Retropod
Retropod is a show for history-lovers, featuring stories about the past, rediscovered. Host Mike Rosenwald introduces you to history’s most colorful characters - forgotten heroes, overlooked villains, dreamers, explorers, world changers.
Episodes
December 31, 2019 • 5 mins
On Christmas Eve in 1968, the Apollo 8 astronauts captured an image that symbolizes hope and inspired environmentalism.
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December 30, 2019 • 5 mins
On March 25, 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono were a few days into their marriage when they invited the press to join them at their honeymoon suite at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel.
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December 27, 2019 • 6 mins
Jazz singer Ethel Ennis’s voice wowed audiences and won praise from critics. But when she was faced with the opportunity to become a superstar, Ennis chose a different path.
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December 26, 2019 • 7 mins
The nurse who founded the American Red Cross had no formal training in medicine. She tended to countless wounded soldiers.
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December 25, 2019 • 6 mins
In the 1950s, a child trying to call Santa Claus accidentally called NORAD and changed Christmas Eve forever.
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December 23, 2019 • 6 mins
Toys R Us founder Charles Lazarus had no idea how big the toy industry would become.
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December 20, 2019 • 6 mins
After the Civil War, formerly enslaved people placed notices in black-owned newspapers across the country to find their loved ones.
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December 19, 2019 • 6 mins
A few days before his team took the field as huge underdogs in Super Bowl III, New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath made what was seen as an insane prediction at the time: "The Jets will win Sunday," he said. "I guarantee it."
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December 18, 2019 • 6 mins
In the 1950s, Charles Van Doren, a quiet professor in New York City, became wrapped up in one of the biggest television quiz show scandals in history.
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December 17, 2019 • 6 mins
While on a research trip to the Arctic in the early 20th century, scientist Clarence Birdseye — a name you might recognize from the frozen food aisle — made an observation that would go on to change the way we eat.
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December 16, 2019 • 7 mins
Disasters don’t just happen. Like anything in life, there’s usually a buildup. In the case of the Chernobyl disaster, the series of failures stretched back more than a decade. But what happened the day before the explosion?
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December 13, 2019 • 6 mins
Serving as special counsel is probably only the third hardest job Robert Mueller has held. His life in public service started when he just 23 years old, as a Marine lieutenant in the Vietnam War.
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December 12, 2019 • 7 mins
Growing up in Somalia, a country where stories are handed down through generations, one of the first tales that children are told is about an ancient queen who fought to give women power by castrating men.
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December 11, 2019 • 4 mins
During World War I, British nurse Flora Sandes put down her nurses bag to fight with the Serbian Army.
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December 10, 2019 • 6 mins
He thought being drafted into the National Football League was so unlikely that he signed with an African American league team. Then, the NFL called.
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December 9, 2019 • 5 mins
It doesn't seem like a big deal today, but 1930s America lived in fear of the male nipple.
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December 6, 2019 • 5 mins
Nine months before the Iran hostage crisis, Kenneth Kraus was held hostage in Iran for eight days.
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December 5, 2019 • 5 mins
Once upon a time, people walked between the U.S. and Canada over a frozen Niagara Falls. But one day, that all changed forever.
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December 4, 2019 • 5 mins
In 1983, Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Union’s Air Defense Forces, trusted his gut and averted a global nuclear catastrophe.
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December 3, 2019 • 6 mins
It is one of the worst expressions of racism in American history. And there’s no federal law to prevent it.
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