April 30-May 6, 1945. Europe. In this special episode we discuss the final week of World War 2 in Europe with best-selling author Lynne Olson. We focus on the incredible story of Ravensbruck, an all female concentration camp in Germany, which is at the center of her new book, The Sisterhood of Ravensbruck.

As we discuss in the podcast, WW2 is long over, but the war is not truly dead.

We are having another special episode of the Raspberry Podcast , this time with the writer Kevin Baker. He has written numerous history books and novels. His latest is The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City. We are talking sports and specifically a week in 1921 when boxer Jack Dempsey became a superstar, later teaming up with newly minted New York baseball legend Babe Ruth. The era of the superstar athlete was born, which along with the rise of a new media - radio - would turn local heroes into international celebrities.

A US nuclear test in the Bikini atoll went horribly awry in early March. The explosion was much bigger than anticipated - whoops! and fallout rained down on a Japanese fishing boat - Lucky Dragon 5. Not so lucky for them it turns out. It gave rise to the story behind Godzilla, released later that year. The terrible monster from the deep created by nuclear radiation.

Like the errant nuclear test in Bikini, the rapidly expanding power of the USA - dueling with the Soviet Union around the world in a Cold War while also on an epic tear of economic growth - was transforming into a world-crushing monster like the one that that emerged from the deep.

The USA had its own monsters - including Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the famous drunken, redhunter. Another lurking monster was the US involvement with the French as our ally tried to hold onto its colonial vanity while slowly losing its final battle in Vietnam at a place called Dien Bien Phu.

Doomed French paratroopers, Communist ghosts, tail gunners and monsters, and lots of nuclear fallout. This is the Raspberry Podcast looking at the week of March 20-26, 1954.