Throughline
Throughline is a time machine. Each episode, we travel beyond the headlines to answer the question, "How did we get here?" We use sound and stories to bring history to life and put you into the middle of it. From ancient civilizations to forgotten figures, we take you directly to the moments that shaped our world. Throughline is hosted by Peabody Award-winning journalists Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei. Subscribe to Throughline+. You'll be supporting the history-reframing, perspective-shifting, time-warping stories you can't get enough of - and you'll unlock access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org/throughline
Episodes
July 3, 2025 • 51 mins
Captain America: an all-American superhero. Clad in red, white, and blue, he carries only a shield. And he fights only when he must. When it's right.
But what happens when what's right isn't so clear? And how does a comic book hero designed to represent America's values survive in a changing world?
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But what happens when what's right isn't so clear? And how does a comic book hero designed to represent America's values survive in a changing world?
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June 29, 2025 • 45 mins
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 coverage into the origins of the conflict in the Middle East here.
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This episode originally ran as Soleimani's Iran. You can find more of Throughline's coverage into the origins of the conflict in the Middle East here.
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June 28, 2025 • 46 mins
Military confrontations, early-morning attacks, and digital warfare: the story of Iran and the U.S. from the 1979 Iranian revolution to the fraught moment we're in today.
This episode originally ran as Rules of Engagement. You can find more of Throughline's coverage into the origins of the conflict in the Middle East here.
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This episode originally ran as Rules of Engagement. You can find more of Throughline's coverage into the origins of the conflict in the Middle East here.
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June 26, 2025 • 48 mins
The Supreme Court is issuing its final decisions of the term this month. But it's been extraordinarily active since January, in part because the Trump administration has submitted over a dozen emergency applications asking the court to rule quickly on controversial issues. Those cases are part of what's known as the court's "shadow docket." And increasingly, it's affecting all of our lives. This episode originally published in 2023...
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June 24, 2025 • 36 mins
The U.S. and Iran have had a tense relationship for decades — but when did that begin? This week, we feature our very first episode about an event from August 1953 — when the CIA helped to overthrow Iran's prime minister.
This episode originally ran as Four Days in August.
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This episode originally ran as Four Days in August.
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June 19, 2025 • 51 mins
Abortion wasn't always controversial. In fact, in colonial America it would have been considered a fairly common practice: a private decision made by women, and aided mostly by midwives. But in the mid-1800s, a small group of physicians set out to change that. Obstetrics was a new field, and they wanted it to be their domain—meaning, the domain of men and medicine. Led by a zealous young doctor named Horatio Storer, they launched a...
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June 12, 2025 • 48 mins
Whose job is it to educate Americans? Congress created the first Department of Education just after the Civil War as a way to help reunify a broken country. A year later, it was basically shut down. But the story of that first department's birth – and death – set the stage for everything that's come since.
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To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at pl...
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June 5, 2025 • 48 mins
From Social Security and the minimum wage to exit signs and fire escapes, Frances Perkins transformed how people in the U.S. lived and worked. Today on the show: how a middle class do-gooder became one of the savviest and most powerful people in American politics — and built the social safety net we have today.
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May 29, 2025 • 48 mins
The Fourth Amendment is the part of the Bill of Rights that prohibits "unreasonable searches and seizures." But — what's unreasonable? That question has fueled a century's worth of court rulings that have dramatically expanded the power of individual police officers in the U.S. Today on the show, how an amendment that was supposed to limit government power has ended up enabling it. This episode originally published in 2024.
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May 22, 2025 • 51 mins
On today's episode, we travel from the battlefields of the U.S. Civil War, through the rubble of two world wars, to the hallways of the Hague, to see how the modern world has tried to define — and prosecute — war crimes. This episode originally aired at "The Rules of War" in 2024.
To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline.<...
To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline.<...
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May 15, 2025 • 51 mins
Gangsters, banksters, and politicians. Today on the show, how the hunt for Al Capone helped turn the IRS into one of the U.S. government's most powerful tools — and most effective weapons.
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May 8, 2025 • 51 mins
The story of the Los Angeles police chief who, faced with one of the largest internal migrations in American history, tried to close California's borders to stop it.
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May 1, 2025 • 50 mins
Baby bonuses, childless cat ladies: the rhetoric around motherhood is politically charged right now. And the fantasy of an ideal mother remains powerful, even as real-life parents struggle to reconcile its demands. Today on the show, three myths of motherhood, and the people who have fought to break them down. This episode originally ran in 2023 as The Labor of Love.
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April 24, 2025 • 49 mins
When James Garfield won the Presidency in 1880, Charles Guiteau got ready to accept his new government job. No one had actually offered him a job – but he'd campaigned for Garfield, so he assumed he'd be rewarded. That was the spoils system, and it was how the government worked.
But President Garfield didn't hire him. Guiteau was furious. And on July 2, 1881, he followed Garfield to a Washington D.C. train station and shot...
But President Garfield didn't hire him. Guiteau was furious. And on July 2, 1881, he followed Garfield to a Washington D.C. train station and shot...
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April 17, 2025 • 49 mins
In March 2025, President Trump issued an executive order invoking a centuries-old law: the Alien Enemies Act. The Act allows a president to detain or deport citizens of foreign adversaries to the United States, but only in the case of a "declared war" or "invasion." Now, the Trump administration and the courts are locked in a battle over whether the president's use of the Act, under which people have already been deported, is legal...
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April 10, 2025 • 49 mins
Climate disaster, political unrest, random violence: Western society can often feel like what the filmmaker Werner Herzog calls "a thin layer of ice on top of an ocean of chaos and darkness." But is that actually true — or the way it has to be? Today on the show, what really happens when things fall apart. This episode originally published in 2023.
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April 3, 2025 • 49 mins
Want to get rich quick? You're not alone. Right now, Americans spend over $100 billion, yes billion, every year on lottery tickets. Today on the show, in collaboration with Scratch and Win from WGBH, how the mafia, Sputnik, medical equipment, and the electoral college led to American's obsession with playing the numbers.
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March 27, 2025 • 48 mins
The Fifth Amendment. You have the right to remain silent when you're being questioned in police custody, thanks to the Fifth's protection against self-incrimination. But most people end up talking to police anyway. Why? Today on Throughline's We the People: the Fifth Amendment, the right to remain silent, and how hard it can be to use it.
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March 20, 2025 • 48 mins
Big Bird, politics, and the ABCs: how a television show made to represent New York City neighborhoods like Harlem and the Bronx became beloved by families around a divided country. This episode originally ran in 2022 as "Getting to Sesame Street."
To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline.
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March 13, 2025 • 51 mins
Dinosaurs, Carl Sagan, and nuclear war. There was a moment in the not-so-distant past when we learned what drove the dinosaurs extinct — and that discovery, made during the Cold War, may have helped save humans from the same fate. In this episode, we'll take a journey from prehistoric times to the nuclear age and explore how humans contend with fears of the end.
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