Retropod: Recent Episodes
The Washington Post
Retropod is a show for history lovers, featuring stories about the past, rediscovered. Host Mike Rosenwald introduces you to history’s most colorful characters - forgotten heroes, overlooked villains, dreamers, explorers, world changers. Available every weekday morning.
On Christmas Eve in 1968, the Apollo 8 astronauts captured an image that symbolizes hope and inspired environmentalism.
On March 25, 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono were a few days into their marriage when they invited the press to join them at their honeymoon suite at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel.
Jazz singer Ethel Ennis’s voice wowed audiences and won praise from critics. But when she was faced with the opportunity to become a superstar, Ennis chose a different path.
The nurse who founded the American Red Cross had no formal training in medicine. She tended to countless wounded soldiers.
In the 1950s, a child trying to call Santa Claus accidentally called NORAD and changed Christmas Eve forever.
After the Civil War, formerly enslaved people placed notices in black-owned newspapers across the country to find their loved ones.
A few days before his team took the field as huge underdogs in Super Bowl III, New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath made what was seen as an insane prediction at the time: "The Jets will win Sunday," he said. "I guarantee it."
In the 1950s, Charles Van Doren, a quiet professor in New York City, became wrapped up in one of the biggest television quiz show scandals in history.
While on a research trip to the Arctic in the early 20th century, scientist Clarence Birdseye — a name you might recognize from the frozen food aisle — made an observation that would go on to change the way we eat.
Disasters don’t just happen. Like anything in life, there’s usually a buildup. In the case of the Chernobyl disaster, the series of failures stretched back more than a decade. But what happened the day before the explosion?
Serving as special counsel is probably only the third hardest job Robert Mueller has held. His life in public service started when he just 23 years old, as a Marine lieutenant in the Vietnam War.
Growing up in Somalia, a country where stories are handed down through generations, one of the first tales that children are told is about an ancient queen who fought to give women power by castrating men.
During World War I, British nurse Flora Sandes put down her nurses bag to fight with the Serbian Army.
He thought being drafted into the National Football League was so unlikely that he signed with an African American league team. Then, the NFL called.
It doesn't seem like a big deal today, but 1930s America lived in fear of the male nipple.
Nine months before the Iran hostage crisis, Kenneth Kraus was held hostage in Iran for eight days.
Once upon a time, people walked between the U.S. and Canada over a frozen Niagara Falls. But one day, that all changed forever.
In 1983, Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Union’s Air Defense Forces, trusted his gut and averted a global nuclear catastrophe.
It is one of the worst expressions of racism in American history. And there’s no federal law to prevent it.
A German woman discovered that her childhood home was stolen from a Jewish family who fled Nazi Germany. Last year, she tracked down the address of one of the children, and wrote him a letter.
In the 1950s, Dr. Virginia Apgar created a quick test that nurses have since performed on millions of babies just after birth. She is considered one of the most important figures in modern medicine — a world that almost pushed her away.
Beginning in the earliest days of baseball, fans, journalists and even physicists disputed whether or not pitchers could make a ball curve.
Benjamin Franklin, the most colorful of America's Founding Fathers, had a misunderstood, electrical and ultimately homicidal relationship with turkeys.
Weeks before Thanksgiving, 1959, cranberries were declared unsafe to eat. The race was on to save America’s favorite holiday side dish.
No women served on the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991. The ugly Anita Hill hearings changed that.
For many, memories of that devastating day quickly revert to that silent, flickering sequence captured by Abraham Zapruder. It is as chilling as it is familiar: the approaching convertible, the waves of a crowd about to lose its innocence.
During World War II, around 80 Russian women took to the skies and risked their lives to fight against the Germans.
The history of subpoenas, and the fiery congressional hearings that have captivated Americans for centuries began with a Founding Father raising his hand to say, “Investigate me!”
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy devastated the nation. But the day before the shooting was just a normal day. It was particularly calm and uneventful for the gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald.
Four years before Amelia Earhart ever got into a plane, Ruth Law was already making a name for herself in the skies.
Sexual harassment has been existed in showbiz as long as there have been bright lights.
Back in the 1830s, Jim Crow wasn't yet a symbol of inequality. He was a fictional character in minstrel shows who, to entertain his audiences, performed in blackface.
After receiving complaints about carriages driving too fast, Washington D.C. policeman William H. West arrested a presidential speed demon.
For decades, the boundary between Mexico and the United States was little more than an imaginary line in the sand.
If you work in an office without offices, with just about everyone working in a large spare space full of stylish desks, straight lines and papers stored in a credenza, then you have met Florence Knoll Bassett.
A full year after the King James Bible was printed in 1631, people discovered an error.
After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, John Surratt traveled across three continents, wore disguises and used fake names for nearly two years to escape authorities.
When Eugene Cernan walked on the moon, he didn’t know he’d be the last astronaut to make the journey.
In the early days of the House, some congresspeople thought hats had no place atop the heads of representatives debating the great issues of the day. Hats, they argued, weren’t dignified.
When Alexander Hamilton argued in favor of lifetime tenures for Supreme Court justices, he probably didn’t foresee them living past their prime.
Lego started as a company that made wooden toys, and grew into an empire of plastic building blocks.
John Calhoun’s rodent experiments revolutionized the way we think about social behavior and the impact of growing populations.
Presidents throughout history have visited battlefields to better grasp conditions, reverse public doubt and signal that the country took war efforts seriously.
White House maid Elizabeth Jaffray not only cleaned up after presidents, she had an amazing insight into their appetites.
Fritz Kuhn was the leader of the pro-Nazi group known as the German American Bund. He was a hero to his audience, and a scourge on the world to most others.
After being fired from his job for being gay, Frank Kameny took his battle for equality to the nation’s highest court.
The story of how the anonymous soldier came to rest inside the famous tomb is almost as unknown as his identity.
Along with staggering death tolls, the "Great War" generated memorable literature, geopolitical upheaval, hope, disillusion, the Russian Revolution and the seeds of World War II.
The first mass police shooting on a U.S. college campus happened two years before the Ohio National Guard opened fire on student protesters at Kent State University.
Mark Twain first laid eyes on a “newfangled typing machine,” as he called it, sometime in the early 1870s.
When Gerald Ford took over the presidency after Richard Nixon’s resignation, he soon made a controversial choice: he pardoned Nixon.
In 1950, Mary Ann Van Hoof gathered an estimated 100,000 people to see the Virgin Mary on a farm in Necedah, Wisconsin.
From the mid-1800s to well into the 20th century, the Capitol’s Demon Cat was the top dog of Washington ghost stories.
In 1956, New York City’s bomb squad used criminal profiling to catch a terrorist known as “The Mad Bomber.”
Civil rights crusader Fannie Lou Hamer rivaled Martin Luther King Jr. in her command of audiences.
Photographer Boris Yaro shot the haunting photograph of Bobby Kennedy lying fatally wounded in the arms of Juan Romero, a busboy.
In 1777, Captain John Paul Jones hatched a plan to take the American Revolution to Britain’s shores.
President Abraham Lincoln had two loving and supportive mothers in his lifetime. The second helped him cope with the tragic loss of the first.
Before an unnamed senior official in the Trump administration published the opinion piece, “I am part of the resistance inside the Trump administration" in the New York Times, another mysterious anonymous author lit up Washington.
Family and friends had known about the president’s intimate relationship with Mary Peck for years, but whispers about their involvement were growing.
More than 50,000 soldiers died during the Battle of Waterloo, but their teeth lived on.
Despite warnings of icebergs, the John Rutledge set sail from Liverpool, England, to New York.
In the fall of 1902, a year into his presidency, President Teddy Roosevelt set off to Mississippi for a bear-hunting vacation. It ended differently than planned.
The one night that changed President Nixon’s fate has stuck with us as a reminder of the limits of presidential power.
One simple change to how the Supreme Court bench was designed made a world of difference to how the justices communicated.
Ida Lewis saved as many as 25 people during her service at the lighthouse. But her deeds have largely been forgotten.
Thomas Blood had somewhat of a shady past. According to Ireland’s History magazine, he had a reputation for espionage and conducting terrorist campaigns — though many of his plans were foiled just in time.
Heather Penney was among the first female combat pilots in the country. On Sept. 11, 2001, she got a mission: Bring down the fourth hijacked plane hurtling towards Washington.
Both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln wrote poetry. But only one had a way with words.
A mysterious stone memorial was found in 2006 in Washington, D.C. But who placed a memorial to Nazi spies on government property? And why?
According to James Madison’s Virginia mansion Montpelier, Paul Jennings’ account reveals, “how the racial and gender hierarchies of the time complicate the way we understand roles in historic events.”
A group of poor women in Puerto Rico were the first test subjects for the birth control pill. Were they guinea pigs or pioneers?
Was the Duke of Windsor a Nazi sympathizer? Did he plot to dethrone his brother, King George VI? Did he really suggest more German bombings of Britain might end World War II?
In October 1967, antiwar protesters announced that they would march en masse to the front steps of the Pentagon. and levitate it. And then they would try to levitate it.
In 1935, the Florida Keys ignored the threat of a looming hurricane. When the Category 5 storm made landfall, it left a wake of death and destruction.
At the Naval Academy, McCain was in a group called the “Bad Bunch” as he rebelled against his father’s expectations.
By 1968, things were going badly for President Lyndon B. Johnson. Morale around the Vietnam War was sinking, and in Washington, political sharks were circling.
All over the country, couples rushed to Las Vegas to get married. The demand for quickie weddings was at a fever pitch. But it wasn't Cupid's arrow causing the frenzy. It was the Vietnam War.
In 1927, the world watched as two French aviators attempted the world’s first transatlantic flight.
Lewis Hine posed as a Bible salesman or machinery photographer to expose the hardships of child labor.
In a year of extraordinary, chaotic moments this was a hopeful one - a beat-up country music star recording an album live at a troubled maximum security prison in California.
Ski jumping involves flying more than 800 feet in the air and then landing on two feet, without dying. Where on earth did this sport come from?
Samuel Cutler Ward, also known as the “King of the Lobby,” is credited with shaping the craft of lobbying. And like lobbyist and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, he also had some seriously expensive tastes.
"The Birth of a Nation" depicted life after the Civil War in a way that glorified Klansmen. The film and its cultural impact led one man to conclude that the time was right to bring back the Klu Klux Klan.
It’s World War II, and you’re King George VI of England. You fear a Nazi invasion of England could come at any moment. How do you protect the crown jewels? Not even Queen Elizabeth II knew how her dad did it - until recently.
An American in the 1940s would not recognize the woman from the “We Can Do It!” poster as Rosie the Riveter.
When President Reagan told Mr. Gorbachev to “tear down this wall,” it was not seen as a historic moment. It took the actual fall of the wall to resurrect the speech and drill the quote into the nation's political consciousness.
The anti-Semitic conspiracy theories surrounding the Rothschild family date all the way back to The Battle of Waterloo.
In April 1917, Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress, faced an agonizing choice: should she, or should she not, vote for the United States to enter World War I?
Ivanka Trump might be the only first daughter in American history to score a West Wing office, but she’s not the first presidential daughter to wield power in the White House.
The most recent British royal wedding puts all eyes on the Windsor family. But perhaps no royal is as controversial as Harry's grandfather, Prince Philip.
Millions of British children were evacuated from London and other cities to escape the horrors of war. But the family separations seemed to impart long-term trauma that was in many cases as severe as if they had stayed behind and faced the bombs.
In 1971, Stephen Burns was 18 years old and a newly minted voter. He was so jazzed to be a part of the Democratic process.
People have long been fascinated by the books presidents choose to read. But how much do reading habits actually reveal about a president?
For over 50 years, the phrase “under God” was not a part of the Pledge of Allegiance. One sermon changed that.
When Harry Truman became president in 1945, Southern members of Congress were delighted. They thought he’d be sympathetic to segregationists. He proved them wrong.
For the past 100 years, Mata Hari has been revered as the quintessential glamorous spy. But the real Mata Hari was much more complicated.
The movement organized by survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., is not the first time that kids have taken a stand. H
Host Lillian Cunningham's next podcast explores the real story of why we went to the moon -- a darker, but truer story than the one you've heard before. Listen to this trailer, and subscribe on your favorite podcast app or at washingtonpost.com/moonrise
Back in 1941, a get-together that should have been fraught with uneasiness didn't turn out that way, which is surprising given the participants: President Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin.
Katherine Graham's leadership in the decision to release the Pentagon Papers was the subject of the Stephen Spielberg film "The Post." But it was her leadership during the pressman's strike in 1975 that is perhaps the most gripping moment of her life.
The Alderson Federal Prison Camp has a history filled with powerful women. Some pushed for the prison to be built. Others served time there.
In a largely forgotten experiment, a group of students from Gallaudet University spent years helping NASA understand the mechanisms of motion sickness and how to prevent it.
For most of American history, no one was scared of sharks. One week--and one shark--changed people's opinions of the marine creatures.
Charles Asbury’s digitized songs serve as a time capsule to the music of the 19th century.
Raw questions of complicity versus compulsion have surrounded the 1941 murders of a Polish village's Jewish residents.
On display in Washington, D.C. are the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and another document that details a fundamental institution in American life: baseball.
Benjamin Lay wrote one of the first treatises against slavery in Colonial America, a time when many prosperous Pennsylvania Quakers were slave owners. But the Quakers disowned Lay for speaking out.
Somehow, in the depths of his personal misery towards the end of his life, Thomas Jefferson once again found his powerful way with words.
George Washington and his fellow partiers racked up a hefty bill--$15,000 in today’s currency--celebrating the completion of the Constitution.
In 1998, the world briefly panicked over an asteroid that seemed headed straight for Earth.
Suzanne Lenglen was physically ferocious, always fashionable and a disrupter of convention.
The very first pride parade was held in 1964 and was a bit calmer than what we think of today.
In 1868, Ellicott City, Md. flooded. The lack of rain made the natural disaster totally bizarre and unexpected.
Eleanor Roosevelt held news conferences just for female reporters. The men were not impressed.
Linda Brown and her father Oliver Brown are heroes of the civil rights movement. The backstory of the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education is more complicated than what you learned in school.
When the NRA was founded in 1871, its primary concern was not gun rights or the Second Amendment.
Designer Louis Réard left automotive engineering to work in his mother’s lingerie business. He decided to compete with another design to create the world’s smallest swimsuit.
Andrew Higgins wasn't in the Army. He wasn't a paratrooper. He was a wild and wily genius, a tough, crafty, businessman. And he built the built the boats that brought troops ashore at Normandy on June 6, 1944.
Oregon’s original constitution banned black people from the state, and the law stayed in the constitution for well over 100 years.
'A Wrinkle in Time' author Madeleine L'Engle said she received 26 rejection letters from publishers.
The man who called the police on the Watergate burglars never received the credit he deserved.
When the White House was built over 200 years ago, it lacked certain modern conveniences. A hodgepodge of improvements have been added over the years.
The Boy Scout movement began 110 years ago on a tiny island just off the southern coast of England.
At a White House luncheon, actress Eartha Kitt would not let the president or the first lady avoid the issue of the Vietnam War. She paid a heavy price for her boldness.
If you love gossip, drama and D.C. politics -- this story is the gift that keeps on giving.
On the day before D-Day, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe Dwight D. Eisenhower gave a speech to the troops that totally masked how nervous he actually was.
The spy business is all about masking the truth. One CIA agent’s deceptions and sham identities were so enterprising that he earned the nickname “Master of Disguise."
Related episodes
- The rat that helped win the Cold War
- The pistols that almost fell from the sky
- The pistols that almost fell from the sky
- That time the CIA stole a Russian submarine
- The ax that killed Leon Trotsky
Joseph Stalin wanted his political rival dead. When bullets didn’t do the job, his intelligence service tried something even more gruesome.
Related episodes
- The rat that helped win the Cold War
- The pistols that almost fell from the sky
- The pistols that almost fell from the sky
- That time the CIA stole a Russian submarine
When a Russian sub sank at the height of the Cold War, the CIA got help from Howard Hughes and created a fictitious mining operation to snag the vessel at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
Related episodes
- The rat that helped win the Cold War
- The pistols that almost fell from the sky
- The ax that killed Leon Trotsky
During World War II, U.S. intelligence operatives devised a plan to airdrop one-shot handguns, nicknamed the Liberator pistol, to allies in Europe in hopes of ending the war quickly.
Related episodes
- The rat that helped win the Cold War
- That time the CIA stole a Russian submarine
- The ax that killed Leon Trotsky
In the first of a weeklong series of episodes about spies, subterfuge and intelligence, a look at how the CIA used dead rats to send secret messages in the former Soviet Union.
Related episodes
- The pistols that almost fell from the sky
- That time the CIA stole a Russian submarine
- The ax that killed Leon Trotsky
In the 1950s, Dr. Virginia Apgar created a quick test that nurses have since performed on millions of babies just after birth. She is considered one of the most important figures in modern medicine — a world that almost pushed her away.
When author Ernest Hemingway killed himself in 1961, the political strain between the United States and Cuba was escalating. In the midst of that struggle, Hemingway's widow scrambled to recover the author's work from his beloved home in Cuba.
In 1939, an unknown copy editor from Washington, D.C., begged famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design his family a home. The result was a modern house that stood decades ahead of its time.
The world watched Notre Dame as it burned in April. But the cathedral has endured a lot in its 856 years.
Beginning in the earliest days of baseball, fans, journalists and even physicists disputed whether or not pitchers could make a ball curve.
While on a research trip to the Arctic in the early 20th century, scientist Clarence Birdseye — a name you might recognize from the frozen food aisle — made an observation that would go on to change the way we eat.
In the 1950s, millions of people suffered from measles every year. David Edmonston, an 11-year-old student, became the cure.
The nurse who founded the American Red Cross had no formal training in medicine. She tended to countless wounded soldiers.
Every year, freshmen at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis take part in an annual tradition where they must climb a 21 foot high obelisk covered in vegetable shortening and place a hat at the very top.
More than a decade ago, bestselling historian David McCullough stumbled upon an important name from the past that even he’d never come across before. What he discovered was the story of pioneering American idealists.
In the 1950s, Charles Van Doren, a quiet professor in New York City, became wrapped up in one of the biggest television quiz show scandals in history.
Paint-by-number was a national phenomenon. And then, the paint sets disappeared from the shelves.
Jazz singer Ethel Ennis’s voice wowed audiences and won praise from critics. But when she was faced with the opportunity to become a superstar, Ennis chose a different path.
Serving as special counsel is probably only the third hardest job Robert Mueller has held. His life in public service started when he just 23 years old, as a Marine lieutenant in the Vietnam War.
People have long been fascinated by the books presidents choose to read. But how much do reading habits actually reveal about a president?
The original manuscript was auctioned off for $2.4 million to an NFL owner, after almost a year of legal wrangling.
Weevils, a voracious beetle found in fields and orchards, were the original target of sarin gas.
Mark Hamill, the actor known for playing Luke Skywalker, shares stories from Star Wars history.
While President Grant had an impressive resume on the battlefield, he was known to be a patsy when it came to helping job hunters. People used to walk right into the White House and ask the president to find them a job.
At the beginning of the television age, “Meet the Press” dented the dominance of newspapers and thrilled news junkies with the power of live broadcasting.
Five brothers fought and died together on the same ship during World War II. Their final resting place was discovered in 2018.
Elaine Brown's takeover in 1974 was a pivotal moment for a woman in the black power movement. Although women had been a dynamic force for social and racial justice, they had often been overshadowed by men.
Mike is joined by a special guest to talk about how Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day began.
We dug through The Washington Post's archives and consulted the Pro Football Hall of Fame to bring you a rundown of the best presidential ballers.
Area 51's secrets may not be alien in nature, but that doesn't make it any less mysterious.
Walter Cronkite's calm but authoritative voice carried so much weight that in 1968 one single news report helped persuade the American public that we weren't winning the war in Vietnam.
One day a year, the White House grounds are turned over to kids for the Easter Egg Roll.
The town of Chillicothe, Missouri, discovered they have a surprising claim to history: the creation of sliced bread.
At the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, one of the most iconic moments of that chaotic year unfolded on television screens around the world.
The Apollo 13 astronauts never said “Houston we have a problem.” Here’s why you think they did.
In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln was in a financial bind. Also, he was in a war. To raise money, he pushed for and won passage of an income tax and, a year or so later, established the Internal Revenue Bureau to collect what was owed.
Martha Mitchell was the wife of President Nixon's attorney general. Nixon blamed Mitchell for Watergate.
On March 25, 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono were a few days into their marriage when they invited the press to join them at their honeymoon suite at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel.
Growing up in Somalia, a country where stories are handed down through generations, one of the first tales that children are told is about an ancient queen who fought to give women power by castrating men.
It was April of 1934. The multi-state crime spree of Bonnie and Clyde came to an end in an ambush on a winding country road in Louisiana. The man who finally hunted them down was Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, a legendary lawman from the Wild West.
Over one million people attend the National Cherry Blossom Festival each year. But the cherry blossom trees, and Japanese culture, were not always embraced in the United States.
Disasters don’t just happen. Like anything in life, there’s usually a buildup. In the case of the Chernobyl disaster, the series of failures stretched back more than a decade. But what happened the day before the explosion?
After the Civil War, formerly enslaved people placed notices in black-owned newspapers across the country to find their loved ones.
On Christmas Eve in 1968, the Apollo 8 astronauts captured an image that symbolizes hope and inspired environmentalism.
He thought being drafted into the National Football League was so unlikely that he signed with an African American league team. Then, the NFL called.
Four years before Amelia Earhart ever got into a plane, Ruth Law was already making a name for herself in the skies.
During the American Civil War, a former slave smuggled secrets from the Confederate President to help the North to victory. Her name was Mary Bowser.
During World War I, British nurse Flora Sandes put down her nurses bag to fight with the Serbian Army.
During World War II, around 80 Russian women took to the skies and risked their lives to fight against the Germans.
On August 6, 1862, a shy young man from Belvidere, Illinois, signed up to fight for the North in the Civil War. His name was Albert Cashier.
Hiram Rhodes Revels came to the Senate after the Civil War in a shining moment of triumph — a black man taking over the seat once held by Jefferson Davis. It didn’t last.
It is one of the worst expressions of racism in American history. And there’s no federal law to prevent it.
The history of subpoenas, and the fiery congressional hearings that have captivated Americans for centuries began with a Founding Father raising his hand to say, “Investigate me!”
Sexual harassment has been existed in showbiz as long as there have been bright lights.
In the 19th century, publications both reputable and scandalous routinely blackmailed society figures caught in compromising circumstances.
Some 50 million people are projected to fill out a March Madness bracket this year. As you finish filling out yours, you might want to tip your pencil and say thanks to the late and loud Staten Island bar owner Jody Haggerty.
Harper Lee's classic novel has been causing controversy for as long as its been in print. Here's a look at the history of banning "To Kill a Mockingbird."
There’s one thing that you can’t have delivered anymore that was totally normal to send by mail in the early 1900s.
Thurgood Marshall, the first African American member of the Supreme Court, took the constitutional oath of office from Hugo Black, a white associate justice who had once been a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Edythe Eyde, also known by her pen name Lisa Ben, was a visionary who fought to make lesbians visible in pop culture decades before most others had the guts to do the same.
President Abraham Lincoln had to worry about the first lady being a leaker, and it was quite a scandal.
If the order for a nuclear attack is issued, the soldiers operating the launch machine have no choice but to fire. Or do they?
In 1926, the United States received a birthday card signed by 5.5 million Polish people.
Buildings that stand as symbols of American democracy - the White House, Mount Vernon and Monticello, to name a few - were erected with the labor of those who were not free.
A dog and a cadaver deserve credit for their contributions to the invention of the telephone.
Jesse James, the most famous outlaw in history, was eventually foiled by a picture hanging crooked on a wall.
President Trump made history when he nominated a woman to become director of the Central Intelligence Agency. But while a woman leading the CIA was once unthinkable, female spies have made enormous, overlooked contributions in espionage.
Oscars night is probably the one moment around the world when people become really interested in envelopes.
The history of social media began in 1844, when Samuel F.B. Morse sent a message from Washington to Baltimore. It said, "What hath God wrought?"
Sonja Henie won three Olympic gold medals and 10 world championships, and turned her star power into as career as one of Hollywood's biggest movie stars. Meet figure skating's first megastar.
To understand the gruesome history of the death penalty, it is essential to comprehend how badly Thomas Edison wanted to zap George Westinghouse.
Whether you believe in this stuff or not, the many accounts that have spilled out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue over two centuries give ghosts an undeniable place in the country’s history.
Historians and national security analysts have been re-examining one particular forgotten moment in the history of U.S. and North Korea conflict.
The Kinneys married in Washington, D.C., in 1874. Then, they were arrested back home in Virginia for violating the state’s laws. They fought the ruling in higher and higher courts but never won the right to stay married in their home state.
Dr. Spock - not the guy from Star Trek - was at one time America's most beloved pediatrician. A whole generation of children was raised on his medical advice. But not even his popularity could save him from being indicted by the federal government.
During World War I, the Marines Corps needed help on the home front while men were fighting overseas. Opha May Johnson was the first woman in line.
In 1812, Philadelphia was outfitted with the latest in plumbing technology - a network of wooden pipes to carry water throughout the city.
Back in the 1830s, Jim Crow wasn't yet a symbol of inequality. He was a fictional character in minstrel shows who, to entertain his audiences, performed in blackface.
A full year after the King James Bible was printed in 1631, people discovered an error.
The president's State of the Union started as a simple report on the condition on the nation; overtime, the address became a moment to rally Congress and the public.
The woman who first introduced equal pay legislation in Congress had to fight to be taken seriously — and often failed.
In 1983, Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Union’s Air Defense Forces, trusted his gut and averted a global nuclear catastrophe.
A few days before his team took the field as huge underdogs in Super Bowl III, New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath made what was seen as an insane prediction at the time: "The Jets will win Sunday," he said. "I guarantee it."
If you work in an office without offices, with just about everyone working in a large spare space full of stylish desks, straight lines and papers stored in a credenza, then you have met Florence Knoll Bassett.
After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, John Surratt traveled across three continents, wore disguises and used fake names for nearly two years to escape authorities.
If you’re like most Americans, you probably visit a grocery store once or twice a week. But you probably don’t know that one single grocery item is responsible for the rise of supermarkets as we know them.
Over the past seven decades, the Doomsday Clock has served as a metaphorical measure of humankind’s proximity to global catastrophe. Every year, scientists and nuclear experts set the clock's time after grappling over the state of geopolitical affairs.
In the 1950s, Lester Wunderman became the king of direct mail advertising — the ancestor of today’s online targeted ads.
In the early days of the House, some congresspeople thought hats had no place atop the heads of representatives debating the great issues of the day. Hats, they argued, weren’t dignified.
When Eugene Cernan walked on the moon, he didn’t know he’d be the last astronaut to make the journey.
The name on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birth certificate was not Martin. Nor did the document include the middle name Luther.
When Alexander Hamilton argued in favor of lifetime tenures for Supreme Court justices, he probably didn’t foresee them living past their prime.
More than a century ago, Carry Amelia Nation — hatchet in hand — chopped the country toward temperance.
Once upon a time, people walked between the U.S. and Canada over a frozen Niagara Falls. But one day, that all changed forever.
For decades, the boundary between Mexico and the United States was little more than an imaginary line in the sand.
When a steel industry strike threatened military production during the Korean War, and Congress couldn’t come to an agreement, President Truman had a solution — declare a national emergency.
Lego started as a company that made wooden toys, and grew into an empire of plastic building blocks.
It doesn't seem like a big deal today, but 1930s America lived in fear of the male nipple.
John Calhoun’s rodent experiments revolutionized the way we think about social behavior and the impact of growing populations.
Nancy Grace Roman was one of NASA’s first female astronomers and was a key figure in the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Throughout American history, speakers of the House have pounded their gavels so hard in search of order that they wind up smashing the gavel itself into smithereens.
We're taking a little break over the holidays to look back on some of the best Retropod episodes from 2018. Today, we look back on the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.
We're taking a little break over the holidays to look back on some of the best Retropod episodes from 2018. Today, an episode co-hosted by Madeline Daly, who won our Retropod trivia contest at the 2018 National Book Festival.
We're taking a little break over the holidays to look back on some of the best Retropod episodes from 2018. Today, our episode marking the date Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, 50 years ago this April.
We're taking a little break over the holidays to look back on some of the best Retropod episodes from 2018. Today, doughnuts. They aren’t just delicious. They also helped America win a war.
We're taking a little break over the holidays to look back on some of the best Retropod episodes from 2018. Today, Ida B. Wells, who was an investigative journalist, an anti-lynching activist, a suffragette and a teacher.
We're taking a little break over the holidays to look back on some of the best Retropod episodes from 2018. Today, the story of Caroll Spinney and his iconic character Big Bird.
In the 1950s, a child trying to call Santa Claus accidentally called NORAD and changed Christmas Eve forever.
During the first Christmas of World War I, a miracle took place all along the Europe’s Western Front.
A new punctuation mark called the interrobang found its way onto some typewriters in the 1960s, but it never caught on.
In 1875, Ulysses S. Grant hired a special prosecutor to investigate the Whiskey Ring scandal. Furious with his findings, Grant had him fired.
Before 1913, the presidential press conference didn’t exist. But a president who liked reporters changed that.
After being fired from his job for being gay, Frank Kameny took his battle for equality to the nation’s highest court.
After receiving complaints about carriages driving too fast, Washington D.C. policeman William H. West arrested a presidential speed demon.
In Houston, Ray Hill was a colossal character. He even adopted "citizen provocateur" as a formal title.
Fritz Kuhn was the leader of the pro-Nazi group known as the German American Bund. He was a hero to his audience, and a scourge on the world to most others.
Weeks before Thanksgiving, 1959, cranberries were declared unsafe to eat. The race was on to save America’s favorite holiday side dish.
News traveled so slowly in 1826 that the former president was buried days before his son, sitting president John Quincy Adams, got word of his death.
Bush, who died last week, is being fondly remembered for his cool demeanor and a boundless sense of humor.
George H.W. Bush had a lot of humility. So much that he developed a friendship with the comedian who impersonated him on SNL, Dana Carvey.
White House maid Elizabeth Jaffray not only cleaned up after presidents, she had an amazing insight into their appetites.
One of the grandest events the president presides over every year is the lighting of the National Christmas Tree.
Martin Niemoller's simple and haunting words are often quoted in moments of intolerance. The story behind them is much more complicated.
Presidents throughout history have visited battlefields to better grasp conditions, reverse public doubt and signal that the country took war efforts seriously.
Benjamin Franklin, the most colorful of America's Founding Fathers, had a misunderstood, electrical and ultimately homicidal relationship with turkeys.
In the 1930s, traveling the nation's highways while black was fraught with peril. One postal worker, Victor Green, wrote a guidebook for African Americans after he faced discrimination on a road trip.
The story of how the anonymous soldier came to rest inside the famous tomb is almost as unknown as his identity.
Mark Twain first laid eyes on a “newfangled typing machine,” as he called it, sometime in the early 1870s.
Julia Grant didn't a have particularly good experience in the world of publishing. In fact, her memoir wasn’t even published in her lifetime.
Along with staggering death tolls, the "Great War" generated memorable literature, geopolitical upheaval, hope, disillusion, the Russian Revolution and the seeds of World War II.
In 1895, the United States tried to deny an American citizen entry to the country even though he was born on U.S. soil.
Rahm Emanuel, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, had two different approaches to taking back the House of Representatives. Their feud wasn't pretty.
Why, oh, why is daylight savings a thing? It's because for roughly two decades after World War II, no one had any clue what time it was.
From the mid-1800s to well into the 20th century, the Capitol’s Demon Cat was the top dog of Washington ghost stories.
In 1956, New York City’s bomb squad used criminal profiling to catch a terrorist known as “The Mad Bomber.”
She was short. He was tall. Her family wasn't well off. His was. She was a worrier. He had not a care in the world. If you looked up mismatch in the dictionary, Ruth Bader and Martin D. Ginsburg fit the definition perfectly.
Civil rights crusader Fannie Lou Hamer rivaled Martin Luther King Jr. in her command of audiences.
Before becoming a legendary big hitter, Babe Ruth was one of baseball’s best from the mound.
Family and friends had known about the president’s intimate relationship with Mary Peck for years, but whispers about their involvement were growing.
As Jacqueline Kennedy transitioned from wife-in-chief to widow-in-mourning, there was tension between whom she had been and whom she was allowed to become.
Photographer Boris Yaro shot the photo of Bobby Kennedy lying fatally wounded in the arms of Juan Romero, a busboy. The photo would haunt both of them.
If you think your family is overrun with controlling lunatics, please meet the Romanovs.
More than 50,000 soldiers died during the Battle of Waterloo, but their teeth lived on.
In the fall of 1902, a year into his presidency, President Teddy Roosevelt set off to Mississippi for a bear-hunting vacation. It ended differently than planned.
It was rare to be a woman or African American covering the White House in the 1940s. Alice Dunnigan was both.
In the fall of 1957, as the world was moving on from World War II and the extermination of 6 million Jews, Sylvia Hermann knocked on the door of a modest home in Buenos Aires.
Freddie Oversteegen was 14 when she joined the Dutch resistance, though with her long, dark hair in braids she looked at least two years younger.
Despite warnings of icebergs, the John Rutledge set sail from Liverpool, England, to New York.
Nine months before the Iran hostage crisis, Kenneth Kraus was held hostage in Iran for eight days.
Ida Lewis saved as many as 25 people during her service at the lighthouse. But her deeds have largely been forgotten.
In 1890, Henry Brown sailed through the confirmation process after being accused of shooting and killing someone in self defense.
An American in the 1940s would not recognize the woman from the “We Can Do It!” poster as Rosie the Riveter.
When Gerald Ford took over the presidency after Richard Nixon’s resignation, he soon made a controversial choice: He pardoned Nixon.
No women served on the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991. The ugly Anita Hill hearings changed that.
The Alien and Sedition Acts passed under President John Adams led to the arrests of more than two dozen people.
Lewis Hine posed as a Bible salesman or machinery photographer to expose the hardships of child labor.
All of George Washington’s Supreme Court nominees were confirmed in only two days, but half of them didn't show up on time.
Before an unnamed senior official in the Trump administration published the opinion piece, “I am part of the resistance inside the Trump administration" in the New York Times, another mysterious anonymous author lit up Washington.
In 1935, the Florida Keys ignored the threat of a looming hurricane. When the Category 5 storm made landfall, it left a wake of death and destruction.
Heather Penney was among the first female combat pilots in the country. On Sept. 11, 2001, she got a mission: Bring down the fourth hijacked plane hurtling towards Washington.
President Abraham Lincoln had two loving and supportive mothers in his lifetime. The second helped him cope with the tragic loss of the first.
This episode is co-hosted by Madeline Daly, who won Retropod trivia last Saturday at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.
Dallas prosecutor Henry Wade never intended to become a central figure in Supreme Court history.
In 1927, the world watched as two French aviators attempted the world’s first transatlantic flight.
The first mass police shooting on a U.S. college campus happened two years before the Ohio National Guard opened fire on student protesters at Kent State University.
In 1931, President Herbert Hoover started a program that would result in the illegal deportation of 1.8 million people to Mexico by the end of the 1930s. Of those people, 60 percent were U.S. citizens.
Benjamin Lay wrote one of the first treatises against slavery in Colonial America, a time when many prosperous Pennsylvania Quakers were slave owners. But for speaking out, the Quakers disowned him.
Ida B. Wells was an investigative journalist, an anti-lynching activist, a suffragette and a teacher.
Muhammad Ali was so close to going to jail for evading the draft. He has a Supreme Court clerk to thank for his freedom.
Thomas Blood had somewhat of a shady past. According to Ireland’s History magazine, he had a reputation for espionage and conducting terrorist campaigns — though many of his plans were foiled just in time.
At the Naval Academy, McCain was in a group called the “Bad Bunch” as he rebelled against his father’s expectations.
According to James Madison’s Virginia mansion Montpelier, Paul Jennings’ account reveals, “how the racial and gender hierarchies of the time complicate the way we understand roles in historic events.”
Millions of British children were evacuated from London and other cities to escape the horrors of war. But the family separations seemed to impart long-term trauma that was in many cases as severe as if they had stayed behind and faced the bombs.
When President Reagan told Mr. Gorbachev to “tear down this wall,” it was not seen as a historic moment. It took the actual fall of the wall to resurrect the speech and drill the quote into our consciousness.
When Harry Truman became president in 1945, Southern members of Congress were delighted. They thought he’d be sympathetic to segregationists. He proved them wrong.
On display in Washington, D.C. are the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and another document that details a fundamental institution in American life: baseball.
Back in 1941, a get-together that should have been fraught with uneasiness didn't turn out that way, which is surprising given the participants: President Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin.
Samuel Cutler Ward, also known as the “King of the Lobby,” is credited with shaping the craft of lobbying. And like lobbyist and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, he also had some seriously expensive tastes.
A stamp collector’s discovery of the “Inverted Jenny” stamp created a headache for the U.S. Postal Service.
Mister Rogers’s approach to dealing with tragedy began with the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.
The Alderson Federal Prison Camp has a history filled with powerful women who both pushed for the walls to be built there and served time within them.
During the American Revolution, more patriots died as prisoners of war in or around New York City than died in combat.
The one night that changed President Nixon’s fate has stuck with us as a reminder of the limits of presidential power.
A group of poor women in Puerto Rico were the first test subjects for the birth control pill. Were they guinea pigs or pioneers?
The Boy Scout movement began 110 years ago on a tiny island just off the southern coast of England.
The anti-Semitic conspiracy theories surrounding the Rothschild family date all the way back to The Battle of Waterloo.
For over 50 years, the phrase “under God” was not a part of the Pledge of Allegiance. One sermon changed that.
Linda Brown and her father Oliver Brown are heroes of the civil rights movement. The backstory of the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education is more complicated than what you learned in school.
It did not rain, at least not in Ellicott City, Md. That’s what made the 1868 flood so bizarre and unexpected.
One simple change to how the Supreme Court bench was designed made a world of difference to how the justices communicated.
On April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was in Memphis to support sanitation workers who were protesting for their civil rights. It was there that King delivered his last speech.
From all over the country, couples rushed to Las Vegas to get married. The demand for quickie weddings was at a fever pitch. But it wasn't Cupid's arrow causing the frenzy. It was the Vietnam War.
Whether you believe in this stuff or not, the many accounts that have spilled out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue over two centuries give ghosts an undeniable place in the country’s history.
She was just 5 feet tall. There was once a $40,000 bounty on her head. She suffered seizures throughout her life. She never gave up. She never gave in.
Washington and his fellow partiers racked up a bill of $15,000 in today’s currency celebrating the completion of the Constitution.
The justice who helped persuade a majority of the Supreme Court to legalize abortion found the practice unthinkable — personally, but not constitutionally.
At a White House luncheon, actress Eartha Kitt would not let the president or the first lady avoid the issue of the Vietnam War. She paid a heavy price for her boldness.
Oregon’s original constitution banned black people from the state, and the law stayed in the constitution for well over 100 years.
Eleanor Roosevelt held news conferences just for female reporters. The men were not impressed.
In 1971, Stephen Burns was 18 years old and a newly minted voter. He was so jazzed to be a part of the Democratic process.
Somehow, in the depths of his personal misery towards the end of his life, Thomas Jefferson had found his powerful way with words again.
In a largely forgotten experiment, a group of students from Gallaudet University spent years helping NASA understand the mechanisms of motion sickness, and how to prevent it.
In 1998, the world briefly panicked over an asteroid that seemed headed for a close call with Earth. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.
For the past 100 years, Mata Hari has been revered as the quintessential glamorous spy. But the real Mata Hari was much more complicated.
In April 1917, Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress, faced an agonizing choice. Should she, or should she not, vote for the United States to enter World War I?
"The Birth of a Nation" depicted life after the Civil War in a way that glorified Klansmen. The film and its cultural impact led one man to conclude that the time was right to bring back the Klu Klux Klan.
The very first pride parade was held in 1964 and was a bit … calmer … than what we think of today.
Charles Asbury’s newly digitized songs serve as a time capsule to the music of the 19th century.
For most of American history, no one was scared of sharks. One week - and one shark - changed that.
George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, two great presidents, had a lot in common: Both lost a parent as a child, both had a serious demeanor, and both dabbled with writing poetry. But only one was any good at poetry.
The man who called the police on the Watergate burglars never received the credit he deserved.
In December 1805, a handful of prominent politicians receive invitations to join President Thomas Jefferson for a White House dinner. The occasion was the arrival of a Tunisian envoy to the U.S., Sidi Soliman Mellimelli, who was observing Ramadan.
It’s World War II, and you’re King George VI of England. You fear a Nazi invasion of England could come at any moment. How do you protect the crown jewels? Not even Queen Elizabeth II knew how her dad did it - until recently.
The Kinneys married in Washington, D.C. in 1874. Then, they were arrested back home in Virginia for violating the state’s laws. They fought the ruling in higher and higher courts, but never won the right to stay married in their home state.
The controversy around the murders of a Polish village's Jewish residents has centered on raw questions of complicity versus compulsion.
Suzanne Lenglen was physically ferocious. Always fashionable. A disrupter of convention.
When the White House was built over 200 years ago, it lacked certain modern conveniences. They got added in a hodgepodge of improvements over the years.
On the day before D-Day, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe Dwight D. Eisenhower gave a speech to the troops that totally masked how nervous he actually was.
If you love gossip, and drama, and D.C. politics - this story is the gift that keeps on giving.
The Apollo 13 astronauts never said “Houston we have a problem.” Here’s why you think they did.
Robert F. Kennedy's death, which came just weeks after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., shocked the nation, especially those who looked to him to continue the national discussion over racial inequality.
At the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, one of the most iconic moments of that chaotic year unfolded on television screens around the world.
By 1968, things were going badly for President Lyndon B. Johnson. Morale around the Vietnam War was sinking, and in Washington, political sharks were circling.
Walter Cronkite's reputation, his calm but authoritative voice, carried so much weight that in 1968 one single report helped persuade the American public that we weren’t winning the war in Vietnam.
In a year of extraordinary, chaotic moments this was a hopeful one - a beat-up country music star recording an album live at a troubled maximum security prison in California.
'A Wrinkle in Time' author Madeleine L'Engle said she received 26 rejection letters from publishers.
In the early 1980s, President Ronald Reagan wasn’t exactly known for his racial sensitivity. But when he read about a family whose house was targeted by the KKK, he and the First Lady flew out to comfort them.
A mysterious stone memorial was found in 2006 in Washington, D.C. But who placed a memorial to Nazi spies on government property? And why?
Elaine Brown's takeover in 1974 was a pivotal moment for a woman in the black power movement. Although women had been a dynamic force for social and racial justice, they had often been overshadowed by men.
For many, memories of that devastating day quickly revert to that silent, flickering sequence captured by Abraham Zapruder. It is as chilling as it is familiar: the approaching convertible, the waves of a crowd about to lose its innocence.
When Prince Harry and his fiancee Meghan Markle are married this weekend, there will be one other royal on the world’s minds - Harry’s mother, the beloved Princess Diana.
The British royal wedding puts all eyes on the Windsor family - this time, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. But perhaps no royal is as controversial as Harry's grandfather, Prince Philip.
Another British royal wedding is coming up, so over the next few days, we'll explore a few moments from the history of royal marriages in Great Britain. Today, we meet Wallis Simpson, the last American divorcee to marry a British royal.
Area 51's secrets may not be alien in nature, but that doesn't make them any less mysterious.
Five brothers fought and died together on the same ship during World War II. Their final resting place was discovered earlier this year.
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy devastated the nation. But the day before the shooting was just a normal day. It was particularly calm and uneventful for the gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald.
Harper Lee's classic novel has been causing controversy for as long as its been in print. Here's a look at the history of banning "To Kill a Mockingbird."
The original manuscript was auctioned off for $2.4 million this weekend to an NFL owner, after almost a year of legal wrangling.
Mark Hamill himself shares stories from Star Wars history. You can hear the full interview with Hamill on the Cape Up podcast with Jonathan Capehart.
Believe it or not, the relationship between politicians and the press has been worse. A lot worse.
Was the duke a Nazi sympathizer? Did he plot to dethrone his brother, King George VI? Did he really suggest more German bombing of Britain might end World War II?
Grant had an impressive resume on the battlefield, he was known to be a patsy when it came to helping job hunters. People used to walk right into the White House and ask the president to find them a job
Mike is joined by a special guest to talk about how Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day began.
We dug through The Washington Post's archives and consulted the Pro Football Hall of Fame to bring you a rundown of the best presidential ballers.
In 1812, Philadelphia was outfitted with the latest in plumbing technology - a network of wooden pipes to carry water throughout the city.
The town of Chillicothe, Missouri, recently discovered they have a surprising claim to history: the creation of sliced bread.
In 1990, students protested the choice of the first lady as their commencement speaker, calling it anti-feminist. Her speech silenced the critics.
In October 1967, antiwar protesters announced that they would march en masse to the front steps of the Pentagon. and levitate it. And then they would try to levitate it.
In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln was in a financial bind. Also, he was in a war. To raise money, he pushed for and won passage of an income tax and, a year or so later, established the Internal Revenue Bureau to collect what was owed.
George and his mother had an unusual relationship for the 1700s, more like what you might see in a sitcom from the 1970s. She was indispensable to him, but intolerable.
Thurgood Marshall, the first African American member of the Supreme Court, took the constitutional oath of office from Hugo Black, a white associate justice who had once been a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
A German woman discovered that her childhood home was stolen from a Jewish family who fled Nazi Germany. Last year, she tracked down the address of one of the children, and wrote him a letter.
President Abraham Lincoln had to worry about the first lady being a leaker, and it was quite a scandal.
The woman who first introduced equal pay legislation in Congress had to fight to be taken seriously -- and often failed.
Weevils, a voracious beetle found in fields and orchards, were the original target of sarin gas.
Over the past few months, historians and national security analysts have been re-examining one particular forgotten moment in the history of U.S. and North Korea conflict.
The most thankless job might be that of the White House press secretary. Just ask Ron Ziegler.
Fifty years ago today, the civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down in Memphis. Riots broke out across the country, but in Indianapolis, there was peace.
On April 3, 1968, 50 years ago today, Martin Luther King, Jr. was in Memphis to support sanitation workers who were protesting for their civil rights. It was there that King delivered his last speech.
Throughout history, the reading of books has been a sort of armchair way measuring someone's intelligence. Here are stories of three former presidents at opposite ends of the reading spectrum. You can decide for yourself.
One day a year, the White House grounds are truly turned over to the people - well, the kids. That day is the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, and it began as the solution to a problem that Victorian children created.
One of baseball's most enduring mysteries surrounds a 17-year-old girl name Jackie Mitchell.
Ivanka Trump might be the only first daughter in American history to score a West Wing office, but she’s not the first presidential daughter to wield power in the White House.
At the beginning of the television age, “Meet the Press” dented the dominance of newspapers and thrilled news junkies with the you-were-there power of live broadcasting.
Andrew Higgins wasn't in the Army. He wasn't a paratrooper. He was a wild and wily genius, a tough, crafty, businessman. And he built the built the boats that brought troops ashore at Normandy on June 6, 1944.
The movement organized by survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., is not the first time that kids have taken a stand. History shows that kids, with their innocence, honesty and moral urgency, can shame adults into discovering their conscience.
If the order for a nuclear attack is issued, the soldiers operating the launch machine have no choice but to fire. Or do they?
Jesse James, the most famous outlaw in history, was eventually foiled by a picture hanging crooked on a wall.
Dr. Spock - not the guy from Star Trek - was at one time America's most beloved pediatrician. A whole generation of children was raised on his medical advice. But not even his popularity could save him from being indicted by the federal government.
Martin Niemoller's simple and haunting words are often quoted in moments of intolerance. The story behind them is much more complicated.
Some 50 million people are projected to fill out a March Madness bracket this year. As you finish filling out yours, you might want to tip your pencil and say thanks to the late and loud Staten Island bar owner Jody Haggerty.
President Trump made history Tuesday when he nominated a woman to become director of the Central Intelligence Agency. But while a woman leading the CIA was once unthinkable, female spies have made enormous, overlooked contributions in espionage.
During World War I, the Marines Corps back home needed help while the men were fighting overseas. Opha May Johnson was the first in line.
Why, oh, why is daylight savings a thing? It's because for roughly two decades after World War II, no one had any clue what time it was.
In 1978, Marilyn Loden coined a phrase that paints very image that women have been fighting for decades.
A dog and a cadaver deserve credit for their contributions to the invention of the telephone.
Oscars night is probably the one moment around the world when people become really interested in envelopes.
There’s one thing that you can’t have delivered anymore that was totally normal to send by mail in the early 1900s.
Edythe Eyde, also known by her pen name Lisa Ben, was a visionary who fought to make lesbians visible in pop culture decades before most others had the guts to do the same.
Buildings that stand as symbols of American democracy - the White House, Mount Vernon and Monticello, to name a few - were erected with the labor of those who were not free.
When the NRA was founded in 1871, its primary concern was not gun rights or the Second Amendment.
If you’re like most Americans, you probably visit a grocery store once or twice a week. But you probably don’t know that one single grocery item is responsible for the rise of supermarkets as we know them.
In the 1930s, traveling the nation's highways while black was fraught with peril. One postal worker, Victor Green, wrote a guidebook for African Americans after he faced discrimination on a road trip.
Sonja Henie won three Olympic gold medals and 10 world championships, and turned her star power into as career as one of Hollywood's biggest movie stars. Meet figure skating's first megastar.
Katherine Graham's leadership in the decision to release the Pentagon Papers was the subject of the Stephen Spielberg film "The Post." But it was her leadership during the pressman's strike in 1975 that is perhaps the most gripping moment of her life.
To understand the gruesome history of the death penalty, it is essential to comprehend how badly Thomas Edison wanted to zap George Westinghouse.
Whether you believe in this stuff or not, the many accounts that have spilled out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue over two centuries give ghosts an undeniable place in the country’s history.
She was just 5 feet tall. There was once a $40,000 bounty on her head. She suffered seizures throughout her life. She never gave up. She never gave in.
Ski jumping involves flying more than 800 feet in the air and then landing on two feet, without dying. Where on earth did this sport come from?
From all over the country, couples rushed to Las Vegas to get married. The demand for quickie weddings was at a fever pitch. But it wasn't Cupid's arrow causing the frenzy. It was the Vietnam War.
In 1926, the United States received a birthday card signed by 5.5 million Polish people.
The history of social media began in 1844, when Samuel F.B. Morse sent a message from Washington to Baltimore. It said, "What hath God wrought?"
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