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    Documentary

    Throughline

    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 journalist Rund Abdelfatah.

    Support public media by joining NPR+ at plus.npr.org. You’ll get perks for over 25 NPR podcasts, including sponsor-free listening for Throughline.

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    Latest Episodes:
    The dramatic race to discover Insulin Oct 22, 2026
    Show notes

    Looksmaxxing, weight loss, and muscle building have fueled a massive craze for injectable peptides. Some natural and some synthetic. These injectables have unleashed a multi-billion-dollar gray-market industry online and a high-stakes frontier for the pharmaceutical industry.Today, we reach back to the quest to manufacture the first peptide-based medicine: Insulin.
    Guests:
    Alison Li, historian of science and medicine, author of J. B. Collip and the Development of Medical Research in Canada: Extracts and Enterprise
    Grant Maltman, curator of Banting House National Historic Site
    Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.
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    NPR Privacy Policy

    Can the polygraph test really spot a lie? Oct 20, 2026
    Show notes

    From dating shows to police interrogation rooms, the polygraph test has long been marketed as a way to detect deception. But can it really? And who decided we needed a truth machine in the first place? In this episode, a Throughline listener sends us on a quest to uncover the story of the lie detector.
    Guests:
    Ken Alder, professor of history at Northwestern University and author of The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession
    Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.
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    Is the death penalty cruel and unusual? Oct 15, 2026
    Show notes

    The Eighth Amendment. What is cruel and unusual punishment? Who gets to define and decide the amendment's boundaries? And how did the Constitution's authors imagine it might change? In this hour, the shifting definition of cruel and unusual punishment.
    This episode was originally published in January 2025.
    Guests:
    John Bessler, law professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, and adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. Author of The Death Penalty's Denial of Fundamental Human Rights.
    Carol Steiker, law professor at Harvard Law School and author of Courting Death: the Supreme Court and Capital Punishment.
    Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.
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    Why does everything get a standing ovation now? Oct 13, 2026
    Show notes

    Call it standing ovation inflation: these days, it feels like it's mandatory to stand and clap for live performances. Has our please clap era gone too far? That's what one Throughline listener wanted to know. So we traced the winding road from Shakespeare’s epilogues to Broadway divas to ridiculously long film festival ovations… and how they helped engineer the way we applaud.
    Guests:

    Roger Gilbert,     professor in the Department of Literatures in English at Cornell
    Kyle Buchanan, reporter and columnist for the New York Times
    Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.
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    Four Seasons of Ceasefire in Gaza Oct 08, 2026
    Show notes

    NPR’s Anas Baba is one of the last remaining journalists in Gaza working full-time for an American news organization. A year into the ceasefire, more than 1400 people have been killed in Israeli attacks, nearly 5,000 injured. And those numbers rise nearly every day. What has the last year looked and felt like on the ground? In this episode, Baba takes us through four seasons of ceasefire—as both a resident trying to survive and a reporter trying to document reality.
    Guests:
    Anas Baba, NPR Gaza reporter
    Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.
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    How To Avoid The End of the World Oct 01, 2026
    Show notes

    We live in a moment with almost daily reminders of how fragile life on Earth is whether it be from climate change, nuclear weapons or AI. In this episode, we bring you a story from the not-so-distant past when we learned what drove dinosaurs to extinction. And how it might have helped us avoid the same end. This episode was originally published in March 2025.
    Guests:
    David Sepkoski, Thomas M. Siebel Chair in History of Science at the University of Illinois and author of Catastrophic Thinking: Extinction and the Value of Diversity.
    Owen Brian Toon, professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.
    Alec Nevala-Lee, novelist, critic, and biographer and author of the forthcoming book Collisions: A Physicist's Journey from Hiroshima to the Death of the Dinosaurs.
    Ann Druyan, co-writer and co-creator of the television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.
    Andrew Revkin, science and environmental journalist.
    Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.
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    Forty years of what if Sep 29, 2026
    Show notes

    On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff. All seven astronauts onboard died. Brian Russell, an engineer who worked on the shuttle, had spent months warning NASA that freezing temperatures could cause a critical seal to fail. In this episode, Brian Russell takes us to the intense meeting where NASA had to decide whether to launch and the 40-year weight of a tragedy he tried to prevent.
    Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.
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    Democratic Socialism. Hope or Hopeless? Sep 24, 2026
    Show notes

    The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is having a big moment. Its candidates and its membership are both surging. Before Zohran Mamdani and AOC, there was its founder, Michael Harrington, a.k.a 'the man who discovered poverty.' In this episode, we dig into Harrington’s evolution from devout Catholic to revolutionary socialist to Democratic party loyalist, and ask: did his push to compromise delay the dream or pave the way for it?
    Guests:
    Maurice Isserman, Professor of History at Hamilton College
    and author of The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington.
    Doug Greene, author of A Failure of Vision: Michael Harrington and the Limits of Democratic Socialism.
    Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.
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    How two swing states changed American voting Sep 17, 2026
    Show notes

    Today on the show, the balance of Congressional power is up for grabs in this midterm election. It could be determined by a small number of voters in a few battleground states. Blueprints from the past could be the guide for big wins. The GOP has embraced a block-the-vote strategy set in motion in Arizona in the 1960s. And the Democrats are embracing a grassroots power base set up in Michigan in the 1970s.
    Guests:
    John A. Jenkins, author of The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist
    Tova Wang, Director of Research Projects in Democratic Practice at the Ash Center at the Harvard Kennedy School and author of The Politics of Voter Suppression: Defending and Expanding Americans' Right to Vote.
    Ismael Ahmed, co-founder of the Arab American Center for Economic and Social Services.
    Sally Howell, Professor of History with a focus on Arab American studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.
    Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.
    Correction: An earlier version of this episode incorrectly said that Michigan voters could send the first Arab American to the Senate. South Dakotan James Abourezk became the first Arab American U.S. senator in 1973.
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    How baseball got its beat Sep 10, 2026
    Show notes

    Major League Baseball’s postseason is just a few weeks away, and here on Throughline we know the power of a good walk-up song. But how did baseball become such a musical sport? And where did the idea for walk up-music come from?
    Guests:
    John Thorn, author and Official Baseball Historian for Major League Baseball
    Nancy Faust, former organist for the Chicago White Sox
    Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.
    Correction: An earlier version of this episode incorrectly said that the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1952. The team moved ahead of the 1958 season.
    See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
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