Citation Needed - The Texas City Disaster

Episode Date: June 2, 2021

The 1947 Texas City disaster was an industrial accident that occurred on April 16, 1947, in the Port of Texas City, Texas, at Galveston Bay. It was the deadliest industrial accident in United States history and one of history's largest non-nuclear explosions. A mid-morning fire started on board the French-registered vessel SS Grandcamp (docked in the port) and detonated her cargo of about 2,300 tons (about 2,100 metric tons) of ammonium nitrate.[1] This started a chain reaction of fires and explosions in other ships and nearby oil-storage facilities, ultimately killing at least 581 people, including all but one member of the Texas City fire department.[2] --- Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

We don't have to go in. Well, but we do though. We can start a new podcast. Hey, how about that quiz show idea? You know, we can do the, it's too late to say yes to that now, man. Hey guys. Hey, Eli's,

is this it? Is, is what it? Well, usually you open the show with some thematic shenanigans and since this week's episode is about the Texas city disaster, you're kind of worried that the studio would be filled with dynamite or something like that. Oh, dynamite, please.

No? No, no, it is the whole studio. What is the whole studio? It's ammonium nitrate, the whole thing. Every mic, every picture, every door frame, pure, sometimes painted ammonium nitrate. So as long as we're careful, we can podcast as usual.

Eli, I do not think that. Hey guys, sorry Heath and I relate. The wait at the public was forever, forever. Totally, yeah. So guys, settle the public was forever. Forever, totally, yeah. So guys, settle the debate for us. Who do you think can slam a door harder, me or Tom? It's totally me, I can slay. No, I know it.

I don't think it's you, but show me. I hope my next clone is taller. They can't be taller, Cecil, they're clones. I know. Slam it! Oh, I will! Hello and welcome to Citation Needed. Podcasts are re-choosing a subject. Read a single article about a Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because this is the

internet and that's how it works now. I'm Cecil and I'll be directing this OSHA workplace safety video, but I need our cast. Our instructional workplace Emmy nominee for best railing death and the guy who was clearly in the sexual harassment workplace video last week Eli and Tom thank you see so I gained a hundred pounds for that role technically I gained a hundred pounds for all my roles but that was good Yeah, I was in the Rolls. Tissel when I'm in a movie and it says based on a true story, brother, I'm going to make sure that that's accurate.

Also, guys, I'm in a lot of trouble. So if we didn't, yeah. I saw the video. You need to talk to Karen and HR. And the two guys, you spend the whole movie doing rails of coke off a moving fork lift. Keith and Noah. How am I the cocaine guy? How am I one of the cocaine guys?

You're like, why is it never, please welcome the guy with all the fascinating fun facts that he has or like, guy who retweet some musing headlines from the middle. Like, good. Fun stuffy election guy. I have a little, you've already answered that question, but I was gonna say the same thing for the other direction.

You haven't earned being the cocaine guy, okay? You got to live that. I like the game with the forklift that we play. But like powdered sugar is fine. Like I don't care what the powder. Monium nitrate. Hey patrons, producing these shows takes a lot of time and effort and we love that you virtually throw something in the tip jar every week And if you want to get access to an amazing tip jar be sure to stick around for the end of the show and with that Out of the way tell us Noah what person place thing concept phenomenon or event will we be talking about today? Couple of big ass explosions. Oh Eli after vegan burrito. Okay, so just a couple of big

Explosions Oh Eli after vegan burrito. Okay, so just a couple of big explosions. All right, no, you're ready to blast off. I am so ready. Okay, so on the suggestion of patron Cindy Lynch. Hi, Cindy. Hi, Cindy. We met at the city at the few years ago at the patron only pizza party. That was awesome. Yeah.

She's an amazing photographer, actually. Hey, Cindy. She's also got a lot of amazing shit to photograph. But so Cindy suggested that we do the Texas city disaster and I like the story. I just didn't think there was quite enough to fill an entire episode. So I decided to toss in another big ass explosion to round it out. Uh, Cecil Noah's including my poop breaks in our podcast again. Tell him he's not allowed. He's not allowed.

I will do no such thing. The world needs to know about how many fucking poop breaks. Yeah, she writes. I'll tell you what, Eli, I'll stop many fucking poop breaks. You take it fair. It is a lie. I'll stop including your poop breaks in the podcast when you stop including your poop breaks in the podcast. No deal. So if I asked you what the deadliest industrial accident in American history was, you may

not know. And Ron. Nope. But if I ask you, you're on the right track though. But if I asked you to guess which state it took place in I feel like almost Everybody would guess right because Texas was right about that part. Yeah Because Texas is nothing but a giant pile of tinder and unregulated explosives and it always has been and that brings us to Texas City in 1947 all right, so Texas City is just South of Houston on the water.

Oh, there's your problem. Yeah. Well, yes, it is. Exactly. Indeed. Nothing good has ever happened near Houston. That's not. No. Well, in fact, it's a major port just across the water from Galveston, the site of the deadliest natural disaster in American history. That's just a fucked person place to be. So our story begins at the port on April 16th of 1947 aboard a US built French Registership called the SS Grand Camp. The Grand Camps Cargo, about 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate. Okay. I think I'm starting to see the problem. Yeah. Now that would have been bad enough all on its own, right? But it's doctor to port filled with oil tankers

next to a shoreline filled with oil refineries. Fuck, so you can imagine how this is gonna go super bad. Hey, boss, where should I park this barge full of matchheads? Squeeze it next to the train car filled with a sandpaper, right? Oh, man. Oh, man. This is beginning to explain Texas's first state motto. Texas. filled with the sandpaper. Right over there. That's it. This is beginning to explain Texas's first state motto. Texas, what could go wrong?

What did I have to change? Yeah, no, the license plates just kept getting longer and longer and longer. Like, okay, fuck, that's it. So no, it should be noted that as half-assers, they are about industrial regulation in Texas today. It was actually worse in 1947. In fact, even the details of how the ammonium nitrate

was stored, sound like they're begging for a citation needed episode. Apparently, it was transported and stored at high temperatures because that increased to the chemical activity and thus prevented moisture caking. Oh, good. Yeah, no, because when you're storing thousands of tons of high explosives, you want a lot of chemical activity

going on. Okay, moisture caking is dangerous, guys. Let's go ahead and get some iron, Newton area. I can go ahead and go ahead and talk. Perfect. It's about safety, that's the point. That's serious. He's about safety.

So also, by the way, apparently the crew on the fucking ship was smoking. Gullion day. I mean, before the big explosion, right? Like smoking cigarettes. I mean, I'm not sure if they were allowed to smoke or if people just looked the other way. But given the 1947ness of all of this, I'm assuming they were just astray's next to the explosion. All right, guys, when you flick your cigarettes and then walk away in slow motion without looking

back, which we all do, just make sure you get them into the cauldron. It's a mess right now. Right. This is ridiculous. About safe. All right. So it's about 8 a.m. on a Wednesday morning. When a member blows up, it'll just pick you up gently and toss you.

It's getting to the worry of me. It'll be fine. Yeah, exactly. Jump at the same time. When you hear the explosion, you gotta jump. Jump. It's about time. So it's around 8 a.m. on a Wednesday morning. Actually, you have to jump right before you hear it. It's really complicated. That is harder, unless you can find a refrigerator to get into,

which can be admissible. Yeah, you're fine. So, okay. So it's around 8 a.m. on a Wednesday morning when a member of the Grand Camps crew spots smoke in the cargo hold. Now, these motherfuckers know they're sitting on tons of highly explosive material, so they treated it like the emergency situation that it is. Over the next hour, they repeatedly try to extinguish the fire, but every time they think they've got it under control, a few red embers will pop back up and it'll start smoking again. Okay, who put the Hulkax-relighting candles on the ammonium nitrate cake again? Okay. I just love the 1947 Eli that kept leaving for the lunch break when fire wasn't on the way. Right. Right. Yeah. I should do it. Right. I think I was supposed to be done

at noon. My vegan burritos getting cold. I gotta go. It's 12 or four guys. 12 or four. I'm like a teen. Now, at this point, the idea is floated that they unmoore the ship and get it as far from the dock as possible. Thank you. This seems like the right thing to do. And the hindsight of knowing how this turns out, it makes it seem like a moral fucking imperative. That being said, there's a solid reason not to set out to see as well. First of all, once you leave the dock, you can't get firefighters on and off the ship, right? So not only are you cutting yourself off from reinforcements, you're also condemning anybody still on the ship to die if they can't get the fire under control.

Plus, given the size of the eventual explosion, it wasn't going to matter much. Okay. One of the things I love and kind of hate about our podcast is that we are now guaranteed to get an email from a guy whose grandpa died at the furthest possible point of explosion telling no, he's an asshole. Whatever, that guy's grandpa was probably the guy having the Roman candle fight aboard the USS boom. Well, I'll see you and raise you a grandpa who was just on the other side and Galveston and made it.

You know what I'm saying? All right. So just before 9 a.m., the captain makes a really bad decision. He orders his men to steam the hold. And that means exactly what it sounds like it means, right? You flood the hold with steam to deprive the fire of oxygen. I thought you were going to say he made the bad decision of being the captain of this. Well, right now, you're not the bad decision, right? You realize that.

Yeah, I got to clarify there. Okay, but so the idea here is, you get rid of the oxygen, you get rid of the fire, but ammonium nitrate is an oxidizer. Ah, that's what it does. Yep, so. You know, what does that mean to you? Oh, it's where you take all the nickels

that are inside the socks, and then you, it's where you take all the nickels that are inside the socks, and then you, it's real name is Ryan. All right, so, but the idea here is that, but the address also says that that does fuck all the help. Actually, worst than fuck all, the steam is hot, right? So you're actually increasing the starting temperature of all your highly reactive cargo.

In fact, according to the wiki, the steam may have contributed to the fire by converting the ammonium nitrate to nitrous fucking oxide. And where should I store these magic wands that turn anything into a nuclear war? Yeah. Okay, I'll put them next to the matchettes. All right, next to the matchette.

Yeah. I like that a Noah's mind, that last line of his death, it was like a gasp moment like whoa Not nitrous oxide That's way more Bad Neutrosity we all know that yeah exactly. That's just fun like you get that one You are gonna get a lot well before whoa, whoa, before this is over.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. So now the ship is burning out of fucking control. The steam pressure inside the ship blows the hatches open and smoke starts billowing out. And because the smoke is tension with nitrous dioxide, it's a weird yellow orange color. That starts attracting spectators. Now public safety announcement here, if you ever see a giant ass fire in your first thought is, wow, that's a spectators. Now, public safety announcement here,

if you ever see a giant ass fire in your first thought as, wow, that's a weird color, if your job isn't to put that motherfucker out, get the fuck away from it. We're just put as much distance between you and that fire as you have time to put there. But unfortunately, a lot of people in the port reacted the exact opposite way

and just lined up along the shore to see all the pretty colors. Okay. So I think we can all agree that victim blaming is bad. So pass. I do not pass because if we ever make a citation needed bingo card, they were kind of asking for it. Is the center god. Now, at this point, people start to notice that the water around the ship is boiling.

The water flashes against the hull as immediately vaporized. The hull itself is starting to bulge from the pressure on the steam from the steam inside. And then it seems like a bad sign. No, I don't know much about nitrous oxide. It seems like a bad sign. You are the boat. The boat's just skipping across the water like an ice cube on a hot grill is just like that.

It's fucking biblical. The seas are boiling. This is not good. There's a next step here. Yeah, well, that next step happens at 9, 12 a.m. when the whole fucking thing goes tits up. The vessel detonated in one of the largest non nuclear manmade explosions in earth's history.

The blast produced a four and a half meter shockwave that was detectable for a hundred miles in any direction in the span of a second more than a thousand buildings are completely leveled to sightseeing airplanes nearby were blown out of the fucking sky. Wait, wait, they were blown out of the sky and then more up into the sky. I don't really know the other way. The other direction. Yeah, there were there were plans on the ground that were blown into the sky.

So it's kind of a weird thing to go in both places. Here's the first time the explosion ever juggled. Give it a break. There's like, we can't catch a break. You go up. We go down. All right. So now 10 miles away from the ship, you have windows shattering.

Over 6,000 tons of the ship steel are hurled into the air, some at supersonic speeds, and it rained down on the city along with bales of burning twine from the ship's cargo. For a second, while it was all up in the air, that was the world's largest ball of twine. Is this something? Okay. I put that for the guy who got killed by burning twine when he got to have it. Yeah. Cause you know, he was trying to get St. Peter to scratch out burning twine and put explode

in. Come on, man. Don't burning twine's not going to get me laid up here. No. It was so cool. Come on. So I, okay, I'm going to get me laid up here. No. It was so cool. Come on. So, I, okay, I'm going to be honest here, without video, it's really hard to get your head around the scale of this explosion.

But a similar-sized explosion actually was captured on film last year in Beirut. And you've almost certainly seen that video. The explosion is remarkably similar. In fact, the Beirut explosion was caused by a fire in a warehouse that was storing 2700 tons of ammonium nitrate. But as terrible as that accident was, and like 220 plus people died in it, and no way tried to minimize it, in Beirut, it was pretty much just the one explosion. Texas City was just getting started.

Oh my God. In addition to leveling a bunch of chemical plants and catching a shit ton of refineries and chemical tanks on fire, the explosion also caught a bunch of the other ships that were still docked on fire. And among them was a ship called the High Flyer, which was carrying more ammonium nitrate. What? Guys, we actually literally would have been safe for parking next to the uranium ship. Remember, I was like, let's wait for a spot away from the uranium and then we're right next the more money of nature. One of the chances is tragedy would take place the day before the big dynamite. Right. So at this point, the whole area is devastated and a bunch of people

were killed, including all but one member of the 28 man Texas city volunteer fire department. But the survivors on the high flyers and heroic work trying to cut their ship from our anchor and get her the fuck away from shore. Unfortunately, by this point, the whole fucking port is a maze of twisted debris and shit. So there's no way that they're going to get it out. 15 hours after the grandcamp detonated, the high fire exploded, raining down, get more flaming wreckage, ramping up the death toll that much further and setting a ship called the SS Wilson B. Keenan fire, which was also carrying a lot of nitrate. We should really sail away because, you know, we're full of money of nitrate but first first everyone take a guess

Boy or girl The smoke is orange what does that mean? You know to be fair to this whole thing I mean knocking over one domino isn't very sad All right, so now the official death toll from this thing is Yeah, true. It's true. It track. All right. So now the official death toll from this thing is 581 people, but in reality, that's

almost certainly a gross underestimate. In an exposure to the scale, you're not always going to have identifiable remains for all the casualties. And I mean, like, you're not always going to have shit that's identifiable as remains, right? They get that official number by adding the 405 identified bodies, the 63 unidentified bodies, and the 113 people that were known to be in the area and were never heard from again. But that means potentially hundreds of visiting seamen undocumented

workers and visitors went on counted. Now, to be clear, though, even that low estimate is enough to make this the deadliest industrial accident in American history. Now, so in addition to the hundreds of dead, more than 5,000 people were injured, 1784 of whom were admitted to the 21-area hospitals. Property damage from the blast quickly topped $100 million, and that's 1947 money, so we're talking over a billion in today's money. And the Wiki has a weirdly specific perturge in a paratry list of blown up shit that includes 1100 vehicles and 362 freight cars, in case you needed an exact number on that.

More than 500 homes were destroyed, leaving at least 2,000 people homeless and the seaport, the life butt of the whole fucking city, was completely destroyed. To give you an idea just how destroyed we're talking, the Grand Camp's main anchor weighs four and a half metric tons. It was eventually found more than a half mile inland. God damn.

At the entrance of the Texas City Tike, the smaller 1.8 metric ton anchor was found more than a mile and a half away in a freshly depressed 10 foot crater. Wow. Sounds like a mess, even by Houston standards, right? You know? Yeah, man, the shockwave still couldn't push the stench off the city.

If I did for just a minute and there was somebody going like, okay, most of this is bad, but you have to admit. And then another stench quickly tickets placed in line just came right in. Right. It's the waiting stench. That's our backup stench quickly tickets place in line just came right in. Right. The waiting stench. That's our backup stench. We keep one on deck all the time. That was New Jersey's original motto of the backup stench.

So of course, even if the local fire department was at full strength, the aftermath of this explosion would have been too much for him. As it stood, all four of their fire trucks had been reduced to twisted metal and all but one of their firefighters had been killed in the initial blast. I guess one dude's job was to coordinate arriving volunteers at a rallying point like six miles from the boat fire, but everybody else was on the dock trying to prevent that explosion. The city put out a call for volunteers and eventually they got him from his far away as L.A., but it would still take weeks to put out all the fires left in the wake of the blast. Hi, yeah, I'm here to put out the fire from last Christmas.

Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. Pretty much. No, not that Christmas, the one before last Christmas. So this explosion also led to an interesting nugget of legal history. It would mark the first time that the United States would be the defendant in a class action lawsuit in April of 19th. I think I'm probably getting this all wrong. But in April of 1950, a district court would find for the plaintiffs in Elizabeth Dallahite at Al V United

States. Basically, they pointed to the regulations that should have been put in place on the manufacturer, packaging, labeling, transportation, storage, and loading of ammonium nitrate, as well as the ones that should have been a put in place about fire suppression and fire prevention at giant seaports full of explosion boats. Yeah, I guess the rule they should have had was don't have this. That was a good start on this. Yeah, if you're reading this, leave. A couple of years later, though, the fifth circuit court of appeals would overturn that decision,

and the scotus would eventually affirm that the district court didn't have the jurisdiction to find the US government liable for negligent planning decisions. Now, I'm certainly no legal expert, but I feel like maybe the last seven decades play out a little bit differently if legal precedent held that the government was accountable every time it's lack of regulations caused huge, deadly accidental explosions. I'd love to hold them accountable for their intentional explosions too, but that's a whole different story.

I was gonna be getting a lot of stuff there. Wow. Someone finally got to the point of a story before the break. So I got nothing. I got nothing. Why don't we throw another log of ammonium nitrate on the fire when we take a break for some apropos? Nothing. Sir!

Yes, Johnson, what is it? There's a fire at the harbor, sir. It's bad. The SS brand-papier, whatever Noah said. Build the brim with an ammonium nitrate. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Sir! Yes, Johnson, what is it? There's a fire at the harbor, sir. It's bad. The SS brand-papier, whatever Noah said. Build the brim with an ammonium nitrate. My God, is there anything we can do? I'm afraid not. If she goes,

there's a chance she'll settle like two more ships. There are also full of ammonium nitrate. Seriously? I'm afraid so, sir. Okay, well... Well, it's just a big ammonium nitrate warehouse, just a block away next to Dave's easy lighting fuses and porriot.

And of course, today is the big ammonium nitrate parade all along Fifth Avenue. Okay, okay, got it. Let's get all the ammonium nitrate away from there as fast as possible. Just get it away from it. Okay, does that mean trains to like trains to pull the ammonium nitrate?

Yes, yeah, everything, everything that is ammonium nitrate should be as far away as possible from the explosion. Okay, that's understood, sir. You might as if I leave this here then. Johnson, why do you have a brick of ammonium nitrate in your pocket? For the parade? Okay. Well, we left off. We answered that age-old question. If there's a large enough explosion, no one's left to hear it.

Did it really happen? And yes, it did. So we're just... Yeah, another crater tour you want to take a sun? A large enough explosion no one's left to hear it did it really happen and yes it did Another crater Tury want to take a son? Yeah, so okay, so reading up on the Texas City disaster sent me down a really fucked up rabbit hole But it got me wondering Okay, so this story's been about the largest unintentional manmade explosion in US history But what was the largest unintentional man made explosion in world history?

And the answer surprised the fuck out of me. Hiroshima. Okay. It was very much intentional. Eli, they had meetings. He said it surprised me. He said it surprised me. It would surprise me.

I didn't say it wasn't surprising. All right. So I like the last original and surprising are very interesting. American descent to telegram. Whoops. So sorry.

My sad. Our baddest stop. Yeah. All right, so like the last story, if I asked people what the deadliest accidental explosion in world history was, most of them probably couldn't tell me. But if I asked what country had happened in, I feel like most people would guess correctly because China is the world's Texas. I don't know who's more insulted.

China is more insulted. Yeah. China is the... So the geography of the thing didn't surprise me much, but the timing of it really did, because it turns out that the world's biggest unintentional manmade explosion happened on May 30th of 1626. Ah! Yeah, and surprising is that sounds. It's important to remember that China was doing gunpowder way before the rest of the

world, and it's not like our ability to store that shit has gotten worse over time, right? Worse than the ammonium nitrate convention in Texas. What were they storing it inside an active volcano? Oh, we'll get there. All right. So, so this tragedy is called the Wang Gong Chang explosion. Oh, also the great Tianqi explosion or and here's where you get your first hint of the astronomical death toll from this thing, the Beijing Explosive Incident. Now into the place at the Wanggong Cheng Armory, which is a couple miles southeast of the Forbidden City, it was one of six gunpowder factories operated by the Imperial government and it was also, and this seems like a great combo, one of the main

storage facilities for armor, firearms and ammunition. We also-sats, dynamite flunders and big reds. Exactly. Those have a full print of that. Match heads and a train full of sandpaper. Yeah. Plus, by the way, to save on their transporting costs, they just stored all the gunpowder right there at the factory until they needed it. Like the Texas City disaster, we don't actually know the cause of this explosion. Sublimation.

But at a certain point of stacking gunpowder on top of gunpowder or ammonium nitrate on top of oil refinery or whatever, that pretty much becomes the cause. We actually do have a pretty detailed account of the explosion though from a contemporary government proclamation with the foreboding title of official notice of heavenly calamity. So I'm just going to quote this bit from the wiki, but I'll replace the Chinese units of measure with their metric equivalents. Uh, Cecil would also like to know if we know the angles of stuff as well. He's going to say that. Yeah, the fun thing we do. I mentioned angles one time. I mentioned one time. All the time. I want to the angle. Fucking guy. Thank you. Appreciate it.

And I was stupid nerd. Nobody cares about angles. Asshole. Can you reach an angle off the top shelf for me? The explosion reportedly took place in the late morning of May 30th, 1626. The sky was clear, but suddenly a loud roaring rumble was heard coming from the northeast. Oh, specifically, I feel like that depends on where you are. Yeah, whatever.

Gradually reaching the southwest of the city, followed by those clouds with shaking of houses, then a bright streak of flash containing a great light followed in a huge bang that shattered the sky and crumbled. The sky turned dark and everything within about a two kilometer vicinity was utterly obliterated. The streets were unrecognizable littered with fragmented pieces and showered with falling roof tiles. The force of the explosion was so great that large trees were uprooted and thrown to the opposite side of the city. And a three metric tonstone lion was thrown over the city wall. And quote, there was from top right to bottom left. Yeah. Exactly. So now the official notice goes on to talk about how far away you could hear of the explosion and feel the trembling. But since most of us aren't super familiar with

17th century Chinese geography, and since there's no Ian Hell, I'm gonna pronounce the place names correctly, I'm just gonna say that like 150 kilometers away, people were going, what the fuck was that? All the volcanoes in the ring of fire hold up judges score cards. Yeah. That's pretty good.

Okay, one last bit from the Wiki's article summary of the official notice, quote, the grounds around the the immediate vicinity of Jesus fucking Christ, what's wrong with Wiki editors? The ground around the immediate vicinity of the ground around assholes. Now you're done. You can go smoke a bowl, stop with your verbose bullshit anyway. The ground around the immediate vicinity of Wang Gong Chang Armory, the epicenter of the explosion, had sunken for over 21 feet, but there was a notable lack of fire damage. The clouds over the epicenter were also reported to be strange. Some look like messy strands of silk.

Some were multicolored, while some looked like a black Ling Xi. That's a kind of mushroom that grew out of the side of trees. I think it's safe to just sub in mushroom cloud for that one. Whoa. The death toll from this thing was enormous. While there's no concrete number, estimates at the time were something in the vicinity of 20,000 people. Wow.

And I could find an estimate of the property damage, but it's like, it's a city. Okay. I don't know much about explosions and things, but I think when the sky has to take some time afterwards to get it shit together, that's a fight. Now, sky, yeah, what they said? We need a new sky, guys, that's fuck. Yeah, we sweep up the fucking sky, which is ridiculous. I mean, in a lot of ways, this explosion was actually the Ming Dynasty's Chernobyl.

Right. So the late Ming Dynasty was already shaky because of regional conflicts in a series of natural disasters related to the little ice age. Love that movie. There have been a number of riots and rebellions among the peasantry leading up to this. And then this disaster comes and it provides several nails for the emperor's coffin. First of all, it happens right next to the capital.

So among the casualties are a fuck ton of government ministers and bureaucrats who aren't exactly gonna be able to trade their replacements now. Hell, one of the casualties was the seven month old crown prince. So both the people who governed the empire and the facilities they used to do it were level. At the same time their armory just lost its largest weapons depot and its largest weapons manufacturing facility. So but more important than all the physical shit the the empire lost was the loss of the mandate of heaven.

Right, so the the whole Chinese imperial system is is based on the belief that the reason the emperor is elevated is because the gods like him the most, right? He has the mandate of heaven, but when terrible shit happens, it's interpreted as the gods giving up on that emperor, right? Like telling people, no, you got to change out. We don't like this guy. And blowing your whole capital city, the fuck up is about as clear a message as the gods could set. All right, we found the problem. So go ahead and make another giant pile of bomb dust, but with a godly umbrella. Exactly what they do. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no That's a high five guys. Come on. Yeah. Last one missed the days when violently fucking up your own capital city was universally held as proof that you were a goddamn disaster. Right? Right.

All right. So all of that shit combined with the massive cost of rebuilding the city proved a blow that the emperor could never really overcome. The Ming Dynasty would last another 18 years before falling apart altogether. Now, like I said, we don't actually know the cause of that explosion. I mean, the contemporary efforts to explain it are pretty thick with superstitious speculation and a lot of the stuff we have today is tainted by exaggeration. But the most obvious culprit obviously is accidental ignition, right? Like a mishandled open flame, a spark, an electrostatic discharge, or even

intentional sabotage have all been suggested. All right. So we ruled out icicle stabbing. Good for everybody. Right. But the only reason I bring it up is because it's also possible that the gunpowder factory was just an innocent victim of a different explosion. I actually don't know how plausible it is, but according to the Wikipedia article, the

description and magnitude of the explosion is more consistent with a meteor exploding in mid-air than an accidental gunpowder ignition. And superstitioner, no, I feel like when the heavens themselves start throwing rocks at your gunpowder factories, you change leaders just to be on the safe side. There's no mandate from heaven to death. There's like official opposite of mandate. And if you had to summarize, you learned in one sentence, what would it be, Noah?

Houston was never meant to be inhabited by humans and were punished every day for our defiance. I think that's a good bet. All right, are you ready for the quiz? Right, Bob ready to blow my top. All right, Noah, we've learned a lot about Texas this week, but which of the following fun facts? How do you know? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no larger than any country in Europe. Oh my God, so much fun. So it can't be beat.

I know the state motto is, are you gonna finish that? So. The state answer is yes. Right, yeah, exactly. So it can't, hey, because like I feel like to get there,

you'd have to count English as the most spoken language. And if you've ever been to Texas, you know, that's bullshit. Um, Texas is, yeah, I can see people really wanting to get the fuck out of Texas if they were in it. And D Texas, I feel like Texas is larger than every country in Europe. I'm going to go with D. Oh, that is also true along with all the other ones. Okay, which the following of funner facts. Funner facts. I go now. I got to be fun facts. They're fun. Guest listener, he've had a pun and he deleted it.

I. This is the fun. A, fun fact, Dr. Pepper was invented in Texas and the recipe is such a big god damn secret. Why, though? That they kept two halves of the recipe in two separate safety deposit boxes in two different banks in Dallas. B, everyone in the town of Clark, Texas got three TV and DVR service for 10 years from the Dish Network when they renamed their town, dish, Texas.

There's no called dish Texas. See, Texas is the home of real towns named White Settlement. Puh! You've cut and shoot and jot them down. Jot them down, it's a DM, it's an apostrophe EM and they're jottimed up. It is a hot delivery spell. The way Cecil just said with an apostrophe E.M.

Yep. Oh my God. D. A time capsule in Texas contains a past book to a bank account that was opened in 1968 with one $10 bill. And when it's set to be opened in $29,68,000 years later. The owners of that time capsule are pretty sure it's gonna be worth about $1,000,000,000. Or E, I had more than Ely.

E, Ely is the helium capital of the world with about 90% of the recoverable helium in the entire world. And I think we can all agree that a giant explosion is always tragic, but that would be adorable in Amarillo because of the voice. I know that, just right. Right.

That's a lot of them. That's a lot of them. Right. All right, so yeah, so interesting, interesting sub fact here, those two safe deposit boxes in Dallas for Dr. Pepper, one of them says carbonated the other one says Prinches I think I'm gonna go with F all of the above that is correct How fun were those that's pretty fun those were way better than Eli's fact

About the same level of fun be honest. No Even if there was a mind five, so it's 257 or the fun. All right, Noah, contrary to both Eli and Heath, there is nothing fun about Texas. There we go. How should we solve that it exists? Hey, let them secede.

Mm. You're done, yeah, you should be done. Hmm. You're done. Yeah, you should be done. Yeah. That's I can you guess it? I'm going to go. I'm going to go with the. Air lift Austin first.

Okay. Yeah. Secret. Yes. Yes. Yes. Or Franklin barbacuda. I say done. Tom was the most concise.

He wins today. Oh, see. Heath. We were grading on brevity, so Eli actually finished ahead. I've definitely known for the decision, that's good. Silver. I'm biting, I'm biting my silver. No. I'll do it next week, Tom. I'll just do it.

How's that? All right, sounds good. Okay. All right, well for Noah, Tom, Eli and he. I'm Cecil. Thank you, Regal, for today.L. and he. For the S.S. but I did do that. I'm Cecil, thank you, Regal, for today. Despite what Tom was supposed to say when he missed his line, we'll be back next week. And by then, I'll be next put on something else between now and then, let's do our other

stuff. And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a per episode to nationapatreon.com slash citation pod or leave us a five star review everywhere you can. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media or check the show notes. Be us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media, or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citationpod.com. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪

[♪ SLEEPY HEAD [♪ [♪ SLEEPY HEAD [♪ [♪ SLEEPY HEAD [♪ [♪ SLEEPY HEAD [♪ [♪ SLEEPY HEAD [♪ [♪ SLEEPY HEAD [♪ [♪ SLEEPY HEAD [♪ [♪ SLEEPY HEAD [♪ [♪ SLEEPY HEAD [♪ [♪ SLEEPY HEAD [♪ [♪ SLEEPY HEAD [♪ [♪ SLEEPY HEAD [♪ [♪ SLEEPY HEAD [♪ [♪ SLEEPY HEAD [♪ [♪ SLEEPY HEAD [♪ [♪ SLEEPY HEAD [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ [♪ Yeah, yeah, whatever. Oh, well, someone got up on the wrong side of the cloning pod, and I don't know why, is you're looking awful. All today, Cecil. No way, seriously? Yeah, half an inch. I talked to my clone guy.

It turns out it's just one of these little knobs on the side. Dude, you're the bus! That's awesome. Yeah, yeah. What? You said you couldn't adjust our heights. You said that. No, I said, Paul is your thing. Ignore him. I'm just gonna go reach up on so many shells our heights, you said that. No, I said Paul is your thing, ignore him.

I'm just gonna go reach up on so many shells. Yeah, you are. Eh, hi five me, he's like, I can reach now. No.