Hey, history lovers. I'm Mike Rosenwald with Retropod, a show about the past, rediscovered.

This past weekend, an unspeakable tragedy occurred in the real-life Pittsburgh neighborhood of Fred Rogers.

Eleven worshippers shot dead in their synagogue by an alleged anti-Semite.

So today, we are replaying an episode that recalls his previous work

in holding the country's hand through moments of grief.

This summer, a wonderful documentary was released about one of my heroes, Mr. Rogers.

The film is remarkable in so many ways, especially as it relates to how Mr. Rogers

was so deftly able to enter the national conversation during tragedies.

He got his first crack at that enormous responsibility not long after the show launched

in 1968.

It is possible he had not only Senator Kennedy, oh my God, Senator Kennedy has been shot.

And another man...

These were times of chaos and tumult.

Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated.

Martin Luther King had been killed just weeks before.

Cities burned.

And then, on the night before Kennedy was buried at Arlington National Cemetery,

a puppet appeared on television and asked this question.

What does assassination mean?

The puppet was a tiger named Daniel Striped Tiger.

His voice belonged to Fred Rogers, an ordained minister who spoke directly to children,

turning his neighborhood of make-believe into a village of empathy, knowledge, and wonder.

...