The BrainFood Show

“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.” So wrote Samuel Johnson, the famed 18th Century polymath and founder of the modern English dictionary. And indeed, London offers many delights for the discerning traveller, from the iconic Houses of Parliament and St. Paul’s Cathedral to the theatres of the West End, the fashionable shops of Soho, and the countless world-class museums covering every subject imaginable. But no sojourn to the UK capital is complete without a visit to the Tower of London, the 11th century fortress and palace that has served many functions over the centuries, most infamously as a prison for some of British history’s greatest villains. It is also famously the home of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom. Among the centrepieces of this storied collection are the Imperial State Crown and the Sovereign’s Sceptre With Cross, worn by British sovereigns during coronations and state openings of parliament. But in addition to their historic symbolic importance and sublime craftsmanship, these pieces have another claim to fame: they are both set with stones cut from the largest gem-quality diamond ever discovered: the Cullinan, unearthed in South Africa in 1905. The story of how this massive stone came to reside among the Crown Jewels is a fascinating one, a tale of luck, subterfuge, and Colonial politics at the turn of the 20th Century.

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People being unhappy with their job is not a rare occurrence. It is almost a given that, assuming you don’t work for me, there are many people in your office who want an exit as soon as possible, maybe even you. At some point, maybe you’ve even snapped and rebelled against your company overlords in some fashion. But as cool as you might have felt passive aggressively sending that urgent email three days late on purpose, you will never be as cool as those men who thumbed their noses at the $4 million (about $25.2 million today) being spent per day on their mission and said “not my problem” while in lower orbit…. Allegedly…

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Ah, the ice lair! From Superman’s Fortress of Solitude to Ozymandias’s Antarctic headquarters in Watchmen to the Rebel Alliance’s Echo Base on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back, nothing quite exudes sophistication, rugged determination, or - pun intended - sheer cool than a hideout carved out of cold, hard snow and ice. But while certainly stylish and awesome, such sub-zero digs are surely the exclusive preserve of comic book heroes and villains, being too impractical to build in real life, right? Well, actually no! In the late 1950s, the United States Army actually attempted to build a supervillain ice lair of its own, carving an elaborate nuclear-powered base directly into the Greenland ice cap. While sold to the public as a peaceful research outpost, the facility actually had a far more sinister, secret purpose, which had it been completed would have further ratcheted up already high Cold War tensions. This is the forgotten and fascinating story of Project Iceworm.

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The Cold War, lasting from the end of the Second World War in 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, was one of the most dangerous periods in human history. For nearly five decades, the communist East and capitalist West eyed each other suspiciously across the Iron Curtain, precariously balanced on the brink of nuclear Armageddon. Numerous intercontinental ballistic missiles sat ready in their silos, nuke equipped submarines prowled the oceans, while nuclear-armed strategic bombers patrolled the skies, all ready at a moment’s notice to unleash their apocalyptic payloads. With so much nuclear ordnance flying about, accidents could - and did - happen. Many of these near-misses have already been covered in previous videos such as That Time the Moon Nearly Started World War 3 (and Other Silly Cold War Shenanigans), Fire, Ice, and Plutonium, That Time the U.S. Air Force Lost a Nuke in the Mediterranean, and When Dropping a Wrench Almost Caused Armageddon; as well as Did a Scientific Experiment Really Nearly Start WWII in 1995? But none of these close calls were as horrifyingly close as a 1961 accident that nearly turned the entire U.S. state of North Carolina into a radioactive wasteland and the massive loss of life that would have come with that - and was only prevented from doing so by a single, shockingly crude electrical component. This is the disturbing story of the 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash.

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In today's episode, Gilles Messier and Daven Hiskey do a deep dive into Nikola Tesla's childhood and many of his rather peculiar oddities.

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With their endless aisles, their bountiful racks chock full of discounted merchandise, Walmart stores have firmly wedged themselves into the hearts and minds of most Americans, especially within those neural circuits in charge of household budgeting. At this point, Walmart may as well be considered one of the great, all-American institutions, an essential fiber within the fabric of Star-Spangled capitalism. Or, on the other side, some might say Walmart is everything wrong with the business world today, ruthlessly dominating anyone who even hints at competing with them, and otherwise strong arming everyone from government officials to manufacturers to get their way. But whether you love to hate it, or hate to love it … you certainly can’t ignore Walmart. But how did the world’s largest retailer, with gross annual sales double that of the next up in amazon, start and grow to the behemoth we have today, let alone so insanely rapidly?

Well, put on some Lynyrd Skynyrd, grab your guns, flannel, and a Budweiser, and let’s dive into the fascinating story of how one man changed how the world shops.

Authors: Arnaldo Teodorani and Daven Hiskey

Editor: Daven Hiskey

Host: Daven Hiskey

Producer: Caden Nielsen

0:00 Intro

2:51 An Incredible Humble Beginning and Sickening Overachiever

6:07 Continuing to Sickeningly Overachieve in College

8:43 After College Scatterbrained Hard Worker

10:24 WWII and a Dream Girl

12:33 A Beginning and Some Key Choices

18:40 A Huge Mistake, Overcoming, and Expansion

22:18 A New Breed of Store to Change the Game

25:40 Going it Alone and Risking It All

28:06 Go Big or Go Home

30:52 The Methods to the Madness

44:12 The Passing of a Titan

45:56 Good or Bad- The Walmart Controversy

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Discover the complex relationship between Nazi Germany and Japan during World War II. Learn about the Tripartite Pact, their conflicting ideologies, and the consequences of their loose alliance.

Author: Daven Hiskey

Host: Simon Whistler

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Discover the untold story of Italian war crimes during WWII and why there was never an "Italian Nuremberg" to hold fascist officials accountable for their brutal actions.

Author: Arnaldo Teodorani

Host: Simon Whistler

Editor: Daven Hiskey

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Explore the legendary Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, the world's fastest military aircraft. Discover its groundbreaking design, thrilling history, and the incredible feats that made it an aviation icon.

Author: Gilles Messier

Host: Simon Whistler

Editor: Daven Hiskey

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In the shadow of Moscow’s Kremlin Walls stands one of the most famous structures in all of Russia: a squat, austere-looking stepped pyramid, built of polished red porphyry. For decades, the balcony or tribune on the pyramid’s roof served as a stage of honour for Soviet and later Russian leaders to observe military parades on Red Square below. But what makes this imposing structure truly special is the macabre relic preserved within: the embalmed corpse of Vladimir Lenin. For over a century the great revolutionary and Soviet leader has remained on near-continuous public display, lying in a glass sarcophagus for all to see and tended by an elite team of specialists who keep him looking just as fresh - more or less - as the day he died. And he is not alone; around the world, other famous communist leaders have been similarly pickled for posterity, including Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh, China’s Mao Zedong, and North Korea’s Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. But why wasn’t Lenin’s body simply entombed in the Kremlin necropolis like other Soviet heroes? How has his corpse been kept so lifelike for over a hundred years? And how did the admittedly bizarre idea of placing these leaders on pickled display spread to other nations?

Well, comrade, line up in front of the firing squad, make sure ample formaldehyde is at hand, and let’s dive into the peculiar and fascinating history, and science, of Communist mummies.

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Author: Gilles Messier

Editor: Daven Hiskey

Host: Daven Hiskey

Producer: Caden Nielsen

0:00 Intro

3:38 The Death (or Murder) of Lenin

7:05 The First Communist Mummy

15:29 Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will live!

22:30 Stalin’s Mummy

26:11 Dimitrov’s Mummy

32:39 Gottwald's Mummy

34:57 Choibalsan’s Mummy

37:42 Uncle Ho’s Mummy

41:50 Mao’s Mummy

44:49 Neto and Burnham's Mummies

46:57 Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il’s Still Ruling Mummies

48:01 Evita's Mummy and What in the Actual F-

49:34 Marco's Mummy

50:41 Chavez’s Mummy

51:06 Full Circle to Lenin

53:51 Putin

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