The Commonwealth Club, San Francisco

1903 was the year of the first transatlantic radio broadcast, which sent a message from President Theodore Roosevelt in Cape Cod to King Edward VII of England on a cold January night. That same year, San Francisco Chronicle editorial writer Edward F. Adams founded The Commonwealth Club as a public service, spreading political and cultural savvy among laymen via discourse. Prevailing human rights discussions gained a larger audience in 1924 via a weekly radio broadcast that is the oldest in the nation, and the establishment of the California Book Awards in 1931 encouraged John Steinbeck and Amy Tan to develop their art.

Today, a talkative group of 20,000 members supports the non-profit, which in turn enriches their dinner table conversations with panel discussions on the current president or "Capitalism in an Era of Climate Change." Breaking news arrives straight from the source with lectures from neuroscientist David Eagleman and political commentator Rachel Maddow, as well as from the effervescent babble of Jefferson's cup of knowledge.