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January 14, 2025 47 mins

Have you ever dreamed of going to a science fair as an adult? If so, the world's fair is for you -- these massive international exhibitions occur around the world, usually running for three to six months. And each world's fair include exhibits from a significant number of countries, inventors, and companies with new (potential) breakthroughs for society. In part one of this special two-part episode, Ben, Noel and Max explore world's fair success stories -- along with a mysterious fire.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to

(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's give it up for the man,
the myth, the super producer, mister Max Williams.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Maybe the World's Fair of super producers. We're going with it.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
It's funny because the world is objectively unfair. So we're
doing this fair. Yeah, we're doing an episode about the
World's Fair, a two part episode. Thanks to our newest
research associate, the one and only Ren We hope you're listening.
We've got to get a good nickname, a moniker for

(01:04):
you in the ridiculous universe. I got a good one.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
How about Renaissance Fair, Renaissance Renfest, Renifest. That is good now,
new year, new research assistant associates extraordinaire.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Man.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
She really knocked it out of the park, the fair grounds.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
The expo on. Yeah, no chumpson the squad, as we
like to say, those are the dulcet tones of mister
Noel Brown. I am Ben Bollen. Yeah, I've been. I've
been going as Ben from earlier. I like that. Thanks Man,
Good to have you back by. So we were still
here never left. Zell said, don't call it a come back.

(01:45):
This is weird. This is one of the first ideas
Red pitched to us, and we absolutely loved it. Noel,
have you ever been to a World Expo? No?

Speaker 3 (01:55):
I haven't, But there's a really great, very weird, kind
of creepy pasta internety film called We're All Going to
the World's Fair Yes, by Jane Schoenbren who also this
year or last year came out with the fantastic and
very Lynchian film I saw the TV glow. It has
nothing to do with the World's Fair, but that's the

(02:17):
only World's Fair I've been to.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Is that fu Well? The World's Fair is the friends
we made along the way, as we would say here,
but technically, if you're not doing fun improv rules and
you're looking at the facts. The World's Fair started in
eighteen fifty one. You may wonder where it went In
the modern day. It's still around some version of it.

(02:41):
It's called the World Expo, and when it first started
and the way it builds itself in the modern day,
it's a global showcase for It's like the first adult
science fair, right, the first big collective ted talk.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
It's like a comic con for like science and technology
and the stuff of the future.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah. Yeah, it's very Epcot Center.

Speaker 4 (03:09):
You know.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
Now, if you want to cheat, I have been to
a World's Fair, because I've been to Epcot Center. And
we're gonna get into what that means a little bit
further along in the episode. Yes, sir, good foreshadowing.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
And if I can jump in real quick, I was
in Spokane two falls ago, and I don't know, Spokane,
Washington is the smallest city to ever have a World's Fair.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Well, it's a world it was an expo at the
time two falls ago. No, we're staying with that with
Max two falls ago. Do you are you one of
those people? Do you like measure time by just the
passage of cultural seasons?

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Well, here's the funny thing is there's actually two waterfalls
in downtown Spokane that the World's Fair was built around.
Now you get where I'm going. I didn't totally do well,
but yeah, it's it's really cool because they have a
lot of stuff. I mean, Spokane's a very beautiful city.
It's not a large city at all, but they have

(04:05):
these two this river with multiple waterfalls going through downtown
and all around it. They have all the stuff about
the World Expo, and it's like super cool.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
Look at that's awesome. Super Cool is the defining phrase
of the World's Fair for sure.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
These World's Fair World expos have generated some pretty notable
accomplishments in science and engineering architecture, things like the Eiffel
Tower in eighteen eighty nine, the Golden Gate Bridge in
nineteen thirty nine, the space needles speaking of Washington in
nineteen sixty two.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Mm. Yeah, the telephone as imagined by Alexander Graham bell
Is seventy six eighteen seventy six. Nikola Tesla did some things,
and one of those was the AC electric system in
eighteen ninety three, and of course the RCA television set
in nineteen thirty nine. All of the things we us

(05:00):
mentioned came from World's Fairs. But wait, as Billy May's was,
wont to say there's more. Billy May is good. He's
a very World's Fair kind of cat.

Speaker 3 (05:16):
I wonder if any of his inventions were ever debuted
at any World expos. I'm gonna say they were mainly
relegated to late night's infomercials.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
I you know, I will diplomatically, I will diplomatically say
they're perhaps a different league.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
Now, that's true, Ben, But this is not to say
that the World's Fair did not generate some stupid technology
as well.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
And I don't mean like stupid cool. It has been
like stuff that did.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
Not land and did not have lends, as we say,
but quite a few inventions that very much did in
our household names today, like the Rubik's cube. That's not
how my brain works. I will never be able to
solve a Rubik's cube.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
And that's okay to ketch up, yeah right, ketchup on
fries as Because there were a lot of Dippin' dots
level snack innovations that occurred at the World's Fair. We
also knew we also know the history of the Rubik's
cube thanks to an earlier show we did called Stuff
of Genius. But to your earlier point about inventions that

(06:20):
didn't quite catch on for one reason or another, the
World's Fair is a great game of what iffery. You know,
it's a great hey look at this, what could this do?
And sometimes it does amazing things like a television or
a telephone, And then sometimes you get electro the cigarette.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
Smoking robot, I mean electro the robot would have been
good enough. I guess people really loved cigarettes at that
point in history and they needed to have the robots
smoking a sig in order to identify with it or something.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
I don't know. It reminds me of the Great Mechanical Turk,
which was itself ridiculous history. Sure. Yeah, Anyway, what we're
saying is there's a lot going on at the World's Fair.
If you get a chance to visit a modern day
world Expo, please please do and tell us about it.

(07:14):
These events, especially the first one, they resulted in the
invention of countless machines and products and then, perhaps even
more importantly, design methods civilization uses today. But there was
a geopolitical aspect to this that cannot be ignored. This
got you immediate attention as a country. Well, it's very

(07:37):
much like the Olympics in that respect. There's a host country.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
It's a way of showcasing cultural pride, national pride, and
a very very public and internationally viewed kind of platform.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
Right, one hundred percent. Yeah, you nailed it, and old
because the magnitude of this of a World's Fair is
up there with the Olympics, it's an inter national event.
And like just like how people pitched their country or
their city for the Olympics, today, nations across the world
we're competing to get the honor to host the World's Fair.

(08:14):
And to be clear, the World's Fair is not like
it's not like a music festival, it's not like Burning Man.
It doesn't last for it doesn't last for just a
long weekend like a comic con or Dragon Con here
in Atlanta. It lasts for months at a time. And

(08:35):
because it lasts for so long, in comparison to other
global events, it gets a lot of visitors.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
Right, and nations from around the world, just like the
Olympics have competed for the honor of hosting this event
with the highest record attendance of around seventy three point
five million visitors for a single expo. And we're talking today,
you know about the history of the World's Fair, but
also just kind of about some really notable instances of

(09:06):
World's Fairs. And I would say though, Ben, that you know,
to my observation, world's fairs don't quite hold the same
prominence that they used to. Or the World Expo like
it feels like the Olympics still very much have that
cachet in the world's eyes, you know, on it kind
of vibe, But I don't really hear so much about
the World expos as much today.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah, it's not as if ABC or CBS or CNN
are providing twenty four to seven live coverage of a
World Expo. But at the height, going back to the
number you mentioned there, at the height of attendance, seventy
three point five million visitors. If we take a moment

(09:46):
to think that through, that means that if all those
visitors formed a country, there would be more people there
than the population of let's see Thailand, the population of
the United A Kingdom, and the population of France, as
well as wow, many others. It's a ton of people,

(10:06):
is what we're saying even now.

Speaker 3 (10:09):
Absolutely, and speaking of countries, you know, this was an
opportunity for smaller countries to kind of make a name
for themselves and get out there on the international stage
in terms of showcasing their contributions to industry, because there
are certainly, even to this day, incredible technological innovations that
come from what we might consider much smaller, less quote

(10:29):
unquote prominent countries yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yeah, And we have two versions of the importance of
the World's Fair, two I think complementary descriptions. According to
associate professor at the University of Arizona, Lisa Shrink, international
expositions have acted as mirrors of concurrent political, cultural, and
technological conditions of the times in which they were held,

(10:55):
by attracting governments, companies, and other organizations from across the
globe interested in promoting national identities. We'll see the problem
with that later. Celebrating culture and showcasing scientific, technological, economic,
and social progress. Well, maybe we go in comparison, we
go to the summation by our friend Ren.

Speaker 3 (11:17):
Absolutely Reren points out that the goal of any World's Fair,
kind of like you know, capitalism, is to have the
each one, each subsequent instance be more successful, more Wow Factory,
you know, have seen more growth of audience and innovation
and technology than the last, which is, you know, pretty
difficult to sustain, like forever, but it's a noble goal.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, very capitalist. Also, I'm writing down I'm writing down
Wow Factory. I think that's a great band name.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
I didn't even do that on purpose, But you're writing
Wow Factory. That's kind of funny accidental portmanteau. I don't
know what you call that, but thanks Ben, I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
And let's talk about the cadence of occurrences. There are
five years between expositions right now. Before the year two thousand,
there was a smaller space between each distinct World's Fair
or World's Expo, so countries often found themselves scrambling on

(12:19):
every front. First off, how do we decide what visitors
will like? How do we get seventy three zero point
five million people to visit our neck of the global woods.
And then also, just as importantly, how on earth are
we going to build and afford the infrastructure for all

(12:39):
these people, the hotels, the roads, the transport.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah, and not to mention the just sort of bizarre
structures that are often built around the sites of these things.
Like a lot of times, I think when people picture
a World's Fair, they picture sort of like that Epcot
Center kind of or but you know, looming in the background.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
Or other sort of futuristic structures.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
So there's a whole lot of Yeah, there's a lot
of installation, and these are like in and of themselves,
these kind of technological art installations that are meant to
demonstrate this level of like future thinking.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
Well said, yeah, and so we're telling you this. It
may seem like a ridiculously ambitious enterprise, which it definitely is.
But get this, fellow Ridiculous historians, sometimes these countries pulled
it off. In the first part of this series, we're
going to talk about a couple World's fairs that we're

(13:35):
able to be what we would call successful, and in
a later episode we'll talk about some that diplomatically put
we're not quite there kind of a little bit, you know,
like like Burn said, man's reach must exceed as grasp
else what's a heaven for?

Speaker 3 (13:56):
Well, and also something dimension in terms of, you know,
pooping the oracle bed. As with many old timey events
and displays of nationalistic pride, we run into it all
the time.

Speaker 1 (14:09):
We are certainly going.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
To see some I don't know, colonizing kind of racists,
very backwards attitudes on full display at some of these
early world's fairs. Some examples that we've actually covered in
full episodes in the past on Ridiculous History.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yes, one hundred percent, things like the disastrous Olympics that
were held at a World's Fair once upon a time,
and things like the oh, the absolutely unclean exhibition of
indigenous peoples as though they were somehow not human.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
Yeah, like some sort of macabre petting zoo, very very
very weird stuff.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
And we did a whole episode on that in the
early days.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
So we will touch on that again because I think
it's important just to sort of contextualize some of this stuff.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
But we're not going to get too into the weeds
on that stuff. So I guess first things first, right, Yes,
first things first, by which we mean the Great Exhibition
London eighteen fifty one, this London town. Yes, this is
held in the super humbly named Crystal Palace. It looks

(15:18):
like a Kaiju level greenhouse. It's a glass and iron structure.
It's in the center of Hyde Park and it is
open from May to October of eighteen fifty one. Over
one third of the population of England shows up at
some point.

Speaker 3 (15:37):
Unbelievable. It boasted some of the most important innovations of
the Victorian era, including electric telegraphs, things like microscopes, a
very early version of the fax machine aka the facsimile machine,
a way of transmitting texts you know, over telephone lines,

(15:57):
a revolving lighthouse light, which I guess I just would
have thought that had been around for ages.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
But yeah, this is a long time ago, but I
would have thought it was older than this. No, ship's
just wrecked if they came the wrong way.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
Yeah, exactly, there's there's there's what what is he? What's
the what's the line from lineos, there's something in the lights?
There's magic in the light. Check out that film.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
I will always remember that strangely charged conversation about beans.
Oh yeah, yeah, which, why'd you spill your beans? Anyway?
Check out the lighthouse.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
That's if you're checking out Nos Faratu in theaters now
we're not sponsored, but definitely go back and check out
that offering from mister Robert Eggers as well.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
Did you see nos Faratu? I did? Ben I did?
What did you think of nos Faratu I? I liked it?
My girlfriend described it as a cinematically horny oh but
for sure as a as a fan of folklore without
spoiling it. Eggers did his research.

Speaker 3 (16:54):
He always does, and I feel like what Eggers is
so good at is sort of like making very like
tense and dramatically engaging displays of this folklore where you
really feel like you're living in it and it's not
just some sort of dated, dusty story, Like it feels
very you know, inhabited, and like these are real people,
but they very much still have the umami of that

(17:15):
folklore that he uses as you know, source material.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
Back in the days when you and I used to
party nol before we got old, I remember we would
hang out for a solid I think it was a
month and a half. We were just evangelizing for the Witch.
How great it was, I thought in the theaters three times.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
Sorry, we's got sideestracked by that revolving lighthouse light. Another
innovation from this first World's Fair was an early version
of a submarine. Let's just reiterate this is eighteen fifty one. Yeah,
A lot of this stuff to me either feels like
the lighthouse light, like maybe I would have thought it
was invented earlier than this, But some of this stuff
feels very kind of forward thinking, like the idea of

(17:57):
an early submarine before the nineteen hundreds of that as
a much more modern innovation.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
Yeah, again, this is like an adult science fair. That's
one of the easiest ways to compare it to modernity.
We have to shout out, of course Eggers, but also
our good friend Professor Rachel big Spinach Lance who hipped
us to the early days of submarines and underwater explosions.

(18:23):
Check out that episode as well. In the Hunley episode
was yeah, yeah about it very early.

Speaker 3 (18:29):
Again, I think I probably had a similar reaction on
that episode where we were talking about wooden submarines and
like Civil War era submarines, and I'm like, I did
not know that was a thing.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
So do check out that episode.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
And I think we're going to have big Spinach back
for another episode this year very soon.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yeah, it'd be great. Her dance card is pretty full,
but let's see if we could get her. Also, yeah,
civil War submarines. I can't remember the wood to metal ratio,
but I can recall the inventor of the World's Fair,
or you could say maybe the ideator of it. It's
a guy named Prince Albert. He famously married his cousin,

(19:10):
Queen Victoria.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
And he's the same Prince Albert that also famously had
an interesting piercing.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
That's maybe a different episode. I'm not sure who named
it that. I'd love to hear. The etymology as an
etymology nerd, No, I think it is.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
Yeah, so there's a piercing called a Prince Albert, but
from him, I think so, dude, like.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
He popped his Australia and then said let's have a
science fair. I think. I mean, the timeline is unclear,
but I.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
Feel like it is him too, Like I think it is.

Speaker 3 (19:46):
I think he literally had this piercing and so they
named it after him.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
Amazing, amazing. This is the guy who in I guess
he's a great innovator. In addition to piercings, he is
the one who pitched this concept, this great exhibition bringing

(20:12):
technological innovation to the public, democratizing science in a very
real way. And this happens as the Industrial Revolution is
still reverberating through the world. And you know, the Industrial
Revolution started in England. So he's great casting for this.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
Also to jump in here real quick, this is from
Google's AI. There is no evidence that Prince Albert, Queen
Victoria's husband, had a penal piercing. The name Prince Albert
for the piercing comes from the belief that he did,
so it is named after him.

Speaker 4 (20:50):
Seeking in Phona and he's fallen knowledge.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
It's just for you right now here.

Speaker 4 (20:58):
The fact.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
There was also a drawn animation of the piercing that
is real, childlike, and then you look at it for
a second.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Like, oh, that's what that is. We're looking at here? Yeah,
So I think we're a.

Speaker 3 (21:13):
Family show, so we need to we don't need to
go into detail about what this piercec thing is in Australia.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
Australia, you get it.

Speaker 3 (21:20):
But I also saw, Sorry I had to get too
sidetrack with Prince Albert's chunk, but I also saw that
there was a type of ring that was meant to
secure the male genitals to the pant leg that he
was also known for being fond of. Whether or not
that actually penetrated his old fella is up for debate.

Speaker 1 (21:38):
This may be fan fiction from the Prince Albert stands
at some point, but you know, whether it's a Richard
gear Hamster story, again we're a family show, or whether
it's historical fact, we do go. We can confirm that
Prince Albert led to or led to charge for London's
Great Exhibition, and did so because of the context of

(22:02):
the Industrial Revolution. We know that the public was as
a group adjusting to this new way of life. Sudden changes,
a lot of ups, a lot of downs. Agriculture is
leaving a lot of farmers homeless.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
Frankly, you know, it's interesting. We could almost say that
we are currently living in something similar to the Industrial
Revolution in terms of the way artificial intelligence and machine
learning is starting to kind of balloon out of control
and have the potential to literally remove certain human.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
People jobs that have existed for a very long time.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
So it's it's a very similar kind of struggle, and
it doesn't seem like the powers that be in our
era are particularly interested in making people feel.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
Better about it.

Speaker 3 (22:47):
So in this era, it did feel like they were
trying to educate the public as to how this was
a good thing and how it wasn't necessarily going to
mark the end of human you know work.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yeah, unlike AI writing programs, mechanized agriculture does work, and
it did work at this point, right. It was very
much a John Henry situation for a lot of traditional
rural farmers in England, and they knew they had to
go to factories, a job that didn't really exist before.

(23:21):
This was quite intimidating. If we go to Professor Emeritus
Robert Riddell over at Montana State University. We see exactly
what you're describing. This professor agrees with us, agrees with
your point, saying, there's nothing certain about the direction industrialization

(23:42):
is going. So what's the future going to look like?
And that's the question these folks are trying to answer
for the public at London's Great Exhibition.

Speaker 3 (23:51):
Right, there's literally a new career path that has been
more or less invented overnight, these factory jobs that people
who have spent their lives and generations perhaps and families
working on family farms. They need to be educated about
what these jobs look like, what they mean for their lives,
and how they fit into this new industrialized society. So,

(24:13):
you know, it is a bit of a pr move
as well, because they don't want to alienate the workers
entirely because they need them, you know. And by they
I mean you know, the powers that be in the government,
you know, represented by somebody like Prince Albert.

Speaker 1 (24:27):
And at this Great Exposition, companies are able to show
the public machines that would have otherwise remained secreted behind
factory walls. It's kind of like if Lockheed opened skunk
Works and you could just show up the skunk works
and see all the spy planes that won't be public

(24:47):
for a few decades. Yeah. It was a real wow factory. Yes, yes,
And they were going for.

Speaker 3 (24:53):
Like aweing the public into getting on board with industrialization
and be like, wow, what a look at the poss abilities.
I would love to work in a factory that seems
totally chill.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
M Yeah, that's a big part of it. The other
part is they build just I love this science project
comparison because these companies, these companies are building little tiny
Kwai replicas of their machines and showing the public, hey,
here's how this works. Guess what, we have a life
size one and there you can be a part of

(25:26):
the magic. Right. And their concurrent goal is not just
to reassure people about their own personal future, but also
to reassure people that the stuff made by these machines,
these new processes, will be trustworthy, will be dependable, and
will work. I didn't even think about that.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
There. There was a lot of distrust just in like
the quality of these wares and what it would mean
for like, you know, people's everyday lives with goods and
products that they were used to.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah, and at the time the exhibition itself was profitable.
It generated one hundred and eighty six thousand British pounds,
which means it's time for the inflation calculator.

Speaker 4 (26:11):
And a dude a boom boom, all right, that would
be twenty one million, nine hundred forty three thousand, four
hundred and fifty pounds and fifty one pence in today's money.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
Or I think we should do the US equivalent and
a dude and a boot twenty eight million, forty thousand,
four hundred and thirty eight dollars and twenty three cents.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
So about the grosses of a modern like minor blockbuster,
you know, not even really a blockbuster. That thirty million,
depending on the budget, would be considered a moderate success
for like, you know, a mids tier budget type film.
So financially, yes, agreed, financially good for good for the

(27:00):
United Kingdom, good for England. However, England may have lost
some points even though it's their own home game, because
this was an international thing. We got other European well
it's international in that other European countries had their flexes
out on display. Yeah, England is an exactly known for

(27:24):
their design flare and that was sort of really hit
home at this World's Fair because the French really excelled
in terms of style, you know, and and form of
some of these new creations, these new industrial products. Also,
we know the Germans have continue to have a reputation
for their very precise engineering and machining skills. The Americans

(27:49):
during this World's Fair really excelled in terms of what
we're pretty good at still today, large scale manufacturing. Quantity
over quality. But still you gotta love the quantity.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
Yeah, yeah, if we if we take it to a
design nerd kind of comparison, so imagine the French make
a revolutionary, beautiful cursive R, right, and the Germans make
a incredibly precise, perfectly measured capital yes serifh capital R

(28:24):
and block letters. And then the Americans go, here you go,
we got a thousand RS. We made a thousand letter RS.

Speaker 3 (28:32):
Yeah, one hundred or so, or like one massive R
that dwarfs all the other RS.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
But Prince Albert wasn't having this.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
He was determined for England to rise to the occasion,
especially since it's on their home term, so he threw
some money from his estate into a scholarship to support
young innovators, essentially a way to help them advance careers
in science and research.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yeah, what we would call the STEM disciplines today, science, technology, engineering, math.
You can still get a research fellowship from the Royal
Commission for the exhibition of eighteen fifty one. However, visiting
the Crystal Palace as it stood in eighteen fifty one
is very difficult today. There was a conspiracy of foot.

(29:22):
There was a fire of unknown origin that demolished the
structure in nineteen thirty six. It was a big fire.
Within the space of thirty minutes, the entire structure, which
was like twenty five acres of iron and glass, ignited
and it burned down.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
Through the How do you burn down something made of
iron and glass?

Speaker 1 (29:45):
Well, yeah, I guess you need fire to make glass
and iron. That's true. What is it like? Jet fuel
doesn't melt steel beams and all that stuff. That's where
it started.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
Hell of a fire though, right, thank goodness, gracious, Yeah,
where it started?

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Is there a conspiracy afoot? That's what's going on here? Well,
no one is. A Historians still don't agree on how
the fire began, so we could call it a conspiracy,
but really it's more a mystery, I guess.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
To me, though, I'm just interested in the conspiracy of
like how what what could have fueled such a fire?
You know, and you know what I mean, Like it's
not is there? I guess there's wood inside, But it
seems like they were really focusing on the building materials
as being glass and steel. So just what actually caught
fire to create the kind of blaze that would consume

(30:36):
glass and steel. I'm sorry, maybe I'm not being helpful here.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
No, no, there were two huge boles, there were two
huge elm trees that also caught a blaze that would
have helped. And there was a ton of stuff inside.
We have to remember twenty five acres worth of the
best things humans could come up with at the time.

Speaker 3 (30:57):
Well, while you can't, unfortunately, due to the aforementioned fire,
visit the Crystal Palace in England anymore. It was demolished
in nineteen thirty six. You can hang with Winnie the
Pooh and pals at the Crystal Palace buffet in Walt
Disney World there in Florida, where you can get Mickey
Mouse shaped churo waffles. I know a lot of Disney

(31:19):
folks that are so stoked about all of the food
offerings in.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
Disney, and it is good.

Speaker 3 (31:24):
There's some good stuff country fried chicken with gravy and
something called a sunrise Marcaritah.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
It sounds delightful. Yeah, all classic Victorian era British fair.
Thank you read. So let's fast forward all to the
World's Columbian Exposition, which is held in Chicago.

Speaker 3 (31:47):
Okay, I'm confused. Not Columbia, no South Carolina or South America.
Hosted in Chicago, Illinois, from May first to October thirtieth,
eighteen ninety three. It was held on the four hundredth
anniversary of Christopher Columbus's voyage, technically the four hundred and

(32:12):
first depending you know, there's some slight discrepancies I think
in the historical accounts of his journey to the Americas.
Of course, that's where the Colombian part comes in.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
Yeah, and we're jumping around in time because we want
to tell you about this one as it was, for
the most part considered a win in the world of
world's fairs. At expos. It happened after the Paris or
Parisian World's Fair, which occurred in eighteen eighty nine. This

(32:46):
is the one where our cursive r comparison really comes
into play because the World's Fair in Paris in eighteen
eighty nine was praised for the innovations in architecture and design,
specifically a thing called the Eiffel Tower. At that point,

(33:06):
it was the tallest acknowledged man made structure. I'm being
a little careful with our caveats there for sure.

Speaker 3 (33:15):
And this took place the previous World's Fair I think
you mentioned so Chicago and their planning committee really felt
the pressure to outdo France, at least in terms of
architectural accomplishment, so they tapped a super well regarded architect
named Frederick law Olmsted. He actually designed Central Park in

(33:35):
New York City. They tapped him to create plans for
an even more elaborate and grand exhibition terrace. And again
when we were talking at the top of the show
about all of these on site, you know, wonders and marvels,
I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, then, but the
World's Fair where the Eiffel Tower was unveiled, that would
have taken place directly around where the Eiffel Tower is today.

(33:57):
Like it was, the real thing that was on at
the World's Fair created for the World's Fair.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
I believe that's correct. And now now to the earlier
point about always attempting to have the newest, the biggest,
the best, most interesting world's fair. We see the city
pride of Chicago and the national pride of the US
coming into play, just as you noted, and well, we're

(34:27):
gonna make time for a little bit of a dark
side about the so called white city. This guy Olmsted,
he's just awesome at what he does, and so it's
no surprise that the planning committee there in Chicago is
deferring to him. And they say, well, Freddy, where should
we do our World's Fair. We can't let these French

(34:50):
folks show us up. So Olmsted says, all right, here's
what we're gonna do. We're gonna go to Lake Michigan
and and we're going to do that because this will
give a water source for all these canals and pools
that we have to build. And they said, what canals
pools And he said, yeah, that's part of it. I'll

(35:12):
take questions at the end. I'm doing canals and pools.
He was like, when Rick explains weird heist to Morty
and Rick and Morty they ran into this other problem.
Chicago's soil, for any fellow nerds, is mostly clay, which
means it absorbs water way more easily than other types

(35:34):
of soil, which means it was a nightmare to build
this thing around Lake Michigan.

Speaker 3 (35:41):
Right Because while like Michigan was super aesthetically pleasing and
a great site for this on paper, with all of
the water able to be supplied to water plants and
fill these canals, it was a nightmare for building construction
because the water kept getting absorbed.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
Yeah, exactly. So It's kind of like how people actually
building Frank Lloyd Wright houses would complain about the sustainability,
you know, the esthetics, And I love that you're mentioning
that the aesthetics are always easier to idate than the
actual engineering. Right.

Speaker 3 (36:18):
Well, that's why I think the best architectures have a
appreciation of both. It is like a perfect kind of
crystallization of form and function.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
We mean, architecture at its best. Architecture at its best
is frozen Poetry one percent. And I haven't seen it yet, Ben,
but just another quick movie thought.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
There is a film that is just now getting wide
released early this year in twenty twenty five called The Brutalists,
which is a three hour epic. It's apparently like there
will be blood level American story of industry and perseverance,
and may be a little bit of the ills of
capitalism thrown in there. But I'm really excited to see
this film. I think it's going to kind of hit

(36:59):
home the kind of stuff that we're talking about that
we appreciate in architecture.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
And our Chicago committee, they have their idea man, right,
they have their ultimate thought bringer, and now they have
to say, now they have to figure out how they
bridge the gap of idea to reality. So they talked
to a local architect of the time, Daniel Burnham, and
they say, all right, can you design some plans for

(37:26):
the buildings we'll have at the fair. We're asking you
because you've already done some interesting work. Burnham had reached
some breakthroughs with the idea of floating raft foundations that
would help address the poor soil conditions in Chicago. He
made these crazy smart hybrid structural systems that leverage the

(37:52):
latest of material technology that was available in the late
eighteen hundreds, and with Burnham helping to make this, Olmsted
Guy's vision a reality. It still took a small army
to build the midway. Twelve thousand men. Over twelve thousand

(38:13):
men build this collection of buildings. They've got a long
pool at the center. This is what becomes called the
White City, and it's called that because they save money
on the paint. It's just all white plaster.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
On the whole white slaster facades, kind of crown molding
kind of vibes. So with the construction of the White
City well underway, there's still something they haven't fully dealt with,
which is how to light this thing up.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
So that leads us headlong.

Speaker 3 (38:45):
Into what is known as the Battle of the Currents
between Thomas Edison, the aforementioned and Nikolai Tesla, both inventors
who had figured out how to harness and distribute electricity,
but each had their own very specific and proprietary methods
for doing this, which required kind of like a large

(39:07):
scale buy in because it requires building infrastructure with that
kind of wiring in mind. We've got Tesla's AC alternating
current and Edison's DC direct current.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
Yeah, ed look Edison was a bully, There's no way
around it. He launched a huge campaign, a smear campaign,
really against Tesla's AC concept. However, Tesla won the day
in this case because AC Electricity proved that you could

(39:43):
use his techniques and his discoveries to safely transmit power
over long distances to a large number of end receivers
a large amount of population. So that's why AC is
still the industry standard for power grids to exactly.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
So as for the Eiffel Tower, back to the Eiffel Tower,
there was a young architect by the name of George
Washington Gale Ferris Junior, who also had a bit of
an answer as to the illumination problem.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
Right, and you know, we talked about the name.

Speaker 3 (40:15):
Of the huge area where all of the exhibitions take
place as the midway. We're using kind of fair terminology.
I mean, it's a concept that I think everyone understood.
Another thing that people might think of when it comes
to a county fair or a state fair are things
like you know, frying every type of food you can imagine,
but also certain types of fair rides like the fairest wheel.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Stuff of changes returns a good Yeah, this is all true.
And one of the most beautiful things about the world's
fairs or world expos in general is they always bring
these notable innovations. It's a great drawing board, right, A great,
a great cavalcade of what iffery. The eighteen ninety three

(41:04):
World's Fair there in Chicago introduced the public to things
like Wrigley's chewing gum, instant pancake mix, the automatic dishwasher,
the zipper. I got one of those on me right now.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
Well cool, Yeah, and it hasn't gotten really hasn't been improved,
and they still kind of break. I actually was putting
on a zip up hoodie this morning only to realize
the zipper was completely shot, and so that thing is
dead to me.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
But isn't that funny?

Speaker 3 (41:30):
Things like the zipper have not exactly been improved upon
since their invention, since their introduction, Yeah, because they work it.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
We love it when stuff works. There's also a dark
side to the White City because one of the most
notorious common and serial killers in American history was active
in Chicago during the Colombian Exposition in eighteen ninety three.

(41:58):
Herman Webster Mudget, known as doctor Henry Howard Holmes or H. H. Holmes.
One time or twice in a couple lazy halloweens, I
dressed up as the guy. And I'll tell you know,
one person recognized the costume, and that person wanted to
hang out with me, and they made me uncomfortable.

Speaker 4 (42:20):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
I do recall this, Ben.

Speaker 3 (42:22):
You can read all about this in The Devil in
the White City Murder, Magic and Madness, which tells this
sordid tale of the dark side of the Chicago World's Fair.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
And we should note there was an adaptation, a film
adaptation of The Devil in the White City starring Leo DiCaprio,
directed by Scorsese. The book itself me yeah, yeah, really
a true story. This is out or they're working on it.
I believe it came out in twenty fifteen. Why have
I not heard it? Oh no, wait wait, it was

(42:56):
going to come out and then they tried to make
get a television adaptation. It's not out. You're correct, it's
not and just really quickly too.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
On the cover of the of the book of the
novel by Eric Larson, it has a really great photo
of the Midway I guess of this Chicago World's Fair.
And you know what it looks like, Ben, It looks
like the National Mall in Washington, d C. Which flecting
cool and that central kind of thing and then the
giant looming you know, structure at the end.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
It is pretty impressive. Yeah, and The Devil in the
White City is technically historical nonfiction. Don't let that put
you off, folks. That is an official ridiculous history book recommendation.
What a banger, mister Larson if you're listening. Also, big
fans of In the Garden of Beast and Isaac Storm.

(43:47):
Haven't read every book this guy's written, but loved everyone
I read and.

Speaker 3 (43:53):
Ben those are great recommendations because my goal this year
is to read at least one book.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
Oh, I've got one for you that you might like.
I'll add it to my list. I've got two and
now three on it thus far. Oh okay, So I
recently joke.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
I'm gonna try to read more than one book, but
I just have been really bad at reading.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
Lately, so I and listening to an audiobook counts as reading.
I hold that, however, it is best for people to
digest information. One book recommendation that I know you will
dig it's so poetic. There's this MIT professor of physics
and creative writing named Alan Lightman, and he wrote a

(44:27):
book called Einstein's Dreams. I recently reread it and I
thought of you and our pal Matt Fredericks. It's just
beautiful all it is. There's not even a spoiler here,
and I know we're on a tangent, but all it is.
NOL is a series of dreams that a young Albert
Einstein has while he's working as a patent clerk. He's

(44:51):
followed asleep at work, and in each of his dreams
he finds a new theory of time. It's incredible poetry, man,
that does sound like poetry. I just put it down
on my list of which I also have. I'll give
you these.

Speaker 3 (45:04):
A book called Orbital that I heard discussed on a
podcast recently. Apparently it's just a really poetic and kind
of dreamy depiction of being in space. And then a
novel called Lazarus Man by Richard Price was followed several
characters in Harlem in the wake of a building collapse,
and it's apparently quite tense and very well written.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
And the guy's written a ton.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
Of other stuff that have been adapted into films to
my understanding.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
Awesome and speaking of fantastic writing, Thanks again to our
research associate Red. This is part one of the World's Fairs.
We're telling you the inspiring parts, but we wanted to
mention the darker sides, the HH Holmes stuff, the colonialism,
because we're foreshadowing part two, where we get to some

(45:50):
of the world's fairs that did not have ideal outcomes.
Let's call it that one.

Speaker 3 (45:57):
Hundred percent, and I very much look forward to getting
into those with.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
You, sir. Huge thanks from my end as well to
our brand.

Speaker 3 (46:05):
New research associated Extraordinariy wren renfest Jones. You know we're
gonna would shop that nickname, but I'm just gonna throw
it out there for now. I think you did a
really fantastic job on these episodes.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
Big big thanks, of course to our super producer, the
one and only mister Max Williams. Big thanks to Alex
Stijajuana Williams, who composed this slap and bop you're hearing
at the end of the show.

Speaker 3 (46:29):
Indeed, huge thanks to Jonathan Strickland the Quizzler, A J.
Bahamas Jacobs the Puzzler He's Jeff Goes, and christopherraciotis here
in spirit, and of course Ben, big thanks to you, buddy.
This is a lot of fun. It's really good to
be back in the new year with some ridiculous history.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
Yes, big, big thanks to Rachel, Big Spinach, Lance or
big Spinach. Thanks to you, Professor, Thanks to our rude
dudes of ridiculous crime check them out. Big thanks to
everyone for tuning in join us for part two. No
big thanks to you, Bud oh Man. You're welcome. We'll
see you next time, folks.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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