In a decision representing the triumph of anti-Columbus sentiment, President Joe Biden announced Friday he plans on officially commemorating Indigenous Peoples Day, rather than Columbus Day, on Monday.
The controversy surround Christopher Columbus has spanned decades. To some, Columbus serves as a symbol of bloodthirsty colonial expansion, a petty tyrant hellbent on pillaging native lands. To others, Columbus is a misunderstood and unjustified target of anti-American scorn who should be praised for his tolerance and kindness towards indigenous people.
Jarrett Stepman, a Daily Signal contributor and author of the book "The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America's Past," falls squarely in the latter camp.
Stepman joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss the long-running controversy surrounding the much maligned Columbus and to share the true story of the man who discovered America.
Back in August, Myriam J.A. Chancy was preparing for the release of her novel What Storm, What Thunder when the news broke: a magnitude 7.2 earthquake had hit Haiti. It was a "chilling and bittersweet" moment, she says; her soon-to-be-published book revolved around the 2010 earthquake that devastated the country, and its aftermath. In this episode, she talks to NPR's Scott Simon about the eerie similarities between the two quakes, how her characters speak to how international relief efforts have historically failed Haiti, and what the world can learn from the country's rebuilding efforts.
S2 Ep16. It’s a “living fossil”! This fish can resist piranha attacks and is inspiring a new body armour. The arapaima has been swimming the waters of the Amazon for millions of years. It’s also home to a famous predator, the fearsome piranha. The Arapaima has a secret weapon – it’s scales are both tough and flexible and they’ve caught the attention of scientists.
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Thirty-five years ago, Janet Jackson released an album that changed the course of her career, and of pop music. Control took over radio, reinvented the playbook for Black artists crossing over into pop and ushered in a whole new sound for R&B.
But after the wardrobe malfunction at the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, Janet's reputation took a hit, and she's yet to receive the flowers she deserves.
In this episode of NPR's It's Been A Minute, host Sam Sanders wants to set the record straight.
n December 2020, China's Chang'e-5 mission returned to earth carrying rock samples collected from the moon – the first lunar samples to be collected since the American Apollo and Luna missions to the moon in the 1970s.
Laboratory analysis has revealed that these are the youngest samples of rocks to be collected from the moon. Lunar geologist Katherine Joy explains what this tells us about the moon’s volcanic past. Also on the programme, a recent study reveals that the hepatitis B virus has been infecting humans for at least 10,000 years.
Denise Kühnert from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History shares what the evolution of the virus tells us about human evolution, as well as the rise and fall of civilisations. In the wake of Cyclone Shaheen, we also speak to Princeton University’s Ning Lin about how climate modelling can help us predict tropical storms in the Arabian Sea, and Fredi Otto joins us to discuss the 2021 Nobel Prizes for Science.
Snails are a major enemy of gardeners around the world, invading vegetable patches and gobbling prize plants. CrowdScience listener Alexandre reckons he’s removed thousands of them from his garden, which got him wondering: apart from eating his garden to the core, what’s their wider role in nature? Would anyone or anything miss them if they suddenly disappeared?
And for that matter, what about other creatures? We all know how complex biodiversity is, but it seems that some animals are more important than others in maintaining the balance of life on earth. Is there anything that could go extinct without having knock-on effects?
CrowdScience heads to the Hawaiian mountains, a snail diversity hotspot, to discover the deep value of snails to native ecosystems there. Researchers and conservationists are working together to protect these highly endangered snails, and their natural habitats, from multiple threats.
We hear why all snails – even the ones munching Alexandre’s petunias – have their role to play in the natural world, and get to grips with cascading extinctions: how the loss of a single species can trigger unpredictable effects on a whole ecosystem.
People who love to dance are said to have dancing fever. Dancing fever is just a phrase and not something meant to be taken literally.
However, could there really be an actual dancing fever? Could there be a disease that caused people, many people, to dance until they fell from exhaustion?
Well, maybe.
Learn more about the Straussberg Dancing Plague of 1518 on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Professor Lee Epstein, who studies judicial behavior using empirical legal research, to try to figure out what’s unprecedented partisanship and what’s clumsy PR from the justices as we embark upon a hugely consequential new Supreme Court term.
In our Slate Plus segment, Mark Joseph Stern joins Dahlia to talk about Justice Alito’s press-baiting speech last week, what’s happening with SB8, and to discuss whether we’re seeing some signs of accountability for some of the legal architects of former President Trump’s attempt to subvert the election.
The rise of agriculture has been pointed to as being responsible for the rise of civilization as we know it.
However, that raises the question, what was responsible for the rise of agriculture? In particular, at least in the Middle East with the cultivation of grain, the debate has always been which came first: Beer or Bread?
Learn more about the great beer vs bread debate, and which was responsible for the rise of civilization, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
