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Was 536 Really the Worst Year in History? · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it from one of
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  Speaker 1: the best super producers in the game. Mister Max Williams
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: is mister Americ Max Boy. It's Max.
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  Speaker 2: Uh.
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  Speaker 1: That's facts.
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  Speaker 2: That's the song, that's what it was.
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  Speaker 1: That's also mister Noel Brown. They call me Ben Bullen.
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  Speaker 1: We're here at the end of twenty twenty five where
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  Speaker 1: versus the precipice?
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  Speaker 2: Are we on the Precipice twenty six?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're recording on Thursday, December eighteenth, and at this
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  Speaker 1: time of the year, you know what's since we're referencing songs,
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  Speaker 1: you know, this is a time for reflection, looking back
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  Speaker 1: play counting Crow's Long December.
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  Speaker 2: I was gonna say, there is reason to believe that
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  Speaker 2: maybe this year will be better than the last. It
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  Speaker 2: is a reflect I didn't even put that together. It's
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  Speaker 2: absolutely reflective song about the following year.
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  Speaker 1: Ben.
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  Speaker 2: You did this episode research and I think it's actually
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  Speaker 2: really helpful for this time of year, especially given you know,
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  Speaker 2: conditions that maybe we can harken back to a time
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  Speaker 2: that was, you know, unequivocally measurably worse than the time
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  Speaker 2: we're currently living in.
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  Speaker 1: And also no.
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  Speaker 2: Spoiler alert that we survived ah as a civilization.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, there we go, folks, chin up, chest out, thanks
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  Speaker 1: for joining us. It's the end of the year as
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  Speaker 1: we know it, and we feel fine.
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  Speaker 2: Have you seen them the most recent episode of Pluribus
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  Speaker 2: been I have not, actually, so the cold open involves
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  Speaker 2: the main character, Carol, singing in her car as she's driving,
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  Speaker 2: trying to have a chin up attitude about the end
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  Speaker 2: of the world, as is portrayed in that show more
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  Speaker 2: or less, and she gets to the ni feel and
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  Speaker 2: then it cuts off, and that's the cold open. I
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  Speaker 2: just think it's such a clever Vince Gilligan little touch.
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  Speaker 1: I love that guy. I love Vince, so we'll probably
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  Speaker 1: meet him later on this show. We've noted this in
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  Speaker 1: more somber moments, Nolan max that the world is ending
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  Speaker 1: for someone somewhere at every second of every day. And
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  Speaker 1: it's also true to your earlier point, Noel, that throughout history,
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  Speaker 1: one group or another has inevitably claimed this year for real,
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  Speaker 1: this tybet, guys, this year is the actual end of
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  Speaker 1: the world is the worst year ever, it's a fall
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  Speaker 1: of civilization, cats and dogs sleeping together, etc. We are
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  Speaker 1: happy to report, folks to Know's earlier points that so
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  Speaker 1: far throughout human history, all of those apocalyptic doomsday predictions
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  Speaker 1: have been cartoonishly incorrect.
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  Speaker 2: And kats and dogs sleeping together a good thing, sort
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  Speaker 2: of like the lion lying down with the lamb? Or
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  Speaker 2: is that is that a bad sign?
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  Speaker 3: Cats and dog are a bad thing, which is sad
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  Speaker 3: because if you go on YouTube you can find so
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  Speaker 3: many great videos of cats and dogs.
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  Speaker 1: They're great.
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  Speaker 2: Come this morning, So you're saying, once we start seeing
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  Speaker 2: cats and dogs getting along, then the end is nigh. Yes, okay,
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  Speaker 2: we're seeing keep an eye.
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  Speaker 1: That's what people had said, because they were They were
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  Speaker 1: honestly being kind of dickish, a word I wouldn't usually use,
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  Speaker 1: but on both Ridiculous History and our sister show Stuff,
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  Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. We look at a
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  Speaker 1: lot of those culty warnings. Please do check out our
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  Speaker 1: previous episodes for more crazy stories of times people were
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  Speaker 1: wrong about the end of the world.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they got it back where there's always some
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  Speaker 2: caveat what what caused the little mix up and we'll
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  Speaker 2: get it right the next time, and they never really do.
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  Speaker 2: Just here we are, can either of y'all ever seen
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  Speaker 2: in the wild someone carrying the end is nigh sign
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  Speaker 2: on the that's the kind of thing you do see
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  Speaker 2: like in Washington, d C.
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  Speaker 1: Where the Yeah, yeah, I think the stick is lazy.
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  Speaker 1: I miss the old sandwich boards. Landwich boards.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's like, you know, it's got a little
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  Speaker 2: front and a back and potentially the individual is nude underneath.
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  Speaker 2: You know, you never unless you can take a peek
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  Speaker 2: from the side, which I would not advise.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't advise, uh side eyeing sandwich board.
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  Speaker 2: Profits sandwich board crazies. Well, okay, one person's crazy is
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  Speaker 2: another person's profits, Yes, sir.
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  Speaker 1: The next question, though, becomes okay, So first off, yes,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of cult leaders will go and gather a
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  Speaker 1: group of followers and say, yes, the world is ending
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  Speaker 1: September seventeenth or December eighteenth, whatever, And then the date
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  Speaker 1: comes to pass low and behold the world continues, and
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  Speaker 1: they say, actually, we got the math a little wrong.
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  Speaker 1: They'll usually kick it a few years in the future
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  Speaker 1: or even a few months, and they'll say okay, no
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  Speaker 1: for real this time, you guys, it's so January eighteenth totally.
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  Speaker 2: And you know who's been popping up a lot lately
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  Speaker 2: in the pop culture. That Marshall apple White cat remember him? Oh,
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  Speaker 2: I thought you were going to say the shamwell guy,
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  Speaker 2: he's around, But that Marshall apple White, the bigt heead date, Ye,
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  Speaker 2: Heaven's Gate, dude?
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  Speaker 1: That was that?
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  Speaker 2: Was that a doomsday cult technically because they were really
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  Speaker 2: they wanted to get transported away by extraterrestrials. Yes, and
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  Speaker 2: it was an event that was timed with a passage
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  Speaker 2: of a comment, so there is a day and date
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  Speaker 2: to that. But you could argue that it's not apocalyptic
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  Speaker 2: per se, and well it did all die.
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  Speaker 1: They did think there was an apocalypse. The website is
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  Speaker 1: still active because they left a couple of people behind.
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  Speaker 2: God, I bet it's GeoCities af right.
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  Speaker 1: Our next question, though, despite all these weird incorrect predictions,
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  Speaker 1: our next question is a little tougher to dismiss. This
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  Speaker 1: is the focus of our exploration today, folks. Was there
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  Speaker 1: ever a worst year in history? Logically, if you look
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  Speaker 1: at all the years of human civilization, there has to
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  Speaker 1: be one, right, There has to be one worst year ever,
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  Speaker 1: and a lot of us in the audience tonight we're
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  Speaker 1: probably gonna say for various reasons. Yeah, guys, this is
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  Speaker 1: the worst year, just like we said in twenty twenty four,
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  Speaker 1: just like we said in twenty twenty three, twenty twenty two,
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, that's gonna scale two, right, twenty twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty nineteen.
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  Speaker 2: I guess you got to kind of judge the president
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  Speaker 2: based on the events of the past, and we're looking
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  Speaker 2: a little farther back into the past for today's reference point.
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  Speaker 2: But to what you're saying, Ben, I mean, it is
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  Speaker 2: easy to get caught up in the moment, say, gosh,
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  Speaker 2: this year suck that it suck for me personally because
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  Speaker 2: I had maybe some job issues or some money problems,
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  Speaker 2: or family issues, romantic issues, family tragedies, whatever it might be.
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  Speaker 2: We're looking at it much more big picture than that,
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  Speaker 2: and I think a lot of the things that people
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  Speaker 2: are hung up on now are pretty big picture. And
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  Speaker 2: we're not a political show. We're not going to get
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  Speaker 2: into the nuts and bolts of that. But there are
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  Speaker 2: certainly quite a large percentage of the population that are
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  Speaker 2: feeling a certain way about the right now. So We're
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  Speaker 2: going to take you back, back, back, back back to
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  Speaker 2: a time that I think we can all agree, for
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  Speaker 2: various reasons, was worse.
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  Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, maybe future historians will look back and say,
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  Speaker 1: you know, twenty twenty five, twenty twenty four, twenty twenty
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  Speaker 1: three is a worse year whatever, whatever, But as we
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  Speaker 1: are going to see, as you so beautifully set up
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  Speaker 1: in today's episode. No, some current historians, quite a few,
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  Speaker 1: have already picked a winner for the worst year in
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  Speaker 1: human history. Five thirty six CE, they argue, was the
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  Speaker 1: worst year ever knew me, right, Yeah, okay, here we go.
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  Speaker 1: So the year we call five thirty six CE or
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  Speaker 1: d x x x v I if you're.
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  Speaker 2: Nasty now, Ben, I would argue, it would be pronounced
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  Speaker 2: D triple x v I if you were nasty, right,
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  Speaker 2: or the.
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  Speaker 1: Adults only if you're nasty so, or if.
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  Speaker 2: You're just down for some titillating erotic drama.
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  Speaker 1: There we are. It's this year is already fairly unique.
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  Speaker 1: It happened a long time ago. It's a leap year
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  Speaker 1: in the Julian calendar.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, we could pretend ill right, maybe not.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know why the Julian calendar.
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  Speaker 2: The lead dear man, you know how much of an
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  Speaker 2: issue I have with leap year. I don't fel like
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  Speaker 2: aple feast if we're in a leap year. It just
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  Speaker 2: feels like there's an ill wind blow in and Maxis
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  Speaker 2: is nodding his head.
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  Speaker 1: You got that.
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  Speaker 3: Let's let let's see. Let's see you guys remember what
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  Speaker 3: the difference between the leap year and Julian And.
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  Speaker 1: It's ridiculous too. It's ridiculous so much so that we
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  Speaker 1: did an episode about it.
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  Speaker 2: I remember we did the episode. But it will never
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  Speaker 2: be a thing that I'm able to internalize if.
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  Speaker 3: You don't do a leap year when leap year's you know,
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  Speaker 3: obviously every four years, but you don't do it when
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  Speaker 3: it's a when it is a one hundred, so like
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  Speaker 3: fifteen hundred, seventeen hundred, unless it's divisible.
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  Speaker 2: By four hundred.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, so, and it's like, what are they doing here?
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  Speaker 2: It is a fact?
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  Speaker 1: So okay, at the time, people just called five p
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  Speaker 1: thirty six CE the year after the consulship of Belisarius.
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  Speaker 2: That sounds cool. Let's go with that. We'll say it
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  Speaker 2: every time of the I do love a good year
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  Speaker 2: of our Lord, which I know can vary depending on
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  Speaker 2: the lord and the year. So if we wanted to
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  Speaker 2: connect the dots and talk a little bit about what
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  Speaker 2: this thing is, the Belisarius in question is our boy.
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  Speaker 2: Flavius one of my favorite Roman names. I don't know why.
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  Speaker 2: It just makes me think he's got swagger. Flavius Belisarius. Dude,
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  Speaker 2: this guy is a proper war hero. He does have swagger.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a military commander. He was working for
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  Speaker 1: the Byzantine Emperor at the time, Justinian the First. The
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  Speaker 1: Western Roman Empire had already collapsed less than an undred
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  Speaker 1: years prior. Belisarius plays a huge role in regaining a
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  Speaker 1: lot of that territory for the Byzantine Empire.
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  Speaker 2: Go did military cat right? Yeah seriously.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Even now modern war historians will say he's one
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  Speaker 1: of the greatest of all time or goat as we mentioned.
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  Speaker 1: So it's new surprise that for a little bit of
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  Speaker 1: history he had a whole year named after him.
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  Speaker 2: I'm okay with that. It seems earned did others do
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  Speaker 2: it or did he do it? He he did it himself.
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  Speaker 2: He was the thought leader on that way. He killed
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  Speaker 2: a lot of people in the process, and they named
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  Speaker 2: a year after him. I will still argue that he did.
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  Speaker 2: He put the work in, you know, he put the
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  Speaker 2: work in. Yeah, he did the reps for sure. You
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  Speaker 2: don't see these plaques, what plaques, the plaques in the
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  Speaker 2: White House talking about talking about writing your own story again,
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  Speaker 2: try to be political. I just think it's funny. I
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  Speaker 2: just think we're seeing some Roman empire megalem miniaco bay
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  Speaker 2: here in writing your own plaques. Other people sposed to
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  Speaker 2: write those plaques.
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  Speaker 1: Man, Yeah, I don't love it as an apolitical point. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: the the leadership of the United States should represent all Americans.
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  Speaker 2: It's true. And I just also somebody that I love
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  Speaker 2: on YouTube the Internet today guys pointed out that whenever
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  Speaker 2: I see a plaque, I expect for some real dignified
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  Speaker 2: shit to be written, right, dignified.
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  Speaker 1: Something like no shirt, no shoes, no service.
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  Speaker 2: Also, well, you know what, I've never seen that engraved
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  Speaker 2: into brass. But but a plastic plaque is still a plaque.
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  Speaker 1: Oh we go to different gas stations.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, okay, you go to the fancy boy gas way
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  Speaker 2: up on the hill. Oh gosh, we'll fly golden commodes
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  Speaker 2: in the Japanese toilet seats.
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  Speaker 1: Oh geez, I wonder if there's golden the day, it
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  Speaker 1: would be sick.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: If there were more bidezing gas stations, it would keep things.
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  Speaker 1: Cleaner, hopefully. Yeah, on paper it would work.
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  Speaker 2: You real, they do have the days in every public
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: restroom is in the Middle East. Oh yeah, yeah, I
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: mean then they're like wands. They're they're handheld, they're on
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  Speaker 2: the wall.
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  Speaker 1: That's what shower nozzles. Uh. Five thirty six was a
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  Speaker 1: long time ago. We do know a couple of things
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  Speaker 1: about that year. It's when the Chinese Empress Dowager lieh
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  Speaker 1: It was born. Probably, It's when the Emperor of Japan
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  Speaker 1: on Kon died. It's when Pope I Goepettas died. But
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  Speaker 1: those deaths alone are not what inspire historians to call
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  Speaker 1: five three six the worst year. To answer that, to
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  Speaker 1: figure out why people hate this year so much, we
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  Speaker 1: got a journey back and we got to look at
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  Speaker 1: the weather. One day, the sky goes dark.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, we are talking about some of the End is
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  Speaker 2: nine kind of business here. In AD five thirty six,
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  Speaker 2: when a mysterious cloud appeared over the Mediterranean basin, Ben,
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  Speaker 2: I've got to just really quickly. The mysterious cloud has
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  Speaker 2: triggered me. You know the character Galactus in the Fantastic
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: four universe, who's like a godlike entity, an eater of planets.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: Do you know how the Fantastic Four franchise has been
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: sort of plagued in its depiction in cinema, Like the
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: original one I think was in the nineties and it
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: was made by Roger Korman and it was famously shelved
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: for money because it was so bad. Then the second
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: one was also bad, with Michael Chickliss as the thing.
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  Speaker 2: Then the third one I've heard recently referred to as
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  Speaker 2: the one where Galactus is a cloud because it was
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: like just the era where like in the most recent
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: one where he's this giant, you know, monstrosity, this like
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: what do you call it, like lovecrafting and you know,
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: entity transformer type figure, they didn't have the they didn't
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: have the tech for that in two thousand and one,
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  Speaker 2: so they just made him a cloud. They were darkening
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: sterious cloud.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were harkening back to the Ultimate Galactus. Ultimate
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: we're talking about part of Marvel Universe, which is a.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Little bit it's historically a dark cloud is an ill
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: omen yes, very.
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  Speaker 1: Much so, and people were getting super creeped out by
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: this dark, ultimate galactus level cloud, especially folks like a
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  Speaker 1: Byzantine historian who's often quoted here. His name is pro Copious,
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  Speaker 1: and he wrote, the Sun gave forth its light without brightness,
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  Speaker 1: and it seemed exceedingly like the Sun in eclipse, for
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: the beams it shed were not clear.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the went a bit of a route to get there,
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  Speaker 2: but I think it's like blotting out the sun. He
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  Speaker 2: also wrote that it seemed like the Sun was constantly
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: from that point on it eclipsed, and that during this
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  Speaker 2: time here's are his words, men were free, neither from war,
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: nor pestilence, nor any other thing leading to death. All
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  Speaker 2: things that are not good ben descended upon the planet
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  Speaker 2: and where haralded by this dark, mysterious cloud.
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  Speaker 1: Is crazy that there was not social media at the time.
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  Speaker 1: People would have gone nuts on the internet if it existed.
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  Speaker 1: This cloud. Yeah, this rules in and local climates are
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: cooling temperatures. In the summer of five point thirty six,
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  Speaker 1: they fell several degrees celsius and this created the coldest
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: decade in the past two thousand, three hundred years. Snow
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: was falling in China in summer. In summer, there was
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: snow falling, crops were failing wide rife, as our pal
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Frank would say.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: You would And are you saying the climate was changing.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: I'm saying the climate was chaotic.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: It was, But I'm just saying, like in what we
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: see today that is often described as climate change, not unusual,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: not like historically without precedent, like the Ice Age, for example,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: represented a massive hiccup in the climate. We're talking about here,
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: would be unseasonable in the climate brought on by at
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: the time, surely they knew.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Not what Yeah, and at an incredibly fast rate is
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: overnight kind of stuff, big ol'ponk. From five forty one
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: to five forty two. A pandemic follows on. It's called
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: the plague of Justinian. Guessing Justinian didn't make that one
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  Speaker 1: up himself. That's just you know, he was in charge.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: He gets saddled with the plague blame. Yeah, he's unlike
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  Speaker 1: our war hero. He's in the meeting and he's yelling, you, guys,
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  Speaker 1: I asked for a plaque, not a.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Plague, exactly, with some dignified ish, not one hundred percent
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: this thing that we're talking about, this cavalcade. This agglomeration,
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  Speaker 2: as you'd say, been of bad stuff, absolutely ripped through
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  Speaker 2: the Eastern Roman Empire and wiped out a third to
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  Speaker 2: half of the entire population of that region. So, as
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: you can imagine, this led to some political turmoil. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: downright biblical.
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  Speaker 1: And at this point nobody knew what caused this. This
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  Speaker 1: guy just went dim and dark, and most folks, if
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  Speaker 1: you had a man on the street interview at this time,
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  Speaker 1: they would say it's a punishment from their version of God.
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  Speaker 1: They also did not have the privilege or the opportunity
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  Speaker 1: to really investigate this horrific mystery because everybody was too
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: busy trying to stay alive, yeah, or just you know,
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  Speaker 1: dying or die. Yeah. Yeah. Picture your ten favorite people,
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  Speaker 1: five of them are gone. This is like, since we've
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: referenced Marvel films, this is like the Thanos snap, you
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: know what I mean.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: The Thanos snap or the Bowlin pop. Yes, exactly, I
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: appreciate the Bullen pop. It would take centuries of later
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: research to figure out what happened and how this global
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: disaster came to be. Ever since the nineteen nineties, when
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: scientists looked at tree rings studies or Dendo chronology. They
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: found something interesting. They said, Wait, the summers around the
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: year five forty CE or AD, whatever your preference is,
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: we're unusually cold. What happened before we get to the.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Really dark, dangerous part here, folks, As we said at
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: the top, your safe humanity survived. Humanity went on to
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: invent all sorts of neat stuff like velcros, synthesizers, radio,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: even podcasts.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Velcrow is just the best. Yeah, it's pretty, it's it's
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: a sticky wicked for sure. It makes a satisfying sound
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: when you separate the pieces.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, one for all our sensation of friends in
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: the crowd. Historians returned to this question of what made
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: five thirty six so specifically enormously cartoonishly bad, and they
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: started to crack some interesting theories. Noel, could we go
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: to the medieval historian Michael McCormick.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Man, we must. Michael McCormick is an authority on these matters,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: and he had this to say, along with his pal,
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: a glaciologist named Paul Maiuski, and they're operating within an
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: organization called the Climate Change Institute of the University of Maine,
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: leading a team investigating all sorts of things, among them glaciers.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: So we're talking about using glaciers to measure historical events.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Probably not exactly the same as like ice cores, but
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: you know, definitely there are things contained in glaciers that
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: are that represent events from the past, you know, various
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: compositions of minerals and chemicals and might whatever it might be.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: So through an intense analysis of these ice it would
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: be ice cores from a glacier over in Switzerland, they
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: determined that the doomsday level events that swept Europe, Asia
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: and the Middle East, it was unavoidable and perhaps just
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: a taste of the awfulness to come timeline. I don't
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: know that we've gotten there yet, but yeah.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: It's a real ristler coaster. Yeah, it's a real roller
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: coaster today. Like you said, inevitable, unstoppable, right, the all
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: pass have led you to me the answer to the
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: riddle of what made five thirty six just so bad?
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Volcados not just one a combo move of multiple volcanic eruptions.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: There was one that was believed to be properly in
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Iceland maybe another way in North America that spewed ash
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: across the entirety of the northern hemisphere early in the
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: year of five thirty six, followed by two other massive eruptions,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: one in five forty one in five forty seven. And
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: this team, they've got some great work published in a
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: journal called Antiquity. They say the repeated blows, followed on
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: by a plague, plunged Europe into economic stagnation that lasted
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: well until six forty and then there was a spike
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: they could find red again. They're reading the ice the
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: way you would read rings in a tree. They say
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: there's a spike in airborne lead that marks the resurgence
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: of silver mining. So Nola first. Our next question becomes
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: what makes these eruptions so dangerous? And maybe to answer that,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: we get to lean on our house stuff works hats.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, because they are quite sturdy, those how stuff works hats,
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: so we can lean right on them. When a volcano erups,
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: its spew sulfur something called bismuth, which sounds like a
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: material you might find in the pits of Hell and
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: other substances, way way up into the atmosphere, where they
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: become aerosolized and form like a kind of bubble, a veil,
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: as it's often referred to. That can reflect the Sun's
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: light back out into space, cooling the planet, which you know,
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: when you said cooling, that sounds like relatively monocuous, but
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: we're talking extreme levels of cooling.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a great point about
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: cooling sounding way less catastrophic than it is. These guys
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: were able to match the ice record of those chemical
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: traces you know in this ice core with tree bring
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: records of climate. And this is where we go to
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: a guy named Michael Siggle who was at the University
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: of Berne for a long time, and they found something predictive.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: They said, look every pretty much every unusually cold summer
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: over the past two thousand and five hundred years was
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: directly preceded by a volcanic eruption. That's what inspired Mayeuski
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: and McCormick. In twenty thirteen, Biyuski's team took this seventy
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: two meter long ice core from the Swiss Alps and
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: they used in ultra high resolution method to what's the
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: best way to say this, we're not experts. They took
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: a laser that could carve very tiny slices of ice,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: and with that they were able to say, look at this,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: at this period of time for just a few days
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: or a few weeks there was snowfall right or they
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: could tell the weather with that level of sophistication, accuracy
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: and fidelity, and it was a frightening time capsule. You know,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: they saw two thousand years fall out from volcanoes, Saharan
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: dust storms, human activity, and it's right there in the
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: center of Europe. This is nuts, man, They were watching
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: an action movie montage.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just like really slowly, like the paint drying version
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: of an action movie montage. But we're glad that there
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: are smarter people than us that can do the work
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: there with the ice cores and all of this analysis
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: that takes a lot of discipline, into detail and patience.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: So each of these samples, some fifty thousand from each
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: meter of the core, were analyzed for about a dozen
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: different elements of you know, checking to see where they
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: fell in the timeline that you can you know, kind
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: of put put together from analyzing these ice cores. The
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: approach enabled the team to pinpoint specific storms, specific volcanic eruptions,
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: and lead pollution down to the month with absolute precision,
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: or at least really really close to being right on
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: the money within a month or possibly even less within weeks,
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: so more research was to follow.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, here's what we found. It seems that the wind
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: and weather systems back then in five thirty six must
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: have been just right, just perfect for an apocalypse. It
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: guided the plume of this volcanic eruption southeast across Europe
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: later into Asia, and this vulcan canic fog rolled across
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: the land. There was, to be fair, there was nothing
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: civilization could have done to prevent this, and if something
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: like this happened today, there is little that modern civilization
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: could do to stop it. We're we're basically four volcanoes
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: away from the end of the world, for sure.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: And I guess we think of things we could do
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: as a society, as a civilation civilization to prevent these
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: kinds of things. I think the mind often jumps to
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: conservation efforts, and you know, reducing pollution and closing the
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: hole in the ozone layers of This is beyond any
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: of that, Yeah, right, Ben, This is not man made
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: or contributed to by any activity of human beings.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is past the pay grade of the Homo
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: sapien for sure. We don't want to lose hope, you know,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: we want, we want to dream big. It's a long
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: December for everyone. There's a meason to believe, there's a
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: reason to believe there's something new and on the horizon, hopefully.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Five point thirty six was certainly unusual, It was certainly tough.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: It led to a terrifying decade of chaos, but humanity
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: soldiered on. And the same research that taught humans about
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: volcanic eruptions also gives insight into how and when civilization recovered,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: because the same ice that tells the story of disaster
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: tells the story of humanity getting back on its feet.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Well, I think we all love a good comeback story.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, obviously, you know, with the atomic bombs dropped
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: on Japan, it was an absolute horrific event that's annihilated
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: most aspects of that civilization. But we also know that
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: the recovery and the rebuilding of Japan led to insane
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: advances and led to them being like top of the
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: heap in terms of technology and innovation and culture. And
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: you know, I just I love a rebuilding story rising
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: from the ashes. So we have that here, of course.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, let's go to Kyle Harper, a medieval and
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Roman historian at the University of Oklahoma. He says, if
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: you look through these ice cores, you have a new
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: kind of record for understanding one of the most beautiful
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: words here, understanding the concatenation of human and natural causes
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: that led to the fall of the Roman Empire. And
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Kyle says, if we could be familiar with you here,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Kyle Kyle says, this also shows us the earliest stirrings
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: of a new medieval economy. There was a spike. It
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: led in six point forty. There's another great name we
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: got to bring up here in an archaeologist called Christopher
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: love Luck. What a cool last day.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Sounds like a Harry Potter character, Very very cool. But
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: this also is connected to a story that we talked about,
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: I believe it was this year on our sister pod.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Something I want you to know when we do our
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: strange news segments about newer analysis of these lead levels
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: showing that lead contamination led to cognitive decline in the
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Roman Empire. That's not the same thing we're talking about here.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: We're talking about things well beyond the realms of intellect.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: But we could also argue that what led to a
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: decline in their powers was also brought on by lead levels.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, making them dumber. Yes, yeah, yeah yeah.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Check out our upcoming stuff they'll want you to know
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: episode about the proposed connection between lead levels and serial killers. Again,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: like you were saying, Noel, a little bit outside the
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: scope of this episode, but we're always going to be closing.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: And we're looking at the lead levels here as a
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: positive because it represents new industry that was emerging.
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Our buddy Christopher Loveluck over at the University of Nottingham
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: points out that these led levels are smoking gun evidence
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: of mining. So silver is smelted from this lead or
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: the lead is a sign that silver is back in business,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Silver is back in demand. The economy is rebounding from
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: these volcanic eruptions. You see another lead peak in six
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: point sixty. This means there was a ton of silver
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: going into the medieval economy, and it suggests that gold
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: became increasingly scarce because more people were trading, so you
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: had to move to silver. In essence, we don't have
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: any more Coca cola. Would you take a pepsi?
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: No, I'd rather start, I'd rather die thirst. You're not
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: a pepsi guy, not onlike pepsi, not on like pepsi. No,
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: it insists upon itself, it really does. It's just it's
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: very syrapy. It's not my thing. And it also could
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: well be just where we live and the loyalty I
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: think we all have for the cocup.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: In here and say, I don't really feel much loyalty
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: to coke.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Now, I think.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying. It's it's like I don't really
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: even drink so that much. I don't really feel that
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: much loyalty to coke. And I think coke is vastly
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: spirit of pepsi. It's just it. It does. It insists
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: upon itself. It is the hata odyssey of sodas.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Oh yo, you got me back. That was a roller
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: coaster commet. You're manipulating me so well.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: You know else kind of insists upon themselves. The upper
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: middle class.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Ah, yes, yeah, I lovel merge.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: We don't we with that merchant class?
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, love Luck argues this is the Rise of the
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Merchant Class.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: Which is the most boring Marvel movie title of all.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Time, The Rise of the Merchant Class. I love, I
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: love ten minutes of it. I don't know if I
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: love two hours of it.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't need it.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Just give me a YouTube review, right for sure.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: That's how we do our recent But there was a
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: cool YouTube you linked to Ben in this research from
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Weird History, which is a great channel. In the videos
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: called year five thirty six was the worst year to
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: be alive? What happened? Right?
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah? In that video, which cites some of the research
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: we're citing here as well. We ultimately conclude the ice
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: has a lot to say for those who know how
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: to listen, and it shows us another Just following the
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: lead patterns is so weird because it shows us another
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: tough time in history. Lead vanishes again during the Black
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Death from thirteen forty nine to.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Thirteen to fifty three. You know, you got to weigh
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: out a little bit. You gotta got lead or we
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: got the Black Death, right right, one or the other.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: I said, a plaque, not a plague. It would be
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: insult to injury if we had both, is all I'm
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: getting it, you know. Yeah, rising lead levels and the
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Black Death that would be just too much. But yeah,
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: black Death, I'm not meaning to make light. That was
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: another gnarly historical wiper outer of populations.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was not a great day for most people.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: But this so we've solved the case, right, the boffins
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: have figured out that five point thirty six became a
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: terrible year that launched a thousand ships of disaster because
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: of volcanic eruptions. But is it the worst year ever?
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Is it alarmist or a hyperbolic to call it that?
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Maybe a little?
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, the worst anything ever is in its very
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: nature hyperbolic. That is what that is.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, things.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: Could always get worse. We also don't, well, I guess
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: we are talking about things that have happened. So if
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: you did the math, there's probably some arguments that could
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: be made that you could unequivocally rank it as s
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: tier worse year.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Jbe what of right, definitely one of the worst years.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: It reminds me a little bit of that poem by W.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: H Auden about the Old Masters. In the poem, he's
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: talking about this painting where Icarus is falling from the
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: sky because he got.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Too close to the sun.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the biggest, the twist of it, to spoil
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: this poem is that there's also a boat in the painting,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: and the people on the boat do not care that
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Icarus is falling. Their life is fine. So there are
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: populations in other parts of the world that don't know
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: five thirty six is the worst year ever because they
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: don't even have the calendar that tells them it's five
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: thirty six.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: It's a good point.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: They're just alive. And they might hear a traveler from
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Afar who's who's like, hey, I'm from what we call
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: the world it's Western Europe spoiler, and everything's terrible there,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: and they're like, hey man, we're fine, you know, welcome
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: to Botswana.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, in theory, we are fine. If you've
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: ask forward to this year being on the cusp of
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty six, we are still sitting here in twenty
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: twenty five. Humanity has you know, persevered as we are
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: wont to do. Broken a lot of eggs in the
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: process of making that what is it? Civilizational omelet?
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Nailed it, nailed it ten ten no notes. I like it.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: I made an omelet this morning. It's on my mind.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: You did you make an omelet on a work day?
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: I make an omelet in the morning. Yeah, I'm working
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: from home. I cook a nice little breakfast, made some
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: bacon and an omelet.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: That's coffel.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I like fun. So we you make an omelet
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: on a workday that allowed on the weekend. That's crazy, man,
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: too hard, cool night, Nolan.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Nolan and I are friends because we have vastly different
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: religions and philosophy, and we have vastly different morning routine. Right,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Why do I sound scandalized?
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: It was funny. I have to question it, but I'm
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: here for it, man. And then a workday not help
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: you if you put any garlic in it?
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. I have so many questions that we
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: have to save for off air. And I love I
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: love getting to know you.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: Oh so we're here for Yeah, podcasting is all about
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: but we're we're here making omelets literal and figurative. We
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: do still have some issues. Was the climate does seem
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: to be approaching levels of unpredictability that we've described in
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: this aforementioned worst year ever. Experts cross the planet are
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: proposing some pretty wild solutions as well. We remember that
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: guy we talked about this recently on Stuff that I
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: want you to know, who like he was just a guy.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: He wasn't even like had no authority or was an
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: expert really, but he suggested like detonating an atomic beyonderground,
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: and that it would have some crazy effect of like
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: reducing pollution or I don't remember exactly, but I just
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: do remember that there was some there were some experts
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: saying it's crazy, but it just might work.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Yeahs, nuclear weaponry, NU clear technology is the shiny new
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: toy right up there with large language models are so
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: called artificial intelligence. So logically, a lot of people said,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know, man, maybe we nuke stuff, Maybe we can.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Maybe nukes are the solution to all those problems we
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: created and cannot solve. But in that spirit, Noel. One
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: of the most well researched outlandish solutions is something we
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: talked about in a recent episode of Stuff They will want,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: you know, Stratospheric aerosol injection or SAI. The ideas you
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: can just wish wish a lot of solid particle aerosols
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: into Earth's stratosphere and then that can help mitigate global warming.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: That we're talking a fleet of airplanes, six thousand flights
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: every day, thirty eight million metric tons of sulfur dioxide
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: or similar stuff. Basically, the proposal is to artify create
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: conditions similar to five thirty.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: Six c Can I just backcheck one split second, because
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: I think people are wondering. The dude I was talking
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: about was a twenty five year old Microsoft software engineer,
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: so an expert in something but not a climate change,
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: and he proposed, yeah, a precision detonation of a nuclear
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: bomb under the ocean that would quote, according to NDTV
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: dot com, viscerate the carbon absorbing rocks that make up
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: the seabed and causing rapid rock weathering at a scale
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: substantial enough to make a meaningful dent and atmospheric carbon levels.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: It was also published in a non peer reviewed website,
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: not even a journal, a website. Just sorry, I just
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: I was reminded of this, this crazy idea, among many
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: other crazy ideas to do something about you know, what's
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: going on with the climate.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: So what we're telling you here, folks, is essentially that
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: people are attempting to artificially create a vault canic winter
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: like back in the halcyon days of five thirty six CE.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: What do you think, pretty good year? Is it time
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: to roll the dice? Should we bring back five thirty six?
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: Just talk about retro? Right? Should we bring back five
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: thirty six? Well, we will talk about that and more
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: much more in the future as we're bringing in twenty
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: twenty six. Thank you as always for joining us on
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: our mad continuing adventures to boldly go into the most
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: ridiculous of history.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: Are we mad cap? Ben?
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: I think so?
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: Would we qualify?
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: We call these mad cap adventures. We can we even
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: go so far as to call them capers. Perhaps I
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: love a caper. Yeah, I love a heist.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gonna start it on a heist, and even
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: a caper just on a bagel. You know, I'm done.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: You love a caper? I love a caper. It's a
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: delightful little what do you call like a bubble of flavor,
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: almost like a fish egg.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there we go. That's a good comparison. We also
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: love you folks for supporting our little show and tuning
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: in with us. Give us a review.
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it all means, give us an end of the year,
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: give us the gift of a nice review, a little
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: at a boy, you know, help the sleep there it is.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: And we also want to give a big shout out
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: to our super producer, mister Max Williams, who cuts a
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: clever figure in a suit.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: We just cuts a real nice figure and he cuts
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: a mean podcast. Yeah, he also cuts. He'll cut you
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: if you look at him.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: Funny, Oh, behave and big thanks to our composer Alex Williams.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: We're going to yoga together tonight, me and Alex. Oh,
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: we're doing a yoga m and ages. I'm looking forward.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. We also want to note that Jonathan Strickland
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: ak the Quister, did not show up to our holiday party.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: You know what. He didn't. But he's also allergic to
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: alcohol and shellfish, and both of those things were on
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: offer at this event, So he may well have died.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: Perhaps perhaps he may well have choked him, chook the
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: life right out of him.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: Well, he's contractually obligated to come back from the dead
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: and appear appear on Ridiculous History, so stay tuned for that.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: A ghost of Christmas future. Who do you think which
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: ghost would would would would he be? Or is he
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: just the scrooge of it all? He's the scrooge and
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: he likes that main character energy I want to be.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: Whichever ghost was played by the guy from the New
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: York Dolls who drives the cab the blackout teeth.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we mentioned him previously as well. He's probably
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: one of my favorites too. We also have more people
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: to thank. Eve's jeffco christa vassiotis here in spirit. Yeah,
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: here in Christmas spirit. Nice one. What else should we, guys?
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Should we just be the volcano that.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: We what you want to be? The volcano you wish
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: to see in the world. Yeah, which is hopefully not
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: that many active ones anymore. Well, there are three, there
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: are four of us. There's the three of us recording,
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: there's you joining us at home. So between four volcanoes,
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: we can the world. We can out the sun.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Yes, believe in yourself. There we go. That's a show.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Tune in, uh, tune in later this week. We're gonna
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: get to some stuff we didn't get to in previous
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: episodes across twenty twenty five.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, I like the way you put that. We'll see
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: your favorite shows.