June 4, 1939. Anna May Wong steps off an ocean liner to greet her fans in Australia. In many ways, she is a classic Hollywood actor. Glamorous and famous. She’s made some sixty movies that have been seen around the world. But in other ways, Anna May Wong is singular. She’s the first–and at this time only–Chinese American movie star. But behind the scenes...s ... Show More
Nov 2
How Biddy Mason Found Her Freedom in Los Angeles
November 8, 1864. Election Day. Abraham Lincoln watches from a White House window, convinced he might lose. Three thousand miles away in Los Angeles, a Confederate hotbed in a so-called free state, Biddy Mason has more riding on the result than almost anyone in the country.Sixtee ... Show More
31m 35s
Oct 30
Salem’s First Witch Trial
Happy Halloween! Today, we're bringing back a particularly spooky episode from the archives...June 10, 1692. Bridget Bishop is loaded into a two-wheeled cart and brought from her Salem jail cell to a pasture on a hill, where a rope is hanging from freshly-installed gallows. A cro ... Show More
28m 48s
Oct 26
1066: The Brother Who Broke England (w/ Greg Jenner)
October 28, 1065. The king’s council meets in Oxford and throws a man out of England. His name is Tostig Godwinson, and the north of England already hates him. His own brother Harold, the most powerful earl in the realm and the likely next king, refuses to save him.Tostig does no ... Show More
29m 22s
Aug 2024
Yiman Wang, "To Be an Actress: Labor and Performance in Anna May Wong's Cross-Media World" (U California Press, 2024)
Between 1919 and 1961, pioneering Chinese American actress Anna May Wong established an enduring legacy that encompassed cinema, theatre, radio, and American television. Born in Los Angeles, yet with her US citizenship scrutinised due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, Wong—a defiant ... Show More
54m 31s
Mar 2024
Old Hollywood's First Asian Amerian Star, Anna May Wong
We're joined today by Katie Gee Salisbury, author of the new Anna May Wong biography Not Your China Doll: The Wild and Shimmering Life of Anna May Wong. Katie helps guide us through a discussion of Anna May Wong's life from childhood through Hollywood and European stardom, her tr ... Show More
1h 36m
Feb 2024
Filmmaker Lulu Wang Creates In Between Two Worlds
Following the success of her autobiographical 2019 film, The Farewell, Lulu Wang has emerged as one of the most exciting voices in Hollywood. With the arrival of her new series Expats, she joins us to discuss the responsibility she felt creating the Hong Kong-based show (6:55), c ... Show More
1h 9m
May 2025
Mayukh Sen, "Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood's First South Asian Star" (Norton, 2025)
In 2022, Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian actress to win the Academy Award for Best Actress. But she wasn’t the first actress of Asian origin to be nominated. In 1935, Merle Oberon was nominated for Best Actress for the role of Kitty Vane in The Dark Angel, only her second fi ... Show More
51m 30s