We the People: The Right to Remain Silent
31 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Fifth Amendment. You have the right to remain silent when you're being questioned in police cust...
Embedded: The Network
29 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the mid-1980s, an OBGYN in Brazil noticed that far fewer pregnant women at his hospital were dyin...
We The People: Canary in the Coal Mine
24 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Third Amendment.Maybe you've heard it as part of a punchline. It's the one about quartering troo...
Congress has voted to eliminate government funding for public media
18 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Act now to ensure public media remains free and accessible to all. Your donation will help this esse...
Edward Said and the Question of Palestine
17 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Edward Said brought the question of Palestine into the American mainstream. He taught at Columbia Un...
What Makes Us Free?
10 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What's the role of government in society? What do we mean when we talk about individual responsibili...
Does America Need a Hero?
03 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Captain America: an all-American superhero. Clad in red, white, and blue, he carries only a shield. ...
Iran and the U.S., Part Three: Soleimani's Iran
29 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Iran-Iraq war, 9/11, and the story of Iranian Revolutionary Guard general Qassem Soleimani, from...
Iran and the U.S., Part Two: Rules of Engagement
28 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Military confrontations, early-morning attacks, and digital warfare: the story of Iran and the U.S. ...
What the Supreme Court Does in the Shadows
26 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Supreme Court is issuing its final decisions of the term this month. But it's been extraordinari...
Iran and the U.S., Part One: Four Days in August
24 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. and Iran have had a tense relationship for decades — but when did that begin? This week, ...
Abortion Before Roe
19 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Abortion wasn't always controversial. In fact, in colonial America it would have been considered a f...
The First Department of Education
12 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Whose job is it to educate Americans? Congress created the first Department of Education just after ...
The Woman Behind The New Deal
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From Social Security and the minimum wage to exit signs and fire escapes, Frances Perkins transforme...
We the People: Search and Seizure
29 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Fourth Amendment is the part of the Bill of Rights that prohibits "unreasonable searches and sei...
War Crimes
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On today's episode, we travel from the battlefields of the U.S. Civil War, through the rubble of two...
The Tax Collector
15 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Gangsters, banksters, and politicians. Today on the show, how the hunt for Al Capone helped turn the...
California's 'Bum Blockade'
08 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The story of the Los Angeles police chief who, faced with one of the largest internal migrations in ...
Motherhood
01 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Baby bonuses, childless cat ladies: the rhetoric around motherhood is politically charged right now....
The Deadly Story of the U.S. Civil Service
24 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When James Garfield won the Presidency in 1880, Charles Guiteau got ready to accept his new governme...
The Alien Enemies Act
17 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In March 2025, President Trump issued an executive order invoking a centuries-old law: the Alien Ene...
When Things Fall Apart
10 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Climate disaster, political unrest, random violence: Western society can often feel like what the fi...
Get Rich Quick: The American Lottery
03 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Want to get rich quick? You're not alone. Right now, Americans spend over $100 billion, yes billion,...
We the People: The Right to Remain Silent
27 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Fifth Amendment. You have the right to remain silent when you're being questioned in police cust...
Sesame Street
20 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Big Bird, politics, and the ABCs: how a television show made to represent New York City neighborhood...
Winter is Coming
13 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dinosaurs, Carl Sagan, and nuclear war. There was a moment in the not-so-distant past when we learne...
We the People: Succession of Power
06 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The 25th amendment. A few years before JFK was shot, an idealistic young lawyer set out on a mission...
Health Insurance in America
27 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Millions of Americans depend on their jobs for health insurance. But that's not the case in many oth...
The Evolution of Presidential Power
20 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What can and can't the president do — and how do we know? The framers of the U.S. Constitution lef...
The Anti-Vaccine Movement
13 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The alleged link between vaccines and autism was first published in 1998, in a since-retracted study...
The History of Birthright Citizenship
Thu, 06 Feb 2025 08:00:59 +0000
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
Wong Kim Ark was born in the U.S. and lived his whole life here. But when he returned from a trip to...
The History of Birthright Citizenship
06 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Wong Kim Ark was born in the U.S. and lived his whole life here. But when he returned from a trip to...
The Kingdom Behind Glass
Thu, 30 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
Who owns stolen art? Today on the show, the bloody journey of a Benin Bronze from West Africa to the...
The Kingdom Behind Glass
30 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Who owns stolen art? Today on the show, the bloody journey of a Benin Bronze from West Africa to the...
We The People: Cruel and Unusual Punishment
Thu, 23 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
The Eighth Amendment. What is cruel and unusual punishment? Who gets to define and decide its bounda...
We The People: Cruel and Unusual Punishment
23 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Eighth Amendment. What is cruel and unusual punishment? Who gets to define and decide its bounda...
Ralph Nader, Consumer Crusader (Throwback)
Thu, 16 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
Whether it's pesticides in your cereal or the door plug flying off your airplane, consumers today ha...
Ralph Nader, Consumer Crusader (Throwback)
16 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Whether it's pesticides in your cereal or the door plug flying off your airplane, consumers today ha...
History of the Self: Dreams
Thu, 09 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
Our dreams can haunt us. But what are we to make of them? From omens and art to modern science, we t...
History of the Self: Dreams
09 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Our dreams can haunt us. But what are we to make of them? From omens and art to modern science, we t...
History of the Self: Aging
Thu, 02 Jan 2025 08:00:59 +0000
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
Defeating old age? In 1899, Elie Metchnikoff woke up in Paris to learn he had done just that. At lea...
History of the Self: Aging
02 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Defeating old age? In 1899, Elie Metchnikoff woke up in Paris to learn he had done just that. At lea...
History of the Self: Love
26 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How did love – this thing that's supposed to be beautiful, magical, transformative – turn into a...
Embedded: The Black Gate
24 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the Xinjiang region of western China, the government has rounded up and detained hundreds of thou...
History of the Self: Smell and Memory
Thu, 19 Dec 2024 08:00:59 +0000
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
"History" can seem big and imposing. But it's always intensely personal – it's all of our individu...
History of the Self: Smell and Memory
19 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"History" can seem big and imposing. But it's always intensely personal – it's all of our individu...
Going to the Source of L.A.'s Water
Mon, 16 Dec
Contributed by Lukas • Default Dataset
Throughline associate producer Anya Steinberg talks to supervising senior editor Julie Caine about h...
Going to the Source of L.A.'s Water
16 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Throughline associate producer Anya Steinberg talks to supervising senior editor Julie Caine about h...
When Christmas Went Viral
12 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Christmas wasn't always a national shopping spree — or even a day off work. But in 19th-century Lo...
Seeking Asylum in the U.S.
05 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. has long professed to be a country where people can seek refuge. That's the promise etched ...
The Lord Of Misrule (Throwback)
28 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
By the time his book went to press in London, on November 18, 1633, Thomas Morton had been exiled fr...
The Mother of Thanksgiving
21 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Thanksgiving story most of us hear is about friendship and unity. And that's what Sarah Josepha ...
Behind the Scenes of Throughline
14 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today on the show, we're taking you behind the scenes. We'll tell you how Throughline was born, some...
The Electoral College (Throwback)
07 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What is it, why do we have it, and why hasn't it changed? Born from a rushed, fraught, imperfect pro...
A History of Settlements
31 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The question of settlements has loomed over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades, and has on...
The Swing State Power Brokers
24 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today on the show, two stories of building power in swing states: from the top down, and the bottom ...
How We Vote (Throwback)
17 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Drunken brawls, coercion, and lace curtains: believe it or not, how regular people vote was not some...
A History of Christian Nationalism
10 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
References to God and Christianity are sprinkled throughout American life. Our money has "In God We ...
The Battle For Jerusalem
03 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, the city of Jerusalem is seen as so important that people are willing to kill and die to cont...
A History of Hezbollah (Throwback)
26 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hezbollah is a Lebanese paramilitary organization and political party that's directly supported by t...
When Things Fall Apart (Throwback)
19 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Climate change, political unrest, random violence - Western society can often feel like what the fil...
The Conspiracy Files
12 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
9/11 was an inside job. Aliens have already made contact. COVID-19 was created in a lab.Maybe you ro...
How U.S. Unions Took Flight (Throwback)
05 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Airline workers — pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, baggage handlers, and more — represent a...
Water in the West
29 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to do the greatest good for the greatest number? When the Los Angeles Aqueduct ope...
We The People: Canary in the Coal Mine
22 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Third Amendment. Maybe you've heard it as part of a punchline. It's the one about quartering tro...
We The People: Equal Protection
15 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Fourteenth Amendment. Of all the amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the 14th is a big one. It'...
We The People: Legal Representation
08 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Sixth Amendment. Most of us take it for granted that if we're ever in court and we can't afford ...
Tested: Questions of a Physical Nature
06 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1966, the governing body of the Olympic track and field event started mandatory examinations of a...
We the People: Gun Rights
01 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Second Amendment. In April 1938, an Oklahoma bank robber was arrested for carrying an unregister...
We The People: Free Speech
25 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The First Amendment. Book bans, disinformation, the wild world of the internet. Free speech debates ...
The Creeping Coup
18 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sudan has been at the center of a deadly and brutal war for over a year. It's the site of the world'...
The Roots of Poverty in America
11 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The United States is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, yet over 10 percent of people –...
Road to Rickwood: The Holy Grail of Baseball
04 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Birmingham, Alabama was one of the fiercest battlegrounds of the Civil Rights Movement. And in order...
Pop Music's First Black Stars
27 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, the U.S. popular music industry is worth billions of dollars. And some of its deepest roots a...
The Lavender Scare (Throwback)
20 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
One day in late April 1958, a young economist named Madeleine Tress was approached by two men in sui...
A History of Zionism
13 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Since October 7th, the term Zionism has been everywhere in the news. It's been used to support Israe...
The Whiteness Myth (Throwback)
06 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1923, an Indian American man named Bhagat Singh Thind told the U.S. Supreme Court that he was whi...
The Rules of War
30 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
International courts investigating alleged war crimes have made headlines often in recent months. An...
Mythos and Melodrama in the Philippines (Throwback)
23 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to the "Epic of Marcos." In this tale of a family that's larger than life, Ferdinand Marcos,...
The Mandela Effect
16 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For nearly thirty years, the South African government held a man it initially labeled prisoner numbe...
The Labor Of Love (Throwback)
09 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There's a powerful fantasy in American society: the fantasy of the ideal mother. This mother is devo...
We the People: Search and Seizure
02 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Fourth Amendment is the part of the Bill of Rights that prohibits "unreasonable searches and sei...
The Ghost in Your Phone (Throwback)
25 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It's hot. A mother works outside, a baby strapped to her back. The two of them breathe in toxic dust...
Ralph Nader, Consumer Crusader
18 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Whether it's pesticides in your cereal or the door plug flying off your airplane, consumers today ha...
The 14th Amendment
11 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Of all the amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the 14th is a big one. It's shaped all of our lives,...
The Land of the Fee (Throwback)
04 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Tipping is a norm in the United States—and it's always been controversial. The practice took off a...
A History of Hezbollah
28 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hezbollah is a Lebanese paramilitary organization and political party that's directly supported by t...
The Great Textbook War
21 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What is school for? Over a hundred years ago, a man named Harold Rugg published a series of textbook...
Radiolab: Worst. Year. Ever
19 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What was the worst year to be alive on planet Earth? We make the case for 536 AD, which set off a ca...
A Symphony of Resistance (Throwback)
14 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 2011, the world was shaken by the Arab Spring, a wave of "pro-democracy" protests that spread thr...
The Rise of the Right Wing in Israel
07 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For most of its early history, Israel was dominated by left-leaning, secular politicians. But today,...
The Right to An Attorney
29 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Most of us take it for granted that if we're ever in court and we can't afford a lawyer, the court w...
Dance Yourself Free (Throwback)
22 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Beyonce's Renaissance brought house music back to mainstream audiences. But even when it wasn't grac...
Love, Throughline
15 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We asked you to call us with your stories of looking for love in the 21st century — and man, did y...
The Scent of History
08 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What if we told you that the key to time travel has been right in front of our eyes this whole time?...
James Baldwin's Shadow (Throwback)
01 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
James Baldwin believed that America has been lying to itself since its founding. An insightful comme...
Bonus: The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop
30 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In October of 1983, Grenada's Prime Minister Maurice Bishop was assassinated in a coup, along with s...
The Man Who Cured Aging
25 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1899, Elie Metchnikoff woke up in Paris to learn that he had defeated old age. At least, that's w...
The Right to Bear Arms
18 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In April 1938, an Oklahoma bank robber was arrested for carrying an unregistered sawed-off shotgun a...
When Things Fall Apart (Throwback)
11 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Climate change, political unrest, random violence: modern society can often feel like what the filmm...