Speaker 1: Hi, my name is David Hannah. I'm the author of
Speaker 1: Broken Nicarus. My new book is about the nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: three Chicago World's Fair aviation in the Rise of Fascism.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Doctor Sky Experience in seventy seven
Speaker 1: of you ABC.
Speaker 2: And welcome back, letters and Zutoman to the exciting Doctor
Speaker 2: Sky Experience on America's iconic radio station, Talk Radio seventy
Speaker 2: seven WABC out of New York City and around the world.
Speaker 2: The Doctor Sky Experience has great interviews from the realms
Speaker 2: of astronomy, space, aviation, and weather with celebrity guests in
Speaker 2: the mix, and as an added bonus, great guests from
Speaker 2: the realms of American exceptionalism. As we continue to talk
Speaker 2: about truth, justice in the American way and to make
Speaker 2: all that happen for Progon on it to have our
Speaker 2: producer as part of this particular program, doctor d Richard Dugan,
Speaker 2: who makes it all happen. The pack and relax, ladies
Speaker 2: and gentlemen, a very special guest today just a moment
Speaker 2: a brief introduction of our author and guest, David Hannah,
Speaker 2: a Brand of Prometheus Books book entitled Broken Icarus. The
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty three Chicago World's Fair, The Golden Age of
Speaker 2: Aviation and the Rise of Fascism. But a brief introduction
Speaker 2: of our special guest is in order. David Hannah was
Speaker 2: raised on the coast of May and he teaches history
Speaker 2: at Stuyvesant High School in New York, and he is
Speaker 2: a recipient of the New York Times Teachers Make a
Speaker 2: Difference Award and the University of Chicago's Outstanding Educator Award.
Speaker 2: In addition to today's book, he's also the proud author
Speaker 2: of Knights of the Sea Rendezvous with Death, and he's
Speaker 2: here today to talk about this iconic book that's so
Speaker 2: timely today, especially if you're a fan of aviation and
Speaker 2: American history. A little backtrack on the book, and sideline
Speaker 2: goes like this, in the nineteen thirties, they still conjure
Speaker 2: painful images, the great want of the depression, and overseas,
Speaker 2: the exuberant crowds, motivated by self appointed national saviors dressing
Speaker 2: up old hatreds as new ideas. But there was another
Speaker 2: story that embodied mankind in that decade. In the same
Speaker 2: year that both Adolf Hitler and Franklin D. Roosevelt came
Speaker 2: to power the city of Chicago stage what was up
Speaker 2: to that time the most forward looking international exhibition in history,
Speaker 2: that is the nineteen thirty three World's Fair. It looked
Speaker 2: to the future undebashionedly as one of the full glowing
Speaker 2: promise of the future, that particular exhibition a century of progress.
Speaker 2: Here to tell us about that is David Hannah. David,
Speaker 2: thank you for joining us today and thank you for
Speaker 2: being with us.
Speaker 1: That's my pleasure to just guy, Well.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I mean, this is a fascinating book.
Speaker 2: And yes I did read the book from cover to cover,
Speaker 2: and who wouldn't want to because it has so much
Speaker 2: great information here. And of course, as you know we've
Speaker 2: spoken before this interview what great interests we both share
Speaker 2: in the world of aviation and in history. But tell
Speaker 2: us the power behind this and the motivation for writing
Speaker 2: the book. It's so timely for those that are interested
Speaker 2: in aviation. But let's hear what you have to say.
Speaker 2: How did it all evolve?
Speaker 1: Well, it was partly an interest that I had in
Speaker 1: World's Fair since I was very young. I just found
Speaker 1: them fascinating and this particular World's Fair was one that
Speaker 1: was as you earlier reference was particularly forward looking, really
Speaker 1: the first of the World's Fairs to be so forward looking.
Speaker 1: You know, if you think about television series like Star
Speaker 1: Trek Jean Roddenberry's Star Trek, or for instance, the animated
Speaker 1: series The Jetsons, you can see a direct line back
Speaker 1: to the nineteen thirty three Chicago World's Fair. And then
Speaker 1: of course there's the experimental prototype City of Tomorrow EPCOT
Speaker 1: that was built by Disney in Florida and so, which
Speaker 1: really fascinates me. And so that was part of it.
Speaker 1: The other part was the thirties, looking at this period
Speaker 1: because the period we generally associate with the road to
Speaker 1: World War two all that that entails, which is a
Speaker 1: pretty dark chapter in world history. But there's this moment
Speaker 1: sort of just before everything sort of goes wrong, if
Speaker 1: you will, where that was still out there in the future.
Speaker 1: You know, no one knew, they didn't know that was
Speaker 1: necessarily the case. There certainly was a feeling Hitler had
Speaker 1: been in power for a few months at that point,
Speaker 1: and there was a feeling that Hitler was going to
Speaker 1: have to be confronted in some way. But again, the
Speaker 1: idea of going to war that I don't think that
Speaker 1: was on people's minds at the time, and so there's
Speaker 1: that element. And then in terms of aviation, it was
Speaker 1: the for me, it was the most logical way to
Speaker 1: approach trying to explain the Fair to people because it
Speaker 1: was explicitly promoted by the Fair as the main motif.
Speaker 1: If you look at, for instance, the main promotional poster,
Speaker 1: it features seaplanes, it has zeppelins, it has blooms ascending
Speaker 1: to the stratosphere, because they knew as they had already
Speaker 1: set up the calendar that they were going to have
Speaker 1: events featuring aviation, and these attempts to reach the stratosphere
Speaker 1: spaced out over a period of time in the Fairs calendar,
Speaker 1: and that was that was going to be the sort
Speaker 1: of the common thread that pulled it all together for people,
Speaker 1: and it was something that was still sure, It was
Speaker 1: still a wonder wonder of it all element that I
Speaker 1: think today we lack. You know, we check in, we go,
Speaker 1: you know, we go through security, we get on our
Speaker 1: plane where you know, we were flying from New York
Speaker 1: Chicago exacting much of it, but that we weren't there
Speaker 1: quite yet at that point, and so it was very
Speaker 1: exciting for people.
Speaker 2: Well, David, as we go into this particular story here.
Speaker 2: I just want to bring up a little bit of
Speaker 2: a let's go back in the time capsule kind of
Speaker 2: thing here. Let's imagine that we're going back and doing
Speaker 2: a little promo for this particular event, just to put
Speaker 2: people in the right mindset as we explore with you
Speaker 2: the author, some of the great details of how this
Speaker 2: came about. So we'll say it this way, folks, come
Speaker 2: to the World's Fair in Chicago. A century of progress
Speaker 2: made the twenty seventh to the November the first. How
Speaker 2: about this? Adults fifty cents and children twenty five cents.
Speaker 2: But you know, even though that's not a super promo,
Speaker 2: it still tells a lot. But the picture is worth
Speaker 2: more than a thousand words.
Speaker 3: The million dollar Hall of Science shown here is the
Speaker 3: central building of the Cargo's nineteen thirty three World's Fair.
Speaker 3: Its outstanding feature is the optical Illusion Tower, which gives
Speaker 3: the impression of being a real skyscraper, although actually it
Speaker 3: is only one hundred feet high. This building also stresses
Speaker 3: the modern in architecture. Its main entrance is designed along
Speaker 3: modernistic lines, which will focus attention on a center fountain
Speaker 3: to be illuminated by reflected light. Here is a replica
Speaker 3: of Fort Dearborn, reconstructed from the plans of Captain Whistler,
Speaker 3: who originally built it on the site from which modern
Speaker 3: Chicago grew. This is the Administration Building, another modernistic marble
Speaker 3: where all business pertaining to the fair will be handled.
Speaker 3: And now you see the Travel and Transport Building. Its
Speaker 3: unique feature is the roof a dome suspended by steel cables.
Speaker 3: On June first, nineteen thirty three, the World's Fair will open,
Speaker 3: dedicated to a century of progress.
Speaker 2: You know, it's just so amazing. I'm looking here inside
Speaker 2: the cover of this particular book of yours, and these
Speaker 2: posters are just so outstanding. This art deco off the charts.
Speaker 2: I just love it. And I'm definitely going to get
Speaker 2: a poster like this and put it in my office someday.
Speaker 2: I mean, I just love that era. But David, let's
Speaker 2: talk a little bit more about this. I mean, let's
Speaker 2: talk about how this particular fair got started. It's not
Speaker 2: easy to do a World's Fair. And then later I
Speaker 2: want to talk a little bit about the connection to astronomy,
Speaker 2: because maybe I've said this incorrectly to some of my audience.
Speaker 2: When we do the astronomy programs about a certain star
Speaker 2: in the heavens and it's connection to this fair. But
Speaker 2: talk about how the whole fair got started, who was
Speaker 2: behind it, how did it get funded, and why was
Speaker 2: it so successful? I understand it was what one of
Speaker 2: the first profitable world's fairs of all time? Am I right?
Speaker 1: Yes, Well it's interesting because you know the timing we
Speaker 1: look back at it, you know, it's happening right in
Speaker 1: the middle of the depression. These were you know, pretty
Speaker 1: rough times to say the least. But it was planned
Speaker 1: during the Roaring twenties, when you know, there were times
Speaker 1: of plenty, and so that's important to note, you know
Speaker 1: that to run I'd rather put on a fair, uh
Speaker 1: this size. It took years to put that together. But
Speaker 1: what it happened was was that, uh, there was a
Speaker 1: mixed reception uh in city Hall for having a fair.
Speaker 1: They were willing to endorse it, but they weren't really
Speaker 1: really interested in diverting any funds for it. And the
Speaker 1: you know, the sort of the big civic boosters in
Speaker 1: the city, well connected Chicago's like for instance, Rufus Dawes
Speaker 1: and his brother Charles does uh decided that well that
Speaker 1: that's how we want to do it. So they decided
Speaker 1: that it's going to be strictly a private sector run
Speaker 1: fair And for those of your listeners who feel that
Speaker 1: it's better to, you know, let the government government get
Speaker 1: out of the way and let the private sector do it,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is one of This is an example
Speaker 1: of something that really did work. I mean really that
Speaker 1: that held up really well. Now, one of the interesting
Speaker 1: things is that that generation of leaders is in Chicago. UH,
Speaker 1: They're one of their main experiences as adults was the
Speaker 1: World War One and World War one.
Speaker 3: UH.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons why the United States contribution was
Speaker 1: so effective was because we were in that era very
Speaker 1: interested in efficiency. It was something that was the watchword
Speaker 1: for the time in business and in industry. And they
Speaker 1: had been involved in purchasing UH materials and oversight for
Speaker 1: the American Expeditionary Force in France. And they hired this
Speaker 1: guy named Lennox Lore who was the real can do efficient,
Speaker 1: dynamic guy with tremendous energy, who knew exactly were they
Speaker 1: were all. The thing about it, they were all on
Speaker 1: the same page. You know, you didn't have a lot
Speaker 1: Once they decided what they were going to do uh.
Speaker 1: They there was not a lot of fall in terms
Speaker 1: of a falling out this disagreement. They were they were
Speaker 1: looking towards the same goal and lenox Law was absolutely
Speaker 1: the right guy to get this done to see it through. Now,
Speaker 1: what he did with the Dowses connections both in business
Speaker 1: and politics and then his own can do nohow from
Speaker 1: his experience during World War One, was to reach out
Speaker 1: to private businesses, so for instance, like a ge or
Speaker 1: a Westinghouse or a Chrysler Corporation Ford and convince them
Speaker 1: that what they should do, instead of having their separate
Speaker 1: promotional pavilions, that they should feature basically their industry and
Speaker 1: all work together show the best of their industry and
Speaker 1: the most forward looking light to create. I guess you
Speaker 1: could say cooperative sort of by industry, and that was
Speaker 1: one of the things that made it very successful and
Speaker 1: very exciting. And it also ties back to what you
Speaker 1: had mentioned about the way that the fair literally started
Speaker 1: with this kind of a publicity stump and a way
Speaker 1: of showing the power of technology to harness, for instance,
Speaker 1: light from a star that is thousands of light years away.
Speaker 2: Well, I'd like to get into that, but I want
Speaker 2: to mention to everybody listening. You are listening to the
Speaker 2: Doctor Sky experience with me, Doctor Sky. We're on America's
Speaker 2: iconic radio station, Yes Talk Radio seventy seven WABC in
Speaker 2: New York City and around the world. We're here, of course,
Speaker 2: not only on the air, but also on wabcradio dot com,
Speaker 2: where you can of course follow us on our podcast
Speaker 2: and our blog. Reports here on great subjects like astronomy, space, aviation,
Speaker 2: and weather, celebrity guests in the mix, and stories about
Speaker 2: American exceptionalism as we continue to talk about truth, justice
Speaker 2: in the American way and fitting right into this mold
Speaker 2: I mean perfectly in my opinion, is author David Hannah,
Speaker 2: a brand new book and Broka Nicharist the nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: two Chicago World's Fair, The Golden Age of Aviation and
Speaker 2: the Rise of Fascism Prometheus Books book. Yes, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 2: you can get just about anywhere, and I encourage you
Speaker 2: to do that. But let's talk a little bit more.
Speaker 2: In the time we have here, David, this is just
Speaker 2: fascinating as you're bringing us into the enlightenment of how
Speaker 2: the fair got started. Talk a little bit more. Let's
Speaker 2: start off with this Italian aviator that I think really
Speaker 2: rocks the world and he does something amazing, this individual
Speaker 2: Italo Balbo. Talk about him and what did he bring
Speaker 2: to Chicago, but a little bit more about him, and
Speaker 2: also maybe on the dark side, talk a little bit
Speaker 2: about the rise of fascism that's starting to evolve in
Speaker 2: the world, not only with Hitler of Mussolini and the
Speaker 2: story of Italo Balbo.
Speaker 4: Aviation's greatest pete of that year with the mass flight
Speaker 4: of an Italian air armide unto the Chicago World's Fair.
Speaker 4: General Hitelo Balbo led his fleet of twenty four giant seaplanes,
Speaker 4: landing in fall us array only sixty one hundred mile
Speaker 4: return flight to Orbatello, Italy. He paused to receive a heroes.
Speaker 5: Welcome from New York City.
Speaker 4: Minion's jam on Broadway to cheer a Balbo his nineties
Speaker 4: six officers and men perhaps the most effective goodwill ambassadors
Speaker 4: from Italy during Musolinese and tire reign.
Speaker 1: Well it's a little Balbo was part of that. He
Speaker 1: was somebody who was a veteran of World War One.
Speaker 1: He eventually joined up with the black Shirts in Italy
Speaker 1: to the rise of Mussolini, who was the first fascist dictator.
Speaker 1: The fascists saw their movement essentially as an antidote to
Speaker 1: communism in the Bolshviek Revolution had happened in Russia and
Speaker 1: it scared a lot of people at the time. And
Speaker 1: they also they were either impatient or unimpressed with liberal democracy.
Speaker 1: They felt that it was weak. They weren't, you know,
Speaker 1: they especially in countries like for instance, Italy and Germany
Speaker 1: where it was a lot of turmoil after World War One.
Speaker 1: They weren't stable countries like our own, and that has
Speaker 1: a lot to do with it. But what happened is
Speaker 1: one of his rewards for backing Mussolini was to become
Speaker 1: the head of the Aeronautica, the Italian Air Force, and
Speaker 1: he eventually become a advocate of instead of having like
Speaker 1: say the Charles Lindberg, you know, the Lone Eagle, which
Speaker 1: is remarkable trans Atlantic crossing in nineteen twenty seven, he
Speaker 1: wants to organize large groups of planes to make cruises
Speaker 1: and he does this to the around the Mediterranean, eventually
Speaker 1: across the South Atlantic to Brazil. But the most ambitious
Speaker 1: was this these two dozen Savoya Marchetti seaplanes and these
Speaker 1: giant seaplanes that were going to cross the North Atlantic
Speaker 1: after sort of jumping over from Iceland and then to
Speaker 1: Labrador and then go up to Saint Lawrence across the
Speaker 1: Great Lakes and then descend on Lake Michigan. Of course
Speaker 1: this would take this obviously, couldn't do this all on
Speaker 1: one shot.
Speaker 2: And it's no easy feet by the way, I mean,
Speaker 2: this is tremendous in the time we're talking about even
Speaker 2: today for that type of airplane, it's not.
Speaker 1: Really very dangerous. Yeah, it was quite dangerous. And then
Speaker 1: you know the one I said, the thing of all
Speaker 1: of these avias, and I guess you could say that
Speaker 1: those that anticipate, you know, the space race to a
Speaker 1: large degree, they were making this up as they went along,
Speaker 1: you know. And but somebody has to that's the thing.
Speaker 1: Somebody has to be the pioneer, or we wouldn't benefit
Speaker 1: with our ability to for instance, like I said, just
Speaker 1: you know jet from city, you know, from city to
Speaker 1: city without thinking much about it. Somebody had to do
Speaker 1: this and so and this was at a time, by
Speaker 1: the way, it was interesting. It wasn't clear that the
Speaker 1: airplane landing on hard ground with wheels was going to
Speaker 1: be the mode. You know, many thought that the seaplane
Speaker 1: was a better option, you know, landing on water, and
Speaker 1: of course there were the Zeppelins. But anyway, when when
Speaker 1: Babbel came, he was just such a sensation. It was
Speaker 1: a tremendously charismatic guy, and it was the city just
Speaker 1: there was this euphoric the reception that he received. People
Speaker 1: talking about how beautiful it was seeing these planes land
Speaker 1: in form precision formation like Michigan on a beautiful summer day.
Speaker 1: And he was able to he was he liked people
Speaker 1: that also helped, right, and so yeah, and then it
Speaker 1: felt that And it's interesting because he was a fascist,
Speaker 1: and for instance, socialists were at arms, up in arms
Speaker 1: about the fact that he's being welcome because they battled
Speaker 1: in the streets of Italy in the twenties and he
Speaker 1: you know, it's interesting because he he was never comfortable.
Speaker 1: For instance, when Mussolini started kind of getting close to
Speaker 1: Hitler and he warned against it, and he was certainly
Speaker 1: not willing to parrot the anti Semitic line. He explicitly
Speaker 1: said that that has no part of that in his
Speaker 1: vision of Italian identity. But he was a black shirt.
Speaker 1: And when we look back and it's interesting. You know,
Speaker 1: I've seen, you know, the clips of the planes over
Speaker 1: Chicago sky Line and you see all of them information
Speaker 1: and you hear the propellers roaring, and we know, of
Speaker 1: course World War two is coming. In a lot of
Speaker 1: times when we hear that, we think, oh, gosh, you oh.
Speaker 2: I read it between the lines their day. But I
Speaker 2: read it between the lines that I feel the great
Speaker 2: you know, dislike if not, I hate the word hatred
Speaker 2: between Mussolini and Bobo as he becomes such a hero
Speaker 2: to the people. In other words, the jealousy factor with Mussolini,
Speaker 2: who's off the charts, as I read well in the book,
Speaker 2: Am I correct?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really hard for Babo to walk the
Speaker 1: fine lines because the more success he had then the
Speaker 1: more that that caused a rift with he and Mussolini.
Speaker 1: Muslim eventually packed him off to an Italian colony in
Speaker 1: North Africa, and in some ways it was the best
Speaker 1: thing that ever happened to Balbol because he was sort
Speaker 1: of out of commission as things started to go in
Speaker 1: really the really bad direction. But he wound up getting
Speaker 1: shot down by friendly fire at the very beginning of
Speaker 1: the war in North Africa. But he really did he
Speaker 1: made He was really quite quite a characters. But it's
Speaker 1: controversial even today in Chicago. You know, I've talked to
Speaker 1: people there's a street really quite quite a nice street
Speaker 1: that leads down to the lake, and they've talked about, well,
Speaker 1: should we change it since Balbo Drive? You know, should
Speaker 1: we change it because the fashion? It seems that at
Speaker 1: the time, And I think even to a degree today,
Speaker 1: I think Chicagoans differentiate between him and Mussolini, and I
Speaker 1: think they'll probably I would be surprised if, say what
Speaker 1: to change that street name, but of course is up
Speaker 1: to Chicago and.
Speaker 2: It's filling it up absolutely, and now what they're tearing
Speaker 2: it down. Of many statues across the country, I mean,
Speaker 2: this is something that I'm sure is on people's minds
Speaker 2: that are very sensitive to things like this. You know,
Speaker 2: this is quite fascinating, David as we talk about this.
Speaker 2: But what I wanted to shift ears on is something
Speaker 2: from the world of astronomy, which is even more to me,
Speaker 2: I don't know, just so amazing. I read about this
Speaker 2: a long time ago. Let's go back, Dadeline May twenty seventh,
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty three. A telescope is settl along the shores
Speaker 2: of Lake Michigan to open up the World's Fair and
Speaker 2: in tribute to the star which we all know in
Speaker 2: the world of astronomy is Arcturist, This orange red super
Speaker 2: giant star obviously a distance now of about forty light
Speaker 2: years away, Simbab, is that the star light that left
Speaker 2: in eighteen ninety three, the last of the great Fairs?
Speaker 2: This star light opened up the World's Fair. I want
Speaker 2: to hear more about this because I don't know much
Speaker 2: about it, but I'm fascinated about it. Very much accurate. Correct,
Speaker 2: that's what they did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's about That's about right. May twenty seventh was
Speaker 1: opening day and they had a big crowd. But then
Speaker 1: at night, once it started to get dark, closer towards
Speaker 1: I guess getting on towards nine, they had a planned
Speaker 1: event and the event was to capture the light from
Speaker 1: Arcturists and ge and Westinghouse had collaborated with some of
Speaker 1: the top university research scientists who were working in astronomy
Speaker 1: and also in the field of electronics. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that was also interesting about it was that
Speaker 1: forty years you just mentioned, because everybody who would have
Speaker 1: been of a certain age at that time in Chicago
Speaker 1: would have remembered at forty years frier had been the
Speaker 1: famous eighteen ninety three Chicago World's Fair, the White City.
Speaker 1: And so the idea that this light that was traveling
Speaker 1: towards Earth took forty years to reach us had been
Speaker 1: generated by this giant red orange star on the you know,
Speaker 1: the sort of the halo, the milky way, you know,
Speaker 1: they timed that that was something that they had promoted,
Speaker 1: that there's a forty years as you said, and so
Speaker 1: that it's you know, it's it's connecting back to the
Speaker 1: city's own heritage with its first fair.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 1: And so they harnessed the light and then these photo
Speaker 1: electric cells essentially captured the light and they used it
Speaker 1: to then essentially light up the what was called the
Speaker 1: what was it was this fountain, They called it the lagoon,
Speaker 1: but it was it was actually it's it's like a
Speaker 1: little sort of arm of the lake and Northerly Aisle
Speaker 1: and the lakefront. And they had this magnificent rainbow colored
Speaker 1: light show that would that started up, which people loved.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because if you go to Epcot every evening,
Speaker 1: they have in this central pool the same type of
Speaker 1: technicolor uh light show. Walt Disney had visited the nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty three Chicago World's Fair and was very interested in
Speaker 1: a lot of both the scientific futuristic exhibits and then
Speaker 1: also the sort of the Midway, you know, the you know,
Speaker 1: the there was actually a mock Belgian town and so forth,
Speaker 1: and so anyway, there's a direct connection. But then it
Speaker 1: lit it up and people just were thrilled by it.
Speaker 1: And also there was a lot of neon used for
Speaker 1: the first time. Joseph Urban was this set designer who
Speaker 1: was a genius. He actually never got to see it
Speaker 1: because he had he died, but he had planned everything
Speaker 1: so you'd have this this neon using essentially lightless architecture
Speaker 1: and this was all call it up and what they did.
Speaker 1: People loved it so much that they went through the
Speaker 1: same process of harnessing this light from arcturists every night.
Speaker 1: And so this was so popular. And the Adler Planetarium
Speaker 1: if you know Chicago and chicag listening, of course, that
Speaker 1: still exists that way. I've been giful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, David, this is just a fascinating story because
Speaker 2: you know, I just envied that, I mean, the time
Speaker 2: period Neon starlight, the most amazing exhibits your story as
Speaker 2: we continue to move through time and space. David Hannah,
Speaker 2: our guests here in the Doctor Sky Experience, as we
Speaker 2: talk about great stories, ladies and gentlemen, had a great
Speaker 2: vote broken Nicarus, the nineteen thirty three Chicago Worlds Fare,
Speaker 2: the Golden Age of aviation, and the rise of fascism.
Speaker 2: You know I'm moving fast forward here, but my gosh,
Speaker 2: I want to learn so much about this, and so
Speaker 2: do our listeners. The big era of Zeppelins and a
Speaker 2: man that I'm so fascinated by. I want to just
Speaker 2: tell us everything you about we can in this short interview.
Speaker 2: You go Eickner, a real genius of the aircraft that
Speaker 2: we call lighter than air, the Zeppelin, to describe him
Speaker 2: and his creations there in Germany. I mean, this is
Speaker 2: a fascinating store.
Speaker 5: That famous old German original the Glass Septain comes running
Speaker 5: up from Real She stops at Miami on her way
Speaker 5: from the Argentine, a hop of over four thousand miles.
Speaker 5: This is her fourth flight to America and she has
Speaker 5: flowned two hundred and seventy five thousand miles all over
Speaker 5: the globe. So she knows her way about it, and
Speaker 5: she certainly knows how to land her. Veteran commander, Doctor
Speaker 5: Heickner comes down the ladder and is greeted by Florida officials.
Speaker 5: Doctor Hickner fired to the glass Septin around the world
Speaker 5: in nineteen twenty nine and has successfully planned seventeen thousand
Speaker 5: persons on more than two hundred and fifty flights. A
Speaker 5: brief rest and then she's off again, on way to Chicago,
Speaker 5: where she circles over the wild Staff. She takes a
Speaker 5: look at the sky ride and on over the planetarium.
Speaker 5: Finally offer competes today of the exhibition. The John Dasher
Speaker 5: lands again once more with the atlass and grace. In fact,
Speaker 5: she makes it look easier.
Speaker 1: Hugo Eckner was a real renaissance man. He had many
Speaker 1: interests and actually he had learned earned his PhD. Not
Speaker 1: an engineer in aviation like you might think, but actually
Speaker 1: in the humanity social scientists rather. But what happened was
Speaker 1: he got a job as a basically like a pr
Speaker 1: guy for the original Zeppelin company, which was founded by
Speaker 1: this old German officer named Ferdinand of one Zeppelin, and
Speaker 1: eventually he fell in love with the whole project, and
Speaker 1: then he wanted to learn to actually pilot them and
Speaker 1: design them. So he went from pr into actually, you know,
Speaker 1: actually piloting them and designing them, and he became the
Speaker 1: real face of the of the zeppelin. It was more
Speaker 1: than just a type of aviation. It was almost like
Speaker 1: a movement because Zeppelins represented this this magical wondrous who
Speaker 1: he could called it a silvery or fish, you know,
Speaker 1: that would come out of the clouds, that would connect
Speaker 1: all of mankind. He in nineteen twenty nine went on
Speaker 1: an around the world tour that was sponsored by William
Speaker 1: Randolph Hurst, and you know, to show the zeppelin to
Speaker 1: people from all over the world, people who would have
Speaker 1: been familiar with them, people who probably thought they were
Speaker 1: from out of space, who had no idea. It's pretty
Speaker 1: remarkable story, he thought as something that would connect people.
Speaker 1: And the graph zeppelin grafting in count was the you know,
Speaker 1: the nun plus ultra in Zeppelins and zeppelin travel. At
Speaker 1: that time, it was already involved in passenger service between
Speaker 1: you in Brazil.
Speaker 2: Well, this is amazing, David, because you're talking about something
Speaker 2: almost eight hundred feet long, and we've all seen good
Speaker 2: dear blimps, and of course in that particular World's Flare
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty three, they even had one, as you
Speaker 2: describe in the book. But it's so amazing. I almost
Speaker 2: imagine the startling phenomenon that that would give the senses
Speaker 2: if you even saw the thing. And knowing that I
Speaker 2: talked to you af Air about this, I said that
Speaker 2: apparently it came across and you you accurately described it,
Speaker 2: because you're the historian that the obvious thing is it
Speaker 2: came from let's say, say from Los Angeles, moving again
Speaker 2: and back east. It probably came across where I am
Speaker 2: in Arizona, I believe what in nineteen twenty nine, And
Speaker 2: cause you imagine people in the outer you know, in
Speaker 2: farmlands and in rural areas, seeing something like that. You're right,
Speaker 2: it would look like some kind of a spaceship from
Speaker 2: another world. But what I'm trying to describe and have
Speaker 2: you described better, Flying and maintaining this was not an
Speaker 2: easy task. I mean it was all subjected to the winds.
Speaker 2: I mean you really didn't have much control over them.
Speaker 2: So it was a little bit of luck, I guess,
Speaker 2: but also great uh, you know, piloting on behalf of
Speaker 2: of Bugo and and his his staff describe this it's
Speaker 2: just amazing.
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting. Eckener said that you don't it's not
Speaker 1: like you pilot it or drive it. He said essentially
Speaker 1: that you you sort of voyage. It's like he saw
Speaker 1: its almost like a sea type of you know, there
Speaker 1: was the kind of knowledge you needed at sea, would
Speaker 1: be the kind of knowledge that you would bring to bear,
Speaker 1: particularly with the weather. It's interesting because he was from Denmark.
Speaker 1: I mean he was from actually a part of Germany
Speaker 1: that had been part of Denmark just before he uh
Speaker 1: and just that just before he was born rather and
Speaker 1: so he always talked about, you know that he had
Speaker 1: this sort of Viking blood. He spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time as a as a young boy out on the
Speaker 1: Baltic Sea, sailing by himself, and he really got a
Speaker 1: sense of the weather. This is a guy who had
Speaker 1: an uncanny understanding of the weather, and that was crucial
Speaker 1: in his success because quite frankly, these types of giant airships,
Speaker 1: particularly with of course hydrogen instead of hem in their cells,
Speaker 1: that kept them aloft. I mean that it was it
Speaker 1: was you know, it was just asking in many ways
Speaker 1: for a really tragic event, like what happened with the
Speaker 1: Hindenburg in Lake Kirst, New Jersey. It was really, I said,
Speaker 1: a kind of a dicey proposition, and it wasn't just luck.
Speaker 1: I think that there was again this element of understanding
Speaker 1: the weather in a way that in many ways this
Speaker 1: is and this is somewhat problematic. There were other fine
Speaker 1: Zeppelin captains. He wasn't the only one, but in many
Speaker 1: ways he was essential to the whole project and to
Speaker 1: make it work, to make it be viable as a
Speaker 1: passenger service, you can't depend on one person, and that
Speaker 1: I think was ultimately one of the problems. But Eckiner, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, there's also another thing I actually was. I
Speaker 1: went to the Zeppelin Company in Fardic Safe in Germany,
Speaker 1: and my wife and I went up in the parent zeppelin,
Speaker 1: which is Zeppelin Anti. This is more of a day
Speaker 1: trip kind of thing. It was wonderful there in the
Speaker 1: fourth Hills of the Alps. But I talked to one
Speaker 1: of the one of the most experienced pilots of airships,
Speaker 1: both Zeppelins, the small smaller Zeppelins now and of course
Speaker 1: the blimps which we're all familiar with, and he said
Speaker 1: that it really was basically kind of lucky in many respects. Rather,
Speaker 1: he really was kind of lucky in some respects that
Speaker 1: in his opinion, these types of ships are not meant
Speaker 1: to be brought across oceans. Uh And and and again,
Speaker 1: this is the guy who really admires you knows a
Speaker 1: lot about him. The Zeppelin company prominently features him in
Speaker 1: their promotional film that all the passengers watch before they
Speaker 1: go off on their day trips. But he felt that
Speaker 1: it was it was really pushing it to do that.
Speaker 1: And I thought that was interesting coming from him, because
Speaker 1: it's just something this is something that's his life's you know,
Speaker 1: his life's work.
Speaker 2: Well, what's amazing to me, David, is that when they
Speaker 2: had passenger service, I mean there's descriptions of flying to
Speaker 2: South America or other places around the world. I mean,
Speaker 2: here you have this gondola that has areas where people
Speaker 2: can sleep, you have hot water, they're actually cooking with fire,
Speaker 2: and above them are these giant flammable gas bags. And
Speaker 2: yet the description that the people had on this and
Speaker 2: I'm sure what in those days they paid primo would
Speaker 2: be like what flying or going onto a luxurious cruise ship.
Speaker 2: Today the top accommodation, first class and beyond. But the
Speaker 2: point is it did have the capability of transporting people
Speaker 2: and even over the ocean there was somewhat near disasters
Speaker 2: where some of some of the coverings ripped off, and
Speaker 2: Hugo knew how to maintain this, and lucky for him
Speaker 2: and lucky for the ship, the Zeppelin, it made it
Speaker 2: through these storms. But they could have got eate and
Speaker 2: seriously just crashed into the ocean for the less capable piloting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was again, particularly if you look at the
Speaker 1: North Atlantic crossings. But you know, it's interesting, know when
Speaker 1: you look at the South Atlantic crossings to Brazil, that
Speaker 1: service never had any major mishaps and it was eventually
Speaker 1: discontinued just because after what happened with the Hindenburg at Lakers,
Speaker 1: because just the imagery of that, you know, that newsreel
Speaker 1: was seen by so many people and it just sort
Speaker 1: of assumed that, you know, certainly without helium anyway, no
Speaker 1: one was in their right mind was going to book
Speaker 1: passage on a zeppelin after seeing that film. Course so unforgettable.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've seen it. I mean, oh it's hard electonic,
Speaker 1: you know, Well, let's go.
Speaker 2: Back in time here, not to rush it, but let's
Speaker 2: go back to October twenty sixth, nineteen thirty three, something
Speaker 2: that I never knew. And folks, when you get to
Speaker 2: read David's book, you'll get the full skinny on it.
Speaker 2: The Zeppelin itself, the Grove actually came to the Chicago
Speaker 2: World's Fair. But a little bit of controversy I think
Speaker 2: you can describe better at this particular time, one side
Speaker 2: of the vessel itself or the airship, the Zeppelin and
Speaker 2: Blake was emblazoned with the swastika, and the other side
Speaker 2: was not tell us about that story because it actually
Speaker 2: came over Chicago. This is amazing. I never knew that
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, this is an interesting story, and I
Speaker 1: wasn't able to get anything well definitive enough, let's put
Speaker 1: it that way. So there there's one interpret sort of
Speaker 1: interpretation of events. Essentially this that HUGO Ackner intentionally when
Speaker 1: he piloted the craft. He was coming from Akron, Ohio
Speaker 1: to the Zeppelin Goodyear headquarters here in the United States and
Speaker 1: coming to the fair that early morning. The idea was
Speaker 1: to make a big swing around Chicago. So like sort
Speaker 1: of what the West side and then go up to
Speaker 1: the northern part of the city do more. And then
Speaker 1: he he left the craft and his number two then
Speaker 1: piloted it back to Akron, and he stayed in the
Speaker 1: city and promoted the Zeppelin project and did it in
Speaker 1: such a way that you couldn't see the side with
Speaker 1: the swast And again, this is pretty compelling. This is
Speaker 1: pretty compelling evidence about it. On the other hand, there
Speaker 1: are other sources that say that that's not what happened.
Speaker 1: He did the sort of more direct route right on
Speaker 1: the lake front and then came back down. Though without
Speaker 1: getting into two months detail, I think I just one
Speaker 1: of these things where it was probably probably better if
Speaker 1: they read the section of the book because it's a
Speaker 1: lot of minutia. And I'll tell you I dug into
Speaker 1: everything from wind directions that morning and offend the great
Speaker 1: job newspapers, and it was just it was it was
Speaker 1: hard to pin it down. But I will say this
Speaker 1: is that I did have the opportunity to interview his grandson,
Speaker 1: doctor hue Eckner, who lives in Switzerland now, and he
Speaker 1: said that he knew his grandfather and he said that
Speaker 1: his grandfather said that he'd done that previously earlier in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty three over other cities, and that was what
Speaker 1: got my attention. In other words, it wasn't a one
Speaker 1: off because he was flying the graf Zeppelin in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty three. Hitler came to power in early thirty three,
Speaker 1: Joseph Gerbels was Hitler was not a fan of the Zeppelins,
Speaker 1: but Joseph Gerbels saw them as this great opportunity to
Speaker 1: spread Nazi propaganda, and so Eckner was constantly trying to
Speaker 1: keep his distance from him, and eventually this is a
Speaker 1: battle he lost, because as long as he wanted to
Speaker 1: stay in Germany, you either had to sort of.
Speaker 2: Play ball to a degree or you had to absolutely.
Speaker 1: But in the beginning he was able. He was such
Speaker 1: a celebrity Acner himself that he was able to kind
Speaker 1: of use that to keep them at a sort of
Speaker 1: at bay for a while and really Chicago and the
Speaker 1: fall of nineteen thirty three was really the last time
Speaker 1: he was really a free agent. In this instant, he
Speaker 1: could do something that he on his own to make
Speaker 1: kind of a quiet statement, is like I'm not on
Speaker 1: board with what's going on back in my home country.
Speaker 1: I love my country. But this isn't what I want
Speaker 1: it to be. And so you know, I find it
Speaker 1: to be very believable. And again there are reports from
Speaker 1: other sources that you know, who are actually want in particular,
Speaker 1: who was on the zeppelin that morning, who said this
Speaker 1: exactly what happened. It's interesting because you know, there was
Speaker 1: in Chicago itself, there was a very strong large German
Speaker 1: American community and they were not most of them were
Speaker 1: not very thrilled with Hitler, to say the least. And
Speaker 1: so they were there to greet Eckner, and they had
Speaker 1: insisted to the fair that the Nazi swast could not
Speaker 1: fly anywhere at the fair. And mostly the biggest group
Speaker 1: actually most important in this were actually German American women.
Speaker 1: They insisted that this does not represent us, we don't
Speaker 1: want this, and they want Waka never flew at the fair,
Speaker 1: and they backed actually a Jewish Chicago and Jewish American
Speaker 1: group in Chicago of another women's group and showing solidarity
Speaker 1: with them. And so acronym was interesting because when he
Speaker 1: had to go to Chicago, he got invited to all
Speaker 1: the whirlwind of dinners. The same thing happened to the Bible.
Speaker 1: Got it just tires you out thinking about all the
Speaker 1: all these my house that they had to you know,
Speaker 1: in his hands they had to shake, and the toast
Speaker 1: and oh my gosh. But he had to walk a
Speaker 1: fine line between basically, you know, saying kind of are
Speaker 1: acting the way he wanted to, and then having to
Speaker 1: meet with some other groups that were not representing most
Speaker 1: of the German American community who are fanatically pro Nazi.
Speaker 1: It was awkward, like, for instance, he wouldn't give the
Speaker 1: Nazi salute and that kind of thing, and that was noted,
Speaker 1: and so it was, you know, it was it's the
Speaker 1: kind of thing. It's just when I was reading about
Speaker 1: and learning about Act, it seemed like this is the
Speaker 1: kind of thing. It's just like I could see something
Speaker 1: like that real life, if you're in a dictatorship. So
Speaker 1: the Doctor's Guy, I don't know, it must have been.
Speaker 1: It must have been really tough.
Speaker 2: Oh well, The Doctor's Guy experience continues here on Talk
Speaker 2: Radio seventy seven w ABC. Our special guests, as you're
Speaker 2: hearing and proud to call them a friend, is Davidannah
Speaker 2: the book Broken Ecurse, the nineteen thirty three Chicago Worlds
Speaker 2: There the Golden Age of aviation and the rise of
Speaker 2: fascism during a few moments, as we can move toward
Speaker 2: the end of this interview, sad to say, and hopefully
Speaker 2: we can do this in a much longer interview as
Speaker 2: time permits in the future. Let's talk about if, folks,
Speaker 2: if you think that the aviation side of the tallow
Speaker 2: balbow is fascinating, And it is, and we'll go heck there.
Speaker 2: Of course, with our talking about zeppelins, let's talk about
Speaker 2: the the cards and moving on to the stratosphere and
Speaker 2: the connection to this particular World's Fair in Chicago. It's
Speaker 2: a great story.
Speaker 7: Well, in a few words, is the message you are
Speaker 7: carrying to the American people. Professor I didn't tend what
Speaker 7: this wolved looks like from ten nights.
Speaker 6: I didn't tend about the stratosphere.
Speaker 8: The stratosphere is a six hour root between New York
Speaker 8: and Price.
Speaker 6: It will soon be open to traffic.
Speaker 8: It may points the way to universal brotherhood and a
Speaker 8: Carman piece.
Speaker 6: I hope so Frank is often close Spanish understanding.
Speaker 8: Rappy transportation between the two hemisphere will settled nineer disputes.
Speaker 8: I hope a neutral flag will be avoided in the
Speaker 8: stratosphere to prevent it ever being used to military purposes.
Speaker 8: The intercontinental Highway linking the old and the New worlds
Speaker 8: holds the promise of mutt will have confidence.
Speaker 6: When they are only six hours.
Speaker 8: Apart, the strange power of space will be of common
Speaker 8: Europe and America will be next door neighbors. They will
Speaker 8: drop in from each other and set the tub over
Speaker 8: a cup of tea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is this is really in many ways my
Speaker 1: favorite part. So this is the beginning of space exploration,
Speaker 1: and it starts with trying to determine the source of
Speaker 1: cosmic race and having them measured by actual scientists using
Speaker 1: instruments on you know that they basically we're talking about
Speaker 1: on the edge of outer space. And this goes back
Speaker 1: to some of the some of the debates going on
Speaker 1: in physics at the time. And the first person to
Speaker 1: essentially see the Earth from the edge of outer space
Speaker 1: was a ghost Picard. He's a chemist, excuse me sorry,
Speaker 1: a physicist from from Switzerland. He had a twin brother
Speaker 1: and they've been interested in ballooning since they were kids.
Speaker 1: So they had One thing I like about the Picards,
Speaker 1: the brothers, is that the really great example of men
Speaker 1: of science. The John Picard who was a ghost twin
Speaker 1: was a chemist. Was that they were men of science,
Speaker 1: but they also were men of action. They wanted to
Speaker 1: do it themselves. Their father had encouraged this, and I
Speaker 1: think this is a really good message for young people
Speaker 1: today that you know, the best science is that the
Speaker 1: type that you're actually you know, going out and experimenting
Speaker 1: yourself and learning through trial and error and to a
Speaker 1: certain degree taking risk. And this is something that I
Speaker 1: really admire about the book cards, that they were willing
Speaker 1: to do this.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 1: A Gous was the first and then he eventually repeated
Speaker 1: it in Europe, and the affairs organizers wanted to become
Speaker 1: very famous and they wanted him to come and do
Speaker 1: another launched at the altitude record from Chicago, but he
Speaker 1: wasn't interested in doing that. But he said, you know,
Speaker 1: my brother is living in the United States. He was
Speaker 1: working in R and D. And his wife actually was
Speaker 1: from a prominent Chicago family, Jeannette Ridley, and they actually
Speaker 1: had met at the University of Chicago when she was
Speaker 1: a grad student. He was a professor and professor there. Anyway,
Speaker 1: they so they were working with him, but they were
Speaker 1: never really keen, and eventually they decided that they were
Speaker 1: going to have a navy man do it Tech Settle
Speaker 1: and the first launch from Soldier Field you know where
Speaker 1: the Bears play now, was really a fiasco. There's no
Speaker 1: business launching a balloon of that size. You know I
Speaker 1: did there.
Speaker 2: I'd learned something by reading your book.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the stories story is tall and he eventually
Speaker 1: it caught on some wires and actually he was fortunate
Speaker 1: that it wasn't a disaster because not only it was
Speaker 1: so close to the fairgrounds. They eventually did eventually break
Speaker 1: the record. He and then he had a co pilot
Speaker 1: Chester forty later in nineteen thirty three, but they didn't
Speaker 1: do it actually from the fairgrounds. But the Cards had
Speaker 1: insisted because they had been the people behind the design
Speaker 1: of the capsule in particular, but also the balloon. They're
Speaker 1: nohow working with now chemical Union Carbide in some of
Speaker 1: these other co corporations, and the Cards and insisted that look,
Speaker 1: once you're done with it, meaning the fair Century of
Speaker 1: progressis it's called, we want it as long as it's
Speaker 1: still usable. Well it was still usable, and so what
Speaker 1: happened is is that Jean Picott and his wife Jeanett Picard,
Speaker 1: then wanted to go and make a attempt a stratosphere
Speaker 1: record or excuse me, altitude record into the stratosphere while
Speaker 1: also conducting experiments based on this research into cosmic rays
Speaker 1: that was being done by Arthur Holly Compton and Robert Milliken.
Speaker 1: And the problem was, of course, well it's uh, well
Speaker 1: actually not of course. Rather but the problem was that
Speaker 1: Jean Piqatt didn't have a balloon lice in the United States,
Speaker 1: even though he'd phoned balloons in Europe with his brother,
Speaker 1: and so he wanted he was taking he took the
Speaker 1: science in very seriously. It was going to acquire a
Speaker 1: lot of attention. And Jeanett Picott, his wife, was like,
Speaker 1: I'll do it. And now this is the time when
Speaker 1: having a female.
Speaker 2: Aviatrix's that was the normal, right, Yeah, you.
Speaker 1: Have Bessie Coleman, you had Amelia Earhart. It wasn't seen
Speaker 1: as as so students. The problem was she was a mother,
Speaker 1: had a bunch of young sons, and for instance, Dole Chemical,
Speaker 1: you know like, no, we don't want our label on
Speaker 1: it on on the gondola national geographically, they hope was
Speaker 1: going to help sponsor it was cold feet, and it
Speaker 1: really was the fact that she was a mother. They thought, no,
Speaker 1: you're taking tremendous risks. What you're doing could kill you
Speaker 1: very easily. And she basically, you know her her feeling
Speaker 1: was that, you know, what kind of message does that
Speaker 1: send to our sons that here we have a chance
Speaker 1: to further the field of sort of the edge of
Speaker 1: outer space in terms of exploration and science. And you know,
Speaker 1: we don't want them to be afraid. We want them
Speaker 1: to be renovators, risk takers, doing themselves, and this is
Speaker 1: a chance for us to show that. And so then
Speaker 1: her sons actually took part in the launch. What happened
Speaker 1: was was that even though she was from Chicago, they
Speaker 1: ultimately weren't able to get the backing there. But Henry
Speaker 1: Ford stepped in and Henry Ford, through his connections in Detroit,
Speaker 1: was able to get backing from various companies. There was
Speaker 1: a radio company, for instance, there was an outfitting company.
Speaker 1: He also was able to call on or Will Right
Speaker 1: Uh to come and Uh provide oversight for her training
Speaker 1: as a balloon pilot. So these guys Right and Ford
Speaker 1: were very progressive in terms of essentially as we would
Speaker 1: call it just empowering women. It's interesting because Ford is
Speaker 1: one of these guys. You know, there's things about him
Speaker 1: that are very admirable in others, like his anti Semitism,
Speaker 1: which you're very distasteful to say the least exactly, but
Speaker 1: in this, in this, in this, but in this regard,
Speaker 1: he really was very progressive. And with their help and
Speaker 1: the help of some other folks that Jean Picard had
Speaker 1: worked with in R and D, they were able to
Speaker 1: get this effort together and they eventually set a record
Speaker 1: not for the overall record which uh for for uh
Speaker 1: for altitude, but for a for a woman. And they
Speaker 1: were uh in the the top five when they had
Speaker 1: made the and she held that record until the Soviet
Speaker 1: Cosmo Terrascova broke it in nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 2: Amazing story. I know we're coming to the end of
Speaker 2: our time with you today, but sadly to say that,
Speaker 2: but I just wanted to give you the floor the
Speaker 2: moment here. The question that I always ask every guest is,
Speaker 2: in this particular case, give us, in your words, the
Speaker 2: meaning of this book that the people I think out
Speaker 2: there would want to get and the power of this book.
Speaker 2: How would you summarize the whole theme of this book,
Speaker 2: and what would you say.
Speaker 1: I think that we need as a society to keep
Speaker 1: pushing ourselves, and instead of looking inward, we need to
Speaker 1: try to keep looking outward. I think the opening words
Speaker 1: to the Gene Roddenberry television series star Trek and Broadenberry
Speaker 1: as a kid was fascinated by the fair. Even though
Speaker 1: he never actually went, he read everything he could about
Speaker 1: it out in Los Angeles. Kid, you know, to boldly
Speaker 1: go where no man has gone before, to seek out
Speaker 1: like that, that's that's our that's our heritage from Icarus.
Speaker 1: And even though again that that particular generation was arguably
Speaker 1: broken if you look at World War two and the Holocaust,
Speaker 1: I you know, I think that there is that is
Speaker 1: that that is something that we can still inspire us
Speaker 1: and should inspire us. And I think something like, for instance,
Speaker 1: a manned voyage to Mars is something that you know,
Speaker 1: I think we we should be I think there's there's
Speaker 1: there's a value in that for us as a society,
Speaker 1: and as I mean to put it really broad time,
Speaker 1: just as us as humans. I really think we need
Speaker 1: to push ourselves. And I think I tell you that
Speaker 1: that way in the early thirties is an inspirational period
Speaker 1: but also cautionary tale where it can get hijacked by
Speaker 1: you know, people like the Nazis, which what they did
Speaker 1: with the Zeppelin project.
Speaker 2: Well you're saying so well in the namesake of the book,
Speaker 2: Broken Eckers comes from the stature that you know, write
Speaker 2: about and show us because then us ambrosy. But two
Speaker 2: quotes that are in the book that I wanted to
Speaker 2: pass on and then we want to say thank you
Speaker 2: until next time. And this again is jeanet Recard and
Speaker 2: I quote when you fly a balloon, you don't file
Speaker 2: a flight plan. You go with the wind goes. You
Speaker 2: feel like a part of the year. You almost feel
Speaker 2: like part of eternity. You just float along. End quote.
Speaker 2: And in summarizing the entire century of progress, who better
Speaker 2: than William Randolph Harris who said this and I quote
Speaker 2: the century of progress is ahead of us and not
Speaker 2: behind us? End quote. David Hannah, I want to thank
Speaker 2: you so much the book of course Broke Nicarous. You
Speaker 2: can get the book, ladies and gentlemen, ever good books
Speaker 2: are sold from Meetheus Books. And I wish you in
Speaker 2: yours the best of a holiday season of joy and
Speaker 2: happiness and health and the merry Christmas. Please stay on
Speaker 2: the line with us as we go to the heartbreak here.
Speaker 2: As we continue to talk here on the Doctor Sky
Speaker 2: experience on Murriga's iconic radio station that is Talk Radio
Speaker 2: seven Zevan w ABC out of New York City and
Speaker 2: around the world, and heard on the Internet at WABC
Speaker 2: radio dot com. Thank you so much to author David
Speaker 2: Hamm