Touring History 6-4-25

TOURING HISTORY PODCAST - JUNE 4TH SCRIPT

Episode Runtime: 10-12 minutes
Hosts: Lane & Dave

 

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OPENING / SPONSOR INTRO

LANE: Welcome back to Touring History, the podcast where we take a leisurely stroll through the past and somehow always end up running for our lives from the sheer chaos of human existence. I'm Lane.

DAVE: And I'm Dave, your co-pilot on this journey through time, armed with nothing but Wikipedia and the vague hope that we'll sound smarter than we actually are.

LANE: Before we dive into today's historical carnival of absurdity, we want to thank our sponsor, Death Wish Coffee. Now, Dave, I know you've been testing their product extensively.

DAVE: Extensively is putting it mildly, Lane. I've been drinking Death Wish Coffee for the past week, and I can now see through time. Not metaphorically—literally. I watched the Battle of Hastings from my kitchen this morning. Death Wish Coffee uses a blend of naturally high-caffeine robusta beans with smooth arabica beans, sourced from Fair Trade certified farms, and apparently it also grants you temporal omniscience.

LANE: Founded in 2012 in Saratoga Springs, New York, Death Wish Coffee became the smallest company to run a Super Bowl commercial after winning a competition. Which proves that with enough caffeine, even small businesses can achieve the impossible—or at least afford thirty seconds of American attention span.

DAVE: Visit deathwishcoffee.com to fuel your own journey through space and time. And now, let's see what June 4th has brought us throughout history, starting with the people who decided to be born on this day.

 

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FAMOUS BIRTHDAYS

LANE: Today we celebrate the birthday of Angelina Jolie, born in 1975, proving that some people are just genetically programmed to make the rest of us feel inadequate in every conceivable way.

DAVE: Also born today in 1975, because apparently that was a banner year for people who would later make us question our life choices, Russell Brand. A man who somehow made a career out of being aggressively British and talking very, very fast.

LANE: We've got Bar Refaeli from 1985, George III from 1738—you know, the king who lost America because he couldn't figure out taxation without representation was a bad slogan—and Bruce Dern from 1936, who's been playing unsettling characters in movies since before your parents figured out how movies worked.

DAVE: Speaking of things that predate our understanding, let's travel back to the very beginning of our historical tour...

 

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1738: KING GEORGE III IS BORN

DAVE: June 4th, 1738, marks the birth of King George III, a man whose legacy can be summed up as "How to Lose an Empire in 10 Easy Steps." George would go on to rule Britain for 60 years, which is impressive until you realize he spent a good chunk of that time talking to trees.

LANE: The man had what historians politely call "episodes of mental illness," though I suspect if you were responsible for losing the American colonies, you'd probably start having conversations with the furniture too. "Hello, ottoman, do you think I should have taxed tea?" "Well Your Majesty, I wouldn't know, I'm a footrest."

DAVE: But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Young George was just a baby on this day, blissfully unaware that he would one day become the poster child for why absolute monarchy might not be the best system of government.

 

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1896: HENRY FORD'S QUADRICYCLE TEST DRIVE

LANE: Fast-forwarding to 1896, Henry Ford took his first automobile, the Quadricycle, for a test drive. Now, callin