Depending on how you define it, there are about 193 to 200 countries in the world today. Over the last 100 years, that number has been constantly increasing. Sometimes, the number goes up a lot in short periods of time, and other times, there might be decades between the creation of a new country. There hasn’t been a new country created since 2011, but it is entirely possible that we might make new additions to the list of nations before this decade is out. Learn more about the world’s next poss...
Feb 08, 2025•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the 1950s and 1960s, the British Intelligence community was shocked by a series of high-profile defections to the Soviet Union. These defections proved to be devastating to British intelligence during the Cold War and may have led to the death or imprisonment of hundreds of undercover British operatives. These defections changed Western intelligence gathering forever in ways that can still be felt today. Learn more about the Cambridge Five and how they influenced the Cold War on this episode ...
Feb 07, 2025•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the early 20th century, as automobiles became more and more popular, the need for a national system of roads in the United States became more evident. One of the suggested roads connected the city of Chicago, Illinois, on the Great Lakes, with the city of Los Angeles, California, on the Pacific Ocean. In 1926 the route was established, following paths and trails which had been used for centuries, and quickly found itself as a central object of popular culture. Learn more about Route 66, its h...
Feb 06, 2025•14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Located in East London is the Royal Greenwich Observatory. Passing directly through the observatory is an imaginary line that extends from the North Pole to the South Pole. This line is significant because it is the reference point for every other line of longitude in the world. What is even more remarkable is that there is no objective reason for this particular line to be so important. Learn more about the Prime Meridian and why it is where it is on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily....
Feb 05, 2025•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast From August 1942 to February 1943, the Germans and the Soviets engaged in what would become the most brutal and bloodiest battle in human history. The battle took place in a city that probably had greater psychological and propaganda value than it did actual strategic value. The battle, in many respects, was the high water mark of Nazi Germany and the turning point of the enter war in Europe. Learn more about the Battle of Stalingrad and how it changed the entire course of the Second World War o...
Feb 04, 2025•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast The most significant event in American history was undoubtedly the Civil War. The Civil War was, of course, the result of the institution of slavery, which had existed for generations by that time. By the same token, the opposition to slavery had existed for just as long. The opposition to slavery began amongst devoutly religious people but eventually spread into a mass social and political movement. Learn more about the abolitionist movement, its origin, and its growth on this episode of Everyt...
Feb 03, 2025•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast The United States consists of 50 states, each of which is represented by a star on the American flag. Most of those states consist of some section of North America divided by lines on a map that separate them from other states, Canada, or Mexico. But there is one state that is not like the others. It isn’t located in North America. It doesn’t have a land border with anything, and its route to statehood was unlike that of any other state in the union. Learn more about the long and controversial w...
Feb 02, 2025•14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sponsors Mint Mobile Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/eed MasterClass Get up to 50% off at MASTERCLASS.COM/EVERYWHERE Quince Go to quince.com/daily for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order! ButcherBox New users that sign up for ButcherBox will receive 2 lbs of grass-fed ground beef in every box for the lifetime of their subscription + $20 off your first box when you use code daily at checkout! Subscribe to the podcast! https://everything-everywhere.com/ev...
Feb 01, 2025•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast Organized crime wasn’t always so organized. In the early 20th century, in New York, what we would call the mafia was rather unorganized. There were competing groups, and while the individual groups had an organization, there was anarchy among them. There was a war between some of the crime organizations, and when the dust settled, all of the major mafia groups in New York City had found a way to work together, or at least not openly feud. Learn more about New York’s Five Families and the creatio...
Jan 31, 2025•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 30, 2025•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 29, 2025•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 28, 2025•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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....
Jan 27, 2025•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 26, 2025•14 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 25, 2025•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 24, 2025•17 min•Ep 1663•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 23, 2025•14 min•Ep 1662•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Jan 22, 2025•18 min•Ep 1661•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 21, 2025•17 min•Ep 1660•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 20, 2025•16 min•Ep 1659•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 19, 2025•10 min•Ep 1658•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 18, 2025•15 min•Ep 1657•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 17, 2025•15 min•Ep 1656•Transcript available on Metacast In the year 60 BC, a very unlikely alliance was formed between three of Rome’s most powerful men. Gaius Julius Caesar, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus agreed to put aside their differences for mutual gain. For many years the alliance worked, and the three men were able to run the Roman Republic….until it eventually fell apart. Learn more about the First Triumvirate on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Mint Mobile Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month ...
Jan 16, 2025•14 min•Ep 1655•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 15, 2025•13 min•Ep 1654•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 14, 2025•17 min•Ep 1653•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 13, 2025•16 min•Ep 1652•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Jan 12, 2025•13 min•Ep 1651•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Jan 11, 2025•17 min•Ep 1650•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 10, 2025•17 min•Ep 1649•Transcript available on Metacast 
