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Speaker 1: Hey there, history fans, We're taking a few days off

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Speaker 1: this week, but don't worry. We've got plenty of classic

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Speaker 1: shows to tide you over. Please enjoy these flashback episodes

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Speaker 1: from the TDI HC Vault, and be sure to tune

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Speaker 1: in tomorrow for a brand new episode.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to this day in History class. It's July sixth.

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Speaker 2: Richard the First, also known as Richard the Lionheart, inherited

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Speaker 2: the throne on the state in eleven eighty nine after

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Speaker 2: the death of his father, King Henry the Second. In

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Speaker 2: his younger years, Richard had not really expected to be

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Speaker 2: the king. He was born on September eighth, eleven fifty seven.

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Speaker 2: His mother was Eleanor of Aquitaine, and he was one

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Speaker 2: of eight children, including four sons who survived empathy. In

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Speaker 2: addition to Richard, the boys were Henry, Jeffrey, and John,

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Speaker 2: and Henry was ahead of Richard in the line for

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Speaker 2: the throne, so Richard sort of assumed his brother was

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Speaker 2: going to be king. These brothers, though they had so

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Speaker 2: much squad bobbling amongst themselves. The kingdoms had various holdings

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Speaker 2: in England and France, and King Henry divided them up

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Speaker 2: among his sons. He sort of had this idea that

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Speaker 2: his sons should each have something they were in charge of.

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Speaker 2: He divided everything up that way, but he didn't really

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Speaker 2: let his sons run the territory they were theoretically controlling.

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Speaker 2: He also didn't really communicate with them all that well

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Speaker 2: about anything that he was doing, so there was a

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Speaker 2: lot of infighting among the brothers over turf. None of

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Speaker 2: them really trusted their father at all. And then Richard's

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Speaker 2: older brother, Henry, who was sometimes called Henry the Younger King,

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Speaker 2: rebelled against his father in eleven seventy three, and when

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Speaker 2: he did that, Richard and Jeffrey joined him, so at

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Speaker 2: this point they were actually all on the same side

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Speaker 2: instead of fighting with each other. Their rebellion, though, was

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Speaker 2: not successful. Eventually they had to back down and ask

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Speaker 2: for their father's pardon. Henry the Young King tried again,

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Speaker 2: but he failed and he died in eleven eighty three.

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Speaker 2: This put Richard next in line for the throne, but

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Speaker 2: his father, though, was still trying to figure out who

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Speaker 2: should be in charge of what in their kingdom. He

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Speaker 2: wanted the youngest John to have something of his own.

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Speaker 2: John's lack of a kingdom had earned him the nickname Lackland.

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Speaker 2: So King Henry wanted John to have Aquitaine, but Richard

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Speaker 2: did not like that apea at all. He really didn't

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Speaker 2: trust that if he let John have Aquitaine, he would

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Speaker 2: actually get what had previously belonged to his brother Henry. Plus,

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Speaker 2: Richard was a lot more connected to the French territory

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Speaker 2: than to the English territory. So Richard joined forces with

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Speaker 2: Philip the Second of France and pestered his father until

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Speaker 2: his father died an early death. By that point, King

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Speaker 2: Henry had formally recognized that Richard would follow him on

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Speaker 2: the throne, so after his father died on July sixth,

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Speaker 2: then Richard inherited the throne. He was formally crowned on

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Speaker 2: September third of eleven eighty nine. There was actually a

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Speaker 2: wave of anti Semitic violence in England after this coronation,

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Speaker 2: that including a massacre and the destruction of a predominantly

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Speaker 2: Jewish neighborhood by a Christian mob. There were rumors that

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Speaker 2: Richard himself had ordered this, but when he heard about it,

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Speaker 2: he was outraged. Once he was king, though Richard the

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Speaker 2: Lionheart's rule was less about ruling more about crusading. He

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Speaker 2: wanted to join the Third Crusade. He made the money

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Speaker 2: to do it by selling public offices, including sheriffdoms. So

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Speaker 2: if this sounds kind of familiar and you're not already

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Speaker 2: familiar with twelfth century military and political history, a lot

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Speaker 2: of this is in retellings of the story of Robinhood.

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Speaker 2: There's obviously a whole lot more about Richard the Lionheart's

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Speaker 2: life and reign, but almost none of it was spent

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Speaker 2: in England. He was king for a decade and he

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Speaker 2: spent less than six months of it in England. In

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Speaker 2: spite of this, he was very popular. He was known

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Speaker 2: not only for his battlefield skill and his political cunning,

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Speaker 2: but also for writing songs and poems, and of course

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Speaker 2: there's this famed courage, which is why he earned the

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Speaker 2: name Lionheart. He died on April sixth of eleven, ninety nine,

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Speaker 2: from an infected wound from a crossbow bolt. This bolt

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Speaker 2: was not poisoned. Researchers figured that out when studying the

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Speaker 2: remains of his heart, and research that was published in

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Speaker 2: twenty thirteen. His younger brother John, the one who Richard

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Speaker 2: had refused to give rule, over Aquitaine became king. Thanks

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Speaker 2: so much to Eve's Jeffcoat for her research work on

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Speaker 2: today's episode and Tatari Harrison for her audio skills in

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Speaker 2: all these episodes. You can subscribe to This Day in

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Speaker 2: History Class on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and wherever else

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Speaker 2: do you get your podcasts. This Day in History Class

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Speaker 2: is production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 3: Hi, I'm Eve's and welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 3: a show that uncovers history one day at a time.

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Speaker 3: Today is July sixth, twenty nineteen. The day was July sixth,

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Speaker 3: nineteen eighty eight. The Piper Alpha oil rig, one hundred

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Speaker 3: and ten miles northeast of Aberdeen, Scotland, exploded. One hundred

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Speaker 3: and sixty seven people died in the disaster. A consortium

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Speaker 3: including Occidental Petroleum, Texaco, Britain International, Thompson and Texas Petroleum

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Speaker 3: owned Piper Alpha, and it was operated by Occidental. The

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Speaker 3: Piper Alpha platform was located in four hundred and seventy

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Speaker 3: four feet or one hundred and forty four meters of

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Speaker 3: water in the North Sea. Oil and gas pipelines connected

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Speaker 3: the platform to two other production platforms called Claymore A

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Speaker 3: and Tartan A and a manifold compression platform known as

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Speaker 3: MCP one. Piper Alpha produced hundreds of thousands of barrels

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Speaker 3: of oil every day, more than any other in the

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Speaker 3: world at the time. The Piper Alpha platform separated the

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Speaker 3: fluid produced by the wells into oil, gas, and condense.

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Speaker 3: The oil was pumped through a pipeline to the Flatta

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Speaker 3: Oil Terminal in Orkney, The condensate was injected back into

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Speaker 3: the oil to be sent to shore, and the gas

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Speaker 3: was sent through a pipeline to the manifold compression platform.

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Speaker 3: The production deck level of the platform was made up

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Speaker 3: of four modules. Module A was the wellhead, B was

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Speaker 3: the oil separation module, C was the gas compression module,

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Speaker 3: and D was the power generation and utilities module. There

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Speaker 3: were firewalls between the modules, but they were not blasted resistant.

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Speaker 3: The main production areas had a fire and gas detection system.

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Speaker 3: On July sixth, nineteen eighty eight, one condensate injection pump

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Speaker 3: A was out of operation for maintenance. Pump B was

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Speaker 3: in operation. Three jobs were supposed to be done on

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Speaker 3: pump A preventative maintenance, repair of the coupling, and recertification

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Speaker 3: of a pressure safety valve. That day the relief valve

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Speaker 3: was removed for testing, and by the time the day

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Speaker 3: shift was over, the job was not done. The relief

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Speaker 3: valve was not replaced, but this was not communicated to

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Speaker 3: the night shift personnel. After Pump B went down at

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Speaker 3: around nine to fifty pm, the lead production operator decided

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Speaker 3: to start Pump A, but about five minutes later alarms

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Speaker 3: started going off. Around ten PM, just as the operator

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Speaker 3: put his hand out to cancel the alarms, there was

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Speaker 3: an explosion in the gas compression module of the Piper

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Speaker 3: Alpha platform, blowing the production operator across the room. Gas

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Speaker 3: condensate leaking from the pump ignited. Almost immediately after the explosion,

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Speaker 3: a pool fire broke out in the oil separation module.

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Speaker 3: A pool fire is a def usion flame where a

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Speaker 3: layer of volatile liquid fuel evaporates and burns. The oil

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Speaker 3: pool fire created a plume of smoke that enveloped the

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Speaker 3: platform at the production deck and above. The spreading fire

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Speaker 3: got to over seven hundred degrees celsius or about thirteen

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Speaker 3: hundred degrees fahrenheit. The offshore installation manager sent a may

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Speaker 3: day signal. Though there was a fire water system, the

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Speaker 3: sprinkler heads did not work. Properly. Because the explosion had

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Speaker 3: disabled the main communication system, the platforms attached to Piper

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Speaker 3: Alpha continued producing and pumping oil for a while. Since

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Speaker 3: there was so much smoke, the lifeboats were not accessible,

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Speaker 3: so people tried to escape using other methods. Some climbed

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Speaker 3: down knotted ropes to the sea. Others jumped into the

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Speaker 3: sea from higher heights, including the Hella deck. Nearby vessels

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Speaker 3: sent fast rescue crafts to the scene. Though about fifty

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Speaker 3: nine people survived the disaster, one hundred and sixty seven died.

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Speaker 3: It was the deadliest offshore oil disaster ever. The platform

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Speaker 3: was destroyed and by the next morning only the wellhead

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Speaker 3: module remained. The fire burned for three weeks before oil

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Speaker 3: well fireman Paul neil Adair extinguished it. Scottish Judge William

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Speaker 3: Cullen led an inquiry into the causes of the disaster.

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Speaker 3: The Cullen Report was released in November of nineteen ninety.

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Speaker 3: It found that Occidental did not have proper safety and

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Speaker 3: maintenance procedures and that the condensate leak was caused by

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Speaker 3: the maintenance work happening on a pump in safety valve.

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Speaker 3: It also recommended new procedures for training workers, operating equipment,

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Speaker 3: and designing platforms as safety management staff, communications and safety

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Speaker 3: systems have proved inadequate in the disaster. The disaster exposed

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Speaker 3: problems with offshore regulations and led to the nineteen ninety

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Speaker 3: two Offshore Installations Safety Case Regulations in the UK. I'm

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Speaker 3: Eve's Jefcote and hopefully you know a little more about

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Speaker 3: history today than you did yesterday. You can follow us

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Speaker 3: on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at TDIHC podcast. Thank you

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Speaker 3: so much for listening, and I hope to see you

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Speaker 3: again tomorrow for more tidbits of history.

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Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.