If there’s two things the internet knows about Nikola Tesla, it’s that he was a genius scientist vastly ahead of his time, and that thanks to a many decades long feud with Thomas Edison which included Edison stealing some of his work and otherwise keeping his former employee on the black balled list, Tesla died in poverty and was largely forgotten by history until relatively recently…
The thing is, other than the part about Tesla being a genius, literally none of the rest of what I just said is true. In fact, most of what popular history remembers about Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison both individually and with regards to their relationship is pure myth.
Ringing in on this, historian Keith Nier very aptly stated of Thomas Edison, "He is actually one of the least well known of all famous people, and much of what everybody thinks they know about him is no more reliable than a fairy tale."
And as for Tesla? That’s even more of the case for him than Edison. To a pretty shocking degree actually.
In fact, in the couple decades we’ve been researching and writing to the tune of several thousand videos, we’ve never come across two individuals that popular history gets so incredibly wrong. Unfortunately for us, who were once major Tesla fanboys, this meant facing some rather harsh truths about the man and his work and ideas… which were… ya… we’ll get into it all. But as for Edison, turns out kind of an incredible human when you throw out all the myths that largely came about thanks to becoming the devil to god Tesla in the popular narrative of Tesla’s life.
So, without further ado, let’s welcome in my co-host Gilles with his vast engineering knowledge to get to the bottom of it all so that you, too, can now smugly walk around knowing the true story of Tesla and Edison, while fanboys and haters on the interwebs continue to sling their myths and misconceptions.
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1:54:31
Is There Any Hard Evidence That Jesus Actually Existed?
In this episode, Simon delves into the historical and archaeological records, exploring theories and debates surrounding one of history's most significant religious figures.
Author: Daven Hiskey
Host: Simon Whistler
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34:17
That Time the U.S. Tried to Build a Massive Military Base on the Moon
During the Cold War, the U.S. government was hell-bent on one upping the commies in any way possible. In the process, they came up with a number of outlandish plans, such as that time they proposed literally nuking the moon, interestingly enough a project a young Carl Sagan worked on and broke some laws with. More on this later. While it’s probably for the best that that project didn’t ultimately get carried out, there is another that went into history's dustbin that would have been amazing if implemented- the U.S. Army's plan to build a massive military and research installation on the moon. This is the story of Project Horizon, along with a lot of other interesting related tidbits along the way, from what a nuclear explosion would look like on the moon and whether a nuke would actually be a terribly effective weapon in space, to the guns designed for astronauts, to the rather humorous first thing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin did on the surface of the moon, to the dick pic that exists in the so-called first museum on the moon and the famous artist who drew it, to the fascinating story of the man who successfully sold the moon and apparently made a fortune in the process.
This is going to be a good one. And to talk about all of this today, we’re trying something different by welcoming in our resident genius, engineer, author of the scripts for over 500 videos on TodayIFoundOut, and the owner of the phenomenal channel Our Own Devices, the Professor- Gilles Messier.
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2:08:45
Common Things Different in Europe vs. the United States
Ah America, filled with gun toting rednecks wearing their flag as a
t-shirt and pondering what Jesus would do while chowing down on Mexican food, greasy burgers, partially hydrogenated corn syrup cubes, and washing it all down with Budweiser, the king of beers… for those who’ve never tasted real beer… And Europe, full of a homogeneous group of people who spend most of their time measuring things in meters instead of Ariana Grandes as every god-fearing individual should, whilst
worshiping the British monarchy, rioting about football, mocking
Americans and their inferior chocolates and cheeses, and otherwise bent
on making sure the entire world becomes socialist… Or, at least, so the
interwebs have taught us all. But what are the actual interesting
differences between people and things in the surprisingly diverse United
States compared with the various individuals in the vastly more diverse
countries of Europe? Well, I'm glad you asked, because that's what Simon and I are going to cover today. Let’s dive into it all, shall we?
Hosts: Simon Whistler and Daven Hiskey
0:00 Intro
2:06 HOMES
4:26 Buying a Home
13:21 Locks
18:20: Kitchens and Appliances
24:25: Rooms
25:35: Bathrooms
32:54 Garages
35:00 Misc
37:08 Dining
46:13 Pub Culture and Drinking
59:15 Mexican Food
1:02:35 Meal Deal
1:05:27 WORK
1:21:30 Everyday Things
1:41:43 Dress
1:51:09 Education
2:03:00 Internet
2:05:30 Day Fine System
2:07:32 Foot Goes In, Foot Goes Out
2:08:40 Transportation
2:27:35 General Culture
3:12:25 Healthcare
3:19:50 Misc
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3:57:36
The Fascinating Origins of Everyday Things (Part 4)
In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we are start out with an appetizer looking at how chopsticks came to be and why they became so popular in certain parts of the world vs things like spoons and forks.
Next up we have a brief message from our sponsor… Ourselves! Go check out our new-ish channel Highlight History, an upcoming re-launch / re-think of Fact Quickie, a new upcoming one in Ancient Marvels, and Simon’s latest attempt to host all YouTube channels- Side Projects.
Next up, in the main course, we look at who exactly invented the spoon, knife, and fork, how they became popularized and the surprising amount of time it took for two of the three to become a staple of dinner tables the world over.
As for the desert for today, we discuss who actually invented the Fortune Cookie, which pretty much everyone always gets wrong. And, spoiler: no, it wasn’t the Chinese nor Americans.
On another note, if you could do us a huge favor and rate and review this show in whatever podcasting platform you’re using (including hopefully giving us some feedback related to the new format), we would be extremely grateful. Thanks!
Don’t miss future episodes of this podcast, subscribe here: iTunes | Spotify | Google Play Music | Stitcher | RSS/XML
You can also find more episodes by going here: The BrainFood Show
The post The Fascinating Origins of Everyday Things (Part 4) appeared first on Today I Found Out.
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In this show, the team behind the wildly popular TodayIFoundOut YouTube channel do deep dives into a variety of fascinating topics to help you feed your brain with interesting knowledge.
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