Tagged: American History

"Some folks look at me and see a certain swagger," the former President George W. Bush once remarked to an appreciative audience, "which, in Texas, is called 'walking.'" It's pretty clear to just about everyone that the State of Texas sees itself as a breed apart in many ways, and for many reasons; Texans, as a rule, seem to consider their home state an exceptional, singular, not-to-be-messed-with place.

How many cigarettes are sold each year, worldwide? Believe it or not, six trillion. Our guest, who calls the cigarette "the deadliest artifact in the history of human civilization," was the first-ever historian, several years ago, to testify in court against Big Tobacco. On this installment of our show, we speak by phone with Robert N. Proctor, Professor of the History of Science at Stanford University.

"1913 Massacre" is the name of a song that Woody Guthrie wrote circa 1941; it recounts an early-20th-century tragedy that happened at the Italian Hall building in Calumet, Michigan, on Christmas Eve of 1913, when hundreds of miners, along with their families and friends, had gathered for a party. At that time, Calumet was at the heart of Michigan's then-lucrative copper-mining activity.

Tomorrow, of course, is the Fourth of July, America's birthday. But, in the meantime, today (July 3rd) is the 149th anniversary of Pickett's Charge, the failed Confederate infantry assault on the final day of the Battle of Gettysburg: the unsuccessful attack (named for Maj. Gen. George Pickett) that's now basically seen as the beginning of the end of the Southern war effort.

On this installment of StudioTulsa, we're joined by Elizabeth Chambers, the collections manager for the Mount Vernon Estate, Museum, and Gardens, who's currently in town to help set-up a show opening at the Gilcrease Museum on Sunday the 24th. It's a traveling exhibit, "Discover the Real George Washington: New Views from Mount Vernon," that will be on view at Gilcrease through September 23rd. What do we know, for certain, about "the Father of Our Country"?

What do we mean when we call someone an "amateur"? What are we saying? As it happens, there are many answers to this question. On this edition of ST, we speak with Jack Hitt, a contributing editor to The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, and public radio’s This American Life.

On this edition of StudioTulsa, our guest is the Washington-based attorney Reid Chambers, who was formerly (during the Nixon and Ford administrations) Associate Solicitor for the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior. Chambers will be the moderator for a free-to-the-public forum entitled "Renunciation of Termination, Self-Determination, and the Trust Relationship," which is being jointly presented by the Gilcrease Museum, the University of Tulsa, the National Archives, and the Richard Nixon Foundation.