Coming off the 4th of July weekend, we check in on how the big America 250 celebrations went, how we marked the day, and answer some listener questions about this year, and this show. Thanks to everyone who checked in, we've got a few special things lined up over the next couple weeks -- and of course "50 Weeks That Shaped America" continues through the summer and into the second half of the year!

For this 4th of July weekend, our "50 Weeks That Shaped America" series lands in, no surprise, 1776 and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 250 years ago, a group writing assignment fell in Thomas Jefferson's lap, and he drafted a document that spurred a revolution.

Jody, Niki and Kellie travelled up to Boston to WBUR's Cityspace and were joined by A.J. Jacobs, author of "The Year of Living Constitutionally" to talk about how the document came together, some of the key changes that were made to it -- and how it has served as a guiding light in the 250 years since.

Join our America250 newsletter community! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early, ad-free versions of the show. Plus bonus features throughout the year. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now.

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Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia.

We continue our 250-year look at the most significant works of history by looking at the rise of popular presidential biography, and the correctives to history offered over the last 15 years. Plus, books that have aged well, aged poorly, and the ones we'd save from the flames...

Join our America250 newsletter community! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early, ad-free versions of the show. Plus bonus features throughout the year. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now.

This Day is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia.

This week, as we head to the 4th of July weekend, we are bringing you a special two-part episode that provides a capstone for our month-long collaboration with Random House about the books that have shaped American history.

Over almost two hours, we took a 250-year-tour of the books that shaped this country’s history. Niki, Kellie and Jody were joined by Pulitzer-prize winning presidential historian Jon Meacham, who is also Niki’s fellow Vanderbilt professor.

We tried to touch on a lot of books, and also group them into basic schools of thought that we could use to trace how the story of American history shifted over time.

For a full list of the books discussed, check out our newsletter.

Join our America250 newsletter community! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early, ad-free versions of the show. Plus bonus features throughout the year. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now.

This Day is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia.

Hanif Abdurraqib and Javier Zamora both float between poetry, memoir, essay, spoken word and more -- finding the right form to explore their personal experience within American history. They join Jody Avirgan to discuss their work and its impact.

For the past 250 years of America’s existence, books have been fundamental instruments through which we preserve, interpret, and engage in history as an ongoing practice of free expression.  

At “This Day”, we’re partnering with Random House, the legendary book publisher, to bring you a special, month-long series called “A Nation of Readers.” In this series, we’ll be talking to an all-star cast of authors -- all published by Random House --- about how books and the act of distributing ideas through publishing shape and reshape American history.

We'll have new episodes every Sunday in the This Day feed, and a special two-part episode in the final week of June.

Find out more about A Nation Of Readers here.

Join our America250 newsletter community! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early, ad-free versions of the show. Plus bonus features throughout the year. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now.

This Day is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia.

Our conversation about the 1969 riots at the Stonewall Inn continues with an account of how the tension ratcheted up that night -- and how the story of that night has been shared and contested over the decades since.

Join our America250 newsletter community! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early, ad-free versions of the show. Plus bonus features throughout the year. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now.

This Day is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia.

For the twenty-fifth installment of “50 Weeks That Shaped America” we go to June 1969, and New York City’s Greenwich Village. Police raids on the Stonewall Inn, one of the main gay bar’s in NYC, were fairly common. But for a number of reasons, on the night of June 28th, patrons had finally had enough. They pushed back on the police, a crowd formed, someone (maybe?) threw a brick, and a key moment in the gay rights movement was sparked. We talk about the larger context of activism that set the stage for Stonewall, what went down that night — and how the story of Stonewall is contested in ways that reveal a lot about how movements grow and shift.

Join our America250 newsletter community! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early, ad-free versions of the show. Plus bonus features throughout the year. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now.

This Day is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia.

A conversation about finding historical inspiration in all sorts of unique places, with Tiya Miles, author of "All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake" and Kathleen DuVal, author of "Native Nations: A Millennium in North America"

For the past 250 years of America’s existence, books have been fundamental instruments through which we preserve, interpret, and engage in history as an ongoing practice of free expression.  

At “This Day”, we’re partnering with Random House, the legendary book publisher, to bring you a special, month-long series called “A Nation of Readers.” In this series, we’ll be talking to an all-star cast of authors -- all published by Random House --- about how books and the act of distributing ideas through publishing shape and reshape American history.

We'll have new episodes every Sunday in the This Day feed, and a special two-part episode in the final week of June.

Find out more about A Nation Of Readers here.

Join our America250 newsletter community! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early, ad-free versions of the show. Plus bonus features throughout the year. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now.

This Day is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia.

In part two of our look at the Battle Of Little Bighorn, we discuss what actually went down in Custer's Last Stand, how it was more chaotic than the reports, and how the legend of General Custer has shifted over the years.

Join our America250 newsletter community! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early, ad-free versions of the show. Plus bonus features throughout the year. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now.

This Day is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia.

For the twenty-fourth installment of “50 Weeks That Shaped America” we go to the Montana Territory in the spring of 1876. General George Custer (and his cinnamon-scented hair) have been sent to the area to defeat the Plains Indians. But at the Battle Of Little Bighorn (aka Custer’s Last Stand) things would go awry. Over two episodes, we discuss the post-Civil-War Westward expansion; how Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse mounted an Indian defense; and how a bloody defeat was spun into a military legend. Plus: How America was celebrating the centennial that year.

Join our America250 newsletter community! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early, ad-free versions of the show. Plus bonus features throughout the year. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now.

This Day is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia.

Nate DiMeo, host of "The Memory Palace" podcast and author of "The Memory Palace" book, on the small details that shape the work of history.

For the past 250 years of America’s existence, books have been fundamental instruments through which we preserve, interpret, and engage in history as an ongoing practice of free expression.  

At “This Day”, we’re partnering with Random House, the legendary book publisher, to bring you a special, month-long series called “A Nation of Readers.” In this series, we’ll be talking to an all-star cast of authors -- all published by Random House --- about how books and the act of distributing ideas through publishing shape and reshape American history.

We'll have new episodes every Sunday in the This Day feed, and a special two-part episode in the final week of June.

Find out more about A Nation Of Readers here.

Join our America250 newsletter community! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early, ad-free versions of the show. Plus bonus features throughout the year. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now.

This Day is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia.