Amanda Holmes reads William Bronk’s poem “The Rumination of Rivers.” 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.
If you were to ask most people what the very first invention that humans came up with is, many of them might say the wheel.
It isn’t a bad guess, but believe it not, the wheel was nowhere close to being the first invention.
In fact, as far as we know, there were a whole bunch of things that were invented before the wheel, and in fact, probably had to have been invented before the wheel.
Learn more about why the wheel wasn’t invented sooner, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Back in 2013 author Anthony Marra wrote a book that is every bit as timely today. A Constellation Of Vital Phenomena takes place in Chechnya, a place very familiar with warring with Russia, in 2004. It's a story about the people - everyday, ordinary people - war and its aftermath impacts. Marra told NPR's Jacki Lyden that he wrote "a novel about people who are trying to transcend the hardships of their circumstances by saving others."
Located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is one of the smallest countries in the world. The country has only one proper hotel and that has just 9 rooms.
Once you visit the country, there is no car rental service, there isn’t an ATM machine anywhere in the country, and the entire country doesn’t take credit cards.
Oh, and good luck trying to get online.
Learn more about Tuvalu, the least visited country in the world, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
In 1940, the world was at war, but the United States wasn’t A strong isolationist sentiment kept the US on the sidelines while Germany and Japan ran roughshod over their neighbors.
While the US wasn’t in the war, many people in the US military knew that it was only a matter of time before we got sucked in.
Over a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor, a plan was developed for just that eventuality.
Learn more about the Plan Dog Memorandum on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.