The Steam Tunnel Incident and the D&D Panic (...

This week on "50 Weeks That Shaped America," we're headed to January 2002 and the first State of the Union speech after the 9-11 attacks. In it, George W Bush referred to Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as an "axis of evil," signalling that the response to 9-11 would be a much larger ...  Show more

For our "Sunday Context" series, we build on this past week's coversation about the Battle of New Orleans with a look at the largest slave rebellion in US history, led by Charles Deslondes, which took place just outside of New Orleans in 1811. Like the story of the War of 1812, t ...  Show more

The Epic of Gilgamesh is amazing. It is quite possibly the oldest epic we have, and though it only exists in fragments, it tells a surprisingly human story. There are questions of life and death, such as what it all means and why are we here? It delves into the issues of what it ...  Show more

An abbreviated history of Pocahontas and John Smith, this episode looks at the conflict largely from the Powhatan side. This isn't the Disney version. It is gritty, dark, violent, and, if Mattaponi oral history is to be trusted, fairly disturbing. Still, it tells the story of a c ...  Show more

Sometimes the most important things are things we don’t even want to think about let alone talk about.  The issue of handling and removing human waste and dirty water is one such problem that has confronted humans since the dawn of time.  The elimination of waste and excess water ...  Show more

You’re planning an afternoon with friends, just east of Atlanta, Georgia. A picnic, maybe a scenic walk, some fireworks as the sun goes down. You find a park that seems to have it all: Stone Mountain. Then you do some research on it—and learn that it holds significance for the Co ...  Show more