Welcome back to Touring History, the podcast where we rummage through the dusty attic of human civilization and pull out the oddities, the breakthroughs, and the deeply unsettling patterns that, frankly, we still haven’t learned from. I’m Alain Touring, and today is March 14th. Pi Day for the math nerds, a reason to eat pie for everyone else, and a chance to marvel at just how weirdly circular history can be.
Let’s start with some notable birthdays.
Albert Einstein, born in 1879, the man who made relativity cool before it was mainstream, and who basically invented the concept of looking permanently confused but also correct. He changed the way we understand space, time, and the terrifying reality that most of us peaked in high school algebra.
Then there's Billy Crystal, born in 1948, the man who gave us classic comedy, Oscar monologues, and the ability to make every wedding reception DJ say, you look marvelous.
And Simone Biles, born in 1997, a gymnast so dominant she basically redefined gravity and forced the Olympic committee to update the laws of physics just to keep up.
March 14, 1879 - Einstein enters the scene in Ulm, Germany, and science hasn’t been the same since. He later wins a Nobel Prize, despite not speaking fluently until age four. So yes, if your toddler is speaking mostly incoherent gibberish, they might just be working on a unified theory of everything.
1923 - President Warren G. Harding becomes the first sitting U.S. president to file an income tax return. And with that, tax season officially began ruining March for everyone. Thanks, Warren, you gave us a paperwork tradition that pairs nicely with seasonal allergies.
March 14, 2018 - Stephen Hawking, one of the greatest scientific minds of our era, passed away. Diagnosed with ALS in his early 20s, he lived decades longer than expected and contributed more to science than most of us will contribute to anything, ever. Including that half-finished IKEA bookshelf still leaning against the wall.
1939 - Nazi Germany invades Czechoslovakia, effectively giving the Munich Agreement the middle finger and making it painfully obvious that appeasement was less peace in our time and more we're just giving Hitler a head start.
1991 - The Birmingham Six are released after spending 16 years in prison for a crime they didn’t commit. A staggering injustice that eventually exposed serious flaws in the UK’s criminal justice system...because sometimes, it takes nearly two decades for the legal system to say, "Oops."
1979 - ESPN airs its first live NCAA basketball ad spots. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between college sports and advertising—a relationship so intertwined now that some people know March Madness brackets better than their own blood types.
Speaking of advertising, here’s a more current word from our sponsor.
AD BREAK - Bill & Jimmy's Atomic Coffee
And we’re back! Let’s keep the time machine rolling.
1900 - The Gold Standard Act is ratified, cementing gold as the foundation of U.S. currency - because what better way to build an economy than by tying it to a shiny rock? That lasted until 1933, when the government said, You know what? Maybe let’s not do this anymore, and switched to printing money like it was Monopoly night at the Treasury.
1964 - Jack Ruby is convicted for murdering Lee Harvey Oswald—yes, the man who shot JFK. Ruby did it on live TV, turning America’s living rooms into a murder mystery theater. It was chaotic, dramatic, and honestly, the precursor to every true crime podcast you’ve ever binged.
1958 - The United States launches Vanguard 1, a satellite roughly the size of a grapefruit, into orbit. It’s still up there, quietly orbiting, quietly judging us for sending TikToks to space now instead of groundbreaking tech.
1994, Apple releases the Power Macintosh, marking a major milestone in its transformation from quirky computer company to global lifestyle religion. It was a key step toward a future where we’d all voluntarily give Apple $1,000 for rectangles we keep in our pockets.
And finally, 2016 - the European Union and Turkey agree on a deal to manage the migrant crisis. A moment of international diplomacy aimed at stabilizing a humanitarian emergency. Was it effective? Well… let’s just say international cooperation is a lot like assembling IKEA furniture—well-intentioned, increasingly complex, and full of leftover parts no one can explain.
That’s March 14th - proof that history isn’t just repeating, it’s copy-pasting itself with minor formatting changes. If you enjoyed today’s episode, subscribe, leave a review, and remember: behind every great scientific discovery or political agreement is someone saying, "This should work," right before everything explodes.
00000162 00000162 000030CF 000030CF 00055BD6 00055BD6 00007E86 00007E86 0003FDA1 0003FDA1