Stuff You Should Know - Stuff You Should Know July 4th Extravaganza, Part 2: Baseball and Apple Pie

Episode Date: July 14, 2011

What makes America unique? In the second segment of this special two-part episode, Josh and Chuck join up with guests from The Daily Show and The Onion to take a closer look at the Stuff You Should Know About America. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flooring contractors agree. When looking for the best to care for hardwood floors, use Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner. The residue-free, fast drying solution is specially designed for hardwood floors, delivering the safe and effective clean you trust. Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner is available at most retailers where floor cleaning products are sold and on Amazon. Also available for your other hard surface floors like Stone, Tile, Laminate, Vinyl, and LVT. For cleaning tips and exclusive offers, visit Bona.com slash Bona Clean. The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call,

like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, we're back. I guess you could say it's part two of two. This is the second concluding part of our two-part series on America for the Fourth of July. You got to say hey and welcome to the podcast because this is the beginning of part two. Yeah, but we're technically in the middle.

All right, hey and welcome to the podcast. Thank you. You feel better? Yes. All right, so this is picking up where we left off. We still don't know where we cut off, so our guess is as good as yours and vice versa. Awesome. This is Stuff You Should Know about America from the Sirius XM Studios in New York City. Now, more from Josh and Jeff. That was as great as I hoped it would be, Joe. And Jill. That was something. When he told me he's like we're going to need another mic in a VIP seat because I got someone doing footnotes. Like what? What does that mean? And now I know. And knowing is half the battle. That's what I hear. So, Chuck, I don't think we could do a July 4th show reasonably and not talk about fireworks,

right? That'd be a big ripoff. I mean, I don't think there's any better way to enjoy a fireworks display than to know the chemistry that's going behind it, right? Yeah. I feel like it takes that kind of understanding. Well, whether you like it or not, we're going to teach you this right now, right? Yeah, man. You're the expert on this. But I do like, well, I'll chime in. Go ahead. I like the name of the Chinese manual. Well, you take the name of the Chinese manual. First, let me set you up. Okay. So, fireworks are based on black powder, which has been around since at least 1044. And it was discovered in China, right? It was either the result of some alchemists who were looking for a way to preserve youth or a hapless chef who accidentally discovered it.

Can I stop you there? Please. Because the first one doesn't make any sense to me. The second one does, I get it, Chinese chef making bananas foster or something. Right. Boom. And all of a sudden, there's gunpowder. But how does gunpowder figure into trying to make yourself look younger is what I want to know. I don't know. I have no answer for that. I charcoal, I guess. Okay. That's really okay. Potassium nitrate, which is salt peter. And then sulfur. I think if you applied those things separately to your face and then wash them off well enough. And just don't light it. Right. Well, if you got too close to a fire, then kaboom. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, that makes sense now. But those are the three ingredients in black powder, right? That's right.

And I wanted to point out the Chinese, we know it has been around since 1044 because it was in the collection of the most important military techniques. Right. That's what they called their book. It is a good book name. Pretty straightforward. Yeah. So, however they discovered it. Now, I don't know if they understood what was going on back then. Now we have a pretty good understanding of what's going on with black powder, right? Yeah. So, you've got potassium nitrate, which is salt peter, which is an oxidizer, right? Yeah. That's like 75% of the mix. That's the bulk. 15% is charcoal, which is fuel. And then you've got sulfur, which is a reducing agent. And that's the last 10%. That's right. So, you mix them all together. You introduce

flame, which ignites it. And all of a sudden, the potassium nitrate starts releasing all this oxygen, which feeds the charcoal, all right, binds to it and creates the light and the heat that you see in fireworks, right? Boom. Right. Or not yet with the boom. We're almost there. Okay. And then you have the oxygen from the potassium nitrate also reacting with the sulfur to create this explosive force as CO2 and nitrate or nitrogen are produced and they expand. Right. And that's the boom? Right. Yeah. Okay. And I missed my cue. It was okay. You just hit it earlier. You're trying to get a point at me. Okay. So, you've got the sulfur and the oxygen binding together creating CO2 and nitrogen. And that's where you get the explosive force.

Boom. Nice. Thank you. That was good. You wouldn't think it'd be that hard. And that's the basis of fireworks, right? Yeah. That's the basis of the firecracker. And so now we move on to sparklers. Which is pretty much the same thing. It pretty much is. But what you do with a sparkler is you have that black powder, add a little sugar, add a little water, and you get something called, you know, sort of like a slurry. You dip your stick into it, as it were, and metal stick. And because everything's spread out, it's not going to be like as volatile and create a big flash bang. Boom. It's over. It's spread out because it's mixed with a slurry. Right. And you add a little,

what, metal to that? Yeah. Like some sort of metal dust or shavings. And then that heats up and jumps off and becomes incandescent. And there's a sparkler. What's the noise for that? Okay. There's no sound effect. Where's sparkler? Okay. There we go. There's a sparkler. And the reason this is important is because when you go out on the 4th of July, wherever you do that here in New York, I imagine they're everywhere, and you see the big pyrotechnic display, it is really just versions of sparklers and firecrackers. Right. The sparkler and the firecracker are the basis of all other fireworks, right? That's right. So these aerial displays, it's just a shell, which is like a ball filled with black powder. And then little pellets of

sparkler composition that they call stars, right? Yeah. And in the middle of that is a firecracker. And you use a lifting charge to send it into the air. And the lifting charge ignites the fuse. Exit. Nice. And then when it when it hits a certain altitude and that that fuse goes off and the firecracker in the middle blows up, it ignites the black powder, right? So there's your explosion. And that in turn sends the pellets, the stars scattered, lights them. And there's your firework. That's it. As you say, Bada Bing, Bada Boom, Bon Jovi. Right. There's your fireworks. Don't say that. And you can get fancy with it. If you want to cobble these together, you cobble the shells together, add something called a breaking charge. And that is when you

see like the one shell explode. And then that breaking charge sets off the other ones. And that's where you get the cool little things that everyone ooze and Oz at. Right. And then you add some chemical salts for color. That's right. Like, what do we have blue for copper? Blue is copper, stronium is red. Yeah. And then stronium and copper make purple. Wow. Look at you. I got sodium for yellow, calcium for orange, aluminium for my British friends, is silver and barium is green. Pretty neat. Right. So now when you're watching the fireworks display, you can curse us because you're sitting there thinking about the sulfur is a reducing agent. What's that smell? Oh, that's the reducing agent. Just give me a beer and shut up. Exactly.

So that's, that's fireworks, right? But, but that's just like fireworks when they go right. That's, that's the optimum of what can happen with firework. Well, we just said, right? But we live in La La Land in a lot of ways and fireworks don't always go well. No. Right. So we have our friend Hallie Haglund here to talk to us about when fireworks don't go so well. Right. That's right. Hallie apparently has a pretty true story for us. So everybody welcome, Hallie. All right, let's see. That's right. I was going, is this good? Should I lower this? Or I don't even know who I'm talking to. You can probably angle it down. Okay. This is the highlight of the show. Yeah. Never let it be said that Josh and Chuck don't teach the controversy because that's why I'm

here. All right. Well, I have some facts and figures in my presentation, so I may need to refer to my notes. But I'm sure that you've all seen the public service videos that local news stations roll out around this time of year. You know, there's like a fake, adorable child posed in a field of grass and, you know, obviously celebrating something because they're wearing something really nice from the local J.C. Pennies. And, you know, it's a mannequin that's completely faceless and yet human-like because they've put a straw sun hat on the head to remind you like, be careful. This fake child is sensitive to the sun. So, you know, so the mannequin is posed in like some position of youthful curiosity and all of a sudden, boom, you know, a Roman candle blows

its head off. And in the blink of an eye, there's nothing but like a cloud of smoke and lime dust and a singed straw hat 200 feet away in the grass. So this is what we all see every day, you know, the hazards of fireworks. And if it's a low-budget sort of news station, they actually just blow up a watermelon. But either way, they teach you the havoc that fireworks can wreak upon our nation's children or our nation's fruit. Yeah. So if you don't think fireworks are dangerous, can I ask you a question? Okay, since 1998, how many fireworks factories do you think have burned down? According to my not very thorough research, it's five. Okay, so Denmark, Holland, the UK, England, and the Philippines. So here, let me get my numbers. If you don't think they're dangerous,

just ask the 1,250 people in Enshade, Holland, left homeless after 900 kilograms, which I did the math. It's 1,980 pounds of fireworks were accidentally detonated at their local factory or talked to the people of Cavite in the Philippines who felt the ground shake nearly two miles away from the explosion when a demonstration at their local firecracker factory went wrong. Or the 2,000 people evacuated from ceased Denmark when factory workers accidentally dropped a container of fireworks, somehow causing it to ignite. I watched a lot of internet videos in my research. And I will say, if you have to witness a human tragedy firsthand, a fireworks factory exploding is definitely the coolest you are going to come by. I mean, it's like cooler than the

Disney World fireworks display, I'd say. Yeah. Did you know that while celebrating Chinese New Year in 2009, it only took one stray firecracker to burn down Beijing's 30 story luxury Mandarin hotel? Now, to be fair, the Chinese are an incredibly efficient people. So what took them one firework would probably take us like at least a box. Okay. In the United States in 2010, the Consumer Product Safety Commission reported three firework related deaths, which is up 50% from 2009 when only two firework related deaths were reported. And I don't expect the trend to turn around because let's face it, the economy is going to hell. This 4th of July, Americans are going to want nothing more than to just throw back a six pack and just sparkler the world away. Okay.

Okay. So maybe the cold hard statistics don't touch you. Maybe something more anecdotal will get through to you. So I have witnessed the brutality of the firework firsthand. Let me take you back to Denver, Colorado, 1991, the 5th of July. I am about to turn 10 and my older brother Eric is 14. And you should know in Denver, there is about a week right around the 4th of July where a summer drought and a child stockpile of fireworks both simultaneously reached their peak. So we had really hoarded this incredible stash. I mean, we had every kind of firework. We had snaps. We had sparklers. We had bottle rockets. We had Roman candles. We had tanks. We had snakes. We had bird cages. And of course, we had smoke bombs. So we had sort of burned through

most of our reserves on the driveway the night before. My father has all these pictures that he took of us that night. And we're like crouched next to the garage door. And I'm wearing this Mexican Pueblo dress that my mom bought for me in Puerto Vallarta. And my brother's wearing his hot pink jams. And you can see we're just sort of mesmerized by this black cat screech and scream fountain that we've just ignited. And you know, there's like a deadness in my eyes and something about how I never brush my hair that I'm really like spot on for Drew Barrymore and the fire starter posters. And my brother just keeps begging like just one more just one more like like he's going to go into withdrawal if we stop lighting fireworks. So what I'm saying is I feel like

looking at this picture you could tell we were already struggling with some pretty serious demons. The next day I was in a fog all day, you know, despite a full night of sleep, I was exhausted after our explosives bender. And so sometime in the afternoon I went to the basement to find a cool place and I was watching a current affair. If you guys remember that and I and I must have drifted off because I remember I was awakened by a sound of sirens. Now, my brother, I didn't know this at the time was upstairs with three other boys from our block on the street. And they were playing this game that we played in our neighborhood all the time. I really hope no children are listening to this and if you are this is really bad game. So don't play this game. It was sort of,

you know, it was a spin off of ding dong ditchum. So one person would go stand on the porch poised to ring the doorbell while another person would stand in the street with a smoke bomb. So as soon as the smoke bomb was lit in the street, the person on the porch would ring the doorbell and then run away and the person in the street would throw the smoke bomb. So ideally your neighbor opens their door to a cloud of smoke and they think like, a wizard just rang the doorbell and then they got really shy or something. But let me remind you again that Denver was a tinder box at that time of year. So my brother and his friends probably should have skipped the house across the street, the four stops house, which was flanked by these two huge juniper trees. Actually historic trees

we later found out they were planted by the then governor Roy Romer's father-in-law and about 50 years prior. And every so often the the Romers would pile in their car and just drive through the neighborhood to check out how their trees were doing because that's really what people in Colorado do for fun. They go and check out trees that they planted a long time ago. So it was actually my brother who threw the offending smoke bomb and the smoke bomb was blue. So he lit it and he aimed at the porch but his aim was off and so instead of landing on the porch it landed in the juniper tree on the right. And everyone just sort of sat there stunned as the smoke billowing from the tree turned from blue to light blue to gray and then you just heard this crackling sound.

And it didn't take long for the fire for the fire in one tree to spread to the adjacent tree and then to the roof of the four stops house and then to the roof of the neighbors of the four stops house. And they just sort of stood there stunned like how could this game have possibly gone bad. And my mom actually I was talking this morning and she reminded me of the fact that she at some point had come out onto the porch when she saw fire and she just saw the kids frozen in the street and they just looked there and they were like we don't know what to do we don't know what to do. But then instead of running to my house they ran to one of the other boys' houses because the mom was way nicer and they hid in the bathroom while the mom called the fire

department. So you know after all there were there were the two trees were totally destroyed and there was serious damage to two roofs and also the four stops car which had been marked in the driveway. So that night everyone assembled for sort of a disciplinary meeting on our side porch which happened to offer a prime view of the charred scorched earth across the street. And you know it was all the boys and all the parents and I sort of tiptoed out and was just standing on the edge watching everything. And all the parents thought that the boys were just staring down because they were so shamed and sort of in shame and deference when really it was just nobody wanted to look up because if they looked sideways they would just burst out laughing.

I mean it was so pathetic how this four-stop house looked. It looked like one unlucky house on like a beautiful block had just been struck by lightning. And as they discussed what kind of work the boys could do to pay off the four-sots insurance deductible I listened and I really I really had no impulse to laugh because I thought about how easily that sorry smoke bomb toss could have been mine. And so as they laid out chores that they could possibly do I just thought there but for the grace of God go I. The war on drugs impacts everyone whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs.

They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs of course yes they can do that and on the prime example. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil answer for it. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is what it sounds like inside the box car. I'm journalist in Elm Morton in my podcast City of the Rails. I plunge into the dark world of America's railroads searching for my daughter Ruby who ran off to hop trains. I'm just like stuck on this train God knows where I'm gonna end up and I jump. Following my daughter I found a secret city of unforgettable characters living outside society off the grid and on the edge. I was in love with the lifestyle and the freedom this community. No one understands who we truly are. The rails made me question everything I knew about motherhood history and the thing we call the American dream. It's the last vestige of American freedom. Everything about it is extreme. You're either going to die or you could have this incredible

rebirth and really understand who you are. Come with me to find out what waits for us in the city of the rails. Listen to City of the Rails on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts or cityoftherails.com. I feel safer now. That's a true story, right? Yeah, she said she talked to her mom. Oh well, that makes it true, right? So, Chuck, I used to blow stuff up like crazy. Did you? Yeah, like model cars, any guys ever strap like bottle rockets to their model cars and try and make them? The guys are like, oh yeah, dude. Still do. Did you ever break the sticks off of bottle rockets and line them and just throw them and see where they go? Just see what happened? I did. That's what I did. Actually, I would,

me and my buddy Chuck built this, I had a friend named Chuck growing up. He's a very sad child. We built bottle rocket guns in his little wood shop. His dad made the little rubber band guns and sold them at fairs and stuff. So we modified those to hold bottle rockets and he'd drop it in and throw the little flap down and shoot them at each other. So what kind of modifications are required specifically? Well, we used the stock of the gun. It was like a rifle and then we basically just got rid of the rubber band part and made a box with a flap on top, like a door, because you didn't want it to shoot back at you. So you would light it, put it in there, and we kind of dug out a groove. So it goes straight. We put a lot of thought into this

and you would light it and then shoot at your friend. Bada boom, bada bing. Bada bing, Bon Jovi. Yeah, nice. So did you patent that? No, we should have actually. We'll have to go home and make them. Sold them in Denver, evidently. So let's talk American dream, shall we? Yeah, man. The American dream as a thing. And you did most of this research and are you putting this one on me too? No, no, no, I'm not putting this one on you. But I'm just I noticed from your research, when I looked at this, the American dream sort of has ebbed and flowed from its early origins. And it sort of coincides with like how the economy is doing right then. Pretty much. It's either like, yes, the American dream or oh, it's dead. Yeah. And then it's alive again. And then

it's dead. And I also noticed the American dream is either like every man for himself and like you just do the best you can and make as much money as you can. Or it's all about community and looking out for one another. And all that depends on how the economy is doing. That's right. Because if everybody's broke, everybody's like, yeah, of course, government spending. That's what the American dreams about. And if everyone's making money, then, you know, everyone turns into Patrick Bateman all of a sudden. So let's talk about it. Chuck, where did this come from? Obviously, it was the famed historian James Truslow Adams, who wrote the 1931 book, The Epic of America, right? Yeah, and that's where he mentioned the American dream. But earlier than that in 1630,

John Winthrop gave his famous city upon a hill sermon to his fellow Puritan colonist and he didn't use the word dream, but he did detail a vision of society where everyone could prosper, everyone could get ahead as long as you just team together and work together and follow the Bible. Right, exactly. But but that kind of laid out the groundwork for the American dream that in America specifically, if you worked really hard, the sky was the limit, right? That's right. Okay, so that was 1630 when Winthrop gave that city upon a hill sermon. That's right. And then by 1776, when TJ sat down from June 11th to 18th, right, it was a God given inalienable right to succeed. Because it's in the it's in the Constitution, we're guaranteed the the life, liberty and the

pursuit of happiness, right? That's right. Which is kind of the the American dream in a nutshell, it's the pursuit of happiness. Yeah, does that what does the Statue of Liberty say? No, that's awful. I don't know that. Is that what it says there now? What does it say something? It says, like, uh, yeah, all that other stuff. People are just shouting out words. Well, it says, welcome to Shoneys. Did you see this? And it's not a torch, but it's a burger. Right. So the declaration of independence really kind of gives the lift to the American dream, but it's really it becomes embodied in the 19th century. There was a guy named Alexis de Tocqueville, right? I took this as a sort of a snotty thing to say. It might not have been a snotty thing to

say, but because he was French, I took it that way. He visited the United States in the 1830s, and he called this belief the charm of anticipated success. And that just sounds sort of like, like it's not real. It's just the charm. He's British all of a sudden. He could also be a Nazi. You can do that accent. I took it as kind of like a pat on the head or he was charmed himself. Okay. Either way, he was, he was an outsider making an observation that the Americans over there think like they have this thing called American exceptionalism, which means there's no other country on earth like America, right? That's right. And that's what he was mentioning. And then I think it got another boost by Henry David

Thoreau and Walden. He really kind of laid out the American dream as well. Yeah. And that was 1854 and his quote, I actually like this one. If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and I'm going to say her dreams, let's modernize this, and endeavors to live that the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. Right. Can you see that on like one of those posters? It says like effort. And it has that underneath. There's like a whale's tail. Back then the Walden, it was like, it was a guy chopping wood. It was Thoreau himself, actually. Right. He was the first guy to do an inspirational poster. It was a wood carving. So that's the mid 18th century. Toward the end of the, or no, the mid 19th century, I'm sorry.

Yes. Toward the end of that, you had a lot of immigrants coming and also a westward push. And so the American dream kind of gets laid onto these two things too. Yeah, it's actually written about they use the words American dream more and more in newspapers and, you know, go west. Registered riches books. Exactly. Yeah. And magazines, that whole kind of thing where people love their register riches stories in the late 19th century. We still do. Right. But I mean, they really loved them then. Okay. Really. Like compared to today is like, oh, but so, so everything's going and going. By the time the 20th century comes around, the American dream is pretty much like code for upwardly mobile. That's right. The person's living the American dream, rather

than a promise to be able to try the American dream is starting to become wealthy, like you're wealthy about the time of the turn of the century. And then by the time James Trueslow Adams writes his Epic of America, there's a lot of doubt, right? Because this is 1931, something really big happened that kind of put a ding in the American dream. Yeah. The depression came along and destroyed a lot of these big fortunes and these people that had, you know, lived the American dream, rags to riches, self made millionaires and the like. And Herbert Hoover said, you know what, prosperity is just around the corner. And everyone said, screw you. They threw rocks at him. That's right. But FDR came along and did usher in a little bit of real

hope after that. He did even, even before going to war, which I think most, most historians kind of point to as the turning point for the American economy was all the military spending in World War Two. Sure. So I guess Roosevelt introduces the new deal, right, which is again, all the government spending social programs to the American dream kind of becomes more of a sense of community where America is a place where, you know, you can not only make your own way, but if you can't make your own way, like your elderly or your disabled or whatever, the community is going to take care of you. That's right. And then we go over to Europe and do Africa and Italy and the Pacific and Tic-Tail and come back and the suburbs are born. And then the American dream is just right

on this uptick again. Right. So we're on the uptick of the roller coaster in the 1950s. Americans at the time made up 6% of the population and consumed one third of the goods and services, which means we're doing great because, you know, we're Americans and we're using up all this stuff, which is awesome. Wages rose. Yeah. That was pretty good. Fluent workers moved, like you said, into the suburbs, spread out. And I guess at the time that meant things were good if you moved to the suburbs. Well, I wonder if the suburbs were kind of a turning point as well, because when the suburbs started to hit their stride, that's when the social strife in the 60s came along, where basically African Americans said, like, hey, I'm really happy that you guys are having a great time

over there, but there's this whole other part of America that's been left out so far. And MLK famously redefined the American dream. Yeah, he called America a dream yet unfulfilled, and he was kind of right on the money. And he said that it shouldn't be about wealth. It should be about Thomas Jefferson, TJ again, saying all men are created equal and give equal rights to minorities, rebuild these inner cities that are decaying and let's eradicate hunger. And people are like, wait a minute, I just thought I was supposed to get rich and move to the suburbs, what are you talking about? At the same time, their kids are doing the same thing. They're attacking them from another side, waiting for them to come home from work and then jumping out of the closet,

maybe. And the 60s are at their peak, and the 70s hit, and the economy just slides down the toilet. So now we're on the downside. So there's social strife and others, economic strife. And every turn the American dream is analyzed in this context, right? So which is what we're doing, we're just following in tradition. That's right. And thankfully, another French person came along to point this out. In 1974, French historian Ingrid Carlander published a book called, how do you pronounce it? Lazy American. It sounds very much like lazy American. No, you really don't like the French. No, I love the French. She proclaimed that the American dream was in fact dead. And that was pretty much it. And with the gasoline lines and the empty swimming pools, because you shouldn't

put, I think it was LA that suffered the drought, and they were like, we can't afford all this water for swimming pools even. But luckily, that was good for skateboarding. It was. It gave rise to skateboarding, didn't it? It did. And then out of California, out of the Promised Land, came the golden child, right? The former governor, a guy who came from a farm family who'd worked his way up to a star in Hellcats of the Navy. Yeah. And he took over. And basically, he said Reagan, by the way. Yeah, he said the American dream is back, baby. I think is what his words were. I think so. And his deal, very simplified version was, hey, let's cut taxes and stimulate growth. Let's reduce some of these government programs because we want self-reliance. And that's what

it makes America strong. That's what it makes America strong. Italian as well. And it worked to a certain degree. And America started to prosper again. But then critics came along and said, yeah, but you know what? We don't know about all this. How it really helped the common man. It may have just been the rich you were helping out. And we don't really know if you cut spending. Right. Reagan went, what? Is that easy Chinese now? So we find ourselves now after the affluent 80s and the 90s. Which is just a party, man. We kind of, we have kind of this hangover now where we have all this stuff, but we also have all this debt and like reality of like what, you know, just buying stuff and just consuming without producing anything. Because remember,

back in the 40s or 50s, we were producing one third of the world's goods, but we were consuming that too. But we were producing as well. And then through the 80s and the 90s, we stopped producing and just started consuming. And we got to this point where this Harvard professor named John Quelch pointed out that basically too many Americans have been expressing the American dream through the acquisition of stuff, right? True. So now everybody's getting brow beaten with the American dream. That's the point that we're at, right? Right. It's like it's greedy. Is that the point? Is that what he's saying? I think what he's saying is it's kind of become greedy. Like it was originally an opportunity. Right. And now it's how much stuff do you have.

Right. So what he suggests we do is go back to the original James Trueslow Adams ideal of the American dream and through that allow it to survive, right? Right. And we'll finish up with a quote from Adams, a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain the fullest stature to which they are innately capable and be recognized by others for what they are regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position. And how about that? That's right on the money. Trueslow. This is stuff you should know about America from the serious XM studios in New York City. Now more from Josh and Chuck. So this is, I would argue, I might cry at this part. When I was researching, I was crying, laughing. Yeah. This is good stuff. We have one

of our good friends here, Joe Randazo. He edits the onion, like we said. And he threw that away like it's no big deal. The onion. I turned into a Frenchman. Yeah. And he was so kind as to go through their 1783 edition, right? And come up with some great headlines for us to share from the era, from the age. So everyone, please welcome Joe Randazo. Hey, Joe. Hi. Are you going to wear those? Yeah. Yeah, I like it. Joe put on headphones and now I feel naked. Why do you have your hat on? I've got nothing. That's true. I have to say that last segment, I was staving off a panic attack. Were you? It's a roller coaster ride of ups and downs. What is the American dream? Is it even achievable? Oh, I thought you meant because you were nervous. No, no, no, no, no. That was

terrible. Awful. Terrible segment. So how did you end up panicked? I don't know. I'm in the midst of it right now. We're going to see what happens. Well, we'll take us through some of this. You guys have been America's finest news source for how many years? Well, the onion was founded in 1765 by Friedrich Zwiebel, who is a Prussian tuber farmer. And the only words that he knew, I think this is right, Joe, were the an onion, right? Oh, mercantile and onion. So it was founded as the mercantile onion with the express purpose of accumulating capital and fleecing its readers. All right. And the scope of the Y, right? O-N-Y. O-N-I-O-N. Oh, okay. Now, I thought at the time, though, it was... No, you're way off base. So then, so that was founded in 1765. And then the

mercantile and the onion split in 1783. And the onion has continued on since then independently, since 1783. So these are articles from our 1783 edition, which is technically the first issue of the onion as it's now known. Oh, okay. So they split in 1783. Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll share with us some of the highlights of what was going on that year, because it seemed to be a busy year from what I was reading. Yeah, it was a busy year. You know, we reissued this in 2008. So that's a fact. So let's see. Where do you want to start? I mean, one thing that we like to do in America today is read books, right? Am I right? Yes. Oh, I forgot the line I wanted to say was this amazing line. American dream, more like American night terror. So this is just in this

October of 1783. These are the top 20 bestselling books in print at present. A little section of the paper called Publishers Corner. The 20 topmost books in print at present. Number one is the Bible with 226,339 copies. Number two is common sense. The third most popular book is the thousands upon thousands of the Mohicans. 1783. Number four, the return of common sense back to basics. Number six, five, the diary of a woman who knew how to write. Number six, the Bible with a red cover. Number seven, the plowman's diet. Eighth topselling book is the book of blank pages. Number nine is leeches, a comprehensive tone of the known medical facts. Ten, the Bible with the blue cover. The Gentleman of New Amsterdam.

Twelve, God's revenge against idleness. A children's book. Number 13, guide to North American Jews. Fourteen, the Bible German edition. Number 15, the common sense three. It just makes sense. It's spelled with a C. It's a pun. Sixteen, the leverant and fulcrum for village idiots. Number 17, natural stillbirth. And 18, 19, and 20 do not exist. There were only 17 books. And 1783. So that's a strong way to start, right? A list. I think so. Yeah, rattling them off. You're going to get up for everything. What else is going on at the time, were there any of these of interest that kind of stood out to you? I have one. Yes. That I thought was pretty neat. The surgeon general has added snuff to the tobacco pyramid. Yeah.

That was a controversial move. Everybody's familiar, of course, with the food pyramid, as I stall. But I'll just read a little excerpt from here. So this is, obviously, this was written in 1783. The language is a little more kind of flowery and baroque almost than what we're used to now. So this reads, from our Baltimore cousins comes news of the felicitous health benefits of the powdered tobacco snuff and the recommendation that multiple pinches be taken until blood flows freely from the nose in service of balancing the humors. Pre-eminent barber surgeon and former general of Loyalist ilk Thomas Hayesworth has added the cure-all physics to his famed and most singular tobacco pyramid. The robustness chart

learned in grammar schools across the whole of our nation. It has given snuff greater importance even than pipe smoke. Let's see. The measure of snuff suggested by General Hayesworth to be most advantageous for children under six years of age is not to be in excess of four sizable nose packings per four and 20 hours and taken always with two drafts of strong brandy. Those unable to procure the finely ground tobacco should quaff freely from cuspidours at every opportunity to derive at least a little benefit from the meritorious effects of snuff. Obviously snuff is no longer on the tobacco pyramid. It took it off in the 70s. Yeah. So Joe, one of the ones I ran across was the,

there was a woman who wandered out of her house and they couldn't figure out what was going on. Yeah, she caused quite a stir. A mischievous woman wandered outside of home. The headline reads, a mischievous woman wandered outside of home. I'll just read a little bit of this as well. The gentle town of Harrisburg was confronted with a most worrisome and shocking sight the day before last, one owing to the sudden appearance of wife and child-bearer Margaret Cook from the interior of her home. Defying all reason, Cook was observed to exit into the open air. Though no man had instructed her to do so, no domestic task required her to be out of doors,

and no sign of suffocating fire had surfaced from her modest dwelling. So she wandered around town, brought up quite a consternation, and then the last line of the story, Margaret Cook was reprimanded, disowned, and hanged until dead after returning to her place of residence. Tougher times. One that you alluded to earlier, it was foreshadowed. Yes. Today we're all interested in sort of news of the weird and these peculiar news items from around the world. I think in the world the oldest person just recently died. Now there's a new oldest person who's alive. That's a great thing about that list. So this, the world's tallest man towers at 5 feet and 11 inches. Should I read a little passage from this? From the honest and sworn

captain of the Bark Silla, freshly returned from the Baltic, news of the existence of a modern long shanks, a veritable giant before whom many tremble, said Pantragral, who makes his residence in the city of Danzig, reaches nearly 6 feet into the heavens. At an astonishing 18 hands high, he is head and shoulders above even the loftiest of his brethren, and when striding, the thoroughfares of Danzig can be seen from 30 paces away. So colossal is he that Master Carpenter's cut a hole above his door and raised the portal to accommodate his great head. This Ajax sleeps in a specially fashioned bed so that his lower limbs do not dangle off the edge. His tailor keeps a stock one surplus bolt each of wool and muslin should the Leviathan desire a new suit of

clothes. To him our daily bread is but mere crumbs. The proprietress of an inn where the mammoth takes meals testified that he could devour one half of one one hundredth of his weight in beef steak in one sitting. It is a further wonder that the floorboards of his house have not given way under his great heft, and that being estimated at nearly 12 stone or 165 pounds. That's it. He's a giant. Yeah. 5 feet 11 inches. The war on drugs impacts everyone whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute uh 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any

drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. This is what it sounds like inside the boxcar. I'm journalist in El Morton in my podcast city of the rails. I plunged into the dark world of America's railroads searching for my

daughter Ruby who ran off to hop trains. I'm just like stuck on this train. God knows where I'm going to end up and I jump. Following my daughter, I found a secret city of unforgettable characters living outside society off the grid and on the edge. I was in love with a lifestyle on the freedom this community. No one understands who we truly are. The rails made me question everything I knew about motherhood, history, and the thing we call the American dream. It's the last vestige of American freedom. Everything about it is extreme. You're either going to die or you could have this incredible rebirth and really understand who you are. Come with me to find out what waits for us in the city of the rails. Listen to city of the rails on the iHeart radio app, apple podcast, or wherever you

get your podcasts, or cityoftherails.com. I've got one for you, Joe. We all have been Franklin, right? Yeah, invented lightning. That's right. And he invented a lot of things. And from the historical archives, he invented so many things that they would actually print them week to week. Yeah, every week there was a feature Ben Franklin inventions this week. That's right. And I will go ahead and read a couple of this week. I don't even know what week it was. This was, I think, the week of October 8th, 1783. Okay. He invented the death kite. It's kind of neat, though. He invented the carton device for conveyance of eggs to minimize breakage on even the most uneven of footpaths. Yep. He invented the US patent. Are these all appropriate to read? I think the next one

we shall not read. He also apparently that we invented power windows. The inflatable oblong balloon, the sort that emits a thunderous clap, one resembling the loud exhale from one's nether regions. The whoopee cushion. A maiden head glue. I guess that one flies. And math. And I love the last one. He invented being a great and pretentious old windbag. Joe, do you have the the one about the amazing public spectacle that seemed like almost an advertisement or like an upcoming event that captured my attention? I do, Josh. And public is spelled with a K in this case. And that is right. That's, that's right. Chuck. We'd love to hear it, Joe. I have it right here. No, I need to do this on my own. Yeah. So, yeah,

there, you know, people still needed their entertainment in the 18th century. Sure. So this was an amazing public spectacle. Indian taught to wear hat. See the savage Mohican who by grace of God and much patient training has been taught to wear a hat in the manner of an actual human. And I'm using novelty for the public. Different times. Those are different times. Can we scoff at Alexis de Tocqueville again? Those are the best moments. I like this one a lot. This was very important when a kidney bean shaped organ recently discovered. This was by cheer of surgeons and blood letters in Boston discovered an organelle of the body and that human excised from the back and modeled purple in color and very likely

a kidney bean in shape which removed when removed causes expiration as with all organs. Oh, I found it. Here's the kidney bean one. And then, you know, even then there was some, you did the, the podcast recently on on Malthus, right? And overpopulation. They were even worried about this in 1783. This sort of opinion piece will New York someday be too crowded for farming. An issue even more worrisome to experts is the reduced acreage of cleared forest available for farming within the city limits. There's a well-known fact that no urban community can survive without an agricultural base on which to found the city's infrastructure. Go online and read it. Really hilarious. Read silently to yourself. And then there was another one about New York where

population was expected to go over 10,000. No, it had already reached 12,000. Oh, it had reached 12,000. It was causing a lot of concern. Yeah, New York threatened by overcrowding as population climbs to 12,000. And that had a companion piece, another worried one where it was urban sprawl and then there was only 13,000 acres of forest remaining on Manhattan Island. Right. Urban sprawling, so severe settlements, cooking fires can be seen from as far as Greenwich Village. It's true today as it was back then, right? That's right. Yeah. You got, you have anything else, Jeff? I was going to say a fact from real, from the real history of the world, which was Stuyvesant was the original governor of New York, I believe. Okay. And when he was banished

from New York, he went to retire in his farm in the West Village. That's when he went to like get away from everybody was the West Village. Wow. And that's true. Only in New York. Yeah, only in New York. So thanks for coming by, Joe. Thanks for having me. Thank you. And Chuck, do you realize what that means? We are out of bits. Yes. We're out of segments. I think that means that you will be able to have a drink in your hand soon. Yes. Which I know is something you've been looking forward to. Yes. All day. Sure. Every day. All day, every day. Everybody, thank you for joining us. We really appreciate it. You can clap for yourself. Everybody out there listening in your car right now, clap for yourself,

but keep your elbows on the steering wheel while you do. So maybe everybody else in the car can clap for you, the driver. Yes. While you keep nine and three, it's not 10 and two anymore. At home, you can clap. If you're listening to this in a shopping mall, clap. Everybody clap. And have a very safe fourth of July. And when you see fireworks, remember, sulfur is a reducing agent. Yeah. Don't throw smoke bombs at brittle trees. Right. The American dream will never die, no matter what. And buggery is not only bestiality, but also sodomy. Thank you very much. Until next time, this was Stuff You Should Know. So, man, how fun is that? Wow. Yeah. Wow. That was epic, monumental. It was okay. And it ran longer than I thought it would. I was worried about it

lasting an hour, and it was an hour and 45 minutes. Yes. Once we get Gavin, get a Gavin, it's hard to shut us up. Yes. It lasted 14 hours in full bladder time. Yeah. So we want to say thank you to all the fans who came. Yeah. What we like to refer to as the 50. Look like everyone had a good time. It was good meeting folks. I saw faces from the Brooklyn Trivia night. Yes. Saw some familiar faces. We got some bread. Chris Kine was there who did our two-headed Josh and Chuck thing. He was the dude in the Ghostbusters shirt. Okay. Yeah, I saw that guy. But he didn't come up at George. Weird. I was like, dude, what's your deal? That's really weird, Chris. And we met Cubs, Don Covey. Yep. And you called her out. I called her out a little bit, which you heard.

You humiliated her. We also want to thank Wyatt Sinek and Hallie Haglin of The Daily Show with John Stewart. And thank The Daily Show for letting them do it. Yeah, that was a big deal. Yeah. So thank you. Thanks to Jen over at The Daily Show for helping us with that. And then all of our peeps at The Onion. The Joes and the Jill. Yeah. Thank you to all three of you. Yes. And big thanks to Paul from Sirius XM. Yeah. And I can't remember our engineer's name that day. He was a really nice guy and says that he's a new fan. Oh, really? Uh-huh. And also Jeremy of Sirius who came to the show. Yeah. And he's a big wick. Yeah. And he came by to see it. So thanks for all that. Thanks to Roxanne, our head of video for helping us out up there. And special thanks to the video team

that we had assembled. Right. Fans that said, dude, we will shoot this in a professional fashion for free for you guys to put on your website. And every step of the way you're like, well, you can use my camera. No, no. Well, you don't need to edit it. No, no. Well, it doesn't need to look good. No, no. So every step of the way they've wowed and amazed and topped our expectations. Yeah. So we want to plug them for sure. That would be Martin Lacca Henson of Hand Crafted by Martin. And you can see his work at www.handcraftedbymartin.com. Right. His live-in gal, he called his wife, domestic partner, Satoko Sugiyama. And she was one of the main shooters and you can find her work at www.thepassagechronicles.com. And finally, they had one

more shooter. They had three cameras and she did sound as well. Larry Sumi, who you can find her work at www.larrysumi.com. L-A-U-R-I-E-S-U-M-I-Y-E. A very appropriate URL. Yes. And they did an awesome job and we really can't say thanks enough. And you can find that video, look for it. We'll have it. We'll put it on Facebook to point people to the website where you can watch this thing in pieces in full. Yeah. And thank you, dear listener, for plotting through this thing with us. We hope it was worth it and we'll be back to our regular scheduled podcasts next week. If you want to, as always, shoot us an email. Send that thing to stuffpodcastathowstuffworks.com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join House of Work staff as we

explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. Brought to you by the re-invented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid for it. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Langston Kermit. Sometimes I'm on TV. I'm David Boreen. I'm probably on TV right now.

David and I are going to take a deep dive every week into the most exciting groundbreaking and sometimes problematic black conspiracy theories. We've had amazing past notable guests like Brandon Kyle Goodman, Sam J. Quinta Brunson, and so many more. New episodes around every Tuesday, many episodes out on Thursdays where we answer you, the listeners conspiracy theories. Listen to my mama told me on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.