The Lavender Scare

James Baldwin believed that America has been lying to itself since its founding. A sharp, funny, and insightful commentator on Black identity and American democracy, he never hesitated to bear witness, regardless of what it cost him. We speak with writer and professor Eddie S. Gl ...  Show more

The key to good communication is in the delivery – literally. This week on America in Pursuit, how the creation of the U.S. postal service transformed our political culture and helped start a revolution, one letter at a time. To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline spo ...  Show more

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country to legalise gay marriage. Four couples were chosen to take part in a collective wedding at midnight which was broadcast on TV. Hé ...  Show more

In the 1990s, doctors in Berlin began a cutting-edge treatment programme that led to a patient being cured of HIV/AIDS. The so-called "Berlin patient" was Timothy Ray Brown: he was suffering from leukemia as well as HIV/AIDS, and was given a bone marrow transplant from a donor ...

In January 1978 a London newspaper revealed how several British lesbians had conceived babies using donor sperm with the help of a respected gynaecologist. The doctor hadn’t broken any laws in providing the fertility treatment but the stigma surrounding homosexuality at the time ...  Show more

Once upon a time, it was illegal—criminal—to be another other than heterosexual...any hint that you may be something other than straight could get you into all sorts of trouble—and career suicide was the least of your worries... In 1895, the famous English playwright, Oscar Wilde ...  Show more