As Black teenager Dick Rowland sat in a jail cell at the Tulsa courthouse, news of his arrest flew through the town. Egged on by rumors about his alleged rape of white teenager Sarah Page, a white mob bent on a lynching Rowland began assembling outside the courthouse. By that evening, the crowd had swelled to thousands. Meanwhile, some young African American veterans of the recent world war were determined to defend Rowland, with their lives if necessary. When they arrived at the courthouse Tuesday night, they found themselves thrust into a situation far more volatile than they were prepared for.This episode originally aired in 2019.Listen to new episodes 1 week early and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/historytellers.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma boasted one of the nation’s most prosperous African-American communities. Greenwood was home to 108 Black-owned businesses, two theaters, 15 physicians, two newspapers, and a luxury hotel. It was nicknamed “the Black Wall Street.”Then, on May 30th, a Black shoeshine boy named Dick Rowland was accused of assaulting a white teenaged elevator operator, Sarah Page. What happened next would ultimately lead to the destruction of Greenwood and the deaths of over 300 African Americans -- a massacre that, until recently, was virtually erased from American history.This episode originally aired in 2019.Listen to new episodes 1 week early and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/historytellers.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On November 24th, 1971, a man on a Boeing 727 bound for Seattle handed a flight attendant a note that read, “Miss, I have a bomb here.” No one knew the man’s real name. But soon, the press was calling him D.B. Cooper -- and his hijacking of Northwest Orient Flight 305 would go down as one of the most audacious in aviation history.Cooper parachuted out of that flight with $200,000 in cash, then disappeared without a trace. Over the decades that followed, FBI agents and amateur investigators would pursue thousands of leads and hundreds of suspects. And the mystery of what really happened in the skies over Washington that night has only grown deeper.Listen to new episodes 1 week early and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/historytellers.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

John Brown has been called many things: fanatic, hero, terrorist, martyr, zealot. Some of his contemporaries, including Frederick Douglass, believed that were it not for his raid on Harpers Ferry, the Civil War would never have started. But did Brown’s actions really bring about slavery’s eventual downfall? And can his impact still be seen today in a nation that remains deeply divided over issues of race?In this episode, Lindsay discusses Brown’s complex legacy with historian David S. Reynolds, author of John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights.Listen to new episodes 1 week early and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/historytellers.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On October 17th, 1859, John Brown was barricaded inside the federal armory at Harpers Ferry with his hostages and his remaining followers. His attempt to lead an antislavery insurrection had failed. A detachment of U.S. Marines led by Colonel Robert E. Lee had the armory surrounded. For the radical abolitionist, it was his last stand.But after he was captured and sentenced to death, Northern abolitionists rallied to Brown’s cause. By the time he ascended the scaffold and prepared to meet the hangman’s rope, Brown had become a martyr and folk hero. His bold, violent actions polarized Americans on both sides of the slavery debate, and hurtled the nation closer to the brink of the Civil War.Listen to new episodes 1 week early and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/historytellers.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In December 1858, John Brown was back in Kansas and Missouri, making headlines for dramatic and deadly raids on plantations. He and his followers freed 11 enslaved men and women and led them on an 1,100-mile journey to freedom in Canada.But all the while, Brown was focused on finally launching his long-planned attack on slavery in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. After months of preparation, on the night of October 16th, 1859, Brown and his “army” captured the town’s federal arsenal and armory. It was the start of 36 hours of chaos and bloodshed that would shake America to its core.Listen to new episodes 1 week early and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/historytellers.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On the night of May 24th, 1856, radical abolitionist John Brown and seven of his followers crept along the banks of Kansas’s Pottawatomie Creek and stormed a proslavery settlement. They dragged five men from their cabins and killed them in cold blood. Soon, Brown’s name was splashed across the nation’s newspapers, making him a lightning rod for controversy. He would exploit his notoriety to escalate his crusade against slavery, taking his guerrilla war to a new theater: the slaveholding South.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the 1850s, the United States was lurching toward a crisis over slavery -- and abolitionist John Brown stepped into the fray. Brown believed it was his God-given destiny to destroy slavery. His crusade took him from abolitionist meetings in the Northeast, to the Underground Railroad in Ohio, to the bloody plains of Kansas.In 1854, a fierce conflict erupted over whether the territory of Kansas would join the Union as a free state or slave state. As tensions escalated, Brown would rush to the center of the gathering storm and hatch a violent plan for striking back against proslavery forces.Listen to new episodes 1 week early and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/historytellers.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In recent years, there’s been a movement to remove statues of Confederate leaders and other monuments that some see as celebrations of America’s racist history. But does taking down these statues help address the racial inequities that plague our nation to this day? Or is it just erasing history? In his forthcoming book How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, author Clint Smith tackles these and other questions around what our public monuments say -- or, sometimes, fail to say -- about America’s past. He and Lindsay discuss such landmarks as Monticello, the Whitney Plantation, and the Statue of Liberty, and explore the different meanings they have for different Americans, especially in our present moment of racial reckoning.For more on Clint Smith: https://www.clintsmithiii.com/ Listen to new episodes 1 week early and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/historytellers.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Vietnam War was one of the most divisive conflicts in American history. Over 58,000 Americans died in the fighting; many more returned home with wounds both visible and hidden. When veterans lobbied for a memorial to honor American soldiers lost in Vietnam, a young college student named Maya Lin was picked from a blind competition to design it. Her unconventional vision would lead to a bitter dispute over the nature and purpose of public art in America — and how a nation heals its wounds after a collective loss.  Listen to new episodes 1 week early and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/historytellers.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.