On this episode of Our American Stories Sarah Gonzalez was six years old when her father a former gang member and addict who became a jail chaplain suddenly died His death shattered the joyful childhood she had known and eventually led Sarah to reject the Christian faith in which she had been raised By her teenage and college years she was using drugs drinking heavily and practicing witchcraft Then during a trip to New York City in she reached a breaking point Sarah shares her deeply personal story of how she returned to the faith she had rejected and years [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories during World War II U S leaders feared German bombers could strike American soil To protect the nation's most important treasures the Constitution the Declaration of Independence the Gettysburg Address and the Magna Carta Britain's most important document which was on loan at the time were secretly moved to Fort Knox Steve Puleo author of American Treasures shares the remarkable story of how the documents that shaped freedom in both England and America were safeguarded during one of history's darkest hours We'd like to thank the U S National Archives for allowing us [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories on January Steve Jobs stepped onto the stage at Macworld and unveiled a device that would forever change the way we communicate To the audience it looked like a flawless presentation Behind the scenes however Apple engineers were bracing for disaster The iPhone prototype was so fragile that Jobs had to follow a carefully rehearsed sequence of demonstrations secretly switching between multiple devices to keep the presentation from crashing Our own Greg Hengler shares the remarkable story behind one of the greatest product launches in business history Support the show https www ouramericanstories [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories when Apollo astronauts drove across the Moon Craig Sumner had already spent years helping make that possible As a young engineer at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center he worked on the Lunar Roving Vehicle solving the kinds of problems that come with designing a car for a place where no one had ever driven before He later left NASA to become a military pilot then returned for Skylab and the Space Shuttle program eventually serving as deputy project manager for the Shuttle's External Tank Sumner shares his personal story of what it was [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories in the early s Harvard President Charles W Eliot made a remarkable claim with just minutes of reading a day a person could give himself the equivalent of a liberal education from a shelf of books only five feet long Publisher P F Collier challenged him to prove it Our American Stories regular contributor John Elfner and historian Robert Johnston tell how Eliot's idea became the Harvard Classics a -volume collection that brought Plato Shakespeare Saint Augustine and other great writers into hundreds of thousands of American homes at a time when few [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories on a summer walk through one of Antrim New Hampshire's old public cemeteries Bill Bryk begins reading the stones A Revolutionary War militiaman rests near a Civil War cavalryman Veterans of two world wars lie beneath familiar family names Some markers tell long stories Others offer only a few words including one man's simple epitaph an honest man Bill who helps care for Antrim's four public cemeteries reflects on the lives gathered there and the small ways a town continues to remember them A name cut into stone a flag placed beside a [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories in February American soldiers met the German Army at Kasserine Pass in North Africa and discovered just how unprepared they were for the war ahead Units became separated communications failed intelligence broke down and inexperienced commanders struggled to respond as German forces tore through American positions The defeat was humiliating costly and impossible to ignore The late historian Stephen Ambrose shares how the defeat at Kasserine forced Dwight D Eisenhower to make difficult changes as the Americans learned how to fight a very different kind of war Support the show https www ouramericanstories [... more]

On this episode of Our American Stories before he was Rodney Dangerfield he was Jacob Cohen then Jack Roy a struggling comedian who quit show business sold aluminum siding raised a family and spent years filling a duffel bag with jokes When he returned to the stage in his s a new name a black suit and red tie and one unforgettable complaint finally made him a star I don't get no respect Our American Stories producer Greg Hengler tells the life of Rodney Dangerfield from a lonely childhood and decades of rejection to Johnny Carson Caddyshack and Back to [... more]