Category: DailyShorts

Every year, on the last Monday in May, the United States honors its war dead. It is often celebrated with parades, cookouts, and ceremonies at military cemeteries. While many people just think of it as a three-day weekend and the beginning of summer, it is a tradition that extends back over 160 years. Learn more about Memorial Day, how it got started, and how it is celebrated, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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If I was to ask you what the wealthiest royal family in Europe was, your first guess would probably be the British Royal Family. But it isn’t. It also isn’t the royal families in Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, or even the wealthy enclave of Monaco. The richest royal family is also the unlikeliest. Learn more about Liechtenstein, how their family got so wealthy, and why the country even exists, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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One of the simplest mathematical statements possible is 2+2=4. While the concept is very easy to understand, when you write it down you have to use mathematical symbols which are, historically speaking, a relatively recent invention. At one point, mathematicians were doing reasonably complicated work without the benefit of symbols at all. Something which is unthinkable today. Learn more about mathematical symbols on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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In the year 52 BC, the Roman General Julius Caesar fought the last major battle in the conquest of Gaul. The implications of the battle have reverberated throughout history and can still be felt in the world today. But the real story isn’t the implications of the battle, but how it was won. It was one of the most audacious gambles in military history, and it worked. Learn more about the Battle of Alesia on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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In 1787, Russian Empress Catherine the Great took a six-month trip to visit her newly acquired territories in the Crimean. Along the way, she sailed down the Dnieper River and saw many of the shiny villages in the new Russian Crimean. However, there was a problem. The villages were all fake. Learn more about Potemkin Villages, and how they still exist in the modern world, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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What do lasers, photovoltaic cells, the transistor, digital cameras, cell phone technology, the communication satellite, computer networking, radio astronomy, and the UNIX operating system have in common? They were all invented or developed at the same place by the greatest collection of scientists and engineers ever assembled. Learn more about Bell Labs, the greatest research laboratory in history, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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Every 17 years one of the grandest spectacles in nature takes place. Billions of insects in a seemingly coordinated fashion will emerge from the ground and cover the skies and the trees. This is all part of their extremely unusual life cycle which consists of an extremely long juvenile period and very short adulthood. Learn more about periodic cicadas and their unusual behavior and life cycle on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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Have you ever been really full after a meal? Like really really full? Could you imagine eating and never feeling full? Like going to an all you can eat fish restaurant and then getting kicked out for eating too much and going fishing so you can eat more fish? Well, there was one Frenchman who could never be satiated and the results of this condition were….astonishing. Learn more about Tarrare and his medical condition on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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