Slate Presents: One Year

The people and struggles that changed America—one year at a time. In each episode, host Josh Levin explores a story you may have forgotten, or one you’ve never heard of before. What were the moments that transformed politics, culture, science, religion, and more? And how does the nation’s past shape our present?

History
Documentary
1
Slow Burn: The Rise of Fox News | 6. What Hath ...
Some of the people who built Fox News now wonder how much they’re to blame for what it’s become.
71 min
2
Slow Burn: The Rise of Fox News | 5. Ludacris H...
For the American left, Fox News was an enemy to be destroyed—but maybe also emulated.
58 min
3
Slow Burn: The Rise of Fox News | 4. Beacon of ...
The Daily Show Ridiculed Fox News. And Fox News Loved It.
59 min
4
Slow Burn: The Rise of Fox News | 3. The Other ...
Life at CNN was pretty darn sweet. Then came Fox News.
51 min
5
Slow Burn: The Rise of Fox News | 2. A Network ...
The Fox News story began with the death of a dream.
54 min
6
Slow Burn: The Rise of Fox News | 1. We Report....
How Fox News went from bumbling to seemingly invincible.
51 min
7
1990: The Angry Death of Kimberly Bergalis
A young woman claimed she got HIV from her dentist. Was she right?
52 min
8
1990: Art on Trial
Inside the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition that sparked a First Amendment showdown in Cincinnati.
54 min
9
1990: Bush vs. Broccoli
When the president declared war on a vegetable, the country lost its mind.
36 min
10
1990: Mandrake the Magician
How a single dad with a secret identity took on Big Tobacco.
46 min
11
1990: Pizzastroika
As the Cold War reached its climax, Pizza Hut got tangled up in geopolitics—and made a lot of dough.
53 min
12
1955: The Hiroshima Maidens
A decade after the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb, 25 Japanese women put their lives in the hands of American surgeons.
50 min
13
1955: The Cutter Incident
In 1955, the polio vaccine was rightly heralded as a miracle. A medical mystery threatened to derail it.
32 min
14
1955: Siberia, USA
The Communist-hunting housewives who spawned a far-right conspiracy theory about an American gulag.
51 min
15
1955: The Weather Girls
In the 1950s, women weathercasters were idolized and lusted over. They were also seen as a major threat.
41 min
16
1955: The Crockett Craze
How Walt Disney created the first baby-boom phenomenon totally by accident.
53 min
17
1955: The Team Nobody Would Play
In 1955, a team of Black Little Leaguers battled the white establishment in the Deep South.
53 min
18
1942: The Black-Japanese Axis
A shadowy organization, a mysterious leader, and an alleged conspiracy against America during World War II.
35 min
19
1942: When Internment Came to Alaska
The U.S. military claimed it was protecting indigenous Alaskans during World War II. The real story is much darker.
37 min
20
1942: The Info Wars of World War II
How the Nazis used radio propaganda as a weapon against the United States.
43 min
21
1942: The Day the Music Stopped
How a 1942 recording ban changed America forever.
52 min
22
1942: The Year Everyone Got Married
In 1942, matrimony was a national obsession. How would those weddings change America?
39 min
23
1942: The Most Hated Man in America
In 1942, it was up to Leon Henderson to stop inflation. He became a nationwide villain.
42 min
24
1986: The Man From Fifth Avenue
The stranger-than-fiction story of a mysterious American who starred in a Soviet propaganda film.
53 min
25
1986: The Miracle of Cokeville
How the worst school attack in U.S. history was narrowly averted.
62 min