The North Pole, Part 2: The Chase To The North

The Mercator Projection continues to inform explorers, many of whom send their own appropriative versions of the Mythical North. Join Ben, Casey and Noel as they ask: Who actually discovered the North Pole?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio, previously

(00:28):
on Ridiculous History. No, no, no, I mean I'm kidding.
I'm kidding, Casey. I was gonna ask you to put
in a clip from from the show that sounded Cliff angry.
Welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historian's uh part, pardon
that terrible lost impression. But I love that show. Well,
I mean, you know, it absolutely is an appropriate reference
because Loss had polar bears. North Pole had polar bears.

(00:50):
The explorers from ancient Greece saw the polar bears and
thought they were magical celestial arctros. I think that was
an absolutely appropriate lead in bend to our part two
of the Arctic. The North Pole, the magical land at
the top of the world where all of of the
world's dreams go to meander and mingle in that gorgeous

(01:15):
light show we call the Aurora borealis. So that has
been Dreams, Dreams, streams in the sky and your Noel,
and that's our super producer, Casey pegram Well, through the
magic of podcast editing, we're we're back here again, my friend,
and we owe our fellow listeners more to the story

(01:36):
of mercater. That's what we promised. We're going to deliver. Um.
We'd like to thank all the rabid mercat rights who
wrote to us with various cartography related threats if we
did not give this inventor and cartographer his do. Some
of the things we mentioned m were, you know, the

(01:57):
formations that he used to determine the pool. But he
also styled on the map a little bit based on
the stories he heard from explorers who had actually been
Believe it or not, the map used to have what
was it a whirlpool? Yes, it's true. Um. He draws
the Arctic uh, separated into four quadrants that are separated

(02:21):
by channels of flowing water UM, which meet up in
in the middle in this giant kind of like mythological whirlpool. UH.
He got the idea from a couple of explorers from
the sixteenth century, Martin Frobisher and James Davis, who had
made it as far as northern Canada. UM didn't quite

(02:42):
make it all the way, but they both talked about
their being really gnarly currents and they were able to
observe these currents by the way that these massive icebergs
were just being you know, basically like pulled by the
currents as though they were you know, wade nothing and
they were massive, and he went on to describe it

(03:04):
as such. He said, without cease, it is carried northward.
They're being absorbed into the bowels of the earth. Uh.
And that's how Marcader described it um from his accounts
of of these other sixteenth century explorers accounts, So he
was kind of using like third hand information. They had
never really even seen this thing, so he was doing

(03:24):
the best of what he can, once again styling as
you would say, Ben. And there's even a region on
this map that Marcader uh labeled as having been home
to a I guess people um a an indigenous people
of made up of pygmies UM who he described as
being four feet in length. And this is likely also

(03:49):
a reference to that kind of magically thinking Uh. You
know travelogue that we we talked about in the first episode,
the Inventio Fortunata um and that discribed some small of
stature individuals living in the polar regions um. And it
could have been we know about pygmies that lived in

(04:09):
Lapland Uh. So it could have been that he misunderstood Um.
Something was lost in translation, and that was actually what
the anonymous author of that piece was referring to, but
it's hard to know. But then there's another chunk next
to it that he described as being the best and
most salubrious of all the chunks. Whatever that means salubrious?

(04:30):
I mean, like, doesn't that mean drunk? What does salubrious mean? No,
it's salubrious. I don't think it means drunk. Salubrious I
always thought meant uh like a good place. It just
like you're right, it just means good healthy uh and
uh and and and health giving even not drunk. I
don't know why I I guess I'm confusing it with salacious,

(04:52):
which also doesn't mean drunk. I'm maybe the one who
is drunk, you guys. It is, after all, four or
forty five on a Friday, So give me a break
and judge me. I like the idea of the of
describing something as a compliment and saying it's the best
and most salubrious of all chunks. I think I've ever
to refer to a lot of stuff that way, probably

(05:13):
inappropriately in the coming days. Um. But but you're right,
this is portrayed as a mythical land because Mricator was
taking the stories and accounts from just the people he
could find to the people he could meet. And that's
why the first known map of the Arctic the septemporary
anali Um terre Um, which is it's you know, it's

(05:36):
official name. That's why it looks so weird. There's a
great article on Atlas Obscura it talks about this, and
you can see that first map or sorry, you can
see the second draft of it that was released in
sixteen o six, and it's just like you described. There's
a whirlpool in the very middle. Uh, there are these
four channels with some tributaries. There's a big rock. Um.

(05:58):
This is the thing though, So mercater who was by
the way he was. He was born in March of
fift twelve. Mercader passed away in fifteen ninety four after
a life well lived, but his ambition, right his his
work to map and define the world, didn't die with him.

(06:20):
Other explorers kept learning more about the Arctic, and over
time map makers started to revise their view of both
the North and the South Pole. There were maps that
were updated in sixteen thirty six that no longer had
those four um those four chunks salubrious or no, And

(06:43):
they also did away with the central whirlpool. Instead, for
the first time, they showed what looked to be like
a large mass of uninterrupted land, kind of surrounded or
peppered with smaller islands off the coast. And then also
this map pointed out possible routes that ships could take

(07:06):
that were ships had taken, that would allow people passage
around this area. And it's weird because, like to six
thirty six, that's not that much time, you know, when
we consider the lack of communication tools that were available
to people in this era, it's amazing that they made

(07:27):
so much progress so very quickly. But you know, tail
as old as time. This scientific progress did not do
very much to dispel the myths that people had the
what what is sometimes called I think so I think
an article in the Week called it polar fever. Did
you hear about that polar fever? Yeah? No, I did

(07:51):
hear about that. And it all ties back to that
fascination of this this crazy inaccessible place, because let's not
forget until relatively recently in history, I mean, you just
couldn't get there. Even even our our guy Mercater had
to kind of use his imagination and depend on folks
who had been much closer than he ever was able
to get. But yeah, the idea of polar fever really

(08:13):
took hold in the nineteenth century. Um we had governments
offering prizes for explorers who made it as far north
as possible. And that's not a change from really what
we saw with monarchies UM trying to use it to
chart roots to the different oceans for trade. But also
it was probably a little bit of a flex as
to like, you know, who, who's gonna get to put

(08:35):
their flag down in this weird, inhospitable, yet potentially magical
part of the globe. Um. So we also started to
see becoming a national point of pride for explorers to
get to the top of the world and saying, hey,
we did it, we did it first. And that is
when polar fever truly kicked into high gear. Um. There

(08:56):
was this obsession with people watching and seeing who would
be the first to get there, to get as close
to the North Pole by ship or foot or hot
air balloon or you know, sled or something. Also, Michael
Bravo notes, uh that part of this was sort of
a religious piece this idea that the North Pole was

(09:17):
somehow connected with what was referred to as as its
celestial sister of heaven. From the very start, we talked
about the idea of it being sort of a connection
or a gateway between worlds. And in the nineteenth and
twentieth century, eighteen, the nineteent centuries, rather it just became
more a little bit more kind of an evangelical version
of that idea as opposed to a mythological or our

(09:40):
pagan version of that idea. UM. So you really started
to see that angle taking hold. Boston University's first president,
William Warren Um, who was a professor himself of comparative religion,
started to collect all of this anthropological field data and
research and UH linguistics and archaeological finds UM and adding

(10:03):
in his own research which he had done into religious
thinking in Iran and China and Japan and other ancient civilizations,
and he concluded that there was um what he referred
to as an Andaluvian continent in the north with an
unusually tall mountain UH centered at the North Pole UM.

(10:24):
And he decided that this was where paradise was heaven
on earth, the very cradle of human civilization. Uh, you know,
more so than the idea of the cradle of civilization
being in in the Middle East. So antideluvian is just

(10:44):
a fancy way of saying like the time before the
Biblical flood often confused by the way with pre lapse area,
which is the time before the humanities fall from grace, uh,
in the garden of Eden, in that religious system, and
I think it's I think it's maybe a little over generous.

(11:06):
Describe his opinion as a conclusion, you know, his his research,
if we call it that. Clearly he was a learned person.
But as I've established in previous episodes, we have to
remember that at the time, religion and science were seen
as two pieces of a larger thing. They were not

(11:29):
in conflict the way that they so often seem in
these our modern days. So in Paradise Found Warren starts
spinning this, this narrative. He says, you know, first this continent,
which existed before the Biblical flood, got flooded, and then
it was covered by an ice sheet due to a

(11:52):
shift in Earth's polar axis, and then things getting really cold.
The refugees from these disasters, he says, the survivors fled South,
and they established the basis of all civilization today. This
is also I have to note, it's very wrapped up

(12:13):
in um a pro ayan kind of ideal which was
unfortunately common at the time. Paradise found was written in
this is. This is something you see in other other
like fringe research now the idea of this pre existing
civilizations hyperborean or too l a type of thing um

(12:36):
which I'm sure it's familiar to people nowadays. Of course, Uh,
people would rightly criticize Warren because he was very much
defending creationism against the newer kid on the block at
the time, evolutionary theory. Yeah, that's true, and um, these

(12:57):
notions today would probably be looked down upon a bit
because of that very reason. Uh, but especially because of
some of the racial theory that he's used to explain
some of these historical migrations. Um. It was something that
was controversially at the time and now definitely has not
aged well. Michael Bravo refers to how the variations of

(13:20):
the idea of the North Pole being paradise on Earth
actually found its way into a lot of other um
let's call them ethno nationalist views and other countries, including
the strands of Hinduism. They considered that Mount Meru existed
at the North Pole and had a huge part in

(13:41):
some of the mythological kind of themes in their views. Um.
And also you had, uh, surprise, surprise, They're always there,
the Nazis. Uh. Whenever there's some weird kind of like
Nordic myths to be unpacked or to be used to
support some kind of terrible ideology, the Nazis are always there.

(14:03):
Adolf Hitler had a very close relationship with a man
named Rudolph hess Um who used the North Pole um
as part of kind of an aryan mystic um set
of beliefs. And that was all wrapped up in their
tool a. Uh. And I think it's too ghasal shaft movements,

(14:26):
private society um. That included uh, lots of the sort
of precursors for Nazi thinking and how that evolved. Yeah,
I would say those those jokers were less precursors and
more like I don't know. So the Nazi Party was
trying to create elements of the Nazi Party. We're trying

(14:46):
to create an alternative religion that they could control based
on um, some bastardized ideas. They pulled from a number
of sources. That's where you'll also hear things like real
energy v R I l UH, the idea that there
might be some secret UH superhuman race living under the
surface of the earth. They were just like, have you

(15:09):
ever been in a writer's room or brainstorming session where
things are just going crazy like this? These theories make
me um are one of the things that convinced me.
A lot of those guys were on drugs at the time.
I don't know how else it would sound like something
you could say reasonably. But one of their big things,
and in the Nazi Party and National Socialism, was that

(15:34):
they wanted to replace where geography was traditionally oriented, and
traditional geography, especially for like origin story of humanity was
even at this time trace to the Middle East, right,

(15:54):
and that is, you know, that is the cradle of
powerful religions like as m Christianity and so on. So they,
being you know, anti Semites, wanted to remove UH Judaism
and Israel as much as much as possible from the
narrative of humanity and then say, hey, instead, let's look

(16:19):
at the UH. Let's look at where the real UH
story of humanity starts, which is, for some reason at
one of the most inhospitable places on the planet. So
the logic, it's charitable to call it a stretch. But
that's not even the most ridiculous myth, because again, people
were people were desperate to learn more about this place,

(16:41):
because we are creatures built to explore, right, we are curious.
But it was tremendously difficult and tremendously freaking dangerous to
get out there, so people just kind of had to
believe what they heard from people who said they went there.
One ridiculous myth was, uh, there's a guy named John B.

(17:02):
Sheldon in eighteen sixty nine. We're jumping around in time
here a little bit, but uh. In eighteen sixty nine
he was responsible for uh, an illustration called the Discovery
of the North Pole and the Polar Gulf surrounding it.
His version of the North Pole has an iron cone
one mile high and it is surrounded by a perfectly

(17:25):
circular ring of ice, and people believed it it looks
like a witch hat like in the middle of the ocean, essentially,
like the brim is the circle of water, and the
ice is like taking is like a bordering at all.
And then in the center is this giant kind of
witch hat cone that's pure black. Uh. It's it's a

(17:45):
real hoot. And there's a really great graphic um that
we found in the research uh that has this image
of it and it's his discovery of the North Pole
and the Polar Gulf surrounding it and John B. Sheldon. Yeah,
and there's there. There's so many examples of this too.
It looks like, Oh, I'm just saying this so I

(18:06):
can have an excuse to finally use this word. You're
right on, spot on with the witch hat. I would
say it also looks like a hen in which is
the name for the pointy hats the princesses where in
fairy tales, that's it ever waiting like all all you're
to say that a hen and you say, so that's
the thing that you buy like a renaissance fair that
has like a you know, sort of like some what

(18:27):
do you call that stuff a gold like crinoline or
whatever around it and maybe some kind of ribbon hanging down. Interesting. Okay,
I've learned a new word today. Earth is a princess
and that's its hat. Yeah. And that story that I
was talking about, um from the Millville Daily Republican published
in October had some pretty fantastic details are about this hoax,

(18:50):
but again they're reporting it as fact, and it refers
to the discovery of of this witch hat situation as such,
a large arc riding at anchor, her crew starving, and
nothing but a drowned horse left for them to eat.
The pole is a tow paz a diamond. I don't
know why I'm getting southern now. The water around the

(19:11):
pole never freezes. Yeah, this is This is a fantastic
specific example of both UH sensationalism in UH in the
news and UH an example of how easily people can
make these preposterous claims. The alleged discoverer that we mentioned,
John B. Sheldon of Millville, New Jersey, says or is

(19:35):
purported to say, under that picture that you described their nal,
I made this discovery on the night of the twenty
five October eighteen sixty nine. The poll is ten degrees high,
ten degrees wide, and round the outer wall is ice.
The center of the gulf is ninety degrees north entered
according to an Act of Congress in the year eighteen seventy.

(19:57):
So you can see like a lot of it's a
tendency for a lot of this kind of reporting to
try to sound authoritative by putting in numbers right, and
putting in claims with uh, you know, congressional approval and
stuff like that. Uh. The Millville Daily Republican that we're
talking about, you know, they kind of ran this as

(20:19):
a a slow newsday piece, I think, because you can
tell the journalists doesn't necessarily believe this. Uh, they do
say that, according to historians, the North Pole was actually
discovered on April eight nine by Admiral Robert E. Perry.
But they're giving space to, uh, this wacky story of

(20:42):
the Millville explorer who found Earth's hat. I don't know
why I'm so delighted by that, the idea that Earth
has a hat. Yeah, no, it's it's it's lovely. It's
a lovely notion. Earth deserves a hat. He then, because
Earth is a pretty pretty princess and we need to
take care of her and crown her in hats and

(21:04):
shower her with gifts and and fine linens and and
mattresses upon mattresses, and go go squeezes. So but I've
got a question for you know, you got it, man,
I hopefully have an answer. So we mentioned I mentioned
that the Millville Daily Republican says that one Admiral Roberty

(21:29):
Perry discovered the North Pole. But who did discover the
North Pole? How sure are we there? Yeah? On September seven, nine,
The New York Times published an article front page headline
claiming that Perry discovers the North Pole after eight trials
in twenty three years. UM. And it truly was, as
we've talked about over the course of two episodes, this

(21:51):
untouchable kind of you know, mythical place. And we talked
about two when polar fever kicked in. Polar fever seems
sort of like a jumbo shrimp, doesn't it? Just putting
that out there like an oxymoron? Um? Irrelevant? Moving on,

(22:11):
These prizes were in place, and lots of different sports
from all over the world had sought them, and so
this was a big deal. People were freaking out, like, Okay,
it's finally been done. No more brass hat to strive for? Um?
Was it meant to be brass? Iron? I guess is
what they said it was. Uh So, this gentleman in

(22:32):
question the period question was Robert E. Peary UM. And
he had apparently sent word that he had in fact
reached the North Pole in April of nineteen o nine,
a little more than a hundred years ago. And the
report was an absolute stunner. But there was another report,
wasn't there. Ben. It's sort of like when two different

(22:52):
network report different returns from the polls can cause a
real hubbub. Yeah, and they were. Both of these reports
were coming from the Big Apples. You mentioned the New
York Times report. Turns out that a week before that
New York Times story runs in September, the New York
Herald printed a headline of its own. I don't know

(23:13):
why it sounds so arched there, but they said, the
North Pole is discovered by Dr Frederick A. Cook. Cook
was also an explorer, and it appeared that he had
People thought he had he had died. People thought Cook
was dead. Uh, he was gone for more than a year.
He came back and he said that he had reached

(23:34):
the North Pole in April nineteen o eight, which would
put him a full year before Admiral Perry. And the
people reading these papers had some, you know, they had
some pretty valid questions. First off, the North Pole could
only really be discovered once right, So we needed to

(23:54):
figure out who got the prize for the history books,
and Perry was always for a long long time, Perry
was thought to be the legit discoverer of the poll.
But the National Geographic Society, who sponsored a ton of
his expeditions, re examined his records and they said that

(24:18):
Perry's evidence didn't seem to prove his claim. And furthermore,
they said that maybe he knew he had fallen short.
Sort of like that that story we did earlier. Yeah, exactly,
boat guy. I like how we both call him boat guy.
That makes it totally clear we're talking about. So after

(24:40):
Cook got back to the US in nineteen eleven, Congress
UM really tried to you know, launch a serious investigation
of this ine and nineteen fifteen, UM they wanted to
get to the bottom of who discovered the North Pole
because it's such a point of national pride, um and
also a national prize. You know, there was cash at
stake there. Um. But eventually, you know, something uh sort

(25:02):
of overshadowed at by quite a lot in the form
of World War One. They had bigger fish to fry, uh,
And so they kind of moved on and supposedly both
Perry and Cook left notes at the North Pole, uh,
you know, and now like sort of like Perry was here,
Cook you know was here, um and those were never found.

(25:23):
And so honestly both of those are in some ways
kind of called into question. Uh. And we we have definitive,
obviously proof a little later in history, in nineteen sixty eight,
with the first undisputed, entirely legit confirmable overland voyage to
the North Pole UM. In ninety eight, a Minnesota man

(25:46):
named Ralph place did Um took a snowmobile to the
North Pole UM. And you know, he wasn't the first exactly.
There were other explorers that went before, not by land
though by air and by um. And also many of
them were able to confirm some of Cook's descriptions in
his notes of the polar ice uh and some of

(26:08):
the islands and the drift of the way that the
glacier has drifted. So it does kind of make you
wonder how did Cook get it right if he never
actually got to the North Pole in nine are people
I'm sorry, been maybe I missed this, And then there
are people saying that he was lying or it was
just a difference of who got there first, So they

(26:31):
say that Peery may have at the very least embellish disclaims,
if not outright lied or been mistaken. But the issue
with Cook is there's not conclusive proof that he made it,
but there's pretty strong circumstantial evidence because other people were
able to go back later and a lot of what
he said in his descriptions added up. So there's there's

(26:54):
kind of a possible conspiracy of foot Dare I say
and now again, you know, if you have the if
you have the pony bones and the somoleans for it,
I just want to reiterate, you can probably get passage
on the fifty Let po buddy. Um, I just like
saying the name. It sounds like I'm the only one

(27:16):
of the three of us who was a percent on
board with going to the North Pole. But you know,
think of it maybe like a cool cruise. How can
I how can I pitch you on this, guys? How
can I get you to Yes? You know, we won't
be the first people at the pole, but will be
three new members of a very rare demographic a k a.
People who made it there at all. Come on, think

(27:37):
of the Instagram I'll do it for the Graham Bend,
then I'll do it for you. I don't do it
for this show. As long as super producer Casey Pegram
comes on board with us and protects us from polar bears,
I'm into it, and I'll be on polar bear duty.
No problem, Okay, I can get down with it. Then
let's make it happen. Guys. This has been an epic
two partner and I feel as though as I know
a little bit more about my place in the Uni

(28:00):
verse um thanks to the work of of those what
came before us and and risk life and limb and
and uh and uh and frostbite in order to discover
a place that probably people shouldn't really be hanging out in.
But you know it's for for for God and country
for science. Maybe I don't know. Yeah, yeah, for all

(28:21):
the good stuff, right, all the good the good stuff
about the human species. It also reminds me of the Terror.
Have you guys heard of that TV show The Terror
came out? Has It has a story about polar explorers,
the HMS Arabis and the HMS Terror. No, I haven't,
but I like the name. Well check it out if

(28:43):
you get a Chance. Thanks as always to our super
producer Casey Pegram. Thanks to Alice Oh whoa, no, hey, hey, guys,
there's another call coming in. No, no, no, no, no
zoom bombing. It's time, gentleman. It was only a matter

(29:04):
of time before you found us and zoom bombed us.
So here we are. I gotta tell you, you, gentlemen,
it's so hard to type in all those U r
l s. Guys, I have bombed so many zoom meetings
looking for us. Hates me. Oh, Jonathan Strickland's a k a.
The quister. You're up to your old tricks again. I

(29:27):
see Uh is that a spoon? Are you? Are you
proper spooned us? I'll be I'll be disemboweling you with
this momentarily through the internet. Well, I love this idea
of you collecting other arch nemessies during the time leading

(29:47):
up to you finally finding ore you are. How did
you find us? By the way, just it was just sheerly,
just random chance. I started. I started just you know,
typing in U r els for zoom meetings, and after
a while I had a random numb bird generator, made
a lot of friends. You know, it's it's almost like
I'm starting up Omegael but for Zoom. But yeah, it

(30:10):
turns out that a few people don't appreciate that. I
don't get it myself anyway. Now I'm here, don't reek
having upon your podcast once again. You know, I've got
to say, Jonathan Strickland, a k. The quis ter um
I I am. I'm experiencing so many emotions right now.

(30:33):
How are you doing? Uh? You know, before we get
down to the business of being nemesses, it's been a while.
You want to catch us up real quick, a little
been Thanks for asking. I'm doing well, keeping fit, eating right, occasionally,
take my dog for nice long walks. I do not
see other people that much. So that's that's new, you know,

(30:57):
being an extrovert who get this energy by interacting with
other people. And they're the wells running a little dry.
And I don't mind telling you it's so this is
a pleasure. But but but I shall, I shall see
you ground beneath the heel of my boot. But how
are you doing? Good? Good? Uh? Yeah, I mean we've

(31:19):
been we've been keeping on. We've actually been doing uh,
you know. I I think the three of us and
uh and our fellow listeners have been having as as
good a time as can be as always were astonished, uh,
to learn new things and to learn what we didn't
know about stuff we thought we knew. I don't know.
Would you say that's pretty accurate? And well, oh yeah,

(31:40):
for sure. And you know I have mixed emotions here too.
On the one hand, curse you. On the other hand,
it's kind of good to see you, buddy. I I'm
not ashamed to say that I did miss you a
little bit. And uh, you know I don't like the
idea of you being lonely. So let's keep this going.
I believe we are even. We're on an even playing
field because you started with a new set of dastardly

(32:01):
rules to combat our our rock paper scissoring of of
these scenarios. Um, and you're gonna have to remind us
a little bit about how this works. I think we're
probably going to be a little rusty. Yes, yes, Now,
people who are new to this, you may not realize
we have now officially into the most cringe worthy segment

(32:22):
and all of podcasting. And what I used to do
was present a scenario to our two beloved hosts, and
they would have to determine whether I had found that
as an actual historical record or I had made it
up seas. But then they were using their rock paper scissoring,
as Noel said, to determine which one was correct. And

(32:45):
I don't like that. So now I present you three scenarios,
two of which are true, one of which is false.
It is your job to determine which is the false one,
And as always I will arrange them in order chronological,
so we will go to the earliest instance, then the next,

(33:07):
and then the most recent. You determine which of the
three is fake. I tell you if you're right or wrong.
You get a few minutes to decide. You do not
get to ask any questions, right, no questions, So we
can talk amongst ourselves. But you will, you will stone
wall us if we have any clarifications. Perhaps, though, if
we need you to restate one of the scenarios, you

(33:30):
may at least at least accommodate us. Thusly, yes, yes, yes, yes,
and I mean sometimes I'll answer questions too, because I
am incorrigible. Don't encourage me. So are we prepared to
hear the scenarios that I have gathered or fabricated. Yeah,
give me one second, because, as as I think some

(33:51):
of our long time listeners know, we did blow most
of our budget on that giant grandfather clock. We don't
have it with us now, but I have a handy
stop watch, and I think we'll have three minutes after
the after the pronouncement of final scenario. Yes, yes, after
I finished the third, usual have three minutes to decide
which is the false one. Here are your three. Oh,

(34:16):
by the way, I fabricated these for your episode on
pneumatic tubes, which was like a whole pandemic ago, so
but we never used it. So I'm just gonna I'm
just gonna fall back to that one. Here we go.
Queen Elizabeth the First created a position within her kingdom
that she considered quite important, the uncorker emotion bottles, because

(34:42):
it was thought that spies were using messages in bottles
to communicate secretly, though presumably inefficiently. The penalty for opening
a bottle if you were not this very official person
was death baby heading. In the late nineteenth cent this
is scenario to a group of Austrian sailors and a

(35:03):
journalist named John Sands was stranded on St. Kilda, an
island off the coast of Scotland, and they placed a
message in a bottle, tied it to a lifeboat and
sent it out to see to ask for rescue, as
the island's small food reserves were running too low to
support the survivors and the weather was too rough for
the local boats. They were fortunately were the tiny ships

(35:26):
tossed in faith. It was. It was incredible, if not
for the courage, but the fearless crew. Well, actually the
boat was lost, so I guess screw them. They were
rescued a couple of weeks later. Scenario three. The oldest
verified message in a bottle is relatively young, having been
dunked into the Indian Ocean in eighteen eighties six from

(35:48):
a German ship named the Paula. An Australian woman named
Tanya Illman found this message in a bottle while walking
across some sand dunes in Australia. The pepis of the
message wasn't to cry out for rescue or longing for love.
It was to study ocean currents. Start that stop watch

(36:11):
three two one okay, um, I gotta say no. I
feel like On scenario three, I feel like I heard
something about that. I'm tempted to say that's true. It
seems legit. Uh, you've got to study those ocean currents.
How else are you gonna know? I don't know, it
just seems like a thing that people would study. Uh.

(36:33):
Also scenario one, um, you know, it seems a bit extreme.
You know, the idea of an ocean bottle uncorker does
seem like the kind of pedantic job that would be
created in a monarchy. But the idea of punishable by death,
like for some poor slub uncorking one of those bottles,

(36:54):
Like how would they even know? How would they find out?
If they just kept it to themselves? It seems awful penalty.
I am leaning towards scenario one being uh falsified to
some degree too, seems legit as well. Yeah, two seems
like it's a successful kind of message in a bottle
um that would work. The point about scenario one also

(37:18):
flagged for me. I clocked the idea. There are, as
we all know, many many cartoonishly specific jobs in especially
the British monarchy, uh, food taster and so on, so
I could I don't know, though, the professional and quirker
seems a little bit too far along the uh the

(37:40):
spectrum of specificity, which is a thing I just made up,
so I think, yeah, I think it's one. Yeah, No,
I'm with you on that one. Ben. Uh no rock
paper scissors required. We you know there there there would
be a way we could still rock paper scissor if
we're in disagreement. So uh, you know you can't have
it all, squister, But no, I don't think we need

(38:01):
to this time. Yes, but if you disagree on two
that are both true, then I still win. That's fair
kind of head your bets a little bit. I think
we're we're in full locked in agreement here on scenario one. World, gentleman, congratulations,
that is in fact the first one. Now, now let

(38:22):
me let me elaborate a bit here, because this is
a this is a truly unusual situation. When I first
gathered my scenarios to present to you for the tubes
pneumatic episode, this was one of the true ones that
I listed originally because it is widely reported if you

(38:43):
do a search for uncorker of Ocean Bottles and Elizabeth
the First, you're going to find tons of references, tons
of them. Turns out, however, those all can be traced
back not to an actual historical record, but to a
novel written by French novelist Victor Hugo throughout such works
as Lames a Robber. So it turns out that this legend,

(39:05):
which has been widely reported as being true, actually is
due to a piece of fiction, and no one else
bothered to look, including almost me. But then I but
but then I did it, and I used it as
the fake one. But it didn't mean I have to go.
I had to go and find another true one. So, man,

(39:26):
you almost quisterred yourself. Dude. Yes, I don't even know
that my own strength. Sometimes I'm sometimes I'm so devious.
I fooled myself. You you scored, You scored what the
British will call an own goal. There, didn't you an
own goal? Yes? That's well. Fortunately, however you want to
look at it. That episode we never got a chance

(39:46):
to record because you know, stuff happened, a lot of it.
And now we're at home and I have to just
keep telling you. Listen. By the way, guys, you know
warm fuzzy feelings novels can consider. Do you think it
could maybe just send me the U R L. It's
this guessing thing is it takes a lot of time.
I think I think we can agree on that. It's

(40:08):
you know, it's it's nice to have you back. I'm
not gonna lie. Um, and this was fun. And also
we're we're one up now on you if I'm not mistaken,
so something like that. I'm sure someone out there is
keeping track. I think we're tied. Okay, they were tied, yeah,
because I believe the first one. This is the second
of the new format, and I believe the first one.

(40:29):
You guys completely Um you you you withed it? Oh,
come on, you're not above that. Huh, all right, fine,
you know what, you know what. I take back what
I said. It's anyone's game. I shouldn't have pointed out
that we're tied. But for those of your keeping score
at home, vote your conscience, by which I mean, please
root for us, because when we went to this new format,

(40:51):
I believe, uh, team Ridiculous History was still maybe a
little behind. I think you were only maybe two behind,
maybe just one. It was close. Well, do do let
us know out there in podcast lad You can do
so in the usual social media channels where we are
Ridiculous History on Instagram, and Twitter and Facebook and all
that good business. You can join our Facebook group at

(41:13):
the Ridiculous Historians, where you might even find I think
you've had that you are l since the beginning, Quister,
So you might find a little lurking Quister action there
where you can you can needle him a little bit
on there and and make him feel bad about himself. Um,
but you know you could also be nice to him.
I know this is a divisive segment, it being the
most cringe worthy one in all of podcasting, but we

(41:36):
like it, and uh, you know, if you don't like it,
you know when to turn off the podcast and move on. Uh. Well,
I I do want to point out, yes, we we
enjoy this segment. You guys know, we're all suckers for segments,
and we're always making new ones that we propose will
do forever. So far, however, Jonathan, the Quister segment is

(41:58):
the one we have. Actually you've actually stuck to our
guns on. Uh. You can find Jonathan on Ridiculous Historians,
but you can also find him on other shows. If
you want to learn anything and everything about all things
tech related, do check out one of the longest running
historic shows on our network, and tire as Jonathan Strickland's

(42:23):
tech stuff and Jonathan, I think people can find you
a couple other places on the internet to you've got
a Twitter. Yeah, yeah, you can find me on Twitter.
That's at John Strickland. It's j O N for that
And you can see as I post terrible puns, movie
references and occasionally I get my dander up about politics.

(42:44):
It's so fun. I can't wait to get all the responses.
What happened to your accent? Buddy? Oh? Sometimes the Jonathan
comes out and the quizt and goes into the back seat.
Got it? Got it? Well, Hugh's reluctant. Thanks to you,
Jonathan for for coming back. And yeah, I will definitely
send you the proper you r l and and you
can zoom bomb us any old time, buddy. Big thanks

(43:06):
to super producer Casey Pegram Alex Williams who composed our theme,
Christopher Haciots here in spirit. Big big thanks to our
own north Pole Magnetic and physical or perhaps metaphorical research associate,
Gay Blues. Yeah, big, big thanks to a Pure podcast
or Eves Jeff Coach. Thanks as always to you, Jonathan Strickland,

(43:28):
the quister and uh you know. No, Thanks to you.
Thanks to you and Casey both for going on this weird,
wide ranging journey towards the North Pole. We'll see you
next time, folks. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,

(43:49):
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.