Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography, & More

Africa is big. Really big. And for thousands of years, people have dreamed of a way to cut through the narrowest part of the Siani Peninsula to connect the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. In the 19th century, that dream was actualized. Since then, the canal has had its own history and has played a major role in the global economy. Learn more about the Suez Canal, its shockingly ancient history, and its current role in global shipping, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During World War II, allied soldiers would often spend their time listening to the radio. They could, at least for a little while, be transported back home by listening to popular music with the soothing sounds of a female radio host with a flawless American accent. Along with the music, the troops would also get a healthy dose of enemy propaganda. Learn more about Tokyo Rose and Axis Sally on this Episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2,500 years ago, the Greek philosopher Zeno posed a question. If you want wanted to travel from one place to another, you first have to go half the distance, then you have to go half the distance again, and then again. You can do this infinitely and never reach your goal. This was one of the first paradoxes known to history. Since then, there have been many many others, which often leave people scratching their heads. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

62 miles north of Los Angeles in the city of Palmdale, California, lies one of the most secretive aircraft design and production centers in the world: Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Program. From this location, some of the most famous and important military aircraft in the 20th and 21st centuries were created….and they are still working on new aircraft today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1605, members of the Catholic resistance in England hatched a plot that would have completely changed the political landscape of the country. They wanted to blow up the entire parliament and the king on November 5, which they thought would return a Catholic monarch to the throne. The plotters got caught, and their demise has been celebrated for the last 400 years. Learn more about Guy Fawkes, the Gunpowder Plot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1860, the United States was as divided as it ever had been. The issue of slavery had been growing more and more contentious over the decades and by 1860, things were nearing a breaking point. The presidential election of 1860 literally would determine the future of the country, or if there would continue to even be a country. Learn more about the presidential election of 1860, the most important presidential election in American history, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2008, researchers searching for fossils in the Denisova cave in Siberia came across something interesting. It appeared to be the bone from an ancient hominid species. Subsequent DNA analysis on this bone has revolutionized everything we know about the origin of humanity. Had this bone been discovered a few decades beforehand, we might never have known about it. Learn more about the Denisovans and how they affect humanity today, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1941, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, a 24-year-old woman in Ukraine volunteered to join the Red Army. She was initially pressured to become a nurse like most women who volunteered, however, that wasn’t what she wanted to do. She wanted to be on the front lines. Within a year, she was to become one of the most lethal soldiers in all of the second world war. Learn more about Lyudmila Pavlichenko, aka Lady Death, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the start of the American Revolution, a young American major general was one of the brightest stars of the war. He was responsible for several major campaigns and he had a great future ahead of him in his new country. By the end of the war, he was a British General fighting against the United States and his name would forever be spoken by Americans as a synonym for traitor. Learn more about Benedict Arnold and why he decided to turn on his country, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vampires have been been a part of folklore for centuries. Perhaps no mythical vampire is more famous than Count Dracula. While Count Dracula might be fictional, believe it or not, he was based and named on a real person who lived in 15th century Romania. While he might not have been a vampire, he was still plenty deadly. Learn more about Vlad the Impaler, also known as Vlad Dracula, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On October 31 every year, we celebrate Halloween. It is especially popular in the United States where we use the holiday as an excuse for kids to dress up and ask for candy, and for adults to dress up and drink. But why do we dress up, and what’s the deal with pumpkins, how does this have anything to do with monsters and bats? Learn more about the history of Halloween and how so many unrelated things got lumped together on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Casinos are fascinating places. They can make tons of money, but they don’t really have a product. While it is often called entertainment, unlike other forms of entertainment, no one is entertaining you. In fact, the entire business is really nothing more than applied mathematics. With the proper application of mathematics and a liberal dose of high-tech security and proper management, a casino can become a cash machine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the rarest and most expensive substances in the world is actually pretty disgusting. The way it is created is pretty gross, it looks pretty gross, and smells even worse. Despite how disgusting it is, there are people who will pay as much for it on a per gram basis as gold, yet when you get right down to it, no one really needs it. Learn more about ambergris, the treasure of the sea, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I’ve had many episodes where I talked about a country being a “republic”. In fact, we often use the word but many people have a mistaken idea about what exactly a republic is. So what exactly is a republic, and how does it differ from a monarchy or other forms of government? What many people think a republic is isn’t necessarily wrong, but it also isn’t exactly right. Learn more about monarchies and republics and the differences between them on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Located in the heart of Paris, along the banks of the River Seine, lies the Louvre. It has over 750,000 square feet of gallery space, it has over 615,000 items in its collection, and in a non-pandemic year, gets over 10 million annual visitors. Yet, it wasn’t always a museum, and the way it acquired its collection wasn’t always above board. Learn more about the Louvre, the world’s greatest museum, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Weddings are full of traditions. Almost every aspect of a traditional western wedding involves customs that may date back hundreds or thousands of years. However, most people have no idea where these customs or traditions come from. They simply do them because that’s what you do when you have a wedding. Learn more about wedding traditions and learn where they came from, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever filled out a form online where you had to select a country and you noticed that one of the country options was the “United States Minor Outlying Islands”? If you have you might have wondered, what are these island? Who lives there? And why are these islands considered minor? Learn more about the United States Minor Outlying Islands and how they ended up on almost every drop down list of countries on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The year 1972 saw two epic contests between the United States and the Soviet Union. The first was American Bobby Fischer defeating Soviet Grandmaster Anatoly Karpov for the world chess championship. The other took place on a basketball court in Munich in the gold medal game of the Olympics. It was one of the most controversial moments in Olympic history, and the ramifications of that game are still reverberating today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

1902, the French governor of Indochina faced a huge problem in the city of Hanoi. They were suffering from a massive infestation of rats and the rats could carry diseases, including the plague. The governor implemented a plan to get rid of the rats. Thousands of people were recruited in the effort. However, the program had a serious flaw. Not only didn’t it solve the problem, but it made things worse. Learn more about The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre of 1902/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Located on the French Riveria, just a few kilometers from the border of Italy, sandwiched between the mountains and the sea, is the tiny country of Monaco. Monaco has several distinctions among the countries in the world, not just for its size, but for its population and its history. Learn more about Monaco, the smallest and wealthiest principality in the world, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Secrecy is a huge part of military success. You want to be able to communicate with your own forces without the enemy finding out what your plans are. As America entered World War II, they were in need of a method of communication that couldn’t be cracked by Germany or Japan. They found the answer they were looking for in the languages of Native Americans. Learn more about Navajo Code Talkers and the other Native American languages used in World War II Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To explore the universe humans have made any manner of telescopes. These telescopes can observe visible light, infrared light, radio waves, and even x-rays. One of the most important forces in shaping the universe is gravity. How can astronomers observe gravity? In 2002, the National Science Foundation, Caltech, and MIT managed to build a gravitational observatory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Weather systems on Earth aren’t stable. There are cycles that weather patterns go through which can have enormous effects around the globe. There is probably no more important weather cycle than the one meteorologists called the Southern Oscillation. This cycle can have dramatic implications for temperatures and rainfall all over the world. Learn more about El Nino and La Nina and the Southern Oscillation on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the Dialogues written by Plato in the year 360 BC, he wrote of a place called Atlantis. Atlantis was a place where the citizens were half-gods and half-men, yet it was destroyed in a cataclysmic event. Ever since then people have been speculating about where Atlantis was and who the Atlantians were. Learn more about the history of Atlantis and the various theories of where it was and if it even existed, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brooklyn wasn’t always a part of New York City. It used to be a separate city located across the East River from New York, which at the time was only on the island of Manhattan. For decades, people talked about a bridge to connect New York and the growing city of Brooklyn to facilitate travel and commerce. In 1883, that bridge finally opened. Learn more about the Brooklyn Bridge on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You are probably familiar with the term decimation. The word is usually used in English to mean “to cause great destruction or harm”. However, to ancient Rome, the word had a very different and very specific meaning. It was one of the most devastating and brutal forms of punishment that the military could inflict. Learn more about Decimation, the ultimate collective punishment, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1965, the director of research at Fairchild Semiconductor, Gordon Moore, made a prediction about the future of semiconductors. He said that over the next ten years, the number of transistors on an integrated circuit would double every two years. His prediction didn’t just hold true for the next 10 years, but it has held true for almost 60 years, and it had driven the global computer industry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 might have been saved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1555, a French physician and astrologer named Michel de Nostredame published a book of poems titled Les Prophéties. Ever since people have been trying to interpret world events through his writings. Was Nostradamus a prophet? Was he a fraud? Or are people just reading way too much into a bunch of vague, random statements? Learn more about Nostradamus and how his writings have been interpreted, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On March 27, 1794, the United States Congress passed the Naval Act. The Naval Act authorized funding for six frigates which would become the basis for the new US Navy. One of those six ships, and the third one built, was the USS Constitution. It was launched in 1797 and saw service in multiple conflicts all around the world. That ship which first set sail 225 years ago, is still in service and operational today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People who love to dance are said to have dancing fever. Dancing fever is just a phrase and not something meant to be taken literally. However, could there really be an actual dancing fever? Could there be a disease that caused people, many people, to dance until they fell from exhaustion? Well, maybe. Learn more about the Straussberg Dancing Plague of 1518 on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The rise of agriculture has been pointed to as being responsible for the rise of civilization as we know it. However, that raises the question, what was responsible for the rise of agriculture? In particular, at least in the Middle East with the cultivation of grain, the debate has always been which came first: Beer or Bread? Learn more about the great beer vs bread debate, and which was responsible for the rise of civilization, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

William Shakespeare is widely considered one of the greatest poets and playwrights in the history of the English language. However, over the last two centuries many people have begun to wonder if William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon, England was indeed the person who wrote the works which have been attributed to him. If you look at the evidence or the lack thereof, they aren’t necessarily crazy for thinking it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Copyright is what protects creators from having someone copy and make money off of their work without compensation. However, there are some things like directories or maps which have information that can be difficult to copyright. It’s just presenting information or data which exists out in the real world. Such creators of maps and directories have found unique ways around this problem. Learn more about copyright traps, aka Mountweazels, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On May 19, 1946, André René Roussimoff was born into the world in Coulommiers, France. At birth, he weighed 13 pounds or 6 kilograms...and from there, he only got bigger. He eventually topped out at 7 feet, four inches tall, weighed 520 pounds, and became a worldwide phenomenon as a professional wrestler and actor. He is one of the few humans to whom the adjective “legendary” can truly be ascribed. Today people still speak of his incredible feats in awe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you think of Spain as the country on the Iberian Peninsula which is sandwiched between France and Portugal, you are not wrong, but you are also not totally right. There is also a significant part of the country which is located in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Morocco: The Canary Islands. Here you will find things that you aren’t going to find in mainland Spain or even the rest of Europe. Learn more about the Canary Islands on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Navigation on the open ocean is extremely difficult. It is a skill that takes years to master. Even with years of skill, an experienced mariner was still able to ground their ship on an unseen reef, underwater rocks, or a sandbar, because they didn’t know their precise location. The main problem, which was unsolved for centuries, was determining your longitude. Learn more about the longitude problem, and how it was eventually solved, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As I have mentioned in many episodes of this podcast, there are a great many things that were originally invented in Ancient China. There are literally hundreds of inventions that were developed in China before they were introduced anywhere else. However, there are four inventions in particular which stand out as having revolutionized not just Chinese civilization, but the entire world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the early 1950s, war ravaged the Korean peninsula. However, the fighting ceased on July 27, 1953. Both sides of the conflict pulled back from the front and created a buffer zone 4 kilometers or 2.5 miles wide. That buffer zone still exists today. Learn more about the Korean Demilitarized Zone, its past and present, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You probably heard the expression that something is “the greatest thing since sliced bread”. Well did you ever wonder what the greatest thing was before sliced bread? Or why we measure greatness in terms of sliced bread? Well, there’s an answer to these questions. Learn more about why sliced bread is so freaking amazing on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am speaking these words in the year 2021. You might be listening to them in a different year, but whatever year you happen to be in right now, it will be a year using the same number convention for years that we do now. But why did we start counting years at year 1? What did they do before that? Who picked year 1 and why? Why isn’t there a year zero? And what is the deal with AD and CE? Learn more about why we count years the way we do on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During the second world war, one of the biggest efforts of the war was the Manhattan Project: the secret American program to create an atomic bomb. The scientists and staff of the Manhattan Project were in a race to beat Nazi Germany to be the first country to build the A-bomb. When Germany surrendered in May 1945, and Americans detonated the first device in July, they had seemingly won the race. But was it in fact a race at all? How close were the Nazis to actually building an atom bomb? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the year 331 BC, fresh from his conquest of Egypt, Alexander the Great established a new city in Egypt named after himself. This new city, situated on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, at the end of the Nile Delta, would go on to become one of the most important cities in the world, and Alexander’s city is still alive and vibrant today. Learn more about Alexandria, the "Bride of the Mediterranean" on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During World War II, the US Army assigned statistician Abraham Wald the task of statistically figuring out where extra armor should be added to American bombers. After analyzing the evidence and sharing it with the Army, he recommended the exact opposite of what the Army assumed. The reason was that the Army had engaged in a logical fallacy. Learn more about survivorship bias and how it manifests itself into everyday thinking, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When most people think of World War II, they think of the Allied power of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, versus the Axis power of Germany, Italy, and Japan. However, this wasn’t always the case. At the start of the war in Europe, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union actually coordinated with each other to invade their neighbors. Learn more about the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 history and across every culture. Learn more righties and lefties and why the imbalance between them exists, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The ancient world had many great accomplishments. The Pyramids of Giza, The Great Wall of China, and the Colosseum are just a few of the great wonders which are still standing. However, one of early humanity’s greatest achievements is one that didn’t leave any physical monuments. Its legacy is the people who live on the remote islands in the Pacific Ocean. Learn more about the Polynesian navigators and how they explored the Pacific on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Great Pyramid of Giza, also known as the Great Pyramid of Khufu, is a structure in which superlatives don’t really do justice. It isn’t just old, it’s really old. It isn’t just big, it’s really big. It has served as a sentinel to some of the most important people and events in history, and it has also been the focal point of speculation about the past. Learn more about the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the seven ancient wonders of the world, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the late 19th century, several of the world’s foremost investors engaged in a public battle for the future of electricity. The battle was fought in boardrooms and newspapers, and there was seemingly nothing that was off-limits. The battle eventually took the lives of several people…..and several dogs. Learn more about the current wars between George Westinghouse, Nikolai Tesla, and Thomas Edison, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1961, the United States figure skating team was one of the top programs in the world. The year before at the 1960 Olympics, they took the gold in both the men’s and women’s competitions. Then on February 15, 1961, the team suffered a terrible catastrophe. One which took the better part of a decade for the US program to recover from. Learn more about Sabena Flight 548 and the fate of the 1961 US figure skating team, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices