Latest / Ridiculous History / Badass of the Week Returns, Part Two: Chesapeake Capes

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Badass of the Week Returns, Part Two: Chesapeake Capes · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you,
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: as always so much for tuning in. That's our super producer,
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  Speaker 2: mister Max Williams.
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  Speaker 3: Max the Chesapeake Boy Williams Chesapeake.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, I do want to drop something in here from
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  Speaker 4: that's reference to our previous episode. Sure, it was brought
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: up the absurd name of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim,
• 0:49
  Speaker 4: which I one time saw and I've never forgotten. This
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: translates to the the Angels Angels of Anaheim.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a real ATM machine. Then number magic there
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  Speaker 2: with the facts.
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  Speaker 5: That seeking in the phone and PA's fallen knowledge.
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  Speaker 3: It's just for you right now.
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  Speaker 2: And that is none other than mister Noel Brown. They
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  Speaker 2: help me, Ben Bulling. In this neck of the Global woods, folks,
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  Speaker 2: we are having what we call a Badass Badass of
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  Speaker 2: the Week week uh with big, big thanks to our
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  Speaker 2: returning guest, none other than the co host of the
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  Speaker 2: Actual Facts Badass of the Week podcast. Please please join
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  Speaker 2: us in welcoming back doctor Pat Larish and Ben Thompson.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you guys so much for having us. We're
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  Speaker 5: going to Yeah, yeah, we're gonna do. That's another is
• 1:57
  Speaker 5: another one. That's a repetition. I don't know.
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  Speaker 2: A word for tea. Yeah, just.
• 2:06
  Speaker 6: Have like chai gelato. There you go, you know to chi,
• 2:10
  Speaker 6: you know chai chai.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, there we go.
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  Speaker 2: Folks. You could get the sense already that you are
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: now hanging with five big time nerds.
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  Speaker 3: We were talking about threatening to do a D and
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  Speaker 3: D campaign off Mikes.
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  Speaker 5: I write professional write D D adventures professionally, so.
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  Speaker 3: I did know that about you. Well, I'm excited to
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  Speaker 3: h to come into your world of D and D
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  Speaker 3: and dungeon mastery.
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  Speaker 2: Folks. Folks, if you have not tuned into our previous
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  Speaker 2: episode about a guy named George that Noel, Max and
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  Speaker 2: I had no idea about, please hie THEE to thy
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  Speaker 2: podcast platform of.
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  Speaker 3: Choice or a Nunnery depending or if you wish right.
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  Speaker 2: I think they have WiFi. So we are Ben and Pat.
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  Speaker 2: We are so excited that you all are returning with us,
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  Speaker 2: despite our cavalcade of three out of five puns. You
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  Speaker 2: know in our previous episode, you are returning to us
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  Speaker 2: with another story of a badass. This is something building
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  Speaker 2: on our previous conversation. So for everybody wondering why we're
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  Speaker 2: calling our super producer Max the Chesapeake Cape. We promised
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  Speaker 2: we were going to pay it off. And so the
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  Speaker 2: Chesapeake Boy also the Chesapeake Boy. He's a chesapeaker.
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  Speaker 5: He's actually a chesapea cheesecake.
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  Speaker 2: That there we go go. So it bid, Pat, what
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  Speaker 2: is going on in York Town in the seventeen.
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  Speaker 5: Hundreds, Yes, so let's talk. We were talking before about
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  Speaker 5: George Rogers Clark and that's an interesting story. And you know,
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  Speaker 5: we are at a time where we're celebrating America to
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  Speaker 5: fifty right now, and so we've been doing, at least
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  Speaker 5: on our show, we've been doing a lot of American
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  Speaker 5: history characters, revolutionary war characters, and I think it's worth
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  Speaker 5: mentioning that a lot of America doesn't happen without the
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  Speaker 5: help of the French. As much as we like to
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  Speaker 5: dunk on the French here, Yeah, that is, they played
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  Speaker 5: a very important role in the American Revolution. We talked
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  Speaker 5: about a slightly more passive role in the last episode.
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  Speaker 5: This one is going to be a little bit more
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  Speaker 5: of an active role with direct direct fire engagement. So
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  Speaker 5: I guess in honor of America two fifty and bestial
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  Speaker 5: Day two thirty seven. We'll talk about the Battle of
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  Speaker 5: Chesapeake games and CHESSA games is a weird thing.
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  Speaker 3: Can I just say really quickly, I really appreciate you
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  Speaker 3: referring to it as America two fifty and not the
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  Speaker 3: rebranded Freedom two fifty. We are in America to fifty
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  Speaker 3: household here, So I appreciate.
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  Speaker 5: I didn't even I haven't even heard of that. So
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  Speaker 5: I don't just better that you haven't.
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  Speaker 3: It's better than you haven't.
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  Speaker 2: It's a bag of badgers.
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  Speaker 5: Liberty two thirty five or thirty seven or whatever.
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  Speaker 2: This Okay, what's up with the capes though, you guys?
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  Speaker 5: Okay, yes, let's get into that. So it's an interesting
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  Speaker 5: thing about this is that the most decisive military action
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  Speaker 5: of the Yorktown Campaign did not involve a single American soldier,
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  Speaker 5: sailor or marine. That's the story we're going to tell today.
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  Speaker 5: So we all kind of know the story of Yorktown
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  Speaker 5: the way that we are taught it in school. We
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  Speaker 5: picture the British, they're pinned down on Peninsula and Virginia, Washington, Rochambeau.
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  Speaker 5: The American and French armies link up, they trap Cornwallis
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  Speaker 5: on this eninsula. They marched down there. Cornwallis is locked
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  Speaker 5: into He's got this bunker system at this fort in Yorktown.
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  Speaker 5: He gets surrounded, he gets attacked, he tries to break
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  Speaker 5: out't he's not successful, and then he has to surrender
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  Speaker 5: his army. That's the tale we've been told right.
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  Speaker 6: Now, here's the thing. Yorktown is a coastal city, right,
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  Speaker 6: so it's a peninsula surrounded by water, and the British, well,
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  Speaker 6: at this point in history, who has the most powerful
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  Speaker 6: navy on the planet. So the Brits, I mean, they
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  Speaker 6: were basically ruling the Atlantic. So why were they stuck?
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  Speaker 6: If the Royal Navy is the undisputed king of the sea,
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  Speaker 6: how in the world did they let Cornwallis get cornered
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  Speaker 6: on a piece of dirt when he couldn't escape by ship?
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  Speaker 6: If you have, you know, the ultimate taxi service, why
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  Speaker 6: are you waiting on the curb to get arrested?
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  Speaker 5: Yes, So the reasonly revolution ends at Yorktown isn't because
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  Speaker 5: we walked up and demanded them to surrender. It's because
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  Speaker 5: a little bit before the siege there was something that happened.
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  Speaker 5: There was a naval battle that happened off the coast
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  Speaker 5: of Yorktown. That was among the most deadly naval conflicts
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  Speaker 5: of the eighteenth century. It's called the Battle of Chesapeake Capes,
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  Speaker 5: and it's the reason the United States exists. So we're
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  Speaker 5: going to talk about some frenchmen. We're gonna talk about
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  Speaker 5: some cannons. We're going to talk about British admirals, We're
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  Speaker 5: going to talk about gunfire fighting, marines, all kinds of
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  Speaker 5: badass stuff on this episode.
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  Speaker 2: And in interest of full disclosure, folks, we just want
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  Speaker 2: to get in front of the emails and the scuttle
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  Speaker 2: but we are going to have to acknowledge that not
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: all bends are great. There is there is one bad
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  Speaker 2: Bed in this story.
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  Speaker 3: Just one bad Ben in the historical bunch and no more.
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  Speaker 2: Well, there's there's Mussolini. I guess he qualifies, but.
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  Speaker 3: He's a bit of a bend. I wonder if his
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  Speaker 3: friends called I wonder if he was Ben to his friends.
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  Speaker 3: I've always referred to him exclusively as Benito.
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  Speaker 2: So yes, as Benito has a little ben uh Benedict Arnold,
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  Speaker 2: we got to just I.
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  Speaker 3: Think, really we're really expanding our definition of Ben's here.
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  Speaker 5: That's true, that's true, that's true, are you, Benjamin, Is
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  Speaker 5: this a legal inquiry?
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  Speaker 3: We do have that, but.
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  Speaker 5: Maybe it's not like if you're shortening for something else,
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  Speaker 5: it's bad.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, Well, I just wanted to get in front
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  Speaker 2: of that for us to make sure that you know, uh, you,
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  Speaker 2: fellow ridiculous historians know as a crew that we do
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  Speaker 2: not I hope we can say this unanimously. We do
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  Speaker 2: not condone Benedict Arnold.
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  Speaker 5: Arnold's an interesting character that we can. We can do
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  Speaker 5: a whole thing on him, because we did a Badass
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  Speaker 5: the Week on him, actually, because it was so wild,
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  Speaker 5: like he was such a hero, such a brave American hero,
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  Speaker 5: military commander, like so many amazing actions early on.
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  Speaker 3: The war, but one thing, that one thing, you know.
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  Speaker 5: Like that decision to find him. But he did a
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  Speaker 5: lot of heroic stuff, but he won Saratoga. He like that.
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  Speaker 3: I think we might have talked about this in the past.
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  Speaker 3: Ben Yeah, it's not funny, man, how history can remember
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  Speaker 3: you for the one bad thing and then your name
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  Speaker 3: becomes a stand in for being a bad guy.
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  Speaker 2: Well, ethel read the unready you can hear him debated
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  Speaker 2: about at length in Badass of the Week. In the podcast,
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  Speaker 2: ethel read the unready was actually unready multiple times.
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  Speaker 5: That's true.
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  Speaker 6: So he.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, he deserved it. But we knows, as you're as
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  Speaker 2: we're saying here, it may be new information to a
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  Speaker 2: lot of us in the audience that when we're saying
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  Speaker 2: Chesapeake capes, we're talking about a specific place, not a
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  Speaker 2: style of cloak.
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  Speaker 5: Yes, this is off the coast of Virginia, in the
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  Speaker 5: Chesapeake Bay. So okay. So Cornwallis is trapped in. He's
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  Speaker 5: trapped down in. So when the war begins, you have
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  Speaker 5: or at this point in the war where at seventeen
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  Speaker 5: eighty one, the British have an army up north and
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  Speaker 5: they have an army down south. The army down south.
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  Speaker 5: You guys have covered this before. But the army down
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  Speaker 5: south is being beaten, right, They've lost the coalpins, they've
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  Speaker 5: lost the Guildford Courthouse, they're retreating. Cornwallis's guys, he's got
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  Speaker 5: half the British forces in North America, but he's lost
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  Speaker 5: a couple battles. He needs to regroup, so he moves
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  Speaker 5: moves into Yorktown, waiting to get picked up by a
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  Speaker 5: zuber to bring him back to New York to regroup
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  Speaker 5: and refit. Washington is up north. He's like, well, this
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  Speaker 5: is our chance. So when Cornwallis retreats to Yorktown, Washington diverts,
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  Speaker 5: like almost the entire American army in North America to
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  Speaker 5: attack Yorktown, to try to just concentrate on this one thing.
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  Speaker 5: We've gotten this guy, we've got him here. We need
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  Speaker 5: to just attack it and try to knock this one
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  Speaker 5: thing out, divide and conquer. Right, So he marches his
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  Speaker 5: troops a very long distance in a very short period
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  Speaker 5: of time to surround Yorktown. But in order for this
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  Speaker 5: to the British can't, as Pat said, just roll up
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  Speaker 5: with their boats and sail away. Now, this is where
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  Speaker 5: we need to call in the French. And by seventeen
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  Speaker 5: eighty one, the American Revolution is not just the thirteen
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  Speaker 5: colonies in King George. It is a planet wide world war.
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  Speaker 5: France and Spain have jumped in and there's fighting everywhere.
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  Speaker 6: We've got naval battles in India, skirmishes in Africa, We've
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  Speaker 6: got this huge kerfuffle going on in the Caribbean.
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  Speaker 5: Yes, yes, so, I mean it's worth mentioning that the
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  Speaker 5: bloodiest battle and longest battle of the War of the
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  Speaker 5: American Revolution was the Siege of Gibraltar. More people died
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  Speaker 5: there than any battle in the American Revolution, and it
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  Speaker 5: was part of that war. So when you know, we
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  Speaker 5: sent Benjamin Franklin, here's a good bend. We sent Benjamin
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  Speaker 5: Franklin over to ed John Adams over to over to
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  Speaker 5: France to negotiate this. And when France joined, like, the
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  Speaker 5: deal we made with France was like, Okay, any territory
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  Speaker 5: we take in North America is American, but I don't
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  Speaker 5: care what you guys do otherwise, and so you just
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  Speaker 5: fight whatever. And so the French and the Spanish start
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  Speaker 5: attacking all of these British colonies all over the world,
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  Speaker 5: like you said, India, Africa, the Caribbean. They try to
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  Speaker 5: take Gibraltar, which was British, which is still British, but
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  Speaker 5: they and they lay sieged for like years, right.
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  Speaker 2: And also India is really interesting, Pat, I was not
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  Speaker 2: aware of that, Noel, did you know about that.
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  Speaker 3: I didn't hope.
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  Speaker 5: France had colonies in India at the time, and they
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  Speaker 5: were trying to take it over. It didn't work out
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  Speaker 5: for them. They lost over there, but they tried. They
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  Speaker 5: were just attacking everywhere that they could, and that really
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  Speaker 5: spreads the English out right. It's not that the British
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  Speaker 5: don't lose because France joins the war, because France sends
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  Speaker 5: us a million soldiers to fight the war. They win
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  Speaker 5: because France attacks places, honestly, places that English cares about more. Gibraltar, India,
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  Speaker 5: the Caribbean. These are very very lucrative places for the
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  Speaker 5: British Empire. And they're like, we don't have the forces,
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  Speaker 5: we don't the resources to garrison all of this, so
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  Speaker 5: we'll just give up on the North America and we'll
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  Speaker 5: worry about the stuff that actually matters. We win because
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  Speaker 5: they pressure them across all fronts and we open up
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  Speaker 5: a you know, not just a second front of the war,
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  Speaker 5: but a whole bunch of them. Now, okay, this is
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  Speaker 5: what's going on here. And but in order to get
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  Speaker 5: corn Wallace and his guys, we've got them trapped on
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  Speaker 5: the peninsula. The British Navy is coming to pick them up,
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  Speaker 5: and h we have to stop them. So this is
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  Speaker 5: where the French fleet comes into play, and they have
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  Speaker 5: to kind of sail in here and block this fleet
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  Speaker 5: of British transport ships from picking up this whole army
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  Speaker 5: and moving up to New York and expanding the extending
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  Speaker 5: the war by probably years.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 6: And this plan it's a gamp like every plan is
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  Speaker 6: a gamble. It has to do with timing. If Washington
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  Speaker 6: and the French General Rochambeau can get there first, we're fine.
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  Speaker 6: But if the British fleet shows up at the same time,
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  Speaker 6: even earlier, then Cornwall sails north and the whole thing
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  Speaker 6: falls apart.
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  Speaker 5: Right, this is our chance to catch half their army
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  Speaker 5: is in one spot. We got to catch them before
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  Speaker 5: they can escape.
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  Speaker 2: There's a real ticking time bomb scenario.
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  Speaker 5: Yes, yes, this is This is a serious fleet that's coming.
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  Speaker 5: They are there. These are you know, think about like
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  Speaker 5: Napoleonic era wooden warships, three decks of cannons. Right, The
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: American Navy basically does not existent. It's John Paul Jones
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  Speaker 5: and like two guys and like a pirate. And that's it.
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  Speaker 5: There's no fleet. There's no American fleet here. And the
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  Speaker 5: John Paul Jones ship was built by for the French.
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  Speaker 5: And so the British fleet rolls up and they are
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  Speaker 5: coming with the armed escort of war ships and the
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  Speaker 5: Admiral the French admiral is a guy named de Grassi.
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  Speaker 5: He's he gives the order to sail out and meet
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  Speaker 5: these guys. Now, this is where I want to introduce
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: a character who I think is going to be our
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  Speaker 5: badass for this episode. Commanding the lead ship in the
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: French formation is the ship's called the August, and the
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  Speaker 5: captain is a guy that you need to know. His
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  Speaker 5: name is Louis Anton de Bougainville. And I'm sure I'm
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: mispronouncing that, Pat.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe you want to it works on such authority.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's half of it. It's like karaoke, you just
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  Speaker 5: got to do it. This guy is the captain of
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  Speaker 5: the August, and he has already lived basically like three lifetimes.
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  Speaker 5: He was born in Paris in seventeen twenty nine. His
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: family was minor nobility, but both his parents died when
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: he was five, and he was raised by his older brother.
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: He goes to the University of Paris. He publishes just
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: for fun, publishes two treatises on integral calculus. He's a
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: genius just for fun. He's a genius mathematician. He is
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: a musketeer. He joins the army in seventeen fifty as
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: a musketeer like d'Artagnan fights against the British in Canada
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  Speaker 5: during the Seven Years War, where he takes part in
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: the defenses of both Quebec City and Montreal. He's wounded,
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  Speaker 5: he gets knighted for heroism in battle. He takes part
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  Speaker 5: of the diplomatic he's part of a diplomatic team sent
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: by France to negotiate the Treaty of Paris that ends
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: the war. And then after that he becomes a famous
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: explorer and naturalist. So he is the captain of the
• 16:34
  Speaker 5: expedition that sets up the first European colony on the
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: Falkland Islands, and then he commands the first French expedition
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: to circumnavigate the globe. He departs a Nansen seventeen sixty six.
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  Speaker 5: It takes him three years. He lost seven guys out
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: of his three hundred and forty man crew. And that
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: was like going the long way around the Straight of Magellan,
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: so pretty badass stuff here. And along the way they're
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: doing the stuff that you see from like Captain Cook
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: and things where they're stopping at uncharted islands and like
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: doing you know, surveys of botanical surveys and drug pictures
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: of the animals and things that they.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: See, and the bird and candy.
• 17:10
  Speaker 6: Yes, yes, yeah, and among his crew. This is a
• 17:14
  Speaker 6: fun little sidebar.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: Uh.
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  Speaker 6: There was a naturalist, Philibert Comerson, and his assistant was
• 17:24
  Speaker 6: a woman named Jean Barrie, and she disguised herself as
• 17:28
  Speaker 6: a man. But because she was able to get herself
• 17:31
  Speaker 6: on this expedition, she was the first woman to circumnavigate
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  Speaker 6: the globe.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, she discussed herself as a man. She went
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: by Jean or Jean, and then it was Jean and she's, uh,
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: you could do that better than me, Pat, I think
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  Speaker 5: you're more quick to handle that joke.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: But they found out like halfway through the halfway through
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  Speaker 5: the journey that she was like so she was like
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: a you know, it wasn't like we found out years
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: and years later, like they found out on the journey
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: and but nobody really nobody cared, right, And it was
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: like she becomes the first woman a certain mavate the globe,
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: which is super cool.
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  Speaker 2: They were like, oh, okay, everybody's got a backstory. Our
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: main thing is avoiding scurvy.
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  Speaker 5: Yes, yes, that's.
• 18:04
  Speaker 6: The correct attitude. Yes, So After this Villa comes back,
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  Speaker 6: he becomes a superstar. He's got like a million and
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  Speaker 6: one different skills and experiences. He meets the King and Queen.
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  Speaker 6: He gets a flower named after him. This is the
• 18:19
  Speaker 6: Bougainville the you know those big kind of flowers that
• 18:22
  Speaker 6: kind of spill over like purply magenta colors, and now.
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  Speaker 5: I discovered them on its trip. They named him after him.
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: Super yeah, and well the botan is named it after him.
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: He didn't name it after himself.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, good safe, good safe?
• 18:37
  Speaker 6: Yeah yeah. So okay, so you know he's not writing
• 18:42
  Speaker 6: calculus papers and picking the flowers in the South Pacific.
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  Speaker 3: Now.
• 18:45
  Speaker 6: His main thing is to be lead captain in the
• 18:49
  Speaker 6: most important naval battle of the American Revolution. So okay,
• 18:54
  Speaker 6: who's leading the French charge? A genius, a world famous explorer,
• 18:57
  Speaker 6: and a combat veteran. This sounds like the right guy
• 19:01
  Speaker 6: for the job, right.
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: Yes, Bougetvillas is a I mean, just a wild story. Right.
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: This guy's published published books on calculus and is you know,
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: is a celebrity, Like he's a national celebrity in France
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: for he's being the first Frenchman to circumnavigate the globe. Now,
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: he's volunteered to be the tip of the spear here.
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: This is not the kind of guy you put out
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: on the front of the battle lines. But when the
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: French fleet is lining up, he gets in the Augustin
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: and he's like, I'm in front. He sails right out
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: to the front. And this is a big warship seventy
• 19:29
  Speaker 5: four guns right, three decks, bigger than anything that the
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: Continental Navy could could field.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: So for like current analogy here Ben would or current comparison,
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: this is kind of like an astronaut saying, yeah, I
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: did a lot of outer space stuff, but also I
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: want to lead a.
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: Battle, right, yeah, exactly. But he's also like a world
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: renowned like naturalist right and publish books like although I
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: guess are good at calculus also, So it's something like that, right,
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: It's like having somebody you've seen on TV decide that
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: they're going to like lead the charge and carry the
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: flag into battle. It's wild, okay. So August is out front.
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: He's the first one to spot the British, he's the
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: first one to orders men to run the guns out.
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: The stage is set for this battle. The British fleet
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: is coming in. They've got their transport. The troop transports
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: are lightly armed. They're waiting back to see what happens
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: in the battle. The British fleet is moving in here.
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: Nineteen ships, fourteen hundred cannons, and you've got the most
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: polished professional sailors on the planet. This is the greatest
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: navy on Earth and everybody knows it. Nineteen ships, each
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: of them three decks, most of them three decks. Man
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: of wars. The French have twenty four ships, so they've
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: got more ships, they've got a little bit more cannon.
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: They've got seventeen hundred and set up. They've go three
• 20:50
  Speaker 5: hundred more cannons and they've got five more ships. On paper,
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: that's an advantage, but in reality, the French navy has
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: not performed well against the British navy to this point
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: in the war, and they're going to continue to not
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: perform well against them as it's the years go by.
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: Uh Bougainville is out there in front and he's sent out.
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: He's also realizing that he's kind of dangerously overextended. He's
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: out there in the front right there, he's facing nineteen
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: ships by himself. The other guys are behind him, and
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: this is old style war where you've got to get
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: the side. You got to get the broadside right, think
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: about pirate battles things. You've got to get the side
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: of your ship on the side of their ship. And
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: if he's sailing out their front, you want to get
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: the You want your fleets to be an equal sign
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: to shoot in each other. But if you're doing that,
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: you're going first, and you're the one that's going to
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: get shot by all of those That first ship is
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: the one that gets shot by all those other ships
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: as it goes down that equal sign.
• 21:41
  Speaker 6: This is a This is a bold move. Some might
• 21:44
  Speaker 6: even call it reckless. Yes, so Bogel, he's got the
• 21:48
  Speaker 6: Auguste and he's daring the British. He's basically saying nin
• 21:52
  Speaker 6: or niner, come and get me, Come and get me,
• 21:54
  Speaker 6: and trying to draw all their fire right while he's
• 21:57
  Speaker 6: trying to distract them, while the rest of the French
• 22:00
  Speaker 6: fleet is still getting into position.
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: Yes, the august breaks formation and charges ahead by itself
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: to basically take on the entire British navy alone, which
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: forces the British admiral to try to react to this.
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: He's got to do something, right, He can have this
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: one ship just sailing out there, so he kind of
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: he ends up coming in at like a weird angle,
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: which helps the French in the battle. So the ships
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: kind of they come into line with each other and
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: the Augusta's out front. It's taking it's you know, they
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: run out the iron cannons row after a row of muzzles.
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: Soldiers are opening fire on each other there. The cannons
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: are shooting, but the ships get so close during the
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: battle that dudes are like climbing up onto the basts
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: and like shooting pistols and rifles at each other. Like
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: you can see the guys across room you. It's not
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: like a like you picture with a modern naval battle
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: where you're looking through like a telescope or anything. You
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: can see the dude in the in the sale across
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: from you and you're trying to shoot him with your rifle.
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: That's how close these guys are getting to each other.
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: And the ships are just devastating each other. They're blasting,
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: the masts get knocked off of the Augusts lose its masts.
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: We're talking like shrap and all the size of like
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: baseball bats like flying flying wildly around the decks here,
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: old school pirate Napoleonic style naval battle, and it's happening
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: in Virginia during the American Revolution. And for some reason
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: we've never heard this story before.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: And we have to mention for a quick interjection here
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: you read my mind bent Napoleonic tactics, that's what we're
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: talking about, like the Civil War in the United States. Again,
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: it's a terrible name. That was an exhibition of Napoleonic
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: tactics on land where you had a bunch of people
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: who were largely going to be poor, if we're going
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: to be honest, and he made them stand in line
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: and sort of march at each other until they died.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: A little bit of a cannon fought our type situation.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: Just so, yes, sir, And so we're saying that at
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: this time in this maritime conflict, people were still deployed
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: that Napoleonic philosophy, correct.
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: Right, right, because this predates Napoleon, so this would be
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: twenty years before Napoleon.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: So they didn't call it that. Yeah, he named it
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: after himself later.
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: Right, right guy, our guy who Gunville is going to
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: meet Napoleon later on. But yeah, so this is right,
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: before that, and that's the time period, right, This is
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: it's not common for even at this time. It's not
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: common for naval battles to take place at this range,
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: this close to each other, right, because you have so
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: many cannons and they just blast each other and everything's
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: on fire, the master getting knockoffs, all these people are
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: dying left and right. Usually you shoot from a farther
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: distance away and try to hope that your guy's aim
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: is better than theirs. Right, these cannons are not super accurate,
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: they're not rifled boers or anything, so you just kind
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: of hope that your guy's going to reskill is a
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: little better than their guys going to reskill, and you
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: fight from a long ways away until it's time to
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: like maybe board them with your marines or whatever. But
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: this doesn't This isn't common, and it is an advantage
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: actually for the French, who are not as talented at
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: at gunnery as the British are. So you get close
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: like that you can't miss, and this just lets them
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: use their twenty five ships and their seventeen hunder cannons.
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: It might not be great strategy, like you said, just
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: kind of march at these dudes, but like, we got
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: more than they do. They're better shots than us, so
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: let's just get as close as possible. And the August
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: and Bougainville, they are able to kind of mess up
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: the British formation by charging in a really weird way.
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: He kind of lone wolves it a little bit and
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: disrupts their formation, which is also an advantage to the
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: first I mean, it's he pays for it. Him and
• 25:38
  Speaker 5: his crews get blasted pretty heavily for this, but it
• 25:42
  Speaker 5: is effective now, you know usually, but like you said,
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: usually you're looking at somebody through a telescope. You're not
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: looking the guy in the eye trying to shoot at
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: him with a handgun in a naval battle in this
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: time period.
• 25:56
  Speaker 6: And Boville in his note in his log, he says
• 26:02
  Speaker 6: the vanguard was very hotly engaged. The fire was very brisk,
• 26:06
  Speaker 6: which is this is a.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: Very that's understating the case just a little bit. Yes, yeah,
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: brisk is something you used to refer to like a
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: breeze or like, yeah, but I appreciate the word.
• 26:21
  Speaker 6: But yeah, and speaking of breezes and atmospheric phenomenon, we're
• 26:28
  Speaker 6: talking about this and we're picturing this, and we can
• 26:30
  Speaker 6: picture the ship in that ship and the guys who
• 26:31
  Speaker 6: can see each other without telescopes. But sometimes what gets
• 26:36
  Speaker 6: lost in uh, the way people tell this is that
• 26:40
  Speaker 6: this this naval battle, this Titanic history changing struggle, that's
• 26:45
  Speaker 6: deciding the fate of an entire continent. It's happening right
• 26:48
  Speaker 6: off the coast of Virginia, Okay. And yet if you
• 26:53
  Speaker 6: were on the shore, you couldn't see a single thing.
• 26:55
  Speaker 6: There is so much smoke, and it becomes a literal
• 27:00
  Speaker 6: fog of war. The cannon smoke is so thick, so heavy,
• 27:03
  Speaker 6: and so pervasive, like think after a fireworks show, except
• 27:07
  Speaker 6: like times, I don't know how many orders of magnitude,
• 27:10
  Speaker 6: there's just this wall of gray. You've got thousands of men,
• 27:17
  Speaker 6: millions of dollars of pounds or francs or whatever of
• 27:20
  Speaker 6: naval hardware, and you've got the future of the American
• 27:23
  Speaker 6: Revolution all just clashing together in this. You know, it's
• 27:27
  Speaker 6: a hot mess, but it's a hot mess in a
• 27:29
  Speaker 6: hidden bubble of violence. And then the people, I mean,
• 27:33
  Speaker 6: I don't know if anyone's actually willing to sit on
• 27:36
  Speaker 6: the beach in Virginia, but I guess maybe you know,
• 27:39
  Speaker 6: what would they know, you know, going down to the
• 27:42
  Speaker 6: beach and then you maybe hear a faint, distant rumble
• 27:47
  Speaker 6: and maybe you guess that maybe there's some naval activity
• 27:50
  Speaker 6: going on. I don't know, but you can't see it,
• 27:54
  Speaker 6: you know, even if you're standing on a pier, you
• 27:56
  Speaker 6: would not be able to see it. And that's going
• 27:59
  Speaker 6: on for two hours, these two fleets locked in this
• 28:04
  Speaker 6: brutal blind engagement, and finally one side realizes, hmm, maybe
• 28:13
  Speaker 6: we're losing the gamble.
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: Yes, So there is this fog of warships are getting separated.
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: It becomes this like you know, it starts as this
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: big line and whenever you look at like military tactic stuff,
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: that's always how they draw it up. But like once
• 28:30
  Speaker 5: you kind of get into a frenzy, once they kind
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: of get into a brawl like this, it ends up
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: like the August is fighting two British ships. They're fighting
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: the Ajax and the Terrible. So there's two seventy four
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: gun British ships fighting the fighting the seventy four gun
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: and August and they're just battling each other and other
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: stuff is happening. But like you said, the fog of
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: war is so dense. You can't really see outside of it.
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: The masts are down on all these ships, so there's
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: no sailing anymore. You're barely 're barely rowing. They're shooting
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: at whatever they can shoot at. And like you said,
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: this is you know, we've got seventeen hundred canons on one side,
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: fourteen on the other. We're looking at something like thirty
• 29:02
  Speaker 5: three thousand plus cannons firing as fast as they can
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: fire multiple like at least I can't remember how far
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: off the coast it is, but it's miles off the coast,
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: so it's not visible. And you know, maybe that's why
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: the story doesn't get talked about as much, because no
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: Americans were there and they couldn't No Americans could see it.
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: So but this battle is like defining the American Revolution.
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: And yes, like you said, you know, when when things
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: are starting to look kind of bad, after two hours,
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: darkness is starting to fall. You can't fight in darkness,
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: and you don't want to because you don't want to
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: accidentally crash into any of these other ships. So darkness
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: starts to fall. The British retreat, they've lost almost four
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: hundred guys. The French have lost two hundred dead and wounded.
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: The Terrible is sinking. It's unable to be repaired, it
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: sinks to the bottom of the harbor. Rescue boats terrible.
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: It's terrible. Yeah, it's terrible for that boat you've got.
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: You know one thing that we think of, we don't
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: think about too much with big colonial naval battles, is
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: you have rescue boats. So there's dudes out in rowboats
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: rowing around trying to pick up sailors out of the water.
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: You've got guys kind of hanging on and some of
• 30:07
  Speaker 5: these sailors can't swim because they're drafted into this service.
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: They're not These aren't Some of these guys aren't volunteers.
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: They're just impressed into service, so they can't swim. They're
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: just holding on to like things that are floating and
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: holding on, holding on to wreckage. You've got these guys
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: rowing around on boats trying to pull them out. The
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: British Admiral Sir Thomas Graves, He's like, I think this
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: is it. Like, I don't think I can break through
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: this wall here. I don't have the I don't have
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: the manpower to do it, and I've taken too many
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: hits here and his ships are all just smashed. The
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: French tactic was to shoot down the masts of the
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: British ships, because that's the thing that you can't really
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: repair in the field, and it affects your ability to
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: do anything else if you can't if you have no engine. Basically,
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: So the British retreat and dawn breaks at Yorktown. Rochambeau
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: is there, Washington's there, you had mentioned Alexander Hamilton, He's there.
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: Marquis de Lafayat's there, and you know, they do go
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: to the beach in Virginia for some reason, and what they.
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: See they heard a distant rumbling.
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: They heard a distant rumbling in Thunderia. And they come
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: back and as they're standing on the pier, they can
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: see twenty four French warships returning to the harbor and
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: they're like, that's it, we did it. We got them.
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: Like there's this huge cheer goes up down the line
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: of the from the soldiers on both sides, and that's it.
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: Cornwall's is not going to get out. The French and
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: the Americans surround them, they besiege them, they start firing
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: cannons at them, and October seventeen seventeen eighty one, Cornwall's
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: requests a ceasefire. Two days later, he unconditionally surrenders all
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: British forces under his command, and with that one signature,
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: half of the British army in North America becomes prisoners
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: of war.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: Wow wow, yeah boy, right, half half.
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: The war goes on for two more years because the
• 31:59
  Speaker 5: guys in New York don't surrender as easily, but they
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: don't make any real expeditions out of there, and without
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: these troops that Cornwallis has had, like, they can't they
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: can't do anything, right, So the United States ends up.
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: The war ends officially in seventeen eighty three, and all
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: of the hard work that was done by the colonials
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: over the many many years of this war results in
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: a free and independent United States. But it is largely
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: due to this The Yorktown Campaign, which gets mentioned all
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: the time, is the end of the war, and it's
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: not really the end of the war goes on for
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: two more years, but it's very interesting that like like
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: oh yeah, roch Bo showed up to he was also there.
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: It's like there was also twenty four French warships with
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: seventeen hundred cannons, like lasting the British Navy. We should
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: probably mention this. I feel like when we talk about.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: Yorktown, that's true. I just I love the way we're
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: portraying it because for a lot of us it will
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: it will call to mind the big question about all
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: the people who signed the Declaration of Independence. American school
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: kids know some of the top names, but I always
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: love thinking about the other the person who was in
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: the room for you know, maybe there was there was
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: a different reason. Maybe they were bringing the snacks in
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: and they were like, oh yeah, i'll sign it too, man,
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: I want to be part of the thing this.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: Did you say the snacks or the stacks snacks? Snacks? Okay,
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: you have stacks of snacks, potentially.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Stacks of snacks. Just so and there there's another thing
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: we we have to mention here in in you all's research.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure for the of the best way to
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: uh to set this up. I think you all did
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: it perfectly with the title. I did not want to
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: go to your stupid party anyway. What's that about.
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: Have you guys discussed Banisterear Tarleton yet we did a
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: badass on him. One Bannister Tarleton is the guy who
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: the bad guy in The Patriot is based off him.
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: Bash Tartan was like this twenty year old, like cavalry officer.
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: He's just just the perfect, just bad guy, just everything,
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: just burning burning stuff. They called him Butcher Tarleton or
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: Bloody band for Bloody Banister or Tarlton. He's like a
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: he's an episode by himself. He's just like a he's
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: the ultimate villain of the American Revolution and you know,
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: just everything you can think of. His parents were like
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: so he showed up and he like he claimed to
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: have like killed more men and ravished more women than
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: any other British officer in the war. Like he would
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: go around bragging about that after and like he you know,
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: he's just this monster of a person. He's burning cities,
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: he's killing prisoners of war. We can't stop him. And
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: he's recruiting loyalists to like fight for him, which everybody
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: hates more than having the actual fight actual British anyway,
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: we all hate this guy. And when the war ends
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: at Yorktown, they have a big this is a very
• 34:59
  Speaker 5: this is very a eighteenth century, right, They have this
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: big party, so Rochambeau and Washington invite Cornwallace to dinner
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: and they have this big dinner for all of the
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: American and British and French officers. I can think of
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: nothing more eighteenth century. And I don't know, I just
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: picture it being chill. I pictured just being like, oh,
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: that's a good war. Good war for you, yeah, good
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: war for me.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: It's like when we were all playing child sports and
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: we had to get in a little line and yeah,
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: it's like that, yeah, oh wow, good.
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think so. But they didn't invite manister Charlton.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, of his vibe, right.
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: Because he's like yeah, because he was just he was
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: just a miserable, awful person and everybody hated him. And
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: it doesn't end badly for him either. He goes back,
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: he becomes like the superstar. He becomes a member of
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: parliament who advocates for the slave trade. He marries like
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: like the most famous like a stage performer, Starlett in London.
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: You know, it's like become super rich. It's just the worst.
• 36:04
  Speaker 5: Just he's just the worst. He's the worst in like
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: sometimes in a funny way, he's.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: The worst in a a in a cadre of worst.
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, he's the worst, but he didn't get invited
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: to the party.
• 36:15
  Speaker 6: And he's ban b A N, not Ben with B
• 36:18
  Speaker 6: E N.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: Pat, thank you so much that that's important. That's an
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: important detail. I think we buried the lead.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, he is a different, different guy, different different first
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: name with a b uh. It's also we love the point,
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: guys that the battle of your town is seen as
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: a climactic, titular event, obviously right, but it is important
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: to remember that things continued, as you said, for several years.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: And and one of the facts, no, I don't know
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: about you, man, but one of the facts that's going
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: to stick with me here is when you Pat portrayed
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: the Revolutionary War here in the US as a facet
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: of a larger World war. Is it fair to call
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: that era of conflict the First World War?
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: No, because you have the Austrian Succession, you have the
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: Seven Years War, you have all kinds of like world
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: wars like this is a very European thing because they've
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: been you know, this is kind of a continuation of
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: the Seven Years War. This one doesn't even get mentioned
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: that much in some of the other when you're discussing
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: other you know the secrets of European wars. But yeah,
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: this was just a mess. It culminated in that, right,
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: because you have all these alliances. Spain is on France's
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: side for this war. Spain is with US and France
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: against England. But then once that war ends, France and
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: Spain are going to go to war with each other.
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: It's a mess.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Talk about a bag of badgers, geez.
• 37:49
  Speaker 5: Before we end, though, ben I would like to wrap
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: Bougainville because he is an interesting character and he survives
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: this battle. He leaves his ship, he loses a lot
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: of soldiers, he loses a lot of sailors and marines
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: in his battle, but he survives. He sinks one of
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: the British wars. He sinks the British Worship. He continues
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: on fights in a few other battles in the Caribbean
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: as part of this series of conflicts. Right, he fights
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: in the Battle of the Saints, which is the French
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: are like, okay, we'll just take Bermuda because we're here,
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: We'll just attack Bermuda, and he fights in a battle
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: there After the war, he goes home. He becomes an
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: instructor at the French Naval Academy. He joins the French
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: Academy of Sciences. He's able to not be guillotine during
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: the reign of Terror, he lives in this really nice
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: est state in the Normandy coast. And then under the
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: reign of Napoleon, he's made it. He's made a count.
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: He's like given an order of nobility and becomes a
• 38:38
  Speaker 5: count and he serves as a senator for a while
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: in Napoleon's the government. He dies in eighteen eleven and
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: he's buried in the Pantheon in Paris, which is like
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: a huge honor for like the greatest heroes of France,
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: every part of him except for his heart, which is
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: buried at his old house, which is interesting.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: Why I don't know, home is where your heart is.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: That's just usually that's just like a crochet, you know,
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: blackerd or something like that.
• 39:08
  Speaker 6: Not necessarily, sometimes you take it literally.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: So I imagine, so, yes, home is where the heart is.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: This is nominalist to us Pat and Ben because this
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: is ethics aside. This is a story that is larger
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: than life. There is more than one badass involved here, right,
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: So one of the questions we have to ask you
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: all on behalf of our fellow ridiculous historians? Is this,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: how do we define a badass? What constitutes badass ery?
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: Does it always have to mean a good person?
• 39:48
  Speaker 6: Oh? Ben and I've talked about this. Yeah, yeah, it
• 39:51
  Speaker 6: doesn't always mean a good person. That's not a requirement,
• 39:54
  Speaker 6: although many badasses are good people or work for the
• 39:58
  Speaker 6: service of good Yeah.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: Right, yeah.
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: So the thing that came up when I was doing
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: the first Badass book, I wrote it the whole book, right,
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: I've been doing the website for five years, six years.
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: I got the book. I'd written all forty chapters for
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: the book, and my editor was like, you need to
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: do an introduction chapter you defind badass. I'm like, I
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: don't know. I don't know what makes all these guys badass?
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: What does Leonidas have in common with Genghis Khan? How
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: is Joan of arc there? But you know for ratio
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: of Nelson? Like, how all these guys? What is the thing? Like?
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: What's our rubric? Right?
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: What's the unifying factor here? And I think what it
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: came down to you was your determination and your perseverance
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: to accomplish great things?
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 40:37
  Speaker 5: These are all people who had a goal that they
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: were going after and they worked really really hard to
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: get it, and they accomplished it. And sometimes that gold
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: is criminally insane, but that's I think that still counts, right.
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: The thing that makes these people inspiring to us is
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: is that Bougainville was like, I am going to a takeout.
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: I am a world renowned explorer and international celebrity, but
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: I am I believe in this, and I believe in
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: the cause of liberty. And remember that the French fighting
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: in this battle, they are not They're still a monarchy.
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: They're not. They're not. This is not they're not flying
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: the tricolor flag. This is pre French Revolution. A lot
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: of the ideals of the American Revolution will rub off
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: onto the French who are here. But this is the
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: period of the Enlightenment in France. They are still trying
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: to reconcile. Let's be free thinkers and think for ourselves
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: and have all this interesting ideas. Let's try to reconcile
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: that with there's also a monarchy, and God tells us
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: that we have to do these things because this guy
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: tells us we have to do them well.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: And also, I mean, the the Enlightenment seems like it
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: would inherently kind of clash with the idea of warfare
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: and killing other humans, very enlightened behavior exactly exactly.
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: But these guys get out there and they're like, well,
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: I gotta, you know, you gotta break some eggs, and
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: they're they're like, we gotta you know, he believes in this.
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: He's like, I gotta get out here. I'm gonna fight
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: for These guys are fighting for like freedom and and
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: you know, their own self determination all this stuff. And
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: so he's he's a true believer and he goes and
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: he's like, I'm going to fight for it. I don't
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: care that like I'm a celebrity or whatever. I don't
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: care that this is the most dangerous position on the fleet.
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: I am going to go after this. I'm going to
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: fight these guys and I'm going to win, and I'm
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: gonna win help help you know, America win its independence.
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: I'm going to fight these British who I've been fighting
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: my whole life. And there's something inspiring about these people
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: who who you know, get out there and do these
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: things right. They kind of inspire us to you know,
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: I'm not badass in my actual life, but you know,
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: there are days where I feel like I don't want
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: to answer my emails, and then I try to think
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: about Ville charging seventeen British warships, and I'm like, maybe
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: I'll answer my emails this morning.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: So you know, it might be badass to dodge an email,
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: you know what?
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: I Yeah, you rebel.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're lead. You're the tip of the spear on
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: that one. Right.
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: I handed my emails the way he handled the Terrible
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: and the AJAX. Just delete, just demolish my eail read
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: delete doctor's office. What do they want? Delete exactly?
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: Spam? Likely not with me. It's a joke earlier about uh, nol.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: I think we were talking off air about some phone calls, right,
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: oh yeah, and we also again, folks, Noel, Max and
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: I are not blowing smoke. We're not blowing rainbows or
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: trumpets and angel farts here. Badass of the Week is
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: one of our favorite favorite explorations of exactly what we
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: are hanging out with today and indeed the entirety of
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: this week. Pat, thank you so much for coming and
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: hanging out with us, Benans.
• 43:42
  Speaker 6: For having me.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, Ben, you know, Nolan, I have to
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: do the check in. Pat, are you okay with this
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: Ben Thompson guy. Is he all right?
• 43:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah, he's all right.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: He seems pretty cool to me. Cool and thanks for
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: coming back then, just to check it.
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: If you want to exit the.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: Podcast, well, thanks as always to our super producer, mister
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: Max Williams. We usually have a long run of credits.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: We're going to save you guys some time here except
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: for one thing. We have to recommend a good friend
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: of the show that you all should hang out with
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: if you haven't already. His name is A. J. Jacobs.
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: Oh, we had him on our show. He's awesome. Yeah.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we call him Bahamas for you can never ask
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: him why not sure either, I don't know.
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: He's a good guy that makes perfect sense. I got
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: to check out that episode.
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we had a great episode with him. I was
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: doing for a while. I was doing the drink of
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: the show, where every show I would have some kind
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: of beverage that was related to whatever we were talking about.
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: Then we were doing history.
• 44:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we were doing a Mongolian Pat had brought some
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: Mongolian in mythology the Jingar Epic, and those guys all
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: drink fermented Mare's milk.
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: Oh in the story. Yeah, oh, good.
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: So I ordered fermented Mayor's milk from Mongolia.
• 45:13
  Speaker 6: I did not make him do this. This is own initiative.
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: It's boozy. Yeah, it's it's fermented, so it's it's alcohol.
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: It's like a it's you know, it's like a wine
• 45:23
  Speaker 5: level of alcohol.
• 45:24
  Speaker 6: What'd you take?
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: Did you all enjoy it?
• 45:27
  Speaker 5: I drank it. We don't, you know, we live in
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: different cities, so I just did it over zoom and
• 45:33
  Speaker 5: yeah it was. It was really not good.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: It was yeah, I don't know. I got that seven
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: League stare first.
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah, but that was the show AJ was on. I
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: drank it and it was. It tasted like hay and
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: uh and that was the end of the drink of
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: the show. We never did it again.
• 45:49
  Speaker 6: It was that bad.
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: Hey is indeed for horses and good good on you
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: for taking one for the team.
• 45:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that episode is like eighty percent of
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: that episode is just me gagging.
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: Ilad you made it well.
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: Note to self on alcoholic beverages, never to try. But
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: thanks again y'all for coming and we will see you
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: favorite shows