This Week on History Happy Hour: She led a gang of horse thieves. She participated in stickups and robberies across Texas and Oklahoma. She was romantically involved with two of the west’s most feared outlaws. Many considered this extraordinary woman the most dangerous female in the west.

In this encore episode, Chris and Rick will explore her fascinating story with Dane Hucklebridge, author of a new bio on Belle Starr, Queen of All Mayhem: The Blood-Soaked Life and Mysterious Death of Belle Starr, the Most Dangerous Woman in the West.

Dane Huckelbridge was born in the Midwest and went to Princeton. His fiction and essays have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, The New Republic and elsewhere. His debut novel Castle of Water was published in 2017, and his book No Beast so Fierce was published by HarperCollins in 2019. He currently lives in Paris, France, although he goes back to New York whenever he can.

This Week on History Happy Hour: One of America’s most critical needs in WWII was to build a merchant fleet that could carry soldiers and supplies to theaters around the globe. To build enough ships fast enough that U-Boats couldn’t sink them all. To lead its effort, the US turned to a man who had never built a ship – but he nevertheless created a network of shipyards that built thousands.

Chris and Rick will talk about this epic effort with Doug Most, author of Launching Liberty.

Doug Most is a veteran journalist in Massachusetts, the author of three books, and an Executive Editor and Assistant Vice President at Boston University. He spent 15 years as the magazine and features editor at The Boston Globe. His previous books include The Race Underground about the construction of the Boston and New York Subways, and the true crime story Always in Our Hearts.

This Week on History Happy Hour: Along with Guadalcanal in the Pacific, and Stalingrad in Russia, the Allies’ victory in North Africa was one of three Axis defeats that changed the course of the war in early 1943. The Africa campaign has sometimes been branded a side show, but it destroyed 40% of the Luftwaffe’s planes, ended Axis sea power in the Mediterranean and led to the surrender of 250 thousand Axis troops.

Chris and Rick dig into it with HHH Alum Saul David, author of Tunisgrad: Victory in Africa.

Saul David is a professor of military history at the University of Buckingham and the author of numerous history books. He was on History Happy Hour in 2020 to talk about his Okinawa book, Crucible of Hell, and came on again in 2022 to talk about Sky Warriors: British Airborne Forces in the Second World War. Other non-fiction titles include The Indian Mutiny, 1857, Operation Thunderbolt, and The Force: The Legendary Special Ops Unit and WWII’’s Mission Impossible. He has also written three bestselling historical novels, Zulu Hart, Hart of Empire and, The Prince and the Whitechapel Murders. He has appeared in numerous documentaries in the UK.