Podcast Transcript For thousands of years, humans have looked up at the night sky and wondered, “are we alone?” For the longest time, it remained nothing more than a philosophical question, but in the 20th century, some researchers thought it was time to finally start looking. One of the big questions was how do you …
Podcast Transcript In 1854 an unusually severe outbreak of cholera occurred in London. While cholera was not an uncommon disease, physicians at the time weren’t sure what caused it. This time, one doctor took a completely different approach, stopping the epidemic and ushering in a new field of medicine. Learn more about John Snow and …
Podcast Transcript Located in the South Pacific Ocean is one of the most isolated islands in the world. It is over a thousand miles from the nearest human settlement. Here a civilization unlike any other in the world arose and ultimately fell. While the story of the island didn’t end with the fall of that …
Podcast Transcript In 1957, two chemists at the Clinton Corn Processing Company of Clinton, Iowa, developed a system for converting the glucose found in corn starch into fructose. Over 60 years later, the product they created can be found in a dizzying array of food products worldwide. Learn more about High Fructose Corn Syrup, how …
Podcast Transcript In February 1904, the Russian Empire found itself at war with the Empire of Japan over what was territory in the current nation of China. The problem for Russia was that a big chunk of its navy was located in the Baltic Sea, and the war was in Asia. The Baltic fleet was …
Podcast Transcript All around you, right this second, you are surrounded by electromagnetic radiation. You might better know this by names such as light, radio waves, microwaves, x-rays, or ultraviolet rays. Fundamentally, they are all variations of the same phenomenon and are all part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Learn more about the electromagnetic spectrum and …
Podcast Transcript The first world war was the most horrific war the world had ever seen at that time. When the conflict ended, there was an effort to make sure that such a thing never happened again. To that end, a deliberative body was created where nations could come together to debate and discuss matters …
Podcast Transcript Most children growing up are admonished not to take candy from strangers. It is good advice, but it isn’t advice that comes from nowhere. It comes from a particular incident 150 years ago that shocked the world and changed how we view children’s safety. It was an event, the echos of which can …
Podcast Transcript In the TV series Game of Thrones, there were four different seasons where disputes were determined with trial by combat. As fictional as the Game of Thrones universe is, the idea of resolving legal disputes by fighting, sometimes to the death, was historically accurate. For centuries, trial by combat was a legitimate option …