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The Ridiculously Ambitious History of the World's Fair, Part One: A Crazy Plan, and Crazy Success · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
0:27
Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
0:30
Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's give it up for the man,
0:33
Speaker 1: the myth, the super producer, mister Max Williams.
0:37
Speaker 2: Maybe the World's Fair of super producers. We're going with it.
0:41
Speaker 1: It's funny because the world is objectively unfair. So we're
0:48
Speaker 1: doing this fair. Yeah, we're doing an episode about the
0:52
Speaker 1: World's Fair, a two part episode. Thanks to our newest
0:55
Speaker 1: research associate, the one and only Ren We hope you're listening.
1:01
Speaker 1: We've got to get a good nickname, a moniker for
1:04
Speaker 1: you in the ridiculous universe. I got a good one.
1:07
Speaker 3: How about Renaissance Fair, Renaissance Renfest, Renifest. That is good now,
1:13
Speaker 3: new year, new research assistant associates extraordinaire.
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Speaker 1: Man.
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Speaker 3: She really knocked it out of the park, the fair grounds.
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Speaker 1: The expo on. Yeah, no chumpson the squad, as we
1:26
Speaker 1: like to say, those are the dulcet tones of mister
1:28
Speaker 1: Noel Brown. I am Ben Bollen. Yeah, I've been. I've
1:33
Speaker 1: been going as Ben from earlier. I like that. Thanks Man,
1:38
Speaker 1: Good to have you back by. So we were still
1:41
Speaker 1: here never left. Zell said, don't call it a come back.
1:45
Speaker 1: This is weird. This is one of the first ideas
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Speaker 1: Red pitched to us, and we absolutely loved it. Noel,
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Speaker 1: have you ever been to a World Expo? No?
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Speaker 3: I haven't, But there's a really great, very weird, kind
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Speaker 3: of creepy pasta internety film called We're All Going to
2:04
Speaker 3: the World's Fair Yes, by Jane Schoenbren who also this
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Speaker 3: year or last year came out with the fantastic and
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Speaker 3: very Lynchian film I saw the TV glow. It has
2:15
Speaker 3: nothing to do with the World's Fair, but that's the
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Speaker 3: only World's Fair I've been to.
2:18
Speaker 1: Is that fu Well? The World's Fair is the friends
2:21
Speaker 1: we made along the way, as we would say here,
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Speaker 1: but technically, if you're not doing fun improv rules and
2:30
Speaker 1: you're looking at the facts. The World's Fair started in
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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty one. You may wonder where it went In
2:38
Speaker 1: the modern day. It's still around some version of it.
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Speaker 1: It's called the World Expo, and when it first started
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Speaker 1: and the way it builds itself in the modern day,
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Speaker 1: it's a global showcase for It's like the first adult
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Speaker 1: science fair, right, the first big collective ted talk.
3:00
Speaker 3: It's like a comic con for like science and technology
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Speaker 3: and the stuff of the future.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's very Epcot Center.
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Speaker 4: You know.
3:09
Speaker 1: Wow.
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Speaker 3: Now, if you want to cheat, I have been to
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Speaker 3: a World's Fair, because I've been to Epcot Center. And
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Speaker 3: we're gonna get into what that means a little bit
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Speaker 3: further along in the episode. Yes, sir, good foreshadowing.
3:22
Speaker 2: And if I can jump in real quick, I was
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Speaker 2: in Spokane two falls ago, and I don't know, Spokane,
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Speaker 2: Washington is the smallest city to ever have a World's Fair.
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Speaker 1: Well, it's a world it was an expo at the
3:33
Speaker 1: time two falls ago. No, we're staying with that with
3:36
Speaker 1: Max two falls ago. Do you are you one of
3:39
Speaker 1: those people? Do you like measure time by just the
3:42
Speaker 1: passage of cultural seasons?
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Speaker 2: Well, here's the funny thing is there's actually two waterfalls
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Speaker 2: in downtown Spokane that the World's Fair was built around.
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Speaker 2: Now you get where I'm going. I didn't totally do well,
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Speaker 2: but yeah, it's it's really cool because they have a
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Speaker 2: lot of stuff. I mean, Spokane's a very beautiful city.
4:03
Speaker 2: It's not a large city at all, but they have
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Speaker 2: these two this river with multiple waterfalls going through downtown
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Speaker 2: and all around it. They have all the stuff about
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Speaker 2: the World Expo, and it's like super cool.
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Speaker 1: Look at that's awesome. Super Cool is the defining phrase
4:17
Speaker 1: of the World's Fair for sure.
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Speaker 3: These World's Fair World expos have generated some pretty notable
4:24
Speaker 3: accomplishments in science and engineering architecture, things like the Eiffel
4:29
Speaker 3: Tower in eighteen eighty nine, the Golden Gate Bridge in
4:32
Speaker 3: nineteen thirty nine, the space needles speaking of Washington in
4:36
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty two.
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Speaker 1: Mm. Yeah, the telephone as imagined by Alexander Graham bell
4:43
Speaker 1: Is seventy six eighteen seventy six. Nikola Tesla did some things,
4:49
Speaker 1: and one of those was the AC electric system in
4:52
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety three, and of course the RCA television set
4:56
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty nine. All of the things we us
5:00
Speaker 1: mentioned came from World's Fairs. But wait, as Billy May's was,
5:05
Speaker 1: wont to say there's more. Billy May is good. He's
5:15
Speaker 1: a very World's Fair kind of cat.
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Speaker 3: I wonder if any of his inventions were ever debuted
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Speaker 3: at any World expos. I'm gonna say they were mainly
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Speaker 3: relegated to late night's infomercials.
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Speaker 1: I you know, I will diplomatically, I will diplomatically say
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Speaker 1: they're perhaps a different league.
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Speaker 3: Now, that's true, Ben, But this is not to say
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Speaker 3: that the World's Fair did not generate some stupid technology
5:39
Speaker 3: as well.
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Speaker 1: And I don't mean like stupid cool. It has been
5:41
Speaker 1: like stuff that did.
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Speaker 3: Not land and did not have lends, as we say,
5:46
Speaker 3: but quite a few inventions that very much did in
5:48
Speaker 3: our household names today, like the Rubik's cube. That's not
5:52
Speaker 3: how my brain works. I will never be able to
5:54
Speaker 3: solve a Rubik's cube.
5:55
Speaker 1: And that's okay to ketch up, yeah right, ketchup on
5:59
Speaker 1: fries as Because there were a lot of Dippin' dots
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Speaker 1: level snack innovations that occurred at the World's Fair. We
6:08
Speaker 1: also knew we also know the history of the Rubik's
6:12
Speaker 1: cube thanks to an earlier show we did called Stuff
6:15
Speaker 1: of Genius. But to your earlier point about inventions that
6:20
Speaker 1: didn't quite catch on for one reason or another, the
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Speaker 1: World's Fair is a great game of what iffery. You know,
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Speaker 1: it's a great hey look at this, what could this do?
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Speaker 1: And sometimes it does amazing things like a television or
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Speaker 1: a telephone, And then sometimes you get electro the cigarette.
6:40
Speaker 3: Smoking robot, I mean electro the robot would have been
6:43
Speaker 3: good enough. I guess people really loved cigarettes at that
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Speaker 3: point in history and they needed to have the robots
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Speaker 3: smoking a sig in order to identify with it or something.
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Speaker 1: I don't know. It reminds me of the Great Mechanical Turk,
6:58
Speaker 1: which was itself ridiculous history. Sure. Yeah, Anyway, what we're
7:04
Speaker 1: saying is there's a lot going on at the World's Fair.
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Speaker 1: If you get a chance to visit a modern day
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Speaker 1: world Expo, please please do and tell us about it.
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Speaker 1: These events, especially the first one, they resulted in the
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Speaker 1: invention of countless machines and products and then, perhaps even
7:23
Speaker 1: more importantly, design methods civilization uses today. But there was
7:29
Speaker 1: a geopolitical aspect to this that cannot be ignored. This
7:33
Speaker 1: got you immediate attention as a country. Well, it's very
7:37
Speaker 1: much like the Olympics in that respect. There's a host country.
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Speaker 3: It's a way of showcasing cultural pride, national pride, and
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Speaker 3: a very very public and internationally viewed kind of platform.
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Speaker 1: Right, one hundred percent. Yeah, you nailed it, and old
7:53
Speaker 1: because the magnitude of this of a World's Fair is
7:57
Speaker 1: up there with the Olympics, it's an inter national event.
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Speaker 1: And like just like how people pitched their country or
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Speaker 1: their city for the Olympics, today, nations across the world
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Speaker 1: we're competing to get the honor to host the World's Fair.
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Speaker 1: And to be clear, the World's Fair is not like
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Speaker 1: it's not like a music festival, it's not like Burning Man.
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Speaker 1: It doesn't last for it doesn't last for just a
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Speaker 1: long weekend like a comic con or Dragon Con here
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Speaker 1: in Atlanta. It lasts for months at a time. And
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Speaker 1: because it lasts for so long, in comparison to other
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Speaker 1: global events, it gets a lot of visitors.
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Speaker 3: Right, and nations from around the world, just like the
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Speaker 3: Olympics have competed for the honor of hosting this event
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Speaker 3: with the highest record attendance of around seventy three point
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Speaker 3: five million visitors for a single expo. And we're talking today,
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Speaker 3: you know about the history of the World's Fair, but
9:03
Speaker 3: also just kind of about some really notable instances of
9:06
Speaker 3: World's Fairs. And I would say though, Ben, that you know,
9:09
Speaker 3: to my observation, world's fairs don't quite hold the same
9:12
Speaker 3: prominence that they used to. Or the World Expo like
9:15
Speaker 3: it feels like the Olympics still very much have that
9:17
Speaker 3: cachet in the world's eyes, you know, on it kind
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Speaker 3: of vibe, But I don't really hear so much about
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Speaker 3: the World expos as much today.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not as if ABC or CBS or CNN
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Speaker 1: are providing twenty four to seven live coverage of a
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Speaker 1: World Expo. But at the height, going back to the
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Speaker 1: number you mentioned there, at the height of attendance, seventy
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Speaker 1: three point five million visitors. If we take a moment
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Speaker 1: to think that through, that means that if all those
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Speaker 1: visitors formed a country, there would be more people there
9:54
Speaker 1: than the population of let's see Thailand, the population of
9:59
Speaker 1: the United A Kingdom, and the population of France, as
10:02
Speaker 1: well as wow, many others. It's a ton of people,
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Speaker 1: is what we're saying even now.
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Speaker 3: Absolutely, and speaking of countries, you know, this was an
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Speaker 3: opportunity for smaller countries to kind of make a name
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Speaker 3: for themselves and get out there on the international stage
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Speaker 3: in terms of showcasing their contributions to industry, because there
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Speaker 3: are certainly, even to this day, incredible technological innovations that
10:26
Speaker 3: come from what we might consider much smaller, less quote
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Speaker 3: unquote prominent countries yeah.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And we have two versions of the importance of
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Speaker 1: the World's Fair, two I think complementary descriptions. According to
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Speaker 1: associate professor at the University of Arizona, Lisa Shrink, international
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Speaker 1: expositions have acted as mirrors of concurrent political, cultural, and
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Speaker 1: technological conditions of the times in which they were held,
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Speaker 1: by attracting governments, companies, and other organizations from across the
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Speaker 1: globe interested in promoting national identities. We'll see the problem
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Speaker 1: with that later. Celebrating culture and showcasing scientific, technological, economic,
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Speaker 1: and social progress. Well, maybe we go in comparison, we
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Speaker 1: go to the summation by our friend Ren.
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Speaker 3: Absolutely Reren points out that the goal of any World's Fair,
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Speaker 3: kind of like you know, capitalism, is to have the
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Speaker 3: each one, each subsequent instance be more successful, more Wow Factory,
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Speaker 3: you know, have seen more growth of audience and innovation
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Speaker 3: and technology than the last, which is, you know, pretty
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Speaker 3: difficult to sustain, like forever, but it's a noble goal.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, very capitalist. Also, I'm writing down I'm writing down
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Speaker 1: Wow Factory. I think that's a great band name.
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Speaker 3: I didn't even do that on purpose, But you're writing
11:50
Speaker 3: Wow Factory. That's kind of funny accidental portmanteau. I don't
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Speaker 3: know what you call that, but thanks Ben, I appreciate that.
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Speaker 1: And let's talk about the cadence of occurrences. There are
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Speaker 1: five years between expositions right now. Before the year two thousand,
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Speaker 1: there was a smaller space between each distinct World's Fair
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Speaker 1: or World's Expo, so countries often found themselves scrambling on
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Speaker 1: every front. First off, how do we decide what visitors
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Speaker 1: will like? How do we get seventy three zero point
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Speaker 1: five million people to visit our neck of the global woods.
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Speaker 1: And then also, just as importantly, how on earth are
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Speaker 1: we going to build and afford the infrastructure for all
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Speaker 1: these people, the hotels, the roads, the transport.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and not to mention the just sort of bizarre
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Speaker 3: structures that are often built around the sites of these things.
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Speaker 3: Like a lot of times, I think when people picture
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Speaker 3: a World's Fair, they picture sort of like that Epcot
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Speaker 3: Center kind of or but you know, looming in the background.
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Speaker 1: Or other sort of futuristic structures.
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Speaker 3: So there's a whole lot of Yeah, there's a lot
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Speaker 3: of installation, and these are like in and of themselves,
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Speaker 3: these kind of technological art installations that are meant to
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Speaker 3: demonstrate this level of like future thinking.
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Speaker 1: Well said, yeah, and so we're telling you this. It
13:17
Speaker 1: may seem like a ridiculously ambitious enterprise, which it definitely is.
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Speaker 1: But get this, fellow Ridiculous historians, sometimes these countries pulled
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Speaker 1: it off. In the first part of this series, we're
13:32
Speaker 1: going to talk about a couple World's fairs that we're
13:35
Speaker 1: able to be what we would call successful, and in
13:40
Speaker 1: a later episode we'll talk about some that diplomatically put
13:45
Speaker 1: we're not quite there kind of a little bit, you know,
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Speaker 1: like like Burn said, man's reach must exceed as grasp
13:54
Speaker 1: else what's a heaven for?
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Speaker 3: Well, and also something dimension in terms of, you know,
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Speaker 3: pooping the oracle bed. As with many old timey events
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Speaker 3: and displays of nationalistic pride, we run into it all
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Speaker 3: the time.
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Speaker 1: We are certainly going.
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Speaker 3: To see some I don't know, colonizing kind of racists,
14:16
Speaker 3: very backwards attitudes on full display at some of these
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Speaker 3: early world's fairs. Some examples that we've actually covered in
14:23
Speaker 3: full episodes in the past on Ridiculous History.
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Speaker 1: Yes, one hundred percent, things like the disastrous Olympics that
14:31
Speaker 1: were held at a World's Fair once upon a time,
14:34
Speaker 1: and things like the oh, the absolutely unclean exhibition of
14:42
Speaker 1: indigenous peoples as though they were somehow not human.
14:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, like some sort of macabre petting zoo, very very
14:49
Speaker 3: very weird stuff.
14:50
Speaker 1: And we did a whole episode on that in the
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Speaker 1: early days.
14:52
Speaker 3: So we will touch on that again because I think
14:54
Speaker 3: it's important just to sort of contextualize some of this stuff.
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Speaker 1: But we're not going to get too into the weeds
14:59
Speaker 1: on that stuff. So I guess first things first, right, Yes,
15:03
Speaker 1: first things first, by which we mean the Great Exhibition
15:07
Speaker 1: London eighteen fifty one, this London town. Yes, this is
15:13
Speaker 1: held in the super humbly named Crystal Palace. It looks
15:18
Speaker 1: like a Kaiju level greenhouse. It's a glass and iron structure.
15:23
Speaker 1: It's in the center of Hyde Park and it is
15:26
Speaker 1: open from May to October of eighteen fifty one. Over
15:31
Speaker 1: one third of the population of England shows up at
15:36
Speaker 1: some point.
15:37
Speaker 3: Unbelievable. It boasted some of the most important innovations of
15:42
Speaker 3: the Victorian era, including electric telegraphs, things like microscopes, a
15:48
Speaker 3: very early version of the fax machine aka the facsimile machine,
15:53
Speaker 3: a way of transmitting texts you know, over telephone lines,
15:57
Speaker 3: a revolving lighthouse light, which I guess I just would
16:00
Speaker 3: have thought that had been around for ages.
16:02
Speaker 1: But yeah, this is a long time ago, but I
16:04
Speaker 1: would have thought it was older than this. No, ship's
16:06
Speaker 1: just wrecked if they came the wrong way.
16:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, there's there's there's what what is he? What's
16:11
Speaker 3: the what's the line from lineos, there's something in the lights?
16:14
Speaker 3: There's magic in the light. Check out that film.
16:16
Speaker 1: I will always remember that strangely charged conversation about beans.
16:22
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, which, why'd you spill your beans? Anyway?
16:26
Speaker 1: Check out the lighthouse.
16:27
Speaker 3: That's if you're checking out Nos Faratu in theaters now
16:30
Speaker 3: we're not sponsored, but definitely go back and check out
16:33
Speaker 3: that offering from mister Robert Eggers as well.
16:36
Speaker 1: Did you see nos Faratu? I did? Ben I did?
16:39
Speaker 1: What did you think of nos Faratu I? I liked it?
16:43
Speaker 1: My girlfriend described it as a cinematically horny oh but
16:48
Speaker 1: for sure as a as a fan of folklore without
16:51
Speaker 1: spoiling it. Eggers did his research.
16:54
Speaker 3: He always does, and I feel like what Eggers is
16:56
Speaker 3: so good at is sort of like making very like
17:00
Speaker 3: tense and dramatically engaging displays of this folklore where you
17:06
Speaker 3: really feel like you're living in it and it's not
17:08
Speaker 3: just some sort of dated, dusty story, Like it feels
17:10
Speaker 3: very you know, inhabited, and like these are real people,
17:13
Speaker 3: but they very much still have the umami of that
17:15
Speaker 3: folklore that he uses as you know, source material.
17:18
Speaker 1: Back in the days when you and I used to
17:20
Speaker 1: party nol before we got old, I remember we would
17:23
Speaker 1: hang out for a solid I think it was a
17:27
Speaker 1: month and a half. We were just evangelizing for the Witch.
17:32
Speaker 1: How great it was, I thought in the theaters three times.
17:35
Speaker 3: Sorry, we's got sideestracked by that revolving lighthouse light. Another
17:40
Speaker 3: innovation from this first World's Fair was an early version
17:43
Speaker 3: of a submarine. Let's just reiterate this is eighteen fifty one. Yeah,
17:47
Speaker 3: A lot of this stuff to me either feels like
17:50
Speaker 3: the lighthouse light, like maybe I would have thought it
17:53
Speaker 3: was invented earlier than this, But some of this stuff
17:55
Speaker 3: feels very kind of forward thinking, like the idea of
17:57
Speaker 3: an early submarine before the nineteen hundreds of that as
18:00
Speaker 3: a much more modern innovation.
18:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, again, this is like an adult science fair. That's
18:06
Speaker 1: one of the easiest ways to compare it to modernity.
18:10
Speaker 1: We have to shout out, of course Eggers, but also
18:13
Speaker 1: our good friend Professor Rachel big Spinach Lance who hipped
18:19
Speaker 1: us to the early days of submarines and underwater explosions.
18:23
Speaker 1: Check out that episode as well. In the Hunley episode
18:26
Speaker 1: was yeah, yeah about it very early.
18:29
Speaker 3: Again, I think I probably had a similar reaction on
18:31
Speaker 3: that episode where we were talking about wooden submarines and
18:34
Speaker 3: like Civil War era submarines, and I'm like, I did
18:38
Speaker 3: not know that was a thing.
18:39
Speaker 1: So do check out that episode.
18:40
Speaker 3: And I think we're going to have big Spinach back
18:42
Speaker 3: for another episode this year very soon.
18:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, it'd be great. Her dance card is pretty full,
18:48
Speaker 1: but let's see if we could get her. Also, yeah,
18:51
Speaker 1: civil War submarines. I can't remember the wood to metal ratio,
18:55
Speaker 1: but I can recall the inventor of the World's Fair,
19:01
Speaker 1: or you could say maybe the ideator of it. It's
19:05
Speaker 1: a guy named Prince Albert. He famously married his cousin,
19:10
Speaker 1: Queen Victoria.
19:12
Speaker 3: And he's the same Prince Albert that also famously had
19:16
Speaker 3: an interesting piercing.
19:19
Speaker 1: That's maybe a different episode. I'm not sure who named
19:23
Speaker 1: it that. I'd love to hear. The etymology as an
19:26
Speaker 1: etymology nerd, No, I think it is.
19:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's a piercing called a Prince Albert, but
19:33
Speaker 3: from him, I think so, dude, like.
19:35
Speaker 1: He popped his Australia and then said let's have a
19:38
Speaker 1: science fair. I think. I mean, the timeline is unclear,
19:42
Speaker 1: but I.
19:43
Speaker 2: Feel like it is him too, Like I think it is.
19:46
Speaker 3: I think he literally had this piercing and so they
19:48
Speaker 3: named it after him.
19:50
Speaker 1: Amazing, amazing. This is the guy who in I guess
20:01
Speaker 1: he's a great innovator. In addition to piercings, he is
20:06
Speaker 1: the one who pitched this concept, this great exhibition bringing
20:12
Speaker 1: technological innovation to the public, democratizing science in a very
20:18
Speaker 1: real way. And this happens as the Industrial Revolution is
20:23
Speaker 1: still reverberating through the world. And you know, the Industrial
20:29
Speaker 1: Revolution started in England. So he's great casting for this.
20:33
Speaker 2: Also to jump in here real quick, this is from
20:36
Speaker 2: Google's AI. There is no evidence that Prince Albert, Queen
20:40
Speaker 2: Victoria's husband, had a penal piercing. The name Prince Albert
20:44
Speaker 2: for the piercing comes from the belief that he did,
20:47
Speaker 2: so it is named after him.
20:50
Speaker 4: Seeking in Phona and he's fallen knowledge.
20:55
Speaker 1: It's just for you right now here.
20:58
Speaker 4: The fact.
21:01
Speaker 2: There was also a drawn animation of the piercing that
21:06
Speaker 2: is real, childlike, and then you look at it for
21:08
Speaker 2: a second.
21:09
Speaker 1: Like, oh, that's what that is. We're looking at here? Yeah,
21:12
Speaker 1: So I think we're a.
21:13
Speaker 3: Family show, so we need to we don't need to
21:15
Speaker 3: go into detail about what this piercec thing is in Australia.
21:19
Speaker 1: Australia, you get it.
21:20
Speaker 3: But I also saw, Sorry I had to get too
21:21
Speaker 3: sidetrack with Prince Albert's chunk, but I also saw that
21:25
Speaker 3: there was a type of ring that was meant to
21:28
Speaker 3: secure the male genitals to the pant leg that he
21:32
Speaker 3: was also known for being fond of. Whether or not
21:34
Speaker 3: that actually penetrated his old fella is up for debate.
21:38
Speaker 1: This may be fan fiction from the Prince Albert stands
21:43
Speaker 1: at some point, but you know, whether it's a Richard
21:45
Speaker 1: gear Hamster story, again we're a family show, or whether
21:49
Speaker 1: it's historical fact, we do go. We can confirm that
21:53
Speaker 1: Prince Albert led to or led to charge for London's
21:58
Speaker 1: Great Exhibition, and did so because of the context of
22:02
Speaker 1: the Industrial Revolution. We know that the public was as
22:08
Speaker 1: a group adjusting to this new way of life. Sudden changes,
22:12
Speaker 1: a lot of ups, a lot of downs. Agriculture is
22:16
Speaker 1: leaving a lot of farmers homeless.
22:18
Speaker 3: Frankly, you know, it's interesting. We could almost say that
22:20
Speaker 3: we are currently living in something similar to the Industrial
22:25
Speaker 3: Revolution in terms of the way artificial intelligence and machine
22:28
Speaker 3: learning is starting to kind of balloon out of control
22:31
Speaker 3: and have the potential to literally remove certain human.
22:35
Speaker 1: People jobs that have existed for a very long time.
22:38
Speaker 3: So it's it's a very similar kind of struggle, and
22:41
Speaker 3: it doesn't seem like the powers that be in our
22:43
Speaker 3: era are particularly interested in making people feel.
22:46
Speaker 1: Better about it.
22:47
Speaker 3: So in this era, it did feel like they were
22:49
Speaker 3: trying to educate the public as to how this was
22:52
Speaker 3: a good thing and how it wasn't necessarily going to
22:54
Speaker 3: mark the end of human you know work.
22:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, unlike AI writing programs, mechanized agriculture does work, and
23:05
Speaker 1: it did work at this point, right. It was very
23:07
Speaker 1: much a John Henry situation for a lot of traditional
23:12
Speaker 1: rural farmers in England, and they knew they had to
23:16
Speaker 1: go to factories, a job that didn't really exist before.
23:21
Speaker 1: This was quite intimidating. If we go to Professor Emeritus
23:26
Speaker 1: Robert Riddell over at Montana State University. We see exactly
23:32
Speaker 1: what you're describing. This professor agrees with us, agrees with
23:37
Speaker 1: your point, saying, there's nothing certain about the direction industrialization
23:42
Speaker 1: is going. So what's the future going to look like?
23:45
Speaker 1: And that's the question these folks are trying to answer
23:48
Speaker 1: for the public at London's Great Exhibition.
23:51
Speaker 3: Right, there's literally a new career path that has been
23:55
Speaker 3: more or less invented overnight, these factory jobs that people
23:59
Speaker 3: who have spent their lives and generations perhaps and families
24:02
Speaker 3: working on family farms. They need to be educated about
24:06
Speaker 3: what these jobs look like, what they mean for their lives,
24:09
Speaker 3: and how they fit into this new industrialized society. So,
24:13
Speaker 3: you know, it is a bit of a pr move
24:15
Speaker 3: as well, because they don't want to alienate the workers
24:18
Speaker 3: entirely because they need them, you know. And by they
24:21
Speaker 3: I mean you know, the powers that be in the government,
24:23
Speaker 3: you know, represented by somebody like Prince Albert.
24:27
Speaker 1: And at this Great Exposition, companies are able to show
24:31
Speaker 1: the public machines that would have otherwise remained secreted behind
24:37
Speaker 1: factory walls. It's kind of like if Lockheed opened skunk
24:41
Speaker 1: Works and you could just show up the skunk works
24:44
Speaker 1: and see all the spy planes that won't be public
24:47
Speaker 1: for a few decades. Yeah. It was a real wow factory. Yes, yes,
24:51
Speaker 1: And they were going for.
24:53
Speaker 3: Like aweing the public into getting on board with industrialization
24:58
Speaker 3: and be like, wow, what a look at the poss abilities.
25:00
Speaker 3: I would love to work in a factory that seems
25:02
Speaker 3: totally chill.
25:03
Speaker 1: M Yeah, that's a big part of it. The other
25:06
Speaker 1: part is they build just I love this science project
25:09
Speaker 1: comparison because these companies, these companies are building little tiny
25:15
Speaker 1: Kwai replicas of their machines and showing the public, hey,
25:20
Speaker 1: here's how this works. Guess what, we have a life
25:23
Speaker 1: size one and there you can be a part of
25:26
Speaker 1: the magic. Right. And their concurrent goal is not just
25:29
Speaker 1: to reassure people about their own personal future, but also
25:34
Speaker 1: to reassure people that the stuff made by these machines,
25:40
Speaker 1: these new processes, will be trustworthy, will be dependable, and
25:45
Speaker 1: will work. I didn't even think about that.
25:47
Speaker 3: There. There was a lot of distrust just in like
25:49
Speaker 3: the quality of these wares and what it would mean
25:52
Speaker 3: for like, you know, people's everyday lives with goods and
25:55
Speaker 3: products that they were used to.
25:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, and at the time the exhibition itself was profitable.
26:03
Speaker 1: It generated one hundred and eighty six thousand British pounds,
26:08
Speaker 1: which means it's time for the inflation calculator.
26:11
Speaker 4: And a dude a boom boom, all right, that would
26:17
Speaker 4: be twenty one million, nine hundred forty three thousand, four
26:21
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty pounds and fifty one pence in today's money.
26:25
Speaker 1: Or I think we should do the US equivalent and
26:29
Speaker 1: a dude and a boot twenty eight million, forty thousand,
26:35
Speaker 1: four hundred and thirty eight dollars and twenty three cents.
26:40
Speaker 3: So about the grosses of a modern like minor blockbuster,
26:45
Speaker 3: you know, not even really a blockbuster. That thirty million,
26:48
Speaker 3: depending on the budget, would be considered a moderate success
26:51
Speaker 3: for like, you know, a mids tier budget type film.
26:55
Speaker 3: So financially, yes, agreed, financially good for good for the
27:00
Speaker 3: United Kingdom, good for England. However, England may have lost
27:07
Speaker 3: some points even though it's their own home game, because
27:11
Speaker 3: this was an international thing. We got other European well
27:15
Speaker 3: it's international in that other European countries had their flexes
27:20
Speaker 3: out on display. Yeah, England is an exactly known for
27:24
Speaker 3: their design flare and that was sort of really hit
27:28
Speaker 3: home at this World's Fair because the French really excelled
27:32
Speaker 3: in terms of style, you know, and and form of
27:35
Speaker 3: some of these new creations, these new industrial products. Also,
27:39
Speaker 3: we know the Germans have continue to have a reputation
27:42
Speaker 3: for their very precise engineering and machining skills. The Americans
27:49
Speaker 3: during this World's Fair really excelled in terms of what
27:53
Speaker 3: we're pretty good at still today, large scale manufacturing. Quantity
27:58
Speaker 3: over quality. But still you gotta love the quantity.
28:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, if we if we take it to a
28:04
Speaker 1: design nerd kind of comparison, so imagine the French make
28:10
Speaker 1: a revolutionary, beautiful cursive R, right, and the Germans make
28:17
Speaker 1: a incredibly precise, perfectly measured capital yes serifh capital R
28:24
Speaker 1: and block letters. And then the Americans go, here you go,
28:27
Speaker 1: we got a thousand RS. We made a thousand letter RS.
28:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred or so, or like one massive R
28:35
Speaker 3: that dwarfs all the other RS.
28:37
Speaker 1: But Prince Albert wasn't having this.
28:39
Speaker 3: He was determined for England to rise to the occasion,
28:43
Speaker 3: especially since it's on their home term, so he threw
28:46
Speaker 3: some money from his estate into a scholarship to support
28:51
Speaker 3: young innovators, essentially a way to help them advance careers
28:56
Speaker 3: in science and research.
28:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, what we would call the STEM disciplines today, science, technology, engineering, math.
29:05
Speaker 1: You can still get a research fellowship from the Royal
29:09
Speaker 1: Commission for the exhibition of eighteen fifty one. However, visiting
29:15
Speaker 1: the Crystal Palace as it stood in eighteen fifty one
29:18
Speaker 1: is very difficult today. There was a conspiracy of foot.
29:22
Speaker 1: There was a fire of unknown origin that demolished the
29:27
Speaker 1: structure in nineteen thirty six. It was a big fire.
29:30
Speaker 1: Within the space of thirty minutes, the entire structure, which
29:35
Speaker 1: was like twenty five acres of iron and glass, ignited
29:39
Speaker 1: and it burned down.
29:41
Speaker 3: Through the How do you burn down something made of
29:43
Speaker 3: iron and glass?
29:45
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I guess you need fire to make glass
29:47
Speaker 1: and iron. That's true. What is it like? Jet fuel
29:51
Speaker 1: doesn't melt steel beams and all that stuff. That's where
29:55
Speaker 1: it started.
29:55
Speaker 3: Hell of a fire though, right, thank goodness, gracious, Yeah,
30:00
Speaker 3: where it started?
30:00
Speaker 1: Is there a conspiracy afoot? That's what's going on here? Well,
30:03
Speaker 1: no one is. A Historians still don't agree on how
30:07
Speaker 1: the fire began, so we could call it a conspiracy,
30:12
Speaker 1: but really it's more a mystery, I guess.
30:14
Speaker 3: To me, though, I'm just interested in the conspiracy of
30:17
Speaker 3: like how what what could have fueled such a fire?
30:22
Speaker 3: You know, and you know what I mean, Like it's
30:23
Speaker 3: not is there? I guess there's wood inside, But it
30:26
Speaker 3: seems like they were really focusing on the building materials
30:29
Speaker 3: as being glass and steel. So just what actually caught
30:32
Speaker 3: fire to create the kind of blaze that would consume
30:36
Speaker 3: glass and steel. I'm sorry, maybe I'm not being helpful here.
30:39
Speaker 1: No, no, there were two huge boles, there were two
30:42
Speaker 1: huge elm trees that also caught a blaze that would
30:46
Speaker 1: have helped. And there was a ton of stuff inside.
30:49
Speaker 1: We have to remember twenty five acres worth of the
30:53
Speaker 1: best things humans could come up with at the time.
30:57
Speaker 3: Well, while you can't, unfortunately, due to the aforementioned fire,
31:01
Speaker 3: visit the Crystal Palace in England anymore. It was demolished
31:05
Speaker 3: in nineteen thirty six. You can hang with Winnie the
31:08
Speaker 3: Pooh and pals at the Crystal Palace buffet in Walt
31:12
Speaker 3: Disney World there in Florida, where you can get Mickey
31:16
Speaker 3: Mouse shaped churo waffles. I know a lot of Disney
31:19
Speaker 3: folks that are so stoked about all of the food
31:22
Speaker 3: offerings in.
31:22
Speaker 1: Disney, and it is good.
31:24
Speaker 3: There's some good stuff country fried chicken with gravy and
31:28
Speaker 3: something called a sunrise Marcaritah.
31:30
Speaker 1: It sounds delightful. Yeah, all classic Victorian era British fair.
31:35
Speaker 1: Thank you read. So let's fast forward all to the
31:40
Speaker 1: World's Columbian Exposition, which is held in Chicago.
31:47
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm confused. Not Columbia, no South Carolina or South America.
31:59
Speaker 3: Hosted in Chicago, Illinois, from May first to October thirtieth,
32:02
Speaker 3: eighteen ninety three. It was held on the four hundredth
32:07
Speaker 3: anniversary of Christopher Columbus's voyage, technically the four hundred and
32:12
Speaker 3: first depending you know, there's some slight discrepancies I think
32:17
Speaker 3: in the historical accounts of his journey to the Americas.
32:21
Speaker 3: Of course, that's where the Colombian part comes in.
32:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're jumping around in time because we want
32:28
Speaker 1: to tell you about this one as it was, for
32:32
Speaker 1: the most part considered a win in the world of
32:36
Speaker 1: world's fairs. At expos. It happened after the Paris or
32:42
Speaker 1: Parisian World's Fair, which occurred in eighteen eighty nine. This
32:46
Speaker 1: is the one where our cursive r comparison really comes
32:51
Speaker 1: into play because the World's Fair in Paris in eighteen
32:55
Speaker 1: eighty nine was praised for the innovations in architecture and design,
33:01
Speaker 1: specifically a thing called the Eiffel Tower. At that point,
33:06
Speaker 1: it was the tallest acknowledged man made structure. I'm being
33:12
Speaker 1: a little careful with our caveats there for sure.
33:15
Speaker 3: And this took place the previous World's Fair I think
33:17
Speaker 3: you mentioned so Chicago and their planning committee really felt
33:21
Speaker 3: the pressure to outdo France, at least in terms of
33:26
Speaker 3: architectural accomplishment, so they tapped a super well regarded architect
33:31
Speaker 3: named Frederick law Olmsted. He actually designed Central Park in
33:35
Speaker 3: New York City. They tapped him to create plans for
33:39
Speaker 3: an even more elaborate and grand exhibition terrace. And again
33:43
Speaker 3: when we were talking at the top of the show
33:45
Speaker 3: about all of these on site, you know, wonders and marvels,
33:49
Speaker 3: I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, then, but the
33:51
Speaker 3: World's Fair where the Eiffel Tower was unveiled, that would
33:54
Speaker 3: have taken place directly around where the Eiffel Tower is today.
33:57
Speaker 3: Like it was, the real thing that was on at
34:00
Speaker 3: the World's Fair created for the World's Fair.
34:04
Speaker 1: I believe that's correct. And now now to the earlier
34:08
Speaker 1: point about always attempting to have the newest, the biggest,
34:12
Speaker 1: the best, most interesting world's fair. We see the city
34:19
Speaker 1: pride of Chicago and the national pride of the US
34:22
Speaker 1: coming into play, just as you noted, and well, we're
34:27
Speaker 1: gonna make time for a little bit of a dark
34:29
Speaker 1: side about the so called white city. This guy Olmsted,
34:34
Speaker 1: he's just awesome at what he does, and so it's
34:39
Speaker 1: no surprise that the planning committee there in Chicago is
34:43
Speaker 1: deferring to him. And they say, well, Freddy, where should
34:46
Speaker 1: we do our World's Fair. We can't let these French
34:50
Speaker 1: folks show us up. So Olmsted says, all right, here's
34:55
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do. We're gonna go to Lake Michigan
34:59
Speaker 1: and and we're going to do that because this will
35:02
Speaker 1: give a water source for all these canals and pools
35:07
Speaker 1: that we have to build. And they said, what canals
35:10
Speaker 1: pools And he said, yeah, that's part of it. I'll
35:12
Speaker 1: take questions at the end. I'm doing canals and pools.
35:15
Speaker 1: He was like, when Rick explains weird heist to Morty
35:19
Speaker 1: and Rick and Morty they ran into this other problem.
35:23
Speaker 1: Chicago's soil, for any fellow nerds, is mostly clay, which
35:30
Speaker 1: means it absorbs water way more easily than other types
35:34
Speaker 1: of soil, which means it was a nightmare to build
35:39
Speaker 1: this thing around Lake Michigan.
35:41
Speaker 3: Right Because while like Michigan was super aesthetically pleasing and
35:45
Speaker 3: a great site for this on paper, with all of
35:48
Speaker 3: the water able to be supplied to water plants and
35:50
Speaker 3: fill these canals, it was a nightmare for building construction
35:53
Speaker 3: because the water kept getting absorbed.
35:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So It's kind of like how people actually
36:02
Speaker 1: building Frank Lloyd Wright houses would complain about the sustainability,
36:08
Speaker 1: you know, the esthetics, And I love that you're mentioning
36:11
Speaker 1: that the aesthetics are always easier to idate than the
36:16
Speaker 1: actual engineering. Right.
36:18
Speaker 3: Well, that's why I think the best architectures have a
36:21
Speaker 3: appreciation of both. It is like a perfect kind of
36:25
Speaker 3: crystallization of form and function.
36:27
Speaker 1: We mean, architecture at its best. Architecture at its best
36:31
Speaker 1: is frozen Poetry one percent. And I haven't seen it yet, Ben,
36:35
Speaker 1: but just another quick movie thought.
36:38
Speaker 3: There is a film that is just now getting wide
36:40
Speaker 3: released early this year in twenty twenty five called The Brutalists,
36:43
Speaker 3: which is a three hour epic. It's apparently like there
36:47
Speaker 3: will be blood level American story of industry and perseverance,
36:52
Speaker 3: and may be a little bit of the ills of
36:54
Speaker 3: capitalism thrown in there. But I'm really excited to see
36:57
Speaker 3: this film. I think it's going to kind of hit
36:59
Speaker 3: home the kind of stuff that we're talking about that
37:01
Speaker 3: we appreciate in architecture.
37:03
Speaker 1: And our Chicago committee, they have their idea man, right,
37:09
Speaker 1: they have their ultimate thought bringer, and now they have
37:13
Speaker 1: to say, now they have to figure out how they
37:15
Speaker 1: bridge the gap of idea to reality. So they talked
37:19
Speaker 1: to a local architect of the time, Daniel Burnham, and
37:23
Speaker 1: they say, all right, can you design some plans for
37:26
Speaker 1: the buildings we'll have at the fair. We're asking you
37:30
Speaker 1: because you've already done some interesting work. Burnham had reached
37:37
Speaker 1: some breakthroughs with the idea of floating raft foundations that
37:42
Speaker 1: would help address the poor soil conditions in Chicago. He
37:46
Speaker 1: made these crazy smart hybrid structural systems that leverage the
37:52
Speaker 1: latest of material technology that was available in the late
37:56
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, and with Burnham helping to make this, Olmsted
38:04
Speaker 1: Guy's vision a reality. It still took a small army
38:08
Speaker 1: to build the midway. Twelve thousand men. Over twelve thousand
38:13
Speaker 1: men build this collection of buildings. They've got a long
38:17
Speaker 1: pool at the center. This is what becomes called the
38:21
Speaker 1: White City, and it's called that because they save money
38:25
Speaker 1: on the paint. It's just all white plaster.
38:27
Speaker 3: On the whole white slaster facades, kind of crown molding
38:32
Speaker 3: kind of vibes. So with the construction of the White
38:34
Speaker 3: City well underway, there's still something they haven't fully dealt with,
38:39
Speaker 3: which is how to light this thing up.
38:42
Speaker 1: So that leads us headlong.
38:45
Speaker 3: Into what is known as the Battle of the Currents
38:48
Speaker 3: between Thomas Edison, the aforementioned and Nikolai Tesla, both inventors
38:53
Speaker 3: who had figured out how to harness and distribute electricity,
39:00
Speaker 3: but each had their own very specific and proprietary methods
39:03
Speaker 3: for doing this, which required kind of like a large
39:07
Speaker 3: scale buy in because it requires building infrastructure with that
39:12
Speaker 3: kind of wiring in mind. We've got Tesla's AC alternating
39:16
Speaker 3: current and Edison's DC direct current.
39:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, ed look Edison was a bully, There's no way
39:25
Speaker 1: around it. He launched a huge campaign, a smear campaign,
39:31
Speaker 1: really against Tesla's AC concept. However, Tesla won the day
39:37
Speaker 1: in this case because AC Electricity proved that you could
39:43
Speaker 1: use his techniques and his discoveries to safely transmit power
39:48
Speaker 1: over long distances to a large number of end receivers
39:53
Speaker 1: a large amount of population. So that's why AC is
39:57
Speaker 1: still the industry standard for power grids to exactly.
40:01
Speaker 3: So as for the Eiffel Tower, back to the Eiffel Tower,
40:03
Speaker 3: there was a young architect by the name of George
40:05
Speaker 3: Washington Gale Ferris Junior, who also had a bit of
40:10
Speaker 3: an answer as to the illumination problem.
40:13
Speaker 1: Right, and you know, we talked about the name.
40:15
Speaker 3: Of the huge area where all of the exhibitions take
40:18
Speaker 3: place as the midway. We're using kind of fair terminology.
40:22
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a concept that I think everyone understood.
40:25
Speaker 3: Another thing that people might think of when it comes
40:27
Speaker 3: to a county fair or a state fair are things
40:31
Speaker 3: like you know, frying every type of food you can imagine,
40:34
Speaker 3: but also certain types of fair rides like the fairest wheel.
40:41
Speaker 1: Stuff of changes returns a good Yeah, this is all true.
40:46
Speaker 1: And one of the most beautiful things about the world's
40:49
Speaker 1: fairs or world expos in general is they always bring
40:54
Speaker 1: these notable innovations. It's a great drawing board, right, A great,
41:00
Speaker 1: a great cavalcade of what iffery. The eighteen ninety three
41:04
Speaker 1: World's Fair there in Chicago introduced the public to things
41:08
Speaker 1: like Wrigley's chewing gum, instant pancake mix, the automatic dishwasher,
41:14
Speaker 1: the zipper. I got one of those on me right now.
41:18
Speaker 3: Well cool, Yeah, and it hasn't gotten really hasn't been improved,
41:21
Speaker 3: and they still kind of break. I actually was putting
41:23
Speaker 3: on a zip up hoodie this morning only to realize
41:26
Speaker 3: the zipper was completely shot, and so that thing is
41:29
Speaker 3: dead to me.
41:29
Speaker 1: But isn't that funny?
41:30
Speaker 3: Things like the zipper have not exactly been improved upon
41:34
Speaker 3: since their invention, since their introduction, Yeah, because they work it.
41:38
Speaker 1: We love it when stuff works. There's also a dark
41:41
Speaker 1: side to the White City because one of the most
41:47
Speaker 1: notorious common and serial killers in American history was active
41:53
Speaker 1: in Chicago during the Colombian Exposition in eighteen ninety three.
41:58
Speaker 1: Herman Webster Mudget, known as doctor Henry Howard Holmes or H. H. Holmes.
42:05
Speaker 1: One time or twice in a couple lazy halloweens, I
42:10
Speaker 1: dressed up as the guy. And I'll tell you know,
42:13
Speaker 1: one person recognized the costume, and that person wanted to
42:17
Speaker 1: hang out with me, and they made me uncomfortable.
42:20
Speaker 4: That's right.
42:20
Speaker 1: I do recall this, Ben.
42:22
Speaker 3: You can read all about this in The Devil in
42:25
Speaker 3: the White City Murder, Magic and Madness, which tells this
42:29
Speaker 3: sordid tale of the dark side of the Chicago World's Fair.
42:34
Speaker 1: And we should note there was an adaptation, a film
42:38
Speaker 1: adaptation of The Devil in the White City starring Leo DiCaprio,
42:42
Speaker 1: directed by Scorsese. The book itself me yeah, yeah, really
42:47
Speaker 1: a true story. This is out or they're working on it.
42:51
Speaker 1: I believe it came out in twenty fifteen. Why have
42:54
Speaker 1: I not heard it? Oh no, wait wait, it was
42:56
Speaker 1: going to come out and then they tried to make
43:00
Speaker 1: get a television adaptation. It's not out. You're correct, it's
43:05
Speaker 1: not and just really quickly too.
43:07
Speaker 3: On the cover of the of the book of the
43:09
Speaker 3: novel by Eric Larson, it has a really great photo
43:12
Speaker 3: of the Midway I guess of this Chicago World's Fair.
43:15
Speaker 3: And you know what it looks like, Ben, It looks
43:16
Speaker 3: like the National Mall in Washington, d C. Which flecting
43:20
Speaker 3: cool and that central kind of thing and then the
43:22
Speaker 3: giant looming you know, structure at the end.
43:26
Speaker 1: It is pretty impressive. Yeah, and The Devil in the
43:29
Speaker 1: White City is technically historical nonfiction. Don't let that put
43:33
Speaker 1: you off, folks. That is an official ridiculous history book recommendation.
43:38
Speaker 1: What a banger, mister Larson if you're listening. Also, big
43:42
Speaker 1: fans of In the Garden of Beast and Isaac Storm.
43:47
Speaker 1: Haven't read every book this guy's written, but loved everyone
43:51
Speaker 1: I read and.
43:53
Speaker 3: Ben those are great recommendations because my goal this year
43:55
Speaker 3: is to read at least one book.
43:57
Speaker 1: Oh, I've got one for you that you might like.
44:00
Speaker 1: I'll add it to my list. I've got two and
44:01
Speaker 1: now three on it thus far. Oh okay, So I
44:03
Speaker 1: recently joke.
44:04
Speaker 3: I'm gonna try to read more than one book, but
44:05
Speaker 3: I just have been really bad at reading.
44:07
Speaker 1: Lately, so I and listening to an audiobook counts as reading.
44:11
Speaker 1: I hold that, however, it is best for people to
44:14
Speaker 1: digest information. One book recommendation that I know you will
44:19
Speaker 1: dig it's so poetic. There's this MIT professor of physics
44:24
Speaker 1: and creative writing named Alan Lightman, and he wrote a
44:27
Speaker 1: book called Einstein's Dreams. I recently reread it and I
44:32
Speaker 1: thought of you and our pal Matt Fredericks. It's just
44:36
Speaker 1: beautiful all it is. There's not even a spoiler here,
44:39
Speaker 1: and I know we're on a tangent, but all it is.
44:42
Speaker 1: NOL is a series of dreams that a young Albert
44:47
Speaker 1: Einstein has while he's working as a patent clerk. He's
44:51
Speaker 1: followed asleep at work, and in each of his dreams
44:55
Speaker 1: he finds a new theory of time. It's incredible poetry, man,
45:00
Speaker 1: that does sound like poetry. I just put it down
45:02
Speaker 1: on my list of which I also have. I'll give
45:04
Speaker 1: you these.
45:04
Speaker 3: A book called Orbital that I heard discussed on a
45:07
Speaker 3: podcast recently. Apparently it's just a really poetic and kind
45:10
Speaker 3: of dreamy depiction of being in space. And then a
45:14
Speaker 3: novel called Lazarus Man by Richard Price was followed several
45:17
Speaker 3: characters in Harlem in the wake of a building collapse,
45:21
Speaker 3: and it's apparently quite tense and very well written.
45:23
Speaker 1: And the guy's written a ton.
45:24
Speaker 3: Of other stuff that have been adapted into films to
45:27
Speaker 3: my understanding.
45:28
Speaker 1: Awesome and speaking of fantastic writing, Thanks again to our
45:32
Speaker 1: research associate Red. This is part one of the World's Fairs.
45:37
Speaker 1: We're telling you the inspiring parts, but we wanted to
45:40
Speaker 1: mention the darker sides, the HH Holmes stuff, the colonialism,
45:45
Speaker 1: because we're foreshadowing part two, where we get to some
45:50
Speaker 1: of the world's fairs that did not have ideal outcomes.
45:56
Speaker 1: Let's call it that one.
45:57
Speaker 3: Hundred percent, and I very much look forward to getting
45:59
Speaker 3: into those with.
46:00
Speaker 1: You, sir. Huge thanks from my end as well to
46:04
Speaker 1: our brand.
46:05
Speaker 3: New research associated Extraordinariy wren renfest Jones. You know we're
46:10
Speaker 3: gonna would shop that nickname, but I'm just gonna throw
46:12
Speaker 3: it out there for now. I think you did a
46:13
Speaker 3: really fantastic job on these episodes.
46:17
Speaker 1: Big big thanks, of course to our super producer, the
46:20
Speaker 1: one and only mister Max Williams. Big thanks to Alex
46:24
Speaker 1: Stijajuana Williams, who composed this slap and bop you're hearing
46:28
Speaker 1: at the end of the show.
46:29
Speaker 3: Indeed, huge thanks to Jonathan Strickland the Quizzler, A J.
46:32
Speaker 3: Bahamas Jacobs the Puzzler He's Jeff Goes, and christopherraciotis here
46:36
Speaker 3: in spirit, and of course Ben, big thanks to you, buddy.
46:39
Speaker 3: This is a lot of fun. It's really good to
46:41
Speaker 3: be back in the new year with some ridiculous history.
46:44
Speaker 1: Yes, big, big thanks to Rachel, Big Spinach, Lance or
46:48
Speaker 1: big Spinach. Thanks to you, Professor, Thanks to our rude
46:51
Speaker 1: dudes of ridiculous crime check them out. Big thanks to
46:55
Speaker 1: everyone for tuning in join us for part two. No
46:59
Speaker 1: big thanks to you, Bud oh Man. You're welcome. We'll
47:03
Speaker 1: see you next time, folks.
47:11
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
47:15
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.