Shortwave radio opened a portal to the world—then became a weapon in a high-stakes war of propaganda and power.

The Divided Dial is a podcast series about the history of radio from WNYC's On the Media and longtime 99PI contributor, Katie Thornton.

Fishing in the Night

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A single 👍 emoji sent over text was meant to say “got it”—but instead, it kicked off a $62,000 legal battle and raised the question: can an emoji seal a contract?

😅⚖️

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At the January 6th Capitol insurrection, rioters waved Confederate, MAGA, and Trump-as-Rambo flags. Easy to miss without knowing the design was a bright yellow flag with three red stripes — the flag of South Vietnam.

There were actually several confounding international flags present at the Capitol riot that day: the Canadian, Indian, South Korean flags, all were spotted somewhere in the mayhem. But what was peculiar about the Vietnamese flag being there was that it's not technically the flag of Vietnam but the Republic of Vietnam, a country that no longer exists. And what this flag stands for (or should stand for) remains a really contentious issue for the Vietnamese American community.

This episode originally aired in 2021.

Changing Stripes

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A goofy Shakira remix, a nervy penalty kick, and 60,000 fans turning banter into legend—welcome to the world of football chants.

One-Nil to the Arsenal

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If you're one of the millions of Americans struggling with your tax forms today, you're not alone. Even Albert Einstein allegedly found income taxes to be "the hardest thing in the world to understand." But how did our tax system become so complicated?

I've Got 1099 Problems...

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John Green uncovers how the world’s deadliest curable disease still thrives—and why everything, from cowboy hats to colonial borders, traces back to tuberculosis.

Everything Is Tuberculosis

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Take a whirlwind tour of Memphis with the city’s most enthusiastic historian, uncovering duck parades, telecom turf wars, and a street named after a single day in 1934.

A Walking Tour with Mr. Memphis

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In 1991, one of the strangest buildings in America opened — a 32-storey, stainless steel pyramid in Memphis, Tennessee.

The Great American Pyramid

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