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Speaker 1: Hey, history fans, here's a rerun for today, brought to

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Speaker 1: you by Tracy V. Wilson. Welcome to this day in

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Speaker 1: History Class from how Stuff Works dot Com and from

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Speaker 1: the desk of Stuff you missed in History Class. It's

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Speaker 1: the show where we explore the past one day at

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Speaker 1: a time with a quick look at what happened today

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Speaker 1: in history. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson,

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Speaker 1: and it's November. A whale sank the whaling ship Essex

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Speaker 1: on the day in eighteen twenty. The story starts on

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Speaker 1: the island of Nantucket off of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, which

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Speaker 1: was the heart of the whaling industry in the early

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century. This industry had started out with people butchering

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Speaker 1: dead whales that had washed up on shore, and then

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Speaker 1: that progressed to people hunting whales relatively close to the

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Speaker 1: shore from boats, and then to hunting whales farther and

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Speaker 1: farther out to see and much larger and more sophisticated ships.

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Speaker 1: As people were whaling far and farther out from the shore,

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Speaker 1: these ships started to have equipment on board to process

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Speaker 1: what was harvested from the whales, because that was a

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Speaker 1: lot easier than trying to haul an entire whale back

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Speaker 1: to the shore, sometimes from thousands of miles away. A

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Speaker 1: lot of what they were really after was the sperma

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Speaker 1: cite also people call that spermaceti from the heads of

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Speaker 1: sperm whales. They were also harvesting blubber. It wasn't as

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Speaker 1: much about the meat, it was about the blubber and

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Speaker 1: the oil, and also ambergris, which you had to be

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Speaker 1: really lucky to get. That was a lot more rare.

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Speaker 1: So whaling ships had this series of pots and fires

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Speaker 1: on board called a try works that was used to

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Speaker 1: render the blubber while they were still at sea, and

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Speaker 1: the whale ship also carried a few smaller whaling boats

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Speaker 1: because the main ship itself was not all that maneuverable.

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Speaker 1: You needed something much smaller and faster to be able

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Speaker 1: to actually hunt a whale. Voyages were also meant to

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Speaker 1: last a really long time. It was not uncommon for

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Speaker 1: a ship to set out with three year four years

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Speaker 1: of supplies, and two and a half year voyages were

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Speaker 1: really typical. This is also incredibly dangerous work. A lot

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Speaker 1: of people died. In August of eighteen nineteen, the Essex

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Speaker 1: set sail from Nantucket and nearly sank in a squall

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Speaker 1: just two days later. They eventually made their way to

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Speaker 1: the Galapagos Islands, though, and they resupplied with turtle meat

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Speaker 1: while they were there. But while they were there, they

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Speaker 1: also set a fire on Charles Island that was massively

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Speaker 1: destructive and probably led to the extinction of at least

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Speaker 1: two animal species. More than a year after they had

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Speaker 1: left Nantucket, they spotted a pod of whales and they

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Speaker 1: deployed two boats to go hunt them. But then the

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Speaker 1: people that were still on the main whaling ship noticed

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Speaker 1: another whale that was behaving oddly. It seemed to be

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Speaker 1: watching them. They estimated that this whale was about eighty

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Speaker 1: five ft or twenty six meters long, which was extremely

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Speaker 1: large for a spur whale, and then it headed straight

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Speaker 1: for them. It struck the ship, turned around, came back

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Speaker 1: and struck them again. So, with the ship seriously damaged,

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Speaker 1: it started to sink. Fortunately for the crew, those boats

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Speaker 1: that were used to hunt the whales were still in order,

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Speaker 1: and the men, all of them survived the sinking, divided

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Speaker 1: up and got into them. They were also able to

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Speaker 1: salvage about sixty days worth of supplies, including a hundred

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Speaker 1: and nine gallons of water. At first, they talked about

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Speaker 1: heading for the Marquesas or the Society Islands. Both of

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Speaker 1: those were more than a thousand miles away, and the

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Speaker 1: prevailing current would help get them there, but they were

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Speaker 1: afraid of cannibals on these islands, which is going to

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Speaker 1: turn out to be ironic. Instead of going that way,

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Speaker 1: they headed for Peru or Chili, both of which required

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Speaker 1: them to go against the current and against the wind,

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Speaker 1: but they were so afraid of the cannibal threat that

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Speaker 1: that seemed like the best option. When they got to

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Speaker 1: the Pitcairn Islands, three of the men decided to stay behind,

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Speaker 1: but the rest of them decided to continue on because

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Speaker 1: there wasn't really a lot there for them to sustain themselves.

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Speaker 1: But these men and the whaling boats did not have

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Speaker 1: enough provisions to get to land, and after a while,

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Speaker 1: survivors turned to cannibalism when their crewmates died. It got

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Speaker 1: to a point though, where no one had died, so

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Speaker 1: they had to draw lots to decide who would be

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Speaker 1: murdered and then eaten. They were finally spotted off the

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Speaker 1: coast of Chile on February one after more than three months.

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Speaker 1: In the end, there were eight survivors out of the

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Speaker 1: twenty or twenty one who set sail. Initially, that included

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Speaker 1: those three men that had stayed behind when the rest

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Speaker 1: back in the boats. Captain George Pollard Jr. Survived. His

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Speaker 1: next ship, though, was the Two Brothers, and it also

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Speaker 1: sank after it struck Coral Reef. At that point no

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Speaker 1: one would hire him to captain a ship anymore, and

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Speaker 1: then this whole story became the inspiration for the classic

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Speaker 1: novel Moby Dick. The first mate, who was named Owen Chase,

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Speaker 1: also wrote a book about this whole experience, which was

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Speaker 1: called Narrative of the most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of

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Speaker 1: the Whale ship Essex of Nantucket, which was attacked and

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Speaker 1: finally destroyed by a large Sperma city whale in the

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Speaker 1: Pacific Ocean, with an account of the unparalleled sufferings of

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Speaker 1: the captain and crew during a space of ninety three

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Speaker 1: days at sea in open boats in the years eighteen

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Speaker 1: nineteen and eighteen twenty. You can learn more about this

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Speaker 1: in the September episode of Stephie Miss in History Class.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to K. C. P. Graham and Chandler Mays for

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Speaker 1: their audio work on the show, and you can subscribe

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Speaker 1: to you the Stay in History class on Apple podcasts

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Speaker 1: and Google podcasts and web Rail to your podcast, and

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Speaker 1: you can tune in tomorrow for a document to establish

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Speaker 1: a new government. The too comple cato of the pop