Podcast Transcript Marcus Licinius Crassus was the richest man in the Roman Republic. His wealth bought him power and influence, but it couldn’t buy him everything. His massive wealth couldn’t give him the respect and authority that came from victory on the battlefield. His desperate attempt to achieve this glory led to his spectacular demise …
Podcast Transcript On the evening of January 30, 1945, the deadliest shipwreck in human history occurred. Most of you might be aware of the sinking of the Titanic or the Lusitania, yet you’ll have never heard of the MV Wilhelm Gustloff. With a death toll about six times worse than the Titanic, the Wilhelm Gustlof …
Podcast Transcript For many of you listening to the sound of my voice right now, the audio originated from a digital file that was transported across the globe at the speed of light on fiber-optic cables. The fiber optic cables, which crisscross the oceans, create a network that unites the entire globe. Almost all the …
Podcast transcript In late May and early June of 1917, the French Army faced what could have been an existential crisis. After three years of some of the most brutal conflict that the world had ever seen, many soldiers had had enough. Thousands of troops refused to obey orders and refused to go along with …
Podcast Transcript On April 12, 1862, one of the most daring and audacious events of the American Civil War took place. It wasn’t a major battle. It didn’t involve armies lining up across each other on an open field. Instead, it was one of the first examples in military history of a raid designed to …
Transcript László Polgár was born just after World War II in Hungary. His field of study was the nature of human intelligence. After studying the lives of over 400 great intellectuals from throughout human history, he came to a startling conclusion: geniuses weren’t born, they were made. So he set about conducting an experiment on …
Podcast Transcript The term “banana republic” is often used pejoratively to describe small, poor, unstable developing countries. Being called a banana republic is never a good thing. However, that term has a very real origin which involved actual bananas, mercenaries, corporate money, and the American government. Learn more about Banana Republics, where the name comes …
Podcast Transcript The Sahara desert is by far the largest desert in the world. It evokes images of sand dunes, camels and just being really really dry. However, it didn’t always use to be that way. Quite recently, at least geologically speaking, it was a place with grasslands and forests. While it disappeared and became …
Podcast Transcript In 1911, a Dutch physicist named Heike Kamerlingh Onnes was experimenting with ultra low-temperature metals. He was measuring the electrical resistance of mercury to find out what would happen What he found was shocking and totally upended everything we know about physics and electricity. Learn more about superconductivity, how it works, and its …