Throughline is a time machine. Each episode, we travel beyond the headlines to answer the question, "How did we get here?" We use sound and stories to bring history to life and put you into the middle of it. From ancient civilizations to forgotten figures, we take you directly to the moments that shaped our world. Throughline is hosted by Peabody Award-winning journalists Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei.
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On today's episode, we travel from the battlefields of the U.S. Civil War, through the rubble of two world wars, to the hallways of the Hague, to see how the modern world has tried to define — and prosecute — war crimes. This episode originally aired at "The Rules of War" in 2024. To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR P...
Gangsters, banksters, and politicians. Today on the show, how the hunt for Al Capone helped turn the IRS into one of the U.S. government's most powerful tools — and most effective weapons. To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline . Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
The story of the Los Angeles police chief who, faced with one of the largest internal migrations in American history, tried to close California's borders to stop it. To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
This episode of Throughline explores the myths surrounding motherhood, including the maternal instinct, the welfare queen, and the doting housewife. It delves into the historical and economic factors that have shaped these myths, featuring the stories of activists like Johnnie Tillman and Silvia Federici, who fought for a more generous vision of family, labor, and care. The episode challenges societal expectations of mothers and advocates for recognizing and valuing care work.
When James Garfield won the Presidency in 1880, Charles Guiteau got ready to accept his new government job. No one had actually offered him a job – but he'd campaigned for Garfield, so he assumed he'd be rewarded. That was the spoils system, and it was how the government worked. But President Garfield didn't hire him. Guiteau was furious. And on July 2, 1881, he followed Garfield to a Washington D.C. train station and shot him. Today on the show: how an assassination meant to restore the spoils ...
In March 2025, President Trump issued an executive order invoking a centuries-old law: the Alien Enemies Act. The Act allows a president to detain or deport citizens of foreign adversaries to the United States, but only in the case of a "declared war" or "invasion." Now, the Trump administration and the courts are locked in a battle over whether the president's use of the Act, under which people have already been deported, is legal. Today on the show: where the Alien Enemies Act came from, how p...
Climate disaster, political unrest, random violence: Western society can often feel like what the filmmaker Werner Herzog calls "a thin layer of ice on top of an ocean of chaos and darkness." But is that actually true — or the way it has to be? Today on the show, what really happens when things fall apart. This episode originally published in 2023. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Want to get rich quick? You're not alone. Right now, Americans spend over $100 billion, yes billion , every year on lottery tickets. Today on the show, in collaboration with Scratch and Win from WGBH, how the mafia, Sputnik, medical equipment, and the electoral college led to American's obsession with playing the numbers. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
The Fifth Amendment. You have the right to remain silent when you're being questioned in police custody, thanks to the Fifth's protection against self-incrimination. But most people end up talking to police anyway. Why? Today on Throughline's We the People: the Fifth Amendment, the right to remain silent, and how hard it can be to use it. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Big Bird, politics, and the ABCs: how a television show made to represent New York City neighborhoods like Harlem and the Bronx became beloved by families around a divided country. This episode originally ran in 2022 as "Getting to Sesame Street." To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Dinosaurs, Carl Sagan, and nuclear war. There was a moment in the not-so-distant past when we learned what drove the dinosaurs extinct — and that discovery, made during the Cold War, may have helped save humans from the same fate. In this episode, we'll take a journey from prehistoric times to the nuclear age and explore how humans contend with fears of the end. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
The 25th amendment. A few years before JFK was shot, an idealistic young lawyer set out on a mission to convince people something essential was missing from the Constitution: clear instructions for what should happen if a U.S. president was no longer able to serve. On this episode of our ongoing series We the People , the story behind one of the last amendments to the Constitution, and the man who got it done. Correction: In a previous version of this episode we incorrectly said that John F. Ken...
Millions of Americans depend on their jobs for health insurance. But that's not the case in many other wealthy countries. How did the U.S. end up with a system that's so expensive, yet leaves so many people vulnerable? On this episode, how a temporary solution created an everlasting problem. This episode originally ran in 2020 as The Everlasting Problem . To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline ....
What can and can't the president do — and how do we know? The framers of the U.S. Constitution left the powers of the executive branch powers deliberately vague, and in doing so opened the door for every president to decide how much power they could claim. Over time, that's become quite a lot. This episode originally ran in 2020 and has been updated with new material. To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/...
The alleged link between vaccines and autism was first published in 1998, in a since-retracted study in medical journal The Lancet. The claim has been repeatedly disproven: there is no evidence that vaccines and autism are related. But by the mid-2000s, the myth was out there, and its power was growing, fueled by distrust of government, misinformation, and high-profile boosters like Jim Carrey and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. In this episode: the roots of the modern anti-vaccine movement, and of the f...
Wong Kim Ark was born in the U.S. and lived his whole life here. But when he returned from a trip to China in August of 1895, officials wouldn't let him leave his ship. Citing the Chinese Exclusion Act, which denied citizenship to Chinese immigrants, they told him he was not, in fact, a citizen of the United States. Today, the story of Wong Kim Ark, whose epic fight to be recognized as a citizen in his own country led to a Supreme Court decision affirming birthright citizenship for all. This epi...
Who owns stolen art? Today on the show, the bloody journey of a Benin Bronze from West Africa to the halls of one of England's most elite universities — a tale of imperialism, betrayal, and the making of the modern world. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
The Eighth Amendment. What is cruel and unusual punishment? Who gets to define and decide its boundaries? And how did the Constitution's authors imagine it might change? Today on Throughline's We the People : the Eighth Amendment, the death penalty, and what cruel and unusual really means. To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoi...
Whether it's pesticides in your cereal or the door plug flying off your airplane, consumers today have plenty of reasons to feel like corporations might not have their best interests at heart. At a moment when the number of product recalls is high and trust in the government is low, we're going to revisit a time when a generation of people felt empowered to demand accountability from both companies and elected leaders — and got results. Today on the show, the story of the U.S. consumer movement ...
Our dreams can haunt us. But what are we to make of them? From omens and art to modern science, we tell the story of dreams and the surprising role they may play in our lives. (Originally ran as The Way We Dream) To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline . Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Defeating old age? In 1899, Elie Metchnikoff woke up in Paris to learn he had done just that. At least, that's what the newspaper headlines said. Before long he was inundated with mail from people begging him to help them live forever. The only problem? He didn't know how to do it. At the time, Metchnikoff was one of the world's most famous scientists. And he believed aging was a disease he could cure. He dedicated his life to that quest, spending his days interviewing centenarians, pulling gray...
How did love – this thing that's supposed to be beautiful, magical, transformative – turn into a neverending slog? We went searching for answers, and we found them in surprising places. On today's show: a time-hopping, philosophical journey into the origins of modern love. (This episode first ran as Love, Throughline) To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline. Learn more about sponsor message choic...
In the Xinjiang region of western China, the government has rounded up and detained hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic groups. Many haven't been heard from in years, and more still are desperately searching for their families. Western governments have called this crackdown a cultural genocide and a possible crime against humanity. In this episode, the first of a three-part series from Embedded, NPR correspondent Emily Feng tells the story of one of those people. For years, ...
"History" can seem big and imposing. But it's always intensely personal – it's all of our individual experiences that add up to historical events. Over the next few episodes, we're exploring the personal and how it's changed history: from the story of romantic love, to the man who tried to cure aging, to the contents of our dreams... First up, memory and our sense of smell. What if we told you that the key to time travel has been right in front of our eyes this whole time? Well, it has: it's in ...
Throughline associate producer Anya Steinberg talks to supervising senior editor Julie Caine about her reporting trip to Owens Valley in northeastern California for the episode, "Water in the West," about the creation of—and controversy over—the Los Angeles aqueduct. This normally would be a bonus episode just for Throughline+ listeners. With this being the season of giving, we're sharing this one with everyone! To access all of Throughline's bonus episodes, listen to every episode sponsor-free,...
Christmas wasn't always a national shopping spree — or even a day off work. But in 19th-century London, it went viral. When Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol, the book's tale of miserly Scrooge and the ghosts that transformed him transformed the holiday too, especially in the U.S. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
The U.S. has long professed to be a country where people can seek refuge. That's the promise etched into the base of the Statue of Liberty. But it's never been that clear-cut. Today on the show, the story of how the U.S. asylum system was forged in response to moments of crisis, and where it left gaps: from Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust, to Cuban and Haitian asylum seekers during the Cold War, to the precarious system of today. To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-f...
By the time his book went to press in London, on November 18, 1633, Thomas Morton had been exiled from the Puritan colonies in Massachusetts. His crimes: drinking, carousing, and — crucially — building social and economic ties with Native people. His book outlined a vision for what America could become. A very different vision than that of the Puritans. But the book wouldn't be published that day. It wouldn't be published for years. Because agents for the Puritan colonists stormed the press and ...
The Thanksgiving story most of us hear is about friendship and unity. And that's what Sarah Josepha Hale had on her mind when she sat down to write a letter to President Lincoln in 1863, deep into the Civil War. Hale had already spent years campaigning for a national day of thanksgiving, using her platform as editor of one the country's most widely-read magazines and writing elected officials to argue that Americans urgently needed a national story. But she'd gotten nowhere – until now. Five day...
Today on the show, we're taking you behind the scenes. We'll tell you how Throughline was born, some of what goes into making our episodes, and a little bit about how we make our special sauce — the Throughline rizz, as the kids say. If you want more of these behind-the-scenes conversations become a Throughline+ subscriber. You can find out more at plus.npr.org/throughline. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
