Touring History 7-31-25

TOURING HISTORY - JULY 31ST SCRIPT

COLD OPEN

LANE: Welcome back to Touring History, where we make the past more entertaining than whatever algorithm is trying to show you next. I'm Lane.

DAVE: And I'm Dave, still amazed that people used to have to physically go to a library to settle arguments. Like, imagine having to walk somewhere just to prove your friend wrong about a random fact.

LANE: Today we're exploring July 31st, a date that's brought us space missions, patent applications, and some truly jaw-dropping examples of how royal affairs can literally reshape entire religions.

DAVE: Speaking of July 31st, we got a voice memo from a listener. Sezso, what do you have for us?

LISTENER VOICE MEMO

SEZSO (as listener): [Enthusiastic, slightly manic voice] Hey guys! This is Heather from Indiana.  July 31st, 2020, was the day I discovered that my Animal Crossing island had the exact same layout as the Battle of Gettysburg. I'm a Civil War history nerd, so I spent the entire pandemic recreating the three-day battle using turnip fields and decorative fencing. My villagers are named after Union and Confederate generals. Tom Nook is clearly profiteering off wartime economics. I gave guided tours to my friends over Discord, complete with PowerPoint presentations. Yes, I made PowerPoints about my virtual Civil War battlefield. No, I'm not embarrassed. History education through Nintendo is valid!

LANE: Huh…I don't really know what to say about that…200 points to creativity and 

DAVE: The fact that you named your cartoon animals after Civil War generals and then gave PowerPoint tours is peak pandemic creativity mixed with beautiful nerdiness.

CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

LANE: Let's celebrate some July 31st birthdays! We've got J.K. Rowling, who turned getting rejected by 12 publishers into creating the most successful book series of all time and basically inventing modern young adult fantasy.

DAVE: Also born today: Wesley Snipes, who proved that action heroes could be both incredibly cool and surprisingly good at tax evasion strategies. And Primo Levi, whose writing about surviving the Holocaust became essential literature.

LANE: Can't forget Milton Friedman, born July 31st, 1912. Economist who basically convinced the world that free markets could solve everything, which worked out... variably.

DAVE: His ideas shaped global economics for decades, though I'm pretty sure he didn't anticipate people using his theories to justify charging $8 for coffee.

SALACIOUS DAVE SEGMENT

DAVE: Scandal time! July 31st, 1498, Christopher Columbus arrived in Trinidad during his third voyage. But here's the salacious part - Columbus was simultaneously conducting affairs with multiple women while his wife waited back in Spain, and these relationships literally changed the demographics of the New World.

LANE: Oh no, here we go with Columbus being terrible in new and creative ways.

DAVE: Columbus had a well-documented affair with Beatriz Enríquez de Arana, who bore him a son, Fernando, while he was still married to Felipa Perestrello. But that's just the beginning - he also had relationships with indigenous women in the Caribbean, which was part of his strategy for establishing Spanish colonial control.

LANE: So his personal affairs were actually colonial policy?

DAVE: Exactly! Columbus encouraged his men to take indigenous wives and mistresses as a way of creating mixed-race children who would be loyal to Spain. His own sexual relationships became the template for Spanish colonization throughout the Americas.

LANE: That's horrifying. His infidelity became systematic cultural destruction.

DAVE: The really scandalous part? Columbus wrote love letters to Beatriz while simultaneously writing official reports to the Spanish crown about "civilizing" indigenous populations through intermarriage. His personal romantic life and his colonial policies were the same thing.

LANE: So one man's inability to stay faithful to his wife helped establish centuries of colonial sexual exploitation?

DAVE: His affairs and the colonial marriage policies they inspired created entire new ethnic populations across Latin America. The scandal wasn't just personal - it literally reshaped the genetic and cultural makeup of two continents.

INNOVATION LANE SEGMENT

LANE: Innovation time! July 31st, 1971, Apollo 15 astronauts took the first lunar rover for a spin on the moon, basically turning space exploration into the ultimate off-road adventure.

DAVE: They drove a car on the moon! That's like the ultimate "