Thursday, July 30 — National Chili Dog Day

A chili dog may be messy, but July 30 has even more chaos than that.

Today, we look at the Black Tom explosion of 1916, a massive act of sabotage in New York Harbor that damaged the Statue of Liberty and helped close her torch to visitors for more than a century. Then we follow the launch of Penguin paperbacks in 1935 and the way affordable, portable books helped change reading—and eventually connect to the world of audiobooks I work in today. Finally, we step into Jamestown in 1619, where a small and deeply imperfect meeting helped begin the long, unfinished story of representative government in English America.

We also celebrate the birthday of Buddy Guy, the blues legend whose guitar influenced generations of musicians.

History has a way of reaching us through explosions, books, meetings, and sometimes six strings of electric blues.

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