William H. Floyd Podcasts

When President of the United States of America Harry S. Truman addresses Congress in March of 1947, he focused on the need to protect Greece and Turkey from Communist influence. Greece was facing an internal insurrection from a Communist Party, while Turkey was facing more obvious threats from the Soviet Union over access to the Bosphorous and the …

Rudolf Höss became notorious during World War II as the Commandant of the concentration and death camps at Auschwitz in Poland. After the war ended, this made him one of the key leaders among the Third Reich that was wanted by Allied leaders. While he managed to blend into the civilian population initially, Rudolf Höss was given up by his family le…

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed by representatives of Soviet Russia and representatives from the Central Powers, effectively ended World War I on the Eastern Front. In order to do this, Russia had to accept extremely harsh terms regarding territorial claims and concessions. Yet the government of Russia was not the one that had been prosecuting …

Roderick McLean approached Queen Victoria's carriage as it left Windsor Castle with a pistol, because she had given a curt reply to some poetry he had sent her. It turned out McLean was more unimpressive as an assassin than a poet. His shot missed the Queen's carriage completely, and he was brought to the ground by boys wielding umbrellas. McLean w…

When the 20 month old Charles Lindbergh, Jr. was taken from the crib in his upstairs bedroom, the crime was destined to become the "Crime of the Century."His father was perhaps the most famous man in America, the aviator Charles Lindbergh. Initially, the clues led to a variety of possibilities, but then a kidnapper was revealed to be seeking the ra…

Byron De La Beckwith was found guilty of the murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1994, 31 years after the crime was actually committed. De La Beckwith was arrested and brought to trial twice in the 1960s, but both times all-white juries deadlocked on a verdict. The evidence in the case was actually quite good, as De La Beckwith's gun was …

When a large number of states had seceded from the Union after the election of Abraham Lincoln, they quickly realized they needed to band together in a larger government. So delegates from South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas met in Montgomery, Alabama, they knew they had to work fast. Although they were work…

In 1959, Buddy Holly was one of the biggest Rock 'n' Roll stars, the Big Bopper was a chart topper, and Richie Valens was a 17 year old sensation. They all were on a Midwest tour, playing small venues throughout the early part of 1959. The winter tour was poorly planned and saw a series of bus problems and health issues from the cold among the musi…

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ended hostilities in the Mexican-American War, although the United States of America had effectively ended the war by taking over much of Mexico. This meant that the terms of the Treaty were largely America's and had to be accepted by Mexico. The war began in 1846 as a border dispute around the newly annex…

Nguy?n V?n Lém was a Viet Cong captain who was arrested by the South Vietnamese Army after leading a raid on a camp and killing a large number of civilians. Upon being taken in front of Brigadier General Nguy?n Ng?c Loan, Lém was summarily executed by Loan with a revolver. By all rights, this would have been one of many such incidents in the compli…

"The Battle of May Island" was not actually a battle at all, but the macabre name given by sailors to a catastrophic accident involving a number of K-class submarines. On that night, two submarines were lost, while five others were significantly damaged, and 104 sailors lost their lives. The K-class submarine was a steam powered submarine which inv…

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was such an influential figure as a leader of the Indian independence movement that as India gained independence from Great Britain in 1947, he was universally known as "Mahatma," the great soul, and widely called "Bapu," an endearing term for father. Yet the independence of India had seen what was British India split int…

During his first State of the Union Address after the September 11th terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush specifically cited the threat of an "Axis of Evil," which consisted of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Other than all seeking chemical or nuclear weapons, these states had very little in common. More strikingly, none of them had anything to…

The Franco-Prussian War was not a large scale war in terms of its casualties, engagements, or scale. It was massive in the geopolitical results in the aftermath of the war, however, and a large reason was that it ended with a months long siege of Paris. Before that siege had even begun, the Empire of France had lost its Emperor, Napoleon III, after…

The Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam, better known as the Paris Peace Accords, were what officially ended the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War. The Paris Peace Accords only came together after a long, drawn out negotiation process. Although the Vietnam War had seemed problematic and unwinnable since 1968…

The Spanish Civil War was a complex conflict, featuring the right-wing Nationalists fighting against the left-wing Republicans. The conservatives were the rebels, the socialists were fighting for the legitimate government, and both sides were hodge-podge groups of various loyalties. Yet the war was also one featuring back and forth fighting in its …

Nellie Bly was just 25 years old in 1890, but she had already written a well regarded travel book called Six Months in Mexico that revealed the problems with Porfirio Diaz's government and a series of articles in the New York World that exposed the Blackwell's Island Women's Asylum as an undercover reporter. So when she suggested she beat Jules Ver…

When Marion Barry was arrested after being caught on videotape smoking crack in an undercover sting operation, he was also in his third term as the Mayor of Washington, D.C. He was arrested with a girlfriend who had asked him to come and persuaded him to smoke the crack she had brought. Still, Barry had been dogged by rumors of drug use and sexual …

Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish special envoy to Hungary who devoted himself in the last few months of 1944 to save many Jews from being deported to concentration camps. Wallenberg was a businessman who could come and go between Sweden and Hungary, as Sweden was neutral in World War II. Hungary was technically an ally of Nazi Germany under the rule …

The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act was a direct reaction to the assassination of President James Garfield, who was killed by Charles Guiteau because Guiteau believed he deserved a government appointment. The issue of civil service reform was a long simmering political issue, with the main ire being directed at the spoils system, which gave jobs…

No one called her the Black Dahlia when she was living, but shortly after Elizabeth Short's body was found cut in two and mutilated, Elizabeth Short forever after was known as the Black Dahlia. Her body was posed in an empty lot, and she had clearly been tortured for some time. Immediately, the press went crazy about the story, not only giving her …

When US President Franklin Roosevelt and UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill met at Casablanca, their ostensible agenda were the immediate war plans. By early 1943, the British had repelled Nazi Germany's intended invasion, the Russians had the German Army bogged down on the Eastern Front, and the Allies had together cleared the Axis powers out of …

Johnny Cash is an American cultural icon, and a large part of his mystique is the fact that one of his best, most famous albums was recorded at a maximum security prison. Yet when that fact is reflected on, the idea of recording an album in prison becomes more remarkable, which is only enhanced by the fact that it was his comeback album after getti…

When Hattie Caraway became the first woman to win an election to the US Senate, she actually was elected to a seat she already held. Just a few months before, her husband, Senator Thaddeus Caraway, had passed away, and the Governor of Arkansas appointed her to the seat. Then when a special election was called for just a short time later, most polit…

In 1964, many people knew that there were serious health risks associated with smoking tobacco, but many people also kept smoking. Tobacco was so part and parcel of American life and culture that it basically made Jamestown a worthwhile colony, and cigarette and tobacco ads were everywhere, featuring celebrities and other notables promiting tobacco…

In one of the most famous declarations in history, Julius Caesar announced his intention to take on the Roman establishment by saying "The Die is Cast." Or at least that's the story, and it certainly is an appropriate reflection of his intentions. Caesar was not really launching an overwhelming invasion or seeking a military solution. Instead, he w…

An income tax is a defining feature of modern government policy and economics. Yet it is, by necessity, a modern invention, as it requires most people to have a consistent income and a government that can track incomes and taxation. It also had to be brought about by someone with a willingness to change the way taxation works and in a situation tha…

The Fourteen Points, US President Woodrow Wilson's plan for peace negotiations at the end of World War I, were an incredibly audacious statement of idealistic foreign policy principles. Most audacious of all was that Wilson announced the Fourteen Points in a speech to Congress just months after America entered the war and well before the war was ac…

The very first casualty by an Air National Guardsmen took place just after World War II in Kentucky when Captain Thomas Mantell crashed while chasing an unidentified flying object. UFO stories usually center on aliens or the supernatural, but the basic fact of the crash that killed Captain Mantell is a reflection of real world anxieties and priorit…

When reigning U.S. Women's Figure Skating Champion Nancy Kerrigan was attacked before the 1994 U.S. Championships, the whole event became front page news. Then it was discovered that the men who planned and carried out the attack were associated with Tonya Harding, Kerrigan's chief rival and the winner of the 1994 Championship. Both Harding and Ker…

In 1967, it appeared that hardline Communist government of Antonin Novotny would rule Czechoslovakia as long as Novotny wanted. Then economic downturns and unpopular political actions made people dissastisfied with the government, and the Slovak leader Alexander Dubcek became Secretary of the Communist Party in January of 1968. More importantly, Du…

Topsy the Elephant was a female Asian elephant who had been performing in circuses, but got a reputation as a "bad elephant" and so her owners decided to euthanize her. They also decided to make a public spectacle of hanging her at their amusement park at Coney Island in Brooklyn. After a large outcry, the owners of Luna Park agreed to make it an e…

For 250 years, Japan was shut off from foreigners, ruled by the Tokugawa shogunate, and revered the Emperor as a figurehead and symbol. That all changed in the mid-19th century, when the Emperor Meiji declared that the authority and powers of the shogun now belonged to him. This was largely accomplished through minor lords who wished to Westernize …

For nearly 800 years, the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula were fighting the Muslim invaders that held much of the land in modern day Spain and Portugal. This all changed in 1492, when armies of the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, finally took the city of Granada, the last Muslim-ruled area of Spain. This …

Reginald Fessenden was a long term electrical and radio researcher, so when he transmitted a radio broadcast on Christmas Eve in 1906, it wasn't all that surprising. Yet he was the very first person to send out a radio broadcast featuring music and clear audio when he played a phonograph of a Handel piece, performed two hymns on a violin, and read …

When the USS Pueblo, an American naval spy ship, was captured by North Korean vessels in January 1968, officials in Washington were unsure precisely what to do. The crew was all unharmed, but now a Communist nation had spy equipment. Almost immediately, it became apparent that the crew would be returned if the US agreed to apologize for spying and …

In 1894, Alfred Dreyfus was simply a junior artillery officer in the General Staff of the French Army. Then, he was accused of being the person responsible for passing secrets onto the German military attache in Paris. In a quick, closed military tribunal, Dreyfus was easily convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island …

The Plymouth Colony began in the middle of winter in New England, after a poorly prepared trip and with limited supplies that was supposed to land much further south of where it actually did. The Mayflower had been wandering around the Cape Cod area for over a month before its passengers settled on Plymouth. Plymouth had a few advantages, as it was…

In late 1924, Adolf Hitler was a former soldier, right wing agitator, and prisoner most well known for leading his National Socialist party in a disastrous coup attempt. In November of 1923, Hitler attempted, with his paramilitary the Sturmabteilung, or SA, to take over the Bavarian government by interrupting a speech at a beer hall. Instead, he wa…

The Eighteenth Amendment officially banned the sale and manufacture of intoxicating liquors, and more strikingly came about quite quickly. The measure sped through Congress in a matter of months, from August to December of 1917. In a radical measure, the language of the Amendment said it was required to be passed within seven years, or it could not…

In 1862, Union General Ulysses S. Grant was faced with taking his Army to Vicksburg on the Mississippi River, controlling the recently conquered territory in Western Tennessee and Mississippi, and dealing with traders trying to sell cotton on the black market. In order to face the last problem, Grant issued General Order No. 11. General Order No. 1…

Robert Smith Vance was a Federal judge on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which meant that when he opened a mailbomb in his home and died many people were extremely worried. A long-term civil rights advocate and important appellate justice, Vance was someone whose killer could have been many people. Then an African-American civil rights lawy…

Roald Amundsen made history by being the leader of the first expedition to reach the South Pole. He was not well recognized for this effort, though, for a wide range of reasons. Amundsen's rather utilitarian approach, which included eating some of his sled dogs, did not endear him to many people, especially the British. The other reason many Brits …

The Battle of Fredericksburg was perhaps the worst defeat for the Union Army in the Virginia Theater of the Civil War, which is saying quite a bit. Certainly, it was one of the worst performances by a Union General, as the day saw a series of odd strategic choices from General Ambrose Burnside. Burnside had been named commander of the Army of North…

When the Metropolitan Police entered a flat on Balcombe Street after a six day standoff, they successfully arrested the four men who were holding the couple who lived in the flat hostage. The four, Joe O'Connell, Hugh Doherty, Edward Butler, and Harry Duggan, were also members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army who had been conducting a serie…

Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago Maroons was honored by the Downtown Athletic Club as the best collegiate football player east of the Mississippi for the 1935 season, which makes him stand as the very first Heisman Trophy winner. Although this would seem to place Berwanger in a line with subsequent winners and NFL legends, really Berwange…

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor sunk multiple ships and killed over 2,000 people at the Naval Base on Oahu. As soon as it happened, it appeared that Japan had brought America into World War II. Yet America's formal declaration of war was so important and crucial that President Franklin Roosevelt went before a joint session of Congress to urge a…

The Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia promoted itself as being "Absolutely Fireproof," so much so that it was put on the hotel stationery. Despite that, a massive fire broke out in the early morning hours of December 7, 1946, when a mattress placed in the one stairway in the hotel caught fire. The smoke and fire shot through the stairwell, spreadi…

When the New Model Army's leaders wanted the English Parliament to put King Charles I on trial for treason, they faced the problem that most Members of Parliament did not want to put the King on trial. So Colonel Thomas Pride and his Regiment of Foot were placed on the steps of Parliament, only allowing sympathetic members inside. Essentially, Prid…

When Londoners woke up on December 5 in 1952, they found the entire city covered in a mass of smog. London had been battling pollution from coal burning since the 13th century, and large smog events had taken place elsewhere in the world in the preceding two centuries. Yet the Great Smog of London, as it would become known, was something truly diff…