This American Life

A teenage girl becomes a whole new person when she becomes the school mascot — a tiger — at her high school.

We asked listeners to send us their best coincidence stories, and we got more than 1,300 submissions!

We discover what we believe might be the original recipe for Coca-Cola…and share it with you! When this episode first aired in 2011, it made international headlines. This, and another story about telling copies from originals. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. (00:00:00) Act One: The formula for Coca-Cola is one of the most jealously guarded trade secrets in the world. So we were surprised to find a 1979 newspaper article that might contain Coke's original recipe. We were even more surprised to find reasons to believe the recipe is real. (26 min

Sayre Quevedo’s invented a way to do a podcast that feels completely new. He’s been recording nearly all his conversations for years, and the result is something that captures a person’s life in a raw and complicated way that’s rarely heard. His new show Reaching Out also documents his mutually judge-y relationship with his twin brother as they set out to find their long-lost birth father. Want to watch our live show this Friday? Use free trial code LIVESTREAM when you sign up as a Life Partner. (00:00:00) Prologue: Ira Glass introduces Reaching Out, a podcast that feels like it invented som

Nikole Hannah-Jones made an argument 10 years ago in The New York Times Magazine that became famous. She wrote about choosing a public school for her daughter, Najya, in one of the most racially and economically segregated school systems in the country:

People braving the true final frontier — the gap between people born at slightly different times. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. (00:00:00) Prologue: Last fall, some NPR podcasts started getting mysterious comments on Spotify. They made no sense to the staff reading them – until someone from a younger generation cracked the code. (11 minutes) (00:12:00) Act One: When Courtney Maum was eighteen, her mother married a guy she despised. At their wedding, Courtney read a poem she wrote – a pretty dark poem! – which made her mother furious. More th

Moments when it seems obvious what to do for someone else, so of course you jump in and try to help — and what happens after that.  Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. (00:00:00) Prologue: Devon Taylor tells host Ira Glass about a time she confronted people who stole $100 from her. (12 minutes) (00:12:01) Act One: We get to an age when we find ourselves taking care of our parents, whether they want us to or not. Writer Kristen Roupenian wrote this piece of fiction based on something real that happened to a family she knows. (20 minutes) (00:33:37)

Labels are powerful. They can distill you down to a single word. They can get stuck on you without your permission. And sometimes, when they get taken away, they can upend your entire life. On this episode: labels and the havoc they wreak. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. (00:00:00) Prologue: Sara and Ethan have been dating for 10 months. They see each other at least once a week, text pretty much every day, and have been there for each other through hard times. But they refuse to have the “what are we?” conversation. So what gives? Guest host T

People dealing with new, glaring, massive changes happening right where they live. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. (00:00:00) Prologue: Rick Cole, a city councilmember in Pasadena, CA, talks to Ira about how he responded to a surprise nighttime military exercise in his neighborhood this June – complete with helicopters, gunfire, and flash bangs. (5 minutes) (00:05:30) Act One: A doctor trained as a midwife tells the eye-popping story of how she and others came together to save a baby during a birth that suddenly went wrong, in a part of rural

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered everyone over 30 in the military to have their testosterone tested. That inspired us to rerun this classic episode where everyone at This American Life tested their testosterone and compared results. It did not lead to workplace harmony. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. (00:00:00) Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks with producer Alex Blumberg, who explains that he wanted to do this show because of his conflicted relationship with his own testosterone. He tells Ira that the reasons go back to a girl in his

Ira always hated commencement speeches. Then he felt like he had to give this one. thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners

People discovering information about their own lives that they did not know, and suddenly everything looks very different.

Ira Glass shares some news about This American Life To sign up as a Life Partner, visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners

Ira Glass talks with longtime producer Nancy Updike about the most personal stories they have put on the radio. This is a sample of the bonus episodes we regularly release to our This American Life Partners. To gain access to all the bonus episode

Ira Glass has news to share about some things happening here at This American Life.