Roundup

1956: A crisis in Hungary, and elsewhere [audio 3min]

News Analysis by Daniel Schorr. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Hungary's short-lived uprising against the Soviet Union. It came amid turmoil in the Middle East, and a look back reveals how much the present has in common with the past.

Nation of Islam's impact on American politics, past and present [audio 5min]

What is the Nation of Islam's impact on American politics, past and present? University of Maryland political science professor Ron Walters and the Rev. Joseph Watkins -- of the government relations group Buchanan, Ingersoll and Rooney -- discuss the issue with Juan Williams.

Turkish writer wins 2006 Nobel Literature Prize [audio 2min]

The winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature is Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk. He's best known in this country for his novels My Name Is Red and Snow. Orhan Pamuk was already an internationally acclaimed writer when his government accused him of"insulting Turkishness.""I just made a statement about one of our great taboos: what happened to the Ottoman Empire's Armenians in 1915," Pamuk told NPR in 2005."This is a taboo we still cannot discuss." A seemingly offhand comment the auth

Diet of Worms: Luther's stand against the Church [audio 45min]

Nestled on a bend of the River Rhine, in the South West corner of Germany, is the City of Worms. It’s one of the oldest cities in central Europe; it still has its early city walls, its 11th century Romanesque cathedral and a 500-year-old printing industry, but in its centre is a statue of the monk, heretic and founder of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther. In 1521 Luther came to Worms to explain his attacks on the Catholic Church to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, and the gathered dign

Armenian Genocide debated by French Parliament [8min @00:18]

This week French MPs are debating a controversial new law that would make it a crime to deny that Turkey committed genocide against Armenians in 1915. Turkey strenuously denies a genocide occured. That country's foreign minister has threatened immediate economic sanctions against France should it push ahead with the bill. Of course, this debate occurs in the context of Turkey's application to join the EU and of France's role as a gatekeeper for EU membership. Dominique Moisee is a long time Fren

Apollo Theater, where virtually every African American artist has performed [audio 23min]

It's the place where Lauryn Hill, Michael Jackson and Luther Vandross all started out. Been in a talent contest? Harlem's Apollo Theatre Amateur Night has been the mecca for aspiring performers since it opened 75 years ago. Hip hop legend Kurtis Blow tells the story of the Apollo where virtually every black American entertainer has performed. Dipset's Jim Jones, Raheim, James Brown and Run tell us why the Apollo's been so important to black music history.

Marina Warner's research teems with extraordinary life [audio 45min]

Novelist, critic and cultural historian Marina Warner talks to Matthew Sweet about a life spent in the company of magic, myths and monsters.

"Coming Out" was female rite of passage for English upper classes [audio 8min]

50 years ago, when you talked about coming out and queens in the same sentence, it meant something quite different from what it does today."Coming Out" was a female rite of passage for the English upper classes, which involved going to Buckingham Palace to curtsey to the Queen. It marked the emergence of the virgin out of the schoolroom and into society at the marriageable age of 17. In 1958, after 200 years, the last of the debutantes made that journey. Fiona MacCarthy took part in this final r

Internet as archive, if you have the time [audio 3min]

Commentator Paul Ford says that he used to think that the Internet would make everyone a historian -- but he doesn't think so any more. Ford, an editor at Harper's magazine, is the author of the novel Gary Benchley, Rock Star.

Averroes: The battle between faith and reason [audio 45min]

In The Divine Comedy Dante subjected all the sinners in Christendom to a series of grisly punishments, from being buried alive to being frozen in ice. The deeper you go, the more brutal and bizarre the punishments get, but the uppermost level of Hell is populated not with the mildest of Christian sinners, but with non-Christian writers and philosophers. It was the highest compliment Dante could pay to pagan thinkers in a Christian cosmos and, in Canto 4, he names them all. Aristotle is th

North Africa is tumultuous place where the past echoes [audio 30min]

Chris Stewart, once drummer in the band Genesis, now a sheep farmer and best-selling author -- travels from his home in Andalucía along the length of the North Africa shore -- the forgotten coastline of the Maghreb, which has become the focus of European attention once again. Chris begins his travels, crossing the Straits of Gibraltar to Tangier to visit the Pillars of Hercules, pay tribute at the tomb of a great traveller, hear stories of fish that speak and meet people who risk their lives to

U.S. museums cope with art tainted by Nazi looting [audio 6min]

More than 600,000 pieces of artwork are believed to have been looted from private European collections by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945. Some of that art is in the United States. NPR's Guy Raz reports on the quandaries museums face as they investigate claims. Recently, Yale University reached a creative solution with an elderly man over a Courbet landscape valued in the millions.

Ohio State Univ houses nation's biggest cartoon library [audio 10min]

Lucy Shelton Caswell is curator of The Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library -- the nation's largest collection of cartoons -- whose mission is to develop and provide access to a comprehensive collection of materials documenting American printed cartoon art. This includes editorial cartoons, comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, sports and magazine cartoons, but not animation.

History of gambling stretches from prehistoric divination rituals to today's global gaming culture [audio 7min]

Gambling can be found across cultures. David Schwartz, author of Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling talks to Tony Cox about the innate human need to take a risk.

Ex-slave Blanche Bruce was first African-American to serve full term as US Senator [video 55min]

Lawrence Otis Graham, author of The Senator and the Socialite: The True Story of America’s First Black Dynasty is interviewed by Adam Clayton Powell III, director of the Integrated Media Systems Center at the University of Southern California. In The Senator and the Socialite, Graham tells the story of Blanche Bruce, who went from being a slave to becoming the first African-American to serve a full term in the US Senate. The book provides a 3-generation, 130-year view of race and p

WWII French Jewish spy recounts operations inside Nazi Germany [video 83min]

As a member of the French First Army intelligence service during WWII, Marthe Cohn made many covert trips inside Nazi Germany. During this video presentation, she recounts her missions as a French Jewish spy and describes how she disguised herself as a young nurse searching for her fiancé in order to find information about German troop movements. After the presentation, the author answers questions from members of an audience from the Washington DC Jewish Community Center. Cohn lives in Palo Ver

Josephine Baker centenary fêted by Britain's NFT [audio 12min]

This year sees the centenary of the birth of the black American star, Josephine Baker. She was known as the 'The Dark Diva', 'The Black Venus' and 'The Black Pearl', and was notorious for her wild, uninhibited dancing in the skimpiest of exotic costumes -- famously little more than a skirt made from a string of bananas. Born into poverty in the ghettoes of St Louis, USA, she began her career playing to all-black audiences in travelling tent shows. In New York, she was considered 'too skinny and

How did women's lives change in the Renaissance? [audio 9min]

The home played a key part in shaping Renaissance art and culture that equalled that of the court, city and church. And yet the role of the household has, until now, been overlooked by historians. The Italian Renaissance house was a place of powerful aesthetic innovation and cultural change -- especially in the lives of women. From the development of portraiture to glass mirrors, and etiquette manuals to the table fork -- domestic life became much more complicated, and much more beautiful. But h

'Yugonostalgia' takes hold in Slovenia [audio 8min]

This year, Slovenia celebrated the 15th anniversary of its secession from Yugoslavia. The economy is good, and the country will adopt the euro next year. Slovenia has been hailed as the great Balkan success story. But many look back longingly toward the days when Slovenia was still part of Yugoslavia. For those who feel "Yugonostalgia," life felt better in the days of Josip Broz Tito. Visit webnsite for extended report by Amy Standen, photo, extra audio clips.

'I Wish I'd Been There...' [audio 39min]

Pick a day in history -- the day Lincoln was shot, the day Meriweather Lewis stood on the divide, any significant moment -- and imagine you were there. That's what historians were asked to do in the new book, Wish I'd Been There. The book's editor, along with three of its contributors, join us to talk about the question,"What event would you like to have witnessed?" Guests: Byron Hollinshead, editor of I Wish I'd Been There and president of American Historical Publications; Caroly