LANE: Welcome back to Touring History, the podcast where we prove that any random date contains enough drama to power a Netflix series. I'm Lane---
DAVE: And I'm Dave, and before we dive into a day that gave us everything from the Constitution to space tourism to—wait for it—lab-grown chicken, we need to talk about Randy's Donuts.
LANE: Are we really segueing from the founding of America to donuts?
DAVE: Lane, when you're about to discuss constitutional ratification, World War II submarine attacks, and the birth of commercial space flight all in one episode, you need fuel that's been perfected over seven decades. Randy's Donuts doesn't just make donuts—they make reliable excellence.
LANE: That giant donut on La Cienega isn't just a landmark, it's a promise. Fresh donuts made by people who've turned sugar and dough into an art form since 1952.
DAVE: Check them out at randysdonuts.com, because when history gets this wild, you deserve snacks that are equally legendary.
LANE: And today's history is wild. June 21st—the day America's Constitution became real, plus civil rights tragedy, papal elections, and humanity's first private trip to space.
DAVE: Let's start with birthdays, because June 21st produced some serious star power. Prince William turns 42 today—future King of England, current Duke of Cambridge, and proof that royal genetics can survive tabloid scrutiny.
LANE: Plus we've got Chris Pratt at 46, who went from Parks and Recreation goofball to Marvel superhero to dinosaur trainer. That's range.
DAVE: Lana Del Rey's 40, bringing us dreamy vocals and vintage American imagery that somehow makes melancholy sound luxurious.
LANE: And Blake Shelton's 49—country music star and proof that being genuinely charming on TV can make you more famous than your actual job.
DAVE: Oh, and Jussie Smollett's 43. We're... not going to spend much time on that one.
LANE: Sometimes the birthday list writes itself into awkward territory. Moving on!
DAVE: June 21st, 1788—the U.S. Constitution officially goes into effect, which is kind of amazing when you think about it. They'd been operating under the Articles of Confederation, which was basically like trying to run a country through a group text.
LANE: You know what's wild? New Hampshire was the ninth state to ratify it on this exact day, hitting the magic number to make it official. The founding fathers were basically holding their breath waiting for that ninth vote.
DAVE: The Articles of Confederation gave the federal government roughly the power of a neighborhood association. Can't tax anyone, can't regulate trade between states, can't really do... anything.
LANE: So they're sitting there in 1788 like, "Well, this democracy experiment either works starting now, or we're going to have thirteen separate countries that share a really awkward border situation."
DAVE: What gets me is how they just... figured it out. No template for modern democratic government, just a bunch of guys in wigs saying, "What if we try separation of powers and see what happens?"
LANE: And somehow it worked! Sort of. I mean, we're still arguing about what they meant, but the basic structure held up.
DAVE: June 21st, 1942, a Japanese submarine surfaces off the Oregon coast and shells Fort Stevens. This is literally the only hostile shelling of a U.S. military base in the continental United States during World War II.
LANE: Picture this: you're stationed at this coastal fort in Oregon, it's the middle of World War II, and suddenly there's a Japanese submarine just... shooting at you. From the ocean. On the American West Coast.
DAVE: The I-25 submarine fired about 17 shells. Damage was minimal—some barbed wire, a baseball backstop at the fort—but psychologically? This was huge.
LANE: Americans had been told the mainland was safe from attack. Then boom—actual enemy fire hitting actual American soil. Not Pearl Harbor, which was a territory, but Oregon, which was definitely part of the United States.
DAVE: What's fascinating is how the military responded. They ordered a complete blackout—no returning fire, no lights, total radio silence. They didn't want to give the submarine better targeting information.
LANE: Can you imagine being the commander making that call? "Sir, we're under attack!" "Great, turn off all the lights and don't shoot back." That takes nerves.
DAVE: The same submarine later started forest fires in Oregon and California with incendiary bombs dropped from a seaplane. The only deaths from enemy action on the continental U.S. during WWII were from those forest fires.
DAVE: June 21st, 1964. We need to talk about James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner—three civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi during Freedom Summer.
LANE: They were registering Black voters in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Chaney was local, 21 years old. Goodman and Schwerner were from New York, volunteering for the summer. They disappeared after investigating a church bombing.
DAVE: The FBI investigation revealed they'd been murdered by the Ku Klux Klan with help from local law enforcement. The deputy sheriff was involved in the killings.
LANE: Their deaths shocked the nation and helped build support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Sometimes tragedy becomes the catalyst for change that should have happened already.
DAVE: It's a reminder that the right to vote—something we take for granted—people died for it. Literally died trying to help other Americans exercise basic constitutional rights.
LANE: June 21st, 1954, British Medical Journal publishes Richard Doll's study definitively linking smoking to lung cancer. This is the moment when "smoking might be bad for you" became "smoking will kill you."
DAVE: What's incredible is the tobacco industry's response. They knew this was coming—their own research showed the same thing—but they spent the next 50 years denying it.
LANE: Doll tracked British doctors for years. Doctors who smoked were dying of lung cancer at massively higher rates than non-smokers. Hard to argue with that data.
DAVE: But here's what gets me—cigarette companies had figured this out internally by the early 1950s. They had the same research, knew their product was deadly, and decided to fight the science instead of changing the product.
LANE: It's like the perfect case study in how economic interests can override public health for decades. Even when the evidence is overwhelming.
DAVE: Although credit where it's due—once the evidence became undeniable, smoking rates did drop dramatically. From about 45% of adults in the 1950s to under 15% today.
LANE: Now for advertising history! June 21st, 1835, the first large-format billboard gets printed in Ohio. Just a simple circus advertisement, but it basically invented outdoor advertising as we know it.
DAVE: Before this, advertising was mostly newspaper ads and handbills. Someone looked at a blank wall and thought, "What if we made the advertisement bigger than a person?"
LANE: The circus was perfect for this—colorful, exciting, visual. You're not going to put your grocery prices on a billboard, but a lion tamer? That works big.
DAVE: What's funny is how this connects to social media. The billboard was the first advertising that you couldn't ignore or throw away. It was just... there, whether you wanted to see it or not.
LANE: Like the ancestor of pop-up ads, but with better artwork and you had to leave your house to be annoyed by it.
DAVE: June 21st, 1893, the first Ferris wheel gets promoted at the Chicago World's Fair. George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. basically said, "What if we made a giant wheel that people could ride in circles?"
LANE: This was America's answer to the Eiffel Tower. The French built this amazing iron structure for their exposition, so Chicago was like, "Hold our beer, we're going to build a giant spinning wheel."
DAVE: It was 264 feet tall, could hold over 2,000 people, and cost 50 cents to ride—which was serious money in 1893. But 1.5 million people paid it anyway.
LANE: You know what I love about this? It's pure American engineering optimism. "Let's put people in boxes and spin them around really high in the air. What could go wrong?"
DAVE: And it worked! Ferris wheels became this global phenomenon. Every carnival, every fair, every boardwalk—there's usually a Ferris wheel, all because one guy in Chicago thought big circles might be fun.
LANE: Although I have to ask—who was the first person brave enough to get on it? Like, someone had to be the guinea pig for giant spinning wheel technology.
DAVE: Speaking of things that have stood the test of time, let's talk about Randy's Donuts—the most reliable pleasure Los Angeles has to offer.
LANE: While other food trends come and go, Randy's has been perfecting the art of the donut for over 70 years. That's commitment to craft that you can taste.
DAVE: Classic glazed that melts in your mouth, innovative seasonal flavors, and 24-hour availability for those moments when you need sugar-powered fuel at 3 AM.
LANE: No algorithms, no viral marketing schemes—just consistently excellent donuts made by people who take pride in their work. In our chaotic modern world, that kind of reliability is actually revolutionary.
DAVE: Check them out at randysdonuts.com, where the marketing strategy is simple: make amazing donuts, put up an iconic sign, watch customers become regulars for life.
LANE: June 21st, 1834, Cyrus McCormick patents the mechanical reaper, basically inventing modern agriculture. Before this, harvesting grain was back-breaking manual labor.
DAVE: One person with a scythe could harvest about two acres per day. McCormick's reaper could do ten acres. That's not improvement, that's transformation.
LANE: What gets me is how this connects to everything else. More efficient farming means fewer people needed on farms, which means more people available for factories, which powers the Industrial Revolution.
DAVE: And it made America a global agricultural superpower. The Midwest could suddenly feed the world, not just itself. One invention changed global food production.
LANE: Although I wonder what the first farmers thought when they saw this mechanical contraption. "You want me to trust my harvest to... a machine?"
DAVE: Probably the same reaction people had to computers, smartphones, or self-driving cars. "This seems unnecessarily complicated" followed by "how did we ever live without this?"
DAVE: June 21st, 1963, Cardinal Giovanni Montini becomes Pope Paul VI, taking over during one of the most transformative periods in Catholic Church history.
LANE: He inherited the Second Vatican Council from Pope John XXIII and had to figure out how to modernize a 2,000-year-old institution without breaking it.
DAVE: Vatican II was basically the Catholic Church's attempt to engage with the modern world—saying Mass in local languages instead of Latin, encouraging dialogue with other religions, acknowledging that maybe the Church should listen to laypeople sometimes.
LANE: Paul VI had to navigate between traditionalists who thought any change was heresy and progressives who wanted to revolutionize everything. Classic middle management problems, but with global consequences.
DAVE: He was also the first Pope to travel extensively—went to six continents, spoke to the United Nations. Before this, Popes mostly stayed in Rome and let the world come to them.
LANE: Although he's probably most remembered for the birth control encyclical that reaffirmed the Church's opposition to artificial contraception. That was... controversial.
DAVE: June 21st, 2004, SpaceShipOne completes the first privately funded manned spaceflight. Burt Rutan and Paul Allen basically said, "Why should only governments get to go to space?"
LANE: Mike Melvill piloted this thing to 100 kilometers above Earth—officially space—and landed safely. This wasn't NASA, wasn't the military, just private citizens with engineering skills and serious money.
DAVE: The Ansari X Prize offered $10 million to the first private team to reach space twice within two weeks. SpaceShipOne won it, proving commercial space travel was possible.
LANE: What's wild is how this connects to today. SpaceShipOne led to Virgin Galactic, which led to SpaceX, which led to routine commercial space missions. This one flight changed everything.
DAVE: Although can we talk about how brave Mike Melvill was? He's strapped to an experimental rocket built by private contractors, going where only professional astronauts had gone before.
LANE: And he brought M&Ms as his official payload—because if you're making history, you might as well have snacks.
DAVE: I love that detail! The first private astronaut packed candy for the trip. That's the most relatable thing about space exploration I've ever heard.
LANE: June 21st, 1997, the WNBA plays its inaugural game—New York Liberty defeats the Los Angeles Sparks 67-57. Women's professional basketball finally gets a real league.
DAVE: This took forever to happen! The NBA had been around since 1946, but it took until 1997 for women to get a professional league with actual funding and TV coverage.
LANE: The inaugural season had eight teams and some serious star power—Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes, Rebecca Lobo. These were already household names from college and Olympic basketball.
DAVE: What's impressive is how quickly it established itself. That first game drew over a million TV viewers, proving there was definitely an audience for women's professional sports.
LANE: Although the pay disparity was... significant. WNBA players were making around $15,000 to $50,000 per year while NBA minimum was over $270,000.
DAVE: Still true today, unfortunately. But the league has grown steadily—better attendance, better TV deals, more recognition. Progress is slow but it's definitely progress.
DAVE: June 21st, 2010, authorities foil a car bombing attempt in Times Square. Faisal Shahzad had loaded an SUV with explosives and parked it in one of the busiest places on Earth.
LANE: What's incredible is how it was discovered—street vendors noticed smoke coming from the vehicle and alerted police. Not high-tech surveillance, just people paying attention.
DAVE: The bomb failed to detonate properly, but it was a real threat. Times Square on a Saturday evening—thousands of people, tourists, families. This could have been catastrophic.
LANE: Shahzad was arrested 53 hours later trying to board a flight to Dubai. The investigation moved incredibly fast once they had the vehicle.
DAVE: It's one of those reminders that security often depends on ordinary people being alert and willing to speak up when something seems wrong.
LANE: Although it also shows how vulnerable crowded public spaces really are. Times Square has incredible security now, but you can't protect everywhere all the time.
LANE: Finally, June 21st, 2023, the USDA approves the first cell-grown chicken for commercial sale in the United States. We're now living in the future where you can eat meat that never came from a living animal.
DAVE: Lab-grown chicken! They take cells from a chicken, grow them in bioreactors, and produce actual chicken meat without raising and slaughtering chickens.
LANE: Two companies got approval—GOOD Meat and UPSIDE Foods. You can actually order this at select restaurants now, though it's still expensive and limited.
DAVE: What's fascinating is the regulatory challenge. How do you approve something that's technically meat but produced completely differently? The FDA and USDA had to create entirely new categories.
LANE: Environmental impact could be huge—less land use, less water, dramatically fewer greenhouse gas emissions. Plus no animal welfare concerns since no animals are harmed.
DAVE: Although I have to ask—does it taste like chicken? Because if we're engineering meat in laboratories, can we make it taste better than regular chicken?
LANE: Early reviews say it's... pretty close to regular chicken. Which is honestly impressive for what's essentially science fiction made edible.
DAVE: I love that we went from the Constitution to lab-grown meat in one episode. That's the range of human innovation right there.
LANE: So there you have it—June 21st, from the Constitution becoming real to lab-grown chicken becoming dinner, with submarine attacks and space tourism in between.
DAVE: What strikes me is how many of these events were people saying, "What if we tried something completely different?" Constitutional government, mechanical farming, private space flight, artificial meat—all crazy ideas that worked.
LANE: Although some crazy ideas also involved murdering civil rights workers and bombing Times Square, so let's appreciate the good crazy and stay vigilant about the bad crazy.
DAVE: Speaking of consistently good ideas, Randy's Donuts has been proving that perfection doesn't need reinvention since 1952—check them out at randysdonuts.com.
LANE: Thanks for joining us! We'll be back next time with more historical coincidences and probably more tangents about food innovation.
DAVE: Until then, I'm Dave—
LANE: And I'm Lane, reminding you that history is just people making decisions about constitutions, space travel, and what exactly counts as chicken.
[END OF EPISODE]
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