give you a brief history of backstory, considering that we're four historians, myself, nathan, joanne freeman at yale university and ed ayers president emeritus at the university of richmond, considering that we're four historians, we know nothing formally about our own history. we can't tell you exactly when we started, we have no archives. i guess since you are all historians none of this comes as a great surprise to you. i actually did some primary research, meaning i went back to the oldest emails i had and there is an exchange in 2005 about possibly doing a show, it has had many horrible names. the one i remember best is the one i suggested, history hotline. that lasted -- that lasted about three minutes, i think. the show started when a man by the name of andrew wyndham who worked for virginia humanities, which we are still housed in and they still support us, andrew wyndham suggested to ed ayers and peter oniff that it would be fun to do a radio show on history and apparently peter responded saying two things, number one, we don't know enough history, we need somebody in 20th century.

i am joanne freeman, a professor of history and american studies at yale university, and this afternoon i have the pleasure of being in conversation with heather about her book and other matters political. this program is being produced by the brooklyn historic society which is been a cultural hub for civic dialogue and command outreach for over 150 years. that's some real history. her book has gotten a lot of critical praise, for example, the "washington post" writes, heather cox richardson a professor of history at boston college explains goldwater crusade and the trajectory of modern conservatism in her masterful book. i kind of book that sheds light and was perhaps the most important political coalition of the 20th century. and publishers weekly says richardson and emphasizes the prevalence province of racism and sexism and inequality in other parts of the country during and following the civil war, she marshals above of evidence to support the books provocative title. conservatives will cry foul but liberal readers would be persuaded by this lucid jeremiah. i'm really, really excit

we were very fortunate that we were able to reach out to nathan connolly and to joanne freeman and they joined us and their perspectives, their interests, their life experiences, their own experience in public engagement i think has really changed the show. i love the old back story, but i also really love the current back story. at the same time, we decided to make a kind of, take a deep gulp decision. we pulled off of 200 public radio stations and went to a podcast only format. at the time, i did not know what a podcast was. not entirely true. i urged that we go to broadcast even though i did not know how to find podcasts on my phone, because of two things. we wanted to reach a much more diverse audience and a much younger audience. we lucked out. the podcast turned out to be very successful. on our 200 public radio stations, the estimates -- and they were really hazy -- the estimates were that we were reaching roughly 40,000 listeners. we are currently downloaded by roughly 100,000 listeners every week. and i should have mentioned about eggs eight or nine years ago, we went to a week

the session of next features yale history and history professor joanne freeman, the editor of the essential hamilton, letters and other rights. you want something that is affordable and highly accurate. it does have false negatives where you have somebody who probably is already infected but the test doesn't quite pick it up yet. we want to try that number up to 100%. that is what shark take aims to do for you. special of providing attention of places where testing has not been available, you make a very good point. it means they are vulnerable to being hard-hit if the testing is not accessible to one of them. thank you. >> thank you, senator makowski. thank you, mr. chair, for the hearing. last time we were here as a committee was march 3. occurred in the united states from coronavirus when we were last together. is 74,000 665ber -- 74,665. of 1126nche -- average deaths per day. personally, i am a well-off u.s. senator. i know four people who have died from coronavirus since we were last together. my brother steve's mother-in-law , a friend of 25 years in richman who is married to one of m