The dark history of the pill
A group of poor women in Puerto Rico were the first test subjects for the birth control pill. Were they guinea pigs or pioneers?
Aug 06, 2018•4 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.
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Episodes
Meet Yvonne Burke, the first congresswoman to give birth in office
Sixty years after Congress welcomed its first woman, it welcomed its first baby.
Aug 03, 2018•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.
Aug 02, 2018•5 min
How the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about the Rothschilds began
The anti-Semitic conspiracy theories surrounding the Rothschild family date all the way back to The Battle of Waterloo.
Aug 01, 2018•5 min
The first campus shooting
A professor at The University of Virginia was fatally shot by a student in 1840.
Jul 31, 2018•4 min
How God became part of the pledge
For over 50 years, the phrase “under God” was not a part of the Pledge of Allegiance. One sermon changed that.
Jul 30, 2018•4 min
How a textile shortage led to the invention of the bikini
This episode addresses the history of the bikini in, naturally, two parts.
Jul 27, 2018•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.
Jul 26, 2018•4 min
The time a senator won an Emmy for grilling witnesses at a hearing
In 1951, a televised Senate hearing caught America’s attention.
Jul 25, 2018•5 min
The rainless flood that destroyed a city
It did not rain, at least not in Ellicott City, Md. That’s what made the 1868 flood so bizarre and unexpected.
Jul 24, 2018•5 min
How a renovation made the Supreme Court a friendlier place
One simple change to how the Supreme Court bench was designed made a world of difference to how the justices communicated.
Jul 23, 2018•4 min
The Mountaintop
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.
Jul 20, 2018•5 min
The most romantic day
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.
Jul 19, 2018•4 min
The night America burned
The deadliest wildfire in U.S. history wasn’t in California.
Jul 18, 2018•4 min
All the presidents' ghosts
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.
Jul 17, 2018•3 min
Don't mess with Harriet Tubman
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.
Jul 16, 2018•5 min
The epic bender that launched America
Washington and his fellow partiers racked up a bill of $15,000 in today’s currency celebrating the completion of the Constitution.
Jul 13, 2018•4 min
A Supreme Court justice morally opposed abortion, but voted to legalize it
The justice who helped persuade a majority of the Supreme Court to legalize abortion found the practice unthinkable — personally, but not constitutionally.
Jul 12, 2018•6 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.
Jul 11, 2018•5 min
Oregon, 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.
Jul 10, 2018•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.
Jul 09, 2018•4 min
The time America invaded Britain
Spoiler: It did not go well.
Jul 06, 2018•4 min
The teen who tied a Virginia election
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.
Jul 05, 2018•4 min
Thomas Jefferson's last letter
Somehow, in the depths of his personal misery towards the end of his life, Thomas Jefferson had found his powerful way with words again.
Jul 04, 2018•3 min
The U.S. government recruited black men to watch them die
The Tuskegee syphilis experiment is a horrific piece of American history.
Jul 03, 2018•4 min
The deaf men who helped NASA send humans to space
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.
Jul 02, 2018•4 min
That time we thought an asteroid might kill us all
In 1998, the world briefly panicked over an asteroid that seemed headed for a close call with Earth. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.
Jun 29, 2018•3 min
The femme fatale
For the past 100 years, Mata Hari has been revered as the quintessential glamorous spy. But the real Mata Hari was much more complicated.
Jun 28, 2018•4 min
The first congresswoman’s vote
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?
Jun 27, 2018•5 min
How Hollywood’s first major blockbuster revived the KKK
"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.
Jun 26, 2018•5 min
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