivionOnly devoted students of history have heard of him, but in the years leading up to the American Declaration of Independence, John Dickinson, next to Benjamin Franklin, was probably the most famous American. He was renowned as a champion of American rights and liberty. His writings during this period did more than any others to defend and define the American Cause. But one decision would cast Dickinson from fame into obscurity.
2021-01-2607 min
The American StorySergeant YorkSergeant York, the highest-grossing movie of 1941, opened in American theaters in July and was still playing after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7. A biographical film starring Gary Cooper as the WWI hero Alvin York, it would receive 11 Oscar nominations and win two. Young men went directly from watching the movie in theaters to the enlistment offices, to sign up for the war that had just come to America. And the hero who inspired them to join the fight was a man of peace.
2021-01-1908 min
The American StoryProclamation: American New Year 1863On New Year’s Day 1863, President Lincoln signed the proclamation he had promised a hundred days before. Lincoln understood better than anyone the constitutional challenges to emancipation. He took the greatest care to draft the proclamation in terms that could be defended before the highest court in the land. Then in the last weeks of his life, he “left no means unapplied” to getting the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, approved by Congress.
2021-01-1208 min
The American StorySilver Markers on a Pew: American New Year 1942January 1, 1942 had been set aside by President Roosevelt as a Day of Prayer. He had good reason for doing this; it was a dark time. The Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor just a few weeks before. Then Hitler declared war on the United States. America was suddenly at war with the greatest military powers in Europe and in Asia. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was Roosevelt’s guest at the White House for strategic discussions. They spent a memorable, and very American, New Year’s Day together.
2021-01-0507 min
The American StoryThe Fate of Liberty: American New Year 1777From August to the last week of December, as David McCullough writes, “1776 had been as dark a time as those devoted to the American Cause had ever known.” As the year ended, despite the stunning and historic victory at Trenton the day after Christmas, there was good reason to fear that Washington’s army would dissolve and with it any hopes for the American Cause. Washington pleaded with the men to stay on another month. The fate of liberty depended on them.
2020-12-2906 min
The American StoryVictory or Death: American Christmas 1776By summer 1776, the most powerful navy in the world was conveying the greatest British expeditionary force in history across the ocean to suppress the American rebellion. George Washington’s ragtag Continental Army seemed no match for this great force. They suffered one defeat after another. Winter was coming on. Enlistments would expire at the end of the year. On December 20, Washington wrote Congress: “10 days more will put an end to the existence of this army.”
2020-12-2208 min
The American StoryJohn WayneJohn Wayne began life as Marion Morrison in Winterset, Iowa. After his family made its way to L.A., and an injury sidelined him from USC football, he began working full-time as a prop man for movie studios. His natural strength, good spirit, good looks, and determination carried him through nearly a decade of B-movies before he became a star. Thirty-five years after his death, he was still listed as one of America’s five favorite movie stars; he became “indivisibly associated with America itself.”
2020-12-1507 min
The American StoryWar and PeaceAmong the countless millions of human events postponed, rescheduled, or cancelled in the long hard year 2020, one was a gathering scheduled for an eight square mile volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean. The gathering was to be a “Reunion of Honor” commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima.
2020-12-0806 min
The American StoryRelics and ReverenceAbigail Adams recorded that when her husband and Thomas Jefferson visited Shakespeare’s birthplace, Jefferson fell upon the ground and kissed it and John Adams cut a chip from Shakespeare’s chair. Jefferson and Adams both revered Shakespeare, as did Abigail, and they all understood how necessary it was for a free people to revere what deserves reverence. As this story shows, they also understood that true reverence needs to be complemented by good humored irreverence.
2020-12-0106 min
The American StoryTo Give or Not To Give . . . ThanksEvery president since Lincoln has issued a Thanksgiving proclamation every year, but on September 25, 1789, when the U.S. House of Representatives had only been operating for about six months, not everyone was sure that Thanksgiving was a good idea.
2020-11-2406 min
The American StoryThank God for being an AmericanP.G. Wodehouse was one of the best writers in the English language in the 20th century and the funniest. He wrote nearly 100 delightful books, each one of which in perfectly orchestrated sentences, can make you fall laughing out of your beach chair. He became an American citizen in 1955, wrote an autobiography titled “America, I like you.” Read anything Wodehouse. You won’t regret it.
2020-11-1706 min
The American StoryFor the TroopsUSO stands for United Service Organizations, and it is a beautiful gem of American history and American civic life. It was created in early 1941, when America had not yet entered World War II, but could feel the day coming when it must. Since then they have been working to support our service members from enlistment to deployment and through transitioning back to their communities.
2020-11-1008 min
The American StoryBullets for Ballots: 1860 (3 of 3)Until the election of 1860, the truths proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence had been the ground of American civic friendship, above all the central truth that all men are created equal. Fidelity to this most American idea held the country together through many divisions since 1776. The Confederate States rejected that idea. America had lost the foundation for civic peace. Ballots gave way to bullets.
2020-11-0207 min
The American StoryBallots for Bullets: 1800 (2 of 3)The election of 1800 in America came after a decade of bitter and extreme party strife. Each side accused the other of aiming to overthrow the Constitution and preparing the way for tyranny. There was no precedent, including the experience of 1776, for resolving such differences without appealing to bullets. But ballots prevailed and power was transferred peacefully between uncompromisingly hostile political rivals for the first time in human history.
2020-10-2707 min
The American StoryBullets and Ballots: 1776Americans are being reminded how fragile and precious an achievement it is to establish the legitimate authority of government through peaceful and free elections. But there would be no ballots without the bullets of 1776. We hold elections in America because, as the Declaration of Independence says, we think “the just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed.” But what divided the American people from the British Crown and Parliament in 1776 could not be decided by a vote alone.
2020-10-2006 min
The American StoryOne for the RoadStreets and roads are very different animals. Willie Nelson sang, “I just can’t wait to get on the road again.” No one ever sang, “I just can’t wait to get on the street again.” Songs about country roads hold spacious truths because whether they are red dirt roads or roads with seven bridges, country roads are rich with the mysteries of life.
2020-10-1306 min
The American StoryLike a SoldierMarlene Dietrich was born in Berlin in 1901. In 1930, her performance in the film The Blue Angel made her a star. She moved to Hollywood, starred in six films, one of which earned her an Oscar nomination. Many more films would follow. She refused lucrative contracts from Nazi Party officials to be the leading film star of the Third Reich, became an American citizen in 1939, and devoted herself to doing all she could for American troops during World War II.
2020-10-0606 min
The American StoryFirst Man of the UniverseBenjamin Franklin ran away at seventeen with barely a penny in his pocket. Through hard work and his own genius, he made a life for himself in the printing trade, and was able to retire at the age of 42. He then spent the next 42 years of his life, from 1748 to 1790, pursuing his scientific and philosophic inquiries and doing all he could—and this was a very great deal—to benefit his city, state, country, and world. By the time of his death, he was one of the most famous people in the world.
2020-09-2906 min
The American StoryCatching ExcellenceThe son of an Italian immigrant, Vincent Thomas Lombardi was born in Brooklyn on June 11, 1913. He played guard in the famed Seven Blocks of Granite offensive line of Fordham University in the 1930s before going on to become one of the greatest coaches of all time in any sport. His name is synonymous with winning. His steadfast spirit inspired the nation.
2020-09-2206 min
The American StoryApples of Gold in Pictures of SilverThe Declaration’s great American proclamation that “all men are created equal” and the first three words of the Constitution—“We the People”—are profoundly connected. The relation between these two ideas—equality and consent—is the vital center of American political freedom.
2020-09-1506 min
The American StoryThe Real American RevolutionWe are not born understanding what it means to be an American, understanding the idea of political freedom, or knowing about the American Revolution. We have to learn these things. If we don’t, the American Revolution, political freedom, and Americans will vanish from the earth.
2020-09-0806 min
The American StoryNinety Percent MentalGreat American philosopher, Lorenzo Pietro Berra, more commonly known as Yogi Berra, was a baseball legend. As a player with the New York Yankees, he won Ten World Series championships, with 18 All-Star games, three Most Valuable Player Awards, 358 home runs and 1,430 runs batted in, which earned him a place in the Hall of Fame. After his playing career, he was one of a handful of managers to reach the World Series in both leagues. But Yogi Berra is best known for —Yogi-isms.
2020-09-0106 min
The American StoryAs Time Goes ByOne of the most popular films in Hollywood history, “Casablanca” seems to be composed of one famous line after another. For over 75 years, it has inspired us to stand up and sing in defiance of tyranny and on behalf of the cause of freedom.
2020-08-2507 min
The American StoryThe Course of Human EventsBilly Fiske was “the first U.S. citizen to join the Royal Air Force and the first American pilot killed in action during the war in Europe” in World War II. He was a New Yorker who had lived some years in Europe and who had won Olympic gold medals in the sport of bobsledding. He was a graduate of Cambridge University, and he told his British friends in the 1930s as they all could see the storm gathering in Europe, that if war came, “I want to be in it with you–from the start.”
2020-08-1806 min
The Kings Cross StingJennifer Stone AuthorChristopher Flannery, the skull beside Juanita Nielsen.Unbelievable I know, but what if I'm right? Then the police have missed the alleged secret of how a gang, an outlaw gang keeps the silence by allegedly getting rid of the people that may expose them.
Today I go through the links on Christopher Flannery's life and wonder when the Police will search to expose the bones of some of the oldest missing persons.
2020-08-1820 min
The American StoryKnown but to GodMore than 4 million visitors come to the Arlington National Cemetery every year from across America and around the world and, unless they have their own personal visit to make, the thing they most want to do is to climb the hill to the high ground of the Memorial Amphitheater and visit the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
2020-08-1106 min
The American StoryGettysburgWhat makes Gettysburg America’s most hallowed ground? A delegation of Russian historians at the height of the Cold War seemed to know, when American historians had forgotten.
2020-08-0406 min
The American StoryThis Was a ManFrederick Bailey was born into slavery in 1818. With determination, courage, some help from others, and good luck, he managed to escape to freedom when he was 20 years old. He made his way to Massachusetts, gave himself a new name, Frederick Douglass, started working as a free man and very soon gave a triumphant first speech to an abolitionist group, which launched him on a career as an anti-slavery speaker and writer.
2020-07-2806 min
The American StoryMan’s Best FriendAmerica takes pride in being a land of opportunity—for everyone, including those who suffer the impairments of nature, accident, or tragedy. For those with disabilities, local communities can be supportive. Smart technology can assist. Government can do some things to give them a hand up. Above all, there is the spirit and determination of the individual. And for the blind, there are — guide dogs.
2020-07-2107 min
The American StoryDedicationAn old friend of mine has written a book, a very good and deeply learned book, about America. The book is about those truths and the blessings that flow from them, that extend across and bind together generations of Americans in noble civic friendship.
2020-07-1406 min
The American StoryPony Express to GPSIn 1861, the young Mark Twain set out on a great American adventure, a stagecoach ride from St. Joe, Missouri to Carson City in Nevada Territory. Today, he would ride in an SUV guided by a factory-installed GPS system. The adventure would be even greater!
2020-07-0707 min
The American StoryIndependence Forever!Thomas Jefferson and John Adams celebrate their last Fourth of July.
2020-06-3006 min
The American StoryAn Ace You Can KeepMost of us understand the language of poker, even if we’ve never played. We know what a “poker face” is, what it means to be “all in” or to “have an ace up your sleeve.” Since Kenny Rogers’s 1978 hit song “The Gambler,” millions of Americans have been singing about poker. It is very much a game of the American West. It has the frontier spirit in it, and it is somehow about life and death and everything in between.
2020-06-2306 min
The American StoryAmerican NamesA poem comes to a poet, and he sends it orphaned out into the world, to take its chances. It never knows who or what it might inspire or how it might become part of the world it has stepped into. Stephen Vincent Benet sent his poem, “American Names,” out into the world in 1927. Years later the first line inspired a hit song for a new movie. The last line became the title of a best-selling book, then of a song and a movie. All this and more, unexpectedly, from a couple of lines from an orphaned poem.
2020-06-1608 min
The American StoryThe ClubThe Literary Club of Cincinnati was founded on October 29, 1849 and is—as far as I know—the oldest continuously operating Literary Club in America. Members come from all professions and persuasions; what brings them together is their abiding regard for the written word. Attending one of their Monday evening gatherings reminds one how essential private clubs and “associations” have always been to American democracy.
2020-06-0909 min
The American StoryHow Sleep the BraveBack in that spring and summer of 1775, when he was just seven years old and the War for Independence swirled around him and his family, John Quincy Adams remembered, “[my mother] taught me to repeat daily after the Lord’s prayer [the Ode of Collins] before rising from bed.”
2020-06-0206 min
The American StoryHallowed GroundIt’s true that memory rests lightly on Los Angeles. But turn east from Sepulveda Boulevard just north of Wilshire onto Constitution Avenue, and you immediately recede from the goings and comings of the eternal present and enter a sanctuary of remembrance.
2020-05-2507 min
The American StoryLast HandIt is hard to know where facts give way to legend in the case of Wild Bill; but some of the things he did in truth, as a frontiersman and lawman, may have exceeded the legends or at least deserved to become legends. The case of Wild Bill seems custom made for the immortal and mystifying words of the editor of the Shinbone Star, in the classic John Ford film “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence”: “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
2020-05-1908 min
The American Story“Make Cakes!”During peak hours, in the 300 block of Brand Boulevard in the city of Glendale, in what is called “Metropolitan Los Angeles,” you might see a line of eager people making their way into Porto’s Bakery & Café. You might see a similar scene in Buena Park, Burbank, Downey, or West Covina. Porto’s is a many-splendored gift to the Southland. And it’s not just the empanadas; it’s the spirit of freedom and enterprise. Rosa and Raul Porto and their children brought this gift to America from Cuba a lifetime ago.
2020-05-1207 min
The American StoryFingertip MemoriesHelen Keller was 14 years old when she first met the world-famous Mark Twain in 1894. They became fast friends for life. Keller, who was deaf and blind, loved to listen to Twain tell his stories by putting her fingers to his lips. As she said of Twain, “He knew that we do not think with eyes and ears, and that our capacity for thought is not measured by five senses. He kept me always in mind while he talked, and he treated me like a competent human being. That is why I loved him.”
2020-05-0507 min
The American StoryThe Man of SteelFaster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive…The Man of Steel fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way.
2020-04-2807 min
The American StoryOur Greatest PoetWhen you read Abraham Lincoln, you somehow become more than yourself, you become better. And his words want to be read aloud, too. Start with the Second Inaugural—so beautiful—and the Gettysburg Address—his short ones. They are American poems.
2020-04-1506 min
The American StoryNumber 42Each year on April 15, all players in Major League Baseball turn in their regular uniforms and wear one adorned with the number 42. On no other day does any player wear that number; it has been permanently retired. This custom, unique in North American professional sports, has been adopted to honor a man who not only changed a sport, but helped change a country.
2020-04-1406 min
The American StoryEl Pueblo y el HombreThe detective hero, and the detective novel, are not an American invention. But a few authors like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler made them as American as apple pie. The attitude of Chandler’s hard-edged, soft-hearted, wise-cracking hero and the atmosphere of Chandler’s Los Angeles were as unmistakably American as Humphrey Bogart, who played Marlowe in the 1946 film version of Chandler’s The Big Sleep.
2020-04-0706 min
The American StoryOf Birds and PotatoesIf you need a little poetry in your life—and who doesn’t?—Billy Collins can be a good place to start. Collins writes unblushingly to attract new readers to poetry and to encourage those who have given up to come back. And he is famously funny. So much so that, because he reads his poems so amusingly and his readings have been so successful and well-attended, he has been called—not always as a compliment—a “stand-up poet.”
2020-03-3106 min
The American StoryMichael Patrick MurphyThis episode is about an American warship that carries on the name and the work of an American warrior. The ship and her crew operate in more than 48 million square miles of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The area is more than 14 times the size of the continental United States; it includes 36 maritime countries, 50% of the world’s population, and the world’s 5 largest foreign armed forces.
2020-03-2407 min
The American StoryOn the Way to BB’sIf you are walking down Broadway in St. Louis on your way to BB’s Jazz, Blues, and Soups, you will awaken to many American memories, among them a poem you probably already knew.
2020-03-1706 min
The American StoryStandin’ on a CornerThings happen to a town, and then it’s never the same. Or it’s the same in some new way. Whatever it was before, it’s hard to think of it now without the new thing. Like the Parthenon in Athens or the Statue of Liberty in New York. It comes along and suddenly forever it is part of the identity of the town it came into. In the case of this town, it was a song. Or a few lines from a song.
2020-03-1006 min
The American StoryBravest of the BraveWhen you visit the historic Mound Cemetery in Marietta, Ohio, the guidebook informs you that, in addition to the ancient burial mound, the cemetery “contains more Revolutionary War officers’ graves than any other graveyard in the United States.”
2020-03-0306 min
The American StoryCharlie BrownThere is more of Charlie Brown in most of us than there is Abraham Lincoln or Michael Jordan. We identify with his failures and suffer with him. But it isn’t just his failures. Charlie Brown is resilient. He never quits. Despite setbacks and moments of despair, he is at heart an optimist — and one of America’s greatest success stories.
2020-02-2508 min
The American StoryBeautiful GoodnessAs a Captain of Volunteers in the Black Hawk War, the 23-year old Abraham Lincoln managed in a desperate moment to keep some hard-bitten men—who had elected him—from committing murder. They had chosen him as captain because he was the best man among them, the one most worthy of their esteem. Lincoln earned it in no small part by outrunning, outboxing, and outwrestling them, but they knew, when they listened to the better angels of their natures, that there were much more important reasons to esteem him.
2020-02-1808 min
The American StorySkunk WorksBeginning in a rented circus tent, a team of unconventional aeronautical engineers design generations of American military aircraft
2020-02-1107 min
The American StoryThe Great HoudiniThe young Ehrich Weiss needed money, but he lived for fame. By the time he was 17, he had decided how to get it—he would become Houdini.
2020-02-0407 min
The American StoryCall Me SamA boy from a village in India makes his way to America and finds a bit of heaven on earth
2020-01-2807 min
2020-01-2107 min
The American StoryThe American DreamAbout the standard by which Americans judge the success and failure of their experiment in self-government
2020-01-1406 min
The American StoryJust Kit Carson“He looked as if he would know exactly what to do, if awakened suddenly in the night, ready for anything”
2020-01-0707 min
The American StoryFreedom of the MindThis story is the seventh in a series of seven about an immigrant boy who became my good friend and holds a special place in the history of the Claremont Institute. Let’s begin by daring to question the prevailing dogmas of our time, to open our minds to all times
2019-12-3104 min
The American StoryThe Art of TeachingThis story is the sixth in a series of seven about an immigrant boy who became my good friend and holds a special place in the history of the Claremont Institute. They learned from this Hungarian immigrant that they are the fortunate of the earth and that their great good fortune lies in the country into which they were born
2019-12-3106 min
The American StoryTotus PorcusThis story is the fifth in a series of seven about an immigrant boy who became my good friend and holds a special place in the history of the Claremont Institute. I never knew so much hog in a man
2019-12-2404 min
The American StoryA Little AcademeThis story is the fourth in a series of seven about an immigrant boy who became my good friend and holds a special place in the history of the Claremont Institute. He always regarded the human mind as free to be determined by the truth about the greatest questions
2019-12-2408 min
The American StoryOf Oranges and Shakespearean DreamsThis story is the third in a series of seven about an immigrant boy who became my good friend and holds a special place in the history of the Claremont Institute. For the rest of his life, oranges would always smell like freedom
2019-12-2405 min
The American StoryThe Crisis of ManThis story is the second in a series of seven about an immigrant boy who became my good friend and holds a special place in the history of the Claremont Institute. It was spring, 1946, and Albert Camus was in New York City on the only visit he would ever make to America
2019-12-2407 min
The American StoryBorn AmericanThis story is the first in a series of seven about an immigrant boy who became my good friend and holds a special place in the history of the Claremont Institute. “Why are we going to America?” . . . “We were born American, but in the wrong place”
2019-12-2404 min
The American StoryAll of You on the Good EarthPresident Kennedy told a special joint session of Congress that it was “time for a great new American Enterprise”
2019-12-1708 min
2019-12-1007 min
The American StorySimple TruthThe Congress of the United States named him “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen”
2019-12-0307 min
The American StoryTeddy BallgameIf there was ever a real-life John Wayne — or the character Wayne played so well — it was Ted Williams
2019-11-2606 min
The American StoryAn Evening on the Benjamin FranklinJohn Quincy Adams and a pioneer reflect on the Northwest Territory and American freedom
2019-11-1907 min
The American StoryFriends"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." This episode is in loving memory of Merle Whitis.
2019-11-1206 min
The American StoryDaring Young Men in Their Flying MachinesHow airmail became woven into the fabric of American life
2019-11-0508 min
The American StoryThe Greatness of Washington"Our history is but a transcript of his claims on our gratitude”
2019-10-2905 min
2019-10-2208 min
The American StoryThe Great Author of AmericaWhy “the finest Shakespeare collection in the world” is in Washington, D.C
2019-10-1506 min
The American StoryWe Are All Americans“Savage Jack Falstaff” meets Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House
2019-10-0806 min
The American StoryBroomsticks at Happy TimeAmerican victory in World War II was far from preordained
2019-10-0106 min
2019-09-2404 min
2019-09-1607 min
The American StoryIndependence Forever!Thomas Jefferson and John Adams celebrate their last Fourth of July.
2019-09-1606 min
2019-09-1606 min
The American StoryThe Great Depression and the Cowboy PhilosopherA little humor can help get a country through hard times.
2019-09-1607 min
The American StoryAmerica the BeautifulThe American Dream, The California Dream, and the City of Dreams
2019-09-1308 min