Five Minute Trivia
Bite-sized bursts of knowledge to make you smarter. Five minutes at a time.
Episodes
44 episodes
Mother's Day
Mother's Day is one of the most important holidays in America, and not just because we love our moms. Billions of dollars in flowers, greeting cards, and restaurant brunches make Mother's Day an economic powerhouse. But it wasn't always this wa...
This...is...a show about Sparta!
Imagine building an entire society around the idea of fighting people. That, in a nutshell, was Sparta. For over three millenia, the Spartans have been source of fascination for their military prowess, their massive slave population, and their ...
Seas, Gulf, Bays, Coves, Sounds, and Fjords: When Geographers Go Wild
Why call something an ocean when you can call it a sea? Why call it a sea when you can call it a gulf? Why is Long Island Sound a body of water and not a rock band? If you've ever looked at a map of the world's bodies of water and wondered what...
Five Minute Lit: The Stranger
History is full of restless, ambitious overachievers who wanted to make some difference in the world. But what if our idea of the world is wrong? What if life is nothing more than a dumb accident of the universe with no meaning? This is the phi...
From White Dwarfs to Supernovas: When Stars Collapse, Part 2
When stars die, they don't go quietly. They can shrink, expand, explode, and everything in between. How does a star know what to do when it's done? We're covering all that in the conclusion of our two-part series.
Black Holes: When Stars Collapse, Part 1
Black holes have been a reliable source of inspiration in science fiction and made astrophysicists like Stephen Hawking into household names. On this week's show, we follow how the idea of black holes went from a mathematical sideshow to a phen...
The Impressionist Art Movement
Impressionism was a 19th century art movement borne out of an insult, but quickly became one of the most popular and enduring art forms in history. Legendary painters like Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edouard Manet, and Mary Cassatt wer...
A Drink To Go With The Food: The Molotov Cocktail
The Molotov cocktail is not a drink and the person it's named for didn't invent it. Yet there is perhaps no more iconic symbol of resistance in the world than a flaming bottle being thrown at a technologically superior opponent. Where did the M...
Earth's Time Machine: The International Date Line
If you want to turn today into tomorrow, you don't need to wait for science to invent something. You can just go west until you cross 180 degrees longitude. That's where the International Date Line is located. On today's show, we talk about wha...
All About the Oscars
The 98th Academy Awards are right around the corner, so we thought we'd tackle some burning questions about the Oscars. Like who...or what...is Oscar? And has anyone named Oscar ever won an Oscar?
Five Minute Lit: Wuthering Heights
For over a hundred years, Hollywood has been making movie adaptations of Wuthering Heights. And for over a hundred years, they've been controversial. The latest one starring Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff is no exception. This week, we're talking a...
Uh...Is Anyone Eating Anything?? Ramadan and Lent
This year, the Islamic month of Ramadan and the Catholic observance of Lent both started on the same day. Both faith traditions are characterized by fasting, spiritual devotion, and personal sacrifice. Both faiths also make up nearly 40% of the...
Biggest, Tallest, Highest: Of Course We're Talking About Mountains
Which mountain is the biggest on Earth? The answer is surprisingly a little complicated and it depends on what you mean by biggest. Join us this week as we go into the sky, the oceans, and to the center of the planet to find out. WARNING: There...
The Superbowl's Favorite Half-Time Act
Only six football teams have been to more Superbowls than Up with People. The relentlessly upbeat performing group starred in five Superbowl halftime shows as well as the Indy 500, the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, and even a presidential inaugur...
Things You Didn't Know Were Named For Real People
Sara Lee, Mr. Clean, and Mrs. Butterworth are not real people, but Ignacio Anaya, John Montagu, and Charles Boycott were. Who were they? Only the namesakes of two of the greatest foods ever invented and an oft-used kind of collective protest. O...
Australia Wages War Against Itself: The Great Emu War of 1932
The emu is a national symbol of Australia. The large, flightless bird appears on Australia's coat of arms and its fifty-cent piece. So why did Australia declare war against emus in 1932? And how did the emus defeat them? On this week's show, we...
The Thing That Makes Up Everything: All About Quarks
Quarks are the fundamental unit of matter and make up literally everything, including you, me, and the period at the end of this sentence. How did such an important idea get such a strange name? And why is Strange literally the name of a quark?...
The Official End of the Holidays: Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
The Feast of the Epiphany marks the twelfth and final day of Christmas, when the three wise men brought gifts for the baby Jesus. To celebrate this religious occasion, Shakespeare wrote a wild comedy with merriment, cross-dressing, and a love t...
Why Do We Celebrate New Years on January 1?
Happy New Year to everyone who celebrates the arrival of a new year on January 1. That leaves out China, most of the Middle East, Lesotho, anyone who goes to school, and Mars. So how did we decide to make January 1 the date we change the calend...
The Poem That Invented Christmas
Everyone has heard the poem that starts off with, "'Twas the night before Christmas," but hardly anyone knows the name of the poem or the man who wrote it. It's responsible for some of the most iconic images of Christmas--stockings, Santa Claus...
The Map that Changed the World
Gerardus Mercator had a dream. He wanted to make a map of the world that people could actually use to get from one place to another. He was so successful that we're still using it 500 years later. It's even on our smartphones. But his projectio...
The Ugly Car That Couldn't: The Ford Edsel
Edsel Ford was the only son of Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company. He became president of Ford but sadly died of cancer in 1943. To honor his memory, Ford Motor Company launched a new car division 17 years after his death and unveiled it...
Why Do the Cowboys and Lions Play on Thanksgiving?
It's Thanksgiving week! That means food, family, and...FOOTBALL!! If you're a fan of the Dallas Cowboys and the Detroit Lions, you'll always get to watch your team on Thanksgiving, because they always play on Thanksgiving Day. How and why did t...
Broadway in Five Minutes: Cats!
The modernist poet TS Eliot won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. But before he got famous for The Waste Land and The Hollow Men, he wrote a bunch of silly poems for his godchildren and compiled them in a book called Old Possum's Guide to...