History professor Marcus Rediker teaches a course on Colonial America at the University of Pittsburgh. Today’s lecture focuses on the origins of the slave trade to the Americas between 1640 and the early 1800s.

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We visited George Washington’s Mount Vernon, where visitors find newly re-interpreted slave quarters and a more historically accurate and nuanced depiction of slave life in 18th century Virginia. We hear from Dennis Pogue, Vice President of Preservation, and curator Susan Schoelwer, who tell us what archaeological research reveals about the enslaved people who worked Washington’s plantation.

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This week we join Virginia Tech History Professor Beverly Bunch-Lyons as she teaches a university class on women and slavery, and how they resisted. Professor Bunch-Lyons and her students read first-hand accounts from former slave women about their experiences. Virginia Tech is in Blacksburg, Virginia.

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James Madison, the fourth President of the United States & often referred to as the "Father of the Constitution," owned about a hundred slaves at Montpelier, his 4600- acre estate in Orange County, Virginia.  American History TV traveled 90 miles south of the nation's capital to learn about an archaeological project investigating the enslaved communities of James Madison's Montpelier.

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President Clinton focused on economic globalization in this speech in front of Berlin's Brandenburg Gate on July 12, 1994.

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President Reagan called on Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" in this address at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin on June 12, 1987.

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Fifty years ago on June 26, 1963, President John F. Kennedy spoke in Berlin on the differences between free and Communist systems, famously stating that as a free man he took pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner.”

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This June marks the 50th Anniversary of two of President John F. Kennedy’s most memorable speeches. On June 10th 1963, JFK delivered the commencement address at American University known as his “Peace Speech.” He called for high-level negotiations with the Soviet Union, a nuclear test ban treaty and an end to the Cold War.  On June 26th 1963, President Kennedy took a harder line in West Berlin, famously stating that as a free man he took pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner.” This is a discussion from the Kennedy Presidential Library about the significance and lasting influence of these two addresses.

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The Battle of Gettysburg took place July 1-3, 1863, in Pennsylvania, as Union forces turned back an invasion of the North by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. The Union victory inspired President Abraham Lincoln to call for “a new birth of freedom” in his address a few months later dedicating the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg. C-SPAN's American History TV was LIVE on June 30 from Gettysburg National Military Park covering events commemorating the 150th anniversary of the battle, including remarks by scholars such as Harold Holzer, Allen Guelzo, and Doris Kearns Goodwin, as well as your calls and tweets for Civil War Institute Director Peter Carmichael and novelist Jeff Shaara.

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