Transcript On May 8, 1980, officials from the World Health Organization announced that smallpox, the disease which had ravaged humanity across the world for millennia, had been eradicated. Over the last century before the eradication of smallpox, it is estimated to have killed half a billion people. Learn more about humanity’s deadliest disease and how …
Transcript The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey is one of the largest, oldest, and most significant buildings in the world. It has served as a holy place for three different religions and has been the focal point for two different empires. Almost, 1,500 years after its construction, it is still making headlines today. Learn more …
Transcript Today, GPS devices that can determine where you are in the world have become ubiquitous. In fact, there is a very good chance that the device you are using to listen to this podcast has a GPS receiver in it. GPS is used for a wide variety of applications all over the world. It …
Transcript You have probably heard the expression “All roads lead to Rome”. Well, it isn’t just a pithy saying to reference how you can take many paths to reach the same goal. It has a very literal meaning and its origin comes from a monument that still, sort of, exists in Rome today. Learn more …
Transcript Located approximately 100km east of Rotterdam, the city of Nijmegen is a mid-sized Dutch city situated on the Waal river that few people outside of the Netherlands are familiar with. For the last several years, every single day regardless of the weather, people of Nijmegen have honored events that took place in the city …
Transcript For the last 300 years, a debate has raged between mathematicians about who should be credited with the invention of calculus: Sir Isaac Newton or Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. The sides of the debate have mostly been based on geography with English mathematicians advocating for Newton, and Continental Europeans siding with Leibniz. Learn more about …
Transcript Everyone is probably familiar with Murphy’s Law which says that “Anything which can go wrong will go wrong.” However, there are many such laws, known as eponymous laws, which are sayings, adages, or truisms, which have been attributed to people over the years. These are not hard and fast mathematical or physical laws, but …
Transcript While different countries may debate as to what sport should really be called ‘football’, the reality is that the word football describes a broad family of sports all of whom have a very similar background and origin. Just like species with a common ancestor can evolve in ways where they look totally unlike each …
Transcript The Latin Alphabet has become the most widespread system of writing in the world. Its origins can be traced back thousands of years to Ancient Romans and to civilizations before that. It is probably the single biggest thing that we use today which originated in Rome. Today’s English alphabet, you know that one from …