Afspillet
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The world's most elusive country, Billy's 12th lyric, and the first of four on Korea. Dr Sojin Lim from The University of Central Lancashire takes Katie and Tom back to the 1950s to find out why this tiny Asian peninsular was split in two and how North Korea became North Korea. It's a story of escape, state-sanctioned haircuts, coercion, and global powers gently flexing their muscles, a fire bubbling within.
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"The babysitter." Television is Billy's eleventh lyric, and the BFI's TV expert Dick Fiddy takes Tom and Katie back to the 1950s when it began to take hold. The impact of TV through the 20th century and into today is fascinating and unexpected, from advertising and snooker to presidential elections and the moon landing.
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Studebaker: a central cog in 20th century America's booming automobile industry, or just a punchy rhyme? There's something romantic about the story of this small company from South Bend Indiana that was a symbol of innovation and uniqueness for many, but whose struggle to keep up with the Big Three led to collapse in the 1960s. Editor of the Studebaker Owners Club UK Greg Diffen gives Tom and Katie an insight into a community of Studebaker connoisseurs who still roar through the countryside in their Avantis, hoping to keep that small scrap of history alive.
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"A mystery wrapped in an enigma." Episode nine is the first of three that will follow Nixon's rise from his poor Quaker roots in rural California, to the White House and Watergate. The fantastic Dr Rivers Gambrell brings alive Nixon's early career for Tom and Katie: his dream of being a sports star never far from his mind, the path that led Nixon to his 1968 win is one of rejection, awkwardness and fervent political cunning.
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Sixth lyric, sixth topic. Katie and Tom are joined by historian of the popular press Dr Chris Shoop-Worrall, and together they delve into the dark world of the man who made gossip a currency: widely-loved and intensely-disliked columnist and broadcaster Walter Winchell.
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Billy's eighth lyric invites Katie, Tom and UCL's Josh Hollands into the world of the Red Scare, the crippling anticommunist conspiracy that shrouded America in the '40s and '50s. Thousands of teachers, artists, army officials, and gay people were blacklisted or forced to leave the country. And at the heart of it all lies Senator Joseph McCarthy.
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Katie and Tom's romp through the 20th century meets baseball, and there's a darkness behind one of the greatest players of all time. From TV advert appearances and Simon and Garfunkel songs, to an obsessive and abusive marriage with Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio's private and public don't quite match up. They're joined by baseball player and author Josh Chetwynd.
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We're five lyrics in, and Katie and Tom are getting musical. Literally, if you make it to the end. Dr Cara Rodway (Chair of the British Association for American Studies by day, musical nerd by night) gives a pretty convincing case for why the soundtrack has spent more weeks at UK number 1 than any other song. Even one of Billy's.
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Deaf in one ear, shy, bisexual, sensitive - are these the reasons Johnnie Ray isn't worshipped as the Father of Rock and Roll? Katie, Tom and author Cathi Unsworth delve into the world of the man who gave way to Elvis, the Beatles, Morrissey. It's a journey which will take them from a small farm in Oregon to African-American clubs in Detroit, and finally to hidden corners in smokey clubs where London's 1950s subcultures could be found. Cathi's latest book Bad Penny Blues is out now: http://www.cathiunsworth.co.uk/ or https://www.facebook.com/cathiunsworthwriter.
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It's episode 3 and Billy's transported us back to post-1949 Communist China. Katie and Tom talk to Prof. Yangwen Zheng about her childhood under the regime, and she's got a fascinating story to tell. It's one of stolen pencil cases, the class enemy, disappearing family members, widespread famine, murder - and the man at the heart of it all, Mao Zedong.
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This brand new pop culture history podcast is nothing like anything you've heard before, and it's everything you need to understand the modern world. This is the start of an epic journey where Tom Fordyce and Katie Puckrik take each of the 120 people, places and things mentioned in 'We Didn't Start The Fire', the smash hit by Billy Joel, and record an episode on every single one - and in the process they're expanding their brains without even feeling like they're learning.
True to Billy Joel's words we're kicking off with Harry Truman, an ordinary man from humble stock who rose to become the 33rd President of the United States, founder of NATO, yes-sayer to the devastating nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, vanguard of the heroic Berlin airlift, and avid piano player. Katie and Tom are lucky to have with them the columnist and famed political pundit Eleanor Clift (whom you may have seen appear as herself in films like 'Independence Day' and 'Dave'), to help them understand the man who oversaw the rebuilding of the post-war world. Has any US president ever had to make so many monumental decisions?
The clips used in this episode are in the public domain and have been kindly provided by the Screen Gems Collection at the Harry S Truman Library.
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