About this podcast
The world feels complicated. The Preamble is where it starts to make sense. Hosted by Sharon McMahon — known for making sense of complex issues — she and her guests dive deep into the stories and ideas driving our future, bringing clarity and honesty to every headline. If you want real insight, bold conversation, and answers that matter, this podcast is your must-listen. Hit play, and join the movement that will shape history.An Audacy Podcast.
Episodes
The newest 50 of 517 episodes
- The Vigilantes: Episode 7 · 1 h 2 minLife in prison wasn’t enough for the Knights of Mary Phagan. They wanted Leo Frank to pay with his life, and they were going to make sure it happened. In Georgia, vigilante…
- The Vigilantes: Episode 6 · 41 minGeorgia’s Governor knew his life was in danger when he made his ruling. Would he commute Leo’s sentence, or let him die by execution?. And just how far would the angry mob go to…
- The Vigilantes: Episode 5 · 47 minAppeal after appeal, Leo Frank was running out of options. With a new lawyer joining his defense team – the same lawyer who earlier represented the man who testified against Leo…
- The Vigilantes: Episode 4 · 45 minThe heat in the Atlanta courtroom was sweltering and unbearable, as the trial against Leo Frank began. A Black man was testifying against a white man, which was nearly unheard of…
- The Vigilantes: Episode 3 · 46 minIt’s been 48 hours since Mary Phagan was last seen alive. It’s a media frenzy, and police are feeling the pressure to find the killer. There’s a new, sudden interest in the…
- The Vigilantes: Episode 2 · 42 minIt should have been a leisurely Saturday off work for 13-year-old Mary Phagan, who was looking forward to celebrating the Confederate Memorial Day holiday. It should have been an…
- Platypus Economics · 2 minFrom world events to everyday decisions, economics explains it all. Platypus Economics makes it clear, useful, and actually fun. Available now: link.pscrb.fm/f0281/PE_PRE
- The Vigilantes: Episode 1 · 32 minA shocking murder. A scene so brutal that the first people to find the victim couldn’t even tell what their skin color was. And a case that forever changed both the city, and the…
- How Women Won WWII: A New Era Unfolds · 30 minBefore we wrap up our series on how Women Won World War II, we need to talk about what happened next. It was the question on everyone’s mind in the summer of 1945. The Axis…
- How Women Won WWII: With a Flash and a Rumble · 29 minFor 3 years, scientists in secret cities around the U.S. had been in a race against time to complete the world’s first atomic weapon. And in July of 1945, the very first…
- How Women Won WWII: Caught By the Enemy · 34 minShe was WWII's most decorated spy: a woman whose spirit and determination in the face of danger is unparalleled. Born in France, Odette Sansom joined Britain's SOE and used her…
- How Women Won WWII: The Confidante, Anna Rosenberg · 1 h 3 minTogether, let's hear from author Christopher Gorham, whose new book, The Confidante, is the first-ever biography written about one of the United State's most powerful women: Anna…
- How Women Won WWII: AABBA and the Art of Codebreaking · 34 minShakespeare and Al Capone. What could possibly be a link between these two men who were born centuries apart? A master codebreaker named Elizebeth Smith Friedman. If her name…
- How Women Won WWII: Sabotage and a Jewish Spymaster · 30 minIt's time to return to the art of espionage. During World War II, Prime Minister Winston Churchill understood that boots on the ground were only one piece of the puzzle to drive…
- How Women Won WWII: The Booming Work of Women Scientists · 32 minIn a previous episode of our series, we had a conversation about the combined efforts of the Allied science community to beat Germany in the race to understand and build atomic…
- How Women Won WWII: British Wrens at War · 29 minLet’s head to Great Britain and learn about a military organization that recruited women into the war effort all across the country. Women volunteered in great numbers and…
- How Women Won WWII: By the Glow of Radium · 34 minHow did the United States successfully produce and detonate the first atomic bomb? That success happened through a combination of random events and intricately planned schemes…
- How Women Won WWII: A Starlette Spies for France with Josephine Baker · 32 minShe was a larger than life woman who utilized her fame and charm to secretly gather intel for the Allies during World War II. She put herself in danger, fought for freedom, saved…
- How Women Won WWII: The Women of the Secret Cities · 32 minThe Manhattan Project. It was a top-secret program ran for three war-filled years and employed over 120 thousand people. Most of those people had no idea that they were working…
- How Women Won WWII: Rosie the Riveter Was Just the Beginning · 32 minOver the next few weeks, we’ll explore the incredibly varied and complex roles women stepped into during World War II. No, they weren’t GIs. They didn’t land at the beach on…
- Mayhem: The 1970s You Never Knew, Episode 12 · 34 minIt was supposed to be a picturesque and luxurious sightseeing tour over Antarctica. One filled with wonder and awe, in a tour that had cultivated a reputation for giving…
- Mayhem: The 1970s You Never Knew, Episode 11 · 38 min“You are now leaving Iranian airspace!” It was a moment that dozens of hostages and their loved ones longed for with bated breath, for 444 days. Freedom. To be released, and…
- Mayhem: The 1970s You Never Knew, Episode 10 · 43 minA religious leader with a raging drug addiction who led his following to a tragic end. A President with the hope of finding peace between Israel and Egypt. And a politician who…
- Mayhem: The 1970s You Never Knew, Episode 9 · 41 minDid you know that Star Wars almost started a war in real life, over a sand crawler model? Would the film have been so wildly successful if someone else had been cast in the role…
- Mayhem: The 1970s You Never Knew, Episode 8 · 41 minA happenstance introduction to Charles Manson. Assassination attempts against President Ford, a man who was never elected to the vice presidency or presidency. And the kidnapping…
- Introducing Family Lore · 3 minFamily Lore is a weekly narrative podcast that celebrates and investigates ancestral mystique. Each episode begins with a guest sharing a fascinating family legend, followed by a…
- Mayhem: The 1970s You Never Knew, Episode 7 · 46 minDraft dodging. When did the draft lottery begin for the war in Vietnam, and who among America’s youth was hit the hardest? It was an unwinnable war, and thousands of high school…
- Mayhem: The 1970s You Never Knew, Episode 6 · 33 minA cover up that cost Nixon's presidency, a pardon that cost Gerald R. Ford his election, and a friendship dating back to the 1940s. It was the first time a President had been…
- Mayhem: The 1970s You Never Knew, Episode 5 · 40 minThe right to privacy, a 22-year-old who went by the pseudonym “Jane Roe,” and one of the most famous court cases in United States history. Join us as we learn what happened…
- Mayhem: The 1970s You Never Knew, Episode 4 · 34 minDeep Throat, Operation Gemstone, two valiant reporters, and a secret 30 years in the making. Watergate was not a single scandal, but rather an avalanche of events and…
- Mayhem: The 1970s You Never Knew, Episode 3 · 32 min"The week that changed the world.” Was it a chance encounter at the World Tennis Championship in 1971, “Panda diplomacy” between the U.S. and Communist China, or a break-in at…
- Mayhem: The 1970s You Never Knew, Episode 2 · 41 minSecret Police, CIA operatives, The Pentagon Papers, and The Most Dangerous Man in America. There was a time in the not-so-distant past, when the nightly news changed the game in…
- Mayhem: The 1970s You Never Knew, Episode 1 · 45 minAs the decade devolved into war at home and abroad, Apollo 13 flew high above Earth with the hope of landing safely on the surface of the moon. But then, disaster struck, and…
- Growing Hope: What Depression-Era Gardens and Rainn Wilson Teach Us About Hard Times · 36 minDuring the Great Depression, Detroit officials carved up vacant lots and handed exhausted families seeds and tools. It wasn't a hobby — it was survival. And a lesson for today…
- America at 250: Staying Hopeful, plus Saying No in a World That Demands Yes · 41 minAre we heading toward a second civil war? No, but what might happen could still be unsettling. Sharon has an honest conversation with YouTube civics creator Mr. Beat about…
- Welcome to Becoming You with Suzy Welch · 2 minHere on The Preamble, we look for the historical context and the factual clarity behind the headlines because we know that understanding the "why" helps us navigate the "what."…
- Condoleezza Rice on Democracy, Patriotism, and Why She Still Has Hope · 39 minSharon tells us why sugarcoating history doesn’t help any of us. Truly loving your country means acknowledging the not-so-great and even horrible moments of its past. Plus…
- Learning From Our Differences and the Antidote to Doomscrolling Anxiety · 42 minDid you know that only 4% of new marriages in America happen between Democrats and Republicans? Or that three quarters of white Americans don't have a single friend who isn't…
- The Long History of Demonizing Immigrants: From the Great Depression to Today · 36 minBefore ICE raids, there were pamphlets warning Americans about immigrant "peasants" stealing their jobs and "hell ships" dumping people into the Mexican desert with no food…
- Elyse Myers’ New Book and Harriet Tubman’s Faith · 37 minYou might know her as the woman who got dragged to a taco bell where her date ordered one hundred tacos and she got stuck paying for them. Elyse Myers’ hilarious re-telling of…
- The State of Black History and Journalism in 2026 · 42 minSimply teaching the facts in and out of the classroom has become an act of courage, and sometimes, real risk. Former history teacher Ernest Crim joins Sharon McMahon to talk…
- If Court Orders Don’t Matter, Nothing Does, Banning Books, and How to Find Hope · 35 minAmericans are being offered a false choice: safety or rights, as though “law and order” means obedience from citizens and exceptions for the government. Sharon’s take on ICE…
- How ICE Is Mimicking 19th Century Slave Patrols, and What AI Tech Billionaires Really Want · 42 minGen Z Historian Kahlil Greene explains how today’s ICE enforcement has chilling parallels to the slave patrols of the 19th Century, designed to hunt human beings for profit and…
- Inside ICE: Recruitment, Congressional Accountability, and Absolute Immunity · 47 minThis episode was recorded before Border Patrol agents shot and killed Twin Cities nurse Alex Pretti. What happens when the people enforcing the law no longer seem bound by it?…
- The War on Drugs, and the Truth Behind the Viral Claims of Fraud at Minnesota Daycares · 37 minThe War on Drugs is being used to justify U.S. military actions, including a covert operation in Venezuela, but is that going to have an effect on the opioid crisis? Sharon is…
- The Pentagon Papers, Why Nobody Wants Venezuelan Oil, and Answers to Your Questions · 47 minThe story you didn’t know: The Pentagon Papers. Politics Professor Casey Burgat tells us about the government lies, coverup, and the reporters who exposed all of it. Then Sharon…
- Margaret Taylor, From Army Wife to Reluctant First Lady · 29 minMargaret “Peggy” Taylor was a true pioneer woman, so the White House was never the life she wanted. She spent decades roughing it at remote army posts, surviving war, illness…
- Sarah Polk’s Power Behind the Presidency · 31 minSarah Polk was one of the most politically powerful women of her era. From running her husband’s political operation behind the scenes to mastering the art of influence, she knew…
- America’s Most Overlooked First Lady, Anna Harrison · 30 minAmerica’s shortest presidency produced one of its most overlooked First Ladies. Anna Harrison didn’t even make it to the White House before William Henry Harrison skipped wearing…
- The Chains We Forge In Life, How Religious Is the US, and Hanukkah at the White House · 44 minA warning to anyone engaged in demeaning rhetoric: How do you want to be remembered after you’re gone? Like Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, it’s not too late to change…
