Welcome to History's Not Boring by Kidopoly.com. I'm Mira. And I'm Finn. Before we fire up the time machine, we have a massive shout out to Rhett and Whalen, twin six-year-olds in Durham, North Carolina, who listen every day on their way to school.
SPEAKER_00This episode is totally for you, Rhett and Whalen. Thanks for riding with us.
SPEAKER_01And speaking of places we're travelling today, we have another special hello to the Pelerin kids, Madeline, JP, Jacques, and Juliet, who requested this topic all the way from New Orleans, Louisiana.
SPEAKER_00Wait, New Orleans? Is that where our story takes place today? It sure is, Finn.
SPEAKER_01Today we are talking about the ultimate shopping trip. Imagine walking into a store with $10 to buy a bicycle, and the owner says, for $15, you can have the bicycle, the entire store, and the whole city block.
SPEAKER_00Whoa, I would definitely find $5 more. But what did people actually buy? Half a continent!
SPEAKER_01Today we're uncovering the Louisiana Purchase, the greatest real estate bargain in human history, where America doubled in size overnight with just one signature. To understand just how crazy this deal was, we have to travel back to the year 1803.
SPEAKER_00So, the United States is basically a brand new country at this point, right? Exactly.
SPEAKER_01America is only 27 years old. There are only about 5.3 million people living in the whole country. And the western border stops right at the Mississippi River. Wait, the Mississippi River?
SPEAKER_00But that's right in the middle of the modern map.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Back then, if you crossed the Mississippi River, you weren't in the United States anymore. And that river was super important. It's 2,340 miles long, like a giant muddy superhighway.
SPEAKER_00Because they didn't have trains or big trucks yet. So farmers had to load their crops on boats to send them down the river to sell them. You nailed it!
SPEAKER_01American farmers loaded millions of pounds of flour, tobacco and pig iron onto flatboats. But there was a massive problem at the very end of that river. What was the problem? A waterfall? Sea monsters? No sea monsters. The problem was the city of New Orleans. Whoever controlled New Orleans controlled the entire river. And in 1803, New Orleans belonged to France.
SPEAKER_00France? Like the country in Europe? That's thousands of miles away across the Atlantic Ocean. That's right.
SPEAKER_01And France was ruled from Paris by a very famous, very ambitious military general named Napoleon Bonaparte.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I know him. The guy who always had his hand tucked inside his shirt in paintings.
SPEAKER_01That's him. Napoleon wanted to build a massive global empire. But to do that, he needed two things: lots of troops and mountains of cash. Over in America, the third president, Thomas Jefferson, is getting nervous. He knows that if Napoleon closes the port of New Orleans, American farmers will go bankrupt.
SPEAKER_00That would be a disaster. Millions of pounds of food would just rot on the boats.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. So, Jefferson comes up with a plan. He has diplomat Robert R. Livingston stationed in Paris and sends James Munro on a ship to join him. Their mission? Try to buy the city of New Orleans in Florida for $10 million.
SPEAKER_00$10 million in 1803? That must have been a huge fortune back then.
SPEAKER_01It was. But while Munro is sailing across the ocean, things are going terribly wrong for Napoleon. France controls a colony in the Caribbean called Saint-Domingue, which we now know as Haiti. What happened in Haiti? The enslaved people there launched a massive rebellion to win their freedom. Led by brilliant commanders like Toussaint Louverture, they fought the mighty French army and won. Yes, that's incredible. So Napoleon's troops were defeated. Defeated by the freedom fighters, and also by mosquitoes. Thousands of French soldiers caught a terrible sickness called yellow fever. Napoleon lost his army, and without Haiti, his dream of an American empire fell apart.
SPEAKER_00So now he has this huge chunk of land in North America, but no soldiers to protect it.
SPEAKER_01Right! And worse, Napoleon is getting ready to fight a massive war against Great Britain. He is absolutely desperate for cash to buy weapons and supplies.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I see where this is going. The Americans are arriving with a giant bag of money, right when Napoleon needs it most.
SPEAKER_01On April 11, 1803, before James Monroe even unpacks his bags in Paris, the French Foreign Minister, a man named Talleyronde, pulls Robert Livingston aside with a shocking question. What did he ask? Talleyrand looks at Livingston and says, What will you give for the whole? Wait, the whole what? The whole city? No, the whole Louisiana Territory! All the land stretching from the Mississippi River all the way to the Rocky Mountains. 828,000 square miles. 828,000? How big is that? It's 529 million acres of land. You could fit the entire United Kingdom into it almost nine times.
SPEAKER_00But they only had permission to spend $10 million. How much did Napoleon want for all of it? $15 million.
SPEAKER_01That is roughly $3 cents an acre. Three cents for a plot of land the size of a football field.
SPEAKER_00But they couldn't call the president to ask if it was okay. There were no phones. What did they do?
SPEAKER_01They knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Livingston and Monroe took a huge risk and said yes. They signed the treaty in Paris, dating it April 30, 1803.
SPEAKER_00They just bought half a continent. With one piece of paper, the United States doubled in size overnight.
SPEAKER_01The impact of this deal was absolutely staggering. That massive chunk of land eventually became 15 different US states, including Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and of course, Louisiana.
SPEAKER_00How did President Jefferson react when he found out they spent 50% more money than he gave them?
SPEAKER_01He was totally shocked. But he knew it was a genius move. But here is the wildest, weirdest fact about the whole deal. The United States didn't actually have $15 million in cash lying around.
SPEAKER_00Wait, so how did they pay Napoleon? Did they put it on a credit card?
SPEAKER_01Sort of. They had to borrow the money from two big European banks. And get this: one of those banks, Bering Brothers, was in London, England. No way! England loaned America the money to pay France. Yes, and Napoleon turned right around and used that exact same money to build an army to fight against England. The British basically funded their own enemy.
SPEAKER_00Huh, that is the craziest historical plot twist ever. So what did America do with all this new land?
SPEAKER_01Well, they had to figure out what they just bought. President Jefferson hired two famous explorers, Meriwether Lewis and William Clarke, to map it out. They led the cause of discovery on an epic 8,000 mile journey to the Pacific Ocean and back.
SPEAKER_008,000 miles of exploring. All because of a $15 million bargain. Alright, Finn, it's time to see what we learned. Quiz time! Okay, I'm ready. Hit me with the history trivia. First question.
SPEAKER_01What year did the Louisiana Purchase happen? Next one. Who was the French ruler that decided to sell the territory to the United States? Question three. Exactly how much did the United States pay for the entire territory? Here's number four. Roughly how much did the land cost per acre? Last question. What were the last names of the two famous explorers President Jefferson sent to map the new land? Great job, let's see how you did. The first answer is it happened in the year 1803. For question two, the French ruler was the ambitious general Napoleon Bonaparte. Number three, the answer is the US paid a total of $15 million. Question 4. It cost roughly 3 cents per acre, the greatest real estate bargain ever. And the final answer is Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, famously known as Lewis and Clark.
SPEAKER_00Wow! Getting half a country for three cents an acre is just wild. I can't believe they pulled that off without even calling the president first.
SPEAKER_01History is full of giant risks that change the world forever. If you loved learning about the biggest real estate deal in history, please leave us a five-star review.
SPEAKER_00Yeah! Just scroll down on your podcast app and tap those five stars. It helps other kids discover these amazing stories.
SPEAKER_01Oh, and don't forget to check out our site, kidopoly.com. We've got loads of awesome learning games, activities, and deep dives into cool historical mysteries there.
SPEAKER_00And if you want a special shout out on the show like Rhett, Whalen, and the Pelerin kids, just ask a grown-up to email us at hello at kidopoly.com.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for exploring with us today. See you next time on History's Not Boring. Bye everyone.