This Week on History Happy Hour: One thousand years ago, Native American cities in North America rivaled urban centers around the world in size and scope. But has the surprising history of Native Americans has been obscured by historians’ intent on minimizing the role of their still thriving societies?

Chris and Rick talk about one thousand years of Native American history with Kathleen DuVal, author of Native Nations: A Millennium in North America,” a book The Wall Street Journal calls “An essential American history.”

This Week on History Happy Hour: Between 1199 and 1399, English politics was high drama. These two centuries witnessed savage political blood-letting – including civil war, deposition, the murder of kings and the ruthless execution of rebel lords.

Chris and Rick discuss did into this tumultuous period with Dr. Caroline Burt and Richard Partington, authors of Arise, England: Six Kings and the Making of the English State. How did these six Plantegenet Kings, colorful and complicated, manage the development of an English state that would become one of the leading nations in the world.

Richard Partington is Senior Tutor at St. John's College, Cambridge. An Affiliated Lecturer in the Cambridge Faculty of History, he teaches medieval British politics and has written and broadcast on politics, war, law and crime in the fourteenth century, especially during the rule of Edward III (1327-77).

This Week on History Happy Hour: A close-up look at how WWII looked to combat nurse Lt. Mary Elizabeth Balster, who spent months caring for the sick and wounded just behind the front lines of General Patton’s Third Army.

In this encore episode, Chris and Rick welcome NCR Davis, Lt. Balster’s daughter, and author of For the Boys: The War Story of a Combat Nurse in Patton’s Third Army. The true story of a richly rebellious and intense woman trying to navigate her life and nurture her sanity while nursing the wounded and dying.

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

This Week on History Happy Hour: An encore episode with author and historian Joe Balkoski, our first ever five-time guest. He returns to pick up the story of the 29th Division. And of course we honored him with a special ceremony honoring Joe’s five-time guest status.

Chris and Rick talk with him about the 4th volume of his five-volume series on the 29th: Our Tortured Souls: The 29th Infantry Division in the Rhineland, November - December 1944. A riveting story of heroism and tragedy, during which thousands of 29ers became casualties in a campaign that ultimately failed to end the war.

This Week on History Happy Hour: He never became as celebrated as his fellow commanders George Patton and Omar Bradley, but General William Simpson, commander of the 9th U.S. Army in WWII, built a superb combat record. General Dwight Eisenhower called him brilliant, adding: "If Simpson ever made a mistake as an Army Commander, it never came to my attention."

To explore his WWII command record, Chris and Rick will be joined by William Stuart Nance, author of a new book about Simpson and his Chief of Staff James Moore: Commanding Professionalism: Simpson, Moore, and the Ninth US Army.

This Week on History Happy Hour: Author Eric Jay Dolin returns for his second HHH to talk about his book Left For Dead: Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World. The true story of five castaways abandoned on the Falkland Islands during the War of 1812―a tale of treachery, shipwreck, isolation, and the desperate struggle for survival.

Dolan discusses the surprising twists and turns throughout—involving greed, lying, bullying, a hostile takeover, stellar leadership, ingenuity, severe privation, endurance, banishment, and the great value of a dog.

This Week on History Happy Hour: After its shocking defeat to the Nazis in 1940, how did France respond? In his book Resistance and Liberation: France at War, 1942-1945, historian Douglas Porch traces how Charles de Gaulle sought to forge a French army and prevent civil war.

Chris and Rick talk to Douglas about the experiences of ordinary French men and women caught up in war and defeat, the choices they made, the trials they endured, and how this has shaped France's memory of those traumatic years.

This Week on History Happy Hour: Civil War historian Scott Hartwig has been researching the Battle of Antietam for decades. Now he has written a definitive hour-by-hour tactical history of the battle, I Dread the Thought of the Place: The Battle of Antietam and the End of the Maryland Campaign. The memory of the Battle of Antietam was so haunting that when, nine months later, Major Rufus Dawes learned another Antietam battle might be on the horizon, he wrote, "I hope not, I dread the thought of the place."

Join us as Scott takes a deep dive into the bloodiest day in American military history.