In 1867, United States Secretary of State William Seward signed a treaty with the Empire of Russia to purchase the territory of what would be called Alaska.
The United States purchased it for 2 cents an acre.
At the time it was called one of the worst deals in American History. Today, it is considered the greatest bargain of all-time.
Learn more about the purchase of Alaska on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
In this extra-special, extra-long episode we explore T.S. Eliot’s famous love song.
This poem continues with the horror theme and begins with an epigraph, or six-line quotation, in the original Italian from Canto 27 of Dante’s Inferno. References to Dante pop-up a lot in Eliot’s work.
The epigraph hints that the poem that follows is about to describe some type of hell.
On April 30, 1943, a Spanish fisherman came across the floating body of Major William Martin of the Royal Marines. Handcuffed to the corpse was a satchel with top-secret plans for the Allied invasions of Greece and Sardinia.
With the information gathered from this intelligence, the Germans moved their troops into position to counter the planned landing.
...and Allies couldn’t have been happier.
House music got its start in the early 1980s — and it originated right here in Chicago. Many people say The Warehouse, a prominent house music club, is where the music genre got its name. Curious City talked with house heads (superfans) who danced at The Warehouse as teenagers to learn more about what the scene was like in Chicago.
And, stick around to hear from a mother who has transformed her Logan Square garage into a remote learning classroom, where preschool, kindergarten and second grade all happen under one roof.
On May 28, 1828, a 16-year-old boy mysteriously appeared in Nuremberg, Bavaria. He had a letter in his hand and could only speak a few words. No one knew where he came from, who his parents were, or why he was there.
Five years later, just as mysteriously as he appeared, he was found murdered.
His tale made him one of the most talked-about celebrities in 19th century Europe.
Learn more about the curious case of Kaspar Hauser on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
It the one of the world’s most commonly used condiments. Even though it is most often associated with the United States, it has a pedigree that is extremely ancient and global.
I am of course talking about ketchup.
Learn more about this common condiment, and its extremely ancient and interesting history, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Generative design is the process of automatically producing thousands of designs based on goals and constraints you feed into a computer. In this episode, we ask: could you apply generative design to something as complex as the urban planning process? Could it reveal better designs for buildings, neighborhoods, districts — showing us options we didn’t even know were possible? And, in the future, could this new emerging field even empower urban development teams to create better, more human cities?
In this episode:
[0:06 - 4:13] Hosts Vanessa Quirk and Eric Jaffe on the unintended consequences of the 1915 Equitable Building (the “monstrosity” that influenced New York City’s first zoning laws)
[4:15 - 11:42] Sidewalk Labs’ Senior Product Manager Violet Whitney and Senior Design Lead Brian Ho on Delve, a product that uses generative design to reveal unexplored urban design options for any given development project
[11:43 - 18:13] Carnegie Mellon University’s Associate Professor of Ethics & Computational Technologies Molly Wright Steenson on the history of architecture and computing — and the contributions of thinkers like Cedric Price, Christopher Alexander, and the MIT Architecture Machine Group
[18:14 - 20:16] Geographer and City Planner Evan Lowry on how visualization software could transform community engagement in Charlotte, North Carolina
[20:19 - 22:42] Violet and Brian return to explain why it’s important for cities to visualize how urban designs could impact their communities.
To see images and videos of topics discussed in this episode, read the link-rich transcript on our Sidewalk Talk Medium page.
City of the Future is hosted by Eric Jaffe and Vanessa Quirk, and produced by Benjamen Walker and Andrew Callaway. Mix is by Zach Mcnees. Art is by Tim Kau. Our music is composed by Adaam James Levin-Areddy of Lost Amsterdam. Special thanks to Violet Whitney, Brian Ho, Molly Wright Steenson, and Evan Lowry.
Rob explores the iconic 1995 single "You Oughta Know" by Canadian singer Alanis Morissette by examining its cultural influence and distinct sound.
This episode was originally produced as a Music and Talk show available exclusively on Spotify. Find the full song on Spotify or wherever you get your music.
History remembers the rulers and the leaders. We know of Napoleon, Caesar, Elizabeth, Ghengis Khan, and Captain Picard.
However, for every one of the people I just listed, their success was due in large part to the people who worked underneath them. The ones who carried out their orders and made sure things got done. They had to have a competent number two.
In this episode, I will put forward that the greatest number two in history was Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa.
Every so often you need to step back and take an assessment of where you’ve been and where you are going.
This is the 100th episode of the podcast, so I figured now is a good time to take a one episode break from the normal content to give you the backstory of how the show came about and how it works.
Learn more about Everything Everywhere Daily on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
