Listener Mail: Worship vs. Belief, Guardrails...

Numbers stations' are hard-core spy stuff, dating all the way back to the first World War. The gist: you can create a radio station that broadcasts encoded messages to assets. Anyone can tune in and hear the full audio -- yet only listeners with a specific, disposable guide can d ...  Show more

At some point in their lives, most U.S. residents have at least daydreamed of moving to another country. And it seems that every time one politician or another wins an election, some group of Americans says they're finally going to take the leap. With growing chaos at home and ab ...  Show more

As seems to be the case with most of the countries that the United States goes to war with—much of the population here doesn't know very much about those countries. And what they do know is usually Western propaganda, misinformation, or outright lies. This couldn't be more tru ...

The Iran-Iraq war, 9/11, and the story of Iranian Revolutionary Guard general Qassem Soleimani, from his rise to power, to his assassination, by the U.S., to the power his legacy wields now.This episode originally ran as Soleimani's Iran. You can find more of Throughline's covera ...  Show more

From the Iranian Revolution to the invasion of Afghanistan, events in 1979 turned the tides on decades of liberalisation across the Middle East. Kim Ghattas, journalist and author of Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and ...  Show more

Fareed Zakaria hosts a detailed special tracing the historical conflict between the United States and Iran, starting with a dramatization of a B-2 bomber strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. The narrative revisits the pivotal 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, emphasizing its roots in ...  Show more