"We are force." This line is originally from a Victor Hugo letter to Cuban independence fighters, but it's also found throughout Gabriela Garcia's novel, Of Women And Salt. The book, new in paperback, is about generations of Cuban and Salvadoran women navigating patriarchal societies. She told NPR's Sarah McCammon that she was especially inspired by this phrase because she "was thinking about all of the multitudes within women - how they're more than just immigrants or mothers or any of these other labels that are sort of imposed on them."
This Martin Luther King Jr. day we focus on the woman who raised Dr. King, his mother, Alberta. His mother and those of two of his contemporaries take center stage in Anna Malaika Tubbs' book, The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped A Nation. Tubbs told 1A's Jenn White that history is often told by and about men, but knowing these women's stories - "taking their lives from the margins and putting them in the center" - is just as important. As Tubbs notes, "If they'd never had these famous sons, they still were worthy of being seen."
Prime numbers are considered to be the building blocks of mathematics. Every natural number can be broken down into the constituent prime numbers that make it up.
Prime numbers have been known since antiquity and they are one of the most simple aspects of mathematics to understand, yet they remain at the center of some of the most puzzling problems in mathematics.
Learn more about prime numbers, what we know about them, and what we don’t know, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
In the year 607, the Emperor Yang of the Sui dynasty implemented a reform whereby a series of exams would be administered throughout the empire to create a bureaucratic elite that would administer the country.
That reform became one of the bedrocks of Chinese society, through every dynasty, for the next 1,300 years. The effects of these exams can still be felt in Chinese society today.
Learn more about the Mandarin class and the Imperial Examination system on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
In the aftermath of World War II, the newly formed United Nations placed a group of Pacific Islands into a trusteeship that was to be administered by the United States.
After several decades, that trusteeship was dissolved and it resulted in three independent countries, one US territory, and a unique system of international relations.
Learn more about the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands and the countries of Micronesia, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Our first interview today is about a novel that, believe it or not, was actually written before the coronavirus pandemic even started. The End of October, written by Lawrence Wright, is about...a pandemic. But Wright told NPR's Mary Louise Kelly he wishes he hadn't gotten so much of it right. The second interview is with two friends, Marilyn Hacker and Karthika Nair, who were separated by the pandemic. So to connect with each other, they wrote a book of poetry called A Different Distance. They told former NPR host Noel King that the collaboration actually strengthened their friendship.
Western monarch butterflies migrate to California to overwinter each year, traveling hundreds, even thousands of miles When they arrive, they need nectar flowers and milkweed to survive, but climate change, pesticide use and loss of habitat are threatening these magical creatures. A Bay Curious listener named Ellea wants to know what we can do to help support the Monarchs and other pollinators. One major learning from this episode: It's illegal to rear monarchs without a permit!
Reported by Amanda Stupi. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Sebastian Miño-Bucheli and Brendan Willard. Additional support from Kyana Moghadam, Jessica Placzek, Natalia Aldana, Carly Severn, Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, Ethan Lindsey, Vinnee Tong and Jenny Pritchett.
Modern society is completely dependent on a set of technologies that include computer chips, fiber optic cables, lasers, video screens, electric motors, and batteries.
All of those things are dependent on a small category of chemicals called rare earth elements.
Their importance in technology has made them a focal point of international trade and politics.
Learn more about rare earth elements and how the world has become completely reliant on them, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Curious City’s new reporter Adriana Cardona-Maguigad braves the freezing temperatures to find out how Chicagoans are getting through the stress of winter.
