Roundup

Uncovered photos of Lincoln's second inaugration [audio 4min]

At the Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs Division, Carol Johnson, the curator of 19th century photography, speaks with NPR Reporter Kitty Eisele about the uncovered photos of the March 4, 1865, inaugural ceremony of Abraham Lincoln. One of the producers of The Civil War series with Ken Burns, Eisele says:"It would not be an exaggeration to say that the crew at the Library of Congress spent literally months, some two decades ago, poring over and filming the photos of the Civil

This Week in the World of Archaeology [audio 15min]

Archaeologist Win Scutt discusses French archaeologists discovering ancient human sacrifice in Sudan, Spanish archaeologists finding a 3000-year-old burial in Egypt, a replica of a Bronze Age boat crossing the English Channel, stones carved by the Picts being scanned with lasers, a skeleton found in a Staffordshire Abbey being identified as the gay lover of King Edward II, and Viking women dressing in provocative style. Scutt's "This Week in the World of Archaeology" news feature is pa

Butterfly McQueen remembered [audio 9min]

Butterfly McQueen will always be remembered for playing the part of the black maid, Prissy, in Gone with the Wind - and for her most famous line,"I don’t know nuthin' 'bout birthin' babies!" Many people criticised her for playing a caricature of black womanhood but, in her own way, Butterfly did her best to humanise the character at a time when Hollywood was perpetuating racial stereotypes. Biographer Stephen Bourne presenter joins Jane Garvey to explain why Butterfly eventually turned he

Laton McCartney on Teapot Dome [audio 51min]

Laton McCartney is interviewed about his book The Teapot Dome Scandal (Random House), discussing the story behind one of the most infamous incidents in American political history and its lessons for Washington today. McCartney is a business, finance, and political journalist, and author of Friends in High Places and Across the Great Divide.

In nuclear-armed Pakistan, political crisis is way of life [audio 2x30min]

Pakistan was created as a land where Muslims could live in safety. But when the British split the subcontinent in 1947 they left behind a nation that went on to suffer decades of political crises. Last year over 750 Pakistanis died in suicide bomb attacks. Why are Islamist radicals targeting fellow Muslims and why do they have any support in Pakistan? In this two-part series, former BBC Islamabad correspondent Owen Bennett-Jones, who lived in the country as a BBC correspondent between 1998 and 2

Irish Illusions: Four Knocks Passage Grave [audio 15min]

Over a series of five programmes, archaeologist Dr George Nash of Bristol University visits five rock art sites in England, Wales, Ireland, Portugal and Italy, to attempt to unravel the real, hidden meaning of rock art. Who creates rock art, and why? Can our present day graffiti artists provide some clues? In Programme Three,"Irish Illusions", Dr Muiris O’Sullivan of University College, Dublin meets George Nash inside Four Knocks Passage Grave, Eire, where they are stared at by a large cartoon-l

Thomas Henriksen on 'American Power after the Berlin Wall' [video 62min]

Thomas Henriksen talks about U.S. foreign policy following the fall of communism, including U.S involvement in Panama, the Persian Gulf, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Henriksen is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the U.S. Joint Special Operations University. He is the author of One Korea? Challenges and Prospects for Reunification and The New World Order: War, Peace, and Military Preparedness. The talk was hosted by the Heritage Foundation in W

Jackie Robinson's Civil Rights correspondence [video 56min]

Michael Long has collected the personal correspondences of Jackie Robinson in First Class Citizenship: The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson. From Robinson's integration of Major League Baseball to his involvement in the Civil Rights movement and national politics, his letters reflect the political landscape of the 1950s and 1960s. Jackie Robinson's correspondents included many national political figures, such as Richard Nixon, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Barry Goldwater

William Noel and the Archimedes Codex [video 42min]

William Noel discusses his book The Archimedes Codex: How a Medieval Prayer Book Is Revealing the True Genius of Antiquity's Greatest Scientist, co-written with Reviel Netz. In October 1998 at an auction at Christie's in New York, an anonymous American book collector purchased a 13th-century prayer book for $2 million. The prayer book is a palimpsest -- a book that was written over older words that had been scrapped off the animal skin or parchment pages. In this case, the prayer book was

Peace symbol turns 50 years old on Feb. 21st [audio 9min]

For a half century the peace symbol's semaphoric arrangement of lines and letters has served as a stand-in for pacifists, civil rights activists, and counter-culturalists. Columbia University professor Todd Gitlin explains the origins and reinterpretations of this enduring symbol.

Gitmo's pop-culture moment [audio 11min]

Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg observes that Guantánamo has become a recurrent pop-cultural trope throughout the world – in memoirs and novels, visual arts and theater, and even song. Rosenberg, who has visited the prison dozens of times, believes that Gitmo has long since left the island of Cuba and taken on a symbolic life of its own.

Beatles' trek to India recalled on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's death [audio 12min]

In February 1968 the Beatles traveled to India to study Transcendental Meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the spiritual leader who died on February 5th. New York Times music critic Allan Kozinn says that – despite its abrupt ending – the trip was a creative inspiration for the Fab Four.

David Blight on 'A Slave No More' [video 103min]

Historian David Blight chronicles the lives of two former slaves, Wallace Turnage and John Washington, whose narratives of emancipation were recently discovered. Blight's book A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, includes each of the men's narratives in its original form. Blight is an American history professor and the Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. He has written for numerous publications i

Marcus Garvey's dream of Mother Africa [audio 55min]

The Book Guys -- book appraiser Allan Stypeck and Washington DC radio host Mike Cuthbert -- interview Colin Grant, who discusses the life and times of Marcus Garvey, founder of a rival group to the NAACP in the early part of the 20th century. Grant is author of Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey and His Dream of Mother Africa.

Election season, 19th-century style [audio 1st 6min]

Over the course of 100 days in the fall of 1896, William Jennings Bryan gave more than 500 speeches. He was the Democratic nominee, and his presidential campaign was so broke that he took his message directly to just about every Midwestern town with a train station and a soapbox. Several million people showed up. While Bryan thrilled crowds with his charisma and his rousing speechifying, William McKinley relied on a well-funded, highly-skilled network of political operatives and entrenched party

Hair Club for Presidents [audio 1st 4min]

In honor of Presidents' Day, the Academy of Natural Sciences is displaying hair from several presidents of the United States. This will be the first time the public has gotten a look at the locks of Presidents George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Reporter Joel Rose takes a peek.

Dynastic politics in Pakistan [audio 11min]

When Benazir Bhutto, head of the Pakistan People's Party, was assassinated at the end of 2007, the country's election was delayed by six weeks because of the ensuing violence and social unrest. It's intended that the election will be a transition to democracy for Pakistan after eight years of military rule. As the 40 day period of mourning for Benazir Bhutto comes to an end election campaigning gets underway. Presenter Jenni Murray is joined by Fatima Bhutto, Benazir's niece, who has been critic

Nuremberg & the history of toys [audio 4min]

The International Toy Fair in Nuremberg is the the most important toy fair in the world and, this year, got underway on February 7th. If you want to know what's going to be big next Christmas, then it's the place to be. Toys have been made in the German city for centuries. Deborah Jaffe is the author of The History of Toys: From Spinning Tops to Robots. She spoke to presenter Corinne Julius about the importance of Nuremberg.

Upper Palaeolithic graffiti in Portugal [audio 15min]

Over a series of five programmes, archaeologist Dr George Nash of Bristol University visits five rock art sites in England, Wales, Ireland, Portugal and Italy, to attempt to unravel the real, hidden meaning of rock art. Who creates rock art, and why? Can our present day graffiti artists provide some clues? In Programme Two,"Graffiti Gorge", George Nash meets Dr Mila Simoes de Abreu, whose bitterly-fought campaign saved thousands of prehistoric tribal rock carvings from being lost under the water

Southern terrorism after Appomattox [audio 55min]

The Book Guys -- book appraiser Allan Stypeck and Washington DC radio host Mike Cuthbert -- interview Stephen Budiansky, who discusses his book The Bloody Shirt, an account of the terrorism in the South during Reconstruction that eliminated democratic government there for over a century.