Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ The election of 1860 was unquestionably the most important election in American history.  The presidential election after that was still important, but it has the distinction of being the oddest presidential election in history, if for no other reason than it was conducted in the middle of a civil war.  Learn more about the ele...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ In 1946 after the conclusion of the Second World War, a Dutch man was accused of collaborating with the Nazis and plundering the Netherlands of some of its greatest artistic works.  During the trial, he came up with a defense that seemed to everyone to be preposterous, yet wound up being true.  Learn more about Han van Meegeren...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ During the US Civil War, over a quarter million African-Americans served and fought on the Union side with distinction. After the Civil War, in a reorganization of the United States Army, permanent, albeit segregated, units of black soldiers were created. These units served in almost every military conflict fought by the United...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ At the 1862 London International Exhibition, an inventor by the name of Andrew Parkes introduced a new product based on cellulose that he called Parkesine. Little did he know that this material which could be made elastic when heated and molded into almost any shape imaginable would be the basis for an enormous percentage of th...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ Beginning soon after the start of the Renisanase and going through to the early 19th century an intellectual community developed in Europe and later in the Americas. This community wasn’t in any particular geographic place, but rather was a network of intellectuals who shared their ideas about philosophy, science, and politics....

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ Around 1887, 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...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ We like to think of terrorist plots as being a condition of the modern world. However, there were such plots were around over two thousand years ago.  During the hectic period of the end of the Roman Republic, Rome was faced with a terrorist plot of its own.  A group of disgruntled aristocrats wanted to burn down the city and t...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ From August 15 to August 20, in the year 636, one of the most important battles in history took place.  The participants in the battle couldn’t have known it, but the results of that battle would shape world history for the next 1400 years.   Much of the geography of the world today, can be traced back to the results from those...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ 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 incredible. It was also totally il...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ In the United States and Britain in the 19th century, there was a competitive activity that might have been the most popular sport in either country. Tens of thousands of people would show up to witness it live and the top athletes got endorsement deals and had their own trading cards, and tremendous amounts of money was wagere...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ What did the first Chinese Emperor Qin, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Gengis Kahn, the Queen of Sheba, and all their contemporaries who lived when they did have in common?  None of them ever ate a potato.  The potato is a rather new addition to the diets of the old world, and one which revolutionized civilization.  Learn...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ If you’ve been around long enough, you might have heard something being described as a white elephant.  A white elephant is something that is a burden, usually costly, that you can’t get rid of. Why did that particular color of that particular animal get picked to represent something so odious?  Learn more about white elephants...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ In 1696, the mathematician Johann Bernoulli posited a very simple question. Assuming no friction, what was the fastest shape for an object to slide down to go from point A to point B? That simple question stumped some of the world’s greatest mathematicians. The answer to that question isn’t what you think it might be, and it ha...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ Sometime almost 2000 years ago, a Chinese alchemist experimenting with three different ingredients discovered something astonishing. When the ingredients were subjected to a flame, they didn’t just burn, there was a bang.  Over the course of centuries, this discovery spread around the world and dramatically shaped world history...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ On September 13, 1848, a 25-year-old man named Phineas Gage received a horrific brain injury while working on a railroad in Vermont. The odds of anyone surviving such an accident were a million to one.  Yet, despite astronomical odds, he survived his injury and he became a case study for neuroscientists ever since.  Learn more...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ As an outsider, the British peerage system is really confusing. There are princes, dukes, earls, and barons.  Some of the titles are hereditary, and some of them are not.  The titles have a hierarchy, but is a viscount higher or lower in status than a marquess, and is a baron higher or lower than an earl? Learn more about the B...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ For centuries, humans have built canals to facilitate the transportation of people and goods.  Usually, they are built to dramatically save time, like how the Panama and Suez canals can help avoid a trip around an entire continent. However, there is currently a canal being built that is designed to replicate a natural feature t...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ Ancient Rome had an enormous number of customs and traditions. Some of them have been passed down to us in the names of our months, or the letters in the Latin alphabet.  However, they also had a lot of very customs which to us seem very strange.  One of the strangest, and most powerful to the Romans, were the traditions surrou...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ The 1920s and 1930s were the heydays of organized crime in New York City. There were several mobsters from that period such as Dutch Schultz and Lucky Luciano who terrorized the city and made a fortune. Amongst all of the organized crime figures in New York, there was one who was different from all the rest.  She was a woman. ...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ On November 20, 1917, German soldiers on the Western Front saw something that had never been seen in the history of warfare.  They witnessed over 400 lumbering metal beasts heading their way. If they tried to shoot them, the bullets would just bounce off.  They were some of the first people to be introduced to tank warfare. Lea...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ The largest single killer of human beings throughout history has been disease.  With the advent of modern medicine and the understanding of how bacteria, viruses, and parasites work, we’ve made enormous strides in reducing incidents of disease. In a few cases, we have completely or almost completely eradicated diseases from the...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ In 1914, the British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition set out to become the first to cross the continent of Antarctica by land.  They did not achieve their goal. However, their failure ended up becoming one of the greatest stories of perseverance and of the tenacity of the human spirit.  Learn more about Ernest Shackleton an...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ There is one substance that makes up 98% of the observable matter in the universe, yet you will almost never encounter it in its native form.  It is inside your body right now and life wouldn’t be possible without it, yet it is an extremely dangerous substance that could kill you if handled improperly.  I am of course talking a...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ Classical music is not usually associated with rowdiness and mayhem. They tend to be rather well-behaved and if anything, they might express their disapproval by simplifying not clapping loudly enough.  However, there was one major exception to this. On a single night in Paris about 110 years ago, a crowd erupted into a riot ov...

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the Great War, the war to end all wars, came to an end. In the preceding four years and four months, the world saw the greatest bloodletting history up until that point.  Even after the announcement of the armistice, the war continued for several hours.  Du...