Flashback episode - July 5th

Please enjoy these July 5th flashbacks from the TDIHC vault, and we will see you soon for a brand new episode!

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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,

(00:20):
a show that uncovers a little bit more about history
every day. Fine Gabe Lucier, and today we're looking at
the story behind one of the most polarizing summer fashions
of all time. You can love it or loathe it,
but the one thing you can't do is ignore it.

(00:46):
The day was July fifth, nineteen forty six. French designer
Louis Riar introduced the world to the bikini. The revealing
two piece bathing suit made its debut at a pool
side fashion show at the Paisine Malitore hotel complex in Paris.
It was modeled by Micheline Bernardini, an exotic dancer at

(01:09):
a local casino, who had agreed to wear the skimpy
outfit after all the professional models in town refused. The swimsuits.
Unveiling was considered quite scandalous at the time, which is
ironic when you consider that women had already worn bikini
like garments in public nearly two thousand years earlier. Roman

(01:30):
mosaics from the fourth century depict ancient female athletes wearing
two piece outfits as earliest fourteen hundred BC. It's true
those garments wouldn't have been worn to go swimming, but
that's just because all Romans, men and women alike always
swam in the nude. By the turn of the twentieth century, though,

(01:51):
many European cultures had gotten much more prudish about showing
skin in public, especially when it came to women. Victorian women,
for example, wore big, loose fitting bathing costumes that left
pretty much everything to the imagination. In fact, the culture
was so obsessed with concealing the female form that it

(02:11):
even devised a special vehicle to roll women into the
water unseen. Known simply as a bathing machine, the device
was basically a wooden cart with a little enclosed hut
on top, the roof and walls of which were made
from either solid wood or canvas. A female swimmer would
enter the machine fully clothed and then change into her

(02:33):
bathing costume. Once the curtains had been drawn, then the
whole apparatus would be wheeled into the water by a horse,
or less commonly by a human. The woman inside would
then exit the machine on the seaside, walk down a
few steps, and wade into the water. She was then
free to enjoy the waves in fresh air, provided, of course,

(02:55):
that she remained in line with her bathing machine so
that she couldn't be seen by those on the shore. Thankfully,
the dress code at the beach loosened a great deal
in the decades that followed. The baggy one piece suits
of old gave way to midriff bearing two pieces beginning
in the early nineteen thirties. Modesty remained a top concern, though,

(03:16):
with most bathing suits consisting of a halter top and
a pair of shorts like trunks. That design became slightly
more revealing during World War II, when the rationing of
fabric led to the removal of some excess material, though
care was still taken to ensure a woman's navel would
remain staunchly covered. Beyond that, swimsuit design didn't change much

(03:39):
during the war, especially in Europe, where many beaches and
coastlines became sites of battle instead of leisure. All of
that changed, though, in nineteen forty six, when Western Europeans
hit the beach for their first post war summer. It
was during this time that two competing male fashion designers
came up with a barely there swimsuit to reflect the

(04:01):
relaxed mood in Europe. First on the scene was Jacques Heim,
with his two piece design known as the Atom, after
the smallest particle of matter. True to its name, the
Atom was billed as the world's smallest bathing suit. However,
Heim wasn't able to make that claim for long, as
his rival Louis Riar was about to debut a significantly

(04:25):
smaller outfit. His design used just thirty inches of fabric,
essentially just four small triangles and a couple of strings.
Riar dubbed his creation the Bikini as a timely reference
to the Bikini ats Hole the Pacific Island chain, where
the US military had begun testing nuclear weapons just a

(04:45):
few days prior to the swimsuit's debut. It may seem
bizarre that both Heim and Riar would name their swimsuits
after something so devastating, but at the time atomic energy
still held a lot of promise for the public. It
had already found its way into pop culture. Too. Attractive
women were commonly described as bombshells, and anything extreme or

(05:09):
exciting was called atomic. Riar tapped into that cultural zeitgeist
by creating a swimsuit that he described as quote just
as explosive as the atomic bomb. Riar was preparing to
debut the bikini at a popular public swimming pool in
Paris when he ran into a slight snag. None of

(05:30):
the local professional models would agree to wear such a
revealing swimsuit. They worried that appearing nearly nude in public
would cause a scandal and possibly ruin their careers. This
led Riar to hire micha Leine Bernardini, a dancer from
the Casino de Paris who didn't share the model's misgivings.
In a final stroke of self promotion, Riar printed newspaper

(05:54):
type all over the bikini that Bernardini modeled on July fifth.
This was meant as an odd to the torrent of
headlines that his new swimsuit was sure to inspire. Following
its debut, the bikini became an international sensation, and so
did Bernardini. She reportedly received about fifty thousand fan letters

(06:14):
after the fashion show, most of which were from men.
Not long after bikinis started popping up all along the
Mediterranean coast, eventually prompting Spain in Italy to ban the
skimpy two piece from their beaches. They of course relented
a few years later, once bikinis had become a staple
of European shores. By the nineteen fifties, other fashion designers

(06:38):
had rolled out their own versions of the bikini, though
we Are cautioned the public to accept no imitations. According
to him, a two piece bathing suit wasn't a true
bikini unless it was small enough to be pulled through
a wedding rain skiviee. Marketing aside, the bikini was a
massive hit in post war Europe. The same couldn't be

(06:59):
said for the US, though, where it was initially dismissed
as a risque trend. For example, Modern Girl magazine claimed
that quote, it is hardly necessary to waste words over
the so called bikini, since it is inconceivable that any
girl with tact and decency would ever wear such a thing.

(07:20):
That view persisted until the early nineteen sixties, when Hollywood
stars in California surfing culture finally put an end to
the taboo. To mark the occasion, pop singer Brian Hyland
even gave the swimsuit its very own theme song, itsy
Bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot Bikina. It was a

(07:41):
itsy bitsy teen meany yalla pop Donakin that she won
an itsy bitsy ten medi yallapone Caniquino. So from that
point on, the bikini has only grown in popular though
it still has plenty of detractors, some of whom think

(08:03):
it promotes the objectification of women, which is certainly the
case in some crowds. But whatever your personal convictions may be,
I think we can all agree that showing a lot
of skin is still preferable to using horse drawn carts
to wheel fully clothed women into the sea, or at
least I hope we can all agree on that these

(08:24):
days you can never really tell. I'm Gabelusier and hopefully
you now know a little more about history today than
you did yesterday. If you'd like to keep up with
the show, consider following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram
at TDI HC Show, and if you have any comments

(08:45):
or suggestions, feel free to send them my way at
this day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays
for producing the show. Thank you for listening. I'll see
you back here again tomorrow for another Day in History. Hello,

(09:20):
and welcome to This Day in History Class, a show
that explores the ups and downs of everyday history. I'm
Gabe blue Sier, and in this episode, we're talking about
how the Hawaiian Kingdom became a territory of the United
States and spoilers, it wasn't by choice. The day was

(09:50):
July seventh, eighteen ninety eight. President William McKinley signed a
joint resolution annexing the Hawaiian Islands to the Unite l States. Previously,
Hawaii had been recognized internationally as a sovereign nation under
the rule of Queen Lilio Koalani, and it may very

(10:10):
well have retained that sovereignty if not for the creeping
influence of Sanford Dole and his fellow American businessmen. The
first known settlers of the Hawaiian Islands were Polynesian voyagers
who migrated there sometime in the eighth century. The original
native society developed around a caste system and was eventually

(10:32):
divided into four distinct chiefdoms Hawaii, Maui, Oahu, and Kawai.
In eighteen ten, about one thousand years after the first
people's arrival, King Kamehamea, the First, united those chiefdoms into
a single royal kingdom, which he then ruled himself until

(10:52):
his death in eighteen nineteen. That same year, Hawaii welcomed
the first Protestant missionaries, who had come from them the
US and England in hopes of converting the Hawaiians to Christianity.
In the decades that followed, they established churches and congregations
throughout the Hawaiian Islands, gradually changing the culture and religious

(11:13):
life of the people who lived there. In the eighteen thirties,
the westernization of Hawaii was kicked into high gear by
the arrival of American business investors. Lured by the promise
of fertile volcanic soil and an ideal climate. Wealthy American
planters bought up large tracts of lands on the islands

(11:34):
and began planting non native cash crops such as coffee, sugar, cane,
and pineapple. The resulting plantations changed Hawaii's economy through the
introduction of capitalist systems such as private land ownership, taxation,
and wage labor. In recognition of the many rapid changes

(11:54):
the islands had undergone in just a few short decades.
King Kamehamea the Third voluntarily gave up his absolute power
in eighteen forty. The king remained the ceremonial head of
the new constitutional monarchy, but from then on he worked
with a house of nobles and a house of tenants
who represented the citizens. One of the king's first major

(12:17):
acts under this new system was to send delegations to
the US and Europe in eighteen forty two. He did
this to help shore up Hawaii against foreign invasion by
establishing the island's presence as a sovereign kingdom. The mission
succeeded the following year, when many of the world's major powers,
the US included, signed treaties recognizing Hawaiian independence. Unfortunately, America's

(12:44):
businessmen made no such acknowledgment themselves. Hawaii's fertile soil and
close proximity to the States had long made it a
tempting target for a coup, and in the late nineteenth century,
Sandford Dole and his fellow plantation owners attempted that if
the name Dole sounds familiar, it's probably because of the

(13:05):
Dole Food Company, the world famous pineapple producer that's largely
responsible for that fruit's presence in Hawaii today. The company's founder,
Sandford Dole, had made a fortune in Hawaii in the
mid eighteen hundreds, and as a way to exert even
more control over the islands, he partnered with other American
businessmen and lawyers to form the so called Hawaiian League.

(13:29):
In eighteen eighty seven, the group sent an armed militia
to force Hawaii's King David Kalakawa to sign a new
constitution known as the Bayonet Constitution. It transferred most of
the monarchy's power to the Legislature, a ruling body whose
elections were rigged in favor of white interests. Four years later,

(13:51):
King Kalakawa died and was succeeded by his sister, Queen
Lilio Kalani. After taking the throne, she actually refused to
honor the Bayonet agreement and tried to revise the constitution
to return power to the monarchy. As you might imagine, though,
Sandford Dole and his cohorts weren't happy about that development,

(14:12):
So in January of eighteen ninety three, Dole organized a
so called Committee of Safety and then laid in wait
near the Queen's palace. They were soon joined there by
three hundred marines from the USS Boston, who had been
called in to protect Dole's committee by the U. S.
Minister of Hawaii, John L. Stevens. The action marked a

(14:34):
turning point and the businessmen's struggle for control of the
Hawaiian government. As the presence of U. S. Marines provided
tacit government approval for Dole's coup, it also left Queen
Lili o'cullani with no choice but to surrender in order
to avoid a full blown war. The queen held out
hope for years that the US government would come to

(14:55):
its senses and recognize Hawaii's sovereignty once more, but as
likely know, that never happened. President Benjamin Harrison liked the
idea of annexing the Hawaiian islands after the coup, but
after losing his bid for reelection in eighteen ninety three,
the final decision fell to his successor, Grover Cleveland. In

(15:16):
eighteen ninety four, an impatient sand for Dole asked President
Cleveland for permission to proceed with the annexation of Hawaii instead,
though Cleveland called for a special investigation into Dole's bloodless coup,
and it was soon determined that Queen Lilio Kolani had
been overthrown illegally. In response, the President ordered the American

(15:39):
flag to be lowered from all Hawaiian government buildings. He
also recommended that the queen be restored to her throne,
but Dole flatly refused. By that point, he and the
Safety Committee had already established a provisional government in Hawaii,
and instead of giving up that power, Dole doubled down

(15:59):
by claiming Hawaii a republic and installing himself as its
first president. It was a deeply troubling turn of events
for native Hawaiians, especially since the rest of the world
was just sitting by watching the coup unfold. Even the
US President had admitted the takeover was illegal. Looking back
on the ordeal, President Cleveland later wrote that quote, the

(16:23):
provisional government owes its existence to an armed invasion by
the United States by an act of war, A substantial
wrong has been done, to the nation's great shame. That
wrong was never corrected. President Cleveland was unwilling to overthrow
Dole's government by force, and his successor, William McKinley, eventually

(16:45):
negotiated a treaty with the Republic of Hawaii, lending further
legitimacy to Dole's rule. In response, the island's native inhabitants
organized to assert Hawaiian independence. They mounted multiple rebellions and signs,
and numerous petitions and protests of annexation, sometimes garnering signatures

(17:05):
for more than half of the island's indigenous population. The
people of Hawaii were clearly opposed to annexation, but in
the end their consent was deemed unnecessary. American leaders had
flirted with annexation for some time, but never felt fully
justified in claiming the islands as US territory. That finally

(17:28):
changed in early eighteen ninety eight with the outbreak of
the Spanish American War. Part of the conflict was said
to be fought in the Philippine Islands, and the Congressmen
who supported annexation were quick to point out the strategic
utility of the Hawaiian Islands as a mid Pacific fuelling
station and naval base. The argument proved convincing, and on

(17:51):
June fifteenth, eighteen ninety eight, the House of Representatives passed
the so called New Lands Resolution with a simple majority
of vree vote of two hundred and nine to ninety one.
Then three weeks later, the Senate passed it as well
by a vote of forty two to twenty one, and
on July seventh, President McKinley signed it into law, making

(18:14):
the annexation of Hawaii official. In case you're wondering, that
action did nullify Sanford Dole's power as the President of
the Republic of Hawaii. However, it hardly mattered, as he
was immediately reinstated as the first governor of the newly
formed Territory of Hawaii. Over the course of the next

(18:36):
fifty years, native Hawaiians endeavored to make the best of
their situation by working to achieve statehood and the full
rights of citizenship. There were numerous setbacks and painful losses
along the way, but in nineteen fifty nine, Hawaii finally
joined the Union as the nation's fiftieth state, a bittersweet victory.

(18:58):
To be sure. I'm Gabe Lucia and hopefully you now
know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.
You can learn even more about history by following us
on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI HC Show, and

(19:18):
if you have any comments or suggestions. You can always
send them my way by writing to This Day at
iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays and Ben Hackett
for producing the show, and thanks to you for listening.
I'll see you back here again soon for another day
in History class