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Breaking History

Breaking History

By: The Free Press
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Sometimes the news moves so fast, you have to look closely to know if you’ve seen it before. And that’s what this show is about. Breaking History breaks down the news, by breaking down history. We cover everything from LBJ and the Roman Republic to Donald Trump and the chaos at Columbia. This twice a month show from The Free Press delivers the best historians, authors, and reporters by mining the archives of human experience to figure out the present. George Santayana wrote, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Tune in to Breaking History to resist the repetition. World
Episodes
  • Iran’s Favourite Washington Pundit

    Iran’s Favourite Washington Pundit
    Jun 12 2026
    Journalist Jay Solomon is back on the show this week to discuss his latest explosive investigation into Trita Parsi, the Iranian-born, Swedish-raised lobbyist who spent 20 years at the center of Washington’s foreign policy debate over Iran. Parsi built two influential organizations, cultivated powerful allies on both left and right, and consistently pushed a line on Iran that looked remarkably like the one coming out of Tehran’s foreign ministry. Now the Marco Rubio State Department is taking a serious look at his immigration status, and the organization Parsi co-founded, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, is mobilizing lawyers and foundation money to fight back. Jay and Eli trace the full arc of the story, from Iran’s post-9/11 influence operation to the leaked Iranian emails that blew the lid off the Iran Experts Initiative, which counted Parsi’s brother among its members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    48 mins
  • Who Owns the Declaration of Independence?

    Who Owns the Declaration of Independence?
    May 27 2026
    As America approaches the 250th anniversary of its founding, a quiet war is being waged over what the Declaration of Independence really means — with some on the new right dismissing it as globalist fantasy and some on the left reducing it to a document written by slaveholders. Writer and former national security official Michael Anton joins Eli Lake to examine the ideas of Harry Jaffa, a Brooklyn-born philosopher who spent his career insisting that the Declaration's truths are not relics of the 18th century but eternal facts about human nature. Jaffa's argument was unfashionable when he made it and it's contested now, but Anton thinks it's never been more urgent. Along the way, Michael and Eli take on the new right's growing rejection of the ideas that made the founding possible, the left's long abandonment of the Declaration, and how both sides have managed, in their own way, to get America's origin story completely wrong. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 18 mins
  • A New Series From The Free Press | The Lindbergh Conspiracies

    A New Series From The Free Press | The Lindbergh Conspiracies
    May 19 2026
    Hi Breaking History listeners! My colleague Joe Nocera has launched a six part series about the Lindbergh kidnapping. Enjoy episode one here and then head on over to The Lindbergh Conspiracies feed for the rest of the season. --- EP01 | The Broken Window One night in March 1932, the infant son of aviator Charles Lindbergh is taken from his nursery. A warped window, a ladder, and a ransom note mark the beginning of a case that will grip the world and launch a hundred conspiracy theories. Ninety-four years later, we return to the scene of the crime to ask: What really happened that night? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    43 mins
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