Randall Jahnson

Hey, ThruLine listeners, it's Rand here.

So as many of you know, this year marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

a new nation called the United States of America was born.

And it would be guided by a radical idea that ordinary people could and should govern themselves, that the noisy chaos of democracy was worth it and possible.

These are big questions, especially right now when the country is arguably more divided than ever on what the future should look like or even what counts as American history.

Where does this leave ThruLine?

Well, we knew as NPR's history show, we wanted to do something to mark this year.

So we're launching a new weekly miniseries that's part of NPR's America in Pursuit project.

Every Tuesday from now until July 4th, we'll feature a different moment from our archives that all together will take you on a journey through the last two centuries of U.S.

history, from the American Revolution to the AI Revolution.

To help us frame how we are thinking about this anniversary, we called up people across the country to get a sense of how they are thinking about it.

Historians, museum curators, community organizers, teachers, including... My instinct is to call you Mr. Marshall, but I will say hi, John.

It's very nice to see you after a long time.

My own high school history teacher.

Miss J led my high school decathlon team along with Mr. Marshall.

Yeah, I was kind of that kid.

Anyways.

Mr. Marshall, I mean, John, he's an educational consultant now, so he's not actually teaching anymore.

But like usual, he dropped some knowledge about the founders I hadn't really thought about.

And John thinks that the anniversary should be focused on the untold stories of the revolution and the sacrifices the so-called founding fathers made.