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Throughline

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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.

Subscribe to Throughline+. You'll be supporting the history-reframing, perspective-shifting, time-warping stories you can't get enough of - and you'll unlock access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org/throughline
321 Episodes
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What is it, why do we have it, and why hasn't it changed? Born from a rushed, fraught, imperfect process, the origins and evolution of the Electoral College might surprise you and make you think differently about not only this upcoming presidential election, but our democracy as a whole.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
A History of Settlements

A History of Settlements

2024-10-3157:427

The question of settlements has loomed over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades, and has only intensified in the past year. According to a UN report, since October 7, 2023, there has been a record surge in settlement activities and increased settler violence against Palestinians. Today on the show: how the settlement movement grew from a small religious mission to one of the central tenets of the current Israeli government. It's a story that intersects with other topics we've covered in our series relating to this conflict – the history of Hamas, the rise of the Israeli right wing, Hezbollah, and Zionism.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/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Today on the show, two stories of building power in swing states: from the top down, and the bottom up.First, how a future Supreme Court justice helped launch a program to challenge voters at the Arizona polls in the early 1960s, in a county that's become a hotbed for election conspiracies in the decades since. Then, how a 1973 labor strike led by Arab Americans in a Michigan factory town sparked a political movement that could play a major role in the 2024 election.This story is part of "We, The Voters," NPR's election series reported from the seven swing states that will most likely decide the 2024 election.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
How We Vote (Throwback)

How We Vote (Throwback)

2024-10-1757:542

Drunken brawls, coercion, and lace curtains: believe it or not, how regular people vote was not something the Founding Fathers thought much about. Americans went from casting votes at wild parties in the town square to doing so in private booths, behind a drawn curtain. In this episode, the process of voting: how it was designed, who it was meant for, and the moments when we reimagined it altogether.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
References to God and Christianity are sprinkled throughout American life. Our money has "In God We Trust" printed on it. Most presidents have chosen to swear their oath of office on the Bible.Christian nationalists want more.Christian nationalist beliefs are rooted in the idea that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, and that its laws should reflect certain Christian values. And versions of these beliefs are widely held by Americans of different ages, races, and backgrounds. In 2022, a Pew Research poll reported that 45 percent of Americans believe the country should be a Christian nation. More than half of those people said the Bible should influence U.S. laws. Today on the show: the complex relationship between Christianity and the U.S.Love Throughline? Please help us out by taking this quick survey! npr.org/throughlinesurveyTo 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/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
The Battle For Jerusalem

The Battle For Jerusalem

2024-10-0353:227

Today, the city of Jerusalem is seen as so important that people are willing to kill and die to control it. And that struggle goes back centuries. Nearly a thousand years ago, European Christians embarked on what became known as the First Crusade: an unprecedented, massive military campaign to take Jerusalem from Muslims and claim the holy city for themselves. They won a shocking victory – but it didn't last. A Muslim leader named Saladin raised an army to take the city back. What happened next was one of the most consequential battles of the Middle Ages: A battle that would forever change the course of relations between the Islamic and Christian worlds, Europe and The Middle East.In this episode, we travel back to the front lines of that battle to explore a simple question: What is Jerusalem worth?Love Throughline? Please help us out by taking this quick survey! npr.org/throughlinesurveyTo 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/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Hezbollah is a Lebanese paramilitary organization and political party that's directly supported by the Islamic Republic of Iran. In the wake of the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, and Israel's invasion of Gaza, there have been escalating attacks between Hezbollah and Israel across the border they share.Today on the show: a history of Hezbollah.This episode was published on 9/24/24. On 9/26/24, Israeli airstrikes killed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader. For breaking news, head to npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Climate change, 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." In the United States, polls indicate that many people believe that law and order is the only thing protecting us from the savagery of our neighbors, that the fundamental nature of humanity is competition and struggle. This idea is often called "veneer theory." But is this idea rooted in historical reality? Is this actually what happens when societies face disasters? Are we always on the cusp of brutality?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/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
The Conspiracy Files

The Conspiracy Files

2024-09-1258:218

9/11 was an inside job. Aliens have already made contact. COVID-19 was created in a lab.Maybe you rolled your eyes at some point while reading that list. Or maybe you paused on one and thought... well... it could be true.Since the first Americans started chatting online, conspiracy theories have become mainstream — and profitable. It's gotten harder to separate fact and fiction. But if we don't know who we can trust, how does a democracy survive?On today's episode, we travel the internet from UFOs, through 9/11, to COVID, to trace how we ended up in a world that can't be believed.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/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Airline workers — pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, baggage handlers, and more — represent a huge cross-section of the country. And for decades, they've used their unions to fight not just for better working conditions, but for civil rights, charting a course that leads right up to today. In this episode, we turn an eye to the sky to see how American unions took flight.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/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Water in the West

Water in the West

2024-08-2954:253

What does it mean to do the greatest good for the greatest number? When the Los Angeles Aqueduct opened in 1913, it rerouted the Owens River from its natural path through an Eastern California valley hundreds of miles south to LA, enabling a dusty town to grow into a global city. But of course, there was a price.Today on the show: Greed, glory, and obsession; what the water made possible, and at what cost.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
The Third Amendment. Maybe you've heard it as part of a punchline. It's the one about quartering troops — two words you probably haven't heard side by side since about the late 1700s.At first glance, it might not seem super relevant to modern life. But in fact, the U.S. government has gotten away with violating the Third Amendment several times since its ratification — and every time it's gone largely unnoticed.Today on Throughline's We the People: In a time of escalating political violence, police forces armed with military equipment, and more frequent and devastating natural disasters, why the Third Amendment deserves a closer look.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
The Fourteenth Amendment. Of all the amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the 14th is a big one. It's shaped all of our lives, whether we realize it or not: Roe v. Wade, Brown v. Board of Education, Bush v. Gore, plus other Supreme Court cases that legalized same-sex marriage, interracial marriage, access to birth control — they've all been built on the back of the 14th. The amendment was ratified after the Civil War, and it's packed full of lofty phrases like due process, equal protection, and liberty. But what do those words really guarantee us? Today on Throughline's We the People: How the 14th Amendment has remade America — and how America has remade the 14th (Originally ran as The Fourteenth Amendment).Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
The Sixth Amendment. Most of us take it for granted that if we're ever in court and we can't afford a lawyer, the court will provide one for us. And in fact, the right to an attorney is written into the Constitution's sixth amendment. But for most of U.S. history, it was more of a nice-to-have — something you got if you could, but that many people went without. Today, though, public defenders represent up to 80% of people charged with crimes. So what changed? Today on Throughline's We the People: How public defenders became the backbone of our criminal legal system, and what might need to change for them to truly serve everyone. (Originally ran as The Right to an Attorney).Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
In 1966, the governing body of the Olympic track and field event started mandatory examinations of all women athletes. These inspections would come to be known as "nude parades," and if you were a woman who refused the test, you couldn't compete.We're going back almost a century to the first time women were allowed to compete in Olympic track and field games, and to a time when a committee of entirely men decided who was a female and who wasn't.Today on the show, we bring you an episode from a new podcast from CBC and NPR's Embedded called Tested.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
The Second Amendment. In April 1938, an Oklahoma bank robber was arrested for carrying an unregistered sawed-off shotgun across state lines. The robber, Jack Miller, put forward a novel defense: that a law banning him from carrying that gun violated his Second Amendment rights. For most of U.S. history, the Second Amendment was one of the sleepier ones. It rarely showed up in court, and was almost never used to challenge laws. Jack Miller's case changed that. And it set off a chain of events that would fundamentally change how U.S. law deals with guns. Today on Throughline's We the People: How the second amendment came out of the shadows. (Originally ran as The Right to Bear Arms)Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
The First Amendment. Book bans, disinformation, the wild world of the internet. Free speech debates are all around us. What were the Founding Fathers thinking when they created the First Amendment, and how have the words they wrote in the 18th century been stretched and shaped to fit a world they never could have imagined? It's a story that travels through world wars and culture wars. Through the highest courts and the Ku Klux Klan. Today on Throughline's We the People: What exactly is free speech, and how has the answer to that question changed in the history of the U.S.? (Originally ran as The Freedom of Speech)Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
The Creeping Coup

The Creeping Coup

2024-07-1853:036

Sudan has been at the center of a deadly and brutal war for over a year. It's the site of the world's largest hunger crisis, and the world's largest displacement crisis.On the surface, it's a story about two warring generals vying for power – the latest in a long cycle of power struggles that have plagued Sudan for decades. But it's also a story about the U.S. war on terror, Russia's war in Ukraine, and China's global rise.Today on the show, we turn back the clock more than a century to untangle the complex web that put Sudan on the path to war.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
The United States is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, yet over 10 percent of people – nearly 40 million – live in poverty. It's something we see, say, if we live near a tent encampment. And it's also something we feel. More than a third of people in the U.S. say they're worried about being able to pay their rent or mortgage. Medical bills and layoffs can change a family's economic status almost overnight.These issues are on the minds of Democrats and Republicans, city-dwellers and rural households. And in an election year, they're likely to be a major factor when people cast their votes for President.In this episode, we talk with Pulitzer Prize-winning author and sociologist Matthew Desmond, whose book Poverty, By America, helps explain why poverty persists in the United States, how it's holding all of us back, and what it means to be a poverty abolitionist.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Birmingham, Alabama was one of the fiercest battlegrounds of the Civil Rights Movement. And in order to understand the struggle, you don't have to look any further than Rickwood Field, the oldest baseball stadium in the country. Over more than a century it's hosted Negro League baseball, a women's suffrage event, a Klan rally — and eventually, the first integrated sports team in Alabama.Today on the show, we're joined by host Roy Wood, Jr., to bring you the first episode of Road to Rickwood, an original series from WWNO, WRKF, and NPR telling the story of America's oldest ballpark.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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Comments (311)

ghyslain sabourin

skipping content. my download or is it at source?

Aug 8th
Reply (2)

Jessie Ross

I absolutely love how 'Throughline' dives deep into historical contexts to provide fresh perspectives on current events. The storytelling is both engaging and insightful, making complex historical events accessible and relevant. https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/roden-john

Aug 3rd
Reply

Mona Peterson

I absolutely love how Throughline dives deep into history to connect the dots to our present. The way the hosts present complex topics in such a compelling and engaging manner makes every episode a must-listen. https://www.spreaker.com/episode/eco-friendly-packaging-in-the-food-industry--60716022

Aug 1st
Reply

Adam Sean Boarman

Huey Long died 9/10/35, not 9/8/36, as stated in this story

Jul 23rd
Reply

Alanna Geare

Flagrantly biased. You didn’t speak to a single anti Zionist, or include the antisemitism that fueled European support of the Zionist project. Really embarrassing episode for y’all

Jul 9th
Reply

Annice Barber-petroff

I saved this when it came out, now this is my second listen. Thank you!

Jun 13th
Reply

Wissam NASRALLAH

Good attempt but lacks historical nuance and integrity. The intro fails to highlight the provocations and the role of the PLO in the start of the Lebanese civil war. Furthermore, the shows failed to mention that: - Hezbollah invaded Beirut on May 7, 2008 where weapons were turned inwards. - Hezbollah hampered the investigation into the Beirut Port Explosion

Mar 31st
Reply

Roxanne Weaver

I'm 9 minutes in and waiting for the actual episode to begin, while Throughline and Radiolab hosts gush on and on and on about how fantastic they all are. Couldn't they have done that before recording the episode...maybe just a quick 2 minute intro? I realize you're trying to share audiences with each other, but I think anyone that can skip over this drivel will, like I finally did at the 6 minute mark.

Mar 20th
Reply

Arpita Sen Gupta

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Feb 24th
Reply

Leah

That song is incredible

Feb 8th
Reply

Louis Macareo

This was nauseating.

Feb 6th
Reply

Habia Khet

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Feb 4th
Reply

Rob Kosman

editing is too tight, it sound like he is speaking paragraphs on one breath, really hard to listen to....

Oct 15th
Reply

Aakash Amanat

Throughline" is a concept that has been a fundamental component of storytelling and narrative structure for centuries. Whether you're an avid reader, a film enthusiast, or a writer yourself, understanding the throughline is crucial to creating and appreciating compelling narratives. https://www.fyple.co.uk/company/printing-mart-t76coh1/ In essence, the throughline represents the core thread or main storyline that runs through a story, connecting all the elements and events together. It's the spine of the narrative, the path that characters follow, and the central theme or message that the story conveys. A strong throughline is essential for engaging an audience and guiding them through the plot. https://www.mylocalservices.co.uk/Packaging+Mart-London-3211232.html

Sep 21st
Reply

Roberto Ocampo

Prob one of my fave pod episode all time.

Aug 5th
Reply

TH3N0RTHSID3

Great episode! The only thing I felt that you missed was covering the move to HBO. I would have been interested in learning thoughts from the original crew about that move and what consequences that has had for the show. Questions like "Did this move detract from the show's original mission?" would have been insightful.

Aug 4th
Reply

squogg

The lack of creativity used to make this episode engaging kinda made me laugh. This was more of a conversation than the usual Throughline-style episode where you're captivated by the topic by way of storytelling, sound design and production.

Jul 19th
Reply

squogg

Can't even begin to count how many times Molly Michelmore says, "Right?" She says it so much that Ramteen and Rund are doing it now too. So grating.

Apr 25th
Reply (1)

Ex muslim India

people feelings got hurt in smallest criticism or a cartoon about false prophet muhammad and it's hate manual quran(full of hatred towards non muslim, abuse cursus and threat non believers).. and they spread islamic terrorism , Our felings also got hurt, about Slaughtering of Cow. your victim card will not work.. your stupidity and hypocrisy will be openly exposed.. now we are agressive and assertive.. we will stand for us..we will snatch back our right.. and in-human crazy saitannic cult Islam will be shown it's right place gutter

Apr 6th
Reply

squogg

This made me want to go to a club and dance myself silly. I miss that feeling of letting go of everything and just dancing the night away. Clearly need to get back to it. Thanks for the reminder :)

Mar 11th
Reply
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