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How a German Prince Built his own Artificial Volcano · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
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Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always for
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Speaker 1: tuning in. We are recording this on the week leading
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Speaker 1: to Thanksgiving. It's a it's a pretty wild one, uh
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Speaker 1: this time around. Things that used to be uh surreal
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Speaker 1: are now normal. Things that used to be normal are
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Speaker 1: now you know, downright dangerous in some respects. Just for
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Speaker 1: an example, Noel super producer Casey Pegram, I actually had
0:55
Speaker 1: to go buy coffee. I can't mooch the company coffee anymore.
1:01
Speaker 1: I know what's become of this world. Uh, not to
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Speaker 1: mention that we're actually broadcast since today from inside the
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Speaker 1: belly of an inactive volcano. But I'm starting to hear
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Speaker 1: some rumbling, so I'm a little worried. But it'll all
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Speaker 1: just it's it's on brand, it's on theme. So if
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Speaker 1: at some point in the episode you start to hear
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Speaker 1: some kind of like the rumbling starts to intensify and
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Speaker 1: then the sound of you know, us being melted by
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Speaker 1: molten lava, um, just consider it part of the ride.
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Speaker 1: And if if you guys on the call today, if
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Speaker 1: you guys see you can see these giant vats of
1:35
Speaker 1: baking soda and vinegar behind me. If you see them
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Speaker 1: somehow getting close to each other, just say, Ben, watch
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Speaker 1: your vinegar. That sounds like an obscure catchphrase for somebody
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Speaker 1: watch your vinegar. I like it. I like it. I
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Speaker 1: think it should go in one of the many T
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Speaker 1: shirts that we keep promising not do we because it's
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Speaker 1: tough to work in a volcano up, But I like
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Speaker 1: you point out this one is a fake volcano. Nol Uh.
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Speaker 1: That's that's how we got around the insurance bit. Uh.
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Speaker 1: And fake volcanoes for a lot of our listeners in
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Speaker 1: the US and maybe abroad. Uh. Fake volcanoes make you
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Speaker 1: think of one thing, right, science projects? Do you guys
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Speaker 1: ever make one of those? Totally? Are you kidding? That's
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Speaker 1: the best part of science class. I did it at
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Speaker 1: home for fun, not even in science class. Yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: I I did it for kicks as well. Well, you know,
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Speaker 1: my mom's a teacher, So these were sort of I
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Speaker 1: called them the shut up projects. You know, on a Saturday.
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Speaker 1: What was the cavity consistent? What of the cavity? Uh?
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Speaker 1: Was it crafted from some sort of soda bottle or something?
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Speaker 1: And then you build a volcano around it with clay
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Speaker 1: or there's probably several different ways to get it done.
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Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's see it's flower salt,
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Speaker 1: cooking oil water and then just a little bit of
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Speaker 1: baking soda, then the vinegar. Uh, you could build it
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Speaker 1: out of a couple of things, right, It's that that's
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Speaker 1: the allure. But I think you're right. I think a
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Speaker 1: two leader soda bottle is probably the go to for
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Speaker 1: a lot of kids, just because it's round, and it's affordable,
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Speaker 1: and you gets soda as a side benefit. So there's
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Speaker 1: a hustle. But today we're not tricking you with the
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Speaker 1: the opening in the segue, folks, we are talking about
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Speaker 1: a fake volcano, quite possibly the coolest fake volcano in history.
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Speaker 1: It blows our stuff just like out the water. This
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Speaker 1: is a Vesuvius to us, this absolutely should have been
3:25
Speaker 1: or is the perfect subject matter to feature on like
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Speaker 1: a Weird Flexes episode. Um, so yeah, let's start from
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Speaker 1: the top. Uh. You know, we we think of outdoor
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Speaker 1: recreation areas is you know, I guess the lesser of
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Speaker 1: them might be a park or a playground, But then
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Speaker 1: of course they get more and more extra as you
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Speaker 1: started delving into theme park territories. Right. The idea of
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Speaker 1: public spaces where people can mingle and have a good time,
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Speaker 1: UM has has been around for quite a long time. UM.
3:54
Speaker 1: But the idea of a resort with amusement facilities, like
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Speaker 1: I said, much more along the lines of a theme
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Speaker 1: park or water park or something UM, didn't really start
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Speaker 1: to show up in Europe until the Renaissance. Of course,
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Speaker 1: it was the Renaissance, That's why I was called the
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Speaker 1: Renaissance when they had all the like cool new ideas UM.
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Speaker 1: And in England in particular, they were referred to as
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Speaker 1: pleasure gardens. And I've actually heard that kind of still used,
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Speaker 1: like in England at least for theme parks. They call
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Speaker 1: them like pleasure parks or a pleasure cruise, you know whatever. UM.
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Speaker 1: And they were massively popular from around fifteen fifty two
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Speaker 1: round at least in this form UM, you first started
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Speaker 1: to see these kinds of resorts that were connected with
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Speaker 1: businesses like inns or taverns. Right, yeah, yeah, exactly. And
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Speaker 1: it's it's kind of an added benefit, you know, which
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Speaker 1: in are you gonna go to? Are you gonna go
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Speaker 1: to the one that's just a bed and a window
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Speaker 1: and a door. Are you gonna go to the one
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Speaker 1: that's got some cool stuff you can mess with outside?
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Speaker 1: The calculus is clear, and these proved enormously beneficial for businesses,
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Speaker 1: and as they did, they became increasingly elaborate. I was
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Speaker 1: thinking of, um, the kind of pleasure gardens we have
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Speaker 1: in the Atlanta area. In our region, we have the
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Speaker 1: Atlanta Botanical Gardens, which are quite beautiful. They had a
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Speaker 1: fantastic Alice in Wonderland exhibition earlier. And then we also
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Speaker 1: have just a few hours away, the legendary Rock City.
5:20
Speaker 1: Have you guys ever been to Rock City? I've seen it.
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Speaker 1: It's amazing because that's what they tell you. They say
5:25
Speaker 1: Sea Rock City on all the signs leading up to Yeah,
5:29
Speaker 1: what is it like? There's there's gnomes kind of I believe,
5:32
Speaker 1: aren't the future at Rock City? Yes? And it's in
5:35
Speaker 1: black light too, that's right. Yeah, And then there's um,
5:39
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's sort of like an outdoor like
5:42
Speaker 1: cracker barrel situation. Like t G I fridays with like weird,
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Speaker 1: kitchy just you know, kookie stuff everywhere exactly, So you
5:50
Speaker 1: probably have something like a pleasure garden in your neck
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Speaker 1: of the Global Woods in London in sixteen sixty one,
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Speaker 1: a huge pleasure guard opens up. It's called Vauxhall Gardens.
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Speaker 1: It's twelve acres in full. Admission is free, So where
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Speaker 1: are you going to take your kids? Add to that
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Speaker 1: there's entertainment, pretty high quality entertainment. An eight year old
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Speaker 1: Mozart performed there in seventeen sixty four. And so, as
6:18
Speaker 1: we always notice, money comes into play because a couple
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Speaker 1: of folks are looking around and they say, what if
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Speaker 1: admission was free? And they hold it pinky up, you know,
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Speaker 1: to their mouth, and this is how the story kind
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Speaker 1: of begins. We see the beginning of an industry, and
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Speaker 1: the gardens and their attractions begin to be kind of
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Speaker 1: a cultural expression of this desire for what we could
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Speaker 1: call vicarious danger or safe danger, because they presented this
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Speaker 1: kind of natural world that might appear wild and untamed,
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Speaker 1: but it's the kind of think you can take your
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Speaker 1: kids to and everyone will be safe and fine. So
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Speaker 1: they were unthreatening, they were contained environments, and they also
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Speaker 1: kind of generated categories. There was the beauty of nature,
7:14
Speaker 1: but then there was another category of like the terror
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Speaker 1: of nature. That's right, things like you know, tsunami's heavy
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Speaker 1: storms on the high seas, things romanticized by shipwrecks, and
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Speaker 1: you know piraty type behavior, uh and acts of of
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Speaker 1: daring new thunderstorms in the mountains, and of course you
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Speaker 1: know the the open Maw of Hell that is a
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Speaker 1: volcano that's just belching fire and liquid rock and black
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Speaker 1: smoke into the skin to the sky. Um. And it's
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Speaker 1: something that really got some of the creative types behind these,
7:53
Speaker 1: you know, the imagineers of their time, I guess um
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Speaker 1: got them going. And there was a real fascination with
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Speaker 1: like recreating some of these natural horrifying phenomenon that would
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Speaker 1: be like a real draw for for you know, thrill
8:08
Speaker 1: seekers or pleasure seekers. And there were actually there's a
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Speaker 1: series of essays kind of establishing this concept of picturesque
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Speaker 1: beauty um that came out in two by a gentleman
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Speaker 1: named William Gilpen that kind of I love the way
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Speaker 1: this Bloomsbury collective piece, Bloomsbury being a publisher, if I'm
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Speaker 1: not mistaken, kind of outline that Guilpen quote taught the
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Speaker 1: eighteenth century tourists how to gaze and essentially created the concept,
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Speaker 1: or at least made it more mainstream of esthetics or
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Speaker 1: of like enjoying something because it looks nice. Um, and
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Speaker 1: he was even okay with doing that, like in an
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Speaker 1: artificial way, right, Ben, Yeah, that's right. No, Gilpin would
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Speaker 1: have been really into Rock City, which we can't say
9:00
Speaker 1: enough weirdly cryptic good things. You just have to see
9:04
Speaker 1: it real, You just have to see it, uh, Tangent,
9:08
Speaker 1: We don't have time to go into it, but a
9:10
Speaker 1: long time listeners, who remember the time we had my
9:12
Speaker 1: dad on the show. When we moved to Georgia, he
9:16
Speaker 1: relocated first, and I was convinced that he had run
9:20
Speaker 1: away and abandoned our family to live at Rock City
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Speaker 1: by himself because I thought it was that cool. And
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Speaker 1: you know what, he let me believe that for like
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Speaker 1: a year easy. He would tell me he lived in
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Speaker 1: Rock City and I couldn't come anyhow, what's heartbreak? He
9:37
Speaker 1: still thinks it's funny, but but yeah, it's a Gilpin's
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Speaker 1: your point there? No, Um, I love the idea that
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Speaker 1: people have to be taught how to gaze, and uh,
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Speaker 1: with this there comes some conventions, Right, how do we
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Speaker 1: define landscaping? How do we define the picturesque? Uh? He
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Speaker 1: was all about using us for popular public spectacle or events.
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Speaker 1: And at the same time, you know, we saw a
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Speaker 1: lot of gardeners becoming more picturesque using theatrical effects. Shout
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Speaker 1: out to our earlier episode on garden hermits. Was that
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Speaker 1: from a weird flex episode or that was a weird
10:17
Speaker 1: flex episode? Yeah, I think that was yours. I can't remember.
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Speaker 1: I can't remember. They were all equally weird and FLEXI
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Speaker 1: but this belongs in those ranks. This this story we're
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Speaker 1: about to get to. Yes, yes, we're getting to this story.
10:28
Speaker 1: While all this is happening, people of means are traveling
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Speaker 1: to England and they're seeing these sites and they're enjoying them,
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Speaker 1: and they want to bring a piece of that back
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Speaker 1: home with them. So enter onto the stage, Prince Leopold
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Speaker 1: the Third Friedrich Franz of on desaw I defer to
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Speaker 1: you on the German their knowl how Ben, you're only
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Speaker 1: too kind. I hope that I could even bring a
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Speaker 1: modicum of of of of what Casey brings to French
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Speaker 1: with German. Let's see, uh. Leopold the Third Friedrich Franz
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Speaker 1: on how daw perfect? Thank you? Yes, Casey, actually, can
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Speaker 1: we get an applause for oh my god, you guys,
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Speaker 1: you guys. I'd like to I'd like to thank my
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Speaker 1: my German kindergotten teacher foun noi House. That really was
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Speaker 1: her name, which means new new house. I remember when
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Speaker 1: I was, when I was in German kindergarten, I was
11:21
Speaker 1: going on a trip to America. I may have told
11:24
Speaker 1: the story before, but she really wanted me to get
11:26
Speaker 1: to butter finger bars, because you can't get butter of
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Speaker 1: finger bar at least at the time. Surely that's changed.
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Speaker 1: You couldn't get butter finger bars in Germany. Was this
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Speaker 1: East Germany? It was in uh oh, yes, I see
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Speaker 1: what you're saying. Um and sorry, off the off the
11:42
Speaker 1: rails really quickly. But Ben, do you know, and I'm
11:44
Speaker 1: sure you do that, you know, horrible the gummies, the
11:46
Speaker 1: gummy candies. There's a whole bunch of those that are
11:50
Speaker 1: only available in like Scandinavia, and they're salty, right, super salty. Yeah. Also,
12:00
Speaker 1: so uh, Germany, shout out to the real kinder eggs
12:04
Speaker 1: because the stuff we have in the US is just
12:06
Speaker 1: not the same. Casey is nodding solemnly. Yeah, I was
12:09
Speaker 1: just thinking about the whole kinder toy thing. Well, they
12:12
Speaker 1: were choking hazards, not torrious choking hazards, I think. But
12:15
Speaker 1: I just bought one the other day and was really
12:18
Speaker 1: distressed to realize it's shaped like an egg, but it's
12:21
Speaker 1: actually comes with a spoon and it's like you eat
12:23
Speaker 1: it and like it's not it's not a chocolate egg
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Speaker 1: at all. It's like a total bait and switch. Yeah,
12:30
Speaker 1: we also need to talk about the egregious things Cadbury
12:33
Speaker 1: has done and the well anyway, first we have to
12:35
Speaker 1: talk about this volcano. We were promised the volcano. We
12:38
Speaker 1: need to have it. This is where Freedrick comes in. Uh.
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Speaker 1: He and his friend and counselor Friedrich Wilhelm von Erdmannsdorff,
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Speaker 1: went to England. They saw this, They saw the study
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Speaker 1: of landscape and gardening and picturesque spectacles, and they also
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Speaker 1: saw ancient buildings in Italy on their European tour, and
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Speaker 1: so they said, why don't we do something like this
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Speaker 1: in our native Germany. A lot of people make a
13:10
Speaker 1: lot of play ats, right, But the difference here is
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Speaker 1: Leopold the third Frederick Farns is a prince, he's a duke,
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Speaker 1: he rules a small kingdom in modern day Dessow, and
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Speaker 1: he was a pretty good ruler, actually fairly progressive for
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Speaker 1: his time. He's born in seventeen forty, he's in his
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Speaker 1: mid twenties. On this tour of Europe, that's something a
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Speaker 1: lot of the members of the noble class do. So
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Speaker 1: he goes to London, Paris, Marseille, Rome, Venice, Naples, and
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Speaker 1: he sees Mount Vesuvius. He also encounters Pompeii, which had
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Speaker 1: been recently rediscovered in seventeen forty eight, and he was
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Speaker 1: in Pompeii in seventeen sixty six. So there are a
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Speaker 1: couple of big things you do. If you're a well
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Speaker 1: healed track have aler at the time you go to Vesuvius,
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Speaker 1: you climb it and see it with your own eyes.
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Speaker 1: And if you have some juice and you've got some pool,
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Speaker 1: then you actually visit the excavations of Pompeii. Franz was
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Speaker 1: able to do all of this, and they almost didn't
14:19
Speaker 1: go to the volcano. This is the weird part. So
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Speaker 1: he and his friend Friedrich are trying to get to
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Speaker 1: the volcano, but then they notice the volcano is active again.
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Speaker 1: So the group says, look, we're here when are we
14:33
Speaker 1: going to be back here, guys, let's volcano this, let's
14:37
Speaker 1: be amateur volcanologists. They get to the edge of the
14:40
Speaker 1: crater and then right when they're at the edge, they
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Speaker 1: experienced casicga low rumbling. Here they experience this growing sound
14:49
Speaker 1: of vibration that turns into quote a most terrible roar,
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Speaker 1: accompanied by a thick cloud of smoke, and shortly afterwards
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Speaker 1: an ejection of stones, which the mountains spat out with
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Speaker 1: effort and threw far over summit. They watched the eruption. Dude,
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Speaker 1: it's pretty cool, man, Yeah, I love what was it
15:07
Speaker 1: spat out stones? Yes, yes, with effort, with effort, of course.
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Speaker 1: So uh. When he returned to Volts, the Prince um
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Speaker 1: and Edmundorff and a landscape architect by the name of
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Speaker 1: Johann Friedrich Ias Beck Ias Beck Yeah, doing my best here.
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Speaker 1: Um started to go to town creating this like, you know, insane, ludicrous,
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Speaker 1: ostentatious display. And you know, we would call it a backyard,
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Speaker 1: I guess, or a garden. But it was just just
15:43
Speaker 1: pretty massive. I mean it really was like a mini
15:45
Speaker 1: kind of theme part and it was um, there were
15:47
Speaker 1: these kind of enlightenment ideals that were kicking around that
15:51
Speaker 1: were a huge influence over some of the ideas of
15:54
Speaker 1: the time. UM. The idea of UH was Jean Jacques Rousseau,
15:58
Speaker 1: for example, UM, the philosophy of nature, of being educated
16:04
Speaker 1: by nature, let's say. And then there was this garden
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Speaker 1: movement that you know, like we talked about with those essays,
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Speaker 1: that really valued pastoral beauty over like the more formalized
16:17
Speaker 1: kind of you know, hedge mazes and topiarias of the Baroque. Right, yeah, exactly.
16:23
Speaker 1: This is a this is a very weird UH mixtape.
16:29
Speaker 1: It's kind of like an architectural historical girl talk album
16:35
Speaker 1: or like the avalanches. You know, they've taken all these
16:39
Speaker 1: different elements Chinese pagodas, synagogues modeled after the Temple of
16:43
Speaker 1: Hercules Victor in Rome, a miniature pantheon, all this stuff,
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Speaker 1: and they've they've put it together in one enormous state
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Speaker 1: or backyard or garden, and it takes decades to complete.
16:56
Speaker 1: But at the end, what they what they have is
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Speaker 1: just as you've described, this sort of thematically unified tribute
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Speaker 1: or monument to the Enlightenment as as an age the
17:10
Speaker 1: Enlightenment's view of art and nature, beauty, the meaning of
17:14
Speaker 1: life and everything. At this point, you know, it's fair
17:17
Speaker 1: to say if Douglas Adams had been publishing at the time,
17:20
Speaker 1: they would have had a giant marble forty two up there,
17:24
Speaker 1: right next to the pagoda. And as soon as it
17:27
Speaker 1: was ready, Leopold open the park to the public. He
17:31
Speaker 1: wanted everybody to see what wonders they had wrought. There
17:37
Speaker 1: is one part of this park and is particularly amazing.
17:41
Speaker 1: It is a furnace fed fake volcano. No fooling Prince
17:48
Speaker 1: Leopold had kind of a as the History blog describes it,
17:53
Speaker 1: a pet mount Vesuvius built and he could make it
17:56
Speaker 1: erupt on command. It took six years to make. It
18:00
Speaker 1: was done in se and this was like his big
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Speaker 1: science project. So you go to this cool outdoor public
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Speaker 1: space and then you'll learn a little on the way,
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Speaker 1: and you might just happen to see Leopold himself hanging
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Speaker 1: out saying, hey, kid, you want to learn about volcanoes,
18:18
Speaker 1: hold my beer stein, watch this and flip a switch
18:22
Speaker 1: and okay, so how exactly was this accomplished? This This
18:33
Speaker 1: is an incredible feat clearly of of engineering and architecture.
18:38
Speaker 1: Um so what went into it. Friends, Um and his
18:41
Speaker 1: architects created a design that involved uh yeah, not that
18:45
Speaker 1: not that different from the home made vulcany we're talking about,
18:49
Speaker 1: because literally, in all of the instructions I found for
18:51
Speaker 1: how to make one of those homemade science volcanoes, it
18:54
Speaker 1: just says you need some kind of interior container that
18:58
Speaker 1: holds the liquid to to house the reaction. Everything from
19:02
Speaker 1: like maybe a smaller water bottle to like a two
19:05
Speaker 1: leader soda bottle with the top with you know cut
19:08
Speaker 1: in half, you know. Um. But for this they had
19:10
Speaker 1: to build basically an inner building and it was five
19:13
Speaker 1: stories high, and then cover it with what's described as
19:18
Speaker 1: local boulders because only it had to be it was
19:22
Speaker 1: they were. They weren't going to have any imported boulders.
19:24
Speaker 1: They needed this to be authentic. At the top there
19:28
Speaker 1: was a hollow cone that contained a high ceilinged chamber
19:33
Speaker 1: containing three fireplaces. Um, and then the roof had like
19:39
Speaker 1: a crater kind of situation that could be filled with
19:41
Speaker 1: water to create all of that steam you know, when
19:44
Speaker 1: the when the fire you know went off. Um and
19:48
Speaker 1: Franz also built an amphitheater like a Greek style, you know,
19:54
Speaker 1: hillside amphitheater with a little villa where he you know,
19:58
Speaker 1: where the prince could have a personal kind of hang
20:02
Speaker 1: out like an office, like a study, and also then
20:06
Speaker 1: flooded part of the estate to create like a false
20:10
Speaker 1: kind of lake or a moat rather surrounding the volcano,
20:13
Speaker 1: which they referred to as a stone island. And then
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Speaker 1: of course he invited his friends to a very special
20:20
Speaker 1: garden party where they watched the volcano erupt, which is
20:24
Speaker 1: just amazing. And we have a modern day expert on this,
20:27
Speaker 1: uh chemistry professor named Wolfgang Spiro, who had always had
20:32
Speaker 1: a side interest in historical pyrotechnics. You know, we love
20:36
Speaker 1: very specific areas of expertise. Uh So Spira talks about
20:43
Speaker 1: how this actually went down. You know, obviously this is
20:48
Speaker 1: the time before cable television and cell phones. So if
20:51
Speaker 1: you happen to have a friend who has a fake
20:54
Speaker 1: volcano and they invite you to watch it, well, yeah,
20:56
Speaker 1: of course, what else are you gonna do. It's not
20:58
Speaker 1: like wrestling is on. It's not like David Attenborough is
21:01
Speaker 1: going to explain to you the wonders of the undersea world.
21:05
Speaker 1: So you go, you watch this volcano and it seemed
21:09
Speaker 1: like a pretty cool deal. But the question here is
21:14
Speaker 1: was this realistic? What did the eruption actually look like?
21:19
Speaker 1: We only have one image of this actual volcano, it's
21:23
Speaker 1: a painting from but Wolfgang Spiup wanted to figure out
21:28
Speaker 1: if this painting was realistic or if it was you know,
21:33
Speaker 1: kind of gug up for fantasy. If you look at
21:37
Speaker 1: the volcano in the painting, it looks really cool. It
21:40
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily look like a you know, an actual facts volcano,
21:44
Speaker 1: as our pal Law and vogel Bamb would say, but
21:47
Speaker 1: it's impressive. It's a stunner. So here's what Spira did.
21:51
Speaker 1: He compared the size of the volcano and the painting
21:54
Speaker 1: to the size of the real volcano, which is still
21:57
Speaker 1: around by this point. Uh. The real volu cano rises
22:01
Speaker 1: about fifty six ft above the river that flows past it.
22:07
Speaker 1: And he could tell then that the smoke in the
22:09
Speaker 1: painting represented a cloud about thirty ft high, and that,
22:14
Speaker 1: he says, meant the smoke could have been from a
22:16
Speaker 1: natural source, and the painting was therefore actually a pretty
22:20
Speaker 1: good depiction of what the original eruption looked like. But
22:23
Speaker 1: then he had a thousand more questions. What kind of
22:25
Speaker 1: would would they have used? Why was the volcano so
22:28
Speaker 1: far away from all the other weird toys the prince had?
22:32
Speaker 1: Why were there three separate fireplaces concealed in a brick
22:36
Speaker 1: line chamber underneath the volcano? Uh? Smithsonian has a great
22:41
Speaker 1: breakdown of this where they say that some of the
22:44
Speaker 1: most important clues come from a guy named Carl August Boatinger.
22:49
Speaker 1: He wrote a really long account of watching the volcano
22:53
Speaker 1: in and he was not writing this as a compliment it,
23:00
Speaker 1: that's the funny part to me. Instead, he was roasting Leopold,
23:06
Speaker 1: like he was like, why would you build this thing?
23:09
Speaker 1: You weird weird man? And while he's doing this, he's
23:13
Speaker 1: describing in detail, Uh, the mechanism of the thing, like
23:18
Speaker 1: how the eruption starts from water released from the concealed
23:21
Speaker 1: crater at the top of the volcano to simulate lava,
23:25
Speaker 1: to the red lamps that give the pile of stone
23:29
Speaker 1: kind of this otherworldly glow. How cool would that be
23:32
Speaker 1: if this was still around? Ben? Oh, well, hold hold
23:36
Speaker 1: your hold your horses, hold your volcanologist, I should say, Uh,
23:40
Speaker 1: there were also fireworks? Why not? Why not? You know
23:43
Speaker 1: it's already as if it could get any more ostentatious.
23:47
Speaker 1: Let's add firework displays, and surely those were not like automated.
23:50
Speaker 1: These would have to be loaded and set by you know,
23:52
Speaker 1: individual workers every single time. Uh that it was set off.
23:57
Speaker 1: It wasn't just like okay, like the Disneyland fireworks that
23:59
Speaker 1: go off every night. And again those aren't automated either.
24:02
Speaker 1: But here's what happened. Um, gunpowder, pitch, and sulfur were
24:06
Speaker 1: really easy to get ahold of. In the eighteenth century,
24:09
Speaker 1: pipe pyrotechnics were super popular and uh, a lot of
24:13
Speaker 1: the folks involved in this situation came from military background,
24:16
Speaker 1: so they were intimately familiar with these explosives. There was
24:20
Speaker 1: something called Bengal fire, which was a type of chemical
24:25
Speaker 1: that has added to create a bright blue or red flame.
24:29
Speaker 1: That's a lot like what we would see today in
24:32
Speaker 1: terms in the form of a like a flare, like
24:34
Speaker 1: a road flare or something you used on a ship. Absolutely,
24:38
Speaker 1: so this is since we were a family show and
24:42
Speaker 1: sometimes played in classrooms. This is bad but that sounds
24:46
Speaker 1: more awkward than badass. Yeah it does, bad boy, but
24:53
Speaker 1: your bottom So this is cool, right, This is this
24:57
Speaker 1: is objectively crazy and the very definition of a public spectacle.
25:02
Speaker 1: You know, Franz was obsessed with this. He loved it,
25:06
Speaker 1: loved it, loved it. He passes away at eighteen twenty
25:10
Speaker 1: and the eruption stopped because his sole legitimate son is like,
25:16
Speaker 1: why would you? Why would you build this volcano? You
25:20
Speaker 1: weird weird man. And most of his garden realm as
25:26
Speaker 1: it was called, was preserved after his death, but the
25:29
Speaker 1: volcano fell into neglect over the course of the next
25:33
Speaker 1: century and a half. Luckily, the garden overall survived World
25:38
Speaker 1: War Two with very minor damage. The worst damage it
25:41
Speaker 1: received actually, and this is this is just tragic. Uh.
25:46
Speaker 1: German forces destroyed the interior of the synagogue during Crystal
25:51
Speaker 1: Knock in November of nine and the only reason the
25:55
Speaker 1: synagogue survives is because the director of the park at
25:59
Speaker 1: the time, a guy named Hans Halvarden, kept the building
26:02
Speaker 1: from being destroyed completely and they fired him. But in
26:06
Speaker 1: my opinion, Hans is a hero for that. So after
26:10
Speaker 1: World War two it becomes part of East Germany. See
26:13
Speaker 1: we brought it back around. This area is part of
26:16
Speaker 1: East Germany. The volcano is further neglected and according to
26:21
Speaker 1: Hiko Pills, one of the graduate assistants at the time
26:26
Speaker 1: at the Bradenburg Technical University. The very last eruptions with
26:30
Speaker 1: the fake volcano were just burning tires and was overgrown
26:33
Speaker 1: with weeds and falling apart, and after part of it
26:38
Speaker 1: collapsed and killed someone in authorities in East Germany condemned it,
26:43
Speaker 1: which is a shame, oh man. And I maybe was
26:46
Speaker 1: being a little coy earlier, but maybe I wasn't when
26:48
Speaker 1: I said, gosh, sure, woody cool, this is still around today.
26:53
Speaker 1: Enough of the kind of basis of this thing are
26:58
Speaker 1: still around. The stone Island of Volts part of the
27:02
Speaker 1: Garden Realm of Volets and Onesco. World Heritage deemed it
27:06
Speaker 1: a historical site. Um it's about an hour south of
27:10
Speaker 1: Berlin by car. But in the early two thousands it
27:14
Speaker 1: was condemned and really, you know, was overgrown with weeds
27:19
Speaker 1: and something of a hazard to be around. The stones
27:22
Speaker 1: were in repair and could have collapsed, but a five
27:26
Speaker 1: year restoration project fixed all this and deemed the volcano
27:30
Speaker 1: to be safe, but yet silent um. It was not
27:35
Speaker 1: restored to its full glory until two thousand four, when
27:38
Speaker 1: the World Heritage Sites Management looked to a gentleman by
27:42
Speaker 1: the name of Wolfgang Spira, who was in a chemistry
27:47
Speaker 1: professor from the Brandenburg Technical University UM, and he did.
27:51
Speaker 1: He had a particular um. He had a particular penchant
27:55
Speaker 1: for historical pyrotechnics. Let's add that to the list of
27:58
Speaker 1: weird special realizations, right like underwater explosions, historical pyrotechnics. And
28:04
Speaker 1: he wanted to bring the volcano roaring back to life because,
28:08
Speaker 1: according to Spira, a volcano that can't explode is a
28:13
Speaker 1: very sad volcano. Indeed, and he wanted to make it
28:16
Speaker 1: happy again, he says, which I love. Um, he wanted
28:20
Speaker 1: to help the volcano get its identity back. This guy
28:23
Speaker 1: is very high, high concept thinker. It would appear, um.
28:27
Speaker 1: So he spent a decade as the head of Berlin's
28:29
Speaker 1: criminology lab UM. And he actually signs his emails the
28:34
Speaker 1: eruptor we need an explosion for that total Yeah, could
28:38
Speaker 1: you say it again, nol the eruptor the oupor Okay, sorry, Casey,
28:45
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Look at I've looked at it, Dacy,
28:48
Speaker 1: wondering how far we can push the Salacus today. I
28:56
Speaker 1: love that quote where Wolfgang wants to help this volcano
28:59
Speaker 1: get its identity back. So he starts doing his detective work,
29:04
Speaker 1: which we mentioned earlier, and eventually he gets the volcano
29:10
Speaker 1: ready to rock and lava, rock and roll, rock and
29:13
Speaker 1: lava again, and he recreates the events. It's still incredible
29:20
Speaker 1: even to people in the twenty one century. If we
29:23
Speaker 1: can set the tone. People are gathering outside of the
29:27
Speaker 1: shores of this artificial lake. They're listening to these rumbles.
29:32
Speaker 1: Wine is flowing freely, twilight is deepening into what some
29:35
Speaker 1: German poets called the blue hour. We we call it
29:39
Speaker 1: kind of like it's just past golden hour. For anybody
29:42
Speaker 1: familiar with filming, it's just a little bit deeper right
29:45
Speaker 1: before the night sets on. I've never heard of the
29:47
Speaker 1: blue hour. Well, we're not German poets yet. So as
29:50
Speaker 1: this rumbling is building, as this suscerous reaches a crescendo,
29:56
Speaker 1: there is a rumble of drums and thunder. Red flame
30:00
Speaker 1: games flicker at the top of the volcano, growing into
30:03
Speaker 1: a thick column of smoke, and red tinged water starts
30:07
Speaker 1: to flow from the crater, churning into the lake below.
30:10
Speaker 1: There are these loud explosions, sending sparks careening into the
30:15
Speaker 1: sky and inside the peak of the volcano. There's an
30:19
Speaker 1: eighty six square foot oven packed with fresh pine needles.
30:24
Speaker 1: They roar into a smoky fire. They send the sparks
30:27
Speaker 1: higher and higher and higher. Bredenburg Technical University students are
30:33
Speaker 1: watching this. They're wearing gas masks. They run from fireplace
30:37
Speaker 1: to fireplace in the secret chamber below, and they're squirting
30:41
Speaker 1: lighter fluid all over these fires and tossing in this
30:44
Speaker 1: special powder to make the smoke have a bright color.
30:48
Speaker 1: And then they get to see in a very real
30:50
Speaker 1: way a snapshot of history from centuries before, which is beautiful. Yeah,
30:56
Speaker 1: but they didn't solve it all though. There was one
30:59
Speaker 1: graduate student, Joe miss Loman, who said, the original volcano
31:03
Speaker 1: still has its secrets. Of course, I wonder how they
31:06
Speaker 1: did the noise. Nowadays we have high fi speakers, but
31:09
Speaker 1: back then, no idea. Yeah, it's true, but they it
31:14
Speaker 1: was really important to them to keep the experience authentic, right.
31:18
Speaker 1: Um So, spira and and quills, Oh my goodness, gracious,
31:22
Speaker 1: I love this. When q U I L t Z
31:25
Speaker 1: S c H, I'm just gonna say quilch Um. They
31:29
Speaker 1: didn't want to cheapen the experience by like over hyping
31:34
Speaker 1: the event. Um So, they don't want it to be again.
31:37
Speaker 1: Like the fireworks at Disneyland there every single night, and
31:41
Speaker 1: they're really cool. When you're there visiting, it's magical. But
31:43
Speaker 1: I imagine if you live in Orlando, it just becomes
31:46
Speaker 1: like super hum drum, you know what I mean. Maybe, yeah,
31:49
Speaker 1: it's not Christmas if it's every day. So technically, folks,
31:54
Speaker 1: if you are in the area, you can visit this volcano.
31:58
Speaker 1: It's still in place to rumbled back to life in
32:01
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, and about once a year they
32:04
Speaker 1: fired their pet vesuvious up. But the funny thing is
32:08
Speaker 1: you can't get advanced notice of this. Really. They won't
32:11
Speaker 1: tell you when the next eruption will beat. One of
32:13
Speaker 1: them said, and I look this. These guys are great
32:16
Speaker 1: with the sound bites. One of one of the creators said,
32:19
Speaker 1: would you ask a volcano when it's going to go off?
32:26
Speaker 1: I added that laugh at the end that's not not
32:28
Speaker 1: in the quote. Oh yeah, I was with it. I
32:31
Speaker 1: was with it. I think this is fascinating. I would
32:33
Speaker 1: love one of these in my backyard. Uh maybe it's
32:36
Speaker 1: like a like a like a scaled down version. It
32:39
Speaker 1: reminds me of a miniature golf course. Kind of like
32:41
Speaker 1: the kind of feature you might see in a miniature
32:43
Speaker 1: golf course where you hit the golf ball like into
32:46
Speaker 1: the hole on the side of the volcano and then
32:48
Speaker 1: it shoots out the top or something like that. Um,
32:51
Speaker 1: I could go for that. I've seen some real volcanoes before.
32:55
Speaker 1: I haven't been to the edge of one during interruption,
32:59
Speaker 1: but but yeah, this seems like at least the next
33:02
Speaker 1: best thing. So for everybody working on a science project now,
33:07
Speaker 1: we just wanted to give you a glimpse of how
33:09
Speaker 1: far you can go with a fake volcano. Thanks as
33:14
Speaker 1: always to our super producer, Casey Pegrum, Thanks to our
33:17
Speaker 1: research associate, the one, the Only, Gabe Bluesier. Gabe, if
33:22
Speaker 1: you're listening, checkmate, my friend, we learned how to correctly
33:27
Speaker 1: pronounce your last name. Oh we did. We have an
33:29
Speaker 1: inside scoop and now nothing will ever be the same again.
33:33
Speaker 1: We can we can still, you know, go on pretending
33:35
Speaker 1: like we don't trying different ways. But I think we
33:37
Speaker 1: were right from the start where we've been. A isn't
33:38
Speaker 1: a Louzier. But you know what, now I'm mixed up again.
33:42
Speaker 1: Ye same, but you know, either way, you're your subterfuge aside. Gabe, Um,
33:49
Speaker 1: we we really love you and we're thankful for you
33:51
Speaker 1: on this our episode just prior to Thanksgiving. Hope everyone
33:56
Speaker 1: out there is being safe. Um. You know, there's a
33:59
Speaker 1: lot of we ad myth with families right now, especially
34:01
Speaker 1: if you're on different sides of political divide perhaps of
34:05
Speaker 1: whether or not you know it's okay to do Thanksgiving
34:08
Speaker 1: like normal, And um, I just hope everyone's having a
34:11
Speaker 1: good conversation about it and and and and thinking of
34:13
Speaker 1: others and maybe you know, doing it on zoom this
34:16
Speaker 1: year and everything will be better again soon. But I
34:19
Speaker 1: think we just if we can push through, then maybe
34:21
Speaker 1: we'll all be better for it. And I would like
34:25
Speaker 1: to point out for those of us who historically try
34:29
Speaker 1: to do a little bit of volunteering, uh and so
34:31
Speaker 1: on during this time of year, I want to point
34:34
Speaker 1: out that volunteering doesn't have to be a seasonal thing.
34:38
Speaker 1: If you feel moved to help people, there are always
34:41
Speaker 1: people out there who could use a helping hand. So
34:44
Speaker 1: think of those folks, not just on Thanksgiving, but think
34:48
Speaker 1: of them, you know, in the lull of the holiday calendar,
34:52
Speaker 1: because they're still there. And we'll follow up with an
34:53
Speaker 1: even punch here thanksgiving an episode later later this uh
34:58
Speaker 1: later this week, so stay tuned. Also, as always, thanks
35:04
Speaker 1: to our number one Turkey, Jonathan Strickland a k. The
35:07
Speaker 1: Quister is that you mean not at all? No, he's uh,
35:11
Speaker 1: he's more of a tur Ducan kind of figure. Uh.
35:13
Speaker 1: He contains multitude. He's like one of those Cathulu tur
35:16
Speaker 1: Ducans with the squid that you've seen on the internet. Maybe. Um,
35:20
Speaker 1: but yeah, you know, we'll have him back very soon,
35:22
Speaker 1: very excited. Uh. I think he what he he be
35:24
Speaker 1: got us this last time. But now we have the
35:26
Speaker 1: opportunity to to to to get him back. That probably
35:29
Speaker 1: won't be until after the holidays, so um yeah. Check
35:32
Speaker 1: out our Facebook group Ridiculous Historians, where you can join
35:35
Speaker 1: in the conversation around new episodes and post your memes
35:38
Speaker 1: and selfies whatever you want. It's it's all, it's all
35:40
Speaker 1: for you, um. And you can also find us on
35:43
Speaker 1: social media as individual human people. I am at how
35:46
Speaker 1: Now Noel Brown on Instagram. You can find me on Twitter.
35:50
Speaker 1: I am at Ben Bolan h s W the old
35:54
Speaker 1: school audience folks know what that stands for. And I
35:57
Speaker 1: am on Instagram as at Ben Boland. So coming for
36:02
Speaker 1: the weird shots of me as simply in a studio,
36:05
Speaker 1: and stay for the incredibly obscure memes. We'll see you
36:09
Speaker 1: next time, folks. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
36:17
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
36:20
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.