Podcast Transcript Ever since the discovery of the planet Neptune in 1846, astronomers have noticed that something was not right. The orbit of Neptune was being gravitationally influenced by some other, unknown body that was dubbed Planet X. In 1930, it was thought that this body had been discovered with the discovery of Pluto, but …
Transcript When Europeans began sailing the high seas on extended voyages, the most deadly thing they encountered wasn’t enemy navies, starvation, or even shipwrecks. It was a painful disease where your body would literally start falling apart and it killed more than 2,000,000 sailors between the voyage of Columbus to the middle of the 19th …
Transcript In the year 52 BC, the Roman General Julius Caesar fought the last major battle in the conquest of Gaul. The implications of the battle have reverberated throughout history and can still be felt in the world today. But the real story isn’t the implications of the battle, but how it was won. It …
Transcript In 1941, a young artistic prodigy released his first motion picture. It had enormous anticipation, received incredible reviews, and earned nine Academy Award nominations. However, the film was a financial failure because the vast majority of theaters refused to show it. In the 80 years since its release, it has been named the greatest …
Transcript What do lasers, photovoltaic cells, the transistor, digital cameras, cell phone technology, the communication satellite, computer networking, radio astronomy, and the UNIX operating system have in common? They were all invented or developed at the same place by the greatest collection of scientists and engineers ever assembled. Learn more about Bell Labs, the greatest …
Transcript The rise of civilization is sometimes defined as the urbanization of humanity. The transition from hunter-gatherers to living in settlements was a fundamental transformation of human society and allowed for advanced social institutions such as kings, priesthoods, and standing armies. Since then, our settlements have gotten larger and larger, resulting in the megalopolises we …
Transcript For years people believed that there was a part of the Atlantic Ocean where ships and planes would disappear called the Bermuda Triangle. It turned out that ships and planes didn’t disappear there at any higher rate than they did elsewhere, and it just wasn’t a thing. However, researchers did find a place where …
Transcript 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 …
Transcript Some of the things we use every day were invented in the distant past. Other things were invented quite recently. However, there is a category of inventions that have been known forever, but no one ever had any practical use for it until recently. Learn more about the elevator, and how it helped create …