Throughline

Operation Nemesis

06 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

An estimated 1.5 million Armenian Christians were killed by the Ottoman government during World War I, in what came to be known as the Armenian Genoci...

James Baldwin's Shadow

29 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

James Baldwin believed that America has been lying to itself since its founding. He wrote, spoke, and thought incessantly about the societal issues th...

Force of Nature

22 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Rivers on fire, acid rain falling from the sky, species going extinct, oil spills, polluted air, and undrinkable water. For so long, we didn't think o...

The Real Black Panthers

15 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Black Panther Party's battles for social justice and economic equality are the centerpiece of the Oscar-nominated film 'Judas and The Black Messia...

Policing in America

08 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Black Americans being victimized and killed by the police is an epidemic. As the trial of Derek Chauvin plays out, it's a truth and a trauma many peop...

Our Own People

01 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

"Build bridges, not walls." Solidarity was at the heart of Yuri Kochiyama's work. A Japanese-American activist whose early political awakenings came w...

The Land of the Fee

25 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Tipping is a norm in the U.S. But it hasn't always been this way. A legacy of slavery and racism, tipping took off in the post-Civil War era. The case...

Chaos

18 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when teenagers are shipwrecked on a deserted island? Can you find the fingerprint of God in warzones? Why was the concept of zero so revo...

N95

11 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The N95 respirator has become one of the most coveted items in the world during the pandemic, especially by medical professionals. But how did this se...

Levittown: Where the Good Life Begins

04 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode from WNYC's La Brega, Alana Casanova-Burgess traces back the story of the boom and bust of the Puerto Rican Levittown. For many Americ...

Bayard Rustin: The Man Behind the March on Washington

25 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Bayard Rustin, the man behind the March on Washington, was one of the most consequential architects of the civil rights movement you may never have he...

Octavia Butler: Visionary Fiction

18 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Octavia Butler's alternate realities and 'speculative fiction' reveal striking, and often devastating parallels to the world we live in today. She was...

Marcus Garvey: Pan-Africanist

11 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Decades before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey attracted millions with a simple, uncompromising message: Black people deserved...

The Lasting Power Of Whitney Houston's National Anthem

07 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Why does Whitney Houston's 1991 Super Bowl national anthem still resonate 30 years later? Listen to this episode from our friends at It's Been A Minut...

What Happened After Civilization Collapsed

04 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What happens after everything falls apart? The end of the Bronze Age was a moment when an entire network of ancient civilizations collapsed, leaving b...

The Anatomy Of Autocracy: Masha Gessen

28 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Russian-born journalist Masha Gessen talks to us about how the rule of the people becomes the rule of the one, the role of the media, and what we can ...

The Anatomy of Autocracy: Timothy Snyder

21 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When a mob of pro-Trump supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, they also incited a defining moment in United States history. Now ...

Impeachment

14 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When Andrew Johnson became president in 1865, the United States was in the midst of one of its most volatile chapters. The country was divided after f...

Outside/In: Everybody Knows Somebody

07 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the mid-1980's a woman who didn't consider herself a feminist was asked to solve perhaps the biggest problem women face. How she and a small group ...

Outside/In: War of the Worlds

31 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Sunni-Shia divide is a conflict that most people have heard about - two sects with Sunni Islam being in the majority and Shia Islam the minority. ...

Outside/In: The Dark Side Of The Moon

24 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

50 years ago the world watched as man first landed on the moon, an incredible accomplishment by the engineers and scientists of NASA. But what if some...

Outside/In: Rules of Engagement

17 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The US and Iran have been in some state of conflict for the last 40 years, since the Iranian revolution. This week, we look at three key moments in th...

Supreme

10 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

When, why, and how did the Supreme Court get the final say in the law of the land? The question of the Court's role, and whether its decisions should ...

The Modern White Power Movement

03 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It has been nearly twenty years since 9/11 and during that time much of the media coverage and government attention has been directed at the threat of...

The Spotted Owl

26 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The story of how the Endangered Species Act went from unanimous passage under a Republican president to becoming a deeply partisan wedge. The act was ...

The Invention of Race

19 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The idea that race is a social construct comes from the pioneering work of anthropologist Franz Boas. During a time when race-based science and the eu...

BONUS: Louder Than A Riot

16 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This week we're bringing you something extra, an episode from the NPR Music series, Louder Than A Riot. The series examines the relationship between h...

The Shadows of the Constitution

12 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Constitution is like America's secular bible, our sacred founding document. In her play, What the Constitution Means to Me, Heidi Schreck goes thr...

Bush v. Gore and Why It Matters in 2020

05 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the 2000 presidential election, results weren't known in one night, a week, or even a month. This week, we share an episode we loved from It's Been...

The Most Sacred Right

29 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Frederick Douglass dreamed of a country where all people could vote and he did everything in his power to make that dream a reality. In the face of sl...

How We Vote

22 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Drunken brawls, coercion, and lace curtains. Believe it or not, how regular people vote was not something the founding fathers thought much about, or ...

The Electoral College

15 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What is it, why do we have it, and why hasn't it changed? Born from a rushed, fraught, imperfect process, the origins and evolution of the Electoral ...

(mis)Representative Democracy, A New Series From Throughline

08 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

America has never been a country of one person, one vote. And that's by design. Our system was built by a select few, for a select few. We were never ...

The United States vs. Billie Holiday

08 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Billie Holiday helped shape American popular music with her voice and unique style. But, one song in particular has become her greatest legacy — "St...

The Everlasting Problem

01 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Health insurance for millions of Americans is dependent on their jobs. But it's not like that everywhere. So, how did the U.S. end up with such a frag...

The Evangelical Vote

24 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

With the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the president is hoping to fill the seat with a more ideologically conservative justice. And evangelical Christ...

James Baldwin's Fire

17 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In a moment when America is undertaking an uncomfortable reckoning with its racial inequality and violence, we wanted to look back at someone who conc...

The Postal Service

10 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The US Postal Service has played a role throughout American history - from the Declaration of Independence to today's mail-in voting. It was conceived...

Reframing History: Mass Incarceration

03 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The United States imprisons more people than any other country in the world, and a disproportionate number of those prisoners are Black. What are the ...

Reframing History: Bananas

27 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The banana is a staple of the American diet and has been for generations. But how did this exotic tropical fruit become so commonplace? How one Brookl...

Reframing History: The Commentator

20 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today the foundations of philosophy are seen as a straight line from Western antiquity, built on thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle. But, between th...

Reframing History: The Litter Myth

13 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

There is more waste in the world today than at any time in history, and the responsibility for keeping the environment clean too often falls on indivi...

America's Caste System

06 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

"Race" is often used as a fundamental way to understand American history. But what if "caste" is the more appropriate lens? In conversation with Pulit...

A.D.A. Now!

30 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This month marks the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which is considered the most important civil rights law since the 1960s....

Lives Of The Great Depression

23 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Great Depression was a revolutionary spark for all kinds of things — health insurance, social safety nets, big government — all of which were...

Borinquén

16 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Puerto Rico became a U.S. territory in 1898 and for much of the next fifty years Puerto Ricans fought fiercely about this status. Should they struggle...

The Long Hot Summer

09 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Starting in 1965, summer after summer, America's cities burned. There was civil unrest in more than 150 cities across the country. So in 1967, Lyndon ...

Mecca Under Siege

02 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, is effectively canceled this year, due to concerns around the spread of the coronavirus. But, for two wee...

There's Something About Mary

25 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

When a cook who carried typhoid fever refused to stop working, despite showing no symptoms, the authorities forcibly quarantined her for nearly three ...

Why 2020 Isn't Quite 1968

18 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Protests, racial divisions, political polarization, and a law-and-order president – it's easy to draw comparisons between 2020 and 1968. But, Adam ...

Presidential Power

11 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What can and can't the president do, and how do we know? When the framers of the U.S. constitution left vague the powers of the executive branch they ...

American Police

04 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Black Americans being victimized and killed by the police is an epidemic. A truth many Americans are acknowledging since the murder of George Floyd, a...

Hong Kong

28 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Last week, the Chinese government made the latest and perhaps the most serious move yet to crack down on Hong Kong's semi-autonomy. It's just the late...

Conspiracy

21 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Since the beginning of the pandemic, conspiracy theories about the coronavirus have exploded. But conspiracy theories themselves are nothing new - in ...

The Mask

14 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The N95 respirator has become one of the most coveted items in the world, especially by medical professionals. But how did this seemingly simple mask...

Endless War

07 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

North Korea's famous for being a black box, one of the most secretive and authoritarian countries in the world. It has a nuclear stockpile. A history ...

Meltdown

30 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the early hours of March 28, 1979, a system malfunction began what would become the worst nuclear accident in American history. What ensued punctur...

Aftermath

23 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In 1927, the most destructive river flood in U.S. history inundated seven states, displaced more than half a million people for months, and caused abo...

Buzzkill

16 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the whole of human history, no predator has killed more of us than the lowly mosquito. And this killing spree, which we still struggle in vain to s...

Throughline Presents: Code Switch

09 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Principal Chief of Cherokee Nation told his people to stay strong during this pandemic, and to remember how much they've endured over a long histo...

A Race To Know

02 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For nearly as long as there has been a United States there has been a census, it is in some ways how we know ourselves. And in every single census the...

1918 Flu

26 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic it's tempting to draw comparisons to the most severe pandemic in recent history - the 1918 flu. But as much a...

American Socialist

19 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It's been over a century since a self-described socialist was a viable candidate for President of the United States. And that first socialist candidat...

Savarkar And India

12 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the past few weeks Delhi has become the latest place in India convulsed with religious violence as Hindu mobs burned Muslim neighborhoods, mosques ...

Public Universal Friend

05 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

America in the run-up to the Revolutionary War wasn't just a period of dramatic political change, it was also a time of great religious and social ins...

The Invisible Border

27 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today, the border that divides Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is "soft", in most places you could almost forget that it's there. But for...

The Stars

20 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Astrology has existed for thousands of years and has roots that span the globe. But is it a science or a religion or just a kind of personality test? ...

Becoming America

13 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

When the United States of America was founded, it was only a union of a small number of states. By the beginning of the 20th century, the United State...

She Got Next

06 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

There are more female candidates in this presidential campaign cycle than at any other time in American history. But women were running for the highes...

Vaccination

30 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It's a longstanding fight in the U.S., whether people can opt out of vaccination if that means jeopardizing the greater public's health. In this episo...

Soleimani's Iran

23 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

When Qassem Soleimani was assassinated by the United States on January 3rd, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander suddenly became a household name...

Everybody Knows Somebody

16 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the mid-1980's a woman who didn't consider herself a feminist was asked to solve perhaps the biggest problem women face. How she and a small group ...

There Will Be Bananas

09 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The banana is a staple of the American diet and has been for generations. But how did this exotic tropical fruit become so commonplace? How one Brookl...

Fear of Technology

02 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Artificial intelligence, gene modification, and self-driving cars are causing fear and uncertainty about how technology is changing our lives. But hum...

Russia's Vladimir Putin

26 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Vladimir Putin has been running Russia since 2000 when he was first elected as President. How did a former KGB officer make his way up to the top seat...

Planned Obsolescence

19 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever wondered why your smartphone or toaster oven doesn't seem to last very long, even though technology is becoming better and better? In a ...

America's Opioid Epidemic

12 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A record number of Americans have died from opioid overdoses in recent years. But how did we get here? And is this the first time Americans have faced...

The Electrical Grid

05 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Today, electricity in the U.S. is a utility we notice only when it's suddenly unavailable. But over a hundred years ago, electricity in the homes of e...

Conspiracy Theories

28 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This week we're revisiting one of our favorite episodes about one of our favorite topics: Conspiracy theories. They're a feature of today's news and p...

A Year Of Wonders

21 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

As extreme weather wreaks havoc around the globe we look at a natural disaster more than 200 hundred years ago that had far-reaching effects. This wee...

The Siege of Mecca

14 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On November 20th, 1979, a group of Islamic militants seized Islam's holiest site — the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. They took thousands o...

Throughline Presents: Short Wave

09 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

NPR science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel shares the story of Nazi Germany's attempt to build a nuclear reactor — and how evidence of that effort was...

No Friend But The Mountains

07 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Over the decades the Kurds have been inspired by, allied with, relied upon and betrayed by the United States. This week we explore who the Kurds are, ...

ZOMBIES

31 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Zombies have become a global phenomenon — there have been at least ten zombie movies so far this year. Which made us wonder, where did this fascinat...

The Dark Side Of The Moon

24 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

50 years ago the world watched as man first landed on the moon, an incredible accomplishment by the engineers and scientists of NASA. But what if some...

A Borrowed Time

17 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past six months, demonstrations in Hong Kong have increasingly become more violent and more determined. What started out as a protest against...

The Commentator

10 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Today the foundations of philosophy are seen as a straight line from Western antiquity, built on thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle. But, between th...

High Crimes And Misdemeanors

03 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

When Andrew Johnson became president in 1865, the United States was in the middle of one of its most volatile chapters. The country was divided after ...

American Exile

26 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

For centuries, the United States has been a prime destination for migrants hoping for better economic opportunities, fleeing danger in their home coun...

Puerto Rico

19 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Puerto Rico became a U.S. territory in 1898 and for much of the next fifty years Puerto Ricans fought fiercely about this status. Should they struggle...

Three Chords And The Truth

12 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

When Lil Nas X released his viral hit "Old Town Road" last year, he sparked a conversation about what country music is and who is welcome in the genre...

The Litter Myth

05 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

There is more waste in the world today than at any time in history, and the responsibility for keeping the environment clean too often falls on indivi...

On The Shoulders Of Giants

29 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

When Colin Kaepernick stopped standing for the national anthem at NFL games it sparked a nationwide conversation about patriotism and police brutality...

Strange Fruit

22 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Billie Holiday helped shape American popular music with her voice and unique style. But, her legacy extends way beyond music with one song in particul...

Mass Incarceration

15 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The United States imprisons more people than any other country in the world, and a disproportionate number of those prisoners are Black. What are the ...

Scorched Earth

08 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The term "concentration camp" is most associated with Nazi Germany and the systematic killing of Jews during World War II. But colonial powers used co...

Huey Long Vs. The Media

01 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Huey Pierce Long: you either loved him, or hated him. He combined progressive economic ideas with an autocratic streak, earning him thousands of adori...

Milliken v. Bradley

25 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

After the landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, public schools across the country were supposed to become more integrated, but by the 1970...

Rules Of Engagement

18 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

After Iran shot down an American surveillance drone in June, tensions between the two countries have only gone up. But the US and Iran have been in so...

Four Days In August

11 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The U.S. and Iran have had a tense relationship for decades — but when did that begin? This week, we feature our very first episode about an event f...