Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast on
Speaker 1: Josh Clark And that's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over
Speaker 1: there and this is Stuff You Should Know podcast the
Speaker 1: NPR edition. Bob Ross. Oh Man, there's a documentary out
Speaker 1: about him. Yeah, I haven't seen it, but I will forture.
Speaker 1: Oh speaking up, can't wait. I saw Blood Support for
Speaker 1: the first time in my life the other week. The movie. Yes,
Speaker 1: have you seen it? Oh, Chuck, I mean that's all
Speaker 1: parts of it, but I love every second of that movie.
Speaker 1: It was so great. They basically made a movie to
Speaker 1: show that John Claude Van Dam can do like crazy splits.
Speaker 1: They made a movie for that. Yeah, the only version
Speaker 1: I would watch of that would be like the riff
Speaker 1: tracks version. Don't you don't even a need riff tracks? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they make everything better, sure of course they do.
Speaker 1: But I would love to see a riff tracks Blood Sport.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying it's a pretty great movie we're seeing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the bad guy in it is just terrifying because he's
Speaker 1: like so clearly insane and like dangerous. Yeah, Like this
Speaker 1: guy is operating on a level. No one else in
Speaker 1: the movie, including surprisingly Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds,
Speaker 1: is operating on it. He's the trusty sidekick. What happened
Speaker 1: to Jean Claude? He's still around. I think he's all
Speaker 1: over like Twitter. Well, I think he's like a couple
Speaker 1: of times a day tweets like, hey, it's me Jean
Speaker 1: Claude vandam remember Uh, well he had that big commercial
Speaker 1: that was out not too long ago, and that where
Speaker 1: he did a split between like two trucks or something,
Speaker 1: um like with one leg on each truck, like driving
Speaker 1: down the road, if I remember correct. He's reading his kindle?
Speaker 1: Is it a kindle? Lad I think so? And I
Speaker 1: think I didn't see him, but he's he's got to
Speaker 1: be in one of those dumb what are the movies
Speaker 1: with all the people with Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis and
Speaker 1: uh the Last Temptation of Christ. Yeah, yeah, he's in
Speaker 1: one of those ladies. Oh Red, No, Yes, he's got
Speaker 1: to be in one of those, right probably he would
Speaker 1: literally be the only person of that elk in those movies.
Speaker 1: I hope he is. Yeah, me too. I saw Red
Speaker 1: the other day for the first time too. That's pretty entertaining, wasn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah I haven't seen those either, some stuff just you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's get serious, Chuck all right, yeah, okay, alright, we
Speaker 1: talked about Jean Claude Van Damn and that can only
Speaker 1: mean one thing. Gettysburg address, right, that's right. Man. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: he's a better question. Okay. Have you you saw Lincoln?
Speaker 1: Didn't you? I did? I didn't you didn't. I know
Speaker 1: enough to know why we were talking like this. Supposedly
Speaker 1: that is an accurate depiction of Abraham Lincoln speaking voice. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I read this article in the Atlantic. It was one
Speaker 1: of those things where the guy who's writing the book
Speaker 1: like writes a long draft of the book but in
Speaker 1: article for him, and they publish it. And the words
Speaker 1: that remade America as the name of the article and
Speaker 1: the book by a guy named Gary Wills, and he
Speaker 1: says like, yeah, Abraham, Abraham Lincoln was a tenor who
Speaker 1: had a voice that you could very easily describe as shrill.
Speaker 1: I remember when I saw the first trailer for the
Speaker 1: Lincoln movie. I think, like most people, like, the Internet
Speaker 1: kind of blew up. The next day was like, what
Speaker 1: is going on with Daniel Day? Lewis. Hey, guys, I'm
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln. Um, so you did not see it not yet,
Speaker 1: you know. Here was my deal. I thought it was
Speaker 1: quite dull, and I went into it expecting a bit
Speaker 1: more of a profile on Abraham Lincoln life. Isn't it
Speaker 1: more like about a two week period or something. It's
Speaker 1: really about, uh, trying to get him now, it's trying
Speaker 1: to get the vote passed. Um. I just can't remember
Speaker 1: the exact amendment or whatever. That that shows how much
Speaker 1: I was checked out. It was a very, very in
Speaker 1: depth look at the process of passing like legislation. It
Speaker 1: was kind of dull for then. That's just me, like,
Speaker 1: where's all the action? Yeah, where's that shootout that Abraham Lincoln?
Speaker 1: I want to run around with the sword free enslaves.
Speaker 1: I think that's Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter that you'd like.
Speaker 1: I probably should have seen that one instead. But I mean,
Speaker 1: Daniel Dey Lewis is great. It was just a little
Speaker 1: dull for my taste. So I'm in the minority. But
Speaker 1: this was just like sliding on an old suit then
Speaker 1: reading this article right like you're familiar with all this
Speaker 1: an old boring suit a little bit and I want
Speaker 1: to be a Civil war off. I keep trying to, like,
Speaker 1: I hope work myself into it. Like reading. I got
Speaker 1: a book given to me, one of those big, huge books. Oh,
Speaker 1: and it just like I just can't quite crack it.
Speaker 1: Have you tried World War two? Maybe that's more of
Speaker 1: your fancy. No, I just I need to buff it up,
Speaker 1: you know, civil war buff because I do recreate stuff. No,
Speaker 1: although I did to see uh. I did a hike
Speaker 1: at Sweetwater Creek State Park this weekend and they were Um,
Speaker 1: I didn't know it was a deal. I was walking
Speaker 1: down the wooded path and there was a camp with
Speaker 1: a bunch of Union soldiers and their ladies and authentic
Speaker 1: garb sitting around the campfire. And I was like, what's
Speaker 1: going on? Because it wasn't a big reenactment, like a
Speaker 1: big battle thing. It was just a Saturday night. I
Speaker 1: don't know, man. They were just looked like they were
Speaker 1: just camping in in period costume. Maybe they had practice
Speaker 1: that day. Maybe that's weird. I thought it was interesting.
Speaker 1: They were young soldiers too. Um did they pretend you
Speaker 1: were a time traveler? They did. I showed them my
Speaker 1: iPhone and they're like, what Devil's man did uh anyway,
Speaker 1: it was just weird. Well let's talk about let me
Speaker 1: ask you this. I have another question. Did you have
Speaker 1: to memorize the Gettysburg address? Because this article on the
Speaker 1: site basically says that all students had to and I
Speaker 1: don't know that that's now. I don't know anybody who
Speaker 1: had to memorize the Gettysburg Address. Now, we had to
Speaker 1: remember a part of Caesar's address for English class. I
Speaker 1: come to barry Caesar, not to praise him, blah blah
Speaker 1: blah and the whole deal. Friends, Romans, countrymen. I memorize
Speaker 1: that in high school? Did you have to or did
Speaker 1: you just do it on your own? I was just bored,
Speaker 1: Like I was playing basketball one day, decided to stop
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to think what I had to remember
Speaker 1: that I had to memorize that, which, now that I'm older,
Speaker 1: I think that is like, what a terrible way to teach.
Speaker 1: It is like memorize this these words only like there
Speaker 1: was They'll have no meaning for you what the thing meant? Really,
Speaker 1: it was just like recite this I had to remember. Um,
Speaker 1: I had to memorized the song Surrey with the fringe
Speaker 1: on top. For a transportation play in sixth grade. Chicks
Speaker 1: and Geese and Chicks and Ducks and Geese sped scurry
Speaker 1: when I take you out in Massuri, When I take
Speaker 1: you wout in Massouri with the fringe on top. Very nice.
Speaker 1: I was not expecting that. In this episode. Terry's over
Speaker 1: here just snickering because we haven't started yet. Alright, So
Speaker 1: the Gettysburg Address is a surprisingly small document. That's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why apparently school children have to memorize
Speaker 1: it because it's just short. But it would not be
Speaker 1: hyperbolic to say that it change the tone of American
Speaker 1: politics forever from this very short speech that Abraham Lincoln
Speaker 1: gave on the Gettysburg battlefield when it was being dedicated
Speaker 1: as a national cemetery. Yeah, so let's let's talk a
Speaker 1: bit about the background. What was going on that day
Speaker 1: in November was like, you said, we're gonna open up
Speaker 1: this brand new national cemetery Pennsylvania where so many people
Speaker 1: died at the Battle of Gettysburg. Yeah, I know a
Speaker 1: lot of them died. Yeah. From July one to July three,
Speaker 1: eight sixty three, Roberty Lee and the Confederate Army budded
Speaker 1: heads with the Army of the Potomac. Um. I think
Speaker 1: there were soldiers from like Ohio, New York, um, a
Speaker 1: couple of other states. It was. It was a lot
Speaker 1: of troops under George Mead, General George Mead, it was
Speaker 1: a new general at the time. Um southwest of Harrisburg.
Speaker 1: It was like one of the it might have been
Speaker 1: the first battle fought in the north. Yeah, there weren't
Speaker 1: a lot of northern battles. Do you ever read the
Speaker 1: Confederate markers here in Atlanta? Here are there? They're all
Speaker 1: over the yeh, Like it's it's just kind of weird sometimes,
Speaker 1: like to drive a mile from my house and see, like, well,
Speaker 1: this is where so and so pushed back an army
Speaker 1: of a thousand, like right where this playground is very strange,
Speaker 1: like every ten ft there's one down here. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: but like you said, not a lot of battles up north. Um.
Speaker 1: This was the This was one of the key battles
Speaker 1: that really swung the tide in favor of the North.
Speaker 1: And it was the bloodiest, one of the bloodiest affairs
Speaker 1: in American history for sure, maybe human history really. I'm
Speaker 1: sure it was up there there, I'm there. It was
Speaker 1: probably beaten by some World War two battles for sure,
Speaker 1: but this is probably still up there with one of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: did the Civil warhead the highest casualties of any war?
Speaker 1: Or it was the first it when the Civil War
Speaker 1: took place, they had more casualties in all of their
Speaker 1: preceding wars. Put together some some nuts so statistic like that.
Speaker 1: I'm really curious what the trajector trajector of the country
Speaker 1: would have been had that not happened, especially, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: probably would have just been two different countries. Do you
Speaker 1: think it would have been. I mean, the South is
Speaker 1: just like worth the seating and the North has said no,
Speaker 1: you're not. And had the North just been like all right,
Speaker 1: good luck, it would have just been to the country,
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, go back even further, and what
Speaker 1: if there was no What if it was just a
Speaker 1: unified country from the beginning, Like what would the American
Speaker 1: South be like if they never would have been like,
Speaker 1: you know what, we're seating? What if it was truly
Speaker 1: a United States? I don't know, because the the when
Speaker 1: you asked that question, you're asking like, would could the
Speaker 1: issue of slavery, this huge divisive issue that was that
Speaker 1: people really felt strongly on either side ending the center
Speaker 1: to they were pretty strong feelings like could it have
Speaker 1: been resolved in any other way besides war? I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great question. I'll bet there's historians out there
Speaker 1: who have tried to figure it out. Well. It always
Speaker 1: cracks me up to when you hear people in the
Speaker 1: South still say like it was about states rights. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: states rights to own slaves exactly. Or they call it
Speaker 1: the War of Northern Aggression. Yeah, I mean there was,
Speaker 1: there was obviously more to a dance slavery, but that
Speaker 1: you're fooling yourself if you don't think that was the
Speaker 1: key driving component. Definitely was anyway. Um so Roberty Lee
Speaker 1: goes up against the army of the Potomac. There were, uh,
Speaker 1: and of course the range is is estimated, but twenty
Speaker 1: three thousand dead Union casualties, which is a quarter of
Speaker 1: the Union army, one quarter, not just the people who
Speaker 1: are fighting in getting back the whole Union army Confederates,
Speaker 1: which is a third of the Confederate army. Incredible, and
Speaker 1: this is over. I did some calculations and there were
Speaker 1: three days. That is every five seconds someone dying but
Speaker 1: that's if the battle raged for every sects, which obviously
Speaker 1: it didn't know, but every five seconds somebody died in
Speaker 1: that crazy seven men per hour. Uh In in the
Speaker 1: first two days, thirty five thousand died in the first
Speaker 1: two days. So that was like the bloodiest two days
Speaker 1: of any American conflict, if I'm not mistaken. So it
Speaker 1: was a It was a big deal. And it was
Speaker 1: not just a big deal in the number of casualties.
Speaker 1: It was a big deal in the fact that the
Speaker 1: North won this battle, that it was a Northern battle. Um,
Speaker 1: because up to this point the Confederacy had been beating
Speaker 1: the North pretty badly as far as if you were
Speaker 1: looking at it as a battle by battle, if you're
Speaker 1: just taking number of battles one to the South was
Speaker 1: winning the Civil War at the time, and Abraham Lincoln
Speaker 1: was fairly determined to use this occasion to help reinvigorate
Speaker 1: support for the war in the North. Yeah. So Lee loses,
Speaker 1: retreats to Virginia on July four and and he tried
Speaker 1: to resign because he tried to and Jefferson Davis said, no,
Speaker 1: thank you, I got nobody better than you. Um, he
Speaker 1: was not pursued which was Um. Lincoln didn't like that,
Speaker 1: and other Northern generals did not like the fact that
Speaker 1: Mead didn't like put the pedal to the metal at
Speaker 1: that point. Yeah, because he could have ended the war. Yeah,
Speaker 1: conceivably had he kickn out Lee's army the rest of
Speaker 1: it or captured him like, that would have been the
Speaker 1: end of the Civil War right there. Um. And this
Speaker 1: guy's like sitting there getting his nails to it, lollygagging.
Speaker 1: So in the days following the Battle of Gettysburg, the
Speaker 1: Union soldiers were quickly buried the ones that were immediately
Speaker 1: dead uh and poorly marked pauper's graves basically um, or
Speaker 1: maybe not pauper's graves, but not what they deserved. They
Speaker 1: were temporary graves. They were battlefield graves. Uh. And so
Speaker 1: this man named David Wills, he was an attorney in
Speaker 1: the area, said you know what, we need uh to
Speaker 1: do this right and he spearheaded the effort of the
Speaker 1: National UH Cemetery with the Gettysburg Cemetery Commission. It was
Speaker 1: the first kickstarter back in eighteen sixty three. UM. So
Speaker 1: he said, you know what they're this guy uh, Eddie Everett,
Speaker 1: you know him as Edward. He's sort of a rock
Speaker 1: star speaker. Former Secretary of State, former senator, president of
Speaker 1: Harvard College. This dude brings the house down. Let's get
Speaker 1: him in here, because this guy can go for like
Speaker 1: two hours straight without notes, without notes, and just like
Speaker 1: the most flowery prose and he remembered every word of it.
Speaker 1: Two hour long speeches that were just amazing, speeches that
Speaker 1: held crowds and wrapped and he had no notes in
Speaker 1: front of him. Yeah, and so they agreed to delay
Speaker 1: it a little bit so he could be booked because
Speaker 1: I guess he had another engagement. No, he said, this
Speaker 1: is great, but I need more than a month prepare
Speaker 1: a two hour eight. He wanted to do research. It
Speaker 1: was so soon after the war or after the battle
Speaker 1: that they dedicated it as a cemetery that um, the
Speaker 1: official accounts or even like nonofficial accounts hadn't really started
Speaker 1: to emerge yet. So he actually had to do his
Speaker 1: own in reviews with people who were there to gather
Speaker 1: like the information they needed to do a great speech
Speaker 1: on it. Well, yeah, because part of a large part
Speaker 1: of his speech was um Like in our article, they
Speaker 1: said it was sort of like watching a a TV
Speaker 1: like dateline or he had to recap the battle for
Speaker 1: everyone because you know, Twitter was down and no one
Speaker 1: knew what was going on. And he actually he had
Speaker 1: a he had credit as a battle field order. He'd
Speaker 1: given battle um a speeches that like bunker Hill and conquered.
Speaker 1: And actually, when this guy came to town and spoke
Speaker 1: at your battlefield, your battlefield was world famous from that
Speaker 1: moment on. That's how big a deal Edward ever. It was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in fact, he was so big of a deal. They waited,
Speaker 1: like we said, because he wasn't ready, and then said, oh,
Speaker 1: unless also invite President Lincoln, so speak for a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes. And apparently they that was Lincoln took no
Speaker 1: offense to it. That was totally normal at the time.
Speaker 1: It's like a ceremonial thing, it was. And and this
Speaker 1: was being conducted by the state of Pennsylvania, so at
Speaker 1: the time you didn't really expect much federal involvement or support.
Speaker 1: But they're like, no, this is a big enough deal.
Speaker 1: We we want to invite the executive branch. That is correct, sir,
Speaker 1: So you want to take a break real quick, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do it, okay, alright, So Chuck um Lincoln actually
Speaker 1: was scheduled to leave at six am the morning of
Speaker 1: the dedication ceremony, right, and he in the town on
Speaker 1: the same day as the show. Yeah, like noon, yes,
Speaker 1: which was plenty of time, something we don't even like
Speaker 1: to do when we have our shows. So it's cut.
Speaker 1: It's cutting a little close, um, but it can be done.
Speaker 1: And he's the president and he's got a war to conduct,
Speaker 1: so no one expected him to come in early. Lincoln
Speaker 1: actually overrode um that schedule and said, no, I'm going
Speaker 1: in the day before. This is important. I don't want
Speaker 1: to miss it all together because this is a town
Speaker 1: of and they're expecting fifteen thousand people to come to
Speaker 1: this dedication. Right, So he left the day before, um,
Speaker 1: and he was put up at that lawyer's house. Will
Speaker 1: Willis I can't remember his first name, or Wills Wills
Speaker 1: who wrote the thing. No, he said, no, no relation.
Speaker 1: He's also not like a vampire. He's still alive. He
Speaker 1: wrote the first hand account, right. Um. But he spends
Speaker 1: the night at that lawyer's house and there was like
Speaker 1: this town is just packed. But the fact that that
Speaker 1: Lincoln wanted to do this badly enough that he went
Speaker 1: early um shows that this is this meant something to
Speaker 1: him people for back then, that's a large crowd, and
Speaker 1: I wondered how in the world old who who hears
Speaker 1: this thing the first about people? That was apparently another
Speaker 1: advantage of Lincoln Shrill voices that he could project it
Speaker 1: or really far. Yeah, but not to fifteen thousand. Come on,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I would imagine that they had better
Speaker 1: hearing back then, because they had to and because they
Speaker 1: had fewer like artificial devices that were damaging their hearing. Probably,
Speaker 1: I think everything I just totally made that. It extends
Speaker 1: it a few more feet, but I imagine ten thousand
Speaker 1: of those fifteen were like what do you say? What
Speaker 1: do you say? Or maybe it's like a Montyon skit
Speaker 1: and they're relaying it back and it changes each time,
Speaker 1: like Occupy Wall Street thing. Yeah. So, uh, he gets
Speaker 1: there the day before, and he was quite right. There
Speaker 1: were plenty of dignitaries that were supposed to be there
Speaker 1: that waited to leave that morning and Um didn't. They
Speaker 1: missed the whole thing because they were just late. So
Speaker 1: the day of the thing, they they dedication. Um Everett
Speaker 1: gives his speech and it just it brings the house down.
Speaker 1: It's exactly what everybody expects. Yeah, and the guy who
Speaker 1: wrote this article pointed out that I would have been
Speaker 1: bored to tears for a two hour speech, but apparently
Speaker 1: at the time that was like entertainments. People were crazy
Speaker 1: for the stuff. Yeah, the longer the better. Yeah. She
Speaker 1: said that they had a much longer attention span because
Speaker 1: they hadn't been corrupted by television. Yeah, that's a bit
Speaker 1: of a leap, but sure it makes sense then. Yeah,
Speaker 1: remember short attention span theater and comedy Central that great. Um. So,
Speaker 1: Lincoln gives his speech, and a lot of hay has
Speaker 1: been made over the last century or almost well century
Speaker 1: and a half of the difference in length between Lincoln's statement,
Speaker 1: Lincoln's addressed, and Everet's addressed, But it's like there's really
Speaker 1: no point in comparing them in that sense. No one
Speaker 1: expected Lincoln to speak for a very long time. They
Speaker 1: expected him to dedicate the thing with some short remarks,
Speaker 1: and that Everett was going to give like a two
Speaker 1: hour speech. So this didn't surprise anybody at the time.
Speaker 1: It just seems like in retrospect, when you compare the
Speaker 1: two and the power and the everlasting nous of of
Speaker 1: the two speeches that went that it's like, wow, he
Speaker 1: did this in only two minutes, wherever it took two hours. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you said two different things. Yeah, but it's
Speaker 1: a it's a myth that it was like. People were like,
Speaker 1: I can't believe that was so short. That's all they
Speaker 1: were expecting, agreed, Um, And in fact, it was so short.
Speaker 1: Here's a nice little tidbit I thought, Uh, the official
Speaker 1: photographer for the event, Um, you know, it takes a
Speaker 1: minute to get things set up when you're taking pictures
Speaker 1: back then you're not just snapping away. And uh, he
Speaker 1: took these pictures of Everett and was getting ready to
Speaker 1: take pictures of Lincoln and then got everything set and
Speaker 1: Lincoln like is walking off with the mic drop. Basically,
Speaker 1: that may be a myth as well. I think it's
Speaker 1: a great story. It is a fantastic story. There's a
Speaker 1: ton of great stories out of here, Like he wrote
Speaker 1: the thing on the on the back of an envelope
Speaker 1: on the train ride there. Supposedly not true because he
Speaker 1: was very well known as a he was a practice
Speaker 1: order is a lawyer to start out with. He apparently
Speaker 1: poured over his speeches, so the fact that he went
Speaker 1: a day early to this um and he he decided
Speaker 1: he wanted to use this occasion to help drum up
Speaker 1: support for the war. He almost certainly wrote at least
Speaker 1: a draft in Washington before he left. Yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: they think is that he wrote most of it, if
Speaker 1: not all of it, and then continue to work on
Speaker 1: it on the train. But I don't think there was
Speaker 1: ever an envelope involved, correct, I don't think so. He
Speaker 1: had his traveling secretary or is his full time secretary
Speaker 1: with him, John Hey, Yeah, John Hay uh ran it
Speaker 1: by him, I guess, yeah, And he was like Pravovo,
Speaker 1: another great one, and he went thank you. They sipped
Speaker 1: their tea in stony silence for the rest of the train. Right,
Speaker 1: had a weird relationship. So should we read this thing? Oh? Also,
Speaker 1: this is where you know that whole thing was like,
Speaker 1: was Abraham Lincoln gay? He shared a bed with a man?
Speaker 1: I had never heard that. Oh yeah. There was a
Speaker 1: very uh well read biography that came out years back, um,
Speaker 1: within the two thousand sometime on Abraham lincol really popular,
Speaker 1: and in it the biographer is talking about how, um,
Speaker 1: I think at the Gettysburg address he shared a bed
Speaker 1: with the man. And one of the reasons why, well,
Speaker 1: the reason why was because the town was packed, right,
Speaker 1: The town was so packed that even the President of
Speaker 1: United States had to share a bed with somebody because
Speaker 1: there was just nowhere else for people to be. The
Speaker 1: guy who designed the cemetery had to sleep sitting up
Speaker 1: in somebody's like front room, in a chair that night
Speaker 1: the night before the dedication, because the town was so
Speaker 1: packed at the girls. But there was this whole like,
Speaker 1: was they Lincoln gay? He was an entire book not
Speaker 1: about him being gay. It was mentioned in that people
Speaker 1: read the book and then started talking about whether he
Speaker 1: was because my book would say it was President Lincoln gay,
Speaker 1: and you would open it up and said who cares?
Speaker 1: At the end, it would be like, why did they
Speaker 1: print a thousand plank pages after that Civil War book? Yeah? Exactly,
Speaker 1: it's gotta be four inches thick, and they make great doorstops. Uh.
Speaker 1: Should we read the Singing full? Yeah, with a little music,
Speaker 1: maybe some something patriotic? Yeah? I think we should split
Speaker 1: it in half, though, as we uh do with our
Speaker 1: havween readings. Should we What are we going with her?
Speaker 1: Yakety Sachs I think we used Oh Tannenbaum, Oh tan
Speaker 1: Obama would be good. All right, Well, we'll see. Is
Speaker 1: Jerry's choice? Jerry surprised us? Do you want to start
Speaker 1: or finish? Uh? I will art because I have a
Speaker 1: feeling you're gonna do better than me. Is that better
Speaker 1: to finish? Then? Okay, go ahead. Four score I'm just kidding. Sorry.
Speaker 1: Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth
Speaker 1: on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and
Speaker 1: dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Speaker 1: Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing
Speaker 1: whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated,
Speaker 1: can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield
Speaker 1: of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion
Speaker 1: of that field as a final resting place for those
Speaker 1: who here gave their lives that this nation might live.
Speaker 1: It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
Speaker 1: But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate,
Speaker 1: We cannot hollow this ground. The brave men, living and dead,
Speaker 1: who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor
Speaker 1: power to add or detract. That was wonderful, It was okay,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna bring it home. Should I do
Speaker 1: it in a high bits? Now, that's why I figured
Speaker 1: I should go first. Let's bringing the helium. Uh, here
Speaker 1: we go. The world will little note nor long remember
Speaker 1: what we say here, but it can never forget what
Speaker 1: they did here. It is for us, the living, rather
Speaker 1: to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they
Speaker 1: who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It
Speaker 1: is rather for us to be here dedicated to the
Speaker 1: great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead
Speaker 1: we take increased devotion to that cause for which they
Speaker 1: gave the last full measure of devotion. That we here
Speaker 1: highly resolved that these dead shall not have died in vain,
Speaker 1: that this nation under God shall have a new birth
Speaker 1: of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people,
Speaker 1: for the people shall not perish from the earth. Boom
Speaker 1: abe out and he dropped his mike. It really is
Speaker 1: at the modern the modern description of this speech is
Speaker 1: that it's a mic drop. Two hundred and seventy two,
Speaker 1: two seventy three depends on what version you're looking at.
Speaker 1: Words under two minutes is all he needed. Under two minutes,
Speaker 1: and he was even interrupted with applause five times, and
Speaker 1: it still only took two minutes. And when when he
Speaker 1: when he said this, chuck. When he gave the speech,
Speaker 1: it was totally in contrast with the way politicians are
Speaker 1: any order at the time, spoke the two hour spiel.
Speaker 1: That ever, gave a lot of raw raw stuff that
Speaker 1: was the standard standard stuff, flowery language, lots of lofty
Speaker 1: rhetoric while admonishing the Confederacy. Admonishing is that the right word? Yeah? Um,
Speaker 1: just a really kind of a rousing type of thing.
Speaker 1: But the idea that you that a politician would get
Speaker 1: up and give a plain spoken speech was new as
Speaker 1: of the moment Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address. The guy,
Speaker 1: the author, Gary Wills, the historian, not the lawyer who
Speaker 1: set the whole thing up allegedly. Um, not the same guy.
Speaker 1: He points out that, Um, uh Everett, that's the first name, Edward.
Speaker 1: Edward Everett gave his speech at the last moment in
Speaker 1: history when it was customary to give a speech like that.
Speaker 1: Because Abraham Lincoln got on stage right after that and
Speaker 1: changed it forever in the opposite direction. And they say that, um,
Speaker 1: he changed American speech for not just like speaking, that's
Speaker 1: his oration, but also writing, and that Mark Twain's modern
Speaker 1: novel Huckleberry Finn, the first modern novel um followed in
Speaker 1: the footsteps of the Gettysburg Address or the way of
Speaker 1: speaking and talking that Lincoln laid down in the Gettysburg Address,
Speaker 1: like he just changed everything. Wow, yeah, all right, well
Speaker 1: let's take another break because I have to reflect on that.
Speaker 1: You just laid down some heavy stuff. And uh, we'll
Speaker 1: finish up after this speech. Changer, who was That's what
Speaker 1: you said? Changer? Um? And it was amazing. And and
Speaker 1: whoever wrote our article? Who was that? Uh? Tiffany Connor.
Speaker 1: Tiffany Connor, she's great. Um. She points out that it
Speaker 1: was a time when, um, they were starting to send
Speaker 1: messages via telegraph, so that also tied end and that
Speaker 1: people we're trying to get to the point a little quicker,
Speaker 1: I think because of the telegraph. And I started talking
Speaker 1: to somebody to snap your fingers, like come on, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you're sitting a telegraph and you gentlemen on this
Speaker 1: day and they're like all right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: need to go to the bathroom. That's what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to say. So they were just striving for a more
Speaker 1: concise language. And I think Lincoln really like put a
Speaker 1: uh he dotted the eye, maybe even cross the tea
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, and said like this is a better
Speaker 1: way to talk. And it sounds even a little flowery
Speaker 1: to us, but like we should have read parts of
Speaker 1: Everett speech. That's where we failed. We failed pretty badly. Um, alright,
Speaker 1: So what else was different about it? It was, Um,
Speaker 1: it was a pretty radical idea at the time too,
Speaker 1: because what he kind of did with his speech, well,
Speaker 1: not what kind of did. What he very much did
Speaker 1: was say, let's take a big picture of view of
Speaker 1: this thing. And and they point out he doesn't talk
Speaker 1: about slavery or the Confederate army or the Union army. Um.
Speaker 1: He talks about things in very broad terms and basically says,
Speaker 1: you know what, the Declaration of Independence was the bomb.
Speaker 1: That was the deal, the real deal, and the Constitution
Speaker 1: is the means by which we serve that document. Because
Speaker 1: at the time there were southerns going old slavery is
Speaker 1: not even in the Constitution, right, it was very much
Speaker 1: If not that the Constitution was the guiding document of
Speaker 1: the United States government, then at least no one was
Speaker 1: saying that the Declaration of Independence was Lincoln was basically
Speaker 1: saying with the speech he was reframing it. He was saying, no,
Speaker 1: it's the in the Declaration of Independence laid out the ideals.
Speaker 1: The Constitution is just the vehicle you used to get
Speaker 1: to those ideals. And let's all remember that in the
Speaker 1: Declaration of Independence it talks about all men being created
Speaker 1: equal and in today's modern world where it's gonna substitute
Speaker 1: men with humans. Yeah, and and even at the time
Speaker 1: it was obviously people weren't so far along that Lincoln
Speaker 1: was like, you know, and slaves should be completely equal
Speaker 1: to us starting today. Like it was even a process
Speaker 1: for the North to to bring about equality over time.
Speaker 1: But just the notion that we deserve everyone is born
Speaker 1: and deserves equality was a radical idea at the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so, I mean, it's really worth As I was
Speaker 1: researching this, I had to go back and reread the
Speaker 1: address a couple of times, and once I did, it
Speaker 1: really started to sink in. Yeah, finally, now and almost
Speaker 1: my fortieth year on this planet, I can understand the
Speaker 1: Gettysburg Address. It should not be teaching this to school children.
Speaker 1: It's totally meaningless to them or to break it down
Speaker 1: sentence by sentence and really explain it. Sure, okay, you
Speaker 1: know if you have like you know, um, the poet Society,
Speaker 1: teacher or Captain Mike Captain, who was the guy that
Speaker 1: Matthew Perry played ron somebody Chandler b Chandler bing. It
Speaker 1: was a different role. This is a teacher, like a
Speaker 1: really inspirational teacher and something. Yeah, um, you're thinking almost
Speaker 1: that was the Malagro beanfield War. No, that was Alabamba. Man,
Speaker 1: we got off track. What was my point that Matthew
Speaker 1: Perry was the best friend? Oh that like, this doesn't
Speaker 1: mean anything to school children. But one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why is not because it's above their heads, because this
Speaker 1: is the way we see America now. But the reason
Speaker 1: we see America in America government and the idea that
Speaker 1: it's by the people, of the people, for the people,
Speaker 1: and that people are created equal, and that was the
Speaker 1: ideals of the Founding the Founding fathers were laid out
Speaker 1: in the Declaration of Independence and then that's the true
Speaker 1: guiding document. Um. The reason we see these things is
Speaker 1: because of the gettysburgherge us in these two hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy two wish words. He changed the way that all
Speaker 1: Americans from that point forward saw America. And as a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, um. Again, Gary Wills points out that
Speaker 1: prior to the Gettysburg Address, people referred to the United
Speaker 1: States in the plural form, like the United States are
Speaker 1: a great place to visit. Um. Afterwards a collection of states. Yes,
Speaker 1: And afterwards it became single and unified and a singular noun,
Speaker 1: the United States is a great place to visit. That
Speaker 1: came after the Gettysburg Address, except for these states. Right
Speaker 1: steer clear of these. Um. I had a great Shakespeare
Speaker 1: teacher in college that man. I wish I could remember
Speaker 1: his name, because I would shout him out. But he
Speaker 1: you know, Shakespeare's tough for most people. Um. He literally
Speaker 1: every day in class we would sit down. I think
Speaker 1: we went through like three plays a year or a
Speaker 1: quarter in one class, and we would just read the thing.
Speaker 1: And he would stop about every thirty seconds say here's
Speaker 1: what that means. Here's what he's saying, and we will go, oh,
Speaker 1: that's what that means. Then we would read the next section.
Speaker 1: Someone to read it. He go, here's what that means
Speaker 1: he's really saying, And he would really put it in
Speaker 1: like terms college kids can understand, like, you know when
Speaker 1: your friend does this, and that's what's happening here with
Speaker 1: with with Horatio, and um, it was just like it
Speaker 1: blew my mind because we all left with complete full
Speaker 1: understanding of like three plays at a time and would
Speaker 1: scramble to like sign up for his his Shakespeare two
Speaker 1: class because he was so awesome, and I just I
Speaker 1: don't know, it seems like such an effective way to
Speaker 1: teach when you're talking about this these old languages. You
Speaker 1: can sit around and read Chaucer all day and unless
Speaker 1: someone's explaining, like what what it means? Because these stories
Speaker 1: are wonderful, amazing stories in particular too. Yeah, but if
Speaker 1: you don't get it, you don't, it's not hitting home.
Speaker 1: You gotta like liken it to something that they identify
Speaker 1: with or basically completely master old or Middle English. Yeah,
Speaker 1: who wants to do that? That's sneat man. I wish
Speaker 1: you could remember the guys thinking is it Mr Ames,
Speaker 1: Mr Barr? I think it was Mr Carr, Dr byng dr.
Speaker 1: That's okay. So these days the Gettysburg address, there are
Speaker 1: a few different versions of it. There were at least five,
Speaker 1: they believe versions, and I think two of them now
Speaker 1: actually written down versions are the Library of Congress. Are
Speaker 1: they on display? They're probably on display, right sure? Or
Speaker 1: you can just be like, let me see one of
Speaker 1: the Gettysburg addresses and they'll run off and get it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you just gotta put a fifty in their front pocket. Uh.
Speaker 1: So you can actually look at these and they're mostly
Speaker 1: the same except for just some little revisions here and there.
Speaker 1: Then he made I guess post um. Yeah, yeah, because
Speaker 1: because he knew the document would live on and if
Speaker 1: they had dressed this is this confused me for a second.
Speaker 1: I had to wrap my head around it. If he
Speaker 1: had dressed before then it would have proven unequivocally that
Speaker 1: he had written it before he was on the train.
Speaker 1: But the fact that myth is still around is because
Speaker 1: there's no fact to counterbalance it. So that means that
Speaker 1: all the drafts came after. There are copies that he
Speaker 1: made that imagine his secretary wrote down himself. I think
Speaker 1: he gave them some to him. But yeah, I'm sure
Speaker 1: John Hay was responsible for it. But John Hay had
Speaker 1: one that is in the Library of Congress, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: But it's funny that you don't think about like any
Speaker 1: like four copies of this, So start writing right, you know,
Speaker 1: get out the pin and would a kill you to
Speaker 1: draw some rabbits doing some weird things in the margins.
Speaker 1: So what about the reaction? Um, I think there's been
Speaker 1: a lot of disagreement depending on who you talked to.
Speaker 1: Some people say it in the moment at the place,
Speaker 1: it wasn't super well received, but other people are saying like, no,
Speaker 1: that's a myth. Yeah, apparently it's another big myth that
Speaker 1: especially he walked off and was like, man, they really
Speaker 1: hated that I blew it. Yeah, he he knew that
Speaker 1: it did exactly what he wanted it too. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: wanted to drop the mic and he did, and supposedly
Speaker 1: the crowd was pretty happy with it. And people are like,
Speaker 1: why do you drop that corn cob? Why was he
Speaker 1: talking into it the whole time? And why did it
Speaker 1: amplify his voice? That was the most surprising part. Uh, Well,
Speaker 1: who cares if they liked it or not at the time.
Speaker 1: We love it now, yeah, go crazy over it. Clearly
Speaker 1: we've been like breathlessly talking about how great the Gettysburg
Speaker 1: addresses this whole time. We haven't even entertained the other
Speaker 1: side that it sucked. You know what else we didn't
Speaker 1: do was the very thing we said it would be
Speaker 1: a great way to teach people. We should have read
Speaker 1: it and after every few sentences broken down what it meant.
Speaker 1: That's not our job. All right, We're not gonna do
Speaker 1: all the work. Do you want to know? Okay, we'll
Speaker 1: let the teachers do it. Yeah. I encourage this should
Speaker 1: be in classrooms. Did we say anything really bad in
Speaker 1: this one? Yeah? This is a teaching aid. Watch this
Speaker 1: turn record over now remember that? Oh yeah? Okay. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about the Gettysburg address,
Speaker 1: ask your teacher and you can also go on to
Speaker 1: our great website how Stuff Works dot com and type
Speaker 1: in Gettysburg address. No h at the end, we're not
Speaker 1: in Scotland. Nope, and uh, since I said Scotland, it's
Speaker 1: time for a listener mail. By the way, quickly, I uh,
Speaker 1: after the other day talking about the Brules rules on sushi,
Speaker 1: I went and watch it again like three times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I still haven't seen it. Did you? Did you watch
Speaker 1: bag Boy? That that one? Listening? Now? I still didn't know.
Speaker 1: I looked it up. I haven't sitting on a Google search.
Speaker 1: I haven't had time to give any attention to it.
Speaker 1: I remember what it was specifically about it that really
Speaker 1: killed me was is that he says shush said the sushi,
Speaker 1: and the intros saying like, we have a chef here
Speaker 1: to make some delicious sushi sandwiches. Sushi sandwiches. All right.
Speaker 1: This is from I know you remember Kathleen of Cooper Cats,
Speaker 1: the PR Agency, former PR. Yes, many years ago, We've
Speaker 1: farmed out our PR to this great company New York,
Speaker 1: Cooper Cats, and Kathleen worked there, still does, and she
Speaker 1: was awesome and super nice. And she wrote this in
Speaker 1: about something she's working on this year to her heart,
Speaker 1: which I think is pretty important, Hey guys. And she
Speaker 1: had some nice things to say early on wowry rhetoric
Speaker 1: like Edward just catching up with us. But I won't
Speaker 1: bore you with that. Um hey guys. Uh, it wasn't
Speaker 1: boring to us, by the way, I just don't want
Speaker 1: to you know. Um Hey, guys. I was writing because
Speaker 1: of one of our clients nowadays is Memorial Sloan Kettering
Speaker 1: Cancer Center. Are there, the oldest and largest private cancer
Speaker 1: center in the US, And we're beginning a big public awareness,
Speaker 1: slash press, push around misconceptions um and misperceptions and miss
Speaker 1: about clinical trials that people have about them. While this
Speaker 1: is for a client, it's really important to me. I've
Speaker 1: learned a lot of things. One, only four of patients
Speaker 1: participate in clinical trials. Wow, it's alarmingly low, even though
Speaker 1: they are the root of every current in future advance
Speaker 1: and treatment. People have negative impressions of clinical trials, and
Speaker 1: that changes as soon as they learn more about them.
Speaker 1: Other things I learned through my work with msk UM
Speaker 1: things I learned about my work with Memorial Sloan Kettering
Speaker 1: I had no idea about before the trials. Uh. They
Speaker 1: are not just for last resorts clinical trials. Many of
Speaker 1: the best treatments are offered early in treatment through clinical
Speaker 1: trial participation. Clinical trials are much more targeted today Uh.
Speaker 1: Through genetic screening, tumor testing, and precision medicine. Doctors have
Speaker 1: a much better grasp but what works and what will not.
Speaker 1: Almost no clinical trials for cancer and volve placebos. Uh.
Speaker 1: Though most people are concerned about this like yeah, like
Speaker 1: I don't want to I want the drug yeah, um,
Speaker 1: yeah exactly. And cost is a huge concern for people
Speaker 1: thinking about and rolling and yet almost all out of
Speaker 1: pocket costs for treatment are covered. Uh so that is
Speaker 1: from Kathleen, and she makes some good points there, she does,
Speaker 1: and I never really thought about it. I think we
Speaker 1: just got pard. We did ps If you happen to
Speaker 1: need a good cry uh memorial Sloan Kettering, and I
Speaker 1: do not. By the way, Kathleen, they just wrapped up
Speaker 1: a two week partnership with Humans of New York. To
Speaker 1: that website. Man, they're great. It's an incredible photo documentary
Speaker 1: of the world of pediatric cancer. Uh so many of
Speaker 1: the miracles documented were results of clinical trials, is why
Speaker 1: I'm so passionate about pushing this information. And Kathleen just
Speaker 1: had her second little bab congratulations and uh important stuff.
Speaker 1: So look into clinical trials and maybe we should do
Speaker 1: a show on them one day. We definitely should be.
Speaker 1: I really am surprised that we haven't already have we not?
Speaker 1: We did on human experimentation, but we've probably talked more
Speaker 1: about the sordid side of it, like boo section, the
Speaker 1: gruesome Oh yeah, we did, and we talked about, like
Speaker 1: you know, the regulations on people who are human guinea pig. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we should. We will do one on Clinical Trump. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So that's awesome, Kathleen. It's cool when you can do
Speaker 1: work that you can PR with a good feeling. And
Speaker 1: we're sorry about URPR episode. I'm not. I stand by that. No,
Speaker 1: I think it's great episode, but it probably should have
Speaker 1: been called the Legend of Edward Burnet's and less. This
Speaker 1: is what PR is like. It was a fun episode,
Speaker 1: isn't it. It surely was. If you want to know
Speaker 1: more about us, you can hang out with us on
Speaker 1: Twitter at s Y s K podcast. Same goes for Instagram,
Speaker 1: where you can see pictures of our pets and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. You can also hang out with us on
Speaker 1: Facebook at Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know,
Speaker 1: and you can send us emails to stuff podcast at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Lastly, hang out with us
Speaker 1: at our home on the Web, our playhouse for the
Speaker 1: Internet Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com.