Show Notes
Pizza Hut’s adventure in the Soviet Union was unlike any restaurant opening before or since. It involved a fleet of submarines, a very special pizza topped with tuna and salmon, and a casual dining spot on a mission to change the world.
This episode was written by Kelly Jones and Josh Levin, One Year’s editorial director. One Year’s senior producer is Evan Chung.
This episode was produced by Kelly Jones and Evan Chung, with additional production by Olivia Briley.
It was edited by Joel Meyer and Derek John, Slate’s executive producer of narrative podcasts. Merritt Jacob is our senior technical director.
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More from One Year
From One Year host Josh Levin, a new series about history, sports, and the surprising threads connecting the past and present. In this episode: two mysterious Mets-related buttons kick off a journey that spans more than 60 years, with stops at a New York high school, the 1964 Republican Convention, a tiny town in rural Texas, and the courtroom where Donald Trump got fined $355 million.
Before 1990, there had never been a documented case of a patient getting HIV from a health care worker. Kimberly Bergalis changed that. Her claim that she’d been infected by her dentist would captivate and terrify the country. And the dentist, David Acer, would be made into a villain without America ever knowing who he really was.
Robert Mapplethorpe was one of the most famous photographers in the world—and one of the most controversial. When his work came to Cincinnati in 1990, it would be at the center of a vicious fight over obscenity and the First Amendment, one that threatened the future of art in America.
In March 1990, a story broke that shocked the nation: George H.W. Bush had banned broccoli from Air Force One. The frenzy that came next would change the fate of a vegetable—and maybe even alter the course of a presidency.
A middle-aged single dad in Chicago was outraged by all the cigarette billboards popping up in Black communities. In 1990, he picked up a paint roller and became an anti-tobacco vigilante. And he did it all under a secret identity.