15-Minute History

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 telegram on her grandfather's desk, its edges yellowed and its paper thin and crinkly, printed in faded capital letters with a single sentence: the most powerful company in American history has just been ordered to stop existing. In this episode, your kids will discover what it looks like when one person controls nearly all of an industry, why the people who build enormous things aren't always the ones who carry the cost, and whether giving away a fortune can balance out how it was made.
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 [email protected], and it might just make its way into the notebook!

Henry Ford didn't just build a car. He built the world we drive through, the suburb we live in, and the weekend we take for granted. He paid his workers more than anyone thought reasonable, and beat them when they tried to organize. He gave ordinary Americans freedom of movement and gave Nazi Germany a hero to admire.
In this episode, we sit with one of the most consequential and troubling Americans who ever lived, and ask what it means that both things are equally true.
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!

Let's step into a time machine and tell the American Founding Fathers what they should have done as they were writing the Constitution!
Join us every Thursday for Pop Quizzes and Sketches in History, and be sure to tune in on Mondays for our episodes and discussions. We love to hear from you as well, so post your comments below!

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).