The Election of 1860 (Encore)
In 1860, the United States was as divided as it ever had been. The issue of slavery had been growing more and more contentious over the decades and by 1860, things were nearing a breaking point. The ...
17 Mar 202413min
The History of Stocks and Stock Exchanges
A little over 400 years ago, a group of Dutch investors had a revolutionary idea. They were embarking on an incredibly risky endeavor, and to spread the risk, they were going to share ownership of th...
16 Mar 202414min
Young Julius Caesar
Before the Ideas of March, before he crossed the Rubicon, and before he became Rome’s dictator for life, Julius Caesar had led a very interesting life. We know more about his early life than most Rom...
15 Mar 202415min
Pi Day (Encore)
Every year on March 14, the world celebrates one of the most important mathematical constants: pi. It is a number which appears all over nature, even in places you wouldn’t expect it. It is also a nu...
14 Mar 202412min
Homing Pigeons
Before the development of electricity and electrical communications, the fastest information could travel was the speed of a horse. Maybe a ship might have been a bit faster depending on the route, bu...
13 Mar 202414min
The History of the CIA
The United States federal agency charged with gathering foreign intelligence is the Central Intelligence Agency or the CIA. The CIA is tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national securit...
12 Mar 202414min
The Domain Name System
Behind almost every web page, email, and podcast is a system that translates addresses understandable to humans to something which can be understood by computers. The system is one of the foundations...
11 Mar 202413min
The History of Military Ranks
Every military in the world is a hierarchal organization. There are people at the top who make decisions, people down below who follow those orders, and people in between who make it happen. Today, m...
10 Mar 202415min
