Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Surely You Can't
Be Serious Podcast Special Edition five Minutes of Fire. We're
here talking about the lyrics of We Didn't Start the
Fire by Billy Joel. We're covering only five minutes at
a time, which is about to link the song, so
it works out kind of nicely. So please join us
as we dive into some new lyrics today.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, so here are the topics that we're
going to be covering today.
Speaker 1: The Rosenbergs, h Bomb, Sugar Ray. So, Jason, do you
know who the Rosenbergs are? No? I did not. You
genuinely don't, right, I don't tell Okay, Well, all right,
So Julius and Ethel are the Rosenbergs. They were members
of the Communist USA Party Young Communists, if you will.
They actually met at a Communist convention together. But then
you know, the war happened and Julius ended up joining
the Army Signal Corps, who had access to all of
information about radar and sonar and other stuff like that.
Then Ethel's brother, guy named David Greenglass, he actually worked
on the Manhattan Project with the Oppenheimer and developing the
atomic bomb. Well in nineteen fifty David green Glass was
arrested for espionage, okay, because it turns out that Julius
had recruited Ethel's brother to sell them secrets on the
A bomb so that the Soviets could have it. Ultimately,
they were accused and charged with espionage, including charges of
giving many top secret pieces of information to the Soviets,
and it's believed that probably the Soviets developed their nuclear
weapons as fast as they did because of the secrets
that Julius and Ethel had a hand in bringing to them.
March of nineteen fifty one, they get charged. Later that month,
they are convicted of espionage, and they ultimately become the
first American civilians to be executed for espionage, and the
first ones to be executed for espionage during peacetime as well.
So for decades after their execution, the sons of the
Rosenbergs maintained that they were innocent, they were victims of
the Cold War paranoia. But ultimately later when top secret
documents were opened, it was very clear that they had
sold a great many documents to the Soviets. They even
were offered at the time of their conviction, they said,
we will spare your lives if you admit that you're
guilty and tell us the names of the other spies
that are involved. And they said no. So then in
June nineteen fifty three, first one to be executed was
Julius and he died with first shock. The second one
was Ethel and after her first shock, the doctor said, nope,
her heart's still beating, so they shocked her again, and
then they shocked her again.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Apparently by the last one smoke was rising from her helmet.
Speaker 2: Hid it again.
Speaker 1: So there's the atomic bomb. What can you tell me
about the H bomb?
Speaker 2: Okay? So, the hydrogen bomb is a thermonuclear weapon power
generated by nuclear fission of hydrogen isotopes. It creates a
blast that can destroy structures within several miles, creates a
giant white ball that can cause blindness, and of course
the intense fireball that kills everybody in sight. Hydrogen bombs
are thousands of times more powerful than atomic bombs. Edward
Teller and other US scientists tested the H bomb on
the inn wet Tack Atoll November one, nineteen fifty two.
They actually built the bomb on this little atoll, this
little island out in the middle of South Pacific. Then
it was like, Okay, everybody move out, We're going to
set this thing off. And when they did it, it
destroyed everything.
Speaker 1: Was Indiana Jones there.
Speaker 2: Luckily there was a refrigerator or nearby. So the mushroom cloud,
the fireball twenty five miles high. None of the structures survived,
just a giant hole in the earth. Became a source
of power for the United States in the fifties for sure.
D what can you tell us about Sugar Ray.
Speaker 1: Well, it's not Sugary Lenar. This is, however, about Sugar
Ray Robinson, who was the middleweight champion during this time
in history, considered at the time pound four pound the
best boxer that had ever existed. In June of nineteen
forty seven, he was scheduled to defend his title for
the first time against a guy named Jimmy Doyle. But
then he had a dream that he killed Doyle and
he said, I don't want to fight him, tried to
back out of the fight. A priest and a minister
convinced him to fight, and his dream came true. On
June twenty fifth, nineteen forty seven, after a decisive knockout
in the eighth round, Doyle was unconscious and later that
night died in the hospital. Oh way, but I remember him.
This is kind of interesting. I used to watch Car
fifty four Where Are You? One of the only episodes
that I can actually remember had Sugar Ray Robinson in.
It was a barber worked there and he was like
the nicest barber in the world, but he would go
and box, and his wife didn't like the fact that
he was boxing, and so she tried to make a
trick to get him to stop boxing. So they had
Sugar Ray Robinson dress up as this really old man
and then whip this guy's butt. What And then it
turns out that the boxing was the way he had
the release, So he turned from this nice barber into
this really mean barber because he had no release in
boxing because he had quit because he was so upset
that he had been beaten by this old man. And
then it turns out, oh no, just go back to boxing.
That was, you know, the best boxer in the world.
He also appeared in Paper Lion Mission, An Impossible Episode,
Mod Squad episode, Fantasy Island episode, and his last appearance
is nineteen eighty three in The Fall Guy.
Speaker 2: The fall guy.
Speaker 1: Yep, you gotta always bring it back to the eighties.
Speaker 2: If you can't, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: Okay guys. That does it for today's episode. Join us
next time for five minutes of fire