The 15 Best General Knowledge Podcasts (2026)

Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant have been explaining how the world works since 2008, and somehow they keep finding new things to talk about. With over 2,000 episodes under their belt, SYSK covers everything from the history of champagne to chaos theory to the Stonewall Uprising. The format is beautifully simple: two curious guys sit down, research a topic, and walk you through it like they're catching up over coffee.

What makes the show stick is the genuine friendship between Josh and Chuck. They interrupt each other, go on tangents about their weekends, and occasionally get things hilariously wrong before correcting themselves. Episodes run about 40 to 55 minutes for the main show, with shorter "Short Stuff" episodes around 10 minutes when you just need a quick knowledge fix.

The research is solid without being academic. They pull from books, interviews, and historical records, but deliver it all in plain language. You will never feel talked down to. One episode might cover satanism, the next Rosa Parks, and then suddenly you are learning about LSD. That unpredictability is part of the charm. The show drops twice a week and has earned a 4.5-star rating from over 76,000 reviews, which tells you it has staying power. If you want a podcast that makes you smarter without making you feel like you are back in school, this is the gold standard.

Four researchers from the British TV show QI get together every week and share the most bizarre facts they have stumbled across. That is the entire format. Dan Schreiber, James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray, and Anna Ptaszynski each bring one incredible fact, and then the group riffs on it for about an hour. It sounds simple because it is, and it works brilliantly.

The show has racked up over 760 episodes and 600 million downloads worldwide, making it one of the most popular fact-based podcasts on the planet. The 4.8-star rating from over 4,500 reviews reflects an audience that loves the combination of genuine learning and British humor. These four are legitimately funny, and their chemistry after years of working together is effortless.

A typical episode bounces from an obscure historical anecdote to a weird animal behavior to a surprising linguistic fact. The conversations spiral in unpredictable directions. Someone shares a fact about Victorian-era dentistry, and twenty minutes later the group is debating the aerodynamics of a particular bird species. The tangents are half the fun.

The QI connection means the research standards are high. These are professional fact-finders by trade, and they bring that rigor to the podcast. But they wear it lightly. If you want to absorb genuinely surprising information while laughing out loud on public transport, No Such Thing As A Fish is hard to beat.

Gary Arndt puts out a new episode every single day, and each one teaches you something you probably did not know. That is not an exaggeration. Everything Everywhere Daily has hit over 2,000 episodes, covering subjects from ancient Rome to the invention of ice cream to the mathematics behind cryptography. Each episode runs about 13 to 17 minutes, making it one of the most efficient ways to learn something new.

Arndt is a world traveler and self-described polymath, and his range shows. Monday might be about the geological history of Iceland. Tuesday could cover the Silk Road. Wednesday takes you through the science of fermentation. He researches thoroughly and presents with a clear, straightforward delivery that respects your time without dumbing things down.

The daily format is what makes the show special. Instead of going deep on one topic for an hour, Arndt gives you a focused, well-structured mini-lecture that covers the essential story without padding. The 4.7-star rating from over 2,100 reviews reflects an audience that keeps coming back because the quality stays remarkably consistent across thousands of episodes.

If you are the kind of person who falls down Wikipedia rabbit holes at midnight, this podcast is basically that experience curated by someone who has been to over 200 countries and territories. It is perfect for commutes, gym sessions, or any moment when you want to learn something genuinely interesting in under 20 minutes.

Radiolab is the podcast that made sound design an art form. Hosts Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser carry forward the legacy that Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich built, and the show remains one of the most sonically inventive programs in audio. Episodes layer interviews, music, and ambient sound in ways that genuinely make your ears perk up.

The topics range across science, philosophy, law, and culture. One week you might hear about the ethics of CRISPR gene editing. The next, a courtroom drama about a forgotten civil rights case. The common thread is curiosity taken to its logical extreme: the team follows a question until they hit something surprising, then they follow that surprise even further.

Episodes land weekly and typically run 30 to 60 minutes, though some stretch past an hour when the story demands it. The show has over 800 episodes since launching in 2006, and it holds a 4.6-star rating from more than 42,000 reviews. There is a reason it keeps winning Peabody Awards.

Radiolab does not just explain things. It makes you feel the weight of a scientific discovery or the strangeness of a legal precedent. The production quality is a notch above almost everything else in podcasting, and the storytelling has a patience to it that rewards close listening. If you only subscribe to one knowledge podcast, you could do a lot worse than this one.

For 27 years, Melvyn Bragg sat down with three academic experts each week to discuss a single topic in depth — the fall of Carthage, the philosophy of Spinoza, black holes, Emily Dickinson. In early 2026, journalist and historian Misha Glenny took over hosting duties, and the format has remained largely the same: one subject, three specialists, 45 to 60 minutes of rigorous conversation.

This is the podcast for people who actually want to understand a subject, not just hear a summary of it. The guests are working academics who know their fields inside and out, and the host pushes them to explain things clearly without dumbing anything down. There is a particular pleasure in hearing scholars disagree with each other respectfully but firmly, which happens more often than you might expect. The range covers history, religion, culture, science, and philosophy, and each episode goes deep enough that you come away feeling like you took a university lecture.

The show has over 1,100 episodes in its archive and holds a 4.6 rating from more than 5,000 reviews on Apple Podcasts. It started as a BBC Radio 4 program in 1998, making it one of the longest-running intellectual discussion shows anywhere. No flashy sound design, no gimmicks. Just smart people talking seriously about important ideas. If you want to genuinely expand what you know about the world, this is the show.

Roman Mars has one of those radio voices that makes everything sound important, and the subjects he picks genuinely are. 99% Invisible is about the designed world — the buildings, systems, infrastructure, and objects that shape daily life in ways most people never notice. Why do hospital gowns look the way they do? How did the design of a particular intersection cause dozens of accidents? What is the story behind the weird symbols on your washing machine?

Each episode runs about 27 to 43 minutes, though special series can go longer. The show has been running since 2010, with 779 episodes covering everything from flag design to the architecture of public housing to the history of the color mauve. The storytelling is polished and atmospheric — this is not a casual chat show. Every episode is carefully produced with interviews, archival audio, and Mars's distinctive narration tying it all together.

With a 4.8 rating from over 25,500 reviews, 99% Invisible is one of the most beloved podcasts around. Some longtime fans note the show has gradually broadened its scope beyond pure design into social and political territory, which you will either appreciate or miss depending on what drew you in. But the core promise remains solid: after listening, you will look at the built environment differently. Stoplights, curb cuts, building codes — suddenly all of it has a story.

Physicist Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince make an unexpectedly effective double act. The Infinite Monkey Cage is a BBC Radio 4 panel show that tackles scientific topics — nuclear fusion, brain-computer interfaces, the secret lives of eels — with genuine expertise and genuine humor in equal measure. Each episode runs about 42 minutes and features Cox and Ince alongside a rotating panel of scientists and celebrity guests. Jane Goodall, Tim Peake, and dozens of other prominent researchers have appeared. The show has produced 247 episodes with a 4.7-star rating from nearly 1,900 reviews. Cox brings the physics credentials and the ability to explain complex concepts without condescension. Ince brings the comedy and, more importantly, the willingness to ask the questions that a non-scientist audience is actually thinking. The panel format means you get multiple expert perspectives on each topic rather than a single narrator's take, and the live-audience setting adds an energy that studio recordings cannot replicate. Episodes release in batches tied to BBC broadcast seasons, which means gaps between runs, but the back catalog covers an enormous range of scientific ground. British listeners already know this show well. International audiences who discover it tend to wonder why it took them so long.

Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick spend their days thinking about the strangest corners of science and culture, and Stuff To Blow Your Mind is where they share what they find. The show lives at the intersection of neuroscience, cosmic mysteries, evolutionary biology, and speculative future technology. If it makes you tilt your head and go "wait, really?" it probably belongs on this podcast.

The format has evolved over the show's 2,000-plus episodes into several recurring segments. Core episodes tackle big scientific topics in multi-part series, giving subjects the space they deserve. "Weirdhouse Cinema" applies the show's analytical lens to bizarre and overlooked films. "The Monstrefact" examines the science behind mythological creatures. Listener mail rounds things out.

Episodes run anywhere from 45 minutes to 90 minutes and drop daily, which is a staggering output. The 4.3-star rating from over 5,500 reviews reflects a loyal audience that appreciates the show's willingness to get weird. Lamb and McCormick are well-read hosts who bring genuine academic curiosity to every topic without taking themselves too seriously.

The show is particularly good when it finds the overlap between hard science and the uncanny. An episode about bioluminescence might lead into a discussion of deep-sea mythology. A series on sleep disorders could veer into the history of dream interpretation. That willingness to follow ideas across disciplinary boundaries is what keeps longtime listeners hooked.

The editors at Popular Science magazine spend their days reading research papers and interviewing scientists, and sometimes they come across facts that are just too strange, too funny, or too unsettling to fit neatly into a written article. Those are the facts that end up on this podcast. Rachel Feltman hosts (currently on parental leave, with producer Jess Boddy filling in), and each episode features the team presenting their most surprising recent discoveries.

Episodes run 45 minutes to just over an hour and come out bimonthly. The show is now in its tenth season with 221 episodes in the archive. The format is casual but the research is rock-solid — these are professional science journalists who fact-check everything. Recent episodes have featured guest experts and comedians, and the show occasionally records live. Topics range from the history of medical quackery to the biology of deep-sea creatures to the surprisingly dramatic politics of naming new elements.

The show holds a 4.6 rating from over 2,100 reviews. Listeners consistently praise the thoroughly researched content and the hosts' ability to make genuinely weird science accessible and entertaining. If you like the feeling of texting a friend "you will NEVER believe what I just learned," this is your show. The facts are carefully chosen to be the kind of thing you will remember and retell, which is exactly the point.

Part quiz show, part fact dump, entirely nerdy in the best way. Karen Chu, Colin Felton, and Chris Kohler have been running Good Job, Brain! since 2012, and each week they bring custom trivia quizzes on themed topics. One person might present a round on the history of board games, another on unusual Olympic sports, and then they hit each other with lightning rounds and word puzzles. Episodes run about an hour to an hour and twenty minutes.

The show recently crossed its 300th episode milestone, and the format has stayed remarkably consistent over the years. Each host prepares their own quiz segment with questions, fun facts, and tangents, and the result feels like the best trivia night you have ever attended — except nobody is fighting over whether the answer sheet was graded correctly. The hosts are clearly friends who enjoy stumping each other, and that competitive but affectionate energy carries the show.

With 312 episodes and a 4.7 rating from over 1,800 reviews on Apple Podcasts, this is one of the more established trivia podcasts around. It is completely free and comes out weekly, though the hosts take occasional seasonal breaks. If you are the type of person who loves pub quiz nights, word games, and collecting random facts about everything from Renaissance painting to 1980s video game history, Good Job, Brain! was basically designed for you.

Trivial Warfare takes the pub quiz format and turns it into a proper competitive game show. Hosts Jonathan Oakes, Chris Hollister, Carmela Smith, and Benjamin Young go head-to-head with rotating guest players through multiple rounds of trivia, and the episodes run long — typically 90 minutes to two hours. This is not a quick trivia fix. It is a full evening of entertainment.

The show has been running since 2015 with 209 episodes, coming out roughly twice a month. The questions span everything from pop culture and sports to history, science, and geography, and the difficulty level is genuinely challenging. The hosts do not hold back on obscure questions, which makes it satisfying for people who actually want to test themselves rather than breeze through easy answers. There is a Facebook community and a paid membership tier called the "Trivial Warfare Army" that gives access to archived episodes and participation opportunities.

It carries a 4.5 rating from over 800 reviews on Apple Podcasts. Some longtime listeners have noted mixed feelings about cast changes over the years, but the core format — competitive trivia with real stakes and genuine banter — remains strong. If you are someone who takes quiz nights seriously, who keeps score and argues over whether a technically correct answer should count, Trivial Warfare is your kind of show. The length means you really get immersed in the competition.

Anne Strainchamps and Steve Paulson spent 35 years hosting "To The Best Of Our Knowledge" on public radio, interviewing thousands of scientists, philosophers, writers, and artists across more than 200 stations. Their interviews were archived in the Library of Congress. Now they are doing it again under a new name, and the format is just as good as before: long-form, intimate conversations with people who think deeply about the world.

Wonder Cabinet is named after the Enlightenment-era cabinets of curiosities — those rooms where collectors gathered strange and beautiful objects to inspire wonder. That is the ethos here. Recent guests include writer Rebecca Solnit, physicist Carlo Rovelli, and mythologist Sophie Strand. Episodes run about 38 to 39 minutes and come out biweekly. The conversations cover physics, quantum mechanics, ecology, mythology, and philosophy, and they move at a pace that gives ideas room to breathe.

The show carries a 4.6 rating from nearly 940 reviews on Apple Podcasts, many of which are carried over from the original show's loyal audience. Listeners who remember "To The Best Of Our Knowledge" are thrilled to have the hosts back, and new listeners will find a podcast that treats curiosity as something worth taking seriously. This is not fast-paced or flashy. It is thoughtful, beautifully produced, and genuinely nourishing for anyone who wants to think more carefully about what it means to be alive on this planet.

Leon from Bar Wars — a quiz night operation that has been running in Hereford and Cheltenham since 2000 — brings his pub quiz expertise to podcast form. Each week you get four rounds of trivia, nicely varied in theme and difficulty, all wrapped up in about 22 to 27 minutes. It is designed so you can play along at home with family or friends, pause after each question, and keep score.

The show has been going since 2020 with 310 episodes, which means there is a massive back catalog of quizzes waiting for you. Round formats rotate — there is a "General Knowledge" staple, plus creative themed rounds like "Alphabetti Quizetti" and "54321" that keep things from getting repetitive. The questions hit a good sweet spot between accessible and challenging, so you will feel smart getting some right while still being genuinely stumped by others.

Leon has an easygoing, friendly hosting style that listeners consistently praise. The show has a 4.8 rating on Apple Podcasts, and while the review count is small, the people who listen clearly love it. It is completely free, and the Bar Wars team accepts tips through Ko-fi if you want to support them. Perfect for long drives, solo jogs, or game nights when you want someone else to come up with the questions. A new episode drops every Monday.

Pete describes himself as a proper British pub landlord, and that is exactly the vibe of his quiz podcast. Each weekly episode features 10 general knowledge trivia questions delivered with the kind of cheeky banter you would get if you walked into a local pub in England and the quiz master actually liked you. The free episodes are short — about 5 to 7 minutes — with a paid subscription unlocking bonus rounds of 20 additional questions for about 10 minutes more.

The questions cover music, film, sports, history, geography, science, British culture, and animal facts, and the difficulty level is accessible enough for casual players while still throwing in some properly tricky ones. There is even a "Sing-Along-with-Pete" segment that adds a charming, slightly ridiculous personal touch. 168 episodes and counting since 2020, with a new one every week.

The show is part of the HUGO.FM network and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Alexa. The subscription runs about $2.50 a month if you want the extended quizzes, but the free version is a perfectly good standalone experience. Pete has built a cozy little corner of the podcast world here — it feels less like a polished production and more like your favorite local quiz night, which is exactly what makes it work. Great for a quick brain workout on a commute or a fun group activity on a Friday evening.

Five questions. Three to four minutes. Every weekday. That is the entire pitch for this Caloroga Shark Media production, and if you are looking for the absolute minimum time commitment trivia podcast, this is it. Each episode is themed — one day might focus on American Presidents, the next on Matt Groening, the next on Bob Marley — and the questions range from easy enough to boost your confidence to tricky enough to make you second-guess yourself.

With 602 episodes since launching, the show has built up a huge catalog of bite-sized trivia sessions. The format is dead simple: the host reads five questions with a brief pause between each for you to think, then gives the answers. No lengthy explanations, no banter, no tangents. You are in and out in the time it takes to brush your teeth and make coffee.

The show has a 3.6 rating on Apple Podcasts, and some listeners have noted that ads can feel intrusive given the ultra-short format. There is a subscription option through Caloroga Shark+ for ad-free listening if that bothers you. The thematic variety is strong — episodes cover everything from classic rock to world geography to famous actors — and the daily schedule means there is always a fresh quiz waiting. It is not going to replace a deep-dive knowledge podcast, but as a daily brain warm-up or a quick car ride distraction for the whole family, it gets the job done.