On this episode of Our American Stories Christine Handy had spent most of her life in front of a camera She began modeling at and eventually landed campaigns with Pepsi J Crew Petco and Target But as her career grew Christine's sense of worth became tied almost entirely to how she looked Then a routine wrist surgery went terribly wrong A missed infection left the bones in her wrist destroyed and her right arm permanently fused Before she could adjust to her new life Christine found a lump in her breast The diagnosis was an aggressive form of breast cancer [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories he helped fight for America's freedom then shaped the city that would represent it Pierre Charles L'Enfant designed Washington D C with intention circles lines and avenues that all meant something But what began as a grand commission ended in conflict L'Enfant's refusal to give up control led to his removal The plan moved on without him and for years so did history Constituting America's award-winning student historian Wyatt Hensley shares the story of a designer with a vision too strong for his time and how it still lives on in the streets [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories Andrew Thompson returns with more from his guide to the baffling mini-mysteries of the English language this time diving into how phrases like gung-ho and cheesy smile came to be His book Hair of the Dog to Paint the Town Red The Wonderful Origins of Everyday Expressions and Fun Phrases is full of these fascinating stories Be sure to check it out Support the show https www ouramericanstories com donate Support the show https www ouramericanstories com donateSee omnystudio com listener for privacy information [... more]

Reverse mortgages have carried a negative reputation for years especially among Christians who are cautious about debt But as with any financial tool faithful stewardship calls us to understand how it works before deciding whether it belongs in a financial plan Harlan Accola leads the reverse mortgage team at Movement Mortgage a FaithFi underwriter He joined the show today to explain why reverse mortgages remain controversial how today's Home Equity Conversion Mortgage HECM differs from older products and when it might play a useful role in retirement planning Why Are Christians Hesitant About Reverse Mortgages For many believers the hesitation [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories Art Rooney Sr the founding owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers believed that the measure of a man was often found in the quiet things he chose to do Jim O'Brien who came to see Rooney as the grandfather he had been missing remembers one moment that revealed exactly who Rooney was Rooney attended the funeral of a man he hardly knew because he believed showing respect in times of loss mattered more than anything else O'Brien joins us to share how that simple act left a lasting impression on his life Support the [... more]

Tim Goeglein inspires parents to help their children gain appreciation for the history and civics in this great country that have made us the envy of the world Receive a copy of the What Really Matters bundle and an audio download of Teaching Our Children What Makes America Great for your donation of any amount Plus receive member-exclusive benefits when you make a recurring gift today Your monthly support helps families thrive Get more episode resources Do you have a story or comment on how Focus on the Family impacted you or your family Leave a message for Jim Daly [... more]

In this episode of Truth Talk Live host Stu Epperson Jr sits down with Pastor Rob Pacienza of Coral Ridge Ministries for a wide-ranging conversation about faith culture politics and the Christian response to today's most controversial issues They discuss whether the Church should engage cultural and political questions how Christians can apply Scripture to public life and why Pastor Rob believes issues such as socialism Marxism gender ideology and Islam should be understood through a worldview rooted in biblical truth The conversation also explores religious liberty the role of Christianity in American society the importance of engaging culture without [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories when Andrew Jackson arrived in Washington for his inauguration in thousands of Americans came with him He was unlike the presidents who had come before an orphan from the frontier who had risen from humble beginnings to become a general and the self-proclaimed champion of the common man To his supporters his election represented a changing of the guard in American politics Then Jackson opened the White House to the people The crowd poured inside climbed onto furniture for a glimpse of the new president broke china spilled refreshments and packed the rooms [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories Dawn Newland watched helplessly as her husband took his own life Army veteran William Lambert came home from three deployments carrying the guilt of surviving when men from his unit did not Both were living with PTSD and both reached points where moving forward seemed almost impossible Dawn found an unexpected refuge in wild mustangs Caring for them quieted her mind and slowly helped her reclaim her life Then she realized the horses might be able to help others too That's how William met Dawn and eventually a horse named Faith Dawn and [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories in Bill Ruger and Alexander Sturm started a firearms company with a investment and a new -caliber pistol Within months orders were coming in faster than their small operation could fill them Then just as the company was taking off Sturm died unexpectedly at only years old Ruger pressed ahead He expanded into revolvers and rifles took the company public survived a costly attempt at building automobiles and even weathered a controversy that angered some of his most loyal customers Firearms historian Logan Metesh shares how a handful of men working out of [... more]

Jesus ends the Sermon on the Mount with a familiar picture two men building two houses One builds on rock The other builds on sand When the storms come only one house remains standing The difference isn't the weather Both houses face the storm The difference is the foundation That picture from Matthew offers a helpful way to think about our financial lives Job losses medical expenses market declines and unexpected bills eventually test every household The question is whether our financial lives are built on something strong enough to withstand them John Cortines a Family Office Advisor with Blue [... more]

Justice Everyone wants it Everyone defines it differently But what if our view of justice is shaped more by our emotions than by God's truth In this thought-provoking episode of Masculine Journey After Hours the guys continue their conversation on the tension between man's desire for justice and God's perfect justice Through personal stories biblical insight and memorable movie scenes they wrestle with questions that every believer eventually faces The clips are from Band of Brothers To Kill a Mockingbird and The Pledge of Allegiance Explained by Red Skelton When should we trust God instead of taking matters into our [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories Benjamin Rush signed the Declaration of Independence but politics was only one part of his extraordinary life A physician by profession and reformer by temperament Rush treated Philadelphia's poor when other doctors wouldn't demanded humane treatment for the mentally ill fought slavery championed public education and followed George Washington's army into battle to care for wounded soldiers His work would help lay the foundations for American psychiatry military medicine and even veterinary care Harlow Giles Unger author of Dr Benjamin Rush The Founding Father Who Healed a Wounded Nation shares the remarkable story [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories Sage Hellstern was the fastest runner on his middle school cross-country team In his final meet that year he finished th out of runners with everyone ahead of him a year older Then doctors found a tumor in the back of his brain After surgery a year and a half of radiation and chemotherapy and months of physical therapy Sage returned to the track Cancer had taken much of his strength and the kid who once raced near the front now finished last But Sage kept lacing up his shoes His stepfather Roger [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories when All in the Family premiered in even its stars didn't think it would last The show was abrasive political and unlike nearly anything Americans had seen on television CBS was so nervous about offending viewers that it opened the first six episodes with a warning Then America discovered Archie Bunker Soon Norman Lear's unlikely sitcom was watched by nearly one-third of the country But beneath the shouting and dysfunction were characters audiences recognized and loved Our own Greg Hengler shares how All in the Family went from a television gamble to the [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories for five years the Borderline Bar Grill in Thousand Oaks California had been one of Tyler Spady's favorite places to hang out But on November as he stood on the dance floor thinking life couldn't get much better he heard the gunshots that would change his life forever Spady escaped through a packed kitchen as bullets struck the walls around him eventually finding refuge with strangers in a nearby neighborhood But surviving was only the beginning In the days and months that followed he learned which friends had died and struggled to make [... more]

ESG investing promises to align your portfolio with your values But an important question remains Whose values are shaping the standards Environmental social and governance ratings are often presented as measures of corporate responsibility Yet the assumptions behind those ratings may not always align with biblical convictions Nick Schmitz Professor of Finance at The Catholic University of America and a Board Member of the Christian Investing Council CIC joined the show today to explain the differences between ESG and faith-based investing and why Christians should pay attention not only to what they own but also to how their shares are [... more]

Lindsay Clancy is charged with three counts of first degree murder She accused of killing her own children five-year-old Cora three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan The Massachusetts nurse sent her husband out of the house to run errands while she strangled the children with exercise bands Her attorneys claim she was suffering from bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis They say she should not be held criminally responsible for killing her kids Some woke white women agree and they've been protesting outside the courthouse in Plymouth They believe that Mrs Clancy is the victim not her three dead children Hundreds of [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories on Easter Sunday -year-old Air Force navigator Gene Hambleton was shot out of the sky over Vietnam He landed wounded and alone in the middle of the North Vietnamese Army's massive Easter Offensive surrounded by tens of thousands of enemy troops Worse Hambleton possessed some of America's most sensitive knowledge of missiles electronic warfare and nuclear targeting The order was clear bring him home What followed became the largest and most complex search-and-rescue operation of the Vietnam War This is the extraordinary story of Bat Bravo and the astonishing price Americans were willing [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories Richard Muniz never imagined himself as a cop He had a degree in astrophysics and considered himself an intellectual not the kind of guy who wrestled criminals or rushed toward danger But when he needed a job law enforcement unexpectedly became his career Then two days after Christmas Muniz was called to a horrific wreck outside Antonito Colorado A semi had crushed a car carrying four young people and Muniz suddenly found himself covered in blood and desperately performing CPR on a dying man The experience nearly convinced him to leave law enforcement [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories in November Great Lakes captains were racing to make their final runs before winter shut down the shipping season Coal iron ore and grain still had to move and the promise of bonuses gave crews another reason to push their luck Then the weather turned For days hurricane-force winds blinding snow ice and waves reaching feet battered ships across the Great Lakes Some captains made desperate runs for shore Others disappeared without a trace By the time the storm passed ships had gone down with all hands and more than sailors were dead [... more]

Risk is unavoidable in investing and in life But not all risks deserve equal attention It is easy to focus primarily on the probability that something will happen If an investment career move or financial strategy has a high likelihood of succeeding we may assume it is a good decision But Mark Biller Executive Editor at Sound Mind Investing suggests another question may be even more important If things go wrong how wrong could they go That shift from focusing on probabilities to considering consequences can help us make wiser financial decisions and protect ourselves from risks that could permanently [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories as a teenager walking to school in Manhattan Theodore Schwartz stopped to help a stranger whose car was trapped in the snow The feeling he got from helping someone who could offer him nothing in return stayed with him He decided he wanted to spend his life doing exactly that He eventually became one of America's leading neurosurgeons operating on thousands of brain tumors and making decisions where a fraction of an inch can separate a cure from catastrophe Dr Theodore Schwartz author of Gray Matters A Biography of Brain Surgery takes us [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories Wendy Steele kept meeting women who wanted to help their communities but believed they didn't have enough time money or experience to make a difference Then the Cincinnati banker had an idea What if women each gave pooled the money and together chose a local nonprofit to receive one transformational grant women took a chance on her idea Their first grant helped rebuild a struggling dental clinic in one of Cincinnati's poorest neighborhoods and the results went far beyond anything Steele expected Soon women across the country were calling to ask how they [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories by explorers had spent decades risking their lives trying to conquer the world's most hostile places Now two of the greatest were racing toward the North Pole in radically different machines American naval aviator Richard Byrd bet on the speed of a Fokker trimotor airplane Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen put his faith in the Norge a massive hydrogen-filled airship Who would win Our regular contributor The History Guy shares the story of the dangerous race that tested two explorers two technologies and the future of flight Support the show https www ouramericanstories com [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories they were Americans by birth but treated as outsiders when the war began After Pearl Harbor many Japanese Americans were sent to camps under suspicion of aiding the enemy Yet from those same camps came volunteers who joined the U S Army determined to prove their loyalty Known as the Nisei these second-generation Japanese Americans fought in Europe's bloodiest battles and helped redefine what it meant to be American Major General James Mukoyama the first Asian American to command a U S Army division shares the story of these remarkable men in his [... more]

Long-term care isn't just a health issue It can become a major financial and family decision Most of us hope we'll never need extended care but wise stewardship means preparing for possibilities before they become a crisis And while long-term care insurance may be part of that preparation the first step isn't necessarily buying a policy It's having a plan Nathan Sanow President of LTC Consumer and MasterCare LLC has spent more than two decades helping individuals and families navigate long-term care planning He says the most important place to begin is understanding what would happen if you or someone [... more]

Trump signals the end of Iran talks as the U S takes full control of the Strait of Hormuz Economist and Historian Phil Magness joins us economist and historian to argue how the rising post-liberal movement on the right is recycling failed big-government ideas using tariffs economic intervention and weakening the dollar's reserve-currency status in ways that could hurt American consumers and the broader economy Thank you for supporting our sponsors that make The Dana Show possible Trees comhttps Trees comGet an additional off Better Plants and Better Growing at Trees com Alliance Defending Freedomhttps JoinADF com DanaAlliance Defending Freedom [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories as a boy Bob McClellan walked through Golden Gate National Cemetery on his way into town Years later he returned as a father bringing his own children to place flags beside the graves on Memorial Day and visit the resting place of their grandfather a Marine who fought at Guadalcanal But their walks through the cemetery became about much more than remembering one man From an -year-old Marine killed in Vietnam to Medal of Honor recipients the Black sailors lost in the Port Chicago disaster and Japanese Americans who fought for a country [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories in William Boeing watched an airplane fly for the first time and became fascinated by a machine many Americans still regarded as little more than an expensive toy The wealthy timberman learned to fly built his own seaplane and became convinced that aviation was going to change the world When World War I ended and the young aircraft industry nearly collapsed Boeing put hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money into keeping his company alive This is the story of the man who saw the future in the airplane and built [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories before the Civil War thousands of Southern men joined a secret society complete with castles passwords elaborate oaths medieval costumes and dreams of conquest They called themselves the Knights of the Golden Circle and beneath all the pageantry was a serious ambition expand slavery by building a vast new empire across Mexico Central America and the Caribbean Mark Kawar author of America but Bigger and David C Keehn author of Knights of the Golden Circle Secret Empire Southern Secession Civil War share the strange story of the organization that ultimately discovered that dreaming [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories Kenny Rogers grew up poor in a Houston housing project one of eight children in a family that had little money but plenty of music faith and humor He wanted something more and relentlessly chased a career in music even when that ambition came at a cost in his personal life By the time Rogers turned to country music he was nearly and had already bounced through jazz folk rock and pop Nashville told him he was too old too pop and looked all wrong for country Rogers proved them wrong With songs [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories before he was a billionaire businessman and America's Cup champion Bill Koch was a student-athlete at MIT learning lessons that would shape his leadership Told he wasn't smart or skilled enough he worked relentlessly and discovered the power of teamwork accountability and focus Koch shares how a coach one play and a group of nerds taught him that winning comes when everyone knows their role and works together Support the show https www ouramericanstories com donate Support the show https www ouramericanstories com donateSee omnystudio com listener for privacy information [... more]

Stewardship isn't a one-time decision It's an ongoing way of life a cycle that begins with gratitude moves through faithful growth and leads to generosity Tim Tassopoulos Former President and Chief Operating Officer of Chick-fil-A has seen that cycle at work throughout his life and career During his decades with the company he helped shape a culture known not only for operational excellence but also for servant leadership hospitality and investing in people For Tassopoulos faithful stewardship starts with a foundational truth God owns it all That includes our finances but it extends much further Our abilities relationships opportunities time [... more]

Stephen Ambrose recounts the pivotal events of 1941, including the Japanese invasion of China, the Battle of the Atlantic, and the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, which drew the United States into World War II. He also explores the complexities of Franklin Roosevelt's leadership and the country's unpreparedness for war. [... more]

In the mid-19th century, the idea of Manifest Destiny drove Americans to expand their territory, leading to the rise of filibusters like William Walker, who attempted to conquer Nicaragua and create a new American-led republic. Walker's story is one of ambition, power struggles, and the complexities of American expansionism in Central America. [... more]

Adolph Koors, a German immigrant, came to America and built a successful brewery in Colorado, which became the Koors Brewing Company. He faced challenges, including a flood that destroyed his brewery, but persevered and grew the business. Today, the company remains a family-owned business, with a rich history and legacy. [... more]

The American chestnut tree was once a staple of American life, providing food, income, and wildlife habitat. However, the introduction of the Chinese chestnut led to the devastating chestnut blight, which wiped out nearly the entire species. Despite this, volunteers with the American Chestnut Foundation have been working tirelessly to breed a resistant tree, using innovative techniques like Recurrent Genomic Selection. Their efforts aim to restore the chestnut tree to its former glory and preserve the unique ecosystem it supported. [... more]

The COVID pandemic highlighted the need for Christians to exercise critical thinking and discernment in the face of deception and lies. Christians must be prepared to question authority and challenge false narratives, even when they come from trusted sources. The Bible teaches that Christians are to be ready to defend their faith and to seek answers, rather than simply asking questions. In the context of the COVID pandemic, Christians were faced with conflicting information and conflicting narratives, and they must be equipped to navigate these complexities and to make informed decisions. The Bible teaches that Christians are to be discerning and to test all things, and that they are to be guided by the truth of Scripture. [... more]

The rise of socialism in the Democratic Party is causing concern among Republicans, who argue that it's a threat to American values and economic stability. Senator Rick Scott discusses the issue and proposes a solution, emphasizing the need for a meritocracy and equal opportunities for all. [... more]