This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Saturday, August 22nd in Tampa, witnessing MMA Legends final fight. Chris Cyborg, one of the greatest in history. She's an absolute pioneer in the sport.
Defends her PFL world title. One last time. Unforgettable and got you, Margaret. To an unforgettable career. Saturday, August 22nd, live from Benchmark International Arena.
For tickets, visit pfl.info/slash tampa. Spending time outdoors, then let's talk about skin cancer. Non-melanoma skin cancers, or NMSCs, including basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, are the most common cancers in the U.S. and can become harder to treat if left undetected. That's why sun protection and timely detection matter.
Our sponsor, Regeneron, is raising awareness about advanced NMSCs. Learn more and take the pledge to see a dermatologist annually at let's get real about skincancer.com. My name is Jessa. One of the things I love the most about working for United Healthcare is that everybody matters. Every moment matters.
There's a person behind every problem. I care because it's what I was put on this earth to do. I'm Ben and I work at United Healthcare. I am just one piece of a larger puzzle, but every piece matters. It's more than just work.
We want to make the healthcare system better for everyone. I care because I want to make a difference. That's what committed to care means to me. Whether it's help with hormone therapy, weight management, or sexual health. Every woman should have access to affordable prescription medication and personalized care that understands the whole woman.
Join me, Dr. Doug Lucas, clinical lead of hormone optimization and longevity at LifeMD. along with other leading experts on the podcast. Here's something good on women's health and longevity. To learn more, go to lifeemd.com slash iHeart.
This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories. In the mid-1880s, Manifest Destiny was all the rage from Texas to California to Oregon and beyond. America truly became a nation stretching from sea to shining sea. In fact, James K. Polk added more land in his one term in office Than Thomas Jefferson did in his two, a staggering feat considering how monumental.
The Louisiana Purchase was. But it wasn't just the government getting in on expansionism. Here to share the story of William Walker, Nicaragua, and the filibusters is Mark Kowar, author of America But Bigger. Take it away, Mark. When the Spanish were in the Western Hemisphere, they wanted to spread Catholicism.
They wanted to spread Spanish civilization. That wasn't completely absent from American Manifest Destiny, but it was never the number one reason. Usually the motivation was much more practical, whether it was a strategic port, access to fishing waters, farmland, mining, or just places to spread out. In the 19th century, Americans saw the world as ripe for the taking, and bigger was better. If there was some valuable land somewhere, Yeah.
Someone was trying to take it, and the only things that were stopping them were geography or armed resistance. Part of it is the history of scarcity in Europe. You might be a peasant on your little tiny plot of land, and that was all you were ever going to have. And then you come, and there's the great plain stretching before you, and you're like a starving man at a feast. Expansionism was just in the air in mid-19th century America.
The country absorbed Texas, it won a war with Mexico and took the Southwest and California, it negotiated with Great Britain and took what is now the Pacific Northwest.
So the government was expanding rapidly. But It wasn't just government policy. These ideas of expansionism and more is better, they were present in all areas of society.
Sometimes when the government wasn't acting, private individuals called filibusters. They were going to take it themselves, whether it be Cuba, Mexico, or further afield. There was this spirit that you can just do things. It was an optimistic country, a young country. People had a lot of energy and entrepreneurial spirit.
Sometimes they channeled that into cultural achievements or business ventures or scientific achievements.
Some people channeled it into foreign conquest. But do you want me to talk about William Walker's invasion of Mexico? It is the type of character who, if they made a Hollywood movie about him, no one would want to see it because it sounds too fictional. He was a one-man empire builder. William Walker was born in Tennessee, and he was a bit of a child prodigy.
Graduated university at 14 and had careers in law, medicine, and journalism by his 20s. But his life took a turn when the woman he was in love with died of cholera, and he decided to reinvent himself. He took that entrepreneurial spirit of America at the time, and the business he was going to be in was foreign conquest.
So he moved to California, which had only recently become part of the United States and there was a gold rush still going on, feuded with local politicians, fought a duel, and gathered around him a group. of about 50 men and hatched a plot that they were going to carve out their own new country out of Mexican land. Yeah. There was no concept of the border as a hard line. The borders were mostly unguarded.
There wasn't the border patrol. People were crossing over all the time without visas, without official ports of entry. You would go into Mexico and do business. People owned farms or ranches on both sides of the border. And if you could sort of sneak past the harbor patrol, you could just sail to Mexico and launch an armed invasion.
So they got on a ship. They sailed down to the Baja California Peninsula, which at the time had a very small population. easily conquered a a town. Walker declared himself the ruler. And this was going to be a new American-led Republic of Lower California.
Now, quickly, Mexican resistance started to coalesce and drove him out of town. He marched north, founded a new capital closer to the U.S. border, was chased out of that as well, and his Republic of Lower California lasted less than a year. The whole expedition was a bit of a disaster. But rather than disheartening Walker, he decided to regroup, reorganize, and try again.
And his next target was going to be Nicaragua. Nicaragua had only recently become independent. It was part of a larger Central American state that had broken apart, and Nicaragua had been in almost constant civil war since then. It was becoming important, though, because it sat on the most popular route to California. This was before the Panama Canal.
The easiest way to get to California was to take a ship from the East Coast, dock in Nicaragua, transit the country over to the other side, get another ship, go up to California. And Americans controlled this transit. They were growing very wealthy, and some of that wealth was accumulating in Nicaragua as well.
So it was a tempting target for William Walker because It was wealthy, it was unstable, and it had a heavy American influence already.
So, Walker sails south to Nicaragua with about 50 men, who he calls the Immortals. They are in correspondence with one of the sides in the Nicaraguan Civil War. They land in Nicaragua. And suffer some early defeats. But then.
Walker almost stumbles upon his opponent's capital, which was undefended. His opponents are out fighting in other parts of the country, and so he goes in and he seizes Granada with very little fighting.
So his side in the Civil War has an established capital. And he manages to pull off the diplomatic coup of getting that government recognized by the US president.
Now he has a capital and legitimacy, and his Nicaraguan allies make him head of the army. And at this point, he quickly starts purging opponents.
So the neighboring countries in Central America are getting scared and they think This guy is going to attach Nicaragua to the United States, and we're going to be next.
So they start organizing against him, and William Walker decides to launch a preemptive strike, and he invades Costa Rica. He soundly defeated.
So then he flees back to Nicaragua, kind of holes up in his capital, and organizes, let's just say, a questionable vote in which he's elected president of Nicaragua. This is certainly not a free and fair vote of the entire country. He controls very little of the country. But now he's the president of Nicaragua. And that gets Americans very excited.
Pretty soon, Americans start flooding into Nicaragua. Thousands. What does President Walker do? Men I have found a solution to our problem. Slavery.
He reinstitutes slavery. He makes English the official language. And this gets him even more support. Americans are getting excited about the idea of adding Nicaragua as a slavery state. to give the South more power.
But Northerners hated this idea, and southerners at the federal level, their hearts were with the filibusters, but they found them an annoyance because they often got in the way of official government annexation attempts. You probably heard of the Gadsden Purchase, where the federal government sends a negotiator down to Mexico to organize a purchase of land. Federal officials believed that if filibusters hadn't been invading Mexico and kind of poisoning the well and creating so much ill will among Mexicans, Gadsden might have gotten more land. Adding Nicaragua as a state, Walker probably doesn't want to do that. He keeps his motives a little bit close.
But it seems that he really wanted to rule the country himself, not attach it somewhere else. And he had a larger vision of conquests across Central America and Mexico, and who knows how far he would have gone if he wasn't stopped. While he's gathering all of this outside support, He also starts making enemies. The other Central American countries, but then he makes a really. crucial decision that earns him a a very important enemy.
He seizes some ships from Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt is the wealthy American who had been controlling this transit across Nicaragua, making a lot of money. Walker takes some of his ships to help his war effort. Vanderbilt is not pleased. He starts bankrolling Walker's opponents.
And at this point, The writing is on the wall. Americans start fleeing, there's a cholera outbreak, his rule falls apart, and he surrenders to an American naval officer who whisks him back to the United States. He's going to face trial for violating neutrality laws, but he gets a hero's welcome. And Walker quickly starts organizing more invasions of Central America. He eventually goes back.
And he lands in Honduras. The idea was to march again to Nicaragua, but then he is captured by the British, who have a presence in Honduras. He surrendered to them, thinking that they would probably send him back to the US or treat him well. They hand him over to the Hondurans, who shoot him. He's dead at 36.
The story of William Walker, the forgotten American president of Nicaragua. Here. and our American stories. Saturday, August 22nd in Tampa. Witness an MMA Legends final fight.
Chris Cyborg, one of the greatest in history. She's an absolute pioneer in the sport. Defends her PFL world title. One last time. Unforgettable and got you.
To an unforgettable career. Saturday, August 22nd, live from Benchmark International Arena. For tickets, visit pfl.info/slash tampa. Spending time outdoors, then let's talk about skin cancer. Non-melanoma skin cancers, or NMSCs, including basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, are the most common cancers in the U.S.
and can become harder to treat if left undetected. That's why sun protection and timely detection matter. Our sponsor, Regeneron, is raising awareness about advanced NMSCs. Learn more and take the pledge to see a dermatologist annually at let's getreal about skincancer.com. Upgrade to elite checking from America's Christian Credit Union and earn up to 4% APY, plus everyday perks and access to your paycheck up to two days early with early pay.
Don't settle. Choose checking that rewards you and aligns with your values. Visit America's ChristianCU.com forward slash iHeart. Minimum balance of one cent required to earn advertised APY. Early pay not guaranteed.
APY equals annual percentage yield. Membership eligibility required. And CUA insured. ICU's Big Three season has come down to this. The Big Three Championship is coming to Charlotte, who will be crowned the Big Three Season 9 Champion.
Plus the Big Three All-Star Game, the biggest names in the game, all on one court one more time. Two games of the most physical, competitive, and non-stop three-on-three action. The game played the way you love. Watch live Saturday on CBS at 1 p.m. Eastern, 10 a.m.
Pacific, and catch replays Monday on PET. Presented by iHeart. Yeah.
