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Admiral Byrd and the Polar Dairy · 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 ever for
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Speaker 1: tuning in. Uh, we hope this story will mouse you.
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Speaker 1: That's the worst one we're gonna have today. Hi, I'm Ben. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: we hope it starves. I'm no, we hope it stows.
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Speaker 1: Is a bit of a moose bush for whatever else
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Speaker 1: you've got going on today. Um. Uh, Yeah, we're talking
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Speaker 1: about cows. That's we're talking about. We're talking about not
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Speaker 1: only cows. We're talking about Guernsey cows, which is the
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Speaker 1: thing I didn't know about. Now we're talking about cows
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Speaker 1: with really cool names. Um. And we're talking about cows
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Speaker 1: that live in Antarctica. Um. Because Antarctica is not really
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Speaker 1: known for its hospitable climate. Let's say, and you know,
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Speaker 1: cows are sort of creature comfort type beasts. They like
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Speaker 1: to you know, show on grass and graze and lays
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Speaker 1: around until you know, they get slaughtered or whatever. But
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Speaker 1: the milk ones typically they're like, you know, treated like
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Speaker 1: a member of the family, right, Ben, So, how did
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Speaker 1: milk cows end up on such a frozen wasteland as Antarctica? Yeah,
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Speaker 1: this was a question I posed to our super producer
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Speaker 1: Casey Pegrum, who not only said, not only refused to answer,
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Speaker 1: but said he would not appear on today's show. I'm kiddy,
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Speaker 1: that's not why he's He's making some major moves. But
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Speaker 1: but this is a great story. It involves uh an
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Speaker 1: historical figure that's always fascinated me, Rear Admiral Richard E.
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Speaker 1: Bird Antarctica bird cows. Uh. These cows did have interesting names. Um,
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Speaker 1: here's just the set that seemed real quick. Admiral Byrd
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Speaker 1: took a number of expeditions to Antarctica, and in nineteen
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Speaker 1: thirty three, on his second expedition, he had some new
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Speaker 1: individuals joined his crew. Klondike gay nera deerfoot Guernsey made
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Speaker 1: and foremost Southern girl, and another another individual born in
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Speaker 1: the course of the trip. These don't sound like people names,
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Speaker 1: do they They shouldn't, because these are the names of
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Speaker 1: three Guernsey cows. That's right, um. And they spent more
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Speaker 1: than a year, as you know, producing dairy cows on
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Speaker 1: the Ross ice shelf in Antarctica, and then in five
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Speaker 1: they returned back to this the you know, I guess,
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Speaker 1: the civilized world. Uh. And they were like celebrity cows. Um.
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Speaker 1: So you know, let's think about all the logistics that
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Speaker 1: take just to even get to Antarctica. You know, it's
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Speaker 1: pretty brutal sea voyaged. I mean, as we know, like
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Speaker 1: nothing grows there. It requires it's almost like living on
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Speaker 1: the moon or something. You've got to be a particular
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Speaker 1: type of adventurer to even want to spend any time there. Well,
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Speaker 1: I'm sure it's gorgeous. A lot can go wrong typically,
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Speaker 1: typically it's the realm of you know, pioneering kind of
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Speaker 1: adventuring explorers or scientists. Yeah, this is one of those
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Speaker 1: places that I got close to visiting goal, but I
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Speaker 1: wasn't able to make it happen. I was trying to
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Speaker 1: travel with a group just to conserve cost. The average
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Speaker 1: cost uh going to Antarctic as like ten grand per person.
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Speaker 1: You can get it as low as five grand. But
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Speaker 1: it's even now in the modern day, just as a civilian,
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Speaker 1: it's it's tough to get there. It was even tougher
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Speaker 1: during Admirable Bird's time. To understand why he took these
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Speaker 1: cows with him on his second expedition, we have to
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Speaker 1: explore what happened on his first expedition. Now Bird was
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Speaker 1: a big deal, big big deal born died nineteen fifty seven,
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Speaker 1: lived a lot of life in his time. He was
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Speaker 1: a naval officer, he was a pioneer in the world
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Speaker 1: of aviation, and he was a polar explorer. Today, he's
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Speaker 1: probably best known for those explorations of Antarctica. So his
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Speaker 1: early experiences after graduating the US Naval Academy in nineteen
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Speaker 1: twelve inspired him to make a life goal, a bucket list.
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Speaker 1: His experience flying over the sea ice and the glaciers
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Speaker 1: of Greenland had inspired him, you know, they gave him
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Speaker 1: a hunger. He wanted to fly over the North Pole. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and not just to see Santa's Workshop, because that's definitely
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Speaker 1: at the North Pole. But on May nine six Bird
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Speaker 1: Uh navigated a flight UM with Floyd Bennett's as serving
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Speaker 1: as his pilot UM, and they made what they purported
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Speaker 1: to be the first air plane journey over the North Pole.
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Speaker 1: They flew from King's Bay uh Spitzbergen, Norway, to the
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Speaker 1: North Pole and then returned UM And that was a
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Speaker 1: fifteen and a half hour flight UH. And apparently everything
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Speaker 1: went off without a hitch, aside from a tiny little
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Speaker 1: snapfhoo in the form of an oil leak from the
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Speaker 1: starboard engine. Um. And their plane was a Fokker tri
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Speaker 1: motor airplane. I love, I love the name Funker. I'm
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Speaker 1: not gonna lie um. And they both received the US
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Speaker 1: Congressional Medal of Honor for their heroism. Uh. And and
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Speaker 1: they're intrepiitude because that's also a word. Um. Though there
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Speaker 1: was some uh skepticism from certain members of the press
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Speaker 1: and the public as to whether their plane actually reached
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Speaker 1: the North Pole. But that's a story for another day.
5:51
Speaker 1: A rump Indeed, that's a story for another day. We're
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Speaker 1: not gonna give air time to these harrumphers. People wouldn't
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Speaker 1: get lost in that. They did getting the weeds about
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Speaker 1: the facts because Bird was what they would call a
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Speaker 1: smoke show. The man was a snack, he was dashing,
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Speaker 1: he was handsome, he had been in the Navy. No
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Speaker 1: one had died on any of his expeditions so far,
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Speaker 1: so people were like, let him have this. He's pretty
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Speaker 1: much a celebrity. Uh. He did lose out on the
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Speaker 1: prize for the first solo transatlantic flight. Charles Lindberg beat
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Speaker 1: him there, and he was very disappointed about this. He
6:29
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do. He was in the dulgrums.
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Speaker 1: He was sad, he was in his feelings, as we
6:35
Speaker 1: would say in the parlance or modern times, and that's
6:38
Speaker 1: what he met. One of my favorite historical figures Edward Burns,
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Speaker 1: the father of public relations, the man largely responsible for
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Speaker 1: the nineteen fifty four UH invasion of Guatemala on the
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Speaker 1: US part, and the reason you have bacon for breakfast.
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Speaker 1: Also the nephew of Sigmund Freud. We've got a got
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Speaker 1: a good episode or two about him over its off.
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Speaker 1: They don't want you to know. Bernie said this to Bird,
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Speaker 1: who was very depressed at the time. He says, you know, Bird,
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Speaker 1: why don't you put Antarctica on the map for Americans?
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Speaker 1: Because previously Antarctica had been dominated in a way by
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Speaker 1: people from the UK and people from Norway, but no
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Speaker 1: one at this point in history it ever actually flown
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Speaker 1: over the icy southern waste. As a matter of fact,
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Speaker 1: people as pretty wild beliefs about it because no one
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Speaker 1: had flown over it. They said, you know, there might
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Speaker 1: be dinosaurs there, there might be lost tribes of uncontacted humans.
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Speaker 1: Nobody really knew what they would find. And also shout
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Speaker 1: out to the Savage Land of Marvel comics, which is
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Speaker 1: inspired by some of these beliefs. So Bird took his advice,
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Speaker 1: didn't he. That's right. In n Bird decided that he
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Speaker 1: wanted to explore unknown parts of Antarctica from the air. Uh.
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Speaker 1: He received backing from quite a few financiers, including Ed
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Speaker 1: self Ford and John D. Rockefeller. Because, like you said, Ben,
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Speaker 1: he was a hottie, he was a public figure. He
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Speaker 1: was the modern equivalent of like a reality show star
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Speaker 1: or something like that. And he inspired confidence in these
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Speaker 1: investors who believed that he could get the job done
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Speaker 1: and that it would be a good investment and and
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Speaker 1: a good kind of pr move. So um he actually
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Speaker 1: beyond that, Um was able to inspire the members of
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Speaker 1: the public, yes, the public, to contribute their own money,
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Speaker 1: which was estimated to have raised somewhere in the neighborhood
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Speaker 1: of four hundred thousand dollars. UM. Because, like he said, Ben,
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Speaker 1: it's no cheap trip to go to Antarctica. UM. So
8:44
Speaker 1: he mounted his first this is this is also to
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Speaker 1: finance a series of expeditions, not just one. Um. So
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Speaker 1: he mounted his first voyage to the Antarctic in nineteen
8:54
Speaker 1: through nineteen thirty. That was the It would have been
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Speaker 1: the biggest expedition ever to have been seen at the time.
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Speaker 1: To the continent. He sailed south in October of nineteen
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Speaker 1: and he set up a very state of the art
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Speaker 1: and stocked base called Little America. It was built, as
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Speaker 1: you mentioned the top of the show, on the Ross
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Speaker 1: Ice Shelf, which is a very wide ice glacial kind
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Speaker 1: of plane shelf of ice that is um bordering the
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Speaker 1: raw Sea near an indentation of a cliff of ice
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Speaker 1: named the Bay of Whales as in the Big Swimmy
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Speaker 1: Boys Wales. So they flew to and from this base
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Speaker 1: over the Antarctic continent to observe, to see what they
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Speaker 1: could see, right, Yeah, that's correct. Uh. And to step
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Speaker 1: back here, this is a lot. The excitement here is
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Speaker 1: a lot like the excitement of landing people on the Moon.
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Speaker 1: That is how far away and uh mysterious and enigmatic.
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Speaker 1: It's hard to go seems this time. So on November
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Speaker 1: Bird and three compatriots make the first flight over the
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Speaker 1: South Pole in human history. Bird is the navigator. They
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Speaker 1: fly from Little America and back in nineteen hours. They
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Speaker 1: make history and nothing goes wrong. And for this achievement.
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Speaker 1: Bird will later be promoted to rear admiral. Fast forward
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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty three. It's nineteen thirty five. Bird is almost
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Speaker 1: a brand name now in the rarefied world of an
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Speaker 1: Antarctic expeditions. So there's a second Bird expedition. They're back
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Speaker 1: in Little America. They all, they say, this time, we're
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Speaker 1: going to map the area around the pole. We're also
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Speaker 1: gonna lay claim to this land for Uncle Sam. And
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Speaker 1: also we're gonna bring these cows. And here's what happens.
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Speaker 1: Here's what There are three main reasons for them to
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Speaker 1: bring cattle with them on this expedition. For backgrounds. If
11:04
Speaker 1: we haven't if you haven't gotten the sense of this yet,
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Speaker 1: Antarctica is a punishing, punishing place. If you were to
11:12
Speaker 1: look at a list of the known inhabitants, uh, it's
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Speaker 1: it's pretty small. There's sixty seven different types of insects.
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Speaker 1: You got seals, you got penguins. Then you've got researchers
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Speaker 1: and support staff. So a lot of the stuff that
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Speaker 1: Bird and his expeditionary forces would need to survive had
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Speaker 1: to be brought with them from a less inhospitable climb.
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Speaker 1: And that's why they went to these three reasons that
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Speaker 1: convinced them it was a smart idea to bring cattle
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Speaker 1: number one, solving what was called the milk problem, which
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Speaker 1: is not a weird avant garde album, but it could be.
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Speaker 1: It could be. No, Um, it's all about sustainability. It
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Speaker 1: kind of makes me think again of like a biodome
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Speaker 1: situation or like uh you know, um um, the theoretical
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Speaker 1: moon or Martian colony. You'd want to be able to
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Speaker 1: grow and sustain your own food since the actual habitat
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Speaker 1: would not sustain that, so you have to kind of,
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Speaker 1: you know, take it into your own hands. So here's
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Speaker 1: the thing. Admiral Bird really liked his milk a lot. Uh.
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Speaker 1: He drank apparently purportedly drank two quarts of Guernsey milk
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Speaker 1: a day. Uh. And this is all from the reporting
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Speaker 1: of the time. Um, you know because this is also
12:26
Speaker 1: not only was this like something that was very functional
12:28
Speaker 1: for him, it was also a big story because you know,
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Speaker 1: as we talked about the logistics of getting these getting
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Speaker 1: human beings to Antarctica is absolute nightmare. Let alone, Uh,
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Speaker 1: milk cows which were you know, like we said, very
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Speaker 1: um kind of they need to be babied a little bit.
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Speaker 1: Let's just say it would take a lot of doing
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Speaker 1: to get them there in one piece. Another article said
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Speaker 1: that although bird had brought plenty of dried and evaporated milk, uh,
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Speaker 1: he really needed that fresh Guernsey milk to to start
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Speaker 1: his day. So um, the cows were there to solve
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Speaker 1: that milk problem. And by the thirties, fresh milk was
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Speaker 1: like a big kind of you know, talking about the
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Speaker 1: milk campaign of the nineties. In the thirties, milk was
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Speaker 1: seen as this like kind of standard bearer of health
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Speaker 1: and vitality. So it was really easy to say, I've
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Speaker 1: got to have my milk. I can't I go. How
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Speaker 1: am I supposed to explore? Uh and and adventure if
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Speaker 1: I don't have my fresh milk. Yep. And whenever there's
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Speaker 1: this marketing piece of of giant projects like this, I
13:36
Speaker 1: always wonder if whether Bernet's had a hand in the
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Speaker 1: milk jug here. Uh. The weird thing is it didn't
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Speaker 1: have to be fresh Gurnsey milk. We know that powdered
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Speaker 1: or malted milk could have some of the same results
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Speaker 1: previous expeditions, just like the famous rolled Ammondson expedition have
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Speaker 1: been just fine with powdered milk. Also, there was a
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Speaker 1: sponsor for birds second Antarctic expedition. I mean there were
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Speaker 1: lots of sponsors, but one of the sponsors was William
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Speaker 1: Horlick of the apparently world famous Horlicks malted milk, which
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Speaker 1: is is still a thing and for funding this. By
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Speaker 1: the way, this malted milk tycoon did get a mountain
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Speaker 1: range named after him. So that's that's our first reason.
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Speaker 1: Of three, fresh milk wasn't actually a health requirement. Other
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Speaker 1: forms of milk were available, So why go to the
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Speaker 1: trouble of lugging these cows and all their all their
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Speaker 1: cow stuff across the ice. Well there's a second reason,
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Speaker 1: and that reason is publicity. Baby, Let's get this in
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Speaker 1: the minds of the public. Let's get this in the
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Speaker 1: newspaper headlines. Let's have some human interest here. Uh. There's
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Speaker 1: a great paper by Elizabeth Lean and hann E. F.
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Speaker 1: Nielsen which proves that Bird did have another motive, which
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Speaker 1: his publicity. He knew that he would get some love
15:03
Speaker 1: in the press for being the first person to fly
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Speaker 1: over the South Pole, but this second expedition and needed
15:10
Speaker 1: to get judged up a little because it focused on
15:13
Speaker 1: scientific endeavors, measuring nice caps, spotting meteors, it didn't have
15:18
Speaker 1: as many dramatic stunts, so adding the cows here made
15:23
Speaker 1: the press more likely to cover it, you know what
15:25
Speaker 1: I mean. Yeah, and those researchers that you mentioned. Ben
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Speaker 1: Um added that the cows created some novelty and newsworthiness
15:32
Speaker 1: to an expedition which, in contrast to birds first Antarctic adventure,
15:36
Speaker 1: threatened to be a little bit dull. So this kind
15:40
Speaker 1: of added a little bit of spice to it, um,
15:42
Speaker 1: and it created more news opportunities and more sponsorship opportunities
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Speaker 1: and fundraising. Um. So everybody likes a good first, right,
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Speaker 1: So the first milk cows on Antarctica. That makes for
15:56
Speaker 1: a pretty sexy headline. Since the bi expedition was privately
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Speaker 1: funded um and Bird was a fantastic media kind of attractor,
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Speaker 1: Like he was really good at getting coverage for all
16:08
Speaker 1: the reasons we mentioned, his backers did expect to get
16:13
Speaker 1: paid back or to to to get a return on
16:16
Speaker 1: their investment, whether it was in the form of publicity
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Speaker 1: for their products um or you know, mentions of of
16:23
Speaker 1: their companies or what have you. On these regular radio
16:28
Speaker 1: updates that took place with the expedition. That's kind of funny.
16:31
Speaker 1: It's almost like the equivalent of like being a race
16:34
Speaker 1: car driver and like wearing all of these like sponsors
16:37
Speaker 1: logos on your racing uniform. Um, he would literally have
16:40
Speaker 1: to name drop these sponsors. Uh. So you know, at
16:43
Speaker 1: the time, it would have been pretty fair conclusion to
16:46
Speaker 1: draw that the real reason that Bird took the cows
16:49
Speaker 1: was for that publicity first and foremost. But it turns
16:55
Speaker 1: out that he may also have had a little bit
16:58
Speaker 1: more of a shadow o e political motivation. Yes, the
17:02
Speaker 1: reason number three a geo political motivation. See, nothing exists
17:08
Speaker 1: in a vacuum. Folks and cows had this association in
17:13
Speaker 1: history and the zeitgeist with settlement, With colonial settlement, the
17:19
Speaker 1: US had fallen a little bit behind an empire building
17:23
Speaker 1: and over the course of the late eighteen hundreds the
17:26
Speaker 1: early twentieth century. By the time the nine twenties and
17:30
Speaker 1: thirties came around, a bunch of other countries Argentina, Great Britain, France,
17:36
Speaker 1: they had claimed chunks of Antarctica, and the US was
17:40
Speaker 1: at a geographic disadvantage. You know what I mean, it's
17:43
Speaker 1: pretty far away from the South Pole. So Bird wanted
17:49
Speaker 1: to establish a slice of the pie for the US,
17:53
Speaker 1: even little even Little America. By the way, it was
17:56
Speaker 1: founded on land that the British had laid clay to.
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Speaker 1: So he thought, if I build this place like a
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Speaker 1: frontier town, and I call it Little America, then we
18:08
Speaker 1: can you know, we can inculcate ourselves. We can stake
18:12
Speaker 1: a permanent claim. And so in his mind when he
18:15
Speaker 1: thinks of this kind of frontier wild West vibe, he says,
18:19
Speaker 1: what is a little America without a little dairy farm?
18:22
Speaker 1: It makes sense if you've been brainstorming in the writer's
18:25
Speaker 1: room for a while, it's exactly be a little punchy, right, Yeah, No,
18:30
Speaker 1: it's true. Um, it was that kind of level of homesteading,
18:35
Speaker 1: right almost, because you can't just stick a flagon and
18:38
Speaker 1: say it's yours. You have to have a settlement based
18:41
Speaker 1: on the huge doctrine, that's right. You gotta put the
18:43
Speaker 1: work in the huge doctor and says that a claim
18:45
Speaker 1: has to be based on a settlement, not just uh,
18:48
Speaker 1: the virtue of discovery. So how does one show a
18:51
Speaker 1: settlement or the evidence of a settlement on a continent
18:54
Speaker 1: that's absolutely inhospitable and covered an ice. So this was
18:58
Speaker 1: all These were all borderline symbolic gestures, right, like the
19:03
Speaker 1: idea of setting up a post office, or having a
19:06
Speaker 1: small farm, or the presence of like domesticated animals and
19:10
Speaker 1: cattle since they are kind of like have this legacy
19:13
Speaker 1: as sort of these bellweathers of colonialism and frontier settlement.
19:18
Speaker 1: It was all about optics. Bird was a master at
19:22
Speaker 1: kind of like painting this narrative, right. Yeah, it made
19:25
Speaker 1: people get nostalgic for the good old days of frontier
19:28
Speaker 1: settling and you know, like going out on the range
19:32
Speaker 1: and making a new world of your own, you know,
19:33
Speaker 1: I mean, it really was. He was kind of selling
19:36
Speaker 1: dreams here a little bit. And this symbolism was successful
19:45
Speaker 1: in the American press. The US ultimately did not end
19:49
Speaker 1: up making a claim to any large sector of Antarctica.
19:53
Speaker 1: Uh So the press worked, but it didn't work long term. Anyhow.
19:59
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the journey for the actual cows, you
20:02
Speaker 1: know what I mean, the actual I guess, the symbols
20:07
Speaker 1: of the story. So in ninety three, these three cows
20:11
Speaker 1: are loaded onto the SS Jacob Rupert. Of course, we
20:16
Speaker 1: mentioned there was foremost southern girl. She's from New York.
20:20
Speaker 1: Deerfoot guernsey made from Massachusetts. And Klondike gay Neiras from
20:24
Speaker 1: North Carolina. Klondike is the one who is pregnant. That's
20:28
Speaker 1: why a bull is born on the way. Uh Bird
20:31
Speaker 1: had struck this deal with the American Guernsey Cattle Club,
20:35
Speaker 1: and the carpenter of the expedition was also in charge
20:38
Speaker 1: of the cattle. And then all the other stuff that
20:42
Speaker 1: supported the cows. How clever is this? It came from
20:45
Speaker 1: donations from those sponsors we talked about. Someone's like, here's
20:49
Speaker 1: ten tons of feed. Someone else is like, here's a
20:51
Speaker 1: bunch of farm equipment for Little America. And then someone's like,
20:55
Speaker 1: here's a milking machine. This is this is a great gig,
20:58
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And the cows had an
21:00
Speaker 1: okay life on board. What was it three months? I
21:04
Speaker 1: think it took three months. Can you imagine? Like I said,
21:07
Speaker 1: they need a little bit of hand holding. These cows,
21:09
Speaker 1: they can easily get spooked and they really do need
21:11
Speaker 1: to be taken care of or else they can waste away.
21:14
Speaker 1: And you know, an unhappy cow does not make good milk.
21:18
Speaker 1: That's just a fact. Everybody knows that yeah. So the
21:22
Speaker 1: the calf that's born this bull is named Iceberg, and
21:28
Speaker 1: it's like it's like the Child and the Mandalorian. To
21:31
Speaker 1: avoid spoilers, this becomes a media darling and all the
21:35
Speaker 1: newspapers are like Iceberg bowing on the trip to Antarctica,
21:40
Speaker 1: the foundation of a little America, etcetera, etcetera. It's great,
21:44
Speaker 1: but the cows lives in Antarctica, we're actually pretty rough. Surprise.
21:50
Speaker 1: I don't I don't think that's a spoiler. Their lives
21:52
Speaker 1: kind of in terms of quality life, it was very low.
21:55
Speaker 1: They didn't have a lot of cow fun and they
21:57
Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of cow room. What a cows
21:59
Speaker 1: do for fun? They just sort of prance. Gray's cows
22:03
Speaker 1: like music. Cows from deep emotional bonds. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
22:09
Speaker 1: and uh and you can see cows dance sometimes if
22:12
Speaker 1: they like stuff. That's true. Uh. This is completely unrelated.
22:15
Speaker 1: But if anyone is familiar with the very interesting and
22:19
Speaker 1: psychedelic UH animator Syriac, I think his last name is
22:23
Speaker 1: Harris Um. He has a really great video. It's called
22:27
Speaker 1: Cows and Cows and Cows Uh, and I highly recommend
22:32
Speaker 1: you checking it out. It involves dancing cows um and
22:35
Speaker 1: it's done with after effects and it is absolutely a
22:38
Speaker 1: delight look for cows and cows and cows to see
22:41
Speaker 1: some super trippy cow dancing. And if the cows in
22:46
Speaker 1: Little America were dancing, they weren't. They weren't dancing in
22:50
Speaker 1: a very big space. They didn't have a lot of room.
22:53
Speaker 1: When the ship landed, the cows were taken from the
22:57
Speaker 1: vessel by crane and they were put on the ice
23:01
Speaker 1: One of the cows immediately tried to go back on
23:03
Speaker 1: the ship. It was like, this is not cool, this
23:06
Speaker 1: is not the outside I know. And uh, the cows,
23:11
Speaker 1: the four cows remember, because Iceberg was born on the way,
23:14
Speaker 1: they're moved into a little underground dog town and the
23:21
Speaker 1: only relaxation they had was a weekly walk down the tunnels,
23:25
Speaker 1: and then they would get you know, all these wild
23:28
Speaker 1: puppies from the six huskies that lived there too. All
23:33
Speaker 1: these wild puppies would like jump all over them, uh
23:37
Speaker 1: and want to play with them. And the only grass
23:39
Speaker 1: they eat is like a year old. So the people
23:43
Speaker 1: on the ground are saying, you know, the cows are
23:46
Speaker 1: not having a great time, and other people are saying
23:49
Speaker 1: when they get back, they're going to be worth twenty
23:51
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and will all you know, they'll be celebrities.
23:56
Speaker 1: But it seemed like it was I don't know, it
23:58
Speaker 1: seems like it was tough. And you can tell from
24:00
Speaker 1: writing of the Times that the cows were having a
24:04
Speaker 1: tough life to Klondike even got frostbite and had to
24:08
Speaker 1: be put down. R I P. Klondike. Um. Yeah, I mean,
24:14
Speaker 1: like we said, it's not really a place where cows
24:17
Speaker 1: would typically thrive. So there is you know, when you
24:20
Speaker 1: think about the motivation that went into this, uh, and
24:23
Speaker 1: you think about the political and the optical kind of
24:27
Speaker 1: like press motivations putting these cows through those situations, it
24:30
Speaker 1: kind of borders on animal cruelty and in some respects
24:33
Speaker 1: when you say, ben, yeah, you can tell because their
24:36
Speaker 1: milk production falls off pretty quickly. Bird himself notes that
24:41
Speaker 1: originally the cows gave up the forty quarts of milk
24:43
Speaker 1: a day, and this later slowed to a trickle. So
24:47
Speaker 1: after Klondike unfortunately passes away, the other cows do survive,
24:54
Speaker 1: and eventually the three other cows County Iceberg, remember baby Iceberg,
24:59
Speaker 1: these are baby Yota of this. Eventually they make it
25:02
Speaker 1: back to the US. But the whole time they're in
25:06
Speaker 1: there in an arcticle, and the whole time that they're
25:08
Speaker 1: on the way back the US, various members of the
25:11
Speaker 1: U S public and business fear are making money hand
25:15
Speaker 1: over fist capitalizing on this because no one owns the
25:19
Speaker 1: rights to talk about the cows, right, so New York
25:22
Speaker 1: newspapers are using it as their human interests or cattle
25:26
Speaker 1: interest story totally. And then we've got the sponsors again.
25:30
Speaker 1: Laura Dairy Feed, which you know sponsored the expedition and
25:33
Speaker 1: provided the food for the cows, put out a leaflet
25:37
Speaker 1: about the quote first cows to ever venture into the
25:41
Speaker 1: frozen wastes of the South Pole region. Uh. In addition
25:45
Speaker 1: to that newspaper coverage you mentioned. And then when Bird
25:47
Speaker 1: returned from a not particularly successful solo expedition, it was
25:52
Speaker 1: written um in the Guernsey Breeders Journal, an article that
25:56
Speaker 1: detailed his recovery. He was was very um malnourished when
26:02
Speaker 1: he got back and detailed how milk, with its calcium
26:06
Speaker 1: rich bounty, got him back on his feet. Uh. And
26:10
Speaker 1: they called it quote the milk really pulled me out
26:13
Speaker 1: of my tail spin nice and the cows were celebrities too.
26:17
Speaker 1: They got this joyous welcome upon their return. People were
26:21
Speaker 1: jubilant to see Iceberg in person. And the cows were
26:25
Speaker 1: given hay cocktails at these ritzy hotels. Uh. They were
26:30
Speaker 1: even featured on the front page of the New York Times,
26:33
Speaker 1: which is the definition of making it. And these hay
26:36
Speaker 1: cocktails were This is interesting. The New York Times, as
26:40
Speaker 1: we said, writes about this uh in May fifteen. The
26:45
Speaker 1: hay cocktails are heaps of hay with cracked ice, which
26:48
Speaker 1: I think is the very last thing those cows would
26:51
Speaker 1: one after being in Antarctica for so long. Uh. Also,
26:55
Speaker 1: Southern Girl was indifferent to the speeches made by the
26:59
Speaker 1: various people of note at the Commodore Hotel. Uh. And
27:04
Speaker 1: Southern Girl never lost this shaggy winter coat she grew
27:07
Speaker 1: during the expedition. Uh. They made media appearances, they did
27:12
Speaker 1: the circuit. UH. Their legends spread via a documentary called
27:16
Speaker 1: Guernsey's Discover Antarctica, and they stayed in the US. Bird
27:23
Speaker 1: went to the Antarctic multiple other times, and he played
27:28
Speaker 1: a huge role in establishing McMurdo's station, the American base,
27:32
Speaker 1: but he never bought cows with him again. And at
27:35
Speaker 1: this point in one keep having to remind myself one, Uh,
27:41
Speaker 1: nobody has brought a cow there since this was the
27:44
Speaker 1: only time so far. So if you want to make history,
27:48
Speaker 1: and you've got ten thousand dollars to get yourself down there,
27:51
Speaker 1: and you've got a number of sponsors to help you
27:53
Speaker 1: get some cattle down there, then you could give it
27:56
Speaker 1: a go. I gotta say bad. I mean, if it's
27:57
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars for a perfectly mobile you know, human, uh,
28:02
Speaker 1: what must it be for a cow? It would require
28:04
Speaker 1: specialized equipment and you know, housing and to get into
28:08
Speaker 1: denuminantly to get on the you know, the flight or
28:11
Speaker 1: the ship voyage, but then to get across the frozen
28:14
Speaker 1: tundra to the base. I mean, if it's ten k
28:18
Speaker 1: for a human, I bet it's gotta be three times
28:20
Speaker 1: that for a cow. Yeah. And you know, I don't
28:22
Speaker 1: mean to be a grumpy Guernsey about it, but I
28:24
Speaker 1: don't see I don't see much potential for cows to
28:28
Speaker 1: visit there again in the near future. But what a story.
28:32
Speaker 1: And this is just one of many of birds Adventures.
28:36
Speaker 1: Highly recommend you check out some of his other stuff,
28:41
Speaker 1: like Operation High Jump. What's that this is something that's
28:45
Speaker 1: a lot of fun for people who believe in conspiratorial things.
28:50
Speaker 1: But according to the U. S. Navy, operation High Jump
28:53
Speaker 1: took place in through forty seven and they were testing
28:57
Speaker 1: how to train people in frigid condition and they were
29:00
Speaker 1: also trying to extend us severenity over the Antarctic continent.
29:07
Speaker 1: It's great, it's it's good reading. It doesn't have very
29:09
Speaker 1: much cow content though, so if you're reading stories for cows,
29:14
Speaker 1: I would stick with UM. I would stick with some
29:16
Speaker 1: other stuff, you know, maybe a Wild West story. Well
29:20
Speaker 1: I will. If you want something that does have a
29:22
Speaker 1: lot of cow contents, premium cow content, check out the
29:25
Speaker 1: documentary Guernsey's Discover Antarctica, which apparently has some footage of
29:30
Speaker 1: of Little Iceberg quote frisking on the ice barrier at
29:34
Speaker 1: the tender age of two months. This was made after
29:39
Speaker 1: all three of those cows retired, and this kind of
29:41
Speaker 1: is their legacy. As you mentioned, Ben Bird did continue
29:46
Speaker 1: to make multiple expeditions to the Antarctic and eventually established
29:50
Speaker 1: a the current American base there, McMurdo station. What a tale,
29:55
Speaker 1: What a tale? And we are moving on today. Get it.
30:00
Speaker 1: But we would like to hear from you. Let us
30:03
Speaker 1: know some of your favorite animal stories from days gone by,
30:08
Speaker 1: especially if they're obscure, and especially if they're super weird.
30:13
Speaker 1: You can find us on the internet. Where on Facebook
30:15
Speaker 1: or on Twitter? Where on Instagram we like to recommend
30:18
Speaker 1: ridiculous history. On Facebook, we've got some brand new mods.
30:20
Speaker 1: Go say hello to them. And while you're online, you
30:22
Speaker 1: can also find us as individuals. You can find me.
30:25
Speaker 1: I am at how Now Noel Brown on Instagram, how
30:28
Speaker 1: about you Ben? I am at Ben Bulling hs W
30:31
Speaker 1: on Twitter. I am also at Ben Bulling on Instagram.
30:35
Speaker 1: And I just I just got onto this thing called Clubhouse,
30:39
Speaker 1: which is pretty pretty interesting. Well you got in the clubhouse. Yeah,
30:42
Speaker 1: I'm a clubhouse guy. Now, how did you get in
30:45
Speaker 1: the clubhouse. I thought it was very exclusive? I want
30:47
Speaker 1: to get in the clubhouse. Well, I've still try it
30:49
Speaker 1: it out. We'll see how it works out. But you
30:51
Speaker 1: have to get an invite. You got an inside scoop. Ben.
30:53
Speaker 1: It was weird. It was a weird series of events.
30:56
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. It's it's because of my
30:58
Speaker 1: standing in the Antarctic cat all industry. Interesting. Okay, well
31:02
Speaker 1: hook your brother up. Then I've been I've been dying
31:05
Speaker 1: to try out some clubhouse. Huge thanks super producer Casey
31:08
Speaker 1: Pegraham here in spirit along with Christopher Haciota is looking
31:11
Speaker 1: down on us from on high Um. Jonathan Strickland to
31:15
Speaker 1: the quister Um, Alex Williams, who composed our theme, and
31:19
Speaker 1: of course Gabe Blues. Yeah, our own Admiral Byrd also thinks,
31:23
Speaker 1: of course to our pure podcaster Eve's Jeff Cope, please
31:26
Speaker 1: check out this day in history class. Um. I do
31:30
Speaker 1: want to recommend you know, if you can't, I don't know.
31:34
Speaker 1: If you got to go to one pole, you can
31:36
Speaker 1: either take the fifty let Kobody, which is a Russian
31:41
Speaker 1: icebreaker to the North Pole that means fifty years of
31:43
Speaker 1: victory um, or you can get to Antarctica. I can't.
31:47
Speaker 1: I want to hear from someone who's been to Antarctica. Man,
31:51
Speaker 1: would you ever go? I think I would consider it
31:53
Speaker 1: if I had the right crew, just to do like
31:57
Speaker 1: a reenactment of the thing exactly. Yeah, definitely I want
32:00
Speaker 1: that part where like the weird wolf tentnacle monster pops
32:03
Speaker 1: out of my chest cavity. I guess we'll uh, you're
32:06
Speaker 1: gonna do the thing, gonna do the line, I'm gonna
32:09
Speaker 1: do the thing. What's the what, what's the line, the
32:11
Speaker 1: line We'll see you next. Tip, Oh yeah, we'll see
32:13
Speaker 1: you next. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit
32:25
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
32:28
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.