Before the U.S. entered World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to promote tolerance toward immigrants. So, the government started a radio program featuring celebrity immigrants' stories.
Tobacco enemas? Mercury pills? Ice pick lobotomies? A new book explains how throughout history, miracle "cures" often didn't just fail to improve people's health, they maimed and killed.
Chadwick Boseman has made a name for himself in Hollywood playing prominent African-American figures like Jackie Robinson and James Brown. NPR's Michel Martin speaks with the actor about his latest film,Marshall, which follows an early case in the career of eventual Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. LANGUAGE ADVISORY: At 6:30 into the piece, Boseman says he's been called a "nigger," a word some may find offensive. The word is not bleeped.
Before surgeons accepted germ theory, operations often killed patients. All Things Considered host Robert Siegel talks with the author of a new biography of antiseptic advocate Joseph Lister.
Ahmed Timol died under suspicious circumstances in police custody in 1971. An inquest had said he committed suicide. But a Pretoria judge now says that the police holding Timol were responsible.
Gettysburg, Pa., where Union forces turned the tide of the Civil War in a horrific battle, has the largest number of Confederate monuments in the country. The national park there has been the scene of reconciliation between north and south, but current events suggest that reconciliation is still an ongoing process.
To commemorate 100 years since the U.S. entered WWI, the gardens outside the Library of Congress have been transformed into a traditional war garden — producing heirloom vegetables of the past.
The portrait of Jesus Christ, Salvator Mundi, was recently confirmed to be a da Vinci that had been thought to be destroyed. It's not clear where the painting was, exactly, for more than a century.
Jason De León, Njideka Akunyili Crosby and Derek Peterson are among the 24 winners of this year's MacArthur Fellowship, which honors "extraordinarily talented and creative individuals."
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum explains how Stalin killed millions in the '30s by orchestrating a famine to suppress the nationalist movement and strengthen Russian influence in Ukraine.
Residents of Arecibo love the 350-foot-tall statue, which they hoped would bring tourists to their region. But they aren't fond of the conquistador who people say discovered the island and America.
NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Kevin Gover, director of the National Museum of the American Indian, about the growing movement to change Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day in cities and counties across the country.
This week marks the anniversary of the 1937 massacre, in which Dominican soldiers targeted Haitians living near the Dominican-Haitian border. A team from NPR's Latino USA gathered survivors' memories.
For many people, it's just not Fall without this tasty combo. And when the first cars hit the roads, farm stands began selling the drink along with a fried treat made by a new machine.
Looking back on the vanished styles and language of the hippie movement, linguist Geoff Nunberg says, "The most persistent single pejorative term to come out of the era is 'hippie' itself."
The Jewish holiday of reflection and hope tends to bring everyone to the heaping table of traditional foods when fasting is over, But celebrating with a huge feast was not always the case.
It's muscadine season, and for writer Tanya Ballard Brown, the smell and taste are a throwback to childhood. But for others who grew up outside the South, these thick-skinned grapes are a mystery.
Monday marks the 60th anniversary of the controversial and historic desegregation of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. Some are celebrating the milestone. Others say more progress is needed.
