Episodes

  • The lightbulb conspiracy is both real and everywhere

    The lightbulb conspiracy is both real and everywhere
    Jul 30 2026
    Over the next few episodes, we present Hidden Histories: stories that will make you rethink how the world works. First up, the conspiracy behind the lightbulb—and how it came to shape the entire consumer economy. If you ever wondered why your tech outdates so quickly or just plain fails, you can thank the lightbulb. (This episode originally aired in 2019.)

    Guests:

    Sally Helm, former NPR Planet Money correspondent

    Markus Krajewski, author of The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy

    Giles Slade, author of Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America

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    32 mins
  • The license to be funny in America

    The license to be funny in America
    Jul 28 2026
    One of the most fundamental aspects of American democracy has been the public’s ability to critique power, whether that’s through protest, legislation, or a really funny joke. Today, we take a romp into the history of American comedy, showing no matter how crude, rude, or distasteful the humor may be, Americans have a constitutional right to stand up.
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    20 mins
  • The architect of modern China

    The architect of modern China
    Jul 23 2026
    From impoverishment to global superpower, China’s supremacy happened at a breakneck speed thanks to the visionary strategy of the man who took power in 1978. Over the next decade, under leader Deng Xiaoping’s firm leadership, China flirted with capitalism and transformed its socio-economic and political systems, effectively becoming the world’s factory.


    Guests:

    Kerry Brown, professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute at King's College London and author of several books, including Xi: A Study in Power

    Dan Wang, a writer specializing in contemporary China and author of Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future

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    38 mins
  • The Chinafication of Walmart

    The Chinafication of Walmart
    Jul 21 2026
    We think of Walmart as ultra-American, but its business relationship with China has fundamentally changed how American retail operates.

    In this episode, how one retailer helped turn China into the world’s factory, eventually becoming the single largest U.S. importer of Chinese consumer goods.

    Guest:

    Eileen Otis, Associate Professor of Sociology at Northeastern University and author of Walmart: Made in China

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    17 mins
  • Listen to "We Keep Us Safe" on NPR's Embedded podcast

    Listen to "We Keep Us Safe" on NPR's Embedded podcast
    Jul 19 2026
    In the summer of 2020, teenager Antonio Mays Jr. traveled a thousand miles to join a racial justice movement after the killing of George Floyd. Less than a week after he arrived in Seattle, he was shot and killed there. The case remains unsolved. In this eight-part series, hosts Sydney Brownstone of The Seattle Times and Will James of KUOW team up with NPR's Embedded to investigate Antonio's death, surfacing crucial evidence and eyewitness accounts.

    Find "We Keep Us Safe" in the Embedded podcast feed. Listen to Embedded wherever you get your podcasts, including the NPR App, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Spotify, and via RSS.

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    3 mins
  • Route 66 and the quest to connect America

    Route 66 and the quest to connect America
    Jul 16 2026
    Route 66 turns 100 this year. It's considered America’s most nostalgic road trip. With wide open road, sunsets that fill the whole sky, dirt-kissed Chevy trucks, and revving motorcycles. But Route 66 started out as a muddy road to nowhere. Today on the show, we’ll meet a league of gilded-age bicyclists, a ragtag gang of cross-country runners, and the very stubborn highway commissioner who turned it into the “Main Street of America.”

    Guests:

    Susan Croce Kelly, author of Father of Route 66 and Route 66: the Highway and its People

    CORRECTION: In a previous version of this episode, we incorrectly said the government ran out of funding for a road improvement project in the 1940s. That happened in the 1840s.

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    50 mins
  • How wheelchairs, a river, and a spaceship challenged the status quo

    How wheelchairs, a river, and a spaceship challenged the status quo
    Jul 14 2026
    Stories of resistance from three places: Denver, Colorado where the Gang of 19 put their bodies on the line for the right to use public transportation. Montgomery, Alabama, where a song quietly galvanized generations. And finally, on broadcast TV, where a 1966 prime-time show inspired Americans to dream bigger.

    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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    20 mins
  • The ongoing battle over asylum in America

    The ongoing battle over asylum in America
    Jul 9 2026
    The U.S. has long professed to be a country where people can seek refuge. That's the promise etched into the base of the Statue of Liberty. But it's never been that clear-cut. And in June, the Supreme Court passed two rulings that could make seeking safe haven in the U.S. even more difficult.

    Today on the show, the story of how the U.S. asylum system was forged in response to moments of crisis, and where it left gaps: from Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust, to Cuban and Haitian asylum seekers during the Cold War, to the precarious system of today.

    This episode originally aired in December 2024.

    Guests:

    Maria Cristina Garcia, Professor of History at Cornell University, studying immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers

    Ruth Wasem, former Immigration Policy Specialist at the U.S. Library of Congress' Congressional Research Service and author of the forthcoming book, The Struggle for Fairness: Forging the Immigration Act of 1965

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    54 mins