Richard Galant
Verified
Executive Producer, Now It’s History. Senior Fellow, New America. Priors: Founding editor, of @CNNOpinion and Managing Editor, Newsday & New York Newsday.
Articles by Richard Galant
Watching ‘The West Wing’ in the Trump era
This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please turn on JavaScript or unblock scripts
Watching ‘The West Wing’ in the Trump era
President Josiah Bartlet unburdens himself. (NBC/Warner Bros. Television) “I was wrong.” “I was.” “I was just — I was wrong. Come on, we know that. Lots of times we don’t know what right or wrong is, but lots of times, we do, and come on, this is one.” President Josiah Bartlet is sitting in the Oval Office, telling his closest confidante Leo McGarry why he agreed to a congressional censure for hiding the truth about his health.
The genius who nearly failed his exams
This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please turn on JavaScript or unblock scripts
The genius who nearly failed his exams
It’s the kind of question that keeps biographers up at night: Why did the author of one of the most influential economics papers of the 20th century almost fail his exams for a sociology degree at the London School of Economics? A.W. Phillips, the New Zealand-born scholar who wrote that journal article and graduated with a barely respectable “pass” grade, was considered a genius by his colleagues.
How America’s greatest inventor lost the war
This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please turn on JavaScript or unblock scripts
How America’s greatest inventor lost the war
Shortly after 6:40 a.m. on August 6, 1890, the warden of New York’s Auburn Prison looked at the bow-tied man strapped into a chair and said, “Good-bye, William.” Those words signaled prison staff to pull a lever. It sent about a thousand volts of electricity through the body of William Kemmler, who had murdered his girlfriend with an ax. After Kemmler was declared dead, Alfred Southwick spoke to several other witnesses in the death chamber.
Your mail-in ballot is safe for 2026 Original
On September 6, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer likened the Postal Service’s stringent new rule on voting by mail to the requirements for mailing cremated remains and replica explosives. The USPS, he argued in a brief to the Supreme Court, was just exercising its right to make “modest processing rules for mailable but sensitive materials.” Ashes from cremations have to be mailed in special boxes via Priority Mail Express and have to be trackable by barcode, Sauer noted.
‘We have something that has happened here’
“Pat, we are just currently getting a look at the World Trade Center,” said Tom Kaminski, WCBS 880’s traffic reporter at about 8:48 AM on September 11, 2001. “We have something that has happened here at the World Trade Center.We noticed flames and an awful lot of smoke from one of the towers…” Flying in Chopper 880 near the George Washington Bridge, Kaminski reported seeing a fireball three quarters of the way up the north tower.
‘We have something that has happened here’
“Pat, we are just currently getting a look at the World Trade Center,” said Tom Kaminski, WCBS 880’s traffic reporter at about 8:48 AM on September 11, 2001. “We have something that has happened here at the World Trade Center.We noticed flames and an awful lot of smoke from one of the towers…” Flying in Chopper 880 near the George Washington Bridge, Kaminski reported seeing a fireball three quarters of the way up the north tower.
Osama bin Laden lit the spark for endless wars Original
Hours after hijackers crashed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, journalist Peter Bergen said on CNN that the “most likely suspect” in the attacks was Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda. Bergen had good reason for his view. Terrorists linked to al Qaeda detonated a truck bomb in the World Trade Center garage on February 26, 1993, killing six people but failing to bring down the towers.
The foul-mouthed strategist who steered the Democrats to a midterm victory Original
Rahm Emanuel in the Oval Office with President Bill Clinton, 1993. (White House photo) Rahm Emanuel gained a reputation for spewing the f-bomb during his early days in Democratic politics. He and two other campaign staffers infamously mailed a dead fish to a pollster Emanuel was battling. Though he landed a job as political director in the Clinton White House, his rough-edged personality soon got him demoted.
The murderous rivalry that bedeviled socialism Original
Shortly before 4 a.m. on May 24, 1940, about 20 men carrying bombs, machine guns, revolvers, an iron bar and a rope ladder approached Leon Trotsky’s mansion in a Mexico City suburb. Their leader, a noted muralist named David Alfaro Siqueiros, had revved up his team for the job with a plentiful supply of booze. He suited up in a major’s uniform, a fake Hitler mustache and a World War I-vintage pointed helmet, Josh Ireland wrote in his 2026 bookThe Death of Trotsky.
A presidential vanishing act, then and now Original
On August 5, 1941, the presidential yacht Potomac weighed anchor in Menemsha Bight, off Martha’s Vineyard and headed toward the Cape Cod Canal.A man with a cigarette holder in his mouth waved to spectators on shore and they returned the gesture. As far as the world was concerned, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was signaling to well-wishers that he was enjoying another of his many fishing trips. The U.S. Navy issued daily statements.
Christopher Nolan left out the best part of The Odyssey Original
“Strangers! Now who are you?” The Cyclops spots men in his cave and asks, “Where did you sail from, over the running sea-lanes.” A nervous Odysseus, gawking at the one-eyed giant Polyphemus, tells him they are returning from Troy and expect to receive the hospitality required by the law of Zeus. “You must be a fool, stranger, or come from nowhere,” Polyphemus replies, in Book Nine of Homer’s Odyssey.
How a mistake spread from the White House to the New York Times and the JFK Library Original
Press Secretary Pierre Salinger holds cigar as he and President John F. Kennedy look over documents in 1962. (White House photo by Cecil Stoughton) Soon after John F. Kennedy took office as president in 1961, the first lady’s press secretary sent a draft news release to Jacqueline Kennedy for approval. “If this is o.k….would you send it back to me, so that I can give it to Plucky Pierre,” wrote Pamela Turnure, on White House stationery, in a note preserved in the files of the John F.
Now It's History
This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please turn on JavaScript or unblock scripts
The Resolute Desk is a symbol of two nations' folly
President John F. Kennedy sits at the Resolute Desk in 1962. (White House Photo by Cecil Stoughton / John F. Keffedy Presidential Library and Museum/NARA) In early February 1961, the White House announced that Jacqueline Kennedy had made a “most interesting discovery.” Aiming to restore a mansion she once labeled a “dreary Maison Blanche,” the new first lady searched for historic objects.
The SAVE America Act is a poll tax in disguise
On January 7, 1861, the fiery senator from Georgia, Robert Toombs, warned his colleagues that a breakup between North and South over slavery could no longer be prevented. Invoking a Greek myth, he argued that the abolitionists and their supporters, “have for long years been sowing dragons’ teeth, and have finally got a crop of armed men.
The Huntington-born sailboat Perroquet lives on 90 years later
On a November day in 1956, a sleek wooden sailboat anchored in a cove south of Eaton’s Neck exploded. Its owner, who was duck hunting nearby, tried in vain to put out the fire. The boat burned to the waterline. Towed to a Huntington Harbor shipyard, the wreck settled into the mud. The next day, the owner’s son and 11-year-old grandson pried a model of a puffin, also called a sea parrot, off the stern, where it symbolized the boat’s name, Perroquet, the French word for parrot..
The false gods of politics Original
Every Sunday morning at 11, beginning in 1999, Venezuelans could tune into a call-in show hosted by their charismatic president, Hugo Chávez. “Anyone could call in and talk to the president,” wrote William Neuman in his book, Things Are Never So Bad That They Can’t Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela. “It was democracy in action.
The black GIs who liberated Hitler's victims Original
Samuel Pisar was 10 years old when Nazi invaders rounded up the Jewish community of Bialystok, Poland. He survived three death camps and, the New York Times wrote in 2009, “was condemned to die at least twice, but managed to slip back into the general prison population, once convincing a guard that he was there only to wash the floor.” When the Germans began fleeing the victorious allied troops near the end of the war, they forced camp inmates to walk for miles to other camps.
America's greatest bird lover (and killer) Original
John James Audubon by John Syme. (The White House Historical Association.) John James Audubon stared at the caged bird. “I watched his eye and observed his looks of proud disdain,” the artist wrote. The bird was more than three feet from beak to tail. Its wings could stretch as far as seven feet. Audubon bought the golden eagle in 1833 for $14.75 from a museum owner who had gotten it from a trapper. The bird had caught its toe in a fox trap.
Was the American Revolution a grand mistake?
Was it all “a grand mistake?’ That’s the thesis of The American Revolution: A Grand Mistake, a 2010 book by Leland G. Stauber, a former associate professor of political science at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. The 292-page book makes a somewhat halting case that the 13 colonies’ Declaration of Independence from Britain got the United States launched on a wrong-footed basis that haunts us up to the present.
Summing up Trump in a word Original
Trump at the Mack Truck plant in Pennsylvania on June 23. (White House photo) Lawless. If you had to sum up the second Trump presidency in a word, that would be it. The Supreme Court implicitly confirmed that view on June 30 with its 6-3 ruling quashing Trump’s executive order, signed on his first day in office in 2025, that severely limited birthright citizenship.
The other thing that happened on July 4, 1776 Original
Franklin, Adams and Jefferson review a draft of the Declaration of Independence. By Jean Leon Gerome Ferris A few hours after the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, it agreed on another resolution. The Congress appointed a committee of three men to create a seal for the United States of America. The three were among the ablest members of the body that had committed to rebellion against Britain: John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.
Jalen Brunson's greatest play wasn't on the court Original
When the New York Knicks ended the NBA Finals and their 53-year-long quest for a championship Saturday, there was only one player in the spotlight: Knicks captain Jalen Brunson. On several levels, Brunson offered lessons in leadership that could be applied to any team, whether in sports, business or government. For one thing, he personally took charge on the court, providing the offense that enabled the Knicks to come from behind in the closing minutes of a 94-90 game.
Now It's History
This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please turn on JavaScript or unblock scripts
Elon Musk and the fear of missing out
Sunset in the Rocket Garden at SpaceX’s Starbase. (Photo by Steve Jurvetson) “Today I invited myself to help open gifts from the Pets.com gift center,” began a holiday season 1999 tv commercial featuring the company’s Sock Puppet character, voiced by Michael Ian Black. The 30-second spot ends with the puppet looking at Christmas stockings hung around a mantel and saying mournfully, “How could they do this to socks?
How a Nazi warship became the U.S. Coast Guard's Eagle
On June 13, 1936, the German Navy launched a steel-hulled tall ship at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg while Adolf Hitler and other Nazi officials looked on. The 295-foot long ship was one of five such vessels the Nazi regime commissioned to “circumvent the military restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, using maritime training as a front to quietly rebuild naval strength,” as Will Sofrin’s new book notes.
Invite your friends to read Now It's History
Thank you for reading Now It's History — your support allows me to keep doing this work. If you enjoy Now It's History, it would mean the world to me if you invited friends to subscribe and read with us. If you refer friends, you will receive benefits that give you special access to Now It's History. Now It's History is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. How to participate 1. Share Now It's History.
What Trump doesn't get about America's 250th Original
Rendering of the proposed triumphal arch in Washington, D.C. The golden lions shown here have since been dropped from the plan. (US Commission of Fine Arts.) On the morning of November 25, 1783, the last of the defeated British troops left the soil of New York City. It was the end of a seven-year-long occupation. Yet as the redcoats headed to their ships on that cold day, the royal flag still flew over Fort George at the tip of Manhattan.
Get out of jail free — and collect $200 Original
On March 23, 1903, Lizzie Magie applied for a patent to protect a board game she had invented. The “Landlord’s Game” enabled players to buy and sell properties with play money. Railroads were located in the center of each side of the board. One of the corner spaces said, “No trespassing. Go to Jail.” The opposite corner was the Jail. Players who passed the corner marked “Labor upon Mother Earth produces wages” received $100. Magie’s patent was granted in 1904.
When concrete rains down on your car Original
At 6 a.m. on May 7, John Toledo was driving home from his job at the New York City Department of Environmental Protection when debris from the concrete roof of an overpass suddenly fell in front of his car, blowing out a tire.
Ted Turner, a captain who could only have come from America Original
In 1899, the British grocery magnate Sir Thomas Lipton tried to win back the most coveted trophy in sports for his country. His yacht Shamrock faced off against Columbia, which was defending the America’s Cup on behalf of the New York Yacht Club. Lipton lost all three races. In 1901, Lipton’s Shamrock II challenged Columbia again and lost all three races. In 1903, his Shamrock III lost all three races against a new American yacht.
When the dragon of the Senate tried to tame the Supreme Court Original
Supreme Court building (Joe Ravi) On June 19, 1924, a foursome of U.S. senators delayed their golf game on the fairway of the Chevy Chase Club outside Washington while one searched for a lost ball. The next group of players, led by Dr. James F. Mitchell, asked the senators if they could play through. Senate minority leader Joseph T. Robinson objected. As an argument brewed, he punched the doctor in the “eye, knocking him backward over a bench,” the New York Times reported.
King Charles, Queen Camilla and the Horrible Heffalump Original
When British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited the U.S. in 1998 to meet with President Bill Clinton, his fellow Labour Party MP Gwyneth Dunwoody sensed an opportunity. She called on the prime minister to demand the return to the U.K. of the stuffed animals that inspired the characters in Winnie-the-Pooh, A. A. Milne’s immortal children’s book.
Trump's slow-motion Cabinet purge Original
President Jimmy Carter and Patrick Caddell, in the Oval Office. On the last Saturday in April, 1979, President Jimmy Carter and first lady Rosalynn Carter met in the Oval Office with one of the people who helped put them in the White House: pollster Patrick Caddell. The 28-year-old former campaign aide had developed a back-channel connection to Rosalynn, who fretted about the president’s failing political fortunes.
Pope Leo gets the last laugh Original
The Palais des Papes, at Avignon. (Jean-Marc Rosier) Pope Gregory VII’s register for the year 1075 includes a set of 27 “dictates” that set out a sweeping view of papal authority. Popes can depose emperors, the document asserted. They can free people from an obligation to follow immoral leaders. No one can judge a pope. His name must be recited in church. And the pope is the only figure whose feet must be kissed by kings.
The most powerful weapon Trump has to open the Strait of Hormuz is the one he least wants to use Original
Maria van Reigersberch helps her husband Hugo Grotius prepare his escape from Loevestein Castle, 1621. (Rijksmuseum.) At the age of 15, Hugo Grotius so impressed Henry IV, king of France, with his intelligence that the monarch declared him “the miracle of Holland.” At 17, the budding Dutch legal scholar argued his first case. Soon he would be named Attorney-General of the provinces of Holland, Zealand and West Friesland.
America is at war with a country it doesn't understand Original
On August 18, 1953, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and Queen Soraya stepped off a commercial plane at Rome’s Ciampino airport. The shah and his bride Soraya on their wedding day in 1951. The shah, wearing sunglasses and a light gray suit, “was pale and grave and had a two-day growth of beard on his chin,” The New York Times reported.
Trump faces a wrenching choice Original
Joe Rosenthal’s classic photo, taken for the AP. On February 27, 1945, CBS Radio’s Don Pryor reported from the flying bridge of the U.S.S. Eldorado as Marines fought to take the Japanese-controlled island of Iwo Jima. The operation’s overall commander, Navy Vice Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, and Lt. Gen. Holland M. Smith of the Marines, put a positive spin on the bloody battle.
What Theodore Roosevelt learned in the Badlands
When the New York Times published its annual list of “52 Places to Go” in 2026, traditional travel destinations like Los Angeles, Bangkok, Memphis, Big Sur and Iceland were included. But so was Medora, North Dakota — in the heart of the state’s Badlands. That is where — on July 4, 2026, more than 107 years since Theodore Roosevelt died —the nation’s 26th president will finally be honored with a presidential library. It will also be the day the U.S. celebrates its 250th anniversary.
What Theodore Roosevelt learned in the Badlands
When the New York Times published its annual list of “52 Places to Go” in 2026, traditional travel destinations like Los Angeles, Bangkok, Memphis, Big Sur and Iceland were included. But so was Medora, North Dakota — in the heart of the state’s Badlands. That is where — on July 4, 2026, more than 107 years since Theodore Roosevelt died —the nation’s 26th president will finally be honored with a presidential library. It will also be the day the U.S. celebrates its 250th anniversary.
Now It's History
This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please turn on JavaScript or unblock scripts
J.D. Vance's Cactus Jack problem
When John Nance Garner ran for county judge in Uvalde, Texas, in 1893, a young stenography student named Mariette ("Ettie") Rheiner made no secret of her opposition. The daughter of a Swiss immigrant land owner thought that Garner’s fondness for whiskey and poker made him ill-suited for a judgeship. Somehow Garner must have persuaded her he wasn’t such a bad guy, since the two got married in 1895.
The old soldier who warned against Trump's war
Three months after John F. Kennedy took the oath of office in 1961, the young president traveled to New York to consult the five-star general who had once commanded American forces in Asia. Douglas MacArthur was living out retirement with his wife and son in a 10-room apartment on the 37th floor of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. The previous Democrat to serve in the White House, Harry S.
The old soldier who warned against Trump's war
Three months after John F. Kennedy took the oath of office in 1961, the young president traveled to New York to consult the five-star general who had once commanded American forces in Asia. Douglas MacArthur was living out retirement with his wife and son in a 10-room apartment on the 37th floor of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. The previous Democrat to serve in the White House, Harry S.
Charles Lindbergh's kidnapping nightmare Original
Charles Lindbergh and his 3-year old son, Jon, arriving in Liverpool, England on the freighter S.S. American Importer, December 31, 1935. (Universal Newsreel) “You know what you want,” Evangeline Lindbergh wrote in reply to a letter from her son Charles. She couldn’t help adding a mother’s doubt: “…is a plane a wise investment & has the occupation of pilot any future?” The 6’ 2 1/2” Lindbergh, nicknamed Slim, was performing stunts on planes that barnstormed from town to town.
When presidents launch wars
Who declares war? Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution says Congress “shall have the power…To declare war, grant letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.” Congress first used that power in going to war with Britain in 1812. Since then, it has declared war 10 more times, but the most recent case was 83 years ago — on June 4, 1942, when it voted to go to war against Bulgaria, Hungary and Rumania in the midst of World War II.
When presidents become monarchs
Now It’s History explores the roots of today’s political and social turmoil by examining the past. Hosted by journalist Richard Galant, each episode uncovers the hidden patterns behind revolutions, protests, and power struggles, showing how events like President Richard Nixon’s resignation, the rise of social media and the election of Barack Obama continue to shape our world. Grounded in historical facts and expert interviews, this podcast reveals how history’s echoes influence our time.
Show More
loading
Actions
Get in touch with Richard
Contact Richard, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack