The Pavement Perspective

As part of our This Day, That Year run during the break, we revisit January 21, 1977: Jimmy Carter’s first full day in office. With one proclamation, he pardoned hundreds of thousands of Americans who resisted the Vietnam draft. This episode examines the controversy, the moral arguments on both sides, and why this decision still echoes in debates about dissent, patriotism, and reconciliation nearly fifty years later.

This Day, That Year heads far beyond Earth. On January 14, 2005, the Huygens probe landed on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon: the most distant landing ever achieved. This episode explores what Huygens found beneath Titan’s orange skies, why methane rivers matter, and how this quiet robotic touchdown changed how we think about life, Earth, and exploration itself.

This Day, That Year is back during our break with a pivotal political moment. On January 7, 1999, the U.S. Senate opened the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton turning governance into live courtroom drama. We break down how America got there, what happened inside the Senate chamber, and how this trial reshaped impeachment into the hyper-partisan, media-driven weapon we still recognize today.

As we take a breather from full episodes, This Day, That Year rings in the return by asking a simple question: who decided to drop a glowing ball in Times Square? On December 31, 1907, a newspaper publicity stunt became a global ritual. This episode traces how a safety workaround replaced fireworks, how media turned a local event into “world midnight,” and what the ball drop says about tradition, branding, and our endless appetite for fresh starts.

Back with This Day, That Year we get Merry. On December 24, we return to one of the strangest moments in modern warfare. In the frozen trenches of World War I, enemies laid down their weapons, sang carols, traded gifts, and briefly reclaimed their humanity. This episode explores what really happened during the Christmas Truce of 1914, how it’s been mythologized, and why this fragile pause still matters when we talk about war, empathy, and obedience today.