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The RCA partners: GE, Westinghouse, and AT&T eventually settled their disputes over the booming business of radio. A new corporation, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) was created to manage the business of radio broadcasting and would buy up AT&T’s broadcasting business. The phone company would in the future limit its involvement in the radio business to supplying phone lines to connect radio stations.

The introduction of radio networks changed American entertainment and culture by, among other things, homogenizing it. Entertainers in New York could make good money performing over NBC; entertainers elsewhere were unlikely to get radio work at all. Radio entertainment was at first mostly music, although not jazz, which was largely banned from the airwaves. Later, radio experimented with drama, plays meant not to be seen, but to be listened to. In 1928, the first hit radio series appeared. The good news was: it pioneered a new form of entertainment, with a set cast of characters experiencing new adventures every week, and proved audiences could and would follow the story. The bad news was: It was Amos ‘n’ Andy.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Hungarian Dance No. 5
Composed in 1869 by Johannes Brahms. Public domain.
Performed by the Fulda Symphonic Orchestra and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 license. Source.

The Barber of Seville
Composed in 1816 by Gioachino Rossini. Public domain.
Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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Prodded by the US Navy, the General Electric Company bought out Marconi Wireless’s US subsidiary and formed a new corporation along with other US companies that owned useful radio patents, including Westinghouse Electric and American Telephone and Telegraph. The new corporation was dubbed the Radio Corporation of America, and universally known by its initials: RCA.

The complex RCA deal took two years to complete, from 1919 to 1921. In 1919, RCA’s mission was seen to be wireless communication. But in 1920 Westinghouse, on its own, first demonstrated that there was a consumer market for radio receivers, provided customers had radio broadcasts to listen to. By 1921, when the RCA merger was complete, the mission of the company had completely changed. Radio was the new craze. But with so much money up for grabs, everyone wanted a piece of the action.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Music from the Sam Fox Silent Move Book
Public domain.
From RF Media and the Texas Radio Theatre Company, used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 license. Source.

Closing Theme 

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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Radio was originally conceived as a means for two-way communication without wires; that is, as a means to send telegrams or make telephone calls wirelessly.

As early as 1916, David Sarnoff, an employee of Marconi Wireless’s US subsidiary suggested a whole other use for radio: as a means of distributing entertainment. He called it a “radio music box.” No one took him seriously until KDKA in Pittsburgh announced the 1920 Presidential election results live on election night—a convincing demonstration of the potential of the new medium.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“The Japanese Sandman”
Composed in 1920 by Richard A. Whiting. Public domain.
Performed by Paul Whiteman and His Ambassador Orchestra. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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Following the death of Lenin, most observers saw Leon Trotsky as his most likely successor. But inside the Communist Party, the quarrelsome Trotsky had ruffled a lot of feathers, including Lenin’s. That was why Lenin nominated Joseph Stalin, and not Trotsky, to become General Secretary of the Communist Party.

After Lenin’s death, Trotsky’s opponents sided with Stalin and Trotsky became marginalized. Meanwhile, the Party wrestled with the question of exactly how one builds a socialist economy. Lenin’s New Economic Plan had helped Russia get back on its feet, but is was too capitalism-friendly to be a long-term policy. In 1928, Stalin proposed the first Five-Year Plan, an ambitious, centrally organized program to rapidly increase the USSR’s industrial sector.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“Chant Hindou” from Sadko
Composed in 1898 by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Public domain.
Violinist: Vasa Prihoda. Performed in 1929. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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Sun Yat-sen died in early 1925, just as the Nationalists were poised to regain military control over China. His death left a power vacuum. Many looked to the left-leaning Wang Jingwei as Sun’s most likely successor.

But the Nationalist Party’s senior military commander, Chiang Kai-shek, had other ideas. Previously seen as an apolitical centrist, Chiang used an incident with the Communists as an excuse to seize power. Once a successful offensive subdued the warlords, Chiang began attacking the Communists, while securing his own position as the new Party leader and the President of the Republic of China.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

《平沙落鴈》 (“Pingsha Luoyan” [“Wild Geese Descending on the Sandbank”])
Composed in 1868 by 蕉庵琴譜 (Jiao’an Qinpu). Public domain.
Performed by Charles R. Tsua, and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY 2.5 license. Source.

Closing Theme 

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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The Allies collectively owed $12 billion to the United States. The UK was the biggest debtor, owing $5 billion. The US was adamant that these debts be paid in full, earning the US the title “Uncle Shylock” in Europe.

In Westminster, the accumulation of multiple domestic and foreign policy crises led to the fall of David Lloyd George’s government and a general election. The new Tory government, led by PM Andrew Bonar Law was faced with the task of attempting to renegotiate the UK’s debts to the US.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Music for the Royal Fireworks
Composed in 1749 by Georg Friederich Händel. Public domain.
Performed by the Leeds Chamber Orchestra. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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When Prohibition finally arrived, it was a shock to many Americans.

The law was widely flouted. People held cocktail parties in their homes or went out to speakeasies, which ranged from drab basements to upscale nightclubs. For the first time, as many women as men were drinking at bars.

Prohibition was lucrative for the criminal element, most notably Chicago ganster Al Capone, who perpetrated the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre on February 14, 1929.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes”
Composed ca. 1790 by John Wall Callcott. Public domain.

Closing Theme 

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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Human beings have been drinking fermented alcoholic beverages since prehistoric times.

By the 18^th century, potent distilled liquor was cheap and readily available, and white, male North American colonists were among the heaviest drinkers the world had ever seen.

After US independence, religious and civic groups began to campaign for temperance, meaning more moderate use of alcohol. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the push was on for full Prohibition.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor?”
Traditional. Public domain.

Closing Theme 

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

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Less than four years had passed from the moment that Governor Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts first won national attention with this tart telegram to AFL chief Samuel Gompers and his taking the oath of office as the 30^th President of the United States.

“Silent Cal,” as he was known, did not have the style of a conventional politician, yet he led a reasonably popular and accomplished administration.

You can listen to “Charisma” from How to Steal an Election on Spotify here.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“At the Jazz Band Ball”
Composed in 1917 by Nick LaRocca and Larry Shields. Public domain.
Performed by the US Coast Guard Band. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 

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Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.