Oh What A Time... - #36 Presidents (Part 1)

Episode Date: April 7, 2024

This week we’re taking a look at a whole host of US Presidents; Theodore Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Andrew Jackson and the Full Timers will this week get America’s second (and basically forgotten) president John Adams. And can you imagine playing drum and bass to a medieval peasant? What other tunes would you like to play to a medieval peasant?! To get in touch about that or anything else, drop us an email to: [e-mail] If you're impatient and want both parts in one lovely go next time plus a whole lot more(!), why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER? In exchange for your £4.99 per month to support the show, you'll get: - the 4th part of every episode and ad-free listening - episodes a week ahead of everyone else - a bonus episode every month - And first dibs on any live show tickets Subscriptions are available via AnotherSlice, Apple and Spotify. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.com You can follow us on:  X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepod And Instagram at @ohwhatatimepod Aaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice? Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk). We'll see you next week! Chris, Elis and Tom x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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where we offer career programs purpose-built for you. Visit continue.yorku.ca. Hello and welcome to Oh What A Time, the history podcast that tries to decide if the past was a time when you'd wake up thinking to yourself, I feel cheated that I was born now, actually. I wish I was born in a thousand years' time. This is too hard. My name is Ellis James. I am Tom Crane. And we don't have Chris Scull this week because he has another job.

And he's jet-setting. He is working abroad. Selfishly, he's holding down other work. He's selfishly holding down other work abroad. When we started the show that you must drop everything else, be that family, career, it has to be history first. But, Tom, history never stops. That's the great thing about history. And so even though he is abroad, having a great life with a great career, we've decided to get stuck in. Each week on this show, of course, we're looking at a new historical subject.

And today we're going to be discussing the presidents of the United States of America. Yeah the big ones. The big ones. Would you say the most powerful? Definitely in the past the most powerful person in kind of I'd say in the mid part of the last century onwards I'd say. I'm not sure if the president is still the most powerful person in the world. Probably not. I think there's an argument somewhere like Zuckerberg or... I would say that they are, actually. Would you really? Even more so than, let's say... Yeah, Zuckerberg doesn't have a... He doesn't have an army.

Okay. An army of dweeds. His Silicon Valley army. Zuckerberg, I don't think, can shoot me. Yes. Can he? Maybe. Can he? I don't know. Bezos could buy a gun on his own think can shoot me. Yes. Can he? Maybe? Can he? I don't know. Bezos could buy a gun on his

own website and shoot me. Yeah. And the best thing is, Ellis, that gun would be with him within 24 hours if he has Prime. And we can assume that Bezos has Prime. It's a good service. He must have Prime. He gets everything on Amazon at cost price. He's got a great life.

Is he still having to buy movies on Prime? If Bezos is at home and he looks at, let's say, Oppenheimer, it's just been released, is he still having to choose 1799 and buy it? Or does he get that stuff free through some mega Prime that no one else is aware of? Do you know what I'm going to do? As soon as we finish recording,

I'm going to go onto my Amazon Prime, because I'm going to log in as a new person. I'm going to put in jeff.bezos at gmail.com and just start guessing passwords. Amazon is great, number one. Amazon is great, dollar sign.

Amazon is great, exclamation mark. And then surely then you get Jeff Bezos Mega Prime what a feeling that would be because you could definitely I would say

once a fortnight sneak something of less than a grand's value into his shopping basket and he wouldn't notice is he one of those rich people

yeah who is so rich it's all irrelevant to him and he just buys it he doesn't think and then he realises that he's got a Lamborghini that he's forgotten about or is he one of those rich people who itemizes everything

and he would notice if you were buying a can of deodorant on his prime yeah i have a feeling he's that guy i do yeah when you read interviews he's so detailed oriented he's so much about the customer everything has to be exactly right and that's's why Amazon is, I think we can agree, a success. It's a good service. He's no longer working out of the garage that he started in. It's no longer just books from a garage. So, yeah, I think he probably would notice if you did too much. But I think once a month, less than a grand is fine.

It's absolutely fine. This sounds bad, what I'm about to say. It's fine. It's absolutely fine. This sounds bad, what I'm about to say. I had to buy a traditional Welsh costume for my son for culture day at his school. Okay. But obviously St David's Day is on March the 1st and their culture day was in October or something.

So all of the usual shops that you would buy traditional Welsh costume for boys and girls, they were either sold out or they weren't stocking them. And I thought, hang on, there's shops all over Wales that sell like traditional Welsh stuff, ranging from the traditional costumes for kids to a ruler with a map of Ceredigion

on it. Yep. We all know that, well actually, probably not. If you weren't born in Wales, you don't know what I'm talking about. But, you know, a pencil case with an image of Canavron Castle on it, etc. Right. Yeah.

So I tried a few of these shops and they were saying, we can get it to you in three weeks. And obviously Culture Day was looming. And eventually I went with Amazon and I was blown away at how good the service was. I felt guilty to my core. But I thought, I feel sorry for every shop owner, independent shop owners listening to this now

is considering throwing their phone into a river. Yeah. But so, yeah, so for crying out loud, let's have a plural economy, buy elsewhere.

But I do mean it. it's culture day and you need a Welsh costume, ASA, and I cannot, I cannot emphasise enough, you need a Welsh costume quickly. I think this is a fair deal to any independent shop owner listening.

If you are able to get me anything within 12 to 24 hours, then I will start using you. Because at the moment, that is what the other option is. I can do that. I can get literally anything within 24 hours. Anyway, but God bless the high street. God bless the high street. other option is i can do that i can get literally anything within 24 anyway but you know god bless the high street no god bless the high street for god's sake we cannot turn this into an amazon love in for god's sake should we move on to some correspondence as a way of yes before we lose all

our listeners it's not it's not about a good amazon is it is it for crying out loud this is from great name tom grist and it is about the one day time machine here we are again britain's greatest um does he work in a mill it's very nice tom grist has said hello lads hope all is well i'm a big fan of the show and for my one day time machine i'd love to get involved in an act of mass hysteria i like this you know the dance till i drop in the dancing plague of 1518 have you read about this dancing plague apparently there's a plague where people just started

dancing spontaneously around the country and they just couldn't stop there is 1518 yeah that book Extraordinary Popular Delusions

which you can get on Amazon within 24 hours Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds which is a study in like crowd psychology oh that's, which I have read. But for God's sake, buy that from your local bookshop. And I cannot emphasise that enough.

So he says, you know, the dance that I drop in the dancing plague of 1518, or maybe practising my purring with those meowing nuns, it just seems like a laugh. Alternatively, and this really made me laugh, loading up an iPod with Sandstorm by Darude. Remember that song? Which one was that? Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da that idea that's what i found quite amusing is the idea of going up to someone in medieval britain and putting your ear pods into their ears and playing them something just you know william orbit or something or something really trancy something just no sounds that they'd be used to

i think it would be too full-on do you i think if you played say early bob dylan where it's just him and an acoustic guitar for instance or Bertie so ease him in with that Simon and Garfunkel that etc yeah I think if you played 808 State it would just be

such an assault it was such an assault on the senses what do you think someone's doing then let's say it's a normal sort of farmhand

a peasant you're going up to him and you're playing some really hard drum and bass. And he's like, check this out. What's happening? Are his shoes getting blown clean off? What's the reaction? I think they would assume that it was the work of the devil, wouldn't they? Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't go from a world with no recorded music To the Kemilker brothers in one leaf. Without taking something. And I think that's too much. You say, right then, put that turnip down. Take this and listen to this. Half of this. See how you go.

And then listen to this. I'll be back in half an hour. Yeah. There's a really in half an hour. Yeah. There's a really interesting book, by the way, which is called... Take half of one of these. Have you read a book called How Music... Have you got any bottled water?

No, of course you haven't. Dance close to a stream, because you will need some. There's a really interesting book called how music works have you read that no it's fascinating it's by the guy from talking heads whose name is what david burn david burn there you go yeah and he talks about how the places in which music is formed and first kind of thought of affects the type of music we listen to and how in Britain this slow sort of choral tradition of singular voices which move quite slowly in simple harmonies came about because of the echoes of the church basically because that's where music was first performed

en masse for choirs. What an interesting book that I'm not gonna buy on Amazon. It's fascinating it's really affected the rhythm of the music. Whereas out in Africa, more tribal music, where you're out in the plains, there's none of this sort of echo and rebound, which has led to a more sort of drum-heavy type of music. That's why traditional music... So to come back to this point,

if you did play a peasant drummer bass, they'd be so unfamiliar with this sort of rather phonetic drum beat because it goes against everything of the evolution of british music at that time it would be so so different whereas maybe other parts of the world not so much but here it would blow their mind playing a peasant drum and bass there you go well there were worse ways to spend your day and one day time machine than testing that out if you have any other ideas that you want to send us for one day time machine or any other things that cropped up on the show do get in contact we love to hear from

you and here is how you do just that all right you horrible lot here's how you can stay in touch with the show you can email us at hello at oh what a time dot com and you can email us at hello at oh, what a time dot com. And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at oh, what a time pod. Now clear off. Are you Dave, a claims free hybrid driving university grad who signed up online? Well, Dave, this jingles for you. Who says with TD insurance because he's a a glint. We have a driving university grad who signed up online.

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underdog win, buzzer beater, shootout, walk-off, and absolutely every play in between is amazing. From football to basketball and hockey to baseball, whatever the moment, it's never ordinary at Bet365. Must be 19 or older, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you or someone you know has concerns about gambling, visit connectsontario.ca. So, on this week's episode, as I said a few minutes ago, we are discussing the Presidents of the United States of America. We've chosen four.

I will be discussing John Adams and Andrew Jackson. And I will be discussing Lyndon Johnson. Oh, lovely. Oh, you're a fan of Lyndon Johnson. I studied the 60s at A-level. So I remember a little bit, but it's over 25 years ago. So I'm looking forward to reacquainting myself with Lyndon Johnson. He's a fascinating guy he's also one of the most definitely one of the most sort of divisive presidents of all time that will actually be in the bonus section for subscribers if you want to subscribe you'll hear about Lyndon Johnson but first of all I'm going to kick things off by talking about Theodore Roosevelt. Now do you know much about Theodore Roosevelt is that someone you've studied at all?

A little bit yeah. Theodore Roosevelt he's fascinating guy. He's the 26th president of the United States. He served between 1901 to 1909, and he's the only president to win the Nobel Peace Prize, which is pretty cool. And at 42, he's still the youngest person ever to become president. Are you 42? Is that right? 43. You're 43. Okay, so a year ago, would you have felt ready to be?

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so a year ago, would you have felt ready to be? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, good. I woke up on my 42nd birthday and I said, Swizzy, it's time. It's time. Why haven't they called? What are you running on? What are your main policies? Let's say then. So you're forced to be president now. You need two policies to run on. What's your vibe? Free Netflix. You need two policies to run on.

What's your vibe? Free Netflix. Like that. Okay, tell you what. I will say at this point, I'm listening. I bear in mind the advertising we've already given him. Free Amazon Prime. The rest can look after itself.

You would absolutely hoover up some voters with that. Oh, yeah. Definitely, completely. You'd jay-edga-hoover up a load of voters. Lovely stuff. So Roosevelt was born in upstate New York in 1858. He was the sort of like privileged background, the offspring of a leading Republican family. And even before becoming president,

he had like an insane CV from his 42 years of life before that. He was, okay, check this out this out a naturalist an adventurer a writer a historian he was a rower a journalist a magazine editor a lawyer a cattle rancher a police commissioner an army officer and then finally a politician people accuse me of having too many podcasts. They say, come on, Ellis. Such a distant sports bar, the show with John, what a time, Mr Football. You can't do all of these. I'm like, yeah.

Check out Roosevelt, mate. In his defence, though, well, he wasn't doing all of those at the same time. He was running those sort of back-to-back, a lot of them. Oh, yeah. Whereas you're cramming them all into the same point in life. Yeah, same week. My worry would be, I think, as an employer, every time he came,

would be, I'm getting the sense you're not a sticker, if you know what I mean. If you've done that many things, Theodore, my concern would be, if I'm going to give you this job, can you guarantee you're not just going to go, after two months, I'm going to do something different now, I'm going to be a pilot. Are you really the best cattle rancher for the job because your skills seem to lie elsewhere

that one does sort of stick out a bit cattle rancher it's quite an about turn doesn't it i admire it though because it means he was working with his hands you know as well as the cerebral stuff yeah it feels like someone who's living in the city and then has watched a documentary about someone who's living a more pure life outside. Yeah. Like Channel 4 documentary at 10pm, quite slow pace, and he thought, I'm going to do that instead. He basically did an escape to the country. Yeah, exactly.

And then thought, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go back and be a police commissioner. Have you ever done that before? No. Lockdown had such a profound effect on us that Claire and I watched every episode of Escape to the Country we completed it we're constantly thinking maybe we need to get out it's not really surprising that he could tough it out doing all these things because he was he was a really hard guy Roosevelt he for example he you'll like this he boxed regularly he like he loved boxing and his boxing even cost him the sight in one eye a fact that he then kept hidden for decades after that one One of his favourite things to do, even throughout winter, was to go skinny dipping in the Potomac River, like even in the depths of winter. That sounds cold.

Thoughts on that? I mean, it's now a kind of hipster thing, isn't it? Yeah. And also there's Wim Hof, who's... I've read all of his books. Okay. I like the idea of becoming almost sort of unkillable just because I have the odd cold shower. Yeah. There must be something in it. Claire's family loves skinny dipping. Her mum loves it.

She loves doing it. Do they do it together? Because that's weird if they do. They have, but they're quite far apart in the sea, I think, when they do it. Okay. My thing is I'd feel too vulnerable. It's the idea of having everything exposed to whatever is swimming around me. Yeah.

Having a barracuda sort of staring down my penis. Within ten or whatever. I don't know what's down there. But you know what I mean? I'm too vulnerable. I'm too vulnerable. Same reason I go to sleep with pants on in case someone breaks in. I need something between me and nature.

The last thing I want to do is to have to call the police in tears, naked. Let me have pyjama bottoms on. So this wasn't the end of his sort of hard, tough sort of life practice. For example, he also learned the art of jiu-jitsu after he'd lost the sight in one eye. So boxing didn't put him off martial arts. He learned it from a chap called Yoshita Sugun, who was a pioneer of martial arts in the United States. And Roosevelt loved loved it so much he then insisted the entire American army were taught this martial art as well that's how much he loved it and most impressively he is the only president to have been awarded the Medal of Honor which was awarded by President Clinton in 2001

to recognize his bravery during the Spanish-American War of 1898. Unfortunately, he was unable to make the ceremony. He's been dead for 56 years by that point. But it's also worth mentioning, there's so many other things, really paint the sort of character he is. He only became president when he was serving as vice president to William McKinley, and McKinley was assassinated. And this is the thing I've thought about.

The idea of taking a job when the previous guy has been assassinated, to have the guts to do that, it would worry me on such a profound level obviously you work towards this you're serving your country but you've literally just seen your work colleague killed yeah in that role it's not the ideal way to get a promotion yeah we're whatsapping another comedian saying listen skull's been assassinated do you fancy doing a history podcast? My favourite story, though, of Roosevelt's toughness, and I love this, came from 1912. This blew my mind.

He was giving a speech in Milwaukee. Midway through, he announced, he was just doing a speech, and midway through, he announced he'd been shot. And he showed the crowd his papers, which had a bullet hole through them like like a cartoon there's a bullet hole through his his reading papers he's reading a speech from and then he lifted his shirt to show the bloody mark where he'd been shot now what are you doing at that point there's not a speech that i want to give enough for me to finish if i've been shot well

roosevelt continued to speak for another 90 minutes after being shot, refusing to allow his aides to take him to hospital. The bullet had lodged itself near his ribs and remained there for the rest of his life. There's that great scene in I'm Alan Partridge where Alan steps on a spike and he still gives the speech at the corporate event. You know, he's being sick with the pain and he's groaning and it's very, very funny. I cannot believe that he gave that speech without sort of every now and then going...

Anyway. Oh, it was... Jesus. Sort of biting down on the lectern. The relationship of between the White House, obviously federalism. Jesus Christ. Our Right Honourable Colleen Virginia.

Had a word with me yesterday in Congress, aye? It doesn't specify here. Could I have a drink of water, please? Or something stronger. So this is the guy he is. This sort of tough way of being was reflected in his personal philosophies in life. This is what's quite interesting about him. In an early speech he gave in 1899, while serving as the governor of New York,

Roosevelt advocated for, and I quote, a life of toil and effort effort of labour and strife. That's a vote loser. Absolutely. Exactly what I'm thinking. He said real men, as he added, do not shrink from danger, from hardship or from bitter toil. We've got the, you know,

there's an election coming up in the UK at some point this year. Can you imagine Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer standing on a platform of bitter toil? Make Britain bitter. Bitter again. One vote for the toil party. But despite this, and this is why he's kind of quite a multifaceted type of candidate,

despite this sort of tough outlook, he also had a profound social conscience. So he was a Republican, but he was also extremely progressive in his outlook. So his main point was that he felt that governments, and this is what he was quoted as saying, the main duty of government was to mitigate social evil, which, to be fair, is also completely different. We talk about our candidates today. That is not how they present themselves. It's all wedge politics and this idea of grabbing some voter base simply because you think it'll work for you rather than what you believe in.

He obviously had a deep idea of what your role as a public servant was to mitigate social evils. I think that's quite that's quite interesting and feels quite rare. And this outlook was also seen again when he ran for office once again in 1912. But this time he ran as a third party progressive candidate when he became the first American politician to call for a system of public health care in the United States, which he referred to as the National Health Service. And to that, he also added the call for a minimum wage, a guaranteed day off each week, strong trade unions, national insurance schemes, and also limiting the working day to eight hours. I mean, how exciting it must have been to have a political option who

offered such fundamental change and that's that's the thing you'll never see today now it's all little increments and kind of political choices but it's not those sort of fundamental social changes which will completely change the way you live your life the eight hour day incredible exactly huge and the idea is simply the idea of a guaranteed day off each week these things that now we take for granted the idea of a weekend but off each week. These things that now we take for granted, the idea of a weekend, but actually cementing it that people have to have this time off. We routinely podcast at 8am on a Saturday morning.

I do, yeah. Half past seven last week. Oh my God, what would he make of that, eh? Roosevelt will be livid. Bitter toil, 21st century style. Why are you podcasting at 7.30am? Because I've got to take my daughter to drama so it is family first i gotta take my son to little kickers so it's no surprise then that

in the 1912 election teddy roosevelt did just fantastically on those policies and this is incredible when you think about it despite being a third party candidate so he wasn't republican he wasn't democrat wasn't standing for either those party. He came second in the election, taking more than a quarter of the popular vote, which is over four million people, and pushing the Republicans to third place. In the single greatest triumph of a third party candidate in the entirety of American political history. If you could imagine today the idea of a non-Republican or non-Democrat candidate coming second. Yeah, it occasionally happens, doesn't it? The third candidate in a US election.

All of this work, his kind of incredible sort of social change, what he sort of represented for the country, really, has obviously left him with an incredible legacy, a legacy that was so great that it even secured him a place on Mount Rushmore in 1927 alongside Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, of course, founding fathers, and Abraham Lincoln. And in this case, Roosevelt was intended to symbolise America's development as a nation and the start of its new potential, basically. You've got to be really certain that you've chosen the correct president if you're about to carve his face into rock the size of a mountain yeah absolutely do you think just as a sort of halfway through the

chin thinking yeah can we change that uh can we change that to someone else a chin is a chin isn't it if you kept not too specific, all the features a little bit vague, they could all be tweaked. I was thinking about this. How would you feel having your face on the side of a mountain? Let's say, is there a mountain, is there like a large outcrop near Carmarthen?

What's the nearest thing to Carmarthen? Preseli Mountains, I suppose. There you go. So they're chiselling your face on the side. Into the Preseli Mountains. Do you know what, Tom? I would feel overwhelmed. I suppose there you go so they're chiselling your face into the Pacific mountains do you know what Tom I would feel overwhelmed and if you were going for it

what scene are you looking for them to depict is it you playing with your children is it you podcasting what is it it's me on my phone choosing my fantasy

football team with one hand down your pants just sort of like carved into a rock to sort of like find elsewhere he's by far the most modern

of the presidents on Mount Rushmore yeah absolutely because obviously you know George Washington the first president Thomas Jefferson

was the third Abraham Lincoln you know in the 1860s the 16th then his term of office had only just ended really it's amazing really isn't it what a thing to have done to literally have yourself immortalized on the

side of a mountain is incredible and he is still loved today this is what's interesting indeed there's sort of regularly published lists of the greatest presidents ever teddy roosevelt averages out around about number five oh wow 2010 he came second with only his fifth cousin fdr the longest serving and wartime president ahead of him so in some polls he's considered the second greatest american president of all time oh well that's a fairly decent record isn't it what a dude yeah and he could sort of you know you can break your neck with an injitsu move whatever he's got all these stuff as well he can skinny dip with the best of them

fair play to him so that is the end of part 1 part 2 will be with you tomorrow they'll be dropping on whatever device it is that you listen to your podcasts on however if you would like your episodes of Oh What What a Time all in one lovely go,

why don't you become an Oh, What a Time full-timer? There are lots of benefits to being an Oh, What a Time full-timer. You get episodes in one go. You get bonus episodes as well. No adverts. Advert-free. No adverts. People will think you're cool.

There's, of course, the cool dividend. It'll probably give you a sort of strut that you haven't previously had. You'll bob down the road in a different way. It will give you a sort of social cachet that you probably never had before. Exactly. Because also, you don't even need to wear clothing or a badge on it. People will just know. Do wear clothing, though, just to be clear.

Yeah, yeah, do wear clothing. People are like, oh my God, he's an old-timey, old-timey. He is. Exactly. Look at his gait. Look at the way he struts god uh if you want to sign up to that you can do that using whatever app you use go on apple spotify whatever the options there or you can go to oh what a time.com and all the options are down there and thank you very much for joining us either way and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow for more presidential fun bye Thank you.