Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast from the BBC World Service.

All this week as countries around the world consider how to rebuild their economies after COVID-19,

witness history is looking back at previous attempts to reimagine society in the wake of a crisis or moment of change.

And we start in the 1930s when President Franklin D Roosevelt set about trying to drag America out of the Great Depression

with one of the biggest public spending projects ever.

Using the BBC Archive Lucy Burns tells the story of the New Deal. It's the story of the New Deal.

It's spring 1933 and America is in the grip of the Great Depression,

but a new president has just been elected,

and Franklin D Roosevelt and his campaign song are promising better things.

Happy days are here again.

The skies above on clear again.

Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

Economist Robert Nathan was in the crowd at Roosevelt's inauguration.

He had a great voice and a way of putting words together that were made you feel this man

means something to meet. This man is going to help us. But what he would do, I didn't have much of a sense

about it all. And I don't think anybody did, but it was a great speech.

...