Podcast Transcript Starting in the year 1096, the Christian kingdoms of the Latin Church united to retake religious sites in the Holy Land. This war was known as a crusade. This was just the first in a series of nine official and several other unofficial crusades over a span of 200 years. These crusades impacted …
Podcast Transcript By the early 19th century, the United States and Great Britain had already fought two wars with each other. Those two wars were not enough to resolve all of the territorial and border disputes between them. There was one massive open question that remained between the two countries. A large swath of land …
Podcast Transcript In 259 BC, a boy named Ying Zheng was born in the state of Qin in modern-day China. He was born into the royal family of the kingdom and ascended to the throne at the age of 13. For most people, becoming king would be the pinnacle of their achievements. However, this was …
Podcast Transcript The universe is big. Really, really big. So big that it is hard to intuitively grasp its size because we have nothing in our lives that we could compare it to. Not only is the universe big, but within it are things that really big as well. The discovery of these big things …
Podcast Transcript The English language has evolved organically, gathering words and phrases from different languages, countries, and communities. It should come as no surprise that many of the words in English have come from the military. For centuries, soldiers have developed their own way of speaking and created words to describe their unique circumstances. Some …
Podcast Transcript The odds are quite good that somewhere around you right now as you listen to me speak these words, is a battery. Whether it is in your smartphone, earbuds, automobile, smoke detector, or laptop, batteries have become ubiquitous in the modern world. The origins of chemical batteries go back thousands of years before …
Podcast Transcript Located in Northern Europe, along the Atlantic coast, is the relatively small nation of Belgium. Belgium is like other countries in most ways, but its history and founding are very different from those of its neighbors. How it was founded had important implications for all over Europe and may still impact the country’s …
Podcast Transcript Sandwiches are one of the most popular types of food in the world. They are incredibly easy to make, can be incredibly cheap, and they come in numerous varieties. Yet, the humble sandwich is also the subject of a great deal of controversy. What type of sandwich is best? Where did sandwiches come …
Podcast Transcript Aircraft carriers are some of the most fearsome weapons in the world. They are enormous platforms that can travel around the globe, projecting power over an enormous part of it. However, aircraft carriers have a rather humble origin that actually predates the invention of the airplane. Throughout the 20th century, they saw many …