Author: Gary Arndt

There is a number, a very special number, which is inside all of us. It is inside you, inside me, and inside every person on Earth. It dictates our social interactions. It has determined the size of communities, Christmas Card lists, and has implications for social media. Learn more about the Dunbar Number on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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On November 24, 1971, a man who identified himself as Dan Cooper purchased a $20 ticket for a short 30-minute flight from Portland to Seattle. He had with him a briefcase filled with dynamite and wanted $200,000. After getting his money, the plane took off again, Dan Cooper took the money, jumped out of the plane and into history. Learn more about DB Cooper, and the world’s only unsolved skyjacking, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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There are many foods that are considered an acquired taste. Foods that might not be very palatable the first time you try it, or something that just doesn’t sit right with most people. It could be something as simple as blue cheese, or something like the Filipino delicacy, balut, which is a boiled, fertilized egg with the embryo still inside. Sweden has its own acquired taste delicacy which has spawned hundreds of reaction videos as people and caused it to be banned by airlines.

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Before Spain became Spain, it was part of the Roman province of Hispania. To understand the language, and geography of not just Spain but of the entire Iberian Peninsula, you have to understand Hispania. Learn more about one of the greatest provinces in the Roman empire, and how it created modern Spain on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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Odds are, if you have ever seen a photo of the president of the United States over the last 60 years, there has been someone in the background or walking a few steps behind, who had in their hand a leather satchel. In that bag was everything the President would need to start armageddon. Learn more about the Nuclear Football, what it is, and why it is always around, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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The musical Brigadoon is about a Scottish village which appears for one day every 100 years. The village can be thought of as a metaphor for things that are fleeting, or why we must take advantage of opportunities when they appear. Brigadoon doesn’t exist in our world, but we do have the next best thing. The Mc Rib. Learn more about the sandwich which only occasionally appears on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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In the year 1184 in the Dutchy of Thuringia, in what is today the country of Germany, a conflict raged between the Count of Thuringia and the Archbishop of Mainz. To resolve this dispute, the German King Henrich VI called the parties to the city of Erfurt to settle their outstanding issues. Things did not go as anyone planned. Learn more about the Erfurt Latrine Disaster on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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In the 1970s NASA embarked on a mission it had never attempted before. Due to a fortunate alignment of planets, they were going to attempt to send robotic probes on a flyby mission to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, before being sent to deep space, out of the solar system. Some of the mission planners figured if they were going to send a probe all that way, maybe they might as well add something extra to the payload.

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Wars often start with a bang but end with a whimper. Often an attack or an invasion will begin a war, but even one when one side surrenders, it can take days, weeks, or months for word of the capitulation to get out to everyone. While the European theater of World War II officially ended on May 8, 1945, the word didn’t reach everyone right away. Learn more about the last Germans to surrender on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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I’m sure all of you have heard the 12 Days of Christmas song. It is the holiday equivalent of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, and no one ever sings it to completion because it’s so long. But it does raise the question, what are the 12 days of Christmas? Why are there 12? And why am I doing an episode on this in January well after Christmas is over? Learn the answers to these questions on the episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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