All Hail the Microwave Oven!
According to legend, in 1945 an engineer by the name of Perry Spencer was working in front of an active radar installation. As he was working, he noted that a candy bar that he had in his shirt pocket...
15 Jun 202111min
Post WWII German Expulsions
World War II was unquestionably the greatest bloodletting in world history. Never before had so many people lost their lives in such a short period of time. Of all of the many tragedies during the war...
14 Jun 202112min
The Drake Equation
Sixty years ago 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. T...
13 Jun 202113min
Sacco and Vanzetti
On April 15, 1920, two men who were delivering the payroll to the Slater-Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts were killed in broad daylight. The payroll was taken by the killers, and they ...
12 Jun 202111min
The Six Political Eras in American History
American history isn’t a single linear story. There are periodic changes to the political order where political parties and affiliations are reordered. According to political scientists, there have be...
11 Jun 202110min
Apollo–Soyuz: The End of the Space Race
The space race officially began on October 4, 1957, at 7:28 PM Moscow Time. That was when Sputnik was launched into orbit as the first artificial satellite, and from that moment, it was on. But when d...
10 Jun 20219min
How Clarence Birdseye Created the Frozen Food Aisle
For thousands of years, food storage was one of humanity’s biggest problems. Even if you could grow or hunt sufficient calories when food was abundant, it was very difficult to store those calories fo...
9 Jun 202110min
Why Don’t We All Drive on the Same Side? (Encore)
Standards make everything easier. When everyone can agree on a standard way to do things, regardless of how it is done, it can reduce confusion and facilitate progress. You’d think if there was one th...
8 Jun 202112min
