Podcast Transcript Located off the tip of Cornwall, England, lies a small group of islands known as the Isles of Scilly. If you’ve never heard of the Isles of Scilly before, you probably just chuckled when you heard the name. If you have heard of them, you know that they comprise the extreme southwest point …
Podcast Transcript One of the most significant developments in the history of naval warfare was the submarine. The submarine offered a means of stealth and surprise that surface ships couldn’t compete with. At first, navigating submarines was relatively simple, as they traveled just below the surface and used a snorkel and a periscope. However, as …
Podcast Transcript One of the most critical developments in the course of human history was the control of fire. Without fire, we probably wouldn’t have even reached the Stone Age, let alone the Industrial Age. But how exactly did ancient people make fire? To make fire out of nothing is no easy feat, and it …
Podcast Transcript In 1958, the People’s Republic of China instituted its second five-year plan since the revolution. Its goal was to rapidly modernize China and boost agricultural and industrial output to levels comparable to the Western world. China was going to become a modern country, not through the widespread adoption of machinery, but through the …
Podcast Transcript In the late 18th century, the newly independent United States of America faced its first major domestic crisis. Settlers in its westernmost regions rose up in open armed rebellion against the government. The cause of the rebellion had to do with taxes, which was the very thing that the American Revolution was about …
Podcast Transcript One of the most important and least understood sources of energy in the world today is nuclear power. Nuclear power has an energy density tens of millions of times greater than fossil fuels and has one of the most impressive safety records of any energy source. Yet, for decades, controversy has surrounded it …
Podcast Transcript Everything we know in the world is ultimately dependent on energy. Energy fuels our bodies as well as our civilization. Energy is literally everywhere and all around us. Yet for the longest time, we had no idea what energy really was. It wasn’t until relatively recently that scientists had a grasp on energy …
Podcast Transcript In 1585, Sir Walter Raleigh established an English colony on an island in what is today the state of North Carolina. After a slow start, over 100 people moved to the island to start a new life and establish this English outpost at the edge of the new world. When a ship returned …
Podcast Transcript For thousands of years, many theories have been put forward as to the cause of communicable diseases. These theories ranged from the religious to the magical and sometimes quasiscientific, but what they all had in common was that there was no proof for anything. Over the centuries these theories became dogma and often …