Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More

Before the development of electricity and electrical communications, the fastest information could travel was the speed of a horse. Maybe a ship might have been a bit faster depending on the route, but for the most part, the speed of information was limited to the speed of a human.  However, there was one exception to this. It was a communications method that could only carry small amounts of info...

The United States federal agency charged with gathering foreign intelligence is the Central Intelligence Agency or the CIA. The CIA is tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information as well as conducting covert action and clandestine operations.  It was created in the shadow of the Second World War and became one of the most important organizations during the Cold W...

Behind almost every web page, email, and podcast is a system that translates addresses understandable to humans to something which can be understood by computers.  The system is one of the foundations of the Internet, yet its origin was in a handmade list that was placed on a single computer.  Unbeknownst to the creators of the system, it would eventually affect the fortunes of entire countries. ...

Every military in the world is a hierarchal organization. There are people at the top who make decisions, people down below who follow those orders, and people in between who make it happen.  Today, most militaries have an elaborate rank structure with multiple ranks in the chain of command.  However, it wasn’t always like that. The modern system of ranks evolved over time, and the ranks that exis...

Every year, around this time, people who live in northern latitude countries turn their clocks ahead one hour. Then, months later, we do the exact same thing in reverse, setting all of our clocks back.  Why do we do this? Is there a good reason for it? Should we continue to do it?  Learn more about the history and future of Daylight Savings Time on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Spon...

In the late 19th century, the American frontier became famous for its outlaws and gangsters. Men like Billy the Kid and Jesse James became notorious for their criminal exploits. While this was happening in the American West, there were similar outlaws in the Australian bush.  One, in particular, has captured the imagination of Australia, and the reason he became so famous was…..unique. Learn more...

Nestled in the heart of West Africa lie two nations with distinct identities yet tied together by a common geography and history: Senegal and The Gambia. The landscape of this region wasn’t always as fragmented as it is now. It wasn’t until the 19th century that it was carved into the separate entities we recognize today, a division that has persisted into contemporary times. Efforts have been mad...

One of the most important advancements in the 20th century was the identification of the structure of the DNA molecule. However, that discovery didn’t appear out of nowhere. It was part of a century-long process that included many advancements in biology, chemistry, and physics.  Solving the secret of the DNA molecule was a major accomplishment, but it wasn’t without controversy. Learn more about...

Since humans began to adopt writing systems, they also created systems for passing along written messages.  For thousands of years, it would have been possible to get messages to distant parts of whatever empire or kingdom you happened to live in, provided you found the right courier and had enough money.  Today, the entire globe is integrated into a connected postal system, allowing physical mess...

In 1804, one of the most significant individuals of the 19th century placed a crown upon his head in the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris and declared himself Emperor of the French.  He went on to revolutionize France and French society, which profoundly affected all of Europe.  His influence was so great the era and the wars of the period were all named after him.  Learn more about Napoleon Bonap...

Approximately 700 years ago, something happened to the Earth’s climate.  The world started to cool down. It wasn’t dramatic enough to cause another ice age and cause ice caps to cover the poles of the Earth, but it did result in significant changes.  In fact, many historians think for a period of about 500 years, this shift in the climate dramatically influenced human history.  Learn more about th...

Several centuries ago, many places celebrated the start of the new year in March, not January.  March was originally the first month of the year, according to the Romans, which is why the Latin numbers for seven, eight, nine, and ten all appear in the months of September, October, November, and December.  That, however, is no longer the case. Now March is the third month and it means the end of th...

Some of the most important battles in history, the ones that changed the course of civilizations, are often very small battles.  In 1532, a battle, really just a skirmish, took place, which completely changed the future paths of Peru, Spain, and the entire continent of South America.  Despite the importance of this battle, few people have ever even heard of it.  Learn more about the Battle of Caja...

Once every 1461 days, sometimes, we have a day on the calendar that we don’t normally have.  This extra day is a necessity if our calendars are kept in sync with the orbit of the Earth around the Sun, but it also can cause problems with people and computers.  Nonetheless, whatever problems it might cause are far less than some of the alternatives, which would require leap weeks and even leap month...

When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, he declared his new regime to be The Third Reich and that it would last 1,000 years. It turned out he was off by 988 years.  The big question for many people outside of Germany was and still is, if that was the third Reich, what were the first two Reichs?  ..and for non-German speakers, what exactly is a Reich? Learn more about the First and Second Reichs a...

The history of warfare has been a history of measures and countermeasures.  When the airplane was invented, RADAR was later invented as a means of advanced detection of airplanes.  RADAR then spurred the development of its own countermeasures to hide airplanes from RADAR so they couldn’t be detected.  Today, these RADAR countermeasures are a key component of many military aircraft and sea vessels....

Most people in the world are required to have a passport when they travel internationally.  Today, there is an international regime covering how passports are to be issued and honored between countries.  However, in the past, the system was much more informal, and if you go back far enough, there was no system in place at all.  Learn more about passports, how they work, and how they came to be on...

One of the most common food items consumed today is cruciferous vegetables. Even if you aren’t familiar with the term, you almost certainly have consumed some before, and there is a good chance you do so on a regular basis.  What many people don’t know is that these vegetables are actually rather modern.  Early neolithic humans never ate broccoli, cabbage, or Brussels sprouts because humans invent...

During the Second World War, one of the most distinguished American aviation units was one that no one thought would even have existed when the war began.  It was a unit of African American aviators who were trained at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabam.  Over a thousand airmen were trained and served in the European theater of the war and were some of the most decorated pilots of the conflict.  Lea...

The American Civil War wasn’t just a military conflict. There was also a major political and legal struggle that took place alongside the military campaigns.  In the last months of the war, President Abraham Lincoln knew that if the war was to truly be the end of the conflict, it was necessary to ban slavery once and for all.  That would require changing the constitution. Learn more about the 13th...

Centuries ago, the most expensive jewelry in the world wasn’t made of diamonds, rubies, or emeralds.  Rather, they were made from an extremely rare substance that was occasionally found inside of mollusks: pearls. Pearls were so valuable that they would only be possessed by kings, queens, and emperors.  Today, the manner in which pearls are made is pretty much the same, but they are more common th...

Wars are often notable points that punctuate the historical timeline. It is a period of tragedy, drama, and often geopolitical changes.  However, there are some wars that have been all but forgotten from history.  One such war was a brief conflict that lasted less than four months and was fought between the United States and Spain in the summer of 1898. Learn more about the Spanish-American war an...

The United States Constitution lays out a set procedure for the election of a president and how a winner is determined from various candidates.  However, it says absolutely nothing about how those candidates are determined in the first place.  Since the first presidential election, the process by which parties have chosen their candidates has changed multiple times and quite dramatically. Learn mo...

If you ever stay up at night scanning through frequencies on shortwave radio, there is a good chance you might come across something very odd and kind of creepy.  You will find a station that is nothing but a disembodied voice reading off a seemingly random string of numbers. There is often an identifying sound or song which is played on a regular basis before another recital of numbers.  These st...

You are probably well aware that Mount Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth.  Because of its status as the highest point on Earth, it has attracted thousands of people who have climbed to the summit. In the process, it has also killed hundreds of people who died in the attempt. Learn more about the history of trying to climb Mount Everest on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponso...