Smartest Year Ever

Today I dive into one of the most shocking real-world breakdowns of public order in modern history—when a major city suddenly had no police.

In 1969, Montreal experienced a full-scale police strike, joined by firefighters, leaving a city of nearly 2 million people without formal law enforcement. What followed has since been studied as a case of rapid societal breakdown, urban unrest, and what can happen when systems we take for granted disappear overnight.

This episode explores the Montreal police strike of 1969, often referred to as the “Night of Terror,” and why it remains one of the most cited examples in discussions around crime spikes, public safety, labor disputes, and social stability.

We’ll break down:

• The underlying labor conflict and political tension in Quebec
  

• How quickly crime escalated without police presence
  

• The role of existing social pressure and unrest
  

• Why this moment still gets referenced in debates about law enforcement and order
  

It’s a history lesson and a real-world case study in how fragile systems can be when they suddenly vanish.

If you’re interested in history, true events, crime, urban chaos, or the psychology of what keeps society functioning, this is one of those stories that sticks with you.

#History #historyfacts #LearnOnYouTube #CrimeHistory #UrbanHistory #DidYouKnow

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

Sources

• The New York Times. (1969, October 8). Montreal Police Strike Ends; Violence Erupts.
  

• The Canadian Encyclopedia. (n.d.). Montreal police strike of 1969.
  

• CBC Digital Archives. (n.d.). 1969: Montreal police strike leads to chaos.
  

• Fournier, L. (1984). FLQ: The Anatomy of an Underground Movement. NC Press.
  

Levine, M. V. (1990). The Reconquest of Montreal: Language Policy and Social Change in a Bilingual City. Temple University Press.

Today I explore one of the strangest forgotten jobs of the Industrial Revolution: the people who were literally paid to wake strangers up.

Before alarm clocks were common household items, factory workers still had to arrive at work before sunrise. Textile mills and industrial workplaces in cities like Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, and London demanded strict punctuality. But many workers didn’t own reliable clocks.

So how did they wake up on time?

For decades in industrial Britain, people hired “knocker-uppers” — human alarm clocks who walked the streets before dawn tapping on bedroom windows with long sticks or even firing dried peas at the glass until workers got out of bed.

In this episode of Smartest Year Ever, I look at the strange history of knocker-uppers, how the job worked, who did it, why factories depended on them, and how this unusual profession eventually disappeared as mechanical alarm clocks became cheaper and more widespread.

It’s a fascinating story about industrial time discipline, factory life, and the everyday problems people had to solve before modern technology.

And it raises a simple question:

If someone’s job was waking everyone else up…who woke up the knocker-uppers?

Watch to find out.

#history #industrialrevolution #funfacts #didyouknow #learnonyoutube #historyfacts

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

Sources:

• Allen, R. C. (2009). The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective. Cambridge University Press.
  

• Flanders, J. (2012). The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens’ London. Thomas Dunne Books.
  

• Gunn, S. (2000). The Public Culture of the Victorian Middle Class: Ritual and Authority in the English Industrial City. Manchester University Press.
  

• Hobsbawm, E. (1999). Industry and Empire: From 1750 to the Present Day. New Press.
  

• Humphries, J. (2010). Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution. Cambridge University Press.
  

• Rule, J. (1986). The Labouring Classes in Early Industrial England, 1750–1850. Routledge.
  

Thompson, E. P. (1967). Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism. Past & Present, 38, 56–97.

For two weeks, an Olympic host city becomes the center of the world.

Then the flame goes out.

In this episode of Smartest Year Ever, Gordy explores the abandoned Olympic venues, financial fallout, political upheaval, and unexpected afterlives of some of the most iconic Olympic stadiums and Winter Games sites ever built.

From the haunting remains of Sarajevo 1984 to the controversial spending of Athens 2004, from the post-Games deterioration of Rio 2016 to the lasting symbolism of Berlin 1936 and Beijing’s Bird’s Nest, this episode examines what really happens after the Olympic legacy speeches end.

Why do some Olympic stadiums thrive while others become overgrown “white elephants”?What determines whether a venue becomes a national landmark… or a warning sign?

This is a deep dive into Olympic history, sports economics, urban planning, geopolitics, and the long shadow of global mega-events. It’s about the tension between spectacle and sustainability — and how the world’s biggest sporting event can leave behind dramatically different futures.

The Olympic Games promise transformation.History tells a more complicated story.

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

#OlympicHistory #UrbanPlanning #SportsHistory #abandonedplaces #sarajevoolympics #WorldHistory #LearnOnSpotify #olympics

Sources

• BBC News. (2017). Rio 2016 venues after the Olympics. BBC.
  

• Council on Foreign Relations. (n.d.). The economics of hosting the Olympic Games.
  

• Donia, R. J. (2006). Sarajevo: A biography. University of Michigan Press.
  

• Flyvbjerg, B., & Stewart, A. (2012). Olympic proportions: Cost and cost overrun at the Olympics 1960–2012. Saïd Business School Working Paper, University of Oxford.
  

• International Olympic Committee. (n.d.). Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics. Olympic.org.
  

• United Nations Security Council. (1994). Final report of the Commission of Experts established pursuant to Resolution 780 (1992).
  

• Zimbalist, A. (2015). Circus Maximus: The economic gamble behind hosting the Olympics and the World Cup. Brookings Institution Press.
  

• The Guardian. (2012). Athens Olympic venues fall into disrepair.
  

• Official London 2012 Legacy Reports.
  NBC Sports Bay Area & California. (n.d.). Photos show former Olympic venues and villages around the world.

The Olympic Games are often presented as the pinnacle of tradition, discipline, and athletic excellence. But the early Olympics were far less polished—and far stranger—than the spectacle we recognize today.

In this episode of Smartest Year Ever, Gordy explores the weirdest Olympic events in history, from forgotten competitions that vanished after a single appearance to experimental sports that barely resembled athletics at all. Long before the modern Olympics settled into their familiar format, organizers were aggressively experimenting, blurring the line between serious sport and chaotic novelty.

This episode dives into bizarre Olympic swimming events, controversial competitions, artistic medals, and abandoned sports that reveal how unstable and experimental the Games once were. Along the way, Gordy examines how shifting ideas about athleticism, professionalism, safety, and spectacle quietly shaped what the Olympics eventually became—and what they left behind.

If you think modern Olympic events are strange, this episode offers a reminder: it used to be much weirder.

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

Sources:

• International Olympic Committee. The Olympic Games: History and Past Sports. Lausanne: IOC.
  

• Mallon, B. (2000). The 1900 Olympic Games: Results for All Competitors in All Events. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
  

• Mallon, B., & Widlund, T. (1998). The 1904 Olympic Games: Results for All Competitors in All Events. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
  

• Mallon, B. (2006). The 1906 Intercalated Games. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
  

• Mallon, B., Heijmans, J., & Buchanan, I. (2011). Historical Dictionary of the Olympic Movement (4th ed.). Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
  

• Wallechinsky, D., & Loucky, J. (2012). The Complete Book of the Olympics. London: Aurum Press.
  

• International Olympic Committee. Olympic Art Competitions (1912–1948). IOC Historical Archives.
  

• Smithsonian Magazine. The Strange History of the Olympics’ Art Competitions.
  

• BBC Magazine. Olympic Sports That No Longer Exist.
  

• Encyclopaedia Britannica. Olympic Games.
  

• Library of Congress. The 1900 Paris Exposition and the Olympic Games.
  

#Olympics #OlympicHistory #WeirdHistory #SportsHistory #OlympicFacts #DidYouKnow #LearnOnYouTube #historyfacts

In this episode of Smartest Year Ever, Gordy explores one of the most unsettling moments in Cold War history… a true story involving a B-52 Stratofortress, thermonuclear weapons, and a chain of mechanical failures that came far closer to catastrophe than the public was ever told.

The episode traces the 1961 Goldsboro nuclear near-miss, unpacking how a routine airborne nuclear alert mission (Operation Chrome Dome) spiraled into a mid-air breakup, the unintended release of Mark 39 hydrogen bombs, and a series of failed safety mechanisms that tested the limits of nuclear safeguards.

Along the way, Gordy examines the engineering flaws, classified recovery efforts, declassified Air Force findings, and the broader pattern of “Broken Arrow” nuclear accidents, revealing how global safety sometimes rested on razor-thin margins rather than airtight systems.

This episode blends military history, nuclear safety, Cold War strategy, aviation failure analysis, and classified intelligence history — offering a tense, fact-driven look at how close the world came to learning a very different version of history.

#historyfacts #coldwarhistory #nuclearhistory #militaryhistory #didyouknowfacts #funfacts #learnonyoutube #ushistory #aviationhistory

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

SOURCES

• Schlosser, E. (2013). Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety. Penguin Press. • United States Air Force. (1961). Aircraft Accident Report: B-52 Crash Near Goldsboro, North Carolina. Declassified accident investigation materials. • Sandia National Laboratories. (1969). History of the Mark 39 Weapon System and Safety Mechanisms. • Hansen, C. (2013). The 1961 Goldsboro Nuclear Accident Revisited. National Security Archive, George Washington University. • National Security Archive. (2013). Newly Declassified Files Show U.S. Came Close to Nuclear Detonation in 1961. • ReVelle, J. (2013). Oral History Interview on the Goldsboro Recovery Operation. • United States Department of Defense. (1981). Broken Arrow: Summary of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Accidents. • North Carolina Office of Archives and History. Goldsboro Nuclear Accident Historical Marker Documentation. • U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency. Operation Chrome Dome and Airborne Nuclear Alert History.

There is a sea on Earth with no coastline, no beaches, and no borders drawn by land. In this episode of Smartest Year Ever, Gordy explores the strange, misunderstood, and scientifically fascinating Sargasso Sea, the only named sea in the world defined entirely by ocean currents.

Surrounded by powerful Atlantic currents, this region behaves like a natural containment system, quietly shaping everything that drifts into it. Along the way, the episode dives into ocean gyres, the origins of sargassum seaweed, why the water is so clear and deep blue, and how an apparently empty stretch of ocean became one of the most biologically important places in the Atlantic.

Gordy also unpacks one of the ocean’s great unsolved mysteries: the epic migration of American and European eels, which travel thousands of miles toward this sea to reproduce, despite the fact that their spawning has never been directly observed in the wild. Add in floating ecosystems, invisible boundaries, and the unintended consequences of modern debris, and the Sargasso Sea becomes a masterclass in how motion, not land, can define a place.

This episode blends marine biology, oceanography, and true scientific mystery—the kind of knowledge that makes you dangerous in conversation.

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

Sources

• Laffoley, D., et al. (2011). The protection and management of the Sargasso Sea: The golden floating rainforest of the Atlantic Ocean. Sargasso Sea Alliance.
  

• Schmitz, W. J., & McCartney, M. S. (1993). On the North Atlantic circulation. Reviews of Geophysics, 31(1), 29–49.
  

• Butler, J. N., Morris, B. F., Cadwallader, J., & Stoner, A. W. (1983). Studies of Sargassum and the Sargasso Sea. Bermuda Biological Station for Research, Special Publication No. 22.
  

• Helfman, G. S., Facey, D. E., Hales, L. S., & Bozeman, E. L. (1987). Reproductive ecology of the American eel. American Fisheries Society Symposium, 1, 42–56.
  

• Schmidt, J. (1923). Breeding places and migrations of the eel. Nature, 111, 51–54.
  

• Miller, M. J., et al. (2015). Spawning by the European eel across 2000 km of the Sargasso Sea. Biology Letters, 11(11).
  

• Carr, M. H., et al. (2002). Marine ecosystems and population dynamics of the Sargasso Sea. Oceanography, 15(2), 16–23.
  

• Law, K. L., et al. (2010). Plastic accumulation in the North Atlantic subtropical gyre. Science, 329(5996), 1185–1188.
  

#OceanScience #MarineBiology #EarthScience #DidYouKnow #FunFacts #LearnOnYouTube #GeographyFacts

What does it really mean to disappear?

In this episode of Smartest Year Ever, Gordy dives into the hidden world of the U.S. Federal Witness Protection Program (WITSEC) and what actually happens when someone agrees to vanish from their old life in exchange for survival.

From new identities and government-issued birth certificates to psychological reprogramming and forced anonymity, witness protection is one of the most extreme bargains the U.S. government offers. It is not about fame, money, or safety in the way movies portray it. It is about becoming invisible and staying that way forever.

Built in 1970 to stop organized crime witnesses from being murdered, WITSEC has quietly reshaped thousands of lives through identity erasure, federal relocation, and lifetime surveillance. Some participants succeed and disappear into ordinary lives. Others cannot resist going back, with consequences that can be fatal.

This episode explores:

• How the witness protection program actually works
  

• How new identities are created and maintained
  

• Why many protected witnesses are criminals themselves
  

• How people survive with no past, no records, and no references
  

• Why the most dangerous part of WITSEC is not entering it, but leaving it
  

If you have ever wondered what it would be like to wake up tomorrow as a legally different person, this episode reveals how the system really operates and why it is both one of the most powerful and most terrifying programs the U.S. government runs.

Smartest Year Ever is Gordy’s ongoing project to uncover the most fascinating true stories, science, history, and human behavior on the planet, one unforgettable deep dive at a time.

• Earley, P., & Shur, G. (2002). WITSEC: Inside the Federal Witness Protection Program. Bantam Books.
  

• Criminal. (2018). Episode 104: Witness. Radiotopia.
  

• Criminal. (2018). Episode 105: Protection. Radiotopia.
  

• U.S. Marshals Service. (n.d.). Federal Witness Security Program (WITSEC) historical and operational records.
  

• Newton, E. N. (2005). The Witness Protection Program: Who Is Your Neighbor?
  

• Priceonomics. (2016). What Happens When You Enter the Witness Protection Program.
  

• Mental Floss. 23 Facts About the Witness Protection Program.
  

Sources#WitnessProtection #TrueCrimeHistory #OrganizedCrime #FederalPrograms #USMarshals #HiddenLives #DidYouKnow #LearnOnSpotify

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

What are the actual odds that a monkey could randomly type Shakespeare?

The Infinite Monkey Theorem is one of the most famous thought experiments in mathematics and probability theory. It’s often repeated as a quirky idea about monkeys, typewriters, and infinite time — but rarely explained in a way that makes the math, the scale, or the implications truly sink in.

In this episode of Smartest Year Ever, Gordy breaks down what the theorem really says, where it came from, and why phrases like “probability one” can be deeply misleading outside of mathematics. Using clear examples, exponential probability, and real-world constraints like the age of the universe, this episode explores the gap between mathematical certainty and physical reality.

Along the way, Gordy examines why infinity overwhelms improbability on paper, but not in practice — and what that tells us about randomness, meaning, and the limits of thought experiments when they collide with physics.

This episode also looks at real attempts to test the idea, including famous monkey typing experiments, computer simulations, and why randomness alone doesn’t create meaning without structure, selection, or intent.

If you’ve ever wondered how probability theory works, why infinity breaks intuition, or whether “eventually” actually means anything in the real universe — this episode is for you.

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

#probabilitytheory #mathexplained #mathfacts #learnonSpotify #educationalfun #scienceexplained 

Sources

• Borel, É. (1913). La mécanique statique et l’irréversibilité. Journal de Physique Théorique et Appliquée.
  

• Borel, É. (1914). Le hasard. Paris: Félix Alcan.
  

• Feller, W. (1968). An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications (Vol. 1, 3rd ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons.
  

• Diaconis, P., & Skyrms, B. (2018). Ten Great Ideas About Chance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  

• Hájek, A. (2023). Interpretations of Probability. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  

• Borges, J. L. (1941). The Library of Babel. In Ficciones.
  

• Epicurus. (3rd century BCE). Letter to Herodotus.
  

• Cicero. (1st century BCE). De Natura Deorum.
  

• Aristotle. (4th century BCE). Physics.
  

• Aristotle. (4th century BCE). Metaphysics.
  

• Kittel, C., & Kroemer, H. (1980). Thermal Physics (2nd ed.). New York: W. H. Freeman.
  

• Adam, D. (2003, May 9). Give six monkeys a computer, and what do you get? Certainly not the Bard. The Guardian.
  

• Monkeys Don’t Write Shakespeare. (2003, May 9). Wired.
  

• Acocella, J. (2007). The Typing Life. The New Yorker.
  

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. (n.d.). Then vs. Now: The Age of the Universe.

After 365 consecutive days of posting facts, this is the pause.

This bonus episode breaks from the usual Smartest Year Ever format to answer some of the questions I’ve gotten most over the past year: where the idea came from, whether I’m actually good at trivia, what the hardest parts were, how the process worked behind the scenes, and what’s coming next.

This wasn’t meant to be a highlight reel or a victory lap. It’s just an honest reflection on what it was like to make 365 full episodes, 365 short versions, and keep going every single day.

If you’ve been watching along all year, thank you. And if you’re new, this episode will give you a glimpse into what this project really was.

I’m taking a short break, then continuing Smartest Year Ever at a more normal, more sustainable pace.

Happy New Year.

#SmartestYearEver #365DaysOfFacts #BehindTheScenes #CreatorJourney #LearningEveryDay #BonusEpisode #dailyfacts #smallcreators #learnonyoutube

After 365 consecutive days of facts, history, science, language, weather, and human strangeness, Gordy ends Smartest Year Ever by zooming all the way out.

Astronauts have a name for the cognitive shift that happens when they see Earth from space for the first time. It’s not just awe. It’s not just perspective. It’s a profound psychological reframing that reshapes how they think about borders, identity, connection, and responsibility. They call it the Overview Effect.

This episode explores what astronauts report when they experience it, why the brain reacts so powerfully to seeing Earth from orbit, and how moments of extreme ensured novelty can permanently change how humans understand their place in the world. Drawing from spaceflight psychology, neuroscience, and firsthand astronaut accounts, Gordy examines why this phenomenon is so difficult to describe—and why it lingers long after astronauts return home.

The Overview Effect isn’t just a space story. It’s a story about scale, interconnectedness, and what happens when the human mind is forced to recalibrate itself against something truly vast.

And after a full year of daily learning—365 full episodes, 365 short episodes, 730 videos, no days off—this final chapter reflects on what happens when knowledge stacks high enough to change how you see everything beneath it.

This is the final episode of the daily marathon. 

The end of one experiment. 

And the beginning of something else.

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

• White, F. (1987). The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution. Houghton Mifflin.
  

• Yaden, D. B., et al. (2016). The Overview Effect: Awe and self-transcendent experience in spaceflight. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, 3(1), 1–11.
  

• National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA Astronaut Oral History Project (Edgar Mitchell, Nicole Stott, Ron Garan, Chris Hadfield).
  

• Poole, R. (2008). Earthrise: How Man First Saw the Earth. Yale University Press.
  

• Stott, N. (2021). Back to Earth. Seal Press.
  

#OverviewEffect #SpacePsychology #HumanPerception #ScienceCommunication #DailyFacts #smartestyearever #newyearsresolution #funfacts #spacefacts #psychologyfacts #williamshatner #blueorigin #nasafacts #astronauts

Music thanks to Zapsplat.

Sources