The USS Philadelphia, launched in 1799, played a crucial role in early American naval history but was captured by Tripolitan forces in 1803 after running aground near Tripoli during the Barbary Wars. Captain William Bainbridge attempted to prevent its capture by lightening the ship and destroying key materials but was ultimately forced to surrender, leading to his crew’s captivity and increased ransom demands. Commodore Preble responded by planning to destroy the Philadelphia to prevent it from strengthening Tripoli's forces, selecting Lieutenant Stephen Decatur for a daring raid to set the frigate ablaze. Decatur and his crew succeeded in a swift, covert operation that won admiration back in the U.S. and internationally, shifting the balance of the war in America’s favor.

The USS Philadelphia, launched in 1799, played a crucial role in early American naval history but was captured by Tripolitan forces in 1803 after running aground near Tripoli during the Barbary Wars. Captain William Bainbridge attempted to prevent its capture by lightening the ship and destroying key materials but was ultimately forced to surrender, leading to his crew’s captivity and increased ransom demands. Commodore Preble responded by planning to destroy the Philadelphia to prevent it from strengthening Tripoli's forces, selecting Lieutenant Stephen Decatur for a daring raid to set the frigate ablaze. Decatur and his crew succeeded in a swift, covert operation that won admiration back in the U.S. and internationally, shifting the balance of the war in America’s favor.

For history lovers who listen to podcasts, History Unplugged is the most comprehensive show of its kind. It's the only show that dedicates episodes to both interviewing experts and answering questions from its audience. First, it features a call-in show where you can ask our resident historian (Scott Rank, PhD) absolutely anything (What was it like to be a Turkish sultan with four wives and twelve concubines? If you were sent back in time, how would you kill Hitler?). Second, it features long-form interviews with best-selling authors who have written about everything. Topics include gruff World War II generals who flew with airmen on bombing raids, a war horse who gained the rank of sergeant, and presidents who gave their best speeches while drunk.

A show about American history, world history, World Wars 1 & 2, the Civil War, and much more.

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged is one of the longest-running history podcasts of its kind, with over 1,000 episodes covering everything from Alexander the Great's plans for European colonization to the untold story of Alabamians who fought for Sherman deep inside Confederate territory. Topics range from the Bronze Age Collapse to the naval campaigns of the Barbary Wars to Daniel Boone's forced adoption by a Shawnee chief. Guests on the show include history professors, Pulitzer Prize winners, consultants for historical films, and outsiders like Joakim Brodén from Sabaton. The show is hosted by Scott Rank, a history professor specializing in the Ottoman Empire and author of 12 books. And for those who love to spin the wheel of what-if, the show regularly ventures into alternate history, exploring questions like what the USSR's victory in the Cold War would have meant for the modern world, or how our current map might look if the Confederacy had survived the Civil War.

 

History Unplugged is one of the longest-running history podcasts of its kind, with over 1,000 episodes covering everything from Alexander the Great's plans for European colonization to the untold story of Alabamians who fought for Sherman deep inside Confederate territory. Topics range from the Bronze Age Collapse to the naval campaigns of the Barbary Wars to Daniel Boone's forced adoption by a Shawnee chief. Guests on the show include history professors, Pulitzer Prize winners, consultants for historical films, and outsiders like Joakim Brod&eacute;n from Sabaton. The show is hosted by Scott Rank, a history professor specializing in the Ottoman Empire and author of 12 books. And for those who love to spin the wheel of what-if, the show regularly ventures into alternate history, exploring questions like what the USSR's victory in the Cold War would have meant for the modern world, or how our current map might look if the Confederacy had survived the Civil War.
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History Unplugged

Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 5: The Destruction of the USS Philadelphia

The Boston Tea Party is the most misunderstood event in American history. Every schoolchild learns it was an antitax protest, proof that Americans have always hated paying taxes. But the Tea Act of 1773 was actually a tax cut. Parliament lowered the duties on tea to bail out the East India Company, a corporation deemed too big to fail, and the Sons of Liberty destroyed ninety thousand pounds of tea not because taxes were too high but because a distant government was using fiscal policy to serve corporate interests without the colonists' consent. The colonists of Massachusetts kept collecting taxes locally even as they defied the British, simply redirecting the money to a patriot treasurer. They didn't want freedom from taxation. They wanted the power to tax themselves. That distinction, argues Vanessa Williamson, is the key to understanding everything that has happened in American politics since.

Today's guest is Vanessa Williamson, author of The Price of Democracy. We discuss how the Boston Tea Party was actually a protest against a corporate tax cut for the East India Company, not against taxation, why Shays's Rebellion terrified the founders into writing a Constitution deliberately designed to keep ordinary citizens away from the public purse, and how the Whiskey Rebellion revealed the pattern that would repeat across American history: when poorer people demand fairer taxation, elites respond with force or legal constraints or both. We look at how the Gilded Age Supreme Court declared the income tax unconstitutional, why it took a twenty-year populist campaign and a constitutional amendment to bring it back, and how Rockefeller's lawyers warned that a graduated income tax "realizes most completely the supreme danger of democracy." Williamson argues that free countries are high-tax countries, that authoritarian governments are bad at collecting revenue, and that the antitax movement in America has always been an antidemocratic movement, using supermajority requirements, property tax caps, and fiscal limitations to ensure that even when the people vote for a functioning government, the rules written by a previous generation's oligarchs prevent them from getting one.

The Boston Tea Party is the most misunderstood event in American history. Every schoolchild learns it was an antitax protest, proof that Americans have always hated paying taxes. But the Tea Act of 1773 was actually a tax cut. Parliament lowered the duties on tea to bail out the East India Company, a corporation deemed too big to fail, and the Sons of Liberty destroyed ninety thousand pounds of tea not because taxes were too high but because a distant government was using fiscal policy to serve corporate interests without the colonists' consent. The colonists of Massachusetts kept collecting taxes locally even as they defied the British, simply redirecting the money to a patriot treasurer. They didn't want freedom from taxation. They wanted the power to tax themselves. That distinction, argues Vanessa Williamson, is the key to understanding everything that has happened in American politics since.
Today's guest is Vanessa Williamson, author of The Price of Democracy. We discuss how the Boston Tea Party was actually a protest against a corporate tax cut for the East India Company, not against taxation, why Shays's Rebellion terrified the founders into writing a Constitution deliberately designed to keep ordinary citizens away from the public purse, and how the Whiskey Rebellion revealed the pattern that would repeat across American history: when poorer people demand fairer taxation, elites respond with force or legal constraints or both. We look at how the Gilded Age Supreme Court declared the income tax unconstitutional, why it took a twenty-year populist campaign and a constitutional amendment to bring it back, and how Rockefeller's lawyers warned that a graduated income tax "realizes most completely the supreme danger of democracy." Williamson argues that free countries are high-tax countries, that authoritarian governments are bad at collecting revenue, and that the antitax movement in America has always been an antidemocratic movement, using supermajority requirements, property tax caps, and fiscal limitations to ensure that even when the people vote for a functioning government, the rules written by a previous generation's oligarchs prevent them from getting one.

The Boston Tea Party Was a Protest Against the East India Company Being Too Big to Fail

On May 9, 1873, as the Vienna Stock Exchange collapsed and thousands of speculators were wiped out in a single afternoon, young Salbert von Rothschild and two colleagues from the Schey and Goldschmidt banking families were nearly lynched on the floor of the exchange by infuriated stockjobbers and had to be rescued by police. That same evening, oblivious to the carnage a few hundred yards away, the Prince of Wales hosted a gala dinner at the Ministry of Finance, and the following night Emperor Franz Joseph served a state dinner for the assembled heirs to the royal thrones of Europe. Within months, the panic had crossed the Atlantic and destroyed Jay Cooke, the man who had single-handedly funded the Union's Civil War effort, shutting down the New York Stock Exchange for ten days.

Today's guest is Liaquat Ahamed, author of 1873: The Rothschilds, the First Great Depression, and the Making of the Modern World. We discuss how the Rothschilds built their fortune smuggling gold across the English Channel during the Napoleonic Wars and became, relative to the size of the global economy, the richest family in history. We look at how Sultan Abdülaziz of the Ottoman Empire and Khedive Ismail of Egypt borrowed their nations into oblivion and were both destroyed for it, why the demonetization of silver was the most consequential economic blunder of the nineteenth century (Milton Friedman blamed it for the worst deflation in recorded history), and how a completely fabricated conspiracy theory about the Rothschilds bribing Congress sold 400,000 copies in the American heartland. Ahamed argues that the 1873 crisis created a twenty-year redistribution of wealth from farmers, workers, and small investors to the bankers most responsible for the crash, fueling populist movements that reshaped politics on every continent.

On May 9, 1873, as the Vienna Stock Exchange collapsed and thousands of speculators were wiped out in a single afternoon, young Salbert von Rothschild and two colleagues from the Schey and Goldschmidt banking families were nearly lynched on the floor of the exchange by infuriated stockjobbers and had to be rescued by police. That same evening, oblivious to the carnage a few hundred yards away, the Prince of Wales hosted a gala dinner at the Ministry of Finance, and the following night Emperor Franz Joseph served a state dinner for the assembled heirs to the royal thrones of Europe. Within months, the panic had crossed the Atlantic and destroyed Jay Cooke, the man who had single-handedly funded the Union's Civil War effort, shutting down the New York Stock Exchange for ten days.
Today's guest is Liaquat Ahamed, author of 1873: The Rothschilds, the First Great Depression, and the Making of the Modern World. We discuss how the Rothschilds built their fortune smuggling gold across the English Channel during the Napoleonic Wars and became, relative to the size of the global economy, the richest family in history. We look at how Sultan Abd&uuml;laziz of the Ottoman Empire and Khedive Ismail of Egypt borrowed their nations into oblivion and were both destroyed for it, why the demonetization of silver was the most consequential economic blunder of the nineteenth century (Milton Friedman blamed it for the worst deflation in recorded history), and how a completely fabricated conspiracy theory about the Rothschilds bribing Congress sold 400,000 copies in the American heartland. Ahamed argues that the 1873 crisis created a twenty-year redistribution of wealth from farmers, workers, and small investors to the bankers most responsible for the crash, fueling populist movements that reshaped politics on every continent.

The 1873 Global Financial Meltdown that Cause 20 Years of Deflation and Destroyed 2 Empires

The Disney version of Johnny Appleseed has a cheerful barefoot man in a tin pot hat scattering apple seeds for grateful pioneers to bake into pies. The real John Chapman collected his seeds for free from cidery waste, planted them into strategically fenced nurseries on land he bought ahead of the settlement line, and sold the resulting trees to colonists who used the apples almost exclusively to make hard cider and applejack brandy. He died owning 1,200 acres across three states but never touched the money, because his Swedenborgian faith taught him that suffering in this life meant blessings in the next. He wore coffee sacks as shirts, went barefoot through Ohio winters, and entertained settler children by sticking needles into his calloused feet.

Today's guest is Isaac Fitzgerald, author of *American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed*. We discuss how Chapman's father was a Minuteman who fought at Concord and later ended up in debtor's prison, why the Northwest Indian War of the 1790s, one of the worst military disasters in early American history, created the very frontier Chapman would spend his life planting, and how a forgotten Irish frontiersman named Dan McQuay who walked 1,200 miles home from New Orleans through hostile wilderness may have been the real inspiration for Chapman's rambling life.

The Disney version of Johnny Appleseed has a cheerful barefoot man in a tin pot hat scattering apple seeds for grateful pioneers to bake into pies. The real John Chapman collected his seeds for free from cidery waste, planted them into strategically fenced nurseries on land he bought ahead of the settlement line, and sold the resulting trees to colonists who used the apples almost exclusively to make hard cider and applejack brandy. He died owning 1,200 acres across three states but never touched the money, because his Swedenborgian faith taught him that suffering in this life meant blessings in the next. He wore coffee sacks as shirts, went barefoot through Ohio winters, and entertained settler children by sticking needles into his calloused feet.
Today's guest is Isaac Fitzgerald, author of *American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed*. We discuss how Chapman's father was a Minuteman who fought at Concord and later ended up in debtor's prison, why the Northwest Indian War of the 1790s, one of the worst military disasters in early American history, created the very frontier Chapman would spend his life planting, and how a forgotten Irish frontiersman named Dan McQuay who walked 1,200 miles home from New Orleans through hostile wilderness may have been the real inspiration for Chapman's rambling life.

Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 5: The Destruction of the USS Philadelphia

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