Retropod

It doesn't seem like a big deal today, but 1930s America lived in fear of the male nipple.

John Calhoun’s rodent experiments revolutionized the way we think about social behavior and the impact of growing populations.

Nancy Grace Roman was one of NASA’s first female astronomers and was a key figure in the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope.

At 112-years-old, Richard Overton was the oldest living World War II veteran.

Throughout American history, speakers of the House have pounded their gavels so hard in search of order that they wind up smashing the gavel itself into smithereens.

Dorothy Kenyon was an early leader in the legal fight for women's rights.

We're taking a little break over the holidays to look back on some of the best Retropod episodes from 2018. Today, we look back on the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

We're taking a little break over the holidays to look back on some of the best Retropod episodes from 2018. Today, an episode co-hosted by Madeline Daly, who won our Retropod trivia contest at the 2018 National Book Festival.

We're taking a little break over the holidays to look back on some of the best Retropod episodes from 2018. Today, our episode marking the date Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, 50 years ago this April.

We're taking a little break over the holidays to look back on some of the best Retropod episodes from 2018. Today, doughnuts. They aren’t just delicious. They also helped America win a war.

We're taking a little break over the holidays to look back on some of the best Retropod episodes from 2018. Today, Ida B. Wells, who was an investigative journalist, an anti-lynching activist, a suffragette and a teacher.

We're taking a little break over the holidays to look back on some of the best Retropod episodes from 2018. Today, the story of Caroll Spinney and his iconic character Big Bird.

In the 1950s, a child trying to call Santa Claus accidentally called NORAD and changed Christmas Eve forever.

During the first Christmas of World War I, a miracle took place all along the Europe’s Western Front.

A new punctuation mark called the interrobang found its way onto some typewriters in the 1960s, but it never caught on.

In 1875, Ulysses S. Grant hired a special prosecutor to investigate the Whiskey Ring scandal. Furious with his findings, Grant had him fired.

Before 1913, the presidential press conference didn’t exist. But a president who liked reporters changed that.

After being fired from his job for being gay, Frank Kameny took his battle for equality to the nation’s highest court.

After receiving complaints about carriages driving too fast, Washington D.C. policeman William H. West arrested a presidential speed demon.

In 1859, the House went to war over Rep. John Sherman’s bid for leadership.

In Houston, Ray Hill was a colossal character. He even adopted "citizen provocateur" as a formal title.

Fritz Kuhn was the leader of the pro-Nazi group known as the German American Bund. He was a hero to his audience, and a scourge on the world to most others.

Weeks before Thanksgiving, 1959, cranberries were declared unsafe to eat. The race was on to save America’s favorite holiday side dish.

Toys R Us founder Charles Lazarus had no idea how big the toy industry would become.

Augustus Tolton’s miraculous life took him from slavery to the brink of sainthood.