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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey guys, I hope you enjoy these classic

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Speaker 1: episodes from the t D I h C Vault. I'm

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Speaker 1: currently researching a new crop of stories for next year,

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Speaker 1: so be sure to join me on January second when

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Speaker 1: we return with all new episodes. Talk to you soon.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to This Day in History Class from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com and from the desk of Stuff you

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Speaker 1: Missed in History Class. It's the show where we explore

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Speaker 1: the past, one day at a time with a quick

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Speaker 1: look at what happened today in history. Hi there, and

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Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Christopher Haciotas, subbing in this

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Speaker 1: week for your host Tracy V. Wilson. Today it's December

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Speaker 1: twelve and the Oaks Colliery exploded on this day in

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six. So we're in Great Britain and the

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Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution has well revolutionized industry. Coal is fueling the boom.

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Speaker 1: But to keep the machine of progress going, we've got

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Speaker 1: to get that coal out of the ground. So that

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Speaker 1: brings us to the town of Barnsley. That's okay. It

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Speaker 1: in Yorkshire, Northern England and of halfway between Sheffield and Leeds.

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Speaker 1: That's where we find the Oaks Colliery. Now, a colliery

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Speaker 1: is a term used to describe both a coal mine

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Speaker 1: itself and the the agglomeration of buildings, offices and infrastructure

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Speaker 1: around the mine, basically the whole complex now. Prior to

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Speaker 1: the arrival of the coal industry, Barnsley was known for

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Speaker 1: its linen manufacturing, but the land was rich in coal

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Speaker 1: and industrialists were keen to exploit the land's riches. The

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Speaker 1: Barnesley coal scene ran deep below the surface of the ground.

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Speaker 1: It was particularly prized because it contained numerous types of coal,

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Speaker 1: which all formed way back in the Carboniferous period, so

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Speaker 1: we're talking about three dred and sixty million years ago.

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Speaker 1: The miners sank the first shaft at the Oaks Colliery

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Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty and we're able to extract hard coals,

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Speaker 1: which are used in train engines and steamships, as well

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Speaker 1: as soft coals that were mixed with other minerals to

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Speaker 1: make coke, a fuel similar to charcoal. The three shafts

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Speaker 1: at the Oaks Colliery were nearly three d deep each,

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Speaker 1: but over the decade the colliery experienced several explosions and disasters.

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Speaker 1: In the eighteen thirties, for instance, dozens of boys working

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Speaker 1: in the mine drowned when it flooded during a thunderstorm.

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Speaker 1: In the eighteen forties, nearly a hundred miners died in

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Speaker 1: several explosions, and the Oaks became regarded as one of

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Speaker 1: the more dangerous places in the region to work. By

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Speaker 1: the eighteen fifties, workers were fed up and hundreds of

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Speaker 1: them went on strike for ten weeks, claiming management was incompetent,

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Speaker 1: but eventually the workers had to go back to work

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Speaker 1: as they were at risk of starvation. That brings us

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Speaker 1: to the morning of December twelve, eighteen sixty six. Hundreds

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Speaker 1: of people showed up to work that day. Christmas was

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Speaker 1: just around the corner, so very few people skipped work

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Speaker 1: and they were eager to make money for the upcoming holiday.

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Speaker 1: And in eighteen sixty six December the twelve fell on

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Speaker 1: a Wednesday, and Wednesdays at the mine where the day

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Speaker 1: workers could make up for past absentee is um. So

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Speaker 1: with hundreds of people at work that day, you had

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Speaker 1: hewers who had cut the coal out of the ground,

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Speaker 1: and you had harriers who moved the coal to the

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Speaker 1: shaft bottom to be lifted to the top. There were

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Speaker 1: men to drive the horses in the aft, and young

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Speaker 1: boys were called trappers. It was their job to open

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Speaker 1: ventilation doors to allow wagons to pass through. But about

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Speaker 1: one fifteen that day, right near the end of the

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Speaker 1: day shift, a massive explosion tore through the mine. Jets

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Speaker 1: of fire damp had ignited. Now that's the name given

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Speaker 1: flammable gases, which could have included methane. At the time,

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Speaker 1: the noise could be heard three miles away, and dust

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Speaker 1: and traveled even further than that. Ventilation systems were damaged

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Speaker 1: and fresh air wasn't piped into the mine shafts for

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Speaker 1: several minutes. Within forty five minutes of the explosion, rescuers

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Speaker 1: were able to bring out nearly twenty men who had

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Speaker 1: been working near the surface. They were all badly burned

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Speaker 1: and only six survived. Later that evening, so many volunteers

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Speaker 1: had shown up to help with the rescue effort people

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Speaker 1: had to be turned away. Sadly, all the other workers

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Speaker 1: deeper under the earth were killed. Would be Rescuers found

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Speaker 1: the bodies of fathers and sons locked in a final embrace,

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Speaker 1: and of horse cart drivers draped dead over their ponies.

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Speaker 1: They had all died of suffocation breathing the carbon dioxide

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Speaker 1: of the mine. Rescue work continued throughout the night, with

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Speaker 1: a search for survivors, ending up a search only for bodies.

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Speaker 1: The next morning, many rescuers evacuated for fear of another explosion.

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Speaker 1: One man, Matthew Haig, who worked as a night deputy

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Speaker 1: at the colliery, had survived an explosion there two decades

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Speaker 1: prior and recognized the warning signs. By nine am, the

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Speaker 1: pit exploded again, though nearly thirty men were still below.

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Speaker 1: A third explosion followed later that evening, and on day three,

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Speaker 1: rescuers found a man named Samuel Brown still alive. Brown

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Speaker 1: wasn't one of the original workers, though he was a

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Speaker 1: rescuer who had gone down the day before. He was

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Speaker 1: removed from the pit, and he was the last man

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Speaker 1: found alive. The next several days saw fourteen more minor explosions,

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Speaker 1: and the decision was made to abandon rescue efforts and

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Speaker 1: to fill the pits. All in all, the tally was

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Speaker 1: estimated at over three hundred and sixty people dead. It

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Speaker 1: was the worst mining disaster in the world at the

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Speaker 1: time and remains the worst in an English coal field History.

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Speaker 1: An official in question to the explosion was opened almost immediately.

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Speaker 1: Though the cause was never identified. The disaster helps spurs

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Speaker 1: some reforms in safety regulation. The mining remained dangerous for years.

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Speaker 1: New research conducted in two thousand and sixteen by volunteers

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Speaker 1: with the Durn Valley Landscape Partnership puts the final tally

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Speaker 1: of death at three. Among the dead were boys as

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Speaker 1: young as ten years old. Today, in the region, monuments

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Speaker 1: exist to both those who were killed and the volunteer

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Speaker 1: rescuers who lost their lives. Thanks to Casey Pegrum and

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Speaker 1: Chandler Maids for their audio work on this show, you

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Speaker 1: can subscribe to This Day in History Class on Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, or wherever else you like

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Speaker 1: to find your podcasts. Come back tomorrow when we get

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Speaker 1: to know one of the most famous world travelers in history.

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Speaker 1: Hello history lovers, I'm Eves and you're listening to This

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Speaker 1: Day in History Class, a show that uncovers history one

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Speaker 1: day at a time. The day was December twelfth, eight.

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Speaker 1: Dr George Franklin Grant received US Patent number six hundred

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Speaker 1: and thirty eight thousand, nine hundred and twenty for the

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Speaker 1: first ever. Golf Tea. Grant was born in Oswego, New York.

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Speaker 1: There he worked for a dentist, Dr. Albert Smith, first

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Speaker 1: running errands and eventually as an assistant. Smith encouraged him

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Speaker 1: to pursue dentistry, and he left New York for Boston,

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Speaker 1: where he continued working as a dental assistant and was

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Speaker 1: admitted to the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. He graduated

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Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy, becoming the second African American ever to

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Speaker 1: graduate from Harvard Dental School. The next year, Harvard hired

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Speaker 1: him as an assistant in the Department of Mechanical Dentistry.

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Speaker 1: During this time, Grant specialized in treating patients with cleft palette,

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Speaker 1: a congenital condition marked by a split or opening in

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Speaker 1: the roof of the mouth. He invented and patented the

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Speaker 1: oblate palette, a prosthetic device that helped his patients speak

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Speaker 1: and eat. Eventually, Grant was promoted to instructor and treatment

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Speaker 1: for cleft palate and cognate diseases, making him the first

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Speaker 1: African American faculty member at the university. He was also

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Speaker 1: a founding member and later president of the Harvard Odontological Society.

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Speaker 1: After working at Harvard for nearly two decades, Grant left

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Speaker 1: to start his own dental practice. But outside of his

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Speaker 1: dental practice, Grant was an avid golfer. His daughter Francis,

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Speaker 1: caddied for him on the meadow he built next to

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Speaker 1: their home in the Boston suburb of Arlington Heights. The

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Speaker 1: family moved to Beacon Hill, but went back to Arlington

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Speaker 1: Heights to golf from time to time. Though Grant enjoyed golfing,

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Speaker 1: he was not a fan of the messy process of

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Speaker 1: teeing the ball. At the time, golfers had to pinch

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Speaker 1: moist sand together to create a tea, so he decided

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Speaker 1: to create a tea that would simplify the process. He

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Speaker 1: found a patent application for his golf tea on July one,

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Speaker 1: and on December twelve, he received the first patent for

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Speaker 1: a wooden golf tea. The patent application described that the

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Speaker 1: tea had to firmly support the ball and also not

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Speaker 1: interfere with the swing of the golf club. The tea

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Speaker 1: had a flexible head and a rigid base that was

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Speaker 1: preferably made of wood and tapered to a point to

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Speaker 1: be inserted in the ground. The ball rested in a

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Speaker 1: ring shaped seat on top of the tea. Using this

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Speaker 1: tea would ensure that the ball was always at the

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Speaker 1: same height, unlike sand teas. Though his invention was a

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Speaker 1: lot like the modern tea, Grant did not market it

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Speaker 1: or capitalize on it. He had teas and manufactured in

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Speaker 1: Arlington Heights and gave them to his friends and playing partners,

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Speaker 1: but didn't take the invention any further than that. He

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Speaker 1: died of liver disease in nineteen ten. In the nineteen twenties,

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Speaker 1: Dr William Lowell, also a dentist, invented and popularized the

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Speaker 1: ready tea. At that point, using a wooden golf tea

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Speaker 1: became the norm. He patented the tea a few years

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Speaker 1: after it found success, but he spent a lot of

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Speaker 1: time and money fighting patent infringement. The United States Golf

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Speaker 1: Association recognized Grant as the original inventor of the golf tee.

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Speaker 1: In I'm Eve jeffco and hopefully you know a little

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Speaker 1: more about history today than you did yesterday. If you

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Speaker 1: know you already spend too much time on social media,

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Speaker 1: spend some of that time with us at T D

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Speaker 1: I h C podcast on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Email

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Speaker 1: still works. Send us a note at this day at

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Speaker 1: i heeart media dot com. We're here every day, so

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Speaker 1: you know where to find us. By Hello and welcome

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Speaker 1: to This Day in History class, a show that uncovers

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Speaker 1: a little bit more about history every day. I'm Gabelusier,

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Speaker 1: and today we're looking at how an a mature art

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Speaker 1: thief turned a painting with a mysterious smile into one

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Speaker 1: of the most iconic works of art on the planet.

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Speaker 1: The day was December twelfth. Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa

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Speaker 1: portrait was recovered from a hotel room in Florence, two

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Speaker 1: years after being stolen from the Louver in Paris. The

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Speaker 1: man behind the brazen robbery was Italian immigrant Vincenzo Perugia.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't an expert cat burglar or even an art connoisseur.

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Speaker 1: He was a handyman, and most crucially, he had once

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Speaker 1: done a job for the Louver. In fact, one year

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Speaker 1: before he stole the Mona Lisa, Perugia was the one

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Speaker 1: who installed the glass door and protective case that housed

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Speaker 1: that very painting. This meant he knew how the Mona

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Speaker 1: Lisa was fixed to its frame, as well as how

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Speaker 1: to unfix it. You might imagine that Perugia targeted the

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Speaker 1: Mona Lisa over the other paintings he helped install because

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Speaker 1: of the portraits world renown. However, at the time the

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Speaker 1: Mona Lisa wasn't famous outside the art world. In fact,

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Speaker 1: the theft of the painting is how it became so

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Speaker 1: widely known. Before it was stolen, most people couldn't have

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Speaker 1: told you the name of the portrait, although to be fair,

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Speaker 1: it is called by different names. Da Vinci started work

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Speaker 1: on the painting in the early fifteen hundreds as a

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Speaker 1: commission piece for a wealthy Florentine merchant named Francesco del

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Speaker 1: jo Conda. His surname provides the lesser known title of

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Speaker 1: the painting, which is La Joconda, or as the French say,

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Speaker 1: La Joconda. The subject of the painting and its other

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Speaker 1: namesake is believed to be Francesco's wife, Lisa. The name

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Speaker 1: Mona Lisa roughly translates to my Lady Lisa, and contrary

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Speaker 1: to what you may have heard about da Vinci following

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Speaker 1: in love with his subject, the title is likely intended

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Speaker 1: from her husband's perspective. Unfortunately, the Renaissance painter never got

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Speaker 1: around to finishing and delivering Lisa's portrait when he died

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Speaker 1: in fifteen nineteen. It was one of many unfinished works

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Speaker 1: he left behind. In the nineteenth century, art critics came

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Speaker 1: to view the portrait as a master work, but it

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Speaker 1: wouldn't become a household name until decades later, when Perugia

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Speaker 1: stole it. The thief came to know the painting while

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Speaker 1: on the job in nineteen ten, but he selected it

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Speaker 1: as a target a year later, mostly because it was

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Speaker 1: small enough to hide in his clothes. The oil on

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Speaker 1: wood painting is smaller than you might think, measuring just

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Speaker 1: thirty by twenty one inches and weighing about eighteen pounds.

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Speaker 1: Of course, it weighed over two hundred pounds when you

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Speaker 1: factor in the frame and protective case. But again, Perugia

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Speaker 1: knew exactly how to drop that extra weight. He stole

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Speaker 1: the painting on August twenty one, nineteen eleven. That was

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Speaker 1: a Monday, which met the museum was closed for cleaning.

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Speaker 1: Accounts very on how Perugia got inside the building. Some

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Speaker 1: say he strolled right in through an unlocked door, while

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Speaker 1: others say he hid overnight in a closet and emerged

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Speaker 1: when the coast was clear. In either case, Perugia dressed

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Speaker 1: like he belonged there. Since he had worked for the

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Speaker 1: Louver before, he already had the white outfit worn by

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Speaker 1: its workers. He simply walked over to the Mona Lisa,

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Speaker 1: removed the panel painting from its frame and case, and

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Speaker 1: slipped it under his smock. He left the case where

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Speaker 1: it was and ditched the frame on a staircase. On

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Speaker 1: his way out of the museum, the thief hit a

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Speaker 1: small snag when he discovered the door was locked, but

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Speaker 1: in a stroke of good luck, a friendly plumber noticed

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Speaker 1: him struggling and opened the door with his own key.

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Speaker 1: If that all sounds remarkably easy, that's because it was.

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Speaker 1: At the time. Most museums were poorly guarded and didn't

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Speaker 1: even have alarms. The Louver was no exception. It had

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Speaker 1: four hundred rooms full of priceless artwork, but only two

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Speaker 1: hundred guards to watch it all, with even fewer on

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Speaker 1: the night shift. One result of this lax security was

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Speaker 1: that Perugia didn't have to do much planning for his heist.

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Speaker 1: Another result was that no one noticed the Mona Lisa

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Speaker 1: was even missing until a full day later, although to

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Speaker 1: be fair, it wasn't unusual for works of art to

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Speaker 1: be removed from time to time, either to be photographed

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Speaker 1: or cleaned, so most of the staff probably saw the

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Speaker 1: empty space and thought nothing of it. Once the news broke,

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Speaker 1: it quickly snowballed into a national scandal. The French public

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Speaker 1: was outraged and dozens of detectives were tasked with tracking

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Speaker 1: down the stolen art. Images of the Mona Lisa began

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Speaker 1: appearing in newspapers around the world, transforming a relatively obscure

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Speaker 1: painting into one of the most recognizable. Even the absence

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Speaker 1: of the painting started to draw a crowd, with visitors

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Speaker 1: flocking to the louver just to see the empty space

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Speaker 1: where the painting used to hang. The police hunt for

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Speaker 1: the unknown art thief dragged on for the next two years.

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Speaker 1: During that time, the police chased every lead they could,

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Speaker 1: even questioning a young Pablo Picasso because he had been

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Speaker 1: caught buying stolen art pieces before. That proved to be

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Speaker 1: a dead end, as did all their other leads. Detectives

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Speaker 1: came the closest when they interviewed Perugia about the crime,

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Speaker 1: not once but twice. However, they ultimately cleared him after

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Speaker 1: determining that he couldn't possibly have pulled off such a

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Speaker 1: high profile crime. In the end, it was Perugia's own

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Speaker 1: poor judgment that got him caught. He kept the painting

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Speaker 1: stashed in a trunk in his small Paris apartment for

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Speaker 1: the better part of two years. By late nineteen thirteen, though,

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Speaker 1: he decided he had waited long enough and contacted an

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Speaker 1: art dealer and gallery owner in Florence to arrange for

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Speaker 1: the painting sale. A meeting was set up, but unbeknownst

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Speaker 1: to Perugia, the dealer had taken his letters straight to

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Speaker 1: the police. On December tenth, he arrived at a hotel

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Speaker 1: in Florence to hand over the painting, but was swiftly

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Speaker 1: arrested instead. After his capture, Perugia claimed he was only

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Speaker 1: trying to return the Mona lie Said to its native

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Speaker 1: home of Italy. Apparently he was under the false impression

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Speaker 1: that Napoleon had stolen the artwork for France in the

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Speaker 1: late eighteenth century. It's true that Napoleon's armies had plundered

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Speaker 1: cultural artifacts from many of the countries they invaded, but

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Speaker 1: that wasn't the case with the Mona Lisa. It had

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Speaker 1: actually been brought to France by Leonardo da Vinci himself,

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Speaker 1: and following the artist's death, it was purchased fair and

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Speaker 1: square by King Francis, the first in the sixteenth century. Besides,

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Speaker 1: even if Perugia believed his own story, his supposedly patriotic

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Speaker 1: motivation was clearly a farce. In addition to the art

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Speaker 1: dealer he had already contacted in Florence, Perugia also had

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Speaker 1: a list of American art collectors, showing that he definitely

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Speaker 1: intended to sell the painting and didn't especially care which

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Speaker 1: country it wound up in. It's worth note that rumors

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Speaker 1: have circulated claiming that Perugia was working for a German

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Speaker 1: art forger who planned to exploit the Mona Lisa's disappearance

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Speaker 1: by selling fake copies on the black market. That story

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Speaker 1: was never substantiated, and Perugia was the only one ever

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Speaker 1: arrested for the crime. He was sentenced to one year

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Speaker 1: and fifteen days in jail, but even that relatively light

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Speaker 1: sentence was later reduced to a mere seven months and

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Speaker 1: nine days. It probably helped that no one was injured

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Speaker 1: in his crime and that the painting was able to

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Speaker 1: be recovered unharmed. The Mona Lisa was eventually returned to

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Speaker 1: the louver. It still hangs there today, nestled safely behind

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Speaker 1: bulletproof glass, under the watchful eye of multiple security guards, cameras,

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Speaker 1: and alarms. It's estimated that more than six million people

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Speaker 1: view the painting each year, though on average they spend

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Speaker 1: only about fifteen seconds actually looking at it. That makes

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Speaker 1: it seem like most people are just ticking off an

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Speaker 1: item on their bucket list rather than genuinely appreciating what's

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Speaker 1: on display. But hey, it's still better than the two

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Speaker 1: years the painting spent locked inside of some random guys trump.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gabe Louisier and hopefully you now know a little

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Speaker 1: more about history today than you did yesterday. You can

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Speaker 1: learn even more about history by following us on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at t d I HC Show, and if

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Speaker 1: you have any comments or suggestions, you can send them

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Speaker 1: my way at this Day at I heart media dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thanks

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Speaker 1: to you for listening. I'll see you back here again

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Speaker 1: tomorrow for another Day in History class. For more podcasts

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Speaker 1: from my Heart Radio, visit the i heart radio app,

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