photo by: Contributed Photo/V Communications LLC

Greg Jackson, historian and host of the podcast “History that Doesn’t Suck!”, incorporates music and videos into his live shows about American history.

As soldiers fall left and right during the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in U.S. history, two figures stand out among the mayhem. Nurse Clara Barton is coming to the aid of one of the wounded young men, who is actually not a man at all, but a woman who disguised herself as a man to remain by her boyfriend’s side, even in war.

“She’s been injured on the battlefield, and Clara is treating her,” says Greg Jackson, historian and host of the podcast “History that Doesn’t Suck!” “So you have a volunteer nurse, a woman who’s treating a female combatant, in a time where that’s not supposed to happen.”

The fate of the female combatant is just one of the lesser-known stories that Jackson weaves into his show of the same name to humanize the turning points of U.S. history. Jackson, who is a history professor at Utah Valley University, has adapted his popular podcast for the stage and will open his latest national tour with a show at 8 p.m. Oct. 11 at Liberty Hall, 644 Massachusetts St.

The Battle of Antietam would end the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia’s first invasion into the North and lead Abraham Lincoln to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Barton, who famously defied doctors’ demands for male nurses during the Civil War, would go on to found the American Red Cross. The female combatant would survive, marry her boyfriend and name her first daughter Clara.

In addition to some lesser-known stories, the show includes many familiar figures, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Frederick Douglass, but aims to use Jackson’s historical research to tell more personal stories that connect with audiences. For instance, another story tells of Douglass’ multiple visits to the White House and the impact he had on Lincoln.

In this way, the show takes audiences through the first 100 years of U.S. history in 100 minutes, from the Revolution through the Civil War. The storytelling is accompanied by live music, including violin, cello and guitar, as well as videos showing primary sources and historical reenactments. Though many characters are introduced throughout the show, Jackson said there is one that remains throughout.

“I think of this show as having a main protagonist, and that protagonist is the Union itself,” Jackson said. “We’re following the idea of the colonies forming a union, then the struggle to actually form that union, then the struggle to keep the thing together for 80 years, then the existential crisis when it nearly falls apart and barely is saved by the skin of its teeth.”

Jackson, who has his Ph.D. in history and is a professor and senior fellow in national security studies at Utah Valley, said he had the idea for the podcast when he saw the podcasting medium rising in popularity and realized that many of the history shows were not actually hosted by historians. While he says he has a lot of respect for the people making those shows, he thinks it’s important for historians to bring their work to the public in this more accessible way.

“We (historians) ignored this emerging medium to stick with what we’re familiar with, the published word,” Jackson said. “I just see the space where millions of Americans are forming their understanding of history, and yet those who are trained in it, who spent 10 years getting a bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D., haven’t leaned into that space.”

Jackson has seen the fruits of leaning in. The biweekly podcast now has 167 episodes and is among the most listened to history podcasts on Spotify and Apple. The tour that kicks off in Lawrence is the show’s second national tour.

Both the podcast and the show systematically move through U.S. history, providing what Jackson describes as “History 101.” But Jackson, who has an animated stage presence and opens and closes the show by playing the podcast’s theme song on his guitar, said audiences “will forget he’s a professor.”

The show describes itself as nonpartisan, and Jackson said that whether someone is liberal or conservative, it improves our national dialogue if Americans know their history. When it comes to the throughline to the present day, Jackson said he hopes knowing all the country has overcome, including the fake news and contested elections of the past, will help ease some of the trepidation and pessimism of the current moment.

“History doesn’t give us the answers,” Jackson said. “It doesn’t fix the fact that we are facing these sorts of questions, but it should enable us just to realize that this isn’t unprecedented. This isn’t something that we could never defeat.”

But above all, he said, he wants people to view history — and the diverse people whose stories make it up — with empathy. To see the characters of the country’s history, both known and unknown, as the real people that they were.

Tickets for the stage performance of “History that Doesn’t Suck!” range from $29 to $49 and are available at the Liberty Hall box office or via its website, libertyhall.net.