Slow Burn: Plus

Slow Burn illuminates America’s most consequential moments, making sense of the past to better understand the present. Through archival tape and first-person interviews, the award-winning series uncovers the surprising events and little-known characters lurking within the biggest stories of our time.


Season 10: The Rise of Fox News

How a cable news channel became a cultural and political force—and how a whole bunch of people rose up to try and stop it.


Season 9: Gays Against Briggs

A nationwide moral panic, a California legislator who rode the anti-gay wave, and the LGBTQ+ people who stepped up and came out to try and stop him.


Season 8: Becoming Justice Thomas

Where Clarence Thomas came from, how he rose to power, and how he’s brought the rest of us along with him, whether we like it or not. Winner of the Podcast of the Year at the 2024 Ambies Awards.


Season 7: Roe v. Wade

The women who fought for legal abortion, the activists who pushed back, and the justices who thought they could solve the issue for good. Winner of Apple Podcasts Show of the Year in 2022.


Season 6: The L.A. Riots

How decades of police brutality, a broken justice system, and a video tape set off six days of unrest in Los Angeles.


Season 5: The Road to the Iraq War

Eighteen months after 9/11, the United States invaded a country that had nothing to do with the attacks. Who’s to blame? And was there any way to stop it?


Season 4: David Duke

America’s most famous white supremacist came within a runoff of controlling Louisiana. How did David Duke rise to power? And what did it take to stop him?


Season 3: Biggie and Tupac

How is it that two of the most famous performers in the world were murdered within a year of each other—and their killings were never solved?


Season 2: The Clinton Impeachment

A reexamination of the scandals that nearly destroyed the 42nd president and forever changed the life of a former White House intern.


Season 1: Watergate

What did it feel like to live through the scandal that brought down President Nixon?

History
Documentary
Politics
26
Becoming Justice Thomas | Plus: The Man in the ...
More from Slow Burn’s interview with Lillian McEwen, a former girlfriend of Clarence Thomas.
40 min
27
Becoming Justice Thomas | 3. I’m Their Guy
To understand who Clarence Thomas was in the 1980s, you need to hear from the women who knew him best.
51 min
28
Becoming Justice Thomas | 2. Smiling Faces
Racial preferences gave Clarence Thomas a leg up. They also made him feel degraded.
45 min
29
Becoming Justice Thomas | Plus: The Path to Bla...
More from Slow Burn’s interview with Leah Wright Rigueur, the author of The Loneliness of the Black Republican.
55 min
30
Becoming Justice Thomas | 1. America’s Blackest...
How Clarence Thomas went from an aspiring priest to a campus radical.
49 min
31
Becoming Justice Thomas | Plus: "One of the Guys"
More from Slow Burn’s interview with Diane Brady, the author of Fraternity, which tells the story of Clarence Thomas’ college years.
48 min
32
Show of the Year Extra: The Lawbreaker
Bonus material from Apple Podcasts' Show of the Year.
13 min
33
Show of the Year Extra: Laughable
Bonus material from Apple Podcasts' Show of the Year.
20 min
34
Show of the Year Extra: The Court: Then & Now
Bonus material from Apple Podcasts' Show of the Year.
30 min
35
Show of the Year Extra: The Pivot
Bonus material from Apple Podcasts' Show of the Year.
23 min
36
Show of the Year Extra: What’s Next For Women
Bonus material from Apple Podcasts' Show of the Year.
26 min
37
Roe v. Wade | Creating a Winning Show
The team behind Slow Burn: Roe v. Wade reveals how they made Apple Podcasts' Show of the Year.
45 min
38
Roe v. Wade | Could a Different Roe v. Wade Dec...
All the theories about alternate decisions add up to the same fundamental problem.
45 min
39
Roe v. Wade | 4. Roe Against Wade
How Justice Harry Blackmun became an accidental abortion rights hero.
58 min
40
Roe v. Wade | How Abortion Access in Your State...
And what pro-choice people can do to help.
57 min
41
Roe v. Wade | 3. Women vs. Connecticut
What it took to strike down one of the oldest abortion laws in the country.
47 min
42
Roe v. Wade | How the Anti-Abortion Movement Ga...
By the 1990s, white Evangelicals and Catholics finally found ways to successfully push their agenda.
41 min
43
Roe v. Wade | 2. Life or Death
How a doctor and nurse from Cincinnati irrevocably changed the debate over abortion in America.
50 min
44
Roe v. Wade | The 1960s TV Drama That Dared to ...
And inspired a plotline in "Mad Men" decades later.
40 min
45
Roe v. Wade | 1. Get Married or Go Home
In 1971, Shirley Wheeler became the public face of the fight for abortion rights.
51 min
46
Season 7 Trailer: Roe v. Wade
The women who fought for legal abortion, the activists who pushed back, and the justices who thought they could solve the issue for good.
2 min
47
The L.A. Riots | Plus: “Rebuilding” L.A.
More on the aftermath of the riots, plus reflections on the making of Season 6.
54 min
48
The L.A. Riots | 8. Damages
How Rodney King and the city of Los Angeles tried to reckon with everything they’d suffered.
47 min
49
The L.A. Riots | Plus: "It’s Like the Whole Cit...
More on what happened after the first day of the riots.
45 min
50
The L.A. Riots | 7. Into Ashes
April 30 felt like the calm after the storm. Then the fires started burning again.
37 min