WEBVTT - Fact Checking TR 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:05.800 History Verses is a production of I Heart Radio and 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:12.280 mental Flaws. You often hear Theodore Roosevelt described as larger 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:14.560 than life, which I think we can all agree is 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:19.120 pretty accurate. And as with many other larger than life characters, 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:22.639 there are plenty of myths and misconceptions surrounding tr some 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:26.720 of which were encouraged and perpetuated by Roosevelt himself. As 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:30.320 Kathleen Dalton writes in Theodore Roosevelt's A Strenuous Life, he 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:33.240 sought to keep his inner life and less attractive traits 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:37.479 well hidden. He also encouraged his friends and authorized biographers 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:41.520 to tell an upbeat, socially acceptable, stiff, upper lipped version 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:46.440 of his life. Many of his friends and biographers obliged him. 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:48.720 Dalton goes on to say that the guardians of his 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:52.440 story would edit or destroy letters they deemed embarrassing, and 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:55.600 would even hide the family secrets to present a better 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:59.360 picture of Roosevelt's life. A lot of his fact checking 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:03.080 stuff is to do with his legacy. There he really 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:07.160 intertwined because these myths and legends are such a part 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:11.000 of the story. That's mental flass. Is fact checker Austin Thompson, 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:13.600 who has been taking a magnifying glass to stories on 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:17.039 Mental Flasses website and to our YouTube videos for years, 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:20.120 and he looked at every script of this podcast too. 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:23.960 He knows better than many how complicated unraveling the truth 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:27.240 behind history can be. So for this final bonus episode 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:29.360 of History Versus, I couldn't wait to get him on 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:32.000 the phone to debunk some tr myths and talk fact 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:35.880 checking one of the most famous figures in history. I 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:40.800 found an absolutely brilliant nineteen twelve New York Times article 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:45.400 about Theodore Roosevelt which was saying, if you had four 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:50.680 experts who swore that he boiled his grandmother and hat 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:53.680 her in the eighteen nineties, he would come back with 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:59.040 documentary proof because she actually died of the eighties. Just 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:01.280 a quick break, or to say that. When Austin was 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:04.520 fact checking the script, he realized that he'd misremembered what 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:08.480 the article said. It was actually twenty experts not for okay, 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:12.760 carry on. If you have people who swear under oath 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:15.560 that he had a meeting with Standard Oil at this date, 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:19.639 he would come back with a dated photograph of him 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:23.079 talking to a mother's congress. I think I d has 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:26.680 to do with that he does come to the White 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:29.880 House and all the history from a perspective of being 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:34.920 a historian. So he knows that he's great. He knows 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:38.440 his great, everyone's His entire life has been clear. He 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:43.480 is great. He can produce dated evidence for anything you 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:47.520 might say he did. I think it's because he wanted 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:52.360 to control his historical view in a way that other 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:56.120 people wouldn't. But nowadays we wouldn't think. Is that weird. 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:00.480 When we were putting these episodes together, the general process 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:03.239 went like this. I came up with the themes for 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:06.640 each episode, then put together outlines that pulled together a 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:11.240 ton of information around those themes. In each outline were sources, quotes, 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:13.960 and beats that I wanted to hit, along with pieces 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:16.200 of the interviews I conducted that I wanted to include. 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:20.600 Then the writer, sometimes me, sometimes another Mental Falls staffer, 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:23.520 would use that outline to write the script, which would 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:26.079 go through an editing process where myself and members of 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:29.600 the production team would weigh in and make tweaks, and finally, 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.320 before I recorded, the script would go to Austin and 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:36.120 he'd dig in, and I mean really dig in. Not 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:39.960 only did he find errors, Hey I'm not perfect, but 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:42.640 He would also nearly always find some new piece of 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:48.640 information or interesting story that I want to include. As 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:53.560 I was researching Theodore Roosevelt and looking at all sorts 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:57.160 of things, two things that struck me about them that 0:03:57.720 --> 0:03:59.920 when we fact checking a lot easier. The other one 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:05.880 made it basically impossible. He mythologizes, but you can get 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:10.800 so much information about him from other sources that aren't him. 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:13.800 Would be like, you spent five minutes with him ten 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:16.719 years ago, you're suddenly writing a book the time I 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:20.320 spent with Theodore Roosevelt, the family he's staying with in Germany, 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:23.800 who's saying, oh, he's going to be president. That all 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:29.320 exists independent of anything he did. So he is in 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:32.080 control of his image to a certain extent. But there's 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:36.320 such a world that you can pretty much verify most 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:39.760 things he's saying. And then the other thing that makes 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:43.560 it harder is the change that we've talked about is 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:48.000 the changing views of Theodore Roosevelt. That's like if you 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:50.400 read something from the nineteen tenth it is a different 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:54.680 perspective than if you read something from the n It's 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:58.680 lucky because with Theodore Roosevelt, we have so many of 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:03.839 his primary documentar aation, but it's still really hard to 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:06.719 sort of sift through all of that to say that 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:09.359 was this person saying that about Vietore Roosevelt because this 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:12.520 is actually how it is, or just because that was 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:17.839 the prevailing view at the time. Also, socio culturally, we 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:22.600 like to think of history is this great monolithic thing. 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:25.640 It happened, and now we can just kind of go 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:29.080 back and look at bits and pieces of it. We 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:31.880 as a culture don't. I don't think we really like 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:38.280 to view history is having trends, that there are differences 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:41.719 in how history is being viewed from one day to another, 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:46.000 one culture to another. We're not talked to think of 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:50.039 history in that way. So when you're fact checking something 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:54.120 like the podcast scripts, do you usually try to go 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:58.440 for the primary documentation first, or in the case of 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:00.680 Theodore Roosevelt, when you know that he did not like 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:04.400 to write about things that were difficult, like, for example, 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:07.320 he didn't include his first wife in his autobiography at all. 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:14.120 Are you looking elsewhere when you're fact checking, Well, it 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:18.440 depends on the thing. I mean, you know, he's there 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:22.800 to tell a story, so as long as you read it, 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:26.039 no wing read what he says, knowing this is the 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:31.159 story he wants you to hear. Then I always like 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:36.080 to go back to primary sources because there's just gave 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:40.919 r so many of them, and as I said, so 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:44.840 many of the people who even interacted with him briefly 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:49.159 would be writing books about the events that happened. It 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:54.880 is when you get into more sort of obscure, especially 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:59.200 obscure leaders or figures in history, that it does start 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:04.320 to really became I'm a problem of how much weight 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:07.320 are you willing to put on the secondary source. I'm 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.720 sure if you read some of my podcast suggestions, there 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:15.280 are times when it will be really awkwardly suggested, saying 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:20.400 this person said this, and that's because I mean, it's 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:27.760 maybe true, but these other sources say it's aren't necessarily 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:30.920 as strong. So we often go back and forth and 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:33.200 play like a little bit of like is this okay? 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.400 What do you think about this phrasing? Because we don't 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:38.480 want to mislead anybody, right, we want to make sure 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:43.120 that we're that we're being accurate. I have spent ages, 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.560 like I don't even know how long, debating whether a 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:53.160 single word is correct, because it's like it does make 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:56.440 a difference Do you want to get into some myths 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.400 now or do you do you have other thoughts? I 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:02.600 think I don't think I've got anything else that I 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:05.200 wanted to talk about the process of fact checking. It's 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:09.040 just kind of like you go through documents and then 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:13.040 you try to decide is this reasonable? Is this accurate? 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:16.520 Does this person say what this person says? Is this 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:21.320 person correct? Is this person citing some lost documentation that 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:24.720 was found at the top of a monastery and how 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:28.480 during Resbekistan and then be monastery burned down, So you're 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:35.960 relying entirely on them. It's hard tr myths coming up 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:48.920 after the break. In the course of making this podcast, 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:52.199 we came across a number of tr myths and misconceptions, 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:55.439 some of which we touched upon briefly in the regular episodes, 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:57.440 and some we just didn't have time to get to. 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:00.720 So we figured we'd finish up this season digging deeper 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:03.040 into a few of them. And if you're going to 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.760 take onto your myths and misconceptions, you might as well 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:09.839 start at the beginning. Everyone knows that Theodore Roosevelt was 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:13.400 a sickly asthmatic kid who, after a directive from his father, 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:15.640 built his body to the point where he had cured 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:21.680 himself of asthma. Right, well, not so fast. According to 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:26.680 Door Roosevelt, that is what's happened. But there's a really 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:29.760 interesting paper from a couple of years ago. The misunderstood 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:35.160 asthma of Theodore Roosevelt makes meritical interesting. So it says, no, 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:39.080 the as moment away when he was somewhere between twelve 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:43.559 to fifteen, and that's about the age you'd expect the 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:48.080 asthma to lighten itself up, even if he was doing 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:52.680 absolutely nothing. As the paper notes, this phenomenon is well 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:56.680 recognized by clinicians today but was unknown in Tears time. 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:01.079 Looking back at Tiers inference, it is tempting to speculate 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:04.400 about how his misplaced sense of accomplishment may have influenced 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:07.199 his thinking about what else he might achieve if he 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:11.320 set his mind to solving new problems. In reality, his 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:14.800 asthma didn't fully go away, and in fact, it sometimes 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:18.680 reared its ugly head later on in his life. When 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:24.560 Edith was in labor Alice, his daughter Alice remarked something 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:28.760 like the train and my father came in wheezing. As 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:32.199 he rushed to be by her side. He had asthma 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:36.760 attacks throughout his entire life, but they were not as bad. 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:39.480 According to the article. At the time, and for all 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:43.040 of Theodore Roosevelt's life, asthma was thought to be psychosomatic. 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:47.640 The idea that they thought at the time asthma was psychosomatic, 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.719 I think probably was a really big part of why 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:56.480 Theodore Roosevelt wanted to proclaim himself as having cured his asthma. 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:59.880 I mean, this is a guy who thinks basically every 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:04.360 thing is weaker than he is. So if he's truly 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:09.520 viewing that his asthma is entirely in his head, I 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:14.079 can make sense to me why he would then pretend 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:21.240 that it wasn't. That's my opinion on the matter. But yeah, okay, 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:25.520 this is one of my favorites. So there is a 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:30.559 photo floating around on the Internet in which Theodore Roosevelt 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:35.040 is writing a moose. So did Theodore Roosevelt ever write 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:39.200 a moose? Well, not that we know you spent a 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.120 lot of you spent a lot of time in Maine. 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:46.760 So but now the picture is definitely fake, But it 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:49.960 was never supposed to be viewed as real. It was 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:54.240 from a New York Tribune and if you just take 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:59.200 the picture by itself, it won't manly. That's awesome, But 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:05.080 the whole stick is cast writing an elephant, Theodore Roosevelt 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:08.599 writing a moose, and Woodrow Wilson writing a donkey. It's 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.440 for the president, and they were whatever the n version 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:17.160 of photoshopped was onto the animal of the respective party. 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:21.120 And then I can only imagine someone found a copy 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:27.679 of that picture and Theodore Roosevelt manly and went with it. 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:30.800 But I think it's kind of interesting about that picture, though, 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:35.160 is since that was debunked several years ago, is there's 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:38.360 a secondary myths that has since emerged that the New 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:42.520 York Tribune made up that picture as a way to 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:48.640 help Roosevelt. Where that's not true either that there's no evidence, 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:52.640 I mean, yea, in the picture, Theodore Roosevelt is bigger 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:56.600 than the other two, But there's nothing in the New 0:12:56.640 --> 0:13:00.079 York Tribune to suggest that it's being done to support 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:02.800 Roosevelt at the expense of the other candidates. But it's 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:06.559 just a sort of weird secondary myth that emerged after 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:09.920 the first myth was debunked. It says a lot about 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:14.520 the president by what kind of myths surround them as 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:19.280 we go back. So George Washington, he's not telling a lie. 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:24.600 Abraham Lincoln, he's beating three hundred people in a wrestling match. 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:27.920 It's a myth, but we still want to attach because 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:34.000 it's truthfulness and ruggedness on the frontier. Meanwhile, the great 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:37.200 myths about William how it's taffed is he gets stuck 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:40.480 in the bathtub. So it's I think it's says a 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:45.760 lot about Roosevelt. The misconceptions, almost all of the misconceptions 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:48.200 we're going to be going through, they have to do 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:51.520 with how manly he is. He by force of will 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:55.880 he punked his asthma. He wrote a moove, and I 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:59.760 think that saizz a lot, not about Theodore Roosevelt, but 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:04.840 about how our view of Theodore Roosevelt he shaped. So 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:07.839 one thing that you will often see floating around it 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:10.800 has to do with when tr was sworn in after 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:15.920 William McKinley was assassinated. So tr was on vacation in 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:20.120 the mountains. McKinley takes a turn for the worse. He 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:23.000 barrels down to Buffalo to try to make it to 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:28.119 the president's side. The president dies and TR is sworn in. 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:32.040 In some guy's house in Buffalo on not a Bible. 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:37.920 And so the myth is, or the popular conception is 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:41.080 that tr is the first president who was not sworn 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:45.760 in on a Bible. Yeah, most of those facts are 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:47.880 fine until you get right to the end with the 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:51.480 Bible back. The story is just that they were in 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:55.480 such a rush they couldn't grabbed a Bible. But the 0:14:55.880 --> 0:15:00.840 guy whose house it was Amsy Wilcox. He commented later 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:03.840 that there were there were modes of Bibles around the house. 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:06.760 It just didn't occur to anyone to use the Bible 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:10.320 because that was not the tradition in the area they 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:14.320 were in at the time. So you do have earlier 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:18.840 that definitely didn't do a Bible. John Quincy Adams says 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:22.000 explicitly in his diary it was on a book of law. 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:25.480 And then they there is sort of hit or mask 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:28.680 who's on a Bible, because most people weren't explicit in 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:32.440 recording that until later. So I think it's the interesting 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:37.840 one is after Theodore Roosevelt, but Calvin Coolidge when he's 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:41.680 inaugurated after the death of Harding, he to the exact 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:45.000 same thing, that they had a Bible at hand, but 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:48.440 it wasn't used because that wasn't the tradition of the area. 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:54.240 So it just would not have occurred to anyone that, oh, yeah, 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:57.760 we need to use this Bible until later. So, yes, 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:01.000 Theodore Roosevelt was going in without a Bible. No, he 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:04.600 wasn't the first. And despite what some seem to think, No, 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:08.320 there's absolutely zero meaning to such a thing other than 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:11.480 nobody thought of it half the time. But then you know, 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.240 like when he was actually elected of his own accord, 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:16.960 wasn't he sworn in on a Bible at that point? Yes, 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:22.040 he wasn't making any point, it's just in upstate New York, 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.920 they didn't use bibles in Nobody thought anything of it 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.240 until afterwards, and they're like, oh, yeah, that's how you 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:33.640 do it in the rest of the country. Okay, I 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:36.640 have one more note here for something that, um, it's 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:43.560 just a question mark. Tattoo question mark, And I feel 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:46.120 like we have to talk about it because we've talked 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:50.840 about it before. It's like cat choose and judicial recall. 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:56.600 Those are the two stories I've been hoping to avoid. Okay, 0:16:56.640 --> 0:17:00.600 So the rumor goes that Theodore Roosevelt had a tattoo 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:05.280 on his chest of the Roosevelt family crest, and it's 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:09.040 everywhere but dot dot and I'll let you take it 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:14.680 from there. Probably not, but maybe is that enough. So 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:19.240 I spent I don't even want to think how long 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:25.240 trying to figure out did he have a tattoo? And 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:31.680 in the end, my guess is probably not, because there 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:37.640 are clear descriptions of him doing things they're chested when 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:41.280 a tattoo would have been notable, but nobody commented on 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:44.760 end not being said, they might just not have commented 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:48.600 on it. And there aren't many pictures of like a 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:52.639 shirtless Roosevelt during this during the time period where he 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:56.840 said to have the tattoo. I was really hoping that 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:59.280 I could find his autopsy report, but turned out he 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:05.360 didn't have enough, say after he died. So that's that's 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:09.199 the kind of thing you have to Yeah. It just 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:11.359 goes to show the lengths that you will go to 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:17.160 to figure something out. Yeah. And so I then tried 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:19.920 to trace the myth back and I don't think I 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:22.920 was able to get the myth before the nineteen seventies, 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:30.000 So there's like a fifty year gap where there's no 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:33.520 mention of Theodore Roosevelt having a tattoo, then it just 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:38.639 kind of appears, and I've never, despite lots and lots 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:43.320 of looking, been able to close that gap. So that 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:47.240 is not proof that he he didn't have a tattoo, 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:52.920 but I'm pretty confident he didn't because, as I said, 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:57.399 there were times when people are describing his bare chest 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:00.800 and the tattoo would have been no are they and 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:03.880 they didn't comment on it. Yeah, so we end where 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:11.000 we begin tattoo question mark. Yeah, basically, are you sick 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:15.760 of Theodore Roosevelt yet? No, I'm not sick of Theodore 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:20.960 Roosevelt because he's just interesting. I mean, safely. It's such 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:24.560 a good person for the first season of this podcast, 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:29.320 because I'm thinking it's there aren't that many people who 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:36.440 have reinvented themselves so many times. Most people are fairly 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:40.920 consistent in their lives. Theodore Roosevelt, he was like never 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:45.280 more than five six years at any one thing in 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:50.000 his entire career, which makes him a very interesting person 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:54.959 to research, and you just keep learning new things about him. 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:57.720 I Mean, one of the things I find amazing about 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:01.840 Theodore Roosevelt is that his entire life he just kind 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:06.760 of he just kind of overshadows everyone around him. People 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:12.399 at the time, we're saying William McKinley was essentially the 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:17.119 next Lincoln. He was viewed as a truly great president. 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:23.119 And now William McKinley, who yeh, he makes list of 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:27.720 the most forgotten presidents. And that's because or Roosevelt is 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:33.560 just this force of nature that everything around him is 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:40.040 dimmed by his incredible head. Or Roosevelt miss yeah, a 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:48.919 very bright light. A huge thanks to Austin Thompson for 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:51.359 hopping on the phone to chat and for fact checking 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:54.320 every episode of this podcast. I truly could not have 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:57.400 done it without him. And with that, we're wrapping up 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:00.000 this first season of the podcast. I have to be honest, 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:02.680 we did not intend to stick with tr this long. 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:05.720 We had initially planned to launch a new season in June, 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:08.919 and then COVID nineteen happened and messed up all of 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:11.840 our best laid plans. But I'm happy to announce that 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:14.280 we'll be back in early one with a brand new 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:17.320 season of the podcast, although it's going to be slightly 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:20.320 different than what we did for this first season. First, 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:22.240 we're going to be changing the name of this feed 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:24.160 so that we can put all of our mental last 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:26.879 podcasts here, though, we'll only be doing one season at 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:30.439 a time, so don't worry, we won't be spamming you. Also, 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:33.480 rather than bring you another season of History Versus, we're 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:35.960 going to explore a different topic with a different host. 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:39.320 But I promise it's incredibly compelling, and the host is 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:42.600 someone you've heard on this podcast before, and there is 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:47.199 a bit of a tr connection, so stay tuned. History 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:50.600 Versus is hosted by me Aeron McCarthy. This episode was 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:53.439 written by me, with fact checking by Austin Thompson. The 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:56.919 executive producers are Aaron McCarthy, Julie Douglas, and Tyler Klang. 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:00.680 The supervising producer is Dylan Fagin. This show is edited 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:04.439 by Dylan Fagan and lowbro Anti. For transcripts, photos, and 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:07.240 even more about Theodore Roosevelt, check out our website and 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:11.320 Mental floss dot com slash History Versus. History Versus is 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:29.960 a production of I Heart Radio and Mental Floss. For 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:32.520 more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart 0:22:32.560 --> 0:22:35.520 Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:36.200 favorite shows.