50s Archives - Ex-Plain

16 min read 0

Pasts

One Free Ride: When Texas Prison Inmates Became Rodeo Cowboys

Ex-Plain
February 2, 2026

For more than fifty years, the Texas Prison Rodeo turned incarceration into public entertainment, drawing massive crowds to Huntsville to…

7 min read 0

Decades Ago, Pharmaceutical Drugs Were Advertised Using Fear, and It Wasn’t Subtle

Ex-Plain
January 16, 2026

In the postwar era, pharmaceutical print advertising, especially for psychiatric drugs, was blunt, graphic, and often disturbing, using fear and…

27 min read 1

Pasts
Sounds

X‑Rays You Can Hear: Soviet Bootleg Music’s Non-Clinical Birth, Death, and Rebirth

Ex-Plain
July 15, 2025

During the Cold War, access to music in the Soviet Union was tightly restricted by state censorship. Despite the risks,…