Learn something new every day!
Everything Everywhere Daily is a daily podcast for Intellectually Curious People. Host Gary Arndt tells the stories of interesting people, places, and things from around the world and throughout history. Gary is an accomplished world traveler, travel photographer, and polymath.
Topics covered include history, science, mathematics, anthropology, archeology, geography, and culture.
Past history episodes have dealt with ancient Rome, Phoenicia, Persia, Greece, China, Egypt, and India. as well as historical leaders such as Julius Caesar, Emperor Augustus, Sparticus, and the Carthaginian general Hannibal.
Geography episodes have covered Malta, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Monaco, Luxembourg, Vatican City, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, the Isle of Man, san marino, Namibia, the Golden Gate Bridge, Montenegro, and Greenland.
Technology episodes have covered nanotechnology, aluminum, fingerprints, longitude, qwerty keyboards, morse code, the telegraph, radio, television, computer gaming,
Episodes explaining the origin of holidays include Memorial Day, April Fool’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, May Day, Christmas, Ramadan, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Canada Day, the Fourth of July,
Famous people in history covered in the podcast include Salvador Dali, Jim Thorpe, Ada Lovelace, Jessie Owens, Robert Oppenheimer, Picasso, Isaac Newton, Attila the Hun, Lady Jane Grey, Cleopatra, Sun Yat Sen, Houdini, Tokyo Rose, William Shakespeare, Queen Boudica, Empress Livia, Marie Antoinette, the Queen of Sheba, Ramanujan, and Zheng He.
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Explore how organized crime in New York City transitioned from chaotic gangs and Black Hand extortionists to the structured Five Families and the Commission. Learn about the impact of Prohibition, the Castellamare War between Masseria and Maranzano, and the pivotal role of Lucky Luciano in creating a governing body for the mafia.
On October 15, 1991, a cosmic ray detector in Utah observed something that had never been seen before or since. It was a cosmic ray with more energy than anything ever observed and more energy than most scientists thought possible. When one of the first researchers saw the data, they responded simply, “Oh, my God!” Learn more about the OMG particle, what it was, and what it means on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Mint Mobile Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mi...
One of the most popular categories of beverage in the world today is soft drinks. Soft drinks can be found almost everywhere in every country, from corner stores to restaurants to vending machines. Unlike other popular beverages, soft drinks are a rather recent invention, despite there being early antecedents to soft drinks that go back to antiquity. Learn more about soft drinks, their origins and how they became so popular on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Mint Mobile Cut...
On November 4, 1979, a group of Iranian Revolutionaries stormed the American Embassy in Tehran, Iran, and took 66 American diplomats and citizens hostage. Over the next 444 days, the hostage crisis dominated the news and became the single biggest foreign policy issue for both the United States and Iran. Even after the hostages were released, it has affected US/Iranian relations for the last four decades. Learn more about the Iranian Hostage Crisis, its causes and how it was resolved on this epis...
Since its creation, the Central Intelligence Agency has been tasked with gathering intelligence on foreign adversarial governments. Exactly how they were to go about doing this was not exactly spelled out in advance. This gave them an enormous amount of leeway and creativity in how to go about their mission. Some of their ideas were truly inspired, and others were, how shall we say, odd. Learn more about the Acoustic Kitty and other crazy CIA plots on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily....
In the early 12th century, a military monastic order developed in the Middle East with the express intent of protecting Christian pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. Despite its rather modest mission statement, over the next 200 years, this organization became one of the most powerful entities throughout the Middle East and Europe. However, its success and power eventually planted the seeds of its own destruction. Learn more about the Knights Templar, their rise and spectacular fall, on this ep...
Airplanes are wonderful things. They fly through the air and move people and goods at rapid speeds around the world. However, they have some downsides. In order to take off and land, an airplane requires an enormous amount of land for runways. So, for over a century, aeronautical engineers have been trying to create a vehicle that has all the strengths of an airplane but could take off and land like a helicopter. ….and they’ve kind of done it. Learn more about vertical take-off and landing aircr...
Malaria is one of the oldest known infectious diseases, with a history spanning thousands of years. It has shaped human civilization, influenced wars, and driven scientific advancements in medicine and public health. However, humanity has been making strides against this ancient disease over the last 250 years. We have learned what causes it and how it is transmitted, and we might be close to eradicating it completely. Learn more about malaria, how it has impacted humanity, and the quest to elim...
Every twelve years, one of the greatest gatherings of people on Earth takes place in India. As many as a hundred million people will converge on four different locations on sacred rivers to engage in one of the most important rites in the Hindu Religion. But what are the reasons so many people undertake the pilgrimage, and how exactly do you handle the logistics of so many people going to the same place? Learn more about the Maha Kumbh Mela, its history and how it works on this episode of Everyt...
One of the biggest controversies in the world of sports over the last several decades has been the use of performance-enhancing drugs and substances, or PEDs. It seems as if there hasn’t been a single sport that hasn’t been touched in some way by the use of PEDs. But what exactly are PEDs, and how do they give athletes an advantage? Do they really work, and if they do, just how big of an advantage do they give? Learn more about performance-enhancing drugs and how they have impacted the world of ...
Humanity has seen a lot of bad things throughout history. There have been horrific wars, natural disasters, and pandemics that have killed millions of people. Many of these awful events were awful over a period of weeks, months, or years. It raises the question, what was the worst single day in history? What day was the absolute worst when all the horrible things were punctuated in one twenty-four-hour period? Learn more about the worst days in history and arguably the one that was the very wors...
Located in Northern China is not only one of the largest cities in the world but also the capital of the largest country in the world, Beijing. Like many great cities, Beijing has had its ups and downs. It has gone from a sleepy village to a global city. It has seen its share of wars, revolutions, and historical events. Not only has it had a front-row seat to history, but it has also changed its name multiple times in multiple languages. Learn more about Beijing and how it has evolved over the c...
Every four years on January 20th, the United States holds a ceremony for the inauguration of the President of the United States. There are traditions for the inauguration, some of which have been passed down since the very first. Why do we use January 20th as the date, and how did many of these traditions get started? Learn more about the history and traditions of the Presidential Inauguration on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Mint Mobile Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks...
After the Allied landing in Normandy in World War II, the Allies made progress pushing back the Germans. However, by September, things had slowed down. One allied commander devised a plan that he thought would end the war in one fell swoop. The plan was bold, audacious, and highly risky, and in the end, it was ultimately a failure. Learn more about Operation Market Garden and the attempt to quickly bring an end to the war on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Mint Mobile Cut y...
In 1880, the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was commissioned to compose a work in honor of the completion of a new cathedral. What he wrote became one of the best-known, over-the-top, and difficult-to-produce pieces of music in history. Despite its popularity almost 150 years later, the composer actually thought it was one of his worst works. Learn more about the 1812 Overture, how it was created, and just how crazy it actually is to properly perform, on this episode of Everything Eve...
Learn about the First Triumvirate, the political alliance formed in 60 BC by three ambitious Roman leaders: Julius Caesar, Pompey the Great, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Despite their differing backgrounds and goals, their combined power allowed them to control the Roman Republic for years, ultimately setting the stage for civil war and the end of the Republic when their alliance fractured.
Imagine a device that could supply an unlimited amount of energy. It would solve many of the world’s problems in one fell swoop. Unfortunately, such a device is impossible to build, but that hasn’t stopped people throughout history from trying. In fact, to this very day, people still claim that they have created perpetual motion machines, and they keep getting proven wrong. Learn more about perpetual motion machines, or the lack thereof, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors M...
One of the most devastating disasters that has afflicted humanity are famines. Unlike other natural disasters, famines do not have a single cause. They have happened all over the world for a wide variety of reasons; some of them have natural causes, and others are man-made. Famines are typically much worse than natural disasters and are rivaled only by pandemics and wars. Learn more about famines, their causes, and how they devastated humanity throughout history on this episode of Everything Eve...
In the early 20th century, the Schlitz Brewing Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was the largest brewery in the world. However, by 1980, the company had fallen on hard times and was purchased by a competitor in a hostile takeover. The company was so bad that it eventually killed the company that bought them. However, the demise of Schlitz wasn’t one of changing tastes or bad luck. It was a series of self-inflicted wounds. Learn more about the Schlitz Mistake and how a series of bad decisions kill...
One of the most popular foods in the world is tomatoes. Tomatoes are grown almost everywhere in the world today, and they have become the basis of several international cuisines. However, just a few hundred years ago, very few people were eating tomatoes as we know them today. In fact, even after they were cultivated, there were people terrified to actually eat them. Learn more about tomatoes and tomatoes and their history on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Mint Mobile Cut ...
In the first and second centuries, a Christian sect found a wide following throughout the Roman world. They weren’t your normal run-of-the-mill Christians. They had beliefs that were nothing like those of any Christian sect today, and they drew the ire of many Christian leaders at the time. What we knew about them was limited to the writings of their critics until a stunning find in the mid-20th century shed new light on them. Learn more about Gnosticism and the Gnostics, their beliefs, and the ...
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a problem that stumped even the best minds in physics. Eventually, one man, Max Planck, solved the problem, but his solution was one that was out of left field. While the math worked, he didn’t actually believe that the mathematics explained reality. It turned out his discovery was more true than he realized and it ushed in a revolution in the world of physics that completely changed our view of nature and reality. Learn more about the ult...
Some of the most beautiful things in the world of mathematics are fractals. Fractals are unique geometric objects that are both easy to comprehend and have complicated mathematics. Moreover, fractals are not just a theoretical mathematical construction. Fractals can be found everywhere in nature, including trees, beaches, and even your own body. Learn more about fractals, what they are, and how they work in this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Mint Mobile Cut your wireless bill ...
In July 2017, the International Olympic Committee did something unprecedented. It awarded not one, but two cities Olympic games at the same time. The 2024 games to Paris and the 2028 games to Los Angeles. However, this decision wasn’t a stroke of genius. It was an act of desperation. That is because no one really wants to host an Olympics anymore. Learn more about the economics and politics of hosting the Olympic games and how it has radically changed over time on this episode of Everything Ever...
Explore the history and workings of the Canadian Parliament. Learn how Canada transitioned from colonial rule to a federal parliamentary system modeled after Westminster, understand the role of the Crown and Governor General, and discover the functions of the appointed Senate and elected House of Commons, including how the Prime Minister is chosen and elections are conducted.
During the 14th century, the world saw one of its most traumatic episodes. A plague spread through Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa that was unlike anything the world had ever seen. In some locations, over half of the population died. Those who survived found themselves in a whole new world where the social and economic rules had been totally changed. Learn more about the Black Death, how it happened, and how it changed the world on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Spo...
In 1908, the United States did something unprecedented in its history: It created a general-purpose investigative police branch for the Department of Justice. The federal government had enforcement organizations before, but they had very narrow missions. From its humble beginnings, the FBI radically changed over the next several decades and became one of the most powerful federal agencies. Learn more about the Federal Bureau of Investigation, how it was established, and how it has evolved on thi...
One of the most feared groups of people from the 8th to the 11th centuries was the Vikings. The Vikings stuck fear into the hearts of people all around coastal Europe. They could appear like a bolt out of the blue to raid and pillage villages. Yet the Vikings were more than mindless pillagers. They were also explorers and traders and had a much more vibrant culture than how they appeared in popular culture. Learn more about the Vikings and how they impacted the course of civilization on his epis...
Lions are one of the most respected animals in the animal kingdom. They are called the king of the jungle, they are used on the crests of royal houses, and the ancients made a lion one of the signs of the zodiac. They have been the subject of fables and some of the world’s most popular movies. But how did an animal that is today found in Sub-Saharan Africa manage to become a cultural reference for countries in Asia and Europe well before there was any regular contact between the regions? Learn m...
