In the pre-antibiotic era, tuberculosis was one of the biggest killers humanity ever faced. The specter of the ‘great white plague’ hung over towns and cities across the world, cities like New York whose population boom in the early 20th century paved the way for this deadly disease to spread throughout crowded tenements. As tuberculosis rates in NYC reached ... Show More
Mar 31
Ep 205 Cancer Part 4: Where do things stand today?
For the entirety of our species’ history, our approach to cancer has largely been to react, to design new therapies and better combinations of treatments. This energy has certainly been well-spent, but what if we didn’t have to use treatment at all? Or what if we could minimize t ... Show More
1h 19m
Jun 2024
Andrew McDowell, "Breathless: Tuberculosis, Inequality, and Care in Rural India" (Stanford UP, 2024)
Each year in India more than two million people fall sick with tuberculosis (TB), an infectious, airborne, and potentially deadly lung disease. The country accounts for almost 30 percent of all TB cases worldwide and well above a third of global deaths from it. Because TB’s preva ... Show More
1h 27m
Aug 2024
The Deadly Puzzle of Yellow Fever (Replay)
HISTORY This Week returns with new episodes starting September 16th! In the meantime, listen to a favorite classic from the archives.
August 27, 1900. Dr. Jesse Lazear, a U.S. Army surgeon, walks into Las Animas Hospital Yellow Fever ward in Havana, Cuba, toting a brood of mosqu ... Show More
33m 8s
Aug 2024
The Radium Girls
<p>When Marie and Pierre Curie discovered radium in 1898, the chemical element was quickly adopted by manufacturers for its luminescent properties that would go on to be used in, among other things, the painting of clock faces, watches, and instrument panels, allowing them to be ... Show More
1h 22m
Feb 2023
How the Famine Irish built New York
<p>Between 1840 and 1860 the population of New York almost trebled growing from 300,000 to 800,000. This influx of migrants from Europe gave birth to modern Manhattan. At the heart of this story were the 250,000 Irish people who made the city their home in the aftermath of the Gr ... Show More
32m 24s
Feb 2025
The Unsolved Murder of Jeannette DePalma
<p>On the afternoon of August 7, 1972, sixteen-year-old Jeannette DePalma left her house in Springfield, NJ and was never seen alive again. Six weeks later, Jeannette’s remains were discovered when a neighborhood dog returned to its owner at a newly built apartment complex, carry ... Show More
1h 17m
Jul 2024
Black Death: everything you wanted to know
Earlier this week, new comedy drama The Decameron dropped on Netflix. Based on a set of 14th-century tales by Giovanni Boccaccio, it follows the raucous exploits of a group of medieval Italian nobles, after they flee to the hills to escape the Black Death. Boccaccio's text is one ... Show More
43m 43s