Latest / Ebbs of History / When World War I Stopped… for Soccer
Transcript
- Jason: Welcome to the Ebbs of History, the show where we dribble through the strangest, wildest, and most wonderful stories the past has to offer. And where the offside rule is the only thing we won't try to explain. From haunted hat tricks to extra time executions, you'll laugh, you'll gasp, you'll groan at my impeccable dad jokes, but most importantly, Histiography! Lessons we've learned today. You learn how history is way cooler than your textbook ever told you. We're your history loving hosts, Zoe. Gavin. And I'm Jason. Now, if you've been with us all month, you know we lined up a three part World Cup series our own group stage of history. Time for the Fun Fact Challenge! This day in History! We kicked off in part one with a soccer that helps start a We followed it up with an anthology of gloriously weird matches, and today we blow the final whistle. This is the championship episode. And it might be the most amazing of the three, because today we flipped the whole series on its head. Last time, soccer started a war. Today, soccer helps stop one. So lace up your boots one more time, because this is the ebbs of history. Hey there, history lovers. So glad you're here with us for the finale. Have we been enjoying our ⁓ three part series of soccer? Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah, I've really enjoyed it. learned a lot when I was doing research on some other stuff that happened that didn't make it into the podcast. But yeah, it's been it's been fun. And this story I knew, today's story I knew before, but I didn't know the details. Yeah. ⁓ Which is really interesting because read a book ⁓ called Silent And I don't remember it. Yeah, I feel like it's a very c commonly known ⁓ like piece of history. Right. Especially 'cause it's recency like in the grand like in history it's very recent and it just like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely knew about this. right before this I ⁓ watched this ad for British grocery store in both my history classes ⁓ and I showed that to Gavin and Dad and was just ⁓ that it's just so impactful. ⁓ I I don't even any of the details yet, I'm still like wow. This is just insane. This is good. It really happened. That's what's crazy about it. Yeah. So this, you know, definitely fits into our crazy history, but this one's actually true. You know, a lot of the times we do episodes where the story that's told is not what actually happened. Yeah. A large part of this really all happened. Yeah. There's some little things that didn't happen that we think we you know, that we knew did it didn't. So let's get into it. Yeah. I wanna say another thing. Yeah. because of its recency, I feel like there's a lot less fog ⁓ Where there's little information known. The historiography of it. Yeah. Yeah. A little bit of the fog of history and the fog of war even. Mm-hmm. Yeah. the closer a year ⁓ is to the time that talking about it, there's just more information about it. if we're talking about popes there's not a lot of solid concrete evidence about it. But I mean our past episode, the Radium Girls on this one, there's just so much, there's a wealth of information. Right. Because it's just happened re s more recent. Anything post Gutenberg's invention of the printing press. ⁓ yeah. There's going to be a lot more. Yeah. So I don't know. And here we are a couple hundred years after that. Yeah. At least in my European history class, the main driving point home about the first couple hundred years of that class was ⁓ know the printing press. is s Crucial context to It is. Almost everything. Yeah. Because they d drive home contextualization, talk about the events prior before you start talking about an event now. And most of the time, for those earlier events, the printing press is one of those events that we have to talk about. It changed history. it kinda like kicked off the Renaissance. The printing press, yeah. Yeah. The world before the printing press and after the printing press is two different worlds. Ab absolutely. Kind of like in well, at least my lifetime, pre nine eleven and post nine eleven are two different worlds. And at least in ours pre COVID, post COVID. Yes, exactly. That's probably the best thing. Yep. Yeah. It's your generation's printing press. That's our generation's printing press. Alright, let's get into it. December nineteen fourteen, the first Christmas of World War One. Two armies are dug into freezing mud, close enough to hear each other breathe. And then, for one strange, beautiful day, they put down their guns, climb out of the trenches, and play soccer. This is the Christmas truce of nineteen fourteen. Alright, picture the worst sleepover ever. You're outdoors in December in Belgium. You're standing in a ditch full of freezing mud and rainwater. Rats are your roommates. You haven't had a real bath in weeks. And about a football field away, sometimes way closer, there's another ditch full of guys who have been ordered to shoot at you. This was the Western Front of 1914. World War One was only about five months old, and everyone had been promised it would be over by Christmas. quote unquote. Spoiler, it was not over by Christmas. By the end of 1914, hundreds of thousands of young men were already gone. The trenches stretched for around 400 miles. Nobody was winning. Everybody was cold, miserable and homesick. Here's something most people don't realize though. The soldiers had already been quietly going easy on each other for weeks. Both sides ate meals at the same time, so nobody shot during dinner. Patrols would accidentally not notice each other. It even had a nickname. Live and let live. people use today. Yeah. Came from that. They basically just protesting the war. A little bit, absolutely. Mm-hmm. So the trenches weren't quite as nonstop explosions as the movies make look. Now, Gavin, if you were stuck in a freezing mud ditch on Christmas Eve, what's the one sound that would probably absolutely ⁓ wreck you? It's Christmas Eve. You're freezing, just sitting in this trench, and you start to hear something, and it just what what what one thing could you hear would wreck you? Like sleigh bells. Sleigh bells. Just like the sound of Christmas. Singing. I'd be yeah. Yeah. It was singing. The soldiers started hearing singing. Here's how it started. Late on Christmas Eve, something lucky happened. The rain finally stopped. And the cold froze all that horrible mud into a hard surface, almost like a floor. Hold on to that detail because it matters later. Then the British Tommies, was their nickname, noticed the German trenches were glowing. The Germans had stuck little Christmas trees up on the edge of their trenches, lit with candles, and they were singing Christmas carols. One German soldier who stood up to sing happened to be professional opera singer from Berlin. On the clearest, coldest night you can imagine, Stille Nachte or silent night, drifted across the dark. And here's a great bit. A British officer with the Scots Guard heard it and basically went, ⁓ it's a sing off now. and ordered his men to fire back, with a louder carol. But instead of a musical battle, the two sides just slid into harmony. Good King Wenceslas, Otling Zine, enemies singing the same songs in the dark. One soldier rode home that it felt like a waking dream. By the way, the Germans were committed to Christmas. They didn't just decorate trenches. There are accounts of German submarines getting tiny Christmas trees too. Somewhere out in the freezing Atlantic, a war submarine was decked out like the department store window. So the singing leads to shouting, friendly shouting. The Germans yell stuff like, Merry Christmas, Tommy in English, because a lot of them spoke English. Tons of German men had worked in Britain before the war as waiters and barbers and hotel staff. One British soldier said he met a German, heard a perfect English accent, and asked how he spoke it so well. The German grinned and said, Corblimey, mate, I was working in a London hotel when the war broke out. Imagine travelling across a war to bump into a guy who used to work down the street. That's crazy. From a different I'm opposing side as well. Yeah. That's crazy. It's almost like hey, I know you. Yeah, that's crazy. Now do either of you know what no man's land is? ⁓ why and why they called it that. I know, I know. Gavin, go for it. I know you know it's over. I just read a part of the horrible histories book, The World War One, about no man's land. ⁓ good. It was basically just the area between the two trenches ⁓ and Pi basically just kind of the battleground. Yeah. I mean if you went there. If it was like bombs underground, right? Like people they wouldn't go 'cause it's no man's land, like no one wants to go there. That's right. It's a deadly strip of land between the two armies. It was called that because it was unclaimed, unowned, and too dangerous for any human to safely occupy or cross without facing almost certain death. So, eventually somebody gets brave. A German voice calls out come over here and a British sergeant shouts back the greatest negotiation line in history. You come halfway, I come halfway. And they did. Men climbed out of their trenches, slowly, nervously with their hands empty, and walked into no man's land, the place that the day before meant instant death. And they just ⁓ shook hands. What happened next is bananas. They traded stuff. The Germans handed over sausages, beer and cigars. The British handed over chocolate, plum pudding, and bully beef. Do you know what bully beef is? No, but can I guess it's probably like liverwurst? Okay. Gavin, any guesses? ⁓ probably some like amalgamation of like different meats and organs. Mystery meat. Tubes. You're you're definitely on the right track, and you know what? You're probably one hundred percent right. But it's canned salty beef that tastes exactly as glamorous as it sounds. No, what isn't the salty beef? A lot of the British treats came from Princess Mary boxes. Little brass tins of goodies sent to every soldier. Fun fact, that gift box idea came from Princess Mary, who was at the time seventeen years old. A teenager organized the biggest care package in the British Empire. One German newspaper joked that the trenches had survived a fierce and terrible onslaught of Christmas packages, with one poor soldier taking a salami straight to the stomach. Soldiers swapped buttons of their own uniforms as souvenirs. ⁓ swapped hats. but you don't die you get to keep ⁓ Right, it's it's true. ⁓ Some swapped addresses, promising to visit after the war. And then there's the barber. Multiple accounts describe a guy setting up shop right there in no man's land, giving haircuts, charging a couple of cigarettes, and not caring whether the customer was British or German. Hm. One British soldier supposedly recognized the barber as the same fellow who used to cut his hair back at home. ⁓ my god, that's just like so the British person the German man ⁓ Was the person yeah. I you So yeah, the British soldier recognized the German barber from back home. ⁓ god, because Because Germans were working in in Britain before the war. The barber was the one that cut his hair. Yep. That's like what a coincidence. That's kind of the same thing as you worked across the street before the war. It's that kinda stuff. they were just there. ⁓ So picture A chill holiday trim from an enemy soldier and it's totally fine. Gavin, would you let the other team cut your hair? if I were in the situation, yeah, probably. Yeah. You gotta read the room, right? Yeah. Yeah. You gotta leave your hatred behind ⁓ and you and read the room. 'Cause everybody's friendly at this time and ⁓ honestly, all soldiers that are in the trenches don't wanna be there. They don't wanna be there. They're not there because they hate the person across the no man's land from the world. You said at the start like most of them were going out of their way to Yes. Like not holding the not shoot other people. Yeah. This is you know, these are the countries, the leaders that are making all these soldiers do their dirty work. but we should be honest about the heavier too. A big reason both armies wanted the truce ⁓ was to finally collect friends who had fallen no man's land the past weeks. In some spots a British chaplain led a joint funeral. English on one side, a young German divinity student into German on the other, every head bared, reading Psalm twenty-three together. Enemies ⁓ standing in silence, ⁓ burying each other's dead. And then the part you've been waiting for ⁓ the soccer. ⁓ what was the thing about the funerals? Like who did it? ⁓ It ⁓ a chaplain. ⁓ And then a young German divinity student, meaning he's going to be, you know, a priest or whatever in the future, translating into German. So they did like a joint funeral funeral, yeah. Okay. Here's a legend. The quick version that everyone thinks they know. A real, organized soccer game. England vs. Germany, right in the middle of No Man's Land. Goals, teams, the works. And in the most told version, Germany wins 3-2. Now, after 27 episodes, you two should know how to think critically about history. So let's put that legend on the witness stand. Zoe, do you think the Christmas True Soccer Game is? as I just said it, actually happened. No. I think it was much less organized. Okay. It was just kind of a hodgepodge. Well here, wait, I have a ball. A pod wasn't even a soccer ball. It was probably just a ball that they had in their trench and was like, hey, let's play with this. You're exactly right. So the answer is kind of. It actually happened. Yeah. But not in that way. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The real version is better than the legend actually. ⁓ First. ⁓ The gorgeous photo you always see of soldiers playing soccer at the front, the one I showed you guys at the beginning of the show. Mm-hmm. The most famous photo tied to this event. Historians figured out it's almost certainly from Greece in nineteen fifteen. So it's not even from the front. I mean at least it's kind of in the same year. Wrong place, wrong year. Wrong place, but it's like it's only a year off, right? Yeah. I guess. And it's in December. I would call it the same year. But different place. So the f most famous proof isn't proof at all. And a true eleven on eleven game would have been nearly impossible. The ground was full of shell holes, barbed wire, and well, dead people. Wait, but the frozen over mud because of all the rain. Yeah, but they Was it not only? There's still holes from shelling in the ground. It froze like that. It didn't freeze over like a you know A c like a bowling alley, right? It didn't freeze over like a lake, it froze over like a no man's land. It just it was mud and it froze the the way it was. So it's craggy and not smooth. But here's the fun part. We have real eyewitnesses. One British soldier interviewed years later was asked flat out, was it a proper football? He said it was a proper football. Not a team game, he stressed, just a giant chaotic kick about a couple hundred guys having a go. Somebody standing in as goalie. Another veteran asked if he'd kicked the ball. And he said, ⁓ yes, I had a go at it. I was pretty good then at nineteen. A German lieutenant from a Saxon regiment wrote that the Tommies pulled out a ball, they used their caps to mark the goals on the frozen mud, and the Saxons won three to two. Do you guys know what Saxons mean? It's like the Anglo Saxons. Is it just word for English people? It is not. ⁓ Saxons? That's so ang you're right with the Anglo Saxon. But Anglo Saxon ⁓ is two different coming together. The Angles ⁓ And the Saxons so it's just the Saxons. And the Saxons came from Germany into England. and it's the Anglo Saxons. ⁓ I forgot about that, I'm not gonna lie, about like it was the Germans that came over, like they came from Saxony. And my favorite one? In one sector, a group of Scottish Highlanders challenged a Saxon regiment to a game. And the Germans reportedly lost it laughing every time a kilt flew up and revealed that the Highlanders were, let's say, very committed to the tradition underneath. Hm. Do you understand what I just said, bud? Mm-hmm. They were not wearing underwear. They were not wearing underwear. They had kilts. Yeah. So no, there probably wasn't one big official championship with a referee and a trophy. Of course not. It's a war. But yes, up and down that entire frozen front, enemies absolutely booted a ball around together. Which when you think about it, where they were standing, might be the most amazing pickup game in human history. hundred percent. Yeah. now, not everybody was charmed. In one Bavarian unit, the men talked going out to meet the British and one grim corporal snapped at them. First, do you guys know what Bavarian means? No. Okay. ⁓ It's another word for German. It's a it's a region in Germany. ⁓ called Bavaria. it's the Bavarian forest in the southern part of Germany. Okay. Like on the border of Austria. Okay. ⁓ So one grim snapped at them. Such a thing should not happen in wartime. Have you no German sense of honor left? The night before that soldier had refused to join his unit's Christmas service. ⁓ Any idea who this was? Gavin. ⁓ Someone that wanted the war. Okay. Zoe, you got any guesses? Like a general. His name was Adolf Hitler. ⁓ I forgot he fought in World War One. He did. ⁓ my. Uh-huh. He was there and he ⁓ god. And he was the guy refusing to have fun. Tracks. Uh-huh. File that one away. And the High Command, they were horrified. The Pope? Pope Benedict the fifteenth had actually asked for a Christmas ceasefire weeks earlier, and the government said no. They did it anyways. So when the soldiers made their own peace, the generals lost it. One British general grumbled in an official memo that it showed an apathetic state. Basically, stop being nice, you're bad at war. So this goes right back to what we were saying that these are the soldiers that are doing the work of the higher ups. Yeah. Yeah. These are the soldiers that are on the ground actually dying and they're there, you know? I was not expecting that. I know, right? I I when I found that fact, I was like, ooh, that's a good one. I didn't know he was there. Like at that specific spot. Because it was a very specific spot that just happened at it. It kind of was. It wasn't all over, but it was it was It's a stocky game. Not just one little spot. It kind of spread throughout the lines. That's heartwarming. Yeah. That's nice to hear. That it people weren't just heartless. So the generals shut it down. In some places the truce lasted a day, in others a few days. One account I love. A British soldier said his game got cut short because the artillery behind the lines had orders to fire anyway. So somebody had to jog over and apologize to the Germans first. In another spot, an annoyed officer literally fired a shell over the soccer field to break it up. Imagine your game getting cancelled by a cannon. mean, today that'd be a pretty good reason to postpone a game. Right. But ⁓ sounds crazy. It And it never happened again. Not like this. The next Christmases, commanders deliberately ordered shelling and threatened court-martials so the magic couldn't return. The war turned crueler too. Poison gas, bigger bombardments. The Christmas truce of 1914 stayed a one-time thing. A single day when a bunch of cold, scared, homesick young men looked across the mud, decided the other guys were people too. And chose to sing and swap haircuts and kick a ball instead. Can you have no joy? Ugh. Right. God. In the middle ⁓ ⁓ war, in one day of ⁓ joy fun, they get rid of it. They shut it down. Yeah, and the people that know that they're not going to die are ordering them to ⁓ go die. Yeah. That's what's ⁓ you tragic about it. Yeah. For a long time the Christmas truce sounded too nice to real. And plenty of people assumed it was a feel-good myth. It's not. We have stacks of letters, diaries, photographs, ⁓ and even recorded interviews with the men who were there. That is rock solid. What's shifted over time is the soccer. Early newspapers ran with a romantic organized match Germany one three two version, and it stuck. Modern historians have gently pumped the brakes. Many matches were rumors passed down the line. The famous photo is from the wrong country, wrong year, and a real eleven aside game on a cratered, body strewn ground would have been almost impossible. The current view lands in the middle. ⁓ Genuine ⁓ Informal kickabouts happened. Just not the tidy tournament of legend. Even how the truces remembered shifted by country. Britain kept telling the story fondly. While in nineteen twenties and thirties Germany, it fell out of favor for clashing with the image of the heroic soldier. It's a great example of how a true event grows a shinier costume each time it's retold, and why good historians always check their receipts. Any lessons, guys, you wanna bring ⁓ Even in war people can find peace. Yeah. The soldiers chose the peace even though the higher ups were completely against it. They chose peace over war. ⁓ did not choose violence that day. Also, hope is such a strong thing. Yes. Like j a spark can light up like ⁓ hope. Mm-hmm. hope is I don't know in the Hunger Games hope is Snow's greatest fear because if they have hope, then that means that they continue ⁓ what's going on. He tries break their spirit so he won't have a rebellion, but do you know what happens? Yeah. I really got just one. ⁓ you guys already hit one that I had written down here. ⁓ So was good. ⁓ it's a gentle one. Even in the coldest, darkest, and scariest place imaginable, kindness found a crack to grow through. A carol, a handshake, a haircut, and a ball. If it could happen there, it really could happen anywhere. time for the fact challenge, new rules. See, I haven't played with these new rules yet, so ⁓ I know. But have. Alright, since this is finale ⁓ of our soccer episodes, gonna give you three tricky ones. You know the rules. Best of three ⁓ You do not have to wait until I finish to lock in. Question one The whole truce kicked off on Christmas Eve with one Carol. Locked in. Silent night. That is correct. ⁓ my god. What was the rest of the question? I have a long question here too. See yeah, because you'll just ramble on about your question. I also wrote this before we changed the rules, so Okay. What the rest of the question? ⁓ the whole shoes kicked off on Christmas Eve with one carol, sung first by a German soldier. What's the carol? Blocked in. Bonus adoration if you can give me the German name. yeah, no. ⁓ I said it. I won't be able to pronoun pronounce that. ⁓ I didn't get it. I don't think I have it. Stila knocked. I could have gotten that if I knew German. Very close. Alright, good job, Gavin. Question two. In the most famous version of the soccer story, the Germans won 3 2. But out in no man's land there was no goalposts and no nets. So what did the soldiers use? They use their hats. Their caps, their hats. Their caps, hats, same thing. I'm used to waiting. 'Cause I like to have my I like to have all the information before I answer the question. I do too. It's I d I absolutely do too. Yeah. Alright, question three. It's kinda like Jeopardy, like they finished the question. Yeah. They don't they like they can't buzz in until the question is finished making Mm-hmm and it doesn't mean anything. Yep. Alright. Question three. This one's just for fun because Gavin's already won. Weeks before Christmas, a world leader had formally asked both sides for an official Christmas ceasefire. The Pope. Pope Benedict. Can I get a regnal number? Pope Benedict. I'm just totally guessing here the fourth. ⁓ Any guess, Gavin, on the on the number? Fifth. Fifteenth. ⁓ my god. Well You you went ⁓ like I was close. I knew it was Pope Benedict. I didn't know it was Usually that's good enough, but there's literally at least fifteen Benedicts, and I think there's eighteen now, to be honest. ⁓ my god. There's a lot of Benedicts. But I think you knew what's Or at least sixteen. So you knew what I was talking about. Yeah. Right now it's Pope Leo the It's Pope Leo. My God, how much popes are there? A lot. There's only one Pope Joe. I'm not allowed to talk about Popes anymore though, so There's only one Pope Joe. That's true. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Today is July sixteenth, seventeen sixty ⁓ Spanish Franciscan missionary Junipero Serra the first California mission on the site of present-day San Diego, Mission San Diego de Ecala. ⁓ the first of an eventual missions up the coast. A big reason so many Californian cities carry the names they do today. ⁓ Including where we live, Los Angeles. Angeles. You guys know all about Or actually Gavin, you don't you don't know too much about the missions as much as Zoe does. Really? Yes. ⁓ all California schools they're supposed to do in fourth grade mission projects. We build our own mission. You build your own mission. We didn't do that. No, you didn't. Because your principal at the time, and I completely agreed with her, ⁓ was a Native American des ⁓ of American descent. And Spanish were the one or the the missionaries were the one that f first started pushing the ⁓ Chumash Indians and things like that out of this area and so she didn't think that it was a good thing to have you guys learn. Huh. Which I kind of agree with it, but at the same time I don't but you know, it that's a that's a that's a gray area one for me. Yeah. I don't remember anything about the missions, so ⁓ if tells you anything about it, I mean ⁓ I was literally You've to a couple. Do you remember which ones? Louis Obispo? that ⁓ Luis Obispo. San Luis Obispo is that is there a mission there? You have not ⁓ ⁓ maybe, I don't know. But you haven't been to that one. Or have you? I've been to I've been to the air. I've been like You're thinking San Clemente. ⁓ Okay. 'Cause we went to a wedding in San Clemente. You went to that one? Yeah. ⁓ ⁓ Yeah, I've been to a couple of them. They're kinda boring to be honest. I know, they're kind of just buildings. They are just old buildings. At least for us. I mean you could say that about cathedrals, honestly. Yeah, but cathedrals are grand and unbelievable. It's not just a building, it's the it's like a van building. The architecture. Exactly. We're flying buttresses and all that kind of stuff. Whereas the missions are just basically mud huts. Yeah. Big mud huts. Really. It's not just history, it's also a good texture. Yes. Yes. I'm just saying like that could be an argument that someone can make. Like same with all the churches you talk about, like Yeah, no, I I agree. I agree. But anyways. Bit different. Yes. All right. Also on this date in nineteen forty one, Yankee slugger Joe DiMaggio goes one for four and stretches his hitting streak to a jaw dropping do you know, Gavin, how many games? Fifty nine. ⁓ so close. Fifty six straight games. ⁓ okay. The very next night, two slick plays by Cleveland's third baseman finally shut him down. But more than eighty years later, nobody has come anywhere close to breaking that record. Wow. Fifty six games in a row he had a hit. That's crazy. Yeah. PCA. I might believe PCA could pick that again. I don't know. He he got up in He's not a hitter. High twenties. recently. I feel like in modern baseball it's near impossible. Yeah it is. The rules are different. Yeah. No no in nineteen forty one the rules were nineteen forty one. Yeah. I thought it was this is modern baseball, so ⁓ but it's analytics now. Yeah. The pitchers ⁓ pitch differently than they did. Yeah. Like the the amount of spin and speed that they can put on it compared to back in nineteen forty one is a astronomical difference. And then last one in nineteen fifty, in front of nearly two hundred thousand stunned fans, ⁓ into Rio's new Maracania Stadium, Uruguay storms back to beat host Brazil two to one ⁓ and steal World Cup. ⁓ Brazil only a draw, the whole country was so heartbroken, they still call it the Americanazo Blow. I'm shock like I saw a video nineteen fifty. I saw a video yesterday showing how much each country has won a World Cup. And I was shocked. Uruguay has won twice. Yeah. it doesn't seem like much, but with the amount of World Cups that there is, which is very little, that's a good amount. ⁓ It's kinda ⁓ like Yeah. It's four, yeah. Like ninety percent of countries don't have a World Cup. More. And what's interesting is that Brazil, or I'm sorry, Brahil was ⁓ eliminated today from the World Cup. ⁓ yeah, they lost two to one, yeah. Against who? ⁓ Norway. Holland Eric Haaland. Ha ha Aland. He's my go I follow him on Instagram. Actually. I feel like there's a huge difference between ⁓ The World Cup and the Olympics because there's like only one winner. It only one winner. That's true. It's just one big tournament. It's kind of I I don't know. I c I find them like cut from the same cloth 'cause it's kind of for sure. Absolutely. Nations fighting against each other, people coming together. I don't know. It's the same concept. One sport though. Yeah. Yeah. The biggest sport in the world. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the final whistle on our three part World Cup series. We started with a soccer game that helps start a war. Took a detour through the weirdest matches ever played, and finished today with the soccer helping pause a war. two enemy who sang, gifts, ⁓ traded haircuts, and kicked a in no man's land before going back to war. From a game that lit a fuse to a game that lit a little hope. That's the beautiful, ridiculous range of this sport and of history. ⁓ Thanks for playing all three us. ⁓ That's it for this episode. Thanks for traveling through time with us on the Ebbs of History. If you like today's story, share it with a teacher, a friend, or your family on Instagram at Ebbs of History. If you have any show ideas, corrections, or questions, you can contact us at questions at ebbsofistory dot com. Signing off, this has been co-host Gavin Zoe. And me, Jason, reminding you that history is not just about the dates and battles. It's about the people, curiosity, and the weird, wonderful choices that shaped our world. Until next time. Keep wondering. Keep laughing. And keep learning through the ebbs of history. ⁓ learning through the ebbs of history. ⁓ Just like ⁓ a good episode. ⁓ my gosh. ⁓