Fists Raised During Olympic Games / Palace of Westminster fire - October 16

Athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in protest at the Olympic Games on this day in 1968. / On this day in 1834, the Palace of Westminster was destroyed in a fire.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone. Technically you're getting two days in History today
because we were running two episodes from the History Vault.
You'll also here two hosts, me and Tracy V. Wilson.
Hope you enjoy. Welcome to this Day in History Class
from how Stuff Works dot Com and from the desk
of Stuff you Missed in History Class. It's the show
where we explore the past one day at a time

(00:20):
with a quick look at what happened today in history. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and
it's October. On this day in Tommy Smith and John
Carlos raised their fists in protest on the winner's podium
at the Olympic Games in Mexico City. And the lead

(00:41):
up to these games, Harry Edwards had started an organization
called the Olympic Project for Human Rights. Harry Edwards had
been a discus thrower and when this happened, he was
working as a sociology professor. This organization called for things
like more black coaches and restoring Muhammad all these heavyweight title.

(01:01):
It also called for banning South Africa and Rhodesia from
the Olympic Games. Both South Africa and Rhodesia had minority
white governments and we're operating in a state of apartheid.
They also called for the replacement of International Olympic Committee
President Avery Brundage, who had been repeatedly accused of racism
and anti Semitism. There were threats to boycott the Olympic

(01:24):
Games if these demands weren't met, and some athletes did
boycott the Games, but others participated. And that year in
Mexico City and the two race, American Tommy Smith won
the gold, Australian Peter Norman won the silver, an American
John Carlos won the bronze. So Smith and Carlos had

(01:45):
helped organize the Olympic Project for Human Rights. They were
students of Harry Edwards, and when they went to the
podium to receive their medals, Smith and Carlos had their
shoes off and they were wearing black socks. Each of
them were one black glove. Smith also wore a scarf
and Carlos were beads. And when the Nationville anthem was playing,

(02:05):
they raised their fist in a black power salute and
bowed their heads. The black socks were there to symbolize
black poverty, and the scarf and the beads were to
represent the victims of lynching. When you look at pictures
of this moment, Peter Norman, the Australian athlete who won
the silver, looks almost like a bystander, but he wasn't
at all a bystander. He was standing with them in solidarity.

(02:29):
He was wearing a badge from the Olympic Project for
Human Rights and in addition to supporting Smith and Carlos's
protest that day, Norman was doing this to oppose racism
and racist government policies in Australia, where he was from.
There is some debate about whose idea this protest was,
including between Smith and Carlos, but it was Norman who

(02:51):
suggested that the two men each wear one of the
same pair of gloves when one of them realized that
he had forgotten his altogether. This was a protest by
three and against segregation, discrimination and racism, and their actions
were immediately heavily criticized. Many people in the crowd immediately
started jeering as soon as they realized what was happening.

(03:13):
Smith and Carlos were ejected from the Games. They were
suspended from the US Olympic team, they were blacklisted from
the sport. Once they got home, they got death threats
and the words of Brendage of the IOC quote the
action of these Negroes was an insult to the Mexican
hosts and a disgrace to the United States. This was
at a time before Olympic athletes were generally invited to

(03:35):
visit the White House, but public relations consultant Robert mcelwaine
had suggested that maybe all the American medalists, all of them,
should be invited, and that was something that was ultimately declined. Also,
after returning home, Smith and Carlos were tracked by the FBI.
Peter Norman faced huge backlash at home as well. He
was reportedly kept out of the nineteen seventy two Olympics

(03:57):
and Munich for having participated in this protest. He was
ostracized from the sport at home, and he never returned
to it. When he died in two thousand and six,
Carlos and Smith were among his pall bearers. The Australian
government apologized for the treatment that Norman received in twelve
Today there is a statue of this moment in the

(04:17):
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and
Washington d C. Which shows Smith and Norman and Carlos
as they were on the podium that day. Thanks very
much to Terry Harrison for audio work in this podcast,
and you can subscribe to the Stay in History Class
on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and wherever else you get
your podcasts. You can tune in tomorrow for an unexpected flood.

(04:48):
Hi everyone, I'm Eves. Welcome to This Day in History Class,
a podcast for folks who can never have enough history knowledge.
The day was October eighteen thirty four. Much of the

(05:08):
Palace of Westminster, the home of the British Parliament, was
destroyed in a fire. In medieval times, the Palace of
Westminster was the main royal residence in London, and it
housed the law courts and government departments. By the eighteen hundreds,
the complex had been expanded and renovated so much that
it had become a winding mix of passages, walls, staircases

(05:32):
and buildings. Members of Parliament have been raising concerns about
the state of their accommodations for a while, so though
the fire on October eighteen thirty four was accidental, conditions
in the complex were ripe for disaster. Wooden tally sticks
were used as a form of tax receipt until eighteen six,

(05:53):
when an act prohibiting the use of talies for record
went into force, but it took years for the system
to be overhauled. By eight thirty four, there were still
tallies that needed to be thrown away. The Exchequer, a
government department responsible for collecting and managing taxes and revenues,
was tasked with getting rid of two carts full of

(06:15):
tally sticks. The Clerk of Works decided to have them
burned unsupervised and underfloor stoves in the basement of the
House of Lords. So workers followed his orders and did
just that. People who visited the House of Lords that
day noticed how hot the floor was and that smoke
was rising from it, but the housekeeper and the Clerk

(06:37):
of Works ignored the warnings. The premises were closed around
five pm. Around an hour later, a doorkeeper's wife announced
that the House of Lords was on fire. Not long
after it was discovered, a fireball exploded out of the building.
The fire attracted a lot of attention. Crowds of spectators gathered,

(06:58):
and many of them painted sketched the scene. Parish engines,
insurance companies and the private London Fire Engine Establishment worked
to put out the blaze. Volunteers including MPs and lords,
also staffed water pumps throughout the night. By the time
the fire was under control, Westminster Hall, the Undercroft Chapel

(07:20):
of St Mary, the Jewel Tower, the Chapter House of
St Stephen's, and part of the Cloisters were saved, but
the House of Commons in the House of Lords were destroyed,
along with most other buildings in the complex. After the fire,
people capitalized on the bus surrounding the event by selling
cheap prints and creating souvenirs from stone, lead and wood

(07:42):
taken from the site. The damage to the palace was
estimated at two million pounds. Nobody was prosecuted for causing
the fire and destruction of the buildings, but a public
inquiry did suggest the fire was a result of negligence.
A commission was formed to look into a loss of
parliamentary records. It made recommendations that led to the creation

(08:05):
of the Public Record Office, which later became the National Archives.
Architect Charles Berry won a government competition to design a
new palace. He and Augustus Pugin developed a new complex
that included the surviving structures. I'm Eve Steff Coote and
hopefully you know a little more about history today than
you did yesterday. Spend some of your daily social media

(08:29):
time with us at t D I h C podcast.
You can also email us at this Day at I
heart media dot com. Thanks for listening, and we'll see
you again tomorrow. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit

(08:50):
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