LANE: Welcome back to Touring History! I'm Lane.
DAVE: And I'm Dave!
LANE (with escalating intensity): It's May 6th, and while you were busy wondering if it's too late to return that Star Wars merchandise from two days ago, history has been absolutely LOSING ITS MIND on this date! We've got explosions in the sky! Cities being ransacked! A man running really fast! And the French building an enormous metal phallus just to prove they could! It's like history said, "You know what would be fun? If we just took all the most cinematically dramatic events and crammed them into ONE DAY!"
DAVE: Happy birthday to Sigmund Freud, born in 1856, a man who somehow convinced the world that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar while simultaneously insisting that everything else is definitely about sex. It's the intellectual equivalent of saying "No homo" after analyzing your mother fixation.
LANE: Also celebrating today is George Clooney, a man who spent the '90s as the sexiest doctor on television before transitioning to his current role as the world's most handsome gray-haired coffee salesman. Which is basically just playing a doctor again, but for caffeine addiction.
DAVE: And let's not forget Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister who proved that having perfect teeth doesn't automatically make you an American. Though his foreign policy certainly suggested he was confused about this fact.
LANE: Someone should tell Tony that following George W. Bush into war is not the same as following George Clooney into Nespresso commercials. But speaking of cities being destroyed by questionable leadership decisions...
LANE (increasingly horrified): On May 6, 1527, Rome was sacked by the troops of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in what historians describe as "probably not what Jesus would have done."
DAVE: Yes! Catholic troops pillaging the Catholic capital is the 16th-century equivalent of setting your own house on fire because you're mad at your landlordâwho, in this case, was literally God's representative on Earth!
LANE: The troops went unpaid for months and decided the logical solution was to murder thousands of Romans and destroy priceless Renaissance art. Because nothing says "I deserve a raise" like stabbing your boss's favorite customers and setting his office on fire. The sacking was so traumatic that it essentially ended the Renaissance, proving once again that humans can't have nice things for more than a century without someone coming along and ruining it. And speaking of things bursting into flames...
DAVE (mock radio announcer voice): "Oh, the humanity!" On May 6, 1937, the Hindenburg airship burst into flames while attempting to dock in New Jersey, in what became one of the most photographed disasters in history.
LANE: Yes, a massive hydrogen-filled balloonâbecause apparently someone thought "let's fill a flying bus with the most flammable element in the universe"âerupted into a fireball that effectively ended the era of passenger airships. It's like if the Titanic disaster had been caused by someone deliberately building a ship with a hull made of crackers.
DAVE: Thirty-six people died in a disaster that was broadcast live on radio and film, making it the first major catastrophe to be documented in real-time media. It was essentially the world's deadliest livestream, decades before anyone knew what that term meant. But at least it taught us valuable lessons about not filling aircraft with explosive gasâthough apparently not lessons about putting humans in situations where they can break seemingly impossible barriers...
LANE: On May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister became the first person to run a mile in under four minutes, shattering a barrier that many physicians claimed would cause the human body to literally explode if attempted.
DAVE (incredulous): That's right! Medical experts of the time insisted that running a mile in less than four minutes would cause your heart to burst, your lungs to collapse, and possibly rip a hole in the space-time continuum! It's the athletic equivalent of people claiming your face will freeze if you make that expression too long!
LANE: Bannister, a medical student himself, ran the mile in 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds, disproving decades of scientific consensus and proving that sometimes the best way to advance science is to just ignore what scientists are telling you. Which, to be clear, is NOT a strategy we recommend for climate change or vaccines. But speaking of connecting previously impossible things...
DAVE: On May 6, 1994, after centuries of Britain pretending it wasn't technically part of Europe, the Channel Tunnel linking the UK and France officially opened, creating the world's longest underwater tunnel and giving Brits a faster way to reach discount French wine.
LANE (in mock British accent): Yes, after nearly 200 years of planning and seven years of construction, Britain and France were finally connected by something other than mutual disdain and colonial competition. It's as if these two nations that spent most of history trying to murder each other suddenly realized they could make money together instead!
DAVE: The 31-mile tunnel runs beneath the English Channel and has caused fewer vampire incidents than Dracula enthusiasts had hoped, though it did allow for much easier transit of British stag parties to terrorize the nightclubs of Paris. But long before Europeans were tunneling under water, they were figuring out how to stick tiny pieces of paper on letters...
LANE: On May 6, 1840, the world's first adhesive postage stampâthe Penny Blackâwas officially put into use in Great Britain, creating a system where you could pay a penny to send a letter that would arrive several weeks later, as opposed to the modern system where you pay fifty times that amount for a letter to arrive several weeks later.
DAVE (increasingly passionate): This humble little piece of paper with Queen Victoria's face on it revolutionized communication! Before the Penny Black, sending mail was so complicated and expensive that only rich people and the government could afford it. The recipient had to pay for delivery, often at outrageous rates! It was like if your friends could send you their bar tab from across the country and you had no choice but to pay it!
LANE: The stamp's introduction meant that for the first time, regular people could afford to send letters, creating an explosion in communication that historians compare to the internetâexcept every message had to be carried by a man on horseback who might get eaten by wolves. But communication revolutions aren't limited to the 19th century. Speaking of iconic images that change how we see the world...
DAVE: On May 6, 2002, Absolut Vodka launched its iconic Marilyn Monroe ad, continuing the brand's tradition of turning its bottle shape into cultural references that make you think, "Oh, I get it!" and then immediately order a rum and coke instead.
LANE (mock advertising voice): Absolut's long-running campaign featured over 1,500 different adsâa record previously held only by discount furniture stores having perpetual going-out-of-business sales. The campaign was so successful that it turned a Swedish vodka into America's favorite way to make bad decisions at weddings.
DAVE: The Marilyn ad recreated her famous white dress scene using nothing but the bottle silhouette, proving once again that Americans will buy literally anything if you somehow connect it to a celebrity who died tragically. But Absolut wasn't the only company leveraging dead icons to sell products...
LANE: On May 6, 1999, Apple's "Think Different" campaign featured Albert Einstein, suggesting that buying a beige computer somehow puts you in the same category as the man who revolutionized physics. It's like buying a specific brand of notebook and claiming it makes you Shakespeare.
DAVE (increasingly animated): Yes! Apple essentially said, "Our computers are for geniuses and revolutionaries," conveniently ignoring that most users would be using them primarily to play Minesweeper and eventually watch cat videos. Einstein developed the theory of relativity; you're using Safari to google why your AirPods won't connect!
LANE: The campaign featured other icons like Gandhi, Picasso, and Muhammad Aliânone of whom, I should note, ever actually used an Apple computer, probably because they were busy, you know, changing the world without needing to update their operating system every three weeks. But before we get too deep into Apple's reality distortion field...
DAVE: This delicious serving of historical perspective is brought to you by Rise Doughnuts in Wilton, Connecticutâbecause learning about human achievement is always better with a mouthful of fried dough.
LANE: Handcrafted, small-batch, and guaranteed to be more revolutionary than anything Apple has released in the last decade!
DAVE: Follow @risedoughnut, stand in line with other doughnut enthusiasts, and treat yourself to what Einstein would have eaten if he'd been less focused on relativity and more focused on absolutely perfect glazed doughnuts. And speaking of connections between nations...
LANE: On May 6, 1994, Queen Elizabeth II and French President François Mitterrand officially inaugurated the Channel Tunnel in a ceremony that perfectly captured Anglo-French relations by being simultaneously grandiose and slightly uncomfortable.
DAVE: Yes! The Queen and Mitterrand met in Calais after traveling through the tunnel from their respective countries, participating in a ceremony that required both of them to pretend they didn't represent nations that had spent most of recorded history trying to invade each other.
LANE (terrible British accent): It was the perfect symbol of European unityâright up until 2016 when Britain essentially said, "Actually, we've changed our mind about this whole 'being connected to Europe' thing. Can we just go back to being an island that's difficult to reach?" But speaking of historical reconciliations that nobody saw coming...
DAVE: On May 6, 2001, Pope John Paul II became the first pontiff in history to enter a mosque when he visited the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria, in what was essentially the religious equivalent of the Montagues showing up at the Capulets' house party.
LANE (increasingly incredulous): That's right! After nearly 2,000 years of religious conflictâincluding literal CRUSADES to reclaim the Holy Landâthe Pope basically said, "You know what? I should probably see what these mosques are all about." It's like if Yankees fans suddenly decided to check out Fenway Park just to see what all the fuss was about.
DAVE: The visit was part of the Pope's efforts to promote interfaith dialogue, proving that sometimes the most revolutionary thing religious leaders can do is simply walk through a door. And speaking of endings to long-running global crises...
LANE: On May 6, 2023, the World Health Organization declared an end to the COVID-19 global health emergency, officially concluding what felt like the longest season of "Black Mirror" ever produced.
DAVE (mock celebratory): Yes! After three years of masks, lockdowns, and discovering which of your relatives have the most alarming conspiracy theories, the WHO essentially said, "Okay, this is still a problem, but we're downgrading it from 'OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE' to 'concerning but manageable'âwhich is coincidentally also how I describe my relationship with carbohydrates.
LANE: The announcement didn't mean COVID was goneâjust that we'd collectively decided to stop talking about it at dinner parties and instead focus on other global threats, like whether robots will steal our jobs or if TikTok is actually Chinese spyware. The pandemic taught us valuable lessons about global cooperation and preparedness, all of which we'll completely forget by the next pandemic! But speaking of boosting morale during difficult times...
DAVE: On May 6, 1941, Bob Hope performed his first USO show at California's March Field, launching what would become 50 years of entertaining troops and the longest-running celebrity support program in military history.
LANE (nostalgic tone): That's right! Bob Hope went on to entertain American troops through WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulfâessentially becoming the military's emotional support comedian. While other celebrities were busy being photographed at nightclubs, Hope was traveling to active war zones armed with nothing but a golf club and some one-liners.
DAVE: He performed nearly 60 tours for the USO, bringing a little bit of home to soldiers stationed abroad and proving that sometimes the most patriotic thing you can do is tell a joke. His dedication to entertaining troops makes modern celebrities' activism look like posting an Instagram story and calling it a day. But speaking of grand public spectacles...
LANE: On May 6, 1889, the Paris Exposition opened, showcasing the newly completed Eiffel Towerâa structure that Parisians initially hated so much that they made "being visually offensive" its primary architectural feature.
DAVE (increasingly animated): Yes! The Eiffel Towerâor as it was known then, "that monstrous metal asparagus ruining our skyline"âwas supposed to be a temporary structure for the World's Fair. It's like if New York had kept the giant Ferris wheel from the 1964 World's Fair and it somehow became the city's most recognizable landmark!
LANE: The tower was almost torn down in 1909, but was saved because it proved useful for radio transmission. It's the architectural equivalent of telling your parents, "But I need to keep this giant metal eyesore in your backyard because it gets really good WiFi!" And the French just went with it! Now it's the most visited paid monument in the world, proving that sometimes mankind's greatest achievements start as our most controversial eyesores.
DAVE: So that's May 6th: a day when humans proved they could build tunnels under oceans, run faster than medical science thought possible, and turn temporary fair attractions into eternal landmarks. It's a day of proof that the impossible is merely improbable until someone decides to just do it anyway.
LANE: We've seen the construction of communication systems, both literal and metaphorical, that connect people across distancesâfrom postage stamps to tunnels, from papal visits to entertainment for troops far from home. May 6th reminds us that human progress often comes from simply building better bridges.
DAVE: We'll be back tomorrow with more historical disasters and triumphs that remind us we're all just making this up as we go along.
LANE: Until then, stay incredulous...
DAVE: ...stay caffeinated...
BOTH: ...and remember that history is just a series of impossible things we somehow managed to do anyway!
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