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A closer look at the messy, beautiful bricks hiding across Chicago.
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Comedian, writer, and podcaster Jamie Loftus has always known about Alcoholics Anonymous. As a kid, she loved the album where her dad kept all his AA chips – that little piece of plastic that marks a day, a month, a year of sobriety. Now as an adult, Jamie has her own AA sobriety chip, and getting it made her wonder where it came from. What she found is that imbued in that little chip is a hidden history — from Prohibition to women’s suffrage — of America’s relationship to gender, religion, and morality.
A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios.
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How a Swiss mountain call crossed the Atlantic and helped define the sound of country music.
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This episode is sponsored by Claude. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at Claude.ai .
The Western Electric 500 Series Telephone used to be everywhere. For over 50 years, it was the default telephone for homes, offices and literally anywhere else you might need a phone… but how did that happen? Why was this one phone so much better than everything that came before… or, in some ways, since? Former MythBuster Adam Savage joins Roman Mars to explore the history of the 500 Series Telephone and what we lost when we eventually decided to leave it behind.
A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios.
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How a movie prop became one of Philadelphia’s most beloved monuments, and sparked a decades-long fight over where it belonged.
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A legendary typeface, a spectacular friendship breakup, and one extremely committed act of revenge.
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Articles of Interest host Avery Trufelman joins Roman to tell the incredible story of the American military’s jacket problem: How should the military outfit its soldiers to make them as safe and effective as possible? The answer was the M43 Field Jacket, which not only changed what it meant to be a soldier and look like a soldier, it changed what we all wear every day—in America, and around the world.
A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios.
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Every product has to be tested somehow, and sometimes that means finding increasingly creative ways to break it.
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This episode is sponsored by Claude. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at Claude.ai .
If you watched Wheel of Fortune in the 1980s, you probably remember one prize more than all the others: the ceramic Dalmatian. For a brief moment, that prize—perhaps the ultimate useless object—became the mascot for one of America's most popular game shows, appearing on tens of millions of TV screens, night after night, all across the country. But…why?
Game show historian Adam Nedeff and ceramic Dalmatian owner Terry Eldrige join Roman Mars to tell the story of why audiences loved that dog, and what the fascinating history of game shows—and game show prizes—tells us about the changing definition of the American dream.
A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios.
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This week, two stories about the strange power of the 1-800 number.
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Spolia, from a Liverpool neighborhood to ancient Rome.
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Two rival paleontologists turn a hunt for dinosaur bones into an all-out scientific war.
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This episode is sponsored by Claude. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at Claude.ai .
On his deathbed, President Chester Arthur ordered that all of his personal and professional papers be burned. Three barrels of documents went up in flames. But 23 letters survived, initialed only "J.I.S." Comedian Elliott Kalan joins Roman Mars to tell the story of how a politician who owed so much to a corrupt government system became the one to dismantle it, thanks to one woman: Julia Isabella Sand. It’s the story of how a woman no one had ever heard of helped transform a president few remember, and in the process created the American government as we know it.
A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios.
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A devastating fire put one of Hong Kong's oldest building traditions on trial, but the real story runs much deeper.
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Behind every perfect nature-inspired design is a far more complicated story.
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A simple cardboard box helped transform Finland into one of the best places in the world to raise a child.
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Neil MacGregor reflects on creating the landmark series that changed how people think about history. Then, revisit the Rosetta Stone, the artifact that unlocked ancient Egypt.
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In 1982, a twelve-year-old paperboy, Johnny Gosch, vanished from a quiet Iowa street and sparked an unlikely campaign: the faces of missing children printed on milk cartons by the billions. Roman Mars and Annie Brown trace how a regional dairy campaign exploded into a national symbol — and how the “stranger danger” fears it stoked shaped American misconceptions about child safety that still echo today.
A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios.
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A Louisiana man born into slavery designs an airship with hopes to take flight. Those plans are interrupted, but maybe not forever.
Listen to Family Lore wherever you get your podcasts.
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