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
Isambard Kingdom Brunel (Encore)
In 2002 the BBC did a poll where they named the top 100 Britons in history. It had many people you have probably heard of, including Isaac Newton, Princess Diana, John Lenon, and Queen Victoria. The p...
7 Jun 202111min
The Incredible Polgar Sisters
László Polgár was born just after World War II in Hungary. His field of study was the nature of human intelligence. After studying the lives of over 400 great intellectuals from throughout human histo...
6 Jun 202110min
