Stuff You Should Know - How Lighthouses Work

Episode Date: June 30, 2016

People have been burning fires on cliffs as long as other people have used boats, but after the Age of Exploration, lighthouses took their unmistakable form and the great stories of the people who kept the lights around the world began. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

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Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 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 and Jerry over there,

and this is the Lighthouse episode. Take one. Can I just go ahead and say that I love Lighthouses. Do you? Love, love, love. Already before, like you fell in love with them in researching this. Both.

Like if I'm, I grew up going to Honey Island, South Carolina, not every year, but we went quite a few times near Buford. And they have a Lighthouse, and it was one of my favorite things to do as a kid, was climb the Lighthouse. And I would, if I'm near a Lighthouse now, ever, I will go climb it.

The outside? I will seek it out, and then shimmy up the outside like Spider-Man. No, I will seek it out and go look at it and then climb it. And this article just made me love it even more. I have a Precious Memories Lighthouse too. Ooh, let's hear. Marblehead Lighthouse near Kitaba Island.

Which is where? What state? By Sandusky, in Ohio. Okay. On Lake Erie. Yeah. And it was the same thing. When I was a kid,

we used to go vacation on Kitaba Island, and we would go to that Lighthouse every once in a while. I don't remember ever going inside though. Not really. It might not have been open because there's no reason why you would go to a Lighthouse more than once and not go inside, climb it up. Yeah.

But I don't remember ever going in. But it was. Or maybe you were just like, yeah, it looks nice from down here. Yeah, I would have climbed it. I was a climber. Yeah, me too. But I think the other thing that factors in for me

is I found I really love antiquated systems that could still be viable. Yeah. Like post apocalypse, you could fire up Lighthouses again. Sure, fire. Yeah, and it would work. Yeah, it would.

And I think that's a weird thing with me that I love stuff that's still around that you could use if need be. Right. I've never really looked at my environment that way. Yeah. Like to see what was gonna be standing after an apocalypse. Maybe I should.

Well, I don't know about standing, but let's just, let's say there was some weird domino effect type thing like that movie where electricity and internet and everything went out. Right. And people turned on each other. You could still light a lighthouse and boats could find their safe harbor.

What movie are you talking about? The Domino Effect. Oh, really? There's a movie like that called that? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. I think it was called with Elizabeth Hsu and Agent Cooper. Mulder?

Agent Cooper from Twin Peaks. Kyle, what's his face? McLaughlin. Yeah. And he is so great as the mayor in Portlandia. Yeah, he is good. I love that guy. I think it was called the Domino Effect.

All right. If not, that was the, you know, essentially what happened. There was a domino effect. Like a blackout, right? Yeah, that just like, and it created a domino effect that things kind of spun out of control. You're talking about Fury Road. Oh, right.

Sorry. So Chuck, I love lighthouses too, but I knew virtually nothing about them until researching this. Yeah. And if you think about them though, it's like you were saying, after the apocalypse, you'll still be standing.

You just need to replace the electricity with a fire. And then you'd have basically what lighthouses have always been, which is some sort of highly visible signal for most of the time, it was a fire, either a wood fire, a coal fire, tar fire, that you could see that was meant to signal to ships that, hey man, there's some treacherous waters around here. It's one of the main things that they did.

And as the light got better and better, one of the roles that lighthouses played was not just to say, careful in this area, we went to the trouble of building a lighthouse here because it's so treacherous, but also check out these rocks. See this with this light? There's some rocks there.

Yeah, like literally lighting up a harbor. Yeah. Well, because there was no light otherwise. Right, and then the other role that they play is in the daytime, right? Because lighthouses, I don't think that they actually keep them on 24 hours a day, highly inefficient on a cloudy day.

If it's foggy, they'll turn it on and start sounding the foghorns, which we'll talk about. But for the most part, in the daytime, it's off. But a lighthouse still serves a purpose during the day because they don't decorate them the way that they decorate them just for looks. They do it so you can differentiate one lighthouse from another.

Yeah, like this one looks like a barber pole, so I know I'm near North Carolina's Cape Hatteras. Exactly, right? And there's like a whole book called The Light List where it has pictures of them and it has- Did you get your hands on that? No. I meant to look it up, but I ran out of time.

I bet it's neat. I bet it's neat too. By the way, that movie's called The Trigger Effect. I haven't heard of that one. There was a movie called The Domino Effect, but it's not the same one. What about The Butterfly Effect? Remember that?

Garbage. That was the cooch, right? Yeah. Man, why does he haunt us? I don't know. He comes up a lot. All right, where were we? Were we in the lighthouse?

We were talking about the Daymark. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty neat. But there's also what's called the light signature, right? Yes. Where we're going back to nighttime again. Yeah, yeah. Sorry to keep reversing the suns going up and down.

Well, you turn the lights off, it got weird. It is a little weird. It's all right, Jerry, are you still here? She's here. So at night, the light has its own flashing signature, light signature, and that's also in the light book too. And there's actually a number of different ways that a light can flash, right?

Who knew? I didn't know. You've got the fixed, and that is, of course, if you just have a light on, saying we're open. Yeah, it shines continuously. Come on in. It's the Waffle House. You have the occulting light.

I love this one. The creepiest of all lights. It has longer periods of light than dark. And then. And it flashes 666. And a flashing light has longer periods of dark than light. So occulting and flashing are just sort of inverse of one another.

There are two sides of the same coin. That's right. You can't have light without the dark is the whole premise. And then you have the isophase light that's equal light and dark with its signature blips. Yeah. And then a group flashing light. Super 70s.

Yeah, it has a regular repeating number of flashing lights. It's the same pattern, right? Yeah, and there's actually a really famous one of those the Mino's ledge light in Boston. It was very famously known as, I think it still is, the I love you light because it would flash one, then it would flash four, and then it would flash three. So I, L-O-V-E, Y-O-U.

So it was like a very romantic light. That's how people took it. I didn't make that up. Oh, see, I thought it was, I hate cow. That it could, that's the secondary way that it's known. But people in Boston are known for their soft side. I know. So that's why I love you.

They're prone to break into sobs and the public on the street frequently. Just walking around thinking about the beauty of life. That's right. And hey, Boston, we'll see you this fall at the Wilbur Theater. Yeah. I think it's still available.

Just wanted to work that in. Nice. And then finally, we have our alternating, I'm sorry, we have the Morse code, which is what it sounds like. It mimics Morse code with Dats and Dashes. Dats and Dashes? That's Marse code.

Dats and Dashes, man. To spell out things like I love you. But that's not what Mano's ledge does. No. But that's not Morse code, it's just. It's just one, four, and three. Yeah, yeah. And people took it that way.

I hate cow. And Mano's ledge actually is pretty awesome to begin with. It's under 10 feet of water at high tide. Whoa. And they had to build it, I think in the 19th century, whenever the tide was out. So they only had like X amount of hours in a day during low tide when the ledge was exposed.

But it's still there, it's a tough cookie. Wow. But Josh, these are all sort of modern. Modernish. Modernish, but although old, they can go back to 1200 BC. Hummer's Iliad, they mentioned a lighthouse. Crazy.

And I mean, we're talking basically a huge bonfire on a cliff. More exactly. You know, not like Mano's ledge or anything, but it still qualifies as a lighthouse. It was the premise behind it. Yeah, exactly. I've sounded weirdly defensive just now about that.

Still a lighthouse. Yeah. Like you said, you would have either wood or coal burning on a long pole. And then finally in the 18th century, they started using lanterns, which is a little more probably controllable. Yeah.

The problem was that they kept running into was that the oil or coal would smudge the lantern, the glass around the lantern. So the glass top, the whole thing where the light is, that you can walk around in, that's the lantern of the lighthouse. And if you're burning a coal fire in there, it's gonna get sooty pretty quick.

Yeah, that's one of the main jobs of the lighthouse keepers to watch windows. Right. The problem is it's in between washings, which they did at least once a day normally. Yeah. The light would degrade as the soot built up. Right.

So they figured out, oh, we need better fuel than coal or tar. We thought they'd use tar. Let's burn the dirtiest thing on the planet inside. They were working with what they had at the time. So they figured out, especially in New England, that they could use things like blubber and lard, which they did.

Yeah, from whales. Burns a lot cleaner. And then they also figured out, hey, you know what? This flame is okay, but wouldn't it be great pre-electricity if we had something like electricity to beam this thing out there for miles and miles. And a very smart physicist from France named Augustine Fresnel.

Fresnel. I like Fresnel. That's cool. Fresnel said, all right, take my lens and do with it what you will. And he invented the Fresnel lens. He did. In 19, I'm sorry, 1822.

And it's like what you would think it would be. It's a bunch of prisms that through magic can cast a beam like 20-something miles out to the ocean. Yeah. They concentrate and they gather light from the top and the bottom and in the middle and basically just shoot it all back to a single magnifying point.

Amazing. That just goes, phew, 28 miles. Yeah. That's a long way. At the max. Yeah, and that really, that changed everything. And did a great job of handling the load until electricity would come around.

And that's when everyone was like, you know what? We don't need these silly flames anymore. Let's just plug in a light. But you can still use a Fresnel lens with the light and it's even brighter now. Well, that's true. Like today's modern lighthouses use or have produced lights between 10,000 candelas and a million candelas.

What's a candela? Did you see this reference? Like this is the worst analogy I've ever run across. What'd it say? A candela is one 200th the brightness of a 50 watt light bulb. Oh, okay, yeah. I know exactly how much a candela is.

I also saw that it's roughly the brightness of a candle, which makes sense. And that's a much better frame of reference. So the brightness of a million candles burning in the same place. Right. That's how bright modern lighthouses are. Okay.

Not one 200th of a 50 watt bulb. Let's take a break. Yeah, seriously. Let's go find out who wrote that and write a strongly worded letter. Okay. I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay. I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place

because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael.

Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now.

If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Well, that got ugly. So I feel like we're still talking about the history

of lighthouses, right? Yeah, sure. Well, they were made of wood early on. But the problem with a wooden lighthouse and a massive burning fire of tar is that they can burn down and be washed out to sea or in rough weather can just be knocked plumb over by waves. But like I said, they use what they had at the time.

And over the years, they got sturdier and sturdier with steel and concrete and stuff like that. Well, even over, even before over the years. Before over the years? Yeah, the pharaohs at Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, was this lighthouse at the mouth of the harbor to Alexandria, Egypt.

And it was around, I'm not quite sure when it was around. I think the. Which one? The pharaohs of Alexandria. 270 BC, my friend. That thing was pretty sturdy. It took a massive earthquake to bring it down. It was made of masonry.

It wasn't made of wood, you know? So it looks like lighthouse construction got dumber as the years went on. And then it got smart again. Then it got smart again. It just dipped down in the wood era and then came back up. Well, what you normally have is the lighthouse, which can be just a lighthouse.

Or there might be a fog signal building. There might be a boat house. You might have a little house or apartment attached to it. And you might live there with your family in a very remote part of the world all by yourself. Or with a couple of other dudes. Yeah, and take turns and take shifts. That's called a stag station.

Yeah, and I think the other thing that appeals to me about lighthouses is I could have lived that life. Oh, yeah? Yeah, I can have seen myself dropping out and. You got a neck beard? Yeah. All you need is like a cable and that sweater. Living up there all by myself, a corn cob pipe.

Really? Yeah. Grow my own crops and just sit up there and be quiet. No one bugging me. That's like, it appeals. Well, I did not know that. I did not picture you as a lighthouse keeper. I could totally do it.

Or a light keeper for short. And this is another thing that I thought was remarkable in this article. You might as well mention it. Is that if there is a lighthouse near you that nobody operates, it is possible that you could own that lighthouse. Yeah, for $1.

The National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000. It got a process together where the Coast Guard, which is what runs the lighthouse biz now. Right. The lighthouse racket. You can basically start a nonprofit or have a nonprofit. And at no cost, they will give you a decommissioned lighthouse if you maintain it and keep it open to the public.

Yeah, for the most part, it's like preservation societies who are handling this. But if nobody wants it, they put it up for auction. And then you can do what you want to. I can live out my dream. Yeah. And I wouldn't have to do the windows either. I could just live up there and be a crusty old hermit.

We could do a Kickstarter to help you live out your dream, Chuck. Well, let's do a few more years of stuff you should know first, though, before you go. OK. OK. Yeah. All right, so back to more modern times. We're building them out of concrete and steel at this point.

They're a little more sturdy. You've got your little keeper's house. You're not getting paid much money. How much money? Dude, not much. So this article says that they earned about $200 annually in the late 19th century. I went on to the GWIS West Egg Inflation Calculator.

For in 1890, that was five grand today. Your provisions are covered, though, right? Yeah. At the very least, your room is. I don't know about board. I bet you they all the whale lard you can eat. Yeah. No, I imagine they take care of stuff because you can't leave

and go shopping. I imagine you have everything shipped to you. Yeah. And again, ideal. I love that. Don't have to go out. You don't have to spend any money. It's like webvan coming to you.

You're banking that five grand a year, essentially. Wow, man. When you get into lighthouse mode, you're lowering the standards. It's like, man, it's like, man, I'm making five grand. People are bringing me food. I don't have to talk to anybody. Yeah, that's awesome.

It's like your fantasy. That's hilarious. So that lens we were talking about, we didn't use that in the United States for a while because the way I read this is we kind of cheaped out. When it was being run by this guy, Steven Pleasant, from for 30 years, 1820 to 1852. 32 years, he ran an efficient, some might say,

chintzy program where he was like, you know, we don't need those fancy French lenses. Take these cruddy versions. There probably wouldn't even a lens. Just like a mirror reflector or something. If that, maybe a piece of metal that somebody had to just stand behind the light with to reflect it.

You're my mute assistant. Right, quiet. But then finally, the U.S. government got involved and said, you know what, we need to regulate this. Well, no, the U.S., they were involved. That's when it became chintzy. Yes, from 1716 to 1789, that was not run by the U.S. government.

No, it wasn't until Alexander Hamilton almost got in a shipwreck off the coast of, I think, North Carolina. And he went back and said, hey, I think we need some lighthouses. The federal government needs to get involved. And so I think the 19th piece of legislation the U.S. Congress ever passed was to establish the Lighthouse Board.

The U.S. Lighthouse Establishment, initially, is what it was called. Okay. And, you know, socialist program, he said that the federal, the federalies are gonna run this thing. Right. And it did. We're in charge now.

And, you know what, things... Went downhill. Yeah. Proved everyone who's critical of big government right. Yeah, but there were a lot of lighthouses at the time. By 1900, we had about a thousand lighthouses. Well, and by 1900, the government had reformed its reputation.

Like seriously, the world round for the mid-19th century, the U.S. Lighthouse System was second rate at best. Yes. It just had a terrible reputation. And I guess it sounds like they got rid of Stephen Pleasant, whose name is basically Mud these days, and the quality went up. Yeah, and that's when they established the Lighthouse Board,

which is, I think, what you were thinking to shape things up in 1852. They said, let's get some Fresnel lenses for all these lighthouses finally. Yeah. And we can be like the rest of the world. Pleasant's dead. Did you know the Statue of Liberty was a lighthouse?

I don't know if I knew it, but when I've read it, I'm like, well, yeah. But I don't know if it unlocked some memory, or if I'm just like, that's just too obvious. Same thing happened to me. For me to admit, I didn't know. Yeah, I was like, surely I knew that, right? Right, that's what I thought.

That was it. For 15 years, it was a lighthouse in New York Harbor. Yeah. Which is pretty neat. And then by 1930, when electricity was effective and rampant, you didn't need these fires burning, or candles burning, or whale blubber. No, but there were a lot of lighthouses

that were on islands, or on offshore ledges, like Mano's Ledge, or Eddystone in England, that were just like, the technology to run electricity out there just was not around. Yeah, of course. So they were still using oil of various types to fuel these things well into the 20th century, into the 60s easily.

Yeah, and they still had people working there living in the lighthouse, or on the property. Yeah. Into the 1960s. It was definitely more rare, but that's when the Coast Guard brought about their lighthouse automation and modernization program.

And that pretty much dwindled, by the end of that decade, it dwindled it down to 60 that still had people working there. Oh, really? Yeah, 60 out of a thousand. Today there's one in Boston, the Brewster Island one. Little Brewster Island.

Little Brewster Island. I was refusing it with Big Brewster. Well, there might be one. Brewster's Millions Island. Little Brewster, that's right. It was the first one in the United States. 1716 was when it was built, and then that one was replaced in 1783.

And it's the second oldest working one behind Sandy Hook, New Jersey. Is that right? Mm-hmm. And the person that lives there is basically living there as a tour guide, not necessarily like guiding boats into harbor. Is that right?

They may do both. No, I think it's still working, yeah. Yeah, well, then I guess they do both. They do double duty. I saw modern marvels on lighthouses, and they interviewed one of the lightkeepers on Brewster Island, Little Brewster Island. And they showed him like polishing the glass

and everything. Yeah, but it's automated. I got it. The light itself. I see, I see. Upkeep and tour guide, I think. Right, okay. But yeah, he's still, I mean,

he's providing a function there. Yeah, absolutely. It's not just show. Maybe that's what I could do then. There you go. You should have heard that guy. He's like, I can't even begin to do it, but he was like a hardcore lightkeeper in Boston.

Yeah, I can imagine. Although I wouldn't be the best person because Chuck's Silent Lighthouse tour isn't really up. You're just like, you just sweep your arm in a room and turn and quietly leave. People ask questions. They just wrap them on the knuckles out. All right, I'm getting all excited

thinking about the prospects of living in a lighthouse. So I'm going to go do some push-ups. Okay. And we'll come back right after this. That's what I'm waiting for, and all you have to be is just Goddess of light in her eyes. Sorry, are you okay?

I'm okay. You've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael.

Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boybander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Oh, just stop now.

If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. So Chuck, say that you did live your life as a lightkeeper. What would it be like? First of all, what's your family background?

Well, my dad was a fisherman. Probably. Actually, my great-great-grandfather was a fisherman. My grandfather was a lightkeeper. My dad was a son of a lightkeeper. And I'm a son of a lightkeeper. Your mom was a pirate captain. Pirate captain.

Like Gina Davis. Yeah. That was a good movie. She's awesome. Yeah. She, Jesse Thorne interviewed her recently on his Bullseye show. She's just like the best.

Yeah. And they were all excited in the office. Everyone was like, oh, man, Gina Davis is the coolest. She supposedly was known for bringing cookies that she baked herself to interviews. Really? Yeah. She's a Mensa member.

Yeah. Got a lot going on there. Julia Smith, who works at the Max Fine HQ and produces Judge Don Hodgman, said on her Facebook, she was like, Gina Davis is like the coolest ant of all cool ants of all time. Oh, cool. But she was in Beetlejuice.

I mean, like. Yeah, it didn't get much cooler than that. She could just be a total jerk. And she was still awesome in Beetlejuice. Yeah. So anyway, hats off to you, Gina Davis. How'd that come up? I don't even remember now.

Your mom was a pirate captain. All right, Gina Davis. Was that a shout out to Cutthroat Island? I guess. The movie? You're the one that said it. I guess it was, yeah. Was that Cutthroat Island, huh?

Is it the name of it? Yeah, it was that bad pirate movie she made. I loved it. That wasn't bad. It got bad press. It wasn't bad. It's funny. You like some of the most legendarily bad movies

of all time. It wasn't that bad. As far as just like critics and you're like, yeah, man, Ishtar. I never saw Ishtar. Wonderful movie. I've actually stayed away from Ishtar. I also stayed away from Rock the Casbah because I saw that it was basically an updated Ishtar.

Did I even see that? I can't remember if I watched it one night. Rock the Casbah? Yeah. Or if I wanted to and didn't, that's how little of an impact it made. It's on Netflix. I think I actually did watch it.

And it was just sort of like, eh, not very good. Yeah, no, Ishtar is a pretty good code word to stay away from a movie. I never saw Ishtar. What else do I like that was bad or supposedly bad? I mean, have you seen Cutthroat Island? Sure. Terrible.

It's not that bad. Terrible. OK. All right, so we were talking about the lineage. What might get you into the light keeping business? We were being coy and role playing, but that is true. It's a family business for the most part. Your parents or your father might have done it.

Or you come from a long line of seafaring types, at the very least. Yeah, you feel close to the sea. Yeah. But if you want to spend your time out there on a rocky point, overlooking the waves all day long, you probably didn't come from Kansas to do so. You know?

Yeah. They have wheat watchers. They just sit in the tower and watch the wheat and the flatness. They stand up all of a sudden. They're like, oh, my god, there's a wheat missing. There's a wheat? One thing we keep saying is men. That's because most of the light housekeepers were men,

but not all. No, not all. And not all of them were necessarily white men, either. There were some very famous legendary African-American lightkeepers, too. And life savers as well. Surfmen is what they were called, too. Yeah, because supposedly you're just there to provide light

and signal. But when the S hits the F, I think you can say a fan. Fan. When the S hits the fan, brave lightkeepers were known to go out there and provide rescue. Yeah. And one of them was a woman named Ida Lewis, actually. American hero.

She grew up on Lime Rock Island near Newport Road Island in Newport Harbor. And her dad was a lightkeeper. So she followed that tradition. And she actually started taking over the duties after her father had a stroke. And she just became a lightkeeper, but a very famous one for her life-saving skills.

Yeah, rescued a dozen men over the years. No, actually 18 confirmed. They think it's as high as 25. Then I'm going to say dozens. She rescued her last person at age 63. Wow. Yeah, she's quite a lady. Yeah, that's spunk.

But for the most part, and she's not the only one who saved lives, like there were plenty out there that did. But it was not an expected role of a lightkeeper because the Coast Guard had a lifesaver house, usually nearby a lighthouse, because the lighthouse was there in the first place because that was a treacherous area. So it would just make sense to also put a life-saving house there, because even with the lighthouse itself,

ship may still run aground, and there may be rescuing. And if you want to be thrilled, there's a really neat article that's posted on this podcast page about the P Island life-saving house. By the way, the pre Coast Guard, we had the US life-saving service, which is what that term comes from. Yeah, and then they merged everything together under

Roosevelt. Yeah, 1939. And the lighthouses and the life-saving service all came under the purview of the Coast Guard. Right. Right? Yeah. We should do one on the Coast Guard.

Sure. Remember that Mary couple that were both Coast Guarders? Oh, yeah, that lobbied us for many years until they gave up. Yep. We're still thinking about you guys, and we're still going to do a Coast Guard podcast. Don't worry. Eventually.

Years and years later. So pre-1939 when they made the Coast Guard is where you really can't find a whole lot of written history now, while that has been lost to time. And they say here in this article that what we have now are stories from families that remain. Lower. Yeah, lower.

It's pretty neat. Yeah. And then Chuck, so if you're in a lighthouse, even as remote and cut off as they are, if you hated it, you would still be like, at least I'm not working on a light ship. Yes. So before they had buoys, like modern buoys today,

there's buoys out there. They're basically like floating lighthouses in areas that require some sort of warning, but are just too far off land to build a lighthouse. They put buoys out there. And today the buoys are sometimes something like 40 feet in diameter. They're huge, massive things.

But before buoys even, they would use something called light ships. And it's exactly what it sounds like. It's a lighthouse on a ship. And it's in a very remote area. You are out there for months at a time. Yeah, you just sail out and anchor down and live there. Right.

And the boats anchored all the time. You would have to go to and from the boat to the shore. But while you're working there, it's just mind-bogglingly awful. Yeah, I bet there was a lot of insanity that would happen. Like when the fog rolled in, before the advent of foghorns, you would have to yank the bell's rope, the fog bell rope, every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day for as long as the fog was

around. Crazy. Every 10 seconds you had to ring a bell. That was your job. And if you didn't, then you were risking the lives of anybody passing by in the area. So not cool, man. Not cool at all.

But the light ships apparently were just about as bad as it got as far as boredom, loneliness, isolation, hatred of bells. The light ship had it all. You hate bells? I didn't. I never worked on a light ship. Oh, right.

But I'll bet they hated bells. Yeah, it's loud. You would hear that in your sleep. If you rang a bell every 10 seconds for hours at a stretch. Yeah. You're not going to get that out of your head. And even if you did, when you tried to go to sleep,

one of the guys on the next shift would be out there ringing the bell anyway. So. Yeah, driving nuts. Let's talk about some famous lighthouses. Well, we already talked about the Pharaohs of Alexandria, which is the oldest known lighthouse. And at the time, they contend might have been the tallest

thing on the planet. 450 feet. That's super tall. Yeah, and it was masonry, too. They found it in 1994 under water. The bottom of the ocean. They found pieces of it in Alexandria Harbor, I guess. You mentioned Eddystone Light already in Plymouth, England,

which is, I guess, that's where the fine gin comes from. Yeah. Still hitting Plymouth up. If anyone out there works for Plymouth. Oh, man, it's such good gin. It's delicious. So is Leopold's. Leopold's gin?

Yeah, it's American gin. Oh, really? Really good, too. You're good? That's my go-to American gin. Nice. Although I like most American gins, but that's pretty good. You've had St. George?

I love that stuff. Yeah, there's three of them. One of them I do not care for at all. Really? But the other two I like. I'll bet it's the Terra-Terroir you don't like. It's got a weird taste. Yeah, but people love it, but I don't appreciate it.

It's its own thing. It is its own thing. The fact that it doesn't have its own classification of gin like Old Tom or Jennifer or something like that, it should have its own thing. Yeah, like a foot gin. I love that stuff. It tastes weird.

Dude, it's really good. You know what it's really good with? Have you ever had fever tree bitter lemon? No. It's like a lemon limey citrusy drink, but without much sweetness. That with the Terra-Terroir. Gin and juice.

Yeah, but it'll knock your socks off. Yeah, I don't care for it. And you know what, I'll just go ahead and bring you my bottle because I've had like two drinks out of it, tried to wrap my head around it, and I just can't do it. I will email you tonight as a reminder to say, hey. I'll bring in that St. George. Thanks, man.

And also, by the way, I am now on, because you know I drink the Dirty Martini, but I don't eat olives, which is a little weird. You just like the juice? Yeah, the brine. With a twist, it's a little different. I know, I've had that. And for years, I would have emptied jars of dry olives

in my fridge, and very little juice was in there. Oh, I know what you're talking about now. So now I bought Dirty Sue, olive juice. And you can buy it in a bottle. And I bought a box of it, and it just sits in the cabinet in my house. And so big shout out to Dirty Sue, Olive Brine. Really dirties up your martini.

What's your gin that you use for this? Well, I mean, I love Plymouth, I love Hendricks. And our friends at Spring 44, Jen, sent us gin from a, they said it's all about the water, and they have the best water on earth. They made some Old Tom Gin, and it is delicious. Like, it made, I love Martinez's. It's Old Tom Gin, Maraschino liqueur, not the cherry stuff,

but the real liqueur. And then some sweet vermouth. It's probably the most perfect drink anyone's ever made. And it's very old. That made maybe the best martinis I've ever had. That was good stuff. Well, for a while lately, I've been stirring. I got a little martini pitcher, or a cocktail pitcher,

to stir. But I'm back to shaking now, because I've found out that bruising gin is a total myth. So James Bond wasn't cuckoo? No, you can't bruise gin. That's all just garbage. Do you use orange bitters in yours? No.

Really brightens it up. Straight up, dirty sue, gin. I do use a little vermouth. Like, I know that people don't like vermouth at all anymore. Oh, really? Yeah, I see bartenders now don't even use any vermouth. That's not a martini. Well, agreed.

That's a gin, a chilled gin up with some olive bright. What kind of vermouth do you use? Just the one in the Green Italian Bottle, what's that? Dolan Blanc? Yeah. That's good stuff. But I also found out recently that vermouth is a wine,

and you don't just keep it on your shelf for two years. No, you keep it in the fridge for maybe a month. Yeah, didn't know that. So I've been drinking this old, old vermouth. You still can. It's not like you can't. But just for the best possible impact, you want to just get that small bottle.

I learned that the hard way, too. Yeah, I'm going to start doing that. Man, we should have our own cocktail show. We should. Because we just talked about booze a lot. Yeah, we don't need to. Let's drink about it. Has that covered?

Yeah, that's true. Our good friends at Let's Drink about it. Yeah, and thanks also to Ben, who sent us some ambler. Smooth ambler. What was it called? Contradiction. That stuff is good, too. That's right.

Man, booze talk on lighthouses. Who knew? Oh, I bet you there was a lot of booze and it goes on at lighthouses. I'll bet you. But I'll bet they're not making amazing drinks with St. George and bitter lemon. No.

They're just drinking that stuff straight out of the deer skin. Yeah, exactly. Where were we? Eddystone Lighthouse. Plymouth, England. Oh, yeah. That's how this got started. This thing, it's a very rough area to have a lighthouse.

And it seems like nature doesn't want a lighthouse there. Because over the years, it has been knocked down and burned down many, many times. Yeah. This dude basically went out there by himself, Harry or Henry Wyn Stanley, in 1696. And just started building this wooden lighthouse out and these rocks off the coast of Plymouth himself.

Got captured by a French pirate, released, and lit the thing in 1698. And he actually died. He deconstructed it and rebuilt it and died in the second version of it. Oh, really? It got swept away with him inside. But he's a pretty cool cat.

That was 1703. Then another one in 1708 was built. That burned down in 1755. Then a guy named John Smeaton, he was an engineer. He built one that was built to last for a little while. He actually came up with what you think of as the modern lighthouse. It's thick at the bottom, tapers at the top,

and then it flares out right below the lantern. And the reason most lighthouses flare out right below the lantern is when a wave comes up and the waves can get that big, it won't ride up into the lantern. It will be thrown back out to sea when it hits the flare. Oh, it's a water guard. Pretty much. Interesting.

Did not know that. He's a smart dude. So that one lasted for 123 years, which was, as far as the Eddystone light is concerned, an eternity. But eventually, the Trinity House, which is England's version of the Coast Guard. Of the lighthouse establishment? Yeah.

They said, no, let's tear that thing down. It stood up this long, but we think it might not for much longer. But then they built another one. This one, actually, they used almost a jigsaw puzzle for the foundation. So when a wave hits it, it actually compresses together and becomes stronger when a wave smacking into it.

So that was there for good. Yeah. Wonderful. We talked about Boston light. There's also the Cape Hatteras on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, which is, I believe, the tallest one in the United States. Yeah.

It's 208 feet. And it's one of the most famous as well. It's the one with the black and white barber pole design. Yeah. That's 63 meters for our friends everywhere else in the world. Did you know that that one was in trouble? The sea was encroaching upon it. And they got some money together, congress did,

and moved it. Moved this lighthouse 2,900 feet back inland. Yeah. Over the course of 23 days, they slowly moved it on tracks. Wow. It was pretty amazing. It was on that modern Marvels one. It's like Fitzgerald, though.

Sure. I got a few more fast facts unless you have something else. No, I'm done. 680 lighthouses remaining in the US, estimated out of that original 1,000 plus. 37 states have lighthouses. Just not Kansas. Michigan has the most, don't they, of all the states?

Yeah, 120 in Michigan. Because of the Great Lakes. I would imagine. Makes sense. The East Coast says 391. West Coast only has 94. I guess there's just a lot more shipping and stuff, huh? Need to step it up West Coast.

In worldwide, we estimate more than 17,000 lighthouses in 250 countries. And the brightest one, Oak Island in North Carolina, 14 million candle power. You can see it. Whoa. 24 miles. Wow.

Isn't that great? Yeah, that's a lot. 14 million candles, all burning at once. Pretty neat. Sounds like a new religion. The Candelas. Really? A million is one lighting their candle.

I think you just established it. Reciting the Candelas prayer. Nice. See, we just started a religion. Yeah. That easy. Well, you did. I just bore a witness.

That's right. You can be my faithful assistant. Thanks. Can I baptize you? Sure. OK. If you want to know more about lighthouses, you can type that word into the search

part, howstoveworks.com. And since I talked about baptizing Chuck, it's time for Listener Man. Since you talked about baptizing Chuck, that must mean it's 1984. Hey, guys. I recently discovered your podcast and immediately fell in love. I'm thirsty for knowledge.

I find it quite impressive that you've become quasi-experts. Not really. But I'm writing in to respond to the Control Burn episode. I used to work for my local county park system doing habitat and wildlife management. Control Burn took up many days in the early spring for us. Our department only consisted of about six to seven people, three of which were licensed burn bosses by the state.

They make the burn plan. They light the fire and basically coordinate and oversee the entire operation. I would make everybody call me burn boss job. Totally would. Additionally, local fire department's volunteer personnel and sometimes equipment. So they lend out their stuff, which is nice, and people,

such as water trucks to assist. We also had quite a large number of park volunteers that go through our training and help on the fire line as well. That'd be neat. I would do that. Yeah, on like a Saturday afternoon. Sure.

I'm sure it's different for each state and agency. But our burn bosses go through training and put on by the state in order to get certified. I can't recall if this was mentioned, but another advantage of Control Burns is that the charred earth absorbs light because it's black in color, more than it normally would, causing the soil to heat more quickly,

and thus early germination for the desired species. I had not considered that. We didn't mention that. Good factoid there. Thanks for satisfying my wondering mind. Tracy Kump in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thanks a lot. Tracy, we appreciate that.

We always love to hear from people who know what they're talking about. Burn Boss Kump. Yeah. If you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at S-Y-S-K podcast or hang out with us on Instagram at S-Y-S-K podcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuffyoushouldknow.

You can send us an email through stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com, and always join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses

and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life.

Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.