Let's Go Back Through the Listening Tube July 14-17

Let's go back through the listening tube for this week in history. I'm Bob Woodley from the Listening Tube. This week in 1789, Alexander McKenzie finally completes his journey to the mouth of the great river he hoped would take him to the Pacific, but which turns out to flow into the Arctic Ocean. Later named after him, the Mackenzie is the second longest river system in North America. I'm sure Mackenzie was disappointed that he didn't end up at the Pacific Ocean and instead wound up in the Arctic. But that's the great thing about exploration. You think you're going to find one thing and end up finding something else. The same thing happened to Christopher Columbus. He was looking for India and instead found North America. And that's why Native Americans are also called Indians. This week in 1789, the French Revolution. Citizens of Paris storm the Bastille. If you've never read A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, I highly recommend it. It's the only book I was forced to read as part of the curriculum in high school that I wanted to read again as an adult. If you've ever heard, it is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done, you know, because people say that all the time, then it's worth taking a second look. The French Revolution took place not long, in historical terms, after the American Revolution. France helped the colonies win the American Revolution and then underwent their own. Similar but different. There was a big difference between the American Revolution and the French Revolution. The American Revolution was a declaration, while the French Revolution was built in secret among those trusted to share in the planning of a government overthrow, replacing the French monarchy altogether. Whereas the American Revolution merely separated itself from the British monarchy, yet leaving it intact. Plus, the American Revolution didn't result in the common use of the guillotine. King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette were among about 16,000 people whose heads rolled after the French Revolution. Death by guillotine wasn't always the clean cut method you might imagine. The shape of the blade underwent a few modifications before the angled blade with which we're familiar. I still have to say it's not a bad way to go. I'd like to know how long I could keep talking after my head gets chopped off. Conversely, the American Revolution resulted in the greatest system of government yet devised by humankind. It's too bad there are people who want to eliminate it. Two years later, in 1791, the Priestley riots drive Joseph Priestley, a supporter of the French Revolution, out of Birmingham, England. Joe was hosting a dinner to celebrate the second anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, when a group who were against the rising tides of revolution began to rebel. The flashpoint of the riots were the Royal Hotel in Birmingham, where the dinner was being held. That dinner, as well as Priestley's home, were targeted along with others who were considered provocateurs by the dissenters. A slow reaction by the authorities allowed the rioting to go on for several days. Priestley's home and laboratory were ruined. He would move to London initially, and then emigrated to the United States. He would end up in Northumberland, Pennsylvania. There he built a new home and laboratory. That building is now a museum, which I've toured twice over the years. The highlight of the tour for me was the ingenious way he built his laboratory. It had three sturdy walls and one weak one, the weak one being an outside wall. That way, if one of his experiments caused an explosion, the force would be directed toward the weak wall and away from the main structure of the house. Priestley is perhaps best remembered for his discovery of carbonation. So the next time those delightful bubbles tickle your nose as you're about to sip your favorite soft drink, you can thank Joseph Priestley and the Priestley riots. That's right. He also has a riot named after him. This week in 1799, the Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French captain Pierre Francois Bouchard during Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. In case you're not familiar, the Rosetta Stone had parallel inscriptions in both Greek and Egyptian, as well as three different scripts, including Greek, Egyptian, Demotic, and Egyptian hieroglyphics. What was cool about it was that now we could decipher the other writings if we knew what just one of them said, because it was the same thing written in all those different ways. Egyptian hieroglyphics was the hard part, but thanks to the Rosetta Stone, we were able to get a grasp of what all those symbols meant, and that came in handy when discovering ancient tombs decorated with hieroglyphics. It opened up a whole new world of understanding ancient Egyptian culture. But what did the Rosetta Stone actually say? I'm going to look that up. He's gonna look it up. He's really gonna do it. I want the truth! You can't handle the truth. You know how they say no job is done until the paperwork is finished? Well, that's basically what the Rosetta Stone is. Administrative paperwork. But in this case, stonework. According to Britannica, the Rosetta Stone, which is on display at the British Museum, is a copy of a decree passed 196 years before Christ by an Egyptian council of priests recognizing the coronation of Ptolemy V Epiphanes as King of Egypt. It's a catalogue of some of the king's noble deeds and accomplishments. Some examples are gifts from the king to the temple, granting a variety of tax reductions, and bringing peace to Egypt after a rebellion that had begun under his predecessor. In return for the king's generosity and virtue, the priests promised to help bolster the king's popularity with new statues, better decorations for his shrines, and festivals for his birthday. Just the regular things all kings want. The stone finishes with a decree that it should be engraved in stone in the prescribed languages and script and placed in temples throughout Egypt. And nearly 2,000 years later, we found one. The 1900s. Sound familiar? The Bolsheviks split the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party into two factions, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. By October of nineteen seventeen, the Bolsheviks had taken political control of St. Petersburg and Moscow. They changed their name to Russian Communist Party in March 1918, to All Union Communist Party in December of nineteen twenty five, and to Communist Party of the Soviet Union in October of nineteen fifty-two. The Social Democrats are taking over the American Democrats Party. They've already taken control of New York City. They have candidates for mayor of Los Angeles, Mayor of Washington, D.C., and multiple congressional candidates in states like Pennsylvania, Colorado, Rhode Island, Florida, Michigan, and of course, New York. They use vague platitudes and make promises they can't keep. They're supported by elites who claim to support the working people. We have many examples of how socialism leads to communism and how communism doesn't work. Yet, for some reason, the Social Democrats in America are still gaining support. The murders of Tsar Nicholas and his family are a reminder of what could happen in America if the socialists continue to increase their influence. Follow the listening tube at thelisteningtube.com. From the listening tube, I'm Bob Woodley for Thou at Infinitum.