Courtesy of Fox News
If there’s anything that we here at Mediaite understand, it’s the work that goes into putting together a list. Sure, anyone can slap together a quick ranking. But doing it right takes lots of effort. If you didn’t spend any time debating the merits of no. 63 vs. no. 64, it will become apparent instantly, and your list won’t be taken seriously.
Fox News has spent an entire year putting together and rolling out a list of the 250 Most Impactful Moments in American History. It’s an ambitious concept for sure. There aren’t many lists that are going to have O.J. Simpson, Clara Barton, Mike Eruzione, and Sacco and Vanzetti all on them.
But this one has been an intensive project for Fox News — which is putting out a weekly podcast around the list throughout 2026. For anchor Bill Hemmer, who is the host of the series, it is a labor of love.
“We’ve been asking a lot of people, what does 250 mean to you?” Hemmer said. “To me…it’s opportunity… I just think America gives people opportunity, the opportunity to imagine, the opportunity to develop, the opportunity to try.”
And this series, according to Hemmer, is designed to celebrate that. Mediaite caught up with the America’s Newsroom anchor to discuss the project — which began in January and will conclude at year’s end.
This conversation has been edited for style and clarity.
Mediaite: Tell us how this came together.
Bill Hemmer: We started meeting last year. Worked with our radio folks, our podcast team. And tried to figure out what would be the more memorable moments. And the initial list had a thousand items on it. And so we had to winnow it down, through a lot of research over months, and they winnowed it down to 250.
There was a study about four years ago suggesting only 13 percent of fourth graders are proficient in U.S. history. So the project is… not only is it timely, but it can help remind people of who we are, and where we came from. And I think in that sense it can be a great resource.
When I talk about it with our team…are they the greatest moments? Or the most impactful moments? And so we went with the latter, and I’ll tell you why…Think about today, think about Starlink. Elon Musk is doing a whole new thing…and we’re all moving towards Starlink. We did an episode the other day on the telegram, 1844…at that moment in American and world history, the telegraph with Samuel Morse, and what he was able to transmit, is every bit as revolutionary as what Elon Musk is doing with Starlink.
One thing that I was very much surprised by… We are recording these and so many of these events, for me personally, are news events that I covered. Whether it was the recount of 2000…Katrina, which is the time when I started at Fox News, 2005, the Boston Marathon. Unfortunately, events like Sandy Hook are a part of this, the Oklahoma City bombing.
Oftentimes, memory is the freshest when it’s the most recent. But I just think a lot of the historical events that stick out to me really help you to remember how the country was made.
Yes, the scope of this project is massive. As you point out, a lot of these moments have taken place in the last quarter century, but then you have Sacco and Vanzetti. How did the ranking process go? Because for sure there are going to be pretty authoritative. And each episode dives pretty deep on five of the moments on the list. So it seems like it’s designed to not only live in the moment, but for years to come.
What’s the overarching narrative here? What’s the common thread among all these moments?
How this country came to be. It’s important for the world to think about how America innovates. That’s really our edge. The telegraph, pony express, the computer, into the digital age. All of that is born of a mind that is able to think and create and to do it in a country that gives you the freedom to develop it. I find that profound.
If you’ve been following our coverage, we’ve been asking a lot of people what does 250 mean to you? To me…it’s opportunity… I just think America gives people opportunity, the opportunity to imagine, the opportunity to develop, the opportunity to try.
It seems like a heavy lift on the production side. How do these get produced?
We seem to kick out, like three episodes at a time, 45 minutes to an hour. And then those will be submitted to editing video-wise and then we’ll get the next — I guess you could say — chapters prepared and ready. and it’s been about a two-a-week pace since January.
What surprised you the most in doing this so far? Is there one particular story where you’re like, ‘Wow, I never knew that!’
I don’t know if I want to just point to one. But what I would emphasize is the things that I learn when doing them has been quite rewarding. We started the conversation talking about fourth graders who don’t know their history. Well there’s a lot of history that we forget as adults. And as I’m reading, it’s a compliment to the country, to what we’ve accomplished.
Now, not every moment’s great. With regard to race relations in America. With regard to women. With regard to slavery. These are tough topics. I think what they show is how far we’ve come. Martin Luther King often talked about the arc of history. Barack Obama, other leaders also. We’re still living that. What we become in the next 50 years, 100 years, that could be remarkable.
I was going to ask that… is there a lesson in what the next 250 look like based on this comprehensive look at the past 250?
I can’t answer that now. But what I will tell you is we are at the intersection of the space age and the digital age. And you think about the progress that can be made when the two of those meet. That’s substantial.
I’m a guy who backpacked around the world for a year… right before email, right before ATMs. And I’m still amazed that I can fly anywhere in the world, and as soon as the wheels of that plane hit the tarmac, I’m connected to the cell signal in that country. All I did was turn the phone on. That still blows me away.
We went to the Arctic Circle. The U.S. Navy got a nuclear submarine and it had transmission capability. Because we had a Starlink signal, we could communicate with New York and do live shots.
So when you ask what’s coming up in the future, there’s no way of knowing. As long as American innovation and American imagination are allowed to produce. I know I sound like I’m running for the Chamber of Commerce.
[Laughs.] Well I was going to bring that up as well. At a time where there is such polarization, there is a question about whether some of this America 250 coverage leans jingoistic. Where is the line in sounding that note of optimism, and taking a hard look at certain things, and asking the questions that need to be asked. Where do you come down on that?
Here’s what I’d say: I think for this moment and for this anniversary, 330 million people can kiss the ground they walk on. Because they live in a country that is unlike anywhere else in this world. So wave the red white and blue, wave it proudly. Do it for the moment. Be grateful for the family and the friends and the country in which you live. Know that the road ahead is going to have some bumps. But if we stick to what got us this far, then the future will figure out its own way. And it will be a good and optimistic future.
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