Here's Where It Gets Interesting - How to Survive History with Cody Cassidy

Episode Date: August 14, 2023

Have you ever played alternative history and wondered how you’d survive being in steerage on the Titanic, or how you would have fared during The Black Death? Today, Sharon sits down with Cody Cassidy, author of “How to Survive History" to take a look at some of the most catastrophic events in world history. They discuss how past events might inform how to respond to future ones and how escape plans can be an interesting and fun way to learn about history. People often ask, “Is this the worst it has ever been?” especially following COVID, the political climate, and various natural disasters. Settle that idea in your mind, once and for all, by joining us in this entertaining and educational conversation. Special thanks to our guest, Cody Cassidy, for joining us today. Host/Executive Producer: Sharon McMahon Guest: Cody Cassidy Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, friends. Welcome, as always. So happy that you're with me today. I have a really fun one for you. I'm chatting with author Cody Cassidy, who has a new book out called How to Survive History. And it is all about like how to avoid getting eaten by dinosaurs and getting wiped out by an asteroid. How would you have survived the Black Plague or Mount Vesuvius eruption? Let me tell you, fifth grade Sharon would have loved this book. And also adult Sharon really enjoyed this conversation. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. I am really excited to have this conversation today. Thanks so much for being here, Cody. Thank you so much for having me. And here's where it gets interesting. of like, what would have happened if people could have gotten off the Titanic? What would have happened if you could have outrun a Tyrannosaurus rex? What would have happened

if Abraham Lincoln had saw a different play on a different day? You know what I'm saying? So I'm curious about what made you want to write this book? Well, I guess the original germ of the idea came from a sort of esoteric study I read that some archaeologists put together and some mathematicians actually, they sort of esoteric study I read that some archaeologists put together and some mathematicians actually, they sort of were looking at dinosaur footprints and they were sort of using those footprints to estimate their running speeds. And their conclusion was surprising to me, which seemed to suggest that I could outrun the Tyrannosaurus Rex, which... Are you a super fast runner, Cody?

I'm a pretty middling athlete at best. So I ran out and I was sort of looking for story ideas for Wired at the time. So I ran out and tried it and I couldn't actually run faster than it. And then I did some more digging into how Impalas actually outrun the Cheetah, which they're much slower than the Cheetah, but they use a sort of playground tactic in which they don't actually run at their top speed so that they can maintain sort of maneuverability. And then when the cheetah catches up, they swerve and they gain a few steps that way. And sort of in that process, I became fascinated by history and sort of how escape plans are an interesting way to learn about history. And you can sort of go into the details and you can sort of get onto the ground level and offer a moment-by-moment accounting

of some of these ancient disasters. And then you can sort of inject a little bit of fun into them as well. That is an interesting viewpoint that like if you examine it from the perspective of how would you survive a massive asteroid hitting Earth? Or how would you survive being in steerage on the Titanic? Using that lens to view history from gives you a different vantage point,

gives you a different way to experience or think about a topic instead of just thinking about it like, well, and then 100 bazillion years ago, a large asteroid fell from the sky and hit Earth, and it was really quite tragic. It's a different mindset if you're thinking about how might you have survived this topic. It lends itself to looking at a situation through the eyes of people who were there, I think, and keeps the history very grounded and practical. And then I always sort of like to delve into

little sidetracks on the science or the deeper background of history. And I found that this lens sort of offered that opportunity as well. Obviously, there have been many tragedies throughout history that one could try to survive. Everything from the Black Plague to the Chicago fire to, you know, an assassination attempt. There's many, many tragedies one could have chosen. And I'm curious to know what specifically about this list of topics that ranges from like asteroids, dinosaurs, the Titanic, how did you choose which ones to include to study? Because you really had to like study these, figure these out, like what kind of physical event was happening?

How do you calculate the survivability? How did you choose which ones would make it into your final manuscript? I sort of looked through a lot. I considered a lot of different factors. Unfortunately, human history has a lot to choose from disasters. But one factor I wanted was that

the survival advice would be sort of difficult or hard to foresee in the future. So some disasters, I immediately thought the Hindenburg, for example, would be fun to write about. But it turns out that those who survived the Hindenburg simply were on the sort of left side of the aircraft with a window seat. And so survival advice would be a little too straightforward if it's just as you know, sit on the left by a window seat. And so survival advice would be a little too straightforward if it's just as, you know, buy a window seat. I wanted there to be a sort of deeper story behind the disaster. In the example of Pompeii, I like to discuss volcanoes and the science of why that particular volcano was so destructive. Or in Titanic, we can talk about how it was built,

was so destructive. Or in Titanic, we can talk about how it was built, the ship was built, why it sunk so gracefully, which was unusual. It allowed the human drama to play out because it sunk so slowly and level. So I wanted there to be something deeper, I suppose, to each of the disasters to discuss as well. Yeah, that makes sense. Because some disasters truly are like, if you survived, it was by chance. That's not a long chapter, Cody, of like, best of luck to you. Hope you picked the right window seat, because nobody knows what's going to happen. Okay, I want to get into some of the specifics here, because I mean, of course, human tragedy is tragic. Of course, nobody's like making light of the people who died on the Titanic. That's not the purpose of this. But nevertheless, thinking about how one might survive a horrific volcanic eruption in ancient times, especially when you don't have any modern equipment, there is no

have MREs stashed in a cave. You can't radio for help. What made Pompeii so deadly? I mean, was it just giant? Was just a massive explosion? What was it? Well, a few factors. The volcano itself was a particularly explosive volcano. I think because in the previous eruption, they believe a sort of cap had formed in the lava tube and sort of allowed the volcano to develop a tremendous amount of pressure. The lava also happened to pass through limestone as it reached the surface, which sort of basically made it carbonated, like a carbonated

soda, or you can shake the top of a champagne bottle and it exploded with more force. And Pompeii was only five miles away from the volcano. If you go to Pompeii now, you can see that Mount Vesuvius positively just looms over the town. And initially the stages of the volcano, it was actually so powerful, it shot the volcanic cloud high into the stratosphere, which would give you time to escape because the heat and the ash were high above and sort of just fell on Pompeii as a sort of rain or a snow. And so many people took cover, but that was a mistake. The volcano progressed into a more dangerous phase. So the archaeologists I spoke with actually suggest that you run toward the volcano and then past it as the safest route, just because the way the wind blew that morning, if you ran away, it sort of blew the later stages

of the dangerous hot ash cloud toward you. So if you run about 13 miles all the way to Naples and you have about five hours, so it's about a sort of a fast walk pace. You would actually survive. So number one, you need to be physically fit to survive, to survive the first test. You need to keep yourself in a state of physical fitness where you can quickly walk 13 miles. Well hydrated too, because the eruption occurred in August. And in that particular part of the world in August, it's actually quite hot. So make sure to drink water as you go. Okay. All right. So train for a half marathon. That's step one. Have a hydro flask at the ready

and train for a half marathon. I also assume you need to have some kind of like ability to discern which way this cloud of ashes is blowing so that you are walking away in the correct direction. Yes. Well, in this case, we have hindsight. And so I can guide you exactly where to go. In not all volcanoes, is it a good idea to run towards them? I should add that as a caveat. There was just enough time before the volcano actually lost power, which which is entered a more dangerous stage as it blew off more carbon dioxide, the cloud, it was erupting the Plinian column actually, lost lift and sank to the ground and then rolled sort of as like a superheated sandstorm through Herculaneum and then Pompeii, which is sort of almost 800 degree cloud and so dense it could suffocate you. So it just so happens

that it took about five hours for that to occur and just give you enough time to run past it. But in not all cases, is that true? I should add that. No, no. If you are in Hawaii and you see a mountain of lava coming down the mountain, do not run towards it. We cannot extrapolate this advice to any and all volcanoes. Absolutely not. And in most cases, the lava itself actually isn't the most dangerous part because it's so viscous, it flows slowly. So you can usually outrun the lava.

It's the gas cloud and the ash that can move really quite quickly. So that's the most dangerous factor. Okay. All right. Let's talk about the San Francisco earthquake, the massive San Francisco earthquake that was like wiped out such a huge chunk of what had been built in the city. The city is really sort of like up and coming and, you know, economically prosperous. This seems like actually useful advice for anyone living in California right now. Given that people have said it's not if the next big one comes, it's when. Because the Earth is going to continue this type of activity throughout the course of its lifetime. How would you survive a massive earthquake like the one that hit San Francisco?

As this disaster and many others, they sort of repeat themselves, you notice. And in this case, you're right. San Francisco had just recently sort of exploded in population in the sort of post-gold rush. And they started to sort of accommodate these new people. They built on the sort of marshy lowlands of San Francisco. They sort of infilled the bay with sort of dirt and even just trash of the pioneers. And they built houses on top of them. And that is a particularly dangerous place to be during a large earthquake.

The soft ground sort of liquefied and buildings sort of collapsed. And so in the southern part of the city and by the bay in particular is where you don't want to be. You want to be on the hills and the bedrock. But if you were down there, the earthquake was actually just the beginning of the problem because basically every gas and water main in the city severed. And so more than 50 fires sparked up, particularly in the southern portion of the city. And there was not a drop of water running through the city to

put them out. So you really have to, even after the earthquake, you have to get out of the city. Most of it, more than three quarters of the city burned to the ground. And as you're doing so, it's sort of important. There were no bridges at the time. So you have to get to the coastline where they sort of mounted a Dunkirk-like evacuation. Every boat in the bay gathered on the ports and ferried people away. So I suggest you make it there, but you can't run, unfortunately, because another chaos broke out on the streets. There were actually even steer from escaped cattle yards running down and goring people, sort of like the running of Pamplona came to San Francisco. So you have to watch out for those. And you also have to watch out for the military garrison that was stationed there. The general ordered the sort of largest peacetime military occupation of a city

in the US history to try to prevent what he thought was looting, was probably mostly people just trying to save their own stuff from being burned. But more than 100 people were shot by these soldiers running through the street. So watch out for that. But running is a little bit dangerous, particularly if you have something in your hands. And also the military was detonating buildings to try to create a fire line as their only way to stop the fire. So that's also quite dangerous.

It was totally ineffective and probably even counterproductive. So it's a little bit difficult. But if you make it to the coastline and you don't run and sort of fast walk, I think you could survive. So the best course of action is to own a boat. That's the best thing you could do for yourself to survive a California earthquake is own a boat.

Well, in this case, yes. And living on bedrock or getting to bedrock at least is also a good idea. Everybody, in this case, yes. And living on bedrock or getting to bedrock at least is also a good idea. Everybody in San Francisco now, as we all know, the lowlands, the marshy areas are particularly vulnerable to earthquakes. Don't build your house on a trash heap. A piece of advice, number one. I live in San Francisco and had thought I knew a lot about the earthquake, but I had no idea that much of the lowlands are actually quite literally the old dump heaps of the pioneers

just infilled in. So as you can imagine, that's a dangerous place to be during an earthquake. It's not solid ground. What's underneath you is decaying trash. Don't build your house on a trash heap. Live near the coast and own a boat. And on the boat, store food and water, because you ain't going to get some for a while. It so happens in some faults, being on a boat is a dangerous idea during an earthquake, potential tsunami. But it so happens that the San Andreas fault, which is the one that runs through San Francisco, is a sort of transverse fault. The plates slide by each other. So that's

not the kind of fault that creates an earthquake. It's the ones where the ocean floor drops or raises suddenly. So in this case, even though the earthquake happens only a few miles off basically where the Golden Gate Bridge is now, the tsunami was only an inch or two. So definitely the place to be. So additionally, know your tectonic plates. Know what kind we're discussing here. Like, what do you live near? What kind of motion it's going to make? That will be useful to you.

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Streaming November 19th only on Disney+. So many people, as I'm sure you know, have done studies about Jack and Rose in the Titanic, who I understand we're not real people, but they're real to many of us, okay? They might as well be real. There was room on that piece of wood for both of them. You should not just let go and be like, maybe I'll survive the night in the Atlantic.

No, no. There's so many memes about this. There was space for both of them. She's like hogging the bed, essentially. Let him on. Don't say come back, but then make no space for him to get on the piece of wood. But in reality, if you were in steerage, you were low class individual hiding across the ocean in a grand ocean liner. How would one have actually survived the Titanic?

Because you were not the first people into those lifeboats. No. Well, there's sort of two ways that I propose. The first is that you do have time to get to the lifeboats, even if you were in steerage. In fact, as we all have seen in the movie Titanic, the boat took such a gradual descent that I even propose that I think you should probably, instead of running out of your bunk when you hit the iceberg, you should probably change into your finest clothing because the lifeboats are on the first class deck at the top. And so it would help if you looked the part when you get up there. Yeah. They're not checking tickets in that moment. The interior doors were blocked for a little while, the escape route, and they also didn't announce to the steerage passengers where there was the escape route,

but there was one up the front of the boat. So if you go to the third class deck and you can climb, there's a series of ladders that we have photos of actually show the escape route in the book, but you can climb them to the top. And if you arrive there early, you have a decent shot at getting a lifeboat seat. But even if you don't, if you're Jack, for example, in the water, the lifeboats were only about 500 yards away from the sinking boat. And you have about 15 minutes before your limbs become too numb to swim. You have 45 minutes before you actually go into cardiac arrest, but really only 15 minutes of swim time.

And so the world's best ice swimmers do it in about seven minutes. So you have a chance, not a great one, but I would suggest swimming for the life boats because they have plenty of seats. Most of them are loaded only about halfway full. And they might have been able to like row towards you a little bit. Were people in the life boats trying to help people in the water or were they like, no, they're going to swamp us. We're going to die if we try to help people. Yeah. They, there are only a few people that were picked up by the lifeboats. One of the ones who was picked up suffered cardiac arrest after they got on. So it's sort of important once

you get on the boat to sort of be calm. But if you if you make it on the life raft, you should be okay, you're rescued by the Carpathia the next morning. So it'll be a tough swim, but it's possible. It's worth a shot. What do you have to lose? Literally, what do you have to lose? Better than hanging on the side of the door. What do you have to lose? Okay, I mean, other tragic boat disasters like the Lusitania, which of course had like explosives aboard, it would not have behooved you, it seems like, to wait until the last moment to get off the ship. But in the case of the Titanic, until the last moment to get off the ship. But in the case of the Titanic,

would you recommend wait as long as possible before, like, let's say you don't make it on the lifeboat. All the lifeboats are gone. Would you recommend don't jump in the water, wait until the last second, or are you then gonna get sucked under because of the vacuum that's created, like in our imaginary scenario?

When should somebody have tried to like exit the boat, assuming they could not have gotten on with a little life boats? Surprisingly, it's fine to wait until the last moments. Some of the crewmen survived, they went down right as the ship went down. And they testified that their head didn't even go under as the ship sank. And this is actually what you want if you to jump in the water. When you hit water that cold, your body goes into something called the cold shock response, which actually forces you to gasp. And if your head is underwater, that's obviously dangerous. So it's best if you can keep your head above water, the shock response should pass within

about a minute. So if you can just enter as gently as possible, I suggest putting on a life jacket as well and try to keep your head above water. That's your best bet. And then wait until the cold shock response passes and then start swimming. I mean, so many people now pay to have the cold shock response. Like the number of people who are doing cold plunges and like, I have a cold plunge installed at my home. I paid for this device.

People are paying for this now. So you're getting a free metabolic treatment. Yeah. If you survive, maybe it'll be have some health benefits down the line. That's right. They'll study you down the line and be like this person lived to be 140 years old because of the cold shock proteins that were produced when they entered the icy waters of the Northern Atlantic. See how that worked out on your behalf? That's good for your metabolism. of the Northern Atlantic. See how that worked out on your behalf? That's right. That's right. So lean, so lean and long living. Okay. I also have always been very fascinated by the plague or the black death. First of all, what was this? Let's define the terms. What are we talking about here? Yeah. Some people call this the most catastrophic event in human history. It's sort of a period of about 18 months when a bacteria entered.

They actually know the exact date when it arrived in England. It was on June 25th in 1348, a sickened sailor, according to this legend, arrived in port. And it was over the next 18 months, some 40% of the city of London died. over the next 18 months, some 40% of the city of London died. It was a bacteria that traveled in fleas. And these fleas were mostly living on rats. But the bacteria was as deadly to the rats as it was to humans. And so as the rat population died, the fleas jumped to humans. And so the advice that I assumed going into it was to leave London and to go to the rural areas. But that turns out to be even worse. The death rate was even higher in these rural areas because they had more rats and fewer humans. So that just sort of increased the chances that you would be bitten. And then

I also thought maybe it would be a good idea to get a cat or a rat trap or in other ways, try to kill the rats. But that's dangerous dangerous too because the only thing more dangerous than a live rat is a is a dead one because then it forces its fleas to jump so there are areas within london that had fewer rats which is a good idea to live there but other than that you really just try to avoid flea bites tucking in your pant legs to your socks taking frequent baths and looking for fleas those are really your best bet because once you contract this bacteria there's nothing at this time period that could help. And in fact, going to a doctor would be a bad idea. They thought bleeding would help, for example. So it was not just ineffective, it would be painful. So you really want to avoid the bite. That's really the only thing that you

can do. And they had no bug spray. There was no DEET available. There was no permethrin treated clothing. There were no like, let's just flea bomb the house. You know, like all the insecticides you might use today, not available. Could you have used herbs? Could there was like an herbal preparation that you could have fumigated your house with? Killed the fleas? That's an interesting idea. Tent your house maybe and- Yeah, like in eucalyptus or I don't know, I mean like citronella. Yeah, that's a good idea. Sort of a start a fire and get some smoke in your house. It would smelly, but probably effective at fumigating it. I would suggest that was a good idea.

It seems like, yeah, anything that would kill fleas would be beneficial, right? So if we're planning ahead, Cody, we're planning for the zombie apocalypse, it might be a good idea to stock up on insecticide. Yeah, insecticide. I think antibiotics too. They are effective against the bacteria now. They didn't exist back then, of course. What is this bacteria called, by the way? What's it called? It's called Yersinia pestis. It's a particularly nasty bacteria, actually. It even kills the fleas. What happens is that when the flea bites an infected rat or human, the bacteria begins to grow in its gut. And the flea, actually, it starves the flea. It prevents the blood from even entering its stomach.

So the flea will feed on a creature, and then it won't be able to ingest the blood. The blood will just mix with this bacteria, Yersinia pestis, and then it'll vomit it back up into its victim. I don't approve of that. That sounds not approved by me. And the flea eventually starves to death as well. So as it gets hungrier and hungrier, it bites more and more and spreads the bacteria even more. And once the bacteria is inside you, it sort of replicates within your lymph nodes and you'll get these sort of bulbous postules that are sort of indicative of the black plague. It's about a 60% death rate for the bacteria. And then there is a chance actually in some instances where it infects the lungs and the

bacteria starts growing in the lungs. And then you can catch the bacteria through the air. It goes in spittle. And if you breathe the infected spittle, you will, you'll also contract what's called pneumonic plague. And that's even worse. That has a death rate of a hundred percent. Fortunately, there's no such thing as walking pneumonic plague.

You're not likely to encounter somebody on the streets with pneumonic plague. They will be very, very ill. So the fleas are really the ones you need to be concerned about unless you're around somebody who's very, very sick. I've read once that, you know, like the plague, you know, and had several different iterations throughout history where it would go away and it would come back and whatever. The number of people it killed throughout history is staggering. Do you have a sense of how many people, like the number of people that died from this over time? At first, historians sort of thought the accounts, these ancient accounts were sort of exaggerations. But as they dig up more graves and more fiscal evidence enters the record they've started to realize that this was actually under play and that as much as 40 percent of Europe may have

been killed by the black plague they had no idea how the plague passed many thought it was through spore opening activities what they called so they actually discouraged bathing because they thought it opened the spores and allowed the plague to pass through. That's exactly the opposite. You should be bathing and checking yourself for fleas. And washing your hands. Washing your hands. Although in this particular case, because of the flea bites, it usually didn't pass like that.

Although it did, a pneumonic plague did pass through infected spittles. So it wouldn't hurt. What would have helped you survive this other than trying to stay away from rats, which is not always possible if you live in a rat infested place, which as you mentioned, even trying to escape London made it worse because there were more rats. So we've discussed some kind of insecticide to fumigate your house in some fashion. Was there anything one could do? I mean, obviously this was

like before the era of vaccines, even the type of inoculation that people would have given to each other during a smallpox outbreak, for example, like the variolation that happened. People didn't have that then. Was there anything that somebody could do to like buck up their constitution to like make this, like even if they caught it they could live like what if you catch it how do you live even if you catch it well staying healthy is always is helpful in any disease hydrating rest eat fruits and vegetables but if you catch it it's not great it comes down to a coin flip a little bit really in later plagues the wealthy learned that they could go to their manors these aren aren't the farming villages, which had a lot of rats in them, but sort of wealthy estates, sort of rat-free estates.

So if you had a friend that owned one of those, that would be a good idea. But in this initial wave, when there was so little knowledge of the safer things to do, the wealthy didn't survive any better, really really than even the lower classes in London. So all I can suggest is if you make friends with a wealthy person and live in their house. Or just be wealthy. Just be wealthy. Turns out that that still to this day improves your health outcomes. But don't go to the doctor. A lot of the problems with the Black Plague was the wealthy could afford medical care, which was bad in this case when doctors were actively bad for you. Okay, so be wealthy, go to your country estates,

stay away from people and or rats, try to fumigate your house. Those are all good tips. I am very curious, though, about the worst year in human history, which is not Pompeii, was not the Titanic. What was the worst year in human history? It wasn't 2020, unlike some people seem to think it was not 2020. No, this was the year 536, deep in the early medieval period, what we call the Dark Ages. And it was a dark year within the Dark ages. They were first found this occurred when they were looking at tree rings actually and across particularly in northern Europe they noticed in one year these trees showed remarkably no growth and even showed frost in the summer and then these ice cores revealed that there was a massive volcanic eruption probably somewhere in Iceland

that darkened the skies for almost an entire year. As one Byzantine historian said, the sun shone with the power of the moon, the high sun. So this caused a massive drought because there was less evaporation as well as obviously crops died off in the cold, these frosts in the summer. There was sort of snow in the summer and throughout China and the Middle East. It snowed even in the winter. So the first problem was this massive drought and massive starvation. And we can see from these settlements and across particularly Northern Europe, settlers basically just abandoned the cities, which were sort of driven by the economic system that just collapsed and returned to living as hunters and gatherers, basically.

But then the second problem, which is why it makes it the particularly worst year in human history, is that the cold drove those plague-ridden rodents into the populated lowlands and sparked off the first plague. So not only is there drought during this year, But there's also the first terrible plague. So people are freezing to death. There's a plague. They don't have any food because things are not growing. How would one have survived that? So the first step is to get out of the cities of these medieval forts because they're particularly bad places to be in these massive famines because they have high densities of people and very little natural food sources. So a lot of the farmers, when their crops failed,

they would go to the cities because a lot of the local kings would keep some reserves of grain. But those quickly ran out. And after they ran out, you have a lot of people with very little natural resources for food. So as everybody moves to the city, I would suggest leaving and going to the old hunting and gathering. Fishing villages seem to perform particularly well in these times. I sort of talked to an archaeologist who suggested planting rye and barley rather than wheat, if you want some very specific advice, because those perform a little bit better in the cold. And then the second part is, again, avoiding the plague, which is you follow the same steps as before. Stay away from rats. Stay away from the rats. Those are a big problem for quite a long period of history.

People look around now, I would imagine maybe you've heard this before, they look around now and a lot of people ask me, is this the worst it has ever been? They see COVID and they see all this political unrest and contention and all of these various natural disasters and like the earth is the hottest it's ever been and all of these terrible things happening. And people frequently ask me, is this the worst it has ever been? And I am just going to say, here is a book that will settle that question in your mind once and for all. You will read about the year 536. You'll read about living in London during the Black Death.

You'll read about living in London during the Black Death. You'll read about Pompeii. And you will put to bed once and for all the idea that like, actually the number of rats in my house is near zero. It's near zero. And so that right there, I can't say perfectly it's zero, but it's near zero. You know what I mean? It's like, I don't see them. So they're probably not prevalent. it's near zero. You know what I mean? It's like, I don't see them. So they're probably not prevalent. I don't wake up with flea bites. I don't think I have fleas in my mattress. Like just that alone is a huge improvement in human history. No, this is not the worst it has ever been. We have antibiotics. We have antibiotics. If you don't, if you're not regularly bitten by fleas and or rats,

this is not the worst it's ever been. It's very interesting from a history perspective. It's interesting from a science perspective, because you need science to understand how to survive these things. You need science to understand the mechanism behind how these things happen. It's also just amusing, like alternative history, like how would you have survived this? So there is this sort of like level of incredulity where it's like, okay, get a rich friend, own a boat, you know, like those kinds of attitudes. But what are, in your mind, some of the takeaways that somebody reading this in 2023 could legitimately garner from surviving or learning about surviving some of the history's worst disasters? Well, a lot of these disasters repeat themselves,

and not just repeat themselves, but sort of the exact manner in which they occur happens again. So if you learn sort of earthquakes and volcanoes, I mean, Pompeii is still beneath the active volcano Vesuvius, and San Francisco is still on an active fault. And the manner in which they occur also repeats themselves and sort of the way the disaster unfolds, I found to be surprisingly repetitive. So one lesson, and it's a bit self-serving, I suppose, is to read about these ancient disasters and see how they occurred. And even in the book, I found myself trying to avoid repeating myself because some disasters unfolded thousands of years later in the very same manner. Educating oneself on the potential for future disaster and ways one might mitigate against it.

Turns out that is still the best defense. What, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? Yeah, and I think in a lot of cases, the answers are sort of counterintuitive and surprising are the right the right paths to take. So it would be probably a mistake to think that you could just sort of predict what to do or how to escape. So yeah, absolutely. I think education is probably the most important step you can take. Yeah, that's a good point, too. Because if you're like, I'll just rely on my common sense. That's all anybody had to go on back then, right? Was there quote unquote, common sense. And that did not had to go on back then, right? Was there quote unquote common sense? And that did not bode well for them, actually, as you mentioned, like sometimes it's

not what you think you need to do is the opposite of what you think you need to do. Yeah. And I think I sort of biased myself in this book to discuss events in which that was the case, because I found it to be the most interesting. But I think it's true for a lot of these particularly disastrous scenarios is that the best way to survival is somewhat counterintuitive. And educating yourself. And I found it very amusing. It's funny to think about like, okay, I'll just get a boat. Easy. Boom. I live in a place people have called climate proof, because Lake Superior is four quadrillion gallons of cold, fresh water

that cannot grow the type of bacteria that makes you sick because it's too cold. And then adjacent is hundreds of thousands of acres of wilderness. I'm sorry for you, though. You are probably going to die in San Francisco, Cody. Yeah, I think I'd be significantly worse off. And then I will write the next How to Survive History book.

Teach everybody from my mistakes. That's right. My answer will be live in a remote, cold place. Oh, this is a really fun conversation. And your book is really fun and really thought-provoking. And I think so many people will get such a kick out of reading this. There's so many really interesting tidbits that I think you'll be able to take away. And I really appreciate your time today. Oh, thank you so much for having me. You can find Cody Cassidy's book, How to Survive

History, wherever you get your books. And you might try going to bookshop.org, which supports independent bookstores. Thanks for being here. This show is researched and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. Our executive producer is Heather Jackson. Our audio producer is Jenny Snyder. And if you enjoyed this episode, would you consider leaving us a rating or review on your favorite podcast platform? That helps us so much. And we always love to see your shares and tags on social media. We'll see you again soon.