October 19, 1814. An eager audience files into the Holliday Street Theater in Baltimore, about to see a debut performance, described as a “much-admired new song.” The composer of this song, Francis Scott Key, had written the lyrics during a recent battle in Baltimore, trapped on a British ship as he watched the rockets red glare from afar. Key wasn’t a professional songwriter – a prominent lawyer in Washington D.C., he specialized in cases related to slavery, both defending enslaved people and slave catchers. But his real legacy became this song, entitled “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

How did Key come to watch the Battle of Baltimore play out from the deck of an enemy ship? And how did his relationship with race and slavery shape the song we now call our national anthem?

Special thanks to authors Marc Leepson and Tim Grove for sharing their voices and expertise for this episode.

** This episode originally aired October 19, 2020.

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October 24, 1945. The Charter of the United Nations is signed, promising to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” Back when the charter was drafted a few months earlier in San Francisco, delegates from around the world gathered to build a new era of peace and human rights. 

Among them is Mary McLeod Bethune, the only Black woman in the U.S. delegation, and she already sees the contradictions beneath the moment: colonial powers writing freedom into a document that excludes millions. Years later, journalist Marguerite Cartwright will carry that insight forward, holding the UN to the ideals it claimed to represent.

Why did these two Black women believe the UN was so important, when their own country continued to deny them equality? And how can their work reframe the way we view the struggle for Civil Rights beyond U.S. borders, for all nations?

 Special thank you to Keisha Blain,  professor of Africana Studies and History at Brown University and author of Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights.

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October, 1955. In living rooms across Denmark, children tear open the box of a brand-new toy: the LEGO System in Play. Inside are plastic bricks, a printed playmat of roads, little houses and trees — everything in perfect scale. As they build, something new is taking shape. 

It looks simple, but it’s a radical idea — every piece connects, no matter when or where it’s made. It’s more than a toy — it’s a system. That quiet innovation will turn a small family workshop into one of the most successful companies in the world.

How did a small-town Danish carpenter launch a plastic toy empire? And how did LEGO re-envision what a toy can be?

Special thanks to Kristian Reimer Hauge, corporate historian at the LEGO Idea House; Daniel Konstanski, historian for Blocks Magazine and author of The Secret Life of LEGO® Bricks: The Story of a Design Icon; and Chris Byrne, researcher, historian, and “The Toy Guy.”

We also want to thank Dana Goldsmith, Andreas Friis, and Roberta Cardazzo.

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October 11, 1955. Nearly three hundred of the Soviet Union’s top scientists sign a secret letter demanding the removal of one man: Trofim Lysenko. For decades, Lysenko had Joseph Stalin’s ear, ruling Soviet biology with an iron fist—banning genetics, rewriting textbooks, and sending dissenting scientists to prison or worse. 

How did a peasant-turned-agronomist convince Stalin that wheat could turn into rye, and that ideology mattered more than evidence? And when politics replace science, what—and who—gets destroyed?

Special thanks to William deJong-Lambert, author of The Cold War Politics of Genetic Research: An Introduction to the Lysenko Affair; and Nikolai Krementsov, author of Stalinist Science.

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October 4, 1915. President Woodrow Wilson designates Dinosaur National Monument as a national historic site. That’s a big deal, right? There must’ve been a grand ribbon-cutting ceremony, maybe even a parade. But no. In 1915, nobody really cares about dinosaurs. But that is all about to change. And when it does, it is largely because of two paleontologists. Two guys who started off as best friends … until their growing obsession with unearthing and cataloging dinosaur bones would turn them into rivals. Then enemies. How did the competition between a pair of paleontologists lead to unprecedented dinosaur discoveries? And how did their rivalry unhinge them both? 

Special thanks to guest Dr. Hans Sues, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

** This episode originally aired October 3, 2022.

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September 27, 1986. You’re a kid in the mid-80s. You get home from school, flip on the TV, and see something strange: a commercial where a giant egg hatches behind a family’s console, revealing a toy robot. His name is R.O.B. — the Robotic Operating Buddy — but he's just an accessory. The real product: Nintendo. 

Today, the Nintendo Entertainment System is launching nationwide. Just a few years earlier, the U.S. video game market had collapsed under the weight of bad games and too many consoles. But Nintendo had a plan — to sell Americans on something that didn’t look like a video game at all. 

With a plastic robot, a disguised gray box, and a plumber named Mario, how did Nintendo manage to sneak video games back into living rooms—and rescue a dying industry?

Special thanks to Jeremy Parish, media curator at Limited Run Games, producer of NES Works, and co-host of the Retronauts podcast.

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September 14, 1901. Midnight in the Adirondacks. A pounding knock at the door jolts Theodore and Edith Roosevelt awake. William McKinley is dead. Hours later, Theodore will be sworn in as the youngest president in U.S. history. But Edith barely flinches—her diary that day notes her children’s sniffles before her husband’s rise to power.

Who was this woman who grew up alongside Theodore, helped shape his presidency, reinvented the role of First Lady, and yet tried to erase her own story from the record?

 Special thanks to Kathleen Dalton, author of Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life; and Edward O’Keefe, author of The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt: The Women Who Created a President. O'Keefe is also the CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, set to open next 4th of July.

Artwork: Studio portrait of Edith and Theodore Roosevelt seated together, by Walter Scott Shinn, 1916.

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With every episode, Lena Dunham and Alissa Bennett take you on a historical deep dive into the life of a woman society dismissed by calling her mad, sad, or just plain bad: Lindsay Lohan, Judy Garland, Winona Ryder, Mariah Carey, Lil Kim and many more. Join them for a rich, hilarious, and heartbreaking look into exactly what it means when we call a woman “crazy.”

The C-Word was originally published behind a paywall from 2019 - 2022. This is the first time it’s being released to all major podcast platforms.

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September 10, 1986. It’s just before 8am when Cliff Stoll’s pager jolts him awake. A computer at Lawrence Berkeley Lab has flagged a problem: a tiny 75-cent accounting error. But when Stoll rushes to his office, he realizes this isn’t about missing spare change. Someone has slipped into the lab’s network, tunneling thousands of miles away into U.S. military computers. 

Cliff isn’t a spycatcher. He’s an astronomer. And yet, from this moment on, he’ll spend months chasing a hacker who may be working for the KGB.

How did spare change uncover a spy ring? And why did this case mark the end of innocence on the Internet?

Special thanks to Cliff Stoll, astronomer, teacher, and author of The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage; and J.J. Widener, cybersecurity expert currently serving as Director of Cybersecurity Architecture at Kimberly-Clark.

Artwork: Cliff Stoll promo image

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Sept 5, 1698. Tsar Peter the Great of Russia returns home from a year-long European tour. When noblemen, religious figures, and friends gather to welcome him home, Peter pulls out a straight razor, holds it to their throats, and…forcibly shaves their beards. This event will go down in history as a first step toward Russian geopolitical power. Before Peter’s reign, Russia was an isolated nation that was largely ignored by the rest of the world. 

How did Peter the Great almost single-handedly drag Russia onto the world stage? And how did his great beard-shaving endeavor lead to the Russia we know today?

Special thanks to our guest, Lynne Hartnett, Ph.D., Professor of History, Villanova University, and author of Understanding Russia: A Cultural History.

Artwork: Russian political cartoon depicting Peter the Great as a barber, ca. 18th century 

** This episode originally aired August 31, 2020.

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