Part two of our look at the rise of prohibition looks at the many ways in which Americans tried to evade the law, and how a burgeoning police state went after them. Plus: How did Prohibition shape America, in the end?

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Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia.

This week on "50 Weeks That Shaped America," we're headed to January 1920 and the first night of Prohibition. Hide your booze! Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss the long road to prohibition, going back decades, and the political forces that led to the ban of alcohol.

Join our America250 newsletter community! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early, ad-free versions of the show. Plus bonus features throughout the year. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now.

This Day is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia.

For our "Sunday Context" series, we build on this past week's coversation about the bicentennial to point out how this year's America 250 project is coming together. We look at some of the key figures in Trump world who are organizing the festivities; and the overall vision of American history laid out by those planning America's 250th birthday.

Join our America250 newsletter community! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early, ad-free versions of the show. Plus bonus features throughout the year. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now.

This Day is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia.

In part two of our look at the bicentennial, Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss how the festivities played out, and how Philadelphia ended up becoming the center of the action, depsite (or because of) their corrupt mayor Frank Rizzo.

Join our America250 newsletter community! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early, ad-free versions of the show. Plus bonus features throughout the year. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now.

This Day is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia.

It's Week 1 of "50 Weeks That Shaped America," and we're headed to 1976 to look at how America's last big birthday came together. In part one, Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss how the country was in a deep malaise headed into the bicentennial, and the shambolic planning of the festivities reflected the larger distrust and dysfunction of government.

Join our America250 newsletter community! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early, ad-free versions of the show. Plus bonus features throughout the year. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now.

This Day is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia.

2026 is here! As is America250. On Tuesday, we're launching our 50 Weeks That Shaped America series, but today we get together to ring in the new year with a few "predictions and provocation."

Note: The full version of this episode, with video, is available for paying subscribers to our newsletter. Our America250 series will always be free in the regular podcast feed, but throughout the year we will be bringing our newsletter community bonus conversations -- and access to early, ad-free versions of the show. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now.

We're bringing you some of our favorite episodes of 2025 while we get a holiday break -- and prepare for our big America250 series. See you in 2026!

It's March 23rd. This day in 1775, Patrick Henry of Virginia gave a speech in which he (maybe) uttered one of the more famous phrases in American political history.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss how Henry came to give such a fiery speech, the reaction from those in the room -- and why it's hard to know exactly what he said, if it matters at all.

Sign up for our newsletter! Find out more at thisdaypod.com

And don’t forget about Oprahdemics, hosted by Kellie, coming soon from Radiotopia.

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Julie Shapiro and Audrey Mardavich, Executive Producers at Radiotopia

We're bringing you some of our favorite episodes of 2025 while we get a holiday break -- and prepare for our big America250 series. See you in 2026!

It's June 24th. In 2003, Jimmy Wales, the owner of Wikipedia, made the decision to put the site under the ownership of a non-profit company.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss why this decision made a huge difference for the site, and reflected a lot of the ways that the Internet has worked, and not worked, in the decades since. They are joined by journalist Garrett Graff, host of a new series called "Long Shadow: Breaking The Internet." 

The first episode of Long Shadow is out now!

Find out more at thisdaypod.com

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

We're bringing you some of our favorite episodes of 2025 while we get a holiday break -- and prepare for our big America250 series. See you in 2026!

It's March 25th. This day in 1980, a church in Tucson announces that it will provide sanctuary to immigrants -- in open defiance of US law.

Jody, NIki, and Kellie discuss the roots of the church sanctuary movement, the conviction of eight leaders including Reverand John Fife, and the ongoing role of religious progressivism.

Sign up for our newsletter! Find out more at thisdaypod.com

And don’t forget about Oprahdemics, hosted by Kellie, coming soon from Radiotopia.

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Julie Shapiro and Audrey Mardavich, Executive Producers at Radiotopia

We're bringing you some of our favorite episodes of 2025 while we get a holiday break -- and prepare for our big America250 series. See you in 2026!

It's March 27th. This day in 1976, Schoolhouse Rock premieres the song "I'm Just A Bill," an animated look at the process by which legislation gets passed -- or languishes in the halls of Congress.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie talk about how the song came together, the legislation at the heart of the process, and whether lawmaking still happens the same way.

Sign up for our newsletter! Find out more at thisdaypod.com

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Julie Shapiro and Audrey Mardavich, Executive Producers at Radiotopia