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The military history podcast specialists, looking at all aspects of war through the ages.
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Coming to you from The History Lab, also known as Room 12, we bring you student-created History Pods.
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Launched in the summer of 2014 and hosted by James Scully, Breaking Walls is the podcast on the history of American network radio broadcasting.
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Listen to “The African History Network Show” with Michael Imhotep founder of The African History Network on 910 AM The Superstation WFDF in Detroit, Sundays, 9pm-11pm EST. We focus on Educating, Empowering and Inspiring people of African Descent throughout the Diaspora and around the World because Right Knowledge corrects wrong behavior. Listen LIVE on 910 AM WFDF in Detroit or around the world online at www.910AMSuperstation.com or by downloading the iHeart Radio App to your smartphone or a ...
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersOn Thursday December 21st, 1944 We Came This Way took to the air as part of NBC’s University of the Air. The series illustrated various struggles for freedom throughout history. This episode highlighted Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette who fought for the Continental Army un…
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Arthur Martin-Leake, serving as a lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1914 was the first man to be awarded a Bar to the Victoria Cross he received during the Second Boer War in 1902. In both circumstances Martin-Leake's conduct was to put the lives of his injured comrades first despite being exposed to constant enemy fire, and being wound…
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My Thoughts of Election 2024: Donald Trump beats VP Kamala Harris, What went wrong? Exit Polls NBC News for 10 States; American is going to Regret this, Again! - Historian & National Political Commentator Michael Imhotep founder of The African History Network 11-6-24 REGISTER & WATCH NOW this 12 Week Online Course! Class Starts Saturday, 11-9-24, 4…
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersOn the Sunday, December 17th, 1944 episode of The Jack Benny Program, Jack meets Frank Sinatra in a pharmacy. For more information on Jack Benny in 1944, including how and why he changed sponsors, please tune into Breaking Walls Episode 151 which covers Benny’s 1944 in great detail. F…
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On September 22nd, 1862, already almost two years into the US Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation stating that, as of January 1st, 1863, all slaves within any State would be "thenceforward, and forever free." This proclamation freed 3.5 million men and women of African-American descent and, included in the proc…
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersBy 1944 Rudy Vallée was one of the most famous American entertainers in history. Vallée spent much of early 1944 conducting the 11th Naval District Coast Guard Band, known as one of the best military units in the nation. He returned to civilian life, and to radio over NBC, on Septembe…
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersOn the Sunday, November 26th, 1944 episode of The Jack Benny Program, Jack and the gang discuss how they spent Thanksgiving. For more information on Jack Benny in 1944, including how and why he changed sponsors, please tune into Breaking Walls Episode 151 which covers Benny’s 1944 in …
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersAlthough Bud Abbott and Lou Costello are remembered for their movies, they got their start toward national fame in radio.They’d met in 1929, when Costello was booked with a vaudeville act into a neighborhood theater. Abbott worked in the box office and soon found himself playing Coste…
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersIn November of 1944 Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall was Thursday night’s highest-rated program. Airing at 9PM eastern time, singing with Bing was heard by more than eighteen million people as they wound down around the fire and radio. That evening’s first song was “Dance with a Dolly” …
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersThis program, originally airing on KPO San Francisco, was in conjunction with the 5th War Loan Drive. Thanksgiving 1944 was also called “War Bond Day.” It featured the likes of Rudy Vallée and others.由James Scully
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersIn November of 1944 Lum and Abner was airing as a weekday, fifteen minute serial. In New York the show aired over WJZ. The show was syndicated out of KECA in Los Angeles. KECA was the flagship station of the newly independent Blue Network, which would soon become ABC. Chester Lauck wa…
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersMuch ink has been spilled on Breaking Walls this year talking about Suspense. For more information on the series in 1944, please tune into Breaking Walls episode 154. The Thanksgiving 1944 episode was called “The Fountain Plays” starring Charles Laughton. It’s a story filled with murd…
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersMail Call began airing on August 11th, 1942 over the Armed Forces Radio Service to entertain troops with songs, skits, and questions (via the mail) answered by celebrities in order to boost the morale of soldiers stationed far from their homesIn 1944 Lt. Col. Thomas A.H. Lewis, comman…
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In the Spring of 334 BC, the 22-year-old Macedonian king, Alexander III (r. 336-323 BC - not yet ‘the Great’), invaded the vast Achaemenid Persian Empire with an elite but small army of some 30-40,000 veteran infantry and only 5,000 cavalry. This invasion was the culmination of almost a century of pressure for some Greek commander or other to punis…
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersMuch ink has been spilled on Breaking Walls this year talking about Suspense. For more information on the series in 1944, please tune into Breaking Walls episode 154. On Thursday November 2nd, 1944, Van Johnson made his first appearance on “radio’s outstanding theater of thrills” in “…
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersIn the fall of 1944 Fibber McGee and Molly were in the midst of their tenth season on the air. The comedic duo was part of NBC’s blockbuster Tuesday night comedy lineup. Between 1939 and 1949 their show was never ranked lower than third overall in the ratings. On Halloween night their…
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersBy the fall of 1944, George Burns and Gracie Allen had been married for eighteen years and on radio for twelve. Their program had been officially titled The Burns And Allen Show in the fall of 1936, and they’d spent time at both NBC and CBS. With their ratings slipping in 1942, George…
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersIn October of 1944 Lum and Abner was airing as a weekday, fifteen minute serial. In New York the show aired over WJZ. The show was syndicated out of KECA in Los Angeles. KECA was the flagship station of the newly independent Blue Network, which would soon become ABC. Chester Lauck was…
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersDespite its west-coast regional status for most of its days. The Whistler had one of radio’s best-known crime-show formats and one of the longest runs. The signature ranks with radio’s greatest, playing perfectly into the host’s “man of mystery” role. Like the Shadow and the Mysteriou…
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersThe Hour of Charm, radio’s “most-celebrated all-girl orchestra” first took to the air on May 18th, 1934 over CBS. In the fall of 1944 it was airing on NBC for General Electric, Sundays at 10PM eastern time. The brainchild of Phil Spitalny, The Spitalnys had a deep musical heritage. Im…
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Twelve years have passed since the disastrous Crusader Battle of Varna and three years since the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. Europe is reeling under the relentless pressure of Ottoman advances: Serbia fell in 1455, and Sultan Mehmed II had now amassed his forces for an invasion of the Kingdom of Hungary. To launch this inv…
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersCreated by Irving Brecher, the best-known incarnation of The Life of Riley came to the air Sunday January 16th, 1944 at 3PM eastern time over The Blue Network. It starred William Bendix as Chester A. Riley and was sponsored by The American Meat Institute. Riley was easily exasperated,…
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersEdgar Bergen came to the attention of American audiences on Rudy Vallée’s NBC Royal Gelatin Hour on December 17th, 1936. Five months later NBC gave Bergen his own show Sundays at 8PM. He was an instant smash hit. Don Ameche worked with Bergen in those years. He was emcee on December 1…
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersOn the October 29th, 1944 episode of The Jack Benny Program, an Allen's Alley spoof rekindles Benny's love/hate relationship with Fred Allen. This episode had a rating of 19.8. Roughly sixteen million people tuned in.由James Scully
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersWell, we’re back where we started, but we’re not the same. I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that when you run on the treadmill to oblivion, you don’t always go where you want, but you get in shape doing it.When I began Breaking Walls ten years ago I envisioned it as a sit-…
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The Italian invasion of British Somaliland is an often-overlooked action of the Second World War. Although small and a backwater of the British empire, the region would see several significant firsts of the Second World War. The loss of the colony in mid-1940 was the first significant loss of British colonial territory during the war. The loss alon…
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BW - EP155—012: New York And The 1944 Radio World—Fred Allen Christmas Night on Information Please
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersOn Christmas night, 1944, Fred Allen was one of the guests on Information Please when the show aired on NBC at 9:30PM. The Christmas broadcast came from the St. Albans Naval Hospital in Queens. The hospital was commissioned in 1943 on the site of a golf course. At its peak it housed m…
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersWhat you’re about to hear is the Sunday, December 24th, 1944 at 3PM WMCA broadcast of New World A’ Coming. It’s a Christmas musical show. For more info on New World A’ Coming, please tune into the previous act on this series within this episode of Breaking Walls.…
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BW - EP155—010: New York and the 1944 Radio World—Orson Welles & Edgar Bergen Go To NYC in 1995
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersEdgar Bergen came to the attention of American audiences on Rudy Vallée’s NBC Royal Gelatin Hour on December 17th, 1936. How could ventriloquism work on radio? Perhaps Rudy Vallée himself put it best the night Bergen debuted.Five months later NBC gave Bergen his own show Sundays at 8P…
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersJubilee first took to the air on October 9th, 1942 transcribed by the Special Services Division of the War Department, then by the Armed Forces Radio Service. It featured Jazz and Swing bands and filled an important gap in the musical history of radio, gearing itself towards African A…
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Trump Fuels RACIST Attacks on Haitian Families With Dangerous, Vicious LIES! Singer, John Legend Responds - Historian & National Political Commentator, Michael Imhotep on 'Roland Martin Unfiltered' 9-13-24 (WATCH VIDEO) 'Fear and frustration in Ohio city as political debate seizes on growing Haitian population' - CNN https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/12/…
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BW - EP155—008: New York And The 1944 Radio World—The Eternal Light & The Founding Of Temple Emanuel
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersIn October 1944, in conjunction with the Jewish Theological Seminary, NBC began one of the longest-running religious programs in radio history. It was called The Eternal Light. The dramatized stories from ancient Judaea, along with contemporary works like The Diary of Anne Frank. It w…
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BW - EP155—007: New York And The 1944 Radio World—Duffy's Tavern With Brooklynite Gene Tierney
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersThe woman you just heard is Gene Tierney. She was born on November 19th, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York. Raised in Connecticut, she excelled in poetry, took up student acting, and eventually spent two years attending school in Switzerland, where she learned to speak French. On a family tr…
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersJohn Herbert “Jackie” Gleason was born on February 26th, 1916, on Chauncey Street in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. The younger of two children, his brother Clement died from meningitis at fourteen in 1919.Six years later his father left the family. Gleason’s mother Mae got a job as a …
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Among the many brave acts of the Second Anglo-Afghan War (November 1878-September 1880), sixteen were awarded the Victoria Cross. Among this relatively small collection of awards, however, are several remarkable circumstances. The war saw the last Victoria Cross awarded to a civilian and the same award was the first to a clergyman (Reverend James A…
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Trump's EXTREME Anti-Blackness And Hate EXPOSED In New Ad: A Racist With Racist Policies - Historian & National Political Commentator Michael Imhotep on 'Roland Martin Unfiltered' 9-6-24 REGISTER & WATCH NOW this 12 Week Online Course! Class Starts Saturday, 11-9-24, 4pm EST, ‘Ancient Kemet (Egypt), The Moors & The Maafa: Understanding The Trans-At…
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersBroadcast over WMCA in New York, New World A’ Coming was based on the work of journalist Roi Ottley. Ottley was a journalist for The Amsterdam News from 1931 to 1937 before joining The New York City Writers' Project as an editor. In 1943 Ottley published New World A-Coming: Inside Bla…
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BW - EP155—004: New York And The 1944 Radio World—Orson Welles In New York: A Tapestry For Radio
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersThe man you just heard is Norman Corwin. The piece of his, which Orson Welles is narrating, that you’ve heard thus far throughout this episode of Breaking Walls, is “New York: A Tapestry For Radio.” The first broadcast of this piece originally aired on May 16th, 1944 as part of a City…
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersIt’s February 1944 and we’re in the U.S. Fleet Post Office at 80 Varick Street. 80 Varick Street is in the Hudson Square area of Manhattan just north of Canal Street and southeast of the Holland Tunnel to New Jersey. The street itself is named for Richard Varick, an early New York law…
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BW - EP155—002: New York And The 1944 Radio World—Bob Hope, Joan Leslie & Dennis Day In Central Park
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersOur first stop is January, 1944. We’re at Central Park. By 1944 Central Park, nearly one-hundred years old, was in the midst of renewal. Parks Commissioner Robert Moses had spent the past decade developing playgrounds, ballfields, handball courts, and other working class elements. In …
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BW - EP155—001: New York And The 1944 Radio World—Why I'm Here—Breaking Walls' 10th Anniversary
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https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersI’ve mentioned a few times before within Breaking Walls episodes that I try to be as unbiased as possible. I want Breaking Walls to be a true documentary, so I leave the op-eds for everyone else. But this is my tenth anniversary as a podcaster so I’ll share. I spent the first ten years of my life living in a h…
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At the turn of the nineteenth century, Italy, a newly unified upstart Great Power, was looking to expand its political and economic influence into neighboring North Africa. Just a few years earlier, France had taken effective control of the North African coast from Tunisia to Morocco, while Egypt was a British protectorate. Just two areas of North …
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BW - EP154—012: Stars On Suspense In 1944—Looking Ahead To The 10th Anniversary Of Breaking Walls
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Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakersThat brings our look at the early years of Suspense to a close. Suspense would remain a hollywood production until the waning days of radio drama in 1959 when Bill Robson was directing it and this happened.Ordinarily here’s where you’d get a sneak peek at next month’s episode of Break…
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