HISTORY This Week

October 11, 1955. Nearly three hundred of the Soviet Union’s top scientists sign a secret letter demanding the removal of one man: Trofim Lysenko. For decades, Lysenko had Joseph Stalin’s ear, ruling Soviet biology with an iron fist—banning genetics, rewriting textbooks, and sending dissenting scientists to prison or worse. 

How did a peasant-turned-agronomist convince Stalin that wheat could turn into rye, and that ideology mattered more than evidence? And when politics replace science, what—and who—gets destroyed?

Special thanks to William deJong-Lambert, author of The Cold War Politics of Genetic Research: An Introduction to the Lysenko Affair; and Nikolai Krementsov, author of Stalinist Science.

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October 4, 1915. President Woodrow Wilson designates Dinosaur National Monument as a national historic site. That’s a big deal, right? There must’ve been a grand ribbon-cutting ceremony, maybe even a parade. But no. In 1915, nobody really cares about dinosaurs. But that is all about to change. And when it does, it is largely because of two paleontologists. Two guys who started off as best friends … until their growing obsession with unearthing and cataloging dinosaur bones would turn them into rivals. Then enemies. How did the competition between a pair of paleontologists lead to unprecedented dinosaur discoveries? And how did their rivalry unhinge them both? 

Special thanks to guest Dr. Hans Sues, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

** This episode originally aired October 3, 2022.





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September 27, 1986. You’re a kid in the mid-80s. You get home from school, flip on the TV, and see something strange: a commercial where a giant egg hatches behind a family’s console, revealing a toy robot. His name is R.O.B. — the Robotic Operating Buddy — but he's just an accessory. The real product: Nintendo. 

Today, the Nintendo Entertainment System is launching nationwide. Just a few years earlier, the U.S. video game market had collapsed under the weight of bad games and too many consoles. But Nintendo had a plan — to sell Americans on something that didn’t look like a video game at all. 

With a plastic robot, a disguised gray box, and a plumber named Mario, how did Nintendo manage to sneak video games back into living rooms—and rescue a dying industry?

Special thanks to Jeremy Parish, media curator at Limited Run Games, producer of NES Works, and co-host of the Retronauts podcast.

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September 14, 1901. Midnight in the Adirondacks. A pounding knock at the door jolts Theodore and Edith Roosevelt awake. William McKinley is dead. Hours later, Theodore will be sworn in as the youngest president in U.S. history. But Edith barely flinches—her diary that day notes her children’s sniffles before her husband’s rise to power.

Who was this woman who grew up alongside Theodore, helped shape his presidency, reinvented the role of First Lady, and yet tried to erase her own story from the record?

 Special thanks to Kathleen Dalton, author of Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life; and Edward O’Keefe, author of The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt: The Women Who Created a President. O'Keefe is also the CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, set to open next 4th of July.

Artwork: Studio portrait of Edith and Theodore Roosevelt seated together, by Walter Scott Shinn, 1916.



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With every episode, Lena Dunham and Alissa Bennett take you on a historical deep dive into the life of a woman society dismissed by calling her mad, sad, or just plain bad: Lindsay Lohan, Judy Garland, Winona Ryder, Mariah Carey, Lil Kim and many more. Join them for a rich, hilarious, and heartbreaking look into exactly what it means when we call a woman “crazy.”

The C-Word was originally published behind a paywall from 2019 - 2022. This is the first time it’s being released to all major podcast platforms.

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