Starfish Prime
In the 1950s and 1960s, the United States detonated nuclear bombs on land, on the water, underground, underwater, and in the atmosphere. The only thing that they hadn’t nuked was space itself. So, i...
25 Aug 202110min
The Schlieffen Plan
When the Austro-Hungarian Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated it set off a chain reaction resulting in the First World War. That chain reaction, however, was fully anticipated and one of the be...
24 Aug 20219min
The Dead Sea
Divided between Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian West Bank lies the lowest point on the surface of the Earth: The Dead Sea. Not only is it the lowest point on Earth, but the sea is one of the salt...
23 Aug 202111min
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
