There's a job out there with a great deal of power, pay, prestige, and near-perfect job-security. And there's only one way to be hired: get appointed to the US Supreme Court. But how do US Supreme Court Justices actually get that honor?...

Articles I-III of the United States Constitution allow for three separate branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial), along with a system of checks and balances should any branch get too powerful. Belinda Stutzman...

In which John Green teaches you about founding father and third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson is a somewhat controversial figure in American history, largely because he, like pretty much all humans, was a...

Cotton is everywhere in our modern world, and it became a hugely important crop in the 19th century United States. Cotton was a huge economic boon to the US, and much of that wealth was built on the backs of enslaved laborers. And...

In which John Green teaches you about the rise of the conservative movement in United States politics. So, the sixties are often remembered for the liberal changes that the decade brought to America, but lest you forget, Richard Nixon...

In which John Green teaches you about what is often called the Reagan Era. Mainly, it covers the eight years during which a former actor who had also been governor of the state of California was president of the United States. John will...

In the United States today, juries decide less than 4% of criminal cases and less than 1% of civil cases filed in court. At the same time, jury systems in other countries are growing. So what happened in the US? And could the...

In which Craig Benzine teaches you about federalism, or the idea that in the United States, power is divided between the national government and the 50 state governments. Craig will teach you about how federalism has evolved over the...

In which John Green teaches you about the massive immigration to the United States during the late 19th and early 20th century. Immigrants flocked to the US from all over the world in this time period. Millions of Europeans moved to the...

Today, Craig Benzine is going to tell you about the Supreme Court's most important case, Marbury v. Madison, and how the court granted itself the power of judicial review. Judicial review is the power to examine and invalidate actions...

Democracy thrives on civil debate, Michael Sandel says -- but we're shamefully out of practice. He leads a fun refresher, with TEDsters sparring over a recent Supreme Court case (PGA Tour Inc. v. Martin) whose outcome reveals the...

So we've been talking about civil rights for the last few episodes now, and we're finally going to wrap this discussion up with the rather controversial topic of affirmative action. We'll explain what exactly affirmative action is, who...

The American Civil War is one of the deadliest in US History, and let's just get this out of the way: it was about slavery. In the more than 150 years since the end of the Civil War, there have been many attempts to litigate the reasons...

Today, Craig is going to give you an overview of civil rights and civil liberties. Often these terms are used interchangeably, but they are actually very different. Our civil liberties, contained in the Bill of Rights, once only...

One of the ways that the US Constitution baked the institution of slavery into the very core of the new United States was through the fugitive slave clause. The clause required that people who escaped slavery be returned to their...

As a member of both the African American and LGBT communities, filmmaker Yoruba Richen is fascinated with the overlaps and tensions between the gay rights and the civil rights movements. She explores how the two struggles intertwine and...

When it was ratified in 1789, the US Constitution didn't just institute a government by the people _ it provided a way for the people to alter the Constitution itself. And yet, of the nearly 11,000 amendments proposed in the centuries...

Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer reflects on his life, career, and judicial philosophy. Born in San Francisco in 1938, Breyer taught at Harvard Law School before being appointed to the First Circuit Court of Appeals in...

In episode 83 of Supreme Court Briefs, people without stable and safe housing sue a city in Oregon for making it illegal to camp in a public park.

In episode 81 of Supreme Court Briefs, a man gets fired for being gay. He fights back alright.

Indonesia’s legal structure is based on the European civil-law system, an influence from Dutch colonialism. This is in contrast to common-law legal systems, such as in the US. The main difference is that in a common-law jurisprudence...

Under its constitution, adopted on February 5, 1917, Mexico is a federal democratic republic, but until the mid-1990s, a single party, the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional), totally dominated state and federal elective offices....

Japan’s legal system is based mainly on the model of prewar German and Soviet legal theory. Thus, the system is grounded not in judicial precedent but in the laws of the constitution. Culturally, the Japanese aren’t very litigious; they...

The story of the GOP, from Abraham Lincoln to Donald Trump.