Episodes

EPISODE 10: OCCUPIED PHILADELPHIA. What was life like in the nation’s capital under British control? From September of 1777 to June of 1778, the British Army occupied the City of Philadelphia. During this time, the Congress...

EPISODE 9: THE VALLEY FORGE WINTER. July 1777 to June of 1778 was the pivotal year of the American Revolution. With the exception of the Battles of Saratoga, the most crucial events either happened in Pennsylvania (like the...

EPISODE 8: THE YORK CONGRESS. The Second Continental Congress – the one that declared independence from Great Britain in 1776 at the Philadelphia State House and served as representative government during the American Revol...

EPISODE 7: WILLIAM PENN, PART 2. This episode, the second of a two-part series on the life and legacy of William Penn, focuses on his founding of the English colony of Pennsylvania. Penn came to the project with some direc...

EPISODE 6: WILLIAM PENN, PART 1. The first of a two-part series on the life and legacy of William Penn, the founder of the English colony of Pennsylvania, this episode focuses on his family history and upbringing, his embra...

EPISODE 5: THE ERIE TRIANGLE. Why does Pennsylvania (and not New York) have that little wedge of land atop its Northwest corner? And why has it had such a consequential place in our state’s history, perhaps most notably in...

EPISODE 4: THE ALLEGHENY PORTAGE RAILROAD. The successful opening of the Erie Canal in New York State in 1825 gives the rest of the country a case of “canal fever,” and nowhere more so than in Pennsylvania. Desperate to ca...

EPISODE 3: WELCOME TO PITHOLE. What happens when the wickedest man in the world arrives in the wickedest place in the world? It’s February of 1866, and the oil boom of Northwestern Pennsylvania is in high gear.  Ben Hogan, welcome to Pithole, Pennsylvania. The discovery of oil and the birth o…

EPISODE 2: THE TITUSVILLE GUSHER, PART TWO -- IDA TARBELL. Part One ended in about 1880, with John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company crushing the independent oil producers of Northwest Pennsylvania, where oil was first discovered in 1859 and the industry was born. In Part Two, we learn h…

EPISODE 1: THE TITUSVILLE GUSHER, PART ONE. Titusville, Pennsylvania, was where the first oil well was drilled in 1859. Thus began a new industry, which birthed a new economic boom that created several oil boom towns. Some of them still exist today, like Titusville and Oil City, and some became …

TRAILER:  Mark Smith introduces his new podcast on the history of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  The first episode launched on Tuesday, January 6th, 2026, with new episodes posted every two weeks or so.