Shakespeare's English
English is a very strange language. It is a Germanic language where half of the words come from a Romance language. We have a host of words that make absolutely no sense in terms of spelling or pronun...
22 Sep 202211min
The Doolittle Raid
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the American military was on the defensive. They had been hit hard, and it would be months before they could regroup and strike back. However, one American g...
21 Sep 202215min
The Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey
Located between England and France are several islands which have a unique status in the international community. They aren’t part of any country, nor are they a territory of a country. They share t...
20 Sep 202213min
The History of Chocolate
Around 3,500 years ago, the people of Central America discovered something marvelous: the cacao bean could be used to create a fermented beverage that was unlike anything they had experienced. For ce...
19 Sep 202212min
How The United States Congress Came to Be
When the 13 American colonies decided to form a proper constitution, the single largest question which confronted them was how their legislature would be organized. This question was really the crux ...
18 Sep 202215min
Carthago Delenda Est: The Third Punic War
In 201 BC, the Romans were victorious over their archrivals, the city-state of Carthage, in the Second Punic War. This was was the closest which Rome had ever come to defeat and almost spelled the en...
17 Sep 202215min
The Babbage Analytical Engine (Encore)
Computers have obviously transformed our world. You wouldn’t be listing to my voice right now if it wasn’t for computers. However, the first computers, a device that could perform arbitrary calculati...
16 Sep 202212min
The Wonderful World of Tin
In the ancient world, only seven metals were identified and named: gold, silver, iron, lead, copper, mercury, and tin. Tin probably doesn’t rank up there with the other metals in terms of how interes...
15 Sep 202212min
