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PODCAST

Smartest Year Ever

The Smartest Year Ever began as a 365-day experiment in curiosity. In 2025, I dropped a new fact every single day. History, science, language, word origins, and strange true stories, all the stuff that somehow makes you sound smarter in conversation. The goal hasn’t changed: help you become the world’s greatest conversationalist.

education

All Episodes

00:12:40

What It’s Really Like to Enter Witness Protection

Smartest Year Ever ·

2026/01/16

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

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00:16:00

The Odds of a Monkey Writing Shakespeare Are Worse...

Smartest Year Ever ·

2026/01/10

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

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00:23:49

365 Days of Facts — Smartest Year Ever Bonus Episode...

Smartest Year Ever ·

2026/01/01

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

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00:06:31

What Astronauts Call “The Overview Effect” — 2025...

Smartest Year Ever ·

2025/12/31

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

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00:06:48

Why Kissing Exists — Across Species | Smartest Year...

Smartest Year Ever ·

2025/12/30

As New Year’s Eve approaches, millions of people will share a midnight kiss—or strategically avoid one. Kissing feels timeless, intimate, and deeply human. But it isn’t universal. And it isn’t uniquely ours.In this episode of Smartest Year Ever, Gordy explores why kissing exists, what actually qualifies as a “kiss,” and how similar behaviors appear across the animal kingdom. From primate reconciliation rituals to avian pair-bonding, from chemical communication to social stress reduction, this

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00:05:03

Why We Call It “Trivia” | Smartest Year Ever (Dec 29,...

Smartest Year Ever ·

2025/12/29

After sharing more than 360 daily facts in a single year, Gordy closes out Smartest Year Ever with a deceptively simple question: why do we call it “trivia”?Today, trivia means fun facts, pub quizzes, and knowledge for bragging rights. But historically, the word carried a very different tone. Its roots stretch back through Latin, medieval education, and early academic hierarchies, where certain kinds of knowledge were dismissed as unimportant, common, or beneath serious study.This episode explores

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00:04:35

Why the QWERTY Keyboard Is Laid Out This Way |...

Smartest Year Ever ·

2025/12/28

After typing hundreds of thousands of words in a single year, Gordy finally stops to ask a deceptively simple question: why does the QWERTY keyboard look like this?At first glance, the modern keyboard feels arbitrary—almost chaotic. But its strange layout isn’t random, and it wasn’t designed to frustrate or slow anyone down. QWERTY emerged from a very specific moment in technological history, shaped by early mechanical engineering limits, the rise of typewriters, and the unexpected influence of

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00:06:02

How Long a Goldfish Actually Remembers | Smartest...

Smartest Year Ever ·

2025/12/27

For decades, goldfish memory has been treated as a joke. A throwaway line. A cultural shortcut for forgetfulness. But modern animal cognition research paints a very different picture.In this episode of Smartest Year Ever, Gordy digs into the real science behind goldfish learning, memory retention, and behavior, pulling from decades of behavioral psychology, neuroscience, and comparative cognition studies. Goldfish have been studied for nearly a century not because they are simple, but because they

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00:04:56

The Animals That Can Have Virgin Births | Smartest...

Smartest Year Ever ·

2025/12/26

In this episode of Smartest Year Ever, Gordy explores one of biology’s strangest loopholes — parthenogenesis, a rare form of asexual reproduction where an animal can develop from an unfertilized egg.For decades, scientists assumed this phenomenon was mostly limited to insects and invertebrates. But modern genetics has revealed something far stranger: certain vertebrates, including reptiles, birds, and even sharks, can occasionally reproduce without males under the right conditions.This episode dives

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00:04:34

What the “X” in Xmas Really Means | Smartest Year...

Smartest Year Ever ·

2025/12/25

For centuries, people have argued about what the “X” in Xmas means. Some call it disrespectful. Some insist it removes the meaning of the holiday. But as Gordy explains in today’s episode of Smartest Year Ever, the real story goes back nearly a thousand years—deep into the worlds of Greek manuscripts, ancient Christian symbols, and a writing tradition that shaped how entire cultures recorded sacred names.This episode unpacks how languages evolve, how visual symbols become powerful cultural

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00:04:45

Why We Hang Stockings on Christmas | Smartest Year...

Smartest Year Ever ·

2025/12/24

Why do we hang Christmas stockings by the fireplace, of all things? In this episode, Gordy digs into the surprisingly deep origins of one of the strangest holiday traditions — a tradition that blends medieval folklore, St. Nicholas legends, Dutch holiday customs, Victorian Christmas culture, and the long cultural shadow of ’Twas the Night Before Christmas.This episode explores how European winter traditions, gift-giving rituals, and the evolution of American Christmas imagery converged into the

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00:04:49

Why Santa Has Reindeer | Smartest Year Ever (Dec 23,...

Smartest Year Ever ·

2025/12/23

Every December, Santa’s sleigh and his iconic team of reindeer feel like timeless parts of Christmas. But Gordy digs into the real history behind this tradition — tracing how Arctic cultures, early American Christmas lore, and one influential 19th-century poem fused into the story we know today.This episode explores the surprising cultural evolution behind Santa’s reindeer, from ancient Arctic sleigh traditions to the literary moment that transformed them into Christmas icons. Gordy breaks down how

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00:04:31

Why We Have Christmas Trees | Smartest Year Ever (Dec...

Smartest Year Ever ·

2025/12/22

Every December, Gordy takes a tradition everyone thinks they understand and unravels the surprising, layered story behind it. This time, he investigates the true history of the Christmas tree and how an ordinary evergreen became one of the most recognizable symbols of the modern holiday season.This episode traces the tradition across ancient civilizations, medieval Europe, and Victorian-era reinvention, revealing how a patchwork of rituals slowly transformed into the global custom practiced today

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00:05:16

The True Story of the 1914 Christmas Truce | Smartest...

Smartest Year Ever ·

2025/12/21

On December 24, 1914, something unfolded on the Western Front that no one expected. In this episode, Gordy explores one of the most extraordinary moments of World War I: the unsanctioned Christmas Truce of 1914, when soldiers on both sides paused a global war and stepped into no-man’s-land together.It’s a moment wrapped in legend, but the real story is even more compelling. Gordy breaks down the frontline conditions, the early trench morale, the surprising candlelit tannenbaum, the shared carols,

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00:04:19

The Hidden Message Inside the Peace Sign | Smartest...

Smartest Year Ever ·

2025/12/20

Gordy dives into one of the most iconic symbols in modern culture—a symbol so widespread that people forget it actually had a creator, a purpose, and a moment in history that shaped its meaning. This episode unpacks how a simple circular design became a global emblem of peace, how it spread from a small British protest movement into worldwide activism, and why it still carries emotional weight today.Instead of reducing the symbol to retro nostalgia, Gordy traces its evolution through Cold War

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00:03:19

The Only U.S. President With a Patent | Smartest Year...

Smartest Year Ever ·

2025/12/19

Abraham Lincoln is known for the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the reshaping of the American presidency — but this episode dives into a very different side of him. Long before he entered the White House, Lincoln developed a fascination with mechanical engineering, river navigation, and the everyday problems that slowed 19th-century travel.In today’s story, Gordy explores the surprising moment when a future president took that curiosity and turned it into something official: a U.S

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00:04:09

The Illegal Wooden Skyscraper One Man Built by Hand |...

Smartest Year Ever ·

2025/12/18

In this episode, Gordy uncovers the unbelievable true story of Nikolai Sutyagin and the infamous illegal wooden skyscraper that once towered over Arkhangelsk, Russia. This bizarre structure—part folk-architecture experiment, part urban legend—became one of the most talked-about “houses” on the early internet.Gordy explores how a simple two-story home grew into a massive, improvised multi-story wooden tower built almost entirely by hand. No blueprints. No engineering plans. Just incremental

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00:05:11

What People Used Before Toilet Paper | Smartest Year...

Smartest Year Ever ·

2025/12/17

Gordy digs into the surprising, often uncomfortable history of what humans used before modern toilet paper — a story that spans ancient hygiene, Roman sanitation, Chinese papermaking, early plumbing, and the unexpected innovations that shaped the bathroom habits we take for granted.This episode explores how different cultures adapted to their environments, why ostraka, pessoi, moss, hay, corncobs, and communal sponges once dominated daily life, and how industrial papermaking, perforation technology,

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00:03:59

The Surprising History of the Monocle | Smartest Year...

Smartest Year Ever ·

2025/12/16

Why did the monocle even exist — and why did it become such a strange cultural symbol? In this episode, Gordy dives into the unexpected history of the monocle, exploring how a simple one-eyed lens evolved from budget vision correction into a marker of European refinement, social class, and even early gender-nonconforming fashion.Gordy unpacks how fragile early spectacles were, why a single custom lens was the most practical option in the 1800s, and how monocles later picked up surprising cultural

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00:05:31

What the CIA Tried to Hide | Smartest Year Ever (Dec...

Smartest Year Ever ·

2025/12/15

The CIA once asked itself a question no intelligence agency ever wants to ask: what have we done that might cause a scandal?That question produced a seven-hundred-page internal document now known as the Family Jewels — a secret compilation of controversial intelligence activities from the height of the Cold War.In this episode, Gordy explores how the file began, why it existed at all, and how its contents reshaped the public’s understanding of American intelligence. He looks at the strange

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368 results

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