The Medal of Honor is the United States’ highest military award. It is awarded for bravery in combat that goes far above and beyond the call of duty– those acts of heroism and courage that save lives despite impossible risk.

Since its inception in 1861, at the outset of the Civil War, more than 3,500 people have received the Medal of Honor. This podcast is about those heroes. What they did. What it meant. And what their stories tell us about the nature of sacrifice– and about ourselves.

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On Very Special Episodes, we tell one incredible story each week. Stranger-than-fiction tales about normal people in extraordinary situations. Stories that make you say, “this should be a movie.” Follow Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, and Jason English down a different rabbit hole every Wednesday.

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After the horrific violence of Election Day, 1920, in Ocoee, Florida, hundreds of Black families fled the town, never to return. White farmers took ownership of their lands. And the crimes of the mobs of white vigilantes - lynching, murders, arson, theft - were covered up for almost a century. Until now. 

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Before the presidential election of 1920, the Klan marched through Florida to warn Black citizens not to vote. Newspapers across the state issued the same warning. When a prominent Black resident, Mose Norman, tried to cast his vote in the town of Ocoee, a mob of white vigilantes descended on the community. They exacted a terrible vengeance, starting with the family of a local Black leader, July Perry. Photo credit: Orange County Regional History Center

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The worst incident of election violence in American history happened a century ago on Election Day, 1920 in the town of Ocoee, Florida. The victims were hundreds of Black residents. The perpetrators were their white neighbors. And the reason was that Black citizens had gone to the polls and tried to vote.

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Did President Ronald Reagan authorize selling arms to Iran while still recovering from major surgery in 1985?

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After a 23-year-old Elvis Presley submitted to an Army barber in March 1958, rock and roll, and American life, were never quite the same.

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In 1955, actress Grace Kelly journeyed to the Cannes Film Festival, setting in action a chain of events that would find her trading her Hollywood throne for a real one. 

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