Accessibility links
History History

History

Tuesday

The Legacy Of Civil Rights Leader Fred Korematsu

Several American cities celebrated Fred Korematsu Day Monday. Korematsu fought the executive order that incarcerated thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II. His case went to the Supreme Court, and in 1988, thousands of surviving internees and heirs began receiving reparations.

The Legacy Of Civil Rights Leader Fred Korematsu

Listen · 16:53
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/146149345/146149336" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Monday

Here's A Pie In Your Eye: A Brief History Of Food Fights

Communist party lawmaker Liana Kanelli enters her car after protesters threw yogurt on her face as she tried to reach the Greek parliament during a 48-hour general strike in Athens in 2011. STR/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
STR/AFP/Getty Images

The Salt

Here's A Pie In Your Eye: A Brief History Of Food Fights

Whether throwing it, dumping it or serving it, protesters have used food to express their discontent with public figures for centuries. The delivery of 500 tacos to a Connecticut mayor's office is just the latest incarnation.

Friday

Research News

Ancient Skull Holds Clues to Dog Domestication

A 33,000-year-old skull of a "wolf on the way to becoming a dog" was found in a Siberian cave. Evolutionary Biologist Susan Crockford, co-author of a study about the skull in PLoS ONE, discusses why the discovery challenges common beliefs about dog domestication.

Ancient Skull Holds Clues to Dog Domestication

Listen · 17:36
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/145990105/145990086" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Tuesday

Muslim Men Rescue Bagel Shop And Keep It Kosher

Founded in 1920, Coney Island Bialys and Bagels claims to be the oldest bialy bakery in New York City. It's now run by two Pakistani Muslim men, who say they are keeping it kosher. Margot Adler/NPR hide caption

toggle caption
Margot Adler/NPR

Business

Muslim Men Rescue Bagel Shop And Keep It Kosher

Coney Island Bialys and Bagels, a historic bagel shop in New York City, was almost toast when two Pakistani men rescued it. Zafaryab Ali and Peerzada Shah, both Muslim, say they plan to keep the shop kosher. "Kosher and halal is very, very close, like brother and sister, maybe twins," Ali says.

Muslim Men Rescue Bagel Shop And Keep It Kosher

Listen · 4:34
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/145539430/145788913" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Monday

The Inquisition: A Model For Modern Interrogators

An illustration shows heretics being tortured and nailed to wooden posts during the first Inquisition. Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Author Interviews

The Inquisition: A Model For Modern Interrogators

Fresh Air

The Inquisition revolutionized record-keeping and surveillance techniques that are still used today, says Cullen Murphy. His new book God's Jury draws parallels between some of the interrogation techniques used in previous centuries with the ones used today.

The Inquisition: A Model For Modern Interrogators

Listen · 43:40
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/145512271/145636687" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Saturday

Remembrance: 1912 South Pole Trip Ends Tragically

One hundred years ago this week, British explorer Robert Falcon Scott reached the South Pole with a small crew of men. They all perished on the return trip. In 2008 on Weekend Edition, NPR's Daniel Zwerdling reported from the South Pole on Scott's tragic journey. To mark the 100th anniversary, we reprise that story.

Remembrance: 1912 South Pole Trip Ends Tragically

Listen · 7:02
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/145564988/145565801" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Friday

Late Tuskegee Airman Gets Arlington Honors As 'Red Tails' Film Opens

Family, friends and admirers salute the casket of Luke Weathers, Jr., one of the original Tuskegee airmen, at his burial ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The Two-Way

Late Tuskegee Airman Gets Arlington Honors As 'Red Tails' Film Opens

A member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen was buried Friday morning, the same day that Red Tails, a film dramatizing the pilots' heroic feats, came out. During World War II, Luke Weathers Jr. "shot down two German fighter planes while escorting a damaged bomber to its base," the AP reports.

Science Diction: The Origin Of The Word 'Moon'

Science historian Howard Markel discusses the origins of the word moon and some of the lore surrounding it, including a 1638 book by the English bishop Francis Godwin entitled The Man in the Moone, which recounts a science fiction-style voyage to the moon.

Science Diction: The Origin Of The Word 'Moon'

Listen · 2:30
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/145525014/145524999" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Tuesday

Monday

Legal Scholar: Jim Crow Still Exists In America

Opinion

Author Interviews

Legal Scholar: Jim Crow Still Exists In America

Fresh Air

Michelle Alexander says that many of the gains of the civil rights movement have been undermined by the mass incarceration of blacks in the war on drugs.

Legal Scholar: Jim Crow Still Exists In America

Listen · 39:19
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/145175694/145175817" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
Cooking Up Change: How Food Helped Fuel The Civil Rights Movement

In February 1960, college students (from left) Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Billy Smith and Clarence Henderson began a sit in protest at the whites-only lunch counter at a Woolworth's in Greensboro, N.C. Jack Moebes/CORBIS hide caption

toggle caption
Jack Moebes/CORBIS

The Salt

Cooking Up Change: How Food Helped Fuel The Civil Rights Movement

Food twines its way through the history of the civil rights movement. Sit-ins at lunch counters helped galvanize the movement. Proceeds from bake sales supported bus boycotters; many of the customers were segregationists unaware they were making the movement they opposed stronger with every fancy cake they bought.

Sunday

'In Our Prime'? What It Means To Be Middle-Aged
iStockphoto.com

Author Interviews

'In Our Prime'? What It Means To Be Middle-Aged

Is 60 the new 40? In her new book, Patricia Cohen (age 51!) explores the origin and evolution of middle age. "I like to say that middle age is something of a 'Never Never Land,'" she says. "Younger people never want to enter it, and older people never want to leave it once they get there."

'In Our Prime'? What It Means To Be Middle-Aged

Listen · 5:14
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/145118783/145259681" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Saturday

The Inquisition: Alive And Well After 800 Years

Author Interviews

The Inquisition: Alive And Well After 800 Years

The Inquisition was initially designed to deal with Christian heretics, but author Cullen Murphy says that "inquisitorial impulse" is still at work today. In fact, he says, it was the harbinger of the modern world.

The Inquisition: Alive And Well After 800 Years

Listen · 6:53
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/144907141/145270557" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Friday

From Martin Luther King Jr., A Burden And Gift

The statue shows King emerging from a stone extracted from a mountain. Amy Ta/NPR hide caption

toggle caption
Amy Ta/NPR

Opinion

Can I Just Tell You?

From Martin Luther King Jr., A Burden And Gift

In her commentary for MLK Jr. Day, Michel Martin recalls speaking with two women — one black, one white — of roughly the same age who witnessed the same lynching. Martin will never forget a particular comment from the black woman, and asks the broader question of what Americans should keep and leave behind on this day.

From Martin Luther King Jr., A Burden And Gift

Listen · 4:28
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/145180177/145182404" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Monday

Dore: The Little Studio That Could (Produce Hits)

Phil Spector. Ace Records hide caption

toggle caption
Ace Records

Review

Music Reviews

Dore: The Little Studio That Could (Produce Hits)

Fresh Air

It's hard to believe today, but in the mid-1950s, Los Angeles didn't mean much in terms of popular music. But the coming of rock 'n' roll meant an infusion of tiny record labels — and one was Doré, run by a happy-go-lucky guy named Lew Bedell. Ed Ward tells its short, crazy story here.

Dore: The Little Studio That Could (Produce Hits)

Listen · 8:32
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/140598430/144899616" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript