December 21st, 1970. Elvis has entered the building. And today, that building is the White House. He's brought a gift for President Nixon, a framed Colt .45 pistol, which White House security won't be thrilled with. But he isn't just there to drop off a Christmas present.

Elvis Presley has lived many lives in his brief 35 years that a child might dream of: he got to be a musician, a soldier, a movie star, the "King of Rock and Roll." And now he might be just a handshake away from his next dream... becoming a federal agent.

What's going on in Elvis Presley's chaotic life that leads him to seek this meeting with Richard Nixon? And when they come face-to-face, does Elvis get what he came for?

Special thanks to our guest, Jon Lowy, author of Elvis and Nixon and founder and president of Global Action on Gun Violence.

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December 11th, 1934. Bill Wilson is on the subway, working his way through his third beer, heading to Towns Hospital. He isn’t injured, and he isn’t what would be traditionally classified as “sick.” But he knows he has a problem. And he needs help.

What he doesn't know as he arrives at the hospital – with a fourth bottle of beer in his hand – is that this will be the last sip of alcohol of his life. And when he's discharged from Towns, he won't be returning. Instead, he'll go on to start the most successful alcohol treatment program in history.

How did Bill W. finally kick his addiction to alcohol? And how did his journey toward sobriety lead to the creation of Alcoholics Anonymous?

Special thanks to Bill Schaberg, author of Writing the Big Book: The Creation of AA.

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December 1, 1969. Millions across America are tuned in to the same TV broadcast. They see a bland stage with some government workers behind desks. But there's also a large, plastic container filled with small blue capsules. In each of these capsules, a birth date. The order in which they're chosen will determine who is eligible to be sent off to fight in the Vietnam War. This is the draft lottery, an attempt by the Nixon administration to make the selective service process seem more fair, and restore some trust between the U.S. government and its people. It does not work.

Today, public trust and the Vietnam War. How did this conflict, the first televised war, permanently alter the kind of faith that American citizens put into their leaders? And as a country, have we really ever recovered?

Special thanks to Chris Appy, professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the director of the Ellsberg Initiative for Peace and Democracy; and Wes Abney, author of Random Destiny: How the Vietnam War Draft Lottery Shaped a Generation.

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For this Thanksgiving, we're re-airing an HTW classic. This episode originally premiered November 23, 2020.

November 24, 1966. Millions of spectators flood Broadway in New York City to watch the Macy’s Day Parade on Thanksgiving morning. The iconic floats – Superman, Popeye, Smokey the Bear – are set against a grey sky that can only be described as noxious. A smog of pollutants is trapped over New York City, and it will ultimately kill nearly 200 people. How did the 1966 Thanksgiving Smog help usher in a new era of environmental protection? And how have we been thinking about environmental disasters all wrong?

Special thanks to our guest Professor Frank Uekotter, author of The Age of Smoke.

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November 26, 1970. In Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival, protestors gather under a statue of Massasoit, the Wampanoag leader who had made peace with the Pilgrims, and partook in the legendary Thanksgiving meal. This protest was organized by Wamsutta Frank James, a Wampanoag activist who wanted to draw attention to the full story of Thanksgiving – a story of fear, violence, and oppression that spanned generations.

America’s reckoning with the truth of Thanksgiving, James argued, would empower indigenous people to fight for their equal rights. This protest – a National Day of Mourning – continues to this day, now led by James’s granddaughter. So what is the true story of Thanksgiving? And why is it so important for us to remember?

Special thanks to Kisha James, Paula Peters, and David Silverman, author of This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving.

This episode originally aired November 22, 2021.

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November 18th, 2022. New York City is at war... with rats. And today, Mayor Eric Adams is set to announce four new pieces of legislation aimed at combating this scurrying problem.

Two of these laws will target garbage, the rats' main source of food. If you put trash in places the rats can't get, their population will plummet, and New York will get a major victory in this long-running war.

The garbage problem is nothing new for the city. In fact, it's been an issue since its founding almost 400 years ago. Today, we try to understand, how has New York historically tackled its trash? And when did the city become a shining example of sanitation for the entire world?

Special thanks to our guest, Robin Nagle, anthropologist-in-residence for the New York City Department of Sanitation and a clinical professor at NYU's School of Liberal Studies. Her book is Picking Up: On the Streets and Behind the Trucks with the Sanitation Workers of New York City.

“Mayor Eric Adams Signs Rodent-Related Bills: Intros. 414-A, 442-A, 459-A, and 460-A” by NYC Mayor's Office is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

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November 14th, 332 BCE. Alexander the Great has conquered an unprecedented amount of territory in a relatively short amount of time. At just 24 years old, he's in control of Macedonia, much of Greece, and now, a huge part of Egypt.

But Alexander doesn't want to just conquer each of these places - he wants to rule. And in a rare move for Macedonian royalty, he wants to rule in a way that honors local customs, allowing him to be seen as not just a king, but in some areas, as some kind of divine figure. So today, the ancient Egyptians will crown Alexander as a pharaoh.

This is one in a long line of victories for Alexander the Great. However, in his often-overlooked later years, his luck starts to change. As Alexander continues his quest to reach the end of the known world, and his ambition reaches mythical heights, how will his unparalleled success come to an end?

Special thanks to Rachel Kousser, professor of Greek and Roman Art and Archaeology at the City University of New York and author of Alexander at the End of the World: The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great.

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November 4, 2009. It's Game 6 of the World Series between the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies. The Yankees will clinch the series tonight on the back of one player, Hideki Matsui. He's a baseball player from Japan, one of the few who made the jump across the Pacific to play in America.

In the last 15 years, many more Japanese players have made that move, including superstar Shohei Ohtani, arguably the most popular baseball player in the world today. But before Ohtani, before Matsui, there was Masanori Murakami, the first Japanese player to appear in MLB.

How did Murakami go from a village outside of Tokyo to pitching in front of tens of thousands in America? And how did an international incident cut his U.S. career short, leading to a 30-year gap before the next Japanese player would arrive in the Major Leagues?

Special thanks to Rob Fitts, author of Mashi: The Unfulfilled Baseball Dreams of Masanori Murakami, the First Japanese Major Leaguer; Kerry Yo Nakagawa, founder and director of the Nisei Baseball Research Project; and Michael Clair, writer and senior manager for storytelling and special projects at Major League Baseball. You can hear him on MLB Morning Lineup, the league’s daily podcast.

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Oct 27, 1972. The planet Mars has many victims. Specifically, spacecraft. There have been so many failed missions to Mars, that scientists are rumbling about a "Mars Curse". But one mission is defying the odds.

Mariner 9, an American space probe, has been orbiting Mars for the last year. But now, it's running out of fuel and will be deactivated, having met all of its mission objectives. Mariner 9 gave us our closest look ever at the Red Planet, solving mysteries that have been debated for centuries.

Today, humanity's relationship with Mars. How did people come to believe it had expansive forests and a Martian civilization? And how did one epic mission bring us closer to understanding what's really happening on the Red Planet?

Special thanks to William Sheehan, author of Discovering Mars: A History of Observation and Exploration of the Red Planet; and Kevin Schindler, historian of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.

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October 24th, 79. Pompeii is one of the crown jewels of the Roman Empire, a bustling city that serves as a coastal retreat for Rome's elite. But Pompeii also has a large, often overlooked middle-class population. They don't live in Pompeii's massive villas. Instead, they live a typical urban life – shopping at small businesses and haggling with street vendors. They even go to restaurants. And one of these restaurants—still being excavated by archeologists today—may unlock a whole new side to the story of this doomed city.

So, before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, how did everyday people live in Pompeii? And how can just one city block show us that life 2,000 years ago might not be so different from today?

Special thanks to our guest, Allison Emmerson, associate professor of Roman Archeology at Tulane University and director of the Pompeii I.14 Project.

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Gone South, the Edward R. Murrow award-winning podcast, is back. Unlike previous seasons, writer and host Jed Lipinski brings listeners new episodes every week with no end in sight. Each episode of Gone South Season 4 tells a different story about one of the South's most interesting crimes.

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