David Sanger, chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times and contributor to WQXR's The Washington Report, explores the history of Syria from the Ottoman Empire to the present day dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. At a time where civilians are under attack by Assad's oppressive regime, Sanger explains the president's rise to power and his family's 40-year reign. He goes in-depth about the complicated relationship with Israel and Syria's ties to Hezbollah.

Two conversations this week on the sensitivity of certain subjects in the classroom produced lots of reaction from listeners. A ban on ethnic studies in Tuscon Arizona, and a resistance to teaching Climate Change as an accepted body of knowledge in certain school districts around the country raises a broader question. Are there pieces of history and science that are simply too hot to handle in a classroom where active debate may get away from the truth and consensus on what to teach may be hard to find?

The narrative of African Americans "passing" into white culture has long persisted. These stories are often tragic and filled with shame, secrecy, and the abandonment of home and family. In his new book, "The Invisible Line," Daniel Sharfstein looks at three families that were once identified as black and are now viewed as white. These stories are ones of pride as white families reconnect with their African-American roots.

In 1991, Anita Hill went from being an obscure law school professor to the subject of a national controversy. As Clarence Thomas was nominated to be a justice on the Supreme Court, Hill came forward with accusations that Thomas sexually harassed her when she worked with him at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Hill's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee vaulted sexual harassment into the national dialogue, forever changing the way Americans talk about the topic.

Since August 31, the anniversary of Germany's invasion into Poland, Alwyn Collinson has been tweeting the events of World War II as if they were in real time, 72 years later. Under the handle @RealTimeWWII, Collinson sends up to 40 tweets a day chronicling the war, using eyewitness accounts, photographs and video. His Twitter page now has more than 118,000 followers and his tweets are translated into Spanish, Portuguese and Russian. Collinson talks about how he embarked on the six-year project.

Fox News host Bill O'Reilly has never shied away from controversy. This time it is the commentator's new history book, "Killing Lincoln," that's in the eye of the storm. A reviewer for the National Park Service's bookstore at Ford's Theatre has recommended that the store pull the book due to "lack of documentation" and "factual errors." O'Reilly responded to his critics on his show. (Video after the jump.)

It's a beautiful, ancient language, one that very few people understand or speak. Navajo was instrumental to the success of the U.S. in World War II. Navajo volunteers worked with the U.S. military to create a secret code language that was used for communication in the South Pacific. Chester Nez, at 90 years old, is one of the only surviving member of the original Navajo recruits, and the author of a new memoir "Code Talker." 

"In God We Trust" — that's what it says on our greenbacks. It's the national motto and on Tuesday, the House voted to reaffirm the motto. Virginia Congressman J. Randy Forbes, the man who sponsored the bill, says that this vote is to "directly confront a disturbing trend of inaccuracies and omissions, misunderstandings of church and state, rogue court challenges, and efforts to remove God from the public domain." There are about five Democrats who have challenged the bill, but everyone else seems to be pretty much on board.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. The road to America’s bloodiest conflict was certainly a long one. But the spark that set the war in motion began on October 16th, 1859. That night, a fierce abolitionist named John Brown staged a bloody raid on the armory at Harper's Ferry. Historians have long cited John Brown's raid as the beginning of the end for slavery in the United States. But little has been known about the man himself, until now.

The world's population is expected to reach seven billion on Monday, October 31, 2011. All this week The Takeaway looks at population growth and what it means for natural resources and the planet. High population growth has long concerned politicians and policymakers. The Earth's population first reached 1 billion in 1805, around the midpoint of the industrial revolution. From 1805 it took 123 years for the world's population to reach 2 billion. By contrast, it is estimated that it will only take 15 years until there are 8 million humans living on Earth.

In recent months there has been a resurgence of labor protests across the United States. From Ohio to Wisconsin, union members are taking to the streets once more. Yet despite this apparent resurgence, the power of American unions has declined significantly in recent decades. Today The Takeaway traces it all back to August 1981, when nearly 13,000 air traffic controllers went on strike creating a standoff with Ronald Reagan that ended when he fired the majority of them and de-certified their union, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization. 

Today is Columbus Day, a federal holiday commemorating Christopher Columbus, the Italian explorer who famously landed on American soil in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, after spending over two months sailing from Spain. His voyage across the Atlantic prompted many other explorers to follow suit, eventually opening the doors to settlement and trade between North America and the rest of the world. Many people disagree, however, with applying the word "discovered" to Columbus's landing in America, and others criticize him for his cruelty toward Native Americans, and insist that he doesn't deserve a holiday.

On July 23, 2011, Anders Breivik opened fire at a youth camp on the Norwegian island of Utoya, killing 69 people. Breivik’s brutal crime horrified the world. For many Americans, it stirred up memories of Oklahoma City in 1994, Columbine in 1999, and, of course, September 11, 2001. Yet, despite what looks like a proliferation of shooting sprees and terrorist plots in the last few decades, a new book argues that violence has actually declined since ancient times.

In 1865, the Civil War came to a close. But just six days after the confederate commanding general Robert E. Lee surrendered, President Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed by John Wilkes Booth at the Ford Theatre in Washington DC. It’s a story that most Americans know, but Bill O’Reilly has some new perspective on these historic events. O'Reilly, the host of Fox News's "The O’Reilly Factor," is also a former high school history teacher, a hobby historian, and co-author of a new book called "Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever."

Partisan politics, brinkmanship, periodic threats to shutdown the government over seemingly routine matters — it is easy to see why so many Americans have grown disillusioned with the political system. "If there's too much cynicism, then the Constitution won't work, it can't," Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer tells The Takeaway. A Clinton appointee, who has spent 15 years on the Supreme Court, Breyer warns that a jaded, disfranchised electorate is perilous to a functioning democracy in the U.S. under the Constitution.

In April of 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave an eerily prescient speech. "I just want to do God's will,"  he said. "And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!" King was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee the following day. A new Broadway play called "The Mountaintop" imagines what King's private moments in his hotel room were like in the hours leading up to his death. The play stars Samuel L. Jackson as King and Angela Bassett as Camae, a maid in the Lorraine Hotel.

By today’s standards, the idea of a constitutional amendment banning alcohol in the U.S. seems preposterous, oppressive, and just plain naïve. But 92 years ago, when the National Prohibition Act passed, it was widely backed. Of course, Prohibition was eventually repealed, but not before it had far-reaching consequences on American gender relations, crime, popular culture, and politics. A new three-part documentary series called "Prohibition" tells this uniquely American story on PBS, beginning October 2.

The scars and legacy of racism in America and poverty has ways of bubbling up to the surface in surprising ways.  Today that legacy shows up in the story of the life and death of a famous American folklorist, journalist and author, Stetson Kennedy, who died at the age of 94 over the weekend. Kennedy became famous for allegedly infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan as an undercover journalist, then exposing their secrets in a book, “I Rode with the Ku Klux Klan,” which was published in 1954. He spoke with This American Life's Ira Glass about his experience, in 2005.

For residents and tourists, New York’s Central Park is a much-loved haven from the noise of the concrete jungle. Thirty-five million people visit the park each year, but few of them know about Seneca Village, a community of African-Americans and Irish immigrants who lived there before the city created the park in 1857. This summer, New York City gave a team of archaeologists, students and historians permission to excavate parts of the park and uncover artifacts from the lives of the Seneca Village residents. Today, if you're lucky enough to be in New York, you can attend an open house at the site.

Winston Churchill will always be remembered for his handling of the Axis powers in World War II; President George W. Bush and Rudy Giuliani are inextricably linked to their responses to 9/11. Many world leaders are known best for actions they took in times of great crises. For our nation's current leader, the history books are still being written, and a second presidential term is a possibility. We wanted to preview what history may say of President Obama’s handling of the social, economic and military crises that have so far marked his first term in office. How will future generations remember him?