Episodes

  • History of the Self: Love

    History of the Self: Love
    Dec 26 2024
    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)

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    53 mins
  • Embedded: The Black Gate

    Embedded: The Black Gate
    Dec 24 2024
    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, a Uyghur man named Abdullatif Kucar had no idea what has happened to his wife and young children after they were detained by Chinese authorities. Emilly follows Kucar as he desperately searches for his family.

    But this story is bigger than one family. In this series, Emily also travels across Asia and dives into decades of history to uncover the massive Chinese surveillance of Uyghurs, getting exclusive interviews with the people suffering from that surveillance and the people upholding it – who sometimes are one and the same.

    This episode was originally published in 2022. To hear the whole series, head to https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510311/embedded.

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    28 mins
  • History of the Self: Smell and Memory

    History of the Self: Smell and Memory
    Dec 19 2024
    "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 our noses. Today on the show, the science — and politics — of smell, and how it links our past and our present. (Originally ran as The Scent of History)

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    51 mins
  • Going to the Source of L.A.'s Water

    Going to the Source of L.A.'s Water
    Dec 16 2024
    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, and support public radio, sign up for Throughline+ at plus.npr.org/throughline

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    27 mins
  • When Christmas Went Viral

    When Christmas Went Viral
    Dec 12 2024
    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.

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    50 mins
  • Seeking Asylum in the U.S.

    Seeking Asylum in the U.S.
    Dec 5 2024
    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-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline.

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    53 mins
  • The Lord Of Misrule (Throwback)

    The Lord Of Misrule (Throwback)
    Nov 28 2024
    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 destroyed every copy.

    Today on the show, the story of what's widely considered America's first banned book, the radical vision it conjured, and the man who outlined that vision: Thomas Morton, the Lord of Misrule.

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    49 mins
  • The Mother of Thanksgiving

    The Mother of Thanksgiving
    Nov 21 2024
    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 days after reading her letter, Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday. At the time, no one was talking about Pilgrims and Native Americans. But that too would change.

    Today on the show: a Thanksgiving story you may not have heard, how it happened, and what it leaves out.

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    50 mins