Shows / This Day (An America 250 History Show)
This Day (An America 250 History Show)
To mark our 250th birthday, “This Day” presents "50 Weeks That Shaped America," a series of deep dives into the stories that brought us to this moment.
"This Day" takes you beyond the head-spinning headlines of today and into the unexpected historical moments that have shaped American politics and culture. Hosted by Jody Avirgan (538), and historians Nicole Hemmer (Vanderbilt), and Kellie Carter Jackson (Wellesley), each episode explores a moment from that day in U.S. political history to…
Episodes
This Day (An America 250 History Show)Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and The Brutal Calculus of WWII (1945) w/ Garrett Graff
It's August 7th. This day in 1945, the US has bombed the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and two days later would drop a nuclear weapon on Nagasaki. Jody, Niki…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)WWII Internment: Latin Americans in Texas (1944)
It's August 5th. This day in 1944, a crucial moment in World War II history, a series of internment camps are being set up in Texas. Unlike the more widely…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)Texas Dems Flee To Stop Redistricting (Some Context) w/ Harry Enten
One of the biggest stories today, in 2025, is that Texas Democracts have left the state and are in Illinois, looking to hold up drastic redistricting…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)Weird, Controversial, and Fake Historical Markers (Part 2)
Last episode, we talked about the history of historical markers, and what they indicate about the present. Today, a tour through some of our favorite examples…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)The History Of History Markers (Part 1) (1913)
It's July 29th. This day in 1913, Pennsylvania passed a law that would establish a system for adding historical markers and plaques around their state. Over…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)The Frick Near-Assassination (1892)
It's July 24th. This day in 1892, labor activist Alexander Berkman attempts to assasinate industrialist Henry Clay Frick, head of the Carnegie Steel…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)John Dillinger Is Killed, The FBI Is Born (1934)
It's July 22nd. This day in 1934, gangster John Dillinger is killed by federal agents while walking out of a movie theater in Chicago. Jody, Niki, and Kellie…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)Willis Carrier Invents Air Conditioning (1902)
It's July 17th. This day in 1902, a New York engineer by the name of Willis Haviland Carrier is trying to figure out a system for keeping printing machinery…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)The Great Grain Robbery (1972)
It's July 14th. This day in 1972, Russian agricultural officials are in New York City cutting deals with American farmers for surplus U.S. wheat. Before the…
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Superman's Politics w/ Glen Wheldon [Some Sunday Context]
This episode is part of our "Some Sunday Context" series, new conversations and favorites from the archives that give some context for the biggest stories of…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)The Death Of The DOE (1868)
It's July 10th. This day in 1868, the federal government officially dismantled the Department of Education -- it would be more than a 100 years before it was…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)The Mormon King Of Beaver Island (1850)
It's July 7th. This day in 1850, a man by the name of James Strang has proclaimed himself the true inheritor of the Mormon church -- and set up a colony on…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)How America250 Is Coming Together (Part 2)
We continue our conversation about the America250 celebrations planned for 2026 -- which are kicking off in earnest this July 4th. We know a lot about who is…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)America250 Is Here, Are You Ready?
Hello and happy 4th of July! (One day early) America's 250th birthday is next year, but the celebration is, in many ways, kicking off this week. Jody, Niki…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)The Chicken Tariff That Led To Huge Trucks (1962)
It's July 1st. This day in 1962, six European countries are banding together to impose severe tariffs on imported American chicken. Jody, Niki, and Kellie…
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4th Of July, Protest, The Constitution and Slavery (Some Sunday Context)
This episode is part of our "Some Sunday Context" series where we are bringing you episodes from the archives and new conversations that try to give you a…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)LBJ Goes From War On Poverty To War On Crime (1968)
It's June 26th. This day in 1968, President Johnson signed what would be his last major act of domestic legislation -- an omnibus crime bill that drastically…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)Wikipedia, The Last Good Place On The Internet (2003) w/ Garrett Graff
It's June 24th. In 2003, Jimmy Wales, the owner of Wikipedia, made the decision to put the site under the ownership of a non-profit company. Jody, Niki, and…
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Juneteenth, Federal Holidays, And Writing History In Real Time
It's June 19th. Today is Juneteenth, a federal holiday in the United States marking the end of slavery. We're bringing you an episode from 2020 on the history…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)50 Years Of JAWS Terrifying Everyone (1975)
It's June 17th. This day in 1975, Steven Spielberg's JAWS is in theaters -- it is the first proper summer blockbuster, and also has a massive political and…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)LBJ Puts Thurgood Marshall On The Court (1967)
It's June 12. This day in 1967, President Johnson nominates Thurgood Marshall as the first Black Supreme Court justice. Jody, NIki, and Kellie discuss…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)FDR Takes Your Gold (1933)
It's June 9th. This day in 1933, the Roosevelt administration is asking Americans to turn their gold into the government -- or be jailed. Jody, Niki, and…
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LA, The National Guard, Immigration and the Zoot Suit Riots (Some Sunday Context)
Today, as part of our "Some Sunday Context" series, Jody offers some thoughts on the story playing out in Los Angeles where the Trump administration has called…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)The U.S. Deports A Chinese Scientist (1950)
It's June 5th. This day in 1943, the United States is in the process of deporting Qian Xuesen, a Chinese aerospace engineer who had lived in the US for decades…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)Jack Johnson't Big Fight (1913)
It's June 3rd. This day in 1913, boxer Jack Johnson is sentenced under the Mann Act, a vice law that sought to curb prostitution -- though many saw the…
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Inside Airline Cockpits (Some Sunday Context) w/ Ganesh Sitaraman
Today, another in our "Some Sunday Context" series, where we bring you new conversations and episodes from the archives that try to help us make sense of life…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)The Forgotten Resistance To Indian Removal (1830)
It's May 28th. This day in 1830, President Andrew Jackson has signed the Indian Removal Act into law, leading to the forcible removal of Native Americans in…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)Hippies vs. Hard Hats (1970)
It's May 26th. This day in 1970, Richard Nixon is hosting a group of labor leaders at the White House, where they present him with a hard hat. A few weeks…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)The 100-Year Butter Battle (1904)
It's May 21st. This day in 1904, a fight over taxing margarine reaches the Supreme Court. It's a key moment in the long fight between traditional butter and…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)The MeckDec - North Carolina's Favorite Myth (1775) w/ Jeremy Markovich
It's May 20th. This day in 1775, the town of Mecklenburg, North Carolina went ahead and declared independence from Britain, before anywhere else in the country…
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Malcolm X Turns 100 (Some Sunday Context)
Monday, May 19th would have been Malcolm X's 100th birthday. Today, as part of our "Some Sunday Context" series, we bring you an episode we did last year about…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)Miami Explodes Into Violence (1980)
It's May 14th. This day in 1980, Miami is seeing the biggest racial uprising of the 70s or 80s, as riots and violence erupt with the acquittal of police…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)An Early Climate Change Warning Ignored (1957) w/ Amy Westervelt
It's May 13th. This day in 1957, oceanographer Roger Revelle offered testimony to Congress about the perilous effects of carbon in the Earth's atmosphere…
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SINNERS And The Deep History Of The Mississippi Delta (Some Sunday Context)
SINNERS is the hit movie of the year so far, and Ryan Coogler's epic has a lot of people looking into the history of the Mississippi Delta in the first decades…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)The Woman Who Invented -- And Disowned -- Mother's Day (1914)
Happy Mother's Day! The holiday was invented and popularized in the first decade of the 20th century, often credited to a woman named Anna Jarvis, who had a…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)Reagan's German Cemetery Visit Controversy (1985)
It's May 5th. This day in 1985, President Reagan visits a German military cemetery in Bitburg, where a number of SS Soldiers were buried. Jody, Niki, and…
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The Women's Health Vacuum (Some Sunday Context)
The Trump administration is targeting health and scientific research -- often based on whether it includes keywods like "women." This presents the risk that a…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)Lincoln Needs Troops (1861)
It's May 1st. This day in 1861, the Civil War is breaking out and President Lincoln issues a desperate call for more military volunteers. Jody, Niki, and…
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The Artists Who Worked For The CIA (1960) w/ Benjamen Walker
[[This is an episode from the This Day archives -- we'll be back with a new conversation real soon!]] It's May 5th. This day in 1960, a British theater critic…
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The First 100 Days (Some Sunday Context)
We're reaching the 100 day mark of Donald Trump's second term in office. 100 days has traditionally been a benchmark for assessing how productive and impactful…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)John Paul Jones' Half-Baked Raid On British Soil (1778)
It's April 23rd. This day in 1778, John Paul Jones leads the only American raid on British soil in the Revolutionary War. Jody, Niki and Kellie discuss Jones's…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)Betty Ford Enters Rehab (1978)
It's April 22nd. This Day in 1978, former First Lady Betty Ford is in the Long Beach Naval Hospital, being treated for addiction to pain killers and alcohol…
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Prisons, Photos, CECOT, Abu Ghraib, and What Shocks Us (Some Sunday Context)
The eyes of the world are on the images coming from a prison in El Salvador. The photos are being used as propoganda for U.S. deportation efforts; and are…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)The Battles Of Lexington and Concord -- and Menotomy? (1775)
It's April 1775. This day in 1775, the Revolutionary War is sparked when British troops enter the towns of Lexington and Concord. But later that same day…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)The Ludlow Massacre (1914)
It's April 17th. In 1914, at the mining town of Ludlow, Colorado tensions are ratcheting up to a moment when the national guard and private police would…
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Government vs. Universities (Some Sunday Context)
The Trump administration is going after universities -- threatening to withhold funding in an attempt to bring them under ideological control. It's a very…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)The Lynching Of A German Immigrant (1917)
It's April 9th. This day in 1917, a German man by the name of Robert Prager is attacked and lynched during a time of rising anti-immigrant sentiment in The…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)The First Girl Scouts Cookies (1917)
It's April 8th. And it's Girl Scouts Cookies season. This day in 1917, a troop in Muskogee, Oklahoma is baking cookies to raise funds in support of the WWI…
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Booker, Thurmond, Super-Long Floor Speeches, And Energy (Some Sunday Context)
How will this week be remembered in the history books? Will it be the week that Trump's tarrifs changed everything, or the week in which Democrats found some…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)Starbucks #RaceTogether Campaign Backfires (2015)
It's April 3rd. In 2015, Starbucks announces that it is bringing its "Race Together" initiative to a close, after it was relentlessly mocked and critced online…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)Carter's Unbelievable Rabbit Vendetta
It's April 1st. This day, Jimmy Carter performed on of the most unbelievable acts in presidential history. Sign up for our newsletter! Find out more at…
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Five Lessons For Five Years (Some Sunday Context)
We are turning five! For today's "Some Sunday Context" conversation, Jody, Niki, and Kellie mark five years of the show and run through five big themes and…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)"I'm Just A Bill" (1976)
It's March 27th. This day in 1976, Schoolhouse Rock premieres the song "I'm Just A Bill," an animated look at the process by which legislation gets passed --…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)The Church Sancturary Showdown (1980)
It's March 25th. This day in 1980, a church in Tucson announces that it will provide sanctuary to immigrants -- in open defiance of US law. Jody, NIki, and…
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Graceland (Some Sunday Context from Summer Album / Winter Album)
Today, for our Some Sunday Context" series, a little bit of a departure. Jody has a new music show called "Summer Album / Winter Album" -- here's a taste of…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)"Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death" (1775)
It's March 23rd. This day in 1775, Patrick Henry of Virginia gave a speech in which he (maybe) uttered one of the more famous phrases in American political…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)The First State-Run Lotto (1963) w/ Ian Coss
It's March 17th. Today (actually, March 12th) in New Hampshire kicked off its first lotto system, ushering in a new era of state-sanctioned and state-run…
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Deportation, Protest and John Lennon (Some Sunday Context) w/ Hrishikesh Hirway
Today, an episode from the archives that may provide some context for the news playing out today. We'll be doing more Sunday episodes -- from the archives and…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)What William Freeman's Act Meant (1846)
Part two of our conversation with Harvard's Robin Bernstein about William Freeman's act of murder and protest in the prison town of Auburn, NY. Robin's new…
This Day (An America 250 History Show)William Freeman's Shocking Revenge (1846) w/ Robin Bernstein (Part 1)
It's March 11th. This day in 1846 (technically March 13th) in the town of Auburn, NY, and man by the name of William Freeman commited a series of murders that…