Podcast Transcript After World War II, the American forces in Germany implemented a program of de-Nazification in the parts of the country which they administered. The goal was to remove anyone who was a member of the Nazi party from any position of authority. However, some of those Nazis were considered valuable, and the Americans …
Transcript In 1917, British Intelligence intercepted a diplomatic telegram between Germany and Mexico. The contents of the telegram contained information that had the potential to change the course of the First World War. Not only was it an important turning point in World War I, but it was also one of the first successful signal …
Transcript In 1483, the King of England, Edward V, and his brother were taken into custody by his uncle Richard the Duke of Glouster and placed into the Tower of London. Both the king and his brother were never seen again. They just….disappeared. It is probably the greatest unsolved mystery in British History. Learn more …
Transcript As long as the Roman empire lasted, they never created a set method of choosing successors to emperors. This inability to have an idea of who would be next in line caused numbers problems during the history of the empire. The first major succession crisis occurred in the year 69. One emperor died, and …
Transcript Ever since humans looked up at the stars they noticed that a few of them were different from the others. They moved. These moving points of light were planets. One of those points of light was, of course, the planet Mars. This first observation of Mars by early humans slowly and inexorably lead to …
Translate Wars can start with a bang but end with a whimper. Often an attack or an invasion will begin a war, but even one when one side surrenders, it can take days, weeks, or months for word of the capitulation to get out to everyone. While the European theater of World War II officially …
After a surprisingly pleasant five-hour ferry ride from North Sydney, Nova Scotia, I arrived on the shores of Newfoundland. Labrador and Newfoundland is one of Canada’s four Atlantic provinces, and it drips with beauty largely thanks to its location on the Atlantic Ocean. This is an interesting place with an interesting history. Here are some …
Transcript In 1961, at the Green Bank observatory in West Virginia, a small conference was held for astrophysicists. The meeting was organized by Cornell University professor and astronomer Frank Drake. The subject of the conference was the search for extraterrestrial life. In preparation for the conference, he jotted down his thoughts in the form of …
Transcript Every year, around this time, people who live in northern latitude countries turn their clocks ahead one hour. Then, months later, we do the exact same thing in reverse, setting all of our clocks back. Why do we do this? Is there a good reason for it? Should we continue to do it? Learn …