We're bringing you some of our favorite episodes of 2025 while we get a holiday break -- and prepare for our big America250 series. See you in 2026!

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 -- or languishes in the halls of Congress.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie talk about how the song came together, the legislation at the heart of the process, and whether lawmaking still happens the same way.

Sign up for our newsletter! Find out more at thisdaypod.com

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Julie Shapiro and Audrey Mardavich, Executive Producers at Radiotopia

We're bringing you some of our favorite episodes of 2025 while we get a holiday break -- and prepare for our big America250 series. See you in 2026!

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 and in stores.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie look back at the very-Obama-era effort by the coffee chain to spark conversations about racial inequality by having their baristas write #racetogether on customer's cups. Customers were not feeling it.

Sign up for our newsletter! Find out more at thisdaypod.com

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, want to buy some merch, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com

Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich, Executive Producer at Radiotopia

It's December 17th. This day in 1947, the US and UK film industries are in a trade war -- a couple years after the two countries fought together in an actual war.

Jody, NIki, and Kellie talk about the year-long battle over taking the film industries, how Britain tried to protect its domestic industry from US dominance -- and the various ripple effects for the cultural dominance of the two countries.

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

Find out more at thisdaypod.com

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

It's December 15th. This winter, 1971, the first season of "All In The Family" is coming to a close, and it's already the biggest show in America. It's a total sensation, in part because of its willingness to dive into the cultural and political battles of the age.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by Oscar Winberg to discuss the way All In The Family captured a fractured country, and in particular how the character of Archie Bunker became a powerful avatar -- for viewers who admired and hated him alike.

Oscar's new book is "Archie Bunker for President: How One TV Show Remade American Politics" -- it's out now!

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

Find out more at thisdaypod.com

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

It's December 11th. This day in 1971, Representative Charles C Diggs of Michigan resigned from a UN delegation in order to protest the US stance towards South Africa's apartheid regime.

Jody, NIki, and Kellie are joined by Dr. Marion Orr of Brown University to discuss Diggs's decades-long fight to oppose apartheid, and his long tenure in Congress, where he built bridges and worked the halls of power. He was also brought down by a corruption scandal in the late 1970s, for which he might best be remembered.

Marion Orr's new book is called "House of Diggs: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Consequential Black Congressman, Charles C. Diggs Jr." It's out now!

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

Find out more at thisdaypod.com

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

It's December 8th. This day in 1952, the New York Daily News runs a feature on Christine Jorgensen headlined "Ex-GI Becomes Blond Beauty."

Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss the life and legacy of Christine Jorgensen, who became the first transgender celebrity -- and how her story reflected sexual and cultural norms of the era.

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

Find out more at thisdaypod.com

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

Welcome to Some Sunday Context, where we bring you new conversations and archival episodes to provide some context on the stories playing out in the news today. This week, we just wrapped up our two-part series on early vaccine skeptics from the 1890s through the 1920s. We discussed how a lot of the skepticism began to fade away in mid-century, in part because of the success of vaccines. Perhaps the biggest win was the arrival of the polio vaccine in 1954. So, today, as we see a return of vaccine skepticism -- even within the CDC itself -- we bring you an epsiode we did in 2021 about the development of the polio vaccine in 1954.

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

Find out more at thisdaypod.com

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

It's December 1st. This week, a two-part look at the roots of vaccine skepticism and anti-vaccine activism in the United States. First we look at the early legal battles of the 1860s-1900s, then discuss how anti-vaccine activists found more purchase in the cultural and political spheres going into the first half of the 20th century.

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

Find out more at thisdaypod.com

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia