Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More

Question: Who is the most dominant athlete of all time? It’s an interesting question and one which has started endless pub debates. Is that a basketball player like Michael Jordan, a baseball player like Babe Ruth, or a soccer player like Lionel Messi?   Or maybe it’s an athlete in an individual sport like Tiger Woods or Serena Williams. My answer to the question of who is the most dominant athlet...

If you look at the list of officer ranks in the United States armed forces, there are ten ranks listed that are held today. They go from Second Lieutenant all the way up to the rank of General, which is the four-star variant of the rank.  There is a rank above general, a five-star general, which hasn’t been awarded in 70 years. Most people are familiar with these generals as having served in WWII....

In the 1960s, billions of dollars were spent, and 100,000s of people worked to land a human on the moon.  After the success of Apollo 11, five more Apollo missions managed to land on the moon over the next three years.  …and then everyone got bored of flying to the moon, and it was canceled.  Learn more about Apollo 18, 19, and 20, the moon missions that never happened, on this episode of Everythi...

Sometime around eight to nine thousand years ago, ancient people in Asia Minor found a very dull grey metal that turned out to be easy to manipulate when it was heated.  For thousands of years, it was used for a variety of purposes, including as a food additive.  With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, even more uses were found for this unique metal.  However, by the 20th century, scientists...

In the year 54, the Roman Emperor Claudius died, and his adopted son Nero became the Emperor of Rome at the age of 16.  His reign was one of the most infamous in history, and over 2000 years after he came to power, his name is still used to invoke the image of a cruel ruler and a despot. But what exactly made him so bad, and was he really as bad as the legends say? Learn more about Emperor Nero an...

You are probably familiar with several of the great pre-Columbian cities in the Americas. Places like Tikal in Guatemala, Copan in Honduras, and Tenochtitlan in Mexico are some of the great legacies of the civilizations that came before.  However, all of these population centers were located in Mesoamerican. Most of the people who lived in what is today the United States and Canada were nomadic an...

In 1845, farmers around Europe suffered from a blight that devastated the potato crop.  This lasted for several years, but nowhere was it more pronounced than it was on the island of Ireland, where it resulted in death and mass migration. The effects of this potato blight can still be witnessed in the world today. Learn more about the Great Irish Famine, also known as the Irish Potato Famine, on t...

The 19th century saw an explosion in population in London. The city grew severalfold and became the largest city in the world.  With so many people and the city growing so rapidly, transportation became a huge problem.  One solution was to provide the new technology known as locomotives in the city. However, building train tracks would require a great deal of land which simply didn’t exist. The so...

There is a very good chance that many of you listening have had pasta, maybe within the last week.  Pasta is a simple, affordable food that comes in a wide variety of forms. It can be served with almost anything and in a wide variety of styles.  Despite its current global nature, pasta is a food that originated in Italy……or did it? Learn more about pasta, how it originated, and how it spread aroun...

When most people think of Switzerland, they think of a small country embedded in the Alps that makes fine chocolates and is the home of the cuckoo clock. They have been neutral in European conflicts for almost 500 years, and they serve as the headquarters for several international organizations.  Yet, it was the Swiss who, during the Renaissance, were some of the most feared and in-demand mercenar...

Every single rocket that has ever been launched into space has been a rocket that burned some sort of fuel.  These chemical fuel rockets have worked well for making the short trip to orbit. Beyond that point, however, they are not necessarily the best option for space travel.  There are a host of proposed methods for space travel that don’t involve rockets, some of which have already been tested. ...

Everyone, I have some good news and some bad news.  The bad news is that you and everyone else listening to me right now are mortal.  As of the recording of this episode, time is undefeated.  The good news is that there has never been a better time to be alive and that, historically speaking, life expectancies are at an all-time high.  Learn more about life expectancies throughout human history an...

For over 300 years, the Romanov family ruled over the Russian Empire.  After the Communist Revolution, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the throne, and he and his family were placed under house arrest, where they ultimately met a grizzly fate. For decades after their deaths, the world wondered what happened to them until their bodies were discovered and identified 80 years later.  Learn more about the f...

One of the most important inventions in human history was artificial lighting. With the electric lightbulb, the night could be illuminated, allowing people to extend their productive hours in the day and to work in places that were otherwise difficult or impossible.  While the incandescent bulb was a breakthrough, it wasn’t actually very efficient. It wouldn’t be until decades later that a radical...

After the First World War in France, many generals thought that the end of the war was really just a pause before another war began. They wanted to make sure that the next time war broke out with Germany, they were ready and could never be invaded again.  To that end, they created a series of defensive fortifications they believed to be impregnable.  Spoiler alert: it didn’t work.  Learn more abou...

Thousands of years ago, humans discovered a black-yellowish liquid that come out from the ground and could burn when it was set on fire.  Today, the fluid that seeped from the rocks is responsible for much of our modern world. But how does that fluid become usable fuel, and how exactly do you get it out of the rocks?  Learn more about petroleum, aka crude oil, and how it gets from the ground to yo...

In the TV series Game of Thrones, there were four different seasons where disputes were determined with trial by combat.  As fictional as the Game of Thrones universe is, the idea of resolving legal disputes by fighting, sometimes to the death, was historically accurate.  For centuries, trial by combat was a legitimate option for conflict resolution, and according to some theories, it might still...

The month of January was named after the Roman god Janus who had two faces, one on each side of his head.  Janus was the god of waging war and making peace. Of beginnings and endings, and of change and passages. …and while there is no evidence to prove it, I’m pretty sure that Janus would have been the god of questions and answers. Stay tuned while I answer listener questions on the 14 questions a...

Located off the coast of Southeast Asia lies an archipelago of 7,641 islands that constitute the nation of the Philippines.  The Philippines is one of the largest countries in the world by population and has a history and a culture, unlike any other country in Asia.  The process through which the modern nation of the modern nation of the Philippines came to be is a result of its unique history.  L...

In 1914, a minor league baseball team in Baltimore, Maryland, signed a young player from the St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys—a school for delinquent boys and orphans.  Unbeknownst to them, the wayward boy would go on to completely transform the game of baseball and become one of the most famous people in American history.  The changes in the sport that he ushered in can still be seen today,...

In the 1920s and 1930s, one of the most cutting-edge and exciting forms of transportation was the zeppelin.  Germany’s Luftschiffbau Zeppelin Company created lighter-than-air airships that transported passengers millions of miles worldwide.  This new form of transportation which seemed to be the future, came to a sudden and dramatic end on one horrific day in 1937 in New Jersey.  Learn more about...

There are an infinite number of numbers, but some numbers are more important than others.  One number, which might just be the most important number, lies hidden in a wide variety of things in the natural world. It can be found in everything from the mathematics of radioactive decay to population growth and even compound interest.  The number even turns out to have a central role in calculus and m...

Thousands of years ago, the first humans accidentally created the first beer and wine. This occurred naturally when yeast in the air converted sugars into alcohol.  However, it wasn’t until thousands of years later that new techniques were developed to process those beverages, but even then, the products they created weren’t designed for consumption.  Eventually, these techniques were perfected to...

One of the most important substances throughout world history has been salt.  Salt might seem mundane, but it is actually necessary for the functioning of life.  Salt has been used as a preservative for millennia, a seasoning, and even a medium on exchange. Salt is one of the universal things that have remained the same throughout history and everywhere on Earth. Learn more about salt and its impo...

During the 14th century, the world saw one of its most traumatic episodes.  A plague spread through Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa that was unlike anything the world had ever seen.  In some locations, over half of the population died. Those who survived found themselves in a whole new world where the social and economic rules had been totally changed.  Learn more about the Black D...