Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More

When Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act of 1862, there was a rush of people who moved west to claim the free land that was offered.  However, there was a problem. Creating physical divisions for plots of land on the prairie was difficult when there was no stone or wood.  Eventually, there was a solution to the problem, which offered a cheap way to divide land…and created a whole host of new...

Nuclear weapons are the most devastating things humans have ever created. They are so powerful and terrible that nations that have them strictly control how they are used and handled.  That being said, over the 75-year history that nuclear weapons have existed, accidents have happened.  While not common, they have happened enough that the US military has a code word for such events.  Learn more ab...

Most of our major divisions of time are based on some sort of natural event.  A year is one orbit of the Earth around the sun. A month is one orbit of the Moon around the Earth. A day is one rotation of the Earth about its axis.  However, one of the most commonly used units of time has no natural analog whatsoever. Learn more about why there are seven days in a week and where the names for the day...

Every year parts of the planet are hit by devastating typhoons and hurricanes. They can cause billions of dollars of damage and can take hundreds if not thousands of lives.  But why do these storms exist? What causes their distinctive spiral shape with an eye in the middle? And why do they only appear in certain parts of the world at certain times of the year?  And while we’re at it, what is the d...

When Napoleon Bonaparte conquered much of Europe in the early 19th century, he didn’t create a monolithic empire that was centrally run out of Paris. Well, he sort of did, but at least on paper, he didn’t. Rather, what he did was set up his family members as monarchs to rule in his place.  One of those family members who was set up as king ended up moving to New Jersey. Learn more about Joseph Bon...

Ninjas are awesome. They’re silent, they can turn invisible, and they can totally flip out and kill people, especially their mortal enemies…pirates.  …or at least that is what popular culture would like you to believe.  Were ninjas really as powerful as they are made out to be? Were they the ultimate silent assassins? Learn more about ninjas, real ninjas, on this episode of Everything Everywhere D...

Born in 1815, Ada Byron was the only legitimate child of the famous poet Lord Byron.  Unlike her famous father, Ada did not pursue a literary career. Guided by her mother, she took a diametrically different path studying math and logic. At the age of 17, she had a chance encounter with Charles Babbage, who was designing the world’s first mechanical computer. It was the beginning of a groundbreakin...

It seems like the sort of thing humans have used throughout our existence, but historically speaking, footwear is a relatively new invention.  For hundreds of thousands of years, humans spent their entire lives barefoot. Then someone got the bright idea that it might be a good idea to put something between our feet and the ground, and from there, it was a direct path to Air Jordans, hiking boots,...

The death of a British monarch is a very big event. Thousands of people may take part in the funeral and procession, with millions more lining up to pay their respects and billions more watching on television. This didn’t always use to be the case, however.  In particular, there was one English King who not only didn’t get an elaborate funeral, no one knew where his body was for over 500 years.  L...

In the summer of 1971, Stanford professor of psychology Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment to determine if cruelty amongst people of authority was because of the position or the people.  Twenty-four men were selected and randomly assigned roles of guard or prisoner.  The results were shocking and are still being debated over 50 years later.  Learn more about the Stanford Prison Experiment, on...

Every so often, astronomers will publish photos taken with an astronomical telescope and say that the object they captured is so many billions of light years away.  But how could they know the distance of something from just looking at it?  Furthermore, astronomers claim that the universe is almost 14 billion years old. How could they possibly know that? Well, there are answers to these questions,...

On the morning of August 7, 1974, the people of New York City woke up to witness one of the most incredible sights that the city had ever seen.  Between the two towers of the New York World Trade Center, 1,350 feet off of the ground, was a man who was waking on a wire. It was audacious. It was dangerous. It was also totally illegal.  Learn more about Philippe Petit and the artistic crime of the ce...

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...

English is a very strange language. It is a Germanic language where half of the words come from a Romance language. We have a host of words that make absolutely no sense in terms of spelling or pronunciation.  Perhaps strangest of all, some of the greatest literary works in the English language are filled with words that aren’t even in the language anymore.  Learn more about the English of Shakesp...

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the American military was on the defensive. They had been hit hard, and it would be months before they could regroup and strike back. However, one American general had an idea. He hatched a plan where the Americans could strike back immediately to let the Japanese know that they were vulnerable.  It was a risky one-way mission unlike any in the history of...

Located between England and France are several islands which have a unique status in the international community.  They aren’t part of any country, nor are they a territory of a country.  They share the same monarch as the UK but are not part of the Commonwealth.  Learn about the Channel Islands, the Bailiwick of Jersey, and the Bailiwick of Guernsey, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily...

Around 3,500 years ago, the people of Central America discovered something marvelous: the cacao bean could be used to create a fermented beverage that was unlike anything they had experienced.  For centuries, the cacao bean became so important in that part of the world that it was used as money.  Eventually, the bean was taken from the Americas to Europe, where it was radically transformed. Learn...

When the 13 American colonies decided to form a proper constitution, the single largest question which confronted them was how their legislature would be organized.  This question was really the crux of the entire constitutional convention, and if it couldn’t be resolved, it was likely there would be no constitution.  Once it was resolved, Congress evolved with its own set of rules and traditions....

In 201 BC, the Romans were victorious over their archrivals, the city-state of Carthage, in the Second Punic War.  This was was the closest which Rome had ever come to defeat and almost spelled the end of the republic.  50 years later, some Romans felt that they left the job unfinished. In fact, some Romans could talk about nothing else.  Learn more about the Third Punic War and the destruction of...

Computers have obviously transformed our world. You wouldn’t be listing to my voice right now if it wasn’t for computers.  However, the first computers, a device that could perform arbitrary calculations, actually came well before electronics. It was made of gears, cogs, and levers, and it was able to perform mathematical calculations as well as run simple programs.  Learn more about Charles Babba...

In the ancient world, only seven metals were identified and named: gold, silver, iron, lead, copper, mercury, and tin.  Tin probably doesn’t rank up there with the other metals in terms of how interestingness….or usefulness. Nonetheless, tin was incredibly important to the ancient world and remains incredibly important today.  In fact, tin is probably playing a role in your life right now, and you...

On June 24, 1948, the Soviet Union placed a blockade on Berlin's American, British, and French-occupied zones.  No food, fuel, or supplies could enter the area known as West Berlin.  Many people thought that either the allies would have to capitulate or engage in an armed conflict. However, the Americans and British eventually figured out another way around the blockade. Learn more about the Berli...

You can find restaurants serving Japan’s greatest cultural export all over the world: sushi.  While many people enjoy sushi, most people have no idea of the origins of sushi beyond the fact that it comes from Japan.  There is also a great deal of confusion about what proper sushi etiquette is and what constitutes real sushi.  Learn more about the history of sushi and the global sushi industry on t...

During World War II, one of the biggest concerns of the Allies was the development of an atomic bomb.  As such, the allies and various partisan groups in occupied countries made the destruction of anything related to the Nazi atomic program a high priority. One place, in particular, was subject to allied bombing, commando missions, and partisan sabotage throughout the war.  Learn more about the Te...

Long before Europeans arrived in North America, native people told stories of large hairy men who lived in the woods.  For the last several centuries, periodic reports of such creatures have appeared periodically all over the United States and Canada.  In the late 60s and early 70s, photos and movies started to appear, which seemed to provide evidence of these creatures…..seemed. Learn more about...