Everything Everywhere Daily

As soon as humans developed systems of writing, they faced a problem. What to do with all of the things that were written down? If you were going to document the lives of kings or tax records, then you need to be able to reference these details at some later date. The solution to the problem was the creation of repositories for documents. While they have changed dramatically over time, the same basic institutions are still with us today. Learn more about libraries and how they changed over...

Perhaps the most important research in anthropology is how modern humans left their birthplace in Africa and migrated to the rest of the world. One big subset of that story is how humans managed to get to the Americas. It is a tale that has resulted in theories being updated several times based on new evidence. Learn more about human migration to the Americans and our current best guess as to how it happened on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!...

Over the span of human history, there are certain ideas that humans have had a very difficult time accepting. Ideas that no one has any problem with today and are even grasped by children actually took centuries to be commonly adopted. Perhaps this is no more true than with the concept of negative numbers. Learn more about negative numbers and how they went from being absurd to commonplace on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!...

In the very days of the United States, the country was mostly made up of farmers. They primarily ate the food they grew and maybe hunted to supplement their diet. They also drank. Alcohol. A lot of alcohol. In fact, the amount of alcohol consumed by early Americans on average might have been more than any other people in human history. Learn more about the alcohol consumption habits of early Americans on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!...

In the 19th century, the first real American sport took off in popularity: baseball. It went from a children's game to one of the most popular and lucrative professional sports in the world. Yes, its origins have been shrouded in mystery, in no small part because of all the legends and myths surrounding it. Learn more about baseball, how it really came to be and grew into the global sport it is today on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!...

On March 27th, 1964, the second-greatest earthquake in recorded history stuck the state of Alaska. It was an absolute monster of an earthquake, completely devastating communities, including Alaska’s capital, Anchorage. The quake was so great that people could feel it 1,200 miles away in Seattle. Despite its power, the secondary effects of the earthquake might have been even worse. Learn more about the 1964 Alaska earthquake on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the...

For over two thousand years, China lived under imperial rule. A series of dynasties and emperors were the defining feature of Chinese governance. However, in the early 20th century, China threw off its imperial rulers and became, for the first time in its history, a republic. Much of the reason why China became a republic was due to one man. Learn more about Sun Yat-sen and the downfall of imperial China on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!...

Located in the heart of South America is the Amazon, the world's largest river. It isn’t just big, it is by almost any measure you can think of the world’s largest river, and it is so by a wide margin. In addition to the river itself, the Amazon basin is the location of one of the greatest collections of biodiversity on the planet. It is home to millions of species of plants and animals. Despite its enormous size and importance, there is one area where the Amazon falls behind the other great...

Located at the northernmost end of the Adriatic Sea lies the city of Venice. Venice is truly unlike any other city in the world. It is a collection of 118 small islands connected by bridges and ferries. Its unique geography allowed Venice to become one of the most powerful cities in the world, both militarily and economically. Today it remains one of the world’s greatest tourist destinations. Learn more about Venice and its rise and fall on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily....

In October 1962, a U-2 spy plane discovered Soviet nuclear missile sites in Cuba. The subsequent 13 days were some of the tensest in human history. The United States and the Soviet Union came closer to nuclear war than at any point in the cold war. It was only a last-minute cooling of tensions that prevented an all-out war. Learn more about the Cuban Missile Crisis and how it was resolved on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!...

Weather systems on Earth aren’t stable. There are cycles that weather patterns go through, which can have enormous effects around the globe. There is probably no more important weather cycle than the one meteorologists called the Southern Oscillation. This cycle can have dramatic implications for temperatures and rainfall all over the world. Learn more about El Niño, La Niña, and the Southern Oscillation on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!...

In 1887, the German physicist Heinrich Hertz discovered radio waves. While the first practical use of this discovery was communication, there were also some who realized that radio waves could serve another purpose. It was possible to use these radio waves to detect objects at a distance. It was something that revolutionized warfare and weather forecasting and might revolutionize consumer technology. Learn more about RADAR, how it works, and how it was developed on this episode of Everything...

In the early 1950s, a new type of music burst forth, which had its roots in blues, gospel, country, and swing. This new music took the world by storm and was as controversial as it was successful. This music has spawned countless variations, some of which are so different that it is hard to see how it evolved. Learn more about the origins of rock and roll and how it came to dominate music on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!...

In 19th century America, a movement began to take areas of exceptional natural beauty and preserve them. This idea of setting aside land for the purpose of preservation is something that was never really taken seriously before. These areas became known as national parks, and it spawned a movement of land preservation that spread around the world and continues to this day. Learn more about National Parks, America’s best idea, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the...

Every since the lands of the New World were mapped, people dreamt of creating a canal through Central America to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. For almost 500 years, that dream was just that. A dream. Creating such a canal would require one of the greatest engineering projects in human history. It was finally achieved in the early 20th century with an enormous amount of machinery, money, human lives, and a whole lot of political arm-twisting. Learn more about the Panama Canal and...

Four things are considered to be the Great Inventions of Ancient China: gunpowder, the compass, the printing press, and paper. Despite the incredible impact that all four things have had on the world, the greatest cultural and social impact might be paper. Even in a world awash in digital information, paper can still be found all around us for a wide variety of uses. Learn more about paper and how it changed the world on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!...

In the late 19th century, a young man by the name of Erich Weiss decided to pursue a career in magic and illusion. To honor his favorite magician, he took the name The Great Houdini. He became one of the most successful magicians in history and also found success in motion pictures and aviation. It all ended with his untimely death at the age of 52, the cause of which is still debated to this day. Learn more about the legend of the Harry Houdini on this episode of Everything Everywhere...

Around 10,000 years ago, someone in Southeast Asia captured a bird that lived on the floor of the jungle. Today, billions of descendants of that bird now live on six different continents and provide food for billions of people. Yet, the birds which exist today are often very different birds from the ones which were domesticated over ten millennia ago. Much of that change has occurred in just the last 70 years. Learn more about the chicken, and how they became one of the most common birds in...

In the early 11th century, a group of merchants from the Amalfi Coast of Italy received permission from the Caliph of Egypt to rebuild a church and hospital in Jerusalem to care for pilgrims to the Holy Land. They called themselves The Order of St. John of Jerusalem. Fast forward almost one thousand years later, and this group still exist. Not only do they still exist, but they have a unique status in the world of international diplomacy. Learn more about the Knights of Malta and their...

In the year 1258, two of the greatest empires in world history collided. For one, it was yet another in an incredible string of conquests. For the other, it resulted in its downfall and the destruction of one of the world’s greatest centers of knowledge and learning. For the people who suffered through it, it was one of the worst days in world history. Learn more about the Mongol siege of Baghdad on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!...