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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Daddy and Katie and

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Speaker 1: I were doing some research for another podcast recently and

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Speaker 1: we were talking about the Grand Tour, that great trek

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Speaker 1: around Europe that people have been making for so long.

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Speaker 1: And uh, I went on a condensed version of the

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Speaker 1: Grand Tour myself, because you know, we have cheap airlines

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Speaker 1: now and and fast trains and not just boats and

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Speaker 1: horses or whatever people used to take to get around Europe.

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Speaker 1: And you show me your pictures. I did, and of

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Speaker 1: course I have not been, so if you have any

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Speaker 1: disposable income, send it my way. But I saw St.

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Speaker 1: Paul's Cathedral. I started off in London, and of you know,

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Speaker 1: of course you see a lot of old monuments and

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Speaker 1: really great things. But one of the things that really

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Speaker 1: impressed me about St. Paul's Cathedral in London was that

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Speaker 1: it's got all this old historical significance, but it also

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Speaker 1: has a really modern significance to it. So we'll go

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Speaker 1: back to the beginning. Um, it was a very important

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Speaker 1: place in general, the Roman temple to Diana may have

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Speaker 1: been on this exact site. And there were a lot

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Speaker 1: of iterations of St. Paul's, most of which burned at

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Speaker 1: some point. We don't even need to go over all

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Speaker 1: of them. There were so many. Most burned. One was

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Speaker 1: sacked by vikings, one was struck by lightning. Cromwellian cavalry

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Speaker 1: troops camped out in one and messed it up so

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Speaker 1: bad that was about it. And then the old old St.

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Speaker 1: Paul's as it's known, was burned by the Great London

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Speaker 1: Fire right in the late sixt undreds, and Christopher Wren

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Speaker 1: had been hired to make some renovations, but then it

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Speaker 1: burned down completely. So he had the wonderful opportunity of

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Speaker 1: building from scratch, and he came up with three different designs,

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Speaker 1: two of which the board rejected and he was heartbroken.

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Speaker 1: And the third one may not have even been It

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Speaker 1: definitely was his third choice, but he made some embellishments

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Speaker 1: on what was actually built. And this design, of course

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Speaker 1: is a famous part of the London Skyline now, probably

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Speaker 1: the symbol of it if you if you don't count

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Speaker 1: the Gherkin or the London Eye Ferris, but which I

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Speaker 1: don't know, let's not count let's not count this, but

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Speaker 1: it's known for its enormous dome, and the dome itself

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Speaker 1: is actually really cool. You can go up in it

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Speaker 1: and there's a whispering gallery where yeah it's I was

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Speaker 1: visiting by myself, so I didn't get to test this. Help.

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Speaker 1: If you whisper near one side of the dome, somebody

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Speaker 1: on the complete other side of it can hear. You

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Speaker 1: have to go battle acoustical trick. I had heard of

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Speaker 1: it because it was the wedding site of Charles and Diana,

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Speaker 1: and which was really unusual, because normal they do that

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Speaker 1: sort of thing at Westminster Abbey, it's usually um. Saint

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Speaker 1: Paul's is usually the site of state occasions instead of

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Speaker 1: royalty occasions, and there are a lot of famous dead

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Speaker 1: folks buried. They're including Lord Nelson, and the funeral for

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Speaker 1: Churchill was there, I think. But despite all this, St

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Speaker 1: Paul's best known as being a symbol of hope for

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Speaker 1: London during the Blitz, and I hadn't known anything about

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Speaker 1: this until you started telling me, So I think this

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Speaker 1: stuff is pretty cool. We should give you some background

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Speaker 1: on the Blitz. First um in July of nineteen forty,

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Speaker 1: Hitler turns his eye toward Great Britain because France has

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Speaker 1: been conquered and this is the next place he'd like

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Speaker 1: to take his own. But he knows he can't just

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Speaker 1: make an amphibious invasion on the great naval power of Britain,

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Speaker 1: so he decides to bombard the country by air. First.

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Speaker 1: The lift FAVA, which is the German Air Force, has

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Speaker 1: no systematic plan about doing this, but the British are

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Speaker 1: prepared and they are organized, so it's not going to

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Speaker 1: be as easy as Hitler had hoped. Yeah, they the British.

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Speaker 1: Then the children of London and other cities out to

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Speaker 1: the country, which I knew about from Narnia little. That's

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Speaker 1: why they end up in the country, and by the wardrobe. Um,

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Speaker 1: and people the people of London take shelter in the

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Speaker 1: tube stations, and some people actually even move in because

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Speaker 1: they're tired of going back. Yeah, going back and forth.

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Speaker 1: But London is bombarded over starting in the summer of

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Speaker 1: nineteen forty and the Blitz happens in the winter of

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Speaker 1: nineteen forty one. Um, just constant assault by bombs and

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Speaker 1: fire bombs, and much of the city burns and um,

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Speaker 1: the intensity of it all all really picks up in

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Speaker 1: September of nineteen forty when the British actually retaliate by

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Speaker 1: launching an unexpected bombing raid on Berlin and Hitler is

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Speaker 1: so angered by the US that he shifts the shifts

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Speaker 1: to attacking the cities instead of focusing more in military installations. Right, so,

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Speaker 1: now we're right on the city of London and the

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Speaker 1: civilians and all of the buildings, and lots of buildings

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Speaker 1: were damaged during the blitz, including the British Museum and

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Speaker 1: Westminster Abbey and the House of Commons which is almost

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Speaker 1: completely destroyed. Even Buckingham Palace is at one point hit

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Speaker 1: So the city of London is all the monuments are

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Speaker 1: are taking heavy fire. But there's one that turns into

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Speaker 1: a symbol of hope for all of the British people,

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Speaker 1: and that is St Paul's Cathedral, and it's because of

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Speaker 1: a group called Saint Paul's Watch. Yeah, Winston Churchill actually

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Speaker 1: declares that at all costs, St Paul's must be saved

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Speaker 1: and it's just the symbol of resistance. And Saint Paul's

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Speaker 1: Watch is a group of two volunteers, most of them

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Speaker 1: are from the Royal Institute of British architects, and they're

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Speaker 1: famililier with the blueprints and the plans of St. Paul's.

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Speaker 1: They know their way around it and working with the

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Speaker 1: city's firefighters, they guard the cathedral at night. Uh you know,

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Speaker 1: obviously not sheltered from the bombs. We we've mentioned that

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Speaker 1: people get into the tube stations or leave town, so

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Speaker 1: it's a dangerous place to be and just sit up

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Speaker 1: all night watching the cathedral and running in when firebomb

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Speaker 1: hits to put it out with water or sandbags. It

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Speaker 1: was incredibly dangerous and it's just so cool to get

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Speaker 1: that mental image of these people staying up all night

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Speaker 1: to guard this building that had become a symbol for

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Speaker 1: a whole group of people against Hitler. One of them

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Speaker 1: later wrote, eight solid hours fighting to save St. Paul's.

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Speaker 1: We put out every sort of fire, but couldn't cope

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Speaker 1: with the terrific h E high explosive crashes. It rocked

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Speaker 1: so much. Once we were sure it was over, there

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Speaker 1: were a few direct hits. Obviously you could stop a

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Speaker 1: little fire, but you can't stop a bomb from destroying

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Speaker 1: part of the building. The high altar was destroyed by

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Speaker 1: a bomb in October nineteen forty, and another bomb fell

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Speaker 1: in the North Aisle in April ninety one and damaged

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Speaker 1: the crypt. But the big one was in September ninety

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Speaker 1: a two hundred pound bomb that didn't detonate but landed

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Speaker 1: right on the front steps. And this is actually dug

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Speaker 1: up and transported. I'm imagining what a terrifying job that

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Speaker 1: would be stuck up and transported to Hackney Marshes, where

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Speaker 1: when it is detonated it leaves a hundred foot crater,

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Speaker 1: and that would have been Apparently, these unexploded bombs were

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Speaker 1: also a part of London. I saw this picture of

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Speaker 1: a policeman escorting a mother and two little girls passed

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Speaker 1: a sign that says danger unexploded bombs, and everyone looks

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Speaker 1: so cheery and happy except one girl who must have

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Speaker 1: like just learned how to read or something, and she's

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Speaker 1: kind of looking at the sign like, oh my gosh.

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Speaker 1: But why the cathedral is so indelibly recorded in our

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Speaker 1: minds is because of a single photograph um on December

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Speaker 1: twenty nine, nineteen forty, which is actually the same night

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Speaker 1: that the American news correspondent Edward R. Murrow broadcast that St.

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Speaker 1: Paul's was burning and destroyed, which it wasn't. It was

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Speaker 1: the same night that photographer Herbert and Mason took the

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Speaker 1: picture of the cathedral, the famous dome ringed in smoke

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Speaker 1: of burning London, and it was pretty much all you

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Speaker 1: can see in the picture. Everything just looks there's death

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Speaker 1: and destruction, charred buildings in the foreground, but it's just

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Speaker 1: all smoke and then this absolutely beautiful dome rising above it.

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Speaker 1: And it was published two days later in the Daily

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Speaker 1: Mail with the headline War's Greatest Picture. St. Paul's stands

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Speaker 1: unharmed in the midst of the burning city and it

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Speaker 1: made it through the rest of the blitz thanks to you,

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Speaker 1: the St. Paul's Watch and the firefighters and um I

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Speaker 1: thought this was kind of a nice bookend to the

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Speaker 1: whole thing, but by nineteen the cathedral bells were rung

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Speaker 1: to celebrate the liberation of Paris, so it was worthwhile.

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Speaker 1: So thanks to those brave volunteers and architects. St. Paul's

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Speaker 1: is still a huge tourist spot, is Sarah found out,

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Speaker 1: and definitely a big part of the London skyline. And

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Speaker 1: if you'd like to learn more about the American reaction

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Speaker 1: to the Blitz, you can check out the article how

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Speaker 1: the Office of Civilian Defense Works at our homepage on www.

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Speaker 1: Dot how stuff works dot com. For more on this

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Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Let us know what you think, Send an email to

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Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com, and be sure

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Speaker 1: to check out the stuff you missed in History Glass

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Speaker 1: Blog on the how stuff works dot com homepage two