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for listening. In

1:30

nineteen o two, a young engineer named

1:32

Willis Carrier encountered a situation

1:35

that many of us are all too familiar

1:37

with, the printer problem.

1:42

Carrier had been hired by a printing company

1:44

in Brooklyn. Summer humidity was

1:46

causing their paper to swell, to

1:50

jam in the presses to print incorrectly,

1:52

so rather than a crisp image, they

1:54

were getting a blur, they were wasting

1:57

tons of paper, missing deadlines. Uh,

2:00

this was a huge problem. Carrier

2:02

was the son of a farmer and something of an

2:04

eccentric genius, the kind of head in the

2:06

clouds guy who would occasionally pack a suitcase

2:08

with just a handkerchief inside, or

2:10

order a three course meal and not take a bite.

2:13

Carrier had just graduated from Cornell when

2:15

he was asked to find some way to fix the company's

2:18

printers. He molled over the issue

2:20

for weeks. Then one day, as

2:22

he was standing on a foggy railroad platform,

2:25

contemplating the mist around him,

2:27

an idea struck him. Carrier

2:31

solution not only solved the printer problem,

2:34

it changed the world, and his invention

2:36

continues to have ripple effects today that

2:38

impact everything from the comfort of your living

2:41

room to the size of your government, to

2:43

even possibly the outcome of the US

2:45

elections this fall. Welcome

2:53

to Flashback, the podcast from AZZI

2:55

about Unintended consequences. I'm

2:57

your host in history instructor Sean Braswell.

3:00

Up until about a hundred years ago, a climate

3:02

controlled environment was a fantasy, the

3:05

stuff of science fiction novels. Mark

3:07

Twain once said that everyone talks

3:09

about the weather, but no one does anything

3:11

about it. Well, in nineteen

3:14

o two, Willis Carrier finally

3:16

did something about it. Today's

3:18

episode is about something most of us take

3:20

for granted, air conditioning, but it's

3:22

really about the power of comfort. Comfort

3:25

can move mountains, and more importantly,

3:27

it can move people. Every

3:31

summer, millions of tourists and school children

3:34

descend on Washington, d C. To

3:36

take in the sights and sounds of the nation's

3:38

capital, and every

3:40

summer millions wish they had decided

3:43

to visit during a different time of year.

3:45

Hundreds of thousands of people celebrating

3:47

Independence Day in the nation's capital will face

3:50

dangerous heat. Temperatures in Washington monuments

3:53

and the lofty words inscribed upon them

3:55

just don't seem to matter as much when you're

3:57

baking in a pool of your own sweat hot.

4:00

It's really gross, silly hot. It's

4:03

pretty warm today these

4:05

days, at least you have the option of going to a

4:07

museum or some other air conditioned

4:09

area. But

4:12

let's go back in time for a moment, back

4:15

to a simpler time, a far less

4:17

comfortable time. It can be hard

4:19

for us today to imagine Washington, d C.

4:21

Or many places in America before

4:24

climate controlled buildings. In

4:26

the days before air conditioning, American

4:28

life during dangerously hot

4:31

weather wasn't all that different from American life

4:33

during beautiful cool weather. Salvador

4:35

Basil is a social historian an

4:37

author of Cool How air conditioning

4:40

changed everything, and this was because

4:42

people in those days were operating under

4:44

a Victorian standard. They did their best

4:47

to act as if they didn't notice the heat. They

4:49

were trained this way from birth. But a

4:51

stiff upper lip didn't prevent one from

4:53

feeling the heat or being affected

4:56

by it. So every newspaper in America

4:58

during the summer months had it's daily column

5:00

of heat prostrations and heat strokes

5:03

and heat fatalities. It

5:05

was an unusual for thousands

5:07

of people to die during a major

5:09

heatwave. No one thought much of this. The

5:11

upper floors of office buildings, including

5:14

Manhattan's dazzling new skyscrapers,

5:16

were like ovens. Most theaters

5:18

lacked ventilation or windows, and

5:20

audience members baked in the scemmer months.

5:23

But it went beyond that. Getting a night's

5:25

sleep was usually impossible.

5:28

Some people went so far as to climb

5:30

to their rooftops for a breath of air, where

5:33

a few of them fell asleep and rolled off to

5:35

their deaths. To cope with the heat during

5:38

the day, people would congregate outdoors

5:40

in the shade or at a swimming pool. They

5:42

drink ice drinks on porches, take

5:44

a quick dip in public fountains, take

5:47

naps under trees and parks. And

5:49

the nation's capital was especially

5:51

hot. As

5:55

soon as the plaster was dry, everyone

5:57

in the federal government realized that Washington

6:00

was one of the worst

6:02

places to locate the nation's capital, and

6:05

it didn't take long for America's leaders to avoid

6:07

the capital. Many presidents used to skip

6:09

town during the summer months. Teddy Roosevelt

6:12

like to go bear hunting in Colorado. Calvin

6:14

Coolidge once took his entire family, five

6:17

canaries, two dogs in a pet raccoon

6:19

to the Black Hills of South Dakota. Members

6:22

of Congress also stayed clear of d C in

6:24

the middle of the summer, but working

6:26

there was still a miserable experience.

6:29

A member of Congress would collapse and

6:32

then possibly die, and

6:34

other wall makers simply assumed that he

6:36

had been done in by the temperature. Members

6:39

of Congress did their best to cope with the heat.

6:42

Lawmakers would adjourn for the day if

6:44

the temperature got too uncomfortable. They

6:47

all adopted white linen suits.

6:50

One congressman became famous

6:52

for the fact that at a certain point

6:54

in the calendar he would remove

6:57

his two pay and spend the rest

6:59

of the time bold uh.

7:01

They drank a great deal of lemonade made

7:03

for them in the cloak room, along with other beverages,

7:06

and if things got really tough, they would sneak

7:09

down to the Capital basement, where there was a room

7:11

of bathtubs, and they would take a quick plunge

7:13

to restore themselves. Sometimes

7:16

even that was not enough, but a number

7:18

of those men dropped dead anyway,

7:20

And the buildings didn't help. There were

7:22

rooms without air, there were rooms without windows.

7:25

One congressional chamber was so notorious

7:28

for heat that everyone called

7:30

it the oven. The

7:33

result was absolutely unbearable,

7:36

and it would be unbearable for the next

7:38

seventy years. As they kept trying to tinker

7:40

with the system, nothing

7:42

helped, at least until Willis

7:44

Carrier. Let's go back to that foggy

7:47

railroad platform in two.

7:51

Now, fog is really nothing more than water

7:53

droplets that have condensed out of the air,

7:56

and as you may know, cool air cannot

7:58

carry as much water as warm air can.

8:00

So Carrier realized that if you could pass warm

8:03

air across a refrigerated object,

8:05

then you could cool that air down, reducing

8:07

its humidity level, which in turn would

8:10

cool the surrounding air as well. Carrier

8:13

built what he called the Apparatus

8:15

for treating air. It worked wonders

8:17

for the Brooklyn company that hired him,

8:19

and this did indeed lower the humidity

8:21

and the printing plant. Interestingly,

8:24

at the same time the temperature

8:27

came down, employees wanted

8:29

suddenly to eat their lunch in the

8:31

workroom, and

8:33

Carrier realized that he was onto something.

8:36

Of course, Carrier's invention not only removed

8:38

the humidity from the printing room, it also

8:41

chilled the air. But still this was

8:43

considered something for business

8:45

purposes, not for the average

8:48

person. But then Hollywood

8:50

came calling. Up until that point,

8:52

moving pictures had always taken a huge

8:54

loss during the summer. No one

8:56

wanted to spend the hot months in a theater

8:58

with no ventilation. By the late

9:01

nineteen twenties, the

9:03

idea of summer movies was

9:05

firmly established. Hollywood was

9:07

rolling in money, and

9:10

an amazing thing happened. For the first time

9:12

in human history, people

9:16

anywhere knew that they had a place

9:18

to go to escape from the heat, and

9:21

that costs nothing more than the price of a movie

9:23

ticket. This was momentous. Movie

9:25

theaters advertised their a c with marquees

9:28

frosted over with fake snow penguins

9:31

and polar bears, signs with hanging

9:33

icicles. Sometimes they just propped

9:35

the lobby doors open wide and let the gush

9:37

of cold air sweep over passers

9:40

by. Remember, you could

9:42

enjoy great motion picture entertainment

9:45

all summer long. In cool

9:47

comfort at this dinner.

9:52

For decades, most Americans experienced

9:54

air conditioning only in large commercial

9:56

spaces like movie theaters, department

9:58

stores, and hotels. Finally,

10:01

in the early nineteen fifties, it made

10:03

its way into the home. R

10:05

C A, America's finest air

10:07

conditioner, goes quietly about its business

10:09

of keeping you comfortable. Air

10:12

Conditioning in the nineteen fifties was

10:15

not only a comfort item, but it was

10:17

a real homeowners status symbol. Whether

10:20

it was a central system or a window unit,

10:22

everyone knew that you had it, and everyone

10:25

was impressed. Within five years, Americans

10:27

were installing more than a million units

10:29

a year. For many, the home

10:32

a C unit was a revelation. At

10:34

the age of six, an aunt of mine

10:36

bought two air conditioners, which

10:39

was a scandal in the family because air conditioners

10:41

were only for rich people. But

10:43

I also noticed that at the next family

10:46

party, everyone flocked to her

10:48

living room and stayed there. So

10:50

I sneaked over to the machine

10:52

and put my hand out to the grill, and

10:55

there was cool air, and I was hooked.

10:57

Ever after, America's new addictions

11:00

set off an extraordinary chain of events.

11:02

Places in the country that had seemed uninhabitable

11:05

during summer, now had millions

11:07

of new residents places like Washington,

11:09

d C. Now most objects

11:12

tend to expand when they are heated up.

11:14

Next, though, we find out how the

11:16

US federal government did not start

11:19

to truly expand until it

11:21

was cooled down. Do

11:33

you have an interesting tale about unintended

11:35

consequences from history or your

11:37

own life. Please share it with us by

11:39

emailing flashback at AUSI dot

11:42

com. That's flashback at o z

11:44

y dot com.

11:56

On the western slope of the grounds that surround

11:58

the U. S. Capitol Building, Washington, there

12:01

stand two unmarked stone towers.

12:04

They are surrounded by large shrubs, and most

12:06

tourists on the mall walk by them without

12:08

even noticing them.

12:11

These towers are the in caps for two enormous

12:13

air ducks leading four hundred feet up into

12:15

the heart of the Capitol Building. The

12:17

air duck state. When Congress

12:20

voted for air conditioning to be installed in

12:22

both the House and Senate chambers, Willis

12:25

Carrier himself was hired to oversee the

12:27

job. Next, A C came

12:29

to the White House, and then the

12:32

Great Depression that gripped America during the nineteen

12:34

thirties required the federal government

12:36

to step up and assume new responsibilities

12:39

for managing the country. A series

12:41

of federal programs, public work projects,

12:43

and regulations known as the New Deal were

12:45

implemented under President Franklin Roosevelt.

12:50

Roosevelt presided over a massive expansion

12:52

of the federal government under the New Deal, and

12:54

he also kick started a new era of

12:57

air conditioned government. Eight

12:59

new cabinet to partments and dozens

13:01

of sub cabinet agencies have been created

13:03

since a C came to d C. They're

13:05

about six times as many staff members and

13:07

aids for members of Congress, who of

13:10

course now work almost all year

13:12

round. This is Stan Cox, author

13:14

of Losing Our Cool, a History of

13:16

air conditioning. During the twentieth

13:19

century, the federal

13:22

government grew in

13:24

size and probably

13:27

could not have become

13:30

the big force that it is in our lives

13:33

now if people have

13:35

not been able to work

13:37

year round, whatever the

13:39

weather. In Washington today,

13:43

the federal government directly employees nearly

13:45

four hundred thousand people in the DC area,

13:48

and the national bureaucracy that emanates from

13:50

d C employees more than nine million more

13:53

and creates contract work for millions

13:55

more. Your life would be very different without

13:57

that big government, the one that cuts social

13:59

secure city checks, administers medicaid,

14:02

delivers your mail, protects the quality

14:04

of your air and water, and provides for the

14:06

national defense. Obviously,

14:08

air conditioning is not the only factor behind

14:10

these trends. You can also think war depression,

14:14

population growth, and air travel for

14:16

a large federal government. Still, it's

14:18

hard to imagine Washington as it is today

14:20

without Willis Carrier's invention. Think

14:22

about it. Carrier tries to improve

14:25

the performance of an industrial printing process.

14:27

He winds up turning government into one of the biggest

14:30

industries in the country. So

14:32

air conditioning helped usher in a new era of

14:34

cooler, bigger government in d C. But

14:37

it was not just a bigger government that air conditioning

14:39

helped create. The advent of a

14:41

C also changed the electoral map

14:44

of America in profound ways. If

14:54

you cool it, they will come. Phoenix,

14:57

Arizona, is a relatively recent development.

15:00

At the start of the twentieth century, Phoenix

15:02

was a town of five thousand people

15:05

Salador Basil Again. By nineteen

15:07

fifty it had struggled up to

15:09

a hundred and six thousand people, But

15:12

during only the next decade, when

15:14

air conditioning swept the country is

15:16

population more than quadrupled, and

15:19

today Phoenix has over a

15:21

million and a half residence that

15:24

is due to a c air Conditioning

15:26

makes a huge difference in Arizona. This

15:29

is Nathan Sproul, a political strategist

15:31

in the managing director of the Lincoln Strategy

15:33

Group, a political consulting company

15:35

based in Arizona. Before their

15:38

stories of folks who lived in Arizon in the nineteen

15:40

twenties and thirties that in the summertime, they would they

15:42

would literally sleep on their porch and they would make

15:44

their blanket wet, put a wet blanket on them and hope that

15:46

the wind blowing through the porch a

15:48

screen would keep them cool throughout the night. That's

15:50

how That's about the only way that you could survive

15:53

in Phoenix prior to air conditioning. Today,

15:55

Phoenix is a sprawling metropolis, one

15:57

where summer temperatures routinely top one

16:00

hundred and ten degrees. Unrelenting

16:02

heat bears down on Phoenix. As the temperature

16:04

shoots towards a record breaking one,

16:07

fire crews are rushing to handle a surge

16:09

in heat emergencies. Without air conditioning,

16:12

Phoenix would not be possible The same

16:14

can be said for other large population centers

16:16

that stretch across the so called sun Belt,

16:19

from southern California across the

16:21

southwest to the Gulf Coast and the southeast

16:24

cities like Miami,

16:26

Atlanta, Dallas. We're not

16:29

the metropolis is that we see

16:31

today, stan Cox. Again, it's

16:34

no coincidence that that's the time

16:37

when air conditioning was becoming

16:40

more common. During the nineteen sixties and

16:42

seventies, air conditioning spread quickly

16:44

across the South. The combined

16:46

population of Gulf cities like Houston,

16:48

New Orleans and Tampa went from

16:50

less than half a million before nineteen fifty

16:53

to more than twenty million today,

16:55

and that mass migration of people to the Sun

16:57

Belt has had some major political

16:59

concert Pquinces Salvador

17:01

Basil. There was a population

17:04

shift that completely redrew the

17:06

political map of the nation, almost

17:08

flipped it entirely. So far,

17:10

we've seen how air conditioning helped grow the

17:12

federal government in Washington. Up

17:14

next, we learn how states across the southern

17:17

US managed to convert electric

17:19

power to electoral power

17:21

in the late twentieth century.

17:37

We all need a break from the constant cycle

17:40

to learn something new, to gain new

17:42

perspectives. The Great Courses

17:44

Plus streaming service is an excellent resource

17:46

to expand our knowledge on a variety of subjects

17:49

or pick up a new hobby. I've been

17:51

enjoying the Great Courses Plus while researching

17:53

this season of flashback lectures

17:56

like Playball, The rise of Baseball is America's

17:58

pastime. History of This Supreme Court

18:00

and Battlefield Europe have helped me connect

18:03

the dots on several stories from history.

18:06

Right now, they're giving our listeners a special limited

18:08

time offer a free month of unlimited

18:11

access to their entire library.

18:13

Sign up now through our special U r L

18:16

go to the Great Courses Plus dot Com

18:18

slash AUSSI that's the Great

18:20

Courses Plus dot Com slash

18:22

o z y the Great Courses

18:24

Plus dot Com slash Assy.

18:30

During that time from nineteen

18:32

sixty to say two thousand,

18:35

stan Cox again, all of the

18:38

major cities in

18:40

New England and the rust Belt, except

18:42

for New York City, lost population,

18:45

whereas all of the major cities

18:47

in the South gained population

18:50

very rapidly. That

18:52

movement of people meant that the apportionment

18:54

of seats in the House of Representatives needed

18:57

adjusting. Cities in New

18:59

England and the Rust Belt lost

19:02

House of Representative seats and

19:04

they were picked up by

19:07

by states in the Sun Belt.

19:09

In fact, there were eight six

19:13

um seats in Congress that went from

19:16

the northern region to the South. Now,

19:18

one reason you commonly hear for why the South

19:20

switched from being Democrat to Republican

19:22

in the nineteen sixties was the exodus

19:25

of Southern voters from the Democratic Party

19:27

after the passage of the Civil Rights Laws,

19:30

and that did play a part, But the South

19:32

was becoming more Republican before that, and

19:34

it was a trend powered not by ideology

19:37

but by temperature control. For

19:40

nearly a century after the U s Civil War,

19:42

only a handful of the South's approximately

19:45

one House members were Republicans,

19:47

just the ones representing some of the mid Atlantic

19:50

mountain districts and states like North Carolina.

19:53

The first district to break that trend and

19:55

go Republican St. Petersburg,

19:58

Florida, in nineteen fifty four, three

20:00

years after a c first hit American

20:03

homes wife Florida.

20:05

And why St. Petersburg, Well, what

20:07

happens is that large numbers of wealthy northern

20:10

Republicans, ones who traditionally kept

20:12

winter homes in places like Florida start

20:14

to move south and to stay there year

20:17

round. So the South gets a massive

20:19

influx of older conservative voters,

20:21

voters who would remake the political landscape

20:24

over the next two decades, culminating

20:26

with a landmark presidential election in

20:28

nineteen eight President Carter, told

20:31

by his poster Pat Cadell that it is all

20:33

over, reportedly is preparing to concede

20:35

defeat to Ronald Reagan in the nineteen

20:37

eighty presidential election. When Democrat

20:40

Jimmy Carter was elected president in nineteen

20:42

seventy six, he swept the southeastern

20:44

United States, including Texas and

20:47

Florida. Four years later,

20:49

against Ronald Reagan, Carter won

20:51

only his home state of Georgia and lost

20:53

several other states like Mississippi, Alabama,

20:56

and South Carolina by extremely

20:58

narrow margins. It's quite possible

21:00

that the growing power

21:03

of Reagan and the Republicans in the

21:05

eighties was um

21:08

fostered by this movement

21:11

of people from the North

21:14

to the south. Air Conditioning may also

21:16

have had a hand in another important election,

21:18

the one in two thousand between Republican

21:20

George W. Bush and Democrat Al

21:23

Gore. If all the states had gone

21:25

red or blue the way they actually did

21:27

in two thousand. But if they had had

21:30

the distribution of electoral

21:32

votes that we had had back in nineteen

21:35

sixty before the migration, then

21:38

Gore would have won the

21:41

electoral vote and therefore the presidency.

21:44

Forget the death of John F. Kennedy or even

21:46

the Iran hostage crisis that crippled President

21:48

Carter. You could argue that air conditioning

21:51

was the worst thing to happen politically to the Democratic

21:53

Party in the twentieth century.

21:55

But a c is not done

21:57

shifting the American political landscape.

22:00

There's a new type of Southern migration underway

22:02

in the United States, one that should

22:04

put fear into the hearts of Republicans.

22:12

Ever since air condition helped grow cities

22:14

like Phoenix during the nineteen fifties and sixties,

22:17

Arizona has been a reliably Republican

22:19

state. But that is changing. Nathan

22:22

Sprul again, Yeah, the Democrats

22:24

definitely performed better in twenty than

22:26

most uh political observers in

22:28

Arizona thought possible. Sprul knows what he's

22:30

talking about. For years, he was the executive

22:33

director of the state's Republican Party. For

22:35

a long time, many in Arizona assumed that the state's

22:38

growing number of Democrats was driven

22:40

by its growing Hispanic population. But

22:42

what we realized about midway

22:44

through this decade was an Arizona was beginning to pivot

22:47

a little bit. But it wasn't because of the Hispanic

22:49

growth. It was because Arizona

22:51

was developing, especially American County of the Phoenix

22:53

area, m such a successful economy.

22:57

For years, Arizona's Republican leaders had

22:59

worked to diversify the state's economy and

23:01

make it more welcoming to companies from out of

23:03

state, and it worked, perhaps

23:05

too well. The unintended consequence

23:07

of that, though, is that you bring in a lot of workers

23:10

from California, a lot of workers from Colorado,

23:12

a lot of workers from the East Coast that have

23:14

more Democrats leaning tendencies politically,

23:17

and may come to occupy the job because their company

23:19

just moved to Phoenix, Arizona to make set up its corporate

23:21

headquarters. And so Arizona is an

23:23

unintended consequence of its business diversification

23:26

has also had a political diversification. As

23:28

a result, Arizona today has a lot more

23:30

young, urban and suburban white voters

23:33

who tend to lean Democratic, especially

23:35

on social issues. Arizona is

23:37

likely to become UH

23:40

for the next work from the foreseeable future, a

23:43

state that when it comes to the U. S. Sen and the presidential campaign,

23:45

is going to be a battleground state for both

23:47

parties. Both parties are going to assume that they have a

23:49

legitimate chance to win it UH,

23:51

and that wasn't the case seven eight years ago. Arizona's

24:02

trajectory is indicative of a wider trend,

24:04

a trend still powered by air conditioning.

24:07

Last year, We'll go down in History, is the second

24:09

hottest year on record in the United States,

24:12

and yet people continue to migrate south

24:14

to warmer climates in the American Sun Belt,

24:16

to places like Arizona and, perhaps

24:19

even more importantly for the political map, Texas.

24:22

As of July one last year, more than

24:24

three and a half million people had packed

24:26

their magazine headed to the lone Star state since

24:29

two thousand ten. That's the most

24:31

growth over any other state.

24:33

Florida and California follow behind,

24:36

and that movement continues to have political consequences.

24:40

Isn't just a presidential election year, It's also a census

24:43

year, and this is what is going to

24:45

determine how many electoral votes each state gets

24:47

and we already have a pretty good sense of where things are

24:49

headed. Census may

24:51

have been delayed by the coronavirus, but early

24:54

forecasts from the Census Bureau suggests that

24:56

several Sun Belt states like California,

24:58

Arizona, Florida, and Texas

25:01

will gain House seats in electoral votes,

25:04

with Texas likely to be the biggest winner with

25:06

a net gain of three. Texas

25:08

maybe a red Republican leaning state right

25:11

now. But here's the interesting thing. The

25:13

current Sun Belt migration, as Nathan

25:15

Sprule points out in Arizona, is

25:17

much different than the one that took place half

25:19

a century ago. Today's migrants

25:22

are not older conservatives. They are young

25:24

liberal millennials in their twenties and thirties

25:26

who are fleeing northern cities for southern

25:28

metro areas like Dallas, Phoenix,

25:31

and Atlanta. Many demographers

25:33

predict that we should expect states like Arizona

25:35

and Texas to get increasingly purple

25:38

and eventually blue. As a result. That

25:40

could be a game changer for Democrats.

25:43

If Texas isn't play, it would mean not only

25:45

a new political map, but the whole political

25:47

mound. So

25:57

what did we learned today? Number one?

26:00

A quick list of things that would not be possible

26:02

without air conditioning, skyscrapers

26:05

Phoenix, a large federal bureaucracy

26:08

in d C and southern

26:10

Swing states. Two, we

26:12

should really have at least one monument in d

26:14

C devoted to Willis Carrier, the inventor

26:16

of a C. And finally, members

26:19

of Congress routinely wilted from the heat

26:21

of the oven that was once the US Capitol

26:23

Building. Maybe things will get better

26:26

for all of us if we turned off the A C in

26:28

the building for a while and let them

26:30

stew a bit. Flashback

26:41

is written and hosted by me Sean Braswell,

26:43

senior writer and executive producer at Azzi.

26:46

He was produced by Robert Coulos, Tracy barram

26:49

Orio Digiza, and Shannon Williamson.

26:51

Chris Hoff engineered our show special

26:54

thanks to the crew at I Heart Radio podcast Networks,

26:57

especially Sophie Lichtman and Jack O'Brien.

27:00

Make sure to subscribe to Flashback on the I Heart

27:02

Radio app or listen wherever you get your

27:04

podcasts. Flashback is

27:06

the latest podcast from Azzi, a modern

27:08

media company producing original TV series,

27:11

festivals, news and podcasts for

27:13

curious people. Auzy's unique

27:15

storytelling focuses on the new and the next, whether

27:18

that's forward looking news and features, bold

27:20

new perspectives on TV, or brand

27:22

new ways of looking at history. The

27:24

Obama administration worked out a brand

27:27

new air conditioning system for the West Wing.

27:29

And it was so good before

27:32

they did the system. Now that they did the system,

27:35

it's freezing or hot in hair.

27:38

And speaking of presidents and air conditioning,

27:40

Donald Trump has not been the only president to

27:42

suffer from the effects of Washington's climate.

27:45

Zachary Taylor died as a result of it.

27:48

On the fourth of July in the year eighteen

27:50

fifty. Taylor attended a ceremony

27:52

to commemorate the newly begun Washington

27:54

Monument. The president sat in full

27:56

sunlight for two hours in a black suit.

27:59

He became so overheated that he drank a

28:01

whole picture of ice milk to try

28:03

to stay cool. A few days later,

28:06

he died from a resulting digestive

28:08

ailment. To

28:16

dive deeper, head to Aussie dot com slash

28:19

flashback. That's o z Y dot

28:21

com slash flashback. There

28:23

you can find more of my lecture notes from today's

28:25

episode, featuring extended interviews

28:27

links to further reading and more information

28:30

on the unintended consequences of air conditioning,

28:32

as well as links to other stories from history

28:35

uncovered by me and other reporters at

28:37

Aussie. Please

28:46

be sure to support Flashback by rating and

28:48

leaving a review for us right here in your podcast

28:50

app, and remember to answer this question

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about next week's episode for a chance to

28:54

win a shout out. What event

28:57

helped lead to billions and extra revenue

28:59

for the nba A Take your best guests

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and leave it as a comment in your podcast app

29:04

along with your five star review. Thanks

29:06

for listening. We

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to learn something new, to gain new

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perspectives. The Great Courses

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Plus streaming service is an excellent resource

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to expand our knowledge on a variety of subjects

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or pick up a new hobby. I've been

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enjoying the Great Courses Plus while researching

29:25

this season of Flashback. Lectures

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like Playball, the Rise of Baseball is America's

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Pastime, History of the Supreme Court,

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and Battlefield Europe have helped me

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connect the dots on several stories from

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eight