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. But wait, I hear you say: Canada? The land of hockey, maple syrup, and Mounties with their silly red uniforms? Surely they can’t have been a nuclear power? Well, yes they were…sort of. Between 1963 and 1984, the Canadian Armed Forces deployed an estimated 450 nuclear weapons of six different types as part of their commitment to NATO and NORAD. However, these weapons were neither owned nor fully controlled by the Canadian government, officially remaining in U.S. custody until needed in time of war. Nor was their presence particularly popular with the Canadian people, ultimately leading Canada to become the first nuclear-armed nation to voluntarily give up its weapons. This is the surprising and forgotten story of how Canada learned to stop worrying and love the bomb. Author: Gilles Messier Host: Simon Whistler Editor: Daven Hiskey Producer: Samuel Avila Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The Brain Food Show podcast, we discuss one of the more remarkable individuals in modern history- Theodore Roosevelt. In particular we look at that time he risked life and limb on what amounted to a “principal of the thing” matter, and another time he quite literally shrugged off a bullet to the chest to immediately after give an hour and a half long speech… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Come on, Daddy needs a liveable planet he can rule with an iron fist.” - Sheldon Cooper This is a quote from a season 9 episode of The Big Bang Theory released in 2016 called The Sales Call Sublimation. An episode that is largely noteworthy, at least for the purposes of discussing studios and advertising, for being about 18 minutes long despite being a show that was specifically made to fill a half hour time slot. A timeslot that quite literally had, over the years, slowly become about half ads. More specifically, The Sales Call Sublimation clocked in at exactly 18 minutes and 34 seconds long. When you take into account the length of the title sequence, about 22 seconds, and also the credits, which tend to be about 30 seconds, the episode actually clocks in at about 17 and a half minutes of actual content, which for an episode of The Big Bang Theory is just enough time to get close to their maximum quota of one joke that vaguely hints at being funny per episode. For comparison's sake, the first episode of the show clocked in at 21 minutes and 56 seconds long. This means that between 2007 when the show premiered and 2016 when the 9th season was underway, episodes of The Big Bang Theory got about 3-4 minutes shorter. All so that the network could run more ads against it. Noteworthy in all this, networks ALSO tend to run ads during credits as well as often making use of things like banner ads during content, so calculating the exact amount of time a viewer was having their eyeballs bombarded by advertisements is difficult. Now, it’s easy to dismiss this because, well, it’s The Big Bang Theory, and who really cares about that show? But this has been an observable trend for decades with basically every major network staple getting ever so slightly shorter with each passing year. For example, newer episodes of The Simpsons are routinely 2-3 minutes shorter than they were back in the 1990’s, meanwhile newer episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, AKA, One Piece for Soccer Moms, similarly run about a minute or two shorter than they did when the show first aired in 2005. Which seems kind of odd given audiences in the 1990s were much more captive to what was currently being shown, and on the whole had longer attention spans than today. Of course there can be legitimate, creatively justified reasons for an episode to run slightly longer or shorter than its normal average runtime, like ending on a cliffhanger or the like, but as noted this is a readily observed industry wide phenomenon that is generally blamed on advertisements. Not to mention that when shows do run over or under time, it tends to be by a few seconds and in those cases shows have numerous tricks they can use to pad or cut the runtime to reach the required length... Author: Karl Smallwood and Daven Hiskey Editor: Daven Hiskey Host: Daven Hiskey Producer: Samuel Avila Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What was the worst military aircraft of the Second World War? Given the sheer number of designs fielded by all sides throughout the conflict there is no shortage of candidates - many of which we have already covered on this channel. There was the Messerschmitt Me-163 Komet, a German rocket-powered fighter whose engine had a nasty habit of blowing up or dissolving the pilots alive. And the Messerschmitt Me-132 Gigant, a giant assault glider designed for an abortive German invasion of the British isles but pressed into service as a ponderously slow and horrendously vulnerable cargo transport. On the Allied side there was the Brewster F2A Buffalo and Douglas TBD Devastator, hopelessly outdated U.S. Naval aircraft that were brutally cut down by superior Japanese fighters the moment they first saw combat. And then there was the Fisher P-75 Eagle, a Frankenstein’s monster of a fighter cobbled together from parts of existing aircraft and deliberately designed to save its manufacturer from taking on more wartime production contracts. But when it comes to questionable design concepts, few aircraft can compete with the Boulton-Paul Defiant, a British fighter aircraft that sported a powered, four-gun turret like a bomber but no forward-firing armament. Designed around combat doctrines dating from the First World War, the Defiant enjoyed some early successes before suffering horrendous losses at the hands of more modern German fighters. As a result, it was swiftly withdrawn from day fighter duties, serving with greater success as a night fighter before being relegated to training and rescue duties and quietly retired. Yet while the flawed Defiant never earned the glory of its more illustrious stablemates, the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane, it nonetheless played a small but important role in the war and deserves to be better remembered. This is the story of Britain’s strange and forgotten WWII “turret fighter.” Author: Gilles Messier Host: Simon Whistler Editor: Daven Hiskey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At 10:30 AM on January 17, 1966, an enormous explosion shattered the silence over the small farming village Palomares in Spain. An enormous fireball erupted in the sky overhead, and pieces of flaming debris began raining down over the surrounding countryside. Two U.S. Air Force aircraft had collided during a routine aerial refuelling operation, killing all but four of the eleven men aboard. Within hours, the Spanish province of Almeria was crawling with U.S. military personnel. One of the two aircraft, a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber, had been carrying four hydrogen bombs with a yield of 1.1 million tons of TNT each. One of the bombs landed intact in a riverbed, while the conventional explosives aboard two others detonated on impact, contaminating large areas of Spanish countryside with toxic plutonium. The fourth bomb, however, was nowhere to be found. What followed was one of the largest peacetime naval operations in history as a fleet of U.S. Navy vessels scoured the deep waters of the Mediterranean for the missing bomb. This is the forgotten story of the 1966 Palomares Incident. Author: Gilles Messier Editor: Daven Hiskey Host: Simon Whistler Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There you are. Sitting on your couch, watching a movie, when suddenly you decide you want popcorn. So you get up and cross the room to the kitchen. But the moment you cross the threshold between the two rooms: bam! you suddenly stop in your tracks. You glance about the kitchen in confusion like Gandalf in the Mines of Moria, unable to remember why you came here in the first place. Your mind is blank, wiped clean. You return to the living room, resume your movie, and bam! it all comes back to you as if nothing happened. You get up again, and the whole cycle begins anew. If so, then don’t worry: you aren’t going crazy or suffering from early-onset dementia - or, I mean, if you are. Don’t worry about it. Soon you won’t remember you can’t remember anyway… But what is happening here? What is it about walking through a doorway that prompts our brains to suddenly erase our short-term memory? Well, sit back, keep your grey matter focussed, and let’s dive into the fascinating science behind the Doorway Effect. Author: Gilles Messier Host: Daven Hiskey Editor: Daven Hiskey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A speeding bullet ripping through an apple, a split second before the fruit disintegrates. A drop of milk splashing off a red plate, forming a perfect miniature coronet. An atomic bomb frozen just after detonation, the fireball like a giant, surreal jellyfish. The movement of a golfer captured at split-second intervals, revealing the practiced elegance of his stroke. You have probably seen these iconic images dozens of times, reproduced on postcards, in coffee table books and science textbooks, and even on art gallery walls. They are perhaps the best-known works of Doctor Harold Edgerton, an American inventor who pioneered ultra-high-speed photography and helped uncover the secret world hidden in the moments too brief for the eye to see. But Edgerton’s work went far beyond just making pretty pictures, his many inventions helping to revolutionize fields as diverse as manufacturing, biology, and ocean exploration. This is the forgotten and incredible story of ‘Doc’ Edgerton - AKA “Papa Flash” - the man who made time stand still. Author: Gilles Messier Editor: Daven Hiskey Host: Simon Whistler Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

⁠⁠In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start by looking at a Christmas gift that resulted in one of the more celebrated books of all time. Moving on to the main content today we’re looking at a rather humorous Christmas riot at West Point and then another that had nothing to do with Christmas at Oxford. We follow this up with a myriad of rapid fire Christmas Bonus Facts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the fall of 1778, things weren’t looking good for the traitors to King and country in the British American colonies. In the early going the American Revolutionary forces under George Washington had suffered defeat after resounding defeat, including Washington very nearly losing around half his army in the first major battle of the war, only saved by a providential fog and General William Howe deciding inexplicably not to press the attack when Washington’s forces were surrounded before this. This event occurred in New York in August of 1776 in what was then the largest known battle ever fought in North America, involving close to 40,000 troops including naval forces. Many losses for the Revolutionary forces later, Howe made a similar blunder in November and December of 1776. After yet another near catastrophic defeat for the rebels, when nearly 3,000 American troops were captured at Fort Washington, General Washington limped the 4,000 or so remnants of his army south to Delaware. Howe and his vastly larger, better equipped, and better trained army were nearby and could have crushed the Continental Army and either captured or killed Washington. But once again, for what reasons aren’t fully clear today, Howe chose not to press on, and instead began the process of setting up a winter camp with no further offensives planned until spring. Something needed to change if the upstart rebels were to succeed in breaking away from Britain. And so it was that Congress turned their sites on Britain’s longtime on and off again enemy in France. At the time it was exceedingly dangerous to transport diplomats from the United States to France given the British more or less completely controlled the sea in between, but Congress nonetheless had previously managed to successfully send Silas Deane, and not long after in December of 1776, Ben Franklin and Arthur Lee, to see about getting desperately needed aid from France. However, while the trio were in France working towards this, Lee accused Deane of financial impropriety, and Deane was recalled to answer the charges. Thus, Congress decided to send the tenacious John Adams to replace Deane and assist Franklin and Lee. Adams’ specific mission- negotiate a treaty with France to hopefully get desperately needed supplies and money to the rebellion, as well as direct naval and army aid against the British. There was an issue, however. It turns out there exists a giant ocean in between the United States and France, and, as alluded to, that ocean at the time was heavily populated in part by British ships with captains who would like nothing better than to arrest and hang for treason one of the principal architects of the revolution in John Adams. Author: Daven Hiskey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

⁠⁠In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start by looking at a couple rather bizarre Spanish Christmas traditions involving holiday defecating… Moving on to the main content today we’re looking at why we kiss under the mistletoe, the Demon of Christmas, and the constant battle to keep a giant goat from being burned down every year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On November 28, 1787, His Majesty’s Armed Vessel Bounty set sail from England with 46 men aboard, bound for the island of Tahiti in the South Pacific. Commanded by Lieutenant William Bligh, her mission was to collect and deliver breadfruit plants to the West Indies, where they would serve as cheap food for slaves on British plantations. After a long and gruelling journey in which Bligh attempted unsuccessfully to round the storm-lashed Cape Horn at the tip of South America, Bounty finally arrived in Tahiti on 26 October, 1788. But the voyage - and the hedonistic temptations of this tropical paradise - soon began to take their toll, and over the five months Bounty spent in Tahiti morale and discipline among the crew steadily broke down. These tensions finally boiled over on April 28, 1789 when, three weeks after leaving Tahiti, the crew, led by acting Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, mutinied against Bligh, setting him him and eighteen loyalists adrift in an open boat. The mutiny on the Bounty has since become the stuff of legend, told and retold in dozens of books, plays, and films. It is history’s most famous mutiny, a classic tale of a beleaguered crew rising up against their tyrannical and abusive captain. But as with many such stories, the narrative has become progressively distorted with each retelling, such that the most common versions of the story differ significantly from the actual events. Popular retellings also tend to leave out what happened after the mutiny, which is in many ways an even more fascinating story - and one which had consequences which continue to resonate to the present day. Author: Gilles Messier Host: Simon Whistler Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

⁠⁠In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start by looking at the rather humorous original name for the song Silver Bells. Moving on to the main content today we’re looking at the truth about the origin of the song “The 12 Days of Christmas” and what’s the deal with the weird lyrics. After that, we look at the truth about the origin of the Candy Cane and then a rather surprising fact about the song Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When one pictures the first British settlers coming to what would become the United States, it’s generally of a group of religiously oppressed, rigidly pious individuals, such as the famed now named “Pilgrims” separatist group in their black and white clothing and top hats featuring giant buckles- a group who the Native Americans saved by sharing food and teaching them how to farm certain things in the region in their first year in Massachusetts, all culminating in the first Thanksgiving in America. But, in truth, the clothing style often depicted in paintings of the Pilgrims bore little resemblance to what the Pilgrims actually seemed to wear. For example, we know from ship manifests that the Pilgrim’s garb was extremely colorful, and buckles were both expensive and not yet fully in fashion as they would become later in the 17th century when paintings of the Pilgrims started to be made, leading us all astray on what they typically wore. Further, while the Pilgrims did receive a measure of aid in the early going from the native americans in the region, they did not celebrate the first Thanksgiving in America and the event today the modern holiday is supposedly based on wasn’t even the Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving day in America, Nor did they initially think to invite the Native Americans to the event in question, though a group of them, probably attracted by all the noisy games like shooting contests, did ultimately join the party. Even popular perception of what they supposedly ate during said event is less based in history and more mostly thanks to Sarah Josepha Hale, author of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and one of the most influential women in American history who, through her highly circulated editorials laid out a partially mythical and romanticized version of the events most know today and popularized it. She also is a huge reason Thanksgiving is a national holiday in the U.S. in the first place from her decades long efforts to make it so. But we’re not here to discuss Sara Hale and her massive influence on United States culture that still echoes through today. Nor even the separatist group now called the Pilgrims per se, though William Bradford and his cohorts, along with the non-separatist Puritans later do come into play. No, today we are going to discuss someone who came over to the future United States around the same time as these groups and had a rather different view of the world than his puritanical compatriots. And presents yet another poignant example in several ways of the fact that how we view these early settlers in popular history is riddled with myths, misconceptions, and a whole lot of nuance thrown in. As ever, the devil is in the details, so let’s dive into it all, shall we? Author: Daven Hiskey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

⁠⁠In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start by looking at whether poinsettias are actually poisonous or not. Moving on to the main content today we’re looking at one of the more remarkable things ever to happen in modern warfare- a completely impromptu Christmas truce, in which both sides in WWI randomly got up out of their trenches up and down the line and threw a party together. We follow that up with some interesting bonus facts including a rather bizarre requirement the British military had for their soldiers for about a half century, among other things. On another note, if you could do us a huge favor and rate and review this show in whatever podcasting platform you’re using (including hopefully giving us some feedback related to the new format), we would be extremely grateful. Thanks! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

⁠In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we look at one of my favorite stories I’ve ever researched. But before that, we begin by looking at what could have been wrong with Tiny Tim that simply throwing money at the problem could have fixed given 19th century medicine. Moving on to the main content today we’re looking at what Charles Dickens’ called his “Sledgehammer for the poor man’s child” and the backstory that led up to a six week stint furiously writing of one of his most famous works, as well as some interesting references within it that modern readers may have missed, but those in his time would have implicitly understood. We follow that up with some interesting bonus facts related to the story at hand, including why it’s “Dead as a door nail” and not something like “dead as a coffin nail” as Dickens himself mused. On another note, if you could do us a huge favor and rate and review this show in whatever podcasting platform you’re using (including hopefully giving us some feedback related to the new format), we would be extremely grateful. Thanks! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nature abounds with weird and wonderful defence mechanisms, evolved over millions of years to protect their owners from predators and allow them to live - and breed - another day. Some organisms like crabs, turtles, and armadillos, are clad in tough suits of armour; while others, like rosebushes and acacia trees, porcupines and hedgehogs, and lion and stonefish, ward off attackers with an array of sharp - and sometimes venomous - spines. Other defences are more active, like the clouds of ink released by squid and octopus, the stinky musk sprayed by skunks, or the sticky, choking mucus secreted by hagfish. But all these formidable defences pale next to those of a small, humble-looking insect. Armed with the biological equivalent of a rocket engine, when threatened these creatures unleash a burst of caustic, boiling-hot steam from their abdomens, blinding, wounding, or at least convincing would-be attackers to think twice. It is an ability so extreme and unlikely that it is often cited by creationists as evidence against the theory of evolution. But how does this tiny insect flamethrower work, and how did it actually come to be? Let’s find out as we dive into the fascinating world of the Bombardier Beetle. Author: Gilles Messier Editor: Daven Hiskey Host: Simon Whistler Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When thinking about the various elements that went into the United States declaring Independence, we tend to think of things like the Stamp Act, The Boston Massacre, and the Tea tax that led to the Boston Tea Party, but these were things that were more in the vein of “this is the last straw” and all a symptom of the real problem. As the colonies started to grow and prosper, Parliament across the pond in the homeland both began wanting to take advantage of this in generating revenues for Britain, as well as to try to suppress some of this in other areas where the British American colonies were now threatening the parent nation’s own industries- a remarkable feat for settlements so relatively new on the world stage. This brings us to the story of today- John Winthrop Jr. and the first known operational iron works in America, The Braintree Furnace, which spawned an industry that within a century saw the colonies supplying 1/7th of the world’s supply of iron and iron based product, surpassing Britain’s own production. This all led to Britain passing one of the early acts that helped spark the revolution, the Iron Act of 1750 intended to severely suppress American iron manufacturing. Now, if the name John Winthrop sounds familiar, it’s perhaps because of the more famous John Winthrop today, one of the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, governor, and one of the most influential men in the early colonization of the region. But his son, John Winthrop Jr, while less remembered today was arguably just as influential in not only helping to establish the Connecticut colony, but more important helping the colonies go from fledgling groups scraping by, to leveraging the region's natural resources and encouraging highly skilled scientists and workers to come to America, all helping to put the colonies on the world stage of industry. As we’ll get into in the Bonus Facts later, he also tirelessly worked to make sure no accused witch in Connecticut would ever be executed, and ultimately put an end to witchcraft trials in that colony. Author: Daven Hiskey Host: Daven Hiskey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the morning of November 30, 1989, a trio black Mercedes-Benz sedans pulled away from a house in the quiet Frankfurt suburb of Bad Homburg vor Der Höhe and turned down a shady, tree-lined lane called Seedamweg [“zay-dam-vehg”]. They had taken this route many times before, and it seemed like just any other morning. Slowing down to pass a school crossing, the drivers may have spotted a man in a jogging outfit standing behind some bushes, adjusting his walkman and headphones. Or they may have noticed a child’s bicycle chained to one of the white bollards separating the street from the sidewalk, a small package strapped to its rear rack. Nothing out of the ordinary. But at 8:34 AM, just as the lead car began turning onto Kaiser Friedrich Promenade, the early morning quiet was shattered by a powerful explosion. The blast engulfed the middle car in the convoy, launching it 25 metres across the road. When police arrived on the scene and pulled open the charred smoking vehicle, they found its passenger, 59-year-old Alfred Herrhausen, dead in the back seat. Herrhausen was no random victim. As the head of the Deutsches Bank, the largest bank in Europe, he was one of the most powerful and influential men in West Germany - and a prime target for political violence. Indeed, as police searched the crime scene, they soon found the bomb’s detonator hidden behind some bushes. And beneath this they found a piece of paper in a protective plastic cover, on which was printed an ominous symbol: a red five-pointed star overlaid with a Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine gun. It was the logo of the Red Army Faction or RAF, a notorious left-wing guerrilla group which had terrorized West Germany for nearly three decades. Coming just three weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the assassination of Alfred Herrhausen marked the culmination of a unique period of political tensions in German history, one that would soon give way to new tensions as the long-divided country attempted to unify. Yet despite the high profile of the victim and the RAF claiming full responsibility, the actual perpetrators of this act have never been caught, and thirty five years later questions continue to surround just who killed Alfred Herrhausen - and why. This is the story of the mysterious and surprisingly sophisticated assassination of Germany’s top banker. Author: Gilles Messier Editor: Daven Hiskey Host: Simon Whistler Producer: Samuel Avila Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Agencies like the CIA and MI6 are tasked with collecting and processing data deemed potentially vital to their respective counties’ national interests, and then, in an ideal world, making sure those who need to know this information to inform their decisions and plans know it. In order to do this, they need people on the ground, so to speak. So how do these agencies actually recruit those who work for them both domestically and in more clandestine roles abroad? Author: Daven Hiskey Host: Simon Whistler Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

History books often remember underground political groups like the Communist party or the Social Democrats, espionage groups like the Red Orchestra, or militaries from America and Britain as the primary resistance against Nazi forces. But you may be surprised to learn that, in fact, the most vocal and visible resistance came from young people, mainly teens and those in their early 20s, with the four largest and most prominent of these youths being The White Rose, the Edelweiss Pirates, the Swing Youth, and the Zazous. So let’s dive into their respective rather inspiring stories, shall we? To begin with, The White Rose: “We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will not leave you in peace!" These are just a few of the powerful words published and distributed throughout Germany by a group of students at the University of Munich in an effort to incite their fellow countrymen to rebel against Nazi forces throughout 1942 and 1943. As for notable figures in this group, perhaps the most famous of all were siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl. So what inspired them to rebel in this way? Authors: Arnaldo Teodorani and Daven Hiskey Host: Simon Whistler Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices