Podcast Transcript All of us have some sort of mental map inside our heads for how the world is laid out. North America is north of South America. Europe is west of Asia. et Cetra. However, even the greatest geography minds often have a flawed mental map of the world. Places aren’t often where were …
Podcast Transcript Imagine you want to start a brand new country. Only, you don’t want to go through the messy process of starting a revolution or a civil war in a currently existing country. You want to find an empty piece of land for yourself that no one has claimed. Is such a thing possible? …
Podcast Transcript He was one of the greatest thinkers of the ancient world. He was a philosopher, a mathematician, and had some unique views on diet and religion. You probably know him best for the theorem which bears his name. However, if you asked anyone 2,600 years ago, they might have known him for something …
Podcast Transcript Charles Darwin is often credited with the discovery of the theory of natural selection. This is true, but it isn’t totally true. He didn’t do this alone. In particular, there was someone else who did much of the research that lead to the discovery. In the process, he also made a discovery that …
Podcast Transcript In the late 19th century, bananas, a fruit that had been popular for thousands of years suddenly became a mass-market sensation. However, just a few decades after it was popularized, the industry had to completely change what was grown due to a pestilence. As a result, the bananas that most people eat today …
Podcast Transcript Ever since humans looked up at the night sky and noticed that some of the points of light moved, they have been aware of the planet Jupiter. However, it was the invention of the telescope that let us know just how amazing Jupiter was. Since then, we’ve sent eight probes to the planet …
Podcast Transcript On April 4, 1949, representatives of 11 North American and European countries assembled in Washington DC to sign a treaty of mutual defense. That treaty, and the organization which it spawned, has served as the basis for defense policy for Western Europe and North America for almost 75 years. Over that time, the …
Podcast Transcript When Europeans arrived in the New World in 1492, it was the beginning of a series of events that ws the biggest change in humanity since the discovery of agriculture. The magnitude of those changes wasn’t even known at the time, or even for several centuries after the fact. It has only been …
Podcast Transcript All three of the holy books from great monotheistic faiths share a similar story about a Queen from a land in the south who traveled to Jerusalem to meet King Solomon. This queen, who is said to have come from a land called Sheba, held not only the fascination of Solomon but of …