The Eighth Amendment. What is cruel and unusual punishment? Who gets to define and decide the amendment's boundaries? And how did the Constitution's authors imagine it might change? In this hour, the shifting definition of cruel and unusual punishment. 

This episode was originally published in January 2025. 

Guests:

John Bessler, law professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, and adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. Author of The Death Penalty's Denial of Fundamental Human Rights.

Carol Steiker, law professor at Harvard Law School and author of Courting Death: the Supreme Court and Capital Punishment.


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Call it standing ovation inflation: these days, it feels like it's mandatory to stand and clap for live performances. Has our please clap era gone too far? That's what one Throughline listener wanted to know. So we traced the winding road from Shakespeare’s epilogues to Broadway divas to ridiculously long film festival ovations… and how they helped engineer the way we applaud.

Guests:

Roger Gilbert, professor in the Department of Literatures in English at Cornell

Kyle Buchanan, reporter and columnist for the New York Times

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NPR’s Anas Baba is one of the last remaining journalists in Gaza working full-time for an American news organization. A year into the ceasefire, more than 1400 people have been killed in Israeli attacks, nearly 5,000 injured. And those numbers rise nearly every day. What has the last year looked and felt like on the ground? In this episode, Baba takes us through four seasons of ceasefire—as both a resident trying to survive and a reporter trying to document reality.

Guests:

Anas Baba, NPR Gaza reporter

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We live in a moment with almost daily reminders of how fragile life on Earth is whether it be from climate change, nuclear weapons or AI. In this episode, we bring you a story from the not-so-distant past when we learned what drove dinosaurs to extinction. And how it might have helped us avoid the same end. This episode was originally published in March 2025.

Guests:

David Sepkoski, Thomas M. Siebel Chair in History of Science at the University of Illinois and author of Catastrophic Thinking: Extinction and the Value of Diversity.

Owen Brian Toon, professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Alec Nevala-Lee, novelist, critic, and biographer and author of the forthcoming book Collisions: A Physicist's Journey from Hiroshima to the Death of the Dinosaurs.

Ann Druyan, co-writer and co-creator of the television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.

Andrew Revkin, science and environmental journalist.

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On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff. All seven astronauts onboard died. Brian Russell, an engineer who worked on the shuttle, had spent months warning NASA that freezing temperatures could cause a critical seal to fail. In this episode, Brian Russell takes us to the intense meeting where NASA had to decide whether to launch and the 40-year weight of a tragedy he tried to prevent.

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The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is having a big moment. Its candidates and its membership are both surging. Before Zohran Mamdani and AOC, there was its founder, Michael Harrington, a.k.a 'the man who discovered poverty.'  In this episode, we dig into Harrington’s evolution from devout Catholic to revolutionary socialist to Democratic party loyalist, and ask: did his push to compromise delay the dream or pave the way for it? 

Guests:
Maurice Isserman, Professor of History at Hamilton College
and author of The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington.

Doug Greene, author of A Failure of Vision: Michael Harrington and the Limits of Democratic Socialism.

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Today on the show, the balance of Congressional power is up for grabs in this midterm election. It could be determined by a small number of voters in a few battleground states.  Blueprints from the past could be the guide for big wins. The GOP has embraced a block-the-vote strategy set in motion in Arizona in the 1960s. And the Democrats are embracing a grassroots power base set up in Michigan in the 1970s.

Guests:

John A. Jenkins, author of The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist

Tova Wang, Director of Research Projects in Democratic Practice at the Ash Center at the Harvard Kennedy School and author of The Politics of Voter Suppression: Defending and Expanding Americans' Right to Vote.

Ismael Ahmed, co-founder of the Arab American Center for Economic and Social Services.

Sally Howell, Professor of History with a focus on Arab American studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

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Correction: An earlier version of this episode incorrectly said that Michigan voters could send the first Arab American to the Senate. South Dakotan James Abourezk became the first Arab American U.S. senator in 1973.

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Major League Baseball’s postseason is just a few weeks away, and here on Throughline we know the power of a good walk-up song. But how did baseball become such a musical sport? And where did the idea for walk up-music come from? 

Guests:

John Thorn, author and Official Baseball Historian for Major League Baseball

Nancy Faust, former organist for the Chicago White Sox

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Correction: An earlier version of this episode incorrectly said that the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1952. The team moved ahead of the 1958 season.

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Calling someone a "Luddite" is usually an insult – shorthand for someone who is behind the times. But the real Luddites weren't just afraid of change; they were a labor movement fighting to save their jobs from being replaced by machines. Today, with the rise of AI, many feel the same kind of existential threat and some are even pushing for a Luddite Renaissance. In this episode, Throughline takes on a listener's question to explore what the 19th-century Luddite rebellion can teach us about technology and human agency.

Guests:

Katrina Navickas, history professor at the University of Hertfordshire and author of the book Protest and the politics of space and place, 1789–1848

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In 1966, the federal government commissioned a massive survey aimed at solving educational inequality. Instead, the explosive Coleman Report unleashed a 60-year debate over race, resources, and what education in America is actually for. This is the story of how the report came together… and the policy whirlwind that followed.

Guests:

Victoria Cain, Associate Professor of History, Northeastern University 

Thomas Kane, Walter H. Gale Professor of Education and Economics, Harvard University
 
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For generations, the SAT has loomed large in the lives of teenagers. The quest for a perfect or near-perfect score has filled many test takers with dread. In this episode, a listener's question makes us wonder... who decided the SAT was the best and brightest way to filter students? And how did it become the pathway to higher education in America?

Guests:

Nicholas Lemann, author of The Big Test and Higher Admissions

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