Kara 0:00

Hey everybody, this is Kara.

Ed 0:02

And this is Ed.

Kara 0:03

And this is your day's dumpster fire. Hello? Oh. Ed, you're muted. Yeah.

Ed 0:40

Hey. Hey there.

Kara 0:42

There you go.

Ed 0:45

Oh yeah. Yeah, off to a fine start.

Kara 0:49

That was good.

Ed 0:50

Oh boy. Yeah, because my my mic always picks up stuff. I I hit the little uh the little sound bit button. But if I don't pick up if I don't mute myself, then you can hear me like grunting in the background or breathing heavy, and it it just it just gets awkward. So I I mute myself like we did during COVID, and here we are, still an issue today.

Kara 1:15

Oh yeah. It's like being back in the Zoom calls all over again.

Ed 1:19

I think that yeah, I remember when we were at when we were working together, they had an ugly sweater contest during the holidays, and one lady she brought in this ugly sweater, uh traditional like gaudy red, red and green with all the tinsel, and it was it was horrendous. But instead of saying like ho ho ho or live laugh love or happy Noel or whatever it is, it just said you're on mute, and that that was all. And um I uh yeah, she won.

Kara 1:51

Because that was that's pretty good.

Ed 1:54

That is the most spoken phrase during COVID I think ever came about.

Kara 1:59

Yeah, that's that's pretty good. That's solid.

Ed 2:03

So yeah, but yeah, it sounds like we got a uh we got an interesting episode ahead of us.

Kara 2:09

Before we jump into it though, I just wanted to thank all ye lovely listeners. Uh who were going through our numbers uh last night and this morning. I went through the Spotify streaming numbers, uh, and we appreciate you guys. Thank you for for listening to our spiels and our ramblings about history's failures. So I just wanted to throw that out.

Ed 2:33

Yeah, it was awesome because I uh I I use a different piece of software just to kind of get like a basic overview. And it show it shows me like downloads, but it doesn't really show us like who's streaming, you know, who's like who's streaming versus who's downloading versus who has finished an episode, who hasn't. That's all stuff that costs a lot more money that we don't have. But yeah, we went through the Spotify stuff, and there's like, you know, there there's there's actually you know respectable numbers. Like there, like there's followers out there that avidly listen to like everything.

Kara 3:05

Yeah. So appreciate you. Just wanted to give you guys a shout.

Ed 3:09

Yeah. Um, and if you are some of those followers, like just be sure to like stop whatever you're doing and every car ride, just make sure that you're carpooling with somebody who has a radio and your phone's connected so that you know you can just force everybody to listen.

Kara 3:24

Yeah, really hold them down to it.

Ed 3:26

Yep, be that guy or go.

Kara 3:28

Be that guy. The other thing is if you want to um participate in trash can fires, if you want to tell us stories, if you want to give us ideas for episodes, we are all ears. Uh you can contact us at thedaysdumpsterfire at gmail.com. And if um we get more of you guys and more followers, I was thinking about maybe even opening a Discord so we can chat and talk to each other, you can talk to us, we can talk to you. Um, so if you guys want us to do that, uh let us know. Give us a shout. We are also available on Instagram. I think uh Ed's available on Facebook questions.

Ed 4:06

Yeah, and I still need to put that together. Yeah, because it takes all of 10 minutes and I still haven't done that yet.

Kara 4:12

Yeah, it's fine. To be fair, we're very busy. Um so yeah, uh get a hold of us, get into contact with us. I put a fun little poll on the um for our Spotify listeners. I put a fun little poll on the witch trials episode. So if you want to take a vote on that episode for our Spotify listeners, have at it enjoy. I'll keep doing that a little bit more often. Um, I know I promised to put up a doodle on the Instagram and I haven't done it yet. I know I suck. I'm going to put one up, I swear.

Ed 4:44

Um I should put up the uh the picture. I need to put up the picture that you gave me for Christmas.

Kara 4:51

Put up the episode 20 picture for for the folks at home so they can see my doodles.

Ed 4:56

Yeah, it's it's pretty epic. It's like a dumpster fire, but like all our episodes are in the smoke coming out of the dumpster.

Kara 5:06

Up to episode 20, at least I could.

Ed 5:08

Yeah. Yeah, it it's it's pretty epic. I'll I'll I'll take a picture of it and um and then we can I'll I'll try to put it up. I don't know much about Instagram, so I'll probably mess that up. And if you guys really want to be in for a good time and we get this Discord thing going, I have no idea how to use Discord. I've never used it before. So in the process of me trying to figure it out, um, it's probably gonna be some really good entertainment there for you.

Kara 5:35

Oh yeah, it'll be a good deal. Trash can fires all around.

Ed 5:38

Especially me like saying stupid stuff and trying to figure it things out like an old grandpa that still doesn't know how to copy and paste something.

Kara 5:45

Perfect. And speaking of trash can fires, what is yours?

Ed 5:50

So I was originally thinking about an email that we got, and I'm like, that is the most boring trash can fire ever. Pure entertainment. Oh yeah, it was it was thrilling, thrilling stuff. Um all because I misunderstood it a date. But I think I think a more exciting one is when I almost got my head cut off with a chainsaw a couple weeks ago.

Kara 6:13

Definitely more exciting.

Ed 6:15

Yes, yes, especially since I'm here to tell this the story, and I'm not like some floating head in a in in a jar like in Futurama. So for those of you outside of Arizona, we have a tree that kind of grows everywhere, and it grows fast, and uh it's called a mesquite tree, and this is like the most epitome, epitomized desert tree out there because they can triple in size with like a drop of water, and they don't require much of soil and all that kind of stuff. And I'm actually sitting in my home office looking at this this tree, and we've had it for about eight, nine years when we bought the house, and we bought the house that was nothing more than like a four-foot-tall shrub. Now it's like you know, it's like 20, 30 some odd feet tall, and we had branches that were growing into our roofing tiles. So that's a problem. And my wife and I decided instead of hiring landscapers, you know, people that actually know what they're doing, uh, with the right tools, I borrowed my brother's chainsaw and I proceeded to go to work on this tree. I have never used a chainsaw much before, let alone be up on a janky ladder or in the middle of some giant tree that is now growing into our roof. I have no idea where to make the cuts. I have no idea. Only thing I know how to do is turn it on, and even still, that's that's questionable. That's like a that's like a 10 or 15 minute process for me. So we practiced on a bunch of smaller branches, and then we got to the bohemoth, and this bohemoth branch was a solid foot in diameter, and it was sticking out of the tree at a 45 degree angle, and it was going straight into my roof. I I probably should have watched a YouTube video and where to make the initial cut and and all that kind of stuff. I'm like, ah, screw it. I'm just gonna go just come straight down, just go full-on horror movie action on it. And I started sawing and sawing and sawing, and then the branch broke, but from the bottom. So that meant that the branch wanted to come down where I was cutting, but since it was kind of hitting the roof of our house, it wanted to go up, and so it basically pinned the whole blade portion of the chainsaw between the like the stalk of the tree and the branch I was cutting down. I don't know what kind of leverage was on that thing. There it had to be close to a thousand pounds as pinching that thing. So we had a running chainsaw jammed up into a tree that was so tightly bound that uh I I could have hung off of the chainsaw and it wouldn't have budged.

Kara 9:05

Nice.

Ed 9:06

Uh yeah, so my bright idea was tie a rope around the handle of the chainsaw and then throw the rope over another branch, like you know, adjacent to it, and then have my wife hold that rope really, really tight. So then in the event that the chainsaw did come loose, it didn't like fall straight to the ground or whatever. Then I would go to the opposite side of the chainsaw and just start sawing away at it. And it yeah, I didn't have anything big enough to get through it. My leatherman certainly wasn't gonna cut through that thing, and it was so hard, it was such a hard piece of mesquite that everything I put in there would just bind up in it. So there was like an hour later of using hand saws and rotary saws and salzalls and just whatever I could find, short of a flamethrower to burn the tree down to try to get this thing out. So then we decided, okay, let's go further up on that partially cut branch and let's start cutting off some of the other bigger stuff to reduce the weight. And that seemed to do the trick. Kathleen was up on the ladder cutting off the smaller stuff, and then she just like pulled with all her might, and that big branch snapped, and that chainsaw just came whooping around, flying right at my face.

Kara 10:27

Oh god.

Ed 10:28

And um, at that time it wasn't running, but still that chainsaw, that chain part is pretty sharp, and it was flying at me at a pretty good speed, and in the process of me cowering like a little baby, because I have no survival skills. In the process of me cowering, I pulled that rope, which then pulled a chainsaw up into the tree and out of harm's way. But I felt like I needed to change my shorts after that. Seeing a chainsaw flying through the air at your face is that'll turn your shorts brown real quick. Uh yeah, like it was such an evil dead scene.

Kara 11:07

Like Final Destination.

Ed 11:11

Yeah, like this is like my flip, my life was flashing before my eyes. Like, I mean, if I if it didn't cause permanent damage, it would have left me scarred over like the left side of my face. So I mean that would be a cool story to tell. Is in like I got this in a bar fight, because I'm I'm not gonna tell anybody that I got my face cut off with a chainsaw, but right, right, right. Um but yeah, that was that was a very interesting bonding moment with my wife because she was just standing there laughing at me while I was like screaming that there's a chainsaw flying at my face.

Kara 11:46

Right. I mean like wives do.

Ed 11:50

She's like, sh insurance claim, insurance claim. We're having a good Christmas this year, guys. So yeah, that's that that was me almost getting chopped up into little pieces. And I think you have a bigger story about people getting chopped up into little pieces.

Kara 12:11

Oh yeah, it's it's gonna be a fun time.

Ed 12:13

Now that's a segue.

Kara 12:15

That's it's hey, it's a good one. Except they were more poked into little pieces, I guess.

Ed 12:21

But anyway. They were poked to like a pincushion.

Kara 12:24

Yeah, yeah, that's that's it. We are going to talk about the Battle of Thermopylae and Persia. So for those of you who don't know it by the name of the Battle of Thermopylae, it is also known as the Battle of the 300, the 300 Spartans, the movie that came out in 2006 with Gerard Butler and lots of abs. That one. So we're going to talk about that, but we're going to talk about it kind of in the perspective of the Persians, kind of. And the reason for that is Persia was this big humongo empire that came to take over tiny little Greece, and this essentially kind of made them lose the war. Right? So they won the battle, they didn't win the war, that type of thing.

Ed 13:16

Was it just because the casualties were so high? Or was it because it just took the wind out of their sails?

Kara 13:22

It was all about the morale of the Greek side of things.

Ed 13:28

Okay. Oh, because the Greeks, because they they stood their ground for that 300 with those 300 guys that it just riled everybody up to take on the Persians?

Kara 13:37

Yep. Basically, if those 300 guys can stand out to the Persians, so can we.

unknown 13:42

Gotcha.

Kara 13:42

That's what it did.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Okay.

Kara 13:43

Oh, and uh, for for those of you who are wondering, my name today is Xerxes Sucks. So um, because I know.

Ed 13:54

I originally, when I sent you the invite, it I had in like all caps, all letters, because I I could put a name in for the invite. I put in this is Kara, and but I guess that didn't stick.

Kara 14:06

It didn't, you know, when I read it, I was like, okay, it went right over my head. Like that this is spata. I understand it now.

Ed 14:15

And then I could just see all 100 pounds of you just like kicking some big old giant dude into like a giant hole. That'd be sick. That would actually be a good drawing. You should do that.

Kara 14:25

That'd be cool. Me just kicking, kicking some big big mongo dude.

Ed 14:30

Yeah, yeah, just yeah, some gnarly guy, or have like have do a picture of like a Leah like that. Or have a Kathleen like this is it, and kicking somebody into a hole.

Kara 14:43

Oh god. Uh all right, so yes, the source of all the memes, but we're going to get down to the historical knowings of it, or at least for what we know. It is ancient times, so sometimes there is some holes in there, there's some sources that are questionable and all that fun stuff. So we'll get into it. Alright, so first we're gonna talk about Persia. Instead of Greece, we're going to start with Persia. So Persia is a culture that began in the region of what we know today as Iran. It was originally named Parsis or Pars until the Greeks extended it and called it Persia a little bit later. Uh, beginning all the way back, all the way back to early human times, uh, this area was inhabited by early humans all the way up through the Neolithic era, through the Stone Age. So this is an area that has had humans since the very beginning. Um, Persia was inhabited that long ago, and the first mention of Parsus appeared in 844 BCE in the writings of an Assyrian king at the end of the Greek Dark Age. So the people in Persia, forever Persia itself, around 844 BCE, maybe before just kind of the writing at the time was spotty. Um Persia's first dynasty. Forgive me, all of the people who can pronounce this. I am sorry. Um the the the Achaimenid? I'm gonna go with Achaemenid dynasty. Um that was the first dynasty, it lasted a really long time.

Ed 16:18

These people uh Caimenids.

Kara 16:22

Achaimonids, yeah, something like that.

Ed 16:24

Yeah.

Kara 16:25

Again, I apologize. Um, so the Achaemenids were the original native people of the area, and this dynasty was in power until Alexander the Great began to gain popularity. So around 800, 844-ish BCE, all the way up to around like 380 BCE, maybe ish, ish, somewhere around there. Again, years are give or take this time period, so yeah.

Ed 16:56

Yeah. 50 years, plus or minus doesn't really change a whole lot.

Kara 17:00

Yeah. Alright, so we're gonna drop into 550 BCE right quick. Persia was ruled by a guy named King Cyrus II or Cyrus the Great. This guy is the guy who united all of the surrounding area and Persian land, Iranian lands, and by 530 BCE, and upon his death, Cyrus expanded the Persian Empire that spanned from the western border of what is now India to the borders of Egypt and the eastern part of the Greek Mediterranean, so the eastern part of the Aegean Sea. And he even overtook Babylon. So this guy expanded the empire huge amounts of lands. Like, I wish I could show you guys a map. It's massive. And it went all the way from India to the eastern part of the Greek city-states, basically Iona. Am I looking at this right? Yeah, basically Iona. So he expanded, expanded, expanded, expanded. And under Cyrus II's rule, Persia became the most powerful and largest empire known for that time period. And historians today call Persia the world's first superpower. Alright. Cyrus was known for giving cultures he ruled their cultural freedom. So if he took over an area, he'd be like, Look, you can do whatever you want. You can have your religion, you can have your culture, you can have your art, whatever. I just want your taxes, and if we go to war, I'd like your soldiers. Otherwise, do whatever you want. So Alexander the Great took this approach too. And it's proven to be pretty effective. You know, you just let people do what they want, and as long as they pay their taxes, that seems pretty fair and reasonable compared to other invaders. So I mean power to him.

Ed 18:50

You look at the Roman Empire, and the Roman Empire would take over your land, and then all the government changed. You everybody had to report to a magistrate or a governor of some sort or an imperator or like there's some there's always some Roman entity that you have to report to. Whereas when we look at Persia and Alexander the Great, I think what they understood is that you could point in any direction and you will find a city-state. And you will find a city-state that is so independent and so determined to live their own way that trying to conquer each one and replace it with a completely different government and completely different leadership would be unsustainable. Yeah.

Kara 19:42

It is impossible to run.

Ed 19:45

Yeah, because yeah, whereas, like, hey, look, you know, you fought well, you lost, but we're not here to enslave you all, we're not here to to ruin your lives, you know, you now are under our protection, you keep the leaders that you want, even the ones that stood up to us, and as long as you pay taxes so that we can help defend you and you trade with everybody else, we're in good shape. Which is a very, very unique way. And I think when we look at human history, this is probably the most unique way of conquering land in human history up to this point. And I would even venture even to this day.

Kara 20:27

Yeah, and I think it's really effective too. Yeah. Just looking at the history, um, there's ruling by force, and there's ruling by being a decent human. And maybe it's just me being biased because I'd like to try to be a decent human. Uh, but I'd like to think that this is a really effective way.

Ed 20:48

There's no air quotes on your side. It's it's I I try.

Kara 20:51

I legitimately I I like to be humble about these things.

Ed 20:56

Uh Kara the Conqueror. You know, benevolent leader.

Kara 21:00

Um, but just to give you guys an example of how how this guy did things, uh, when he took over Babylon, and Babylon was one of those major cities in the area, was one of the oldest cities, one of the biggest cities in Mesopotamia at the time. So he took over by Babylon, and when he was there, he saw that there were Jewish people who were kidnapped by the king that was there before as prisoners and slaves. And what he did was he allowed them to return to their home, to their own country. He even paid the fees for them to rebuild their temples that were ruined by the Babylonians. So not only did he release them, he helped them get home, he gave them money so they could rebuild their temples and keep their religion and all that nonsense. So, like he's he's a big uh big humanitarian type of guy, but he also likes his land.

Ed 21:49

Yeah, he likes to conquer, but not not commit genocide.

Kara 21:54

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So he died, and then his son Cambysis? The second takes the throne. And this guy tries to also expand the empire, and he takes the empire into Egypt during his reign. And he was able to take control of Egypt. However, he did have a hard time keeping it. So the Egyptian part of things, they were always rebelling, and it was difficult for him to get things under control in the area. Eventually, he died not long after failing to get Greece to help him put down a rebellion. So he asked the Greeks for help, and the Greeks were like, nah, dude. And then he failed to really get any control of it. He died in 522 BCE. Herodotus says that he committed suicide, but other historians are kind of questioning the accuracy of that because we also have Darius I coming in after him, and he was throwing out a lot of propaganda. This guy was in the history. This guy is written to be like a madman, kind of a crazy dude who didn't know what the heck he was doing, and he essentially just died because he was in inept. However, we're not sure how accurate all of that is. Um modern historians are still kind of looking into a clearer picture, but from what we have at this moment, it's a little bit fuzzy.

Ed 23:28

So So this is this is uh Darius the Great or This is Cambyses. Cambyses II.

Kara 23:36

Yeah.

Ed 23:37

Gotcha. Okay.

Kara 23:38

So he brought things.

Ed 23:41

That was the one that that we're divided on. Like some say he's psychotic and the others say that he was an absolute failure.

Kara 23:47

Yep.

Ed 23:48

Okay.

unknown 23:49

Yep.

Kara 23:49

For what it's worth, he did bring uh Egypt into the Persian Empire, so that is something, including Alexandria and all of that fun stuff. So that no, Alexandria didn't exist yet. I'm sorry.

Ed 24:02

Yeah, I was wondering, like, wow, that's Alexandria wasn't around for like another 200 years. He conquered the land that Alexandria would later be built on.

Kara 24:13

Yes.

Ed 24:14

He was ahead of his time.

Kara 24:15

That's right.

Ed 24:16

He knew standing there, like there's gonna be a city here called Alexandria, and it's gonna fall into the ocean.

Kara 24:21

And it's gonna be mine. Um okay, so Darius I. His rise to power is really weird. So this is a guy after Cambyses. He used a lot of propaganda, and his marketing team was really good about how he has slayed an imposter, and he earned the throne after getting the approval of six rich nobles for his good deed and all these things. Um, now Darius did put down a revolt, and he did slaughter a guy there who was trying to claim the throne as his own. Darius succeeded, he got the kingship, so I guess he can say whatever he wants. But I mean, the way he tells his story, it's a little bit extra, like it's a little much, you know, put you putting yourself on a pedestal there, friend. But whatever. Whatever. It's fine. Anyway. Darius squashed all of the rebellions by enacting harsh punishments on people who tried to rebel. And after he was able to bring the empire to peace, it was time to expand the empire again. So we're gonna make it bigger.

Ed 25:24

I I would I would say like the huge downfall to this this insane expansion is that I think it really taxes the infrastructure, and it seems like the only way that they can make more money, or gold for that matter, is to keep expanding and expanding and expanding. Because that's exactly what the Romans did. Is they eventually got to the point where their infrastructure couldn't be supported by the revenue of gold coming in, and so they had to just keep expanding and expanding and expanding, and then you just get to the point where it's so it's so spread out that you can't defend it.

Kara 26:02

Well, I think the difference between the Roman Empire and the Persian Empire is that Persia basically, even with leadership that was a little bit more hardcore, they still kind of conducted themselves as you know, here's uh here are my taxes, leave me alone, I'm independent.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Yeah.

Kara 26:22

Um, whereas Rome really wanted control of the entire thing, including the infrastructure, like the roads and the aqueduct systems and all of that stuff.

Ed 26:31

Like that's a good point.

Kara 26:33

So that's where Persia's a little bit different.

Ed 26:36

Um where the city-states kind of regulate their own infrastructure, whereas like Rome is like you give me all your money, and then I will determine what I'm gonna build for you guys.

Kara 26:47

Yeah, see, that's not sustainable when you have that much land, so I can see that aspect of it for Rome, but for Persia, it's a little bit different.

Ed 26:57

Gotcha. That makes sense.

Kara 26:58

Yeah, okay. So during Darius' reign, he expanded the empire further east, further north off the shores of the Black Sea and in the Caspian Sea. And then he also expanded into northern Greece as well. He did take Macedonia for a little bit there. So for those of you who are fans of Greek history, Macedonia, that's where Alexander the Great is born much later. Darius ruled, much like Cyrus II. Despite having his harsh intolerance towards uh people who wanted to start rebellions, he was actually rather tolerant to different cultures and religions and the people he ruled. So again, he liked to just give the city-states or give his, you know, cities or cultures or whatever their own free reign, do and let them do what they like. He was also big into um being a humanitarian in that way. So even though he expanded the empire, he was like, just pay taxes and fight for me, and it's fine.

Ed 27:50

Um how much do you want to bet like these leaders that were super benevolent and they like actually embraced the cultures that they took over? How many of them do you think they were foodies? All of them. Because like, why take over this land so you guys are stuck eating the crap that I came from? Instead, it's like I like your guys' food, so I'm gonna conquer your land, but just stay the way you are, because I'm gonna stop by later on and hook myself up with very various cuisines of the land.

Kara 28:30

I think by now in 2023, it's a well-known fact that food is closely tied to culture, and if you mess up culture, you mess up food. Therefore, if you like food, don't mess up culture. I agree.

Ed 28:41

I mean, I'm trying to be f like funny, but at the same time, it's I'm I'm really curious to be like, I may maybe they're foodies. They they walk around in playred shirts with long beards and skinny jeans, and they go restaurant to restaurant and uh you know say snobbish things uh about various types of food and then move on to the floor.

Kara 29:02

Carving it onto their walls and like their favorite dishes are are now for everybody to see on the walls. Yeah. Oh yeah. I'm down for that. I wish there was some archaeological evidence showing food on the walls. I wish that was a thing. I'm gonna look for it later. Yeah, that'd be great. Hipsters everywhere. Oh, amazing. All right, so when Darius took over the Ionan area in Greece, so off of the coast of the um Aegean Islands, he, despite his kind ruling, had issues you know, keeping rebellions down. So this native area under him, they didn't like it, even though they had full reign of that area, kind of like a duke under a king, they they still rebelled. Go figure, right? Like he tried really hard, he was trying to be nice, and they still just they didn't like him for some reason. I I I have to say, like, these this group of Greeks are just kind of known for for rebelling every time they have a new ruler under them, so it's just like their thing, but it's still kind of annoying. Anyway, in 500 BCE, these Greek city-states rebelled against Persia. Unfortunately, these Greeks were also backed by Athens.

Ed 30:13

That's huge.

Kara 30:14

That's annoying.

Ed 30:15

Yeah, because normally like it's Athens versus everybody else.

Kara 30:18

Correct.

Ed 30:19

And then now here's Athens siding with everybody else, like all the other Greeks, and Athens was a force to be reckoned with.

Kara 30:27

Yeah. Athens, uh, for those of you who are a little uh rusty on their their their Greek history, Athens is known for not just their academic and intellectual uh things that they've got going on, but they also had the largest navy in Greece. So their navy and their boat power was all right. So annoyed, Darius held the Greeks at bay, but he didn't necessarily like defeat them. He simultaneously attempted to negotiate with the Ionian Greeks. He was like, Can we work something out? You know, I'll give you some money. You want some good food? I have some good food over here. And it it it I'm trying, you know, and at the same time, while he's trying to negotiate diplomatically, he's also building some sort of army just in case things went sour. He had a backup plan. And despite his efforts to negotiate, the rebellions kept happening and continuing, and Darius decided to launch his attack on Marathon. Battle of Marathon, for those of you who don't know about the Battle of Marathon, it happened in Marathon, Greece, and there's a really cool story behind it. The battle in particular is why we call running a marathon a marathon. Maybe one day we'll talk about it. I'm not gonna get too deep into it. Anyways, he and he lost that one. So Darius of Big Bad Great Persia lost the Battle of Marathon. Now, obviously, that takes a hit to your ego, right? You're king of this big humongo empire, and you're trying to be nice to everybody. So they're like, fine, I'll release the hounds, and then and then you get beat, right?

Ed 32:01

So he's like, now it's like, oh, this guy just talks up a big game, but he really can't back it up with anything.

Kara 32:08

Yeah, which that's unfortunate. I'm sorry. Sorry, Darius.

Ed 32:12

I it optically it's pretty bad.

Kara 32:14

Yeah, sucks. Took a took a hit to his to his ego there, and he got upset, and Darius vowed that he'd be back to take Greece with an even bigger army, and he spent three years building it. Unfortunately, during those three years, there was a rebellion in Egypt. Darius is getting old, and in 486 he dies. Yep. So Darius dies. He's stressed, you know. Maybe he had heart attack. I don't really know how he died, but he died when he was older during this rebellion with Egypt that he was having trouble with, and he was not able to get back to Greece even though he was building his army to do so. Okay. Alright. Here we go, guys. Darius the first's oldest son takes over. Everybody. Xerxes the first.

Ed 33:01

Is his boy. Xerxes. Xerxes. X Xerxes.

Kara 33:05

X Xerxes. Xerxes.

Ed 33:09

Exer Xes.

Kara 33:11

Xerxes. Good old Xerxes. This is what this guy does. He sees this rebellion happening in Egypt. Takes his army and squishes a rebellion in one campaign. He's like, nah, it's not gonna happen. One campaign.

Ed 33:23

Well, yeah, because he has that giant army that his dad was working on for three years.

Kara 33:27

Correct. And he just he and and also, okay, he has this giant army, squishes them in one campaign. I don't think he understands how to control himself.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

Okay.

Kara 33:38

I feel like his dad would save the army for the Greek campaign and try to use like a portion of it or maybe a small battalion to try to keep Egypt under control. I have a feeling Xerxes used that big old army just to squish this in one campaign, right? No control. He just sends his army loose, like whatever, here, just doing more nuclear right out the door. Exactly. Right? And this is how he ruled. He did away with all of the human humanitarian efforts that his dad put in place and Cyrus II did before him. And they worked really hard to build the empire and all this stuff. Xerxes ruled using fear and using power with super strict laws and harsh punishments. And like this guy was a jerk. He he did away with everything. He wanted to be king. He didn't care about anybody under him. He didn't care about any of the cultures that were happening. Basically, Xerxes ignored all of the cultural relationships that were built over the years and destroyed a lot of them, including Babylon, which isn't good. Uh, it didn't really bother him much though, because whenever a city rebelled, he would just crush the rebellion send his entire freaking army, just like you know, whatever, deal with this. And then they go and deal with it really just over the top. Uh and his army was so strong.

Ed 34:56

Did he view himself as a god in the movie?

Kara 35:00

He kind of did. He had a really big ego. Um, I don't know if there was any actual like being tied to a deity or being a god on earth or anything like that. From what I have read about Xerxes, and I could be wrong on this now that I want to answer this question, I want to do it accurately. From what I read about Xerxes, I think he did believe that. Whether other people believed your girl or not is what I'm not sure about.

Ed 35:27

Or I wonder if he even believed it. Like, there's there's the idea that telling people that you're a god, so they follow you wholeheartedly, is one thing, but believing it yourself, because like the one of the the biggest scenes in the movie 300 is you know, he gets that spear thrown at him and it like cuts his ear or something like that, and he's looking at his the blood on his hands, and he's absolutely dumbfounded. He's got this look on his face, like, this is not possible. And I I don't know if that is artistic license. I I have a funny feeling it is, but I was just wondering to what degree did Xerxes really hold his power and influence it, whether if it was like propaganda that, hey, I'm a god, or like, no, literally, I I am a god, like I can't bleed, I ascend everybody.

Kara 36:18

Okay, so what I'm reading is he didn't believe himself to be like an actual god on earth or anything like that.

SPEAKER_03 36:25

Okay.

Kara 36:25

Um, he did have a title that means like king of kings, so the king of all kings in that type of situation. So it was more like I am the all-powerful king, you must fear me, and I'm awesome.

Ed 36:39

Uh, so the Joffrey uh Barathean approach.

Kara 36:42

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I don't I'm not seeing a lot of like religious aspects here.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Gotcha.

Kara 36:49

Um, regarding being like a deity on earth type of thing. Now I could be wrong, but just I'm just saying, like the research that I did, I couldn't find anything like that.

Ed 36:58

Yeah, because the thing that gets me is like you look at the all the lands that they've conquered, and you've got so many different cultural and religious beliefs there. To put yourself on the pedestal of being like all-knowing, all-powerful god, that's not gonna sit well with the 30 some odd lands that you've taken over with completely different cultures and and whatnot.

Kara 37:22

Yeah, but you know, when you have an army that you can just unleash on anybody, it's no whatever, no sweat to you, right?

Ed 37:29

Yeah, yeah, fair enough.

Kara 37:30

That was kind of his attitude. Like, I I don't care.

Ed 37:33

Yeah.

Kara 37:34

I am your king.

Ed 37:36

What petulance?

Kara 37:38

Xerxes sucks. Hence my name. Anyway. I think the general consensus is that he wanted to follow in his dad's footsteps, or you know, it was an advisor that was taking things personally as far as the relationship with Greece goes. Like I know that he had a um a military leader under him who was really pushing for a war with Greece and to continue going into Greece and expand that way. The the general the general consensus as to why Xerxes decided he was going to go and attack Greece was the relationship his father had with Greece, this uh military leader guy, um, and maybe some other things that we're not sure about. Whatever the case, Xerxes decides that he is going to go to Greece and he is going to take things over. After having success on other occasions to expand his empire, he's going to go to Greece, and he takes four whole years to continue building his army, gathering soldiers, gathering supplies, gathering everything he needs, weapons, what have you, um, to go to war with Greece. So he spends his four years building this big humongous army that we all hear about, um, the biggest army that the ancient world has ever seen. It takes him four years to do it.

Ed 39:13

I wonder then at this point, you know, because if you look at uh his predecessors, his predecessors probably had a lot of soldiers that wanted to fight for them, like they would volunteer. Xerxes seems like the kind of guy that would go to the surrounding conquered lands and be like, give me all your fighting, aged men. If you don't, we'll kill you all.

Kara 39:36

I think it's a little bit of both camps. I think it's that camp primarily, but I think there's also a little bit of um Persian pride where like, okay, we're gonna go fight for Persia. You know, our king wasn't able to uh go into Greece, so we're gonna try it again with this guy and see how it goes. But I think primarily it was the uh we're going to kill you if you don't fight.

Ed 39:59

Yeah, we're gonna draft you kind of a thing, which yeah, which doesn't like it bolsters your numbers, but it doesn't really get people like super excited to fight for you, kind of a thing.

Kara 40:11

Yeah, yeah. And as I think if anybody who knows the story will tell you sheer numbers is what Persia was relying on.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

Okay, yeah.

Kara 40:21

Yeah. So the number of Persian soldiers uh for this little expedition is still debated today. So this is something that historians are still arguing about. This is something that scholars still talk about. How many soldiers actually were there? Uh, the primary resource that we have for this battle in particular is Herodotus. And uh, if anybody has studied world history, everybody knows Herodotus, but they also know to take his stories with a grain of salt and understand that he did make a lot of exaggerations with what he was talking about, even if they are um rooted in truth. So Herodotus claims that there were over two million Persian soldiers and four thousand ships. A different contemporary of Herodotus, his name was Tesius, he's a poet. He claimed that there were four million, which is more than what Herodotus says, and that's a lot. Um today, however, modern estimates just based off of Persian resources and the amount of people who were living there at the time, uh, modern resources put the number between 120,000 to 300,000 soldiers, um, and a few hundred ships. A few thousand ships, actually. There were a lot of ships.

Ed 41:36

Yeah, I mean, I did the math. So if you have 4,000 ships and you have two million men, according to Herodotus, which by the way, in Roman numerals, that would be huge. Um that would equate to about 500 men per ship. And I don't think they had ships back then that big, because that would be on par with like like the age of exploration, where you have Britain and France and Spain and all that, like they had those giant sailing ships. That's about how many men those things could hold. So assuming that we keep it at 120,000, which is still a massive amount of fighting men, divide that by say 4,000 ships, that's 30 men per ship. So I think those ships that they were using, because a lot of them had like rowing capabilities, uh, that would make sense if there was like 30 to 100 men per yeah. I I yeah, I could definitely see it being closer to 120,000 to 300,000, assuming that 4,000 ships is the baseline. And of course, if you vary from the how many ships there were, either way, you're you're looking at you're looking at between 30 and 100 men per boat to realistically handle.

Kara 42:54

I just know that there's going to be a lot of boats. And I'll tell you why. Oh, it's it's a trip, man. I'm gonna tell you what this guy does. Um, alright, so just so you guys kind of have an idea of the lay of the land here, so when Xerxes decides he's going to come in, right? Uh he he's not playing. His army's massive, especially for classical age standards. We just went over this. This was his plan for invasion, okay? Xerxes planned to arrive north of Athens by crossing the channel of Hellespont. Um, and if you all open up a map and look at the Battle of Thermopylae map here, we got a strait between the Aegean Sea, this cool little island here, and then Greece, and there's a strait in there. So you have to cross the strait to get to mainland Greece, right?

Ed 43:46

That's that you you boe.

unknown 43:49

Yeah.

Ed 43:51

Yeah.

Kara 43:52

So what they're doing is they're coming from the north and going south, and then they're going to go in this strait. I don't know if you see those red lines, Ed, but if you go in This straight here, and then down here, they're going to basically do a um an attack on two fronts. They're going to do one on water and one on land.

Ed 44:09

Yeah.

Kara 44:10

Okay.

Ed 44:10

They're gonna do the uh the pincer maneuver.

Kara 44:13

Yeah, exactly. And this channel of water between Europe and Asia, here's where they came through. According to Herodotus, and I've found this on other accounts as well, so I'm going to believe it just because it's a cool image in my head. Um, Xerxes did this cool thing where he strung together two long lines of 300 ships creating a bridge.

SPEAKER_03 44:35

Oh.

Kara 44:36

He strung two long lines of 300 ships to create a bridge for his army to pass the strait to get to land. Um and on the coast of the strait, he had about 1,200 steps, ships. So 1200 plus the 300 on top of the weird, you know, bridge situation happening. And then Herodotus at some point says there's like a million ships, which lol. No.

Ed 45:00

Um million ships.

Kara 45:02

It's a lot of ships, all right.

Ed 45:04

You don't kind of barrel floating and water a ship, dude.

Kara 45:07

Like hey man, you never know. Also, fun fact that I read in one of the sources uh these sea bridges that he made, these ship bridges, uh, a storm destroyed the first version, apparently. And it took seven days to remake it. So there's two of them.

Ed 45:25

So there, so there is a there's an episode of the podcast in there.

Kara 45:30

We'll just call it Xerxes trash can fire. You imagine about you know, the other day I was trying to invade Greece and I made this cool ship thing. They said the weather was gonna be great, but can you believe it?

Ed 45:42

Yeah, weathermen these days, like you can't trust them. Yeah, I know they're they're just as accurate in in 500 BC as they are in 2023. I apologize to any weathermen out there, but yeah, sorry, guys. You laugh because it's true.

Kara 45:59

Yeah. On land, another hundred thousand land soldiers uh were waiting for direction in Sardis or current-day Turkey across the sea. So not only did he have guys coming from the ships and all of these men on the Greek side of things, he also had men waiting across the way, waiting to see what the plan was, right? All right. So Xerxes planned to take all of these things and all of this stuff through the straits and along the coast down to the rest of Greece. So his plan was to go down to the coastline, through Thermopylae, and down into Athens. That was his plan. What Xerxes didn't plan on was the Greek city-states being somewhat united against his forces. One big mistake that uh Xerxes made was he got his plans kind of leaked through the uh the grapevine a little bit. And um Greece had about two years to figure out what they were going to do when Persia got there.

Ed 46:57

Oh, how interesting. Because in the movie 300, they make it sound like they're gonna be here any minute, and it's like everybody rush out the door. But I guess when you have two years to know that an attack is inevitable, you can do a lot of preparing.

Kara 47:13

Yeah. So, I mean, the Greeks didn't know how he was going to attack, the Greeks didn't know exactly when, like they didn't have a date, but they knew that he was coming. So they did have time to prepare a little bit. Because especially after the Battle of Marathon, it's like one of those things where, you know, you're poking the bear. Um all right, so what's Xerxes? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Blah blah blah. Uh, usually these city-states are always fighting each other. You know, they're always they're always warring against each other and all of that fun stuff. But uh when Xerxes got there, uh they were actually pretty united against the uh the onslaught of uh the Persian army coming into Greece. You know, I mean, even though they're always fighting, they're like siblings. They're like, oh you I can I can mess with them, I can fight them, but you can't. What are you doing?

Ed 48:05

Oh yeah, the sibling, the the the bully sibling paradox were like, no, no, no, only I can beat the crap out of my brother. You can't touch him.

Kara 48:14

Yes. I feel like that's what's going on.

Ed 48:16

Okay, we can see that.

Kara 48:18

Yeah. Anyway, so Athens sent their navy, their big powerful navy, north to deal with the uh forces of water. And then on land, the Greeks mustered up a hodgepodge of about 7,000 soldiers. That included 300 Spartans, those famous guys, and their helots, which are um Spartan slaves, 2,120 Arcadians, 1,000 Locrians, 1,000 Phochians, 7,000 Thespians, 400 Corinthians, 400 Thebans, 200 men from Phleos. Oh, I think I'd messed that one up, and 80 Mycenaeans. Oh, yeah, you're probably right.

Ed 49:02

And then the and then I think the other one, the 200 men from I think it's Phlaus.

Kara 49:06

Yeah, that sounds right.

Ed 49:08

Flaus, yeah.

Kara 49:09

Flaus. That sounds butchery, but it's fine.

Ed 49:12

Um, like, nope, nope, we don't need to look at this.

Kara 49:16

Yeah, I was reading through it and then I noticed that was wrong. Um, anyway, so the Greek foot army, all of these 7,000 men, they were led by Sparta's other king, Leonidas. Uh, for those of you who who know Leonidas, he is one of two kings, so Sparta always had two kings at the time. He, I think he volunteered for this job, as opposed to the other king who decided he was going to stay in Sparta and do his kingly duties. Um, I also wanted to note that at this time period when Persia was coming was real convenient. It was during the Sacred Olympics that were happening, and it was also during a like a religious Spartan festival that was happening at the time as well. So that's probably why we have so few Greek soldiers coming in. Um, they knew they had to be on the defense, but they also knew that they had, you know, religious duties they had to take care of, and there were the Olympics happening. You can't just stop that. That's a lot of money in preparation. Like, come on. Anyway, also something that I thought was really interesting. The 300 Spartans that Leonidas picked, he picked them specifically because they were all men who had successors and descendants. He wanted to make sure that the families in Sparta remained intact, so he only took people who had descendants. And I thought that was a really interesting thing. And like uh something to do.

Ed 50:37

Like they had something to live for and something to die for.

Kara 50:41

Kind of, but they all he also wanted to make sure they had kids. He had they had sons.

SPEAKER_01 50:45

Oh, okay.

Kara 50:46

They all had sons, so like the family line would continue on because that's real big.

SPEAKER_01 50:51

Gotcha.

Kara 50:52

Yep. I just thought it was real interesting. In order to understand the battle of Thermopylae, Thermopylae. Wow, I butchered that. The battle of Thermopylae, it's important to understand the geography of the area. Alright, so just close your eyes, take a breath. I'm gonna treat you like the middle schoolers. Take a breath in, close your eyes. Alright, picture it. Thermopylae in Greek literally means hot gates. The area was home to numerous sulfur hot springs. So they smelled kind of they s it's the area smelled like sulfur. Smelled like Bart. It was bad. Okay, there's steam coming out of the earth. Um, it was probably kind of misty and creepy. Uh, in Greek mythology, they believed this area was an actual gate to Hades or to hell. Uh, it was also this area did not look like it does today. Today is completely landlocked.

Ed 51:47

Looking at that picture that you put in, it's like, oh, that doesn't look that intimidating.

Kara 51:51

Yeah, no, it doesn't look intimidating there. However, back then it looked a lot different. Uh, so on one side, you have really tall mountains, really tall mountains that are hard to climb. You don't want to touch them, like that's a little bit scary. You can't do that with a big army. On the other side, you had a coastline. And at the at the part of the beach that was the smallest, so where the coastline of the ocean met the mountains, where it was the thinnest there, I believe it was only like a dozen yards wide. There was a wall built by the Phoenicians, which even 2,000 years ago it was kind of in ruins, like it looked pretty bad, but there was a wall there. Oh, okay.

Ed 52:29

So there was actually defensive fortification put there.

Kara 52:32

Yeah, there was a wall there, but it was in ruins, so it wasn't like a good wall.

Ed 52:36

Okay.

Kara 52:37

But but it was there. So just try to picture like big mountains, a small, skinny little beach, and then ocean with a wall kind of in the middle, okay? With like poopy smelling sulfuric gases coming out. That's that's what we got.

Ed 52:56

I can I can see why Leonidas would choose this area, because it is just so inhospitable and so dreary that it would just suck the morale out of anybody visiting there for the first time.

Kara 53:09

Well, yeah, and not only that though, it's actually brilliant on a on a defensive standard because if you're thinking about the um the Persians, you have all of those numbers and you need to find a place where you can bottleneck that.

SPEAKER_01 53:21

Yeah.

Kara 53:22

And that's perfect. You have mountains on one side, and then you have the ocean on the other. That's a natural bottleneck that you don't have to make yourself. It's already there.

Ed 53:31

Yeah, exactly. Like you like you could have four million men, but if you can only put, say, ten of them side to side before they fall into the ocean, what good is that four million men gonna do you?

Kara 53:44

Yeah, exactly. Um, and that thin part where that wall is, it's only a few dozen yards long. So if you think about let's say 36 yards, so think about our our football fans of the world. That's 36 yards, and that's all you got.

SPEAKER_01 54:02

Yeah, it's like a third of a football field.

Kara 54:04

Yep, it's a third of a football field. That's your playing field. That's that's all you got.

Ed 54:09

How many meters is that?

Kara 54:10

You tell me, math man.

Ed 54:12

You're supposed to say nobody knows.

Kara 54:14

Oh, I didn't do the math on that one, all right. I was just thinking about football.

Ed 54:21

I was just thinking of that SNL skit.

Kara 54:24

Lord.

Ed 54:25

How many uh how many meters are in a yard? Nobody knows, son.

Kara 54:31

Oh boy.

Ed 54:33

So yeah, we're talking literally a a bottleneck here where they could squeeze no more than 36 men side to side.

Kara 54:40

Yep, that's it.

Ed 54:42

Through all that. And they still have to factor in that hey, these people need to be able to move and move side to side and all that stuff. If you if you cram them in like shoulder to shoulder, they have like absolutely no way of doing anything other than just walking forward into a wall of spears.

Kara 55:01

Correct.

Ed 55:02

Yeah, it it is absolutely brilliant, and and you really think about it too, like, okay, sure, uh Leonidas had like maybe less than 10,000 men under his command, but even trying to get 10,000 men to work together to get to a certain location at a certain time, and these are probably all city-states that didn't really necessarily see eye to eye, let alone see eye to eye on the tactic. It like that kind of gives you a little bit of an idea of Leonidas's uh leading capabilities where he was able to get all these people into one area right on time.

Kara 55:41

Yeah, and he's he's actually really impressive when you read about him.

Ed 55:44

Oh yeah.

Kara 55:45

And he was 60 when this happened. 60!

Ed 55:49

Yeah, so he was on his way out.

Kara 55:51

Yeah. Can you imagine being 60 years old leading this battle, fighting this war? God.

Ed 55:57

Well, and he's probably like, I've got nothing else to offer because I'm not in my 20s anymore. So he's like, and I I know the Spartans, they're they're kinda pre-Romans in that uh sometimes how you die is more important than how you lived.

Kara 56:12

Oh, yeah, and the in the Spartan sense of things, it makes a lot of sense.

Ed 56:15

Yeah, like just go out in a blaze of glory, which makes you a very dangerous person, if you think about it.

Kara 56:21

In modern times, though, I can't imagine it.

Ed 56:23

Uh yeah.

Kara 56:24

Yeah. Uh so when the Persians got there and Xerxes saw the Greeks there, ready for him, kind of took him aback, kind of shot his ego a little bit when they all didn't run running and screaming. You know, he was like, Man, they're supposed to flee. They're supposed to be scared of me. What are they doing? This is terrible. Um, so what he did was he sent some guys over to Leonidas and they were like, We'll give you some time to surrender. Yeah, he's freaking out.

Ed 56:53

Yesterday we uh when we were or the other day when we were recording my uh my Amazon uh name Tuco because he just loses his mind, like Tuco. And uh he went on for like five minutes during the whole recording, and I'm like, I have no idea I'm gonna know how to edit that out. So there's birds. They don't make good recording companions.

Kara 57:15

Well, let's just say he doesn't like Xerxes very much. We're gonna go with that.

Ed 57:18

There we go. He's getting all riled up.

Kara 57:20

Yeah, he's getting all hot and bothered because Xerxes didn't take too kindly to Greeks being brave.

Ed 57:28

Sure. We'll go with that.

Kara 57:31

Alright, so Xerxes gave him about four days to surrender. You know, he he was sending guys over there, and Xerxes sent one guy over, and the guy was like, he went up to Leonidas. And this is this is Herodotus talking about this event, and um, I think some other contemporaries have also said that this actually happened, so I'm gonna take it as fact because it sounds cool. Um, but anyway, so this this guy, this representative for the Persians, went up to Leonidas and he's like, Xerxes says, I can just imagine, this is annoying. Xerxes says that you need to lay down your arms or we're going to kill you all. And Leonidas responded with Molon Labe, or come and get them. It's very famous. Okay, go go, Leonidas, come get them.

Ed 58:19

That or they were like cooking up some like really good lamb in the back, and he thought that maybe they shared a meal with Xerxes that he would not try to come and get the lamb. Yeah. Come and get the lamb. Dinner's ready. Let's go.

Kara 58:36

I like the cool come and get the come and get them.

Ed 58:39

Yeah. That definitely sounds a lot more promising than hey guys. You want a hotel?

Kara 58:47

Alright, so the battle starts on day five. Okay. Before we get into the battle, I did want to um bring a note up about Persian warfare. The Persians preferred long-range weapons followed by cavalry. So they preferred to shoot at everybody with arrows and then send in their guys on horseback. Right? This is great on open plane. Works works really well on an open battlefield. It works really well. Like it worked great for the Mongols, you know. It worked pretty well for the Persians.

SPEAKER_01 59:22

It's not so great on the cliff.

Kara 59:25

Yeah, it's not so great on the cliff. It's not so great on the sea, and it's not really great in a swamp, aka Thermopylae, all the things.

Ed 59:35

It checks all the boxes of being hell on earth.

Kara 59:37

Correct. The Greeks, on the other hand, fought with heavily armored hoplite men, and they were armored in bronze. They had big shields and really, really, really long pikes, sticks with arrows on them, basically. And they fought in a formation called the Phalanx, or phalanx or phalanx, I think it's phalanx.

Ed 59:57

Yeah, but that's phalanx.

Kara 59:59

This formation is basically a formation that creates long lines of bronze shields with pointy sticks coming out of it, basically. I have a cool picture of it.

Ed 1:00:08

Well, that sounds really intimidating.

Kara 1:00:10

Well, I mean think about it. Okay, okay, fair. But but think about it. You got these big dudes, okay, and they're in armor made of bronze, holding bronze shields that are about the size of a man, and then humongous pikes that go out one, two, three, four.

Ed 1:00:32

Yeah, look at the picture. They look like they're like twelve feet long almost. Like there you are.

Kara 1:00:36

Yeah, they're huge, and it's terrifying. So, I mean, it's on the flip side, we have the Persians who are armed with wicker, wicker, crescent shields, wicker shields, short spears, bows, and a long sword or a battle axe. Wicker shields, not even wood, and it's a crescent, it's useless. Useless. They could have. Probably would have worked. So the battle began on the fifth day after the arrival of the Persians. So Xerxes was kind enough to give them three to four days to surrender. They refused. So on the fifth day, uh, Xerxes got annoyed, and he began the battle by sending a barrage of arrows onto the Greeks guarding the road. Um, the Persian forces were shooting about a hundred feet away, and they were aiming for shields and helmets made of bronze. Not very effective. Didn't work. And I will say there is another very famous line from the battle where, according to Herodotus, uh, it was mentioned to a Spartan soldier that the Persians shoot so many arrows that it covers the sun. And the Spartan soldier responded with that really pleasantly. In fact, then we'll fight in the shade, those Spartans. They're so full of one-liners. I love it.

Ed 1:01:59

Yeah, that was they actually put that in the movie.

Kara 1:02:01

They did, and they also uh they also put the other one in the movie too, the come and get them line.

Ed 1:02:06

Yeah.

Kara 1:02:06

Yeah. I mean, hey, it's if it's historically accurate, it makes for good TV, then then why not use it, right?

Ed 1:02:13

Yeah, yeah, it's a double whammy. And if it's that historically accurate, put it in a movie, so then everybody thinks it is.

Kara 1:02:19

Yes. I'd like to think it's historically accurate. I think it's cool. But it's Herodotus, so we don't really know for sure. However, it's Herodotus, so I'm just gonna take it for what it is.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:28

Yeah.

Kara 1:02:28

Annoyed. Xerxes sent men charging into the wall in waves. So Xerxes just got annoyed. He sent his best men uh in waves and waves and waves of numbers. One resource that I read said that he sent his men in waves of 10,000. Considering the numbers that we have, I could see it. Considering that the numbers that we have, I also cannot see it. Um, but I kind of like the the image of 10,000 Persian warriors going into that bottleneck just to get stabbed with a pike.

Ed 1:03:02

Jeez, that's that's unruly.

Kara 1:03:04

It's ridiculous. It's craziness. What the Greeks did on the other side is they basically what they did was they they put their backs to the wall. Well, first what they did was when they saw all the arrows come, they pretended to run away. And then when they got to the wall, they turned back around and created their phalanx formation. So their backs were to the wall with the phalanx in the front, and then the Persians running towards them. And what the Greeks would do is on the other side of the wall, they'd have their other men. So they had maybe like what, 12 to 13 men on one side of the wall, and they would rotate their men to prevent them from getting tired. So you had like an endless supply, you had about 6,000, an endless supply of 6,000 Greeks just hanging out in front of that wall, watching watching Persians fillet themselves holding shields and stuff. This lasted a whole day. And on the second day, for most of that day, they continued to hold the wall the same way. So it was basically two full days of this endless running into pikes, holding the wall, running into pikes, holding the wall. We'll try using the arrows again, and it doesn't work, and we're gonna continue running into pikes and that sort of thing. At some point, the Greeks had very, very little casualties compared to the Persians who were losing men by the thousands. Okay. This is by by day two.

Ed 1:04:28

Um this is the dumpster fire that is on the Greek side.

Kara 1:04:32

This is the dumpster fire at this point in time. Xerxes was tipped off by a guy named, Lord help me pronounce this, Ephialtes. Oh, goodbye. I I I did it. Ephialtes. All right. Uh he was a shepherd hoping for a reward for the Persian king. The tip was that there is another way around to get south and avoid the wall entirely. There's a path that goes through the mountains around the beach, and then what Xerxes could do is he could use that path to go and flank the Greeks on the other side of the uh the mountain pass there.

Ed 1:05:07

Force them to fight a double front war, basically.

Kara 1:05:10

Yeah, exactly. And with you know, a lot less men, it doesn't work out very well. So Xerxes uses this information and he sends a portion of his army down that mountain went the mountain pass. Originally, Leonidas isn't dumb. He had a thousand people on that path, but he wasn't expecting Xerxes to know about this path. He had them there just in case, like a couple guys got there, and they're like, oh, nope, let's get these guys. That way a secret doesn't get out, right? But like this, this uh this guy, this guy really messed it up. So Xerxes sent a portion of his army down this path, led by F E L Ts. So Xerxes was was even like, Thank you for the tip. Now go lead this portion of the army down to the path. Have fun. Um they defeated the thousand soldiers that were there, and it forced Leonidas to make a very difficult decision. Leonidas had to decide whether to save his a majority of his army and retreat back to Greece or stand and fight. So what he did was he ordered a majority of his army to retreat. Um obviously he I don't think he told his Spartan army or his Spartan people to leave.

Ed 1:06:19

I think he told a lot of you know the other uh the other Greeks to leave and retreat and all the all the other city-states to like Yeah, like the Because I I think his strategy was that to really unite Greece, he needed the people that represented the various city-states in his his his army to go back and tell everybody else in Greece what happened, versus if he if he just sent his 300 men home, they're just gonna go back to Sparta and that's it.

Kara 1:06:54

Right.

Ed 1:06:55

So it it wouldn't make sense to send everybody else home so that the rest of the land could could unite.

Kara 1:07:02

Yeah, pretty much. And there's likely there's two very likely reasons, and we can add that to the top of it. We'll say three, that he did it this way. In total, he had the 300 Spartans, well, the remaining 300 Spartans with him, about 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans. Again, those numbers kind of fluctuate depending on uh what you read and what resource you use, but this ish 700-ish, 400-ish, 300-ish. Okay. Uh, they likely stayed for a couple different reasons. As a Spartan soldier, retreating is just as bad as committing treason. Uh, if you if you leave the battlefield and you retreat, even if you're in bad shape, that's that's no go to really look down upon, like that's the worst thing you could ever possibly do as this is a soldier of Sparta. And we do have an account of one Spartan who was ordered to leave by Leonidas because he was sick. Leonidas told him to leave. And it was another guy who was sick, and Leonidas told the other guy to go, but the other guy was like, nah, dude, I'm not going anywhere. And then the other guy was like, I'm gonna go. Um, this guy who left, his name is Aristotomus. He left, and uh he left with the rest of the Greeks, and he was ridiculed when he got back to Sparta. He was ridiculed until uh he came into a different battle, and we'll talk about that later. But I just wanted to note that that guy existed. The other reason was probably an attempt to slow the Persian army and to give the rest of Greece time to prepare themselves. So when he sends the other Greek soldiers back, that's basically like what you were saying. All of the other city-states are starting to get information from the army of what happened there, not just to unite them, but to prepare them. Like, okay, Persian army's coming. We're slowing them down, but they are coming. We can't hold them off any longer, basically. Yeah, like like let's get ready. So that that's the reason why he did that. And as the story goes, the remaining Greeks who stood their ground were there until they were under overrun by sheer, sheer numbers at both passes and into Greece. All of the remaining soldiers were killed, including Leonidas. There is now a uh cool rock formation there. It's like a memorial. I don't remember what it says, and I was silly enough to not write it down. However, it says like a cool Spartan one-liner. Look it up, it's cool. Why are we calling this event a dumpster fire if the Persians won? We'd said in the beginning we're gonna look at it from the Persian side of things. If they won, why why why was it a failure on their part? Tell you what. The Battle of Thermopylae has become an example of one of the highest versions of heroism and sacrifice. They were poems about it, they're making movies about it to this day, aka 3006. Poems about it, plays about it. So Greek dramatic plays were happening about this. And I was watching a lecture from a guy in Penn, like the Penn State Museum or whatever, about this. And he was talking about how there was a uh a play that they had in ancient Greece about this event, and it was pretty interesting. He was talking about how in the play you had Leonidas taking his big stand and and all of these things, and like to us in modern day it's like a cool story, right? But to them, that's something that just happened. It's very contemporary. So when you have like your side of the war standing up to this big humongous empire of a bad guy, even if they died at the end, that is still like something to behold. So if you could just imagine like the entire theater standing up and cheering and all of that stuff, that's probably what it was. So it wasn't just like this cool story, it was it was like this. I don't even know how to how to express how grand of an event it was for the creeks.

Ed 1:10:40

Uh it was the uh it it was the Epitome's um underdog scene.

Kara 1:10:47

Yeah, exactly.

Ed 1:10:48

Like that's exactly what it was. Yeah, one small little uh battalion of Spartans versus tens of thousands of Persians, and like everybody knew when coming back, like when Leonetta sent everybody home, they're like, you know they're gonna exaggerate it too. It's like there was only 30 Spartans left, and they took out 50,000, and because that's what men do is they take an event and then over time they expand upon it, kind of like how we it's that the that the you know, like you have that uncle that caught that fish, and and realistically, when he first caught that fish, it was probably like an eight-inch trout, but over the course of years or decades, that trout has turned into you know the Grand Canyon's largest catfish ever caught at 120 pounds, and and it's just it's just you know, it was on river monsters kind of a thing.

Kara 1:11:52

So we went from a thousand soldiers to three hundred.

Ed 1:11:56

Uh yeah, I went to three hundred, or they they're like, all I saw, like when I left, I was told to leave to notify you guys that we needed to go join this war. And when I left, there was only King Leonidas left, and he was taking on 10,000 men, and he killed most of them.

unknown 1:12:12

Yeah.

Ed 1:12:13

Like can you see where this is going? It's the they like that they are going to blow things out of proportion, and not for not because they want to necessarily recruit their whole entire city state to join, no, that's part of it, but uh uh uh men tend to uh exaggerate aspects of their lives in in many different ways. And it's it's a very especially at this time, and then you get into the Roman times, it was the same exact thing. And by blowing things out of proportion a little bit, I mean, don't get me wrong, 300 Spartans versus 120,000. And I don't know, did they ever figure out how many uh Persians that they killed?

Kara 1:12:59

I don't think so. Considering we can't even get the starting number right, I wouldn't trust that number either.

Ed 1:13:04

Yeah, we can't we can't figure out the ending number. But I I have a funny feeling the way that this was set up, like there was a lot more Persians that got killed than than Greeks.

Kara 1:13:14

Yes, that that fact is well known that there are only a few Greeks who died and thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Persians who died. We just don't know an exact number.

Ed 1:13:25

Yeah, but it's a great way to recruit people to a cause.

Kara 1:13:28

This is true.

Ed 1:13:29

The whole underdog thing.

Kara 1:13:31

Yeah, and and what that story did was the Greeks never lost their morale, it was a direct result of the battle. Like the they always had morale, it was always high. They were always like, think of the 300, let's go fight and defend Greece.

Ed 1:13:45

Yeah, remember the Alamo.

Kara 1:13:46

Yeah, that's exactly what it was. Um, and after Thermopylae, and into the rest of the run of the Persian Wars, uh, we had the Battle of Salamis. Salamis was the aforementioned Athenian navy. So remember the the guys at sea? Don't forget those guys. They had their battle at Salamis, and they won. So this battle took place not long after Thermopylae, and they won that battle.

Ed 1:14:12

Um, and after that battle, was that that was that was more who led that attack? Yeah, that was Athenian, wasn't it?

Kara 1:14:19

Yeah. The Athens Navy, yeah. They fought all the Persian boats.

Ed 1:14:23

Yeah, uh, yeah. And one thing to keep in mind too is that Athens and Sparta from day one had been mortal enemies.

Kara 1:14:31

Yes, here they are. Look at them working together.

Ed 1:14:33

Yeah, they never ever got along until this whole incident. And then this is where that is that sibling rules, right? Like, no, no, no, Persia, you can't beat up Sparta, only we can.

Kara 1:14:44

Right.

Ed 1:14:45

And so because you'd done that, now there's hell to pay, and you're gonna face our our little boats.

Kara 1:14:51

Yep. So Salamis happened, and after after Persia lost, Xerxes left the battlefield and went home after Salamis. He's like, you know what? I'm done.

Ed 1:15:01

Screw these people.

Kara 1:15:02

He loses one battle and then he leaves. Um he left all these euros, anyways.

Ed 1:15:07

I can get him at home.

Kara 1:15:08

Yeah. He he left his army uh in charge of another dude. I think it was that guy that I was talking about before, that army leader guy who wanted to go to Greece in the first place. Lay at the army with that guy. I can't remember his name for the life of me. I'm sorry. I just read it this morning.

Ed 1:15:22

I'm scrolling through the notes, like, who was that guy?

Kara 1:15:25

Anyway, well, I didn't I didn't put him in the notes, and that was my bad, but anyway. Oh yeah. So he left the he left the the army with that guy. Xerxes left because he's a sore loser. And then in 479 BCE, not long after Thermopylae, Thermopylae was in 480, in August of 479, the battle of Plat Platia took place. Okay. Plataea. That thank you, Plataea, thank you. Um, that one was the big, the big humongous battle. Remember, remember our friend Aristotomus who uh left, went home, and he was ridiculed and all that stuff. He fought in this battle too, and he regained his status as official Spartan because he died in battle. So cleared his name, I guess, as far as Spartan society is concerned.

Ed 1:16:11

I don't know. To me, it's it's like, and maybe maybe it's because I I've I'm a soft, plushy of a man, but I I feel like hey, Leonidas told uh what is it, Arostodemus or Arist Aristotomus?

Kara 1:16:25

Aristotomus, yeah.

Ed 1:16:26

Aristotomus, there we go. Told him, like, I'm I'm ordering you back. Like it but it but yeah, you you factor in that very, very, very conservative core belief of the Spartan way of life. Like, either you come home victorious or you come home dead. And yeah, and it's just interesting, like he spent his the his remaining years like trying to do everything in his power to die in a very glorious way, and we don't see that again to this extent. We don't see this ingrained into a society until we get into World War II and we start looking at you know the Empire of Japan and how how they were trained to fight, and how like you come home victorious or you don't come home at all, kind of a mindset. And and it does make for a very, very strong opponent when when you're facing somebody who is trying to do everything in their power to reclaim honor by dying via taking out 30 people at once, kind of a thing.

Kara 1:17:32

Yeah. Yeah, so he died in this battle. This battle also contained one of the largest Greek phalanxes the ancient world has ever seen.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:41

Really?

Kara 1:17:41

Yep. So if you consider, you know, all of the city-states coming together at this one point, then you have a giant Greek phalanx. Um, so that's kind of what the uh the the Persian army was looking at, and they lost that battle as well.

Ed 1:17:56

So I wonder how big that by the by the time they got to that point, like how big they were because I didn't do a deep dive into this battle because I was looking at the other one, but Yeah. Well, because I mean I'm looking at the the movement map, and I I really gotta figure out how to get like pictures into like show notes and stuff because it'll explain everything. I'm I'm looking at the movement map uh of the Persians, and you can see like there's Thermopylae and all that kind of stuff, and they go down to like Thebes, and then they are bouncing around near Athens, and then you've got coming back up through Thebes, and then they go to Plataea, and it's like I feel like they couldn't make sense of it. They couldn't, yeah, they they they they couldn't figure out a a battle plan, they were just wandering around trying to take on these Greeks. Meanwhile, you look at the uh the Greek movement from Corinth coming out through that little strait, like, oh no, here they are, we're gonna take them out.

Kara 1:18:58

Yeah, I think after it would that would make sense. After Athens, they were probably like, what do we do with all of these city slaves? Like a thousand of them.

Ed 1:19:06

Yeah, nobody is siding with us, so we're just gonna wander around and and kill Greeks, but they it's like they took it over, like they defeated them, but that it's not like the Greeks saw themselves like, well, I guess I'm a Persian.

Kara 1:19:19

Yeah, no, the Greeks, because of this battle, the Greeks were like, Absolutely not, we are Greek.

Ed 1:19:23

Yeah, I'm Athenian first and then Greek, but but yeah, yeah, it's almost like after after this, they kind of saw themselves as a bit more cohesive. And yeah, and and and for historically they're on, like Persia didn't like they weren't really doing a whole lot in this part of the world afterwards, right?

Kara 1:19:45

Yeah, so after this battle, um Xerxes left. He was he was like, I'm done, we're not dealing with Greece anymore, and he pulled out, and he was like, No more, and he didn't want to touch it after that. Um, so the uh the giant humongous empire tried to mess with Greece, and Greece was like, Nope. So the giant Persian Empire decided just to be a giant Persian Empire somewhere else.

Ed 1:20:11

Yeah. They they probably focused on as seeing as how they were looking for more military conquests and that kind of route rather than absorbing lands into the fold. My guess is that Xerxes probably had his forces just wander around to the east wherever of the path of least resistance, and so he was probably conquering really, really crap lands, lands that nobody really even wanted to live in, let alone be conquered. My guess is that he probably exhausted a lot of his military just trying to show something that he conquered something, and and in the process of doing it, like burn everything out, like just kind of really depleted what the Persians could have been because of that mindset.

Kara 1:20:59

Well, it was a couple things because that, yes, but also Xerxes um had a hankering for big building projects. Okay, and to a point where he depleted the entire royal treasury, like they ran out of money.

Ed 1:21:15

Yeah. Well, that's the thing. It's just like you burned it all up in this military farce in Greece, and then like instead of trying to recover from that, because it don't forget too. I mean, what was it? Is he spent four years on top of the three years that his dad spent amassing this army?

Kara 1:21:33

Yeah.

Ed 1:21:34

And that is seven years of that military generating zero income.

Kara 1:21:40

Yep. So you've got that along with his hankering for building these extravagant buildings that nobody needed. I think he built himself two temples, which is cool.

Ed 1:21:50

I mean, why have one when you can have two for twice the cost?

Kara 1:21:53

You know, I yeah, because that's how we do.

Ed 1:21:58

Which I which is a shame because I don't think there's probably a lot of those left, are there?

Kara 1:22:01

I think there's you can see his tomb. I think some of them are still there. Like his tomb is still there. A couple other building projects, I'm sure, that you could find online and look at. I mean, I guess you could visit them too, but I don't know if you want to go to Iran right now.

Ed 1:22:17

Um I hear Iran's nice this time of year.

Kara 1:22:20

Yeah, yeah. Twitches on.

Ed 1:22:23

That's it's so sad to see the world, like that part of the world under so much conflict. Um God, like, could you imagine if everybody could just lay down their arms and then send over thousands of archaeologists just to be like, okay, let's let's get all the artifacts out of here, let's preserve all the history. Because you know there's answers to so many mysteries out there in that part of the world, because that that really was the hub of the world, or that part of the world, and there are so much stuff that went down, whether it's biblical or uh pre-biblical eras, like man, there I think I think humanity could benefit so much if if there wasn't so much strife in that part of the world. Probably find out how the aliens helped the Egyptians build the pyramids and all that kind of stuff.

Kara 1:23:20

I mean, the only reason we have a lot of work from Aristotle is because the Islam and Arab nations copied that information and then saved it.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:30

Yeah.

Kara 1:23:30

So we wouldn't have any of that if it weren't for them. So during during, especially during the Middle Ages, it's like it's like one of those things where that that particular area of the world, it's really overlooked, but it's also really important for history.

Ed 1:23:41

Oh yeah. Because a lot of the the conflicts that we have we are see today kind of stem from you know 2,000 years ago. It's uh and it it's it's it's it's just frustrating to see that, man, like why can't we just not kill each other and let's grab a shovel and like let's dig this place up. But but I I could also see it too going sideways. I mean, look at you know the Elgin marbles, right? I mean, Britain in the Imperial era took a lot of stuff out of Greece and Egypt, and you know, now that these countries, like, hey, can we get these back? No, like finders keepers, but they were originally ours, doesn't matter. So I I I I do know like what was it? I saw a thing, it was I think it was either Jordan or Lebanon. They uh they made some discoveries there, uh like some temples and stuff like that. Um oh it was the uh Sodom, Sodom and Kimorra, and they found like references to that the to those uh two those two famous cities, but just trying to get archaeologists in there with permits and safety regulations, and it it takes like 10 years.

Kara 1:24:56

Oh, yeah, it's uh it's a lot.

Ed 1:24:59

Yeah, and it's just like man, it that's it it's just so tough that that there's all this conflict and what it's really getting away with and what it's destroying, because when you're dropping bombs and all that kind of stuff, not everything reacts well to a bunker buster, especially an ancient buried temple.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:18

Yeah.

Ed 1:25:19

So yeah, it's it's it's just a bummer to to see that. So yeah.

Kara 1:25:24

Well, that's my dumpster fire.

Ed 1:25:28

Uh have we do are are there any other examples today that we that you could think of where like militarily wise, they've used that whole bottleneck approach?

Kara 1:25:39

Uh they used that same area again the Greeks did uh uh I think against the Romans in like 149 or 198 BCE or something like that. Uh I remember that one vaguely.

Ed 1:25:58

Well, no, I'm just talking about like a strategy itself of like bottlenecking your enemy into a position where it's gonna take so much more effort than what it's worth to defeat.

Kara 1:26:10

I think after that was commonly used if it was accessible. Because I know no, it's been a long time since I've read it, but I know it's in the art of war somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:23

Um from Machiavelli.

Kara 1:26:26

Sun Tzu wrote.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:28

Oh, Sun Tzu, okay.

Kara 1:26:29

I think he wrote, I believe he wrote about it at some point. And I know there were a couple battles in the Middle Ages where they used something similar. Now, in the Middle Ages it was very different. It was more like they would have one part of their army go on one side and another part of the army go on another side, and then like get them in the middle.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:50

Yeah.

Kara 1:26:51

Because, you know, it's Europe and muddy and flat.

Ed 1:26:55

Um the example that comes to my mind, and it wasn't quite like channeling everybody in, but it was the philosophy that yes, you can defeat us, but it's gonna cost you dearly. And there is one I mentioned earlier, the Alamo. Like, there was I I I like how uh in junior elementary school, like it was it was the Texans and the Alamo versus the world's mightiest superpowerful army. Like, okay, guys, come on. It it was like 5,000 men, like let's let's be real here. But yeah, they uh the Mexican army won and they got the Alamo, but that like cost them like half their forces. And then the other one that stands out to me is Bunker Hill in the Revolutionary War. And it was the idea that we're going to hold our ground on the top of this hill, and we are just going to rain lead down on the British troops. And but it yeah, the British won, but they're like, was it really a victory? It and and when you have a victory like that, it can really take the wind out of your sails.

Kara 1:28:00

I thought you were talking literally. I was trying to think of battles that I know of where they literally had to make a bottleneck formation.

Ed 1:28:06

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's that's what I was talking about. Like, is there any other battles in history that you could think of where that strategy was employed, or or yet uh an example in history where they took a stance and the only way that they were gonna win is at terrible cost. Because that that was the two, I think that's what was the two major philosophies that was running through Lion Andis's head was we're gonna bottleneck him, and if we do end up losing, it's gonna cost them so much that they don't wanna even persist with this war.

Kara 1:28:38

I know there was another one like that during the um the Wars of the Roses in the Middle Ages, which there was one uh where the Yorkists like pounded and pounded on uh the Lancasters. I don't remember what it's called, but definitely happened in the Wars of the Roses.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:57

Okay.

unknown 1:28:57

Hmm.

Ed 1:28:58

Yeah, it's uh it's something I always like to do. Like I always like to read up or you know, learn something like Thermopylae and then see cases in history where it was the the tactic or the philosophy behind it was used again. And it it it and it goes to show that the leaders, the military minds out there that win these battles and win these wars are just huge history fanatics. And yet like those who actually learn from the history tend to do better than those that are just hey, let's just conquer and blow things up and kill people. We'll worry about the consequences later.

Kara 1:29:39

No, let me oh that's what it's called. The Battle of Toton? No. T-O-W-T-O-N.

Ed 1:29:47

Oh Taunton.

Kara 1:29:48

Touton. Yeah, that sounds right. Touton.

Ed 1:29:50

Yeah.

Kara 1:29:51

Yeah.

Ed 1:29:51

I know Americans we like to say like like Gloucester. No, it's just Gloucester. Or down or Downton or Downtown Abbey. It's just Downton.

Kara 1:30:01

We'll get there. It's fine. I can read, I promise. It's it's mostly like me trying to pronounce things that I've read for years and I'm probably reading them wrong.

Ed 1:30:12

Oh, but no, that that was pretty cool. I uh there's a lot of stuff I I had no idea uh went down because it's obviously the this 300 or uh battle has been stylized and it's part of like pulp culture kind of a thing. But to look at it from the Persian's perspective, and because you know, like in the movie, yeah, Xerxes is painted out as a bit of a douche, but the movie also leaves out that he had forebearers that were that would be a lot like Alexander the Great, that didn't necessarily like conquered lands to enslave people, but more like come join us. Like, yes, you guys lost this battle, you fought heroically, come join us, you still have your way of life, everything will be the same, uh, except for now, like you got us backing you up kind of a thing. And so, like, obviously, pulp culture-wise, you don't want to introduce that idea, you want to introduce that Xerxes was this mega horrible guy, and he was, but I think the movie also portrays in pulp culture portrays the Persians as like another version of the Third Reich, and that's not it at all.

Kara 1:31:24

Yeah, they weren't that bad, actually. Like it was Xerxes sucks.

unknown 1:31:29

Yeah.

Kara 1:31:31

But the guys before him, they weren't really they weren't too bad. I mean, yeah, if you read about Persia as a society, it doesn't seem too shabby. No. Considering it's, you know, ancient times.

Ed 1:31:43

Yeah, no, that was that was pretty cool. I like that.

Kara 1:31:46

Yeah, so what you got? What you got coming down the pipe?

Ed 1:31:49

My uh my contribution, our next episode is going to be uh complete reversal in terms of everything.

Kara 1:31:57

Okay.

Ed 1:31:58

So we are gonna be jumping into the American 1920s, and we're going to be looking at an engineer, and I know I said I was gonna do the uh uh the Radium Girls, but there's a book out there that I want to get, I want to read up on it first before I uh tackle that subject. But I uh I remember my grandfather telling me, because he grew up outside of Chicago, and I remember my grandfather telling me the story where there were boys, right? This is kind of like Great Depression era, there were boys that would be brushing the sidewalks of Chicago, and it was a lot of this weird gray dust, and it turned out that that was lead dust. And in the early 1920s, late 1910s, early 1920s, uh car engines were becoming they they were designed to have more compression, and I'll explain that in the next episode what compression means. But what was happening is that gas, gasoline by itself was not firing on time, and it was causing poor performance of the engines and making a horrible knocking noise. And the race was on to figure out what we could put in gasoline to make it fire when we need it to fire. And one guy decided, oh, you know, after months of research and testing, he discovered that lead, uh putting lead mixed with like ethylene into your gas as an additive eliminated that. And it the it turns into a dumpster fire because what do you do when you're living in a city where there's lead dust everywhere? And what does that do to your body? And ultimately, this was this guy created probably the most dangerous uh economical uh or ecologically dumpster fires ever. And yeah, we're gonna we're gonna dive into what actually was leaded gasoline, how it works. It's kind of turning into a two-parter. So because there's just so many moving pieces to it, and especially kind of like the Hubble telescope, right? We're gonna focus a lot. The first episode's gonna be a lot on how this came about, how it is actually a dumpster fire, and then the second episode I'm thinking is going to be how did it resolve? How why is it that we don't see leaded gasoline to this day? And let me tell you, it ties into like prohibition, it ties into you know things post-World War One, it ties into uh all these European ideas that Americans don't like, and it's it's a wild, wild story. So that's what I've got working on. Um hopefully it's interesting. It doesn't involve radiation, but actually it does. It does involve it does involve uranium. Well, it is what it is, but yeah, it uses it uses uranium uh isotopes to figure out how old Earth was. Like the whole lead of gasoline thing kind of came to a crash when there was a scientist who was trying to figure out how old Earth was. All sorts of connections, uh all sorts of wild stuff. Probably the first uh ecological major dumpster fire in history, next to like say like Mount St. Helens blowing up, but even still lead of gasoline wouldn't actually come out of the market until like the early 1990s, because the rest of the world was using it for everything. So yeah, that that's what I got coming up. But it's uh gonna be uh it's gonna be interesting.

Kara 1:35:48

Cool.

Ed 1:35:48

So sounds good, but yeah, uh glad you enjoyed it. Good stuff. Um, for the lovely audience up there, keep it a hot mess.

Kara 1:35:59

And we'll see you next time.