Episode Runtime: 10-12 minutes
Hosts: Lane & Dave
LANE: Welcome back to Touring History, the podcast where we take a leisurely stroll through the past and somehow always end up running for our lives from the sheer chaos of human existence. I'm Lane.
DAVE: And I'm Dave, your co-pilot on this journey through time, armed with nothing but Wikipedia and the vague hope that we'll sound smarter than we actually are.
LANE: Before we dive into today's historical carnival of absurdity, we want to thank our sponsor, Death Wish Coffee. Now, Dave, I know you've been testing their product extensively.
DAVE: Extensively is putting it mildly, Lane. I've been drinking Death Wish Coffee for the past week, and I can now see through time. Not metaphorically—literally. I watched the Battle of Hastings from my kitchen this morning. Death Wish Coffee uses a blend of naturally high-caffeine robusta beans with smooth arabica beans, sourced from Fair Trade certified farms, and apparently it also grants you temporal omniscience.
LANE: Founded in 2012 in Saratoga Springs, New York, Death Wish Coffee became the smallest company to run a Super Bowl commercial after winning a competition. Which proves that with enough caffeine, even small businesses can achieve the impossible—or at least afford thirty seconds of American attention span.
DAVE: Visit deathwishcoffee.com to fuel your own journey through space and time. And now, let's see what June 4th has brought us throughout history, starting with the people who decided to be born on this day.
LANE: Today we celebrate the birthday of Angelina Jolie, born in 1975, proving that some people are just genetically programmed to make the rest of us feel inadequate in every conceivable way.
DAVE: Also born today in 1975, because apparently that was a banner year for people who would later make us question our life choices, Russell Brand. A man who somehow made a career out of being aggressively British and talking very, very fast.
LANE: We've got Bar Refaeli from 1985, George III from 1738—you know, the king who lost America because he couldn't figure out taxation without representation was a bad slogan—and Bruce Dern from 1936, who's been playing unsettling characters in movies since before your parents figured out how movies worked.
DAVE: Speaking of things that predate our understanding, let's travel back to the very beginning of our historical tour...
DAVE: June 4th, 1738, marks the birth of King George III, a man whose legacy can be summed up as "How to Lose an Empire in 10 Easy Steps." George would go on to rule Britain for 60 years, which is impressive until you realize he spent a good chunk of that time talking to trees.
LANE: The man had what historians politely call "episodes of mental illness," though I suspect if you were responsible for losing the American colonies, you'd probably start having conversations with the furniture too. "Hello, ottoman, do you think I should have taxed tea?" "Well Your Majesty, I wouldn't know, I'm a footrest."
DAVE: But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Young George was just a baby on this day, blissfully unaware that he would one day become the poster child for why absolute monarchy might not be the best system of government.
LANE: Fast-forwarding to 1896, Henry Ford took his first automobile, the Quadricycle, for a test drive. Now, calling it the "Quadricycle" makes it sound like a fancy bicycle for people who really, really can't balance, but this was actually the beginning of Ford's journey toward revolutionizing transportation.
DAVE: The Quadricycle was essentially four bicycle wheels attached to a buggy with an engine that produced a whopping 4 horsepower. For perspective, that's less power than most modern coffee grinders. Speaking of which, Death Wish Coffee probably has more kick than Ford's first car had horsepower.
LANE: Ford would later say he knew he was onto something when his test drive didn't end with him being trampled by a horse, which was apparently the bar for automotive success in 1896. Low expectations: they're not just for dating anymore.
DAVE: Our first advertising history moment comes from 1917, when the American Association of Advertising Agencies was founded. Because apparently, America looked at World War I raging across Europe and thought, "You know what we really need right now? Better advertising."
LANE: This organization would go on to establish standards for advertising ethics, which is like establishing standards for unicorn behavior—theoretically important, but you're not entirely sure the thing you're regulating actually exists.
DAVE: The AAAA, as it's known—because Americans love acronyms almost as much as we love advertising—would eventually oversee the industry that convinced us we needed everything from cigarettes for our health to cars that would make us attractive. Revolutionary stuff.
LANE: Moving to 1919, Congress passed the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote. Only took us about 143 years after independence to realize that maybe, just maybe, half the population should have a say in how the country is run.
DAVE: The amendment passed the House by a margin of 304 to 89, which seems decisive until you realize that 89 congressmen looked at the idea of women voting and thought, "Nope, too radical." I assume these are the same men who thought the earth was flat and that bathing was dangerous.
LANE: What's remarkable is that this was considered controversial. Women had been proving their competence in literally every other area of life, but somehow the idea of them choosing politicians was seen as a bridge too far. Because clearly, men had been doing such a stellar job with that responsibility.
DAVE: Our second advertising history moment: 1937 saw the introduction of the first shopping cart at the Humpty Dumpty supermarket in Oklahoma City. Because nothing says "American innovation" like figuring out how to carry more stuff we don't need.
LANE: The cart was invented by Sylvan Goldman, who noticed that customers stopped shopping when their hand-held baskets got too heavy. His solution? Wheels. Revolutionary thinking: when people can't carry more, give them something with wheels to carry more. This is either genius or the beginning of the end of civilization.
DAVE: Goldman had to hire attractive people to push the carts around the store because customers were initially too embarrassed to use them. Which means we literally had to be tricked into accepting the tool that would eventually enable our transformation into a nation of bulk shoppers. This explains so much about America.
LANE: We'll be right back with more historical chaos, but first, let's take a moment to thank our sponsor again.
DAVE: Death Wish Coffee has been harnessing the magical powers of robusta beans since 2012, before other coffee companies caught on. They've created coffee so strong that NASA literally sent it to the International Space Station. Because when you're orbiting Earth at 17,500 miles per hour, you need coffee that can keep up.
LANE: Their USDA Organic and Fair Trade Certified beans are sourced from India, Peru, and Central America, then roasted to what they call "deep, never-bitter perfection." It's coffee that respects both your taste buds and your need to remain conscious for more than four hours at a time.
DAVE: Visit deathwishcoffee.com and use our code—just kidding, we don't have a code. But visit anyway, because they make excellent coffee and we're not just saying that because they're paying us. Well, we are saying it because they're paying us, but we'd say it anyway.
LANE: And now, back to our historical journey...
LANE: June 4th, 1940, marked the end of the Dunkirk evacuation and Winston Churchill's famous "We shall fight on the beaches" speech. Operation Dynamo had just rescued over 338,000 Allied troops from what should have been a complete disaster.
DAVE: Churchill stood before Parliament and essentially said, "Well, we just had our asses handed to us, but don't worry—we're going to keep fighting anyway." This is the British approach to everything: lose spectacularly, then give a rousing speech about it.
LANE: The speech included the immortal lines about fighting on the beaches, on the landing grounds, in the fields and in the streets. Basically, Churchill's plan was to fight the Germans everywhere except, apparently, in the places where they'd actually want to go. It's like declaring you'll defend your house by fighting in the yard, the garage, and the shed, but maybe not so much in the actual living room.
DAVE: Two years later, June 4th, 1942, the Battle of Midway began in the Pacific. This would become the turning point of the Pacific Theater, proving that sometimes the best military strategy is to accidentally stumble into exactly the right place at exactly the right time.
LANE: The Americans had broken Japanese naval codes, which meant they knew the attack was coming. This is like playing poker when you can see the other guy's cards, except the stakes were the entire Pacific Ocean and also civilization as we know it.
DAVE: The battle would last four days and result in Japan losing four aircraft carriers and their best pilots. It's worth noting that this massive victory happened partly because of intelligence work and partly because sometimes luck decides to show up wearing an American flag.
LANE: Moving ahead to 1944, the U.S. Army captured Rome, making it the first Axis capital to fall to the Allies. Though calling Rome an "Axis capital" is a bit like calling your rebellious teenager the "head of household rebellion"—technically accurate, but everyone knows who's really in charge.
DAVE: The capture of Rome was overshadowed by D-Day happening two days later, which proves that even in World War II, timing was everything. It's like throwing the party of the century the same weekend as someone else's wedding—sure, your event is important, but good luck getting coverage.
LANE: Still, liberating Rome was significant. The city had been continuously inhabited for over 2,500 years, had survived the fall of the Roman Empire, the rise of the Catholic Church, and countless invasions, but apparently couldn't handle Mussolini. Which tells you something about Mussolini.
DAVE: June 4th, 1975, saw the premiere of "Jaws," which created the summer blockbuster and ruined beach vacations forever. Steven Spielberg took a mechanical shark that barely worked and somehow convinced an entire generation that the ocean was trying to kill them.
LANE: The movie was supposed to show the shark constantly, but the mechanical shark kept breaking down, so Spielberg had to use suggestion and music instead. This accidental artistic choice created more terror than any CGI shark could manage today. It's like the shark was so scary it broke itself.
DAVE: "Jaws" made people afraid to go swimming in swimming pools, which shows you the power of cinema. The movie was about a great white shark in the ocean, but audiences applied the fear universally. "What if there's a shark in my bathtub?" they wondered, as if sharks had learned to use plumbing.
LANE: 1984 brought us Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A.," an album that would be misunderstood by more politicians than probably any other piece of music in American history. The title track is actually a critique of how America treated Vietnam veterans, but it has a catchy chorus, so politicians used it at rallies anyway.
DAVE: This is peak America: taking a song that's critical of how we treat our veterans and using it to celebrate America at political events. It's like using "War Pigs" as your wedding song—sure, it rocks, but you might want to listen to the lyrics first.
LANE: Springsteen himself has had to ask multiple politicians to stop using his music, which must be frustrating. Imagine writing a song about the struggles of working-class America, and then having wealthy politicians use it to soundtrack their campaigns. That's not irony—that's just American politics.
DAVE: June 4th, 1989, was a study in contrasts. In Beijing, the Chinese government violently suppressed pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, while in Poland, the country held its first partially free elections since World War II.
LANE: The image of a single protester standing in front of a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square became one of the most powerful photographs in history. One person, standing alone, facing down the machinery of authoritarian power. Meanwhile, in Poland, people were lining up to vote in elections that would begin the end of communist rule in Eastern Europe.
DAVE: It's remarkable how the same day could showcase both the brutal suppression of democracy and its peaceful emergence. History doesn't follow a script—sometimes it's writing tragedy and comedy simultaneously, and you never know which one you're living through until later.
LANE: Finally, we end with 1996 and the spectacular failure of the Ariane 5 rocket during its maiden flight. After 37 seconds of flight, the rocket exploded, taking with it four satellites and approximately $500 million.
DAVE: The cause? A software error. Specifically, a piece of code from the previous Ariane 4 rocket that couldn't handle the Ariane 5's faster acceleration. So Europe's most advanced rocket was destroyed by what was essentially a copy-and-paste error. This is why you always test your code, kids.
LANE: The explosion was later called "the most expensive software bug in history," though I suspect that record has since been broken by whatever code runs social media algorithms. At least the Ariane 5 explosion was quick—social media bugs just slowly destroy civilization over decades.
DAVE: And that's our tour through June 4th throughout history—from King George III's birth to rocket explosions, with stops for women's suffrage, shopping carts, and sharks that terrorized a generation.
LANE: Once again, thanks to Death Wish Coffee for sponsoring today's episode. Visit deathwishcoffee.com for coffee strong enough to fuel your own journey through the absurdity of human existence.
DAVE: Join us next time when we'll explore another day in history and try to make sense of how we got from there to here without completely losing our minds.
LANE: I'm Lane.
DAVE: I'm Dave.
BOTH: And this has been Touring History.
[END OF SCRIPT - ESTIMATED RUNTIME: 11-12 MINUTES]
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