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    History

    Tracing The Path: The Connected 20th Century

    Tracing The Path is a 20th Century History podcast exploring how ordinary people, products, ideas, events, and places unexpectedly shaped the modern world.

    Every episode begins with something familiar—a word, a company, a song, an invention, a historical event, or a cultural phenomenon—and follows the surprising chain of connections that made it matter.

    Why did a grocery store change the course of the Cold War?

    How did a simple greeting become part of everyday life?

    What do advertising agencies, world leaders, musicians, inventors, and soft drink companies have in common?

    More than you might think.

    Hosted by award-winning storyteller Dan R. Morris, Tracing The Path connects familiar people, products, events, and places you never knew were linked, bringing together the forgotten figures, unexpected decisions, remarkable coincidences, and cultural turning points that shaped the 20th Century—and continue to influence our lives today.

    Inspired by the storytelling traditions of Paul Harvey, Charles Kuralt, Charles Osgood, and Garrison Keillor, each episode approaches 20th Century History not as a collection of isolated events, but as an interconnected story waiting to be traced.

    The individual pieces of these stories may already be known. What makes Tracing The Path different is the way those pieces are brought together—creating stories you’ve never heard before about things you thought you already knew.

    Whether we’re exploring world-changing inventions, iconic brands, cultural turning points, political upheavals, or everyday objects with extraordinary histories, the result is designed to leave you with that rare feeling:

    “I had no idea.”

    Because the modern world didn’t appear overnight.

    Someone built it.

    Something changed it.

    And everything is connected.

    New episodes monthly, plus bonus Addendum episodes featuring the stories that didn’t make the final cut.

    Visit TracingThePath.com for episode transcripts, discussion questions, trivia, and additional resources.

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    Latest Episodes:
    Episode 66: The America of Tarzan and Buck vs Bell Jun 27, 2025
    Show notes

    The 1890 closing of the Frontier by the US Census Bureau is a major milestone in the history of the United States. The outcome of that change affected the mindset of the Americans. . . and from that comes some of our most loved fiction. But on the flip side, also the darkest stain on the United States. In this episode we cross paths with Thomas Jefferson, Johnny Weissmuller, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.G. Wells, Frank Munsey, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., the Great Chicago Fire, and Davy Crockett


    Episode 65: When Osama Bin Laden Wrinkled FDR's Plans: The 100 Year Fight Against Polio May 27, 2025
    Show notes

    This is the story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Henrietta Lacks, Jonas Salk, the March of Dimes, the Tuskegee Institute and their collective effort to eradicate polio from the earth. But the story also touches on Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, Lewis Adams, the Hampton School, Basil O'Connor, Elvis Presley, Eddie Cantor, Paul Alexander and Osama Bin Laden.


    Episode 64: How did Bob Hope's USO become a thing? And who performed? Apr 25, 2025
    Show notes

    In today's episode we look at all the people and plans it took to create the United Service Organization (USO). While there was enormous planning and smart people, it wouldn't be what it is without a trumpet player from Chicago. We cross paths with General Pershing, Glenn Miller, m&ms, Thomas Dewey, Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and little guy from England named Lesley Townes Hope.


    Episode 63: Classified: How the Library Built the FBI and How did J. Edgar Hoover Get Involved? Mar 25, 2025
    Show notes

    It all started in the 1500s with Sir Francis Bacon, and then in the 1700s with Carl Linnaeus. And along the way we run into Thomas Jefferson, President McKinley, Melvil Dewey, Elihu Root, Napoleon Bonaparte, Al Capone, Teddy Roosevelt, the Library of Congress, Ainsworth Rand Spofford and J. Edgar Hoover. All of them to birth the FBI.


    Episode 62: The Cheesy Results of WW II: Plus the Story of How Nachos Came to Be Feb 26, 2025
    Show notes

    One of the greatest products of World War II was "cheesy". And it's all Wisconsin's fault. In fact it's possible that without WW2 three of the greatest things in your daily life just wouldn't be there. In today's episode we cross paths with FDR, Ricos Nachos, Jean Nicolet, Cheetos, Fritos, Kraft, and would you believe . . . Care Packages.


    Episode 61: Every Episode Has 4 Jan 21, 2025
    Show notes

    This is episode 61, the end of the first era and beginning of the second. In fielding your hundreds of ideas for shows, we decided to go over the 4 actual requirement that every story must have before becoming an episode of Tracing The Path. We look at old episodes and how they meet the requirements. We go over some unbelievable stories that haven't quite made it yet and preview what's in the works. Stay tuned.


    Episode 60: The Secret World of Roald Dahl (A Real Chocolate Spy) Dec 18, 2024
    Show notes

    The fact that our most beloved children's author was a spy for the British isn't the twist. The twist comes when his greatest enemy becomes an important advisor. Along the way we run into Ian Fleming, FDR, Cadbury, Quaker Oats, Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway, Beatrix Potter, the Sopwith Camel Ace Flyer and C.S. Forrester


    Episode 59: The True Story of Candy Canes and How They Became a Christmas Tradition Nov 22, 2024
    Show notes

    Did you know that if it weren't for the Mexicans and the Swedes, our Christmas would look substantially different? Yep, today we trace the world of Peppermint back to Santa Anna, Bob, Amalia Erickson, William Wrigley, the American Chicle Company, the Erie Canal, some French cellophane and maybe even Elvis


    Episode 58: The Cultural Impact of Don McLean's "American Pie" (and the part Roberta Flack played) Oct 23, 2024
    Show notes

    The "American Dream" was first coined in 1931. In 1971 two things happened on exactly the same day . . . the world's biggest song was released lamenting the end of the American Dream. And the world's biggest dreamer opened the most amazing American institution. In today's episode we cross paths with Apple Pie, James Truslow Adams, Buddy Holly, Billy McGuigan, Pat Hazell, Don McLean, Roberta Flack, Richard Valenzuela, Johnny Appleseed and Walt Disney among others.


    Episode 57: 1848: The Year Halloween Began and How it Started Sep 26, 2024
    Show notes

    Have you ever heard the origin of Halloween? Perhaps you've heard about the Irish holiday Samhain, but there's more. And all of it converges on one year, 1848. In this episode learn about Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, Washington Irving, Edgar Allen Poe, Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, the most powerful volcano ever recorded, Yellow Fever, premature burial, Galvanism, John William Polidori and vampires. You're about to hear the true origin of Halloween.


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