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July 12, 2011 53 mins

What makes America unique? In the first segment of this special two-part episode, Josh and Chuck join up with guests from The Daily Show and The Onion to take a closer look at the Stuff You Should Know About America.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot Com? So hey, I guess,
and welcome to the whatever this thing is? Right, it's

(00:20):
a podcast now, I guess it is. We're chopping it up,
stripping it down, using parts elsewhere. All right, yeah, what
are you talking about? Well, um, Chuck, I think you
know exactly what I'm talking about. But you and I
went to Sirius XM headquarters in New York in their studios.
We got like fifty stuff you should Know listeners to

(00:41):
show up and they sat there and watched us do
uh live radio show live the tape and it was
about July four. It was about America, totally fun and
Neto and Uh, I'm kind of like this live show thing.
It's like it's like, you know, it's a little weird
at first, but I think we got over that in
the first few minutes. I never did no plus. Also,

(01:05):
I don't know if you'll be able to pick this up,
but starting in about the thirty minute mark, I became
almost overwhelmed with the need to go to bathroom. Yeah
you told me this afterwards, I had to so badly
and I was just holding it because I drank so
much water. Remember, I was nervously drinking water, which is
like the dumbest thing you can do before you're about

(01:25):
to sit down and for two hours. Yeah, so I
guess listen out for that as we present this two
parter episode, which helps for us because one of our
listeners send in some beer and Jerry's refusing to do
anything for this week because she's mad at us because
we didn't share it with her. So this is good
for us, right, Yeah, Yeah, I didn't know that went down.

(01:47):
This is why we're doing this. We're releasing this for
this reason, all right, So without further ado, we got
the stuff you should know, does America with special guests
Wyatt Senac and uh Hallie Haglin of The Daily Show
with John Stewart, that's right, and Joe Garden and Joe
Randazzo of The Onion and Jill Morris of The Onion
as well. Ye, so let's begin, Chuck, Let's take you

(02:08):
back to July one, two thousand and eleven, Heavy Days,
starting right now, right now. Yeah, I wanted to change

(02:44):
that music at the last minute to the Elvis then
and then then and than Josh said it's too late,
And then I was gonna walk in like Elvis backwards,
and then Halle said you might trip and that might
be funny, but I didn't do it. Good. You're ready, Yeah,
so hey, and welcome to the Live Radio Show. I'm Josh.

(03:07):
This is Chuck. You take the good, you take the bad,
you take them both. And there you have the stuff
you should know. That's good. That was special for the
radio special. You didn't even tell me about that. No,
you never tell me anything. It's right here. That looks
fresh too. Yeah. The ink is rubbing. You just came
up with effects of life bit. Yeah, in the moments.

(03:29):
So we're doing this a little different, Chuck than normal. Yes,
it's just you me. Now we have pairs of eyes
on us while we're doing this. That's more than yes,
um u um. And then we also have some special
guests that we're doing for this stuff you should know
about America Live Show, right, friends from the Daily Show

(03:54):
with John Stewart. Right, we have well John Stewart's not here. Yeah,
but that's the full title. I'm told you have to
say it. That's what Hodgment told me. Um. So our
friends from the Daily Show with John Stewart include Wyatt Sinak, right,
do you all know? And love its kay Plat And
one of the esteem Daily Show writers Hallie Haglin. How

(04:15):
are you haying? Howie was also a performer at the
Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater And if you all are fans
of that, then you're pretty smart and cool because it's awesome.
Exactly so well crowd, um, And then we have friends
from The Onion as well, America's finest news source, which
just celebrated its thousand issue last week. Yeah, yeah, it's

(04:39):
been around for a while. We have the editor Joe Randazza. Say,
hi Joe. We have one of the head writers, Joe Garden,
and we have another writer, Jill Morris. Right, yeah, yeah,
hey Joe. So we're not quite a lineup here today, yea,

(05:00):
Joe's Joe's lovely wife, Anita's sitting in front of us. Yeah, hey,
my lovely wife is sitting in front of us. And
then a bunch of strangers. That's not quite true. We
have friends here as well, we do, and thank you
strangers and friends to coming out for this. This is uh,
this is really flattering. So thanks a lot. Thanks. Hopefully
it'll be fun, all right, Yes you want to get started? Yes,

(05:22):
So we supposed to wear these? I mean you can't
if you want. I don't like that. We don't. We
don't normally wear this is like behind the scenes. We
we usually do have headphones and apparently we're the only
ones who don't wear them at stuff. At stuff, you
should know how stuff works. Yeah. I don't think we
should change now, Chuck. I just don't want to get
him sweaty. Okay, so let's start. Um, we're gonna start.

(05:44):
We We recently did a podcast on America's first murder.
I think it came out yesterday, right, Yeah, who was it?
John Billington' that's we just gave away the ending. Um
he uh we we We were digging around like doing
research for this pod cast. Um and uh, I don't
know how many of you have heard it or not,
hopefully very few because we ripped off some of the

(06:05):
content from it for this part. But um, one of
the things we found was that um, John Billington, who
was a Puritan and lived in Plymouth colony. Um. When
we started digging around in Plymouth, calling me, there's this
whole semi underbelly Puritan we should do that. Yeah. Yeah,
the Puritans um that that there was this whole life
of crime that like we had no idea existed. And

(06:29):
so we started digging further and further. We came to realize, like,
America is kind of this like crazy place, right for
a reason, It's been built like echelon by echelon upun
crazy upon crazy right, right, So so we figured we
we just kind of go over some of the the
factors that led to the craziness that that was taking

(06:50):
on the British right. And we had our good friend
Wyatt Senak come by to to talk to us about that. Right, Hey,
why you want to come sit with us? Why not?
Why a senecal everybody? I'm are you gonna wear them?
Because I'm a professional. These headphones were probably worn by

(07:10):
Bridget the Midget on Howard Stern Show. Yeah, you see
that door is tightly sealed. I asked if I could
take a peek since no one's here this weekend. They
said no, no, no one peaks. No, they keep Bababuie
in there her medically sealed. Let me out. Yeah, Um, so,

(07:31):
why as as I'm sure everyone here knows you are,
um formally trained in uh colonial American history. You have
a doctorate in it, right? I do. I have a
doctorate from, uh the University of Hawaii. Go Warriors, right,
Rainbow Warriors. No, it's the University of Hawaii at Arkansas.

(07:54):
Go Warrior. Yeah. Um, well that's why we invited you.
You buy here today. Are you familiar with some of
the uh, the the semior underbelly of American history or
are you just kind of part and parcel to the
you know, the the textbook stuff. I know the textbook
stuff that you know, and I know the stuff that

(08:17):
they talk about in like reality shows when it's like, oh, yeah,
you're gonna go live in like a house, or like
you're gonna go live in like you know. So I
assume it's it was like that where there were there
were camera crews following you everywhere, and we just haven't
found those tapes yet. I assume there are three quarter
inch tapes, So that's probably part of the problem. Nobody

(08:39):
has a three quarter inch machine anymore. Well, we're going
to uh, I guess open your eyes a little bit then,
are you cool with that? So? Um, chuck, one of
the first things that we uh that we figured out. Um.
I guess what caught our attention is um the criminal

(08:59):
element that was in my colony with the the Puritans, right, yes,
And by criminal we mean specifically, uh, buggery. Are you
familiar with buggery? Not on an intimate but I do
know what I do know what buggery is. I should
point out real quick that there was an email exchange

(09:19):
last week, a real email exchange, where Josh had written
this out and said, you know, buggery is a very
polite term for best reality. It's so yeah, and I
had to send him a Neil said, hey, dude, by
the way, buggery is also sodom me. I have the
email still and it's framed and on my wall. I'm
just curious if we have those people at work that
like spying your email. All it literally said was, by

(09:40):
the way, buggery is also saddomy. Josh, Well, I want
you to know that. I also like the idea that
like that, in the time when buggery was popular, that
perhaps if you were a registered buggerer, that like somebody
was like, gross, you're you mess around with animals and
someone would get indignant like no, no, I do not.

(10:03):
I am a sodomist, A very proud one. How dare no?
I would never do that to an animal. They're beautiful creatures,
especially that one. Yeah, okay, maybe I would. Alright, you
got me. I'm an all around buggerast there was an

(10:24):
actual buggers that we came across, right, His name is
Thomas Granger? And um, can you read Old English? Uh? Sure? So?
This is this is a This is a quote from them,
the court records of Plymouth Colony. I think in like
six thirty one? Do you do you mind taking it?
It's right here? Sure, just read. That's just a test

(10:44):
to see if I know how to read read Old English.
They use their vs. Oh is that what that is? Okay?
Do you want me to read it in Old English? Yeah?
Of course it's almost scroll late servants, slutely bruster of ducksborrow?

(11:05):
Was this court? That's how everyone used to sound in America.
Was this court indited for buggery with a mayor, a cow,
two goats, dive of sheep, two calves, and a turkey,
and was found guilty and received sentence of death by

(11:28):
hanging until he was dead. So that's what happened to
you if you were called I guess this guy is
probably like the worst serial buggerist that Plymouth Colony produced
that you know of, but that I can find record.
But what I was gonna say, it does seem like, Okay,
so there's a mayor, a cow, two goats, some sheep,

(11:49):
some calves which I don't know if they're related to
the cow, and a turkey like it does. And I
was saying this to you earlier. Uh. For whatever people
want to say about our technological distractions that we have,
those may be the only things keeping us from having

(12:10):
sex with animals. This is clearly these are board people
that they're just like, I'm bored, and there are no
singles bars. There's just that barn, just that barn and
this groin. Let's makes something happen. Also, I'm just gonna

(12:32):
say this, I'm gonna throw this out there. The turkey.
How do we know that turkey didn't bugger the man?
I think that's an excellent point. Yeah. But so Thomas Granger, right,
he's he's hank filled dead as you just read um
and he got it, would have you believe, right, Well,
that's that's the court records. That's what they say, right,
But the ghost of Thomas Granger. Right, it's still around.

(12:53):
He's not in the barn. Yeah. Well, it's like that movie.
What was the movie where the guy who got electric
key with the death and then like soccer? Was that shocker?
I don't know. Did he come back to life the
Green Shocker? Okay, oh no, no, no, I just want
to talk about that's a clean show, and I know
it just we've been talking about Balty for like seven minutes.

(13:19):
That's true. I'm sorry, it's good he did that. He
did the old English voice and everything. So well. The
point is that there was crazy crime in in Plymouth Colony.
Are you seeing that now? The Puritans? Sure? Yeah? Um
and uh. He got off kind of harshly because he
was a pretty pretty big into the buggery. Other people

(13:41):
would be enjoyed the he got off. I tried not
to laugh so hard. There was something in the air
and everybody needed to release it. I think we're all
more appreciative of it now that we've got it out there. Yes,
but he so he was hanged. Other people were putting
the stocks. Right, if you, uh were a gossip, you

(14:02):
would be dunked on the log is one one type
of punishment. So there's a lot of crime. There's a
lot of punishment, right, weird punishment for weird crime exactly,
Like gossiping was one that you would get you dunked
on a log in a lake that seems like a
weird yeah, which I imagine you'd be tied to the log, gir.
Else they just put you on a log and dunky
and you just fall off and be fine, went back

(14:24):
to shore and be like can I go back home now?
But again it goes that idea of boredom where it's
like we need to punish this person, right, you know,
you can put them in the stocks. That's that's boring,
Like well, no, with the stocks, like apparently people would come,
like they close school down and people would come from
surrounding villages to children laugh and they would have a

(14:46):
sign that said what their crime was obviously sort of
like the scarlet letter. So being in the stocks was
like being a stand up comedian basically what sort of
you talk about all of your problems or in this case,
they put a sign up of all your problems and
people would laugh at them. I think there's less money
and stand up though, as I understand it, so um
apparently finding a house is a really really difficult thing, right,

(15:10):
it was very difficult. Like, they lived in caves originally. Yeah,
did you know this. I didn't know this that they
lived that there was some there was a lot of
cave living. So yeah. So they so they get to
the New World and they're like, well, I don't know
how to build a house. I thought you knew how
to build a house. And they had to live in
caves a while until they figured out how to build
a house. And then the houses they built were, um,
really crude and rudimentary, like they were. They were thatched,

(15:33):
covered in mud with sticks, with maybe a hole in
the in the top, right, which apparently still kills two
million people a year. Did you know that I had
to bring me down. Having a hole in your roof
kills two millions. Not having a hole in your roof
particulate matter. Fact, Yeah, it really is. So wait, so

(15:54):
you're saying like, if you live in an apartment, because
there's no hole in your apartment, you're you're dead, right
only if you're in your apartment right now, get out.
Don't cook anything with dung in your apartment. And that's
actually good to know just in general, that's why people
die though it's sad, it's not funny. No, but and
and um and apparently in the colonies to that, you

(16:16):
had to keep your fire going because no one had matches, right,
so if you let your fire go out, you had
you go to the neighbor's house and borrow a charcoal. Yeah,
and it sounds I don't know, people are living in caves,
they don't have fire. It sounds like, uh, I don't understand. Yeah,
I thought they were a little more advanced than that.
And you know, it was apparently a roll bumber because

(16:37):
you had to start your own fire. And I don't know,
I don't buy it. There's something though about like they
had to keep their fire going, like all the time
that you look at just how far we have or
have not common that they wasted a lot of energy
back then and we still do it today thanks for fathers.

(16:59):
Very true. But the hole in the roof we bring
up because it would also you know, it's kind of crappy,
it would let in rain and snow and other drastic elements.
So the one guy who could build the houses, Thomas Stranger,
I guess, wasn't around, so they so they had to
find once they got sick of the caves they had

(17:20):
to find. That's where that comes from. Yeah, that's called quest.
Bugging out is all about. Oh, there was a New
York animal sex and scene that they were. It was
a warning to people like, look, you don't want to
be bugging out because they will hang you to death,

(17:41):
that's right, and death by hanging until you were dead,
which I thought was a little weird. So they eventually
did get houses though, because there were these people that
maybe you've not heard of, called Indians that lived in
this country, and uh, we did a nice job of
coming over and killing them with disease thanks to it
was it Desto that brought over the pigs. Here was

(18:03):
one of them, but yeah, De Soto brought over like
three to eat and he just made him walk around
until he kill him and eat them because you can't
really pack a lunch back then, right, Well, I mean
it makes sense, it makes sense. But they spread like pox. Yeah,
so the pigs killed the Indians and then they're like, hey,
now we got a place to live. Look at all
these awesome Indian huts. It took them a little while

(18:24):
to figure it out, but then they that's the first
example of gentrification. It was. That was the Williamsburg Brooklyn
of colonial life. So, um, we've got cave living. We
have a lot of a lot of abandoned dead Indian houses, right,

(18:45):
since we now agreed, are the first hipsters right right?
I'm sure they also had twirly mustaches, right, yeah it did. Yeah.
Um And and then uh, you pretty much have to
make anything that you you know, want, right, It didn't
bring anything over with them. See, to like churn butter,
you had to plant crops. He had to so crops

(19:08):
is that so? Is that same thing as plant harvest read? Yes,
so so seeds yes? Um? And you fear the reaper.
You have to make your candles um. And pretty much
like so it is everything that hipsters and williamsburn exactly.

(19:29):
We're uncovering a thread here that like I didn't realize
it was in there. If you want to see colonial America,
that's why it is. That is colonial Williamsburg. It's not
in Virginia. Yeah, that's wow. Look at that. It all
came around the brain is working, not feeling well in
the tummy, but the brain function and he just turns

(19:52):
it on like that. I know. It's amazing. Um, and
then so you've got all this work, right, You've got
indentured servants. At first, Yeah, they came over with a
promise of land, right, like, hey, I'll come up there
work for you for you know, four years if you
give me a parcel. And then it's like AmeriCorps, right
pretty much. And then they ran out right, I think

(20:12):
most of them got hung. And then just like America,
somebody figured out that if you left um, Massachusetts and
just followed the trade winds, it took you right to
West Africa. So apparently we started to go to West
Africa and get all sorts of free labor, and like
between fourteen fifty nine hundred, like eleven million people were

(20:34):
captured and brought to the America's right, it's one way
to say it. Yeah, that's one way to put it. Um.
So we've got now everything in place, right. We have
crazed like um animals, starved hipsters running around. These are
the columnists with the will to carve out, you know,
their place in the wilderness. You've got um uh, we

(20:56):
have slave labor, we have dead Indians um, and we
have butter churning right, the whole thing. Everything, it's just
a really rotten life for everybody involved. Right, But out
of all this came like these cities around sev Dred.
A little after that, you've got cities like Boston and Philadelphia,
and they were starting to get nicer and nicer, and

(21:16):
people started to take a little more pride in them,
and um, all of a sudden, the British start flexing
their muscles, right, And uh, I think because of the
niceness of the cities, you you have this a certain
level of resentment among the colonists of being told what
to do. Like you're you're familiar with the Stamp Act.
That was a big one, the t act that led
to the Boston Tea Party. Okay, yeah, I don't realized

(21:40):
that was all forms of paper at the time, is
that right, the Stamp Act. Yeah, yeah, like any piece
of paper you had to pay a tax on. They
just didn't like that. It's kind of weird tax if
you think about it. The t tex really joving crazy though,
And then you had to a quarter British soldiers, which
meant like let them stay in your house, which is
kind of a thing too, which is nice if you

(22:01):
need like a roommate or something like, yeah, I'm kind
of lonely and there's no TV back. Now you need
like an extra hand around the house, right, yeah, yeah, right,
Hey British soldier, would you mind grabbing me out of
the non existent fridge? My arms about to fall off? Yeah. Um, well,

(22:24):
so I guess you're right. I think you make a
pretty good point that like quartering British soldiers weren't that bad.
So it was the taxes I think that really got them.
And um, one of the things that the colonists did
was to um, basically tar and feather text collectors. Are
you familiar with this processing feather? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, they
still do it in Williamsburg. Bring it all back to Williamsbrook.

(22:47):
It's the only thing I know. And so so it's
a it's a pretty horrific process, right, I mean, to
get the tar onto somebody's skin because that boils because
it's gonna be hot, right, and then the feathers is
just adding insult to injury. Yeah, I'm sure that point.
The feathers are probably not as bad. It was just like,
oh god, this tar, Oh this is terrible. Why are

(23:07):
you putting feather? I mean that's fine, but really the
tar you could have just stopped at the tar perfectly, honest,
Oh this hurts so much. Well, then the feathers might
have provided a nice cooling effect. You never know, and
that was their little secret. They were like, no, not
the feathers. It looks like a chicken. But it's okay,
Oh thank you, hollow feather. The wind blows through you

(23:32):
so well. But whether without the feathers, it was pretty
awful right to have the hot tar. World agreed on that. Yeah,
you point out specifically in here that it's a lot
worse than you might think, you know. I was like,
it's actually I thought to begin with it, it was
probably pretty bad. Well, no, it's so cartoonist, you know,
taring and feathering somebody I think Scooby Doo did it before.
It just seems like, you know, what's a big deal.

(23:53):
But then you think, well, a hot boiling tar. You
ever been waxed? No, yeah, that's that's hot too. Yeah
well then because yeah, because then you gotta take it
off and problem. Yeah, and it's like you use like
turpentine or which then that burns which when you and
you maybe probably still have little chunks of tar on

(24:16):
you for the rest of your life, like you're never
totally clean, which is also like a time when everybody
had bed bugs and like that was just a thing
like actually, Williamsburg is totally fine. We got rid of
the bed bugs there. It's all in bushwork. Those jerks.

(24:38):
Um No. But that's like the weird thing when you
think about, like, oh, yeah, it would be interesting to
have a time machine and go back to that time
and see people. No it wouldn't. You got like some
guy who's still trying to like pick off tar on
his arm and then it's just like pock marked all
over from bed bugs and dysenterry or whatever else whatever

(24:59):
horrible things. People probably looked horrible. They like, that's the one,
like everybody looks like mutants back then, just saying no,
it's not, it's really it's just a point that when
we look back at, you know, this time with like
great affection, we should also realize, like, these are some
awful looking mutant people. But I think I think that's

(25:21):
the point. I think they were aware of this. They
were aware that they had bed bugs, they were covered
in hot tar um they had did they just accepted
as like like I feel like if all you know
is bed bugs, you don't know a world without bed bugs.
Like you're just kind of like like if you if
you showed up, if you've got a time machine and
showed up like you are, you know, with your fancy

(25:43):
haircut and your exfoliated skin, people would be like a demon,
where are his bug bites? He just pets that cow.
He doesn't try to have sex with him. Burn the
witch didn't put him on a log and dunk him.

(26:07):
See but um, according to the um, the thing that
I wrote, though they were aware of it is the thing, right,
which is what drove them crazy to to you know,
they were crazy enough to take on the bridge, which
little known fact by the way, right this this um,
this taxation that drove them to tar and feather people
without representation. Well that was the big problem. To keep

(26:29):
an eye on, d seat because they don't like it either, right, Um.
But they these taxes, most of them were repealed because
of the tarring and feathering right before they were ever
even enacted. But the colonists still decided, no, we're gonna
revolt anyway. We really like Philadelphia, it's pretty nice. We're
kind of tired of having you here. So they took
on the world's largest military, the controller of the largest

(26:52):
empire from Canada to India. Canada, Canada, India. Yeah, I
had no idea. It's married had for a long time. Um.
And and they won, right sure, Yeah, using things like
crazy guerrilla tactics. That was one way. Yeah, um. And
then so on what I think June eleventh, eighth Chuck,

(27:14):
June eleventh, the eighteenth only took that many days for T. J.
Thomas Jefferson, who also rewrote the Bible, and some of
you may know from listening to our show, he decided
to take a break from that blasphemy to draft the
Declaration of Independence, and it only took him what seven days?
Seven days? God created in the earth in seven days,

(27:35):
you'd think that, you know, it's not that long of
a document. Really, it's a one cheat, right, could just
bang that. I couldn't bang that out in a day
in an afternoon? Seriously, right now, I bet all of
us could write our own declarations of independence, just text
it the one another. Yeah, we could just we could
tweet some time at the end. Maybe everybody could just

(27:58):
take a half hour to right there start reading them.
I think that would be a nice thing. I think
if everybody wrote their own declaration of independence. Uh and
uh then we all put on hats with little tea
bags on them and go to a tea party rally
and say this is the this is the declaration. We
should all follow this one because I don't like the

(28:22):
current one because it got weird now somehow for some reason. Um, yeah, well,
thanks guys for stopping. But thanks. Yeah. Now let's get
back to midnight Sounds with thank you. Why it's tonack everybody,

(28:44):
thank you. This is stuff you should know about America
tend the serious X time studios in New York City.
Now more from Josh and Chuck. How about that holl
the better than you know that? Well, we're winging it.
You know, are you staying? What? Yeah? I mean you
don't have to. I know you're not feeling Yeah. Why
it came in here, like on his deathbed to do this,

(29:05):
so goodbye? Why? Thank you everybody? And whyat I felt
like he was gonna stay and then I ran them out.
Clearly he told me he was leaving. It's not my fault.
So um, that's okay, right, Jill seems to think, So okay,

(29:29):
thanks j um. What do we have next, Chuck, We're
gonna we're gonna talk about America right throughout this. That's right,
And what's more American than baseball? Baseball? I'm holding up
a baseball for those of you listening in three hours
on Series X. M uh yeah, baseball. We thought about, hey,
we should do something on apple pie and baseball and Chevrolet.

(29:51):
But apple pie is kind of boring, and Chevrolet we
you know, there's obviously implications there. We've spent a little
time looking for a well pie recipe and realized that, yeah,
unless we could have somebody actually making it. As I understand,
it kind of sunk in pretty quickly that we weren't
going to do that apple to stick to baseball. But Chuck,

(30:13):
you're you're out of the two of us, you're definitely
the sports guy, right, Yes, so you want to you
want to tell everybody about Mordecai Brown. Yes, this is
the history and how to throw a curveball. We will
teach you all this so you can go practice at
home in Williamsburg. U. The curveball actually was not invented
by this guy, but it's definitely the better story of

(30:34):
of the three dudes who were kind of the first
ones that throw a curveball. And his name was Mordecai
Peter Centennial Brown, later to be known as Mordecai three
finger Brown. And that is foreshadowing, right, And he was
he was named centennial because he was born in eighty right,
But I didn't know that? Is that extra research? Yeah?
Well no, I mean he was born a hundred years

(30:57):
after the country's birth, and says I figured it had
something to do with it, So he was named He
was a centennial baby, that's right. And he was a
baseball fan as a small child and wanted to play
in the big leagues, the burgeoning big leagues, and he
uh didn't heat his parents advice, and he put his
hand I would guess by accident into a witch chipper,

(31:17):
a food chopper, a food chopper, feed chopper, feed chopper.
It's a big difference what is for animals. And what
it did was it cut off I believe his index
finger on his right hand, and uh mangled the others.
And if that's not enough, a few weeks later, I
believe while he was still healing, he slipped and fell
and broke and mangled the rest of his fingers. He

(31:39):
was a he was a rambunctious young man. So that's
where he got the name three fingers, leaving him with
three and had his thumb. But they were very um
they were very accurate back then because tectually the thumb
is not a finger. That's right. Did you see a
picture of this guy's hand. No, isn't messed up. It
was messed up. He's got like the one finger that
was man literally made like a right turn at the

(32:02):
middle knuckle. But this was all good news. So don't
feel bad for Mordecai three fingers Brown because uh, what
he did years later he went to work in the
coal mines of western Indiana and this is not good
improved and uh. He had a coworker named Legs O'Connell.

(32:22):
I couldn't make this stuff up. His name was Legs o. Colin.
He was a former Big leaguer and he encouraged three fingers.
He's like, yeah, you should go try and pitch with
that funky looking hand, your friend. It might do some
weird stuff. And it did. What it did was it
caused a inordinate amount of pop spin that was very
frustrating at first until he realized that that top spin

(32:44):
curved the ball if he could control it. Advantage. That's right, Yeah,
because think about it, he's he's missing, he's down at
an index finger, so he's holding the ball like that. Yeah.
So yeah, it's gonna produce top spin. And while I
was researching this in our office, I kept like going
like this, yeah, yeah, that's exactly trying to figure out yea,

(33:07):
but yes, so we figured it out right, but I
think we should. I don't know if he fully understood it.
Mordecai Brown, right, three fingers, three fingers, Um, he mastered it.
Who knows if he fully understood it, because it was
only like twenty years earlier that a guy named Gustav
Magnus right came up with this, this idea called the

(33:28):
Magnus effect, that explains how a curveball works. Right. So
the physics of it are that the the spin of
the ball when you throw a curveball. And this is
mainly for you guys here in the studio audience, be
holding up this baseball. This is an apple pie, and
how you make it. But when you when you throw
a curveball and you give it topspin, the seams hit

(33:49):
the air right, and the way they hit the air, um,
the flow of air causes friction, right, So there's like
you said, in an inordinate amount of friction on the
on the top of the ball because it's fighting the
wind essentially right, So it's higher pressure here, lower pressure
down below because it's going with the wind exactly. Um.
So it creates kind of this whirlpool underneath the ball,
and the magnets force, which is the downward pull of

(34:11):
it into that whirl pool, causes a ball to suddenly drop.
That's right. And Magnus figured this out because I believe
it was he saw a spinning sphere underwater and notice it.
If it was spinning and water, it moved, it was
forced to move to the side. So he wasn't a
baseball guy. This is maybe before baseball, was it. Yeah,

(34:33):
it was like eighteen fifty. Do we have any baseball
fishingados Koobi eighteen fifty baseball? Yes or no? Not a baseball.
So Magnets figures this out. Three Fingers figures this out.
Three Fingers played for the Cubbies in UH nineteen o

(34:53):
three and was a member, a very important member of
the last World Series team the Cubs ever had in
nineteen o eight, nineteen o nine, nineteen o nine. He
was the that was their first pennant, and then they
won consecutive pennants. Right, so the nineteen o nine Cubs
were the last ones to win the pennant. Right, you're right,
but he did not invent the curveball. Is just the
best story that kirkball is generally credited to Fred Goldsmith

(35:17):
and William Arthur Candy Cummings and I don't know why
I made air quotes. I don't know why he was
named Candy. But he was apparently five eight and twenty pounds,
so he may have just been a little plaything of
a baseball player at the time, although he was probably
big at the time. Yeah, yeah, but he was a
giant foreshadowing. So um, when those guys were pitching, though,

(35:39):
like thirty years before, um three fingers like the the curveballer,
they called it the skew ball, the skew ball, and
pitchers were called twirlers. Right. Well, the twirlers who threw
skew balls were thought to be an ill repute because
that was just kind of you know, the rules, Yeah,
you can't throw a ball that curves. By the time
more it kind of came around, it was you know,

(35:59):
his curveball was so sweet that they let it in
plus the hand they kind of felt bad for him
something to do it, so Chuck. There's also a lot
of discussion that's been going on, and I don't know
if it's still settled um or not, but there's there's
a lot of people wonder if the curveball actually exists
or if it's an optical illusion. Right, yeah, I remember
hearing about that a while ago, and I supposedly does exist.

(36:22):
The physicians are physicists totally. Physicists have have concluded that yes,
the curveball does exist. It's this magnus effect um. But
still there the the explanation of how it could be
an optical illusion. It is pretty interesting, right Yeah. This

(36:43):
guy from the University of Pennsylvania, Arthur Shapiro of Bucknell University,
I'm sorry, in Pennsylvania is a real buzz kill of
a guy because he tried to prove it that the
curveball didn't exist, right, and uh, he was wrong. Right. Yeah.
The way he saw it was that when you're standing
there taking a pitch, the ball comes from your central

(37:04):
vision and then all of a sudden it hits your
peripheral vision and at about that time it appears to
just jerk suddenly jump back. Um. That was his explanation
for the optical illusion. But it looks like upon recent
camera work that there is such a thing as a curveball.
It actually does move right, and it moves gradually. And

(37:25):
then the reason it appears to break so hard when
you're in the batter's boxes because you're not facing the
picture dead on. And I have a theory of the
guys that have the more open stance and the ladies, uh,
maybe they hit curveballs a little bit better because they're
facing a picture amountain. I don't know if it's that's
my own personal theory. That's fine, good stuff. We'll go
with that. You uh you, who's your favorite curveball thrower? Oh?

(37:48):
Even better, what's your favorite name for a curveball esque pitch? Oh? Boy,
I didn't know you're gonna ask me this. I'm gonna
go with the big break big. But I like the
fork ball. The forkball because there's different methods of throwing
the curve. There's the slider, yeah, and they all curve.

(38:10):
There's the Japanese shoot, though I've never heard of that one.
I hadn't either until this one. They play baseball in Japan.
And also I wanted to point out to that U
the raised stitches uh is white curves more and cheaters
scuff up the ball. That's why in the old days
you would see pictures cheating with like an emery board

(38:32):
in their pocket and they would scuff up the ball
as much as possible. And also the reason why they
switch out the baseball so much, because the more the
ball is scuffed up, the more it's gonna curve and
be unfair for the batters. There's some twirlers of ill repute,
there's there are. And so that's a curveballs. You got
anything else, I think that's it. Man, nice, that's curveballs.

(38:54):
This is stuff you should know about America from the
serious X time studios in New York City now more
or from Josh and Chuck and that was jazz hands.
Now I'll give people clapping every time somebody wants to fight,
you go like this. It's the starting classroom. So up
next we have something I am really excited about because

(39:15):
I have no idea what we're in store for, to
be honest, I know that it is called Unsung American Exports,
and I know our buddy Joe Garden from The Onion
and Joe Morris are going to present it, and that's
all I know. And ladies and gentlemen, Joe and Jill Gosh,

(39:36):
this is uh am. I I don't actually hear myself
being projected because we're in this sort of aquarium like structure.
It's called the fish bowl. The fishbowl, I feel like
the tresure chest in the fish bowl. You are um anyway,
I would like to uh to point out Josh and
Chunk do not know what I'm doing. This is based
on my own research, and the press is really on.
So I would like to encourage you all if you

(39:57):
find factual inaccuracies, which you probably ill uh fact check gently,
don't don't be angry, just sort of say, hey, you
know you made a mistake and uh correct corrected dust lye.
I also have another disclaimer. The following presentation contains information
about sexually transmitted diseases, which we already sort of I mean,
I don't even know if I need this after after

(40:19):
the buttery uh. And it also breaks us to doubt
the question of a certain gift bearing figure popular with children.
You may wish to usher those under the age of
twelve out of the room. I'll wait, are they gone? Okay,
screw those kids anyway. Uh, wow, Jerry's cracking up over there.
She's she's not actually in the She's not actually here.

(40:40):
I decided to if I was gonna do a stuff
you should know event I was just gonna go waist
deep with it. I always wanted to say that. Um
So moving on. I heard an interesting anecdote earlier this week.
Um as at a party that featured a lot more
taxiderman animals and I'm accustomed to seeing. And I met
a I met a Pakistani documentary and uh, and we

(41:01):
struck up a conversation. And in the course of in
the course of our conversation, he found out I worked
for the Onion. And he said, Oh, here's something you
really should know. In my hometown of Karachi. Uh, there
are you know, there are a lot of us. There
are a lot of like suicide bombings of subject covered
by an earlier podcast, um, and a lot of terrorist attacks.

(41:22):
And uh. But the interesting thing is the terrorists usually
target KFC or Pizza Hut and almost never target McDonald's.
And I was really interested in this because when people
think of American imperialist restaurant hegemony. Uh. They always think
of the Golden arches. I mean it's everywhere. If I mean,
I would have thought that somebody looking to attack of

(41:42):
somembol of the United States would have just gone to
the to the McDonald's, no questions asked um. So I
asked why the terrorists choice was KFC. He said that
people just like McDonald's more so, this is yet another
way that I do not sympathize with terrorists. And we
had we had a McDonald before we came here. I
did not. I am that's okay, So you did. I

(42:05):
I used the WiFi and sit nervously, Uh at an
imaginary pile of water. Uh. So I wasn't gonna get
kicked out. Um, but I haven't done so. Anyway, I
just like to put out I have not verified this
fact to independent sources, so please use caution futures to
repeat this fact as it stands. I'm not even sure
how you would research something like that. I tried Google
searching Karachi McDonald's bombings, Uh, karake KFC bombings. They have

(42:27):
both come up. Um. But if you do manage to
verify it, please let me know, so I can use
it again at future radio events. In any case, this
all leeds bet to my team today. UH President Calladge Coolidge.
Calvin Coolidge famously said, the business of America is business,
and this maximums led the United States to all corners
of the globe. There's the transformers in China, there's Harley

(42:49):
Davidson's and Dubai Miller Beer in Germany. But what about
the exports that aren't monetized? Who will celebrate those things
that have an impact it can't be measured in billions
or even hundreds of dollars. Why that person would me
Joe Garden, with the assistance of Onion contributing writer Joe Morris,
who'll be providing pertinent fact notes or footnotes to my rambling.
First up, Santa Claus, before you jumped on my throat,

(43:11):
I'd like to a knowledge that Santa Claus is not
of us origin per se. He's an amalgama of several
figures that drew from St. Nicholas. That it primarily drew
from St. Nicholas, who plays gifts in children's stockings hunting
from the hearth every December five. After the Reformation, the
Dutch disavowed all Catholic saints, and particularly they tried to
ban the celebration of St. Nicholas's holiday. But when you

(43:33):
try to take a gift giving holiday away from people people,
they don't react very well to it. So one thing
did is a Dutch change the name from St. Nicholas
to uh, where is it again? Oh? Here we go.
The figure is Center Class, who would sail from Spain
and travel from house to house and the company of
Black Pete distributing spice nuts and candies. Two good children.
Black Pete was a devil Center Clause had defeated and

(43:56):
made to do his bidding, usually depicted by the very
Caucasian much as a man in black face. The legend
changed in the eighteen fifties, at which point he became
a former slave that Santa Claus has freed. Dutch parents
threatened their children by saying that if they're good, Black
Pete will bring them candy and toys, but if they're bad,
he'll stuff them in his double bag and take them
back to Spain. The early Dutch settlers but thought brought

(44:21):
Oh I'm sorry, yeah, the early Dutch settlers brought Santa
Claus back with them to the New World, where his
name was changed to Santa Claus and the race of
the sidekick was dropped. An eighteen sixty three illustration of
Santa Claus by Thomas Nass is generally credited as being
the first defining depiction of Santa Claus as the roton
jolly figure we know today, and Coca Cola's use of
the characters cemented him in the American public consciousness. Now

(44:42):
he lives in the North Pole, whereas elves make the
toys he delivers too good children every Christmas Eve. The
North Pole is the northernmost part of the world and
is often written on an envelope which contains a child's
wishes for Santa, such which is may include please help
my parents get back together, please kill my parents, and
gimme guinea guinea bike bike bike. As most cultural traditions

(45:07):
brought to America, he was in short order repackages a
pitchman and shoved down the throats of every human with
two pieces of currency to rub together. All this would
be finding good. But so long as Hollywood makes Santa
themed entertainment and keeps appearing as a show for numerous
consumer goods, Santa refuses to be contained by American boundaries.
As his popularity grows and spreads across the globe, Santa
Claus is in danger of edging out local Christmas figures,

(45:27):
and that's not sitting very well with these locals. A
school in Brighton, England, banned depictions of Father Christmas in
a red suit, saying that it's smacked of commercialism. A
group of check advertising professionals stated started an anti Santa
Claus website uh to protest the replacement of its own
gift giving figure, UH, pardon my check, genterle Hicks actually

(45:52):
oh great, which it translates roughly as Baby Jesus. And
in Austria, the christ Child brings gift to Austrian children,
and some of the Austrian's mobilized to hand out anti
Santa stickers because they didn't want them to to dominate.
It seemed like I kind of a hopeless battle, though,
because the jolly old Elf is coming to your land
whether you like it or not. My next American export

(46:12):
is a little harder to tie down than Santa Claus,
but even further reaching. I'm speaking, of course, about syphilis.
It's very difficult to pinpoint the origin of syphilis. There
are no Thomas Nast drawings of the spirituet that causes
the disease, nor was it popularized by a soft drink company.
It was mostly popularized by the oldest profession in the world. Um. However,

(46:34):
medical historians and anti anthropologists have determined that syphilis didn't
exist in you Are prior to the discovery of the
New World. When examining skeletal remains of pre nineteen fourto Europeans,
there's plenty of evidence of other diseases from the same
species as syphilis, such as pinta and yawss are such
great disease names. He yaws such. It sounds so old timey,

(46:55):
but it's also probably very terrifying. But none that both
the same end results of syphilis, such as the near
destruction in the name a passage and the formation of
Carrie's sica. Carrious sica is a deformation of the bone
that starts as a depression of the outer layer and
sometimes the middle layer. When it heals, it leaves a nodule,
resulting in bony protrusion surrounded by depression you. The commonly

(47:18):
accepted theories that the venereal syphilis was brought back to
Europe by the member by members of Christopher Columbus Crew
from the Dominican Republic. They left to find a new
route to space, to the new route to uh India,
and instead came back with a disease that can result
in madness and death. Even though Ulysses S. Grant wanted
to annex the Dominican Republic in eighteen seventy one, it
was rejected by Congress. It is a sovereign nation in

(47:39):
the Caribbean, not part of the United States, and it's
a stretch to include it in your little speech about
American exp That may be true, Jill, but the United
States recognized this Columbus Day as a holiday, and as
a result, I think it's fair game. It's a new
world export. The first documented cases occurred in four in Naples, Italy,
after allowing its invasion by the French. As it was

(48:02):
a venarial disease, no one wanted to lay claim to it.
It was called the French pox by the Germans and English.
The Russians called it the Polish sickness, and the Poles
in turn called the German sickness. However, it's spread and
infected such notables as composer Franz Schubert, gangster al Capone,
philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, painter Edward Money, and possibly Hitler. So

(48:23):
Joe Garden has endured many medical conditions, including appendicitis, model nucleosis,
and several nasty flues. He has never contracted syphilis. I
had to use this little soapbox to advertise that fact.
By the way, so this leads us to our next
to our next export, the raccoon. I know it's sort

(48:45):
of a weird uh. You don't think of the raccoons
as anything is, Like, you know, if you see them
on television or film, they always just sort of look cute.
They're fuzzy, little bandit masks and graggy little paws are
kind of adorable. They almos look like they have little
black human hands. They're very cute. But anybody's ever shine
a flashlight and a rattling, rustling tree at night and
seeing their beady little eyes glowering back at you know

(49:05):
that there's something more sinister than a Grizzly Adam's sidekick.
Within the Life and Time of Grizzly Adams was a
television show about a man wrongly accused of murder who
ran to the mountains and befriended raccoons, a bear, and
the guy who played Uncle Jesse on Dukes of Hazzards.
It ran for two seasons in nineteen seventy seven and
nineteen seventy eight. It's star Dan Haggerty was arrested for

(49:28):
selling cocaine Indigenous in North America, raccoons can go to
the size of a small dog. In two thousand six,
they accounted from nearly thirty eight percent of rabies cases
reported in the United States, edging out bats and skunks.
They made themselves at home in rural and urban environments
and are not terribly deterred by the presence of humans.
A cursory research of raccoon plus cat door on YouTube

(49:52):
will send you down a rabbit hole of terrifying videos
featuring them entering homes to try to steal food. YouTube
is a video share website in which users upload their
own videos to that others may watch right and comment
on them. This joke is originally by Josh Clark and
a previous stuff You Should Know podcasts. Yes, raccoons are jerks,

(50:16):
but did you also know they have a Nazi connection?
You should know what Nazis are. It's true. Uh. In
nineteen thirty four, a German animal breeder approach to the
Rich Forestry Office then headed by Herman Gearing with a
plan to breathe the raccoon in order to enrich the
local fauna. The rationalbums that they would be popular game

(50:37):
for hunters and their pelts. The pelts could be put
to good us. But they didn't count on was that
the credit the crafty credits powers of exponential Reproduction. It
looks so good on paper, that phrase, and say it
the crafty credits powers of exponential reproduction. Thank you. Uh. Now,
there between a hundred thousand and a million raccoons in

(50:59):
German and they haven't stopped there. They spread all over
the continental Europe and have even crossed the Channel through
the channel and invaded England. Game over. Now, after those three,
I would like to end on a we're running pretty long, actually,
so I apologize for that. Are you do you need
some water? Okay? Uh, I can get sick later. But

(51:22):
he was, oh, never mind. Uh So anyway, I like
not a high note hip hop. Uh. In my lifetime,
there's been no cultural movement that it spread as far
and as fast as hip hop. In fact, because it's
instill an art form in motion and because I'm running very,
very long, hip hop is going to get the short
shrift as usual. Um began at parties in the Bronx

(51:42):
in the early nineteen seventies. DJ Or, Jamaican born DJ
cool Hirk is considered the father of hip hop for
introducing the concept of wrapping over music and break beats.
Breakbeats are the funkiest instrumental parts of a song that
are best suited for dancing at. DJ would isolate the
break beat on two different turntables to create a party
that can't stop. Won't stop a hip hop hip into

(52:03):
the hip to the hip hip hop and you don't
stop rocking? Uh, And we've sold out of the Bronx
and broke big when the song Rappers Delight In charted
on the Billboard one nineteen seventy nine. Since then, it's
been an unstoppable musical jugunat, dominating the American charts and
consciousness and moving outward. Hip hop has established itself in

(52:23):
the UK, France, Germany, South Africa, Tanzania, Japan and Anesia, Argentina, Russia,
Poland and so on and so on. For more information,
please consult your local library. Thank you all very much.
You are wonderful and lovely audience. So that's the end
of part one. Yes, and I don't even know where
we've cut this yet. Maybe it's a cliffhanger, or maybe

(52:46):
it was just between segments. I'm thinking it's not a cliffhanger.
Probably not. We'll see what happened to America. That could
be good. It's a great cliffhanger. Yeah. Um, so that,
like you said, it's the end of part one. Uh,
join us and what Thursday? Yeah? Okay for the for
part two? Yes, coming up next in two days or

(53:07):
if you've downloaded both of them on Thursday right now,
be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff
from the Future. Join houst Work staff as we explore
the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought to
you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,

(53:30):
are you

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