Podcast Transcript On August 15, 1971, US President Richard Nixon ended the gold convertibility of the US Dollar and simultaneously ended the Bretton Woods System, which had governed international monetary policy since the end of the Second World War. The system which replaced Bretton Woods wasn’t built on formal treaties and conferences. It was a …
Podcast Transcript About 66 million years ago, a massive asteroid collided with the Earth near the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. This impact ended the era of the dinosaurs and resulted in one of the greatest species extinctions in history. That large asteroid wasn’t the first to hit the Earth, nor will it be the last. …
Podcast Transcript In the early 4th century, the Roman Emperor Constantine ordered the construction of a church on the burial site of Saint Peter. It was the greatest church in Christianity. Centuries later, that building was falling apart, so Pope Julius II ordered the construction of a replacement church that would be newer and much …
Podcast Transcript Sometime during the reign of Ptolemy I or Ptolemy II, the Egyptian state decided to build an institution dedicated to accumulating all human knowledge in the City of Alexandria. As the city grew, this institution grew along with it to become the greatest knowledge repository in the ancient world. …and then Julius Caesar …
Podcast Transcript At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, the delegates worked hard to create a document that would govern their new country. At the end of the convention, they had a session titled “Leftover Business.” It was here in the “leftover business” section of the constitutional convention where the Vice Presidency was born. Some say it …
Podcast Transcript In 1845, farmers around Europe suffered from a blight that devastated the potato crop. This lasted for several years, but nowhere was it more pronounced than it was on the island of Ireland, where it resulted in death and mass migration. The effects of this potato blight can still be witnessed in the …
Podcast Transcript On May 20, 1910, an event occurred that had never occurred before or since. Gathered for the funeral of the British King Edward VII, nine different European monarchs assembled inside Windsor Castle for a photo. In the immediate years after this image was taken, life would change dramatically for most of the monarchs. …
Podcast Transcript Barely a month after the Normandy Landing in 1944, the allied powers were already thinking of what the post-war world would look like. One of the big issue was the creation of a monetary system which could replace the then abandoned gold standard. So, in at a resort in New Hampshire, representatives from …
Podcast Transcript In 1839, a French scientist by the name of Edmond Becquerel was experimenting with an electrochemical cell when he discovered something interesting. When it was exposed to light, it produced an electrical current. For over a hundred years this was mostly a scientific curiosity. However, with the advent of the space age, this …