Black Tot Day
For several hundred years, the British navy was the most powerful in the world. One of the things which the British navy ran on was rum. Every sailor on a British ship for hundreds of years was give...
22 Aug 202110min
The Civic Crown
If you’ve ever seen a sculpture or an ancient coin of a Roman Emperor, you probably have noticed that they were wearing a wreath on their head. That wreath, however, doesn’t mean what you probably t...
21 Aug 20219min
Fritz Haber: The Best and Worst Chemist in History
Fritz Haber is unquestionably one of the greatest chemists in history. He was a Nobel prize winner and his inventions have touched billions of lives. However, Haber is a two-sided coin. He has touc...
20 Aug 202111min
The Golden Record (Encore)
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,...
19 Aug 202110min
The History of Credit Cards
One of the most ubiquitous forms of payment today is credit cards. The odds are good that you have one, and most probably have one on your person right now. But how did it develop that you could pay...
18 Aug 202112min
The USS Indianapolis
There are tens of millions of stories to come out of World War II. Many of them are tales of horrible human cruelty. However, there is one particular story that is as horrific as any other, yet it do...
17 Aug 202111min
Snake Oil
If you were to call someone a snake oil salesman, it usually means they are trying to defraud someone, and more specifically it often implies making false medical claims. But what exactly is snake oi...
16 Aug 20219min
Lullaby and Goodnight
There are few things that are truly universal across all cultures and throughout history. These things are often so obvious that we overlook them and forget how they are things that make us human. O...
15 Aug 202110min
