WEBVTT - Badass of the Week Returns, Part Two: Chesapeake Capes 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:17.959 Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:29.880 Welcome back to the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:33.559 as always so much for tuning in. That's our super producer, 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:38.280 mister Max Williams. 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.560 Max the Chesapeake Boy Williams Chesapeake. 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:43.080 Okay, I do want to drop something in here from 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:45.800 that's reference to our previous episode. Sure, it was brought 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:48.960 up the absurd name of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:51.640 which I one time saw and I've never forgotten. This 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:55.880 translates to the the Angels Angels of Anaheim. 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:00.800 Yeah, it's a real ATM machine. Then number magic there 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:03.000 with the facts. 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:10.080 That seeking in the phone and PA's fallen knowledge. 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:11.840 It's just for you right now. 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.520 And that is none other than mister Noel Brown. They 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:24.600 help me, Ben Bulling. In this neck of the Global woods, folks, 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:27.520 we are having what we call a Badass Badass of 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:31.400 the Week week uh with big, big thanks to our 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:36.440 returning guest, none other than the co host of the 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:42.440 Actual Facts Badass of the Week podcast. Please please join 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:48.080 us in welcoming back doctor Pat Larish and Ben Thompson. 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:51.760 Yeah, thank you guys so much for having us. We're 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:57.000 going to Yeah, yeah, we're gonna do. That's another is 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:58.840 another one. That's a repetition. I don't know. 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:03.320 A word for tea. Yeah, just. 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:10.079 Have like chai gelato. There you go, you know to chi, 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:12.119 you know chai chai. 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:14.560 Yeah, there we go. 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:18.480 Folks. You could get the sense already that you are 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:23.280 now hanging with five big time nerds. 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:27.440 We were talking about threatening to do a D and 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:29.280 D campaign off Mikes. 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:32.640 I write professional write D D adventures professionally, so. 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:36.679 I did know that about you. Well, I'm excited to 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:39.760 h to come into your world of D and D 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:40.840 and dungeon mastery. 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:47.760 Folks. Folks, if you have not tuned into our previous 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:51.760 episode about a guy named George that Noel, Max and 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:55.520 I had no idea about, please hie THEE to thy 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:57.320 podcast platform of. 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:01.480 Choice or a Nunnery depending or if you wish right. 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:10.040 I think they have WiFi. So we are Ben and Pat. 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:16.160 We are so excited that you all are returning with us, 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:22.280 despite our cavalcade of three out of five puns. You 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:26.840 know in our previous episode, you are returning to us 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:39.640 with another story of a badass. This is something building 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:44.440 on our previous conversation. So for everybody wondering why we're 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:49.680 calling our super producer Max the Chesapeake Cape. We promised 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:51.960 we were going to pay it off. And so the 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:55.920 Chesapeake Boy also the Chesapeake Boy. He's a chesapeaker. 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:58.200 He's actually a chesapea cheesecake. 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:05.720 That there we go go. So it bid, Pat, what 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:10.480 is going on in York Town in the seventeen. 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:15.400 Hundreds, Yes, so let's talk. We were talking before about 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:18.760 George Rogers Clark and that's an interesting story. And you know, 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:21.440 we are at a time where we're celebrating America to 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:23.760 fifty right now, and so we've been doing, at least 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:25.279 on our show, we've been doing a lot of American 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:29.400 history characters, revolutionary war characters, and I think it's worth 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.800 mentioning that a lot of America doesn't happen without the 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:34.320 help of the French. As much as we like to 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:41.040 dunk on the French here, Yeah, that is, they played 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:45.080 a very important role in the American Revolution. We talked 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:47.720 about a slightly more passive role in the last episode. 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:49.599 This one is going to be a little bit more 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:55.040 of an active role with direct direct fire engagement. So 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:58.480 I guess in honor of America two fifty and bestial 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:01.440 Day two thirty seven. We'll talk about the Battle of 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:04.680 Chesapeake games and CHESSA games is a weird thing. 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:07.040 Can I just say really quickly, I really appreciate you 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:09.200 referring to it as America two fifty and not the 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:13.040 rebranded Freedom two fifty. We are in America to fifty 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:14.400 household here, So I appreciate. 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:16.440 I didn't even I haven't even heard of that. So 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:18.239 I don't just better that you haven't. 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:19.440 It's better than you haven't. 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:20.840 It's a bag of badgers. 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:24.320 Liberty two thirty five or thirty seven or whatever. 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:29.760 This Okay, what's up with the capes though, you guys? 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:33.360 Okay, yes, let's get into that. So it's an interesting 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:37.039 thing about this is that the most decisive military action 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:41.359 of the Yorktown Campaign did not involve a single American soldier, 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:44.520 sailor or marine. That's the story we're going to tell today. 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:47.359 So we all kind of know the story of Yorktown 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:50.400 the way that we are taught it in school. We 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:56.200 picture the British, they're pinned down on Peninsula and Virginia, Washington, Rochambeau. 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:59.280 The American and French armies link up, they trap Cornwallis 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:03.960 on this eninsula. They marched down there. Cornwallis is locked 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:07.080 into He's got this bunker system at this fort in Yorktown. 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:10.360 He gets surrounded, he gets attacked, he tries to break 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:13.039 out't he's not successful, and then he has to surrender 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:15.440 his army. That's the tale we've been told right. 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.920 Now, here's the thing. Yorktown is a coastal city, right, 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:24.880 so it's a peninsula surrounded by water, and the British, well, 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:27.880 at this point in history, who has the most powerful 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:31.440 navy on the planet. So the Brits, I mean, they 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:34.560 were basically ruling the Atlantic. So why were they stuck? 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.719 If the Royal Navy is the undisputed king of the sea, 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:42.080 how in the world did they let Cornwallis get cornered 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:44.720 on a piece of dirt when he couldn't escape by ship? 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:47.880 If you have, you know, the ultimate taxi service, why 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:49.880 are you waiting on the curb to get arrested? 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:55.400 Yes, So the reasonly revolution ends at Yorktown isn't because 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:58.720 we walked up and demanded them to surrender. It's because 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:02.480 a little bit before the siege there was something that happened. 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:04.960 There was a naval battle that happened off the coast 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:10.600 of Yorktown. That was among the most deadly naval conflicts 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:13.640 of the eighteenth century. It's called the Battle of Chesapeake Capes, 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:17.320 and it's the reason the United States exists. So we're 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:19.040 going to talk about some frenchmen. We're gonna talk about 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:21.200 some cannons. We're going to talk about British admirals, We're 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:23.960 going to talk about gunfire fighting, marines, all kinds of 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:26.120 badass stuff on this episode. 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:30.760 And in interest of full disclosure, folks, we just want 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:33.160 to get in front of the emails and the scuttle 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:39.440 but we are going to have to acknowledge that not 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:43.080 all bends are great. There is there is one bad 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:44.200 Bed in this story. 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:47.080 Just one bad Ben in the historical bunch and no more. 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:51.960 Well, there's there's Mussolini. I guess he qualifies, but. 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:54.560 He's a bit of a bend. I wonder if his 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:56.520 friends called I wonder if he was Ben to his friends. 0:07:57.080 --> 0:07:59.320 I've always referred to him exclusively as Benito. 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:05.320 So yes, as Benito has a little ben uh Benedict Arnold, 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:08.160 we got to just I. 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:11.240 Think, really we're really expanding our definition of Ben's here. 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:16.120 That's true, that's true, that's true, are you, Benjamin, Is 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:17.240 this a legal inquiry? 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:18.400 We do have that, but. 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:23.720 Maybe it's not like if you're shortening for something else, 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:24.440 it's bad. 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:28.760 Okay, Okay, Well, I just wanted to get in front 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:33.000 of that for us to make sure that you know, uh, you, 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:37.080 fellow ridiculous historians know as a crew that we do 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:40.280 not I hope we can say this unanimously. We do 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:42.280 not condone Benedict Arnold. 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:45.319 Arnold's an interesting character that we can. We can do 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:47.000 a whole thing on him, because we did a Badass 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:48.959 the Week on him, actually, because it was so wild, 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:52.680 like he was such a hero, such a brave American hero, 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:56.560 military commander, like so many amazing actions early on. 0:08:56.640 --> 0:09:00.480 The war, but one thing, that one thing, you know. 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:02.559 Like that decision to find him. But he did a 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:05.760 lot of heroic stuff, but he won Saratoga. He like that. 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:07.920 I think we might have talked about this in the past. 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:11.120 Ben Yeah, it's not funny, man, how history can remember 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:13.080 you for the one bad thing and then your name 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:15.679 becomes a stand in for being a bad guy. 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:20.760 Well, ethel read the unready you can hear him debated 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:24.760 about at length in Badass of the Week. In the podcast, 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:30.880 ethel read the unready was actually unready multiple times. 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:32.080 That's true. 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:33.240 So he. 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:39.960 Okay, he deserved it. But we knows, as you're as 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.360 we're saying here, it may be new information to a 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:46.440 lot of us in the audience that when we're saying 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:51.480 Chesapeake capes, we're talking about a specific place, not a 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:52.520 style of cloak. 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.920 Yes, this is off the coast of Virginia, in the 0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:04.160 Chesapeake Bay. So okay. So Cornwallis is trapped in. He's 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:06.920 trapped down in. So when the war begins, you have 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:08.560 or at this point in the war where at seventeen 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:10.640 eighty one, the British have an army up north and 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:12.720 they have an army down south. The army down south. 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:14.480 You guys have covered this before. But the army down 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:17.400 south is being beaten, right, They've lost the coalpins, they've 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:21.640 lost the Guildford Courthouse, they're retreating. Cornwallis's guys, he's got 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:24.560 half the British forces in North America, but he's lost 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:26.960 a couple battles. He needs to regroup, so he moves 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:29.400 moves into Yorktown, waiting to get picked up by a 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:31.560 zuber to bring him back to New York to regroup 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:36.000 and refit. Washington is up north. He's like, well, this 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:41.400 is our chance. So when Cornwallis retreats to Yorktown, Washington diverts, 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:44.360 like almost the entire American army in North America to 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:46.840 attack Yorktown, to try to just concentrate on this one thing. 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:48.800 We've gotten this guy, we've got him here. We need 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:50.760 to just attack it and try to knock this one 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:53.840 thing out, divide and conquer. Right, So he marches his 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:56.920 troops a very long distance in a very short period 0:10:56.960 --> 0:10:59.720 of time to surround Yorktown. But in order for this 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:02.840 to the British can't, as Pat said, just roll up 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:07.120 with their boats and sail away. Now, this is where 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:10.080 we need to call in the French. And by seventeen 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:15.480 eighty one, the American Revolution is not just the thirteen 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:18.760 colonies in King George. It is a planet wide world war. 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:22.040 France and Spain have jumped in and there's fighting everywhere. 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.680 We've got naval battles in India, skirmishes in Africa, We've 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:29.920 got this huge kerfuffle going on in the Caribbean. 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:32.960 Yes, yes, so, I mean it's worth mentioning that the 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:37.079 bloodiest battle and longest battle of the War of the 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:41.319 American Revolution was the Siege of Gibraltar. More people died 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:43.360 there than any battle in the American Revolution, and it 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:46.199 was part of that war. So when you know, we 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:48.600 sent Benjamin Franklin, here's a good bend. We sent Benjamin 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:52.160 Franklin over to ed John Adams over to over to 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:54.680 France to negotiate this. And when France joined, like, the 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:57.600 deal we made with France was like, Okay, any territory 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:01.640 we take in North America is American, but I don't 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:04.200 care what you guys do otherwise, and so you just 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:06.880 fight whatever. And so the French and the Spanish start 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:08.959 attacking all of these British colonies all over the world, 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:11.400 like you said, India, Africa, the Caribbean. They try to 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:13.679 take Gibraltar, which was British, which is still British, but 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:16.160 they and they lay sieged for like years, right. 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:24.200 And also India is really interesting, Pat, I was not 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:26.720 aware of that, Noel, did you know about that. 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:27.800 I didn't hope. 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:30.200 France had colonies in India at the time, and they 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:31.679 were trying to take it over. It didn't work out 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:33.800 for them. They lost over there, but they tried. They 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:36.480 were just attacking everywhere that they could, and that really 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:39.080 spreads the English out right. It's not that the British 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:41.880 don't lose because France joins the war, because France sends 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:45.160 us a million soldiers to fight the war. They win 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:51.559 because France attacks places, honestly, places that English cares about more. Gibraltar, India, 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:54.679 the Caribbean. These are very very lucrative places for the 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:57.400 British Empire. And they're like, we don't have the forces, 0:12:57.440 --> 0:12:59.679 we don't the resources to garrison all of this, so 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:02.600 we'll just give up on the North America and we'll 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:07.880 worry about the stuff that actually matters. We win because 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:10.080 they pressure them across all fronts and we open up 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:12.280 a you know, not just a second front of the war, 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:17.280 but a whole bunch of them. Now, okay, this is 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:20.480 what's going on here. And but in order to get 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:22.920 corn Wallace and his guys, we've got them trapped on 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:26.280 the peninsula. The British Navy is coming to pick them up, 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:32.240 and h we have to stop them. So this is 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:37.360 where the French fleet comes into play, and they have 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:42.760 to kind of sail in here and block this fleet 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:45.800 of British transport ships from picking up this whole army 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.679 and moving up to New York and expanding the extending 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:50.600 the war by probably years. 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:51.600 Yeah. 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:55.480 And this plan it's a gamp like every plan is 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:59.640 a gamble. It has to do with timing. If Washington 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:04.400 and the French General Rochambeau can get there first, we're fine. 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:08.720 But if the British fleet shows up at the same time, 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:12.840 even earlier, then Cornwall sails north and the whole thing 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:13.480 falls apart. 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:16.080 Right, this is our chance to catch half their army 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:17.560 is in one spot. We got to catch them before 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:18.200 they can escape. 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:20.680 There's a real ticking time bomb scenario. 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:32.160 Yes, yes, this is This is a serious fleet that's coming. 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.720 They are there. These are you know, think about like 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:38.720 Napoleonic era wooden warships, three decks of cannons. Right, The 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:41.760 American Navy basically does not existent. It's John Paul Jones 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:43.800 and like two guys and like a pirate. And that's it. 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:47.160 There's no fleet. There's no American fleet here. And the 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:49.400 John Paul Jones ship was built by for the French. 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:56.880 And so the British fleet rolls up and they are 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:01.880 coming with the armed escort of war ships and the 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:03.960 Admiral the French admiral is a guy named de Grassi. 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:07.840 He's he gives the order to sail out and meet 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:10.760 these guys. Now, this is where I want to introduce 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:13.040 a character who I think is going to be our 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:18.320 badass for this episode. Commanding the lead ship in the 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:22.600 French formation is the ship's called the August, and the 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:24.640 captain is a guy that you need to know. His 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:27.840 name is Louis Anton de Bougainville. And I'm sure I'm 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:28.800 mispronouncing that, Pat. 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:31.720 Maybe you want to it works on such authority. 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:34.440 Yeah, that's half of it. It's like karaoke, you just 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:40.120 got to do it. This guy is the captain of 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.920 the August, and he has already lived basically like three lifetimes. 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:46.520 He was born in Paris in seventeen twenty nine. His 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.560 family was minor nobility, but both his parents died when 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:51.880 he was five, and he was raised by his older brother. 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:55.040 He goes to the University of Paris. He publishes just 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:59.360 for fun, publishes two treatises on integral calculus. He's a 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:04.480 genius just for fun. He's a genius mathematician. He is 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:06.840 a musketeer. He joins the army in seventeen fifty as 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:12.840 a musketeer like d'Artagnan fights against the British in Canada 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:14.840 during the Seven Years War, where he takes part in 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:18.200 the defenses of both Quebec City and Montreal. He's wounded, 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:21.800 he gets knighted for heroism in battle. He takes part 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:24.080 of the diplomatic he's part of a diplomatic team sent 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:26.480 by France to negotiate the Treaty of Paris that ends 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:30.160 the war. And then after that he becomes a famous 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:34.520 explorer and naturalist. So he is the captain of the 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.000 expedition that sets up the first European colony on the 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:41.880 Falkland Islands, and then he commands the first French expedition 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:46.000 to circumnavigate the globe. He departs a Nansen seventeen sixty six. 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:49.040 It takes him three years. He lost seven guys out 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:51.160 of his three hundred and forty man crew. And that 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:53.960 was like going the long way around the Straight of Magellan, 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:57.640 so pretty badass stuff here. And along the way they're 0:16:57.680 --> 0:16:59.720 doing the stuff that you see from like Captain Cook 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:02.320 and things where they're stopping at uncharted islands and like 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:05.919 doing you know, surveys of botanical surveys and drug pictures 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:07.080 of the animals and things that they. 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:10.359 See, and the bird and candy. 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:14.879 Yes, yes, yeah, and among his crew. This is a 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:15.840 fun little sidebar. 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:16.760 Uh. 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:24.040 There was a naturalist, Philibert Comerson, and his assistant was 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:28.239 a woman named Jean Barrie, and she disguised herself as 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:31.719 a man. But because she was able to get herself 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:34.440 on this expedition, she was the first woman to circumnavigate 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:35.000 the globe. 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:37.080 Yeah. Yeah, she discussed herself as a man. She went 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:40.760 by Jean or Jean, and then it was Jean and she's, uh, 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:42.480 you could do that better than me, Pat, I think 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:44.040 you're more quick to handle that joke. 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:44.359 Yeah. 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:46.680 But they found out like halfway through the halfway through 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:48.439 the journey that she was like so she was like 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:50.960 a you know, it wasn't like we found out years 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:52.840 and years later, like they found out on the journey 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:55.919 and but nobody really nobody cared, right, And it was 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:57.600 like she becomes the first woman a certain mavate the globe, 0:17:57.600 --> 0:17:58.640 which is super cool. 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:01.640 They were like, oh, okay, everybody's got a backstory. Our 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:03.320 main thing is avoiding scurvy. 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:05.120 Yes, yes, that's. 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:11.359 The correct attitude. Yes, So After this Villa comes back, 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:14.280 he becomes a superstar. He's got like a million and 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:17.240 one different skills and experiences. He meets the King and Queen. 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:19.040 He gets a flower named after him. This is the 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:22.680 Bougainville the you know those big kind of flowers that 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:27.760 kind of spill over like purply magenta colors, and now. 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.800 I discovered them on its trip. They named him after him. 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:35.159 Super yeah, and well the botan is named it after him. 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:36.320 He didn't name it after himself. 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:37.680 Okay, good safe, good safe? 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:42.960 Yeah yeah. So okay, so you know he's not writing 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:45.080 calculus papers and picking the flowers in the South Pacific. 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:45.400 Now. 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:49.119 His main thing is to be lead captain in the 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:54.320 most important naval battle of the American Revolution. So okay, 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:57.880 who's leading the French charge? A genius, a world famous explorer, 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:01.840 and a combat veteran. This sounds like the right guy 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:02.919 for the job, right. 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:06.080 Yes, Bougetvillas is a I mean, just a wild story. Right. 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:10.359 This guy's published published books on calculus and is you know, 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:12.960 is a celebrity, Like he's a national celebrity in France 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.760 for he's being the first Frenchman to circumnavigate the globe. Now, 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:18.640 he's volunteered to be the tip of the spear here. 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:19.920 This is not the kind of guy you put out 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:21.800 on the front of the battle lines. But when the 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:24.680 French fleet is lining up, he gets in the Augustin 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:27.679 and he's like, I'm in front. He sails right out 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:29.560 to the front. And this is a big warship seventy 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:33.080 four guns right, three decks, bigger than anything that the 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:35.159 Continental Navy could could field. 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:39.639 So for like current analogy here Ben would or current comparison, 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:45.959 this is kind of like an astronaut saying, yeah, I 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:48.359 did a lot of outer space stuff, but also I 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:51.440 want to lead a. 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:55.080 Battle, right, yeah, exactly. But he's also like a world 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:59.520 renowned like naturalist right and publish books like although I 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:03.200 guess are good at calculus also, So it's something like that, right, 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:06.199 It's like having somebody you've seen on TV decide that 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:08.399 they're going to like lead the charge and carry the 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:13.240 flag into battle. It's wild, okay. So August is out front. 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:15.200 He's the first one to spot the British, he's the 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:16.960 first one to orders men to run the guns out. 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:19.960 The stage is set for this battle. The British fleet 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:22.200 is coming in. They've got their transport. The troop transports 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:24.840 are lightly armed. They're waiting back to see what happens 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:27.520 in the battle. The British fleet is moving in here. 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:32.639 Nineteen ships, fourteen hundred cannons, and you've got the most 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:36.000 polished professional sailors on the planet. This is the greatest 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:40.640 navy on Earth and everybody knows it. Nineteen ships, each 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:42.640 of them three decks, most of them three decks. Man 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:46.280 of wars. The French have twenty four ships, so they've 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:48.440 got more ships, they've got a little bit more cannon. 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:50.040 They've got seventeen hundred and set up. They've go three 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:53.920 hundred more cannons and they've got five more ships. On paper, 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:58.560 that's an advantage, but in reality, the French navy has 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:02.359 not performed well against the British navy to this point 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:04.119 in the war, and they're going to continue to not 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:06.720 perform well against them as it's the years go by. 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:12.120 Uh Bougainville is out there in front and he's sent out. 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:16.920 He's also realizing that he's kind of dangerously overextended. He's 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:18.800 out there in the front right there, he's facing nineteen 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:20.679 ships by himself. The other guys are behind him, and 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:22.720 this is old style war where you've got to get 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:24.280 the side. You got to get the broadside right, think 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:25.960 about pirate battles things. You've got to get the side 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:27.480 of your ship on the side of their ship. And 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:29.320 if he's sailing out their front, you want to get 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:31.080 the You want your fleets to be an equal sign 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:33.800 to shoot in each other. But if you're doing that, 0:21:34.000 --> 0:21:35.840 you're going first, and you're the one that's going to 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:38.040 get shot by all of those That first ship is 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:39.679 the one that gets shot by all those other ships 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:40.960 as it goes down that equal sign. 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:43.960 This is a This is a bold move. Some might 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:48.320 even call it reckless. Yes, so Bogel, he's got the 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:52.120 Auguste and he's daring the British. He's basically saying nin 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:53.639 or niner, come and get me, Come and get me, 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:57.600 and trying to draw all their fire right while he's 0:21:57.600 --> 0:21:59.920 trying to distract them, while the rest of the French 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:01.840 fleet is still getting into position. 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:06.320 Yes, the august breaks formation and charges ahead by itself 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:09.680 to basically take on the entire British navy alone, which 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:12.560 forces the British admiral to try to react to this. 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:14.040 He's got to do something, right, He can have this 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:16.000 one ship just sailing out there, so he kind of 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:17.919