PRESS PLAY
East Bay history podcast that gathers, shares & celebrate stories from Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond and other towns throughout Alameda and Contra Costa Counties.
The Hornet recovered moon-landing astronauts, then hosted raves; your history itch gets an unlikely address.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A Berkeley-to-Rolling Stone story about campus reporting, mentorship, and a magazine finding its voice.
East Bay Yesterday traces a Berkeley-to-Rolling Stone path through campus life, the Free Speech movement, Daily Californian columns, radio reporting, and the magazine's emerging editorial style.
A local history of nuclear fear becomes a sharp account of security failures, scrutiny, and change.
Livermore's nuclear past comes through as a local history with consequences that reach well beyond the East Bay. East Bay Yesterday opens with concern over recent AI war-game results and defense news involving Anthropic, then moves back into the older mindset of civil-defense…
A retired aircraft carrier anchors a story about war, recycling, preservation, and the odd afterlife of a Bay Area landmark.
The USS Hornet comes through as a Bay Area landmark with an unusually full second life. East Bay Yesterday frames the aircraft carrier through its wartime service, its role recovering astronauts after the first moon landing, and its later years as an Alameda museum that has…
A family-rooted look at East Bay history, wartime Richmond, and the record business that grew from Black community life.
Betty Reed Soskin's life brings East Bay history down to human scale. Her great-grandmother, Leontine Brough Allen, lived under slavery; Soskin lived to see Richmond remade by wartime migration and became known to many as America's oldest national park ranger.
A Lake Merritt mansion nearly lost to a parking lot becomes a story about the people who kept it standing.
East Bay Yesterday traces the Cameron Stanford House from late-1800s Oakland, when wealthy landowners built Victorian mansions around Lake Merritt, to the point when the city nearly swapped the last remaining Lake Merritt Victorian mansion for a parking lot.
Miller Beach chaos, served breakfast-style.
Pennsylvania by county, landmark, and stone.
Nebraska culture, live and close to home.
East Bay Yesterday host Liam O'Donoghue and Peter Richardson trace how the Bay Area shaped counterculture, Rolling Stone, and the afterlife of the 1960s.
Liam O'Donoghue opens East Bay Yesterday by connecting AI war-game tests, the START treaty's expiration in early February, and Livermore Lab's planned plutonium buildup.
East Bay Yesterday follows the USS Hornet, a 1943 Essex-class aircraft carrier docked in Alameda, as the ship considers leaving the East Bay for San Francisco.
["East Bay Yesterday re-releases Liam's interview with Betty Reid Soskin after her death on December 21, 2025 at age 104, framing her as a witness to slavery memory, World War II segregation, and the Rosie the Riveter park.", "Betty traces her family from Leontine Brough Allen, who was enslaved until 19 and lived to 102, to the 1927 flood that drove the family from New Orleans to Oakland when Betty was six.", "She describes East Oakland's wetlands, Richmond's segregated wartime jobs, the Port Chicago explosion that left her haunted by one teenager named Richard Richert, and the Double V campaign that linked victory overseas with victory over racism at home.", "The interview also covers the record store she ran from a garage window, the death threats and blackface PTA in Danville, and the way she pushed the Rosie the Riveter National Park to include Japanese incarceration, Port Chicago, and the Great Migration."]
East Bay Yesterday uses the Cameron Stanford House to frame Oakland's historic houses as public assets that survived demolition, subdivision, and repeated budget pressure.
This episode explores the theme of business in East Bay history, featuring an interview with Richard Walker about his book on tech and prosperity in the Bay Area.
A live-recorded episode of East Bay Yesterday featuring a discussion on gentrification and a hip-hop musical inspired by Oakland history.
The host promotes a related podcast and introduces a live event featuring an author discussing a book about hidden stories of the San Francisco Bay Area.
The host promotes a related podcast about the history of healthcare and sickle cell anemia in Oakland, highlighting the Black Panthers' role and modern breakthroughs.
Host Liam O'Donoghue interviews author Jenny O'Dell about Bay Area history and the concept of time, recorded live at a KPFA fundraiser.