Month: September 2021

On September 1 and 2 of 1859, people all over the world were treated to something quite rare. Auroras were seen in the skies as far south as the Caribbean and as far north as Brisbane, Australia. However, some astronomers and telegraph operators experienced something different. If this same event were to happen today, it might bring out society to its knees. Learn more about the Carrington Event and what it means for our modern world, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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In a previous episode, I spoke about the Drake equation and the odds of there being intelligent extraterrestrial life. Many people have used the Drake equation to argue that it is almost impossible for there not to be intelligent life in our galaxy. However, in the summer of 1950, physicist Enrico Fermi pushed back against this by asking a very simple question: if there are so many intelligent civilizations, where are they? Learn more about the Fermi Paradox

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The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show and independent media, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate.

A note on notes: We’d much rather you just went into each episode of The Memory Palace cold. And just let the story take you where it well. So, we don’t suggest looking into the show notes first.

Music

• Honesty by Thrupence

• El Noi de la Mare, Eldegard by Lofoten Cello Duo

• 2400 by Martyn Hyne

• White Light by Chihei Hatekeyama

• Valse Efter Valle I Lybe by Lofoten Cello Duo

Notes

• There's obviously nearly-infinite amounts to read about Jane Addams. I found Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy by Louise Knight particularly useful.





In 1844, the Philological Society of London began investigating the creation of a new English dictionary. This initial foray would lead to a dictionary that would be unlike any other dictionary ever created. It would not just give the definition and spelling of a word, but a complete history of each word and where it came from. It would be one of the most ambitious literary projects in history. Learn more about the Oxford English Dictionary on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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What did the first Chinese Emperor Qin, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Gengis Kahn, the Queen of Sheba, and all their contemporaries who lived when they did have in common? None of them ever ate a potato. The potato is a rather new addition to the diets of the old world, and one which revolutionized civilization. Learn more about the potato and how changed world history, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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