Today’s special education system was shaped five decades ago, when parents fought for disabled children’s right to learn.

For care in pregnancy and childbirth, Black parents are turning to a traditional practice.

The Cold War may be over, but an arms race continues, even as safeguards once in place have fallen away.

The 1918 flu pandemic helped to usher in the Hollywood studio system. Could Covid-19 transform the industry?

In the Cold War, North Korean Communists invaded South Korea. President Truman’s decision to intervene had consequences that shape the world today.

In the heat of the Cold War, Joe McCarthy’s anti-communist crusade became a media sensation.

After the Soviet Union sent the first human safely into orbit, the U.S. government doubled down on its effort to win the race to the moon.

A “purity” movement in the 90s led by evangelical Christians promoted a strict view of abstinence before marriage. But two decades later, followers are grappling with unforeseen aftershocks.

A Soviet blockade around Berlin cut the divided city off from the West. But in 1948 U.S. and British pilots began to fly food, fuel and medicine to the Allied sectors.

The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted racial disparities with roots in the past.

An eviction moratorium has slowed filings in cities like Richmond, but it hasn’t stopped them, and Black tenants are at highest risk.

Scientists who venture into rainforests and bat caves explain how viruses, like Covid-19, spill over from animals to people, and what we must do to stop the next pandemic.

Decades of discrimination in Fresno laid the groundwork for a housing crisis today.

Today's heated political arguments over censorship and misinformation online are rooted in a 26-word snippet of a law that created the Internet as we know it.

Like cigarette manufacturers decades ago, e-cigarette makers have pitched their products as fun and safe. But nobody knows what the risks are.

Activists concerned about pandemic-related homelessness are seeking rent relief. In the 1930s, tenants banded together against evictions.

Meet Joseph Hogan, Retro Report's fact-checker who explains what methods and processes he employs to verify the information in our stories.

President Trump has called on supporters, including law enforcement officers, to monitor election sites. Voter intimidation tactics have a long history.

Top national political reporters admit mistakes in their reporting on the 2016 election campaign.

CEO Jeff Zucker acknowledges missteps in CNN’s 2016 campaign coverage, when many media outlets covered Donald Trump’s campaign as a spectacle that produced higher ratings.

A look at how the journalistic instinct for “balanced” reporting on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in 2016 played out in particular when it came to the Clinton email investigation.

The dramatic controversy surrounding the 2000 presidential election led to sweeping voting reforms, but opened the door to a new set of problems that continue to affect elections today.

Tensions between the press and presidents, charges of liberal media bias and the decline in public trust in journalism has been in existence for decades.

Journalists who covered the 2016 presidential campaign now offer a candid analysis of their role in President Trump’s rise to power.

An idea from a tenant rebellion in the 70s could help renters facing eviction.

High-stakes debates put candidates in the hot seat. But are they helpful to voters?

‘Stay home if you’re sick’ is time-tested advice. But not all workers can afford it.

The ‘Burning Bed’ killing put domestic violence in the headlines.

African American women played a significant and sometimes overlooked role in the struggle to gain the vote.

Politics, public health and a pandemic. What we didn’t learn from HIV.

Anger over policing and inequality boiled over in 1967 in protests and violence across the United States. A landmark report warned that without major changes, it would happen again.

The Equal Rights Amendment, proposed nearly 100 years ago, sparked debate from its very beginning, even among many of the women who had worked together for suffrage.

After past outbreaks, workers with proof of antibodies were in demand. But history urges caution.

Two territories, two wildly different outcomes as a pandemic terrorized the world.

Coronavirus songwriting has gone as global as the pandemic itself, creating a new genre called pandemic pop. It’s a tradition with a long history.

Migrant children in federal custody have tested positive for Covid-19, reopening a legal battle over the rights of children in custody.

COVID-19 attacks the lungs. Past research shows that smoking and vaping may amplify the coronavirus.

Dr. Larry Brilliant, who helped eradicate smallpox, says past epidemics can teach us to fight coronavirus.

Plant-based meats may be high tech, but the ideas behind them have been around for decades.

A whistleblower case from 2010 reveals the peril faced by whistleblowers seeking to expose wrongdoing.

After Napster, many consumers got used to entertainment on demand. There was no turning back.

In the 1990s, a handful of researchers inspired panic with a dire but flawed prediction: the imminent arrival of a new breed of “superpredators.”

A decades-old battle is re-emerging over abstinence-only sex education.

While H.I.V. rates have fallen in many places, the AIDS crisis remains in some of the U.S.

Normalization of deviance, the process of becoming inured to risky actions, is a useful concept that was developed to explain how the Challenger disaster happened.

The rise of special operations units today can be traced to two historic military missions -- one a legendary success, the other a spectacular failure.

Stella Liebeck was vilified when she was awarded millions after spilling McDonald's coffee in her lap. Her complaint sounded frivolous. But the facts told another story.

Today's immigration policies echo an anti-immigration movement 25 years ago in California.

In the 1960s, fears of overpopulation sparked talk of population control. So what happened?

As concussions plague football, are there lessons from earlier concerns about boxing?

Newborns today are tested for genetic and immune disorders that might not be apparent at birth. The tests evolved from the treatment of a patient with a rare diagnosis who became known as “the Boy in the Bubble.”

Some cities are trying to help poor children succeed by having their families move to middle-income, so-called "opportunity areas" -- an idea that was once politically impossible.

Is geo-engineering the climate an answer to global warming? Cold War science has some lessons.

About half a million children have dangerously high lead levels in their blood, mostly from exposure to peeling paint and contaminated dust. The fight over who should clean it up has lasted for decades.

Parenthood through surrogacy has become accepted in the United States, but it’s relatively unregulated compared with other countries -- something that can be traced back to case of Baby M.

A simple intervention to reduce suicides -- “caring letters,” messages of compassion and empathy – showed promise in the 1960s, but has been overlooked until now.

There are now so many wild horses on public land – nearly 100,000 -- that they have become caught in a battle between the government, ranchers and environmentalists.

The drama of modern free agency has become as much a part of professional sports as the games themselves. But it wasn’t always that way. Today’s free agents owe a big debt of gratitude to Curt Flood.

Skepticism and fear surrounding vaccines were fed by a flawed study done in 1998 linking the MMR vaccine to autism. The study was quickly discredited, we’re still dealing with the repercussions.

President Trump’s efforts to clamp down on White House leaks echoed a pattern set during the Nixon era.

In the 1980s, rising public awareness about waste was fueled by a bizarre news story about a meandering New York City garbage barge.

LSD has long been associated with 1960s counterculture. Today, psychedelic drugs are back in the lab, providing hope for people who suffer from anxiety, depression and addiction.

After a sexual assault scandal at the Tailhook convention rocked the Navy in 1991, one female officer, Paula Coughlin, launched a campaign to change military culture.

Why don’t people intervene when they encounter violence streaming live online?

DNA information that is available on genealogy websites is doing more than satisfying curiosity -- it's solving crimes.

Humans are wary that robots could replace them. So what can we learn from the legendary chess match between a supercomputer and Garry Kasparov?

The role-playing game ​D​ungeons ​&​ ​D​ragons​, once at the center of a moral panic, is now seen as a counterbalance to the problem of screen addiction.

How a pill that led to drug safety guidelines became a case study for rising drug prices.

When N.F.L. players, starting with Colin Kaepernick, took a knee during the National Anthem to protest they ignited an uproar over injecting politics onto the playing field.

Our social media addiction is explained by theories pioneered by B.F. Skinner decades ago.

The #MeToo movement is shedding renewed light on sexual harassment at work. The fight has a decades-long history.

Burmese pythons released into the wild by well-meaning pet owners have created a reptilian nightmare in the Everglades.

In 1948, World War II aviators risked their lives in a secret operation to smuggle weapons and planes to the Israeli military.

Autonomous vehicle technology has gotten better, but how close are we really to a time when a robot chauffeur will be able to safely drive us?

Our moon has winked from the heavens as a symbol and anchor, reminding us not only the cycle of life, but also of danger and death. Scientists have brought the moon into sharper focus, and astronauts have left the first footprints there. But will we ever be able to explain its lasting, mesmerizing power of attraction?

An international treaty laid out the basics of space law in 1967. But without a lot of case history to go on, lawyers today have looked to maritime law and Arctic exploration as they lay the groundwork for how space will be governed.

Across the globe, more and more people are living longer lives and that's redefining what it means to be over 65, and what the future might mean for retirement. 

Perp walk: Unfair maneuver or a strong warning to would-be criminals?

Online learning is indeed disrupting college as we know it -- but not in the way you might think.

Víctor Jara was a legendary Chilean folk singer and political activist, whose brutal killing during a military coup in 1973 went unsolved for decades. Now, his family may finally get justice.

The increasing scarcity of drinking water is beginning to capture the world's attention -- but surprisingly, an innovative solution might just be found in one of the Earth's driest places.

As gaming becomes the dominant form of entertainment this century, game developers increasingly track player behavior to tailor experiences that will keep people playing longer and spending more money.

White evangelical Christians are among President Trump’s most important supporters. But more than 40 years ago, they were on the margins of American politics.

With every new advance in prenatal genetic screening, the ability to prevent suffering has also sparked difficult questions about what should count as “a disease” versus “a difference,” and whether we’re in danger of wiping out certain segments of the population. This story was produced in collaboration with PBS, American Experience.

We tell the story of a little known chapter in American history, before Roe v. Wade, when a clandestine group provided thousands of women with illegal abortions in Chicago.

An inmate population surge in the 1980s led to the growth of for-profit prisons. Today, despite their mixed record, private prison companies are overseeing the vast majority of undocumented migrants.

This is the story of cops, African-American pastors, gang members, and academics coming together to create positive change for Boston, while upending notions of traditional policing in a way that is especially pertinent today.

In the latest installment of our “What Happens Next” series examining the future of society, we visit Medellín, Colombia—a city that has reinvented itself over the past few decades, turning its violent past into a sustainable future by transforming its slums.

How do some companies regain public trust after something goes seriously wrong, while others fail? A look at how Tylenol responded after someone spiked its pills with poison in the 1980s sheds some light.

A look at how the bitter hearings over Judge Robert Bork changed how nominees answer questions.

NASA isn’t the first organization to experiment with living on Mars – in 1991 eight people sealed themselves inside a giant glass biosphere to practice space living. By the time they emerged two years later, they had “suffocated, starved and went mad.”

The Y2K bug threatened to wipe out computers and disrupt modern society at the end of the 20th century. We all remember the doomsday hype, but what really happened?

Ben Carson, Secretary of HUD, is being sued for not enforcing the Fair Housing Act -- landmark legislation that was passed 50 years ago during the Civil Rights era.

Increasingly, wildfires affect populated areas. But 30 years ago, it was a huge fire in Yellowstone National Park that stoked media attention and political controversy.

Genetic technology is advancing, and critics are warning of a slippery slope. We speak with the scientists working at the forefront of the research, families who have benefited and the first-ever "test-tube" baby to understand the debate.

Both political parties have always played the redistricting game. But some of today’s battles have roots in a civil rights case decided by the Supreme Court 30 years ago.

Even in the #MeToo era, many people don't know that the Equal Rights Amendment never passed...because of one woman. Her name is Phyllis Schlafly.

In the 1980s, the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan and the shooting of his press secretary, Jim Brady, led to the Brady Bill. Decades later, are there lessons from that fight for the Parkland students?

Overdose deaths are skyrocketing, forcing researchers to find new ways to think about and treat addiction.

Today, companies market genetic tests for everything from cancer to diet and exercise. But how much can tests like 23andme really predict?

For the past 20 years, scientists have been trying to cure disease by altering DNA. We examine how with CRISPR Cas-9 gene editing and the revival of gene therapy, they're closer than ever.

One of biology’s most spectacular achievements -- the race to sequence the human genome -- was billed as a way to end disease. Here's where it led.

Donald Trump has used populist politics to appeal to voters who are fed up with the status quo. We look at another politician who tapped into America’s divisions decades ago: George Wallace.

A century ago, a culture rid itself of the problem of mass murder. How did that happen and what can the modern-day world learn from it?

Thirty million people will suffer from eating disorders in their lifetime, yet decades after Karen Carpenter died from anorexia, myths about eating disorders continue.

A skepticism of science has seeped into the classroom, and it’s revived attacks on one of the most established principles of biology – evolution.

Can the lessons we learned from extremist cults decades ago be used to fight ISIS recruitment today?

A remote Oregon mountainside offers a window into the workplace of the future.

Future of Money, the first in a 5-part series, looks at what ancient stones on a tiny Pacific island can teach us about Bitcoin, blockchains and the future of money.

Guatemalan homesteaders and a Michigan contractor are riding a wave that could change how our lives are wired.

Online manipulation and immersive media have begun to eradicate our shared notion of authenticity and trust. How will society change when we can no longer believe what we see, hear, or think?

A small South Dakota farm holds lessons for feeding a crowded and less predictable world.

From naming the problem in the 1970s, to bringing it out of the shadows in the 90s, to a growing accountability today – the evolution of sexual harassment in the workplace.

As the U.S. tightens restrictions on women's reproductive health, the new season of The Handmaid's Tale seems more relevant than ever. We look back on a group of women who broke sexual taboos in the 1970s, and how the fight over women's bodies continues today.

Retro Report explores decades of conspiracy theories -- from the John F. Kennedy assassination to Pizzagate -- and what they can tell us about how we view the world today.

From the 1930s to the 1950s a radical surgery -- the Lobotomy -- would forever change our understanding and treatment of the mentally ill.

With the release of Donald Trump's new travel ban, a brief look at a Yale group that fought the original ban.

As deportations rise under President Trump, churches and cities are declaring themselves sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants. It’s the latest chapter of a movement with a long history.

Guantanamo Bay has become a symbol of the war on terror, but its story actually begins a decade before, when it was first used to detain thousands of Haitians outside the reach of U.S. law. This story was created in collaboration with NPR and PBS, FRONTLINE.

Author Rachel Carson's strike against the pesticide DDT turned her into both an environmental hero and a foil for those who believe regulation has gone too far. That fight is more relevant than ever.

Decades after Dr. Jonas Salk opposed patenting the polio vaccine, the pharmaceutical industry has changed.  What does that mean for the development of innovative drugs and for people whose lives depend on them?

In 1988, the murder of Chico Mendes fueled a movement of activists, celebrities and indigenous peoples that helped to make the rainforest a household name. But what happens now?

Thirty years after "Live Aid" changed the face of charity fundraising, clicktivism has taken center stage. If you share, re-tweet and like, are you making the world a better place?

In the late 1990s, Princess Diana brought public attention to land mine victims. But, more than two decades after her death, how much progress has been made in the worldwide fight against leftover munitions?

In 1978, voters passed Proposition 13, lowering taxes for millions of California homeowners. Decades later, what has it meant for California?

Over the last 30 years, schools across the country have enacted tough new discipline policies. Some of those schools say they went too far.

Some issues are too fundamental for a party to withstand, and the consequences can last for a generation.

Sometimes the most important speech at the convention isn't delivered by the nominee.

Immigration has been a defining issue in a campaign before, and the consequences transformed the Democratic Party.

The animosity between William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt changed the primary process forever.

In 1831, a radical third party had a new idea for selecting a presidential candidate, and it’s still in use today: the national nominating convention.

Donald Trump's candidacy wasn't the first time the Republican Party was split by an outsider declaring war on the establishment elite.

There are important lessons to be learned from the Democrats' 1968 Chicago convention.

In 1976, Ronald Reagan found owning the soul of a party isn't the same as taking home its nomination.

In the 2012 Republican primary, Herman Cain's campaign produced an unusual video featuring Cain's chief of staff, Mark Block, giving a pep talk while smoking a cigarette.

In 2007, long-shot Democratic candidate Mike Gravel released one of the strangest ads in political history.

The infamous Willie Horton ad placed a nail in the coffin of Michael Dukakis' 1988 presidential run.

Future "warm and fuzzy" ads can trace their lineage to this one. For his reelection campaign, Ronald Reagan employed a team of advertising all-stars, resulting in one of the most famous catchphrases in American politics.

After a string of critical losses in the 2008 Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton's campaign put out a hard-hitting ad that questioned Barack Obama's readiness for the White House.

Perhaps the most famous political ad of all time, this early television spot ran on air just once, but generated enough media coverage to become a real factor in the 1964 presidential election.

The Mommy Wars were billed as the nastiest fight in American parenting, and actually fueled by a decades-old blunder. This story was produced in collaboration with Quartz.

In the digital age, where everyday people can suddenly become public enemy number one, how do we strike the balance between keeping free speech alive online and preventing a cyber mob from taking over?

The story of the veterans who witnessed secret atomic testing and how their decades-long struggle for recognition affects soldiers today. This story is a coproduction with Reveal, from The Center for Investigative Reporting.

Bill Clinton's 1996 welfare reform was supposed to move needy families off government handouts and onto a path out of poverty. Twenty years later, how has it turned out?

The artificial heart became a media sensation in the 1980s as it both raised hopes and spread controversy. Today its impact on medical science is still playing out in surprising ways.

For decades the United States has been on a quest to perfect stealth technology, but development of the F-35 fighter jet shows just how complicated dreams can become.

Thirty-five years after the first dietary guidelines, how much do we really know about the science behind a healthy diet?

From time to time over the past 40 years, efforts were made to treat heroin addiction as a public health instead of a crime problem. But they were not successful.

Offended by lyrics they deemed too sexual and violent, Tipper Gore and Susan Baker campaigned to put warning labels on albums in 1985. Years later, warning labels have ended up in some unexpected places.

The Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a group of women dedicated to finding babies who were taken by Argentina's military regime in the 1970s and 1980s, have reunited their 130th family.

The killing of twelve students and a teacher at Columbine High School in 1999 continues to shape how we view and understand school shootings today.

In 1997, a young British nanny charged with murder brought shaken baby syndrome into the national spotlight, and raised a scientific debate that continues to shape child abuse cases today.

SWAT teams were created in the 1960s to combat violent events. Since then, the specialized teams have morphed into a force increasingly used in routine policing, most often to serve drug warrants,sometimes with disastrous results. Which raises the question -- are we too militarized?

In the 1980s, many government officials, scientists, and journalists warned that the country would be plagued by a generation of “crack babies.” They were wrong. More than 25 years later, the media is sounding a similar alarm.

Twenty-six years ago, federal agents raided the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, and generated a legacy that continues to shape antigovernment groups today.

More than 50 years after Stonewall, many transgender people are still struggling for inclusion, even amongst the LGBT community.

A 1993 E. coli outbreak linked Jack in the Box hamburgers sickened 700 people and acted as a wake up call about the dangers of food-borne illness. Decades later, how far have we really come in terms of food safety?

There are over 80,000 chemicals in use today. The story of TRIS, removed from children's pajamas in the 1970s, illustrates just how hard it is to regulate chemicals, or to even know if they're safe.

The story of the first and only interrogator connected to the CIA to be convicted in a torture-related case.

Should doctors be allowed to help suffering patients die? In 1990, with his homemade suicide machine, Dr. Jack Kevorkian raised that question. It's an issue Americans still struggle with today.

Weeks before Selma's Bloody Sunday in 1965, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. urged residents of Gee's Bend, Ala., to vote, and fed a continuing fight over a small ferry that would last for decades.

News media coverage in the 1980s and early 1990s fueled fears of a national cancer epidemic caused by power lines and generated a debate that still lingers today.

In the 1970s, the TV movie “Sybil” introduced much of the nation to multiple personality disorder and launched a controversy that continues to resonate.

In 1982, an Australian mother was convicted of murdering her baby daughter. She was later exonerated, but soon fell victim to a joke that distracted the world from the real story.

The murder of four American churchwomen focused attention on the United States' involvement in El Salvador. Decades later, the case continues to take surprising turns.

In the 1990s, the federal government reintroduced the gray wolf to Yellowstone National Park. It was considered a big success. And that’s when the real fight began.

When armed suspects stand off against the law today, one event continues to cast a shadow on both sides of the police line: the 1992 siege at Ruby Ridge.

The Watergate campaign finance scandals led to a landmark law designed to limit the influence of money in politics. Forty years later, some say the scandal isn’t what’s illegal, it’s what’s legal.

The mystery of Colony Collapse Disorder has pushed honeybees into the public eye. But the story of their plight -- and its impact -- is much more complicated.

When Prozac was introduced in 1988, the green-and-cream pill to treat depression launched a cultural revolution that continues to echo.

How did cars become “computers on wheels,” so automated that some are about to start driving themselves? The story begins forty-five years ago with a quest to make cars safer and the battle over the air bag.

Before DNA testing, prosecutors relied on less sophisticated forensic techniques, including microscopic hair analysis, to put criminals behind bars. But how reliable was hair analysis?

The use of the defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War continues to cast a dark shadow over both American veterans and Vietnamese citizens.

After the 1998 NFL draft produced one of the greatest busts in history, what have we learned about the science of evaluating human talent – on and off the field?

Four decades after the accident at Three Mile Island cast a shadow on the atomic dream, is America again ready to give nuclear energy a chance?

The controversy over Terri Schiavo’s case elevated a family matter into a political battle that continues to frame end-of-life issues today.

The 1989 earthquake that shook San Francisco sent out a wake up call that continues to echo across the country.

Sexual abuse in the Catholic Church has been making headlines for years. Some priests have been punished, but what about the bishops who shielded them?

In the summer of 1981, the Mediterranean fruit fly spread through California’s Santa Clara Valley, infesting backyard fruit trees and threatening the state’s $14 billion agricultural industry.

The nightmare began in 1983 when a 39-year-old mother called the police department in Manhattan Beach, California and accused a teacher at the McMartin Preschool, Raymond Buckey, of molesting her two and a half-year old son.

At the height of rush hour on August 1, 2007 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a bridge carrying eight lanes of I-35W over the Mississippi River suddenly collapsed, sending cars trucks plunging into the water below.

Long before Edward Snowden, there was the greatest heist you've never heard of. On March 8, 1971, a group of eight Vietnam War protestors broke into a Federal Bureau of Investigation field office in Media, Pennsylvania and stole hundreds of government documents that shocked a nation.

On a cold March night in 1989, the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground off the coast of Southern Alaska, spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil into the waters of Prince William Sound and creating one of the worst oil spills in American history.

After the 1993 murder of a California child, many states passed laws to lock up repeat offenders for life, but today those laws are raising new questions about how crime is handled in America.

In 1978, toxic chemicals leaking from an old landfill thrust an upstate New York community called “Love Canal” into the national headlines, and made it synonymous with “environmental disaster.”

Six days after 9/11, the FBI’s raid on a Detroit sleeper cell signaled America’s resolve to fight terrorism. But, despite a celebrated conviction, there was one problem — they’d gotten it wrong.

In 2003, a blackout crippled areas of the U.S. and Canada, leaving some 50 million people in the dark. Years later, we are still grappling with concerns over the vulnerability of our power grid.

When President Richard Nixon vowed to make curing cancer a national crusade, many anticipated quick results. But decades later, what have we really accomplished?

Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005, and Louisiana’s troubled housing recovery has shaped the response to every major disaster since, including Hurricane Sandy.

In 1997, Scottish scientists announced they had cloned a sheep and named her Dolly, and sent waves of future shock around the world that continue to shape frontiers of science today.

The 1996 Olympics in Atlanta were rocked by a bomb that killed one and injured more than 100. In the rush to find the perpetrator, one man became a target. There was only one problem. He was innocent.

In 2007, the scandalous treatment of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center shocked the nation. Today, after major reforms, what’s changed for America’s injured soldiers?

In the wake of the 1993 hit movie Free Willy, activists and fans campaigned to release the movie’s star – a captive killer whale named Keiko -- and launched a story Hollywood couldn’t invent.

A story of America's school integration and what happened when the buses stopped rolling.

In the 1990s, a bunch of gene jockeys brought the first genetically engineered food to market. The business crashed but biotech science has flourished far beyond the produce aisle.

In 1988, the nation learned the truth about the alleged crimes against Tawana Brawley, but the shocking story was far from over.

In the 1980s, images of tiny, jittery "crack babies" caused social outcry -- crack-addicted pregnant mothers were prosecuted and the media warned that a generation of “crack babies” would plague our country. Turns out… they were wrong.