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Throughline is a time machine. Each episode, we travel beyond the headlines to answer the question, "How did we get here?" We use sound and stories to bring history to life and put you into the middle of it. From ancient civilizations to forgotten figures, we take you directly to the moments that shaped our world. Throughline is hosted by Peabody Award-winning journalists Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei.

Subscribe to Throughline+. You'll be supporting the history-reframing, perspective-shifting, time-warping stories you can't get enough of - and you'll unlock access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org/throughline

Throughline

The word "genocide" can seem like it’s everywhere right now: So it can be easy to forget that, fundamentally, it's a legal term that dates to World War II — and wasn’t used in court for half a century afterwards. Today on the show, the story of what happened during the Bosnian War in the 1990s and the work that went into building the legal case to prove genocide.
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Prosecuting Genocide

Stuck in traffic? Glued to your desk chair? Folding yet another pile of your kids’ laundry? We GOT you!! Take a break, turn up the volume, and shake it out with this special episode of Throughline, a tribute to dance music, all songs composed by our very own Ramtin Arablouei.

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Throughline Dances

What powers the global internet? The answer might surprise you: not satellites, but hundreds of thin cables that run along the ocean floor. They’re an absolutely essential technology that’s also incredibly fragile — so fragile that in the beginning, most people thought they couldn't possibly work. Today on the show: the story of a man who did think they could work… and the lengths he went to to try and connect the world.

Guests:

Bill Burns, former BBC broadcast engineer and founder of atlantic-cable.com 

Cyrus Field IV, great-great-grandson of Cyrus Field

Allison Marsh, professor at the University of South Carolina and historian of technology 

Ben Roberts, strategic advisor on Subsea Cable Economics for Connectivity at UNICEF who has been building cable network in Africa for the past two decades

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The Internet Under the Sea

Israel and Hamas have agreed to a plan to end fighting in Gaza, just over two years after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7th, 2023 and Israel’s subsequent bombardment and invasion of Gaza. As we wait to see what happens next, we’re revisiting our episodes looking at the history of major players on both sides of the conflict. Last week, we looked at the history of Hamas; if you missed that, go back and check it out. This week, we’re bringing you the story of the rise of right wing politics in Israel and President Benjamin Netanyahu’s political career. This episode first ran in 2024.

Guests: 

Amjad Iraqi, senior analyst for Israel/Palestine at the International Crisis Group and former senior editor at +972 Magazine. 

Natasha Roth-Rowland, historian and director of research and analysis at Diaspora Alliance, an international organization that combats antisemitism. 

Sara Yael Hirschhorn, historian,visiting professor at the University of Haifa and fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute.

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The Rise of the Right Wing in Israel

With peace talks once again underway between Israel and Hamas, and hopes again growing for a permanent ceasefire, we’re bringing you our episode on the origins of Hamas: where it came from, how its influence grew, and what it represents. Next week, our episode on Benjamin Netanyahu and the rise of Israel’s right wing. This episode first ran in November 2023.

We've done episodes on Hamas, Israel, Lebanon, Iran, and more. Find them all in our series, "The Cycle".

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A History of Hamas

Journalism is under unprecedented threat worldwide. At least 220 journalists have been killed in Gaza alone since the October 7th, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel; the Committee to Protect Journalists says it’s the deadliest conflict for journalists the group has ever documented. In conflicts around the world, it’s war reporters who write the first draft of history. But getting to the front lines, finding the truth, and reporting it is easier said than done. Today on the show: war reporters, and what’s at stake if they can’t do their jobs.

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From the Frontlines

Life can be tough. Every day brings new challenges. And in order to get through the waking hours we need rest. Good quality sleep. In this bonus episode, a companion to our episode "The Way We Dream," we offer you a 30-minute audio journey into the deep. A smooth trip into the place where our minds are free from the confines of our self awareness, our dreams. This episode originally published in January 2022.

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Throughline Sleeps

The alleged link between vaccines and autism is back in the news this week, being regularly speculated on by both President Trump and Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The claim has been repeatedly disproven: there is no evidence that vaccines and autism are related. But the myth is powerful. In this episode: the roots of the modern anti-vaccine movement, and of the fears that still fuel it – from a botched polio vaccine, to the discredited autism study, to today. This episode originally published in February 2025. 

Guests:

Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Elena Conis, historian of medicine and public health and a professor in journalism and history at the University of California, Berkeley

Arthur Allen, senior correspondent for nonprofit KFF Health News and author of Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver

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The Anti-Vaccine Movement

The U.S. immigration detention system is spread out across federal facilities, private prisons, state prisons, and county jails. It’s grown under both Democratic and Republican presidents. And it’s been offered up as a source of revenue for over a century, beginning with the first contracts between the federal government and sheriffs along the Canadian border.

Guests:

Brianna Nofil, assistant professor of history at The College of William and Mary author of The Migrant's Jail: An American History of Mass Incarceration

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Love podcasts? For handpicked recommendations every Friday, subscribe to NPR’s Pod Club here.

If you want to learn more about the history of Cuban migration to the U.S. and the Mariel Boatlift, check out season 2 of White Lies.

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The Business of Migrant Detention

The U.S. - Mexico border, according to a video on the official White House website, is very quiet: nothing but tires crunching on gravel and the wind whistling around a high, solid-looking wall. But that's not the whole story. Today on the show, how that border went from a line in the sand, to a fence, to a wall.

Guests:

Rachel St. John, associate professor of history at U.C. Davis, and author of Line in the Sand: A History of the Western US Mexico Border

Miguel Levario, associate professor of history at Texas Tech University and author of Militarizing the Border: When Mexicans Became the Enemy

Silvestre Reyes, former Congressman (D-TX), and former Border Patrol Sector Chief 

Eduardo Contreras, realtor in Brownsville, Texas

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Line. Fence. Wall.

One day in late April 1958, a young economist named Madeleine Tress was approached by two men in suits at her office at the U.S. Department of Commerce. They took her to a private room, turned on a tape recorder, and demanded she respond to allegations that she was an "admitted homosexual." Two weeks later, she resigned.

Madeleine was one of thousands of victims of a purge of gay and lesbian people ordered at the highest levels of the U.S. government: a program spurred by a panic that destroyed careers and lives and lasted more than forty years. Today, it's known as the "Lavender Scare."

In a moment when LGBTQ+ rights are again in the public crosshairs, we tell the story of the Lavender Scare: its victims, its proponents, and a man who fought for decades to end it.

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The Lavender Scare (Throwback)

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