In this episode, we’re heading to America’s Atlantic Coast, circa 1987. People are fleeing the beaches, and it’s not because of sharks. To the horror of both tourists and residents alike, the coasts of New York City, Long Island, and the Jersey Shore have been covered in medical waste. Hypodermic syringes, to be specific. 

To help us with this episode is our guest, Jeremy Greene. Jeremy is a historian of medicine, and the director of the history of medicine department at Johns Hopkins University.

 He’s also the author of Hypodermics on the Shore, a brilliant article published in the Atlantic which we highly recommend.

 In this episode we’re back in New York in the 1980s and looking at a controversial figure who’s little-known today: Bernie Goetz. Goetz, who shot four teenagers on the New York subway, has been variously portrayed as a racist villain, a victim, and a hero.

 We’re very lucky to be joined in this episode by a guest who was almost as close to the case as you can get. He’s civil rights and criminal defence lawyer Ron Kuby, who represented the family of Darrell Cabey, one of the victims, in a civil lawsuit against Goetz. 

Following on from our previous episode on the AIDS epidemic, this time we’re focussing on another large scale social issue that swept the world - but more specifically the United States - in the late 1980s and early 90s. This is an epidemic of a different kind - drug use, in the form of Crack Cocaine.

  The so-called “War on Drugs” will reach a fever pitch over this period, irrevocably changing the United States’ relationship with its black population, drug use, and its federal prison system

This episode's guest is Craig Reinarman, Professor of Sociology and Legal Studies Emeritus, at the University of California Santa Cruz. Professor Reinarman has written extensively on drug scares and Crack in particular.

In this episode we delve into one of modern histories deadliest diseases AIDS.   The AIDS epidemic swept through the United States and the world at large in the 1980’s and 90’s, devastating the communities of queer people and drug users.

Here to help us understand the history of AIDS is Professor Jonathon Engel from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health in Manhattan. Professor Engel is the author of The Epidemic: A Global History of AIDS

 In this episode we’re returning to America and catching up with the Vietnam veterans who proudly served their country in the 1960s and 70s.

We explore the complex damages caused by war and one of the darker sides of the American dream: a problem with apparently no easy solution, in a country that prides itself on its military might. 

 In this episode we’re looking at foreign debts in the 1980s, as we explore the economic system introduced by American President (and former B movie actor) Ronald Reagan.

 The 80s also saw a massive debt crisis in Latin America, where it’s known as La Decada Perdida or the Lost Decade. Money might seem like a dry topic compared to some of the many colorful events and personalities we’ve profiled on this podcast: but in the increasingly globalized world of the late 20th century, everything is connected. 

Throughout modern history, there have been few things in popular culture as stigmatised as heavy metal music.  Coated in all forms of macabre imagery and dealing with dark and provocative themes - metal has always sought to test the limits of what is socially acceptable. 

 In this episode, we’ll be telling many tragic stories about people who’ve suffered the ultimate loss and wound up putting their grief into the wrong places. 

We’ll examine how this stigma affected heavy metal as a music genre, its fans, and even the connections between metal music and our patron saint Billy Joel himself.

 Here to help us tell this story is our guest, co-founder of the International Institute of Metal Studies Brian Hickham. First he explains what is actually covered by the term “heavy metal.”

Throughout modern history, there have been few things in popular culture as stigmatised as heavy metal music. Coated in all forms of macabre imagery and dealing with dark and provocative themes - metal has always sought to test the limits of what is socially acceptable. 

 In this episode, we’ll be telling many tragic stories about people who’ve suffered the ultimate loss and wound up putting their grief into the wrong places.  We’ll examine how this stigma affected heavy metal as a music genre, its fans, and even the connections between metal music and our patron saint Billy Joel himself.

Here to help us tell this story is our guest, co-founder of the International Institute of Metal Studies Brian Hickham. First he explains what is actually covered by the term “heavy metal.”

 In this episode we’re looking at foreign debts in the 1980s, as we explore the economic system introduced by American President (and former B movie actor) Ronald Reagan.

 The 80s also saw a massive debt crisis in Latin America, where it’s known as La Decada Perdida or the Lost Decade. Money might seem like a dry topic compared to some of the many colorful events and personalities we’ve profiled on this podcast: but in the increasingly globalized world of the late 20th century, everything is connected. 

In the early 1980s, more than a decade after the Moon Landing, America saw the stratospheric rise of Sally Ride, the third female astronaut and the first woman from the United States to go into space. Overnight, she became a national hero: but she never felt comfortable with her celebrity status. She also became a pioneer when it came to promoting science education, particularly for girls.

 Here with us to discuss Sally Ride is a very special guest, former NASA official from the Office of Communications, Alan Ladwig. Alan worked with Sally on numerous occasions at NASA, in the private sector, and in the academic world.