The Way the World Works: A Tuttle Twins Podcast for Families

Ever heard someone threaten to take a fight all the way to the Supreme Court — and wondered what that actually means? Today on The Way the World Works, Brittany walks through exactly how a case climbs to the highest court in the land. She starts with a playground dispute, because courts exist for the same reason recess monitors do: to hear both sides and decide who was at fault. From there the jou...

Getting ice for your drink takes about four seconds and zero thought — but for most of human history it was a luxury you could not buy at any price. Today on The Way the World Works, Brittany tells the story of how ice went from something only the very wealthy could get their hands on to something sitting in every kitchen in America. It starts with George Washington's servants sawing blocks out of...

What if the man who fought hardest for liberty in early America is one you've never heard of? Today on The Way the World Works, Brittany shares the story of Samuel Gorton, one of the earliest and boldest pro-liberty activists in America, and a man who was banished, jailed, and whipped for refusing to give up on freedom. With America 250 in full swing, Brittany has been working her way through Murr...

What if the internet's biggest experiment in trusting ordinary people with knowledge actually solved a problem economists once said could never be solved? As Wikipedia turns 25 years old, let's take a minute to appreciate what the website did for decentralizing information. In this solo episode, Brittany revisits one of her favorite ideas from economist F.A. Hayek: the "knowledge problem," the arg...

Have you ever shown someone the facts, expected them to change their mind, and watched them dig in even harder instead? Today on The Way the World Works, Brittany continues the show's ongoing series on "beware our biases" by tackling one of the sneakiest ones yet: the backfire effect. It's the reason a well-reasoned argument can sometimes make someone believe something even more strongly, not less...

Nobody likes hearing "no." But what if learning to actually enjoy rejection is the real secret to success? No one likes being told no. But if you want to be successful in life, you better learn how to hear it — and keep pressing forward anyway. In this solo episode, Brittany opens up about a lifelong love of singing, acting, and performing, and how a paralyzing fear of rejection kept her from audi...

What if the free market could raise wages faster and more effectively than any government mandate ever could? We hear it constantly: the government should raise the minimum wage, or states should set their own higher floors on pay. It's a debate that never really goes away, and there's a real tension in it — forcing companies to pay more can be devastating for smaller businesses, and entry-level j...

Ever noticed your favorite candy bar or bag of chips seems smaller than it used to be? You're not imagining it - that's shrinkflation, and it's happening all around you. We've all heard of inflation, but what do you call it when the price tag stays the same while the product inside keeps getting smaller? In this episode of The Way the World Works, Brittany breaks down "shrinkflation," the sneaky c...

There's a 400-year-old legal doctrine that still decides what happens if someone breaks into your house tonight — and most people have never heard its actual name. Brittany is back with another dive into property rights, this time tracing the doctrine known as castle law all the way back to Sir Edward Coke, the same 1600s English jurist behind the "just compensation" ruling she covered a few episo...

If bombs are dropping and troops are being sent overseas, does it matter what the president decides to call it? Today's episode continues a conversation about war powers: who actually has the constitutional authority to declare war? The answer is simple — only Congress does, not the president, who is commander in chief but was never given the power to start a war on his own. But as Brittany explai...

If you built something with your own hands and your own time, who should get to keep it — and does the answer to that question tell you everything you need to know about capitalism? Today's episode tackles a big question: is free-market capitalism just efficient, or is it actually fair? Brittany was inspired by a recent speech at the World Economic Forum — of all places, given how much that stage...

*Would you actually call for help if you saw someone in trouble — or would you quietly assume someone else already had it covered?* Today's episode digs into one of the most eye-opening psychological biases from The Tuttle Twins Guide to Beware Your Bias: the bystander effect. It's the counterintuitive reason that being surrounded by more people when something goes wrong often makes it LESS likely...

You already know exactly what you'd want at your own birthday party — so what happens when a total stranger on the other side of the world tries to plan it for you? Brittany uses birthday parties to explain one of economics' biggest ideas: the knowledge problem. She starts personal, admitting she never lets anyone else plan her own birthday, because nobody knows her favorite food, cake flavor, mus...

If your group project grade ever got wrecked by one teammate who did nothing, you already understand why entire economies collapse. Group projects rarely go well — someone always ends up doing all the work while everyone gets the same grade. Brittany breaks down why that frustration isn't just a school problem: it's the exact same flaw that sank one of America's first colonies and that still shows...

She was born in a Louisiana cotton field to parents who had been enslaved, orphaned by age seven, and married at fourteen to escape an abusive home — yet Madam C.J. Walker became the first self-made female millionaire in American history. What if the problem everyone complained about became the business idea that changed your life? Brittany tells the story of Madam C.J. Walker, born Sarah Breedlov...

In 1606, King James's men were tearing up English homes with crowbars searching for a gunpowder ingredient — and the court ruling that finally reined them in is still being cited in property rights cases four centuries later. In 1606, the Crown's search for gunpowder resulted in one of the most important court rulings that shaped American property rights over a century later. Brittany traces the s...

In the dead of night, a 26-year-old Virginian heard hoofbeats on the road to Charlottesville and made a split-second choice that may have saved Thomas Jefferson's life. When British troops launched a surprise raid aimed at Virginia's leaders, one young Virginian recognized the danger and took action. Brittany tells the story of Jack Jouett, a militia captain who, on the night of June 3, 1781, over...

New York City just elected a democratic socialist mayor, and his plan to fix the housing crisis starts with getting rid of the very thing that builds houses: private ownership. Brittany dives into the real-world experiment now playing out in New York City, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his housing secretary, Cea Weaver, are pushing policies built on the idea that housing should be owned collectiv...

A struggling Danish carpenter lost his business in the Great Depression, watched his workshop burn to the ground twice, and still built one of the most beloved brands on the planet out of tiny plastic bricks. Legos aren't just the toy you're constantly stepping on in bare feet, they're also one of the best case studies in entrepreneurship you'll ever find. In this episode of The Way the World Work...

He never fired a shot in battle, but George Washington called him "the general baker" — and without his bread, the Continental Army might have starved before it ever won independence. Christopher Ludwick was a German immigrant, a trained soldier, and one of Philadelphia's most successful bakers when the Revolution began. As a German-born businessman, he could have easily sat the war out like many...

Two colonists broke every rule of Puritan Massachusetts—and accidentally invented American religious liberty. The Puritans and Pilgrims sailed to America seeking freedom to worship as they pleased. But once they had power, they didn't extend that freedom to anyone else. In 1630s Massachusetts Bay Colony, only church members could vote, starting a new church required government permission, and crit...

John Adams helped write America's promise of free speech, then signed a law that made criticizing him a crime. The Revolution was won and the Constitution was ratified. But then what happened? Did the Constitution actually stop the new American government from becoming the very thing the Revolution was fought against? Brittany picks up right where the last Tuttle Twins history book left off, traci...

Benedict Arnold saved America at its most desperate hour, then became its most infamous traitor. This is the story of how wounded pride turned a war hero into a villain. Before he became America's most famous traitor, Benedict Arnold was one of its most valuable heroes. In this episode, Brittany traces Arnold's path from successful Connecticut merchant to battlefield legend, and asks the question...

A German tourist's viral videos about hotel rooms and gas stations reminded millions of Americans just how extraordinary their everyday life really is. During the 2026 World Cup, visitors from around the globe are experiencing America for the first time, and their reactions are going viral. Brittany starts with the story of Freddie, a tourist from Germany whose posts about oversized hotel rooms, h...

A place can be captured. An idea cannot — and that idea is what makes America, America. Historian Gordon S. Wood spent his entire career explaining something most countries never have to explain: why they exist. Wood, who passed away this year at 92 — just months before he could have celebrated America's 250th birthday — became one of the most influential voices on the American founding, the Revol...