Can learning the skills required to do good history serve as an antidote to conspiracy theory? Cathy Gorn & Don Wildman think so, and in this episode they join us to discuss their work to teach those skills in the 6th-12th grade classroom through National History Day, a program that reaches more than half a million students and tens of thousands of teachers each year. We agree with them and think National History Day is an American treasure, so we hope you enjoy this conversation about what goes into creating good history, how we can better teach that to the public, and how your kids can get involved in National History Day.

Click here to learn more about National History Day programs for students & teachers.

Dr. Cathy Gorn has spent more than four decades working with National History Day and currently serves as NHD’s Executive Director.

Don Wildman is a podcast & documentary host whose projects include Mysteries at the Museum (Travel Channel) & the podcast American History Hit. He currently serves as Co-Chair of National History Day’s Development Committee.

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.

Ben and Bob are heading to Tallahassee on April 27 for a live recording at Word of South Festival and the show is free! Click here for details.

The Harlem Globetrotters are one of those great parts of American culture that almost everyone knows and loves. For most of us today, the Globetrotters are outstanding entertainers. But did you know that in the mid-20th century the Globetrotters were probably the single best basketball team on the planet? Did you know that they did travel the globe as agents of the US Department of State during the Cold War, but that they are not, in fact, from Harlem? If you want to know how all of this happened (and how the Globetrotters saved the NBA), you’re going to love this interview with historian Ben Green on the History of the Harlem Globetrotters.

Ben Green is the author of Spinning the Globe: The Rise, Fall and Return to Greatness of the Harlem Globetrotters.

This is a rebroadcast of RTN #56, which originally aired on May 1, 2017. This rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.

The election of 2016 was a lot of things. It was a showdown between two candidates who had been household names for decades. It was the second time in five elections where the winning candidate lost the popular vote. And, most relevant here, it was eight years ago and one of the candidates in that election is running again in 2024, so we’ve still got a long time before we can see the full impact it had on US history.

For now though, we can say that the narrow margin by which Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton has already cast third parties- both candidates and outside actors- as central characters in the narrative of 2016. Did Jill Stein’s Green Party run hand the election to Donald Trump, as some Clinton supporters claim? Is it true that Russia “hacked the election?” Or did the Democratic National Committee’s advocacy for Hillary Clinton deny the party a winning candidate. Let’s try to find out.

Welcome to the final installment of The Road to Now’s Third Party Series. Today: the election of 2016 and ever after w/ John Heilemann.

John Heileman is a journalist and national affairs analyst for NBC News & MSNBC. You can hear him weekly on his podcast Hell & High Water w/ John Heilemann.

This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.