The Fascinating Case of Phineas Gage
On September 13, 1848, a 25-year-old man named Phineas Gage received a horrific brain injury while working on a railroad in Vermont. The odds of anyone surviving such an accident were a million to one...
10 Sep 202112min
Atomic Bombs and Two-Piece Swimsuits (Encore)
On the week of July 1, 1946, there were two explosions that shook the world. One was a physical explosion and the other was cultural. These two events, seemingly unrelated, are now linked forever du...
9 Sep 20219min
The Geologic Timeline
The Earth is pretty old. Our current, best estimate is that it is 4.54 billion years old, plus or minus 50 million years. Since then, however, a lot has happened. To help clarify the Earth’s timeline,...
8 Sep 202114min
The Ride of Sybil Ludington
It is the American Revolutionary War. A rider on horseback sets out on an all-night ride to warn the militia of nearby towns that the British were coming. I am of course talking about the ride of Pau...
7 Sep 20217min
Air Force One
The era of presidential aviation began on October 11, 1910 when former president Theodore Roosevelt took to the skies in a Wright Brothers Flyer at a county fair in Saint Louis. The flight only lasted...
6 Sep 202113min
The Carrington Event
On September 1 and 2 of 1859, people all over the world were treated to something quite rare. Auroras were seen in the skies as far south as the Caribbean and as far north as Brisbane, Australia. Ho...
5 Sep 202112min
The Fermi Paradox
In a previous episode, I spoke about the Drake equation and the odds of there being intelligent extraterrestrial life. Many people have used the Drake equation to argue that it is almost impossible fo...
4 Sep 202110min
The Oxford English Dictionary (Encore)
In 1844, the Philological Society of London began investigating the creation of a new English dictionary. This initial foray would lead to a dictionary that would be unlike any other dictionary ever c...
3 Sep 202112min
