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New episodes of the hit Wondery shows that make you smarter, featuring Business Wars, The Next Big Idea, American History Tellers, American Scandal, Tides of History, Safe for Work and more. Go to your Wondery+ member portal at https://wondery.com/plus-members to get individual show feeds for more than 30 Wondery original and partner shows.

Alexandra Horowitz takes us inside the mind of a puppy. James Bridle introduces us to slime mold that can outwit the best human engineers. Justin Gregg makes the case that thinking like an animal is the key to living a good life. And Tom Mustill explains how a near-death encounter with a 30-ton whale led him to the scientists who are building Google Translate for animal languages.---Download the Next Big Idea app to hear the Book Bites sampled in this episode: nextbigideaclub.com/app

Humor is no laughing matter. It inspires innovation, strengthens relationships, disarms tension, and makes you look smart. Seriously. Stanford professors Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas say the recipe for professional success and personal fulfillment is to lighten up, pack a little levity in your briefcase, and start living your life on the precipice of a smile. In today's episode, they dig into the neuroscience of laughter, share tips for crafting the perfect joke, and help Rufus improve his comic chops. (This episode first aired in April 2021.)

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When Bo Seo was 8 years old, his family moved from Korea to Australia. He did not speak a world of English. At school, to deflect attention from his inarticulacy, he became an agreeable wallflower. But that all changed when Bo’s fifth-grade teacher introduced him to competitive debate. Bo was hooked, and in the years to come, he’d not only win two debate world championships but also go on to coach the Australian national team as well as the Debating Union at Harvard, where he earned his undergraduate degree and is currently a law student. Earlier this year, Bo published his first book, “Good Arguments: How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard,” which was chosen by our curators as one of the year’s eight best works of non-fiction. In today’s episode, Bo sits down with one of those curators, Adam Grant, to share time-honored techniques for getting your point across, changing minds without hurting feelings, dealing with bullies, and knowing when to shut up.

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There's no such thing as a "normal" brain. And according to Dr. Chantel Prat, a neuroscientist at the University of Washington, that's a very good thing indeed. In her new book, "The Neuroscience of You," Chantel tells readers how their brains got to be the way they are, and today on the show, she explains how to get the most out of the brain you've got.

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“Life is a game. There’s no way to understand the human world without first understanding this. Everyone alive is playing a game whose hidden rules are built into us and that silently directs our thoughts, beliefs and actions. This game is inside us. It is us. We can’t help but play.” So begins “The Status Game,” a new book by acclaimed writer Will Storr. He continues: “We play for status, if only subtly, with every social interaction, every contribution we make to work, love or family life and every internet post. We play with how we dress, how we speak and what we believe. … Life is not a journey towards a perfect destination. It’s a game that never ends. And it’s the very worst of us.” Does it have to be? We may not be able to quit the status game, but Will says we can learn to play it better. In this episode, he explains how.

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The Next Big Idea presents an audio masterclass from bestselling author Susan Cain. Drawing on her latest book, "Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole," Susan shares practical insights that you can use to bolster your creativity, deepen your connections, and find joy. Susan Cain is the author of two New York Times #1 bestsellers, "Bittersweet" and "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking." She's also one of our curators here at the Next Big Idea Club. To learn more about her work, visit susancain.net. If you enjoy this episode, we invite you to join our community by downloading the Next Big Idea app, where you can listen to e-courses by brilliant authors like Shankar Vedantam, Lisa Feldman Barrett, and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. Visit nextbigideaclub.com/app.

Eric Barker teaches our curator Daniel Pink how to make friends, disarm marital conflicts, and spot liars.

If the human race lasts as long as a typical mammalian species and our population continues at its current size, then there are 80 trillion people yet to come. Oxford philosophy professor William MacAskill says it's up to us to protect them. In his bold new book, "What We Owe the Future," MacAskill makes a case for longtermism. He believes that how long we survive as a species may depend on the actions we take now.

To hear the Book Bite for "What We Owe the Future," download the Next Big Idea app at nextbigideaclub.com/app

In her new book, “Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away,” Annie Duke says mastering the art of quitting is the key to making smart decisions.

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For the last 25 years, writer A.J. Jacobs has attempted to live his life as a human guinea pig. “I’ve engaged in a series of experiments on my mind and body,” he says, “some of which have been fruitful, some humiliating failures. I’ve tried to understand the world by immersing myself in extraordinary circumstances.” His book “The Know-It-All” chronicled his experience reading the encyclopedia from cover to cover. To write “The Year of Living Biblically,” he followed every commandment in the Old Testament, including the edicts stone adulterers and avoid shaving the corners of your beard. Now A.J. is back with a new immersive memoir, “The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life.”

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Tony Fadell led the teams that created the iPod, iPhone, and Nest Learning Thermostat. In his new book, “Build,” he shares everything he’s learned about building great companies and game-changing products.

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Have you ever found yourself sitting around a table at a luxury resort with five mega-rich strangers who want to know where you think they should build their doomsday bunkers? Absurd as it may sound, that actually happened to media theorist Douglas Rushkoff. Today on the show he explains why the 0.01 percent are obsessed with escaping climate change, global pandemics, political upheaval ... and us.

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Arthur C. Brooks used to run a prominent think tank where he was paid handsomely to influence public policy. Did all that success make him happy? Nope. So Arthur quit his job and set out to transform his life. Now he has written a book about what he learned along the way, the #1 New York Times bestseller “From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life.”

Want to hear Arthur summarize his new book in just nine minutes? Download the Next Big Idea app and search for Arthur's Book Bite: http://nextbigideaclub.com/app

Demis Hassabis is one of tech's most brilliant minds. A chess-playing child prodigy turned researcher and founder of headline-making AI company DeepMind, Demis is thinking through some of the most revolutionary — and in some cases controversial — uses of artificial intelligence. From the development of computer program AlphaGo, which beat out world champions in the board game Go, to making leaps in the research of how proteins fold, Demis is at the helm of the next generation of groundbreaking technology. In this episode, he gives a peek into some of the questions that his top-level projects are asking, talks about how gaming, creativity, and intelligence inform his approach to tech, and muses on where AI is headed next. This is an episode of "The TED Interview," a podcast in the TED Audio Collective. It's hosted by author Steven Johnson. To check out the rest of their episodes, including a recent mini-series on the future of human intelligence, follow the show wherever you're listening to this.

The late Bronze Age was a time of powerful empires and intense competition between them. Never before had true states covered such a large area, or had such resources to devote to politicking and fighting with one another. The result was war on a scale never before seen in human history.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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The United States government and the public turn on John D. Rockefeller, leaving Standard Oil vulnerable to their biggest overseas competitors, Shell and Royal Dutch.

While music streaming platforms have exploded, many critics argue the status quo isn't working for artists. We're taking a deep dive into the music industry, exploring the relationship between artists, labels, fans and the internet. On this episode, we're joined by music journalists Brittany Spanos, senior staff writer at Rolling Stone, and Naima Cochrane, a music and culture journalist and a former record label executive at some of the industry’s biggest outlets.

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Today is Wednesday, August 31, and we're looking at MoviePass vs. AMC Theatres.

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In early 1865, after four long years of bloodshed, the Confederacy was on the brink of defeat. General William Tecumseh Sherman marched his army through South Carolina, where Union soldiers sought vengeance against the secessionist state that started the war. After nine grueling months of siege warfare in Virginia, General Ulysses S. Grant prepared to strike a final blow against Robert E. Lee’s starving, ragged army. Soon, the two commanders would meet at a house in Appomattox, Virginia to finally bring the war to a close.

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Today is Tuesday, August 30, and we're looking at HelloFresh vs. Blue Apron.

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Edward Snowden tries to flee to Ecuador. But the Obama administration counters with a surprise move, leaving Snowden trapped in Russia.

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Today is Monday, August 29, and we're looking at Rothy's vs. Plastic Soul.

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Ron Shelton is an Academy Award–nominated writer and director, former shortstop for the Bluefield Baby Birds, and author of a humdinger of a new memoir called "The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham — Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit." On the show today: How Ron sold the movie before he had a story, wrote the script without a plan, played ball with Kevin Costner, and got directorial pointers from Susan Sarandon.

» Want to hear the world's leading authors summarize their books in 12 minutes? Download the Next Big Idea app today at nextbigideaclub.com/app/

Today is Friday, August 26, and we're looking at Wish vs. Zulily.

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John D. Rockefeller attempts to expand Standard Oil’s operations in Asia. But an English merchant, a Dutch oilman, and members of one of the wealthiest families in the world are ready to take on John and claim the Asian oil market for themselves.

What was it like to be a regular person in ancient Egypt? What did people do when they got sick or injured? Professor Anne Austin is an Egyptologist and bioarchaeologist who studies health and disease using both texts and human remains, allowing us to answer questions about the bodily experience of ancient life in ways we never thought possible.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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Today is Thursday, August 25, and we're looking at Ben & Jerry's vs. Unilever.

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Today is Wednesday, August 24, and we're looking at 4moms vs. Graco.

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Can the former crown jewel of Hollywood keep up in the age of the streaming giants? To understand Paramount’s future, you’ve got to understand its past. So today, we’re throwing it back with Doug Herzog, a former executive at Paramount’s parent company Viacom. Doug greenlit some of cable’s biggest shows. South Park, anyone? He now hosts Basic, a podcast about the time when cable was cool.

Later, we’ll check in on what’s in store for Paramount going forward with Matt Belloni. He’s a founding member of the entertainment industry newsletter Puck, and host of The Town from The Ringer, a podcast that goes behind-the-scenes in Hollywood.

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In 1864, Ulysses S. Grant took charge of the entire Union Army and laid out his ambitious plans to finally win the war. Grant pursued Lee in Virginia in a campaign unrivaled in the history of the war for its brutal, savage fighting. In the Election of 1864, Abraham Lincoln battled Democratic General George McClellan for the presidency. And that fall, General William Tecumseh Sherman launched his infamous March to the Sea, determined to spread misery through the Georgia countryside.

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Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald prepare to break their story. Edward Snowden goes on the run.

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Today is Tuesday, August 23, and we're looking at Circ vs. Parade.

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Today is Monday, August 22, and we're looking at Lyft vs. Uber.

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What happens when you put your phone in airplane mode, walk out your front door, and don’t come home for 12 hours? Our producer Caleb finds out, with help from adventurer Colin O’Brady.

» To learn more about Colin’s new book, “The 12-Hour Walk,” visit 12hourwalk.com » Want to hear hundreds of leading authors summarize their books in 12 minutes or less? Download the Next Big Idea today: nextbigideaclub.com/app/

Today is Friday, August 19, and we're looking at Haus vs. Empathy Wines.

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In the 19th Century, J.D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil vanquishes the competition on its way to the top of the oil industry. Rockefeller is truly untouchable, until two rival competitors from overseas join forces and merge their companies to take him down.

We know the late Bronze Age world eventually collapsed, but what made it a world in the first place? The answer lies in the intense connections - trade, politics, and culture - that tied together a vast area of the ancient world, from Mycenaean Greece to Elamite Iran and the Caucasus Mountains to the Upper Nile in Nubia.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

Listen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclusive seasons 1 and 2, and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/tidesofhistory.

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Today is Thursday, August 18, and we're looking at Abercrombie & Fitch vs. American Eagles Outfitters.

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Today is Wednesday, August 17, and we're looking at Activision Blizzard vs. Electronic Arts.

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In the summer of 1863, General Robert E. Lee made a daring bid for victory. He marched his army north to invade Pennsylvania. For three sweltering days, two massive armies locked in combat in the Battle of Gettysburg, the defining clash of the Civil War—and the conflict’s bloodiest. In the West, General Ulysses S. Grant emerges as the North’s most capable military leader as he drives his forces in the Siege of Vicksburg to turn the tide of the war.

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Edward Snowden lands a job with the NSA. But when he stumbles on a shocking government secret, Snowden has to face a moral dilemma.

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Today is Tuesday, August 16, and we're looking at Propel vs. Instacart.

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Today is Monday, August 15, and we're looking at Toyota vs. BMW.

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Today is Friday, August 12, and we're looking at Pinterest vs, Adobe.

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The Ohio, Hudson, Mississippi, and Yellowstone — Dick Conant canoed them all. And then he disappeared. In his riveting new book, “Riverman,” journalist Ben McGrath tries to track down the man who may be the greatest American folk hero you’ve never heard of.

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When we think about ancient Egypt, the vast majority of our attention goes to its elite: pharaohs, queens, priests, and nobles. But the elite made up only the tiniest portion of the population. What about the people who built the pyramids, royal tombs, great temples, and palaces? What can we know about them? A great deal, as it turns out.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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Author David Bank delves deeper into the antitrust trial that sent Bill Gates falling from grace and nearly broke Microsoft apart.

Today is Thursday, August 11, and we're looking at Dollar General vs. Family Dollar.

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Today is Wednesday, August 10, and we're looking at Spotify vs. Tidal.

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As the Civil War raged on, families on the homefront faced increasingly heavy tolls, enduring crippling economic turmoil, food shortages and explosive class tensions.

Meanwhile, Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis waged their own battles with congressmen and governors over war policies. And in 1863 politics clashed with realities on the ground when hundreds of starving women rioted in Richmond, the Confederate capitol, and the Union draft sparked deadly riots in New York City."

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Today is Tuesday, August 9, and we're looking at Kitchen United vs. CloudKitchen.

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Filmmaker Laura Poitras gets a tip from a mysterious informant. Despite the enormous risks, Poitras pursues the story, and teams up with reporter Glenn Greenwald.

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Today is Monday, August 8, and we're looking at SoulCycle vs. Peloton.

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Today is Friday, August 5, and we're looking at Unilever vs Nestlé.

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Close your eyes and picture paradise. What do you see? For many people, it’s a turquoise ocean crashing into a white-sand beach. Where did this fantasy come from? Sarah Stodola, author of “The Last Resort: A Chronicle of Paradise, Profit, and Peril at the Beach,” has a few ideas. Download The Next Big Idea app today at nextbigideaclub.com/app/

As Satya prepares for some of Microsoft’s most ambitious launches yet, the CEO finds a new set of challenges and pressures waiting for him, both in and out of the office.

Today is Thursday, August 4, and we're looking at Facebook vs. TikTok.

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If we know one thing about the Bronze Age world, we know that it collapsed. But what made it a world? And why did it fall apart? There's nobody better to ask than Professor Eric Cline, who literally wrote the book - 1177 BC - on the end of the Bronze Age.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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It’s Christmas 1993. The bidding war for Paramount is underway and QVC is far out in front.

But Viacom owner Sumner Redstone’s not giving in. He’s trying to engineer a merger with Blockbuster that will arm him with the billions he needs to catch up with QVC.

But Blockbuster chairman Wayne Huizenga isn’t about to roll over, and with the deadline for final offers approaching, Redstone’s almost out of time.

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It’s the fall of 1993 and Viacom owner Sumner Redstone thinks he’s got Paramount all sown up.

But QVC chief Barry Diller is about to launch a counter-strike and ignite an all-out war for control of the movie and publishing giant.

And as the fight intensifies, both men are depending on their partners to have their back. But they’re about to find their back-up isn’t as solid as they think.

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It’s summer 1993 and QVC boss Barry Diller is ready to pull the trigger on his hostile takeover to buy Paramount.

But he’s about to find he's got an enemy in his ranks who’s playing both sides.

And while Diller tries to get his bid back on track, Paramount chairman Martin Davis is getting cosy with another suitor – Diller’s pal and Viacom owner, Sumner Redstone.

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The Civil War began as an effort to hold the country together. Few Northern soldiers marched into battle to end slavery. But tens of thousands of enslaved men, women, and children took matters into their own hands, using the chaos of the war to free themselves from bondage. Their action forced a gradual shift in Union war policy.

After a bloody, hard-fought victory over Confederate forces at Antietam, Abraham Lincoln decided the time had come for what was once unthinkable: a proclamation that would end slavery for good.

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Today is Wednesday, August 3, and we're looking at Disney+ vs. Netflix.

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Today is Tuesday, August 2, and we're looking at TomoCredit vs. X1.

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While we used many sources in creating this season, key elements of the story were drawn from the book Exposure by Robert Bilott. We highly recommend it. You can buy the book here: https://bit.ly/3yUa7y6

Lindsay chats with Robert Bilott, the attorney who took on DuPont, and the author of the book "Exposure." The two discuss the dangerous chemicals that have found their way into consumer products. And they look at the steps the government is taking to protect our health.

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Today is Monday, August 1, and we're looking at DoorDash vs. Grubhub.

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An official investigation blows the whistle on Chicago PD. Jon Burge faces a day of reckoning in court.

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Today is Friday, July 29, and we're looking at Netflix vs. HBO Max.

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Here’s another episode from our archives that we love: Rufus’s 2020 interview with Ryan Holiday, the author of “Stillness Is the Key,” who shared his tips for slowing down, calming your mind, and accessing the tranquility deep inside.

Streaming services are having to get creative to keep our attention amid a sea of competition — from big-screen movies to video games to each other. On this episode, we're joined by Matt Patches, Deputy editor at Vox Media’s Polygon and Clay Keller, host and producer of the ScreenDrafts podcast to look at stories about the TV and movie business from our sister show, Business Wars Daily.

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Satya gets to work uniting Microsoft with a fresh vision, but internal resistance and a public blunder make it difficult for the new CEO to build the trust necessary for a true cultural renaissance.

Today is Thursday, July 28, and we're looking at KFC vs. Popeye's.

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Kings are one of the constants of ancient Egypt's long history. But what, exactly, were kings supposed to do, and how did ancient Egyptians understand the role of their king? Professor Laurel Bestock is one of the world's leading experts on the institution of kingship in ancient Egypt, as well as an experienced archaeologist, and she brings several fascinating viewpoints to help us understand the central role of the pharaoh.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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Today is Wednesday, July 27, and we're looking at Uber vs. Lyft.

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On April 19th, 1861, an angry mob of Confederate sympathizers in Baltimore tried to stop a regiment of Union soldiers rushing to protect the capitol. Soon, four soldiers and 12 locals lay dead, and dozens more were wounded. It was the first blood spilled in what would become the Civil War.

Soon, Union and Confederate soldiers marched into their first major battle. Both sides were confident of a quick, decisive victory. But the bloodiest war in U.S. history was just beginning.

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It’s early 1993 and television’s about to make a quantum leap into a multi-channel world where viewers can access movies from the comfort of their own sofa.

But with Hollywood’s movie studios set to clean up in this new world, every media player wants a film factory to call their own.

Including Hollywood hot-shot Barry Diller. And he wants to get on the ground floor of the revolution by buying Paramount – the studio he used to run.

But to succeed he’ll need to first defeat his old boss – Paramount chairman Martin Davis.

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Today is Tuesday, July 26, and we're looking at Hilton vs. Kimpton.

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While we used many sources in creating this season, key elements of the story were drawn from the book Exposure by Robert Bilott. We highly recommend it. You can buy the book here: https://bit.ly/3yUa7y6

DuPont strikes back in court. As the battle intensifies, Robert Bilott faces a crisis that threatens his life.

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It's the 2010s and the weight-loss industry's battling intensifying headwinds. Calorie-counting smartphone apps are attracting millions of users and the diet backlash is getting louder by the day.

As the pressure mounts, Weight Watchers realizes it needs to move with the times and reinvent itself. But it soon finds itself facing a conundrum: how to change convincingly without alienating the dieters the business depends on?

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It's the early 1990s and the diet boom is over. Weight Watchers is now a millstone around Heinz's neck, Jenny Craig's advance has stalled, and Nutri/System's bankrupt and broken.

Faced with tanking sales, the diet giants home need new tricks to get people back on their weight-loss plans. And soon all three are homing in on the same answer – paying celebrities big bucks to convince the public that they're just a diet away from happiness.

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It's 1983 and civil war's broken out within Nutri/System. But while CEO Harold Katz fights his franchisees, his former colleague Jenny Craig has grand designs on Australia.

Craig wants to use Australia as a staging post on the way to becoming a U.S. heavyweight, but first she's got to convince women Down Under to diet like Americans. And that's going to be anything but easy.

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Today is Monday, July 25, and we're looking at Snapchat vs. Zoom.

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Civil rights attorneys take on a risky case against Jon Burge. As they press their fight in court, an official in the police department launches an official investigation.

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It's 1961 and in a supermarket, housewife Jean Nidetch is about to get a shock that will send her on desperate quest to get thin.

But when her new diet gets tough, she turns to friends for help and inadvertently starts what will become Weight Watchers. And as Weight Watchers rakes in big bucks from weight-loss, a street-tough Philadelphia businessman grabs his chance to become a millionaire.

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Today is Friday, July 22, and we're looking at Lightship Energy vs. Winnebago.

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Today we’re bringing you a timely — and tasty — episode from our archives. Science journalist Amanda Little tells Rufus that the biggest threat posed by climate change is the collapse of our food systems. Provisions we love, like coffee and wine, are losing their flavor. And crops we rely on, like corn and soy, are getting harder to grow. If we don’t change our agricultural practices, we won’t be able to feed the globe’s swelling population. But don’t lose hope. Amanda says that if we can combine the wisdom of traditional farming practices with radical advances in agricultural technology, we might be able to create a healthier, more sustainable, and perhaps even more delicious future.

Egypt's New Kingdom lasted for more than 400 years. In that time, Egypt changed dramatically, weathering ups, downs, and turmoil of all kinds. Much of that turmoil centered around a religious visionary who also happened to be pharaoh: Akhenaten, father of the famous Tutankhamun, whose incredible tomb and less-than-impressive reign was a reflection of those unsettled times.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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Today is Thursday, July 21, and we're looking at Arise vs. Equip Health.

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Satya leads the development of Bing, one of Microsoft’s first businesses born in the cloud. But, before he can turn his attention to the technology, Satya must face the internal conflicts and competitive culture that threaten to tear Microsoft apart.

Over the first decades of the 19th century, Americans fought over whether slavery should be allowed to expand into newly settled western territories. The debate grew so fierce that it led to a bloody attack right on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Many believed that the fight over slavery had made the bonds of union more brittle than ever.

Then, in 1860, Abraham Lincoln won the presidency with a promise to keep slavery out of the West. Lincoln’s victory was the tipping point. One by one, Southern states took steps to sever their ties to the Union, and America hurtled down the path to Civil War.

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Gucci and Louis Vuitton are still the crème de la crème in high fashion. But between shifting consumer values, TikTok and Gen Z, these brands have a lot of work to do to keep up — if they don’t want to end up sooo last season.

It’s a glamorous world in the middle of a transformation. That’s why we invited Rachel Tashjian, Fashion News Director at Harper’s Bazaar, back to Business Wars to walk us down the runway. She joined us for our season on Fast Fashion, and now she’s introducing us to the world of haute couture.

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A double murder shocks the city of Chicago. As police work to solve the crime, they launch a campaign that turns violent.

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Today, we are revisiting one of our favorite episodes: an interview with New Yorker staff writer John Colapinto. In his brilliant book, "This Is the Voice," John says that while opposable thumbs are handy, the voice is our species' greatest attribute. We rely on it to communicate and collaborate, woo our mates and protect our children, win wars and make podcasts. John would know. A vocal injury changed his relationship with his instrument and set him on a path to better understand what his voice means to him — and what the voice means to humanity.

Most of what we think we know about ancient Egypt is actually things we know about the New Kingdom, the last of Egypt's three classical golden ages: an empire stretching into the Near East and Nubia, warrior kings leading armies of chariots, the lavish tombs of the Valley of the Kings, and the well-preserved faces of royal mummies.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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A young engineer carves his path to becoming Microsoft’s third CEO, determined to launch a technological and cultural revolution that will change the company and the world.

The Age of Jackson was a time of intense change and tremendous growth in the United States. But it was not without controversy. In the years leading up to the Civil War, slavery and the rising abolitionist movement divided the country. On this episode, Lindsay speaks with Dr. Kate Masur, a history professor at Northwestern University and the author of Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction. They’ll discuss the decades leading up to the Civil War: the Black codes, the Fugitive Slave Act, and the Compromise of 1850 and states’ rights.

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Jon Burge is a star detective in the Chicago Police Department. He's known as a man who can crack the most difficult cases, and send the worst criminals to jail. But underneath his success is a dark secret—one that could shatter the city of Chicago.

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We laughed. We cried. We learned. As our fourth season draws to a close, we thought we'd share the moments we're still talking about at Next Big Idea Club HQ. Further Listening: • REGRETS: Daniel Pink Has a Few (And So Should You) • VOICE: You Are What You Speak • EXTENDED MIND: Want to Get Smarter? Try Thinking Outside of Your Brain • FUN: How to Have More of It • FEELING & KNOWING: Unlocking the Secrets of Consciousness • REALITY+: Are We Living in a Simulation? • DRUNK: Can Alcohol Make You More Creative, Sociable, and Attractive? • DAWN OF EVERYTHING: The True History of Humanity • LAZINESS: There's No Such Thing • DOPAMINE NATION: Why the Modern World Puts Us All at Risk for Addiction • BITTERSWEET: Susan Cain on the Beauty of Sorrow and Longing • THE BOMBER MAFIA: Malcolm Gladwell on Warfare, Audiobooks, and the Future of Storytelling

Writer, editor, and Southwest guru Joseph Guinto talks about the current state of Southwest, and the legacy Herb Kelleher left behind.

Sea levels rise, hills erode, and rivers change course over decades and centuries, dramatically affecting how people choose to live in their landscapes. Professor Mike Carson is an expert in the study of archaeological landscapes in the ancient Pacific, and his work has provided incredible insights into how the ancient speakers of the Austronesian languages saw and lived in their world.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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In 1845, newly inaugurated President James Polk made America’s westward expansion a centerpiece of his administration. Before long, the phrase “Manifest Destiny” was used to describe this growing sense of inevitability the United States would extend its territory across the entire North American continent. There was just one problem: Mexico was standing in the way.

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Eric Benson is a senior editor at the magazine Texas Monthly. In 2018, Benson wrote a series of articles that helped shed new light on the tragedy at Mount Carmel. He and Lindsay discuss how the event still shapes American life today.

Looking for the DuPont Chemical Cover-up season? You can listen to episode 1 starting 7/12 on Wondery+.

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In July 1970, on the first day of his murder trial, Charles Manson arrived in the courtroom was a bloody red “X” freshly carved into his forehead. The press ate it up. It was just the first of many sensational moments in a trial that would dominate headlines for the next nine months, and cement Manson’s legacy as one of the most chilling cult leaders in American history.

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Jody Rosen is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine and a bike nut who has just published a rousing (and sometimes arousing) book called “Two Wheels Good: The History and Mystery of the Bicycle.” Today, he takes us on a rollicking ride through the two-wheeled revolution, revealing the surprising ways bicycles have shaped the world in which we live.

This and That: » Download the Next Big Idea app » Learn more about Transportation Alternatives » Check out the plans to build pedestrian and cycling bridges in NYC

When we think of the Middle Ages, the first thing that comes to mind is usually knights in shining armor. Chivalry - the ideal of behavior that guided knights - was a major force in medieval life. Honor and piety, bravery and reputation: these were core values for the secular elite. We explore what they actually meant to medieval people.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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Herb oversees his airline’s largest period of growth to date. But as Southwest thrives, Herb has to battle new competition, the threat of government regulation, and federal law to secure his legacy at Southwest and protect the corporate culture he’s worked to build.

Bernard Arnault makes his move to buy Gucci, but Domenico De Sole fights back with everything he’s got, making a surprisingly worthy adversary for the so-called Wolf in Cashmere. But in an effort to stave off Arnault’s advances, De Sole makes a deal with a devil. And both Louis Vuitton and Gucci have to deal with the aftershocks of designers who defined their brands for years departing the companies. How each brand responds to the shake-up determines the future of their success.

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Maurizio Gucci is out, and now for the first time since its founding, Gucci isn’t being run by a Gucc.i. At the top is CEO Domenico De Sole and his right hand man is exciting young fashion designer Tom Ford. Together the two of them make Gucci the hottest fashion and accessory company in the world.

Over at Louis Vuitton, Bernard Arnault wants in on the action. He hires his own young, hip designer, Marc Jacobs to oversee Louis Vuitton’s expansion into ready-to-wear clothing. But when Jacobs gets off to a rough start and Gucci’s stock drops due to an economic crisis in Asia, Arnault decides if he can’t beat Gucci, maybe it’s time to buy them.

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Now merged with luxury drinks company Moët Hennessy, Louis Vuitton finds itself being squeezed out, overpowered in the merger. In an attempt to regain control, Louis Vuitton’s CEO forms an alliance with Bernard Arnault, one of France’s most ambitious businessmen. Louis Vuitton hopes that Arnault will serve as an ally, but Arnault didn’t get the nickname the “Wolf in Cashmere” for nothing.

Meanwhile, Maurizio Gucci finally has full control of Gucci and is desperate to rebrand the company and reclaim its exclusive image. But investors grow impatient with Maurizio’s reckless spending and irresponsible closureof revenue streams, endangering his position as CEO.

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Today is Wednesday, June 29, and we're looking at Apple vs. Microsoft.

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For decades Gucci and Louis Vuitton dominated the luxury accessory markets. Their bags and shoes were status symbols, sported by celebrities and royalty around the globe. But by the 1970s both companies were struggling. Louis Vuitton was being run by the great-grandsons of the company’s founder. They were risk-averse, unwilling to make any changes. And the heirs of the founder of Gucci were fighting over the direction of the business. Maurizio Gucci, the founder’s grandson,can’t get his family on board with his vision, leaving the company stagnant.

But when both companies get new leaders, these family-run companies are poised to become global mega-brands… and the two businesses are now on a collision course in their quest to become the largest luxury accessory brands in the world.

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During the last years of Andrew Jackson’s presidency, the American economy flourished. But when his successor, Martin Van Buren, took office, he inherited a financial crisis. Before he became president, Van Buren’s political skill had earned him the nickname “The Little Magician.” But he could not conjure away two major stains on his administration: the Panic of 1837, and the forced removal of Native Americans from the South that became known as the Trail of Tears.

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The Branch Davidians prepare to surrender. But their plan unravels when they face the FBI, which is under intense pressure to get quick results.

Looking for the DuPont Chemical Cover-up season? We had to unpublish the DuPont series for the time being but hope to release these episodes in a new season in the near future. We apologize for the inconvenience.

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Today is Tuesday, June 28, and we're looking at Kind North America vs. Clif Bar & Co.

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In the summer of 1969, Charles Manson’s predictions of a coming race war called Helter Skelter still had not come to pass. Manson’s followers, the Family, were getting impatient – and Manson was growing desperate to keep them under his control. Finally, he decided to jump-start Helter Skelter himself, orchestrating a series of brutal murders that would baffle authories and shock the nation.

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Today is Monday, June 27, and we're looking at Petco vs. Petsmart.

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Today is Friday, June 24, and we're looking at The Coca-Cola Company vs. PepsiCo.

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“You can make better life decisions. Big Data can help you.” So begins “Don’t Trust Your Gut,” a new book by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. Seth, a former Google data scientist, has mined massive data sets in order to answer some of life’s most vexing questions: “What predicts a happy marriage?” and “How do you get rich?” and “What really makes us happy?” The answers may surprise you.

Download the Next Big Idea app today at nextbigideaclub.com/app/

Star Carr, located in the Yorkshire region of northern England, is one of the world's richest archaeological sites, a waterlogged window onto the European Mesolithic more than 11,000 years ago. Professor Chantal Conneller spent more than a decade excavating at Star Carr, and she joins me to talk about this enigmatic and little-known but incredibly fascinating period of human history.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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Big fashion brands are trying to diversify their customer base, and also lure consumers to tailored in-person shopping experiences — but it doesn't always go as planned. On this episode, we're joined by Alana Hope Levinson, a freelance culture writer and editor and host of the west coast style podcast “Free Validation” — and comedian Megan Gailey, who’s performed on Conan and The Tonight Show and who hosts the podcast “I Love A Lifetime Movie.” We're looking at stories about the evolving fashion landscape from our sister show, Business Wars Daily.

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After Lamar Muse departs Southwest Airlines, Herb Kelleher becomes chairman, and eventually CEO. But as Herb fights to expand Southwest, he finds himself up against congressmen, new competitors, and even his own pilots.

Today is Thursday, June 23, and we're looking at Dutchie vs. Akerna.

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During his military career, Andrew Jackson won several ruthless victories over indigenous people. After becoming president in 1829, he waged political war against them, too. Jackson championed “Indian removal” – the forced displacement of Native Americans to make way for white settlers. And none would feel the brunt of Jackson’s policies more than the groups known as the “Five Civilized Tribes” – the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole.

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Today is Wednesday, June 22, and we're looking at Procter & Gamble vs. Kimberly-Clark.

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The Branch Davidians remain locked in a tense standoff with the federal government. And with the FBI now in charge, negotiators try to secure a peaceful surrender. But the FBI—and the Davidians—face a major obstacle: the always-unpredictable David Koresh.

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Today is Tuesday, June 21, and we're looking at Huy Fong, Inc. vs. The McIlhenny Co.

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On March 21st, 1967, prisoner number 3845 was released back into the general population. He was a 32-year-old career criminal named Charles Manson. Just months later, Manson found himself in San Francisco at the height of the hippie era, the so-called “Summer of Love.” There, he began recruiting a cadre of young, impressionable, mostly female followers, who came to believe their leader was the second coming of Jesus. They would do anything Manson told them to. At first, that just meant supporting his dreams of becoming a famous musician. But soon, Manson’s ambitions would take a darker turn.

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Today is Monday, June 20, and we're looking at Arizona Beverage Company vs. The Coca-Cola Company.

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Today is Friday, June 17, and we're looking at Walmart vs. Target.

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What do we lose when we avoid sorrow and chase empty delights, when we mask our pain and feign cheerfulness, when we profess to have no regrets and insist on turning every frown upside down? Those questions are at the heart of two new books by our curators Susan Cain (“Bittersweet”) and Daniel Pink (“The Power of Regret”). Today on the show, they sit down with Rufus to swap notes on the writing process, share what they’ve learned from each other, and imagine what the world might look like if we all learned how to embrace negative emotions. Show Notes: » Check out our previous interviews with Susan and Dan » Use the code PODCAST20 at nextbigideaclub.com for 20% off an express membership

Of all the Austronesian-speaking peoples, none have gone further than the Polynesians. Professor Patrick Vinton Kirch of the University of Hawaii is one of the world's leading experts on the Polynesian voyages and colonization of the Pacific, and we discuss how, why, and with what impact the Polynesians spread out over half of the planet.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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Herb Kelleher fends off rival airlines waging a brutal ground war against Southwest. But, soon two new foes grow determined to use the courts to drive the young airline out of its home.

Haagen Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s revolutionized the ice cream industry by raising the standard for the frozen treat and pioneering new styles and flavors. Now, new ice cream mavericks are on the scene, raising both the caliber and cost of pints.

Be prepared to get hungry as food journalist Charlotte Druckman walks us through the artisanal, ultra-premium ice cream scene, which she documented in an article for Eater. Later, Pooja Bavishi, founder of the Brooklyn-based ice cream shop Malai, shares her insights on building her business — and how Malai’s unique flavors are expanding the definition of ice cream.

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On Andrew Jackson’s inauguration day, citizens mobbed the White House, breaking furniture and fine china. It was a sign of troubles to come. Elected as a populist president, Jackson was dogged by chaos and controversy from his first days in office. But a sex scandal known as “The Petticoat Affair” was minor compared to the challenges that lay ahead for America’s seventh president.

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The federal government prepares for a raid at Mount Carmel. But a chance encounter eliminates the element of surprise—and sets the course for a massive battle between federal forces and David Koresh's community.

Looking for the DuPont Chemical Cover-up season? We had to unpublish the DuPont series for the time being but hope to release these episodes in a new season in the near future. We apologize for the inconvenience.

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Today is Friday, June 10, and we're looking at GAF Energy vs Tesla.

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Eric Barker is not a people person. “Getting me to write a relationship book,” he says, “is like asking Godzilla to improve the infrastructure in your city.” But he did it anyway. Guided by leading social psychologists, Eric went on a journey to understand what he was getting wrong about relationships — and what he could do to turn things around. The result is “Plays Well With Others,” a guide to friendship, intimacy, loneliness, and belonging that our curator Daniel Pink says will “revitalize your life.”

THIS AND THAT: Check out Eric’s blog, “Barking Up the Wrong Tree” Try out Arthur Aron’s intimacy building questions Download the Next Big Idea app

Today is Thursday, June 9, and we're looking at Meta vs. Twitter.

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Grounded by lawsuits waged by its competitors, the newly-conceived Southwest Airlines struggles to stay in business in the 1960s. But the company’s co-founder, Herb Kelleher, refuses to give up on his mission to democratize air travel, vowing to fight for the airline’s right to fly and for freedom in the sky.

The first wave of migration out of Taiwan brought speakers of Austronesian to the northern reaches of the Philippines, the homeland of the Malayo-Polynesians. From there, they spread out over a vast swathe of Southeast Asia and Oceania, eventually moving to the distant reaches of Indonesia and the previously uninhabited spaces of Remote Oceania.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

Listen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclusive seasons 1 and 2, and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/tidesofhistory.

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It's the year 2000 and Ben & Jerry's is under new ownership. But as promises that were made before the sale get broken, employees wonder if the brand's values can survive the new regime. Meanwhile, Häagen-Dazs finds itself wrestling with how to move with the times while staying true to the brand's values. But while the super-premium brands are soul searching, a plucky Los Angeles start-up is about to churn up the ice cream market.

This series was originally released as a Wondery+ Exclusive in 2021.

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Today is Wednesday, June 8, and we're looking at Foot Defender vs. Sensoria.

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In the summer of 1817, President James Monroe toured the country in an effort to unify the ever-growing United States. His optimistic presidency ushered in what became known as “The Era of Good Feelings.” But in reality, it was barely an era at all. The facade of political unity had already begun to crack by 1819, when Monroe faced his first serious political crisis: the Missouri Controversy, which brought the issue of slavery into the national spotlight.

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The Branch Davidians are accused of child abuse and stashing illegal firearms. With a federal investigation now underway, paranoia grows at Mount Carmel. And a government raid appears imminent.

Looking for the DuPont Chemical Cover-Up season? We had to unpublish the DuPont series for the time being, but hope to release these episodes in a new season in the near future. We apologize for the inconvenience.

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Today is Monday, June 6, and we're looking at Helaina vs. BioMilq.

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Vernon Howell faces criminal charges in court. And soon, his followers begin to turn against him—fueling his paranoia, and setting the stage for his fateful standoff against the U.S. government.

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In 1993, a massive conflict erupts in rural Texas. The federal government launches a siege against the Branch Davidians, a religious group based in the outskirts of Waco. What follows is the longest firefight in the history of American law enforcement. And it’s a battle that ends in tragedy. But the standoff has its genesis years before. It’s then that Vernon Howell comes looking for a new religious community to call home. He finds it with the Branch Davidians, and soon, he begins working to seize power.

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Today is Friday, June 3, and we're looking at Haus Labs vs. Fenty.

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In this special episode, Daniel Pink delivers a commencement address, Stanford-dean-turned-bestselling-author Julie Lythcott-Haims shares her manual for being an adult, and Arthur C. Brooks provides his roadmap for finding success, happiness, and purpose in the second half of life.

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Today is Thursday, June 2, and we're looking at Psychedelic Water vs. Curious Elixirs.

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More than 4,000 years ago, a remarkable migration - one of the great journeys in human history - began in Taiwan. Within just a thousand years, people speaking the Austronesian languages spread out everywhere from the Philippines to Borneo to the previously uninhabited islands of Vanuatu and Fiji in Remote Oceania.

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Cultural historian and author of The Bourbon King, Bob Batchelor explores the life and legacy of George Remus, examining the upbringing and culture that turned a poor German immigrant into America’s most successful bootlegger.

Today is Wednesday, June 1, and we're looking at Bavarian Nordic vs. Moderna.

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In 1814, British troops burned down the White House. That fire would be extinguished, and the Executive Mansion would be rebuilt. But another fire smoldered on – a fire that would eventually consume the United States. This is Antebellum America: the decades leading up to the Civil War.

This was America’s adolescence. The young nation was growing at tremendous speed, forcing its leaders to address fundamental questions about their country’s identity and values. Could the individual states put aside their differences to remain united? And could this new country live up to its lofty ideals, especially when it came to issues like slavery or the treatment of Native Americans?

One leader shaped this era more than any other: America’s reluctant seventh president, Andrew Jackson.

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It's 1998 and Häagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry's are now tasty targets in the global ice cream war between Unilever and Nestlé. As these multi-billion-dollar consumer goods giants move in, the U.S. ice cream market enters a state of churn. Enemies turn to allies, friends become foes, alliances shatter, and dreams get crushed.

This series was originally released as a Wondery+ Exclusive in 2021.

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Earl Tennant's case comes to a close. Robert Bilott faces an agonizing choice, as he confronts the magnitude of DuPont's pollution.

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Today is Tuesday, May 31, and we're looking at Arby's vs. McDonald's.

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Today is Monday, May 30, and we're looking at Saks Fifth Avenue vs. Bloomingdale's.

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The harsh, unforgiving conditions of the Andes and the nearby Pacific coastline make it one of the best places in the world to study the relationship between people and their environment. Professor Jason Nesbitt is an expert on the archaeology of the Andes and has extensively worked on how ancient people in the region organized themselves to deal with El Nino events and other climatic disasters.

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George Remus tries to keep his bootlegging operation up and running from behind bars with the help of his wife Imogene. But an unexpected betrayal soon destroys the bootlegger’s business and his marriage, setting George on a quest for revenge.

It's the dawn of the 1990s and with America under its spell, Häagen-Dazs is eyeing the millions to be made in Europe and Asia. But back in the USA, Ben & Jerry's is about to undergo a major growth spurt thanks to its latest flavor sensation. And with Ben & Jerry's scooping up customers fast, a war for supremacy in the supermarket freezer aisles is about to erupt.

This series was originally released as a Wondery+ Exclusive in 2021.

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In 1927, a slow-moving catastrophe like the Great Mississippi Flood was perfect material for a relatively new medium: radio. Over the airwaves, the flood became the first natural disaster that Americans could follow almost in real time, day by day, as the rising river waters swept away one town after another.

In this episode, Lindsay talks with Susan Scott Parrish, author of The Flood Year 1927: A Cultural History, about the ways Americans far from the Mississippi River experienced the disaster in newspapers, on the radio, and in popular culture. They'll also discuss how entertainers of the time rallied the public to raise funds for recovery, while federal relief efforts only enforced existing socioeconomic and racial divides in the South.

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A devastating plague strikes a cattle farm in West Virginia. As he investigates the mystery, an attorney uncovers a secret that threatens a corporate empire.

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China's Shang Dynasty is something of an enigma. It produced the earliest written evidence in China, in the form of inscribed oracle bones, and decades of archaeology have shed light on its capital city and society. Yet much about it is still unclear, including precisely how the Shang understood themselves and their world. Professor Rod Campbell is one of the world's leading experts on the Shang, and his work has done a great deal to illuminate the Shang worldview and why they did the things they did, including human sacrifice on an enormous scale.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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George’s bootlegging operation reaches new heights as he strengthens his connections in Washington, DC. But a powerful enemy threatens to bring George’s business crashing down.

It's 1984 and Ben & Jerry's is fighting for its life. Häagen-Dazs is pressuring distributors to stop carrying the Vermont ice cream brand and the deadline for distributors to comply is closing in fast. But with help from a lawyer with a hole in his shoe and a spate of publicity stunts, Ben & Jerry's hopes to pull off an unlikely victory.

This series was originally released as a Wondery+ Exclusive in 2021.

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Herbert Hoover’s management of the flood relief garnered widespread praise and put him in position to secure the Republican nomination for President. But the African-American press told a different story, one of rampant racial abuse in Red Cross camps throughout the flood zone.

In Greenville, Mississippi, the exploitation of Black workers was especially persistent. In the summer, tensions rose to new heights, and soon, a fatal shooting would tear the battered town apart.

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In this interview, Lindsay sits down with Kathryn Olmsted, a historian who's written extensively about Watergate. The two discuss how Watergate was a turning point in American life. And Olmsted reveals why the scandal helped give rise to a new generation of conspiracy theories.

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Today is Friday, May 13, and we're looking at Meta vs. Microsoft vs. Google.

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University of Chicago professor Ayelet Fishbach has spent the last two decades studying the science of motivation. She has developed a framework for turning idle ambition into forward-moving action. That framework is the subject of her new book, “Get It Done,” which our curators chose as one of the best non-fiction titles of the year. Today, one of those curators, Daniel Pink, chats with Ayelet about sure-fire techniques you can use to achieve your goals.

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The arid shoreline between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific seems like an unlikely place to host one of the world's earliest complex societies. But more than 5,000 years ago, the people of the Norte Chico Culture built cities, temples, and monuments that laid the foundation for thousands of years of Andean civilization.

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George begins to grow his bootlegging empire, gathering an army of loyal soldiers to protect his investments and crush his rivals.

Today is Thursday, May 12, and we're looking at Delta Airlines vs. American Airlines.

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Today is Wednesday, May 11, and we're looking at Amazon vs. Apple.

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Early in the morning on April 22nd, 1927, flood waters from a break in the Mound Landing levee entered the town of Greenville, Mississippi. Within hours, the town was submerged in 10 feet of water. Thousands of residents fought to reach higher ground, desperately clinging to tree tops and floating houses.

The flood inundated 27,000 square miles in seven states. Soon, President Calvin Coolidge appointed Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover to manage relief efforts for the Red Cross. But Hoover’s decision to decentralize relief would have unintended consequences – especially in towns like Greenville, where thousands of Black sharecroppers were virtual prisoners, detained in brutally policed refugee camps.

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It's 1958 and in New York City, Reuben Mattus is under fire. The big dairies are crushing his family's ice cream business and shutting him out of supermarkets. Desperate, he imagines a new, luxury ice cream with an eye-popping price tag. He calls it Häagen-Dazs and it's going to give his foes the chills.

This series was originally released as a Wondery+ Exclusive in 2021.

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President Nixon fights the release of his secret tapes. But with the country thrust into a constitutional crisis, Nixon has to make a gut-wrenching decision.

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Over the past year, the Great Resignation has been all over the news. Many people are celebrating quitting their jobs — but it’s a decision some will come to regret. So when’s the right time to leave? How do you quit without burning bridges? And how can workplaces encourage people to stay? This is an episode of "WorkLife with Adam Grant," a podcast in the TED Audio Collective. If you want to hear more episodes, you can find and follow "WorkLife" wherever you listen.

Are we all so busy doom-scrolling and binge-watching that we’ve forgotten how to have fun? Catherine Price thinks so. But don’t despair. Her latest book, “The Power of Fun,” is jam-packed with research-backed hacks for finding meaning, forging connections, improving your health, and living life to the fullest ... all while having a darn good time.

To learn about Catherine’s books & courses & sign up for her newsletter: ScreenLifeBalance.com

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In the early-20th Century, George Remus works his way from successful pharmacist to one of the most famous lawyers in Chicago. But greed, love, and Prohibition soon turn George’s sights to bootlegging, leading him into a world of opulence and violence.

Mesoamerica is one of only a few places in the world where "civilization" - states, writing, cities, monumental building, and so on - emerged independently. The first society to do all this were the enigmatic Olmecs more than 3,000 years ago. Today the Olmecs are known mostly for their colossal carved stone heads, but they were the pioneers of a distinctively Mesoamerican form of civilization that lasted for millennia.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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It's the '70s and best buddies Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield are about to open an ice cream parlor. These hungry hippies only want to have fun making ice cream. But as their business grows, they're going to find themselves on a collision course with the heavyweight champ of gourmet ice cream: Häagen-Dazs. This series was originally released as a Wondery+ Exclusive in 2021.

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Today is Wednesday, May 4, and we're looking at Mondelez International vs. Nestlé.

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In the winter and spring of 1927, record-setting rain fell across the central United States. The Mississippi River swelled to capacity, and by April, the water breached major levees. It was the start of the most catastrophic river flood in American history.

When the flood threatened the town of Greenville in the Mississippi Delta, white plantation owners pulled tens of thousands of Black workers from the cotton fields and sent them to the river. An army of hundreds of men worked day and night, piling sandbags to battle the raging waters. But soon, despite their efforts, the Great Mississippi Flood would unleash destruction on the Delta.

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Today is Tuesday, May 3, and we're looking at GE Renewable Energy vs. Modvion AB.

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A Senate hearing sets in motion a new crisis. With the cover-up unraveling, White House counsel John Dean takes matters into his own hands.

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Today is Monday, May 2, and we're looking at Twitter vs.Truth Social.

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Why did Elon Musk buy Twitter? What does he plan to do with it? Is this the end of big social or a chance to reinvent it? This week, we’re interrupting our regularly scheduled programming to answer those questions with two of the smartest internet commentators we know: Eli Pariser, co-founder of Upworthy and author of “The Filter Bubble”; and Steven Johnson, writer, podcaster, and TV host.

RECOMMENDED: Subscribe to Steven’s newsletter, Adjacent Possible: adjacentpossible.substack.com Follow Eli on Twitter: @elipariser Listen to our interview with Jill Lepore about Elon Musk’s sci-fi fantasies.

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Over the past several decades, ancient DNA and other archaeological sciences have transformed our understanding of Europe in prehistory. Professor Kristian Kristiansen has worked with these new methods since the very beginning, and combines them with a deep grounding in both traditional archaeology and big-picture thinking about what it all means.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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Plant-based foods are no longer a tiny niche market. Consumers are hungry for more and even fast-food giants are eating up the trend. On this episode, we're joined by Wall Street Journal reporter Heather Haddon and comedy writer Halle Kiefer to look at stories about the changing food industry from our sister show, Business Wars Daily.

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Chuck House, a Hewlett-Packard veteran and author of “The HP Phenomenon,” examines the evolution of the company and its lauded HP Way.

The Lewis and Clark expedition changed the course of American history. But after its bold, charismatic leader, Meriwether Lewis, ended his life in an apparent suicide, the expedition was largely forgotten. Not until the 20th century would the exploits of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery recapture the imaginations of historians and the general public.

In this episode, Lindsay speaks with Clay S. Jenkinson, an author, historian, and host of acclaimed public radio show and podcast The Thomas Jefferson Hour. They’ll discuss Jefferson’s motives for ordering the expedition, its impact on Native American societies, the mysterious circumstances surrounding Lewis’s death, and the legacy of Lewis and Clark today.

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Electric vehicles have come a long way over the past century, and now, with gas prices at record highs, more and more drivers are thinking about taking the plunge (if they can get their hands on one).

Today, we’re road-tripping through the electric vehicle landscape of today and tomorrow with Aarian Marshall, a Staff Writer for Wired. Her piece, It’s a Perfect Time for EVs. It’s a Terrible Time for EVs, explores the tipping point we’ve reached in the EV world. Next up, Dana Hull, a reporter for Bloomberg covering Tesla, walks us through her coverage of the racial discrimination lawsuit Tesla faces, and what it means for the company’s future.

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Woodward and Bernstein uncover a shocking revelation about President Nixon's chief of staff. But when their story is published, the reporters find themselves backed into a corner.

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This week, host Scott Galloway sits down with New York Times journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin (author Too Big To Fail, co-creator of Billions) to dig into the finale of WeCrashed. They discuss Adam Neumann’s last-ditch efforts to stay in control at WeWork, as well as Andrew’s own interviews with the real Adam. Plus, Scott shares his final “Yoga babble moment of the week.” WeCrashed: The Companion Podcast is produced by Wondery, with support from Pineapple Street Studios.

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We all strive to think rationally. But it doesn’t always do us much good. Cutting-edge science has revealed that if we want to sharpen our thinking, we need to feel our feelings. That science is the subject of “Emotional,” a new book by theoretical physicist Leonard Mlodinow. In this episode, he sits down with science writer Annie Murphy Paul to discuss where emotions come from, how they motivate us, and what we can do to control them.

Episode Recommendations: RATIONALITY: Steven Pinker’s Love Song to Critical Thinking FEELING & KNOWING: Unlocking the Secrets of Consciousness (with Antonio Damasio) EXTENDED MIND: Want to Get Smarter? Try Thinking Outside of Your Brain (with Annie Murphy Paul)

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Pattie Dunn finds herself at the center of a media firestorm after HP’s spying scandal is revealed to the public.

The Eurasian steppe is central to grasping the past 5,000 years of human history, and in the past couple of decades, new tools of analysis have transformed our understanding of the place and its importance. Professor Michael Frachetti has developed and applied a whole series of innovative approaches to understanding the people of the Bronze Age steppe and much more, ranging from ancient DNA to isotope analysis to more traditional archaeology.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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After weathering an investigation by the government for their EVs catching on fire, Tesla is hit by another probe after things get deadly. But the company is dedicated to Autopilot, its self-driving system. And once again, nearly every iconic brand in Detroit is following along. Elon Musk amps up his Twitter commentary, offending multitudes and putting fear into investors. But company value skyrockets. As Tesla moves into the 2020s, its' facing hurdles that were unimaginable just a few years ago, from alleged racism to a worldwide pandemic. The effects of these and other crises are still playing out as Tesla heads into the future.

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After 18 months and over two thousand miles, Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery had reached the Pacific Ocean. Now, they would have to find their way back. And in a last-ditch bid for glory, they would split up the Corps into smaller groups, hoping to map more river routes and make contact with more Native American tribes. But the plan would backfire, putting the entire expedition at risk, even as the end of their journey was finally within reach.

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The Washington Post begins investigating a mysterious crime. President Nixon confronts a crisis.

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This week, host Scott Galloway sits down with actor Kelly AuCoin (Billions, The Americans) who plays Scott Galloway himself on WeCrashed. They discuss how Kelly prepared for the role of Professor G—and what really happened when Scott first read WeWork’s disastrous S-1 prospectus. Plus, Scott shares his “Yoga babble moment of the week.” WeCrashed: The Companion Podcast is produced by Wondery, with support from Pineapple Street Studios.

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Thousands of years ago, humans crossed a land bridge from Siberia into Alaska. They tried to move south, but a two-mile-high, coast-spanning ice wall stood between them and the rest of the continent. How did they get past it? Scholars have fought over that question for decades. But in her book, “Origin,” Jennifer Raff says breakthroughs in genetics have given scientists an entirely new understanding of how the Americas were peopled and what happened in the millennia that followed.

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Four thousand years ago, the sprawling cities of the Indus Valley Civilization dominated much of South Asia; a millennium after that, however, the cities were in ruins, and new migrants ultimately deriving their ancestry from the Eurasian steppe had established themselves throughout much of the region. These new arrivals have become known as Indo-Aryans, and they left behind some of the earliest writing in an Indo-European language - the texts of the Rigveda.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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A confidential disclosure to the media sparks panic within HP and renews Pattie’s desire to track down the mystery leaker. The unmasking leads to an explosive confrontation that will haunt Pattie, and taint her reputation, for the rest of her life.

In the spring of 1805, Lewis and Clark resumed their journey up the Missouri River in search of the Pacific. But to reach the ocean, they would have to cross the towering Rocky Mountains. It was a forbidding task, and one they couldn’t achieve alone. They would need the help of their young interpreter, Sacagawea, and her tribe, the Shoshone. But first, they had to locate the elusive Shoshone – and with winter fast approaching, time was running out.

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The battle to dominate the EV market is on. Tesla’s market value is now around $20 billion. At this rate, Tesla could wipe the floor with GM in a decade. Ford, Toyota, Nissan, Honda and Chevrolet are taking notes. No one wants to be bringing up the rear. After near-devastating production issues, Tesla is finally churning out hundreds of its Model S every week from its newly acquired, five-acre factory, on par with any plant in Motor City. But Tesla has serious problems to solve. Like how to get cars to the people who want to buy them. And that’s something that Detroit and its vast network of dealerships does very, very well. And it will do whatever it can to keep that advantage to overtake Tesla in the EV market.

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President Nixon’s reelection campaign hatches a plan. It's dangerous and risky. But it could secure a victory in the upcoming election.

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This week, host Scott Galloway sits down with actor Kyle Marvin (The Climb) who plays Adam’s cofounder Miguel McKelvey on the Apple TV+ series, WeCrashed. They discuss how Kyle prepared for the role by studying architecture— and why he says he sees the relationship between Kyle, Adam and Rebekah as “a love triangle.” Plus, Scott shares his “Yoga babble moment of the week.” WeCrashed: The Companion Podcast is produced by Wondery, with support from Pineapple Street Studios.

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Are you elevated by sad songs? Have you ever been brought to tears by a TV commercial? Do you relish rainy days? If you answered yes to any of those questions, then you know the power of the bittersweet. Yet chances are there have been times when you’ve struggled to square your melancholic disposition with our culture of counterfeit cheer. Well, you won’t feel that way after you’ve heard Susan Cain discuss her new book, “Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole.” She argues that longing, sorrow, and grief are the wellsprings of connection, creativity, and hope. Download the Next Big Idea app today at www.nextbigideaclub.com/app

More than a billion people around the world speak a language of the Indo-Iranian family today. These languages all trace their origin to a group of innovative people living on the steppes of southern Russia more than 4000 years ago, people who inhabited a surprisingly far-flung, complex, and mutable world.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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In the wake of Carly’s departure, Pattie’s hunt for a new CEO starts a war on HP’s board of directors.

In 1803, Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark began a westward journey that would transform America. Their mission was to head up the Missouri River and find a route through the uncharted west to the Pacific Ocean. The journey was full of risk. But no danger loomed larger in their minds than the Sioux – the powerful Native American confederacy of the plains. And it wouldn't be long before the two crossed paths.

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In 2010, Tesla Motors has already experienced tremendous highs and devastating lows. Elon Musk is a polarizing figure whose goal is to change the way the traditional auto industry works. It’s been a struggle, but Detroit is finally bowing to the Tesla vision, moving electric vehicles to the top of production slates. But now Motor City wants to control the EV market. The limited run Tesla Roadster brought attention and kudos. Now ,Musk is pinning his hopes on the new Model S. But he still needs some place to actually make the cars. If he can’t score a factory, the car is just a cool concept. Things have to come together quickly – or Tesla is toast.

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Should members of Congress be allowed to trade stocks? It's a question that legislators are debating right now, in the wake of a searing investigation from the publication Insider. In this interview, Lindsay chats with Dave Levinthal, Insider's deputy Washington Bureau chief. They discuss some of the shocking discoveries from Levinthal’s reporting. And they consider whether Congress might be willing to pass new, sweeping legislation.

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This week, host Scott Galloway unpacks episode five, “Hustle Harder,” with Maureen Farrell, co-author of The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion. They question why some of the smartest investment bankers in the world kept giving Adam money, and to what extent WeWork was a company or simply a delusion. Plus, Scott shares his “Yoga babble moment of the week.” WeCrashed: The Companion Podcast is produced by Wondery, with support from Pineapple Street Studios.

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Today is Friday, April 1, and we're looking at Oatly vs. Planet Oat.

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“Embedded in songs, emblazoned on skin, and embraced by sages, the anti-regret philosophy is so self-evidently true that it’s more often asserted than argued.” So writes Daniel Pink in his new book, “The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward.” There’s just one problem, he adds. The “no regrets” philosophy? It’s hogwash. Regrets may churn our stomachs, but they also improve our decisions and strengthen our values. They’re a photographic negative of the good life. Download the Next Big Idea app at www.nextbigideaclub.com/app

The Indus Valley Civilization doesn’t get much attention compared to Mesopotamia or Egypt, but it covered an area of a million square kilometers, was home to hundreds of thousands or millions of people and a unified culture, and lasted for the better part of a millennium. More than that, the Indus Civilization doesn’t seem to fit the models we have for how early states functioned. Dr. Adam Green of Cambridge University joins me to explain the unusual way in which the Indus Civilization was organized, its lack of powerful elites, and how and why it eventually fell apart.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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Today is Thursday, March 31, and we're looking at Uber vs. Lyft.

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When Hewlett-Packard chair Patricia Dunn begins a spy campaign to discover the source of an internal leak, she sets off a chain of events that will lead to a national scandal and criminal prosecution.

For Alice Paul and other leading white suffragists, image was important. They published their own newspapers and staged dramatic public protests to gain press attention and shape public opinion. But all too often, white suffrage activists refused to make room for Black allies in their idealized image of a woman voter.

In this episode, Lindsay speaks with Dr. Allison Lange, a historian who focuses on the intersection of gender and power, and how visual imagery shaped the battle for women’s suffrage. They'll discuss the way images were used both for and against suffrage, and how there are echoes of the suffragist's strategies in the way female politicians present themselves today.

Find out more about Dr. Lange’s book, Picturing Political Power: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo50270913.html

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Today is Wednesday, March 30, and we're looking at Peloton vs. Echelon.

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While the U.S. government pushed automakers to make low-emission vehicles in the 1990s, consumers loved their gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs. But in 2003, Elon Musk's Tesla Motors arrives with environmentally friendly, high-performance cars that people actually want.

Motor City smirks as Musk pilots Tesla through crushing financial crises, spectacular quality control disasters and his own shocking public displays of bad behavior. But his pricey cars are catching on. Detroit is taking notice. Musk and Tesla are on a path of disruption that will change the industry and put EVs on the map.

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Prosecutors race against the clock, as they prepare to go to trial. Two former SAC traders must decide whether to cooperate—or stay silent.

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This week, host Scott Galloway unpacks episode four with New Yorker journalist Charles Duhigg. They discuss WeWork’s financial enablers—specifically Masayoshi Son, the founder of the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank—and what the story ultimately says about venture capitalists. Plus, Scott shares his “Yoga babble moment of the week.” WeCrashed: The Companion Podcast is produced by Wondery, with support from Pineapple Street Studios.

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Philosopher David Chalmers reckons there’s a 25% chance that we are living in a simulation. And he’s OK with it. David's new book is "Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy." To hear an extended version of this episode, download the Next Big Idea app: https://nextbigideaclub.com/podcast

Language is fundamental to how people experience the world, but how can we know what languages people spoke in the distant past? By 1200 BC, the linguistic outlines of the world were becoming a bit clearer, thanks to an explosion in written texts. Follow along as we go on a historical linguistic tour of the globe around 1200 BC, from the first Bantu-speakers of western Africa to the Indo-Iranians of the steppe to the Austronesians of southeast Asia.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

Listen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclusive seasons 1 and 2, and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/tidesofhistory.

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Robert Hagstrom, the Chief Investment Officer of EquityCompass, and the author of multiple Buffett books, explores the secret of the Warren Buffett Way.

The electric vehicle market is experiencing massive growth, but more players means more competition for the vanguard. On this episode, we're joined by Insider editor Alex Davies and TV writer Josh Gondelman to look back at some of our "green" automotive industry stories from our sister show, Business Wars Daily.

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As America entered World War I, the suffrage movement split into a two-pronged attack. Alice Paul and her National Woman’s Party took their protests to the White House gates. Meanwhile, Carrie Chapman Catt and her group, the National American Woman Suffrage Association, lobbied to prove the loyalty and patriotism of American women, hoping they would be rewarded with the ballot.

Together, these two groups would finally succeed in pushing a new amendment through Congress, granting women the right to vote. But before it could become law, it would have to be ratified by the states – leading to a dramatic showdown in the final state the suffragists needed, Tennessee.

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In 2022, you’d be hard-pressed to find somebody who hasn’t spent at least a couple of days in an Airbnb. It’s cheap, convenient and easy to use. But as you settle into your temporary home-away-from-home, you’re probably paying little mind to what’s playing out behind the scenes.

Business Wars writer Natalie Robehmed joins host David Brown to unpacks Airbnb’s battle with New York City, and what it means for the company’s future. And later, Bloomberg journalist Olivia Carville discusses her investigative piece, Airbnb is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away, which pulled back the curtain on Airbnb’s safety practices.

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The FBI builds its case against Steven Cohen. With his back against the wall, Cohen has to make a difficult decision.

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This week, host Scott Galloway unpacks episode three, “Summer Camp,” with New Yorker staff writer, Lizzie Widdicombe. They discuss the misogynistic culture of WeWork, Rebekah's public assertion that “a big part of being a woman is helping men manifest their calling in life,” and how WeWork ultimately seemed more like a cult than a company. Plus, Scott shares his “Yoga babble moment of the week.” WeCrashed: The Companion Podcast is produced by Wondery, with support from Pineapple Street Studios.

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This week, host Scott Galloway unpacks episode two, “Masha, Masha, Masha,” with Reeves Wiedeman, the author of Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork. They discuss the co-working company’s early rise, Adam’s boundless powers of persuasion, and what it was like for them to sit down with Adam in real life. Plus, Scott shares his “Yoga babble moment of the week.” WeCrashed: The Companion Podcast is produced by Wondery, with support from Pineapple Street Studios.

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In this first episode, host Scott Galloway unpacks the series premiere, “This Is Where It Begins,” with the show’s co-creators and co-writers, Lee Eisenberg and Drew Crevello. They talk about adapting the real-life story and Wondery podcast for the screen, the relationship between Adam and Rebekah, and why WeWork’s original $15 million funding (and self-proclaimed $45 million valuation) was a major turning point. Plus, Scott shares his “Yoga babble moment of the week.” WeCrashed: The Companion Podcast is produced by Wondery, with support from Pineapple Street Studios.

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The founders of WeWork thought they were on the brink of making history. The company was valued at $47 billion dollars, ready for a huge IPO, and its charismatic CEO Adam Neumann believed he was going to change the world. Adam and his wife Rebekah had a prophet-like vision—but did it ever match the company's reality? Now the inspiration for a new AppleTV+ series starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway, WeCrashed: The Director’s Cut is a complete refresh of our original six-part series. Hosted by David Brown of the hit podcast Business Wars, this six-part series includes new interviews and new discoveries about the rise and fall of WeWork.

The Apple TV+ series based on the Wondery podcast is out now. Join business professor and host Scott Galloway (Prof G, Pivot) for WeCrashed: The Companion Podcast, where he talks to the cast, crew, and experts to give an inside look into how the “WeCrashed” TV series brought this fascinating story to the screen.

It’s a story of hope and hubris, big money and bigger screwups, and the lengths people will go to chase “unicorns.”

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Some people think humans are natural pleasure seekers. But not psychologist Paul Bloom. In his new book, “The Sweet Spot,” Paul says we’re pain seekers, too. Just think about all the uncomfortable things we do for fun — eating spicy food, climbing treacherous mountains, watching scary movies, engaging in BDSM. Why do that stuff? According to Paul, it’s because pain can enhance pleasure, chosen suffering can make you more resilient, and adversity can suffuse your life with meaning. We can all benefit from a little discomfort, and in this intimate conversation with Next Big Idea Club curator Susan Cain, Paul explains how to fit more of it into our lives.

Next Big Idea Club: Get 20% off an express membership when you use the code PODCAST20 at www.nextbigideaclub.com

Today is Thursday, March 17, and we're looking at Sony vs. Astell&Kern.

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Warren Buffett battles Seabury Stanton for control of Berkshire Hathaway, a struggling textile company. Warren wins the battle, but finds himself saddled with a failing business that he can’t unload. In order to turn things around, Warren will have to transform Berkshire into an entirely different company.

About one in every five people alive on the planet today speaks a language belonging to the Bantu family, and Bantu-speaking peoples have shaped the history of Africa in profound ways. But how did they expand from their original homeland, and how can we tell? Professor Kathryn de Luna joins me to talk about historical linguistics, archaeology, and how they can shed light on one of the most important processes of the past several thousand years.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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In March 1913, thousands of suffrage activists converged on Washington, D.C. for a new form of protest. They were going to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to demand an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote. Their leader, Alice Paul, was a young rising star in the movement. Her dramatic protests outside the White House would grab headlines across America. But they would also spark fierce and sometimes violent resistance.

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By 2017, Airbnb's legal troubles are snowballing so fast, it’s not clear whether it will survive. But there’s another gathering storm that nobody could have forecast – the COVID-19 pandemic. And it will make a direct hit on Airbnb.

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Today is Wednesday, March 16, and we're looking at Abercrombie & Fitch vs. American Eagle Outfitters.

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Today is Tuesday, March 15, and we're looking at Zelle vs. Venmo.

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FBI Agent BJ Kang gets a promising tip from an informant. Mathew Martoma, a trader at SAC Capital, goes on a hunt for inside information.

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Stream the Apple Original series WeCrashed, starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway. Premieres March 18 only on Apple TV+ https://apple.co/-WeCrashed

David Brown interviews acclaimed director Jed Rothstein about his latest documentary WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn on Hulu. And gets a surprising answer to the question: what did Adam get right?

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Watch the Apple Original series WeCrashed, starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway. Now streaming only on Apple TV+

In an in-depth interview with NYU Professor Scott Galloway, host David Brown asks about the future of Softbank, which high-flying company might be next to stumble, and what went wrong at WeWork. And they answer an all-important question: how to tell the difference between a "unicorn" and a donkey.

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Watch the Apple Original series WeCrashed, starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway. Now streaming only on Apple TV+

Adam Neumann’s fate lies in the hands of the WeWork board. Meanwhile, rank-and-file employees just want to know whether they’ll have a job tomorrow. Without Adam, what will become of WeWork, and without WeWork, where will Adam end up? Can one exist without the other?

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Watch the Apple Original series WeCrashed, starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway. Now streaming only on Apple TV+

When Scott Galloway gets his hands on WeWork's IPO filing, he can't believe it. Starting with the words “We dedicate this to the Energy of We,” the document sometimes looks more like a glossy brochure than a dry rundown of the company’s financials. The prospectus raises fears about the company's future and questions about Adam Neumann’s outsized role in the company. And for the first time, Adam doesn't have all the answers.

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Watch the Apple Original series WeCrashed, starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway. Now streaming only on Apple TV+

Masayoshi Son, the head of Softbank’s Vision Fund, gives billions to WeWork. “Masa” has just one instruction for Adam Neumann: dream big. Adam and his company go on a spending spree. They buy up everything from companies to buildings to new homes. Big dreams can be a good thing—unless they cease to be tethered to any sense of reality.

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Watch the Apple Original series WeCrashed, starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway. Now streaming only on Apple TV+

Masayoshi Son, the head of Softbank’s Vision Fund, gives billions to WeWork. “Masa” has just one instruction for Adam Neumann: dream big. Adam and his company go on a spending spree. They buy up everything from companies to buildings to new homes. Big dreams can be a good thing—unless they cease to be tethered to any sense of reality.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Watch the Apple Original series WeCrashed, starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway. Now streaming only on Apple TV+

Adam Neumann spends his twenties following a simple mantra: whoever dies with the most money wins. Rebekah Paltrow spends her twenties looking for spiritual answers. To change the world, Adam will need to find his passion—and find Rebekah.

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Watch the Apple Original series WeCrashed, starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway. Now streaming only on Apple TV+

“Let’s build the largest networking community on the planet.” That was the email Adam Neumann sent at one in the morning to one of WeWork’s very first employees, before they had even a single tenant. So how do you turn a scrappy startup into a global empire? If you’re WeWork's CEO, you rely on charm, chutzpah, and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black.

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History, in the eyes of legendary investor Ray Dalio, is a perpetual motion machine. Nations rise and fall according to an inevitable cycle where peace and prosperity are always followed by depression and war. And in his new book, “Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order,” Ray says the United States is now in the downward part of that cycle.

Next Big Idea Club: Get 20% off an express membership when you use the code PODCAST20 at www.nextbigideaclub.com

Warren Buffett battles his partners, and conventional wisdom, to invest heavily in American Express. But to protect his investment, Warren will take a hands on approach and push the failing credit card company to change its ways.

The state - a centralized administration that exerts control over a territory and can coerce the people living there - is one of the driving forces of the last several thousand years of history. But when and where did states appear, and why? And can we really call all of the various forms of political control that emerged around the world “states?” We can’t understand the world today without understanding the state, but that’s no easy task.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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By 2013, New York’s Attorney General is coming for Airbnb. And hoteliers, hotel worker unions, affordable housing activists and politicians come together to form an alliance against the home-sharing startup. Airbnb fights back in the courtroom — and the court of public opinion. Airbnb is forced to launch an expensive battle to win over the hearts, minds and homes of New Yorkers.

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As the 20th century dawned, a new generation of women rose to take control of the suffrage cause. These young activists were going to college, delaying marriage, and pursuing careers. Their political savvy helped the movement win victories at the state level in the West. But new leaders like Carrie Chapman Catt also shunned Black activists. Facing discrimination within their own movement, Black suffrage leaders like Ida B. Wells forged their own path, fighting racism and sexism on their own terms.

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Steven Cohen wants to escape his small life on Long Island. The destination in sight: Wall Street.

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“The average human lifespan is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short.” So begins Oliver Burkeman’s new book, “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.” Make it to 80, and you’ll get about 4,000 weeks. And so, as the poet asked, “What will you do with your one wild and precious life?” For most of us, the answer is obvious: Get busy. Why squander what little time we have? But in this conversation with Next Big Idea Club curator Malcolm Gladwell, Oliver proposes an alternative. If you want to make the most of your time, he says, you have to stop chasing pointless productivity and embrace life’s finitude.

Throughout his early life, Warren Buffett tries to strike a balance between being rational and reckless as he pursues his goal of “becoming a millionaire by the age of 35.

Ancient DNA and new archaeological work have changed our understanding of many different parts of the global past, but nowhere more so than Africa. Professor Mary Prendergast sits on the very cutting edge of both fields, having worked on both the largest-scale studies of ancient DNA in Africa and some of the most fascinating and innovative work being done on the continent.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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On Election Day 1872, Susan B. Anthony walked into a polling place in Rochester, New York and boldly cast her ballot. Her action was an escalation in women’s fight for the vote. Days later, she was arrested for voting illegally. It was all part of a daring new strategy for suffrage called the “New Departure.” At first, the strategy found a charismatic champion in a new women’s rights advocate, Victoria Woodhull. But Woodhull’s penchant for controversy would soon jeopardize the entire suffrage cause.

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Airbnb has changed the way we travel and upended the hotel industry, but it has also sparked one of the messiest fights ever between a startup and city government. When Airbnb arrived in New York City in 2009, it began operating in neighborhoods where affordable housing was already in short supply. Angry renters complained, and city officials decided to do something about it. But they find themselves up against an equally determined foe, one with deep pockets and powerful allies.

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Lindsay chats with David Farber, a historian who studies America's war on drugs. The two discuss the controversial origins of the decades-long campaign. And they look at some recent developments that may point to a different future.

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When it comes to Elon Musk, it can be hard to separate the man from the myth. But in her new podcast, “The Evening Rocket,” Harvard historian and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore manages to see through Musk’s mystique, explain his worldview, and decipher his visions of the future by going back to the sci-fi stories he grew up on — stories, Lepore says, that Musk sometimes misread.

While the housing market continues its hot streak, technology is disrupting the industry on every level. On this episode, we're joined by Business Wars writer Natalie Robehmed and comedian Ed Herro to look back at some of our best real estate stories from our sister show, Business Wars Daily.

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The most striking environmental shift on the planet in the Holocene epoch was the greening of the Sahara. For thousands of years, the now-deserts of northern Africa were a mosaic of savannahs, river valleys, and shallow lakes. This unique environment produced the ways of life that eventually brought pastoralism and food production, as well as a variety of language families and populations, to the furthest corners of the continent.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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In 1963, a New Jersey conman named Anthony “Tino” De Angelis pulls off “The Great Salad Oil Swindle”, one of the largest financial frauds in Wall Street’s history. De Angelis’ actions cause American Express stock to plummet and puts a young midwest investor named Warren Buffett in a position to make one of the most important deals of his career.

On July 19th, 1848, 300 female and male delegates gathered in a church in Seneca Falls, New York for America’s first women’s rights convention. After two days, 100 of the attendees signed the Declaration of Sentiments, a radical manifesto affirming the equality of men and women. It was the start of the women’s rights revolution.

Over the next two decades, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony built a movement to push for women’s suffrage. They worked side by side with abolitionists, certain their causes were intertwined. But in the years after the Civil War, racial tensions broke apart the decades-old alliance between those fighting for the end of slavery and those fighting for women’s voting rights.

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Heavyweight champions ESPN and FS1 are competing for cable, as legacy networks hop off the bench and onto the field. On-air talent remain caught in the middle. Throw in a global pandemic and an increasingly digital-first media landscape, and you’re in for one heck-of-game.

For our very own post-season analysis, we’re talking to Richard Deitsch, a sports writer at The Athletic and host of the Sports Media Podcast. He’s guiding us through the wide world of sports broadcasting both on screen and behind the scenes, plus what the future has in store.

Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sports-media-with-richard-deitsch/id1366264191

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Annie Dookhan faces a day of reckoning. The Massachusetts criminal justice system is thrown into disarray.

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Well, folks, we’ve reached the end of the line. Today, we’re pleased to share our most popular book bite of 2021, as chosen by the ravenously curious users of the Next Big Idea app: “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortal” by Oliver Burkeman. It’s a book that urges us to resist the siren song of pointless busyness and embrace life’s finitude. The Next Big Idea returns on February 24th with a big batch of new interview episodes featuring Jill Lepore, Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Ray Dalio, David Chalmers, and other brilliant thinkers. Special thanks to Mike Toda, who mixed, mastered, scored, and worked magic on every episode in this miniseries. Want to satisfy your ravenous curiosity? Download the Next Big Idea app today: www.nextbigideaclub.com/app

Does life really have to be so hard? Not according to Greg McKeown it doesn’t. In “Effortless,” he says the path of least resistance is the one we should be on. Episode Recommendation: EFFORTLESS: Embrace the Easy Option Next Big Idea App: Want to get smart ... effortlessly? Download our app today: www.nextbigideaclub.com/app

Journalist and author Keach Hagey explores Sumner’s reign as the “King of Content”, and examines what his daughter Shari must do to survive the “Streaming Wars”.

Africa is rightly known as the “Cradle of Humanity,” because that’s where the most recent wave of modern human migrants originated and so much of our species’ evolutionary history took place there. But the reality is far more complex. Africa is a big place, and its relationship with our species spans hundreds of thousands of years, different environments, and multiple instances of interbreeding with other archaic human groups.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge.

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Today, at #3 in our countdown, “How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be” by Katy Milkman. It’s a deeply researched primer on how to defeat temptation, procrastination, and all the other little demons that stand between you and your best possible self. Episode Recommendation: HOW TO CHANGE: Science-Backed Tips for Becoming Your Best Self (Katy Milkman & Daniel Pink) Next Big Idea App: There’s only one place in the world where you can hear hundreds of bestselling authors summarize their books in their own words. Download our app today: www.nextbigideaclub.com/app

In November 1876, the Kennally gang—including the undercover police spy Lewis Swegles—arrived in Springfield, Illinois to steal the body of Abraham Lincoln. But Secret Service agent Patrick Tyrrell was hot on their heels, and pursued them to the tomb in the dead of night.

As Tyrrell and his team closed in, Swegles provided crucial intel in the final moments of the crime. But at the last minute, the gang escaped, and Tyrrell’s pursuit of the body-snatchers turned into a manhunt. In the end, it would be Swegles who would help finally bring the thieves to justice.

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It’s 2015 and Fox Sports 1 is in a rut. Its attempt to topple ESPN has barely dented the defences of the Disney-controlled sports media giant.

Not that Fox is about to give up. It's looking to former ESPN producer Jamie Horowitz to craft a studio programming strategy that can suck viewers away from the market leader.

But even as Fox readies for another round, the very foundations of the cable sports business that built ESPN are starting to give way.

Big Tech’s coming for sports and that’s going to force change at both ESPN and Fox.

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Today, at #4 in our countdown of last year’s most popular book bites, “The Child in You” by Stefanie Stahl. Is your inner child your truest self? Clinical psychologist Stefanie Stahl thinks so, as do the one-and-a-half million readers who have snapped up her book. But sometimes childhood traumas, big and small, can keep us from becoming happy, fulfilled adults. In this book, Stefanie uses examples and exercises to guide readers through a process of working through past injuries to become more alive — and childlike — in the present. Next Big Idea App: There’s only one place in the world where you can hear hundreds of bestselling authors summarize their books in their own words. Download our app today: www.nextbigideaclub.com/app

Annie Dookhan's colleagues suspect foul play, and begin a covert investigation of the lab's star chemist. To avoid scrutiny, Dookhan sets in motion a desperate ploy.

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Adam Grant needs no introduction, but we’ll give him one anyway. He’s an organizational psychologist at Wharton. He hosts the chart-topping “WorkLife” podcast. And to top it all off, he is one of our curators here at the Next Big Idea Club. In his latest book, Think Again , Adam makes a nuanced case for the power of rethinking things. If you can learn how to check your ego, question your opinions, admit to being wrong, and demilitarize your dinner-table debates, then you’ll be on the way to a healthy, joyous, more enlightened life. Check out Adam’s full interview with Rufus: THINK AGAIN: Adam Grant on the Power of Changing Your Mind Next Big Idea App: Want to hear hundreds of other Book Bites? Download our app today: www.nextbigideaclub.com/app

Keeping up with the cognitive demands of modern life has pushed our brains to their limits. But if the world around us won’t change, then we have to. And to do that, according to science writer Annie Murphy Paul, we need to stop being so brain-bound. Episode Recommendation: EXTENDED MIND: Want to Get Smarter? Try Thinking Outside of Your Brain Bonus: Adam Grant and Annie Murphy Paul Next Big Idea App: Want to hear hundreds of other Book Bites? Download our app today: www.nextbigideaclub.com/app

Today, at #7 in our countdown of last year’s best Book Bites, “Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It” by Ethan Kross. The voice in your head can speak at a rate of 4,000 words per minute. When it gets going like that, not everything it says is particularly helpful. Luckily, there are tools you can use to change the conversation. Get in Touch: How do you like this daily dose of Book Bites? We’d love to know your thoughts. Send us an email at podcast@nextbigideaclub.com Listen to This: CHATTER: Learning to Love the Voice in Your Head Download Our App: Want to hear hundreds of other Book Bites? Download our app today: www.nextbigideaclub.com/app

Today, at #7 in our countdown of last year’s best Book Bites, “Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It” by Ethan Kross.

The voice in your head can speak at a rate of 4,000 words per minute. When it gets going like that, not everything it says is particularly helpful. Luckily, there are tools you can use to change the conversation.

Get in Touch:

How do you like this daily dose of Book Bites? We’d love to know your thoughts. Send us an email at podcast@nextbigideaclub.com

Listen to This:

CHATTER: Learning to Love the Voice in Your Head

Download Our App:

Want to hear hundreds of other Book Bites? Download our app today: www.nextbigideaclub.com/app

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Today is Thursday, February 10, and we're looking at Microsoft vs. Sony.

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Sumner’s succession plans set him on a collision course with his own daughter, Shari Redstone.

Human sacrifice is an ugly but essential topic in understanding the Shang Dynasty, but we know very little about precisely who these people were, where they came from, and what their lives were like prior to their deaths. Dr. Christina Cheung is a bioarchaeologist specializing in the study of stable isotopes, and she has produced some of the first work to shed light on who the sacrificial victims were. But that’s just one part of Dr. Cheung’s fascinating body of work, which extends all the way to Roman Britain and Neolithic France.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

Listen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclusive seasons 1 and 2, and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/tidesofhistory.

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We tell ourselves lies in order to live. We believe our marriages will last, even though we know half of them end in divorce. We trick ourselves into thinking our children are extraordinary, because if we saw them for who they really are — average, disobedient, smelly — the body blows of parenting would be more than we could bear. But here’s the thing: these wide-eyed delusions aren’t bad for us. In Useful Delusions, Shankar Vedantam says that the occasional self-deception can actually contribute to your overall well-being. Turns out lying to yourself is part of being a well-adjusted human. Episode Recommendation: DELUSIONS: How Self-Deception Can Help You Flourish (Shankar Vedantam & Daniel Pink) Next Big Idea App: Want to hear more great Book Bites? Download our app today: www.nextbigideaclub.com/app

We tell ourselves lies in order to live. We believe our marriages will last, even though we know half of them end in divorce. We trick ourselves into thinking our children are extraordinary, because if we saw them for who they really are — average, disobedient, smelly — the body blows of parenting would be more than we could bear. But here’s the thing: these wide-eyed delusions aren’t bad for us. In "Useful Delusions,"Shankar Vedantam says that the occasional self-deception can actually contribute to your overall well-being.

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Today is Wednesday, February 9, and we're looking at LanzaJet vs. SkyNRG Americas.

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By 1876, criminal boss Big Jim Kennally was ready to put his Lincoln body-snatching plan into motion. But his gang of thieves needed one more member before they could attempt the heist.

Soon, they found their new recruit: a former horse thief from Wisconsin named Lewis Swegles. But what the gang didn’t know was that Swegles was a “roper” – an undercover informant, employed by Secret Service agent Patrick Tyrrell to bring down Kennally’s counterfeiting ring. When Swegles revealed the Lincoln plot to Tyrrell, the agent knew he had to act fast. First, however, he had to convince his bosses at the Secret Service that the far-fetched plot was real.

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It’s 2005 and new ESPN programming chief John Skipper’s out to cement the brand’s market dominance by buying up more sports rights.

With ESPN spending big, Fox Sports will need more than its broadcast network and Fox Sports Net regional channels to stay in contention. It needs its own 24-hour national sports network.

And that means that after years of shadow boxing, Fox Sports and ESPN are about to get in the ring and go head to head for the first time.

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In her new book, “Smarter Tomorrow,” neuroscientist Elizabeth Ricker says just 15 minutes of neurohacking a day can sharpen your mental skills, supercharge your creativity, and improve your life. You’re probably thinking, “Sounds great. But what’s neurohacking?” Listen and you’ll find out! Next Big Idea App: Want to hear more great Book Bites? Download our app today: www.nextbigideaclub.com/app

In her new book, “Smarter Tomorrow,” neuroscientist Elizabeth Ricker says just 15 minutes of neurohacking a day can sharpen your mental skills, supercharge your creativity, and improve your life. You’re probably thinking, “Sounds great. But what’s neurohacking?” Listen and you’ll find out!

Next Big Idea App:

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Annie Dookhan lands a dream job, testing illegal drugs at a government lab. But facing intense pressure, Dookhan soon wades into criminal territory herself.

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Today is Tuesday, February 8, and we're looking at Bed Bath & Beyond vs. Target.

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What if ownership isn’t a fact but a story? That’s the tantalizing premise of “Mine! How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives.” Its authors, Michael Heller and James Salzman, who teach law at Columbia and UCLA, respectively, use their combined wisdom on the subject of property to show that the way we handle our personal tugs of war over parking spaces, fence lines, and reclining airline seats says a lot about how we can handle big social problems like wealth inequality and climate change. Episode Recommendation: MINE: How the Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives Next Big Idea app: Want to hear more great Book Bites? Download our app today: www.nextbigideaclub.com/app

In “A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload” (#11 in our countdown of last year’s most popular Book Bites), Cal Newport doesn’t just dare to imagine a future where new forms of streamlined digital communication replace endless email threads and haphazard messaging. He says that future is inevitable. The question is: Will you be ready for it? Episode Recommendation: EMAIL: Would the World Be Better Without It? Next Big Idea App: Want to get smart fast? With the Next Big Idea app, you can enjoy hundreds of book summaries written and read by the world’s leading authors.

Today, at #12 in our countdown of last year’s most popular Book Bites, The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness by Mark Solms. Mark, who’s the director of neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town, draws on cutting-edge neuroscience and his interactions with hundreds of patients to present a new theory of consciousness that might just help you better understand the inner workings of your mind. Next Big Idea App: If you want to hear more Book Bites, you can download the Next Big Idea app at www.nextbigideaclub.com/app. Episode Recommendation: FEELING & KNOWING: Unlocking the Secrets of Consciousness

Sumner uses the weight of his growing media empire to try and acquire Paramount. But when his plans are thwarted by another buyer, Sumner - the man who took Viacom by force - finds himself on the defense.

Professor Jennifer Raff, a longtime friend of the show, returns to discuss her work on the genetic ancestry of America’s Indigenous peoples. We talk about Beringia, waves of migration, the troublesome relationship between science and Indigenous peoples, and her fantastic new book, Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas, which is available now.

Get Origin here: https://www.twelvebooks.com/titles/jennifer-raff/origin/9781538749715/

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

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Today, #13 in our countdown of last year’s most popular Book Bites: “High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out” by Amanda Ripley. Amanda says the best way to stop a minor spat from becoming an all-consuming feud isn’t to avoid friction but to fight with dignity, smarts, and humility. Check out Amanda’s interview with Susan Cain. And if you haven’t already, download the Next Big Idea app at www.nextbigideaclub.com/app.

The 1990s are about to end and ESPN is on a quest to strike down the competition before they can muster the strength to challenge it.

But when ESPN starts using the NFL to gouge the nation’s cable providers, Fox Sports gets an opportunity to dominate regional sports TV.

And as Fox steps up its attacks, ESPN soon discovers that it has to take drastic action to stop an exodus of viewers.

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In the 1870s, a gang from Chicago hatched one of the most audacious criminal plots in American history. They planned to steal the body of Abraham Lincoln from his tomb in Springfield, Illinois, then hold the president’s corpse for ransom.

The brazen plot began in an unlikely place – the murky world of fake money. In the mid-1800s, counterfeiting was so rampant in the United States that it threatened the financial stability of the entire nation. One especially notorious counterfeiting gang was run by Big Jim Kennally – and when Big Jim’s most talented engraver was arrested, it drove his gang to take the leap from counterfeiting to grave-robbing.

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Do you see the world in black and white? You may not think so. You may think your perceptions are nuanced, your opinions technicolored. But research psychologist Kevin Dutton, who’s spent the last two decades teaching at Oxford and Cambridge, says we are evolutionarily hardwired to think in black and white. We sort our experiences into reductive frames: Fight or flight. Us versus them. Right and wrong. These simple mental divisions may have served us in our ancestral environments, but Kevin says they’re too rigid to do us much good when we try to handle the complexities of modern life. To learn more about Kevin’s work, visit www.drkevindutton.com. Want to listen to more Book Bites? Download the Next Big Idea app, visit www.nextbigideaclub.com/app. If you enjoyed this episode, check out our interview with Antonio Damasio.

Keith Ham’s chief enforcer is summoned back to New Vrindaban for a mission. He enlists the help of a friend of the commune who turns informer. Steve Bryant goes into hiding. Deputy Westfall works with the state police to finally make some arrests. But will he be able to bring down Keith Ham?

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Here’s something weird about humans. We like pain. Think about it. We eat spicy food, watch scary movies, run marathons, and take polar plunges. In today’s Book Bite — #15 in our countdown — psychologist Paul Bloom gets to the bottom of our predilection for sorrow and explains why it might be a pathway to meaning. Stick around to the end of the episode to hear a sneak peek of Paul’s interview with our curator Susan Cain. Their full conversation will be part of our new season, which starts in February. Visit paulbloom.net to learn more about Paul’s work. And if you want to check out the Next Big Idea app, head over to nextbigideaclub.com/app.

After Suleika Jaouad graduated from college, she moved to Paris, found a tiny apartment with a giant pink bathtub, and set out to become a foreign correspondent. But then she got a diagnosis that changed everything. Leukemia. Instead of covering conflicts overseas, she started writing a New York Times column from her hospital bed. Four years later, after leaving the cancer ward for the last time, she set out on a 15,000-mile road trip across the United States, meeting with strangers who’d been touched by her column. She shares their stories and her own in “Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted,” which was a New York Times Notable Book of 2021 and is #16 in our countdown. To learn more about Suleika, visit www.suleikajaouad.com. And to hear other great Book Bites, download the Next Big Idea app by visiting www.nextbigideaclub.com/app.

Drum roll, please. Today, #17 in our countdown of the top 22 books of last year: “Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life (And how anyone can harness it. Even you).” For years, Stanford professors Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas have been researching the benefits of having, and cultivating, a sense of humor. They’ve found that clowning around inspires creativity, disarms tension, and strengthens relationships, while also making you happier, healthier, and richer. Seriously. To learn more about “Humor, Seriously,” visit humorseriously.com. And to hear more great Book Bites, download the Next Big Idea app at nextbigideaclub.com/app. We’ll be back with a new season of interviews in February, featuring Jill Lepore, Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Ray Dalio, David Chalmers, Paul Bloom, and a bunch of other brilliant thinkers.

More than 3,000 years ago in China’s Central Plains, the Shang Dynasty crossed the threshold from prehistory to history. For the first time in China, we have access to the written word, in the form of the famous inscribed oracle bones. Thanks to that writing, we can peer inside their society and understand its logic - the logic of violence, authority, and the power of the ancestors.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

Listen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclusive seasons 1 and 2, and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/tidesofhistory.

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Sumner Redstone takes the next step in his vertical integration strategy, and moves to the front of the Hollywood assembly line, by launching a bidding war for control of Viacom.

Today, #18 in our countdown of the top 22 books of last year: “The CEO Test: Master the Challenges That Make or Break All Leaders." In the decade he spent writing the “Corner Office” column for the New York Times, Adam Bryant interviewed hundreds of CEOs and learned what separates good leaders from great ones. In "The CEO Test" Adam and his co-author, Kevin Sharer, the former CEO of Amgen, share what they’ve learned about staying nimble, handling a crisis, and creating cultures that work. We’ll be back with a new season of interviews in February, featuring Jill Lepore, Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Ray Dalio, David Chalmers, Paul Bloom, and a bunch of other brilliant thinkers. To learn more about “The CEO Test,” visit adambryantbooks.com. And to hear more great Book Bites, download the Next Big Idea app at nextbigideaclub.com/app.

Billy the Kid has become one of the most iconic figures of the American West. But many details of his life remain unknown or heavily debated among scholars and historians, from his childhood prior to his arrival in New Mexico, to the circumstances surrounding his death.

On this episode, Lindsay speaks with Chris Wimmer, creator and host of Legends of the Old West, a podcast about the outlaws, gunslingers and lawmen who shaped the American frontier. Chris and Lindsay dive deep into the Billy the Kid story, both as portrayed in Hollywood and in the history books, to try to separate truth from fiction and reveal the young man behind the myth.

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It’s the early 1990s and media mogul Rupert Murdoch is out to shatter ABC, CBS and NBC’s stranglehold on American TV and take his Fox network into the TV majors.

To succeed, Fox will need a powerful battering ram and only one will do: the ratings magnet that is the NFL. And having been spurned twice before by the football league, Murdoch’s going to need all his cunning to get the NFL on side. But that's only the first step in a campaign to challenge ESPN’s position as the champion of American TV sports.

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Today, #19 in our countdown of the top 22 books of last year, as chosen by users of our Next Big Idea app: “The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race” by Walter Isaacson. In this Book Bite, Walter reflects on the brilliant people he’s written about and shares the five lessons they’ve taught him about how to be creative; how to be imaginative; and, as Steve Jobs put it, how to “think different.” Check out Walter’s interview with Rufus: https://apple.co/3nSbIi8 To hear more Book Bites, download the Next Big Idea app: nextbigideaclub.com/app

Steve Bryant is forced out of the commune at gunpoint and heads to California, where he finds evidence that the Gurus are frauds. Berkeley Temple Leader Hansadutta has a meltdown that lands him in jail. An attempt to start a Guru Reform movement divides the movement and leads to death threats. A devotee attacks Keith Ham.

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In her debut book, “The Disordered Cosmos,” Chanda Prescod-Weinstein says that although the right to know and understand the night sky should be universal, the scientific community often limits who can learn and disseminate the story of the cosmos. Chanda, a Harvard-trained physicist, experienced that firsthand as she fought to become the first Black woman in history to receive a tenure-track appointment in theoretical cosmology. In this Book Bite, Chanda says that if we want to make the night sky truly accessible, then we need to reimagine how our society is structured here on earth. You can learn more about Chanda’s work at www.cprescodweinstein.com. And if you want to hear more Book Bites, you can download the Next Big Idea app at www.nextbigideaclub.com/app. This episode is part of a special series: “22 Book Bites to Ignite Your Curiosity in 2022.” We’ll be back with a new season of interviews in February, featuring Jill Lepore, Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Ray Dalio, David Chalmers, Paul Bloom, and a bunch of other brilliant thinkers.

If you caught yesterday’s episode, then you know we’re running a little experiment here at the Next Big Idea. We put together a list of the 22 Book Bites our app users listened to more than any others last year. (Book Bites, for the uninitiated among you, are audio summaries of the best new books, read by the authors themselves.) For the next few weeks, instead of weekly interview episodes, we’ll be posting a new Book Bite from that “best of” list every weekday. Don’t worry. We have a whole bunch of interviews coming your way in February — Jill Lepore, Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Ray Dalio, David Chalmers, and a bunch of other brilliant thinkers. It’s going to be great, if we do say so ourselves. Until then, we hope you enjoy these 22 snappy invitations to supercharge your curiosity in the early days of 2022. Today, at #21, we have “Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone” by Sarah Jaffe. When it comes to our jobs, Sarah says, many of us are trapped in unhealthy relationships. Even if you’ve found a job you love, ask yourself: Does it love you back? Or does it devour your waking hours, pay you less than you deserve, force you to attend team-building events, and refuse to punish the bandit who strolls around the office brazenly sipping from your personal mug? To put it another way, “the labor of love,” Sarah writes, “is a con.” But all hope is not lost. If we can untangle the knotty relationship between work and love, we might just find ways to be fuller versions of ourselves, both in and out of the office. To learn more about Sarah's work, visit www.sarahljaffe.com. And if you want to hear more Book Bites, you can download the Next Big Idea app at www.nextbigideaclub.com/app.

Boston-born media executive Sumner Redstone turns a small family business into a media juggernaut, acquiring companies like Viacom, Paramount and CBS along the way, sometimes by force. But Sumner’s rise to mogul status leaves important relationships, business and familial, in shambles.

The reality of the Bronze Age Near East was much messier and harder to understand than a straightforward story of city-states, empires, and kings. Different ethnolinguistic groups, lifestyles, dynasties of would-be rulers, migrating mercenaries, and ephemeral states were all essential pieces of the fabric of that world. Professor Aaron Burke of UCLA joins us to talk about mobility, migration, and the formation of identities in the ancient Near East.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge

Listen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclusive seasons 1 and 2, and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/tidesofhistory.

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Last year, we worked with some of the world’s best non-fiction writers to create audio summaries of their books. Until now, these summaries — we call them Book Bites — have only been available in the Next Big Idea app. But for the next few weeks, we’re going to share the 22 most popular Book Bites with you. Does that mean we’re pausing our usual interviews? Yes. But only for a bit. We’ll have a fresh batch ready for you in February! In the meantime, we’ll be posting a new Book Bite on this feed every weekday. Think of it as 22 opportunities to stimulate your curiosity in the early days of 2022. First up, at #22, we have “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together” by Heather McGhee. This New York Times bestseller is animated by a deceptively simple question: Why can’t we have nice things? By “we,” Heather means Americans; and by “nice things,” she means good schools, roads that aren’t pitted with potholes, jobs that pay enough to live on. Her conclusion? We can’t have nice things because “white people … resist policies that could benefit them, just because they might also benefit people of color.” In the hopes of finding ways to break that cycle, Heather embarked on a cross-country journey to understand how institutional racism can cause economic harm to everyone and how ending discrimination will benefit all of us. To learn more about Heather’s work, visit www.heathermcghee.com. And if you want to hear more Book Bites, you can download the Next Big Idea app at www.nextbigideaclub.com/app.

It’s the late 1970s and TV sports is equivalent to a few hours of programming on ABC, NBC and CBS each week.

But in Connecticut, Bill Rasmussen is on a mission to change that by creating a cable TV network dedicated to airing sports. Trouble is, he’s got no money, no sports rights, no TV studio, and no cable provider willing to put his network into homes.

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With the bloody Lincoln County War finally over, Billy the Kid tried to make a truce with his arch enemy, Jimmy Dolan. But his plan backfired, and he wound up forced to go on the run, implicated in a murder Dolan committed.

Billy’s charm and quick wits kept him just outside the reach of law. But he would soon meet his match. A former bartender turned lawman, Pat Garrett, vowed to capture and kill the Kid at any cost. Garrett’s epic pursuit of Billy the Kid took him through the hills and villages of New Mexico, until their final deadly clash, which would turn the Kid into a legend.

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When a devotee in West Virginia goes missing, his wife suspects murder. Deputy Westfall is thwarted by the DA when he tries to take action. Keith flexes his muscles and expands his power over New Vrindaban.

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China’s written history goes back more than 3,000 years, stretching deep into the Bronze Age. But just how far back does it go, and how reliable are those first legendary texts when discussing a world that had already been lost for centuries? They speak of powerful kings and capital cities, and a dynasty called the Xia, but can we find them in the rich archaeological record?

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

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Biographer Brian Jay Jones, author of George Lucas: A Life, explores the iconic filmmaker’s life and legacy.

To fret is human. That’s according to recent estimates that suggest 90 percent of the population experiences anxiety. And because anxiety, even in mild forms, can zap our confidence, squelch our sex drives, isolate us from friends and loved ones, most of us have concluded that anxiety is pretty much always a bad thing. But not neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki. In her new book, “Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion,” she argues that we should treat anxiety like a form of energy. “Think of it as a chemical reaction to an event or situation,” she writes. “Without trustworthy resources, training, and timing, that chemical reaction can get out of hand—but it can also be controlled and used for valuable good.” Today, Wendy sits down with Lauren Miller Rogen (she's a filmmaker and the co-founder, along with her husband, actor Seth Rogen, of the non-profit Hilarity for Charity, which provides a range of free services to support families impacted by Alzheimer’s) to discuss the science-backed tools you can use to worry well.

It’s a new century and Hershey’s facing unexpected trouble at home — a showdown between the company and its biggest shareholder that threatens its independence.

Meanwhile, Mars is on a mission to become the world’s candy king. And with Hershey yet to break ground outside the U.S., the opportunity to catch up is fading fast.

Hershey knows there’s one move that could transform its overseas fortunes: a merger with its British soulmate Cadbury. The question is can it secure Cadbury’s hand in marriage before Mars triumphs in its quest for global chocolate domination.

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In 1877, Billy the Kid was saved from a life of crime by a wealthy Englishman named John Tunstall, who saw potential in the teenage outlaw. Soon, however, Billy was drawn into a vicious war between Tunstall and a rival cattle baron, one that would force him to return to his gunslinging ways.

When Tunstall himself was murdered in the escalating Lincoln County War, Billy swore he would get revenge. The violence that followed was shocking even by the standards of the Wild West. The Kid would become a major player in the bloodshed, made infamous by newspapers throughout the country. Ultimately, it would force him to once again flee from the law – and set him on a path towards a showdown with his arch enemy, the ruthless Jimmy Dolan.

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When the Swami dies, eleven senior disciples declare themselves gurus and take control of the movement. In Berkeley, Hansadutta grows fearful and starts amassing an arsenal of weapons. In West Virginia, Keith Ham finishes constructing his palace of gold. When new devotees with records for violent crime join the commune, Deputy Westfall is alarmed. A drug smuggling operation at the Krishna Temple in Laguna Beach ends in murder when temple leaders pair up with ex-mafia informants.

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How did Latin splinter into the Romance languages? In this episode, we explore how Latin transformed from a single, widely dispersed language into a series - French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, and so on - of related but no longer mutually intelligible tongues.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

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As George wraps up his Star Wars saga with three more films, he feels the time is right to retire and sell Lucasfilm. But the Walt Disney Corporation takes his beloved franchise in a controversial new direction.

Why is it so hard to break bad habits and replace them with good ones? You may think it all comes down to willpower. But social psychologist Wendy Wood says that if you really want to change your life, you need to tap into your unconscious mind. She would know. Wendy is the world’s foremost expert on habits and the author of “Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick.” Today, she chats with Next Big Idea Club curator Adam Grant about harnessing the science of habit formation to improve your life for the better. This conversation was among the first that we aired on this podcast, and we left a lot of great moments on the cutting room floor. Today, we’re restoring them. What follows is an extended version of Wendy and Adam’s conversation with new insights about overcoming chronic lateness, developing sustainable exercise routines, and making New Year’s resolutions that last past February.

It’s the late 1970s and Mars is America’s top confectioner. But Hershey is hungry for a comeback. It’s plotting a return to the top powered by a rush of new candies it hopes can nibble away at Mars’ market share.

Not that Mars has any intention of surrendering pole position without a fight. It thinks it can stop Hershey in its tracks by focusing exclusively on best-selling brands like Snickers, M&M’s and Milky Way.

But what neither company knows is that a tempting opportunity from Hollywood is about to disrupt the balance of power in candy land.

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Henry McCarty was born in an Irish slum in New York City in 1859. By the time he died from a lawman’s bullet twenty-one years later in New Mexico, he was notorious throughout the world under a different name: Billy the Kid.

Born to a single, loving mother, young Henry was smart, charming and polite. But he soon faced tragic, devastating setbacks that sent him on a path from robbery to murder. Orphaned at 15, Henry was forced to survive on the western frontier, an unforgiving place where life was cheap. And he would soon become one of the most infamous outlaws in American history.

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When devotees at the NYC temple confront Keith Ham, he decides to found a commune of his own in West Virginia. Krishnas in temples across the country come up with illegal ways to raise money for the group, including drug dealing and money scams.

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With Star Wars a runaway success, George uses his new-found power to build an empire on Skywalker Ranch.

China’s late Neolithic period saw the emergence of increasingly powerful groups of elites who buried themselves in lavishly decorated tombs and built palaces and public buildings at the hearts of their fortified settlements. From these political centers, the elites built and ruled a patchwork of small, competing states. But by around 2000 BC, all of these early states had fallen apart, destroyed by changing climatic conditions, social upheaval, and interstate conflict.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

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When Dr. Vivek Murthy became U.S. Surgeon General in 2014, he went on a listening tour. What he heard surprised him. Americans were lonely, and it was killing them. In this deeply personal conversation with Next Big Idea Club curator Susan Cain (author of “Quiet”), Murthy makes the medical case for love and friendship.

It’s 1965 and Forrest Mars has just become the manufacturer of Snickers and M&M’s. He is now – at last – ready to duke it out with Hershey in a battle to become the number one candy maker in America.

And he knows Hershey is far from prepared for his sudden switch from ally to enemy. Hershey is a company wedded to tradition. It has no marketing department, doesn’t advertise, and has a completely complacent sales team.

The question is: can Hershey shake off its docile ways in time to stop Forrest’s relentless advance?

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The Philippine-American War marked the emergence of America as a global power. But what has been the legacy of the war in the country in which it was fought? How did the war set the stage for Philippine independence, and pave the way for generations of Filipino immigration to the U.S.?

In this episode, Lindsay speaks with Dr. Vicente Rafael, a historian whose work focuses on the colonial and post-colonial Philippines and the country’s relationship with the United States. They’ll discuss the history of the Philippines before, during and after the war, the roles education and language have played in U.S. imperialism, and how the war is remembered – or forgotten – in the Philippines today.

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An elderly swami from India captures the zeitgeist of 1960s counterculture in America, with his message of peace and love. But his western disciples are hungry for power, and one of his most trusted devotees betrays him.

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For our last episode before American Innovations goes on hiatus, we look to the future of new technology from artificial intelligence and virtual reality to carbon capture and the electrification of mobility. Steven talks about these innovations and more with friend of the podcast Clive Thompson, a journalist who writes about science and technology and the author of Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World.

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States have defined China from the very beginning of its recorded history more than 3,000 years ago, but how did they come into being? Professor Li Liu of Stanford University is one of the world’s leading experts on the prehistoric archaeology of China, and she returns to Tides for the second time to tell us about states, elites, and why they’re so central to the story of the Chinese past.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

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A nostalgic return to his childhood takes George on a life-changing journey to a galaxy far, far away.

The science is clear: people who engage in spiritual practices live longer, happier, healthier lives. For the past few years, two researchers — Dave DeSteno, who runs the Social Emotions Lab at Northeastern, and Lisa Miller, founder of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Columbia — have been trying to figure out why. They’ve found that treating religious rituals as tools we can adapt to our individual needs and values can help all of us — staunch atheists and devout believers alike — live more meaningful, successful, and connected lives. In this episode, Dave and Lisa share what they’ve learned, discuss the fraught relationship between science and organized religion, and offer tips for making the most of your holiday rituals.

It’s the 1940s and Forrest Mars’ plan to create a candy empire is stepping up a gear. He’s plotting to seize control of his dad’s company Mars and turn it into a Hershey killer.

First he needs to get his new candy venture off the ground. But to do that he needs help. Help from Hershey.

But while Forrest’s laying plans, Hershey’s trying to get over the death of founder Milton Hershey and grappling with an unexpected opportunity to become a global player.

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With the war officially over, William Howard Taft took over authority as the Governor of the Philippines. Taft was a deep believer in the U.S. policy of “benevolent assimilation” and turned to schooling and political attraction to draw Filipinos to his mission. But he continued to struggle with pockets of armed resistance and challenges to American rule, including a series of “seditious” plays that hit Manila’s thriving theater scene.

Filipinos were caught in a country broken by war, and in the coming years, many migrated to the U.S. to look for jobs, education and a better life. Filipino migrants powered the factories, fields and plantations in Hawaii and the West Coast, but they also faced hardship and discrimination in pursuit of the American dream.

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President Nixon sets in motion a secret campaign to destroy Daniel Ellsberg. With his trial underway, Ellsberg faces a moment of reckoning.

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It’s 1923 and the Hershey Chocolate Company dominates the candy bar business. With its milk chocolate Hershey bar and bite-sized Kisses, Hershey seems impossible to beat.

But in a Chicago police station, an awkward father-son reunion is about to sire a new challenger in the candy business.

That challenger is Mars and it’ll make its breakthrough by wrapping nougat in chocolate. For now, it’s got no plans to topple Hershey.

But all that’s going to change when a family feud spawns a European offshoot, the launchpad for a new and far more aggressive candy empire.

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Experts at Symantec have finally discovered that the virus Stuxnet is designed to target nuclear facilities in Iran. But many questions remain. Who is responsible for the virus? How did it get out? As veteran New York Times reporter David Sanger delves into the origins of Stuxnet, he worries that it represents a new kind of cyber warfare, one without defined rules of engagement, that could have dire consequences for global cybersecurity.

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The late Bronze Age world of the Near East was an incredibly rich and complex place, full of long-distance trade, the exchange of ideas, bickering kings, and empires rising and falling. Among those empires, one of the most powerful and enigmatic was that of the Hittites, whose ruling dynasty survived more than five centuries of intrigue and war to build a state stretching across the region. Professor Trevor Bryce literally wrote the books on the Hittites, and I ask him about the Hittites, the people of Troy, and the world they inhabited.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

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Filmmaker George Lucas created the most successful movie franchise of all time. Star Wars revolutionized cinema, taught Hollywood the true value of merchandise and turned a niche film genre into a billion dollar industry. To build his own empire, George will defy the odds, risk it all and walk away one of the richest men on the planet.

What if everything we think we know about the history of our species is wrong? That’s the provocative question at the heart of a new book by today’s guest, David Wengrow. Hailed as fascinating, brilliant, and potentially revolutionary, “The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity” debuted at no. 2 on the New York Times bestseller list. Drawing on the latest research in archeology and anthropology, it suggests that the lives of our ancient ancestors were not nasty, brutish, and short. On the contrary, they were playful, collaborative, and improvisational—and there's a lot they can teach us about how to improve the world as we know it.

It’s 1886 and in New York City, a young confectioner called Milton Hershey is desperately trying to save his business.

He’s been struggling for years. He founded his first candy business in Philadelphia, only to watch it collapse. His second venture lasted just weeks. Now, he’s loaded up with debts he cannot pay.

But he’s about to get a visit from a man who will change his fortunes forever, paving the way for him to introduce America to the joys of milk chocolate… and build a sweets-fueled empire.

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In March 1901, American forces launched a daring raid to capture the Filipino revolutionary leader Emilio Aguinaldo. Head of U.S. Philippine forces, General Arthur MacArthur, hoped that his surrender would finally break the resistance and bring the war to an end.

But fighting soon expanded to remote areas of the country. Frustrated with the stubborn resistance, America’s military leaders turned to increasingly harsher measures to crush the enemy. But accounts of atrocities by U.S. soldiers soon filled newspapers at home, reigniting public debate about the war, prompting court martials, and sparking a Congressional hearing into the abuses.

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Daniel Ellsberg makes a fateful decision. America's journalists find themselves in a heated battle with President Nixon.

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Over the past decade, made-for-TV holiday romance movies have gone from a seasonal guilty pleasure to a mainstream phenomenon, drawing in millions of viewers year over year. While Hallmark and Lifetime still seem to be guiding this sleigh, streamers like Netflix and Hulu are getting in on the action as well, putting their own spin on the cheesy Christmas classics — and it’s paying off.

So what makes these movies such an iconic holiday tradition? Here to answer that and more is Danny Pellegrino, host of the Everything Iconic podcast, and co-host of A Very Merry Iconic podcast. He’s taking us deep into the world of Christmas movie magic, and sharing a few films you’ll definitely want to add to your Christmas list.

Everything Iconic with Danny Pellegrino: https://everythingiconic.com/

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Viewed from the perspective of international trade, political complexity, and written culture, the late Bronze Age world of the Aegean and Near East marked a high point before the fall. But how did this world come into existence? The empires of the Hittites, Mittani, and Assyrians - along with Egypt’s New Kingdom - marked the beginning of something new, an age of intense war and political competition on a scale larger than ever before.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

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In the summer of 2010, a mysterious computer virus called Stuxnet lands on the desk of Symantec cybersecurity analyst Liam O’Murchu. Stuxnet is unlike anything O’Murchu has ever seen: a highly sophisticated piece of malware that serves no obvious purpose. O’Murchu and his colleagues are determined to figure out how it works and who’s behind it -- but soon, it becomes clear that Stuxnet might be more than they bargained for.

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In this interview episode, Dr. Larry Rosen, author of The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World, talks about the past, present and future of social media.

In 1898, America’s victory over Spanish forces in the Philippines suddenly thrust the United States onto the global stage. It also drew the country into a more complicated conflict with the very people it claimed to be liberating.

As the U.S. expanded its occupation of the Philippines, American soldiers drove Filipino rebels deeper into the countryside. Some rebels began to question the leadership of Emilio Aguinaldo, the face of the Philippine independence movement. In response, Aguinaldo attempted to consolidate power and shift his strategy toward guerilla warfare, setting both nations on a path towards more violence and conflict.

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In “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence,” Dr. Anna Lembke says today’s superabundance of pleasurable stimuli makes us all vulnerable to overindulgence. But don’t lose hope. Anna, the medical director of addiction medicine at Stanford, says that by understanding how modern stimulants — from Instagram to masturbation machines — prey on our primitive brains, we can find ways to overcome the unhealthy dependencies that prevent us from leading balanced lives.

As a global pandemic hits, both Hallmark and Lifetime are in danger of not being able to complete their movies for their upcoming Christmas programming. The two companies get creative to shoot their films. Meanwhile, Hallmark hires a new CEO to rebound after the scandals of the prior year. And the pandemic gives even more players the opportunity to enter the Christmas Movie space, leaving open the question of who will dominate.

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Daniel Ellsberg begins meeting with anti-war activists. With his beliefs shifting, Ellsberg considers whether to take more decisive action.

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After years of being content to play second fiddle to Hallmark, Lifetime decides to make a big move in 2018. They produce more Christmas movies than ever before and go after Hallmark’s biggest weakness: its lack of diversity. Of the twenty-one original Christmas movies Hallmark aired in 2017, only one featured a non-White lead and more people are starting to notice.

But Lifetime’s not the only company to come after Hallmark’s crown. To set themselves apart, Netflix decides to use its deep pockets to hire stars that neither Hallmark nor Lifetime can afford.

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As Chris and Tom fight for independence under the News Corp regime, they push to expand MySpace’s footprint overseas and overcome the growing popularity of Facebook.

Today when you dial 9-1-1, a squad of trained medical professionals arrives, often within minutes. But just 55 years ago, emergency calls were generally dispatched to funeral homes, simply because their vehicles were suited to transporting bodies. You’d be lucky if the person transporting you had any first aid training at all.

Throughout the 1960s, volunteer rescue squads emerged. But it would take the ambitious vision of a community organizer in Pittsburgh to spin a medical revolution into being.

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If we know the name of an ancient Near Eastern ruler, it’s probably that of Hammurabi, thanks to his famous Code. But Hammurabi was just one ruler in a time of conflict throughout the region, and the state he built in his lifetime didn’t last beyond his death. This was an age of fragmentation that lasted for centuries, where ambitious would-be conquerors fought one another in endless rounds of warfare and bloodshed.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

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From the time she was in high school, Shellye Archambeau had one dream: she wanted to run a business. Ultimately, she pulled it off, becoming one of Silicon Valley’s first Black female CEOs. But getting there was far from easy. She had to learn how to assemble a network of mentors, overcome imposter syndrome, and challenge herself in ways she could never have imagined. The story of how she did it is the subject of her inspiring book “Unapologetically Ambitious: Take Risks, Break Barriers, and Create Success on Your Own Terms,” which was named one of the best of the year by our Next Big Idea Club curators. Today, one of those curators, Susan Cain, chats with Shellye about developing resilience, overcoming adversity, cutting yourself a break when it comes to work-life balance, and pursuing your ambition even if you’re an introvert.

After years of being content to play second fiddle to Hallmark, Lifetime decides to make a big move in 2018. They produce more Christmas movies than ever before and go after Hallmark’s biggest weakness: its lack of diversity. Of the twenty-one original Christmas movies Hallmark aired in 2017, only one featured a non-White lead and more people are starting to notice.

But Lifetime’s not the only company to come after Hallmark’s crown. To set themselves apart, Netflix decides to use its deep pockets to hire stars that neither Hallmark nor Lifetime can afford.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On February 4th, 1899, war broke out between the United States and the Philippines. The two nations had begun as allies against Spain the previous year, during the Spanish-American War. The Spanish had occupied the Philippines for three centuries, and the U.S. arrived promising to drive out the European colonial power. But after the Spanish left, the Americans stayed, in defiance of widespread calls for Philippine independence.

America’s bloody war in the Philippines was the nation’s first major overseas conflict. It spanned the tumultuous early years of the 20th century and shaped the political destiny of Teddy Roosevelt, who began the war as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and ended it as President. And it marked the emergence of the United States as a true global power. But the war divided Americans and came at great cost to the people of the Philippines.

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A war in Vietnam is on the horizon, as Daniel Ellsberg begins a new job at the Department of Defense. But after seeing the conflict in person, Ellsberg learns a terrible truth—one that forces him to take drastic action.

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In 1951, the founder of Hallmark Cards, the successful greeting card company, decides to get into television by sponsoring a live opera airing on Christmas Eve. It’s a success, and Hallmark becomes a regular sponsor of television programming for decades. But when they launch their own cable channel in the early 2000s, the picture isn’t so rosy. By 2005, they’re considering selling the channel, but once again Christmas programming saves the day.

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The success of MySpace Music, and the site's influence on pop culture, attracts big time potential buyers like media mogul, Rupert Murdoch.

In losing his ability to form memories, Henry Molaison also lost the ability to learn new skills, retain information and form relationships. He became a kind of time traveler, living forever in the present moment. In this episode, Steven talks with John Gabrieli, a cognitive neuroscientist who worked directly with Molaison aka “Patient H.M.” in the 1980s. Gabrieli shares more about the new discoveries of how memory works that were built on studying this very special patient.

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Archaeology has come a long way since the first crude excavations at Stonehenge more than a century ago. Our guest, Mike Parker Pearson, spent the better part of a decade excavating in the vicinity of Stonehenge, offering new interpretations of the monument that form the backbone of current understanding. And Stonehenge is just one of Professor Parker Pearson’s areas of interest over the course of a long career that has redefined our understanding of British prehistory.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

Listen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclusive seasons 1 and 2, and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/tidesofhistory.

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Not every case of treason is open and shut. With some accused traitors, questions of their guilt or innocence can linger for generations. That’s certainly the case with Mary Surratt. Even before she was hanged in 1865 for her alleged role in the plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, many argued that she was an innocent widow convicted on false testimony. After her death, she became a martyr to the Confederate cause. To this day, Civil War scholars are divided on whether or not she was an active participant in the Lincoln plot.

On this episode, Lindsay speaks with author and historian Kate Clifford Larson. Her book The Assassin’s Accomplice attempts to debunk many of the myths surrounding Surratt and the conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln. They’ll discuss not only Surratt, but our general fascination with traitors and their stories of duplicity and betrayal.

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Friends aren’t just fun to hang out with and handy in a pinch. They’re also a biological necessity. Rufus talks to journalist Lydia Denworth, author of the book "Friendship: The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life's Fundamental Bond," about why friends — even the online variety — make us happier, healthier, smarter, and more successful.

In 2009 the Hallmark Channel launched "Countdown to Christmas," which included four original movies made on a modest budget that follow a predictable formula. It was an immediate ratings hit, catapulting Hallmark to the top of the cable charts. Competitors start to take notice, most notably Lifetime, which caters to the same demographic. Three years later, Lifetime launches their own block of Christmas programming called “It’s a Wonderful Lifetime” featuring similar original movies. It kicks off a Christmas movie rivalry that is big business.

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Monica Lewinsky testifies against President Clinton. The Senate conducts a politically charged impeachment trial.

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It’s a GPS! It’s a camera! It’s a computer! It’s...your smartphone. And in 2021, it feels like you can’t live without it. But when Blackberry and iPhone got into the game in the mid-2000s, that wasn’t yet the case. In just 15 years, our technology has changed dramatically — and so has the culture around it.

To help us make sense of it all is Nilay Patel, Editor-in-Chief at The Verge and host of the Decoder podcast. We’re looking at how the iPhone vs. Blackberry rivalry ushered in a new era of tech habits and where these smartphones have left to go.

Listen to Nilay Patel on Decoder: https://www.theverge.com/decoder-podcast-with-nilay-patel

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Henry Molaison has now lived over half his life unable to form new memories. And with the passing of his parents -- the one constant in his life -- he descends into despair. With no one else to turn to, he forms a close emotional bond with the lead neuroscientist on his case, Suzanne Corkin, who blurs the lines between professional and personal as she tries to help Henry live out his last years with dignity.

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As MySpace starts to take off, thanks to a mistake and Tila Tequila, Chris and Tom fail to see the potential dangers of the site.

The societies of the European Bronze Age lacked writing, but their illiteracy shouldn’t fool us: These were rich and sophisticated civilizations that existed in a time of deep and fundamental transformations, when new technologies, ways of understanding the world, and forms of power reshaped Europe and its people.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

Listen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclusive seasons 1 and 2, and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/tidesofhistory.

Written and narrated by Patrick Wyman; Sound Engineer - Sergio Enriquez; Produced by Morgan Jaffe; Executive Producers - Jenny Lower Beckman and Marshall Lewy

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We’ve all seen the meme. Two images, side by side. On the left, a photo of Jeff Bezos circa 1998. His hair is receding, his smile geeky, his sweater bulky and brown. The caption? “I sell books.” Then, on the right, there’s Jeff in 2017. His pate is as smooth as Lex Luther’s, his biceps as bulbous as Vin Diesel’s, a satisfied look on his sunglassed face. "I sell whatever the f**k I want,“ reads the caption. That meme is a pretty good metaphor for the era of radical change through which we are living, an era Azeem Azhar calls "the exponential age." Breakneck advances in technology allowed a humble bookseller to become chieftain of the world’s largest online retailer. And don’t expect those technological advances to slow down anytime soon. In the next few decades, new developments in everything from AI and 3D printing to synthetic biology and gene-editing won’t just change the way we live: they’ll allow already monolithic companies to keep growing at an unprecedented pace while our elected leaders scramble to keep up. The gap between rapidly advancing technology and our slow-moving society is the subject of Azeem’s marvelous new book, “The Exponential Age: How Accelerating Technology is Transforming Business, Politics and Society.” Recently named one of the best books of the year by the Financial Times, it’s at once a rousing survey of the new technologies that may change the way we live and, at the same time, a pointed reminder that those transformations will have profound political, economic, and social consequences.

It’s January 2011 and Research in Motion’s Jim Balsillie is in Davos, Switzerland when he discovers that his company is being threatened by the Egyptian government. BlackBerry’s BBM messaging system is a lifeline for protestors in the country. Balsillie starts to think that BBM could hold the key to RIM’s survival — even as its sales disintegrate.

Apple, meanwhile, isn’t resting on its laurels. Steve Jobs innovates with a tablet that further buries RIM, as it steals one of RIM’s closest business partners.

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On June 13, 1985, Aldrich Ames packed up six pounds of top secret documents into a plastic bag and walked out the door of the CIA headquarters. He drove to lunch, where he gave the documents to a Soviet diplomat. They contained the identities of America’s most important spies within the Soviet Union.

Not long after, the Soviets told Ames that $2 million had been set aside for him. Ames had become the highest-paid American spy of the Cold War, and his betrayal would soon prove disastrous.

That fall, the CIA was mystified by a string of mysterious disappearances. The agency’s best assets within the Soviet Union were vanishing, never to be heard from again. But it would be years before investigators uncovered the mole within their ranks.

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Monica Lewinsky suffers a terrible betrayal. As she tries to protect the president, a national scandal erupts.

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It’s summer 2008, and Research In Motion’s Mike Lazaridis is at the product testing site for BlackBerry’s new device: a touchscreen designed to compete with the iPhone. This model, however, is going to leave more than broken glass in its wake, when it threatens to sever RIM’s relationship with Verizon.

But while RIM is working to match the last iteration of the iPhone, Apple is about to open up a new battlefront. One that RIM has not even dreamed of.

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Without a functioning memory, Henry Molaison struggles to cope with everyday life. He loses his job, and becomes totally dependent on his overwhelmed parents. Meanwhile, neuroscientist Brenda Milner realizes that Henry’s tragic case can solve some profound mysteries about how memory works in our brains—and might even reveal whole new aspects of memory that previously went undetected.

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Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson had no intention of starting a tech revolution. But when their website, MySpace, took off in 2003, it changed social media and the internet forever. As MySpace grows into one of the biggest sites in the world and attracts media giants like Rupert Murdoch, Chris and Tom will have to fight to keep control of their own creation.

The societies of the European Bronze Age lacked writing, but their illiteracy shouldn’t fool us: These were rich and sophisticated civilizations that existed in a time of deep and fundamental transformations, when new technologies, ways of understanding the world, and forms of power reshaped Europe and its people.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

Listen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclusive seasons 1 and 2, and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/tidesofhistory.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Colleges, businesses, and bureaucracies have long operated on an "old power" model — rigid hierarchies that rule from the top down. But Henry Timms says that paradigm is going extinct. In his book, "New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World — and How to Make It Work for You," Timms argues there's another force emerging. It's transparent, collaborative — and it's going to embolden all of us to change the world from the bottom up.

It’s late 2005, and Steve Jobs is deciding between two prototypes for an Apple phone. His choice will go on to become perhaps the best-selling product ever. Now his team just has to make the touchscreen technology work.

Thousands of miles away in Waterloo, Canada, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis can barely keep up with orders for BlackBerrys. But a scandal at the company blackens their reputation, and plants a seed of disaster between the two co-CEOs.

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In September 1949, the world was shocked to learn that the Soviet Union had conducted its first nuclear weapons test, just four years after the United States dropped the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. U.S. authorities thought there was only one way the Soviets could narrow the nuclear arms gap so quickly -- by stealing atomic secrets from the U.S.

In 1950, the FBI arrested a young Jewish couple, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, for running a spy ring and passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. At their trial, the Rosenbergs became lightning rods for controversy and anti-communist hysteria. But the true extent of their guilt would remain shrouded in mystery for decades to come.

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A White House official grows suspicious of Monica Lewinsky, and has her transferred to the Pentagon. At the new job, Lewinsky makes a friend with a hidden agenda.

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It’s September 11, 2001, and the only network running in downtown NYC is the one owned and operated by BlackBerry’s manufacturer, Reserach in Motion. On one of the most devastating days in American history, that unique reliability wins RIM new fans from Wall Street to Capitol Hill. Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, the co-CEOs of RIM, created the first mobile devices that synced work email accounts to mobile. But when Steve Jobs picks up the bulky Blackberry, he sees an opportunity — and a rivalry is born.

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Even as recently as the early 1950s, we didn’t understand that there were different types of memory, or how the brain processed and stored memories. Then, in 1953, a radical surgery by a reckless doctor gave us tremendous insights into how human memory works. Those scientific gains came at a terrible cost, however. The surgery left the patient, Henry Molaison, a profound amnesiac -- completely incapable of forming new memories. This is his story.

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Seattle Writer Eric Scigliano, who has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Harper’s, goes beyond the spin to expose the other side of Howard’s Starbucks Experience.

Friend of the Show, TV presenter, author extraordinaire, and historian Dan Jones returns to Tides to discuss his new book, Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages. It’s a wonderful book and a tremendous achievement, written with both a consummate grasp of the huge scope of medieval history and a cinematic style of storytelling that keeps the reader engaged. How can we say something new about a very old period, and do it in entertaining fashion? That’s the key question for one of the most accomplished popular historians working today.

Get Powers and Thrones here.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

Listen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclusive seasons 1 and 2, and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/tidesofhistory.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this special episode, three writers share the hard-won wisdom they acquired running track, coaching hockey, and attending surf camp in Costa Rica. First, Olympic runner Alexi Pappas tells us what her career has taught her about self-reliance, mental health, embracing pain, and achieving her dreams. Next, John U. Bacon shares the surprising lessons he learned coaching the country's worst high school hockey team. And finally, journalist Tom Vanderbilt makes a compelling case for being an amateur athlete at any age.

Cryptocurrency has transformed dramatically since Satoshi Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin to the world more than a decade ago. Today, crypto has become a hot investment and, in recent years, an irreverent staple of Internet culture. But questions about its sustainability and volatility make it difficult to predict just how far these virtual currencies are able to go. And while some countries are embracing crypto with open arms, others are trying to stamp it out.

For more on how crypto works and its influence around the world, we spoke with Gian Volpicelli, a journalist at Wired UK and author of “Cryptocurrency: How Digital Money Could Transform Finance.” He's breaking down everything you need to know about how this virtual currency works and where it's going from here.

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On the night of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth stepped into the presidential box at Washington’s Ford’s Theatre, raised a pistol at President Abraham Lincoln, and squeezed the trigger. Lincoln would soon die of his wounds, making him the first president to be assassinated in American history. As the nation plunged into mourning, the hunt for Lincoln’s killer began.

But authorities soon revealed a conspiracy much bigger than just one man. The investigation would focus on an unlikely accomplice: a widow and boarding house owner named Mary Surratt.

In the months leading up to the assassination, Booth and his men met frequently at Surratt’s boarding house, and her tavern was their first stop on their escape. But her exact role in the plot and subsequent military trial led to controversy and conflict that would rage for years to come.

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Monica Lewinsky struggles to build a life on the West Coast. But soon, she gets a chance to start over, and takes a prestigious internship at the White House.

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It’s 2017, and after months of sky-high price rises, the crypto bubble is about to burst. But as scammers and investor panic crash the market, the Winklevoss twins’ nemesis Mark Zuckerberg is making moves. He’s planning a push into crypto designed to put Facebook at the center of global finance.

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The Predator drone made a dramatic transformation from unarmed reconnaissance vehicle to lethal weapon in 2001, just after 9/11. On this episode, Steven talks to retired Air Force officer and pilot Scott Swanson, who was part of the team tasked with using the Predator to hunt down Osama Bin Laden and other terrorist leaders in Afghanistan.

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Ancient Egypt didn’t exist in isolation from the world around it. Trade goods, ideas, and especially people flowed in and out over the millennia, but never more so than during the Second Intermediate Period, when a foreign dynasty of kings known as the Hyksos ruled much of Egypt. But were the Hyksos really the invading marauders the Egyptians portrayed them as? I talked to Dr. Anna-Latifa Mourad of Macquarie University to get the cutting-edge story of who the Hyksos really were.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

Listen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclusive seasons 1 and 2, and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/tidesofhistory.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Howard works to expand in China, increase the range of benefits available to his partners, and secure the future of the company he loves before bidding Starbucks goodbye and resigning as CEO.

Look up the term “Renaissance man” in the dictionary, and you'll probably find a photo of Antonio Damasio. He is a polyglot, an avid reader of fiction, a classical music aficionado, a student of modern philosophy, and an enthusiastic collector of art. This on top of his day job as a neuroscientist, professor, co-director of USC’s Brain and Creativity Institute, and author of brilliant books like “Descartes’ Error” and, most recently, “Feeling & Knowing.” Today, he chats with Rufus about where our feelings come from, how our brains and bodies interact, and the orgiastic pleasure of social admiration (and no, that is not a typo).

Early in the Revolutionary War, Major General Benedict Arnold built a reputation as a courageous commander. He was a favorite of George Washington’s. But he also revealed a fragile ego and a penchant for holding grudges. As the war went on, Arnold’s temper, ambition, and greed would turn him from hero to villain.

In this four-part series, American History Tellers explores the stories of America’s most infamous traitors -- the men and women who were charged, rightly or wrongly, with betraying their country. All of them paid a high price for their crimes. And all of them changed the course of our nation’s history -- starting with the man whose name is now synonymous with treason: Benedict Arnold.

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It’s the mid-2010s and a new blockchain called Ethereum is shaking up crypto. It’s the creation of nineteen-year-old Vitalik Buterin, and it’s inspiring a flood of new digital coins and a gold rush for crypto. But as millions of investors buy crypto for the first time, Coinbase feels the strain.

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In this interview, Lindsay chats with David Owen, the author of 'Where the Water Goes: Life and Death Along the Colorado River.' The two explore how water scarcity is a mounting issue out West—one that affects the entire country. And they consider some of the solutions that could help curb the growing crisis.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s 2015 and Coinbase is out to carve up the crypto scene with its new exchange. But it’s about to face strong headwinds in the form of state regulators, banks, and the Winklevoss twins’ new startup Gemini. And as Coinbase’s growth slows, CEO Brian Armstrong faces pressure to abandon crypto.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Just to the south of ancient Egypt, a civilization we think we know well, was a deeply connected but unique world that existed along the Middle Nile: Nubia, or Kush, which produced its own distinctive cultures and states that held strong for many thousands of years.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In post 9/11 Afghanistan, the Predator drone proves wildly successful for the military, helping kill a key Al Qaeda leader, and aiding in the rescue of Army Rangers trapped on a mountainside. It's the start of a new era in aerial warfare, as the Predator gains widespread acceptance. But in the years to come, mounting civilian casualties from U.S. drone strikes provoke an outcry from the world... and the Obama Administration faces a moral reckoning.

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Howard gets into the advertising game and battles his own Board to prove his belief that companies can work ethically and still make a major profit. Howard’s patience and trust in his vision starts to pay off as Starbucks fights its way out of financial turmoil.

Our curators — Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Daniel Pink — recently named “The Extended Mind” by Annie Murphy Paul one of the best books of the year. In this episode, Annie returns to the Next Big Idea podcast for a spirited conversation with Adam in which she defends the fine art of fidgeting, suggests ways to improve group brainstorms, and gives Adam advice on how to talk to his childhood sensei. By the way, Adam's brilliant TED podcast "WorkLife" is back now with a new batch of interviews — including a Nobel Prize winner, one of the world’s most influential leaders, a daredevil who’s mastered fear, and one of the most decorated Olympians ever. Find them on "WorkLife with Adam Grant" wherever you listen.

It’s 2013 and bitcoin’s gaining traction at last. But just as crypto reaches for credibility, bitcoin is blindsided by high-profile arrests, corporate collapses and multi-million-dollar hacks.

But as the leading lights of the bitcoin industry crash and burn, Coinbase senses a chance to cash in on the failures of others.

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The Roaring 20s are often described as a time of optimism and decadence, teeming with flappers, jazz and bootlegged liquor. It was the decade that birthed modern America. But with that birth came growing tensions over civil rights, the urban-rural divide and other culture wars.

Historian Michael E. Parrish captured the period in his book Anxious Decades: America in Prosperity and Depression, 1920 -1941. In this episode, Parrish joins host Lindsay Graham to discuss Ponzi schemes, the birth of celebrity culture, and how the lessons learned from the ‘20s still resonate today.

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The fighting grows fierce between Inyo County and Los Angeles. But when LA's aqueduct is taken hostage, William Mulholland makes a fateful decision that threatens a disaster.

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It’s 2011, and Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are trying to move on from their legal battle with Mark Zuckerberg over who created Facebook. And their nemesis is about to derail the twins’ dreams again. But then a chance encounter on the dance floor catapults them into crypto.

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You can’t help but dream about the big houses in the fancy neighborhood in your town. One day, that could be you. It’ll take hard work, focus, and a clear plan for how to accomplish your goals.

But when you decide to change those plans, you’ll ask yourself one question: Will you still end up in that big house on the hill — or are you destined for something more?

Hosted by Angelique Perrin

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Howard’s decision to shut down all of Starbucks’ American stores leads to genuine concerns about the company’s chances for survival. In the face of declining sales and mounting criticism, Howard focuses on transforming the company by reconnecting with his customers and restoring a sense of community.

The discovery of 21,000-23,000-year-old human footprints at White Sands National Park in New Mexico is one of the most exciting developments in the study of the deep past in recent years. But do these footprints hold up to real scrutiny? And if they’re real, how do they change our understanding of the first people in the Americas?

I asked two experts on the earliest inhabitants of the Americas what they thought of this incredible new evidence: Dr. Jessi Halligan, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Florida State University, and Dr. Shane Miller, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Mississippi State University. Both have extensive experience on the topic, and help us understand precisely what these footprints tell us about the human past in North and South America.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As the backlash grows, Purdue Pharma aggressively defends OxyContin, even amid evidence it’s being overprescribed and far more addictive than they indicated. Two ambitious federal prosecutors decide it’s time to bring criminal charges against Purdue. OxyContin sales begin to dip as more doctors and patients become aware of just how addictive it is. But the damage is done, and America finds itself in the throes of a full-scale epidemic of opioid addiction and abuse.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Predator proves its value as a “spy in the sky” for the U.S. military in Bosnia in the mid-90s. But it's not until the Predator is handed over to the Air Force that it reaches its full potential. Aided by a covert Air Force group, and a genius scientist known as “The Man With Two Brains,” the Predator is reborn as a lethal killing machine, with a new enemy to hunt: Osama Bin Laden.

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On a misty morning in May 1927, Charles Lindbergh climbed into the cramped cockpit of his single engine plane, The Spirit of St. Louis. After a bumpy taxi and takeoff at a New York runway, he took to the skies, on a flight that would break records and make him a national hero.

At the end of the 1920s, Americans united around a culture of celebrity, and no celebrity was bigger than Lindbergh. It was a time of limitless optimism and a stock market that seemed to know no ceiling.

But there were warning signs on the horizon. Every day, banks in rural America were closing. Farmers were mired in debt. And unsold products lined department store shelves. Soon, Americans would learn that the good times couldn’t last forever.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s 2009 and in a modest suburban home, a monetary revolution is beginning. It’s called bitcoin and it arrives with a whimper. There’s just no compelling reason to swap dollars for this worthless digital token. But then, a wannabe crime lord spots bitcoin’s potential and enacts a plan to filthy rich.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Are you lazy? Social psychologist Devon Price doesn’t think so. In their provocative new book, “Laziness Does Not Exist,” Devon invites us to imagine a world where we stop judging other people for being lazy, stop shaming ourselves for being unproductive, and start realizing that doing less is not a moral failure.

William Mulholland pushes ahead with LA's aqueduct. But when the people of Inyo County learn the truth, they begin preparing for war.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Fast fashion has a crisis on its hands. The industry is wreaking havoc on the environment, and even the execs are starting to notice. Massive amounts of pollution and textile waste have taken a toll on the planet as these shops continue to send runway styles to mainstream markets in record time. The bargains keep consumers coming back for more, but how long can it last? And what will it take to change the habits of shoppers used to getting the latest trends for cheap?

To unpack fast fashion and its future, we spoke with Rachel Tashjian, Fashion Critic at GQ, who's written extensively about the fashion world and its relationship with the environment. We'll explore the dilemmas facing the space today, and some of the ways the industry and the consumers are working toward building a more sustainable closet.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You’re always on the move. Not just moving from town to town — with your siblings and your foster parents — but moving your feet, your arms, and your hands. You love to feel your body in motion. But the way that you move isn’t always understood by grown-ups who think they know better.

In order to fulfill your destiny, you have to follow your heart.

Hosted by Cree Summer.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Purdue Pharma is betting big on their painkiller OxyContin. But in order for the medication to be the blockbuster they envision, they need to convince doctors it’s more effective and less addictive than other painkillers on the market. They hire hundreds of sales reps to aggressively pitch the drug. Soon, however, doctors and patients report it’s not the miracle drug that was advertised. In fact, it’s driving addiction and overdoses across the country.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if you could design a spy plane that could be flown remotely and hover in the sky for hours, providing reconnaissance for troops on the ground? In the early 1980s, the visionary inventor Abe Karem begins building drones out of his L.A. garage. Soon, the Pentagon and the CIA take notice. Though he faces many challenges, Karem is on the forefront of a revolution that will change the face of modern aerial warfare.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Howard Schultz bought a small Seattle coffee company called Starbucks in 1987. By the time he stepped down as Starbucks’ CEO in 2000, Howard had transformed the six-store operation into the largest coffee brand in the world. But in the late 2000s, Starbucks descended into a financial spiral, and Howard came back to save the company he’d built from the brink of disaster.

The Middle Kingdom, beginning around 2000 BC, was the second of ancient Egypt’s classical ages. Powerful pharaohs ruled from the cataracts of the Nile to the Mediterranean, building enormous monuments and patronizing exceptional art and literature. But on either side of the Middle Kingdom lay two ages of chaos, the Intermediate Periods, when the pharaoh’s rule - the defining feature of ancient Egyptian history - essentially disappeared.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When Katy Milkman was a newly minted professor at Wharton, she came across a statistic that stopped her cold: 40 percent of premature deaths result from personal behaviors we can change. Katy decided to do something about that, and for the next decade, she conducted groundbreaking research into the science of achieving lasting behavior change. In “How to Change: The Science of Getting From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be,” she shares what she’s learned. The Next Big Idea Club named “How to Change” one of the best books of the year, and in this episode, Katy sits down with our curator Daniel Pink to tell him why a change in the weather can help you save money, how Harry Potter got her in better shape, and what an accidental breakthrough in mathematics reveals about boosting your self-confidence.

It’s 2019, and the internet is overflowing with videos of satisfied customers showing off their Shein hauls. But it’s not all smooth sailing when allegations go viral that the company steals from independent designers.

Meanwhile, former Topshop brand director Jane Shepherdson has a new gig in the clothing rental business-- but is renting outfits actually more eco-friendly? Shein makes a play to save Topshop, but the company is bought by another online shopping giant, with a catch. And in the hands of new leadership, Forever 21 tries to start anew in a rapidly changing fashion landscape.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 1921, Republican President Warren G. Harding entered the White House, ushering in a new era of conservative government. Harding was elected by Americans yearning for tradition and old-fashioned values. But they put in power one of the most scandal-ridden presidencies in American history.

Harding filled his administration with corrupt cronies who exploited their offices for personal gain. Americans were shocked as the details of Teapot Dome and other scandals came to light, even after Harding’s abrupt death brought his presidency to a premature end.

But no controversy could sustain Americans’ attention for long in a new era of mass consumerism. As the economy boomed, a bitter rivalry between the two carmaking giants, Ford and GM, brought the power of advertising and marketing to new heights.

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William Mulholland climbs to the top of the water department. But once he's there, he learns that Los Angeles has a terrible secret, one that could destroy the city.

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It’s 2018, and H&M is drowning in billions of dollars worth of unsold inventory. Brick and mortar stores are struggling. But on the internet, Shein is thriving, capitalizing on social media trends to get desirable, ultra-cheap clothing made and into customers’ hands in a matter of days.

And once the head of the pack, Topshop is at risk when Philip Green is very publicly accused of abuse, racism, and sexual harassment. Forever 21 finds itself in a heap of trouble too.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You dream of traveling through space and exploring the vast reaches of the solar system. Because in space, you don’t have to explain yourself. You get to explore the questions you want to ask.

But if you want to solve the mysteries of the universe, you’re going to have to learn to focus.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Doctors once shied away from using opioids to treat chronic pain, citing the risk of addiction. But in the 1970s, a new generation of doctors started to argue that opioids should be reconsidered, and that allowing terminal patients to suffer in agony is torturous. As the palliative care movement grows, Purdue Frederick, a small pharmaceutical company, sees an opportunity to bring opioids out of the shadows and to the masses...to devastating effect.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Located to the south of Egypt, in today’s Sudan, ancient Nubia had a complicated relationship with the old state of the Nile, and scholars have traditionally understood it through the shadow of its much better understood northern neighbor. But, as Dr. Geoff Emberling of the University of Michigan explains, Nubia had a long and fascinating history of its own and a stunning array of achievements, spanning thousands of years and many different cultures.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

New York Times journalist Peter Eavis gives a behind the scenes look at the past, present and future of Wall Street.

Vicky Ward, author of The Devil’s Casino: Friendship, Betrayal and the High Stakes Games Played Inside Lehman Brothers, explores the dramatic story of Lehman’s downfall, and the people responsible for one of the greatest financial failures in history.

In the 1920s, Americans moved to the city in droves, and a new, diverse generation sparked an era of dizzying social change. It was the Age of Jazz, a time when Black Americans brought a revolutionary new musical style to northern cities. Free-spirited flappers haunted urban nightclubs. And Harlem, New York became the epicenter of a renaissance in Black artistic and political expression.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In his new book, “Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters,” Steven Pinker writes: “When humans set themselves the goal of improving the welfare of their fellows … and they apply their ingenuity in institutions that pool it with others’, they occasionally succeed. When they retain the successes and take note of the failures, the benefits can accumulate.” In this episode, Steven argues that those benefits would accumulate even faster if we all learned a bit of logic, got better at sniffing out fallacies, embraced institutions that safeguard empirical truths, and entertained the idea that halting, imperfect progress may be better than no progress at all.

It’s 2010, and a series of deadly tragedies at factories in Bangladesh paint H&M and the fast fashion industry in a negative light. In response, the company doubles down on sustainability, launching a new eco-friendly line.

Meanwhile, Forever 21 goes to court over copyright infringement allegations, and Zara invests in technology to streamline its supply chain. But there’s a new player on the scene, Chinese company Shein, and their online-only business model is about to change the game.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Lindsay sits down with Charles Duhigg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who covers the tech industry. The two explore why venture capitalists work to create monopolies, and whether these powerful investors bear responsibility for the failures at Theranos.

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It’s 1974 and Amancio Ortega, determined to break the cycle of poverty he experienced growing up in Spain, uses his background in retail and manufacturing to found future fast fashion giant Zara.

Meanwhile, Topshop is born as a small section in the basement of a department store, and future CEO Philip Green flounders with a misguided attempt to break into the denim business. And overseas in California, a pair of Korean immigrants chasing their American dream found Forever 21, the most affordable fast fashion brand yet.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You like to test your limits and live life on the edge. That doesn’t always sit well with your mom, who just wants you to be safe and to keep your feet firmly planted on the ground.

But safety is the exact opposite of what you need. For you, the sky’s the only limit.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen.

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Lehman’s last hope is a potential acquisition, but Dick Fuld’s ego gets in the way, and sends the firm down its ultimate path of destruction.

In the past 100 years, we’ve doubled life expectancy. It might be the single greatest achievement of the modern era. So why haven’t we done more to celebrate it?

On this episode, Rufus Griscom, host of Wondery’s “The Next Big Idea,” turns the tables and puts Steven Johnson in the interviewee’s seat. They’ll discuss Steven’s book and PBS series “Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer,” about the many breakthroughs, large and small, that led to our increased longevity.

To learn more about “Extra Life,” visit https://stevenberlinjohnson.com/.

To hear more episodes of Next Big Idea, follow or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Amazon, the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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When we think of Ancient Egypt, we think of the pyramids: vast, eternal monuments to the glory of long-dead pharaohs. But we shouldn’t take them for granted: They belong to a specific place and time, and the people who built them had their reasons for doing so. The world that produced the pyramids was Egypt’s Old Kingdom, one of its three classic ages. We’ll explore it here today.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

Listen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclusive seasons 1 and 2, and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/tidesofhistory.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 1919, American soldiers returned from the battlefields of Europe to face a nation torn apart by a different war. One-fifth of the nation’s workforce put down their tools and went on strike. Anarchists sent deadly bombs in the mail to congressmen and cabinet members. And a terrorist attack on Wall Street killed dozens.

As economic and political turmoil swept the country, government authorities moved to stamp out dissent. Targeting unionized workers, immigrants, and radicals, officials launched ruthless campaigns to drive out what they saw as threats to America.

It was the dawn of the Roaring Twenties, a decade of extremes that saw a rapidly changing nation caught between its past and its future.

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What if the fates of careers, companies, even entire industries depend on nurturing crazy ideas? In “Loonshots," physicist turned biotech entrepreneur Safi Bahcall pulls back the curtain on history’s greatest scientific, technological, and entrepreneurial breakthroughs, introducing us to a cast of colorful characters with much to teach us about how innovation really happens. In doing so, he provides a brand new framework for understanding the delicate relationship between complex ideas and even more complex people.

It’s 1987 and Jane Shepherdson, a star buyer for retail chain Topshop, is using her keen ability to predict trends to put the company on the map as the go-to shopping destination for young British women. But when the company is bought by prickly business tycoon Philip Green, all of her hard work is at risk.

Meanwhile, Swedish company H&M opens its first store in the US, and a groundbreaking collaboration with Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld pushes the limits of what fast fashion can be.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

An investigative journalist looks into Theranos, and is shocked by his discoveries. Elizabeth Holmes tries to fend off the potentially devastating story.

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The battle between Death Row and Bad Boy Records wasn't long, but it was intense. Rather than staying on wax, the beef came off the records and into the streets, resulting in a deadly macho dust-up between hip hop's biggest — and youngest — stars. The rivalry also touched the life of R&B up-and-comer Faith Evans, who was married to Biggie at the time and found herself in the middle of the war between East and West.

To explore this, we spoke with Naima Cochrane, a music and culture journalist and former industry executive who’s worked behind the scenes shaping the careers of Beyonce, John Legend, Juicy J and other major acts.

We break down the gangsta rap era and discuss what happened after Tupac and Biggie were tragically removed from the scene. Plus, we're getting more context on Faith Evans’ role in the battle and how the trials of the women in the 90s blazed a trail for the hip hop queens of today.

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You love asking questions wherever you go, especially “why.” Why is the world the way that it is? Why doesn’t everyone get along? Why can’t we all just be better people?

All those questions lead you to theater, to writing plays, and finally, to your ultimate destiny. But in order to live up to your potential, you’ll have to find the honesty, generosity, and bravery that lives deep inside you.

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In 1967, an unlikely surgeon performs the first human heart transplant – and shocks the world. As others race to replicate his achievement, one surgical team makes a mistake that could spell the end of organ transplants in the United States.

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Bart McDade leads a corporate coup designed to oust Joe Gregory, reign in Dick Fuld, and rescue Lehman Brothers from the throes of disaster.

We can’t understand the past without understanding when things happened, because if we can’t place them in some sort of chronological order, we can’t understand the relationship between them. But how do we know when things happened in the distant past? Professor Sturt Manning of Cornell University is an expert on chronology, using tree-rings, radiocarbon, and historical sources to date events and archaeological sites from many thousands of years ago.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The rivalry between the East and West Coasts of hip-hop has become an all out war, with Death Row and Bad Boy on the front lines of the conflict. Within six months, the war claims the lives of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, sending shockwaves through the hip-hop community.

For Death Row and Bad Boy, labels built on the backs of these stars, the future looks uncertain. Now, the fate of each business rests in the hands of its owner. What these moguls decide to do next will determine whether they’ll rise above the tragedy, or get swept up in it.

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Alaska: big, open, frozen and wild. In 1867, the acquisition of Alaska from the Russian Empire was widely derided as “folly.” But early explorers like John Muir saw its potential, and clamored for its preservation in the face of increasing development and calls for statehood. Then oil was discovered in Alaska, and the real fight began. Caught between angry Alaskan individualists and an ambitious federal government, the National Park Service struggled to do what was right for the land and the people who lived and depended on it.

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The deadline is one of the most powerful tools we have for getting work done. So why are we all so afraid of it? After studying organizations that manipulate deadlines to their advantage, Christopher Cox (former chief editor of Harper's and executive editor of GQ) has figured out how to transform deadlines from something to be feared into a superpower to boost productivity and stimulate creativity. He’s bottled his findings in a new book called “The Deadline Effect: How to Work Like It's the Last Minute—Before the Last Minute,” and in this episode, he shares what he has learned with novelist Rivka Galchen.

Theranos prepares to go public with its blood-testing devices. But the company faces increased scrutiny, as problems with its technology—and its leadership—add up.

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By the time Biggie Smalls meets Tupac Shakur, Tupac is already a big star. He hasn’t yet signed with Death Row, but he’s already sold millions of records and starred in two feature films. Biggie, on the other hand, is still waiting for his first album to drop.

Biggie and Tupac become fast friends, but their relationship doesn’t last long. The two rap stars are pulled in different directions. One struggles to escape violence, while the other will be consumed by it—pushing tensions between Death Row and Bad Boy to a very public breaking point.

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You’ve always been wiser than your years, but not everyone is ready to let you grow up. You’d rather be watching scary movies than playing dress-up.

They might not be listening now, but they’re going to hear your voice soon enough.

Hosted by Cree Summer

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Mike Gelband, and his deputy Alex Kirk, fight their way to the 31st floor to challenge Lehman’s CEO. But to save the company they love, Mike and Alex will have to risk everything; even their careers.

By the early 1960s, surgeons have proven that it's possible to transplant kidneys and lungs. Now, with heart disease still the leading cause of death, they've set their sights on performing the first human heart transplant. But first, they've got to overcome the ethical, legal, and surgical challenges of removing a donor's heart before it stops beating for good.

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The Late Bronze Age was a remarkable time in the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East. An interconnected world sprang up, tying together the lands from Greece and Crete in the west all the way to Mesopotamia in the east and the Nile cataracts in the south. Let’s explore the Aegean during this time, looking at how palaces on Crete continued to grow and how Minoan civilization reached an apex of sophistication and reach. And on the Greek mainland, a new people - the Mycenaeans - emerged, building their own palaces and society, the foundations of the Greek world that would later encompass so much of the Mediterranean and beyond.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

Listen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclusive seasons 1 and 2, and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/tidesofhistory.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 1914, America’s National Parks had a problem: no one was using them. And those few that were faced unmaintained roads, trails strewn with garbage, and a lack of amenities that made it hard for the average American to enjoy themselves. One man had enough, and went to Washington on a mission: establish a new National Parks Service, and transform these neglected, magic spaces into clean, approachable, fun vacation destinations.

But in taking the reins, mining tycoon and marketing genius Stephen Mather would face many challenges: wolves, bears, fires, and his own internal torment.

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, here are some additional resources:

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

National Alliance on Mental Illness: 1-800-950-6264

Crisis Text Line: Within the US, text HOME to 741741

Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance: 1-800-826-3632

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the 70 and 80s, the founders of Death Row and Bad Boy are coming of age. In the Los Angeles neighborhood of Compton, a young Dre is spinning records before he even learns to read. Dre desperately wants to be a hip-hop DJ, but Los Angeles barely has a hip-hop scene. In New York, on the other hand, rap is popping off. And an 18 year old called Sean “Puffy” Combs has B.I.G. plans for the Big Apple.

They don’t know it yet, but their struggles and successes have already begun to shape the egos and sounds of their multi-million dollar tug of war.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Over the past century, the average human lifespan has doubled. That astonishing statistic is the subject of a new book and PBS series by acclaimed science writer Steven Johnson called “Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer.” In this episode, he tells Rufus about the renegades who shamed milkmen, spiked public reservoirs, and rode rocket-powered sleds — all in the name of science. They discuss how inventions like vaccines, seatbelts, and sewers made the world a safer place. And they peer into a future where aging might be a thing of the past.

Elizabeth Holmes has an idea that could revolutionize medicine—and make her very rich. But first, she'll need to find investors and put together a company.

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It's the year 2000 and Ben & Jerry's is under new ownership. But as promises that were made before the sale get broken, employees wonder if the brand's values can survive the new regime.

Meanwhile, Häagen-Dazs finds itself wrestling with how to move with the times while staying true to the brand's values.

But while the super-premium brands are soul searching, a plucky Los Angeles start-up is about to churn up the ice cream market.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode contains explicit language.

In the 70 and 80s, the founders of Death Row and Bad Boy are coming of age. In the Los Angeles neighborhood of Compton, a young Dre is spinning records before he even learns to read. Dre desperately wants to be a hip-hop DJ, but Los Angeles barely has a hip-hop scene. In New York, on the other hand, rap is popping off. And an 18 year old called Sean “Puffy” Combs has B.I.G. plans for the Big Apple.

They don’t know it yet, but their struggles and successes have already begun to shape the egos and sounds of their multi-million dollar tug of war.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Life moves slow in your sleepy little hometown. You long to escape to someplace else, where life is fast, exciting, maybe even a little dangerous.

It’s a place that only exists in your imagination. But someday, you’re going to bring it to life.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Lehman Brothers, the world’s 4th largest investment bank, recorded billions in profits year after year, until September of 2008 when the Wall Street giant was forced to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy, triggering a global financial meltdown. The collapse of Lehman Brothers is a cautionary tale of too much risk, not enough regulation and plenty of greed. The story starts with two traders who tried to save the company they loved.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that the whole of human history can be divided into two parts: before the Industrial Revolution, and after. Economist Duncan Weldon joins me to talk about the Industrial Revolution, why it started in Britain, and the trajectory of the British economy over the past two centuries.

Get Duncan’s book, Two Hundred Years of Muddling Through, here.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Two Hundred Years of Muddling Through: The surprising story of Britain's economy from boom to bust and back again

A century ago, organ transplants were the stuff of science fiction. But a handful of experimental surgeons believed that transplants were not just possible – they had the potential to save thousands of lives. Then, in 1954, a man agreed to donate his kidney to his twin brother – and one surgeon finally got his chance to prove the doubters wrong.

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Every season, we invite the authors of the best new non-fiction to distill their books into five big ideas. Then they read those ideas aloud. We call these book bites, and our app has hundreds of them. In this special episode, we’re sharing three book bites that demystify the art and science of parenting. Journalist Melinda Wenner Moyer offers evidence-based strategies for teaching your kids not to be jerks. Two educators explore the science behind the iconic TV show “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” And acclaimed economist Emily Oster explains how geeking out on data can make you a better parent.

In the early morning hours of Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the city of San Francisco was torn apart by a huge earthquake and devastating fire. As the city rebuilt, it also sought to ensure that if fire were to strike the city again, abundant water would available to fight it.

But a new reservoir for the city would require flooding a treasured portion of Yosemite, the Hetch Hetchy Valley, one of John Muir’s favorite locations. He fiercely opposed the plan, setting up a showdown between Muir’s newly formed Sierra Club and political forces in both San Francisco and Washington, D.C. - including Muir’s former ally in the conservation movement, Teddy Roosevelt.

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This episode contains explicit language.

In the 1990s, the landscape of American music was changed forever by two titans of hip hop: Death Row and Bad Boy. The rivalry between these iconic rap labels would go on to become as legendary as it was notorious. But in these early days? It’s all good.

Death Row Records, the West Coast company, is already the hottest label in gangsta rap. But now that they’ve signed mega-star Tupac Shakur, they’re poised to dominate the industry.

New York-based Bad Boy Records finds an answer to Death Row in The Notorious B.I.G, also known as Biggie Smalls. But first, founder Sean “Puffy” Combs has to convince the young rapper to evolve his sound to reach the masses.

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Lindsay sits down with Heather Ann Thompson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Blood in the Water, which tells the history of Attica. Thompson discusses the troubling aftermath of the uprising, when New York’s government took back control of the prison. And she reveals how, for decades, the state has worked to suppress the truth about its siege.

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Summer is a time for barbecues, picnics, and maybe even a stiff drink. When it’s warm out, the business of food really starts booming. That’s why we decided to bring you a roundup of some of our favorite recent food stories from our weekday news podcast, Business Wars Daily.

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It's 1998 and Häagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry's are now tasty targets in the global ice cream war between Unilever and Nestlé.

As these multi-billion-dollar consumer goods giants move in, the U.S. ice cream market enters a state of churn. Enemies turn to allies, friends become foes, alliances shatter, and dreams get crushed.

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From mainland Greece to Minoan Crete and the famous city of Troy, what made the Aegean Sea one of the constituent pieces of the Bronze Age world? All of these cities are linked, not just by their proximity, but by much bigger things: trade, the emergence of cities and elite classes, the development of state structures and the written word.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Facebook, Friendster and MySpace weren’t the only companies that pioneered social media. In 2006, a new company turned the act of “tweeting” into an opportunity for wide-ranging commentary, and made your number of “followers” a status symbol. On this episode, Steven talks to Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, who also co-founded Medium.com and wrote the memoir Things a Little Bird Told Me.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bob Batchelor, cultural historian and author of the definitive biography, Stan Lee: The Man Behind Marvel breaks down Stan’s career, the controversy surrounding Stan and his closest collaborators, and Stan Lee’s legacy in American entertainment.

Cognitive neuroscientist Christian Jarrett believes your personality is not etched in stone. Instead, he says, it's made of soft clay, and with the right tools, you can sculpt it to lead a happier, healthier, more satisfying life.

From a turn-of-the-century railroad stopover to a glamorous entertainment oasis, the evolution of Las Vegas has been one for the books. Casino moguls replaced crime bosses as the kings of the castle, giving "Sin City" the more family-friendly vibe we see today. Although the mob is out, more challenges have moved in — a global pandemic, a statewide drought and competition from other markets are giving the Las Vegas gaming industry a run for its money, raising some questions about its future.

For more, we spoke with Howard Stutz, an award-winning journalist at the Nevada Independent who's covered casinos and gaming for more than 30 years. He's sharing what the Strip was like yesterday, how it's faring today and what it might look like tomorrow.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was atop a mountain when he heard the news: an assassin’s bullet would likely take President McKinley’s life, and make Roosevelt president.

Upon his inauguration shortly thereafter, Roosevelt brought his lifelong love of the natural world to the White House. With a stroke of his executive pen, he set aside vast swaths of land as preserves and monuments. And later, with an election looming, he embarked on the most comprehensive tour of America’s natural wonders any president had ever made, visiting the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and taking “the most important camping trip in history” with John Muir in Yosemite.

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The inmates receive a final threat, as the state demands their surrender. Governor Rockefeller makes a fateful decision.

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It's the dawn of the 1990s and with America under its spell, Häagen-Dazs is eyeing the millions to be made in Europe and Asia. But back in the USA, Ben & Jerry's is about to undergo a major growth spurt thanks to its latest flavor sensation. And with Ben & Jerry's scooping up customers fast, a war for supremacy in the supermarket freezer aisles is about to erupt.

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Sin City shapeshifts from its long-held ranking as the supreme adult playground on the planet to a bizarre family-friendly amusement park. Steve Wynn sets a redesign trend that emphasizes Vegas visitors who come for things other than gambling. It’s a world of boutiques, restaurants and Disney-esque rides for the kiddies.

But it’s a gamble that won’t pay off. As the new century kicks in, ever-changing Las Vegas goes through yet another attitude adjustment as Wynn and Kerkorian battle to the end. The city suffers a variety of tragic blows, and Wynnheads for a fall from grace no one could have predicted. It’s all part of the remarkable, continuing business growth in a city that is like no other.

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By 2007, Facebook finds itself at a crossroads. Its sole focus has been growing its users and traffic. Now, it needs to turn a profit. Luckily for Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook possesses an invaluable asset: deep knowledge of the personal data and habits of its users. But when Zuckerberg teams up with Sheryl Sandberg to monetize that data, it will create a host of issues that will mire Facebook in controversy.

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Bestselling author and history podcaster extraordinaire Mike Duncan returns to Tides to talk about his new book, Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution. It’s a wonderful book about a fascinating character who lived through and shaped impossibly eventful times, and I highly recommend both it and Mike’s other work.

Get Hero of Two Worlds here.

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Stan finds himself in a legal battle with Marvel that will lead the company to take Hollywood by storm and launch the modern version of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The mob’s longtime stranglehold on Las Vegas is weakening as the feds press down harder than ever. Just a few years ago, no one built anything on the Strip without gangster involvement. Now, as the late ‘80s unfold into the ‘90s, rising Vegas mega-developer Steve Wynn begins his rise to battle Kirk Kerkorian as the new kings of the Strip, and they don’t need mob money or influence to do it.

Wynn opens what will become the most financially successful casino resort in the world. And it’s financed not by dark underworld funding, but by Wall Street as the corporate sector steps in to knock the mob from the world it created.

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Conventional wisdom tells us that real joy comes from within: from exercise or meditation, acts of service or the way we look at the world — pretty much anything except material possessions. But author/designer Ingrid Fetell Lee offers a different take in her book “Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness.” Last season, Ingrid sat down with Next Big Idea Club curator Adam Grant to discuss the powerful relationship between the way we feel and the objects that surround us. Turns out we can harness that relationship to live healthier, happier lives. If you haven’t heard this episode before, you’re in for a treat. And if you have heard it before, there’s never a bad time to be reminded that joy is all around if you know where to look.

Yellowstone was our nation’s first national park. Its strange, wondrous landscapes were perfect for exploration - and exploitation. Upon Yellowstone’s discovery by white Americans, two races began: one to build a railroad to the park to capture its commercial potential, another to protect the land from desecration. One will fail, bringing down with it the nation’s economy. The other will require the U.S. Army to succeed, but leave thousands of animals slaughtered and Native American tribes displaced.

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An unexpected death upends the negotiations. As both sides dig in their heels, the hope for a peaceful resolution begins to fade.

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Vegas is getting a bad rap in the press, thanks to the increasing spotlight on the mob’s control. The legitimate powers in the halls of Nevada government need something—or someone--to spread a veneer of respectability over Sin City.

That someone arrives. He’s one of the most wealthy, powerful men on the planet. And he’s also a loose cannon. As far as new governor Paul Laxalt is concerned, that’s not a deal breaker.

And rich developer Kirk Kerkorian has plans to build the biggest hotel on the planet. Plans that herald a new wave of building on the Vegas Strip.

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It's 1984 and Ben & Jerry's is fighting for its life. Häagen-Dazs is pressuring distributors to stop carrying the Vermont ice cream brand and the deadline for distributors to comply is closing in fast. But with help from a lawyer with a hole in his shoe and a spate of publicity stunts, Ben & Jerry's hopes to pull off an unlikely victory.

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It’s the mid 2000s, and social media is mainstream. MySpace has eclipsed Friendster and been acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. Meanwhile, another company is quietly reinventing social media yet again, founded by a college sophomore with a rare combination of technical skill and strong business instincts. His name is Mark Zuckerberg, and his company, The Facebook, will soon challenge MySpace and its new corporate owner for control of the social media landscape.

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More than 4,000 years ago, a ruler came to power in the fractious, war-torn lands of Mesopotamia. He ruled a small state north of the region's ancient heartland, a place called Akkad, but over the course of his life, Sargon built something sprawling and unique: the world's first empire, the Akkadian Empire.

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Adam Neumann, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home (eight of them, actually) and a happy (if slightly hyperactive) disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived forty years in the world with very little to distress or vex him. In the summer of 2019, he was presiding over the most valuable startup in America: WeWork. To the cynical, it was a glorified desk rental company. To Adam, it was the company that would “elevate the world’s consciousness,” broker Middle East peace, build offices on Mars (presumably with the staple WeWork perks: ping pong, cold brew, free beer), and turn Adam into history’s first trillionaire. But then the searing sun of reality melted the wax that held his wings together, and he plummeted to earth, the value of his company going up in smoke behind him, like a contrail. The story of Adam’s spectacular rise and calamitous fall is the subject of a new book called “The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion.” It was written by two Wall Street Journal reporters, Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell. Their real-time coverage of Adam’s erratic behavior and flagrant self-dealing helped to hasten his demise. In this episode, they speak with Mike Isaac, author of “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber,” about hubris, greed, tech culture, and bad judgment.

The mob faces its biggest threat yet when Nevada governor Grant Sawyer wants control of the state’s top-grossing industry—gambling. The attack includes a strictly-enforced gangster blacklist to keep hoods out of their own casinos. Things get worse when Attorney General Robert Kennedy mounts his own war against the Syndicate, aided by the FBI.

But as the mob and the law battle it out, tourism gets a massive boost when Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack comes to town. They define a swinging image of Sin City that proves unshakable.

Meanwhile, the mob is down but not out, hoping the incoming governor will ease the legal scrutiny. But their hopes are not going to be fulfilled.

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Stan Lee heads to Hollywood in the hopes of bringing Marvel superheroes to the big screen. There, Stan finds himself battling movie producers, studio execs, and even his old partner, Jack Kirby.

America's national parks are truly among our country's greatest treasures. But many of these beautiful landmarks have ugly pasts. On this series, we’ll explore the often forgotten histories of some of America’s most breathtaking natural wonders, starting with the park that began the conservationist movement in the 1800s: Yosemite.

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Negotiators enter the prison, and attempt to bring an end to the uprising. But the prisoners make a demand that proves to be a major obstacle.

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Backing from a legitimate Mormon banker creates major funding for the Vegas mob infrastructure. The underworld is coming out on top in Sin City. But there’s a challenger out for blood: the United States government.

A U.S. senator launches an attack on mob-run gaming, and brings his third degree hearings to town. It’s not the only problem in Vegas. Segregation rears its ugly head, but entertainer Harry Belafonte fights back.

As a destination for all manner of illicit, adult good times, Vegas is firmly on the map. But that may not be a good thing.

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It's 1958 and in New York City, Reuben Mattus is under fire. The big dairies are crushing his family's ice cream business and shutting him out of supermarkets. Desperate, he imagines a new, luxury ice cream with an eye-popping price tag. He calls it Häagen-Dazs and it's going to give his foes the chills.

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Stan Lee combines his creative powers, his vision for business, and his growing skills as a pitchman to create Spider-Man, expand Marvel’s reach, and push his company to become the next Disney.

Today social media is such a dominant part of our daily lives, it's hard to believe that only 20 years ago, it didn’t exist. Then a newly single tech entrepreneur named Jonathan Abrams wondered: What if you could use the internet to expand your network of real-life friends? His simple idea became Friendster, the first social media site, which would change not only how people interact online, but the very nature of human connection and friendship.

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To mark the release of Patrick's book The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years That Shook the World, he did a virtual event with Powell's Bookstore in Portland, hosted by history podcaster extraordinaire and bestselling author Mike Duncan. Mike and Patrick discussed the book, but also the art of doing popular history, key periods in history, and a whole variety of other topics in the course of their talk.

You can get the book through Powell's here, or elsewhere here.

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We do it 25,000 times a day, but most of us rarely give breathing a thought. Author James Nestor says we’re missing out on one of the most powerful pathways to health and happiness. He leads Rufus through the ins and outs of intentional breathing, revealing its potential to clear our minds, heal our bodies, and help us achieve incredible things.

In 1931, the massive Hoover Dam project brings thousands of workers to Nevada. They have paychecks and nowhere to spend them. The state legalizes gambling, setting a small, dusty town called Las Vegas on its way to becoming an unsurpassed phenomenon.

The mob realizes there are untold riches to be made in gaming, and by the late 1940s, gangsters Meyer Lansky and Benjamin Siegel are opening casinos on the fledgling Strip.

For the mob, the situation is a dream come true. Gambling is legal, prostitution is ignored, and local politicians are either for sale or agreeable. And best of all, there’s virtually no competition.

But that won’t last.

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The 1904 St. Louis Olympics were marred by controversy and poorly organized events like the marathon. But at least they took place as scheduled. In 1916, after the outbreak of World War I, they were canceled entirely. A century later, in 2020, the Olympics faced another kind of test: a global pandemic that forced the first postponement of the Games in their history.

In this episode, Lindsay discusses troubled Olympics past and present with Dr. Susan Brownell, a former nationally ranked track-and-field athlete turned scholar and Olympic historian. They’ll look at how war, disease, boycotts and political turmoil have repeatedly threatened the Games throughout their history, and how the Olympics have survived such challenges to unite the world in its love of sport.

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The Attica Correctional Facility is a notoriously brutal prison, where beatings are commonplace, and prisoners work for pennies. Tensions have begun to boil over, and after a guard and inmate get into a fight, the maximum-security prison is pushed to the brink.

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It's the '70s and best buddies Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield are about to open an ice cream parlor. These hungry hippies only want to have fun making ice cream. But as their business grows, they're going to find themselves on a collision course with the heavyweight champ of gourmet ice cream: Häagen-Dazs.

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Families who leased their gas-rich land to fracking companies during the boom are still wrestling with the impact of that decision. On this episode, Steven talks to Eliza Griswold, an award-winning poet, writer and journalist. Her book, “Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America,” won a Pulitzer Prize for its immersive, insightful look into the fracking boom and its effect on Appalachian coal country.

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Friend of the Show Dr. Keith Pluymers returns to tell us about how people thought about and fought over resources, especially wood, in early modern England. Scarcity, Keith argues, is more about perception than an actual lack of resources. Different groups within society had different perceptions, and they fought constantly about what to do about this shortage, including colonizing North America.

Check out Keith's book, No Wood, No Kingdom: Political Ecology in the English Atlantic, available here.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

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Comic book legend Stan Lee co-created some of the world’s most iconic superheroes including Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and the Avengers. His creations helped give birth to the legendary Marvel Comics. But in the early 2000’s, Stan went to war with the company he helped create. His lawsuit was the beginning of a revenge story right out of a comic book.

For Cubans, rum is more than just a drink. It's become a symbol of identity, culture and politics, and each bottle has a lot to say — especially when it's labeled "Havana Club."

As Bacardi and Pernod Ricard battle it out in court to determine the true owner of this traditional Cuban liquor brand, there is a larger cultural and geopolitical conversation unfolding.

To dive into this discussion, we spoke to Professor Lillian Guerra, a Cuban-American historian and Director of the Cuba Program at the University of Florida. She talks about Cuban economics, culture and policy as they relate to Bacardi, Pernod Ricard and Havana Club — and she's revealing her take on who has the real stuff.

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In the summer of 1904, the young women of the Fort Shaw Indian School basketball team took the St. Louis Olympics and the World’s Fair by storm with their fast-paced, dynamic play. But could they keep their undefeated record and win the world championship against their toughest opponent yet -- a team of white all-stars from the best high school team in Missouri?

As the Fort Shaw girls prepared for their championship game, another Olympics drama unfolded: the marathon. Covering 25 miles of steep hills and dusty dirt roads, it would be the ultimate test of athletic endurance. But for some runners, it would nearly end in disaster.

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Do we have alcohol to thank for civilization? The answer, according to Edward Slingerland’s new book, “Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization,” is a resounding yes. Edward, who’s a professor at the University of British Columbia and self-proclaimed “philosophical hedonist,” says that far from being an evolutionary fluke, our taste for alcohol is an evolutionary advantage — one that we’ve relied on for millennia to help us lead more social, creative, and pleasurable lives.

A federal task force is formed to bring Enron’s corrupt executives to justice. Sherron Watkins arrives in Washington to participate in congressional hearings and struggles to process the staggering costs of Enron’s downfall.

This episode originally aired on September 24, 2019.

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Pernod Ricard believes it’s just a matter of time before Cuba’s embargo is dropped. It dramatically expands its distilleries in Cuba for the moment when it can delug the US market with its Havanista rum. But politics will make this anything but a straight shot.

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We're often told that ancient Mesopotamia was the "Cradle of Civilization," but what made the region stand out in comparison to its neighbors and contemporaries? More than anything else, it was living in cities and working in a hyper-specialized economic role as subjects of kings that defined life in Mesopotamia.

Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here.

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David Welch, Bloomberg’s Detroit bureau chief, gives a crash course on all things GM, including how he successfully predicted GM’s bankruptcy four years before it happened.

As stories of water contamination and health issues become public, one of the largest grassroots environmental movements in decades emerges to protest fracking. The fracking industry, led by Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon, fights back with lobbyists, PR flacks, and an unlikely ally: the Sierra Club. The battle over fracking will pit neighbor against neighbor, as poor rural communities are torn between the promise of easy money and the desire to protect their land and water.

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A lot of us run away from tough conversations. Anna Sale runs toward them. For nearly a decade, as the host of the podcast “Death, Sex & Money,” she has been having searching conversations about “the things we think about a lot and need to talk about more.” Now, in her new book, “Let’s Talk About Hard Things,” she blends reportage and memoir to reveal how speaking openly (and listening attentively) can fortify our relationships. That may sound simple, but as one of the book’s reviewers observed, “As vaccinated people begin to have joyous reunions with friends and family, after a year of isolation and Zooms, many of us are realizing that we’ve forgotten how to talk about the easy things, let alone the hard ones.” In this conversation, Anna — with her trademark warmth, curiosity, and candor — reminds us how to have those difficult conversations.

Bacardi manages to best Pernod Ricard by using both the courts and Capitol Hill to keep the embargo in place against Pernod Ricard’s rum of the same name, Havana Club. But as relations between the U.S. and Cuba warm, negotiations between Havana and Washington begin. On Castro’s wish list: the right to sell its Havana Club in the U.S.

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In 1904, St. Louis was thrust into the national spotlight, as it played host to both the World’s Fair and America’s first Olympic Games. After a bitter fight over which American city would host, Olympic founder Pierre De Coubertin had disavowed the St. Louis games entirely, passing the torch to amateur sports magnate James Sullivan. But Sullivan brought controversial ideas to the Games -- especially in the form of a contest between “uncivilized” peoples called Anthropology Days.

Bad weather and a lack of international athletes hampered the Olympics further, and kept attendance low. Still, as the games continued, a handful of star athletes emerged, including a one-legged gymnast and a group of Native American women from Montana, who brought a revolutionary spin to the new sport of basketball.

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The Wall Street Journal works to expose the shady financial deals key to Enron’s success. With his company pushed to the brink of bankruptcy, Ken Lay engages in a desperate ploy to avert disaster.

This episode originally aired on September 17, 2019.

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Bacardi has one-upped Pernod Ricard by deploying a U.S. trade embargo to block imports of Pernod Ricard and Cuba’s rum. So Castro announces that Cuba will make copycat products of American companies, ignoring their U.S. trademarks.

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Listen to an exclusive sneak peak of Patrick's book, The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World, which comes out today, July 20th! This chapter looks at the one-armed German mercenary knight Goetz von Berlichingen, and the emergence of large-scale gunpowder warfare in the 16th century.

Listen to the rest of The Vergeon Audible here.

You can order a hard copy or e-book of The Verge here.

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By the early 2000s, fracking was seen as the most promising new energy industry technology in decades. And when a Penn State geologist discovered that the shale field sitting under Pennsylvania and Upstate New York held over 50 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, the race was on to bring fracking to the Northeast. But in the rush to frack the new field, accidents began to happen, making locals question just how safe this new technique really was.

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As Mary Barra races toward an electric future against the likes of Tesla, she will have to reckon with tough decisions involving GM’s workforce.

Malcolm Gladwell’s extraordinary new book, “The Bomber Mafia,” tells the story of a group of pilots who met on a muggy airbase in central Alabama and hatched a plan to revolutionize warfare. This was in the 1930s, the era of the bomber, a new breed of aircraft that could supposedly drop a bomb from six miles up and land it in a pickle barrel. If you could do that, you wouldn’t have to level cities, rack up casualties, or send a single soldier onto the battlefield. Planes could win wars all by themselves. Or so the young pilots thought. “The Bomber Mafia” is about how that dream unraveled in World War II, but because this is a Malcolm Gladwell book, it’s about a lot of other things, too, like a Dutch computer genius, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard. It also dares to ask a vexing moral question: what happens when a piece of technology that heralds positive change is driven off course? To listen to “The Bomber Mafia,” visit thebombermafia.com

In the late 1800s, European fascination with the culture of ancient Greece, and a growing interest in physical education and fitness, led to the idea of resurrecting the Olympic Games of antiquity. A French nobleman named Pierre de Coubertin took up the cause, and under his leadership, the first international Olympiad took place in Athens in 1896.

Coubertin loved America, and wanted to bring his modern Games there. But finding an American city to host his sporting spectacle proved to be a competition in itself. Before the Games began, civic grudges and political backstabbing ignited a war between two rival cities, St. Louis and Chicago, over who would garner the glory of hosting the first U.S. Olympics.

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Bacardi is now America’s favorite rum, but two former French spirits rivals -- Ricard and Pernod -- have joined forces to challenge Bacardi. And to gain the upper hand in security rights to Havana Club, the French company turns to Bacardi’s arch enemy for help: Fidel Castro.

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Patrick's book, The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World, comes out next Tuesday, July 20th! He worked really hard on it, people like Mike Duncan and Dan Jones say it's good, and you should read it if you liked the seasons of Tides of History on the late Middle Ages and Early Modern periods.

But what's it about? And what's it like to sell, write, edit, and release a book? To answer these questions, Patrick chats with two wonderful people: ex-Tides of History producer Leah Sutherland, now the Podcast Director for Headspace; and Rachel Kambury, who bought and edited The Verge for Twelve Books, an imprint of Hachette.

Get the audiobook version of The Verge on Audible here.

You can order a hard copy or e-book of The Verge here.

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Ken Lay fights to restore public confidence in Enron as the bad publicity mounts and the stock price continues to fall. Sherron Watkins is encouraged when an internal review of company practices is launched, but stunned when it appears to backfire.

This episode originally aired on September 10, 2019.

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Before they were billion-dollar behemoths owning many of today’s biggest booze brands, Bacardi and Pernod Ricard were three tiny, family-run companies. Pernod makes absinthe so well it became synonymous with the substance that causes a frenzy in Europe before being banned. Ricard steps in with an absinthe substitute and causes its own craze before merging with Pernod. Meanwhile, Bacardi gets enormously rich and fantastically famous at an odd time for a distiller — Prohibition. All that success, though, puts both companies on a collision course over a Cuban-made rum called Havana Club.

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When he escaped Nicaragua in 1857, American filibuster William Walker was a failed despot responsible for the death of thousands of people and the destabilization of the region. But he returned to New Orleans with fanfare, greeted by cheering crowds and parades. In his public speeches around the South, Walker vowed to return to Central America to take back control of his empire. An uprising of British colonialists on the Honduran island of Ruatan gave him the opportunity he needed.

In 1860, Walker led 100 men on a daring invasion of the Fort of Santa Barbara outside the Honduran town of Trujillo. There he would make his last stand for his vision of an Anglo-Saxon slave state in Central America. And he would finally pay the price for his violent assaults on Latin American sovereignty.

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In the late 1970s, oil and natural gas fields across the U.S. were drying up, making the country increasingly dependent on foreign oil.. Then, a Texas energy magnate named George Mitchell decided to try extracting natural gas from shale, a layer of rock almost two miles beneath the surface, using a technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. His innovation would kick off an energy revolution, and spur a massive environmental backlash.

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While Mesopotamia and even the Indus Valley get the lion's share of the attention, sophisticated and long-lasting societies inhabited the lands fringing the Caspian Sea for thousands of years. The people of the Kura-Araxes Culture, the Oxus Civilization, and Elam left their mark everywhere from Anatolia to Mesopotamia to South Asia, shaping future cultures for millennia to come.

I wrote a book, and it comes out on July 20! You can preorder (in hard copy, e-book, or audiobook) The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World here.

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In the face of disruptive changes in the automobile industry, Mary Barra throws out the old GM playbook and writes a new one for making the cars of tomorrow.

Teddy Roosevelt once said that nothing is worth doing “unless it means effort, pain, and difficulty.” And to that bestselling author Greg McKeown says, “Baloney!” There’s no denying that hard work often leads to positive results, but it can just as easily lead to exhaustion, apathy, and burnout. In his script-flipping new book, “Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most,” Greg asks: “What if instead of pushing ourselves to — and in some cases well past — our limit, we sought out an easier path?” And in this easy-going conversation with author Jon Acuff, he shares some of the answers he’s come up with.

The mystery of what became of the first English colonists has baffled historians for centuries. But over the past decade, archaeologists have uncovered some compelling clues, including parts of a 16th century gun, and fragments of English pottery at a place called “Site X,” both of which suggest that the Roanoke colonists survived longer than previously documented.

In this episode, Lindsay discusses those findings with author and journalist Andrew Lawler. In his book, The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke, Lawler explores the latest archeological evidence, as well as some of the most persistent myths surrounding the fate of the Roanoke colonists.

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When family-run rum maker Bacardi was kicked out of Cuba in 1960, it vowed to go to extremes to get revenge on Fidel Castro. So when French spirits conglomerate Pernod Ricard cuts a deal with Castro’s government to share in the fortunes of Cuban-made Havana Club rum, Bacardi declares war on Pernod Ricard, too.

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Enron manipulates California's electricity market, and the state is plunged into an energy crisis. But Enron itself is threatened by the schemes of a corrupt CFO, a rocky transition of power, and an alarming discovery by Sherron Watkins.

This episode originally aired on September 3, 2019.

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Tom White makes his first arrest. But when the case goes to trial, Mollie Burkhart and the community are devastated by the truth that emerges.

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Thanks to deregulation, no-frills knock offs of Southwest take to the skies like crows. About 120 airlines have gone out of business or filed for bankruptcy since the industry was deregulated in 1978.

American’s SABRE system optimizes...everything. It manages ticket pricing so flights are always full, and American is building new hubs and terminals. Meanwhile, Southwest company culture is shifting from sex appeal to backyard barbecue vibe. Is it enough to attract families to fly?

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In 1855, William Walker faced a criminal trial in the United States for his illegal, and unsuccessful, invasion of Mexico. But he emerged from court fully acquitted, and became a divisive national hero in the tumultuous political climate of antebellum America. Emboldened by his popularity, Walker set his sights on a new prize: Nicaragua, which had become a critical transit route between east and west.

William Walker and his small army of mercenaries arrived in Nicaragua in the midst of a civil war. Walker seized several key cities, then maneuvered his way to the presidency. To hold on to power he turned to brutal tactics, making enemies of the Nicaraguans, neighboring states, and one very powerful American — transit tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose plans to build a canal in Nicaragua were derailed by Walker’s invasion.

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In the 1960s, choking was a national epidemic. In the United States alone, close to 4,000 people were dying from choking every year. Lobster, ham, and hamburger were common culprits. But steak was by far the greatest offender.

Coroners called for a solution to these “Cafe Coronaries,” and the medical community responded with weird and dangerous gadgets: vacuum tubes and long tweezers. But Dr. Henry Heimlich knew this problem required something else; a simple technique that anyone can use to save the lives of choking victims—the Heimlich Maneuver.

The Heimlich Maneuver would save the lives of thousands of people, including Carrie Fisher, Cher, New York Mayor Ed Koch, and at least one American President. And yet, Dr. Heimlich would spend a decade fighting for the legitimacy of his life-saving maneuver.

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When we think of the open grasslands of the Eurasian steppes, we usually imagine nomadic herders taking their livestock from place to place on horseback. But the steppes are a vast and varied place, and so too were the ways of life that ancient people developed to live there. Professor Alicia Ventresca Miller of the University of Michigan joins me to talk about diet, mobility, and how chemical isotopes can tell us more about the diversity of life on the ancient steppes.

I wrote a book, and it comes out on July 20! You can preorder (in hard copy, e-book, or audiobook) The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World here.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

General Motors’ brand new CEO Mary Barra navigates a crisis unlike any other as General Motors recalls thousands of vehicles after investigations reveal they caused the deaths of dozens of drivers.

Have you ever lain awake at night, obsessing over a conflict with a colleague or a relative or a politician you’ve never met? That’s what journalist Amanda Ripley calls high conflict. If good conflict is the kind of friction that’s serious and intense but that leads somewhere useful, then high conflict is the kind of friction that gives you rope burn. It’s bitter, all-consuming, unproductive — and worst of all, once you find yourself embroiled in high conflict, it’s almost impossible to get out. Luckily, Amanda has been studying up on the tools you need to break free, and in this episode, she shares those tools with Next Big Idea Club curator Susan Cain.

Everyone loves Herb Kelleher—even FAA regulators. The onetime corporate counsel-turned-CEO is coming into his own at the helm of Southwest. But his latest challenge is coming up with a way to skirt the FAA’s pesky “slot” system, designed to limit air traffic by rationing takeoffs and landings. Kelleher has a business to run. So he embarks on a crazy plan to snag a few extra slots for Southwest. It may not work, but one thing’s certain: it will be a whole lot of fun.

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On April 26, 1587, 117 colonists sailed from England to establish a permanent settlement on the east coast of North America. After a long voyage fraught with storms and spoiled food, they landed on the island of Roanoke, in the Outer Banks region of what is now North Carolina.

Under the leadership of John White, the settlers built a fort and homes, but faced hunger and harsh conditions. At the end of the summer, White was forced to leave his family and his newborn granddaughter, Virginia, to sail back to England for more supplies. While he was there, war broke out between England and Spain, and he could not return for three long years. When he finally did, he found Roanoke completely deserted, with only a few puzzling clues left that have haunted historians ever since.

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In the mid-1990s, Enron Corporation solidifies its position as the top energy company in America. Investment manager Sherron Watkins lands a dream job at Enron, but quickly learns that its office culture and accounting practices make it a treacherous place to work.

This episode originally aired on August 27, 2019.

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Mollie Burkhart received a terrifying warning. As the cases continue to pile up, a federal agent begins his own search for answers.

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As deregulation dawns, Southwest Airlines’ founder and CEO are locked in a power struggle. In the middle is Herb Kelleher, Southwest’s corporate attorney. And after 18 months serving as a punching bag for the company’s top brass, he’s had enough.

But as Southwest deals with a succession crisis, American Airlines is facing another emergency. It needs money, fast. The company is cash-poor after investing in its proprietary online reservation system, SABRE. The situation is so dire CEO Al Casey turns to a drastic option — moving the company’s headquarters from its homebase in New York City to Dallas.

Just as American is getting a financial lift, Southwest takes a nosedive. Deregulation has the company eyeing expansion routes, but the powers that be will do anything to stop it.

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In the mid-1800s, the United States was a young nation awash with mercenaries, adventurers, and entrepreneurs looking to take advantage of the country’s ever-expanding boundaries. Into this chaotic atmosphere stepped a young lawyer and newspaper editor from Tennessee named William Walker, who wrapped his personal ambitions in the cloak of American expansionism and the credo of “Manifest Destiny.”

Hoping to establish his own republic, Walker became a “filibuster,” a 19th century term for American mercenaries who attempted to colonize foreign lands without government authorization. He set his sights on a remote corner of Mexico, on the Baja Peninsula. But Walker’s ragtag band of American mercenaries quickly ran afoul of the Mexican authorities. Outgunned, and cut off from reinforcements, they retreated to the U.S. border, where federal soldiers stood waiting to arrest Walker for his unsanctioned invasion of a sovereign nation.

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Things didn't stop happening on the vast grasslands of the Eurasian steppes once the first waves of migrants had departed to make their mark on Europe and beyond. New societies, languages, and ethnic groups emerged. The chariot was invented, and bronze metallurgy spread far and wide. One of those innovative societies on the steppe gave rise to the Indo-Iranians, whose descendants would spread out everywhere from Siberia to Syria.

I wrote a book, and it comes out on July 20! You can preorder (in hard copy, e-book, or audiobook) The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World here.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

General Motors is America’s carmaker, an empire that helped build Detroit Motor City. Since 1908, GM has been a key driver of the workforce, the economy and American culture. But in 2008, the once-thriving car business came to a screeching halt. In the wake of the Great Recession, an engineer turned human resources executive named Mary Barra rises to power at General Motors and helps bring America’s automaker back from the dead.

Robert Ettinger was a science teacher and writer who launched the field of cryonics and became its most fervent ambassador, even choosing to be cryogenically frozen himself. On this episode, Steven talks to filmmakers Josh Koury and Myles Kane. Their documentary short film, We Shall Live Again, is a unique window into the mind of Ettinger and the process of cryopreservation.

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Modern life has not been easy on our brains. Average IQ scores rose steadily throughout the last century. Now they appear to be leveling off. The problem, according to neuroscientists, may be that we have reached our neurobiological limits. Our brains simply can’t work any harder. Luckily, science writer Annie Murphy Paul has a solution. In her bold new book, “The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain,” she draws on a wealth of scientific research to show that we’re smarter when we get out of our heads. By offloading our memories onto our phones, making decisions based on our bodily sensations, using tactile tools to solve abstract problems, drawing inspiration from our surroundings, and arguing with our friends, we can access intelligence that exists beyond the confines of our craniums. In this episode, Annie explains how to do it.

The computer age is on the horizon, and American Airlines has a secret weapon: SABRE. Sure, the airline is top of the heap under the current pen-and-paper reservation system — the one where travel agents use a massive phonebook to look up flights, then call individual airlines to book a ticket. But they’re tired of playing phone tag. The American Society of Travel Agents has plans to roll out a new electronic system, one that could force American to lose its unofficial preferred status. The company has to get its system to market first — and its leaders have to convince the travel agencies to get onboard.

But there’s a much bigger threat looming on the horizon, one that could give a big boost to upstart rivals like Southwest Airlines. Deregulation is coming, and when it does it will change everything.

Please note this episode originally aired in 2018.

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In the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth the First of England was locked in a battle for global dominance with Spain. She picked her favorite advisor, Walter Raleigh, to claim land in North America. In the coming years, Raleigh’s men made several voyages and explored the area known as the Outer Banks, in what is now North Carolina. There, they identified one island as a promising site for a future colony: Roanoke.

But as relations with the area’s indigenous people soured, and a drought brought famine to the region, England’s first attempts to establish a permanent base on Roanoke ended in failure. Still, the Queen knew that success on the new continent was key to her empire. Soon, she would send 117 men, women, and children to establish a permanent colony in the New World. But none of them could possibly imagine the hardships that lay ahead.

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A woman's body is found at the bottom of a gorge. It belongs to a member of the Osage Nation, a tribe that's grown incredibly wealthy from oil. When the victim's sister goes looking for answers, she begins to uncover a shocking conspiracy, one that puts her life in danger.

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Baniff and Southwest battled in court for domination over the skies. Southwest came out on top for a little while, but Baniff pushed back with prices Southwest just couldn't beat. The only way Southwest could fight back was to give the mostly male, mostly businessmen clientele something they couldn't refuse: free booze. For the first time ever, Southwest is in the black. With Baniff tamed, there's more turbulence. This time, it's a national airline. American Airlines is here to play.

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You see the world differently from anyone else you know. And that's how you're going to help save it.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen.

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Professor David Anthony is one of the world's foremost experts on the archaeology of the ancient Eurasian steppes and sits at the cutting edge of Indo-European studies. We discuss the unique nature of the Yamnaya and the prehistoric steppe, the people who lived there, what ancient DNA can tell us about these past societies, and why they matter even 5000 years later.

I wrote a book, and it comes out on July 20! You can preorder (in hard copy, e-book, or audiobook) The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World here.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this interview episode, Rick Tetzeli, co-author of the New York Times Bestseller Becoming Steve Jobs provides an inside look at what drove Steve, what stood in his way, and how he was able to mature as a leader.

Bob Nelson is hoping cryonics will become the business boon he's been expecting. Operating on a shoestring budget and employing the most primitive methods of freezing and storing bodies, Nelson struggles to stay in business. He continues to believe he’s one step from the big time. But a series of miscalculations and unforeseen complications leave him on the brink of disaster.

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Is it really so bad to be a little bit delusional? Not according to Shankar Vedantam. In his new book, “Useful Delusions: The Power and Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain,” he argues that we tell ourselves lies in order to live. We believe our marriages will last, even though there’s a fifty-fifty chance we’re headed for divorce. We trick ourselves into thinking our children are extraordinary because if we saw them for who they really are — average, disobedient, smelly — the body blows of parenting would be more than we could bear. In this candid conversation with Next Big Idea Club curator Daniel Pink, Shankar says wide-eyed delusions aren’t bad for us. In fact, self-deception is part of being a well-adjusted human being.

Like many Americans, Anneliese Bruner didn’t hear about the Tulsa Race Massacre growing up. But what made it surprising in her case was that her grandmother and great-grandmother were survivors of the massacre. Still, a conspiracy of silence surrounded the events of May 31 and June 1, 1921, even in Bruner’s own home.

Today, Bruner is fighting to change that. This year, she re-published her great-grandmother Mary Parrish’s written account of the destruction under the title The Nation Must Awake: My Witness to the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. On this episode, she joins Lindsay to discuss the massacre’s legacy, the efforts to restore its place in American history, and the case for offering reparations to survivors and their descendents.

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In Texas in the 1960s, Rollin King had a crazy idea. He wanted to create a no-frills airline service that served San Antonio, Dallas and Houston. All he and his lawyer had to do was convince the Federal Regulations Bureau that they had no jurisdiction on flights that never left Texas. Of course getting Southwest off the ground would have been a lot easier if they had any planes...

Please note, this episode original aired in 2018.

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Today, we're far from Walter Freeman and his ice pick lobotomies. But there are growing concerns about a new form of brain surgery that sounds like science fiction. The surgery involves devices known as neural implants, which connect the brain directly to computers. In this interview, Lindsay talks with Chris Kenneally, a science journalist and author. The two discuss the remarkable benefits of neural implants—as well as the deep fears they're already raising.

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In the wake of the unexpected jolt of the COVID-19 pandemic, food delivery app businesses are looking for stability and profitability any way they can find it. With Uber’s purchase of Postmates and DoorDash buying Caviar, consolidation has become all the rage.

And the apps are diversifying into prescription fulfillment, groceries, and third-party logistics. But the razor-thin profit margins, rising costs of doing business, and withering relationships with labor and restaurants are taking their toll.

We’re joined by Preetika Rana, a technology reporter at The Wall Street Journal to discuss how these app companies plan to be the last one standing in the food fight.

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You’re a successful woman in a man’s business, and yet you’re not sure you can do it alone. You’ve worked so hard to get here, but now you’re afraid of losing everything.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen.

This episode originally aired in 2018.

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Not everyone chooses burial or cremation after death. Some believe in cryonics, freezing their bodies in the hopes of being reanimated sometime in the future. Bob Nelson, a TV repairman with no scientific background, made history when he froze the first human being. But as Nelson would discover, freezing someone is easy; keeping them frozen is a lot harder.

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Human bones are one of our most valuable and illuminating sources of information about the past, but how do we use them, and what can they tell us about prehistory? I talked to Dr. Jess Beck, a bioarchaeologist and expert on later European prehistory, about the incredible insights we can glean from the study of human remains and about her specialty, the Copper Age (c.2800-2000 BC) in the Iberian peninsula.

I wrote a book, and it comes out on July 20! You can preorder (in hard copy, e-book, or audiobook) The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World here.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the wake of his cancer diagnosis, Steve Jobs seeks to secure Pixar’s future, reward those who have stayed loyal to him, and transform Apple with the launch of the iPhone.

In 1958, a psychologist named Frank Rosenblatt took a five-ton computer, fed it a steady diet of punch cards, and taught it how to recognize the letter “A.” He called his creation the Perceptron, and his belief in its potential was like that of a deliriously proud parent. One day, he thought, the artificial intelligence he’d built would learn to recognize faces, speak like a human, translate languages, reproduce itself on an assembly line, and even fly to space — at which point, it would no longer be a computational marvel but a fully conscious being. The fact that you’ve never heard of the Perceptron tells you that none of Rosenblatt’s predictions came to pass — not in his lifetime, anyway. But a small band of brainy rebels never lost faith in the potential of AI to change the world. Thanks to their perseverance — along with dramatic improvements in computing power — they managed to make Rosenblatt’s prophecies a reality. The AI they built is what enables Facebook to recognize faces in the photos you upload. It’s the reason Siri and Alexa can (sometimes) understand what you’re saying, and Google can translate anything you write into 109 languages. Cade Metz has spent years chronicling the rise and rise of AI, first as a reporter at the New York Times and now in his new book, “Genius Makers.” In this forward-looking conversation, he tells Rufus what AI can do, where it’s headed, and whether we should be worried that supercomputers will wage war against humanity.

It's July 2019. DoorDash is finally bigger than Grubhub, but it's coming under fire for pocketing tips from its drivers. Now DoorDash needs to rehab its image, or risk losing customers to its competitors.

When a California proposition threatens to alter how food delivery companies classify their drivers, DoorDash and Uber join forces to fight it. Six months later, the pandemic marks a boon for food delivery companies, but can the boost last?

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On June 2, 1921, thousands of black Tulsans interned at the Tulsa Fairgrounds woke under armed guard. Many had no idea where their loved ones were or if they were still alive; they didn’t know whether their homes were still standing or if they’d been ransacked by the white mob. As Greenwood residents worked to restart lives that had been violently interrupted, city officials and greedy real estate speculators had other ideas — ideas that would push Greenwood residents off their valuable land forever.

But those white elites would fail to account for the ambition, leadership and tight bonds of community that Greenwood’s people had built over the years. Though the neighborhood would never be the same, against all odds, Black Wall Street would rise from the ashes.

If you’d like to learn more about the Tulsa Race Massacre, we recommend a few great books we drew on for this series:

Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood District by Hannibal Johnson

Reconstructing the Dreamland: The Tulsa Riot of 1921 by Alfred Brophy

Riot and Remembrance by James S. Hirsch

This episode originally aired in 2019.

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President Kennedy signs a bill that transforms mental healthcare in America. With his legacy on the line, Walter Freeman begins a desperate—and dangerous—quest to redeem the lobotomy.

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It's December 2014, and Grubhub's Matt Maloney is feeling the heat. Competitors are eating away at his market share, so he decides to change direction. Grubhub finally starts delivering food with its own drivers. But will it be enough to outpace the other fast-growing upstarts?

DoorDash, meanwhile, struggles to raise funds at a steep valuation. And the company comes under fire for some less than savory business practises. Postmates has cornered the high-end market and Uber Eats expands from an Uber feature to a standalone app. But angry drivers threaten the entire food delivery business model.

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All your life, you've been running away. You keep searching for salvation, for acceptance, for love. But maybe what you need isn't so far from home.

Hosted by Ace Anderson.

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Steve Jobs returns to Apple and revolutionizes the company by applying lessons from the past, looking beyond computers and introducing a new product that will forever change the way people consume music: the iPod.

Storm chasing is part scientific inquiry, part amateur thrill seeking — and sometimes, a bit of both. On this episode, Steven talks to journalist Brantley Hargrove, author of The Man Who Caught the Storm, about legendary storm chaser Tim Samaras, whose breakthrough probe helped measure atmospheric conditions inside a tornado.

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Around 4,500 years ago, bell-shaped ceramic drinking vessels called "beakers" begin showing up with the dead in tombs all over western Europe. Everywhere from Portugal to Sicily to Scotland to Slovakia, these distinctive containers show up, often accompanied by archery equipment and upheaval in the societies established in these places. The Bronze Age and metallurgy would soon follow. But what were the Beakers for? Who used them, and why? Thanks to ancient DNA and cutting-edge archaeological science, we can explore the Beaker Phenomenon in all its manifestations, from marriage networks and trade to prehistoric genocide.

I wrote a book, and it comes out on July 20! You can preorder (in hard copy, e-book, or audiobook) The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World here.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's 1990 in Champaign, Illinois, and 15-year-old Tony Xu is washing dishes in the Chinese restaurant his mother manages. He wants to help people like his Mom, but it'll be many years before he hits on his solution for small businesses.

Across the Atlantic, Bastian Lehmann forgets his snowboard while moving house. He can't find a way to get it shipped to him cheaply, and the idea for Postmates is born. Meanwhile, Grubhub founders Matt Maloney and Mike Evans have decided local pizza should be as easy to find online as apartments. And eventually, Uber’s Travis Kalanick will recognize that food delivery is the next logical step in his booming transport empire.

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Ownership is simple, right? Something is either yours or it isn’t. Case closed. But who owns the space behind your airplane seat, the results of the DNA you took online, the Netflix password you got from your cousin’s roommate? The jury's still out, according to law professors Michael Heller and James Salzman. That’s because ownership isn’t binary or static: it’s a storytelling exercise, and we rely on just six stories to claim everything we own. In this revelatory conversation, Michael and James explain how those stories work, how you can use them to your advantage, and why they might be key to dismantling income inequality and arresting climate change.

On the night of Tuesday, May 31, 1921, a violent white mob attacked the prosperous Black neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. As the night progressed, the disorganized mob transformed into something even more deadly: a highly organized force led by volunteer soldiers.

On the morning of Wednesday, June 1, that force sprang into action. All over Greenwood, men, women and children found themselves under siege. Their homes, businesses and churches were under attack from land and sky — calling the very survival of their fabled community into question.

This episode originally aired in 2019.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Walter Freeman goes public with his ice pick lobotomies. But that earns him new enemies—including some who are determined to stop him.

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It's December 2011 in San Francisco. Bastian Lehmann is getting ready to launch his courier app, Postmates. But when he and his co-founders discover people want food delivered, not objects, they pivot to a business already cornered by Grubhub.

Meanwhile, 30 miles away in Palo Alto, a business school student called Tony Xu is trying to figure out how to help a small macaroon shop fulfill delivery orders. His solution? DoorDash. Along with UberEats and Postmates, it will help pioneer the gig economy—and change the restaurant business forever.

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You're used to relying on yourself to succeed in a man's world. But to make it in outer space, you're going to have to learn to be part of a team.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen.

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Thanks to the movie “Twister” and the popularity of David Hoadley’s “Storm Track” newsletter, by the late 1990s, storm chasing has gone mainstream. But with more and more chasers on the road, it’s only a matter of time before some get a little too close to the eye of the storm.

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As Steve’s company NeXT fails to make waves in the computer industry, Steve refocuses his time and energy on Pixar. While many people think his star has faded, Steve bides his time and makes a triumphant return that nobody sees coming.

Five thousand years ago, small groups of herders began making their way from the open grasslands of the Eurasian steppe into the hills and forests of northern Europe. They moved west, intermarrying with the local farmers and sometimes fighting them, eventually reaching as far as present-day Belgium. These were the people of the Corded Ware Culture, and they brought their language - Indo-European - and genes into the heart of Europe.

I wrote a book, and it comes out on July 20! You can preorder (in hard copy, e-book, or audiobook) The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World here.

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You’ve posted a photo of your vaccine card on Instagram. The CDC says it’s okay to leave your bunker. Some of your friends have expressed interest in taking off their masks, breaking the six-foot barrier, and hanging out with you. Do you remember how? Whether you’re anxious about leaving your house or impatient to trade your house slippers for blue suede shoes, we could all use a refresher on how to connect with our fellow humans ... in person — and in a way that is not just pleasant but meaningful. That’s why we’re dusting off one of our favorite episodes, a conversation with Priya Parker, whose book, “The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters,” is essential post-pandemic reading.

As Black teenager Dick Rowland sat in a jail cell at the Tulsa courthouse, news of his arrest flew through the town. Egged on by rumors about his alleged rape of white teenager Sarah Page, a white mob bent on a lynching Rowland began assembling outside the courthouse. By that evening, the crowd had swelled to thousands.

Meanwhile, some young African American veterans of the recent world war were determined to defend Rowland, with their lives if necessary. When they arrived at the courthouse Tuesday night, they found themselves thrust into a situation far more volatile than they were prepared for.

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WWE might have thwarted WCW’s effort to claim the pro wrestling crown, but after 20 years of unchallenged supremacy, a new competitor has entered the ring. Bankrolled by a billionaire sports owner and airing weekly on TNT, All Elite Wrestling is, in many ways, the second coming of WCW.

But have they learned the lessons of their dearly departed predecessor? And how will Vince McMahon respond to this new threat to his kingdom?

We’re joined by former WWE writer and comedian Matt McCarthy to discuss this new wrestling war and what WWE will look like without Vince McMahon at the helm.

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Walter Freeman and James Watts begin to experiment with the lobotomy. But their partnership is tested when a high-profile patient suffers disastrous results.

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It’s 1998 and the slugfest between Vince McMahon’s WWF and Ted Turner’s WCW is reaching a critical juncture.

McMahon’s on a mission to pull wrestling fans back to his TV shows with a strategy focused on maximum controversy. And to help him in his mission, he’s getting back-up from a high-flying TV executive and a bunch of Wall Street bankers.

WCW chief Eric Bischoff is determined to stop WWF’s comeback at all costs. But he’ll soon discover that his most dangerous enemy isn’t McMahon — it’s the executives on his own team.

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You want to fight. You want to be a hero, like the ones you read about in books. But all you can think about is how scared you are.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen.

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After Steve Jobs is fired by Apple in 1985, he sets out to build the computer of the future and prove himself a worthy leader. So he founds a new computer company called NeXT and purchases a little known animation studio called Pixar. In order to succeed, Steve is forced to confront the mistakes of his past and chart a new course for the future.

No extreme weather phenomenon fascinates us more than tornadoes. For most of human history, very little was known about how these graceful yet violent columns of swirling air formed or behaved. Then, in the 1950s, a teenager from North Dakota began chasing them, and a scientist from Japan began studying them. Together, they started a movement.

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At the heart of the ancient Middle East, a sophisticated, urbanized, and long-lived world, was a writing system: cuneiform, used for everything from heroic epic to receipts and medical texts, and first developed in Mesopotamia more than 5,000 years ago. Dr. Moudhy Al-Rashid of Oxford joins me to talk about cuneiform literature, medicine, and mental health in this fascinating and little-known ancient world.

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What’s the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning and the last thing you do before bed? If you’re a modern knowledge worker, your answer is probably “check my email.” Makes sense. Your inbox is a busy place, which is why you peek at it, on average, every six minutes: constant vigilance is the only way to keep up. But all that checking comes at a cost. Communication overload undermines your productivity, erodes your focus, zaps your energy, and makes you miserable. Luckily, Cal Newport, the Georgetown professor and productivity whiz who came up with “deep work” and “digital minimalism,” has a plan for a post-email future, one where you can concentrate on work that really matters. And in this episode, he shares practical strategies that you can start using now to free yourself from the tyranny of the inbox.

It’s 1996 and with Monday Nitro topping the TV ratings, WCW is out to end WWF’s time as the biggest player in the wrestling business.

It’s plotting to establish two brands: one that WCW boss Eric Bischoff hopes can suck away WWF’s family audience, another that will seek to capture the young males who crave more violent and outrageous entertainment than the WWF offers.

But Vince McMahon has a plan of his own. He’s going to push the WWF in a new direction by embracing controversy. But it’s a strategy that will put him on a collision course with the cable network the WWF depends on for its survival.

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In 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma boasted one of the nation’s most prosperous African-American communities. Greenwood was home to 108 Black-owned businesses, two theaters, 15 physicians, two newspapers, and a luxury hotel. It was nicknamed “the Black Wall Street.”

Then, on May 30th, a Black shoeshine boy named Dick Rowland was accused of assaulting a white teenaged elevator operator, Sarah Page. What happened next would ultimately lead to the destruction of Greenwood and the deaths of over 300 African Americans -- a massacre that, until recently, was virtually erased from American history.

This episode originally aired in 2019.

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Walter Freeman is devastated when he learns the truth about mental asylums. The medical care is barbaric, and for patients, everyday life is a nightmare. So Freeman begins searching for an alternative. It's a quest that leads him to one of the most controversial procedures in medical history.

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It’s 1995 and the Monday Night Wars are underway. WCW’s new show Monday Nitro is grappling with the WWF’s Monday Night Raw to win TV viewers’ attention.

WCW isn’t pulling its punches either. Under the command of Eric Bischoff, WCW is dropping spoiler bombs, luring away WWF’s top wrestlers and trashing the WWF brand.

And as WCW gains momentum, Bischoff is plotting a killer blow – a shock role reversal that will force WWF boss Vince McMahon to rethink how his wrestling promotion works.

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You want to show women how to live life to the fullest. But first, you have to learn how to lead by example.

Hosted by Angelique Perrin.

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Hackers helped shape the digital world we live in today. But more than ever, that world is under attack by a new generation of cyber-criminals. On this episode, Steven talks to Wired editor-at-large Steven Levy, author of the seminal book “Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution,” about hacking’s groundbreaking past and weaponized future.

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Filmmaker Tamir Ardon’s lifelong obsession with DeLorean led him to join forces with fellow filmmakers Sheena Joyce and Don Argott to create a hit documentary. Sheena, Don and Tamir sit down with host Lindsay Graham to talk about how they chose to frame John DeLorean.

More than 5,000 years ago, a group of wandering herders on the Eurasian steppes - the original speakers of Proto-Indo-European - began to move outward from their homeland. With their wagons, horses, and livestock, they traveled hundreds of miles through the Danube Valley and into Central Europe, forever shaping the linguistic, cultural, and genetic future of the continent and beyond.

I wrote a book, and it comes out in July! You can preorder (in hard copy, e-book, or audiobook) The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World here.

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It’s 1994 and WCW is stepping up its game. To get the jump on WWF, Ted Turner is writing big checks to steal away the WWF’s biggest stars and sponsors. And as WCW’s star power increases, so does its popularity with wrestling fans.

But the WWF is in no position to fight back. It’s struggling to keep the lights on, there’s discontent among its roster of wrestlers, and Vince McMahon is preoccupied with staying out of prison.

And now Turner wants to deliver a killer blow. A new Monday night wrestling show that will go head to head with the WWF’s flagship TV program Monday Night Raw.

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Our work consumes us. But does it have to? Anthropologist James Suzman has spent decades living in the Kalahari Desert with one of the world’s last hunter-gatherer societies, and he’s concluded that our modern attitudes about work don’t mesh with the views held by our ancestors. For 95 percent of human history, we spent the bulk of our time doing … nothing. What changed? In this millennia-spanning conversation with Next Big Idea Club curator Adam Grant, James makes the case for spending less time toiling away at labor we loathe and more time working at things we love.

On November 24th, 1971, a man on a Boeing 727 bound for Seattle handed a flight attendant a note that read, “Miss, I have a bomb here.” No one knew the man’s real name. But soon, the press was calling him D.B. Cooper -- and his hijacking of Northwest Orient Flight 305 would go down as one of the most audacious in aviation history.

Cooper parachuted out of that flight with $200,000 in cash, then disappeared without a trace. Over the decades that followed, FBI agents and amateur investigators would pursue thousands of leads and hundreds of suspects. And the mystery of what really happened in the skies over Washington that night has only grown deeper.

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The press has a long, troubled relationship with celebrities, from Marilyn Monroe, to Tupac Shakur, to Britney Spears. The paparazzi are often relentless, and media coverage can be vicious. Which raises a question: Does the press bear responsibility for celebrities' meltdowns? In this special interview, Lindsay chats with Jake Brennan, an expert on the topic, and the host of the podcast Disgraceland.

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It’s the dawn of the 1990s and Vince McMahon’s WWF is the king of wrestling. But trouble’s brewing: a steroids scandal is about to deal a body blow to the WWF and its family-friendly reputation.

The scandal will leave WWF stuck in damage control mode as it fights to stem the losses from falling TV ratings, ticket sales, and pay-per-view buys.

Meanwhile, Ted Turner’s trying to get World Championship Wrestling fighting fit with help from a former Pizza Hut regional manager, a self-proclaimed Cowboy, and a back-up announcer who wants to bring wrestling to Disney World.

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You have plenty of things to say. You just have trouble saying them. But one day, your words are going to make people stand up and cheer.

Hosted by Angelique Perrin.

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For two years, super-hacker Kevin Mitnick eludes the FBI by living under a series of false identities. But in a fit of hubris, he hacks Tsutomu Shimomura, one of the country’s leading computer security experts. It’s hacker vs. hacker as Shimomura sets out to do what the FBI can’t: stop Kevin Mitnick once and for all.

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What do Achilles and Gilgamesh, two of the most renowned literary figures of the ancient world, have in common? A great deal more than you might expect. I talked to Professor Michael Clarke of the National University of Ireland, Galway, one of my favorite people in the world and an enormously creative and thoughtful scholar, about his recent book - Achilles beside Gilgamesh: Mortality and Wisdom in Early Epic Poetry. We discussed Homer, the world of the Bronze Age, how literature moved, and why so many of the same motifs appeared at various places and times in heroic literature.

Get Professor Clarke's book, Achilles beside Gilgamesh, here.

I wrote a book, and it comes out in July! You can preorder (in hard copy, e-book, or audiobook) The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World here.

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Achilles beside Gilgamesh: Mortality and Wisdom in Early Epic Poetry

John DeLorean faces off with the United States government in a massive trial that gains attention all over the world. But just as it looks like John might be able to beat the drug charges against him, it becomes clear that charges of financial fraud are just around the corner.

It’s the early 1980s and there’s peace in the wrestling business. For years regional wrestling companies have maintained order by sticking to their own slices of US and Canadian territory.

But that’s all about to change. Vince McMahon has just taken over the World Wrestling Federation, and he wants war. He’s on a mission to crush all opposition and establish the WWF as the only wrestling game in town.

But his assault on the wrestling status quo will also make him a powerful enemy: cable TV mogul Ted Turner.

Please note, this episode originally aired on September 9, 2019.

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John Brown has been called many things: fanatic, hero, terrorist, martyr, zealot. Some of his contemporaries, including Frederick Douglass, believed that were it not for his raid on Harpers Ferry, the Civil War would never have started. But did Brown’s actions really bring about slavery’s eventual downfall? And can his impact still be seen today in a nation that remains deeply divided over issues of race?

In this episode, Lindsay discusses Brown’s complex legacy with historian David S. Reynolds, author of John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights.

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Almost a decade ago, the biochemist Jennifer Doudna and her team at Berkeley figured out how to rewrite our genetic code using a system called CRISPR. Thanks to this miraculous discovery, we now have the power to hunt down cancer cells, deflect oncoming viruses, and cure genetic diseases. But CRISPR has a dark side, morally speaking. In a world where we’ll soon have the power to endow our kids with superior strength and intelligence, how far is too far? Doudna’s groundbreaking discovery and the moral dilemmas that followed are the subject of a new book by best-selling biographer Walter Isaacson. In this expansive conversation, he tells Rufus why the CRISPR era will be far more consequential than the digital revolution. Plus, they discuss the mechanics of creativity, the delicate balance between competition and collaboration, and the personality traits that Isaacson’s subjects — Doudna, da Vinci, Ben Franklin, Einstein, and Steve Jobs — all have in common.

Floyd Landis goes public about performance-enhancing drugs. Lance Armstrong struggles to contain the fallout, as the truth comes out.

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BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca. These companies are now household names thanks to their COVID-19 vaccines. The gambles these businesses took are paying off.

The pharmaceutical giants are in line to profit heavily from their life-saving work, but the system of distributing the vaccines has seen its fair share of hiccups and controversy.

We spoke to Annalisa Merelli, a healthcare reporter for Quartz about the pandemic, the economic effects of the vaccine rollout and the current surge in COVID cases in India.

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You’ve spent your whole life trying to be something you’re not. Now it’s time to stop pretending and speak your truth.

Hosted by Jay Ellis.

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In the 1980s, computers, now more powerful and more affordable, become a bigger part of people’s work and life. And that makes hackers a greater threat. America’s laws are slow to keep up with this new form of break-in. Then, an incorrigible teenager with a talent for computers gets caught in the country’s shifting views of hacking, and becomes the most wanted cyber criminal in the United States.

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Egypt and Mesopotamia are the most famous civilizations of the ancient world, but at the same time in South Asia - today's Pakistan and India - an even larger and more populous society came into being: the Indus Valley Civilization, whose peak lasted from 2600 to 1900 BC. But the Indus Valley Civilization challenges much of what we think we know about ancient societies, from inequality and violence to political control.

I wrote a book, and it comes out in July! You can preorder (in hard copy, e-book, or audiobook) The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World here.

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Desperate to raise millions and save his company, John DeLorean cuts a backroom deal with a drug smuggler and a crooked banker. Little does John know, he’s fallen into an elaborate trap set by the United States government.

On October 17th, 1859, John Brown was barricaded inside the federal armory at Harpers Ferry with his hostages and his remaining followers. His attempt to lead an antislavery insurrection had failed. A detachment of U.S. Marines led by Colonel Robert E. Lee had the armory surrounded. For the radical abolitionist, it was his last stand.

But after he was captured and sentenced to death, Northern abolitionists rallied to Brown’s cause. By the time he ascended the scaffold and prepared to meet the hangman’s rope, Brown had become a martyr and folk hero. His bold, violent actions polarized Americans on both sides of the slavery debate, and hurtled the nation closer to the brink of the Civil War.

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What’s for dinner? How will we answer that question in 50 years? In this thought-provoking (and occasionally hunger-inducing) conversation, science journalist Amanda Little tells Rufus that the single biggest threat posed by climate change is the collapse of our food systems. Provisions we love, like coffee and wine, are losing their flavor. And crops we rely on, like corn and soy, are getting harder to grow. If we don’t change our agricultural practices, we won’t be able to feed the globe’s swelling population. But don’t lose hope. Amanda says that if we can combine the wisdom of traditional farming practices with radical advances in agricultural technology, we might be able to create a healthier, more sustainable, and perhaps even more delicious future.

It’s late 2020 and the first vaccines are going into arms across the world.

With supplies tight, the nations of the world are pushing and shoving to get their shots, and investors are salivating at the thought of the profits to be made now that humanity’s got Covid’s on the run.

But this virus isn’t going down without a fight. And in South Africa, one geneticist is about to make an alarming discovery.

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Floyd Landis' life falls apart. With nothing to lose, he and Greg LeMond wage an attack against Lance Armstrong.

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It’s fall 2020 and the world’s waiting for the first results from the vaccine trials.

But as the moment of truth nears, the pressure on the vaccine makers intensifies.

And while AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson get hit with curveballs, Pfizer finds itself caught in the crossfire of the U.S. Presidential election.

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Success came easily to you. You feel like the luckiest guy alive. But even the luckiest guy's luck runs out eventually.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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South Asia - encompassing Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan - is one of the cradles of human civilization, and today it's home to one in every four people in the world. But who were the early inhabitants of South Asia, where had they come from, and what led them to develop agriculture, writing, cities, and some of the ancient world's most complex and populous societies?

I wrote a book, and it comes out in July! You can preorder (in hard copy, e-book, or audiobook) The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World here.

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Hackers: the criminals who prey on our digital lives. Today they steal credit cards and personal information, or even commit acts of cyber-terrorism. But in the early days, hackers were largely seen as harmless pranksters. And it wasn’t computers they were initially interested in, but phones -- which they hacked with a mysterious device called the Blue Box.

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As pressure grows in Northern Ireland to get the DMC-12 ready for mass-production, John seeks out Colin Chapman, the man behind Lotus Cars. A partnership with Chapman leads John to turn against some of his closest friends and engage in a questionable financial deal that could bilk investors out of millions.

In December 1858, John Brown was back in Kansas and Missouri, making headlines for dramatic and deadly raids on plantations. He and his followers freed 11 enslaved men and women and led them on an 1,100-mile journey to freedom in Canada.

But all the while, Brown was focused on finally launching his long-planned attack on slavery in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. After months of preparation, on the night of October 16th, 1859, Brown and his “army” captured the town’s federal arsenal and armory. It was the start of 36 hours of chaos and bloodshed that would shake America to its core.

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It’s summer 2020 and with Covid infections surging across America, the Trump administration’s ready to spend billions to get a vaccine fast.

For vaccine makers — who face the enormous costs of rapidly upscaling manufacturing and pushing their shots through large-scale human trials — the government funding is a lifeline.

But as the push to create vaccines hits warp speed, there’s a growing need to reassure the public that science, not politics, is in the driver’s seat.

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Whether or not we care to admit it, we all talk to ourselves. A lot. The voice in our heads yaks it up about half the time we’re awake, and it can speak at a rate of 4,000 words per minute. When it really gets going like that, not everything it says is particularly helpful. We’ve all gotten stuck dwelling on the past, worrying about the future, or standing idly by as our inner monologue devolves from introspection into negativity. Experimental psychologist Ethan Kross calls those moments chatter. “When the inner voice runs amok and chatter takes the mental microphone,” he writes, “our mind not only torments but paralyzes us.” Luckily, there are tools we can use to take back the mic, and in this episode, Ethan talks Rufus through them.

Lance Armstrong convinces his teammates to use performance-enhancing drugs. But when a former cycling legend begins asking questions, Armstrong goes on the attack.

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It’s February 2020 and drugmaker Moderna’s sprinting ahead – its Covid vaccine is already poised to enter human trials.

But Moderna and its rivals know plenty of vaccines never make it out of trials alive. It’s also going to take a lot of manufacturing muscle to inoculate the world. All of which costs a lot of moolah.

And if the vaccine makers can’t secure a deep-pocketed partner in time, they’re going to get disqualified from the race.

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All your life, you’ve held your tongue and done as you were told. Even as an adult, you dutifully fill the role that made you a child star. But you’re tired of playing by everyone else's rules.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen.

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In 1947, Chuck Yeager made history when he flew faster than the speed of sound. But was he really the first to do it? On this episode, Steven talks to aviation historian and retired fighter pilot Dan Hampton, whose book “Chasing the Demon” presents an alternate history of the quest to reach Mach 1.

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Professor Tim Denham is one of the world's leading experts on Kuk Swamp, the most important archaeological site for understanding the origins of agriculture in New Guinea. He explains how we can use cutting-edge techniques in the study of ancient soils and tiny bits of plant to understand these fascinating past developments. We also talk about "civilization," the invention of agriculture in global context, and why it took so long to understand New Guinea as an agricultural center.

I wrote a book, and it comes out in July! You can preorder (in hard copy, e-book, or audiobook) The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World here.

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The name “DeLorean” isn’t just synonymous with the 1985 blockbuster film Back to the Future, it’s also infamous for its connection to two uniquely American innovations: the sportscar and the drug trade. John DeLorean was a legend of the automobile industry who rose to the highest levels within General Motors. But his ambition for more than what Detroit could offer brought him to Hollywood, where he became entangled in a web of drugs, betrayal—and the FBI.

It’s 25 years before the pandemic and at the University of Pennsylvania a Hungarian biochemist is fighting a one-woman campaign to figure out how to create mRNA vaccines.

But no one wants to fund her research and every lab rat she injects with mRNA dies.

Now, she must decide between her career and her belief in mRNA’s medical potential. And her choice will change the world.

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On the night of May 24th, 1856, radical abolitionist John Brown and seven of his followers crept along the banks of Kansas’s Pottawatomie Creek and stormed a proslavery settlement. They dragged five men from their cabins and killed them in cold blood.

Soon, Brown’s name was splashed across the nation’s newspapers, making him a lightning rod for controversy. He would exploit his notoriety to escalate his crusade against slavery, taking his guerrilla war to a new theater: the slaveholding South.

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Humor is no laughing matter. It inspires innovation, strengthens relationships, disarms tension, and makes you look smart. Seriously. So why are we all afraid to be funny at work? In their new book, “Humor, Seriously,” Stanford professors Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas say the recipe for professional success and personal fulfillment is to lighten up, pack a little levity in your briefcase, and start living your life on the precipice of a smile. In today’s episode, they dig into the neuroscience of laughter, share tips for crafting office-safe jokes, and help Rufus improve his comic chops.

Lance Armstrong enters the cutthroat world of professional cycling. But after a string of humiliating losses, he's left searching for a new way to win.

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It’s early January 2020, and a mysterious new virus is overtaking the city of Wuhan, China.

At first the outbreak barely makes the news, but as the threat comes into focus, scientists spring into action to make a vaccine. But the outlook’s grim – vaccines take years to create, test and approve. No one expects one to arrive anytime soon.

But for two ambitious biotech start-ups, this is a chance to show the world what their cutting-edge tech can do.

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You're a high school misfit with the wrong hair and wrong clothes. You feel like you'll never find anything you're good at, or anyone you can relate to. Then, you discover hip-hop.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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With each test run, pilot Chuck Yeager is getting closer to taking the top secret Bell X-1 plane past the speed of sound. But just before a critical flight, an accident on the ground jeopardizes his chances of success.

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The Highlands of New Guinea are one of the most remote places on the planet, a maze of crosscutting valleys and enormous mountains that weren't reached by outsiders until the 1930s. Yet they're also one of the world's original centers of agriculture, a place responsible for domesticating crops like taro and the omnipresent banana. Crops on which millions of people rely today trace their origin all the way back to the isolated high valleys of New Guinea many thousands of years ago.

I wrote a book, and it comes out in July! You can preorder (in hard copy, e-book, or audiobook) The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World here.

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Mike Isaac, the author of Super Pumped: the Battle for Uber, is more than a technology writer for the New York Times. He’s a character in the Uber story. Mike sits down with host Lindsay Graham to tell the behind the scenes story of how he broke some of Uber’s darkest secrets.

In the 1850s, the United States was lurching toward a crisis over slavery -- and abolitionist John Brown stepped into the fray. Brown believed it was his God-given destiny to destroy slavery. His crusade took him from abolitionist meetings in the Northeast, to the Underground Railroad in Ohio, to the bloody plains of Kansas.

In 1854, a fierce conflict erupted over whether the territory of Kansas would join the Union as a free state or slave state. As tensions escalated, Brown would rush to the center of the gathering storm and hatch a violent plan for striking back against proslavery forces.

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After decades in KFC’s shadow, Chick-fil-A rode a wave of chicken sandwich obsession to industry dominance. But for how long? Will consumers tired of the relative simplicity of fried chicken in between two pieces of bread? For more on the emergence of the chicken sandwich as fast food’s favorite son, we speak to Nick Wiger — writer, comedian, and host of the Doughboys podcast. Wiger gets to the bottom of the chicken trend, speculates on what’s next at the drive-thru, and discusses whether or not plant-based protein has a place on the menu.

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A few years ago, as he watched his young daughter try out one hobby after another, a thought crossed Tom Vanderbilt’s mind: Why do we work so hard to get our kids to learn new skills when most of us adults stopped trying new things ages ago? For Tom, that contradiction became a call to arms. In defiance of the usual objections — it’s too late! you’re too old! — he took up chess, surfing, singing, juggling, and drawing. His goal wasn’t to gain mastery. He just wanted to prove to himself (and the eventual readers of his wonderful new book) that no matter how old you are or untalented you feel, being a beginner is a great way to stimulate your brain, meet new people, and bring a little adventure into your life.

Joseph McCarthy was one of the most consequential politicians in American history. He upended Washington, and even influenced foreign policy for years to come. In this interview, Lindsay chats with Larry Tye, the author of Demagogue, a biography of McCarthy. The two discuss the early stages of the Red Scare, which laid the foundation for McCarthy’s rise. Tye also reveals why McCarthy was able to grow so powerful—and so popular.

To learn more, check out Larry's book, Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy here.

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Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy

It’s the the early 2000’s and the animal rights group PETA accuses KFC of cruelty in their poultry processing and creating “Frankenchickens.” As KFC revenues tumble, Chick-fil-A surges ahead, cultivating fanatic customers with opening day parties and lavish food giveaways. But when President Dan Cathy makes controversial remarks against same-sex marriage, Chick-fil-A becomes a battleground. Meanwhile, Popeyes new CEO reverses the chain’s long downward slide by returning the company to its Louisiana roots. He introduces snappy new advertising and Cajun recipes, including the company’s first fried chicken sandwich. Rising to the challenge, Chick-fil-A attacks their rival with some savvy twitter swordplay over whose sandwich reigns supreme. The ensuing social media frenzy inspires a nationwide rush on both chains, but KFC is left out in the cold. Then the great sandwich wars of 2019 help bring about a shocking upset in the world of southern fried fowl, just as all the players begin to plan for a more sustainable, less meat-heavy future.

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You're living the life you promised yourself you'd build. But now the dream feels more like a trap. To escape, you need to risk everything you’ve worked for, and one again bet on yourself.

Hosted by Karole Foreman.

This episode contains depictions of domestic violence and may not be suitable for all listeners. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233).

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Professor David Wengrow is one of the world's leading experts on Egypt before the pharaohs. He's also one of the most creative and wide-ranging archaeologists working right now, and he has fascinating insights into the primordial emergence of inequality, hierarchies, states, and all of the other things. Check out his new book, co-authored with the late David Graeber: The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity.

I wrote a book, and it comes out in July! You can preorder The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World here.

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Former Uber engineer Susan Fowler battles threats from all directions as Travis Kalanick grapples with the aftermath of a personal tragedy that brings him to his knees.

In the 1940s, as planes got faster, it seemed like they were hitting a wall -- literally. Many pilots tried to travel faster than the speed of sound, often with fatal results. Could American test pilot Chuck Yeager succeed where they had failed? Or would his daredevil attitude get him grounded before he gets a chance?

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It’s the 1970’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken has yet another new owner: Heublein, the company known for introducing Americans to Smirnoff’s vodka. But KFC brand ambassador Harland Sanders creates a PR fiasco by accusing his new corporate bosses of letting standards slide and ruining the company. As the recession and Sanders wrath hammer revenues, the chain radically changes course, and commits to a “Re-colonelization,” reinstating many of Sanders’ original recipes, and reinvesting in its disenchanted franchisees. Kentucky Fried Chicken surges just as Chick-fil-A makes a series of fatal errors; they lose millions in a marketing misstep, and take on debt to expand rapidly in shopping centers. As the recession deepens, and consumers as well as developers shun malls, Chick-fil-A faces financial ruin. Meanwhile, Popeyes has his own debt-fueled misadventures. Owner Al Copeland leans hard into the 1980s junk bond market and attempts to catch up with KFC by leveraging a hostile takeover of Church’s Fried Chicken, with fatal results.

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We’re taught that the mark of surefire intelligence is the ability to think and learn. But in his new book, “Think Again,” Adam Grant says that in our turbulent world, there’s a more important skill: the ability to rethink and unlearn. If you can learn how to revise your opinions, check your ego, and admit when you’re wrong, then you’ll be on a path toward wisdom and joy.

In recent years, there’s been a movement to remove statues of Confederate leaders and other monuments that some see as celebrations of America’s racist history. But does taking down these statues help address the racial inequities that plague our nation to this day? Or is it just erasing history?

In his forthcoming book How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, author Clint Smith tackles these and other questions around what our public monuments say -- or, sometimes, fail to say -- about America’s past. He and Lindsay discuss such landmarks as Monticello, the Whitney Plantation, and the Statue of Liberty, and explore the different meanings they have for different Americans, especially in our present moment of racial reckoning.

For more on Clint Smith: https://www.clintsmithiii.com/.

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Accusations emerge that Joseph McCarthy blackmailed the military. He faces investigations in the Senate, and a potentially devastating outcome.

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It’s the late 1960s and Kentucky Fried Chicken’s new owner takes the rapidly expanding franchise public. America’s hottest new IPO makes dozens of employees instant millionaires, but not Harland Sanders, who sold his company for cash. Now brand ambassador, Sanders regrets his decision and attempts a coup. As civil war rages at Kentucky Fried Chicken, diner owner Truett Cathy in Georgia makes a life-changing decision: to open his own restaurant chain in the brand new frontier of the American shopping mall. But while Kentucky Fried Chicken and Chick-fil-A focus on growing their fiefdoms, a young donut shop owner in New Orleans turns his attention to creating the perfect spicy fried chicken recipe, and finds inspiration for its name from an unlikely source: a movie about an aging cop called Popeye Doyle.

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Your family has a history of mental illness. You’ve seen what it’s done to your brother, and you don’t want to wind up like him. But how long can you hide from your true self?

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

This episode contains depictions of mental illness and suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, here are some additional resources:

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

National Alliance on Mental Illness: 1-800-950-6264

Crisis Text Line: Within the US, text HOME to 741741

Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance: 1-800-826-3632

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Tattoos, and other forms of body decoration, are as old as humanity itself. But what can we know about the skin of long-past people that no longer exists? I talk to Aaron Deter-Wolf, Prehistoric Archaeologist for the State of Tennessee’s Division of Archaeology and one of the world's experts on the archaeological study of tattooing, to get some answers.

Follow Aaron on Instagram @archaeologyink - it's a fascinating page.

I wrote a book, and it comes out in July! You can preorder The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World here.

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New York Times journalist Mike Issac’s story about a secret spying program at Uber puts Travis in the crosshairs of Uber’s board of directors and threatens to deprive the infamous leader of the company he helped create.

In the summer of 1888, just as the electric chair controversy was unfolding, Nikola Tesla moved to Pittsburgh to work for George Westinghouse, fulfilling a year-long commitment he made when Westinghouse purchased Tesla’s AC motor patents.

The deal would make Tesla a millionaire, but it would ultimately threaten to topple Westinghouse’s business.

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Sure, opposable thumbs are handy. But in his brilliant new book, “This Is the Voice,” John Colapinto says the voice is our species’ greatest attribute. We rely on it to communicate and collaborate, woo our mates and protect our children, make art and win wars. John would know. A rock ‘n’ roll vocal injury changed his relationship with his instrument and set him on a path to better understand what his voice means to him — and what the voice means to humanity.

It’s the 1950s in Kentucky and Harland Sanders faces bankruptcy once again. 65-years-old, broke, unemployed and desperate, he barnstorms the country, living out of his car, selling his secret fried chicken recipe to restaurant and diner owners. Franchising is a new concept and it’s hard going, but Sanders makes an invaluable convert of Pete Harman, a Utah restaurateur, who becomes his first franchisee. Harman creates the icons of the Kentucky Fried Chicken brand, including its name, and becomes a lifelong champion of the company. Meanwhile in Atlanta, a local airline presents Truett Cathy with a surplus of boneless chicken, which he slips into a bun and turns into pure southern fried chicken gold.

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The Vietnam War was one of the most divisive conflicts in American history. Over 58,000 Americans died in the fighting; many more returned home with wounds both visible and hidden.

When veterans lobbied for a memorial to honor American soldiers lost in Vietnam, a young college student named Maya Lin was picked from a blind competition to design it. Her unconventional vision would lead to a bitter dispute over the nature and purpose of public art in America — and how a nation heals its wounds after a collective loss.

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Joseph McCarthy searches for communist infiltrators in the U.S. government. He lands on a big target, one that earns him a formidable enemy.

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It’s the 1900’s and a young Harland Sanders learns how to cook out of sheer necessity when his widowed mother leaves him at home to care for his younger brother and sister. Crushing poverty prompts his mother to loan him out as a field hand when he’s just twelve, and from then on he’s on his own. He labors as a farmworker, a blacksmith’s helper, and a railroad fire stoker. Eventually Sanders bamboozles his way into a career as a correspondence course lawyer, only to lose his practice due to his fiery temper and tendency towards violence.

Meanwhile, as the nation sinks into a depression, poverty leaves scars and forges ambition in eight-year-old Truett Cathy. He learns to cook in the family’s boarding-house in Atlanta, and contributes desperately needed cash with a thriving coca-cola stand and newspaper delivery route. As his family’s finances worsen, they end up in the city’s first housing project, and Truett’s father teaches his son hard lessons at the end of a razor strap.

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Understanding the first migrants to the Americas more than 13,000 years ago is a big task. So is figuring out how the ancestors of indigenous peoples transformed themselves from hunters of mammoth and mastodon to farmers to the builders of complex societies. Professor Shane Miller, an archaeologist working in the American southeast (and a Tides listener!) joins me to talk about cutting-edge archaeology and how our understanding of the early Americas is changing.

I wrote a book, and it comes out in July! You can preorder The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World here.

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After his unceremonious departure from Edison Electric, Nikola Tesla found himself broke and dejected, but more determined than ever to share his alternating current system with the world. And thanks to the help of one man who really believed in his work -- a man with vision, money and power -- he’d soon have his chance.

Tesla had Edison in his sites, and the War of the Currents was about to get deadly.

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Susan Fowler’s blistering story reveals a systemic problem at Uber, and it’s the first of a series of scandals that damages Uber’s already rocky reputation, and places CEO Travis Kalanick under the microscope of public scrutiny.

It's the Great Depression, and in one of Kentucky’s toughest corners, Harland Sanders defends his gas station business with sheer moxie and a loaded shotgun. He expands it into a thriving motel and restaurant, but impatient tourists balk at long wait times for his most popular dish — fried chicken. Eager to woo customers, Sanders risks life and limb experimenting with a new kitchen invention and creates a hit secret recipe. Along the way, he discovers a unique marketing gimmick: dressing up like a Kentucky Colonel from the frontier days.

Meanwhile in the post-war boom a young devout Christian named Truett Cathy opens a diner with his brother in Atlanta. Soon enough his company, Chick-fil-A, will hit KFC right where it hurts, in between two buttered buns.

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Few historic residences are more synonymous with their owners than Graceland. Purchased by Elvis Presley in 1957, the stately Memphis mansion was the heart of his private world and his most prized possession. He always swore he’d never sell it.

But after Elvis’s sudden and tragic death, Graceland faced an uncertain future. It would take a risky move by his ex-wife Priscilla to save the mansion and secure its place as a lasting monument to one of America’s greatest musical icons. ' '

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If you managed to stay awake during Bio 101, then you probably think you have a basic understanding of how your brain works. Not so, says neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett. In this cerebral yet highly entertaining conversation with Next Big Idea Club curator Daniel Pink, Lisa says our brains are made for budgeting, not thinking. She debunks the myth of the lizard brain. And she makes the far-out claim that everything you see and hear, including this podcast, is a hallucination.

Joseph McCarthy gets help from powerful allies in Washington. As McCarthy’s influence grows, other senators weigh the political cost of challenging him.

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Since the disruption of the broadcast viewing experience, late night comedy has gone through some growing pains. It’s no longer must-see TV, but late night water cooler moments remain as fiery political segments go viral online.

For more on how the late night landscape has shifted since Johnny Carson’s exit from The Tonight Show, we speak with Meredith Blake, an entertainment reporter at the Los Angeles Times who covers television. Blake lays out how the internet, streaming and a push for more diversity has changed the face of late night.

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On August 6, 1890, a prisoner named William Kemmler became the first man executed in the electric chair. It was designed to be a more humane form of execution, but the gruesome scene in the death chamber that day revealed the device to be anything but.

Behind the story of the electric chair lies another story, involving three titans of innovation—Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse — locked in a desperate fight for control of the future of electricity. Their conflict would take lives, spark scientific advances and revolutionize human existence.

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Language is one of the foundational pieces of being human, but in the absence of writing, what can we know about it in the deep past? Historical linguistics and the comparative method shed valuable light on these long-lost languages, and uncover the roots of some of today's most widely spoken tongues.

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Susan Fowler’s blistering story reveals a systemic problem at Uber, and it’s the first of a series of scandals that sully Uber’s already rocky reputation, and put CEO Travis Kalanick under the microscope.

Jay Leno takes it on the chin from NBC when the network informs him his future as Tonight Show host has a looming shelf life. He needs to hand the keys to Conan O’Brien, who doesn’t want to be stuck in the 12:30 slot forever.

As Letterman’s ratings at CBS decline, NBC makes a bizarre decision to keep its hosts happy and in the family. It’s a decision that backfires in every possible way.

The fallout will spark the last, devastating shake up in the late night wars, as the battlefield goes through radical changes. Technology and taste never sleep, and the networks—and the hosts—are forced to redefine themselves as the industry moves toward the future.

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In the early 1920s, San Francisco was a picturesque city on a narrow, isolated peninsula. Known for its scenic, natural beauty, it had the potential to become one of America’s leading metropolises. But to fuel its economic growth, it needed a bridge -- across one of the most treacherous bodies of water on the Western seaboard.

To build a bridge across the strait known as the Golden Gate, engineers and construction crews would have to fight against blistering winds, vicious currents, and punishing weather. Workers would dive below the frigid water, and ascend to breathtaking heights. In the end, they would forge an engineering marvel at the western entrance to America – and capture the spirit of an iconic city.

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In all likelihood, some of the biggest moments in your life, like meeting your spouse or finding your job, were the result of a chance encounter or fortunate coincidence. You got lucky. But Christian Busch, who directs the global economy program at NYU, says that with the right mindset, you can regard luck not as something that happens to you but as a skill you can cultivate. In this lively conversation, he gives Rufus pointers on how to live serendipitously, describes the surprising power of near-death experiences, and argues that spilling coffee on people may not be such a bad thing.

Joseph McCarthy dreams of a bigger life. He wants something beyond the farms of Wisconsin, something more important than cornfields and local disputes. He wants political power in Washington, D.C. And he has a plan to get it.

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CBS makes David Letterman a very attractive offer to leave NBC—a move he’s very willing to make—but his long-time network is desperate to keep him. So desperate they dangle the prize that Letterman felt he deserved all along—the Tonight Show.

That doesn’t sit well with Tonight host Jay Leno, who takes a major defensive stance to hang on to the position he worked so hard to get.

And in the wake of the Letterman struggle, an unknown talent emerges into the late night stratosphere—Conan O’Brien. He brings a unique, fresh appeal and his own set of rules as the networks battle for ratings, and audiences get finicky.

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What new technologies might eventually replace the still-popular but widely debunked polygraph? On this episode, Steven talks with Ken Alder, author of the book “The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession,” about the lie detector’s enduring appeal and uncertain future.

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There are still people living now who make their living by foraging, and understanding them is an essential component of grasping the breadth of human experience. Today's hunter-gatherers aren't living fossils from a bygone age, but studying them can give us deep insights into the more distant past. In this episode, I discuss ethnography, ethnoarchaeology, and how we can apply these tools to prehistory.

I wrote a book, and it comes out in July! You can preorder The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the Worldhere.

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Tim Murphy, a senior reporter at Mother Jones, normally writes about national politics and not soda. In this interview episode on Coca-Cola’s Greatest Mistake, Tim will explain how New Coke is a story about both. According to Tim, “New Coke Didn’t Fail. It was Murdered.”

When longtime Tonight Show host Johnny Carson shocks NBC with the surprise

announcement of his departure, Jay Leno is anointed as the next host of the network’s flagship franchise.

But there’s a problem: after a decade hosting Late Night at 12:30, David Letterman thinks Carson’s job should be his. Getting passed over is unacceptable to Letterman, and he’s going to exact a painful revenge on NBC.

And Leno’s firebrand manager Helen Kushnick is going to feel the backlash of her scorched earth policy in dealing with NBC brass. Their reaction will bring Leno’s career to the brink of destruction.

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In 1927, workers began blasting granite rock off a towering cliff in South Dakota’s Black Hills. It was the start of an arduous 14-year struggle to carve the portraits of four American presidents into Mount Rushmore.

The feat required grueling labor in extreme conditions. And it was led by an obsessive sculptor named Gutzon Borglum. Borglum was the creative genius behind Rushmore, with a talent and ego as big as the monument itself. But he was also the biggest threat to its completion.

His masterpiece would become one of the most iconic — and controversial — monuments in America.

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Every day, Dr. Carl Hart goes into his laboratory at Columbia University and gets people high. That research has led him to a surprising conclusion: the predominant effects of the drugs he administers — substances like cannabis, cocaine, heroin, and meth — are positive. In this unflinching conversation about Dr. Hart’s bold new book, “Drug Use for Grown-Ups,” Carl and Rufus discuss their own experiences with drugs, connect drug criminalization to structural racism, and ask whether drug use by responsible adults can be a good thing.

Bernie Madoff conned some of the most accomplished people in the world, from savvy investors to famous artists. All the while, he deceived government regulators. That raises a profound question: How did he successfully fool so many people, and for so long? Diana Henriques is a journalist and author who's written extensively about Madoff. In this interview, she describes what made him such a successful con man. And she warns about the possibility of another Bernie Madoff in the future.

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Johnny Carson – the man who defined the Tonight show – is nearing retirement. But NBC has yet to settle on an heir. And that sets the stage for one of the most painful moments for the late night rivals battling for the throne. It will prove enormously embarrassing for Carson, Leno and Letterman. And they will vent their sentiments on stage. Meanwhile, Arensio Hall, a young, black comedian, is blowing past all of them, and posing the first serious challenge to Carson.

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Kings are practically synonymous with ancient Egypt, and it's not just because their monuments - like the pyramids - still tower above the desert and the Nile. Egyptian society was organized around the pharaohs in many different ways, but how did they come into being? What turned Egypt into one of the world's longest-lived kingdoms?

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In 1922, a murder case in Washington, DC presents the first opportunity for lie detector results to be used in a criminal trial. But even as lie detectors become more commonly used, one of the device’s inventors begins to have serious doubts about the accuracy of his creation.

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We don’t know when the pandemic will end, but we do know this: while we’ve been stuck at home, the world has been spinning faster than ever. Name any existing trend in technology, healthcare, commerce, or education, and it’s safe to say it has advanced a decade in the last 12 months. That’s because COVID-19, according to NYU professor Scott Galloway, is an accelerant. And in this high-octane conversation, he tells Rufus that if we play it right, we can harness that acceleration to create positive change.

In the aftermath of the New Coke rollout, Coca-Cola chairman Roberto Goizueta deals with an onslaught of bad press, angry phone calls and nasty letters from Coke fans who want their old soft drink back. In this moment of crisis, Roberto sees opportunity in adversity and uses data as a weapon to fight back.

For centuries, sailors and merchants dreamed of finding a passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans across the narrow isthmus of Central America. But no natural passage existed. To get ships across the fifty-mile stretch of land, someone would have to dig a canal.

The French tried first, and failed. Then, in 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt and the U.S. took on the challenge. Struggling against harsh weather, forbidding terrain and political turmoil, the United States would endeavor not just to build a canal – but to establish itself as a formidable international power in the new century.

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The late night saga begins in the uncharted wilderness of after-hours programming. In the early 1950s, an era when television broadcasting literally stops at 11:00 p.m., NBC dares to push the envelope with something called the Tonight Show. It works.

It seems insane, but American audiences are ready to stay up--and advertisers are ready to spend big money to reach that audience. In the wake of Tonight’s success, CBS and ABC are left in the dust. But they’re determined to grab a slice of that valuable late night pie as the war begins for ownership of the midnight hour.

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The U.S. economy begins to fall apart. So Bernie Madoff takes a risk, and makes a fateful decision about his Ponzi scheme.

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The cutthroat evolution of late-night talk shows is a long and fierce battle for advertising riches, ratings and sheer egotistical triumph. It’s the early 1980s and NBC’s Tonight Show is the unbeatable standard in its class, and its long-time host Johnny Carson the indisputable god of late night.

Hosts David Letterman, Jay Leno and later Conan O’Brien all worship Carson. Each of them desperately covets the Tonight Show seat and will stop at nothing to get it.

As fickle audiences demand increasingly cutting-edge entertainment after dark, the fight to win late night will be redefined. And it will be ugly.

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The Next Big Idea returns on February 25th.

What can we learn about the deep human past by studying present-day hunter-gatherers? I asked that question to Professor Robert Kelly of the University of Wyoming, who's both one of the world's experts on hunter-gatherers and an accomplished archaeologist. Today's hunter-gatherers aren't living fossils who provide a direct window onto the distant past, but their lifeways do offer fascinating insights into that past.

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Humans are shockingly bad at telling whether or not someone is lying. That’s why, a century ago, psychologists and criminologists developed machines to detect lies for us, by measuring blood pressure, pulse, and breathing rate. Their lie detectors promised to revolutionize the criminal justice system. But is it really possible for science to separate truth from lies?

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As Roberto and the Project Kansas team work in secret to launch New Coke, PepsiCo’s CEO Roger Enrico gets ready to fight back. In the aftermath of New Coke’s launch, Enrico launches a counter attack in the media that he hopes will put an end to the Cola Wars and make PepsiCo the victor.

It’s perhaps the most iconic of American monuments -- the Statue of Liberty. A towering 305-foot sculpture of copper and steel that is synonymous with American values of liberty, freedom and self-determination. But it began as a gift from France. And when it first arrived on American soil, its future was far from certain.

For over a decade, artists, craftsmen and everyday people from France and the United States worked together on what would be dubbed America’s “New Colossus.” The statue they built would take on new associations with the passage of time -- but it would forever remain a symbol of America’s loftiest ideals.

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As the beauty business shifts towards boutique brands and upstarts, traditional titans of the industry like L'Oreal and Esteé Lauder are struggling to maintain a foothold. At the center of this cultural shift are beauty influencers, who are reaching a new wave of savvy, socially conscious consumers.

For more on how they’re reshaping the landscape, we speak with Arabelle Sicardi, an industry strategist and trend forecaster for over a decade and author of the upcoming book The House of Beauty. Sicardi lays out what’s driving the shift and how a historically white industry aims to adapt to a new generation of consumers hungry for diversity.

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A financial analyst raises red flags about Bernie Madoff's record. Madoff faces an investigation from the SEC.

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It’s 2007, and the L'Oréal founding family is thrust into the media spotlight when a scandal erupts. The daughter of Liliane Bettencourt, heiress to the company fortune, accuses a family friend of exploiting her mother’s dementia. But the ensuing investigation brings to light Bettencourt’s own unsavory dealings, putting L'Oréal’s future at risk.

Meanwhile, both L'Oréal and Estée Lauder attempt to mitigate lagging sales with more acquisitions. To choose their targets, they turn to Youtube, where influencers with millions of followers are becoming rainmakers for fledgling brands. But no one is prepared for how a pandemic will affect the beauty industry.

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More than 5,000 years ago, the city of Uruk in what's now Iraq was the heart of a new civilization. Cities, kings, armies, monumental temples, and writing were all new developments. But why here? Why then? And who suffered so that civilization could rise?

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On February 18th, 2021, Perseverance will become the latest NASA rover to land on Mars. To mark the occasion, Steven talks to two of the engineers behind the Mars rover program: Dr. Anita Sengupta, who designed the parachute systems for the Curiosity rover in 2012, and Dr. Matt Smith, one of the flight directors guiding Perseverance towards its landing site.

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Newly appointed Coca-Cola chairman Roberto Goizueta gains lost ground in the Cola Wars with several bold maneuvers, including the launch of a brand new diet soft drink. As he strives to beat Pepsi, Roberto fights to remake the culture of Coca-Cola and take the company in a bold new direction by putting an emphasis on taste and quality over image and brand.

It’s 1991, and after the financial crash of 1987, Estée Lauder is looking for a new way to continue expanding without sinking millions of dollars and several years into developing a new brand. The answer lies in acquisitions, and they set their sights on two young, hip, buzzworthy companies: MAC and Bobbi Brown.

Meanwhile, determined to strengthen L'Oréal’s foothold in the American mass market, CEO Lindsay Owen-Jones takes a risk on flailing drug store brand Maybelline, convinced he can turn it into an industry juggernaut.

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After the 1871 fire destroyed a third of their city, Chicagoans wanted to do more than rebuild. They wanted to envision a new kind of American city. That included everything from changes to fire codes and labor laws to an entirely new style of architecture -- the skyscraper.

Professor Ann Keating is an urban historian and expert on Chicago history both before and after the Great Fire. She and Lindsay discuss the rapid growth and social changes that made Chicago so vulnerable, what lessons city leaders learned -- or failed to learn -- in the fire’s aftermath, and the parallels between the Great Chicago Fire and other, more recent urban disasters.

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Bernie Madoff is young and broke. More than anything, he needs money—and he needs it fast. So Madoff strikes out on his own. The destination: Wall Street. But a market crash forces him to make an impossible decision, one that will haunt him for years.

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It’s 1979 and Estée Lauder is on top of the world after launching another in-house brand, Prescriptives. But after decades of being primarily known for hair products, L'Oréal is ready to invade the American high-end makeup market. And their secret weapon is Lancôme, a luxurious French brand that they rebrand using tricks straight out of the Lauders’ playbook.

In an attempt to fend off the Lancôme threat, Leonard Lauder invests in television advertising. But a financial crisis is on the horizon, and how both companies respond will define their futures.

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Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are preparing to land on the Moon. The whole world is watching live on television. But something is very wrong: Their warning alarms are flashing. There’s only one woman who can fix it: MIT software engineer Margaret Hamilton.

This episode originally aired on March 14, 2019.

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Pyramids, mummies, and pharaohs define our understanding of ancient Egypt, a timeless and eternal land. But the Nile wasn't always ruled by god-like kings, and long before they emerged, Egypt was home to other peoples and other ways of life. As Egyptian civilization emerged, these older traditions didn't disappear, but remained, shaping thousands of years of subsequent history.

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In 1985, when Coca-Cola eliminated its signature soft drink, “Coke”, and replaced it with a new and improved version called “New Coke”, the American people revolted. In this series premiere, we go back to the beginning of the story and meet the man responsible for Coca-Cola’s biggest blunder: Roberto Goizueta, a brilliant Cuban immigrant who started from the bottom and rose to the highest rung of Coca-Cola’s corporate ladder.

It’s 1962, and Estée Lauder is on fire, with well-received new products helping solidify their position as the top high-end makeup brand. But Revlon is hot on their tails, and to fend off the threat the Lauders decide to develop a new brand: Clinique. With this line of hypoallergenic products for sensitive skin, they’ve unlocked a new customer base. But initial sales are disappointing, and as cash flow takes a nosedive, they must quickly determine how to fix their marketing approach.

Meanwhile, a young female copywriter pens a new slogan for L'Oréal that will go down in advertising history and send the company on a bright new path.

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As dawn broke on October 10, 1871, the dazed survivors of the Great Chicago Fire stumbled through their burned and battered city. A 30-hour inferno had reduced Chicago to ashes.

Homes and business were replaced by gaping holes and smoldering rubble. Tens of thousands of people had lost their houses and jobs. Many had lost loved ones. As aid poured into the city, officials turned their attention to the challenges of distributing relief and maintaining order.

But the embers had barely cooled when residents went to work throwing up makeshift structures and reopening their businesses. Over the next two years, Chicagoans would rapidly rebuild their city. It was the start of a recovery that would spur architectural innovation and urban renewal, turning Chicago into a modern metropolis.

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For decades, the U.S. has led covert campaigns abroad. These campaigns—spearheaded by the CIA, among others— have shaped the balance of power in the world. The U.S. has even helped topple foreign governments. In this new interview, Lindsay chats with Stephen Kinzer, an author who's written extensively about America's foreign policy, and the way our government's actions have had unintended consequences.

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Boxing has a long past, one deeply connected to race, labor, and broader developments in American history. Professor Louis Moore joins me to talk about those topics and about his outstanding book, I Fight For a Living: Boxing and the Battle for Black Manhood, 1880-1915.

Find Professor Moore's book here: https://www.amazon.com/Fight-Living-Manhood-1880-1915-Society/dp/0252082877.

This episode originally aired on August 8, 2019.

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I Fight for a Living: Boxing and the Battle for Black Manhood, 1880-1915

It's 1904, and ambitious French chemist Eugène Schueller quits his job as a researcher to focus on formulating the first synthetic hair dye. Teaming up with Parisian hairdressers to spread the word about his product, he soon expands into hair care and sunscreen, relying on his knack for innovative marketing to spread the word.

Meanwhile, in Queens, New York, a young Estée Lauder is inspired by her esthetician uncle to start concocting her own face creams. Now, she just has to find a way to monetize her business, and inspiration strikes at her local beauty salon.

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Civilization first emerged in the fertile floodplains of Mesopotamia - present-day Iraq - with priest-kings and cities full of temples and ziggurats, pictographs and cuneiform writing. But what were the conditions and processes that led up to this complex of developments? How and why did it happen, and why there?

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A Mars colony by 2040? Children born on Mars by 2050? It still sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but more than ever, it’s within reach. On this episode, Steven talks to engineer, author and Mars evangelist Dr. Robert Zubrin about why putting humans on the red planet isn’t just a scientific and technological exercise -- it’s also a way to ensure that human culture keeps moving forward.

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For Disney World expert Chad Denver Emerson, the Walt Disney World Resort is more than entertainment. It’s one of his greatest passions. Chad is the author of multiple books on Disney World, including Project Future: The Inside Story Behind the Creation of Disney World. He’s also an expert on city and urban planning, which makes him uniquely qualified to answer the question: Does the Walt Disney World Resort live up to the highest ideals of Walt’s vision for a City of Tomorrow?

Just before midnight on October 8, 1871, the inferno that had ravaged Chicago’s West Side leapt the Chicago River. A wall of flames surged toward downtown, threatening to devour Chicago’s most magnificent hotels, offices, and government buildings. Mayor Roswell B. Mason raced to the Chicago courthouse, but he would soon find he was helpless to save his city.

Panic-stricken South Side residents streamed out of their homes and fled to the North Side, the stately residential area they were certain was safe. Dodging flaming debris and crashing buildings, they flooded the streets. But the fire’s path of destruction was relentless. The flames were following the refugees to the North Side, hurtling straight toward the Chicago Waterworks.

It was the final link in the city’s defense. Chicagoans knew that if the Waterworks burned, their city was doomed.

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It’s 1946, and after years of building a cult following thanks to free samples and loyal customers, Estée Lauder finally has an opportunity to join the big leagues. She can now sell her high-quality makeup products in department stores in New York City. Unphased by competitors with deeper pockets and wider distribution, she possesses a passion for making women feel beautiful that sets her apart.

Meanwhile, in Paris, chemist Eugène Schueller’s hair company L'Oréal is thriving thanks to his top-notch formula for synthetic hair dye. But as World War II comes to an end, rumors that he supported the Nazis threaten the empire he has built.

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Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh sets his sights on the White House and tries to answer the question everyone has been asking: Exactly how much did President Reagan know and when did he know it?

This episode originally aired on December 24, 2018.

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As the Space Race moves into the present day, Elon Musk recoups SpaceX’s losses and edges ahead of Blue Origin.

But now his competition is coming not just from Jeff Bezos, but from like-minded dreamers in Russia and China. For more on the coming battle for space supremacy, we speak with Tim Fernholz. He wrote Rocket Billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the New Space Race, and writes about space and the economy for Quartz.

He tells us about the viability of space tourism and the future prospects of space travel.

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I'm not just talking about the wonderful Sid Meier game series, which I've spent far too many hours playing; how do we define "civilization," how does it come into being, and why does it matter?

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Led by an iconoclastic engineer who barely graduated high school, NASA jumps back into the race to send humans to Mars. But first, they need to figure out how to land larger vehicles on the treacherous Martian surface – and how to make enough oxygen for humans to one day colonize the red planet.

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On the next episode of Business Movers: In the aftermath of Walt’s death, Roy Disney fights to fulfill his brother’s legacy and carry Project Future over the finish line. To get the job done, Roy will have to run the gauntlet of Florida politics, labor troubles, and his own declining health.

It's 2016 and Virgin Galactic is about to re-enter the space race following its fatal test flight two years earlier.

But the company's early lead in human spaceflight is eroding fast. Blue Origin, Boeing and SpaceX are closing in.

The race to become the first private company to launch a person into space is almost over and there can only be one winner.

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In 1871, Chicago was the fastest growing city in the world. Built almost entirely of wood, it was also a tinderbox. That October, a severe drought ravaged the city. Fires ignited constantly, and Chicago’s firefighters were at their breaking point. But the worst was yet to come.

On a hot, windy night, a fire broke out in a barn owned by Irish immigrants Catherine and Patrick O’Leary. By the time firefighters arrived to the scene, gale-force winds were fanning the flames with astonishing speed. Over the next 30 hours, Chicago would battle a raging inferno more destructive than any ever faced by an American city.

But from the ashes would also come rebirth—a transformation that would turn Chicago into a modern metropolis.

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Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh is called to D.C. to investigate Iran-Contra and bring those responsible to justice. But what he discovers will shake his political allegiances, and drive a wedge through the heart of the country.

This episode originally aired on December 18, 2020.

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It's 2013 and the long cold war between Blue Origin and SpaceX is about to go nuclear.

The clash begins when NASA puts its most famous launchpad up for lease, and escalates fast.

Soon SpaceX, Blue Origin, and the United Launch Alliance will be reaching for any weapon they can use to disrupt each other's plans.

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As Walt Disney fights to overcome his failing body, he and his brother Roy battle over the future of Walt’s latest obsession, and his biggest idea yet: an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow; or as Walt calls it, EPCOT.

Stanford University's Professor Li Liu is one of the world's leading experts on prehistoric East Asia and one of the world's primary inventions of farming. I ask her about that, the deep continuities of Chinese civilization, and her recent research on the origins of brewing and alcohol.

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After making his fortune in the dot-com boom, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk decides to take on a new challenge: going into space, and eventually colonizing Mars. To him, rockets are outdated technology just waiting to be disrupted. But he soon learns that space is not so easily conquered.

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As America prepares to swear in a new president, we’ll look back to the inaugurations of the past. Jim Bendat, author of Democracy's Big Day: The Inauguration of Our President, 1789-2013, joins us as we cover the friction between the outgoing and incoming president, the Capitol Hill breach on January 6th, and how inaugurations have served as a powerful reminder of the strength of American democracy, even in times of crisis.

For more on Jim Bendat: https://www.inaugurationbook.com/

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It's 2009 and a new president is looking to shake up the space world by opening up the stars to private industry.

But with NASA’s space shuttle about to retire, the United States soon won't be able to reach the International Space Station without Russian help.

U.S. leadership in space hangs in the balance and everyone's looking to the new space companies to deliver the solution.

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When the story breaks that senior U.S. government officials secretly traded arms for hostages, Congress and the American people demand answers. Chief of Staff Don Regan and Attorney General Ed Meese begin building a wall around the President.

This episode originally aired on December 11, 2018.

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It's 2005 and SpaceX is about to find itself exiled to a tropical island, but this is no vacation. It's in a race against time to get the Falcon 1 rocket into orbit before Musk's millions runs out. But as the failures mount, Musk stares ruin in the face.

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Even after the Apollo program put astronauts on the moon, Mars remained out of reach. Then, in 1990, an ambitious engineer hatched an ingenious plan to send the first humans to the red planet. But will anyone at NASA buy into his idea?

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Agriculture was invented in no fewer than three, and probably four, places in the Americas. It went along with sedentary living and complex societies, but in complicated ways: fishing villages along the Andean coast grew into the cities of Norte Chico, but hunter-gatherers produced the first great mound complexes of the American southeast. How did farming change, and not change, the diverse societies of the Americas?

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With the help of a former World War Two spy named Paul Helliwell, Walt Disney fights to keep Project Future out of the papers as he navigates a local labyrinth of closed door deals, nosy politicians and intrepid reporters. But Walt’s biggest secret isn’t Project Future—it’s a private battle he’s fighting with his own body.

As Walt Disney sets out to build a second theme park in Florida, he quietly works to keep the top secret project out of the public eye. To make his dream a reality, and to keep Project Future under wraps, Walt will rely on a close-knit team of lawyers, executives, and former World War Two spies. This is the first in our four-episode series on Walt’s efforts to create a second theme park that would correct the errors of his first.

Once the coal miners lost the Battle of Blair Mountain, the story of their uprising was suppressed, and their leader Frank Keeney eventually faded into obscurity—even among members of his own family. But historian Charles Keeney, Frank Keeney’s great grandson, has made it a personal mission to raise public awareness of the mine wars and the pivotal role his ancestor played.

Charles Keeney is the founder of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum and author of The Road to Blair Mountain: Saving a Mine Wars Battlefield from King Coal. He’s also the vice president of Friends of Blair Mountain, an organization dedicated to the preservation and development of the Blair Mountain Battlefield site. He and Lindsay discuss the circumstances that led to Frank Keeney’s radicalization, his friendship with Mother Jones, and why the miners’ uprising resonates with younger generations today.

For more on Charles Keeney: https://twitter.com/cbelmontkeeney

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It's 2003 and in the Mojave Desert, renegade aviation genius Burt Rutan is building a spaceship funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

But while Rutan and Allen are preparing to launch the world's first privately funded astronaut, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are still struggling to get their space missions off the ground.

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Two of Reagan’s top priorities are in jeopardy: American hostages are still in the hands of terrorists, and the Contras are losing their fight against the Sandinistas. In early 1986, the two operations merge. In the middle of it all is Lieutenant Colonel Ollie North.

This episode originally aired on December 4, 2018.

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It's 2001 and a 30-year-old Elon Musk has just been fired from Pay-Pal, the company he co-founded. In need of a second act, he hits on the idea of bankrolling a bizarre Mars mission.

But he's not the only tech tycoon who's stargazing. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has also got space fever. But Bezos’ first step in the interstellar arena will almost cost him his life.

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As Horace Wells’ life goes from bad to worse, William Morton becomes an unlikely hero.

This episode originally aired on November 22, 2018.

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The initial migrations to the Americas get most of the attention, but people didn't stop living there in the aftermath of those first movements of peoples; they spread out over the Great Plains and the forests of the eastern United States, south into the deserts and jungles of Mesoamerica, and into every corner of South America. In the process, they invented agriculture no fewer than three different times.

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With the world plugging into the Internet, toys are under pressure. Kids are swapping plastic play for screen-based entertainment and both Mattel and Hasbro need to adapt. The question is: how?

Mattel’s also finding out the hard way that Barbie’s reign as the queen of dolls is no longer secure. Challengers to her throne are emerging and the first strike against the dream doll comes not from Hasbro, but from within its own offices.

You can find new episodes of Business Wars, completely ad-free, only on Stitcher Premium. For a free month of Stitcher Premium, go to stitcherpremium.com/wondery and use promo code WONDERY.

This episode orginially aired on April 8, 2019.

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The Coal Wars reached an explosive climax in August 1921, as thousands of miners furious over the death of their hero Sid Hatfield shouldered their weapons and marched south. Their destination was Mingo County, where they hoped to free their fellow miners jailed under martial law.

But first, they would have to cross Blair Mountain and armed men led by Logan County’s ruthless anti-union Sheriff Don Chafin. With machine guns and private planes at his disposal, Chafin was prepared to defeat the miners at any cost. Soon, two civilian armies erupted in war, and Blair Mountain became the battleground for the largest armed uprising since the Civil War.

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In July of 1985, the National Security Advisor to President Reagan, Robert “Bud” McFarlane, puts a plan in motion that could change the course of history and turn the Reagan administration upside down.

This episode originally aired on November 27, 2018.

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A few months ago, Mattel’s revenues were just fifty million dollars behind Hasbro’s. But now that Hasbro’s swallowed Tonka—the classic maker of Nerf, Play-Doh, and Monopoly—Mattel is half a billion dollars behind, and CEO John Amerman isn’t happy about it.

Ever since Hasbro turned British fashion doll Sindy into a Barbie lookalike, the two toymakers have been at war. Now Amerman is looking to make a couple strategic acquisitions: one to put Mattel back in pole position, and the other, to spite Hasbro.

This episode originally aired on April 3, 2019.

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After experimenting on himself, Horace Wells realized that laughing gas might help make surgeries less painful. But his search for a business partner would lead him to a fateful encounter with a petty crook named William Morton.

This episode originally aired on November 15, 2020.

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The relationship between agriculture, migration, and the distribution of today's most prominent language families is direct but complex. Professor Peter Bellwood, one of the world's leading experts on prehistory, explains how farming led to population growth and movements of people that still shape our world today.

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It’s the early 1980s and things are not looking good for Hasbro. The company hasn’t had a hit since Hungry Hungry Hippos; its founding CEO Merrill Hassenfeld has just died; now Star Wars dolls have just about gobbled up the entire action figure market. Hasbro needs to deliver a toy capable of taking on the Star Wars dolls, or else the company risks losing its only source of stable income, the family pencil factory.

But Hasbro’s not the only toymaker plotting to take on Star Wars. Three thousand miles away in Los Angeles, Mattel’s also preparing an assault on the action figure market. A line of fantastical action figures called The Masters of the Universe.

This episode originally aired on April 1, 2019.

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In May 1920, Sheriff Sid Hatfield won the loyalty of Mingo County’s miners after a deadly gun battle that left seven Baldwin-Felts agents dead on the streets of Matewan, West Virginia. That summer, the coal companies brought in trainloads of strikebreakers to get the mines running again. But local miners were electrified by the Matewan Massacre and they waged an all-out guerilla war as Hatfield awaited trial for murder.

For months, gunfire and explosions echoed over the hills of Mingo County as the coal companies and their hired guards fought back with equal force. As “Bloody Mingo” made national headlines, the Governor moved to stop the unrest, imposing martial law. Soon, the military regime ruling Mingo County unleashed new atrocities against the miners and their families. And a shocking assassination sparked calls for revenge.

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Ted Kaczynski warned that technology was crushing the human spirit—and harming the planet. Since 1995, when his manifesto was published, Kaczynski has gained a large number of followers. John H. Richardson, a journalist and author, corresponded with Kaczynski, and joins Lindsay to discuss the wide-reaching influence of Kaczynski's ideas.

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Sizzlers, Mattel’s new motorized Hot Wheels, were supposed to be the top toy this Christmas. But sales have fizzled, leaving Mattel $30 million below target. For the last ten years, Mattel’s done exceptionally well by its investors, but now the toymaker is facing a stock price collapse. To keep up appearances, Mattel starts cooking its books—but the move may end up costing CEO Ruth Handler the company.

Elsewhere in Toyland, Hasbro’s facing an uncertain future. Kids are turning their backs on G.I. Joe and the company’s short on cash. As its rivals rush towards an electronic future, Hasbro risks being left behind.

This episode orginally aired on March 27, 2019.

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You’re passionate about the law, but the men around you don’t think women belong in a courtroom. But you’ll show them that women belong wherever decisions are being made.

Hosted by Rachel Bloom.

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Behind every successful business is a story. It starts with a vision and a leap of faith. Along the way, leaders make bold decisions, ride booms and busts, and sometimes, they reach new heights. From Wondery, the makers of the hit series Business Wars, and Lindsay Graham, the host of American History Tellers and American Scandal, comes a weekly podcast that brings you the true stories of the brilliant but all-too-human businesspeople who risked it all. From Walt Disney’s creation of a theme park in Orlando, to the colossal failure of New Coke, Business Moverswill explore the triumphs, failures and ideas that transformed our lives.

Plague, war, and a worsening climate drastically changed Europe in the years and decades after 1350. This new state of affairs laid the groundwork for the explosion around 1500 that gave rise to the modern world.

This episode originally aired on June 28, 2018.

Listen to all episodes ad free and to exclusive seasons 1 and 2 with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/tidesofhistory.

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For decades, Americans resigned themselves to gritting their teeth through the agony of surgery. But then an eminent surgeon, a charming swindler, and his hapless mark crossed paths and changed everything.

This episode originally aired on November 8, 2018.

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It’s the 1960s and Hasbro is struggling. The pencil manufacturer turned toymaker hasn’t had a major success since Mr. Potato Head hit the shelves in 1952, and it’s starting to lose money. If the company doesn’t act fast, it’ll be headed for bankruptcy in no time.

Mattel’s “accessories sold separately” approach to Barbie has revolutionized the industry. Now Hasbro’s toymakers hope to replicate her success with a doll of their own—for boys. But first, they’ll have to get the green light from CEO Merrill Hassenfeld, who has one iron-clad rule about new toys: no dolls.

Meanwhile, Mattel’s about to roll out a hot new boy-themed toy of its own that will cement the company’s status as the world’s top toymaker.

This episode originally aired on March 25, 2019.

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In March 1913, famed labor activist Mother Jones was locked up in a shack in Pratt, West Virginia, suffering from pneumonia and a high fever as she awaited court martial. For a year, the striking miners she led endured hunger and violence as they waged their desperate battle for the right to organize. Now, their struggle hung in the balance. West Virginia was under martial law, and hope for victory over the powerful coal companies seemed dimmer than ever.

Newly inaugurated Governor Henry Hatfield vowed to end the crisis. But the deal would drive a wedge through the miners’ movement. New leaders took charge of the union, steering the miners through World War I and a daring new campaign into the state’s isolated southern counties. Soon, a violent showdown in the mountain town of Matewan would ignite a new, dangerous escalation in the conflict.

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The FBI gets closer to the Unabomber. But a leak to the media threatens the case. And soon, agents are forced to take action.

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President Donald Trump faces off with President Obama’s political wingman: Vice President Joe Biden. In a contest defined by partisan rancor, congressional investigations and a global pandemic, Donald Trump claims he is the man to “Keep America Great” while Joe Biden claims he is the man to win the battle for the “Soul of America.”

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Audio editing by Mollie Baack. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com.

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It’s the late 1940s and two small toymakers are taking their first uneasy steps. The names of these young hopefuls are Hasbro and Mattel. One’s an offshoot of a pencil manufacturer. The other a husband-and-wife garage start-up.

But toy-mayking, they soon discover, is an unexpectedly cutthroat business. If either of these companies hopes to survive--let alone succeed--they’re going to need to get creative. Disrupting the embedded and experienced kingpins of Toyland, will require them to take chances on TV, potatoes, Mickey Mouse and one particularly risqué novelty doll from Germany.

This episode originally aired on March 20, 2019.

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Every time you stand up to a bully, you put your life on the line. But standing up to them will also become your life’s work.

Hosted by Aricia Skidmore-Williams.

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East Asia was one of the world's primary centers of agricultural innovation. Farming was invented there, rice and millet domesticated, and the people who did so grew in numbers and sophistication. Some of the world's most-spoken language families grew out of Neolithic China, and so did the roots of Chinese civilization.

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2020 has been a year of struggle, uncertainty and loss. It has also forced us to adapt and innovate in nearly every aspect of our lives. But no innovation this year has been more important and more astounding than the Covid-19 vaccine. On this year-end episode, Steven talks to Bruce Gellin, president of Global Immunization at the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington, D.C.. about what to expect from the imminent Covid-19 vaccine.

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Alexander Graham Bell wouldn’t recognize the telephone today. Our phones allow us to keep the internet in our pockets and offer an endless stream of information and entertainment. But they're also altering our society. On this episode, Steven talks to Dr Larry Rosen, co-author of “The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High Tech World,” about how smartphones have impacted our lives.

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In the early 20th century, coal was the fuel that powered an industrializing nation. But the men who mined it in the rugged and remote hills of West Virginia endured harsh exploitation by the coal companies that controlled their lives. In the spring of 1912, miners in West Virginia’s Kanawha Valley rose up against the companies and their powerful allies in law enforcement with a strike for their right to join a union.

But the mine operators responded with force. They hired private security agents to attack the miners and their families and evict them from their homes. Soon, the escalating conflict brought the era’s most notorious labor activist, Mother Jones, to the scene. A self-described “hellraiser,” Jones joined forces with miners on the ground, sparking a series of bloody armed clashes that would rage across West Virginia for the next decade.

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Throughout our series, we've seen how social movements and partisan politics helped influence the decisions of landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases, and thus shape America itself. But how did the Supreme Court get so powerful when America's founders imagined a more limited role? Today, the idea of court-packing, first proposed by Roosevelt to push through his New Deal agenda, is back as a way to rein in the power of the Court. In this episode, Lindsay speaks with Rachel Shelden, an associate professor of history at Penn State and director of the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center about how the Court’s power has grown since its founding, and how politicians and presidents could use that to their advantage.

For more on Rachel Shelden: https://history.la.psu.edu/directory/ras6620

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With TikTok’s legal future hanging in the balance, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t been shy about borrowing what works from the Chinese upstart and replicating it within Instagram. But his copycat feature Reels made more of a ripple than a splash when it debuted. For more on TikTok’s woes, we speak with Taylor Lorenz. She covers culture and technology for the New York Times and tells us why TikTok’s success can’t be easily duplicated and how Instagram’s Reels-focused redesign angered the platform’s long time influencers.

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A fight erupts between Ted Kaczynski and his brother, David. And when tragedy strikes, the Kaczynski family begins to break apart.

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It's July 2020. TikTok usage has skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it faces an unexpected threat — powerful politicians with their own agenda. Now, TikTok must find a solution or risk being shut down in the U.S.

Instagram, meanwhile, strikes back with a new feature. It's another copycat product the company's putting front and center for its 1 billion users. And one that could spell trouble for TikTok.

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Imagine— You have a thriving business. A beautiful family. Everyone says you have it all. But your inner voices are whispering something very different.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen.

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Hominins have lived in East Asia - what's now China, Korea, and Japan - for millions of years, at least as far back as Homo erectus if not further. And as the glaciers began to recede for the last time after 20,000 years ago, people in this part of the world developed humanity's first pottery, rice-farming, and complex societies of incredible diversity and resilience.

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Alexander Graham Bell has created one of the most important inventions in history. Now all he has to do is fight a business partner who doesn't care and a corporate monster that wants to destroy him.

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It’s November 2018. Mark Zuckerberg takes a hit as his copycat TikTok product fails miserably. Then, Instagram faces another disaster when a security breach draws ire from users. But Zuckerberg decides to launch a direct attack on his Chinese competitor.

TikTok emerges as a major hitmaker in the music business and cements its place in pop culture. But founder Zhang Yiming's hot app comes under scrutiny from regulators, as it gets drawn into a geopolitical battle that could spell the end of TikTok.

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In 1970, a 22-year-old woman in Texas named Norma McCorvey tried and failed to get an abortion from her doctor. Abortion was illegal in Texas, just as it was in most states. Women hoping to terminate their pregnancies had few options, and many resorted to risky back-alley procedures.

McCorvey was soon introduced to a pair of young lawyers who hoped to go to court to challenge the Texas law banning abortion. Before long, McCorvey became the plaintiff known only as “Jane Roe.”

Her case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, where the Justices would rule on whether the constitutional right to privacy applied to abortion. The Court’s landmark ruling changed the lives of American women, and unleashed intense controversy, dividing the nation for decades to come.

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Ted Kaczynski falls in love. But soon, he's shocked by some news—and retreats into the wilderness in Montana. It's there that he pushes forward with a deadly bombing campaign.

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It's August 2016 and Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are about to pull off the tech equivalent of a heist — and they just might get away with it. But despite its success, Instagram faces trouble at home when Mark Zuckerberg starts rocking the boat.

In China, TikTok founder Zhang Yiming has his eyes on global expansion. He's willing to spend big to acquire his competition — and that poses a huge threat to Instagram's supremacy.

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To become the great scientist you want to be, you need to stay cool, collected, focused. But every time you sit down to study the mating rituals of eels, your mind drifts off to your own chances with the fairer sex.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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In the 19th Century, the telegraph is the cutting edge of communication. No one can imagine anything better—except Alexander Graham Bell.

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Professor Stephen Shennan is one of the world's leading experts on the early farmers of the Fertile Crescent and Europe. In this interview, I pick his brain about why early farmers were so, uh, fertile, and produced so many descendants; how those farmers spread outward from their regions of origin; and how we can understand their Neolithic world. Professor Shennan also one of the world's most accomplished archaeological theorists, and he answers my questions about archaeology in the age of Big Data, statistics, and new ways of understanding the past.

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The morning of Nov. 8, 2000, Americans woke up to an undecided election. Pollsters had predicted a close race between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush, but no one knew just how narrow the margins would be. It all hinged on Florida, where 25 electoral votes were up for grabs.

Over the next 36 days, armies of lawyers waged a bitter fight to determine how to count the votes in Florida. It was a battle that would eventually find its way to the Supreme Court.

In its long history, the Court had been asked to weigh in on political matters, but never before had it intervened in the results of a presidential election. The case that became known as Bush v. Gore would ultimately send one man to the White House and expose the Court to intense public scrutiny.

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It’s the mid '90s and Kevin Systrom is editing a video game. It's his first taste of coding, but it won't be his last. When he grows up, he's going to build a product used by more than a billion people.

Across the Pacific Ocean, in a rural part of China, Zhang Yiming is having a very different childhood. But he and Systrom share a common North Star: The American Dream. Achieving that dream, however, will be a nightmare filled with stiff competition and cut-throat corporate maneuvers.

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Ted Kaczynski faces a painful rejection in high school. Then he endures an abusive psychology experiment at Harvard. Kaczynski may be an academic prodigy, but he feels lonely and out of place. His solution? He's going to get revenge on modern society.

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It’s July 2010, and Kevin Systrom is on holiday in Mexico when he has an idea for how to save his failing app: offer filters to make users’ photos more appealing. He gets back to San Francisco and teams up with his friend Mike Krieger. Together they launch Instagram, a platform that will revolutionize how we interact with society.

Meanwhile in Beijing, China, Zhang Yiming starts a news aggregator app powered by AI. It learns which stories users like and feeds them more of it, giving people what they want before they know it. This powerful algorithm will become the foundation for TikTok, an app that will become a proxy battleground for the feud between the U.S. and China.

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You’re determined to write about serious stories that matter—you just don’t see why that should mean ignoring half the population. But after someone you love dearly betrays you, you use your pen to write yourself a happy ending.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen

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Peasants and common folk were oppressed by their social superiors, but they didn't accept that as a natural state of affairs: They resisted in small, everyday ways, and they rebelled, sometimes spectacularly.

This episode originally aired on September 20, 2018.

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All Andy Hildebrand wanted to do was make a computer program to help singers sound better. He never expected it to kick off a battle for the soul of modern music.

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Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, will break the mold this year, as the pandemic sends retailers scrambling for new ways to bring in customers while minimizing large crowds. But the changes to American shopping habits predate the pandemic. Host David Brown talks with Business Insider retail correspondent Madeline Stone about what to expect from a COVID Christmas and which changes to our spending habits are likely to stick.

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Before the 1950s, the Supreme Court was best known as an institution that adhered to the status quo. It often sought to protect the rights of property owners and businessmen, shying away from cases that took direct aim at controversial social or political issues.

But when a popular former California governor became Chief Justice in 1953, all that changed. Earl Warren’s court would take on some of the hottest issues of the times, ruling on cases where individual rights would take precedent, such as Brown v. Board of Education and Baker v. Carr, and where First Amendment and Fifth Amendment rights would be strengthened, such as Engle v. Vitale and Miranda v. Arizona.

For sixteen years, the Warren Court would radically reshape the legal and social landscape of America.

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In 1979, disco was a dominant force in American music. It took the top spots in the Billboard charts, and sold countless records. But with its culturally diverse audience, disco faced a major backlash. And that would lead to a crisis one evening in July of 1979, when a promotional event at a baseball game turned into a riot. Vince Lawrence was at that game, and has since become a music producer and documentary filmmaker. He and Lindsay discuss the meaning of that infamous night, and how disco’s legacy is still with us today, in music and in culture.

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From the mid-1950s to the early '70s, the FBI employed a secret program known as COINTELPRO. It aimed to disrupt a wide range of social activism, from anti-war protests, to the fight for racial justice. At the time, Clayborne Carson was on the front lines of the battles for civil rights. He’d go on to become the founding director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute, at Stanford University. He and Lindsay sit down to discuss the FBI's investigations of civil rights leaders. They also discuss how those events echo what's happening now between law enforcement and activists.

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Consumers are increasingly looking to buy from brands whose values match their own, and denim is no different. These days, the jeans giants are not only facing down threats from each other, but navigating a new era of partisan consumerism. For more on how denim and other industries are appealing to consumers on both sides of the aisle, we speak with Cait Lamberton. She's a professor of marketing at Wharton who specializes in consumption behavior and marketing practice. Plus, she shares advice for entrepreneurs wondering whether to take their brands political.

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You’ve always been the kind of man who won’t tolerate disrespect, who’s proud to go it alone. But when an important protocol is breached, you find yourself in a desperate situation.

Hosted by Hill Harper

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With AIDS under control here in the U.S., we find ourselves in the middle of another deadly pandemic. Now the doctors who were on the front lines of the AIDS crisis are using what they've learned over the past 30 years to help fight against Covid-19. On this episode, Steven talks to Dr. Monica Gandhi, director of the UCSF Center for AIDS Research, who has recently contributed to research into SARS-CoV-2.

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What were Neanderthals really like? Our closest relatives shared an incredible amount in common with us, argues Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of the wonderful new book Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art. But we shouldn't pigeonhole them; Neanderthals persisted for hundreds of thousands of years across time and space, living diverse and varied lives everywhere from mountains to deserts to icy tundra.

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Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art (Bloomsbury Sigma)

By the beginning of the 21st century, the SAT is yet again on the defensive about the fairness of its test. Meanwhile the ACT gains ground. Then, a far-reaching scandal allows the ACT to finally overtake the SAT. And a larger, unexpected crisis threatens both tests’ futures.

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Through most of 1941, as fighting raged across Europe, the United States held back from entering the war. That all changed in December, when Japanese fighter planes bombed Pearl Harbor and the nation found itself mobilizing for World War II. Suddenly, the frenzy to fight enemies abroad turned to suspicion against those at home.

President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, giving the military the power to detain and permanently jail over 110,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. But three young detainees would defy their fate.

Fred Korematsu, Gordon Hirabayshi and Mitsuye Endo would challenge the U.S. policy of Japanese internment and bring their cases all the way to the Supreme Court — pitting the wartime powers of the United States against the constitutional rights of American citizens.

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It's 1999 and Levi's is a company in trouble. It's drowning in debt, out of fashion, and hobbled by sub-par distribution.

But while Levi's searches for a way to make a comeback, a new, fast-growing enemy is out to convince people to abandon jeans altogether.

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Antiwar activists hatch a risky plan. Led by a physics professor, the group decides to burglarize an FBI office. The goal: to find incriminating documents, and to expose decades of federal abuses.

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It's the '80s and Levi's is far out in front in the battle for denim dominance.

But Lee owner V.F. Corporation isn't giving up. It's about to make a major move that will pile the pressure on Levi's and threaten its status as market leader.

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In this week’s special episode for the whole family, you may be young, and small for your age. And you feel like no one takes you seriously—especially not your big sister. But that’s not going to stop you from becoming one of the greatest performers in the world.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen

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As AIDS activists keep up the pressure to find new treatments and lower the price of existing ones, they win unlikely allies at the highest levels of government. Meanwhile, some doctors on the frontlines of the epidemic take drug research into their own hands. And a new class of drugs promises to bring the sickest AIDS patients back from the brink of death.

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Five thousand years ago, a man died more than 10,000 feet high in the Alps of northern Italy. He had been shot in the back with an arrow, the corpse left behind, where he was frozen into a glacier along with all of his belongings. He stayed there until two hikers found him - still half covered in ice - in 1991. What was Ötzi's life like? And what can we learn about his final days and hours? Thanks to incredible scientific studies, we know more about Ötzi than almost anybody who's ever lived.

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It’s 1978, and the influence of the college entrance exams has never been higher. Almost every major college in the country requires a test for admission. But the industry is entirely unregulated. Wealthy students who take prep classes and hire tutors consistently score higher than those who don’t. But since neither test will release past exams, it’s impossible for students who can’t afford classes to study on their own. Politicians begin to take notice, including powerful consumer advocate Ralph Nader. As state legislatures around the country start pushing for more transparency in testing, the SAT and the ACT have to bond together to prevent laws that will change their business forever.

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After the Civil War, America began to rebuild a shattered nation. For the first time, the country could create a society without slavery, and a nation where Black people could forge their own path as independent citizens.

But by the 1890s, the laws and policies that promised new rights for Black citizens in the South were under assault. In Louisiana, white politicians attempted to turn back the clock on racial progress by passing the Separate Cars Act and reinstating segregation.

The move prompted a Black New Orleans activist group called the Comité des Citoyens to rise up and challenge the law. Members Louis Martinet and Albion Tourgee aimed to build atest case – a case that would force the Supreme Court to strike down segregation laws, and disprove the idea that “separate” could ever be “equal.”

The high-stakes case would define race relations for decades to come. And it would begin with a brief train car ride in New Orleans, by a 29-year-old shoemaker named Homer Plessy.

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It's the late '60s and Levi's is seeking to stay on trend by tuning into the flower-power movement taking over San Francisco.

But keeping up with the ever-shifting tides of fashion is harder than it looks and soon Europe will be taking jeans onto an unfamiliar battleground: the catwalk.

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Fred Hampton is a rising star in the civil rights movement. But when he challenges police brutality, he finds that his life is suddenly threatened.

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It's the 1950s and young Americans are idolizing the new wave of Hollywood rebels and horrifying their parents by wearing jeans.

But as these post-war renegades take denim duds out of the workplace, the jean giants find themselves between a rock and a hard place.

Do they hold fast to their traditional base of cowboys and factory workers, or embrace the teenagers who are adopting denim?

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You’re ten years old, and your father’s just passed away. You decide, the only way to avoid your pain is to keep moving forward, no matter what. And your strategy works – until you start to feel less and less … human.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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Today, everywhere from Bengal to British Columbia, some 3.2 billion people speak an Indo-European language. All of these diverse languages are descended from a common ancestor spoken long before the advent of writing. But where and when was that, and who were the speakers of Proto-Indo-European? Follow us more than 5,000 years back in time to a story about livestock herding, horseback riding, chieftains, burial mounds, and powerful new gods.

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Four years into the AIDS epidemic, scientists discover a drug that may treat the disease: AZT. But the new drug quickly becomes mired in controversy -- over how it's tested, its potential side effects, and its astronomical price tag.

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In California, the country’s largest university system is moving to become selective in its admissions for the first time. And both the ACT and SAT have their eyes on the Golden State. They see the UC system as an opportunity to move beyond their regional strongholds and become a national test. The president of the University of California is partial to the SAT, but the ACT gains a surprising toehold, pitting the two tests against each other for the first time.

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It's the mid-1800s and a young wholesaler called Levi Strauss is looking to cash in on the California Gold Rush.

But when a wandering tailor approaches Strauss with a revolutionary idea, his business takes an unexpected turn into the world of workwear — and it will change his family’s destiny.

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In the early 1800s, the United States was growing rapidly, seeking land and resources for its expanding population. But the growth threatened Native American communities throughout the East. In the southern Appalachia region, the Cherokee Nation held millions of acres of prime farmland and forests, managed by a centuries-old tradition and a thriving government. But the state of Georgia, and a relentless President Andrew Jackson, set their sights on seizing the land.

When the Georgia statehouse declared political war, Cherokee advocates fought back. Newspaper publisher Elias Boudinot and Cherokee Chief John Ross took their challenge all the way to the Supreme Court, forcing Chief Justice John Marshall to weigh in on two monumental cases, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Worcester v. Georgia.

At stake was a decision that would test the limits of the high court’s power -- and determine the future and sovereignty of a threatened nation.

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Donald J. Trump returns to the political arena. First as a longshot candidate and then as an improbable frontrunner, Trump makes his way through a crowded Republican primary field to take on Democratic nominee, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Trump and Clinton go head to head in a divisive election that upends political norms and further deepens the divide between Right and Left.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Audio editing by Mollie Baack. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The FBI goes after Martin Luther King, Jr., after the civil rights leader calls for an end to racial injustice. The bureau begins to spy on King—and forces him to make an impossible decision.

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It's the 1930s and Californian jeans maker Levi Strauss & Co. is struggling. The Great Depression is destroying jobs and killing demand for its denim workwear.

So when a craze for the Old West boosts demand for jeans, Levi's and its rival Lee seize the moment. But then an unfamiliar stranger swaggers into town looking to make their battle a three-way shootout.

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You've always been awkward, a square. But that's not going to stop you from rising to the top of the top in America. Even if you have to wage a fierce battle when you get there.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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In the early 1980s, a mysterious new disease spread like wildfire through the gay communities of major U.S. cities. Before it even had a name, AIDS had already killed over half its victims. Public response was hampered by ignorance, fear, and homophobia. This is the story of the doctors, scientists and activists who risked everything to lead the fight against AIDS.

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When we think of the medieval world, our minds usually turn to knights, royalty, and clergy. But the backbone of the medieval economic and social order was the humble peasant. In this rebroadcast from 2018, we explore the world and lives of the vast bulk of the people who actually lived in the Middle Ages, and why they matter.

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The first farmers of Europe and their descendants persisted for thousands of years. In the Neolithic heartland of eastern Europe, along the Danube River and through the northern Balkan Mountains, they built a unique civilization: Old Europe, with its artificial mounds, gorgeous pottery, and for the first time, the use of metal. The first cities in the world grew out of this long-lived Neolithic just before it disappeared forever.

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Before there was the ACT, there was the SAT.

It’s the early 1930s and two visionaries — Harvard President James Bryant Conant and a young dean named Henry Chauncey — believe intelligence testing can change the world. They take a test used for Army recruits and transform it into the go-to college entrance exam for elite Northeast colleges. Conant and Chauncey have goals of opening up college to the brightest students in the country, as opposed to just the wealthiest. But there’s a dark history to the SAT it will never escape.

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COVID-19 has flipped the economy on its head. But the pandemic’s new normal has also created new opportunities. Against all odds, some businesses are actually thriving -- and we’re not just talking about streaming companies. Today we bring you a roundup of some of our favorite recent stories from our weekday news podcast, Business Wars Daily.

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After the War of Independence, the new American government created the Supreme Court to be have the final word on disputes that the states couldn’t settle. But at first, the Court was anything but Supreme.

For nearly a decade, Congress and the President held the real power. In practice the Supreme Court was weak, ineffectual and disorganized – a post so unappealing that many men turned down nominations to serve on its bench.

All that would change with the appointment of Chief Justice John Marshall and the arrival of a case called Marbury v. Madison — a political drama that would embroil the new President Thomas Jefferson, outgoing president John Adams, the U.S. Congress, and even the Chief Justice himself.

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Billie Holiday makes a decision. The jazz singer will perform "Strange Fruit," the protest song about lynchings, no matter what happens to her—and no matter how many times law enforcement tells her to stay quiet. But that puts her in the crosshairs of one federal official, who uses any means necessary to silence Holiday.

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As Barack Obama fends off attacks on everything from his foreign policy to the color of his suits, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney defends his religion and fights his way through a crowded Republican primary to secure the GOP nomination. As the 2012 election takes shape, both sides see a narrow path to victory. In the midst of the divisive campaign, a New York businessman turned reality television star helps reignite an old conspiracy theory in an effort to deprive Obama of a second term.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Audio editing by Mollie Baack. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Michael Federico. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com.

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When Ernest and Joseph Gallo died in 2007, decades after their brother Julio, it put an end to a family saga that had stretched for the better part of a century. But the company the brothers founded is still going strong. On the show this week is Cyril Penn, Editor In Chief of Wine Business Monthly, a trade magazine for the wine industry. We’ll talk about the current state of the Gallo Family wine brand and how it fits in the wider California wine industry. Plus, we’ll bring in Barbara Bogaev, who wrote this series, for a quick chat about how she researched the story.

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For you making art is holy, like a prayer. But one question keeps you up at night: What if artists are … like saints? What if you can’t choose to be one – you can only be chosen?

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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How do we know what we know about the deep past? What languages did people speak in prehistory? And why, if the life of an early farmer seemed to be so miserable, did farmers have so many children? I answer all of these questions and more in our first prehistory mailbag episode.

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Can a computer pass for human? And more importantly, can a computer beat a human at Jeopardy? It’s all fun and games until we start putting life-changing decisions in the hands of machines.

Note: This episode originally aired in September 2018.

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For many high school students today, taking the SAT or the ACT is as much a rite of passage as getting a driver’s license or going to prom. But the use of entrance exams is a relatively recent addition to the college admissions process.

It’s just after WWII, and more and more students are applying to college. Schools decide they need a standardized test to help evaluate this new stream of applicants and to keep access walled off.

The SAT quickly corners the market on elite schools in the Northeast. But a professor at the University of Iowa is about to upend that monopoly. He launches the ACT and kicks off a decades-long rivalry that impacts not only who goes to college but where they go.

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The year 1968 marked a watershed in American politics. Anti-war protests were roiling the country. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was shot dead in Memphis. Democratic President Lyndon Johnson’s approval rating was plummeting. The assassination of Democratic presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy would throw the party into disarray, toppling the New Deal coalition built by Franklin Delano Roosevelt two generations earlier and leading to a conservative surge.

The political sea change would drive Republican nominee Richard Nixon to the White House in 1968. And it would eventually elect a former actor and California governor who would change the face of American politics in ways that are still being felt to this day. His name was Ronald Reagan.

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It’s the 1980’s and Gallo rockets to the top of the new lucrative wine cooler market with a brilliant ad campaign for its Bartles and Jaymes brand. But long held resentments, buried secrets and lurking distrust bubble up to the surface when the “unknown Gallo brother,” Joe, Jr., launches a cheese business under the label of Joseph Gallo. Now Ernest, Julio and Joe Jr. fight a final bitter trademark battle in court over the family fortune and legacy.

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New York Senator and former First Lady Hillary Clinton enters the 2008 election as the presumptive favorite to win the Democratic nomination. But Barack Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois, creates a groundswell in the Party and leaves Clinton behind. To win the White House, Obama must overcome racist attacks from both sides, conspiracy theories about his birth, and a veteran Republican senator: John McCain. But as George W. Bush’s presidency comes to an end, an impending financial crisis leaves the Republican party vulnerable and it threatens John McCain’s prospects for victory.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Audio editing by Mollie Baack. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Michael Federico. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's been over 40 years since the crisis unfolded at Three Mile Island. But the nuclear accident still lingers with us today, as the United States confronts new public health emergencies. At the time of the accident, Peter Bradford was a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He joins Lindsay to discuss what went wrong at Three Mile Island; who was responsible for the crisis; and how nuclear power could play a larger role in the future, as the world looks to fight climate change

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Heading into the turbulent 1960s, Ernest Gallo attempts to conquer the Midwestern wine market by taking on a dangerous associate of Al Capone in Chicago.

As the company grows, the two Gallos join forces in consolidating their control over the family empire and edging their younger brother, Joe, Jr, out of the family business. But just as Gallo reaches the pinnacle of the industry, it gets caught in the middle of a major labor rights battle. Cesar Chavez and his United Farmworkers are fighting with the Teamsters union over who will represent grape pickers. Chavez’s Gallo Boycott is poised to become the company’s biggest public relations challenge yet.

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In this week’s special episode for the whole family, you long to go to Africa and have adventures like Tarzan. But everyone tells you girls aren’t supposed to do things like that. You’ll just have to prove them wrong.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen.

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It didn't take long for the first pioneering farmers of Europe to establish mature and stable societies. The monuments of these societies are still with us today: enormous earthen tombs and standing stones, silent reminders of a lost civilization.

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A leap in the power of machine learning and artificial intelligence causes concern about the dangers ahead.

Note: This episode originally aired in September 2018.

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The 1929 stock market crash saw 14 billion dollars vanish in a matter of hours — and with it, the Republican party’s decades-long grip on American politics. As Americans lost their livelihoods, they turned to President Herbert Hoover for relief. But the self-made man who had so successfully reversed his own fortunes seemed unable to do the same for his country. With discontent growing, Hoover turned on World War veterans demanding early bonus payouts to support their families. It would prove the last straw for many Americans.

The landslide election of 1932 would mark a profound realignment in U.S. politics, bringing urban centers under Democratic control for the first time in the party’s history. And it would propel into the White House Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose sweeping New Deal would permanently transform the American political landscape.

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It’s the 1940s and as American soldiers battle the Axis powers overseas, Ernest and Julio Gallo fulfill lucrative government contracts for jet fuel ingredients made out of ethyl alcohol, known as "torpedo juice.” They also make a risky wager on the volatile grape market. When peace comes, the Gallo brothers pour their wartime windfall into developing the most aggressive and controversial sales techniques in the industry.

Towards the end of the 1950s Ernest Gallo creates a blockbuster new product aimed at black, urban consumers. Thunderbird — beloved by winos everywhere — rockets Gallo to the top, but drives a wedge between the high-minded winemaker Julio Gallo and his bottom-line obsessed brother, Ernest.

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As President George W. Bush navigates the challenges of his first year in office, he is confronted by one of the gravest, most horrific tragedies ever to reach American shores. But Bush’s response to 9/11 puts his presidency under fire. In the wake of the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan, Bush’s decision to go to war with Iraq costs him politically, and it leads the Democrats to look for a war hero candidate to lead them through a wartime election: North Carolina Senator John Kerry.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Audio editing by Mollie Baack. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Thomas Addy. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A large bubble of hydrogen emerges in the nuclear reactor, threatening to cause a catastrophic explosion. President Carter dispatches an envoy. The goal: to get control of the crisis. And Pennsylvania's leaders face a big moment, as they decide whether to evacuate the region.

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Years after helping usher in a new era of sexual awakening, Playboy magazine is no more. The last print issue of the iconic magazine came off the presses in March 2020. But the bunny isn’t done yet. What’s risen from the ashes is a lifestyle brand that draws on its roots while targeting a new generation of woke Millennials.

To dig into this brand evolution, David is joined by Jared Dougherty, President of Playboy industries and Rachel Webber, Playboy’s Chief Marketing Officer.

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It’s the 1930s and with Prohibition finally over, Americans are eager to drown themselves in booze. Ernest Gallo persuades his reluctant brother, Julio, to partner with him on starting a winery. Ernest employs every trick in the book to bolster sales, including conning customers, flouting laws and dodging government inspectors. He then gives his younger brother Joe, Jr. a menial job in the family business, but mistreats him badly. And when Joe, Jr. comes of age, Ernest and Julio terminate their guardianship of him in a secretive manner that will haunt the family, and one day cast a terrible shadow over their empire.

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Soon after your birth, a fortune teller promised you’d be someone special. But years later you’re far from home, sleeping on a park bench and taking menial jobs to scrape by. You know you’re meant for better things. You just have to make the world see it.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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Farming came into existence in the Fertile Crescent, but it didn't stay there. By 5000 BC, agriculture had spread east and west, reaching both Central Asia and the Atlantic Ocean. But how did this happen? Did indigenous hunter-gatherers adopt farming, or did the farmers themselves move and bring their way of life with them?

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The development of smartphone Artificial Intelligence from early government research funding and the first experimental robot in Silicon Valley to the rise of the personal assistant known as Siri.

Note: This episode originally aired in September 2018.

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As the Civil War came to a close, the government set its sights once again on the future of the United States. Working closely with a Republican President, the Republican Congress expected a swift and peaceful road to Reconstruction. But then, a mere four weeks into his second term, Lincoln was assassinated, leaving the country in the hands of Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat who had personally owned slaves just three years before.

While Johnson’s unwavering commitment to states rights cultivated a fraught relationship with his Congress, the tumult would ultimately be short-lived. After just four years of a Democratic president, America’s Grand Old Party would ascend to power—and hold it—for over 70 years.

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It’s the roaring twenties and Joe Gallo Sr.’s two teenage sons, Ernest and Julio, help run the family’s extensive vineyards and bootlegging operations. Young Ernest plays a tricky game, dealing with Al Capone in Chicago and dodging G-men. But the stock market crash of ’29 pitches the family into a financial free fall, and drives their volatile father to become increasingly violent. Until, one fateful day, their parent’s lives come to a sudden, horrific and mysterious end.

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With Bill Clinton’s tenure as president coming to an end, Vice President Al Gore takes up the mantle for the Democrats. Gore tries to distance himself from the Clinton scandals while Republicans look to the son of a former president to get them back into the White House. In November of 2000, Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush find themselves embroiled in one of the most controversial presidential elections in modern history.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Audio editing by Mollie Baack. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Thomas Addy and Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When politics intervene, the engineers at Three Mile Island find themselves up against a wall. Mike Pintek airs a stunning interview on the radio, and causes a panic. And Bill Scranton tries to restore calm to the shaken residents of Pennsylvania.

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It's the early 1900’s and two young brothers emigrate from Italy to the US to make their fortunes. In California, they con, grift and bamboozle their fellow immigrants out of thousands of dollars, enough to start a wine business. But when Prohibition shuts that down, they dive into the dangerous game of bootlegging, with disastrous results.

The older brother has two young sons, Ernest and Julio Gallo. He doesn’t know it yet, but his sons will eventually transform his sketchy legacy into the largest wine company in the world, E & J Gallo Winery.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Neuroscientist, philosopher, podcaster, author, meditation guru, and unabashed atheist Sam Harris is one of our best-known — and most controversial — public intellectuals. In this bonus episode, he and Rufus talk about consciousness, free will, morality, and people’s stubborn insistence on being irrational.

You’ve made it to the top of the top in entertainment, and you’re only a teenager. But you’ve got some serious obstacles. Like your mom. And the machine known as Hollywood. You’ll fight to survive, but are you strong enough?

Hosted by Virginia Madsen.

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With six different kinds of pieces, 64 squares to move in, and billions of possible combinations of moves, chess is a good test for a computer. The number of distinct 40-move games is far greater than the number of electrons in the visible universe. For all intents and purposes: almost infinite.

Gary Kasparov is the world’s best chess player. Deep Blue is a computer. It’s humanity v machine. There’s a lot at stake and things turn controversial fast with accusations of cheating, a very human meltdown and a computer that hallucinates.

Note: This episode originally aired in September 2018.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Neuroscientist, philosopher, podcaster, author, meditation guru, and unabashed atheist Sam Harris is one of our best-known — and most controversial — public intellectuals. In this bonus episode, he and Rufus talk about consciousness, free will, morality, and people’s stubborn insistence on being irrational.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 2009, Domino’s went into crisis mode after a prank threatened to ruin the brand’s already substandard image. You might say that was a wake up call. The company would go on to invest heavily in technology and delivery in the intervening years.

Meanwhile, Pizza Hut doubled down on its sit-in restaurants and fancier toppings, but their investment barely moved the needle on profits.

Now after 60 years of jockeying for the top spot in the pizza hierarchy, Domino’s has pulled out in front of its biggest competitor. But there are even more challenges coming to Pizza Hut and Domino’s, not to mention the entire restaurant industry itself.

To dig into this more David is joined by Sam Oches. He’s the editorial director of Food News Media, a B2B company specializing in the fast casual industry.

For more on Sam Oches check out his podcast Fast Forward and QSR Magazine.

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The United States won the The Mexican–American War in the 1840s, and with it vast new stretches of western land. But in the 1850s, the question of what to do with this land – and whether to allow slavery in the new territories or not – became a redning issue for politicians of all stripes.

While the Whig Party collapsed over the issue, Democrats split into Northern and Southern factions, and a new Republican Party tried to bind the Union with an appeal to old Jeffersonian values. But in the houses of Congress and across the nation, negotiations fail, compromise is abandoned; and the issue of slavery will overshadow all else, leading to Civil War.

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Bill Clinton bounces back from early problems in his presidency and looks to become the first two-term Democratic president since Franklin Roosevelt. To stop him, Republicans turn to Senator Bob Dole and try to conjure images of a glorious American past that only they can bring back. But Dole won’t be the Democrats’ biggest problem: with re-election on the line, Bill and Hillary Clinton will find themselves at the center of multiple scandals.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Audio editing by Mollie Baack. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Michael Federico. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On March 28, 1979, Bill Zewe hears an alarm at Three Mile Island. Something has gone terribly wrong at the nuclear power plant, in southern Pennsylvania. And now, the operators at the plant must move fast—before a crisis engulfs the region.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s 2009 and Domino’s is about to risk everything in a daring bid to shake off its reputation as the home of sub-par pizza.

But Pizza Hut’s having a hard time too. Its iconic red-roof restaurants are now holding it back, so the brand looks to satisfy America’s increasingly demanding palate.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The domestication of animals has transformed the way that people eat, clothe themselves, and live over the past 10,000 or so years, but what in the world does "domestication" even mean? How did this happen, and why did people start doing this? I talk with Professor Greger Larson of Oxford University about the genetics of animal domestication and how cutting-edge science is helping us answer these age-old questions.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Artificial Intelligence is no longer the stuff of science fiction. And it’s about to get much more powerful: machines that can reason, create, predict the future, even dream. AI is likely to be one of the most transformative technologies of the 21st century.

This is the first in our four-episode series about the rise of artificial intelligence and humanity's quest to breathe intellectual life into computers. In this episode, we're going to meet the mavericks who first dreamed of a world where machines are capable of being smarter than the people who created them.

And what better way for smart machines and their creators to face off in a battle of wits ... than by playing chess?

Note: This episode originally aired in August 2018.

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Andrew Jackson lost the 1824 presidential election to John Quincy Adams through what some called a “corrupt bargain” in the House of Representatives. The maneuver was masterminded by hot-headed but politically savvy Henry Clay, who with Adams, announced their intent for far-reaching new federal programs. Fierce opposition to these policies united pro-Jackson supporters who formed a new party, the Democrats, to rally around their hero and elect him to president in 1828.

But while Adams was defeated, Henry Clay had no intention of leaving the fight. He helped lead a new party which gathered together anti-Jackson, fiscal conservatives, and pro-states rights factions. The rise of Clay’s new Whig party seemed unstoppable–they captured both houses of Congress and the presidency–until, on April 4, 1841, president William Henry Harrison died in office and gave John Tyler the power of the veto.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s the 1990s and Domino’s rapid rise on the back of its 30-minute delivery guarantee is about to smash straight into a legal roadblock.

And while Domino’s extracts itself from the wreckage, Pizza Hut’s cooking up a new recipe for success. Its latest creation will horrify purists and help the chain fend off pizza’s newest player: Papa John’s.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

President George H.W. Bush tries to shore up his Republican coalition and offer the American people a clear picture of what a second Bush term will look like. Meanwhile, down South, a young saxophone-playing Democratic governor from Arkansas and an Independent Texas businessman will make a second term for Bush seem like an impossibility.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Audio editing by Mollie Baack. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Michael Federico. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The United States is home to a large number of big businesses, from entertainment conglomerates to the giants of tech. Increasingly, members of the public and politicians are raising concerns about these companies—and the power that they wield. Chris Sagers, a law professor at Cleveland State University, joins Lindsay to discuss monopolies in the U.S., both in the past and the present. The two also discuss how the current, heated debates about big business may play out.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s the late 1980s and Domino’s founder Tom Monaghan’s living the high life. After years of struggle, he’s a billionaire and he’s buying up plenty of status symbols to prove it.

But as Pizza Hut tries to rally a counter-attack, a day of reckoning is fast approaching for the pizza delivery pioneer.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As the Earth heats up, air conditioning is quickly shifting from a luxury to a necessity. But our reliance on ACs is also speeding up the pace of global warming. It’s the “air conditioning trap.” On this episode, Steven asks Guardian science writer Stephen Buranyi how – and if – we can escape it.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The domestication of plants and animals has remade the way that people feed themselves, organize their societies, and interact with the landscapes around them. But for most of the human past, this isn't how people subsisted. When, where, and how did people start farming? And most importantly, why?

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s the ‘80s and Domino’s is gunning for Pizza Hut.

Domino’s has kickstarted the speediest expansion program in fast-food history and it’s not planning on stopping until it’s planted its flag in every corner of the USA.

But while Domino’s goes on the attack, Pizza Hut finds itself caught between a rock and a hard place.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the earliest days of the United States, there was no such thing as an organized political party. George Washington, elected twice to the presidency unanimously in the Electoral College, warned the new nation against political factions, writing that organized parties would become, “potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men subvert the power of the people.”

But immediately after Washington vacated the Presidency, factions did spring up and bitter personal rivalries began to shape the nation. The two first political parties–the Federalists and the Republicans–had very different views of what America should become, and were led by very different men: Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

John D. Rockefeller is on the run. His company is under assault from state and federal lawsuits, and now, Rockefeller is moving from house to house, doing whatever he can to avoid a courtroom. But soon enough, his fate will be decided for him. Because the U.S. Supreme Court is about to issue a landmark decision.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Vice President George HW Bush is Ronald Reagan’s heir apparent. But in order to defeat Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis, Bush must embrace Reagan’s conservatism, get the best of a respected primary challenger named Bob Dole, and escape the shadow of what many call the biggest political scandal since Watergate.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Audio editing by Mollie Baack. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Michael Federico. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s the dawn of the 1970s and Pizza Hut is about to join America's business elite by floating on the stock exchange. But the Kansas pizza giant’s moment of triumph turns into defeat.

But while Pizza Hut’s been charming investors on Wall Street, Domino’s is living on skid row. And founder Tom Monaghan’s running out of time to save the day.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

For most of Homo sapiens' time out of Africa, we lived in a world defined by ice. But by around 20,000 years ago, the ice had begun to melt, the glaciers retreating back toward the poles and mountain ranges. This left behind a new world, a whole different series of environments, opportunities, and perils for the people who had made it through the Ice Age.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Summer blockbusters. Phoenix, Arizona. President Ronald Reagan. What do all these things have in common? They might never have happened if not for AC.

On this episode, AC finally hits the big time – and changes America forever.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s 1958 and on the East and West Coasts, all the cool cats are chowing down on pizza.

Yet in the heartland, far away from the buzz of New York and LA, pizza is still rarely seen, let alone eaten. But that’s all about to change, thanks to a new pizzeria opened by two brothers in a hut in Kansas.

And they’re not the only siblings with pie in the sky dreams. In Michigan, the Monaghan brothers are hoping to bring pizza to the nation’s front doors.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Throughout our series, corporate giants and their exploitation of workers was disturbing evidence of capitalism run amok. That greed and disregard for the working class defined the Gilded Age.

But the problems of that era haven’t disappeared. The economic disparities that were forged in the Gilded Age are still affecting our country. And monolithic companies like Facebook and Apple continue to grow, leaving a burning question of whether big tech has too much power.

Today, Lindsay speaks with Tim Wu, a Columbia law professor and author of “The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age,” about the economic and social changes that took place then, and how they set the stage for modern America.

For more on Tim Wu: http://www.timwu.org/about.html

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You have to play with the hand you’re dealt. At least that’s what we’re always told. But is it really true? How much of what we achieve in life is the product of our pluck and guile, and how much is just dumb luck? To find out, New Yorker writer Maria Konnikova dropped everything and joined the pro poker tour. The lessons were not what she expected.

Ida Tarbell begins to investigate Standard Oil. And as she digs deeper, she receives help from some unexpected sources. Soon, John D. Rockefeller learns that his deepest secrets could come spilling out into the light.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

With a Republican-controlled Senate and a clear mandate from the American people, Ronald Reagan sets out to show American strength abroad and to reduce the role of “big government” at home. The idea that his political future will ever be in question seems impossible, but a widening wealth gap and a lone gunman’s bullet will threaten his first term and his prospects for re-election.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Audio editing by Mollie Baack. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Michael Federico. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In our last episode, Amazon had once again taken a financial hit to get ahead in the shipping game, cutting out its need for FedEx and UPS, and turning them into the competition. But there’s one more link in the shipping chain that FedEx, UPS and even Amazon hasn’t cut loose: The United States Postal Service.

Private shipping companies also sometimes hire the Post Office to take care of last-mile deliveries. But that might be changing as FedEx becomes more self-sufficient, and may plan to cut some of its ties with the USPS. Does that mean UPS will follow? And if so, will your shipping rates rise as the Post Office faces cutbacks later this year?

To learn more, David chats with Sucharita Kodali, a digital business strategy and e-commerce expert at Forrester Research.

For more on Sucharita Kodali: https://www.forrester.com/sucharita-kodali

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Muggy. Sticky. Miserable.

For eons, that’s just what summer was. In fact, when air conditioning first became available, few people took advantage of it. Wasn’t summer supposed to be uncomfortable?

This is the story of how people finally warmed up to the idea of keeping cool.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Professor John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the world's best communicators on the deep human past and paleoanthropology, joins me to talk about archaic humans, genomics, and whether the concept of different human species even makes sense these days. Check out his blog, which is an amazing resource, and follow him on Twitter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the spring of 1894, hundreds of unemployed workers trudged through rain and snow on a 400-mile trek from Ohio to the nation’s capital. They joined armies of jobless men from all across the country to march on Washington, fed up with the government’s inaction in the face of the crippling Panic of 1893.

The century’s most punishing economic depression unleashed fierce political turmoil. A bitter debate over the gold standard consumed Americans nationwide. With the Treasury on the brink of collapse, President Cleveland made the desperate and controversial decision to turn to the nation’s top banker for a bailout.

The conflict over currency culminated in the emotional election of 1896, which pitted William McKinley against the charismatic reformer William Jennings Bryan, who electrified voters with his sensational “Cross of Gold” speech.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Both FedEx and UPS are doing a lot of business with e-commerce companies, especially Amazon. But after one disastrous Christmas season when both companies have difficulty delivering in time for Christmas, Amazon decides it’s time to bring shipping in-house. Going forward, UPS and FedEx’s biggest rival may not be each other, but the company that was once their best customer.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

John D. Rockefeller makes a bold move, one that helps him crush his opponents. Soon, disaster strikes in Titusville, Pennsylvania. And that means it's time for Ida Tarbell to return home—and to take on Standard Oil.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

President Jimmy Carter fights to keep the White House in a trial by fire of domestic recession and international turmoil. Carter defends his Presidency against the rise of a softer, more approachable brand of conservatism embodied by the skillful optimism and powerful charisma of Republican nominee Ronald Reagan.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Audio editing by Mollie Baack. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Michael Federico. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You may have heard about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which sees human development as a sort of a pyramid, with survival needs at the bottom, social and emotional needs in the middle, and “self-actualization” at the top. Psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman thinks we can do better. Instead of striving to become our best selves, we can strive to connect with the world beyond ourselves — to truly transcend.

With UPS expanding aggressively into Europe and other continents, FedEx decides to bet big on China. But it’s a risky strategy that initially looks like it’s going to fall short.

Meanwhile, UPS tries to maintain its competitive advantage by pushing for more productivity from its workers. But the drivers have had enough and UPS soon has a major labor relations problem on its hands. UPS’s troubles give FedEx an opening to peel away some of its business.

And at the dawn of the dot com era, both companies make a play for a new type of customer.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The video game industry has certainly matured over the years. But does it still have the sense of open-ended innovation that it did in the early golden era of Spacewar and Pong?

To get a better sense of how today’s game breakthroughs compare to the heyday of Atari, Steven speaks with one of the most thoughtful observers of the video game industry, Ian Bogost. Bogost is a game designer and the author of Play Anything: The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom, and the Secret of Games. More recently, he’s written about Animal Crossing and Untitled Goose Game for The Atlantic.

Read more about Ian and his work here:

http://bogost.com/

https://www.theatlantic.com/author/ian-bogost/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

UPS decides it’s time to expand its market outside North America and makes a big push into Western Europe. But it’s harder than expected to integrate its corporate culture with European norms.

FedEx CEO Fred Smith eschews European expansion and goes all-in on a risky new service called ZapMail, much to his executive team’s dismay.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As the century came to a close, labor unrest reached explosive new heights. Industrial expansion made businessmen and bankers rich. But workers faced low wages, long hours, and dangerous conditions. They sought strength in numbers, fighting for basic rights against the power of big business—and often faced violent pushback.

In May 1886, a bomb exploded at a peaceful labor protest in Chicago’s Haymarket Square. Police fired their guns into the crowds. Panic engulfed the city. And the nation’s most powerful labor union suffered a devastating blow.

In Homestead, Pennsylvania, steelworkers waged a bloody battle against private security forces. And in Pullman, Illinois, railroad workers laid down their tools, sparking a nationwide railroad shutdown—one that President Grover Cleveland would crush with brutal force.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our society is built on the assumption that we’re all a broken stoplight away from reverting to our animal selves. It’s what we’ve come to call “realism.” Historian Rutger Bregman thinks that kind of realism is, well, unrealistic. And not because we can learn to be better, but because deep down, we already are.

Standard Oil faces an organized resistance. But that doesn't slow down John D. Rockefeller. The oil titan continues to build his empire, and soon, some of his enemies have to make a terrible choice. They can keep fighting—and go bankrupt. Or they can team up with Rockefeller.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When Nixon gets caught up in the biggest Presidential scandal in American History, he enlists the help of a man with unimpeachable character: Gerald R. Ford Jr. In the wake of Watergate, Ford becomes the only man to ever be appointed to the Presidency. In his reelection bid for an office he was never elected to, Ford must prove himself worthy of his party’s nomination and fight off a Washington outsider: Georgia Democrat Jimmy Carter.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Audio editing by Mollie Baack. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Erik Archilla and Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Finally financially stable, FedEx takes on the US government to overturn regulations that limit the size of the planes they can fly. Convinced the regulations are limiting its growth, FedEx launches a multi-pronged strategy to persuade Congress to change the rules.

And UPS realizes it needs to compete directly with FedEx and finally buys its own planes to offer next-day air service.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our understanding of the past is constantly in flux, and there's no field where that's clearer than with the early settlement of the Americas. I'm joined by Professor Jennifer Raff of the University of Kansas, an anthropological geneticist, to discuss the game-changing (or not?) recent work pushing back the date of first settlement to 30,000 years ago or more.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's 1975 and Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell is setting his sights on the next frontier in video games: the home.

But convincing people to bring video games into their homes won't be easy. Bushnell’s going to need a lot of cash, a couple perfectly timed technological breakthroughs, and a killer business plan. Oh, and he’ll also have to teach the world what a “game console” is.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Almost one in three relationships start as online encounters. But the popularity of dating apps isn’t surprising with so many to choose from, and the pandemic may even be boosting dating app use.

For more on how COVID-19 has changed online dating, and how apps are adapting, David speaks today with Ashley Carman, a senior reporter covering dating apps for The Verge. Carman is also Co-host of The Verge’s Why’d You Push That Button podcast. She’s here to talk about which apps are thriving, and what they’ve been doing right.

For more on Ashley Carman: https://podcasts.voxmedia.com/host/ashley-carman

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Amid the glamor and growth of the Gilded Age, racism and anti-immigrant hostility swept the nation. With the end of Reconstruction, white communities across the South stripped African Americans of their hard-won political rights and economic gains. But a new generation of activists fought the growing wave of discrimination and violence. Booker T. Washington championed black education, and journalist Ida B. Wells waged a fierce campaign against lynching.

In the West, labor groups fueled anti-Chinese resentment, building support for the first major federal law limiting immigration. In the mid-1880s, white mobs from Wyoming to Washington descended on Chinese neighborhoods, stoking hysteria and casting immigrants out of their homes.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

After a disastrous start, FedEx needs to change its sales pitch or it will run out of money before it even has a chance to take off. Smith resorts to surprising means to raise the money to keep his fledgling company going.

UPS is convinced FedEx will be out of business in a matter of months. But it has its own problems to attend to, as drivers are feeling dissatisfied and start to organize for better working conditions.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Birds do it, bees do it, even fishes in the seas do it. So why do we have such a hard time when people migrate from one place to another? Science writer Sonia Shah presents the evidence that migration is central to the human story -- and it just might save us from what’s coming next.

In a contest largely defined by the Vietnam War, Republican President Richard Nixon fights to keep the White House out of the hands of Democratic nominee Senator George McGovern. In order to give Nixon a run for his money, McGovern and his anti-war message must survive a political scandal that threatens to bring McGovern’s judgment and leadership skills into question.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Audio editing by Mollie Baack. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Dante Flores and Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

John D. Rockefeller is a poor boy with a dream. He's going to become a businessman. And he's going to be wildly rich. Soon, he stumbles on the product that will seal his fate: oil. Thick, crude oil is gushing from the ground across America. It's creating boomtowns—and a new economy. Rockefeller begins to conquer the industry, but he quickly makes enemies, including a young woman who will challenge Rockefeller's growing empire.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s the early 1970s, and 27-year-old Fred Smith has an idea for a new kind of package delivery service, one that uses its own planes to deliver packages in under 24 hours. Skeptics tell him the start-up costs are too high and the demand too low, but Smith thinks he’s found a way to make it work. He invests millions of his own money to get the new company started.

But when one thing after another goes wrong, it looks like Smith might have made a big mistake. And that’s before he’s even had a chance to challenge one of the most respected companies in America: UPS.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Whitney Wolfe Herd establishes Bumble with a strident anti-misogyny agenda, but that foundation is rocked when shocking accusations of sexual harassment surface against Wolfe Herd’s co-founder.

Meanwhile, the revolutionary gay app Grindr goes through a scandalous upheaval when a Chinese company buys the company and installs a straight president.

And the cyber dating world undergoes a major rethinking as the coronavirus ushers in unprecedented, devastating changes for singles and everyone else on the planet.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Nolan Bushnell's Computer Space was the world's first commercial video game, but it failed to win over the masses. Now Bushnell’s plotting his comeback … and his comeback has a name: Atari.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Americas were the last continents Homo sapiens reached. Why did it take so long for people to enter this vast and promising expanse of land? Who were they, and where had they come from? In today's episode, we explore the latest - just days old! - science of the First Americans, and discover the descendants they've left behind even today.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the spring of 1883, Mrs. Alva Vanderbilt threw the grandest party New York had ever seen, claiming her spot at the top of the city’s social hierarchy. The Gilded Age drove feverish growth in America’s cities. Populations swelled. Skyscrapers and steel bridges soared above city skylines. And the new economic elite poured their outrageous fortunes into magnificent mansions and lavish balls.

But there were two sides to Gilded Age cities. Less than a mile away from Manhattan’s elegant brownstones, the poor eked out a living in sooty factories and crowded slums. In the 1880s and 1890s, reformers rose up to challenge inequality—galvanizing workers and exposing the dark underbelly of urban growth.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement, President Johnson declares his intention not to run in the 1968 contest, leaving the door open for Former Vice President Richard Nixon to stage a political comeback. In order to win the White House, Nixon must win the hearts and minds of a divided electorate and a political system teetering on the brink.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Audio editing by Mollie Baack. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com.

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It's been over 20 years since a major settlement forced the tobacco industry to reform—and pay billions of dollars for its mistakes. Still, despite a sea change in the public’s attitude toward smoking, the tobacco industry remains strong. And it continues to win over new customers. Annice Kim, a public health expert, joins Lindsay to discuss the explosion in e-cigarettes’ popularity, and the ways in which companies now use social media to sell these products.

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Niche apps are kicking into high gear for users with specific criteria, and there’s something for everyone: muzmatch for Muslims, Mouse Mingle for Disney fans, Twindog for canine lovers, Sizzl for bacon aficionados, Bristl for beard enthusiasts and Dead Meet for morticians and other death professionals.

In the mainstream, Match and Tinder have a new, serious competitor: Whitney Wolfe Herd’s Bumble. The feminist app debuts to a huge response — and a stinging lawsuit from Wolfe Herd’s former employer, Tinder.

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We do it 25,000 times a day, but most of us rarely give breathing a thought. Author James Nestor says we’re missing out on one of the most powerful pathways to health and happiness. He leads Rufus through the ins and outs of intentional breathing, revealing its potential to clear our minds, heal our bodies, and help us achieve incredible things.

What seemed like a run of the mill office romance gone very, very wrong will result in a devastating upheaval in the power structure at Tinder. And repercussions will be felt throughout the industry as Whitney Wolfe exacts some delicious corporate revenge.

And as the cyber dating world is rocked by horrific violence against women, apps that put female users in the driver’s seat start to get serious traction.

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Call of Duty, Fortnite, Animal Crossing.... The video game industry generates billions of dollars each year. But not so long ago, video games were mostly played by the programmers who made them. On our new season, we’re telling the story of how video games broke out of university computer labs and found their way straight to the heart of popular culture.

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Twenty thousand years ago, the world was locked in ice. The glaciers advanced from the poles and mountain ranges, swallowing huge portions of the planet's surface and making the rest colder and drier, a more difficult place to live. Yet people nevertheless thrived, spreading out across the continents and creating some of the most incredible art in human history.

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In the 1870s and 1880s, businessmen clawed their way to the top of the new industrial economy, accumulating staggering fortunes. Oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller ruthlessly eliminated his rivals one by one, seizing control over the nation’s refineries. Steel magnate Andrew Carnegie revolutionized the industry with his relentless drive to cut costs. And banker J. P. Morgan conquered Wall Street, commanding vast amounts of capital to consolidate corporations.

But the concentration of wealth and power had dire consequences for ordinary Americans, and in the summer of 1877 frustrated workers fought back. They blocked freight trains, shut down major rail lines and crippled the nation’s economy.

The strike spread like wildfire and sparked deadly violence.

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A new app aimed at gay users is about to break open an entirely new feature that will redefine the cyber dating business. And a young man emerging from a shower gets his inspiration for a new hookup site as he wipes the steam from his mirror.

Soon Tinder is on fire, but the conglomerate Match Group is determined to get a stranglehold on the market. And as the industry leaps from computer screens to mobile devices, things are heading into uncharted territory.

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Businesses want people to buy their products. Parents want their kids to eat their vegetables. We all want to convince someone to do something. So we push and we prod – but often to no avail. Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger says there’s a better way. In this high-speed conversation with Rufus, he lays out his formula for removing barriers to change.

In the aftermath of JFK’s assassination, Lyndon Johnson fights to shed the mantle of accidental president. But as he strives to carry forward Kennedy’s legacy, he faces a barrage of opposition from a divided Democratic party. Meanwhile, across the aisle, the Republicans fight to mount a defense as they rally around a conservative candidate who hopes to redefine the word Republican: Barry Goldwater.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Audio editing by Mollie Baack. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Dante Flores. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jeffrey Wigand steps into the national spotlight. But with all the attention, he now faces a very real threat. The tobacco industry could launch its most vicious counterattack. Or, if Mike Moore has his way, Big Tobacco may waive the flag of surrender.

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Dr. Neil Clark Warren is a 63-year-old theologian and clinical psychologist with a vision for a site he’s certain can lead to romantic success. eHarmony will be the first to take on the powerful Match.com. And Warren believes he is on—quite literally—a sacred mission to offer something that Match.com can’t match.

eHarmony’s Christian agenda seems to be working, until the God stuff leads to serious disharmony. Dr. Warren doesn’t know it, but he’s headed for a holy war.

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Since World War II, scientists have continued to use radar to explore what we can’t see or hear ourselves. And their uses have become increasingly creative. On this episode, we’re talking to three people involved in some of the most fascinating applications of radar today.

First up, Steven talks to Sara Kiley Watson about ground-penetrating radar, which provides archaeologists with breathtakingly clear pictures of underground cities. Next, Dr. Jyotika Virmani tells Steven about what oceanographers are learning as radar helps them plumb the mysteries of the ocean floor. And finally, engineering professor Youngwook Kim shares a surprising new way radar can aid in search and rescue missions.

Read Sara Kiley Watson’s article in Popular Science, “Scientists explored a buried Roman city without digging up an ounce of soil”: https://www.popsci.com/story/science/falerii-novi/
View radar images of Falerii Novi, a buried Roman city: https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/sacred-topography-0013831
Lean more about the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s efforts to map the ocean floor: https://schmidtocean.org/cruise-log-post/mapping-earths-ocean-seafloor/

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In 1869, America connected its vast, sprawling territory with its most ambitious project to date: the transcontinental railroad. The country had just emerged from the ashes of the Civil War, and the railroad galvanized people from coast to coast, offering opportunity and promise. But corruption soon cast a pall over the nation.

Scandal after scandal tainted the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. A pair of unscrupulous investors schemed to drive up the price of gold, unleashing chaos from Wall Street to the nation’s farms. Prominent congressmen funneled public money into a sham corporation to profit off the railroad. And government agents conspired with whiskey distillers to defraud the Treasury of millions.

It was the dawn of the Gilded Age—an era of dramatic material progress and sordid greed and corruption.

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Since humans sharpened the first stick and lit the first fire, we have been on an innovation spree, constantly developing new tools and materials to solve our problems. But material scientist Ainissa Ramirez says innovation is a two-way street. Drawing on stories about eight key inventions, she tells Rufus how our creations can change us in surprising ways.

It’s 1995, and computer dating is in its infancy. Most people think it’s a dark, sleazy world for desperate losers and horny perverts. But that’s all about to change. Pioneer site Match.com paves the way for cyber dating to move toward mainstream culture, but—in an era when few people even use a computer—it’s going to be a serious struggle.

And as the dating market blossoms, burgeoning companies will stop at nothing to get the coveted edge, fighting for hip cache, consumer convenience and tech advances. It’s a tough business, but all’s fair in online love and war.

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Mike Moore files a landmark lawsuit. Jeffrey Wigand comes under attack. And the producers of 60 Minutes face a major roadblock, as they try to tell the story about Big Tobacco.

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Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon fight for the White House on new technological turf: the rise of television sets the stage for an unprecedented campaign defined by race, religion and dirty tricks. But on the campaign trail, “Tricky Dick” Nixon meets his match in John F. Kennedy’s relentless brother, Bobby Kennedy.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Audio editing by Mollie Baack. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Thomas Addy. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we conclude our Diamond Wars series.

These precious stones are known to be undeniably beautiful, rare and a symbol of luxury. But diamonds have also been associated with war, human rights abuses and death. In response, consumers these days are demanding more transparency about where stones are sourced. Some are seeking out less expensive gemstone alternatives or lab-grown diamonds. And even powerhouse companies like De Beers have taken strides to adapt.

To find out more about the future of the diamond industry we’ll hear from Paul Zimnisky, an independent global diamond industry analyst.

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As German bombers raze England’s cities, American scientists race to build the world’s first air-to-air radar system. But building the system is only half the challenge. If the scientists succeed, they’ll also have to fit the world’s most cutting-edge technology inside the nose of a B-18 – a space that’s smaller than a shoe box.

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Ancient DNA is the key that's unlocking the deep history of humanity, allowing us to answer questions about our collective past that we never dreamed of addressing even 20 years ago. Eske Willerslev is a pioneer in the field of extracting, sequencing, and analyzing the preserved DNA of people who lived thousands upon thousands of years ago; on top of that, he's a fascinating person with unique perspectives on how to understand the human past.

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When the events of Stonewall happened in 1969, Eric Marcus was just a boy away at a New Jersey summer camp. Nearly 20 years later, he would document the voices of revolutionary LGBTQ activists like Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera and Frank Kameny for his book, “Making Gay History: The Half-Century Fight for Lesbian and Gay Equal Rights.”

While his work started out as a printed oral history, Marcus knew that taping those interviews would “one day have value beyond my book.” And he was right. Many of those interviews can be heard on the Making Gay History podcast, which he founded and hosts.

Today, Marcus talks about his conversations with people who shaped the early LGBTQ movement. He’ll also share what people who were patrons of the Stonewall Inn told him about their time there.

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Making Gay History: The Half Century Fight for Lesbian and Gay Equal Rights

It’s the 2000s and the diamond cartel is dead. Now, De Beers must adjust to its new status as the market leader rather than the monopoly. But the threats to its business aren’t going away.

Diamonds are losing their luster with the young, and Zimbabwe’s undermining the industry’s response to conflict diamonds. And most threatening of all, a wave of new start ups are out to disrupt De Beers by growing man-made diamonds.

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A group of ambitious lawyers builds a case against Big Tobacco. But first, they'll need to convince the whistleblowers to speak up.

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In the run up to the 1956 contest, Ike battles severe health issues, an intensifying Cold War and enemies in the Democratic party. But his greatest struggle during the campaign isn’t with Adlai Stevenson and the Democrats, it’s with his Secretary of State: John Foster Dulles. The conflict between these two political titans comes to a head in the middle of a contentious domestic election largely defined by foreign affairs.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Audio editing by Mollie Baack. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Cielle Salazar. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We knew a pandemic was coming. We knew our police were treating some of us differently than others. So why were we so unprepared for what happened? In this eye-opening conversation, Rufus and author Dan Heath dig into what it takes to root out problems at their source, both in our own lives and in the larger world.

It’s the late 1990s and rebel armies in Angola, Sierra Leone and Congo are bankrolling campaigns of mass murder and terror with diamonds. Now, after years of turning a blind eye, the diamond-buying public is starting to notice the bloodshed.

But as the issue of so-called “blood diamonds” rises up the political agenda, De Beers is plotting what might be the boldest move yet in its long history: giving up its quest to control all the world’s diamonds.

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Until very recently, Homo sapiens -our species - was only one of several varieties of humans on this planet. As our ancestors spread outward from Africa in their great migration, they encountered those other species. The results of those encounters left us a genetic legacy that is still with us today.

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As World War II rages on, American and English scientists race to develop a microwave radar system. But both sets of scientists have something the other team needs to cross the finish line.

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After a late-night police raid on the Stonewall Inn in June 1969, the LGBTQ community fought back in the streets of Greenwich Village. Suddenly, the LGBTQ rights movement found itself catapulted onto the national stage.

But questions of how radical an approach to take would pit young activists against the pioneers of the 1950s and 1960s. Even with the formation of new organizations like the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance, questions emerged. Would it be better to take part in the political process? Or to stage confrontational “zaps?”

These new groups would soon be engulfed by in-fighting over goals, strategy, membership, and how the LGTBQ rights movement fit into the larger landscape of radical activism. Meanwhile, Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson would form their own group – one that would speak directly to issues facing unhoused people, and the trans community in New York city.

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Merrell Williams stumbles on a terrible secret, one that's been hidden for decades. Jeffrey Wigand starts a new job with the tobacco industry, only to come face to face with a bitter truth. Soon, both will have to make a choice that could put them in danger.

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Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower takes on a determined Democratic party united behind the popular Illinois governor, Adlai Stevenson. But in the run up to the 1952 contest, Ike’s biggest cross to bear is not the Democrats; it’s a member of his own party. As Ike defies the Republican establishment and fights for the White House on his own terms, he does his best to reign in his Vice President; a political power house named Richard Nixon.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Audio editing by Mollie Baack. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Cielle Salazar. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s 1966 and De Beers is about to abandon its eleven-year search for diamonds in Botswana. But the geologist behind the search is far from ready to pack up his tools.

And De Beers isn’t the only one searching for gemstones. Soon, a major diamond find in Australia will leave the diamond monopoly facing a big dilemma: should it seek to control or to destroy this Antipodean threat?

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Cutting-edge science, music and art, powerful technology, plentiful food. It’s no wonder we sing the praises of civilization. But do we really have it so good? Christopher Ryan says it’s time for a rethink. He tells Rufus that people in non-civilized societies tend to be healthier, happier, and more fulfilled. What can we learn from the life we left behind?

It’s the early 1950s and West Africa’s growing number of diamond smugglers is causing headaches for De Beers.

Faced with millions of pounds in losses, the diamond monopoly decides it’s time to get tough with the smugglers.

But while De Beers battles the illicit diamond traders, in the far east of the Soviet Union a new threat is brewing.

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Welcome to a new season of Tides of History! Over the next year, we'll be traveling from the very origins of our species through the peopling of the planet, the Ice Age, and then to the beginnings of agriculture, cities, metalworking, and states. Today, we cover our deepest past, from the divergence from our closest ape relatives to the first appearance of anatomically modern humans.

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What technology won WWII? Most people would say the atomic bomb, but the real answer is radar.

As a small island country, vulnerable to aerial attacks, England took the lead in developing radar in the 1930s. But the early radar systems were too massive to fit into planes, where they would be of most use in the fight against the Germans. At the heart of the problem was a technological catch-22. Smaller radar systems were, by definition, less powerful.

Or so everyone thought, until a mismatched pair of brothers in Northern California decided to take a crack at creating a new kind of radar...

This is episode one of our three-part series on radar, “Welcome to Tuxedo Park.”

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Resistance at restaurants in San Francisco and Philadelphia showcased the building tension as trans activists challenged long-standing policies of discrimination. But leading gay rights groups continued to stress a calm, non-confrontational approach to reform.

That all changed in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, when police raided the Stonewall Inn.

For police, it was just another raid, but this time would be different: the Stonewall’s patrons would fight back. The clashes on Christopher Street would become an uprising against police oppression with long-lasting reverberations for the LGBTQ rights movement.

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Dan Murphy is a staff writer with ESPN. He’s been covering the changing landscape in college sports, in which athletes could soon make money from endorsements. He and Lindsay discuss the wide-reaching effects of a recent proposal, and look at the history of scandals in the NCAA.

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In the wake of World War II, as President Truman fights to establish a new peace, Republican Governor Thomas Dewey gears up for a second run at the White House. As Truman strives to fulfill Franklin D. Roosevelt’s progressive legacy with his “Fair Deal” for America, Dewey tries to capitalize on a growing anti-Truman sentiment brewing all across the nation.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Audio editing by Mollie Baack. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s 1940, and the world is at war. The Allies and Axis powers are scrambling to lock down supplies of the industrial diamonds needed to mass produce their tanks, planes and submarines.

But when the White House demands De Beers hands over a year’s supply of industrial diamonds, it soon learns the cartel is as hard to break as the diamonds it sells.

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As World War II rages on, FDR is in the political fight of his life against a young political newcomer, Republican Thomas Dewey. Riding the wave of Republican gains in the 1942 midterms, the youthful, fresh-faced Dewey attacks the tired old man in the White House by promising to bring about a swift end to the war.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Audio editing by Mollie Black. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When Dr. Vivek Murthy became U.S. Surgeon General in 2014, he went on a listening tour. What he heard surprised him. Americans were lonely, and it was killing them. In this deeply personal conversation with Next Big Idea Club curator Susan Cain (author of “Quiet”), Murthy makes the medical case for love and friendship.

Music’s the only place where you can really be yourself. But to be a star, you’ll first have to become somebody else….

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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It’s 1914 and De Beers’s monopoly is under threat. Diamonds have been discovered on the desolate coast of the German colony of South West Africa.

So it hired an ambitious diamond expert named Ernest Oppenheimer and gave him his orders: head to the beach and assess the threat.

But then World War One disrupts De Beers chance to do a deal with the German diamond miners. Now, Oppenheimer sees his chance to scramble to the very top of the diamond industry.

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In 1955, the world received its first viable polio vaccine, courtesy of Jonas Salk. He was hailed as a hero until kids started to fall sick with polio. A bad batch of vaccines was thought to be the culprit. But it was also an opening for a scientist with a competing vision. Albert Sabin warned of the dangers of Salk’s vaccine from the start. The final clash between the two vaccines, and the two scientists, is the true story of how polio was conquered.

Note: This episode originally ran in October 2018.

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As the 1960s dawned, LGBTQ activists began to voice frustration with the gradual approach to civil rights advocated by groups like the Mattachine Society. If LGBTQ people wanted to make real progress, they concluded, they would need to take direct action — starting with tactics shared with the Black civil rights movement.

Through protests and sit-ins in places like New York, Washington DC, and San Francisco, LGBTQ activists started agitating for greater rights. They would tackle employment discrimination along with the widespread issues of police harassment, abuse, and entrapment, which targeted LGBTQ people nationwide.

But as white gay activists pushed for acceptance by a white, middle-class American majority, transgender activists and people color faced even greater challenges related to their race and gender identity. They would respond by forging their own communities and strategies to protect themselves from harassment and violence.

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It’s 1869 and diamonds have been found in Cape Colony.

Now, diamond hunters from across the world are heading to this remote British outpost in southern Africa, seeking a glittering fortune.

And among them are two wide-eyed hopefuls: streetwise Barney Barnato, who hails from the London slums, and Cecil Rhodes, a vicar’s son with a head full of imperialist daydreams.

When the diamond rush turns to bust, Barnato and Rhodes embark on a quest to conquer the mines. But only one man can win.

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The FBI investigates the ties between Boston College basketball players and Jimmy Burke’s crime ring. As the point-shaving trial gets underway, the athletes discover there’s a larger game being played—and they’re the pawns.

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Olga Khazan describes weirdness as not fitting neatly into a box — regardless of what that box may be. It doesn’t just make other people see you as different — it also makes you feel like you don’t belong. But in this conversation with Next Big Idea Club curator Adam Grant, she says weirdness can also be surprisingly empowering. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Against the backdrop of World War II, FDR’s position of neutrality is threatened as he seeks to become the first president to serve three terms in office. To win the White House in the 1940 contest, FDR must get the best of business tycoon Wendell Willkie, a former Democrat and an affable political outsider with an axe to grind.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Playboy and Penthouse once defined the adult genre. Now, they’re now fighting to stay relevant.

Hardcore porn, accommodating almost any taste, is available on video tape and cable television, a mere remote click away.

Hefner and Guccione are facing the inescapable vagaries of getting older in a young man’s game. Sex industry rivals are coming and they’ll be followed by even bigger guns.

But the aging warriors aren’t surrendering yet.

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Uber and Lyft have made their mark as very different brands.

Lyft was born out of a need for more environmentally friendly rideshare options. And is also seen as the “friendlier” of the two companies. While Uber’s former CEO, Travis Kalanick built a reputation for ruthlessness, sexual harassment and “bro culture.”

Still, both companies have seen protests from their drivers, who’ve demanded benefits and better pay for countless hours spent on the road. So how much has Uber and Lyft’s company culture affected their business up until now? And what will the future hold for these tech giants?

For some answers, we hear from New York Times Technology Reporter Mike Isaac. Isaac is also the author of the book, “Super PUMPED: The Battle for Uber.” He’ll talk about his reporting on Kalanick, Uber and how company culture at Uber and Lyft matters, now more than ever, to consumers.

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Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber

Hefner and Guccione have become accustomed to taking swings at each other. But as the ’80s kick into gear, their personal fight is overtaken by outside forces.

Hefner’s world is rocked by a grisly murder-suicide, while Guccione branches out from Penthouse, making a film so brazen and shocking it’s labeled “a moral holocaust.”

Culture is changing. One part of America wants to push the sexual limits. But a conservative, powerful Reagan administration pledges to keep those sick impulses in check. And Hefner and Guccione are in the crosshairs.

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It’s the early 1970s, and mainstream culture is embracing X-rated material. What was once considered sordid and offensive is now hip and cutting edge. The era of Porno Chic is in full bloom.

Hugh Hefner is riding high. His Playboy empire is vast. He has wealth, women, and the magazine is selling nearly seven million copies a month. He seems untouchable.

But trouble is on the horizon: Guccione is determined to take Hefner down. Penthouse is gaining momentum. Plus, a vindictive Richard Nixon is on the warpath and feminists are irate.

Seems like everybody wants a piece of Hefner.

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The sexual revolution that Hugh Hefner helped set in motion is entering a new phase. Male Baby Boomers are all grown up. Now, they've got power. They’ve got money. And they want to spend it on pictures of beautiful, naked women.

It’s a wildly lucrative market, and Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione wants a piece of the action. A big piece. Playboy rules in the United States, but London-based Guccione is set to bring Penthouse stateside. He’s ready to challenge Hefner on his own turf.

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Hugh Hefner and Bob Guccione come to the industry from very different families. Hefner from a stern, Puritan upbringing that left him frustrated and yearning for affection. Guccione from a large, loving Italian-American clan.

Hefner wants to be somebody, and he sees an opening in the field for a lifestyle magazine combining intelligent writing on pop culture and social issues with photos of sexy women. Playboy is revolutionary. It takes off, big time.

Guccione, meanwhile, moves to Europe in his twenties to pursue a fine art career, and ends up in London selling dirty pictures. But he’s a hustler. Taking a cue from Playboy, he creates Penthouse. It’s darker, racier and it works. He’s got Playboy in his sights. The war is brewing.

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We live in a time where you can watch the most explicit hardcore pornography on the same phone you use to call your mother. It may seem absurd now, but fifty years ago, when it came to photos of a naked woman, the line between clean and obscene was pubic hair.

Hugh Hefner and Bob Guccione, the publishers of Playboy and Penthouse, were the first pioneers to cross that line in what would become known as the “Pubic Wars.”

The conflict between these two magazines is long, heated and ugly. Along the way, the bitter arch-rivals goad one another further and further down a dangerous road that leads to the breadth and depth of pornography available today.

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You fight to get it all. Fame. Money. Influence. But when you face a major setback, you’ll have to decide: Are you going to give up? Or keep pushing ahead?

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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Pressure mounts to release a vaccine for polio, but a rushed vaccine could have disastrous results. After all, vaccines contain benign samples of the viruses they’re designed to protect against. If a flawed polio vaccine were to be tested on humans, it wouldn’t cure the disease – it would help spread it.

Note: This episode originally ran in October 2018.

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How do we tell when one period ends and another begins? What are the fundamental characteristics of the early modern period? My dear friend (and friend of the show!) Keith Pluymers, assistant professor of history at Illinois State University, returns to chat with me about periodization, the Great Divergence, and riots in the early modern period.

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In the summer of 1969, a police raid on the Stonewall Inn sparked a riot on the streets of Greenwich Village. The protest marked a turning point in the gay rights movement. But the famed resistance in New York capped a movement that had been building for nearly two decades in America, as LGBTQ people mobilized to fight widespread and pervasive discrimination.

In the years following World War II, members of the LGBTQ community faced broad discrimination — from strict laws that oppressed them, churches that declared their very existence sinful, and a government that demonized them. They would push back against the American Psychological Association, the FBI and finally, the courts. Slowly, LGBTQ activism would emerge from out of the closet and onto the American scene.

This series follows strands of the gay rights movement in America from 1950 until 1970. But it’s just the beginning of a story about a fight for social and political equality — a battle that’s still being fought today.

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As FDR pushes his progressive agenda, Republicans turn to a progressive candidate of their own: Kansas Governor Al Landon. As Landon and the Republicans fight to make the election a referendum on fiscal responsibility, FDR defends his New Deal against a slew of opponents, including the infamous media mogul and scandal machine, William Randolph Hearst.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

New CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is cleaning house after the departure of Travis Kalanick. But after a disappointing IPO, Khosrowshahi has to boost the company’s ailing financials andfight against lawmakers who are siding with aggrieved drivers.

Then COVID-19 hits. Uber and Lyft are faced with a crisis that could alter ridesharing forever. Khosrowshahi leans into Uber Eats, while John Zimmer and Logan Green struggle to keep their dream alive.

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Pressure mounts as the mafia starts pouring money into the betting scheme. But the players begin to crack, and mobsters start disappearing. And soon, the FBI launches its pursuit.

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Hook-ups, sexting, friends with benefits, ubiquitous porn — sometimes it seems like boys today are growing up in a world of easy sex and mindless gratification. But sit down and talk to them and you get a different story. Rufus speaks with Peggy Orenstein, who interviewed hundreds of boys about how they navigate a minefield of sexual rules and expectations.

Imagine – As a child, you became a pro at hiding in plain sight. Years later, it’s what makes you the perfect spy. But can you really hide forever?

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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February 2017, Super Bowl Sunday. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is taking a black car home when he gets in an altercation with the driver. LIttle does he know, the entire exchange has been captured on a dashcam recording. And when it goes viral, Kalanick will have to fight for his reputation — and his job.

Lyft, meanwhile, spies an opening. As sexual harassment scandals plague their rival and users move to #DeleteUber, John Zimmer and Logan Green finally have a chance to really capitalize on their “good guy” reputation.

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Around the year 1000, merchants, explorers, and missionaries linked the world together from Newfoundland to China. Trade goods, people, and above all ideas flowed across a rich assortment of routes, connecting previously distant places into a single unit. This was the first instance of what we can call globalization, according to Professor Valerie Hansen of Yale, who wrote a compelling new book on the topic: The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World - and Globalization Began.

Get Professor Hansen's book here.

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The virus spread invisibly and without warning. Person to person. Through contaminated food, shared possessions, and unwashed hands.

Mid-century Americans lived in fear of one disease: polio. But the story of the polio vaccine is not just a scientific story – it’s a political and financial story, too. One that played out across the corner offices of New York City, the sound booths of Hollywood, and the back rooms of Washington D.C..

Note: This episode originally ran in October 2018.

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JFK said that nothing in the 1960s was "...more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space..." than getting a man to the moon and back safely. As the Apollo 11 flight neared, the entire nation waited, enraptured. But back in the USSR, the Soviets were also making strides. Though the contest with the Soviets for technological superiority had always been a race, it was now a literal one - a U.S. manned spacecraft was about to chase down a Soviet robotic vessel.

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Friends aren’t just fun to hang out with and handy in a pinch. They’re also a biological necessity. Rufus talks to journalist Lydia Denworth, author of a new book on the science of friendship, who explains why friends — even the online variety — make us happier, healthier, smarter, and more successful.

As President Hoover and the Republicans scramble to rescue the country from ruin in the midst of the Great Depression, Democratic nominee Franklin Delano Roosevelt strives to take the country in a bold new direction on the promise of a New Deal for America. But to win his party’s nomination, FDR will have to go toe to toe with one of the most powerful Democrats in the country: former New York Governor Al Smith.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com.

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Criminals in Pittsburgh have a plan. It involves gambling and manipulating the scores of college basketball games. But to pull it off, they'll first need some help from the basketball players themselves.

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Uber is facing blowback from all directions — the taxi industry, riders, and the most important man in tech: Apple's Tim Cook. Uber’s been engaged in some disreputable activity, and it's finally catching up with them.

Lyft forges ahead and forms a new alliance to fight back gainst Uber's growing global footprint. But Uber will once again outmaneuver its competitor.

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It's 2013, and Lyft's CEO John Zimmer is hosting a little celebration for drivers when some very unwelcome interlopers turn up to crash the party. Uber’s Travis Kalanick wants to destroy Lyft at any cost, and he's willing to do what it takes to outmaneuver his competitor and steal its riders and drivers — even if it means playing dirty.

Lyft decides to stick to its environmentalist roots and focus on a new ridesharing feature it hopes will woo customers away. Until Uber beats them to the punch, and drives its rival to the brink of collapse.

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You are going to fight tooth and nail until you're famous. But as you struggle for recognition, you’ll have to face something that's tormented you throughout your whole life.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen.

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George Ferris aspired to build a structure for the 1893 World's Fair that could rival Paris's Eiffel Tower. And when the Ferris wheel debuted, newspapers hailed it as the eighth wonder of the world.

The grandeur and success of the Ferris wheel paved the way for future theme parks. These fantastical spaces have become symbols of leisure and fun throughout the United States and offered innovators like George Ferris a chance to showcase attractions that pushed the boundaries of what's possible.

On this episode, Steven speaks with Scott A. Lukas, an anthropologist, theme park consultant, and author of the books “Theme Park” and “The Immersive Worlds Handbook: Designing Theme Parks and Consumer Spaces.” Steven and Scott discuss the uniquely American history of theme parks and the ways they’ve influenced all kinds of public spaces.

Here are some of the parks and rides – old and new – mentioned in this conversation:

Coney Island, NY: https://theweek.com/captured/624918/vintage-photos-from-coney-island-yesteryear
Kennywood Park, West Mifflin, PA: https://www.wtae.com/article/in-photos-kennywood-park-then-and-now/7403416#
The Void, Las Vegas, NV: https://www.thevoid.com/

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The Immersive Worlds Handbook: Designing Theme Parks and Consumer Spaces

Theme Park (Objekt)

Alaric was one of the most famous barbarians of antiquity, and yet we know little about him - or at least, we knew very little, until Douglas Boin's excellent new book came out. It's entitled Alaric the Goth: An Outsider's History of the Fall of Rome.In today's episode, I chat with Professor Boin about the book, the Goths, and how we should understand this period of Roman - and Gothic - history.

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In the wake of an unprecedented natural disaster, Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover lives up to his reputation as a Master of Emergencies and solidifies his status as the presumptive Republican nominee. To beat him, Democratic Governor Al Smith of New York will have to face off against the Republicans and the forces of opposition in the South.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

If you like this show, please support it! Become a subscriber at www.wickedgamepodcast.com.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's the late '90s, and Travis Kalanick is hanging out in his dorm room at UCLA. He’s having a file-sharing party with his friends that leads to his first business. But Kalanick’s forced to grow up quickly as he learns that naïveté can cost you millions and Silicon Valley investors aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

Logan Green finds inspiration while stuck in horrible LA traffic and adopts a new anti-car ethos that will shape Lyft’s mission. And on the East Coast, John Zimmer learns how to woo customers — a skill he’ll translate into startup success.

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The fishermen run a blockade. Alyeska Pipeline goes to extremes to root out a mole. Exxon and the fishermen face off in court.

Photos of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill can be found here.

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In times of crisis, Americans had always put their confidence in their country’s superiority in power, technology and leadership. America had never failed them. And in 1961, hope and faith in their country burned brighter than ever as NASA prepared to launch the first man into space. A month out from launch, that light was effectively snuffed. The Soviets beat them to it. On April 12, 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first person in space and the first person to orbit Earth. The world was in awe. And America was in shock.

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We all face fork-in-the-road moments in our lives. In his 2005 bestseller “Blink,” Next Big Idea Club curator (and this episode’s guest interviewer) Malcolm Gladwell famously argued that snap judgments can be just as effective as meticulous planning. In this lively conversation, author Steven Johnson (“Farsighted”) disagrees, arguing that big, complex decisions require careful thought and scenario-building.

It’s December 2008, and two friends and fellow tech entrepreneurs, Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick, can't get a taxi. Camp’s already obsessed with the idea of a service that summons a private driver with the push of a button, but now Kalanick gets the appeal. Together, they'll build Uber, and do whatever it takes to reign supreme.

Meanwhile, recent college grads John Zimmer and Logan Green channel their shared passion for the environment into the creation of a carpooling startup for long rides. But pretty quickly, they realize they need to service short trips, too, and Lyft is born. But in order to succeed, they have to convince people to jump in a car with a complete stranger. And, they’ll have to go up against Uber in a battle for ridesharing supremacy.

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You’re an artist. A visionary. But making your dreams a reality—well, that’s not so easy. Because first, you'll need to win over some powerful people.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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John Maynard Keynes was one of the most important figures of the 20th century, creating the economic structures and ideas that defined the Second World War and its aftermath. I spoke with Zach Carter, author of the wonderful new Keynes biography The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes, about Keynes's wild life and enduring legacies.

Get Zach's book here.

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The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes

The 1889 World’s Fair in Paris dazzles attendees with the Eiffel Tower. So, when plans begin for the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, the mandate is clear: beat the Tower.

America’s architects and engineers compete to win the job – but every proposal they submit is more outlandish and dangerous than the last. And the most dangerous of all? Well, that might be a ride that resembles a twenty-story bicycle wheel, submitted by a young man named George Ferris….

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Information sharing was normal in the global scientific community, but when it came to rockets, normal rules didn’t apply. If the details got passed along to civilian scientists, there was no telling where that intel might end up…

But for many Americans, the Eisenhower just wasn’t moving fast enough. Sputnik was still orbiting! The Soviets were winning! Eisenhower downplayed Sputnik,calling it “one small ball in the air,” but privately he was worried.

The U.S. had the ability to beat the Soviets to space. But they didn’t. And Eisenhower wanted to know why.

Warning: this episode is packed with as much explosive power as is packed in the warhead of a ballistic missile.

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After Captain Hazelwood’s arrest, Exxon tries to clean up its public image. President Bush tells Exxon to pick up the pace on the cleanup. Fisherman Riki Ott takes on Big Oil in the Alaska State Legislature.

Photos of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill can be found here

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After the death of Warren G Harding, Vice President Calvin Coolidge inherits a booming economy, but he also inherits one of the biggest political scandals in American history. To win his party’s nomination and overcome the Teapot Dome scandal, Calvin Coolidge must live up to his nickname: Silent Cal. To beat Coolidge, Democratic nominee John W. Davis must overcome a bitterly divided Democratic party and a third party challenger, the Progressive Party’s Robert M LaFollette.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the cacophony of modern life, it can seem that talking, scoring points, and being heard are more important than paying attention to what others have to say. But journalist Kate Murphy says listening — really listening — can strengthen our ties to the people closest to us and create new connections in our lives.

You've been given a huge responsibility. A test you never expected. But to succeed, you'll have to win over all your doubters—and fend off your most vicious opponents.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen.

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Quarantine restrictions during the coronavirus have induced toilet paper panic-buying as people scratch, claw and punch each other to get rolls. But why? What’s behind the frenzy, and how will that affect the TP industry?

In the last 150 years, it’s grown from selling humble boxes of paper to mass marketing rolls of delicate, luxurious tissue. And now a wave of eco-friendly independent companies are making a bid for your bathroom business.

It’s a high stakes, multi-billion dollar industry that we take for granted. Until we fear losing it. Then all bets are off.

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On September 11th, 1695, two ships confronted each other in the middle of the Indian Ocean: one an enormous treasure ship owned by the Grand Mughal of India, and the other a much smaller British pirate ship led by Henry Every.

What happened next changed the world. Every and his crew took off with $100 million in loot and sparked the world’s first global manhunt. They also inadvertently set off a chain of events that led to the rise of globalization, the tabloid press, and even democracy itself.

All of that, and more, is the subject of Steven Johnson’s latest book, Enemy of All Mankind. We borrow Rufus Griscom from Wondery’s The Next Big Idea podcast to talk with Steven about Every and the surprising ways a single confrontation on the high seas shaped life as we know it.

You can read more about Steven’s book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/545158/enemy-of-all-mankind-by-steven-johnson/

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Remember Werner von Braun? We talked a little bit about him in our Cold War series. He was in charge of the German rocket program in World War II. First used to lob missiles and bombs all over Europe, von Braun always dreamed of something better for his rockets. As the Soviet and American forces were closing in on Germany to end the war, von Braun saw only one way out: surrender to the American forces and get to the States.

Amid the wreckage of the Third Reich, the first leg of the Space Race would be a sprint to locate von Braun.

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The fishermen find that damage from the spill is even worse than expected, while a winter storm destroys Exxon’s plans for a quick cleanup. Captain Hazelwood disappears.

Photos of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill here.

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It’s 1988, and Tetris is making waves. It’s billed as the first Soviet video game, and it’s selling fast.

But the man who introduced it to the West harbors a secret: he doesn’t own the rights. And when his subterfuge fails, a multi-million-dollar battle to win over the communist regime breaks out on the streets of Moscow.

It’s a clash that pits the Japanese gaming overlords of Nintendo against the sprawling empire of ruthless media baron Robert Maxwell.

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Even with the COVID-19 pandemic, we're living longer, on average, than at any time in history. So why do so many of us act like our last decades are a time to lower our expectations? Neuroscientist and musician Daniel Levitin says old age can be whatever we want it to be. He went deep into the science for his new book, “Successful Aging,” and he’s emerged with some tips.

In the aftermath of a bloody world war and a catastrophic global pandemic, the Democrats shun President Woodrow Wilson and dash his hopes to be the first American president to serve three terms. While the Democrats go to war over the future of their party, Republican nominee Warren G. Harding seeks to give the American people something they truly crave: normalcy.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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You grew up alone and afraid. To protect yourself, you put up walls. You’re safe behind them… but here’s the thing about walls, they keep out the good stuff too. And you want to feel good.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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It’s 1984 and the cola war is neck and neck. After years of struggle, Pepsi looks ready to triumph over Coca-Cola.

So Coke’s striking back by opening a new battlefront in the quest for soda supremacy: outer space.

But its plan to send its world-famous drink into orbit won’t stay secret for long. And when Pepsi finds out, it sparks a new space race.

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It’s the early 1890s and thanks to the adoption of chicle, chewing gum is bigger than ever. But it’s still a niche American habit. Men still shun it in favor of tobacco, and women who chew it in public are frowned upon.

But that’s all about to change thanks to the newest face on the gum scene. He’s name is William Wrigley Junior and he’s going to teach the world to chew.

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We reach the conclusion of our series on the early modern period with the Great Siege of Malta and the Battle of Lepanto.

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It's 1902 and political campaigner Lizzie Magie is fighting a losing battle. For years, she’s pushed the idea of a land-value tax, but fewer and fewer people are listening.

So she’s going to try something new to spread the word. She’s going to make a board game – and not just any game. Magie’s game is going to become the biggest game of all time.

Trouble is, when the battle for her game breaks out, she’s the one who winds up the loser.

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As the nation’s factories and shipyards ramped up production for the war, the demand for labor exploded. Millions of women and minorities entered the workforce for the first time, finding a path to prosperity and opportunity.

But as Americans joined in common purpose, strife and challenges hit the homefront.

In 1943, half a million coal miners in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania went on strike, sparking nationwide uproar and threatening to derail the war effort. Cities erupted with tensions over housing and jobs as the largest migration in history transformed the nation. And deep questions over loyalty and belonging arose, as the federal government forced more than 100,000 Japanese Americans into detention camps.

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A supertanker carrying 53 million gallons of crude oil runs aground in Prince William Sound sparking the worst man-made ecological catastrophe in the country’s history at the time. As Exxon struggles to get the cleanup underway, fishermen worry that this is the end of life as they know it

Links to recommended reading:

Not One Drop by Riki Ott

Out of the Channel by John Keeble

The Spill: Personal Stories from the Exxon Valdez Disaster

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The Spill: Personal Stories from the Exxon Valdez Disaster

Out of the Channel: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Prince William Sound

Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

For the grand finale of our stay-at-home miniseries, Rufus talks about work-life balance, the future of education, and the addictive nature of generosity with author, podcaster, and Next Big Idea Club curator Adam Grant.

As war brews overseas in Europe, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson strives to keep America out of the war and to keep his prospects for a second term alive. To keep the White House, Wilson goes toe to toe with Republican Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes in a contest that is defined by domestic turmoil, international strife and personal animus.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Cielle Salazar. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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Since the novel coronavirus hit, Amazon and Walmart have seen a rise in profits, unlike many other retailers. But there have also been struggles to keep up with the flood of customer demands during the pandemic.

Hundreds of thousands of workers have been hired collectively between Amazon and Walmart. And employees for both companies have accused management of not protecting workers enough from the threat of COVID-19. So how are Amazon and Walmart handling the pushback from disgruntled employees? And will they become even bigger threats in the retail market once the pandemic ends?

To find out what the future holds for these companies, we turn to Jason Del Rey, a senior correspondent covering commerce at ReCode. Del Rey also hosted a podcast from Vox and ReCode called “Land of the Giants: The Rise of Amazon.”

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You need to make a big change. And so you go underground—new city, new friends, new life. The question is, will you ever come back?

Hosted by Virginia Madsen.

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It’s the mid-1800s and in Maine, John Bacon Curtis is back from clearing the spruce forests with a crazy idea. He’s going to sell ready-to-chew gum.

But his bold plan is only the start of what will become a decades-long search for the ideal chew. It’s a search that will see the nascent gum business butt heads with newspaper tycoons, strike an alliance with oil refineries, and get a helping hand from the self-styled Napoleon of the West.

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For much of the 16th century, the Habsburgs of Spain and the Ottoman Empire waged an epic conflict for control over the Mediterranean. Follow along with two composite characters, a Barbary corsair and a Hospitaller knight, as they raid, pillage, and fight a holy war for decades on end.

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On December 7, 1941, hundreds of Japanese warplanes rained death and destruction down on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor—shocking the nation and drawing it into World War II. The U.S. had been ravaged by the Great Depression. Mobilizing the country for war would require unprecedented government intervention in industry, the economy, and American lives. But the crisis would also spark new opportunities, challenges and questions about what it meant to be a patriot and an American during a time of crisis.

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As the COVID-19 virus spreads across the globe and forces people inside their homes for months, the world relies on online shopping more than ever. Amazon and Walmart both struggle to keep up with surging demand as their legendary infrastructures are put to the test. And workers inside both companies rise up, arguing that the retail giants are failing to protect them from the virus, prioritizing the bottom line over workers’ health. They’re both more powerful than ever, but also more vulnerable.

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Eric Benson is a senior editor at the magazine Texas Monthly. In 2018, Benson wrote a series of articles that helped shed new light on the tragedy at Mount Carmel. He and Lindsay discuss how the event still shapes American life today.

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In “The Art of Gathering,” conflict resolution specialist Priya Parker writes that “Every gathering is an opportunity to create a world we wish existed.” But sometimes we have to make do with the world we’ve got. She tells Rufus that we don’t have to be in the same place to come together in meaningful ways.

Teddy Roosevelt comes out of retirement and returns to the political fold to unseat his longtime political friend and ally, President William Howard Taft. As both parties struggle to hold their progressive and conservative factions together, Democrat Woodrow Wilson seeks to ride the wave of progressivism, capitalize on a divided Republican party, and win first place in a heated three way race.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Cielle Salazar and Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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Amazon decides to go after Walmart’s biggest category: fresh food. But moving into groceries is harder than Bezos expected. Meanwhile, Walmart has finally found success in marrying their online operation with their brick and mortar stores by allowing consumers to order groceries online and pick them up at a store. And with an aggressive new head of online sales — who has a personal vendetta against Bezos — Walmart is feeling good. But, determined to make an impact in the world of fresh food, Bezos makes a move that surprises everyone and upends the retail world yet again.

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You spent your childhood bouncing between homes, with only the beats in your head to keep you company. Now, you have to choose between living the life you want and staying true to the life you’ve had. If only you could find a way to do both.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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Charles V controlled more of Europe than any ruler in centuries, with resources other monarchs could only dream of. But that was never enough to give the Holy Roman Emperor more than a momentary victory; there was always a new enemy, some unforeseen calamity, waiting around the corner.

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In 1799, the U.S. government imposed a new tax on houses, land, and slaves to fund an expanded military. A man named John Fries led Pennsylvania Dutch farmers in protest of the law. What became known as Fries’ Rebellion was the third major tax revolt in the nation’s short history. But President Adams quashed Fries’ Rebellion with military force—a response widely viewed as an overreaction. The protesters went on to help usher Adams out of office.

Their actions proved that Americans could challenge their government without resorting to violence, and that popular dissent could exist within the rule of law…affirming a tradition of protest that exists now.

On today’s episode, we hear from Pulitzer winning historian and legal scholar Edward J. Larson. Larson is a history professor and the Hugh and Hazel Darling Chair in Law at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. He is also author of the new book “Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership” (William Morrow, 2020).

Larson takes us into a deeper dive into how the early American rebellions were resolved, and what that era of our nation’s history can teach us about how the government handles pushback from citizens now.

Additional books by Edward J. Larson:

“The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783-1789” (William Morrow, 2015)

“A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800” (Free Press, 2008)

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A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign

Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership

The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783-1789

The Branch Davidians prepare to surrender. But their plan unravels when they face the FBI, which is under intense pressure to get quick results.

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Walmart finally decides to focus aggressively on its e-commerce division, but struggles with the best way to use the internet to reach consumers. They decide their best strategy is to buy up successful online retailers. Unbeknownst to Walmart, Amazon, which is looking to move into apparel sales, is pursuing a similar strategy. As the two companies go head-to-head over an unlikely product, Walmart is unprepared for just how dirty Amazon will play.

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Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler has never felt comfortable with an economic system that values short-term profits over long-term human needs. In a quarantine conversation with host Rufus Griscom, he shares his ideas for moving from a me/now world to one that cares about us and the future.

Teddy Roosevelt’s hand-picked successor, Republican William Howard Taft, faces off against Democrat William Jennings Bryan. In his third and final presidential campaign, Bryan preaches the gospel of populism. In the end, his progressive ideas are no match for Roosevelt’s legacy, but Bryan’s failed campaign pushes the Democrat party out of the past and into the 20th Century.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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By the mid-2000s, Walmart is starting to show some cracks. They are still successful, but bad press and sluggish growth are taking a toll on their earnings. The company debates the best way to move forward, including focusing on online sales, something they’ve long eschewed. As Walmart waffles, Amazon launches a risky new program that sews internal dissent, but moves the goal posts for e-commerce once again.

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You've lost the only thing that truly matters to you. It's bigger than friendship. Bigger than love. And now, you have to find a way to get it back.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen.

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Alfred Nobel worked on dynamite in distinctly unglamorous labs, but his ambitions were as grand as his labs were small. He envisioned dynamite transforming cityscapes and connecting rail lines across Europe. When Alfred finally got dynamite right, it did exactly that – but it also led to new and terrifying forms of political violence.

On the last episode of our dynamite series, Steven Johnson talks to security expert Audrey Kurth Cronin, author of “Power to the People: How Open Technological Innovation is Arming Tomorrow's Terrorists.” Cronin argues that Nobel’s story is also the story of our times: once again, backyard inventors are spearheading new technology but not always thinking through the technology’s consequences.

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Power to the People: How Open Technological Innovation is Arming Tomorrow's Terrorists

DISCLAIMER: If you do not think that this pandemic is a big deal; if you do not want to hear our personal political views; if you don’t care about present-day politics; if you think that this will somehow offend you; then please don't listen to this episode.

Author and history podcaster extraordinaire Mike Duncan joins me to talk about pandemics, social instability, and present-day politics.

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In February 1831, a solar eclipse caused the skies to darken over the isolated backwater of Southampton County, Virginia. An enslaved man and self-proclaimed prophet named Nat Turner saw it as a sign from God that it was time to rise up against slavery.

In the early morning hours of August 22, 1831, Turner and a small group of fellow slaves emerged from the woods armed with axes. They marched on the farm of Turner’s owner, where they struck the first fatal blows of their revolt. Over the next 48 hours, the rebels roved from farm to farm, killing dozens and sowing panic throughout the white community.

Nat Turner’s Rebellion was the bloodiest slave revolt in American history. It sparked widespread hysteria and deadly reprisals, further propelling the nation down the path to civil war.

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In the late 1990s, Walmart is happily trucking along, dominating the American retail market. They’re expanding locations and increasing their own backend efficiencies to keep prices low. It’s a formula that’s worked for decades and they see no reason to change now.

But as Bezos expands Amazon’s offerings, he quickly realizes that he doesn’t have the infrastructure to keep up with his ambitions. His warehouses are in chaos. There is only one company that knows infrastructure at the scale he envisions: Walmart.

When Bezos starts poaching Walmart’s executives, he brings Amazon into Walmart’s sights. And they don’t like what they see.

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The Branch Davidians remain locked in a tense standoff with the federal government. And with the FBI now in charge, negotiators try to secure a peaceful surrender. But the FBI—and the Davidians—face a major obstacle: the always-unpredictable David Koresh.

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How will the pandemic change the way we organize our days? Our sense of purpose? Our commitments to others? So many questions! Who better to answer than Next Big Idea Club curator Daniel Pink, author of six books about motivation, leadership, and the changing nature of work.

In the aftermath of President McKinley’s assassination at the hands of an anarchist, Vice President Teddy Roosevelt, a man known for his physical and mental strength, rises to power and to the occasion. In the 1904 contest, the Democrats, and their candidate Judge Alton B Parker, learn a hard lesson about Teddy Roosevelt: anyone standing in his way is bound to suffer a beating.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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Ninety-six percent of Americans now shop online, snapping up everything from rare coins to industrial-sized barrels of hand sanitizer. Almost half of those purchases take place on one website: Amazon.

But before sales were a click away, Walmart was the top dog, decimating main streets across America with its big-box efficiency and ruthlessly low prices.

It’s 1994, and a slim 30-year-old with thinning hair dreams of leaving his high-paying finance job to sell books on the internet — a move he’s convinced is his ticket to one day dominating the world of e-commerce. Jeff Bezos just has to break the news to his parents. Luckily, he’s already found the perfect name for his new venture.

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You’ve discovered something huge. And now, you have to make a choice. You want to do what’s right, but doing so means you could lose the person you love most.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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Charles V was the most powerful European ruler since Charlemagne: king of Spain and Naples, Holy Roman Emperor, and ruler of a whole bunch else besides. How did all of these vast territories, and the central political role that went along with them, come into his possession? The answer wasn't ability or merit; it was inheritance.

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How did Alfred Nobel, the “Merchant of Death,” go from inventing dynamite to establishing the Nobel Peace Prize? The answer involves a personal ad, a poorly vetted obituary, and a surprising new use for nitroglycerine.

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Last season, author/designer Ingrid Fetell Lee taught us about joy spotting. It’s the practice of going out into the world and finding ordinary objects that make you feel extraordinarily happy. But what about when you can’t leave the house? Well, it turns out joy lurks in all sorts of unexpected places — you just have to know where to look.

One of the key players in the story of The North Face is Hap Klopp, who in 1968, bought the then-burgeoning outdoor sports equipment store. He bought the company for the bargain price of $60,000.

Klopp was CEO of The North Face for the next 20 years, and turned the small chain of Bay Area stores into a multi-million dollar business. Today, The North Face is a global brand that can be found in 5,000 locations across 50 countries.

We’ll hear from Klopp on what the journey was like to become one of the biggest outdoor apparel brands.

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As a new century dawned on the United States, an enslaved blacksmith named Gabriel began planning a bold plot to overthrow slavery in Virginia’s capital. The uprising would change the future of slavery in the South.

In the spring and summer of 1800, the charismatic Gabriel recruited an army of enslaved artisans, freedmen, and white laborers in Richmond and the surrounding countryside. They fashioned homemade weapons out of farming tools and scrap metal. They planned to attack white merchants, storm Richmond’s treasury, and kidnap Governor James Monroe. By August, hundreds of men had joined Gabriel’s Rebellion, making it the most extensive slave plot the South had seen yet.

But when the day finally came to seize Richmond, a late summer storm threatened to doom Gabriel’s plans.

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The federal government prepares for a raid at Mount Carmel. But a chance encounter eliminates the element of surprise—and sets the course for a massive battle between federal forces and David Koresh's community.

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In a tumultuous period defined by change, innovation, expansion and war, the stage is set for a rematch between incumbent Republican William McKinley and Democrat William Jennings Bryan. After McKinley’s Vice President dies in office, a new star rises to power in the Republican Party. Teddy Roosevelt comes to Washington and on the heels of a new age in American politics: the Progressive Era.

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It’s 2010 and Yvon Chouinard is about to give Patagonia’s executives their toughest challenge yet: telling people to buy less Patagonia gear.

Meanwhile, The North Face is playing catch up on environmental responsibility with a spate on new initiatives.

But soon, the two rivals will find themselves coming together to battle a common foe.

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All you want is love. Sometimes, you choose men with your heart. Sometimes, with your head. But nothing sticks. Maybe you just don’t understand relationships…

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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Alfred Nobel had solved the critical problem of detonating nitroglycerine reliably, but his efforts to turn his new "blasting oil" into a successful commercial product create new challenges. An explosion in his Stockholm lab leads to personal tragedy, and draws the ire of local authorities. And a wave of industrial accidents involving nitroglycerine around the globe has critics accusing Alfred of murder.

Alfred knows that if his "blasting oil" is ever going to realize its potential, he's going to have to figure out a way to keep it from accidentally exploding during storage and transport. Nitroglycerine is clearly the most powerful explosive known to man. The question is: can Alfred's customers actually use the stuff without blowing themselves up in the process?

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All of us are dealing with the ongoing pandemic in different ways, and I decided to wedge myself into my closet to record an informal talk with you all about pandemics throughout history and what, if anything, they might help us understand about what we're dealing with today. Economic effects, political upheavals, and disease all play together, so let's try to figure out the connections.

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What kinds of bold thinking might lead us out of this pandemic? In this lively conversation, Steven Johnson and Rufus Griscom talk about the innovations that are paving the way. Steven is the author of numerous books and hosts "Fighting Coronavirus," a podcast about heroism, collaboration, and invention on the frontlines of the battle against this pandemic.

In 1794, anti-government protests grew into an all-out rebellion, and President Washington faced his first major test of federal authority. Some 7,000 armed Westerners marched on Pittsburgh and threatened its residents. Violent resistance to the whiskey tax soon spread from western Pennsylvania to Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia.

Washington and his cabinet held tense meetings to debate a response to the so-called Whiskey Rebellion. The country’s first president was determined to act quickly and decisively, despite divisions among his close advisers. Nothing less than the sovereignty of the young nation was at stake.

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The Branch Davidians are accused of child abuse and stashing illegal firearms. With a federal investigation now underway, paranoia grows at Mount Carmel. And a government raid appears imminent.

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It’s the late 1990s and The North Face is seeking to attract mainstream customers by opening hundreds of Summit Shops within the nation’s stores.

But when the expected avalanche of sales fails to materialize, the company finds itself slipping over the edge.

Meanwhile, Patagonia steps up its mission to become a responsible company by tapping into the latest in textile tech.

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In the wake of the greatest economic depression in the country’s history so far, the Democrats battle it out over the future of monetary policy. In the midst of the debate, former Nebraska congressman William Jennings Bryan emerges as the Democrat Candidate. To win the election, Bryan will have to get the best of an affable Governor from Ohio with a message of hope for a suffering nation: William McKinley.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Erik Archilla. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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It’s the dawn of the 1990s and Yvon Chouinard is struggling to come to terms with his new status as a successful entrepreneur. He cannot decide what to do with the fast-growing monster he’s created.

Meanwhile, The North Face’s new owner Odyssey International is pushing the limits as it scrambles to become the king of the mountain.

But when economic headwinds roll in and bring recession, both companies find themselves battling unforgiving conditions.

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Nothing makes you happier than having a job. It’s been that way since you were a kid, with holes in your shoes and socks. But to fulfill your dream, you’ll have to fight the demons of your past—and the present—to prove everyone wrong. Including yourself.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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In 1846, an Italian chemist discovered the volatile compound nitroglycerine, the first major breakthrough in creating man-made explosions since the invention of gunpowder a thousand years earlier. But almost everyone who experiments with the compound thinks it’s too dangerous for any commercial application–everyone except for one brooding, obsessed young Swedish inventor named Alfred Nobel.

Nobel dreams of harnessing the chemical’s power to ignite an engineering revolution: blasting railway tunnels, digging out mines and canals…. But as Nobel’s quest to tame nitroglycerine becomes increasingly central to his family’s livelihood, it also repeatedly puts his own life in danger.

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Genetics has radically transformed our understanding of prehistory over the past two decades, revealing everything from the existence of brand-new, unknown species to interbreeding between Neanderthals and our human ancestors. I talked to geneticists Spencer Wells and Razib Khan, two of the world's most knowledgable communicators on genetics and prehistory, to get a sense for how things have changed.

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Last season, we brought you ideas with the power to change the way you see the world. Now that the world’s been turned upside down, we thought it’d be a good time to invite back some of our favorite guests to give us some much needed perspective in this confusing time. We’re starting this special miniseries, “Big Ideas in Uncertain Times,” with Susan Cain, the bestselling author of "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in A World That Can't Stop Talking." She tells us about the upside to solitude, why introspection has never been more important, and even gives us a few tantalizing clues about her new book.

Only a few years after Shays’ Rebellion was suppressed, a new revolt broke out in western Pennsylvania. Anti-government resentment had been growing on the frontier for years. Then in 1791, the U.S. government handed down a tax on domestic spirits. It became known as the Whiskey Tax. Many western farmers and distillers, already struggling under harsh conditions, refused to pay the tax and rose up in defiance. Armed gangs ambushed tax collectors—and anyone who supported them.

As resistance spread, authorities struggled to suppress the violence. Then, in the summer of 1794, hundreds of rebels went to battle against U.S. Army troops at Bower Hill, the mountaintop mansion of a wealthy tax collector. The rebels burned the manor to the ground and a popular rebel leader was shot dead, inflaming tensions.

The federal government had an unprecedented crisis on its hands.

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Vernon Howell faces criminal charges in court. And soon, his followers begin to turn against him—fueling his paranoia, and setting the stage for his fateful standoff against the U.S. government.

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It’s the late 1970s and Patagonia’s living hand to mouth and looking for a way to stoke sales. But when founder Yvon Chouinard suggests making a jersey from an unusual fabric, Patagonia creates a mountain staple and finds its products becoming a favorite of the catwalk crowd.

Meanwhile, The North Face faces tough terrain as Asian imports undercut its American-made gear and the growth in backpacking sales flatlines.

But as both companies rise higher and higher up the corporate ladder, Chouinard and North Face CEO Hap Klopp find themselves wondering what it’s all for.

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Benjamin Harrison, the Centennial President, survives a deadly strike, an international conflict, and the massacre at Wounded Knee. On the campaign trail, Harrison fights to overcome these obstacles and get the best of not one, but two challengers: former Democrat President Grover Cleveland and James Weaver of the Populist Party. During his campaign for re-election, Harrison’s prospects are further threatened by the death of a loved one.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Cielle Salazar. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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It’s 1970 and The North Face’s new owner Hap Klopp is on a mission to turn the dirtbag outdoor store he bought into an industry trailblazer. But with outdoor activity still a niche pastime, he’s going to have to do more than create gear – he’s going to have to create a market too.

But Klopp’s not the only one tapping into new opportunities. Climbing equipment maker Yvon Chouinard is about to make a chance discovery in Scotland. It will lead him into the apparel business through a new venture called Patagonia.

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In light of current events, we are re-posting one of my favorite episodes (from December, 2017) on natural disasters and the fall of the Roman Empire.

Justinian was the last great Roman emperor, but his reign was plagued by disasters beyond his control: volcanic eruptions, a changing climate, and a plague of epic proportions. Those disasters created a turning point that we can, with good reason, call the end of the Roman Empire.

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Tensions reached a climax in the freezing winter of 1787, as Daniel Shays and 1,500 rebel soldiers stormed the federal arsenal in Springfield, Massachusetts. The rebels hoped to seize arms and ammunition and burn Boston to the ground. What they didn’t know was that a government army awaited them, setting off a dogged chase in the winter snow that lasted weeks.

The farmers’ revolt reverberated far beyond Massachusetts. Shays’s Rebellion stunned America’s political elite, even drawing a horrified George Washington out of retirement to return to public life. The uprising helped convince the nation’s power brokers to throw out the Articles of Confederation and devise a new Constitution. They were determined to create a strong federal government, one that they hoped could withstand domestic rebellion. But their efforts sparked a bitter dispute about the role of government in the new Republic.

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In 1993, a massive conflict erupts in rural Texas. The federal government launches a siege against the Branch Davidians, a religious group based in the outskirts of Waco. What follows is the longest firefight in the history of American law enforcement. And it’s a battle that ends in tragedy. But the standoff has its genesis years before. It’s then that Vernon Howell comes looking for a new religious community to call home. He finds it with the Branch Davidians, and soon, he begins working to seize power.

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It’s the 1960s, and two climbing buddies are about to lay the foundations for a new industry.

The older of the two is an outdoorsman and part-time blacksmith Yvon Chouinard. His younger buddy is Doug Tompkins, who abandoned his Connecticut rich-kid life to find his kicks in the wilderness.

Niether dreams of riches. They just want enough money to keep climbing. But when they both start businesses based on their hobby, little do they realize that they’re about to climb the heights of corporate America too.

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Social unrest rocks the nation as labor riots, economic anxiety and widespread racial violence threaten Grover Cleveland’s chances for a second term. In the midst of the turmoil, President Cleveland faces off against the grandson of a former president, a deft campaigner, and a rising star in the Republican Party: Benjamin Harrison.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Cielle Salazar. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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There’s no doubt that Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts have created empires throughout the U.S. and internationally. Starbucks has more than 15,000 locations in the U.S. alone, and Dunkin Donuts is now in 43 countries. But there could be yet ANOTHER brewing business that’s raring to make a dent in Starbucks’ customer base.

Hailing from China, that new competitor is Luckin Coffee, marketing itself as the convenient gourmet coffee choice, with a lower price point than Starbucks. Sounds a bit like Dunkin’s strategy, right? And in May of 2019, the Chinese coffee giant made its initial public offering in New York.

So could Luckin be on its way to the U.S.? And if so, should Starbucks prepare for its next “Business War” with Luckin here on American soil?

For some answers, our host David Brown chats with market strategist Judy Ganes. Ganes is president of J Ganes Consulting where she focuses on products such as sugar, cocoa, and of course, coffee.

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Few books have influenced my view of American history and politics more than Colin Woodard's American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. We've been divided since the beginning, Woodard argues, and this has influenced every aspect of American history, not to mention its future. He has a new book coming out in May, Union, which expands this thesis further.

Get American Nations here.

And get Colin's new book, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood, here.

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American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America

Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood

In 1967, an unlikely surgeon performs the first human heart transplant – and shocks the world. As others race to replicate his achievement, one surgical team makes a mistake that could spell the end of organ transplants in the United States.

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The dust had barely settled on the American Revolution when new unrest erupted in western Massachusetts. Thousands of farmers and laborers rose up in protest against unjust taxes and a state government that seemed as oppressive as the British Crown. When their demands for reform fell on deaf ears, the protesters grew more desperate. They took up muskets, swords, and clubs and formed blockades to shut down local courthouses. The growing revolt became known as Shays’s Rebellion.

Boston’s government and merchant elites were horrified by the upheaval, fearing the specter of mob rule. They saw the uprising as democracy run amok, and moved to raise an army against the rebels. The showdown would test the very legacy of the American Revolution.

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In light of current events, we are re-posting one of my favorite episodes (from June, 2018) on the Black Death.

Between 1346 and 1351, the Black Death killed tens of millions of people - at least half the population - in Europe and the Middle East. This great mortality, one of the worst disasters of any era, fundamentally reshaped European society and set the stage for the world that followed.

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Dunkin and Starbucks are going full on 21st century, doing all they can to top each other with new concept stores, vast emporiums, vegan food options, oat milk lattes and “high- velocity innovations.” But the real world keeps intruding and they can’t get away from it. For all their success, can they truly command their futures?

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Brett Gary is a professor at NYU who studies media and American culture, and focuses on the public battles over censorship. He joins Lindsay to discuss the enduring influence of Lenny Bruce and the comedian’s obscenity trial.

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In an era known for corruption in politics, two presidential candidates strive for honesty and transparency: Republican James Blaine and Democrat Grover Cleveland. But as Cleveland and Blaine each advocate for their version of change, the forces of resistance to change circle the wagons around the decades old Washington tradition of federal patronage, also known as “the Spoils System.”

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Cielle Salazar. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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The Great Recession doesn’t play favorites and both Starbucks and Dunkin are hit hard. As more customers make coffee at home, Dunkin leans into its reputation as the “everyman’s brand” to lure them back. Meanwhile, Starbucks looks to cash in on an untapped beverage market with a risky move. And they both have to contend with public outcry after major PR blunders.

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By the early 1960s, surgeons have proven that it's possible to transplant kidneys and lungs. Now, with heart disease still the leading cause of death, they've set their sights on performing the first human heart transplant. But first, they've got to overcome the ethical, legal, and surgical challenges of removing a donor's heart before it stops beating for good.

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The reign of Suleiman the Magnificent was the high point of the Ottoman Empire, but for centuries, it has also been pegged as the beginning of the empire's long, slow decline into irrelevance. Is this true? Was Suleiman's reign simultaneously the best of times and the beginning of the end?

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In light of growing concerns about the coronavirus, we’re revisiting an episode we ran last spring.

One hundred years ago, the Spanish flu pandemic forever reshaped the way the United States responds to public health crises. At a time when people around the world were already dying on an unprecedented scale due to World War I, Spanish flu devastated American cities, killing more than 675,000 people in the U.S. alone. The virus had a profound effect on impact on medicine, politics, and the media, revealing deep flaws in the U.S. government’s ability to respond to such a disaster. But it would also lead to the creation of new public health institutions that still endure today, and it would help usher in a new era of global collaboration in the medical community.

For more information about the coronavirus, visit the following websites:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

World Health Organization:

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019

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Howard Schultz can hardly believe the mess his company is in, with sales in free fall. To pull out of it, he’ll need to make a radical move. Yet no matter what he does, Starbucks’ problems only get worse. And Dunkin Donuts is in expansion mode, looking to capitalize on the coffee giant’s missteps. Then, a blind taste test tips the scales in an unexpected direction.

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Lenny Bruce faces a terrifying moment, when his health takes a sudden downturn. But a Supreme Court case lifts his spirits, and raises the prospects that he'll win his own trial. Soon, the verdict is in. And Lenny Bruce meets his fate.

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After Rutherford B Hayes steps aside, James Garfield rises to become the Republican nominee. To win the White House, Garfield fights to unite his party at the Republican Convention and get the best of a war hero Democrat. Hancock and Garfield battle it out for the presidency against the backdrop of the Gilded Age; an era infamous for greed, graft and corruption.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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Howard Schultz has found his mission. He’s burning to turn Starbucks into an espresso bar business, but he can’t convince Starbucks owners to get onboard. Back in the Northeast, Bill Rosenberg is frustrated too. His son, who’s now Dunkin Donut’s CEO, has ideas that seem sure to wreck the company. Both Schultz and Rosenberg, 3,000 miles apart, are looking for ways to assert control. But soon, Starbucks and Dunkin will come head to head with their biggest challenge: each other.

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A century ago, organ transplants were the stuff of science fiction. But a handful of experimental surgeons believed that transplants were not just possible – they had the potential to save thousands of lives. Then, in 1954, a man agreed to donate his kidney to his twin brother – and one surgeon finally got his chance to prove the doubters wrong.

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Suleiman the Magnificent ruled the Ottoman Empire for forty-six years. During that time, his armies fought everywhere from Iran to Vienna. His navies touched Indonesia and the Straits of Gibraltar. Under his reign, the Ottoman Empire reached its glorious peak.

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New archaeological evidence suggests mass graves holding the remains of victims of the Tulsa Race Massacre may exist on two sites in Tulsa. And now scientists plan to excavate portions of those sites to try and uncover the truth. Residents for years had asked the city to take similar steps but until now it hasn’t happened. On this episode we get an update on these developments from Hannibal B. Johnson, an attorney and historian who has written several books on the Massacre. He joins us from Tulsa to talk about what this excavation could uncover and what it means when a community reckons with the darkest part of its history.

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In the 1960s, Lenny Bruce was a trailblazing standup comedian who took aim at American culture. Bruce clashed frequently with law enforcement, but his decisive legal battle began in 1964. Bruce faced obscenity charges over one of his performances. He also faced a criminal-justice system bent on silencing an outspoken social critic.

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While Dunkin Donuts expands and flourishes, Howard Schultz is bored. But then the 28-year-old New Yorker gets wind of a Seattle company with just four stores that’s selling more coffee makers than Macy’s. He’s got to know why. So he heads to Seattle to check out this company that calls itself Starbucks Coffee and Tea. What he finds there is a revelation but while he’s being seduced by the aroma and taste of delicious coffee, Dunkin Donuts popularity is soaring thanks to a beleaguered baker.

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Fed up with the scandals of the Grant Administration, Republicans find a new leader in Rutherford B Hayes. To keep the White House Republican, Hayes will have to get the best of a do-gooder Democrat from New York with a reputation for uncompromising honesty: Samuel J Tilden. With the election too close to call, and the country in chaos, Republicans and Democrats in Congress strike a back room bargain that has disastrous consequences for the millions of newly freed Black Americans in the South.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters and John Paul Green. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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A former high school dropout named Bill Rosenberg has big dreams and a passion for coffee. In 1950, in the small town of Quincy, Massachusetts he’s got a thriving coffee and donut shop called Dunkin Donuts. In front of the store he proudly puts up a huge sign that reads, World’s Finest Coffee. But in San Francisco, an enterprising immigrant from the Netherlands named Alfred Peet thinks he sells the world’s finest coffee. When two young guys from Seattle get a taste of it, coffee will never be the same.

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Tech startups have taken the business world by storm. Hotels, taxis, mattress shopping—startups have disrupted virtually every major industry. But not all startups are built to succeed, and some have faced treacherous paths as they vie for dominance.

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UCLA environmental historian Jon Christensen discusses Los Angeles, its never-quenched thirst for water, and what that means for the future.

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Adam Neumann’s fate lays in the hands of the WeWork board. Even if he’s removed as CEO, Adam still holds the cards to ensure he’s not walking away empty-handed. Meanwhile, rank-and-file employees just want to know whether they’ll have a job tomorrow. This is the final episode in our six-part series. Our next episode will be a special interview episode with Professor Scott Galloway about how the story of WeWork’s failed IPO has affected other high-flying startups.

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Cynthia Giles was a senior official at the Environmental Protection Agency. She helped negotiate a major settlement with Volkswagen, as the automaker faced fallout from its diesel emissions scandal. She joins Lindsay and tells behind-the-scenes stories from the scandal.

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As President Grant seeks to protect the rights of the Freedmen, the forces of opposition inside the Democratic party zero in on his administration. In the run up to the 1872 election Grant battles his personal demons, a never ending list of political scandals, and the enemies of progress. To make good on his promise to the Freedmen, Grant goes to war with violent forces inside the Democratic party hell bent on turning back the clock on progress, and keeping the Freedmen away from the polls.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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Within 10 years of Valium’s introduction, people are starting to realize it’s not quite as harmless as they had been led to believe. Patients are building up a tolerance to it, taking stronger and stronger dosages, and experiencing withdrawal symptoms when they quit. Women, who have been prescribed Valium at twice the rates men have, spearhead the fight to increase regulation.

When former First Lady Betty Ford announces her own addiction to Valium, the public outcry against the drug finally causes the government to act. They hold days of hearings and tighten up the rules around prescribing the medication, but more importantly, Valium’s reputation is severely damaged.

But decades later, doctors start to wonder if the backlash went too far….

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Leah returns to chat with Patrick about one of their favorite topics - pirates. It wouldn't be a Leah episode if we didn't range widely, so we also chat about essays and Laura Ingalls Wilder.

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With the failure of the Watterson brothers’ banks, the Owens Valley community was forced to abandon its fight for water rights against the city of Los Angeles. William Mulholland, the Los Angeles water department superintendent, could finally breathe a little easier. The city now had full control over its water supply for the foreseeable future.

But he would discover that some things can’t be foreseen. Construction had finished in 1926 on the last of the nineteen dams that lined the aqueduct. Standing 200 feet tall, the St. Francis dam held back billions of gallons of water. But by spring of 1928, troubling cracks were beginning to appear in the dam’s surface. The events of March 12, 1928, would lead not only to a terrible catastrophe, but would forever change the way the citizens of Los Angeles thought about William Mulholland -- the man who brought them water.

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When Scott Galloway gets his hands on WeWork's IPO filing, he can't believe it. Starting with the words “We dedicate this to the Energy of We,” the document sometimes looks more like a glossy brochure than a dry rundown of the company’s financials. The prospectus raises fears about the company's future, and questions about Adam Neumann’s outsized role in the company. And for the first time, Adam doesn't have all the answers.

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Federal prosecutors kick into high gear, and soon, VW executives meet their fate. Meanwhile, Matthias Müller faces his own changing fortune, as company insiders initiate a power play. It's the beginning of a new era for Volkswagen.

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The death of Abraham Lincoln sets the stage for one of the greatest political showdowns in American history. On one side stands President Andrew Johnson, a notorious drunk and bigot who was sympathetic to the South. On the other side, Edwin M Stanton and the Radical Republicans in Congress, who want to secure Abraham Lincoln’s legacy and protect the 4 million Freed Slaves in the South. The Reconstruction era brings with it a series of firsts: the end of the Civil War, the first president assassinated, and the first impeachment of a president in US History. In the midst of the turmoil, a beloved war hero rises to the occasiona and seeks to fill the void left by President Lincoln’s murder: General Ulysses S Grant.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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With Miltown sweeping the nation, pharmaceutical companies around the country want in on the action and vie to create their own versions. At Hoffman La Roche, a brilliant scientist by the name of Leo Sternbach leads the charge.

While Roche executives want him to create a copycat drug, Sternbach has bigger ambitions: he wants to invent an entirely new class of tranquilizer. After Roche loses faith in his vision, Sternbach continues his work in secret – and lays the foundation for Valium, soon to become the most commonly prescribed drug in the United States.

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The Muslim world was a vast and diverse place, home to a variety of traditions and schools of thought. The Safavids began as a brotherhood of Sufi mystics, but soon transformed themselves from a religious order to the seeds of a powerful extremist state in Iran under the leadership of a teenaged prodigy, Shah Ismail I. A clash with the Ottomans and Selim the Grim was inevitable.

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After years of letting their water be used by the city of Los Angeles, the farmers and ranchers of the Owens River Valley decided to fight back. What would come to be known as California’s Civil War would mark the 1920s with a series of attacks and reprisals between the valley and the city two hundred miles south.

With Los Angeles sending agents north to buy more land and secure yet more water rights, valley residents decided to take matters into their own hands. After several attacks damaged portions of the aqueduct, causing water to stream uselessly down into the valley, the city realized it had a desperate problem on their hands.

But all was not well with the citizens of the valley, as a long-running family feud threatens to tear apart the Owens Valley community from within.

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Masayoshi Son, the head of Softbank’s Vision Fund, gives billions to WeWork. “Masa” has just one instruction for Adam Neumann: dream big. Adam and his company go on a spending spree. They buy up everything from companies to buildings to new homes. Big dreams can be a good thing — unless they cease to be tethered to any sense of reality.

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Martin Winterkorn takes a drastic step, as Volkswagen faces withering criticism. U.S. officials prepare their case against the automaker. And VW struggles to defend itself, as drivers file a blizzard of lawsuits.

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While President Lincoln battles the Confederacy down South, he fights to keep the White House from the clutches of the Democratic Party. In the midst of the Civil War, Lincoln faces off against a disgruntled General, a divided constituency and broken country. To win, Lincoln takes the first step towards finally confronting America’s original sin and makes the war, and the election of 1864, a referendum on a divisive political and moral issue: emancipation.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Erik Archilla. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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Anxiety. It’s something everyone experiences at some point in their lives, but for centuries doctors had no effective way to treat it. They could send patients on rest cures, order them to do nothing at all, or prescribe barbiturates that depressed the central nervous system, easily leading to overdose and death.

Finally, in the mid-1950s, chemists discovered a new class of drugs: the minor tranquilizers. The most famous of these was Valium, which would go on to become the most prescribed drug in the United States.

But Valium owes its success to its lesser known predecessor Miltown, which changed the way Americans thought about anxiety.

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While the Ottoman Empire spent most of its early history expanding into Christian Europe, it also faced east, toward the vast, wealthy, and dynamic Muslim world. As the Ottomans grew in prestige and power, a clash with the Mamluks of Egypt for supremacy became inevitable.

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By 1912, the Los Angeles aqueduct project was nearing completion. But as it approached the finish line, fears were growing among the public of a vast conspiracy, fanned by socialist Job Harriman. With the formation of the Aqueduct Investigation Board, engineer William Mulholland found his methods and his purpose suddenly under a microscope. Land deals from nearly a decade ago would threaten to derail the entire project, just a year shy of its completion.

As the roaring Twenties loomed, Los Angeles would grow exponentially. But far north, in Inyo County, the ranchers whose water had been taken from them were gearing up for the first of many retaliations.

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We're wrapping our coverage of the console wars between Nintendo and Sony. David is joined by Vance Wallace, who knows video games from both sides of the controller. In the '90s, Vance was one of the best players in the world for Quake. He's also a game designer who worked on the first Lara Croft Tomb Raider games for Nintendo Wii.

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After years of sitting on the sidelines of the next-generation console war, Nintendo is finally ready to make its move. But, the years it’s spent building it’s reassuring family-friendly reputation is now a weakness. Nintendo children of the 80s are all grown up, and want adult games. Sony is able to release edgier fare like Grand Theft Auto and Tomb Raider. The half-decade cold war between Sony and Nintendo is about to turn hot. Their next head-to-head battle is a multi-billion dollar clash that will define the future of video games. And in the real world, just one of them can prevail.

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Alberto Ayala fights to get the truth from Volkswagen. But the carmaker stonewalls the government—again and again. That is, until a VW employee offers a shocking confession, and sets the course for a massive fight.

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Adam Neumann is flying high...literally. His company is worth billions. He’s being welcomed into a very exclusive club of real estate moguls. Yet even he must acknowledge that the “Spirit of We” is starting to fade as the company grows, especially among the rank-and-file employees. Some WeWorkers are even wondering if they’ve inadvertently become part of a cult.

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With the nation on the brink of disunion, two Illinois politicians battle it out for the soul of the country: Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln and Democrat candidate Stephen Douglass. Lincoln’s decisive victory is bittersweet. His ascension to the White House brings with it secession, assassination plots, the formation of the Confederacy and in the end: all out Civil War.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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Nintendo decided early on that the Nintendo 64 would be a cartridge console, instead of a CD console. But CDs are much cheaper to make and have much better graphics. Game companies are upset, and defect to Sony. In a few months time, Sony has two of the most popular game series in Japan to itself. Nintendo will now have to make its own games that are strong enough to outsell PlayStation. It’s Nintendo vs the world. They’re taking a huge gamble, and thisis not a game.

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This is a story about Sony and Nintendo, but it also involves a little company called Sega. Ever play Sonic the Hedgehog? That’s Sega. And during Nintendo’s domination of the US market, they were the only company able to fight back. That is, until they tried to outplay Sony.

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From the moment it began, the PlayStation project was in danger. The problem was none other than PlayStations knight and chief advocate: Kutaragi. He thought the now-iconic handlebar controller design was “too different” from the flat rectangles people were used to. To make matters worse, PlayStation was getting closer and closer to launching without any games… a console with no games? Good luck with the PlayStation now, Sony. They were in trouble. And Nintendo knew it.

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It's 1949. 22-year old Hiroshi Yamauchi is the heir apparent for his family's playing card company, Nintendo. From humble beginnings as a scrappy street stall founded in Kyoto's back alleys to the largest card company in Japan by the time Yamauchi takes over, this isn't a company that backs down easily when a little competition comes in. But it was a company that changed it's entire business over a couple of... cartoon characters.

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Once a symbol of 80s teenage nerdom, video games are now as common as television sets in American households. Can you imagine a world where the Sony PlayStation didn’t come out? That’s what almost happened. Originally conceived as a joint venture between Nintendo and Sony, the SNES-CD was supposed to be the bridge between Japan’s two largest tech companies. Instead, it drove the companies to war, an intense competition for entertainment domination that still goes on today.

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At this year's Consumer Electronics Show, television manufacturer LG debuted a TV set that rolls up like a poster. It's a far cry from our grandparents wooden boxes with black and white screens and bunny ear antennas. And despite impressive new television tech, many people these days are turning to phones and tablets to consume their favorite shows and moves. Today we conclude our series on the television with Susan Murray, Professor or Media, Culture and Communication at NYU. She joins us talk about the history and evolution of the television in our everyday life.

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By 1907, the city of Los Angeles had found a solution to its water problem. Two hundred miles north in the Owens River Valley was a never-ending source of water. Los Angeles Water Department superintendent William Mulholland set about constructing one of the largest public works projects the state of California has ever seen. But first, he would have to convince the voters of Los Angeles to approve the project. And then, he would have to build it himself.

For five years, construction crews filed into the desert, building a massive aqueduct system that would ferry the water all the way to the thirsty city. Along the way, Mulholland would encounter problems with bureaucrats, bad food, and dynamite. With the project hurtling towards completion, serious doubts would be raised about graft and self-interest. Was the Los Angeles aqueduct really just about water? Or was it set to make a handful of rich men even richer?

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Adam Neumann spends his twenties following a simple mantra: whoever dies with the most money wins. But to change the world, he’s going to need to find his passion—and to do that, he’ll have to rely on a new friend and a new romance.

Click here to listen to Rebekah Neumann’s full interview on the School of Greatness podcast.

Click here to listen to Miguel McKelvey’s full interview on How I Built This.

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“Let’s build the largest networking community on the planet.” That was the email Adam Neumann sent at 1am to one of WeWork’s very first employees, before they had even a single tenant. So how do you turn a scrappy startup into a global empire? If you’re WeWork's CEO, you rely on charm, chutzpah, and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black.

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In 2006, Volkswagen executive Martin Winterkorn hatches a plan to boost auto sales in America. The way to do it? Clean diesel cars. But VW's engineers run into a wall, and so they take a troubling shortcut—one that a group of graduate students will inadvertently expose.

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What do the Buddha, John F. Kennedy, Mr. Rogers, and Leonardo da Vinci all have in common? The ability to be still and tune out the busy, buzzing drone of modern life. Ryan Holiday, the author of “Stillness Is the Key,” shares his tips for slowing down, calming your mind and body, and accessing the tranquility deep inside.

The issue of slavery takes a bloody turn as sectional tensions turn violent in the West. “Bloody Kansas” deprives President Pierce of his party’s nomination and leaves the door open for Democrat Candidate James Buchanan to take the reigns. With the Whig party in tatters, Buchanan faces off against two new political factions: a third party called the Know Nothings, and a brand new faction that is now known as The Republican Party.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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For more than 50 years, a version of Boeing's 737 aircraft has sailed the skies, dominating the market for short-range, short-haul domestic planes. The 737 is the best-selling commercial aircraft of all time. But competition in the late 1980s got fierce when Airbus entered the market with its model A320. The corporate giants would duke it out for the biggest market share. We conclude our series on Boeing vs. Airbus with aviation safety expert Tom Anthony of the University of Southern California. He joins us to talk about the rivalry, how a major corporate culture shift changed Boeing and what exactly went wrong with the 737 Max.

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WeCrashed premieres January 29th.

Listen ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App. https://wondery.app.link/wecrashed

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The Pilgrims and the Puritans dominate our understanding not just of early New England, but also early America and the entire future course of American history. Yet their success and long-term influence weren't foreordained, and they weren't inevitable. Peter Mancall, Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford and Mellon Professor of the Humanities at USC, joins us to talk about his new book, The Trials of Thomas Morton: An Anglican Lawyer, His Puritan Foes, and the Battle for a New England.

Get Professor Mancall's new book here.

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The Trials of Thomas Morton: An Anglican Lawyer, His Puritan Foes, and the Battle for a New England

While Philo Farnsworth was building gizmos out of a loft in San Francisco, the Radio Corporation of America was already plotting domination of the yet-to-be television industry under the leadership of a man named David Sarnoff. Sarnoff recognized television’s virtually limitless potential, and he was determined to bring it to the masses — with or without the help of Philo Farnsworth.

Sarnoff would rely on inventors like Vladimir Zworykin, who had also figured out how to transmit pictures electronically through his patented Iconoscope. At least, in theory. The missing piece wouldn’t fall into place until Zworykin visited Farnsworth’s lab — setting off a court battle to claim ownership of one of the most iconic inventions of the 20th century.

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By the turn of the twentieth century, Los Angeles had grown from a dusty, crime-ridden pueblo into a thriving metropolis. The only problem was that it was growing too fast. With no consistently reliable water source and a desert climate leading to a decade-long drought, the city would have to begin looking elsewhere.

In the Owens River Valley, over two hundred miles north of the city, a vast, rushing river, fed by Sierra mountain snow, lay the solution. But how to get the water from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles? City water superintendent William Mulholland and former Los Angeles mayor Fred Eaton devised a breathtakingly simple plan: they would build an aqueduct. As Mulholland began sketching out an engineering vision for the project, Eaton secretly purchased land rights in the Owens Valley.

But Eaton’s methods left many valley residents bewildered and angry, setting up a decades-long battle for survival that would pit a metropolis against a small ranching community.

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It’s 2011 and Airbus and Boeing are battling for the biggest deal in commercial aviation history. American Airlines is looking to buy 460 single-aisle airplanes and with the European jet giant going all out to win the contract, Boeing’s under pressure. But when the U.S. plane maker makes a daring strike to win over American, it sets off a chain of events that will plunge Boeing into the biggest crisis in its 100-year history.

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Andrew Yang has a pretty bleak vision for the future. The way he sees it, we’re staring down the barrel of a techno-apocalypse. Robots will replace millions of workers. Income inequality will skyrocket. And social isolation will become the new normal. But Yang has a big idea he thinks can stave off disaster. It’s called universal basic income—a $1,000 check in the mail each month, no strings attached. Yang’s been pushing this magic bullet for a long time, first in his book, “The War on Normal People,” and now as he campaigns for president. But would it really make a difference? And is it even realistic? Andrew Yang makes his case to Rufus Griscom in front of a live audience in New York.

In the wake of President Zachary Taylor’s sudden death, Millard Fillmore signs into law the Compromise of 1850, the so called “final settlement” on the issue of slavery. But the Compromise has unintended consequences. As regional interests trump party loyalty, the second Two Party System begins to crumble giving rise to five third parties and two nearly indistinguishable candidates from both sides of the aisle: Whig candidate General Winfield Scott and Democrat candidate Franklin Pierce.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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It’s the 2000s and after years of talk, Airbus is pushing ahead with its plan to build the biggest passenger jet in the world.But while Airbus is thinking bigger, Boeing’s thinking faster. It’s designing a near-supersonic aircraft called the Sonic Cruiser that it reckons will put some zip into its sales. But market forces, scandal and production challenges are about to put the plans of both companies well off course.

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Mehmet the Conqueror captured Constantinople for the Ottoman Empire in 1453 and ended the thousand-year reign of the Byzantine Empire after an epic siege, but he was far from done. For the next three decades, Mehmet led Ottoman armies against Serbs, Hungarians, Venetians, Wallachians, and Turkoman tribesmen, expanding his empire and drenching two continents in blood and war.

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The invention of the electronic television was uniquely complicated for its time. So complicated, in fact, that the prevailing narrative is that it couldn’t have been invented by a single person -- let alone Philo Farnsworth.

After all, some of the most brilliant minds in the world spent the first quarter of the 20th century working on television systems -- and some even managed to transmit images. But none of those systems were ever able to deliver the quality of images they’d need to be commercially viable. None except Philo Farnsworth, a farm boy from Utah, who got the idea for television when he was fourteen years old.

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It’s the late 1980s and following the A320 crash at the Habsheim Air Show in eastern France, the safety of Airbus’s computerized flight system is being called into question. But Boeing’s got troubles too. Airlines aren’t warming to its latest product proposal, it’s losing market share, and Airbus is plotting a strike against its iconic 747 jumbo jet. So with the pressure mounting, the American giant is preparing a series of a high-risk manoeuvres designed to outwit the European competition and defend its status as the king of commercial aircraft.

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Why is it so hard to break bad habits and replace them with good ones? You may think it all comes down to willpower. But social psychologist Wendy Wood says that if you really want to change your life, then you need to tap into your unconscious mind. Wood, who’s just written a book called “Good Habits, Bad Habits,” chats with Next Big Idea Club curator Adam Grant about harnessing the science of habit formation to make positive changes that last.

In the wake of the Mexican-American war, the US gains two new territories: California and New Mexico. The victory over Mexico once again puts slavery at the center of the national political dialogue and it gives rise to a national hero. Whig candidate General Zachary Taylor rides his wave of popularity all the way to the White House in a victory over another war hero: Democratic Candidate Colonel Lewis Cass.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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It’s the late 1970s and Airbus is on cloud nine after securing a breakthrough deal with Eastern Airlines.

But Boeing’s not taking the consortium’s intrusion into American airspace lightly. And it’s going to use every trick in the book to take down the European challenger.

But with help from some powerful friends and a bold idea that’s going to transform flying, Airbus is about to increase the throttle on its journey to the heights of the aviation industry.

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It's a new year and a new decade, and that means a lot of new innovation and tech to look forward to. But, as we wonder what the future has in store, it's important to look back at the past year and what it has taught us. Author Clive Thompson joins us to talk about the innovations that caught his attention in 2019 and what he's looking forward to in 2020 and beyond.

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What was it like to be on the cutting edge of the Age of Exploration, and what made these enormous leaps possible? To answer those questions, we follow the life of a composite character, a Portuguese sailor named Pedro, on his journeys to the coast of Africa and then India beyond.

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It’s 1970 and the Boeing 747 is finally airborne. But bringing this behemoth to market has taken Boeing to the edge of collapse. And it will take years of belt-tightening and perseverance to overcome this jumbo hangover.

Luckily, the Seattle manufacturer’s competition is in disarray and its major American rivals, Douglas and Lockheed, are in even deeper trouble.

But across the Atlantic, a new threat is brewing. Europe’s government-backed Airbus is finally ready to fly. But the European consortium behind this new jetliner is about to discover that making planes is easier than selling them.

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Why do so many of our get-togethers feel awkward and unproductive? Priya Parker, author of “The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters,” says it’s because most of us don’t know how to transform stuffy events—from conferences to tedious family dinners to office holiday parties—into memorable gatherings full of moments to savor. Parker shares the secrets of being a good host, lessons everyone can learn from Harry and Meghan’s royal wedding, and tips for revolutionizing your next business meeting.

Washington, D.C., erupted in a political firestorm in 2003, after Valerie Plame’s identity was revealed to the public. Host Lindsay Graham talks with Matthew Cooper, a journalist who covered the story for Time magazine. Cooper also became part of the story, when he was held in contempt of court for refusing to name the sources who disclosed Plame’s identity to him.

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After President Harrison passes away just one month into his term, Vice President John Tyler becomes the first accidental president in US History. While Tyler fights for the legitimacy of his presidency and sets precedents for future succession, the Whigs and Democrats fight it out on the campaign trail. Whig candidate Henry Clay and Democrat candidate James K Polk go head to head over the issue of Texas and the expansion of slavery.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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It’s the 1950s, the dawn of the jet age. And leading the world into this era of faster, less shaky flights is the British-made De Havilland Comet.

But when disaster strikes, a hungry American military plane maker called Boeing spots a golden opportunity to break into the civil aviation big leagues.

And as Boeing ascends, America’s grip on the aircraft market tightens, crushing the European competition.

But with their market share plummeting, Europe’s plane makers decide they must unite or die.

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Thank you for listening to Season 2 of Imagined Life! We’ll be back in the spring with more new episodes. In the meantime, we’ve recommended some favorites from our back catalogue. We invite you to share your favorite episode titles in the comments!

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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It's been a hard fought battle for decades, and in the 1970s there's no signs of Ford or Chevrolet slowing down. But this time they're fighting on new grounds, ones dominated by Japanese cars. Honda, Toyota and Datsun dominate the market, and Ford and Chevy seem like they're just... running out of gas.

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Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson make a surprising announcement. Scooter Libby faces a day of reckoning in court, and Patrick Fitzgerald’s case comes to an end.

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The Whigs seek to deny President Martin Van Buren a second term by taking a page out of the Republican playbook, and run a war hero candidate of their own: General William Henry Harrison; the hero of the Battle of Tippecanoe, a man the Whigs portray as a hero of the common man.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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In the 1960s, the biggest generation of Americans of all time are reaching driving age. They want cars, and they want them to be fast and powerful, and they want them now. The best showcase for these cars is by winning races, and in the 1960s, Ford and Chevy are gunning for each other at every turn.

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FDR believed that WWII was a contest of mass production. Whoever could build the most trucks, tanks, guns and airplanes would come out on top. What power could defeat the United States of America and its massive automobile industry? But for Roosevelt’s arsenal to work automakers will have to put aside their rivalries and retool.

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The Bush administration comes under investigation for its role in the Plame leak. Meanwhile, Valerie Plame begins receiving alarming threats, which put a strain on her career and personal life. New York Times reporter Judith Miller faces an agonizing choice about her role in the leak.

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In this episode, we’re peering into the future with Kickstarter co-founder and CEO Yancey Strickler. He’s got a new book out called “This Could Be Our Future,” and it’s all about transforming our world into a more kind and generous place.

As Jackson’s Vice President Martin Van Buren struggles to secure his place as Jackson’s Heir Apparent, the newly formed Whig party struggles to form a national identity. The Whigs unite against Van Buren with another political faction called the Antimasons; America’s first third party.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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In 1896, Henry Ford puttered around Detroit streets testing his “Quadricycle.” This was the whimsical beginning to a revolution that redesigned the landscape of America.

Cars changed the way America lived, worked, ate, shopped, and listened to music. And more than 100 years ago, the entire industry was a group of men, whose names are now emblazoned on every bumper, just hanging out at their local bar.

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Your husband’s death leaves you with your back against the wall. Now, you have to fight for your survival. But it’s not just the world you’re up against. It’s also yourself.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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What brought the son of a German shoemaker to a blood-soaked English field in June, 1487? In today's episode, we follow the life of a composite character, Hans, an artisan-turned mercenary, on his journey from Augsburg to Stoke Field and try to understand how the currents of the late Middle Ages made his life possible.

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It’s the 1960s and as Americans flee cities for the suburbs, Macy’s and Gimbels face tough choices. How do they compete with the rise of discount retailers and the exciting new shopping palaces known as malls? Weakened by industry disruption, both stores become vulnerable to the new wave of financial tactics — takeovers and leveraged buyouts. One store’s fateful decision during this transition period will end with it closing its doors forever.

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The Civil War forced the warring families of Clay County into an uneasy truce. The Garrards, Whites, Howards, and Bakers found themselves allied as they fought for the Union. But the war brought new challenges: the Northern army destroyed Clay County’s salt mines in order to keep them out of the hands of the South, and the Emancipation Proclamation brought an end to slavery, which had helped make salt mining so profitable.

The Garrards and the Whites were so rich that they were able to withstand these pressures on their businesses. But the poorer Bakers and the Howards soon found themselves fighting over scraps of land and timber. And in 1898, a business dispute led “Bad Tom” Baker and “Big Jim” Howard to assassinate members of each other’s families, starting a wave of killings and arsons so bloody they would reshape the state.

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In 2003, America is at war with Iraq, as part of its global campaign on terror. Former diplomat Joe Wilson sharply criticizes the war, making him an enemy of the White House. Payback is swift, but the crosshairs are aimed at someone else: Wilson’s wife, covert CIA agent Valerie Plame.

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Most of us are taught hard work and talent are the keys to getting ahead. Turns out it’s not so easy. In his new book, “The Meritocracy Trap,” Yale professor Daniel Markovits says meritocracy isn’t leveling the playing field. Instead, it’s a pretense for concentrating privilege and intensifying inequality. He tells us the time has come to reinvent higher education, redesign the workplace, and reimagine meritocracy so it actually works for everyone.

Jackson and the Democrats battle to defend Jackson’s presidency from Henry Clay and an onslaught of personal and political attacks. The death of his wife Rachel fuels Jackson’s desire for revenge and sets the table for a showdown between the Washington establishment and the common man.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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In the late 1930s Gimbels makes a risky bet by stockpiling goods likely to be scarce in wartime. They also snap up their rival’s star copywriter, who does the best work of her career at their shop. Their savvy planning and advertising strength position them well for the post-war period, when Americans open their wallets wide. But the lifting of Depression era regulations governing retail leads to a series of price wars between all the department stores. None is as extreme as the one between Macy’s and Gimbels, which ends in mayhem, and sometimes, violence. The price wars force Macy’s to choose between honoring a sacred, century-old discount policy, or risk ending the year in the red for the first time in company history.

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You’ve never been afraid to speak your mind. Except now, you’re not the only one who could suffer the consequences.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen

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Leah declared mutiny and there was a small defenestration from the 8th Floor Wondery Studio as she took full creative control of Tides of History. Well, not quite, but she did control the interview. Patrick Wyman guests today to talk about his upcoming book, The Crunch!

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After George Eastman cut ties with his chief emulsion-maker-turned-saboteur, Henry Reichenbach, the Kodak company started to falter. Some batches of film literally fell apart on the shelves. Others seemed fine, but yielded blurry, unprintable photos.

Eastman had tried to find a suitable replacement for Reichbach, but no one was able to make a stable emulsion at the volume he needed. Eastman was starting to get desperate.

He knew that if he didn’t fix his film fast, his Kodak cameras would never amount to more than a passing fad. Eastman wasn’t just looking to get rich and get out. He was after a legacy that would stand the test of time. In order to do that, Eastman would not only have to make his product reliable, he’d have to continually innovate — constantly turning out one new demographically-targeted product after another. In the end, this strategy would make Kodak a household name, and then doom it to obsolescence.

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The longest and bloodiest feud in American history erupted in the 1840s in Clay County, Kentucky — where it raged for nearly a century and ultimately claimed more than 150 lives. The Clay County War, also known as the Baker-Howard Feud, pitted four families against each other: the powerful Garrads and Whites, who assembled vast wealth mining salt, and the less influential Bakers and Howards. In time, the Garrards would align with the Bakers, and the Whites with the Howards.

At first, the families got along, cooperating in the back-breaking work involved with extracting salt in the Appalachian region. But as the economy collapsed and new technologies led to new competition from the outside, the families would find themselves increasingly competing for survival — and a single act of violence would be enough to spark a conflict that spanned generations.

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It’s the 1920s and wealthy flappers and captains of industry have money to burn for raccoon coats and monogrammed sterling silver hip flasks. Gimbels makes a risky acquisition of Saks Fifth Avenue, that ends up floating Gimbels through hard times and family tragedy during the Depression. Macy’s counters Gimbels’ strategic expansion by hiring a brilliant young copywriter, one of the first female advertising executives, and entering the new industry of radio broadcasting to advertise to the masses.

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, here are some additional resources:

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

National Alliance on Mental Illness: 1-800-950-6264

Crisis Text Line: Within the US, text HOME to 741741

Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance: 1-800-826-3632

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Roses are red, violets are blue, and Malcolm Gladwell has written yet another bestseller. It's called "Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know," and it's all about the perils of trusting people we don't really know. Gladwell, who's also a Next Big Idea Club curator, tells us why we need to stop taking everybody at their word and start exercising a little healthy skepticism.

In the 1828 contest, the party label of “Democratic-Republican” splits in half, giving birth to two new political factions: the Democrats and the National Republicans. General Andrew Jackson rides a populist wave all the way to the White House, depriving President John Quincy Adams a second term.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s nearing the turn of the 19th century, and the Straus Brothers now run Macy’s emporium out of a dozen cobbled together stores in lower Manhattan. The next generation of Straus’s pressure the old guard to build a huge new Macy’s flagship on 34th street, in the still seedy red light district of Herald Square. It will take some persuading. And by the time the new venture reaps its reward, the family will be famous for a new reason; the heroism of one of the store’s founding fathers and his wife on the fateful voyage of the Titanic.

Gimbels now has mammoth enterprises in Milwaukee and Philadelphia, and one of Adam’s sons also has greater ambitions. He urges the Gimbel elders to ride the wave of Macy’s high profile and build an even bigger store right on the rival’s doorstep. And when they balk, he comes up with a dastardly plan.

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Your whole life, you’ve gotten into trouble. You just can’t seem to stop yourself. But sometimes it pays to be one of the bad guys.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond

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What was it like to be a regular person in the late Middle Ages? We follow the life of a composite character, a brewer in London named Margaret, through her family, work, and marriage. She was a product of her time, everything from the Black Death to shifting expectations of work and gender, and she's a great window onto a period of upheaval and change.

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George Eastman had made technological breakthroughs and forays into the photography market, but his images still weren’t good enough for professional photographers and the photographic process was still too complicated for recreational photographers.

Eastman needed to improve his product and simplify his process, but he couldn’t do it alone. His novice chemistry skills had already carried the company as far as they could go. So Eastman reached out to a gifted chemist for help, and made his company vulnerable in ways greater than he had feared.

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As R.H. Macy’s Manhattan emporium and reputation grow during the Civil War, his teenage son rebels and runs away to join the Union army. When the boy goes AWOL, the future of Macy’s burgeoning department store faces jeopardy. But salvation arrives in the form of another recent immigrant from war-torn Germany, Lazarus Straus. His family will lead Macy’s into the next century and a golden age of the department store.

But Adam Gimbel has been busy in Indiana; he now has a prosperous business and 11 children. His seven sons spur their father on to open a bigger and better store in booming Milwaukee. Their ambition and Macy’s growing fame in New York will soon lure the Gimbel Brothers east to challenge him on his home turf.

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On Dec. 4, 1881 the Los Angeles Times published its very first edition. And while the paper ran into severe financial trouble just a year after its founding, it nevertheless survived and over its 138 year lifespan has been at the forefront of some monumental stories in American history. But, the news industry today is vastly different and extremely divisive. So how did we get here? The LA Times' Steve Padilla has worked at the paper for 32 years and he joins us to look back at the roots of the journalism industry and newspapers and how we go to where we are today.

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Host Lindsay Graham talks with Alex Gibney, director of “Client 9,” a documentary that examines the rise and fall of Eliot Spitzer.

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Colleges, businesses, and bureaucracies have long operated on an "old power" model — rigid hierarchies that rule from the top down. But Henry Timms says that paradigm is going extinct. In his book, "New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World — and How to Make It Work for You," Timms argues there's another force emerging. It's transparent, collaborative — and it's going to embolden all of us to change the world from the bottom up.

As America’s regions battle over their disparate interests, five presidential candidates emerge. The 1824 election signals the end of the Era of Good Feelings, the crumbling of the old political establishment, and a new era of American politics.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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It's the mid 1800s and two very different young men set out in the world to make their fortunes. A young boy from Nantucket spends four years at sea on a whaling ship, the other becomes an itinerant peddler in the wilds of Indiana. These two adventurers, R.H. Macy and Adam Gimbel, eventually settle down as merchants, and open their own dry goods stores. They don’t know each other yet, but, as they each grow their businesses, they inadvertently create what we now know as the department store.

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The clock is ticking and you have a lot to do. You want to make a difference in the world. You have a vision, but not everyone sees what you do. You’ll need to do something bold to convince them. Tick tock.

In honor of the holiday, we’re reairing one of our favorite Imagined Life episodes. Happy Thanksgiving!

Hosted by Robbie Daymond

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Today, if we want to take a photo, we unlock our phone, aim, and click. It can be done on a whim, without a second thought. We document everything from new haircuts to latte art, cute cats to baby’s first smile. But prior to the 1900s, photography was the exclusive domain of professionals and dedicated hobbyists -- people willing to learn complex skills and spend hours on the craft.

Responsible for that shift was a man named George Eastman. Armed with a radical vision for what photography could be, and a cold-blooded business sense, Eastman delivered photography to the masses and altered the way most of us experience our lives over time.

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In the midst of their heated negotiations over the price of raisins, the CEO of Sun-Maid and the head of the Raisin Bargaining Association face off, each making their pitch about the state of the raisin industry and the road forward. It’s the first time the two men have been able to appeal directly to the farmers themselves. The farmers must decide whether to follow Sun-Maid’s plan for a lower price for their raisins but a more robust market overall -- or stand by the R.B.A. and a higher price for raisins. Their choice will shape the raisin market for decades to come.

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Leah is back on the show today to discuss The King on Netflix starring Timothee Chalamet as King Henry V, our favorite Sadboi King, as he becomes the greatest king England's ever seen. Overall, we liked it! And if you need something that everyone in your family can agree on, it's that Robert Pattinson is doing something, we aren't sure what, but a definite thing as the Dauphin.

Watch it here.

Thank you so much for listening to Tides, we are thankful for you.

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Preet Bharara investigates Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos. The explosive trials and the aftermath.

Links to NY Times articles mentioned:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/04/nyregion/sheldon-silver-trial-highlights.html

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/19/nyregion/dean-and-adam-skelos-trial-highlights.html

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What you see is what you get, right? Nope. In his mind-bending new book, "The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes," Don Hoffman argues that what we see, smell, touch, and taste are illusions. Reality, he says, is just an interface, like a computer desktop, built by our brains to conceal complexity. Hoffman offers us the red pill and invites us into "The Matrix" — the surreal, flickering, unreliable "real" world.

In the last uncontested election in US history, President James Monroe presides over the “Era of Good Feelings.” With the nearly extinct Federalist party on the ropes, in order to win a second term, Monroe fights through a devastating economic depression, a moral crisis over the issue of slavery and a deeply divided Republican party.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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Facing a shrinking raisin market, Sun-Maid hires a new CEO with a mandate to make raisins popular with Millennials. He believes part of the reason consumers are spurning raisins is the price and is set on Sun-Maid paying less money to farmers. This puts him on a collision course with the old school raisin grower who is heading up the Raisin Bargaining Association. With many farmers struggling to make ends meet, the R.B.A. is determined to get the highest price for raisins ever. As the two men clash, tensions escalate to the point of death threats.

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You're a natural storyteller. A dreamer with a big imagination. And you want to share your stories. If only there weren't bills to pay.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond

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Today, if you or someone you know experiences a medical emergency, you dial 9-1-1 and a squad of trained medical professionals arrives at your door. But just 55 years ago, that was not the case.

Emergency calls were generally dispatched to funeral homes simply because their vehicles were suited to transporting bodies. You’d be lucky if the person transporting you had any first aid training at all. A soldier shot in Vietnam had a better chance of surviving than a housewife in a car accident because the soldier in Vietnam got immediate trained medical care.

Throughout the 1960s, volunteer rescue squads began experimenting with different kinds of pre-hospital care. But in Pittsburgh, 20th century topography converged with the fates of a few individuals, and one ambitious vision, to spin a medical revolution into being.

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Popular historian Roger Crowley returns to the show to discuss his new book, The Accursed Tower: The Fall of Acre and the End of the Crusades, which covers the last great siege of the Crusades at the city of Acre. It's a really fun read, I highly recommend it, and you can get it here.

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The Accursed Tower: The Fall of Acre and the End of the Crusades

The humble raisin: it’s hard to imagine that dried grapes are at the center of one of the longest running business wars in the United States. But with almost all of the country’s raisins coming from a small area in California’s Central Valley, it is a brutal and cutthroat industry.

In the early 20th century a few wealthy raisin growers decided to form a collective called Sun-Maid. After the government mandated that 85% of growers join the collective, Sun-Maid executives used violence and intimidation to get farmers to join. The farmers who held out had little bargaining power and were forced to accept lower prices. But in the 1960s, the independent farmers banded together to fight back. They founded the Raisin Bargaining Association to negotiate higher prices, setting off a power struggle that would last for decades.

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In September 2019 Democratic Senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren invoked the memory of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire at a campaign rally just a few blocks from the site of fire in Manhattan. It was a powerful reminder of just how deep the legacy of the disaster runs. Organized labor and workplace safety have come a long way since the fire but after years of political opposition, unions and worker rights are on the decline. In the U.S., unions represent 6.4 percent of private-sector workers and just 10.5 percent of workers overall. That’s the lowest percentage in more than a century, and down from 35 percent in the 1950s. That's according to Steven Greenhouse, author of the new book Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor. Greenhouse joins us to talk about the state of labor in America today and why after years of decline, labor is starting to gain steam.

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Governor Cuomo tries to stamp out corruption with an independent commission who deals with interference from unexpected places. Attorney Preet Bharara lasers in on the committee’s findings.

Links to NY Times articles mentioned:

The Many Faces of New York’s Political Scandals:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/23/nyregion/23moreland-commission-and-new-york-political-scandals.html?_r=0

NY Times article about Moreland Commission:

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/23/nyregion/governor-andrew-cuomo-and-the-short-life-of-the-moreland-commission.html

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As a college student, Zachary Wood ignited a national debate when he invited controversial speakers — anti-feminists, climate-change deniers, and self-proclaimed racists — to lecture on campus. Critics accused him of promoting dangerous ideas. But in his new memoir, "Uncensored," Wood argues that we can develop empathy and understanding by engaging with opposing viewpoints.

In his country’s hour of need, President Madison puts his hopes in Secretary of State James Monroe. Monroe’s heroic actions in the War of 1812 help save the country, bolster his national reputation and define the landscape of the 1816 election.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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Growing the cocoa needed to produce chocolate on the scale a company like Mars or Hershey needs is an immense undertaking. One serious consequence chocolate producers are now facing is deforestation in countries that grow the cocoa for the world's chocolate demands. The Washington Post reports that in 2017, 40 football fields of tropical forests were lost every minute, spurred by the demand for cocoa and other goods like soybeans and palm oil. We conclude our series Hershey vs Mars with Steven Mufson. He reports on business and climate change for The Washington Post and he joins us to talk about why deforestation has become such a serious issue and why producing environmentally sustainable chocolate is so hard.

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To outsiders, your life seems free and easy. But there’s something missing — a part of yourself you worry you’ll never get back.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen

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In October, Google announced in a paper in the journal Nature that it built a chip called "Sycamore" that achieved what is known as "quantum supremacy." It's being hailed as a massive step forward in the world of quantum computing. Quantum computing's principles lie in the fascinating world of quantum mechanics, and while it is extremely complicated to understand, the theoretical applications of a quantum computer could have a massive real-world impact. We'll talk with Scott Aaronson, the David J. Bruton Centennial Professor of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin, and director of its Quantum Information Center, about Google's discovery. Aaronson reviewed Google's paper before it was published and has worked for years on these complex problems.

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Was history destined to happen as it did? That's what counterfactuals - alternative scenarios of how things might have gone - are useful for answering. In this episode, we apply them to the Protestant Reformation, one of the key processes of the past millennium.

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It’s a new century and Hershey’s facing unexpected trouble at home — a showdown between the company and its biggest shareholder that threatens its independence.

Meanwhile, Mars is on a mission to become the world’s candy king. And with Hershey yet to break ground outside the U.S., the opportunity to catch up is fading fast.

Hershey knows there’s one move that could transform its overseas fortunes: a merger with its British soulmate Cadbury. The question is can it secure Cadbury’s hand in marriage before Mars triumphs in its quest for global chocolate domination.

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In the wake of the biggest workplace catastrophe in the city of New York, the survivors of the Triangle fire and the families of the victims could only watch from the sidelines as the case against the Triangle bosses went to trial. The 146 deaths resulting from the fire had been sifted through the state’s legal machine and condensed into a single woman: a 24-year-old sewing machine operator named Margaret Schwartz.

In December 1911, the general sessions court presided over by Judge Thomas Crain heard the People of New York vs. Max Blanck and Isaac Harris. The prosecution had a strong piece of physical evidence and a compelling witness. But Harris and Blanck had a lawyer whose courtroom rhetoric might get his clients off scot-free.

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Have you ever had one of those arguments — whether with a friend or a colleague, a loved one or a perfect stranger — that you both vehemently disagree, and it boils your blood? Too often these days, arguments with people we disagree with feel impossible. We never solve anything but seem to succeed in hurting someone’s feelings. But what if it didn’t have to be that way? In his forthcoming book, “Why Are We Yelling?: The Art of Productive Disagreement” (Nov. 19), Buster Benson, who has worked for some of the world’s most successful companies, to help you have hard conversations in your relationships, engage people with different political viewpoints, and disagree with dignity.

Troopergate explodes. Governor Spitzer finds himself embroiled in a scandal. Senator Bruno is investigated by the FBI.

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During Madison’s first term, US neutrality in the ongoing conflict between France and Britain is put to the test. Madison has no choice but to defend his country against British oppression; and to defend his presidency against a threat growing within the ranks of his own party; a rising political star from New York named DeWitt Clinton.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s the late 1970s and Mars is America’s top confectioner. But Hershey is hungry for a comeback. It’s plotting a return to the top powered by a rush of new candies it hopes can nibble away at Mars’ market share.

Not that Mars has any intention of surrendering pole position without a fight. It thinks it can stop Hershey in its tracks by focusing exclusively on best-selling brands like Snickers, M&M’s and Milky Way.

But what neither company knows is that a tempting opportunity from Hollywood is about to disrupt the balance of power in candy land.

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All around you, you see struggle and strife; rampant corruption and inequality. You know the system is stacked against you. So you work outside of it.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond

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The medieval economy underwent a profound transformation, becoming ever more commercialized and monetized. Merchants helped drive that change, moving goods from place to place and profiting on the returns. Today, we meet some of them: an Italian named Francesco Datini, one of the richest men in Europe, and the Cely family of English wool merchants.

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Two years after the labor strikes that shook the city of New York, the workers of Triangle factory returned to better wages and lower hours. But when a fire broke out near closing time on a Saturday afternoon, these same workers found themselves swept up in a catastrophe. Some would escape, but many would not.

In the weeks that followed, a city mourned and began to wrestle with questions of responsibility. Where did the blame for the tragedy lie? With the city? With the factory owners? Or with the workers themselves?

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It’s 1965 and Forrest Mars has just become the manufacturer of Snickers and M&M’s. He is now – at last – ready to duke it out with Hershey in a battle to become the number one candy maker in America.

And he knows Hershey is far from prepared for his sudden switch from ally to enemy. Hershey is a company wedded to tradition. It has no marketing department, doesn’t advertise, and has a completely complacent sales team.

The question is: can Hershey shake off its docile ways in time to stop Forrest’s relentless advance?

Exciting news! Business Wars is now available globally. That means you can listen to Business Wars in French, German, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese:

wondery.fm/BWPortuguese

wondery.fm/BWSpanish

wondery.fm/BWFrench

wondery.fm/BWGerman

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Conventional wisdom tells us that real joy comes from within: from exercise or meditation, acts of service or the way we look at the world—pretty much anything except material possessions. But author/designer Ingrid Fetell Lee offers a different opinion in her book, "Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness." Lee tells Next Big Idea Club curator Adam Grant that there's tangible evidence of the powerful relationship between the way we feel and the objects that surround us, and she explains how we can harness that relationship to live healthier, happier lives.

In 2006, Eliot Spitzer is elected governor on a promise to tackle corruption in the most dysfunctional state capital in the country--Albany, NY. He is quickly challenged by one of the most powerful men in the state. Will the governor change Albany or will Albany change him?

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James Madison is Thomas Jefferson’s heir apparent. To win the presidency, Madison will have to deal with a growing threat inside his own party: the Tertium Quids. Upset by Madison’s actions as Jefferson’s Secretary of State, the Quids turn their back on Madison and embrace another political powerhouse from the state of Virginia: James Monroe.

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It’s the 1940s and Forrest Mars’ plan to create a candy empire is stepping up a gear. He’s plotting to seize control of his dad’s company Mars and turn it into a Hershey killer.

First he needs to get his new candy venture off the ground. But to do that he needs help. Help from Hershey.

But while Forrest’s laying plans, Hershey’s trying to get over the death of founder Milton Hershey and grappling with an unexpected opportunity to become a global player.

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You don’t like being you. Other people don’t like you either — the kids at school, even your own family. But words give you power. They make you feel invincible.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen

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Religious freedom is a core value of the modern West, but how did it emerge, and why does it matter? Economic historian Mark Koyama, of George Mason University, joins me to discuss his recent book (co-authored with Noel Johnson), Persecution and Toleration: The Long Road to Religious Freedom.

Check out the book here, and follow Professor Koyama on Twitter @MarkKoyama.

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Persecution and Toleration: The Long Road to Religious Freedom (Cambridge Studies in Economics, Choice, and Society)

In the summer of 1888, just as the electric chair controversy was unfolding, Nikola Tesla moved to Pittsburgh to work for George Westinghouse, fulfilling a year-long commitment he made when Westinghouse purchased Tesla’s AC motor patents.

The deal would make Tesla a millionaire, but it would ultimately threaten to topple Westinghouse’s business.

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Inspired by the labor strikes at Triangle and other factories in Lower Manhattan, more than 30,000 garment workers took to the streets of New York in protest in late 1909. For the first time, an industry of women sought not to just halt production at one factory — they wanted to put the brakes on an entire trade.

With over four hundred garment factories shut down, factory owners banded together with police and the courts to fight the striking workers. But as the labor movement attracted new high-society allies, internal politics began to fracture the labor movement, threatening to derail the entire cause.

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It’s 1923 and the Hershey Chocolate Company dominates the candy bar business. With its milk chocolate Hershey bar and bite-sized Kisses, Hershey seems impossible to beat.

But in a Chicago police station, an awkward father-son reunion is about to sire a new challenger in the candy business.

That challenger is Mars and it’ll make its breakthrough by wrapping nougat in chocolate. For now, it’s got no plans to topple Hershey.

But all that’s going to change when a family feud spawns a European offshoot, the launchpad for a new and far more aggressive candy empire.

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Our world is awash in code, and those zeroes and ones aren't as impersonal as you might think. In his new book, "Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World," journalist Clive Thompson provides an up-close look at the "invisible architects" of our digital age, revealing the ways they're shaping our society for better and worse.

Host Lindsay Graham talks with Vanessa Grigoriadis, a writer for The New York Times Magazine and Vanity Fair, about Jeffrey Epstein’s sordid story. To hear more, subscribe to “The Mysterious Mr. Epstein.”

If you or someone you know is a victim of sexual assault, reach out for help. In the US, you can contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline by calling 1-800-656-HOPE. Or you can chat anonymously with a hotline staffer by messaging the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network at online.rainn.org.

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To maintain his grip on power and win the election of 1804, Thomas Jefferson, the so called “Man of the People”, will have to survive brutal attacks in the press, ideological pushback from his own party and a violent scandal that plagues his administration.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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It’s 1886 and in New York City, a young confectioner called Milton Hershey is desperately trying to save his business.

He’s been struggling for years. He founded his first candy business in Philadelphia, only to watch it collapse. His second venture lasted just weeks. Now, he’s loaded up with debts he cannot pay.

But he’s about to get a visit from a man who will change his fortunes forever, paving the way for him to introduce America to the joys of milk chocolate… and build a sweets-fueled empire.

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You’re caught between two worlds -- your small hometown where you’ve never fit in, and the big city you escaped to. But home is what you make of it.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond

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After his unceremonious departure from Edison Electric, Nikola Tesla found himself broke and dejected, but more determined than ever to share his alternating current system with the world. And thanks to the help of one man who really believes in his work -- a man with vision, money and power -- he’ll soon have his chance.

Tesla has Edison in his sites, and the Current War is about to get deadly.

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The social media world moves fast, and the next big thing is already upon us. It’s called TikTok. A video-based app where users create short clips to share with the world, TikTok is growing at a rapid rate. The app has already been downloaded a billion times and boasts 500 million active users around the globe. We conclude our series on Facebook vs Snapchat with a look at the next big player in the social media game.

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On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in Manhattan, claiming the lives of 146 garment workers — mostly women and girls. It was one of the deadliest workplace disasters in American history. Caused by a combination of carelessness and poor safety measures, the fire eventually set off a wave of workplace reforms that changed industry in America and sent New York party politics in a totally different direction.

But in the years before the fire, the workers of the Triangle factory were focused on a different issue — advocating for higher pay. Facing long hours and unsympathetic bosses unwilling to implement change, the women decided they had only one option left.

It was time to go on strike.

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Stanford psychology professor Jennifer Eberhardt has spent years studying how racial bias affects all of us — yes, all — in ways we don't realize. In her new book, “Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think and Do,” Eberhardt explains how bias shapes our perception, our decisions, and our culture. She tells Next Big Idea Club curator Dan Pink what we can do about it.

As Thomas Jefferson and John Adams part ways over the issue of France, history sets the stage for one of America’s oldest, and bloodiest political rivalries: Burr versus Hamilton. These two foes go to war in New York in one of the wildest elections in American history; an election that will ultimately be decided in the House of Representatives and that will end in bloodshed.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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It’s June 2018. Mark Zuckerberg is struggling and morale at the social media giant is low. Facebook has been battered by data breaches and there’s no end in sight. Meanwhile, Evan Spiegel has a chance to turn Snapchat around by refocusing on the teens who’ve abandoned Facebook.

As Snapchat unveils new features, the startup begins its next battle: To become profitable. And in order to stay the course, Zuckerberg must earn back the trust of Facebook’s users — and regulators who want to break it up.

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A long time ago, you learned it was dangerous to be who you are, so mastered the art of being someone else. But now it seems there may be more danger in living a lie, than speaking your truth.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen

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On August 6, 1890, a prisoner named William Kemmler became the first man executed in the electric chair. It was designed to be a more humane form of execution, but the gruesome scene in the death chamber that day revealed the device to be anything but.

Still, the chair stuck around. And Kemmler’s execution proved to be a pivotal moment in the history of capital punishment. But if you pull back just slightly, you’ll see that the story of the electric chair was just one small chapter in another story — a much larger story — that would come to define the world we live in.

This other story involved three titans of innovation—Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse — locked in a desperate fight for control of the future of electricity. Their conflict would take lives, spark scientific advances and revolutionize human existence. And it would come to be called the War of the Currents.

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The roots of the modern economy, based on markets, money, and exchange, lie deep in the Middle Ages. The Commercial Revolution remade the European economy, paving the way for the explosive growth that followed centuries later.

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It’s April 2017, and Mark Zuckerberg is issuing a new challenge to Snapchat. By making its face filters open source, the tech giant is coming directly for Snapchat's most popular feature. But founder Evan Spiegel has other things to worry about: Snapchat is hemorrhaging users, and its share price is plummeting.

But when the Cambridge Analytica scandal breaks, Facebook's most pressing battle moves to the court of public opinion.

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Nir Eyal’s last book, “Hooked,” taught Silicon Valley how to make addictive technology. In his new book, “Indistractable,” he gives you the tools to take back control of your attention and your life.

New York City was founded on the Dutch principles of tolerance and capitalism, both of which were new ideas at the time. But much of the city's early history was lost until the 1970s, when a renewed interest in the Dutch period led to the founding of the New Netherland Center. Here, thousands of previously untranslated records shed new light on this crucial moment in Gotham’s history. Our guest today is Greg Young, who co-hosts the Bowery Boys, a popular podcast about all things New York City history. Young visited the New Netherland Center, and he joins us to share what he found there and where Dutch influence can still be seen in New York today.

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In the 1796 election, two political forces of nature collide: Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. As the supporters of Adams and Jefferson vie for their candidate, the machinery of America’s nascent political parties is unleashed in the first contested election in American history.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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It's September 2015 and Snapchat has just hit on a game-changer for the young company: filters that augment users' faces. Thanks to some celebrity love, the new feature becomes wildly popular. But Mark Zuckerberg is watching closely, and acquires a competing startup.

Then, Zuckerberg switches up his strategy. His new philosophy: Don't be too proud to copy. Unfortunately for Spiegel and Murphy, this is going to have devastating consequences.

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You want to make something of yourself. But no matter how hard you try, the gatekeepers keep shutting you out. And what’s worse — you’re afraid they’re right. Maybe you really do belong with the losers. Hosted by Robbie Daymond

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The resourcefulness of NASA’s engineers and Skylab’s first crew helped save the space station from near disaster. Now, as the station’s second crew settles into their fifty-nine day mission, another kind of crisis is about to threaten Skylab—one that has nothing to do with the hazards of space travel.

In the fall of 1973, the United States is struggling. Gas prices are skyrocketing thanks to an oil embargo. The Vietnam War is dragging on, costing thousands of American lives and hundreds of millions of dollars. In the White House, Richard Nixon’s presidency is hanging by a thread, as details of the Watergate scandal leak out.

Against this backdrop, public interest in the U.S. space program is waning — and with it, Congress’s will to continue funding it. Now, faced with deep budget cuts, NASA may have no choice but to bring its space station program to a premature end.

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Venice was a commercial hub, the hinge of the medieval economy, but it was also the center of a remarkable empire that spanned the sea lanes and trade routes of the Mediterranean. The Venetian Empire was an odd beast, beset on all sides by more powerful neighbors, but it survived for centuries thanks to Venice's unique combination of wealth and stability.

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In the years after Adrian Van der Donck won a municipal charter for New Amsterdam, and under Peter Stuyvesant's stern but capable rule, the city flourished. Even English residents of New England and Virginia sent their goods to Europe via the future New York Harbor, because the Dutch were so good at the business of shipping. Dutch features that would become part of American culture — from cookies and cole slaw to Santa Claus — became ingrained. Most importantly, the Dutch notions of tolerance, which fostered a multi-ethnic society, and free trade, became rooted in Manhattan.

But in London, King Charles II and his brother, James, the Duke of York, were eager to build an empire. Their plan involved taking over slaving posts in West Africa, reorganizing their American colonies, and taking the Dutch colony, with its strategically located capital. And soon, they would send a squadron of warships to Manhattan.

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It’s November 2013, and Mark Zuckerberg is about to make Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy an offer he thinks they can't refuse. But when Spiegel and Murphy do the unimaginable, it prompts Facebook to compete — by copying.

Snapchat is gathering steam, but data leaks are hurting the company's credibility and Spiegel's reputation. To survive, they're going to have to do the hardest thing for a startup — grow up.

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As President Washington grapples with the idea of a second term, Vice President John Adams gears up for a fight to keep the vice presidency. Adams will find help from an unlikely ally, the very man who conspired to deny him votes in the election of 1789: Alexander Hamilton.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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As the fate of the nation hangs in the balance, General George Washington struggles with his personal desire to retire from public life and the duty he feels to save his country in its hour of need. Ultimately, Washington rises to the occasion to become America’s first president.

Created, hosted and executive produced by Lindsay Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Co-Executive produced by Steven Walters in association with Ritual Productions. Written and researched by Steven Walters. Fact checking by Gregory Jackson and Cielle Salazar from the podcast History That Doesn’t Suck. Music by Lindsay Graham.

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It's the new millennium and Mark Zuckerberg is bored in high school. He's a prodigious student so smart he's already taking graduate level coding classes at Mercy College. Soon, he's going to build a product that will change the Internet forever. Now he just has to graduate high school.

Evan Spiegel, meanwhile, grows up rich and spoiled. He parties his way through high school and lands in a fraternity at Stanford. But things are about to get serious for Spiegel as Zuckerberg reaches out.

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You’re driven by an inherent sense of right and wrong. A force so strong you can’t help but challenge every inconsistency, every injustice around you. You see yourself on the front lines of the fight against injustice; others just see you as obnoxious.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond

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Skylab was NASA’s underdog — a cobbled-together program that lived in the shadow of the Apollo moon landings. But with the last of those moon landings completed in December of 1972, it was finally Skylab’s time to shine.

That is, until launch. Now the eighty-ton space station is in orbit, but it’s badly damaged — possibly uninhabitable. And the timing couldn’t be worse. With America in the midst of a recession, politicians’ patience for NASA’s huge budgets is wearing thin. If Skylab turns out to be a two billion dollar boondoggle, it could set the entire American space program back decades.

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Here's the rest of our conversation with historian and bestselling author Dan Jones. In Part 1, which you should absolutely listen to if you haven't already, we covered the Crusades in general; this time out, we discuss some of Dan's favorite crusaders, the most fascinating figures from four centuries of holy war.

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It’s April 2011, and Evan Spiegel is about to present his class project. Right now, it's called Picaboo. Soon, it's going to become Snapchat. But for Spiegel, this is more important than grades--at stake are potential investors and the future of communication as we know it.

Mark Zuckerberg, meanwhile, is sitting on the world's biggest social networking site, boasting 500 million users. But he knows his success depends on staying relevant. To do so, he's going to have to compete with Snapchat.

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Peter Stuyvesant was fresh from losing a leg in battle against the Spanish when he arrived in Manhattan in 1647. He was a tough soldier who was ready to take charge of the unruly population of New Amsterdam. He soon clashed with Adrian Van der Donck, the leader of the opposition, who was secretly crafting a formal legal complaint that would compel the Dutch government to give the colony a form of representative government. When Stuyvesant discovered that Van der Donck had been spearheading an effort to overthrow his rule, he had him arrested for treason.

But after a public faceoff revealed the Dutch government had come down on the side of colonists, Van der Donck was released. He returned to Europe and traveled to The Hague, where he argued that the Dutch government should take over the colony from the West India Company. At first, the Dutch government supported Van der Donck’s cause. It granted New Amsterdam a charter, giving the colony official status as a Dutch city, and ordered Stuyvesant's recall. But then order was abruptly rescinded. Oliver Cromwell’s English government was declaring war on the Dutch republic.

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You know Malcolm Gladwell's “10,000-Hour Rule.” But did you know that, according to David Epstein, it doesn't work? That's what Epstein argues in his new book, “Range: Why Generalists Triumph In A Specialized World.” In this episode, Malcolm Gladwell talks with Epstein about why a broad range of experiences in life is actually the best way to find success.

The Next Big Idea premieres October 15th.

World Wrestling Entertainment is the dominant name in professional wrestling but new promotions are now challenging the WWE’s dominance. We conclude our series on WWF vs WCW with David Shoemaker, author of The Squared Circle: Life, Death, and Professional Wrestling. Shoemaker joins us to talk about whether or not these new companies can succeed against Vince McMahon's behemoth and what it means to be the best professional wrestler in the world.

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On the road of life, some people are drivers, and others are not. You’ve been told you were born for the backseat, told to buckle and enjoy the ride, but now you’re all grown up. It’s time to take the wheel.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen

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On the road of life, some people are drivers, and others are not. You’ve been told you were born for the backseat, told to buckle and enjoy the ride, but now you’re all grown up. It’s time to take the wheel.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Fifty years ago, America’s space program achieved its greatest triumph, when Apollo Eleven put the first men on the moon.

The Apollo program was a remarkable success story. But as NASA was sending men to the moon, they were engaged in another, less celebrated project — one even more important than the moon landings to humanity’s potential future in space. That project was called Skylab — America’s first space station.

Chances are you’ve never heard of Skylab. If you know anything about it at all, you know that after it was launched into orbit, it came crashing back down to Earth. But before that crash, Skylab taught NASA more things about living and working in space than any program before it.

So why did one of the engineers who worked on Skylab once call it “the little redheaded bastard out behind the barn”? Why do so many accounts of NASA’s achievements barely mention it? Why have most Americans never heard of America’s first space station?

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Just as it was becoming a New World success story, disaster came to New Amsterdam. Willem Kieft, the Dutch leader appointed by the West India Trading Company, declared war on local tribes, sending soldiers to slaughter them in their villages. The tribes responded with waves of death and destruction that would set the European settlers back decades in their development.

A new colonist named Adriaen Van der Donck arrived to find the place in chaos. The colonists were furious at Kieft for endangering their settlement with his attacks. Van der Donck had been trained as a lawyer, and he soon found a role organizing the colonists against Kieft. He lobbied Kieft to permit the formation of a council to give the residents a say in their government. But when it became clear Kieft had no intention of giving the council any real power, Van der Donck responded by going over Kieft’s head and appealing directly to the leaders of the West India Company for intervention.

The response wasn’t what he expected. It would lead to the appointment of a new Dutch leader, a hardliner tasked with wrestling the wayward colonists back under control. His name was Peter Stuyvesant.

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It’s 1998 and the slugfest between Vince McMahon’s WWF and Ted Turner’s WCW is reaching a critical juncture.

McMahon’s on a mission to pull wrestling fans back to his TV shows with a strategy focused on maximum controversy. And to help him in his mission, he’s getting back-up from a high-flying TV executive and a bunch of Wall Street bankers.

WCW chief Eric Bischoff is determined to stop WWF’s comeback at all costs. But he’ll soon discover that his most dangerous enemy isn’t McMahon — it’s the executives on his own team.

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A federal task force is formed to bring Enron’s corrupt executives to justice. Sherron Watkins arrives in Washington to participate in congressional hearings and struggles to process the staggering costs of Enron’s downfall.

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It’s 1996 and with Monday Nitro topping the TV ratings, WCW is out to end WWF’s time as the biggest player in the wrestling business.

It’s plotting to establish two brands: one that WCW boss Eric Bischoff hopes can suck away WWF’s family audience, another that will seek to capture the young males who crave more violent and outrageous entertainment than the WWF offers.

But Vince McMahon has a plan of his own. He’s going to push the WWF in a new direction by embracing controversy. But it’s a strategy that will put him on a collision course with the cable network the WWF depends on for its survival.

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Your whole life, people have conspired to hold you back. They want you shackled, grounded. But you won’t let them. Not anymore. Now, you’re determined to escape.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond

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Alone among the world's regions, western Europe only had one major, long-lived imperial experience: that of Rome. When it fell, nothing like it ever returned again. According to Stanford's Professor Walter Scheidel, that fact had enormous consequences for the long-term development of Europe, and was a necessary precursor to the rise of modernity.

Check out Professor Scheidel's new book, Escape From Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity, which comes out October 15th.

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Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World, 115)

New Amsterdam was a desperate place. For the first decade of its existence, the Dutch city on the tip of Manhattan Island served as a haven for pirates, prostitutes and smugglers. That was because the West India Company, which ran New Amsterdam, insisted on controlling all trade — something it simply couldn't manage effectively. Finally, in 1640, the Company gave up its monopoly, and what had been a rag-tag, Wild West kind of town quickly took on the hallmarks of Dutch capitalism.

Trading firms in Amsterdam opened branch offices on Manhattan, and business boomed. Merchants traded in everything from furs to tobacco to Caribbean sugar and salt. Soon, Manhattan became a brash, free-wheeling pioneer settlement where visitors could hear some 18 different languages — at a time when the city’s population numbered only about 500. The ingredients were in place for an American success story utterly unlike the English colonies to the north.

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It’s 1995 and the Monday Night Wars are underway. WCW’s new show Monday Nitro is grappling with the WWF’s Monday Night Raw to win TV viewers’ attention.

WCW isn’t pulling its punches either. Under the command of Eric Bischoff, WCW is dropping spoiler bombs, luring away WWF’s top wrestlers and trashing the WWF brand.

And as WCW gains momentum, Bischoff is plotting a killer blow – a shock role reversal that will force WWF boss Vince McMahon to rethink how his wrestling promotion works.

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The Wall Street Journal works to expose the shady financial deals key to Enron’s success. With his company pushed to the brink of bankruptcy, Ken Lay engages in a desperate ploy to avert disaster.

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It’s 1994 and WCW is stepping up its game. To get the jump on WWF, Ted Turner is writing big checks to steal away the WWF’s biggest stars and sponsors. And as WCW’s star power increases, so does its popularity with wrestling fans.

But the WWF is in no position to fight back. It’s struggling to keep the lights on, there’s discontent among its roster of wrestlers, and Vince McMahon is preoccupied with staying out of prison.

And now Turner wants to deliver a killer blow. A new Monday night wrestling show that will go head to head with the WWF’s flagship TV program Monday Night Raw.

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You’re timid and awkward, a fish out of water. Dance brings you poise and self-assurance, but you can’t live in the ballet studio. You have to go out into the world.

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We conclude our series on Corn Flakes with Howard Markel author of "The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek." Markel joins us to talk about how he discovered the Kellogg's story and how their innovations changed the world of medicine, business, and of course, what we eat for breakfast today.

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When it comes to medieval and early modern economic history it is important to understand guilds, how they functioned, and their effects on society. Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie joins me to talk about guilds and her most recent book, The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis.

Find Professor Ogilvie’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/European-Guilds-Economic-Analysis-Princeton/dp/0691137544

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The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World, 90)

It’s the dawn of the 1990s and Vince McMahon’s WWF is the king of wrestling. But trouble’s brewing: a steroids scandal is about to deal a body blow to the WWF and its family-friendly reputation.

The scandal will leave WWF stuck in damage control mode as it fights to stem the losses from falling TV ratings, ticket sales, and pay-per-view buys.

Meanwhile, Ted Turner’s trying to get World Championship Wrestling fighting fit with help from a former Pizza Hut regional manager, a self-proclaimed Cowboy, and a back-up announcer who wants to bring wrestling to Disney World.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Twelve years after Henry Hudson's 1609 trip charting the Hudson River, the Dutch used his voyage as the basis for a new colony, which would be wedged between the English colonies in New England and Virginia. New Netherland began with tiny numbers of people from different backgrounds. They settled the entire region that Hudson had traveled, from Delaware to New York to Connecticut. But being spread out so thinly exposed them to danger. In 1626, in the area around the future Albany, New York, a small party became embroiled in a fight between two native tribes, and some settlers were killed.

In the aftermath, the colonists chose a new leader. Peter Minuit's first decision was to call all the settlers together for strength. Then he selected a location for a capital city, one that was strategically located in a world-class harbor and at the mouth of the colony's central river—a wilderness island called Manhattan.

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Ken Lay fights to restore public confidence in Enron as the bad publicity mounts and the stock price continues to fall. Sherron Watkins is encouraged when an internal review of company practices is launched, but stunned when it appears to backfire.

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It’s the early 1980s and there’s peace in the wrestling business. For years regional wrestling companies have maintained order by sticking to their own slices of US and Canadian territory.

But that’s all about to change. Vince McMahon has just taken over the World Wrestling Federation, and he wants war. He’s on a mission to crush all opposition and establish the WWF as the only wrestling game in town.

But his assault on the wrestling status quo will also make him a powerful enemy: cable TV mogul Ted Turner.

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You’ve spent your whole life building: a large family, a beautiful home, a successful career. But there's still something missing. And once you find it, you'll risk everything to keep it.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond

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Now that Will has officially left the San, it would seem his days of servitude and humiliation are finally over. But John has no intention of leaving him in peace.

As Will forges ahead with his groundbreaking cereal business, John resorts to desperate measures to make sure he’ll never have to share the spotlight with his brother. Even if it ends up costing him everything.

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The Crusades defined the Middle Ages and left a long legacy behind them. We chat with Dan Jones, author of the upcoming book Crusaders: The Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Land, about why this long series of conflicts mattered so much to medieval people and why they're still important today.

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Harley Davidson built its brand on big, loud and heavy bikes. So why is the company staking its future on an electric motorcycle? It turns out Harley's main demographic, baby boomers, are aging out of the motorcycle scene and the company is looking for its next target market. But will people be interested in a bike that is so fundamentally different than what the company is known for? And how do motorbikes overall fit into an auto industry that is becoming increasingly electric? Journalist Bradley Brownell writes about the auto industry and motorcycles, and has even test driven Harley's new electric bike. He joins us to talk about Harley Davidson, the motorcycle industry and its electric future.

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In 1609, a headstrong English sea captain named Henry Hudson set out on behalf of the Dutch East India Company to find a trade route to Asia — and promptly found himself and his crew stranded in icy waters off the coast of Norway. As supplies dwindled, Hudson announced to his frostbitten crew that the ship would change course. They set off across the Atlantic Ocean in search of an alternative route through the North American continent.

Hudson never found the Northwest Passage, but he did come across something else on that journey — a small island the native people called Manna-hatta. That settlement would eventually give rise to a new Dutch colony called New Netherland, with Manhattan Island, or New Amsterdam, as it would come to be known, as its capital. New Amsterdam would come to be defined by two key Dutch values: tolerance and capitalism. This series by Russell Shorto, based on his book The Island at the Center of the World, traces how Manhattan’s brief chapter as a Dutch colony shaped the city for centuries to come.

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Enron manipulates California's electricity market for financial gain, and the state is plunged into an energy crisis. Meanwhile, the schemes of a corrupt CFO, a rocky transition of power, and an alarming discovery by Sherron Watkins, threaten to tear the company apart.

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By the early 1980s, Harley-Davidson is fighting to survive. Japan has glutted the American market with bikes, creating a war Harley can’t fight alone. The company turns to the U.S. government. It’s something they tried in the ‘50s with no success, but now there’s a man in the White House who loves the all-American Milwaukee brand.

In the years ahead Harley stands tall, surviving all manner of battles. But there’s one foe that never stops: time. The company needs to appeal to a new generation of young riders who may not be attracted to Harley hogs — or motorcycles at all. It’s yet another vexing chapter for the 116-year-old company that refuses to die.

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After missing the chance to buy the rights to Shredded Wheat, the Kellogg brothers are on a quest to make toasted wheat flakes the leader of the breakfast revolution.

The cereal they make would change the culinary landscape of the country—and push their relationship to the breaking point.

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There’s an interesting history when it comes to books, printing, and the Reformation, all tied together through new technology and business. Professor Andrew Pettegree joins me to talk about all of this and more, as well as his new book, The Bookshop of the World: Making and Trading Books in the Dutch Golden Age.

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The murder of Emmett Till galvanized the nascent civil rights movement. But the full story of what happened in Money, Miss., on August 28, 1955, is significantly different than the narrative that emerged at the time. A new app developed by scholars at Florida State University now seeks to give a fuller picture of Till’s lynching by taking users on a GPS guided tour around the Mississippi Delta and the important sites related to the case. Davis Houck, a professor of rhetorical studies at FSU, developed the app, and he joins us to talk about educating people on the legacy of Till’s killing and why it's more significant than ever.

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It’s 1969, and the iconic film Easy Rider stars Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson and—most prominently—Harley choppers. It boosts the brand’s cool cred even higher with the American counterculture, much to the chagrin of the aging, conservative company owners in Milwaukee. They’ve long-hated the fact that the Hells Angels ride Hogs, but now the top Angel reveals some shocking news on his true feelings about Harleys.

Finally, there’s a new light in Milwaukee. Willie G. Davidson, son of Harley’s president, rises as chief of style and design. He not only appreciates the outlaw bikers, he looks like one. Harley-Davidson needs to embrace the image that’s grown around the bikes, and Willie G. seems like the man to lead the charge. But can he pull it off?

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In the mid 1990s, Enron Corporation solidifies its position as the number one energy company in America. Investment manager Sherron Watkins lands a dream job there, but quickly learns that Enron's office culture and accounting practices make it a treacherous place to work.

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It’s 1963. After battling the wave of British bikes vying for the high-dollar U.S. motorcycle market, Harley-Davidson is slammed by a tsunami of machines from Japan. Kawasaki, Yamaha, Suzuki and—the biggest, most popular of them all—Honda.

It’s a nightmare that will force the company to the edge of bankruptcy as the Japanese redefine the industry. Whether Harley can change with the changing times remains to be seen.

On the literary front, writer Hunter Thompson canonizes the Hells Angels with his bestselling book dissecting the outlaw biker crew, highlighting their passion for Harleys.

As Honda’s sunshiney ‘60s ad jingle says, you meet the nicest people on a Honda. It begs the question, who do you meet on a Harley?

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For the first 150 years of American history, American citizens were plagued by gastrointestinal issues. Diarrhea, gastritis and dysentery were pretty much a way of life. Indigestion was such an immense problem, the poet Walt Whitman called it “the Great American Evil.”

All these stomach issues were thanks, in part, to breakfast—which looked very different than it does today. Roast pork, pickled vegetables and thick gruel were common staples on the American breakfast table. That is, until two brothers — John Harvey and Will Keith Kellogg — invented a ready-to-eat dry cereal that changed American commerce, medicine, and the way we eat even as it locked the brothers in a vitriolic battle that would last their entire lives.

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The Alsos mission had a hard-charging leader in Boris Pash and an eccentric band of recruits. But if the so-called Bastard Brigade was going to track down the Nazi atomic bomb, they would also need scientific expertise. For that, they turned to the Dutch-American physicist Samuel Goudsmit.

Goudsmit wasn’t the brigade’s first choice—far from it. He was considered weak and timid, and even Goudsmit himself worried he lacked the courage for the mission. But the scientist had been friends with Werner Heisenberg as a young man in Europe, and he felt personally betrayed by Heisenberg’s work for the Nazis. And as a Jew who’d lost his parents to the concentration camps, Goudsmit was determined to fight back against Hitler.

But Goudsmit would eventually prove himself, and his brilliant detective work would lead the mission to a cave in Germany hewn into the side of a cliff — Heisenberg’s secret lair and the heart of the Nazi bomb project.

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By the late 1940s, World War II has ended, but Harley’s battle with a few disenfranchised veterans is just beginning. Bored and looking for kicks, these men are forming clubs based around a love of boozing, brawling and Harley Hogs. The motorcycle riots in the small town of Hollister, California bring huge headlines, and a few years later Hollywood stokes the fires with The Wild One. The first biker gang movie features Harleys front and center, and it’s publicity that the bosses in Milwaukee hate with a passion.

As the company turns 50, it gets a unique gift when its archrival finally bites the dust. But the competition remains stiff as Harley revs up to deal with invaders from England and — on the plus side — there’s a glowing Hog nod from the King of Rock n’ Roll.

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It’s 1903, and Harley-Davidson is entering the spanking new motorcycle market. Of the hundreds of fledgling brands, the bike to beat is Indian, and Harley has the company in its crosshairs. But a decade later, Harley is on the defensive, scrambling to distance itself from the deadly sport of board track racing and solidify its image as a respectable brand.

Indian has its own image problem when Mexican rebel leader Pancho Villa starts leading charges on a Powerplus model. But when the U.S. sends General Blackjack Pershing to hunt Villa down, Pershing’s troops are riding Harleys.

But World War I proves a decisive turning point as both companies fight their way closer to the top of the motorcycle world.

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In the 1960s, choking was a national epidemic. In the United States alone, close to 4,000 people were dying from choking every year. Lobster, ham, and hamburger were common culprits. But steak was by far the greatest offender.

Coroners called for a solution to these “Cafe Coronaries,” and the medical community responded with weird and dangerous gadgets: vacuum tubes and long tweezers. But Dr. Henry Heimlich knew this problem required something else; a simple technique that anyone can use to save the lives of choking victims—the Heimlich Maneuver.

The Heimlich Maneuver would save the lives of thousands of people, including Carrie Fisher, Cher, New York Mayor Ed Koch, and at least one American President. And yet, Dr. Heimlich would spend a decade fighting for the legitimacy of his life-saving maneuver.

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A swampy lagoon on the Adriatic coast of Italy was not a promising place for a city, but Venice grew from a collection of huts on spits of land to a glittering center of commerce and the heart of a maritime empire. Today, we explore the beginnings and rise of this fascinating city from late antiquity to the Black Death.

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As the Nazis inched closer to acquiring a nuclear weapon, panic grew among the Allied forces. The Alsos Mission — otherwise known as the Bastard Brigade — was put in charge of gathering intelligence on Hitler’s bomb project, seizing stores of Nazi uranium, and hunting down members of the Uranium Club. The first atomic spy outfit in history was underway.

Their mission was led by the American-born son of a Russian Orthodox bishop, Colonel Boris Pash — a high school teacher, irreverent prankster, and veteran of two wars by his 18th birthday. Pash’s team would pursue leads across Europe, taking them on a dangerous journey from an Antwerp zoo to a French laboratory beset by snipers.

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By the late 1940s, Harley-Davidson has become America’s leading motorcycle manufacturer. The family-owned Milwaukee brand has battled hundreds of companies since its first bike rolled out of a backyard shack in 1903. Now they’re facing the birth of the outlaw bikers, disenfranchised WWII vets who love their Harleys—and love to cause trouble. It’s an association that conservative Harley owners can’t stand.

And fierce competition is coming in from British bike makers. Triumph is churning out lightweight, sporty machines that are the polar opposite of Harley’s heavy hogs, and everyone is vying for a piece of the lucrative U.S. market. Things get so cutthroat that Harley-Davidson appeals to the government. It’s an appeal that will not have happy results for the Milwaukee contingent. And the problems are just beginning.

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A shakeup in the maple syrup industry. The slowest pizza delivery in the world. Pet food companies cashing in on your love for Fido. On our sister show Business Wars Daily, we bring you breaking news about the business rivalries you know and love — along with some you’ve never heard of before. This week, the latest and greatest of our weekday updates, including an unconventional entrant to the life insurance industry and how harnessing progressive values helped a tear-jerking ad campaign go viral.

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Boxing has a long past, one deeply connected to race, labor, and broader developments in American history. Professor Louis Moore joins me to talk about those topics and about his outstanding book, I Fight For a Living: Boxing and the Battle for Black Manhood, 1880-1915.

Find Professor Moore's book here: https://www.amazon.com/Fight-Living-Manhood-1880-1915-Society/dp/0252082877

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I Fight for a Living: Boxing and the Battle for Black Manhood, 1880-1915

The first mass rollout of robots into mainstream life won’t be humanoid machines designed to clean our homes or mow our lawns. It will be our cars. That’s what author Jason Torchinsky argues in his book “Robot, Take the Wheel: The Road to Autonomous Cars and the Lost Art of Driving.” Torchinsky, senior editor at Jalopnik.com joins us to talk about why building truly autonomous vehicles is a lot more complicated than we think.

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With all the hype around portable and smart speakers, it’s easy to forget that they didn’t always exist. In fact, it took one fateful meeting with Monster Cables and Interscope Records to really kick the industry off. In this one-episode Business Battle, we explore the time when headphones became fashion, what it takes to get people to shell out $350 for a pair, and what happens when a million dollar mistake becomes a billion dollar mistake.

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By mid-1944, the Allies’ fight to track down and stop the Nazi atomic program had met with failure and disappointment. And so the Manhattan Project took a new tack by recruiting and developing atomic spies — including a backup catcher for the Boston Red Sox named Moe Berg.

Although little known today, Berg was one of the most famous athletes of his day, and a certified genius. He could charm sports writers and fans alike with his tales of palling around with Babe Ruth and other celebrities, but he also held degrees from Princeton, Columbia, and the Sorbonne and spoke a dozen languages. When World War II broke out, Berg volunteered to work on behalf of the Office of Strategic Services as a spy.

Over time, however, Berg’s focus would shift from espionage toward assassination. Soon, he would travel abroad to target the most feared scientist in the world and the sharpest mind in the Nazi Uranium Club: German physicist Werner Heisenberg.

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Mounting violence forces Dennis Banks and the rest of the occupation to decide how much they’re willing to sacrifice for their cause. Federal negotiators face a deadline to end the standoff at all costs, and Banks and Russell Means meet face to face with the FBI.

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Breakfast is the most important meal of the day! Or is it? While that phrase sounds scientifically and nutritionally sound, it’s origins can be traced back to cereal company marketing departments. We conclude our series on the cereal wars with Alex Mayyasi, editor of Gastro Obscura. Alex has traced the origins of breakfast as a meal and how cereal marketing came to be so aggressive.

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The Italian Wars changed the face of Europe, but what was it like living through them? Today, we follow the lives of two composite characters to see both how war changed and how it affected the people who participated in them.

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The DeLorean was going to change the automotive industry. Designed to be fast, fuel-efficient, durable and affordable, it was going to be the first ethical sports car. It was going to break Detroit’s monopoly on car manufacturing and bring stability to Ireland’s fragile economy.

So what went wrong? And what can we learn from it?

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It’s the year 2000 and, for the first time in almost a century, Kellogg’s is no longer America's top cereal maker. Now a new CEO is in the driving seat, and he’s on a mission to win back the cereal crown from General Mills.

But even as the two rivals slug it out for number one, they’re both facing a new reality: a market that’s losing its appetite for cereals as people abandon their breakfast bowls for grab-and-go morning meals of granola bars, bagels and Egg McMuffins.

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In early 1944, the Allies developed a desperate plan to destroy several massive bunkers in Nazi-controlled France—bunkers that reportedly housed atomic missiles. The plan called for filling up airplanes with napalm, flying them over to France via remote control, and ramming them into the bunkers, blowing them sky-high. But the military still needed pilots to get the napalm-filled planes off the ground and pointed in the right direction.

It was dangerous in the extreme. But one of the first volunteers for the mission was none other than Joe Kennedy, the daring older brother of future president John F. Kennedy. John had recently become a war hero, and a ragingly jealous Joe was willing to risk everything to destroy Hitler’s bunkers—and, more importantly, turn the spotlight back on himself.

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After defying a federal ultimatum to leave Wounded Knee or face a full-scale assault, the occupation doubles down by declaring themselves the Independent Oglala Nation. A new proposal from the feds causes Russell Means to ponder how much he’s willing to sacrifice for Lakota sovereignty. FBI Special Agent in Charge Joseph Trimbach reluctantly accepts an unexpected new mission.

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It’s the 1980s and General Mills is making waves with a new cereal based on the world’s hottest video game: Pac-Man.

But Kellogg’s is hoping to cash in on a different trend: the growing clamour among adults for healthier breakfasts.

So it’s plotting a taboo-busting ad campaign that will rewrite the rules of cereal promotion and spark an all-out battle among the cereal makers to win over the health conscious.

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Planning a summer vacation and looking for something fun to read? Patrick and Leah have you covered with a few suggestions.

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Normally on American Innovations, we look at the history of the science and technology that transformed the world we live in. These stories teach us about the vision, grit, competition, and teamwork required to conquer new frontiers and forge new pathways to the future. But equally valuable, perhaps, are the stories of those visionary innovators who seemed poised for greatness, who aimed for the stars, and then fell, crashing spectacularly back to earth.

In this series, we’ll examine one of the greatest failures in automotive history: the life and work of John DeLorean, the maverick engineer whose technical achievements seemed destined for the history books, among the likes of Henry Ford and Elon Musk. But instead, he became known for his dramatic demise.

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It’s the late 1950s and General Mills is playing catch-up. While Kellogg’s and Post are thriving on the back of animated characters and sugary cereals, General Mills’ cereals are looking stale. So now the Cheerios maker is on a mission to create its own roster of cartoon heroes who can charm children into demanding its cereals.

As General Mills fights back, Post is looking to the stars. It's planning a direct attack on Kellogg’s best-selling cereal with help from the space race.

But after years of selling sugary cereal with loveable characters, the cereal giants are about to face a backlash on Capitol Hill.

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The discovery of uranium fission in Nazi Germany in 1938 terrified Allied nuclear scientists—especially since the Nazi atomic bomb project, the dreaded Uranium Club, had a two-year head start on the Manhattan Project.

So the Allies decided to strike back. They couldn’t prevent Germany from acquiring uranium, but they could disrupt access to another key ingredient in atomic research—heavy water. Only one company in the world produced heavy water at the time, an isolated plant in Norway, so the Allies decided to send in teams of elite commandos on a top-secret mission to destroy it.

These missions certainly didn’t go perfectly—some were in fact disasters. But to prevent Hitler from getting an atomic bomb, no price was too high to pay.

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Emboldened by their takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, AIM takes its campaign for Indian rights to the border towns of South Dakota. But now AIM is a top law enforcement priority, and violent clashes with police follow. When the Oglala Lakota of Pine Ridge ask for AIM’s help in their fight against corrupt tribal president Dick Wilson, the occupation of Wounded Knee provokes a fearsome federal response.

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World War II is in the rearview mirror, and breakfast cereal is on the brink of a new calorific era. Post Cereals decides to break from its healthful past and start sugar coating its cereals. It’s a move that leaves Kellogg’s and General Mills in a quandary: should they follow Post’s lead or stick to their nutritional traditions?

But sugary cereal isn’t the only new challenge the cereal giants are wrestling with. A new, exciting medium called television is taking off fast and changing the rules of cereal promotion. And this TV and sugar boom is going to put children at the heart of the cereal business.

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In our second episode on the Italian Wars, we explore how Holy Roman Emperor Charles V's vast territories ratcheted up the conflict from a dynastic squabble to a continent-spanning contest of great powers.

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The Second World War ended with two black mushroom clouds rising over the scorched remains of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But most people don’t realize how easily the war could have ended not with an American atomic bomb but a German one, obliterating not a Japanese city but Paris, London, or even New York. As the war began, all the pieces were in place for the Germans to develop an atomic weapon. They had scientific visionaries like Werner Heisenberg, a manufacturing base committed to total war—and a big head start. The Allies were willing to go to desperate lengths to stop Adolph Hitler from getting his hands on an atomic bomb. They assembled a team of men and women to spy on, sabotage, and even assassinate members of the Nazi bomb project. They would become known as The Bastard Brigade.

But in the years leading up to the war, the scientific community couldn’t yet anticipate that artificial radioactivity was possible, let alone that it could lead to a weapon on the scale of an atomic bomb. That initial discovery would fall to a husband and wife team in Paris with a famous surname, a string of failures behind them, and a lot to prove: Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie.

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It’s 1904 and Quaker Oats is about to make an, ahem, explosive entry into the cold cereal business. With the Kellogg brothers at risk of being left behind, Will Kellogg finally decides it’s time to stand up to his brother. He cuts ties and brings the original corn flakes to market — aided by some shrewd advertising and an army of housewives — but sets off a legal battle that pits brother against brother.

But there’s about to be another entrant to the cereal business. General Mills is an upstart out of Minneapolis with an idea for a new cereal that will help the company stand out from the competition. The donut-shaped oat puffs even have a catchy name: Cheerioats.

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In early 1973, the militant civil rights group the American Indian Movement (AIM) takes control of the town of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. The action launches a 71-day standoff between Indians and federal forces. But before they make their stand at Wounded Knee, AIM leaders Dennis Banks and Russell Means are already on a collision course with the U.S. government — starting when they lead more than a thousand Indians from across the country to the steps of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington DC.

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It’s the late 1800s and America is in the grip of a bellyache epidemic. But, thanks to a divine revelation, help is on the way in the form of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and his sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan. In his quest to calm the nation’s bowels, Dr. Kellogg is feeding his patients a new kind of breakfast: ready-to-eat cereal.

But when he refuses to exploit the full profit potential of his creations, one of his former patients seizes the opportunity to become a breakfast millionaire — much to the frustration of Dr. Kellogg’s long-suffering younger brother Will.

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What creates civilization, in the most basic sense? According to Professor David Frye, who joins me this week, it's walls - Hadrian's Wall, the Great Wall of China, city walls, and thousands more over the millennia.

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Ian S. Port, author of The Birth of Loud: Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry That Shaped Rock 'n' Roll joins us to talk about the future of the electric guitar as music creation becomes increasingly digital.

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Black babies in the United States are twice as likely as white babies to die before their first birthday. It’s an alarming statistic that further highlights the wide disparities in healthcare that exist between black and white Americans. And while there is no direct connection to the Tuskegee Study there are parallels. We’ll talk with Priska Neely, reporter for Southern California Public Radio, who has dived deep into the issue of black infant mortality, its causes and why it has persisted for decades.

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In the '90s and 2000s, new ownership has revitalized both Fender and Gibson and rekindled their rivalry. Through acquisitions, artist endorsements and their rapidly expanding custom shops, both brands are in a heated battle to win the hearts and minds of guitar lovers worldwide.

Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz doesn't want to just dominate the electric guitar market. He wants to reinvent it. And with guitar sales declining, he goes all-in on new technology that will either revitalize Gibson — or sink it.

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The Italian Wars were the defining conflict of the sixteenth century, bridging the gap between the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Today, we explore their origins in medieval dynastic infighting and their opening stages, as King Charles VIII of France rolled south into Italy and changed European politics forever.

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Radioactive bugs, birds, and dogs: these are a few of biologist Timothy Mousseau’s favorite things. Though the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and neighboring Pripyat have sat largely abandoned for over 30 years, Mousseau has been back more than 50 times. Radiation levels vary inside the evacuation zone — perfect conditions he says to observe its effects on the creatures that call the area home.

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The Statue of Liberty is one of America’s most iconic monuments to freedom. As we head into the Fourth of July holiday, we’ll look back on the amazing effort it took to get Lady Liberty built.

Beckett Graham is co-host of The History Chicks podcast, a show that explores the legacies of women throughout history. Beckett joins us to talk about her approach to telling women’s stories and we’ll also play a portion of The History Chicks podcast episode on how the Statue of Liberty came to be. It’s a story that includes New York’s first ticker tape parade, some challenging construction issues and suffragists on a boat protesting the statue’s dedication.

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It's the early 1980s, and for the first time in 30 years, the U.S. guitar market has gone cold. Bands are switching to synthesizers and kids are ditching their garage bands for computers and video games.

A group of employees has bought the Fender brand but not its factory. Now they need to find a place to keep making guitars — fast. And Gibson has new owners, too — who bring plenty of rock 'n' roll attitude to the job, but little experience. Can these new stewards of guitar's most hallowed brands save their companies from the scrap heap?

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After 40 years, the Tuskegee Study has been exposed, condemned, and ended. But for the survivors and African-American community at large, this is not the end of the story. A fight begins to ensure the deceived test subjects are properly compensated, and formally apologized to, by the United States government.

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In the 1960s, rock'n roll's popularity continues to grow. But one of the genre's most popular guitars, the Les Paul, is no longer being made. Now the guitar's namesake must convince an out-of-touch Gibson to put the favorite guitar of Eric Clapton and Keith Richards back into production.

Meanwhile, Gibson's rival Fender has a new parent company: CBS. Thanks to their deep corporate pockets, Fender is manufacturing and selling more guitars than ever. To keep pace, Gibson also finds a new corporate owner. But in their race for market dominance, are both guitar companies sacrificing quality for quantity?

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Since its launch, the birth control project had faced one obstacle after another. And over the year and a half that they’d been working, they had managed to solve all of their problems, except one: recruiting test subject for human trials.

Birth control was still illegal in the US, so they couldn’t advertise the study, and if they couldn’t advertise, they couldn’t recruit subjects. At the time, the problem seemed insurmountable. But then, while on vacation, Dr. Gregory Pincus found the solution to his recruitment problem: Puerto Rico.

Birth control was legal on the island, and more importantly, the women were desperate for an answer to their population problem. There was no doubt in Pincus’s mind: these clinical trials would cement the project’s place in history. And he was right. The trials for the birth control pill would come to be known as one of the most controversial studies in the history of American medicine.

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It's a concept! It's a feeling! It's... been a long time since we talked about it. We're throwing it back to 2017 and tracing the evolution of war in the 15th and 16th century.

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Nearly a century after a white mob leveled the affluent Tulsa district known as Black Wall Street, how is Greenwood faring?

Mechelle Brown is the program coordinator for the Greenwood Cultural Center, which seeks to educate people about the rich history of the Greenwood District. She joins us to discuss why a race conflict in Tulsa was inevitable, the city’s ongoing struggle to fully acknowledge the history of the massacre, and what has — and still hasn’t — been done.

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Gibson's Les Paul sets a new standard for the solid-body electric guitar, and rival guitar maker Fender needs to respond. The company does so in 1954 with a sleek, futuristic guitar unlike anything else on the market: the Stratocaster. It's a hit.

With their higher volume and heavier tones, the Les Paul and Stratocaster help give rise to a new style of music: rock 'n' roll. It opens up a whole new market for electric guitars -- but which company will dominate?

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In the 1960s, as cultural attitudes shift and more doctors in the U.S. learn of the study, objections are raised on moral and political grounds. When the government refuses to end the experiment, a whistleblower goes public, and the test subjects turn to a civil rights lawyer for justice.

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It's 1950, and Fender's first solid-body guitar, the Esquire, is the laughingstock of the music industry. To guitar makers used to elegantly made hollow-body guitars, Fender's thin, simple plank of solid wood is a joke. But its bright, powerful sound and lack of feedback make it a hit with guitar players.

Gibson's ambitious young president, Ted McCarty, knows his company has to counter with a solid-body electric guitar of its own. To market the instrument, Gibson will turn to the most famous electric guitarist in the world, a man who happens to be an old friend of Leo Fender's — Les Paul.

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In 1951, Dr. Gregory Pincus was on the verge of a breakthrough. He had successfully halted ovulation in rabbits and mice; now the project was finally ready for human trials. Only problem was, they had run out of money. Both Pincus and Margaret Sanger had tapped all of their respective resources. If there was any hope for the birth control pill, they'd need a big influx of cash—fast.

That’s when Katharine McCormick entered the picture.

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Friend of the show Keith Pluymers returned to for a great chat about fuel, environmental history, and why the seventeenth century is worth studying.

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In the 1930s and ’40s the market for electric guitars is growing, but it’s hindered by the instruments’ flawed designs. But a small group of mavericks is rethinking the guitar for the electronic age.

One of them, guitarist Les Paul, tries unsuccessfully to convince one of America's oldest guitar companies, Gibson, to mass-produce his "Log" — one of the first solid-body electric guitars. Gibson turns him down flat. But when a radio repairman turned inventor named Leo Fender sees Paul's Log, he's inspired to attempt his own version of a solid-body electric — and his creation will go on to forever change the way guitars are made.

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On June 2, 1921, thousands of black Tulsans interned at the Tulsa Fairgrounds woke under armed guard. Many had no idea where their loved ones were or if they were still alive; they didn’t know whether their homes were still standing or if they’d been ransacked by the white mob. As Greenwood residents worked to restart lives that had been violently interrupted, sympathy for the survivors exploded around the country. In Tulsa, some white business leaders vowed to help them rebuild. But city officials and greedy real estate speculators had other ideas—ideas that would push Greenwood residents off their valuable land forever.

But those white elites would fail to account for the ambition, leadership and tight bonds of community that Greenwood’s people had built over the years. What followed was one of the most astonishing displays of African American resilience in the 20th century. Against all odds, Black Wall Street would rise from the ashes.

If you’d like to learn more about the Tulsa Race Massacre, we recommend a few great books we drew on for this series:

Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood District by Hannibal Johnson

Reconstructing the Dreamland: The Tulsa Riot of 1921 by Alfred Brophy

Riot and Remembranceby James S. Hirsch

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Reconstructing the Dreamland: The Tulsa Riot of 1921: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation

Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa's Historic Greenwood District

Riot and Remembrance: The Tulsa Race War and Its Legacy

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study is underway, with hundreds of African-American men unknowingly serving as human guinea pigs. Though it's initially scheduled to last only a few months, the doctors in charge of the experiment land on a nefarious scheme to perpetuate the study indefinitely.

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It’s a new century and the beer industry is changing fast. Beyond America, new brewery empires are forming and they want to buy their way into the lucrative U.S. market.

And Miller is the first to fall, bought out by a South African company that wants to pull the Milwaukee brewery out of the doldrums.

But Anheuser-Busch isn’t worried. It’s the biggest brewer on the planet by some margin. But the king of beers is about to discover that its throne isn’t as secure as it thinks.

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When Margaret Sanger opened her birth control clinic in 1916, she knew she was breaking the law. Distributing contraceptives, or even literature about birth control, was a jailable offense. But she didn’t care. As a nurse, Sanger had sworn to devote herself to the welfare of those in her community. And in the early 1900s, that meant doing something about the public health crisis caused by unplanned pregnancies.

At the turn of the century, many women were having babies with no break in between pregnancies. It put them at risk for anemia, and uterine ruptures. Miscarriages were common. Of the children that were born, one in five died during the first five years of life.

To Sanger, the solution was clear: a safe, effective, discrete contraceptive for women—a pill, no bigger than an aspirin. At the time, the idea seemed more radical than putting a man on the moon. And in some ways, developing it would be even more difficult.

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In Renaissance Italy, war was simultaneously art, science, and big business, waged for profit and glory by hired contractors known as condottieri. Today, we follow onecondottiereas he makes his way through the dangerous world of mercenary warfare in the fifteenth century.

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It’s the 1980s and Miller’s glory days are over. Drinkers are deserting High Life and Anheuser-Busch is about to launch a $50 million attack on Miller Lite.

With the pressure mounting, Miller hunts for a way to revive its momentum. It’s a search that see the company travel to Japan, disguise itself as a microbrewery, and go head hunting.

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By midnight on Tuesday, May 31, 1921, some Greenwood residents assumed the riot was calming down. Many families, far away from the action at the courthouse, hadn’t even heard about the violence, and went to bed as usual. But as much of the city slumbered, the white mob was transforming into something even more deadly: a highly organized, strategic force led by volunteer soldiers.

That force held its fire until daybreak on Wednesday, June 1, when it sprang into action. All over Greenwood, men, women and children found themselves under siege, their homes, businesses and churches under attack from land and sky. Greenwood’s proud residents would defend themselves until they could defend themselves no more — calling the very survival of their fabled community into question.

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In early 1930s America, segregation is the law of the land, and syphilis remains a grave public health concern. A handful of white government doctors aims to treat African Americans in a rural Alabama county where infection rates are especially high. But several officials conspire to alter the program’s goals, launching a decades-long program that will stain medical history.

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It’s the late 1970s and Miller is hurtling towards the top of the brewing industry on the back of High Life and Lite. Anheuser-Busch’s new leader August Busch III knows he must act fast to stop the threat.

But before he can do that there’s internal problems that need fixing. A strike has shut down the company’s breweries and threatening to leave the business disunited and demoralized at the worst possible moment.

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Molly Wood has spent two decades covering the tech industry. As the host of “Marketplace Tech,” she demystifies the digital economy and how the world of business and tech influences us in unexpected ways. She came on the show to talk about why she’s drawn to tech world, and the role of tech in one of the biggest issues we face today: climate change.

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Renaissance Italy was a political minefield, where backstabbing dukes, ambitious republics, and disloyal mercenaries created a laboratory for political innovation. This environment produced professional armies, the roots of state finance, and modern diplomacy, a legacy Italy left for the rest of Europe.

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As Dick Rowland sat in a jail cell at the Tulsa courthouse on Tuesday, the news of his arrest and rumors about his alleged rape of Sarah Page flew through town. Egged on by an inflammatory op-ed in the Tulsa Tribune, a white mob bent on a lynching began assembling outside the courthouse. By that evening, the crowd of hundreds had swelled to thousands. Meanwhile in the office of the Tulsa Star newspaper, Greenwood’s most prominent citizens debated the proper course of action. Some young veterans of the recent world war were determined to defend Rowland, with their lives if necessary, while older, cooler heads urged caution and restraint.

Both sides would gather at the courthouse Tuesday night, armed with their fists, guns and moonshine. Anything — or anyone — could set them off.

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Come the early 1970s, Miller has a new owner: tobacco giant Philip Morris. Armed with the Marlboro maker’s millions and marketing skills, Miller is about to shake up the beer business with a campaign targeting blue-collar workers thirsty for a cold pint...or three.

But at Anheuser-Busch, a generational rift is brewing — one that could have major repercussions for the beer business. The tensions between conservative-minded CEO Gussie Busch and his forward-thinking son and heir August Busch III are fast approaching the breaking point.

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By 1933 Prohibition is over, and that means the race is on to dominate a beer market that’s been reset. Under the leadership of Anheuser-Busch heir Gussie Busch, the company is out to reclaim the beer throne. But there’s a challenger for the crown — Milwaukee’s top brewery, Schlitz.

But as these two giants lock horns in the fight for dominance, Miller Brewing is struggling to realize its dream of becoming a major league brewer. And it won’t sit by on the sidelines.

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We're revisiting an episode of Tides of History we originally released in January 2018. Pay close attention, we're going to be spending a LOT of time in Italy this summer.

What was it like to have a front-row seat to the explosion of learning, art, and culture in Renaissance Florence? In this episode, we follow two people as they lived in the linked worlds of business and humanistic learning in the fifteenth century. These early knowledge workers combined a genuine interest in the wisdom of the classical past with a practical desire for the skills that would help them rise up the economic and social ladder.

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By 1975, George Lucas knew exactly what he wanted Star Wars to look like, but what it would sound like was another story altogether. Lucas was tired of Sci-Fi’s typical synthetic and electronic cliches; he wanted a sonic world that felt organic and personal. So he hired a young sound designer named Ben Burtt, and sent him out into the world with a recorder and microphone.

Burtt would need to blend and manipulate his recordings in order to achieve original sound designs, customized in every way to help bring the Skywalker saga to life. Like a detective, Burtt would have to hunt for the perfect buzz, bark, or hum to make Star Wars come alive. And in the process, he and Lucas would help to change the way audiences experience sound in films.

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It’s 1893 and Chicago is about to host The World’s Columbian Exposition. It’s going to be the biggest show the world’s ever seen, and that means it’s time for Adolphus Busch to shine.

He’s the owner of Budweiser brewery Anheuser-Busch and the most flamboyant beer baron of the Gilded Age. Busch is determined to use the show to overshadow and outspend his nemesis, Captain Pabst, the owner of America’s number-one brewery.

But there’s a distraction he’s got to deal with first. A small-time brewer from Milwaukee called Miller has just launched a rival beer. Its name? Budweiser.

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Between 1838 and 1890, thousands of African Americans moved to Oklahoma, brought there as Cherokee slaves or drawn there by the promise of free land. Black pioneers established towns where African Americans could govern themselves and thrive in community together, and in time, Oklahoma became known as “The Promised Land” of freedom, dignity, and economic self-sufficiency. Out of this movement, the wealthiest African American community in the nation was born. By 1921, the Tulsa neighborhood of Greenwood had become such a hotspot of entrepreneurship that it became famous as “Negro Wall Street.”

But the Greenwood community lived uneasily in the racist, corrupt, lawless oil boomtown of Tulsa. On a hot May day in 1921, a young shoeshine boy would step into an elevator with a teenage white girl and accidentally spark the worst incident of racial violence in America -- a massacre that would be kept secret for decades.

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Records stuffed with cash. Cassette cases full of cocaine. The details revealed at record promoter Joe Isgro's payola trial shock the public. And the trial's outcome is an even bigger surprise.

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On today's special interview episode, renowned media futurist Rich Greenfield returns to fill us in on the latest developments in the streaming wars and how these changes might impact viewers in the coming years. Greenfield is a media and tech analyst with BTIG who has been following the industry for decades.

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We catch up a bit more on Jakob Fugger's personality - or lack thereof - along with some of the other important south German trading firms of the age, the development of the Antwerp financial market, and the connection between banking and the patronage of Renaissance art.

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With the success of STAR WARS, George Lucas finally had the independence and power to make movies exactly the way he wanted to make them—which was critical, because the sequels he planned were going to be even bigger and more challenging than the original. The artists of Industrial Light and Magic had barely finished the first film, but now they’d have to top themselves--designing a snow planet, imperial walkers, tauntauns, asteroid fields, a Cloud City, and a 12-mile long Star Destroyer.

From 1978 to 1983, ILM surged forward with the mandate to not only complete the original STAR WARS trilogy, but also expand the company itself. The ultimate mission: to push the edge of what visual effects could be, and ultimately lead cinema from its analogue origins, to its digital present.

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Pulitzer Prize winner. National Book Award winner. Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient. Today David McCullough, one of America’s greatest living historians, joins us to discuss his new book, The Pioneers, about the heroic men and women who shaped the Northwest Territories, in present-day Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois. Without their bravery, foresight, and commitment to their ideals, the United States we know today might look very different. The author of Truman and John Adams shares how to make historical figures come alive on the page, why history matters, and what he sees as history’s two greatest lessons.

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It’s spring 2019, and the Mouse House is determined to challenge Netflix for streaming supremacy. Disney CEO Bob Iger draws gasps at an industry event when he announces the new Disney Plus streaming service will cost just seven bucks a month. Then the company drops another bombshell — it’s buying out Comcast’s stake in Hulu, the destination for edgy, adult fare, to expand its streaming empire. Now whatever content Disney makes, it’ll have a platform to host it.

But Disney isn’t the only company eyeing Netflix’s crown. Apple, Comcast, Viacom, and WarnerMedia are all sharpening their knives. In the battle for eyeballs, anyone could emerge the victor.

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In 1986, federal prosecutor Marvin Rudnick is close to cracking the biggest payola case in decades. It might even involve the Mafia and one of the record industry's most notorious figures, Morris Levy. So why do his bosses abruptly take him off the case?

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Netflix goes from being a streaming company to a movement in which consumers all over the world decide what to watch, and when and how they watch. The future that Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph envisioned two decades earlier has arrived. The unfettered reign of cable television has ended.

In 2019, AT&T’s acquisition of HBO’s parent company Time Warner in 2019 throws HBO’s future into even more turmoil. In a post-Game of Thrones world, can the cable network survive? Or will Netflix’s march to domination be complete?

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When STAR WARS debuted in May 1977, it gave rise to a pop-cultural phenomenon unlike any the world had ever seen. The movie was so singular and iconic, and so technically ambitious -- that it almost never came to be.

To bring Star Wars to the screen, new technology had to be invented and existing technology had to be utilized in ways never before imagined. None of the special effects companies in Hollywood could handle the blend of creativity and innovation necessary to bring director George Lucas’s vision to life. So Lucas built his own studio, and forever changed the way movies are made.

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At the end of the fifteenth century, the center of European banking suddenly swung from its birthplace in Italy to south Germany. The key figure in that transition was Jakob Fugger of Augsburg, maybe the richest man who ever lived.

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Hollywood execs thought Netflix was crazy to give up advertising and spin off opportunities by letting viewers flop on a couch and watch a whole season of a show all at once. But Netflix knew it was onto something. All of their studies and focus groups revealed something new: viewers who binged content formed an emotional attachment to Netflix.

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On March 8, 1971, seven ordinary Americans broke into a poorly guarded FBI regional office in Media, Pennsylvania. They called themselves the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI, and they had one purpose: to gather evidence that would prove the agency was engaged in a covert and illegal spying campaign against American citizens. For more than 30 years, Director J. Edgar Hoover had maintained an iron grip on the media, and with it, public perception of the Bureau. But as packages of stolen documents began appearing in newsroom mailboxes, followed soon after by front page stories, a very different narrative about the FBI’s activities began to emerge. It would forever shift the balance of public opinion against the Bureau, and signal the beginning of Hoover’s downfall.

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Twenty years after new federal laws were supposed to eradicate payola, it's back. Now a mysterious group of record promoters called the Network are using it to control access to Top 40 radio. And to enforce their monopoly on the airwaves, they've enlisted a dangerous new ally — the Mafia.

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We take a step back to explore how a little company called Home Box Office went from serving B-movies to 325 homes in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania to become the juggernaut that we know as HBO. In the process, HBO, became the standard by which all other cable companies would have to measure themselves -- after all, it’s not TV. It’s HBO.

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The Medici name still carries echoes of power and labyrinthine politics. But the Medici got their start as bankers, and built a financial empire that spanned fifteenth-century Europe. Popes, kings, and merchants all did business with the Medici, and the family's power over Florence grew out of its fiscal wizardry - at least until it all fell apart.

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Between 1956 and 1971, the FBI carried out more than 2,000 top secret spying operations aimed at American citizens. Their target? The so-called Fifth Column, a network of undercover Soviet agents allegedly working to destroy the American government from within. The agency even had an internal code name for these operations: COINTELPRO. In the name of this mission, Hoover directed agents to infiltrate, penetrate, disorganize and disrupt their targets. But the FBI’s actions weren’t just aimed at taking down suspected Communists. They also targeted activists working across a broad spectrum of progressive causes, including civil rights, feminism, gay rights, abortion rights, and drug policy reforms.

But no target would draw more of the FBI’s scrutiny — or malice — than Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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You know the expression “content is king”? Well it turns out, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s a hard-working algorithm that burrows into customer habits and viewing patterns. With that, Netflix had a clear upper hand on Blockbuster. That, and the fact that Netflix targeted this new “streaming” technology that in 2007, no one really believed in. Soon they were on top of the world. But it’s dangerous being on top. If you trip, you have a long way to fall.

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The Congressional payola hearings of 1960 are out to expose corruption in the music industry. But they're also out to discredit a dangerous new form of music called rock 'n' roll. To do that, they've set their sights on rock's most famous champions: DJ Alan Freed and American Bandstand host Dick Clark. Will their testimony save them or disgrace them?

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Thinking like your enemy is the best way to beat them, and during the war, Blockbuster tried every trick in the book to get inside Netflix. Sometimes they succeeded — sending “housewives” into warehouses as spies — and sometimes things didn’t go as planned. But when Blockbuster did deliver, they delivered big. They threw everything they had at Netflix, but the war raged on.

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In 1913, the young aviation industry was in trouble. The Wright brothers’ broad proprietary claim on airplane technology—and their willingness to sue competitors—created a legal bottleneck that was stifling the airplane’s development.

Their legal power over aviation stemmed from the idea that they were the first to build a plane capable of flying. But what if they weren’t the first? In early 1914, Glenn Curtiss was presented with the opportunity to test that idea. Ironically, the experiment would end up costing him his place in history.

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The Civil War and its decades-long aftermath continue to define American life well into the twenty-first century. Today we chat with Stanford's Professor Richard White, author of The Republic For Which It Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896, to get a grip on this pivotal and under-discussed era of history.

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After Hastings pleaded with Antioco to buy Blockbuster online, Antioco agreed to present Hasting’s proposal to the board. What he didn’t tell him was that he was pushing the board to reject the offer so Netflix would wither and die. Meanwhile, Netflix was struggling to gain legitimacy in Hollywood. Netflix quickly realized that before it could take on the Hollywood gods, it would have to slay Blockbuster.

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The rise of fascism and World War II shifted the FBI’s focus in the 1940s from fighting midwestern outlaws to catching Communists. To Hoover and the FBI, nearly anyone on the political left was suspect, potentially part of a Soviet conspiracy to overthrow Western democracies. In reality, the American left was fragmented. But again and again, Hoover would use the threat of Communism to go after the Bureau’s enemies. He would resort to exhaustive surveillance, including wiretaps, bugging and prying into personal lives to keep in check outspoken journalists and any other critics who threatened Hoover’s ironclad control of the media.

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In 1959, rock 'n' roll is on the rise. But parents and politicians are alarmed by this rebellious new style of music and its powerful effect on America's youth. So when Congress learns that some rock records are getting on the radio thanks to a system of bribes and payoffs called payola, they decide to take action -- which spells trouble for rock's most vocal advocate, DJ Alan Freed.

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The way we watch is changing so rapidly that we’ve decided to revisit our very first and most popular Business War: Netflix versus Blockbuster. We’re re-airing an expanded eight-part series following Netflix’s battles against HBO and today’s new entrants into the Streaming Wars.

It all started around 1997, with a guy named Marc Randolph and his mathematician friend, Reed Hastings. Randolph and Hastings knew they’d have to take on Blockbuster. But what they didn’t anticipate was that their business model would take on network television and eventually change the entire movie industry.

This was an 8-year total war that left innumerable casualties in its wake: thousands of hollowed out buildings and economic losses in the billions.

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Let's chat about some of the other interesting things Patrick discovered in his research for this month's episodes: messianic rulership and military revolutions in the Spain of Isabella and Ferdinand.

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Glenn Curtiss may have mastered the technical aspects of the airplane, but in September of 1909, Curtiss found himself painfully ill-equipped to handle the latest challenge before him: the Wright brothers were suing him for patent infringement., demanding he stop building, selling, and even flying his planes.

While Curtiss was the main target of the lawsuit, the outcome of the case would affect the industry as a whole. That’s because the question at hand focused on the interpretation and application of patent law. Specifically, could any one man--or in this case, two brothers--legally own the air.

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Electric. Diesel. Driverless. Automobile Magazine’s New York Bureau Chief, Jamie Kitman, joins to talk about the latest developments in the car industry and what’s next for Ferrari and Lamborghini.

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During the mid-1930s, the FBI’s public relations department had effectively changed the image of its agents from accountants into action heroes; and its director, from a bureaucrat into an American icon. They pushed stories about heroic G-men facing off against violent foes, gunning them down in self-defense. And the press ate it up. But in April 1939, an FBI agent shot and killed a small town bank robber — in the back. The real story didn’t fit the FBI’s new heroic narrative. So Hoover changed it. Using his public relations machine, Hoover would twist the average story of a small-time midwestern criminal into one final, heroic, spellbinding triumph of the FBI.

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The delicate system of secret bribes and kickbacks used to transform a mediocre record into a hit -- that’s payola. And on the eve of rock ‘n’ roll, it’s consuming the music industry. As the public catches wind of the corruption, DJ Alan Freed and American Bandstand host Dick Clark will be caught in the crosshairs of the investigations.

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It is 1997. For decades, Lamborghini has struggled to survive as a company, and to compete with its nemesis Ferrari. All that is about to change. Volkswagen buys Lambo and injects it with cash and bulletproof German engineering. For the first time ever, Lamborghini can finally compete with Ferrari with a full line of cars—and serious racing.

The result is a new golden age of supercars, one that we are still living through today.

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You’ve always worked hard and done what you’re supposed to. The problem is you’re moving so fast you’re not sure what you want to do. In order to find out you’ll have to slow down, follow your gut, and take a stand.

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Queen Isabella of Castile was one of the great state-building monarchs of the later Middle Ages, but state-building had a dark side: the Spanish Inquisition, the expulsion of the Jews, and the beginnings of a decades-long war that would consume western Europe for three generations.

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Think for a moment about some of the pioneering developments from the earliest days of American aviation: The first pilot’s licence; the first flight from one city to another; the first airplane sold commercially. More than a century later, most people attribute these milestones to the Wright brothers. But the Wright brothers were responsible for none of these firsts. In fact, all of these achievements belong to just one man: Glenn Hammond Curtiss, the father of modern aviation. So why is it that most Americans have never heard his name?

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It’s 1970. At his factory in Italy, Ferruccio Lamborghini is desperate to build a car that can outdo his rival, Enzo Ferrari, whose Ferrari factory is just 20 miles away. With the help of genius designers and engineers, Lamborghini comes up with what many car fans still today call the most outrageous model ever to roll down a road.

Throughout the decade and beyond, the Ferrari/Lamborghini rivalry spawns the fastest cars in the world, the coolest car movies, and more.

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J. Edgar Hoover became director of the FBI when he was just 29 years old. His orders? Clean up the Bureau. At first, he proved to be a brilliant and innovative leader, setting new standards for education, physical fitness, and training of federal agents.

But there was a dark side to his success. Hoover was also obsessed with tracking anyone he considered to be disloyal to the U.S. government. By the early 1930s, the Bureau was secretly compiling dossiers on tens of thousands of American citizens, in defiance of government orders. And Hoover understood that the best cover for his actions lay in bolstering the Bureau’s reputation as a beloved and virtuous American institution. All he needed was the help of an expert in an emerging but promising field: public relations.

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Stormy Daniels, secret hush money payments, and the lawyer at the center of it all: Michael Avenatti. In 2018, we saw an American scandal unfold right before our eyes -- live on television.

On this special episode, Los Angeles Times political reporter Michael Finnegan joins to discuss the rise and fall of Avenatti and what he reveals about the way our society consumes scandal.

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It’s the early 1960s. In Maranello, Italy, Enzo Ferrari has made a name for himself building the most exotic road cars in the world. But when a dissatisfied customer named Ferruccio Lamborghini shows up to complain about his Ferrari’s busted clutch, Enzo refuses to accept blame, accusing Lamborghini of not knowing how to drive. Lamborghini vows revenge.

In 1964, Lamborghini launches its first model, kicking off a rivalry with Ferrari that makes for one of the hottest automotive stories of the 1960s.

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You travel the world to find your place. You dare to do many things. But the biggest thing you’ll need to dare is to share your secret with the world.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen

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Twitter, Facebook, Youtube. The past year has brought a backlash against these companies and others over data privacy and their treatment of speech. Tech visionary and critic Jaron Lanier discusses his take on social media and why he thinks you should delete yours.

Read Jaron’s latest book: Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Right Now.

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Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

Queen Isabella of Castile was the greatest of the state-building rulers of the late Middle Ages. During her rule, she sent Columbus to America, married Ferdinand of Aragon to launch modern Spain, and finished the centuries-long Reconquista, ending centuries of Muslim rule in Iberia.

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By the turn of the century, radical anarchists were becoming a growing -- and volatile -- political movement. As shifting workplace conditions exploited and endangered American workers, anarchists increasingly turned to violence to spur everyday citizens to upend the capitalist system. The growth of these politically motivated shootings and bombings stoked fear among American citizens — fear of immigrants, outsiders, and anyone else whose ideas might be considered a threat. Soon President Woodrow Wilson was calling on his attorney general A. Mitchell Palmer to investigate, arrest and imprison any noncitizen suspected of spouting “disloyal” or “radical” ideologies.

The so-called Palmer Raids would move the little-known, poorly funded and notoriously corrupt Bureau of Investigation into the national spotlight. And it would eventually launch the career of an ambitious young civil servant named Edgar Hoover.

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Bratz. Monster High. Funko. These are the toys that rule the roost in 2019. Veteran toy industry analyst Sean McGowan joins to discuss the big business of toys today, how Hasbro and Mattel can compete, and what’s going on with Lego.

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Former Hare Krishna Henry Doktorski talks about what led him to join the faith, day to day life on the West Virginia commune, and why he finally left.

Read more about the Hare Krishna’s in Henry’s book, Killing for Krishna: The Danger of Deranged Devotion.

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Killing for Krishna: The Danger of Deranged Devotion

With the world plugging into the Internet, toys are under pressure. Kids are swapping plastic play for screen-based entertainment and both Mattel and Hasbro need to adapt. The question is: how?

Mattel’s also finding out the hard way that Barbie’s reign as the queen of dolls is no longer secure. Challengers to her throne are emerging and the first strike against the dream doll comes not from Hasbro, but from within its own offices.

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You dream of world where everyone’s equal. You’re willing to fight for what you believe.

But fists and guns won’t do the job. Your weapon is your talent.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond

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Glamour. Hollywood. Drama. Although she was known as “the most beautiful woman in the world,” Actress Hedy Lamarr’s greatest life work was far from the silver screen. At the height of her film career, and in the midst of a world war, Hedy invented the basis for all modern wireless communications: signal hopping.

Part of a special series with Smithsonian Magazine highlighting the lives of women inventors to celebrate Women’s History Month. Head over to Smithsonian.com/Wondery to go deeper, or find us on Twitter @InnovationsPod.

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We talked to bestselling novelist Philippa Gregory about her views of history and historical fiction, and her perspective on the Wars of the Roses, where she has spent many years.

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A few months ago, Mattel’s revenues were just fifty million dollars behind Hasbro’s. But now that Hasbro’s swallowed Tonka—the classic maker of Nerf, Play-Doh, and Monopoly—Mattel is half a billion dollars behind, and CEO John Amerman isn’t happy about it.

Ever since Hasbro turned British fashion doll Sindy into a Barbie lookalike, the two toymakers have been at war. Now Amerman is looking to make a couple strategic acquisitions: one to put Mattel back in pole position, and the other, to spite Hasbro.

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“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord.” That’s the opening line of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” written by Julie Ward Howe in 1861. Over the years, it’s become something of an unofficial national anthem for all manner of political causes in the United States. Historian Richard Gamble joins us to talk about the song, its meaning, and its history in everything from The Civil War to The Civil Rights Movement.

Read more: A Fiery Gospel: The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the Road to Righteous War.

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A Fiery Gospel: The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the Road to Righteous War (Religion and American Public Life)

Keith Ham’s chief enforcer is summoned back to New Vrindaban for a mission. He enlists the help of a friend of the commune who turns informer. Steve Bryant goes into hiding. Deputy Westfall works with the state police to finally make some arrests, but will he be able to bring down Keith Ham?

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It’s the early 1980s and things are not looking good for Hasbro. The company hasn’t had a hit since Hungry Hungry Hippos; its founding CEO Merrill Hassenfeld has just died; now Star Wars dolls have just about gobbled up the entire action figure market. Hasbro needs to deliver a toy capable of taking on the Star Wars dolls, or else the company risks losing its only source of stable income, the family pencil factory.

But Hasbro’s not the only toymaker plotting to take on Star Wars. Three thousand miles away in Los Angeles, Mattel’s also preparing an assault on the action figure market. A line of fantastical action figures called The Masters of the Universe.

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You hate flying, yet you fly by the seat of your pants. You’re smart, but answers don’t come easy. You need a do-over, a do-something, a do-anything, but the path forward is through fire.

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A machine to mass produce paper bags. Seems unremarkable today, but in the 1800s, it was cutting edge. The technology would change everyday life, and maybe, the life of one inventor: Margaret Knight. That is if she could get people to believe she invented it.

Part of a special series with Smithsonian Magazine highlighting the lives of women inventors to celebrate Women’s History Month. Head over to Smithsonian.com/Wondery to go deeper, or find us on Twitter @InnovationsPod.

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As legal challenges to his New Deal programs mounted, President Roosevelt and his attorney general devised dramatic reforms to the Supreme Court’s structure. The proposed changes would open new rifts between the president and conservative members of his own party.

Other greater challenges loomed. A recession was threatening to unwind four years of economic recovery. The Senate launched a politicized investigation into purported un-American activities in federal work programs.

And on the other side of the world, a global crisis was building as war erupted in Asia and Europe. As the country re-armed and factories retooled to supply soon-to-be allies, the nationally finally pulled itself from the depths of Depression.

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Sizzlers, Mattel’s new motorized Hot Wheels, were supposed to be the top toy this Christmas. But sales have fizzled, leaving Mattel $30 million below target. For the last ten years, Mattel’s done exceptionally well by its investors, but now the toymaker is facing a stock price collapse. To keep up appearances, Mattel starts cooking its books—but the move may end up costing CEO Ruth Handler the company.

Elsewhere in Toyland, Hasbro’s facing an uncertain future. Kids are turning their backs on G.I. Joe and the company’s short on cash. As its rivals rush towards an electronic future, Hasbro risks being left behind.

You can find new episodes of Business Wars, completely ad-free, only on Stitcher Premium. For a free month of Stitcher Premium, go to stitcherpremium.com/wondery and use promo code WONDERY.

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Steve Bryant is forced out of the commune at gunpoint and heads to California where he finds evidence that the Gurus are frauds. Berkeley Temple Leader Hansadutta has a meltdown that lands him in jail. An attempt to start a Guru Reform movement divides the movement and leads to death threats. A devotee attacks Keith Ham.

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It’s the 1960s and Hasbro is struggling. The pencil manufacturer turned toymaker hasn’t had a major success since Mr. Potato Head hit the shelves in 1952, and it’s starting to lose money. If the company doesn’t act fast, it’ll be headed for bankruptcy in no time.

Mattel’s “accessories sold separately” approach to Barbie has revolutionized the industry. Now Hasbro’s toymakers hope to replicate her success with a doll of their own—for boys. But first, they’ll have to get the greenlight from CEO Merrill Hassenfeld, who has one iron-clad rule about new toys: no dolls.

Meanwhile, Mattel’s about to roll out a hot new boy-themed toy of its own that will cement the company’s status as the world’s top toymaker.

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1492 was a big year, and not just because a certain Genoese navigator set sail into the unknown. Europe was on the cusp of enormous changes. Follow along as we travel all across the continent and get a feel for Europe on the brink.

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The first self-made female African American millionaire is how she’s known. But Madam C.J. Walker’s story is much more than a rags to riches tale of a cosmetics industry mogul. She was an inventor, an entrepreneur, and a philanthropist. Along the way, she faced challenges from inside her own community and found a way to transform them into successes.

Part of a special series with Smithsonian Magazine highlighting the lives of women inventors to celebrate Women’s History Month. Head over to Smithsonian.com/Wondery to go deeper, or find us on Twitter @InnovationsPod.

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It’s the late 1940s and two small toymakers are taking their first uneasy steps. The names of these young hopefuls are Hasbro and Mattel. One’s an offshoot of a pencil manufacturer. The other a husband-and-wife garage start-up.

But toy-mayking, they soon discover, is an unexpectedly cutthroat business. If either of these companies hopes to survive--let alone succeed--they’re going to need to get creative. Disrupting the embedded and experienced kingpins of Toyland, will require them to take chances on TV, potatoes, Mickey Mouse and one particularly risqué novelty doll from Germany.

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After two of President Roosevelt’s closest advisors competed to create a new federal jobs program, the White House launched one of Roosevelt's keystone initiatives: the Works Progress Administration. Under this program, millions of Americans earned government salaries at a wide range of blue- and white-collar jobs — everything from building post offices and painting murals to delivering library books by horseback to rural communities.

However, the federal government’s increased reach worried FDR’s opponents, especially a wildly popular Catholic radio preacher. Father Charles Coughlin once helped FDR get elected, but as the president’s power increased, Coughlin turned up the volume on hateful and anti-Semitic undertones in his attacks.

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When a devotee in West Virginia goes missing, his wife suspects murder. Deputy Westfall is thwarted by the DA when he tries to take action. Keith flexes his muscles and expands his power over New Vrindaban.

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You’ve officially hit rock bottom. Your mistakes were too big and too public, and now you can barely get a job. You know you need to keep moving forward. Trouble is, your past keeps holding you back.

Hosted by Virginia Madsen

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Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are preparing to land on the Moon. The whole world is watching live on television. But something is very wrong, their warning alarms are flashing and they don't know what it is. There’s only one woman who can fix it: MIT software engineer Margaret Hamilton.

This is the first episode of a special series with Smithsonian Magazine highlighting the lives of women inventors to celebrate Women’s History Month. Head over to Smithsonian.com/Wondery to go deeper, or find us on Twitter @InnovationsPod.

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1492 was a truly wild year, and there is no one better to talk about it with than one of Patrick's favorite historians, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, author of many excellent books on Columbus and exploration.

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The Great Depression wasn’t the only crisis facing the country when Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933. Following a decade-long drought that had shriveled crops, massive dust storms were pummeling huge swaths of the Midwest, the Great Plains, and the Northwest. Years of poor harvest practices had worsened the crisis, pushing farmers already strained by the financial hit of the Great Depression off their land. Only when a lifelong soil scientist made a dramatic testimony before Congress did the government finally begin to develop a solution.

Many of those unmoored by environmental calamity searched for opportunity elsewhere — particularly in California. But when a controversial Los Angeles police chief sent armed officers to block access to the Golden State, he would launch a constitutional crisis and a showdown with a rural sheriff.

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When the Swami dies, eleven senior disciples declare themselves gurus and take control of the movement. In Berkeley, Hansadutta becomes paranoid and starts amassing an arsenal of weapons. In West Virginia, Keith Ham finishes constructing his palace of gold. But when new devotees with records for violent crime join the commune, Deputy Westfall grows alarmed. A drug smuggling operation at the Krishna Temple in Laguna Beach ends in murder when temple leaders pair up with ex-mafia informants.

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At every turn, your life is a battle between good and bad. You look for redemption at the movies. But nothing stirs your imagination more than the scenes that play out beneath your apartment window every night.

Hosted by Robbie Daymond

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States didn't pull themselves up by their bootstraps, driven solely by the will of indomitable rulers; instead, they benefited from the services of a class of highly educated and dedicated civil servants. They administered finance and justice and executed the royal will with competence and ruthlessness.

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With the country was still hobbled by the Depression, New York Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised a “New Deal” for the American people. That vow handed Roosevelt a contested Democratic nomination and helped him crush Hoover in the general election. Roosevelt began his presidency with a flurry of policy proposals and legislative efforts focused around three priorities: relief, recovery, and reform. These new efforts saw millions of young men put back to work preserving natural areas as part of the Civilian Conservation Corps and undertaking a massive rural electrification project in the Tennessee River Valley. And the country’s first female cabinet member led the creation of Social Security, one of the crowning achievements of Roosevelt’s administration.

Meanwhile, a reckoning was in order for Wall Street. Years after the stock market crash, a raucous senate investigation would unveil egregious abuses by financiers.

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When devotees at the NYC temple confront Keith Ham, he decides to found a commune of his own in West Virginia. Krishnas in temples across the country come up with illegal ways to raise money for the group, including drug dealing and money scams.

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Things are really picking up for Coca-Cola, thanks to its industrious new—and most importantly, sober—owner, Asa Candler. Over the past year, Candler’s sold enough syrup to make half a million glasses of soda. The drink is loved by everyone who tries it, but on the business side, Candler is still just scraping by. To turn Coca-Cola into the sensation he knows it can be, he will have to battle a slew of imposters, take a massive marketing risk, and deal with one very problematic ingredient: cocaine.

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Factories have shut down, banks have failed, and millions are out of work. As the Depression worsens, public opinion sours toward President Hoover.

Hoover’s allies attempt to counter criticism of the President by galvanizing anti-foreigner attitudes. They devise a scheme to frighten immigrants from Mexico and other countries with the specter of mass immigration raids in the hopes they’ll leave the country on their own, as hundreds of thousands do.

Meanwhile, an unemployed cannery worker from Portland, Oregon leads tens of thousands of World War I veterans on a march to Washington, D.C., to demand payment of wartime bonuses. A deadly showdown looms as this “Bonus Army” wears out its welcome in the capital.

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An elderly swami from India captures the zeitgeist of 1960s counterculture in America with his message of peace and love. But his western disciples are hungry for power, and one of his most trusted devotees betrays him.

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Mike Pesca, Slate, joins to talk about the biggest risks facing the NFL, whether the Patriots are good or bad for the league, and what our culture would look like if football never took off as a professional sport in the first place. Plus, he talks about his latest book, Upon Further Review: The Greatest What Ifs in Sports History. Hear more from Mike on his daily podcast, The Gist.

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Upon Further Review: The Greatest What-Ifs in Sports History

You’ve studied hard your whole life and attacked every challenge thrown in your path to prove what you can do. But can you overcome your own insecurities to do what’s in your heart? Hosted by Virginia Madsen.

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In the wake of the Civil War, Atlanta emerged as both the cultural capital of the New South, and the epicenter of its snake oil trade. A shell-shocked populace, haunted by poverty, hunger and disease sought salvation in the dubious cure-all tonics of the pharmacy trade. What they got instead would go on to become the most famous beverage in the world: Coca-Cola.

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When Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, met the business end of a Swiss halberd in 1477, his 19-year-old daughter Mary was set to inherit all of his vast possessions. But her position was precarious, surrounded by rapacious neighbors and rivals. The decisions she made about her future set in motion a chain of political events that would define Europe for centuries to come.

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The Roaring Twenties came to a screeching halt on October 29, 1929, with the collapse of the U.S. stock market. A year earlier, president Herbert Hoover had coasted to victory by promising the American people “a chicken for every pot” and “a car in every backyard.” Lured by the promise of skyrocketing markets, many first-time investors got caught up in margin trading, borrowing money to make bigger stock purchases than they could actually afford. It was a foolproof way to make money, so long as stock prices kept rising.

But then, on the morning of Tuesday, October 29, more than sixteen million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. By the market’s close, investors had lost tens of billions of dollars — and kicked off a decade that would reshape American institutions, even as labor unrest, racial tensions, and the dark shadow of nativism pushed back from all sides.

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The battle between the NFL and the USFL finally comes to a head. Donald Trump has bullied his way to the top of the USFL and pressured his league into suing the NFL for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act.

But the NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle is not about to back down. If the NFL settles now, they’ll be opening the floodgates to a slew of new competitors, and costly trials the league can’t afford. The only course of action? Dismantle the USFL so completely that no one even thinks to challenge the NFL again.

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It’s been 30 years since the Exxon Valdez struck a reef in Port William Sound, but the disaster still reverberates. A conversation with marine conservation professor and Alaska fisherman Rick Steiner about the state of things today. Plus, journalist and author Antonia Juhasz on how Exxon Valdez compares to the 2010 BP oil spill.

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For nearly two full years, the mighty NFL sat idly by as the upstart USFL tried to chip away at its status, talent, and reputation as the most powerful sports league on the planet. Now, the NFL is ready to settle the score, once and for all.

The league commissions a Harvard professor to prepare meticulous, 46-page step-by-step plan intended to squash the USFL in its tracks. Commissioner Pete Rozelle prepares himself for battle—but the battle comes sooner than expected. The USFL files an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL, claiming that it has monopolized fall television. At stake? One point three two billion dollars, enough money to kill the NFL.

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Malcolm Gladwell joins Steven Johnson to talk about innovation, writing, and Steven’s latest book “Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most.”

The conversation was put on by the Next Big Idea Club. It’s a book club hand-curated by four legendary writers: Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Dan Pink and Adam Grant. You can sign up at NextBigIdeaClub.com/AI.

Each season, you’ll get two books that will change the way you think and live. You’ll be introduced to essential ideas about productivity, business, psychology, and more. You’ll also get access to The Next Big Idea Club’s exclusive tools like online video insights, author interviews, and study guides to help you implement these life-changing concepts. They’ve also got an online forum where you can discuss the books and ideas with other passionate learners, Next Big Idea Club curators, and the authors themselves.

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The Valois dukes of Burgundy were kings in all but name. Originally a branch of the French royal family, they fought for control of the French crown, accumulated vast lands, and nearly carved out a kingdom for themselves in the borderlands between France and the Holy Roman Empire. But eventually their ambition stretched too far, and they disappeared in a haze of gunpowder and blood.

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It’s 1984, and at USFL franchise offices across the country, multi-million dollar contracts are flowing like Gatorade. As the United States Football League prepares for kickoff on its second season, owners race to recruit the best college players, and steal the stars from NFL rosters.

Initially, the NFL dismissed the new league as a sideshow stunt. But the USFL’s spending spree has caught the full attention of the veteran league--which is exactly what New Jersey Generals owner Donald Trump wants.

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"Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it." On today’s show, we’ll consider what lessons we can draw from history, and what lessons we can’t. David Greenberg, a professor of history and media studies at Rutgers University, joins us to discuss how to connect the events of the past to the events of today.

We’ll also talk about his latest book “Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency,” which explores the history of political messaging inside the White House. Plus, Jesse James and this day in history.

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The fishermen run a blockade. Alyeska Pipeline goes to extremes to root out a mole. Exxon and the fishermen face off in court.

Photos of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

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By most measures, the USFL’s debut season is a success. The games post solid numbers--in both ticket sales and television ratings--offering undeniable proof that there’s an audience for professional spring football. Still, the league is hemorrhaging money. At a post-season meeting, the twelve franchise owners vote on what to do with their fumbling investments. Eleven of the owners decide to stay the course, and even expand the league to bring in more capital, but the owner of the New Jersey Generals, J. Walter Duncan, has had enough.

Duncan puts the Generals on the market for eight million dollars, hoping the low price will launch a bidding war. But only one man makes an offer: a young, brash, egomaniacal Manhattan real estate developer named Donald Trump.

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Surprise: Patrick loves Game of Thrones. Bigger surprise: GoT is actually a pretty accurate portrayal of late medieval politics - except for the dragons. Patrick's friend Albro Lundy, a very funny and smart TV writer, joins us to talk about it. Follow him on Twitter @bromanconsul.

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Horace Day made a fortune off of the vulcanizing process Goodyear repeatedly went broke trying to develop. Now, with the help of the most famous attorney in the country, Secretary of State, Daniel Webster, Goodyear plans to make Day pay.

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A special series with Legal Wars. The whole world was watching, and that’s exactly what the defendants wanted. As the end of 1969 approached, the Chicago 8 had become the Chicago 7. Bobby Seale, a Black Panther, had been removed from the trial in a brutal spectacle by Judge Julius Hoffman. The remaining defendants would respond by turning the courtroom upside down, much to the delight of the national media. Counterculture celebrities Allen Ginsberg and Norman Mailer would take the stand. And in the end, it was the establishment that would be put on trial.

Check out Legal Wars for more stories behind America’s most famous courtroom battles.

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The NFL has faced rival leagues in the past, and routinely squashed them without breaking so much as a sweat. The NFL’s powerful commissioner, Pete Rozelle, assumes the USFL will be no different. He sees the rival league as a joke. A blip on the radar. But then the new league does something no one saw coming: it signs University of Georgia junior Herschel Walker, the biggest star in college football.

When Walker signs with the USFL’s New Jersey Generals, he leaves more than his college diploma on the table. The Heisman trophy-winner passes up a seat at the table of America’s Team, the legendary Dallas Cowboys. “This,” Rozelle tells his colleagues, “is war.”

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After Captain Hazelwood’s arrest, Exxon tries to clean up its public image. President Bush tells Exxon to pick up the pace on the cleanup. Fisherman Riki Ott takes on Big Oil in the Alaska State Legislature.

Photos of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

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Description: For years, David Dixon has been trying to convince the National Football League to launch an expansion team in New Orleans, but he always comes up empty-handed. Finally, after one too many letdowns, Dixon realizes his only hope for a hometown team is to start his own football league. Unlike the NFL, his league — the United States Football League — will play its games in the spring, and boast rosters full of hometown heroes from regional colleges.

Fans and investors seem to love the idea. But just then, the NFL announces the location of its next franchise: New Orleans. As Dixon’s long-time dream comes true, he abandons plans to launch the USFL — for now.

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You work hard but success always seems out of reach. Nobody’s going to come help you, it’s run or be run over, kill or be killed, eat or be eaten - and you’re hungry. Hosted by Virginia Madsen

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In 1839, Charles Goodyear accidentally discovered the key to rubber. Sulfur alone had proved too fragile, but when he combined it with heat? Durable, stable rubber. Finally Goodyear’s dreams were within his grasp. But that’s when he caught the eye of a New Jersey merchant named Horace Day, and things took a turn for the worse.

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A special series with Legal Wars. In 1969, the war in the streets became a war in the courtroom. The trial of the Chicago 8 pitted the federal government against eight prominent anti-war activists. The charges: Conspiracy to incite a riot. But the case was about more than just who threw the first punch at the DNC protests the year before. It was a battle for the soul of American culture, and both sides planned to win...by any means necessary.

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The fishermen find that damage from the spill is even worse than expected, while a winter storm destroys Exxon’s plans for a quick cleanup. Captain Hazelwood disappears.

Photos of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

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Egg McMuffins, Croissan’wiches and coffee. Today’s fast food fight is all about breakfast time. Wall Street Journal reporter Julie Jargon joins to talk about where Burger King and McDonald’s are headed, the rise of eating at home, and how fast-casual chains are taking a bite out of the market.

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You grow up in a small town yearning to make a difference, but you will have to travel 5,000 miles across the globe to find your true calling. You are prepared to put your life on the line to fight for what you believe. When your body breaks down, you find another another way to create change. Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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In a world where materials were limited to wood, leather, metal, and cloth, rubber was something new: a substance that was strong, soft, flexible, and waterproof—but completely undependable. Then along came a 33 year-old hardware merchant named Charles Goodyear, who made it his personal mission to conquer rubber at any cost.

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The Wars of the Roses are infamous, but practically every European kingdom, not just England, was wracked by serious bouts of infighting in the second half of the 15th century. In a time period known for the growth of state power, why were there so many civil wars - and why were they all happening at the same time?

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It’s a new century and times are tough for the burger giants. Burger King’s in a rut and McDonald’s is about to report its first loss in nearly 40 years. Both brands need to reinvent themselves fast. But can they come up with strategies robust enough to shake off the coming economic crisis?

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A supertanker carrying 53 million gallons of crude oil runs aground in Prince William Sound sparking the worst man-made ecological catastrophe in the country’s history at the time. As Exxon struggles to get the cleanup underway, fishermen worry that this is the end of life as they know it

Links to recommended reading:

Not One Drop by Riki Ott

Out of the Channel by John Keeble

The Spill: Personal Stories from the Exxon Valdez Disaster

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The Spill: Personal Stories from the Exxon Valdez Disaster

Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

Out of the Channel: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Prince William Sound

Burger King is under pressure. McDonald’s is wowing the nation with a new way to eat chicken and Wendy’s is quickly closing in on the number two fast food spot. Backed into a corner, Burger King prepares to bite back with an ad campaign attacking its rivals directly.

The heat is on and the burger wars are about to get dirty. It’s a game of kitchen chicken. The only question is who will blink first.

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By 1461, the Wars of the Roses had already claimed thousands of lives and shaken England's political system to its foundations. The bloodiest battle ever fought in England would soon follow, along with decades more of instability and periodic crisis.

Love Tides of History? You can follow Patrick on Twitter @Patrick_Wyman and Leah at @leahgoeswhere. You can follow the show @TidesHistory. Send us your questions and love letters! If you have hate mail address it to: Tides of History, Attn: Charles, Duke of Burgundy. He'll be sure we get it.

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Bill Nye tell us how he became “The Science Guy,” why climate change is solvable, and what he thinks is the most important innovation of all time. He’ll talk his new Netflix show, “Bill Nye Saves the World” — which pretty much sums up what he’s trying to do these days. Plus, he shares his memories of Carl Sagan and how to combat today’s anti-science movement.

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It’s the 1970s, and the burger barons are turning to TV advertising to propel profits skyward. McDonald’s is betting that a little song and dance can give it the competitive edge, but Burger King is stepping up their ads as well: debuting a killer new slogan that’s sure to set it on a collision course with Burger Chef.

And while the fast food wars continue to escalate at home, McDonald’s starts to set its sights abroad.

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By the mid-1960s, Americans have developed a taste for fast, delicious, affordable food — and they’re demanding more. U.S. fast food franchises — McDonald’s, Burger King and Burger Chef — know that if they want to feed America and win the burger wars, they’re going to have to grow.

But Wall Street is still reluctant to invest in a bunch of burger chains. And Ray Kroc is about to learn firsthand that those who can’t stand the heat need to be forced out of the kitchen.

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You’ve always dreamed of serving your country. Now you have a chance. But if you make the wrong decision it all ends here.

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The Wars of the Roses brought what had once been Europe’s most stable and well-governed kingdom to its knees. Weakness at the center, in the form of the useless King Henry VI, reverberated outwards throughout the political system. Could England survive Henry VI, and at what cost?

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It’s the late 1950s and fry cooks are flipping as fast as they can. But McDonald’s and Insta-Burger King’s desire for national success far outstrips their ability to deliver. It’s not enough to just make a better burger: bad contracts, bad equipment, limited capital and investors who don’t believe in 15-cent burgers threaten to stop the race in its tracks.

Ray Kroc believes that he has the answers but to beat Insta-Burger King and a new aggressive competitor from Indiana, he has to get out from the McDonald Brothers’ shadow--and he has to do it fast.

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It’s 1948, and somewhere around the edge of the Mojave Desert, a drive-in restaurant is making waves. It's called McDonald’s and it’s like no burger joint anyone’s seen before—a carhop-free eatery with lightning fast service, and shockingly low prices.

But McDonald’s proprietors aren’t dreaming as big as the entrepreneurs traveling to California to see their groundbreaking restaurant. And for would-be burger king Keith Cramer and milkshake machine salesman Ray Kroc, that’s a golden opportunity.

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We live in historic times, but how do they compare to that other tumultuous era of American history — 1865 and the years following President Lincoln’s death and the end of The Civil War? Steven Walters, writer of Lindsay Graham’s new scripted podcast “1865,” joins to discuss the thrilling story of how our country put itself back together again and brought Lincoln’s killers to justice. Plus, a preview of what’s to come on “American History Tellers” in 2019.

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How does the Iran Contra investigation compare to the Russia investigation today? We go behind the scenes with Michael Bromwich, a lawyer who worked on the Iran Contra case. He tells us what it’s like to delve into the dealings of America’s most powerful players.

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Crypto woes, Facebook scandals, a Mars lander, and foldable phones. 2018 was a mixed bag for innovation. Journalists Devindra Hardawar, Engadget, and Clive Thompson, Wired & The New York Times Magazine, join Steven to talk about the year in science and technology - and what's to come in 2019.

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The year 1968 marked a watershed in American politics. Anti-war protests were roiling the country. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was shot dead in Memphis. Democratic President Lyndon Johnson’s approval rating was plummeting. The assassination of Democratic presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy would throw the party into disarray, toppling the New Deal coalition built by Franklin Delano Roosevelt two generations earlier and leading to a conservative surge.

The political sea change would drive Republican nominee Richard Nixon to the White House in 1968. And it would eventually elect a former actor and California governor who would change the face of American politics in ways that are still being felt to this day. His name was Ronald Reagan.

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Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh sets his sights on the White House and tries to answer the question everyone has been asking: Exactly how much did President Reagan know and when did he know it?

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Your work is a reflection of the world inside your head, but it’s never good enough. You wonder if, maybe, you’re the one who is not good enough. Hosted by Virginia Madsen

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Mardiros Iskenderian was known for two things: the unbelievable generosity he showed to the Armenian community, and the deep love he expressed for his family—particularly for his mother, whom he treated like a queen.

So why did Mardiros try to cut his sisters out of the family business? What drove him to register the Zankou Chicken trademark solely under his own name? And how could a simple business re-arrangement among a loving, growing clan end in murder?

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VR is dead. Then along comes a teenager with a vision and a headset and changes everything.

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Leah and I had the opportunity to give a public talk at the Sound Education Conference at Harvard. We talked about the Reformation, why it matters, and how historians think about it today.

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The 1929 stock market crash saw 14 billion dollars vanish in a matter of hours — and with it, the Republican party’s decades-long grip on American politics. As Americans lost their livelihoods, they turned to President Herbert Hoover for relief. But the self-made man who had so successfully reversed his own fortunes seemed unable to do the same for his country. With discontent growing, Hoover turned on World War veterans demanding early bonus payouts to support their families. It would prove the last straw for many Americans.

The landslide election of 1932 would mark a profound realignment in U.S. politics, bringing urban centers under Democratic control for the first time in the party’s history. And it would propel into the White House Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose sweeping New Deal would permanently transform the American political landscape. \n\nSupport this show by supporting our sponsors!

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It’s January 14th, 2003, and 56-year-old Mardiros Iskenderian, the founder of the family-owned chain of rotisserie restaurants Zankou Chicken, is leaving the house for the first time in months.

Twenty years ago, the Iskenderians transplanted their business from war-torn Beirut to sunny Los Angeles, where it blossomed into a California institution. But today, Mardiros is battling cancer—and losing. He kisses his wife Rita and heads for the door. It’ll be the last time she’ll see him alive.

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Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh is called to D.C. to investigate Iran-Contra and bring those responsible to justice. But what he discovers will shake his political allegiances, and drive a wedge through the heart of the country.

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Hosted by Virginia Madsen

You aren’t afraid to speak your mind and use your platform to defend those in need. Now you need to learn how speak up for yourself.

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Microsoft has officially won the battle against Netscape, but for Bill Gates, the browser war is far from over. The federal government has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, and called Gates to Washington, D.C. for questioning.

Hotshot prosecutor David Boies aims to show that Microsoft used its monopoly on PC operating systems to drive Netscape out of business. The case has the potential to bring down the software giant once and for all. And the televised drama of a smooth-talking lawyer facing off against a geeky billionaire leaves the nation riveted.

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Atari has assembled the best of the best. They look ready to get VR off the ground but then the company they make a colossal mistake. The mistake’s name is E.T.

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As the Civil War came to a close, the government set its sights once again on the future of the United States. Working closely with a Republican President, the Republican Congress expected a swift and peaceful road to Reconstruction. But then, a mere four weeks into his second term, Lincoln was assassinated, leaving the country in the hands of Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat who had personally owned slaves just three years before.

While Johnson’s unwavering commitment to states rights cultivated a fraught relationship with his Congress, the tumult would ultimately be short-lived. After just four years of a Democratic president, America’s Grand Old Party would ascend to power—and hold it—for over 70 years.

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YES we're talking to THAT Raksha Dave, the one from Time Team, Patrick and Leah's favorite show! She tells us about her future digs, all the cool stuff she's done since Time Team, how she became an archaeologist, and why we should all treat old stuff with respect.

Follow Raksha on Twitter!

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To compete with Netscape, Bill Gates is forced to do the one thing he hates most: give tech away for free. He bundles Internet Explorer with Windows, effectively making his browser ubiquitous--and Netscape’s redundant. Suddenly, Netscape, the company that launched the dot-com boom and shattered records with its IPO, finds itself on life support.

But the battle isn’t over. Attorney General Janet Reno has been watching Microsoft snuff out the competition, and she’s about to make life hell for Bill Gates.

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When the story breaks that senior US government officials secretly traded arms for hostages, Congress and the American people demand answers. Chief of Staff Don Regan and Attorney General Ed Meese begin building a wall around the President.

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You’ve experienced loss and pain, but now you’ve reached a pinnacle in your career. You should be happy but you’re not. You decide to risk it all to be truthful to yourself. Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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In the 1960s a group of scientists and engineers had a vision: that one day people could put on a pair of goggles and enter a whole new world.

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It’s summer 1995, and Bill Gates is worried about the sudden rise of the Internet. In the world of computers, Gates is used to being in the driver’s seat. Now it seems he’s not even in the car.

Marc Andreessen has just launched the latest version of Netscape Navigator. It’s faster and more stable than the last version, and still, inexplicably, free. The Internet is a massive success, certain to work its way into every person’s life, but as Gates pokes around he can’t find a single Microsoft file on it. To stay in the game, Gates realizes, that will have to change.

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Medieval politics, full of assassinations and betrayal, was not for the faint of heart. But even within that landscape, one man stands out for his cruelty: Vlad the Impaler, prince of Wallachia, the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Count Dracula. This episode examines the real person behind the legend and the world that made him.

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The United States won the The Mexican–American War in the 1840s, and with it vast new stretches of western land. But in the 1850s, the question of what to do with this land – and whether to allow slavery in the new territories or not – became a redning issue for politicians of all stripes.

While the Whig Party collapsed over the issue, Democrats split into Northern and Southern factions, and a new Republican Party tried to bind the Union with an appeal to old Jeffersonian values. But in the houses of Congress and across the nation, negotiations fail, compromise is abandoned; and the issue of slavery will overshadow all else, leading to Civil War.

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It’s 1974, and a young programmer named Paul Allen has just caught a glimpse of the world’s first personal computer, the Altair 8800. It has the potential to change the computing landscape forever — but it doesn’t yet have an operating system. Altair’s developers sank every dollar they had into its hardware, banking that someone else would figure out how to make their machine run.

Now programmers are racing to develop an operating system and deliver it to the company’s headquarters in New Mexico. Allen knows he can do it, but in order to do it first, he’ll need some help. For that, he reaches out to his childhood friend, a 19-year-old Harvard sophomore named Bill Gates.

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Two of Reagan’s top priorities are in jeopardy: American hostages are still in the hands of terrorists in Iran, and the Contras are losing their fight against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. In early 1986, the two operations merge. In the middle of it all is Lieutenant Colonel Ollie North.

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You’re a successful woman in a man’s business, and yet you’re not sure you can do it alone. You’ve so worked hard to get here, and your marriage is on the rocks and you’re afraid of losing everything. Hosted by Virginia Madsen.

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Two disgruntled tech whizzes, Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen, join forces to exact revenge on the companies that wronged them, building a browser so fast and powerful that it wipes their competitors off the face of the web. In private, they call it a “Mosaic Killer,” but in public, it’s called “Netscape Navigator.”

The launch of their new browser will mark the beginning of a new era in computing, the birth of a new economy based on the web, and the moment Microsoft put a target on their backs.

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An interview with Josh Clark, co-host of the “Stuff You Should Know” podcast. Josh has a new show called “The End of the World with Josh Clark” that looks at those big existential questions we humans can’t seem to settle: Are we alone in the universe? Where did we come from? And, what’s next for us?

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Nathaniel Philbrick - one of Patrick's favorite authors of popular history - stopped by to chat about his latest book, In the Hurricane's Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown. The bestselling author filled us in on the dramatic final days of the Revolutionary War and the strategic vision of George Washington.

You can get Nat's book here.

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In the Hurricane's Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown (The American Revolution Series)

Liz Dolan talks to co-hosts Virginia Madsen and Robbie Daymond about their experience in film, TV and animation— and what drew them to “Imagined Life.”

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It’s 1992, and in the basement of the chemistry building at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, two computer science students are working on a new web browser. Up to this point, browsing has made up less than one percent of all internet traffic, but Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina are about to change all that. Fueled by a combination of Pepperidge Farm cookies, Skittles and hubris, Andreessen and Bina emerge from the basement with Mosaic, the user-friendly web browser that will popularize the internet—if it doesn’t crash the school’s server first.

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In July of 1985, the National Security Advisor to President Reagan, Robert “Bud” McFarlane puts a plan in motion that could change the course of history and turn the Reagan administration upside down.

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You have a decision to make. On one side, everything you’ve ever worked for; on the other, everything you believe in. You can’t have both. Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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As Horace Wells’ life went from bad to worse, William Morton was handed a golden opportunity. At stake was scientific pride and a lot of money. But who will triumph?

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Andrew Jackson lost the 1824 presidential election to John Quincy Adams through what some called a “corrupt bargain” in the House of Representatives. The maneuver was masterminded by hot-headed but politically savvy Henry Clay, who with Adams, announced their intent for far-reaching new federal programs. Fierce opposition to these policies united pro-Jackson supporters who formed a new party, the Democrats, to rally around their hero and elect him to president in 1828.

But while Adams was defeated, Henry Clay had no intention of leaving the fight. He helped lead a new party which gathered together anti-Jackson, fiscal conservatives, and pro-states rights factions. The rise of Clay’s new Whig party seemed unstoppable–they captured both houses of Congress and the presidency–until, on April 4, 1841, president William Henry Harrison died in office and gave John Tyler the power of the veto.

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In the earliest days of the United States, there was no such thing as an organized political party. George Washington, elected twice to the presidency unanimously in the Electoral College, warned the new nation against political factions, writing that organized parties would become, “potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men subvert the power of the people.”

But immediately after Washington vacated the Presidency, factions did spring up and bitter personal rivalries began to shape the nation. The two first political parties–the Federalists and the Republicans–had very different views of what America should become, and were led by very different men: Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson.

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As the extreme marketing battle between Red Bull and Monster reaches unprecedented heights (128,000 feet above sea level, to be precise), a new challenger steps onto the scene. 5-hour Energy, the tiny titan in the two ounce can, quickly plows through the energy drink market, generating hundreds of millions of dollars each year and leaving a trail of failed imitators in its wake.

But for the moment, Red Bull and Monster have bigger issues on their hands. A string of unexpected deaths and hospitalizations, a high-profile lawsuit, and whispers of a government ban threaten to topple their energy empire.

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Host Lindsay Graham talks with Alex Gibney, director of “Client 9,” a documentary that examines the rise and fall of Eliot Spitzer.

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From the outside, it looks like you have it all. But on the inside, you’re alone and trapped. Hosted by Virginia Madsen.

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As Red Bull plans its U.S. invasion, an unlikely upstart vies to beat it to market. Led by branding guru Mark Hall, the wholesome Hansen Beverage Company launches Monster, a grungy, all-American alternative to its yuppie European competitor. Not only does Hall intend to pull Hansen back from the verge of bankruptcy, his plans will position Monster to take a massive bite out of Red Bull’s multi-billion dollar industry.

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Professor Judith Bennett joined Patrick to talk about the difference between ale and beer, and how work - and women's work in particular - changed over time.

Check out Judith's Books!

A Medieval Life: Cecilia Penifader of Brigstock, c. 1295-1344

Sisters and Workers in the Middle Ages

Women in the Medieval English Countryside: Gender and Household in Brigstock before the Plague

Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women's Work in a Changing World

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A Medieval Life: Cecilia Penifader of Brigstock, c. 1295-1344

Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women's Work in a Changing World

Sisters and Workers in the Middle Ages

Women in the Medieval English Countryside: Gender and Household in Brigstock before the Plague

After experimenting on himself, Horace Wells realized that laughing gas might help make surgeries less painful. But his search for a business partner would lead him to a fateful encounter with a petty crook named William Morton.

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We conclude our series on the American Civil Right Movement with an interview with a woman who was there, on the front lines of the fight.

Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely is longtime civil rights activist and artist. She was a Freedom Rider, boarding busses to travel the south in a fight for desegregation, and member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, participating in sit-ins, marches, and voter registration campaigns. She marched on Washington, was arrested three times, was visited in jail by Martin Luther King Jr., and leads a life defined by her heritage, commitment to nonviolent activism, and the hope for continued change.

You can read Peggy's poem here.

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It’s the early 1980s, and in Bangkok, Thailand, a jet-lagged toothpaste marketing exec named Dietrich Mateschitz has just tasted Krating Daeng, an energy tonic popular with rickshaw drivers. The flavor is repellant—it’s sickly sweet—but to Mateschitz’s surprise, it completely cures his jetlag. Suddenly, he sees a business opportunity. Energy drinks like these are huge in East Asia, but virtually unheard of in Europe. The biggest challenge will be figuring out how to market it—starting with a new name. He knows “Krating Daeng” won’t sell, so he opts for the nearest English equivalent: Red Bull.

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Preet Bharara investigates Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos - the explosive trials and the aftermath.

You can read more about the Sheldon Silver trial here, and read about the Dean Skelos trial here.

Support this show by supporting our sponsors!

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A special series with our sibling show Legal Wars. The 1968 Democratic National Convention attracted demonstrators from all over the country. Thousands of students, Yippies, Peaceniks, and other protestors converged in Chicago to push for an end to the Vietnam War. But the city’s police had other plans and the would-be peaceful protests erupted into violence. News programs broadcast the clashes live to a nation of stunned viewers at home. Investigators called it a “police riot,” but five months later, the newly elected President Nixon found someone else to blame. \n\nCheck out Legal Wars for more stories behind America’s most famous courtroom battles.

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It’s the eve of your wedding, and you fear you’ve made a huge mistake. Music is your passion, but you’re not sure your fiancée believes in your talent. There’s greatness in you, but it’s not even clear you’ll make it through the night. Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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In 1453, after more than 60 years of trying, the Ottomans finally besieged and captured the city of Constantinople. This marked the end of one phase of Ottoman expansion and the beginning of another as the dominant power of the region. It was also the end of the Byzantines, the last vestige of a Roman Empire that had once stretched over the entire Mediterranean and beyond.

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For decades, Americans resigned themselves to gritting their teeth through the agony of surgery. And then along came an eminent surgeon, a charming swindler and his hapless mark and changed everything.

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Seeking to build upon the gains of the early 1960s, Civil Rights activists pushed forward on a series of ambitious efforts. Voting rights activists returned to Alabama and again faced violent reprisal—this time televised for the country to witness. A shocked nation watched the violence in Selma in horror; Congress took action, passing the Voting Rights Act.

Off of this success, Martin Luther King Jr. began building a coalition of activist groups to turn the nation’s attention to the fight against poverty. Gathering support for a massive march on Washington, Dr. King visited Memphis, hopeful and in high spirits. He did not leave alive.

America does move forward and the bell of freedom rings out a little louder. We have come some of the way, not near all of it. There is much yet to do.” President Lyndon B. Johnson.

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Governor Cuomo tries to stamp out corruption with an independent commission who deals with interference from unexpected places. Attorney Preet Bharara lasers in on the committee’s findings.

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Napster is approaching its death throes. The file sharing company has one shot left: Bertelsmann, the record label that’s confident it has come up with a foolproof plan to profit from its former foe. But Bertelsmann forgot about one thing. It needs the buy-in of other labels to make its rescue plan work. And the other music bosses are still livid that Bertelsmann went behind their backs to partner with Napster. They won’t be stepping up to help either company.

Napster is running out of options. There’s only one thing that might still work: it’s got to go legitimate.

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You’ve always lived for what others want you to do: your college major, your first job. You have a dream, but before you achieve it, you’ll have to hit rock bottom first. Hosted by Virginia Madsen.

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You’ve been bullied and ignored for much of your childhood. You lose yourself in trances that can last for an hour. Your only escape is the books you love, the complex thoughts that bounce around inside your mind...and to get out of your father’s house. Hosted by Robbie Daymond.

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The Ottoman Empire rose from humble beginnings in Anatolia to dominate a vast swathe of territory. Holy war, gaza, was a powerful driving force behind that expansion. At the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396, Ottoman holy war clashed directly with its Christian equivalent: crusading.

If you're interested in learning more, you can check out:

The great book by Cemal Kafadar, Between Two Worlds

If you prefer to watch your history, try Resurrection: Ertugrul on Netflix.

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Some of the biggest names in music have gathered to duke it out over the future of Napster. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s intellectual property hearing finally brings the pioneers of the peer-to-peer revolution face to face with the record labels.

Napster is feeling good about its chances. But the judge overseeing the whole affair isn’t going to just swallow whatever arguments Napster’s high-priced lawyer dishes up. And buried somewhere in the mountains of evidence is one message that could destroy everything.

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The polio vaccine may have wiped out the disease in the United States, but the struggle to eradicate it continues around the world. Dr. Rosamund Lewis is an expert in immunization and helps lead the World Health Organization’s initiative for polio eradication.

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As the Civil Rights movement entered the landmark years of 1963 and 1964, activists had faced many challenges - but had also won many victories. Now, they sought to launch new campaigns in Alabama and Mississippi and mass demonstrations in Washington D.C. and New York City. In the span of sixteen remarkable months, the movement and the nation itself would be transformed, walking the razor’s edge between triumph and tragedy.

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Troopergate explodes. Governor Spitzer finds himself embroiled in a scandal. Senator Bruno is investigated by the FBI.

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Napster badly wants to avoid a legal battle with the major record labels, which could annihilate Napster. And it thinks with 10 million users, it’s got some leverage with the labels. But as Napster co-founders Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker are about to find out, that only inflames their wrath and ignites the mother of all record label disputes.

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Napster co-founders Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker finally get to Silicon Valley, where their dream for music sharing is supposed to take off. When word gets out about what Napster is doing, software programmers are literally banging on the doors, begging to work for Napster for free.

Their idea is solid, but the finances are weak. It’s time to incorporate and find investors. But Shawn is about to discover it takes a lot of money to bring the world free music.

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In 1955, the world received its first viable polio vaccine, courtesy of Jonas Salk. He was hailed as a hero until kids started to fall sick with polio. A bad batch of vaccines was thought to be to blame. But the panic But it was also an opening for a scientist with a competing vision. Albert Sabin warned of the dangers of Salk’s vaccine from the start. The final clash between the two vaccines, and the two scientists, is the true story of how polio was conquered.

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As the Civil Rights movement entered the Sixties, a new generation of activists took the fore. Frustrated by the pace of progress but emboldened by strides made in the previous decade, students embraced “nonviolent direct action,” protest techniques that were provocative but peaceful. Soon, a wave of sit-ins hit lunch counters across the South. The response was caustic, often violent; but the protesters’ persistence led to negotiations with business owners and civil authorities that led to successful desegregation.

The next wave of direct action - the Freedom Rides - met much worse and more violent resistance. Protesters were beaten, busses burned, and hope was nearly lost. Then, when activists moved into the rural South to organize the black vote, white supremacists’ ire turned murderous.

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Naysayers tell Shawn Fanning that only an experienced Silicon Valley software engineer can overcome all the technological challenges to get Napster up and running. But Shawn thinks he’s got the answers and asks himself, ‘’Why not me?” And he gets to work, turning to an online chat group of hackers eager to take the fight to the doorstep of the record labels.

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In 2006 Eliot Spitzer is elected governor on a promise to tackle corruption in the most dysfunctional state capital in the country--Albany, NY. He is quickly challenged by one of the most powerful men in the state. Will the governor change Albany or will Albany change him?

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It’s 2000, and the record industry is just waking up to a major threat to its business model: an online file-sharing system created by a 17-year-old kid from Massachusetts. With Napster — so-called after the nickname its founder earned on the basketball court — users can download music for free. Why would anyone pay 18 or 20 bucks for a CD ever again?

Musicians like the Offspring greet the technology with open arms. Some bands see Napster as a way to make more money on each song while breaking the control of the record labels over their music. But not so fast. The record industry isn’t just going to give up its $15 billion in annual profits. And the music execs are convinced: the courts will be on their side.

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Archaeology shows up all the time on Tides of History, and it's one of Patrick's favorite topics. Leah joins to chat about what it can tell us, how it works, and why it's so dang cool.

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Pressure mounts and so does the realization that the fight against polio will be a risky one with enormous consequences for failure. Vaccines contain benign samples of the viruses they’re designed to protect against. If a flawed polio vaccine is tested on humans, many could get sick.

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After the Brown V. Board of Education ruling, civil rights activists had legal standing to desegregate schools. But doing so proved dangerous. The first black students to step into newly integrated schools faced extreme hostility from whites who felt Jim Crow society was under attack.

The segregationists defied federal court orders. When National Guard troops sent by President Eisenhower forced the issue, white supremacists changed tactics, patiently and cruely wielding political and economic influence against activists. And when even those measures proved not enough to stop integration, some communities abandoned public education altogether, for whites and blacks. Closing all schools, they felt, was better than integrating them.

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Host David Brown sits down with Tristan Donovan, series writer and author of Replay: The History of Video Games, just as this console war enters uncharted territory. What’s next for Xbox, PlayStation and wild card Nintendo Switch? Hint: probably not three more generations of consoles. Plus, what a groundbreaking announcement from Microsoft could mean for the gaming industry moving forward.

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Host Lindsay Graham talks with the journalists who broke the BALCO scandal and almost went to jail. Mark Fainaru Wada and Lance Williams are the authors of “Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports.”

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The dark side of the late medieval Church was its emphasis on control and conformity. A concept of orthodoxy produced a conception of unacceptable difference, which manifested itself in hunts for heretics, witches, and the institution of the Inquisition.

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As Nintendo burns with the failure of Wii U, Sony can’t woo PS2 users to the new Playstation 3. It vows to not make that mistake again, and the Playstation 4 prioritizes on what the gamers want: a better gaming experience. But it’s not just the focus on gaming that makes the PS4 a hit - it’s also the failure of Microsoft’s new Xbox One to deliver.

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By the middle of the last century Americans lived in fear of one disease: polio. The story of the polio vaccine is not just a scientific story- it’s a political and financial one, too. One that would pave the way for medical research fundraising campaigns that followed.

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In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation was legal, on a “separate but equal” basis. But for more than five decades, life for black and white Americans was seldom equal, but always separate.\n\nTo fight segregation, the NAACP and others exposed the dismal and debasing conditions in black schools. They won a monumental victory in Brown v. Board of Education—but then a young boy from Chicago named Emmett Till was dredged from the swamps of Mississippi.

Till’s death galvanized the movement. Listening to an activist speak about Till’s murder, one woman would rise to become the face of the fight against segregation. On a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat.s

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Microsoft put all its efforts into it’s new console, the Xbox 360 to beat combat Sony’s market share and it looked like it was working. Thousands of consoles sold, and then suddenly, mysteriously, thousands of consoles died. Meanwhile Sony announces their new PlayStation will cost more than any console, by a lot, and it’s new processor confuses game designers. But that’s not all. Nintendo is back and they’re about to introduce another console that will send both companies scrambling. The Nintendo Wii is instantly a sensation, and Microsoft and Sony are left in it’s dust.

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Victor Conte loses his battle when he’s sentenced to prison. Marion Jones’ carefully crafted defense threatens to collapse because of a bitter divorce. And agent Novitzky’s case hits some snags as Barry Bonds fights for his reputation. After investigating for eleven years at a cost of a hundred million dollars, can agent Novitzky claim victory? Or has Victor Conte won the war?

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The late Middle Ages were a time of upheaval for the universal Church, caught between the glories and overwhelming power of the High Middle Ages and the crisis of the Protestant Reformation.

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Sony was preparing Playstation to eventually replace personal computers. Microsoft sees that coming and goes into combat mode. Bill Gates spends more than two billion dollars to launch Microsoft’s Xbox console with innards that Gates hopes will not only put Sony on the defensive but will one day replace PCs as the future of digital home entertainment.

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An interview with the Grandmaster himself: Garry Kasparov. In 1985, he earned international fame when he became the youngest world chess champion at just 22-years-old. He went on to defend his title for more than a decade. But it’s his 6-game match against IBM’s supercomputer “Deep Blue” in 1997 that will be remembered as a defining moment in the history of chess -- and artificial intelligence.

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President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, freeing the slaves in much of the South. But the road to freedom—true freedom—would take generations longer for most black Americans.

In this new six-part series, we investigate their struggle, beginning in the heady post-war years of the Forties. Segregation was endemic; it was the law of the South, and the custom of the North and West. No black American escaped its demeaning and often violent grip. But in discovering the power of collective protest, civil rights activists began to make demands for basic equality in restaurants, the workplace and in schools. And as they racked up victories, excitement and determination built that this was a movement with momentum. Could they really do this? Could they make a change and finally—finally—fight off Jim Crow?

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Host David Brown chats with freelance journalist and series writer Joseph Guinto about the 22 years he’s spent covering Southwest Airlines… including his memories meeting and interviewing Southwest’s major players, from Rollin King to Herb Kelleher himself. Plus, the famous part of Southwest’s history that didn’t quite happen the way the company says — it’s all on this episode of Southwest vs. American Airlines, on Business Wars.

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The raid on BALCO succeeds beyond Agent Novitzky’s wildest dreams. He gets all the evidence he needs to prove that some of the top athletes in the world have cheated their way to records and medals. But Barry Bonds isn’t going down without a fight and neither is Marion Jones. And when confidential testimony gets leaked to the press, all hell breaks loose.

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Patrick and Leah talk about Peter Frankopan's The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, which Patrick didn't like very much. Critical reviews of books are just as important as glowing ones, so let's talk about that.

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Professor Christopher Dyer of the University of Leicester joins us to talk about why peasants mattered and how the medieval economy worked. You can check out his book, A Country Merchant, 1495-1520: Trading and Farming at the End of the Middle Ages,online.

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Thanks to deregulation, no-frills knock offs of Southwest take to the skies like crows. About 120 airlines have gone out of business or filed for bankruptcy since the industry was deregulated in 1978.

American’s SABRE system optimizes...everything. It manages ticket pricing so flights are always full, and American is building new hubs and terminals. Meanwhile, Southwest company culture is shifting from sex appeal to backyard barbecue vibe. Is it enough to attract families to fly?

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Can a computer pass for human? And more importantly, can a computer beat a human at Jeopardy? It’s all fun and games until we start putting life-changing decisions in the hands of machines.

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In 1980, Jimmy Carter signed into law the The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, or ANILCA. That act remains controversial even today, as it set aside 43,585,000 acres of new national parklands in Alaska, including the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve and the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. Superintendent Greg Dudgeon oversees both and continues to balance the mandate of the Parks’ mission with the needs of Alaskan residents.

We’ll talk to Greg about his affection for the land, how Alaska captivated him early on, and the struggles of managing an area the size of Belgium, all entirely above the Arctic Circle.

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Everyone loves Herb Kelleher—even FAA regulators. The onetime corporate counsel-turned-CEO is coming into his own at the helm of Southwest. But his latest challenge is coming up with a way to skirt the FAA’s pesky “slot” system, designed to limit air traffic by rationing takeoffs and landings. Kelleher has a business to run. So he embarks on a crazy plan to snag a few extra slots for Southwest. It may not work, but one thing’s certain: it will be a whole lot of fun.

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A syringe with a mysterious substance sets off a race to save the Olympics from a doping scandal. Backstabbing, recriminations and a dedicated team of investigators threaten to destroy everything Victor Conte has created. And agent Novitzky plants an undercover agent to try to bring down Barry Bonds.

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Peasants and common folk were oppressed by their social superiors, but they didn't accept that as a natural state of affairs: They resisted in small, everyday ways, and they rebelled, sometimes spectacularly.

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As deregulation dawns, Southwest Airlines’ founder and CEO are locked in a power struggle. In the middle is Herb Kelleher, Southwest’s corporate attorney. And after 18 months serving as a punching bag for the company’s top brass, he’s had enough.

But as Southwest deals with a succession crisis, American Airlines is facing another emergency. It needs money, fast. The company is cash-poor after investing in its proprietary online reservation system, SABRE. The situation is so dire CEO Al Casey turns to a drastic option — moving the company’s headquarters from its homebase in New York City to Dallas.

Just as American is getting a financial lift, Southwest takes a nosedive. Deregulation has the company eyeing expansion routes, but the powers that be will do anything to stop it.

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A leap in the power of machine learning and artificial intelligence causes concern about the dangers ahead.

Written by Tom Simonite

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Alaska: big, open, frozen and wild. In 1867, the acquisition of Alaska from the Russian Empire was widely derided as “folly.” Early explorers like John Muir saw its potential though, and clamored for its preservation in the face of increasing development and calls for statehood. But when oil is discovered, the real fight begins. Caught between angry Alaskan individualists and an ambitious federal government, the National Park Service struggles to do what’s right for the land and the people who live and depend on it.

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The computer age is on the horizon, and American Airlines has a secret weapon: SABRE. Sure, the airline is top of the heap under the current pen-and-paper reservation system — the one where travel agents use a massive phonebook to look up flights, then call individual airlines to book a ticket. But they’re tired of playing phone tag. The American Society of Travel Agents has plans to roll out a new electronic system, one that could force American to lose its unofficial preferred status. The company has to get its system to market first — and its leaders have to convince the travel agencies to get onboard.

But there’s a much bigger threat looming on the horizon, one that could give a big boost to upstart rivals like Southwest Airlines. Deregulation is coming, and when it does it will change everything.

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Track star Marion Jones gets caught in the middle of an Olympic steroid scandal and turns to Victor Conte for help. In baseball, Barry Bonds is fed up watching other players beat records and garner fame. He teams up with a trainer who sets him on a path that will have unexpected results.

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A college dropout with no background in science turns himself into an expert on performance enhancing drugs. Soon he attracts some of the world’s best athletes—along with the attention of a determined federal agent.

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Humble peasants, not knights in shining armor or fancy bishops in soaring cathedrals, were the backbone of medieval society. Let's talk about them.

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Baniff and Southwest battled in court for domination over the skies. Southwest came out on top for a little while, but Baniff pushed back with prices Southwest just couldn't beat. The only way Southwest could fight back was to give the mostly male, mostly businessmen clientele something they couldn't refuse: free booze. For the first time ever, Southwest is in the black. With Baniff tamed, there's more turbulence. This time, it's a national airline. American Airlines is here to play.

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The development of smartphone Artificial Intelligence from early government research funding and the first experimental robot in Silicon Valley to the rise of the personal assistant known as Siri.

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In 1914, America’s National Parks had a problem: no one was using them. And those few that were faced unmaintained roads, trails strewn with garbage, and a lack of amenities that made it hard for the average American to enjoy themselves. One man had enough, and went to Washington on a mission: establish a new National Parks Service, and transform these neglected, magic spaces into clean, approachable, fun vacation destinations.

But in taking the reins, mining tycoon and marketing genius Stephen Mather would face many challenges: wolves, bears, fires, and his own internal torment.\

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In Texas in the 1960s, Rollin King had a crazy idea. He wanted to create a no-frills airline service that served San Antonio, Dallas and Houston. All he and his lawyer had to do was convince the Federal Regulations Bureau that they had no jurisdiction on flights that never left Texas. Of course getting Southwest off the ground would have been a lot easier if they had any planes…

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American Scandal Premieres September 18th.

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We put out the call for questions, and you guys responded. We covered a ton here, from the rise of capitalism and the subjection of medieval peasants to the Roman army and good historical fiction. Thanks to everybody who wrote in!

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Host David Brown chats with series writer Tristan Donovan, author of Fizz: How Soda Shook Up the World, about some of the juicy tidbits that didn’t make the final series. Like Fanta’s roots in Nazi Germany, Pepsi’s frantic struggle to make sure Coca-Cola didn’t beat it into space, and why Coca-Cola bottles have that iconic silhouette. And then there’s the cola that almost dethroned Coke. (Hint: it’s not Pepsi). David Brown even cops to his favorite cola...and the answer may surprise you.

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With six different kinds of pieces, 64 squares to move in, and billions of possible combinations of moves, chess is a good test for a computer. The number of distinct 40-move games is far greater than the number of electrons in the visible universe. For all intents and purposes: almost infinite.

Gary Kasparov is the world’s best chess player. Deep Blue is a computer. It’s humanity v machine. There’s a lot at stake and things turn controversial fast with accusations of cheating, a very human meltdown and a computer that hallucinates.

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In the early morning hours of Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the city of San Francisco was torn apart by a huge earthquake–but it was the subsequent fires that did the most damage. As the city sought to rebuild, it also sought a more secure water supply, to break the stranglehold of a water company monopoly and insure that if fire were to strike the city again, abundant water was available to fight it.

But a new reservoir would require the flooding of a treasured portion of Yosemite, the Hetch Hetchy Valley, one of John Muir’s favorite locations. He and his new Sierra Club fiercely opposed the plan. But politicians in DC and San Francisco loved it. Played out across the nation, a conflict between preservationists like Muir and conservationists like Theodore Roosevelt would ultimately decide the fate of Hetch Hetchy.

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Coke continues to grapple with Pepsi’s winning ads, but as Y2K nears both companies realize this isn’t just a cola war anymore. There’s more backlash for both companies, this time from schools. Coke and Pepsi are now seen as allies in America’s obesity. Both companies consider this but choose drastically different paths for the future. One gets as far away from soda as they can, the other doubles down. Both wrestle for dominance over every pocket of the soft drinks market - juice, bottled water, sports drinks and yes, cola - and show no signs of slowing anytime soon.

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With the Pepsi Challenge under attack by Coke, Pepsi needs a new ad campaign. So the company turns for inspiration to the biggest pop star in the world: Michael Jackson. Meanwhile, Coca-Cola has a new chief executive who’s convinced tinkering with Coca-Cola’s prized formula is the key to winning the cola wars. He’ll stop at nothing to bring Coca-Cola fans New Coke—whether they like it or not.

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Artificial Intelligence is no longer the stuff of science fiction. And it’s about to get much more powerful: machines that can reason, create, predict the future, even dream. AI is likely to be one of the most transformative technologies of the 21st-century.

This is the first in our four-episode series about the rise of artificial intelligence and humanity's quest to breathe intellectual life into computers. In this episode, we're going to meet the mavericks who first dreamed of a world where machines capable of being smarter than the people who created them.

And what better way for smart machines and their creators to face off in a battle of wits -- than by playing chess?

Pre-order Steven Johnson’s new book Farsighted now before it is released on September 4th.

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Put out to pasture, thinking his political career over, Theodore Roosevelt was atop a mountain when he heard the news: an assassin’s bullet would likely take President McKinley’s life, and make Roosevelt president.\n\nUpon his inauguration shortly after, Teddy brought his lifelong love of the natural world into the White House with him. He found his executive pen a powerful tool, setting aside vast swaths of land as preserves and monuments. And later, as he sought his first term as an elected president, he embarked on the most comprehensive tour of America’s natural wonders any president had ever made: he was struck speechless at the Grand Canyon, met naturalist John Burroughs in Yellowstone, and took “the most important camping trip in history” with John Muir in Yosemite.

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Welcome to the Pepsi Generation. As Pepsi fires up a hot new ad campaign, Coca-Cola starts getting nervous. But a sudden plane detour through Ireland gives Coke executive Bill Backer inspiration for one of the most iconic ads of the 20th century. It seems Coke is on top once again—but Pepsi has another trick up its sleeve. The company is out for blood with the Pepsi Challenge, a nationwide taste test that will endanger the most precious part of Coca-Cola lore: its secret recipe.

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Ladies and Gentlemen. Leah read a book. Well, most of a book. I think she read the book?

We're discussing in detail The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. You can download it on Audible or wherever books are sold.

What should Leah read next? Let us know on Twitter - @TidesHistory or @leahgoeswhere.

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Professor Jared Rubin of Chapman University joins us to talk about the economic divergence between Europe and the Middle East that began in the early modern period. Check out his fantastic book - Rulers, Religion, and Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not.

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Rulers, Religion, and Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not (Cambridge Studies in Economics, Choice, and Society)

With world war on the horizon, Coca-Cola and Pepsi face a supply crisis. How to get enough sugar to continue bottling their sweet fizzy goodness? One man has the answer -- to secure its supply line, Coke must sell itself as the all-American cola. For GIs and liberated citizens the world over, Coca-Cola will become a symbol of hope. But the company’s all-hands patriotic marketing strategy leaves Pepsi out in the cold. With Coca-Cola claiming Europe, America’s number two cola turns south of the border to survive.

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Yellowstone was our nation’s first national park. Its strange, wondrous landscapes were perfect for exploration - and exploitation. Upon Yellowstone’s discovery by white Americans, two races began: one to build a railroad to the park to capture its commercial potential, another to protect the land from desecration. One will fail, bringing down with it the nation’s economy. The other will require the US Army to succeed, but leave thousands of animals slaughtered and Native American tribes displaced.

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The cola cops are coming. Pepsi, an upstart Coca-Cola imitator, grabs its rival’s attention by serving up its own beverage to unsuspecting soda fountain customers. Coca-Cola moves fast -- but it’s not enough to stop Charles Guth, Pepsi-Cola’s new owner and the head of Loft Candy. He stays one step ahead of Coke with his dirty business practices. It’ll be up to lawyer and turnaround artist Walter Mack to stop the baddest man in the candy business.

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When we think of the Middle Ages, the first thing that comes to mind is usually knights in shining armor. Chivalry - the ideal of behavior that guided knights - was a major force in medieval life. Honor and piety, bravery and reputation: these were core values for the secular elite. We explore what they actually meant to medieval people.

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In turn of the century Atlanta, pharmacist John Pemberton has invented a dynamite health tonic with some secret ingredients his customers can’t get enough of. There’s only one problem. With the city about to go dry, the temperance authorities are coming for him. Pemberton needs to cook up a new recipe, fast — before his own demons tear him apart.

And there’s another problem on the horizon. Its name is Pepsi-Cola.

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America's greatest National Parks are truly one of our country's greatest treasures. But many beautiful landmarks have ugly histories. Over the next few episodes, we’ll learn how good intentions sometimes lead to tragic and violent ends, and how in some instances, dirty business dealings would lead to the preservation of many of our countries greatest natural wonders.

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We hope you enjoyed our series on eBay vs PayPal. Here to discuss her thoughts on the PayPal mafia alums is Kara Swisher. Swisher is the self-described "grumpy lady of tech" and host of the podcast Recode Decode. She's known for her tough takes on Silicon Valley, is Silicon Valley royalty, and even had a cameo in Season 1 of HBO's Silicon Valley. Have we mentioned Silicon Valley enough? Here's our conversation with Kara.

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Wars that last for a century tend to leave a mark. The Hundred Years War transformed warfare, remade England and France as states, and had a transformative impact on the subjects of both kingdoms.

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PayPal is running out of time. The online payment service is hauling in new users, but its bottom line is bleeding red. Without a buyer to pump it full of cash soon, the company could go under. Should it take the safe route and sell out to its longtime nemesis eBay? Or should it risk the open market with an initial public offering?

Why not both?

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We've come to the end of our series on the American Revolution, but we can't say goodbye without saying hello to Russell Shorto. Russell adapted his book, Revolution Song, for this series on American History Tellers. \n\nIf you were wondering why we chose these six people, what freedom meant for each of them, and why the fight we began then may still be something we're dealing with today, then this episode is for you!

Stay tuned, we'll be back with our new series all about National Parks next week.

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By late 2000, PayPal and X.com are yoked together, with X.com CEO Elon Musk leading the newly combined company. But it’s a rocky marriage: PayPal’s founders clash with their new leader over everything from his imperious management style to his choice of server platforms. Finally the PayPal loyalists decide there’s only one option left: it’s time to engineer a coup.

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Remember the summer of 2000? The Olympics were in full swing and PayPal was under attack. Not from eBay, but Russian hackers. In looking for soft targets in the early days of the untethered Internet, PayPal was the fattest cow. On top of that, there are competitors, and they’re catching on fast. Between the money stolen from hackers and competitors, PayPal has to figure out a way to survive, and fast.

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Millions immigrated to the United States after it's founding, entranced with the promise of a better life. But the country they found was rough and tumble, less developed than the land they left, and had some serious issues. Last week we looked at slavery, and today we'll go inside the often-overlooked class conflict that was playing out among Americans, even as elites and commoners alike came together to fight the British.

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In the midst of the dot-com boom, there's also a lot of dot-com bust. PayPal desperately needed to grow but they companies who'd raised millions more suddenly disintegrate. The solution was so simple it seemed almost illegal - let the converted proselytize. And they do to incredible results. It doesn't take long for eBay to notice but there's nothing they can do to stop PayPal's viral momentum.

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Leah and I discussed the medieval narrative histories of Dan Jones, whom I interviewed last September on Tides of History about his book The Templars. That's one of three books we discussed, all of which are available on Audible, so you should check them out.

The Templars: The Rise and Fall of God's Holy Warriors

The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors

The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England

And re-listen to our interview with Dan here on Tides!

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Historian William Chester Jordan of Princeton University joins us to talk about his work on the Great Famine of the fourteenth century.

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As eBay gathers steam, a libertarian chess champion and a programmer who fled Communist Ukraine team up to change the world with their encryption software. But when their plan to piggyback on the ubiquitous Palm Pilot hits a snag, they stumble upon a new idea. The concept is so revolutionary, it will change the landscape of e-commerce and turn the fledgling company into a viral phenomenon. There’s just one problem. PayPal is set on a collision course with the one company it needs to succeed: eBay.

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Nuclear Energy is a story that’s included a cursed plutonium core, runaway reactors, a magic neutron wand and Charlie Chaplin.

We've also heard about the missteps. Fake nuclear fusion plants and some overoptimistic claims about cold fusion. In this episode, we're talking to someone who actually helped investigate that last claim. James Mahaffee, an author, nuclear science historian, and a senior research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

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The Revolution was fought for freedom, at least in name. Calls for freedom filled the air. No taxation without representation! Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness!

The Marquis de Lafayette, who had fought valiantly at Washington's side throughout the war, spoke for many when he wrote bitterly after the war: \n\n"I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America if I could have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of slavery."

This episode explores one man's experience of being a slave and then being free during America's founding decades.

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At the dawn of the dotcom era, a Silicon Valley tech geek on a personal vendetta rolls out the world’s first e-commerce site. Vintage lunchboxes? Second-hand guitars? B-list celebrity autographs? It all finds a home on AuctionWeb, and before long the site’s growth is skyrocketing.

But founder Pierre Omidyar isn’t prepared for the infrastructure challenges that come with turning his pet project into a real company. Brownouts and site outages soon follow, raising the ire of customers. And without a way to close transactions online, AuctionWeb might be doomed before it takes off.

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The second major phase of the Hundred Years War saw the peak of English power in France, controlling half of the kingdom and ruling it as a dual monarchy. But that situation couldn't last, and beginning with the miraculous intervention of Joan of Arc, English control on the continent slowly seeped away into utter defeat.

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This series has taken us from Albert Einstein in the Swiss Patent office to the bombing of Japan, from the monster movies of the 1960s to nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island. Nuclear energy fell rapidly out of fashion, and to many it seemed like the atomic age is coming to a close.

Except maybe it’s not. Because right now there are multi-billion dollar projects underway to turn atoms into energy again - this time through the power of nuclear fusion. Welcome to your future.

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In 1788, the hot gossip in posh British circles was all about France and America. For their friends across the channel, the popular uprising against King Louis XVI seems to be heading toward Revolution. And for their unruly cousins across the Atlantic, the fledgling country seems already headed for ruin. But this is a country their people believed in - and not just white men. A new generation of American women, inspired by the Enlightenment, were calling for greater freedoms.

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The Hundred Years War, fought between England and France from 1337 to 1453, defined late medieval politics and drastically changed the course of history. Today, we explore the origins of the conflict and the first six decades, from 1337 to 1396.

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Nuclear energy was once a promising endless, clean, safe energy source. By the late 1950s, that optimism was fading. That was partially over fear of nuclear weapons, but then there was the fallout. Radioactive fallout, dust snowing from the sky after massive desert nuclear tests. Once the public found out, there was no saving it. "Nuclear power is not only dirty and undependable, it’s about as safe as a closetful of cobras.”

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It’s 1786. For two years the city of Philadelphia has been celebrating its independence. For citizens of this brand new country, life is parties, meetings, debates and festivals - sometimes all blended together. But it wasn’t fun and games for everyone. Even before the war, American distrusted both the natives and the British. While Native American tribes weren’t a ‘side’ in the Revolutionary War, the politics and broken promises of the Colonies locked Indians, British and American forces alike in battle

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The first serious accident from a nuclear reactor happened in the United States in 1960. It wouldn't be the last. And in the coming decades, a new word will be used to talk about accidents of these kind, a word that will strike fear into the hearts of people living near nuclear power plants from Russia to Japan to the United States: meltdown.

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In 1776, the British Under Secretary of State for the American Colonies was giddy. The Americans needed to be punished like children for their bad behavior. “Roman severity,” he called it, and then when he crushed the rebellion, the American children could come crawling back to their British parents, begging for forgiveness. It would be his crowning glory, he thought. It was not.

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Joining us today is Gabriel Kahn, a professor of journalism at the University of Southern California. He’s a former Los Angeles bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal and a frequent commentator on monetization and the media.

He’s also taught courses on the history of journalism. He recently wrote an open letter to the new owner of the Los Angeles Times, Patrick Soon Shiong, and now he's here to talk about Hearst vs Pulitzer!

Join us next week as we visit a new business war: Ford vs Chevrolet.

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After the war, scientists who’d come to work at Los Alamos went their separate ways. They’d figured out how to destroy cities, but now they wanted to control atoms. The Atomic Energy Commission was created to support nuclear energy experiments, and Eisenhower himself created a catchy slogan to go with the new direction: Atoms for Peace.

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Plague, war, and a worsening climate drastically changed Europe in the years and decades after 1350. This new state of affairs laid the groundwork for the explosion around 1500 that gave rise to the modern world.

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It’s 1754, and the British had developed thirteen colonies along the eastern seaboard of the American continent. You may be familiar with them. But what you may not know is that a skirmish between the British and French settlers, who colonized a strip of land lining the Mississippi River, is where a young George Washington made a serious war blunder that ultimately led to Revolution.

Written by New York Times bestselling author, Russell Shorto, this is Revolution by American History Tellers. Over the next six episodes, we’ll dive into the Revolutionary War period from the perspectives of a slave, a woman, a native American, a common shoemaker and a British aristocrat.

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By 1900, the days of yellow journalism were already fading, and both William Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer were searching for a new direction even as their newspapers diverged.

Hearst tries for a political career, but finds himself defeated and dragging back to a lagging paper by the end of the decade.

Pulitzer doubled down on news, and in 1909 caught the biggest scoop of his career. While the paper is going as strong as ever, Pulitzer’s health is suffering.

Both men created legacies and changed the face of American journalism forever.

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Between 1346 and 1351, the Black Death killed tens of millions of people - at least half the population - in Europe and the Middle East. This great mortality, one of the worst disasters of any era, fundamentally reshaped European society and set the stage for the world that followed.

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A close up look at a crisis of their own making. One that nearly cost Hearst and Pulitzer their grip on the country’s first media empires. Instead of pitting them against each other, the crisis would see the two media moguls finding rare common ground.

At the turn of the century, newspapers flew off the presses in 8 or 10 separate editions a day. Newsies grabbed them off stacks in the alleys and took to the streets, their little hands stained with ink. But when the Newsies go on strike, no papes get sold. No papes, no profit - which leaves both Hearst and Pulitzer with a BIG problem.

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The Second World War energized research on atomic science and the United States was at the forefront. For one, it had the scientists. Second, the US government was willing to back the research. Third, we wanted the bombs.

However darkly depressing this seems it’s true. Our history of nuclear power is intertwined with the history of nuclear weapons.

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If you lived in an American city at the turn of the century, you got all of your news from a single source: the daily newspapers. No where was that more true than New York City; in the City, two papers ruled them all. You had the World and the Journal. And then men behind them were the most famous newsmen in American History.

William Randolph Hearst headed up the Journal and Hungarian immigrant Joseph Pulitzer ran the World.

In their mad scramble for readers, they’d pioneer daring technologies and set new precedents for aggressive investigative coverage. They poured millions of dollars into the fight even when their advisors warned it could push them over the brink.

And in the end, it very nearly did.

This is just the beginning of this story. You can listen to the rest on Business Wars.

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What happens when there’s no news? You have to MAKE the news.

When Hearst heard from his top reporter that the Spanish-Cuban tension wasn’t looking like anything would happen, Hearst wasn’t just going to wait around for an explosion.

He already bought and assembled a collection of powder kegs. It was just a matter of lighting the fuse.

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This week we talked about friend of the show Roger Crowley, whom we interviewed back in April. He's a master storyteller, and luckily for us he decided to write a bunch of books for us to enjoy!

Check out Roger's books on Audible!

Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World (and Leah's pick for summer reading!)

1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West

City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

And re-listen to our interview with Roger here on Tides!

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Keith returns to talk to us about rebellions, revolts, and how you can have popular politics in non-democratic political systems. We also discuss trials and executions of cows (!!!) for treason and other fascinating anecdotes.

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In 1883, 15 years before the Headless Torso Murder, New York City's population was rapidly growing and the newspaper scene was pretty sleepy. The city's nearly 50 daily papers, even the small New York Times, was a pretty sedate bunch, informing citizens about zoning board decisions and weather trends. They rarely draw any blood, stir up society, get the city talking.

But that’s changing, thanks to Joseph Pulitzer.

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In 1958, President Dwight Eisenhower went on national television introducing a new kind of power plant, one that will transform the world. Nuclear energy and the Atomic Age took America by storm, but this misunderstood technology’s potential has always been in question.

Last series we looked at the building blocks of life, DNA. This time we’re turning to atoms, and specifically to the energy that comes from splitting atoms. We’ll take you to one of the most powerful and controversial energy sources on earth: nuclear energy.

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In 1897, America looked very different. Carriages rolled through the streets of New York. Mass media was just growing up, and Hearst was convinced that carrier pigeons - hunted to extinction by 1914 - were what would give his paper the edge during the early days of the Headless Torso case.

This case belonged to the whole city. Everyone - barkeeps in Brooklyn and bankers on the Upper East Side alike are invested in the mystery… and what happened to his head.

For more American History Tellers, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to Business Wars.

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This is the beginning of a mystery, a great business rivalry, and a look into American history. To tell the story of Hearst vs Pulitzer, we called our friend Lindsay Graham over at American History Tellers for help.

The Headless Torso mystery is about a jilted husband, a German midwife, a muscleman and more colorful characters. The city’s been mesmerized for months, and in Gilded Age New York, most people just couldn’t resist pressing their pennies into a newsboy’s ink-stained hand to find out the latest.

You can listen to more episodes of American History Tellers wherever you listen to Business Wars.

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To wrap up The Dynamo of DNA, we're talking to Britt Wray. You can follow her on Twitter, and visit her website for more. You can also pick up her book, Necrofauna: The Science, Ethics, and Risks of De-Extinction to learn more about De-Extinction.

We’ll be back next week with an all new arc on nuclear energy.

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JFK said that nothing in the 1960s was "...more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space..." than getting a man to the moon and back safely. As the Apollo 11 flight neared, the entire nation waited, enraptured. But back in the USSR, the Soviets were also making strides. Though the contest with the Soviets for technological superiority had always been a race, it was now a literal one - a U.S. manned spacecraft was about to chase down a Soviet robotic vessel.

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Have you wondered about power relations between peasants and lords in Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean? We have just the author for you. Today we're talking about Patrick's favorite historian, Chris Wickham!

He wrote the following books:

Medieval Europe

The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000

Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800

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Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800

Follow along on an in-depth tour of Europe on the brink of the late Middle Ages, with a changing climate, the Black Death, and the Hundred Years War peeking over the horizon.

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The human genome project finally allowed us to read the “Book of Life,” the genetic code of living things. But now there’s a tool - CRISPR - that will allow us to rewrite it. With CRISPR, we can change the color of flowers, eliminate diseases, and even… bring back Wooly Mammoths.

We hope you enjoyed our first series, The Dynamo of DNA. Join us next week for a conversation with scientist, broadcaster and author Britt Wray.

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In times of crisis, Americans had always put their confidence in their country’s superiority in power, technology and leadership. America had never failed them. And in 1961, hope and faith in their country burned brighter than ever as NASA prepared to launch the first man into space. A month out from launch, that light was effectively snuffed. The Soviets beat them to it. On April 12, 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first person in space and the first person to orbit Earth. The world was in awe. And America was in shock.

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The Reformation may have begun with Martin Luther, but it didn't end there. Other reformers in different parts of Europe took the threads of change in a wide variety of directions, from the Reformed movement of Zwingli and Calvin to the conservative national reform of Henry VIII in England. The traditional Church changed as well, in a flurry of dramatic shifts we call the Counter-Reformation.

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Over the past 50 years, our understanding of DNA has grown exponentially. It took supercomputers working overtime to produce a single genomic map… and now all it takes is a spit sample that you drop in the mail. For about a hundred bucks, you can have your own personal genome mapped. One thing we still haven’t figured out is what to DO with all of that information. It’s been used to map family trees, trace diseases, exonerate innocents and catch serial killers - and that’s only the beginning.

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Information sharing was normal in the global scientific community, but when it came to rockets, normal rules didn’t apply. If the details got passed along to civilian scientists, there was no telling where that intel might end up…

But for many Americans, the Eisenhower just wasn’t moving fast enough. Sputnik was still orbiting! The Soviets were winning! Eisenhower downplayed Sputnik,calling it “one small ball in the air,” but privately he was worried.

The U.S. had the ability to beat the Soviets to space. But they didn’t. And Eisenhower wanted to know why.

Warning: this episode is packed with as much explosive power as is packed in the warhead of a ballistic missile.

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In Part 2 of our Book Club, we explore the Old West.

Thank you to Audible for sponsoring our book club! Start a 30-day free trial and get your first audiobook for FREE by visiting Audible.com/TIDES or texting TIDES to 500-500.

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The Protestant Reformation is one of the defining processes of the last 500 years, and Martin Luther's 95 Theses kicked it off. Today, we look at the medieval background to the Reformation, the complicated character of Luther himself, and the dramatic consequences of Luther's actions.

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The path to understand genetics was rife squabbles and competition among scientists vying to discover genes, chromosomes, and the structure of DNA. The tussles had been going on for a century.

But the 1980s introduced an even bigger grudge match: who’d be the first to map the entire human genetic code?

This race would get downright nasty before it was done. Along the way there would be a lot of good science. But the science often took a back seat, as politics, money, and egos all got in the way.

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Remember Werner von Braun? We talked a little bit about him in our Cold War series. He was in charge of the German rocket program in World War II. First used to lob missiles and bombs all over Europe, von Braun always dreamed of something better for his rockets. As the Soviet and American forces were closing in on Germany to end the war, von Braun saw only one way out: surrender to the American forces and get to the States.

Amid the wreckage of the Third Reich, the first leg of the Space Race would be a sprint to locate von Braun.

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From your high school science classes you may know the names Watson and Crick. If you took any more biology classes you may have heard of Wilkins, but a third name is often overlooked: Rosalind Franklin. Together, they took blurry photographs of DNA goo and discovered “the secret to life.n\n\n

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When Gregor Mendel discovered genes, he had no idea that his discoveries with pea plants would outlive him. He was just an isolated monk playing in his garden. And his ideas collected dust in university libraries for 40 years until a biologist named William Bateson discovered his work. And by the end of the first page, Bateson knew Mendel’s ideas would change the world. He said, “An exact determination of the laws of heredity will probably work more change in man’s outlook of the world, and in his power over nature, than in any other advance in natural knowledge that can be foreseen.”

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In 2000, President Bill Clinton held a press conference to share a milestone for humanity. He said, “we will all see the unbelievable capacity to be noble.” Science and technology embrace this idea, leading to the incredible innovations that change the world, and yes, even humanity. This is American Innovations, a series that will look at the most important innovations of the last century, and go into the lives of the people behind those innovations.

That great milestone Clinton was referencing? That was the mapping of the human genome. For a long time, we didn’t know what was actually buried deep inside our cells that made humans humans. Now we know it’s much more than a simple molecule. DNA has revolutionized society, creating new fields of research, business - even changing how we catch criminals. This is The Dynamo of DNA from American Innovations.

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After all that IBM has been through over the decades, it would have never in a million years guessed that their undoing would be at the hands of a scrawny and unknown computer nerd named Bill Gates. Gates sees the future, but can IBM catch up? Will they still be on top 50 years from now? Only time will tell.

We hope you enjoyed this series on the first computer wars, and I want to give a special shout out to our fans, The Elfenbein family!

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More than anything else, we get asked two questions: “What is Patrick reading?!”; and "What would you recommend to read?" We hear you, and we’re bringing you several episodes dedicated to Patrick’s favorite books over the next few months. Today's episode is sponsored by Audible! Check out all of our books today on Audible. Go to Audible.com/TIDES to start a 30-day trial and your first audiobook is free.

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It’s 1961. Since his father retired 5 years earlier, Thomas Watson Jr pushed to modernize IBM from the top down. New management, new ideas, newer, faster, machines. The company has grown, employing 1,000 people, they’ve dominated the emerging computer market... and managed to frustrate the public all at the same time. IBM’s new technology is confusing and the only way out may be to create a Civil War, burning IBM from the inside out. Will they be able to agree, or will infighting cost them the entire company?

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“Manifest Destiny” is a uniquely American idea. The phrase captured the sense of inevitability—and entitlement—many citizens still feel. But in the 19th century this idea consumed American’s thought and identity.

In the minds of white settlers moving westward, expansion was key to protecting American democracy.

But white settlers weren’t equipped for the wild, harsh, and desolate newly-American landscape they found. Those who did make it to California had Mexican governance to deal with - and they would deal with it however they saw fit to make California part of the United States. More war and bloodshed haunted the 1840s, and officially fulfilled Jackson’s autocratic legacy. We hope you enjoyed this arc on American History Tellers. We’ll be back with a brand new series soon.

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In Episode 1 the UNIVAC successfully predicted that Eisenhower would win the 1952 election. In Philadelphia, a champagne hangover quickly settled in over the Remington Rand building, the company elated at its success. But over at IBM, a company that doesn't allow its employees to drink, they’re working, furiously. And Watson Jr. is ready to take the 701 to market in a few months. Visiting the 701 is soon the hottest ticket in town, and The Watsons and IBM sit back to watch. They feel the momentum shifting back in IBM’s favor once again.

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What’s a 16% market share when the public thinks you have more? A potential anti-trust suit, if you’re IBM. Watson Jr. sees a potential lawsuit as a way out from under his father’s control. Sr. sees his company rotting away in the hands of a kid who can’t handle it. But when the antitrust suit comes through in 1952, Jr’s in charge. Can he actually handle the business he desperately wanted?

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The leaps of mankind, as they happened.

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During the last years of Jackson's presidency, the economy flourished. The national debt was paid in full, industry and agriculture boomed. But when Martin Van Buren assumed the presidency, he inherited an economic disaster. The divide between rich and poor was growing and people were starting to lose their patience. The country was so on edge that the threat of increase in the price of flour caused riots in Manhattan. How this happened and more, in today's episode.

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How do you really “get ahead” in a war? Sometimes you don’t have to do anything, you just wait for your opponent to fumble.

And in the late 1940s, IBM’s CEO Thomas Watson Sr., did. He’s just beginning to grasp the potential of these electronic machines, and - although older than most other CEOs is desperate to stay on top. He takes his volatile temper and insecurities out on the one person who could have helped him out of this freefall: his son.

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How and why did the Portuguese end up sailing thousands of miles from their home country to acquire the riches of the Indian Ocean? To find out, I spoke to Roger Crowley, author of the recent book Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire. We also discussed his previous books, on the early modern Mediterranean, and how to write a great historical narrative.

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With so much information at our fingertips, it’s hard to remember that we haven’t always walked around with supercomputers in our pockets. In fact, in 1952, CBS thought that Americans would find it SO hard to imagine that a machine could even predict election results accurately that they built a pretend computer and resorted to, well, fake news, to make the public believe. This is Univac vs. IBM, and this is the First Computer War.

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During his political rise, Jackson distinguished himself with his ability to exact ruthless military victories over indigenous people. As President Native Americans felt the brunt of this power. Whatever his achievements during his lifetime, his legacy is forever "Indian removal" from lands they'd originally inhabited to make way for white settlers.

And none would feel the brunt of Jackson’s force more than the groups known as the Five Civilized Tribes—“civilized,” white settlers believed, because they raised animals and farmed.

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Within one fateful decade, the 1490s, Europeans burst onto the world scene: Christopher Columbus headed west across the Atlantic and came upon the Americas, while Vasco da Gama reached India. In today's episode, we try to understand these two figures, why their voyages happened so close together in that decade, and what impact they had on the world that followed.

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What's that? Up in the sky? It's another episode of Business Wars. Today we're talking to two super guests, Reed Tucker is a journalist living in New York City, and the author of the book Slugfest: Inside the Epic 50-Year Battle Between Marvel and DCand! Reed is the author of the Marvel/DC episodes of Business Wars.

After we talk to Reed we sit down with Jason Mewes. Jason, or Jay, as you may know him, is a comic book fanatic and long time Kevin Smith collaborator. You've seen his face in things like Clerks, Mallrats and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

And both of them were able to answer faster than a speeding bullet the question we now pose to you: Marvel or DC?

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From the beginning, Jackson's administration was riddled with controversy. Citizens mobbed the White House on inauguration day, breaking furniture and fine china. They were only lured out with alcohol. And then there was the "Petticoat Affair." His Secretary of War, John Henry Eaton, was the ideal candidate for what we now call the Secretary of State, but there was one small problem... the most beautiful woman in Washington. John was having an affair with a sailor's wife which started rumors around town... that was nothing compared to the firestorm of gossip around town after he married her just after her husband's tragic death at sea. There was widespread chaos and controversy and Jackson's term was just getting started.

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After more than 50 years of fighting for the hearts and attention spans of millions of readers, television viewers, and movie-goers - who wins this war? Is it DC, the original comic company company behind classic American heroes that defined the dreams of many young men and women? Or is it Marvel, the young upstart who changed the game and fought tooth and nail to catch up with DC and create their own cinematic universe?

For now, there’s one clear winner, but expect this war to rage on. No superhero stays dead forever.

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Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, and the other important explorers of the early sixteenth century didn't appear in a vacuum; instead, their voyages were the result of centuries of slow, steady exploration in the Atlantic. In today's episode, we explore the medieval background to the Age of Discovery. Beginning in the thirteenth century, sailors had to learn winds and tides, merchants had to learn how to make profits in unfamiliar markets, and governments had to learn to exert control over newly conquered lands.

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Appearances on radio programs, television shows and thousands of comic books - all just another day in the life of a superhero. But to get a larger than life hero onto a larger than life screen, there’s one secret ingredient: verisimilitude. As both companies fight for box office domination, a power player from our Netflix/Blockbuster series reveals one company to be just another cold, corporate machine.

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In the summer of 1817, President James Monroe toured the country in an effort to unite the ever-growing United States, torn between bitter political battles that overshadowed national conflict.

To Monroe, the nation seemed ready “to get back into the great family of the union.” And based on reactions to his speech, he was right. A Federalist newspaper hailed Monroe’s visit, and his message of togetherness, as a success.

It ushered in what became known as “The Era of Good Feelings.” In truth, it was barely an era at all. The appearance of political unity had already begun to crack in 1819, when the Monroe administration faced its first serious political crisis: the Missouri Controversy.

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It’s 1970 and the unthinkable just happened. Jack Kirby, one of the men who made Marvel, has defected to DC. With him he brought an idea that may just end Marvel for good. But as soon as DC seems to be pulling back into the lead, something else goes wrong - there’s a spy in their midst.

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It’s 1970 and the unthinkable just happened. Jack Kirby, one of the men who made Marvel, has defected to DC. With him he brought an idea that may just end Marvel for good. But as soon as DC seems to be pulling back into the lead, something else goes wrong - there’s a spy in their midst.

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In August 1814, the White House burned. A fire that would eventually consume the entire nation in Civil War was already burning. This is Antebellum America.

This is the adolescence of the United States, when the country grew at tremendous speed, and when fundamental questions about the kind of place it would be were being asked. Like, could the states put their individual differences aside to remain one country? And could this new country live up to its lofty ideals, especially when it came to issues like slavery or the treatment of Native Americans?

Welcome to the Age of Jackson.

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We’ve talked about several wars on this series, but here’s a first: DC and Marvel engaging with each other, sniping, making fun, and getting their fans involved in the argument. A series of editor’s letters, guest columns, and fan mail printed in the comics themselves has everyone choosing sides.

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Within a few decades of its invention in the 1450s, the printing press transformed the world. It launched an information revolution, leading directly to the Protestant Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, and even the invention of news as we understand it.

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Do you know the record for the longest ratification period of any constitutional amendment? Lillian Cunningham did. She’s an editor with the Washington Post, host of two outstanding American History podcasts, Presidential and Constitutional, and she’s our guest today.

We’ll talk about amendments, those presidents you can never remember (can you name anything about Millard Fillmore?) and she helps us preview the next series on AHT, the Age of Jackson.

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In the early 1960s, the Space Race was on, Chubby Checkers got everyone doin’ the twist and Superman was turning 25. DC has it all - a legacy comic, the talented writers and illustrators, and plush offices in Manhattan. Marvel is around but it’s much smaller. They only have one full time employee, actually. Have you heard of Stan Lee? He WAS Marvel for a long time, and in 1961 he wrote a story that would revolutionize comics forever.

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Today we talked to Liz Dolan, former Nike CMO, and David Meltzer, sports marketing guru and agent about this vicious war. If you loved them here, you’ll love their podcasts even more.

Liz co-hosts Safe For Work, a show that answers your burning business questions and provides the advice you need to keep your office drama-free, and Satellite Sisters, where she got to sit down with Phil Knight and talk about Nike with the man himself. You can listen to that interview here.

You can hear David on his show, The Playbook, talking to Tony Hawk, Gary Vaynerchuk, Reggie Bush, and more of sports biggest names.

Subscribe to Safe For Work, Satellite Sisters, and The Playbook in Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to Business Wars.

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Today we're joined by Washington Post editor and podcaster Lillian Cunningham. Lillian has two shows that we highly recommend - Presidential and Constitutional - that trace American History and the way that our nation's past influences our present. Sound familiar? You'll love our conversation with Lillian, and you can click on her shows below to listen.

Listen to Presidential.

Listen to Constitutional.

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The rivalry between Nike and Adidas has been intense for decades, but always respectful. But with intensity comes… defectors. Just three at the beginning, who set out to create a “Disneyland for designers.” And it worked. For the first time in a long time, the Swoosh was outperformed by three little white stripes.

But it’s not all bad. The constant competition drove both companies to produce better shoes, better apparel, and have made each other better businesses. As the sneaker wars enter a new era, who will come out on top? Time will tell, but if Phil Knight knows anything at all, it’ll be the company who isn’t afraid to fail.

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The people had spoken: They wanted beer, and they wanted it now, but not just for drinking. Protestors wanted the jobs that came with breweries, and the country was desperate from the money that could come from alcohol taxes. As quickly as temperance organizations sprang up in the decade before, anti-Prohibition organizations appeared in every city. But, a constitutional amendment had never been repealed before. The anti-Prohibition leagues realized they needed someone bigger than a governor or mayor to repeal this. They went after the Presidency.

For a deeper understanding of the interplay between beer, taxation and the history of Repeal, Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Brew by Maureen Ogle is essential reading.

Kenneth D. Rose’s American Women and the Repeal of Prohibition provided insight into Pauline Sabin’s work, as did David J. Hanson’s comprehensive resource, Alcohol Problems and Solutions.

Those who want to do a deeper dive into the 1932 DNC and the mob’s involvement, you can read more in the article from Salon, Corruption for Decades. Lisa McGirr’s The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State also explores the relationship between the New Deal and Repeal. For more on Cox’s Army, check out The Bonus Army: An American Epic by Paul Dixon and Thomas B. Allen.

Andrew Barr’s Drink: A Social History of America contains a great chapter about the failure of controls and the legacy of prohibition in state liquor laws and the relationship between California’s wine industry and repeal is well documented in When the Rivers Ran Red by Vivienne Sosnowski. To catch up with the bartenders who are bringing back pre-Prohibition cocktails, David Wondrich’s Imbibe is required reading.

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When the Rivers Ran Red: An Amazing Story of Courage and Triumph in America's Wine Country Paperback – September 14, 2010

The Bonus Army: An American Epic

American Women and the Repeal of Prohibition (The American Social Experience, 17)

Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer by Ogle, Maureen 1st edition (2007) Paperback

The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State

Nike, the late starter struck gold with its “Just Do It” campaign. Launched in 1988, the shoe giant finally had a tagline as good as its shoes. Meanwhile, Adidas, the brand that started and found success long before Nike was even a dream, finds itself as the underdog. The American offices feel like a startup, and is passed between the hands of former Nike execs and European businessmen. What does it take to go from a million-dollar company to a billion-dollar company? Adidas has to find out, and fast.

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The printing press is one of the most important inventions in human history. It launched a communications revolution, gave us mass production of books, and even enabled political propaganda on a huge scale. In today's episode, we'll explore its inventor, Gutenberg, and how printing spread throughout Europe in the second half of the fifteenth century.

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Every new Nike employee gets a list of principles that serves as the company’s philosophy. One: Our business is change. Two: We’re on offense, all the time.

With those principles Nike sprinted from $29 million in revenue in 1973 to more than $850 million by 1983. But the biggest boost for Nike was an up and coming athlete. Like Jesse Owens fifty years before, a young Michael Jordan would carry a fledgling shoe brand to new heights.

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Closing Time by Daniel Francis provides a good account of the border wars and smuggling across the northern border. Robert Rockaway’s article “The Notorious Purple Gang” details the gang’s origin as well as the Cleaners and Dyers War.

For information about the link between Prohibition and organized crime in Chicago, Gus Russo’s The Outfit and Get Capone by Johnathan Eig are invaluable sources. Al Capone’s Beer Wars by John J. Binder is a fantastic re-assessment of the period that sorts out some of the fact from fiction, in a highly mythologized period.

For more on the Increased Penalties Act, Michael Lerner’s Dry Manhattan, is a good resource used for this podcast, as is Daniel Okrent’s Last Call. Robin Room’s The Movies and the Wettening of America is the source for the section on Hollywood’s move away from temperance.

Kenneth D. Rose’s American Women and the Repeal of Prohibition provided insight into Pauline Sabin’s work, as did David J. Hanson’s comprehensive resource, Alcohol Problems and Solutions. The Washington Post’s recap of The Man in the Green Hat exposé is available here.

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The Outfit

Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City

American Women and the Repeal of Prohibition (The American Social Experience, 17)

Closing Time: Prohibition, Rum-Runners and Border Wars

As long as there have been professional sports, there have been professional athletes, willing to accept money to wear certain brands, but the biggest endorsement deals were only made possible by a mid-20th century invention: the television. Fans realized they could tune in to see their favorite athletes almost any day of the week. Brands realized they just got hundreds of walking billboards showing the capabilities of their athletic gear in action… and it’s a race to see who can reach the world’s best athletes first.

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Rudi and Adi Dassler started the “Dassler Business” in the 1920s in their parent’s garage, recycling materials from WWI military gear and uniforms. They got a pair of their track spikes on an athlete named Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics and the company took off… until WWII.

The war may have been over for Germany, but the rivalry between Adi and Rudi was just heating up.

Rudi left to start his own company, Puma, and Adi created Adidas.

50 years later, with a waffle iron and inventory from Onitsuka Tiger, Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman start tinkering with some shoes in Bowerman’s kitchen. The waffle iron didn’t last long, but the shoes did.

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The rise of the speakeasy was one of many unintended consequences of Prohibition - and others were much deadlier.

Not coincidentally, at the same time Prohibition was taking effect, the Klu Klux Klan rose to power. They combined Prohibition’s anti-immigrant rhetoric with violence.

As the number of speakeasies continued to grow, and states continued to buckle down, suppliers couldn’t keep up. Quality went down. Most bootleg alcohol from the time had elements of stuff that would kill you. But people everywhere still wanted to drink - and they would go to any length to get one.

Almost everyone could see there was a problem with how Prohibition was actually playing out, but no one could agree what the solution was.

No Place of Grace by T. J. Jackson Lears is a fantastic book to learn about the roots of modernism and anti-modernism in American culture. Allan Levine’s The Devil in Babylon also explores these themes, specifically how these impulses played out in 1920’s America.

For more on the author ofElmer Gantry, Sinclair Lewis: Rebel from Main Street by Richard Lingerman is a great read. And to understand the relationship between the Ku Klux Klan and Prohibition, Paul Angle’s Bloody Williamson: A Chapter in American Lawlessness and Thomas Pegram’s articles and books, including One Hundred Percent American are essential reading. Again, Lisa McGirr’s The War on Alcohol explores these topics quite thoroughly and connects them to the rise of the modern state.

A few different articles have delved into the dirty political campaigns of the 1920s, including this good summary by Mental Floss.

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No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880–1920

The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State

Bloody Williamson: A Chapter in American Lawlessness

One Hundred Percent American: The Rebirth and Decline of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s

The Devil in Babylon: Fear of Progress and the Birth of Modern Life

In 2015, Kanye West turned his back on Nike, an all out battle in the ongoing war for sneaker supremacy. Nike and Adidas are two multinational companies worth billions in an industry estimated to be valued at $220 Billion by 2020 (which is double the GDP of Ukraine) but that begs the question - Why are companies sinking so much money into mesh and rubber for your feet?

In this series of Business Wars, we'll find out. This is Episode 1 of a 7-part series on the brutal business battle between Nike and Adidas.

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How do people interact with their environments, and how do those environments change over time? How do people respond to shifts in climate and the scarcity of resources? Dr. Keith Pluymers, soon to be professor of history at Illinois State University, drops by to discuss environmental history, the Atlantic World, and the politics of ecology.

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While Prohibition was successful in closing the saloon, it didn’t quench America’s thirst. Enterprising bootleggers found more ways to provide more alcohol to parched Americans – so much that there was finally enough supply to meet demand. New drinking establishments popped up across the nation: speakeasies.

Forced underground, these new types of saloons operated under new rules, too. Women drank right alongside the men, and both black and white patrons danced together to Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway, all while local cops shrugged or were paid off to look the other way.

But the Feds hadn’t turned their backs on the bootleggers. They went undercover, arresting thousands in stings that some claimed were entrapment. Increasingly, Federal agents took the job of enforcing Prohibition seriously. They had to; the business of illicit alcohol was growing dangerous – and violent.

To learn more about Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith and the problems involved in the enforcement of Prohibition, check out Professor David J. Hanson’s, “Alcohol Problems and Solutions,” is an excellent resource.

If you want to read more about the raids on Prohibition-era speakeasies in New Orleans, this “Intemperance” map by Hannah C. Griggs is an amazing resource that shows every single raid over in that city. For New York speakeasies, Michael Lerner’s Dry Manhattan is a thorough investigation of that city. Queen of the Nightclubs by Louise Berliner is also a fun read.

To learn more about Harlem and the generation gap in the 1920s, Terrible Honesty by Ann Douglas is required reading.

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Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s

Texas Guinan: Queen of the Night Clubs

Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City

Did the Roman Empire ever actually fall? Some historians don't think so, for good reasons. In today's episode, we finish our conversation on why I believe the Roman Empire actually fell, why that happened, and why it matters in the grand scheme of things. If you only take one thing away from our time in Rome, remember this: What's extraordinary about the Roman Empire is not that it fell, but that it existed and held together as long as it did. Ave atque vale!

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When a German U-boat torpedoed the RMS Lusitania on Friday, May 7th, 1915, Americans found two new enemies: Germany and the beer it was so associated with. Anti-German sentiment grew, and with it hostility to the breweries founded in the 19th century by German immigrants. Soon, the war effort and the temperance movement were linked: it was patriotic to abstain, and Prohibition became law.

How did America cope? They swapped their stool at the bar for a seat at the soda shop, listening to new radios and the first ever baseball broadcasts. But Americans’ thirst wasn’t ever fully quenched: they turned to family doctors who prescribed “medicinal alcohol,” and then finally to the bootleggers, moonshiners and rum-runners who made, smuggled and sold hooch of all types, from top-shelf French cognac to homemade swill that might just kill you.

For more about the Lusitania, check out Dead Wake: The Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson.

Daniel Okrent’s Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition has more information on medicinal alcohol and how it was prescribed by doctors. To learn more about medicinal beer, this article by Beverly Gage for The Smithsonian is excellent.

The 1991 study “Alcohol Consumption During Prohibition” by Jeffrey A. Miron and Jeffrey Zwiebel, is considered the definitive study about how much people actually drank during the noble experiment. For more information on how Prohibition played out in the early days, check out Professor David J. Hanson’s, “Alcohol Problems and Solutions,” a comprehensive, interactive site that outlines all the various stakeholders in the Noble Experiment.

To read more about Americans behaving badly in Cuba and other places during Prohibition, check out Wayne Curtis’s And A Bootle of Rum: A History of the World in Ten Cocktails, as well as Matthew Rowley’sLost Recipes of Prohibition. And, to learn more about rum-runners, Daniel Francis’s book, Closing Time: Prohibition, Rum-Runners and Border Wars is an excellent reference.

Further references can be found in America Walks Into a Bar: A Spirited History of Taverns and Saloons, Speakeasies and Grog Shops by Christine Sismondo.

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Lost Recipes of Prohibition: Notes from a Bootlegger's Manual

Did the Roman Empire ever actually fall? Some historians don't think so, and say its end is better described as a long transformation. Others say that the question itself misses the point, and prefer to discuss a long Late Antiquity of religious and cultural dynamism. In today's episode, we explore those perspectives and why I still think there was a real fall of the Roman Empire.

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Rich Greenfield is a tech and media analyst with BTIG who’s been covering this battle in some capacity for decades. We had the chance to talk to him in depth on today’s episode.

Follow Rich on Twitter @RichBTIG

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On January 17, 1920, the United States passed the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution, ushering in a 13-year dry spell known as Prohibition. But how did a country that loved to drink turn its back on alcohol? How did two-thirds of both the House and Senate and three-fourths of State legislatures all agree that going dry was the way to get the country going forward? It had always been a long, uphill battle for the temperance movement, but towards the end of the nineteenth century, certain forces aligned: fears of industrialization, urbanization and immigration. Traditional American life was changing - fast - and many people looked for a scapegoat: the saloon.

For more information on how Prohibition came to be, check out Professor David J. Hanson’s, “Alcohol Problems and Solutions,” a comprehensive, interactive site that outlines all the various stakeholders in the Noble Experiment.

Daniel Okrent’s Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibitionis a key text for learning more about Prohibition and how it came about. And, to narrow in on New York, itself, Michael Lerner’s Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City is a tremendous resource.

The bootlegger character was based on a real story, A Bootlegger’s Story: How I Started, which ran in the New Yorker in 1926.

For more on the Atlanta race riots and how they connect to Prohibition, check out this story on NPR, in which professor Cliff Kuhn describes his research. To learn more about the intersection between race and the policing of Prohibition, Lisa McGirr’s The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State is invaluable.

Further references can be found in America Walks Into a Bar: A Spirited History of Taverns and Saloons, Speakeasies and Grog Shops by Christine Sismondo.

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Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City

The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State

Netflix goes from being a streaming company to a movement in which consumers all over the world decide what show to watch -- and when and how they watch them. The future that Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph envisioned two decades earlier has arrived. The unfettered reign of cable television has ended. The war for streaming viewers will become richer. And more cutthroat.

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Hollywood execs thought Netflix was crazy to give up advertising and spin off opportunities by letting viewers flop on a couch and watch a whole season of a show all at once. But Netflix knew it was on to something. All of their studies and focus groups revealed something new: viewers who binged content formed an emotional attachment to Netflix.

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We take a step back to explore how a little company called Home Box Office went from serving B-movies to 325 homes in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania to become the juggernaut that we know as HBO. In the process, HBO, become the standard by which all other cable companies would have to measure themselves - after all, it's not TV. It's HBO.

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You know that expression “content is king”? Well it turns out, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s a hard-working algorithm that burrows into customer habits and viewing patterns. With that, Netflix had a clear upper hand on Blockbuster.

That, and the fact that Netflix targeted this new “streaming” technology that in 2007, no one really believed in. Soon they were on top of the world.

But it’s dangerous being on top. If you trip, you have a long way to fall.

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Thinking like your enemy is the best way to beat them, and during the war, Blockbuster tried every trick in the books to get inside Netflix. Sometimes they succeeded - sending “housewives” into warehouses as spies, and sometimes things didn’t go as planned. But when Blockbuster did deliver, they delivered big. They threw everything they had at Netflix, but the war raged on.

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After Hastings pleaded with Antioco to buy Blockbuster Online, Antioco agreed to present Hasting’s proposal to the board. What he didn’t tell him was that he was pushing the board to reject the offer so Netflix would wither and die. Meanwhile, Netflix was struggling to gain legitimacy in Hollywood. Netflix quickly realized that before it could take on the Hollywood gods, it would have to slay Blockbuster.

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This is Episode 1 of an 8-part series on the brutal business battle between Netflix and Blockbuster, and later HBO.

It all started around 1997, with a guy named Marc Randolph and his mathematician friend Reed Hastings. Randolph and Hastings knew they’d have to take on Blockbuster, but what they didn’t anticipate was that their business model would take on network television and eventually change the entire movie industry.

This was an 8-year total war that left innumerable casualties in its wake: thousands of hollowed out buildings and economic losses in the billions.

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We’re closing out our series on the Cold War with two interviews with fascinating historians. First, we’re talking with Audra Wolfe, the author of Competing with the Soviets: Science, Technology, and the State in Cold War America, and the writer of this first six-part series of American History Tellers. Then, we take a seat in the way-back machine with Patrick Wyman, host of the hit podcasts Fall of Rome and Tides of History. We’ll investigate how the Cold War standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union compares to another much earlier rivalry between ancient Rome and the Sassanid Persians. They might not have pointed nuclear warheads at each other, but the conflict was nonetheless tense and protracted.

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Netflix-HBO. Nike-Adidas. Business is war. Sometimes the prize is your wallet. Sometimes your attention. Sometimes just the fun of beating the other guy. From Wondery, the network behind Dirty John and American History Tellers.

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What was it like to have a front-row seat to the explosion of learning, art, and culture in Renaissance Florence? In this episode, we follow two people as they lived in the linked worlds of business and humanistic learning in the fifteenth century. These early knowledge workers combined a genuine interest in the wisdom of the classical past with a practical desire for the skills that would help them rise up the economic and social ladder.

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In the early 1970s, while trying to wind down the war in Vietnam, President Richard Nixon made overtures to Moscow and Beijing that would usher in a new era of the Cold War: Detente. But the thaw in relations didn’t last long - the Iran Hostage Crisis and Soviet invasion of Afghanistan set the old adversaries against each other once again. Throughout the Eighties, President Reagan took a hard line against the “Evil Empire,” ramping up military spending and rhetoric, and Americans were once again tense with nuclear anxiety.

Until suddenly, it all changed.

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America sent a man to the moon in 1969, and with Neil Armstrong’s first steps, the United States projected to the world an image of American power, wealth and achievement. But it was hardly just for bragging rights. The space race started under Kennedy to compete with the Soviets on a global stage, but it was under Johnson that its goals became domestic. NASA, Head Start, Medicaid and even the war in Vietnam were domestic social programs, used at least in part to alleviate poverty, provide jobs and desegregate the country.

But the spending on these programs birthed a new political movement on the right demanding smaller government - and attracted the ire of progressives on the left who thought the money spent on rockets to be misdirected. Meanwhile, the war in Vietnam intensified, costing the nation far more than just money.

For more on NASA’s efforts to desegregate the South, check out the book “We Could Not Fail,” by Richard Paul and Steven Moss.

For more on the African American women who worked as human computers for NASA, overcoming discrimination and sexism to change history, we recommend the book “Hidden Figures,” by Margot Lee Shetterly.

Finally, Audra Wolfe’s book, “Competing with the Soviets,” was crucial to our overall understanding of the Cold War.

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The Renaissance is still with us today. It shapes our sense of what art is, our ideas of education, our understanding of historical time, and even our political concepts. But the Renaissance didn't arrive out of nowhere: It grew out of a specific place and time, the wealthy and urban Italy of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

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Americans were desperate to find hope in the shadow of the bomb.

Miracle cures, cheap energy, and even brand new atomic gardens: the wonders of the atom were ours to discover! Right? Eager to explore nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes, Americans instead found the resulting radioactive fallout too dangerous.

In Episode 4, we’ll talk about swim wear, baby teeth, and how America just couldn’t get friendly with the atom.

Scott Kauffman’s “Project Plowshare: The Peaceful Use of Nuclear Explosives in Cold War Alaska” was inspired by Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” speech and essential reading for anyone interested in nuclear history.

Finally, Audra Wolfe’s book, “Competing with the Soviets,” was crucial to our overall understanding of the Cold War.

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How did a changing climate and plague play into the fall of the Roman Empire? I'm joined by Kyle Harper, Professor of Classics at the University of Oklahoma, to discuss his important new book The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire.

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What is the United States to do when direct conflict with the Soviet Union promises almost certain annihilation? They turned to proxy wars and psychological warfare with the threat of nuclear weapons keeping both countries in check. Ever wondered how an atom bomb works? We’ll cover it in Episode 3 including the scientific concepts, the arms race and the problem of ensuring complete and absolute control over these weapons.

For more information on the subjects and themes discussed in the episode, see the book “Raven’s Rock” by Garrett Graff. It goes into great detail about the secret plans our government made to ride out a nuclear holocaust.

Eric Schlosser’s “Command and Control” examines the ways the nuclear arsenal was required to function at 100% — and what happened the few times it didn’t.

“Command and Control” was also made into a riveting documentary film.

Finally, Audra Wolfe’s book, “Competing with the Soviets,” was crucial to our overall understanding of the Cold War.

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Forget trenches, infantry and tanks. The United States and Soviet Union fought the Cold War with ideas and information. Episode 2 describes the cunning of Soviet propaganda campaigns. The United States adapted those techniques for their own purposes, broadcasting an image of the nation as a beacon of hope and freedom through covert ops and jazz concerts alike - even if those at home were hurting or oppressed.

For more information on the subjects and themes discussed in the episode, see the book “Total Cold War,” by Kenneth Osgood. It’s essential to understanding how propaganda shaped policy and vice-versa during the Cold War.

Penny Von Eschen’s books, “Race Against Empire,” and “Satchmo Blows Up the World,” discuss at length the ways in which black American culture, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement both helped and hindered US foreign policy goals.

Finally, Audra Wolfe’s book, “Competing with the Soviets,” was crucial to our overall understanding of the Cold War.

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For nearly 50 years, the United States and Soviet Union waged a global war of ideas fueled by politics, intrigue, and nuclear weapons. But how did the polarized ideologies of these two global powers threaten the existence of the entire world?

This is Episode 1 of a six-part series on the Cold War. We’ll discover how the United States’ suspicion of communism not only led to a global stand-off, but threatened the freedom and democracy Americans so cherished at home.

For more information on the subjects and themes discussed in the episode, see the book “Global Cold War,” by Odd Arne Wested. It’s an amazing dissection of the ideologies that dominated the Cold War. See also, “Many Are the Crimes,” by Ellen Schrecker, for an in-depth discussion of McCarthyism and the real world effects of the Red Scare.

For more info about Bentley Glass, the geneticist under investigation at the beginning of the article, see Audra Wolfe’s article, The Organization Man and the Archive: A Look at the Bentley Glass Papers. Wolfe’s book, “Competing with the Soviets,” was also crucial to our understanding of the Cold War.

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Why did sixteenth-century maps of the Atlantic Ocean prominently feature monsters? How did early modern people imagine the world around them? What does "early modern" mean, anyway? To find out, I talked to Peter Mancall, the Mellon Professor of the Humanities at USC and director of the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute and the author of the recently released Nature and Culture in the Early Modern Atlantic.

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For much of the general public, fictional portrayals (rather than nonfiction history) dominate their understanding of the past. We had the opportunity to talk to Actor Gary Oldman and Screenwriter Anthony McCarten about that. The conversation covered history, film and how they recreated Winston Churchill's first month as Prime Minister in the tense weeks of May 1940 in the new film "Darkest Hour."

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Justinian was the last great Roman emperor, but his reign was plagued by disasters beyond his control: volcanic eruptions, a changing climate, and a plague of epic proportions. Those disasters created a turning point that we can, with good reason, call the end of the Roman Empire.

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Justinian is one of the defining figures of the Roman Empire. In many ways, he marks the boundary between Antiquity and the Middle Ages. In this episode, we explore his ambitious reform program and his reconquest of the lost provinces of the West.

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How did Latin splinter into the Romance languages? In this episode, we explore how Latin transformed from a single, widely dispersed language into a series - French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, and so on - of related but no longer mutually intelligible tongues.

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What was it like to live through huge economic upheavals? To find out, we follow a Venetian merchant and banker and an English farmer and wool trader in the years between 1350 and 1520.

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Out of the disasters of the Black Death and the economic recession that followed grew the roots of the economic innovations that still define our world today. From credit instruments to the capitalist mindset, the years between 1350 and 1650 built the institutions that eventually led to an economy that's recognizably our own.

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How did the Roman Empire, and barbarian Europe after it, become Christian? To find out, I talked to Professor Lisa Bitel of the University of Southern California, a world-class expert on medieval Christianity and Christian conversion.

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Cities were what made the Roman world Roman, but as the Empire fell apart, so did its cities. They shrank drastically or disappeared entirely between 400 and 600. In today's episode, we'll find out how and why.

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Cities were what made the Roman world, well, Roman. They were centers of culture and political life, and they were the bedrock that tied together its economy. Today we'll explore how those cities came into being, what sustained them, and what made them so important to the Roman Empire.

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I'm joined by historian Dan Jones, author of some of the best popular history out there (The Wars of the Roses, The Plantagenets) to discuss his new book on the fascinating Knights Templar (The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God's Holy Warriors). We discuss the Templars, the Crusades, and what's familiar and foreign about the Middle Ages.

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I'm joined by Dr. Jennifer Raff, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas, to discuss her work with DNA. Dr. Raff explains how DNA is rewriting our understanding of prehistory and migration and changing everything we thought we knew about the deep past.

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The Military Revolution transformed warfare, but what was it like to be one of the soldiers who experienced those enormous changes? We follow the lives and careers of two English archers in the late stages of the Hundred Years War and two German mercenaries around 1500 to try to understand what the Military Revolution meant for real people.

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As the fifteenth century turned into the sixteenth, warfare was transformed. Cannon made castles obsolete, and firearms and pikes displaced knights as the dominant force on the battlefield. Most of all, the scale of war grew infinitely larger, with a correspondingly greater impact on society as a whole.

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I'm joined by Mike Duncan, host of The History of Rome and Revolutions podcast and author of the upcoming bookThe Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic. We discuss his new book - which is excellent! - along with whether the United States is Rome, the practice of history, storytelling, and much more.

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While the western half of the Roman Empire was collapsing, the east managed to weather the storm of the disastrous fifth century. In this episode, we examine how and why it survived Attila the Hun and a host of other problems through the eyes of a family of soldiers and bureaucrats.

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When we talk about the fall of the Roman Empire, we're only talking about the western half - France, Spain, Italy, North Africa, and Britain. The eastern half of the Roman Empire survived the disastrous fifth century and would last in one form or another until 1453. What was so special about the eastern half of the Roman Empire, and how did it avoid the fate of its western cousin?

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We take for granted that central governments - sovereign states - are the ultimate political force in the world, but it wasn't always this way. Between 1350 and 1650, this form of government vanquished city-states, town leagues, and smaller lordships to dominate first Europe and then the world. In this episode of Tides of History, we explore how that happened.

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History shapes our world in ways both seen and unseen. In the introductory episode of Tides of History, we explore two major tides - the Fall of Rome and the Rise of the Modern World - and why history matters in the here and now.

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