Author: Gary Arndt

For over 100 years, radio has been one of the biggest mediums for communication, information, and entertainment. It was the first true broadcast medium. However, recent technical and demographic changes have made the future of radio, or at least some of the bands, doubtful. Learn more about AM and FM radio, its past, present, and future, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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In the 17th century, the Netherlands was struck by the world’s first investment bubble. They weren’t investing in stocks or bonds or real estate. They were investing in…..tulip bulbs. Tulip bulbs became a mania and even common people were spending money on tulips. The price of some tulip bulbs rose so high that at one point a single bulb was worth 10 times the annual salary of a laborer. Learn more about Tulipmania on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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How small can a country be and still be a country? In theory, there is no lower limit on the number of people to be a sovereign state. However, in reality, there are costs associated with being an independent country. The fewer the number of people, the higher the cost for everyone in the country. There is one country that has managed to remain an independent republic for over 50 years with a population of only about 10,000 people.

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In 1936, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin determined it was time for the Soviet Union to have another census. They hadn’t conducted one since 1926 and he wanted some actual numbers to show the world the success of the Soviet system. Needless to say, the numbers were not what Stalin had expected….and promised. Learn more about the 1937 Soviet Census, the census that exposed Stalin, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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A common misconception that many people have is that embassies are part of the territory of the country that owns the embassy. For example, the American embassy in Canada is part of the United States. This is not quite true. The theory covering how an embassy or a diplomat works deals with the concept of extraterritoriality. Learn more about extraterritoriality, the thing which makes international relations function, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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Multiple births happen very infrequently. The odds decrease dramatically the more children are born at once. The odds of twins is 1 in 250 pregnancies. The odds of triplets are about 1 in 62,000. The odds of quadruplets are one in 15 million. And the odds of quintuplets, five children, is an astonishing 1 in 55 million. In fact, the first case of natural quintuplets surviving infancy occurred 86 years ago during the Great Depression.

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In 1957 the United States embarked on its most controversial series of nuclear tests. These tests took place on US soil in the state of Nevada. They detonated 29 devices and tested a wide number of things, including how blasts would damage builds, pigs, and soldiers. They detonated bombs on towers, from balloons, and even underground. And, according to legend, they might have even accidentally launched the first man-made object into space.

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150 years ago, an American inventor by the name of Christopher Latham Sholes developed a machine to allow people to easily put text onto paper by pressing mechanical keys. He called his invention the “type writer”. After years of tinkering and adjusting, he finally came up with an arrangement of the keys that worked. The letters on the left side of the top row were Q-W-E-R-T-Y. We have basically been using the same keyboard ever since.

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The National Football League is big business. It earns more money than any other professional sports league in the world. All of the NFL teams are own by billionaires or consortiums of multi-millionaires….except for one. One team, has no billionaire owner, is located in the smallest town in America to have a professional sports team, and yet has won more championships than any other team in the NFL. Learn more about Green Bay Packers on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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According to the old adage, what goes up must come down. Unless you are talking about a satellite, which can go up and never come down. However, sometimes satellites do come down. When they are not expected to. Where they are not wanted. Such was the case in 1978 with a Soviet spy satellite that spread its debris, its nuclear debris, all over northern Canada. Learn more about Cosmos 954, the Soviet Satellite that came crashing to Earth, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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