Who owns the White House? Is it the American people or the person who lives inside of it — AKA, the president?

If the President of the United States of America controls the White House, does ANYONE have say over what he does with it (we're looking at you, preservation societies and Congress)?

Here to help us answer these questions (and weigh in on President Trump's renovations to the East Wing) is Robert Klara, author of The Hidden White House: Harry Truman and the Reconstruction of America’s Most Famous Residence

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Before he became president, Abraham Lincoln spent just one term in Congress. So how did "the best known two-time Senate loser in the country" become one of the greatest presidents in American history?

Bob calls up historian and author Chris DeRose (Congressman Lincoln: The Making of America’s Greatest President) to help answer this question.

Together, they explore how Lincoln's short stint on Capitol Hill shaped his presidency — from his early and consistent resistance to the expansion of slavery to his firsthand experience of seeing men kidnapped and sold into bondage.

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For centuries, the story has been told the same way: Montezuma surrendered to Hernán Cortés, and a small band of Spaniards conquered the Aztec Empire.

But that story has always seemed a bit ... fishy.

To get the TRUE story, Bob calls up historian Matthew Restall to debunk one of the most enduring myths of the Spanish conquest of the Americas. As it turns out, when you dig into Indigenous sources a whole new story begins to emerge. Shocker, Montezuma did not surrender and Cortés was not viewed as a God-like figure.

In this episode, we'll revisit the famous meeting between Montezuma and Cortés, unpack the legend that Europeans were mistaken for gods, and explore how Spanish self-promotion shaped the history books for hundreds of years.

If you’ve ever wondered how a few hundred conquistadors were said to defeat an empire of millions — or why we’ve been telling this story the same way for 500 years — this episode offers a long-overdue reset.

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