Hispania
Before Spain became Spain, it was part of the Roman province of Hispania. To understand the language, and geography of not just Spain but of the entire Iberian Peninsula, you have to understand Hispan...
11 Jan 20218min
The Nuclear Football
Odds are, if you have ever seen a photo of the president of the United States over the last 60 years, there has been someone in the background or walking a few steps behind, who had in their hand a le...
10 Jan 20219min
The McRib
The musical Brigadoon is about a Scottish village which appears for one day every 100 years. The village can be thought of as a metaphor for things that are fleeting, or why we must take advantage of ...
9 Jan 20218min
The Erfurt Latrine Disaster
In the year 1184 in the Dutchy of Thuringia, in what is today the country of Germany, a conflict raged between the Count of Thuringia and the Archbishop of Mainz. To resolve this dispute, the German K...
8 Jan 20217min
The Golden Record
In the 1970s NASA embarked on a mission it had never attempted before. Due to a fortunate alignment of planets, they were going to attempt to send robotic probes on a flyby mission to Jupiter, Saturn,...
7 Jan 202110min
The Last Germans to Surrender
Wars often 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 capitula...
6 Jan 20219min
The 12 Days of Christmas
I’m sure all of you have heard the 12 Days of Christmas song. It is the holiday equivalent of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, and no one ever sings it to completion because it’s so long. But it does r...
5 Jan 20217min
The Canary Islands
If you think of Spain as the country on the Iberian Peninsula which is sandwiched between France and Portugal, you are not wrong, but you are also not totally right. There is also a significant part o...
4 Jan 20219min
