WEBVTT - Rerun: Lighting Up the Holidays 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:12.719 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:15.920 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:18.680 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:23.239 tech are you. Well? We are on holiday here at 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:28.280 iHeart Podcasts, but of course I love butting out episodes anyway, 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:31.960 so I thought it would bring you a classic that's 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:35.159 not even that old. It actually originally published in twenty nineteen, 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:38.199 but it's becoming a classic tradition in tech stuff that 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:43.480 on Christmas Day, December twenty fifth, we publish Lighting Up 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:47.960 the Holidays, which looks at the history of incorporating lights 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:51.960 in winter holidays. So I hope that you are all 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:56.320 healthy and happy and safe and surrounded by loved ones, 0:00:56.360 --> 0:01:00.200 whether you celebrate Christmas or not. And let's sit back 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:03.600 and listen to this episode of tech Stuff Lighting Up 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:10.320 the Holidays, which originally published November twenty seventh, twenty nineteen. Now, 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:13.560 before I dive into all of that, I want to 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:16.800 acknowledge a few things first. While I'll be talking about 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:22.679 Christmas lights, there are many people of different faiths, ethnicities, regions, etc. 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:26.680 Who celebrate special days during the winter months, and lights 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:30.920 nearly always play an important part in those various observations, 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:33.959 which makes total sense because the days are shorter in 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:36.440 the winter and thus we have more hours of darkness 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:39.920 for every twenty four hour period, so lights would clearly 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:42.480 be an important part of any celebration during that part 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:45.760 of the year. So, for example, the manora in the 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:50.320 Jewish faith symbolizes how the Maccabee's, when rededicating the Holy Temple, 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:53.120 which they had just won back from the Greeks, used 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:56.200 a single bottle of oil to light the manora used 0:01:56.240 --> 0:02:00.360 in the rededication ceremony for eight nights, even though bottle 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:04.280 should only have lasted a single night. Then there's also 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:08.080 the celebration of Kwanza, where families light candles in the kenara, 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.359 and the candles represent the seven principles of the holiday. 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:16.680 But getting back to Christmas lights, there's actually an older 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:20.239 tradition than the sort of Christmas tree lights, in which 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:24.040 Christian families would set out candles within view of a 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:27.160 window as a symbol to alert fellow Christians that the 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:31.040 family inside the house they were made up of observing Christians, 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:34.480 and that fellow Christians would be welcome to come into 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:38.200 that house to worship with the family. But the Christmas 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:41.200 lights we see every year really have their roots pun 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:45.840 intended in a Germanic tradition of the Christmas tree. So 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:49.280 why would you ever cut down a tree and bring 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:53.079 it inside in the first place. Well, again, one of 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:54.800 those things that makes sense as you start to think 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:58.440 about all the details. Plants like fir trees and holly 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:02.400 remain green even in the winter, which otherwise pretty much 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.520 wipes out everything else and makes it brown and dead 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:09.200 or appearing to be dead. So these plants became symbols 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:13.480 of resilience and everlasting life. So people would cut down 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:15.680 some of those plants and bring them indoors to remind 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:19.280 them of that. But you know, then the plants would 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:23.760 eventually just dry out and turn brown, and thus negate 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:26.040 the whole reason for bringing them inside. But you know, 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:31.160 humans have never been rational creatures. There are some unsupported 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:36.280 legends surrounding the origins of the German Christmas tree, sometimes 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:39.960 referred to as the Tannenbaum, but really Tannenbaum is more 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:42.440 of a word for fur trees in general, not just 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:45.360 those all decked out with bowels of holly and whatnot. 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:50.560 But one legend has it that Martin Luther, the Reformer 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:53.320 who caused a bit of a ruckus in the fifteen 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:56.560 hundreds when he, you know, decided to criticize the Catholic Church, 0:03:57.000 --> 0:03:59.840 that he had started the tradition of the Christmas tree. However, 0:03:59.880 --> 0:04:04.080 the earliest written accounts on record that mention this tradition 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:07.880 date to sixteen oh five. Now that doesn't mean that's 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:10.880 when the tradition started, of course, it's just the earliest 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:14.160 written account that we happened to have. Scholars think the 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:17.480 tradition might date back at least to the mid sixteenth century, 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:19.919 though that would still be after Martin Luther had died. 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:24.680 So anyway, that sixteen oh five account, all it says 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:29.240 is that the people would set up Christmas trees in 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:33.479 their rooms in Strasbourg. There's no mention of lights in 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:37.760 this particular account, but the decorations consisted of things like 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:43.120 roses made out of paper and various foods being shoved 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.200 into the tree, things like apples or cookies and sugar. 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:49.200 It was very food centric. In fact, there was a 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:51.880 tradition of raiding the Christmas tree on one of the 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:53.720 days of Christmas, where the kids get to go and 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:57.080 actually grab treats from the tree and eat them. The 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:00.920 first written account to bring up the to tail about 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:05.520 lights in the Christmas tree dates to sixteen sixty. People 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:09.320 in Germany would pin or otherwise attach candles to branches 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:12.760 of these trees, and again, frequently these are trees that 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:15.039 have been cut down and put up inside a house, 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:19.080 not just trees out in the woods somewhere. Generally speaking, 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:21.680 the practice was to light the candles only for a 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:25.040 very short time before you blew them out again. And 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:27.839 you were never supposed to leave a tree unattended, because, 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:31.400 as you can imagine, combining a cut tree that might 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:35.600 be kind of dry with open flames is a recipe 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:38.240 for a disaster. And in fact, there were more than 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:41.000 a few cases of fires with these trees, some of 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:44.280 them ending in catastrophe and tragedy. But I'm sure the 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:46.640 effect was really nice, leading right up to the moment 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:50.080 where everything went ablaze. Okay, so let's skip ahead to 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:54.000 the eighteen hundreds. At that point the tradition extended beyond Germany. 0:05:54.880 --> 0:06:00.120 A Harvard professor named Charles Fallen, inspired by story that 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:02.920 he had heard in Europe, did a lit up Christmas 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:05.920 tree here in America. This was believed to be the 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:08.240 first lit Christmas tree in America, or at least the 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:11.880 first one on record. In the eighteen forties, in England, 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:15.440 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had a Christmas tree famously 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:18.440 depicted in an illustration that was published in a newspaper 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:22.599 that likely helped boost the practice over in England. Prince 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:27.200 Albert brought this over from his homeland in Saxony. So 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:30.360 people came up with new ways to attach the candles 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.279 to trees, you know, they found more improved methods that 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.320 would catch the wax and things like that. However, there 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:39.800 was still very much a danger of fire with this 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:43.960 particular approach. Then in the later eighteen hundreds, we get 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:47.839 to Thomas Edison, the inventor and entrepreneur who is spending 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.480 a lot of time and resources trying to perfect the 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:53.679 light bulb. Which he did not invent the light bulb, 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:56.520 but he did improve upon it, or rather, I should 0:06:56.560 --> 0:07:00.080 say his lab improved upon it. So when he and 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:02.360 his engineers managed to make a light bulb that could 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:04.760 last more than just a few hours and could be 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:07.560 suitable for general use as opposed to stuff like the 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:12.440 more dangerous arc lamps that while extremely bright, were not 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:15.920 practical for everyday applications. He then had to figure out 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:19.640 a way, how do I sell this idea to cities, 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:22.680 right to city officials and then further on to the 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:26.560 general public. So he wanted to convince Manhattan officials that 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:29.840 his company should be the one to provide electricity and 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.600 light all of Manhattan. So he had his employees hang 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:36.600 lights during the holiday season in eighteen eighty on the 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:40.000 outside of Menlo Park, which was an easy view of 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:43.160 trains passing by, and it got a lot of attention. Now, 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:46.040 one of the inventors who was working at his Menlo 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:50.760 Park facility was Edward Hibberd Johnson. Johnson had actually been 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:54.840 responsible for giving Edison a job at the Automatic Telegraph Company, 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.440 but later on Johnson would end up working closely with 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:01.840 Edison to develop men Low Park itself and became an 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:05.360 inventor and executive at the Edison Light Company. So it's 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:08.280 funny because he helped get Edison a job early and 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:11.400 then he ended up working for Edison later. It was 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:15.920 at the Menlo Park facility where Johnson developed string lights, 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:18.679 and these were lights that were wired together in series 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:21.840 and would serve as the basis for Christmas lights. Just 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:25.040 moving forward from that point, he used those lights to 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:28.400 decorate a Christmas tree, and so Johnson is sometimes referred 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:31.880 to as the father of electric Christmas tree lights because 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:34.679 the original version, the earlier version that Edison did that 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:37.120 was a string of lights they hung up on a building. 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.560 This was the first time where someone was using electric 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:44.520 Christmas lights to replace the candles that were found on 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:48.160 the Germanic Christmas trees. His lights, by the way, had 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.800 bulbs that were red, white, and blue. Is quite the 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:54.880 patriotic Christmas tree, and like Edison, Johnson intended that for 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.120 this not just to be a festive display in the 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:00.960 spirit of America and the holiday season, but also a 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:05.120 marketing effort to get more people to support and want 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:09.560 and adopt electric lights. There was a general distrust in 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:13.120 electricity around this time, so these were the ways in 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:16.000 which Edison and his associates could try to win people 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:19.720 over to this new technology, and adoption did not take 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:22.760 off right away. So, for one thing, no New York 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:26.240 based reporters wrote about this Christmas tree at all, but 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:30.439 one reporter for a Detroit newspaper did publish an account 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:33.240 of what it was like seeing the Christmas tree all 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.120 lit up. The next big development in the adoption of 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:40.120 Christmas lights would come in eighteen ninety five when US 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:44.000 President Grover Cleveland incorporated them in decorations for the Christmas 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:46.719 Tree at the White House. So we're going to go 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:49.520 off on a little tangent here some fun trivia facts 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:54.280 about Grover Cleveland. So he's the only US president whoever 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:58.840 served two non consecutive terms, meaning he was both our 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:02.920 twenty second and our twenty fourth president of the United States. 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:05.280 The lighting of the Christmas tree would be during his 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:09.160 second term as president. And just in case you're wondering 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:12.800 the twenty third president, the one who interrupted those two 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:17.520 terms was Benjamin Harrison, the grandson of our ninth President, 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:21.760 William Henry Harrison. Sorry I recently I have been showing 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:24.400 up on a lot of ridiculous history episodes, and sometimes 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:28.880 that stuff just kind of sticks with you. Anyway. Cleveland's tree, 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:33.760 Grover Cleveland's tree featured one hundred lights with bulbs of 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.400 various colors, and it must have been a really impressive 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:39.440 sight for the time. Some of the movers and shakers 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:42.800 in America, in other words, people had a ton of 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.200 cash to burn they began to put up their own 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:48.720 decorated and lit Christmas trees, but it was not something 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:51.680 the average person could do because at that time, most 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:55.080 of the United States wasn't wired for electricity, so to 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:58.400 even have a lit Christmas tree with electric lights, you 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:01.800 would have to set up a generator. You'd also typically 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:04.560 have to hire an electrician to actually wire it up, 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:07.880 and in today's money, that would mean that decorating a 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:12.080 tree could cost at least a couple of thousands of dollars, 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:14.880 so only the hoity toity folks who wanted to show 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.080 off their wealth could really afford to have a Christmas 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.440 tree with electric lights at that time. Anyway, over the 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:23.600 course of the early nineteen hundreds, electric lights began to 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:26.960 gain popularity as people became more comfortable with the idea 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:30.439 of electricity. And it's really no wonder that folks were 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:33.840 nervous at first. Fire is something you can see, at 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:37.360 least in most cases, but electricity could be deadly but 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:41.480 was also invisible, and Edison's company had already engaged in 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:46.440 some pretty heavy smear campaigns against alternating current, since Edison 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:50.000 was pushing direct current as a means to distribute electricity regionally, 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:52.800 and a lot of those events and demonstrations that his 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:57.200 company held involved showing off how deadly electricity could be, 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:00.440 so they were kind of feeding into that fear. But 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:03.800 the allure of the lights was undeniable. And but that 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:06.440 I mean not just Christmas lights, I mean your run 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.319 of the bill light bulbs. Now, even in nineteen oh 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:14.079 three when General Electric introduced string Christmas light kits, which 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:16.360 will let people string up their own lights at home 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:19.680 without necessarily the use of an electrician, it was still 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:23.280 really expensive a string of lights, and a General Electric 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:27.720 actually referred to these strings as festoons. Anyway. The string 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:31.200 of lights consisted of eight whole light bulb sockets and 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:33.960 they would hold Edison light bulbs, and it costs the 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:38.200 equivalent of about three hundred dollars today. That's just the lights. 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:41.160 And this was not something that the average family would 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:44.319 necessarily spring for. Also, you wouldn't buy these kits. You 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:47.360 would rent them for three hundred dollars, so after the 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:51.079 rental period you would actually have to return them. So yikes. Now, 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:54.040 the bulbs on these things were small, round bulbs, almost 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:58.880 like manature incandescent light bulbs. Actually that's exactly what they were, 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:01.440 but I'm talking more about the form factor rather than 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:06.480 the actual lighting mechanism. In nineteen nineteen, General Electric introduced 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:09.240 a new bulb shape and filament. It was more of 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:12.880 a flame shape, is that sort of classic, large, kind 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:16.040 of clunky, retro looking light bulb. That was the general 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:18.800 shape that they introduced, and it had a filament made 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:22.679 out of Mazda tungsten. The filament is the part of 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:25.840 the incandescent bulb that actually glows. The company would use 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:28.400 Mazda filaments in all sorts of lamp bulbs, not just 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:32.480 Christmas ones. Now, there were a couple of possibly apocryphal 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:36.000 stories about some smaller companies around this time that played 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:39.959 an important role in popularizing Christmas lights. One of those 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.520 stories is about a telephone company employee named Ralph E. 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:47.480 Morris who at some point. Different versions of this story 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:50.360 can date it to either eighteen ninety five, the same 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:53.240 year that Grover Cleveland was lighting up the White House, 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:56.360 or nineteen oh eight. There's a pretty big discrepancy, but 0:13:57.120 --> 0:13:59.719 the stories say that he looked at a telephone switchboard, 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.000 and telephone sweatchboards had these little tiny light bulbs mounted 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:05.680 in them that would light up when you were making connections, 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:08.360 and he thought those little light bulbs might make nice 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:11.320 Christmas decorations. So he took a bunch of those little 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:15.160 light bulbs a bunch of telephone wire, wired them all together, 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:19.560 electrified the wire, and made up a little lit Christmas tree, 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.160 a little fake lit Christmas tree, because the story says 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:27.080 that he made a makeshift Christmas tree out of feathers. 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:29.760 I don't know exactly how he did it, but that's 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:32.720 what the story says. His son would later write an 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:36.680 article claiming that his father invented Christmas lights, which wasn't 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:40.840 quite accurate. They predated this, but I'm pretty sure it 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:47.480 was an honest mistake, not something that was done, you know, maliciously. Now. 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:51.840 The other possibly apocryphal story involves a guy named Albert Sidaka. 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.680 This story goes that when Sadaka was fifteen, he heard 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:59.360 about a terrible tragedy involving a deadly fire that began 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:02.760 when a Christmas tree lit with candles caught fire and 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:06.920 people died as a result. His family made novelty lights 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:10.280 with white bulbs, so he thought, hey, how about we 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:14.440 change out those regular bulbs with bulbs of different colors 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:16.960 and we use electric lights instead of candles to light 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.920 up a Christmas tree. According to this story, he and 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.040 his brothers began to do just that, and a few 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:24.800 years later they led an effort to bring together several 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:27.680 small competing light companies. They were all going for the 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:31.640 same customers, and they formed the National Outfit Manufacturers Association, 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.600 or NOMA, which would become its own company and by 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:38.120 nineteen twenty five became the leading manufacturing company for electric 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:41.840 Christmas lights. Now, as power companies wired up the United 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:45.480 States for electricity, the popularity of electric Christmas lights began 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:48.480 to grow. In nineteen twenty a hardware store owner in 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:52.880 California named Frederick Nash decorated trees outside his establishment, and 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:55.280 that quickly grew into a tradition in which a nine 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:58.560 blocks stretch of the road in front of his business 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:01.400 would end up having trees just draped in lights, and 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:05.440 it became the first big documented outdoor Christmas lights display. 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:08.800 When we come back, i'll talk more about the evolution 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:10.960 of Christmas lights, and then we'll dive into how the 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:15.560 heck they work, and in the case of traditional Christmas lights, 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:18.800 how they don't work if just one bulb goes bad. 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:28.640 But let's take a quick break. I've got a little 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:31.320 bit more to go on to the history of Christmas 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:33.880 lights and some of the interesting things about them before 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:36.040 we get into how they work. So by the late 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:40.720 nineteen thirties, electric Christmas lights had become a popular new tradition, 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:46.440 with homeowners and businesses alike using them to create bright, 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:50.240 colorful displays, and in some cases they went a little 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:53.680 bit overboard. A few places became truly famous for their 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:57.200 decorated trees and buildings. When the United States entered into 0:16:57.200 --> 0:16:59.320 World War Two and there was a concern about the 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.920 possibility of sar cities being bombed, there were blackout orders 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:05.320 in various cities like New York, and that meant that 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:08.320 Christmas lights would actually go dark in nineteen forty four 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:10.960 in New York City, But with the war's end the 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:14.960 following year, people made up for lost time. Meanwhile, tastes 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:18.320 began to change in America. Families in the late nineteen 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:24.640 fifties were introduced to a new invention, the aluminum Christmas tree. Yeah, 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:27.879 I can't even I can't believe this really happened either, guys. 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:32.160 These were trees made out of aluminum, a space age 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:35.480 material that was clearly so much better than a freshly 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:39.160 cut fur tree. However, the Christmas lights of the day, 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:45.240 which were still incandescent bulbs in sometimes questionable wires, would 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:48.240 get way too hot for aluminum trees. They also could 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:54.840 potentially create an electric shock hazard because aluminum can conduct electricity. Plus, 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:58.639 those aluminum trees had needles quote unquote made out of foil, 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:02.520 which would easily melt. So instead of hanging electric lights 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:06.320 on the tree, companies began to manufacture lamps that had 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:10.520 a rotating color wheel. And it's just what it sounds like, 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:13.440 and it's not all that different from what was inside 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:17.600 old mechanical television sets before electric TV was invented. So 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:20.840 you've got a bulb that's what provides the light, kind 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:22.920 of like a projector, and in front of the bulb, 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:27.040 you have a wheel that has different panes of colored plastic, 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:31.520 and this wheel rotates past the bulb and different colors 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:35.840 of light shine out of your glorious lamp towards your 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:41.680 even more glorious aluminum Christmas tree. It was a thing, y'all. Now, 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:45.240 I can't say I personally found it appealing, but back 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:49.960 then it was selling like gangbusters. Unfortunately for companies like Noma, 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:53.600 the leading manufacturer of Christmas lights. It meant that there 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:57.159 was a drastic drop in Christmas lights sales as these 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:01.119 aluminum trees became all the rage. Actually end up going 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:04.200 into bankruptcy and today it exists as a brand name. 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:07.600 But that's about it. The era of the Illumina tree 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:11.359 lasted about a decade, upon which time many people either 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:15.800 went back to using the previously live trees or they 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.520 switched to more natural looking artificial trees. And that meant 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:23.880 the electric lights were back baby. However, because of the 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:27.919 American manufacturers going out of business during the reign of 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:31.680 illunum Terror, the Christmas lights on the market mostly came 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:34.760 from other countries, so America would no longer be king 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:38.040 of the electric Christmas light. All right. Now we're getting 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:41.000 up to about nineteen seventy and the introduction of the 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.320 mini light. So for a very long time, the typical 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:48.480 Christmas light was a five or ten watt bulb, typically 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:51.320 the size of a night light bulb, those little kind 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:54.199 of cone shaped bulbs that I was talking about, the 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.240 retro style, They were pretty big. These were the type 0:19:57.240 --> 0:19:58.920 of lights that I grew up with when I was 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:01.359 a kid. That's the kind had on our trees, the big, 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:05.760 big bright lights. I still miss those, But they drew 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:08.680 a lot of power because a string of fifty five 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:12.040 watt bulbs means that you're consuming two hundred and fifty watts, 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:16.080 and most people were using multiple strands, like one string 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:18.439 wouldn't do it. You might have three strands, three to 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:21.600 five for a tree, maybe five to ten for your house. 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:24.320 So you're consuming an enormous amount of power when you're 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:27.240 having this stuff lit up. So the Christmas lights were 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:31.679 greedy for electricity, then they pushed electric bills pretty high. 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:34.600 They would also get really hot, which you know I 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:37.880 mentioned back with the aluminum trees. Touching a bulb could 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:40.240 give you a little bit of a minor burn, as 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:42.560 I found out on more than one occasion when I 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:46.480 was a kid, because I had three qualities that guaranteed 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:49.280 I was going to get burned. First, I was curious, 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:54.520 a second, I was foolish or maybe stupid, and third 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:57.600 I had a really short memory, I guess. Anyway, the 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:00.359 bulbs were popular, and they were colorful, but they were 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:05.040 also wasteful and expensive. The mini light would become a 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:09.399 popular alternative to that bulky hot expensive Christmas light of 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:13.600 the past. The mini lights are, as the name implies, smaller. 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:17.879 They only need two point five volts of electricity, and 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:20.440 they don't get nearly as hot, although they are still 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:23.399 incandescent bulbs, so they still do generate heat, they're just 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:27.320 not as hot as those larger bulbs were. It does, however, 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:30.800 raise a question, how do you supply electricity to a 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:35.080 two and a half volt socket if your source is 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:37.840 an outlet that's putting out one hundred and twenty volts. 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:40.560 This is a good time to transition into a talk 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:46.439 about circuits. So a quick reminder in electricity, voltage is 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:49.440 sort of like water pressure in a water system. It's 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:53.119 how hard the electricity is being pushed through. You can 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:55.359 think of it like that. It's not exactly the same, 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:59.119 but that's a rough analogy. It's the oomph behind the 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:02.120 movement of electric and a one hundred and twenty volt 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:06.119 supply far overshadows a two and a half volt load. 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:09.880 So imagine like having a fire hose of water directed 0:22:09.920 --> 0:22:12.440 at you. You've got a little shot glass that you're 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:14.280 filling up and dumping out. It would just be way 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:18.960 too much. But these Christmas lights were chained together in series, 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:23.439 which meant one bulb socket connects to the next bulb 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:27.040 socket in the same circuit, and so on. So if 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:30.199 you've got two two and a half volt sockets, you 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:33.560 end up with a load that requires five volts. If 0:22:33.600 --> 0:22:35.440 you were to multiply two and a half volts by 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:38.879 I don't know, let's say forty eight, you'd get one 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:42.120 hundred twenty. So yeah, if you string together forty eight 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:44.480 light bulb sockets and each one of those is a 0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:47.199 two and a half volt socket, you end up with 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:50.280 a full load what requires one hundred and twenty volts. 0:22:50.400 --> 0:22:53.680 Problem solved now. Typically companies would actually bump that up 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:58.399 to fifty light sockets per series, and those extra two 0:22:58.440 --> 0:23:02.119 sockets would mean that each individual bulb would be slightly, 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:06.359 maybe even imperceptibly dimmer than it would be if you 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:09.639 only had forty eight, but it wouldn't be so dim 0:23:09.720 --> 0:23:12.840 that it would make a huge difference. So imagine a 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:16.760 pathway from an electric outlet that goes down a line 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:20.720 of wires, and those wires connect to fifty bulbs in series, 0:23:20.920 --> 0:23:23.840 So bulb one, then bulb two, than bulb three, et cetera. 0:23:24.480 --> 0:23:27.760 This represents the path that electricity takes and along the way, 0:23:28.080 --> 0:23:30.760 the electricity is doing work in the form of producing 0:23:30.840 --> 0:23:34.000 light with those little light bulbs. And here's where a 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:37.560 drawback of Christmas lights comes in. Let's say one of 0:23:37.560 --> 0:23:40.440 those bulbs burns out. Well, a burnt out bulb is 0:23:40.480 --> 0:23:44.040 going to break that pathway for the electricity. It opens 0:23:44.119 --> 0:23:47.800