Stuff You Should Know - Selects: How Lighthouses Work

Episode Date: March 20, 2021

People have been burning fires on cliffs as long as other people have used boats, but after the Age of Exploration, lighthouses took their unmistakable form and the great stories of the people who kept the lights around the world began. Learn all about them in this classic episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, happy Saturday. I hope you have your breakfast cereal and your Saturday morning cartoons all taken care of. It is in select time, June 30th, 2016. And we're talking about how lighthouses work. This is a really cool podcast. I remember really enjoying

this one because I had done some research on lighthouses for a movie script I was writing. So this one was really pretty key for that. So here we go with how lighthouses work. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry over there and this is the lighthouse episode. Take one. Can I just go ahead and say that I love lighthouses. See? Love, love, love. Already before like you fell in love with them and researching this. Both. Like if I'm, I grew up going to Hunting Island, South Carolina, not every year but we went quite a few times near Buford and they have a lighthouse and it was one

of my favorite things to do as a kid was climb the lighthouse and I would, if I'm near a lighthouse now ever, I will go climb it. The outside? I will seek it out and then shimmy up the outside like Spider-Man. No, I will seek it out and go look at it and then climb it and this article just made me love it even more. I have a precious memories lighthouse too. Let's hear. Marblehead lighthouse near Catawba Island. Which is where? What state? By Sandusky in Ohio. Okay. On Lake Erie. Yeah. And it was same thing when I was a kid. We used to go vacation on Catawba Island and we would go to that lighthouse every once in a while. I don't remember ever going inside though. Really? It might not have been open because there's no reason why you would go to a lighthouse

more than once and not go inside, climb it up. Yeah. But I don't remember ever going in. Or maybe you were just like, yeah, it looks nice from down here. Yeah. I would have climbed it. I was a climber. Yeah, me too. But I think the other thing that factors in for me is I found, I really love antiquated systems that could still be viable. Yeah. Like post-apocalypse, you could fire up lighthouses again. Sure, with a fire. Yeah, and it would work. Yeah, it would. And I think that's a weird thing with me that I love, I love stuff that's still around that you could use if need be. Right. You know? I've never really looked at my environment that way. Yeah. Like to see what was going to be standing after an apocalypse. Maybe I should. Well,

I don't know about standing, but let's just, let's say there was some weird domino effect type thing like that movie where electricity and internet and everything went out. Right. And people turned on each other. You could still light a lighthouse and boats could find their safe harbor. What movie are you talking about? The Domino Effect. Oh, really? There's a movie like that? Called that? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. I think it was called with Elizabeth Hsu and Agent Cooper from Twin Peaks. Kyle, what's his face? McLaughlin. Yeah. And he is so great as the mayor in Portlandia. Yeah, he is good. I love that guy. I think it was called the Domino Effect. All right. If not, that was the, you know, essentially what happened. There was a domino

effect. Like a blackout, right? Yeah. That just like, and it created a domino effect that things kind of spun out of control. You're talking about Fury Road. Oh, right. Sorry. So Chuck, I love lighthouses too, but I knew virtually nothing about them until researching this. Yeah. And if you think about them though, it's like you were saying after the apocalypse, you'll still, they'll still be standing. You just need to replace the electricity with the fire. And then you'd have basically what lighthouses have always been, which is some sort of highly visible signal for most of the time. It was a fire, either a wood fire, a coal fire, tar fire that you could see that was meant to signal to ships that, hey man, there's some

treacherous waters around here. Yeah. It's one of the main things that they did. And as the light got better and better, one of the roles that lighthouses played was not just to say, careful in this area, we went to the trouble of building a lighthouse here because it's so treacherous, but also check out these rocks. Yeah. See this with this light? Uh-huh. There's some rocks there. Yeah. Like literally lighting up a harbor. Yeah. Well, because there was no light otherwise. Right. And then the other role that they play is in the daytime, right? Because lighthouses, uh, I don't think that they actually keep them on 24 hours a day, highly inefficient on a cloudy day. Yeah. If it's foggy, they'll turn it on and start sounding the fog horns, which we'll talk

about. But for the most part, in the daytime it's off, but a lighthouse still serves a purpose during the day because they don't decorate them the way that they decorate them just for looks. Right. They do it so you can differentiate one lighthouse from another. Yeah. Like this one looks like a barber pole. Right. So I know I'm near North Carolina's Cape Hatteras. Exactly, right? Yeah. And there's like a whole book called The Light List where it has pictures of them and it has... Did you get your hands on that? No. I meant to look it up, but I ran out of time. I bet it's neat. I bet it's neat too. By the way, that movie is called The Trigger Effect. I have heard of that one. There was a movie called The Domino Effect, but it's not the same one.

What about the butterfly effect? Remember that? Garbage. That was the cooch, right? Yeah. Man, why does he haunt us? I don't know. He comes up a lot. All right. Where were we? Were we in the lighthouse? We were talking about the day mark. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty neat. But there's also what's called the light signature, right? Yes. Where that's... We're going back to nighttime again. Yeah. Sorry to keep reversing the sun's going up and down. Well, you turn the lights off. It got weird. It is a little weird. Yeah. It's all right. Jerry, are you still here? She's here. So, at night, the light has its own flashing signature, light signature. And that's also in the light book too. And there's actually

a number of different ways that a light can flash, right? Who knew? I didn't know. You've got the fixed and that is, of course, if you just have a light on saying we're open. Yeah. It shines continuously. Come on in. It's the Waffle House. You have the occulting light. I love this one. The creepiest of all lights. It has longer periods of light than dark. And it flashes 666. And a flashing light has longer periods of dark than light. So, occulting and flashing are just sort of inverse of one another. There are two sides of the same coin. That's right. You can't have light without the dark is the whole premise. And then you have the isophase light that's equal light and dark with its signature blips. And then a group flashing

light. Super 70s. Yeah. It has a regular repeating number of flashing lights. It's the same pattern, right? Yeah. And there's actually a really famous one of those, the Mino's ledge light in Boston. It was very famously known as, I think it still is, the I love you light because it would flash one, then it would flash four, and then it would flash three. So, I, L-O-V-E, Y-O-U. So, it was like a very romantic light. That's how people took it. I didn't make that up. Oh, see, I thought it was, I hate cow. It could, that's the secondary way that it's known. The people in Boston are known for their soft side. I know. So, that's why I love you. Yeah. They're prone to break into sobs and public on the street frequently. Just walking around thinking about the beauty of life. And then finally, we

have our alternating, I'm sorry, we have the Morse code, which is what it sounds like. It mimics Morse code with Dats and Dashes. Dats and Dashes? That's Merse code. Dats and Dashes, man. To spell out things like, I love you. But that's not what Mino's ledge does. No. It's not Morse code, it's just- It's just one, four, and three. Yeah, yeah. And people took it that way. I hate cow. And Mino's ledge actually is pretty awesome to begin with. It's under 10 feet of water at high tide. Whoa. And they had to build it, I think in the 19th century, whenever the tide was out. So, they only had X amount of hours in a day during low tide when the ledge was exposed. Interesting. But it's still there. It's tough cookie. Wow. But Josh, these are all sort of modern. Modern-ish. Modern-ish.

But although old, they can go back to 1200 BC, Homer's Iliad. They mentioned a lighthouse. Yeah. Crazy. And I mean, we're talking basically a huge bonfire on a cliff. More. Exactly. Not like well, not like Mino's ledge or anything. But it still qualifies as a lighthouse. It was the premise behind it. Yeah, exactly. I've sounded weirdly defensive just now about that. It's still a lighthouse. Yeah. Like you said, you would have either wood or coal burning on a long pole. And then finally, in the 18th century, they started using lanterns, which is a little more probably controllable. Yeah. The problem was they kept running into, was that the oil or coal would smudge the lantern, the glass around the lantern. And so, the glass top, the whole thing where the light is,

that you can walk around in, that's the lantern of the lighthouse. Yeah. And if you're burning a coal fire in there, it's going to get sooty pretty quick. Yeah. That's one of the main jobs of the lighthouse keepers, to wash windows. Right. The problem is, is in between washings, which they did at least once a day normally, the light would degrade as the soot built up. Right. So, they figured out, oh, we need better fuel than coal or tar. We thought they used tar. Let's burn the dirtiest thing on the planet inside. They were working with what they had at the time. So, they figured out, especially in New England, that they could use things like blubber and lard, which they did. Yeah, from Wales. Burns a lot cleaner. And then they also

figured out, hey, you know what? This flame is okay, but wouldn't it be great pre-electricity if we had something like electricity to beam this thing out there for miles and miles. Yeah. And a very smart physicist from France named Augustine Fresnel. Fresnel. I like Fresnel. That's cool. Fresnel said, all right, take my lens and do with it what you will. And he invented the Fresnel lens. He did. In 19, I'm sorry, 1822. And it's like what you would think it would be. It's a bunch of prisms that through magic can cast a beam, like 20-something miles out to the ocean. Yeah. It's amazing. They concentrate in the, they gather light from the top and the bottom and in the middle and basically just shoot it all back to a single

magnifying point. Amazing. That just goes, phew, 28 miles. Yeah. That's a long way. At the max. Yeah. Yeah. And that really, that changed everything and did a great job of handling the load until electricity would come around. And that's when everyone was like, you know what? We don't need these silly flames anymore. Let's just plug in a light. But you can still use a Fresnel lens with the light and it's even brighter now. That's true. Like today's modern lighthouses use or have produced lights between 10,000 candelas and a million candelas. What's a candela? Did you see this reference? Like this is the worst analogy I've ever run across. What'd it say? A candela is one-two-hundredth the brightness of a 50 watt light bulb. Oh, okay. Yeah.

I know exactly how much a candela is. I also saw that it's roughly the brightness of a candle, which makes sense. And that's a much better frame of reference. So the brightness of a million candles burning in the same place, that's how bright modern lighthouses are. Okay. Not one-two-hundredth of a 50 watt bulb. Let's take a break. Yeah, seriously. Let's go find out who wrote that and write a strongly worded letter. Okay. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in

this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.

I'm Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father.

And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, that got ugly. So I feel like we're still talking about the history of lighthouses, right? Yeah, sure. Well, where they were made of wood early on, but the problem with a wooden lighthouse and a massive burning fire of tar is that they can burn down and be washed out to sea or in rough weather can just be knocked plumb over by waves.

But like I said, they use what they had at the time and over the years, they got sturdier and sturdier with steel and concrete and stuff like that. Well, even before over the years. Before over the years? Yeah, Ferris at Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, was this lighthouse at the mouth of the harbor to Alexandria, Egypt. And it was around, I'm not quite sure when it was around. I think the... Which one? The Ferris of Alexandria. 270 BC, my friend. That thing was pretty sturdy. It took a massive earthquake to bring it down. It was made of masonry. It wasn't made of wood, you know? Yeah. So it looks like lighthouse construction got dumber as the years went on, and then it got smart again.

Then it got smart again. It just dipped down in the wood era and then came back up. Well, what you normally have is the lighthouse, which can be just a lighthouse, or there might be a fog signal building. There might be a boat house. You might have a little house or apartment attached to it, and you might live there with your family in a very remote part of the world, all by yourself. Or with a couple of other dudes. Yeah, and take turns and take shifts. That's called a stag station. Yeah, and I think the other thing that appeals to me about lighthouses is I could have lived that life. Oh, yeah? Yeah, I can have seen myself dropping out and... You got a neck beard? Yeah. All you need is like a cable net sweater and...

Living up there all by myself, a corn cob pipe. Really? Yeah, grow my own crops and just sit up there and be quiet. Huh. No one bugging me. It's like, it appeals. Well, I did not know that. I did not picture you as a lighthouse keeper. I could totally do it. Or a light keeper for short. And this is another thing that I thought was remarkable in this article. You might as well mention it, is that if there is a lighthouse near you that nobody operates, it is possible that you could own that lighthouse. Yeah, for one dollar. The National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000, it got a process together where the Coast Guard, which is what runs the lighthouse biz now, the lighthouse racket, you can basically

start a nonprofit or have a nonprofit and at no cost, they will give you a decommission lighthouse if you maintain it and keep it open to the public. Yeah, for the most part, it's like preservation societies who are handling this, but if nobody wants it, they put it up for auction. Yeah. And then you can do what you want to. I can live out my dream. Yeah. And I wouldn't have to do the windows either. I could just live up there and be a crusty old hermit. You know? We could do a Kickstarter to help you live out your dream, Chuck. Well, I have a family now. Let's do a few more years of stuff you should know first, though, before you go. Okay. Yeah. All right. So back to more modern times. We're building them out of

concrete and steel at this point. They're a little more sturdy. You got your little keeper's house. You're not getting paid much money. How much money? Dude, not much. So this article says that they earned about $200 annually in the late 19th century. I went on to the GWIS West Egg Inflation Calculator in 1890. That was five grand today. Your provisions are covered, though, right? Yeah. At the very least, your room is, I don't know about board. I bet you they ship. All the whale lard you can eat. Yeah. No, I imagine they take care of stuff because you can't leave and go shopping. Imagine you have everything shipped to you. Yeah. Again, ideal. I love that. Don't have to go out. You don't have to spend any money. It's like web van coming to

you. You're banking that five grand a year, essentially. Wow, man. When you get into like lighthouse mode, you're lowering the standards. You're like, man, I'm making five grand. People are bringing me food. I don't have to talk to anybody. Yeah, that's awesome. It's like your fantasy. That's hilarious. That lens we were talking about, we didn't use that in the United States for a while because the way I read this is we kind of cheaped out. Yeah. When it was being run by this guy, Stephen Pleasant, for 30 years, 1820 to 1852. 32 years, he ran an efficient, some might say chintzy program, where he was like, we don't need those fancy French lenses. Take these cruddy versions. They probably wouldn't even a lens. Just like a mirror reflector or

something. If that, maybe a piece of metal that somebody had to just stand behind the light with to reflect it. You're my mute assistant. Right, be quiet. But then finally, the US government got involved and they said, you know what? We need to regulate this. Well, no, the US, they were involved. That's when it became chintzy. Yes, from 1716 to 1789, that was not run by the US government. No, it wasn't until Alexander Hamilton almost got in a shipwreck off the coast of, I think, North Carolina, and he went back and said, hey, I think we need some lighthouses. The federal government needs to get involved. I think the 19th piece of legislation the US Congress ever passed was to establish the lighthouse board. The US lighthouse establishment

initially is what it was called. Okay. Socialist program, he said that the federalities are going to run this thing. We're in charge now. Went downhill. Improved everyone who's critical, big government, right? Yeah, but there were a lot of lighthouses at the time. By 1900, we had about a thousand lighthouses. Well, and by 1900, the government had reformed its reputation. Seriously, the world round for the mid-19th century, the US lighthouse system was second rate at best. Yes. They just had a terrible reputation. I guess it sounds like they got rid of Stephen Pleasant, whose name is basically mud these days, and the quality went up. Yeah, and that's when they established the lighthouse board, which is, I think, what you

were thinking, to shape things up in 1852. They said, let's get some Fresnel lenses for all these lighthouses finally. Yeah. We can be like the rest of the world. Pleasant's dead. Did you know the Statue of Liberty was a lighthouse? I don't know if I knew it, but when I've read it, I'm like, well, yeah, but I don't know if it unlocked some memory or if I'm just like, that's just too obvious. Same thing happened with me. For me to admit, I didn't know. Yeah, I was like, surely I knew that, right? Right. Yeah, that's what I thought. That was it. For 15 years, it was a lighthouse in New York Harbor, which was pretty neat.

And then by 1930, when electricity was effective and rampant, you didn't need these fires burning or candles burning or whale blubber. No, but there were a lot of lighthouses that were on islands or on offshore ledges, like Mano's Ledge or Eddystone in England, that were just like the technology to run electricity out there just was not around. Yeah, of course. So they were still using oil of various types to fuel these things well into the 20th century, into the 60s easily. Yeah, and they still had people working there living in the lighthouse or on the property. Yeah. Into the 1960s, it was definitely more rare, but that's when the Coast Guard

brought about their lighthouse automation and modernization program. And that pretty much dwindled by the end of that decade, it dwindled it down to 60 that still had people working there. Oh, really? Yeah, 60 out of a thousand. Today, there's one in Boston, the Brewster Island one. Little Brewster Island. Little Brewster Island. I was confusing it with Big Brewster. Well, there might be one. Brewster's Millions Island. Little Brewster. That's right. It was the first one in the United States. 1716 was when it was built, and then that one was replaced in 1783.

And it's the second oldest working one behind Sandy Hook, New Jersey. Is that right? And the person that lives there is basically living there as a tour guide, not necessarily like guiding boats into Harbor. They may do both. No, I think it's still working. Yeah. Well, then I guess they do both. They do double duty. I saw modern marvels on lighthouses, and they interviewed one of the light keepers on Brewster Island, Little Brewster Island, and they showed them like polishing the glass and everything. Yeah, but it's automated. I got the light itself. I see, I see. So they upkeep and tour guide it, I think.

Right. Okay. But yeah, he's still, I mean, he's providing a function there. Yeah, absolutely. It's not just show. Maybe that's what I could do then. There you go. You should have heard that guy. He's like, I can't even begin to do it, but he was like a hardcore light keeper in Boston. Yeah, I can imagine. Although, I wouldn't be the best person because Chuck's Silent Lighthouse tour isn't really up. You just sweep your arm in a room and turn and quietly leave. People ask questions. I just wrap them on the knuckles out. All right, I'm getting all excited thinking about the prospects of living in a lighthouse. So I'm going to go do some pushups.

Okay. And we'll come back right after this. If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on

the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikala and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't

look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Chuck, say that you did live your life as a light keeper. What would it be like? First of all, what's your family background? Well, my dad was a fisherman. Probably. Actually, my great-great-grandfather was a fisherman. My grandfather was a light keeper. My dad was a son of a light keeper. Your mom was a pirate captain. Like Gina Davis. That was a good movie.

She's awesome. Jesse Thorne interviewed her recently on his Bullseye show. She's just like the best. And they were all excited in the office. Everyone was like, oh man, Gina Davis is the coolest. She supposedly was known for bringing cookies that she baked herself to interviews. She's a Mensa member. Got a lot going on there. Julia Smith, who works at the Max Fun HQ, and produces Judge Sean Hodgman, said on her Facebook, she was like, Gina Davis is like the coolest aunt of all cool aunts of all time. But she was in Beetlejuice. Yeah, it doesn't get much cooler than that. She could just be a total jerk, and she was still awesome in Beetlejuice. Yeah. So anyway, hats off to you, Gina Davis. How'd that come up? I don't even

remember now. Your mom was a pirate captain. All right, Gina Davis. Was that a shout out to Cutthroat Island? I guess. The movie? You're the one that said it. I guess it was, yeah. Was that Cutthroat Island, huh? Is it the name of it? Yeah, it was that bad pirate movie she made. I loved it. That wasn't bad. It got bad press. It wasn't bad. It's funny. You like some of the most legendarily bad movies of all time. It wasn't that bad. As far as just like critics and you're like, yeah, man, Ishtar. I never saw Ishtar. Wonderful movie. I've actually stayed away from Ishtar. I also stayed away from Rock the Casbah because I saw that it was basically an updated Ishtar. Did I even see that? I can't remember if I watched it one night. Rock the Casbah? Yeah,

or if I wanted to and didn't, like that's how little of an impact it made. It's on Netflix. I think I actually did watch it and it was just sort of like, not very good. Yeah, no, Ishtar is a pretty good code word to stay away from a movie. I never saw Ishtar. What else do I like that was bad or supposedly bad? Have you seen Cutthroat Island? Sure. Terrible. It's not that bad. Terrible. Okay. All right, so we were talking about the lineage. What might get you into the light keeping business? We were being coy and role playing, but that is true. It's a family business for the most part. Your parents or your father might have done it or you come from a long line of seafaring types, at the very least. Yeah,

you feel close to the sea. Yeah. If you want to spend your time out there on a rocky point, overlooking the waves all day long, you probably didn't come from Kansas to do so. Yeah. They have wheat watchers. They just sit in the tower and watch the wheat and the flatness. They stand up all of a sudden. They're like, oh my God, there's a wheat missing. There's a wheat. One thing we keep saying is men. Yeah. That's because most of the lighthouse keepers were men, but not all. No, not all. And not all of them were necessarily white men either. There were some very famous, legendary African-American light keepers too. And lifesavers as well. Surfmen is what they were called too. Yeah, because supposedly,

you're just there to provide light and signal, but when the S hits the F, I think you can say fan. Fan. When the S hits the fan, brave light keepers were known to go out there and provide rescue. Yeah. And one of them was a woman named Ida Lewis, actually. American hero. She grew up on Lime Rock Island near Newport, Rhode Island and Newport Harbor. And her dad was a light keeper. So she followed that tradition. And she actually started taking over the duties after her father had a stroke. And she just became a light keeper, but a very famous one for her lifesaving skills. Yeah. Rescued a dozen men over the years. No, actually 18 confirmed. They think it's as high as 25. Then I'm going to say dozens. She rescued her last person at age 63. Wow. Yeah,

she's quite a lady. Yeah, that's spunk. But for the most part, and she's not the only one who saved lives, like there were plenty out there that did, but it was not an expected role of a light keeper. Right. Because the Coast Guard had a lifesaver house, usually nearby a lighthouse, because the lighthouse was there in the first place, because there was a treacherous area. So it would just make sense to also put a lifesaving house there, because even with the lighthouse itself, ship may still run aground and there may be rescuing. And if you want to be thrilled, there's a really neat article that's posted on this podcast page about the P Island lifesaving house. By the way, the pre Coast Guard, we had the U.S. Lifesaving Service. Right. Which is what that

term comes from. Yeah. And then they merged everything together under Roosevelt. Yeah, 1939. And the lighthouses and the lifesaving service all came under the purview of the Coast Guard. Right. Yeah. We should do one on the Coast Guard. Sure. Remember that married couple that were both Coast Guarders that lobbied us for many years until they gave up? Yep. We're still thinking about you guys, and we're still going to do a Coast Guard podcast. Don't worry. Eventually. Years and years later. So pre-1939 when they made the Coast Guard is where you really can't find a whole lot of written history now. A lot of that has been lost to time. And they say here in this article that what we have now are stories from families that remain. Lore. Yeah, Lore.

It's pretty neat. Yeah. And then Chuck, so if you're in a lighthouse, even as remote and cut off as they are, if you hated it, you would still be like, at least I'm not working on a light ship. Yes. So before they had buoys, like modern buoys today, there's buoys out there. They're basically like floating lighthouses in areas that require some sort of warning, but are just too far off land to build a lighthouse. They put buoys out there. And today the buoys are like sometimes something like 40 feet in diameter. They're huge, massive things. But before buoys even, they would use something called light ships. And it's exactly what it sounds like. It's a lighthouse on a ship. And it's in a very remote area. You are out there for months at a time.

Yeah. You just sail out and anchor down and live there. Right. And the boats anchored all the time. You would have to like go to and from the boat to the shore. But while you're working there, it's just mind bogglingly awful. Yeah. I bet there was a lot of like insanity that would happen. Like when the fog rolled in, before the advent of fog horns, you would have to yank the bell's rope, the fog bell rope every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day for as long as the fog was around. Crazy. Every 10 seconds you had to ring a bell. That was your job. And if you didn't, then you were risking the lives of anybody passing by in the area. So not cool, man. Not cool at all. No. But the light ships apparently were just about as bad as it

got as far as boredom, loneliness, isolation, hatred of bells. The light ship had it all. You hate bells? I didn't. I never worked on a light ship. Oh, right. But I'll bet they hated bells. Yeah, it's loud. You would hear that in your sleep if you rang a bell every 10 seconds for hours at a stretch. Yeah. You're not going to get that out of your head. And even if you did, when you tried to go to sleep, one of the guys on the next shift would be out there ringing the bell anyway. So... Yeah, driving nuts. So let's talk about some famous lighthouses. Well, we already talked about the

Pharaohs of Alexandria, which is the oldest known lighthouse. And at the time, they contend might have been the tallest thing on the planet at 450 feet. That's super tall. Yeah, and it was masonry too. They found it in 1994 under water. At the bottom of the ocean. They found pieces of it in Alexandria Harbor, I guess. You mentioned Eddystone Light already in Plymouth, England, which is, I guess, that's where the fine gin comes from. Yeah. Still hitting Plymouth up. If anyone out there works for Plymouth. Oh man, it's such good gin. It's delicious.

So is Leopold's. Leopold's gin? Yeah, it's American gin. Oh, really? Really good, too. Is it good? That's my go-to American gin. Nice. Although I like most American gins, but that's been good. Have you had St. George? I love that stuff. Yeah, there's three of them. One of them I do not care for at all. Really? But the other two I like. I'll bet it's the Terra-Terroir you don't like.

It's got a weird taste. People love it, but I don't appreciate it. It's its own thing. It is its own thing. The fact that it doesn't have its own classification of gin, like Old Tom or Jennifer or something like that, it should have its own thing. Yeah, like foot gin. I love that stuff. It tastes weird to me. Dude, it's really good. You know what it's really good with? Have you ever had Fever Tree bitter lemon? No. It's like a lemon limey citrusy drink, but without much sweetness.

That with the Terra-Terroir. Gin and juice. Yeah, but it'll knock your socks off. Yeah, I don't care for it. And you know what? I'll just go ahead and bring you my bottle because I've had like two drinks out of it, tried to wrap my head around it, and it just can't do it. I will email you tonight as a reminder to say, hey. I'll bring in that St. George. Thanks, man. And also, by the way, I am now on, because you know I drink the Dirty Martini, but I don't eat olives, which is a little weird.

Is this like the juice? Yeah, the brine with a twist. It's a little different. Oh, I know. I've had that. And for years, I would have emptied jars of dry olives in my fridge and very little juice, you know, is in there. Oh, I know what you're talking about now. So now I bought Dirty Sue, olive juice, and you can buy it in a bottle, and I bought a box of it, and it just sits in the cabinet in my house. Nice. And so big shout out to Dirty Sue, olive brine. Nice. Really dirties up your martini. What's your gin that you use for this? Well, I mean, I love Plymouth. I love Hendricks.

And our friends at Spring 44 gin, they said it's all about the water, and they have like the best water on earth. They made some old Tom gin, and it is delicious. Yeah. Like it made, I love Martinez's. It's old Tom gin, maraschino liqueur, not the cherry stuff, but like the real liqueur, and then some sweet vermouth. Yes. It's like probably the most perfect drink anyone's ever made. It's very old. That made maybe the best Martinez I've ever had. That was good stuff. Well, for a while lately, I've been stirring. I got a little martini pitcher or a cocktail pitcher to stir, but I'm back to shaking now because I found out that bruising gin is a total

myth. So James Bond wasn't cuckoo? No, he can't bruise gin. That's all just garbage. Do you use orange bitters in yours? No. Really brightens it up. Straight up Dirty Sue gin. I do use a little vermouth. I know that people don't like vermouth at all anymore. Oh, really? Yeah, I see bartenders now don't even use any vermouth. That's not a martini. Well, agreed. That's a gin, a chilled gin up with some olive bright. What kind of vermouth do you use? Just the one in the green Italian bottle. Dolan Blanc? Yeah. That's good stuff. But I also found out recently that vermouth is a wine, and you don't just keep it on your shelf for two years. No, you keep it in the fridge for maybe

a month. Yeah, I didn't know that. So I've been drinking this old, old vermouth. You still can. It's not like you can't, but just for the best possible impact. You want to just get that small bottle. I learned that the hard way too. Yeah, I'm going to start doing that. Man, we should have our own cocktail show. We should. Because we just talked about booze a lot. We don't need to. Let's drink about it. Has that covered? Yeah, that's true. Our good friends at Let's Drink about it. Yeah, and thanks also to Ben, who sent us some ambler, smooth ambler. What was it called? Contradiction. That stuff is good too. That's right. Man, booze talk on lighthouses. Who knew? Oh, I bet you there was a lot of booze in that goes on at lighthouses. I'll bet you. This time it's in nicely. I'll bet

they're not making amazing drinks with St. George and bitter lemon. No. They're just drinking that stuff straight out of the deer skin. Yeah, exactly. Where were we? Eddystone Lighthouse, Plymouth, England. Oh yeah. That's how this got started. This thing is, it's a very rough area to have a lighthouse and it seems like nature doesn't want a lighthouse there because over the years it has been knocked down and burned down many, many times. This dude basically went out there by himself, Henry Wyn Stanley in 1696 and just started building this wooden lighthouse out and these rocks off the coast of Plymouth himself, got captured by a French pirate, released and lit the thing in 1698. He actually died. He deconstructed it and rebuilt it

and died in the second version of it. Oh really? It got swept away with him inside, but he's a pretty cool cat. That was 1703. Then another one in 1708 was built. That burned down in 1755. Then a guy named John Smeaton, he was an engineer. He built one that was built to last for a little while. He actually came up with what you think of as the modern lighthouse. It's thick at the bottom, tapers at the top, and then it flares out right below the lantern. Right. And the reason most lighthouses flare out right below the lantern is when a wave comes up and the waves can get that big. Sure. It won't ride up into the lantern. It will be thrown back out to see when it hits the flare. Oh, it's a water guard. Pretty much. Interesting. Did not know that.

He was a smart dude. That one lasted for 123 years, which was as far as the Eddystone light is concerned, an eternity, but eventually the Trinity house, which is England's version of the Coast Guard. Of the lighthouse establishment. They said, no, let's tear that thing down. It stood up this long, but we think it might not for much longer. But then they built another one. This one actually, they used almost a jigsaw puzzle for the foundation. Yeah. So when a wave hits it, it actually compresses together and becomes stronger when a wave is smacking into it. So that was there for good. Yeah. Wonderful. We talked about Boston light. There's also the Cape Hatteras on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, which is I believe the tallest one in the United

States. Yeah. 208 feet. And it's one of the most famous as well. It's the one with the black and white barber pole design. Yeah. That's 63 meters for our friends everywhere else in the world. Did you know that that one was in trouble? The sea was encroaching upon it and they got some money together. Congress did and moved it. Moved this lighthouse 2,900 feet back inland. Yeah. Over the course of 23 days, they slowly moved it on tracks. Wow. It was pretty amazing. It was on that modern Marvel's one. It's like Fitzgerald though. Sure. I got a few more fast facts, unless you have something else. No, I'm done. 680 lighthouses remaining in the U.S. estimated out of that original 1,000 plus. 37 states have lighthouses. Just not Kansas. Michigan has the

most, don't they, of all the states? Yeah, 120 in Michigan. Because of the Great Lakes. I would imagine. Makes sense. Yeah. The East Coast says 391. West Coast only has 94. I guess there's just a lot more shipping and stuff. Need to step it up West Coast. In worldwide, we estimate more than 17,000 lighthouses in 250 countries. The brightest one, Oak Island in North Carolina, 14 million candle power. You can see it for 24 miles. Wow. Isn't that great? Yeah, that's a lot. 14 million candles all burning at once. Pretty neat. Sounds like a new religion. The Candelas. Really? A million is one lighting their candle. I think you just established it. Reciting the Candelas prayer. Nice. See, we just started a religion. Yeah, that easy. Well,

you did. I just bore witness. That's right. You can be my faithful assistant. Thanks. Can I baptize you? Sure. Okay. If you want to know more about lighthouses, you can type that word into the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com. Since I talked about baptizing Chuck, it's time for Listener Man. Since you talked about baptizing Chuck, that must mean it's 1984. Hey guys, I recently discovered your podcast and immediately fell in love. I'm thirsty for knowledge. I find it quite impressive that you've become quasi-experts. Not really, but I'm writing in to respond to the control burn episode. I used to work for my local county park system doing habitat and wildlife management and controlled burns. It took up many days

in the early spring for us. Our department only consisted of about six to seven people, three of which were licensed burn bosses by the state. They make the burn plan. They light the fire and basically coordinate and oversee the entire operation. I would make everybody call me burn boss job. Totally would. Additionally, local fire departments volunteer personnel and sometimes equipment. So they lend out their stuff, which is nice, and people such as water trucks to assist. We also had quite a large number of park volunteers that go through our training and help on fire line on the fire line as well. That'd be neat. I would do that. Yeah, on like a Saturday afternoon. Sure. I'm sure it's different for each state and agency, but our burn bosses go through training,

put on by the state in order to get certified. I can't recall if this is mentioned, but another advantage of controlled burns is that the charred earth absorbs light because it's black in color, more than it normally would, causing the soil to heat more quickly and thus early germination for the desired species. I had not considered that. We didn't mention that. Yeah. Good factoid there. Thanks for satisfying my wondering mind. Tracy Kump and Cincinnati, Ohio. Thanks a lot, Tracy. We appreciate that. We always love to hear from people who know what they're talking about. Burn Boss Kump. Yeah. If you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at S-Y-S-K podcast or hang out with us on Instagram at S-Y-S-K podcast. You can join us on facebook.com

slash stuffyoushouldknow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com and always join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts on my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody

about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find in major league baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever

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