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.

NPR's Throughline hosts Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei speak with professor Siddharth Kara on the fight for Congo's resources.

Throughline, brings us the story of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netayahu's political ascent and the right-wing ideologies that have informed his current stance on Gaza and the state of Israel.

For most of U.S. history, the second amendment was rarely invoked to challenge laws, until a bank robber used it to justify ownership of an unregistered sawed-off shotgun, launching a legal battle.

Halloween is now a multi-billion dollar industry. The holiday traces its roots back about 2,000 years to the Irish countryside and a spiritual celebration known as Samhain.

A century after the founding of the Republic of Turkey, NPR's history podcast Throughline examines the legacy of founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Throughline takes us back 500 years to understand the rise, fall and resilience of the great Aztec city Tenochititlán. The story of European dominance has been largely accepted as historical truth.

In 2019, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won the Nobel Peace Prize. A year later, he launched what has become the deadliest war of the 21st century. NPR's history podcast Throughline investigates.

The lavender scare was a moral panic that began in the early years of the Cold War. In 1953, President Eisenhower signed an executive order that banned LGBTQ people from serving in government.

NPR's history podcast Throughline tells the story of Johnnie Tillmon, a Black mother on welfare, who fought for motherhood to be recognized as labor worthy of pay.

In 1985, graphic novelist Alison Bechdel came up with criteria for whether she'd watch a movie. It's become known as the Bechdel test, and it's surprisingly hard for films to pass these days.

Robots. Androids. The Terminator. C3P0. We've given a lot of names to AI: artificial intelligence. Some believe it's the key to humanity's future, others the first step towards our downfall.

Since Beyoncé's Renaissance album dropped last summer, house music has found its way back to mainstream audiences. Some are asking, "Is House back?" The truth is it never went away.

For the people who were there when it was invented in small clubs and basement parties in Chicago in the 1980s, house music was a force of nature. Four decades later, its impact is bigger than ever.

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.

NPR's history podcast Throughline investigates the root of "veneer theory" — that's when people believe that law and order is the only thing protecting us from the savagery of our neighbors.

The 50th anniversary of the Roe V. Wade decision is Jan. 22. NPR's podcast Throughline examines the debate about abortion, which wasn't always controversial. (Story aired on ATC on June 6, 2022.)

NPR's history podcast Throughline explains how in the 1970s Dwayne Andreas, CEO of Archer Daniels Midland, used the sugar market to popularize high fructose corn syrup.

In light of the ongoing protests in Iran, NPR history podcast Throughline explores Iranian women's long history of political activism.