Smartest Year Ever

Today I explore a deceptively simple question: what living thing is most genetically different from humans? At first glance, you might imagine something bizarre—deep-sea creatures, alien-looking animals, or massive organisms that seem nothing like us. But in evolutionary biology , appearances mean nothing. What actually matters is genetic distance —how far back two species share a common ancestor....

Today I break down one of the strangest traditions in modern culture: why the Easter Bunny delivers eggs . It sounds completely random—because it is. But behind it is a fascinating mix of German folklore, ancient spring festivals, Christian symbolism, and historical food traditions that all merged over time. In this episode, I explore the true origins of the Easter Bunny (Osterhase) , why eggs bec...

Today I dive into the unbelievable story of Milo of Croton , one of the most dominant athletes in ancient history—and possibly the strongest man ever recorded . From winning multiple ancient Olympic Games to performing seemingly impossible feats of strength, Milo’s legend sits at the intersection of history, mythology, and early sports science . Ancient sources describe a man who trained in a way...

Today I dive into one of the most shocking real-world breakdowns of public order in modern history—when a major city suddenly had no police . In 1969, Montreal experienced a full-scale police strike , joined by firefighters, leaving a city of nearly 2 million people without formal law enforcement. What followed has since been studied as a case of rapid societal breakdown , urban unrest , and what...

Today I explore one of the strangest forgotten jobs of the Industrial Revolution : the people who were literally paid to wake strangers up . Before alarm clocks were common household items, factory workers still had to arrive at work before sunrise. Textile mills and industrial workplaces in cities like Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, and London demanded strict punctuality. But many workers didn...

For two weeks, an Olympic host city becomes the center of the world. Then the flame goes out. In this episode of Smartest Year Ever , Gordy explores the abandoned Olympic venues , financial fallout, political upheaval, and unexpected afterlives of some of the most iconic Olympic stadiums and Winter Games sites ever built. From the haunting remains of Sarajevo 1984 to the controversial spending of...

The Olympic Games are often presented as the pinnacle of tradition, discipline, and athletic excellence. But the early Olympics were far less polished—and far stranger—than the spectacle we recognize today. In this episode of Smartest Year Ever , Gordy explores the weirdest Olympic events in history , from forgotten competitions that vanished after a single appearance to experimental sports that b...

In this episode of Smartest Year Ever , Gordy explores one of the most unsettling moments in Cold War history … a true story involving a B-52 Stratofortress , thermonuclear weapons , and a chain of mechanical failures that came far closer to catastrophe than the public was ever told. The episode traces the 1961 Goldsboro nuclear near-miss , unpacking how a routine airborne nuclear alert mission (O...

There is a sea on Earth with no coastline, no beaches, and no borders drawn by land . In this episode of Smartest Year Ever , Gordy explores the strange, misunderstood, and scientifically fascinating Sargasso Sea , the only named sea in the world defined entirely by ocean currents . Surrounded by powerful Atlantic currents, this region behaves like a natural containment system, quietly shaping eve...

What does it really mean to disappear? In this episode of Smartest Year Ever , Gordy dives into the hidden world of the U.S. Federal Witness Protection Program (WITSEC) and what actually happens when someone agrees to vanish from their old life in exchange for survival. From new identities and government-issued birth certificates to psychological reprogramming and forced anonymity , witness protec...

What are the actual odds that a monkey could randomly type Shakespeare? The Infinite Monkey Theorem is one of the most famous thought experiments in mathematics and probability theory. It’s often repeated as a quirky idea about monkeys, typewriters, and infinite time — but rarely explained in a way that makes the math, the scale, or the implications truly sink in. In this episode of Smartest Year...

After 365 consecutive days of posting facts, this is the pause. This bonus episode breaks from the usual Smartest Year Ever format to answer some of the questions I’ve gotten most over the past year: where the idea came from, whether I’m actually good at trivia, what the hardest parts were, how the process worked behind the scenes, and what’s coming next. This wasn’t meant to be a highlight reel o...

After 365 consecutive days of facts, history, science, language, weather, and human strangeness, Gordy ends Smartest Year Ever by zooming all the way out. Astronauts have a name for the cognitive shift that happens when they see Earth from space for the first time. It’s not just awe. It’s not just perspective. It’s a profound psychological reframing that reshapes how they think about borders, iden...

 As New Year’s Eve approaches, millions of people will share a midnight kiss—or strategically avoid one. Kissing feels timeless, intimate, and deeply human. But it isn’t universal. And it isn’t uniquely ours. In this episode of Smartest Year Ever , Gordy explores why kissing exists , what actually qualifies as a “kiss,” and how similar behaviors appear across the animal kingdom. From primate recon...

 After sharing more than 360 daily facts in a single year, Gordy closes out Smartest Year Ever with a deceptively simple question: why do we call it “trivia”? Today, trivia means fun facts, pub quizzes, and knowledge for bragging rights. But historically, the word carried a very different tone. Its roots stretch back through Latin , medieval education , and early academic hierarchies, where certai...

 After typing hundreds of thousands of words in a single year, Gordy finally stops to ask a deceptively simple question: why does the QWERTY keyboard look like this? At first glance, the modern keyboard feels arbitrary—almost chaotic. But its strange layout isn’t random, and it wasn’t designed to frustrate or slow anyone down. QWERTY emerged from a very specific moment in technological history , s...

For decades, goldfish memory has been treated as a joke. A throwaway line. A cultural shortcut for forgetfulness. But modern animal cognition research paints a very different picture. In this episode of Smartest Year Ever , Gordy digs into the real science behind goldfish learning, memory retention, and behavior , pulling from decades of behavioral psychology , neuroscience , and comparative cogni...

In this episode of Smartest Year Ever , Gordy explores one of biology’s strangest loopholes — parthenogenesis , a rare form of asexual reproduction where an animal can develop from an unfertilized egg. For decades, scientists assumed this phenomenon was mostly limited to insects and invertebrates. But modern genetics has revealed something far stranger: certain vertebrates , including reptiles, bi...

For centuries, people have argued about what the “X” in Xmas means. Some call it disrespectful. Some insist it removes the meaning of the holiday. But as Gordy explains in today’s episode of Smartest Year Ever , the real story goes back nearly a thousand years—deep into the worlds of Greek manuscripts , ancient Christian symbols , and a writing tradition that shaped how entire cultures recorded sa...

Why do we hang Christmas stockings by the fireplace, of all things? In this episode, Gordy digs into the surprisingly deep origins of one of the strangest holiday traditions — a tradition that blends medieval folklore , St. Nicholas legends , Dutch holiday customs , Victorian Christmas culture , and the long cultural shadow of ’Twas the Night Before Christmas . This episode explores how European w...

Every December, Santa’s sleigh and his iconic team of reindeer feel like timeless parts of Christmas. But Gordy digs into the real history behind this tradition — tracing how Arctic cultures , early American Christmas lore , and one influential 19th-century poem fused into the story we know today. This episode explores the surprising cultural evolution behind Santa’s reindeer , from ancient Arctic...

Every December, Gordy takes a tradition everyone thinks they understand and unravels the surprising, layered story behind it. This time, he investigates the true history of the Christmas tree and how an ordinary evergreen became one of the most recognizable symbols of the modern holiday season. This episode traces the tradition across ancient civilizations , medieval Europe , and Victorian-era rei...

On December 24, 1914, something unfolded on the Western Front that no one expected. In this episode, Gordy explores one of the most extraordinary moments of World War I : the unsanctioned Christmas Truce of 1914 , when soldiers on both sides paused a global war and stepped into no-man’s-land together. It’s a moment wrapped in legend, but the real story is even more compelling. Gordy breaks down th...

Gordy dives into one of the most iconic symbols in modern culture—a symbol so widespread that people forget it actually had a creator, a purpose, and a moment in history that shaped its meaning. This episode unpacks how a simple circular design became a global emblem of peace , how it spread from a small British protest movement into worldwide activism , and why it still carries emotional weight t...

Abraham Lincoln is known for the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the reshaping of the American presidency — but this episode dives into a very different side of him. Long before he entered the White House, Lincoln developed a fascination with mechanical engineering , river navigation , and the everyday problems that slowed 19th-century travel. In today’s story, Gordy explores the sur...