From Pericles and Cicero to Churchill and Roosevelt, David Zarefsky, a specialist in the oratorical dimension of historical process, examines the nature of the art. We listen to and analyze sections of speeches as recorded or – for the older great figures – as read by us from the available annals. This program was done on the eve of the mid-term elections of 2006.

The First Division was one of the two that landed at Omaha Beach on D-Day. Here, from the 60th anniversary in June, 2004, is an information-rich discussion of the action that began the western invasion of Germany. Col. John Votaw held a high command in the postwar First Division and Flint Whitelock had just authored “The Untold Story of the Big Red One on D-Day.”

n 2005 the “father” of modern sociobiology, E.O. Wilson of Harvard, joins with Robert Richards, historian of Biological Science at the University of Chicago, in a masterly overview of Darwin’s four great books and of the current status of evolutionary theory and research.

In a conversation from 2005 we talk with “presidential historian” Michael Beschloss about the struggle, in Roosevelt’s last year, over what future should be planned for, or imposed on, Germany. Some historical sound clips heighten the narrative and the discussion raises the counter-factual question: What would have happened if the “Morgenthau Plan” to reduce Germany to an “agricultural nation” had been implemented?

It began with military needs and opportunities and it has gone on to change the very texture of our lives. Just think: “Smart Phone!” How everything on earth came to be viewable from space (whether your vehicle’s position or a moving ISIS squad about to be “droned”) is due to the pervasive new technology, still expanding, of Global Positioning Systems. We speak with Richard Easton, author of a fine new book, GPS Declassified, about the history of GPS technology. He is also the son of the man, Roger Easton, who gets the deserved lion’s share  of the credit for inventing GPS.