0:00

The History Channel original podcast.

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History This Week, August 14th, 2023.

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I'm Sally Helm.

0:17

Hey, everyone. So today's show is

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going to be a little different because this

0:21

season of History This Week is at an end

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and the show is going to be winding down for a bit. Stay

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subscribed to the feed so you see whatever is coming

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next. And also fill out our listener

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survey. The link is in this episode's

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description. But before

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all of that, we wanted to take this opportunity

0:39

to give you, our listeners, a behind

0:41

the scenes look at the people that make this series

0:43

possible. We got as much of the team in one

0:45

place as we could, brought

0:47

our microphones and talked everything

0:49

History This Week, like what we've learned

0:51

and how we think about history. And

0:53

then the mic is turned around on me to

0:55

answer some questions. If

0:58

you've listened to History This Week at all the last

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three and a half years, you're not going to want

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to miss this.

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I'm Helena Bonham Carter, and for

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BBC Radio 4, this is

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History's Secret Heroes. She

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received

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a brown envelope and says, do

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not open it until you get on the

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plane. A series of rarely heard

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tales from World War Two. They knew

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they were going to be caught. And actually,

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that was sort of part of the plan. Unsung

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heroes, acts of resistance, deception

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and courage. That is a morning

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that is seared into my memory.

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I will never be able to forget the

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terror of that morning.

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Subscribe to History's Secret Heroes

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wherever you get your podcasts.

1:49

All right, team, we

1:51

are here together in a conference room.

1:54

We're going to talk about the time we've had making this

1:56

show, the three plus years that have been History

1:59

This Week.

1:59

i think we should do some introductions because i know who

2:02

all of you are but our listeners may

2:04

not have heard all of you on the make before so

2:06

let's let's do some names

2:08

i'm a frederick them an associate producer and the

2:10

shows in season one i'm korean

2:12

wireless i'm a producer julia

2:14

press i'm also producer i'm jonah

2:16

buchanan i'm an associate producer i'm

2:19

hazel may i am an associate producer

2:21

as of this past season i'm in

2:23

this state and on the senior producer of jim

2:25

already on the show story editor

2:28

or it's i want to ask some questions

2:30

about your experience making

2:32

the show and about what you've learned making

2:35

the show and let's not the kind of

2:37

a big one just throwing it out what

2:39

is the most surprising

2:41

or striking thing that

2:44

you feel like you've learned in producing

2:46

these episodes

2:47

for me i think it's the level at which the stories

2:50

can be in twined and how timelines

2:52

can be worked in your head so you can think

2:54

that to things happened super

2:56

far apart but in reality they happen very close

2:58

together or that one predated the other

3:01

like george washington he died

3:03

before the discovery of dinosaur bones sir

3:05

george washington didn't know dinosaurs existed in

3:08

totally and making a show that's kind of like a calendar

3:10

like this where hopping around decade

3:12

to decade or even century to century

3:14

and yeah you do start to see sort

3:17

of how things are

3:17

happening in parallel that makes

3:20

you think of their definitely characters

3:22

that we've found popping

3:24

up in several stories simultaneously

3:26

or within you know i feel like this past

3:29

season we keep seeing ralph waldo emerson

3:32

strutting through our history this munich

3:34

episode there is an example

3:36

in the com all the episode about the famous

3:39

london clown there was

3:41

a pantomime that he was part of that was a

3:43

vegetable man that came alive during the show

3:46

and mary shelley was that

3:47

one of the performances and some people think that

3:50

might have been a source of inspiration

3:52

when she wrote frankenstein and we have

3:54

an episode was cleopatra and

3:56

mark anthony and julius caesar

3:59

and is so

5:59

that was the farmworkers strike in

6:02

california the down or grip strike

6:04

and lariat leon was like a

6:07

in a former to part of cesar chavez

6:09

as direct action and cesar chavez is very much

6:11

of mainstream character in history there

6:13

are whole holidays and

6:16

murals of him across the country

6:18

but lariat liang a sort of a lesser

6:20

known part of the how

6:22

that movement was founded in created sally

6:24

hemings i think that came to mind

6:27

with that there's no paper trail never whole

6:29

thing in that episode that there's there's

6:31

nothing so is sally hemings

6:33

there's no paper trail of her direct

6:36

thoughts there's than for letters or

6:38

it's hard to get a quote attributed

6:40

to her but there is a paper trail

6:43

of her relatives what they said in thought

6:45

about her there are legal documents so

6:47

there is a paper trail but

6:49

not the one we really want witches

6:52

or her real thoughts

6:54

similar thing with ma rainey something

6:57

that we're talking about not upset is it

6:59

so valuable that we have her lyrics

7:01

because we have so little of her recorded

7:04

thoughts outside of her music but

7:06

music is such a valuable resource and that way

7:08

and in the story of married taft the

7:11

imposter s rabbit breeder we

7:13

actually have that

7:15

everyone knows am from the april fools episode

7:18

we actually had the opposite where one

7:20

of the reasons it's important is a fascinating crazy

7:23

story but it's also really important as an

7:25

account of what a woman's life was

7:27

like at that time which that's

7:29

pretty rare and we do have her thoughts because

7:31

she was put on the stand and mean to testify

7:33

about what she had done pretending to

7:35

give birth or happens

7:37

i mean characters are at the center of

7:39

so many of these episodes in

7:41

fact it sometimes feels like we're trying to make kind of like

7:43

a little audio movie with plot

7:46

and a main character and

7:48

drama and twists i'm curious

7:50

do you guys feel like in your mind there

7:52

are certain history this week's that already

7:54

feel like movies to you or that you think should be

7:57

movies i think about this basically

7:59

every time we

9:59

what the inn would be is kind of

10:02

a miserable guy. So it

10:04

would be a little hard to tell a story, maybe in like

10:06

a Ari Aster kind of way you could do

10:08

it. Well, that's also, I feel like part

10:10

of the challenge of making this show is boiling

10:12

down characters into anecdotes

10:15

or like pithy two-line

10:17

descriptions, and people obviously

10:19

are much more complicated than that.

10:21

But we reveal them through their decisions. We

10:23

like to put them under pressure. We like them

10:25

to have to make a decision often with a moral

10:27

dimension, and that helps really

10:30

reveal a lot about them.

10:31

Yeah, I mean, totally. I think when we're looking

10:34

at these characters, it's

10:36

so common to feel like no one's a simple hero

10:38

or a simple villain. And I mean, obviously,

10:41

no one's a villain to themself. I don't know, do people

10:43

have thoughts on kind of that

10:46

question, creating complex characters

10:48

or realizing that people are more complex than

10:50

you thought?

10:51

Yeah, I feel like that was

10:53

the heart of the Axis

10:55

Sally episode. This American

10:57

woman moves to Berlin as

11:00

the Nazis are coming to power and ends

11:02

up becoming a Nazi propaganda

11:05

radio anchor, and it's so hard

11:07

to understand how someone could

11:10

do this, particularly because she doesn't

11:12

seem to be very politically motivated. But

11:15

it's a really hard, it's a hard question.

11:17

We didn't explain how it happened to her. We

11:20

just showed that it happened step by

11:22

step by step until this attractive

11:25

young woman with aspirations to be an actress

11:28

is after all these steps, a leading voice

11:30

of Nazi Germany

11:32

broadcasting to American GIs

11:34

and telling them that their wives and girlfriends are

11:36

sleeping with someone else back home,

11:39

just trying her best to demoralize

11:41

people. And she's gone through this moral collapse,

11:44

but we've showed it rather than sort

11:47

of explained it. Yeah,

11:47

I didn't come away from that episode thinking

11:50

that she was equal parts good and bad or something, but

11:53

it is, it's always a process of just remembering

11:55

that they were real. I feel like that's also a theme

11:58

throughout making these episodes is really.

11:59

getting it into your head. They did things for a

12:02

reason. Sometimes they broke

12:04

their leg, and then that sent them on an entire

12:06

different journey in life, or just by happenstance,

12:09

they wandered into a different field of study, and then

12:11

they ended up making a breakthrough.

12:13

It's a very fine line to walk. I

12:15

feel like on the one hand, the characters

12:17

we're talking about are a product of

12:20

their environments. On the other hand, we also

12:22

don't want to deprive them of the agency that they had

12:24

in their stories. So I think about

12:26

who's obviously a very well-known figure, but Jackie

12:28

Robinson. I did a Jackie Robinson episode about

12:31

how he tried out for the Red Sox, and it was a pretend

12:33

tryout, and they never intended on signing him. But the

12:35

idea there being, becoming the first black

12:37

Major League Baseball player was not something that

12:40

happened to him, which I think it's often

12:42

portrayed as, and it happens a lot of our stories where I think,

12:44

or in history often, where characters

12:47

are presented as finding themselves

12:49

somewhere versus deciding to be

12:51

there.

12:52

Yeah, there is agency. And I think that goes to

12:54

Sally's point, and something that came up in last

12:56

week's episode about the undelivered

12:59

speeches. People in real time

13:01

were writing two drafts of a speech because they

13:03

genuinely did not know how things would go, and

13:05

things could have gone a different way, or they could

13:08

have chosen to give the other speech. It

13:10

is such a important reminder

13:13

that individuals shape history. They're

13:15

just people making choices, and things

13:17

could have gone differently. And they're totally shaped

13:20

by their time. Like, both are true, you know? Like,

13:22

they also

13:22

can't see out of where they are, and neither can

13:24

we.

13:25

I also feel like it's particularly

13:27

fun when you talk to those people who have

13:29

lived it themselves. The first

13:31

episode that I worked on on this show was the 504 sit-in.

13:35

It was the longest occupation of a federal building in U.S.

13:38

history at the time, fighting for equal

13:40

access to public spaces for people, regardless

13:42

of ability. And I have

13:45

this one memory of Dennis Billups,

13:48

one of the activists, singing to

13:50

me on our interview the

13:52

chance that they would give, you

13:54

know, sitting in

13:55

the building, and that stands out in

13:57

my memory, is, I wish I could have been

13:59

there. It's a very meaningful experience chatting

14:02

with all of them. I would say for me, similarly,

14:05

probably one of the more impactful moments working on this show

14:07

was interviewing the children of Julius

14:09

and Ethel Rosenberg. They didn't have the take that

14:11

I expected them to have. You know, their parents were obviously

14:14

executed for being spies for

14:16

the Soviet Union in the 1950s, and

14:18

they did believe that

14:21

probably their father was guilty, but that their

14:23

mother was not. So on the one hand, they were upset

14:25

that history has bundled them together,

14:28

which is, I think, important in what we're doing, right? Because

14:30

it shows like, how does the story get told

14:33

is just as important as what happened. Didn't

14:35

they also say it's hard to be the children of Julius

14:37

and Ethel Rosenberg, but we'd rather

14:39

be their children

14:41

than the uncle that turned them in? Yes,

14:43

that we'd rather be the children of our parents

14:45

than the children of our uncle who

14:48

betrayed them.

14:48

Yeah, I mean, talking to people who participated

14:50

in these stories firsthand can obviously

14:53

be so powerful. And I wanted to

14:55

ask, actually,

14:56

what if we could do that ourselves?

14:59

Like, what moments that we have covered do

15:01

you wish you could have been there to see?

15:03

I always consider part of that question though, is like, my

15:05

brain is also back then. You

15:08

know what I mean? So I don't know any, like as part of that equation, do

15:10

I not know any different? Or are you today

15:12

visiting? Yeah. You're just going to observe

15:15

one scene from one story. I'm imagining

15:17

a magic tree house situation. So

15:19

I'm aware of TikTok and

15:22

also, well, that's just

15:25

the barometer I'm using, and visiting

15:28

Cleopatra.

15:29

I would want to be in New York in 1835 during

15:32

the Great Moon Hoax, which we covered

15:34

in the April Fool's episode.

15:36

A newspaper, they started running this

15:39

piece over several days that

15:42

presented the discoveries of a real

15:44

astronomer who did not write this. They

15:46

said that he had discovered plants

15:49

on the moon and then flowers and lakes

15:51

and rivers on the moon. And then finally, that

15:54

there had been an entire living group

15:56

of bat men, creatures

15:59

also living on the moon. on the moon. It's kind

16:01

of hard to know how much people believe this. We

16:03

have evidence to think that like most

16:05

people did, but I'm always trying to give

16:08

people the benefit of the doubt of the information

16:10

they had access to at the time when we're explaining

16:12

how characters could do the things that they did.

16:15

But I think it'd be really fun to see

16:17

how that happened and the excitement and fervor

16:20

that created. I would absolutely

16:22

have believed it if I were there, a

16:24

thousand percent.

16:25

I don't think there's any time in history

16:28

that you could convince me to go back to. I'm

16:30

very comfortable in my 2023 world

16:34

with my modern medicine and modern

16:36

hygiene practices and safety

16:38

protocols and I'm good.

16:41

I always wanted to hang out with the pop pirates

16:43

people. That's not as much like

16:46

witnessing history as just being like, hey,

16:48

like I'd love to party on your boat with you. They

16:51

were having such a raucous time. That

16:53

was one of my

16:54

favorite episodes to report, just getting to talk

16:56

to all these real radicals, radical

16:59

DJs aboard, ships in international

17:01

waters, giving the BBC a run for its

17:03

money, broadcasting, pop music.

17:05

That was my answer too. And it's sort

17:07

of because I think the idea

17:10

of being on a boat is very romantic, but

17:12

I think the reality of like what I would have to do to get

17:14

on a boat today, like work on a boat,

17:17

I don't think it really fits my personality,

17:20

but I could definitely get down with some like radio

17:22

transmissions, playing pop music,

17:24

listening to the Beatles.

17:25

I mean, in a way working

17:28

on and producing the show does let you,

17:30

you know, you do, we do. We go

17:32

back every week as we're making the episode

17:34

and we do kind of live in that character's world,

17:37

in that character's mind for a period of time. And

17:39

I have loved that.

17:41

I'm curious, last question for

17:43

you guys. What are you gonna miss about

17:45

making the show? I think one

17:47

of my favorite parts, besides just

17:49

working with the wonderful team was

17:52

reading old newspapers from the turn of the century

17:54

where there would be like six headlines for

17:56

no reason, absolutely no byline, a small

17:59

blur.

17:59

with unfamiliar words and

18:02

very little information and an ad

18:05

that says to buy low tar cigarettes.

18:07

I know exactly what you're talking about Hazel. It's like, yeah,

18:10

the three different headlines in a row, all of them like

18:12

totally over the top. Yeah, those old newspaper

18:14

writers are, they're great. I

18:16

think what I'm gonna miss the most is

18:18

the limitless possibilities

18:22

for these episodes and like

18:24

just the opportunity to go back and to

18:26

look at any corner of history that we wanted

18:29

to. I think it was just an

18:31

adventure every week, every pitch session.

18:34

When people ask me, do you like working for history?

18:36

My answer is usually, well, it

18:39

has its difficulties like any job. But

18:41

when I think about what I do most of the time

18:44

is I'm immersed in a story

18:46

often that I don't know much about. So

18:49

I'm just constantly learning. I think

18:51

we're all doing this and creating these episodes.

18:55

We recently had an episode about

18:57

the evolution of dolls and how that relates to

18:59

this concept of childhood. I

19:01

know nothing, nothing

19:03

about this going in. And now I'm

19:06

totally fascinated by this subject. That's

19:09

something I'll miss.

19:10

Well, lucky for us,

19:12

history will always be there. The

19:15

history this week feed will be there for

19:17

anyone who has not listened to, I mean, we've made a lot of

19:19

episodes. Come on, a lot of people haven't heard all of

19:21

them. So go back, listen to some of these.

19:25

We're gonna miss bringing them to you.

19:28

When we come back, we're gonna flip roles and

19:30

I will answer some questions from our senior producer,

19:33

Ben. Stick around. And now for

19:35

this last part

19:36

of the conversation,

19:47

I'm gonna hand the mic to Ben. He's gonna

19:49

ask me some questions. Well, I'm gonna turn the mic back around on

19:52

you, Sally. Yes. I'm getting a taste of my own

19:54

medicine. She brought up before, how

19:56

many episodes have we done? Oh my gosh.

19:59

It's the 179th

20:02

episode of history this week that we've

20:04

done. How does that make you feel? Wow. Almost 200.

20:07

I'm gonna say almost 200 from here on out. Did

20:10

you, before you did number one, what

20:13

did you think you were getting into?

20:14

I don't know. I knew I was getting into a new show.

20:16

So you inherently don't know what you're getting

20:19

into. You've never heard it before. You're gonna make it fresh. But

20:22

I knew that I was getting into a show that was gonna be about

20:25

people's individual stories. And

20:27

I feel like as we've all been

20:28

discussing, that turned out to be really, really

20:30

true. Even more true than I probably knew

20:32

at the time in that we got to talk to people

20:35

who were still alive. Which, you

20:37

know, you kind of forget. Of course, there are gonna be lots

20:39

of important historical people who are still alive

20:41

who you can talk to. And also

20:43

that we got to draw out stories of

20:46

long dead people from, you

20:49

know, ancient sources.

20:51

You do a lot on the show, obviously. It's your voice

20:53

behind the mic, but also in the interviews themselves,

20:56

just so everyone knows,

20:57

we're doing interviews that are an hour, 90 minutes,

21:00

two hours long. And those are cut down to probably

21:02

what, you know, five minutes of tape

21:04

in a given episode. Maybe if we think about it like

21:06

through the lens of how you conduct your interviews or how you

21:08

talk to people who either are experts

21:10

or eyewitnesses, has that approach changed

21:13

at all for you? I think I've gotten better

21:15

at knowing where the details

21:18

lie and knowing that there usually are

21:20

a lot of little details to uncover and

21:22

that those are gonna be so

21:24

important to lay out in the

21:26

episode. You always want the sort

21:28

of weird human moment

21:31

that sets someone on the path that they went on or

21:34

the little quirky story about

21:36

their sister that doesn't seem to fit that then ends

21:38

up really being the thing to bring them to

21:41

life. So I think I've gotten a better nose for those and

21:43

also just a sense that those are everywhere. There's

21:45

no story where there's not some delightful

21:48

little pocket of details to find. Well,

21:50

it's funny you bring up the tiny little details

21:52

because I do remember when we did our history

21:54

of trivia episode, we interviewed

21:56

Ken Jennings. I remember Sally Helm saying,

21:59

I'm a fan of trivia. Don't like trivia. I don't

22:02

like it. And trivia is nothing but little detail. So

22:04

I'm wondering how you negotiate

22:06

those two things in your head where you're like,

22:08

well, I love these little details that everyone says, but

22:10

don't like

22:10

trivia. Well, you know, it's very simple. I don't love them in

22:12

a competitive way. I

22:15

love to just know them and share them and for us

22:17

all to share them together, but I don't love to like pull

22:20

them out to win a point, Ben. I'd always

22:22

forget them right when it matters. Cold and calculating,

22:24

yes.

22:26

Is there a moment in the

22:28

production or creation of the show, either

22:30

in an interview or any part

22:32

of the process that you feel really

22:34

defines or defined your experience

22:37

working on history this week?

22:39

I guess there have been two moments recently that I feel like

22:41

we're experts kind of speaking to the things we're

22:43

talking about. One is Tawana

22:46

Steptoe in the Ma Rainey episode.

22:48

I thought it was so amazing to

22:51

hear her talk about the way that

22:53

we think of society as getting

22:55

like

22:55

just more and more open over time. But

22:59

in fact, like the

23:02

1920s felt so much more open and kind of free

23:04

for all and party-like and like things that

23:07

we might think of as really modern. There were so many more of those

23:09

in the 20s than there were in the 50s. So that

23:11

was just a reminder from her that it's like,

23:13

you know, you can't just draw any

23:16

straight unbroken lines anywhere,

23:18

really. You have to look closer

23:21

and not assume that

23:22

things are just progressing in kind of the smooth way you

23:25

would imagine. And the

23:27

last episode before this one, I think

23:29

Julia was bringing this up earlier, the

23:31

idea of these undelivered speeches and people literally

23:34

looking at like the moment when things

23:36

could have changed and not knowing

23:38

how

23:39

it's gonna unfold. I mean, there's

23:41

so many episodes that I love too, just that I loved on that

23:44

detail level. Like I loved

23:46

the hieroglyphics episode about the Rosetta Stone,

23:48

just like, oh my God, that that stone was

23:50

even made and found how

23:53

crazy and they didn't have any idea

23:55

how hieroglyphs, like what they meant

23:57

and how the language was even written and all

23:59

the language.

23:59

little twists and turns that went into that

24:02

actually being the code being cracked

24:04

again. Now it seems like, well, of course the code

24:06

was cracked, but it really almost wasn't. Like

24:08

it was really hard to crack the code. Well,

24:11

Sally, I just want to say it's been

24:13

an absolute joy working on the show with you

24:15

for the last three and a half years and it's been

24:18

a

24:18

privilege. Oh, thank you so much, Ben. The privilege

24:20

is mine. And you know what? This is coming

24:22

to mind now. One thing that has changed

24:24

for me in making the show over the years is

24:26

I really honestly can say that

24:29

I feel like I've started to feel

24:31

the presence of the listeners of

24:33

History This Week a lot more strongly

24:35

as we've gone along because I know that

24:37

you guys are out there. Like when we

24:40

first started making the show, we had no idea who was going to listen

24:42

or if anyone was. And

24:44

you clearly did. You've written

24:46

to us about where you're listening to

24:49

the show and sometimes you're

24:51

gardening and sometimes you're experiencing

24:53

a tough medical moment and you're laid up in bed

24:55

and you need a show to listen to and sometimes

24:58

you're trying to get your baby to fall asleep. And

25:00

in fact, I actually got two emails

25:03

from two different moms saying that they play

25:06

History This Week to get their baby to go to

25:08

sleep, which the first one I was like, that's so

25:10

cute. And the second one I was like,

25:12

are we putting people to sleep out there? Is

25:14

there something wrong? But

25:17

I'm so happy to have done that service

25:20

for those various moms I know can be tough when

25:22

a baby won't go to sleep.

25:24

So yeah, shout out to whoever's listening

25:26

right now. I feel like I, yeah,

25:29

even in this moment, I can feel that like there will

25:31

be people listening to these words and that has been

25:34

such a pleasure and

25:36

an honor. So thank you all.

25:42

Thanks for listening to History This Week. Not

25:44

just this episode, but all of them. For

25:47

moments throughout history that are also worth watching,

25:49

check your local TV listings to find out what's

25:51

on the History Channel today. If

25:54

you want to get in touch, please shoot us an email

25:56

at our email address, historythisweekathistory.com

25:59

and Stay subscribed to the feed for the latest

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History This Week updates. Like we mentioned

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at the top, please take the time to fill out our survey,

26:06

which you can find at bit.ly

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slash HTW2023. That's

26:12

bit.ly slash HTW2023.

26:17

Special thanks to the amazing History This Week

26:19

team for being in this episode. Our

26:22

producers Julia Press and Corinne Wallace,

26:24

our associate producers Emma Fredericks, Hazel

26:26

May, and Jonah Buchanan, our story editor

26:29

Jim O'Grady, and our senior producer Ben

26:31

Dixitin. History This Week is also

26:33

produced by Chloe Weiner, who sadly had to miss

26:35

out on today's conversation. This

26:38

episode was sound designed by Brian Flood. Our

26:41

supervising producer is Mckaynie Lynn, and

26:43

our executive producer is Jesse Katz.

26:44

We've had a lot

26:47

of people working on the show throughout the years, and

26:49

we wanted to take some time to thank them all.

26:51

Producers Julie McGruder, Morgan Givens,

26:54

and Rebecca Nolan. Story editors Jimmy

26:56

Gutierrez, Jennifer Gorin, Cheryl Duval,

26:59

Roxandra Guidi, and Mary Knopf. And

27:01

sound designers Dan Rosado, Chris Boniello,

27:03

Corey Choi, Jonathan Siri-Mose, and

27:06

Bill Moss. And thank

27:08

you finally to you, our listeners, for

27:10

making all of this possible. Don't

27:12

forget to subscribe, rate, and review History

27:14

This Week wherever you get your podcasts,

27:16

and we'll see you soon.

27:20

All

27:25

rights reserved.