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CLASSIC: That Time We Erased a (HUGE) Waterfall · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. We have a
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: classic episode for you. As of current recording. Your boy here,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Ben Bollen is on the road. Our super producer, mister
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Max Williams has learned a lot about death by molten gold.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah you have.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: And our pal our paled Nol is out there chasing waterfalls,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: as TLC would say. But this is a true story.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: This is a cool one for this classic Max, would
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: you agree with this statement? In general, human beings are
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: very good at losing things?
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're pretty good at that.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: I've lost a number of things on my desk already today.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: And it's not that late in the day. It's it's
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: we're past noon, but it's not that far past noon.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're like barely into the technical afternoon. And it's always,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: you know. Elizabeth Bishop wrote this amazing poem about the
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: art of losing everybody. Please check it out. It's an
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: absolute banger as far as poetry goes, and it speaks
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: to a universal conundrum. Human beings as a species have
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: this inborn nack for losing everything from car keys to
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: entire civilization's true story. For many, many centuries, the city
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: of Troy was considered to be a made up thing
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: until it was rediscovered and proven to exist in the
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds. In this classic episode, we are traveling to
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: South America and we're going to learn the story of
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: two nations that between themselves ended up losing not their
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: car keys, but an entire waterfall. Ridiculous History is a
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, friends and neighbors. Back
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: to the show. We'd like to begin today's episode with
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: a snippet of a stone cold jam from the nineties.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Total snom Cold classic and You're right.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Many of you may recall that iconic hit by TLC Waterfalls,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: as in don't go chasing Them.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Ben, I'm Nolan Ben.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Did I ever tell you that my first ever live
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: concert was TLC?
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: You did mention that? Not on air though.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: It was TLC opening for MC hammer And also Boys
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: to Men was on the bill ABC, BBD. It was
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: the era of TLC where they wore really big, baggy
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: clothes and had like condoms taped all over them and stuff.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Sure, prophylactics is like sex education exactly. Yeah.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was definitely pre Waterfalls era and creep and
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: all of that stuff.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: But I felt like I was a little ahead of
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: the curve on that one because they were sort of unknown.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: They were the Opener Opener, and then Boys to Mend
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: and then MC Hammer, which was right around the time
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: Adam's Family soundtrack was out with the Hammer song.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Remember they do what they Want or do state what
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: they want? Remember that one. Yeah, they didn't actually perform that.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: I was kind of bummed. That's not true.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: He did perform it, but I kind of thought there
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: would be a little more Adam's Family esque pageantry involved.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Being that the movie was, you know, fresh in theaters.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: But no.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: My very first concert that I can recall, so not
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: some kind of opry Land thing had to perform in
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: or something. The very first concert I went to as
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: a as a patron was when my parents took me
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: to see the Four Tops. And this was in the eighties,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: so this was not the you know, heyday per se.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry, then, I think you buried the lead their
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: opry Land performances. Yeah, yep, go on.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Well, my first foray into acting was a recurring role
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: at an amusement park called opry Land. I was from
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: like six to seven or eight years old. I learned
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: that it was a paying gig on my eighteenth birthday.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Did they Were they stowing it away for you? I
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: had no idea.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh man, they were. Yeah, they gave it to you.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: They gave you your your earnings. They probably took a
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: finder's fee.
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  Speaker 1: But it was the eighties. No, it was a different time,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: and some pretty good things happened in the eighties.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Were you a song and dance?
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: Man?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, what was your I'm sorry, I don't mean
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  Speaker 2: to harpin this.
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  Speaker 1: Oh I I was the hero who comes to town
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  Speaker 1: to clean up the to clean up the craziness and
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: stop the gunfights.
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  Speaker 2: Nice.
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  Speaker 1: They had a thing where they would randomly, I'm doing
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: air quotes here, fix they would randomly pick a kid
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  Speaker 1: out of the crowd, make you fight to pull no,
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  Speaker 1: to pull up, and say, oh, you're gonna be the
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: star of the show. And the adults loved cool. So
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: I was just there every summer as their plant in
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: the crowd. And then they would give me this cartoonishly
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: big hat.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: I'm smiling so big right now. This is this thrills
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  Speaker 2: me to no end.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: That's very kind, you, you say. My my parents did make
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: a framed picture of it with some of the cash
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: that they kept for decades.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: Is it one of those old timey CPA tone type
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: pictures where you got your six guns on.
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  Speaker 2: No, I have one of those of my family.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: But the eighties, right, the eighties, Yeah, thriller. I feel
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: like now we could just say thriller. That was It
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: was a big hit, big hit back to the future. Yeah,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: big hit, big hits. And we also have in an
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: article from Lori L. Dove a shout out to trapper keepers?
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Did you ever have a trapper keeper?
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I had that. What was what made it special?
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: Just the brand and it had like, you know, kiddies
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: and stuff on it, like it would be at least
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: a frank trapper keeper.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: There could be all kinds of different ones.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Is the velcrow? There's a flat crow too, right, I
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: believe they have.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: It was just like a binder, but it was just
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: sort of a fancy binder and everyone had had to
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: have one.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Oh and speaking of things we have to have, how
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: do we get so far without giving a shout out
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: to our super producer Casey Pegram for shame on us.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: I think we just got so distracted by nostalgia today.
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  Speaker 3: I got caught up in Opryland and picturing little Ben
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: breaking up gunfights at the ok Corral.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: To this day, Noel, I remember all of my lines,
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  Speaker 1: every single one.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Maybe I we'll have to have a reading later in
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  Speaker 2: the episode.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: I can do them right now, do it because they're all.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: Yep, oh okay.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: It's like it was like a twenty minute show anyway. Yeah,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: shout out to Opryland, big, big fan, shout out to
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: the eighties.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, did you have a cabbage patch kid? I have
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: been to that farm Babyland General in Georgia. Yeah, that's
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: very weird. It is extremely weird, very strange place.
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  Speaker 3: There's a tree in the middle of the main building
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  Speaker 3: and there are just little baby cabbage patch heads sprouting
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  Speaker 3: up out of the ground all around this tree with
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: these little leaves, little leaves, and they some of them
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: kind of move, and but what do they do with
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: the tree?
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Ben? Have you? Have you been to the ceremony.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: I did not stick around for the ceremony because it's
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: in this old building. It's a is a hospital.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: I think it's a old hospital.
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  Speaker 3: So they call it baby Land General like it's meant
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: I think, at least it's meant to feel like well, I'm.
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  Speaker 1: Creepy because they announce like births and stuff too over
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  Speaker 1: the intercom.
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  Speaker 2: Well they know they birth the babies out of the
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  Speaker 2: hole in the tree.
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  Speaker 1: Well for some people that might be really fascinating.
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  Speaker 3: And then there's a nurse that takes the baby out,
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  Speaker 3: extracts it from the tree, holds it upside down, and
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  Speaker 3: slaps it on the butt. I had my kid's birthday
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  Speaker 3: party there one year.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I was. I was at a bluegrass festival.
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  Speaker 1: That's how I found it.
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  Speaker 2: That's an odd locale.
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  Speaker 1: Fluegrass and chili. It was great.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know what else was great? What else
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  Speaker 2: was great? The eighties?
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: There we go, we promise going to get to the
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: episode eventually. The thing is, we can look back at
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the past with such rose colored glasses, with such nostalgia,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: and sometimes we can forget the other things that happened
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  Speaker 1: in the eighties that were not as awesome as Back
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: to the Future, traffic Keepers or thriller. Right, there's a balance.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: We as a species had some let's say, we've had
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: some hilarious missteps and we've had some tragic missteps. You know,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: it was a drug crisis which continues today. A lot
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: of the clothes looked really weird, although they're coming back
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: in style.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Hypercolor was that a thing that was more of a
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: nineties thing? Was it hypercolor?
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  Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I was such a nerd as
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  Speaker 1: a kid, surprisingly that I didn't really have a grasp
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  Speaker 1: on the ZEITGEISTO.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, did you ever have a hypercolor shirt? Though?
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  Speaker 3: The ones where you kind of touched it and it
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  Speaker 3: would do your imprint of your hand would be on it, Like.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't know. The texture really spooked me.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: That's right. You have very specific feelings about textures.
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  Speaker 1: It's true, that's true, but everybody does. What are some
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: of the things you remember from the eighties and noll
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: or things that when you look back you think, whoa
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: that was? That was crazy?
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Well, it's weird.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: Like when I was younger, I used to think that
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  Speaker 3: the eighties were inherently bad and that all eighties music
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: was crappy because I just didn't know better and I
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: was I assumed that the eighties were lame because of
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: the you know, big pop hits and banana rama and
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  Speaker 3: the stuff that I would see. But I didn't have
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: parents that were into cool music, so I kind of
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: had to find my own way. My parents were both
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: professional classical musicians, so I really did have to figure
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: that out for myself. But now I look back on
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  Speaker 3: the eighties with utter rose colored glasses and joyous nostalgia.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: I remember the cartoons ThunderCats, all the Deek cartoons like
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: Spector Gadget, and remember Deek.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Deek.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, I remember that clip back. I couldn't tell you
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: a thing about the plot. I also ThunderCats. There was
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: wasn't there a star Hawk or something as silar Hawks
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: silver Hawks.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: Deek was the production company, and they made most of
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: their car tunes based on pre existing toys and properties,
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: and say, yeah, boy, we are just going on.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: Today's episode is not about any of this stuff.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: No, we are mentioning the eighties because one very strange
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: and incredibly significant bad thing happened in the eighties. Many did,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: but one is the subject of our episode. In the
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, while many of the people listening to the
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: show were actually alive, humanity took one of the largest
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  Speaker 1: waterfalls on the planet and erased it.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Humanity, what the hell.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Does erase the whole thing? And to tell the story,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: we have to journey to South America, specifically along the
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: border of Paraguay and Brazil, where once stood an incredibly stunning,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: spectacular series cascade of waterfalls called the Guaira Falls, Yes,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: the Guyerra Falls, which produced in their day, the greatest
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: volume of falling water in the world. This is something
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: we found out in some of our earlier research. The
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: definition of largest waterfall can be pretty tricky. And it's
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: got a couple of caveats. So this is largest in
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: terms of the amount of water that fell, But there
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  Speaker 1: are other ones that might have a higher elevation or
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  Speaker 1: longer dropped.
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  Speaker 3: Sure, like Niagara Falls, but this one had twice the
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: flow of Niagara Fall. That sounds like a pretty cool compliment.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: You got twice the flow of this other waterfall. It
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: sounds like a strong selling point. Yes, there were a
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: total No you mentioned it was a series of waterfalls.
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  Speaker 3: There were a total of eighteen and all and seven
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: of these were the most powerful waterfalls, right right, And
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  Speaker 3: that's where it got the nickname seven Falls.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: So these the series of falls is located just twenty
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  Speaker 3: kilometers from another quite famous, more famous, arguably waterfall called
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: the Iguaza Falls, and that is again along the border
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: of Brazil and Paraguay, and you could consider this could
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: have considered this a natural wonder of the world, and
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  Speaker 3: many considered it to rival the Iguaza Falls. And it
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: was again a series of eighteen massive waterfalls, and it's
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: on the Piranha River, right at the point where there's
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: like a gorge and the river gets kind of squeezed
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  Speaker 3: through the gorge.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the total height of these falls was three
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  Speaker 1: hundred and seventy five feet, with the largest individual fall
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: or cataract being one hundred and thirty feet. You could
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: hear the sound of the water miles and miles and
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: miles away.
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  Speaker 3: It's right around thirty kilometers away. And the reason that
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: flow was so strong is because that gorge we were
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: talking about it actually narrowed abruptly from three hundred and
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: eighty meters to sixty meters, which created that intense flow
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: that we talked about earlier.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: And you can check out a map of the site
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: from a book called A New Gateway to the Heart
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: of South America written in eighteen seventy one. Wait, guys,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: you might be saying that sounds pretty outdated. Yes, but
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: it's a more accurate depiction of the waterfall than you
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: would find nowadays, because again, Guira Falls no longer exist.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's what they would call an ex waterfall. Yes.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: And there's one other thing that sounds almost too sappy
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: to be true, but is magnificent and it's a true story.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: And it has to do with the mist of the waterfall.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Right, it's true.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: Apparently you could go to these falls anytime during the
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: day and there would just be this like perma rainbow there.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: It just sounds like a magical land, a perpetual rainbow.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, called the care bears. So what do we do
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: as humanity?
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: We see this amazing, gorgeous wonder of nature and we decide.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Let's let's blow it up, right, yes, so build some
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: kind of power plant.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So what happened? What made us take this particular
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: paradise and put up a parking lot for water? There
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: we go, We got it there?
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Oh, you know you got there, my friend. It's a damn.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: I'm here to support you. It's a damn.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: And you're right about the electricity. The government of the
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: area decides to build a dam, a huge dam, a
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: four point eight mile long dam called the Itapu Dam.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's true. And before doing that again, they had
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: to blast out with dynamite those rock faces that the
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: falls fell fell down. Yeah, so no more waterfall. And
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: what happened was the falls were submerged when the four
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: point eight mile at Tyapuo Dam was built down river.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: And this is the seventh largest river in the world,
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: just just to make that clear, and it started to
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: be diverted in nineteen seventy eight, actually caused about ten
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: thousand families to lose their homes have to relocate.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, what is that like? Eminent doma how they how
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: do they make people do that?
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Well, eminent domain is the practice that we in the
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: United States would be most familiar with in terms of
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: like roads widening and stuff like that. But laws like
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: that do exist in other countries. And you know, it's
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: it's very tough to be an individual, family or household
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: against lack of a better term, big government.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: Big big electric, big electric, because it is government, right,
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: this is a government, this is a government infrastructure. Yeah, exactly.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: So obviously they would have had to pay them something
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: I can't imagine. They just you know, say get get out.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And there's probably a lot of paperwork involved because
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: it is a joint undertaking by Brazil and Paraguay, and
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: believe Argentina originally raised the ruckus about it, but ultimately
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: the dam got built. On October thirteenth, nineteen eighty two,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: they finally closed the dam and this allowed the river
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: to flood the falls, the seventh largest river in the world. Again,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: as you point out, to finally flood the falls.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: So the waters began to rise, and this did not
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: happen overnight. In fact, thousands of tourists came to the
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: area to get one last look at the falls. And Ben,
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: I have to correct myself here. I mentioned earlier that
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: they dynamited those those rock faces that did not happen
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: until later after the whole thing was underwater, because they
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: wanted to promote safer navigation of the river. Oh so
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: that was the deal there anyway, though, So these people
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: are walking over this precariously maintained footbridge and it collapsed
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: and eighty people lost their lives.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Holy smokes, Yes, this is true. They soldiered on with
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: the project, though, and you could have you know, as
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: you can imagine, at this point, they've spent millions of dollars.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: They've already sunk so much time and effort into this dam,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: and they say, you know what, We're going to stick
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: it out. The first electricity is generated by the dam
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty four, before it was even fully completed,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: which was nineteen ninety one.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know, are we being too hippy dippy
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: about this, ben? I mean, it did create an awful
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: lot of power. Yes, maybe that's a good thing.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Is it a worthwhile sacrifice?
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: You know, it really depends on what perspective somebody wants
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: to take. I'm sure there are people who are receiving
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: the electricity who think this was more than worthwhile. But
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: there are also a lot of people, I imagine, who feel
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: like the damage to the ecosystem isn't justified. But there's
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: no arguing that this provides a massive amount of energy,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: both to Paraguay and Brazil.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's in the neighborhood of one hundred tarowatt hours
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: of power each year, which is seventy five percent of
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Paraguay's electricity and seventeen percent of Brazil's. So you know,
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: it's a big deal. Yeah.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: By comparison, that's enough to power just this one damn
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: creates enough power to supply the state of California.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: How much power does a rainbow generate?
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: It generates the power of love. Bro, you can't measure.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: That, I know, I know. Well that's the thing.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: I cave off a little testing.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: No, I like it.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: I like no, I'm passionate about it too. And unfortunately, yeah, no, none, none,
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: power other than the you know, power of love doesn't
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: doesn't turn on lights. My man.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: That's true. So that's true.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: And you know, it's also it's a very difficult argument
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: to make if you have to tell people who don't
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: have electricity that you're not you're able to provide it,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: but you're not going to you know, that's that's a
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: real dilemma. But we do have good news. As we said,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: it's providing this enormous amount of electricity and it's still
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: a tourist destination.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: In twenty fourteen, more than eight hundred and fifty six
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: thousand people visited the dam. You know, some possibly paying
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: homage homage ooh ooh, help us out here.
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: It is homage if you're staying with the French pronunciation.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: And that has been casey on the case.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Love it. It's so great, so helpful.
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean, it's sort of you know, probably
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: a bittersweet thing, although people do go to like the
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: Hoover Dam and stuff, so it's probably like the dull
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: tourist that just want to go see a cool dam,
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: and then they're the ones that are pining for the
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: old way.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: And because the rock face has been destroyed underneath the water,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: these waterfalls are not coming back.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: They've donezo. It is actually a really funny statement.
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: I think it's funny from the director of the company
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: that built the damny issue to say, we're not destroying
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: seven falls, We're just gonna transfer it to It's hypoo
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: dam whose.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: Spillway will be the substitute for the falls beauty.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: And you can see the spill way that they're talking
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: about here. It's like a venting system, you know, and
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: it goes off at an angle down this concrete slope right.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Not no prim rainbow though, no.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: No, no beautiful scenery. And this inspired a lot of
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: art and a lot of again nostalgia yearning. We cannot
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: verify that Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls is about this event,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: but you know, we.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: Should probably talk a little more about that song though,
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: so we get the fair use privileges.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: That's true that's true. It is an excellent video. It
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: is warning about living life too fasts, impulsive decisions.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: A life of vice.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: And we could relate that even to this event by asking,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: you know all and balance, hundreds of years from now,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: what will have been the correct choice?
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: You know, don't it always seem to go that you
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: don't know what you got till it's gone. Yep, yep,
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: it's true, and reference the episode today.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: This is but I think we're you know, I think
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: we're actually nailing it. I think we're doing an okay job.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: A little more background on waterfalls produced by the Atlanta
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: hip hop collective organized Noise True, who worked with the
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: Goodie Mob and the Dungeon Family crew all that, and they.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Actually recently did an event sponsored by Lululemon.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: We return to the old dilemma of progress versus progress
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: versus preservation. Really, because although this has been, on balance,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: a very good thing for many residents of Paraguay and Brazil,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: it is by no means the only time events like
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: this occur. In fact, twenty eight thousand rivers waterways have
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: disappeared in China in recent history. You can read about
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: it an article by Angel Sue and William Mao on
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the Atlantic called twenty eight thousand rivers disappeared in China.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: What happened? And without going too far into this, a
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: lot of it goes back to environmental damaged soil loss, erosion,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: climate change. But then China also built an enormous dam,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: the Three Gorges dam.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: Ben, You're encyclopedic knowledge of the dams of the world
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: never ceases to amaze me.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: And you know what, one day it'll it'll be remotely useful.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, you've talked about two damns so far, and
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: to me, that is encyclopedic.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Wait, we got the three because we said Hoover Dam
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: That's right, we did say we did mention Hoover Dam.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: Remember that in the Beavis and butt heead Do America
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: when they go and visit the Hoover Dam.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm. That's a good part. That's all I got.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: We should totally go take an extra credit segment and
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: the three of us go head out to see the
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Hoover Dam. Well, we've been to Vegas through various work
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: related projects.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: Before, but I have never been to Vegas. You've never
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: been never been to Vegas.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: You were there?
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: No man who was that m doppel oh man?
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, maybe we should just fly into Vegas do
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: a night. A lot of my friends call Vegas a
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: three day city.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Can we do kind of a fear and loathing kind
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: of situation? We should? We should you bring the ether,
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: my friends?
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: We should definitely have a lawyer.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Casey are you?
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Are you a lawyer by any chance? In addition to
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: your many other talents.
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: As your attorney, I advise you to get into town
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: very quickly. I don't know what that exactlyne.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we have some kinks to work out, but
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: this sounds like a promising expedition. We would also, of course,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: love to hear your take on this dilemma. And if
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: you have ever been to the site of the falls,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: or if you have visited this dam on the border
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: of Paraguay and Brazil, we'd love to hear from you.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: What was it like? Yeah, I want to know. Inquiring
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: minds want to know.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: We can relay it to the inquiring minds after we
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: have sayciated our inquiring minds. You can write to us
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: at Ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com. You can hit us
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: up on social meds, the Facebook, the Instagram, or we
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: are ridiculous history. Hey, why not join our Facebook group
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: called the Ridiculous Historians having some good convos on there
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: and some with some fun folk. And you know what,
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: we haven't mentioned this in a while. Do us a
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: solid write us a nice review on iTunes or whatever
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: podcatcher app you use.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, please do because it's because, man, you know the
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: way this is.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna got a bone to pick. Go for it
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: with iTunes. Yeah. Apple podcasts, Yeah, what's up? They have
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: the old reviews for forever in all times. So we
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: have a podcast, for example, that's been going on for
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: twenty years.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: The reviews for day one are the first ones you see.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: Oh that's weird.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, man, come on, No one's firing on all cylinders
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: on day one.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: And a lot of our older shows were originally five
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: minutes long maximum.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: Oh you mean the old house stuff works shows. Yeah, exactly.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: So just I don't know, Apple, help us out. Let's
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: have a little sort by date tab or something like that.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: And in return, we have a gift for you, because
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: you may be saying, the guys are wrapping up this
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: episode now I have to wait for another episode to
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: come out, but I want to learn more. I want
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: to learn more strange, ridiculous stuff throughout history. We have
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: a podcast recommendation for you.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: We really do.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Our compatriots, April Callahan and Cassidy Zachary, who are fashion historians.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: They have written literal books on the subject of the
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: history of fashion, have a really cool podcast called Dressed
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: or They talk about all things fashion history, very very
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: very cool, deep dive stuff. And as it turns out,
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: super producer Casey Pegrim, he produces that show too.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: See, you've got to leave something for the normal people.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: You know, Man, you can't do it all, but he
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: will sure try his best. And we have a specific
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: app to recommend.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: That is right, if you would like to tune in
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: to Dressed and explore the who, what, when, and why
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: of what we wear, we think you will love their
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: episode that came out this April about smuggling bustles. During
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: the nineteenth centuries, the Americans would smuggle French goods into
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: the country to avoid paying ridiculously expensive duties.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: But he said duties, I did.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: I did, No, no, no, don't cut it.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: We keep it it.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: But it is true that one of the most commonly
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: smuggled eyes might surprise you because it wasn't you know,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: gold or onions or whatever. What's a bustle Is that
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: like a boustier or a brazier. It's the thing that
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: goes on the back of the dress.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: Oh that's right, yep, I got the ruffle.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as you get tell, neither of us are fashion
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: historians by trade.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: We're barely like we barely can dress ourselves all morning
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: I do.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: I'll speak for myself.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: We've been I've been umping my game a little bit though,
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: thanks to hanging out with April and Cassidy, who I'm
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: actually going to visit. They're based in New York City
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: and I'm gonna go hang out with them tomorrow.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: So let me pick up this thread though, because one
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: of the commonly smuggled items it wasn't golder onions. They
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: were French fashions items. Yeah, like bustles. They were packed
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: in trunks, they were smuggled underclothing. You can learn all
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: about it by tuning in to Dressed Available wherever you
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: listen to this podcast and.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: Leave them a nicer view too. They're a new podcast
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: and they're really doing cool things.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: We're big fans.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Tell them we sent you too. Meantime, we hope that
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: you enjoyed this episode. We would like to give a
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: big thanks, of course to Casey, of course to Lori L. Dove,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: who wrote a fantastic article on this event, this tragedy
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: or this great step in progress on HowStuffWorks dot com.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: It's true.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: And we'd like to thank Alex Williams who composed our theme.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: And we hope you'll tune in next time.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: When we take a dive into banned scientific texts.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: It's going to be a laugh riot. It's going to
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: be a big old time, big old time.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: So that's all for today, folks. Most importantly, thank you
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: so much for listening. We hope to hear from you
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: very soon. Wish us luck as.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: We go on our fear and Loathing inspired expedition. Now
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: that's going to be a big time.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.