The Last Archive

Drilled is a true-crime climate change podcast exposing how corporate corruption and political operatives built decades of climate denial and delay. Hosted and reported by award-winning investigative climate journalists, led by Amy Westervelt, each season unravels new evidence of deception, disinformation, and the power structures keeping real climate solutions out of reach. In September 2025, a group of Brazilian ministers trekked all the way to chilly North Dakota to see a presentation on a new type of clean energy project, one that promised to help them deliver Brazilian President Lula s dream of turning Brazil into "the Saudi Arabia of sustainable aviation fuels." It was the latest in a string of projects from Midwest Republican kingmaker and corn ethanol magnate Bruce Rastetter, whose investments in Brazil might just transform him into a global carbon czar, even as his Summit pipeline carbon project faces fierce opposition from Iowa to North Dakota. The problem? It all requires loads of land and none of it does a thing about climate change. Here's episode 1 of Drilled: Carbon Cowboys. Find Drilled wherever you get podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Maya Shankar, host of Pushkin's A Slight Change of Plans podcast, just released a new book, "The Other Side of Change". To celebrate, we're sharing an exclusive excerpt with the Pushkin community. It's about what first sparked Maya’s interest in change, and the story of a woman named Olivia Lewis. Order “The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans” at changewithmaya.com/book, or wherever you like to buy books. About The Other Side of Change: Life has a way of thwarting our best-laid plans. Out of nowhere, we’re confronting the end of a relationship, an unexpected diagnosis, the loss of a job, or some other twist of fate. In these moments, it can feel like we’re free-falling into the unknown.As a cognitive scientist, Maya Shankar has spent decades studying the human mind. When an unwanted change in her own life left her reeling, she sought out people who had navigated major disruptions. In "The Other Side of Change", Shankar tells their riveting, singular stories and weaves in scientific insights to illuminate universal lessons hidden within them.When a big change happens to us, it can lead to profound change within us. The unique stresses and demands of being thrust into a new reality can lead us to uncover new abilities, perspectives, and values, transforming us in extraordinary ways. What if we saw moments of upheaval as an opportunity to reimagine who we can be, rather than as something to just endure? Whether you’re processing a past change, grappling with a present one, or bracing for a future one, this book is a wise and thought-provoking companion to help you discover who you can become on the other side of change.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For nearly 200 years, we have credited the most famous poem of the Christmas season to Clement Clarke Moore. But what if we got the wrong man? This holiday season: A centuries old family feud, a bold claim from an English professor, and the true meaning of Christmas.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

According to the science, it really is better to give than receive. Donating a dollar; sharing a kind word or lending someone a hand changes lives, but can also hugely boost your happiness. So we're teaming up with other podcasts from Hidden Brain to Revisionist History to ask you to give to a charity helping some of the poorest people around. We're calling it #PodsFightPoverty.      Go to givedirectly.org/happinesslab right now and give whatever you can. And the first $500,000 we donate will be matched thanks to our friends at Giving Multiplier! Even a small donation will make you feel good and have a much larger impact on the world than you thought possible. To help inspire you, this special episode examines the science of giving and shares stories of heartwarming and impactful acts of kindness.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here's a preview of a podcast we think you'll enjoy. It's from the new season of Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast, The Alabama Murders. Florence, Alabama. 1988. A preacher has an affair. A woman is murdered. One death cascades into more, stretching across decades and leaving no one untouched — victims, bystanders, perpetrators, and those just trying to help. Eventually, the consequences lead to the center of a hot national debate on who should be allowed to live, who should die, and how the state should kill them. On The Alabama Murders, Malcolm asks: why, in our efforts to alleviate suffering, do we so often make it worse? Find Revisionist History: The Alabama Murders wherever you get podcasts. Get early, ad-free access to the full season of The Alabama Murders by subscribing to Pushkin+ on Apple Podcasts or Pushkin.fm. Pushkin+ subscribers can access ad-free episodes, full audiobooks, exclusive binges, and bonus content for all Pushkin shows. Subscribe on Apple: apple.co/pushkinSubscribe on Pushkin: pushkin.com/plus    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're sharing a preview of College Matters from The Chronicle, a podcast from The Chronicle of Higher Education. After 16 months in a federal prison camp, William (Rick) Singer has had time to reflect on his role as the architect of a college-admissions bribery scheme that became known as Varsity Blues. The college consultant has apologized for concocting a plot that helped wealthy families, including some Hollywood celebrities, secure admission for their children to prestigious universities. But he isn’t slinking into the shadows. Singer says he’s already back in the consulting business. And he has come out of prison swinging, blasting the FBI, the college-admissions system, and anyone who might question the credentials of the students he represented. Related Reading:‘It’s an Aristocracy’: What the Admissions-Bribery Scandal Has Exposed About Class on Campus (The Chronicle) Higher Ed’s Bribery Scandal Is Decadent and Depraved. Here Are 8 Truly Tasteless Allegations (The Chronicle) We, the Privileged Parents That Matter, Applaud the Netflix College-Admissions Scandal Doc (The Chronicle) Admission Through the ‘Side Door’ (The Chronicle)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re sharing a preview of a new audiobook, Douglas Adams: The Ends of the Earth, which celebrates the wit and wisdom of the legendary science fiction author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Twenty-five years after his death, Adams’ books continue to be read by new generations and his creations along with his ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything being “42”, have seeped deep into public consciousness. Written and narrated by Arvind Ethan David, Adams’ former protégé, this one-of-a-kind audiobook includes reenactments of his work, rare archival material from the Adams Estate, and interviews with Adams’ personal friends like Stephen Fry and Ian Charles Stewart, and zoologists Lucy Cooke and Mark Carwardine. The preview you’re about to hear examines Adams’ view on politics, government, and power. Get Douglas Adams: The Ends of the Earth now at Audible, Spotify, Pushkin, or wherever audiobooks are sold.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Revisionist History's season finale, senior producer Ben teams up with the Culinary Institute of America to reverse engineer the secret recipe for Thomas’s English Muffins.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Only seven people in the world knew the secret behind the soft, delicious goodness of Thomas' English Muffins. When one of them tried to leave the company...all hell broke loose. Revisionist History senior producer Ben looks at how the breakfast treat came to be at the center of one of the most important legal cases you’ve likely never heard of.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An exploration of how this one thing – facial recognition – colors so many of our perceptions about ourselves and each other. For better or worse. Revisionist History producer Lucie Sullivan, a board-certified super recognizer, explores what’s really going on in our brains when we see someone we know.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You may be familiar with the phrase “lab rat.” Much of what we know about human beings and the way they behave are based upon the things we know about rats and the way they behave. But what if we picked the wrong animal to study? Revisionist History senior producer Ben wonders if we should have been putting another creature under the microscope.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You might think unbelievably loud, shrill sirens on ambulances and fire trucks are just a fact of life. But what if we got the facts all wrong? In this special episode of Revisionist History, Ben Naddaff-Hafrey starts a movement to end the reign of the siren.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With Earth Day coming up, we wanted to share a classic TLA episode about the climate crisis. Jill Lepore proposes an alternate reality in which Americans ratified an environmental rights amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting representation to the natural world. That never happened... but what would the world look like if it had? For more episodes of The Last Archive about the environment, check out For the Birds and Parakeet Panic. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Elon Musk has claimed that AI is humanity’s “biggest existential threat.” Paradoxically, Musk is also working to create artificial intelligence. Why? Jill Lepore tours through a century of imagined robot rebellions, and argues that these stories are never only about robots. So what’s Elon Musk really afraid of when he wrings his hands over AI? In this final episode, Lepore argues that while Musk may be a visionary, “every piece of Muskism has origins in a future foretold in science fiction, long, long ago, as a cautionary tale.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2022, Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, and renamed it X. When asked why he wanted to own the social media network, Musk talked a lot about something he called the “woke mind virus.” Where does the idea of a mind virus come from? Jill Lepore looks to Cold War science fiction and the recently uncovered writings of Elon Musk’s grandfather in South Africa.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The science fiction that Silicon Valley techno-billionaires like Elon Musk adore concerns gleaming futures in which fantastically powerful, immensely rich men colonize other planets. In this episode, Jill Lepore looks at some of the science fiction that’s usually left out of this vision — science fiction by and about women.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2021, Elon Musk started calling himself The Dogefather to signal his support for Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency based on a joke meme about a dog. That dog is now wagging the tail of the world’s economy. In this episode, Jill Lepore looks at Silicon Valley's cryptocurrency craze through the lens of some very old science fiction. Like everything else about Muskism that purports to be futuristic, this idea is a relic, whose history serves as a warning.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2008 Tesla Motors launched its first car, the completely electric Roadster. Tesla was a great story — something genuinely new, an engineering marvel. Musk became a media darling, on the cover of countless magazines under headlines like ‘Elon Musk, AKA Tony Stark, Wants to Save the World’. Within the logic of Muskism, talking about saving the world was a business strategy, a way to sell cars without ads. Why did so many people buy what Musk was selling?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Elon Musk is a rocket man. He wants humans to become ‘a multi-planetary species’ and talks about establishing human settlements on Mars. As President Trump talks up the Mars program while dismantling aid initiatives around the globe, Jill Lepore traces how Silicon Valley's existential catastrophism led to Musk’s extraterrestrial vision of capitalism.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Elon Musk is reinventing himself as a kingmaker for the United States and the world. He wants to shape the future. But in this episode, Jill Lepore goes back to his past — to his childhood, his strange family history, and his fascination with Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Elon Musk’s origin story keeps changing. First, he was Tony Stark, or Iron Man. Not too long ago, he compared himself to Batman. Arguments started online over whether or not Musk is a real-life Bruce Wayne. In this episode, Jill Lepore looks at the original ‘Caped Crusader’, created back in 1939. Batman’s origin story is bound up with fascism. And every time Musk is compared to Batman it raises a very old question about the Dark Knight: is Batman fighting fascism, or is Batman — a brooding, fabulously wealthy vigilante — somehow, himself a fascist?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Harry Houdini is known for his daring escapes and illusions, but he also had an obsession with debunking spiritualist frauds.Today, we’re bringing you the first of a three-part series from another Pushkin podcast, Cautionary Tales, about Houdini’s crusade to expose phony mediums, an undertaking that would lead him to the courtroom and put him on a collision course with his close friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Host Tim Harford stops by The Last Archive for a conversation with Ben Naddaff-Hafrey about Tim’s fondness for historical morality tales, the concept of invisible worlds, and the root of Houdini’s anti-spiritualism. You can listen to the rest of the series on Cautionary Tales.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nothing says romance like a perfect playlist—except, maybe, a special network-wide episode about love songs. In this Valentine’s Day special, Broken Record hosts Justin Richmond and Leah Rose make their cases: is R&B the undisputed sound of love? Are sad songs more romantic? Can country win the day? Plus, the legendary songwriter Babyface talks about how young love shaped his most enduring ballads, Malcolm Gladwell breaks down the perfect break up song, and Ben Naddaff-Hafrey writes a love song of his own.  Whether you're mid-swoon or nursing a broken heart, this episode is our valentine to you. Listen to Broken Record’s interview with Babyface. Listen to a Revisionist History episode about sad songs. And hear more from Ben’s band, Rookin. Plus, our battle of the playlists continues… here’s Leah’s sad songs playlist. And Justin’s for love songs. Pick your fighter and… enjoy!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 1960s, a right-wing organization led by a former candy tycoon rose to fame in America for their anti-communist campaigns. They called themselves the John Birch Society. Then, they tried to take over the Parent-Teacher Association. This week, what the battle between the two organizations tells us about the fate of American politics, and the history of your Halloween candy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on the show, Leon Neyfakh, co-creator of the hit podcasts Slow Burn and Fiasco, discusses his season on the aftermath of the 2000 election between Al Gore and George W. Bush. You can listen to the full season of Fiasco now.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jesse Owens spent the rest of his life retelling the story of the 1936 games and his encounter with Luz Long. We trace the evolution of a tall tale, discovering the hidden life of one of America’s iconic sports heroes. This is part two of a two-part crossover from Revisionist History’s ‘Hitler’s Olympics’ series. To listen to the whole series, head over to the Revisionist History show page.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The most famous athlete in 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany was the American sprinter Jesse Owens, and one of the most famous stories from those Games was the unexpected, heartwarming encounter Owens had with the German long jumper Luz Long. The friendship between the two athletes would serve as a symbol of how sports can overcome national antagonisms. We wonder: What really happened at the long jump pit that day?  This is part one of a two-part crossover from Revisionist History’s ‘Hitler’s Olympics’ series. To listen to the whole series, head over to the Revisionist History show page.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jill Lepore returns to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the ruling in Brown v. Board of Education with a special episode of The Last Archive. She and Ben Naddaff-Hafrey explore the amazing new AI-powered recreation of the Brown v. Board cases over at the Oyez project. Then, Kenneth W. Mack, the Lawrence D. Biele Professor of Law at Harvard University, stops by to discuss the enduring significance of the case.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In a special, all-new episode of ‘The Returns,’ host emerita Jill Lepore returns to talk about the post-truth moment we find ourselves in and what it means for the 2024 election.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Each week on ‘The Returns,’ we pull a different episode from our own archive to help put our present politics into historical context. This episode, Epiphany, first ran in 2021, as the finale to Season 2, which was all about lies, fakes, frauds, and hoaxes. In this episode, Jill Lepore takes listeners down the winding path from the little-known Iron Mountain hoax of the late 1960s to the Capitol insurrection on January 6th, 2021.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Each week on ‘The Returns,’ we pull a different episode from our archive to help put our present politics into historical context.  In the 1980s, Rush Limbaugh transformed talk radio. In the process, he radicalized his listeners and the conservative movement. Limbaugh’s talk radio style became a staple of the modern right. Then, the left joined the fray. This week: partisan loudmouth versus partisan loudmouth, and the shifting media landscape that helped create modern political warfare. This episode first ran in June, 2021.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Each week on ‘The Returns,’ we pull a different episode from our archive to put our present politics into historical context. The election of 1952 brought all kinds of new technology into the political sphere. The Eisenhower campaign experimented with the first television ads to feature an American presidential candidate. And on election night, CBS News premiered the first computer to predict an American election — the UNIVAC. Safe to say, that part didn’t go according to plan. But election night 1952 is ground zero for our current, political post-truth moment. If a computer and a targeted advertisement can both use heaps of data to predict every citizen’s every decision, can voters really know things for themselves after all? This episode first ran in the summer of 2020.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Election Year 2024 is upon us. And it promises to be a bit of a mess. But where did all this mess come from? In a 4-episode mini-series drawing from our own archive, Jill Lepore and Ben Naddaff-Hafrey investigate, situate, and contextualize our present moment in the history that brought us here. This series contains episodes from our original seasons alongside new material. Coming next week.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is the first episode in Radio Diaries’ new series The Unmarked Graveyard, untangling mysteries from America’s largest public cemetery. Each week, they’re bringing you stories of how people ended up on New York City's Hart Island, the lives they lived, and the people they left behind. This debut episode goes back to a few years ago, when a young man who called himself Stephen became a fixture in Manhattan’s Riverside Park. Locals started noticing him sitting on the same park bench day after day. He said little and asked for nothing. When Stephen’s body was found in 2017, the police were unable to identify him, and he was buried on Hart Island. Then, one day, a woman who knew him from the park stumbled upon his true identity, and his backstory came to light. Listen to new episodes of The Unmarked Graveyard from Radio Diaries every week, wherever you get your podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In our season finale, we travel through time.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 1940s, a freelance wiretapper named Big Jim Vaus got mixed up with the cops, the mob, and the most famous evangelist in America. This week on The Last Archive: The ballad of Big Jim and what the intersections of telephone history and American spirituality reveal about how we understand the phone. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 1930s, at a women's reformatory in upstate New York, an upstart social scientist made a study that launched the field of social network analysis. It was revolutionary, but missed something happening at the same time at the same school, something we know now in part from the story of the school's most famous inmate: Ella Fitzgerald.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When invasive parakeets began to spread in New York City in the 1970s, the government decided it needed to kill them all. Today: The offbeat panic about wild parrots, and a history of anxieties about population growth.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1911, a Native American man, the only member of his community to survive a genocide, encountered the new Anthropology department at The University of California, Berkeley. What happened next helped to define the ethical quandaries of the field and, in a strange turn, the history of science fiction. This episode: That story and the moral stakes of imagining the past and the future.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Last Archive, the story of the composer Raymond Scott’s lifelong quest to build an automatic songwriting machine, and what it means for our own AI-addled, ChatGPT world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This upcoming season on The Last Archive: early artificial intelligence, the forgotten origins of social network theory, invasive species panics, freelance wiretappers, time travelers, and science fiction family histories. How do we know what we know? Why does it feel like sometimes it’s impossible to know anything at all? Host emeritus Jill Lepore passes the torch to producer Ben Naddaff-Hafrey for six gripping stories about the history of truth. The Last Archive Season 4 launches on June 22nd with new episodes out weekly. Subscribe to Pushkin+ to hear the whole season at once, ad-free. Find Pushkin+ on the Last Archive showpage in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin.fm/plus.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re bringing you an episode of a new Pushkin podcast we’re enjoying and think you will, too. Where There’s a Will: Finding Shakespeare searches for the surprising places Shakespeare shows up outside the theater. Host Barry Edelstein, artistic director at one of the country’s leading Shakespeare theaters, and co-host writer and director Em Weinstein, ask what is it about Shakespeare that’s given him a continuous afterlife in all sorts of unexpected ways? You’ll hear Shakespeare doing rehabilitative work in a maximum security prison, helping autistic children to communicate, in the mouths of U.S. presidents, and even at the center of a deadly riot in New York City. In this episode, Barry and Em take us back in time to 1849 – a riot at a Shakespearean theater has left dozens of people dead. But as it always is with the Bard, there's more here than meets the eye. Why did some people think Shakespeare was important enough to die for? How did the work of one man writing in Victorian England capture the tensions brewing in a newly independent America? And who, if anyone, is Shakespeare really for? Hear the full episode, and more from Where There’s a Will, at https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/wtaw?sid=tla. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Click Here, a podcast about the world of cyber and intelligence.  As Vladimir Putin attempts to redraw the Iron Curtain, we take a trip back to 1985 to tell the story of four American musicians who smuggled messages in and out of the former Soviet Union — with music. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/click-here/id1225077306See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jill Lepore goes back to her first archive — the public library in the town where she grew up. In this season finale, old books, hot dogs, and a town hidden beneath a lake.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The story of weather forecasting is the story of how humans came to think they could predict the future. In this episode, Jill Lepore looks at the history of meteorology, and the story of a revolutionary cloud scientist who tried to control the weather.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1920, a young writer named Hugh Lofting published the first Dr. Dolittle story. A century years later, Jill Lepore goes in search of the new Dr. Dolittles changing the world of animal science. Specifically, dog science.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

During the 1970s farm crisis, a young family nearly lost everything as family farms and agricultural folk knowledge began to vanish. Then, they invented a board game.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode, an alternate history: imagining what the world might be like if, fifty years ago, in 1972, Americans had an amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting not only protection–but representation–to the natural world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The fact-checking experiment gets scaled up with 40 students in two states. The Super Bowl of fact-checking, and a final test of an idea that might help save American democracy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What if there were a way to stop politicians from lying on social media? Jill Lepore heads to a local high school to test out a crazy idea: Should juries of high school history students decide whether each and every political ad is true enough to be posted to social media?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.