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The Mysterious Dark Day That Terrified New England · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
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Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
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Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Shout out to our super
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Speaker 1: producer Casey Pegro guest producer Andrew Howard. We're recording on
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Speaker 1: a lovely, darkish day here in Atlanta, Georgia. I am
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Speaker 1: ben at least that's what they called. My name is No,
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Speaker 1: it's it's it's I haven't even you know what. I'm
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Speaker 1: gonna be completely honest. I haven't even looked outside. Is
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Speaker 1: it darkish? I've got all the curtain straw and darkish
0:53
Speaker 1: in here in my recording bubble. There we go. Yeah, well,
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Speaker 1: your inner weather matches the outer weather, as Robert Frost
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Speaker 1: would say, because it's it's a little overcast. It's a
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Speaker 1: it's a good day for today's episode, which we teased
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Speaker 1: a little bit null in our previous recording on Oh
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Speaker 1: what what was it? It wasn't the bull Frog episode.
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Speaker 1: But we do have oh we do have a correction.
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Speaker 1: I realized this, this has nothing to do with today's episode.
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Speaker 1: Remember we were talking about taurin the way that person
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Speaker 1: had Yeah, taurin the astrological sign Taurus right, the bull
1:32
Speaker 1: bull frogs. How can we have missed that? That's that's incredible. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: those are some of the most like flowery disc letters
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Speaker 1: I've ever read in my entire life. And I was
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Speaker 1: there for it every step of the way. Yeah, they
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Speaker 1: bell chas rised. And our guest producer Andrew Howard, when
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Speaker 1: he wrote back to us with the edit, said that
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Speaker 1: it was a bell chasiris at it, which I very
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Speaker 1: much appreciate it. Yes, yes, thank you, Andrew. And today's
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Speaker 1: episode is about inexplicable weather, about darkness, you know what
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Speaker 1: it was. We talked about this when we were diving
2:12
Speaker 1: into the story of substitute kings during the era of
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Speaker 1: ancient Mesopotamia. If you were a priest in ancient Mesopotamia,
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Speaker 1: you might be frightened that an eclipse would be a
2:23
Speaker 1: sign that your king would die. So their solution was
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Speaker 1: to just temporarily higher another king and then kill them
2:32
Speaker 1: the cosmological fake out. Everybody knows that move. It's also
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Speaker 1: a really six skateboard move. But yeah, I mean, for
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Speaker 1: sure they would just absolutely execute them, and then I
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Speaker 1: bet you they would be honored for the privilege, you know,
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Speaker 1: the person being executed. They would have known the score.
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Speaker 1: It's only it would have been a surprise, like a
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Speaker 1: wicker Man scenario. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Today's episode
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Speaker 1: is about another dark day, but this one remains a
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Speaker 1: bit of a mystery even here in let's set the
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Speaker 1: scene with some ominous sci fi music. Andrew, we defer
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Speaker 1: to you on this one. But let's say you know
3:13
Speaker 1: you're up, it's it's mid morning. You know, it's not
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Speaker 1: quite noon, maybe somewhere between eight and ten am. And
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Speaker 1: then halfway through the morning, the sky turns yellow. All
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Speaker 1: the animals around you are freaking out and they're running away.
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Speaker 1: They're running for cover, and people who are observing this
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Speaker 1: in New England, like handles, they start to pray. By
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Speaker 1: the time you would usually eat lunch, it's completely dark.
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Speaker 1: It's as if night came early. You're asking yourself, if
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Speaker 1: you're one of these residents of New England on mavight,
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Speaker 1: if this truly is the end of days? I certainly
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Speaker 1: would have asked myself that, giving the time and the
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Speaker 1: con text. But let's go a little bit more into
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Speaker 1: the time and the context. This really is kind of
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Speaker 1: not too dissimilar from the Bullfrog story. It is a
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Speaker 1: you know, an observation of a natural phenomenon that is
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Speaker 1: interpreted in a certain way that ends up, you know,
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Speaker 1: being something other than the most extreme alarmist thing that
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Speaker 1: it could have been. So what happened? You're right? Ben Friday,
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Speaker 1: May nineteen sevent eighty the crack of dawn. We know
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Speaker 1: what a sunrise looks like. With this sunrise looked more
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Speaker 1: like a sun set. And in the morning, which is
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Speaker 1: which is odd to say the least, he starts seeing
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Speaker 1: this very bizarre blood red hue kind of seeping through
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Speaker 1: the sky. The sun was rising, but it was red,
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Speaker 1: this kind of almost brass, kind of rusty red color,
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Speaker 1: described as having a strange enchanting hue. And I gotta
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Speaker 1: give props to the New England Historical Society, as is
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Speaker 1: the stock and trade from folks from that part of
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Speaker 1: the country. Really flowery literary chops here and some of
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Speaker 1: these descriptions. I'm just gonna quote this verbatim from their
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Speaker 1: article A strange enchanting hue robed the rocks, trees, buildings,
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Speaker 1: and water. Uh. This is from Sydney Pearly and nineteenth
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Speaker 1: century Salem historian Rainwater gave off a strong sooty smell,
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Speaker 1: and a black scum floated on rivers, especially the Merrimack,
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Speaker 1: And that's from Richard Miller Devon's um, and he described
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Speaker 1: Boston as having smelled like a malt house or a
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Speaker 1: coal kin. And then after nine am, another account says
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Speaker 1: that a dark, dense cloud began to rise from the
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Speaker 1: west and just kind of spread and seep into the
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Speaker 1: skyline until it was entirely covered except at the horizon,
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Speaker 1: where there was a small rim of light peeking through. Yes,
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Speaker 1: and this got worse by noon. The sky had darkened
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Speaker 1: to this midnight blackness. And we after remember that the
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Speaker 1: population of this area was still in the throes of
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Speaker 1: the ongoing War of Independence, so they would like candles.
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Speaker 1: Many people were increasingly concerned this was the biblical end
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Speaker 1: of days, the last judgment being upon them. The birds
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Speaker 1: fell quiet, but there was something else they knew. It wasn't,
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Speaker 1: you know, a garden variety thunderstorm, because there was no storm.
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Speaker 1: So what did people do. They didn't go to work
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Speaker 1: as normal. They crowded into local churches and that led
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Speaker 1: one minister, according to American Heritage dot Com, to dryly
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Speaker 1: observe quote. The people were very attentive, so if he
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Speaker 1: could give his congregation a yelp review, I think they
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Speaker 1: got five stars that day. This pattern went over a
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Speaker 1: pretty wide swath of land. It was dark in Portland's
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Speaker 1: Maine as far north as there, and it was dark
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Speaker 1: as far south as New Jersey. If people didn't go.
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Speaker 1: Not everybody went to churches, to be fair, Some people
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Speaker 1: went to taverns, which I also I find hilarious but understandable.
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Speaker 1: Schools were closed, cattle went back to their stalls to
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Speaker 1: hide of their own accord. And then the only animals
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Speaker 1: that were really out and about it this time or
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Speaker 1: vocal were the animals that would be around and making
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Speaker 1: noises at night, like the nightbirds were whistling and singing
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Speaker 1: their night songs. The frogs were riveting and croaking the
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Speaker 1: way they would do in the wee hours. So what
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Speaker 1: could this have been? If this was not, as Reverend
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Speaker 1: Nathaniel Walker argued, a rebuke from Almighty God for the
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Speaker 1: sins of the congregation. Could it have been in eclipse
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Speaker 1: a blazing star. Could it have somehow been the heavenly
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Speaker 1: transit of Venus. Uh? What we know for sure is
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Speaker 1: that in the initial hours, most people thought it was
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Speaker 1: a supernatural or divine phenomenon brought on by the Christian God.
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Speaker 1: And we have we have statements about this that you
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Speaker 1: can see from historians like Mike Dash in BBC dot com. Yes,
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Speaker 1: Mike Dash who has a fabulous name for historian or
8:23
Speaker 1: you know, maybe like a superhero or some sort of
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Speaker 1: action star me. It talks about how this part of
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Speaker 1: the United States was very, very Protestant and took a
8:34
Speaker 1: particular interest in the concepts of guilt and sin and redemption. Um.
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Speaker 1: And he refers to this in in his book Borderlands
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Speaker 1: as being something of a set of paranormal beliefs, which
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Speaker 1: you know, depending on your religious persuasion, one might argue
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Speaker 1: one way or the other on that, but um, either way,
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Speaker 1: this was the immediate interpretation that folks would would go
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Speaker 1: to in their minds when they would see something like
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Speaker 1: this happening. Um. He talks about Versus in Matthew that
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Speaker 1: might have led these folks to believe that this was
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Speaker 1: the second Coming of Christ. There are so many natural
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Speaker 1: events that would have been interpreted through a biblical lens
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Speaker 1: of the time, like even like you know, birds flying
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Speaker 1: in the sky were a sign of godlike intentions. The
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Speaker 1: Dark Day, they thought was a warning to man to
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Speaker 1: to like a Sodom and Gomorrah type situation, or the
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Speaker 1: very least a pretty Sodom and Gomorrah type situation. Yeah,
9:33
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right, and this affected so many members of society. Well,
9:39
Speaker 1: the actual meteorological phenomenon affected everybody, obviously, but due to
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Speaker 1: the cultural and religious context of the day, it's fair
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Speaker 1: to say most people assumed this was a religious event.
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Speaker 1: Even members of the Connecticut legislature, which was called the
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Speaker 1: State Council, feared that the Dark Day was the actual
10:03
Speaker 1: facts day of judgment. Uh, some members of the Council,
10:08
Speaker 1: we're pushing to adjourn the session. But then there were
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Speaker 1: people like Abraham Davenport, another great name, who got some
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Speaker 1: fame for his response to these requests to call it
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Speaker 1: a day early. He said this, I am against adjournment.
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Speaker 1: The day of Judgment is either approaching or it is not.
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Speaker 1: If it is not, there is no cause for an adjournment.
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Speaker 1: If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty.
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Speaker 1: I therefore wish the candles may be brought. So he
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Speaker 1: was the I mean, that's ballsy, right, he's saying, you
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Speaker 1: know what, it might be the end of the world.
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Speaker 1: But I'm here to do a job, and my creator
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Speaker 1: is not going to find me, you know, cowering at home.
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Speaker 1: They're gonna find me doing what I believe God meant
10:55
Speaker 1: me to do, which is approving these various bills and
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Speaker 1: laws and are arguing about you know, bureaucratic things, so
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Speaker 1: very you know, very strong words and probably great for
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Speaker 1: his political future. We know that other members of the
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Speaker 1: government wrote about this, including George Washington. He wrote about
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Speaker 1: this in his diary, and we're all pretty sure they
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Speaker 1: was writing about this specific dark day, even though he
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Speaker 1: may have gotten the date wrong. He said, heavy and
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Speaker 1: uncommon kinds of clouds dark and at the same time
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Speaker 1: a bright and reddish kind of light into mixed with them,
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Speaker 1: brightening and darkening alternately. This continued till afternoon, when the
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Speaker 1: sun began to appear. The wind in the bonning was easterly.
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Speaker 1: After that he got to the westward. For some reason,
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Speaker 1: I always pictured George Washington saying the wind and I also,
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Speaker 1: I hate to say it, but our previous episodes on
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Speaker 1: Why Shenton't have colored my perspective a little bit of him.
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Speaker 1: I always picture him like kind of three beers deep
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Speaker 1: just because of that agg I know it's probably not true.
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Speaker 1: You know that boozy egg, now man, that stuff packs
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Speaker 1: a wallop. We always get a jar of it each
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Speaker 1: Christmas from our buddy Alex Williams, and a jar will
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Speaker 1: do you no question about it, do you? In in fact?
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Speaker 1: The wind indeed? And Abigail Adams, another historical luminary, was
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Speaker 1: home in a beautifully named town called Braintree, which uh
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Speaker 1: was very visual, and her husband John was on his
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Speaker 1: diplomatic mission in Europe, and she wrote her musings on
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Speaker 1: the Dark Day, in which she spells Friday with a y.
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Speaker 1: I guess that was a thing. I love it. So
12:49
Speaker 1: some of this early, you know, American kind of journaling
12:53
Speaker 1: always almost has this like whiff of old English kind
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Speaker 1: of Canterbury tales. That's to it. Um. So she says,
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Speaker 1: I'm hi day, the nineteenth of May. The sun rose
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Speaker 1: with a thick, smoky atmosphere, indicating dry weather, which we
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Speaker 1: had for ten days before. Soon after eight o'clock in
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Speaker 1: the morning, the sun shut in and it rained. Half
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Speaker 1: an hour after that, there arose light luminous clouds from
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Speaker 1: the northwest, and the wind at southwest. They gradually spread
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Speaker 1: over the hemisphere till such a darkness took place as
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Speaker 1: appears in a total eclipse. By eleven o'clock, candles were
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Speaker 1: lighted up in every house. The cattle retired into the barns,
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Speaker 1: the fouls to roost in, the frogs croaks. We got
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Speaker 1: frogs here too, and they're not having this either. The
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Speaker 1: greatest darkness was about one o'clock. It was three before
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Speaker 1: the sky assumed its usual Look, all right, things are
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Speaker 1: returning back to normal. About eight o'clock in the evening,
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Speaker 1: almost instantaneously, the heavens were covered with Egyptian darkness. Objects
13:52
Speaker 1: the nearest to you could not be discerned, though the
13:56
Speaker 1: moon was at her full. I hope some of our
13:59
Speaker 1: philosophical geniuses will endeavor to investigate so unusual an appearance. Yeah,
14:06
Speaker 1: and this is a thing that would stick around in
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Speaker 1: the American you know, collective and conscience for many many
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Speaker 1: years to come. Um. The sun did come out the
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Speaker 1: next day. You know, there was no plague of you know,
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Speaker 1: raining blood from the sky or demons or you know,
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Speaker 1: locusts or whatever. Um, But it was really scary and
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Speaker 1: these pure, very puritanical people, UM would have absolutely been
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Speaker 1: in fear of some sort of you know, judgment day,
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Speaker 1: some sort of doom being meeted down upon them from
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Speaker 1: on high. And you know, we see these theories and
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Speaker 1: these kind of you know, armshare prophecies happening, and of
14:45
Speaker 1: course letter writing because that was the only way people
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Speaker 1: could communicate across long distances. So it took some time
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Speaker 1: before people realized that they had had this kind of
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Speaker 1: shared experience, right then, Yeah, that's right. So, as so
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Speaker 1: often happens with the human species. People could agree on
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Speaker 1: roughly what they saw, but they could not agree on
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Speaker 1: why it happened. And a lot of folks, especially the
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Speaker 1: more religious bent, felt that this was a divine shot
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Speaker 1: across the bow of humanity. You know, this was a warning.
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Speaker 1: One Massachusetts farmer even wrote, oh, backsliding, New England, attend
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Speaker 1: now to the things which belong to your peace, before
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Speaker 1: they are forever heat from your eyes. And the Boston
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Speaker 1: Independent Chronicle called this quote a portentous omen of the
15:39
Speaker 1: wrath of heaven in vengeance denounced against the land, the
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Speaker 1: immediate harbinger of the last day, when the sun shall
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Speaker 1: be darkened and the moon shall not give her light.
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Speaker 1: This is These are just two examples of people who
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Speaker 1: were certain that the end was still coming, that this
15:57
Speaker 1: might have not been the technical and days, but it
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Speaker 1: was the beginning of something else. And then other people
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Speaker 1: try to argue a few more secular causes for this
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Speaker 1: dark day. Uh. Someone said, a blazing start passed between
16:15
Speaker 1: the Earth and the sun. Someone else said there were
16:19
Speaker 1: aqueous sulfurous, bituminous, silinious vitreous particles that were spread into
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Speaker 1: the atmosphere by something. I'm sorry, man, that sounds like
16:31
Speaker 1: some Willy Wonka speak right there. What were those again?
16:34
Speaker 1: Aqueous sulfurous bitsimenius, silidius, vitreous particles. It's got some alchemical vibes.
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Speaker 1: And then one person who I really strongly identified with
16:48
Speaker 1: just said ash. Yeah. Well they said more than ash,
16:51
Speaker 1: but right, right, right right, that makes a lot of sense,
16:53
Speaker 1: you know. But why limit yourself to one word when
16:56
Speaker 1: like seven are available for you to throw around. Um,
17:00
Speaker 1: but yeah, there's another description. Oh gosh, there's some more
17:03
Speaker 1: great words. Uh. One commentator, as documented in this American
17:08
Speaker 1: Heritage article, commented on vast quantities of elastic heterogeneous vapors
17:14
Speaker 1: generated in consequence of the great body of snow which
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Speaker 1: covered the earth so long the winter passed and exhaled
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Speaker 1: during the warm, dry weather. Yeah, that one sounds right.
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Speaker 1: I think that that that's it's not as good an
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Speaker 1: explanation as any, right, Yeah, it's not bad. It's interesting
17:31
Speaker 1: because this became a perfect conceptual venue for enlightenment ideas
17:39
Speaker 1: to debate the pre existing religious ideas and values. You know,
17:45
Speaker 1: there weren't scientific journals or widespread academies yet, but there
17:52
Speaker 1: was this emerging culture of scientific inquiry that was sweeping
17:57
Speaker 1: the Western world, a revolution of its own in a way.
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Speaker 1: And because of this, in part, New Englanders would not
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Speaker 1: forget that dark day. They said many more than seven
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Speaker 1: words about it. It lived on in folklore and poems
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Speaker 1: and diaries. It was mentioned in sermons and churches across
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Speaker 1: the region for generations afterward. And I did a bit
18:20
Speaker 1: of a bait and switch at the beginning of the
18:23
Speaker 1: episode because I said it remains a mystery in the
18:26
Speaker 1: modern day. That's technically true, but there is We're going
18:32
Speaker 1: to go through the theories now, and there is one
18:35
Speaker 1: theory that stands out as by far the most plausible.
18:39
Speaker 1: But first let's talk about the secular stuff. Could it
18:43
Speaker 1: have been a crazy bunch of clouds. Could it have
18:45
Speaker 1: been some kind of eclipse? Could it have been a
18:48
Speaker 1: volcanic eruption half a world away? Well, let's see what
18:53
Speaker 1: what do you think? What do you think about the clouds? No,
18:55
Speaker 1: it could have been just some wackadoo clouds. That seems
18:58
Speaker 1: like a bit of a stretch. It seems like there
19:01
Speaker 1: needs to be more apt play than just like weird clouds.
19:04
Speaker 1: Um But you know, I'm no cloud scientist. I do
19:09
Speaker 1: remember from school there's cumulus, cumulo, nimbus, and stratus. If
19:13
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken. So is this what like another category
19:15
Speaker 1: we're talking about? But yeah, solar eclipse was able to
19:18
Speaker 1: be ruled out because these you know, as we know
19:21
Speaker 1: right from the UH episode about the bait and switch
19:25
Speaker 1: of the gods, even ancient cultures were able to kind
19:28
Speaker 1: of predict when solar eclipses would happen. And this is
19:30
Speaker 1: not a thing. Oh my goodness, gracious, this amazing Icelandic volcano. Naw,
19:35
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do my best. I think we've done it
19:37
Speaker 1: before in the eruption of the Great Icelandic Volcano. I
19:42
Speaker 1: have fall Joe cool. I don't know Icelanders, correct me,
19:48
Speaker 1: but that definitely pumped enough ash into the atmosphere that
19:53
Speaker 1: could have caused something like this to happen. That particular
19:56
Speaker 1: eruption actually grounded flights all across northern year. Um. I
20:05
Speaker 1: actually because of a previous episode of stuff they don't
20:09
Speaker 1: want you to know. I actually did learn the pronunciation
20:12
Speaker 1: of this volcano. I have fat nice you know. I
20:17
Speaker 1: was trying to dig deep back into my memory banks.
20:20
Speaker 1: Uh for that very pronunciation that you um that you gave.
20:23
Speaker 1: But I think I think I felt a little short.
20:25
Speaker 1: But thanks for thanks for clarifying. I still butchered it.
20:29
Speaker 1: So please icelanders right to us, let us, let us know.
20:33
Speaker 1: Hopefully our attempts are at the very least endearing. But yeah,
20:37
Speaker 1: you're right, an eclipse doesn't make sense. Clouds can go
20:42
Speaker 1: low enough to require cars to use their lights their
20:45
Speaker 1: headlights during daytime, but neither of those explain things. And
20:50
Speaker 1: the issue with the volcano comes to us from a
20:53
Speaker 1: guy named Thomas Schullerton who was a professor of atmospheric
20:57
Speaker 1: science at the University of Manchester, and he confirms, yes,
21:02
Speaker 1: ash clouds from volcanoes can cause what we would describe
21:06
Speaker 1: as yellow days. We know that eruptions at Mount St.
21:10
Speaker 1: Helens of Washington State have lowered light levels pretty recently
21:14
Speaker 1: in the past few decades. But the problem here, he says,
21:19
Speaker 1: is that there's no record of volcanic activity in seventeen
21:23
Speaker 1: eighty and so if there was an eruption that can
21:28
Speaker 1: make an ash cloud big enough to create this effect,
21:32
Speaker 1: someone would have known about it. It would be documented somewhere,
21:35
Speaker 1: and it's simply not. He also says, hey, and I
21:39
Speaker 1: love his vibe here. He says it could maybe be
21:41
Speaker 1: a meteorite. It probably isn't, but you can't rule it
21:44
Speaker 1: out completely, which I thought was open minded. But luckily,
21:50
Speaker 1: with the help of our research associate Gave Louisier, we
21:54
Speaker 1: were able to find an eye witness accounts that hinted
21:59
Speaker 1: at a more plausible explanation. And this was cool because
22:03
Speaker 1: it was published on May in the Continental Journal. It's not,
22:10
Speaker 1: you know, so not too long after the events occurred,
22:14
Speaker 1: and most of the letter is a first person accounts
22:20
Speaker 1: of their step by step experience encountering the yellow day
22:25
Speaker 1: that turned into a dark day. But there's a very
22:29
Speaker 1: interesting thing in about the third paragraphers, so where they
22:34
Speaker 1: start looking at the evidence. We get a Batman vibe
22:37
Speaker 1: from this letter writer, because while their description of how
22:41
Speaker 1: they felt watching this is very much the same as
22:44
Speaker 1: every other description, they did something different and they started
22:48
Speaker 1: investigating the scene afterward. That's right. It goes like this.
22:54
Speaker 1: About eleven o'clock, the darkness was such as to demand
22:57
Speaker 1: our attention and put us upon making observations. At half
23:01
Speaker 1: past eleven, in the room with three windows twenty four
23:04
Speaker 1: panes each, all open towards the southeast and south, large
23:09
Speaker 1: print could not be read by persons of good eyes.
23:13
Speaker 1: About twelve o'clock, the windows being still open, a candle
23:16
Speaker 1: cast a shade so well defined on the wall as
23:19
Speaker 1: the profiles were taken with as much ease as they
23:22
Speaker 1: could have been in the night. Huh. At one o'clock
23:26
Speaker 1: a glen of light which had continued till this time
23:29
Speaker 1: in the east shut in, and the darkness was greater
23:32
Speaker 1: than it had been for any time before. Between one
23:35
Speaker 1: and two o'clock, the wind from the west freshened a little,
23:38
Speaker 1: and a glenn appeared in the quarter. So yeah, as
23:42
Speaker 1: I said, that's that's pretty much on par with everything
23:46
Speaker 1: else people have reported at this time. And then they
23:49
Speaker 1: go on to describe the things we've heard before, like
23:52
Speaker 1: the woodcocks, which are night birds whistling, the frogs peeping
23:56
Speaker 1: as they would in the evening, even though it was
23:58
Speaker 1: clearly a time. Here's the kind of Sherlock Holmes E.
24:03
Speaker 1: Batman asked part They say, I will now give you
24:08
Speaker 1: what I noticed. Afterwards. I found the people at the
24:11
Speaker 1: tavern nearby much agitated. Among other things which gave them surprise,
24:17
Speaker 1: you know, besides the fact that the sun disappeared, they
24:20
Speaker 1: mentioned the strange appearance and smell of the rainwater, which
24:23
Speaker 1: they saved in tube in a tube, And this author says,
24:29
Speaker 1: upon examining the water, I found a light scum over it, which,
24:33
Speaker 1: rubbing between my thumb and finger, I found to be
24:36
Speaker 1: nothing but the black ashes of burnt leaves. The water
24:40
Speaker 1: gave off the same strong sooty smell which we observed
24:44
Speaker 1: in the air, and confirmed me in my opinion that
24:47
Speaker 1: the smell mentioned above was occasioned by the smoke very
24:51
Speaker 1: small particles of burnt leaves which had obscured the hemisphere
24:55
Speaker 1: for several days past and were now brought down by
24:58
Speaker 1: the rain. So this person goes on to say what
25:03
Speaker 1: they believe happened was that there was a vast body
25:05
Speaker 1: of smoke from the woods they have been burning for
25:08
Speaker 1: days and days, and then it was condensed by wind,
25:12
Speaker 1: and that this compression of all this junk from this
25:16
Speaker 1: forest fire may have been enough to produce the blackness.
25:21
Speaker 1: So to them, this kind of perfect storm of smoke
25:29
Speaker 1: and wind and weather created the darkness, not the judgment
25:35
Speaker 1: of some divine entity. And they're not the only person
25:38
Speaker 1: who thought this. We have to introduce another guide to
25:41
Speaker 1: this story. A man with the name Cotton Tufts, like
25:45
Speaker 1: a tuft of cotton, that's his real name. He jumped
25:48
Speaker 1: in and echoed the forest fire theory. That's right. He
25:52
Speaker 1: points out that in the woods from Ticonderoga for thirty
25:56
Speaker 1: miles downwards, that's that's his description of it, had been
26:00
Speaker 1: for some time on fire, with drought that lasted many days,
26:05
Speaker 1: and winds at the west and northwest. And he conjectures
26:10
Speaker 1: that these winds carried the smoke and vapors a long,
26:15
Speaker 1: long distance uh and brought them into that vicinity in
26:19
Speaker 1: the New England region UH. And that that the sky,
26:22
Speaker 1: as he describes it, became obscured, the air crowded with
26:26
Speaker 1: smoke and vapors, a disagreeable smell like that proceeds from
26:31
Speaker 1: swamp on fire, which this seems not not too too
26:35
Speaker 1: far off the mark to me. What do you think then, yeah, yeah,
26:39
Speaker 1: I agree. You know, he's clearly putting the pieces together
26:44
Speaker 1: in a rational, understandable way. But it remains a theory
26:49
Speaker 1: for centuries, right, So before the early two thousand's, before
26:57
Speaker 1: about two thousand and six, the idea of a forest
27:01
Speaker 1: fire would still have been mentioned along with things like
27:03
Speaker 1: eclipses or volcanic eruptions or you know, even stranger fair
27:10
Speaker 1: but dindo chronology. The study of tree rings saved the
27:14
Speaker 1: day in two thousand and six, and examination of tree
27:18
Speaker 1: rings in Ontario, Canada confirmed that there had been a
27:22
Speaker 1: widespread forest fire, that it had sent smoke way over
27:27
Speaker 1: into New England, and that coupled with fog and cloud cover,
27:32
Speaker 1: could have combined to produce a weather event just like this.
27:37
Speaker 1: So we owe a great deal of thanks to the
27:41
Speaker 1: researchers at the University of Missouri who say the evidence
27:45
Speaker 1: from these tree rings finally found not just revealed that
27:50
Speaker 1: massive wildfires could cause this, but found where those wildfires occurred.
28:00
Speaker 1: Those rings inside of trees are like a historical record. Uh,
28:03
Speaker 1: they tell the story of the life of that tree
28:05
Speaker 1: and the in the history of what's kind of gone
28:07
Speaker 1: on around it. Aaron McCurry, who's a research assistant at
28:10
Speaker 1: the MU College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Tree
28:14
Speaker 1: Ring Laboratory, that's the thing, she says, we think of
28:18
Speaker 1: tree rings as ecological artifacts. We know how to date
28:21
Speaker 1: the rings and create a chronology so we can tell
28:24
Speaker 1: when there has been a fire or drought occurred and
28:27
Speaker 1: unlock the history of the tree has been holding for
28:29
Speaker 1: years sort of like ice cores, you know, in like
28:31
Speaker 1: more frigid climates. And now two and thirty years after
28:37
Speaker 1: the Dark Day, MU researchers have kind of joined forces
28:42
Speaker 1: and written various accounts um and kind of documented the
28:46
Speaker 1: fire scar evidence to determine that, in fact, the Dark
28:51
Speaker 1: Day was caused by massive wildfires in Canada. Yep, yep.
28:58
Speaker 1: They walk through how they discovered this. So, according to
29:02
Speaker 1: Richard Gayette, the director of the Tree Ring Lab and
29:06
Speaker 1: Research Associate Professor of Forestry over there at the University
29:09
Speaker 1: of Missouri, a fire comes along, heat goes through the bark,
29:14
Speaker 1: killing the living tissue. A couple of years later, bark
29:17
Speaker 1: falls off, revealing the wood and an injury to the tree.
29:21
Speaker 1: And Richard says, when looking at the rings, you can
29:23
Speaker 1: see charcoal formation on the outside and a resin formation
29:27
Speaker 1: on the top that creates a dark spot. So when
29:30
Speaker 1: they studied these tree rings from the Algonquin Highlands of
29:34
Speaker 1: southern Ontario and multiple other locations, they found there had
29:38
Speaker 1: been a major fire. It happened in wait for it
29:42
Speaker 1: is big enough to affect atmospheric conditions and these large
29:45
Speaker 1: smoke columns were carried away into the upper atmosphere. So
29:50
Speaker 1: combining historical accounts with modern technology and physical evidence gave
29:56
Speaker 1: us the opportunity to solve the mystery of New England's
30:01
Speaker 1: darkest day. But luckily we still have a lot of
30:06
Speaker 1: cool poems, a lot of cool folklore from the times
30:09
Speaker 1: before the mystery we know. Isn't it funny? This is
30:11
Speaker 1: also has a lot in common with the frog story
30:13
Speaker 1: and that it generated a lot of poetry. Um And
30:16
Speaker 1: I think we we can end probably on this one
30:19
Speaker 1: from John green Leaf Whittier, which is a person clearly
30:23
Speaker 1: born to be a poet um in eighteen seventy three,
30:27
Speaker 1: And it starts lastly twas on a May Day of
30:30
Speaker 1: the far old year eighty, that there fell over the
30:36
Speaker 1: bloom and sweet life of the spring, over the fresh
30:40
Speaker 1: earth and the heaven of noon, a horror of great darkness,
30:46
Speaker 1: like the night in day of which the New Orleans
30:48
Speaker 1: sages tell the twilight of the gods. And I'd like
30:54
Speaker 1: to follow up with his last standard. Please from that poem,
30:58
Speaker 1: this may well be the day of judgment which the
31:01
Speaker 1: world awaits. Be it so or not. I only know
31:04
Speaker 1: my present duty and my Lord's command. Two occupy till
31:08
Speaker 1: he come. So at the post where he hath set
31:11
Speaker 1: me in his providence, I choose for one to meet
31:14
Speaker 1: him face to face. No faithless servant, frightened from my task,
31:19
Speaker 1: be ready when the Lord of the Harvest calls. And therefore,
31:23
Speaker 1: with all reverence, I would say, let God do his work.
31:27
Speaker 1: We will see two hours bring in the candles, and
31:30
Speaker 1: they brought them in. So Lord of the Harvest is
31:34
Speaker 1: kind of a metal name, very much Christian. Not to
31:37
Speaker 1: mention the twilight of the gods and the Lord of
31:39
Speaker 1: the Harvest, you know that is a super metal at
31:42
Speaker 1: the very least, very jethroats all. But man, this is
31:45
Speaker 1: a fascinating concept, and it's one that we I think
31:50
Speaker 1: we can call this are like fake Doomsday. I wish
31:53
Speaker 1: it was a trilogy. What do you call it? A
31:54
Speaker 1: two part thing? Just a two parter. There's not a
31:57
Speaker 1: fancy word for two things. It only gets fancy when
31:59
Speaker 1: you start three or four there is I think it's
32:02
Speaker 1: a duology. Okay, we could call it a cycle. Perhaps,
32:05
Speaker 1: I don't know, but either way, we had two really
32:06
Speaker 1: cool episodes about apocalypses that didn't happen, but people were
32:10
Speaker 1: pretty convinced we're going to and I think we could
32:13
Speaker 1: have more, you know, peek behind their curtain, folks. Uh.
32:16
Speaker 1: For a while a few years ago, I really wanted
32:19
Speaker 1: to do a series that was all about incorrect predictions
32:24
Speaker 1: of the apocalypse, because you run into the all the time.
32:27
Speaker 1: But something tells me we'll have some more close calls
32:30
Speaker 1: with the end of the world on Ridiculous History, and
32:34
Speaker 1: we can't wait for you to come along with us
32:37
Speaker 1: on this journey. As always, thanks to our super producer
32:41
Speaker 1: Casey Pegrom, our guest producer Andrew Howard, and our research associate,
32:46
Speaker 1: the one and only Gave Lucier there's no other. Alex Williams,
32:49
Speaker 1: who composed our theme. Christopher hasciotes here in spirit soon
32:52
Speaker 1: to be here corporeally. We promised We're not gonna keep
32:55
Speaker 1: teasing that and not follow through. You Just wait and
32:57
Speaker 1: see folks. Huge thanks to Jonathan Strickland. Thanks in quotation,
33:01
Speaker 1: fingers see you against sooning, you murderous cur you um
33:06
Speaker 1: and Ben. Thanks to you. May all your days be
33:09
Speaker 1: merry and bright and not dark and smelly at all.
33:13
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, you go. I'm an overcast guy, but
33:16
Speaker 1: stories like this make me appreciate the sun a little bit.
33:19
Speaker 1: A little I might go step outside a little bit,
33:22
Speaker 1: at least open a window. We'll see you next time, folix.
33:38
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
33:40
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
33:43
Speaker 1: your favorite shows