World War II was unquestionably the greatest bloodletting in world history. Never before had so many people lost their lives in such a short period of time.
Of all of the many tragedies during the war, one of the largest actually took place after the war.
It was the largest single migrations of people in human history, it resulted in millions of deaths, and almost no one knows about it.
Learn more about the Post-WWII German Expulsions on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Sixty years ago at the Green Bank observatory in West Virginia, a small conference was held for astrophysicists. The meeting was organized by Cornell University professor and astronomer Frank Drake.
The subject of the conference was the search for extraterrestrial life.
In preparation for the conference, he jotted down his thoughts in the form of an equation.
Learn more about the Drake Equation on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
On April 15, 1920, two men who were delivering the payroll to the Slater-Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts were killed in broad daylight.
The payroll was taken by the killers, and they jumped into a getaway car.
A few weeks later, two Italian immigrants with known ties to radical anarchist groups were arrested for the murder. It became one of the most controversial criminal cases in US history.
Learn more about Sacco and Vanzetti, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show and independent media, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate.
This episode was originally released in 2016 in the days after the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. It is re-released every year on the anniversary of the incident.
A note on notes: We’d much rather you just went into each episode of The Memory Palace cold. And just let the story take you where it well. So, we don’t suggest looking into the show notes first.
Notes and Reading:
* Most of the specific history of the White Horse was learned from "Sanctuary: the Inside Story of the Nation's Second Oldest Gay Bar" by David Olson, reprinted in its entirety on the White Horse's website.
* "Gayola: Police Professionalization and the Politics of San Francisco's Gay Bars, 1950-1968," by Christopher Agee.
* June Thomas' series on the past, present, and future of the gay bar from Slate a few years back.
* Various articles written on the occasion of the White Horse's 80th anniversary, including this one from SFGATE.Com
* Michael Bronski's A Queer History of the United States.
* Radically Gay, a collection of Harry Hay's writing.
* Incidentally, I watched this interview with Harry Hay from 1996 about gay life in SF in the 30's multiple times because it's amazing.
American history isn’t a single linear story. There are periodic changes to the political order where political parties and affiliations are reordered.
According to political scientists, there have been six different political eras in American history. Each era was a reflection of issues that confronted the country at the time.
Learn more about America’s six political eras and what caused them on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
As soon as the Bay Bridge was completed in 1936, people wanted a second bridge. Even back then, traffic was terrible. Did you know the great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed a bridge to cross the San Francisco Bay? This week, why Wright's vision for that second bridge never materialized.
Reported by Rachael Myrow. Bay Curious is made by Katrina Schwartz, Suzie Racho and Brendan Willard. Additional support from Erika Aguilar, Jessica Placzek, Kyana Moghadam, Paul Lancour, Isa Mendoza, Ethan Lindsey, Vinnee Tong and Don Clyde.
The space race officially began on October 4, 1957, at 7:28 PM Moscow Time. That was when Sputnik was launched into orbit as the first artificial satellite, and from that moment, it was on.
But when did the space race end? That is a much trickier question and there is no formal answer.
However, I think an excellent case can be made for July 17, 1975.
Learn more about the Apollo/Soyuz Test Program and the handshake that ended the space race on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
As Illinois reopens, Chicago area artists Lori Lippitz of the Maxwell Street Klezmer Band, Lynne Jordan of Lynne Jordan and the Shivers, Juan Dies of Sones de Mexico and D2x reflect on what the last 15 months have been like, how the pandemic has shaped their music, and what they’re looking forward to as full capacity crowds come back.
For thousands of years, food storage was one of humanity’s biggest problems. Even if you could grow or hunt sufficient calories when food was abundant, it was very difficult to store those calories for when food was scarce.
One man made a huge advancement in our ability to store foods, which now allows us to enjoy fresh produce all year round.
Learn more about Clarence Birdseye, and the invention of frozen foods, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Standards make everything easier. When everyone can agree on a standard way to do things, regardless of how it is done, it can reduce confusion and facilitate progress.
You’d think if there was one thing that would be standardized everywhere, it would be the side of the road everyone drives on. I mean, there are only two options.
Yet, there is no global standard for what side to drive on.
