Throughline is a time machine. Each episode, we travel beyond the headlines to answer the question, "How did we get here?" We use sound and stories to bring history to life and put you into the middle of it. From ancient civilizations to forgotten figures, we take you directly to the moments that shaped our world. Throughline is hosted by Peabody Award-winning journalists Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei.Subscribe to Throughline+. You'll be supporting the history-reframing, perspective-shifting, time-warping stories you can't get enough of - and you'll unlock access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org/throughline
354 episodes transcribedIn the mid-1980s, an OBGYN in Brazil noticed that far fewer pregnant women at his hospital were dying from abortion complications. It wasn't a coincid...
Act now to ensure public media remains free and accessible to all. Your donation will help this essential American service survive and thrive. Visit d...
Edward Said brought the question of Palestine into the American mainstream. He taught at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, and today, more than...
What's the role of government in society? What do we mean when we talk about individual responsibility? What makes us free? 'Neoliberalism' might feel...
Captain America: an all-American superhero. Clad in red, white, and blue, he carries only a shield. And he fights only when he must. When it's right.B...
The Iran-Iraq war, 9/11, and the story of Iranian Revolutionary Guard general Qassem Soleimani, from his rise to power, to his assassination, by the U...
Military confrontations, early-morning attacks, and digital warfare: the story of Iran and the U.S. from the 1979 Iranian revolution to the fraught mo...
The Supreme Court is issuing its final decisions of the term this month. But it's been extraordinarily active since January, in part because the Trump...
The U.S. and Iran have had a tense relationship for decades — but when did that begin? This week, we feature our very first episode about an event fro...
Abortion wasn't always controversial. In fact, in colonial America it would have been considered a fairly common practice: a private decision made by...
Whose job is it to educate Americans? Congress created the first Department of Education just after the Civil War as a way to help reunify a broken co...
From Social Security and the minimum wage to exit signs and fire escapes, Frances Perkins transformed how people in the U.S. lived and worked. Today o...
The Fourth Amendment is the part of the Bill of Rights that prohibits "unreasonable searches and seizures." But — what's unreasonable? That question h...
On today's episode, we travel from the battlefields of the U.S. Civil War, through the rubble of two world wars, to the hallways of the Hague, to see...
Gangsters, banksters, and politicians. Today on the show, how the hunt for Al Capone helped turn the IRS into one of the U.S. government's most powerf...
The story of the Los Angeles police chief who, faced with one of the largest internal migrations in American history, tried to close California's bord...
Baby bonuses, childless cat ladies: the rhetoric around motherhood is politically charged right now. And the fantasy of an ideal mother remains powerf...
When James Garfield won the Presidency in 1880, Charles Guiteau got ready to accept his new government job. No one had actually offered him a job – bu...
In March 2025, President Trump issued an executive order invoking a centuries-old law: the Alien Enemies Act. The Act allows a president to detain or...
Want to get rich quick? You're not alone. Right now, Americans spend over $100 billion, yes billion, every year on lottery tickets. Today on the show,...
