HISTORY This Week

July 4, 1839. Sixty-three years after 1776—and centuries after the medieval period—feudalism is alive and well in the United States.
High on a rocky plain in upstate New York, a crowd of tenant farmers gathers in the village of Berne to read aloud a declaration of independence… but not the one you're thinking of. These families are still bound to a landlord by perpetual leases their grandfathers signed, owing bushels of wheat and a share of every sale for as long as the land exists.
Today they're done. They call their leases "voluntary slavery" and vow to "take up the ball of the Revolution where our fathers stopped it." It's the opening shot of the Anti-Rent War, a revolt that will pit disguised farmers against sheriffs and posses across the Hudson Valley, and force New York to ask whether a feudal bargain has any place in a republic.
How did manor lords survive the Revolution? And what would it finally take to break their grip?
Special thanks Reeve Huston, emeritus associate professor of history at Duke University and author of Land and Freedom: Rural Society, Popular Protest, and Party Politics in Antebellum New York; Victoria Kupchinetsky and Misha Gutkin, director and producer of the film Calico Rebellion; David Fleming, the town supervisor of Nassau, NY; Nancy Newman, professor at SUNY Albany and author of Songs and Sounds of the Anti-Rent Movement in Upstate New York; and the Association of Public Historians of New York State.
You can find all the books we’ve used to make recent HISTORY This Week episodes at historythisweekpodcast.com.

June 28, 1971. It’s the second annual “Unity Day” rally at Columbus Circle in New York City, organized by the Italian American Civil Rights League. Joe Colombo is the very public face of the League, a group that actively fights discrimination and ugly stereotypes against the Italian-American community, such as their association with organized crime and the Mafia. The problem? That same Joe Colombo is a leader of the Mafia, one of the heads of the “Five Families” in New York. It’s an open secret; many people across the city know who he really is, and the FBI is hot on his tail, trying to catch him in the act. On this day, Colombo’s dual life—as a media-facing advocate and as an underground criminal—will come crashing down in a violent display.
Special thanks to Don Capria, co-author of Colombo: The Unsolved Murder; Selwyn Raab, veteran Mafia reporter and author of Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires; and Geoff Schumacher, vice president of exhibits and programs for The Mob Museum in Las Vegas.
You can find all the books we’ve used to make recent HISTORY This Week episodes at historythisweekpodcast.com.
**This episode originally aired June 28, 2021.

Malcolm Gladwell and President Barack Obama introduce us to one of the most chaotic,
complicated, and fascinating times in American history, revealing why Reconstruction still
defines our country today.
Listen to Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise on Audible, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Reconstruction begins where, for most Americans, the story of the Civil War ends: The North is
victorious and slavery is abolished. But what happened next was one of the most important
decades in American history, a moment when our country grappled with its original sin and
imagined — and briefly enacted — a more perfect union.
Drawing from archives, letters, diaries, court records, eyewitness testimonies and some of
America’s most accomplished scholars and storytellers, Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise
explores this unprecedented historical moment in rich, kaleidoscopic detail. The series unpacks a
time when a determined band of reformers attempted to radically reimagine American society —
from the Constitution to the roots of its economy to the very nature of citizenship itself.
Reconstruction was a time when Americans struggled over fundamental questions about our
country. Who gets to be a citizen? Who has the right to vote? Who can own property? In short,
who belongs? Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise explores what America might have
looked like if Reconstruction had truly succeeded, and how the ultimate backlash to
Reconstruction prevented our country from becoming a truly multiracial democracy.
Guiding us through this extraordinary moment in American history is best-selling author and
host of Revisionist History Malcolm Gladwell. He’ll have help from luminaries, historians, and
storytellers such as President Barack Obama, Jelani Cobb, Wyatt Cenac, David Blight, Kai
Wright, Kellie Carter Jackson, Ashley C. Ford, Manisha Sinha, Kidada Williams, and Eric Foner.
This is a series about why America has yet to make good on the promise of Reconstruction, and
how it still might.
An Audible Original in partnership with History Channel. Produced by Higher Ground and
Pushkin Industries.

June 15, 1865. German-American statesman Carl Schurz is traveling to Washington to meet with President Andrew Johnson when he stops at a friend’s home in Philadelphia. That night, during a séance, a teenage medium claims to summon the spirit of Abraham Lincoln… and delivers Schurz a mysterious command from beyond the grave.
Soon, Johnson sends Schurz on a fact-finding mission through the defeated South. What he discovers will help shape the course of Reconstruction and expose the violence threatening America’s fragile new democracy.
Today, Sally speaks with bestselling author and podcaster Malcolm Gladwell about Reconstruction’s forgotten history, the battle over how it has been remembered, and why the questions it raised remain unfinished today.
Listen to Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise now on Audible, or anywhere you get your podcasts, starting June 18th. Link: https://lnk.to/reconstructionHW
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June 8, 1191. The Crusaders and Muslim forces are locked in battle over the city of Acre. On one side is Saladin, the great Muslim leader who has already recaptured Jerusalem. On the other, an armada arrives carrying England’s king: Richard the Lionheart.
The Crusades will become one of the defining conflicts of the Middle Ages. But for centuries, their history fades into legend… until a Scottish writer named Walter Scott brings them roaring back. His novels turn knights, tournaments, and holy war into blockbuster entertainment. But Scott’s message was more complicated than simple nostalgia: he saw the Crusades as reckless, violent, and hollow. His readers mostly saw the armor.
How did a Scottish poet revive this religious war and turn it into an international phenomenon? And how did his underlying message get lost, warped, and then repurposed to justify even more violence?
Special thanks to Ian Duncan,  professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of Scott's Shadow: The Novel in Romantic Edinburgh.

You can find the rest of the books we used to research this episode at historythisweekpodcast.com.
Get in touch: historythisweek@history.com
Follow on Instagram: @historythisweekpodcast
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To stay updated: http://historythisweekpodcast.com