This Week on History Happy Hour: Eighty years ago, Japan surrendered to the Allies after three of the most devastating bombing attacks of the war – two nuclear weapons and the fire-bombing of Tokyo. What was the decision-making process in this endgame of World War II? Was it just the atomic bomb that brought about Japan’s surrender?

This week, Chris and Rick will chat with HHH Alum, Richard Overy, author of Rain of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima and the Surrender of Japan.

Richard Overy is Professor of History at the University of Exeter, one of Britain's most distinguished historians and an internationally renowned scholar of World War II. (He’s also a History Happy Hour Alum!) He is the recipient of the Hessell-Tiltman Prize, the Wolfson History Prize, the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize and is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Historical Society. His many works include The Bombing War, Dictators and The Morbid Age.

This Week on History Happy Hour: A trip back to the last 12 months of the Civil War, going behind the scenes in the White House, along the battlefronts in Virginia, and into the conspiracies of spies and secret agents.

Our tour guide is Scott Ellsworth, author of Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America by Scott Ellsworth.

Scott Ellsworth is the New York Times bestselling author of The Secret Game, winner of the 2016 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing. He has written about American history for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Formerly a historian at the Smithsonian Institution, he is also the author of The World Beneath Their Feet and Death in a Promised Land, his groundbreaking account of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. Scott lives in Ann Arbor, where he teaches at the University of Michigan.

This Week on History Happy Hour: Our guest had technical problems, so Chris and Rick engaged in an hour of History happy Talk, answering questions, chatting about tours, aqueezing in the Ghost Army wherever possible! We will be rescheduling our guest, Tim Brady, author of "A Light in the Northern Sky" for some day in the future!

Sunday at 4PM ET, on History Happy Hour, where history is always on tap.

This Week on History Happy Hour: The 381st Bomb Group went into action over the skies of Europe in June 1943, and flew 297 missions before the end of the war. Based out of Ridgewell, UK, their story is the story of the 8th Air Force and the daylight bombing of Europe – hours of frozen monotony, moments of sheer terror over target, horrifying casualties, and ultimate victory.

Chris and Rick will dig into their story with Paul Bingley, co-author of the book “Bomb Group: The Eighth Air Force's 381st and The Allied Air Offensive Over Europe.”

Paul Bingley has worked in aviation for the past 30 years. He most recently helped market the world’s heaviest aircraft, the Antonov AN-225 'Mriya'. He is the current chairman of the Ridgewell Airfield Commemorative Museum in Essex and regularly delivers talks on the history of Ridgewell, and its long-term tenants, the 381st Bomb Group.

This Week on History Happy Hour: A detailed look at the city of Naples during and after its liberation by the Allies in World War II. Keith Lowe is our guest this week and has written about this in his new book Naples 1944: The Devil's Paradise at War.

His book explores the corruption, and social breakdown that followed the liberation, highlighting the stark contrasts between the wealthy Allied soldiers and the starving, impoverished population. For a packet of cigarettes, even the lowest ranks could buy themselves a watch, a new suit or a woman for the night. It's a story of a city on the brink, revealing the darker aspects of postwar Italy and the unexpected consequences of war.

Keith Lowe is an award-winning author of many books including of Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II, and the critically acclaimed history Inferno: The Fiery Devastation of Hamburg, 1943. His 2017 book about the long-term, global, psychological effects of the Second World War, The Fear and the Freedom, was described by the Wall Street Journal as “one of the best, most useful books on World War II to have emerged in the past decade.” He came on History Happy Hour in 2021to discuss his book Prisoners of War: What Monuments to the Second World War Tell Us About Our History and Ourselves, and returned in 2022 to take part in a panel discussion on the war in Ukraine. Widely recognized as an authority on the Second World War, he regularly speaks on TV and radio, and has lectured at universities, conferences and literary festivals all over the world. He lives in North London with his wife and two kids.

This Week on History Happy Hour: As we approach the 80th anniversary of the atomic bomb, HHH alum Garrett Graff has come out with a new oral history of the development of the bomb: The Devil Reached Toward the Sky.

Chris and Rick will explore with him the breakthroughs and the breakneck pace of atomic development in the years leading up to 1945, what it was like inside the bombers carrying Little Boy and Fat Man and finally to ground zero at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Garrett M. Graff is a journalist, historian, producer, and speaker. He taught at Georgetown University for seven years, including courses on journalism and technology, and his writing and commentary has appeared in publications like the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, New York, Bloomberg. He appeared on History Happy Hour to talk about his D-Day Oral History, When the Sea came Alive. His book Watergate: A New History was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He is also the author of The Only Plane in the Sky, an oral history of 9/11. He lives in Montpelier, Vermont.

This Week on History Happy Hour: National History Day! Since 1974, National History Day has been inspiring students to study history, whether public, private, parochial, charter, or homeschool. Today, the nonprofit organization reaches over 500,000 students every year who conduct historical research to discover the past, understand the present, and be the future.

For more than 50 years, high school and middle school students across the country have created historical research projects to compete in a nationwide contest. This year half a million students took part. But National History Day lost all its federal funding this year. Will it be able to continue?

Today Chris and Rick interview some of the students who won this year, and talk with NHD Executive Director Cathy Gorn about the future of this important institution.

Dr. Cathy Gorn joined National History Day in 1982, the same year she received her BA in English from Kent State. She also earned a PHD from Case Western Reserve in 1992. Her publications on teaching history to young people have appeared in several professional journals. In addition, Dr. Gorn contributed to and served as editor for more than 40 curriculum guides and projects for National History Day. She currently serves on the White House Historical Association Education Committee and the National Capital Radio & Television Museum Board of Trustees.

Student Guests: Winners from the 2025 NHD Contest

Theme: "Rights and Responsibilities in History"

Alekha Goldberg, Junior Individual Exhibit, First Place Affiliate: CaliforniaProject title: "Returning Blue Lake: The Confluence of Rights, Responsibilities and Social Justice" Corrado Naples, Yianni Gountis, Nathan Thomas; Junior Group Performance; Second Place Affiliate: Ohio Project title: Pieces of the Parthenon: How the Elgin Marbles Carved Controversy Between the Rights and Responsibilities of Cultural Artifacts Ke‘ilani Kajiyama Moses, Senior Individual Performance, First Place Affiliate: Hawai‘i Project title: Defending Rights, Embracing Responsibility: Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga’s Pursuit of Justice for Japanese Internees Lillian Tao, Senior Group Website; First Place Affiliate: Hawai‘i Project title: The Thalidomide Tragedy: The Importance of Manufacturing Responsibility, Consumer Safety, and the Birth of Modern Drug Regulation and Consumer Rights

This Week on History Happy Hour: From his first visit in 1941 to his last one eighteen years later, Churchill made himself at home in the White House, sometimes staying for weeks at a time. These extended stays at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue changed the course of history.

In this encore episode, Chris and Rick explore the story with Robert Schmuhl, author of Mr. Churchill in the White House: The Untold Story of a Prime Minister and Two Presidents.