Hey there, Jody here from This Day headquarters.

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Hello and welcome to This Day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan. This day, August 15th,

1979, a college student by the name of James Dallas Egbert III disappeared into a steam tunnel below

his university intending to commit suicide. He was unsuccessful and would be found a few weeks

later hiding out at a family member's house. But in the time in between his disappearance and when

he was found, his disappearance caused a nationwide panic and a nationwide moral panic,

because the story that emerged about Egbert was not that he was a depressed and suicidal young person,

but mostly that he was a devotee of fantasy role-playing games, in particular Dungeons and Dragons.

And that set off and played into this larger frenzy about what these

kinds of games were doing to our cherished youth. So let's talk about the Dungeons and Dragons

panic and this larger moment of satanic panic. Here, as always, our Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt

and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there. Hello, Jody. Hey there. Let's start with

...