Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More

Question: Who is the most dominant athlete of all time? It’s an interesting question and one which has started endless pub debates. Is that a basketball player like Michael Jordan, a baseball player like Babe Ruth, or a soccer player like Lionel Messi? Or maybe it’s an athlete in an individual sport like Tiger Woods, or Serena Williams. My answer to the question of who is the most dominant athlete...

The Byzantine Empire was one of the greatest empires in world history, yet at no point was there ever an empire that went by that name. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every year, people around the world celebrate Christmas on December 25. In many countries, it is the biggest single holiday of the year. Why is it celebrated on December 25? Is there any historical basis for this date and if not, then why do we celebrate it on this date? Learn more about why we celebrate Christmas when we do on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad...

Catalonia is a unique region. They have their own Romance language, their own customs, and cuisine, and when it comes to the Christmas season, they have their own traditions. In fact, when it comes to the Christmas season, they have some very very unique traditions. I’d dare say that their Christmas traditions are firmly ranked #2. Learn more about the Christman traditions of Catalonia on this epi...

Standards make everything easier. When everyone can agree on a standard way to do things, regardless of how it is done, it can reduce confusion and facilitate progress. You’d think if there was one thing that would be standardized everywhere, it would be the side of the road everyone drives on. I mean, there are only two options. Yet, there is no global standard for what side to drive on. Learn mo...

Over the last several centuries, there have been many unsolved questions that scientists have put their minds to solving. Most of them were eventually resolved. However, there are some questions that are still outstanding and we aren’t really any closer to solving them than we were before. Learn more about dark matter and dark energy, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more abou...

The Apollo 11 mission to land humans on the moon was one of the most complex things ever undertaken by humanity. They had to prepare for any and every eventuality, including the failure of the mission. To cover that eventually, President Nixon’s speechwriter wrote a speech to cover that eventuality. Learn more about the speech which Richard Nixon never had to give, on this episode of Everything Ev...

The ancient Egyptian civilization was one of the oldest civilizations that we know of on Earth. While there is much we know about them, knowledge of their system of writing, known as hieroglyphics had become lost by the middle ages. Where there were different theories as to what the writing meant, no one was really sure how to read hieroglyphics. All of this changed in 1799 when French troops unde...

On the week of July 1, 1946, there were two explosions that shook the world. One was a physical explosion and the other was cultural. These two events, seemingly unrelated, are now linked forever due to the circumstances of that week. Learn more about what an atomic bomb test and a two-piece swimsuit have in common, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices....

Back in the day, sending letters was slow and potentially confusing. Nothing could travel faster than the speed of a horse or a ship, and addressing letters could be confusing if there were multiple people in a city. Over time, the postal system developed systematic methods to deliver the mail quickly and more efficiently. Learn more about ZIP codes and postal codes, on this episode of Everything...

If you happen to be in Valencia, Spain, on a Thursday, at noon, in front of the cathedral, you might be able to witness the oldest surviving democratic tradition on Earth. For over 1000 years the Valencia Water Tribunal has been adjudicating water disputes among the farmers of the region. Learn more about the Valencia Water Tribunal, the oldest continuous democratic body in the world, on this epis...

Born in 1849 in Poitiers, France, Balance Monnier was a beautiful young woman who was born into an aristocratic family. When she was 25 she suddenly disappeared. When people inquired as to her whereabouts, her family told them she had moved away. That was not what happened. Learn more about the terrible fate of Blanche Monnier on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your a...

Hundreds of years ago gold and silver were rare and valuable, and today they are rare and valuable. Iron and tin were cheap and plentiful and today they are cheap and plentiful. However, there is one metal that was once the rarest and expensive metal in the world, and today it is one of the cheapest and most plentiful. Learn more about aluminum, how it was once rare and then became abundant, on th...

Have you ever heard a science story on the news where they mention how old something is then ask yourself “how do they know that?” How is it possible to tell the age of something with any degree of certainty when there was no one around millions or billions of years ago? Well, there are answers to those questions. Learn more about radiometric dating, and how we can measure the age of objects and t...

On February 10, 2013, in what began as a rather innocuous assembly, Pope Benedict the XVI stunned the world by announcing that he would be retiring. Not only were people stunned, but to paraphrase King George in the Musical Hamilton, most people weren’t even aware that was something a pope could do. Yet, it is something popes can do, and the precedent was set over 700 years earlier. Learn more abo...

There are lots of stories about lost technologies and techniques of the ancients which have been lost to us through history. In reality, most things were figured out independently by modern people, and we have better modern versions of almost everything the ancients had, including things like Damascus Steel. That is, except for one thing. Learn more about Roman Concrete, the stuff which has lasted...

Have you ever looked at a map and said to yourself “Wow, Greenland is really big!”, only to then look at a globe and realize, that Greeland wasn’t actually that big? If so, then you have discovered the Mercator Projection. A map that was originally created in 1569 and is still with us today. Learn more about the Mercator Projection, its problems, and its benefits, on this episode of Everything Eve...

He has been called the most famous artist of the 20th century. His work single-handedly defined an artistic style. He was more loved and criticized than any other artist in history. He created over 20,000 works, and legend says that he could pay for a meal with just his signature. Learn more about Pablo Picasso, Spains greatest artist, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more abo...

In 1776, an obscure Bavarian professor of philosophy created a society for like-minded individuals who upheld the values of the Enlightenment. Fast forward over 200 years, and that organization is now the basis for conspiracy theories and fantastic stories of global dominance. Learn more about the Illuminati, the real Illuminati, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about you...

In 1912, a Polish rare book dealer purchased an extremely old codex that contained an unknown system of writing. Since then, the best and brightest minds in cryptography, linguistics, and artificial intelligence have not been able to decipher what is written in the book. That hasn’t stopped people from trying and periodically making claims that they have cracked the code. Learn more about the Voyn...

In the 120 year history of the Nobel Prize, there have been four people who have been given the award twice. One of them is not Albert Einstein. Yet, when you look at his list of accomplishments and the fields of physics which he has touched, he arguably deserved more than one Nobel prize. Join me as I play fantasy physics and try to figure out how many Nobel Prizes Albert Einstien should have won...

In 1943, the Italian government surrendered to the Allied forces. The Germans, not wanting to cede such a larger part of Europe to the Allies, quickly occupied northern and central Italy. However, as the Germans occupied Rome there occurred an outbreak of what was known as Syndrome K. Caes of Syndrome K in one Rome hospital was so great, that even members of the dreaded German Gestapo feared to en...

Have you ever thought something and everyone else said you were crazy? Have you ever been called crazy and then have the thing you were called crazy for turn out to be absolutely true? This not only happened to one woman, but she was institutionalized, had a psychological condition named after her, and had a hand in bringing down a United States president. Learn more about Martha Mitchell on this...

Radiation or radioactivity is one of the scariest words in the English language. While radiation can indeed be very dangerous, most people don’t really understand how it works and it is often treated as magic death cooties which leads to unwarranted fear. Learn more about radiation, how it works, and where it’s found in nature, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your...

Whenever lists of the world’s great cuisines are published, there is one country which is always at or near the top: Spain. Yet Spanish cuisine is mostly a collection of regional cuisines from around the country which all fall under the umbrella of “Spanish”. Learn more about Spanish food, its history, and where it comes from, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your a...