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When Things Fall Apart
Episode 337
Climate disaster, political unrest, random violence: Western society can often feel like what the filmmaker Werner Herzog calls "a thin layer of ice …
1 year, 1 month ago
Get Rich Quick: The American Lottery
Episode 336
Want to get rich quick? You're not alone. Right now, Americans spend over $100 billion, yes billion, every year on lottery tickets. Today on the show…
1 year, 1 month ago
We the People: The Right to Remain Silent
Episode 335
The Fifth Amendment. You have the right to remain silent when you're being questioned in police custody, thanks to the Fifth's protection against sel…
1 year, 2 months ago
Sesame Street
Big Bird, politics, and the ABCs: how a television show made to represent New York City neighborhoods like Harlem and the Bronx became beloved by fam…
1 year, 2 months ago
Winter is Coming
Dinosaurs, Carl Sagan, and nuclear war. There was a moment in the not-so-distant past when we learned what drove the dinosaurs extinct — and that dis…
1 year, 2 months ago
We the People: Succession of Power
The 25th amendment. A few years before JFK was shot, an idealistic young lawyer set out on a mission to convince people something essential was missi…
1 year, 2 months ago
Health Insurance in America
Episode 331
Millions of Americans depend on their jobs for health insurance. But that's not the case in many other wealthy countries. How did the U.S. end up wit…
1 year, 3 months ago
The Evolution of Presidential Power
What can and can't the president do — and how do we know? The framers of the U.S. Constitution left the powers of the executive branch powers deliber…
1 year, 3 months ago
The Anti-Vaccine Movement
Episode 329
The alleged link between vaccines and autism was first published in 1998, in a since-retracted study in medical journal The Lancet. The claim has bee…
1 year, 3 months ago
The History of Birthright Citizenship
Wong Kim Ark was born in the U.S. and lived his whole life here. But when he returned from a trip to China in August of 1895, officials wouldn't let …
1 year, 3 months ago