Celebrate America 250 with Independence Day specials on KCLU

As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary on July 4, join the celebration with these special programs Saturday afternoon on KCLU!

1 p.m
How To 250: Your Guide To America's Big Birthday
A one-hour special from Radiotopia’s This Day, marking 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. Host Jody Avirgan traces key stories that brought us to this moment, with a look back at the 1976 bicentennial and advice for listeners on how to celebrate America 250. Featuring historians Kellie Carter Jackson and Nicole Hemmer, plus reflections from legendary filmmaker Ken Burns.

2 p.m.
First America from Native Voice One
Independence Day marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. And we have been told the Revolution was fought over taxation and representation. But First America reveals the long-buried history behind the Revolution: What the founders were most angry about in our country’s most famous document was Indian affairs. Hunger for more Indigenous land was one of the biggest drivers of the Revolutionary War. How did generations of Americans miss this?

3 p.m.
The Declaration Does Not Apply
When the Declaration of Independence was written in 1776, there were three groups for which the tenets of life, liberty, and property enshrined in that document did not apply: Black Americans, Indigenous peoples, and women. This is how those groups responded.

4 p.m.
Ken Burns: What Can We Learn from the American Revolution?
The origin story of the United States is a complex web of world-changing ideas, deeply contradictory historical figures, and national myths that might be doing us more harm than good. Acclaimed filmmakers Ken Burns and Sarah Botstein explain why the revolution is anything but simple.

5 p.m.
The Copperhead Conspiracy
A new one-hour public radio documentary tells a forgotten story from America’s Civil War, where “copperheads” opposed to Abraham Lincoln’s presidency plotted terrorist attacks in the North to further the Southern cause. A group of Northerners, angry at Lincoln, conspired with Confederates to plan an armed insurrection intended to topple the governments of several Midwestern states and free tens of thousands of Confederate prisoners from Union prisons—and it nearly worked.