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Bolivia Fought -- And Lost -- A War For Bird Poop · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Let's give a big shout
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  Speaker 1: out to our one and only super producer. You know him,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: you love him, the man, the myth a legend, Mr
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  Speaker 1: Max Williams. They called me ben Nol. Today's episode is
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  Speaker 1: about bird poop. Yeah, and I think it's not the
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  Speaker 1: first time we've talked about bird poop on this show.
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  Speaker 1: That's correct, I'm not mistaken. There was another episode about
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  Speaker 1: bird poop when we when this topic came up from
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  Speaker 1: our incredible new researcher Jeff, I had to do a
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  Speaker 1: double tay. That's where we've on this. But no, in fact,
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  Speaker 1: we did another episode that involved guano, which is a
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  Speaker 1: catch all terms not just for bat poop, for any
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  Speaker 1: avian creatures poop, and and it's very useful stuff and
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  Speaker 1: often the subject of not only intense debate, you know
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  Speaker 1: as to what creatures quote qualified for guano, but you know,
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  Speaker 1: bloody wars over the stuff because it's like good for
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  Speaker 1: lots of things, including making bombs. Yep. Agreed, guano is
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  Speaker 1: a resource all its own. Often underestimated because it is
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: in fact poop and people have their own, uh somewhat
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  Speaker 1: prejudicial views about feces. Yes, big announcement, Max, if we
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  Speaker 1: could get some sort of big announcement music perfect. This
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  Speaker 1: is the first time we're working with a good friend
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  Speaker 1: of the show, longtime fan, Mr Jeff Bartlett, a research associate.
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  Speaker 1: Not the only new addition to our crew. You'll learn
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  Speaker 1: more in the next episode, but Jeff absolutely wowed us
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  Speaker 1: with this story that I believe neither of us had
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  Speaker 1: heard before. It's about how Bolivia lost a serious war
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  Speaker 1: over bird poop. That's right, and you might also if
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  Speaker 1: you're interested in bird poop and you want mean I
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  Speaker 1: have to tell you this, Ben. I used to have
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  Speaker 1: a boss who is from like the Midwest, and he
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  Speaker 1: introduced me to the term which I would never use
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  Speaker 1: in conversation, the straight poop. Well, if you want the
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  Speaker 1: straight poop on bird poop, we're gonna give you some
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  Speaker 1: of that today. But you can also get it from
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  Speaker 1: an episode that we did about when US farmers went
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  Speaker 1: nuts about bird poop. And it's actually a good primer
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  Speaker 1: for this episode because of the reason for this bloody
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  Speaker 1: conflict was an explosion no pun intended in the demand
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  Speaker 1: for bird poop, and a large part of that was
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  Speaker 1: because of agriculture. Yep, that's correct, So we know since
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  Speaker 1: before the dawn of the written word, wars have often
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  Speaker 1: been the result of disputes over territory and more pointedly,
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  Speaker 1: the resources those territories contain. We're talking today about something
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  Speaker 1: that you would call the War of the Pacific or
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  Speaker 1: la Guiartra del Pacifical. It took place from eighteen seventy
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  Speaker 1: nine to eighteen eighty three, and this was an international
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  Speaker 1: conflict involved Chile, Bolivia and Peru, and it started as
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  Speaker 1: a beef that Chile and Bolivia had over who controlled
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  Speaker 1: part of the Atacama Desert. This is something that is
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  Speaker 1: known historically. You can see it in Britannica. We also
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  Speaker 1: like to recommend an excellent source that our our guy
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  Speaker 1: Jeff found, the National Interest why Bolivia and Chile once
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  Speaker 1: went to war over guando parentheses bird droppings. So the uh,
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  Speaker 1: this is by Peter Seucy so shout out to him.
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  Speaker 1: But the spoiler, there's a reason that they were fighting
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  Speaker 1: so ardently over this poop, and it's not They weren't
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  Speaker 1: just super into poop for poop's sake alone. If you
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  Speaker 1: look at the desert, it's between the twenty three and
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  Speaker 1: parallels on the Pacific coast of South America. I visited.
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  Speaker 1: It's lovely and you should check it out if you're
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  Speaker 1: the chance. But they were thinking in particular of something
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  Speaker 1: called sodium nitrate. Yeah, that's right, um. You know, bird
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  Speaker 1: poop isn't just the stuff that you you know, are
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  Speaker 1: disgusted by and angry at birds when you shake your
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  Speaker 1: fists at the heavens when you see it on your car,
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  Speaker 1: God forbids you have a black car, because it's just
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  Speaker 1: the most you know, obvious thing in the world, sticks
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  Speaker 1: out like a sore thumb, and it's gross, so you
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  Speaker 1: gotta scrape it off or like go to a car wash.
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  Speaker 1: But then you can have the car wash and one
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  Speaker 1: inevitably happens another bird poops on your car. What can
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  Speaker 1: happen with this stuff? Though? In times remember their work
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  Speaker 1: cars parked everywhere. Instead of that stuff landing on your car,
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  Speaker 1: it would end up in the ground or in the soil,
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  Speaker 1: and there would be large deposits of it, specifically on
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  Speaker 1: coastal areas where seabirds, you know, are always pooping that's
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  Speaker 1: what we're dealing with here is a coastal region that
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  Speaker 1: contained significant deposits of guano, which is an incredible source
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  Speaker 1: of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, which are all materials that
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  Speaker 1: can be used to make gunpowder and you know, things
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  Speaker 1: that go boom. Yeah, And for a little bit of background,
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  Speaker 1: this was an area that was ripe for this sort
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  Speaker 1: of territorial dispute. The countries involved, Chile and Bolivia had
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  Speaker 1: earlier negotiated a treaty that recognized specifically the twenty four
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  Speaker 1: parallel as their international boundary, and it gave Chile also
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  Speaker 1: the right to share in export taxes on the mineral
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  Speaker 1: resources of Bolivia's territory in this area, just in general,
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  Speaker 1: the general mineral resources. But Bolivia was increasingly less happy
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  Speaker 1: with this relationship. You know, they thought, they thought, well,
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  Speaker 1: Chile is big and um and they're parasitic. It's a
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  Speaker 1: parasitic partnership, they were thinking. So they thought, you know,
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  Speaker 1: Chile might try to take over our coastal region because
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  Speaker 1: from a business perspective, they already have their creepy tentacles
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  Speaker 1: and the mining industry. But in addition to that, excellent
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  Speaker 1: Spanish produnciation to give Earlier, the War of the Pacific
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  Speaker 1: was also called the Saltpeter War, which referred to the
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  Speaker 1: stuff in the guano, which we're going to get to,
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  Speaker 1: that whole side of things that was so sought after
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  Speaker 1: and used to make explosives and gunpowder. So here's the
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  Speaker 1: root of the conflict. Chilean and British businesses in the area.
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  Speaker 1: They've got their tax regimes set out, and if you
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  Speaker 1: asked those folks, they would say that Bolivia was the
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  Speaker 1: parasite in the relationship or in the interaction, because as
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  Speaker 1: these businesses began to make more money in the region,
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  Speaker 1: the Bolivian government, controlling the territory UH in practice at
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  Speaker 1: this point, said we're going to increase the taxes. We're
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  Speaker 1: going to get more of a big off the work
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  Speaker 1: that you are doing. And since the border treaty that
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  Speaker 1: they had signed earlier back in eighteen seventy four did
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  Speaker 1: not allow for this tax increase, and these private companies
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  Speaker 1: felt the tax was unfair. They started going They're very
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  Speaker 1: powerful people, they started going to the Chilean government and
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  Speaker 1: they said, hey, you guys have to get involved. We
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  Speaker 1: are taking a bath on this. It's unfair because we're
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  Speaker 1: doing all the work and they're just sort of taking
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  Speaker 1: money from us, or you know, taking what we have
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  Speaker 1: done and for their own. And then this led to
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  Speaker 1: a diplomatic crisis, it led to a war, and because
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  Speaker 1: it led to a war, the Chilean government officials learned
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  Speaker 1: that the whole time Bolivia had been secretly booed up
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  Speaker 1: with Peru. They had a kind of alliance that said,
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  Speaker 1: you know, somebody starts to fight with you, they start
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  Speaker 1: a fight with me, that's right. And then in eighteen
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  Speaker 1: seventy eight, the Bolivian government under President Hilarion Daza put
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  Speaker 1: out a decree that announced a backdated eighteen seventy four
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  Speaker 1: tax increase on Chilean companies. And the Chilean companies were
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  Speaker 1: not happy about this. Their government under President on About Pinto.
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  Speaker 1: So this was not in step with the border treaty.
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  Speaker 1: So then one of those companies meant that you mentioned, uh,
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  Speaker 1: the Anna Fagasta Nitrate and Railway company. They just flat
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  Speaker 1: out refused to pay. And at that point the Bolivian
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  Speaker 1: government says, okay, then we're going to confiscate your property.
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  Speaker 1: So that's not cool. At that point, Chili responded by
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  Speaker 1: this this is the war that you're talking about, just
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  Speaker 1: some of the details as to like how it kind
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  Speaker 1: of began. At this point, Chili respondent as you should,
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  Speaker 1: as you must. You know, if your government you got,
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  Speaker 1: you can't be flexed on without flexing back in return.
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  Speaker 1: Uh decided to take it to the next, you know,
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  Speaker 1: highest level of flex by sending a warship to the area.
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  Speaker 1: Pretty pretty serious escalation and going from threats about taxes,
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  Speaker 1: confiscating property to full on warship invasion, and that was
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  Speaker 1: in December of eighteen seventy eight. Bolivia then announced that
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  Speaker 1: they were going to seize and auction the entire company
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  Speaker 1: that and IF and if Agasta Nitrate and Railway company,
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  Speaker 1: and that was going to happen on on Valentine's Day
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  Speaker 1: of February fourteenth. So then Chile, you know, not to
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  Speaker 1: be outdone, once again threatened that if they did that,
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  Speaker 1: it would render the border treaty null, which was all anybody,
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  Speaker 1: which is all they wanted in the first place. So
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  Speaker 1: at this point it's become a pretty nasty back and
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  Speaker 1: forth that is on the verge of an explosion, like
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  Speaker 1: literally like a like a diplomatic explosion, a real powder Kang,
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  Speaker 1: which is appropriate considering the materials we're talking about today. So,
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  Speaker 1: in the day of that auction, which ended up being
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  Speaker 1: the high water mark, uh you know, match strike day
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  Speaker 1: of this conflict, two thousand Chilean soldiers poured into the country,
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  Speaker 1: got off their boat and claimed the ports city of
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  Speaker 1: Antifagasta without a fight. It was a bloodless takeover, thankfully
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  Speaker 1: at the time. Now we have a massive border dispute,
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  Speaker 1: massive territorial dispute. Yeah, it only took about a week
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  Speaker 1: for Bolivia to declare war. And then say, oh, you've
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  Speaker 1: triggered my trap card. And my trap card is this
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  Speaker 1: secret alliance with Peru? Is that a magic thing? Trap
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: card is my attempt to reference a meme that comes
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: from a card game called u g O, which some
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: of our fellow ridiculous historians may remember probably, So yeah,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Ugo is like kind of the poor man's Pokemon, and
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: which was like magic for kids. I always loved playing bookmon,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: but I've never gotten the gumption to get into magic.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: I really want to. It's a lot of fun. I
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: got two things for us right here. One, I have
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: a buddy who dreamed of being a professional Ugo player,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that actually exists, but he dreamed
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Number two dreams bring it out a couple of feet away.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: I got a giant desk that I do all my
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: stuff on, and no joke, I have an entire drawer
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: just dedicated to childhood, you know, um fun items. It's
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: the biggest drawer of my desk. I I mean, I
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: really should grow up already. Will you teach me how
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: to play? Of course? Yeah, we will walk together. I mean,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't have that any good cards.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: I think, like my holographic charts are not first edition,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: but just holographic charts. You got a few of those
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: metallic e ones. Me and my kid were into and
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: she was little. We had the matt and everything, and
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: I really liked playing. I think I liked it more
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: than she did, so Max, I fully am on board
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  Speaker 1: with this and Ben. It's a super fun game and
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  Speaker 1: very quick to pick up, and I think I have
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: about as many as you do in a couple of
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  Speaker 1: big freezer bags. Let's all go hang on to this
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  Speaker 1: guy right on, because I still have a secret thing
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  Speaker 1: for you. Max. I. I had left it at the
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  Speaker 1: office and I took it back because we're in the
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  Speaker 1: midst of a move, but so is Bolivia at this
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  Speaker 1: time their secret alliance. Its official name is the Defensive
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  Speaker 1: Tree of eighteen seventy three. And then Peruvian government wants
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  Speaker 1: to stay true to their words, so they say, not
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  Speaker 1: only are we gonna make good on our agreement with Bolivia,
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  Speaker 1: but in the great geopolitical game and the long term chess,
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  Speaker 1: this matters to us because we believe Chile is expansionist,
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  Speaker 1: and we're also kind of worried that not everybody's in
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  Speaker 1: the best shape to face the Chilean army. So Peru
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  Speaker 1: at first counsel's a peaceful resolution. They say, all right,
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  Speaker 1: we're gonna send one of our top guys, one of
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  Speaker 1: our top men shout out to Indiana Jones to negotiate
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  Speaker 1: with the government of Chile. Chile says, we need you
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  Speaker 1: to make a statement of neutrality, and Peru says, I
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  Speaker 1: can't really do that because we just went public about
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  Speaker 1: our secret relationship with Bolivia. And then Chile says, all right, well,
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  Speaker 1: we're not talking diplomacy at all. We're declaring war on
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  Speaker 1: both of you. And they do this on April five,
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  Speaker 1: eighteen seventy nine, and so even though Peru was not
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  Speaker 1: involved in this guano conversation at all, they got sucked in,
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  Speaker 1: kind of like if you've ever been in a in
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  Speaker 1: a bit of a brew haha with your friends or
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  Speaker 1: a hullabaloo, and then you hear one of your friends say, oh,
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  Speaker 1: you've got a problem with me, You've got problem with
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  Speaker 1: all of us, And then you look around and you're like,
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  Speaker 1: why is this guy pointing at us? Oh? Boy, here
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  Speaker 1: we go. So Peru lost thousands of of troops and
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  Speaker 1: a lot of property during the war. At the end
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  Speaker 1: of the war, there was a seven month civil war.
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  Speaker 1: Love that when one one war between you and another
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  Speaker 1: country lead to a war within your own borders amongst
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  Speaker 1: your own people. And a lot of this has to
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  Speaker 1: do with the fact that the nation was economically destitute
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  Speaker 1: after all of this, and continued to be uh for
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  Speaker 1: many years to come. So finally, in eighteeny four, there
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  Speaker 1: was a truce between Bolivia and chile Um and Chile
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  Speaker 1: was given as a condition of this truce, control over
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  Speaker 1: the entire coast of Bolivia that included the h that
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  Speaker 1: Um city of Anti Fagasta or the province within and
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  Speaker 1: all of that good stuff and that was the good
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  Speaker 1: stuff that was the area with a nitrate and the
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  Speaker 1: copper and all of these other minerals that were very
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  Speaker 1: very precious and very very mindable, so that the nineteen
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  Speaker 1: o four a treaty was established that made this you know,
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  Speaker 1: I guess temporary truce permanent the law of the lands.
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  Speaker 1: M hmm. Yeah. And at this point, ridiculous historians, if you,
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  Speaker 1: like the rest of us, are living not in the
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  Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, then you may rightly ask yourself, what's the deal?
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  Speaker 1: Why all this bird poop? We have the answer. Wuanna,
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  Speaker 1: like we established earlier in this episode, has nitrogen, phosphates,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of other stuff that is super valuable in
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: the industrial age. It works in both agriculture and economic development.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: And we know, thanks to Gregory Cushman, the author of
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Guana and the Opening of the Pacific World, a Global
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Ecological History, that guana was a huge, huge deal. It
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: could be used to produce things or be part of
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: the production process of goods like glass, bleach dye, color glazes.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Pushman even says it tells us quite a lot about
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: the historical circumstances that have enabled us to grow to
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: become so numerous as a species, and he particularly believes
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: that fertilizer has played this role in supporting the growth
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: of large concentrated populations. So, in a real way, modern
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: civilization owes a lot to burp poop or bat poop
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: wana nember that. Remember that Ace of Ventura sequel when
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Nature calls the Big Twist, and that one is that
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: it's like all about the evil Americans just want the
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  Speaker 1: guano that like the indigenous people have because of their
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: like giant sacred bats or something like that, really really
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: problematic if you go back and watch it now, is
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: that the one where he comes out of like a
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: fake rhinos but or something? He does do that thing? Yes,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: it's uh, it's a genius disguise apparently, And I think
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: it was kind of parodied in an episode of Always
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Sunny in Philadelphia where where Frank pops out of like
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: a couch like a weird baby seal being born. He's
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: all sweaty and covered in slime. I think it's a
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: reference to that, but I could be wrong. But yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I guano is the kicker of that timeless piece of
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: of American cinema. So well, Guano is kind of a
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: catch all for you know, the excrement of avian creature.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Just like we said at the top of the show,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: the word guana is obviously a South American word. It
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: has come sort of like xerox or coke, you know,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: to become a catch all because of the most popular
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: version of a thing for all of the things. You know,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: coke represents all soda, unless you're from the Midwest, in
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: which case it's like pop. God forbid you're from the
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Carolinas and call it pepsi because that's a horrible drink.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: But the most important part of the stuff, whatever you
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: want to call it, is all of the mineral nitrates
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: that are found in the Attacama Desert. Because of this,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: the South American sea birds, specifically their variety of guano,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: happens to be the richest source of this kind of
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: nitrogen on the entire planet. Even though any any bird
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: poop or avian poop is pretty rich in this stuff.
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  Speaker 1: Because of specifically the mineral content of the environment that
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: these birds find themselves in, there's is the best. That
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  Speaker 1: is the best poop you can get. Not to mention
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  Speaker 1: that the climate of the Pacific coast of Chile and
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  Speaker 1: the chemical balance of you know, the ocean water in Peru.
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  Speaker 1: They all of these things combined to create this ecosystem
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  Speaker 1: that creates like the perfect combination of circumstances for an
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: incredibly rich environment for fish as well as of course
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: the seabirds that eat them. So at all in turn
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: goes to create the highest quality guana that you can imagine,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: which would make the boomiest of boom stuff. So there's
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  Speaker 1: copious amounts of gauan know rich in this phosphates, nitrates,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: and potassiums that are um deposited in this coastal region.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Not to mention the agricultural angle. These are the three nitrate, phosphate, potassium,
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  Speaker 1: most important components of any fertilizer. And this wasn't always
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  Speaker 1: a thing that people were aware of. And because there's
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  Speaker 1: so little rain in this area, the stuff stays where
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  Speaker 1: it is, so it can be mind essentially because of
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the dry climate. So it creates these very very rich
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  Speaker 1: and dense deposits of this stuff. And like I said,
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  Speaker 1: this wasn't always a thing. There was a revolution going on.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Ben you mentioned how guano essentially was a huge part
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  Speaker 1: of the industrial revolution. This was also a huge part
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  Speaker 1: of industrialized farming. Yeah, this is weird because guana was
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: sort of an unsung hero. I would call it of
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: the industrial age. Look, I get it for bird poop
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  Speaker 1: looks gross, right, And if you are familiar with the
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: history of fertilizer, you know that feces has played a
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: big role at agriculture. Even today, UH, some agricultural communities
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: engaged in the practice of night soil, which is using
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: human feces to uh, to provide fertilizer for crops. But
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: despite bird poops really gross appearance and it's not great smell,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: back in the eighteen hundreds, it was sold around the
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: world and it was the number one agricultural fertilizer in
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the US. I mean, even before the war in Bolivia
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: we're talking about today, the very first American ships that
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: were mining guano. We're doing it in the eighteen thirties
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: off the coast of Peru a place called the Chincha Islands,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: and there was a large population of various birds. I
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: always love how ridiculous bird names can sound. So let's
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: all be adults here. There were pelicans, there were cormorants,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: and there were of course boobies. We can say that
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: because it's a family show and it's the actual bird's name,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: but we can still chuckle. Right, Max is tickled by
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: that one. It's also a bird called it. Yeah, oh yeah,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the great bush tit is that one? Am I just
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: making it up? I can't. You might have made that
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: one to take it to the next floor. There are
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: probably tips of different varieties from different regions. I imagine. Yes,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: there is a bird called the bush tit. It is
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: not necessarily great, so I guess that part was my opinion,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: But the actual name is bush tit. Anyhow, Off the
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: coast of Peru, these American ships find islands that are
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: covered in guano almost two hundred feet deep, and this
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Peruvian guano gets popular in the US, and then, like
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: you had alluded to earlier, knowl a lot of other companies,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: private interests are searching other parts of the Pacific, in
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the Caribbean to find the better guado. And it really
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: all depended on rainfall, because when it would rain on
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: these islands or these sources, the nitrates would be sapped
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: out of the guano, and so places with relatively dry
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: climate like this area of Bolivia slash Chile and the
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Chincha Islands off the coast of Peru because they didn't
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: have a lot of rain. They had really superpowered, like
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: high grade Guando, the best in the world, no hyperbole.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: And as soon as people heard about the beauty of Guado,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Americans became super super eager. They were feending for it,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: even though various South American governments were selling it at
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: a premium. And as crazy as it sounds, the US
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: president of the time, Millard Fillmore, even talked about Guando
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: in public and it was like a policy issue. It
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: was a big, big deal nationally. Millard Fillmore one of
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: the nerdiest president names of all time. I don't know why.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: I just think when I hear Millard, I just think
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: of Millhouse and this bad things happening to poor Millhouse.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: But then there's that one episode where everything's coming up Millhouse.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: It always makes me happy. Um. Yeah, he said it
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: was quote the duty of sorry, it's the duty we're
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: talking about poop. Never mind, um, the duty of the
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: government to employ Max. I didn't even get a chuckle
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: out of you. Good lord, you're letting me down, but
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: you're letting It's okay. It's the duty of the government
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: to employ all means properly in its power for the
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: purpose of causing that article. You know, in that article,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: we're talking about Peruvian guano to be imported into the
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: country at a reasonable price. So even Millard Fillmore is
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: concerned about the price, I mean, the the taxation. You know,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: that's a that's a big part of uh. You know,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: fair trade between nations is like having a reasonable bill
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: and predictable import or export attacks and now hopefully ridiculous historians,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: it seems a little bit less strange that there was
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: a war over the poop of flying animals, which is
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: guana was just the excrement of pretty much any flying animal,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: from bird to bat. We know that this led to
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: other international conflicts. The Cincha Islands became the subject of
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: the Cincha Islands War, also related to bird poop, and
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: we mentioned this in a previous episode. The US even
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: passed legislation eighteen fifty six that said, hey, if you're
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: a U. S citizen and you find an unoccupied island
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: iguana on it, stick a flag in it, baby, say
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: that that's property of the US, because we're not playing
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: around and we know no and that and that was
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: a big that was a big feature of the previous
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: episode that I mentioned at the top of the show,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: when US farmers went crazy for a bird poop. It
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: was all about claiming islands that had these deposits. So
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: this is an international affair, right And part of the reason,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: again going back to the excellent work of this historian Pushman,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: part of the reason this war spiked was because the
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: trade was in danger of being disrupted. There was a
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: huge earthquake in eighteen sixty eight, a nine point zero
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: magnitude quake that generated a tsunami. And this even back
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: in the late eighteen hundreds or mid late eighteen hundreds,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: this earthquake was a big enough deal that people felt
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: it in New Zealand, in Japan, in Hawaii. And this
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: earthquake struck the Atacama Desert right in the middle of
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: this guano nitrates boom. So it put pressure on these countries.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: And it's a good you know, it's fair to ask
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: whether this war would have occurred without that earthquake, if
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: we would have even had the Salt Pire War or
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the War of the Pacific. I think it's here to
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: say that eventually some kind of conflict would have would
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: have occurred because people were just gaga for guano. It's
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: probably the silliest way to put it. It's a perfectly
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: delightful way of putting it, if you ask me. All
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: this to say is that there's probably sillier things that
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: wars have been waged over. But you know, look, it's
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: only silly because we're children, and um, we think poop
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: is funny. But you know, it doesn't matter where it
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: comes from if it serves as an important component in
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: all of the you know, chemicals that drive the industrial
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: world and also you know war itself, so war over
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: war stuff that makes sense, even though it's just the
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: white stuff you know that ends up on your car.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: It's gross, but it's it's it's an important commodity. And
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Bolivia found that out the hard way when they were
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: robbed of a lovely stretch of coastline. Um that that
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: rightfully belonged to them, but um, they were outclassed in
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: war and it was taken from them, and it was
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: what's the status of that situation today, I imagine, I
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: mean there's probably still you know more about South American
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: diplomacy and um, you know, affairs than I do, Ben,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: and there's still tension between these nations, right well, there. Yeah,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: there's always gonna be a some amount of tension between
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: nations over various things. But that nineteen oh four treaty,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: as far as I know, made a permanent the um
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: one you mentioned earlier. Still, this gives us an opportunity
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: to mention something that is not pleasant but is important.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: It's a phenomenon known as the resource curse. Some of
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: the most resource rich areas and countries in the world
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: are struggling under crippling inequality because they have been, you know,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: victimized through one international conflict or another, such that private
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: companies and other countries can extract whatever valuable things they have.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: And the past really the past. There's a conversation, of course,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: but the past also sets important precedents. And recently Olivia
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: has been learning about another resource immensely valuable to the
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: modern world that is in its possession, and it's been
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: trying to avoid being exploited in that regard. Bolivia, as
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: we record today, has about a quarter of the world's
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: known supply of lithium. Olivia, by the way, it's not
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: a huge nation in terms of population. It's about twelve
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: million people, and multiple foreign companies are trying to get
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: lithium projects going there, because you guys know, lithiums like
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: a rare earth metal. It's used in tons of electronic applications.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: So we're going to see what happens. But I would
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: also not to be too conspiratorial. That's for stuff they
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: don't want you to know. I would also keep an
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: eye on any conflicts in Bolivia in the near future
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: and checked to see whether or not they're related to
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: mining rights. Absolutely, it's often something very much at play
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: in these kind of situations. So on that note, we
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: will leave you for today. Thanks to new researcher Jeff
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: to super producer Max Williams. Alex Williams composed this banging track,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: thanks also, of course to Christopher Haciotas, thanks to Eve's
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Jeff co. Thanks to uh yeah, our brand new super
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: research associate Jeff Bartlett. Will have to have him on
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: the show soon and we'll introduce you to our second,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: brand new, straight out the box super research associate, one
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: and only, Zach Williams later this next episode, so tune
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: in in the meantime. I guess what we can take
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: away from this is that the weirdest things and maybe
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: the most insignificant seeming things can lead to great and
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: sometimes violent change. No truer where it's were ever spoken.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: See you next time, folux M. For more podcasts from
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.