73. Chernobyl: An Explosion That Brought Down A Superpower (Ep 6)

Who is Joseph McCarthy, the young senator who gives his name to these trials? Had Communist agents really infiltrated the US Government? Who were the Rosenbergs, America's most notorious communist couple, executed for giving state secrets to the Soviet Union? Why were American academics forced into exile? Sarah Churchwell and David Olusoga introduce Joseph McCarthy and the loyalty purges that made him notorious.  Email: [email protected]  X: @ThroughTimePod Blue Sky: @ThroughTimePod Instagram: @JourneyThroughTimePod Social Producer: Emma Jackson Assistant Producers: Alfie Rowe, Alfie Norris  Producer: Alice Horrell Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What happened when the House of Un-American Activities Committee started to prosecute some of the biggest names in Hollywood? Who were the infamous ‘Hollywood Ten’? Why did the trial of Alger Hiss, a State Department official, terrify the American public? How did a young Richard Nixon make his name during these trials?  Join David Olusoga and Sarah Churchwell as they look at when the HUAC hearings came to Hollywood.  Email: [email protected]  X: @ThroughTimePod Blue Sky: @ThroughTimePod Instagram: @JourneyThroughTimePod Social Producer: Emma Jackson Assistant Producers: Alfie Rowe, Alfie Norris  Producer: Alice Horrell Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What was the second Red Scare where government employees, creatives, and intellectuals were prosecuted for holding ‘un-American’ views? What are the 19th century origins of Trump’s catch phrase, ‘America First’? Who was Martin Dies, the man responsible for setting up the ‘House of Unamerican Activities Committee’?  Join Sarah Churchwell and David Olusoga for the first part of their series looking at the McCarthyism purges that gripped America in the 20th century.  Email: [email protected]  X: @ThroughTimePod Blue Sky: @ThroughTimePod Instagram: @JourneyThroughTimePod Social Producer: Emma Jackson Assistant Producers: Alfie Rowe, Alfie Norris  Producer: Alice Horrell Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Did Chernobyl cause the collapse of the Soviet Union? How did the disaster fuel the fight for independence? What happened when war came to the Exclusion Zone after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022? How are the victims still being impacted by the violence?  Join David Olusgoa and Sarah Churchwell for the last episode in this Chernobyl series, looking at the legacy of the explosion.  Email: [email protected]  X: @ThroughTimePod Blue Sky: @ThroughTimePod Instagram: @JourneyThroughTimePod Social Producer: Emma Jackson Assistant Producers: Alfie Rowe, Alfie Norris  Producer: Alice Horrell Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Who were the bio-robots, the 3,000 young reservists drafted in to fight the radiation? Why was an absurdly inadequate, yet enormous, structure built at pace to contain the fallout? Could trust be restored between the US and the USSR after the latter lied about the explosion?  Sarah Churchwell and David Olusoga look at how the nuclear fallout ate away at the very core of the Soviet Union.  Email: [email protected]  X: @ThroughTimePod Blue Sky: @ThroughTimePod Instagram: @JourneyThroughTimePod Social Producer: Emma Jackson Assistant Producers: Alfie Rowe, Alfie Norris  Producer: Alice Horrell Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What were the two "nightmare scenarios” that would have led to enormous damage in the weeks following the explosion? What happened when three heroic men waded into radioactive water to stop much of Europe becoming uninhabitable for centuries? How did army reservists fight to contain the nuclear fallout in a mission named ‘The Battle of Chernobyl’?  David Olusoga and Sarah Churchwell explore the terrifying consequences that the soviets narrowly avoided in the weeks following the explosion.  Email: [email protected]  X: @ThroughTimePod Blue Sky: @ThroughTimePod Instagram: @JourneyThroughTimePod Social Producer: Emma Jackson Assistant Producers: Alfie Rowe, Alfie Norris  Producer: Alice Horrell Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Who were the doomed firefighters, first on the scene after the Chernobyl explosion? What forced the Soviets to come clean about the disaster? How did the USSR sacrifice Belarussian farmers to stop nuclear rain falling on Moscow? Why did this secret take 13 years to come out?  Sarah Churchwell and David Olusoga look at the immediate aftermath of the Chernobyl meltdown.  Email: [email protected]  X: @ThroughTimePod Blue Sky: @ThroughTimePod Instagram: @JourneyThroughTimePod Social Producer: Emma Jackson Assistant Producers: Alfie Rowe, Alfie Norris  Producer: Alice Horrell Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why was reactor four two years overdue a critical safety test? What happened in the seconds and minutes leading up to the explosion? Who was the first victim of the Chernobyl disaster?  David Olusoga and Sarah Churchwell recall the fateful events leading up to the meltdown in reactor four on the night of the 26th April 1986.  Email: [email protected]  X: @ThroughTimePod Blue Sky: @ThroughTimePod Instagram: @JourneyThroughTimePod Social Producer: Emma Jackson Assistant Producers: Alfie Rowe, Alfie Norris  Producer: Alice Horrell Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How did a routine safety test turn into the worst nuclear disaster in history? How did Soviet secrecy, impossible targets, and corner-cutting set the stage for Chernobyl? Why did the disaster begin long before 1986, and end with the unravelling of the Soviet Union itself? Sarah Churchwell and David Olusoga trace the political and historical failures which led to the fateful Chernobyl nuclear disaster.  Social Producer: Emma Jackson Assistant Producers: Alfie Rowe, Alfie Norris  Producer: Alice Horrell Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How did the Spanish Civil War inspire resistance movements throughout the 20th century? Why does Spain contain thousands of hidden mass graves? What is the legacy of the conflict in modern Spain? Why were American volunteers persecuted for opposing fascism? David Olusoga and Sarah Churchwell explore the long legacy of the Spanish Civil War and the shadow it still casts. Social Producer: Emma Jackson Assistant Producers: Alfie Rowe, Alfie Norris  Producer: Alice Horrell Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices