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Things That Originally Looked Totally Different · Be Amazed

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Edna Mode once said.
• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Never look back darling.
• 0:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: It distracts from the now.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, we'll be doing just that.
• 0:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Revisiting technologies, places, and everyday items that we're all familiar with, and seeing how they've transformed way beyond recognition over time.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: From the first telephones and headphones to the bizarre original appearance of fruits, here things that originally look totally different.
• 0:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're with me.
• 0:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Doorless needs, you're with me.
• 0:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Babies are expensive, $18,000 in the US to be precise.
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is, hospital fees for delivering a baby, not to literally buy one.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, if you are in the market for a baby chances are, you'll need a stroller.
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And while all types of hot rods are available now, the original concept was quite different.
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Back in the days of your parents didn't have many options when it came to transporting their little tears.
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Besides carrying them, perhaps in a basket or using a sling.
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I keep in my home girl mother Mary sported a sling with baby J-Dog, at least according to a 1306 painting by Geoto.
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, a strange series of events would eventually see the unexpected invention of the Stroller.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: William Kent was an 18th century British architect and furniture designer, back in his day he was kind of a big deal.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So much so people often employed him to design all types of things.
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: In 1733 the third Duke of Devonshire employed William to design a transportation device to amuse his kids while on the go.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: To that William whipped up a four-wheel cart hauled by a goat
• 1:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Shockingly, despite the precariousness of allowing a farm animal to troll your children around, these goat wagons reportedly became very popular among high society.
• 2:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, sure, kids and goats are an adorable mixture, and I can see some serious hijinks occurring if you let them right off unattended.
• 2:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's just as well that in the 1830s American Toymaker Benjamin Potter Krandell created a safer parent controlled, goat-free design.
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And while this and later adaptations, which came to be known as perambulators certainly made traveling with a baby a lot easier, it wasn't initially a popular choice outside of the upper classes.
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: It took the ever influential Queen Victoria buying one in 1847 for strollers to become widely popular, and from there it was plain sailing.
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right up until humans started putting chihuahua's and strollers.
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was Port Things and Sisters where Wolves got damn it.
• 2:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Have some respect!
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: the telephone.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to imagine a world without phones, and fact right now 91.4% of the world's population have a mobile phone.
• 3:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's more, research is indicated that on average we spend around a third of our waking hours on the darned things.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, to who do we owe the pleasure or rather blame, it all started with cups and strings.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: We all know that two cups are cans joined by a taught piece of string can transmit sound.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: This works because the speaking person's voice vibrates their cup and these vibrations travel along the stretch string, inducing the same vibration in the other cup, replicating the input sound.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Amazingly, these types of devices have been found to have existed in very basic forms since as early as the 7th century in Peru, constructed of gourds and twine, and well, this seems like juvenile fun, it's simple idea of sending sound information via a wire would inspire a whole new technology, the telephone.
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Inventures new long distance communication could be achieved if they used these same principles on a much larger scale.
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: But instead of using string a series of genius inventors ultimately figured out that sound could be converted into an electric signal and transmitted through metal wire.
• 4:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: The idea was there, it was just a matter of who would get their first.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And in 1876 Alexander Graham Bell officially invented the Telephone.
• 4:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unlike your phone, which probably fits snugly in the palm of your hand, the phone bell developed after several iterations was a hefty contraption.
• 4:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Made up of two parts, a transmitter and a receiver.
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: The transmitter had a cylinder piece, which you can imagine being like the cup.
• 4:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: The user would speak into this and their voice would create sound waves causing a diaphragm inside to vibrate which in turn vibrated a magnet inside an iron cylinder.
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: This generated an electrical signal which traveled through the wire and magnetized a coil in the receiver vibrating another diaphragm and replicating the original sound waves at the receiving end.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And thus, telecommunication was made possible.
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Over the years, thanks to constantly developing technology, the design of the telephone has streamlined and has seen more redesigns than Madonna.
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now Alexander Graham Bell might have figured out to other communication, but who was responsible for smartphones?
• 5:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when exactly did the first smartphone appear?
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: The idea is generally credited to IBM, who in 1994 created the Simon.
• 5:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: While the term smartphone hadn't yet been coined IBM branded their devices, a quote, personal communicator.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: This packed all the essential trimmings of a smartphone, such as calling capability email, a calculator, calendar, and a world clock, all used by touchscreen and a stylus.
• 5:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: In many ways, the Simon Showcase technology that was way beyond its time.
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: But unfortunately, didn't sell very well.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it packed the ton of tech, it cost an eye-watering $900 and had a measly one-hour battery life, which made it a no deal for most people.
• 5:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it sold only 50,000 units and was pulled from the shelves after just six months.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: It seems a touchscreen phone just didn't excite people enough in 94.
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: They were more occupied by the groundbreaking technology of... flip phones.
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, hey, you can't deny how fun they were.
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: If there's one thing that can be said to change decade by decade, it's beauty trends.
• 6:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And with those changing trends, there have been some hilarious changes in the technologies used to carry out the trends of the day.
• 6:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: For starters, for those who wear makeup, there's now an excellent product known as setting spray, which prevents makeup from wearing off or running due to sweater moisture.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, in 1947, such a wonder didn't exist, so Max Factor, the cosmetics company founded by Max A Million Factor Orates, no joke, fashioned a rather interesting solution, behold, hang over heaven.
• 6:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Mainly geared towards actresses on hot film sets that contraption allowed them to cool their faces, all the while keeping their makeup in place.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was essentially a wearable ice cube tray with sealed cubes filled with water that could be frozen.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not surprisingly, this didn't catch on.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps it just wasn't cool enough.
• 7:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Much to the trauma of most people who lived through the 80s, herm's are back.
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: But did you know the first proper perm machine wasn't intended to curl hair but to straighten it?
• 7:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: In 1928, African American hairdresser, Marjorie Joyner, patented a helmet-like machine which clamped hair and won in sections and used in the electrical current to heat it, resulting in the hair being straightened.
• 7:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And while at a lot of women of all ethnicities to sports-strait locks, it could also be used to allow Caucasian women to sport curly-dues too.
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sure, the beauty of the result is very much open to debate, but the appearance of the device itself is undeniably terrifying.
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: The things we do for beauty, huh?
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Speaking of which, I think I might just bring back my perm.
• 7:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: sprouting from the earth fruit is one of Mother Nature's best inventions.
• 8:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: However not all fruit we know today is as Mother Nature originally intended, beginning with bananas.
• 8:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: In their purest form, bananas were nowhere near as tasty and easy to consume as they are today.
• 8:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Considering that they, like their wild counterparts that are still found in certain parts of the world today, originally had tough, thick scans and huge seeds inside, which would make most of them almost
• 8:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: You see, the bananas were familiar with have been selectively bred over centuries by humans to drastically decrease the size of their seeds by breeding the plants with the most favorable characteristics together.
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: As a result, the seeds can barely even be spotted in modern bananas, but even more modern varieties of bananas have changed a lot in recent centuries.
• 8:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Between the 1870s and 1950s, the most popular type of banana in the USA was the Gromyshell, which while it might look similar was very different to the bananas we peel open today.
• 8:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Gromyshell was said to be creamy, rich, sweet, tangy, and bile accounts far superior
• 9:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if this banana was so perfect, then why doesn't it exist today?
• 9:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, for all that's been if it's the girl Michelle had one Achilles heel.
• 9:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Panama disease.
• 9:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: This fungal disease would spread through the soil and infect the banana trees causing them to wilt and no longer produce.
• 9:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: This disease tore through banana plantations, destroying crops, and by the late 1950s, the growing shell could no longer be commercially produced.
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thus concluding its cycle is the world's most popular banana, which begs the question, with the hell are we eating today?
• 9:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, they call it the Cavendish banana.
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: You see, growers knew of Panama disease even back in the late 1800s, so in the early 1900s, researchers began developing a disease-resistant banana, resulting in growing child's less tasty, but close enough cousin the Cavendish banana, which dominates supermarket shelves today.
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: but it's not just our beloved bananas that have had a glow up.
• 10:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Watermelons, too.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yep, the refreshing watermelons we devour during hot summer days are actually considerably different to the ones of yesterday.
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: The watermelon is said to have first originated in Northeastern Africa and was domesticated as a source of both water and food around 4,000 years ago.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Since then, it's been selectively bred to have fewer seeds, less rind and more succulent sugary red flesh.
• 10:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, this altering a natural produce, it's got me thinking maybe scientists can make Brussels sprouts taste a bit less like fart.
• 10:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was Christmas Eve last year.
• 10:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: The night was drawing in and I'd lift my cookies on for Santa.
• 10:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Overcome with excitement, I couldn't sleep.
• 10:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Where's yet, there were strange noises coming from downstairs.
• 10:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: It must have been Santa.
• 10:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I believe we found it through the door, but to my horror, all I saw was mom and dad putting gifts beneath the tree.
• 10:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that was how I found out that Santa isn't real.
• 11:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: This, however, sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole trying to find the origins of Santa.
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And let's just say he hasn't always been the jolly fan man we know.
• 11:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: In Christian traditions around the world, the Saints are each celebrated with their own feast day, the specific day of the year when people will feast in their honor.
• 11:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of the most beloved is St. Nicholas, a fourth-century Greek bishop who's revered for his generosity to the poor.
• 11:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: During the Middle Ages, people began celebrating his feast day, December 6, by giving children gifts the evening before.
• 11:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Over time, this tradition's date slid over to the 24th and 25th, then resulted in St. Nicholas evolving into a somewhat magical character associated with Christmas, gifts and children throughout Europe.
• 11:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: So how did St. Nicholas go from being a priest to a jelly-of-fat man?
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, interestingly enough, this change happened thanks to settlers in, of all places, New York City.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Early Dutch settlers brought their traditions to the American colonies, including to New Amsterdam known as New York today.
• 12:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: These traditions included a mythologized version of St. Nicholas who they refer to is
• 12:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I got to flew the sky on an eight-legged horse, starting to see the similarities.
• 12:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: By the 19th century writers musings on Christmas and center-class cultivated the character Santa Claus.
• 12:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: The first example of this was Washington Irving's 1809 book, Nicker Bockers History of New York, where he penned the idea of St. Nick soring through the sky in a wagon and delivering presents to children.
• 12:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: An 1821 poem that Children's Friend by Arthur J. Stansbury First introduced the idea of a flying reindeer sleigh, but it was Clement Clark
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: that would really pioneer the classic Santa tropes.
• 12:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: It included the eight reindeer and their names, Santa going down the chimney, plus his red cheeks and chubby physique.
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thus was born the Santa we know and love.
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: The classic Eurocentric perspective of U.S. history tells a tale of Christopher Columbus
• 13:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: 2.
• 13:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the reality is, he and his merry men were little more than trespassers.
• 13:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Americas were, of course, already inhabited by the Native Americans, but as Europeans gradually flocked to the new world, the Native lands were changed beyond recognition.
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Over centuries, the Europeans and their culture spread throughout America resulting in what is now.
• 13:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: the United States, and one spot that is beyond recognition is none other than New York.
• 13:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Before townhouses and skyscrapers, New York's iconic burrow of Manhattan, or as the natives called it, Manahata, was a blooming state of vegetation, and it had been inhabited by the Lenape tribe for centuries.
• 13:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not only them, but wildlife too, such as otters, mank and even bears.
• 13:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, there's considerable evidence that Times Square was once a beaver pond.
• 14:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: But in 1624 the Dutch arrived in Klan Manahata as New Amsterdam.
• 14:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: That however was short lived as the English snatched the land and christened it New York in 1664.
• 14:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Come the 1700s in European immigration boomed as many sawn after land wealth and freedom, not to mention the influx of Africans due to the slave trade.
• 14:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: The city rapidly evolved from a farm town to an economic hub as its rows of neighborhoods and buildings sprung up.
• 14:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: New York City's population was rapidly growing and by the 19th century architects were running out of space.
• 14:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: So to paraphrase, 80's pop star, yes, the only way was up.
• 14:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Excited by the novel idea of very tall buildings made possible by evolving construction technologies like high-strength steel framing, the city's business owners began stretching the limits of just how high they could go.
• 14:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Coining the term skyscraper in the 1880s.
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: These big builds began back in the mid-19th century with constructions like the Ladding Observatory, an iron-braised wood and tower that stood
• 15:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: and lowered it over the area around modern day Bryant Park until the tower burned down in 1856.
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: With the turn of the 20th century familiar building such as the Chrysler building began sprouting from the ground, 1930 saw the Empire State Building's iconic rise, and this snowball effect continued resulting in the one's nature rich manajata truly becoming Manhattan, the Concrete Jungle.
• 15:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: This iconic cityhawivers had some more recent transformations, beginning with time square.
• 15:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: This spot once home to bevers had become known as Long Acre Square by the 1870s when New York skyscrapers had begun popping up.
• 15:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: At the beginning of the 20th century it already boasted a wealth of theaters, restaurants, and high-brow hotels, though even with some elaborate signs it was still a far cry from the LED screen billboard wonderland it is today.
• 15:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even Bank then though advertisers saw it as a prime spot for advertising, and thus it was gradually adorned with ads from every corner of the market.
• 16:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was only renamed Times Square in 1904 after the Times newspaper constructed the central skyscraper for their offices.
• 16:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: This building no longer owned by the times is now called one time square and is strangely mostly unused, save for the lucrative billboard space on its walls.
• 16:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Despite time squares and impressive condition today after the great depression hit in the 1930s, the affluent area gradually declined into squaller.
• 16:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: What were once prestigious theaters and restaurants became
• 16:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: By the 1970s, the Times Square area recorded the most crime complaints in the whole city.
• 16:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, the 80s soon rolled around and there was a new zest for life.
• 16:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was probably all that jazzer sizing.
• 16:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And New York's mayor's pledge to get Times Square back to its former glory.
• 16:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: By the 90s, the smudded been cleared up and safety returned, bringing with it more sightseers than ever, than hence, higher paying advertisers, with billboards bigger and brighter than the square it ever seen.
• 17:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now for the next stop on our NYC Transformation Tour, since first being unveiled on October 28th in 1886, the Statue of Liberty has become not only the matriarch of New York, but a global icon.
• 17:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: But did you know she used to look considerably different?
• 17:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: The year was 1865 in French political intellectual and anti-slavery activist Edward Daylebelay proposed the idea of Lady Liberty.
• 17:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: As a token of friendship, from France to the U.S., the statue would mark the U.S. as Centennial of Independence and Democracy.
• 17:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: That used the two nations shared.
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Designed by French sculptor Frederick Augusta Bartoldi, Lady Liberty, was an amalgamation of three main inspirations.
• 17:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: The first was Columbia, the female national personification of the United States.
• 17:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: The second was Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom.
• 17:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the last, interestingly, was the male Roman god of son, so invictus, like some kind of godly Frankenstein, the statue of Liberty, was born.
• 18:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: But did you know she was never originally green?
• 18:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, when she first made her trip across the Atlantic, she was actually the shiny orange brown of the copper from which she was crafted.
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: You see, when exposed to the elements, copper undergoes a chemical reaction known as Pettination, causing it to turn a blue-green color.
• 18:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: The statues creators would have most likely been well aware of this change given their expertise in working with copper.
• 18:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: But lady liberties, chameleon color change still likely to have a lot confused 19th century New Yorkers wondering whether their new copper landmark was feeling a little blue in her new home.
• 18:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: For most people headphones aren't essential item, learn those I'd be lost without mine.
• 18:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And yet not too long ago, they didn't even exist.
• 18:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: In order to understand how headphones came about though, we're going to have to talk yet again about the telephone.
• 18:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the technology's early days to call someone via telephone, you would have to first speak with a telephone operator who would manually connect your call via a central switch board.
• 19:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: These stations were packed with operators each tending to their own batch of collars, so having all their calls and amplifies would have been incredibly noisy and impractical.
• 19:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ezra Gilliland, a 19th century inventor, created what many consider the beginning of headphones.
• 19:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: His device, which built on Alexander Graham Bell's pendant speaker technology, consisted of an earpiece which rested on the user's shoulder, and a microphone that perched on the other, allowing the user to listen and speak at the same time.
• 19:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Essentially, it was a primitive version of a headset.
• 19:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, just imagine gaming with that thing on.
• 19:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Before long, the idea of headphones evolved into something for entertainment purposes, rather than purely function.
• 19:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: With the removal of the microphone and introduction of a much smaller form factor, the electric phone was released in England in 1895.
• 19:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: With neither radio nor Spotify being a thing during the early 1890s, our Victorian pals weren't really able to enjoy music without actually going to the theater.
• 20:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the electric phone was invented as a subscription service available in London, whereby subscribers could listen to a live performance through specially designed headphones,
• 20:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: with the tunes being broadcast over a telephone line.
• 20:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: As they elegantly held this, Stethoscope shaped headphones beneath their chains, they could party hard from the comfort of their own parlors.
• 20:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: With subsequent evolutions in headphone tech, like the development of a hands-free head-mounted strap, being driven by global military interest in the product, it wasn't long before headphones began to resemble the ones we know today.
• 20:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nowadays wireless tech makes wearing earphones and headphones unbelievably easy and convenient.
• 20:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: So next time your car says your ear pod falls out of your ear, spare a thought for the poor old souls who had to walk around with these things mounted to their heads whenever they wanted to hear sound electronically.
• 20:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: London Bridge isn't much of a looker, however did you know there has been four different versions of it?
• 20:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Historians theorize that the original was forged way back in 43AD by the Romans when they founded the city of Londonium.
• 21:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: At the time this bridge over the Thames was most likely upon toon bridge, meaning one made up of planks wood laid across anchored boats.
• 21:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: This provided a useful trade route crossing in for this reason London Bridge has remained in the same spot ever since.
• 21:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: After the Romans vamoosed from Britain in 383 AD, it's believed that various wooden iterations of London Bridge were constructed across the Thames, none of which lasted long.
• 21:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: But in 1176, priest Peter of Colchurch began efforts to build a sturdier stone one.
• 21:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: This took 33 years to build, but it impressively lasted another 600.
• 21:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's appearance and function, however, were particularly interesting.
• 21:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Rather than just being a stretcher to get you from point A to B, Londoner's maximized the real estate by actually building houses on the bridge.
• 21:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, the bridge was once home to some 500 people.
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was a treacherous trail of teetering timber-built houses bustling with tenets, merchants, and commuters.
• 22:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: This closely packed, bustling setup was all a ten hazardous, proven once in 1212 and again, in 1633 one fires tore through the houses.
• 22:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: but like a phoenix rising from the ashes, London Bridge or Mainstead Fast, with the help of summer pairs.
• 22:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, the abodes on the bridge would be torn down for good in the 1750s to widen the bridge for simple, unobstructed travel for merchants and pedestrians alike.
• 22:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: By the early 1800s after years of fires in partial collapses, London Bridge was an terrible condition.
• 22:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the government decided to build a brand new bridge 100 meters west of the original spot.
• 22:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: The New London Bridge was opened in 1831 and for about 130 years, it was okay.
• 22:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, by 1962, it was discovered that London Bridge was in fact falling down and couldn't bear the weight of increased car traffic, so yet again, London Bridge was rebuilt giving us its current iteration, designed by engineered Harold Knox King, she really ain't much of a beauty.
• 23:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Though if you do want to see the beauty of the previous London Bridge, then just head
• 23:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, really, after tearing down London Bridge in the 60s, the city of London decided to auction it off.
• 23:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Robert P. McCullough, founder of Lake Havasu City, bought the Bridge for $7 million, had a chip to the states and over the course of three years, rebuilt London Bridge and Arizona.
• 23:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Isn't that about the most American thing you ever heard?
• 23:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: The great pyramid of Giza is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and at an impressive 4,500 years old, it hasn't done bad.
• 23:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: True, it's severed a bit of wear and tear, and we all, but did you know it originally looked totally different?
• 23:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: At one time, Egypt was one of the richest and most powerful civilizations in the world.
• 23:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: ruled by Pharaohs who were believed by their subjects to be anointed by the gods and thus existing somewhere between the human and the divine.
• 23:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Due to this, people believed it was crucial to keep the Pharaoh's majesty intact even after death.
• 24:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: They would bury them with everything they would need in the afterlife such as gold, food, furniture, and other offerings.
• 24:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: All contained within the sturdy structure of the pyramid, the shape of which not only allowed support for huge constructions, but has also been suggested as resembling the sun's rays, and worship of the life giving sun got raw.
• 24:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: But how are these divine vessels built and what did they originally look like?
• 24:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a common misconception that the pyramids were built by the enslaved, but most archaeologists and historians today actually believe the workers were most likely paid native Egyptians.
• 24:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some 20,000 men are thought to have handled around 2.3 million blocks of stone over the course of 20 years to create the great pyramid of Giza.
• 24:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: and while their hard work is certainly stood the test of time, there are some important features that have been survived.
• 24:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: According to Professor Mohamed Megid of the Czech Institute of Egyptology, the great pyramid was originally case in a fine-weight limestone, which gave it a smooth, bright finish that reflected the sun.
• 25:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not just that, but it was also topped with a gold capstone, known as a Pyramidian, though this has since either been lost or stolen.
• 25:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: With the sun beaming onto the white limestone and refracting from the gold tip, it's easy to see why the Egyptians believe this would help their fares transcend into a divine realm.
• 25:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Interestingly, it's believed that these white casing stones were largely removed and later repurposed for other constructions by Egyptian rulers.
• 25:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's even evidence to suggest this happen during the iconic reign of Tudon Common.
• 25:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Besides this, earthquakes, rain, and other forms of natural erosion have left the pyramids looking a little worse for wear.
• 25:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Experiments with television technology began in the late 1920s, but it was the post World War 2 1950s when TV's popularity boomed, becoming a staple in a reported 80% of American homes by 1960.
• 25:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, in TV's earlier days, something was missing, the remote, and no, no one was sad on it, the remote just weren't widely available.
• 26:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Back then, you had to plot all the way to the TV just to change the channel, positively ghastly.
• 26:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: But well, the remote remained fairly uncommon until the 60s, one early remote had actually been invented in the year 1950 by TV manufacturer Zenith.
• 26:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: With its advent meaning users didn't have to get up to control the TV, they aptly caught it, lazy bones.
• 26:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Its design, however, was hugely different by today's standards.
• 26:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not only was it attached by wire, but it was a handheld bullet shape with only three functions.
• 26:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Volume, tuning, and power.
• 26:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: For this, customers would pay an extra $30, which, FYI, is roughly equivalent to $377, while customers appreciated the ease of a remote, a common complaint was that the bulky cable was an unsightly hazard.
• 26:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: eager to improve Zenith head back with the fleshmatic in 1955, the first wireless remote.
• 27:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: This worked by using a light beam to communicate with receivers on the TV, though it worked poorly in the natural light of daytime.
• 27:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's designed to help pioneer wireless technology, though its Shiny execution meant that the TV would start going haywire if the sun shone brightly on one of its remote light sensors.
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not ideal when you're deeply invested into an episode of I Love Lucy.
• 27:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is what you're talking about.