December 11, 2017 • 10 mins
In this bonus episode, OZY brings you our first mini-Thread which begins with one of William Shakespeare's characters uttering a single word in 1597 and ends as a passenger plane plunges into the waters outside Boston almost four centuries later.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
It was a clear, golden New England evening on October fourth,
nineteen sixty. The sun was ready to set over the
yachts anchored in Winthrop Harbor in Boston. The residents of
Winthrop were just sitting down to their suppers when an
explosion that sounded like a sonic boom interrupted the calm.
(00:27):
The deafening noise was the sound of a plane slamming
into the sea seconds after takeoff from Boston's Logan Airport.
All but ten of the seventy two aboard Eastern Airlines
Flight three seventy five were killed. You would never imagine
that William Shakespeare had anything to do with this tragedy,
but believe it or not, the disaster can be traced
(00:48):
back to one of the Bard's most obscure plays, one
written over three hundred and sixty years earlier, the one
that makes reference to a particular bird Every gun Ship Start. Yes,
(01:18):
I'm Sean Braswell and welcome to The Thread, a podcast
from Azzi Media where we examine the interlocking lives and
events of history. This past season, we pulled the thread
on the murder of John Lennon. Season two will debut
early next year, but we'd like to share some bonus episodes.
In the meantime, we call them many threads. Here's the first,
about a nineteen sixty aviation disaster, actually sparked by William Shakespeare.
(01:47):
It's hard to go a day in an English speaking
country without encountering a word or phrase that originated with
England's famous sixteenth century bard wild goose chase. That's Shakespeare.
Love is blind Shakespeare. It's Greek to me break the
ice kill with kindness all Shakespeare. But it's not just
his creative word play that captures our imagination. Sometimes it's
(02:09):
what he references birds. For example, it is not yet
near day. It was the nightingale, and not the law
that appears the fearful hollow of thine ear nightly she
sings on yon, pomegranitree, believe me love, it was the nightingale,
was the law the herald of the moon? No nightingale.
(02:34):
But there's one reference to a starling in all of
Shakespeare's plays. It's in a play you probably didn't read
in school, The Obscure Henry the fourth Part one. The
reference is found in the first act, scene three. A
fiery nobleman named Hotspur is upset with King Henry because
he refused to ransom his brother in law, Mortimer, who
(02:54):
was captured in a battle with the Scots. Hotspur promises
he will not let the matter, even if it means
training a particular bird to badger the king. They I'll
have a starling, So we talked to speak nothing but
Maltimon give it. And with the writing of those words,
the seeds of a disaster. Nearly four centuries later, we're planted.
(03:21):
Shakespeare chose the starling as hotspurs fanciful Avian accomplice because
it can mimic almost anything, especially other birds. But there
are a few more things you need to know about
starlings for this story thread. First, they are small, thick set,
dark birds with white speckles. They weigh about two and
a half ounces, but they are packed with muscle. Starlings
(03:41):
are twice as heavy as they should be for their size. Second,
starlings traveling gangs, very large gangs called murmurations. Sometimes the
number of starlings and a murmuration could number in the thousands.
If you have ever witnessed a large murmuration of starlings
as it soars and swoops across the sky, like one
big creature. It's an experience you will not soon forget.
(04:10):
One final fact you need to know. Starlings are native
to Europe. Yet more than two hundred million starlings are
estimated to live in North America today. There were none
here during Shakespeare's time. So what happened, Well, for that
we have a single man to thank, an eccentric Bronx
resident who loved birds, and the bard who was this
(04:36):
bird lover. His name was Eugene Chieflin, and he had
a master plan. The wealthy New York drug maker wanted
to introduce all of the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's plays
to North America. Many of his attempts were unsuccessful, but
not with the starling. He released sixty of the birds
in Central Park in and there was every reason to
(04:56):
believe the Avian immigrants would not survive the harsh New
York winter, but some of the small flock of European
pilgrims managed to find shelter in the eaves of the
American Museum of Natural History on the park's west side,
and the starlings did what Schiaflin hoped they would do.
They went forth and multiplied big time, and not just
(05:19):
in New York City. Starlings reached the Mississippi River by
nineteen thirty. By nineteen fifty, they were pretty much everywhere
and drove out Native American species like bluebirds and woodpeckers,
which is how Shakespeare's single fictional starling came to be
get over two hundred million flesh and blood descendants in
North America. One of the North American starling's favorite nest
(05:42):
sites in the mid twentieth century was Tobin Bridge in Boston.
The city's big dig construction project would eventually change that,
but over one hundred and fifty thousand starlings used to
flock to Tobin Bridge every evening at sunset as commuters
drove home. It seemed harmless enough, even beautiful. Up next,
Eugene Chieflins starling spark an unforgettable tragedy. They hit the
(06:09):
front of the airplane, resembling machine gun fire, just burning.
There wasn't a square inch in my windshield that wasn't splattered.
I couldn't see a thing. That's a reading of an
account from Captain W. H. Jenkins. His plane was still
on the runway at Boston's Logan Airport in nineteen sixty
when the starlings hit his windshield. He was able to
(06:29):
bring the aircraft to a stop. But two weeks earlier,
on October fourth, Eastern Airlines Flight three seventy five was
not so lucky. A cloud of starling's headed home to
Tobin Bridge, maybe twenty thousand of them, collided with the
plane seven seconds after takeoff. Three of the plane's four
propeller engines were overrun with birds. It happened so quickly
(06:51):
the pilots did not utter a word to the Logan
Airport tower. The plane rolled and crashed almost vertically into
the harbors shallow water, not far from where cousins of
yachts were anchored offshore. It remains the worst bird strike
in US aviation history. Starlings may be small, but they
(07:13):
are considered by aviation experts to be a lethal threat
in large numbers. A single starling, writes Michael Califatus and
his book bird strike can be a feathered bullet. A
swarm of the birds is a feathered fusillade. The scene
in the harbor after Flight three seventy five went down
was horrific, but the response was heroic. Sixty lives were lost,
(07:34):
but there would have been more. If local residents, including
several teenage boys, had not acted quickly, many of the
passengers were trapped under water with their seatbelts fastened. Rescuers
waded out into the debris and formed a human chain
in the thick mud to pull out survivors. A thorough
investigation of the crash was conducted, thousands of drugs starlings
(07:56):
were fired into identical propeller engines to simulate the bird strike.
The tragic crash of Flight three seventy five set in
motion new design features and precautions that have made bird
strikes far less common today, but they still happen from
time to time. The most notable occurred in two thousand nine,
when Chelsea Shlenburger A. K. Souley had to make an
(08:17):
emergency water landing in the Hudson River after his plane
was struck by a flock of Canadian geese. Eugene Chiaflin
could never have known the chain of events that his
experiment in Central Park would set in motion, and the
damage done does not stop with the tragedy in Boston.
Starlings do not just fell planes. They transmit disease, They
(08:40):
consume cattle feed. Sometimes they devour entire wheat fields. Starlings
are estimated to cost US agriculture around one billion dollars
a year in crop damage. As Shakespeare once wrote, when
sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions,
and occasionally, it could be added, they come in murmurations.
(09:03):
Every sometimes when this ship, cong say and stock this. Sorry, yes, never,
it's wrong. Let's cover us always. We always. The Threat
(09:44):
is produced by Libby Coleman and me Sean braswell. Our
editors are Carlos Watson and Samir Rao. Chris Hoff engineered
our show special thanks to Cindy Carpi and sun Jeeve
Tandon and Tracy Moraan. This episode features music by Johnny
Flynn the song called Murmuration. Check us out at aussi
dot com or on Twitter and Facebook. If you love surprising,
(10:07):
engaging stories from history, look no further than the flashback
section of AUSI dot com. That's o z y dot com. Nice,
it's a colt
It was a clear, golden New England evening on October fourth,
nineteen sixty. The sun was ready to set over the
yachts anchored in Winthrop Harbor in Boston. The residents of
Winthrop were just sitting down to their suppers when an
explosion that sounded like a sonic boom interrupted the calm.
(00:27):
The deafening noise was the sound of a plane slamming
into the sea seconds after takeoff from Boston's Logan Airport.
All but ten of the seventy two aboard Eastern Airlines
Flight three seventy five were killed. You would never imagine
that William Shakespeare had anything to do with this tragedy,
but believe it or not, the disaster can be traced
(00:48):
back to one of the Bard's most obscure plays, one
written over three hundred and sixty years earlier, the one
that makes reference to a particular bird Every gun Ship Start. Yes,
(01:18):
I'm Sean Braswell and welcome to The Thread, a podcast
from Azzi Media where we examine the interlocking lives and
events of history. This past season, we pulled the thread
on the murder of John Lennon. Season two will debut
early next year, but we'd like to share some bonus episodes.
In the meantime, we call them many threads. Here's the first,
about a nineteen sixty aviation disaster, actually sparked by William Shakespeare.
(01:47):
It's hard to go a day in an English speaking
country without encountering a word or phrase that originated with
England's famous sixteenth century bard wild goose chase. That's Shakespeare.
Love is blind Shakespeare. It's Greek to me break the
ice kill with kindness all Shakespeare. But it's not just
his creative word play that captures our imagination. Sometimes it's
(02:09):
what he references birds. For example, it is not yet
near day. It was the nightingale, and not the law
that appears the fearful hollow of thine ear nightly she
sings on yon, pomegranitree, believe me love, it was the nightingale,
was the law the herald of the moon? No nightingale.
(02:34):
But there's one reference to a starling in all of
Shakespeare's plays. It's in a play you probably didn't read
in school, The Obscure Henry the fourth Part one. The
reference is found in the first act, scene three. A
fiery nobleman named Hotspur is upset with King Henry because
he refused to ransom his brother in law, Mortimer, who
(02:54):
was captured in a battle with the Scots. Hotspur promises
he will not let the matter, even if it means
training a particular bird to badger the king. They I'll
have a starling, So we talked to speak nothing but
Maltimon give it. And with the writing of those words,
the seeds of a disaster. Nearly four centuries later, we're planted.
(03:21):
Shakespeare chose the starling as hotspurs fanciful Avian accomplice because
it can mimic almost anything, especially other birds. But there
are a few more things you need to know about
starlings for this story thread. First, they are small, thick set,
dark birds with white speckles. They weigh about two and
a half ounces, but they are packed with muscle. Starlings
(03:41):
are twice as heavy as they should be for their size. Second,
starlings traveling gangs, very large gangs called murmurations. Sometimes the
number of starlings and a murmuration could number in the thousands.
If you have ever witnessed a large murmuration of starlings
as it soars and swoops across the sky, like one
big creature. It's an experience you will not soon forget.
(04:10):
One final fact you need to know. Starlings are native
to Europe. Yet more than two hundred million starlings are
estimated to live in North America today. There were none
here during Shakespeare's time. So what happened, Well, for that
we have a single man to thank, an eccentric Bronx
resident who loved birds, and the bard who was this
(04:36):
bird lover. His name was Eugene Chieflin, and he had
a master plan. The wealthy New York drug maker wanted
to introduce all of the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's plays
to North America. Many of his attempts were unsuccessful, but
not with the starling. He released sixty of the birds
in Central Park in and there was every reason to
(04:56):
believe the Avian immigrants would not survive the harsh New
York winter, but some of the small flock of European
pilgrims managed to find shelter in the eaves of the
American Museum of Natural History on the park's west side,
and the starlings did what Schiaflin hoped they would do.
They went forth and multiplied big time, and not just
(05:19):
in New York City. Starlings reached the Mississippi River by
nineteen thirty. By nineteen fifty, they were pretty much everywhere
and drove out Native American species like bluebirds and woodpeckers,
which is how Shakespeare's single fictional starling came to be
get over two hundred million flesh and blood descendants in
North America. One of the North American starling's favorite nest
(05:42):
sites in the mid twentieth century was Tobin Bridge in Boston.
The city's big dig construction project would eventually change that,
but over one hundred and fifty thousand starlings used to
flock to Tobin Bridge every evening at sunset as commuters
drove home. It seemed harmless enough, even beautiful. Up next,
Eugene Chieflins starling spark an unforgettable tragedy. They hit the
(06:09):
front of the airplane, resembling machine gun fire, just burning.
There wasn't a square inch in my windshield that wasn't splattered.
I couldn't see a thing. That's a reading of an
account from Captain W. H. Jenkins. His plane was still
on the runway at Boston's Logan Airport in nineteen sixty
when the starlings hit his windshield. He was able to
(06:29):
bring the aircraft to a stop. But two weeks earlier,
on October fourth, Eastern Airlines Flight three seventy five was
not so lucky. A cloud of starling's headed home to
Tobin Bridge, maybe twenty thousand of them, collided with the
plane seven seconds after takeoff. Three of the plane's four
propeller engines were overrun with birds. It happened so quickly
(06:51):
the pilots did not utter a word to the Logan
Airport tower. The plane rolled and crashed almost vertically into
the harbors shallow water, not far from where cousins of
yachts were anchored offshore. It remains the worst bird strike
in US aviation history. Starlings may be small, but they
(07:13):
are considered by aviation experts to be a lethal threat
in large numbers. A single starling, writes Michael Califatus and
his book bird strike can be a feathered bullet. A
swarm of the birds is a feathered fusillade. The scene
in the harbor after Flight three seventy five went down
was horrific, but the response was heroic. Sixty lives were lost,
(07:34):
but there would have been more. If local residents, including
several teenage boys, had not acted quickly, many of the
passengers were trapped under water with their seatbelts fastened. Rescuers
waded out into the debris and formed a human chain
in the thick mud to pull out survivors. A thorough
investigation of the crash was conducted, thousands of drugs starlings
(07:56):
were fired into identical propeller engines to simulate the bird strike.
The tragic crash of Flight three seventy five set in
motion new design features and precautions that have made bird
strikes far less common today, but they still happen from
time to time. The most notable occurred in two thousand nine,
when Chelsea Shlenburger A. K. Souley had to make an
(08:17):
emergency water landing in the Hudson River after his plane
was struck by a flock of Canadian geese. Eugene Chiaflin
could never have known the chain of events that his
experiment in Central Park would set in motion, and the
damage done does not stop with the tragedy in Boston.
Starlings do not just fell planes. They transmit disease, They
(08:40):
consume cattle feed. Sometimes they devour entire wheat fields. Starlings
are estimated to cost US agriculture around one billion dollars
a year in crop damage. As Shakespeare once wrote, when
sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions,
and occasionally, it could be added, they come in murmurations.
(09:03):
Every sometimes when this ship, cong say and stock this. Sorry, yes, never,
it's wrong. Let's cover us always. We always. The Threat
(09:44):
is produced by Libby Coleman and me Sean braswell. Our
editors are Carlos Watson and Samir Rao. Chris Hoff engineered
our show special thanks to Cindy Carpi and sun Jeeve
Tandon and Tracy Moraan. This episode features music by Johnny
Flynn the song called Murmuration. Check us out at aussi
dot com or on Twitter and Facebook. If you love surprising,
(10:07):
engaging stories from history, look no further than the flashback
section of AUSI dot com. That's o z y dot com. Nice,
it's a colt
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