What happens
The Pacific Story traces the long dispute between Russia and Japan over the island of Sakhalin. Beginning in the 1840s, Tsar Nicholas I and his advisors weigh Russia's position in the Far East against British influence, and Governor General Muravioff sends naval officer Nevelskoy to explore the coast. Their discoveries prompt Russia to claim the island, which the program then follows through the decades of rivalry, prison colonies, and the Russo-Japanese War. The episode was broadcast on May 7, 1944, on the National Broadcasting Company network as part of the series.
The Russian Far East, Sakhalin Island, and the Amur River region from the 1840s through the 1940s
Characters: Tsar Nicholas I, Count Nesselrode, Governor General Muravioff, Nevelskoy, Japanese General Ishikawa, Winthrop, Kawakami, Yoshizawa
Listen for: The naming of Sakhalin as an island rather than a peninsula, and the events at Nikolayevsk in 1920
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.