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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, the show's currently on break until

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Speaker 1: the new year, but we've got plenty of classic episodes

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Speaker 1: to tide you over. Enjoy this trip through the show's

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Speaker 1: own history, and I'll see you back here on January

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Speaker 1: second with a batch of brand new episodes. See you then.

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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. Hello and welcome

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Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson, and it's December nine.

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Speaker 1: The Cretan Autonomous State was established on this day in

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Speaker 1: under the old style Julian calendar, that was December twenty

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Speaker 1: one under the Gregorian calendar. This followed a link the

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Speaker 1: occupation of the island of Crete by the Ottoman Empire

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Speaker 1: back during the Fourth Crusade. Crete had been sold to Venice,

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Speaker 1: but the predominantly Greek population largely objected to this, and

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Speaker 1: the Venetians weren't all that benevolent when it came to

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Speaker 1: the Greek populations, so the Ottoman Empire concluded that Crete

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Speaker 1: might welcome them as liberators and fight with them against Phinnice.

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Speaker 1: So to that end, the Ottomans invaded Crete in sixteen

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Speaker 1: forty five. Venice, though, was determined to stay in control,

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Speaker 1: and this led to a lengthy standoff in a twenty

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Speaker 1: two year siege of the city of Candia, before Venice

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Speaker 1: finally ceded the island of Crete to the Ottomans on

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Speaker 1: September six of sixteen sixty nine. Fast forward more than

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Speaker 1: two hundred years to eighteen ninety six, at which point

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Speaker 1: the Ottoman Empire is starting to wane and numerous other

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Speaker 1: international powers have a vested interest in making sure that

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Speaker 1: warfare doesn't start in the wake of this power vacuum.

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Speaker 1: This included Russia, France, Italy, Great Britain, Germany, and Austria Hungary,

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Speaker 1: all of them had a vested interest in what was

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Speaker 1: happening on Crete. International team finally convinced the Ottoman Empire

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Speaker 1: to reform the government of Crete and to place a

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Speaker 1: Christian governor and a European commission that would oversee things

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Speaker 1: like police and the courts. But at this point, Creed's

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Speaker 1: population included both Christians and Muslims, and while the Christians

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Speaker 1: were delighted at the idea of having a Christian government

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Speaker 1: in charge, the Muslims were not. This led to ongoing

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Speaker 1: religiously motivated violence as international powers tried and failed to

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Speaker 1: put Crete under local control. The Great Powers had taken

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Speaker 1: for granted that the Ottoman Empire would ultimately leave Crete,

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Speaker 1: but it wasn't exactly clear to anyone when or how

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Speaker 1: that would happen. Ultimately, there were only four nations who

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Speaker 1: still were actively involved in Crete at this point. That

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Speaker 1: was Russia, France, Italy and Great Britain. They divided up

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Speaker 1: the island, placed forces in each of these four quadrants

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Speaker 1: that they created, and they started searching for a high

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Speaker 1: commissioner who would take over the island, and that search

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Speaker 1: started in the spring of perhaps unsurprisingly, this led to

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Speaker 1: huge amounts of unrest, with local residents objecting to various

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Speaker 1: aspects of the rule that they were under, and this

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Speaker 1: ended up in what was known as the candy At massacre,

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Speaker 1: which started in August under the Julian calendar or September

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Speaker 1: six under the Gregorian calendar, and we talked about that

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Speaker 1: on this show on September six, which is also why

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Speaker 1: some of what we've talked about might sound a little familiar.

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Speaker 1: As many as eight hundred Christians on Crete were killed

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Speaker 1: in this massacre, and the aftermath of the massacre, of

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Speaker 1: the British authorities tried to restore order, tried to bring

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Speaker 1: the perpetrators to justice, and they became increasingly impatient and

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Speaker 1: frustrated with the Ottoman forces that were still on the island.

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Speaker 1: The international powers finally ordered the Ottoman forces to withdraw entirely,

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Speaker 1: although the last of their force were not removed until

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Speaker 1: they've ever sixth That same month, Russia, France, Italy and

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Speaker 1: Great Britain finally agreed on a High Commissioner to take

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Speaker 1: over Crete, and that was Prince George of Greece and Denmark.

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Speaker 1: This is a three year renewable term for him to

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Speaker 1: act as High Commissioner. He arrived on December nine under

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Speaker 1: the Julian calendar, and that's what marked the beginning of

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Speaker 1: the Cretan autonomous state. The other forces started to withdraw

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Speaker 1: after the High Commissioner arrived, and while this did, at

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Speaker 1: least in name, create an autonomous state of Crete, it

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Speaker 1: also started the process of Crete becoming increasingly connected to

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Speaker 1: Greece before finally becoming part of the nation of Greece.

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Speaker 1: In one note about our next week of episodes, Christopher Hasiotis,

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Speaker 1: whose name you have heard as a researcher on this

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Speaker 1: show before, will be filling in for me as a

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Speaker 1: guest host. This is going to make sure we still

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Speaker 1: have podcasts over the holidays. Thanks to Eaves Jeff Cote

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Speaker 1: for her research work on today's show, and thanks to

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Speaker 1: Ksey P. Graham and Chandler Maze for their audio work.

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Speaker 1: You can subscribe to This Day in History Class on

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, Google podcast, I Heart Radio app and we're

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Speaker 1: relped to a podcasts and you can tune in tomorrow

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Speaker 1: for a massive and unsolved heist. Hi everyone, I'm Eves

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Speaker 1: and welcome to This Day in History Class, a podcast

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Speaker 1: where we one day ship nugs of history straight to

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Speaker 1: your brain through your earhole. The day was December nine,

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Speaker 1: nine seventy nine. Members of the Global Commission for the

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Speaker 1: Certification of Smallpox Eradication signed a statement that declared that

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Speaker 1: smallpox have been eradicated worldwide and that the return of

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Speaker 1: the virus was unlikely. Smallpox, a disease caused by the

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Speaker 1: Bariola virus, has been around for at least three thousand years,

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Speaker 1: though its origin is unknown. The disease was fatal for

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Speaker 1: about three in every ten people who contracted it. People

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Speaker 1: who had smallpox got fevers, body aches, rashes, sores, and scabs,

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Speaker 1: and it was contagious spread through person to person contact

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Speaker 1: and saliva. At first, very elation was used to control

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Speaker 1: the spread of smallpox. Very elation was a method of

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Speaker 1: immunization where patients would be purposefully exposed to the material

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Speaker 1: from smallpox pustules so they developed symptoms of smallpox. These

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Speaker 1: patients would develop a mild form of the disease and

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Speaker 1: were less likely to die than those who contracted small

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Speaker 1: pox naturally. But in the seventeen nineties, English doctor Edward

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Speaker 1: Jenner realized that vaccination could prevent people from getting smallpox.

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Speaker 1: At first, cowpox was used to make the smallpox vaccine,

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Speaker 1: but in later years, the vaccinia virus was used to

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Speaker 1: create the vaccine. By the twentieth century, the smallpox vaccine

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Speaker 1: had become widely available. Vaccination against smallpox became mandatory in

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Speaker 1: many places around the world, and cases of smallpox declined,

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Speaker 1: but smallpox remained one of the main causes of death

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Speaker 1: due to infectious disease. In the nineteen fifties, there were

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Speaker 1: around fifty million cases of the disease every year. When

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Speaker 1: eradication of the disease was discussed at the World Health

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Speaker 1: Assembly in nineteen fifty three, there was a little confidence

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Speaker 1: that the effort would succeed since attempts to eradicate other

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Speaker 1: diseases had failed. But Soviet epidemiologist Victor shodin Off was

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Speaker 1: convinced that freeze dried smallpox vaccines could be the answer

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Speaker 1: to an effective eradication program. World Health Organization member states

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Speaker 1: voted to start a global smallpox eradication campaign at the

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Speaker 1: World Health Assembly in nineteen fifty nine. Vaccination campaigns in

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Speaker 1: some countries were successful in eliminating the disease, but the

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Speaker 1: global campaign was hindered by lack of funds, lack of personnel,

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Speaker 1: limited commitment from countries, and a shortage of vaccine donations.

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Speaker 1: Smallpox continued to kill thousands of people in other countries

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Speaker 1: like India, Indonesia, and countries in Sub Saharan Africa. So

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty seven, the World Health Organization launched the

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Speaker 1: Intensified Smallpox Eradication Program, which provided technical assistance to countries

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Speaker 1: eradication campaigns. This program was more successful thanks to mass

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Speaker 1: vaccination campaigns, the establishment of a surveillance system to investigate cases,

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Speaker 1: and the development of the bifurcated needle. The last known

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Speaker 1: natural case of smallpox was in Somalia in nineteen seventy seven.

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Speaker 1: Hospital cook Ali Maomalin, who worked in the smallpox eradication

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Speaker 1: program in Somalia, was exposed to the disease while he

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Speaker 1: was in a vehicle with two children who had smallpox.

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Speaker 1: He recovered and later died in of malaria. After Ali

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Speaker 1: Maomalin's case, a lab accident in England that caused a

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Speaker 1: minor outbreak triggered the last own instances of smallpox. Janet

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Speaker 1: Parker was the last person to die of smallpox in

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight. On December nine, nineteen seventy nine, members

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Speaker 1: of the Global Commission for Certification of Smallpox Eradication certified

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Speaker 1: that smallpox had been eradicated, and in May of nineteen eighty,

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Speaker 1: the World Health Assembly, acting on the recommendation of the

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Speaker 1: Global Commission, announced that worldwide eradication had been achieved and

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Speaker 1: that only people working with orthopox virus in research labs

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Speaker 1: could use the smallpox vaccination. After the disease was declared eradicated,

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Speaker 1: the stocks of the virus that remained were destroyed or

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Speaker 1: sent to one of two labs, the Centers for Disease

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Speaker 1: Control and Prevention in Atlanta and the State Research Center

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Speaker 1: of Virology and Biotechnology VECTOR in Russia. Debate later arose

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Speaker 1: over whether the remaining lab stocks of Biola virus should

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Speaker 1: be destroyed. The World Health Organization and recommended destroying it,

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Speaker 1: but stocks of the virus still exist. Smallpox is the

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Speaker 1: only infectious disease affecting humans that has been eradicated. I'm

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Speaker 1: Eve jeffco and hopefully you know a little more about

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Speaker 1: history today than you did yesterday. Have a hard time

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Speaker 1: staying present as you mindlessly scroll through social media. Lucky

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Speaker 1: for you, we're stuck in the past at t D

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Speaker 1: i h C podcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, or

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Speaker 1: if you are so inclined, you can send us a

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Speaker 1: message at this day at I heart media dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, Mary History to all, and to all

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Speaker 1: a good night, hello, and welcome to This Day in

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Speaker 1: History class, a show that knows how you feel about

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Speaker 1: all all this Christmas business. I'm Gabelusier, and in this episode,

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Speaker 1: we're returning to the well of beloved Peanuts holiday specials

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Speaker 1: to talk about the one that started it all and

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Speaker 1: why it almost never happened. The day was December nine, nineteen,

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Speaker 1: A Charlie Brown Christmas aired for the very first time

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Speaker 1: on CBS. It was the first animated TV special based

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Speaker 1: on the popular characters from Charles Schulz's Peanuts comic strip.

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Speaker 1: Like many of the forty four specials that would follow it,

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Speaker 1: the original was written by Charles Schulz, produced by Lee Mendelssohn,

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Speaker 1: and directed by Bill Melendez, with music by Vince Guaraldi.

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Speaker 1: The Peanuts Christmas Special was unexpectedly mature and melancholy for

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Speaker 1: an animated holiday offering. The show had a lot on

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Speaker 1: its mind, taking aim at the commercialism of Christmas and

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Speaker 1: devoting much of its run time to a wistful search

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Speaker 1: for meaning. It's all the more surprising then, that the

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Speaker 1: special was originally conceived as a way to sell soda.

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Speaker 1: In the nineteen sixties, Coca Cola and Pepsi were locked

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Speaker 1: in an ongoing advertising war for domination of the cola market.

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Speaker 1: The ad agency representing Coca Cola decided it's next move

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Speaker 1: should be the sponsor of family friendly TV show, preferably

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Speaker 1: a holiday special centered on an already established brand. To

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Speaker 1: that end, the agency called a young documentary film producer

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Speaker 1: named Lee Mendelssohn, who was known to be working with

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Speaker 1: Shoals on a short film about his life. The agency

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Speaker 1: asked whether Mendelssohn and his team could of her a

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Speaker 1: Peanuts Christmas special in just six months. The producer replied yes,

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Speaker 1: without even thinking of whether the comic strips creator would

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Speaker 1: actually sign off on such a deal. Thankfully, with a

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Speaker 1: little convincing he did. Shoals quickly hammered out a story

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Speaker 1: that followed Charlie Brown trying and failing to direct the

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Speaker 1: school Christmas play. Mendelssohn suggested the plot include a Christmas tree,

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Speaker 1: and Shoals obliged by having Charlie Brown adopt a scrawny

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Speaker 1: little tree that all of his peers would mock relentlessly.

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Speaker 1: A few days later, the two men sent a one

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Speaker 1: page story treatment to Coca Cola, and the company signed

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Speaker 1: off on it right away. Despite the success of the

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Speaker 1: long running Peanuts comic strip, no one involved in the

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Speaker 1: special thought it was actually going to work. It's hard

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Speaker 1: to imagine since it's so iconic now, but there were

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Speaker 1: a lot of factor is working against the special while

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Speaker 1: it was in production, and a lot of them stemmed

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Speaker 1: from controversial choices that Shoals insisted on personally. For starters,

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Speaker 1: he demanded that the Peanuts kids be voiced by real children.

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Speaker 1: This meant the crew would be working with mostly non professionals,

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Speaker 1: many of whom were too young to memorize their lines

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Speaker 1: or even to read. In some cases, most of the

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Speaker 1: child actors had to have their lines fed to them

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Speaker 1: a few words at a time, which was done by

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Speaker 1: the long suffering director and voice of Snoopy, Bill Melendez.

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Speaker 1: You can find traces of this process in the final product.

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Speaker 1: There's not a lot of rhythm to the sentences, which

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Speaker 1: makes them sound a little choppy. In fact, if you

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Speaker 1: listen closely, you can hear the seams between words where

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Speaker 1: different parts of a line were stitched together in post.

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Speaker 1: The untrained actors were just the first of many notes

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Speaker 1: from Shoals that ended up jeopardizing the project. Another shake

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Speaker 1: up came when he refused to let the network include

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Speaker 1: a laugh track to highlight the jokes for the viewers.

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Speaker 1: It's hard to picture the low key special with a

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Speaker 1: laugh track, especially since it obviously wasn't filmed in front

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Speaker 1: of a live studio audience, but canned laughter was a

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Speaker 1: staple of TV comedy at the time, even in cartoons

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Speaker 1: like The Flintstones for instance. However, when producer Lee Mendelssohn

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Speaker 1: mentioned the idea to Shoals, the artist quickly shot it down.

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Speaker 1: When Mendelssohn pleaded that the special would drag without it,

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Speaker 1: Shoals put his foot down by standing up and leaving

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Speaker 1: the room without a word. A few minutes later, he

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Speaker 1: reportedly came back and carried on as if nothing had

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Speaker 1: ever happened. Mendelssohn took the hint and gave up on

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Speaker 1: the idea of a laugh track. Another point of contention

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Speaker 1: where this specials heavier themes, such as the commercialization of

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Speaker 1: Christmas and the climactic scene in which Linus reads from

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Speaker 1: the Bible. Shoals insisted on those elements because it was

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Speaker 1: important to him that the special explore what he considered

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Speaker 1: the true meaning of Christmas, and that's why Linus reads

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Speaker 1: the story of Jesus's birth straight from the Gospel of St. Luke.

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Speaker 1: This was a pretty risky move at the time, because,

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Speaker 1: according to The Atlantic, less than nine percent of Christmas

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Speaker 1: episodes and specials from the era contained religious references of

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Speaker 1: any kind, much less direct quotes from scripture. Surprisingly, CBS

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Speaker 1: didn't object to the inclusion, and neither did Coca Cola. However,

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Speaker 1: producer Leigh Mendelssohn was nervous. Once again. He told Shoals

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Speaker 1: that no animated character had ever read from the Bible before, which,

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Speaker 1: two Shoals was all the more reason to do it.

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Speaker 1: He told Mendelsohn, quote, well, if we don't do it,

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Speaker 1: who will. You might imagine that CBS and Coca Cola

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Speaker 1: must have really liked what they saw if they let

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Speaker 1: the religious themes stand without pushback, But in reality, an

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Speaker 1: executive from Coke's ad agency actually visited the crew halfway

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Speaker 1: through production and said the special was shaping up to

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Speaker 1: be a disaster, and CBS thought the same thing. When

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Speaker 1: they screened an early cut just three weeks before the premiere.

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Speaker 1: The network said there was two little action and that

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Speaker 1: the whole thing moved way too slowly, not to mention

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Speaker 1: the low energy voice acting and the jazz soundtracked, which

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Speaker 1: they found annoying. Bill Melendez later said that the network

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Speaker 1: would have scrapped the special altogether, except that they had

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Speaker 1: made a commitment to Coke and it was too late

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Speaker 1: to back out. So the show went on as scheduled,

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Speaker 1: and to everyone's surprise, viewers tuned in in roves. In fact,

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Speaker 1: of all American TVs in use that night were tuned

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Speaker 1: to the special, accounting for roughly fifteen million people. And

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Speaker 1: as for that annoying jazz soundtrack provided by pianist and

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Speaker 1: composer Vince Guaraldi, it became iconic in its own right.

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Speaker 1: The tune, called Linus and Lucy even went on to

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Speaker 1: become the theme song for the whole Peanuts brand. A

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Speaker 1: few months after the special aired, Charles Scholz and Lee

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Speaker 1: Mendelssohn found themselves on stage at the Emmy's accepting the

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six Award for Outstanding Children's Program. The Peanuts

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Speaker 1: Christmas Special was the surprise hit that no one had

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Speaker 1: seen coming, and that includes Charles Schulz himself. As he

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Speaker 1: later told TV Guide in quote, the continued success of

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Speaker 1: the special has surprised me as much as anyone. A

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Speaker 1: lot of the drawings are terrible, of course, those terrible

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Speaker 1: drawings were based on his own designs, so take from

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Speaker 1: that what you will. The executives at CBS were also

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Speaker 1: caught off guard by the success, though they moved quickly

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Speaker 1: to capitalize on it anyway. Soon after the specials premiere,

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Speaker 1: the network called Mendelssohn and ordered four More's Peanuts specials,

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Speaker 1: with many more to follow. Less than a week later,

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Speaker 1: CBS also announced that it would rebroadcast the special the

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Speaker 1: following Christmas, launching an annual tradition that's continued across various

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Speaker 1: networks for more than half a century. The main difference

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Speaker 1: between the original broadcast and its yearly re airings is

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Speaker 1: that the Coca Cola branding was removed from the opening

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Speaker 1: and closing sequences. The glowing reception of a Charlie Brown

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Speaker 1: Christmas encouraged CBS and other networks to invest in more

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Speaker 1: prime time holiday specials, many of which also became part

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Speaker 1: of yearly family celebrations. In fact, the very next year,

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty six, CBS premiered its second animated holiday special,

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Speaker 1: an adaptation of Dr Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

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Speaker 1: But that's a story for another day, A story for

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Speaker 1: December eighteen. To be precise, I'm Gabe Louzier and hopefully

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Speaker 1: you now know a little more about history today than

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Speaker 1: you did yesterday. If you have a second, consider following

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Speaker 1: us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at t d I

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Speaker 1: h C Show. You can also leave us a review

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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, and you can right to us at

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Speaker 1: this day at I heart media dot com. Thanks as

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Speaker 1: always the channel or Mace for producing the show, and

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

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

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Speaker 1: podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.