[00:00] Nina Park: Hello and welcome to Deep Dive.
[00:03] Nina Park: We are so glad to have you with us today.
[00:05] Marcus Shaw: We really are.
[00:06] Marcus Shaw: Today is February 18th, and we have a lineup that covers everything from the outer reaches of our solar system
[00:13] Marcus Shaw: to the very foundations of modern technology and music.
[00:16] Nina Park: It is a day of massive breakthroughs, Marcus.
[00:19] Nina Park: We're starting with a story of patience and observation that completely changed our cosmic map back in 1930.
[00:26] Marcus Shaw: You're talking about Pluto.
[00:28] Marcus Shaw: I've always loved the story of how it was found because it wasn't some high-tech sensor sweep.
[00:34] Marcus Shaw: It was pure old-school detective work.
[00:36] Nina Park: Exactly.
[00:37] Nina Park: Clyde Tombaugh was only 24 years old when he made the discovery at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.
[00:45] Nina Park: He was looking for something astronomers called Planet X, a
[00:48] Nina Park: a theoretical world beyond Neptune that they believed was tugging on other planets' orbits.
[00:55] Marcus Shaw: No way. The way he found it is wild.
[00:58] Marcus Shaw: He had to compare photographic plates taken weeks apart.
[01:01] Marcus Shaw: He was literally staring at thousands of stars,
[01:04] Marcus Shaw: looking for the one tiny dot that moved between frames.
[01:08] Marcus Shaw: Nina, that is some serious dedication to the craft.
[01:11] Nina Park: It took months of sifting through those plates,
[01:15] Nina Park: but on this day in 1930,
[01:17] Nina Park: he finally spotted that moving object.
[01:19] Nina Park: It ended a decades-long search.
[01:22] Nina Park: Of course, the story of Pluto took a famous turn in 2006
[01:25] Nina Park: when it was reclassified as a dwarf planet,
[01:29] Nina Park: but for 76 years, it was our official ninth planet.
[01:33] Marcus Shaw: Dwarf planet or not, it's still a legend.
[01:36] Marcus Shaw: But moving from the stars to something much more grounded and intense,
[01:39] Marcus Shaw: We have to talk about what happened in 1943 at the University of Munich.
[01:44] Nina Park: Right. February 18th is a solemn anniversary for the German resistance.
[01:50] Nina Park: This was the day the Gestapo arrested Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans.
[01:55] Nina Park: They were part of a group called the White Rose.
[01:57] Marcus Shaw: That's remarkable.
[01:59] Marcus Shaw: The White Rose was essentially a small group of students and a professor who were distributing anti-Nazi leaflets.
[02:05] Marcus Shaw: Sophie was only 21.
[02:08] Marcus Shaw: It's hard to imagine the kind of steel you need to have to do that in the middle of Nazi Germany.
[02:13] Nina Park: They had distributed six different leaflets calling for active opposition to the regime.
[02:19] Nina Park: When they were caught at the university, things moved incredibly fast.
[02:23] Nina Park: Sophie, Hans, and their friend Christoph Probst were executed just four days later.
[02:30] Nina Park: Sophie's final words are often cited as an ultimate example of moral clarity.
[02:35] Nina Park: She reportedly said,
[02:37] Nina Park: What does my death matter if by our acts, thousands are warned and alerted?
[02:41] Marcus Shaw: That is such a heavy, powerful legacy.
[02:45] Marcus Shaw: It is a reminder that even in the darkest times, there are people willing to speak the truth.
[02:50] Marcus Shaw: While we reflect on that courage, we also have some incredible birthdays to celebrate today that changed the cultural and scientific landscape.
[02:59] Nina Park: Starting with a name every student of science knows, Alessandro Volta was born on this day in 1745.
[03:07] Nina Park: He was an Italian physicist, and Marcus, I think you'd agree we wouldn't have much of a modern world without him.
[03:14] Marcus Shaw: Yeah.
[03:14] Marcus Shaw: Volta gave us the voltaic pile, which was the very first electric battery.
[03:20] Marcus Shaw: Without that foundation, we don't have portable electronics.
[03:24] Marcus Shaw: We don't have handheld gaming, nothing.
[03:26] Marcus Shaw: The unit of electrical potential, the volt, is named after him for very good reason.
[03:31] Nina Park: And from the power of electricity to the power of the written word,
[03:35] Nina Park: we also celebrate the birthday of Tony Morrison, born in 1931.
[03:39] Nina Park: She was a titan of literature and became the first African-American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.
[03:48] Marcus Shaw: Her work is just staggering.
[03:50] Marcus Shaw: Beloved, Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye.
[03:53] Marcus Shaw: Nina, she didn't just write stories.
[03:56] Marcus Shaw: She explored the deep, often painful complexities of the American experience with such grace.
[04:02] Nina Park: She truly did.
[04:04] Nina Park: And finally, we have a birthday for a figure who shaped the modern musical landscape.
[04:11] Nina Park: Dr. Dre, born Andre Romel Young in 1965.
[04:15] Marcus Shaw: Exactly.
[04:16] Marcus Shaw: The architect of the West Coast Sound, from co-founding NWA to Aftermath Entertainment
[04:23] Marcus Shaw: and then totally disrupting the tech world with Beats Electronics.
[04:26] Marcus Shaw: Dre is a perfect example of how artistic vision can evolve into a massive entrepreneurial
[04:33] Marcus Shaw: legacy.
[04:34] Nina Park: It is a day of innovators, Marcus.
[04:36] Nina Park: Whether it is discovering a planet, standing up to tyranny, or inventing the battery,
[04:42] Nina Park: February 18th is full of people who refuse to accept the world as it was.
[04:48] Nina Park: I have really enjoyed this conversation today.
[04:51] Nina Park: Thank you for listening to Deep Dive.
[04:53] Marcus Shaw: Well said, Nina.
[04:54] Marcus Shaw: It has been a fascinating look at the calendar today.
[04:58] Marcus Shaw: For everyone listening, thanks for joining us on this journey through time.
[05:02] Marcus Shaw: To explore more history, visit deepdive.neuronewscast.com.
[05:07] Marcus Shaw: Deep dive is AI-assisted, human-reviewed.
[05:11] Marcus Shaw: Explore history every day on NeuroNewscast.