We live in a moment with almost daily reminders of how fragile life on Earth is whether it be from climate change, nuclear weapons or AI. In this episode, we bring you a story from the not-so-distant past when we learned what drove dinosaurs to extinction. And how it might have helped us avoid the…
In January 1959 Fidel Castro overthrew the Batista government and became Cuba’s new leader. Che Guevara had been a prominent figure in that revolution and was one of the few surviving guerrillas who had been with Castro from the start. With victory achieved, Che now had to decide on his future direction. His contribution to…
When King John died in October 1216, exhausted, defeated and politically isolated, it might have seemed that the great experiment embodied in Magna Carta had ended with him. The charter had been repudiated by the king, annulled by Pope Innocent III and followed by civil war. Its original settlement had collapsed almost as quickly as…
As the weather cools and the days grow shorter, there is no better time to settle in with a sweeping look at the past. This October brings a fascinating new crop of history releases, taking us from the dazzling city of Vienna to the First Lady’s court in the East Wing. Whether you are looking…
by Keri Leigh Merritt A key figure in the early civil rights movement, Lillian Smith devoted her life to ending segregation in America only to be forgotten by history. Drawing on previously unpublished archival research, and with a modern appreciation of Smith’s complex identity, Keri Leigh Merritt’s An Inconvenient Woman is the definitive account of Smith’s…
Inside Libya’s brutal migrant underworld, Samia faces imprisonment, extortion, and impossible choices as the Mediterranean crossing draws closer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff. All seven astronauts onboard died. Brian Russell, an engineer who worked on the shuttle, had spent months warning NASA that freezing temperatures could cause a critical seal to fail. In this episode, Brian Russell takes us to the intense meeting where NASA…
Modern Americans can recite the three branches so easily that the arrangement feels almost natural: legislature, executive, judiciary. School diagrams reinforce the impression. Three boxes sit beside one another, arrows show checks and balances, and the structure appears to have arrived fully formed in 1787. Historically, however, the three-branch model was neither obvious nor inevitable.…
Few individuals have been as crucial to understanding the delicate balance between church and state as George Reynolds. In 1879, Reynolds became the defendant in a landmark legal challenge that inadvertently tested the limits of religious liberty in the United States. The Supreme Court’s decision in Reynolds v. United States became the first major interpretation…
Among the many figures who aided the American Revolution, few are as intriguing—or as overlooked—as Francis Vigo. An immigrant from what is now northern Italy, a former soldier in the Spanish army, a fur trader, financier, intelligence gatherer, and supporter of the Patriot cause, Vigo played a critical function in helping secure the Old Northwest…