This conversation with University of Virginia Miller Center historian Ken Hughes aired on C-SPAN's American History TV on Nov. 25. Hughes discusses his new research into President John F. Kennedy's role in the coup d'état and assassination of South Vietnam's president Ngo Dinh Diem in early Nov. 1963, just three weeks before JFK was assassinated in Dallas.  ..read more

Partisans and activists on either side of the Israel-Hamas war are lobbing allegations of genocide against the other. Some respected legal scholars and historians are also weighing in, however, in an effort to elevate a debate that can easily turn ugly. After all, there's no more serious crime than genocide, which is "the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such." The memory and history of the Holocaust also are being invoked, as Israel's critics accuse the Jewish state of committing the same crime the Nazis perpetrated against the J ..read more

What was Vladimir Putin doing hosting Hamas' representatives two weeks after the terrorist group massacred Israeli civilians? What are Russia’s interests in a region that was so important during the Cold War? Its interests may come down to Moscow's great power ambitions in a part of the globe where it has a long history and once exercised considerable influence. In this episode, historians Sergey Radchenko and Vladislav Zubok identify continuities between the Cold War and today concerning Russian influence in the Middle East as a terrible new Arab-Israeli war recalls the region's violent past ..read more

The wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East shattered illusions. Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, now in its twenty-first month, dispelled the notion that major land wars between European states were a thing of the past. Hamas' savage attack on Israel on Oct. 7, which was meant to provoke massive retaliation in the tiny Gaza strip, destroyed the idea that Israel’s strategy of deterrence could be sustained indefinitely. Moreover, both conflicts are offering hourly reminders that civilians pay the heaviest price when governments choose war instead of peace. In this epis ..read more

In a scene that seems as unimaginable today as it did then, U.S., Israeli, and Palestinian officials gathered on the White House lawn in September 1993 to announce a new way forward. The signing of the Oslo Accords was supposed to mark a break with a violent past, leading to security for Israel and autonomy, possibly statehood, for Palestinians. After seven years of difficult negotiations that witnessed breakthroughs and setbacks, often overshadowed by outbreaks of bloodshed in the Holy Land, the Oslo peace process failed. A generation later, as a new war rages in Israel, the two-state solutio ..read more

The Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7 that killed more than 1,400 Israelis drew comparisons to the al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001. For some, the comparison is meant to justify massive military retaliation for a righteous cause after a stunning surprise attack. For others, the parallels offer a warning about the limits of military power and revenge. In this episode, CNN national security analyst and international terrorism expert Peter Bergen, the author of "The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden," discusses the similarities and differences between America's global w ..read more

In late 1960 the Congo crisis was front-page news. Photographers and newsreels captured the humiliating arrest and imprisonment of the newly independent country's ousted prime minister, Patrice Lumumba. In January 1961, his domestic political enemies murdered Lumumba in a remote clearing. What the world did not know at the time was the role the Eisenhower administration had played in backing the coup d'etat to topple Congo's first democratically-elected leader while covertly supporting the army officer who would then rule Congo for more than three decades, Mobutu. Also secret in late summer 19 ..read more

Fifty Octobers ago, Arab oil producers agreed to an embargo against the United States and a handful of other countries, upending American politics and energy policy for years to come. The oil weapon was wielded to punish the U.S. for supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur War, which erupted on Oct. 6, 1973, and lasted for two and a half weeks. Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack in a bid to reclaim territory occupied by Israel since 1967. Today, with Israel at war again and the Palestinian problem still unresolved, would Saudi Arabia or any Arab state unsheath the oil weapon? In this episo ..read more

Presidents like to take credit when the economy is booming or deflect blame when things turn sour. Despite plenty of positive economic news, polls show that President Biden's economic agenda -- and his repeated invocation of Bidenomics -- still aren't catching on with the American public, however. In this episode, Northwestern University economist Robert Gordon explains why ordinary Americans relate to Bidenomics differently than the White House does. Moreover, when it comes to the president's larger aim of ameliorating income inequality, Gordon contends that formidable, long-term structu ..read more

Today's war between Israel and Hamas has its origins in the unresolved problems caused by the events of 1948. The year that witnessed the creation of an independent Jewish state in the former British mandate of Palestine, is known by Palestinians as the nakba, or catastrophe. Internecine violence intensified in 1947 as the U.N. weighed partitioning Palestine into two independent states, one Jewish and one Arab. Then five neighboring Arab countries invaded the new state of Israel immediately after David Ben-Gurion declared independence on May 14, 1948. In all, approximately 750,000 Arabs fled o ..read more