Lucille Ball, John Wayne, Rod Serling, and General Douglas MacArthur take center stage as our look at 1951 continues.

On March 31, 1951, five days after Mickey Mantle’s big day at Bovard Field, the last broadcast of “My Favorite Husband” starring 39-year-old Lucille Ball, aired on the CBS radio network. Lucy’s transition from radio to television and “I Love Lucy” marked a fundamental change in American life. It also changed the lives of William Frawley and Vivian Vance.

On April 11, 1951, five days before the traditional Major League Baseball opening day in Cincinnati to kick off the 75th anniversary season of the National League, President Harry Truman went on radio and television to announce his dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur from command in Asia.

Also featured are stories of William Riley Burnett, Orson Welles, Norman Corwin, Leonard Bernstein, Sgt. Issac Woodard Jr., Lewisohn Stadium, Woody Guthrie, and MacArthur Park.

One of the seminal moments in American history took place on October 3, 1951, when Bobby Thomson hit what has become known as “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World”. Earlier in 1951, Mickey Mantle burst onto the scene as a rookie for the New York Yankees. These seemed like two good bookends for a story about 1951 as a turning point in American history.

We feature stories about Mantle and his big day at Bovard Field on the University of Southern California campus March 26, 1951, Dalton Trumbo, John Van Druten, Preston Sturges, Harold Lloyd, Sam Fuller, H. L. Mencken, and Charles P. Everitt.

Our new season begins with a special episode, an interview with Dr. Rock Positano. Dr. Positano is the author, with his brother John, of Dinner With DiMaggio, an intimate look at Rock’s friendship with the legendary Yankee Clipper.