I Don't Know About That - The American Revolution

Episode Date: April 5, 2022

In this episode, the team discusses the American Revolution with historian and author of "Misinformation Nation: Foreign News and the Politics of Truth in Revolutionary America", Jordan Taylor. Follow Jordan on Twitter @PubliusOrPerish . Our merch store is now live! Go to idontknowaboutthat.com for shirts, hoodies, mugs, and more! Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/IDKAT for ad free episodes, bonus episodes, and more exclusive perks! Tiers start at just $2! Go to JimJefferies.com to buy tickets to Jim's upcoming tour, The Moist Tour.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Will Smith, the actor. Will Smith, the dodger. Who's gotten more hits in spring training? You might find out, and I don't know about that, with Jim Jefferies. Good one. That might be one of your best ones. Thank you, thank you. There's also Will Smith, the pitcher, don't forget. He's gotten the least amount of hits. Oh, yeah, yeah best ones. Thank you, thank you. There's also Will Smith the pitcher, don't forget. He's got an Elisa.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Will Smith the pitcher. He hasn't even been to person. Yeah, yeah. Like Will Smith, because he really played up to the name Will Smith. He comes out to the Fresh Prince as his track. That's a big question. Opening day is coming next week.

Does Will Smith walk out to in West Philadelphia born and raised? Does he walk to the plate like that or does he change it to getting jiggy with it? Or the G.I. Jane theme song. Has Will Smith, the baseball player shaved his head and if he did, would it be a good laugh? You got some shows coming

up this week, Jim? I'm in green bay i'm in grand rapids and then i'm gonna do like edmondson and calgary with some extra shows this is a couple of weeks extra shows have been added to the thursday and the friday one in each city um and then i'm off to australia which the tour is sold out. You have some other dates for that. Nothing I care about. Cleveland and Detroit. You care about them. I do.

I do. I'm only joking. Cleveland and Detroit. And then you're going back to Canada. I've had a show in Detroit. It's selling like gangbusters, Detroit. Motor City, I'm coming to see you. Cleveland, how are you? And then you go back to Canada one more time before you go to Australia.

To Winnipeg. No, Winnipeg and Canada. To lose a peg. No, you're going to go to Regina, Saskatoon. Regina. The only town that rhymes with cunt. And Winnipeg, you're right. And Winnipeg. So come to all those or go to your website, right? JimJeffries.com.

JimJeffries.com. Dot com. Okay. We could probably make that those might exist this week I will be in Tampa Florida at SideSplitters SideSplitters been a long time coming

Bobby Duel Act Now high ticket alert right now we're really close to completely not being sold out congratulations I'll tell you the Australian tour for most cities Now we're really close to completely not being sold out. So that's pretty cool. I'll tell you, the Australian tour, for most cities,

like Sydney and Melbourne, they all sold out. All the tickets are at Perth. They all sold out. Except we added a show in Wollongong, and we thought we were only going to sell a couple of thousand tickets. So we had the arena batched down, and we keep growing the room, and it's up to 5,000 or something. You can still get the gong.

We've released some more tickets at the gong. Low ticket alert. Low ticket alert at the gong. And the New Zealand tickets are ticking along fine. High ticket alert. Well, mostly so, but it's, I've said some things and you're right to be upset New Zealand. So if you don't live,

if you don't live in Green Bay or Grand Rapids, come to Tampa next week. And then the week after that, Jim's not even going to be on the road. I'll be in Escondido. Like if Will Smith can slap. I'm trying to plug my shows here. Oh, I thought you were still plugging me. April 15th and 16th.

I tried to, but you were like, ah, fuck Cleveland and Detroit. I didn't know. I love Cleveland and Detroit. April 15th and 16th, I'll be at the Grand Comedy Club in Escondido. It's near San Diego. Come out there and do your thing. I like Daveland. That's Cleveland, Detroit. April 15th and 16th, I'll be at the Grand Comedy Club in Escondido. It's near San Diego. Come out there and do your thing. I like Develand. That's when I put Detroit and Cleveland together.

Develand. Great place. I'm going to go to those shows with you, Cleveland and Detroit. And I was thinking we're going to have extra day in Detroit. We should go to the Ford Motor Museum. Really cool. Now, join the Patreon. We just recorded a Patreon.

We talked all about Will Smith. Bloody, get that covered. Every fucking angle. We had a return of Barbara and Lottie. And if you don't know who Barbara and Lottie is. Yeah, you're missing out. You're missing out. You've got to join on to see and to hear the Barbara and Lottie story.

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idcatpodcasts.com they're launching it today launched and so one more thing too I have this picture I didn't have it for a couple weeks Lexi Luna gave us a sign for our porn episodes.

I'll put that up there. She's got wonderful handwriting. She was a school teacher. Thank you all so much. She had a lot of fun. We met her in Vegas. She came to the show in Vegas. She didn't come backstage after the gig.

She might not have enjoyed the show. She came before. Yeah, she came before, I guess. What do you think? Because she didn't come after? You meant to go, I really enjoyed it. She bought her tickets. You didn't give her tickets. Even more reason. You meant to go, I really enjoyed it. She bought her tickets. You didn't give her tickets.

Even more reason, you're invested. Now you're calling her out. I think she enjoyed it, Jim. She should have. I was excellent. It's happened. All right. Please welcome our guest today, Jordan Taylor. G'day, Jordan. Now it's time to play. Yes, though. Yes, no. Yes, no.

Yes, no. Is it playing through the thing? Yes, no. Judging a book by its cover. All right, we didn't hear this song either, but Jack did. G'day, Jordan. Thanks for being on the podcast, mate. Look, I normally try to pick what the person does by their backdrop.

I'm assuming you're an inmate in a prison. You're only allowed a certain amount of visiting time and you're speaking through one of those glass windows to me right now. Am I correct? Not quite, but sometimes it feels that way. I feel like that building is pro-asbestos. You know what I mean?

I feel like it's still going. I'd check the roof. I haven't seen the top of it, but I think that they haven't cleaned that one out. Are you at a school or a university? I am, yeah. Are you a professor? Yes.

Okay, I guess that. Are you a professor of a functioning topic like doctors, medicines, lawyers, things like that that you can actually get a job for? No, sadly. Okay. All right. Does your profession involve Plato? No.

Plato, like the Plato? No, like the philosopher. Okay, let me give you a hint. I always think with philosophy, they never bring in Confucius. Do they bring Confucius into philosophy degrees? I don't think so. The guy that writes the fortune cookies is one bloke, allegedly, or is that an urban myth?

There's one bloke who doesn't. I don't think that's philosophy, fortune cookies. Fortune cookies are so philosophy. The lucky numbers aren't that they put at the bottom. That's very random. Let me give you a hint. You were recently in Washington, D.C., at a theater that was named The lucky numbers aren't that they put at the bottom. That's very random. Let me give you a hint. You were recently in Washington, D.C. at a theater that was named after something that is basically this topic.

You remember the theater you were at, right? Yeah, I remember the theater. What was it called? Eddie Murphy. Eddie Murphy. Recorded. Delirious. Delirious. It was the National Theater. No, it was DAR. theater it was dar d-a-r that's what

that's those were the initials the dar theater daughters i don't know democrats are right daughters of the what you said d-a-r d-a-r there's no like republic of A are American. Revolution. We're talking about the American Revolution. Ah, yeah. I've seen Hamilton. I think that's actually after what we're about to talk about. I guess you're going to crush it.

Look, I know there's a lot of, yeah, I'll give it a go. It's one of those things that I sort of know a little bit about in the same sense as most americans i guess we didn't learn it in school i've seen enough movies well hold on jordan taylor is a historian of the american revolution focusing on the era's media and politics he has a phd in early american history and is currently teaching at indiana university he is the author of a forthcoming book about fake news during the American Revolution called Misinformation Nation, Foreign News and the Politics of Truth in Revolutionary America, which is coming out in October. And his Twitter is at, is this Publius or Parrish?

Is that how I would say that? Yeah, that's how you would say that. That's a very nerdy American Revolution history joke. Yeah, I looked it up. It's a P-U-B-L-I-U-S. Can we hear the joke? I don't know the joke, but I looked up what Publius was. Yeah, you can. I'm just going to say it's not worth explaining. I don't know. If you don't tell that joke well, I'll come out there and slap you.

Selling the brand there, Jordan. All right, good. So yeah, I don't know. And how did you I mean, how did you this is interesting. The book is about misinformation and like, I guess, fake news during the Revolutionary War. Like it's a term that I wouldn't even associate with then the media. but it is basically a problem that they had and that we continue to have. Right. During that time, there was no such thing as journalists. There was no reliable source of news. Just like now, isn't it? Yeah.

Yeah. Pretty much. But instead of relying on, on Fox news and Twitter, they were relying on sailors and letters and things like that, which are even less trustworthy. I still get my news from sailors i just write down i go what have you seen what's going on overseas i don't trust the news

they're like have you heard about alexander hamilton yeah i'll tell you the news i went this year the water's a bit choppy today yeah that was a bit of news i got so it's not take um well thanks for being here jordan jordan has his doctorate, but he said we could call him Jordan, just so you know. I have to say that all the time so we don't get any angry comments. Dr. Jordan is a good name, though. Yeah, well, it would be Dr. Taylor. Yeah, but if he had a TV show, he'd call himself Dr. Jordan.

Dr. Phil's not his last name. Oh, yeah. Drew's not his last name. Wow, that's a good point. I never thought about it. Fucking he got you so hard Idiot I'm going to ask Jim a bunch of questions about the American Revolution

If you're not getting it Jim We'll skip ahead and just start talking I'll get it No, I mean if it seems like you're not knowing Hey, bloody, watch this Okay, at the end of these questions Confidence is already a 10 Jordan, you're going to rate him

Redcoats You're going to grade him 0 through 10. 10 being the best on his accuracy of his knowledge. Paul Revere. Kelly's going to grade him on confidence. The British are what? The Boston Tea Party. The British are coming, which is also one of my favorite pornos.

And then I'm going to grade him on et cetera. If you get score 21 through 30, George Washington is very significant. A British bukkake. You wouldn't want to watch that. Oh, yeah. Put a little goo on me face. Oh, God, blimey. I'm a jelly hare.

11 through 20, boy George. Oh, yeah. Zero through 10, George Zimmerman. Do you really want to hurt me, Forrest? George Zimmerman, zero through 10. You don't want to be that. Oh, yeah, George Zimmerman. The worst of the Georges.

That was one of my favorite jokes on legit was george was the in season two the opening episode when we go to the high school revolution and uh dan's character steve gets really drunk revolution the school and dan's character is leaving and uh and i'm carrying him out he's all drunk again hey we're in high school you know hey george z George Zimmerman. He goes, what? I go, yeah, different guy. It was an ad lib. All right. When was the American Revolution? At the beginning of America.

Let's go to some years. Yeah. The 4th of July, 1776. Started on 4th of July 1776. Started on 4th of July 1776? The 4th of July was when the Declaration of Independence was signed, and that's when it became the Republic of America. Okay. Sorry about that, Jack Arnie.

I know. I think I've got that wrong, but right at the same time. Why did it start? It started because these fucking british people coming over here thinking they can do things um it started because america wanted their independence there was a bit of bit of tea was thrown into boston harbor weren't the americans british ah this tricky question you got for me here forrest are the australians british who is british when do you cease to be an American?

I'm a British person become an American. It's like so often I remember, I remember like, I remember living in Britain. I remember living in Britain and then some English person said, it's horrible what you did to those other originals. And I went, I feel like that was you as well. You really set the ball rolling on that one. Well, hold off on the Boston Tea Party for now. Right.

Why was the Sugar Act of 1764 significant, and what were the consequences? 1764? Sugar Act. The Sugar Act, yeah. What happened there was the British was cutting off the sugar supply to the American people so they couldn't have sweet, sweet tea. And what happened there was the americans went this

isn't good we need our sugar what was the stamp act um that was where they started taxing the stamps too much another way to get under the heels of the americans by putting inflated taxes on stamps stamps used to cost stamps or letter stamps um when you stamp your feet up and down, they tax that as well. Okay. So they had the post office already before the war. Ah, well, this is a funny thing. Because do you know that Benjamin Franklin was the first postmaster general of America? Well, that's not one of the questions.

It wasn't the fucking citizenship test I took. I thought you might get some from the citizens. Okay, why do colonists protest against taxation without representation? Taxation without representation. I can speak quite boldly on this because I was taxed very heavily by the American people for a very long time when I wasn't a citizen and I wasn't allowed to vote. Sort of revolted.

I'm the fucking, I'm the example. They were taking my taxes, but I wasn't allowed to vote. So. Sort of revolted. I'm the fucking, I'm the example. They were taking my taxes, but I wasn't allowed to say in the elections. Okay. Do you know what the Boston Massacre was? Yes, it's when they beat the Dodgers in 2017. It was maybe

26, I don't know. It was 2019. Yeah, but it was around 18, 17, 17 18 we were in a casino somewhere the game lasted for fucking seven hours or some shit uh the dodgers won that game but yeah the rest of us okay um here you go the tea act and the boston tea party what's going on there uh they were people that they don't no longer wanted the British in America. They wanted to be their own country. And as an act of rebellion, they put all the tea into the harbor.

Okay, here's a question maybe you get from your citizenship test. Sure. How many colonies declared independence from Great Britain in 1776? No, no, no, no. I believe it was like 16 states. I'm going to say 12. Okay okay and then why did they want independence well why does anyone want independence okay let's move on because you know you want to have your own thing going on man it's the same reason you leave your parents house okay do you know any major battles of the revolutionary war i know more about the civil war to be honest with you i don't fuck all about that

and then do you know the turning point of the revolutionary war american revolution george washington came in and he bloody fought them off and there was that bit where he's on the boat where he's standing up on the boat and he's like waving his fist that would have been something i'm gonna skip ahead here. Well, how many American, not Americans, how many people died in the American Revolutionary War? Well, too many because the British were too dumb to invent camouflage. They thought it was good to go and battle with a bloke playing a flute,

another bloke playing the drums, and then we'll all wear red. And then they were like, how did I get shot? You stuck out like a sore thumb. Okay, let's move on. What was the army commanded by George Washington called? Washington Redskin. I don't think they're going to score well on this. They had to change the name.

It didn't age well. No, but they kept it for a long time. They kept it for a long fucking time. I've got like a bunch of questions here. I'm going to ask you two or three more, and then we'll go back to them. How about this? What foreign country aided the colonists the most during the Revolutionary War? What foreign country aided the colonists the most during the Revolutionary War?

Yeah. I would say colony. Colony, not country, right? Country. Country. Country. Country, yeah, yeah. Aided the colonists. I might be way out on this.

I'm going to say France because we have like Louisiana was owned by the French and the thing, there was a few French owned things. It might be Mexico, but I don't think so. I'm going to say France. Okay. Here's a couple more questions. Can you name any prominent members of the American Revolutionary Generation? You know, like probably can do this.

Yeah, yeah. John Hancock. Nice. Yeah, John Hancock. Fucking with his big name up in the corner. Fucking leave some space for everyone else. It's like when you write on the wall of a comedy club and you're like, fucking hell, David Spade, that was a big message.

I'm just going to have to write in the corner. Anybody else? What's his name? Hamilton. He was there. Washington. Benjamin Franklin. Yeah.

Jackson. Jackson who? Michael. Peter. Peter Jackson, the director? Yeah, he tried to make it look good. He takes a long time to bring out these films, man. Who was the King of England during the American Revolution?

That was, he was a man. And I'm going to say it was King George. I like that he was a man. That's a good one. Okay, last question. There's queens going in between. I said who was the king. No, but if you said who was the monarch, I knew it was a man.

It was the guy in Hamilton that goes, you'll be back. I'm going to ask you one more question. We'll get to all this later. What treaty ended the American Revolution? Rice Krispies was the best treaty they had on offer back in the day. Oh, my God. This is long before. Oh, boy.

No, the Treaty of Versailles. It's close. I mean, it's a good thought. Treaty of Versailles. It's wrong. I know it's not. That's a good thought. Treaty of asylum. It's wrong. I know it's not. That's a different way. Hi, Jordan. How did Jim do there with answering those questions? Zero through ten. Ten's the best.

Yeah, I mean, I think I'm going to be generous and say we have some work to do. Four, I think, would be a fair... It doesn't even seem fair at all. If I see Paul Re Four, I think, would be a fair. No, I don't. It doesn't even seem fair at all. If he asked me Paul Revere, I would have got the horse thing.

That was the equivalent of going viral back in the day. Paul Revere? Yeah, Paul Revere. It was like the Twitter of its time. It is when you hear what happens. The bloke on the horse and the English are fucking coming right around everywhere. Okay, so four.

How do you do on confidence, Kelly? I gave him his confidence score early because he said watch me. So I gave him a 10. I thought something would slip into my head, and it didn't. Sometimes I surprise myself because I've watched things. You surprise me a lot on this. Sometimes you didn't pull a lot of them out this time. No, no, no. I had nothing. you did a lot of like who's anybody yeah i it's just a thing that i don't really even when i was watching hamilton i was

finding the story very hard to follow yeah i couldn't follow it i was just there going oh is he trying to kill him why how many kids has he got what's going on there are a lot of people who play uh different parts so it did get confusing for me. Yeah, yeah. Why is Benjamin Franklin all camp? I don't know. What's going on? Okay. Does he live a bit in France? So that's 14 total. I'm going to give you

zero through et cetera. Boy George. Nobody wants to hurt you. Nobody really wants to hurt you. I like Boy George. It's pretty good. I met him once. We were the two guests on Kimmel. That's right. I met him with you. Was he nice? He was. Oh, good.

Alright, Jordan. So I asked Jim when the American Revolution was and he said 1776. Yeah, I mean, that's not wrong. I think most people would expand that a little bit beyond the one day, but it's...

One year? Well, yeah, July 4th, 1776, right? That was the starting point. And we go outward from there. We have the war, which ran from 1775 to 1783. Most people would probably date the beginning of the American Revolution to the 1760s, 1763 or 1765. And then, you you know it ended you can debate when this period ended if you think about it not just as the war but also sort of the tearing down of old institutions and replacing them with new ones it probably ended somewhere

around 1789 or 1800 so it sort of depends on how you want to think about it is there an argument to say that it's still going? Sure. Yeah. Okay, there you go. It is funny that the revolution takes that long. The revolution will never end, man. No, because now everyone's like, it's going to be a revolution.

Like so excited. And then it's like, ah, it's 20 years later. A revolution starts. It's like when they stormed the Capitol. We're going to take America back. How are you going to do that? Ah, I flipped over a table. I flipped over a table i flipped over a table i got up there and stood in nancy pelosi's office and just flipped me dick out like what do you you

know what did they think they were going to do um i asked him like what was the american revolution why did it start and uh i don't remember what you said jim right they didn't like the english yeah i mean like you said they were the english English, so it's a little bit more complicated than that. Unfortunately, the story really starts in the 1750s and 1754, when George Washington, who was a lieutenant colonel in the British Army, was leading a patrol in western Pennsylvania, and he sort of stumbled into a position where some French troops were. And these two groups started to fight this really small-scale battle that eventually ended up causing this huge global war known as the Seven Years' War.

The Seven Years' War ended up being really, really expensive for the British Empire. And by the end of it, the British had this huge debt that they weren't really able to pay for. They could barely afford to even keep up with the interest on this debt. And so they think, we fought this big colonial war. It's only fair for the colonies to help us to pay for some of this debt. And so they start pushing new trade policies, new taxes in order to raise money from the colonists. And nobody likes that. Nobody likes to be taxed. Nobody wants to give up their money.

So colonists start protesting. Things get out of hand eventually. Eventually, there's an independence movement. Taxes, man. It's going to get you. I assume it all started with a parking ticket or something a parking ticket yeah man that's when you first go fuck this man i pay my taxes yeah and that's the taxation without representation is that like the gist of that or well the the

taxation without representation idea is you know something we can we can think about when we um when we talk about the Stamp Act potentially, but we can skip ahead a little bit. Oh, yeah, sorry. We can go anywhere. When I said I was taxation without representation, I was close, right? I mean, in the sense that I'm trying to be generous. You got the phrase right.

Look, I've been oppressed. No one wants to be generous. You got the phrase right. Look, I've been oppressed. No one wants to hear it. Well, I want to hear it, but... So colonial leaders, they were thinking specifically about a very sort of abstract set of ideas about representation that were related to John Locke, the political theorist, not the character on Lost. So John Locke thought that governments were formed in order to

protect property. And a government could take your property through taxation if you agreed, if you consented to that in some way. And the only way for people to consent to the seizure of their property was through representation. But at the same time, unlike you, the colonists didn't really want to be represented because they looked across this big ocean. They saw that they were thousands of miles away from London, and they realized it's not really possible to be effectively represented in Parliament when it takes two or three months to even just get a letter across the ocean and an answer back. So representation was pretty much impractical for them. And so because that was the case, they thought that most forms of taxation were not legal for them.

Yeah, Australia found a way. You guys, you went, ah oh we can't do this we can't be run by a country on the other side of the world add another fucking four weeks to the cruise and australia was like oh we'll let those people govern us we still got the union jack on our flag man yeah but you guys were like you guys were doing bad stuff and they weren't oh yeah because you guys were walking around doing nothing wrong. We didn't do anything. Oh, fucking the smallpox blanket people. And then you go, Australians were up to no good.

We were living in fucking abstract fucking the desert, man. We were living in shit. We were all convicts who were being released and like go off and build a house in the corner. All right, mate. Okay, so I jumped ahead. The Sugar Act of 1764, why's a significant jim said they wanted for their tea yeah that's not it the um yeah but it's not not it is it i like that answer

that's what you want the sugar act was one of those attempts to um raise money to pay down that debt uh it was a tax on trade or a tariff. And so when the colonists imported sugar, they were going to have to pay a tax. Previously, it was actually replacing an earlier law that had established higher taxes. So it was actually technically a tax decrease, but that earlier law really hadn't been enforced. And the colonists were worried that the Sugar Act actually would be enforced. And if it had been, it would have caused some serious economic distress because it wasn't so much that the colonists wanted sugar in their tea as much as that they were importing sugar from the Caribbean, where it was grown by enslaved people on plantations. And then they were taking it,

especially up to New England and making it into rum, which was very profitable. and making it into rum, which was very profitable. And so if there were taxes on sugar and those were enforced, then that whole industry would have kind of gone kaput. But the other thing about the Sugar Act is that the protests against the Sugar Act were not very robust. For the most part, the colonists kind of just accepted that the Sugar Act was going to happen. And so that convinced the British government that they could keep adding on other taxes, sort of emboldened them to keep reaching for more sources of revenue from the colonists. And that would have made it very expensive for them to put sugar in their tea, I assume. If it was made from rum, yeah. If it was made from rum, yeah.

You know, man, I get this, though, because taxes, it's very frustrating. Like, they say you owe money for taxes. You either pay it or they take away everything you own or you go to jail or the revolution. Those are the only options. I'll give you a little tip on taxes first. They're not fun. They are. Every year they annoy me. They are not fun. Every year they annoy me.

They are the worst. As a comedian, they don't take it out gig to gig. At the end of the year, they just send me a bill like, yeah. Yeah, different states will tax you that you visit and stuff. Yeah, I've given them the right just to take it out of my account. Sometimes I just go up there and go, oh, just, and then I go, oh my

God. Yeah, it's not good. The revolution. Yeah. So the Stamp Act, was that more taxes or, I mean, Jim said they were taxing stamps. there and go oh just and then like oh my god yeah it's not good revolution um so the stamp act was that more taxes or i mean jim said they were taxing stamps yeah yeah uh it wasn't a tax on this kind of stamps that you put to send a letter through the mail instead it was um a new kind of stamp it was it was a tax basically on other kinds of paper goods things like newspapers or magazines or legal documents or even playing cards. So the idea was that you would have to pay to have those stamped with an official government stamp.

And that really angered people, especially people like newspaper printers who would have had to pay for those. And newspaper printers decided to sort of mobilize against that. And the colonists had this whole elaborate justification for why certain kinds of taxes were okay, but taxes, what they call direct taxes were unconstitutional. And they considered the Stamp Act to be an unjust tax because it was a direct tax and was taking their property rather than regulating their trade. So this was the first example of that kind of taxation. And it resulted in all kinds of mob violence. People got really, really upset, almost all out of proportion to the actual economic downside of this tax.

For a lot of people, it was a signal of something to come rather than just a matter of this small tax itself. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of when they just make up shit taxes on things. You get an extra tax. He's like, I pay my income tax. And then you have to pay council tax. Like property tax. Property tax. And then sales tax. That pays for the bins, the garbage man. I should be paying more. I just don't know in America what I get for my taxes. I don't know what I fucking...

I get a... But you get a tax bill, it tells you. I get a military. Yeah. I think it's too large. You've always wanted one of those. Yeah, I think it's too large. I think we spend too much on that. But maybe we don't. Maybe we need it this big. I don't fucking know. I'll tell you what they should tax. Tramp stamps. I have a tramp stamp. stamps well you're taxed

i don't know how much i'm figured out yet i'm sure i'm sure tattooing's text um what was some ink somewhere what was the boston massacre i'm assuming it was not when the boston red socks beat the dodgers did you see the games did you see the games fucker was upsetting i mean it can be more than one thing right but all So all over the American colonies, these protests against these taxes and these new pieces of legislation were getting pretty wild. So mobs were forming that would intimidate people who were trying to implement these taxes. They would tar and feather people who were trying to enforce them. They would attack government officials in their homes, things like that. So because Boston in particular was facing a lot of economic distress,

the protests that the colonists were making were sort of centered there. And so London officials decided that they were going to send some troops to help calm things down in Boston and help to take control of the city. And that did not calm things down, right? Sending an occupying army rarely does. It started with a shot from the British, right? I've seen this in How We Were Made. I remember this bit, yeah. Yeah.

So, I mean, there's some confusion about this a little bit. bit there. Yeah. So, I mean, there's some confusion about this a little bit, but generally, the narrative is that there were a group of colonists who were pelting the British soldiers on King Street in Boston with snowballs and rocks and things like that. And the soldiers were starting to get a little bit afraid. And one or more of them misheard someone in the crowd shouting the word fire and took that to be an order that they should fire. So after that, after one soldier shot into the crowd, the rest of the soldiers did so. And in the end, about five people died. Several more were wounded.

Wait, so this started with a snowball fight? Look, I'm going to tell you this. Mind-blowing. The revolution doesn't happen if America in its modern form Wait, so this started with a snowball fight? Look, I'm going to tell you this. This is mind-blowing. The revolution doesn't happen if America in its modern form started on the West Coast. What happened was they all started on the East Coast. They're all fucking cold and wet and snowy, and they're like, fuck it, Alan, we have to pay these extra taxes.

If they were surfing, no, this doesn't happen. In that incident. They were surfing? Yeah, they were surfing. No one worries about taxes. Don't worry about it. No, it doesn't happen. In that incident. They were surfing? Yeah, they were surfing. No one worries about taxes. Don't worry about it. It might have happened. It would have taken a lot longer is what I'm saying.

So on the East Coast, they're having fucking throw a snowball at that fucking soldier over there, fucking that red coat, throw a snowball at that cunt like that, right? And then they're like, oh, my hands are cold, my hands are cold. Oh, you better start a fire, right, and then bang, everyone's fucking dying around him. It doesn't happen in a sunny weather. It doesn't happen in good weather.

Revolutions need the snow. Okay. Extra point. I follow that logic. It's not bad. It's not bad. It's not bad. I'm telling you, if they start out like they start off in New York,

Boston, Washington, that's how they start America, Rhode Island, Jersey, there's a little pocket there. You know that it was a stupid system because they went, what will we make the biggest city? Make it this island that has a finite amount of space because it'll never grow too fucking big. And they made Manhattan thinking there'll never be a city big enough to cover this block of land.

You start in fucking San Diego and LA and everyone's just having fish tacos and shit. Yeah. No, the revolution. They're like, you're going to get taxed more. They're like, hey. The revolution takes their sweet time. Cuba was fine. Nothing happened there. We don't give the Indians fucking epoxy blankets. We make ponchos out of them for that one week that gets a bit cold. I hope one of Jordan's students is listening to this and puts that in as an answer on the test.

It's a theory, but it's not wrong. I think it's wrong. I don't know. You reckon if we started. I think there was fish tacos. If you reckon we start on the wet, there would have been more fish tacos. It's still run by the Mexicans. Okay.

The whole place was still Mexican owned back then. They were still Mexican owned. There would have been fish tacos. Tacos weren run by the Mexicans. Okay. The whole place was still Mexican-owned back then. They were still Mexican-owned. The fish tacos. Tacos weren't invented yet then. What are you talking about? The taco is older than fucking America. That's not true. You're telling me that the taco.

I've actually researched this, but I'll get into it another fucking time. Maybe the word taco, but people were putting shit in tortillas way before America was even thought of. Okay, so let's get back to this. So the Tea Act and the tea act and the boston tea party heard some things in me die well why did american policy see the tea act as a problem i'm assuming more taxation they were taxing the tea they overtaxed the tea and the boston tea party so what what happened there yeah i mean it wasn't quite just a matter of more taxation the tea act

was actually sort of a bailout for a brit corporation. It was called the East India Tea Company. And this company wasn't very profitable. It was on the brink of collapse. It was sort of one of those too big to fail situations. The company had faced some economic challenges because of a war in India, which is where they got their tea from. And so the British government stepped in. At the time, the American colonists didn't really drink much British tea, tea that was coming from the East India Company. Instead, they mostly got their tea from Dutch smugglers or smugglers who got it from the Netherlands because it was cheaper. It was good, but it was cheaper.

They'd bring them in clogs. You cut into the wood and all the tea would fall out. I had good tea. This is exciting. I was getting stoned at home and I put tea in my shoes. I didn't know the success I would have. Oh, yum tacos. Put this in a tortilla.

Have yourself fun. It's too cold here. I'm going skiing on a board on the waves You sound like Tommy Wiseau In the room Hello Mark IDK

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No questions asked. Remember to get your next delicious bowl of gluten-free cereal at magicspoon.com slash IDK. And use the code IDK to save $5. Thank you, Magic Spoon, for sponsoring this podcast. So then why were they throwing the tea in the house? That's all I know about. I learned more about American history.

I don't remember anything. So the Tea Act actually reduced the cost of the tea that the British India company was sending. So the idea was that if they could reduce the cost, Americans wouldn't start to actually start to drink this tea. And there was a small tax associated with it. But a lot of people don't realize the Tea Act was actually a decrease drink this tea. And there was a small tax associated with it. But a lot of people don't realize that the PX was actually a decrease to that tax. So it wasn't like a lot of people assume, I think, a tax increase. But a lot of Americans assumed that the British were trying to prevent them from smuggling in Dutch tea, which was pretty profitable for a lot of people.

Jim, you mentioned John Hancock, the guy with the big signature, right? He was a very wealthy man, probably the wealthiest man in the colonies. And one of the reasons he was so wealthy was because he was a smuggler of Dutch tea. And so he was angry that the British government was trying to take away this very profitable revenue source for him. So again, Bostonians led the way in protesting the Tea Act just as they did with Stamp Act. And in 1773, a shipment of British tea from the East India Company was supposed to come into Boston Harbor. A group of radicals, perhaps led by Samuel Adams, they dressed in these disguises. They were trying to look like Mohawk Indians. They boarded the ship.

They tossed more than 300 cases of tea into Boston Harbor. And that led to just more efforts to try to restrain these crazy Massachusetts colonists and another sort of cycle of angry protests and response. Good thing they didn't do that today. Sam Adams would have been cancelled.

Dressing up like a Mohawk Indian. You know, he could have done it. Mr. T. He already had a Mohawk. His name was Mr. T. it Mr. T he already had a mohawk and his name was Mr. T the Mr. T party wow that's a good one actually we just connected all the dots

all your conspiracies the next QAnon drop pity the British how many colonies declared independence from Great Britain 1776 Jim said 16 I know 12

12 yeah either way yeah 12 is pretty close so 13 of them the 13 colonies I had that figure somewhere in my head

did you name them Jim yeah what the difference 13 colonies the states right yeah the same names as the states yeah yeah

okay so you've got- 13 of them. You've got Massachusetts. Yeah. Rhode Island. Yeah. New Jersey. New York.

Uh-huh. North Carolina, South Carolina. No? I don't think so. Okay. They were? Oh, sorry, I'm sorry. North Carolina, South Carolina.

Oh, I'm bad at this. That's seven. Seven, yeah. That's six. I can't even count. New England is one. England's not a state. Not New England?

That's New England and Massachusetts. I think we're jacks from. Atlanta? No. Well, the state. Oh, Georgia. What's one where Pittsburgh's from? No. Well, the state. Oh, Georgia. What's one where Pittsburgh's from? Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania? Yeah. Ohio? No. That's too west.

I don't even know what you said so far. What are all the rest of them then? Virginia, Maryland, Delaware. I don't know if you said New Jersey, Connecticut. I didn't say New Jersey. Connecticut's one, yep. New Hampshire and Connecticut.

I remember because in the, you had to list four of the 13 on the test. And so I remembered just the ones that are all around New York. Oh, yeah. That's when you would have gotten there. I actually had that question in my thing. Why did the colonists want independence from Britain? And Jim said, why does anyone want independence? Because you want independence.

Everyone wants it. Yeah, okay. My baby wants it. Can't fucking move. Get your hands off me. I want to do my own thing. He's fucking seven months old. He wants independence.

Yeah, I mean, I think the theory that the American colonists were being babies is just about as strong as the surfing theory. I didn't know it was that strong. You tell me, you tell me George Washington's on a fucking longboard. They didn't have the shortboards then. It was old days, right? On a onesie? longboard. They didn't have the shortboards then. It was old days. He's on his longboards with his fucking wooden teeth, powder falling off his head as he cuts through the

fucking brake. Going, I could never rip a tide. Because he never lied or something. You're telling me that that cunt wants to fucking make war and not love. No, he's down he's

all fine i hope that somebody adds a wikipedia entry for the surfing theory into the american i'm telling you i've said this theory on australia so so it's all about coasts and stuff so everyone thinks that the british modern day obviously the aboriginals are there they think that the british found australia that's not true the dutch found Australia first. The Dutch found Australia but they landed on the west coast where it's all desolate and all that type of stuff and they were like, fuck this country and they sailed away. But then the English came in through Sydney Harbour and they saw the Opera House and the bridge

and they thought this place is all right. But this is the episode on the American Revolution. No, but I'm just saying it's all about sides you land on. Yeah, I know. Yeah, theory, surfing theory. It'll go down. So wait, so was it taxation was the main reason they wanted independence from Britain? Or was there other?

Yeah, I mean, people didn't necessarily agree at the time as to why independence was necessary. We talked about a few reasons. One of them was taxation. One of them was that desire for unrestricted trade. One of them was that they wanted access to Western lands. So after the Seven Years' War, Britain had restricted who could move into the lands that they won from that war and prevented the American colonists from taking possession of lands west of the Appalachian

Mountains. And, you know, the colonists really wanted that. They wanted to go into these lands, dispossess Native people, maybe fight some wars against them. And Britain didn't really want them to do that because it would possibly lead to some more expensive wars. So broadly, you know, there is this view that the American revolutionaries were seeking opportunities to enhance their own status and wealth or protect their property. But there's also a view that some of the people who were fighting in the American Revolution, people who wanted independence, saw it as a route to greater equality. So where did the revolutionaries get their money? If the British are getting it through taxes and all that type of stuff, where did they get it?

Are they like a guerrilla team of people or have they got billionaires funding them or has that still come out of the American taxes? I'm just slightly lost. No, that's a good question. One of the main reasons that, if I can jump ahead just a little bit, one of the main reasons that if I can jump ahead just a little bit one of the main reasons that France which was the United States most important ally France and

the Netherlands and even Spain were important allies the Americans was because they loaned the Americans lots and lots of money. They provided access to supplies and credit and things like that, because otherwise the Americans would have kind of just had to make their own weapons. At some point, Ben Franklin, actually, in the Continental Congress, suggested that the Americans give up on buying firearms and just kind of go back to bows and arrows. That's how desperate things were in terms of American credit and supplies at certain points during the war. So, yeah, it was a real problem, the financing of the American Revolution. And they had.

Yeah, go ahead. Is that why we gave France Louisiana or did they own that before? I know about the Louisiana purchase when we got it back from them, but was that a gift to do something like that or did they own that before that? So the Louisiana territory had been owned by France until the Seven Years' War when they gave it to Spain. Right. And then Spain gave it to France during the Napoleonic Wars and then the United States purchased it from France

because France no longer had any use for it after the Haitian Revolution and the colony of Saint Domingue declared independence as the nation of Haiti and it no longer made sense for France to invest in a large-scale overseas empire so it it's kind of a complicated series of titles to Louisiana. It's an interesting story. They're all arguing over a bit of swampland, man. I like New Orleans more than the next man. I think it's a lovely place. But before it was built up, I would have let you have it for five bucks.

Maybe they did. The reason that Louisiana and New Orleans were so valuable was because if you lived around Ohio or Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, those sorts of regions, you really needed to be able to get your goods to market. And that meant being able to ship goods down river

and that meant being able to go through New Orleans to the south. Yeah, the Mississippi. Plus Mardi Gras, bitches. If you're living in... And that meant being able to go through New Orleans to the south. Yeah. The Mississippi. So. Plus Mardi Gras, bitches. If you're living in good. Sorry,

God. The United States didn't even actually want to buy Louisiana territory, but Napoleon said, you know, I'm not going to sell you just New Orleans. You have to take the whole territory or nothing. So that's how we ended up with, with most of North America. So who won the majority of the battles the revolutionary war and what was the turning point of the american

revolutionary war i i saw the patriot so i'm assuming that that the english won most of the battles it's the turning point by the way i just want to speak out for Mel Gibson very quickly. Oh, gosh. No, no, no. Wait, it's coming. Look, he said a lot of bad things. But he never slapped anyone on stage. That's okay. He never actually violated.

I feel like we're allowed to put him in movies again. He's in movies. Like good ones. He's not that Santa Claus movie. He's in a Mark Wahlberg movie right now. Expendables 3, hello. Yeah, come on. He made that movie called the-

He's doing fine. He's fine. I saw Ridge he directed. He directed I Saw Ridge. I asked when I was doing my sitcom that got sort of killed by COVID, that I had a character playing my dad, and I asked very sheepishly to the executives, can Mel Gibson play my dad?

Weren't they kind of like, we'll ask him. No, no, no. They were like, we'll have a think about that. They came back with a firm no. And I was like, if 20 years ago you said that Mel Gibson couldn't get on a multi-cam sitcom with me, he was, you know, so anyway. Yeah, if he knew about that,

he might have been a pretty angry guy. Yeah, yeah, pretty angry guy. So who won the majority of the battles in the war and then what was the turning point? Yeah, so Britain won most of the battles, at least in North America, the British Empire. But the Patriot strategy really wasn't to win every battle.

Their goal was to survive, to keep Britain fighting, to keep them to commit resources until the war was no longer worth continuing. So often they let the British attack them, often quite strategically retreated from battles. And, you know, even though George Washington, a lot of his leaders really wanted to attack, they were fairly patient and careful. And that's one reason that the war took so long from 1775 all the way until 1783. The turning point, most historians would probably say the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, which is in upstate New York. There was an overconfident British general named John Burgoyne who had these grand ideas about what he can do in New York. And he was sort of outmaneuvered by an American general named Horatio Gates who forced him to surrender his army. So that was really the first big victory

of the war for the Americans. And it helped to convince the French who were sort of sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what happened, waiting to see if these rebels were going to be able to actually sort of, you know, make a go of it, or if they were going to hold at this, at the first, um, defeat, uh, it convinced the French to side with the rebels and enjoy them in the war. So that, uh, that was really in a lot of ways, the turning point because France joining the war was really far and away the biggest reason that the Americans won the war. Here's a little off-topic type of question. What currency were they using at this stage

during the war? They hadn't become America yet. They didn't have American money. Were they using pounds and pence? Were they using francs? Or what were they using? They were using the British currency system, so pounds, yes. Pounds, sterling. But there were also lots of other currencies in circulation. The Spanish dollar. Bitcoin. There were state

currencies or colonies that had their own currencies as well, which weren't very valuable. But they were there. But if France is helping funding the world, were they supplying guns is what they were doing and not just money? They'd be like, here's some guns, some ammunition, food, whatever. Some baguettes? Have you ever tried to buy one of

those fucking things? It'll hurt the top of your mouth. After it's shipped across the ocean. Is that what they were supplying? You could club someone to death with all those baguettes. Yeah, they helped to supply cannon and guns and just access to credit so that the colonists can buy those things from other people as well. Okay. And so when I said, why did the Americans win the war that you just said is when the French came in, that was like the deciding once that force came in.

Okay. And that's the reason why we have garlic to this day in America. How many people died in the american revolutionary war i don't even know what you said jim i said garlic was brought into america he didn't hear the question got a nice warm response how many people he said too many the british were too dumb to wear a camouflage yeah yeah that's what i said but i'll give you i'll give you an amount now. Yeah. 45,000 people.

That's not far off. Maybe I'll bump you up to a five there. Actually, it was about 25,000 on each side. So just about 50,000. These are estimates, of course. As with just about... Are we counting

the women and children? Yeah. I mean, that would include... Oh, I didn't count them. Tack on 5,000, please. Yeah, I mean, but a lot of people died of smallpox as a result of the armies moving around. A lot of prisoners of war died of disease. So if you only counted the soldiers who died in action, it would be a much smaller number. But actually, you know, these numbers might not sound like a lot when you compare them to modern wars, but as a proportion

of the American population, the number of people who, or the percent of people who died in the Revolutionary War was actually higher than it was in World War One or World War Two, almost as much as the Civil War. Yeah. And then, OK, what foreign country aided the colonists? We answered that one the most. Oh, what was the army commanded by George Washington called? You said Washington Redskins, Washington Redskins. Was that right? Was that right? It was the army. The army doesn't have a ring to it the breakfast is better

oh i don't like a continental breakfast i would have supported the full english the continental army sorry uh did most americans support the war i didn't ask you that jim but that's kind of one of those questions it's one of those questions that whenever you watch documentaries no whenever they watch documentaries on like say the vietnam war you always get this sort of depiction of everyone was against it because we look at the protests and stuff like that when in reality most people at home were the same as like, I sort of remember everyone not supporting the Iraq war. But then statistically, half the population did. So I'd say it would be split down the middle, 50-50.

Half the population supported, half didn't. That's not bad. Again, you know, these are estimates. We don't have like public opinion polls at this time. And in some places, the support was higher. In some places, it was lower. But a decent rule of thumb is that about 40% of the population supported the Patriot cause in a consistent way. Around 20% of the population were loyalists, people who opposed the Patriot movement. And then there were another 40% of people who just really didn't care. They just wanted just wanted it to end they didn't really care who won

uh and they just kind of wanted everyone to shut up about it all i probably would have been like i know i know history talks differently and you want to be on the winning side but i probably would have been what are we doing yeah what's happening i just to surf. I was big into surfing back then. I've lived in California for 30 years. Haven't surfed once. I've barely seen you in the ocean. I've never stood up on just a plank of wood. That's a Patreon episode, Jim surfing.

I think Jim did pretty good in this, naming some prominent members of the American Revolutionary Generation. John Hancock, you said? Yeah. I think you said. Not Herbie Hancock. Hamilton, Washington, Franklin, Peter Jackson. You also said Jackson. You just said Jackson.

He's on the 20, man. Andrew Jackson. Yeah, that's later. That is a little bit later. No, no, the Australian 20. Prove me wrong. Prove me wrong. I haven't seen that one. There's no way to check. Yeah, so he did pretty good.

John Hancock, it is. I know there's a reason his signature was bigger. Jim mentioned it in that. I think he just was first, and then everyone went, we can't all fucking. I bet it's pacing, guys. I'm sorry. I just thought we were all doing.

Look how many of us there are. There's only this much fucking paper. All right, fuck off. I'm going to drink some tea that I got out of a clog do we know why his signature was the biggest there's a story we don't know we weren't with him that day but the story is that he did it because

some of the other delegates at the Continental Congress were worried that by signing their names this document they were signing their death warrants. And he was worried that people were going to be timid about signing this document. So he put his name front and center, nice and big, so that he could lead by example and say, I'm not hiding from the fact that I want to be

associated with this document. It's because he wasn't wearing his bifocals that Benjamin Franklin invented. But he did well because it's still- Give me a point. Give me a point. He did well. It's still the euphemism. You put your old John Hancock right here.

It still does me. Yeah. I think it was. If you don't say it, that might be my reason. I think my theory is closer. He just was the first bloke. Yeah. His spacing was no good.

It's like, remember when you're a kid and the teacher said, you have to write a story. It has to be three pages long. And you start spacing the words out. You're making your letters bigger. And then you can't tell any more of the fucking story. And you still have a third of a page left. So you write, the end.

Who was the King of England during the American Revolution? It was King George, you said? Yeah. I want fucking more points, man. No more. Very generous, four points. But I've said some things since that have been very good. The amount of people who died,

50% of the people didn't support it. I've said some fucking... You gave me an extra point. You're up to five. Surfing theory. it's all there um and then the treaty that ended the american revolution was it the rice crispy was it the versailles or rice crispy treaty versailles very close uh it was the treaty of paris there were uh at least six treaties of paris in the 18th century i guess because um don't know, I guess diplomats like hanging out in Paris, but the treaty was Paris. So sort of right next to Versailles, it was in 1783.

It was a pretty good treaty. And didn't Franklin go over there a lot and he had loads of mistresses and shit? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. He had a great time in Paris. Yeah. With his bifocals. Yeah, with his bifocals and his mullet.

Just walking around all the time. I'm the postmaster general. Why? I didn't ask these questions, but we can ask now. Why did the United States create the Constitution in 1787? What? Say that again. Why did they create the Constitution in the United States in 1787?

What was? Well, you need to have a constitution of law. That's what they needed to do. They needed to put the groundwork into what this country represents like in 1787 though why was it that year because they had the declaration of independence in 1776 right and then 11 years later well it takes a while okay thanks a while asus hasn't brought out an album in 15 years you know what i mean like it takes a while maybe i'll just ask why was it in 1787? Why did it take so long? Because it takes a while, Forrest. Well, okay.

So there was a temporary form of government that they created in between those two events. It was called the Articles of Confederation. It was not very effective. The government that the Articles of Confederation creates is

very weak. And this makes sense in a lot of ways because the colonists were rebelling against a faraway power that was governing them. And they didn't want to be governed by a powerful, faraway government again. So that was the idea. It turned out to be kind of a disaster. The Confederation government, as it was known, couldn't raise taxes. It couldn't even muster up an army when there was a rebellion in Western Massachusetts. The wealthy merchants in Boston had to raise a private army in order to put it down because the government couldn't afford to raise its own army.

So it was a pretty useless government. Even the people who were elected to serve in the Confederation Congress wouldn't even bother to show up for it because they didn't think it was worth their time. Now, this wasn't Washington as the president yet, right? This was because he was the first president. Who was in charge? There were a number of people who were in charge. There was a very weak executive.

So there was someone who presided over the confederation congress but he didn't really have much power and that would rotate uh pretty frequently so there was no one really in charge and that was you know in some ways part of the problem okay and how accurate is hamilton by the way you mentioned that would this thing in real life yeah i i don't think many of the Founding Fathers were black. No, I mean like the details. Because I did watch Hamilton. I'm not saying that to be rude, but it's an interpretation, right?

No, no, I mean the facts that they're saying. The facts are all true. I'm asking Jordan. It's new. No, no, no, I know. He knows. I know about musicals. Okay.

And I will tell you this, that all the Founding Fathers rapped. Okay. True. Little known. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the parts that I have the least problem with. You know, a lot of ways, the musical's okay. It's based on a fairly decent biography of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. But it also skips some important things. It skips the fact that Hamilton was quite an elitist.

It makes him seem like he was more against slavery than he really was. So it's not so much that there are a lot of things that are just plain wrong about it as much as that it leaves out a lot of very important things. But he still was maybe the most, like a really important person in American history that wasn't celebrated as much as he was. He really was biracial, right? I don't know. He was probably not. That's what I took from that musical. I told that to my kids man I mean we don't know for sure

I guess you can say that I told them I know for sure yeah so Hamilton was the son of a Scotsman who sort of left left town in the Caribbean. And so we don't know a lot about his parentage,

but we think it was a Scotsman. Okay. All right. Did we do all these? Did he have red hay? I think they have red hay. These Scots people have red hay. I don't know.

LeMano Miranda doesn't. Okay. And now this is a part of our episode or our show called Dinner Party Facts. We ask our expert to give us a fact, obscure or interesting, that people can use to impress their friends at a dinner party. Lin-Manuel Miranda sounds like a Spanish veranda that you've built in a house. Put a Lin-Manuel Miranda at the front. Oh, like a structure?

Yeah, yeah. Like a pergola. Just thought of that now. He's combining his first sentence. It's been in your head. Yeah, it's been in my head for a long time. Lin- pergola. Just thought of that now. He's combining his first sentence. It's been in your head. Yeah, it's been in my head for a long time. Lin-Manuel Miranda. Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Yeah. All right, so our dinner party fact. I like him and hate him at the same time. I know he's very talented, but then sometimes when he comes on screen, I go... And then he's good, and I'm like, no, you're very good. Do you have a dinner party fact for us yeah no i was just taken in by

the point about lin-manuel miranda um i like jordan's very dry sense yeah uh so the dinner party fact uh a few years after he left office george washington died in mount vernon um he basically died of a sore throat. That was his only symptom. It was a throat infection. Maybe. So people remember George Washington's death as a fairly idealistic kind of thing. He emancipated the enslaved people that he owned with his will.

It was supposed to be a peaceful death. His last words are supposed to have been, "'Tis well." So it's supposed to be a nice sort of quiet death in the last two weeks of the 18th century. But it was also really weird in some ways. At the time, people believed that it was possible for a person who had recently died to be brought back to life under some circumstances. That was sort of the point at which medical knowledge had advanced to. So when Washington was dying, a physician who lived nearby named William Thornton came to see if he could save him while he was dying. But he arrived a few hours too late to save Washington.

save him while he was dying. But he arrived a few hours too late to save Washington. Thornton, though, thought that he could still save Washington after he died, and he could try to reverse this death. So again, at the time, the prevailing view among a lot of doctors was that you can actually reverse death in the right circumstances. So Thornton suggested that they take his body, they thaw it in some water, they warm him up with blankets, and they fill his body up with blood from a lamb, transfuse him with lamb blood. And he was totally certain that this was going to work. He was telling Washington's family, we can bring him back if you just let me do this. And they said, no, we're not going to let you do that. So it didn't actually

happen. But still, I love this image of Washington's body lying there in this sort of like mad scientist doctor next to him trying to bring him back to life and the family saying like, no, just let it go. Right. And I also like the idea that if this doctor had maybe been a little bit more persuasive, um, George Washington would have been not just the first president, but also the first zombie president. Yeah. But this guy must've had somewhat success with the lamb blood previously. That couldn't have been his first time doing it.

Well, I don't know. I used to do, it's funny. I forgot that George Washington died of a sore throat, but then I used to do a joke where I said that, where I talked about healthcare and, uh I forgot that George Washington died of a sore throat, but then I used to do a joke where I said that, where I talked about health care. You know why he died of a sore throat. Because it wasn't a bloodletting, that's not what they did back then. They were like, you're sick, and then the real guy would just cut you up. It was termites in his teeth.

And he slept on his back and they crawled back in there. Termite teeth, it's a common thing back in the day. Isn't the wooden teeth a myth? Didn't he actually have the teeth of slaves? So he had more than one set of dentures. One was made partially from hippopotamus bone. And I believe, I think that's true, that one of them was made partially from the teeth of enslaved people.

Yeah, I think that's true, but I'd have to check. One of the enslaved people was Pinocchio. Also had termites. I never even thought they would have different sets of teeth like sneakers. What am I going to wear today? Who wears a slave teeth today?

Hippopotamus teeth. Well, George Washington could have been the very first Weekend at Bernie's. George Washington could have been the very first weekend at Bernie's. Yeah. And that would have been fucking awesome. How long after he died was he on the cash? Was he on the couch?

On the cash, on the money. Oh, I don't know. I think it would have been pretty recently or pretty soon after, but the dollar bill as we know it now didn't come about until much later. He probably would have been on coins first. Yeah, the dollar bill would have been like a $100 bill now. I've always wondered that about currency when they're just like,

back in the day, a packet of biscuits cost five cents. And you're like, how much did one biscuit cost? You could just buy one. It wasn't allowed. costs five cents. And you're like, how much did one biscuit cost though? You know what I mean? You couldn't just buy one. It wasn't allowed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whenever you buy a five cent lolly now, was that like a point something of a...

Well, in the 20s, I can tell you this. They had gold coins. The Eagle. There's like, they're like solid gold coins and they sold for, I think they're $20 or 20,

maybe $20 coin. And now they're, it's like an ounce of gold. So it's like, it's worth like, you know, $1,600, $1,800, something like that. I'll tell you something America's got to do. And I think we did it in like 1992 in Australia. We got rid of the one and two cent coin. We just have a five cent coin.

We don't have a one and two cent coin. We talked about that here. Yeah. You got to get rid of it. No good. Waste of time. All right. Well, get that done, everybody.

Jordan Taylor, thank you for being here. The book is called- Fucking foreign news and the politics of truth and revolutionary america the twitter handle is at publius or parish p-u-b-l-i-u-s-o-r-p-e-r-i-s-h jordan taylor thank you very much thank you for joining us uh thank you for being on the podcast, Jordan. If you're ever at a party and someone comes up to you and goes, hey, George Washington has only one set of teeth, say I don't know about that and slap them because nothing will happen to you and walk away.

Topical. Yeah. Good night, Australia.