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In 1923, an Indian American man named Bhagat Singh Thind told the U.S. Supreme Court that he was white, and therefore eligible to become a naturalized citizen. …
The Second Amendment. In April 1938, an Oklahoma bank robber was arrested for carrying an unregistered sawed-off shotgun across state lines. The robber, Jack Mi…
The Sixth Amendment. Most of us take it for granted that if we're ever in court and we can't afford a lawyer, the court will provide one for us. And in fact, th…
What does it mean to do the greatest good for the greatest number? When the Los Angeles Aqueduct opened in 1913, it rerouted the Owens River from its natural pa…
Today, the city of Jerusalem is seen as so important that people are willing to kill and die to control it. And that struggle goes back centuries. Nearly a thou…
Climate disaster, political unrest, random violence: Western society can often feel like what the filmmaker Werner Herzog calls "a thin layer of ice on top of a…
Baby bonuses, childless cat ladies: the rhetoric around motherhood is politically charged right now. And the fantasy of an ideal mother remains powerful, even a…
The Fourth Amendment is the part of the Bill of Rights that prohibits "unreasonable searches and seizures." But — what's unreasonable? That question has fueled …
The U.S. and Iran have had a tense relationship for decades — but when did that begin? This week, we feature our very first episode about an event from August 1…
Captain America: an all-American superhero. Clad in red, white, and blue, he carries only a shield. And he fights only when he must. When it's right. But what h…
