Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes championed the idea of speech as a 'marketplace of ideas'

The Supreme Court's first major free-speech ruling rested on a legal standard that was later overturned

In Schenck v. United States (1919), the court introduced the "clear and present danger" test—permitting the government to restrict speech that posed an immediate threat to public safety. Although the doctrine was later replaced, the ruling upheld the conviction of a man who had distributed anti-draft pamphlets.

The US protects free speech more broadly than any other democracy

Well-known First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams explains that the US offers stronger free-speech protections than even close democratic allies, where hate speech is criminalized, libel laws favor plaintiffs, and a "right to be forgotten" can erase truthful information from the internet.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once called states 'laboratories of democracy'

Louis Brandeis argued that federalism allows states to experiment with new policies without committing the entire nation, thereby allowing successful ideas to spread while limiting the risks of failure.

The 'Howl' obscenity trial changed American publishing

The "Howl" obscenity trial is one of the most significant in American publishing, affirming that material with the "slightest redeeming social importance" cannot be considered "obscene." In the process, it permits artists, like Allen Ginsberg, to use the language they see fit to express themselves.

Learn about the history of soapbox speeches in the United States

From the 1890s to the 1960s, soapbox oratory was common across the US, with speakers gathering crowds in public spaces to share political, religious, and philosophical views.

Explore how free speech and justice coexist and sometimes clash

From the abolition of slavery to South African apartheid, this podcast explores how censorship has historically been used to suppress racial justice movements—and to promote them—and asks whether free speech is a foundation for, or a threat to, equality.

The ACLU was founded in 1920 in direct response to the suppression of speech during World War I

The mass arrest and prosecution of anti-war activists, socialists, and immigrants under the Espionage and Sedition Acts prompted a group of civil libertarians to form the American Civil Liberties Union to defend constitutional rights.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 speech framed World War II as a global fight for universal rights

Eleven months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt outlined four fundamental freedoms that, in his words, people "everywhere in the world" ought to enjoy—speech, worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

Read the majority opinion that established judicial review

In his opinion in Marbury v. Madison, Chief Justice John Marshall argued that a written constitution is "paramount law" and that courts must refuse to enforce statutes that conflict with it. He declared that "it is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is."

1978: Thurgood Marshall, commencement address at the University of Virginia

"Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on."

Hear about the Enlightenment origins of the Declaration's ideas

This podcast examines the Enlightenment thinkers and earlier political texts that influenced the Declaration, demonstrating how Jefferson built upon existing ideas rather than inventing them wholesale.

Explore the history and origins of the power of the pardon

The concept of clemency dates back to at least ancient Greece and was later embraced by English monarchs. During the Constitutional Convention, the founders debated whether presidents should have such power—ultimately adopting Alexander Hamilton's expansive view that presidential pardons serve as a check on the justice system.

Read about the history of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the first law to ban monopolistic behavior

In its later years, Standard Oil formed a business trust that reflected the company's exponential growth. Politicians wanted to prevent such trusts and used the Sherman Antitrust Act to force Standard Oil to break up.

The long-tail influence of Thoreau's 'Civil Disobedience'

His essay "Civil Disobedience" laid out both a practical and a moral plan for resisting unjust governments, inspiring civil rights leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as anti-war anarchists like Emma Goldman and literary figures like Leo Tolstoy.

Constitutional originalism and living constitutionalism are the 2 main theories of interpretation

Hear from experts about originalism—the view that the Constitution should be interpreted according to its original public meaning—alongside its main counter-ideology, living constitutionalism, which argues that the document's meaning should evolve with changing social and legal norms.

The early DOJ led the first major federal civil rights prosecutions

During Reconstruction, the newly formed Department of Justice prosecuted Ku Klux Klan violence in the South—securing over 1,000 indictments and more than 500 convictions by 1873 in defense of newly established civil rights protections.

Truth is best known for her 1851 speech in Akron linking abolition and women's rights

At the 1851 Women's Rights Convention, Truth gave a speech that cemented her legacy, weaving together abolition and women's rights in remarks that became among the most quoted of the 19th century.

Norman Rockwell's 'Freedom of Speech' has become an internet meme

The famous painting, which portrays a man in work clothes speaking up in a crowd of men in suits, has become a companion image for internet users posting unpopular or controversial opinions. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

After the USSR's fall, many experts believed liberal democracy had permanently prevailed

Political scientist Francis Fukuyama argued in 1992 that liberal democracy and market capitalism had defeated their ideological opponents and would eventually spread everywhere—a thesis he called "the end of history." Subsequent decades complicated that claim.

Legendary venture capitalist Peter Thiel once wrote that 'competition is for losers'

With Peter Thiel's "Monopoly Theory," the Founders Fund partner argued that investing in companies that create new categories, rather than those that compete with other businesses in existing ones, is a best practice in venture capital.

The man who championed the ‘case method’ for higher ed later found it insensitive

The "case method" style of education is core to most MBA programs across the country. Recent research posits that Wallace Donham’s (who is credited with establishing the method as a force at Harvard Business School in the 1920s) views on the method changed in later years.

A quote by broadcast legend Walter Cronkite

"In seeking truth you have to get both sides of a story."

The art of classical rhetoric

Ancient orators snapped human communication in two: the open palm of persuasive rhetoric versus the closed fist of evidence-heavy dialectic. The former seeks to convince the many via one's speech, while the latter seeks the truth in an argument. In ancient Rome, rhetoric had five "canons": invention, arrangement, style, memorization, and delivery. Loading the rhetorical canons in order was meant to help orators craft an effective and impactful speech.

The origins of public education in the US stem from Puritan religious views

The 1647 Old Deluder Satan law reflects Puritan belief that illiteracy allowed Satan’s influence. The law—the first of its kind in the colonies—mandated towns of over 50 households hire a teacher and over 100 support a grammar school.

The magazine competition that pitted Houdini against the author of 'Sherlock Holmes'

In 1922, Scientific American magazine launched a contest to prove, or disprove, the existence of ghosts and define the limits of Spiritualism. This article details how this competition furthered the growing ideological split between escapologist...

Trace how the Bill of Rights, inspired by centuries of political theory, took shape between 1774 and 1789.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

The rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson centered on federalism—the question of how much power the federal government should hold relative to the states.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

Walt Disney's early film 'Alice's Wonderland' was a groundbreaking innovation in the silent film era

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

'Silent' fireworks have gained more interest in recent years as a quieter celebratory option.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

The term 'algorithm' originated from the Latinized name of al-Khwārizmī, a 9th-century mathematician whose works introduced Arabic numerals and the decimal-based numeral system to Europe and whose treatise 'Al-Jabr' gave algebra its name.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

Pure water does not conduct electricity because this flow of energy requires the movement of charged particles, and water is a neutral molecule.