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 …
Podcast Transcript For most of human history, if you wanted something, you had to make it yourself or know the person who made it. Eventually, merchants began to sell goods in a single store to make it convenient for consumers. These stores reached their zenith with enormous structures which sold almost everything. They were not …
Transcript If you’ve done your share of flying, you are probably familiar with the three-letter airport codes which identify every commercial airport in the world. Airports like DFW, LGA, and HOU are easy to figure out. However, why is there an X in LAX? How did Washington Dulles wind up with IAD? And what is …
Podcast Transcript When Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act of 1862, there was a rush of people who moved west to claim the free land that was offered. However, there was a problem. Creating physical divisions for plots of land on the prairie was difficult when there was no stone or wood. Eventually, there was …
Podcast Transcript Nuclear weapons are the most devastating things humans have ever created. They are so powerful and terrible that nations that have them strictly control how they are used and handled. That being said, over the 75-year history that nuclear weapons have existed, accidents have happened. While not common, they have happened enough that …
Podcast Transcript Most of our major divisions of time are based on some sort of natural event. A year is one orbit of the Earth around the sun. A month is one orbit of the Moon around the Earth. A day is one rotation of the Earth about its axis. However, one of the most …
Podcast Transcript Every year parts of the planet are hit by devastating typhoons and hurricanes. They can cause billions of dollars of damage and can take hundreds if not thousands of lives. But why do these storms exist? What causes their distinctive spiral shape with an eye in the middle? And why do they only …
Podcast Transcript Ninjas are awesome. They’re silent, they can turn invisible, and they can totally flip out and kill people, especially their mortal enemies…pirates. …or at least that is what popular culture would like you to believe. Were ninjas really as powerful as they are made out to be? Were they the ultimate silent assassins? …