Not Past It

When international Jazz Age icon Josephine Baker walked into New York’s most exclusive nightclub 71 years ago this week, a brief interaction changed her career and life forever. What followed took Josephine should be from headlining New York’s top musical theaters to headlining the country’s juiciest gossip columns. Her mistake? Expecting service at a restaurant. Learn more about your ad choices....

Lizzie Borden took an ax. Gave her mother 40 whacks. The legend of Lizzie Borden is infamous. One of the earliest true crime sensations in America. And 130 years later, the woman accused of hacking her parents to death with a hatchet still captures the public’s imagination. We would know — we visited the house where the murders took place, and spent the night hunting ghosts of yore. Little did we...

This week we’re lending the feed to one of our favorite podcasts… Heavyweight! Ken Carter was a Canadian daredevil who dreamt of performing the biggest stunt the world had ever seen. He wanted to jump a rocket car one mile over a river. For 5 years he prepared, only to have his dream hijacked at the very last moment by the very last person he ever expected. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

In September of 1907, the “tiny waist craze” swept up the women of London. They achieved the look by squeezing themselves into tightly laced corsets -- and deforming their bodies in the process. Women’s undergarments have evolved over the last century, but remain confining. Comedian Aparna Nancherla joins us as we trace this evolution and its surprising ties to American politics. Learn more about...

On September 22nd 1989, ABC launched their now iconic TGIF lineup. So today on the show, three essays, from three different people, about why millions of Americans tuned in every Friday night to watch two hours of families getting into shenanigans and having resolvable conflict. Turns out, sitcoms can teach us quite a bit about history, about our families and about ourselves. Learn more about your...

On September 13, 1963, Mary Kay Ash launched what would become a beauty empire. She wasn’t just selling makeup. She was selling a dream: Women could have a flexible career and still make time for a family. Mary Kay recruited hundreds of thousands of women from around the world to become sales reps. And her company grew into a multi-billion dollar, global phenomenon. Did Mary Kay give women the rei...

38 years ago, Alex Trebek stepped onto the set of Jeopardy and changed the world of trivia with one Canadian mustache. This week, Not Past It carries on the game show torch in a trivia showdown, featuring our inaugural contestants: Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber, hosts of the podcast Who? Weekly. Play along at home and see how you stack up! Check out Bobby and Lindsey on our previous episode "The...

180 years ago this week, China and Great Britain came to an agreement that would forever change Martin Scorsese’s IMDB page. On this episode of Not Past It, Vox film critic and culture reporter, Alissa Wilkinson joins us as we follow the smokey trail of the Opium Wars to Hong Kong’s most famous cinematic export, and land on a very special night in 2007. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podc...

Cowabunga dudes! Surfing may be the crown jewel of California beach life, but back in the day the ultimate wave-riding destination in San Diego County was also a key military outpost. Fights broke out between surfers and Marines throughout the 50s and 60s. That is until August 25, 1970, when a Tricky Dick got political with a small group of surfers...and eventually changed the beach forever. Learn...

You may have heard about the Elon Musk’s months-long saga to takeover Twitter. It’s been in the news a lot lately. But in August of 1988 -- another Wall Street showdown got its start. Arguably the nastiest takeover battle in Wall Street history. It brought 1980s ‘greed is good’ culture to new heights, Mean Girls levels of backstabbing to Wall Street, and created a playbook for the Elons of today L...

This week we're bringing you an episode from our friends at, Every Little Thing. They explore how one style of cheerleading came to dominate in so many American schools? In part one of a two-part episode, ELT flips through the history of cheerleading and meets the man who held cheerleading in the pompom of his hand.  Check out part two: Behind the Pom Poms: Cheerleading's Checkered Past (Part 2) L...

On August 2nd 1937, Congress passed a nation-wide tax making cannabis so expensive it was virtually illegal. Around the same time, weed was thought to be the root of violent crimes. While the science was non-existent...there was racist propaganda. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On July 25th, 1978, Louise Brown came into the world as the first baby born through in vitro fertilization, or IVF. Nothing like it had been done before, and people were afraid scientists were playing God. In this episode, we’ll hear about the fight against IVF and how the procedure eventually became normalized. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the summer of 1952, America’s mental hospitals were bursting at the seams. There were too many patients and too few treatments. One state took a novel approach -- mass lobotomies. The plan, pioneered by West Virginia, became known as Operation Ice Pick. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On July 13th, 1985, satellites zipped around our planet broadcasting a 16-hour, bi-continental mega-concert: Live Aid. Two stages, dozens of the biggest stars and one mission: feed famine victims in Ethiopia. The music would rock the globe and open wallets. It also painted a flat image of a starving nation — an image with us to this day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/a...

In the summer of 1973, Playgirl Magazine printed its first photos of full frontal male nudity. In a bold acknowledgment of female sexuality, the revolutionary magazine offered male nudity to straight women for almost half a century. Today, we are flipping through Playgirl’s fabled pages and examining just what it was about “The Magazine for Women,” that made it such a surprisingly...hard (we had t...

On June 24th, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The court ruled that the right to an abortion does not exist in the Constitution, effectively overturning 1973’s Roe v. Wade decision.  So we're bringing back an episode we aired earlier this year about one fearless woman, Mary Calderone, who assembled a group of doctors, public he...

In this episode, Simone and producer Remoy Philip venture out into the streets of NYC in search of different Black and brown queer historical sites. By train, foot and ferry they travel the boroughs and explore queer histories--some hidden in plain sight. And along the way, they begin to see and hear the past washing into the present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adch...

Buffalos, horses, wagons and trains: These are all icons of the U.S. expansion west. But a camel? This Pride Month, Simone tells comedian and culture writer Ashley Ray the story of the U.S. Army’s little-known Camel Corps and reveals its surprising link to the creation of a queer city. Show notes: Shout out to Jon Ponder from the West Hollywood History Center. His work helped us put this very spec...

Did you ever hear the one about the drag kings? Well, here's your chance. We are digging in the Not Past It, crates to bring you the story of Mo B Dick and the lesser known gender bending performance art surged at Club Cassanova in the 90's. But on December 28, 1997, Club Casanova, home of the drag king show was forced to shut down. Mayor Rudy Giuliani, invoked the Cabaret Law from Prohibition Era...

This week we revisit one of our most poignant episodes. Did you know there was almost an AIDS vaccine? On June 3, 1998: AIDSVAX VAX004 reached the final stage of trials before widespread approval. Simone gets the facts on the vax and why it never made it to the masses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On May 25th, 1925, 97 years ago this week, the state of Tennessee indicted a science teacher for teaching evolution. The case against John Scopes became known as Scopes the “monkey trial,” and it got the whole country talking. What should be taught to children and what does that say about who we are as nation? Scholars say this trial drove a wedge between Americans -- a wedge that stands to this d...

On June 2nd, 2021, we dropped our first episode. HBD to we! 🥳 🎂🎈 To celebrate, we’re looking back at some of Simone’s favorite shows, playing some never-before-aired tape and diving into the lessons she’s learned trying to make sense of history’s tangled web. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ever wondered… how do you kidnap a middle-aged Nazi in Argentina, and transport him across the world with no one knowing? Well, this is what secret agents were wondering when they captured Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann in Argentina on May 11th, 1960. It’d take a hell of a lot of Bond-like international spy-craft to pull it off. But they’d still be left with questions. If you missed the the ju...

What comes to mind when we say “Cinco de Mayo?” Cheesy beer ads? Themed nights at the local bar? Well, in this episode, we smash through 160 years of history, tracing El Cinco from the Battle of Puebla on May 5th 1862, to the holiday’s commercial takeover in the 1980s. Plus, we explore the surprising origins of this holiday, that’s a lot more American than you may think. Learn more about your ad c...