For teenagers, every life question can feel existential. It was like that for Elif Bautman, who found meaning through literature and creative writing. Her new book Either/Or – the sequel to The Idiot – explores the life of an adolescent as she looks for answers to her questions in books. In an interview on Morning Edition, Batuman told Rachel Martin about living an aesthetic life, experiencing a sexual awakening through books, and how she sees herself in the protagonist.
Bison once roamed the West, but settlers hunted them to the brink of extinction in the 19th century. A captive breeding program operated in Golden Gate Park helped the species rebound. Today’s bison aren’t used for breeding anymore, but they remain one of the park’s popular attractions.
Reported by Jessica Placzek. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Sebastian Miño-Bucheli and Brendan Willard. Thanks also to Sarah Rose Leonard, Lance Gardner, Kyana Moghadam, Amanda Font and Rebecca Kao for their help on this series.
On April 4, 1949, representatives of 11 North American and European countries assembled in Washington DC to sign a treaty of mutual defense.
That treaty, and the organization which it spawned, has served as the basis for defense policy for Western Europe and North America for almost 75 years.
Over that time, the membership in the organization has grown and its original purpose has changed.
Learn more about NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
During World War II, as American publishers sought ways to support the troops abroad, they began printing small, pocket-sized books that soldiers could fit anywhere. In When Books Went to War, Molly Guptill Manning tells the story of these little printed editions and how they served as a way of entertainment for soldiers looking for an escape from war. In an interview with Morning Edition, Guptill Manning told Renee Montagne about how reading helped soldiers feel like they were home.
When Europeans arrived in the New World in 1492, it was the beginning of a series of events that ws the biggest change in humanity since the discovery of agriculture.
The magnitude of those changes wasn’t even known at the time, or even for several centuries after the fact. It has only been recently that researchers have discovered the magnitude of what happened.
Learn more about The Great Dying of the Americas on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia, a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts.
This episode originally appeared in the winter of 2019.
A note on shownotes. In a perfect world, you go into each episode of the Memory Palace knowing nothing about what's coming. It's pretentious, sure, but that's the intention. So, if you don't want any spoilers or anything, you can click play without reading ahead.
On July 20, 1976, Viking 1 became the first robotic lander to land on Mars. On September 3, its sister Viking 2 followed suit.
Both of them carried experiments to test for biology on Mars, something which no subsequent Mars lander since has replicated.
The results from these chemical experiments have divided researchers for decades and have been the cause of one of the greatest debates in planetary science.
Learn more about if we have already found evidence of life on Mars on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
All three of the holy books from great monotheistic faiths share a similar story about a Queen from a land in the south who traveled to Jerusalem to meet King Solomon.
This queen, who is said to have come from a land called Sheba, held not only the fascination of Solomon but of people for over 2000 years.
But did she really exist, and if she did, where exactly did she come from?
Learn more about the Queen of Sheba on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Contrary to how it might feel when we're just seeing them through screens, celebrities, too, deal with very common human problems: disease, mental health concerns, complicated relationships. Today, we bring you two celebrity memoirs that show journeys in the spotlight and the human side of fame. First, Selma Blair talks about her memoir Mean Baby, in which she recounts her battles with addiction, multiple sclerosis, and more. Then, Jennifer Lewis talks about becoming The Mother of Black Hollywood – also the title of her book – and how performing ultimately masked her bipolar disorder.
