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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of five

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Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Josh Bluie Clark. There's Charles W. Bam Bam Bryant

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Speaker 1: and Jerry Radioactive Rolling. Oh boy, and this is stuff

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Speaker 1: you should know. You still got it after all these years,

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Speaker 1: you still got it. Yep. Hey, I think before we

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Speaker 1: get going, we should talk very briefly about our audiobook.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because this week, in real time, we are

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Speaker 1: each recording our respective parts for the audio book. And

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Speaker 1: first of all, we just want to tell everyone there's

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Speaker 1: going to be an audiobook version. Yeah, spoiler of Stuff

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Speaker 1: you should know, colon and mostly incomplete guide two very

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Speaker 1: interesting things man still an income compendium of mostly interesting things.

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Speaker 1: Uh yeah, so we're we're trying to push that out

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Speaker 1: as uh, you know, get both, is what I say.

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Speaker 1: But if you're into audio books, we're doing one. But

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Speaker 1: also I just want to make sure people know what

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Speaker 1: they're getting. And I put this on the Stuff you

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Speaker 1: Should Know Army page. They're not getting twenty seven new

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Speaker 1: podcast episodes, no, and they should know that because our

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Speaker 1: podcast is unscripted conversation. An audiobook is us reading an

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Speaker 1: audiobook and rather than just weirdly trading lines reading from

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Speaker 1: a script, which would I think that would dash a

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Speaker 1: lot of people's image of of what we do. We

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Speaker 1: are each reading chapters and I think they're gonna mix

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Speaker 1: in some stuff here and there. But um, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean it's gonna be great and fun. But it's not

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Speaker 1: podcast episodes. We don't get to just fart around and

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Speaker 1: make jokes like we gotta read our books we have.

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Speaker 1: Oh man, we will be kept in line. If we

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Speaker 1: try to fart around and make jokes, it would not

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Speaker 1: be good. There's this whole time as money etho, yelling,

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Speaker 1: sometimes crying. It's a real stressful situation. Everybody, How did

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Speaker 1: you had that go for yesterday? Did you enjoy yourself?

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Speaker 1: I just told you there's a lot of yelling and crying.

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Speaker 1: It was very stressful. Yeah, it was fun. It was.

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Speaker 1: It reminded me a lot of recording um The End

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Speaker 1: of the World, because you know, I wrote those and

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Speaker 1: then I read them, So it was very similar to that,

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Speaker 1: except um a lot less heavy. Yeah. I was slightly

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Speaker 1: nervous at first for some reason after talking for twelve years,

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Speaker 1: probably just because you weren't there, But then it was like, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know it was it was fine. Did Fleet the

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Speaker 1: director calm you make you feel better? Yeah? I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, I got I got in my group. I

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Speaker 1: felt pretty pretty comfy by the end of it. Yeah, So,

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Speaker 1: I mean it has it is fun. It's definitely a

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Speaker 1: lot of extra work this week, but it's kind of cool.

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Speaker 1: You know, at the end, we're gonna have a bona

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Speaker 1: fide audio book. That's right in, a bonafide book that

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Speaker 1: you can pre order now. And uh, we're also working

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Speaker 1: on getting that pre order gift available to the UK

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Speaker 1: and Australia and other parts of the world because we

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Speaker 1: have different publishers there. It's not like we were trying

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Speaker 1: to exclude everyone, no, no, but we are moving heaven

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Speaker 1: Earth to get it done. And yeah, if you're in

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Speaker 1: the US and Canada and your pre order, if you

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Speaker 1: haven't gotten your poster yet, worry not. You're going to

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Speaker 1: get your pre order gift eventually. That's right. Wow. So

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Speaker 1: um for the fifteen seventeen people who stuck around prepared

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Speaker 1: to learn about fallout shelters, because that's ultimately what we're

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Speaker 1: here to talk about today, that's right. Actually, before that,

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Speaker 1: I have to say one more thing, O, God, I

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Speaker 1: posted that squirrel attack video on my Instagram, you know

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Speaker 1: that we talked about on the episode because people kept

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Speaker 1: asking and so I put it up. I'm at Chuck

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Speaker 1: the podcaster. If you want to see a squirrel go

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Speaker 1: berserk and literally fly through the air and hit me

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Speaker 1: in the leg, then you can. You can see that.

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Speaker 1: And it's been like fifteen thousand times. Now, one of

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Speaker 1: these days, I hope you'll infest up to what you

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Speaker 1: did to provoke that squirrel. I mean, the whole thing

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Speaker 1: is there. You see me exit my house, so yeah,

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Speaker 1: but I mean we didn't know like what happened half

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Speaker 1: hour before. You know, that had been ongoing for the

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Speaker 1: last week. That's so now I think we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about fallout shelters because Chuck Um, your house has

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Speaker 1: a basement, but it's exposed on one side to the outdoors.

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Speaker 1: It's not an in ground basement as far as I know,

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Speaker 1: and hopefully I'm not divulging too much information about your house,

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Speaker 1: so so weird fans will be able to find it

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Speaker 1: and show up. Well, actually, you know, one side of

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Speaker 1: it is exposed to the world, but the other side

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Speaker 1: is you know, ten feet of earth and red clay,

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Speaker 1: like it could have been a great fallout shelter had

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Speaker 1: it not been for that one side. Sure, but there

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Speaker 1: are things you could do or could have done. I

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Speaker 1: think we should use past tents here, because the need

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Speaker 1: for a fallout shelter, as far as the nuclear war

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Speaker 1: goes vanishingly remote these days. I like to think, I

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Speaker 1: don't think should getting any fear mongering. Um, but there

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Speaker 1: are a few things you could have done or could

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Speaker 1: do to build the follow up shelter with that. That

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Speaker 1: that good side, I guess, and we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about that today. But mainly what we're talking about the

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Speaker 1: followup shelters is almost kind of like this examination of

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Speaker 1: the world psyche during the Cold War, to where as

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Speaker 1: the nuclear arsenals of the Soviet Union in the United

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Speaker 1: States started to build up in step with one another,

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Speaker 1: and we were suddenly in a nuclear arms race where

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Speaker 1: just ten years before there were no such thing as

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Speaker 1: nuclear weapons, people started to realize like, oh man, if

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Speaker 1: one of these goes off near me, I'm in big trouble.

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Speaker 1: And they started looking around to the government to say, hey, um,

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Speaker 1: what should I do? And at first the government was

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Speaker 1: like you know, figure it out yourself. And then eventually

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Speaker 1: the government kind of got a little more involved, and

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Speaker 1: before you know it, we had a national fallout shelter program.

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Speaker 1: As feeble and terrible as it was, at least we

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Speaker 1: had one. Yeah. What's really funny is when you read

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Speaker 1: up on this stuff and you learn that President Kennedy,

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Speaker 1: uh John F. Kennedy, that is, asked Congress for a

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Speaker 1: hundred million dollars to build public fallout shelters. That is

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Speaker 1: such an adorable number. Now that would build like tin

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Speaker 1: fallout shelters these days, maybe like that's maybe that's like

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Speaker 1: the amount of money that would take to get like

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Speaker 1: a motorcade to the cap right from the White House basically,

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Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, but it was a real threat back then. Um,

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Speaker 1: and I can't remember what episode it may have been,

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Speaker 1: Uh nuclear radiation. Uh we did one on the disaster

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Speaker 1: in Japan. Yeah, we've done a couple on this. But

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Speaker 1: I know that I told the story of my father

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Speaker 1: like having us sort of do of a fallout shelter

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Speaker 1: when I was ten or twelve years old after the

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Speaker 1: movie the day after aired on television, And yeah, I

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Speaker 1: remember that. Yeah, I mean, you know, it was my

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Speaker 1: brother and I taking out digging out buckets of dirt

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Speaker 1: and carrying them out in the woods and dumping them

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Speaker 1: for probably three or four weekends and then we stopped.

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Speaker 1: So you guys were coverage if something happened, Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean we could have. Yeah, it was pretty gross. So

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Speaker 1: was it akin to this, um this this shelter that

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Speaker 1: we were going to go over at the end? Was

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Speaker 1: it like that? Well, I mean it eventually could have been,

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Speaker 1: which is to say, a you know, kind of a

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Speaker 1: concrete room underground surrounded by earth. Oh yeah, no, I'm

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Speaker 1: saying like the kind where it's like you dig a

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Speaker 1: trench and put some woodpoles. This is part of um

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Speaker 1: my basement. Like my dad had a workshop and on

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Speaker 1: the interior wall of the workshop he knocked down the

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Speaker 1: cinder block wall and we just started digging, which I'm

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Speaker 1: safe to the foundation of the house, right, He's like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's probably not low bearing. Yeah, exactly. But yeah. There

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Speaker 1: was definitely a point in time, especially during the height

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Speaker 1: of the Cold War, where it was like this is

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Speaker 1: this is We're really in danger here. The world was

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Speaker 1: just kind of walking around just twitching and shaking at

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Speaker 1: the idea of this and part of the problem was

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Speaker 1: not just the idea that um a bomb was going

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Speaker 1: to go off and just blow cities apart, because apparently

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Speaker 1: there was this UM one of the nuclear deterrent theories,

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Speaker 1: the game theories that that people kind of operated under.

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Speaker 1: UM said, no, you know what, if we ever engage

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Speaker 1: in nuclear war, UM, we're just going to be attacking

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Speaker 1: military installations side to side, and so we don't really

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Speaker 1: have to worry about that for people in New York

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Speaker 1: or d C. Or you know, Atlanta, wherever, any of

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Speaker 1: the major metropolitan cities. We have to worry about those

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Speaker 1: cities getting leveled. But there's gonna be a huge problem

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Speaker 1: for the people living there because there's such a thing

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Speaker 1: as radioactive fallout. It's not just the bomb that gets you,

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Speaker 1: it's the fallout afterward. Yeah, I mean, if you're talking

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Speaker 1: about a nuclear bomb, a nuclear warhead, uh to pends

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Speaker 1: on what kind um. You know, back then it was,

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Speaker 1: it was different than it is now. But let's say

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Speaker 1: a one megaton h bomb back in the day would

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Speaker 1: completely wipe out everything within about two miles from where

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Speaker 1: I hit. Yeah, and I know I said, we weren't

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Speaker 1: in a fearmonger Chuck but I found out that there

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Speaker 1: is a bomb in the U s Arsenal called the

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Speaker 1: B A D three which is one point to megatunts

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Speaker 1: and it can be carried around very easily by the

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Speaker 1: B two bomber. So those exists. Uh so two miles

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Speaker 1: everything is gone. Um and this is from the blast

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Speaker 1: and a person if you're like five miles away from

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Speaker 1: that bomb site, you're gonna get hit with third degree

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Speaker 1: burns just from that blast. Yeah, you're gonna be hate

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Speaker 1: in life. Um. So the blast is going to be

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Speaker 1: bad enough. And and again yet just for from for

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Speaker 1: people miles away could be burned to death, um, incinerated, vaporized,

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Speaker 1: just all sorts of terrible stuff. But if you're living

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Speaker 1: outside of that blast zone, you've got problems in the

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Speaker 1: radioactivity that's going to to be generated by it. Because

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Speaker 1: when those bombs explode, they release a lot of radioactive

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Speaker 1: particles of different varieties, and those things go up in

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Speaker 1: the air and they get kind of carried around and

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Speaker 1: stirred up in the atmosphere, but a lot of them

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Speaker 1: are heavy enough that they come back down and basically

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Speaker 1: around the area in a larger area around the bomb's epicenter. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and we should probably just go over some of these

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Speaker 1: different types of radiation. Some of it you might recognize

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Speaker 1: from various incredible Hulk comic books. But you've got your

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Speaker 1: alpha particles, your beta particles, you've got gamma raise, you've

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Speaker 1: got neutrons. The gamma rais is what got Hulk, right,

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Speaker 1: I think so? Right, Yeah, I'm pretty sure because gamma

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Speaker 1: rays are green and Hulk was green. That's right. I

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Speaker 1: think that's it. And the other sweet sweet purple pants

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Speaker 1: that somehow still fit. So the alpha and beta particles,

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Speaker 1: they are not great, but they are easily stopped. It's

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Speaker 1: probably the best way to say it. Yeah, So here's

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Speaker 1: the thing, Like every everything I tried to read about

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Speaker 1: this is like they would go to great links to

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Speaker 1: be like, well, this one isn't isn't like that much

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Speaker 1: of a problem. This one's way worse, And then finally

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Speaker 1: they throw up their hands and be like, actually, all

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Speaker 1: of this is just gonna be one big giant cluster

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Speaker 1: because depending on the different type of radioactive particle um,

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Speaker 1: there's different situations where they're way worse than the other one.

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Speaker 1: Like a gamma ray is really bad because it can

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Speaker 1: go clear through several inches of lead right into you

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Speaker 1: on the other side of the lead through your body,

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Speaker 1: and then everything it comes in contact with, say all

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Speaker 1: of your cells and tissues and bones and all that stuff.

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Speaker 1: It really screws them up genetically, and you can develop

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Speaker 1: cancer and radiation sickness and all that. That's pretty bad.

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Speaker 1: But then you've got alpha particles where they can be

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Speaker 1: stopped by a piece of paper. They can't even make

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Speaker 1: it through your skin, but they could get all over

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Speaker 1: like crops in the water, and we drink them and

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Speaker 1: eat them, and then they cause all sorts of sorts

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Speaker 1: of problems inside of too. So there's really no good

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Speaker 1: radioactive particle as far as a fallout from a nuclear

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Speaker 1: bomb is concerned. Yeah, not at all. Because so don't

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Speaker 1: you know if you read up on this stuff and

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Speaker 1: it said, oh, a piece of paper, a little bit

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Speaker 1: of plastic, you can stop beta particles and alpha particles.

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Speaker 1: Just think about the area breathing, the water you're drinking,

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Speaker 1: the the maze you're growing. Sure, if you want to

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Speaker 1: get traditional, it's all very dangerous. Yeah, don't just be like, oh,

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Speaker 1: let's make a paper suit out of newspapers and maybe

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Speaker 1: a little paper tried corner and hat out of newspapers.

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Speaker 1: I'll be fine. But like you said, when this bomb hits,

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Speaker 1: that mushroom cloud goes up. Everything's all mixed together and

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Speaker 1: as the wind blows these little uh. I think John

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Speaker 1: Fuller old pal wrote this one a long time ago,

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Speaker 1: right for how stuff works. But he said there are

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Speaker 1: lots of little there. They act like little tiny missiles

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Speaker 1: basically that are just going off all over the place. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: That was the neutrons, right, I yeah, I think the

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Speaker 1: neutrons specific he called the missiles, but they kind of

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Speaker 1: all are. Yeah, they are there. They're super high energy

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Speaker 1: and gamma rays um. Like I said, they can pass

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Speaker 1: right through you. Neutrons are a problem in the relative

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Speaker 1: immediate blast area because they're very heavy, so they don't

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Speaker 1: go nearly as far as they like gamma rays or

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Speaker 1: X rays or alpha particles or beta particles. But they

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Speaker 1: all do damage in their own unique, special snowflake way. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And it's also I mean, this stuff is being carried

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Speaker 1: around by um the wind, but the actual particles that

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Speaker 1: you're seeing is is actually Earth that is now enriched

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Speaker 1: with this stuff that is poofed up from that crater

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Speaker 1: where Earth Earth used to be. I guess right, and

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Speaker 1: so knowing all this like this was this is like

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Speaker 1: why people started to be like, oh, okay, maybe we

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Speaker 1: should start building fallout shelters to to live in or

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Speaker 1: inhabit for you know, the immediate period after this this

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Speaker 1: nuclear attack, UM, to give us a chance to survive

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Speaker 1: and hopefully, you know, make it a few weeks, and

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Speaker 1: then things will have died down, everybody has forgotten about

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Speaker 1: the whole nuclear holocaust, and we can come back out

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Speaker 1: and restart civilization. That was the really, honestly, if you

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Speaker 1: get down to it, um, the thinking behind fallout shelters

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Speaker 1: in the United States and the sixties and late fifties.

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Speaker 1: All right, should we take a break there and then

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Speaker 1: talk about these things? I think so some more. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: all right, we'll be right back everyone, So chuck, I think, um,

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Speaker 1: since we've got one act under our belt, we need

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Speaker 1: to start the second act by telling everybody they can

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Speaker 1: preorder our book. Hey, I took some vitamins. You know,

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Speaker 1: I've been taking vitamins as much as I can, and

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Speaker 1: I've got this multi vitamin you know, like the worst

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Speaker 1: of vitamin can taste. I've got that horrible vitamin taste

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Speaker 1: just stuck in the back of my throat because it

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Speaker 1: got stuck there for half of a millisecond before it

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Speaker 1: washed down, and it's just left this terrible taste of

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Speaker 1: vitamin coding back there. It's driving me batty. How how

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Speaker 1: is your health with the vitamins? Can you tell a difference? No? None?

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Speaker 1: How's your pa? How's your urine? It's bright yellow? Which

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Speaker 1: makes me just feel like such a chump, especially after

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Speaker 1: our our vitamin supplement episode. Right, didn't we say like

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Speaker 1: we pee most of it out? Yeah, there's good ones

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Speaker 1: for sure, and I like the thing I'm taking go ones,

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Speaker 1: but I just know that there's no telling right now.

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Speaker 1: You're like, I'm using injectables now, pretty much snortable vitamins.

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Speaker 1: So fallout shelters. Uh, it's funny here and and I'm

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Speaker 1: glad John put it this way because it really makes

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Speaker 1: a lot of sense. If you think about an SPF

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Speaker 1: for sunscreen, it's a aim exact way with a fallout shelter.

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Speaker 1: You have a PF, a protection factor, and that is

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Speaker 1: just very simply a representative of UM being nfl out

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Speaker 1: shelter or just being out in the open. And FEMA

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Speaker 1: put out a pamphlet called standards for fallout shelters, and

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Speaker 1: they said you need a PF of forty at least, yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you want to, you know, and that that puts

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Speaker 1: you down to about two point five of the radiation.

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Speaker 1: Which I heard that number and I thought that was

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Speaker 1: too much. Yeah, no, I think, um, what you're really

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Speaker 1: shooting for is something like three hundred that kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: Um that and they're saying like a minimum of forty

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Speaker 1: or else, just you might as well just go lay

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Speaker 1: out in the in the radioactivity for all the protection

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Speaker 1: you're gonna get. Another way to look at that PF

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Speaker 1: numbers that it's the denominator and the fraction of the

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Speaker 1: radioactive exposure that you get compared to being outside of

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Speaker 1: the shelter. So a PF of forty would mean that

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Speaker 1: you get on. I'm more of a action guy than

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Speaker 1: a decimal dude. Oh yeah, how about two? You you

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Speaker 1: like decimals are fractions more? I don't like either one.

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Speaker 1: But I think for our next live show in two

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Speaker 1: you should wear a shirt that says fraction guy, and

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Speaker 1: I'll have one that says decimal dude, and that'll just

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Speaker 1: be our new tour outfit. Fair enough, and you can

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Speaker 1: have yours printed on a button down shirt. Of course. Okay,

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Speaker 1: that's yeah, because nothing looks better than good silk screening

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Speaker 1: on a button down Oxford. Maybe by the time we

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Speaker 1: go on tour again, this horrible vitamin taste will be

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Speaker 1: out of my mouth. Maybe. So so with fallout shelters,

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Speaker 1: there's a couple of kinds. Um if you're going back

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Speaker 1: to the nineteen sixties that people were talking about, and

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Speaker 1: that is the public one and then the private one

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Speaker 1: that you just build at your house like we kind

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Speaker 1: of didn't do. Um, I went down a bit of

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Speaker 1: a rabbit hole. It's and this is be right up

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Speaker 1: your alley. You probably did. This rabbit hole is pretty safe.

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Speaker 1: I bet yeah, depends on how deep I guess. But

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Speaker 1: if you start googling sixties fallout shelters, oh and I did.

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Speaker 1: Oh boy, it's just a treasure trove of articles and pictures. Um.

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Speaker 1: I saw one that these people in Woodland Hills, a

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Speaker 1: suburb of l A bought or part of Greater Los Angeles,

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Speaker 1: bought a house not too long ago, a few years ago,

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Speaker 1: and they found a did you see this one? No?

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Speaker 1: I saw some of Milwaukee this. Oh well, I saw

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Speaker 1: the Milwaukee Article two. That was great. But they found

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Speaker 1: a fifteen foot down under the earth fallout shelter that

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Speaker 1: was fully stopped, like it was like a time capsule

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Speaker 1: from and Brendan Fraser and Christopher Walkin. We're living in it.

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Speaker 1: I can't remember who the mom was. Do you remember

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Speaker 1: I didn't see that? You didn't know? It was cute movie? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Is that in cine? No? Man, no, no, no, this

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Speaker 1: was blast from the past. Man was great too because

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Speaker 1: the weasels in it? Oh was he? Yeah, Pauly Shure, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I knew it. That is, I just didn't Polly Shore,

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Speaker 1: Seawan Austin and Brendan, Sean Auston whatever. That guys rich enough,

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Speaker 1: he doesn't care what I say. So I was looking

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Speaker 1: at all these nineteen sixty one period products and just

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Speaker 1: like getting tingly feelings in my body because they were

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Speaker 1: perfectly preserved for the most part, like faded and stuff.

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Speaker 1: But there was a can like a coffee can, but

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Speaker 1: it said multipurpose food Meals for Millions, and so I

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Speaker 1: was like, I gotta find out what this is. And

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Speaker 1: it turns out that Meals for Millions was a nonprofit

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Speaker 1: from way back then. That is now UM International. Now

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Speaker 1: now it's it's it's it's transformed into another name. These days,

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Speaker 1: I think Freedom from Hunger is the new name. But

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Speaker 1: these two guys, Clifford Clinton and Dr Henry Borsuk, took

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Speaker 1: on this task of Borsok was a biochemist at cal Tech,

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Speaker 1: and they took on this project of trying to find

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Speaker 1: the best food to feed, like the cheapest, absolute, most

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Speaker 1: bare bones thing you could put in a package to

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Speaker 1: feed the hungry. And that's what they came up with,

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Speaker 1: was this stuff in a can and it is uh

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Speaker 1: sixty defadded soy grits plus dehydrated potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes, onions, leaks, parsley,

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Speaker 1: and spices, fortified with vitamins and minerals and it comes

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Speaker 1: in a can and you boil it up and eat it.

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Speaker 1: And it was something like two cents per serving. And

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Speaker 1: it was a really ingenious idea. But this became I think,

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Speaker 1: kind of a popular thing for fallout shelters because you

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Speaker 1: could just stop cans and cans of this, like the

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Speaker 1: most bare bones, caloric sort of healthy thing you could

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Speaker 1: get meals for millions. That's pretty great. I did not

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Speaker 1: expect it to actually be as healthy as what you

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Speaker 1: just listed listed off. Yeah, I would love to taste

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Speaker 1: some of it. Multi purpose of wood hills, I know,

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Speaker 1: just call it food, what do you multi purpose food?

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Speaker 1: Is that like a palmaide as well? Maybe One of

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Speaker 1: a food that I ran across um that was pretty popular,

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Speaker 1: especially among government funded fallout shelters, was this kind of

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Speaker 1: like wheat cracker that was made from vulgar wheat, and

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Speaker 1: apparently they were inspired by some crackers that were found

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Speaker 1: in Egyptian tombs that were still edible after a couple

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Speaker 1: of thousand years. So they're like, oh, that would be

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Speaker 1: perfect for fallout shelters, so they kind of recreated those taste. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: multi purpose. Apparently you could shave with them too, you

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Speaker 1: might good. The Milwaukee article was pretty cool though, Um.

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Speaker 1: I think that it said that, um, at the time,

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Speaker 1: they were like three thousand plus personal shelters in the

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Speaker 1: city of Milwaukee alone. Yeah. The thing is is, like,

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Speaker 1: that's that's probably a pretty good number. The thing is,

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Speaker 1: there's no official numbers for the fallout shelters that were

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Speaker 1: built around the Cold War because there were a lot

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Speaker 1: of public or private ones. But there's also public ones too,

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Speaker 1: So let's keep talking about the private ones first, because

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Speaker 1: if we're gonna follow the historical timeline, which I'm in

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Speaker 1: favor of, UM around I think the late nineteen fifties,

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Speaker 1: I think it was nineteen fifty seven in the Eisenhower administration,

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Speaker 1: there was a report that's now called the Gaither Report,

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Speaker 1: and it basically said, um, here's everything we figured out

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Speaker 1: about a nuclear war. Um, the cities are toasts. People

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Speaker 1: are going to die on mass we have no place

400
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Speaker 1: to put them, for them to shelter in. And everybody's

401
00:22:37,040 --> 00:22:39,560
Speaker 1: in a lot of trouble if there is a nuclear war.

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Speaker 1: So really the best thing we need to focus on

403
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Speaker 1: is to prevent a nuclear war from happening. Well, that

404
00:22:45,800 --> 00:22:48,600
Speaker 1: leaked out and people said, well, what are we gonna do?

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Speaker 1: And this is when the government was like, I don't know,

406
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Speaker 1: once you build some some shelters and leave us alone.

407
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Speaker 1: And so people started doing that and it became like

408
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Speaker 1: a huge craze, and so UM shelters in places like

409
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Speaker 1: that home in Woodland Hills or that one in Milwaukee,

410
00:23:03,880 --> 00:23:06,439
Speaker 1: UM that are still around today. In some cases that

411
00:23:06,520 --> 00:23:10,359
Speaker 1: became like a big deal, like um uh, like adding

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Speaker 1: like a really nice swimming pool, or adding like a

413
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Speaker 1: rec room or something like that. People turned to fallout

414
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Speaker 1: shelters and they started building them like crazy. Yeah, And

415
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Speaker 1: and from that Milwaukee I think it was in Milwaukee

416
00:23:24,680 --> 00:23:27,720
Speaker 1: was the name of the website. But from what they

417
00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:31,119
Speaker 1: said was they were being marketed, um as sort of

418
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Speaker 1: multi purpose wreck rooms that in case the s goes down,

419
00:23:36,280 --> 00:23:40,520
Speaker 1: it's conveniently um you know, lined with concrete and you

420
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Speaker 1: could just sort of easily convert it. And I guess

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Speaker 1: you would have some stuff stash there in either a

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Speaker 1: closet or in in bins or something. And when you're

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Speaker 1: not using you know, when there's no nuclear disaster, you're

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Speaker 1: just using it as sort of a playroom or something. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there was some decorators show in Chicago in the late

426
00:23:58,200 --> 00:24:00,479
Speaker 1: fifties I think, and they build this thing is the

427
00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:03,719
Speaker 1: Living or the Family Room of Tomorrow, where it was

428
00:24:03,800 --> 00:24:06,680
Speaker 1: exactly what you described. It was like a normal functioning

429
00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:08,919
Speaker 1: family room, but it just happened to be in a

430
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:14,480
Speaker 1: basement in like foot thick concrete encased under the dirt. Yeah.

431
00:24:14,640 --> 00:24:16,800
Speaker 1: I remember seeing when I was a kid, my brother

432
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:20,119
Speaker 1: and I did lots of sort of I mean, I

433
00:24:20,119 --> 00:24:24,200
Speaker 1: guess it was an urban exploring but trespassing suburban exploring,

434
00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:28,199
Speaker 1: and I remember a couple of distinct times that we

435
00:24:28,320 --> 00:24:32,040
Speaker 1: saw event pipes just coming out of the earth in

436
00:24:32,119 --> 00:24:35,840
Speaker 1: the forest and we never saw any entry way or

437
00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:39,000
Speaker 1: anything like that. But that had to be some sort

438
00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:42,520
Speaker 1: of fallout shelter. I think, yeah, probably. I mean we

439
00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:45,879
Speaker 1: were near homes, but not like in the yard. We'd

440
00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 1: come across a couple of them in our various expeditions,

441
00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:53,160
Speaker 1: like you know, just a clearly event pipe just coming

442
00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:55,880
Speaker 1: out of the woodland forest. So yeah, I'm sure that's

443
00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:58,879
Speaker 1: exactly what it was. I hope. Yeah. Well we didn't

444
00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:00,920
Speaker 1: dig around if not. Have you ever seen that Hugh

445
00:25:01,040 --> 00:25:06,560
Speaker 1: Jackman movie where like his wife is kidnap prisoners. Yeah? Man,

446
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:13,000
Speaker 1: that was really good. I'm really good. Yeah, great movie. So, Um,

447
00:25:13,040 --> 00:25:15,040
Speaker 1: that's what's his face is doing the New Dune movie,

448
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 1: didn't Evellaneus? Oh? Well, there you go. That's why it

449
00:25:18,359 --> 00:25:23,120
Speaker 1: was so good. Yeah, he's he's a master. Um. I'm sorry, Chuck,

450
00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:26,040
Speaker 1: I just can't not correct you. His name is Dennis

451
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:35,240
Speaker 1: Dennis Villanov. I'm sorry. So, um I was kidding. Anyway, Um,

452
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:38,560
Speaker 1: there was the private fallout shelter trend that just blew

453
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:42,040
Speaker 1: up and became a thing, and then UM in nineteen

454
00:25:42,160 --> 00:25:46,640
Speaker 1: sixty one, President Kennedy sent a letter out. I'm surely

455
00:25:46,680 --> 00:25:49,080
Speaker 1: it went out to more than just this, but there

456
00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:51,680
Speaker 1: if you were a Life magazine subscriber, which was pretty

457
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:57,119
Speaker 1: substantial back in UM, in the September fifteenth edition, you

458
00:25:57,200 --> 00:26:01,520
Speaker 1: got a letter from President Kennedy basically saying like, hey,

459
00:26:01,600 --> 00:26:05,280
Speaker 1: you know this whole possibility of nuclear war thing, Well,

460
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:07,720
Speaker 1: we've decided we're going to do something about it. We

461
00:26:07,880 --> 00:26:11,480
Speaker 1: the government, and we're going to start what's called the

462
00:26:11,600 --> 00:26:16,680
Speaker 1: National Fallout Shelter Survey. And this with the survey, basically,

463
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:19,080
Speaker 1: what we're going to do is send out government officials

464
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 1: and they're going to look at buildings all around the

465
00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 1: country and identify sites that have the potential of serving

466
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:28,520
Speaker 1: as a fallout shelter. And everyone says, well, that's great.

467
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 1: So like a fallout shelter, so if like a nuclear

468
00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:32,760
Speaker 1: bomb goes off over our city, we're gonna be saving.

469
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:36,119
Speaker 1: He's like, no, don't be ridiculous. That would cost a

470
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:39,000
Speaker 1: lot of money. Now this is going to protect you

471
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:42,919
Speaker 1: if um, if from radioactive fallout, you'll have to survive

472
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:46,399
Speaker 1: the blast, but this will this will hopefully protect you

473
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:49,320
Speaker 1: from the fallout afterward. Yeah, and you know, we kind

474
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:51,720
Speaker 1: of laugh about that, but I mean, there's no way

475
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:55,480
Speaker 1: they could have built enough like adequate shelters to protect

476
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:58,480
Speaker 1: all Americans from the blast. No, I mean there was

477
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 1: a lot of Americans apparently did look at it at first,

478
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:05,440
Speaker 1: and they could have pretended to two hundred billion in

479
00:27:05,440 --> 00:27:10,360
Speaker 1: in n another cute number. Actually they were like, oh no,

480
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:12,520
Speaker 1: that's we can't do that. We don't have that kind

481
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:14,080
Speaker 1: of money. So it was, like you said, I think

482
00:27:14,119 --> 00:27:16,520
Speaker 1: a hundred and hundred and ninety million is what they

483
00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 1: ended up spending on it, which to me seems like

484
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:20,920
Speaker 1: a lot of money to send out some people to

485
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:23,399
Speaker 1: look at buildings and decide what was a fall at

486
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 1: shelter and what wasn't. Yeah. You know what's really funny

487
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:28,639
Speaker 1: is when you look at what people did around the world,

488
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:30,760
Speaker 1: what countries did around the world, and how it's so

489
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:36,239
Speaker 1: jibes with how those countries are still today. Um, so

490
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 1: the US did what we did. The Soviets said that

491
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:44,639
Speaker 1: they built a big, extensive system and they had an

492
00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 1: advanced cooling system and all these filters protecting against everything,

493
00:27:49,320 --> 00:27:54,199
Speaker 1: and provisions food and water forever and uh, you know,

494
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:56,600
Speaker 1: this is this is the press release they put out. Basically,

495
00:27:56,680 --> 00:27:59,159
Speaker 1: who knows what really happened? Yeah, because I found that

496
00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:02,240
Speaker 1: on like Russia so Great dot com or whatever, and

497
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 1: I mean it was it was like an urban exploration

498
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 1: of like an abandoned shelter. But you know, was this

499
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:11,080
Speaker 1: just like the biggest one? How many were like that?

500
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:14,879
Speaker 1: Supposedly the Soviets boasted of a system that could protect

501
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:18,600
Speaker 1: most most of their um citizens from the blast. All right,

502
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 1: so that makes sense. Um, Sweden built sixty thousand, which

503
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:26,760
Speaker 1: covered about the population. Ts for the other thirty percent,

504
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:32,320
Speaker 1: Switzerland built enough shelters for everybody, Okay, God bless him. Uh.

505
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 1: The UK said, you know what, We're gonna build enough

506
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:38,400
Speaker 1: for our military, our government in the royal family. Yeah,

507
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 1: chin up everyone else. And then Australia said, we'll take

508
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 1: a pass. We're not gonna build any because no one's

509
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 1: gonna mess with us down here. Yeah, they're like everybody's

510
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:51,840
Speaker 1: read on the beach. Everyone knows we're fine if the

511
00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:53,680
Speaker 1: rest of the world's gone up in flame. I think

512
00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 1: they're probably right. I mean they were, they were, and

513
00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 1: especially back then. Enough off the map, uh or off

514
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:03,560
Speaker 1: the path of of the threat that they didn't even

515
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:06,040
Speaker 1: need to sweat it. Yeah, they're like, hey, what's all

516
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:10,000
Speaker 1: the all the ruck is up there? So um. But

517
00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:13,000
Speaker 1: the so the US said, Okay, we've got to do something.

518
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 1: Let's at least build these fallout shelters that are going

519
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:19,640
Speaker 1: to protect people from radio activity. Um. And so they

520
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 1: started building these um why I shouldn't say building. They

521
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 1: started going on to private property or public buildings and saying, hey,

522
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:29,479
Speaker 1: you've got a really nice basement here, Um, can you

523
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 1: take down the human skins and clean it up a

524
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:35,120
Speaker 1: little bit. We're gonna put some bulgar wheat biscuits in here,

525
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 1: we're gonna put in some multi purpose food, don't ask,

526
00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:41,840
Speaker 1: and uh, we're gonna turn this place into a fallout shelter.

527
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:44,320
Speaker 1: And on their way out, they would slap a sign,

528
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:49,280
Speaker 1: very iconic sign, which is black circle with three inverted

529
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:53,280
Speaker 1: triangles all pointing towards the center. Um that designated a

530
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 1: fallout shelter. And they did this in yellow in the

531
00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 1: event um of a like a blackout during a nuclear

532
00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 1: war something, so that you could easily see it. Yeah.

533
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:04,040
Speaker 1: Pretty cool. The company three M made these for about

534
00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 1: a penny each, and they made about four hundred thousand

535
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 1: of these signs, and they would stock these things with um,

536
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:15,880
Speaker 1: you know, like medical first aid kits, some water drums,

537
00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:19,960
Speaker 1: those crackers that you talked about that if you add water,

538
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:25,000
Speaker 1: could probably double up as like cement patch. Yeah, I guess,

539
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 1: but I think people would wrestle you to the ground

540
00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 1: if you tried to use the water for anything but

541
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:32,480
Speaker 1: drinking after, you know, in the event of this sure,

542
00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:33,960
Speaker 1: I mean, that's one thing we didn't mention. If you

543
00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:36,960
Speaker 1: go to build your own fallout shelter, um, you know

544
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:39,520
Speaker 1: you should have some food, but water obviously it's far

545
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 1: more important. We've talked about that a lot, about how

546
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 1: long the human body can go without food and water.

547
00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 1: You gotta have a lot of water. Um. I think

548
00:30:47,680 --> 00:30:50,080
Speaker 1: I would stock it up with some of that Mike's

549
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:55,800
Speaker 1: mighty good Ramen here of course, which by the way, uh,

550
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:57,920
Speaker 1: we'd be remiss if we didn't point out that they

551
00:30:57,920 --> 00:30:59,800
Speaker 1: actually sent us a coupon code for stuff you should

552
00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:02,400
Speaker 1: know this sners. Oh yeah, this this is not an ad.

553
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:05,240
Speaker 1: But they, uh we we talked about that Ramen so much.

554
00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:07,720
Speaker 1: They said, you know what, tell everyone stuff you should

555
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:11,040
Speaker 1: know twenty we'll get them off ramen. If they want

556
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:13,520
Speaker 1: to order something very nice to you write, write the

557
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 1: number twenty or right out t W E N t

558
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:19,720
Speaker 1: WA the number twenty after stuff you should know. So

559
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:22,280
Speaker 1: two zero yeah, and you can stock up your own

560
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:25,760
Speaker 1: fallout shelter. You can eat that stuff for lunch. Didn't

561
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:28,240
Speaker 1: take up a lot of room, good calories, it's multi

562
00:31:28,280 --> 00:31:30,360
Speaker 1: purpose food. You gotta eat some water for it, though,

563
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:33,960
Speaker 1: right but I mean hey, or you can collectively spit

564
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:36,240
Speaker 1: in it, I guess, and heat that up. That's grody.

565
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:39,240
Speaker 1: You're gonna get that water anyway, though, you know, because

566
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 1: you're gonna drink the juice. That's true. Uh So back

567
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:45,600
Speaker 1: to the public shelters, they have these pretty well stocked.

568
00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:48,640
Speaker 1: They said, there was an actual booklet in there that said,

569
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:51,320
Speaker 1: if you want a toilet, cut a seat out of

570
00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:53,880
Speaker 1: a chair and put a bucket under it, and there's

571
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:56,880
Speaker 1: your toilet. And so when that pamphlet came out, in

572
00:31:56,920 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 1: particular the American citizen, we said, like, for real, this

573
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:02,440
Speaker 1: is our tax dollars are doing. This is what we're

574
00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 1: getting from our government. Cut a cut a hole in

575
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:06,840
Speaker 1: the seat of a chair, and put a bucket under there.

576
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:11,040
Speaker 1: That's your advice for the nuclear war, that you're half

577
00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 1: responsible for having us live under the threat of right,

578
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:18,080
Speaker 1: they said, we're not socialists. Take care of yourself. Yeah.

579
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:21,360
Speaker 1: So the thing is is like people would people would write,

580
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:25,640
Speaker 1: people would um read newspapers, or people would um like

581
00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:28,560
Speaker 1: watch the news or whatever, and they would be getting

582
00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:32,880
Speaker 1: one channel of information that was saying like, yeah, here's

583
00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:36,080
Speaker 1: what this. You know what one megaton bomb could possibly

584
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:38,280
Speaker 1: do to your if this blew up over New York City.

585
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:41,280
Speaker 1: This is what would happen. And people would say, well,

586
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:44,360
Speaker 1: what's the point of having these fallout shelters because if

587
00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 1: a bomb goes off over New York City, all of

588
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:51,360
Speaker 1: those fallout shelters are going to be totally obliterated. There's

589
00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:55,719
Speaker 1: no point for them. Um and the government and doing

590
00:32:55,840 --> 00:33:00,440
Speaker 1: something like trying to at least lift some finger people

591
00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:04,480
Speaker 1: feel less anxious actually had the opposite effect because it

592
00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:07,560
Speaker 1: drew a lot of attention and focus to the need

593
00:33:07,600 --> 00:33:11,040
Speaker 1: for fallout shelters, while at the same time reinforcing the

594
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:14,120
Speaker 1: idea that these fallout shelters weren't gonna be worth anything

595
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:18,680
Speaker 1: for anybody unless maybe you lived in Topeka or somewhere

596
00:33:18,760 --> 00:33:21,640
Speaker 1: where there there wasn't what's known as a key target

597
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:25,200
Speaker 1: that you might actually survive in a fallout shelter that

598
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:28,960
Speaker 1: was well stocked and had few enough people, it could work.

599
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 1: But for most Americans, especially ones in major cities, you're

600
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:35,560
Speaker 1: going to be in bad shape. And the Fallout Shelter

601
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:39,400
Speaker 1: program really kind of pointed that out. All right, should

602
00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:41,360
Speaker 1: we take a break? I think so, all right, we'll

603
00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:43,400
Speaker 1: take our last break and we'll be back right after this.

604
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 1: So before we broke, you said something about unless you

605
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:11,560
Speaker 1: live in Topeka, Uh, does in Kansas have silos or

606
00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:16,320
Speaker 1: no military as I was saying, and I was like, yeah,

607
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 1: I'm glad you said something. At least he'll save us

608
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:21,400
Speaker 1: the emails. Okay, because that you know, we we did mention,

609
00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:24,240
Speaker 1: but you know, we talked about game theory earlier about

610
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 1: how the reasoning was, No, you don't need to worry

611
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:28,239
Speaker 1: if you're in a big city because they aren't a

612
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:31,400
Speaker 1: military bases there. But you know that it sort of

613
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:35,360
Speaker 1: goes the way of UM that war goes once anything

614
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:40,680
Speaker 1: goes wrong. So if one UM bomb from the opposition

615
00:34:41,239 --> 00:34:44,200
Speaker 1: from the enemy goes to somewhere it isn't supposed to go,

616
00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:47,759
Speaker 1: then all bets are off basically, and then it's just

617
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:50,279
Speaker 1: bomb away. Also, I want to give a shout out

618
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:54,000
Speaker 1: to Robert Clara from history dot com who wrote nuclear

619
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 1: fallout shelters were Never going to work, who wrote a

620
00:34:57,560 --> 00:35:00,560
Speaker 1: pretty great article about how this whole pro rams kind

621
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:03,600
Speaker 1: of doomed from the start because it all ill conceived,

622
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:05,880
Speaker 1: you know. But not only was it ill conceived, they

623
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 1: were also like poorly stocked. Some of these things that

624
00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:13,080
Speaker 1: were designated followed shelters never got their supplies. Um, water

625
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:18,479
Speaker 1: drums were leaking, and then um, others worked really well,

626
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:20,680
Speaker 1: so well in fact, that there's one they found at

627
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:25,600
Speaker 1: the Oyster Adams Bilingual School in d C, which is

628
00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:28,240
Speaker 1: a school still functioning today part of d C Public Schools,

629
00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:32,280
Speaker 1: but there is a fallout shelter that's like a um,

630
00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: a time capsule basically that has all of the original

631
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:38,520
Speaker 1: provisions and it just frozen in times still. It's really

632
00:35:38,960 --> 00:35:42,920
Speaker 1: in California, Yeah, basically, um, except this was one of

633
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:47,399
Speaker 1: the designated public fallout shelters, but below a school. Yeah.

634
00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:50,240
Speaker 1: I think didn't they try to build them to how's

635
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 1: at least fifty people, and I think they had they

636
00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:56,600
Speaker 1: recommended for the personal ones that they be at least

637
00:35:57,200 --> 00:36:00,400
Speaker 1: six and a half feet tall. Yeah, and that was

638
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:03,400
Speaker 1: one of the things that sort of, um would have

639
00:36:03,400 --> 00:36:05,719
Speaker 1: been the toughest I think about fallout shelters, just so

640
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:09,840
Speaker 1: many of them were very had very low ceilings. Obviously

641
00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:14,400
Speaker 1: there's no windows. I mean, it's bunker life is tough going.

642
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 1: And they recommended two weeks, and which is nuts to me, Like,

643
00:36:19,760 --> 00:36:21,920
Speaker 1: there's no way I'm poking my head out after two

644
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:24,000
Speaker 1: weeks just to see if it's how how things are

645
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:26,160
Speaker 1: going up there? Right? And I mean like there was

646
00:36:26,239 --> 00:36:28,719
Speaker 1: some logic and reasoning to that two weeks and that

647
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:31,480
Speaker 1: there's that you would have exceeded the half life of

648
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:34,239
Speaker 1: a lot of the radio new clides that are not

649
00:36:34,360 --> 00:36:37,000
Speaker 1: enough for created, but yeah, there's plenty that would still

650
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:39,839
Speaker 1: be around. Yes, it was. It was never never going

651
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:42,880
Speaker 1: to work, like Robert Clara put it, no, And I

652
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 1: think that was sort of the idea of what you're

653
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:50,640
Speaker 1: talking about, with the public being so disheartened and feeling

654
00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:55,319
Speaker 1: helpless about our civil defense. Was um like, this is

655
00:36:55,320 --> 00:36:57,279
Speaker 1: the general public and they didn't think it seemed like

656
00:36:57,280 --> 00:37:00,080
Speaker 1: a good plan. But it makes me wonder, though that

657
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:02,440
Speaker 1: a good thing, Like it sucks to have that kind

658
00:37:02,480 --> 00:37:05,759
Speaker 1: of mental anxiety that we all collectively had during the

659
00:37:05,760 --> 00:37:08,400
Speaker 1: Cold War, especially at the height of this stuff, like

660
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 1: in the sixties. But I think it might have actually

661
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 1: been good because then the public was aware of just

662
00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:19,160
Speaker 1: how dangerous things were and would prevent a kind of

663
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:22,719
Speaker 1: cavalier attitude toward nuclear war because they knew what was

664
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 1: at stake, and what was at stake were their very lives. Maybe,

665
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:28,759
Speaker 1: I mean, and maybe that's a bottom up sort of

666
00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:32,759
Speaker 1: like a groundswell of public thought eats its way up

667
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:36,200
Speaker 1: into the into government, and you know, I mean, and

668
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:39,439
Speaker 1: I guess we'll never know how close we ever got.

669
00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:41,160
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think we've ever done one on

670
00:37:41,239 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 1: the nuclear the Cuban missile crisis, have we not? I

671
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:48,400
Speaker 1: don't think specifically, but you know, we've been on the

672
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 1: brink in a in a way that history has recognized.

673
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 1: But I'm curious how close it's been in times that

674
00:37:55,160 --> 00:37:57,399
Speaker 1: we never even knew about. You know, there's one guy

675
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:00,360
Speaker 1: who celebrated every year. I can't remember or what the

676
00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:03,640
Speaker 1: day is, but it's basically like Save the World Day,

677
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:08,680
Speaker 1: where this one um Soviet I guess, a missile commander

678
00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:11,880
Speaker 1: basically had a few minutes was being told by his

679
00:38:11,960 --> 00:38:14,960
Speaker 1: computers and all of his underlings that the US had

680
00:38:15,120 --> 00:38:19,040
Speaker 1: launched a massive strike and that you know, it was

681
00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:22,120
Speaker 1: up to him to to call and order this counter

682
00:38:22,200 --> 00:38:24,960
Speaker 1: strike or call the people who would order the counter strike,

683
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:28,040
Speaker 1: and he sweated it out. He said that there he

684
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:32,760
Speaker 1: just didn't believe that the Americans would have launched an unprovoked,

685
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:36,400
Speaker 1: all out nuclear strike like he was being shown. And

686
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 1: he stayed his hand and literally saved the world from

687
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:44,040
Speaker 1: a nuclear war like single handedly. And the scary thing is, Chuck,

688
00:38:44,160 --> 00:38:47,640
Speaker 1: is that has happened more than once. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah.

689
00:38:47,840 --> 00:38:52,759
Speaker 1: It's funny that, like we're basically the last generation that

690
00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:55,800
Speaker 1: grew up with any knowledge of the threat of nuclear

691
00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:58,520
Speaker 1: war like this, like we sort of experienced the tail

692
00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:01,919
Speaker 1: into the Cold War. Perfect generation. Yeah, but it's it's

693
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:05,359
Speaker 1: hard to um and um. The Friendly Fire podcast, which

694
00:39:05,520 --> 00:39:08,720
Speaker 1: is one of my favorites, the war movie podcasts that uh,

695
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:11,840
Speaker 1: our buddies Ben Harrison and Adam Pranica and John Roderick

696
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:15,560
Speaker 1: do they're younger. Roderick's you know, a few years older

697
00:39:15,560 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 1: than me, old, so way older than you. But um,

698
00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:22,320
Speaker 1: John kind of drives this point home a lot about

699
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:25,799
Speaker 1: like it's really hard to put into words what that

700
00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:30,400
Speaker 1: does to a a set of generations when we're all

701
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:33,880
Speaker 1: sort of living under this, you know, very real threat

702
00:39:34,480 --> 00:39:37,680
Speaker 1: that we could all die the worst possible death. And

703
00:39:38,560 --> 00:39:40,200
Speaker 1: you know, not like oh, you kids have got it

704
00:39:40,239 --> 00:39:43,120
Speaker 1: made or anything like that, but it's it's a different

705
00:39:43,120 --> 00:39:46,680
Speaker 1: sort of mindset, you know. Yeah, I mean it definitely is.

706
00:39:46,719 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 1: It definitely affects you from from every stage of your life.

707
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:51,160
Speaker 1: You know. I mean it went away by the time

708
00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:53,880
Speaker 1: we were in college, but you know, I remember my

709
00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:56,840
Speaker 1: early years. Obviously we were digging a fallout shelter. It was.

710
00:39:57,400 --> 00:40:01,160
Speaker 1: It was a big threat, and movie and TV reinforce

711
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:05,719
Speaker 1: that every day. So, um, if you wanted to build

712
00:40:05,719 --> 00:40:08,080
Speaker 1: a fallout shelter, we have to say there was um

713
00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:12,760
Speaker 1: a time in addition to designating fallowoup shelters. By the way,

714
00:40:12,960 --> 00:40:15,520
Speaker 1: if you find one of those old fallout shelter signs,

715
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:18,839
Speaker 1: hang onto it, you can pretty much take it. And

716
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:24,160
Speaker 1: unless there's a close watching groundskeeper willie type who takes

717
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:27,840
Speaker 1: care of that building, nobody's probably gonna notice it's gone.

718
00:40:28,239 --> 00:40:30,359
Speaker 1: And the U. S. Government has no idea how many

719
00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:32,440
Speaker 1: are out there because they never kept track of the

720
00:40:32,560 --> 00:40:35,239
Speaker 1: fallout shelters. There was no registry or anything. Yeah, I

721
00:40:35,280 --> 00:40:38,279
Speaker 1: mean they shut started shutting these down in the early seventies,

722
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:41,719
Speaker 1: officially started giving away the food. UM sent some of

723
00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:46,680
Speaker 1: it to organizations in Africa, in Bangladesh. And then those

724
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:50,280
Speaker 1: signs started, I think in the mid seventies, started pulling

725
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:53,200
Speaker 1: those signs out. And I think finally just three years

726
00:40:53,200 --> 00:40:57,040
Speaker 1: ago in two thousand seventeen, they they said that they

727
00:40:57,040 --> 00:40:58,839
Speaker 1: said that they got the last of the signs out

728
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:01,400
Speaker 1: of New York City, which and I don't think we mentioned.

729
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:04,920
Speaker 1: It's hysterical that they built these fallout shelters in Manhattan

730
00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:08,200
Speaker 1: and Brooklyn, as if that would you know, that would

731
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:13,719
Speaker 1: lead to good right, So, um, so if you if

732
00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:16,120
Speaker 1: you if you did want to make a fallout shelter,

733
00:41:16,239 --> 00:41:19,040
Speaker 1: there's um. There was this a pamphlet put out by

734
00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 1: Oakridge National Laboratory where they basically hired yeah, they had

735
00:41:25,040 --> 00:41:29,239
Speaker 1: a sideline and studying nuclear disaster survival, um what like

736
00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:32,399
Speaker 1: you couldn't tell with their beards, you know, but um,

737
00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:36,320
Speaker 1: the this pamphlet basically was the result of Oakridge hiring

738
00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 1: a bunch of families, regular old American families and saying, um,

739
00:41:41,160 --> 00:41:43,560
Speaker 1: a nuclear war is happening right now, go build a

740
00:41:43,560 --> 00:41:46,520
Speaker 1: fallout shelter. Here's your instructions, and then seeing how easy

741
00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:49,359
Speaker 1: it could be done, and then adjusting the instructions and

742
00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:51,680
Speaker 1: so on and so forth until they finally got to

743
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:54,960
Speaker 1: this pamphlet, and the pamphlet basically came up with this

744
00:41:55,440 --> 00:41:59,640
Speaker 1: really good fallout shelter where you just basically dug a

745
00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:03,640
Speaker 1: trend in the ground that was several feet deep, covered

746
00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:06,680
Speaker 1: it with wood poles, covered the wood poles with something

747
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:09,520
Speaker 1: like cloth, the old bed sheets something like that, put

748
00:42:09,560 --> 00:42:13,279
Speaker 1: dirt on it, put shower curtains something waterproof, and then

749
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:16,200
Speaker 1: put more dirt on that. And they actually figured out

750
00:42:16,239 --> 00:42:21,080
Speaker 1: that this particular fallout shelter had like a protection factor

751
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:24,600
Speaker 1: of like three hundred. Yeah that and it would also

752
00:42:24,640 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 1: survive a blast that most houses would not survive because

753
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:31,080
Speaker 1: you're you're just basically hunkered down in the earth, and

754
00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:33,920
Speaker 1: it would it would work for you if you wanted to.

755
00:42:34,239 --> 00:42:36,480
Speaker 1: And they said that, um, it can be done. They

756
00:42:36,560 --> 00:42:40,480
Speaker 1: used the example that to non athletic college age girls

757
00:42:40,480 --> 00:42:43,759
Speaker 1: did it in thirty six hours. That was that was

758
00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:45,480
Speaker 1: how they were selling it. We had a couple of

759
00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:51,719
Speaker 1: girl couch potatoes, right, look, at them. Wow. Yeah. When

760
00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:54,319
Speaker 1: I was reading about that, I was I figured you'd

761
00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:57,960
Speaker 1: get maybe a twenty out of that. What do you

762
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:03,279
Speaker 1: mean for PF No One? Yeah, so there you go.

763
00:43:04,120 --> 00:43:08,799
Speaker 1: Thank you, Akridge boys, getty up Papa. And since Chuck

764
00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:13,560
Speaker 1: said that, everybody, it's time for a listener mail. All right,

765
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:19,000
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this, uh a series of apologies to Australia.

766
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:24,600
Speaker 1: Oh boy. So before the we get into the email, UM,

767
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 1: I do think we should address this that we've had

768
00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:32,520
Speaker 1: some ads running in Australia only that have been no good. Uh.

769
00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:34,680
Speaker 1: And these aren't ads that we knew about. These aren't

770
00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:39,680
Speaker 1: ads that we read. Um, we have a separate company

771
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:42,759
Speaker 1: in Australia that's doing that for us, and everything is

772
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:46,120
Speaker 1: under review right now because um, we don't want these

773
00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:48,480
Speaker 1: ads out there. So yeah, it's a it's a new

774
00:43:48,520 --> 00:43:51,680
Speaker 1: relationship when we're kind of figuring each other out, that's right.

775
00:43:52,120 --> 00:43:54,359
Speaker 1: But we do want to say that none of these

776
00:43:54,360 --> 00:43:56,960
Speaker 1: ads were our decision. Um. If you're out there and

777
00:43:57,000 --> 00:43:59,080
Speaker 1: your interest is peaked and you're like, oh my gosh,

778
00:43:59,080 --> 00:44:01,600
Speaker 1: what are they talking about, I'll never know they were.

779
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:04,160
Speaker 1: You know, there were ads for like mining companies and stuff.

780
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:06,800
Speaker 1: Like that, among other things, not super s y s

781
00:44:06,840 --> 00:44:09,719
Speaker 1: K type stuff. That's right, and and we wanted to

782
00:44:09,719 --> 00:44:12,440
Speaker 1: address it head on, uh, but also we wanted to

783
00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:18,320
Speaker 1: address our own uh foibles in the billabongs terminology that

784
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:21,359
Speaker 1: we were talking about in the Wetlands episode just shameful, man,

785
00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:23,680
Speaker 1: it is. And this is something we should know, even

786
00:44:23,719 --> 00:44:26,799
Speaker 1: though we are not Australians, but we use the term

787
00:44:26,840 --> 00:44:29,960
Speaker 1: aborigines very sort of willy nilly uh. And that is

788
00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:33,759
Speaker 1: this um is an email from Tanita she said, Uh

789
00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:35,520
Speaker 1: in the episode and Wetlands, he used a number of

790
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:39,600
Speaker 1: terms talking about billabongs that were not correct terminology. The

791
00:44:39,719 --> 00:44:44,160
Speaker 1: term aborigines is considered outdated and defensive as it groups

792
00:44:44,200 --> 00:44:47,960
Speaker 1: all indigenous groups into one term and as connotations of

793
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:53,000
Speaker 1: colonial Australia. Some of the current terms and correct terms

794
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:59,120
Speaker 1: for traditional owners of Australia uh include Aboriginal people, Indigenous

795
00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:01,920
Speaker 1: First Nations people. And this is something that you know,

796
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:04,920
Speaker 1: we just should have known. So yeah, Plus, I mean

797
00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:08,560
Speaker 1: it applies to more than just um, the native people

798
00:45:08,560 --> 00:45:11,480
Speaker 1: of Australia too, you know. So of course, yeah, and

799
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:13,359
Speaker 1: we got a bunch of emails from people that said,

800
00:45:13,360 --> 00:45:15,720
Speaker 1: if you really want to do right by these people.

801
00:45:15,760 --> 00:45:18,480
Speaker 1: You need to research the exact people that you're talking about,

802
00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:23,480
Speaker 1: like the Palawa people from Tasmania where she's from, or

803
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 1: the Annawan people from the area around Armadale where she

804
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:30,759
Speaker 1: lives now, and we didn't do that. And she said

805
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:33,680
Speaker 1: there were two hundred and fifty different languages in Australia

806
00:45:33,719 --> 00:45:36,960
Speaker 1: before invasion, only a hundred and twenty year now spoken.

807
00:45:37,600 --> 00:45:41,000
Speaker 1: Billabong in fact, comes from the uh We're a jury

808
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:44,640
Speaker 1: language from central New South Wales and is now a

809
00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:48,120
Speaker 1: common Australian English term. And that is from Tinita and

810
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:51,400
Speaker 1: many others. Thank you so much for taking it easy

811
00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:54,520
Speaker 1: on us, Tanita. That was very nice, super Australian of

812
00:45:54,600 --> 00:45:58,040
Speaker 1: you as well, just laid back in nice and not

813
00:45:58,239 --> 00:46:01,759
Speaker 1: at all like chest pokey, So we appreciate that. That's right.

814
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:04,359
Speaker 1: And you know, if you're in the United States and

815
00:46:04,640 --> 00:46:07,319
Speaker 1: you're I'm not quite sure what even this means would

816
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:10,839
Speaker 1: basically be like just saying Africa as a lump all

817
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:14,720
Speaker 1: term for like any tribe in Africa and the culture

818
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:17,440
Speaker 1: and the language that is very specific to that region

819
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:21,880
Speaker 1: and we were not hip to that. So thanks again.

820
00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:25,720
Speaker 1: Who was that, Tanita? Yeah, okay, thanks again, Tanita. Thanks

821
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:29,160
Speaker 1: again Australia for taking such good care of us over there.

822
00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:32,360
Speaker 1: We appreciate you, guys, and thanks to everybody who listens

823
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:34,520
Speaker 1: to Stuff you Should Know. And if you want to

824
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:36,479
Speaker 1: get in touch with us for any reason, no matter

825
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:38,880
Speaker 1: where you live in the world, no matter what language

826
00:46:38,920 --> 00:46:42,040
Speaker 1: you speak, you can send us an email to Stuff

827
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:48,360
Speaker 1: Podcasts at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know

828
00:46:48,480 --> 00:46:50,880
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeart Radios. How stuff works for

829
00:46:50,960 --> 00:46:53,080
Speaker 1: more podcasts for my heart Radio? Is it the iHeart

830
00:46:53,120 --> 00:46:55,640
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your

831
00:46:55,640 --> 00:47:00,200
Speaker 1: favorite shows. One