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Speaker 1: In nineteen o two, a young engineer named Willis Carrier
Speaker 1: encountered a situation that many of us are all too
Speaker 1: familiar with, the printer problem. Carrier had been hired by
Speaker 1: a printing company in Brooklyn. Summer humidity was causing their
Speaker 1: paper to swell, to jam in the presses to print incorrectly,
Speaker 1: so rather than a crisp image, they were getting a blur,
Speaker 1: they were wasting tons of paper, missing deadlines. Uh, this
Speaker 1: was a huge problem. Carrier was the son of a
Speaker 1: farmer and something of an eccentric genius, the kind of
Speaker 1: head in the clouds guy who would occasionally pack a
Speaker 1: suitcase with just a handkerchief inside, or order a three
Speaker 1: course meal and not take a bite. Carrier had just
Speaker 1: graduated from Cornell when he was asked to find some
Speaker 1: way to fix the company's printers. He molled over the
Speaker 1: issue for weeks. Then one day, as he was standing
Speaker 1: on a foggy railroad platform, contemplating the mist around him,
Speaker 1: an idea struck him. Carrier solution not only solved the
Speaker 1: printer problem, it changed the world, and his invention continues
Speaker 1: to have ripple effects today that impact everything from the
Speaker 1: comfort of your living room to the size of your government,
Speaker 1: to even possibly the outcome of the US elections this fall.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Flashback, the podcast from AZZI about Unintended consequences.
Speaker 1: I'm your host in history instructor Sean Braswell. Up until
Speaker 1: about a hundred years ago, a climate controlled environment was
Speaker 1: a fantasy, the stuff of science fiction novels. Mark Twain
Speaker 1: once said that everyone talks about the weather, but no
Speaker 1: one does anything about it. Well, in nineteen o two,
Speaker 1: Willis Carrier finally did something about it. Today's episode is
Speaker 1: about something most of us take for granted, air conditioning,
Speaker 1: but it's really about the power of comfort. Comfort can
Speaker 1: move mountains, and more importantly, it can move people. Every summer,
Speaker 1: millions of tourists and school children descend on Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: To take in the sights and sounds of the nation's capital,
Speaker 1: and every summer millions wish they had decided to visit
Speaker 1: during a different time of year. Hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: people celebrating Independence Day in the nation's capital will face
Speaker 1: dangerous heat. Temperatures in Washington monuments and the lofty words
Speaker 1: inscribed upon them just don't seem to matter as much
Speaker 1: when you're baking in a pool of your own sweat hot.
Speaker 1: It's really gross, silly hot. It's pretty warm today these days,
Speaker 1: at least you have the option of going to a
Speaker 1: museum or some other air conditioned area. But let's go
Speaker 1: back in time for a moment, back to a simpler time,
Speaker 1: a far less comfortable time. It can be hard for
Speaker 1: us today to imagine Washington, d C. Or many places
Speaker 1: in America before climate controlled buildings. In the days before
Speaker 1: air conditioning, American life during dangerously hot weather wasn't all
Speaker 1: that different from American life during beautiful cool weather. Salvador
Speaker 1: Basil is a social historian an author of Cool How
Speaker 1: air conditioning changed everything, and this was because people in
Speaker 1: those days were operating under a Victorian standard. They did
Speaker 1: their best to act as if they didn't notice the heat.
Speaker 1: They were trained this way from birth. But a stiff
Speaker 1: upper lip didn't prevent one from feeling the heat or
Speaker 1: being affected by it. So every newspaper in America during
Speaker 1: the summer months had it's daily column of heat prostrations
Speaker 1: and heat strokes and heat fatalities. It was an unusual
Speaker 1: for thousands of people to die during a major heatwave.
Speaker 1: No one thought much of this. The upper floors of
Speaker 1: office buildings, including Manhattan's dazzling new skyscrapers, were like ovens.
Speaker 1: Most theaters lacked ventilation or windows, and audience members baked
Speaker 1: in the scemmer months. But it went beyond that. Getting
Speaker 1: a night's sleep was usually impossible. Some people went so
Speaker 1: far as to climb to their rooftops for a breath
Speaker 1: of air, where a few of them fell asleep and
Speaker 1: rolled off to their deaths. To cope with the heat
Speaker 1: during the day, people would congregate outdoors in the shade
Speaker 1: or at a swimming pool. They drink ice drinks on porches,
Speaker 1: take a quick dip in public fountains, take naps under
Speaker 1: trees and parks. And the nation's capital was especially hot.
Speaker 1: As soon as the plaster was dry, everyone in the
Speaker 1: federal government realized that Washington was one of the worst
Speaker 1: places to locate the nation's capital, and it didn't take
Speaker 1: long for America's leaders to avoid the capital. Many presidents
Speaker 1: used to skip town during the summer months. Teddy Roosevelt
Speaker 1: like to go bear hunting in Colorado. Calvin Coolidge once
Speaker 1: took his entire family, five canaries, two dogs in a
Speaker 1: pet raccoon to the Black Hills of South Dakota. Members
Speaker 1: of Congress also stayed clear of d C in the
Speaker 1: middle of the summer, but working there was still a
Speaker 1: miserable experience. A member of Congress would collapse and then
Speaker 1: possibly die, and other wall makers simply assumed that he
Speaker 1: had been done in by the temperature. Members of Congress
Speaker 1: did their best to cope with the heat. Lawmakers would
Speaker 1: adjourn for the day if the temperature got too uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: They all adopted white linen suits. One congressman became famous
Speaker 1: for the fact that at a certain point in the
Speaker 1: calendar he would remove his two pay and spend the
Speaker 1: rest of the time bold uh. They drank a great
Speaker 1: deal of lemonade made for them in the cloak room,
Speaker 1: along with other beverages, and if things got really tough,
Speaker 1: they would sneak down to the Capital basement, where there
Speaker 1: was a room of bathtubs, and they would take a
Speaker 1: quick plunge to restore themselves. Sometimes even that was not enough,
Speaker 1: but a number of those men dropped dead anyway, And
Speaker 1: the buildings didn't help. There were rooms without air, there
Speaker 1: were rooms without windows. One congressional chamber was so notorious
Speaker 1: for heat that everyone called it the oven. The result
Speaker 1: was absolutely unbearable, and it would be unbearable for the
Speaker 1: next seventy years. As they kept trying to tinker with
Speaker 1: the system, nothing helped, at least until Willis Carrier. Let's
Speaker 1: go back to that foggy railroad platform in two. Now,
Speaker 1: fog is really nothing more than water droplets that have
Speaker 1: condensed out of the air, and as you may know,
Speaker 1: cool air cannot carry as much water as warm air can.
Speaker 1: So Carrier realized that if you could pass warm air
Speaker 1: across a refrigerated object, then you could cool that air down,
Speaker 1: reducing its humidity level, which in turn would cool the
Speaker 1: surrounding air as well. Carrier built what he called the
Speaker 1: Apparatus for treating air. It worked wonders for the Brooklyn
Speaker 1: company that hired him, and this did indeed lower the
Speaker 1: humidity and the printing plant. Interestingly, at the same time
Speaker 1: the temperature came down, employees wanted suddenly to eat their
Speaker 1: lunch in the workroom, and Carrier realized that he was
Speaker 1: onto something. Of course, Carrier's invention not only removed the
Speaker 1: humidity from the printing room, it also chilled the air.
Speaker 1: But still this was considered something for business purposes, not
Speaker 1: for the average person. But then Hollywood came calling. Up
Speaker 1: until that point, moving pictures had always taken a huge
Speaker 1: loss during the summer. No one wanted to spend the
Speaker 1: hot months in a theater with no ventilation. By the
Speaker 1: late nineteen twenties, the idea of summer movies was firmly established.
Speaker 1: Hollywood was rolling in money, and an amazing thing happened.
Speaker 1: For the first time in human history, people anywhere knew
Speaker 1: that they had a place to go to escape from
Speaker 1: the heat, and that costs nothing more than the price
Speaker 1: of a movie ticket. This was momentous. Movie theaters advertised
Speaker 1: their a c with marquees frosted over with fake snow
Speaker 1: penguins and polar bears, signs with hanging icicles. Sometimes they
Speaker 1: just propped the lobby doors open wide and let the
Speaker 1: gush of cold air sweep over passers by. Remember, you
Speaker 1: could enjoy great motion picture entertainment all summer long. In
Speaker 1: cool comfort at this dinner. For decades, most Americans experienced
Speaker 1: air conditioning only in large commercial spaces like movie theaters,
Speaker 1: department stores, and hotels. Finally, in the early nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: it made its way into the home. R C A,
Speaker 1: America's finest air conditioner, goes quietly about its business of
Speaker 1: keeping you comfortable. Air Conditioning in the nineteen fifties was
Speaker 1: not only a comfort item, but it was a real
Speaker 1: homeowners status symbol. Whether it was a central system or
Speaker 1: a window unit, everyone knew that you had it, and
Speaker 1: everyone was impressed. Within five years, Americans were installing more
Speaker 1: than a million units a year. For many, the home
Speaker 1: a C unit was a revelation. At the age of six,
Speaker 1: an aunt of mine bought two air conditioners, which was
Speaker 1: a scandal in the family because air conditioners were only
Speaker 1: for rich people. But I also noticed that at the
Speaker 1: next family party, everyone flocked to her living room and
Speaker 1: stayed there. So I sneaked over to the machine and
Speaker 1: put my hand out to the grill, and there was
Speaker 1: cool air, and I was hooked. Ever after, America's new
Speaker 1: addictions set off an extraordinary chain of events. Places in
Speaker 1: the country that had seemed uninhabitable during summer, now had
Speaker 1: millions of new residents places like Washington, d C. Now
Speaker 1: most objects tend to expand when they are heated up. Next, though,
Speaker 1: we find out how the US federal government did not
Speaker 1: start to truly expand until it was cooled down. Do
Speaker 1: you have an interesting tale about unintended consequences from history
Speaker 1: or your own life. Please share it with us by
Speaker 1: emailing flashback at AUSI dot com. That's flashback at o
Speaker 1: z y dot com. On the western slope of the
Speaker 1: grounds that surround the U. S. Capitol Building, Washington, there
Speaker 1: stand two unmarked stone towers. They are surrounded by large shrubs,
Speaker 1: and most tourists on the mall walk by them without
Speaker 1: even noticing them. These towers are the in caps for
Speaker 1: two enormous air ducks leading four hundred feet up into
Speaker 1: the heart of the Capitol Building. The air duck state.
Speaker 1: When Congress voted for air conditioning to be installed in
Speaker 1: both the House and Senate chambers, Willis Carrier himself was
Speaker 1: hired to oversee the job. Next, A C came to
Speaker 1: the White House, and then the Great Depression that gripped
Speaker 1: America during the nineteen thirties required the federal government to
Speaker 1: step up and assume new responsibilities for managing the country.
Speaker 1: A series of federal programs, public work projects, and regulations
Speaker 1: known as the New Deal were implemented under President Franklin Roosevelt.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt presided over a massive expansion of the federal government
Speaker 1: under the New Deal, and he also kick started a
Speaker 1: new era of air conditioned government. Eight new cabinet to
Speaker 1: partments and dozens of sub cabinet agencies have been created
Speaker 1: since a C came to d C. They're about six
Speaker 1: times as many staff members and aids for members of Congress,
Speaker 1: who of course now work almost all year round. This
Speaker 1: is Stan Cox, author of Losing Our Cool, a History
Speaker 1: of air conditioning. During the twentieth century, the federal government
Speaker 1: grew in size and probably could not have become the
Speaker 1: big force that it is in our lives now if
Speaker 1: people have not been able to work year round, whatever
Speaker 1: the weather. In Washington today, the federal government directly employees
Speaker 1: nearly four hundred thousand people in the DC area, and
Speaker 1: the national bureaucracy that emanates from d C employees more
Speaker 1: than nine million more and creates contract work for millions more.
Speaker 1: Your life would be very different without that big government,
Speaker 1: the one that cuts social secure city checks, administers medicaid,
Speaker 1: delivers your mail, protects the quality of your air and water,
Speaker 1: and provides for the national defense. Obviously, air conditioning is
Speaker 1: not the only factor behind these trends. You can also
Speaker 1: think war depression, population growth, and air travel for a
Speaker 1: large federal government. Still, it's hard to imagine Washington as
Speaker 1: it is today without Willis Carrier's invention. Think about it.
Speaker 1: Carrier tries to improve the performance of an industrial printing process.
Speaker 1: He winds up turning government into one of the biggest
Speaker 1: industries in the country. So air conditioning helped usher in
Speaker 1: a new era of cooler, bigger government in d C.
Speaker 1: But it was not just a bigger government that air
Speaker 1: conditioning helped create. The advent of a C also changed
Speaker 1: the electoral map of America in profound ways. If you
Speaker 1: cool it, they will come. Phoenix, Arizona, is a relatively
Speaker 1: recent development. At the start of the twentieth century, Phoenix
Speaker 1: was a town of five thousand people Salador Basil Again.
Speaker 1: By nineteen fifty it had struggled up to a hundred
Speaker 1: and six thousand people, But during only the next decade,
Speaker 1: when air conditioning swept the country is population more than quadrupled,
Speaker 1: and today Phoenix has over a million and a half
Speaker 1: residence that is due to a c air Conditioning makes
Speaker 1: a huge difference in Arizona. This is Nathan Sproul, a
Speaker 1: political strategist in the managing director of the Lincoln Strategy Group,
Speaker 1: a political consulting company based in Arizona. Before their stories
Speaker 1: of folks who lived in Arizon in the nineteen twenties
Speaker 1: and thirties that in the summertime, they would they would
Speaker 1: literally sleep on their porch and they would make their
Speaker 1: blanket wet, put a wet blanket on them and hope
Speaker 1: that the wind blowing through the porch a screen would
Speaker 1: keep them cool throughout the night. That's how That's about
Speaker 1: the only way that you could survive in Phoenix prior
Speaker 1: to air conditioning. Today, Phoenix is a sprawling metropolis, one
Speaker 1: where summer temperatures routinely top one hundred and ten degrees.
Speaker 1: Unrelenting heat bears down on Phoenix. As the temperature shoots
Speaker 1: towards a record breaking one, fire crews are rushing to
Speaker 1: handle a surge in heat emergencies. Without air conditioning, Phoenix
Speaker 1: would not be possible The same can be said for
Speaker 1: other large population centers that stretch across the so called
Speaker 1: sun Belt, from southern California across the southwest to the
Speaker 1: Gulf Coast and the southeast cities like Miami, Atlanta, Dallas.
Speaker 1: We're not the metropolis is that we see today, stan Cox. Again,
Speaker 1: it's no coincidence that that's the time when air conditioning
Speaker 1: was becoming more common. During the nineteen sixties and seventies,
Speaker 1: air conditioning spread quickly across the South. The combined population
Speaker 1: of Gulf cities like Houston, New Orleans and Tampa went
Speaker 1: from less than half a million before nineteen fifty to
Speaker 1: more than twenty million today, and that mass migration of
Speaker 1: people to the Sun Belt has had some major political
Speaker 1: concert Pquinces Salvador Basil. There was a population shift that
Speaker 1: completely redrew the political map of the nation, almost flipped
Speaker 1: it entirely. So far, we've seen how air conditioning helped
Speaker 1: grow the federal government in Washington. Up next, we learn
Speaker 1: how states across the southern US managed to convert electric
Speaker 1: power to electoral power in the late twentieth century. We
Speaker 1: all need a break from the constant cycle to learn
Speaker 1: something new, to gain new perspectives. The Great Courses Plus
Speaker 1: streaming service is an excellent resource to expand our knowledge
Speaker 1: on a variety of subjects or pick up a new hobby.
Speaker 1: I've been enjoying the Great Courses Plus while researching this
Speaker 1: season of flashback lectures like Playball, The rise of Baseball
Speaker 1: is America's pastime. History of This Supreme Court and Battlefield
Speaker 1: Europe have helped me connect the dots on several stories
Speaker 1: from history. Right now, they're giving our listeners a special
Speaker 1: limited time offer a free month of unlimited access to
Speaker 1: their entire library. Sign up now through our special U
Speaker 1: r L go to the Great Courses Plus dot Com
Speaker 1: slash AUSSI that's the Great Courses Plus dot Com slash
Speaker 1: o z y the Great Courses Plus dot Com slash Assy.
Speaker 1: During that time from nineteen sixty to say two thousand,
Speaker 1: stan Cox again, all of the major cities in New
Speaker 1: England and the rust Belt, except for New York City,
Speaker 1: lost population, whereas all of the major cities in the
Speaker 1: South gained population very rapidly. That movement of people meant
Speaker 1: that the apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives
Speaker 1: needed adjusting. Cities in New England and the Rust Belt
Speaker 1: lost House of Representative seats and they were picked up
Speaker 1: by by states in the Sun Belt. In fact, there
Speaker 1: were eight six um seats in Congress that went from
Speaker 1: the northern region to the South. Now, one reason you
Speaker 1: commonly hear for why the South switched from being Democrat
Speaker 1: to Republican in the nineteen sixties was the exodus of
Speaker 1: Southern voters from the Democratic Party after the passage of
Speaker 1: the Civil Rights Laws, and that did play a part,
Speaker 1: But the South was becoming more Republican before that, and
Speaker 1: it was a trend powered not by ideology but by
Speaker 1: temperature control. For nearly a century after the U s
Speaker 1: Civil War, only a handful of the South's approximately one
Speaker 1: House members were Republicans, just the ones representing some of
Speaker 1: the mid Atlantic mountain districts and states like North Carolina.
Speaker 1: The first district to break that trend and go Republican St. Petersburg, Florida,
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty four, three years after a c first
Speaker 1: hit American homes wife Florida. And why St. Petersburg, Well,
Speaker 1: what happens is that large numbers of wealthy northern Republicans,
Speaker 1: ones who traditionally kept winter homes in places like Florida
Speaker 1: start to move south and to stay there year round.
Speaker 1: So the South gets a massive influx of older conservative voters,
Speaker 1: voters who would remake the political landscape over the next
Speaker 1: two decades, culminating with a landmark presidential election in nineteen
Speaker 1: eight President Carter, told by his poster Pat Cadell that
Speaker 1: it is all over, reportedly is preparing to concede defeat
Speaker 1: to Ronald Reagan in the nineteen eighty presidential election. When
Speaker 1: Democrat Jimmy Carter was elected president in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: he swept the southeastern United States, including Texas and Florida.
Speaker 1: Four years later, against Ronald Reagan, Carter won only his
Speaker 1: home state of Georgia and lost several other states like Mississippi, Alabama,
Speaker 1: and South Carolina by extremely narrow margins. It's quite possible
Speaker 1: that the growing power of Reagan and the Republicans in
Speaker 1: the eighties was um fostered by this movement of people
Speaker 1: from the North to the south. Air Conditioning may also
Speaker 1: have had a hand in another important election, the one
Speaker 1: in two thousand between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat
Speaker 1: Al Gore. If all the states had gone red or
Speaker 1: blue the way they actually did in two thousand. But
Speaker 1: if they had had the distribution of electoral votes that
Speaker 1: we had had back in nineteen sixty before the migration,
Speaker 1: then Gore would have won the electoral vote and therefore
Speaker 1: the presidency. Forget the death of John F. Kennedy or
Speaker 1: even the Iran hostage crisis that crippled President Carter. You
Speaker 1: could argue that air conditioning was the worst thing to
Speaker 1: happen politically to the Democratic Party in the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: But a c is not done shifting the American political landscape.
Speaker 1: There's a new type of Southern migration underway in the
Speaker 1: United States, one that should put fear into the hearts
Speaker 1: of Republicans. Ever since air condition helped grow cities like
Speaker 1: Phoenix during the nineteen fifties and sixties, Arizona has been
Speaker 1: a reliably Republican state. But that is changing. Nathan Sprul again, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Democrats definitely performed better in twenty than most uh
Speaker 1: political observers in Arizona thought possible. Sprul knows what he's
Speaker 1: talking about. For years, he was the executive director of
Speaker 1: the state's Republican Party. For a long time, many in
Speaker 1: Arizona assumed that the state's growing number of Democrats was
Speaker 1: driven by its growing Hispanic population. But what we realized
Speaker 1: about midway through this decade was an Arizona was beginning
Speaker 1: to pivot a little bit. But it wasn't because of
Speaker 1: the Hispanic growth. It was because Arizona was developing, especially
Speaker 1: American County of the Phoenix area, m such a successful economy.
Speaker 1: For years, Arizona's Republican leaders had worked to diversify the
Speaker 1: state's economy and make it more welcoming to companies from
Speaker 1: out of state, and it worked, perhaps too well. The
Speaker 1: unintended consequence of that, though, is that you bring in
Speaker 1: a lot of workers from California, a lot of workers
Speaker 1: from Colorado, a lot of workers from the East Coast
Speaker 1: that have more Democrats leaning tendencies politically, and may come
Speaker 1: to occupy the job because their company just moved to Phoenix,
Speaker 1: Arizona to make set up its corporate headquarters. And so
Speaker 1: Arizona is an unintended consequence of its business diversification has
Speaker 1: also had a political diversification. As a result, Arizona today
Speaker 1: has a lot more young, urban and suburban white voters
Speaker 1: who tend to lean Democratic, especially on social issues. Arizona
Speaker 1: is likely to become UH for the next work from
Speaker 1: the foreseeable future, a state that when it comes to
Speaker 1: the U. S. Sen and the presidential campaign, is going
Speaker 1: to be a battleground state for both parties. Both parties
Speaker 1: are going to assume that they have a legitimate chance
Speaker 1: to win it UH, and that wasn't the case seven
Speaker 1: eight years ago. Arizona's trajectory is indicative of a wider trend,
Speaker 1: a trend still powered by air conditioning. Last year, We'll
Speaker 1: go down in History, is the second hottest year on
Speaker 1: record in the United States, and yet people continue to
Speaker 1: migrate south to warmer climates in the American Sun Belt,
Speaker 1: to places like Arizona and, perhaps even more importantly for
Speaker 1: the political map, Texas. As of July one last year,
Speaker 1: more than three and a half million people had packed
Speaker 1: their magazine headed to the lone Star state since two
Speaker 1: thousand ten. That's the most growth over any other state.
Speaker 1: Florida and California follow behind, and that movement continues to
Speaker 1: have political consequences. Isn't just a presidential election year, It's
Speaker 1: also a census year, and this is what is going
Speaker 1: to determine how many electoral votes each state gets and
Speaker 1: we already have a pretty good sense of where things
Speaker 1: are headed. Census may have been delayed by the coronavirus,
Speaker 1: but early forecasts from the Census Bureau suggests that several
Speaker 1: Sun Belt states like California, Arizona, Florida, and Texas will
Speaker 1: gain House seats in electoral votes, with Texas likely to
Speaker 1: be the biggest winner with a net gain of three.
Speaker 1: Texas maybe a red Republican leaning state right now. But
Speaker 1: here's the interesting thing. The current Sun Belt migration, as
Speaker 1: Nathan Sprule points out in Arizona, is much different than
Speaker 1: the one that took place half a century ago. Today's
Speaker 1: migrants are not older conservatives. They are young liberal millennials
Speaker 1: in their twenties and thirties who are fleeing northern cities
Speaker 1: for southern metro areas like Dallas, Phoenix, and Atlanta. Many
Speaker 1: demographers predict that we should expect states like Arizona and
Speaker 1: Texas to get increasingly purple and eventually blue. As a result.
Speaker 1: That could be a game changer for Democrats. If Texas
Speaker 1: isn't play, it would mean not only a new political map,
Speaker 1: but the whole political mound. So what did we learned today?
Speaker 1: Number one? A quick list of things that would not
Speaker 1: be possible without air conditioning, skyscrapers Phoenix, a large federal
Speaker 1: bureaucracy in d C and southern Swing states. Two, we
Speaker 1: should really have at least one monument in d C
Speaker 1: devoted to Willis Carrier, the inventor of a C. And finally,
Speaker 1: members of Congress routinely wilted from the heat of the
Speaker 1: oven that was once the US Capitol Building. Maybe things
Speaker 1: will get better for all of us if we turned
Speaker 1: off the A C in the building for a while
Speaker 1: and let them stew a bit. Flashback is written and
Speaker 1: hosted by me Sean Braswell, senior writer and executive producer
Speaker 1: at Azzi. He was produced by Robert Coulos, Tracy barram
Speaker 1: Orio Digiza, and Shannon Williamson. Chris Hoff engineered our show
Speaker 1: special thanks to the crew at I Heart Radio podcast Networks,
Speaker 1: especially Sophie Lichtman and Jack O'Brien. Make sure to subscribe
Speaker 1: to Flashback on the I Heart Radio app or listen
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Flashback is the latest podcast
Speaker 1: from Azzi, a modern media company producing original TV series, festivals,
Speaker 1: news and podcasts for curious people. Auzy's unique storytelling focuses
Speaker 1: on the new and the next, whether that's forward looking
Speaker 1: news and features, bold new perspectives on TV, or brand
Speaker 1: new ways of looking at history. The Obama administration worked
Speaker 1: out a brand new air conditioning system for the West Wing.
Speaker 1: And it was so good before they did the system.
Speaker 1: Now that they did the system, it's freezing or hot
Speaker 1: in hair. And speaking of presidents and air conditioning, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump has not been the only president to suffer from
Speaker 1: the effects of Washington's climate. Zachary Taylor died as a
Speaker 1: result of it. On the fourth of July in the
Speaker 1: year eighteen fifty. Taylor attended a ceremony to commemorate the
Speaker 1: newly begun Washington Monument. The president sat in full sunlight
Speaker 1: for two hours in a black suit. He became so
Speaker 1: overheated that he drank a whole picture of ice milk
Speaker 1: to try to stay cool. A few days later, he
Speaker 1: died from a resulting digestive ailment. To dive deeper, head
Speaker 1: to Aussie dot com slash flashback. That's o z Y
Speaker 1: dot com slash flashback. There you can find more of
Speaker 1: my lecture notes from today's episode, featuring extended interviews links
Speaker 1: to further reading and more information on the unintended consequences
Speaker 1: of air conditioning, as well as links to other stories
Speaker 1: from history uncovered by me and other reporters at Aussie.
Speaker 1: Please be sure to support Flashback by rating and leaving
Speaker 1: a review for us right here in your podcast app,
Speaker 1: and remember to answer this question about next week's episode
Speaker 1: for a chance to win a shout out. What event
Speaker 1: helped lead to billions and extra revenue for the nba
Speaker 1: A Take your best guests and leave it as a
Speaker 1: comment in your podcast app along with your five star review.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. We all need a break from the
Speaker 1: constant cycle to learn something new, to gain new perspectives.
Speaker 1: The Great Courses Plus streaming service is an excellent resource
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