Sarah is a journalist obsessed with the past. Every week she reconsiders a person or event that's been miscast in the public imagination.
264 episodes transcribedSarah and Carmen complete their epic trilogy by meeting Rick Emerson on the edge of Mount Doom to discuss his book, Unmask Alice, and some of the stor...
This week we’re dishing up a mouthwatering feast of history, gossip, and white collar crime. Guest Sarah Archer tells the tale of Martha Stewart, a gi...
This week, Sarah tries to solve the mystery of the Dyatlov Pass Incident, in which nine experienced ski hikers fled their shelter and ran into the fri...
Where did all these prisons come from? WBEZ’s Shannon Heffernan is here to give us part of the answer, which involves “small government” (of course),...
This week we begin our journey into the totally true not at all made up diary that has been scaring America’s teens for fifty years. Digressions inclu...
We want to play a game. This week, Dana Schwartz stuffs us in an iron maiden and explains why the most famous Medieval torture devices are none of the...
How did the information superhighway get so gridlocked? Guest Anne Helen Petersen tells Sarah the story of how email took over the world and our worki...
What do Chopin, Kylie Jenner, baby carrots, and the War of the Worlds all have in common? They’re all part of Sarah and Chelsey Weber-Smith’s speedrun...
Laci Mosley (Scam Goddess) tells Sarah about Linda Taylor and the origins of the Welfare Queen myth ("the build the wall" of the 70s). They...
What if there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t one today. Josh Gondelman is here to laugh and cry with us, and to unpack the heaps of big feelings in Grou...
Josie Duffy Rice and Sarah discuss the role of junk science in the criminal justice system. It is a big turkey to carve up and Josie serves Sarah a bl...
In this final installment of the Amityville Horror Winter Book Club, Sarah tells guest host Jamie Loftus about Jodie the Demon Pig's scary hooves...
Willa Paskin (of Slate's Decoder Ring) brings Sarah back to 2005, when Tom Cruise jumping on a couch became the talk of the town. We will return...
Jessica Chastain and Sarah discuss Tammy Faye Bakker. Chastain is the star and a producer of the new film The Eyes of Tammy Faye. After Jessica and Sa...
Sarah continues telling guest host Jamie Loftus about the Amityville Horror, and the two touch on ghosts, fallen angels, poltergeists, the space race...
Sarah tells guest host Jamie Loftus about the Amityville Horror, how it’s a Christmas story, and why buying murder furniture might not be such a great...
Jamelle Bouie explains to Sarah what the Reconstruction era was, why it remains relevant today, and how this history lesson is one that could get some...
Emma Berquist stops by to tell us about how true crime doesn't have to make us better people, and in fact may be more harmful to us than we reali...
Special Guest Jamie Loftus tells Sarah about Ed and Lorraine Warren (of The Conjuring and Annabelle fame). Topics of interest include Connecticut as a...
Special guest Dana Schwartz tells Sarah about Catherine the Great. Topics of interest include the very not great life of serfs, the accidental flatten...
