Smartest Year Ever

About 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.

Publisher

Gordy

Category

education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

1 Jan 2025

Latest episode

24 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

403 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   24 Oct 2026

   Could You Get Jet Lag Before Airplanes Existed?

   Could you experience jet lag before airplanes existed? Did passengers aboard the Titanic suffer from it? Could ancient Roman travelers get jet lag? And how fast would you actually have to travel to outrun your body's internal clock? Today on Smartest Year Ever, I'm tracing the surprising history of jet lag—from ancient Rome and transatlantic ocean liners to record-breaking steam trains, early aviation, and the invention of the phrase "jet lag" itself. Along the way, we'll explore the science of circadian rhythms, why traveling east affects your body differently than traveling west, how Earth's rotation creates differences in solar time, and why your biological clock struggles to adjust when you cross time zones. We'll investigate the Titanic's unusual shipboard clocks, the record-setting RMS Mauretania, a spectacular 1905 train journey orchestrated by a notorious con man, and a sleep scientist who spent weeks underground trying to change his body's natural rhythm. And I did the math to answer a question I couldn't stop thinking about: What is the actual speed at which you begin to outrun your body clock? The answer is far more surprising than you might expect. We'll also uncover how early pilots and airship passengers experienced time-zone fatigue before commercial jet travel became commonplace—and how the term jet lag finally entered our vocabulary. If you've ever wondered what causes jet lag, why flying east is harder than flying west, how time zones work, or when humans first experienced jet lag, this is a journey through the fascinating intersection of history, astronomy, transportation, and sleep science. SOURCES Titanic & Ocean Liners Encyclopedia Titanica. (n.d.). Titanic: Time altered. National Library of Wales. (1909). Fishguard's red-letter day: Mauretania arrives. The Science of Jet Lag Boulos, Z., et al. (1995). Light treatment for sleep disorders: VII. Jet lag. Journal of Biological Rhythms. Aschoff, J., et al. (1975). Re-entrainment of circadian rhythms after phase-shifts of the zeitgeber. Chronobiologia. Czeisler, C. A., et al. (1999). Stability, precision, and near-24-hour period of the human circadian pacemaker. Science. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). Jet lag. In CDC Yellow Book. Ancient Travel & Railroads Stanford University. (n.d.). ORBIS: The Stanford geospatial network model of the Roman world. The New York Times. (1883). A quiet change to the standard time. California State Railroad Museum. (n.d.). Death Valley Scotty's race for glory. The Human Body Clock National Park Service. (n.d.). Dreaming underground: The Mammoth Cave sleep study. Early Aviation Mohler, S. R., Dille, J. R., & Gibbons, H. L. (1968). Circadian rhythms and the effects of long-distance flights (FAA Report AM 68-8). Post, W., & Gatty, H. (1931). Around the world in eight days. Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. (2019). Ninety years since the first round-the-world airship flight. Airships.net. (n.d.). Hindenburg 1936 flight schedule. Where the Name Came From Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. (n.d.). When did the term "jet lag" come into use? Sutton, H. (1966, February 13). Discussion of jet lag. Los Angeles Times. Music thanks to Zapsplat. #JetLag #sciencefacts #historyfacts #travel #LearnOnSpotify

2. 

   10 Oct 2026

   The Bizarre Real History (and Myths) Hidden in Your Deck of Cards

   You’ve probably handled a deck of playing cards hundreds of times. But have you ever stopped to ask what a Jack actually is? Why the Ace of Spades looks different from every other ace? Why the King of Hearts appears to be doing something very strange? Or where the Joker came from? Today I dive into the surprisingly bizarre history of playing cards, and separate the real history from some of the most popular myths. We’ll trace the evolution of the modern 52-card deck across centuries and continents, from early Mamluk playing cards and European court cards to the origins of hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades. Along the way, I explore the strange history of the Jack and Knave, the meaning of the Ace, Britain’s playing-card tax, the famous King of Hearts, the origins of the Joker, and whether a deck of cards really has anything to do with the calendar. It turns out the ordinary deck sitting in your drawer is basically a 600-year game of historical telephone and almost every part of it has a story. Music thanks to Zapsplat. Sources Berry, J. (2001). Taxation on Playing-Cards in England from 1711 to 1960. IPCS Papers 3. Dickens, C. (1861). Great Expectations. Chapman and Hall. Dummett, M., & Abu-Deeb, K. (1973). Some remarks on Mamluk playing cards. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 36. Parlett, D. (1991). A History of Card Games. Oxford University Press. Bell, B. The man hanged for printing his own ace of spades. BBC News. International Playing-Card Society. Playing-card history and reference materials. The World of Playing Cards. Playing-card history and collection materials. Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards. Card Design: The Ace of Spades. Online Etymology Dictionary. Entries for “Ace,” “Knave,” and “Jack.” Merriam-Webster. “Spade.” #PlayingCards #Historyfacts #hiddenhistory #DidYouKnow #LearnOnSpotify #mythbusted

3. 

   26 Sept 2026

   This City Was Richer Than El Dorado - Built on Blood, Destroyed by Seeds

   Deep in the Amazon rainforest, a city once became so spectacularly wealthy that its true story sounds more like the legend of El Dorado. Today, I’m exploring the incredible rise and fall of Manaus, Brazil, the city transformed by the Amazon rubber boom into one of the most extravagant places of its era. Rubber barons built electric streetlights and streetcars in the middle of the rainforest, imported European luxuries thousands of miles into the Amazon, and constructed the magnificent Teatro Amazonas opera house from materials shipped across the Atlantic and carried upriver. But beneath that extraordinary wealth was a much darker story. So how did a remote city in the Amazon become a real-life version of El Dorado? What was the human cost of its incredible fortune? And how could something as ordinary as a few crates of seeds help destroy an economic empire? This is the remarkable history of Manaus, the Amazon rubber boom, Henry Wickham, rubber barons, biopiracy, and one of history’s strangest economic collapses. Sources • Casement, R. (as cited in Goodman, J.). (2009). The Devil and Mr. Casement. Verso. • DePaul University College of Law, World Without Genocide. (n.d.). Putumayo genocide. • Grann, D. (2009). The Lost City of Z: A tale of deadly obsession in the Amazon. Doubleday. • Latin America Bureau. (2021, November 26). The Putumayo atrocities. • Mongabay. (2024, November 8). The rubber boom and its legacy in Brazil, Peru, Bolivia and Colombia. • Orion Magazine. (2024, December 17). Opera in the Amazon. • Rainforest Cruises. (n.d.). Manaus Opera House & Festival Amazonas de Ópera. • Reis, L. T. (1938). Inspetoria Especial de Fronteiras [Documentary film]. Brazilian Ministry of War. • Slate. (2014, January 14). Teatro Amazonas, the unlikely opera house in Manaus, Brazil. • Fathom. (2017, August 30). The rubber baron’s outpost in the Amazon. • The Tropical Rainforest. (n.d.). A brief history of rubber. Music thanks to Zapsplat. #Manaus #AmazonRainforest #HiddenHistory #historyfacts #Brazil #Rubbertrees #LearnOnSpotify

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

8 ratings

Spotify

4.0 / 5

4 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 45 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

77

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

32

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