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Speaker 1: Hey, they're history fans. We're off for Indigenous People's Day

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Speaker 1: or Columbus Day if you're old school. But don't worry,

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Speaker 1: We've got a special flashback episode to tide you over.

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Speaker 1: Please enjoy and tune back in tomorrow for a brand

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Speaker 1: new show.

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Speaker 2: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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

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Speaker 1: show for those interested in the big and small moments

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Speaker 1: of history. I'm Gave Lucier, and in this episode, we're

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Speaker 1: talking about the day when a high schooler in New

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Speaker 1: York had her first car total by a shooting star.

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Speaker 1: The day was October ninth, nineteen ninety two. A meteorite

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Speaker 1: the size of a bowling balled into a parked Chevy

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Speaker 1: Malibu in a suburb of Peak Skill, New York. Scientists

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Speaker 1: later determined that the meteorite was four point four billion

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Speaker 1: years old and had come from an asteroid belt in

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Speaker 1: space that lies between Jupiter and Mars. The car belonged

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Speaker 1: to seventeen year old Michelle Knapp, who was watching TV

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Speaker 1: in her parents' living room when the meteorite made contact.

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Speaker 1: Startled by what she described as a three car crash,

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Speaker 1: she ran outside and discovered a large hole near the

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Speaker 1: trunk of her orange nineteen eighty Chevy Malibu. Upon further investigation,

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Speaker 1: she found a hole of the same size in the

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Speaker 1: gravel driveway beneath her car, and laying in that hole

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Speaker 1: was what appeared to be an ordinary rock. Michelle called

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Speaker 1: the police to report that her car had been vandalized,

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Speaker 1: apparently thinking that someone had managed to throw a rock

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Speaker 1: through the rear end of her car and clean out

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Speaker 1: the other side. Her neighbor, who had heard the noise himself,

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Speaker 1: pointed out that a human couldn't have thrown a rock

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Speaker 1: with that kind of force, and that perhaps it had

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Speaker 1: fallen from outer space instead. This made sense, as the

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Speaker 1: twenty eight pound rock was quite heavy for its size,

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Speaker 1: plus it was warm to the touch and smelled like

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Speaker 1: sulfur or rotten eggs. The following day, a curator from

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Speaker 1: the American Museum of Natural History in New York City

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Speaker 1: paid Michelle a visit and confirmed her neighbor's theory. The

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Speaker 1: rock that had slammed into Michelle's car was a piece

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Speaker 1: of meteor that had streaked across the sky over the

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Speaker 1: East Coast. The intense heat and speed broke the meteor

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Speaker 1: into more than seventy pieces, and unfortunately, one of the

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Speaker 1: largest of those chunks happened to collide with the trunk

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Speaker 1: of her car. As unlucky as that was, it could

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Speaker 1: have been much worse. The space rock was moving at

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Speaker 1: a speed of one hundred and sixty four miles per hour,

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Speaker 1: and it just barely missed the car's gas tank. Meteorites

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Speaker 1: are relatively common. In fact, it's thought that about one

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Speaker 1: hundred pounds of this space debris strike the Earth every day,

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Speaker 1: but thankfully, a meteorite hitting a car is much less common.

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Speaker 1: As far as we know, it's only happened two other times,

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Speaker 1: once in Illinois during the nineteen thirties and again in

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Speaker 1: Saint Louis during the nineteen fifties. But the Peak Skill meteorite,

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Speaker 1: as it came to be known, wasn't notable just because

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Speaker 1: it hit a car. The truly remarkable thing about it

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Speaker 1: was that it was one of the most witnessed meteorites

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Speaker 1: in history. In the span of just forty seconds, the

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Speaker 1: meteorite had crossed four state lines, traveling the distance of

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Speaker 1: over four hundred miles. Along the way, thousands of people

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Speaker 1: saw the greenish fireball streak past overhead, including spectators. At

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Speaker 1: weekly high school football matches throughout the East Coast, dozens

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Speaker 1: of parents had brought video cameras to record their kids' games,

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Speaker 1: and when the meteorite appeared in the sky, as many

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Speaker 1: as sixteen different observers from various locations turned their cameras skyward.

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Speaker 1: The sixteen videos, shot from different perspectives, allowed scientists to

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Speaker 1: map the exact trajectory of the meteorite, making it one

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Speaker 1: of just a few whose orbit is definitively known. But

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Speaker 1: as interesting as that is, if you're like me, what

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Speaker 1: you really want to know is whether Michelle NAP's insurance

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Speaker 1: paid for the damage. The answer is no, but don't

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Speaker 1: feel too bad for Michelle. Although she had only paid

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Speaker 1: about three hundred dollars for her first car, the unique

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Speaker 1: damage made it worth ten thousand dollars to a meteorite

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Speaker 1: enthusiast in Cranford, New Jersey. But the true payday came

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Speaker 1: when Michelle sold the meteorite itself to a group of

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Speaker 1: collectors for sixty nine thousand dollars. With that, she could

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Speaker 1: afford a whole fleet of used Chevy Malibus or at

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Speaker 1: least a couple new ones. Eventually, the meteorite was broken

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Speaker 1: into smaller pieces and divvied up between other collectors and

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Speaker 1: a few museums, including Chicago's Field Museum, the American National

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Speaker 1: History Museum, and the Smithsonian. As for the car, it's

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Speaker 1: available to rent and has been displayed around the world

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Speaker 1: in cities like Paris, Munich, and Tokyo. If you decide

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Speaker 1: to exhibit the car yourself, make sure you're extra careful

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Speaker 1: with it. According to its own website, meteorite car dot com,

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Speaker 1: Michelle Knapp's old Chevy Malibu is now insured for a

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Speaker 1: million dollars. Kind of makes you wish your own car

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Speaker 1: could be struck by a meteorite. Well almost. I'm gave

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Speaker 1: Lucier and hopefully you now know a little more about

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Speaker 1: history today than you did yesterday. If you have a

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Speaker 1: second and you're so inclined, consider leaving us a review

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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. You can also follow the show on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at TDIHC show, and if you have any

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Speaker 1: feedback for us, you can send it to This Day

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Speaker 1: at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing

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Speaker 1: the show, and thank you for listening. I'll see you

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Speaker 1: back here again tomorrow for another Day in History Class.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to this Day in History Class from HowStuffWorks dot

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Speaker 2: Com and from the desk of Stuff you Missed in

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Speaker 2: History Class. It's the show where we explore the past

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Speaker 2: one day at a time with a quick look at

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Speaker 2: what happened today in history. Hello and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 2: I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and it's October ninth. Jay Gavara

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Speaker 2: was executed on this day in nineteen sixty seven. He

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Speaker 2: was born June fourteenth, nineteen twenty eight, and his name

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Speaker 2: his full name was Ernesto Gavara de la Cerna, and

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Speaker 2: before becoming a revolutionary, he grew up in a middle

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Speaker 2: class family. He had a pretty typical middle class upbringing.

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Speaker 2: He went to medical school. He traveled a lot during

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Speaker 2: his university years, and as he was traveling, he saw

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Speaker 2: the tremendous poverty that was just endemic in many parts

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Speaker 2: of South America. He came to believe during all this

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Speaker 2: travel and during his studies that the only way that

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Speaker 2: the common people could take the power and wealth out

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Speaker 2: of the hands of the elite was through an armed

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Speaker 2: up right. He got his medical degree in nineteen fifty

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Speaker 2: three and then in nineteen fifty four, he met Fidel

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Speaker 2: Castro for the first time. That meeting happened in Mexico.

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Speaker 2: He joined up with Fidel Castro and was instrumental in

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Speaker 2: Castro's overthrow of the Cuban government in nineteen fifty nine.

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Speaker 2: After the revolution, Gavara was made the president of the

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Speaker 2: National Bank of Cuba and also served as the Minister

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Speaker 2: of Industry. Aside from that, he was sort of Fidel

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Speaker 2: Castro's right hand man. Gavara was deeply against US policy

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Speaker 2: and against US influence in Central and South America. This

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Speaker 2: was at a time when the United States was using

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Speaker 2: the fear of communism to justify ongoing intervention in multiple

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Speaker 2: places in Central and South America. The United States was

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Speaker 2: trying to keep governments in power that were friendly to

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Speaker 2: US interests, or to put such governments in power where

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Speaker 2: they did not already exist. In nineteen sixty five, Gavara

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Speaker 2: either left or was dismissed from his work in Cuba.

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Speaker 2: It's not one hundred percent clear. He did write a

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Speaker 2: farewell letter, though, in which he said, quote, I have

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Speaker 2: fulfilled the part of my duty that tied me to

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Speaker 2: the Cuban Revolution, and I say goodbye to you, to

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Speaker 2: the comrades, to your people who are now mine. Castro

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Speaker 2: read this letter in a public speech on October third,

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixty five. When Gavara left Cuba, he wanted to

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Speaker 2: spread revolution to other parts of the world, so he

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Speaker 2: did things like go to the Congo to train gorilla forces.

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Speaker 2: He did also secretly return to Cuba for a time,

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Speaker 2: and then he went to Bolivia and he joined a

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Speaker 2: gorilla uprising against the Bolivian government. He arrived there in

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Speaker 2: the fall of nineteen sixty six. He got into Bolivia

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Speaker 2: with a forged Uruguayan passport. The reason he chose Bolivia

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Speaker 2: was that he thought that conditions were really ripe for

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Speaker 2: revolution in lots of Latin America, but he thought that

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Speaker 2: Bolivia was less of a priority to the United States,

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Speaker 2: so he might face less opposition from the United States there.

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Speaker 2: That didn't turn out to be true. There By May

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Speaker 2: of nineteen sixty seven, US intelligence had heard that Gavara

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Speaker 2: was alive and then had confirmed it. The CIA had

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Speaker 2: thought that when he left Cuba earlier, that he had

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Speaker 2: really been killed, because nothing was heard from him for

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Speaker 2: a time, at least from American authorities, and the CIA

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Speaker 2: was monitoring the situation was keeping President Lyndon Johnson updated

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Speaker 2: on what Jae Gavara was doing in Bolivia. By the fall,

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Speaker 2: Gavar's force was actively fighting against the Bolivian military, although

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Speaker 2: nearly a third of his men were killed in one

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Speaker 2: engagement on August thirty first of nineteen sixty seven. About

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Speaker 2: two weeks after that, the Bolivian government started dropping flyers

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Speaker 2: that advertised a reward for Jae Gavara's capture. Soon he

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Speaker 2: was facing dwindling numbers of his fighting force, and he

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Speaker 2: and many of his fighting force were ill. The Bolivian

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Speaker 2: and the army captured him with support from the United

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Speaker 2: States military on October eighth, and they executed him at

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Speaker 2: the age of thirty nine on the ninth. They decided

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Speaker 2: to execute him because they thought that a trial was

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Speaker 2: just going to spread his ideas and increase his popularity.

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Speaker 2: So they thought it was a strategic decision that an

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Speaker 2: execution would put a stop to what he was doing

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Speaker 2: and to his reputation, But it had the opposite effect

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Speaker 2: that didn't work at all. After he was executed, they

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Speaker 2: cut off his hands, took photos, cut off some of

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Speaker 2: his hair, and buried him in an unmarked grave. There

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Speaker 2: were some questions among US intelligence at first about whether

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Speaker 2: he really had been killed, but a presidential adviser confirmed

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Speaker 2: Gavara's death to President Johnson on October thirteenth, in nineteen

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Speaker 2: ninety seven. His remains were located and sent back to

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Speaker 2: Cuba and reburied there, and Fidel Castro was at that ceremony,

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Speaker 2: although questions were raised later about whether those remains really

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Speaker 2: had been his. A picture of Gevara in a beret

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Speaker 2: has become iconic and very widely reproduced, and that photo

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Speaker 2: was taken in nineteen sixty by Alberto Korda. Thanks to

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Speaker 2: eve's Jeff Cote for her research work on Today's podcast

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Speaker 2: and Tutari Harrison for all her audio work on this podcast.

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Speaker 2: You can subscribe to This Day in History Class on

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Speaker 2: Apple podcasts and Google podcasts and wherever else you get

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