One Year: 1955 | 4. Siberia, USA
When Alaskans wanted their own mental-health facility, a rumor took hold all over America. This week, Evan Chung traces the origins of that far-right conspiracy theory: that the government was buildin...
21 Sep 202351min
One Year: 1955 | 3. The Weather Girls
In the early days of television, women struggled to find their place. In 1955, they got it: forecasting the weather, on stations all across the country. But as these “weather girls” transformed the ai...
14 Sep 202341min
One Year: 1955 | 2. The Crockett Craze
In 1955, the frontiersman Davy Crockett became the most famous man in America, more than a century after his death at the Alamo. This week, Evan Chung dives into a cultural phenomenon nobody saw comin...
7 Sep 202353min
One Year: 1955 | 1. The Team Nobody Would Play
The Cannon Street All-Stars dreamed of playing in the 1955 Little League World Series. Their biggest obstacle didn’t come on the field. In the year that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a pub...
31 Aug 202353min
Decoder Ring: Think Catchphrases Are Dead? Eat My Shorts.
Once you start listening for catchphrases in everyday life—you can’t stop hearing them. From the radio era’s “Holy mackerel!” to Fonzie’s “Ayyy!” to Urkel’s multiple go-to lines on Family Matters, we ...
16 Aug 202336min
Decoder Ring: The Quest for a Homemade Hovercraft
When Slate’s Evan Chung was a kid, he was obsessed with a mysterious advertisement that ran for decades in the scouting magazine Boys’ Life. Under the enticing headline “You Can Float on Air,” the ad ...
9 Aug 202338min
Decoder Ring: A Brief History of Making Out
Kissing—the romantic, sexual, steamy kind—is so ingrained in us that it just seems like a fact of life. Like breathing or eating, we just do it. But what if it’s not like that at all? In this episode,...
2 Aug 202332min
Decoder Ring: The Great Parmesan Cheese Debate
Parmesan is a food—but it’s not just a food. Italy’s beloved cheese is often paired with a deep craving for tradition and identity. But its history also involves intrepid immigrants, lucrative busines...
26 Jul 202340min
