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The Delaware Wedge, Part One: A Tiny State with Massive History · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show,
0:27
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for tuning in.
0:32
Speaker 1: The boys are back in town. We're here in Atlanta,
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Speaker 1: hanging with our super producer, mister Max Williams, and we
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Speaker 1: are pursuing a couple of things today. A funny thing
0:44
Speaker 1: happened when two thirds of us were in New York.
0:47
Speaker 1: We got a chance to hang out with someone who
0:50
Speaker 1: may show up on the show in the future, our
0:52
Speaker 1: good friends Slash Mentor the founder of Mental Floss, mister
0:56
Speaker 1: Mangesh had a cature and we had a awesome time
1:00
Speaker 1: hanging out at a Russian mob restaurant.
1:05
Speaker 2: One of those like old New York places in the
1:08
Speaker 2: Theater district that you'll pass by a million times and
1:10
Speaker 2: pay it no mind. With the Big Red Awning established
1:13
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six, Mango hiped us to the fact that
1:16
Speaker 2: it was owned at one point, maybe even still by
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Speaker 2: the famous Russian ballet dancer Barishnikov.
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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and have those vibes. And I guess we've
1:27
Speaker 1: introduced two people before we got to ourselves. You're Noel Brown.
1:30
Speaker 1: I am Ben Boland. That's what they called me in
1:32
Speaker 1: the States, and speaking of states, when we were hanging
1:35
Speaker 1: out with Mangesh, going somewhere with this guy, so I
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Speaker 1: was thinking the same thing, dude. Yeah, Mangesh is one
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Speaker 1: of the few people we know who is actually from Delaware,
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Speaker 1: and I think most of us just think of Delaware
1:48
Speaker 1: with the waynes World joke. Oh I'm in Delaware, right.
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Speaker 2: We've talked about it a lot on stuff they don't
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Speaker 2: want you to know, because it is sort of like
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Speaker 2: a weird tax haven loophole for corp operations. A lot
2:00
Speaker 2: of corporations are incorporated there because of I forget the
2:04
Speaker 2: deeds exactly, but it's something to do with banking laws
2:07
Speaker 2: there that allow a little more leeway with certain aspects
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Speaker 2: of being incorporated. Yeah, there are We have talked about this.
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Speaker 2: You're right, I forgot on stuff they don't want you
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Speaker 2: to know. In Delaware.
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Speaker 1: You'll notice that a lot of the financial and banking
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Speaker 1: laws are really favorable. And so it's home right now.
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Speaker 1: It's home to more than sixty percent of our fortune
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Speaker 1: five hundred companies like Google or Alphabet excuse me, Amazon,
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Speaker 1: CBS Health, et cetera. And just actually this year there
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Speaker 1: were another two hundred and fifty thousand businesses that registered
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Speaker 1: in this pretty small state. One thing Mangesh told us
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Speaker 1: that was surprising is that there is a somewhat somewhat
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Speaker 1: of a divide geographically and the southern part of it.
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Speaker 1: When he was growing up there was still pretty agricultural.
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Speaker 1: It was like the South, And I think that's baffling
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Speaker 1: to a lot of us who are from different states.
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Speaker 1: But it turns out, just like Garth and Wayne, there
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Speaker 1: are a lot of things we don't know about Delaware, like, no,
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Speaker 1: it's it's called the first state. I did not know that.
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Speaker 2: It's also like the chemical capital of the United States,
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Speaker 2: the chemical which doesn't seem like the best of accolades.
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Speaker 2: I would argue, you know, maybe calls into question the
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Speaker 2: quality of the water or something.
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Speaker 1: I don't know.
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Speaker 2: I'm sure they do their best, but also what would
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Speaker 2: have I guest to say, he said, you know, what's
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Speaker 2: there to do in Delaware? Go to New York or
3:47
Speaker 2: Philly or Philly said yeah, he did say that, and
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Speaker 2: I believe yeah, he had a a is Alma Mater
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Speaker 2: was home to such a Hollywood luminaries as Judge Reinhold.
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Speaker 1: You may remember from the Beverly Hills Cop movies. He's
4:01
Speaker 1: the straight guy. There was one other name, and there
4:04
Speaker 1: are a couple there were a couple like notable celebrities
4:08
Speaker 1: from his high school, and it's it's a very special
4:12
Speaker 1: place in the US. It's also weird to hear Mangesh
4:16
Speaker 1: talk that way Elizabeth from leaving Las Vegas. Yeah, and
4:21
Speaker 1: and then of course our pal Mango, only only one
4:25
Speaker 1: that matters dust right exactly. It also turns out what
4:28
Speaker 1: we were talking about, Judge Riinhold is not in fact
4:31
Speaker 1: a judge. When I was when I was a kid,
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Speaker 1: I swear to God, I thought it was his actual
4:38
Speaker 1: title and that he was a judge who also did movies.
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Speaker 1: And I thought, how does he find the time? No,
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Speaker 1: that's just his first name. It's a reasonable thing to think. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I forgot, Yeah he was.
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Speaker 2: He always kind of played the the two square guy.
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Speaker 2: Even in like fast times at Ridgemont High he was
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Speaker 2: like the slowest of the fast timers. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
5:00
Speaker 1: And with a big shout out to our research associate
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Speaker 1: for this episode, mister Max Williams, we are going to
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Speaker 1: explore Delaware because a lot of fellow Americans in the
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Speaker 1: crowd don't know much about Delaware. So I have, in
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Speaker 1: the spirit of education and learning together, I have changed
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Speaker 1: my title in our little recording platform to well Aware
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Speaker 1: of Delaware. It's aspirational.
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Speaker 2: I believe this also counts as are trying to get
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Speaker 2: one over on Old Sufian Stevens doing every state episode
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Speaker 2: for Delaware.
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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, because clearly recording one episode about each state
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Speaker 1: is the exact same amount of work as doing an
5:42
Speaker 1: entire album state.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, but you got You gotta appreciate the flex though
5:46
Speaker 2: with Old Sufian, because he made a big to do
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Speaker 2: about it. I think it was a pretty good publicity stunt.
5:51
Speaker 2: He ultimately ended up making two.
5:53
Speaker 1: It has been so fuch not on a decade.
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Speaker 2: I believe Illinois is probably about ten years old at
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Speaker 2: this point in Michigan even older.
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Speaker 1: And those are both great albums. Yeah, I believe Illinois
6:05
Speaker 1: has been made into a Broadway musical. Takes a minute
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Speaker 1: for that to happen. I mean, it's basically already a classic.
6:12
Speaker 1: You got your back to the future of the musical
6:14
Speaker 1: and you're Illinois music.
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Speaker 3: So what you're saying is our episode about how Indiana
6:18
Speaker 3: try to change Pie is set to be a motional
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Speaker 3: length picture.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's turnarounds. It's in talks. It's in talks.
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Speaker 1: There we go and we believe in you. Swoof John
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Speaker 1: can't wait for the Delaware album as well as the
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Speaker 1: Georgia album. Please put us in one of the songs.
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Speaker 1: So here's the thing. Delaware is very small in comparison
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Speaker 1: to other US states. It's ninety six miles long, thirty
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Speaker 1: nine miles wide. It has three counties. That's right.
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Speaker 2: We've got your Newcastle, your Kent, and your Sussex, which
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Speaker 2: all sound suspiciously British.
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Speaker 1: Oh I like that you say British. You know, it
7:01
Speaker 1: reminds me of the sick Tom Martins. So this place has,
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Speaker 1: according to US News, a GDP of eighty eight billion
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Speaker 1: dollars year billion billion with a B like then yeah, okay,
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Speaker 1: and I guess we tease it a little bit. But
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Speaker 1: that in large part is coming from the chemical industry,
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Speaker 1: chemical manufacturing. Delaware's economy relies largely on that chemical manufacturer.
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Speaker 2: We've got companies like DuPont, for example, that are headquartered there.
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Speaker 2: At the very least, they're manufacturing headquarters, basis of operations
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Speaker 2: are there, and it is in fact often referred to
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Speaker 2: as the chemical capital.
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Speaker 1: I'm sorry I got it wrong earlier as said of
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Speaker 1: the country, it is of the world. Yeah. Yeah. One
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Speaker 1: of the world's top manufacturing companies plays a big role
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Speaker 1: in Delaware's history as well, and we have talked about
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Speaker 1: DuPont in very trans parent and honest terms on stuff
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Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. Tune into those episodes
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Speaker 1: while they are still allowed to be out in the world.
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Speaker 1: This is a different conversation. We're not going to take
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Speaker 1: a bunch of potshots at Delaware, but we are going
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Speaker 1: to do a couple of a golf jokes courtesy of Max. So,
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Speaker 1: what's that old state joke? What did Delaware? When?
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Speaker 4: Comes after that?
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Speaker 1: It's one of those things for remembering the states on
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Speaker 1: what did Is that like a humonic I remember what
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Speaker 1: did Delaware? Boys? What did Delaware? I ask you now,
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Speaker 1: as a personal friend, what did Delaware? She wore her
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Speaker 1: new jersey? Boys, she wore her new jersey? I tell
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Speaker 1: you as a personal friend, she wore her new jersey?
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Speaker 1: How is this okay? It's like a nursery rhyme. Yeah
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Speaker 1: did Delaware? So? Uh, here's here's the thing you may
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Speaker 1: have tuned in. Ridiculous historians and saw that the title
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Speaker 1: of this episode is the Delaware Wedge. And if you
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Speaker 1: are a fan of golfing, you might think, oh, Delaware wedge.
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Speaker 1: It's one of the cool clubs, right. A wedge is
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Speaker 1: one of the most prevalent clubs that golfers use, and
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Speaker 1: they'll carry different wedges, just like Hawkeye has different arrows.
9:23
Speaker 1: That's right. You know he's got you got your bomb arrows,
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Speaker 1: you got your grappling hook arrows, you got your I
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Speaker 1: don't know one of the his or fancy do all
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Speaker 1: kinds of weird stuff. But yeah, no, a wedge. You know,
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Speaker 1: I'm not a golfer.
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Speaker 2: I've never actually played outside of a mini golf situation.
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Speaker 1: It's a lot of fun. We love it. We've done
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Speaker 1: it together. I uh did grow up in Augusta.
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Speaker 2: Georgia, which is considered one of the golfing you know
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Speaker 2: mecha of the world because of the Master's Golf tournament.
9:55
Speaker 2: I have set foot on the Augusta National a few times.
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Speaker 2: I just couldn't care less about watching golfing. Person do, however,
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Speaker 2: quite enjoy golf video games, especially if there's a silly
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Speaker 2: spin on it.
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Speaker 1: There's this game called like what is it called golf theft? Auto?
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Speaker 1: Is that thing? Is that real? No? I made that up.
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Speaker 2: There's a game that's sort of like a classic throwback
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Speaker 2: e looking game where you're a little dude who has
10:20
Speaker 2: been sent to hell and in order to get out
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Speaker 2: of hell, you have to golf your way through all
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Speaker 2: of these weird obstacle courses and ultimately play golf against
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Speaker 2: the devil himself.
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Speaker 4: But it's really.
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Speaker 1: Cute and fun game. It's called Cursed to Golf, I
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Speaker 1: believe is the name of it. I like how realistic
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Speaker 1: and grounded it sounds.
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Speaker 2: I tell you it's a who and that is most
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Speaker 2: of the things I've learned about various golf clubs, and
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Speaker 2: you know, spin and whatnot comes from golf games. But
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Speaker 2: a wedge is something you might use to, say, get
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Speaker 2: out of a sand trap. It's typically for a short game.
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Speaker 2: So it's like, just before you get into the putting territory,
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Speaker 2: you're gonna rock a wedge because it gives you various
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Speaker 2: art kind of lengths that you can sort of predict
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Speaker 2: and control. So there's you know, various powers of wedges, right,
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Speaker 2: powers of wedges.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds like a math thing that it does.
11:11
Speaker 1: Sound like a math rock album, you know, it's new
11:14
Speaker 1: metal or something like that. However, record Scratch Max. We
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Speaker 1: are not talking about golf. We we just shyamalan ourselves
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Speaker 1: and everybody listening. We're not even talking about the economic development,
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Speaker 1: development and environment of Delaware. That's totally different story. We
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Speaker 1: should get to it in the future because it's fascinating.
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Speaker 1: But what we are talking about is this Delaware Wedge,
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Speaker 1: a strange little piece of land that for a long
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Speaker 1: time went back and forth. It was claimed as the
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Speaker 1: territory of one state, it was governed, administered, administrated by another.
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Speaker 1: It created it was created by a conflict that didn't
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Speaker 1: involve Delaware at all. It's just a very strange way
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Speaker 1: to do a Delaware episode.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, to jump in here real quick. I was actually
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Speaker 4: talking to my aunt Jennifer.
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Speaker 3: She lived in Pennsylvania Philadelphia for a number of years,
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Speaker 3: and I was just like talking to her one day
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Speaker 3: via text and I was like, oh, yeah, I'm writing
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Speaker 3: a brief right now about Pennsylvania being just like super extra.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, shout out William Penn. So we also need to
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Speaker 1: since this is a geography episode, folks, picture picture our
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Speaker 1: exploration today like a map. And as we continue deeper
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Speaker 1: into the territory of this episode, there's a little sign
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Speaker 1: that says warning, here be math. We're going to get
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Speaker 1: into geometry, geometrical math, and it'll help illuminate how the
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Speaker 1: Delaware Wedge came to be. And it starts with a
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Speaker 1: disagreement between Maryland and Pennsylvania.
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Speaker 2: That is correct, The Delaware Wedge was, in fact a
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Speaker 2: land dispute between mary and Pennsylvania. According to Kat Eshner,
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Speaker 2: writing for Smithsonian, Colonial Maryland Pennsylvania had it harder than
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Speaker 2: most when it comes to being neighbors. They both had legitimate,
13:12
Speaker 2: at least in their opinions, its claims to a large
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Speaker 2: area of land, and there was of course a serious
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Speaker 2: conflict of interest there a competing interest in that land
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Speaker 2: that led to something called the Cresaps War, the Cresaps War,
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Speaker 2: I believe Cresaps might be right, also known as the
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Speaker 2: Congjocular War, which is a great word. I love jocular,
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Speaker 2: just that it means kind of like good natured, right,
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Speaker 2: get and funny, yeah, and so conjocular. It must be
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Speaker 2: referring to a place which was an eight year conflict
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Speaker 2: over the city of Philadelphia and its surrounding lands.
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Speaker 1: I'm sorry I said that. Like Matt Barry, it just
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Speaker 1: felt right. So one of the biggest causes of dispute
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Speaker 1: Ben was, as is often the case, poorly on borders. Oh,
14:01
Speaker 1: badly rendered maps. Check out also not to constantly be
14:07
Speaker 1: plugging the other show, but check out also the excellent
14:11
Speaker 1: in my opinion episode we did for stuff they don't
14:14
Speaker 1: want you to know on Tara Nullius, h and Y
14:17
Speaker 1: and things like line of actual control. I couldn't agree more.
14:21
Speaker 1: You couldn't agree more to stop promoing that show or
14:24
Speaker 1: then it was an absolute banger of an episode. Oh,
14:27
Speaker 1: you should get ye to that feed post haste, post
14:31
Speaker 1: haste forthwith Yeah. The problem with these borders is that
14:38
Speaker 1: to some degree they're aspirational, and people try to gaslight
14:44
Speaker 1: each other, or governments try to gaslight each other on
14:47
Speaker 1: who actually controls what. And Pennsylvania's charter is no different
14:52
Speaker 1: because its boundaries are if you looked at them from
14:56
Speaker 1: the modern perspective, you would say, this is real weird?
15:01
Speaker 1: Is this actual geography? Or you trying to cast the spell?
15:06
Speaker 1: Like they said, the southern border should be a circle,
15:09
Speaker 1: drawing a twelve mile distance from Newcastle northward and westward
15:14
Speaker 1: onto the beginning of the fortieth degree of northern latitude,
15:17
Speaker 1: then by a straight line westward to the limit of
15:21
Speaker 1: longitude above mention Like what, I'm sorry, excuse me a
15:27
Speaker 1: bit here.
15:29
Speaker 4: I so, I think you all both know about this project.
15:31
Speaker 3: I've been but I've been recently getting Elder Scrolls to
15:34
Speaker 3: Daggerfall running on my new computer. And you know, it's
15:38
Speaker 3: a nineteen ninety six game. It's a very different, let's
15:42
Speaker 3: to say, than what like Uld Troll's five scaum is.
15:46
Speaker 3: But all the spells read exactly like that, and they
15:48
Speaker 3: make no sense for Daggerfall, let alone for a map.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, this is a really weird thing going on here, right,
15:58
Speaker 1: And I'm sure it is the result of negotiation by committee, right,
16:04
Speaker 1: which we see in Hollywood blockbusters and stuff. But with
16:08
Speaker 1: these instructions, which were probably well intentioned, the surveyor of
16:14
Speaker 1: the colony made a big whoopsie. The fortieth parallel that
16:18
Speaker 1: they're talking about there is north of Philadelphia, and if
16:22
Speaker 1: they've followed that, this would have put the famous city
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Speaker 1: of Philadelphia into Maryland instead of in Pennsylvania. Can you
16:31
Speaker 1: imagine how angry the roots would be about this?
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Speaker 2: I don't think they would have taken two particularly kindly.
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Speaker 2: So the two colonies start bickering about where the border
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Speaker 2: actually is, and in seventeen twenty four, the Crown that's
16:47
Speaker 2: why I'm saying these words like this, this is all
16:50
Speaker 2: very British. The British Crown told the parties to you
16:55
Speaker 2: know what, working out amongst yourself, y'all figure it out.
16:58
Speaker 2: We got other stuff to do, We've got bigger fish
17:00
Speaker 2: to fry. But of course they continued bickering and did
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Speaker 2: not find a solution. So despite the Crown's gentle suggestion
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Speaker 2: that Maryland and Delaware worked things out between themselves, this
17:16
Speaker 2: did not transpire. Pennsylvania created Lancaster County, which is pronounced
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Speaker 2: Lancaster and not Lancashire. I believe despite the britishness of
17:25
Speaker 2: the whole affair, and that clearly aggressively extended well beyond
17:32
Speaker 2: the southern border as had been claimed by Maryland. We
17:37
Speaker 2: get a lot of these details from Dan Lewis, who
17:41
Speaker 2: is a trivia expert. How do you become a trivia
17:45
Speaker 2: are we were kind of trivia experts, aren't we?
17:48
Speaker 1: Yeah? We're trivial trivia EXPERTI aren't We're not like you know,
17:52
Speaker 1: we're not seriously trivial, we're not credentialed. We have not
17:57
Speaker 1: gone to the University of trivia program right or at
18:01
Speaker 1: the University of Pennsylvania's trivia program. Great program they have there.
18:05
Speaker 1: It's a great school. And so our friends in Maryland
18:15
Speaker 1: are not going to take this. They're not going to
18:19
Speaker 1: take this as anything other than an active aggression, and
18:21
Speaker 1: they've got to fire some shots back. So they put
18:24
Speaker 1: down their crab long enough to get a guy named
18:27
Speaker 1: Thomas put down their crab. Maryland loves crab. I love
18:32
Speaker 1: that as an expression.
18:32
Speaker 2: I don't know if you know, there's been my partner,
18:35
Speaker 2: my girlfriend I call the crab. Yes I thought, I
18:39
Speaker 2: thought you did. Yeah, day of the Crab. It's in
18:41
Speaker 2: my phone that way. But so I love this idea of.
18:43
Speaker 1: Butt lay down your crab, put down your crabs. So yes,
18:48
Speaker 1: So I'm just throwing out a huge stereotype of Maryland.
18:51
Speaker 1: But honestly, if you get a chance to travel to Maryland,
18:55
Speaker 1: especially by the coast, you gotta try the crab. It
18:59
Speaker 1: is amazing. They've got their own kind of style of though.
19:01
Speaker 1: They have like a like a soft shell crab situation
19:05
Speaker 1: that's almost got like some stuffing kind of in it
19:07
Speaker 1: where they inside the crab. Yeah, yeah, And so they
19:10
Speaker 1: put down their crab long enough long enough to contact
19:15
Speaker 1: a guy named Thomas Cresap. Now he's like a real
19:19
Speaker 1: estate version of a special agent. He is a land
19:22
Speaker 1: agent for one of the big blue blood families of Maryland,
19:28
Speaker 1: the Calvert family. And they say, hey, Tom, we need
19:32
Speaker 1: you to build a settlement in a strategic location by
19:36
Speaker 1: the Susquehanna River. And so he does build this settlement
19:39
Speaker 1: and he starts doing business with the Pennsylvania Dutch community.
19:43
Speaker 1: And then he says in he taxes they pay go
19:46
Speaker 1: to the government of Maryland. So he built a trading post.
19:51
Speaker 1: And what they were trying to do is say, is
19:54
Speaker 1: like establish a precedent for the fact that the money
19:58
Speaker 1: moves to Maryland and the local cation of this trading
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Speaker 1: post will create our borders through practice. Matt Maxidman, do
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Speaker 1: you have any sense of what it would have felt
20:08
Speaker 1: like to do business at a trading post? To me?
20:10
Speaker 2: In my mind, I picture it as like like one
20:14
Speaker 2: of a vendor in a role playing game where you're
20:16
Speaker 2: going to like trade all your goods and the crap
20:19
Speaker 2: that you've picked up in your travels and exchange it
20:21
Speaker 2: for coin or other stuff.
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Speaker 1: It kind of is because you're you're going to have
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Speaker 1: the fur trade at this point in time, there's a
20:28
Speaker 1: lot of bartering for goods and Max I'll throw to
20:33
Speaker 1: you on this too. Like the advantage of a trading post,
20:36
Speaker 1: both in the awesome game Civilization, which everyone should play,
20:39
Speaker 1: and in real life is that it helps It helps
20:43
Speaker 1: extend your borders, but it also helps supply rural communities
20:48
Speaker 1: with manufacture goods that would otherwise be unavailable. So you
20:51
Speaker 1: trade in furs and you get things like machine tools,
20:56
Speaker 1: machine exactly.
20:58
Speaker 4: Yep, right, yeah, I mean, in like modern comparison.
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Speaker 3: I was talking to my friend Nicole Garcia, she's she's Navajo,
21:05
Speaker 3: and she talks about how the trading posts are still
21:07
Speaker 3: very common on Native reservations.
21:10
Speaker 1: Yeah.
21:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, she talked about that, and like you know, it's
21:12
Speaker 3: often where a lot of Native artists tell their stuff.
21:16
Speaker 4: It's very complex.
21:18
Speaker 3: I would not pretend like She's told me a lot
21:20
Speaker 3: of positives and negatives about it, especially in this modern
21:23
Speaker 3: day and times.
21:24
Speaker 4: I'm not going to pretend like I fully understand it
21:26
Speaker 4: at all.
21:26
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean, I think especially in these early
21:28
Speaker 3: points of time, it's like, oh no, our plow broke
21:32
Speaker 3: and the one piece we can get we have to
21:34
Speaker 3: go to this trading post. And it's not like there's
21:36
Speaker 3: like I mean, I guess there was British currency at
21:38
Speaker 3: this point in time, but we're talking, you know, the colonies.
21:41
Speaker 1: So yeah, exactly like the modern trading post is descended
21:46
Speaker 1: from these trading posts of old, but they're different endeavors,
21:50
Speaker 1: make no mistake. And the trading posts that we're talking
21:52
Speaker 1: about are these they're kind of like planting a flag.
21:58
Speaker 1: To be honest with you, this is for the vecologists
22:00
Speaker 1: in the crowd, and they play this crucial economic role.
22:04
Speaker 1: So if we go to the National Park Service, we
22:07
Speaker 1: learned that in seventeen thirty six, our buddy Tom gets
22:11
Speaker 1: in trouble. Pennsylvanian authorities accuse him of murder and his
22:18
Speaker 1: house is set on fire. He gets arrested, and the
22:21
Speaker 1: government of Maryland runs and tells the king and they say,
22:26
Speaker 1: King George, things are getting nasty. We need you to
22:30
Speaker 1: intervene as the monarch, as the ruler of the colonies
22:34
Speaker 1: in name at least, and you need to settle this
22:36
Speaker 1: boundary dispute. The colonies didn't officially declare war on each other,
22:41
Speaker 1: but they kept beefing. They were still beefed up around
22:44
Speaker 1: the border.
22:45
Speaker 4: Also, I'm pretty sure this is the King George who
22:47
Speaker 4: died on the toilet.
22:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, ty hey, teaser for an upcoming episode.
22:52
Speaker 4: We've done that one already.
22:53
Speaker 2: No, I just mean for an upcoming extension of bizarre
22:56
Speaker 2: and ridiculous royal deaths.
22:59
Speaker 1: We hear in that line next couple of weeks.
23:01
Speaker 2: So, on May twenty fifth of seventeen thirty eight, the
23:04
Speaker 2: two colonies did get together in peace and love and
23:09
Speaker 2: harmony and sign a treaty agreeing to a permanent border. Also,
23:14
Speaker 2: a condition of that treaty was to not quote, permit
23:18
Speaker 2: or suffer any tumults, riots. I love a good tumult, riots,
23:25
Speaker 2: or other outrageous disorders to be committed on the borders
23:30
Speaker 2: of their respective provinces. Guys, can we unpack this real quick?
23:33
Speaker 2: I think tumbult is also maybe a pronunciation. What is
23:36
Speaker 2: an outrageous dis Is that like a disturbance in the kitchen?
23:40
Speaker 1: Like, what are we talking about here? Yeah? So a
23:42
Speaker 1: tumult is like a fracas, a brujaha, perhaps a skirmish,
23:47
Speaker 1: even like a microbattle kind of. This idea was basically
23:52
Speaker 1: like when the kids fight downstairs and the dad goes
23:56
Speaker 1: to the top of the stairs and just yells, hey,
24:00
Speaker 1: calm down down there. Don't make me come down there.
24:03
Speaker 1: Don't make me come down there. So they settle on
24:06
Speaker 1: this border that's about fifteen miles south of Philadelphia. And
24:10
Speaker 1: we're getting this from David Anderson writing for the Baltimore Sun.
24:14
Speaker 1: And the court made this agreement binding in seventeen fifty
24:20
Speaker 1: and said, look, the border is going to be positioned
24:23
Speaker 1: at thirty nine degrees and forty minutes south, so just
24:27
Speaker 1: a hair under forty the forty degrees that they had
24:32
Speaker 1: talked about earlier. So seventeen years later, a couple of
24:36
Speaker 1: other surveyors, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, they've been hired
24:42
Speaker 1: by the Pens, like William Penn's family and the Colverts,
24:47
Speaker 1: and they made what we call the Mason Dixon line.
24:51
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny.
24:53
Speaker 2: When I was reading this research brief and doing a
24:56
Speaker 2: little extra reading on the side as well, I guess
24:58
Speaker 2: I didn't realize how something we always hear about as
25:02
Speaker 2: like being this you know, very specific thing has actually
25:07
Speaker 2: got a lot of weird kind of history in and
25:09
Speaker 2: of itself, Like there were multiple versions of the Mason
25:13
Speaker 2: Dixon line and it means different things different people.
25:16
Speaker 1: Kind of. Yeah, yeah, it started to become pretty crazy.
25:21
Speaker 1: Let's spend some time on the Mason Dixon line. That's
25:24
Speaker 1: the best crab cakes north of the Mason Dixon Line.
25:28
Speaker 1: Let's start comparing stuff to Mason Dixon. We are the
25:31
Speaker 1: best ridiculous history show south of the Mason Dixon. That's right.
25:37
Speaker 1: I like the implication that's somewhere in Maine there's another
25:39
Speaker 1: ridiculous history show right right, which absolutely waxes us. So
25:43
Speaker 1: these were these were the Mason and Dixon's of of
25:45
Speaker 1: the Mason Dixon line.
25:47
Speaker 2: This is these are these are these new characters have
25:49
Speaker 2: entered the chat. I've never really thought about who these
25:51
Speaker 2: individuals were.
25:53
Speaker 1: And we we think this is an interesting aside. You
25:56
Speaker 1: may be asking yourself ridiculous historians. Uh, guys, cool story. Sorry,
26:00
Speaker 1: why are you not talking about Delaware? Isn't this a
26:03
Speaker 1: two part episode on Delaware? We're getting to that. This
26:07
Speaker 1: is set up. Hold the phone, hold the wedge. There's
26:10
Speaker 1: something else on the horn which will make sense later.
26:13
Speaker 1: I'll go on my wedge. We give We gave ourselves
26:17
Speaker 1: a weggie with this one, didn't we really did? We
26:19
Speaker 1: wedged ourselves into a corner. There we go. That is
26:23
Speaker 1: our way of saying, folks. This is part one of
26:26
Speaker 1: a two part episode. Going into this, we were all
26:29
Speaker 1: thinking how interesting could this be? It turns out it's
26:32
Speaker 1: very interesting. So this is going to be our week.
26:36
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to our super producer mister Max Williams.
26:39
Speaker 1: Thanks to Alex Williams who composed this slap and bop.
26:42
Speaker 2: Indeed, thanks Chris Frasciotis here in spirit Eves Jeff Goats
26:45
Speaker 2: roaming the wide world of podcasts and dumb.
26:48
Speaker 1: Also shout out to A. J.
26:49
Speaker 2: Bahamas Jacobs, who recently described Saint Louis as the Bahamas
26:53
Speaker 2: of the Midwest, which he was hanging out. We were
26:56
Speaker 2: trying to catch up with him in New York, but
26:57
Speaker 2: a last he was vacationing, sunning him self under the arc.
27:01
Speaker 1: Yes, as ever, a great barbecue there in that part
27:05
Speaker 1: of the for sure, you check it out. Surprisingly good
27:07
Speaker 1: jazz if I'm being honest. Thanks of course to Gabeluesya,
27:10
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland aka the Quizzer, and Noel didn't think I'd
27:14
Speaker 1: say this, but you know, thanks to the state of Maryland,
27:17
Speaker 1: because this whole conversation has got me. You know, I
27:20
Speaker 1: got a craving for crabs.
27:22
Speaker 2: Now, oh yeah yeah, and I think I said a
27:25
Speaker 2: thing about like, don't they have like some kind of
27:27
Speaker 2: special crabs.
27:28
Speaker 1: It's a crab cake. It's a crab care.
27:31
Speaker 2: They basically invented the crab cake as well, the Maryland
27:33
Speaker 2: Maryland crab cake. And we'll see you next time, folks.
27:45
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
27:48
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.