Author: Gary Arndt

During the second world war, one of the biggest efforts of the war was the Manhattan Project: the secret American program to create an atomic bomb. The scientists and staff of the Manhattan Project were in a race to beat Nazi Germany to be the first country to build the A-bomb. When Germany surrendered in May 1945, and Americans detonated the first device in July, they had seemingly won the race. But was it in fact a race at all? How close were the Nazis to actually building an atom bomb?

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In the year 331 BC, fresh from his conquest of Egypt, Alexander the Great established a new city in Egypt named after himself. This new city, situated on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, at the end of the Nile Delta, would go on to become one of the most important cities in the world, and Alexander’s city is still alive and vibrant today. Learn more about Alexandria, the "Bride of the Mediterranean" on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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During World War II, the US Army assigned statistician Abraham Wald the task of statistically figuring out where extra armor should be added to American bombers. After analyzing the evidence and sharing it with the Army, he recommended the exact opposite of what the Army assumed. The reason was that the Army had engaged in a logical fallacy. Learn more about survivorship bias and how it manifests itself into everyday thinking, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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When most people think of World War II, they think of the Allied power of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, versus the Axis power of Germany, Italy, and Japan. However, this wasn’t always the case. At the start of the war in Europe, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union actually coordinated with each other to invade their neighbors. Learn more about the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact.

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Statistically speaking, about 90% of you listening to my words right now are right-handed. Of the rest of you, almost all of you will be left-handed. The question of why so many more people are right-handed as opposed to left-handed is one that people have asked for centuries. It is an imbalance that has existed throughout history and across every culture. Learn more righties and lefties and why the imbalance between them exists, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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The ancient world had many great accomplishments. The Pyramids of Giza, The Great Wall of China, and the Colosseum are just a few of the great wonders which are still standing. However, one of early humanity’s greatest achievements is one that didn’t leave any physical monuments. Its legacy is the people who live on the remote islands in the Pacific Ocean. Learn more about the Polynesian navigators and how they explored the Pacific on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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The Great Pyramid of Giza, also known as the Great Pyramid of Khufu, is a structure in which superlatives don’t really do justice. It isn’t just old, it’s really old. It isn’t just big, it’s really big. It has served as a sentinel to some of the most important people and events in history, and it has also been the focal point of speculation about the past. Learn more about the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the seven ancient wonders of the world, on this episode of Everything Everywhere

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In the late 19th century, several of the world’s foremost investors engaged in a public battle for the future of electricity. The battle was fought in boardrooms and newspapers, and there was seemingly nothing that was off-limits. The battle eventually took the lives of several people…..and several dogs. Learn more about the current wars between George Westinghouse, Nikolai Tesla, and Thomas Edison, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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In 1961, the United States figure skating team was one of the top programs in the world. The year before at the 1960 Olympics, they took the gold in both the men’s and women’s competitions. Then on February 15, 1961, the team suffered a terrible catastrophe. One which took the better part of a decade for the US program to recover from. Learn more about Sabena Flight 548 and the fate of the 1961 US figure skating team, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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In 1910, a German Earth scientist noticed something about the map of the world. South America seemed to fit into Africa. North America seemed to fit into northwest Africa and Europe. He proposed that the continents may at one time have been joined and subsequently moved. The scientific community laughed at him and rejected his idea. Learn more about Alfred Wegener and the theory of Continental Drift, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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