A Geek History of Time - Episode 354 -Declaration of Independsith Part I

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

I mean, it is 2 o'clock in the fucking morning where I am. The 1848ers were so much more radical than what we're comfortable or familiar with. The layer, the layer of sarcasm involved in that entire delivery is, it's fonded. It's not even frosting. But he failed, so fuck them, buddies. Now, after World War II ended, Lockley started mapping out foot trails for the newly created. Oh, God, Pembroke Shire. So Pembrokeshire.

Pembrokeshire. Okay. Pembrokeshire. Just please let me just read Latin today. We're way into the 19th century now. I'm sorry. Well, Damien. It's 3 o'clock in the fucking morning.

Connected nerdery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California. And I had, I stayed home for one day in the middle of the week this week. And on the day before I was going to be out, there were a couple of my classes in particular that I let know I was not going to be there the next day. And one of them is my fourth period class who this year, they're sixth graders. And it is one of my two most demanding classes of the day. Not because any of the kids are like jerks, not because of anything like that.

but just I have a number, a number of students in there who, like the transition to the middle school is hard for them, like particularly hard. And so I let them know. I said, hey, look, I'm not going to be here tomorrow. Your substitute teacher, because I had a sub I assigned specifically for the job, I said, Mr. S is, you know, he knows what it is I expect you to be doing. and, you know, when he says jump, you, you jump. However high he tells you to do. Like, and, you know, and I'm really serious about this. And I want you to know if your name winds up on his note for anything other than a positive reason, it's going to mean a message home.

I'm going to be, I'm going to contact your parents. And they all, yes, yes, but they're like, they all nodded. It said, okay. And then in like the last minute and a half before the bell, when they're all milling around, getting ready to go, one of them comes up to me. One of the ones who is consistently giving me more gray hair on a daily basis comes up to me. And he says, so like a message home, does that mean like you're going home? I said, no. A message home means I'm going to be sending a message to your parents via email or, you know,

other app that we use for parent contact. And I'm going to be letting him know that, you know, I had a guest teacher and your child was, you know, disrespectful and not following instructions, talking, whatever, whatever. And this child, this boy looks me square in the face and says, oh, is that all? And I looked him right in his face and said, oh, I'm sorry. Is that enough of, is that not enough of a consequence? Tell you what, we can change that right now. all right folks change of plans now if your name winds up at a note it's a lunch detention

like did you call it the jimmy amendment if i was teaching older students right yeah but like because i absolutely would have been like we're naming this the jimmy amendment jimmy thank you everybody say thank you to jimmy oh yeah well they they all they all saw him come up to me a few of the front heard the exchange. They all knew whose fault it was. And, and I heard a couple of them said, thanks, man. Like, it's like, they were walking out the door. And so, yeah, that was, that was me, uh, digging deep and finding my, my petty motherfucker, uh, in the middle of the week. This we're like, oh, I'm sorry. So, uh, that's what I've had going on. How about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I am a U.S. history and economics teacher here in Northern

in California at the high school level. And two things, really. The first one very, very quickly. My seniors are kind of upset with me because I've managed to make economics go from something they had no idea what the class was, just that it was necessary, to something they're actually discussing outside of my class. Okay. Yeah.

I'm sorry. I want to know what kind of witchcraft you are using. To make like, it's the magic of me being the performer that I am. And straight up talking about like the biases that I have. I'll be like, hey, guys, remember, I'm super biased here. But here's why rent control is really necessary. And here's how people use it to hide the racism. You know, stuff like that.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. And what was fun was I told the kids, you know, I've been putting it through their paces. And honestly, I'm making them work at like the 10th grade level from 10 years ago. But to them, like, Oh my God, we've never been made to work this hard, et cetera, et cetera. So the end of one assignment was write a thesis statement that answers this prompt. And that's the whole assignment, which means I have to do all this research and do it up.

Right, right, right, right. And again, to them, that's like high-level shit. And to me, I'm like, this is seventh grade work. This is seventh grade. This is literally one of these days, you can tell either one of your classes, either year. Oh, I do regularly. I let them know. That, well, no, you can literally say that seventh graders are being taught this stuff right now.

Oh, I do. You can say my call. Okay. I do. And I also tell them it's not your fault because of when you went on lockdown. Like, you have very atrophied muscles. It hurts to stretch them now. And I'm sorry, but we're going to stretch them.

Like, I'm giving you what you didn't get. But on the back of that paper, I said, draw a picture critiquing me lecturing. and I sent you the pictures. What I loved was like two in a row had kids sleeping and me standing in front of the board going, I'm a biased person. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, yeah.

I saw that and it was like, oh, well, I know what lectures you're giving them. So there we are. That's pretty much any of them. But, okay, so the other thing that I just, speaking of stretching atrophied muscles, right. I got in the mail a book about the period of time between the sacking of Carthage and the end of Sulla's dictatorship. So it's before the sexy part for everybody else. Like everybody's big on the fall of the republic.

Like that whole period, I'm hitting the first civil war. Right. And it just feels it's like slipping into slippers that you just found that didn't go completely bad and they were broken in perfectly. Yeah. It feels so good to be reading Roman history again. I can believe that. God, it's nice. So anyway, that's what's going on with me.

Speaking of reading old shit. Yeah. I will start the podcast with this. When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to. to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station, to which the laws of nature and of God's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind, requires that they should declare the causes which impel them, and impel them to separation.

Yeah. In other words, when you need to call the end of a relationship, you owe them an explanation. and this 100% sets up Thomas Jefferson and all his pals to roast the ever-loving shit out of George III. Yeah. A man who, according to them, and I think rather erroneously, whose madness caused them no end of grief and led them to trying to sever their ties.

Okay. So you're saying his porphyria had nothing to do with it? I'm saying that he had one episode around the period of time just before that. Then he had one other episode, during the war, but all of the madness of King George that we hear about is well after the United States Constitution was established. He was no longer a major player in our politics. No, indeed, he was not. And I venture to say that he was never a major player in American politics.

But this podcast is not about that, but I'm not telling yet. And again, as I've said on the intro before, people are going to see the tie. and think, poor Ed. Okay. Well, so George, it's interesting to note as you're saying this, that George the third, of course, is the grandson or was the grandson, not the son of George the second. This is true. And it's interesting. His father pre-deceased his grandfather.

Yes. And it's inter and his uncle, George the Third's uncle's Duke of Cumberland. Yes. Very famous was quite the noted, I'm not necessarily going to say successful, but quite the noted military commander who had a great number of successes, but then got a SARS kicked during the seven years war. Or, well, anyway, I could get into the, I just spent a bunch of time for my master's degree looking at the electorate of Hanover. as a factor in. Okay, well, if you're going to be talking about this particular dynasty, you're kind of going to have to. So, yeah.

Yeah, I learned, I learned more about Hanover's relationship to the United Kingdom than I thought I was ever going to have a reason to know. It's odd, isn't it? It's really weird. Why that? You know, it's, yeah. Yeah. So, all right. He's, go ahead.

his uncle was given a trophy from the French Indian War of a leader, if I recall correctly, in, oh God, I want to say North Carolina. And it was just, it was his moccas in. It was an old shoe for medicine crow. And he slid it right there in the gap. So it was the Cumberland Gap, Johnson City, Tennessee. Okay, thank you. Time check. Oh, I don't know.

We started talking about beards like 15 minutes ago. Yeah, right, yeah, before me. And then I hit record. Yeah. All right. So we'll start where I start. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, George William Frederick, son of Frederick Lewis, the Prince of Wales.

He himself was the son of King George II and Caroline of Brandenius. Brandenburg-Ansbach. Yes. Frederick Lewis called Friedrich Ludwig in his native Hanoverian tongue, Hanoverian tongue of German. Yeah. Yeah. Was raised for 14 years apart from his parents who went off to Great Britain to be their first era parent to George I.

Okay. Yes. As a result of that physical separation, as well as the emotional separation, young Frederick Lewis sided with the oppositionists to the king who wanted parliament to reign. Okay. Now, keep in mind, George I first, yeah. Here we're talking about the eventual George the second. Yes. Okay. All right. Now, keep in mind, George I first took over after Queen Anne, right.

Right. Who herself had taken over after William and Mary, who were the completion of the glorious revolution that had turned Great Britain from a monarchy into a constitutional monarchy. Correct. There's a fair bit of tension and also feeling. things out. Like England's big on tradition. Like I was doing a project for my setting up a project for my government class where I was looking at old, you know, other countries' constitutions. Yeah. Well, England's constitution goes back to the Magna Carta and it's just you keep adding shit on. And I'm like, oh. England's. So, so England's constitution, the constitution of the UK

is an interesting avatar for the way a lot of English engineering works. If you talk to anybody who works on like Merlin or Jaguar engines, or at least used to, I don't know if this is still the case now that like Daimler-Benz has bought everybody. But for example, during World War II, the British had really amazing aircraft engines. And the Rolls-Royce engines were amazing, but the problem with them is their massive hang, like, their high performance, but their hangar queens. Because they started out with a really great, say, 12-cylinder engine. And then they went, well, now we need a turbocharger. It's okay.

Let's hook a turbocharger up to it. Okay, great. We have a turbocharger. Now we need this other thing. Okay. well, now we need to figure out how to make the carburetor work when this guy goes upside down. So we need to come up with an inverted carburet, and they tack an inverted carburetor on it. If you give a mouse a cookie.

Yeah, and then the part that like I first learned about was, okay, and now we need to make the oil pump work when it's upside down. and and that means that if you need to change a spark plug, you have five different sub assemblies. You have to take off of the engine. Right. Because they've all just been accumulating on top of each other for like five generations of the motor. It's that science of like, you know,

if you want to make a cheese sandwich, you have to create the universe. Yeah. Yeah. It's that. Yeah. Yeah. It really is.

Yeah. So there's it's kind of a new application and some new stuff added to their constitution. And as a result, there's a fair bit of tension. Also, Great Britain had been outsourcing its royalty for more than a century by the time King George took over. If you count James I as a Scott, not an Englishman. Yeah, as you rightly should. So George I was the German version of this outsourcing, which had previously been Scottish and then Dutch. now northern German before it was technically German.

And also, let's clarify a few things. England is England. Britain and Great Britain are the same thing. And it's comprised of England, Scotland, and Wales, basically the whole island. Yeah. The United Kingdom includes Great Britain, which is England, Scotland, and Wales, and also Northern Ireland. Yes. The British Isles include Great Britain, which is England, Scotland, and Wales, and also Northern Ireland,

and the rest of Ireland and the Isle of Man, but not the Channel Islands, as those are considered not a part of the British Isles, but rather the Crown dependencies. Yes. So when I say England, I'm probably being sloppy and mean Britain and or Britain. Yeah, you mean, yeah.

Yeah. It's like me saying Kleenex, you know. It's just tissue. Okay, so George I first, the German guy, before it was Germany. Right. came to rule as the king of Great Britain until he died in 1727 of a stroke on the way back to his home,

not where he ruled as king, but as the elector of Hanover. Right. One of the electorates of the Holy Roman Empire. Yes. Yeah. Now, once he died, he being George I first, George the second, George the first son, took over as king of Great Britain and ruled for a long-ass time.

Yeah. Okay. So wait, you said, you said, George the first died, 27, and he died in 60. Yeah. So that's 30 for the time period. That's a long-ass time, yeah, three decades. Yeah. Wow.

Most people get in a good 12 years. It's similar to being the Emperor of Rome. Like, if you get in 12 years, you're doing good. Yeah. You're probably still going to get murdered, but. So. Yeah. Risk of the job.

It's just, you know. There's like, I should do a, a. death analysis of emperors of Rome and just like who died due to what i you know what i would so be there for that and i'm sure of our of our 15 or 18 listers i'm sure at least seven or eight if that would be totally into that oh sure so yeah at least for the first episode of it yeah the first episode of six we you know okay on-air meeting we might want to do funniest deaths in history of important people because i don't i don't want to pick on people who Oh, yeah, no.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, funniest rulers deaths. Yeah, there you go. I could, I could get behind that. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. I like it.

All right. Maybe do it tournament style, you know. Be like the king of the ring. Yeah, as we love to do. Yeah. All right. So, uh, let's see. Uh, one of the reasons that the Hanover's were so desired was to blunt the claim to the throne

that James the second son, James Francis Edward Stewart. would have because that guy was a Catholic. Jacobites. Yes. And the parliament, which was now mostly in charge of England, which is called Britain, didn't want to go through that shit all over again for the third time. Okay, so hold on. This is 1727.

Yeah. All right. And I'm trying to remember. Uh-huh. So this is before the act of union. Trying to remember when the active union was. I do not have that. Okay.

I don't have that in bold in my notes, so I don't remember having put it in. Okay. So, all right. So Scotland and England are still two separate kingdoms. They are still two separate nations. They have not unified their parliaments yet. No, no, no. I think that act of union that unified them was in the early 1700s.

That was after James II had died, and it was during the reign of Queen Anne, if I recall. It might have been William and Mary, but I'm pretty sure it was Queen Anne. I think it predates George I first by just a couple years, because he didn't rule for that long. Oh, yeah, it's 1707. There you go. Two acts of the Parliaments of England and Scotland that united the two kingdoms.

Yeah. Okay, yeah. So I always, like in my head, I always think that the act of union post-dated the Jacobite uprisings. and I keep having to remember that no. No. Okay. All right.

Because you had a high degree of Scots who were Catholic still. Well, they were. What's interesting about the Highland Scots and their Catholicism is the Highland Scots and their Catholicism, their Catholicism was in large part a political thing. Yeah. They became Catholic. because of their allegiance to the Jacobite cause and because of the alliance with France of with that cause and that was that was most of it yeah when that when that fell apart they became all kind of Protestant schismatic which is yeah Presbyterians came from them

yeah which is a whole other yeah other fish of a different color that like we could spend a whole lot of time on. But anyway. All right. So George I second is king. So far, he's the last one to have been born outside of Great Britain. And George II had very little control over Britain's domestic policy because Parliament wasn't going to go back to that shit again either. So he spent his summers in Hanover, where as an elector, he actually had a lot more power. Oh, yeah. He was actually a head of state. Yeah. Instead of a figure head of state.

Instead of a, you know, symbolic monarch. He complied. He bitched. Oh, my God. He bitched about it. So this was part of my research was like so much quenching and groaning he did about. Like, you know, it was like, yeah, yeah, okay, fine. In England, I'm a king, but that doesn't fucking mean anything.

Right. Yeah, yeah. Much rather. Like, he. like I'm I'm I'm kind of it's kind of funny that he wasn't less popular in England because he he really did not yeah he really did not care for being king of England very much at all so also in the summer I assume the weather was nicer in Hanover just because probably in England yeah yeah Anyway, George Augustus, Georg August, to his friends, spent his youth trying to figure out who to marry because his dad, George I first, didn't want his son, George II, to befall the same fate as befell him.

George I didn't want an arranged marriage because for him, that was a loveless fucking marriage. So George Augustus kind of shopped around until he found Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach. Right. Now Caroline, Wilhelmina Charlotte Caroline, to her friends, was the orphaned noble ward of Frederick I. Frederick the first. Of Russia. Yeah.

He was the grandfather of the great. Okay. Okay. And yeah. And so she's the ward. So she would have been like a grandfather. She would have been like on par with Frederick the Great's aunt. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. In his enlightened court, along with his wife, Queen Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, they kind of treated her as a ward. Sophia was a big influence on Caroline, and Sophia's older brother was King George the first, because of course he was. Well, I mean, yeah. Yeah.

So a marriage between George II and Caroline of Brandenburg-onsbach was all kinds of good in making sure that Prussia and Hanover and Britain were tight. Right. Also, once George found Sweet Caroline, he didn't want anyone else to bop, bop, bop. The moment you said, sweet Caroline, I knew there was something coming. I knew it. And, yeah. And bop, they did.

They had eight kids. So it was a love match. Good for them. Yeah, exactly. Touching her. Touching him. You know, I'm glad since he hated being King of England so much, he had, you know, something in his life that made him happy. I agree. I fully agree.

So when George II and Caroline Brandenburg-onsbach went from Hanover to Great Britain to rule, they left their son, Frederick Lewis, in Hanover for 14 years. That's kind of a dick move. Yeah, well, it's some of it is like there are alliances that you can keep this way. Some of it is we got to figure this shit out and we don't want you being manipulative. manipulated against us, partly because George figured out because he got in with Parliament and was anti his dad for a while. Yeah. Yeah. So here's a different try, you know. Yeah. Now, Frederick Lewis, okay, so we're caught up. Frederick Lewis, son of King George the second. Right. Father of King George the third. Right. Okay. Frederick Lewis, it turns out he liked Parliament way better than he liked his parents. So. Which is a family tradition. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like. And. And since his parents were a little more than figureheads allowing influential men to rule in their name, I can kind of see why.

Yeah. Frederick was made Prince of Wales, per the custom. That title has been the heir apparent title for quite some time. Yes, since Henry the second. That goes back on fucking ways. Even if you're wrong by one, that's still like. I think it's Edward. I think it's Edward Longshanks.

Oh, really? Oh, no, it was he, oh, he might have, yeah, because he made his son the Prince of Wales. I know that. Yeah, yeah. It held up his infant son and said, I give you your new Prince of Wales. Yeah. Just as like a, hey, hey, fuck you. Yeah.

Yeah. That's what you get, people who are named Owen. It's a Welsh name. Yeah. Okay. So when Frederick Lewis was finally brought to England in 1728, one year after daddy took over, he was made the figurehead of the opposition to the king and his faction. Right.

So this means that Parliament and the faction of Parliament that wants more power for Parliament is standing against Parliament and the part of Parliament that thinks that it's a good idea to have the monarchy on their side. Yeah. And so, of course, that means that father and son are continuing the tradition going back to George the first and George Second's time of a opposing each other for power while those behind them are actually pulling the strings. Right. It just sounds fucking miserable. During the summer visits, George II would snub Frederick and instead allow Caroline to rule in his absence.

Yeah. So petty shit, considering how little actual power either of them actually had. So it's like, no, you don't get to cut the ribbon at Kmart. My wife will. Your mother will. Yeah, your mother is going to be the one signing all of the documents in the name of the sovereign. Yeah. So, and that's when he was, you know, so he would leave his wife and his son and snub his son.

And that's been the tradition between George II and his dad too, right? Yeah. Because George I first's wife kind of did the same. Now, of course, this also made Frederick ripe for the co-opting when his dad, George's second and his uncle-in-law, Frederick William of Prussia, got to saber-rattling. and mobilizing over Hanover's borders. So what's interesting about that is the relationship you describe between them is 100% spot on. But prior to 56. Oh, I'm way before 56.

I'm not even to 37. Okay. Yeah. But the order of alliance in. Europe was that Britain was allied to the Austrians. Right. And Prussia was allied with the French. Yes.

And I know all of this because I was researching the start of the seven years war. Right, right. And it was the formalization of an agreement between the British and the Prussians in order to protect Hanover that led the French to finally pull the trigger on. making alliance with the Russians and the Austrians. Right. In the, what is referred to as the diplomatic revolution. Yeah.

And then like literally, either days before or after that, the French attacked the British Navy at Toulon. Mm-hmm. And that was what led the British to finally declare the seven years war, which had already really been going on in North America since 1754. Right, because you had the French Indian War. Yeah.

That, like, was basically the, the pre-com to the jizz that was the seven years ago yeah uh yeah you could call it yeah you can put that in your paper it's fine yeah you know you know i wish i had frankly um it was especially since there's a naval battle you could be it's the pre-semen so yeah yeah so i'm not even mad about that one so anyway and then of course that leads to like the louis marrying their kids to austrians and just all kinds of fun so So they're mobilizing and saber-rattling over Hanover, and this leads to a prolonged and unproductive negotiation to put a stop to it

by trying to marry Frederick's Williams, trying to marry Frederick Williams' daughter, Louisa Ilrica to, okay, yeah, marrying Frederick Williams' daughter, Louisa Ilrika to William Frederick. of William Frederick of Hanover of Hanover yeah yeah yeah George's boy okay right okay so yeah

god damn Frederick's that's the problem it's like everybody's Frederick's there's this wonderful chiasmus that's happening though William Frederick Frederick William you know yeah like Louisa Ulrika is in the middle you know yeah even her name it sounds kind of what's the word palindromic almost. Yeah. It's got a symmetry to it.

Fucking Germans. So. Yeah. Now after nine years of that negotiation, it fell apart. And Frederick, Prince of Wales, married instead Princess Augusta of Soxey Gotha Altenberg instead. Bet she had some really killer eyeliner, those gothers. I think this was the beginning of the big titty goth girl.

Okay. I say this. for him. I say again, you know. Well, okay, so we'll pull back just a little bit for a second because I have to acknowledge that she was 15 when they were wed. And he was a real asshole to her, but they did have nine kids. So the odds are her hind milk did come in. So, and once she's an adult, we can make that joke.

Anyway. Yeah. The problem was Frederick William, the Prince of Wales, not William. William Frederick, the king of Prussia, Frederick William used his wife, Princess Augusta of Saxe Gotha Altenberg, to keep attacking his parents by doing all sorts of petty shit through her.

For instance, he would make it so that she would arrive late after the queen arrived so that she would have to push past the queen, because clothing being what it was, to get to her seat. Wow. Yeah, all sorts of

That is That is Championship level petty It is And like the queen actually said She's like if I believed for a second That she had thought to do these things on her own I would be upset

But I know that it's my son Basically like I feel bad for this girl being married to my son Wow This is what happens when your kid's gone for 14 years And you don't really reconcile shit You know Yeah

and you're like, you know, ruling where he feels like he should. Yeah. Anyway, so a whole bunch of other stuff that I couldn't care much less about other than to say that Frederick was an asshole to his wife and also his parents and he were massive assholes to each other. Yeah. Plenty of asshole to go around. Anyway, as time went on, Britain had all sorts of internal and external issues that they were contending with. And Frederick and George II continued to publicly quarrel with each other, even. after the death of Sweet Caroline in 1737.

Okay. So she's gone, gone, gone. Yeah. So now the thing about England is, anytime it gets into a war anywhere, it gets into a war everywhere. Okay, yeah. It just does.

So keep that in mind as just kind of a guiding principle. Now in 1751, Frederick died. Yeah. He died of a way. what's likely a pulmonary embolism, which I guess is a blood clot that lodges in your lung. Yeah, and it kicks loose and it causes all kinds of havoc. Yeah. Though initially people thought that he had been hit hard in the chest by a cricket ball

because he was a huge booster of cricket. Like, cricket became popular because of him. Wow. Yeah. So, anyway, he boosted this new. sport. It wasn't what killed him, but anyway, it was probably a P.E. Anyway, with Frederick dead, his first son by his wife,

who had died in 37, George was the heir apparent. Right. Oh, I'm sorry, his, let's see, he, did, do, do, da, oh, that's right. He married Princess Augusta. That's after, okay, okay. So George II

Even though his son was an asshole to him It's a bummer that you pre-deceased me kid But he was actually really kind Oh, because Caroline was George II's wife That's what it was right, right So Augusta is a widow And George II is a widower Yeah

And he's actually really kind to his son's widow And his son's kids He even named his daughter-in-law as regent upon his own possible death. Oh, well. Okay. Now, nine years later, in 1760, George I second, died one morning.

In what I can only describe as the most ideal way for a person to die. He woke up, had a cup of hot chocolate, and took a shit. And then the aneurism got him. Yeah, like instantaneously lights out. What, like, you know, that feeling of it's all out and then he dies.

So the only taste he had in his mouth was the chocolate and then he took a shit and then he died. Like that's so wonderful. Like, would that we could all go that way. Like, everybody's like to die while I'm fucking. I'm like, that's terrible to the person that you're fucking. Yeah, that's an awful thing.

They won't notice for at least three strokes. So, so, yeah, this is, this is way better. Yeah. Like I I I it's a much more compassionate a lot less selfish. Yes. Yes. Yes. And just like I'm sorry like you know as I get older.

Taking a shit's a good feeling. You know it just you feel accomplished. You know you're out of danger. You know and just to die with that relaxation. Yes. Yes. Like everything just. Yes.

Yeah. And having had hot chocolate just before that. Yeah. Dude. Wonderful. Yeah. So if ever there's a good way to go. And that's where our story will really start, or shart, if you will.

But little Georgie the third, the grandson of George II, his father pre-deceased his grandfather. So when grandpa made boom-boom after Coco, he was now king at 22 years old. Right. Okay. Now the next year, at the age of 23, George III got married. And he and his queen, Charlotte again, Charlotte of Mecklenburg Straitz, they had 15 kids during their marriage oh yeah

yeah and that's a lot like yeah you talk about you talk about you know marriages that you look at and you're like this this you know was a love match

I don't remember whether it was arranged or not but either way all of the oh it was a loving marriage yeah and a loving marriage yeah yeah I mean think about this she spent more time pregnant than a person gets for vehicular manslaughter.

That's a very, very pointed way of putting that. Yes. Oddly specific, somehow. I wanted to know. Yeah. Now, yeah, go ahead. Well, also, George III. Yes.

was the first king in a number of generations now to have been born and grown up in England. Yes. So he is more English than he is Hanoverian. Yeah. He's also, well, I mean, he is by by real estate. Yes. Yeah. And in the ways that matter to people who count those kinds of things, yes.

I would also point out he is, by that definition, he is more. English than anyone since Elizabeth. Okay. Because it was James, Scots, Charles, his son. Yeah. Charles, I believe his brother. And then his son, James. Yeah.

All from the Scottish line. Yeah, yeah. And then it was William and Mary from the Netherlands and from Orange. And then Anne, who I forget where she was from. I think she was also from, she was from William and Mary's line. Yeah. And then everybody was Hanoverian. Hanoverian.

Yeah, Hanoverian. And it actually makes it much more English than Victoria. Oh, how so? Victoria was, if I remember correctly, born in Germany. Oh, wow. Okay. So there's a great line. Yeah, there's a great line in Blackadder goes forth.

Mm-hmm. Where they're interrogating somebody. There's, you know, rumors of, you know, a German spy in the ranks. Victoria was born in Kensington Palace in England. Oh, okay. In London specifically, actually. Okay. She is to England, what George Carlin was to New York.

Okay. So I'm remembering the joke wrong then, but the gag in Blackadder was somebody says, I'm his English as Queen Victoria. And Rowan Atkinson in fine form goes, oh, so you're telling me that your mother was a German, something else that I don't remember had you married a German? I mean, that's all true. You know.

Yeah. Yeah. That's all definitely true. Yeah. Yeah. Her mother was absolutely a German. I sent you via TikTok. I found a channel that shows me

like royal births and shit like that. Yeah. Not the actual birthing process. Yeah, no, obviously. But it shows her maternal line, which I was like, wow. That's some German life there. Anyway.

So. Yeah. George, unlike those who came before him, never took a mistress. Wow. Yeah. So all his kids were of the proper line, according to, you know, consanguinity rules and such. And by most accounts, I read, they were a loving couple. Now, George III was the first of the George, oh, fucking Christ.

He was the first of the Georges who were born in Britain, like you said. Yeah. So back to being fully British by however you measure these things. And if you're following along, you know that he took the throne while Britain was at war with France during the seven years war. Yes. I don't know how long that war lasted, but I do know that it included a British conquest of Canada and a final victory in India for Britain against France, and they pushed them out of both places.

Yes. It also involved the British taking hold of French colonies in the Caribbean. Yes. Which is what ultimately in the negotiations that led to the end of the war, the French gave up everything they had in North America in order to hold on to the Caribbean colonies. Right. Because the Caribbean colonies were the moneymakers. Oh, God, yeah.

Yeah. That's where like 70% of the slaves went. Yeah. Because they were thoroughly expendable, unfortunately. Yes. And sugar. It was a thousand percent. Yeah.

Sugar was the revenue generator. Yeah. Because you get the sugar, the molasses, the rum, like you just, yeah. Anyway, so what do you call it? The thing is, at this time, like I said, when Britain got in a war in one place, they got in war in all the places. And so the French and Indian War was the precursor to the Seven Years' War. Now, it also meant fighting between the French and the British over Hanover, which is

Georgia's ancestral lands. And this led to Prussia, like you were saying, deciding that. although the British won against France, they didn't need to be tied to Britain anymore. And there was some back and forth with Frederick the Great over Silesia. You remember Silesia from one of our episodes on the unicorn, Einhorn-Hon-Hollin. Yep. Yep.

Silesians. So, but basically the Great Britain forgave Frederick's debts and seemed poised to cut ties and let Prussia fall to the Russian invasion. However, Russia's invasion was halted by the death of Empress Elizabeth and the succession of Peter the 3rd, the least impressive of all the Peters.

He was the most flaccid of the Peters, and he was overthrown a half a year later by his wife, Catherine the Second. Catherine the Great. Yes.

So, anyway, I think that Britain ended up at war with Spain and Portugal alternately during the Seven Years' War as well, because where you go one, you go all?

That set of alliances was really bizarre. The Spanish basically got dragged into the war by the French. Right. And Portugal, because of Portugal's relationship to Spain, Portugal traditionally was an ally of England.

It's a weird, yeah. But also they were hanging on to colonies and Britain was trying to get into the Africa game. And yeah, there's, there's, okay, so this new king, who's all for fucking his wife has to deal with so many places wanting to fight, the Brits. And none of that includes the places where they were taking over the native peoples, too.

Attempts on Cuba and the Philippines and India, as I mentioned. Senegal, Newfoundland, Martinique, fucking everywhere while he was fucking all the time. Anyhow, the Treaty of Paris, which I have to say which Treaty of Paris, because there's a lot of them, but the Treaty of Paris of 1763 ended the Seven Years' War and all the rest of the fighting. and by this point George the 3rd is 25 years old. He's not in charge of the government. I need to just like really hammer that home like I'm him with his wife. Yeah.

Pitt the elder. He's in charge of the government. Yeah. It's parliament all the way down, dear boy. And again, the king is only so important because constitutional monarchy is fledgling, but still he's also pretty damned important because it's a very damn important because it's a really young constitutional fledgling a monarchy. Now, because of the sweeping British victory all over the world, American colonists were

feeling themselves, and they were like, we don't like this proclamation of 1763 because it comes at the tail end of the French Indian War, which the American colonists kind of sparked. Kind of. Yeah. Kind of. I was doing the understatement thing. Yeah, no. Yeah, you're doing the understatement thinking, now I'm going to do what I do.

which is I pounce on it and like, oh, no. So, so George Washington, this is one of those moments that when you learn about how the French and Indian War got started. Yes. It forever alters your perception of literally world history. It certainly should. George, I want to be Cincinnati's Washington. Yes. was responsible for an attack on a French set of fortifications.

Yep. That led to one way or the other, you know, the French argued that Washington was directly responsible for it. There's evidence to indicate it happened because of lack of control of allied Native American groups who operated by a different set of rules. basically the French characterized Washington as being responsible for the murder of a French subaltern junior officer. Okay. Under a flag of truce. Because I thought this also was, what's his face? Oh, fucking, what's the guy's name?

The guy that wasn't George Washington, but he actually, Braddock. No, Braddock's expedition is later. Oh, okay. went on Braddock's expedition in 1755. Oh, that's the jump for necessity is what I'm talking about. Oh, no, no, there's the Jumman Glenn. Is that what it is? I don't remember the name of the, yeah, Jumon, Jum, something.

Jumonville. Might be. Jumonville. Yeah. Anyway, there was, there was, they were making an attempt to essentially knock down or claim territory in the Ohio. that in the Ohio River Valley. Yeah.

That was really important to the Virginia company. Yes. That was really important to the French. Right. Because it was like a fork of several rivers. It was a fork of several rivers. Yeah, it was a fork of several rivers. And the British government and the French government had been like having negotiations that went nowhere for like four years prior to this.

So enter the American. Both sides. Well, hold on. So both sides sent military forces down in there. As soon as the Virginians got when French were sending people, they were like, well, we can't let that happen. Right. So Washington went. This junior French officer got killed, which gave the French justification for sending more troops in.

Right. And Washington and his men were surrounded and he was forced to sign surrender papers. And that was at necessity, right? That was for necessity. Yeah. And then that led to, and then that military experience led the Continental Congress to choose him as commander of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War. Yes. That and the other service he gave in the seven years war that followed.

But yeah. And he was the only came dressed up for the part. Yeah. And that can't help but shift your mind a little. Oh, no, obviously. Yeah. Like, yeah. And that's also wondering why I'm in this job interview dressed like Batman.

You know. And there was also, there were two generals. It wasn't Richard Lee, but it was like, I think it was Richard Martin. Harry Lee. Well, yeah, that was Harry Lee. But there's a different thing. But there was a guy named Richard Martin and Richard Pilsden. I don't remember the last name.

Pilsden. Something? I don't know. But anyway, both of them went into Taekondroga, and that's where we got Dixon Taekondroga. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Nice. Nice.

Yeah. Anyway. So the colonists did not like being told, hey, stop it. And they were like, no, you can't tell me that. I'm away at college. I don't care if you're paying for the whole thing. And then the British parliament was like, by the way, you cost us. a lot of fucking money, we're going to need to actually tax you for once.

And they're like, no, no, I, I, I, me and the broskies were going to go chug. And now you're saying that I have to use my own money for laundry? Like, what the fuck? And so all that to say that the American colonists did not like the proclamation of 1763 because it forbade American colonists expansion into the new territories that were one from the French west of the Appalachia. The reason why it pissed them off is because, well, that's just native people. there. We get to have that. And the Brits were like, no. No, like later, let's, we'll go slow.

Like we always do. Look like, okay. There's a way to do this. Yeah, I genuinely, I genuinely think that that world history would have gone radically differently, or at least North American history, it would have gone radically differently. If Parliament had had just had somebody who's like, just let me go talk to him and explain it. everything. Like, okay, look, yeah. We understand that a whole lot of you are Scots and it's like, fuck you all, I'm going to go do my own thing over here on my own. We understand that. We sent you here. Like, we get that. Okay. But, but let's explain that when you go over that mountain chain, we can't help you anymore. Or if we try to help you, it's going to be way more expensive.

There should have been like a letter of divorce. Like if you do that, you don't get our protection. Yeah. Like. And they didn't. Yeah. And that's the thing is like the colonies were peopled with second sons. And all the rich guys had already gotten the good land.

So what's the point of fighting alongside native people if you're not going to try to betray them afterwards? And what's the point of fighting for Britain to gain more territory if you can't turn that betrayal into more land for yourself? I mean, Obvi. Yeah. And the funny part was it was not a permanent ban. The British Crown was just like, just be orderly. Don't rush into stealing native territories willy-nilly.

We can let us send redcoats. Like we still have the Highland Regiments armed and we want to keep them out of Britain. So like, we've got people. Yeah. The parliament wanted a sustainable genocide. not something that was just thrown together, but the American colonists were like, no. Honestly, they reminded me of me when I was three,

and I wanted my cookie before the carousel, not after the carousel. The only difference was that the colonists ended up forcing things to get their way. I had to wait. You're not bitter about it at all. No, I had it coming, bro. I did.

So I was that shit that, like, I would sit in the in the in the in the and my mom was broke as fuck when I was three right right so I'm in the the the basket in like the supermarket and I'd be like hey can I have those cookies and she's like no well what about those cookies no what about those no and I would wait until somebody's walking by and I would cover my head and go no don't beat me and then she put the cookies and to shut me the fuck up wow so when I wanted my before the carousel. And she said, no, enough times she was holding my hand.

And I started yelling and going, ow, ow, you're breaking my arm. You're breaking my arm. And she squeezed and turned and said, I will break it off right now. If you don't get up and stand up and get on that carousel, you are getting your cookie after. And again, I was still getting a cookie. Yeah. So when I say that the American colonists were like three old meat, I mean. You're not kidding.

Yeah. Wow. So now the Treaty of Fort Stanwyx in 1768 and then the Treaty of Lockaber, Lockaber in 1770 allowed for that expansion. Yeah. But American colonists kept pushing into indigenous territory long before that and every time they did and they spiked a fight. That meant that the British crown was obligated to send troops to bail their asses out over and over again. And here's the thing. Bailing out means soldiers, and soldiers need places to stay and need to be paid. And as such, the British Crown wanted the American colonists to pay for a little bit of the necessity that they were forcing by their own lack of patience as well as to pay for the efforts to do it proper like from those other treaties.

Right. And the way to pay for that is taxes. And the way that they had the soldiers stay at the ready because the colonists kept. kept pushing. So since the British subject slash American colonists couldn't wait, that meant that we need to park the soldiers in your house because you keep picking fights so close to your house,

you stupid, stupid man. And that happened all up and down. Yeah. So now, fast forward, and you find a bunch of angry, entitled, remote from their bosses, colonists, and they're all sorts of pissed off about all sorts of taxes. and they and their fellow colonists were kind of making all of this necessary.

And then you start to see several acts of parliament. Now, this is under George the third by the time we get caught up to what I'm talking about. Now, there was something called the Molasses Act of 1733. Right. It had sundowned, and so it was renewed. And then I think it was folded into what's called the Sugar Act of 1764. and of course the famous Stamp Act of 1765, all of these were aimed at paying for the services

that the Americans kept forcing and demanding. Like, I cannot emphasize that part enough. And the people who objected the most to this were not the ones out on the frontier. They were the ones who had already gotten the good cut of the beef. Yeah. So it's just like, I never feel bad for the British. ever because they're the British.

But in this instance, I do because they had to deal with the Americans. So you get to the Declaratory Act of 1765, which repealed the Stamp Act and amended the Sugar Act. And it was an effort to say, okay, fine, fine, fine, we won't tax you. But that made Americans kind of smell themselves, right? So it was kind of a calm before the storm. And essentially, the Declaratory Act was set up to streamline. and set up enforceable taxes later to pay for the things

that the American colonists demanded but didn't want to pay for. And what it did was it set a precedent for Parliament getting to decide everything about the taxes in the Americas, which is very similar to what they did in the Irish Declaration Act of 1719, which gave Parliament massive amounts of statutory power over Ireland. Now, most Americans were happy with this act because it reduced the taxes. and they didn't see the long game being played

because they're Americans. Yeah, I was going to say, because we never do as a people. And here's the thing. Like, if you, as Parliament, say, we are rescinding these taxes. This has nothing to do with anything that you asked for. We're rescinding. You're setting that precedent.

It's almost like judicial review saying, you don't tell us what court cases to review. We do. Like, it's that same kind of thing. The Americans didn't see it. Now, luckily, Americans are much savvier now and they don't give away long-term liberties for short-term promises

of reduction in taxes on things like tips or lower egg prices or some such thing in exchange for federal gendarmes attacking civilians and kidnapping people. Could you imagine us not being able to spot that a mile away since we want kids to know all about the Revolutionary War? Mm.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So in 1765, Parliament, funkadelic, as it was, repealed the unpopular taxes that actually paid for the stuff. There you go. Oh, I got you. Actually, that's a good one. I like that. And if I ever teach American

history, I'm going to have to find a way to work that into it. Because that's, that's genius. Yeah. And I just, I just have to, the bit before that leads me to say, when I tell you that that Americans have always been this way. I mean that Americans have always been this way. You mean believing their own K-Fabe. Oh, like, like, obviously we invented cave, cave, look where we came from. Yeah.

Like, for fuck's sake. Oh. Okay. All right. So, yeah, they repealed the unpopular tax. that actually paid for the stuff that the American colonists kept making necessary, and it sets the stage for Parliament to indirectly, instead of directly, tax the colonists. And we all know what happened after that.

Boston did what Boston does. And so did New Hampshire. And this all led to Parliament passing five separate laws to punish Massachusetts for their part in such violence as the Tea Party and the Boston Massacre. Right. Americans called these the intolerable acts. and it was totally it was a series of five laws i forget the exact exact names for him i think i cut that part out believe it or not yes virginia there is editing um it was totally meant to quell and cow the troublemakers in boston but that's boston and it's not going to go that way because it's

boston because boston yeah you know in this period in history philadelphia hadn't started throwing batteries at Santa Claus, but Boston's true. Boston was still Boston. Yeah. You know. Yeah. So names of cities you don't want to fuck with. Yeah, no kidding.

Like, no kidding. So at this point, George the 3rd is in his mid-30s. And he's still fucking. He did. Christmas. I had forgotten that he was that young. Yes. And he didn't like how Parliament was handling the American.

but he also didn't like how his own family was behaving. So guess which one that he focused on? The one that he had any say over. Right, yeah. He's the constitutional monarch. He's a figurehead. Yeah. His brother, George's brother, was a serious philanderer,

which bugged the shit out of George. And so George sought Parliament's passage of several laws restricting his own family's marriage rights. That's what he focused on. Oh, wow. And he made it And again, Parliament kind of needs to appease the king. It's this weird, again, the constitutional monarchy is not set in stone yet.

Like, yeah, and people think that 1689 happened and boom, it's all this. And it's like, no, it took like a hundred plus years of growing pains. And on a very important level, he is still the one who can tell the army what to do. Yeah. You know, because they are there are the king's number regiment of type, you know. And yet he has to be careful because look what happened to the last king who told them to go fuck off. Well, yeah, obviously. Right.

But, you know, but, you know, you're getting to your point of, you know, where the, where the fault lines and, you know, everything are, you know. so yeah there's there's still this and and even even to this day within the constitutional structure of great Britain there is still the idea that the sovereign is the head of state even though the prime minister is the one who you know does all the work runs the government and makes it actually happen right it's it's like the the sovereignty of the nation on a very meaningful symbolic level is still personified in the king or queen.

Yeah, that being said, the queen's disapproval of Boris Johnson did not matter. Well, yeah, no. Yeah, indeed. So. Yeah, but certainly at this period in history, yes, like, you know, William,

yeah, William Pitt, the elder, got kicked out and then reinstated because of royal family shit. Exactly. Yeah. There is, I want you to put my guy in charge. Well, you'd better pick the right one then.

Like, it's that, like weird, kind of weird. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is a weird kind of K-fab.

But, yeah. So he focuses on his own family. Yes. And he's like, I want you to limit laws. Yeah. Saying that I should make a legal thing.

I get to define and decide my family's marriage rights. The king does. So very Augustus. Very. Very balanced, very tolerant. Very demure. Yes. Now, because George was so involved in seeking to increase his own power and to increase

sway over his own family, he was largely absent from the laws and acts that the American colonists found so awful. And because George ignored the American colonies, their anger found him as the main icon of their discontent. He's not even paying attention to us. Fuck him. Yeah. Neglectful.

Yeah. George and Parliament ignored the American Colonist petition after all their petitions after 1775. And that only incensed the American colonists more. If only they didn't see themselves as the main characters in this whole. whole thing. Things might have been different, but they're Americans. Now, Thomas Payne wrote about George and the Continental Congress roasted George. I think Payne called him the, a European brute. Okay. Yeah, that sounds very pain-like. Yeah. He was big on inflaming people. So,

so, yeah, people start speaking specifically against the king, which some of it's against the office, but they're personifying George the third. And the thing is, he's an empty vessel in so many ways because they're pouring all their hate for anything he does or doesn't do. They're like, see, he's saying, fuck you to us.

And it's like, bro, you don't matter. Like, India is so much more important right now. And he's not fucking with them either because he doesn't have that kind of power. And in fact, there have been some examination saying, and I think I talked about us later too, that George specifically stayed out of the American stuff because he wanted to back Parliament

as being the number one legislative body. He didn't want there to be any confusion. So anyway, in the summer of 1776, the Americans had had it with him. Yep. Now, to get to where I'm trying to go, I need to talk to you about the third century BC. Okay, you do you.

We're stepping in the way back machine. All right. So before I can talk you about that, I got to talk about trade wins. Yeah. So before I get to 250 years ago, I got to go back to millennia and some change. There's a Godarin-born-born Phoenician cynic named Manipius, or Manipius, who began a genre of satire, which means that I may have actually been wrong about the Romans inventing satire, although I do maintain that they invented certain strains of it.

Okay. But there were satirist prior to the Romans. Okay. So Manipi and satire. Yes. None of Manipius's works survive. So this is fun. But Lucian of Samosata and Marcus Torentius Vero and Decim, I'm going to try to

anglicize this. Decimus Junius, Juvenalis. God, you guys, it's Deciumus, Junius, Uwanata. Isn't that better? Just do it that way. Just do it the way you're more comfortable. Marcus Trentius warro and decimus unius, Yuanalis, all refer to him as their influences. Okay.

Now, Manipus. Oh, juvenile. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yes, juvenile. Now, Manipus enjoyed roasting the Stoics and the Epicureans because he was the disaffected teenager in the back of the room who pretends to understand the collected works of

Honor de Balzac um instead of reading like you know Steinbeck um anyway Minipus's version of satire tended to attack the culture and the ideas not the person but satirists

who followed him used caricatures of people whom they used to stand in for those cultural norms okay so I'm roasting the the upper class twit who I'm going to call Billy right Billy bad money

right I'm roasting Billy bad money I'm making him right a version of this is actually in satiricon whereas like the guy giving

the dinner party is just a fucking idiot and oh and so they roast what a fucking idiot is but it's really he's a cutout

for all upper class twittering right in a related note yes have you seen either of the knives out movies yeah I've seen them both

okay so Billy bad money is Don Johnson in glass onion he oh in glass onion yeah oh no so in in

in glass onion he would be Edward Norton yeah that's what I'm talking about okay I was I was talking about the first one oh in the first one no I'm in glass onion he'd yeah thousand percent Edward Norton no it's just stupid

yeah there was one line in that movie I loved above all the others and it was because it was during COVID right yeah and the woman who was I think a functionary of a state senator in Maine or something like that she's

having a party in her house and somebody's like isn't that dangerous she's like oh they're all in my bubble and I'm like and then she shows up on the dock and she's wearing a bedazzled mask yeah and it's just mesh bedazzled and it like there's no like I had a student

actually show up and in in when we first came back to classrooms. Oh, yeah. I had a kid show up in one of those, and I was ready to spit nails. Oh, same. I was so angry. I sent the kid to the office,

and our principal had to have a very long conversation with that parent. So I dare say that the reason that masking didn't work in the schools, because it didn't, was because we had spent so much of our emotional, social and intellectual capital for the last 15 years policing kids dress codes so they saw their minimal compliance

the chin bib they saw that the same way that they saw what do you call it a dress code yeah so fair okay so satirists like I said they they you know made a caricature

and sometimes it was a caricature of a real Roman, you know, that kind of thing. And they especially loved incompetence who were in power. And these Manipian satirists playing with this genre would use soaring, absolute, and hyperbolic rhetoric to make their point. And it often came in rapid fire lists. And to be honest, Romans loved a good list, too. I recall reading a poem by Marshall that was essentially just an ode to John Sina for its time. That's all it was.

that it was talking all about this specific gladiator and just listing his name first for every time and here's, I actually pulled the poem because it's just so fun. The gladiator is named Hermes and there's a couple other gladiators. One is named Adwolan's, which means flying toward.

And the other one is named Helius which named after the sun, right? And Hermes is named after a very fleet-footed god. right right so let's you know just okay so hermes the martial pleasure of an age hermes well learned in all arms hermes both gladiator and teacher hermes the confusion and terror of his school hermes the only one to whom heli or the only one whom helius fears and again there's a fun little you know the sun fears hermes right hermes the only one for whom ad wulans fell hermes taught to conquer not to kill uh

A lot of people don't know this. Most of them were to the first blood or to the fall. They were not to the death. And if you could get a guy to fall without stabbing him through, you were better. Hermes himself, his only substitute. Hermes, the wealth of the scalpers. Hermes, the care and the heartthrob of the slave girls. Hermes, warlike and proud with his spear.

Hermes, menacing with a sea trident. Hermes, his plumed helmet drooping to be feared. Hermes, glory of all kinds of battle. Hermes, alone is all and three and one. Nice. Yeah. So I really love the fact that he mentions scalpers. Yes.

Like how. Cessadores, if I recall, which means ticketers. Nice. How very, how very, when I tell you that organized athletics is always, has been this way. I mean that, yeah. Wow. Oh, they, they had sponsorship deals.

The Gladiators had sponsorship deals. Yeah, I've heard about that before. They sold their sweat. Like, yeah. They would, they would like straight up like, you know, when I'm out there in the sands in the arena, I'm grateful that my blood is enervated by Bill's garlic. If you want good garlic, go down the road. You can't miss it.

Just three miles off the Appian way. Like straight up, like... Bob Scaram. Yeah. Yeah. So, anyway, among the American colonists, about five years after George I third was born, the third son of Peter and Jane Jefferson was born in 1743.

I couldn't actually trace this man's back, his line back beyond his grandfather, who himself had been born in St. Kitts. But Thomas Jefferson was part of a long line of British subjects who didn't live in Britain going back at least three generations on his father's side alone. His mom was actually born near London.

Oh, all right. Yeah. Now, anyway, Thomas Jefferson's family was tied to the land. Well, tied, not to the land, tied to the, like, the landed, not quite wealthy people of Virginia, going back for generations.

They were like, they seemed to be part of that group of rich folks who were always on the cusp of ruin, but not quite falling off. every year. Oh yeah. They had all kinds of non-liquid assets. Yes.

But their actual day-to-day operations were always on the brink of bankruptcy and everything was held together by loans. Yep. Which is part of the reason why as a class they hated and distrusted banks as much as they did. Yes. Yes. Which at the same time, the banks were the reason they were able to keep their lifestyle.

Now, I can only imagine how quickly his family would have fallen if they had to pay their laborers. Anyway. Oh, yeah. So young Thomas was tutored and raised alongside family friends, the Randolph's, because his dad had been made executor of the Randolph plantation. And they had their own plantation, but his dad had been made the executor of it. And so for a good chunk of Thomas' childhood, his whole family moved over to that other plantation so his dad could run that for them. So by 1752, Thomas, then age nine, began learning the classics, being learning science, math, French, horsewriting, gardening, history, etc. And he seemed to have taken to it rather quickly.

By the time Thomas Jefferson was 16, he went to college at William and Mary College, and he got a, good at playing the violin and better at philosophy and math, and he kept improving in Latin and Greek. Thomas Jefferson was a brilliant and dedicated student. In fact, not at first, because his first year there, he partied hard. Oh, really? And his grades fell. And he was like, I don't like that. And he dedicated himself to no fewer than 15 hours a day of study. I know. Wow. Yeah. Now, by the time, time Thomas Jefferson was 24, so this is 1767. He was known for his intelligence and his curiosity, and he was admitted to the bar. And Thomas Jefferson loved his books. He was not unlike many learned men of his time, drawing on the classics as a way to understand philosophy and modern

politics. And since his plantation relied on stolen labor, he had the time to read all those books that he collected, including the works of Quintus Horatius Flacus, who was a satirist who wrote in hexameter verses for his gentle but effective satire. Okay. So 1776 rolls around, okay, nine years later. So Thomas is 33. Yeah. And his friend and colleague in the Continental Congress, John Adams, suggested that it should

be Thomas Jefferson who writes their Declaration of Independence because Thomas is an ostensibly wealthy wealthy Virginia. So that's going to help the whole group in general. Yeah. You got the Southerners. And Thomas writing this in committee, but mostly taking it on himself, focused on the excesses of the Irsewhile King George III. Right.

Now, by, yeah, go ahead. I just have to interject here that this is possibly one of the best numbers in 1776 is Mr. Jefferson, dear Mr. Jefferson, I'm obnoxious and disliked. You know it's so. It's ever so. In the musical, 1776, John Adams goes to Jefferson and tries to get him to write the the Declaration of Independence and you know nobody likes me you're popular right everybody acknowledges that you're brilliant yeah you need to be told write it yeah yeah it's so interesting because like a lot of my understanding of John Adams comes from the HBO

miniseries I never really studied these colonial guys much okay um so I have no idea how close to John Adams, Paul Giamati was in his portrayal or anything like that. But I do know, because I've dug in based in that, you know, and been like, oh shit, they're using actual quotes. Yeah. But yeah. So let's see. So by 1776, George III is struggling to hold together all sorts of the pieces of the British Empire and keep some measure of power in his own

government. Right. By this point, the expression of royal power seems to have been largely expressed through whom the monarch suggests be in charge of different parts of the government and whether or not parliament agreed. Again, constitutional monarchy, but still a developing constitutional monarchy. Yes. So there's things popping off in Africa and in India, the East India companies bullshit and the

American colonies all at once. And so America is not big. on George's radar. And meanwhile, George I 3rd is fighting with the House of Commons and the House of Lords over appointments to the prime ministership.

But he also had to appoint people whom Parliament would approve of despite his personal dislike of them. And so now the American colonies are sending some sort of letter about something. I don't have time for this shit. Someone else handle this.

Right. Like, you guys don't want me to be king, so fucking you handle it, right? You don't actually want me making any decisions. Why are you foistick this on me? Right. Yeah. You know, and so what was vital to American colonists and their sense of self-importance

and what has been made canon events for our own history was a drippy faucet in a room that the British government sometimes passed through. That's it. Like for the monarch? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I think it was a bigger deal for parliament. But also, they're running a worldwide empire.

Oh, they totally. They totally are. But we had made a major enough pain of ourselves that we were costing a lot of money. So let me ask you this. Yeah. You have that, we always have that kid in our class who takes up way more space than he should. Yes. And it's always a he.

Well, maybe not always, but more often than not. More often than not. Um, and he is annoying as shit. But by about February, how much do you really put into managing him? This is, this is where you and I differ. Yeah. Because fucking I am gonna,

I'm like, do what you do. Don't scare the horses. Credit recovery is free. I don't know what to fucking tell you. If you want to get on the work for what we're doing, go for it. I'm here for you. But until you show me. some good faith. I've been doing everything with you since August. It's February. You're going to

figure the shit out or not. That's how I see Parliament treating America because they've got India. Like they had a whole famine to engineer to drive up the prices on food. They have, you know, a whole bunch of destabilization projects that they need to continue doing in Africa. Like there's a lot of like extractive economies they need to set up and shit like that. America is, kind of running itself and has shown that it's just going to it we're just going to lose money over there for a while they're irritating yeah i mean i'm not saying there weren't parliamentarians who didn't make it their sheer focus they absolutely did but in the grand scheme of things i think it would make i think it would it would make for an interesting uh analysis of you know

parliamentary business yeah i i i see what you're saying Yeah. And I think it would it would be it would be worth writing a thesis on. I just, I think that. If I had the time. I think that Americans way overestimate how much space we took up in British heads at that time. I won't disagree with that. Yeah.

But I, but I just, I think the analogy that you used might be going a little bit far the other way. Okay, fair enough, fair enough. So, George's own sense of victory came in the men that he liked getting approved of getting appointed to high positions, contrary to what the House of Commons wanted, and that was basically what he was embroiled in. So, nah. Now, it wasn't George's political acumen or his military genius that rallied the British people around him either. the British people loved George III because he was a loving husband, faithful to his wife and God-fearing. They liked that a lot. Yeah.

So I cannot emphasize this enough. The man whom Thomas Jefferson would demonize via the Declaration of Independence was at worst, painfully aloof to what was the most important thing in the American colonies at the time. Fair. Yeah. What he was not at this time was mad. The beginning of what people characterized this as madness didn't happen in earnest until 1788. And it appears that he had a manic episode and needed to go to a spa retreat in Cheltenham to recuperate after Parliament closed session in August of 1788. And while he was there, he was far from his beloved wife and children, which seemed to make shit worse and his mania got worse.

And this is where you hear about the madness of King George. It was verbal and written, right? He's talking on and on and on for hours, writing the same phrase over and over again. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Right. You know, that kind of thing. Nice.

Thank you. He'd talk until he was hoarse. Like he clearly was having a breakdown. And some of that might have been because he was away from the support network that he had. Yeah. There's a fascinating

modern kind of interpretation of his madness in of all things the Bridgerton TV series which I assume you are not

familiar yeah my wife is a huge fan friend of the show Bishop is a big fan other friends of ours are our big big big fans and I have gotten sucked into it. And the depiction in that show of the relationship between George and his wife and the depiction

of his madness, because that series all takes place later on in the 1800s. And so he is at that point not there very often. like the madness is now a thing. The porphyria has now taken hold. And the depiction of that is really something. And so in the spinoff series that I forget what the title of it is that covers the beginning of his reign, the spa episode that you're talking about is a central part of the first season. Oh, neat.

And there, the modern interpretation is that they're operating under the assumption that it was Porphyria, not mania. Okay. And that the head doctor essentially at the spa was in a position of control over the king and was keeping him there in order to maintain that position of control. There's a real villainization of the doctor involved. But it's it is just from a historical standpoint. Yeah. You may not be interested in the romance angle of it at all, but the, the, from a historical standpoint. It's incredibly well-performed, um, very well-written, highly recommended.

So anyway, carry on. Yeah. So, uh, let's see. Oh, yeah. So he seems to have recovered. George's third seems to recover somewhat by the next parliamentary session. But Parliament was ready to pass a regency bill because, oh shit, this is, you know, this could tailspin quickly. But that effort fell apart because when George showed up, he seemed to show a complete recovery by February year of 1789.

Now, as often happens with mental illnesses, George, the third, relapsed multiple times, finally succumbing fully in 1810 and never recovering again. The final episode from which George never recovered seems to have been touched off by the death of his daughter, Amelia. And, you know, the loss of a child will break a person's brain in so many ways. Even if you've got 15, it doesn't fucking matter, right? Yeah. In 1811, George saw clearly enough to actually accept the Regency Act of 1811 that would let George the fourth, his son, reign in his name for the rest of his life. Right.

Now, George III lived until 1820. He was increasingly blind, deaf, manic, depressive, and prone to long fits of talking for hours and hours straight. It sounds really fucking miserable. During the time that he was alive, satirists called George. George the third, Farmer George, because he seemed more interested in the mundane and scholarly things than he was in regal things. And it seems to have been a nickname that gained respect over time, actually, without changing. So it went from Farmer George to Farmer George. This is actually

very similar to the You Suck Chance by WWE fans toward Kurt Engel. So I'm going to let you see a couple of videos here, so please pause. So I just played for you two entrances by Kurt Angle. The first one, he's a heel, the second one, he's a face. Could you describe the crowd's chant in each one? And the first one he comes out, there's a bunch of people holding up signs that just say you suck. Yep.

And in time with his entrance music, they're chanting, you suck. Yep. You suck. he gets, gets visibly aggressive, I guess, with the crowd. Like, oh, what, what, what? You know, and eventually, like, covers his ears. Yep. At the end.

And then with the second one, he comes out, and it's the same entrance music. The crowd is still chanting, you suck. Yep. But it's a victory march. And the signs are, it's still a bunch of. I don't know what I'm saying you suck, but like there's a bunch of them that are also, you know, like what a badass he is. Right. So the same exact thing.

Yeah. With two totally different meanings. Very different. Yeah. That's how Farmer George became. Oh. It seems to have undergone a similar change over time, probably because George III oversaw the agricultural revolution in England. By and large, he was a very popular king for British.

folk, less so for the places that his government took over and exploited, less so for the people that his government co-signed to the enslavement of, but for the ones who identified as Brits on purpose, he was pretty damn popular. Upwards of half of American colonists were loyal to him as their king. Right. And it's also important to look at how little power the king had at the time. George III signed off on stuff. He tried like hell to put people in power whom he agreed with so they'd carry out policies he'd

like, but think about how distant that is from being a tyrant or a despot, right? And he also had to promote folks that he didn't like because of how soft his power actually was. And it's entirely possible that George III's tacit support of the war and his outlawed support of the T-tax was a defense of parliament's right as a legislative body to levy taxes when and as they saw necessary to pay for running the empire. Okay. Yeah, all of all of that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. And that's actually where I'm going to leave it today. So I haven't even gotten to the subject at hand, sadly. Sorry. Well, because we never do. Yeah. I mean, you say sadly, but I'm like, okay, apart for the course. We've laid the groundwork. Yeah. Yeah. I'm only halfway through the groundwork. But. Fuck. Anyway, uh, what have you gleaned so far? Having done all the fucking studies that you've done, about this very era. Oh, Lord. Um,

number one, this was, this was a weird time to be a monarch. Um, because you either had a situation like France did. Mm-hmm. Uh, up until 1789,

uh, in which, uh, you, you, you, you, you,

you, uh, um, you, you, you, you, you,

you, you, an absolutist. Right. You know, and literally everybody had to kiss up to you for anything and everything. Or you were navigating some kind of enlightenment balancing act. Right. With a parliament, you know, or some other kind of legislative.

Yeah. You're trying not to lose your power. You're working real hard, you know, not, not to wind up, you know, getting somehow, somehow getting overthrown. Mm-hmm. Because by this time, you've all seen what could happen because it happened in England, right? Mm-hmm. And I'm talking about, you know, before the French Revolution, after the French Revolution, it's like, oh, shit, none of us want that. Nobody, nobody wants that.

That's bad. that that goes badly for eventually everybody. And we don't want to have that happen. And so it's a really weird time to be a sovereign. That's like the first takeaway. And then the next takeaway is that, you know, it's interesting to think about what individuals in this kind of position in history would have been like

if not for the accident of their birth like you know you hear about you hear about you know George the third Farmer George Farmer George in in the spin-off series that I told you about from Bridgetton which I can't remember the title to right now Farmer George in that in the context of that show that is the nickname that the queen and the king used between the two of them

because before his first episode um you know as a young monarch he's he's looking to try to reform things for his people to to help his people and the thing that he thinks can help them the most is by figuring out how to do how to you know feed them better and so you know um he

they they have these moments where they talk about, you know, wishing he could just be farmer George. And then to find out from you that, no, no, that was actually, that was actually a nickname. And like the people of England called him that. Yeah. Is, I tip my hat to the writers of the show. Mm-hmm. So, you know, and you think about, you know, think about other figures through history,

Kaiser Wilhelm was by all, accounts just an absolute insecure prick. That's like, you know, if he hadn't been born in that family and that extended clan in that particular position, would he have grown up to be the insecure Martinette little asshole that he was? Actually, the Behind the Bastard's podcast said that if he'd been born in our lifetime,

he would have ended up a really shitty, assistant manager at a footlocker. Well, okay. And 10 million people wouldn't have fucking died. It would be great. Possibly 100 million people too, because it was the war that spread the flu. That's true.

But part of what my question is, part of what turned him into the guy that in our time would have been, you know, a shitty assistant manager of a foot locker. Oh my God, that's going to live rent free in my head for forever. That was the relationship and the sense of position and entitlement that went with being born as, you know, that guy, Kaiser. And if, you know, if he had been born to an ordinary family, you know, whether those pressures would have been there.

I mean, it's entirely possible that enough of his nurture was, this guy's going to be kind of an abrasive prick. Like, you know, but, you know, you think about, you think about somebody like George III, you know, and I kind of wonder. So, yeah, that's kind of where I am right now. Also, I find it interesting that you're setting up, like what you're doing here seems to be like you're setting up a,

Maybe not a rehabilitation, but an apologia? That was incidental to the work that I was doing. I hadn't meant to, but the work kept leading me there. And I'm like, wow. And again, it was me questioning my own biases, because of course I think George is this ultimate villain, because I was born here. And no matter how iconoclastic I might grow up to be, the myths that I was fed and the popular media that we were given, I mean, the, the Madden of King George came out when we were in high school. Well, at least when I was in high school.

Yeah. But like, you know, and then there's the depiction of George in Hamilton. Yeah. So, you know, it's just, I mean, it's brilliant. It's wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and in that role and less so in the madness of King George, which is a biopic.

But in Hamilton, he really is the avatar for British authority. Yes. And, you know, the fact that Jonathan Goff manages to turn a 70s pop ballad into a psycho anthem. It's just so good. Like, I honestly got, I sing that in the car. Oh, yeah. Like, I, oh, my God.

Oh, when my kids and I are doing something, I'm like, Jesus Christ, this will be fun. And one of them will be like, you know, it's how you go. Yeah, everybody. Yeah. Yeah.

Again, Hamilton was an incredibly skilled fan fiction. Yes. Like so, like the, my daughter and I were just talking about a line that was in the guns and ships song, I think.

And it was a chiasmus. And I showed no, no, it was in the, it was in the cabinet battle over whether or not to draft a declaration of neutrality. Right. And there were two words that it was A, B, B, A, in the same sentence. But it was in jammed as well. And like, I pointed it out to my daughter. And she was like, oh, my God, that's good. I'm like, yeah, it's fucking brilliant.

Like, it's all so intricate and tied together and so well done. and a great genre. It also whitewashes slavers using black bodies. So there's that. But, like, yeah, you know, there's a lot of problems with it. And again, it's a fan fiction

built on an economist's love letter, not an historians. Chernow was an economist. He wrote for the Wall Street Journal. Like, and read by not a historian, but a playwright, which is fine. You take all the license you want. Yeah.

Um, also. But the amount of kids I have who think that, uh, James Madison was fat and six foot three. I'm like, no, no, he was Jimmy Hart. He. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah.

Uh, and, and my number one sin that the show commits is it, it does my man, John Adams. So dirty. Yeah. Like he doesn't even, he doesn't even, he doesn't even appear. And they rag on him. Like you're not even going to give the man the opportunity to stand up and defend himself like I'm sorry, but fuck you. No, come on. And it's brilliantly done. Yeah. And it's absolutely. It's absolutely it's it's theater catnip. It's amazing. But like we have to acknowledge. Yeah. It would be like if somebody thought that growing up in the 60s was really what Westside story was. was.

Like, no. No. A world of no. Yeah. So anyway, cool. Well, what's you reading? Or what are we reading? Well, what I'm reading right now is an awful lot of very specific historical scholarship on military history.

But what I'm going to recommend to everybody is the TV. series Bridgeton. Okay. And the spin-off, Queen Charlotte. That's the title

of it is Queen Charlotte. Of course it's Queen Charlotte. Yeah. Yeah. And there are, there are, the original TV series

is based on a series of romance novels. And it's, I want to say Shonda Rimes, who is behind it as showrunner. Yeah,

writer, head writer Shonda Rhymes. And so it does some remarkable things about commentary on race because it intentionally uses a mixed race cast. Oh, okay. Or a racially diverse cast. And it never explicitly explains why we have black families in the upper crust of London society in the Regency era. but it alludes to there being something, some kind of something going on behind the scenes.

And it does not just like throw actors of color on the screen and be like, well, yeah, I mean, they're actors of color, but we're going to treat them like they're not actors of color. Like, it goes there. Okay. And it confronts issues of race in both series, Bridgeton and Queen Charlotte. But it's never heavy handed about it and it doesn't whitewash historical crimes by using the bodies of black and Indian actors.

So, yeah, it's amazing. It's a lot of fun. Don't watch it with your kids or your parents because there are some scenes that go there in a romance way that, yeah, just a warning. But yeah, it's an amazing series. And everybody, my wife and I and the friends that I mentioned before are all like champing at the bit for the next season to come out next year. So that is my recommendation, Bridgerton and Queen Charlotte. How about you? I'm going to recommend the satiricon by Petronius.

The main character in it is a man named Tramalkio. And if you want to get the tone for what satires, I'm really. referring to, that's the one to read. It's not going to be the Manipian satire where you're listing the problems, but it is the tonally, tonally, it's absolutely making fun of this fucking idiot. Just the way that he brags about the food, it's just, oh, it's brilliant. It's so much fun. So go read it. It's fun. It's a dinner party of upper class twittery of the most rich, stupid person. Okay. It's good times. Awesome.

Yeah. Well, where can they find us? We can be found on our website at wauwbwbwbawaba.gikhistorytime.com. We can be found on the Apple podcast app, on the Android, well, no, on Apple podcast app, on the Amazon podcast app. That was what I was looking for. And on Spotify. And wherever it is that you have found us, take the time to subscribe and give us the five-star review that you know Damien's exhaustive research has earned us.

And how about you, sir? Where can you be found? Oh, by the time this hits, go to the February 6th or the March 6th or the April 3rd iteration of capital punishment, $15 at the door, or you can go to satcomedy spot.com, go to the calendar there and find capital punishment, the event there, get your ticket early and come on down, buy some merch, that kind of thing. It's all kinds of good fun. I've been telling you all about it for years. So if you're in the Sacramento area at 9 p.m. on the first Friday of any month, get your ass down there. So all right. Well, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony.

And I'm Ed Blaylock. And until next time, keep rolling 20s.