Category: Active

Divided between Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian West Bank lies the lowest point on the surface of the Earth: The Dead Sea. Not only is it the lowest point on Earth, but the sea is one of the saltiest bodies of water on the planet. But how did this place come to exist, and is it true that it will completely disappear at some point? Learn more about the Dead Sea and how it came to be, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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For several hundred years, the British navy was the most powerful in the world. One of the things which the British navy ran on was rum. Every sailor on a British ship for hundreds of years was given a daily ration of rum. However, on one dark day, the tradition of the daily rum allotment came to an end. Learn more about Black Tot Day and why it saddened a generation of British sailors, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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If you’ve ever seen a sculpture or an ancient coin of a Roman Emperor, you probably have noticed that they were wearing a wreath on their head. That wreath, however, doesn’t mean what you probably think it means. It actually had a specific meaning which predated the imperial age, and the reason why emperors wore it all has to do with a single person. Learn more about the Civic Crown, also known as the Corona Civica, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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Fritz Haber is unquestionably one of the greatest chemists in history. He was a Nobel prize winner and his inventions have touched billions of lives. However, Haber is a two-sided coin. He has touched the lives of millions for the better, and he also touched the lives of millions for the worse. Learn more about Fritz Haber, perhaps the best and worst chemist in history, 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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The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

In lieu of my usual re-runs filling out August, I’m doing something different: a full-reading of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, presented in three parts.This is part 2.

Music for Gatsby was composed and performed by Mary Lattimore. Find and buy her music at marylattimoreharpist.bandcamp.com

The cover art is from Jen Corace. See more of Jen’s work at jencorace.com.

Back with the third and final part on August 19th. Back with new episodes of The Memory Palace in September.