WEBVTT - What happened at Kent State? 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.560 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:13.119 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:15.840 and there's Charles D. Bryant and there's Jerry. And it's 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:20.960 snowing outside, which means that Stuff you Should Know Snow edition, 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:23.720 Snow Edition. Yeah, I know when we're like, we gotta 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:25.840 record and get out of here because this is when 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:28.800 and snow kills us. I just mainly don't want to 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:31.800 be locked away from the snow. I want to be 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:33.479 able to like look out the window and see it. 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:35.760 I can now, but not as well as i'd like to. 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:38.680 For me, it's just a traffic thing. Like people are 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.680 probably leaving work right now. People have already left the 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:44.720 office here. Well maybe everyone will be gone by the 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:47.120 time I get out there. Okay, you'll just be the 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:50.720 lone guy trudging through the snow. That's right, Like if 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:53.400 you go Mortenson in the road. Yes, although he was 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:57.360 not alone and there wasn't any snow. It was just 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:01.440 nuclear ash, although there was snow. Because Charlie is theren 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:05.199 kills herself by going out into the snow. But that's 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:10.480 before everything really takes a downward. Spoiler alert retroact as 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:15.600 spoiler alert Chuck Yep. Are you familiar with Kent State? Yeah? Man, 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:18.520 I've been singing that Neil Young song all day. How 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.800 can you not? You cannot by having never heard it? 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:24.319 Like me, shut up? You know that song? Never heard it? 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:28.039 I never listened to Neil Young. You've never heard the 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:31.160 song Ohio? No? I know the Pretender song, but I 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:35.560 don't think that's about Kent State. I'm shocked, Okay, I mean, 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:39.399 you don't have to love you without like, how's it 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:42.840 go home? And for him? No, I'm not gonna Maybe 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:46.960 I have heard it ten Soldiers and Nixon, I've heard it. 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:50.720 I didn't know that was about Ohio for dead in Ohio? Yeah, okay, 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:54.000 And I had no idea, all right. I didn't know 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:55.760 what that song was about. I was just like, oh 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:59.440 Neil Young? Really? Yeah? Oh man, get ready to hear it. 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:03.720 I'm I'm used to it by now. Your bulletproof. Uh. Well, 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:10.520 so you're familiar with the Kent State shootings May four, Um, 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:17.280 four students were killed. I believe another eleven were injured, Yeah, 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:21.600 including one was paralyzed, like some pretty severe injuries. And uh, 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:23.919 this is a big deal. That would be a big 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:25.560 deal in and of itself. If it was just some 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:27.880 sort of campus shooting or something like that, like it 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:30.160 would be a very big deal these days. But what 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:32.639 made the Kent State shootings, for those of you who 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:36.320 aren't familiar with them, such an enormous deal was that 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:40.040 the shootings were carried out by National guardsmen. They were 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:44.120 Americans firing on Americans, UM, Americans on one side of 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:47.600 the equation, firing on protesters on the other side. Uh. 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:50.920 And it was one of the darkest points in American history, 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:54.360 modern or otherwise. Yeah, it was. I think what's so 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:57.960 upsetting is it was random. It wasn't you know that 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:01.359 guy's coming at me with a bottle or a brick, 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:05.440 shoot him. It was random shooting into a crowd, Right. 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:07.280 That's the kind of thing that would happen in countries 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:11.880 under like dictatorships, not here in America. But it did 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:15.160 happen here in America, and not just at Kent State. 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.720 There was another similar incident just ten days later. Um 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:21.880 that will talk about as well. It gets overlooked, but yeah, 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:24.560 it was a very dark moment in American history, and 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:28.200 it came out of the the tensions um over the 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:31.320 Vietnam War. Initially, but I think it was more than that. 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.920 It was also we should say that's the um kind 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:38.720 of obvious thing that led to it. But also there 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:43.960 was a real tension also between the establishment and the 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:48.520 anti establishment and um, the people in control and the 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:51.640 people who weren't in control, students, elders. There was just 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:55.720 a lot of tension between two sides, and the dividing line, 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:59.280 the obvious dividing line was the Vietnam War. Yeah, and 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:02.720 I think if you are not of that generation, you 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:04.760 may not know the full story. You might know that 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:07.400 four people were shot in a protest and that's about it. 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:09.720 Maybe even if you're from that generation, you may not 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:12.400 know the full story. But we're about to tell you. Okay, 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:16.000 let's take it back a little further than all right, 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:21.280 Vietnam country, which had when it's independence from France in 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:25.200 the fifties. Have you ever seen We Were Soldiers. Yes, 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:28.880 it's almost like a snuff film. It's one of the 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:32.000 most graphically violent movies I've ever seen in my life. 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:37.200 But it's about that transition from France leaving Vietnam and 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:43.359 America coming in. Yeah, go ahead, Well, just initially serving 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:47.440 as advisors and then becoming embroiled in the war. I 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:50.160 forgot all about that movie. Yeah, you know, and Apocalypse 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:53.200 Now there are some deleted scenes of the meeting up 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:56.400 with a French family in Vietnam and like having dinner. 0:04:57.240 --> 0:04:59.320 Really yeah, and I remember when I heard about that, 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:01.359 I was like, why were they French? And then I 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:03.800 did a little more homework on it. Oh oh yeah, 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:08.839 if you eat Vietnamese food, like, it's very clearly like, yeah, influenced, well, 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:13.960 all most food is. But yeah. Um so anyway, Uh, 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:17.680 in the fifties day split between communists North and non 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:23.760 communist South Vietnam, and America didn't want communism spreading throughout Asia. 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:27.599 We had a policy of containment. Yeah, and so Richard Nixon, UM, 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:32.279 when he won the sixty election, UM, part of his 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:37.360 promise was something called Vietnamization. It's kind of an awkward word, 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.320 and that meant to transfer the combat duties from our 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:44.400 soldiers to the South Vietnamese. That sounds familiar, isn't it? 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:48.039 It does? But um, what what happened was at some 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:50.960 point he said, you know what in nineteen seventy, in April, 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:54.040 he said, I want to send our soldiers in the Cambodia, 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.000 and that caused sort of a firestorm because it was 0:05:57.080 --> 0:05:59.039 a bit of a reversal of what he said he 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:02.200 was gonna do, and it, you know, really embroiled this 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:04.280 in the kind of the middle of things. Well, yeah, 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:07.279 he he escalated the war in Vietnam, which was already 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:11.000 a very um contentious issue and that it was a war, 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:14.160 but also its a war that Congress never openly declared war. 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:17.520 So that's why historically speaking, it's referred to as the 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:23.039 Vietnam conflict. Um. And so Nixon gets elected partially because 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:24.920 he's saying, I'm gonna get our boys out of there. 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:27.880 We're not gonna like let the communists when we're gonna 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:31.440 prop up the Vietnamese, but um, we're gonna get out 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:34.720 of there. Insteady escalates things by invading Cambodia, where the 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:38.359 Vietcong we're stationed, and that led to immediate protests. That 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:41.680 was April thirtieth, nineteen seventy, that he announced that we 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:44.960 had invaded Cambodia, and the next day is when the 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:48.360 first protest takes place at Kent State. Yeah, and Kent. 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:51.239 The article points out that it was not the most 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:54.119 likely place because it was a little more blue collar 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:58.839 than like say, Ohio State nearby the Ohio State University, 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:04.720 and um man, I'm sorry, that is so stupid. Sorry 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:08.320 os U alums and fans and students, but it is stupid, 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:12.160 and everyone outside of Ohio State thinks it's stupid. They 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:13.800 take a lot of pride in that. The I know, 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:16.560 which I think just kind of fans the flames of 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:20.600 um derision. You know, I can just start saying the 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:25.840 University of Georgia. That makes a little more sense, does it. Yeah, 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:31.680 what's the difference the Ohio State University the University of Georgia. 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:35.200 It's just it was the University of Ohio State that 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:37.680 would make more sense. Yeah, a little more to my ear, 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:41.960 I got my ear right there, see it. It's very nice, 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:46.640 thank you. Um At any rate, Uh, I can't say 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:48.440 it was a little more blue collar. And you wouldn't 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:50.560 think there would be like protesting, but there was protesting 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.040 it schools all over the country. There were and you 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:55.280 can read between the lines here, Kent State had a 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:58.520 lower hippie population than Ohio State. Can we just come 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:00.720 up right out and say it, right, But there were 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:03.160 protests there. Um, there was a protest on May one, 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:07.560 and it was a standard uh war protests three days 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:09.600 before the shootings, and it's kind of when things got 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:12.160 kicked off, right, but these kids were still pretty good. 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:15.480 They were at school holding a protest in the commons, 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:18.120 I believe um, which is the a k a. The 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:21.040 quad or like the big grassy area between in the 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:24.280 middle of campus um. And they said, you know what, 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:26.880 this went pretty well. Let's take the weekend off and 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:29.080 we'll meet back here one day and have another anti 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:32.320 war protests because we're really steamed about this. And everyone said, okay, 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.520 let's do that, and for tonight, let's go out and 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:38.320 hit the bars and Kent. Yeah, is what they did. 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:42.360 The first one they buried the constitution as a symbolic gesture, 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:46.719 and the second one they got drunk, right, not at 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:48.920 the protest but later that night, right, so that Friday 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:51.520 protests is when they buried the constitution. This is like 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:54.320 a real protest, not just walking around. There's like stuff 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:57.360 going on, and like you know, there's symbolic acts. It 0:08:57.440 --> 0:08:59.920 was a real protest. Yeah. And if you com buy 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.800 the alcohol and protesting, things might get a little rowdy. 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:07.880 So bonfires broke out, they start throwing bottles at police cars, 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:10.720 breaking windows. That's where the little rowdy. I mean, that's 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:13.920 pretty that's a riot. When you said like bomb fires 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:17.040 in the streets and like throw bottles at at police cars, 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:21.080 that you have just basically said we've drawn a line 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:24.040 in the sand. Where are you gonna do, cops? That 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:26.640 is one way to look at it for sure. Uh. 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:31.920 The mayor, Leroy Satram said, this is an emergency situation people. 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:34.439 I need to call the governor James Rhodes. We need 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:37.760 some help. I'm going to close the bars, which you 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:40.680 know isn't gonna make anyone very happy, no, And it 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:44.559 had an exacerbating effect apparently, because that meant all the 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:47.439 people who weren't riding in the streets, who were busy 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:50.520 drinking in the bars, were now suddenly in the streets 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:53.760 too and joined the protests and the a k a. 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:57.080 The riots, right, that's right. And the police were called 0:09:57.120 --> 0:09:59.920 in the use tear gas and said go back to 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.440 your dorm rooms, basically get back on campus. And that 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:07.120 was Friday. Now we move on to Saturday. Yeah, and 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:10.200 the mayors is obviously a little jumpie. He's hearing rumors 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:14.520 circulating that there's gonna be another. The scene from the 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:17.400 night before is going to happen all over again on Saturday. 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:22.280 So he calls the governor of Ohio and um, here 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:27.079 enters the person who, in my opinion, is single handedly 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:29.840 responsible for what happened at Kent State. So the National 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:33.400 Guard arrives. Um, there were about a thousand protesters. Um 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:36.520 that actually burned down an r OTC building on campus, 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:40.480 which is pretty bold move. And UM, they didn't find 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:43.360 out who did that exactly, but they did cut fire 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.560 hoses so they couldn't put out the fire and basically 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:48.760 burned it to the ground. Yeah, the protesters set it 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:51.679 on fire and then cut the fire hoses like they 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:56.800 wanted that building burned. And apparently, Um, that's when the 0:10:57.280 --> 0:10:59.760 National Guard shows up a couple like an hour or 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:02.920 so later, right, Yeah, and they you know, broke everything 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:08.360 up obviously. And then Uh comes Sunday. You've got about 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:13.439 a thousand National guardsman and you've got Governor Rhodes arriving, 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:16.920 uh and holding a press conference and kind of flaming 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:21.120 the fire again by calling the protesters the worst type 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:23.880 of people that we harbor in America. Yeah, he compared 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:30.880 to the brown shirts. Mussolini's brown Shirts, UM, the communists, UM, 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.000 pretty much anybody he could think of that was that 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:35.920 would be disparaging. That's who publicly at this press conference 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:40.400 compared him to UM. And you mentioned that the on 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:44.680 Sunday morning, the UM National Guard was on campus kind 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:48.800 of keeping order and everything. But apparently like the relations 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:52.760 between the guardsmen and the students were pretty amicable, like 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:55.520 people were chatting friendly, like there was no tension. It 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:59.319 was just kind of like, hey, I'm nineteen. Hey, I'm nineteen, 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:02.080 I'm as student at Kent State, I'm in the National Guard. 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.120 Let's hang out. And it wasn't until the governor showed 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:08.840 up and held this press conference that things took a 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:12.040 very sudden turn for the worse. And it wasn't just 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:14.480 the brown shirts calling him the brown Shirts to the 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:18.880 worst element that America harbors, but also saying I may 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:24.920 also declare martial law. Yeah, and that I may. Message 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:28.200 never quite got through in those confusion as to whether 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:32.000 or not that actually happened, And basically the National Guard 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:34.599 believed that that had happened, and they took control of 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:36.760 the campus and said we're running the show now. And 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:39.240 that's just the National Guard, but the university officials to 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.720 the people running the university said, oh, well, martial laws declared, 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:45.560 and they knew that there was a protest scheduled for 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:48.520 the following day, Monday, So they printed a bunch of 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:52.920 flyers and pamphlets saying, Hey, your constitutional rights have been 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:57.880 suspended because the universities under martial law, so all assemblies banned, 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:01.480 so don't protest, and kind of fell on deaf ears. 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.520 I guess you could say, come Monday morning. Because the 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:07.959 students showed up the protest. Yeah, that definitely didn't work. Um. 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:11.680 By noon there was about three thousand people, about five 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:16.160 d actively protesting, another thousand just there to be supportive. 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:21.079 And um and because it's a college campus, about people 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:23.280 just checking it out, Yah, stopping on their way to 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:26.320 class or whatever, you like, what's going on. I would 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:28.240 have done the same thing probably, And we should say, 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:32.880 also are our buddy stuff they don't want you to know? Um. 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:39.440 Host and sometimes producer Matt Frederick his parents were students 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:41.240 at Kent Stay and they stay at home that day. 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:44.240 They did. They were like, there's some bad stuff that's 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:46.280 going to go down, and they were right. Uh. So 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:49.680 the article points out at was less an anti war 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:53.160 protest at this point, and more of a protest of 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:57.040 the draconian occupation of their campus martial law by the 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:00.360 army and UM which is not even real, which is 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:04.880 just a misunderstanding. Yeah, pretty much. So the General UM 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:08.960 Canterbury says, you know what this rally is over drive 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:11.080 me around in a jeep, give me that bullhorn. Let 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:13.400 me tell everyone to go home, because that'll work. Yeah, 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:15.720 I mean, let's go back to this where these tensions 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:19.240 came from in the first place. It's establishment versus anti establishment, 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:22.480 and establishment is the type to stand in a jeep 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.160 and be driven around with the bullhorn telling people to disperse. 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:27.240 I don't know if there's ever been a message relayed 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:32.320 via bullhorn that doesn't fall on deaf ears. Yeah, you know, 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:35.320 it has the opposite effect, unless, like I guess, in 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:38.280 like a female situations, if you're trying to like organize 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:40.640 people and stuff, that helps. But I always think of 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:43.880 bullhorns is stuff like this, the general riding around the 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:46.640 jeep yelling at people to go home, and people saying no, 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:48.480 you don understand why we're here in the first place. 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:52.000 So they started throwing rocks at the jeep not surprisingly, 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:57.960 and UM not well think, you know, tensions at this point. 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:00.760 This was day four. Yeah, I I think though, though 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:03.080 I'm not justifying, I'm just no, no, I know you're 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:04.800 not at all. But I think it's really easy to 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:08.000 to um to to kind of choose one side or 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:10.280 the other, especially once you know the outcome. But I 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:12.760 don't think it should be overlooked that, like people are 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:15.560 throwing rocks at this dude while he's driving around. The 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:18.920 people have burned down a building, people have rioted in 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:21.240 the streets of the town, the college town. I mean, 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:25.320 like these are real, huge events that scared the pants 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:28.280 off of the people who were running the town, the state, 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:33.040 the country, and and I mean to say that they 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:38.760 were unprovoked as historically inaccurate, Yeah, I totally agree, not justifying, 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:40.480 but I think a lot of people might think the 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:43.600 story is people got together to protest and the army 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.360 came in and shot him, right or yeah, and and 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:48.800 that it was either the protests of fault. They shouldn't 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:50.640 have been protest, they shouldn't have burned down that building, 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:54.080 or you know, it was entirely the National Guards fault. 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:57.840 And you whatever historical event you're looking at, it's never 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:03.280 just one side or or the other. There's It's always 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:05.960 great and you have blinders on. If you think otherwise, 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:08.440 you should write a history book called It's Always Great 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:15.120 Josh Clark's History of America. I'd buy that. Um, all right, 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:17.680 So where are we? They were throwing rocks at the General. 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:21.640 He at this point ordered his troops to load their weapons, 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:25.160 get the tear gas going. He said, they threw rocks 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:29.680 of me. You guys, load your weapons. That's basically what happened. Um, 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:33.680 not because his feelings were hurt. Yeah, although imagine they were. 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.200 I guess no matter who you are, I'm sure if 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:40.360 people throw rocks and you're like I I take that personally. 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.840 So the National Guard came in. They pushed them back 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:49.200 past the Commons, over a steep called Blanket Hill and 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:52.680 into the parking lot of Prentice Hall in a practice 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:58.480 football field. Then basically the guardsmen found themselves cornered by 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:01.840 a fence, retreated back up the hill. When they got 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:05.720 to the top, out of the seventy turned and began 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:10.080 firing their guns into the crowd. Yeah, so, well, not 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:11.960 all of them into the crowd, we should point out, 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:15.360 most into the air or the ground. Actually, although some 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:17.400 fired directly in the crowd. They all would have fired 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:19.000 directly in the crowd. That would have been a much 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:22.240 higher blood count or body counts. Oh yeah, I'm sure, um. 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.240 And I mean the protesters were about a football filled 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:29.600 away from them. Um. And the fact that they started 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:31.280 to walk up the hill and then turn and shot 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:35.000 made it not just an attack of Americans on Americans, 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:39.159 but a surprise attack of Americans on Americans. Yeah. I 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:43.320 would say the students were definitely did not expect bullet retaliation. 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:48.560 Took about thirteen seconds. Um. Four students were killed. Alison Krauss, 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:54.439 not the Allison Krause obviously, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Sure and 0:17:54.880 --> 0:18:00.000 William Schroeder and uh, it's all tragic, but even more 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:05.560 magically shut and Schroeder, We're just walking to class. Yeah, protest. 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:07.640 They were in the wrong place at the wrong time, 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:10.440 and like I said, nine people were wounded. In one 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:16.800 dean collar was paralyzed. And yeah, so those shots they 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:18.400 shot into the air and into the ground, but also 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:21.280 into the crowd. And over about thirteen seconds, they fired 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:24.399 between sixty one and sixty seven shots. I think that 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:28.960 could be categorized as a hail of gunfire. Yeah, thirteen seconds, 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:31.960 sixties shots, But is that that's like a lot of 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:36.040 shots the second, you know, and just from twenty eight guns. Yeah, 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:38.719 And apparently there was a professor named Glenn Frank who 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:41.600 did a lot to quell the crowd and did talk 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:45.479 them into, uh, not escalating this thing any further. Right, 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:48.959 So this article really kind of glances over this guy's role. 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:50.640 And it wasn't just him, but he was the head 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:53.760 of the faculty marshals who whose job it was was 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:57.479 to basically keep an eye on the protests. They were 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:02.520 like the university's liaison between the university and the students 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:09.240 the protesters, and this guy and his crew basically single 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:14.360 handedly prevented like a massacre because they saw very quickly 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:17.520 that if they didn't insinuate themselves between the guardsmen and 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:22.280 the students, the students were gonna be like, Holy, holy God, 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:27.360 they just fired live ammunition on us, and they're standing 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:30.879 right there, let's get them. They would have attacked. The 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:33.480 consensus is the students would have attacked out of anger, 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:36.639 and that the guardsmen most definitely would have fired again 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:41.840 when being attacked. Um and these this this faculty member 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:44.320 and his team saw what was about to happen, and 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:47.600 slid in and was like wait. So they firstly spoke 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:50.240 to the guardsman and said stop firing, we have to 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:52.560 go talk to the students. Then they went and spoke 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:54.680 to the students for twenty minutes and got him to 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:58.880 calm down enough to to to stop provoking or did 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:04.639 not provoker, advanced on the guardsman in retaliation and saved 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:07.000 a lot of lives. Probably. I wonder if there's a 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:12.320 Glenn Frank statue on campus. There should be. Uh. So 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:15.240 they closed school not for the day or the weekend, 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:18.040 but for the rest of the semester, and UM a 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:21.360 lot of colleges did the same as far as shutting down. Well, 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:24.119 because a lot of students went on strike and like 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.640 they were forced to, the universities were forced to shut down. Uh. 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:30.320 In the following weekend, UM a hundred thousand people went 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.879 to d c UM to protest. Neil Young news to 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:39.639 Josh wrote a song about it. Uh So, chuck, um, 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:48.359 let's do a message break show. Okay, So the the 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:51.159 shootings just happened, that the crowd has been quelled, the 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:53.800 dead and Woon would have been taken away in ambulances 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:58.440 and now we reached the aftermath. That's immediate. And otherwise, Yeah, Um, 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:03.520 President Nixon wasn't super compassionate. He had earlier been overheard 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:07.520 calling them bombs. This wasn't in his press release, obviously, 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:10.879 but it definitely got out in the press. Did not 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:15.480 bode well for his reputation. And um, he said, when 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:18.439 the cent turns to violence, it invites tragedy. That was 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:20.639 the official line. That was the official line, which is 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:24.080 pretty cold. That's the president like, you get what you 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:28.159 what you pay for. Yeah much. His vice president, um 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:34.240 Agnes said it was predictable. Um, also not super compassionate 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:38.200 considering this. These were Americans that were shot and killed. Uh, 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:41.080 two of which were just walking to class. Uh. He 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:43.080 called them a bunch of scared kids with guns the 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:46.920 National guardsman. But that was very priced the speechwriter for Nixon. Yeah, 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:49.720 which is true. Yeah, but so basically the whole, the 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:52.320 whole kids is gray. You know. It is like they 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:56.119 probably were scared for sure, and uh, and yeah, I 0:21:56.160 --> 0:21:59.320 think that's fair. I think also though it's it's one 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:01.800 sided too, like he's he's not saying and then also 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:05.240 the other side, we're a bunch of scared, angry kids 0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:07.520 with rocks. Yeah, like the only way, and you can't 0:22:07.520 --> 0:22:09.840 even remove the grade, but you'd have to find out 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:14.000 each person who shot and what their motive was, because 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:16.200 some were probably scared out of their mind and reacted. 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:20.240 There has been some people later on that said that 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:24.840 they some got together and decided to do this, some 0:22:24.960 --> 0:22:27.840 of the guardsmen, right, so, when they had been pushing 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:32.200 the crowd back onto the UM practice football field, apparently 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:35.239 while they were loitering there. There have been allegations that 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:38.119 a couple of the guardsmen said, Hey, when we marched 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:41.080 back up the hill, we're gonna turn and fire. It's 0:22:41.119 --> 0:22:44.040 never been proven, UM, but a few more than a 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:48.399 couple of historians have leveled that accusation. UM. There was 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:52.399 also immediate word that the guardsman said that they were 0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:55.640 acting in self defense because they there was a sniper 0:22:56.080 --> 0:22:57.840 on one of the rooftops and that they were being 0:22:57.880 --> 0:23:01.040 fired on. They found out that they were audio recordings 0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:04.200 of this, and UM that was quickly changed to well, 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:07.040 it was self defense because these people were throwing rocks 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:11.320 at us. There was the Presidential Commission, obviously, UM, and 0:23:11.359 --> 0:23:15.800 they concluded it was quote unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable. And 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:20.800 then in uh, an FBI investigation found that the guardsman 0:23:21.000 --> 0:23:24.159