Julie Caine

The Thanksgiving story most of us hear is about friendship and unity. And that's what Sarah Josepha Hale had on her mind when she sat down to write a letter to President Lincoln in 1863, deep into the Civil War. Hale had already spent years campaigning for a national day of thanksgiving, using her platform as editor of one the country's most widely-read magazines and writing elected officials to argue that Americans urgently needed a national story. But she'd gotten nowhere – until now.

Five days after reading her letter, Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday. At the time, no one was talking about Pilgrims and Native Americans. But that too would change.

Today on the show: a Thanksgiving story you may not have heard, how it happened, and what it leaves out.

What is it, why do we have it, and why hasn't it changed? Born from a rushed, fraught, imperfect process, the origins and evolution of the Electoral College might surprise you and make you think differently about not only this upcoming presidential election, but our democracy as a whole.

Monopoly has been one of the best-selling board games in the United States for nearly a century now. And sure, maybe it's just a board game. But author Mary Pilon says Monopoly is much more than that.

Most of us pack a lot of trips to the mall into the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. But what if you could only go shopping for just a few hours once a month?

Heavy rains are hitting drought-stricken California. But instead of sinking into the earth, the water is rushing away in areas burned by wildfire, raising the danger of mudslides.

In a quiet park in Kampala, Uganda, 14 musicians from seven East African countries sit together under a tree. They're working on an idea from Ugandan musician Lawrence Okello.

"This is what I would suggest for this piece: That we have a conflict," Okello says to the group. "And then ...