Podcast Episodes

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 families around a divided country. This episode origi…

Published on 9 months, 1 week 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 discovery, made during the Cold War, may have helped …

Published on 9 months, 2 weeks 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 missing from the Constitution: clear instructions for w…

Published on 9 months, 3 weeks 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 with a system that's so expensive, yet leaves so many…

Published on 10 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 deliberately vague, and in doing so opened the door for e…

Published on 10 months, 1 week 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 been repeatedly disproven: there is no evidence that …

Published on 10 months, 2 weeks 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 him leave his ship. Citing the Chinese Exclusion A…

Published on 10 months, 3 weeks ago

The Kingdom Behind Glass

Episode 327

Who owns stolen art? Today on the show, the bloody journey of a Benin Bronze from West Africa to the halls of one of England's most elite universities — a tale of imperialism, betrayal, and the makin…

Published on 11 months ago

We The People: Cruel and Unusual Punishment

The Eighth Amendment. What is cruel and unusual punishment? Who gets to define and decide its boundaries? And how did the Constitution's authors imagine it might change? Today on Throughline's We the…

Published on 11 months, 1 week ago

Ralph Nader, Consumer Crusader (Throwback)

Whether it's pesticides in your cereal or the door plug flying off your airplane, consumers today have plenty of reasons to feel like corporations might not have their best interests at heart. At a m…

Published on 11 months, 2 weeks ago