#130 – The China Lobby

#130 – The China Lobby

Americans were told that the invasion by North Korea was a total surprise. It was positioned as another Pearl Harbour. But this isn’t exactly true. They must have known it was coming and when it was coming. They just chose to ignore it. Why? Who stood to benefit from...
#129 – Who Started The War?

#129 – Who Started The War?

  In the South, despite claims of “freedom”, the US administration shut down the KPR, the ‘Korean People’s Republic’, a popular political party lead by Yo Un-hyung, and closed down the most prominent Seoul newspaper that was sympathetic to the KPR....
#128 – Kim Il Sung

#128 – Kim Il Sung

  Meanwhile in the North, the Soviets chose Kim Il Sung to be their hand-picked President. Unlike Rhee, who had spent most of the last 35 years of Japanese occupation chilling in Hawaii, Kim had spent his life fighting the Japanese occupation, first as a guerrilla,...
#127 – Syngman Rhee

#127 – Syngman Rhee

In the early hours of June 25, 1950, North Korean forces attacked across the 38th parallel that divided the country into a pro-Western regime in the south and a pro-Soviet regime in the north. It officially kicked off the first major conflict of the Cold War. The...
#126 – The Berlin Airlift

#126 – The Berlin Airlift

As part of their plan to re-build Germany, the USA secretly released a new currency, the Deutsche Mark, printed in New York, to replace the old Reichsmark. Frustrated at how the US, UK and France were re-building their zones of Germany without first reaching an...
#125 – The Berlin Blockade

#125 – The Berlin Blockade

The fault of the Berlin Blockade is often laid at the feet of Stalin. But the truth is a little more complicated. By 1948, the situation in Germany was still messy. The Four Powers (USA, USSR, UK, France) in control of Germany couldn’t agree on a path forwards....
#124 – Freedom Under God

#124 – Freedom Under God

In 1951, the American Congregational minister James Fifield and his team of geniuses came up with a brilliant idea. To mark the 175th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, they proposed to hold a massive series of events devoted to the theme...
#122 – Father Charles Coughlin

#122 – Father Charles Coughlin

Today we talk more about Christians who opposed the New Deal. In the 30s there was a guy called Father Charles Coughlin, a Canadian-American Roman Catholic priest based near Detroit. Commonly known as “the radio priest”, he was one of the first political leaders...