Podcast Transcript In the 1960s, a New York clinical psychiatrist and an adoption agency conducted an experiment. They separated multiple sets of identical twins and one set of identical triplets into different families to test how much of personality is due to genetics or the environment. None of the children or families were ever told …
Podcast Transcript For most of human existence, we looked up at the night sky and thought that was all there was to the universe. However, in the 20th century, as telescopes improved, we made a shocking discovery. The universe was much, much larger than we supposed, and some of those points of light in the …
Podcast Transcript Probably the most consequential monarch in British history was Henry VIII. He upended much of English society by changing the religion in the country from the top down. He also left in his wake a century of controversy and turmoil about the succession of the monarchy. In all of that controversy, one figure …
Podcast Transcript Located in the heart of Rome is one of the oldest standing buildings in the world. Unlike other ancient structures, it isn’t a ruin. For almost 2,000 years, it has been in continuous use. When it was built, it was an unrivaled architectural masterpiece. Today, it remains the largest building of its type, …
Podcast Transcript Every year the last Friday in April in the United States is Arbor Day. Arbor Day is not the sexiest holiday on the calendar. I don’t think anyone listening is getting the day off from work, and you don’t see used car dealerships offering Arbor Day sales. Nonetheless, for over 150 years, Arbor …
Podcast Transcript In 1897, the visionary Russian rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky discovered an equation that governed how rockets worked. His equation, which was independently discovered by several other rocket scientists, immutably governs how we can send rockets into space. The variables in his equation have determined everything surrounding spaceflight and rocketry since its inception and …
Podcast Transcript At the start of the 20th century, the world’s third-largest lake was located in Central Asia. It had been known to the people of the Asian steppes for thousands of years. However, by the end of the 20th century, the lake had all but disappeared. Somehow, over the course of a century, one …
Podcast Transcript Every year on April 25, Australia and New Zealand celebrate a holiday that is unique to those two countries. It is one of the most important days on the calendar, and it was created to celebrate an event that took place over 100 years ago. Today the holiday has taken on a broader …
Podcast Transcript As long as humans have looked up in the sky, they noticed something. There was an unusually bright star that would show up in the early morning or early evening. This star was one of the few points of light in the sky that moved. They were dubbed planets, and the one that …