Not Your Century

It wasn't the first 20th century trial to be dubbed the Trial of the Century. But it might be the one that keeps the title. The gloves didn't fit, and the Juice was acquitted. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Good ol' Charlie Brown," a little boy sitting on a curb says as a soon-to-be-familiar character with a round head strolls pass. "How I hate him!" The angst-filled, psychologically fraught newspaper comic has arrived. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A former grad student sits in a car at UC-Berkeley but he's not going anywhere. He's under arrest, the car is surrounded by fellow protesters, and Mario Savio is standing on the roof giving a speech. It's the first hours of the Free Speech Movement.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Seven people die in the Chicago suburbs after taking Extra Strength Tylenol laced with cyanide. The murders are never solved. The case, which terrorized America, changed the way medicine and food are packaged.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

That's what Interior Secretary James Watt called the audience for the Beach Boys when he banned them from a July Fourth concert at the National Mall. But whoops: The Reagans dug the nostalgia act. Originally aired June 13, 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You'll be glad to know Albert Einstein was right. Astronomers at the Lick Observatory in San Jose confirmed it by examining photos of a 1922 eclipse. How did that confirm Einstein? We asked an astronomer at the Lick Observatory. Originally published April 12, 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"I'm just very fortunate that I'm not dead," UC Berkeley professor Tom Tyler said after receiving a letter from the Unabomber. It was his manifesto, not a mail bomb. And Tyler wrote back. Originally published July 3, 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jane Lathrop Stanford, co-founder of the university, survives a poisoning attempt at her palatial home in San Francisco. Devastated, she sails to Hawaii, vowing never to return to her house. She doesn't. A second poisoning kills her—a murder that Stanford's president covers up. Originally published March 1, 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A complaint in the Haight leads to the cops breaking up a hippie pot party. Among those under arrest: Rudolf Nureyev and Dame Margot Fonteyn. Rudy pouts and tells reporters, "You're all children!" Originally published July 11, 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Chronicle's Randy Shilts reports that the FBI conducted exhaustive and apparently illegal surveillance of the gay-rights movement from the '50s to the '70s, despite never finding evidence of any subversive activity or crime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Once one of America's most beloved movie stars, the great comedian was now being hounded by the FBI for his leftist politics and by the media for a series of personal scandals. Sailing for London, he learns he's not welcome to return to the U.S. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A tip leads police to knock on a door in the Outer Mission. When Patty Hearst answers, it ends a 19-month odyssey that saw her go from kidnapped newspaper heiress to dangerous fugitive, wanted for bank robbery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It all starts in a car dealership showroom in Canton, Ohio. Reprentatives of teams from the Midwest and Northeast sit on running boards as they hammer out the details of a league that, a half century later, will come to rule American sports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Even by the standards of "Bombingham," the explosion that ripped through the 16th Street Baptist Church was shocking. It was the 21st racist bombing in eight years, but the first fatal one, killing four girls as they got ready for Youth Day services. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Not long before Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin accepted the handshake offer of Palestinian Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat during a White House ceremony, it had been illegal for an Israeli to talk to a PLO member. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices