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In 1940 and 1941, most Americans assumed Britain would not last long under the Blitz, the intense German bombing attacks on London and other cities. Even U.S. Ambassador Joe Kennedy believed the country was done for. Yet the American military attaché in London, Raymond E. Lee, refused to give up. With skill and relentless energy, he waged a behind-the-scenes battle to rally support for a nation he admired. Listen to my conversation with veteran journalist Andrew Nagorski, author of "1941: The Year Germany Lost the War" and an expert on WWII Europe. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Relations between the United States and China are growing worse. The origins of that discord can be traced back to the 1830s and adventurers like Warren Delano. The beloved grandfather of Franklin Delano Roosevelt went to Canton to trade fur pelts for tea but soon found himself at the center of the opium trade, helping to provoke a bitterness that remains today.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Theodore Roosevelt's eldest child, Alice, shattered old-fashioned ideas of what it meant to be a woman in the United States. She partied, smoked, and gambled, and at times drove her father crazy. But Americans loved her. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On November 11, 1897, a hangman slipped a rope around the neck of Albert Parsons. But to this day, the question remains: Was he a dangerous anarchist or a hero of the American labor movement? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Determined to do “something that no other girl had ever done before,” Nellie Bly showed women could make it in a man’s world and forever changed journalism.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

People you may never have heard of have shaped our world in astonishing ways. Check out my new podcast, Lost in History, to hear their stories. Available wherever you get your podcasts. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In 1901, the United States was mired in an ugly war for control of the Philippines. Frederick Funston, a swashbuckling Army officer who was loved by some and loathed by others, launched a suicidal mission to capture the enemy leader. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The idea was almost too fantastic to consider in 1857: Near-instant communication between America and Europe by submarine telegraph line. Cyrus Field would face Atlantic storms, repeated engineering disasters, charges of fraud, and financial ruin in an attempt to lay a 2,000-mile-long cable on the ocean floor. And another man of equal ambition was racing to link the Old World and the new in the opposite direction.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In September 1901, a socially awkward and frustrated anarchist named Leon Czolgosz tracked President William McKinley to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. There, he fired two .32 calibre slugs point blank into the President. As police wrestled the assassin to the ground, Czolgosz had but one thing to say: "I done my duty." See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.