Questions and Answers: Volume 41

Podcast Transcript

April derives from the Latin Aprilis, traditionally linked to aperire, meaning “to open,” referring to the opening of buds and flowers in spring.

Another theory connects it to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, via the Etruscans. The name reflects renewal, growth, and seasonal rebirth in the ancient Roman calendar.

Regardless of the origin, April means it is time for me to answer your questions.

Stay tuned for the next installment of questions and answers on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Let’s get right into things. The first question comes from Brian Dougherty, who asks, Since there are over 2000 episodes to be listened to in order to reach the completionist club, would you consider recognizing those of us that have listened to more than half of the episodes? I was thinking “Living on a Prayer “, since we are halfway there.

First, Brian, a correction. You do not have to listen to the episodes in order. You only need to listen to all of them.

I’ve been considering this for a while now. The completionist club will only become harder to join over time as more episodes are produced.

The completionist club will always be the pinnacle podcast listening achievement.

However, for those working on membership, there are several milestones that can be recognized along the way to completing it.

Every 500 episodes will have a status that will be recognized on the way to completionist club membership.

Those who listen to 500, 1000, and 1500 episodes will earn the corresponding 500, 1k, and 1.5k status.

Those who have achieved episode milestones will be eligible for limited amenities at local participating completionist club chapters. Terms and conditions may apply; contact your local completionist club concierge for details.

Heike Caldwell. Have you ever met someone famous during your travels, and if so, were you surprised by how nice or not so nice that person was?

The only famous person I can say I met, and I use the term met loosely, was Anthony Bourdain. Just a few months before he died, his film crew was staying at the same hotel I was staying at in Lafayette, Louisiana, during Mardi Gras.

Every morning, he would be outside the main door of the hotel smoking a cigarette and texting with someone. He was there, waiting for his crew to pack up their van and head out to shoot for the day.

It did say hi to him, and he was very nice and gracious, but that was about the full extent of it.

I know a bunch of people who are podcasters and influencers, but I’m not sure if you’d call them celebrities.

That being said, I’m not really that big on celebrities and famous people. If I did meet someone, I almost certainly wouldn’t ask for a selfie.

Tony Grubb asks If we could harvest an extinct animal for food for the world, what would be best? Dino burgers or Dodo chicken wings?

That is an easy question to answer because I actually did an episode on the subject. It would be the aurochs, the extinct ancestor of modern cattle, that our ancestors hunted.

The aurochs is basically just a bigger version of what we already have, so we have the infrastructure to use these animals today.

We don’t yet know how this would work. It might be that the aurochs can’t be domesticated in the same way that modern cattle can, and the entire project would be a failure.

That being said, I think it would be a lot easier than trying to raise dinosaurs….that and the whole Jurassic Park thing.

Joshua Felty asks There’s a lot of movies coming out in theaters in 2026. Are you looking forward to any of them in particular?

Yes. Dune Part 3.

Dune Parts 1 and 2 each covered one-half of the original Dune book. Dune Part 3 is going to cover two books: Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.

The first two movies were fairly true to the books. By nature of covering two books with one movie, it will require more adaptation than the first movies did.

Denis Villeneuve has indicated that his involvement will be over with this film; however, a lot of people are wondering if someone might do God Emperor of Dune at some point in the future. Many people think that God Emperor is the best book outside of the original, and it wouldn’t require the same cast members, save for one.

Steve Augustino asks Long-time Completionist Club member here. I continue to be fascinated by the 1000+ “future topics” list. Is it actually helpful in guiding new episodes? In my work, when I would compile “to do” lists, I always stopped at 12, figuring that others below that number were not important enough yet to pay attention to. Does this principle apply to your list as well? For example, is the fact that some topics have lingered on your list for a while perhaps evidence that they are just not worthy of an episode in this podcast?

The list currently has around 960 topics, and it ebbs and flows as episodes are recorded.

The purpose of the list is to keep track of items, so I don’t forget them. Ideas can come from anywhere. Articles I read, videos I watch, and movies I see are all fair game for ideas.

If I come up with an idea that is even remotely viable as an episode, I put it down. I don’t worry about if or when I’ll end up using it; I just write it down.

That said, you are correct that not everything on the list will make it into an episode. Sometimes, after further review, it just doesn’t seem like it will make a good episode. Other times, it might just wind up being mentioned in another episode about a broader subject.

There is also a recency bias. I’m far more likely to do an episode on an idea I just came up with, just because it happens to be top of mind.

Mands on the Discord Server asks, Hello Gary, I have finally completed and listened to all of your episodes.. I came across it by accident one day on my commute to work, and now it’s my daily visit. I do have a question though.. have you ever visited Cape Town, South Africa, and what are your thoughts on it?

Yes, I’ve been to Cape Town several times, and I have spent a fair amount of time there. I had to go to Cape Town to take a ship to the island of St. Helena, and I had to board a ship to sail up the west coast of Africa.

Cape Town is a great city. It is arguable the best city in Africa, and the city it reminds me most of in terms of climate is San Francisco.

That being said, I’m also partial to Durban and Swakopmund in Namibia.

Cape Town and the whole Cape Region are definitely worthy of a future episode because it is so unique culturally, geographically, and even botanically.

Crystal D asks, Hello Gary, do you generally have a schedule of when you want to publish shows? Will current events, holidays or anniversaries prompt you to adjust the schedule of a topic? Thank you and keep up the amazing work!

I don’t usually time episodes with events or anniversaries. I’ve already covered the major holidays and probably won’t be revisiting most of those unless there is a unique take on the story.

I also don’t want to get stuck in the “This Day in History” format. I want the flexibility to record an episode whenever I want.

That isn’t to say I’ll never do it, but I don’t usually. The only date I have something planned for going forward is July 1, and to give you a hint, it isn’t about Canada Day.

Alien_potato asks, Hello, Gary! Big fan of the podcast! When you travel abroad, do you just go around using English, or do you make the effort to learn some words in their language to make communication easier? And if you do, do you use language learning apps/programs or have another person to teach you?

The dirty secret is that you can pretty much travel around the world using English. English is the international language of travel and tourism. That being said, you should at least try to learn the basic words for hello, please, thank you, excuse me, and goodbye.

To learn basic phrases, you don’t need to use an app or buy a book. Just a simple online search will get you the basic words and phrases you need.

Learning the phrases isn’t a matter of needing them to function; it is just a way to show the local people you interact with that you respect their language and are making some sort of effort.

Fat Yankee asks, It’s seems most of my history podcasts either have recently done or are planning to do live episodes or performances. You’ve been there and done that. Do you have any further plans to take the show on the road? Also, what role do you see live episodes and live one-off performances having in history podcasts or podcasting in general?

I’ve considered it, and I’ve been considering it more.

Now that I have some help, I have more flexibility in my schedule. Also, when I had the anniversary party, I wanted to see how many people would come to the middle of Wisconsin to gauge how well a live event would go over.

I was pleased with the turnout and how far people were willing to travel, so I’m open to doing something in a larger city where people wouldn’t have to travel.

My show doesn’t really lend itself to doing a live performance. I have done it, and there are two live shows that can be found in the feed, but they are only about 15 minutes long.

I would need to come up with some sort of format to keep everyone entertained for a longer period of time. Because I don’t have a co-host, I can’t really just talk about history on a stage. At the anniversary party, I spent about two hours answering questions and sharing photos and stories from my travels.

BSxNÄZT aka Nate asks How’s your Latin coming along? Is there another language that you’ve jumped into learning? I’ve recently started learning Russian. Nathan from Cairns, Queensland.

I do a little bit of Latin on Duolingo every day. That said, I’ve come to the conclusion that, unless they make major changes, Duolingo is a horrible platform for learning Latin. It isn’t nearly as developed as their courses for other languages.

What I need to do is set aside about an hour every day to start going through the Lingua Latina per se Illustrata books again.

These books are like children’s books that have become the most popular way to teach Latin. There are no translations in the books. They start with the simple phrase “Roma in Italia est,” and you go from there, learning vocabulary and grammar as you go.

There are other online resources out there for learning Latin, and I am playing around with some of them as well.

BAM asks, Is there a specific reason that you never say your own name Gary Arndt in the credits at the end of every episode?

Yes. My name is on the show. If you look at any podcast app, my name is clearly listed as the publisher. It just seems like it would be repetitive to say my name in every single episode.

There are a lot of podcasts in this space that do the exact same thing. I only think it is necessary to give credit if someone else is providing assistance for an episode.

Even if I’m not listed as the writer, I’m still involved in editing every show. Sometimes the edits can be extensive, and sometimes I don’t need to edit much at all.

Our last question comes from VladSander, who asks Hello Gary, Greetings from Binghamton, home of the Twilight Zone. My question is thus: How much knowledge do you think was lost during the burning of the Library at Alexandria?

The short answer is that it was a significant loss, but the popular version is exaggerated.

The common story is that humanity lost an enormous chunk of its ancient knowledge in a single fire.

That’s not how it worked. There was no single “apocalypse” event that wiped everything out at once. Ancient texts were copied and circulated across the Mediterranean, and copies existed in Other libraries, such as those in Pergamon and Rome.

Undoubtedly, some texts that didn’t exist anywhere else were probably lost, but not nearly as many as most people think. The policy in Alexandria was that any text brought into the city was confiscated for copying. The unique texts were probably those created by scholars in Alexandria.

The amount of surviving ancient texts is probably 1% or less. This is not due to the fire in Alexandria, but rather because papyrus or parchment doesn’t age well because it is organic.

I touched upon this in my episode on the Herculeum scrolls. There are texts we know of because they were referenced in surviving works, but we have no copies of them.

All of the texts we have from ancient Rome, for example, can fit on a single bookcase. Everything else created over the course of centuries has been lost.

That concludes this month’s Q&A episode. If you want to leave a question for next month’s show, you have to join the Facebook group or Discord, or support the show on Patreon, because that’s where I will be soliciting questions.