What happens
The Pacific Story presents a dramatized look at Mongolia in the early twentieth century. A traveler named Samuel Barlow finds himself caught up in violence in Urga after a Chinese commander is killed during a card game, when a Russian with a horse whip and soldiers burst in. The episode traces how the Russian Revolution, the collapse of Tsarist Russia and Chinese occupation reshaped Mongolia, leading to a people's government, Soviet alignment, and Japanese pressure from Manchuria. Its story follows Mongolia's struggle for independence amid rival powers, with commentary by Owen Latimore, an authority on Mongolia and director of the School of International Relations at Johns Hopkins University. The episode was first broadcast on June 3, 1945, as part of the NBC series.
Urga (Orga), Mongolia, and surrounding regions, in the years after the Russian Revolution through the 1930s and 1940s
Characters: Samuel Barlow, Baron Wingal's son, Chinese commander, Owen Latimore
Listen for: Barlow's encounter with the Russian with the horse whip in Urga, and the dramatized account of Mongolia's shifting alliances between China, Russia and Japan
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.