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Throughline
Throughline
NPR

Throughline is a time machine. Each episode, we travel beyond the headlines to answer the question, "How did we get here?" We... more

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Episodes

Abortion Before Roe

Abortion wasn't always controversial. In fact, in colonial America it would have been considered a fairly common practice: a private... more

19 Jun 2025 · 52 minutes
The First Department of Education

Whose job is it to educate Americans? Congress created the first Department of Education just after the Civil War as... more

12 Jun 2025 · 48 minutes
The Woman Behind The New Deal

From Social Security and the minimum wage to exit signs and fire escapes, Frances Perkins transformed how people in the... more

05 Jun 2025 · 48 minutes
We the People: Search and Seizure

The Fourth Amendment is the part of the Bill of Rights that prohibits "unreasonable searches and seizures." But — what's... more

29 May 2025 · 48 minutes
War Crimes

On today's episode, we travel from the battlefields of the U.S. Civil War, through the rubble of two world wars,... more

22 May 2025 · 51 minutes
The Tax Collector

Gangsters, banksters, and politicians. Today on the show, how the hunt for Al Capone helped turn the IRS into one... more

15 May 2025 · 51 minutes
California's 'Bum Blockade'

The story of the Los Angeles police chief who, faced with one of the largest internal migrations in American history,... more

08 May 2025 · 51 minutes
Motherhood

Baby bonuses, childless cat ladies: the rhetoric around motherhood is politically charged right now. And the fantasy of an ideal... more

01 May 2025 · 50 minutes
The Deadly Story of the U.S. Civil Service

When James Garfield won the Presidency in 1880, Charles Guiteau got ready to accept his new government job. No one... more

24 Apr 2025 · 49 minutes
The Alien Enemies Act

In March 2025, President Trump issued an executive order invoking a centuries-old law: the Alien Enemies Act. The Act allows... more

17 Apr 2025 · 49 minutes
Throughline
Abortion Before Roe
Throughline