This Day (An America 250 History Show)

This week on "50 Weeks That Shaped America," we're headed to January 1920 and the first night of Prohibition. Hide your booze! Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss the long road to prohibition, going back decades, and the political forces that led to the ban of alcohol. Join our America250 newsletter community ! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Pay...

For our "Sunday Context" series, we build on this past week's coversation about the bicentennial to point out how this year's America 250 project is coming together. We look at some of the key figures in Trump world who are organizing the festivities; and the overall vision of American history laid out by those planning America's 250th birthday. Join our America250 newsletter community ! Subscribe...

In part two of our look at the bicentennial, Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss how the festivities played out, and how Philadelphia ended up becoming the center of the action, depsite (or because of) their corrupt mayor Frank Rizzo. Join our America250 newsletter community ! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early...

It's Week 1 of "50 Weeks That Shaped America," and we're headed to 1976 to look at how America's last big birthday came together. In part one, Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss how the country was in a deep malaise headed into the bicentennial, and the shambolic planning of the festivities reflected the larger distrust and dysfunction of government. Join our America250 newsletter community ! Subscrib...

2026 is here! As is America250. On Tuesday, we're launching our 50 Weeks That Shaped America series, but today we get together to ring in the new year with a few "predictions and provocation." Note: The full version of this episode, with video, is available for paying subscribers to our newsletter . Our America250 series will always be free in the regular podcast feed, but throughout the year we w...

We're bringing you some of our favorite episodes of 2025 while we get a holiday break -- and prepare for our big America250 series. See you in 2026! It's March 23rd. This day in 1775, Patrick Henry of Virginia gave a speech in which he (maybe) uttered one of the more famous phrases in American political history. Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss how Henry came to give such a fiery speech, the reactio...

We're bringing you some of our favorite episodes of 2025 while we get a holiday break -- and prepare for our big America250 series. See you in 2026! It's June 24th. In 2003, Jimmy Wales, the owner of Wikipedia, made the decision to put the site under the ownership of a non-profit company. Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss why this decision made a huge difference for the site, and reflected a lot of t...

We're bringing you some of our favorite episodes of 2025 while we get a holiday break -- and prepare for our big America250 series. See you in 2026! It's March 25th. This day in 1980, a church in Tucson announces that it will provide sanctuary to immigrants -- in open defiance of US law. Jody, NIki, and Kellie discuss the roots of the church sanctuary movement, the conviction of eight leaders incl...

We're bringing you some of our favorite episodes of 2025 while we get a holiday break -- and prepare for our big America250 series. See you in 2026! It's March 27th. This day in 1976, Schoolhouse Rock premieres the song "I'm Just A Bill," an animated look at the process by which legislation gets passed -- or languishes in the halls of Congress. Jody, Niki, and Kellie talk about how the song came t...

We're bringing you some of our favorite episodes of 2025 while we get a holiday break -- and prepare for our big America250 series. See you in 2026! It's April 3rd. In 2015, Starbucks announces that it is bringing its "Race Together" initiative to a close, after it was relentlessly mocked and critced online and in stores. Jody, Niki, and Kellie look back at the very-Obama-era effort by the coffee...

It's December 17th. This day in 1947, the US and UK film industries are in a trade war -- a couple years after the two countries fought together in an actual war. Jody, NIki, and Kellie talk about the year-long battle over taking the film industries, how Britain tried to protect its domestic industry from US dominance -- and the various ripple effects for the cultural dominance of the two countrie...

It's December 15th. This winter, 1971, the first season of "All In The Family" is coming to a close, and it's already the biggest show in America. It's a total sensation, in part because of its willingness to dive into the cultural and political battles of the age. Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by Oscar Winberg to discuss the way All In The Family captured a fractured country, and in particula...

It's December 11th. This day in 1971, Representative Charles C Diggs of Michigan resigned from a UN delegation in order to protest the US stance towards South Africa's apartheid regime. Jody, NIki, and Kellie are joined by Dr. Marion Orr of Brown University to discuss Diggs's decades-long fight to oppose apartheid, and his long tenure in Congress, where he built bridges and worked the halls of pow...

It's December 8th. This day in 1952, the New York Daily News runs a feature on Christine Jorgensen headlined "Ex-GI Becomes Blond Beauty."  Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss the life and legacy of Christine Jorgensen, who became the first transgender celebrity -- and how her story reflected sexual and cultural norms of the era. Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff w...

Welcome to Some Sunday Context, where we bring you new conversations and archival episodes to provide some context on the stories playing out in the news today. This week, we just wrapped up our two-part series on early vaccine skeptics from the 1890s through the 1920s. We discussed how a lot of the skepticism began to fade away in mid-century, in part because of the success of vaccines. Perhaps t...

It's December 1st. This week, a two-part look at the roots of vaccine skepticism and anti-vaccine activism in the United States. First we look at the early legal battles of the 1860s-1900s, then discuss how anti-vaccine activists found more purchase in the cultural and political spheres going into the first half of the 20th century. Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the...

It's December 1st. This week, a two-part look at the roots of vaccine skepticism and anti-vaccine activism in the United States. First we look at the early legal battles of the 1860s-1900s, then discuss how anti-vaccine activists found more purchase in the cultural and political spheres going into the first half of the 20th century. Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the...

This Thanksgiving Week, some episodes favorite about community, what binds us -- and food! It’s April 2nd. This day in 1910, a Louisiana senator proposes allocating a quarter of a million dollars to import hippos from Africa and grow them in American swamps, then harvest them for food. Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by Dan Pashman of The Sporkful to talk about how the hippo plan was intended to...

This Thanksgiving Week, some episodes favorite about community, what binds us -- and food! It’s May 2nd. In 1847, a US military ship, the USS Jamestown, was loaded up with food and other relief to sail to Ireland and help with the famine in that country. Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss how disparate communities in the US rallied around the cause, and how the Jamestown represented one of the first m...

The new Netflix series "Death By Lightning" focuses on the unexpected rise of James Garfield in the 1880 election, and his assassination by Charles Guiteau. It also features Nick Offerman as Chester Arthur, a product of machine politics who ends up as Garfield's VP and then as president. So, today, some Sunday context in the form of an episode we recorded a few years ago about Chester Arthur and h...

It's the last week in November -- on November 25th, 1783, British troops finally left New York City, which had suffered a brutal two years since the formal end of the Revolutionary War. Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss what life was like in the period when British troops were occupying the city, what Evacuation Day was actually like -- and why the commemoration of that day was eventually overshadowe...

It's November 18th. This day in 1805, explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark have returned back east to report on their trip to President Jefferson. It hasn't been very successful. Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss how their names faded into relative obscurity in the years after they returned, and how the myth of Lewis and Clark has been revived -- often to fit the myths of the era -- in the de...

Welcome to our Sunday Context series, where we try and bring you new conversations and episodes from the archives to give a little context for the news of the day. Today, a look at the very first one-cent coins, as the US minted the very last new penny. ..... It’s April 20th. This day in 1787, Congress authorized the production of the country’s first coin. Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss the “Fugio...

We continue with part two of our look at the birth of Sesame Street. Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss the show's premier, how it was received -- and what the program has meant to them over the years. Sign up for our America250 Watch newsletter, where you'll also get links and lots more historical tidbits. https://thisdaypod.substack.com/ Find out more about the show at thisdaypod.com This Day In Eso...

It's November 11th. This day in 1969, a new show for children is on the airwaves -- Sesame Street. Jody, Niki, and Kellie dive into a two-part look at the birth of this new show, from the big ideas about television and children's psychology, to the set design and use of puppets. Sign up for our America250 Watch newsletter, where you'll also get links and lots more historical tidbits. https://thisd...