On the fourth Thursday in November every year, American’s celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving. It is a holiday that originated in the Americas but has subsequently spread to many countries around the world.
It is a holiday that is actually secular, but with some religious overtones, and has a unique set of traditions that aren’t really shared with any other holiday.
Learn more about the history and traditions of Thanksgiving on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Amanda Holmes reads the anonymous 9th-century poem “Pangur Bán,” translated from the Irish by Seamus Heaney. Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.
This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.
For centuries the Holy Grail has been a metaphor for ultimate achievement. The quest for the Holy Grail is likewise considered a metaphor for an unobtainable goal.
However, the Holy Grail might be more than a metaphor. It might really exist and you can go see it yourself.
Learn more about the Holy Grail, what it is, and what it isn’t, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Let’s say you have a brand new country. You want to take it out of a spin and make some new laws. What is the first thing you do? Maybe ratify a treaty? Perhaps something about the economy.
Well, if you were the United States back in 1789, you didn’t do anything nearly that exciting.
Learn more about the very first law in the United States on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Of all the world’s co-principalities, there is one which stands out due to its sheer size. This enormous co-principality dominates all other co-principalities in every measure: land area, population, and GDP.
Every other co-principality could fit inside this co-principality with room to space.
Learn more about the nation of Andorra, the world’s largest co-principality, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
At some point in the future, a phone call will be placed by the private secretary of the Queen to the British Prime Minister. In this call, he will utter the phrase “London Bridge is down”, which will set off a preplanned series of events following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
As it has been over 65 years that the monarchy has changed hands in the United Kingdom, it will be something that most people in the commonwealth have never experienced.
The oil industry is in the midst of one of the worst busts on record. The price of oil is a third less than it was in January, and for every dollar the price drops, Texas stands to lose $85 million a year in economic impact. We travel to Midland and Odessa to talk to people who work in and around the oil fields about how they are weathering the collapse in the market.
For about a century, architects and developers have dreamed of the promise of factory-based construction — after all, if Henry Ford revolutionized the auto industry with assembly lines, why shouldn’t we be able to make buildings in factories, too? But, in North America at least, almost every attempt to revolutionize this industry has failed. But now, thanks to innovations in design, materials, and machinery — and a green wave taking over the industry — factory-based construction could be an idea whose time has finally come.
In this episode:
[0:01 - 3:11] We take a fun trip back in time to Expo 67 and explore why the influential prefabricated concrete building Habitat 67 was just too ahead of its time.
[3:35 - 8:26] Northeastern University architecture professor Ivan Rupnik relays the history of factory-based construction, including Operation Breakthrough, the U.S.’s initiative to out-build the Soviet Union during the Cold War
[8:46 - 16:28] Sidewalk Labs Director of Product Design for Buildings Karim Khalifa and Associate Director of Building Innovations Lily Huang describe how Sidewalk Labs is developing an architectural kit of parts to allow architects to build with quality, speed, and sustainability
[16:43 - 22:30] Architect and author Susan Jones shares her experiences building her own prefabricated mass timber house and working on the committee to change international building code for mass timber
To see images and videos of topics discussed in this episode, read the link-rich transcript on our Sidewalk Talk Medium page.
City of the Future is hosted by Eric Jaffe and Vanessa Quirk, and produced by Benjamen Walker and Andrew Callaway. Mix is by Zach Mcnees. Art is by Tim Kau. Our music is composed by Adaam James Levin-Areddy of Lost Amsterdam. Special thanks to Ivan Rupnik, Karim Khalifa, Lily Huang, and Susan Jones.
I’m sure everyone has heard of such famous places as the Great Pyramids, the Colosseum, the Great Wall of China, and the Taj Mahal.
Besides all being famous landmarks, they have something else in common. They are all UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
What is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and how does a site become one?
Learn more about the UNESCO World Heritage Site program on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
We’ve spent the last couple of months reimagining the Curious City podcast and trying out some new ways to answer your questions. And now, the wait is over. We’re ready to let you hear what we’ve been up to. We’re still going to be answering your questions, but in this episode, we’re collaborating with our audience a little differently. Two WBEZ education reporters share how a family and a teacher are coping with remote learning.
