Dave Does History

About Dave Does History

Dave Does History explores American history, military history, the Revolutionary War, the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, liberty, and the events that shaped the modern world. Historian and broadcaster Dave Bowman brings historical figures, battles, ideas, and turning points to life through engaging storytelling, analysis, and perspective.

Publisher

Dave Bowman

Category

history

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

1 Mar 2022

Latest episode

15 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

650 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   15 Sept 2026

   The Last Offramp

   On September 11, 1776, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge crossed to Staten Island under a flag of truce. They came seeking the limits of Britain’s peace offer and discovered there was no offer at all, only pardons in exchange for submission. The Staten Island Peace Conference failed to stop the war, but it clarified what the Revolution had become. Independence was no longer a bargaining position. It was the cause for which Americans would have to fight. Listen to the latest Dave Does History on Bill Mick Live. #DaveDoesHistory #AmericanRevolution #StatenIslandConference #JohnAdams #BenjaminFranklin #DeclarationOfIndependence #RevolutionaryWar

2. 

   8 Sept 2026

   The American Crises

   In September 1776, New York newspapers carried a mocking letter from a supposed eyewitness who claimed that George Washington and his “dirty pack of New England long faces” were losing the war. The author did not exist. The letter was British propaganda, part of an organized effort to ridicule the Continental Army, undermine public confidence, and convince Americans that resistance had become hopeless. The uncomfortable part was that the propaganda did not need to invent the defeats. Washington’s army had been driven from Long Island and New York City. Fort Washington would soon fall, taking nearly 3,000 American soldiers with it. Fort Lee would be abandoned so hastily that cooking pots and provisions remained beside the fires. Pursued by Cornwallis, the shrinking Continental Army fled across New Jersey until the Delaware River provided one last barrier between it and destruction. By December, independence no longer resembled the glorious promise proclaimed in Philadelphia five months earlier. It meant cold, hunger, disease, expiring enlistments, and the growing possibility that the entire enterprise might collapse. Congress fled Philadelphia. Loyalists became bolder. Neutrality suddenly appeared prudent. Washington had preserved his army, but he was rapidly running out of army to preserve. Then Thomas Paine, who had marched among these exhausted soldiers and witnessed the retreat himself, picked up his pen. “These are the times that try men’s souls,” he wrote. His words were aimed directly at the summer soldier and sunshine patriot who embraced liberty when it was exhilarating but abandoned it when sacrifice became real. In this episode of Dave Does History, we enter the darkest weeks of the Revolution, when survival required Washington to retreat and victory seemed almost unimaginable. Yet somewhere between Fort Washington and the frozen Delaware, the meaning of the struggle changed. If the Revolution was going to survive, Washington would have to stop running. Christmas night was coming.

3. 

   25 Aug 2026

   Camp Fortunate: When Lewis and Clark Changed the Method but Kept the Mission

   What happens when the map is wrong, the river runs out, and the plan that brought you across a continent can take you no farther? In August 1805, the Lewis and Clark Expedition reached the Continental Divide expecting to find a practical water route leading west toward the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean. Instead, the Corps of Discovery encountered mountain ranges stretching across the horizon, rivers too swift and rocky for navigation, dwindling food supplies, and the possibility that the expedition might have to turn back. Yet at this moment of uncertainty, an extraordinary reunion changed everything. Sacagawea had been kidnapped from her Shoshone people as a child and carried east by Hidatsa raiders. Now, returning to her homeland with Lewis and Clark, she discovered that the Shoshone chief with whom the captains desperately needed to negotiate was her brother, Cameahwait. Their emotional reunion helped establish the trust the expedition needed to obtain horses, guides, and assistance for the journey ahead. The encounter occurred at a place Lewis called Camp Fortunate. Today, the historic campsite lies beneath Clark Canyon Reservoir in southwestern Montana. In 1805, it became the setting for one of the expedition’s most consequential decisions. The Corps had arrived as river travelers. If the mission were to continue, the men would have to leave their boats behind and enter the mountains on horseback. That meant accepting that their maps and assumptions were wrong without concluding that the mission itself had failed. In this episode of Dave Does History, Dave Bowman joins Bill Mick to examine Sacagawea’s homecoming, the collapse of Lewis and Clark’s geographical expectations, Meriwether Lewis’s revealing reflections on his thirty-first birthday, and the leadership lesson hidden beneath the waters of Camp Fortunate. Sometimes perseverance does not mean following the original plan. Sometimes it means remembering the purpose, listening to those who know the terrain, and finding another way forward. #LewisAndClark #CampFortunate #Sacagawea #Cameahwait #CorpsOfDiscovery #AmericanHistory #MontanaHistory #DaveDoesHistory #BillMickLive

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 59 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

91

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

68