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Anya Steinberg Anya Steinberg is a Producer for Throughline. She joined the show in 2021 as an intern. Since then, she’s reported and produced dozens of episodes. Some of her favorites to work on have been: the 400 year history of sugar, a profile of Nelson Mandela, and the story of the water wars between Los Angeles and the Owens Valley.
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Anya Steinberg

Thursday

Water in the West
David McNew/Getty Images

Throughline

Water in the West

What does it mean to do the greatest good for the greatest number? When the Los Angeles Aqueduct opened in 1913, it rerouted the Owens River from its natural path through an Eastern California valley hundreds of miles south to LA, enabling a dusty town to grow into a global city. But of course, there was a price.

Water in the West

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Thursday

We The People: Canary in the Coal Mine
Ethan Miller/Getty Images

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We The People: Canary in the Coal Mine

The Third Amendment. Maybe you've heard it as part of a punchline. It's the one about quartering troops — two words you probably haven't heard side by side since about the late 1700s.

We The People: Canary in the Coal Mine

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Thursday

We The People: Equal Protection
Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

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We The People: Equal Protection

The Fourteenth Amendment. Of all the amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the 14th is a big one. It's shaped all of our lives, whether we realize it or not: Roe v. Wade, Brown v. Board of Education, Bush v. Gore, plus other Supreme Court cases that legalized same-sex marriage, interracial marriage, access to birth control — they've all been built on the back of the 14th. The amendment was ratified after the Civil War, and it's packed full of lofty phrases like due process, equal protection, and liberty. But what do those words really guarantee us? Today on Throughline's We the People: How the 14th Amendment has remade America — and how America has remade the 14th (Originally ran as The Fourteenth Amendment).

We The People: Equal Protection

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Thursday

We The People: Legal Representation
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We The People: Legal Representation

The Sixth Amendment. Most of us take it for granted that if we're ever in court and we can't afford a lawyer, the court will provide one for us. And in fact, the right to an attorney is written into the Constitution's sixth amendment. But for most of U.S. history, it was more of a nice-to-have — something you got if you could, but that many people went without.

We The People: Legal Representation

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Thursday

We the People: Gun Rights
Marc Piscotty/Getty Images

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We the People: Gun Rights

The Second Amendment. In April 1938, an Oklahoma bank robber was arrested for carrying an unregistered sawed-off shotgun across state lines. The robber, Jack Miller, put forward a novel defense: that a law banning him from carrying that gun violated his Second Amendment rights. For most of U.S. history, the Second Amendment was one of the sleepier ones. It rarely showed up in court, and was almost never used to challenge laws. Jack Miller's case changed that. And it set off a chain of events that would fundamentally change how U.S. law deals with guns. Today on Throughline's We the People: How the second amendment came out of the shadows. (Originally ran as The Right to Bear Arms)

We the People: Gun Rights

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Thursday

We The People: Free Speech
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

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We The People: Free Speech

The First Amendment. Book bans, disinformation, the wild world of the internet. Free speech debates are all around us. What were the Founding Fathers thinking when they created the First Amendment, and how have the words they wrote in the 18th century been stretched and shaped to fit a world they never could have imagined? It's a story that travels through world wars and culture wars. Through the highest courts and the Ku Klux Klan. Today on Throughline's We the People: What exactly is free speech, and how has the answer to that question changed in the history of the U.S.? (Originally ran as The Freedom of Speech)

We The People: Free Speech

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Thursday

The Creeping Coup
AFP via Getty Images

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The Creeping Coup

Sudan has been at the center of a deadly and brutal war for over a year. It's the site of the world's largest hunger crisis, and the world's largest displacement crisis.

The Creeping Coup

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Thursday

The Roots of Poverty in America
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Analysis

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The Roots of Poverty in America

The United States is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, yet over 10 percent of people – nearly 40 million – live in poverty. It's something we see, say, if we live near a tent encampment. And it's also something we feel. More than a third of people in the U.S. say they're worried about being able to pay their rent or mortgage. Medical bills and layoffs can change a family's economic status almost overnight.

The Roots of Poverty in America

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Thursday

Pop Music's First Black Stars
Perry Bradford Music/New York Public Library

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Pop Music's First Black Stars

Today, the U.S. popular music industry is worth billions of dollars. And some of its deepest roots are in blackface minstrelsy and other racist genres. You may not have heard their names, but Black musicians like George Johnson, Ernest Hogan, and Mamie Smith were some of the country's first viral sensations, working within and pushing back against racist systems and tropes. Their work made a lasting imprint on American music — including some of the songs you might have on repeat right now.

Pop Music's First Black Stars

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Thursday

DJ Frankie Knuckles plays at the Def Mix 20th Anniversary Weekender at Turnmills nightclub on May 6, 2007 in London, England.

DJ Frankie Knuckles plays at the Def Mix 20th Anniversary Weekender at Turnmills nightclub on May 6, 2007 in London, England. Claire Greenway/Getty Images/Getty Images Europe hide caption

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Claire Greenway/Getty Images/Getty Images Europe

Time Machine: The Throughline History Quiz

Who built house music? Test your knowledge with the Throughline quiz.

Electronic dance music is one of the largest and most popular sectors of the music industry. But do you know where it came from? Test yourself with Throughline’s quiz.

The Lavender Scare (Throwback)
Kay Tobin/New York Public Library

Throughline

The Lavender Scare (Throwback)

One day in late April 1958, a young economist named Madeleine Tress was approached by two men in suits at her office at the U.S. Department of Commerce. They took her to a private room, turned on a tape recorder, and demanded she respond to allegations that she was an "admitted homosexual." Two weeks later, she resigned.

The Lavender Scare (Throwback)

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Thursday

A History of Zionism
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A History of Zionism

Since October 7th, the term Zionism has been everywhere in the news. It's been used to support Israel in what it calls its war against Hamas: a refrain to remind everyone why Israel exists and why it must be protected. Others have used Zionism to describe what they view as Israel's collective punishment of civilians in Gaza, and its appropriation of Palestinian territories — what they often call "settler colonialism."Zionism has been defined and redefined again and again, and the definitions are often built on competing historical interpretations. So unsurprisingly, we've received many requests from you, our audience, to explore the origins of Zionism. On today's episode, we go back to the late 19th century to meet the people who organized the modern Zionist movement.

A History of Zionism

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Thursday

The Whiteness Myth (Throwback)
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The Whiteness Myth (Throwback)

In 1923, an Indian American man named Bhagat Singh Thind told the U.S. Supreme Court that he was white, and therefore eligible to become a naturalized citizen. He based his claim on the fact that he was a member of India's highest caste and identified as an Aryan. His claims were supported by the so-called Indo-European language theory, a controversial idea at the time that says nearly half the world's population speak a language that originated in one place. Theories about who lived in that place inspired a racist ideology that contended that the original speakers of the language were a white supreme race that colonized Europe and Asia thousands of years ago. This was used by many to define whiteness and eventually led to one of the most horrific events in history. On this episode of Throughline, we unpack the myths around this powerful idea and explore the politics and promise of the mother tongue.

The Whiteness Myth (Throwback)

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Thursday

The Rules of War
Bas Czerwinski/AFP via Getty Images

Throughline

The Rules of War

International courts investigating alleged war crimes have made headlines often in recent months. An arrest warrant has been issued for Russian President Vladimir Putin; arrest warrants have also been requested for senior Hamas and Israeli officials, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

The Rules of War

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Thursday

Mythos and Melodrama in the Philippines (Throwback)
Ezra Acayan/Getty Images

Throughline

Mythos and Melodrama in the Philippines (Throwback)

Welcome to the "Epic of Marcos." In this tale of a family that's larger than life, Ferdinand Marcos, the former dictator of the Philippines, is at the center. But the figures that surround him are just as important: Imelda, his wife and muse; Bongbong, his heir; and the United States, his faithful sidekick. The story of the Marcos family is a blueprint for authoritarianism, laying out clearly how melodrama, paranoia, love, betrayal and a hunger for power collide to create a myth capable of propelling a nation. Today on the show, the rise, fall, and resurrection of a dynasty — and what that means for democracy worldwide.

Mythos and Melodrama in the Philippines (Throwback)

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