After Henry Hudson’s 1609-voyage along the river that now bears his name, Dutch traders began to visit and trade at the area they called New Netherland. In 1614, the Dutch established a trading post near present-day Albany, New York. In 1624, the Dutch West India Company built the settlement of New Amsterdam. How did t

One of the Caribbean islands that Christopher Columbus stopped at during his 1492-voyage was an alligator-shaped island that sits at the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico in between the Yucatán and Florida peninsulas. This is, of course, is the island of Cuba. What do we know about early Cuba, the island the Spanish describe

You know “America’s favorite fighting Frenchman” is the Marquis de Lafayette. But what do you know about Lafayette and his life? How and why did this French-born noble end up fighting in the American Revolution? Mike Duncan, a self-described history geek, public historian, and the podcaster behind the award-winning pod

What did British imperial officials in London and their North America-based representatives make of the American Revolution? In this episode, we explore the American Revolution through the eyes of John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, a British imperial official who served the empire in North America before, during, and af

At The Road to Now, we don’t just make history podcasts- we also listen to them. In this episode we’re excited to share our conversation with fellow history podcaster Dr. Liz Covart, whose podcast Ben Franklin’s World covers the history of early America. Bob, Ben and Liz discuss the concept of the frontier in American

Historians often portray the American Revolution as an orderly, if violent, event that moved from British colonists’ high-minded ideas about freedom to American independence from Great Britain and the ratification of the Constitution of 1787. But was the American Revolution an orderly event that took place only between