The oldest surviving banjo recording
Charles Asbury’s digitized songs serve as a time capsule to the music of the 19th century.
Jul 11, 2019•6 min
Retropod
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.
Last refreshed: ⓘ
Follow this podcast in the Metacast mobile app to refresh it and see new episodes.
Podcasts are better in Metacast mobile app
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more
Episodes
The Jedwabne massacre
Raw questions of complicity versus compulsion have surrounded the 1941 murders of a Polish village's Jewish residents.
Jul 10, 2019•4 min
The long-lost 'Laws of Baseball'
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.
Jul 09, 2019•5 min
The Quaker abolitionist who was disowned for condemning slave owners
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.
Jul 08, 2019•6 min
Meet Yvonne Burke, the first congresswoman to give birth in office
Sixty years after Congress welcomed its first woman, it welcomed its first baby.
Jul 05, 2019•4 min
Thomas Jefferson's last letter
Somehow, in the depths of his personal misery towards the end of his life, Thomas Jefferson once again found his powerful way with words.
Jul 04, 2019•3 min
The epic bender that launched America
George Washington and his fellow partiers racked up a hefty bill--$15,000 in today’s currency--celebrating the completion of the Constitution.
Jul 03, 2019•4 min
The time we thought an asteroid might kill us all
In 1998, the world briefly panicked over an asteroid that seemed headed straight for Earth.
Jul 02, 2019•3 min
Suzanne Lenglen, the first goddess of tennis
Suzanne Lenglen was physically ferocious, always fashionable and a disrupter of convention.
Jul 01, 2019•3 min
The first pride parade
The very first pride parade was held in 1964 and was a bit calmer than what we think of today.
Jun 28, 2019•3 min
The rainless flood that destroyed a city
In 1868, Ellicott City, Md. flooded. The lack of rain made the natural disaster totally bizarre and unexpected.
Jun 27, 2019•5 min
How Eleanor Roosevelt invented the modern idea of a first lady
Eleanor Roosevelt held news conferences just for female reporters. The men were not impressed.
Jun 26, 2019•4 min
The complicated story of Linda Brown and the fight for desegregated schools
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.
Jun 25, 2019•4 min
The origins of the National Rifle Association
When the NRA was founded in 1871, its primary concern was not gun rights or the Second Amendment.
Jun 24, 2019•5 min
How a textile shortage led to the invention of the bikini
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.
Jun 21, 2019•5 min
The man who won World War II
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.
Jun 20, 2019•5 min
Oregon was America’s first and only state to begin as 'whites-only'
Oregon’s original constitution banned black people from the state, and the law stayed in the constitution for well over 100 years.
Jun 19, 2019•5 min
Publishers hated ‘A Wrinkle in Time,' and Madeleine L'Engle never forgot the rejections
'A Wrinkle in Time' author Madeleine L'Engle said she received 26 rejection letters from publishers.
Jun 18, 2019•4 min
This security guard discovered the Watergate break-in, but nobody remembers him
The man who called the police on the Watergate burglars never received the credit he deserved.
Jun 17, 2019•4 min
A history of extreme makeovers at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
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.
Jun 14, 2019•4 min
The unlikely start of the Boy Scout movement
The Boy Scout movement began 110 years ago on a tiny island just off the southern coast of England.
Jun 13, 2019•5 min
Eartha Kitt confronted the first lady and it nearly ruined her career
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.
Jun 12, 2019•5 min
The 'temporary insanity' legal defense started with an affair
If you love gossip, drama and D.C. politics -- this story is the gift that keeps on giving.
Jun 11, 2019•4 min
Eisenhower’s famous speech to U.S. troops the day before D-Day
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.
Jun 10, 2019•4 min
The painter who became the CIA’s master of disguise
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...
Jun 07, 2019•10 min
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...
Jun 06, 2019•9 min
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...
Jun 05, 2019•9 min
The pistols that almost fell from the sky
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...
Jun 04, 2019•6 min
The rat that helped win the Cold War
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...
Jun 03, 2019•8 min
The test that changed childbirth
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.
May 31, 2019•7 min
For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android