Jared, Jacob and Henry look at the investigations after the fire at Waco, as well as the trials and Congressional investigations that illuminated quite an assortment of blunders, lies, and errors that left the government looking as or more dangerous than the Branch Davidians. Then we analyze the way that so many groups and individuals have adopted …

This episode features Jared, Jacob and Henry going over the events between the shootout at Waco and the fire that ended the standoff. FBI tactics and policies as well as those used by the Branch Davidians are analyzed. Trigger Warning...more cops shooting dogs may have started a standoff!

Jared, Jacob and special guest Henry, discuss the events immediately proceeding the ATF raid on Waco as well as the failures that occurred along the way and during the raid. The breakdown of communication as well as unclear authority to alter or stop the raid are also considered.

Join your hosts, Professor Andrus and Jacob as they discuss April 19th; a date that includes the Battle of Lexington and Concord, The Oklahoma City Bombing, and the final day of the siege of the Branch Davidian compound at Waco Texas. Learn about historical coincidences, as well as an overview of mind control methods used in many settings and circu…

This episode explores the continued travails and final rescue of the entire crew of the Endurance expedition led by Ernest Shackleton. Beginning with the decision to leave Elephant Island and venture to South Georgia Island in hopes of finding any possible means to save the crew.

Jared and Jacob discuss the incredible survival account of 28 men trapped on the ice off the coast of Antartica just after the start of World War I. With unparalleled determination, leadership and a bit of luck, the men are all rescued, but only after braving the frozen sea for days in glorified lifeboats.…

In this episode Professor Andrus and Jacob discuss the shooting and aftermath of the 1966 Tower shootings and family murders committed by Charles Whitman. The idea of "leakage" and warning signs of suicidal/homicidal behavior are discussed with the ultimate conclusion that Charles Whitman was, above all else, a liar.…

In the first episode of Season 3, Jake moves from guest to co-host, Jared moves from teaching middle school to teaching college, and we discuss the archetype mass shooter: Charles Whitman and his senseless attack from the University of Texas clock tower. We talk about the mythology that has surrounded the event and how ultimately, Whitman only ever…

How did someone like Mengele escape Germany after the war and end up in S. America? What did he do there? The series finale of Nazi Medicine explores the too crazy to be fiction end of the Mengele story that is quite unsatisfying to those who lost loved ones under his "care"...

Jared and Jake continue to look at Dr, Mengele and the uniquely horrific world he created within Auschwitz.

No doctor has ever been more associated with death and bad medicine than Joseph Mengele. In part 1, Jacob and I talk about how Dr. Mengele existed in the pre-Nazi world and some of the choices or historical accidents that led him into the perfect spot to experiment and murder with impunity.

Cadee and Jared talk about the experiments leading to and within the walls of Auschwitz.

Once killing became the new normal, Nazi doctors were free to do any experiment, regardless of merit or cruelty, as they sought to save soldiers lives, make murder more efficient, and further the eugenic research that claimed aryan superiority.

Pt. 2 of our discussion of about the Aktion t4 and other Nazi "mercy" killings that proceeded the greater geneocide

Jared and Duke discuss "Aktion T-4" the transition from sterilizing disabled Germans to the killing of "life unworthy of life". How medical personal make that tremendous shift as well as the techniques and public suspicion and outcry that ended the campaign until the war allowed for such killings outside of German soil.…

Jared and Bobbi finish their discussion of sterilization and look at how the Nazi medical movement from sterilization to killing.

Jared and Bobbijo talk about the earliest eugenics based sterilization programs of the Nazi's and explore their unfortunate inspiration from American sterilization law and practices. Even as the Nazis moved from sterilization to murder, there was a dedicated emphasis on finding fast and economical ways to sterilize people all the way through the li…

Jared and Cadee complete their conversation about the pseudo-science of Eugenics and consider how it made sense in many German medical minds of the time.

Season 2: Nazi Medicine. Jared and Cadee talk about the conditions and factors that made the Nazi movement more likely to be accepted in the time and place they were in. Intro to Season #2.

Teaser for Season 2 exploration of Nazi Doctors

Enjoy a bonus episode of my longer format podcast "History on the Dark Side". This episode is a conversation about the Boston massacre and some of the many similarities in our modern America today. (From HOTDS S1 E12)

This sample of my History on the Bright Side podcast introduces you to my shorter form program that focuses on inspirational people and messages in history. This episode looks at three athletes from the 1968 Olympics who ran very different races for very different reasons and all collectively displayed their character and conviction under the heavi…

The raid in Mogadishu immortalized in the book and film Black hawk Down provides true life heroism and an understanding of the price we pay to leave no man behind.

Twice upon a time, a Russian officer saved the world from Nuclear War

Abraham Wald was an exiled European Jew whose work with the US military during WW2 saved lives and brought a new way of thinking about mathematics in the war and everyday life.

Part 2 of our study of similarities and parallels between the angry crowd of protesters in Boston that led to shooting by a policing military force with a focus on the way propaganda and news molded the incident then as well as how news shapes events at protests today. We also take a look at how the colonists were able to seize the moral "high grou…

A look into the events of March 1770 and the many parallels to protest, policing and resistance to authority in America and the rest of the modern world in our time.

How the literature of Holocaust survivors can make that human tragedy more relatable to our time.

Examining how the study of Holocaust literature can make those events relatable. Learning to Remember and Honor.

Pat Tillman was a professional football player who walked away from the game and joined the Army after 9/11. His desire to be true to himself is complemented by his mother's demands for truth following his death in Afghanistan.

Forces in Salem spin completely out of control as women are hanged, men are pressed, and neighbors see the financial rewards of reporting on one another. How does a community stop the madness once it realizes things have gone too far? Does that kind of thing still happen in our world 300 years after the last witch hunt in America?…

The Salem Witch Trials give us a lens to view mass hysteria, but also the politics of power, control and manipulation. This episode examines the sociological and psychological factors that were at play in Salem village as well as identifying similar factors in America's more recent history and the present.…

Paul Rusesabagina found himself and his family squarely in the middle of one of the worst genocides since the holocaust. But his "wider" family became his obsession as he protected over a 1000 tutsis from the mobs and militia that sought to cut them down with machetes.

There were economic and social costs that encouraged and stemmed from the American slavery experience. Today we focus on the differences between indentured servitude and slavery as well as the concept of conflict between those who wrote, spoke of and fought for freedom but still engaged in slavery.

Why would a black man attend a KKK rally? Why would a Grand Dragon of the KKK be found in a black man's living room? Daryl Davis has taken a very personal response to racism after experiencing hate as a child. Find out how he has become the unlikeliest of friends with those who claimed to hate him and given us all a different tool to fight racism a…

Lesser known facts about George Washington and Harriet Tubman. Beyond the myths we find that the truth; a truth that is every bit as inspiring as the exaggerations we learned in grade school.

Denis Avey, A British soldier in WWII was in a POW camp that was part of the Auschwitz complex. He heard about what went on on the "other side" and made the incredible decision to trade with another prisoner so he could see for himself what happened there. Special guest Lizbeth explains what she learned while researching for a National History Day …

The Origins of American Slavery.... How slavery evolved (And WHY) in medieval Europe and landed on the shores of Virginia in 1619. Jared and Jeff discuss the Plague, Christianity, and even Zombies and the Nazis as they try to understand what slavery looked like in pre-American times.

In 1982, Florida Air Flight 90 crashed through the 14th street bridge and into the icy Potomac River. 73 souls were lost in the crash, but the story of the six who initially survived, and the everyday men and women who were thrust into this tragedy is worth remembering.

Why is the Mayflower where we start America when Jamestown was a decade earlier? Why do we select a few key Native American encounters and gloss over the rest? And how the heck did Squanto get to England and back?

Personal memories of 9/11 as well as how that "remembrance" has evolved in the years since.

Does the past prepare us for a specific future?

An inspiring story about 3 runners from the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City

Georg Duckwitz was a small fish in a big pond. A singular bureaucrat in the Nazi Regime who not only resisted deporting the Jews from Denmark, but actively put in motion the wheels that led to the over 98% of Danish Jews surviving the war. Learn how he lit a spark that ignited an entire nation into action.…

A bunch of history nerds talk about why history matters at all

UPS Genocide and of course Slavery (Sorry Nazis, you can't be in every episode!)

Uncle Sam, the Nazis, and Coach Harris all come together as Mr. Andrus finally gets around to teaching history.