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CLASSIC: Fort Blunder: The US Fort Mistakenly Built in Canada · Ridiculous History

0:02
Speaker 1: I put it. I've been putting these in. If we
0:04
Speaker 1: just go to twenty twenty six, we'll do Fort Blunder,
0:08
Speaker 1: and then the political body doubles. Yeah there, just go
0:19
Speaker 1: to twenty tweets. Yeah, yeah, it's about Yeah, I could
0:23
Speaker 1: do all right, Fellow Ridiculous Historians, we are back with
0:31
Speaker 1: this week's classic episode, Everybody fondly remembers the War of
0:37
Speaker 1: eighteen twelve.
0:38
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, what a time, What a time to be alive?
0:41
Speaker 1: What a time. It's no eighteen eleven, but we'll keep it.
0:48
Speaker 1: This is this is a crazy one better, it's one better.
0:51
Speaker 1: It's what what could be better than? Eighteen eleven? Eighteen
0:54
Speaker 1: twelve war side. This is one of our favorite kind
0:59
Speaker 1: of genre of ridiculous history, because it's about when very
1:06
Speaker 1: powerful militaries do stuff in an incredibly dumb way.
1:12
Speaker 2: Oh boy, did they ever? I think the title says
1:15
Speaker 2: it all.
1:15
Speaker 3: Fort Blunder, the US fort mistakenly built in Canada.
1:19
Speaker 2: Let's roll it to me.
1:24
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
1:51
Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. This episode is about a hilarious mistake,
1:59
Speaker 1: a goof a doof a whoopsie, a blunder. My name
2:04
Speaker 1: is Ben A blender, A blending of blunders, perhaps.
2:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, a blending of blunders that on first blush seems
2:11
Speaker 3: a little unremarkable. But no, sir, No, sir, was not
2:15
Speaker 3: unremarkable because it has to do with borders. We've been
2:18
Speaker 3: doing a little border theme lately. But we had that
2:20
Speaker 3: war between what was it, Ohio and a mission into war.
2:24
Speaker 3: They had that no man's land where no man knew
2:27
Speaker 3: who it belonged to because of a poor mapping and
2:30
Speaker 3: just poor what speculation right or cartography? Cartography, that's the word, Ben.
2:36
Speaker 3: Such is the case in today's episode where the US
2:41
Speaker 3: accidentally built a military based on the wrong side of
2:43
Speaker 3: the US Canada border spoiler alert.
2:47
Speaker 2: But there's more to it than that, isn't there.
2:49
Speaker 3: So in eighteen sixteen it became a big deal that
2:53
Speaker 3: we protect our border with Canada.
2:56
Speaker 2: Why, you might ask, why is that? No, I'll tell
2:58
Speaker 2: you why, Ben, You think we think.
3:00
Speaker 3: Of Canada as our mellow you know, stoner neighbors to
3:04
Speaker 3: the north.
3:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like it's one time I don't completely agree
3:08
Speaker 1: with this. One time a friend of mine referred to
3:11
Speaker 1: Canada as diet America, and I said, why is that
3:14
Speaker 1: And they said, well, it's a little better for you,
3:16
Speaker 1: and I was like, you know nothing about the diet
3:19
Speaker 1: soda game man watching out of this analogy, Oh, we
3:22
Speaker 1: should give a shout out to our guest super producer
3:25
Speaker 1: Paul Mission Controlled decand.
3:30
Speaker 2: He's like our Canada.
3:31
Speaker 1: He actually he and he is our Canada. He and
3:35
Speaker 1: super producer Casey Begram are very good friends outside of
3:39
Speaker 1: the show. The American version of Casey.
3:42
Speaker 3: It's funny Casey. He has his second life in Paris,
3:47
Speaker 3: France as LaBouche, but occasionally he carries on a third
3:50
Speaker 3: life as a logger in French Canada also goes by
3:54
Speaker 3: the moniker.
3:54
Speaker 2: LaBouche wears a slightly different outfit.
3:56
Speaker 3: Much more of a plaid flannel lumberjack flannel situation. And yeah,
4:02
Speaker 3: and he has an unstoppable force in the logging industry
4:05
Speaker 3: and it.
4:06
Speaker 1: All ties into his Parisian criminal empire, which we should
4:11
Speaker 1: save for its own episode. I think we should because
4:14
Speaker 1: boundaries are important.
4:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
4:16
Speaker 3: Speaking of boundaries, so we're talking about Canada. We think
4:19
Speaker 3: of them as as our friends, which they are, but
4:21
Speaker 3: at the time, I mean, there's still what what would
4:24
Speaker 3: you call them then? A territory of the United Kingdom, Like,
4:28
Speaker 3: how are they connected to the United Kingdom.
4:30
Speaker 1: Well, the thing is that the British use Canadian land
4:35
Speaker 1: as a taking off point for invasions. So during both
4:40
Speaker 1: the American Revolutionary War and again in the War of
4:43
Speaker 1: eighteen twelve, British forces launch invasions down Lake Champlain with
4:49
Speaker 1: hopes of cutting America in two. And so the Madison
4:53
Speaker 1: administration says, this is a weak point, this cannot be happening.
4:58
Speaker 1: We have to do something. Rum pump, something must be done.
5:02
Speaker 1: We need a sick fortress, we need a dope a fortress.
5:06
Speaker 1: That's the best solution. So they construct a modern, heavy
5:12
Speaker 1: fort modern for that day on the New York shore
5:15
Speaker 1: of Lake Champlain. And they named the place Fort Montgomery,
5:19
Speaker 1: in honor of General Richard Montgomery, a hero of the
5:22
Speaker 1: Revolutionary War.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and this dude named Joseph Totten, who later became
5:26
Speaker 3: the Chief engineer of the US Army, of the whole army,
5:30
Speaker 3: This guy meant business. He oversaw the construction and it
5:34
Speaker 3: was a thirty foot tall structure. It was made out
5:36
Speaker 3: of the same Vermont limestone that later was used to
5:42
Speaker 3: construct Radio City Music Hall and the Brooklyn Bridge, and
5:45
Speaker 3: they built this thing up. It was going to have
5:48
Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty five cannon ports and any ship
5:51
Speaker 3: that was passing by on the British side was going
5:55
Speaker 3: to be given What.
5:56
Speaker 1: For sounds great on paper, here's the problem. This was
6:01
Speaker 1: an embarrassment on multiple levels. And we'll get to the
6:04
Speaker 1: big one in a sec. But just the building itself,
6:07
Speaker 1: it was, as you said, eight sided, thirty feet high,
6:11
Speaker 1: but it was built on a weak, unstable foundation that
6:14
Speaker 1: was mainly composed of debris bought from ruins of the
6:18
Speaker 1: Plattsburgh batteries and outworks. So literally, the foundations of this
6:23
Speaker 1: thing are weak. It can't hold, and it doesn't matter
6:28
Speaker 1: if it does hold, because they figured out what was
6:34
Speaker 1: wrong pretty quickly.
6:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, at the most embarrassing time possible, because Madison actually
6:39
Speaker 3: showed up to get a glance, to get a gander
6:42
Speaker 3: at the progress that you know that he he had
6:45
Speaker 3: proposed this fort, and that is when they realized that
6:49
Speaker 3: they had actually built the thing on the Canada side.
6:54
Speaker 1: Let's get a tire screech, perfect. Yeah, you see, under
6:59
Speaker 1: the seventeen eighty th Retreaty of Paris, the border between
7:02
Speaker 1: New York and Quebec was the forty fifth parallel, but
7:05
Speaker 1: the previous understanding of the location of that line of
7:09
Speaker 1: latitude was incorrect, a fact that surveyors did not discover
7:13
Speaker 1: until eighteen eighteen. At this point, the US has already
7:18
Speaker 1: spent two hundred and seventy five thousand dollars on construction.
7:24
Speaker 3: That has not jump change of the time had a serious,
7:28
Speaker 3: big imaginary military money.
7:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's let's inflation calculate this real quick.
7:38
Speaker 2: Here we go.
7:39
Speaker 1: Two hundred and seventy five thousand dollars in eighteen eighteen
7:43
Speaker 1: is now worth approximately five million, five hundred thirty three thousand,
7:50
Speaker 1: five hundred nineteen dollars and sixty nine cents.
7:53
Speaker 3: Okay, so maybe not like Avatar money, but you know,
7:57
Speaker 3: five million dollars five million bucks.
7:59
Speaker 2: First Hypto instruction.
8:00
Speaker 1: Sure, that's a lot.
8:00
Speaker 2: That's a lot for a stone structure. It's true.
8:02
Speaker 3: There wasn't even any like moving parts. There wasn't even
8:04
Speaker 3: any technology. Itolved probably windows, windows, sure, door hinges, that's
8:10
Speaker 3: the original moving parts. Yes, so this is this is
8:14
Speaker 3: a tremendous embarrassment. Right, What do they do when they
8:19
Speaker 3: figure out that this fort designed to protect the US
8:22
Speaker 3: from Canada, is you know in Canada. Yeah, And it
8:26
Speaker 3: wasn't until eighteen forty two that this discrepancy about the
8:29
Speaker 3: borderline was resolved. There's something called the Webster Ashburton Treaty
8:33
Speaker 3: that provided the understanding that the original border was going
8:37
Speaker 3: to hold the old line that was surveyed by Valentine
8:41
Speaker 3: and Collins in seventeen seventy four that was known as
8:44
Speaker 3: the forty fifth degree of north latitude and then became
8:48
Speaker 3: known as the actual divide between New York and Vermont
8:52
Speaker 3: on one side and the British province of Canada on
8:56
Speaker 3: the other. And from this is a quote actually from
8:59
Speaker 3: a neat Orama article, and from said point of intersection
9:02
Speaker 3: west along the said divide lies as heretofore known and
9:06
Speaker 3: understood to the Iroquois as or Sir Lawrence River.
9:10
Speaker 1: You know, this is back in the day when if
9:12
Speaker 1: you wanted stuff to sound totally profound, you added, said
9:16
Speaker 1: it just peppered and said at some point, you know
9:19
Speaker 1: our said guest producer Paul Decant is agreeing here. So
9:25
Speaker 1: it's interesting because they tried to resolve the issue. But
9:29
Speaker 1: while they were resolving this, we have to remember this
9:31
Speaker 1: fort had been abandoned decades. Locals are looting the construction
9:36
Speaker 1: site because the work stopped, you know, and Fort Montgomery,
9:40
Speaker 1: by the time eighteen forty two comes around, is widely
9:43
Speaker 1: known as Fort Blunder. But to your point, now, after
9:48
Speaker 1: this Webster Ashburton Treaty, that's the one, right, they resumed
9:53
Speaker 1: construction in eighteen forty four, and Fort Blunder actually get
10:01
Speaker 1: some get some play. It's a it's a working base.
10:04
Speaker 1: You just actually me then, No, I'm just saying actually,
10:07
Speaker 1: like I'm surprised.
10:09
Speaker 2: Okay, that's fair.
10:09
Speaker 1: Right, Look, it's a living language. I'll speak how I want.
10:13
Speaker 3: I see you and as well you should, then I
10:15
Speaker 3: will ask questions as I want.
10:16
Speaker 1: Do you Are you one of those people who's intimidated
10:18
Speaker 1: by the use of the word actually or is it?
10:20
Speaker 1: For me? It's when it's at the beginning of a sentence,
10:23
Speaker 1: it always means that, so why are you doing this?
10:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's sort of to me.
10:27
Speaker 3: It's a license to tune out whatever the person's about
10:29
Speaker 3: to say after that, So I actually appreciate it. It's
10:31
Speaker 3: kind of a context clue where you know whatever's going
10:33
Speaker 3: to follow is going to be pretentious and unhelpful.
10:35
Speaker 1: Like that old Dimitri Martin observation when he says I
10:39
Speaker 1: love bumper stickers. It's such a convenient way of saying,
10:43
Speaker 1: let's never talk agreed. Oh I like bumper stickers, They're
10:49
Speaker 1: just not for me.
10:49
Speaker 2: They're not for me either.
10:50
Speaker 3: No, No, I have a virgin car.
10:58
Speaker 1: This is strange. You can see photos of Fort Blunder
11:02
Speaker 1: or Fort Montgomery excuses. If you want to check out
11:05
Speaker 1: some close up pictures, visit historic Lakes dot org, where
11:10
Speaker 1: you can see you can see the lay of the land,
11:14
Speaker 1: you can see the old map where they miscalculated everything.
11:17
Speaker 1: You can even see a sketch about Blunder, which depicts
11:23
Speaker 1: the structure we talked about earlier.
11:25
Speaker 3: I don't know if we talked about some of the
11:27
Speaker 3: features of the fort outside of the gun turrets or whatever,
11:30
Speaker 3: the little windows, but it did at one point stand
11:33
Speaker 3: forty eight feet high. The western facing wall was known
11:37
Speaker 3: as the Gorge, and that was adjacent to a giant
11:40
Speaker 3: called that's something called a cover face or an earthen bank,
11:44
Speaker 3: and that was created as a defensive aid for land attacks,
11:47
Speaker 3: and then it had a moat. I didn't realize this
11:50
Speaker 3: is I mean, it's very much like old school kind
11:51
Speaker 3: of castle type features. Right, It had a moat which
11:54
Speaker 3: was referred to as a wet ditch, which was filled
11:57
Speaker 3: with lake water. These days it is not is not
12:01
Speaker 3: looking so hot. It is quite worse for wear because
12:04
Speaker 3: a lot of local you know, kids and ruffians and
12:07
Speaker 3: biker gangs, you know, have just tagged it all up.
12:11
Speaker 3: It is actually for sale if you're in the market.
12:15
Speaker 3: In the nineteen twenties, the US sold Fort Montgomery at
12:18
Speaker 3: an auction, and then in nineteen eighty three a Victor
12:20
Speaker 3: Pod who is a shipping magnate from Montreal. That's when
12:24
Speaker 3: he bought it, and he offered part of the property
12:28
Speaker 3: to New York State as a historic preservation site, but
12:31
Speaker 3: New York did not want it. Then Pod died in
12:34
Speaker 3: ninety nine and his sons inherited the fort and tried
12:38
Speaker 3: to sell it on eBay and actually got one valid
12:41
Speaker 3: bid for five million bucks, but it fell through. Still
12:45
Speaker 3: for sale, I believe the current asking price is around
12:48
Speaker 3: a million bucks.
12:50
Speaker 1: That's a lot of depreciation, really is from five point
12:53
Speaker 1: five to three whatever, just sixty nine.
12:56
Speaker 3: That's worse than like dealership depreciation, like when you drive
12:59
Speaker 3: the car off the line, you know, one million, one million,
13:02
Speaker 3: not even a million, nine hundred and ninety five thousand.
13:04
Speaker 1: Ah yeah, So from five point five million dollars and
13:07
Speaker 1: sixty nine cents to just under a million dollars, that's
13:12
Speaker 1: boat level depreciation, and you know, hopefully a lesson learned.
13:18
Speaker 1: There's a great Atlas Obscure article about the current situation
13:24
Speaker 1: Fort Montgomery is encountering, which just says for sale an abandoned,
13:29
Speaker 1: decaying fort on a private island. It says decaying, Uh huh,
13:32
Speaker 1: and it is. You can see some great pictures. It's overgrown,
13:36
Speaker 1: there's graffiti all over it. They're probably you know, syringes.
13:40
Speaker 1: You don't think they.
13:40
Speaker 3: Would have gone in there and gussied it up a
13:42
Speaker 3: little bit like they did for real estate photos. You know,
13:44
Speaker 3: they're really not trying to upsell this thing, are they been?
13:46
Speaker 4: No?
13:47
Speaker 1: No, they're not really, because the problem here is one
13:52
Speaker 1: of infrastructure, right, and it's still on the National Register
13:58
Speaker 1: of Historic Place is But okay, everybody knows that it
14:02
Speaker 1: needs to be saved, but nobody's willing to pony up
14:06
Speaker 1: the scratch and cheddar, the itchy cheddar to support it.
14:10
Speaker 1: For instance, the Preservation League of New York State included
14:13
Speaker 1: this Fort on its Seven to Save List in two
14:17
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, a roundup of at risk historic sites
14:20
Speaker 1: that need help, and according to Katie Peace, the communications
14:25
Speaker 1: director of the Preservation League of New York State, there
14:29
Speaker 1: are no current plans to rehabilitate the site. It joins
14:33
Speaker 1: the ranks of other historical places and objects of significance,
14:38
Speaker 1: like the gunboat Spitfire, which was part of the American
14:41
Speaker 1: fleet that contributed to the Saratoga Victory in seventeen seventy seven,
14:47
Speaker 1: or the John van Houston House, which looks the worse
14:51
Speaker 1: for wear, but is an early eighteenth century example of
14:54
Speaker 1: Dutch settlement along the Hudson, the plum Bronson House, which
14:59
Speaker 1: is also just rapidly deteriorating, and the Magdalen Island, which
15:05
Speaker 1: has an ancient past as a stopping place for Native
15:08
Speaker 1: American populations or First Nations and Europeans who came later,
15:13
Speaker 1: the historic South Street Seaport, the Burden Iron Works Museum.
15:18
Speaker 1: Those are the seven, but there are many, many more,
15:20
Speaker 1: And when you look around, whether it's in the US
15:24
Speaker 1: or in other countries, I'm sure there's no shortage of
15:28
Speaker 1: decaying pieces of history that should be preserved. Like have
15:31
Speaker 1: you ever driven through Tennessee.
15:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, a little bit, but not a ton. Give me
15:36
Speaker 3: the scoop.
15:37
Speaker 1: Tennessee is there must be some government program. I can
15:41
Speaker 1: say this because I have family there. There must be
15:44
Speaker 1: some government program to make sure that everybody has at
15:48
Speaker 1: least one to two decaying barns in their fields. And
15:51
Speaker 1: you can even see them when you just drive on
15:53
Speaker 1: the interstate. But I'm always baffled by that, you know
15:56
Speaker 1: what I mean, because these barns are in use, but
15:58
Speaker 1: they're ready for one match to make them.
16:02
Speaker 3: That's very similar to driving some of the rural roads
16:05
Speaker 3: in Georgia, like between Atlanta and Athens, for example, or
16:09
Speaker 3: Augusta and Athens. Lots of big open fields with just
16:13
Speaker 3: a single ramshackled barn in the middle, and it looks
16:16
Speaker 3: like it's leaning kind of at a canted angle, like
16:18
Speaker 3: it could fall down with just a light breath of wind.
16:22
Speaker 1: Wiregrass country, especially if you drive. This is an example
16:26
Speaker 1: for people who don't know how big this state is,
16:29
Speaker 1: especially driving from Atlanta to Savannah down on Georgia's small
16:35
Speaker 1: Atlantic coast. Have you made that drive?
16:38
Speaker 2: I have. It's been a minute, though it's a long one.
16:40
Speaker 1: It's a long one. And it's not a particularly exciting
16:42
Speaker 1: one for some people. But it's what how long is it?
16:46
Speaker 2: It's hours from here to Savannah to Atlanta. I believe
16:49
Speaker 2: it's about six hours.
16:50
Speaker 1: Six hours. Yeah, six long hours, full of full of history,
16:54
Speaker 1: and full of things that look the worse for where
17:05
Speaker 1: you know. It reminds me whenever I travel somewhere, whether
17:08
Speaker 1: for work or whether for personal reasons, I always try
17:13
Speaker 1: to find a local museum or an historic site. In Texas, recently,
17:20
Speaker 1: a super producer, Paul Michigan Control Decking and I visited
17:23
Speaker 1: the Alamo and hey, check this out, man, I got
17:26
Speaker 1: something for you.
17:28
Speaker 3: Ben is now rummaging through his bag of chicks. Okay,
17:33
Speaker 3: here you go.
17:34
Speaker 1: I couldn't bring you the actual Alamo, but I found
17:37
Speaker 1: I found a little funny.
17:39
Speaker 3: It's a pamphlet. It's a handbill for the Alamo.
17:42
Speaker 1: I would say it's a femera.
17:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, it absolutely is.
17:45
Speaker 3: Ben, give me the rundown of the Alamo as I
17:48
Speaker 3: perused this.
17:48
Speaker 1: Hand So so the thing that I think startled both
17:52
Speaker 1: Paul and myself was, and Paul, tell me if I
17:55
Speaker 1: get this wrong, is that when we went to the
17:57
Speaker 1: actual Alamo and went inside, it's free to attend. By
18:03
Speaker 1: the way, everything was under restoration or construction work, and
18:08
Speaker 1: there were there were entire pieces of of the building
18:11
Speaker 1: that needed to be saved, right, Uh, that were off limits,
18:15
Speaker 1: and we we didn't get to do a lot of
18:19
Speaker 1: the fun stuff. There's a re enactor who will builk
18:23
Speaker 1: you in a card game. We missed that. It was
18:26
Speaker 1: early in the morning. Uh. But I'm a huge I'm
18:28
Speaker 1: a huge fan of that stuff, and I and I
18:30
Speaker 1: hope that I hope that we can as a species
18:33
Speaker 1: do our best to preserve the physical traces of those
18:36
Speaker 1: who came before us, whether that is a military fort,
18:41
Speaker 1: a vessel of note, I don't know.
18:44
Speaker 3: I see there's a pretty big footprint for the gift
18:46
Speaker 3: shop here, Ben. Was it spectacular? Was it an above average
18:49
Speaker 3: gift shop?
18:50
Speaker 4: It was?
18:51
Speaker 1: You know it was it was. Uh, it was interesting.
18:55
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I I did not personally pick up any
19:00
Speaker 1: if so.
19:00
Speaker 2: I was there.
19:00
Speaker 1: I was there for this story. But they have all
19:02
Speaker 1: you know, Texas branded stuff, uh, shotglasses, astros, replica guns. No, No,
19:10
Speaker 1: not this time. If if they were giving out actual
19:13
Speaker 1: pieces of the Alamo, might probably pick one up, but
19:16
Speaker 1: that would maybe defeat their purposes. But you know what,
19:19
Speaker 1: my friend, if ever I find myself on Fort Montgomery
19:23
Speaker 1: or Fort Blunder, I will pick up some pieces of
19:25
Speaker 1: history for us.
19:27
Speaker 3: Well, that's what we do here on Ridiculous History, man,
19:29
Speaker 3: We pick up the pieces of history. We put them
19:33
Speaker 3: back together like a veritable Rubik's cube.
19:36
Speaker 1: And this ends our episode. But not.
19:49
Speaker 4: It's time, gentle men.
19:52
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland ak the Quisterland quiz.
19:57
Speaker 4: It's going to be back.
19:58
Speaker 1: Guys. You've got a lot of nerve, my friend.
20:00
Speaker 4: I sure do.
20:02
Speaker 1: Just in general, it's just let's just let's.
20:04
Speaker 4: Just establish this just for a moment though, gentlemen. Uh huh,
20:07
Speaker 4: you're in my playground now, because you're not in your
20:12
Speaker 4: normal studio. You're in my studio. That's true, that's true.
20:16
Speaker 1: We are so we have a number of studios here
20:19
Speaker 1: at h Q, and Jonathan, this is one of the
20:24
Speaker 1: studios where you spend a lot of time recording. Uh
20:27
Speaker 1: let's see tech stuff.
20:28
Speaker 4: Sure, that's right. In your studio, I record the brink.
20:31
Speaker 4: But in my studio, I record tech stuff. Yes.
20:35
Speaker 1: And you know, I gotta say, I love what you're
20:37
Speaker 1: done with the place.
20:38
Speaker 4: Thanks, thanks, you're enjoying my butt groove. Right now, you're
20:41
Speaker 4: in my chair.
20:42
Speaker 1: I'm in your chair.
20:43
Speaker 4: That's the chair I sit in.
20:44
Speaker 1: Oh that's right. Yeah, I didn't think that. Are we cool?
20:47
Speaker 1: Do you want to switch chairs? I'm fine with that.
20:49
Speaker 4: If we switch chairs, then you can see whether or
20:51
Speaker 4: not the thing I'm about to tell you, if it's
20:53
Speaker 4: true or false. That's right, you just I'll just stay here.
20:56
Speaker 4: You're here for a reason. Yes, And the most cringe
21:00
Speaker 4: worthy segment in all the podcasting where I present a
21:03
Speaker 4: scenario to the two hosts of Ridiculous History and they
21:08
Speaker 4: determine whether or not I made it up or if
21:10
Speaker 4: it's a real one. And I understand we were talking
21:14
Speaker 4: about things about borders and mistakes about placing things places
21:21
Speaker 4: where you may not actually own them, so this is
21:26
Speaker 4: a somewhat related to that. But on the other side
21:31
Speaker 4: of the United States of America, the southern side. Have
21:36
Speaker 4: you ever wondered why Florida has a panhandle that seems
21:40
Speaker 4: to cut off the bottom of the state of Alabama all.
21:43
Speaker 1: The time, constantly keeps me up at night.
21:45
Speaker 4: Well, I have a scenario for you. You will have three
21:48
Speaker 4: minutes to decide whether or not and in fact, it
21:50
Speaker 4: is true or false, and of course, we always have
21:53
Speaker 4: an arbitrary rule, and I didn't come up with one beforehand.
21:58
Speaker 4: So if you're going to ask me a question before
21:59
Speaker 4: you get you have to yell spring break rules and
22:04
Speaker 4: then you can ask a question. Deal because it has
22:06
Speaker 4: to do with Florida and Alabama done all right, here we go.
22:11
Speaker 4: It's because of a really bad map and some quote
22:16
Speaker 4: unquote surveyors. After winning or purchasing territories from England, Spain,
22:23
Speaker 4: and France, the American government got down to the business
22:26
Speaker 4: of establishing states in the early eighteen hundreds. Originally, the
22:30
Speaker 4: Colony of Georgia stretched much further to the west, but
22:34
Speaker 4: it was decided that part of that land would be
22:38
Speaker 4: created into the state of Alabama. The Chattahoochee River would
22:43
Speaker 4: serve as a border much of the state line and
22:47
Speaker 4: would go all the way south, and a team of
22:50
Speaker 4: cartographers determined that the Gulf Coast of what would have
22:54
Speaker 4: been Alabama fell on the thirty one degree latitude. Here's
23:01
Speaker 4: the problem. The actual latitude line for the Gulf Coast
23:05
Speaker 4: is thirty degrees, which meant that the map actually ended
23:11
Speaker 4: much further north than the Gulf coast. But that's how
23:14
Speaker 4: it was written down, and because that's how it was
23:17
Speaker 4: written down in official documents, that's where the end of
23:20
Speaker 4: Alabama would be. And because of that error, Alabama does
23:26
Speaker 4: not have a Gulf coast that stretches across its entire width. Instead,
23:29
Speaker 4: it just has Mobile Bay. Begin Yeah, yes, mister Brown.
23:36
Speaker 1: Well, I've got to run to the timer. It's in
23:38
Speaker 1: the other studio. Hang on, Hey, we're good.
23:42
Speaker 4: All right, We'll just take about five seconds off that,
23:45
Speaker 4: all right? But yes, rolls, yes, yes, Ms Brown.
23:49
Speaker 3: Is this there's anything to do with the band Florida
23:51
Speaker 3: Georgia line?
23:52
Speaker 4: It certainly has not, as far as they know, and
23:56
Speaker 4: thank the heavens, has nothing to do with that band.
23:58
Speaker 2: Okay, rules, yes.
24:03
Speaker 4: Mister bullet.
24:03
Speaker 1: Uh so, quister, what you said? It was the thirty
24:10
Speaker 1: a matter of confusing the thirtieth and the thirty first. Yes, latitude, yes, okay?
24:18
Speaker 1: And what year did this happen?
24:20
Speaker 4: It would have been the early eighteen hundreds. It's before
24:23
Speaker 4: Alabama was officially declared a state, which was I think
24:26
Speaker 4: I have this written down. It's eighteen.
24:32
Speaker 1: Hey, hey, you're you're eating our time.
24:34
Speaker 4: I know. I'm sorry. I have the facts written down,
24:37
Speaker 4: but I didn't have any listen, I'm really much stronger
24:39
Speaker 4: on English history than American history. Yes, but it was
24:42
Speaker 4: in the early eighteen hundreds. It was before Alabama was
24:45
Speaker 4: made of state, and certainly much before Florida. Florida, I know,
24:48
Speaker 4: was eighteen forty five, which was much later.
24:50
Speaker 1: Okay, ah, you got anything, elseen. No, I feel like
24:57
Speaker 1: I feel like this is true.
24:59
Speaker 2: I think it's probably true.
25:00
Speaker 1: Well been, well like it is was lock it three
25:02
Speaker 1: two one halack true.
25:08
Speaker 4: It's so not true. It's like winning doesn't even mean
25:13
Speaker 4: anything anymore.
25:15
Speaker 2: You're making me.
25:16
Speaker 4: Face an existential crisis here, gentlemen, did you ever consider
25:20
Speaker 4: that Maybe that's exactly our intent. I'm going to keep
25:24
Speaker 4: playing the game anyway, all right, it's all I have. Well,
25:27
Speaker 4: let me tell you exactly what did happen, though, is
25:29
Speaker 4: just to give you the real story, because it's actually
25:31
Speaker 4: fascinating why there's a panhandle. So we have to keep
25:34
Speaker 4: in mind there were four major players involved. We have England,
25:39
Speaker 4: we have France, we have Spain, we have America. Now,
25:43
Speaker 4: before the American Revolution, you had England with the colonies
25:46
Speaker 4: that would become the United States of America. You had
25:49
Speaker 4: Spain that owned Florida, and that went as far it
25:53
Speaker 4: could have gone as far west as the Mississippi. You
25:56
Speaker 4: had France that owned the Louisiana Territory that was much
26:00
Speaker 4: of the midwest and the south of what would become
26:03
Speaker 4: the United States of America. Now, France and Spain were
26:07
Speaker 4: sort of in disagreement of where that border was along
26:11
Speaker 4: the southern edge the Gulf Coast, and they eventually decided
26:14
Speaker 4: that Perdido River was the unofficial border, which is between
26:19
Speaker 4: Mobile Bay and Pensacola, Florida. And so they decided that
26:23
Speaker 4: was the border. But then a whole bunch of different
26:27
Speaker 4: stuff happened. England won the Seven Years War. They took
26:30
Speaker 4: over Florida from Spain. Then Spain gave the Louisiana territory
26:35
Speaker 4: to or France gave the Louisiana Territory territory to Spain.
26:39
Speaker 4: This is what happens when I do the Renaissance Festival
26:41
Speaker 4: three days in a row, I can't talk straight to anymore.
26:43
Speaker 4: So Spain now has the Louisiana territory. England now has Florida. Okay,
26:48
Speaker 4: England extends the Florida border all the way out to
26:51
Speaker 4: the Mississippi. So now the Florida's Panhandle reaches much further
26:56
Speaker 4: to the west. All right, all right, then America is revolting,
27:02
Speaker 4: you could argue frequently throughout its history. But it ends
27:05
Speaker 4: up winning the Revolutionary War. England loses, Florida goes back
27:09
Speaker 4: to Spain. So now Spain owns Florida, but now the
27:12
Speaker 4: border goes all the way to the Mississippi. Spain gives
27:14
Speaker 4: the Louisiana territory back to France, which then turns around
27:18
Speaker 4: and sells it to the Americans.
27:20
Speaker 1: This would be really helpful with a whiteboard.
27:23
Speaker 4: Well, here's or a lot of red string. So here's
27:27
Speaker 4: what the Americans do. They say, well, we're buying the
27:29
Speaker 4: Louisiana territory, but what we're going to do is we're
27:31
Speaker 4: going to refer to louisianatory back when this map was drawn,
27:35
Speaker 4: where the Padido River was the border. Okay, So they
27:39
Speaker 4: essentially tells Spain, oh, no, we bought the Louisiana territory
27:42
Speaker 4: from like three times before.
27:45
Speaker 1: Wow.
27:45
Speaker 4: Spain said no. And then America sent a bunch of
27:50
Speaker 4: troops down to the Gulf coast and Spain said all right, fine,
27:56
Speaker 4: And then a few years later Spain ends up surrendering
27:59
Speaker 4: Flora to the United States, and that is why Florida
28:03
Speaker 4: has a panhandle and Alabama has a very limited Gulf coast.
28:06
Speaker 1: Well said, Well said, you know, I've always It's fascinating
28:10
Speaker 1: because I think where I got I got tripped up
28:14
Speaker 1: is as soon as you were talking about the original
28:17
Speaker 1: size of the colony of Georgia. I know part of
28:19
Speaker 1: that is true, yes, like all right, fine, that's true. Yes,
28:23
Speaker 1: but I probably should have listened be the first.
28:28
Speaker 4: Party that part's true. The rest of it's going to
28:30
Speaker 4: be right.
28:30
Speaker 1: I should probably not treat these very important questions the
28:34
Speaker 1: way I treat group emails down.
28:35
Speaker 4: Everyone, or any conversation with me.
28:37
Speaker 1: Honestly, that's not true. No, I listen pretty pretty in depth.
28:42
Speaker 1: You know, I'm caught. I have my finger on the
28:43
Speaker 1: pulse of the Jonathan Strickland aspect of your life. By
28:47
Speaker 1: the way, congratulations on wrapping up the Renaissance Festival.
28:50
Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you. I I think it added about
28:55
Speaker 4: five years to the age that I already am, or
28:59
Speaker 4: perhaps you could say subtracted them from the end of
29:01
Speaker 4: my life.
29:02
Speaker 2: Either way, it gets you right around the age you
29:03
Speaker 2: were supposed to be. For your character, though, because that's
29:05
Speaker 2: what really matter.
29:06
Speaker 4: Right around the age was when he died.
29:08
Speaker 1: Yes, well take some take some vitamins. Yes, look, you
29:15
Speaker 1: I have unfortunate news. You can't die yet, Nola, and
29:21
Speaker 1: I and all our friends listening at home need to
29:23
Speaker 1: at least get a little bit out of the hole, right.
29:26
Speaker 4: Right, Yes, I don't even know how, and you'm ahead now,
29:30
Speaker 4: all right, But that's fine, it's fine, it's fine. I
29:33
Speaker 4: was actually going to give you the true one originally,
29:35
Speaker 4: and then I thought, well, this one's it's so convoluted,
29:39
Speaker 4: but it's obviously true.
29:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, And we've been we've been exploring and no I
29:44
Speaker 1: think you said this at the top, we've been exploring
29:46
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff about boundaries and borders recently. So
29:51
Speaker 1: this this was an excellent question. And you know, one
29:55
Speaker 1: of these days we're going to get one right.
29:57
Speaker 4: Well, it's also it also really illustrates how this is
30:01
Speaker 4: a sticky, sticky situation, even when you're looking at borders
30:06
Speaker 4: between two areas in the same country. There's there's other
30:11
Speaker 4: stories about states that have had border disputes that had
30:15
Speaker 4: to be settled by Congress when they were actually establishing
30:19
Speaker 4: the states.
30:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the Ohio, Michigan.
30:22
Speaker 4: Exactly, Like like Ohio, Michigan and that's little thin sliver
30:26
Speaker 4: who owns that?
30:28
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, who owns Toledo. So thank you so much
30:33
Speaker 1: for coming on the show, Jonathan, I without giving spoilers
30:37
Speaker 1: because you got a lot of irons in the fire
30:39
Speaker 1: right now, Where can people visit to learn more about you,
30:43
Speaker 1: your work and your shows.
30:44
Speaker 4: Not certainly you can go to techstuffpodcast dot com to
30:48
Speaker 4: look at the more than one thousand episodes of tech
30:52
Speaker 4: stuff I've recorded over the last eleven years.
30:55
Speaker 1: Is that recent one thousand?
30:57
Speaker 4: It's one thousand. I'm almost up to twelve under now, okay,
31:01
Speaker 4: because I remember, Yes, I hit one thousand last year.
31:05
Speaker 4: That's right, actually because two years ago. But yes, it's
31:08
Speaker 4: a We've been doing a lot of interesting work, especially
31:12
Speaker 4: around artificial intelligence and ethics and things of that nature.
31:16
Speaker 4: Not very historically oriented, but I would recommend if you
31:20
Speaker 4: have any interest in the ethics of technology. Yeah, there's
31:24
Speaker 4: been quite a few episodes about that recently, fantastic and
31:27
Speaker 4: I ignore all of that when I come on here.
31:30
Speaker 1: Great, great, keep your characters like that of Offspring song
31:36
Speaker 1: right deep thems up right exactly, but hey, hey, don't
31:39
Speaker 1: pay no mind. As we were saying, earlier. This is
31:41
Speaker 1: the end of the episode, but not the show, and
31:44
Speaker 1: the conversation continues. We want to hear your thoughts. You
31:47
Speaker 1: can find us all on Instagram, Facebook, and not Twitch.
31:53
Speaker 1: That's the thing you did, but Twitter, which is a
31:56
Speaker 1: different thing that sounds similar.
31:57
Speaker 2: Twitter is my new platform that I'm starting.
32:00
Speaker 1: I like Twitter, Paig.
32:01
Speaker 2: It's sort of a Twitch Twitter hybrid that is exactly that.
32:04
Speaker 4: Yes, I think I have a physical tick that will
32:07
Speaker 4: make me an ideal influencer on Twitter.
32:10
Speaker 2: You can get it on the ground floor. Excellent.
32:12
Speaker 1: I like Thither. It's the startup I have that's it
32:17
Speaker 1: overlays your favorite GPS devices and gives you driving instructions
32:21
Speaker 1: in old English. So it's a great Frank gift for
32:26
Speaker 1: your friends.
32:26
Speaker 4: Oh, you were supposed to go Thither, but you turned
32:29
Speaker 4: you on.
32:31
Speaker 2: A pos on your house.
32:33
Speaker 1: So you can find out more about our brilliant, world
32:37
Speaker 1: changing startups on our Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians, where you
32:41
Speaker 1: can meet our favorite part of the show, your fellow listeners.
32:45
Speaker 1: You can also follow our individual misadventures and Shenanigan ree
32:51
Speaker 1: on Instagram. I'm at Ben Bullen, i.
32:53
Speaker 4: Am at how Now, Noel Brown, I'm at John Strickland with.
32:59
Speaker 2: Or without a no H.
33:01
Speaker 1: Got it he used to be at no H. But
33:05
Speaker 1: it's weird.
33:06
Speaker 4: Yes, just to know you exactly. No one knew what
33:08
Speaker 4: the what the l was going on?
33:12
Speaker 1: H Okay, yeah, yeah, no, I'm with you. It's been
33:18
Speaker 1: a long day. Big thanks to our guest super producer
33:22
Speaker 1: Paul Mission Controlled Decat, who has been chilling with us
33:25
Speaker 1: all afternoon and is probably h what do you think? No,
33:28
Speaker 1: he think is tired of us.
33:29
Speaker 2: Yet he looks okay, it doesn't look too cranky. He's
33:31
Speaker 2: got a little rye smile on his face.
33:33
Speaker 1: I think it always looks great.
33:34
Speaker 4: I think it was tired of you before you came
33:35
Speaker 4: in here. Actually if he has been working with you
33:38
Speaker 4: guys for a really long time, right right.
33:41
Speaker 1: Well, thank you either way, Paul.
33:43
Speaker 3: Also thank you to super producer Casey Labusch Pegram wherever
33:47
Speaker 3: he may roam. Big thanks to Alex Williams who can
33:50
Speaker 3: post our theme.
33:51
Speaker 1: And thanks to friend of the show Christopher Hasiotis. Thanks
33:55
Speaker 1: as always to Jonathan Strickland aka the Wizard. Thanks to
33:59
Speaker 1: our research associate Gabe and Hey No, thanks to you man,
34:03
Speaker 1: safe travels and.
34:04
Speaker 2: To you as well. We'll see you next time, folks.
34:29
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
34:33
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.