Eyewitness History

Eric Alper is a Canadian music correspondent, blogger, radio host and former director of media relations, at eOne Music Canada based in Toronto, Ontario. Since 2016, Alper has run a music public relations company, That Eric Alper, and is the host of @ThatEricAlper show on SiriusXM.From 1998 till 2016, Alper was the director of media relations for eOne Music Canada working with Bob Geldof, Natalie MacMaster, Matt Dusk, Randy Bachman, Ringo Starr, Slash, The Wiggles, Snoop Dogg, The Smashing Pumpkins, Ray Charles, Sinead O'Connor, and Sesame Street.He started his own PR company in 2016. He has appeared as a music correspondent on numerous Canadian television and radio networks including on CTV, CBC Radio 2 and SiriusXM. Alper has been named to Billboard and The National Post's Best on Twitter. He is a prolific and highly organized prompt tweeter on Twitter with a 2021 Billboard article reporting that he posts more than 50 prompts a day, every day.Visit his website at https://www.thatericalper.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mike Croissant is a retired CIA officer, historian, and author. Prior to his retirement from the CIA in 2021 after a nearly 22-year career, Mike served as a political analyst in the Directorate of Analysis and as a targeting officer in the Directorate of Operations. He served multiple tours of duty in the Middle East and South Asia, and his work in counterterrorism focused on every major foreign terrorist enterprise of the past two decades, including al-Qa’ida, ISIS, the Taliban, and their affiliates. In recognition of his efforts, Mike was awarded the CIA’s Career Commendation Medal upon retirement. He is also a published author of books and articles on security issues in the former Soviet Union, and a nonfiction book about World War II is forthcoming.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

War Isn’t the Natural State of Human Affairs: It Shouldn’t Happen, and Most of the Time It Doesn't."War is assumed to be one of the chief features of human history. Plenty of ancient and modern writers back up this perspective (Plato said that only the dead have seen the end of war; John Steinbeck said all war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal, suggesting it was hard-wired into our brutish nature). But what if the conventional wisdom is wrong? What if war isn’t the status quo? This is the argument made by today’s guest, who says prolonged violence between groups isn’t normal. Wars shouldn’t happen, and most of the time they don’t. Rank and Blattman discuss why Russia invaded Ukraine; why it took so long for the US to leave Afghanistan; why he thinks it’s unlikely the US will have a civil war; and what to do about the spiking gang violence in big American cities. But what he really focuses on is peace -- what of remedies that shift incentives away from violence and get parties back to dealmaking? He walks us through the places where compromises and tradeoffs have worked, highlighting successful negotiation techniques or exploring often the much-maligned peacekeeping armies actually succeed, even using cognitive behavior therapy on drug lords, with surprising results.Check out Scott's podcast at https://www.parthenonpodcast.com/history-unplugged-podcast/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Frank DeAngelis was a staff member at Columbine High School in the Jeffco School District in Littleton Colorado, since 1979, starting as a Social Studies teacher and filling the roles of Head Baseball Coach, Assistant Football Coach, Dean of Students, and Assistant Principal, before becoming the Principal in 1996. Frank is a Colorado native, completing his K-12 education in Denver-area schools, proceeding to graduate from Metropolitan State College and subsequently from the University of Colorado with a Masters's Degree in Secondary Education and Social Studies, his Principal’s License, and a Masters's Degree from the University of Phoenix. Frank has been involved in numerous professional activities and associations, and has received multiple awards for his teaching, leadership and coaching skills. He has also been called upon to speak about recovery after a school tragedy at a variety of conferences and has assisted as a consultant after a number of other violent school events. He was selected as Colorado High School Principal of the Year and was one of the three finalists for National Principal of the Year. He received the Jefferson Country Lifetime Achievement Award and the Gandhi, King, Ikeda Community Builders Award. He retired in June of 2014 after 35 years at Columbine High School. He is presently serving as a consultant for safety and emergency management for the Jeffco School District in Colorado and continues to deliver speeches in the United States, Canada, and Europe.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jordan Harbinger, once referred to as “The Larry King of podcasting,” is a Wall Street lawyer turned interview talk-show host, and a communications and social dynamics expert. He has hosted a Top 50 iTunes podcast for over 14 years and receives over eleven million downloads per month, making The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the most popular podcasts in the world. On The Jordan Harbinger Show, he deconstructs the playbooks of the most successful people on earth and shares their strategies, perspectives, and practical insights with the rest of us. He ran a tour company that took westerners to North Korea via China and has spent significant time in the country. Tours were supervised from beginning to end by North Korean minders and tour guides.Here, we discuss, in detail, his North Korea experience.To find out more about Jordan, please visit the following links: jordanharbinger.com Starter page for the podcast if anyone's interested in checking it out: jordanharbinger.com/startFree 6 Minute Networking course: jordanharbinger.com/courseSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this second interview, we discuss what it was like being liberated by the Red Army in 1945, as well as how the Holocaust has affected his faith, and what it was like being reunited with his family. It was quite a pleasure. Once again, more of an honor than anything else. And I hope you find it fascinating. I know I did.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the spring of 1944, a teenage Gene Klein and his family were taken from their village in Hungary and thrown into the infamous Nazi extermination camp known as Auschwitz.His father was taken straight to the gas chamber. Klein was forced into slave labor until liberated in the spring of 1945, and he spent two years as a refugee before his and other family members were allowed to immigrate to the United States.Now living in The Villages, Fla., Klein has been speaking out about the Holocaust for more than three decades. Writing for The World Post in July 2016 as a memorial to Elie Wiesel, Klein noted that he, unlike Wiesel, was silent for decades about the Holocaust.“Eventually, I decided that, like Wiesel, I needed to be public about being a survivor and that, in my own small way, I should contribute to the mission of educating the world about the Holocaust,” he wrote.“I will tell our story,” he continued, “and I will speak — especially in these times — about the tolerance and compassion necessary to prevent what happened to us from happening to others.”Klein has inspired audiences around the world with his powerful and touching presentation on the continuing relevance of the Holocaust and the necessity of fostering the capacity for empathy, instead of allowing hate to flourish.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode we hear from David Paventi.David Paventi was in a conference room on the 82nd floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower when the first plane struck the 93rd floor. “After that kind of thing happens to you, you focus on some things differently,” he told the Weekly in 2005. By then, he had opened Paventi's Pizza and was about to start a wealth management company with his former boss, who also survived the 9-11 tragedy. He reveals how the plane sounded when it hit, the conditions inside the stairwell as he was making his way to the lobby, and much more.If you have a story from history that you would like to share, I would love to hear it!Go to https://www.speakpipe.com/eyewitnesshistory and tell us your story!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Col Anderson is a WWII Triple Ace fighter pilot and a veteran military experimental test pilot.During WW II he served two combat tours in Europe in the P-51 Mustang, Nov 1943 through Jan 1945. He flew 116 combat missions (480 hrs) and destroyed over 16 enemy aircraft in aerial combat and another one on the ground. Bud was the highest scoring ace in the 363rd Fighter Squadron.Col Anderson was decorated 25 times. His awards include 2 Legion of Merits, 5 Distinguished Flying Crosses, the Bronze Star, 16 Air Medals, and the French Legion of Honor, among many others.The legendary flying ace, Chuck Yeager describes Anderson as ”...the best fighter pilot I’ve ever seen”. Bud turned 100 on January 13, 2022, and is the highest-scoring living US Fighter Ace and the only surviving US Triple Ace. To find out more about Bud, visit https://toflyandfight.com/.If you have a story from history that you would like to share, I would love to hear it!Go to https://www.speakpipe.com/eyewitnesshistory and tell us your story!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode we hear from Professor Hope Harrison, Professor Harrison was in the air on her way to Berlin when the Berlin Wall fell, and she spent 10 days thereafter in the city, absorbing the experience. She has since become professor at George Washington University, teaching history. And she's written a number of books, including After the Berlin Wall: Memory and the Making of the New Germany, 1989 to the Present. Here, she gives her experiences.Professor Harrison is the author of:The Berlin Wall: A World Divided (Audible/The Great Courses, 2021)After the Berlin Wall: Memory and the Making of the New Germany, 1989 to the Present (Cambridge, 2019)Driving the Soviets up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953-1961 (Princeton, 2004)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.