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An archive of Chicago Public Media's This American Life hosted by Ira Glass

Archive of This American Life

Available episodes

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#602: The Sun Comes Up

People around the country talking about the coming four years. Some of them exultant, some of them, as President Obama said Wednesday, "less so."

#601: Master of Her Domain… Name

A story about Hillary Clinton that offers a different picture than what we’ve been hearing from both sides during this campaign. And some funny stuff, because everyone’s tired of the election.

#600: Will I Know Anyone at This Party?

Right now lots of Republicans feel like they don’t recognize their own party. Like a Minnesota congressman who’s confused when the residents in his district, people he’s known for years, start calling for a ban on Muslims moving to their town.

#599: Seriously?

Watching lies become the truth in this year's election. And a few people who try to bridge the gap between the way the two sides see the facts.

#598: My Undesirable Talent

San Francisco’s Spider-Man burglar was remarkable. He dropped into buildings from skylights, leapt 10 feet from one roof to another. But mostly, his talent got him into trouble. This week, his story, and stories of other undesirable talents.

#597: One Last Thing Before I Go

Words can seem so puny and ineffective sometimes. On this show, we have stories in which ordinary people make last ditch efforts to get through to their loved ones, using a combination of small talk and not-so-small talk.

#596: Becoming a Badger

This week, stories about people trying their best to turn themselves into something else—like a badger. Or a professional comedian, in a language they didn’t grow up speaking.

#595: Deep End of the Pool

What do you do when you're thrown into a situation you’re not prepared for? And while you’re flailing around—what happens to the people who depend on you? This week we present stories of people who find themselves in over their heads, including an attorney who knows little about criminal law assigned to defend a young man facing twenty years in prison.

#594: My Summer Self

Summer is a time when change seems more possible than ever. But is that really how it happens? Can people actually reinvent themselves in the warmer months? This week we present stories — and some comedy — about people and their summer selves.

#593: Don’t Have to Live Like a Refugee

#592: Are We There Yet?

A bunch of us from our show went to refugee camps all over Greece. We found people falling in love, kids mad at their parents for dragging them to Europe, women doing their laundry in a baseball stadium locker room, and hundreds of people living at a gas station—sitting next to the pumps, smoking. Also: wild pigs. 57,000 refugees are stuck in Greece, making homes in some surprising locations. We hear what that’s really like.

#591: Get Your Money's Worth

Stories of people trying to make sure they get what they paid for, from political change to bedroom slippers. We follow a donor as he vets presidential candidates, and go inside a company wrestling with the consequences of its "no questions asked,” lifetime return policy.

#590: Choosing Wrong

Stories of people making the wrong choice, even though the right one is staring them squarely in the eye. Basketball players making a conscious decision to not do the thing that makes them better, pollsters refusing to see the truth of Donald Trump, and more.

#589: Tell Me I’m Fat

The way people talk about being fat is shifting. With one-third of Americans classified as overweight, and another third as obese, and almost none of us losing weight and keeping it off, maybe it’s time to rethink the way we see being fat. A show inspired by Lindy West’s book

#588: Mind Games 2016

Stories of people who try simple mind games on others, and then find themselves in way over their heads.

#587: The Perils of Intimacy

Stories about mysteries that exist in relationships we thought couldn't possibly surprise us, and the strangeness of putting our wants on the line with someone who may not share them at all-- and how much we're willing to risk for someone we may never see again.

#586: Who Do We Think We Are?

It’s nice to belong, to feel connected to others. But what happens when you realize that your fundamental beliefs don’t line up with the people you want to be close to? Do you bring it up? And, what does that conversation sound like? Including a story by Mariya Karimjee, pictured. Guest host Sean Cole sits in for Ira.

#585: In Defense of Ignorance

Exactly how incompetent you are. What your ex’s best friend really thinks of you. The approximate time that you will die. Some things in life are better not to know about. And sometimes there can be a benefit to not knowing. In this episode – examples of ignorance truly being bliss, or even being an asset

#584: For Your Reconsideration

The older and wiser we get, the more bewildering our past decisions can seem. This week, people revisit those decisions — and we revisit

#583: It’ll Make Sense When You’re Older

At first, it’s super annoying, getting told it’ll make sense when you’re older. Then, when you’re a teenager, hard lessons are learned, despite your best efforts to be too cool to care. By the time you’re actually old, you know a bunch of stuff— and you’re desperate to hold onto it. You might even wonder HOW you know all the things you know. Hosted by Chana Joffe-Walt and featuring SNL’s Sasheer Zamata.

#582: When the Beasts Come Marching In

We human beings think we run the world, that we’ve got things under control. And then an animal shows up, and things don’t go as planned. We have stories this week where seals, wolves and a moose drop in and show us who isn't boss.

#581: Anatomy of Doubt

This week, a story about doubt: how it germinated, spread, and eventually took hold of an entire community, with terrible consequences. A collaboration with

#580: That's One Way to Do It

Forget the easy way. This week, stories about people who come up with very innovative…and unusual...solutions to their problems. Including the story of a young voter who defies political categorization.

#579: My Damn Mind

The brain! It's powerful! We have the story of how one man's delusions lead him to a situation that's just as strange as the worst thoughts his mind is cooking up. That story's

#578: I Thought I Knew You

This week, stories of people who are feeling the ground shift underneath them when people they are close to change. Including conservative radio host Tony Beam in South Carolina who is completely baffled by the candidate his audience has decided to get behind this election season.

#577: Something Only I Can See

When you’re the only one who can see something, sometimes it feels like you’re in on a special secret. The hard part is getting anyone to believe your secret is real. This week, people trying to show others what they see—including a woman with muscular dystrophy who believes she has the same condition as an Olympic athlete.

#576: Say Yes To Christmas

No Christmas can ever be as good as the ones you had as a kid. But this week we go all in and bring the joy, the spontaneity, the sense that anything can happen back to Christmas. We've got a live Christmas performance from some of the best improvisors in the country including Mike Birbiglia, Chris Gethard, and SNL's Aidy Bryant and Sasheer Zamata. Also holiday meals – on fire.

#575: Poetry of Propaganda

Sure, there's a crude message that propaganda is trying to get across. But like poetry, when you know how to read it, propaganda contains lots of more subtle messages that you might not see at first glance. This week: examples, big and small, from around the world.

#574: Sinatra's 100th Birthday

For Frank Sinatra's 100th Birthday: stories, tributes, and attempts to understand the Chairman of the Board.

#573: Status Update

Most of the time, the updates we share about our lives are small and inconsequential. This week, status updates that interrupt daily life. We hear two friends talk about how one of them has become rich and famous. And an entire town gets a status update on itself.

#572: Transformers

This week we have stories of people deciding to take on some very big fears. A prisoner who hasn't talked to anyone in years comes up with a bold plan to re-introduce himself to the world, while a 90-year-old woman shocks her family when she announces a love interest.

#571: The Heart Wants What It Wants

When Jesse first started getting letters from Pamala, he couldn’t believe his luck. He'd been waiting all his life to fall in love—and then he started getting these letters from the perfect woman. Vulnerable. In need of protection. Classic beauty. He was totally devoted. They corresponded for years. And when something happens that really should change how he feels about her— he just can’t give it up.

#570: The Night In Question

Twenty years ago, the prime minister of Israel was assassinated. The killer was a lone gunman, Israeli and Jewish, just like the prime minister. Lots of witnesses saw it happen; the assassin confessed immediately, that night, and has never recanted. But today, oddly, lots of people don’t believe it happened that way. And a question hangs over the country: did this act change the fate of the nation?

#569: Put a Bow on It

This week we go into the room at the headquarters of fast food chain Hardee's with the people who decided that this burger with beef, hot dogs, and chips is what America should be eating. We'll hear the story of how they sold that burger and other instances where how you tell the story is more important than the literal facts.

#568: Human Spectacle 2015

Gladiators in the Colosseum. Sideshow performers. Reality television. We've always loved to gawk at the misery or majesty of others. But this week, we ask the question: What's it like when the tables are turned and all eyes are on you?

#567: What’s Going On In There?

Often we see someone’s situation from the outside and think we know exactly what’s going on. This week we get inside and find out just how much more interesting the reality of it is. Including a teenaged girl who records a remarkable story about the boyfriend who abuses her, and why it’s so hard to break up with him. Here are

#566: The Land of Make Believe

A father constructs an elaborate fantasy to occupy his 12 children, and a woman finds herself sucked into a world of make believe that we almost never get to see inside.

#565: Lower 9 + 10

Katrina bus tours go all over New Orleans, but it’s illegal for them to go into the Lower 9th Ward, the area that's been the slowest to rebuild. This week we go around talking to residents there about what matters the most to them (and what doesn't) ten years after the hurricane. The episode we did in 2005 the week of the storm is

#564: Too Soon?

When is too soon for that celebrity comeback; that joke that is either brilliant or full-on repugnant; that parent-child conversation? This week: stories about a fallen man trying to kickstart his career with a reality show, and an awkward moment between a mom and a daughter.

#563: The Problem We All Live With - Part Two

Last week we looked at a school district integrating by accident. This week: a city going all out to integrate its schools. Plus, a girl who comes up with her own one-woman integration plan. (

#562: The Problem We All Live With

Right now, all sorts of people are trying to rethink and reinvent education, to get poor minority kids performing as well as white kids. But there's one thing nobody tries anymore, despite lots of evidence that it works: desegregation. Nikole Hannah-Jones looks at a district that, not long ago, accidentally launched a desegregation program.

#561: NUMMI 2015

A car plant in Fremont California that might have saved the U.S. car industry. In 1984, General Motors and Toyota opened NUMMI as a joint venture. Toyota showed GM the secrets of its production system: How it made cars of much higher quality and much lower cost than GM achieved. Frank Langfitt explains why GM didn't learn the lessons—until it was too late.

#560: Abdi and the Golden Ticket

A story about someone who's desperately trying – against long odds – to make it to the United States and become an American. Abdi is a Somali refugee living in Kenya and gets the luckiest break of his life: he wins a lottery that puts him on a short list for a U.S. visa. This is his ticket out. But before he can cash in his golden ticket, the police start raiding his neighborhood, targeting refugees.

#559: Captain's Log

A captain’s log is a simple thing: the date, the time, maybe the weather — and the current status of a long journey. You wouldn’t know from the cryptic notations what weird worlds lurk beneath. On this week's show, stories behind those cryptic notations — including a concentration camp in China that housed groups of Girl Scouts. Also, Aziz Ansari explains the significance of a Thanksgiving text message, and Etgar Keret destroys a marriage piece by piece.

#558: Game Face

Blair Braverman was a dog musher on an Alaskan glacier. One day the weather turned rough, and she and a pack of tourists were stuck. The worst part? They had to pretend like nothing was wrong. This and other stories of people facing very difficult situations who put their game face on and muscle through. And, we hear from people whose faces betray them and prominently display all their anxiety.

#557: Birds And Bees

Some information is so big and so complicated that it seems impossible to talk to kids about. This week, stories about the vague and not-so-vague ways to teach children about race, death and sex - including a story about colleges responding to sexual assault by trying to teach students how to ask for consent. Also, a story about how and when to teach kids about the horrors of slavery and oppression in America.

#556: Same Bed, Different Dreams

Stories of people who are tied together, but imagine radically different futures. In one case, a movie star and her ex-husband plot against Kim Jong-Il. In another, a woman stalks her doppleganger. And sometimes, one bed is the basis for an entire relationship, even for a man who almost never sees the person who shares his bed.

#555: The Incredible Rarity of Changing Your Mind

It’s rare for people to change what they believe, and if they do it, it’s usually a long process. This week, stories of those very infrequent instances where people’s opinions flip on fundamental things that they believe. Why does it happen in these particular and unusual circumstances? We explain.

Stories of people, cities, and commonwealths touching their noses and proclaiming "not it!" Including the story of how one city used a rocking chair to take retribution against a late night TV show host, and an island that takes people it doesn't want to deal with and ships them away.

#553: Stuck In The Middle (2015)

Jan Brady is not the only one who hated being in the middle. This week we have stories about how it sucks to be in limbo or be the mediator, but we also hear from a man who absolutely loves being in that uncertain and boring middle most of us dread — on hold, listening to

#552: Need To Know Basis

Even when you're not trying to get one over on someone, it can be useful to keep the truth to yourself. Or conversely, to not know why people are lying to your face all the time. This week we'll tell you the whole truth about not telling the whole truth. Including the story of a guy who learned to lie for the first time in his life at age 29.

#551: Good Guys 2015

Yes fellas, lots of you think of yourselves as good guys. But what does it really take to be a good guy? We have stories of valiant men attempting to do good in challenging and not-so-challenging circumstances: in department stores, public buses, and at the bottom of a cave 900 feet underground.

#550: Three Miles

There’s a program that brings together kids from two schools. One school is public and in the country’s poorest congressional district. The other is private and costs $43,000/year. They are three miles apart. The hope is that kids connect, but some of the public school kids just can’t get over the divide. We hear what happens when you get to see the other side and it looks a lot better. (

#549: Amateur Hour

This week, stories of people who are in put into positions they’re completely unqualified to handle … but who try to make it work anyway. Including one story of a tough group of soldiers who attempt to save lives through the power of show tunes.

#548: Cops See It Differently, Part Two

Our second hour of

#547: Cops See It Differently, Part One

There are so many cops who look at the killing of Eric Garner or Mike Brown and say race didn't play a factor. And there are tons of black people who say that's insane. There's a division between people who distrust the police — even fear them — and people who see cops as a force for good. Stories of people living on both sides of that divide, and people trying to bridge it. (If you prefer, here's a

#546: Burroughs 101

#545: If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say, SAY IT IN ALL CAPS

It’s safe to say whatever you want on the Internet; nobody will know it’s you. But that same anonymity makes it possible for people to say all the awful things that make the Internet such an annoying and sometimes frightening place. This week: what happens when the Internet turns on you? (If you prefer, here's a

Can other people's expectations of you alter what you can do physically? Alix Spiegel and Lulu Miller of NPR's new radio show and podcast

#543: Wake Up Now

As New Year’s approaches and people are contemplating things they want to change about themselves, we have stories of people trying to wake themselves up, shake up their own lives, or wake up others. Including the story of a company – or maybe it's a movement – called WakeUpNow.

#542: Wait - Do You Have The Map?

Stories about people feeling lost and trying to figure out how to move ahead: two brothers take a doomed road trip through Mexico and a couple from radically different backgrounds draw up a contract for their unlikely romance.

#541: Regrets, I've Had a Few

Every day we make mistakes, and most of the time we just ignore these failings and move forward. But every so often, there is one that makes us pause and take notice. This week, people struggling with those regrets — big and small — that take root and have to be dealt with.

Stories about people and places that are fronting in order to hide the truth. We visit a bizarre store in Milwaukee called Fearless Distributing, government checkpoints scattered on highways out west, and a front in a doctor's office.

Most of us go from day to day just coasting on the status quo. If it ain’t broke, why fix it, right? But when routines just get too mundane or systems stop making sense, sometimes you just have to hold your breath…and jump. This week, stories of people who leap from their lives, their comfort zones…even through time.

#538: Is This Working?

Stories of schools struggling with what to do with misbehaving kids. There's no general agreement about what teachers should do to discipline kids. And there's evidence that some of the most popular punishments actually may harm kids.

#537: The Alibi

Baltimore, 1999. Hae Min Lee, a bright teenager, disappears after school one day. Six weeks later her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed is arrested for her murder. He says he's innocent — though he can't remember what he was doing that afternoon. But someone can. A classmate at Woodlawn High School claims to know exactly where Adnan was. Trouble is, she’s nowhere to be found. This week features a pilot of our new podcast,

#536: The Secret Recordings of Carmen Segarra

An unprecedented look inside one of the most powerful, secretive institutions in the country. The NY Federal Reserve is supposed to monitor big banks. But when Carmen Segarra was hired, what she witnessed inside the Fed was so alarming that she got a tiny recorder and started secretly taping.

#535: Origin Story 2014

This week we bring you little-known and surprising stories of how all sorts of institutions began. An updated version of a 2009 episode.

#534: A Not-So-Simple Majority

We take it for granted that the majority calls the shots. But in one NY school district, that idea — majority rules — has led to an all-out war. School board disputes are pretty common, but not like this one. This involves multimillion-dollar land deals, lawyers threatening to beat up parents, felony criminal charges, and the highest levels of state government. Meanwhile, the students are caught in the middle.

#533: It's Not the Product, It's the Person

Starting a business is not for the self-doubting. Or even usually the self-deprecating. The first thing you have to sell is yourself — like dating, but with a greater chance of landing in debt. Alex Blumberg tells the incredible, sweat-stains-and-all saga of a man fumbling through

#532: Magic Words

When Jonathan Goldstein was a kid, his father gave him a book that promised to teach you how to shoot mental laser beams, win the lottery, move solid objects with your mind, make others obey your command – all through the use of mental power and magic words. This week, he revisits the book to try to unlock the secrets within. And we have other stories where people recite words that have the power to change their lives, with no magic or mumbo jumbo at all.

#531: Got Your Back

There is a special comfort that comes from knowing someone's got your back. You can do things that just weren't possible before. You take huge risks, including some that aren't necessarily advisable. This week: stories where one person's powerlessness is transformed when they discover they have backup. And we see what happens when that backup goes away.

#530: Mind Your Own Business

Stories of meddling, snooping, and just getting way, way up in other people's business. A cellphone hidden in a bag of chips starts a messy turf war between the FBI and a local sheriff; and a surprising handbook lets us peek into the secret world of professional cheerleading. Plus:

#529: Human Spectacle

Gladiators in the Colosseum. Sideshow performers. Reality television. We've always loved to gawk at the misery or majesty of others. But this week, we ask the question: What's it like when the tables are turned and all eyes are on you?

#528: The Radio Drama Episode

Our most ambitious live show ever! (get the

#527: 180 Degrees

Flipflops, u-turns, changes of heart, about faces. Completely changing our position — sometimes it can be our best move, sometimes it can be our worst. Either way, it's usually complicated. This week we bring you stories of people who go one way, and then, for what ever reason, turn around and go the exact opposite direction.

#526: Is That What I Look Like?

You've been seeing yourself, getting to know what you look like, your whole life. So why does it often take an outsider to see things about you that are obvious, and set you straight?

#525: Call For Help

Stories of people coming to terms with being in serious trouble. They need help. Figuring out how to get it, that's another problem.

#524: I Was So High

Your waitress. Your colleagues at work. Your doctor. Maybe even your parents. They’re all high. All the time. That’s what it feels like anyway. This week, stories in which drug use and daily life intersect – and in which people get high in secret and then do their best to function in the non-high world. Also, we hear some “I Was So High” stories from our very own listeners.

#523: Death and Taxes

It is a peculiar feeling to know with certainty that something big is about to happen to you. This week we watch people go right up to the edge of inevitable change. We hear from preteens about the terrifying knowledge that puberty is about to happen...any minute now. And true to the death and taxes saying, we found it unavoidable to include a story about each one of those things.

#522: Tarred and Feathered

This week, stories of people being threatened and punished with public shame. Including the story of someone who was literally tarred and feathered. It happened a lot more recently than you'd guess.

They're small. And they're cuddly. But sometimes it feels as though our babies were replaced with demon replicas—controlling, demanding, or just downright awful. This week, stories of infants and children who dominate the adults around them with their baditude, or whom adults have painted with the "bad" brush from early on. We also ask the question: at what age does badness begin?

#520: No Place Like Home

There are lots of ways we define where we're from. And whether we're proud of it, or ashamed of it, love it, hate it, miss it or are trying desperately to get back to it — where we're from is always a big part of who we are. This week, stories of people who are, in good ways and bad ways, coming to terms with the places they call home. (

#519: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Last May, a weird story made the news: the FBI killed a guy in Florida who was loosely linked to the Boston Marathon bombings. He was shot seven times in his living room by a federal agent. What really happened? Why was the FBI even in that room with him? A reporter spent six months looking into it, and she found that the FBI was doing a bunch of things that never made the news. Her

#518: Except For That One Thing

Mike Anderson was 36 years old, married, a suburban father of four. He owned a contracting business and built his family’s modest, three-bedroom house in St. Louis from the ground up. He volunteered at church on the weekends and coaches his son’s football team. All pretty normal, right? Except for one thing … which surfaced one day two summers ago.

#517: Day At The Beach

It's January, and freezing outside. This week 5 stories from the sunny beach! Including David Sedaris telling us how losing a sister in 2013 prompted a family reunion, and an impulse buy of a lifetime — an oceanfront cottage big enough for all of them.

#516: Stuck In The Middle

Jan Brady is not the only one who hated being in the middle. This week we have stories about how it sucks to be in limbo or be the mediator, but we also hear from a man who absolutely loves being in that uncertain and boring middle most of us dread — on hold, listening to

#515: Good Guys

Yes fellas, lots of you think of yourselves as good guys. But what does it really take to be a good guy? We have stories of valiant men attempting to do good in challenging circumstances: in war zones, department stores, public buses, and at the bottom of a cave 900 feet underground.

#514: Thought That Counts

It's the thought that counts. So true. Unfortunately, sometimes it's not always so clear what that thought was. And sometimes, when it is clear, we wish it wasn't. This week, during this, the season of giving, we turn our spotlight on the givers and exactly whatever it was they could've possibly been thinking.

We spend a month at a

#512: House Rules

Where you live is important. It can dictate quality of schools and hospitals, as well as things like cancer rates, unemployment, or whether the city repairs roads in your neighborhood. On this week's show, stories about destiny by address.

#511: The Seven Things You’re Not Supposed to Talk About

Producer Sarah Koenig's mother lives by a set of rules about conversation. She has an actual list of off-limits topics, including how you slept, your period, your health, your diet and more. You don't talk about these things, she says, because nobody cares. This week we try to find stories on these exact topics that will prove her wrong.

Stories of when things go wrong. Really wrong. When you leave the normal realm of human error, fumble, mishap, and mistake and enter the territory of really huge breakdowns. Fiascos. Things go so awry that normal social order collapses.

#509: It Says So Right Here

Everyone knows you can't always believe what you read, but sometimes even official documents aren't a path to the truth. This week we have stories of people whose lives are altered when seemingly boring documents like birth certificates and petitions are used against them. And a family wrestles with a medical record that has a very clear, but complicated diagnosis.

#508: Superpowers 2013

This is an updated version of a classic episode, featuring a new story from

#507: Confessions

Two crime scenes, two murders. One crime is solved, the other case went cold. Both raise the question: What should a person suspected of murder say?

#506: Secret Identity

A bank robber on an undercover mission. A teenage girl with the powers of a tiger. A vigilante seeking vengeance in Ciudad Juarez. All have secret identities. But not all of them chose those identities for themselves.

#505: Use Only as Directed

One of the country's most popular over-the-counter painkillers — acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol — also kills the most people, according to data from the federal government. Over 150 Americans die each year on average after accidentally taking too much. And it requires a lot less to endanger you than you may know. We reported this alongside ProPublica. Their stories

#504: How I Got Into College

Students all over are starting college this month, and some of them still have a nagging question: what, exactly, got me in? An admissions officer tells us the most wrongheaded things applicants try. And Michael Lewis has the incredible story of how a stolen library book got one man — Emir Kamenica — into his dream school.

#503: I Was Just Trying To Help

Stories of people doing the noble thing and stepping up to help, only to find out that others think what they're doing isn't helping at all.

#502: This Call May Be Recorded... To Save Your Life

A journalist named Meron Estefanos gets a disturbing tip. She's given a phone number that supposedly belongs to a group of refugees being held hostage in the Sinai desert. She dials the number, and soon dozens of strangers are begging her to rescue them. How can she ignore them?

#501: The View From In Here

It's so easy to lose perspective (or worry you've lost perspective) when you're deep inside some situation. For instance, an American woman who suddenly trades her life for one in a place most people might think twice about: Juarez, Mexico.

To celebrate our 500th episode, Ira asked the producers of

#499: Taking Names

The truly incredible story of a guy named Kirk Johnson who started a list of hundreds of Iraqis who needed to get out of their country. They were getting death threats, and he was their only hope. Only 26 and living in his aunt's basement, he had no idea what to do. How Kirk kind of succeeded spectacularly and failed spectacularly at the same time.

#498: The One Thing You're Not Supposed To Do

This week, stories about people who know something's a bad idea, but convince themselves to do that thing anyway. Including the story of a bunch of illegal immigrants who turn themselves in to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, hoping to be sent into detention.

#497: This Week

This week we return to one of our favorite themes: This Week! All of the stories in the show are things that have taken place in the last seven days. We've got our own take on the big, national stories of the week but we also turn a searchlight across America and find the smaller, more personal and more spectacular stories that most of us never hear.

#496: When Patents Attack... Part Two!

Two years ago, we did

#495: Hot In My Backyard

After years of being stuck, the national conversation on climate change finally started to shift — just a little — last year, the hottest year on record in the U.S., with Hurricane Sandy flooding the New York subway, drought devastating Midwest farms, and California and Colorado on fire. Lots of people were wondering if global warming had finally arrived, here at home. This week, stories about this new reality.

#494: Hit the Road

We're opening windows and going places. This week we have stories of people who, for reasons that they can't always explain, feel compelled to get out and go somewhere. Including the story of one man who decides to take a trip from Philadelphia to San Francisco — by foot.

#493: Picture Show

This week, Israeli soldiers take snapshots of Palestinian boys, one house at a time, in the middle of the night. This and other stories where getting the picture gives you the upper hand.

#492: Dr. Gilmer and Mr. Hyde

Dr. Benjamin Gilmer (left) gets a job at a rural clinic. He finds out he’s replaced someone — also named Dr. Gilmer (picture) — who went to prison after killing his own father. But the more Benjamin’s patients talk about the other Dr. Gilmer, the more confused he becomes. Everyone loved the old Dr. Gilmer. So Benjamin starts digging around, trying to understand how a good man can seemingly turn bad.

A Native American tribe is doing exactly the opposite of what you'd think they'd do: they're kicking people out of the tribe, huge numbers of them, including people whose ancestors without question were part of the tribe. And the story of a white guy who only wants to date Asian women, who then has to adjust to the reality of a real actual Asian woman in his life. The phrase "finding your tribe" is a total cliche — but one that does apply to certain situations.

#490: Trends With Benefits

The number of Americans receiving federal disability payments has nearly doubled over the last 15 years. There are towns and counties around the nation where almost 1/4 of adults are on disability.

#489: No Coincidence, No Story!

We asked listeners to send us their best coincidence stories, and we got more than 1,300 submissions! There were so many good ones we decided to make a whole show about them. From a chance encounter at a bus station to a romantic dollar bill to a baffling apparition in a college shower stall. See more of your coincidence stories — with photos —

#488: Harper High School, Part Two

We pick up where we left off

#487: Harper High School, Part One

We spent five months at Harper High School in Chicago, where last year alone 29 current and recent students were shot. 29. We went to get a sense of what it means to live in the midst of all this gun violence, how teens and adults navigate a world of funerals and Homecoming dances. We found so many incredible and surprising stories, this show is a two-parter; you can listen to

#486: Valentine’s Day

Love makes us do crazy things. But usually not this crazy. This week for Valentine's Day we have stories of people going to extremes to find and pursue their one true love.

#485: Surrogates

This week we look at people who see themselves in others and try to live out their lives through stand-ins — including the story of what one father saw in the convicted murderer he decided to adopt. And the proxy battle over a woman’s honor that became a presidential obsession.

#484: Doppelgängers

We got a tip about a meat plant selling pig intestines as fake calamari, wondered if it could be true, and decided to investigate. Doppelgängers, doubles, evil twins and not-so-evil twins, this week. Fred Armisen co-hosts with Ira Glass.

#483: Self-Improvement Kick

A perfectly normal guy gets rid of everything he owns, changes his name, says goodbye to his friends — and begins walking. In the name of peace. And Honduran government officials try to heal their corrupt country by starting a perfect city, from scratch. For the new year, we bring you stories about how far some people go in hopes of a better life.

#482: Lights, Camera, Christmas!

This holiday season we bring you a show filled with stories of people going to great lengths to throw a special Christmas for their families. Including tales of Luna the guinea pig (pictured), Bambi the reindeer, and Jeko the super-powerful (and somewhat-scary) Christmas elf.

#481: This Week

This week we take on ... this week. Stories united by one thing: They all happened in the seven days prior to broadcast. We try our hand reporting the global stories in Egypt and Afghanistan; and take on super local stories, too, like a man who tries valiantly — valiantly! — to actually get out of bed when his alarm clock goes off. You can also see this week

#480: Animal Sacrifice

What animals sacrifice for us, and what we sacrifice for them. Including a story from Susan Orlean about dogs in World War II, and the

#479: Little War on the Prairie

Growing up in Mankato, Minnesota, John Biewen says, nobody ever talked about the most important historical event ever to happen there: in 1862, it was the site of the largest mass execution in U.S. history. Thirty-eight Dakota Indians were hanged after a war with white settlers. John went back to Minnesota to figure out what really happened 150 years ago, and why Minnesotans didn’t talk about it much after.

#478: Red State Blue State

Everyone knows that politics is now so divided in our country that not only do the two sides disagree on the solutions to the country’s problems, they don’t even agree on what the problems are. It’s two versions of the world in collision. This week we hear from people who’ve seen this infect their personal lives.

#477: Getting Away With It

Stories of people breaking the rules fully, completely and with no bad consequences. Some justify this by saying they’re doing it for others, or for a greater good. Some really don’t care. And, unlike the mealy weaklings you usually hear on this program: None of these wrongdoers seem regretful about what they’ve done in the slightest.

#476: What Doesn’t Kill You

Stories of how people cope after brushes with death. Sometimes death comes as a disease. Sometimes it swims up and bites you. And sometimes it's a pen or pencil, sitting there, just waiting for you to ingest it.

#475: Send a Message

This week people reach out in all kinds of ways to try to get their point across. And the recipients of those messages try to decipher what they mean. Messages in code, over the phone, and from beyond the grave.

#474: Back to School

As kids and teachers head back to school, we wanted to turn away from questions about politics and unions and money and all the regular school stuff people argue about, and turn to something more optimistic — an emerging theory about what to teach kids, from Paul Tough's book

#473: Loopholes

Only the clever need apply. This week, stories of people acting on a technicality in the face of some of life's toughest regulators: financial regulators, parents and God.

#472: Our Friend David

Favorite stories by our longtime contributor and friend David Rakoff.

#471: The Convert

In 2006, a new convert showed up at a mosque in Orange County, California, eager to study the Koran and make new friends. But when he started acting odd and saying strange things, those friends got suspicious. To them, he was Farouk al-Aziz. But his real name was Craig Monteilh, and he was working undercover for the FBI. (Read the

#470: Show Me the Way

Stories about people in trouble, who look for help in mystifying places. A 15-year-old boy travels more than 1,000 miles, alone, to seek out his hero, whom he's never met. And from the archive of

#469: Hiding in Plain Sight

Sometimes when something is happening right under your nose, it becomes even harder to notice than if it were happening in secret. Stories of people of using that to their advantage, including one man who takes down some of the most powerful criminals in the world.

#468: Switcheroo

People pretending to be people they're not: sometimes it's harmless, sometimes it's harmful and sometimes it's hard to tell. From world-famous artists to mail-order brides to a practice that could change the face of American journalism. And BTW if a woman has approached you at a Cindy Sherman exhibit claiming to be Cindy Sherman, email us at

#467: Americans in China

It used to be that the American expats in China were the big shots. They had the money, the status, the know-how. But that's changed. What's it like to be an American living in China now? And what do they understand about China that we don't?

#466: Blackjack

Stories about the casino game everyone thinks they can beat. In one, a woman gambles away her inheritance and then sues the casino, saying they're to blame. In another, Christians join forces to take down casinos — by becoming professional card-counting blackjack players. Plus: MIT Blackjack Team member

#465: What Happened At Dos Erres

In 1982, the Guatemalan military massacred the villagers of Dos Erres, killing more than 200 people. Thirty years later, a Guatemalan living in the US got a phone call from a woman who told him that two boys had been abducted during the massacre — and he was one of them. ProPublica's print version:

#464: Invisible Made Visible

The radio version of an episode we did live on stage and beamed to movie theaters. David Sedaris, Tig Notaro, Ryan Knighton, and the late David Rakoff, in his final performance on the show.

#463: Mortal Vs. Venial

Religion makes it pretty clear what differentiates mortal sins from venial ones. Mortal are the really bad sins and venial the lesser ones. But in our everyday lives, it can be really difficult to determine just how bad we've been. This week we have stories of people trying to figure out that question.

#462: Own Worst Enemy

Stories of people who can’t seem to stop getting in their own way — sabotaging everything from their romantic relationships to their physical health. Featuring a new radio drama by Jonathan Mitchell.

#461: Take the Money and Run for Office

For anyone who has ever heard the term "Washington insider" and felt outside — we are with you. So this week, we go inside the rooms where the deals get made, to the actual moment that the checks change hands — and we ask the people writing and receiving the checks what, exactly, is the money buying?

#460: Retraction

We've discovered that one of our most popular episodes contained numerous fabrications. This week, we detail the errors in

#459: What Kind of Country

All across the country right now, local and state governments are finding they can't pay their bills. Schools are losing teachers, street lights are going dark, garbage is piling up in public parks, and cops are suddenly an optional expense.

#458: Play the Part

Stories of people who decide to flip their personalities and do the exact opposite of what they normally do. Pictured: Louis Ortiz, Obama impersonator. He is the subject of the documentary film

#457: What I Did For Love

Love makes us do crazy things. But not this crazy. This week for Valentine's Day we have stories of people going to extremes as they fall in love, chase love down, and try to make sense of it—including a teenager who falls for an undercover cop, and epic tales of snooping.

#456: Reap What You Sow

Alabama's new immigration law aims to make life so difficult for illegal immigrants that they will "self-deport." And in a way it's working. Immigrants are fleeing Alabama...but not just the undocumented ones. This and other stories of people living with the unintended consequences of their decisions.

#455: Continental Breakup

If you're like us, when the words "European debt crisis" pop up in the news you feel a little worried, and a little like taking a nap. Turns out, there's a story behind this story. One that's filled with guilt, and drama, and betrayal, and 100-year-old dreams come true. Alex Blumberg of

#454: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

NOTE: This American Life has retracted this story because we learned that many of Mike Daisey's experiences in China were fabricated.

This week, stories where a longtime standoff keeps both sides coming back for more. Including a story about the time in Poland's recent history where the country's two political blocks came together and believed, however briefly, they'd be able to set aside their differences. And another story about a college rivalry gone viral, and personal.

#452: Poultry Slam 2011

We bring you our sort-of-annual holiday tradition: The Poultry Slam! Stories of what happens when humans and fowl collide, including the tale of one notorious turkey who unleashed a long reign of terror on an unsuspecting neighborhood.

#451: Back to Penn State

In the wake of the recent news, listeners have contacted us and tweeted about the show we did two years ago at Penn State,

#450: So Crazy It Just Might Work

A few years ago a cancer researcher named Jonathan Brody gave a speech at his alma mater saying that people in his field really needed to think outside the box to find a cure. Afterward he was approached by his old orchestra teacher, who had something way out of the box—a theory that he could kill cancer cells with electromagnetic waves. And other stories.

#449: Middle School

#448: Adventure!

Sometimes you choose the adventure and sometimes the adventure chooses you. This week, stories that pinpoint when people's boring old lives turn into something wildly unfamiliar. Including a story of one young man's time served in a Chinese prison, and a handful of adventure stories from some of our favorite writers.

#447: The Incredible Case of the P.I. Moms

What do you get when you take a private investigation firm, toss in a bunch of sexy soccer moms, then add official sponsorship from Glock firearms, a lying boss, and delusions of grandeur? This week's show. That's what you get.

#446: Living Without (2011)

Stories of people living without. Nubar Alexanian explains what fish can do for him that his own ears cannot. Bobby Morris, on leaving baseball. And other stories.

#445: Ten Years In

In this show, we return to people who've been on

This week, Sarah Koenig hosts, as we tackle the thing we all hate to love: Gossip. That's right; we've got rumor, we've got innuendo, and we've got a story of gossipers gone pro. Sarah even makes a compelling case that in some places, gossip could very well be saving lives. But you didn't hear it from us.

#443: Amusement Park

We head to some of the happiest places on Earth: Amusement Parks! Jonathan Goldstein revisits one he worked at as a teen, Ira takes us behind the scenes at Worlds of Fun in Kansas City, where the staff so loves their jobs they make

Like a lot of Mexican towns, Florencia has had its share of problems dealing with drug gangs. That is until recently, when new narcos rolled into town telling residents that they were there to liberate them. They promised that people would live in peace and tranquility. And so far, it's working. As long as the narcos are on the streets with guns, people feel safe. That and other stories of thugs.

#441: When Patents Attack!

Why would a company rent an office in a tiny town in East Texas, put a nameplate on the door, and leave it completely empty for a year? The answer involves a controversial billionaire physicist in Seattle, a 40 pound cookbook, and a war waging right now, all across the software and tech industries. (

#440: Game Changer

A professor in Pennsylvania makes a calculation, to discover that his state is sitting atop a massive reserve of natural gas—enough to revolutionize how America gets its energy. But another professor in Pennsylvania does a different calculation and reaches a troubling conclusion: that getting natural gas out of the ground poses a risk to public health. Two men, two calculations, and two very different consequences. (

#439: A House Divided

Stories about people who find themselves either unexpectedly being singled out or doing the singling out. Including one story about nine public officials whose constituents are trying to throw them out of office, and another story about a man's very physical battle with himself.

#438: Father's Day 2011

Yes yes yes you've heard it all before, when it comes to stories of fathers and their children. There's the story of the kid who idolizes his dad, but then learns something and becomes disappointed. Or the opposite story, where the kid gives up on his dad when he's still young, and then much later comes to have a grudging respect. This week for fathers day: surprising stories of fathers trying to be good dads.

#437: Old Boys Network

Stories about standing up to the man—or, really, the men. Nurses at a small Texas hospital report a well-connected doctor for dangerous medical practices, and find themselves under arrest. Plus...how political operators in Chicago get to be judges.

#436: The Psychopath Test

Recently we heard about this test that could determine if someone was a psychopath. So, naturally, our staff decided to take it. This week we hear the results. Plus Jon Ronson asks the question: is this man a psychopath?

#435: How To Create a Job

It seems like every politician has a plan for putting people back to work. But we and the

#434: This Week

This week we're trying something we've never tried before: An hour of stories about...this week. We take a crack at major news events, like what's happening in Egypt; and at the most minor, like an 8-year-old who's finally taking the training wheels off her bike. The stories are united by one thing: They all happened in the seven days prior to broadcast.

#433: Fine Print 2011

Stories where the fine print changes everything, whether you read it or not.

#432: Know When To Fold 'Em

When is it time to walk away, and when is it time to run? This week we have the story of an entire country deciding whether to give up on just one of its citizens, when to hold 'em in order to win nearly a million dollars in poker, and a new story from Dave Dickerson.

#431: See No Evil

When things are awkward or uncomfortable or distressing, a lot of times it's easier to not think about it. This week we have stories of people pretending that everything is okay and ignoring the awful stuff that's staring them straight in the face. Including a story of deceit and intrigue involving commemorative spoons from the Kennedy Center.

#430: Very Tough Love

This week: A drug court program that we believe is run differently from every other drug court in the country, doing some things that are contrary to the very philosophy of drug court. The result? People with offenses that would get minimal or no sentences elsewhere sometimes end up in the system five to ten years. (

#429: Will They Know Me Back Home?

Stories of people who've grown so accustomed to wartime that the lives they've left behind no longer make sense. Including a US battalion going home on leave after 15 months of deployment, and an Iraqi translator's story of life after the gig is up.

#428: Oh You Shouldn't Have

Stories about the perils of giving and receiving gifts: Ones that go over spectacularly well in spite of being in poor taste, and ones that flop even with the best intentions. Including what happens when—surprise!—your whole past gets laid out for a live TV audience.

#427: Original Recipe

The formula for Coca-Cola is one of the most jealously guarded trade secrets in the world. Locked in a vault in Atlanta. Supposedly unreplicable. But we think we may have found the original recipe. And to see if the formula actually might be Coke, we made a batch. Or, anyway, we asked the folks at

#426: Tough Room 2011

This week we bring you backstage with comedy writers at

#425: Slow To React

This week we have stories where people's reactions move very slowly, including the story of a wedding 17 years in the making, and what it's like when you have a terminal illness that's supposed to kill you in a year or two, and it decides to take its time.

#424: Kid Politics

What if, say, the U.S.-led invasion of Grenada in 1983 had been decided, not by Ronald Reagan, but by a bunch of middle-schoolers? And what if every rule at your high school had been determined, not by teachers and administrators, but entirely by teenagers? This week, stories about whether, when it comes to governing, kids do any better than grown-ups.

#423: The Invention of Money

Five reporters stumbled on what seems like a basic question: What is money? The unsettling answer they found: Money is fiction. Photo: Stone money on the island of Yap.

#422: Comedians of Christmas Comedy Special

The holidays are stressful so we booked a seasonal pick-me-up: an hour of comedy. Including comedians Wyatt Cenac, Mike Birbiglia, Julian McCullough, Jenny Slate, Gabe Liedman and Edith Zimmerman. Musical guests: Dave Hill and Doug Gillard.

#421: Last Man Standing

Is it stubbornness? Tenacity? Survival of the fittest? This week, stories about people who feel compelled to keep going, especially when everyone else has given up.

#420: Neighborhood Watch

It’s amazing just how much drama can take place in the mini-universe of a neighborhood. This week we bring you stories of neighbors watching out for each other, for better and worse, including a story from CBC's

#419: Petty Tyrant

In Schenectady, NY, a school maintenance man named Steve Raucci works his way up the ranks for 30 years, until finally he's in charge of the maintenance department. That's when he starts messing with his employees. Teasing them at meetings. Punishing them with crummy work assignments. Or worse things, like secretly slashing their tires in the middle of the night.

In January 2010, reporters from

#417: This Party Sucks

A show for this year's midterm elections. Two best friends in Michigan, both political novices, get tired of yelling at their TVs and take matters into their own hands. They form a Tea Party chapter to effect political change. But when push comes to shove and they have to choose a candidate, their ideologies, their principles and their friendship explode.

#416: Iraq After Us

Operation Iraqi Freedom is over. And the next chapter of Iraq is being written now. But what actually happened there the last seven years? Producer Nancy Updike and reporter Larry Kaplow spent a month in Iraq talking to Iraqis and Americans about the war that tore the country apart, and what's happening as we try to put it back together.

#415: Crybabies

Crybabies are annoying. They whine, they complain, sometimes they ruin it for the rest of us. But being a crybaby can be a really effective tactic. We have stories of crybabies in sports, in politics, on Wall Street, on the streets of California, including a new story by David Sedaris.

#414: Right to Remain Silent

Stories about people who have the right to remain silent... but choose not to exercise that right—including police officer Adrian Schoolcraft, who secretly recorded his supervisors telling officers to manipulate crime statistics and make illegal arrests. The Village Voice series that broke Schoolcraft's story, written by Graham Rayman, is

#413: Georgia Rambler

In the 1970s a reporter named Charles Salter wrote a column for the Atlanta Journal called "Georgia Rambler." He'd get into his car, head out to some small town, and ask around until he found a story. This week, nine of us go to Georgia to try it out for ourselves, in small towns all over the state.

#412: Million Dollar Idea

Back in the 1980s Michael Larson made the most money ever on the game show Press Your Luck. And it was no accident—Larson had a plan to get rich that surprised everyone: The home viewers, the show's producers and mostly Larson himself.

#411: First Contact

Stories of first encounters with unknown and distant beings: Girls, foreigners and perhaps even aliens. Including a story by comedian Mike Birbiglia about his first kiss.

#410: Social Contract

Richard Ravitch has helped fix three governmental crises, including when New York City nearly went bankrupt in 1975. What's changed, to make it so much harder for him to solve the state's current financial crisis? (Photo: stress balls in the state budget office.)

#409: Held Hostage

A kidnapping victim in Colombia spends his nights listening to a radio station that plays messages from the families of the kidnapped. That and other stories of people held captive—by criminals, by paperwork, and in one man's case, his own body—and the ways they try to cope.

#408: Island Time

Unprecedented amounts of money have been pledged to Haitian relief in the last few months. American households have given over $1 billion and in March, 120 countries pledged over $9 billion(!) to rebuild. The only problem is that—historically—blanketing a country in aid and money has never really worked so well. Is there a chance this time things could be different?

#407: The Bridge

We bring you stories of bridges from three different countries, including one in China that's famous for its massive size and its high suicide rate. One takes it upon himself to patrol the bridge, looking for jumpers. You can read entries from the watchman's blog

#406: True Urban Legends

Can a rat crawl through your plumbing and end up in your toilet? Can your cell phone give you a brain tumor? Download a

#405: Inside Job

For seven months a team of investigative journalists from

#404: Enemy Camp 2010

Living behind enemy lines, among the enemy, it's sometimes hard to remember why you're fighting in the first place.

A car plant in Fremont California that might have saved the U.S. car industry. In 1984, General Motors and Toyota opened NUMMI as a joint venture. Toyota showed GM the secrets of its production system: How it made cars of much higher quality and much lower cost than GM achieved. Frank Langfitt explains why GM didn't learn the lessons—until it was too late.

#402: Save the Day

Stories about one person single-handedly taking charge of a situation gone wrong—including one man's mission to rescue two kids who were kidnapped by alleged murderers and taken to Mexico, and another about a professor's mission to keep the educators of a liberal arts college from extinction.

#401: Parent Trap

Stories about parents setting accidental traps for their children, and sometimes for themselves, including a story from WNYC's

#400: Stories Pitched by Our Parents

For our 400th show, we try something harder than anything we've ever tried in the previous 399. We take the random ideas that members of our own families have told us at weddings and family gatherings would be "perfect for the show"...and we actually try to make those ideas into stories.

#399: Contents Unknown

A man named David Maclean finds himself in a train station in India, with no idea how he got there or who he is. His memory gone, he has no choice but to let other people—police, doctors, friends, family—create an identity for him. David's book about this incident is called

#398: Long Shot

Stories of people betting on something with very bad odds, mostly because they have no other choice.

At the start of a new year, journalistic outfits put out lots of mealy "perhaps oil prices will rise or perhaps they won't" predictions for the coming year. Instead of that, we asked our contributors to predict real events that will happen to them and the people they know in 2010.

#396: #1 Party School

In 2009, The Princeton Review named Penn State the #1 Party School in America. It's a rotating crown—last year it was University of Florida, before that it was West Virginia University. So we wondered: what's it like to be at the country's top party school?

#395: Middle of the Night

Stories of people who are up while the rest of us are sleeping—some for work, some for play, and some for a free sandwich. Including the story of a woman walking alone at night, who encounters another woman walking alone at night, for the exact same reason, and a whole population of people haggling over the cost of oranges at 3 in the morning.

#394: Bait and Switch

Stories about people who take the bait, and those who place it. Including the story of man who tries to investigate a neighborhood crime and ends up in jail himself. And the story of the pitfalls of luring customers to a make-believe pizza delivery place.

#393: Infidelity

Stories of cheating, cheaters and the cheated. Writer

#392: Someone Else's Money

This week, we bring you a deeper look inside the health insurance industry. The dark side of prescription drug coupons. A story about Pet Health Insurance, which is in its infancy, and how it is changing human behaviors—for example, if you have the pet health insurance, you bring your pet to the vet more often, and the vet makes more money and...well, you can see the parallels.

#391: More Is Less

An hour explaining the American health care system, specifically, why it is that costs keep rising. One story looks at the doctors, one at the patients and one at the insurance industry.

#390: Return To The Giant Pool of Money

In which we mark the anniversary of the economic collapse and the anniversary of

#389: Frenemies

This week we bring you stories about friends. Or wait, enemies? How about both? Tales of estranged sisters, BFFs breaking up and making up and breaking up, and how reality stars walk the fine line between making friends and making a name for themselves. Including a story from David Rakoff, whose new book

#388: Rest Stop

Nine radio producers. Two days. One rest stop on the New York State Thruway. In this show, we'll bring you stories of people who are just passing through, and people who are at the rest stop every day—working. One of them has worked there since 1969. A bunch of others came from Asia and eastern Europe to pour coffee for travelers.

#387: Arms Trader 2009

The U.S. government spent two years on a sting operation trapping an Indian man named Hemant Lakhani, whom they suspected of being an illegal arms dealer.

#386: Fine Print

Stories where the fine print changes everything, whether you read it or not.

It's tempting to act as your own lawyer, to argue your own cause. Who better to defend your position than you? This week, stories of pro se defenses: Some brilliant, some disastrous.

Sometimes when things go wrong, parsing out who all is to blame and taking them to task is just

#383: Origin Story

This week we bring you little-known and surprising stories of how all sorts of institutions—from a controversial legal precedent to a Hollywood teen dance flick—began.

#382: The Watchmen

Since Congress hasn't held 1930's-style hearings into the causes of the financial crisis, we stage one of our own.

A well-known activist—an anarchic, revolutionary activist—is accused of spying on other activists for the FBI. The strangest thing about the rumor is, it's true. How Brandon Darby transformed from cop-hater to federal witness. Plus, a story by Etgar Keret, about a boy who betrays his people with a pair of shoes.

Stories of people who find themselves in situations far from the beaten path, where there are no guidelines and no useful precedents, including the return of

#379: Return To The Scene Of The Crime

A live episode of the radio program, including stories told on stage by Dan Savage and Mike Birbiglia.

#378: This I Used to Believe

Stories of people forced to let go of their firmly held beliefs. When the daughter of a pro-choice activist concludes that abortion is murder, her mother goes to extraordinary lengths to persuade her daughter to switch sides. And after a woman loses her faith, a football coach—whom she's never met—tries to restore it.

#377: Scenes From a Recession

The economy works in mysterious ways. This week, we highlight the unusual circumstances our economic drought has left us in, and the newly hatched plans being made to survive it.

#376: Wrong Side of History

Bernie Epton went down in history as the Other Guy: the white opponent who almost defeated the first black mayor of Chicago. But what's the real story of someone who ended up on the wrong side of history? That and other stories of people with wildly popular or unpopular views for one moment in time, and how those views stand up years, decades, even centuries later.

The collapse of the banking system explained, in just 59 minutes.

#374: Somewhere Out There

Of all the 6 and a half billion people in the world, what are the odds that any two people are a real match? Stories from people who know they've beat the odds, and the lengths they've gone to do it. Including an American professor who sings Chinese opera for anyone who'll listen, to get one step closer to his mate, and Mike Birbiglia on meeting his girlfriend's... boyfriend.

#373: The New Boss

Stories about what happens when someone new takes over—someone with a vision of how things ought to be. Including international economics correspondent Adam Davidson of the

#372: The Inauguration Show

On the eve of Barack Obama's inauguration, we sent reporters out all over the country to talk to people about how they're feeling about this new president. Do they believe things will change? Do they think there'll be changes in their own lives?

#371: Scenes From a Mall

#370: Ruining It for the Rest of Us

Stories of people who ruin things for everyone else...or who are accused of that. Like the San Diego parents who didn't vaccinate their child for measles.

#369: Poultry Slam 2008

A man in Pakistan wants to break his friend out of prison. He buys him an amulet that supposedly has the power to protect anyone from harm. But just to be on the safe side, he decides to test the amulet by trying it out first. On a chicken.

#368: Who Do You Think You Are?

This week we bring you stories of privilege and the lengths some will go to to maintain it. In one story, a woman fights—on tape!—with her city's parking enforcer about playing favorites.

#367: Ground Game

#366: A Better Mousetrap 2008

Stories about people trying to find new solutions to age-old problems—solutions that sometimes cause problems of their own. Alex Blumberg returns (in collaboration with the

#365: Another Frightening Show About the Economy

Alex Blumberg and NPR's Adam Davidson—the two guys who reported our

#364: Going Big

Stories about people who take grand, sweeping approaches to solving problems of all sorts.

#363: Enforcers

Stories about people who take the law into their own hands, even when the line between enforcing the rules and breaking them gets kind of hazy.

#362: Got You Pegged

Shalom Auslander goes on vacation with his family, and suspects the beloved, chatty old man in the room next door is an imposter—and sets out to prove it. This and other stories about the pitfalls of making snap judgments about others.

#361: Fear of Sleep

Mike Birbiglia got used to strange things happening to him when he slept—until something happened that almost killed him (Mike's story is now a feature film,

#360: Switched At Birth

On a summer day in 1951, two baby girls were born in a hospital in small-town Wisconsin. The infants were accidentally switched, and went home with the wrong families.

#359: Life After Death

Stories of people haunted by guilt over their role in others' deaths, even when everyone agrees they're blameless.

#358: Social Engineering

Governments are always looking for ways to change behavior—stopping people from driving drunk, or encouraging them to recycle. This week, we have stories of social engineering on a smaller scale.

#357: The Truth Will Out

Does the truth always come out? Of course not! Though sometimes it comes out in the most uncomfortable ways imaginable. Stories of concealed truths bubbling to the surface, including a brand-new, unpublished story by fiction writer and filmmaker

#356: The Prosecutor

A lawyer in the Justice Department gets the professional opportunity of a lifetime: To be the lead prosecutor in one of the first high-profile terrorist cases since 9/11. But things go badly for him.

#355: The Giant Pool of Money

A special program about the housing crisis produced in a special collaboration with

#354: Mistakes Were Made

It's the late 1960s, and in the new technology of cryonics, a California TV repairman named Bob sees an opportunity to help people cheat death. But freezing dead people so scientists can reanimate them in the future is a lot harder than it sounds. Harder still was admitting to the family members of people Bob had frozen that he'd screwed up. Badly.

#353: The Audacity of Government

Stories of the Bush Administration, its unique style of asserting presidential authority, and its quest to redefine the limits of presidential power.

#351: Return to Childhood 2008

Seventh-grader Kayla Hernandez likes to reminisce about when she was a child, back in fifth grade. She visits her school, where her fifth grade class met, and looks at her old books, thinks about what happened there.

#350: Human Resources

The true story of little-known rooms in the New York City Board of Education building. Teachers are told to report there instead of their classrooms. No reason is usually given.

#349: Valentine's Day 2008

Veronica Chater's mother wants to go to a resort in Mexico with a friend. Her father, a former cop with an extravagant sense of security, prepares as if she's headed for a war zone. This, and other stories about couples, that happen decades after the moment their eyes meet.

#348: Tough Room

This week we bring you backstage with comedy writers at

#347: Matchmakers

Sabir, a young man in Afghanistan, thought he'd found true love but he couldn't afford a wedding. So two foreign aid workers, friends of his, decide to come to his rescue. They soon find out making a lasting love match isn't as simple as writing a check.

#346: Home Alone

A 79-year-old woman, Mary Ann, dies in Los Angeles. She's lived alone for decades. No one knows her—or her next of kin. There's a body to be buried, a house full of stuff to get rid of.

#345: Ties That Bind

A young girl named Sarah receives a heart transplant from a boy her age, and her mother sets off to find out more about the kid who saved her daughter's life. But years later, Sarah's not sure she wants to know.

#344: The Competition

Stories of the unintended consequences of market forces.

#343: Poultry Slam 2007

For Thanksgiving, the time of year when poultry consumption is highest, it's our annual program about turkeys, chickens, and fowl of all types.

#342: How to Rest in Peace

There are umpteen TV shows about solving murders, endless whodunits in bookstores. But what happens to the people left behind after the detectives close the case? Three stories about children trying to figure out how to live normally after their parents have died.

#341: How to Talk to Kids

Stories of adults taking very different approaches to communicating with children.

#340: The Devil in Me

Stories of people trying to exorcize their inner demons.

Writer Starlee Kine on what makes the perfect break-up song and whether really sad music can actually make you feel better. Plus, an eight-year-old author of a book about divorce, and other stories from the heart of heartbreak.

#338: The Spokesman

#337: Man vs. History

Stories about people taking history into their own hands. We hear from two men in two different wars. One is trying to make a difference in the current war in Iraq. The other is with the CIA at the very end of the Cold War.

#336: Who Can You Save?

Stories about the pitfalls of trying to do the right thing.

#335: Big Wide World

When he was a teenager, Haider worked in the Iraqi Ministry of Information. He was specially trained to talk to visiting dignitaries and foreign reporters, and he loved his job. It was exciting, and he was treated like a celebrity.

#334: Duty Calls

Josh's mother and younger brother were a mess. His mother drank too much. His brother got arrested a lot. Josh hadn't lived with them since he was nine, and they didn't play much of a role in his daily life—until duty called, and they took over his life.

#333: The Center for Lessons Learned

Four years into the Iraq War, what have we learned? Soldiers, civilians, Iraqis, and Americans talk—and sometimes yell—about what they've learned in the last few years...including how to stay alive and why the aftermath of a war can be the trickiest time of all.

#332: The Ten Commandments

Stories of people struggling to follow the Ten Commandments from the book of Exodus.

#331: Habeas Schmabeas 2007

An updated version of our episode "

#330: My Reputation

Stories of people trying to recover from damage to their reputations—sometimes caused by others, sometimes self-inflicted.

#329: Nice Work If You Can Get It

Stories of sudden fame, quick riches, and the downside of the dream job.

#328: What I Learned from Television

Stories recorded during our 2007 live tour. Sarah Vowell, David Rakoff, Dan Savage, and other favorite contributors went on the road with us to New York, Boston, Minneapolis, Chicago, Seattle, and Los Angeles; and performed brand-new stories in front of sold-out audiences.

Stories of proxy fights, proxy arguments, and proxy situations of all kinds.

#326: Quiz Show

A man with social anxiety goes through a transformation on a TV game show, a young woman with high ideals has them dashed by a TV game show, and teams compete to solve some of the hardest puzzles in the world, for fun.

#325: Houses of Ill Repute

An old man in Brooklyn invites some homeless prostitutes into his house on a cold winter night. They never leave. Plus other stories about houses, such as the United States Congress, where the inhabitants don't always act as they should.

#324: My Brilliant Plan

An American reporter in Iraq decides to rent a house in a residential Baghdad neighborhood rather than live in a hotel and be an easy target for insurgents. And an eleven-year-old boy figures out an ingenious way to see his dead father again. Big ideas gone amok.

#323: The Super

In 1980's New York City, rent is rising: it seems out of control, and residents struggle to keep up. So Jack Hitt helps organize tenants, and threatens a rent strike. This does not go over so well with his building super, who, as it turns out, is a very dangerous man.

#322: Shouting Across the Divide

A Muslim woman persuades her husband that their family would be happier if they left the West Bank and moved to America. They do, and things are good...until September 11. After that, the elementary school their daughter goes to begins using a textbook that says Muslims want to kill Christians.

#321: Sink or Swim

Stories of people who are in over their heads and trying to stay afloat.

#320: What's In A Number? — 2006 Edition

Recently, the British medical journal

#319: And the Call Was Coming from the Basement

For the week leading up to Halloween, scary stories that are all true. Kidnappings, zombie raccoons, haunted houses—real haunted houses!—and things that go "EEEEK!!!" in the night. Plus a story by David Sedaris, in which he walks among the dead.

#318: With Great Power

A family wishes for years that they could do something to stop their neighbor's shocking behavior. Suddenly they get the power to decisively change things forever...and they have to decide whether they will. This, and other stories of everyday people who get saddled with great power—and the great sense of responsibility that goes with it.

#317: Unconditional Love

Can love be taught? A family uses a controversial therapy to train their son to love them. And other stories about the hard and sometimes painful work of loving other people.

#316: The Cat Came Back

True stories that follow the plotline of the old kid's song

#315: The Parrot and the Potbellied Pig

Original stories from David Sedaris, Jonathan Goldstein, and others, on two animals who don't even seem like they should know each other, much less appear on the same radio show.

#314: It's Never Over

A grown man tries to get to the bottom of why his schoolmates threw him in a lake 20 years earlier. And a woman buys a house on the cheap, with the understanding that the seller will soon vacate. Ten years later, she's still waiting.

#313: Parental Guidance Suggested

Stories about kids who actually want their parents looking out for them.

#312: How We Talked Back Then

In this show we return to two radio programs originally broadcast in 1996 and 1997.

#311: A Better Mousetrap

Stories about people trying to find new solutions to age-old problems—solutions that sometimes cause problems of their own.

#310: Habeas Schmabeas

#309: Cat and Mouse

Stories about the kinds of chase games that just never end. From the high California desert to a high-end furniture showroom.

#308: Star-Crossed Love

In honor of Valentine's Day,

#307: In the Shadow of the City

Stories that take place on the edge of civilization, just out of sight.

#306: Seemed Like A Good Idea at the Time

A girl signs up for a class. A couple hires an accountant. A group of co-workers decides to pool their money and buy a couple of lottery tickets. In the beginning, they're full of hope and optimism...and then something turns. Stories of good ideas gone bad.

#305: The This American Life Holiday Spectacular

A full-throttle, show-stopping, no-holds-barred Christmas Spectacular! Shedding the crusty old Christmas stories of yore, we bring you new holiday classics. With special musical guest Marah!

The story of Reverend Carlton Pearson, a renowned evangelical pastor in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who cast aside the idea of Hell, and with it everything he'd worked for over his entire life.

#303: David and Goliath

Variations on an old tale, with very modern consequences. Cambodia is competing with other nations for the business of big clothing companies all over the world...but they've vowed to follow fair labor practices. Other countries end up with the contracts, and the profits.

#302: Strangers in a Strange Land

Someone once said, "If you're not willing to be changed by a place, there's no point in going." This week, stories about what happens when you land in a whole new world.

#301: Settling the Score

Stories about the lengths we go to make things right, and about what money can and cannot fix.

#300: What's In A Number?

About a year ago, a study estimated the number of Iraqi casualties since the war began at 100,000 dead—higher than any other estimate. The study was mostly ignored. Alex Blumberg revisits that study to look at the reality behind it.

#299: Back from the Dead

Stories about people and places that have come back to life after everything seemed lost.

#298: Getting and Spending

How far will we go to get money? And once we've got it, what should we spend it on? The first half of this show is on making money, and the second half on spending it.

#297: This Is Not My Beautiful House

It's the largest mass resettlement that America has seen since the Civil War, as over 400,000 people—victims of Hurricane Katrina—try to find a new place to live. From the Houston Astrodome to an abandoned New Orleans street, stories of people looking for home...and finding something else.

#296: After the Flood

Surprising stories from survivors in New Orleans. We give people who were in the storm more time than daily news coverage can to tell their stories and talk about what they're thinking. This leads to a number of ideas that haven't made it into the regular news coverage.

#295: Not What I Signed Up For

Stories about being sucked into something against your will. In one story, a 9/11 widow finds herself having to comfort another distraught woman on national TV. And in a story by Nick Hornby, a boy is forced to play soccer to save his nation.

#294: Image Makers

Stories of people and institutions who are worried about what the world thinks of them, and who take action...decisive action.

#293: A Little Bit of Knowledge

Stories about the pitfalls of knowing just a little bit too little.

#292: The Arms Trader

The U.S. government spent two years on a sting operation trapping an Indian man named Hemant Lakhani, whom they suspected of being an illegal arms dealer. It's one of the few cases that has gone to trial in the War on Terror, and one the Justice Department has pointed to as one of their big successes. In the end, they got Lakhani, red-handed, delivering a missile to a terrorist in New Jersey. The only problem was, nothing in the sting was what it appeared to be. Including the missile.

#291: Reunited (And It Feels So Good)

Stories about getting back together with your spouse, your country, your...Brahman bull. And how it never goes the way you think it's going to.

#290: Godless America

At a time when House Majority Leader Tom Delay calls for enacting a "Biblical world view" in government, when Christians are asserting their ideals in the selection of judges, in public school science classes and elsewhere,

#289: Go Ask Your Father

In this show, sons and daughters get to find out the one thing they've always wanted to know about their father. The answers aren't always what they hope for.

#288: Not What I Meant

Stories about how easy it is for communication to go awry, and what the consequences can be after it does.

#287: Backed Into A Corner

Stories about people who end up making choices they'd rather not make, when their options begin to run out. Sometimes this works out great; sometimes not so great.

#286: Mind Games

Stories of people who try simple mind games on others, and then find themselves way in over their heads.

#285: Know Your Enemy

Stories about trying to understand who's on your side. The defense minister of Israel visits would-be suicide bombers in prison, only to find out that in at least one case, he feels sorry for the terrorist. A prosecutor tries to censor a punk rock star. He takes him to court, but never bothers to listen to his lyrics. During the trial, he begins to think twice about his mission. Plus other stories.

#284: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Stories about people teetering on the edge of this question: Should they stay or go? A software writer loses his job, but refuses to go away. He continues to show up at work, sneaking in the door each day and putting in long hours on a project the company canceled. A student from Pakistan finishes four years of college in Philadelphia and has to decide whether to move back home. And other stories.

#283: Remember Me

Stories about people who are remembered very differently than they'd wished. The ghost of a kindly, distinguished philanthropist supposedly plays pranks on guests at a Ramada hotel in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. A dying mother makes a tape for her developmentally disabled daughter, hoping she'll watch it someday, knowing she might not.

After four lawyers fail to get an innocent man out of prison, his friend takes on the case himself. He becomes a do-it-yourself investigator. He learns to read court records, he tracks down hard-to-find witnesses, he gets the real murderer to come forward with his story. In the end, he's able to accomplish all sorts of things the police and the professionals can't.

#281: My Big Break

Sometimes, getting your big break isn't all it's cracked up to be. A comedy duo lands the gig that can make them famous—the Ed Sullivan Show at the height of Sullivan's popularity—and they bomb. A third-grader gets his big chance to please his mother and push his drunken father out of the picture. And other stories.

#280: In Country

What life is like for American soldiers in Iraq.

#279: Auto Show

Stories about people who love their cars, for better or for worse.

#278: Spies Like Us

Stories about amateur spies—regular people who spy on other regular people, and the consequences of their spying.

It's rare that a successful apology happens. One where you apologize to someone, not for selfish reasons, but because you're really sorry and you want them to know that, and when the person you're apologizing to really hears what you're saying. Three stories of people groping toward that moment.

#276: Swing Set

A journey through the minds of undecided voters. For months—through the Swift Boat ads, the convention speeches, the debates—we tracked a few of these voters to find out why they just can't make up their minds. Plus, a story of someone courting undecided voters, and another about people trying to sabotage undecided voters (and everyone else).

#275: Two Steps Back

Ten years ago, when he was still a reporter for NPR's