'BackStory' show's final episode
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (CBS19 NEWS) --A history podcast will be broadcasting its final episode this week, and it will feature Coach Tony Bennett.
BackStory is a weekly program that has been produced by Virginia Humanities since 2008, though the project got its start as a radio show in Norfolk in 2005.
According to a release, the program would be heard on-air on more than 200 public radio stations across the country before it switched to its podcast format in 2017.
Since it began, it has put on more than 300 episodes, and the final one will be released on Friday.
University of Virginia history professors Brian Balogh, Ed Ayers and Peter Onuf started the program, and after Onuf retired, Yale University professor Joanne Freeman and Johns Hopkins University professor Nathan Connolly came on.
Virginia Humanities Executive Director Matthew Gibson says the show has filled a vital role during its run.
"Without an understanding of what came before us in human experience, we run the risk of plodding through the present and into the future with amnesia," Gibson said. "'BackStory' has been a great antidote to that possibility and has helped listeners understand the importance of the past in shaping our future."
Originally called "History Happens," the show was going to be similar to "Car Talk" and take calls from listeners, but it created its own style that no longer included live calls.
This was taking place before the existence of programs like Zoom, so recording shows was difficult with guests scattered around the world.
Topics have ranged all over, from the history of hair, to federalism, to the history of Thanksgiving and many others.
The final episode is called "The End of the Road: BackStory and the History of Finales in America."
Balogh, who is a sports fan, wanted to talk to Bennett about the three very different seasons the UVA men's basketball team saw in 2018, 2019, and 2020.
The last episode will also feature segments with Freeman talking about George Washington's finales and Ayers interviewing a television historian about TV finales like "Seinfeld."
"I hope we have demonstrated that history can be interesting, even to people who think they don't care about history, even to people who are not 'history buffs,'" Balogh said.
The release says the radio years of BackStory, 2008 to 2016, are available on the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, while the podcasts are available on Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, Stitcher and other applications.
For more information about the program, click here.