Flashback episode - September 2nd

Please enjoy these September 2nd 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,
a show that pays tribute to heroes of the past

(00:22):
by telling their stories. Today I'm Gabe Bluesiery, and today
we're reflecting on the appalling death of William Wallace, one
of the most venerated freedom fighters of the First War
of Scottish Independence. As a warning, today's episode includes a
graphic description of a public execution and may be disturbing

(00:43):
for some listeners. And the day was August twenty third,
thirteen oh five. Sir William Wallace was put to death
in London for alleged treason against King Edward the First
of England. Although he faced one of the grisliest executions

(01:06):
ever recorded, Scotland's national hero remained defiant till the end,
arguing that it was impossible for him to be a
traitor as he had never pledged loyalty to the British Crown. Nonetheless,
Wallace was sentenced to die in one of the worst
ways imaginable by being hung, drawn and quartered. His life

(01:27):
has since been romanticized in countless poems, stories, and movies,
and today he is still revered by many as a
symbol of Scottish independence. Wallace's excruciating death was brought about
by the years he had spent leading the first organized
resistance against English rule in Scotland. Through much of the

(01:48):
thirteenth century, Scotland had been a peaceful nation under the
rule of Alexander the Third, but his death in twelve
eighty six kicked off a succession crisis, as the crown
was passed to three year old Margaret, the Maid of Norway,
only for her to die too just four years later.
Hoping to avoid a civil war, Scottish nobles asked Edward

(02:12):
the First of England to arbitrate their competing claims to
the throne. The English king agreed to help, but as
soon as John Balliol was chosen as the new monarch,
Edward began undermining his authority in an effort to impose
himself as ruler. Then, in twelve ninety six, Edward dropped

(02:32):
all the pretense and officially invaded Scotland. By that time,
William Wallace was in his late twenties to early thirties,
and likely already had military experience, possibly as an archer. Unfortunately,
little is known about his early life, and even his
parentage is open to debate. For a long time, historians

(02:54):
believed Wallace was born to a noble family in Elderslee, Renfrewshire,
but more recently evidence has come to light which suggests
he was actually born to Alan Wallace, a tenant farmer
in Ayrshire. Whatever the truth of his origins, Wallace first
came to prominence in May of twelve ninety seven, when

(03:14):
he led an uprising in Lanark and killed the town sheriff,
who was loyal to England. According to a fifteenth century
poet named Blind Harry, Wallace's first major act of defiance
was in retaliation for the murder of his wife Mary
in Braidfeute. That may be true, but there's not much
evidence one way or the other outside of Harry's epic poem.

(03:39):
What we do know is that Wallace's action at Lanark
sparked a full blown rebellion among ordinary Scottish citizens. Hundreds
of men flocked to his side, and together they engaged
in numerous skirmishes against King Edward's invading army. They began
driving the English out of Fife and Perthshire, and by
that September they he had joined forces with other military leaders,

(04:02):
including a young squire named Andrew Murray. On September eleven,
Wallace and Murray co led the Scottish army to a
pivotal victory at the Battle of stirling Bridge. The Scots
were badly outnumbered, but they managed to force the English
to cross the bridge, thereby limiting the effectiveness of their

(04:22):
superior numbers. Having proven their competency on the battlefield, both
Wallace and Murray were subsequently knighted and given the title
Guardian of Scotland. This effectively made them the co heads
of state, as the new King of Scotland, John Balliol,
had been forced to abdicate the previous year. Unfortunately, that

(04:45):
partnership proved short lived, as Sir Andrew Murray soon died
from injury sustained on the battlefield. That left Wallace as
the sole Guardian of Scotland, a position which he used
to organize further raids, not not only in his home country,
but in England as well. Those brazen campaigns enraged King

(05:07):
Edward the First and severely weakened his grip on Scotland.
But in July of twelve ninety eight, Edward's army struck
back at the Battle of Falkirk, overpowering the Scots and
delivering a crushing defeat. William Wallace escaped with his life
that day, but he was so ashamed by the loss
that he later resigned his guardianship, ceding the title to

(05:30):
John Coleman, the nephew of John Balliol, and to Robert
the Bruce, the future King of Scotland. Not much is
known about Wallace's movements during this time, but at some
point he traveled to France to seek support for the
Scottish cause. He returned in thirteen o three and was
dismayed to learn that in his absence, Robert the Bruce

(05:52):
had accepted a truce with Edward the First. The following year,
John Coleman did the same, but Wallace refused us to
come to terms. He continued the fight for Scottish independence
until August fifth, thirteen o five, when he was betrayed
by a Scottish knight who had secretly sworn allegiance to England.

(06:12):
Wallace was captured near Glasgow, briefly held at Dumbarton Castle
and then transported to London later that month. On August
twenty third, he was taken to Westminster Hall, where he
was given a show trial, with no juris, lawyers or
even the chance to defend himself. Wallace's death was a

(06:33):
foregone conclusion, but Edward the First wanted to make an
example of him to send a message to the other
holdouts of the Scottish rebellion. After being found guilty of
treason and sentenced to die, Wallace reportedly spoke out against
the charge, but since the accounts of what he said
only appeared centuries later, they were more than likely fabrications.

(06:54):
That said, the common theme in all of the reports
rings true, namely that Wallace wasn't a traitor because he
had owed no allegiance to England in the first place.
Once the mock trial had ended, Wallace was taken to
Smithfield in central London to be executed that same day.
His death would not be a swift one, as once

(07:16):
again Edward the First wanted to send a message to
other would be rebels. To that end, Wallace was first
stripped naked and tied to a wooden post, which was
then dragged through the streets of London by horses for
about five miles. He was ridiculed and pelted with excrement
along the way, and when he returned to the Smithfield

(07:37):
Square that's when the real pain began. Wallace was hanged
and strangled, but taken down while still alive and semi conscious. Next,
his bones were pulled from their sockets by ropes attached
to his limbs. He was then disemboweled and castrated, and
several of the organs torn from his body were burned

(07:58):
before his eyes. Only then, after hours of torment, was
William Wallace allowed to die. He was beheaded and quartered,
and as a final insult, his head was dipped in
tar and stuck on a pike on London Bridge a
warning to other dissenters. His limbs were also divvied up

(08:19):
for public display at Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling and Perth. In
the end, the brutal death of William Wallace did send
a message to his countrymen, but not the one King
Edward had intended. The rest of Scotland was emboldened by
his sacrifice, and the following year Robert the Bruce assumed

(08:39):
the throne and mounted a new rebellion. The fighting continued
for more than a decade, but eventually Scotland secured its independence,
meaning that William Wallace did not die in vain. Today
there are monuments to his courage all over the country,
including a sixty seven meter tower on a hilltop over

(09:00):
looking Sterly, the sight of his most famous victory. Many
artists have paid tribute to Wallace over the years, but
these days the most well known account of his life
is the Academy Award winning film Braveheart, released in nineteen
ninety five. The movie was loosely based on the famous
poem by Blind Harry and stars Mel Gibson as Scotland's

(09:23):
legendary crusader. Although it certainly has its merits, Braveheart takes
more than a few liberties with the story and definitely
shouldn't be taken as an accurate account of Scottish history.
In fact, even the film's title is questionable, as Braveheart
is a moniker associated not with William Wallace but with

(09:43):
Robert the Bruce. After the King's death, Sir James Douglas
was tasked with taking Robert's severed heart on a tour
of the Holy Land, and during a battle, he supposedly
spoke to it saying, quote lead on Braveheart, I'll follow
thee to be fair. The epithet Braveheart does seem like

(10:04):
a fitting description of Sir William Wallace, but its misattribution
is still one of the many reasons why you shouldn't
get your history lessons from Mel Gibson. I'm Gabe Lucier
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

(10:28):
at TDI HC Show, and 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 for producing the show, and thanks to you
for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow for
another Day in History Class. Hello, and welcome to This

(11:06):
Day in History Class, a show that believes there's no
time like the present to learn about the past. I'm
Gabe Lucier, and in this episode, we're looking at a
milestone in the history of personal computing, the day when
a tech company launched a new piece of software and
forever change the way we work and play on our computers.

(11:34):
The day was August twenty fourth, nineteen ninety five, Microsoft
launched its revolutionary Windows ninety five operating system. The long delayed,
much anticipated release was marked by midnight launches at electronics
stores worldwide. It was a costly piece of computer software,

(11:56):
with each box of installation discs priced at two hundred
and ten dollars or just over four hundred dollars in
today's money, but the high cost of entry was no
deterrent to sales. Microsoft sold seven million copies of Windows
ninety five in the first five weeks alone, and went
on to sell forty million units by the end of

(12:17):
its first year. The products, swift and sweeping, embraced by
the public, secured its place as the most popular operating
system in the world. In the early nineteen nineties, Microsoft
was at the top of the heap in the still
growing market of computer software. It had nearly eighteen thousand
employees and boasted roughly six billion dollars in sales in

(12:41):
nineteen ninety Its Windows three point zero operating system had
introduced the world to a new graphical user interface, one
where applications were presented as clickable icons instead of as
a list of file names. Then, in nineteen ninety two,
the company released Windows three point one, which added new

(13:01):
personalization options as well as multi media staples such as screensavers.
It would take three years for Microsoft to release the
successor to Windows three point one, but the company pulled
out all the stops to make sure the weight was
worth it. Executives even went so far as to commission
music legend Brian Eno to create a short piece of

(13:24):
music to play when the operating system started up. The
result was a six second track known as the Windows Sound.
Take a Listen. Brian Eno took the assignment very seriously,
producing eighty four pieces in total. Ironically, though, he composed

(13:48):
all of them on a Mac, later admitting quote, I've
never used a PC in my life. I don't like them.
Borrowing features from its competitors, including macintok, Windows ninety five
was designed to make computers more accessible to the everyday user.
One of its most notable additions in that regard was

(14:09):
the now famous Start menu, which was accessed through an
ever present button in the bottom left corner of the screen.
Clicking it would bring up a handy list of all
the various programs installed, and should you wish to run
more than one of them simultaneously, there were new multitasking
features to make that easier than ever. These included the

(14:29):
now familiar minimize and maximize window buttons, as well as
a taskbar at the bottom of the screen so that
users could quickly switch between running programs. And since it
was a thirty two bit operating system, Windows ninety five
was also faster, smoother, and more responsive than its sixteen
bit predecessors. The increased memory capacity also allowed it to

(14:52):
support long file names up to two hundred and fifty characters,
and while that may not sound like a flashy feature today,
it was a massive upgrade from the eight point three
character limitation of Windows three point one. The operating system
also came bundled with the Microsoft Network or MSN, as

(15:12):
well as the Internet Explorer web Browser, two applications, which
served as many people's introduction to email and the Internet.
Another major selling point of Windows ninety five was the
inclusion of plug and play functionality. This allowed the computer
to automatically detect and install hardware such as a keyboard, mouse,

(15:33):
or monitor, instead of the user having to locate and
install the right driver for each device from a disc.
Features like that greatly streamlined the set up process for
personal computers, making them more user friendly than ever before.
As a result, Windows ninety five became the runaway leader
of the OS marketplace, overtaking rivals like IBM and Apple,

(15:58):
although the latter would return with a venge when it
released OSX a few years later. For the time being, though,
all eyes were on Microsoft, and the company's latest offering
was one of the most hotly anticipated products of the year.
Windows ninety five went on sale at midnight on August
twenty fourth, and tech geeks all over the world braved

(16:19):
long lines at their local stores to be among the
first to try it out. New Zealand was the first
country to reach the worldwide release date, and nineteen year
old Jonathan Prentiss of Auckland is believed to have been
the first person on earth to purchase the new software package.
Of course, the launch day celebration extended well after the

(16:40):
midnight release. Later that day, Microsoft chairman and co founder
Bill Gates gave a presentation at the company's headquarters in Redmond, Washington.
He was introduced in typically corny fashion by the then
host of the Tonight show Jay Leno and was then
joined on stage for a demonstration by the entire Windows
o's ninety five development team. The event, which included a

(17:04):
campus carnival, was attended by five hundred journalists, two thousand
industry guests, and nine thousand Microsoft employees, roughly half of
the company's sizeable workforce. The New York Times referred to
Windows ninety five's launch day hype as quote the splashiest,
most frenzied, most expensive introduction of a computer product in

(17:27):
the industry's history, and that was no exaggeration either. Microsoft
had spent three hundred million dollars on the marketing campaign,
which included such stunts as lighting up the Empire State
Building in the Windows color scheme red, green, blue, and yellow.
The company also touted the OS's new start button by

(17:48):
airing round the clock TV commercials featuring the rolling Stones
start me up, which was not cheap to license. Windows
most infamous promotional tool, however, was a baffling hour long
instructional video that included a so called cyber sitcom starring
Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry from the hit show Friends.

(18:10):
Copies of that VHS tape are a little hard to
come by today and command a disturbingly high price in
good condition. But thankfully the whole thing has been preserved
online in all its awkward, dated glory. Here's the taste. Oh,
this is where the magic happens. Hunt the ground zero
personal computing, the nerve center of the world's biggest software company.

(18:32):
I mean, the atmosphere resonates with anticipation of mythical achievement.
Mythical achievement right now would be an unshewed number two pencil.
Honey lash soon. But if you want the job, spend
some time. Look at a Windows ninety five. What do
you know about the system? Well, I dabble with the
old Windows a little bit, can you? Oh, I'm still
a mastering palm m sweety. Why don't you sit in

(18:54):
at Bill's terminal way, So this is Bill Gates' computer,
I mean, Microsoft officially ended its support for Windows ninety
five in late two thousand and one. By that point,
the company had already released a number of additional Windows iterations,
with plenty more still to come, but due to the
changing nature of the industry and the rise of Apple,

(19:16):
none of those operating systems were introduced with nearly as
much pomp and circumstanced as Windows ninety five, the os
that made computing mainstream. I'm Gabe Lucier and hopefully you
now know a little more about history today than you
did yesterday. If you enjoyed today's show, consider keeping up

(19:38):
with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You can find
us at TDI HC Show. You can also rate and
review the show on Apple Podcasts, or you can get
in touch directly by writing to This Day at iHeartMedia
dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show,
and thanks to you for listening. I'll see you back

(19:59):
here again some tomorrow for another day in History class.