In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start out by discussing in more detail the events surrounding Caesar’s momentous decision to cross the Rubicon, then jump into the real story of what happened on the Ides of March which isn’t exactly the one popular history remembers largely thanks to the notable play by Shakespeare.

Over the course of the episode we also discuss why likely most every quote you’ve ever read from Socrates was not actually something Socrates said, among other tangents.

And just a small correction: “Sherlock” not “Shakespeare” (You’ll know when you get there.)

This is part 3 of our 4 part series on Julius Caesar.  Stay tuned next time for when we look at a variety of interesting facts related to what we’ve discussed in parts 1-3.

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In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start out by discussing how a teenage Julius Caesar became the head of his rather prominent family. We then move on to his little month-long or so pirate adventure and finally discuss where exactly the Rubicon was, which interestingly enough is only something that has been relatively recently discovered.

This is part 2 of what will be a 4 part series on Julius Caesar.  Stay tuned next time for when we look more deeply into why Caesar chose to cross the Rubicon and his rather unorthodox and bold strategy in doing so, as well as look at the true story of the Ides of March.

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People have been referencing sentient reptilian entities, sometimes

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Contrary to popular belief, a decent percentage of the human population has known definitely the Earth was roughly spherical for over two thousand years. Hardly impressive, as noted in our BrainFood Show podcast, bees also use this fact in their own absurdly fascinating navigation and in communicating directions to other bees.

As for humans, we took a little longer to realize this, with Pythagoras (6th century B.C.) generally credited with being the first known person to have suggested a spherical Earth, though the idea didn’t exactly catch on at this point. Aristotle (4th century B.C.) agreed and supported the hypothesis with observations such as that the southern constellations rise higher in the sky when a person travels south. He also noted that during a lunar eclipse the Earth’s shadow is round. Much more definitively, the 3rd century BC head librarian at the Library of Alexandria, Eratosthenes, built on their ideas and managed to calculate the circumference of the Earth with remarkable accuracy. How? ...

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Regardless of your politics, I think we can all agree that Donald

Born in 1869 in a small village located in what was then the Kingdom

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In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start out by discussing the fact that, contrary to what we speculated in a previous episode, World’s Fairs are actually still a thing. We then jump into the meat of the show, discussing whether Julius Caesar was actually born via a Caesarean operation and then look at the remarkable story of Margaret Bulkley, who is better known in history as Dr. James Barry- one of the first people to perform a Caesarean operation in which both the woman and baby survived.

This is part 1 of what will be a 4 part series on Julius Caesar.  Stay tuned next time for when we jump into his life more directly by discussing a rather hilarious pirate adventure he had as a young man.

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In this episode of The Brain Food Show podcast, we wrap up our discussion (for now) on one of the more remarkable individuals in modern history- Theodore Roosevelt. In particular we look at the truth about how and why the Teddy Bear was named after him and a boatload of fascinating Teddy Roosevelt facts conclusively demonstrating he was more awesome than we could ever hope to be. And as a little bonus to the Bonus Facts at the end, we discuss what the famous song The Rose has to do with the undisputed greatest show of all time- Star Trek the Next Generation.

(Also we very casually allude to the fact that Teddy Roosevelt probably helped delay WWI by several years, but then completely forget to mention HOW he did it later on. We’ll remedy this in an upcoming episode. And let’s be honest, there’s always more interesting stuff to talk about concerning Teddy Roosevelt, so I’m sure we’ll come back to him for more episodes at some point in the future as well.)

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At 11:15 PM on August 3, 1958, United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower received a historic radio message: “Nautilus 90 North.” U.S.S. Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine, had just reached the North Pole while sailing beneath the Arctic ice cap. Known as Project Sunshine, this submerged voyage to the top of the world was designed to show off the superiority of nuclear power for naval propulsion and salvage American pride following the Soviets’ launch of Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial satellite, the year before. It was also the triumphant culmination of a decades-long dream. For while Nautilus’s atomic power plant ultimately allowed her to succeed in her mission, she was not the first submarine - or even the first vessel named Nautilus - to attempt an Arctic voyage. Nearly three decades earlier a maverick Australian explorer, sailing in a far cruder war-surplus submarine, also set out to conquer the Pole from beneath. But while this now-forgotten expedition was beset with misfortunes and ultimately met with failure, its mission was bold and visionary and set the stage for a century of Polar exploration. And the man behind it all? Few humans in history can match his exploits in adventure. This is the incredible story of a man whose life was like something out of a movie, Sir Hubert Wilkins, and the doomed voyage of the Nautilus.

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In February of 1958, the Ford Motor Company unveiled an extraordinary concept for the automobile of the future. Dubbed the Nucleon, the vehicle was a showcase of mid-century styling and technology, featuring sleek, futuristic lines, optional tail fins, one-piece wrap-around front and rear windscreens, electric torque converters, proximity sensors, and automatic climate control for the cabin. Oh, and for those who care about such things was powered by a miniature nuclear reactor… As Ford’s ad copy breathlessly proclaimed:

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At 10 PM on New Year’s Eve, 1963, a U.S. Air Force C-124 Globemaster transport aircraft touched down on a runway in North Bay, Ontario. Under the cover of darkness, seven large metal canisters were unloaded from the aircraft and placed aboard a truck marked EXPLOSIVES. This truck then spirited the canisters through the security gate to the nearby Royal Canadian Air Force Base, where they were securely locked away in a thick concrete bunker. Inside were W40 atomic warheads, each with a yield of 10 kilotons of TNT - the first nuclear weapons to be delivered to Canada.

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