BackStory

Alienstock, the event jokingly conceived by college student Matty Roberts to storm Area 51 on September 20, is officially canceled. When more than 500,000 planned to attend and another 500,00 indicated they were interested in the Facebook event back in July, the U.S. Air Force took notice and issued a strongly worded statement that discouraged the plan. But that hasn’t stopped an unknown number of people from planning to descend on rural Nevada this weekend, leading the FAA to shut down airspace above Area 51 as a precaution. This interest in the unknown isn’t new and to shed some light, BackStory is republishing our 2018 episode about UFOs in American History. In “Close Encounters,” Nathan, Brian and Ed discuss the things in the sky we struggle to explain – unidentified flying objects.

Image: Grainy B&W image of supposed UFO, Passaic, New Jersey. July 30, 1952. Source: www.cia.gov via Wikimedia Commons

BackStory is funded in part by our listeners. You can help keep the episodes coming by supporting the show: https://www.backstoryradio.org/support

The 13th of any month is more likely to occur on a Friday than any other day of the week and it’s happened as many as three times in a single calendar year. So, why is it considered bad luck?  In this episode, Joanne, Nathan and Brian explore stories of superstition and the surprising roles the number 13 has played across American history.

Image: Triskaidekaphobia stock photo. Source: iStock by Getty Images

BackStory is funded in part by our listeners. You can help keep the episodes coming by supporting the show: https://www.backstoryradio.org/support

This morning, China published a short list of products exempted from its tariffs on American made goods. This list comes about a month before scheduled talks between Chinese negotiators and Trump administration officials. The current U.S. trade war with China is not unlike previous conflicts. In this segment from BackStory’s 2015 show, “They Might Be Giants: China and the U.S.,” host emeritus Peter Onuf talks to historian John Haddad about how Americans smuggling opium into China during the 19th century led the Chinese to crack down on trade that was already very restrictive. And learn how the Opium Wars were a turning point in Chinese history that still influences them today. Image: President Nixon gamely tries out his chopsticks at a banquet given in his honor, 1972. Source: White House Photo Collection. BackStory is funded in part by our listeners. You can help keep the episodes coming by supporting the show: https://www.backstoryradio.org/support

In 2016, protests broke out at Standing Rock - a reservation in North and South Dakota - to block the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Indigenous peoples and other activists opposed the pipeline because they believed it violated sacred sites and threatened to contaminate the Missouri River, a major source of drinking water in the region. Taking social media by storm, the #noDAPL movement quickly became an international headline.

On this episode, Nathan sits down with historian and activist Nick Estes to talk about his experience at Standing Rock, the history of Indigenous resistance, and the current state of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Estes’ new book is called “Our History is the Future: Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance.”

Image: Protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline by Fibonacci Blue via Flickr. (Used under CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

BackStory is funded in part by our listeners. You can help keep the episodes coming by supporting the show: https://www.backstoryradio.org/support

Hurricane Dorian struck the Bahamas this week, and east coast states from Florida to North Carolina are bracing for its impact. In preparation, governors are declaring states of emergency to allow emergency management teams to coordinate and act quickly. But in this segment from BackStory's 2012 show, "Weathering the Storm," host emeritus Peter Onuf learns from Oxford University professor Gareth Davies that responses to disasters are often fraught with politics.

Image: Poseidon by Mark Rain (www.azrainman.com). Source: Flickr (CC BY 2.0) BackStory is funded in part by our listeners. You can help keep the episodes coming by supporting the show: https://www.backstoryradio.org/support

To mark the Labor Day holiday Brian presents a compilation of BackStory’s best stories about work and workers. Why were so many employers keen on hiring children in the 19th century? When was computing considered women’s work? And what happened when almost a million Mexicans were expelled from the US to free up jobs for white workers?

Image: John Vachon photo of a Minneapolis employment agency, 1939. Source: Library of Congress

BackStory is funded in part by our listeners. You can help keep the episodes coming by supporting the show: https://www.backstoryradio.org/support 

On August 28, 1963, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom - a demonstration held by civil rights leaders and attended by approximately 250,000 people – took place. It was during this protest, one of the largest in U.S. history, that Martin Luther King made his now famous speech at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial where he uttered the words, “I have a dream.” In this segment from BackStory’s 2013 episode “Fierce Urgency of Now: The 1963 March on Washington,” Ed talks with historian David Blight about the continuing impact of the Civil War in shaping the context within which the march took place, and the particular importance of the Emancipation Proclamation in King’s speech, which had been issued 100 years before the march.

Image: Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom," August 28th, 1963. Source: Library of Congress BackStory is funded in part by our listeners. You can help keep the episodes coming by supporting the show: https://www.backstoryradio.org/support

This month marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first Africans to land on what would become British North America. It wasn’t the first time Africans set foot in what became the United States - they’d arrived some 100 years earlier with Spanish colonists. But 1619 looms large in American history because it marks the beginning of slavery’s development in the Virginia colony and later the entire nation. 
Image: "Landing Negroes at Jamestown from Dutch man-of-war, 1619," illustration in Harper's Weekly Magazine, January 1901. Source: Library of Congress

BackStory is funded in part by our listeners. You can help keep the episodes coming by supporting the show: https://www.backstoryradio.org/support

On Friday's episode, BackStory digs into the complicated history of 1619 and the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first Africans to the English colonies. 

In this preview, BackStory travels to Hampton, Virginia to meet with members of the Tucker family. Using oral history and official records, they’ve traced their lineage back to William Tucker, the first African American born in British North America in 1624. 

Image: BackStory producer Melissa Gismondi speaks to Walter Jones, Vincent Tucker and Verrandall Tucker, at the Tucker family cemetery in Hampton, VA.

This week, NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo was fired for his involvement in the 2014 death of Eric Garner. The incident helped to stimulate the Black Lives Matter movement, and sparked public debate about the limits of and accountability for law enforcement.

With these debates once again at the fore, BackStory revisits a segment originally published in 2016. In it, producer Nina Earnest explores how the professionalization of the Los Angeles Police Department ended up putting the department above the law they were supposed to enforce.

BackStory is funded in part by our listeners. You can help keep the episodes coming by supporting the show: https://www.backstoryradio.org/support