Smartest Year Ever

Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969, but what if history had gone differently?

Today I explore one of the most fascinating questions in space history: Why wasn’t Buzz Aldrin first on the Moon? Was Neil Armstrong always NASA's choice? Did Apollo 11 follow a predetermined plan? And what role did NASA politics, astronaut personalities, spacecraft design, and pure circumstance play in deciding who would take the most famous step in human history?

Along the way, we'll dig into the controversy surrounding Armstrong's famous "one small step for man" quote, the debate over whether he planned it in advance, the near-disaster during the Apollo 11 lunar landing, and the surprising reason there are so few photographs of Armstrong actually standing on the Moon.

If you enjoy space history, Apollo 11, NASA, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, the Moon landing, astronaut stories, science history, Cold War history, and fascinating true stories, you're in the right place.

#Apollo11 #MoonLanding #NeilArmstrong #BuzzAldrin #SpaceHistory #NASA #spacefacts

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

Sources

• Aldrin, B. (1973). Return to Earth. Random House.

• Armstrong, N. (2005). Interview with Ed Bradley, 60 Minutes. CBS News.

• Collins, M. (1974). Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

• Hansen, J. R. (2005). First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong. Simon & Schuster.

• Kraft, C. (2005). Interview cited in The New Yorker and discussed in HowStuffWorks, June 28, 2023.

• NASA. (n.d.). Apollo 11 Mission Overview. National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

• Nelson, C. (2009). Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon. Viking.

• Portree, D. S. F. (2019, April 21). First on the Moon: Looking Back on the Apollo 11 Decision, 50 Years On. AmericaSpace.

Today I break down one of the most extreme questions in space science and human survival: how long could you actually survive on each planet in our solar system with no spacesuit?

From the crushing pressure of Venus, to the near-vacuum of Mars, to the chaos of the outer planets, every world presents a completely different way your body would fail. Some environments are instantly lethal, others give you just enough time to realize what’s happening, and that’s where things get interesting.

This episode explores planetary environments, atmospheric pressure, temperature extremes, and the limits of human physiology in space. If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if you were suddenly exposed to another planet’s surface, this is the breakdown.

And yes…I have a ranking system.

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

#SpaceFacts #Astronomy #ScienceExplained #planets #hypothetical #solarsystem

• HowStuffWorks. (2024). What If an Astronaut Went on a Space Walk Without Wearing a Space Suit?

• Live Science. (2021). What Would Happen to the Human Body in the Vacuum of Space?

• NASA Science. (2026). Venus Facts.

• NASA Science. (2025). Neptune Facts.

• NASA Science. (2025). Uranus Facts.

• NASA Space Place. (n.d.). What Is the Weather Like on Other Planets?

• Planetary Society. (2023). Life on Venus: Your Questions Answered.

• Science ABC. (2023). How Long Can You Survive on Various Celestial Bodies Without a Spacesuit?

• ScienceInsights. (2026). Why Venus Is Not Habitable: Heat, Acid, and Pressure.

• Space.com. (2022). Could People Breathe the Air on Mars?

• Space Center Houston. (2022). Meet the Solar System: Uranus.

• The Conversation. (2026). Could People Breathe the Air on Mars?

  World Atlas. (2025). The Fastest Winds in the Solar System.

Today I dive into one of the most fascinating mysteries in history: how Egyptian hieroglyphics became completely unreadable for over 1,400 years—and how a single discovery changed everything.

For centuries, an entire civilization’s history, religion, science, and culture were preserved in stone across ancient Egypt… but no one could understand a word of it. Scholars believed hieroglyphics were purely symbolic, missing the deeper truth hidden within the language.

That all changed with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone—one of the most important archaeological finds ever. This broken slab of stone became the key to unlocking ancient Egyptian language, allowing historians to finally begin decoding thousands of years of inscriptions, monuments, and written history.

In this episode, I explore the story behind the Rosetta Stone, the race to decipher hieroglyphics, and the unlikely chain of events that led to one of the greatest breakthroughs in human knowledge.

If you’ve ever wondered how we lost—and then rediscovered—an entire written language, this is the story.

#languagefacts #historyfacts #ancientegypt #rosettastone #didyouknow #hieroglyphics

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

• American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE). (2023). The Rosetta Stone: Unlocking the Ancient Egyptian Language.

• Art Journey Paris. (2022). How Did Champollion Decipher the Rosetta Stone and Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs?

• Artnet News. (2025, November 4). Egyptologists Call on British Museum to Return Rosetta Stone.

• British Museum. (2022). Eureka! Finding the Key to Ancient Egypt.

• British Museum. (n.d.). Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Rosetta Stone.

• EBSCO Research Starters. (n.d.). Discovery of the Rosetta Stone.

• History.com Editors. (n.d.). Rosetta Stone Found.

• History.com Editors. (n.d.). French Scholar Announces He’s Cracked the Rosetta Stone Code.

• JSTOR Daily. (2022). Jean-François Champollion Deciphers the Rosetta Stone.

• Linda Hall Library. (2024). The Rosetta Stone.

• Napoleon Foundation. (2019). The Rosetta Stone: A Journey from Alexandria to London.

• National Geographic. (2021). How the Rosetta Stone Unlocked the Secrets of Ancient Civilizations.

• NPR. (2022, October). Egyptians Call for the Return of the Rosetta Stone and Other Ancient Artifacts.

• The Collector. (2023). Jean-François Champollion: Deciphering the Rosetta Stone.

• The Conversation. (2022). Rosetta Stone: A New Museum Is Reviving Calls to Return the Artefact to Egypt.

Today I break down what actually happens when someone finds buried treasure—and more importantly, what you’re supposed to do next.

From the famous Saddle Ridge Hoard to modern discoveries like the Great Kentucky Hoard, finding gold coins, hidden treasure, or valuable artifacts isn’t just a lucky payday—it’s a legal, financial, and historical situation most people completely misunderstand.

If you’ve ever wondered:

• Do you actually own buried treasure on your property?

• Can you legally keep treasure you find?

• What are the laws around treasure trove in the United States?

• How do you sell gold coins or rare artifacts without getting ripped off?

• And why the IRS taxes treasure before you even sell it…

This episode walks through exactly what you need to know—without ruining the surprise of how complicated this really gets.

I also cover the biggest mistakes people make when they discover hidden gold, why cleaning coins can destroy their value instantly, how coin grading services like PCGS and NGC work, and what happens if you try to keep a major discovery quiet.

#learnonyoutube #historyfacts #didyouknow #treasure #goldcoins #legalfacts #law

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

• Cesarini v. United States, 296 F. Supp. 3 (N.D. Ohio 1969).

• Internal Revenue Service. (2026). Treasury Regulation § 1.61-14(a): Treasure trove and gross income. U.S. Department of the Treasury.

• McCarthy, D. J., & Kagin, D. (2014). Initial evaluation of the Saddle Ridge Hoard. Kagin’s Inc.

• Numismatic Guaranty Company. (2023). NGC certifies the Great Kentucky Hoard of pre-1865 U.S. gold coinage.

• Smithsonian Institution. (2024). Discovering the Saddle Ridge Hoard. National Museum of American History.

• Steinmetz, K. (2014). Gold coins: California couple looks set to keep Saddle Ridge hoard. TIME Magazine.

• Thomson Reuters. (2019). If I find treasure, can I keep it? FindLaw.

• JM Bullion. (2026). Should you clean your old coins?

• GovMint. (2026). State laws on buried treasure ownership in the U.S.

Today I break down one of the most counterintuitive ideas in property law: when you “own” land… how much of it do you actually own?

We naturally think of land ownership as a vertical column—everything beneath your feet and everything above your head. But modern real estate law, mineral rights, and airspace regulations don’t work that way.

In this episode, I explore how concepts like subsurface rights, directional drilling, and airspace ownership changed the way property works in the United States. From oil companies extracting resources beneath private land, to landmark legal cases like Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon and United States v. Causby, this episode breaks down how ownership, regulation, and government authority actually interact.

Follow along as we uncover how property rights, police power, and modern infrastructure quietly limit what you thought you owned.

• Merrill, T. W., & Smith, H. E. (2017). Property: Principles and Policies. Foundation Press.

• United States v. Causby, 328 U.S. 256 (1946).

• Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393 (1922).

• Brown v. Lundell, 344 S.W.2d 863 (Tex. 1961).

• Pierce, D. E. (2018). Oil and Gas Law. West Academic Publishing.

• Texas General Land Office. Mineral Rights Overview.

• Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Navigable Airspace Regulations.

• NYC Department of City Planning. Air Rights and Zoning Regulations.

#propertylaw #historyfacts #LearnOnSpotify #funfacts #legalfacts #hypotheticalquestions

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

Today I break down one of the strangest questions in neuroscience and human memory:Do newborn babies remember being born… or even being in the womb?

We all experience it — yet almost no one can recall it. So what actually happens to those earliest moments of life?

This episode dives into the science behind infantile amnesia, exploring how memory formation, the hippocampus, and early brain development shape what you can — and can’t — remember. I walk through how episodic memory (the kind you can consciously recall) differs from implicit memory, and why babies may be learning far more than we realize… just in a completely different way.

We also get into the role of neurogenesis, synaptic pruning, and why the rapidly changing brain might actually interfere with long-term memory storage. Plus, how language development, autobiographical memory, and caregiver interaction help determine your first real memories.

And then there’s the deeper question:Are those early memories truly gone… or just inaccessible?

If you’re interested in brain science, psychology, memory research, early childhood development, or just want a better understanding of how your mind works, this one goes deep.

Sources and studies are listed below.

Follow for more daily facts designed to make you a better conversationalist.

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

#sciencefacts #brainfacts #psychologyfacts #memoryscience #neuroscience #childdevelopment

• Bauer, P. J. (2007). Remembering the Times of Our Lives: Memory in Infancy and Beyond. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

• DeCasper, A. J., & Fifer, W. P. (1980). Newborns prefer their mothers’ voices. Science, 208(4448), 1174–1176.

• Guskjolen, A., Kenney, J. W., de la Parra, J., Yeung, B. A., Josselyn, S. A., & Frankland, P. W. (2018). Recovery of "lost" infant memories in mice. Current Biology, 28(14), 2283–2290.

• Josselyn, S. A., & Frankland, P. W. (2012). Infantile amnesia: A neurogenic hypothesis. Learning & Memory, 19(9), 423–433.

• Nelson, K. (1993). The psychological and social origins of autobiographical memory. Psychological Science, 4(1), 7–14.

• Rovee-Collier, C., & Cuevas, K. (2009). Multiple memory systems are unnecessary to account for infant memory development. Developmental Psychology, 45(1), 160–174.

• Squire, L. R., & Zola-Morgan, S. (1991). The medial temporal lobe memory system. Science, 253(5026), 1380–1386.

Travaglia, A., Bhattacharya, S., & Bhattacharya, S. (2016). Infantile amnesia reflects a developmental critical period for hippocampal learning. Nature Neuroscience, 19(9), 1225–1233.

Today I explore one of the most fascinating questions in biology, evolution, and longevity: what is the oldest living thing on Earth?

We tend to think of long-lived animals like tortoises or whales… but the truth gets much stranger once you zoom out. From the Greenland shark and 500-year-old clams, to ancient bristlecone pine trees, massive clonal organisms like Pando, and even deep underground microbial life, the definition of “oldest” starts to break down.

This episode dives into:

• The longest-living animals ever recorded

• How scientists use radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology to measure age

• The difference between an individual organism vs a clonal system

• The science behind biological immortality

• And why the answer depends entirely on how you define life itself

If you’re interested in science facts, extreme longevity, weird biology, evolution, or mind-blowing nature facts, this one’s for you.

Follow along as we break down one of the most deceptively simple questions in science… and why it doesn’t have a simple answer.

So there you have it.

Sources

• Nielsen, J., Hedeholm, R. B., Heinemeier, J., Bushnell, P. G., Christiansen, J. S., Olsen, J., Ramsey, C. B., Brill, R. W., Simon, M., Steffensen, K. F., & Steffensen, J. F. (2016). Eye lens radiocarbon reveals centuries of longevity in the Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus). Science, 353(6300), 702–704.

• Butler, P. G., Wanamaker, A. D., Scourse, J. D., Richardson, C. A., & Reynolds, D. J. (2013). Variability of marine climate on the North Icelandic shelf. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 373, 141–151.

• Schulman, E. (1958). Bristlecone pine, oldest known living thing. National Geographic Magazine, 113(3), 354–372.

• National Park Service. (2023). Great Basin bristlecone pine. U.S. Department of the Interior.

• U.S. Forest Service. (2024). Pando: The trembling giant. Fishlake National Forest.

• Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. (2006). National recovery plan for Lomatia tasmanica.

• Becraft, E. D., et al. (2021). Evolutionary stasis of a deep subsurface microbial lineage. The ISME Journal, 15, 2380–2392.

• Lloyd, K. G., et al. (2020). Growth zone for deep-subsurface microbial clades. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 86(18).

• Hoehler, T. M., & Jørgensen, B. B. (2013). Microbial life under extreme energy limitation. Nature Reviews Microbiology, 11, 83–94.

#Science #weirdanimals #Biology #AnimalFacts #ScienceFacts #biologyfacts  

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

Today I explore a deceptively simple question: what living thing is most genetically different from humans?

At first glance, you might imagine something bizarre—deep-sea creatures, alien-looking animals, or massive organisms that seem nothing like us. But in evolutionary biology, appearances mean nothing. What actually matters is genetic distance—how far back two species share a common ancestor.

In this episode, I break down how the answer changes depending on how you define the question. From microscopic life to the earliest branches of the animal kingdom, to more familiar creatures within vertebrates and mammals, this turns into a fascinating look at how all life on Earth is connected—and how far some branches have diverged.

Along the way, we touch on:

• Domains of life and what separates humans from fundamentally different organisms

• The structure of eukaryotic vs prokaryotic cells

• The earliest diverging branches of the animal evolutionary tree

• How scientists define genetic relatedness and evolutionary distance

• Why narrowing the question completely changes the answer

This is a deep dive into phylogeny, evolution, and the hidden relationships that connect every living organism on Earth.

Sources are listed below.

Follow @SmartestYearEver for more daily facts and ideas designed to make you a sharper, more curious thinker.

#Science #Evolution #Biology #AnimalFacts #ScienceFacts #biologyfacts 

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

Sources

• Dunn, C. W., et al. (2008). Broad phylogenomic sampling improves resolution of the animal tree of life. Nature.

• Erwin, D. H., & Valentine, J. W. (2013). The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity. Roberts and Company.

• Brusca, R. C., Moore, W., & Shuster, S. M. (2016). Invertebrates. Sinauer Associates.

• Hallström, B. M., & Janke, A. (2010). Mammalian evolution may not be strictly bifurcating. Molecular Biology and Evolution.

• Kuraku, S., et al. (2009). Timing of genome duplications relative to the origin of vertebrates. Molecular Biology and Evolution.

• Nielsen, C. (2012). Animal Evolution: Interrelationships of the Living Phyla. Oxford University Press.

Image Credits:

• “Evolution of fishes from the Cambrian to present” — Epipelagic, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

• “Petromyzon marinus (lamprey) mouth” by Fernando Losada Rodríguez, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

• “Lampetra fluviatilis (lamprey)” by Tiit Hunt, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

• “Duck-billed platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus)” — Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Today I break down one of the strangest traditions in modern culture: why the Easter Bunny delivers eggs. It sounds completely random—because it is. But behind it is a fascinating mix of German folklore, ancient spring festivals, Christian symbolism, and historical food traditions that all merged over time.

In this episode, I explore the true origins of the Easter Bunny (Osterhase), why eggs became a central symbol of Easter, and how traditions like egg dyeing, Easter baskets, and egg hunts evolved. From 1600s Germany to early American culture, this story connects religion, history, biology, and tradition in a way that actually makes sense—once you see how the pieces fit together.

If you’ve ever wondered:

• Why does the Easter Bunny bring eggs?

• What do eggs have to do with Jesus’ resurrection?

• Where did dyeing Easter eggs come from?

This episode answers all of it.

Sources are listed below.

Follow Smartest Year Ever for more daily facts designed to make you a better conversationalist.

#Easter #EasterBunny #HistoryFacts #DidYouKnow #traditionexplained Music thanks to Zapsplat.

• Hutton, R. (1996). The stations of the sun: A history of the ritual year in Britain. Oxford University Press.

• Weiser, F. X. (1958). Handbook of Christian feasts and customs. Harcourt, Brace & World.

• Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Easter Bunny.

• Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Easter.

• National Geographic. (n.d.). How the Easter Bunny became an egg-laying symbol of Easter.

• History.com Editors. (n.d.). Easter symbols and traditions.

• Newall, V. (1971). An egg at Easter: A folklore study. Routledge & Kegan Paul.

• Talley, T. J. (1991). The origins of the liturgical year. Pueblo Publishing.

Today I dive into the unbelievable story of Milo of Croton, one of the most dominant athletes in ancient history—and possibly the strongest man ever recorded.

From winning multiple ancient Olympic Games to performing seemingly impossible feats of strength, Milo’s legend sits at the intersection of history, mythology, and early sports science. Ancient sources describe a man who trained in a way that feels shockingly modern—long before gyms, barbells, or structured programs even existed.

In this episode, I break down Milo’s most famous feat, his extreme daily routine, and the fascinating idea behind it—one that still forms the foundation of modern strength training and fitness today.

But how much of this story is actually true? And what can we really learn from one of the most legendary figures in ancient Greece? Was he the Strongest Man Ever?

This is one of those stories that sounds completely impossible… until you look a little closer.

• Pausanias. (1918). Description of Greece (W. H. S. Jones, Trans.). Harvard University Press.

• Strabo. (1917). Geographica (H. L. Jones, Trans.). Harvard University Press.

• Diodorus Siculus. Library of History (Book 12).

• Poliakoff, M. B. (1987). Combat Sports in the Ancient World: Competition, Violence, and Culture. Yale University Press.

• Crowther, N. B. (2007). Sport in Ancient Times. Praeger.

• Kyle, D. G. (2015). Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World. Wiley-Blackwell.

• National Strength and Conditioning Association. (2015). Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning (4th ed.).

#hiddenhistory #historyfacts #ancientgreece #olympichistory #didyouknow #learnonspotify #miloofcroton #Olympics

Music thanks to Zapsplat.