The Thread

Everybody loves to move. How we choose to move will determine what life looks like for the next generation. OZY’s hit podcast franchise The Future of X is back, and this season we’re investigating the future of mobility with our friends at Ford. The future of mobility has the potential to electrify our imagination, sustain our planet and connect us like never before. If you want to see how we can get there, then get in and buckle up. It’s going to be a wild ride. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ever look down at your plate of food and wonder where the ingredients came from? OZY’s hit podcast franchise The Future of X is back, and this season we’re investigating The Future of Farming with our friends at Vital Farms. Each episode will take a look at the all-important field of farming, from how data will revolutionize farming to the impact of Big Agriculture. Plus, explore the possible solutions to food insecurity and climate change, such as regenerative agriculture. Ready to dig in? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After the horrific violence of Election Day, 1920, in Ocoee, Florida, hundreds of Black families fled the town, never to return. White farmers took ownership of their lands. And the crimes of the mobs of white vigilantes - lynching, murders, arson, theft - were covered up for almost a century. Until now. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Before the presidential election of 1920, the Klan marched through Florida to warn Black citizens not to vote. Newspapers across the state issued the same warning. When a prominent Black resident, Mose Norman, tried to cast his vote in the town of Ocoee, a mob of white vigilantes descended on the community. They exacted a terrible vengeance, starting with the family of a local Black leader, July Perry. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The worst incident of election violence in American history happened a century ago on Election Day, 1920 in the town of Ocoee, Florida. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sean is back with a brand new show. The Food That Built America, a new podcast from OZY and The HISTORY® Channel based on the hit documentary series from The HISTORY® Channel, tells the extraordinary true stories of industry titans like Henry Heinz, Milton Hershey, the Kellogg brothers and Ray Kroc, who revolutionized the food industry and transformed American life and culture in the process. Click here to subscribe now: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-food-that-built-america/id1551644089 Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A new OZY miniseries about the worst day of election violence in American history.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In light of the unfolding situation and unrest across America—and the debate about the use and effectiveness of non-violent and violent means of protest—we thought it would be a good time to re-run a prior season of The Thread that touched on this very issue and how it has played out previously in history.‘I Will Be Heard'William Lloyd Garrison, one of the leading figures of the early abolitionist movement in America, was a major influence on Leo Tolstoy. Garrison believed in using “moral suasion” rather than violence to achieve social change. Armed only with his newspaper and pen, the social reformer forced America to confront the most defining moral issue in its history, kick-starting a nonviolent revolution that would change the world. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In light of the unfolding situation and unrest across America—and the debate about the use and effectiveness of non-violent and violent means of protest—we thought it would be a good time to re-run a prior season of The Thread that touched on this very issue and how it has played out previously in history.The Transformation of Leo TolstoyJust before his death in 1910, the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy struck up a correspondence with a young lawyer in South Africa named Mohandas Gandhi, one that would change the young Indian’s life. Today Tolstoy is best known for penning War and Peace and Anna Karenina. But the Russian writer’s biggest legacy — and gift to the world — might be his ideas on nonviolent resistance, which emerged after he had a profound spiritual crisis in midlife. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In light of the unfolding situation and unrest across America—and the debate about the use and effectiveness of non-violent and violent means of protest—we thought it would be a good time to re-run a prior season of The Thread that touched on this very issue and how it has played out previously in history.Turning Enemies Into FriendsThe Indian lawyer and activist Mohandas Gandhi was the first leader to take up the age-old doctrines of love and nonviolence and transform them into tools of political and social resistance. In doing so, he would inspire Bayard Rustin and other activists across the world. Armed only with love, humility and disobedience, Gandhi brought the most powerful empire on earth to the bargaining table — and eventually to its knees. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In light of the unfolding situation and unrest across America—and the debate about the use and effectiveness of non-violent and violent means of protest—we thought it would be a good time to re-run a prior season of The Thread that touched on this very issue and how it has played out previously in history.An Angelic Troublemaker The seasoned activist and Quaker Bayard Rustin was King’s mentor in nonviolence and the organizing genius behind the March on Washington in 1963. Many felt that Rustin was on his way to becoming the “American Gandhi.” There was just one problem: Rustin was gay, and as a result, would be forced to the sidelines of the civil rights struggle, and to the margins of American history. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In light of the unfolding situation and unrest across America—and the debate about the use and effectiveness of non-violent and violent means of protest—we thought it would be a good time to re-run a prior season of The Thread that touched on this very issue and how it has played out previously in history. The Pride and The PowerFifty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated after leading the most influential protest movement in American history. King revolutionized the use of nonviolent resistance to combat racial injustice in the United States, but the Alabama preacher did not always believe in nonviolence. In fact, early on, King relied on armed guards for his protection until an older Quaker activist named Bayard Rustin walked into King’s home and changed the direction of the civil rights movement. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From the minds behind The Thread, Flashback is a series of stories of unintended consequences, disastrous turning points, dangerous ideas, crazy coincidences, unsung heroes and forgotten villains. Find out how some of the best-laid plans can go horribly wrong, or prove unexpectedly magnificent. Click here to subscribe now: https://megaphone.link/HSW9425294283 Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From the minds behind The Thread, Flashback is a series of stories of unintended consequences, disastrous turning points, dangerous ideas, crazy coincidences, unsung heroes and forgotten villains. Find out how some of the best-laid plans can go horribly wrong, or prove unexpectedly magnificent. Click here to subscribe now: https://megaphone.link/HSW9425294283 Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From the minds behind The Thread, Flashback is a series of stories of unintended consequences, disastrous turning points, dangerous ideas, crazy coincidences, unsung heroes and forgotten villains. Find out how some of the best-laid plans can go horribly wrong, or prove unexpectedly magnificent. Click here to subscribe now: https://megaphone.link/HSW9425294283 Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From the minds behind The Thread, Flashback is a series of stories of unintended consequences, disastrous turning points, dangerous ideas, crazy coincidences, unsung heroes and forgotten villains. Find out how some of the best-laid plans can go horribly wrong, or prove unexpectedly magnificent. Click here to subscribe now: https://megaphone.link/HSW9425294283 Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Enjoy a preview of our first episode of Flashback. From the minds behind The Thread, Flashback is a series of stories of unintended consequences, disastrous turning points, dangerous ideas, crazy coincidences, unsung heroes and forgotten villains. Find out how some of the best-laid plans can go horribly wrong, or prove unexpectedly magnificent. Click here to subscribe now: https://megaphone.link/HSW9425294283 Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Each of us handles social distancing in our own way. Some are doing virtual yoga classes. Others are turning to art. And then there are those truly rare birds... like Sir Issac Newton. He once turned his time in quarantine into an opportunity to change the way we understand the world around us. Learn about history’s unintended consequences on Flashback, a new podcast from OZY and iHeart Radio Podcast Network. Find out how some of the best-laid plans can go horribly wrong or prove unexpectedly magnificent. Click here to subscribe now: https://megaphone.link/HSW9425294283 Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sean's back with a brand new show. Flashback is a series of stories of unintended consequences, disastrous turning points, dangerous ideas, crazy coincidences, unsung heroes and forgotten villains. Find out how some of the best-laid plans can go horribly wrong, or prove unexpectedly magnificent. Click here to subscribe now: https://megaphone.link/HSW9425294283 Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nera White dominated her sport for 15 years, and even beat the Soviets at the height of the Cold War. But you’ve probably never heard of the Michael Jordan of women’s basketball.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thanks to Title IX and the trailblazing women behind it, the U.S. has now dominated women’s soccer for almost three decades. The national team has won four Olympic gold medals, and now four World Cups. But, even in 2019, female athletes in America are far from equal to their male counterparts, and the members of the national team are not treated the same as their male peers – not even close. In this episode, we talk to everyone from historians to players, including current team members Alex Morgan, Carli Lloyd and others, about the national team’s history-making role this year. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray was a pioneering civil rights attorney and a co-founder of the National Organization for Women. She helped draw attention to the dual costs of racism and sexism and was instrumental in making sure that the push for women’s rights, including Title IX, built on the successes of the civil rights movement. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After learning she had not been considered for any of the teaching openings in her college department and that she came on “too strong for a woman,” Bernice “Bunny” Sandler went home and cried. Then she showed just how strong a woman she was. Sandler’s remarkable behind-the-scenes efforts proved instrumental to the passage of Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in higher education. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

More than 23 years before Brandi Chastain took off her jersey, the women of the Yale women's crew team were taking off more than theirs. In March 1976, 19 members of the Yale women's crew team stripped naked in a college athletic director’s office to protest the team’s lack of shower facilities and changed the way that female athletes are treated on college campuses. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the summer of 1985, the first U.S. women’s national soccer team made their debut in Italy. The ragtag group, cobbled together in less than a week and with a shoestring budget, little time to practice, and hand-me-down uniforms, struggled to keep up with their international competition. But their perseverance and their love of the game laid the groundwork for the winning team culture that fueled the championship teams of the 1990s. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Brandi Chastain ripped off her jersey after scoring the winning penalty kick in the 1999 Women's World Cup Final, her iconic celebration marked the arrival of women’s soccer, both on the global sports stage and in the public imagination. With “The '99ers,” as the team is known, America had assembled a talented group of women and given them an unprecedented opportunity to succeed. But it was an opportunity that did not come easily… or happen overnight. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Brandi Chastain ripped off her jersey after scoring the winning penalty in the 1999 Women's World Cup Final, her now iconic goal celebration marked the arrival of women’s soccer, both on the global sports stage and in the public imagination. In "Let Us Play," the latest season of The Thread, we tell the hidden story behind the greatest women’s team in American sports history. We show how Chastain’s celebration originated decades earlier and how the '99ers stood on the shoulders of a series of unheralded athletes, policymakers and scholars, from the Brooklyn teacher who helped pass the landmark Title IX civil rights legislation in 1972 to the the Black transgender attorney who made that achievement possible. | Coming June 5. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What is it about The Catcher in the Rye that prompted two of the world’s most infamous assassination attempts? In Season 4 of The Thread we saw how the acquittal of President Ronald Reagan’s attempted assassin John Hinckley Jr. on grounds of insanity helped change the landscape of American criminal law. But Hinckley’s story also connects with Season 1 of The Thread and another early 1980s murder by a deranged 25-year-old. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The 2015 conviction of Aurora gunman James Holmes really begins almost two centuries earlier in England, with the attempted assassination of the king. This episode explores how the insanity defense challenges lawyers, judges and juries in their pursuit of justice, and how it speaks to things that all of us hold dear, such as moral responsibility, free will and even our own sanity. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

---Note from OZY-- Hi everyone, Thread team here. Thank you for listening! We fixed the error but — due to the nature of auto-download for subscribers — unfortunately, the only way to correct it on your device is to DELETE the old file from your device and RE-DOWNLOAD the new file. Thanks again!--Francis Scott Key, the pro-slavery lawyer and amateur poet who penned “The Star-Spangled Banner” after witnessing the British bombardment of Fort McHenry 200 years ago, was famously inspired by the resilient spirit of a young nation. Forty-five years later, Key’s other notable creation, his only son, Philip Barton Key II, would experience an entirely different side of American life when he was slain in 1859 by a U.S. congressman and disgruntled cuckold named Daniel Sickles. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was a grand time to be a rich New Yorker. The wealthy architect Stanford White was responsible for designing several iconic public, institutional and religious buildings in the city in a decadent beaux arts “American Renaissance” style, including the original Madison Square Garden, which he owned. White, more than any other man, was responsible for the look of what was quickly becoming the wealthiest city on Earth. This week, we tell the story of the murder of Stanford White. White’s killer was an eccentric businessman from Pittsburgh named Harry Thaw. Thaw’s wealthy family was prepared to pay a million dollars to spare him from the electric chair. They were also prepared to embrace an unorthodox legal strategy. Harry Thaw’s murder trial, and his temporary insanity plea, shook America to its core. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1981, on his way to look for the actress Jodi Foster at Yale, where he had been stalking her, John Hinckley Jr. stopped off in Washington, D.C., and ended up shooting U.S. President Ronald Reagan in front of the Hilton Hotel. Hinckley claimed he was trying to impress Foster, with whom he was infatuated. He later described the incident in a letter to The New York Times as “the greatest love offering in the history of the world. ... I am Romeo and she is Juliet.” Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The ultimate act of revenge or the act of a woman driven so crazy by domestic violence that she could not comprehend what she was doing? It seemed crazy to raise that defense given the deliberateness of the act, the fact her husband was asleep at the time and more. And prosecutors thought the defense had no chance: They were ready to argue that Lorena was not insane, and one sign of that is that she acted out of revenge. Revenge, the prosecution argued, is a rational act, not an irrational one. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Shortly after midnight on July 20, 2012, in Aurora, Colorado, a man in dark body armor and a gas mask entered a midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises with a tactical shotgun, a high-capacity assault rifle, and a sidearm. He threw a canister of tear gas into the crowd and began firing. Soon 12 were dead and 58 were wounded; young children and pregnant women were among them. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This season of The Thread, from the trial of James Hadfield in 1800 to the trial of Aurora gunman James Holmes over two centuries later, we explore six of the most high-profile murder cases in history through the lens of the controversial legal defense that unites them all: not guilty by way of insanity. The Thread examines the question: does the insanity defense represent a way of recognizing the psychological complications that underlie criminal culpability or rather a misguided means for escaping justice? Were they bad, or were they mad? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Would Martin Luther King, Jr. have taken a knee alongside Colin Kaepernick? Is there any precedent for the protests being waged by high school students in Parkland, Florida? This special bonus episode of The Thread examines how the impact of Dr. King and the civil rights movement continues to influence nonviolent resistance today. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the final episode of this season, we trace the path of the revolutionary idea that spread across the globe to become the dominant form of political resistance today. We also examine the role that personal psychology, and even mental illness, play in what Gandhi, King and others recognized as the secret ingredient of any nonviolent approach: empathy. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

William Lloyd Garrison, one of the leading figures of the early abolitionist movement in America, was a major influence on Leo Tolstoy. Garrison believed in using “moral suasion” rather than violence to achieve social change. Armed only with his newspaper and pen, the social reformer forced America to confront the most defining moral issue in its history, kick-starting a nonviolent revolution that would change the world. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Just before his death in 1910, the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy struck up a correspondence with a young lawyer in South Africa named Mohandas Gandhi, one that would change the young Indian’s life. Today Tolstoy is best known for penning War and Peace and Anna Karenina. But the Russian writer’s biggest legacy — and gift to the world — might be his ideas on nonviolent resistance, which emerged after he had a profound spiritual crisis in midlife. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Indian lawyer and activist Mohandas Gandhi was the first leader to take up the age-old doctrines of love and nonviolence and transform them into tools of political and social resistance. In doing so, he would inspire Bayard Rustin and other activists across the world. Armed only with love, humility and disobedience, Gandhi brought the most powerful empire on earth to the bargaining table — and eventually to its knees. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The seasoned activist and Quaker Bayard Rustin was King’s mentor in nonviolence and the organizing genius behind the March on Washington in 1963. Many felt that Rustin was on his way to becoming the “American Gandhi.” There was just one problem: Rustin was gay, and as a result, would be forced to the sidelines of the civil rights struggle, and to the margins of American history. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated after leading the most influential protest movement in American history. King revolutionized the use of nonviolent resistance to combat racial injustice in the United States, but the Alabama preacher did not always believe in nonviolence. In fact, early on, King relied on armed guards for his protection until an older Quaker activist named Bayard Rustin walked into King’s home and changed the direction of the civil rights movement. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Coming September 10, Season 3 of the Thread will chart how a revolutionary idea--nonviolent resistance--changed the course of history. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Hollywood casting couch existed long before Harvey Weinstein. In this final episode of the season, we explore some of Weinstein's antecedents in the industry, the scandals and crimes they covered up and how a new generation of Gloria Steinem-inspired women is starting to put an end to the old practices of Hollywood and other male-dominated industries. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The film legend Clark Gable was a key figure at the heart of the glamour and excess of the Golden Age of Hollywood. But his rise and scandal-buried reign at the top of the movie world reveal a great deal about a young industry both obsessed with adhering to morality codes, and incapable of being moral. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1931, in the depths of the Great Depression, the Nevada legislature passed two bills: one to legalize gambling, the other to legalize a six-week waiting period for a divorce. Over the next few decades, hundreds of thousands of people, mostly women, would journey to the desert state for a quickie divorce, a chance to forget their problems and a shot at reinvention. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Marilyn Monroe was larger than life. But beneath the soft-spoken movie star and sex goddess was another woman, one far bolder than most people realize. Monroe was an actress ahead of her time, one who was not afraid to stand up to some of the most powerful men in Hollywood - the men she called "wolves".  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Riding the wave of the sexual revolution of the 1950s and 1960s, Hugh Hefner created a male fantasy world in the pages of his Playboy magazine, one that would have lasting consequences for American life and culture. Behind closed doors, however, Hefner's life in the celebrated Playboy Mansion was rather different than the sophisticated one portrayed in his magazine. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A writer, activist and co-founder of Ms. Magazine, Gloria Steinem has played a pivotal role in the women's movement. But she first garnered national attention in 1963 when she went undercover as a Playboy Bunny and wrote a damning expose about her experiences inside the famous men's club.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Coming March 12. Season Two of The Thread will connect the dots between Gloria Steinem and the casting couches of early Hollywood.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A century before his grandson, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, rose to power, Warren Delano grew very rich from trafficking a highly addictive drug.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this bonus episode, OZY brings you our first mini-Thread which begins with one of William Shakespeare's characters uttering a single word in 1597 and ends as a passenger plane plunges into the waters outside Boston almost four centuries later.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this final episode of the season, host Sean Braswell ties up some of our thread's loose ends, explores some more surprising connections between our characters and reflects on the nature of art, life, fate and redemption.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We chronicle the life and times of Louise Bryant and her husband, John Reed, two Greenwich Village Bohemians who ended up at ground zero for the greatest revolution the world has ever known.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Considered by many to be “America’s Shakespeare,” Eugene O’Neill revolutionized American drama. But O’Neill suffered greatly for his art, battling alcoholism and depression for decades, and many, including his daughter, suffered for it as well.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wooed by perhaps the greatest American writer of the 20th century, born from the loins of its greatest playwright and ultimately wed to the most famous performer on the planet, Oona O'Neill Chaplin lived in the shadow of three of the greatest artists of the 20th century, and her story is interwoven with them all.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If The Catcher in the Rye resonates with people in dark places like Mark David Chapman, then it may be because the novel, and its author, passed through hell itself on the way to publication. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After shooting the rock star John Lennon in front of the Dakota Building in Manhattan on December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman remained at the crime scene reading his favorite book, The Catcher in the Rye, until police arrived. Chapman identified powerfully with Holden Caulfield, the novel’s alienated protagonist, and in this episode we explore Chapman’s motivations, their grounding in Catcher, and ask the question: What makes someone kill their own hero in cold blood? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Coming September 25. The Thread's first season will connect the dots between John Lennon's murder and Vladimir Lenin's revolution 63 years earlier. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.