Podcast Transcript In 1987, a German teenager and novice pilot named Mathias Rust set out on a two-week flight where he visited several countries in Europe. What was remarkable about the flight wasn’t the age of the pilot or the distance he traveled. The reason people still remember it is where he ended up. Learn …
Podcast Transcript Humans have been aware of ice for as long as there have been humans and ice. However, using ice outside of winter has always been a huge challenge, but that didn’t stop people from trying to harness and use ice even when it was well out of season. It wasn’t until relatively recently, …
Podcast Transcript The planet Neptune was discovered in 1846. Ever since then, astronomers have felt there had to be another planet beyond the orbit of Neptune. Everyone assumed they found it with the discovery of Pluto in 1930, however, something still wasn’t quite right. 90 years later, the mystery planet hasn’t been found, but astronomers …
Podcast Transcript If you are an American, you probably grew up hearing the story of Thanksgiving. How the pilgrims came to America to escape religious persecution to establish a new life. But who were the pilgrims really? Were they really persecuted? Why did they decide to cross the ocean? And how did they end up …
Podcast Transcript If you’ve been around long enough, you might have noticed that things are more expensive than they used to be. If you’ve really been around long enough you know that things are a lot more expensive than they used to be. This is of course known as inflation. It is an economic condition …
Podcast Transcript The year 1972 saw two epic contests between the United States and the Soviet Union. The first was American Bobby Fischer defeating Soviet Grandmaster Anatoly Karpov for the world chess championship. The other took place on a basketball court in Munich in the gold medal game of the Olympics. It was one of …
Podcast Transcript To explore the heavens humans have made many types of telescopes. These telescopes can observe visible light, infrared light, radio waves, and even x-rays. One of the most important forces in shaping the universe is gravity. How can astronomers observe gravity? In 2002, the National Science Foundation, Caltech, and MIT managed to build …
Podcast Transcript On March 27, 1794, the United States Congress passed the Naval Act. The Naval Act authorized funding for six frigates which would become the basis for the new US Navy. One of those six ships, and the third one built, was the USS Constitution. It was launched in 1797 and saw service in …
Podcast Transcript As I have mentioned before on this podcast, there are a great many things that were originally invented in Ancient China. There are literally hundreds of inventions that were developed in China before they were introduced anywhere else. However, there are four inventions in particular that stand out as having revolutionized not just …