The Thread

Sean's back with a brand new show. Flashback is a series of stories of unintended consequences, disastrous turning points, dangerous ideas, crazy coincidences, unsung heroes and forgotten villains. Find out how some of the best-laid plans can go horribly wrong, or prove unexpectedly magnificent. Click here to subscribe now: https://megaphone.link/HSW9425294283

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Nera White dominated her sport for 15 years, and even beat the Soviets at the height of the Cold War. But you’ve probably never heard of the Michael Jordan of women’s basketball. 

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Thanks to Title IX and the trailblazing women behind it, the U.S. has now dominated women’s soccer for almost three decades. The national team has won four Olympic gold medals, and now four World Cups. But, even in 2019, female athletes in America are far from equal to their male counterparts, and the members of the national team are not treated the same as their male peers – not even close. In this episode, we talk to everyone from historians to players, including current team members Alex Morgan, Carli Lloyd and others, about the national team’s history-making role this year.

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The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray was a pioneering civil rights attorney and a co-founder of the National Organization for Women. She helped draw attention to the dual costs of racism and sexism and was instrumental in making sure that the push for women’s rights, including Title IX, built on the successes of the civil rights movement.

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After learning she had not been considered for any of the teaching openings in her college department and that she came on “too strong for a woman,” Bernice “Bunny” Sandler went home and cried. Then she showed just how strong a woman she was. Sandler’s remarkable behind-the-scenes efforts proved instrumental to the passage of Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in higher education.

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More than 23 years before Brandi Chastain took off her jersey, the women of the Yale women's crew team were taking off more than theirs. In March 1976, 19 members of the Yale women's crew team stripped naked in a college athletic director’s office to protest the team’s lack of shower facilities and changed the way that female athletes are treated on college campuses.

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In the summer of 1985, the first U.S. women’s national soccer team made their debut in Italy. The ragtag group, cobbled together in less than a week and with a shoestring budget, little time to practice, and hand-me-down uniforms, struggled to keep up with their international competition. But their perseverance and their love of the game laid the groundwork for the winning team culture that fueled the championship teams of the 1990s.

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When Brandi Chastain ripped off her jersey after scoring the winning penalty kick in the 1999 Women's World Cup Final, her iconic celebration marked the arrival of women’s soccer, both on the global sports stage and in the public imagination. With “The '99ers,” as the team is known, America had assembled a talented group of women and given them an unprecedented opportunity to succeed. But it was an opportunity that did not come easily… or happen overnight.

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When Brandi Chastain ripped off her jersey after scoring the winning penalty in the 1999 Women's World Cup Final, her now iconic goal celebration marked the arrival of women’s soccer, both on the global sports stage and in the public imagination. In "Let Us Play," the latest season of The Thread, we tell the hidden story behind the greatest women’s team in American sports history. We show how Chastain’s celebration originated decades earlier and how the '99ers stood on the shoulders of a series of unheralded athletes, policymakers and scholars, from the Brooklyn teacher who helped pass the landmark Title IX civil rights legislation in 1972 to the the Black transgender attorney who made that achievement possible. | Coming June 5.

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What is it about The Catcher in the Rye that prompted two of the world’s most infamous assassination attempts? In Season 4 of The Thread we saw how the acquittal of President Ronald Reagan’s attempted assassin John Hinckley Jr. on grounds of insanity helped change the landscape of American criminal law. But Hinckley’s story also connects with Season 1 of The Thread and another early 1980s murder by a deranged 25-year-old.

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