Going weekly: 'History Guys' hit the radio big time

The wisecracking trio of UVA-affiliated academics who bring history to life through the radio program BackStory with the American History Guys will soon be giving Car Talk hosts Click and Clack a run for their money. On May 11, the program– which has aired on 130 stations and been downloaded through iTunes podcasts 1.3 million times– goes weekly thanks to a $350,000 production grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and additional funding of $460,000 from other sources including private donations. As detailed in the Hook's June 24, 2010 cover story, the History Guys are current UVA profs Brian Balogh and Peter Onuf and their former colleague, Ed Ayers, who's now president of University of Richmond. The program– made right here in Charlottesville at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities– airs on both major Central Virginia public radio stations, WMRA and WVTF, as well as via podcast from the BackStory website.