It’s August 3rd. This day in 1978, dog owners in NYC are dealing with a whole new reality — they are now responsible for cleaning up after their pet’s waste.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss what life was like on NYC’s streets before the so-called “pooper scooper” law, and how these sorts of laws are more about shifting norms than actual enforcement.

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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; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

It’s August 1st. This day in 1996, a judge ruled that Bernie Goetz still owed his victims millions of dollars in damages as a result of the “Subway Vigilante” incident some twelve years earlier.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by Leon Neyfakh to discuss the subway shooting, the media frenzy surrounding Goetz, and the long legal fallout that resulted from the incident.

Leon’s latest season of FIASCO on the vigilante story is available now on Audible and you can find information on how to listen to previous seasons here.

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

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; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

On Sundays this summer, we’re bringing you some of our favorite episodes from the archives. We’ll continue to do new episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Happy summer!

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It’s August 11th. This day in 1973, a group of Irish-Americans known as “The Fort Worth Five” are caught up in the court system, accused of running guns to Ireland to aid the independence movement.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by Nate Lavey to discuss how regular Irish-Americans got involved in the freedom fight, and the long political and financial nexus between groups like NORAID in the United States and the IRA in Ireland.

Nate is the host of the excellent new podcast “Foreign Agent,” which traces the roots of NORAID and Irish-American activism.

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

And don’t forget about Oprahdemics, hosted by Kellie, out now 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; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

It’s July 27th. This day in 1904, Speaker of the House Joseph Cannon (IL) goes to the Capitol dining room expecting to have a nice hot cup of his favorite, bean soup, and is met with an unfortunate surprise.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss why Cannon was so upset at not being served bean soup, and why the Senate has featured it on the menu every single day since — except for one.

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

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; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

It’s July 24th. This day in 1942, a trial is wrapping up in New York City centered on a Nazi plot to target a number of significant US economic sites, from factories to dams and bridges.

Jody, NIki, and Kellie are joined by podcast producer Rebecca Seidel to discuss what came to be known as Operation Pastorius.

Be sure to check out Becca’s latest podcast series — Abridged!

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

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; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

On Sundays this summer, we’re bringing you some of our favorite episodes from the archives. We’ll continue to do new episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Happy summer!

///

It’s July 25th. This day (July 24th in fact) in 2009, President Obama extended an invitation to Henry Louis Gates, Jr and Sgt James Crowley to discuss an incident in which Crowley arrested Gates on his own doorstep.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss the incident that sparked this attempt at reconciliation, and how Obama’s handling of the moment was a turning point for many white Americans in how they viewed his presidency.

Find a transcript of this episode at: https://tinyurl.com/esoterichistory

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, Executive Producer at Radiotopia

It’s July 20th. This day in 1945, a petition signed by 70 scientists working on the development of nuclear weapons is circulating in Washington — a petition arguing against the plans to drop weapons on Japan.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss the Szilard Petition, how it reflected the deep moral wrestling taking place among the scientific community, and why it ultimately did not make it to President Truman’s desk.

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

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; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

It’s July 18th. This day in 1944, a group of almost one thousand refugees are headed to the United States, where they would eventually be housed at Ft Ontario, in New York. This was the only large group of Holocaust refugees permitted to enter the United States during World War II.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by filmmaker Sarah Botstein to discuss the Ft Ontario group and how the US thought about refugees in this era.

Sarah was a co-director and producer, alongside Ken Burns and Lynn Novak, of the documentary series “The U.S. And The Holocaust.”

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

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; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

On Sundays this summer, we’re bringing you some of our favorite episodes from the archives. We’ll continue to do new episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Happy summer!

///

It’s July 22nd. This day in 1975, Congress voted to restore citizenship to Robert E. Lee, more than a hundred years after his death.

Jody, NIki, and Kellie are joined by author John Reeves to talk about why this vote took place, how it tied into a false theory about a missing citizenship oath, and what the myth of Lee says about how the Confederacy has been restored in the public imagination.

John Reeve’s book is “The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee: The Forgotten Case against an American Icon”

Find a transcript of this episode at: https://tinyurl.com/esoterichistory

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, Executive Producer at Radiotopia

It’s July 13th. Only July 14th, 1948, at the Democratic National Convention, a young Hubert Humphrey took the stage and implored his party to embrace the cause of civil rights.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by Samuel G Freedman of Columbia University to discuss why Humphrey’s speech sent such a shockwave through the party — and ultimately convinced it to adopt a pro-civil rights plank heading into that election.

Freedman’s new book about Humphrey is called Into The Bright Sunshine.

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

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; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia