Stuff You Should Know - How did 168 conquistadors take down the Inca empire?

Episode Date: August 29, 2013

Just before Francisco Pizarro arrived in South American in 1532, the Inca empire covered 350,000 square miles and boasted a million inhabitants. Yet Pizarro managed to take down this vast, powerful and advanced bureaucracy with only 168 men. Find out how and learn about the Inca on this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's here, of course, and this is Stuff You Should Know. Welcome, friends. Yeah. Oh, before we get started, I want to do a little plug. We want to do a little plug for a co-ed, the cooperative for education. Our friends in Guatemala, of course. Yeah, if you... By way of Cincinnati. Right. If you haven't heard them, you want to go listen to our Guatemala adventure, parts one and two. Jerry gives a big speech in the second one. It's very dramatic and moving. And basically, co-ed is a group that is dedicated to ending poverty in Guatemala

by basically funding them and their schooling. Yes, through education. Yes, through a textbook and then computer program where your donations go to buy textbooks that are rented by the families and that rental money goes into escrow accounts. And then when the textbooks were out, they can buy new ones in perpetuity. They call that the self-sustaining program. That's exactly right. And I think the textbook rentals something like $2 a year. They did a lot of surveys to find out what the average family in the conditions that they live in can afford. And they've got it down pretty much to science. They have another thing, Chuckers,

that's their scholarship and youth development program. And it takes it several steps further where certain kids who are showing a lot of potential, they get their tuition paid for, there's programs, additional programs that are all paid for through the scholarship program. And so COED has developed this program. They're reaching out to Sabi Shenola listeners who've apparently shown up in force to help COED ever since the Guatemalan adventure episodes. Yeah, they've had people go on tours with Jerry even. And yeah, it's really neat. Like it's been just a great friendship over the past few years. It has been. So you can go to www.cooperative4education.org slash helpkids and become a scholarship

sponsor. And there's two levels of sponsorship. There is the diploma sponsor, right? Yeah, 70 bucks a month. Yeah. And then the honor roll sponsor. Half. 35 bucks a month. Both very valuable. And that is taking a kid literally as directly as you can without physically going down there and picking them up. Yeah. But lifting a kid out of, you know, like abject poverty.

Yeah. And giving them the chance for a real quality education. Yeah. I mean, we've seen them in action and your money's going to like a great place. Agreed. They use it well. And we mentioned this before in another episode. And as a result, some stuff you should know listeners became scholarship donors. That's right.

Who are they? Well, we've pledged to like read these names. Yeah. Anybody who who goes on and becomes a scholarship sponsor with co-ed and agrees to let us say their name if you want. Yeah. We are reading your names out and thank you on the podcast. So here's the first batch. That's right. Thank you, Andy Ho. That is A and D I E not Y.

Right. Right. Thank you to Bendick, Bucksauce. Nice. Thank you to Aaron Nice or Nice. I don't know. N-I-E-S. Nice. Nice. Let's say both.

We did. Thank you to Ian Murray for having a normal name. Thank you to Jordan Weicker. You want to read the last three? Sure. Thanks to Katie Apple or Appel. Appel. Thanks to Kelly Andrews and thanks to Zoya Erdovig. That's right.

And it sounds like we have people from all over the world helping and chipping in judging from these names. So that's really great. Yeah. And a name that you'll probably recognize because he's all over social or social stuff. Caleb Weeks. Oh, yeah. Caleb Weeks super volunteered and he is a programmer and he basically helped take the

co-ed website into the 21st century by leaps and bounds by volunteering as a programmer. Yeah. You can always get in touch with them if you don't have any dough but you've got some other skill. They'll take help in all kinds of ways. Web programming and video work and Jerry's done some videography work form. I've done some voiceover stuff for him. It's a real live charitable organization. Agreed.

Yeah. So go help them that's www.cooperativeforeducation.org slash helpkids and check it out. See what you think. Okay. All right. Yeah. That was a good one though. We like to talk about co-ed every now and then because there's good folks.

Sure. So now we can talk about sort of a related-ish topic. I guess it is. You know. It's down there. I recognized a couple of these words. Did you? Yeah.

Well, we'll get to it. But there was one of them. It's actually a town in Guatemala, I think. Which one? Ketchakal? Yeah, that sounds familiar. That's a language. That's a language, Jerry says.

Yeah. But I remember when I was in Guatemala hearing that. Right. Yeah. So we're talking Inca. Yeah. Pretty, this is a Josh Clark jam. It was, this was back when I was like starry-eyed over anything that had anything to do with 1491.

I know man. You wrote a series of Charles Mann related articles. Yeah. And for those of you who don't know, that is Josh's favorite book. We've talked about it a lot on the show. And I'm still going to read it one day. I just need to do it. It's great.

You know. You will not be disappointed. I feel like if I read it now, they'll be like, oh, I know that part. I know that part. You, I'm sure you will. Yeah. You'll recognize a lot of it, but it's so much more fleshed out. You got your stank all over that book.

1493 isn't bad either. Oh, the sequel? Yeah. Manier. It's Manish. Manish. You can definitely tell Man wrote it for sure. So we're talking about the Inca people who they had a habit, not a habit.

They had a practice. They can't quit. Yeah. They had a practice in their culture of child sacrifice, which sounds horrific. And based in our modern day culture, it is. But we've long pointed out the tenets of cultural relativism. I would like to say that I officially renounce cultural relativism. I'm on the whole.

Oh, really? Yeah. I have since changed my viewpoint. I think there are absolutes that are universal or should be and that a culture can be judged as. Barbaric. Yeah. For certain practices. Yeah.

Cultural relativism. I know we've explained it before, but that's basically you can't look back at some old culture that did these things and judge it by today's standards and say, you know, but. It's a foundation of anthropology. You couldn't have anthropology without cultural relative. Tell this. Oh, yeah. I mean, like as an absolute, like there's you, there was nothing that you could do that was

out of bounds as a culture because you could only judge a culture by its own standards. Therefore, everything is self-justified, right? I still believe it to a certain degree, but I think in certain cases maybe I could say because people can make the argument for a lot of things being. Oh, no, that's just the culture of things. Right. Now, I'm exactly where you are. I would say 98 to 99 percent of things are bound by cultural relativism.

Yeah. But I do think there are a handful of things and I don't even know if I have them fully explored yet, but I think there's a handful of things that are just you just shouldn't do. And if you do it, then you're not as great as cultures that don't do that. Yeah. Because you know what, we had a, we had a fantic issue with us on the Facebook wall when we, I posted about the posthumous pardoning of Alan Turing, the code breaker and inventor of the Turing test, the scientist in England that was homosexual and chemically castrated.

And they, England recently pardoned him posthumously. And it was pretty cool. And I posted about it and this one guy was like, well, you know, back then they, they were doing the best they can. They were trying to help them out. They, you know, because they thought being gay was a disease. And I was like, listen, man, you can't just sweep it under the rug by saying, this is just how things were.

So I think that's sort of an instance where I don't believe in it. Yeah. Even though it wasn't an ancient thing. It was like the 1950s. Sure. But it guess, you know, it was a different time in a different culture. Yeah. So I guess I'm with you then.

Yeah. Cool. This is a long winded way of saying that. Cool. I liked the long winded way. So we're on the same page. So how do you feel about child sacrifice in the Incan culture? The weird thing is, is I don't, in this particular instance, I do think it's bound

by cultural relativism. I think so too, because it was so long ago. It was also so extremely well thought out. Yeah. It was venerated. It wasn't brutal. Right. Well, well, I mean, it depends.

So let's talk about this. Well, how about this? It doesn't matter what I think of it. That's true. I think we'll leave it to each listener to decide what they think of Incan child sacrifice. First of all, Incan child sacrifice was used very uncommonly in cases of really dire circumstances where they really had irked the gods and needed to appease them or on a very special symbolic occasion.

For the most part, the, the, it was guinea pigs that were offered as blood sacrifice by the Incan. Oh, really? Yeah. So children and then sometimes women were very infrequently sacrificed. But of course, never the men. Well, yeah. When they were, however, they, there was an elaborate ritual and process that was followed

and the kids were basically like demigods for being offered up by their parents. Yeah. You point out it's not that they didn't like they had any animosity toward kids at all. They were actually revered and that's why it was such like the ultimate sacrifice because kids were so revered. Right. Well, it's kind of like we value our children. Yeah.

We're going to kill one of them. That's how much we want to appease you. Right. That's how much we need these potato crops to survive. That's right. So, um, there was a big ceremony. They built a chamber. They gave the kid a little corn alcohol to, you know, soothe them, I guess.

Yeah. And it stave off fear. Yeah, and it stave off fear. Um, you said that they, uh, knocked them on the head with a cushioned blow to knock them out. Yeah, which I imagine was probably done while they were like not really paying attention. Um, but the point is they, they wanted to prevent suffering as much as possible. So at least they would be unconscious. Right.

But they think they died of, uh, exposure basically. Mm hmm. So it's not like they drove a stake through the heart or anything like that. Right. Just kind of leave them at the top of the highest point. And they, they, uh, went out of their way to, to make sure the children didn't feel any fear or as little fear as possible. Um, and I think for those reasons, because it was infrequent, because they tried to make

the child comfortable and not fearful. Yeah. Um, because it was a relatively painless death. Um, I think that it kind of, I don't know, it falls within cultural relativism for me. The, the thing that, um, I do take it issue with was that the parents who offered up their kid, right, and the kids decision, well, of course not, they immediately gained higher status in the society. So I think that that great honor, you know, it was, but it was a way to gain status.

Oh, you know what I mean? Gotcha. Um, so I think that it was in that respect, you can really kind of cast a shadow upon it too. Yeah. And the fact that children died to get potato crops to grow. Yeah, it wasn't a cute thing. It's not like Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan jumping in the volcano to a piece of the wolf pony was great movie.

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Cruises. And right now, through January 30th, use promo code HEART20 to receive 20% off your tour. That's promo code HEART20 through January 30th. Visit GateOneTravel.com for more information or to book your tour. That's GateTheNumberOneTravel.com. Once again, use promo code HEART20 through January 30th to receive 20% off your 2023 trip. So they must have thought that things were working because the Incas were like a super successful people.

Yeah, very quickly too. Like a million, a million people. That's a lot of people back then in the span of how many years? Just a couple centuries. Yeah, a couple hundred years, a million people back then. That's, you're doing pretty well. Yeah. You're spreading far and wide.

Right. And it wasn't like a couple of Incas. The initial Incas got together and just had a million offspring. Right. The Incas very much came out of nowhere as a civilization and just dominated everybody else who was living as loose tribes, unconnected tribes in the Andes at the time. Yeah, they were smart. They were technologically advanced.

They were. So the Andes are a very inhospitable place. It's an arid climate and it's really high up. Yeah. I mean, just surviving there is something else, much less thriving. Yeah. And getting crops to grow. Well, the Incas figured out irrigation techniques.

They figured out terraced farming. And we have the potato, peanuts, quinoa, quinoa. Quinoa. Types of squash, peppers, and beans. All of the Incas, we have other Incas to thank for all of those. Oh, I love quinoa. Well, thank the Inca. Thank you, Inca.

All right. At the very least, thank the people of the Andes that the Inca eventually came to subjugate. Oh, okay. That didn't seem as heartfelt. And but the Inca technology was very advanced. Yeah, super advanced. They had a very strictly rigidly defined class system starting at the top, of course, with the Royals and then on the way down, all the way down to the workers and the laborers

and the commoners and the military. Right. And the Inca royal line was perpetuated incestuously. A Inca ruler would marry his blood sister, full blood sister. And then they would have offspring. And those offspring would be the Inca. So you can imagine there was some strange Inca that emerged over time. What's staggering is that there were Inca that were incredibly smart and capable.

Yes, and who built the civilization through an incestuous line because it really was protected like that. And then the Inca ruler would also have dozens of other wives that he wasn't related to. And then from those offspring would be the second tier of society, the highest rulers, bureaucrats, advisors. I bet there were some incestuous kids, too, that you don't hear about as much either, that were just sort of hidden away. I'm sure.

You know what I'm saying? Isn't that bizarre, though? I mean, I know if you're basing your royal family on incest, you're already at a negative. Right. I would think. But the Inca are far from the only group to come up with this idea of protecting the royal bloodline by only producing offspring with that pure blood. Man.

Crazy world. Crazy. So they were big time expansionists. They liked to spread out to the suburbs and the ex-herbs and it ended up being a problem, which we'll get to. But they were spread far and wide geographically, which can be trouble eventually, as we'll see. Sometimes they were crushing people with their military forces. Sometimes they were tempting people with like, hey, look, we have roads.

We have technology. We have farming systems and irrigation that you're going to thrive with. Right. The nobles of these, the ones that they kind of colluded with, those groups would become part of that second tier aristocracy as well. So there was either might persuading them with technology, like you said, or saying, hey, you got a pretty nice spot over here if you come bring your people under Inca rule. So this also, it sounds great when you're getting all these different tribes, these hundreds of tribes together under one more powerful group.

But again, just like spreading out far and wide, that would also eventually be one little knock against them in their eventual downfall, because when you've got people that were gathered together like that, they're still ultimately fractured in a way. Right. Right. But the Inca took great pains to get around this. And these are the tactic that Stalin would later use. You take people from the conquered lands and move some of them over here.

And then you do the exact opposite with some people from the other conquered land. And what you do is you rule through cultural dilution. So you're mixing up the tribes basically. Exactly. You're breaking up families. You're breaking up villages. You're breaking up tribes. Yeah, that makes sense. Shuffling them all together and giving them all a common language and a common ruler. And through that, you're forcing a new cultural identity on them.

That's what the Inca did. That's how they were able to, I guess, gain a population in a territory as big as they did in just a couple of centuries. Like 2,500 miles long, and that was like their distribution. Yeah, from Ecuador to Chile. That's crazy. There's 350,000 square mile territory after just a couple hundred years of putting it together. Yeah, but again, you're setting yourself up for problems back then.

They didn't have telegraphs. They had runners. They did. And eventually, the runners are even at 250 miles a day. Okay, so I need to correct myself. That's not right, is it? I already emailed Tracy Wilson of Stuff You Missed in History Class who handles changes to articles and said, I need to change this. It says in the article or originally said that these runners, highly trained runners,

that would deliver communications throughout the kingdom of the Inca, could cover 250 miles in a day. I thought that was wrong. It is wrong. That's 400 kilometers in a day. It's absolutely wrong. Instead, they would use a relay system of runners that could cover 250 miles in a day. Oh, well, you didn't...

Well... It made it sound like each runner could cover 250 miles. And I was like... I see what you mean. Wait, that doesn't sound right. So I specified a relay, using a relay system. I kind of assume that, because nobody can run that much in a day. Right, well, I'm kind of dumb.

Except for a scump. So my point was, though, even with those runners covering that distance, when you're that spread out, it's eventually going to lead to fracturing and some problems in communication and just a breakdown of the society. Right, and also, Chuck, I don't know if you mentioned or not. They didn't have the wheel. Well, yeah. They had one of the most highly advanced civilizations to ever pop up in the Americas.

And they didn't have the wheel. That's crazy. And it sounded like the wheel wasn't in existence. They were just an isolated group. Like, we're talking around the 13th century to the 16th century. The Incas were around. Yeah. And the height of their power was in the mid-13th century under a ruler named Pachacuti,

who has a great name. And Pachacuti was the one for whom Machu Picchu was built as a royal estate. Oh, really? Yeah. Huh. I didn't know that. Yeah. But since the government was a really big factor because of the way the class system

was built and so rigid, it was people that were largely dependent on the government because they had the smarts and people like having bountiful crops and gold. Well, they probably didn't have much gold. Well, there's definite trade. They had plenty of gold. Well, no, not the commoners. Well, no, no. But there was a definite trade-off.

It was like you are under Inca rule now. But you also have as many potatoes as you need. Right. You've got Great Road, your family's going to not die young, probably. Yeah. Corn liquor, evidently. Yeah, exactly. And yes, there was a very strong bureaucracy.

So India, modern-day India, is a very bureaucratic state. And there is apparently 1,662 government workers for every 100,000 people in India. Wow. That's a lot. Yeah. Yeah, under Inca rule, there were 1,331 government officials for every 10,000 people. Wow. That's a staggering bureaucracy.

But that's how they ran this thing so well. This huge system was run through bureaucrats. That's right, up to a point. Of course, we all know bad things are coming our way. Yeah. Because the title of the podcast are coming their way. And in the 15th century, they had a big boom in expansion. And basically, it became just a little too unwieldy and chaotic.

They were spread too far and wide. Whenever you're that far apart and have that many different tribes that make up your people, you're going to have insurgencies and rebels that they quashed. Did a pretty good job of quashing those for many years. But it was just too big and too spread out to maintain, basically, at that time period. Well, I guess probably the real crippling blow came in 1525 when Huanya Kupak. Huanya Kupak. He was the Inca ruler.

He was a very strong ruler. He died. But unfortunately, within just a few days of him, his successor died. Oh, OK. I was going to say, why didn't he name his successor? He did, and that successor died. I also emailed Tracy about that, too. But yeah, he named his successor, and they both died within a couple days of one another, which left a power vacuum.

And there were two sons that moved to Fillet and a seven-year civil war ensued that really fractured Inca society. Yeah, that was Atahualpa and Huskar. Yeah. Yeah. Which I think is Incan for Oscar. I think so, too. It's like George and Oscar Booth.

That's right. And there was a seven-year civil war. A civil war of any type is going to fracture society. A seven-year one's real bad, especially when there's nobody in control during the time. That's right. The, I guess, Huskar ultimately lost. He was executed by his brother Atahualpa in 1532. But the damage was done after Atahualpa consolidated power.

Incan society was on very shaky ground already. Yeah, the cracks were showing. And right about that time, a Spanish conqueror named Francisco Pizzaro arrived, and he didn't have a lot of dudes with him. He had less than 200 men. Yeah. And we will tell you the story of just how those 168 men, says Charles Mann, took over this vast empire, and reason number one is what we just said.

He got there at the right time. They were weakened. They were fractured. The cracks were showing. Civil war had broken out. So it was a good time to go in and do a little conquering. Right. And he followed in the footsteps of Cortez, Hernan Cortez.

Cortez. Who, I have to say it, I think. Right. Who conquered the Mesoamerican Aztec civilization, the Triple Alliance, right? Yeah, he went to South America from Cuba under the Spanish flag. And even though Diego Valesquez was the governor of Cuba, he didn't want him going down there. But he did such a good job, Cortez did, and came back with a lot of gold. And King Charles V said, you know what?

You conquered the Aztecs. You brought me a bunch of wealth. You were actually OK in my book, and Pizzotto saw this and was like, hey, I want to get my hands on some wealth. I feel like I'm a conqueror. Yeah. I'm a conquistador. So Pizzotto was a European.

And because he was European, he had a very helpful tool. And this is the number two thing that helped them top of the Incas. It's called a gun. Yeah, that was a big one. Very big one. The boomstick. Yeah, because on top of the very obvious killing power that the gun provided. Big advantage.

It was also, it provided a huge psychological advantage, too, because the Inca, like the Aztecs, had never seen anything like that before. And we're very, very scared of it. That's right. So they're messed up in the head. Right. So you've got superior firepower. You have the tactic of dividing, conquer, that Cortez used, Pizarro used as well.

He identified groups that were under Incan rule, but were maybe the most rebellious ones who were most opposed to Incan rule, identified them and colluded with them to turn them against the Incan power structure, the central core of it. Yeah. The other thing that helped them, too, when he arrived, when Pizzotto arrived, they thought that he was the creator God, Vera Trocha. And they thought the same thing about Cortez, actually. They thought he was Quetzical, which Jerry says is a language.

But it was a similar thing. They thought these guys were returning gods or creator gods. So immediately, they kind of revered them and trusted them and gave them, you know, they had confidence in them, which was a big mistake. Right. Jerry's talking about Quechical. That's the language, right? Right. That's a mind language. Yeah, but I think it's spelled the same.

No, I don't think so. Quechical. Yeah. Okay. Sorry about that. Yeah. So when Pizzotto gets there, he's got this trust. They think he's a returning God. And what does he do with it?

Well, he captures their ruler. Yeah, he captured Alta Walpa, who had just executed his brother in consolidated power, and all of a sudden, Pizarro shows up. It's like, I fight for seven years, finally capture my brother, execute him. I'm the Inca now. Right. And Pizarro shows up with his boomsticks. That's right.

So I think he's a God and I'll go see what he has to say. And oh, he's holding me ransom. He's asking for a room full of gold. No problem. I'll give it to him and he'll let me go, but he doesn't. Pizarro hangs on to Alta Walpa and ultimately finds that he's not able to command the Inca through Alta Walpa. Yeah, he was sort of a puppet for a little while.

Right. So he executes him. Pizarro has him strangled and then beheaded. Yep, that'll do it. It will. So you still need an Inca ruler if you're going to rule the Inca, because again, Pizarro only has about 168 guys with him. So he sets up another guy, another Inca, who's strictly a puppet ruler.

Yeah, Manco Cubac II. Yes, and puts him in the throne. He was the son of Juana Cubac. Right, of course. So Manco rules for a little bit, but he also notices some cracks in the Spanish power structure. Some new Spaniards have arrived. They're not the original 168 conquistadors. These are some new guys, maybe some corporate baggers you could call them,

and they're not entirely happy with Pizarro and his rule. So Manco notices a fracture among the Spaniards, works it to his advantage, and eventually escapes Lima, which is the new capital city of the Inca kingdom under Spanish rule. Right. And goes off and found his own city, which is successful for a little while. So how many years is this? 36. Okay, so it's a slow takeover.

It wasn't, you know, they didn't get off the ship with 168 guys. And oh, no, no, they did. No, no, no, but in like assumed control of the. Yeah, I'm sorry. I misspoke with within a year. Okay. So 1532, they land by 1536. They've already killed Alta Walpa, installed Manco the second as the puppet ruler.

So they were essentially in power at that point. Oh, totally. Okay. And then by 1536, Manco flees and founds a rival Incan state. Right. Now that Incan state survived for 36 years. Okay. And by 1572, the Spanish were very tired of all of the assaults and the sieges on Lima.

Sure, there were insurgencies going on. And they said, you know what, we're just going to get rid of this rival Inca state, Vilcabamba, headed by Manco for a little while until until the end. The last Inca was named Tupac Amaru. Tupac? Seriously. Nice. And the Inca when they stormed or the Spaniards when they stormed Vilcabamba,

they captured Tupac Amaru and beheaded him. And effectively with that stroke ended Inca civilization forever. They said, no, he's just a hologram. We got the wrong guy. Right. Yeah. Uh, okay. So it was a bit of a, I get it now, 36 years.

That makes sense. That was all, I really just condensed things into a very brief sketch and it needed more fleshing out. Maybe I'll go back and flush it out. If not, if I, if I don't, you should go read the account actually is a really great brief account of the downfall of the Inca from the Microsoft Incarta Encyclopedia. They had something good in there. Yeah, that's what you sent me.

Yeah. That's good stuff. So they also got a little bit more help because even with all these things going on, it's still less than 200 men, you know, like even with the cracks and even with the collusion and even with the guns and everything going on, it's still less than 200 dudes. And it was a population of a million. So they needed a little bit of help from Europe's old friend, smallpox. Yeah.

This is what really led the, set the stage for the Inca downfall at the hands of 168 conquistadors. They did not know about smallpox. They had no immunities against smallpox like the Spaniards did. They didn't live around livestock like the Spaniards did. They had alpacas and guinea pigs, but apparently they never carried smallpox. It's an old world disease that was introduced to the new world and it ravaged it. That's right.

That's what they believe killed Huayna Kupac and his name successor, which left the power vacuum in the Civil War. Yeah. They think it killed a lot of Incans who may have otherwise revolted against the Spaniards and fought them. And they inadvertently brought smallpox with them. Yeah. Right.

It wasn't like early chemical warfare or anything like that. No, they had no idea about the existence of smallpox until they saw what was going on and became aware of smallpox and that the native populations had no defenses against it. Then, maybe in the late 18th, early 19th century, Europeans started using it as biological warfare. Yeah, we covered that in something, I remember. Tainted blankets to Native Americans and things like that. Geez. Yeah.

Because I mean, once it got introduced, it just ravaged the Americas. Just ravaged it. You can't even say decimated because we'll get too many emails for misusing it. But apparently, somewhere between 90 and 95 percent of the indigenous populations of America, which by some estimates was at 100 million by the 1490s, a fifth of the world population, 90 to 95 percent of that was wiped out within 130 years of Columbus's arrival in the Indies. And that is how 168 men can take over such a vast population. That's right.

As Paul Harvey would say, that's the end of the story. Or is it? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That was a fake man. You're like, no, no, no, I got one more thing. No, I don't.

That's it. Paul Harvey comes in and punches you in the face. Nice one, Chuck. For those of you that don't know, Paul Harvey. For those of you who are under age 60? Yeah, probably. No, look him up. I'm not even going to tell you.

Who is this Paul Harvey? Yeah, look him up. Okay. And in the meantime, while you're looking things up, look up this article I wrote. Hopefully, it'll be updated by the time this episode comes out. Just type in Conquistadors, C-O-N-Q-U-I-S-T-A-D-O-R-S in the search bar at HouseStuffWorks.com, and it will bring it up. Since I said search bar, it's time for a message break.

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Great. All right, so this is from a former quartermaster in the Coast Guard who sort of bridged the gap between sextants and GPS. So he was around, you know, he saw both worlds. Wow. It's very interesting. Yeah, that's quite a transition. All right guys, great podcast.

I was a quartermaster in the U.S. Coast Guard and worked with charts and navigation. My last duty station was aboard the Bowie Tender U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Sundew in Duluth, Minnesota in 1995 to 1998. Our area of responsibility was Lake Superior, and I feel fortunate to have participated in the transition from positioning Bowies using sextants to using GPS. GPS was new at the time, and because there was a built-in error to the signal, it had to be removed by a differential military system. Few civilian applications were using it at the time.

The GPS unit that we had only provided a latitude longitude, which we then plotted on a chart to get our position. Because our charts were using old datum, they were inaccurate, and in some instances, the GPS coordinates had us driving the ship over land. Although GPS was quicker, and in most cases more accurate than sextants, we didn't fully trust it yet, so we had to plot out the position of each Bowie with sextants and the GPS to compare the two. After a couple of more years comparing the two, and after the charts were updated with

a more accurate datum, we eventually switched to all GPS positioning. Do you remember that pavement album? What is it? Westing by Musket and Sextant? Yep. Besides. Great one. Is it? Look at it. And every time you hear the word sextant, I think about it.

Yeah, me too. When navigating in the Great Lakes, we use radar and bearings to fix objects on land to chart our position and use GPS coordinates alongside the traditional methods of navigation as a check. GPS became very valuable to navigating, and software improved to plot the position on an electronic chart. Even back then, I could see all the writing on the wall. I knew the Coast Guard would probably replace quartermasters with GPS units in the future.

In 2003, the Coast Guard stopped training quartermasters, and soon after, the existing quartermasters were offered different positions within the Coast Guard, and they smashed all the sextants. Now we can all go out there and say that we learned today what a quartermaster does. Yeah. Or did. They didn't smash the sextants, by the way. No.

Navigating by means of sextant radar and visual bearings is becoming a dying arc, but I am proud to have been proficient in navigation and feel fortunate to have experienced a transition from old to new, old school to new. Fair winds and following seas, Jared Parks, former quartermaster, second class U.S. Coast Guard, 1990 to 1998. Nice. By the way, I should mention, you got a lot of flak for not knowing what orienteering was. Orienting.

From Maps Podcast. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, and I posted the brown map, too. I need that, because everybody on Twitter is asking. Oh, okay. And like, yeah, please see it right now. Thank you. I will tweet that directly.

So thanks to Jared for that email. Yeah, thanks, Jared, for making yourself obsolete. If you have made yourself obsolete in some way, or have contributed to the obssolution of anything, this is a pretty interesting stuff. Great. Obssolution, right? Sure. Yeah, I think that's right.

Orienting. We want to hear about it. You can send us a tweet to SYSK Podcast, that's our Twitter handle. You can join us on facebook.com, that's facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast at discovery.com, and you can join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. Brought to you by the all-new 2014 Toyota Corolla.

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The South Dakota Stories, volume one. She was a city girl, but always somewhere else in her head. Somewhere where bison roam, rivers flow, and people get their hiking boots dirty. Like, actually dirty. So one day she fled west, and discovered this place of beauty, history, and a delicious taste of adventure. But before she knew it, she was driving away, with memories to share, and the hopes of returning.

Because there's so much South Dakota, so little time.