The Voynich Manuscript

The Voynich Manuscript

Transcript 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 …

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How Many Nobel Prizes Should Albert Einstein Have Won?

How Many Nobel Prizes Should Albert Einstein Have Won?

Transcript In the 120 year history of the Nobel Prize, there have been four people who have been given an award twice.  One of them is not Albert Einstein.  Yet, when you look at his list of accomplishments and the different fields of physics which he has touched, he arguably deserved more than one Nobel …

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Syndrome K: The Disease That Saved Lives

Syndrome K: The Disease That Saved Lives

Transcript In 1943, the Italian government surrendered to the Allied forces. The Germans, not wanting to cede such a large 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 …

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Martha Mitchell Was Right

Martha Mitchell Was Right

Transcript 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 discredited in the media had a psychological condition named after …

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Radiation 101

Radiation 101

transcript 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 …

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Spanish Foods

Spanish Foods

Transcript 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 …

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The Battle of Cannae

The Battle of Cannae

Transcript One of the greatest battles in Roman history was one of its greatest losses. It was a defeat that shook the city to its core and could have very well ended the Roman Republic. …but it didn’t. The reason why it didn’t is a story of determination and the difference between tactics and strategy.  …

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The House of David

The House of David

Transcript What do you get when you take one part religious cult and one part Harlem Globetrotters and one part Troy Polamalu’s hair and put them all together?  You wind up with the House of David Baseball Team. One of the most popular baseball barnstorming acts of the early 20th Century. Learn more about the …

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Operation Tannenbaum

Operation Tannenbaum

Transcript In June 1940, with the conquest of France, Nazi Germany and Italy had conquered almost all of Western Europe. The map of Europe was one solid color reflecting the domination of the Axis Powers. Except for one small hole in the donut: Switzerland. Switzerland’s neutrality didn’t guarantee anything. In fact, the Nazis desperately wanted …

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