John Birch vs. the PTA
In the 1960s, a right-wing organization led by a former candy tycoon rose to fame in America for their anti-communist campaigns. They called themselves the John Birch Society. Then, they tried to take over the Parent-Teacher Association. This week, what the battle between the two organizations tell…
Leon Neyfakh on the Bush v. Gore Fiasco
Today on the show, Leon Neyfakh, co-creator of the hit podcasts Slow Burn and Fiasco, discusses his season on the aftermath of the 2000 election between Al Gore and George W. Bush. You can listen to the full season of Fiasco now.
Part 2: Long Jump, Tall Tale
Jesse Owens spent the rest of his life retelling the story of the 1936 games and his encounter with Luz Long. We trace the evolution of a tall tale, discovering the hidden life of one of America’s iconic sports heroes. This is part two of a two-part crossover from Revisionist History’s ‘Hitler’s O…
Part 1: The Jiggle & the Giddy Up
The most famous athlete in 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany was the American sprinter Jesse Owens, and one of the most famous stories from those Games was the unexpected, heartwarming encounter Owens had with the German long jumper Luz Long. The friendship between the two athletes would serve as a sym…
70 Years of Brown v. Board of Education
Jill Lepore returns to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the ruling in Brown v. Board of Education with a special episode of The Last Archive. She and Ben Naddaff-Hafrey explore the amazing new AI-powered recreation of the Brown v. Board cases over at the Oyez project. Then, Kenneth W. Mack, the La…
The Returns: A Conversation with Jill Lepore
In a special, all-new episode of ‘The Returns,’ host emerita Jill Lepore returns to talk about the post-truth moment we find ourselves in and what it means for the 2024 election.
The Returns: Epiphany
Each week on ‘The Returns,’ we pull a different episode from our own archive to help put our present politics into historical context. This episode, Epiphany, first ran in 2021, as the finale to Season 2, which was all about lies, fakes, frauds, and hoaxes. In this episode, Jill Lepore takes liste…
The Returns: Hush Rush
Each week on ‘The Returns,’ we pull a different episode from our archive to help put our present politics into historical context. In the 1980s, Rush Limbaugh transformed talk radio. In the process, he radicalized his listeners and the conservative movement. Limbaugh’s talk radio style became a s…
The Returns: Project X
Each week on ‘The Returns,’ we pull a different episode from our archive to put our present politics into historical context. The election of 1952 brought all kinds of new technology into the political sphere. The Eisenhower campaign experimented with the first television ads to feature an America…
The Returns: An Election Mini-Series from The Last Archive
Election Year 2024 is upon us. And it promises to be a bit of a mess. But where did all this mess come from? In a 4-episode mini-series drawing from our own archive, Jill Lepore and Ben Naddaff-Hafrey investigate, situate, and contextualize our present moment in the history that brought us here. Th…