Let's Go Back Through the Listening Tube August 11-15

Let's go back through the listening tube for this week in history. I'm Bob Woodley from the Listening Tube. This week in 1248, the foundation stone of Cologne Cathedral, built to house the remains of the three wise men, is laid. The cathedral was the tallest building in the world when it was completed. Now you might be thinking, well, gee Bob, how tall could buildings get in 1248? And that's a good question, and I must admit, I don't know the answer. But the answer is irrelevant, as the building wasn't completed in 1248. The Cologne Cathedral took more than 600 years to build. So it was the tallest building in the world when it was completed in 1880. 20,000 people a day are said to visit the cathedral with its shrine to the kings, who were the first to recognize Jesus' significance, opened once a year to expose the three crowned skulls that are the reason the church was built. This week in 1480, during the Battle of Altranto, Ottoman troops behead 800 Christians for refusing to convert to Islam. Does the Quran instruct the killing of people who refuse to convert? I'll explore that in Not the Headlines Threats to the Constitution, Part 2. The 1900s. This week in 1913, stainless steel is invented by Harry Breerly. He came from a poor family in Sheffield and got a job as a bottle washer in a chemical laboratory at the Firth Sons steel mill. A self-taught metallurgist, he was looking for a metal for gun barrels that wouldn't corrode. He added chromium to molten iron, and the result was stainless steel. Today, because of its anti-corrosive properties, it's used in a variety of ways, including piping for desalinization plants and other applications where it might be exposed to harsh conditions. Medical devices often employ stainless steel for its strength and cleanliness, as well as its anti-corrosive properties. The most harsh conditions under which stainless steel may be subjected is probably the typical kitchen sink. This week in 1942, Major General Eugene Ribold of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authorizes the construction of facilities that would house the development of Substitute Materials project. Eventually, the agency would employ over 130,000 people, most of whom knew nothing about what it was they were doing. But America was at war, and there were plenty of people who were willing to do whatever was asked of them to aid the war effort. Today, most people associate the project with New Mexico, because that's where the work ultimately culminated. Although it's better known as the Manhattan Project, because that's where it all began. Those who did know what they were doing were rewarded for their efforts when the first and second atomic bombs were used to end World War II. This week in 1961, the German Democratic Republic closes the border between the eastern and western sectors of Berlin to thwart its inhabitants' attempts to escape to the West. After World War II, the capital of Germany was divided up among three other countries, and then a fourth was added later. The three western portions belonged to the United States, Great Britain, and then eventually France, while the eastern region was the property of the Soviet Union. But people kept flocking to the three western areas because of the differences between ideologies. It was becoming clear that the Western form of government provided the most opportunity and became more popular. So much so that the eastern portion, or the communist portion, had to build a wall to keep people from relocating to the capitalism side of the border. That wall would be known as the Berlin Wall, which would stand until 1989. Perhaps one of the most graphic depictions of the exodus from the communist side of the border happened a few days later, when Konrad Schumann flees from East Germany while on duty guarding the construction of the Berlin Wall. He sprinted over the barbed wire, dropping his weapon mid-leap, exploiting what may have been his only chance to escape the tyranny of communist rule. That's not to say there wasn't a lot of confusion about which form of government was destined to succeed. Communism and capitalism have a long history of conflict, and many people were confident in both systems. That's why this week in 1962, James Joseph Dreznok defects to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea after running across the Korean DMZ. He lived there until he died in 2016 at age 74. But he's just one of a handful of defectors to the communists, as opposed to the millions who have chosen capitalism. This week in 1965, the Beatles play to nearly 60,000 fans at Shea Stadium in New York City, in an event later seen as marking the birth of Stadium Rock. Those four boys from England with their strange haircuts and funny accents would seem like a long time ago, when only four years later, this week in 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Festival opens. The difference between 1965 and 1969 is perhaps best depicted by the difference between the Beatles Concert and the Woodstock Festival. It was an era of generational change in the United States, perhaps unlike any until today. Not musically, of course, but politically. The last five years of American politics has been reminiscent of the 1960s upheaval. This week in 1969, the Apollo 11 astronauts are released from a three-week quarantine after returning to Earth, after being the first to walk on the moon. Hey, we didn't know if they brought back some kind of moon disease. For all we knew, they could have killed the entire population of the planet. Wouldn't that be embarrassing? So we locked them up for three weeks just to see if they would die first. When they didn't, we flew them to New York to enjoy a ticker tape parade. Then, that evening, we made them fly to a state dinner in Los Angeles, where they are awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon. This week in 1984, United States President Ronald Reagan jokes while preparing to make his weekly Saturday address on the radio. The microphones were on and recording when the President of the United States was testing his voice with some impromptu thoughts. The feed of his voice is being transmitted to broadcast stations all over the place, and tape recorders are rolling in preparation for the president's weekly address. At the spot where you might expect to hear someone say, testing one, two, three, testing, one, two, three, check, check. How's my level? Is it good? Is it good? What we heard was the President of the United States say, My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes. Yuri Andropov had just died in February and was replaced by Konstantin Chernko, who was in charge of the Soviet Union when Reagan made that remark. Political upheavals in Poland, led by Lekwoenza and other disintegration of the Soviet grip had demonstrated that East European Communism was about to collapse. Reagan called for the fall of the Berlin Wall, and ultimately he got his demand. That was the nail in the coffin of the Soviet Union, and to a large degree, the communist system of government. Reagan knew the Soviet Union was at a weak point, and even though his remarks weren't meant for mass consumption, he probably said it to demonstrate that the Cold War had just been won. Whether the Soviet Union knew it or not. As for how close we came to a nuclear war over it can be disputed. But I was in the United States Air Force at the time, a radio personality for the Far East Network of the Armed Forces Radio Network in Guam. When we heard about it, we thought it was hilarious. We played the following address on the radio, but we weren't privy to the warm-up recordings, so we also found out about it later. By then, the five minutes had already passed, and Guam was the only strategic air command base outside of the continental United States. We had B-52s. So if we were going to be bombing the Soviet Union, it would have been obvious to those of us stationed there. There was no unusual activity at the time, so we were not alarmed. Follow the listening tube at thelisteningtube.com. You might also enjoy Not the Headlines and guest interviews. Thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. I'm your host, Bob Woodley, for Thou at Infinitem.