September 7, 2024 • 29 mins
It's often been said that "the art of losing isn't hard to master", and humanity overall seems to have a knack for losing everything from car keys to entire civilizations. Join Ben and Noel as they travel (vicariously) to South America and delve into the story of two nations who, eventually, lost an entire waterfall in this week's Classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. We have a
classic episode for you. As of current recording. Your boy here,
Ben Bollen is on the road. Our super producer, mister
Max Williams has learned a lot about death by molten gold.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah you have.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
And our pal our paled Nol is out there chasing waterfalls,
as TLC would say. But this is a true story.
This is a cool one for this classic Max, would
you agree with this statement? In general, human beings are
very good at losing things?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, we're pretty good at that.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
I've lost a number of things on my desk already today.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
And it's not that late in the day. It's it's
we're past noon, but it's not that far past noon.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah, we're like barely into the technical afternoon. And it's always,
you know. Elizabeth Bishop wrote this amazing poem about the
art of losing everybody. Please check it out. It's an
absolute banger as far as poetry goes, and it speaks
to a universal conundrum. Human beings as a species have
(01:12):
this inborn nack for losing everything from car keys to
entire civilization's true story. For many, many centuries, the city
of Troy was considered to be a made up thing
until it was rediscovered and proven to exist in the
eighteen hundreds. In this classic episode, we are traveling to
(01:34):
South America and we're going to learn the story of
two nations that between themselves ended up losing not their
car keys, but an entire waterfall. Ridiculous History is a
production of iHeartRadio. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, friends and neighbors. Back
(02:19):
to the show. We'd like to begin today's episode with
a snippet of a stone cold jam from the nineties.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Total snom Cold classic and You're right.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Many of you may recall that iconic hit by TLC Waterfalls,
as in don't go chasing Them.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Hi, I'm Ben, I'm Nolan Ben.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Did I ever tell you that my first ever live
concert was TLC?
Speaker 1 (02:51):
You did mention that? Not on air though.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
It was TLC opening for MC hammer And also Boys
to Men was on the bill ABC, BBD. It was
the era of TLC where they wore really big, baggy
clothes and had like condoms taped all over them and stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Sure, prophylactics is like sex education exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Yeah, I was definitely pre Waterfalls era and creep and
all of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
But I felt like I was a little ahead of
the curve on that one because they were sort of unknown.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
They were the Opener Opener, and then Boys to Mend
and then MC Hammer, which was right around the time
Adam's Family soundtrack was out with the Hammer song.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Remember they do what they Want or do state what
they want? Remember that one. Yeah, they didn't actually perform that.
I was kind of bummed. That's not true.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
He did perform it, but I kind of thought there
would be a little more Adam's Family esque pageantry involved.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Being that the movie was, you know, fresh in theaters.
But no.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
My very first concert that I can recall, so not
some kind of opry Land thing had to perform in
or something. The very first concert I went to as
a as a patron was when my parents took me
to see the Four Tops. And this was in the eighties,
so this was not the you know, heyday per se.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
I'm sorry, then, I think you buried the lead their
opry Land performances. Yeah, yep, go on.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Well, my first foray into acting was a recurring role
at an amusement park called opry Land. I was from
like six to seven or eight years old. I learned
that it was a paying gig on my eighteenth birthday.
Did they Were they stowing it away for you? I
had no idea.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, oh man, they were. Yeah, they gave it to you.
They gave you your your earnings. They probably took a
finder's fee.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
But it was the eighties. No, it was a different time,
and some pretty good things happened in the eighties.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Were you a song and dance?
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Man?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I mean, what was your I'm sorry, I don't mean
to harpin this.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Oh I I was the hero who comes to town
to clean up the to clean up the craziness and
stop the gunfights.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
They had a thing where they would randomly, I'm doing
air quotes here, fix they would randomly pick a kid
out of the crowd, make you fight to pull no,
to pull up, and say, oh, you're gonna be the
star of the show. And the adults loved cool. So
I was just there every summer as their plant in
the crowd. And then they would give me this cartoonishly
big hat.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
I'm smiling so big right now. This is this thrills
me to no end.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
That's very kind, you, you say. My my parents did make
a framed picture of it with some of the cash
that they kept for decades.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Is it one of those old timey CPA tone type
pictures where you got your six guns on.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
No, I have one of those of my family.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
But the eighties, right, the eighties, Yeah, thriller. I feel
like now we could just say thriller. That was It
was a big hit, big hit back to the future. Yeah,
big hit, big hits. And we also have in an
article from Lori L. Dove a shout out to trapper keepers?
Did you ever have a trapper keeper?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah? I had that. What was what made it special?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Just the brand and it had like, you know, kiddies
and stuff on it, like it would be at least
a frank trapper keeper.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
There could be all kinds of different ones.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Is the velcrow? There's a flat crow too, right, I
believe they have.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
It was just like a binder, but it was just
sort of a fancy binder and everyone had had to
have one.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Oh and speaking of things we have to have, how
do we get so far without giving a shout out
to our super producer Casey Pegram for shame on us.
I think we just got so distracted by nostalgia today.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
I got caught up in Opryland and picturing little Ben
breaking up gunfights at the ok Corral.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
To this day, Noel, I remember all of my lines,
every single one.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Maybe I we'll have to have a reading later in
the episode.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
I can do them right now, do it because they're all.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yep, oh okay.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
It's like it was like a twenty minute show anyway. Yeah,
shout out to Opryland, big, big fan, shout out to
the eighties.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, did you have a cabbage patch kid? I have
been to that farm Babyland General in Georgia. Yeah, that's
very weird. It is extremely weird, very strange place.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
There's a tree in the middle of the main building
and there are just little baby cabbage patch heads sprouting
up out of the ground all around this tree with
these little leaves, little leaves, and they some of them
kind of move, and but what do they do with
the tree?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Ben? Have you? Have you been to the ceremony.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
I did not stick around for the ceremony because it's
in this old building. It's a is a hospital.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I think it's a old hospital.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
So they call it baby Land General like it's meant
I think, at least it's meant to feel like well, I'm.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Creepy because they announce like births and stuff too over
the intercom.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Well they know they birth the babies out of the
hole in the tree.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Well for some people that might be really fascinating.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
And then there's a nurse that takes the baby out,
extracts it from the tree, holds it upside down, and
slaps it on the butt. I had my kid's birthday
party there one year.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Oh yeah, I was. I was at a bluegrass festival.
That's how I found it.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
That's an odd locale.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Fluegrass and chili. It was great.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah, yeah, you know what else was great? What else
was great? The eighties?
Speaker 1 (07:58):
There we go, we promise going to get to the
episode eventually. The thing is, we can look back at
the past with such rose colored glasses, with such nostalgia,
and sometimes we can forget the other things that happened
in the eighties that were not as awesome as Back
to the Future, traffic Keepers or thriller. Right, there's a balance.
(08:19):
We as a species had some let's say, we've had
some hilarious missteps and we've had some tragic missteps. You know,
it was a drug crisis which continues today. A lot
of the clothes looked really weird, although they're coming back
in style.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Hypercolor was that a thing that was more of a
nineties thing? Was it hypercolor?
Speaker 1 (08:40):
I don't know, man, I was such a nerd as
a kid, surprisingly that I didn't really have a grasp
on the ZEITGEISTO.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, did you ever have a hypercolor shirt? Though?
Speaker 3 (08:48):
The ones where you kind of touched it and it
would do your imprint of your hand would be on it, Like.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, I didn't know. The texture really spooked me.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
That's right. You have very specific feelings about textures.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
It's true, that's true, but everybody does. What are some
of the things you remember from the eighties and noll
or things that when you look back you think, whoa
that was? That was crazy?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Well, it's weird.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Like when I was younger, I used to think that
the eighties were inherently bad and that all eighties music
was crappy because I just didn't know better and I
was I assumed that the eighties were lame because of
the you know, big pop hits and banana rama and
the stuff that I would see. But I didn't have
parents that were into cool music, so I kind of
had to find my own way. My parents were both
(09:30):
professional classical musicians, so I really did have to figure
that out for myself. But now I look back on
the eighties with utter rose colored glasses and joyous nostalgia.
I remember the cartoons ThunderCats, all the Deek cartoons like
Spector Gadget, and remember Deek.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Deek.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Yes, I remember that clip back. I couldn't tell you
a thing about the plot. I also ThunderCats. There was
wasn't there a star Hawk or something as silar Hawks
silver Hawks.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Deek was the production company, and they made most of
their car tunes based on pre existing toys and properties,
and say, yeah, boy, we are just going on.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Today's episode is not about any of this stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
No, we are mentioning the eighties because one very strange
and incredibly significant bad thing happened in the eighties. Many did,
but one is the subject of our episode. In the
nineteen eighties, while many of the people listening to the
show were actually alive, humanity took one of the largest
(10:30):
waterfalls on the planet and erased it.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Humanity, what the hell.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Does erase the whole thing? And to tell the story,
we have to journey to South America, specifically along the
border of Paraguay and Brazil, where once stood an incredibly stunning,
spectacular series cascade of waterfalls called the Guaira Falls, Yes,
(11:01):
the Guyerra Falls, which produced in their day, the greatest
volume of falling water in the world. This is something
we found out in some of our earlier research. The
definition of largest waterfall can be pretty tricky. And it's
got a couple of caveats. So this is largest in
(11:22):
terms of the amount of water that fell, But there
are other ones that might have a higher elevation or
longer dropped.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Sure, like Niagara Falls, but this one had twice the
flow of Niagara Fall. That sounds like a pretty cool compliment.
You got twice the flow of this other waterfall. It
sounds like a strong selling point. Yes, there were a
total No you mentioned it was a series of waterfalls.
There were a total of eighteen and all and seven
(11:52):
of these were the most powerful waterfalls, right right, And
that's where it got the nickname seven Falls.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
So these the series of falls is located just twenty
kilometers from another quite famous, more famous, arguably waterfall called
the Iguaza Falls, and that is again along the border
of Brazil and Paraguay, and you could consider this could
have considered this a natural wonder of the world, and
(12:22):
many considered it to rival the Iguaza Falls. And it
was again a series of eighteen massive waterfalls, and it's
on the Piranha River, right at the point where there's
like a gorge and the river gets kind of squeezed
through the gorge.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, and the total height of these falls was three
hundred and seventy five feet, with the largest individual fall
or cataract being one hundred and thirty feet. You could
hear the sound of the water miles and miles and
miles away.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
It's right around thirty kilometers away. And the reason that
flow was so strong is because that gorge we were
talking about it actually narrowed abruptly from three hundred and
eighty meters to sixty meters, which created that intense flow
that we talked about earlier.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
And you can check out a map of the site
from a book called A New Gateway to the Heart
of South America written in eighteen seventy one. Wait, guys,
you might be saying that sounds pretty outdated. Yes, but
it's a more accurate depiction of the waterfall than you
would find nowadays, because again, Guira Falls no longer exist.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, it's what they would call an ex waterfall. Yes.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
And there's one other thing that sounds almost too sappy
to be true, but is magnificent and it's a true story.
And it has to do with the mist of the waterfall.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Right, it's true.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Apparently you could go to these falls anytime during the
day and there would just be this like perma rainbow there.
It just sounds like a magical land, a perpetual rainbow.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yeah, called the care bears. So what do we do
as humanity?
Speaker 3 (14:19):
We see this amazing, gorgeous wonder of nature and we decide.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Let's let's blow it up, right, yes, so build some
kind of power plant.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yeah, So what happened? What made us take this particular
paradise and put up a parking lot for water? There
we go, We got it there?
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Oh, you know you got there, my friend. It's a damn.
I'm here to support you. It's a damn.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
And you're right about the electricity. The government of the
area decides to build a dam, a huge dam, a
four point eight mile long dam called the Itapu Dam.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, it's true. And before doing that again, they had
to blast out with dynamite those rock faces that the
falls fell fell down. Yeah, so no more waterfall. And
what happened was the falls were submerged when the four
point eight mile at Tyapuo Dam was built down river.
(15:18):
And this is the seventh largest river in the world,
just just to make that clear, and it started to
be diverted in nineteen seventy eight, actually caused about ten
thousand families to lose their homes have to relocate.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Yes, what is that like? Eminent doma how they how
do they make people do that?
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Well, eminent domain is the practice that we in the
United States would be most familiar with in terms of
like roads widening and stuff like that. But laws like
that do exist in other countries. And you know, it's
it's very tough to be an individual, family or household
against lack of a better term, big government.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Big big electric, big electric, because it is government, right,
this is a government, this is a government infrastructure. Yeah, exactly.
So obviously they would have had to pay them something
I can't imagine. They just you know, say get get out.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah, And there's probably a lot of paperwork involved because
it is a joint undertaking by Brazil and Paraguay, and
believe Argentina originally raised the ruckus about it, but ultimately
the dam got built. On October thirteenth, nineteen eighty two,
they finally closed the dam and this allowed the river
to flood the falls, the seventh largest river in the world. Again,
(16:36):
as you point out, to finally flood the falls.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
So the waters began to rise, and this did not
happen overnight. In fact, thousands of tourists came to the
area to get one last look at the falls. And Ben,
I have to correct myself here. I mentioned earlier that
they dynamited those those rock faces that did not happen
until later after the whole thing was underwater, because they
wanted to promote safer navigation of the river. Oh so
(17:02):
that was the deal there anyway, though, So these people
are walking over this precariously maintained footbridge and it collapsed
and eighty people lost their lives.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Holy smokes, Yes, this is true. They soldiered on with
the project, though, and you could have you know, as
you can imagine, at this point, they've spent millions of dollars.
They've already sunk so much time and effort into this dam,
and they say, you know what, We're going to stick
it out. The first electricity is generated by the dam
in nineteen eighty four, before it was even fully completed,
(17:38):
which was nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Yeah, I don't know, are we being too hippy dippy
about this, ben? I mean, it did create an awful
lot of power. Yes, maybe that's a good thing.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
I don't know. Is it a worthwhile sacrifice?
Speaker 1 (17:50):
You know, it really depends on what perspective somebody wants
to take. I'm sure there are people who are receiving
the electricity who think this was more than worthwhile. But
there are also a lot of people, I imagine, who feel
like the damage to the ecosystem isn't justified. But there's
no arguing that this provides a massive amount of energy,
(18:13):
both to Paraguay and Brazil.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah, it's in the neighborhood of one hundred tarowatt hours
of power each year, which is seventy five percent of
Paraguay's electricity and seventeen percent of Brazil's. So you know,
it's a big deal. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
By comparison, that's enough to power just this one damn
creates enough power to supply the state of California.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
How much power does a rainbow generate?
Speaker 1 (18:42):
It generates the power of love. Bro, you can't measure.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
That, I know, I know. Well that's the thing.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
I cave off a little testing.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
No, I like it.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
I like no, I'm passionate about it too. And unfortunately, yeah, no, none, none,
power other than the you know, power of love doesn't
doesn't turn on lights. My man.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
That's true. So that's true.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
And you know, it's also it's a very difficult argument
to make if you have to tell people who don't
have electricity that you're not you're able to provide it,
but you're not going to you know, that's that's a
real dilemma. But we do have good news. As we said,
it's providing this enormous amount of electricity and it's still
(19:23):
a tourist destination.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
In twenty fourteen, more than eight hundred and fifty six
thousand people visited the dam. You know, some possibly paying
homage homage ooh ooh, help us out here.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
It is homage if you're staying with the French pronunciation.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
And that has been casey on the case.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Love it. It's so great, so helpful.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
But yeah, I mean, it's sort of you know, probably
a bittersweet thing, although people do go to like the
Hoover Dam and stuff, so it's probably like the dull
tourist that just want to go see a cool dam,
and then they're the ones that are pining for the
old way.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
And because the rock face has been destroyed underneath the water,
these waterfalls are not coming back.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
They've donezo. It is actually a really funny statement.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
I think it's funny from the director of the company
that built the damny issue to say, we're not destroying
seven falls, We're just gonna transfer it to It's hypoo
dam whose.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Spillway will be the substitute for the falls beauty.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
And you can see the spill way that they're talking
about here. It's like a venting system, you know, and
it goes off at an angle down this concrete slope right.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Not no prim rainbow though, no.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
No, no beautiful scenery. And this inspired a lot of
art and a lot of again nostalgia yearning. We cannot
verify that Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls is about this event,
but you know, we.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Should probably talk a little more about that song though,
so we get the fair use privileges.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
That's true that's true. It is an excellent video. It
is warning about living life too fasts, impulsive decisions.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
A life of vice.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
And we could relate that even to this event by asking,
you know all and balance, hundreds of years from now,
what will have been the correct choice?
Speaker 3 (21:24):
You know, don't it always seem to go that you
don't know what you got till it's gone. Yep, yep,
it's true, and reference the episode today.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
This is but I think we're you know, I think
we're actually nailing it. I think we're doing an okay job.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
A little more background on waterfalls produced by the Atlanta
hip hop collective organized Noise True, who worked with the
Goodie Mob and the Dungeon Family crew all that, and they.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Actually recently did an event sponsored by Lululemon.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
We return to the old dilemma of progress versus progress
versus preservation. Really, because although this has been, on balance,
a very good thing for many residents of Paraguay and Brazil,
it is by no means the only time events like
(22:19):
this occur. In fact, twenty eight thousand rivers waterways have
disappeared in China in recent history. You can read about
it an article by Angel Sue and William Mao on
the Atlantic called twenty eight thousand rivers disappeared in China.
What happened? And without going too far into this, a
(22:41):
lot of it goes back to environmental damaged soil loss, erosion,
climate change. But then China also built an enormous dam,
the Three Gorges dam.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Ben, You're encyclopedic knowledge of the dams of the world
never ceases to amaze me.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
And you know what, one day it'll it'll be remotely useful.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
I mean, you've talked about two damns so far, and
to me, that is encyclopedic.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Wait, we got the three because we said Hoover Dam
as well.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
That's right, we did say we did mention Hoover Dam.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Remember that in the Beavis and butt heead Do America
when they go and visit the Hoover Dam.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Mm hmm. That's a good part. That's all I got.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
We should totally go take an extra credit segment and
the three of us go head out to see the
Hoover Dam. Well, we've been to Vegas through various work
related projects.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Before, but I have never been to Vegas. You've never
been never been to Vegas.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
You were there?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
No man who was that m doppel oh man?
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Okay, well, maybe we should just fly into Vegas do
a night. A lot of my friends call Vegas a
three day city.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Can we do kind of a fear and loathing kind
of situation? We should? We should you bring the ether,
my friends?
Speaker 1 (23:48):
We should definitely have a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Casey are you?
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Are you a lawyer by any chance? In addition to
your many other talents.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
As your attorney, I advise you to get into town
very quickly. I don't know what that exactlyne.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Okay, so we have some kinks to work out, but
this sounds like a promising expedition. We would also, of course,
love to hear your take on this dilemma. And if
you have ever been to the site of the falls,
or if you have visited this dam on the border
of Paraguay and Brazil, we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
What was it like? Yeah, I want to know. Inquiring
minds want to know.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
We can relay it to the inquiring minds after we
have sayciated our inquiring minds. You can write to us
at Ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com. You can hit us
up on social meds, the Facebook, the Instagram, or we
are ridiculous history. Hey, why not join our Facebook group
called the Ridiculous Historians having some good convos on there
and some with some fun folk. And you know what,
we haven't mentioned this in a while. Do us a
(24:46):
solid write us a nice review on iTunes or whatever
podcatcher app you use.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, please do because it's because, man, you know the
way this is.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
I'm gonna got a bone to pick. Go for it
with iTunes. Yeah. Apple podcasts, Yeah, what's up? They have
the old reviews for forever in all times. So we
have a podcast, for example, that's been going on for
twenty years.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
The reviews for day one are the first ones you see.
Oh that's weird.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Yeah, man, come on, No one's firing on all cylinders
on day one.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
And a lot of our older shows were originally five
minutes long maximum.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Oh you mean the old house stuff works shows. Yeah, exactly.
So just I don't know, Apple, help us out. Let's
have a little sort by date tab or something like that.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
And in return, we have a gift for you, because
you may be saying, the guys are wrapping up this
episode now I have to wait for another episode to
come out, but I want to learn more. I want
to learn more strange, ridiculous stuff throughout history. We have
a podcast recommendation for you.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
We really do.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Our compatriots, April Callahan and Cassidy Zachary, who are fashion historians.
They have written literal books on the subject of the
history of fashion, have a really cool podcast called Dressed
or They talk about all things fashion history, very very
very cool, deep dive stuff. And as it turns out,
(26:09):
super producer Casey Pegrim, he produces that show too.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
See, you've got to leave something for the normal people.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
You know, Man, you can't do it all, but he
will sure try his best. And we have a specific
app to recommend.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
That is right, if you would like to tune in
to Dressed and explore the who, what, when, and why
of what we wear, we think you will love their
episode that came out this April about smuggling bustles. During
the nineteenth centuries, the Americans would smuggle French goods into
the country to avoid paying ridiculously expensive duties.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
But he said duties, I did.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
I did, No, no, no, don't cut it.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
We keep it it.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
But it is true that one of the most commonly
smuggled eyes might surprise you because it wasn't you know,
gold or onions or whatever. What's a bustle Is that
like a boustier or a brazier. It's the thing that
goes on the back of the dress.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Oh that's right, yep, I got the ruffle.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Yeah, as you get tell, neither of us are fashion
historians by trade.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
We're barely like we barely can dress ourselves all morning
I do.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
I'll speak for myself.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
We've been I've been umping my game a little bit though,
thanks to hanging out with April and Cassidy, who I'm
actually going to visit. They're based in New York City
and I'm gonna go hang out with them tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
So let me pick up this thread though, because one
of the commonly smuggled items it wasn't golder onions. They
were French fashions items. Yeah, like bustles. They were packed
in trunks, they were smuggled underclothing. You can learn all
about it by tuning in to Dressed Available wherever you
listen to this podcast and.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Leave them a nicer view too. They're a new podcast
and they're really doing cool things.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
We're big fans.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Tell them we sent you too. Meantime, we hope that
you enjoyed this episode. We would like to give a
big thanks, of course to Casey, of course to Lori L. Dove,
who wrote a fantastic article on this event, this tragedy
or this great step in progress on HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
It's true.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
And we'd like to thank Alex Williams who composed our theme.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
And we hope you'll tune in next time.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
When we take a dive into banned scientific texts.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
It's going to be a laugh riot. It's going to
be a big old time, big old time.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
So that's all for today, folks. Most importantly, thank you
so much for listening. We hope to hear from you
very soon. Wish us luck as.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
We go on our fear and Loathing inspired expedition. Now
that's going to be a big time.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. We have a
classic episode for you. As of current recording. Your boy here,
Ben Bollen is on the road. Our super producer, mister
Max Williams has learned a lot about death by molten gold.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah you have.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
And our pal our paled Nol is out there chasing waterfalls,
as TLC would say. But this is a true story.
This is a cool one for this classic Max, would
you agree with this statement? In general, human beings are
very good at losing things?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, we're pretty good at that.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
I've lost a number of things on my desk already today.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
And it's not that late in the day. It's it's
we're past noon, but it's not that far past noon.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah, we're like barely into the technical afternoon. And it's always,
you know. Elizabeth Bishop wrote this amazing poem about the
art of losing everybody. Please check it out. It's an
absolute banger as far as poetry goes, and it speaks
to a universal conundrum. Human beings as a species have
(01:12):
this inborn nack for losing everything from car keys to
entire civilization's true story. For many, many centuries, the city
of Troy was considered to be a made up thing
until it was rediscovered and proven to exist in the
eighteen hundreds. In this classic episode, we are traveling to
(01:34):
South America and we're going to learn the story of
two nations that between themselves ended up losing not their
car keys, but an entire waterfall. Ridiculous History is a
production of iHeartRadio. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, friends and neighbors. Back
(02:19):
to the show. We'd like to begin today's episode with
a snippet of a stone cold jam from the nineties.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Total snom Cold classic and You're right.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Many of you may recall that iconic hit by TLC Waterfalls,
as in don't go chasing Them.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Hi, I'm Ben, I'm Nolan Ben.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Did I ever tell you that my first ever live
concert was TLC?
Speaker 1 (02:51):
You did mention that? Not on air though.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
It was TLC opening for MC hammer And also Boys
to Men was on the bill ABC, BBD. It was
the era of TLC where they wore really big, baggy
clothes and had like condoms taped all over them and stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Sure, prophylactics is like sex education exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Yeah, I was definitely pre Waterfalls era and creep and
all of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
But I felt like I was a little ahead of
the curve on that one because they were sort of unknown.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
They were the Opener Opener, and then Boys to Mend
and then MC Hammer, which was right around the time
Adam's Family soundtrack was out with the Hammer song.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Remember they do what they Want or do state what
they want? Remember that one. Yeah, they didn't actually perform that.
I was kind of bummed. That's not true.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
He did perform it, but I kind of thought there
would be a little more Adam's Family esque pageantry involved.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Being that the movie was, you know, fresh in theaters.
But no.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
My very first concert that I can recall, so not
some kind of opry Land thing had to perform in
or something. The very first concert I went to as
a as a patron was when my parents took me
to see the Four Tops. And this was in the eighties,
so this was not the you know, heyday per se.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
I'm sorry, then, I think you buried the lead their
opry Land performances. Yeah, yep, go on.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Well, my first foray into acting was a recurring role
at an amusement park called opry Land. I was from
like six to seven or eight years old. I learned
that it was a paying gig on my eighteenth birthday.
Did they Were they stowing it away for you? I
had no idea.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, oh man, they were. Yeah, they gave it to you.
They gave you your your earnings. They probably took a
finder's fee.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
But it was the eighties. No, it was a different time,
and some pretty good things happened in the eighties.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Were you a song and dance?
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Man?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I mean, what was your I'm sorry, I don't mean
to harpin this.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Oh I I was the hero who comes to town
to clean up the to clean up the craziness and
stop the gunfights.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
They had a thing where they would randomly, I'm doing
air quotes here, fix they would randomly pick a kid
out of the crowd, make you fight to pull no,
to pull up, and say, oh, you're gonna be the
star of the show. And the adults loved cool. So
I was just there every summer as their plant in
the crowd. And then they would give me this cartoonishly
big hat.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
I'm smiling so big right now. This is this thrills
me to no end.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
That's very kind, you, you say. My my parents did make
a framed picture of it with some of the cash
that they kept for decades.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Is it one of those old timey CPA tone type
pictures where you got your six guns on.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
No, I have one of those of my family.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
But the eighties, right, the eighties, Yeah, thriller. I feel
like now we could just say thriller. That was It
was a big hit, big hit back to the future. Yeah,
big hit, big hits. And we also have in an
article from Lori L. Dove a shout out to trapper keepers?
Did you ever have a trapper keeper?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah? I had that. What was what made it special?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Just the brand and it had like, you know, kiddies
and stuff on it, like it would be at least
a frank trapper keeper.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
There could be all kinds of different ones.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Is the velcrow? There's a flat crow too, right, I
believe they have.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
It was just like a binder, but it was just
sort of a fancy binder and everyone had had to
have one.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Oh and speaking of things we have to have, how
do we get so far without giving a shout out
to our super producer Casey Pegram for shame on us.
I think we just got so distracted by nostalgia today.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
I got caught up in Opryland and picturing little Ben
breaking up gunfights at the ok Corral.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
To this day, Noel, I remember all of my lines,
every single one.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Maybe I we'll have to have a reading later in
the episode.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
I can do them right now, do it because they're all.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yep, oh okay.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
It's like it was like a twenty minute show anyway. Yeah,
shout out to Opryland, big, big fan, shout out to
the eighties.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, did you have a cabbage patch kid? I have
been to that farm Babyland General in Georgia. Yeah, that's
very weird. It is extremely weird, very strange place.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
There's a tree in the middle of the main building
and there are just little baby cabbage patch heads sprouting
up out of the ground all around this tree with
these little leaves, little leaves, and they some of them
kind of move, and but what do they do with
the tree?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Ben? Have you? Have you been to the ceremony.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
I did not stick around for the ceremony because it's
in this old building. It's a is a hospital.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I think it's a old hospital.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
So they call it baby Land General like it's meant
I think, at least it's meant to feel like well, I'm.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Creepy because they announce like births and stuff too over
the intercom.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Well they know they birth the babies out of the
hole in the tree.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Well for some people that might be really fascinating.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
And then there's a nurse that takes the baby out,
extracts it from the tree, holds it upside down, and
slaps it on the butt. I had my kid's birthday
party there one year.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Oh yeah, I was. I was at a bluegrass festival.
That's how I found it.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
That's an odd locale.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Fluegrass and chili. It was great.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah, yeah, you know what else was great? What else
was great? The eighties?
Speaker 1 (07:58):
There we go, we promise going to get to the
episode eventually. The thing is, we can look back at
the past with such rose colored glasses, with such nostalgia,
and sometimes we can forget the other things that happened
in the eighties that were not as awesome as Back
to the Future, traffic Keepers or thriller. Right, there's a balance.
(08:19):
We as a species had some let's say, we've had
some hilarious missteps and we've had some tragic missteps. You know,
it was a drug crisis which continues today. A lot
of the clothes looked really weird, although they're coming back
in style.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Hypercolor was that a thing that was more of a
nineties thing? Was it hypercolor?
Speaker 1 (08:40):
I don't know, man, I was such a nerd as
a kid, surprisingly that I didn't really have a grasp
on the ZEITGEISTO.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, did you ever have a hypercolor shirt? Though?
Speaker 3 (08:48):
The ones where you kind of touched it and it
would do your imprint of your hand would be on it, Like.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, I didn't know. The texture really spooked me.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
That's right. You have very specific feelings about textures.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
It's true, that's true, but everybody does. What are some
of the things you remember from the eighties and noll
or things that when you look back you think, whoa
that was? That was crazy?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Well, it's weird.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Like when I was younger, I used to think that
the eighties were inherently bad and that all eighties music
was crappy because I just didn't know better and I
was I assumed that the eighties were lame because of
the you know, big pop hits and banana rama and
the stuff that I would see. But I didn't have
parents that were into cool music, so I kind of
had to find my own way. My parents were both
(09:30):
professional classical musicians, so I really did have to figure
that out for myself. But now I look back on
the eighties with utter rose colored glasses and joyous nostalgia.
I remember the cartoons ThunderCats, all the Deek cartoons like
Spector Gadget, and remember Deek.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Deek.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Yes, I remember that clip back. I couldn't tell you
a thing about the plot. I also ThunderCats. There was
wasn't there a star Hawk or something as silar Hawks
silver Hawks.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Deek was the production company, and they made most of
their car tunes based on pre existing toys and properties,
and say, yeah, boy, we are just going on.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Today's episode is not about any of this stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
No, we are mentioning the eighties because one very strange
and incredibly significant bad thing happened in the eighties. Many did,
but one is the subject of our episode. In the
nineteen eighties, while many of the people listening to the
show were actually alive, humanity took one of the largest
(10:30):
waterfalls on the planet and erased it.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Humanity, what the hell.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Does erase the whole thing? And to tell the story,
we have to journey to South America, specifically along the
border of Paraguay and Brazil, where once stood an incredibly stunning,
spectacular series cascade of waterfalls called the Guaira Falls, Yes,
(11:01):
the Guyerra Falls, which produced in their day, the greatest
volume of falling water in the world. This is something
we found out in some of our earlier research. The
definition of largest waterfall can be pretty tricky. And it's
got a couple of caveats. So this is largest in
(11:22):
terms of the amount of water that fell, But there
are other ones that might have a higher elevation or
longer dropped.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Sure, like Niagara Falls, but this one had twice the
flow of Niagara Fall. That sounds like a pretty cool compliment.
You got twice the flow of this other waterfall. It
sounds like a strong selling point. Yes, there were a
total No you mentioned it was a series of waterfalls.
There were a total of eighteen and all and seven
(11:52):
of these were the most powerful waterfalls, right right, And
that's where it got the nickname seven Falls.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
So these the series of falls is located just twenty
kilometers from another quite famous, more famous, arguably waterfall called
the Iguaza Falls, and that is again along the border
of Brazil and Paraguay, and you could consider this could
have considered this a natural wonder of the world, and
(12:22):
many considered it to rival the Iguaza Falls. And it
was again a series of eighteen massive waterfalls, and it's
on the Piranha River, right at the point where there's
like a gorge and the river gets kind of squeezed
through the gorge.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, and the total height of these falls was three
hundred and seventy five feet, with the largest individual fall
or cataract being one hundred and thirty feet. You could
hear the sound of the water miles and miles and
miles away.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
It's right around thirty kilometers away. And the reason that
flow was so strong is because that gorge we were
talking about it actually narrowed abruptly from three hundred and
eighty meters to sixty meters, which created that intense flow
that we talked about earlier.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
And you can check out a map of the site
from a book called A New Gateway to the Heart
of South America written in eighteen seventy one. Wait, guys,
you might be saying that sounds pretty outdated. Yes, but
it's a more accurate depiction of the waterfall than you
would find nowadays, because again, Guira Falls no longer exist.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, it's what they would call an ex waterfall. Yes.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
And there's one other thing that sounds almost too sappy
to be true, but is magnificent and it's a true story.
And it has to do with the mist of the waterfall.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Right, it's true.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Apparently you could go to these falls anytime during the
day and there would just be this like perma rainbow there.
It just sounds like a magical land, a perpetual rainbow.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yeah, called the care bears. So what do we do
as humanity?
Speaker 3 (14:19):
We see this amazing, gorgeous wonder of nature and we decide.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Let's let's blow it up, right, yes, so build some
kind of power plant.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yeah, So what happened? What made us take this particular
paradise and put up a parking lot for water? There
we go, We got it there?
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Oh, you know you got there, my friend. It's a damn.
I'm here to support you. It's a damn.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
And you're right about the electricity. The government of the
area decides to build a dam, a huge dam, a
four point eight mile long dam called the Itapu Dam.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, it's true. And before doing that again, they had
to blast out with dynamite those rock faces that the
falls fell fell down. Yeah, so no more waterfall. And
what happened was the falls were submerged when the four
point eight mile at Tyapuo Dam was built down river.
(15:18):
And this is the seventh largest river in the world,
just just to make that clear, and it started to
be diverted in nineteen seventy eight, actually caused about ten
thousand families to lose their homes have to relocate.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Yes, what is that like? Eminent doma how they how
do they make people do that?
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Well, eminent domain is the practice that we in the
United States would be most familiar with in terms of
like roads widening and stuff like that. But laws like
that do exist in other countries. And you know, it's
it's very tough to be an individual, family or household
against lack of a better term, big government.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Big big electric, big electric, because it is government, right,
this is a government, this is a government infrastructure. Yeah, exactly.
So obviously they would have had to pay them something
I can't imagine. They just you know, say get get out.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah, And there's probably a lot of paperwork involved because
it is a joint undertaking by Brazil and Paraguay, and
believe Argentina originally raised the ruckus about it, but ultimately
the dam got built. On October thirteenth, nineteen eighty two,
they finally closed the dam and this allowed the river
to flood the falls, the seventh largest river in the world. Again,
(16:36):
as you point out, to finally flood the falls.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
So the waters began to rise, and this did not
happen overnight. In fact, thousands of tourists came to the
area to get one last look at the falls. And Ben,
I have to correct myself here. I mentioned earlier that
they dynamited those those rock faces that did not happen
until later after the whole thing was underwater, because they
wanted to promote safer navigation of the river. Oh so
(17:02):
that was the deal there anyway, though, So these people
are walking over this precariously maintained footbridge and it collapsed
and eighty people lost their lives.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Holy smokes, Yes, this is true. They soldiered on with
the project, though, and you could have you know, as
you can imagine, at this point, they've spent millions of dollars.
They've already sunk so much time and effort into this dam,
and they say, you know what, We're going to stick
it out. The first electricity is generated by the dam
in nineteen eighty four, before it was even fully completed,
(17:38):
which was nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Yeah, I don't know, are we being too hippy dippy
about this, ben? I mean, it did create an awful
lot of power. Yes, maybe that's a good thing.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
I don't know. Is it a worthwhile sacrifice?
Speaker 1 (17:50):
You know, it really depends on what perspective somebody wants
to take. I'm sure there are people who are receiving
the electricity who think this was more than worthwhile. But
there are also a lot of people, I imagine, who feel
like the damage to the ecosystem isn't justified. But there's
no arguing that this provides a massive amount of energy,
(18:13):
both to Paraguay and Brazil.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah, it's in the neighborhood of one hundred tarowatt hours
of power each year, which is seventy five percent of
Paraguay's electricity and seventeen percent of Brazil's. So you know,
it's a big deal. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
By comparison, that's enough to power just this one damn
creates enough power to supply the state of California.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
How much power does a rainbow generate?
Speaker 1 (18:42):
It generates the power of love. Bro, you can't measure.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
That, I know, I know. Well that's the thing.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
I cave off a little testing.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
No, I like it.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
I like no, I'm passionate about it too. And unfortunately, yeah, no, none, none,
power other than the you know, power of love doesn't
doesn't turn on lights. My man.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
That's true. So that's true.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
And you know, it's also it's a very difficult argument
to make if you have to tell people who don't
have electricity that you're not you're able to provide it,
but you're not going to you know, that's that's a
real dilemma. But we do have good news. As we said,
it's providing this enormous amount of electricity and it's still
(19:23):
a tourist destination.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
In twenty fourteen, more than eight hundred and fifty six
thousand people visited the dam. You know, some possibly paying
homage homage ooh ooh, help us out here.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
It is homage if you're staying with the French pronunciation.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
And that has been casey on the case.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Love it. It's so great, so helpful.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
But yeah, I mean, it's sort of you know, probably
a bittersweet thing, although people do go to like the
Hoover Dam and stuff, so it's probably like the dull
tourist that just want to go see a cool dam,
and then they're the ones that are pining for the
old way.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
And because the rock face has been destroyed underneath the water,
these waterfalls are not coming back.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
They've donezo. It is actually a really funny statement.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
I think it's funny from the director of the company
that built the damny issue to say, we're not destroying
seven falls, We're just gonna transfer it to It's hypoo
dam whose.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Spillway will be the substitute for the falls beauty.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
And you can see the spill way that they're talking
about here. It's like a venting system, you know, and
it goes off at an angle down this concrete slope right.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Not no prim rainbow though, no.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
No, no beautiful scenery. And this inspired a lot of
art and a lot of again nostalgia yearning. We cannot
verify that Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls is about this event,
but you know, we.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Should probably talk a little more about that song though,
so we get the fair use privileges.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
That's true that's true. It is an excellent video. It
is warning about living life too fasts, impulsive decisions.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
A life of vice.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
And we could relate that even to this event by asking,
you know all and balance, hundreds of years from now,
what will have been the correct choice?
Speaker 3 (21:24):
You know, don't it always seem to go that you
don't know what you got till it's gone. Yep, yep,
it's true, and reference the episode today.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
This is but I think we're you know, I think
we're actually nailing it. I think we're doing an okay job.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
A little more background on waterfalls produced by the Atlanta
hip hop collective organized Noise True, who worked with the
Goodie Mob and the Dungeon Family crew all that, and they.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Actually recently did an event sponsored by Lululemon.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
We return to the old dilemma of progress versus progress
versus preservation. Really, because although this has been, on balance,
a very good thing for many residents of Paraguay and Brazil,
it is by no means the only time events like
(22:19):
this occur. In fact, twenty eight thousand rivers waterways have
disappeared in China in recent history. You can read about
it an article by Angel Sue and William Mao on
the Atlantic called twenty eight thousand rivers disappeared in China.
What happened? And without going too far into this, a
(22:41):
lot of it goes back to environmental damaged soil loss, erosion,
climate change. But then China also built an enormous dam,
the Three Gorges dam.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Ben, You're encyclopedic knowledge of the dams of the world
never ceases to amaze me.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
And you know what, one day it'll it'll be remotely useful.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
I mean, you've talked about two damns so far, and
to me, that is encyclopedic.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Wait, we got the three because we said Hoover Dam
as well.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
That's right, we did say we did mention Hoover Dam.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Remember that in the Beavis and butt heead Do America
when they go and visit the Hoover Dam.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Mm hmm. That's a good part. That's all I got.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
We should totally go take an extra credit segment and
the three of us go head out to see the
Hoover Dam. Well, we've been to Vegas through various work
related projects.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Before, but I have never been to Vegas. You've never
been never been to Vegas.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
You were there?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
No man who was that m doppel oh man?
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Okay, well, maybe we should just fly into Vegas do
a night. A lot of my friends call Vegas a
three day city.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Can we do kind of a fear and loathing kind
of situation? We should? We should you bring the ether,
my friends?
Speaker 1 (23:48):
We should definitely have a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Casey are you?
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Are you a lawyer by any chance? In addition to
your many other talents.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
As your attorney, I advise you to get into town
very quickly. I don't know what that exactlyne.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Okay, so we have some kinks to work out, but
this sounds like a promising expedition. We would also, of course,
love to hear your take on this dilemma. And if
you have ever been to the site of the falls,
or if you have visited this dam on the border
of Paraguay and Brazil, we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
What was it like? Yeah, I want to know. Inquiring
minds want to know.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
We can relay it to the inquiring minds after we
have sayciated our inquiring minds. You can write to us
at Ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com. You can hit us
up on social meds, the Facebook, the Instagram, or we
are ridiculous history. Hey, why not join our Facebook group
called the Ridiculous Historians having some good convos on there
and some with some fun folk. And you know what,
we haven't mentioned this in a while. Do us a
(24:46):
solid write us a nice review on iTunes or whatever
podcatcher app you use.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, please do because it's because, man, you know the
way this is.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
I'm gonna got a bone to pick. Go for it
with iTunes. Yeah. Apple podcasts, Yeah, what's up? They have
the old reviews for forever in all times. So we
have a podcast, for example, that's been going on for
twenty years.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
The reviews for day one are the first ones you see.
Oh that's weird.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Yeah, man, come on, No one's firing on all cylinders
on day one.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
And a lot of our older shows were originally five
minutes long maximum.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Oh you mean the old house stuff works shows. Yeah, exactly.
So just I don't know, Apple, help us out. Let's
have a little sort by date tab or something like that.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
And in return, we have a gift for you, because
you may be saying, the guys are wrapping up this
episode now I have to wait for another episode to
come out, but I want to learn more. I want
to learn more strange, ridiculous stuff throughout history. We have
a podcast recommendation for you.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
We really do.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Our compatriots, April Callahan and Cassidy Zachary, who are fashion historians.
They have written literal books on the subject of the
history of fashion, have a really cool podcast called Dressed
or They talk about all things fashion history, very very
very cool, deep dive stuff. And as it turns out,
(26:09):
super producer Casey Pegrim, he produces that show too.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
See, you've got to leave something for the normal people.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
You know, Man, you can't do it all, but he
will sure try his best. And we have a specific
app to recommend.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
That is right, if you would like to tune in
to Dressed and explore the who, what, when, and why
of what we wear, we think you will love their
episode that came out this April about smuggling bustles. During
the nineteenth centuries, the Americans would smuggle French goods into
the country to avoid paying ridiculously expensive duties.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
But he said duties, I did.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
I did, No, no, no, don't cut it.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
We keep it it.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
But it is true that one of the most commonly
smuggled eyes might surprise you because it wasn't you know,
gold or onions or whatever. What's a bustle Is that
like a boustier or a brazier. It's the thing that
goes on the back of the dress.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Oh that's right, yep, I got the ruffle.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Yeah, as you get tell, neither of us are fashion
historians by trade.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
We're barely like we barely can dress ourselves all morning
I do.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
I'll speak for myself.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
We've been I've been umping my game a little bit though,
thanks to hanging out with April and Cassidy, who I'm
actually going to visit. They're based in New York City
and I'm gonna go hang out with them tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
So let me pick up this thread though, because one
of the commonly smuggled items it wasn't golder onions. They
were French fashions items. Yeah, like bustles. They were packed
in trunks, they were smuggled underclothing. You can learn all
about it by tuning in to Dressed Available wherever you
listen to this podcast and.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Leave them a nicer view too. They're a new podcast
and they're really doing cool things.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
We're big fans.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Tell them we sent you too. Meantime, we hope that
you enjoyed this episode. We would like to give a
big thanks, of course to Casey, of course to Lori L. Dove,
who wrote a fantastic article on this event, this tragedy
or this great step in progress on HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
It's true.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
And we'd like to thank Alex Williams who composed our theme.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
And we hope you'll tune in next time.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
When we take a dive into banned scientific texts.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
It's going to be a laugh riot. It's going to
be a big old time, big old time.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
So that's all for today, folks. Most importantly, thank you
so much for listening. We hope to hear from you
very soon. Wish us luck as.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
We go on our fear and Loathing inspired expedition. Now
that's going to be a big time.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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