Latest / Ridiculous History / CLASSIC: Nazis, Churchill and Chocolate

Transcript

CLASSIC: Nazis, Churchill and Chocolate · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. We hope you're having a great holiday. Your
0:03
Speaker 1: pals here at Ridiculous History are vacatie just a bit
0:07
Speaker 1: uh and uh, while we do. We didn't want to
0:10
Speaker 1: leave you hanging, so we thought we'd we'd share some
0:12
Speaker 1: of our favorite classic episodes for the very last week
0:16
Speaker 1: of the year. Indeed, starting off with one of our
0:19
Speaker 1: earliest episodes, it'll be kind of fun for us to
0:22
Speaker 1: check this one out and see how we did. I
0:25
Speaker 1: think it'll be fun for all of us. This one
0:26
Speaker 1: is about Winston Churchill's quest to um kill Nazis in
0:34
Speaker 1: some pretty ridiculous ways. Ridiculous History is a production of
0:38
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Hello, Hello, welcome to the show this show.
1:06
Speaker 1: My name is Ben, my name is Nol. Nol, So
1:08
Speaker 1: what what are we doing here? What? I just thought
1:10
Speaker 1: it was a cool cadence for Ridiculous History. Oh, I
1:13
Speaker 1: see what you did there? You said the name of
1:15
Speaker 1: the show so people know what they're listening to. Yes. Yes,
1:19
Speaker 1: for everyone who is in such a rush to hear
1:22
Speaker 1: the latest episode that they haven't bothered to read the
1:24
Speaker 1: title and aren't sure what show they're listening to, you
1:27
Speaker 1: are in the right place and right and let us know,
1:29
Speaker 1: should we do an entire show a rhyming show, or
1:31
Speaker 1: we're just like the whole thing rhymes? I think, I
1:32
Speaker 1: don't know if we have the band with to pull
1:34
Speaker 1: that off. Ben, I bet we could pull it off, though, Nol.
1:37
Speaker 1: We would just have to take it slow at first
1:39
Speaker 1: and eventually accept that some rhymes will be better and
1:42
Speaker 1: some will be worse. You know what, That's a good
1:45
Speaker 1: way to approach life. It is true, Indeed, it is true. Indeed,
1:51
Speaker 1: this is of course the show where we look at
1:53
Speaker 1: all these strange, fascinating, at times silly and often ridiculous
1:57
Speaker 1: stories of yesteryear, and this one that that you found
2:03
Speaker 1: was completely new information to me. I had no idea,
2:08
Speaker 1: And Nolan I have talked about oh and also shout
2:11
Speaker 1: out to our super producer Casey Pegrum. Hey, Casey, we
2:16
Speaker 1: got a thumbs up. He's in a good mood today, uh. Nolan,
2:20
Speaker 1: I have talked often about these strange cockamami assassination attempts
2:26
Speaker 1: that sound like there's something out of Naked Gun. You mean,
2:29
Speaker 1: just like in our spare time? It comes up? Because
2:33
Speaker 1: what is spare time right now? I love the Naked
2:36
Speaker 1: Gun movies? Um? What I always think about is all
2:39
Speaker 1: of the kind of James Bond esque devices that were
2:43
Speaker 1: already so ridiculous they barely needed to be satirized, but
2:47
Speaker 1: the Naked gun always managed to kind of take it
2:49
Speaker 1: to another level. Absolutely. And the truth of the matter
2:55
Speaker 1: is that in decades past, with the emergings of modern
3:01
Speaker 1: intelligence agencies or their precursors, from let's say call it
3:06
Speaker 1: after World War One through World War Two and on
3:09
Speaker 1: and on to the present day, UH, we saw this
3:13
Speaker 1: rise in very what should we call them, out out
3:16
Speaker 1: of the box plans to assassinate world leaders. Probably one
3:22
Speaker 1: of the most famous examples for this for most people,
3:25
Speaker 1: it would be, uh, the CIA's plans and their various
3:29
Speaker 1: attempts to either humiliate, undermine, or assassinate Fidel Castro. You know, like,
3:37
Speaker 1: what are some of the weird things they tried there? Yeah,
3:39
Speaker 1: I mean the one you think of is like practically
3:41
Speaker 1: a prank that you would play on, you know, an
3:44
Speaker 1: unsuspecting friend who smokes lots of cigars, the old exploding
3:49
Speaker 1: cigar trick. You think about it from like Looney Tunes
3:51
Speaker 1: and stuff, And I always thought of it as you know,
3:53
Speaker 1: like a little ha ha. But no, if there was
3:55
Speaker 1: like thermite in that thing. It but take your head
3:58
Speaker 1: off right. What we found was that Fidel Castro and
4:02
Speaker 1: the CIA are not unique entirely. And what you introduced
4:07
Speaker 1: me to is today's topic. Very strange story about former
4:12
Speaker 1: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. And it's cool because there's
4:16
Speaker 1: actually a biopic coming out about Churchill with the absurdly
4:21
Speaker 1: talented Gary Oldman portraying um Mr Churchill. So Churchill was
4:28
Speaker 1: one of the first European leaders that was vehemently opposed
4:34
Speaker 1: to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, and it sounds like
4:37
Speaker 1: kind of like a no brainer, but it was there.
4:40
Speaker 1: You know, there was sort of a I don't know,
4:43
Speaker 1: I'm not a don't ask, don't tell policy, but kind
4:45
Speaker 1: of like let's see what happens kind of policy in Churchill,
4:48
Speaker 1: you know, really took up the mantle of this is
4:50
Speaker 1: a humanitarian crisis, this is an issue of UM good
4:55
Speaker 1: versus evil, and sort of framed the UK as being
4:59
Speaker 1: on the good side UM. His broadcasts really boosted the nation,
5:05
Speaker 1: the whole mindset of the nation UM and who were
5:09
Speaker 1: pretty freaked out by what Hitler would be capable of,
5:12
Speaker 1: and as a result, Hitler and his you know, goon squad.
5:18
Speaker 1: Uh really really wanted to put an end to this man.
5:24
Speaker 1: How how do you how do you do a thing
5:26
Speaker 1: like that? I mean, Churchill was incredibly insulated, you know,
5:30
Speaker 1: he as you know, any leader of a nation is
5:35
Speaker 1: constantly under surveillance, kept under lock and key. You know,
5:40
Speaker 1: how are they going to reach a guy like that? Right,
5:42
Speaker 1: one of the most protected non royal family members in
5:46
Speaker 1: the in the Kingdom. But he was actually like working.
5:48
Speaker 1: You know, you'd think they would protect him more. They
5:50
Speaker 1: just kind of prop up the queen and you know,
5:53
Speaker 1: kind of trundle her out during you know events, smile
5:57
Speaker 1: a wave. Oh boy. Uh. So in two thousand and
6:00
Speaker 1: twelve we finally learned what they were planning. And oh, body,
6:06
Speaker 1: is it weird? Ye? This is not a thing that
6:08
Speaker 1: was like super common knowledge until a letter or a
6:12
Speaker 1: few letters, have a parcel of letters, shall we say,
6:15
Speaker 1: was unearthed, um bearing a secret stamp a little on
6:21
Speaker 1: the nose, isn't it. He just like, don't look at this,
6:23
Speaker 1: it's secret. Okay, that's time. I'm gonna open that right
6:27
Speaker 1: on up. Uh. And the letter was commissioned by a
6:34
Speaker 1: Lord Victor roth Child, m who was an m I
6:37
Speaker 1: five senior intelligence chief. Now Ben, is this the roths
6:41
Speaker 1: Child of the roths Child Roth's child, So that was
6:43
Speaker 1: a mouthful. Yeah, related to for sure, big powerful family
6:49
Speaker 1: from from the UK, far reaching political control and even
6:54
Speaker 1: to this day uh influence over the banking system of
6:58
Speaker 1: the UK and politics correct financial clout. For sure, Lord
7:03
Speaker 1: Victor Rothschild during peacetime was a scientist and a key
7:07
Speaker 1: member of the Rothschild banking dynasty when he wrote so
7:13
Speaker 1: he wrote this letter to a talented illustrator that he
7:18
Speaker 1: was aware of, named Lawrence Fish. It is such a
7:21
Speaker 1: good British name. And on May four, Lord Victor Rothschild
7:28
Speaker 1: wrote to Mr Fish and asked him to draw poster
7:31
Speaker 1: sized images of a particular type of chocolate for the
7:36
Speaker 1: purposes of warning the public to be on the lookout
7:39
Speaker 1: a nice chucky. You've seen that episode of Money Python
7:43
Speaker 1: where they have the is a candy company that has
7:46
Speaker 1: an assortment and they're all really unpleasant. Like one of
7:50
Speaker 1: them it's called like the the New Get Surprise, and
7:53
Speaker 1: then you bite into it, it shoots out bolts to
7:55
Speaker 1: either cheek, piercing them from the inside. And there's one
7:58
Speaker 1: that's the crunchy frog that has has an actual tiny
8:03
Speaker 1: amphibian inside of it, and the crunch comes from the
8:05
Speaker 1: crunch of its bones. Uh. This particular device would be
8:09
Speaker 1: quite at home in that assortment because one of the
8:12
Speaker 1: devices that was sketched out by Mr Fish It was
8:17
Speaker 1: a chocolate bar containing a layer within that when snapped,
8:25
Speaker 1: would explode. That's right. You see, Lord Victor Rothschild had
8:30
Speaker 1: received word of a possible Nazi plot to kill Winston
8:34
Speaker 1: Churchill by smuggling this chocolate into the war cabinet's dining room.
8:40
Speaker 1: And this war cabinet here is a group of people,
8:43
Speaker 1: it's a specific cabinet. I just now I'm victory of
8:46
Speaker 1: Winston Churchill getting up at three in the morning and
8:49
Speaker 1: his skivvy's and then walking through the war cabinet to
8:53
Speaker 1: get chocolate. Yeah, when you know he had some fine,
8:56
Speaker 1: fine silk pajamas. Oh, that's certain of it. You're probably right,
9:00
Speaker 1: and you're probably right the treating question. This chocolate bar
9:05
Speaker 1: was finally wrapped in black and gold paper and lab
9:08
Speaker 1: labeled uh Peter's Chocolate. And here's the thing. It wouldn't
9:11
Speaker 1: have aroused suspicion at least the Nazis hoped because it
9:17
Speaker 1: wasn't a fake chocolate bar, it was actually chocolate, and
9:22
Speaker 1: they put a lot of thought into this. Right. According
9:25
Speaker 1: to a British spy who actually firsthand got a look
9:28
Speaker 1: at this exploding delicacy, um, he was able to draw
9:34
Speaker 1: the first artist's rendering of it. And what it was
9:37
Speaker 1: was a steel plate, a very thin steel plate covered
9:40
Speaker 1: by a thin layer of dark chocolate. And as I
9:44
Speaker 1: said before, when the chocolate bar was broken, along those
9:47
Speaker 1: those nice square lines where you can get to you
9:50
Speaker 1: a little piece, snap, you want to snap it because
9:52
Speaker 1: it's tempered chocolate. We'll get it nine a second, um,
9:55
Speaker 1: that would detonate the device. Only then, that is when
10:00
Speaker 1: there was a canvas strap that connected to the explosive inside.
10:05
Speaker 1: And only once you broke it could you actually see
10:07
Speaker 1: it had a seven second delay following that very satisfying snap,
10:12
Speaker 1: and apparently was powerful enough explosive that the effects could
10:17
Speaker 1: be felt for uh several meters in all directions. Right,
10:21
Speaker 1: and this was high powered explosive. Yeah, And in all
10:26
Speaker 1: the research about this, I couldn't find specific mention of
10:30
Speaker 1: the type of explosive used. But in this cash of
10:34
Speaker 1: drawings uncovered from mr Fish. There there were multiple drawings
10:39
Speaker 1: various devices, exactly one of which looked sort of a
10:41
Speaker 1: military issue crock pot, I guess um where there was
10:45
Speaker 1: a false bottom and it had like you know, peas
10:48
Speaker 1: and bangers and mash kind of dish on the inside,
10:51
Speaker 1: and it looks like it used thermite, which then you
10:54
Speaker 1: can probably speak to. This is a pretty powerful substance
10:58
Speaker 1: that can burn through steel and when ignited properly and
11:02
Speaker 1: used in a certain way, can cause some serious carnage. Yeah,
11:06
Speaker 1: Thermite is a composition of metal powder that could be
11:10
Speaker 1: a fuel metal oxide. The thing with thermite is when
11:13
Speaker 1: you ignite it with heat, it undergoes pretty intense exothermic reduction,
11:19
Speaker 1: oxidation or redox if you want to be cool with
11:23
Speaker 1: the the explosive crew uh redox reaction. And most varieties
11:29
Speaker 1: of this stuff are not explosive. They just create brief
11:32
Speaker 1: burst of heat and high temperature in a small area.
11:35
Speaker 1: But you can make it explosive, and that's what you'll
11:40
Speaker 1: see that that's how you can make like thermite hand
11:44
Speaker 1: grenades and stuff like that, so it can be weaponized.
11:47
Speaker 1: And I guess because we're dealing with such a thin
11:49
Speaker 1: um and small item. Like I said, even though I
11:52
Speaker 1: didn't see specific mention of thermite and the chocolate bar drawing,
11:55
Speaker 1: it was in some of the other drawings in this
11:58
Speaker 1: cache of of of illustration. So um, let us know
12:01
Speaker 1: if you've heard anything beyond um this speculation. But the
12:06
Speaker 1: point is this could really do some serious damage, especially
12:10
Speaker 1: if you're holding it close to your face. It would
12:13
Speaker 1: you know, cause a blast that would you know, could
12:16
Speaker 1: of course kill you. Right And this chocolate bar in
12:21
Speaker 1: an our our opinion, was one of the strangest devices,
12:26
Speaker 1: but it was, as as we had said, one of several.
12:30
Speaker 1: There's the military mess ten and there are a couple
12:34
Speaker 1: of different diagrams I believe of the chocolate which you
12:37
Speaker 1: can view online. There's a historian named Nigel West who,
12:43
Speaker 1: in speaking with BBC said that he believes Rothschild probably
12:47
Speaker 1: paid out of pocket for these diagrams. Uh. This just
12:51
Speaker 1: for context with Lord Victor Rothschild. It's not like he
12:55
Speaker 1: was hard up for the scratch or the cheddar. But
12:58
Speaker 1: he was a good a good citizen. He was a
13:02
Speaker 1: very what's the word patriotic individual and wanted to use
13:07
Speaker 1: his wealth um for the greater good. And he was
13:09
Speaker 1: I guess sort of more of a consultant, I guess,
13:12
Speaker 1: or like a board member of some kind. Yeah, he
13:15
Speaker 1: just for prison draw salary, just for perspective. When m
13:19
Speaker 1: I five was scouting out some offices to locate in Paris,
13:24
Speaker 1: he said, you guys just used one of my mansions.
13:26
Speaker 1: You got a few, yeah, you got you kicking around
13:29
Speaker 1: to He was the Paris mansion. And so once Fish
13:33
Speaker 1: completed the illustrations and sent them to Rothschild, he liked
13:37
Speaker 1: them so much that he had he had one framed
13:40
Speaker 1: in his home library. Again, this is top secret stuff,
13:44
Speaker 1: and then he put the remaining prints in storage. So
13:54
Speaker 1: when these letters were found, when this parcel of letters
13:58
Speaker 1: was found in historians around the world wondered, well, what
14:03
Speaker 1: happened to the illustrations, because at first they only found
14:05
Speaker 1: the letters. But then super recently in early September UM,
14:09
Speaker 1: some of the members of the Rothschild family, we're sorting
14:13
Speaker 1: through some documents and they found the drawings, and experts
14:17
Speaker 1: consider them pretty incredible for pre digital graphics. These are
14:22
Speaker 1: like hand drawn kind of cross sections of diagrams of
14:27
Speaker 1: all these different devices and actually here in the house
14:29
Speaker 1: stuff works offices in Atlanta Georgia upon City Market. We
14:33
Speaker 1: have um, a bunch of framed illustrations that are right
14:36
Speaker 1: along these lines. We've got one that shows a gas
14:38
Speaker 1: mask in cross section and all the different layers of that.
14:41
Speaker 1: We have one that shows I believe like a nerf
14:43
Speaker 1: gun or or something like super socer, super soccer, that's
14:46
Speaker 1: what it is, but very similar in style and not
14:49
Speaker 1: an easy feat to do accurately by hand, um, especially
14:53
Speaker 1: you know in in in in those days. And we're yeah,
14:56
Speaker 1: we're huge fans of cutaway diagrams. If you have any
15:00
Speaker 1: really cool ones, please send them to us, because we will.
15:03
Speaker 1: We'll just look at them for fun. We literally want
15:06
Speaker 1: to know how stuff works, It's true. And so the
15:08
Speaker 1: chocolate bar drawing in particular was seriously compelling because it
15:14
Speaker 1: really could actually work, um because you know, people like
15:19
Speaker 1: a nice, tasty chocolate treat, and the bar was designed
15:23
Speaker 1: to detonate um using minimal effort from the individual consuming
15:29
Speaker 1: said a treat. Right, So, like, all you gotta do
15:32
Speaker 1: is do that thing you're gonna do anyway, give it
15:34
Speaker 1: a snap. You don't have to do anything special, it
15:35
Speaker 1: won't feel unusually difficult, doesn't have to be any particular
15:39
Speaker 1: line right, because the whole thing runs throughout the whole bar,
15:42
Speaker 1: so it could be like, you know, breaking in half
15:44
Speaker 1: or just breaking off a little piece. Yeah, and so
15:47
Speaker 1: this kind of strategy, spycraft, espionage was very common on
15:52
Speaker 1: the German side. They were super into it. Oh and
15:54
Speaker 1: I forgot to mention Lawrence Fish the reason he got
15:58
Speaker 1: hit up for this. He was the sun of one
16:00
Speaker 1: of the three m I five counter sabotage agents at
16:03
Speaker 1: the time, so there was a family relation there too.
16:06
Speaker 1: He wasn't I don't think Rothschild was just you know,
16:09
Speaker 1: flipping through a magazine and said, ah, this is the guy.
16:14
Speaker 1: Let me just ask him this weird question. There's another
16:18
Speaker 1: weird detail at about Churchill at the end. But as
16:22
Speaker 1: s Noll said, they've we found these documents quite recently
16:26
Speaker 1: when the Rothschild family were sorting through stuff on the
16:29
Speaker 1: estate in September. And you have to wonder how strange
16:34
Speaker 1: and fascinating that cave of wonders must be. Yeah, look
16:37
Speaker 1: at this trove treasures untold yes, yes, exactly, and gizmos
16:42
Speaker 1: as a plenty, and you know, I'll tell you it's
16:44
Speaker 1: significant to that the Germans did not use milk chocolate.
16:48
Speaker 1: They didn't use white chocolate. They used dark chocolate, and
16:51
Speaker 1: that is because of the way chocolate and a chocolate bar,
16:55
Speaker 1: and dark chocolate in particular has to be tempered. So
16:58
Speaker 1: what's the deal with tempering then? Right? Okay? Tempering chocolate
17:02
Speaker 1: is essentially melting it and then stirring it vigorously as
17:06
Speaker 1: it cools. Pastry chefs know all about this. I learned
17:09
Speaker 1: about it pretty recently because my daughter is a big
17:12
Speaker 1: fan of this new pastry cooking show on Netflix called
17:15
Speaker 1: Zombo's Just Desserts, and also The Great British Bakeoff, where
17:20
Speaker 1: tempering chocolate is hugely important when they're making decorations or
17:24
Speaker 1: things that have to stand up to pressure or like
17:26
Speaker 1: you know, chocolate shapes that they then put on cakes
17:29
Speaker 1: or decorate the size with it, because otherwise it will
17:32
Speaker 1: not hold its shape and it will melt all over
17:35
Speaker 1: the place. The same is true for a chocolate bar.
17:37
Speaker 1: In order to be able to hold it and have
17:39
Speaker 1: it be you know, manipulatable and break on those lines
17:43
Speaker 1: of demarcation, the chocolate has to be tempered correctly, right,
17:46
Speaker 1: And one of the questions would be why why tempered chocolate?
17:50
Speaker 1: So I propose that we take a page from our
17:52
Speaker 1: good friends Lorn and Annie over at our sister show
17:57
Speaker 1: food Stuff, and we'll talk of it, just briefly about
17:59
Speaker 1: the food side giants. Here. The short answer for why
18:02
Speaker 1: you would want to temper chocolate is that chemically it's
18:05
Speaker 1: composed of several different tiny crystals, six to be exact.
18:10
Speaker 1: Of these six there are, there's one desirable type, and
18:13
Speaker 1: they're called beta crystals. Developing informing these crystals is what
18:18
Speaker 1: makes us the key to the good chocolate. So the
18:22
Speaker 1: one in comparison, be like a cup of chicken stock.
18:24
Speaker 1: It might seem homogeneous, uniform throughout, but the fat's gonna
18:28
Speaker 1: rise to the surface. And when chocolate is an emulsion,
18:33
Speaker 1: but if you're warm and melt it, you break the
18:35
Speaker 1: emulsion as it cools. Cocoa butter rises to the surface,
18:38
Speaker 1: unattractive but harmless, and sometimes that even makes people throw
18:43
Speaker 1: away the chocolate. We can briefly laundry lists the reasons
18:46
Speaker 1: you would do you a temper chocolate. Avoid fat and
18:49
Speaker 1: sugar bloom, you know, those white streaks or blotches on
18:52
Speaker 1: the surface. You raise the melting temperature the finished chocolate
18:55
Speaker 1: so it doesn't melt on contact with your fingers, which
18:58
Speaker 1: would be super awkward if someone's like, hey, what is it?
19:00
Speaker 1: Why is there canvas at this far? Uh preserves you know,
19:04
Speaker 1: the keeping quality, cools it quickly, and it gives it
19:08
Speaker 1: that classy glossy shine, makes it pretty, especially if you're
19:11
Speaker 1: using it like a like a pastry chef would use it.
19:14
Speaker 1: And the final most important thing, not just for pastry chefs,
19:17
Speaker 1: but for would be Nazi assassins. Again, would be Nazi assassins,
19:24
Speaker 1: is that tempering chocolate gives it that capacity for that crisp,
19:28
Speaker 1: clean snap at to pop the pa for emphasis. There
19:32
Speaker 1: was a good, good, good pe popper good thing. We've
19:34
Speaker 1: got these nice popper stoppers on our mics here. Um.
19:38
Speaker 1: But yeah, and I hope I didn't set it up
19:40
Speaker 1: too much at the top of the show. This sound
19:41
Speaker 1: like this was a successful attempt, because everyone's like, I
19:44
Speaker 1: don't remember hearing about any exploding chocolate bars and attempts
19:47
Speaker 1: on Winston Churchhill's life. Yeah, because it didn't really happen. Um,
19:50
Speaker 1: these were beta tests at the very best, right, these drawings.
19:55
Speaker 1: But my question to you, bens. These drawings were commissioned
19:59
Speaker 1: by the British government based on technology the Nazis may
20:03
Speaker 1: have had, um how where what's the connection there? Reported
20:07
Speaker 1: by a British spy who was embedded on the German side.
20:12
Speaker 1: And because this this is part of the story that
20:15
Speaker 1: they don't emphasize too much. It's just a funny little detail.
20:20
Speaker 1: So the British spy was actually the first one to
20:23
Speaker 1: draw the diagram. Uh, let's say, I don't wanna, I
20:26
Speaker 1: don't want to cast too much as version on the guy,
20:29
Speaker 1: but let's say he was stressed and maybe a little
20:31
Speaker 1: distracted with this other stuff, because apparently the first drawing
20:34
Speaker 1: he made was just garbage, terrible. It was like a
20:37
Speaker 1: dumpster fire candy bar drawing. But then fish was past
20:41
Speaker 1: those documents and was able to um get a little
20:44
Speaker 1: more granular and detailed with him. So I just have
20:47
Speaker 1: this picture in my head of Lord Rothschild reading the
20:52
Speaker 1: messages from the spy and going quite quite and then going,
20:57
Speaker 1: oh no, it's a very poor sketched This won't do
21:02
Speaker 1: one bit. And then you know what, who's who has
21:06
Speaker 1: the boy who draws? Someone send a someone send a
21:10
Speaker 1: memo to the boy. The boy. I hope he addressed it,
21:13
Speaker 1: Dear the boy. Yes, of course, that's how they referred
21:15
Speaker 1: to their underlings. I hope we've done a pretty good
21:26
Speaker 1: job establishing the worry that they were tackling at this time,
21:32
Speaker 1: or that they were addressing, because as well, I hate
21:36
Speaker 1: to overuse the word and all, but as ridiculous as
21:39
Speaker 1: it sounds today, in this was a very real concern.
21:43
Speaker 1: This was quite possibly a way to kill the Prime minister. Absolutely,
21:47
Speaker 1: and then looking through these, uh, these drawings, the thing
21:49
Speaker 1: that that occurred to me was, you know, think about
21:51
Speaker 1: what happens when we go through airport security. Now we
21:53
Speaker 1: gotta take out our laptops. There's all kinds of like
21:55
Speaker 1: they have to we can't have you know, hair gel
21:58
Speaker 1: or certain types of liquid because the technology now and
22:02
Speaker 1: the um everyday objects that it could be embedded in
22:06
Speaker 1: are much more complex. These drawings and these devices are
22:10
Speaker 1: very very analog and very um just practical and functional.
22:15
Speaker 1: And it required you know, a physical uh touch to
22:19
Speaker 1: actually detonate, you know, as opposed to being done by
22:21
Speaker 1: remote or being integrated into the circuitry of a phone
22:25
Speaker 1: or a computer or something like that. So this this
22:27
Speaker 1: was cutting edge for the time, right, sure, Yeah, this stuff.
22:30
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you saying that because this stuff is
22:32
Speaker 1: all mechanical. There's no there's no sort of electronic wizardry
22:37
Speaker 1: or sorcery going on here. We also want to tell
22:40
Speaker 1: you about just a couple of the other items. No,
22:43
Speaker 1: I think you mentioned that army mess kit that does
22:46
Speaker 1: look like a crock pot. They also had a motor
22:50
Speaker 1: oil can with explosives inside. You know, maybe not, Maybe
22:54
Speaker 1: that's a little too on the nose, since motor oil
22:57
Speaker 1: is already a dangerous thing around by or uh. One
23:01
Speaker 1: of the ideas, going back to the history in Nigel West,
23:04
Speaker 1: that Germany was focusing on was destroying ships that would
23:09
Speaker 1: reach the United Kingdom so they could deprive Britain of
23:13
Speaker 1: food stuffs. And this would be you know, this is
23:16
Speaker 1: almost like a siege mentality at that point. And we
23:20
Speaker 1: say this because sure, killing the prime minister of an
23:24
Speaker 1: enemy country would be a setback. Yeah, to say the least,
23:29
Speaker 1: it's a tremendous coup, right, But if you really want
23:34
Speaker 1: to shut down the entire country, then do something that
23:38
Speaker 1: affects everybody. So they were really focusing on trying to
23:41
Speaker 1: sink or destroy the ships while they were out at
23:44
Speaker 1: sea and um. According to an article on the BBC
23:49
Speaker 1: that we found from Nick Higghum. The chocolate bar might
23:53
Speaker 1: have been the most bizarre explosive device that they found
23:57
Speaker 1: in these drawings, but the one that was probably potentially
24:00
Speaker 1: the most effective involved the timer, very intricate timer that
24:05
Speaker 1: would go off after twenty one days and involved a
24:08
Speaker 1: rotating disk. And at the top it says in bold letters,
24:12
Speaker 1: do not unscrew here, and at the very bottom equally
24:15
Speaker 1: bold according to this article, unscrew here first. So, you know,
24:20
Speaker 1: very important to get those timers right, to assure that
24:23
Speaker 1: the ship went down well out of range of any
24:26
Speaker 1: kind of help. Yeah, and devious, right, ingenious time. Uh.
24:31
Speaker 1: And you know, if we're being objective about it, that's
24:34
Speaker 1: some really impressive engineering. We we do have. I think
24:38
Speaker 1: a cool place to close here, uh that I think
24:41
Speaker 1: you will enjoy. One of these things might be a
24:43
Speaker 1: surprise for funeral. You will be happy to know, friends
24:46
Speaker 1: and neighbors that Lawrence Fish went on to become quite
24:50
Speaker 1: a successful designer graphic artist, right, and he had a
24:56
Speaker 1: longer rewarding career. What I probably a police should have
25:00
Speaker 1: mentioned at the top, and this is going to be
25:02
Speaker 1: the last fact for me regarding this story, is that
25:06
Speaker 1: Winston Churchill himself believed he had another layer of protection
25:11
Speaker 1: in addition to the state security forces, in addition to
25:16
Speaker 1: the power of the ninety Kingdom's military. You see, Winston
25:22
Speaker 1: Churchill believed that he heard voices and he would obey
25:27
Speaker 1: what those voices told him to do when he was
25:29
Speaker 1: convinced on several occasions that it had saved his life.
25:33
Speaker 1: And it's a very it's a very strange kind of
25:35
Speaker 1: HALLOWEENI anecdote to add their uh. He would hear the
25:40
Speaker 1: voices telling him in the sort of a bicameral mind thing,
25:42
Speaker 1: almost sit here, do this, scoot over here, and followed
25:47
Speaker 1: it without question. I would call that intuition, but that's
25:52
Speaker 1: just me. He was very specific that it was a
25:55
Speaker 1: golden voice that he would hear. Interesting. I wonder if
25:58
Speaker 1: it told him to keep drinking. Probably did. And I
26:01
Speaker 1: wonder if it plays into um Gary Oldman's depiction of
26:05
Speaker 1: him in this upcoming film Churchill, which we will have
26:08
Speaker 1: to go see. Yes, we can only hope. We are
26:11
Speaker 1: off today to fanboy a little bit about the flawed
26:16
Speaker 1: but amazing historical figure known as Winston Churchill, who famously
26:22
Speaker 1: and perhaps unnoyingly to himself avoided death by chocolate. Oh,
26:28
Speaker 1: I was holding on to that reference for a while.
26:30
Speaker 1: It's good. I think there's like a that's like a
26:31
Speaker 1: fancy like T G I Friday's style. Uh, you know,
26:35
Speaker 1: molten lava chocolate cake. I think because that's death by chocolate.
26:38
Speaker 1: Absolutely that exists as a thing. Yeah, what's your favorite
26:42
Speaker 1: delicious treat? Um, explosive or otherwise? Write us that ridiculous
26:46
Speaker 1: at how stuff works and let us know. You can
26:47
Speaker 1: also find this on Facebook, on Instagram. Still working on
26:51
Speaker 1: that vision board for Pinterest. It will come one day, um,
26:54
Speaker 1: but not today, my friends, and we hope you join
26:58
Speaker 1: us on another day for another installment of ridiculous history.
27:09
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
27:12
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
27:14
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.