Everything Everywhere Daily

If you answer that question, most likely you are giving an answer based on a calendar that goes all the way back to one put in place by Julius Caesar. Caesar’s calendar, aka the Julian Calendar, was pretty good, but it developed problems over time, so it was modified in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII. This calendar, the Gregorian Calendar, what we’ve been using for the last several hundred years, and it works pretty well.

In the aftermath of the horrors of WWI, many people in Europe wanted to find a better future going forward. A future of peace and prosperity, where energy, food, and jobs would be available for everyone. One man from Germany named Herman Sörgel had a VERY ambitious idea. An idea which would literally change the map of the planet Earth, and was the biggest proposed engineering project ever put forward.

In a previous episode of the podcast, I touched on how it was difficult to pin down the date in which the United States actually became independent. In the case of the United States, it was a matter of pinning down when we wanted to define independence. Was it at the start of the rebellion, the act of declaring independence, or was it the end of the war? In the case of Canada, trying to pin a date on independence is a lot more complicated, and extends over a much longer period of time.

Everyone knows who Neil Armstrong is and why he is famous. Being the first person to set foot on the moon has placed him in a unique position in world history, and he is a name that people will probably remember for thousands of years. But Apollo 11 was not his first spaceflight. His first flight aboard Gemini 8 was, in many respects, far more exciting and impressive than his exploits on Apollo 11.

In the world of sports, most people enjoy very close fought, exciting games that go down to the wire. If you were to take a poll on what the best games or matches in history were in any given sport, it would probably involve a close score with a last-second victory to put one team over the edge.  However, there are times when a team gets whooped so bad, you just have to sit back and admire the shellacking they received.  This is the realm of the blowout.

The British Crown is unquestionably the best-known monarchy in the world. As with all monarchies, there is a strict line of succession featuring many names you’ve probably heard of: Prince Charles, Prince William, and little Prince George.  However, the rules regarding succession are more elaborate than most people realize, and the number of people in the line of succession now goes into the thousands. 

The Six Star General

There have been 5 acknowledged presidential elections in US history where the winner of the popular vote did not win in the electoral college. However, there is a very good argument to be made that there is a sixth election that should be added to that list. The conventional wisdom holds that John F. Kennedy narrowly beat Richard Nixon in the 1960 popular vote by 112,827 votes. However, to get to this number, you have to put a tortured spin on the numbers from one state in particular.

Jessie Ownes was the world record holder in the men’s 100m dash and won the gold medal at the 1936 Olympics. Usain Bolt is the current world record holder in the men’s 100m and won 3 gold medals in the event. This episode is going to try and answer an impossible, yet interesting question: who would win in a race between Jessie Owens and Usain Bolt?

Zero, My Hero

Bluffing is one of the most important aspects of playing poker. In any strategic game, in fact, deception can be critical to success. Warfare is no different. Deceiving an enemy can often mean the difference between winning and losing. Between life and death. During WWII, the allied forces unleashed the largest and most complicated deception in military history. A deception which resulted in the success of the Allied invasion of Europe, and saved thousands, if not tens of thousands of lives.

Before we created time zones, every village, town, and city had their own local time. You’d set the town’s clock according to when the sun was at its highest point each day, and everything was fine. Eventually, life got faster. Trains began moving between towns and small differences in time began to cause problems. This eventually led to the creation of time zones, so we could get everyone in the world on the same page as far as what time it is.

Rutherford Birchard Hayes was the 19th president of the United States. He is famous for being the second person to win the presidency without winning the popular vote, and he won in the electoral college by a single vote. The whole election was so shady, he earned the nickname Rutherfraud. Beyond that, there isn’t a whole lot that people remember about the Hayes administration. However, in Paraguay, Rutherford B. Hayes is a really big deal.

This episode is the story of a man, who if you don’t know his name, you probably should: Joe Medicine Crow. Joe Medicine Crow was a scholar, an author, a historian, a spokesperson, and a warrior. In fact, he was the last person to have earned the title of War Chief in the Crow Nation, and he earned that title in a way you probably wouldn’t imagine.

Major League Baseball has a long history of bad marketing ideas. From 10 cent beer night to baseball bat night, to giving fans balls they can throw on to the field as they entered the stadium, baseball has a long list of horrible ideas to bring people into the stadium. However, the absolute worst idea, by far, occurred on July 12, 1979, when the Chicago White Sox decided to blow up a crate of disco records on an evening which would forever be known as Disco Demolition Night.