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There's More to That

Smithsonian Magazine

Smithsonian magazine covers history, science and culture in the way only it can — through a lens on the world that is insightful and grounded in richly reported stories. On There's More to That, meet the magazine's journalists and hear how they discover the forces behind the biggest issues of our time.  Every two weeks, There’s More to That will give curious listeners a fresh understanding of the world we all inhabit.

Host and Smithsonian magazine editor Chris Klimek is a longtime public radio contributor and a frequent panelist on NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast. His substantive conversations with journalists and culture-makers will make There’s More to That an essential listen for anyone seeking to understand today’s most pressing issues.

© 2023 - 2025 Smithsonian Magazine

Smithsonian magazine covers history, science and culture in the way only it can — through a lens on the world that is insightful and grounded in richly reported stories. On There's More to That, meet the magazine's journalists and hear how they discover the forces behind the biggest issues of our time.  Every two weeks, There’s More to That will give curious listeners a fresh understanding of the world we all inhabit.

Host and Smithsonian magazine editor Chris Klimek is a longtime public radio contributor and a frequent panelist on NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast. His substantive conversations with journalists and culture-makers will make There’s More to That an essential listen for anyone seeking to understand today’s most pressing issues.

© 2023 - 2025 Smithsonian Magazine
12hr 9min
Thumbnail for "‘The Crime of the Century,’ a Century Later".
June 27, 202435min 6sec
Thumbnail for "America’s Best New Restaurant Celebrates the Flavors of West Africa".
The James Beard Award-winning Dakar NOLA is at the forefront of a generation of fine-dining establishments determined to educate foodies about the true origins of “Southern” cuisine
June 13, 202427min 18sec
Thumbnail for "How Americans Got Hooked on Counting Calories More Than A Century Ago".
A food history writer and an influential podcast host tell us how our thinking about health and body weight has—and hasn’t—evolved ever since Dr. Lulu Hunt Peters took the nation by storm
May 30, 202436min 42sec
Thumbnail for "ENCORE: Those Orcas (Still) Aren't Doing What You Think".
May 20, 202428min 52sec
Thumbnail for "How Artificial Intelligence Is Making 2,000-Year-Old Scrolls Readable Again".
The innovative “Vesuvius Challenge” unlocked a mystery that had confounded archeologists for centuries
May 2, 202435min 53sec
Thumbnail for "Roads Scholars".
Meet a roadkill scientist and a journalist tracking how roads mess with nature—and what we can do about it.
April 18, 202425min 38sec
Thumbnail for "Why We Love Eclipses".
Two perspectives on the astronomical phenomenon that has fascinated humans for as long as we’ve been watching the skies
April 2, 202428min 30sec
Thumbnail for "The Man Behind "Manhunt"".
Meet James Swanson, the lifelong Abraham Lincoln obsessive who wrote the nonfiction thriller that inspired the new Apple TV+ miniseries.
March 21, 202432min 50sec
Thumbnail for "Before Beyoncé and Taylor Swift Ran the World, There Was Joan Baez".
Today’s artists — especially women — are sometimes criticized for speaking out, but for Baez, art and activism were indivisible.
March 7, 202432min 5sec
Thumbnail for "How to Separate Fact From Myth in the Extraordinary Story of Sojourner Truth ".
Two historians tell us why the pioneering 19th-century feminist, suffragist and abolitionist’s legacy has so frequently been misrepresented.
February 22, 202438min 4sec
Thumbnail for "How We See Oppenheimer (redux)".
We look at prior dramatizations of this very complicated man—including one wherein J. Robert Oppenheimer played himself!
January 23, 202418min 58sec
Thumbnail for "The Books We Loved ".
Smithsonian editors choose their favorite (mostly) nonfiction of (mostly) 2023
December 21, 202333min 13sec
Thumbnail for "When Your Great-Great-Great-Grandfather Is a Civil War Hero ".
Can recreating photographs from the 19th century connect a family to its lost heritage?
December 14, 202327min 18sec
Thumbnail for "Why Wildfires Are Burning Hotter and Longer".
As conflagrations become hotter and more difficult to contain, a citizen movement to try to manage them through “prescribed burns” is growing
November 30, 202333min 1sec
Thumbnail for "How NASA Captured Asteroid Dust to Find the Origins of Life ".
The sample of the space rock Bennu that OSIRIS-REx collected could unlock an ancient existential mystery
November 16, 202331min
Thumbnail for "Healing the Wounds of the Vietnam War".
Two perspectives on the 20th-century conflict look back, five decades after the fighting stopped, to discuss what was lost and what is remembered today
November 2, 202334min 2sec
Thumbnail for " How the Osage Changed Martin Scorsese’s Mind About "Killers of the Flower Moon"".
"Killers of the Flower Moon" sets a new standard in its nuanced depiction of Osage life. In many prior Native-themed films, Hollywood didn’t even try.
October 19, 202335min 11sec
Thumbnail for "A Brief History of Book Banning in America".
The censorship tactic that started with the Puritans 400 years ago had a massive resurgence across libraries and schools in 2022
October 5, 202326min 16sec
Thumbnail for "Those Orcas Aren't Doing What You Think".
News reports about orca, otter and bird “attacks” has us wondering if maybe trying to understand animal behavior in human terms is the wrong approach.
September 21, 202328min 52sec
Thumbnail for "Meet the WWII Battalion of Black Women That Inspired an Army Base’s New Name".
Retired Colonel Edna Cummings has spent years campaigning to get the 6888 the recognition they earned.
September 7, 202337min 7sec
Thumbnail for "Beyond the Titanic: The Real Science of Deep Sea Exploration".
Two journalists tell us why understanding the ocean is key to humanity’s survival, and how while serious research and shipwreck tourism may have some overlap, they are two very different things.
August 24, 202334min 35sec
Thumbnail for "What Happens When the Colorado River Dries Up?".
What happens when one of the nation's largest rivers dries up? Photojournalist Pete McBride tells us about the consequences of a prolonged drought.
August 10, 202323min 49sec
Thumbnail for "How We See Oppenheimer. Plus: Smithsonian’s Inside Look at the Top-Secret Los Alamos Site".
We look at prior dramatizations of this very complicated man—including one wherein J. Robert Oppenheimer played himself!
July 27, 202317min 42sec
Thumbnail for "He's (Not) Just Ken: The True History of Barbie’s Beau".
With filmmaker Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" breaking box-office records, and devoting much of its story to Ken's existential crisis, we wondered if there's any more to Barbie's perennial plus-one.
July 27, 202325min 37sec
Thumbnail for "Coming July 27: There's More to That from Smithsonian magazine and PRX".
Smithsonian magazine journalists on how they discover the forces behind the biggest issues of our time
July 20, 20231min 34sec

‘The Crime of the Century,’ a Century Later

Thumbnail for "‘The Crime of the Century,’ a Century Later".
June 27, 202435min 6sec

The past hundred years have seen more than one high-profile prosecution branded as the “crime of the century.” The shocking 1924 crime that was among the first to carry the title turned out to be a harbinger of how public mania around criminal cases could influence the legal system, and how psychiatry would be used and abused by prosecutors and defense attorneys alike as the 20th century wore on and gave way to the 21st.

Smithsonian editor Meilan Solly introduces us to teens Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb and their botched, but still deadly, effort to perpetrate “the perfect crime.” What happened next was also surprising: After confessing to the abduction and murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks, they were spared capital punishment thanks to their famed attorney Clarence Darrow. True-crime historian Kate Winkler Dawson then tells us how public interest in Leopold and Loeb’s fate helped solidify true crime as a durable subject of fascination. She also tells us about the tools used by the prosecution that were in their infancy during the famed case.

Read Meilan Solly's Smithsonian story about Leopold and Loeb here.

Learn more about Kate Winkler Dawson, her books, her podcasts, and her work at her site.

Find prior episodes of our show here.

There’s More to That is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions.

From the magazine, our team is Chris Klimek, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly.

From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Adriana Rosas Rivera, Genevieve Sponsler, Rye Dorsey, and Edwin Ochoa. The Executive Producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales.

Fact-checking by Stephanie Abramson.

Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz / photography by Katherine Kimball, Joshua Brasted, and Jeremy Tauriac

Music by APM Music.