Category: DailyShorts

A world’s fair used to be a very big deal. They would draw tens of millions of visitors and they would showcase some of the most cutting edge advancements in science and technology. They were also responsible for the creation of some of the most iconic structures in the world. Nowadays…..eh….not so much. Learn more about world fairs and how they shaped history on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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Legendary rapper and integral member of the Wu-Tang Clan, Raekwon, is out with a new memoir called From Staircase to Stage. Born Corey Woods in Staten Island, Raekwon takes a look back at hating school, watching his neighborhood decline during the crack-cocaine epidemic, and then finding success with the Wu-Tang Clan. Raekwon told NPR's Steve Inskeep that success came with both big highs and deep lows.

Henry, King of England, Ireland, and Wales, Eighth of his name and head of the House of Tudor, was one of the most significant monarchs in British history. One of the things which made his reign so significant was the controversy surrounding his wives. His marriages completely changed the course of England and of Christianity in Europe. Learn more about the wives of Henry VIII, all six of them, and how they met their fates, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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Author Dave Eggars has written a new book, The Every, satirizing technology and it's ever-expanding hold on us. While publishing and distributing the book, which also happens to be about a tech giant overextending its reach, he tried to keep it out of the hands of one of today's tech giants. It proved to be a difficult task, Eggars told NPR's Audie Cornish, "...[it's] like taking not just the back roads but taking the dirt roads off the back roads off the highway."

In 1815, one of the most catastrophic and deadly events in recorded human history occurred in Indonesia. A volcanic explosion took place which was larger than anything, any human had ever witnessed in over 10,000 years. The total global death toll from the event might have been as high as the tens of millions. Learn more about the Mount Tambora explosion on this Episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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Humans have been aware of ice for as long as there have been humans and ice. However, using ice outside of winter has always been a huge challenge, but that didn’t stop people from trying to harness and use ice even when it was well out of season. It wasn’t until relatively recently, historically speaking, that ice became something that most people could just take for granted. Learn more about ice and how humans managed to make and store it before they had electricity.

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The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

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.

Music

• How to be Invisible, by Thruppence.

• Motion by Peter Sandberg.

• Art Blakey’s magical, Come out and See Me Tonight

• And, of course, So What, from Kind of Blue

Notes

• I relied a lot on this extensive oral history interview from The Smithsonian.

In 1939, the last naturally occurring element on Earth, francium, was discovered. However, the periodic table of elements still wasn’t full. The next year, a non-natural element was discovered: Plutonium. This new unnatural element had fascinating properties which made it incredibly useful and incredibly dangerous. Learn more about plutonium, how it is made, and what it can do, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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There are some subjects that are perceived to be mind-numbingly dull and boring. One such subject is accounting. Yet, believe it or not, accounting and bookkeeping have not only have been around since the dawn of human civilization, but they also had a hand in shaping it. Without it, the world would be a very different place today. Learn more about accounting and bookkeeping, and how they really aren’t as boring as they seem, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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