

This Day
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
“This Day” takes you beyond the head-spinning headlines of today and into the unexpected historical moments that have shaped American politics. Hosted by Jody Avirgan (538), and historians Nicole Hemmer (Vanderbilt), and Kellie Carter Jackson (Wellesley), each episode explores a moment from that day in U.S. political history to uncover its lasting impact. On Sunday episodes, Jody, Niki and Kellie react to current news with their usual mix of humor, analysis, and historical perspective.New episodes released Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. Lots more on our Instagram page, YouTube, and newsletter. Find it all at thisdaypod.com.This Day is a proud member of the Radiotopia podcast network from PRX.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jun 27, 2023 • 13min
Readmitting Rebel States (1868)
It’s June 26th. In 1868, throughout the summer, there is a process underway to bring seven Southern US states back into the United States.
Jody, NIki, and Kellie discuss the logistics of re-admittance, and how different states took very different approaches to the process.
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
Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Jun 25, 2023 • 23min
Flag Burning Is Free Speech (1989) w/ Michael Liroff
Michael Liroff, a lawyer and co-host of the 5-4 Podcast, joins the conversation to dissect a pivotal Supreme Court ruling from 1989 that affirmed flag burning as free speech. He delves into Gregory Lee Johnson's motivations for his infamous protest at the 1984 Republican National Convention, critiquing American foreign policy of the time. The discussion also explores the flag's evolving role as a symbol of dissent and patriotism, and how this ruling reshapes our understanding of free speech rights in America.

Jun 22, 2023 • 21min
Superman vs KKK (1946)
It’s June 21st. This day in 1946, an epic battle is playing out across the radio waves, as The Adventures of Superman takes on a multi-part series in which the man of steel confront “The Clan of the Fiery Cross,” a loose stand-in for the KKK.
Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss why Superman was confronting the Klan in this moment, and what it signaled about the KKK’s diminishing role in American life.
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
Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Jun 20, 2023 • 22min
Nightwalking w/ Bianca Giaever
It’s June 20th. Tonight, it will be dark — and maybe you will go for a walk?
Jody, NIki, and Kellie are joined by Bianca Giaever, host of the podcast series “Constellation Prize,” to talk about her forays into walking at night, and her correspondence with the writer Terry Tempest Williams. They also discuss the rich social and political history of walking at night.
Be sure to check out Constellation Prize, from the Believer, wherever you get your podcasts!
https://www.thebeliever.net/constellation-prize/
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
Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Jun 18, 2023 • 21min
Lift Every Voice and Sing (1900)
It’s June 18th. Today, for Juneteenth, we look at the history of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” aka the Black National Anthem.
Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss the song’s history and the various ways in which it’s been presented as a song of resistance, militancy, and empowerment through the decades.
If you want to hear our Juneteenth history episode, find it here! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/juneteenth-1865/id1502728938?i=1000519244206
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
Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Jun 15, 2023 • 27min
The Seligman Affair (1877) w/ Zev Eleff
It’s June 15th. This day in 1877, a prominent Jewish businessman by the name of Joseph Seligman is turned away from staying at the Grand Union Hotel, with the hotel claiming a new policy “no Israelites shall be permitted in the future to stop at this hotel.”
Jody, Niki and Kellie are joined by Zev Eleff, president of Gratz College in Pennsylvania, to discuss what came to be known as the Seligman Affair, perhaps the most high-profile case of antisemitism in the United States up to that point. It revealed a lot about shifting class, race, and religious lines in post-Civil-War America.
Zev wrote an article for Sources, from the Shalom Hartman Institute, check it out here: https://www.sourcesjournal.org/articles/tag/Zev+Eleff
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
Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Jun 13, 2023 • 16min
The Challenger Disaster Final Report (1986)
It’s June 13th. This day in 1986, the Rogers Commission has issued a report and is conducting a series of hearings on the causes of the Challenger space shuttle disaster earlier that year.
Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss how the report revealed not just technical failures, but deep bureaucratic dysfunction and lack of communication that ultimately led to warning about the shuttle’s safety not being heeded.
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
Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Jun 11, 2023 • 20min
Death On The Lot: Hattie McDaniel's Fight w/ Hadley Meares and Brian Steele
As it happens, the This Day team has a bunch of cool new projects coming out over the next week or two. So, we’re going to feature them here.
Today: Jody is the executive producer of a new series called Death On The Lot, a look at how changes and tragedy in Hollywood reflected larger shifts in American culture and politics in the 1940s and 50s.
The two writers for the series, Brian Steele and Hadley Meares, discuss our look a the life of Hattie McDaniel, who was the first Black actress to win an Oscar, but was soon shut out of Hollywood, and became the target of the burgeoning modern civil rights movement.
Be sure to listen to Death On The Lot wherever you get your podcasts!
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
Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Jun 8, 2023 • 30min
Death On The Lot: Hollywood's Wild Labor History w/ Brian Steele and Hadley Meares
As it happens, the This Day team has a bunch of cool new projects coming out over the next week or two. So, we’re going to feature them here.
Today: Jody is the executive producer of a new series called Death On The Lot, a look at how changes and tragedy in Hollywood reflected larger shifts in American culture and politics in the 1940s and 50s.
The two writers for the series, Brian Steele and Hadley Meares, discuss Hollywood’s labor history, and how in the post-war era unions were corrupted by organized crime; and red-baited by politicians and the media.
Be sure to listen to Death On The Lot wherever you get your podcasts!
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
Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Jun 6, 2023 • 22min
The Obama Oral History Project Is Here
As it happens, the This Day team has a bunch of cool new projects coming out over the next week or two. So, we’re going to feature them here.
Today: Our very own Nicole Hemmer has been part of the years-in-the-making Obama Oral History Project, which talked to members of the administration and people affected by Obama’s policy about key moments in his presidency. Today, we talk about the project’s launch and the first batch of interviews about environmental policy within the administration.
Subscribe to the SLR and check out the podcast series here: https://sundaylongread.com/
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
Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices