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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from house

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Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and uh,

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Speaker 1: today we will start by asking Tracy a question. Have

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Speaker 1: you ever been in an earthquake? Not that I perceived, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, because there are small earthquakes everywhere all the time,

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Speaker 1: and there are earthquakes that are felt in Georgia sometime.

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Speaker 1: And I remember the last time there was an earthquake

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Speaker 1: that was felt pretty strongly in Georgia. I was in Massachusetts.

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Speaker 1: Oh that's right. And so I was seeing all of

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Speaker 1: these tweets from my friends about the earthquake, and I

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Speaker 1: was like, I am not there. Well, and they're so

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Speaker 1: infrequent in Georgia, a lot of us didn't know what

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Speaker 1: was going on. Like I literally thought that someone had

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Speaker 1: slammed into like my neighbor's house, like a car had

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Speaker 1: collided collided with something. Um, and I pretty is to this.

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Speaker 1: When I was very small, I lived on the Pacific coast,

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Speaker 1: so I would occasionally experience one, but never like a

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Speaker 1: huge one. However, people in Japan deal with earthquakes all

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Speaker 1: the time. Uh, it's no secret that Japan is situated

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Speaker 1: on one of the most dangerous positions our globe has

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Speaker 1: to offer. UH. It sits on what's called the Ring

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Speaker 1: of Fire. And probably most of our listeners know about this,

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Speaker 1: but just in case they don't, that is a horseshoe

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Speaker 1: shape that runs sort of around the Pacific Ocean. It

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Speaker 1: goes from the southern tip of South America, travels north

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Speaker 1: along the North American Coast, it crosses the Burying Strait,

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Speaker 1: and then it travels down to New Zealand by way

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Speaker 1: of Japan. And that sort of odd horseshoe shape actually

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Speaker 1: outlines the meeting zones of various tectonic plates, and the

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Speaker 1: Eurasian Plate meets up with the Pacific Plate and the

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Speaker 1: Philippine Plate and the North American Plate all along where

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Speaker 1: Japan sits. So as you can imagine, with all of

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Speaker 1: those plates rubbing together, the country is no stranger to earthquake. UH.

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Speaker 1: It's actually estimated that Japan has some level of earthquake

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Speaker 1: at least every five minutes, and that they experience as

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Speaker 1: many as two thousand quakes each year that are strong

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Speaker 1: enough for humans to feel them. Twenty of the world's

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Speaker 1: earthquakes that are classified as magnitude six or greater actually

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Speaker 1: happened in Japan. And when you consider how much actual

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Speaker 1: landmass Japan has as compared to the rest of the world,

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Speaker 1: you really get a sense of what a level of

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Speaker 1: concentration that is. And today, the Tokyo Yokohama metropolis, which

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Speaker 1: sits in the Kanto region, is home to approximately thirty

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Speaker 1: five million people, and it's actually considered to have the

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Speaker 1: highest earthquake risk of any metro area in the entire world. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And today we're going to chat about an epic tragedy

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Speaker 1: that happened in Kanto more than ninety years ago. It's

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Speaker 1: fairly famous, although I think it's been long ago that

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Speaker 1: it kind of fades out of people's consciousness. They forget

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Speaker 1: that this happened, uh if they weren't directly involved in it,

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Speaker 1: or they don't have a cultural connection to it. So

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Speaker 1: on September one, Japan basically changed forever. A completely devastating

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Speaker 1: earthquake obliterated Yokohama and much of Tokyo, and more than

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Speaker 1: a hundred and forty thousand people were killed. I'm glad

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Speaker 1: you decided to do this episode because it's been on

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Speaker 1: my list of things that I wanted us to talk

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Speaker 1: about for a while. And it also plays a part

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Speaker 1: in the last Miyazaki movie called The Wind Rizoes that

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Speaker 1: came out not long ago, which was the latest thing

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Speaker 1: that made me think we should do an episode on this, uh.

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Speaker 1: And I haven't seen that movie yet ninety two and

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Speaker 1: it is it's a really important touchstone in world history, really,

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Speaker 1: and we'll get to sort of why towards the end

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Speaker 1: of the episode. But to start off, we will talk

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Speaker 1: a little bit about Yokohama and Tokyo and where they

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Speaker 1: were at in terms of development when this all happened.

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Speaker 1: The port city of Yokohama was once known as the

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Speaker 1: City of Silk, and it was Japan's first foreign settlement.

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Speaker 1: It was founded as such in eighteen fifty nine, and

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Speaker 1: this was a little more than five years after the

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Speaker 1: U S commodore Matthew Perry, who we mentioned in the

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Speaker 1: Okeechee episode. We being not me because I was not

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Speaker 1: here then. Yeah, that was when Sarah and I were together. Yes,

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Speaker 1: so uh, he landed in Japan and forced the opening

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Speaker 1: of Japan to the west. Prior to this time, Yokohama

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Speaker 1: has had existed as just a quiet fishing village, and

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Speaker 1: between Yokohama's establishment as a foreign settlement, uh and the

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Speaker 1: early nineteen twenties, the time that we're talking about today,

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Speaker 1: it really grew extremely quickly. It had developed into a

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Speaker 1: bustling city. It had a population of about half a

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Speaker 1: million people. But all of that development that Yokohama had

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Speaker 1: seen in you know, just six decades, was gone in

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Speaker 1: a matter of hours the day the great quake hit.

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Speaker 1: At this time, Tokyo was already the capital of Japan,

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Speaker 1: and it was a huge metropolitan area that was recognized

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Speaker 1: as a cultural intellectual hub, and it had also been

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Speaker 1: ex variencing a huge boon of industrialization in the time

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Speaker 1: leading up to this. Yes, factories were popping up throughout

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Speaker 1: the areas which are sometimes referred to as Low Tokyo.

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Speaker 1: The population density around those factories, in those neighborhoods increased significantly,

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Speaker 1: and many of the people that were living there were uh,

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Speaker 1: not surprisingly, factory workers, and many of them were living

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Speaker 1: at or below the poverty line in law, in homes

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Speaker 1: that were really kind of subpar in terms of construction.

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Speaker 1: They were. There were a lot of sort of shacks

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Speaker 1: and a lot of people living very closely together. So

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Speaker 1: Tokyo had adopted building methods from the Western world during

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Speaker 1: the Meiji era and that ran from eighteen sixty eight

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Speaker 1: and nineteen twelve. But even in spite of this development,

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Speaker 1: there were still a whole lot of all wooden structures

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Speaker 1: in the city and that left it extremely vulnerable to earthquakes.

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Speaker 1: So at eleven fifty eight am on September one, three,

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Speaker 1: the first shocks of the quake hit, and at this hour,

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Speaker 1: families were just sitting down to lunch, so people that

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Speaker 1: had been at work in the morning had gone home

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Speaker 1: in many cases for the lunchtime hour, and the quake

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Speaker 1: was reported by survivors as lasting about fourteen seconds, and

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Speaker 1: in that very short period of time, even though that's

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Speaker 1: a long time for a quake, most of Yokohama's buildings

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Speaker 1: were completely brought down just in that first tremor. This

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Speaker 1: quake originated south of Tokyo, near Oshima Island in the

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Speaker 1: Sagami Bay, and it was the result of the Philippine

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Speaker 1: Plate colliding with the much larger Eurasian Plate, and depending

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Speaker 1: on the source, its magnitude was somewhere between seven point

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Speaker 1: nine and eight point two, so that's an extremely strong earthquake. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: in UH that time, even in Tokyo, which is a

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Speaker 1: little bit north of Yokohama, and they are, as we said,

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Speaker 1: often grouped together as a metro area. More than half

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Speaker 1: of the brick buildings collapsed, and an estimated one tenth

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Speaker 1: of the you steel reinforce structures that still exists that

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Speaker 1: existed at the time were destroyed. So already, just in

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Speaker 1: that first UH quake range, there was a whole lot

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Speaker 1: of destruction. But before we get to the really sort

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Speaker 1: of harrowing and horrible things that happened, we're going to

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Speaker 1: do a quick ad from our sponsors so we don't

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Speaker 1: break up some kind of intense discussion. So to get

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Speaker 1: to what happened next, Historians agree that while the devastation

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Speaker 1: of the immense tremors of the earthquake was great, the

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Speaker 1: true destructive course that day was fire. The timing of

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Speaker 1: the quake, as I said earlier, striking just as lunch

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Speaker 1: was about to be served, was basically perfect in its

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Speaker 1: terrible nous. Uh Overturned stoves which had been finishing up

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Speaker 1: food prep caused fires throughout the area, and high winds

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Speaker 1: fueled the fires and helped them to spread and spread

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Speaker 1: extremely rapidly, so all of those open names that were

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Speaker 1: being used to prepare you know, the last stages of

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Speaker 1: lunch basically just caused uh these huge fires, which led

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Speaker 1: to incredible devastation. The buildings that had survived the tremor

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Speaker 1: were largely brought down. UH. It was extremely rough. It's

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Speaker 1: estimated that there were more than a hundred and thirty

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Speaker 1: major fires just breaking out in Tokyo in the half

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Speaker 1: hour following the first tremor. So whereas the initial quake

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Speaker 1: took out most of Yokohama, fires burned Tokyo City center

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Speaker 1: to the ground. And one of the most sort of

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Speaker 1: horrifying and heartbreaking aspects of this fire uh. And this,

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Speaker 1: you know, aftershocks of the earthquake, was the development of

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Speaker 1: this phenomenon that are called dragon twists, and these are

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Speaker 1: basically fire tornadoes. There twisters that are nothing but fire.

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Speaker 1: And for example, one twister of fire swept over a

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Speaker 1: make shift camp where people had run to seek refuge

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Speaker 1: after the initial destruction, and they were trapped there and

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Speaker 1: burned to death by this tornado that went over them.

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Speaker 1: Five different whirling firestorms swept across the collapsed neighborhoods of Tokyo,

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Speaker 1: and many eyewitness accounts of this horrible day used the

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Speaker 1: imagery of hell on earth and their descriptions of the

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Speaker 1: destruction in the horror. Yeah, if you read any eyewitness

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Speaker 1: accounts or even people that have you know, sort of

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Speaker 1: had an oral history handed down through their families, they

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Speaker 1: will almost all say that the people that talked about

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Speaker 1: it called it hell. I mean, it really was just

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Speaker 1: nothing but fire and devastation. And as fires and aftershocks

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Speaker 1: were ravaging the city, panicked people attempting to evacuate really

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Speaker 1: caused UH an additional problem, which is that there were

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Speaker 1: bottlenecks forming UH from pedestrian traffic and basically all the

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Speaker 1: passages away from the city center. So all the bridges,

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Speaker 1: all the streets, all the alleyways just became impassively clogged

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Speaker 1: with people, and a lot of people burned to death

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Speaker 1: as they just stood trapped in these throngs, unable to

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Speaker 1: move in any direction. Some people tried to bypass the

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Speaker 1: clogged thoroughfares by jumping into the Cemita River, and a

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Speaker 1: lot of them drowned while trying to escape the city

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Speaker 1: this way. UH. Still, others had never even of course

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Speaker 1: had time to run. They were incinerated in buildings that

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Speaker 1: went up in flames with incredible speed. The fires kept

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Speaker 1: burning for up to two days. Yeah, they just did

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Speaker 1: not have the resources. I mean, if you think of

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Speaker 1: any even modern city, if a hundred and thirty major

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Speaker 1: fires broke out in Atlanta today, I think our fire

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Speaker 1: departments would be hard pressed to get those all under control,

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Speaker 1: uh in a in a quick manner. So you can

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Speaker 1: imagine in you know, almost a hundred years ago, with

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Speaker 1: the technology available at that time, in a tightly crowded city,

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Speaker 1: how difficult it would have been to put out you know,

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Speaker 1: what started as a dred and thirty fires and then

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Speaker 1: I'm sure expanded far beyond that. Well. Then, in addition

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Speaker 1: to all the flames, the earthquake also caused the tsunami,

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Speaker 1: which added a whole additional layer of devastation to the

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Speaker 1: coast of Japan. Yeah. This tsunami reached an estimated uh

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Speaker 1: thirty nine point five feet in height, which is about

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Speaker 1: twelve meters, and it crashed into the coastline along Tagami Bay.

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Speaker 1: And this caused of course additional property damage. It also

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Speaker 1: killed more people. Cars and even houses were completely swept

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Speaker 1: away and mud mixed together with ashes in the streets

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Speaker 1: to create even more mess and devastation. Yeah, just basically,

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Speaker 1: I mean it's I've seen pictures and we will link

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Speaker 1: to pictures in the show notes. Some of them are

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Speaker 1: a little bit difficult to look at if you're sensitive,

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Speaker 1: But it's just it looks like something almost from a movie.

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Speaker 1: Like there's almost no frame of reference for me anyway

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Speaker 1: of like in terms of reality what that must have

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Speaker 1: been like, Uh, incredibly intense and terrifying. It's very much

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Speaker 1: an armageddon scenario, you know that would be played out

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Speaker 1: in modern cinema. But in the days after the disaster,

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Speaker 1: there was another horrific development that had nothing to do

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Speaker 1: with nature. It was entirely man made. So three days

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Speaker 1: after this whole ordeal started, riots broke out in Tokyo.

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Speaker 1: Some newspapers were accusing Koreans who were living in Tokyo

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Speaker 1: of looting, and the newspapers insinuated that the Koreans had

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Speaker 1: started the majority of the fires, and there were also

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Speaker 1: allegations that groups of Koreans were poisoning the wells. So

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Speaker 1: many of these allegations are now believed to have just

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Speaker 1: been mere rumors that were printed by the newspapers. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this was a time of you know, a lot of

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Speaker 1: crazy things going on, and uh presume ofly people were

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Speaker 1: giving eyewitness accounts to the newspapers that maybe we're not accurate,

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Speaker 1: and as survivors were struggling to keep going and get

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Speaker 1: enough to eat and get enough you know, water, in

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Speaker 1: conditions that would stress anyone to the breaking point. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: Japan's Korean population really became sort of the immigrant scapegoat

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Speaker 1: and the focus of pent up frustration and grief and

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Speaker 1: anger and just the shock of what was going on

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Speaker 1: around all of them. So basically, whether it was true

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Speaker 1: or not, people believed that gangs of young Korean men

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Speaker 1: were going through the whole city and pillaging, so counter

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Speaker 1: gangs formed to patrol and deal out swift punishment. The

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Speaker 1: yeah um accounts of some of the atrocities that took

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Speaker 1: place during this time are really very disturbing, according to

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Speaker 1: one American tourist who had been in the city when

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Speaker 1: all of this happened. For example, there was a Korean

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Speaker 1: man who was simply by virtue of being Korean and

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Speaker 1: thus associated with these crimes that people believed were happening

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Speaker 1: was tied to a pole and just left there, and

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Speaker 1: basically he was beaten by all passers by as some

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Speaker 1: sort of retribution for what they thought he may have

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Speaker 1: been a part of. There are also some conflicting accounts

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Speaker 1: about some Koreans who were put onto boats and sent

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Speaker 1: out into the harbor. And while some versions characterized this

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Speaker 1: as an attempt to secure the safety of the people

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Speaker 1: on the boats, others insinuate the intent was to send

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Speaker 1: these people to their debts. As the boats caught fire

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Speaker 1: out in the harbor, whether the fires were accidental or

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Speaker 1: set on purpose, the people who were on the boats died. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the um you know, there had been oil barrels and

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Speaker 1: other um flammable chemicals that were there on the docks

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Speaker 1: that when the earthquake hit and the additional tsunami, you know,

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Speaker 1: they were broken apart, and so there was this oily

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Speaker 1: sheen on the surface of the water which was very,

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Speaker 1: very flammable. And so there's some accounts that suggest that

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Speaker 1: people were actually tied up and put on the boats.

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Speaker 1: Some just say that they were being pushed onto the boats,

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Speaker 1: as Tercy said, to try to save them, like to

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Speaker 1: get them away from the city where people were behaving,

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Speaker 1: you know, out of completely ramped up fear, But we

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Speaker 1: don't really know. We only know that they all perished.

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Speaker 1: Japanese socialists were also grouped with the Koreans as traders,

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Speaker 1: and being identified as a member of either group was

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Speaker 1: an instant death warrant. People were set upon in the

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Speaker 1: streets and cut to pieces with swords or clubs to death.

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Speaker 1: These attacks were just ferocious, and undoubtedly they came from

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Speaker 1: the stress of the whole situation, but the atrocities then

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Speaker 1: became a point of shame for a lot of people.

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Speaker 1: One public official described these incidents as quote a major

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Speaker 1: defect of the national spirit UH. And in the end,

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Speaker 1: there were only a hundred and twenty five vigilantes charged

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Speaker 1: for all of these crimes, even though UH most historical

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Speaker 1: accouncils say that there were far more than a hundred

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Speaker 1: and twenty five people involved in UH these beatings and

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Speaker 1: stabbings that were going on, and out of those only

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Speaker 1: thirty two of them actually received a formal sentence. UH

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Speaker 1: were given suspended sentences and the and nine percent of

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Speaker 1: the homes in Yokohama were damaged or destroyed. Sixty percent

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Speaker 1: of Tokyo's population also lost their homes. Yeah, the entire

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Speaker 1: metropolitan area was really plunged into like an epidemic of

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Speaker 1: homelessness at this point. UH. And on September two, UH,

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Speaker 1: the U. S. Navy had vessels leaving China to sort

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Speaker 1: of lead a relief effort to try to help Japan,

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Speaker 1: and within a week, Yokohama's harbor was filled with ships

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Speaker 1: bringing relief supplies. The American relief efforts provided twelve point

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Speaker 1: seven million yen to Japan, and that made up of

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Speaker 1: roughly se the total aid that they received from other countries.

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Speaker 1: When you think about how much clean up was required

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Speaker 1: after all of this destruction, it quickly becomes really sobering.

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Speaker 1: The clean up alone was monumental, but the whole area

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Speaker 1: had to be surveyed because property lines were completely erased

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Speaker 1: along with everything else. So in addition to trying to

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Speaker 1: clear all of the rubble, which I mean at this point,

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Speaker 1: you know, the vast majority of these areas were rubble, UH,

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Speaker 1: and trying to figure out where things had been in

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Speaker 1: terms of property, there was also the huge problem of

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Speaker 1: the dead because of the unprecedented numbers of bodies. Again,

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Speaker 1: remember we're talking about more than a forty thousand people

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Speaker 1: that died in this tragedy, UH that had to be

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Speaker 1: cleared and dealt with. The city set up fifteen different

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Speaker 1: collection centers where bodies could be brought, and they actually

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Speaker 1: allocated UH sever we all hundred city workers and it

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Speaker 1: was just their job to sort of collect bodies and

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Speaker 1: help this effort. And then once the bodies were collected

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Speaker 1: and they tried to identify as many as they could,

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Speaker 1: but that wasn't always possible. UH, sites for corpse incineration

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Speaker 1: had to be established, although the majority of the dead

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Speaker 1: were all cremated near the area that had been the

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Speaker 1: most drastically hit by fire. To begin with, one of

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Speaker 1: the most horrifying things that comes up in account after

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Speaker 1: account is what the city smelled like during all of this.

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Speaker 1: So you can imagine, on top of the tragedy and

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Speaker 1: sort of the shock and the heartache, just dealing with

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Speaker 1: this really uncomfortable odor everywhere you went that just reminded

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Speaker 1: you of what was going on. I can't even fathom.

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Speaker 1: And in spite of this almost unfathomable disaster, there was

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Speaker 1: also some growth. Tokyo's future was envisioned in the form

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Speaker 1: of this superlative metropolitan mecca, and there was a national

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Speaker 1: effort to fulfill this promise of Tokyo's future. And while

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Speaker 1: any you know saw this as an opportunity to rebuild

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Speaker 1: Tokyo as a shining, new, modern city, there were a

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Speaker 1: lot of arguments among government officials and the people about

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Speaker 1: how that dream would be achieved and what it would

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Speaker 1: actually look like. You know, it's one thing to say

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Speaker 1: we want to rebuild it better than ever, but what

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Speaker 1: that means to different people is going to be different things,

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Speaker 1: and that caused them strife. Urban planners, social welfare advocates,

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Speaker 1: there were activists, There were politicians as well as just citizens,

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Speaker 1: and they in many cases, we're all at odds over

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Speaker 1: how they were all going to move forward, what sorts

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Speaker 1: of spaces they needed uh to be included in city planning,

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Speaker 1: and how funds were going to be allocated. And additionally,

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Speaker 1: to sort of further complicate this is that while most

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Speaker 1: people wanted to kind of look at this as a

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Speaker 1: blank slate, uh, which of course it can't really be,

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Speaker 1: a lot of the people who had lost everything, that

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Speaker 1: had survived the disaster really just wanted to try to

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Speaker 1: go back to their lives as they had been and

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Speaker 1: rebuild things that way they were, and they weren't so

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Speaker 1: concerned with trying to build some new, better thing. They

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Speaker 1: just wanted what they had before. Then there was also

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Speaker 1: the problem of where the money would come from. There

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Speaker 1: was a reconstruction bill that was introduced in December of

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Speaker 1: nine and it proposed a budget of five ninety eight

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Speaker 1: million yen. This did not meet with a lot of favor.

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Speaker 1: The budget was only passed after it was reduced by

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Speaker 1: a hundred and thirty million yen, and in the six

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Speaker 1: years following the bill's approval, another two d seventy million

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Speaker 1: yen was additionally unencumbered for the reconstruction effort. But even

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Speaker 1: that failed to meet even the most austere plans that

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Speaker 1: were envisioned for the new Tokyo. And there was another

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Speaker 1: piece of legislation that came about during the December Parliament

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Speaker 1: meeting UH and that was a law that enabled the

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Speaker 1: government to take ten percent of each partial of private

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Speaker 1: property to devote to public space. UH. Landowners who were

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Speaker 1: going to lose more than ten percent to meet the

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Speaker 1: logistical needs of city planning would be compensated, but only

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Speaker 1: for that loss that extended above the ten percent that

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Speaker 1: had been uh, that this law allowed to be seized.

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Speaker 1: This law was intended to rebuild the city in a

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Speaker 1: more logical manner. They wanted to avoid the overly narrow

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Speaker 1: streets and alleyways that had led to so many thousands

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Speaker 1: of people being trapped in the fires during the disaster.

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Speaker 1: But as you can imagine, a lot of citizens petitioned

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Speaker 1: the government to keep more of their land during all

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Speaker 1: the property readjustment, so those requests also slowed down the

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Speaker 1: government as they were reviewed. Yeah, there were thousands of

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Speaker 1: requests because of course, nobody wants to give up one

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Speaker 1: tenth of the property they own, even though if it

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Speaker 1: is for the greater good and for you know, uh

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Speaker 1: better built city with a more effective, you know, sort

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Speaker 1: of disaster plan situation. But uh, in the end that

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Speaker 1: most people lost a chunk of their property. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: on the whole, this aftermath of the disaster was really

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Speaker 1: filled with a lot of reflection I think on everyone's part,

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Speaker 1: particularly government leadership, over the future of not just the

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Speaker 1: capital city, but the country as a whole. And it

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Speaker 1: really opened up some dialogues about disaster preparedness and evacuation

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Speaker 1: planning and city planning to support those ideas, there were

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Speaker 1: also some possibly surprising negatives that came out of all

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Speaker 1: this national pride really swelled, but it also there was

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Speaker 1: a lot of xenophobia that developed. There were alarmist articles

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Speaker 1: that accused the United States of spearheading the relief effort

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Speaker 1: to try to humiliate Japan, and this growing unease and

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Speaker 1: the desire for expansion after the quake is frequently cited

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Speaker 1: as one of the catalysts for World War two. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so it didn't, of course happen all at once, but

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Speaker 1: it's kind of a lot of historians will point to

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Speaker 1: it and say, you know, it was this sort of

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Speaker 1: mindset that led to decision ends that ended up, you know,

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Speaker 1: with Japan trying to expand into China and that sort

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Speaker 1: of setting off a lot of these world events. UH.

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Speaker 1: The disaster also had another sort of benefit, which is

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Speaker 1: that it's seeded some new areas of scientific exploration. UH.

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Speaker 1: And it caused a lot of countries, not just Japan,

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Speaker 1: but Japan did a lot of it to really explore

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Speaker 1: new ways of predicting earthquakes and other natural disasters. So

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Speaker 1: when you hear about like experiments done with like uh

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Speaker 1: animals and their sensitivity to uh tectonic movement. A lot

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Speaker 1: of that really started because this earthquake happened. So a

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Speaker 1: lot of the detection systems that we have today, this

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Speaker 1: was sort of their genesis point where that technology started

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Speaker 1: to develop and and be uh really focused on by

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Speaker 1: a lot of countries because as we have gotten bigger

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Speaker 1: and more metropolitan and built more things, that means more

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Speaker 1: things that can fall down and collapse and that people

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Speaker 1: want to try to save if they can ahead of time.

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Speaker 1: UH So that is the horrific event that happened in Japan.

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Speaker 1: It sounds so scary when I look at pictures and

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Speaker 1: like I said, we'll link to them. Ah, I just

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Speaker 1: I can't imagine it. I can't imagine what it would

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Speaker 1: be like. I try to think about, like, what what

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Speaker 1: if that exact same thing? It couldn't be exactly the same, obviously,

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Speaker 1: but what if a similar thing happened you know where

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Speaker 1: I live. But I don't even know how you collect

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Speaker 1: yourself after that. You know, we certainly have had hurricane

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Speaker 1: disasters happened in the US and in other countries. I

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Speaker 1: mean there have been other disasters. Uh Kushima disaster in

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Speaker 1: Japan caused a lot of people to look back on

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Speaker 1: this event. But ah, it's it's difficult to contemplate. I've

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Speaker 1: been very quiet because you're waxing pensive. Yeah, it's all

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Speaker 1: very distressing, it is, and especially I really get obviously

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Speaker 1: any natural disaster is horrible, but I get very poked up.

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Speaker 1: It's sort of how humans dealt with it, and and

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Speaker 1: things got very violent at a time when you know,

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Speaker 1: of course people would ideally come together and support each other,

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Speaker 1: but that isn't always how it works when there is

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Speaker 1: fear in the year. So we will instead switch over

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Speaker 1: to uh listener mail from our listener Adrian, and she says,

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Speaker 1: as a French Canadian, I was happy to see your

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Speaker 1: episodes on the Chef. As someone who received their education

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Speaker 1: in another province, I think I may be able to

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Speaker 1: provide a response to a question you posed at the

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Speaker 1: end of the podcast, wondering how those of us in

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Speaker 1: other parts of the country learn about him. I really

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Speaker 1: like this letter, I will interject because Uh, while Adrian

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00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:42,919
Speaker 1: is French Canadian, she did, as she said, get her

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00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:47,040
Speaker 1: education outside of Quebec. So it's an interesting perspective that

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00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 1: we hadn't quite seen before, which is why I wanted

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00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:51,560
Speaker 1: to read this, she says, firstly, it speaks greatly to

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00:25:51,600 --> 00:25:53,760
Speaker 1: the place of Quebec in Canada that I learned more

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00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:56,320
Speaker 1: about its premiers than those of my home province, which

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00:25:56,320 --> 00:25:59,439
Speaker 1: was Manitoba. Uh, it could just be that Quebec premiers

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00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:02,840
Speaker 1: are simply more interesting. However, anyhow, what I did learn

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00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 1: about Duplessy was fairly neutral. We learned that he was

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00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:08,760
Speaker 1: a premier who wielded his power broadly, and the close

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00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:12,560
Speaker 1: associations he had with the Roman Catholic Church. However, much

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00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:15,000
Speaker 1: was done in the context of what was changed during

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00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:18,800
Speaker 1: the Quiet Revolution, which again to interjects that period after

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00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:22,639
Speaker 1: Dupascy was no longer in power. For instance, she says,

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00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:25,880
Speaker 1: we learned about his church affiliations and then about how

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00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 1: secularist Quebec became. I would also be very curious as

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00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:31,800
Speaker 1: to what they learn about Quebec's political history. In Quebec

448
00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:35,720
Speaker 1: education of history is so fascinating. Whose history is being taught?

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00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:38,320
Speaker 1: Thought I would drop this note over to YouTube. Yeah,

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00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:40,480
Speaker 1: I mean, she kind of brings up the question that

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00:26:40,520 --> 00:26:45,920
Speaker 1: we always mentioned of. You know, history is told by

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00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:48,199
Speaker 1: many different voices, and they do not always have the

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00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:52,280
Speaker 1: same perspective, and so the story to my mind, usually

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00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:54,639
Speaker 1: the story is found in kind of having all of

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00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:57,600
Speaker 1: the uh, different ways of looking at a thing, and

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00:26:57,680 --> 00:27:00,760
Speaker 1: sort of the details kind of revealed themselves, although there

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00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:03,560
Speaker 1: are always elements that are never really fully clear what

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00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:07,720
Speaker 1: the actual situation was. So thank you for that listener mail.

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00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 1: If you would like to write us, you can absolutely

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00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:13,280
Speaker 1: do that. We've mentioned before that our email address is changing,

461
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:16,919
Speaker 1: uh and that is now history podcast at how stuff

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00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 1: works dot com. You can also connect with us on

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00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash history class stuff, on Twitter at

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00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:26,800
Speaker 1: missed in History at missed in History dot tumbler dot com,

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00:27:26,840 --> 00:27:30,159
Speaker 1: and pinterest dot com slash from It's in history. And

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00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:31,560
Speaker 1: if you would like to learn a little bit more

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00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:34,000
Speaker 1: about what we talked about today, you can go to

468
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:37,000
Speaker 1: our parents site, which is how stuff works dot com.

469
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:39,199
Speaker 1: Type the word earthquake into the search bar and you

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00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:41,639
Speaker 1: will get how earthquakes work. So if you'd like to

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00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:44,399
Speaker 1: learn about that and a great many other things, uh

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00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 1: and many of the detection and modern science in that article,

473
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:52,120
Speaker 1: like I said, was sort of seeded by this horrific

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00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 1: tragedy happening. But you can learn about that and a

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00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 1: whole lot more on our website which is how stuff

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00:27:56,520 --> 00:28:01,679
Speaker 1: works dot com. For more on this and thousands of

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00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 1: other topics because it how stuff works dot com in