0:01

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History

0:03

Class from how Stuffworks dot com.

0:12

Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

0:15

I am Tracy Vie Wilson and I'm Holly

0:17

fry So, Holly, when I say

0:19

Hindenburgh, what do you think of

0:22

the first time I saw the footage when I was a

0:24

kid and just being sort of a dog

0:26

at the things on fire falling

0:28

from the sky. Yeah, it's pretty dramatic, it

0:30

is. I feel like that that's a lot of people's

0:33

some knowledge of the Handenburg

0:35

is fiery explosion, all the

0:38

humanity, and really

0:40

none of the before or after kind

0:43

of sticks with people quite

0:45

that much. Yeah. I think that one chunk

0:47

of footage is shown so much that

0:50

it's really what imprints on people. Even if

0:52

there is discussion pre role or post

0:54

roll of the footage, that's not what's getting

0:56

into your brain at that point. You're just remembering those

0:58

really stark back and white images.

1:01

It's drowned out by the fiery

1:03

descent of this huge zeppelin. So

1:06

this podcast is publishing on the seventy

1:08

six anniversary of the Hindenburg

1:11

disaster. It's one of those things everybody

1:13

has seen and heard the footage and you know,

1:15

they've heard all the humanity and like

1:18

the meme that all the humanity

1:20

has become in American

1:22

culture. Uh. During the twenties

1:24

and thirties, people were really trying to find an

1:26

efficient and reliable way to

1:29

travel across oceans, and for a while

1:31

it looked like airships were going to be the way to

1:33

go. You could do it by boat, but

1:35

it would take you a week

1:38

basically of your life to go

1:40

across the Atlantic Ocean by ship. Um

1:43

and passenger planes. They hadn't

1:45

developed pressurization technology for

1:47

commercial aircraft yet, so airplanes

1:49

had to fly lower in the sky.

1:52

It was not very efficient, and it was really

1:54

dependent upon the weather because planes

1:57

couldn't fly higher than the

1:59

weather system. So it was really

2:01

looking like airships

2:03

were going to be the way that people were going to get back and

2:05

forth between continents.

2:07

Basically, well, they were faster. They

2:09

were also much faster yesh than

2:12

water by a long shot, and they could carry people

2:14

in pretty posh surroundings like it was

2:16

a relatively comfortable ride. Um.

2:19

But of course, as we know, the

2:22

airship as the luxury

2:24

travel icon was very

2:26

very brief because there were multiple

2:28

disasters. Yes, the the Hemmenberg

2:30

was kind of the capstone of

2:33

the long disaster history.

2:35

It was huge and gramatic and captured on film,

2:39

which all factored into it kind

2:41

of signaling the end of airship

2:43

travel. Yes, so the Hemdenberg

2:46

was designed and built by the Zeppelin

2:48

Company or if you are

2:50

in German and please pardon my terrible

2:53

German pronunciation, left

2:55

ship Bow Zeppelin g mbH.

2:57

Its interior was designed by German

3:00

architect Fritz August brow House

3:02

the Grout and it was actually

3:04

named after Field Marshal and President

3:06

Paul von Hendenberg, who was actually

3:09

the man that appointed Hitler the Chancellor of Germany.

3:11

And at

3:13

one point the German propaganda minister attempted

3:16

to have it named the Hitler instead

3:18

of the Hendenburg. Uh. And it

3:20

did have giant swastikas

3:23

on the tail. Yeah, I think a

3:25

lot of people kind of forget that this was a Nazi

3:28

aircraft pretty much through and

3:30

through. You know, it was used in Germany before

3:32

it started its transcontinental flights. It was used

3:34

in Germany on propaganda flights around

3:37

Germany for four days, emblazoned

3:40

with giants, watts, swastikas, um.

3:42

They were internal strifes between the Zeppelin

3:45

Company and the Nazi government. UM.

3:47

And that's one of the reasons that the investigation,

3:51

which we'll talk about in a bit went on for so

3:53

long. UH. The

3:55

Zeppelin Company started construction of

3:57

the Hendenburg in friedrich Schaffen,

3:59

Germany in one It

4:02

was the largest rigid airship that

4:04

was ever built. It was eight hundred feet

4:06

long more than eight hundred feet long, which almost

4:09

as long as three football fields

4:12

American football fields for the those

4:14

of you who live elsewhere. UM.

4:17

It was powered by four diesel engines

4:19

and the frame was filled with seven

4:22

million cubic feet of hydrogen gas

4:24

contained in sixteen shells inside

4:27

the ship. UM. These like

4:29

cells. They were like big bags, and they were

4:31

coated with gelatin so that the gas would

4:33

be less likely to escape. And

4:36

they also the these rigid

4:38

airships, including the Hennenberg, also used

4:41

water as ballast when trying

4:43

to negotiate exactly how high

4:45

it was flying. And just so

4:48

people have a sense of the

4:50

kind of modern differences, because there

4:52

are still some air ships we see, like the Goodyear

4:54

Blunt flying over sports events.

4:57

UM. Today's blimps are really balloons.

4:59

But the Mburg was truly a Zeppelin because

5:01

it had the rigid interior frame UM

5:04

that gave it that characteristic shape, and

5:06

that frame was made of Dura

5:08

lumen, which is an alloy of aluminum,

5:11

copper and other metals. It's

5:13

possible that this dr lumin

5:16

that was used in the Hennenberg came from

5:18

the wreckage of a previously crashed

5:20

zeppelin, the British R one oh

5:22

one, that had been destroyed

5:24

in its own fiery crash in It's

5:28

on the record that the Zeppelin company bought

5:30

the Dura lumen, but it's a little

5:32

unclear as to whether that particular

5:34

der allumin wound up being used in the

5:37

skeleton of the Hennenburg.

5:39

And regardless of whether parts

5:42

from UH the R one oh one

5:44

crash made their way into the Hindenburg,

5:47

UH, that R one oh one vessel

5:50

is actually the reason the Hendenburg was so very big,

5:53

because the crash of that previous

5:55

vessel was actually pretty smooth. Um

5:57

survivors didn't feel a lot of impact,

6:00

but almost everyone on board died after

6:03

it caught fire. It wasn't the impact

6:05

but the fire that actually got them. Everyone

6:07

reached the logical conclusion that using highly

6:10

flammable hydrogen to keep an airship afloat

6:12

was a terrible idea. Hydrogen

6:14

was to be replaced with helium, but helium

6:17

is of course heavier than hydrogen, so

6:20

helium airships consequently had

6:22

to be bigger to hold more of the gas to compensate

6:25

and have lift. The

6:27

problem arose when Germany

6:29

didn't have its own supply of helium

6:31

to be filling up these airships. The

6:34

United States had plenty of helium

6:36

but was really just not inclined to hand

6:38

over lots of helium to the Nazi government.

6:41

So since the Germans couldn't get enough helium

6:44

to fill the Hendenberg, they had to go back

6:46

to using hydrogen instead. So

6:49

the Germans couldn't get enough helium

6:51

to fill the Hendenburg, so they had to

6:53

go back to using hydrogen instead, and

6:56

extreme care was taken inside

6:59

of the Hindenburg to prevent sparks from

7:01

igniting the hydrogen. There were ventilation

7:03

systems on the inside to to vent

7:05

any any hydrogen that

7:07

did escape if

7:10

inspections would be performed by people who

7:12

were wearing asbestos suits and little felt

7:14

shoes that they didn't make sparks. All

7:17

of this to try to cut down on the risk of

7:19

a giant explosion, and the outside

7:22

of the ship was covered in a skin that was

7:24

made of cotton that had been coated with

7:26

a paint which was also called dope at

7:28

the time to make it waterproof, and

7:30

that dope contained iron oxide and

7:32

aluminum powder, which combined will

7:35

form thermite. Thermite burns

7:38

really really well and at a very high

7:40

temperature. So it was not really

7:42

the best planning

7:46

and thought process to cover

7:49

an entire dirigible that is containing

7:52

highly flammable gas with it. Let's

7:54

have a highly flammable gas contained in something

7:56

that is also highly flama highly

7:58

flammable. There are lots of

8:00

measures taken to try to make things safer,

8:03

but obviously that they could not account

8:05

for anything for everything. So

8:08

if you look at pictures of the Handenburg

8:11

pre disaster, you'll see little

8:13

slits near the bottom of it. These

8:15

are windows that we're looking out from the

8:17

passenger areas, and they were

8:19

in the belly of the zeppelin with

8:22

the passengers on the upper of two

8:24

decks that were in the bottom

8:26

of the craft. And then the

8:28

little cabin that you can see near the

8:30

flour of the Hindenburgh, which is on the underside,

8:33

is the control cabin, and that contained the

8:35

bridge, the navigation room, and

8:37

another observation area, traveling

8:40

by zeppelin was supposed to be the height

8:42

of luxury, and in this case, the height

8:44

of luxury means that you

8:46

had a windowless interior stateroom

8:49

that measured seventy eight by sixty six

8:51

inches, that contained a couple

8:53

of bunks, a wash basin with hot

8:55

and cold running water, a writing desk,

8:58

and the service of a room steward who

9:00

would come and help take care of you. So really,

9:03

the passenger accommodations

9:05

in a big ocean liner probably would

9:07

have been more comfortable and more spacious

9:10

and better outfitted, but that trip would have taken

9:12

a whole lot longer, so comparatively

9:14

speaking, so it would only take you two days

9:16

to get across the ocean instead of an entire

9:19

week. That relatively austere,

9:21

tiny space, it was not too bad.

9:23

It was the trade off that you made, saving

9:25

you a lot of time. Uh. And in

9:27

addition to the cabins, passengers also had

9:29

access to several common areas, so they weren't stuck

9:32

in those. And this is really

9:34

that these are the things that you would see photos of as

9:36

as the luxury experience. For

9:38

these common areas, there was a

9:40

lounge room with a grand piano, and

9:42

that piano was actually made of the same aluminum

9:45

alloy as the ship's frame uh

9:47

and covered with a pig skin to be lighter than a

9:49

traditional grand piano, although

9:52

that piano was not part of the

9:54

historic and tragic Final Voy,

9:56

apparently not h The ship

9:58

also had a reading and writing room, a

10:01

dining room, and a promenade with slanted

10:03

windows where you could get a view of the world

10:05

below. There was also, and this

10:08

one kind of befuddles me, a

10:10

smoking room. Uh. So

10:14

you have all of these explosive, dangerous

10:16

things, which you've taken great care to

10:18

prevent any sparking happening adjacent

10:21

to you. And then you're like, oh, but you can light up.

10:23

We have a lounge for you. Put some put

10:25

some active fire there in the hands of

10:27

the passengers who theoretically were not trained

10:30

to handle flammable substances.

10:32

So here's the care that was taken in the smoking

10:34

room, so that the smoking room was not the

10:37

undoing of the entire craft. It

10:39

was a pressure ized room, so it

10:41

was maintained pressure inside the room

10:43

so that when you opened the door, any hydrogen

10:46

that was around would not get in there.

10:48

Um. There was one electric lighter

10:51

that was used to light all things that

10:53

were going to be smoked in the room, and passengers

10:55

were required to hand over any matches

10:58

or lighters that they had on their person before

11:01

they embarked. So there

11:03

was this one place where people could smoke

11:05

if they chose, but pretty

11:08

strict requirements of keeping that

11:10

room a safe place that was not going

11:12

to light the whole ship on fire. I'm

11:14

still the fuddled by it. I really have such a hard

11:16

time wrapping my brain around why you would

11:18

be like that's cool. Well, and it's

11:20

it's just cultural, like you would

11:22

not have a traveling vessel without a space

11:24

for that, right. Well, when you think

11:26

about how still on aircraft, uh,

11:29

there's the no smoking sign. We're still

11:31

having the no smoking sign on

11:33

airplanes, which for those of us who

11:35

have been flying mostly in recent

11:38

years, that seems weird. But there

11:40

was ever smoking on airplane. I remember smoking

11:42

on airplanes when I was a kid because

11:44

it was like a similarly terrible idea, yeah,

11:47

but again not filled with hydrogen. My

11:50

mother smoked, and I remember her like

11:52

when I was traveling when I was quite young, you

11:55

know, lighting up on the plane. And

11:57

now it's just so bizarre to me to even come

12:00

contemplate that we did that. But

12:03

so yes, the whole room with extreme

12:05

safety precautions set aside

12:07

for set aside for smoking. So along

12:10

with the crew quarters, which were very

12:12

small bunks like you would see on an

12:14

aircraft carrier. The lower deck,

12:16

which was basically in the belly of the Zeppelin, contained

12:19

the galley, the cruise mess washrooms,

12:21

and other necessary facilities. So

12:25

while everyone remembers the final flight the

12:27

service, the Hannenberg had a service history

12:29

prior to that that was not its first flight,

12:32

which some people I have found when talking to them,

12:34

they think it only flew once, right, But

12:36

it really had a lot of air

12:38

hours, yes, a lot of

12:41

safe air hours without incident

12:43

before this happened. Um

12:45

so Apart from the

12:47

four day propaganda flight in

12:49

Germany and lots of test flights

12:51

in Germany, the Hndenburg

12:54

made its first transatlantic voyage

12:56

in ninety six. It flew

12:58

from Germany to Rio da Narrow and

13:00

this was a round trip that departed

13:03

on March thirty one and returned on April

13:05

tenth, and Commander S. E. Peck

13:08

was on board as an official observer from

13:10

the U. S. Government UH

13:12

since the plan was for the Hindenburg

13:15

to potentially provide service between Germany

13:17

and the naval air station in lake Hurst, New

13:19

Jersey, with connecting service through American

13:22

Airlines, which I did not know prior to

13:24

prepping for this. Yeah, it was a commercial

13:26

service that that was, you

13:29

know, meant to carry passengers. That's pretty much what

13:31

it was built for, was to carry passengers between

13:33

Germany and the US. Lake

13:36

Hurst was the United States main airship

13:38

station. It's where America's

13:40

first airship, the Shenandoah, took off

13:42

on its maiden for voyage, and it's also

13:45

where a really famous Zeppelin, the graph

13:47

Zeppelin, started and ended a trip

13:49

around the world in um

13:52

In addition to that round the world flight, the graph

13:54

Zeppelin was in service for

13:56

nine years and in that time it made five

13:59

and ninety flight including a hundred and forty

14:01

four ocean crossings. Also

14:03

on board was a doctor Hugo Eckner,

14:06

who was a German aeronautical engineer that

14:08

had worked with Ferdinand Count von Zeppelin

14:11

on the development of airships. Echner

14:14

was director of the Zeppelin Company at the time,

14:16

so people would knowledge about Zeppelin's

14:18

were there, Yes, So this cann end out.

14:21

This first trip across the ocean wound

14:23

up being the subject of kind of an f li I

14:26

memo to the Secretary of State. Um

14:29

Peck reported to Hugh Gibson, who

14:31

passed it up to the Secretary of State,

14:33

but he had had several conversations

14:35

with Eckner about the Nazi government's

14:37

decisions surrounding the Hindenburg

14:40

while crossing the ocean. Essentially,

14:44

what Peck was letting everybody know was sort

14:46

of the history of of why

14:48

uh Eckner seems to be falling out

14:50

of favor with the Nazi government,

14:52

and it had to do with basically his trying

14:54

to put the safety and

14:57

quality of airships

15:00

ahead of the Nazi government's desire

15:02

for propaganda. There's

15:04

much bigger story there that maybe will

15:06

be a subject for a future podcast,

15:09

but it really could be. It's a whole intrigue,

15:12

yeah, a lot of gossipy drama

15:14

about the about about the Nazi

15:17

government and the various

15:19

people involved with airship design. So

15:21

the Hendenburgh's first journey to Lakehurst,

15:24

which was the trip it had really been designed for, took

15:27

place h in May

15:29

of ninety six, from May six

15:31

to May nine, and aboard it were dignitaries,

15:34

aviators, famous people, the media.

15:36

I mean it was a big publicity

15:38

event in many ways, right it was. It was

15:40

one of those things where you had a carefully selected

15:42

passenger list of notable

15:45

people and this kind of big media

15:47

event. Before the

15:49

final tragic journey, the Hendenberg

15:52

had made ten round trips between Germany

15:54

and the United States, carrying one thousand

15:57

and two passengers along with mail

15:59

and other cargo. Safely, it had

16:01

traveled for more than two hundred thousand

16:03

miles. But of course

16:05

we know it did have a short

16:07

life release and then we come upon the final

16:09

voyage. Yes, on

16:12

May third seven, the Hendenberg

16:14

left Frankfurt at seven sixteen

16:16

am. This was the ship's return

16:19

to flight after being refitted over

16:21

the winter, which is why there were media

16:23

waiting for it to arrive in lake Hurst.

16:26

There were ninety seven people on board, thirty

16:29

six of those were passengers and sixty one

16:31

of those were crew. The Hyndenburg

16:33

was running more than ten hours late because

16:35

of thunderstorms. The weather at

16:38

lake Hurst had been bad enough that the ship

16:40

had flown to New York City to give passengers

16:42

a nicer view while waiting

16:44

for the weather to clear up. So they could land. So

16:47

landing the airship required the captain to

16:50

very precisely balance the ship's hydrogen

16:53

with its ballast to level it off at the right

16:55

distance from the ground, and then

16:57

two hundred very strong men had to grab

16:59

mooring lines to bring it the rest

17:01

of the way in. So this would have been

17:03

challenging. Even in great weather, airships

17:06

had been known to catch a gust of wind and sail

17:08

upward, leaving the ground crew

17:10

to either choose between hanging

17:12

on and hoping for the best, or letting go and

17:15

possibly falling to their deaths. So,

17:18

uh, it's very tricky to land an

17:20

airship, is the bottom line there. Yeah, as

17:22

much promise as people thought these had for

17:26

transoc oceanic flight, as they

17:28

were pretty dangerous. Yeah, they

17:30

had a lot of big obstacles

17:32

that you had to overcome with each flight.

17:35

So at PM, as

17:37

it reached its mooring mast and its mooring

17:40

lines touched the ground, a fire started

17:42

near the rear of the Hendenburg. It

17:45

was still high off the ground at the time, around

17:47

um or about two feet up,

17:50

and some people aboard knocked out windows

17:52

and jumped off catwalks in the hope of avoiding

17:54

the fire, so they knew

17:56

they were trapped and they wanted to just take their

17:59

chance on jumping right. The

18:01

entire airship burned in thirty four seconds.

18:04

The ground crew, which was made of both

18:06

civilians and navy men, first

18:09

rushed away from the falling wreckage,

18:11

and then as the as the Hendenburg

18:14

made it to the ground, they ran back in

18:16

to try to pull survivors away,

18:18

and in the end thirty six people were killed,

18:20

including one member of the ground crew. That

18:23

was one of the things that that had never stuck

18:25

with me, that there were actually a lot of survivorsburg

18:29

me too. I think again, it's one of those things that we

18:32

see that brief piece of footage and we hear the oh

18:34

the humanity, and it's always counted

18:36

as a huge tragedy, which it was, but

18:39

it kind of leads to the conclusion

18:41

that everyone parish. It doesn't look like something

18:43

that people would survive, but there were really

18:46

a lot of albeit very badly

18:48

injured, but there were a lot of survivors

18:51

of the of the disaster. Herb

18:54

Morrison was recording radio coverage

18:56

of the landing for the Chicago station w

18:58

LS, and he is the person who

19:00

uttered the famous All the Humanity, which

19:03

became part of the first radio report

19:06

ever to be nationally broadcast by NBC.

19:09

There's always been a little bit of mystery

19:11

about what caused the fire, and

19:14

it was an inherently difficult disaster to investigate,

19:16

since the whole thing burned down

19:19

to the skeleton and the ground

19:21

crew, the survivors, the media and

19:23

others had really trampled the entire scene

19:25

trying to get people out of

19:27

there and also get away before

19:30

the military could really establish a perimeter

19:32

for investigation. There was a pretty

19:34

extensive investigation at the time, which

19:36

was driven both by the disaster itself

19:39

and the fact that the airship belonged to Germany.

19:41

There was a lot of speculation about whether

19:44

it had been sabotaged or a deliberate

19:46

attack by either people who sympathized

19:49

with the Jews who were living in

19:51

Germany or anti Nazi groups. There

19:53

were a lot of people who would have had cause

19:56

to make a Nazi ship a target,

19:58

and so there was a lot of an investigation

20:00

into whether it had been a deliberate

20:03

act. There were hundreds of pages

20:05

of FBI documents that were declassified

20:07

in the eighties through the Freedom of Information

20:10

Act, and you can read them all online.

20:12

The general agreement is that a

20:14

spark from somewhere ignited the hydrogen

20:17

gas, and that the Zeppelin skin, which we've

20:19

already said was also highly flammable, accelerated

20:22

then the burn and that's why it just kind of went up

20:24

in a pretty quick flash.

20:27

One of the most recent refinements of this

20:29

static discharge theory came

20:31

about in March. Jim

20:34

Stansfield, who was a Britick British

20:36

aeronautical engineer, theorized that

20:38

the ship had become charged during

20:40

the electrical storm, that it was sort of skirting

20:43

the edges of and that when the

20:45

ship got to its moorings it

20:47

became grounded, and that's the spark

20:49

that resulted ignited

20:52

a leak of hydrogen um

20:54

that's kind of different from the other. Or

20:57

maybe it was a spark of some kind of machinery

20:59

on board, or a loose wire or some kind

21:01

of short circuit somewhere. That the general

21:03

consensus is a spark

21:06

from somewhere. We know it's a

21:08

spark of something, but they've never uh

21:11

conclusively identified what or

21:13

found clear evidence that it was sabotage.

21:15

So I think this will probably be a

21:18

mystery with many theories forever. Yeah,

21:21

there's also a MythBusters episode where

21:23

they make a model of the Hindenburg to try

21:26

to recreate it, and it burns much like the real

21:28

airship did when covered in the same

21:30

paint mixture and when it's filled with hydrogen.

21:33

But when they did the same experiment without

21:35

filling it with hydrogen, it did not go up

21:38

quickly. The question was kind of was it

21:40

really the paint that was the problem?

21:42

And that the answer and that experiment

21:45

was now that the paint by itself

21:47

does not burn nearly as quickly as

21:49

the paint with this huge source of hydrogen

21:51

fuel underneath it, and

21:54

that really Uh, that tragedy

21:56

put an end to the concept of commercial

21:58

airship travel. It really shut on that

22:00

potential industry. Yeah, it had already

22:02

had a pretty a

22:05

pretty rocky history before that

22:07

point. While Germany had

22:09

been using Zeppelin's pretty successfully

22:11

for a long time. UM it had used

22:13

Zeppelin's for military purposes during World

22:16

War One, although the Treaty of Versailles

22:18

put a stop to that. UM,

22:20

the German government had been using it for

22:22

commercial purposes after the war,

22:25

and without a lot of horrible things

22:28

happening, but other nations were

22:30

not quite as fortunate. Um.

22:33

Some of the disasters that happened prior

22:35

to the Hendenburg were that in nineteen

22:37

twenty one, the U. S. Navy's z

22:39

R two broke apart and burned and

22:41

sixty two people died, and

22:44

in nineteen twenty three the French airship

22:46

Dixmud disappeared on

22:48

its way to Africa. In nineteen

22:51

five, the Shenandoah, which we talked about a

22:53

little earlier, broke up during a storm

22:55

and fourteen people were killed. In

22:58

nineteen thirty, the R one one of Britain,

23:00

which we discussed earlier, the one

23:02

who's dr Lumen may have been used in the

23:04

Hendenburg, caught fire after an

23:06

emergency crash landing and killed

23:09

forty seven people, including many

23:11

British airship experts, so they really lost

23:13

like a brain trust of knowledge about airships.

23:16

In NT three, the USS Akron,

23:19

which was a military airship of the U. S.

23:21

Navy, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean

23:23

and seventy three people died, and

23:25

the akron sister ship, the Makon, crashed

23:28

into the Pacific in killing

23:31

two people. So there had been pretty

23:33

much an airship disaster every couple

23:35

of years before the Hendenburg, and

23:37

the Hendenburg, with its dramatic

23:39

news coverage that was just so

23:42

startling to look at, was really the final

23:44

straw and the public's mind about

23:46

whether they were going to ever get up in one of those

23:48

things. The U. S. Navy continued

23:51

to use the station at lake Hurst as

23:53

an airship station for anti submarine

23:55

blimps right up until the end of World War

23:57

Two, and Germany continued

23:59

to use Zeppelin's for propaganda and transport

24:02

through World War Two. But the Zeppelin

24:04

airship works in Germany were destroyed by

24:06

the Allies during the war and

24:09

they weren't really rebuilt, so that ended

24:11

German development of Zeppelin's for many

24:13

many years. Zeppelins

24:15

aren't completely gone though. Zeppelin started

24:17

being manufactured in Friedrichschaffen

24:20

at German company z lt Zeppelin

24:23

lu Shift Technique in and

24:26

these Zeppelins are semi rigid and they use

24:28

helium, unlike their rigid and hydrogen

24:30

filled Hindenburg. We mentioned a Good

24:33

Year blimp at the start of this podcast

24:35

that's actually going to become the Good Year Zeppelin

24:37

in following an announcement

24:40

in eleven. So we will

24:42

see things that may

24:44

visually resemble a little bit the Handenberg

24:46

flying through the sky, but no longer

24:49

potentially fiery catastrophes

24:52

waiting to happen. Yes,

24:55

hopefully history has taught us enough that modern

24:57

engineering has found safe ways. We're

25:00

not putting hydrogen in things that

25:02

are going to fly through the sky. It sounds

25:04

like a good plan to me. Ye had it

25:06

struck me as I was researching this, that

25:08

the Hindenburg and the Titanic are

25:10

stuck together in people's minds as these disasters

25:13

that happened in kind of the same era

25:15

of history, like not immediately next each

25:17

other, but reasonably goes close

25:20

to a twenty year gap. There's like a twenty year gap

25:22

between them, but they're both They

25:24

have both this air of in hindsight. Of

25:26

course, you would not want to go through iceberg

25:29

infested waters in this giant ocean

25:31

liner, and of course you would not want to

25:33

fill something flammable with hydrogen

25:36

and then fled across the ocean. And

25:38

then add to that the fact that both of these

25:40

were supposed to be pretty luxurious

25:43

experiences unless unless you

25:45

were in steerage on the Titanic. I

25:47

think that's a lot of why they get looped together as

25:50

because they were both kind of going to be

25:53

the new era of travel for

25:55

the times that they were launching.

25:58

So that's the story

26:00

of the Himpenburg and I believe

26:02

you also have listener mail for us. Two

26:04

more pieces of listener mail for us. Both

26:07

of them are about our recent episodes

26:09

on Loving Versus Virginia, which we have

26:11

gotten a lot of great mail about and

26:14

a lot of great feedback on. So thank you everyone

26:16

for all of that. Um. This first one

26:18

is from Cameron and uh.

26:20

Cameron says, I wanted to write in since

26:23

I just listened to your awesome podcasts on Loving

26:25

versus Virginia. I recently went over

26:27

some of this case with my students i'd teach high

26:29

school history. It came up

26:31

when I was also reviewing the thirteenth,

26:34

fourteenth, and fifteenth Amendments with

26:36

them when we wrapped up reconstruction. Though

26:39

the language of the fourteenth Amendment states,

26:41

quote, no State shall make or enforce

26:43

any law which shall abridge the privileges

26:46

or immunities of citizens of the United States.

26:48

To reinforce the equal status of African

26:50

Americans, including recently freed slaves,

26:53

it's important to note that section two of this amendment

26:56

also states representatives

26:58

shall be apportioned among the step real

27:00

states according to their referverse their

27:02

respective numbers, counting the whole

27:04

number of persons in each state, excluding

27:07

Indians not taxed. The

27:10

mention of Indians is important because the

27:12

fourteenth Amendment, while making allowances

27:14

for four million plus new citizens

27:16

I eat freed slaves, does not take

27:19

Native Americans under the same protection. This

27:21

is clear when the country expands westward in

27:23

the late eighteen hundreds and reservations

27:25

are assigned to people with no apparent

27:27

claim on the land. Native Americans

27:30

are conveniently not considered citizens,

27:32

which makes it much easier to quote ask

27:35

them to move off their land so pioneers

27:37

can have it. I wanted to bring this up

27:39

because I teach high school in an area that is classified

27:41

as the urban core. The majority

27:43

of my students are definitely under the minority

27:45

classification on the Census. I was

27:48

so proud of my students were immediately taking

27:50

note that forcing tribes off their land was

27:52

just as unfair as telling blacks they don't

27:54

count as people. That in

27:56

both cases, an entire group of people

27:58

are being judged and persecuted based on

28:00

being different than the whites in charge.

28:04

So thank you Cameron. Such a good letter.

28:06

Now it's a great letter. So number one, it's a great letter.

28:09

Number two. It was pretty

28:11

startling to me that zero of

28:13

the things that I read while researching that podcast

28:16

referenced the incongruity between section

28:19

one in section two of the fourteenth Amendment.

28:22

Like, none of them got into it. I

28:25

feel like that's how American history works.

28:27

Often. You're like, I

28:29

don't think that's exclusive to American history,

28:31

but it does happen a lot. You know. It's kind

28:33

of um compartmentalized,

28:36

right, it's totally and it's sort of like, and

28:38

then we gave rights to these people, sort

28:41

of leaving out everyone

28:45

else who did not get right the

28:47

other we got several so we may

28:49

have other Loving Versus Virginia letters

28:52

later. But the other one that I wanted to read today is

28:54

from James. He says, I've listened

28:56

to your most recent podcast about Loving Versus

28:58

Virginia as a story buff who lives

29:00

in Virginia, I was surprised that I have never learned

29:03

about this landmark decision back in school,

29:05

despite the fact of at least one

29:07

year of public schooling is dedicated

29:10

to Virginia history. What makes this

29:12

even more surprising is that I actually actually

29:14

live in the Northern Virginia area, which,

29:17

in part due to its close proximity to d C,

29:19

is one of the most racially diverse areas in the

29:21

country. Now, I can't imagine what

29:23

it would be like if inter racial marriage was still

29:25

outlawed. Also, when I was listening

29:27

to the second part of the episode, I realized that

29:30

the title of the case reminded me of the old tourism

29:32

slogan Virginia Is for Lovers. I

29:34

was curious if you knew if the decision had any

29:36

bearing on the creation of the slogan. The

29:39

phrase was created and first used in advertising

29:41

by a Richmond based advertising company called

29:44

Martin and Waltz. The slogan

29:46

was first used in advertising in nineteen sixty

29:48

nine, two years after the court decision, so it would still

29:50

be fresh in people's minds. I did some

29:53

quick Internet research and the only thing I could find

29:55

that directly referenced the connection was an article

29:57

from last year that when over the history

29:59

of a slogan, and according to the current president

30:01

of the ad agency, there is no connection. Still,

30:04

it wouldn't surprise me if there was a connection,

30:06

and the ad agency just didn't want to advertise

30:08

it for fear of creating controversy.

30:11

Still, it does seem like other people have noticed

30:14

the connection since. When I was checking the history, I

30:16

found a book about the trial from two thousand four

30:18

titled Virginia Hasn't Always Been for Lovers?

30:21

So I did some research on this. Also.

30:24

I was hoping to go look back through

30:27

newspaper articles from the sixties

30:29

to see how much coverage there

30:31

really was of it, like is this a

30:34

name that would be in people's minds the

30:36

way like Delma is in people's

30:38

minds currently because of the cases that are before

30:41

the Supreme Court. Unfortunately,

30:43

my newspaper database did not go back that far,

30:45

but I found a couple of other articles

30:49

that were about that particular slogan

30:51

on various anniversaries of its creation.

30:54

UM And the story that I have found several

30:56

times from several different sources is that

30:59

a copywriter named Robin McLaughlin came

31:02

up with a concept that had lots of different

31:04

ads that was Virginia, like Virginia is

31:06

for history lovers, Virginia is for beach

31:08

lovers, Virginia is for mountain lovers.

31:11

UM. And everybody sort of decided that

31:13

was too complicated and too

31:15

narrow for each ad to have

31:18

a different Virginia is for bloody blah

31:20

lovers. Um. And then somebody

31:22

said, what if we just said Virginia is for

31:24

lovers and everybody loved that, and

31:27

the first ad mentioning the slogan ran in

31:29

the nineteen sixty nine issue. March

31:31

nineteen sixty nine issue of Modern Bride was

31:34

the first place that was ever used. Uh.

31:36

Yeah, it was tobitably pitching it as

31:38

a honeymoon destination. Yeah, well it was.

31:41

It was because the state had done some research

31:43

and realized that most of the travelers

31:46

vacationing in Virginia were fifty years old

31:48

or older, and the state was like, if we were going

31:50

to make tourism money, we need to bring some

31:52

younger people here, and so this

31:54

was part of an effort to attract younger

31:56

people. UM. A lot of people

31:59

who worked on the pain have pointed out that it was kind

32:01

of racy at the time, but I

32:03

didn't find any that were from people specifically

32:05

saying oh and then also the Supreme Court case,

32:08

Yeah, so I think it's going to be probably

32:10

not UM if it

32:13

was intentional on the part of a copywriter.

32:16

Uh. That I think was something that flew under the radar.

32:18

We don't have a record of that being

32:21

an intent. Yeah, and the people making the approvals

32:23

of it did not have

32:25

that in the forefront of their minds, or I think they probably

32:28

would have said no, giving that Virginia

32:30

was on the losing side of

32:33

that case. One

32:35

last thing, yea, we have lots

32:37

of new YouTube channels from many of

32:39

our

32:42

sister and brother colleagues here. There's been a lot

32:44

of dizziness. Yes, So if you go to YouTube,

32:47

you can see all kinds of awesome new videos

32:49

from stuff mom never told you, stuff you should

32:51

know, stuff to blow your mind, and stuff

32:54

they don't want you to know. So you'll be seeing

32:56

links from us to those things.

32:59

Uh. And they're fun and they're very fun.

33:01

Really, I watched stuff now, mo. I've never

33:03

told you at lunch every day, but I have to finish eating

33:05

first so I don't choke on my food or

33:07

spin on the screen. Yes while laughing. If

33:11

you would like to write to us, you can. We're at

33:13

History Podcast at Discovery dot

33:15

com. We're also on Twitter at mist in

33:17

history and on Facebook at Facebook dot

33:19

com slash history Class stuff. You

33:22

can find our tumbler at mist in history

33:24

dot tumbler dot com, and we're on Pinterest

33:27

too. If you would like to see

33:29

some photos of the Hindenberg

33:32

before and during and after

33:34

it's horrible disaster, we

33:37

have a brand new image gallery on our website,

33:39

but is of Hindenberg pictures, so you can search

33:41

for that at our website and find

33:43

that in a lot more at our site, which

33:46

is how stuff works dot com.

33:50

For more on this and thousands of other topics,

33:53

is it how stuff works dot com.

34:05

This episode of Stuff you Missed in History Class

34:07

is brought to you by Audible