Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More

Every year, on the second Sunday in May, 96 countries around the world celebrate Mother’s Day. Dozens of other countries celebrate the same thing on different days throughout the year.  Mother’s Day wasn’t always a thing, however. Its creation was due to a small number of very determined people…and, of course, greeting card companies.  Learn more about Mother’s Day and how it became a holiday on t...

Barely a month after the Normandy Landing in 1944, the allied powers were already thinking of what the post-world would look like. One of the big issues was the creation of a monetary system that could replace the then abandoned gold standard.  So, in at a resort in New Hampshire, representatives from 44 countries hammered out a new international monetary system that would govern the world for the...

In 1839, a French scientist by the name of Edmond Becquerel was experimenting with an electrochemical cell when he discovered something interesting.  When it was exposed to light, it produced an electrical current.  For over a hundred years, this was mostly a scientific curiosity. However, with the advent of the space age, this curiosity began to find practical uses.  Learn more about solar cells...

In October 1919, the champions of the National League, the Cincinnati Reds, faced the champions of the American League, the Chicago White Sox in the World Series.  While Cincinnati won the championship on the field five games to three, the series will be forever remembered because of the events surrounding it. Even a hundred years later, it remains one of the most significant events in American pr...

It is estimated that within the observable universe there might be as many as septillion stars. While each of them is far larger than the Earth, they all differ in terms of age, size, color, and composition.  Despite being very far away, we know a surprisingly large amount about them through observation and an understanding of the basic units of matter. Learn more about stars, how they are born, a...

Over the centuries, there has been a host of self-proclaimed prophets, astrologers, scientists, and cranks who have predicted the end of the world.  Some of them have been extremely precise in when they predicted when the world will end.  Spoiler: to date, none of the end of the world predictions have come true. Learn more about end of the world predictions, and how the people who believed it reac...

In January 1920, an Italian American businessman in Boston started a new enterprise. In order to raise money, he took $100 investments from 18 people and offered them a fabulous return on their money in only 45 days, and he delivered on his promise.  Soon people were lining up to give him their money and everything worked great…. …until it didn’t. Learn more about Charles Ponzi, the man whose name...

Located approximately 1500 kilometers or 950 miles south of the equator and split by the International Date Line, is a small chain of islands which was was believed to be the birthplace of Polynesian civilization. Today these islands are divided between two different countries. Despite a common culture and language, the differences between them keep getting larger over time. Learn about Samoa, bot...

I’ve done episodes before about people who have saved a large number of human lives. Mostly, these people have done so through inventions or innovations in fields like agriculture or medicine.  What about people who prevented an impending disaster? Like when Superman stops an asteroid from hitting the Earth.  Well, there was such a case, and thanks to the actions of a single man, millions of lives...

In 1880, the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was commissioned to compose a work in honor of the completion of a new cathedral.  What he wrote became one of the best known, over the top, and difficult to produce pieces of music in history. Despite its popularity almost 150 years later, the composer actually thought it was one of his worst works.  Learn more about the 1812 Overture, how it...

Many of the foods that people associate with America didn’t actually originate in the United States. Hamburgers, hot dogs, and pizza are all things that were popularized in the US but didn’t originate there.  However, there is one form of cuisine that is uniquely American; Barbecue. While it is American, it developed with influences from Native Americans, Africans, and Europeans.   Learn more abou...

Whether or not you know it, you use them every day. You were actually trained to use them as a child. Much of the world we live in today is directly or indirectly a result of their use.  While they are ideally suited for computers, they were actually first developed thousands of years ago.  Learn more about algorithms, what they are, how they work, and how they impact the world today, on this epis...

The Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed was a Hungarian noblewoman in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.  She was highly educated, spoke at least four languages, had eight children, and lived in a place.  And, oh by the way, she was one of the most prolific and sadistic serial killers in world history.  Learn more about Elizabeth Báthory, aka the Countess of Blood, on this Episode of Everythi...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ For a period of about 200 years, and really intensely for less than 50 years, the world’s monetary system functioned on a gold standard.  During the gold standard, the world basically functioned for the first time under a single global currency.  Economists have been debating the merits of the system ever since.    Learn more a...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ August Wilhelm Iffland was one of the finest German actors in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.  That fact alone would probably not make him worthy of a podcast episode. What does make him worthy of a podcast episode is a ring that bears his name which has been passed down from actor to actor for over 200 years.  It is a...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ Thousands of years ago, enormous furry elephants roamed the northern latitudes of Europe, Asia, and North America.  While these animals are now extinct, they were actually around much more recently than most people realize, and because of where and when they existed, we know a shocking amount about them.  Learn more about Mammu...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ Record your family's memories at https://StoryWorth.com/Everything -------------------------------- Prior to the 19th century, capturing images required the talent of an artist and a whole lot of time.  The transition from capturing images as an art to that of a science took multiple innovations and discoveries. Those innovatio...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ Record your family's memories at https://StoryWorth.com/Everything -------------------------------- In the 1960s, billions of dollars 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 go...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ Record your family's memories at https://StoryWorth.com/Everything -------------------------------- Five different times during the Earth’s history, the planet has entered a prolonged period of reduced temperatures. When this happens, massive ice sheets form, and sea levels drop.  While some of these events occurred billions of...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ Record your family's memories at https://StoryWorth.com/Everything -------------------------------- In William Golding’s 1954 novel, the Lord of the Flies, a group of young boys find themselves on a deserted island. Stuck there, they create their own civilization which eventually turns violent and savage.  The book was a statem...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ Record your family's memories at https://StoryWorth.com/Everything -------------------------------- Around 10,000 years ago, someone in Southeast Asia captured a bird that lived on the floor of the jungle. Today, billions of descendants of that bird now live on six different continents and provide food for billions of people. ...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ Statistically speaking, about 90% of you listening to my words right now are right-handed. Of the rest of you, almost all of you will be left-handed.  The question of why so many more people are right-handed as opposed to left-handed is one that people have asked for centuries. It is an imbalance that has existed throughout his...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ Money is a very strange thing. All of us use it. We spend it, earn it, and save it. We know it when we see it. Yet, even some of the world’s best economists have a very hard time defining it.  It has been around for thousands of years, yet there is still innovation being made with it today. Learn more about the history of money...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ One of the most successful enterprises of the Middle Ages was a collection of free cities located in Northern Germany and along the North and Baltic Seas.  These cities created one of the greatest trade networks that the world had ever seen and for several centuries dominated trade and economics in Northern Europe. It was the e...

Leave a review over at Podchase.com this month and help raise money for World Central Kitchen and help Ukrainian Refugees. https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/everything-everywhere-daily-1324776 -------------------------------- Ever since people have had secrets, people have taken measures to protect those secrets.  The first methods to hide secrets were simple and mechanical. Over time they becam...