Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More

Located on the island of Java in Indonesia, just 100 kilometers from the capital of Jakarta, lies what might be one of the most important archeology sites in the world.  While it has been known to locals for centuries and to professional archeologists for over 100 years, it has only been seriously studied in the last several decades.  Some of the estimates of the age of this site, if true, would r...

In the 1880s, a Polish ophthalmologist set out to create a universal language. A language that could be a second language for everyone around that world that no one country or one people would control.  It was a good idea, but things didn’t quite pan out as he had hoped, and along the way, there was shockingly violent resistance to this new language.  Learn more about Esperanto, how it was develop...

One of the most popular forms of media is comic books. Initially created as entertainment for children, they have since grown into a global media consumed by people of all ages.  The development of the comic book was not something that came out of nowhere. It was the culmination of a type of communication that actually began thousands of years ago. Learn more about comic books, where they came fro...

In the early morning of November 13, 1833, one of the greatest astronomical spectacles in recorded history took place. It was seen by millions of people, and no one was sure what was happening. Some thought it was the end of the world or judgment day.  Both common people and scientists recorded the event, and it turned out that the explanation for what happened was just an extraordinary occurrence...

Located off the Northwestern Coast of continental Europe lies an archipelago of islands that most of you are familiar with.  The thing is, the name of the islands and the names of the places that make up the islands are often used incorrectly.  Moreover, how all the various parts of this archipelago are related to each other is pretty confusing as well. Learn more about England, Great Britain, the...

What do lasers, photovoltaic cells, the transistor, digital cameras, cell phone technology, the communication satellite, computer networking, radio astronomy, and the UNIX operating system have in common? They were all invented or developed at the same place by the greatest collection of scientists and engineers ever assembled. Learn more about Bell Labs, the greatest research laboratory in histor...

In January 897, something unprecedented took place in Rome.  Pope Formosa, the leader of the Catholic Church, was put on trial.  What made this unprecedented wasn’t that the pope was on trial, although it was unprecedented.  The remarkable thing was that Pope Formosa had died seven months earlier, and it was his exhumed corpse that was in the courtroom. Learn more about the Cadaver Synod, perhaps...

There was no product more important to the economy of the ancient world than silk.  Silk was transported thousands of miles to be purchased by people so far away from its source that they had no clue where it came from.  The source of silk, however, was China, and for centuries, they had a monopoly, which brought them tremendous wealth.  That was until they didn’t.  Learn more about how the secret...

International borders can be very strange things.  Sometimes they measured down to the millimeter and a heavily marked and fortified.  Other times they run through desolate areas where hardly anyone pays attention to the actual location.  The latter was the case with much of the US/Mexican border in the early 20th century, and it caused a great deal of confusion.  Learn more about Rio Rico, the Am...

In June of every year, the sun has its solstice. In the north, the days are long; in the south, the days are short, and we can plan our calendars around this event.  Just as certain as the sun follows its path in the sky, so too do the listeners of this podcast have questions.  Just as certain as there are questions, so too do I have answers.  Stay tuned for volume seven of questions and answers o...

There is a giant rift in East Africa today. It is a rift that literally tearing countries apart.  This rift isn’t cultural, political, or economic, it is geologic. Africa is quite literally being torn apart.  In several million years, Africa will be split into two continents, and while the process will take a long time, you see ample evidence for it right now. Learn more about the East Africa Rift...

In a previous episode, I spoke about the Drake equation and the odds of there being intelligent extraterrestrial life. Many people have used the Drake equation to argue that it is almost impossible for there not to be intelligent life in our galaxy.  However, in the summer of 1950, physicist Enrico Fermi pushed back against this by asking a very simple question: if there are so many intelligent ci...

If you are listening to me speak these words, regardless of where in the world you live, you are part of a global network we call human civilization. You share in the ideas, technology, and goods created worldwide and by people in your community. Most people on the planet are a part of this system. But not everyone. Some people have remained separated from this system and still live in their tradi...

Insurance seems like a pretty modern concept. There are insurance commercials on television, and insurance companies sponsor major sports teams.  Most of us have to buy insurance, or we are at least under someone else’s insurance policy. However, insurance is far from a modern concept. It is actually one of the oldest financial arrangements in human history. Learn more about insurance, how it was...

In 1585, Sir Walter Raleigh established an English colony on an island in what is today the state of North Carolina. After a slow start, over 100 people moved to the island to start a new life and establish this English outpost at the edge of the new world.  When a ship returned to the colony in 1590, what they found shocked them and began a mystery that remains unsolved to this day. Learn more ab...

Children are highly inquisitive and are always asking questions. One of the most common questions that children have is, “why is the sky blue?”  It is a simple and reasonable question, yet the answer is rather complicated, and most adults really aren’t sure why the sky is blue. Learn why the sky is blue and how to answer a child’s most common question on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily...

During the 5th century, one name struck fear into the hearts of almost every European: Attila, leader of the Huns.  For a period of almost 20 years, Attila ravaged Europe, conquering various tribes and causing one of the largest migrations ever seen on the continent. Then, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, the conquests of Attila stopped, and the Huns were no longer a major power. Learn more about...

There were millions of stories that came out of the second world war.  However, there were none like that of Tsutomu Yamaguchi. On August 6, 1945, he survived an event that no one in world history had encountered before.  Just three days later, he had the misfortune of having to go through it again.  Learn more about Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the man who survived not one but two atomic bombs, on this epi...

There are many factors that go into the outcome of a battle. The number of soldiers, training, supplies, the weather, and the terrain the battle is fought on all play a part in determining the outcome. However, the biggest factor is the one that no one can control: luck.  There has never been a battle where luck played a greater role than one that took place over 2,000 years ago. Learn more about...

Imagine you want to start a brand new country. Only, you don’t want to go through the messy process of starting a revolution or a civil war in a currently existing country.  You want to find an empty piece of land for yourself that no one has claimed.  Is such a thing possible? Learn more about the doctrine of Terra Nullius and where it could still theoretically be exercised in the world today, on...

Lying northeast of Australia and almost east of Papua New Guinea lies one of the world’s lesser-known and seldom visited countries: The Solomon Islands. The country has few resources, is located on no major shipping routes, and is seldom mentioned in any news stories whatsoever. Yet it played a major role in the Second World War and is one of the most linguistically diverse places on the planet. ...

There is a particular type of number that is so common we have keys on calculators to handle them.  However, thousands of years ago, their discovery was so upsetting to one group that it may have led to the destruction of their religion and possibly the murder of the man who made the discovery.  Today, they are commonplace enough to be taught in grade schools. Learn more about irrational numbers a...

The English language is a very odd thing.  We use many phrases and idioms every day that make no sense if you don’t understand the cultural references behind them. In particular, we have a large number of idioms that come from the world of sports. Idioms which are often used by people who know nothing about the sport being referenced.  Learn more about idioms and phrases in the English language th...

If you were to ask most people what the very first invention that humans came up with is, many of them might say the wheel.  It isn’t a bad guess, but believe it not, the wheel was nowhere close to being the first invention.  In fact, as far as we know, there were a whole bunch of things that were invented before the wheel, and in fact, probably had to have been invented before the wheel. Learn mo...

On May 18, 1980, one of the most violent and cataclysmic natural disasters of the modern era took place.  Mount St. Helens, a stratovolcano located approximately 100 miles or 160 kilometers south of Seattle, exploded.  The effects of the explosion could be noticed over 1,000 miles away, and it forever changed the landscape of southern Washington State. Learn more about Mount Saint Helens, the expl...