Olympics: Behind The Five Rings

From dating shows to police interrogation rooms, the polygraph test has long been marketed as a way to detect deception. But can it really? And who decided we needed a truth machine in the first place? In this episode, a Throughline listener sends us on a quest to uncover the sto ...  Show more

The Eighth Amendment. What is cruel and unusual punishment? Who gets to define and decide the amendment's boundaries? And how did the Constitution's authors imagine it might change? In this hour, the shifting definition of cruel and unusual punishment. This episode was originally ...  Show more

Thousands of years in the making, the Olympics began as part of a religious festival honoring the Greek god Zeus in the rural Greek town of Olympia. But how did it become the greatest show of sporting excellence on earth? Educator Armand D'Angour explains the evolution of the Oly ...  Show more

For nearly 12 centuries, the Ancient Greeks honoured their gods with one of the most famous sporting contests in the world: The Olympic Games. Athletes represented their city states to compete for the glory of the gods, knowing that winning or losing could change the course of th ...  Show more

In 1896 the Olympic Games were reborn in Athens. Here we look at the forgotten tales and little known facts from the start of the modern Olympics through to the outbreak of the Second World War. Tom tells us about the greatest race of all time, whilst Dominic reveals he is somew ...  Show more

The first Olympics took place in the sixth century in order to build diplomacy across the Greek world. Learn more about the history of the first Olympics in this HowStuffWorks.com podcast.