March 19, 2018 • 37 mins
This week we learn about the Halifax Disaster and welcome on a new co-host with Bobby Smithney.
*Sorry for the audio quality this week. We're still working stuff out.*
*Sorry for the audio quality this week. We're still working stuff out.*
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Episode Transcript
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(00:09):
Welcome to Mistakes Were Made, apodcasting it upon us about mistakes made in
history, hosted by three guys whoare mistakes themselves. I'm Robert Bacon with
me, and I'm Mike Kaufman withme as always is my co host.
(00:31):
Say your name, Mike Kaufman,it's hey. Thanks, thanks for introducing
me. That was a nice littlealley you through me. I appreciate it.
Um and Uh, guys, todayis really special for a number of
reasons. We have a new amigoU joining joining the pack. So there's
(00:53):
three of us now in this willaffect um and uh we're gonna add some
some spice and flavor to this recipewith with our our new fella, and
I'm gonna let him introduce himself.Take it away, Bobby oh Man.
Only in the realm of podcasts isthe introduction of a history teacher to uh,
your your creative endeavors referred to aspicing things up. I'm so sorry
(01:17):
for you. Uh take that withBobby Smith. Me and I'm a history
teacher in h and the theater teacherin Boston. Yeah, wonderful. What
what what grades you teach? Iteach the middle school, so I get
to uh kind of run the gamewith a lot of stuff I do.
Uh, you know, everything fromthe history of chocolate to the Holocaust.
(01:41):
So it's a it's it's quite arangeousness that I get to cover. Wow,
more related, more related than mostpeople know. Um. Also,
Bobby, well, this is youonly teach up to eighth grade. Corrects,
right, this isn't going to getinto any high school level history where
we're not ready. Oh no,don't don't worry, don't Larry. It's
it's not going to exceed anything thatthe kids aren't copying pasting from Wikipedia.
(02:04):
So we should be fine. Oh, thank you, thank you. Otherwise
we're in deep trouble. Yeah,Mike and I aren't very good at history.
Uh you know what, Actually,let's just get into it. Well,
what do you got this week?Well, yeah, speak speaking of
that. Thinking of that, I'vegot kind of an opening question for you
here, open query, um,because our our mistake uh this uh,
this week, this month. Idon't know how often this is going to
(02:27):
be, but our mistake this timeout is um, can you guys if
I said, what is the uhthe largest explosion there's ever been, what
would your answer be? There's alreadya pop quiz this guy what oh man,
he's the largest explosion ever, yep, ever, and it's never I
(02:49):
mean my hunch, My hunch isthe atomic bomb. My hunch would be
exhibits first album, Oh good one, both both tele disasters, h and
you are you are absolutely correct tosee atomic bomb? Okay, but the
yeah, but the largest, thelargest accidental explosion and the largest explosion,
(03:14):
the largest ever non nuclear explosion wassomething different and I didn't know if you
guys had ever heard of it.Oh, non nuclear? Okay, So
I want to I want to guessfrom you on the largest accidental non nuclear
explosion in Mexico. There has therehave been too many accidental nuclear explosions for
(03:34):
the record, But that's a wholedifferent podcast. But at least right now,
what do you guys think it mightbe? In Mexico? There was
a like gas leak or something ata natural gas plant or something, and
the whole thing exploded and there's videosof that online. I saw that.
That's my guess. Oh yeah,that is that is that is That is
(03:55):
nasty, but not what I'm goingfor. When I was in fifth grade,
I played basketball, uh for theSaint thomas More Tigers and one of
our coaches at the time, misterDesanti Uh, he lost it at the
end of the game, and hethrew stuff. He threw a chair,
(04:15):
I think he threw food at someone, yelled at the reft, and then
ran out and then slammed through thedoors. And that's often been referred to
in Saint thomas More folklore is thelargest, the biggest explosion. Can I
change mine? Can I change mine? Then? Oh? Yeah, go
ahead, joke answering, No,I just want I want to go with
Mike's Yeah, well it was.There was a very close race between what
(04:42):
I'm thinking about in yours. Um, But this is actually the Halfax explosion
of nineteen seventeen. Okay, youguys ever have you guys ever heard of
this? No, I can't saywhat I have. Let me let me
set the stage for you. Soit's nineteen seventeen, is World War One
era, and the ships are gatheringin Halifax Harbor, which is a little
(05:08):
a port in Canada on some ofthe on the island of Nova Scotia,
and they're all gathering to send equipmentand unitions and things to the World War
One. The front and a letme give you the reading here. So
um. On the morning of Decembersixth, the Norwegian vessel Emo left its
(05:31):
mooring on home Timeout time out.Such a sad boat, Yeah, it
is, I could obviously, Obviouslythere's problems with this boat. Obviously this
boat has exhibited signs of depression andwanting to be different than the other boats.
Also, it's also this boat didn'thave the boat assistance that it dated.
(05:54):
I'm not going to complain this boatfor anything. Oh, I mean,
if if anything, we'd had moreschool counselors, this might have been
a better shape. But sure itwas. Also it was You would have
caught this boat's show last Friday night. It was pretty banging. It was.
I'm just saying, this boat's bandis pretty good. It's pretty good.
The band is good, but it'sone man show is just terrible.
(06:15):
Sure, misunderstood. But that's thename of there his first album, the
Boat's first album. Uh okay,so this So this boat's in the harbor,
Emo boat, even the Norwegian misselEmo. All right, it's it's
in the harbor in Halifax, andit's heading from New York City. It's
just starting to leave shaven thirty inthe morning, classic emo. Man.
It wants to go to the bigcity. See if I can make it.
(06:38):
Gotta go to the big city.Yep, make it make its way
in the world. Um. Atthe same time, the French freighter mont
Blanc, It's cargo hold is allshape packed. It's all ships, candy,
barmb mont Blanc. That is amI right? Is that white mountain
(06:58):
in French? So I don't speakof French, but I'm gonna go with
that. Okay, I'm gonna gowith that. It was. It was
a large boat, uh, andit was packed head to toe with explosive
munitions for the World War One front. Wow. So it had twenty three
hundred tons of pure acid, twohundred tons of TNT, five tons of
(07:19):
high octane gasoline, and just around things out ten tons of gun cotton
that was all packed into its hole. Just cotton gun. Yeah, what's
the difference like a normal cotton gun. Cotton's actually been like treated with a
chemical so it like wow. Itbasically just explodes in a whiff of flash
(07:43):
Like have you ever seen like magicianpaper or the flash paper. They just
light it and it's boost gone realquick. I don't know if I believe
that. It sounds like the wick. It sounds like somebody had just ordered
too much cotton and they were justtrying. And anytime somebody came in,
they're like, hey, i'm aI'm a I sell guns, and uh,
(08:05):
I'm wondering if you guys have anythingthat I could use. And it's
like, oh, and it's justa cotton factory. You're gonna you're gonna
you're gonna want this. Uh thisgun cot that looks just like normal cotton.
No, no, no, thisis gun cotton. It's it's totally
different. I don't believe you.You're gonna love it. Try it,
try it. Try this out somuch better than like the price of a
(08:28):
wedding cake versus a regular cake.Yes, exactly, it's how they get
you. Yeah, why is thisone so much more? Because because there's
two little people on top. Thosepeople are all they're all handcrafted. Man.
You just it's all where the moneygoes, the toper Okay, I'll
take it all right. And also, you said how many tons of TNT?
Sounds like a lot. Two hundredtons of TNT? How much tons?
(08:54):
How much is an atomic bomb ofTNT equivalent to do we know?
Um? So this this explosion wasfamous enough that when he first Hiroshima bomb
went off, they referred to itas being the equivalent of seven Halifax explosions.
Oh wow, okay, so we'redoing with one seventh of atomic bomb
(09:15):
here. Yeah, it was.It was quite the deal. So at
at about eight forty five and thetwo ships collided all right and set the
pyic acid ablaze. So well,I can actually read let me read you
yea, the actual kind of playby play, because the play of hey,
(09:39):
I find entertaining but also kind oflike two captains are a little bit
stubborn. But it boils down to, um, have you ever liked you
know, gone into a doorway andas somebody else there and you step the
left, so they step the left, you step the right, they step
the right. It was that likethat with like, you know, thousands
of tounds of explosives. Bobby,You're describing every day, every interaction,
(10:03):
every relationship I've ever had. Ohno, oh no, no, that's
how Mike gets That's how Mike getsgirlfriends. He just happens to walk down
the hallway and walk up to anothergirl. I'm sorry, up. Do
you want to go out? Iguess I mean, God, we've been
here so long. Great, yeah, we're practically dating. Okay, all
(10:24):
right. The captain of the montBlanc first spotted the Emo when she was
about one mile away and became concernedas her path appeared to be heading toward
his ship's starboard side. So asto cut him off his course, he
gave a short blast of his ship'ssignal whistle to indicate that he had the
right of way, but was metwith two short blasts from Emo, indicating
that the approaching whissel would not yieldits position. So that like two short,
(10:46):
two short blasts of the whistle islike, no way, no way,
buddy, I'm not I'm not givingup. Okay. One is hey,
you're in my way, and twois like hell. And by the
way, this whole thing is literallyhalving it at one knot, which is
like the smallest incurban speed. It'sa little over one mile per hour.
(11:07):
And so these ships just barely nickedeach other, but it was enough to
like get some sparks going, anduh it started smoking, and then like
uh, the ship that the montBlanc knew immediately what was up, and
all the sailors, the French speakingsailors got on, They got on the
(11:28):
lifeboats and got the hell out ofDodge. Well, yeah, the French
aren't known for sticking around and hangingpla oh no, oh no, oh
man um, but wait, theother guys and the other ship didn't know
there was a problem. They knew, they knew there was a fire,
but they couldn't really do anything aboutit. But they didn't know it was
(11:50):
in the boat. So a lotof these you know, where else would
it be, you know, whatwas on the holds were private, you
know, they didn't want to,you know, because out there the other
guys in the uh, in theemo, they didn't know that this boat
is basically a bomb on water.They think it's probably like some crates in
(12:11):
there and some like animals, youknow, two by two and some other
things. They had no idea that'swhat it's on boats, Right, The
Mike's knowledge of boats is only biblical. Yeah. Yeah, so you're measured
still measuring them in cubits, right, yeah? Yeah, So what is
(12:33):
this has boat's been out there likewhat like forty sundays? All right,
so let's let's talk about this explosionso the uh, the ships collided at
eight forty five, starting smoke.They realized that the fire was too large
and they couldn't put it out.The pure gacids started to burn, and
(12:56):
by at nine oh five there wasa blinding white flash. The explosion was
so massive that they say it likeit instantly killed sixteen hundred people and another
three hundred people died from the injurieslater, and it injured over nine thousand
people in Halifax, including blinding twohundred. The result in shockwaves shattered windows
(13:18):
fifty miles away and the sound ofthe explosion to be heard hundreds of miles
away. Wow. Wow, Yeah, there are some more crazy details with
exactly how things happened with the blowup. Here, give me a second,
how imagine imagine being those people whenthat went off and it just blinded
(13:41):
you so you can't you can't seeanything, and you have no idea what's
going on? Oh I can't seeit. Get these goddamn Canadians out of
here. Um so, of course, you know, in a moment,
(14:03):
I think is uh, you know, both sad and quite humorous the French
speaking months. Yeah, it reallyis the distance. It is the distance
that lends a couple of years ago. It's too soon. Yeah, if
it's one of the nineteen eighteen Imean, honestly, how facts just got
(14:26):
over this. They did not celebratethis at all. They celebrate the fiftieth
anniversary in nineteen sixty seven, andpeople were still like upset about it.
I came to this stupid thing.Jeez. They did make a movie right
away, but nobody saw it becausethe thing take that people say, so
(14:52):
they they they tried to warn someof the people that had had like turned
out to watch the fire. Um, but they're just shouting at them in
French, and nobody would could speakFrench what they were saying, saying,
wow they knew. Okay, sothe French guys like knew like don't look
(15:13):
at it, don't look at this. No, the French guys are yeah,
the French guys are yelling at themMike in French. So the other
people can't understand them. Oh wow. So the other people are standing there
being like, wow, look thatchair the fire is really cool. Yeah.
Well these guys yelling about no,I don't want to buy a bagget
(15:33):
get away from your boat's on fire. Just a little bit of that hundred
years ago. Racism goes a longway. Yeah, all right, So
here are some more facts about thethe explosion. Um. We they're able
to pinpoint the explosion time exactly tonine oh four thirty five and thirty five
(15:54):
seconds am because that's when the clocktower minute hand fused to the Halifax a
clock tower there. They estimate thatthe temperature of this explosion reached nine thousand
degrees fahrenheit and because of the heatand the force, it immediately melted huge
(16:21):
portions of the ship, which firedwhite hot shards of iron into the surrounding
city of Halifax and across the wayDartmouth. Um the mont Blanc's forward nine
millimeter gun. Uh, it's mostof its barrel melted away, but it
landed three point five miles north ofthe explosion site. Wow, and most
(16:44):
and the anchor landed two miles southwow, inland. And that's that's the
anchor to a big I didn't couldn'tfind exactly how heavy the anchor was,
but that's the anchor to a hugeship. It's got to be at least
several tons just to be able tolaunch that more than two miles. Yeah,
(17:06):
So it went two miles into landcorrect, yep, So it's so
it's just landed about somebody. Yeah, I like to think about somebody.
Yeah, basically I like to thinkabout somebody, you know, just chilling
out, like having their tea,hearing a little something and having no idea
that like a multi ton anchor isyou know, barreling towards death. It
(17:30):
didn't, it didn't hurt anybody orit landed, but it's uh, you
know, just a mission that that'slike going over your head while you're having
your morning coffee. Um. Wow. The the explosion of flattened huge portions
of Halifax left thousands and thousands homeless. It like directly flattened over four hundred
(17:51):
acres, so four hundred acres ofyou know, buildings and um you know,
uh industry just completely flattened them sayingoh yeah, the explosion was so
forceful that it completely displaced all thewater underneath it. So the harbor floor,
(18:14):
like the bed of the ocean,was momentarily explosed by the explosion and
then water raced back in to fillit, and that causes tsunami that also
devastated like the adjoining town of Dartmouthand Halifax Harbor. That's mass. Yeah.
The only other time that I knowof in history that that happened was
(18:38):
Moses when when he Yeah, howmany tons of Moses? How many tons
of TNT did Moses have to partthe sea? I mean, I don't
know how much God gave him.I imagine you know it was at least
two hundred tons. Yeah, ittakes a lot. Wow. These sticks
(19:00):
are incredible, like they auguring,which is why it was it was literally
it was why it was literally usedas a adventure of you know, other
explosions were measured in Halifax explosions forquite a while. Wow. Yeah,
that is how we do things becauseit's always just like it's always whatever the
biggest bomb that went off as that'show they explain it. You know,
(19:22):
when they talk about the sun,they're like, it's the equivalent of one
hundred million atomic bombs going off allat once, right, or a car
is four hundred horses. It's like, can we find a better bar?
Yeah, we should just go cars. This is we should say a normal
car is a two leader four cylinder, four cylinder engine. That's one car.
(19:48):
And if you have more than thatthen you're like, well, you
know it's one and a half carsof speed. I think I think you
could do that. I think youcould say this This Mercedes is a Yeah,
this Mercedes is a is a threeCorolla engine, you know, like
you could you could catch that?Oh yeah, you look at this guy's
like this out He's got to belike seven Chevy and oh at least yeah,
(20:15):
wow? What what? What didanything happen after this? Are they
like, hey, maybe we don'tput it all on the same boat,
or maybe there wasn't much of that. They still needed to get the uh
the uh you know, the materialsto uh to France and England. But
the U there are there's some kindof interesting, if you excuse the plun
(20:40):
here fallout from all this. First, First, that despite the homelessness and
the many many amounts of uh ofeye injuries and blindness from the white hot
shards of liquid iron um, theuh the uh uh I'm blinking at I'm
just want to say, um,Can I can I say one? Which
(21:03):
is coming to mind? Yeah?Which is the telegraph that had to be
sent to the front lines. Hey, Johnson, can you hum? What's
up? Can you? Hey?I need to just send a message to
the front Sure, can do justyeah, you just tell them, tell
them about Halifax, let them knowwe lost it all. Oh they're gonna
be upset. Yeah, I justneed just break it to them gently.
(21:27):
You know, they really they haveplayed my gun cotton. Yep, they
really haven't looking forward to that guncotton. They were you know, the
bombs and the and the guns andeverything, they weren't really looking forward to.
But they were really looking forward tothat gun cotton. You know,
Johnson, Just send one of youryour typical Johnson telegraphs, you know what
(21:48):
you do. You always put anice stin on things. You know.
I could, but I'm blind.Now, Hey, what's the thing you
do with the uh the colon andthen the half parentheses? Love that?
Do that? Oh I can't,I'm blind. Oh I can send it
where it's like to two lines andthen a smiley face. Oh that's gonna
(22:11):
creep them out. Don't do that, Okay, we just won't tell them.
Just as an extra little, youknow, fun surprise for the people
of Halifax. The day after thisexplosion, it snowed sixteen inches. Oh.
They got just a huge tremendous undera snowstorm and it went crazy.
Wo um. So a couple ofthings that kind of a little a couple
(22:34):
of vignettes and some real quick question. Yeah. Yeah, after that snowstorm
happened, did anybody else get snowblindness? Yeah, doubtlessly. Summer's like,
you know, I think after thatwhite dot fiery explosion, I'm still
gonna be all right. Ah,I shouldn't have gone skiing. O God,
(22:56):
Bobby is the local expression in HALIFAXIwhen it rains, it pours,
and then it snows. Yeah,then it snows and then though white hot
liquid iron hits you in the staceis an oh boy. So um,
there's at least one moment of prettyawesome haroyism that was recorded. So the
(23:22):
death told us saying could have beenworse if it weren't for the railway dispatcher
Patrick Vincent Coleman. Um he wasoperating the rail yard and when a bunch
of people ran up and told himthat the mont Blanc was burning and that
it was all munitions and was goingto explode. And Coleman remembered that an
incoming passenger train from New Brunswick wasdue to arrive within minutes, and he
(23:45):
went back to the post alone andhe sent out a telegraph to everyone to
say to stop the train and tostop all trains. His exact message and
we see it says, hold upthe train, ammunition ship a fire in
harboring for pure six and we'll explode. Guess this will be my last message.
Goodbye boys. And he did endup dying in the explosion. Wow,
(24:08):
but the trains managed to stop thereand uh and uh and not go
into the blast zone. What's hiswhat was his name? Again? His
name? And they've got a kindof a plaque to him in understandably in
Halifax with Patrick Vincent Coleman and andthey idolized him by naming a pipe after
(24:30):
him, and it's called PVC.Yes, they did, Patrick, that's
where we get it. Yeah.Wow, this guy's a zero yep here,
I mean like serious here, Likewe all we all kind of wish
that's something, you know. Imean, we don't wish for disaster,
but we wish if there were disastheir that we'd be heroes instead of like,
(24:51):
you know, fisting ourselves in acorner. Yeah. Right. If
you're like, hey, there's anexplosion, can you go give some messages
to some trains, I'd be like, no, Well that sounds good.
I was gonna run for my life. But message is the trains really sounds
high my lift. Oh, I'mI was just gonna just watch it burn
(25:12):
because it's so pretty. Also,that was just so cool, that last
thing of saying, uh, Iguess this will be my last message boys?
Or what was his what was hislast sentence? Yeah, I mean
that was basically it's, uh Iguess this will be my last message.
Goodbye boys? Wow? Wow Wowyeah wow. Did he have a wife
(25:34):
or something, because then I wouldif I was idea he had. I'm
sure he had boys. It wasjust him and his the other three members
of his quartet. He was stayinggoodbye to say that message. By the
way, that's what people don't realizethat goodbye boys, goodbye. He was
(25:56):
he was inducted into the Canadian RailwayHall of Fame. That wow. Yep.
So there's two things that stand upthere for me. One if cancer
has a railway Hall of Fame andit took until two thousand and four him
to meet the game of being enteredinto it, to be fair, it's
(26:18):
it's you know, the classes havebeen really strong to get into the Canadian
Railway Hall of Fame. Apparently there'sa real high bar and maybe Bobby in
a future episode, we could exploresome of the members of the Canadian Well,
there's a guy who invented it.There's a guy who invented the railway,
the railroad spike. He had tobe in there. Yeah, there,
(26:41):
you gotta get that to him.If that guy is a Canadian,
definitely, yeah, the guy.Definitely the guy who decided to like make
them so they're all like, sothere's two of them instead of one.
You know, that guy has tobe in there. Sure, all right,
that's all let's give you. Let'sgive you some more facts in here.
(27:03):
So, um, there's another kindof silver lining effect here. Um,
I mean the first part isn't.So. There were roughly six thousand
eye injuries reported. Forty one peoplelost their site permanently. Um and the
um let get hold one. Wellthere, So because of this, was
(27:26):
there just like a huge influx ofoptometrists moving in to the air. I
mean actually there were actually there were. That's that's what what I'm trying to
say. Oh there is, umyou can find it. Sorry, you
give me say it. Oh yeah, if you're an optometris, do you
read about this in the paper,like, yeah, I can't find it,
but basically that they did a numberof kind of uh you know,
(27:48):
it was like a they used itas a how to treat eye injuries playbook
because there were so many and theywere kind of experimenting with, you know
what the best way to treat themand doing triage wal and then there were
some doctors. This is kind ofanother interesting historical fact that I like because
(28:08):
I'm from Boston. Boston sent abunch of doctors and nurses and medical supplies
up the next day they've heard aboutthe explosion, immediately sent a train flooked
with an aid to Halifax, andthen as a thank you, in nineteen
eighteen, Halifax sent the city ofBoston a Christmas tree swing of a really
(28:33):
large, you know, forty orfifty foot tall trees, and they,
you know, in the seventies theyreinstigated that tradition and Boston gets its Christmas
tree every year for free from thepeople Halifax in kind of a tip of
the hat to that aid. Whoa, wow, that's nice. But in
(28:55):
the seventies they started doing that again. So from nineteen yeah, seventies they
were just it's like okay, yeah, we sent you that one tree.
That'll do. And then in theseven days they're just like, all right,
well we'll send you another tree.And then they're like, ah,
shoot, we send on that tree. But do we have to send them
on every year? Now they're gonnaexpect one every year. I expect him
(29:17):
to just plant the first one.They wouldn't be so stupid. They'll leave
it, you know, out ofthe ground. No, they put in
the middle of this city. WhatI'm concrete. No, it's like it's
like giving like getting a Christmas presentfrom your from your aunt and you go,
oh, what am I going toget one of these every year now?
Or is it just because you sawthis and thought of me. Yeah.
(29:38):
Well from nineteen eighteen to nineteen seventywhen they when they before they started
sending the trees again, I thinkit was just what five Canadian dollars and
in a card it y yes,And after a while they were they get
ship. After a while they werejust opening up the card and letting the
check fall out and then not evenreading. Man, that is crazy anymore
(30:06):
you have any more? Fact,it is pretty crazy. Um. I
mean, those are those are thebig ones trying to think of other things
that were going on. Um,do you guys have any questions for me
anything that you wonder about. Uh, you know, there's there's some stuff
with the captains and who was atfault, and they kind of went back
and forth as to whether it wasthe mont Blanc or the the Imo.
(30:27):
The mont Blanc was initially found atfault, and then the Canadian High courts
basically said you're you know, youwere both clowns and caused this. So
uh, you know, they kindof tried to send the captain and the
helmsman, uh you know to umthey tried to hold them accountable for the
for the damages and send the court, but they were it was all dismissed.
(30:51):
Yeah, yeah, because it's likethe whole crew of the mont blank
Uh, they made it. Theymade it off, Is that right.
I believe the entire crewd never evenone person who died from the mont Blanc.
I think they all made it toshore. And I think one person
was was killed from the mont Blancby uh you know, a metal debris,
sure, sure, if you will. And then I believe almost everybody
(31:15):
in the d tied, so therewasn't exactly anybody to blame there. Yeah,
that's man, that it is.Yeah, that's insane. It's also
just insane to think about, likewhen there's these huge tragedies like this,
of the what happens after them?Of yeah, like all these we've probably
(31:37):
learned a lot about blindness and optometrybecause of what happened, because we sent
so many people there of like basicallythe optometris the optometrist gold Rush, of
like all these people need help,we gotta go. It's it's madness.
Yep. If you've got some crazyideas about how to restore site to some
(32:01):
people blinded by an explosion, youknow, this was Halifax was your your
mecca? Oh man, Yeah,that's the thing. It's also nineteen seventeen.
So how good are we at sixand nine? Not great? Not
good, not great? You knowthey were just not great testing things,
right? Was there any stuff onthem? Just testing out new things to
(32:22):
try and find out if there's Yeah, the the the doctor who I can't
from his name, sorry, thedoctor who uh ended up performing like most
of the the meta the medical surgeriesthere stayed up for like forty eight straight
hours doing nothing, but basically Iremoval, like think of this size too.
(32:42):
Damage is coming out, this eyemage, just guys coming out and that
you know, oh my god.And they were not exactly um, you
know, they were not exactly richwith you know, anesthetic. Oh yeah,
that was just the thing. Butyou know, you know, come
Halloween, he had this scariest tauntedhouse when you stick that hand in that
(33:02):
in that box and you're like,oh, it's eyeballs, but but you
think it's field grapes. No,not at my house, not my house.
Yeah, and not just Halloween,you know it. His birthday parties,
he'd play how many eyes are inthe jar? Whoever's closest would win
a prize. All kind of thingsreally, also, like what were they
were? Were there? We werethere any people doing crazy things? Do
(33:24):
you think, like do you thinkthey're like, oh, how'd they get
blind? They saw a really brightlight. Stick him underground for a week
in the darkness and that'll fix it? Probably, Oh man, you know
what, but history is full ofthose people like I am sure that somebody
thought that, somebody who just thought, oh, well, the opposite's true.
There's who made a fortune in theguy who made a fortune in the
(33:47):
stock market crash, making the playnine and just because he basically said,
you know, everything that comes upcomes down. It was Babson. He's
got a whole college found you know, oh yeah name and it's it was.
He was total it was a totalcrackpoton just to look. Yet,
everything goes up has to come downand that's not necessarily true. And Babson
(34:09):
is and has been well I don'tknow if it currently is, but for
many years Babson was the number oneschool in the country for entrepreneurship, and
it like the place to go ifyou wanted if you wanted to study business
in entrepreneur entrepreneurship. Crazy, that'sinsane. Um, yeah, wow,
it's it's wild. This whole thingis crazy. It's it's tragic. Um,
(34:34):
it's so tragic. I can't getover the kind of the slow motion
aspect of this. I mean,these ships are moving at let because for
safety, they're moving at like asingle nautical you know, literally one not
a single nautical unit. And they'veactually they've all both cut their engines because
they realize they're on a collision courseand they're you know, both trying to
(34:58):
you know, reverse or cut tothe side. That just happened to do
the same thing and collide just alittle bit. That's enough to get this
thing started. How did that oneship expect it to make it all the
way to its destination if just atone knot it barely touching something makes it
explode like that. Seems like thatship is just waiting for a problem.
(35:20):
If a big wave hit it wrong, it would explode. Yes, oh
yeah, I mean, you know, and that's why it was waiting in
the harbors, because they would goin big convoys for safety because the you
know, of course I saw youguys did your one of your podcasts on
the German U boats stuff and WorldWar One, so you know that you
(35:40):
know, they were because they weren'tspecifically regulated to have a certain you know,
they didn't have to have a certainnumber under a certain number of U
boats that they had you know alot patrolling the Atlantic, and they were
worried about you know, a singletorpedo taking out you know, a whole
group of ships around this thing.So they're trying to be very careful.
They had you know, the uhI want to say them, they had
(36:05):
that UH net that they would dragacross the harbor to keep you know,
U boats out in the night,you know. And I want to say
they were um, you know,they would do travel in the pack for
safety. They did not work.It did not work. And I blame
Boston because there are better ways toget a Christmas tree every year. There
is way better ways. The townof Halifax go through this entire awful travesty.
(36:30):
Yep, yep, yep, yep. That's that's the nine to eleven
conspiracy theorists of nineteen seventeen. Yep, yea, with all the Boston plot.
They had people on those trains loadedup before the explosion. Yeah,
all for a Christmas tree every year. All right, guys, I think
(36:52):
I think it's safe to say thatmistakes were made. Mistakes were made.
They were made. The pocket thefun the bid wanted the count of the
pocket and play
Welcome to Mistakes Were Made, apodcasting it upon us about mistakes made in
history, hosted by three guys whoare mistakes themselves. I'm Robert Bacon with
me, and I'm Mike Kaufman withme as always is my co host.
(00:31):
Say your name, Mike Kaufman,it's hey. Thanks, thanks for introducing
me. That was a nice littlealley you through me. I appreciate it.
Um and Uh, guys, todayis really special for a number of
reasons. We have a new amigoU joining joining the pack. So there's
(00:53):
three of us now in this willaffect um and uh we're gonna add some
some spice and flavor to this recipewith with our our new fella, and
I'm gonna let him introduce himself.Take it away, Bobby oh Man.
Only in the realm of podcasts isthe introduction of a history teacher to uh,
your your creative endeavors referred to aspicing things up. I'm so sorry
(01:17):
for you. Uh take that withBobby Smith. Me and I'm a history
teacher in h and the theater teacherin Boston. Yeah, wonderful. What
what what grades you teach? Iteach the middle school, so I get
to uh kind of run the gamewith a lot of stuff I do.
Uh, you know, everything fromthe history of chocolate to the Holocaust.
(01:41):
So it's a it's it's quite arangeousness that I get to cover. Wow,
more related, more related than mostpeople know. Um. Also,
Bobby, well, this is youonly teach up to eighth grade. Corrects,
right, this isn't going to getinto any high school level history where
we're not ready. Oh no,don't don't worry, don't Larry. It's
it's not going to exceed anything thatthe kids aren't copying pasting from Wikipedia.
(02:04):
So we should be fine. Oh, thank you, thank you. Otherwise
we're in deep trouble. Yeah,Mike and I aren't very good at history.
Uh you know what, Actually,let's just get into it. Well,
what do you got this week?Well, yeah, speak speaking of
that. Thinking of that, I'vegot kind of an opening question for you
here, open query, um,because our our mistake uh this uh,
this week, this month. Idon't know how often this is going to
(02:27):
be, but our mistake this timeout is um, can you guys if
I said, what is the uhthe largest explosion there's ever been, what
would your answer be? There's alreadya pop quiz this guy what oh man,
he's the largest explosion ever, yep, ever, and it's never I
(02:49):
mean my hunch, My hunch isthe atomic bomb. My hunch would be
exhibits first album, Oh good one, both both tele disasters, h and
you are you are absolutely correct tosee atomic bomb? Okay, but the
yeah, but the largest, thelargest accidental explosion and the largest explosion,
(03:14):
the largest ever non nuclear explosion wassomething different and I didn't know if you
guys had ever heard of it.Oh, non nuclear? Okay, So
I want to I want to guessfrom you on the largest accidental non nuclear
explosion in Mexico. There has therehave been too many accidental nuclear explosions for
(03:34):
the record, But that's a wholedifferent podcast. But at least right now,
what do you guys think it mightbe? In Mexico? There was
a like gas leak or something ata natural gas plant or something, and
the whole thing exploded and there's videosof that online. I saw that.
That's my guess. Oh yeah,that is that is that is That is
(03:55):
nasty, but not what I'm goingfor. When I was in fifth grade,
I played basketball, uh for theSaint thomas More Tigers and one of
our coaches at the time, misterDesanti Uh, he lost it at the
end of the game, and hethrew stuff. He threw a chair,
(04:15):
I think he threw food at someone, yelled at the reft, and then
ran out and then slammed through thedoors. And that's often been referred to
in Saint thomas More folklore is thelargest, the biggest explosion. Can I
change mine? Can I change mine? Then? Oh? Yeah, go
ahead, joke answering, No,I just want I want to go with
Mike's Yeah, well it was.There was a very close race between what
(04:42):
I'm thinking about in yours. Um, But this is actually the Halfax explosion
of nineteen seventeen. Okay, youguys ever have you guys ever heard of
this? No, I can't saywhat I have. Let me let me
set the stage for you. Soit's nineteen seventeen, is World War One
era, and the ships are gatheringin Halifax Harbor, which is a little
(05:08):
a port in Canada on some ofthe on the island of Nova Scotia,
and they're all gathering to send equipmentand unitions and things to the World War
One. The front and a letme give you the reading here. So
um. On the morning of Decembersixth, the Norwegian vessel Emo left its
(05:31):
mooring on home Timeout time out.Such a sad boat, Yeah, it
is, I could obviously, Obviouslythere's problems with this boat. Obviously this
boat has exhibited signs of depression andwanting to be different than the other boats.
Also, it's also this boat didn'thave the boat assistance that it dated.
(05:54):
I'm not going to complain this boatfor anything. Oh, I mean,
if if anything, we'd had moreschool counselors, this might have been
a better shape. But sure itwas. Also it was You would have
caught this boat's show last Friday night. It was pretty banging. It was.
I'm just saying, this boat's bandis pretty good. It's pretty good.
The band is good, but it'sone man show is just terrible.
(06:15):
Sure, misunderstood. But that's thename of there his first album, the
Boat's first album. Uh okay,so this So this boat's in the harbor,
Emo boat, even the Norwegian misselEmo. All right, it's it's
in the harbor in Halifax, andit's heading from New York City. It's
just starting to leave shaven thirty inthe morning, classic emo. Man.
It wants to go to the bigcity. See if I can make it.
(06:38):
Gotta go to the big city.Yep, make it make its way
in the world. Um. Atthe same time, the French freighter mont
Blanc, It's cargo hold is allshape packed. It's all ships, candy,
barmb mont Blanc. That is amI right? Is that white mountain
(06:58):
in French? So I don't speakof French, but I'm gonna go with
that. Okay, I'm gonna gowith that. It was. It was
a large boat, uh, andit was packed head to toe with explosive
munitions for the World War One front. Wow. So it had twenty three
hundred tons of pure acid, twohundred tons of TNT, five tons of
(07:19):
high octane gasoline, and just around things out ten tons of gun cotton
that was all packed into its hole. Just cotton gun. Yeah, what's
the difference like a normal cotton gun. Cotton's actually been like treated with a
chemical so it like wow. Itbasically just explodes in a whiff of flash
(07:43):
Like have you ever seen like magicianpaper or the flash paper. They just
light it and it's boost gone realquick. I don't know if I believe
that. It sounds like the wick. It sounds like somebody had just ordered
too much cotton and they were justtrying. And anytime somebody came in,
they're like, hey, i'm aI'm a I sell guns, and uh,
(08:05):
I'm wondering if you guys have anythingthat I could use. And it's
like, oh, and it's justa cotton factory. You're gonna you're gonna
you're gonna want this. Uh thisgun cot that looks just like normal cotton.
No, no, no, thisis gun cotton. It's it's totally
different. I don't believe you.You're gonna love it. Try it,
try it. Try this out somuch better than like the price of a
(08:28):
wedding cake versus a regular cake.Yes, exactly, it's how they get
you. Yeah, why is thisone so much more? Because because there's
two little people on top. Thosepeople are all they're all handcrafted. Man.
You just it's all where the moneygoes, the toper Okay, I'll
take it all right. And also, you said how many tons of TNT?
Sounds like a lot. Two hundredtons of TNT? How much tons?
(08:54):
How much is an atomic bomb ofTNT equivalent to do we know?
Um? So this this explosion wasfamous enough that when he first Hiroshima bomb
went off, they referred to itas being the equivalent of seven Halifax explosions.
Oh wow, okay, so we'redoing with one seventh of atomic bomb
(09:15):
here. Yeah, it was.It was quite the deal. So at
at about eight forty five and thetwo ships collided all right and set the
pyic acid ablaze. So well,I can actually read let me read you
yea, the actual kind of playby play, because the play of hey,
(09:39):
I find entertaining but also kind oflike two captains are a little bit
stubborn. But it boils down to, um, have you ever liked you
know, gone into a doorway andas somebody else there and you step the
left, so they step the left, you step the right, they step
the right. It was that likethat with like, you know, thousands
of tounds of explosives. Bobby,You're describing every day, every interaction,
(10:03):
every relationship I've ever had. Ohno, oh no, no, that's
how Mike gets That's how Mike getsgirlfriends. He just happens to walk down
the hallway and walk up to anothergirl. I'm sorry, up. Do
you want to go out? Iguess I mean, God, we've been
here so long. Great, yeah, we're practically dating. Okay, all
(10:24):
right. The captain of the montBlanc first spotted the Emo when she was
about one mile away and became concernedas her path appeared to be heading toward
his ship's starboard side. So asto cut him off his course, he
gave a short blast of his ship'ssignal whistle to indicate that he had the
right of way, but was metwith two short blasts from Emo, indicating
that the approaching whissel would not yieldits position. So that like two short,
(10:46):
two short blasts of the whistle islike, no way, no way,
buddy, I'm not I'm not givingup. Okay. One is hey,
you're in my way, and twois like hell. And by the
way, this whole thing is literallyhalving it at one knot, which is
like the smallest incurban speed. It'sa little over one mile per hour.
(11:07):
And so these ships just barely nickedeach other, but it was enough to
like get some sparks going, anduh it started smoking, and then like
uh, the ship that the montBlanc knew immediately what was up, and
all the sailors, the French speakingsailors got on, They got on the
(11:28):
lifeboats and got the hell out ofDodge. Well, yeah, the French
aren't known for sticking around and hangingpla oh no, oh no, oh
man um, but wait, theother guys and the other ship didn't know
there was a problem. They knew, they knew there was a fire,
but they couldn't really do anything aboutit. But they didn't know it was
(11:50):
in the boat. So a lotof these you know, where else would
it be, you know, whatwas on the holds were private, you
know, they didn't want to,you know, because out there the other
guys in the uh, in theemo, they didn't know that this boat
is basically a bomb on water.They think it's probably like some crates in
(12:11):
there and some like animals, youknow, two by two and some other
things. They had no idea that'swhat it's on boats, Right, The
Mike's knowledge of boats is only biblical. Yeah. Yeah, so you're measured
still measuring them in cubits, right, yeah? Yeah, So what is
(12:33):
this has boat's been out there likewhat like forty sundays? All right,
so let's let's talk about this explosionso the uh, the ships collided at
eight forty five, starting smoke.They realized that the fire was too large
and they couldn't put it out.The pure gacids started to burn, and
(12:56):
by at nine oh five there wasa blinding white flash. The explosion was
so massive that they say it likeit instantly killed sixteen hundred people and another
three hundred people died from the injurieslater, and it injured over nine thousand
people in Halifax, including blinding twohundred. The result in shockwaves shattered windows
(13:18):
fifty miles away and the sound ofthe explosion to be heard hundreds of miles
away. Wow. Wow, Yeah, there are some more crazy details with
exactly how things happened with the blowup. Here, give me a second,
how imagine imagine being those people whenthat went off and it just blinded
(13:41):
you so you can't you can't seeanything, and you have no idea what's
going on? Oh I can't seeit. Get these goddamn Canadians out of
here. Um so, of course, you know, in a moment,
(14:03):
I think is uh, you know, both sad and quite humorous the French
speaking months. Yeah, it reallyis the distance. It is the distance
that lends a couple of years ago. It's too soon. Yeah, if
it's one of the nineteen eighteen Imean, honestly, how facts just got
(14:26):
over this. They did not celebratethis at all. They celebrate the fiftieth
anniversary in nineteen sixty seven, andpeople were still like upset about it.
I came to this stupid thing.Jeez. They did make a movie right
away, but nobody saw it becausethe thing take that people say, so
(14:52):
they they they tried to warn someof the people that had had like turned
out to watch the fire. Um, but they're just shouting at them in
French, and nobody would could speakFrench what they were saying, saying,
wow they knew. Okay, sothe French guys like knew like don't look
(15:13):
at it, don't look at this. No, the French guys are yeah,
the French guys are yelling at themMike in French. So the other
people can't understand them. Oh wow. So the other people are standing there
being like, wow, look thatchair the fire is really cool. Yeah.
Well these guys yelling about no,I don't want to buy a bagget
(15:33):
get away from your boat's on fire. Just a little bit of that hundred
years ago. Racism goes a longway. Yeah, all right, So
here are some more facts about thethe explosion. Um. We they're able
to pinpoint the explosion time exactly tonine oh four thirty five and thirty five
(15:54):
seconds am because that's when the clocktower minute hand fused to the Halifax a
clock tower there. They estimate thatthe temperature of this explosion reached nine thousand
degrees fahrenheit and because of the heatand the force, it immediately melted huge
(16:21):
portions of the ship, which firedwhite hot shards of iron into the surrounding
city of Halifax and across the wayDartmouth. Um the mont Blanc's forward nine
millimeter gun. Uh, it's mostof its barrel melted away, but it
landed three point five miles north ofthe explosion site. Wow, and most
(16:44):
and the anchor landed two miles southwow, inland. And that's that's the
anchor to a big I didn't couldn'tfind exactly how heavy the anchor was,
but that's the anchor to a hugeship. It's got to be at least
several tons just to be able tolaunch that more than two miles. Yeah,
(17:06):
So it went two miles into landcorrect, yep, So it's so
it's just landed about somebody. Yeah, I like to think about somebody.
Yeah, basically I like to thinkabout somebody, you know, just chilling
out, like having their tea,hearing a little something and having no idea
that like a multi ton anchor isyou know, barreling towards death. It
(17:30):
didn't, it didn't hurt anybody orit landed, but it's uh, you
know, just a mission that that'slike going over your head while you're having
your morning coffee. Um. Wow. The the explosion of flattened huge portions
of Halifax left thousands and thousands homeless. It like directly flattened over four hundred
(17:51):
acres, so four hundred acres ofyou know, buildings and um you know,
uh industry just completely flattened them sayingoh yeah, the explosion was so
forceful that it completely displaced all thewater underneath it. So the harbor floor,
(18:14):
like the bed of the ocean,was momentarily explosed by the explosion and
then water raced back in to fillit, and that causes tsunami that also
devastated like the adjoining town of Dartmouthand Halifax Harbor. That's mass. Yeah.
The only other time that I knowof in history that that happened was
(18:38):
Moses when when he Yeah, howmany tons of Moses? How many tons
of TNT did Moses have to partthe sea? I mean, I don't
know how much God gave him.I imagine you know it was at least
two hundred tons. Yeah, ittakes a lot. Wow. These sticks
(19:00):
are incredible, like they auguring,which is why it was it was literally
it was why it was literally usedas a adventure of you know, other
explosions were measured in Halifax explosions forquite a while. Wow. Yeah,
that is how we do things becauseit's always just like it's always whatever the
biggest bomb that went off as that'show they explain it. You know,
(19:22):
when they talk about the sun,they're like, it's the equivalent of one
hundred million atomic bombs going off allat once, right, or a car
is four hundred horses. It's like, can we find a better bar?
Yeah, we should just go cars. This is we should say a normal
car is a two leader four cylinder, four cylinder engine. That's one car.
(19:48):
And if you have more than thatthen you're like, well, you
know it's one and a half carsof speed. I think I think you
could do that. I think youcould say this This Mercedes is a Yeah,
this Mercedes is a is a threeCorolla engine, you know, like
you could you could catch that?Oh yeah, you look at this guy's
like this out He's got to belike seven Chevy and oh at least yeah,
(20:15):
wow? What what? What didanything happen after this? Are they
like, hey, maybe we don'tput it all on the same boat,
or maybe there wasn't much of that. They still needed to get the uh
the uh you know, the materialsto uh to France and England. But
the U there are there's some kindof interesting, if you excuse the plun
(20:40):
here fallout from all this. First, First, that despite the homelessness and
the many many amounts of uh ofeye injuries and blindness from the white hot
shards of liquid iron um, theuh the uh uh I'm blinking at I'm
just want to say, um,Can I can I say one? Which
(21:03):
is coming to mind? Yeah?Which is the telegraph that had to be
sent to the front lines. Hey, Johnson, can you hum? What's
up? Can you? Hey?I need to just send a message to
the front Sure, can do justyeah, you just tell them, tell
them about Halifax, let them knowwe lost it all. Oh they're gonna
be upset. Yeah, I justneed just break it to them gently.
(21:27):
You know, they really they haveplayed my gun cotton. Yep, they
really haven't looking forward to that guncotton. They were you know, the
bombs and the and the guns andeverything, they weren't really looking forward to.
But they were really looking forward tothat gun cotton. You know,
Johnson, Just send one of youryour typical Johnson telegraphs, you know what
(21:48):
you do. You always put anice stin on things. You know.
I could, but I'm blind.Now, Hey, what's the thing you
do with the uh the colon andthen the half parentheses? Love that?
Do that? Oh I can't,I'm blind. Oh I can send it
where it's like to two lines andthen a smiley face. Oh that's gonna
(22:11):
creep them out. Don't do that, Okay, we just won't tell them.
Just as an extra little, youknow, fun surprise for the people
of Halifax. The day after thisexplosion, it snowed sixteen inches. Oh.
They got just a huge tremendous undera snowstorm and it went crazy.
Wo um. So a couple ofthings that kind of a little a couple
(22:34):
of vignettes and some real quick question. Yeah. Yeah, after that snowstorm
happened, did anybody else get snowblindness? Yeah, doubtlessly. Summer's like,
you know, I think after thatwhite dot fiery explosion, I'm still
gonna be all right. Ah,I shouldn't have gone skiing. O God,
(22:56):
Bobby is the local expression in HALIFAXIwhen it rains, it pours,
and then it snows. Yeah,then it snows and then though white hot
liquid iron hits you in the staceis an oh boy. So um,
there's at least one moment of prettyawesome haroyism that was recorded. So the
(23:22):
death told us saying could have beenworse if it weren't for the railway dispatcher
Patrick Vincent Coleman. Um he wasoperating the rail yard and when a bunch
of people ran up and told himthat the mont Blanc was burning and that
it was all munitions and was goingto explode. And Coleman remembered that an
incoming passenger train from New Brunswick wasdue to arrive within minutes, and he
(23:45):
went back to the post alone andhe sent out a telegraph to everyone to
say to stop the train and tostop all trains. His exact message and
we see it says, hold upthe train, ammunition ship a fire in
harboring for pure six and we'll explode. Guess this will be my last message.
Goodbye boys. And he did endup dying in the explosion. Wow,
(24:08):
but the trains managed to stop thereand uh and uh and not go
into the blast zone. What's hiswhat was his name? Again? His
name? And they've got a kindof a plaque to him in understandably in
Halifax with Patrick Vincent Coleman and andthey idolized him by naming a pipe after
(24:30):
him, and it's called PVC.Yes, they did, Patrick, that's
where we get it. Yeah.Wow, this guy's a zero yep here,
I mean like serious here, Likewe all we all kind of wish
that's something, you know. Imean, we don't wish for disaster,
but we wish if there were disastheir that we'd be heroes instead of like,
(24:51):
you know, fisting ourselves in acorner. Yeah. Right. If
you're like, hey, there's anexplosion, can you go give some messages
to some trains, I'd be like, no, Well that sounds good.
I was gonna run for my life. But message is the trains really sounds
high my lift. Oh, I'mI was just gonna just watch it burn
(25:12):
because it's so pretty. Also,that was just so cool, that last
thing of saying, uh, Iguess this will be my last message boys?
Or what was his what was hislast sentence? Yeah, I mean
that was basically it's, uh Iguess this will be my last message.
Goodbye boys? Wow? Wow Wowyeah wow. Did he have a wife
(25:34):
or something, because then I wouldif I was idea he had. I'm
sure he had boys. It wasjust him and his the other three members
of his quartet. He was stayinggoodbye to say that message. By the
way, that's what people don't realizethat goodbye boys, goodbye. He was
(25:56):
he was inducted into the Canadian RailwayHall of Fame. That wow. Yep.
So there's two things that stand upthere for me. One if cancer
has a railway Hall of Fame andit took until two thousand and four him
to meet the game of being enteredinto it, to be fair, it's
(26:18):
it's you know, the classes havebeen really strong to get into the Canadian
Railway Hall of Fame. Apparently there'sa real high bar and maybe Bobby in
a future episode, we could exploresome of the members of the Canadian Well,
there's a guy who invented it.There's a guy who invented the railway,
the railroad spike. He had tobe in there. Yeah, there,
(26:41):
you gotta get that to him.If that guy is a Canadian,
definitely, yeah, the guy.Definitely the guy who decided to like make
them so they're all like, sothere's two of them instead of one.
You know, that guy has tobe in there. Sure, all right,
that's all let's give you. Let'sgive you some more facts in here.
(27:03):
So, um, there's another kindof silver lining effect here. Um,
I mean the first part isn't.So. There were roughly six thousand
eye injuries reported. Forty one peoplelost their site permanently. Um and the
um let get hold one. Wellthere, So because of this, was
(27:26):
there just like a huge influx ofoptometrists moving in to the air. I
mean actually there were actually there were. That's that's what what I'm trying to
say. Oh there is, umyou can find it. Sorry, you
give me say it. Oh yeah, if you're an optometris, do you
read about this in the paper,like, yeah, I can't find it,
but basically that they did a numberof kind of uh you know,
(27:48):
it was like a they used itas a how to treat eye injuries playbook
because there were so many and theywere kind of experimenting with, you know
what the best way to treat themand doing triage wal and then there were
some doctors. This is kind ofanother interesting historical fact that I like because
(28:08):
I'm from Boston. Boston sent abunch of doctors and nurses and medical supplies
up the next day they've heard aboutthe explosion, immediately sent a train flooked
with an aid to Halifax, andthen as a thank you, in nineteen
eighteen, Halifax sent the city ofBoston a Christmas tree swing of a really
(28:33):
large, you know, forty orfifty foot tall trees, and they,
you know, in the seventies theyreinstigated that tradition and Boston gets its Christmas
tree every year for free from thepeople Halifax in kind of a tip of
the hat to that aid. Whoa, wow, that's nice. But in
(28:55):
the seventies they started doing that again. So from nineteen yeah, seventies they
were just it's like okay, yeah, we sent you that one tree.
That'll do. And then in theseven days they're just like, all right,
well we'll send you another tree.And then they're like, ah,
shoot, we send on that tree. But do we have to send them
on every year? Now they're gonnaexpect one every year. I expect him
(29:17):
to just plant the first one.They wouldn't be so stupid. They'll leave
it, you know, out ofthe ground. No, they put in
the middle of this city. WhatI'm concrete. No, it's like it's
like giving like getting a Christmas presentfrom your from your aunt and you go,
oh, what am I going toget one of these every year now?
Or is it just because you sawthis and thought of me. Yeah.
(29:38):
Well from nineteen eighteen to nineteen seventywhen they when they before they started
sending the trees again, I thinkit was just what five Canadian dollars and
in a card it y yes,And after a while they were they get
ship. After a while they werejust opening up the card and letting the
check fall out and then not evenreading. Man, that is crazy anymore
(30:06):
you have any more? Fact,it is pretty crazy. Um. I
mean, those are those are thebig ones trying to think of other things
that were going on. Um,do you guys have any questions for me
anything that you wonder about. Uh, you know, there's there's some stuff
with the captains and who was atfault, and they kind of went back
and forth as to whether it wasthe mont Blanc or the the Imo.
(30:27):
The mont Blanc was initially found atfault, and then the Canadian High courts
basically said you're you know, youwere both clowns and caused this. So
uh, you know, they kindof tried to send the captain and the
helmsman, uh you know to umthey tried to hold them accountable for the
for the damages and send the court, but they were it was all dismissed.
(30:51):
Yeah, yeah, because it's likethe whole crew of the mont blank
Uh, they made it. Theymade it off, Is that right.
I believe the entire crewd never evenone person who died from the mont Blanc.
I think they all made it toshore. And I think one person
was was killed from the mont Blancby uh you know, a metal debris,
sure, sure, if you will. And then I believe almost everybody
(31:15):
in the d tied, so therewasn't exactly anybody to blame there. Yeah,
that's man, that it is.Yeah, that's insane. It's also
just insane to think about, likewhen there's these huge tragedies like this,
of the what happens after them?Of yeah, like all these we've probably
(31:37):
learned a lot about blindness and optometrybecause of what happened, because we sent
so many people there of like basicallythe optometris the optometrist gold Rush, of
like all these people need help,we gotta go. It's it's madness.
Yep. If you've got some crazyideas about how to restore site to some
(32:01):
people blinded by an explosion, youknow, this was Halifax was your your
mecca? Oh man, Yeah,that's the thing. It's also nineteen seventeen.
So how good are we at sixand nine? Not great? Not
good, not great? You knowthey were just not great testing things,
right? Was there any stuff onthem? Just testing out new things to
(32:22):
try and find out if there's Yeah, the the the doctor who I can't
from his name, sorry, thedoctor who uh ended up performing like most
of the the meta the medical surgeriesthere stayed up for like forty eight straight
hours doing nothing, but basically Iremoval, like think of this size too.
(32:42):
Damage is coming out, this eyemage, just guys coming out and that
you know, oh my god.And they were not exactly um, you
know, they were not exactly richwith you know, anesthetic. Oh yeah,
that was just the thing. Butyou know, you know, come
Halloween, he had this scariest tauntedhouse when you stick that hand in that
(33:02):
in that box and you're like,oh, it's eyeballs, but but you
think it's field grapes. No,not at my house, not my house.
Yeah, and not just Halloween,you know it. His birthday parties,
he'd play how many eyes are inthe jar? Whoever's closest would win
a prize. All kind of thingsreally, also, like what were they
were? Were there? We werethere any people doing crazy things? Do
(33:24):
you think, like do you thinkthey're like, oh, how'd they get
blind? They saw a really brightlight. Stick him underground for a week
in the darkness and that'll fix it? Probably, Oh man, you know
what, but history is full ofthose people like I am sure that somebody
thought that, somebody who just thought, oh, well, the opposite's true.
There's who made a fortune in theguy who made a fortune in the
(33:47):
stock market crash, making the playnine and just because he basically said,
you know, everything that comes upcomes down. It was Babson. He's
got a whole college found you know, oh yeah name and it's it was.
He was total it was a totalcrackpoton just to look. Yet,
everything goes up has to come downand that's not necessarily true. And Babson
(34:09):
is and has been well I don'tknow if it currently is, but for
many years Babson was the number oneschool in the country for entrepreneurship, and
it like the place to go ifyou wanted if you wanted to study business
in entrepreneur entrepreneurship. Crazy, that'sinsane. Um, yeah, wow,
it's it's wild. This whole thingis crazy. It's it's tragic. Um,
(34:34):
it's so tragic. I can't getover the kind of the slow motion
aspect of this. I mean,these ships are moving at let because for
safety, they're moving at like asingle nautical you know, literally one not
a single nautical unit. And they'veactually they've all both cut their engines because
they realize they're on a collision courseand they're you know, both trying to
(34:58):
you know, reverse or cut tothe side. That just happened to do
the same thing and collide just alittle bit. That's enough to get this
thing started. How did that oneship expect it to make it all the
way to its destination if just atone knot it barely touching something makes it
explode like that. Seems like thatship is just waiting for a problem.
(35:20):
If a big wave hit it wrong, it would explode. Yes, oh
yeah, I mean, you know, and that's why it was waiting in
the harbors, because they would goin big convoys for safety because the you
know, of course I saw youguys did your one of your podcasts on
the German U boats stuff and WorldWar One, so you know that you
(35:40):
know, they were because they weren'tspecifically regulated to have a certain you know,
they didn't have to have a certainnumber under a certain number of U
boats that they had you know alot patrolling the Atlantic, and they were
worried about you know, a singletorpedo taking out you know, a whole
group of ships around this thing.So they're trying to be very careful.
They had you know, the uhI want to say them, they had
(36:05):
that UH net that they would dragacross the harbor to keep you know,
U boats out in the night,you know. And I want to say
they were um, you know,they would do travel in the pack for
safety. They did not work.It did not work. And I blame
Boston because there are better ways toget a Christmas tree every year. There
is way better ways. The townof Halifax go through this entire awful travesty.
(36:30):
Yep, yep, yep, yep. That's that's the nine to eleven
conspiracy theorists of nineteen seventeen. Yep, yea, with all the Boston plot.
They had people on those trains loadedup before the explosion. Yeah,
all for a Christmas tree every year. All right, guys, I think
(36:52):
I think it's safe to say thatmistakes were made. Mistakes were made.
They were made. The pocket thefun the bid wanted the count of the
pocket and play
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