Flashback episode - August 16th

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey there, history fans, We're taking the day off, but
don't worry. We've got plenty of classic shows to tide
you over. Please enjoy these flashback episodes from the TDI
HC Vault. Hello, and welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that takes you on a ride through the

(00:20):
ups and downs of everyday history. I'm Gabe Lucier, and
today we're talking about a clever innovation that took amusement
park thrill rides to a whole new level. The day

(00:42):
was August sixteenth, eighteen ninety eight. Inventor and mechanic Edwin
Prescott was granted the first US patent for a vertical
loop roller coaster. His design became a reality three years
later when the Loop the Loop roller coaster installed on
Surf Avenue in Coney Island, New York. This dual track

(01:05):
steel roller coaster wasn't the first thrill ride to use
a loop to flip passengers upside down, but thanks to
a key change to the shape of the loop, the
coaster was much more comfortable and safer than previous designs.
Although warmly embraced by Americans since the eighteen thirties, roller

(01:25):
coasters are actually a European invention. The earliest take on
the concept dates back to seventeenth century Russia, when thrill
seekers started building so called flying mountains, which were basically
five story tall ice ramps that featured drops as steep
as fifty degrees. Daring riders would climb inside hollowed out

(01:48):
blocks of ice and hold on for dear life. Not
long after, the attraction was adapted for year round use
through the addition of wooden rails and wheeled carts. In
the Great Is believed to have commissioned the first such
man made coaster, which was built in the gardens of
her Palace in Saint Petersburg. Her royal endorsement lent instant

(02:10):
appeal to the dangerous contraptions, especially among the upper classes.
Soon roller coasters were being built in France, England and
other countries throughout Europe. The first American roller coaster is
generally considered to be the Mouche Chunk Switchback Railway in Pennsylvania.

(02:30):
Originally constructed in eighteen twenty seven as a way to
haul coal between mines, the railway quickly caught the eye
of local adrenaline junkies and tourists alike. That interest led
to a new dual purpose system in which the railway
would be used to transport coal in the morning and
thrill seeking passengers in the afternoon. The cars were pushed

(02:54):
along the downhill track by gravity and could reach speeds
of fifty miles per hour and carrying a full load. Unfortunately,
powered chain lifts were still a good fifty years or
so away, so a team of mules had to pull
the empty cars back to their starting point. By eighteen
seventy three, the moush Chunk Railway was serving up thrills

(03:17):
to more than thirty thousand riders per year at a
cost of just seventy five cents each. The success of
the gravity railway didn't go unnoticed, and in eighteen eighty four,
LaMarcus aDNA Thompson adapted the design to create the first
gravity roller coaster, built specifically as an amusement ride. It

(03:38):
opened in Brooklyn's Coney Island and provided guests a not
so thrilling ride down a six hundred foot long track
at the leisurely speed of six miles per hour. Unlike
most modern roller coasters, Thompson's cars faced outward instead of forward.
This allowed riders to view specially constructed scenes as they

(03:59):
rolled along. These included diorama type displays of exotic locations
such as Venetian canals and the Swiss Alps. Although it
was in a pulse pounding experience, Thompson's railway was still
a commercial success, and other entrepreneurs were quick to introduce
their own gravity powered coasters. The first of these to

(04:20):
feature a loop de loop was Lena Beecher's infamous Flip
Flap Railway, which opened at Sea Lion Park on Coney
Island in eighteen ninety five. There was a lot of
experimentation going on in coaster design at the time, and
as a result, many of the early rides were little
more than glorified death traps. In the case of the

(04:41):
Flip Flap Railway, the danger came from the coaster's trademark loop.
Because the loop was perfectly circular, it resulted in g
forces three times stronger than the average modern coaster. Riding
it felt akin to driving a car straight into a
brick wall, so, as you can imagine, it wasn't the

(05:01):
most popular ride at Coney Island. Still, the idea of
inverting riders with a loop seemed promising, provided you could
do it without breaking anyone's neck. That challenge was picked
up by Edwin Prescott, a ride designer from Arlington, Massachusetts.
His innovation was to swap the circular loop for an

(05:23):
elliptical one. That subtle change in shape greatly reduced the
g forces, thus providing a much smoother and far less
painful ride for passengers. In nineteen oh one, The Loop
the Loop became the second looping coaster ever built, but
the first one that was actually worth riding. Its breakthrough

(05:44):
elliptical shaped loop was later copied by other designers, and
today it remains the standard shape for all modern roller
coasters that include a loop. Of course, even with the
improved loop, Prescott's coaster was still pretty dangers For one thing,
the passenger cars used regular tires, which weren't held to

(06:05):
the track in any meaningful way. In fact, the only
thing preventing the cars from flying off besides momentum, was
a small side railing which could easily be jumped at
the right speed and angle. As a result, the Loop
The Loop brought in more money from spectators who were
willing to pay a fee to watch the ride in

(06:25):
action than it did from people who actually rode it
in the end, though the ride's limited capacity was its
biggest drawback. The cars could only fit four people, and
only one car was permitted on the track at a
time for fear of a collision. A second track was
eventually built alongside the first, but even with that additional capacity,

(06:48):
the ride barely turned a profit as a result. In
nineteen ten, the Loop The Loop closed for good after
only nine years in operation. It was soon replaced by
a steelcoaster called the Giant Racer. True to its name,
the track stretched three hundred yards all the way from
Surf Avenue to the beach. Despite its length, the Giant

(07:11):
Racer also failed to impress visitors, and it was ultimately
torn down in nineteen twenty seven. The famous Cyclone roller
coaster took its place that same year, and it remains
in operation to this day. Although the first coaster to
use Prescott's elliptical loop was a bit of a dud,
it still got things rolling in the right direction. To

(07:33):
honor that breakthrough, thrillseekers across the country now celebrate National
Roller Coaster Day on August sixteenth, the day when Prescott
squished a circle into an ellipse and the modern roller
coaster was born. I'm Gabe Lucier and hopefully you now
know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

(07:57):
If you want to keep up with the show, you
can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI
HC Show and if you have any comments or suggestions,
you can always send them my way at this Day
at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing
the show, and thank you for listening. I'll see you

(08:17):
back here again tomorrow for another Day in History Class. Hello,
and welcome to This Day in History Class, a show

(08:40):
that unmasks history one day at a time. I'm Gabe
Lucier and in this episode, we're talking about one of
the most disturbing acts of protest ever committed on the
White House lawn. The day August sixteenth, eighteen forty one,

(09:03):
an angry mob gathered outside the White House and burned
an effigy of President John Tyler. Most of the rioters
were members of Tyler's own political party, the Whigs. The
President had just vetoed their bill to re establish the
country's national bank, so they decided to voice their disapproval
in the most dramatic fashion they could think of. They

(09:25):
gathered on Tyler's front porch and set fire to a crude,
scarecrow like figure that was made to look just like him.
The first Bank of the United States was championed by
Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury. He believed
that establishing a government sponsored national bank was vital to
the young country's financial future. According to him, it would

(09:48):
stabilize the nation's credit, provide a repository for federal funds,
and handle the job of issuing currency. The bank was
ultimately chartered by Congress and approved by President Jeorge Washington
in seventeen ninety one, but from the very beginning, many
in government, including Thomas Jefferson and Washington himself, were wary

(10:08):
of the idea of a federal bank. They worried that
such a bank was unconstitutional, as it would force the
states to host branches of the bank within their borders,
in direct competition with banks they chartered themselves. In the end,
Washington was swayed by Hamilton's arguments and decided to back
the bank bill after all. However, once Thomas Jefferson became president,

(10:32):
he and his fellow anti federalists began to undermine the
bank by gradually reducing its power and importance. By eighteen eleven,
the institution had been so diminished that Congress let the
bank's twenty year charter expire and made no attempt to
renew it. A second Federal Bank was later established in

(10:52):
eighteen nineteen, but multiple Congressional attempts to recharter it were
struck down by Presidents Andrew Jackson and Mark and Van Buren.
Despite those setbacks, supporters of the National Bank were confident
that Van Buren's successor, fellow Whig member William Henry Harrison,
would quickly re establish the bank once he took office.

(11:13):
But as you probably know, Harrison never got the chance,
as he famously died just thirty one days after his inauguration.
Upon Harrison's death in eighteen forty one, Vice President John
Tyler assumed the presidency, establishing a custom of succession that
still followed today. The Whigs expected Tyler to tow the

(11:34):
party line and throw his support behind an agenda crafted
by Kentucky Senator Henry Clay. However, Tyler, a former Democrat,
wasn't a fan of the Whigs policy proposals. He had
just inherited a highly unstable economy, and throwing a federal
bank into the mix would have only increased that volatility.

(11:55):
He believed, as others had before him, that a central
bank would violate state's right and would only benefit the
financial elite, namely the private investors who would own most
of the bank shares. The President voiced his opposition well
in advance, but his fellow Whigs and Congress refused to listen.
Senator Clay's bill passed both houses that summer, and many

(12:18):
hoped its success would compel the President to back down
and sign it, but he didn't. On August sixteenth, Tyler
vetoed the bank bill and sent a message to Congress
explaining why. Before entering upon the duties of the presidential office,
he wrote, I took an oath that I would preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States. He then

(12:40):
went on to say that supporting the Whigs bank scheme
would be a violation of that oath, something that he
considered quote a crime which I would not willfully commit
to gain any earthly reward, and which would justly subject
me to the ridicule and scorn of all virtuous men.
Tyler's veto shouldn't have come as a surprise to the

(13:01):
bank's congressional backers, but they had convinced themselves that Tyler,
an unelected president, wouldn't dare defy the will of his
own party. But it turned out that he did dare,
and when the Whigs found out about the veto, they
took it as a betrayal and flew into a collective rage.
Later that night, after several hours of drinking, some members

(13:23):
of Congress decided to pay Tyler a visit. They gathered
on the White House lawn and started blowing horns and
throwing rocks at the building. Then some men fired guns
into the air and shouted down with the veto. The
President and his family were awakened by the noise and
were said to be quite fearful for their safety, as
the residents had minimal security in the district of Columbia

(13:46):
did not yet have a police force. Thankfully, someone in
the upstairs quarters placed lit candles in the windows, and
the light scared off the mob. However, a few hours later,
a second, even rout group arrived at the mansion. They
brought along a large life sized doll dressed as President Tyler,

(14:07):
which they proceeded to hang by the neck from a tree.
Then they set the figure on fire and left shortly afterward.
Other American figures had been burned in effigy before, including
John Jay and President James Madison, but such a display
of symbolic violence had never happened on the White House doorstep,

(14:27):
and certainly not in clear view of the President and
his family. One year later, the incident led Congress to
expand the small security force in DC into a proper
police force, ensuring that the city would also be patrolled
at night. In the weeks that followed the riot, Senator
Clay helped put together a new Central Bank Bill with

(14:48):
a few minor adjustments. Once again, both houses of Congress
passed the bill, and once again President Tyler killed it
with a veto. That time, the Whigs didn't form a
drunken mob or set any dolls on fire. Instead, they
voted to formally expel the president from their ranks, making him,
as Henry Clay put it, a president without a party.

(15:11):
The hits didn't stop there either, as not long after
Tyler's entire cabinet resigned in protest, except that is for
Daniel Webster, the Secretary of State. By the time Tyler
left office, his political career was essentially over. He had
paid a steep price for standing up to his own party,
but in doing so, he remained true to his oath

(15:33):
and to his own conscience that commitment to country over
party is something that every president should strive to live
up to, even now, whether the mob likes it or not.
I'm Gabe Lucier and hopefully you now know a little
more about history today than you did yesterday. You can

(15:54):
learn even more about history by following us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at TDI HC Show, and if you have
any comments or suggestions, you can send them my way
by writing to This Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks
to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank you
for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow for

(16:15):
another day in History Class