Manifest Destiny, Powered by Coal: How “Black Gold” Conquered the American Continent
America’s growth from a rugged frontier nation to the globe’s industrial superpower in the space of 100 years can be explained by one word: coal. Before coal dominance, American buildings were defined...
6 Jan 49min
Ancient Athens Picked Its Leaders by Lottery for Over 200 Years. Some Think This System Should Replace Electoral Democracy
For almost two centuries, Ancient Athens—the most successful democracy in history—selected citizens by lottery to fill government positions. Athens adopted sortition—a random lottery system—to select ...
1 Jan 51min
How Would Nixon Have Handled the Cuban Missile Crisis?
The "Madman Theory" was Richard Nixon's foreign policy strategy during the Vietnam War era, where he deliberately cultivated an image of being unpredictable and irrational—hinting he might escalate to...
30 Dec 202528min
Diogenes, the Father of Ancient Greek Stoicism, Loving Trolling His Audience and Could Out-Shock Borat
The famous street artist Banksy shocked the art world in 2018 when his painting, Girl with Balloon, partially shredded itself moments after selling it for over a million dollars. at a Sotheby's auctio...
25 Dec 202549min
Blown Off Course: How History’s Windy Turning Points Sank the Armada and Saved Japan from the Mongols
The greatest energy source for civilization before the steam engine was wind. It powered the global economy in the Age of Sail. Wind-powered sail ships made global shipping fast and cheap by harnessin...
23 Dec 202546min
Maps Have Bigger Problems Than the Mercator Projection. They Invent Mountain Ranges and Usually Eliminate New Zealand
Maps have always had problems. Five hundred years ago, maps were wildly inaccurate simply because cartographers were drawing the edge of the known world, limited by slow ships and nonexistent satellit...
18 Dec 202545min
The Great Mathematicians of the Early 1900s Ran into an Unsolvable Problem. They Realized Math Made No Sense
In the 1800s, it seemed like mathematics was a solved problem. The paradoxes in the field were resolved, and even areas like advanced calculus could be taught consistently and reliably at any school. ...
16 Dec 202545min
The American Revolution was a World War in All but Name
The Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, known as the "shot heard round the world," marked the first military engagements of the American Revolution. Ralph Waldo Emerson named it that becau...
11 Dec 202556min
