Sometime during the reign of Ptolemy I or Ptolemy II, the Egyptian state decided to build an institution dedicated to accumulating all human knowledge in the City of Alexandria.
As the city grew, this institution grew along with it to become the greatest knowledge repository in the ancient world.
…and then Julius Caesar burned it down. Maybe
Learn more about the Library of Alexander, how it was created, and how it ended on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Today's episode features interviews with two authors whose works are 2023 National Book Awards finalists — one fiction, one nonfiction. Both broach the topic of climate realities, though their books take place hundreds of years apart. First, NPR's Scott Simon chats with Hanna Pylväinen about The End of Drum-Time, which opens with a startling earthquake and centers an 1850s community of native Sámi reindeer herders in the Scandinavian Arctic. Then, Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd asks journalist John Vaillant about Fire Weather, which covers the 2016 wildfires in Fort McMurray, Canada.
The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments next week on whether the federal government can tax some "unrealized" gains. That's when an asset you hold, rather than sell, gains value. Tax experts say it's the biggest constitutional tax case seen in a century.
Today, we lay out the stakes and the massive implications for government revenue, taxpayers, and even wealth inequality.
Indian Boundary Park on the city’s far north side is a symbol of Chicago’s complicated history with Indigenous people. We’ll explore that history, and current efforts to correct past wrongs.
Foggy days are a fact of life in the Bay Area, but climate change could lead to fewer of them in the coming years. While that might be welcome news to some, the truth is fog is an important weather phenomenon for all kinds of reasons. This week, reporter Dana Cronin demystifies the mist and finds out what we might expect for the future of fog.
This story was reported by Dana Cronin. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Amanda Font, Christopher Beale and Brendan Willard. Additional support from Cesar Saldana, Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, and Holly Kernan.
Winston Churchill once said, “Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…”
Churchill was on to something. While I’m sure the vast majority of people listening to this would support the idea of democracy in theory, how a democracy is implemented can be tricky.
Change the rules, and you can totally change the outcome, even if the voters vote exactly the same. This is especially true with geographical representation.
Learn more about gerrymandering, its history, how it works, and measures to get rid of it on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Today's episode is a true story that reads like a novel. In 2006, author and labor organizer Saket Soni received a call from an Indian migrant worker. He was one of hundreds of men hired by Signal International to fix hurricane-ravaged oil rigs in Mississippi and asked to pay $20,000 under the impression it would go towards green card expenses. But as Soni explains in his new book, The Great Escape, that was far from the truth. He tells Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes about the harsh conditions workers were forced to live in, and how they eventually marched all the way to D.C. to demand justice.
Imposter Syndrome and Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim follows a Korean-Argentinian teen's journey to understanding who she is. Through the comfort of her multicultural home in Queens to the hallways of her ultra-woke, elite prep school in Manhattan, Alejandra grapples with academics, the politics of school lunch, and even a microaggression from her own teacher. As author Patricia Park tells Here & Now's Robin Young, it's a story about how quickly the world is changing – and how conversations about race are, or aren't, keeping up.
Located approximately 1.8 billion miles or 2.9 billion kilometers from the sun is the seventh planet in the solar system, Uranus……or Uranus.
Uranus is unlike any other planet in the solar system in several important ways, and its discovery was unlike the discovery of any planet up until that point.
Since its discovery, our understanding of the planet has increased by leaps and bounds, and we are still learning more about it today.
Learn more about Uranus, what it is, and how it was discovered in this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
