Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More

What do you do when you are facing a crisis? Perhaps you might consult a friend, or maybe some sort of expert? Well, the ancient Romans had a go-to source for advice whenever they a major problem. And the advice they got was…...different. Learn more about The Sibylline Books, and how they gave the Romans advice during times of crisis, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more abou...

Every so often you might hear something on the news about a record high or low temperature being set. Usually, these might be records for a particular month, or maybe for a particular place. Temperature records, especially global records, can be very contentious and there are rigid rules surrounding how such recordings are taken. Some temperature records might take years to be verified. Learn more...

One of the brightest things in the universe is caused by one of the most powerful explosions in the universe: a supernova. While they don’t happen very often, they were known to ancient peoples and their appearance would often be recorded because they were such a rare and special event. Today, astrophysicists have a much better understanding of what supernovas are and how they can help us better u...

Almost as soon as Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947, people began thinking of ways to transport passengers at supersonic speeds. However, the challenges in creating a passenger aircraft that could travel at supersonic speeds were much greater than making a fighter aircraft that could do the same. In 1976, a British/French consortium launched the inaugural flight of the most successful s...

On August 4, 1997, Jeanne Calment passed away in Arles, France. At the time, it was reported that she was 122 years and 164 days old. No one else has ever been verified to have ever even lived to the age of 120. However, in the years since her passing, many people have begun to question her story. Not only might she not have been a supercentenarian, but she might not have even been a centenarian a...

In the 7th century, the world saw the rise of one of the most important religious and political forces in history: Islam. Springing forth from the Arabian Peninsula, within a matter of months, the Islamic Caliphate had become one of the largest empires on Earth. Much of that growth was due to one man. He wasn’t a religious leader, and he wasn’t the head of the empire. He was one of the greatest mi...

The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey is one of the largest, oldest, and most significant buildings in the world. It has served as a holy place for three different religions and has been the focal point for two different empires. Almost, 1,500 years after its construction, it is still making headlines today. Learn more about the Hagia Sophia on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn mor...

Amelia Earheart was a pioneer in the early days of aviation. She became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. She was the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California. In 1937, she set out on her greatest adventure ever. It would be the longest single flight in history and it would take her around the world. However, on July 2, 1937, she took off from Papua New Guinea and was neve...

From the very founding of the United States, there was a debate that took place amongst the representatives from the 13 states. Where should be the capital of the new country be located? A compromise was eventually reached where the states of Maryland and Virginia would donate a total of 100 square miles of land along the Potomac River for the new Federal Capital. Learn more about Washington DC, i...

One of the saddest things in the modern world is that with all of our technology, and with all of the information in the world at our fingertips, there are more people today who think the Earth is flat than there were 20 years ago. While most people don’t subscribe to this, thankfully, most people have never really given the idea much thought. They know the Earth is round, but they can’t really ar...

In the middle ages, a legend persisted among Europeans that there was a Christian ruler in Asia, or Africa, who would come to join with European Christians to help fight Moslems. The only problem was, the distant Christian ruler didn’t exist. Yet, while the ruler was a fable, the story was actually based on some facts. Learn more about the legendary Prester John, and how Europeans pinned their hop...

On July 1, 2020, a world traveler who was grounded by an international pandemic made the business and personal decision to launch the podcast he wanted to listen to. One year later, he’s celebrating the one-year anniversary of his podcast. Learn more about years, anniversaries, and the Everything Everywhere Daily podcast on the one-year anniversary episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn mor...

The Earth takes a year to go around the sun, and a day to turn on its axis. It is tilted 23.5 degrees which is what causes the seasons. All of these facts which you learned in school are true, but they are not permanent. They change, very slowly, over time. One astrophysicist in the 1920s figured out that all of these cycles could interact with each other, affecting the long term climate of the Ea...

Located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is one of the smallest countries in the world. The country has only one proper hotel and that has just 9 rooms. Once you visit the country, there is no car rental service, there isn’t an ATM machine anywhere in the country, and the entire country doesn’t take credit cards. Oh, and good luck trying to get online. Learn more about Tuvalu, the least visited...

Unquestionably, the most popular clothing innovation of the last 150 years has been blue jeans. They can be found all over the world, yet they have become synonymous with American culture. While the modern blue jeans are definitely American, their origin actually goes back centuries earlier to Europe. Learn more about the history of blue jeans and how they became so popular on this episode of Ever...

On July 20, 1976, Viking 1 became the first robotic lander to land on Mars. On September 3, its sister Viking 2 followed suit. Both of them carried experiments to test for biology on Mars, something which no subsequent Mars lander since has replicated. The results from these chemical experiments have divided researchers for decades and have been the cause of one of the greatest debates in planetar...

In 1990, filmmaker Peter Brosnan set out to find a legendary Egyptian city that was lost to time and buried by sand dunes. After years of battling local officials, he finally was given the approval to begin an archeological dig. What he found were 35-foot tall statues of the Pharoah Ramses II and enormous sphinxes weighing over 5 tons. Where did they make this discovery? Near Santa Barbara. Learn...

One of the interesting things about temperature is that no matter how cold you’ve ever been, or how low of a temperature anyone has ever achieved, you can always get colder, if only by a little bit. That is because temperature has an absolute barrier that can never be broken. Learn more about absolute zero and the attempts to get ever close to the impossible temperature on this episode of Everythi...

There is an old saying that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. But sometimes, one person’s treasure is just another persons’ treasure that they can’t afford. I’m talking about the realm of ultra-expensive items which would be more than most people would make in a lifetime. Items so expensive, that they usually make no financial sense to buy them whatsoever. Learn more about the world...

On August 31, 1901, in Buffalo, New York, the President of the United States, William McKinley was shot twice in the torso. Seven days later, he passed away due to an infection. For the third time in only 36 years, a US president had been assassinated. Yet, few people remember this event, or even the president himself. Learn more about the assassination of President William McKinley on this episod...

Video games have become almost ubiquitous in today’s world. Most of us probably have some sort of computer game on our smartphone, as well as games on our desktop computer, and you might even have one or more dedicated computing devices dedicated solely to playing games. The massive $100 billion dollar computer game industry had very humble beginnings, however. Learn more about the history of comp...

In the early 15th century, just before Europe began its Age of Exploration, China was embarking on a series of voyages that put to shame anything anyone in Europe would do for centuries. These voyages were led by a man who was the greatest admiral in history up to that point and the ships in his fleet were the largest wooden ships that the world would ever see. Learn more about the voyages of Admi...

In 1908, in the middle of the Siberian wilderness, near the Tunguska River, an explosion took place which was equivalent in size to the detonation of a 5 megaton nuclear bomb. But it wasn’t a nuclear bomb. Such things didn’t even exist then. It was a mystery that scientists are still trying to figure out today. Learn more about the Tunguska Event on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Lea...

When the space race first began, scientists didn’t even know if it was possible for humans to eat in a zero-gravity environment. Once they figured out it was possible, it didn’t mean that it wasn’t without problems. There was a host of issues with eating in a zero-g environment that had to be overcome. Some foods were able to be made edible in space, and some never were. Learn more about what astr...

Have you ever known someone who was really cheap? Like they would wear clothes until disintegrated? Or they would never pick up the tab? Or maybe they are horrible tippers? Well, there is cheap and then there is cheap. Some people are so cheap that they appear to live in destitute poverty, even though they actually be quite wealthy. This is the world of misers. Learn more about some of the world’s...