The Daily Hit

Today, we’re going back to June 19, 1865. We’re in Galveston, Texas. The Civil War is over. The Confederacy has collapsed. But here, on this island city, thousands of enslaved people still don’t know…

On May 28, 2016, a child fell into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo—and within minutes, Harambe, a 17-year-old silverback gorilla, was shot and killed. What followed was a cultural explosi…

On May 20, 1873, a tailor named Jacob Davis and a dry goods wholesaler named Levi Strauss received a U.S. patent for a pair of rivet-reinforced work pants. Originally built to withstand the grit of f…

On May 12, 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot in front of thousands in St. Peter’s Square. Against all odds, he survived. In today’s episode, we unravel the story behind the bullets—the gunman, the Col…

On April 28, 1789, a group of British sailors staged one of the most famous mutinies in history aboard the HMS Bounty. It’s a story of leadership under pressure, paradise that proved too tempting, an…

On May 5, 1862, a scrappy group of Mexican defenders pulled off the unthinkable—defeating the mighty French army at the Battle of Puebla. But is Cinco de Mayo really Mexican Independence Day? Today, …

On April 21, 753 BCE, Rome was founded—at least, that’s how the story goes. But behind the myths of twin brothers, a wolf, and a murder, lies a tale about how people shape their past to define their …

In April 1971, a simple game of table tennis unexpectedly thawed decades of icy relations between the United States and China. This episode dives into the fascinating story of Ping Pong Diplomacy, ho…

On April 1, 2001, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage, setting a precedent for LGBTQ+ rights worldwide. Join us as we explore the journey that led to t…

On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck a reef off the coast of Alaska, unleashing one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. Join us as we explore what went wrong, the d…

On March 21, 2006, Jack Dorsey hit send on a short, cryptic message: “just setting up my twttr.” It was the first-ever tweet—and the moment that kicked off a new era in communication. In today’s epis…

On March 14, 1879, in the quiet town of Ulm, Germany, a child was born who would one day change our understanding of the universe. Albert Einstein, a name now synonymous with genius, revolutionized p…

On March 12, 1894, a simple yet game-changing innovation hit the market: Coca-Cola was sold in bottles for the very first time. This move transformed not just the soft drink industry but consumer cul…

On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for an invention that would revolutionize the way humans communicate: the telephone. But his journey to this groundbreaking moment was anythi…

On March 6, 1899, the German pharmaceutical company Bayer received a patent for what would become one of the most widely used drugs in history: aspirin. But this isn’t just the story of a pain reliev…

On the night of March 5, 1770, tensions between British soldiers and American colonists exploded into deadly violence in the streets of Boston. What started as a minor scuffle escalated into gunfire,…

On March 4, 1980, Robert Mugabe and his party, ZANU-PF, won a decisive victory in Zimbabwe’s first independent elections, setting the stage for his long and controversial rule. From liberation hero t…

On March 3, 1938, a single well in the Saudi Arabian desert struck oil—and the world would never be the same. Join us as we explore how a dusty stretch of sand became the foundation of a global econo…

On February 28, 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick made a groundbreaking announcement: they had discovered the double-helix structure of DNA. This revelation transformed biology, medicine, and our …

On February 27, 1996, a global pop culture phenomenon was born. The release of "Pocket Monsters: Red and Green" for the Game Boy in Japan marked the beginning of what would become one of the most suc…