Nailing History
Introducing "Nailing History," the podcast where two friends attempt to nail down historical facts like they're trying to assemble IKEA furniture without the manual. Join Matt and Jon (or Jon and Matt) as they stumble through the annals of time, armed with Wikipedia, Chat GPT, and a sense of reckless abandon.
In each episode, Matt and Jon pick a historical event that tickles their curiosity (and occasionally their funny bone) and dissect it like a frog in biology class—except they're the frogs, and they have no idea what they're doing. From ancient civilizations to modern mishaps, they cover it all with the finesse of a bull in a china shop.
But wait, there's more! In between butchering historical names and dates, Matt and Jon take a break to explore the intersection of history and pop culture. Ever wondered if Cleopatra would have been a TikTok sensation? Yeah, neither have they, but that won't stop them from imagining it in excruciating detail.
So grab your popcorn and prepare to laugh, cringe, and possibly learn something (though don't hold your breath). With Matt and Jon leading the charge, "Nailing History" is the only podcast where you're guaranteed to leave scratching your head and questioning everything you thought you knew about the past. After all, who needs a PhD when you've got two clueless buddies and a microphone?
Nailing History
136: Hold on to Your Butts + Fashion Crash Course
We announce our ambitious new project covering each state's journey to joining the Union, starting with Delaware and proceeding in order of ratification or annexation. This special series will coincide with America's upcoming 250th anniversary celebration.
• John recaps his experience hosting an office trivia contest where his fashion choice (suit jacket with jeans) became a controversial talking point
• Discussion of fan feedback from "Dick Pepperfield" about the trivia contest and suggestions for improvement
• Analysis of Born on the Fourth of July film and connections to American patriotism
• Announcement of our new 50-state podcast series examining how each state joined the Union
• Preview of Delaware as "The First State" with fun facts about its size, population, and corporate significance
• Plans to keep episodes concise while covering each state's unique story and historical context
Join us for our next episode as we properly begin our journey through all 50 states, starting with Delaware's path to becoming the first state to ratify the Constitution!
Thank you and welcome back back to the nailing history history podcast podcast special edition not really, do you know? I'm here with John who doesn't know how to set up anything for a show. You just go on and blur things. You have no. You have no I don't want to say Sense of Subtlety. Sense of build-up or anything like that Structure.
Speaker 2:We'll have plenty of time to get to that with this new topic. We got it. Why time to get to that?
Speaker 1:with this new topic. We got it. Why do you keep doing that?
Speaker 2:I'm excited, I want to get into it.
Speaker 1:I want to do a little catch-up for the fans. They haven't heard from us for a couple weeks. How was the trivia? Right, right, right yeah trivia was great, tri Right right right. How was the trivia?
Speaker 2:Trivia was great fans. I think I have about 65 in my office, About 23 participated People.
Speaker 1:People. You're talking about People, it is.
Speaker 2:Congratulations to Mr Ty. I don't think anyone's going to be able to track him down with that, mr Haircut. Nice haircut. You did a great do. Yeah, it was really fun. I enjoyed it. I hosted it. It was about 40 minutes and everyone, I think, had a fun time getting out of work for that amount of time it was.
Speaker 1:Friday afternoon. Quite the outfit.
Speaker 2:Quite the outfit. What did you wear?
Speaker 1:Tell the fans.
Speaker 2:I wore a what you would think would be a blazer. No, but in actual fact was my suit jacket. I was unaware prior to Matt. No, what else's not a blazer, but in actual fact was my suit jacket. I was unaware prior to Matt.
Speaker 1:No, what did you wear?
Speaker 2:with. I had a red tie, white shirt and converses with jeans and skinny jeans.
Speaker 1:And you wore a suit jacket, a blue suit jacket. Just dare to be bold dude, that's such a fashion faux pas. It's not even funny, I'm not even.
Speaker 2:I mean, look at me, but I know that you don't do that well, it is casual summer right now at my work, so but there's a huge difference between a blazer and a suit jacket. And you can tell immediately. I wasn't hiding anything. I wore my suit jacket. If anyone asked me, oh, where'd you get that? Is that a suit jacket you're wearing? I would have admitted it.
Speaker 1:Everybody knew they didn't have to ask. It had to have been the talk of the office. It had to have been the talk of the office.
Speaker 2:I'm just standing up there asking them how many hot dogs everybody eats every Fourth of July and they're just looking at me.
Speaker 1:Do you see what this guy's wearing? Does he know? You're not supposed to do that.
Speaker 2:My colleague gave me a very high praise, saying I did a great job hosting. She would love to participate again.
Speaker 1:Did you make any jokes?
Speaker 2:Crowdwork was. It came in waves, but I got people into it. They were into it, I was getting into it. Was there a prize for winning about?
Speaker 1:to ask that there was a prize.
Speaker 2:Uh, one of my other colleagues helped me out with that and she managed to pull together some things from, I guess, a storage closet in our office and, uh, I think first prize was, I don't know, maybe a puzzle who knows, I didn't see it. She's like I got something for you. I'm like, okay, that'll work. I know the third place was like a pencil set and then second place was like something from the port of norfolk, maybe a snow globe who knows, she literally just handed me three different.
Speaker 2:The port of norfolk in virginia, yep. So what was the puzzle? I had a lot of fun I don't know if it was actually a puzzle, I just she didn't. I didn't get to see the prizes. I can't believe you wore a suit jacket with jeans dude. I think we're going to hear a certain one of our fans. Mr Pepperfield, I think we know you're going to get a hot take from you on that. Please send us a text.
Speaker 2:I'm going to put a Let us know what you think. I get a hot take from you on that please send us a text.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna put a. I'm gonna put a poll out on on x, a, yes or no. If you should wear suit jackets with with skinny jeans and converses, you wore those goofy converses. There's red, white and blue converses too that's right they look like clown shoes.
Speaker 2:It's fitting. I guess I was dressed a bit clownish, but I I enjoyed it. I think everyone had fun man job.
Speaker 1:Well, you tried, that's good it went well, that's good.
Speaker 2:I mean, did you take it? I guess I should ask you. I know the answer, but I'll just have you.
Speaker 1:Well, you tried, that's good. It went well, that's good. I guess I should ask you. I know the answer, but I'll just have you tell the rest of the fans. Did you take any fans' advice? We got a little bit of feedback from Dick Pepperfield. I think it's too late to read his whole email. I guess I could read it, his whole message.
Speaker 2:Go ahead. Why don't you remind the fans what the advice was? I never read it, I figure, since it's already over, but For any future trivia that they may or may not ask me to come back and do next year.
Speaker 1:Once.
Speaker 2:I get a blazer.
Speaker 1:They should get you a blazer for. They should get you a blazer for uh, they should get you a blazer for christmas. All right, mr, this is uh the only fan. We asked for a bunch of feedback on it. We got none except for from mr pepperfield. Um, he says hello boys, I'm back, and then I did. It didn't. Didn't come through on the on the uh message here, but it says randy quaid, hero dot jpg, which I assume means it's a gif or a picture of him of randy quaid flying his f-16 fighter jet up into the beam of light coming from one of the spaceships in the movie Independence Day. Space is glowing and green. Glad to hear you two back potting again. Congrats to John on tying the knot. I hope he got some maniere for the wedding and was able to keep his balls cool. Did you get maniere, john?
Speaker 2:They weren't running any last minute sales. What'd you?
Speaker 1:get did you? Did you just wear cotton, or no, I wore something.
Speaker 2:I bought it from uh. I don't know if I should put their name on blast here, but uh why would you not put their? It's called mr davis. Mr Davis, okay, he's comfortable enough. Roomy, snug, but classy. Um, and I wore I did take the advice of my suit tailor to wear a skin tone colored v-neck.
Speaker 1:I don't know what skin, which skin tone it was, but it certainly was not yours.
Speaker 2:I think all the products are designed and made in China, so it was a brown undershirt? It was not and I managed to get a deodorant stain on it very quickly.
Speaker 1:It was so funny. Wish I wish I got back to the message. Wish I could have had some of that signature drink, because simply peach is simply lovely. As far as this trivia john is hosting on, on the whole it sounded good. I have a few notes as requested. I agree with Matt on most of his notes throughout. Coney Island should be the answer, not NYC. What are we doing here? Id4 can be tightened up and funnier.
Speaker 1:I think that movie is more of a fourth. I think that movie is more of a fourth tradition than Katy Perry. I've never heard her song referred to as an unofficial anthem. First thing I think of when I hear that is the highly underrated film, the Interview. Very true, this one sounds like it has Chad GPT written all over it, born on the 4th of July. One could argue that William and Stephen Baldwin, as well as Tom Sizemore, star in this movie. Would those be accepted answers? Maybe specify lead actor, for which question should be multiple choice. I think if it's even vaguely generally known, then there should be no multiple choice. If Matt didn't know it, then maybe keep the choice. Date should probably be multiple choice. But for 1776, I agree that the inclusion of the dates near 1776 will make some second-guess themselves. Finally, I'm overjoyed that John has finally watched National Treasure starring our own National Treasure and Patriot Nick Cage. You two should definitely do a breakdown of that movie on the pod in the future. I guarantee that would be a fan fave. Thanks, dick Pepperfield. Couple things.
Speaker 2:First, john, did you take any of our advice? I did. I've made far and away more multiple choice than write-ins. I'm glad I did that, because the right and the write-ins I did leave were very questionable.
Speaker 1:ID4. Well, that's not taking his advice.
Speaker 2:He said if Matt didn't know it then maybe keep it multiple choice. Okay, keep going. A bunch of people didn't know it. Oh, I could even tell you some of the answers people put for these. So I had the ID4. I did change it up. I said which 1996 blockbuster film features an alien invasion in outer space, heroics by will smith and jeff goldblum responses included matrix spider-man et mib ghostbusters independence day. Okay, what else do we got here?
Speaker 1:The Matrix.
Speaker 2:The Matrix. What is the most common color of fireworks used during Fourth of July celebrations? People put blue and red and white, white, red, blue, red, blue and white. I did tell people you had one of three choices to make. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:But I did use what do you mean? One of three answers.
Speaker 2:One of three choices. So Born on the Fourth of July. I did take his advice too, and I specifically named the actor I changed to, which actor portrayed Vietnam veteran anti-war activist Ron Kovic in the 1989 film Born on the Fourth of July. That was multiple choice.
Speaker 1:I did a little bit of show preparation today and I watched that movie for the first time this morning. Actually, that movie is something else man To prepare for the show. I mean, kind of I was just thinking about it. I'm like, yeah, I never watched that and we were talking about it. I'm like I never watched that and we were talking about it and, um, wow, what a movie, what a film. Tom cruise's hair is absurd the entire movie. It's great. I loved it. Like it never looks good.
Speaker 2:His hair looks so bad oh, and especially when he's like back from war. Yeah, and he's in the well like, well, okay, so like when he's back from war, yeah, and he's in the wheelchair, Well okay.
Speaker 1:So when he's young his hair is just normal Tom Cruise hair, but when they put his fake hair to make him look like a disgruntled Vietnam Disgruntled better.
Speaker 1:It's like he came back and I get that war may age you a little bit and he's in a wheelchair and that all stinks or whatever, but he just automatically fast-forward to looking like this guy in his like 40s. This is like rough, this randy, quade-esque person I mean he was just. He had a receipt, he had the whole receding hairline, just kind of gray hair. It wasn't even his regular color anymore. It was absurd.
Speaker 2:His mustache was awesome too and him and william defoe had that kind of falling out. That was kind of a sad part of the movie.
Speaker 1:I mean the movie was very sad, the whole movie. It was kind of heartbreaking. It was a tough one, it wasn't. I didn't really, I can't really say I enjoyed it. I don't like William Dafoe, so, hmm, a big William Dafoe guy, you were right, though he was in it and I was curious what happened. You know what we alluded to in the last. I guess the main reason why I watched it, why I wanted to watch it, was because when we talked about it we alluded to that oh, he asked this girl to prom, she turned him down, so then he joined the Marines and you said that wasn't the case.
Speaker 2:And I wanted to get a little bit more backstory of how that works.
Speaker 1:Did you get that all? Yeah, he, she was always the girl, always had a crush on him.
Speaker 2:Sissy Spacek right no, not. Sissy Spacek right? No, Not Sissy.
Speaker 1:Spacek, not even close, kira.
Speaker 2:Sedgwick, kira Sedgwick, sorry, not Sissy Spacek.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, she always had a crush on him growing up and then he never wanted to tell her his feelings. And then he finally got up the gusto to ask her to prom. But he played it off pretty cool. He was like, hey, you go, do you have anyone to go to prom with? And she's like, oh, yeah, I'm going with so and so. And he's like, oh, and she's like I thought you were going with somebody from ron kankamo beach. And he was like, yeah, no, because he was telling all his friends that he had a date because he didn't want to ask her out, I guess, or he didn't want them to know that he liked her.
Speaker 1:It was kind of weird for being 18, but I guess he was kind of like a, I don't know, like a naive goody-goody, I guess. And then she said, oh, I'm sorry. He's like oh yeah, no, no, sorry, I thought you were, you know. He's like oh yeah, no, no, no, I'm not good, I'm just, I don't have time. I got to get ready for the Marines, you know acting like tough. So then she said okay. So then he was hanging out at home while prom was going on and then he went to church, prayed to God and with her, it's a very good old american scene right there.
Speaker 2:It was nice, it was a good scene.
Speaker 1:It was a good scene. Then he was in, then he was, then he went to war and it did not go well for mr ron conkamo.
Speaker 2:First, what's his name, ron kovic, yeah kovic, oh man, I know his m15 jammed on him that was well, he killed it.
Speaker 1:He killed one of his own people after killing a whole village of children and stuff by accident. Then he killed his own squad member and then the next time they showed him out on patrol is when he got shot. Crazy. They really made the VA hospitals look like trash too.
Speaker 2:Wow, the scene when he's like they raise him up in the air to have like I don't know if it's fluid like to rebalance the fluid or something it was just a scene, just like Facing down the floor, and then he just starts screaming.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you have to. When you're paralyzed like that, when you don't move, your blood doesn't flow. So they have to kind of get you in a standing motion even though you can't stand. That's probably why his leg yeah, it's a mess man, it's just sad, but there's no way. The VA hospital, I mean maybe, I don't know, like rats everywhere you think it might have been that bad In the 60s.
Speaker 2:I feel like the reason why it seems like almost the military now is a protected class I'm just going to call it like it is is because of how they were treated following the Vietnam.
Speaker 1:War and the state of that's true Now everything is military.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's not that it ever really was, but the whole lack of respect that was thrown their way after the war and again why? The musical artist who wrote the Rocky Anthem.
Speaker 1:Born in the USA.
Speaker 2:Chris Brown and Metallica.
Speaker 1:John.
Speaker 2:Mellencamp. As some of these responses were, bon Jovi did a cover.
Speaker 1:I believe they're messing with you, dude. They saw you up there with your suit, jacket and jeans and they're like, oh, this is ridiculous and they were messing with you.
Speaker 2:there's no way anybody thought somebody wrote skip and then someone else would not no idea.
Speaker 1:You know so yeah, it was a crazy movie, any other good answers.
Speaker 2:Somebody said Mbop for the 4th of July anthem Party in the USA.
Speaker 1:Single lady, they were definitely messing with you.
Speaker 2:Firework with a space in it Did not get that one correct was stressed to them that spelling matters. Used your spell check or autocorrect if you have to. They did not do very well in the patrick henry one. Even though it was multiple choice, only five got it correct.
Speaker 1:Six, you're gonna not make that that would have been great if you made that. If I knew that you were able to read the answers, I would have made them all fill in the blank, like if I knew you were going to be able to keep the answers and we could go over them. We should have just done that. Dang Missed opportunity.
Speaker 2:I think on, although it went pretty well.
Speaker 1:Chris Brown, that's funny. Yeah, all right. Garibaldi, one wasn't too hot either well, that was just a student, I don't know why you even did that question, but I will say, mr Pepperfield, I like your thought of doing a breakdown of the movie National Treasure and I would like to do it. I think maybe we can get a panel, to get a full panel together, maybe get everyone in in studio and do a nice run through would be fun good, I know a few people that might be interested.
Speaker 2:That was my other goof too. I didn't include a national treasure question. Well, seemed like a gimme yeah, I guess. Even the winner thought he said hey. When I read the 4th of July one, I thought he was expecting a national treasure question too. So sorry to disappoint you.
Speaker 1:But that wasn't 4th of July. Well, the Declaration of Independence. That's true.
Speaker 2:That's true, you blew it you did blow it, you're right it's okay, it's okay, alas, but no, it was fun.
Speaker 2:I did enjoy it. I don't think my boss was entirely blowing smoke at me when he said I did a good job, but um, I got up there. Mentimeter was good to me, did not uh screw up, but yeah, it was really just. It was a three-person race. There was really three people that were uh, really in on it the whole time. Then there was a falling off. So that's it. I will be willing to share it for anyone else if they want to do trivia with their family. I can give you the.
Speaker 1:Just let us know we'll post the link on x just let me know, I can set it up.
Speaker 2:I've got a few more spaces available this month so you can get in on that you can't just go right on the link I think I have to set up that. No, I've got to like start the presentation and then people can start answering the questions okay.
Speaker 1:Well, I think what john's getting itchy about, since he's been itchy from the beginning of the episode. Um, we have a I want to say, probably the biggest show announcement since, announcing that we were starting the podcast. Would you agree?
Speaker 2:I think it's up there.
Speaker 1:And this yeah, I think it's up there he's very excited about this, I think because it was his idea. It's not a bad idea. We've kind not a bad idea. We've kind of alluded to it in past episodes.
Speaker 2:I think we're going to give it a shot really, from almost the very beginning it was kind of something I knew I wanted to discuss. I thought we would make for good content, but I don't know. We never released those episodes. Right, there's still well there's one episode. Yeah, what.
Speaker 1:Nothing, keep going.
Speaker 2:So when we first were spitballing ideas about what they actually make this podcast about, I specifically told Matt. I said, if I'm going to do a history podcast, he said what do you want to cover? And I said I want it to be about how the states are basically preceded. The general government created the general government and I want to teach people and show people that the states came first, because I think now in our country we think, like a lot of people think that the uh, the federal government almost created the states. I think, if you polled at least some of my co-workers, hey, you should have what came first what?
Speaker 2:first the federal government and then the states. I don't think people care. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Probably not I was going to say, yeah, I just wanted to do kind of history and this is kind of the stuff I was listening to at the time when Matt came away about doing this podcast, and I was kind of listening to some lectures on the ratification of the Constitution and kind of what went into all the states joining the first 13 states joining the US, forming the United States, and so, yeah, we were thinking of new things we can open up and explore. Thinking of new things we can open up and explore and, uh, with us rolling into the 250th anniversary next july of the signing of the declaration of independence, I think we wanted to come up with something big and something that had some lasting gusto.
Speaker 1:The second time I've used that word.
Speaker 2:Word, it's a podcast, I think it is so yeah, so we kind of have planned here for you is the big announcement we're starting a new series.
Speaker 2:Just get to the bottom of it, john, stop him hauling around well, we can hold around for 20 minutes, okay, we are going to discuss each state and we're going to discuss how each state joined the country, and give other fun facts along the way, and we're going to do it in order. And we're going to do it in order of when the states ratified the Constitution or were annexed to the United States after.
Speaker 1:So it's going to start with the 13 colonies and then we're going to make our way across the Appalachian Mountains, through the Great Plains, over the Rocky Mountains right up to the Pacific Ocean. Into the Pacific Ocean, get right up to the right up to the pacific ocean into the pacific ocean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's the plan and I'm I'm looking forward to it because, honestly, we're gonna try to do the series.
Speaker 1:what we thought of that, we thought maybe we'd be able to keep them. What we're not best at is maybe keeping them nice and tight on some nice tight episodes, maybe 20, 25 minutes, which we're already at 25 minutes and we haven't even started.
Speaker 2:This is the intro episode, Maybe yeah this is our intro to it.
Speaker 1:So we'll have like a three hour long intro and then after that every state's going to get, maybe, and we might bulk certain states together in one episode, depending on how they ended up joining.
Speaker 2:However, we may see fit, but we're going to give it a shot. We're going to give it a shot. We're going to give it a shot. I think every state's do its fair share. It's fair shake and I think it aligns super well. I mean, you know cause? Obviously we had first 13 states goes back to the you know, 18th century. Last state to join the U? S was in the fifties with Hawaii. So like, literally, I think it's a good way to not alert to join the US was in the 50s with Hawaii.
Speaker 2:So like literally, I think it's a good way to not Spoiler alert. I think it's a good way to kind of chronologically document the history of the United States in a way that's not just you know, boilerplate big moments, you just say throughout the Civil War, World War I. It's like we can kind of build into context as we're going through, each state we can kind of talk about, we can bring that stuff in, but then keep it aligned with what the state's doing.
Speaker 1:It might all build into each other, lead into each other.
Speaker 2:So we're going to give that a go. And we hope you love it. We know you will, so we're gonna, we're gonna give that a go and uh we hope you love it.
Speaker 1:I know you will. So we're gonna start with the first date, which I kind of wish. You would have maybe asked this question on the trivia what was the first state?
Speaker 2:to ratify the constitution, yeah or just first, because he asked what was the first day that community was leaving, for reasons we might get into what's what's license plates? Don't lie dude I asked about the colony, the first english settlement in virginia it's not the first state. It was the first colony.
Speaker 1:Did anybody get that? Some people did, it was multiple choice, oops oh wait, so all right, well, let's um, let's get down to it. Delaware the first day delaware grew up pretty close to delaware been to the beaches, um, been down there for some tax-free. Hey, delaware Grew up pretty close to Delaware, been to the beaches, been down there for some tax-free shopping Don't tell anybody.
Speaker 2:You ever incorporate a business down there? Not yet I heard a statistic that there's more company.
Speaker 1:I may incorporate the podcast down there, depending on what we find out today.
Speaker 2:I heard a little fun fact that there are more companies incorporated in delaware than there are residents which is a little shy of a million people live in delaware, currently across three counties, has the fewest counties of all the states in the country. You got Newcastle, kent and Sussex. So it was as we mentioned here.
Speaker 1:So Delaware, state of mind as we know this is exactly like when it was in the um, the white house of the confederacy, when they asked you about the uh peninsula campaign. You're sweating over there, dude, I get no, it was the stove.
Speaker 1:All right, fans. I think you could kind of see where that was going. We blew it big time. Can't subject you guys to the remaining 50 minutes of our talk on Delaware. John said that I threw him off by doing an intro to the episode, which I found kind of interesting, considering we do intros to every episode, but he seems to be caught off guard every time. We do that. But listen, we each listen to what we've recorded. That you guys will not hear. I can't do that to you, and I think we have a good game plan going forward A little bit more structure, as long as the powers at be or the, I guess the powers at be prepare enough.
Speaker 1:Um, that being myself and john, I think we can make this somewhat fun, maybe. So I wanted to still post something to let you guys know what we're doing. I didn't want to leave you guys hanging for so long because I know how much you want new content. So, yeah, that's where we're at.
Speaker 1:We're going to step back and punt and the next episode will be starting fresh with talking about Delaware and then moving through all the states in some abbreviated installments of the podcast. If you have any tips or anything that you'd like to hear as we go through the states. Let us know, I wanted to go through the state flags and the state birds and the state mottos and state drinks, but John seemed to think that that was a little bit too elementary school-esque, which I thought it would just be fun to go over that and talk about it after we introduced the state to the country. But let us know, let us know about that and also let us know about what you think about John wearing a blue suit jacket with a pair of skinny jeans to work for the trivia presentation.
Speaker 2:John will want me to tell you guys about this new jam for our intro-outro music.
Speaker 1:And we say bye-bye, bye-bye, and we say bye-bye.