logo
episode-header-image
May 2025
49m 30s

The Rosenbergs

iHeartPodcasts
About this episode

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for espionage in 1953. Whether or not they were both guilty remains unclear, though most historians believe that at least Ethel was innocent. Learn all about this historical stain in today's episode.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Up next
Yesterday
What's the deal with Swiss neutrality?
We all know Switzerland is neutral. But why? Listen in and you might learn something.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 
47m 34s
Jul 22
Short Stuff: Sardines!
Josh implored Chuck to try sardines. Did he? Listen in to find out. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 
12m 5s
Jul 21
The Tobacco Master Settlement: That Time We Got Em
By the 1990s, cigarette makers had been hooking and killing off their customers for about a century. And they’d gotten good at both as well as covering up their harms. In 1994 they were still denying cigarettes were addictive. Then, the 50 Attorneys General of the US rode into to ... Show More
46m 37s
Recommended Episodes
May 2021
Rosenbergs
In 1953, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were sentenced to death by electrocution and died side-by-side: Julius after one shot of electricity, Ethel after three. They left behind two small children. Their crime? Conspiracy to spy for the Soviet Union. UCL's Dr Josh Hollands joins Kati ... Show More
41 m
Mar 2025
Was Ethel Rosenberg A Spy?
March 29, 1951. The world is waiting for the jury’s verdict. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg have been accused of spying for the Soviet Union, conspiring to send atomic secrets to America’s enemy in the Cold War. Ethel and Julius are tried in court together, and after the jury finds b ... Show More
36m 37s
Apr 2022
Soviet Espionage: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Pt. 2
After the Rosenbergs’ death sentence is announced, protests erupt around the world. Famous figures, including Einstein and the Pope, weigh in. But Julius and Ethel’s conviction would never be overturned. They would die by electric chair in 1953. The questions and controversies ar ... Show More
45m 31s
Aug 2025
American Traitors: The Rosenbergs
This week we’re stepping heart of Cold War America with the story of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Accused of espionage and executed at the height of anti-communist paranoia, their trial gripped the nation due to the controversy, family betrayal, and questions of justice that still ... Show More
51m 23s
Jul 2022
Ethel Rosenberg
Ep 85: In the summer of 1949, the FBI learned that secrets regarding the construction of the atomic bomb had been shared with soviet spies. An immediate investigation led to an arrest of several people, including a young mother of two. Was this woman part of a communist plot to s ... Show More
44m 54s
Sep 2023
Episode 8.1
By 1945, the Soviet Union had established a highly effective spy ring operating in the United States.  Many of their spies were key figures within the American Government, they also spies in the atomic bomb programme, who would pass on information which helped the Soviets build t ... Show More
21m 6s
Apr 2019
The Rosenbergs Pt. 1: Atomic Treason
Starting in the early 1940s, Julius Rosenberg and his wife Ethel orchestrated a top-secret operation to steal atomic bomb secrets from right under the nose of the FBI. While living in New York City, they then sold those secrets to the Soviet Union and turned the tide of the Cold ... Show More
45m 15s
Nov 2021
Traitors | The Atomic Spies | 3
In September 1949, the world was shocked to learn that the Soviet Union had conducted its first nuclear weapons test, just four years after the United States dropped the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. U.S. authorities thought there was only one way the Soviets coul ... Show More
40m 22s
Sep 2020
Insignificant Others
How unlucky could one man be? His wife had taken her own life, and his college sweetheart had killed herself in much the same fashion fourteen years earlier. Investigators had to determine if this was a bizarre coincidence, or an attempt to get away with murder... twice.To learn ... Show More
20m 7s