The Democratic National Convention starts Monday in Chicago. Here's how to watch

The NPR Network will be reporting live from Chicago throughout the week bringing you the latest on the Democratic National Convention.

The Democratic National Convention is in Chicago, Monday August 19 through Thursday August 22.

➡️ NPR's full coverage of Election 2024

How to watch

NPR will have live video from the United Center each night of the convention starting at 9 pm ET.

On Wednesday and Thursday night, NPR's politics team will be hosting coverage with analysis throughout the evening.

The history of the DNC in Chicago

Chicago has hosted a number of party conventions — most recently the DNC in 1996, and perhaps most notably the DNC in 1968.

As NPR senior editor and correspondent Ron Elving puts it, "Chicago ‘68 has been repeatedly conjured as the epitome of disaster like the sinking of the Titanic, or the stock market crash of ‘29."

At the time, President Lyndon Johnson had announced he was not running for re-election, and Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. Vice President Hubert Humphrey was then left to battle it out for the nomination with anti-war Sen. Eugene McCarthy.

Huge crowds of demonstrators came to Chicago in 1968 for the DNC, protesting U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, pushing for racial equality and an end to poverty.

Protestors and police ended up clashing, with violent images on TV for the nation to see.

But beyond the convention location, there have been a number of echoes of 1968 playing out in 2024. (And not just in the political world: Both years also saw new Planet of the Apes movies, Summer Olympics and U.S. moon missions, as NPR's Rachel Treisman notes.)

In April, historian Keith Orejel summed it up in a post on X, formerly Twitter:

"I mean ok, Columbia has unrest and there's