1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:02,320 Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's Eaves. Just wanted to let you know 2 00:00:02,360 --> 00:00:04,520 Speaker 1: that you'll be hearing an episode from me and an 3 00:00:04,559 --> 00:00:07,360 Speaker 1: episode from Tracy V. Wilson today. I hope you enjoyed 4 00:00:07,400 --> 00:00:11,160 Speaker 1: the show. Welcome to this Day in History class from 5 00:00:11,200 --> 00:00:13,520 Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com and from the desk of 6 00:00:13,520 --> 00:00:15,840 Speaker 1: Stuff you missed in History Class. It's the show where 7 00:00:15,840 --> 00:00:18,119 Speaker 1: we explore the past one day at a time with 8 00:00:18,200 --> 00:00:25,000 Speaker 1: a quick look at what happened today in history. Hello, 9 00:00:25,040 --> 00:00:28,000 Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson, and 10 00:00:28,040 --> 00:00:32,600 Speaker 1: it's August fifteen. India became independent from the British Empire 11 00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:36,000 Speaker 1: on this day in ninety seven, but this same episode 12 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:39,080 Speaker 1: of the podcast could have happened on other dates too, 13 00:00:39,280 --> 00:00:43,800 Speaker 1: because Indian independence is inextricably connected to some other events. 14 00:00:44,400 --> 00:00:49,640 Speaker 1: On August fourteen seven, Pakistan became independent from the British 15 00:00:49,640 --> 00:00:54,480 Speaker 1: Empire as well, and on August seventy seven, the actual 16 00:00:54,680 --> 00:00:59,560 Speaker 1: borders were announced between these two newly independent nations, with 17 00:00:59,680 --> 00:01:03,040 Speaker 1: that order being better known as the Partition. The British 18 00:01:03,160 --> 00:01:06,559 Speaker 1: Empire had controlled various parts of the Indian subcontinent since 19 00:01:06,560 --> 00:01:09,000 Speaker 1: the eighteenth century and had been present in the Indian 20 00:01:09,040 --> 00:01:13,520 Speaker 1: subcontinent for much longer than that. By seven, this territory 21 00:01:13,560 --> 00:01:17,720 Speaker 1: included what's now India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, and there had 22 00:01:17,760 --> 00:01:22,280 Speaker 1: been a decades long non violent movement for independence led 23 00:01:22,280 --> 00:01:25,480 Speaker 1: by Mohandas Gandhi, also known as the Mahatma. That's a 24 00:01:25,520 --> 00:01:29,680 Speaker 1: title that comes from the Sanskrit word meaning great sold 25 00:01:29,959 --> 00:01:32,760 Speaker 1: During the Great Depression, the Indian subcontinent had been to 26 00:01:32,959 --> 00:01:37,400 Speaker 1: financially devastated and struck by famine for the British Empire 27 00:01:37,480 --> 00:01:41,280 Speaker 1: to possibly consider independence, and then Britain was fighting in 28 00:01:41,360 --> 00:01:45,800 Speaker 1: World War Two along with troops from the subcontinent. After 29 00:01:45,880 --> 00:01:50,200 Speaker 1: World War Two, Britain was consumed with rebuilding and also 30 00:01:50,360 --> 00:01:54,680 Speaker 1: owed the United States more than four billion dollars. It 31 00:01:54,800 --> 00:01:58,240 Speaker 1: just could not afford to maintain its territory in the 32 00:01:58,280 --> 00:02:01,800 Speaker 1: Indian subcontinent any more. Are so all of a sudden 33 00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:04,920 Speaker 1: from the British point of view, this issue of independence, 34 00:02:05,240 --> 00:02:09,240 Speaker 1: which people in India had been advocating for for decades, 35 00:02:09,680 --> 00:02:15,079 Speaker 1: suddenly became very urgent. Some people, including the Mahatma, were 36 00:02:15,120 --> 00:02:18,640 Speaker 1: advocating for one unified state that would be home to 37 00:02:18,680 --> 00:02:24,480 Speaker 1: people of many religions, especially Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism. Others 38 00:02:24,520 --> 00:02:27,480 Speaker 1: followed a two nation theory that there would be one 39 00:02:27,800 --> 00:02:31,600 Speaker 1: nation with a majority Hindu population and another with a 40 00:02:31,639 --> 00:02:36,440 Speaker 1: majority Muslim population. Muslims were a sizeable religious minority on 41 00:02:36,480 --> 00:02:39,400 Speaker 1: the Indian subcontinent, making up about twenty five percent of 42 00:02:39,440 --> 00:02:42,959 Speaker 1: the population, and under the British Empire they'd had some 43 00:02:43,160 --> 00:02:47,600 Speaker 1: rights and protections. Even though there were assurances that this 44 00:02:47,760 --> 00:02:50,480 Speaker 1: new Indian government would be secular, there were a lot 45 00:02:50,480 --> 00:02:54,040 Speaker 1: of concerns among Muslims that they would be really marginalized 46 00:02:54,080 --> 00:02:58,480 Speaker 1: if that happened. It's not completely clear, though, whether the 47 00:02:58,520 --> 00:03:01,120 Speaker 1: call for a separate Muscle state started out as a 48 00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:05,960 Speaker 1: genuine request or more as a bargaining tool. Regardless though 49 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:08,799 Speaker 1: the last five story of India, Lord Mountbatten had been 50 00:03:08,840 --> 00:03:12,080 Speaker 1: given a deadline of October ninety seven to work out 51 00:03:12,120 --> 00:03:15,280 Speaker 1: a deal for Indian independence, and if he failed to 52 00:03:15,320 --> 00:03:17,520 Speaker 1: work out a deal, Britain was going to pull out 53 00:03:17,520 --> 00:03:20,639 Speaker 1: of its former Indian territory with no deal by June 54 00:03:20,639 --> 00:03:25,720 Speaker 1: of nine, but Lord Mountain Batton accelerated that timeline, moving 55 00:03:25,720 --> 00:03:28,600 Speaker 1: it up to August and giving himself only ten weeks 56 00:03:28,639 --> 00:03:32,320 Speaker 1: to do it. Cyril Ratcliffe was the person given the 57 00:03:32,360 --> 00:03:36,480 Speaker 1: task of actually drawing the new borders. He had no 58 00:03:36,600 --> 00:03:40,600 Speaker 1: connections to the local community. He had no cultural or 59 00:03:40,640 --> 00:03:44,240 Speaker 1: historical knowledge of any of the provinces and princely states 60 00:03:44,240 --> 00:03:46,800 Speaker 1: that he was working with. He was also working from 61 00:03:46,840 --> 00:03:50,720 Speaker 1: outdated maps and demographic data. The result was a border 62 00:03:50,760 --> 00:03:54,360 Speaker 1: called the Radcliffe Line, which divided the British Empire's territory 63 00:03:54,440 --> 00:03:58,760 Speaker 1: on the Indian subcontinent into the majority Hindu India and 64 00:03:58,800 --> 00:04:02,240 Speaker 1: the majority Muslim East and West Pakistan, which were physically 65 00:04:02,320 --> 00:04:06,200 Speaker 1: separated from each other by a wide stretch of India. 66 00:04:06,360 --> 00:04:10,560 Speaker 1: In between. There were also several large princely states that 67 00:04:10,640 --> 00:04:14,880 Speaker 1: acceeded to neither India or Pakistan. The Radcliff Line was 68 00:04:14,880 --> 00:04:19,000 Speaker 1: announced on the seventeenth after India and Pakistan were already 69 00:04:19,120 --> 00:04:23,080 Speaker 1: independent nations. These lines were drawn through the middle of 70 00:04:23,120 --> 00:04:25,960 Speaker 1: the provinces of Bengal in the east and Punjab in 71 00:04:25,960 --> 00:04:28,880 Speaker 1: the northwest, which had been home to people of multiple 72 00:04:28,920 --> 00:04:32,440 Speaker 1: religions who had been living alongside one another for centuries. 73 00:04:33,120 --> 00:04:36,320 Speaker 1: And even though Pakistan was established as a majority Muslim 74 00:04:36,400 --> 00:04:39,440 Speaker 1: state when the border was announced, there were more Muslims 75 00:04:39,520 --> 00:04:42,599 Speaker 1: left behind in India than there were in the newly 76 00:04:42,680 --> 00:04:48,400 Speaker 1: created East and West Pakistan. The unanticipated result of these 77 00:04:48,520 --> 00:04:51,440 Speaker 1: new borders was one of the largest mass migrations in 78 00:04:51,560 --> 00:04:56,760 Speaker 1: human history. The entire Indian subcontinent was completely disrupted as 79 00:04:56,839 --> 00:05:00,359 Speaker 1: roughly twelve million people became refugees trying to get to 80 00:05:00,400 --> 00:05:03,360 Speaker 1: the other side of the line from where they had 81 00:05:03,400 --> 00:05:07,359 Speaker 1: been living. As many as two million people died in 82 00:05:07,440 --> 00:05:12,320 Speaker 1: sectarian violence, and throughout this migration they were ongoing riots 83 00:05:12,400 --> 00:05:16,240 Speaker 1: and massacres in what was described as an attempted ethnic cleansing. 84 00:05:17,000 --> 00:05:21,120 Speaker 1: It was particularly dangerous for women. Thousands and thousands of 85 00:05:21,160 --> 00:05:25,240 Speaker 1: women were abducted, abused, and raped immediately following the partition. 86 00:05:26,200 --> 00:05:29,880 Speaker 1: Mahatma Gandhi was also assassinated by Hindu extremist in nineteen 87 00:05:29,920 --> 00:05:33,640 Speaker 1: forty eight who objected to his tolerance for Muslims. The 88 00:05:33,720 --> 00:05:36,760 Speaker 1: effects of this are still felt today, and there have 89 00:05:36,800 --> 00:05:40,520 Speaker 1: been multiple wars fought since nineteen forty seven between India 90 00:05:40,520 --> 00:05:45,000 Speaker 1: and Pakistan over territory. East Pakistan also became a Bangladesh 91 00:05:45,080 --> 00:05:49,680 Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy one. Thanks to Eve's Jeff Cote for 92 00:05:49,720 --> 00:05:52,760 Speaker 1: her research work on today's episode, and you can subscribe 93 00:05:52,800 --> 00:05:55,960 Speaker 1: to the Stay in History Class on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, 94 00:05:55,960 --> 00:05:59,120 Speaker 1: and wherever else. You get your podcasts, Tune in tomorrow 95 00:05:59,160 --> 00:06:11,760 Speaker 1: for a story of perseverance at a very long winded message. Hi, 96 00:06:12,279 --> 00:06:15,839 Speaker 1: I'm Eves and welcome to this Day in History Class, 97 00:06:16,200 --> 00:06:19,360 Speaker 1: a show that uncovers history one day at a time. 98 00:06:26,960 --> 00:06:32,200 Speaker 1: The day was August nineteen seventy seven. The Big Ear 99 00:06:32,360 --> 00:06:36,840 Speaker 1: radio telescope at Ohio State University received a signal that 100 00:06:36,920 --> 00:06:41,440 Speaker 1: seemed like it may have had an extraterrestrial origin. In 101 00:06:41,560 --> 00:06:46,320 Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine, Cornell University scientists Philip Morrison and Giuzeppe 102 00:06:46,400 --> 00:06:52,120 Speaker 1: Colconi published a paper in Nature called Searching for Interstellar Communications. 103 00:06:53,240 --> 00:06:57,760 Speaker 1: In the paper, the scientists proposed that extraterrestrial beings trying 104 00:06:57,760 --> 00:07:03,320 Speaker 1: to communicate with Earth might do so using radio signals. Further, 105 00:07:03,720 --> 00:07:06,600 Speaker 1: it was likely that they would communicate at a frequency 106 00:07:06,800 --> 00:07:12,040 Speaker 1: of fourteen twenty mega hurts hydrogen, the most common chemical 107 00:07:12,080 --> 00:07:17,000 Speaker 1: element in the universe, amidst photons at this frequency. The 108 00:07:17,120 --> 00:07:20,840 Speaker 1: quiet band of the electro magnetic spectrum between fourteen twenty 109 00:07:20,840 --> 00:07:25,040 Speaker 1: mega hurts and sixteen seventy megaheurts later became known as 110 00:07:25,080 --> 00:07:28,840 Speaker 1: the water hole, a place where extraterrestrials may be likely 111 00:07:28,920 --> 00:07:34,280 Speaker 1: to communicate. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence or SETI, has 112 00:07:34,320 --> 00:07:38,360 Speaker 1: been happening ever since radio technology began developing, but the 113 00:07:38,400 --> 00:07:41,880 Speaker 1: modern search was born in nineteen sixty with Project Osma, 114 00:07:42,280 --> 00:07:46,280 Speaker 1: when astronomer Frank Drake used a radio telescope to examine 115 00:07:46,320 --> 00:07:51,440 Speaker 1: stars in the water hole. In nineteen seventy three, scientists 116 00:07:51,480 --> 00:07:55,880 Speaker 1: at Ohio State University began using a radio telescope named 117 00:07:55,960 --> 00:08:01,800 Speaker 1: big Ear to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Around eleven sixteen 118 00:08:01,840 --> 00:08:05,960 Speaker 1: pm Eastern daylight time on August fift nineteen seventy seven, 119 00:08:06,440 --> 00:08:09,600 Speaker 1: Big Air got a narrow band food signal that lasted 120 00:08:09,760 --> 00:08:13,800 Speaker 1: seventy two seconds. The signal seemed to come from the 121 00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:18,280 Speaker 1: constellation Sagittarius. It was about thirty times stronger than the 122 00:08:18,280 --> 00:08:21,800 Speaker 1: cosmic background noise, and it was at a frequency of 123 00:08:21,880 --> 00:08:26,800 Speaker 1: about fourteen twenty mega hurts. The signal went unnoticed until 124 00:08:26,840 --> 00:08:30,520 Speaker 1: a few days later, when astronomer Jerry Aman was reviewing 125 00:08:30,520 --> 00:08:34,000 Speaker 1: the computer print out and noticed the sequence six e 126 00:08:34,400 --> 00:08:39,000 Speaker 1: q u J five among a sea of low numbers 127 00:08:39,040 --> 00:08:43,160 Speaker 1: that represent background noise. He used a red pen to 128 00:08:43,200 --> 00:08:46,480 Speaker 1: circle the sequence and wrote wow in the left margin 129 00:08:46,559 --> 00:08:49,960 Speaker 1: of the print out. That's how it became known as 130 00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:54,160 Speaker 1: the Wow signal. People began pointing to the signal as 131 00:08:54,200 --> 00:08:59,440 Speaker 1: evidence of extraterrestrial life. Scientists determined that nothing in the 132 00:08:59,440 --> 00:09:03,600 Speaker 1: Sagittarius constellation could have made the signal, and that it 133 00:09:03,720 --> 00:09:08,480 Speaker 1: was not a satellite transmission, military signal, aircraft signal, or 134 00:09:08,640 --> 00:09:15,040 Speaker 1: broadcast beam, and scientists conducted follow up searches for decades. 135 00:09:15,160 --> 00:09:19,240 Speaker 1: Astronomer Robert Gray has searched for recurrences of the wild signal. 136 00:09:19,920 --> 00:09:23,719 Speaker 1: He did sell at Oak Ridge Observatory in Massachusetts, at 137 00:09:23,720 --> 00:09:27,559 Speaker 1: the Mount Pleasant Radio Observatory in Tasmania, and at the 138 00:09:27,720 --> 00:09:32,680 Speaker 1: Very Large Array Radio Astronomy Observatory in New Mexico, but 139 00:09:32,800 --> 00:09:37,600 Speaker 1: the signal has never repeated. The Big Ear Observatory was 140 00:09:37,640 --> 00:09:43,080 Speaker 1: disassembled in n but the search for extraterrestrial intelligence continues today. 141 00:09:44,000 --> 00:09:48,000 Speaker 1: In researchers suggested that the signal was not a sign 142 00:09:48,040 --> 00:09:52,000 Speaker 1: of extraterrestrial life, but a signal generated by a passing 143 00:09:52,080 --> 00:09:55,840 Speaker 1: comment that was not cataloged at the time, but many 144 00:09:55,920 --> 00:10:00,079 Speaker 1: astronomers do not agree with this theory. Exactly where the 145 00:10:00,160 --> 00:10:04,680 Speaker 1: signal came from remains unexplained. I'm Eaves Deathcote, and hopefully 146 00:10:04,720 --> 00:10:07,480 Speaker 1: you know a little more about history today than you 147 00:10:07,559 --> 00:10:12,920 Speaker 1: did yesterday. Get more notes from History on Twitter, Instagram, 148 00:10:12,920 --> 00:10:18,079 Speaker 1: and Facebook at t d i h C podcast. We'll 149 00:10:18,120 --> 00:10:28,040 Speaker 1: be back with more history tomorrow. For more podcasts from 150 00:10:28,080 --> 00:10:30,880 Speaker 1: I heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 151 00:10:30,960 --> 00:10:32,640 Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.