1 00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:04,599 Speaker 1: Imagine, imagine you're working on this massive puzzle of the world, right, 2 00:00:04,639 --> 00:00:07,320 like a puzzle you've been putting together for thousands of years. 3 00:00:07,559 --> 00:00:09,160 Speaker 2: That is a very long time to. 4 00:00:09,080 --> 00:00:11,839 Speaker 1: Be doing a puzzle, right, But you know, humanity has 5 00:00:11,880 --> 00:00:15,679 been slowly snapping these pieces together for centuries, and then 6 00:00:15,800 --> 00:00:20,760 finally you snap this massive icy piece into the absolute 7 00:00:20,800 --> 00:00:23,399 bottom corner. You finally finish the south. 8 00:00:23,440 --> 00:00:25,760 Speaker 2: You're talking about Anarica obviously actually. 9 00:00:25,760 --> 00:00:27,760 Speaker 1: But then right as you do that, you look up 10 00:00:27,800 --> 00:00:30,719 and realize this completely massive section from the top of 11 00:00:30,719 --> 00:00:34,000 the puzzle, a label that had been there for centuries 12 00:00:34,200 --> 00:00:36,439 has just well, it's completely vanished. 13 00:00:36,159 --> 00:00:38,119 Speaker 2: Just scrubbed, completely clean from the board. 14 00:00:38,320 --> 00:00:43,439 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's wild. Welcome to Thrilling Threads everyone. We're so 15 00:00:43,520 --> 00:00:45,200 glad you're hanging out with us today because we are 16 00:00:45,200 --> 00:00:47,880 going on an absolute mission to unravel this. 17 00:00:48,079 --> 00:00:50,840 Speaker 2: It really is a fascinating convergence of timelines. 18 00:00:50,920 --> 00:00:54,359 Speaker 1: It totally is. Today we're looking at what honestly feels 19 00:00:54,399 --> 00:00:58,479 like a glitch in the matrix of you know, global geography, 20 00:00:58,640 --> 00:01:02,320 the historical crossover event, yeah, right in the nineteenth century. 21 00:01:02,600 --> 00:01:06,280 Because on one hand, you have this sudden, highly documented 22 00:01:06,280 --> 00:01:10,120 appearance of the entire continent of Antarctica, and literally on 23 00:01:10,159 --> 00:01:13,400 that exact same timeline, just as that massive southern land 24 00:01:13,400 --> 00:01:17,239 mass is getting officially mapped, this other huge territory known 25 00:01:17,359 --> 00:01:23,000 on centuries of maps as Tartaria is just quietly erased. 26 00:01:23,439 --> 00:01:26,400 Speaker 2: Which really makes this a conversation about the mechanics of memory, 27 00:01:26,719 --> 00:01:30,920 you know, and just how incredibly fragile recorded history actually is. 28 00:01:30,959 --> 00:01:33,799 Absolutely because our mission today is to look at the 29 00:01:33,799 --> 00:01:38,719 official naval records, the exploration logs, and ancient cartography to 30 00:01:38,799 --> 00:01:42,040 really isolate a specific mechanism. We want to figure out 31 00:01:42,079 --> 00:01:44,319 how much of our history is actually discovered, how much 32 00:01:44,400 --> 00:01:48,760 is just inherited from older civilizations, and maybe most importantly, 33 00:01:49,120 --> 00:01:51,840 how much is intentionally overwritten by the very people drawing 34 00:01:51,920 --> 00:01:52,319 the maps. 35 00:01:52,439 --> 00:01:54,719 Speaker 1: Right, the people with the pens have the power. So 36 00:01:55,560 --> 00:01:58,159 let's actually start with the physical discovery part, well, the 37 00:01:58,359 --> 00:01:59,640 official discovery. 38 00:01:59,239 --> 00:02:01,359 Speaker 2: Of antarcticley to set the stage for eighteen twenty. 39 00:02:01,599 --> 00:02:05,319 Speaker 1: Yeah, because to understand the weird timing of Antarctica showing 40 00:02:05,400 --> 00:02:07,000 up on the map, you have to look at what 41 00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:09,680 was happening in the atmosphere right before that. I was 42 00:02:09,719 --> 00:02:14,000 reading the meteorological data we pulled for this, and right 43 00:02:14,080 --> 00:02:17,560 before the Southern continent is officially found, the whole planet 44 00:02:17,719 --> 00:02:20,840 goes through this terrifying, violent climate shock. 45 00:02:21,080 --> 00:02:24,400 Speaker 2: You're referring to eighteen sixteen, which is famously recorded as 46 00:02:24,840 --> 00:02:25,960 the Year without a Summer. 47 00:02:26,120 --> 00:02:28,879 Speaker 1: Yes, which sounds like a sci fi movie, honestly. 48 00:02:28,560 --> 00:02:30,919 Speaker 2: It really does. And the catalyst for that was actually 49 00:02:30,960 --> 00:02:34,719 an event from the year prior, in April of eighteen fifteen. 50 00:02:34,879 --> 00:02:38,120 It was the eruption of Mount Tambora in present day Indonesia. 51 00:02:38,560 --> 00:02:41,080 And I mean this wasn't just your standard volcanic events. 52 00:02:41,120 --> 00:02:42,000 Speaker 1: Hey, it was massive. 53 00:02:42,080 --> 00:02:46,240 Speaker 2: It was a VEI seven on the volcanic explosivity Index 54 00:02:46,759 --> 00:02:49,360 to give you an idea the scale. It ejected something 55 00:02:49,360 --> 00:02:52,439 like one hundred cubic kilometers of rock and ash directly 56 00:02:52,439 --> 00:02:52,759 into the. 57 00:02:52,759 --> 00:02:55,879 Speaker 1: Atmosphere, which is kind of an abstract number until you 58 00:02:55,879 --> 00:02:57,800 look at what that actually does to the chemistry of 59 00:02:57,840 --> 00:03:01,080 the sky. Because I was looking at the paleo clipsmatology reports, 60 00:03:01,560 --> 00:03:04,159 and the real killer wasn't the ash hitting the ground, 61 00:03:04,240 --> 00:03:07,919 I mean, not globally anyway, It was the sulfur dioxide gas. 62 00:03:07,919 --> 00:03:10,199 Speaker 2: That is the primary mechanism for a volcanic winter. 63 00:03:10,319 --> 00:03:13,639 Speaker 1: Yes, Timbora just pumped tens of millions of tons of 64 00:03:13,639 --> 00:03:16,840 sulfur dioxide straight up into the stratosphere, and once it's 65 00:03:16,919 --> 00:03:19,800 up there, it reacts with water vapor and turns into 66 00:03:19,840 --> 00:03:21,280 these sulfate aerosols, and. 67 00:03:21,240 --> 00:03:24,439 Speaker 2: Those aerosols catch the atmosphereic currents and just spread across 68 00:03:24,439 --> 00:03:29,080 the entire globe. They basically act like this massive planetary sunshade. 69 00:03:28,439 --> 00:03:30,879 Speaker 1: A sunshade that you cannot take down right. 70 00:03:31,319 --> 00:03:34,800 Speaker 2: They reflect the incoming solar radiation back out into space, 71 00:03:35,400 --> 00:03:39,000 drastically increasing the Earth's albedo. The heat from the sun 72 00:03:39,560 --> 00:03:43,479 literally just cannot penetrate the lower atmosphere to warm the surface. 73 00:03:43,240 --> 00:03:47,120 Speaker 1: So the entire northern hemisphere essentially gets this giant emergency 74 00:03:47,159 --> 00:03:50,400 thermal blanket thrown over it, but one that like traps 75 00:03:50,439 --> 00:03:52,400 the cold in instead of keeping you warm. 76 00:03:52,520 --> 00:03:55,360 Speaker 2: The ground level reality was pretty apocalyptic. 77 00:03:54,840 --> 00:03:56,479 Speaker 1: It really was. I mean, I was looking at these 78 00:03:56,560 --> 00:04:00,439 agricultural diaries from New England farmers. They were documenting severe 79 00:04:00,479 --> 00:04:02,599 frost in every single month of the year. 80 00:04:02,919 --> 00:04:06,520 Speaker 2: In June of eighteen sixteen, there were massive snowstorms hitting 81 00:04:06,560 --> 00:04:07,560 New York and Maine. 82 00:04:07,599 --> 00:04:10,719 Speaker 1: Can you imagine you're living in this agrarian society that 83 00:04:10,800 --> 00:04:14,639 relies entirely on a predictable growing season, and suddenly just 84 00:04:15,080 --> 00:04:17,399 the physics of the atmosphere decide that your corn is 85 00:04:17,399 --> 00:04:18,879 going to freeze solid in July. 86 00:04:19,240 --> 00:04:21,920 Speaker 2: And without the kind of globalized supply chains we have today, 87 00:04:22,319 --> 00:04:25,480 local crap failure just meant immediate famine period. 88 00:04:25,639 --> 00:04:26,519 Speaker 1: You just didn't eat. 89 00:04:26,959 --> 00:04:30,439 Speaker 2: Europe was already economically devastated from the Napoleonic Wars, so 90 00:04:30,959 --> 00:04:35,680 this lack of food led to widespread riots arson mass 91 00:04:35,720 --> 00:04:39,279 migrations in North America. It actually triggered this desperate westward 92 00:04:39,279 --> 00:04:42,920 migration into the Midwest because New England's agriculture just collapsed. 93 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:45,879 Speaker 1: It was literally a global system reboot. Humanity is just 94 00:04:45,879 --> 00:04:49,160 trying to survive, staring at this dark sky and frozen ground. 95 00:04:49,399 --> 00:04:51,920 But then as those aerosols finally start to settle out 96 00:04:51,920 --> 00:04:55,519 over the next few years and the climate stabilizes, boom, 97 00:04:55,720 --> 00:04:58,639 the map of the world suddenly gets this massive expansion, 98 00:04:58,920 --> 00:04:59,639 which brings us. 99 00:04:59,560 --> 00:05:02,600 Speaker 2: To eighteen the watershed moment for southern. 100 00:05:02,319 --> 00:05:06,560 Speaker 1: Geography, exactly after thousands of years of human history. Eighteen 101 00:05:06,600 --> 00:05:09,279 twenty is the year we officially confirm Antarctica is reel. 102 00:05:10,319 --> 00:05:16,399 Speaker 2: But looking at the sources, there's this wild logistical anomaly. 103 00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:17,360 Speaker 1: Here the Triple Discovery. 104 00:05:17,519 --> 00:05:20,399 Speaker 2: Yes, it wasn't just one ship getting blown off course. 105 00:05:20,480 --> 00:05:23,839 In the exact same year eighteen twenty, you have three 106 00:05:24,279 --> 00:05:29,279 completely separate expeditions from three different countries spotting the continent 107 00:05:29,560 --> 00:05:30,800 almost simultaneously. 108 00:05:30,920 --> 00:05:34,079 Speaker 1: It's a fascinating study in maritime logistics. Really. You have 109 00:05:34,240 --> 00:05:37,480 the Russian expedition led by Fabian von Bellingshausen, right, you 110 00:05:37,480 --> 00:05:40,439 have a British expedition under Edward Brandsfield, and then you 111 00:05:40,439 --> 00:05:42,560 have an American sealer named Nathaniel Palmer. 112 00:05:42,639 --> 00:05:44,399 Speaker 2: Okay, let's unpack this a bit because I have to 113 00:05:44,399 --> 00:05:47,439 push back on the sheer improbability. Here. Bellings Housen he 114 00:05:47,560 --> 00:05:49,199 was Russian Imperial Navy, right. 115 00:05:49,160 --> 00:05:52,120 Speaker 1: Yes, operating under direct orders from Zar Alexander the first 116 00:05:52,279 --> 00:05:56,000 he had two heavily reinforced ships, and on January twenty seventh, 117 00:05:56,000 --> 00:05:59,199 eighteen twenty, his logs say he spotted an unbroken ice 118 00:05:59,240 --> 00:06:01,759 shelf we now know as the Fimble ice Shelf. 119 00:06:01,920 --> 00:06:05,839 Speaker 2: Okay, So the Russians get there late January. Then literally 120 00:06:05,879 --> 00:06:08,079 three days later, on January thirtieth. 121 00:06:07,800 --> 00:06:11,399 Speaker 1: Edward Brandsfield spot's the Trinity Peninsula. A British guy on 122 00:06:11,439 --> 00:06:15,480 a merchant ship charting the South Shetland Islands three days apart. 123 00:06:15,839 --> 00:06:18,000 And then my favorite part of this whole thing, later 124 00:06:18,040 --> 00:06:19,519 that year, you have Nathaniel. 125 00:06:19,120 --> 00:06:20,639 Speaker 2: Palmer, the commercial sealer. 126 00:06:20,879 --> 00:06:23,519 Speaker 1: He wasn't some decorated naval captain. He was a twenty 127 00:06:23,519 --> 00:06:26,279 one year old kid from Connecticut sailing a tiny forty 128 00:06:26,279 --> 00:06:29,680 seven foot wooden sloop called the Hero. He wasn't even 129 00:06:29,680 --> 00:06:31,120 looking for a continent. 130 00:06:30,879 --> 00:06:33,920 Speaker 2: No, he was looking for fresh seal rookeries to harvest 131 00:06:33,920 --> 00:06:37,120 for pelts, the economic driver of exploration right there. 132 00:06:37,360 --> 00:06:40,120 Speaker 1: Seal oil and pelts were huge money. But think about 133 00:06:40,120 --> 00:06:45,279 this timeline. We are talking about advanced maritime civilizations. Humans 134 00:06:45,279 --> 00:06:48,319 had already crossed the Atlantic. We mapped the super complex 135 00:06:48,360 --> 00:06:51,759 coastlines of the Americas. We had global spice routes. 136 00:06:51,600 --> 00:06:55,240 Speaker 2: We had chronometers for longitude and sextants for latitude exactly. 137 00:06:55,240 --> 00:06:57,480 Speaker 1: We knew how to sale. So how does this entire 138 00:06:57,519 --> 00:07:01,879 global maritime network completely miss a continent that is larger 139 00:07:01,920 --> 00:07:05,519 than Europe for millennia? And then a Russian captain, a 140 00:07:05,560 --> 00:07:08,279 British surveyor, and a twenty one year old kid all 141 00:07:08,360 --> 00:07:11,360 bump into it in a ten month window right after 142 00:07:11,399 --> 00:07:12,879 a global climate crisis. 143 00:07:13,160 --> 00:07:15,560 Speaker 2: Well, the sheer scale and violence of the Southern Ocean 144 00:07:15,639 --> 00:07:17,199 does provide a lot of the answer. 145 00:07:17,240 --> 00:07:17,519 Speaker 1: There. 146 00:07:17,680 --> 00:07:20,639 Speaker 2: The currents, right, Yeah, the antarctics circumpolar current is the 147 00:07:20,680 --> 00:07:24,680 strongest ocean current on the planet. It creates this massive, 148 00:07:24,839 --> 00:07:28,879 violent barrier of water. They literally call those latitudes the 149 00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:32,759 Roaring forties, the furious fifties, and the screaming sixties. 150 00:07:32,879 --> 00:07:34,920 Speaker 1: That sounds terrifying, honestly. 151 00:07:34,639 --> 00:07:38,120 Speaker 2: It was before the nineteenth century, wooden sailing vessels just 152 00:07:38,160 --> 00:07:42,240 didn't have a whole strength to survive the pack ice. Plus, 153 00:07:42,319 --> 00:07:45,120 they didn't really have the dietary understanding of scurvy to 154 00:07:45,160 --> 00:07:47,399 survive a voyage that isolated, right, you. 155 00:07:47,480 --> 00:07:50,480 Speaker 1: Just die of vitamin ced efficiency before you even saw 156 00:07:50,519 --> 00:07:51,800 an iceberg exactly. 157 00:07:51,839 --> 00:07:54,319 Speaker 2: So the mainstream argument is that eighteen twenty was just 158 00:07:54,360 --> 00:07:58,199 the exact moment where human ship building, technology, navigation, and 159 00:07:58,240 --> 00:08:02,120 sheer political will finally converged to pierce that icy barrier. 160 00:08:02,279 --> 00:08:04,600 Speaker 1: Okay, and logically that makes perfect sense. It fits the 161 00:08:04,600 --> 00:08:08,040 whole narrative of a newly discovered world. But and this 162 00:08:08,120 --> 00:08:10,839 is a huge but this brings us to the cartographic ghosts, 163 00:08:10,879 --> 00:08:14,480 the inherited maps. Yes, because if an article was this 164 00:08:14,560 --> 00:08:19,279 totally pristine undiscovered blank space until eighteen twenty. Then we 165 00:08:19,480 --> 00:08:22,199 really have to explain why there are highly detailed maps 166 00:08:22,319 --> 00:08:25,560 drawn centuries earlier that seem to show it already sitting 167 00:08:25,639 --> 00:08:26,079 right there. 168 00:08:26,759 --> 00:08:28,839 Speaker 2: This is where we shift from the physical reality of 169 00:08:28,879 --> 00:08:31,399 the ocean to the archival reality of the map makers. 170 00:08:32,039 --> 00:08:35,720 And the absolute centerpiece of this debate is the perie Rees. 171 00:08:35,559 --> 00:08:37,519 Speaker 1: Map from fifteen thirteen. 172 00:08:37,279 --> 00:08:40,200 Speaker 2: Right correct, compiled by an admiral and cartographer in the 173 00:08:40,200 --> 00:08:43,879 Ottoman Empire. And what makes the specific document so critical 174 00:08:44,200 --> 00:08:46,440 isn't just what's drawn on it, but what the admiral 175 00:08:46,600 --> 00:08:48,000 actually wrote in the margins. 176 00:08:48,159 --> 00:08:51,039 Speaker 1: The marginalia is so cool, he basically leaves a note 177 00:08:51,039 --> 00:08:52,159 for future historians. 178 00:08:52,240 --> 00:08:55,120 Speaker 2: He explicitly states that he did not chart these coastlines 179 00:08:55,120 --> 00:08:58,240 from his own voyages. He admits he synthesized this map 180 00:08:58,320 --> 00:09:00,000 using about twenty older source. 181 00:08:59,759 --> 00:09:03,559 Speaker 1: Tracks, and he specifically mentions using Arabic maps, Portuguese charts, 182 00:09:03,600 --> 00:09:05,480 and even maps from the voyages of Columbus. 183 00:09:05,559 --> 00:09:08,639 Speaker 2: Right. Yes, he was essentially a data compiler trying to 184 00:09:08,679 --> 00:09:11,799 build a cohesive picture of the globe from fragmented intelligence. 185 00:09:12,120 --> 00:09:14,799 Speaker 1: But when modern researchers look at the southern portion of 186 00:09:14,840 --> 00:09:18,759 this fifteen thirteen map. It completely contradicts the eighteen twenty 187 00:09:18,799 --> 00:09:23,320 discovery timeline because underneath all the sixteenth century drawings of 188 00:09:23,720 --> 00:09:28,279 like mytical beasts, there is this continuous coastline drawn across 189 00:09:28,360 --> 00:09:29,240 the bottom. 190 00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:32,240 Speaker 2: And researchers point out that it remarkably resembles the specific 191 00:09:32,279 --> 00:09:35,919 geography of Queen Maudland in Antarctica. 192 00:09:35,279 --> 00:09:38,519 Speaker 1: Which is crazy enough, But the really inexplicable part is 193 00:09:38,519 --> 00:09:41,000 that it seems to show the coastline as it exists 194 00:09:41,039 --> 00:09:42,799 beneath the ice sheet, right. 195 00:09:42,639 --> 00:09:46,320 Speaker 2: The subglacial topography, which is an extraordinary claim. 196 00:09:46,039 --> 00:09:47,759 Speaker 1: Because you can't see that with your eyes. 197 00:09:47,879 --> 00:09:51,919 Speaker 2: No ground penetrating radar and seismic surveys capable of mapping 198 00:09:51,960 --> 00:09:55,120 bedrock under miles of ice weren't invented until the mid 199 00:09:55,159 --> 00:09:55,960 twentieth century. 200 00:09:56,039 --> 00:09:58,240 Speaker 1: So if that map is actually showing the bedrock, that 201 00:09:58,279 --> 00:10:01,480 means whoever drew the original source charts navigated those waters 202 00:10:01,480 --> 00:10:03,919 when the continent was ice free, which means we're talking 203 00:10:03,919 --> 00:10:07,399 about what millions of years ago or some massive rewrite 204 00:10:07,399 --> 00:10:08,440 of human prehistory. 205 00:10:08,720 --> 00:10:11,879 Speaker 2: That is the extreme implication. Yes, However, we have to 206 00:10:11,919 --> 00:10:15,200 acknowledge the academic pushback here, which is incredibly strong. 207 00:10:15,399 --> 00:10:18,120 Speaker 1: Yeah, the cartography math argument exactly. 208 00:10:18,960 --> 00:10:22,039 Speaker 2: Mainstream historians argue that this is just a massive case 209 00:10:22,080 --> 00:10:25,759 of confirmation bias. They assert that the coastline at the 210 00:10:25,759 --> 00:10:28,879 bottom of the Puririe Race map is not Antarctic at all. 211 00:10:28,960 --> 00:10:30,480 Speaker 1: It's South America, right, yes. 212 00:10:30,320 --> 00:10:33,480 Speaker 2: The eastern coastline of South America. And the mechanism of 213 00:10:33,519 --> 00:10:37,360 their argument rests on the science of cartographic projection. When 214 00:10:37,399 --> 00:10:39,919 you try to flatten the three D sphere onto a 215 00:10:39,919 --> 00:10:43,480 two D piece of parchment, get inevitable mathematical distortions. 216 00:10:43,600 --> 00:10:46,240 Speaker 1: You literally have to stretch it or tear it right. 217 00:10:46,559 --> 00:10:50,200 Speaker 2: The Peri Race map uses a form of asimuthal equidistant 218 00:10:50,240 --> 00:10:53,679 projection centered near Cairo, so as you move further from 219 00:10:53,679 --> 00:10:56,440 the center point, the land masses distort radially. 220 00:10:56,720 --> 00:10:58,919 Speaker 1: So the mainstream view is just that he ran out 221 00:10:58,919 --> 00:11:01,840 of cowskin to draw on. He had the data for Argentina, 222 00:11:02,120 --> 00:11:03,639 hit the edge of the parchment, and just kind of 223 00:11:03,679 --> 00:11:05,840 bent the coastline to the right along the bottom of 224 00:11:05,879 --> 00:11:06,159 the map. 225 00:11:06,240 --> 00:11:09,360 Speaker 2: Basically, yes, an error of formatting driven by a concept 226 00:11:09,360 --> 00:11:13,519 known as horror vacuie, the fear of empty spaces. Sixteenth 227 00:11:13,519 --> 00:11:15,720 century map makers hated leaving blank. 228 00:11:15,480 --> 00:11:18,480 Speaker 1: Spaces Okay, I hear that, But to play Devil's advocate, 229 00:11:18,519 --> 00:11:20,600 the Puri Race map isn't the only one doing this. 230 00:11:21,039 --> 00:11:23,639 The sources also highlight the Orange Fine map from fifteen 231 00:11:23,720 --> 00:11:25,360 thirty one French mathematician. 232 00:11:25,879 --> 00:11:28,320 Speaker 2: He used a quart of form or heart shaped projection. 233 00:11:28,559 --> 00:11:31,919 Speaker 1: Yeah, and dominating the entire southern hemisphere of his map 234 00:11:32,360 --> 00:11:36,879 is this massive land mass labeled terra ostrelis. And it's 235 00:11:36,919 --> 00:11:39,840 not just a bent coastline. He drew specific mountain ranges, 236 00:11:40,039 --> 00:11:43,600 river valleys, gulfs. It is highly detailed, Yes, but I mean, 237 00:11:43,919 --> 00:11:46,600 couldn't this also just be early map makers trying to 238 00:11:46,639 --> 00:11:50,000 balance the globe, like based on that old Aristotelian philosophy 239 00:11:50,000 --> 00:11:51,960 that there was so much heavy land in the north 240 00:11:52,639 --> 00:11:55,360 they needed to draw a massive continent in the south 241 00:11:55,480 --> 00:11:58,080 so the Earth wouldn't literally flip over in space. 242 00:11:58,799 --> 00:12:02,960 Speaker 2: That concept of geografical symmetry was absolutely the prevailing academic 243 00:12:02,960 --> 00:12:06,000 paradigm of the Renaissance. They believe the land must be 244 00:12:06,080 --> 00:12:09,440 there theoretically, so they drew it right. But the researchers 245 00:12:09,559 --> 00:12:13,679 challenging the mainstream view point to those specific topographical details 246 00:12:13,720 --> 00:12:16,879 you mentioned, Why would you draw specific river drainage systems 247 00:12:17,080 --> 00:12:19,000 on a purely theoretical counterweight. 248 00:12:19,279 --> 00:12:20,879 Speaker 1: That is a million dollar question. 249 00:12:21,159 --> 00:12:23,960 Speaker 2: The alternative hypothesis is that map makers like Fine and 250 00:12:24,039 --> 00:12:27,399 Periories were acting as endpoints in this massive generational game 251 00:12:27,440 --> 00:12:28,200 of telephone. 252 00:12:28,399 --> 00:12:31,679 Speaker 1: I love this concept. How does map data survive a 253 00:12:31,759 --> 00:12:33,559 game of telephone across thousands of. 254 00:12:33,600 --> 00:12:37,960 Speaker 2: Years through portaland charts? These are highly practical navigational charts 255 00:12:38,039 --> 00:12:41,159 used by mariners comping in rum lines for compass bearings. 256 00:12:41,600 --> 00:12:44,240 A captain gets a map, it gets damaged by saltwater, 257 00:12:44,320 --> 00:12:47,519 or cartographer copies it translates some names, maybe of just 258 00:12:47,600 --> 00:12:48,519 the scale. 259 00:12:48,320 --> 00:12:51,559 Speaker 1: Right, so empires rise and fall. The library of Alexandria 260 00:12:51,600 --> 00:12:55,480 burns down, But these scattered physical copies of coastal geometry 261 00:12:55,559 --> 00:12:58,320 just keep getting handed down exactly by. 262 00:12:58,200 --> 00:13:01,720 Speaker 2: The time they reach sixteenth century year. The original context 263 00:13:01,799 --> 00:13:04,679 of who drew them is entirely lost, but the raw 264 00:13:04,759 --> 00:13:06,360 data of the coastline remains. 265 00:13:06,519 --> 00:13:10,399 Speaker 1: So it's this huge tension between theoretical guesswork and inherited data. 266 00:13:10,879 --> 00:13:14,279 If they really were copying ancient lost charts, then eighteen 267 00:13:14,320 --> 00:13:17,159 twenty wasn't a discovery at all. It was a rediscovery, and. 268 00:13:17,120 --> 00:13:21,679 Speaker 2: That tension remains unresolved. But what is completely undeniable is 269 00:13:21,720 --> 00:13:25,639 the world's reaction. Once Antarctica was physically confirmed at eighteen twenty, 270 00:13:26,159 --> 00:13:28,120 you would think there would be this massive rush to 271 00:13:28,159 --> 00:13:29,600 map the interior. 272 00:13:29,240 --> 00:13:32,120 Speaker 1: But there wasn't. They basically ignored it for almost a century. 273 00:13:32,320 --> 00:13:35,120 It's so wild to me humanity finally finds a new 274 00:13:35,120 --> 00:13:37,720 continent and just goes, yeah, thanks, but it's way too 275 00:13:37,720 --> 00:13:40,519 cold and goes back to building factories in Europe. 276 00:13:40,600 --> 00:13:43,720 Speaker 2: From the mid nineteenth century into the early nineteen hundreds, 277 00:13:44,080 --> 00:13:49,080 exploration was basically limited to these incredibly desperate, dangerous pushes 278 00:13:49,120 --> 00:13:52,879 toward the South Pole by guys like Shackleton, Amanson and 279 00:13:52,960 --> 00:13:53,679 Scott just. 280 00:13:53,639 --> 00:13:57,039 Speaker 1: Men dragging sleds across the ice by sheer brute force. 281 00:13:57,279 --> 00:14:00,600 Speaker 2: The interior of the continent remade a total topographic void 282 00:14:01,039 --> 00:14:03,879 because the brutal physics of that environment simply couldn't be 283 00:14:03,919 --> 00:14:06,360 conquered by wooden ships or men pulling studges. 284 00:14:06,600 --> 00:14:10,320 Speaker 1: Right, They needed a technological leap, and that leap was airplanes. 285 00:14:10,559 --> 00:14:14,320 Speaker 2: Aviation fundamentally transformed our relationship with the continent. 286 00:14:14,039 --> 00:14:16,759 Speaker 1: Which brings us to the late nineteen twenties and Admiral 287 00:14:16,840 --> 00:14:19,600 Richard E. Bird of the US Navy. He leads this 288 00:14:19,679 --> 00:14:23,519 expedition that totally redefines everything by bringing heavily modified forward 289 00:14:23,559 --> 00:14:25,559 promoter aircraft to the ice and. 290 00:14:25,559 --> 00:14:28,360 Speaker 2: Operating an aircraft an Antarctica in the nineteen twenties is 291 00:14:28,399 --> 00:14:31,879 an astonishing feed of engineering. We are talking about ambient 292 00:14:31,879 --> 00:14:35,080 temperatures dropping to minus fifty degrees fahrenheit. 293 00:14:35,159 --> 00:14:36,000 Speaker 1: It's unfathomable. 294 00:14:36,200 --> 00:14:40,840 Speaker 2: At those temperatures, machinery fundamentally changes. Engine oil turns into 295 00:14:40,879 --> 00:14:44,320 the consistency of tar metal becomes incredibly brittle. 296 00:14:44,600 --> 00:14:47,080 Speaker 1: I was reading that the mechanics literally had to hold 297 00:14:47,279 --> 00:14:50,039 lit low torches to the engine blocks just to thaw 298 00:14:50,120 --> 00:14:51,919 them out enough to spin the propellers. 299 00:14:52,159 --> 00:14:54,960 Speaker 2: Yes, but once they got those planes in the air, 300 00:14:55,159 --> 00:14:58,039 the payoff was completely unprecedented because. 301 00:14:57,840 --> 00:15:00,720 Speaker 1: For the first time humans are looking down the continent. 302 00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:03,480 They used aerial photogrammetry right exactly. 303 00:15:03,559 --> 00:15:06,639 Speaker 2: They mounted heavy cameras pointing straight down from the aircraft 304 00:15:06,759 --> 00:15:11,080 and flew these highly specific overlapping grid patterns over the ice. 305 00:15:11,120 --> 00:15:14,559 Speaker 1: Just systematically snapping photos of places no human had ever walked. 306 00:15:14,879 --> 00:15:17,440 Speaker 2: And the mechanism of that photogrammetry is what allowed the 307 00:15:17,519 --> 00:15:22,200 rapid mapping. Back in the labs, cartographers used stereo plotters 308 00:15:22,240 --> 00:15:25,039 to view those overlapping images in three D. They could 309 00:15:25,080 --> 00:15:28,960 calculate the exact elevations of huge mountain ranges and glacial valleys. 310 00:15:29,879 --> 00:15:32,399 Bird was literally filling in the blank space on the 311 00:15:32,440 --> 00:15:34,240 map from thousands of feet up. 312 00:15:34,559 --> 00:15:39,120 Speaker 1: It's an incredible scientific achievement. But then the nineteen thirties 313 00:15:39,200 --> 00:15:42,480 roll around and this noble pursuit of knowledge takes a 314 00:15:42,559 --> 00:15:46,720 super dark geopolitical turn because other nations realize, hey, if 315 00:15:46,759 --> 00:15:49,039 you can fly over the ice, you can claim the ice. 316 00:15:49,200 --> 00:15:51,360 Speaker 2: And one of the most aggressive moves was made by 317 00:15:51,399 --> 00:15:53,000 Germany in nineteen thirty eight. 318 00:15:53,200 --> 00:15:56,399 Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty eight German Antarctic expeditions. 319 00:15:55,840 --> 00:15:59,320 Speaker 2: Organized under the Third Reich, they dispatched a catapult ship 320 00:15:59,360 --> 00:16:02,360 called the schwap Land, which was designed to launch these 321 00:16:02,600 --> 00:16:06,360 heavily modified Dornier flying boats directly off the deck using 322 00:16:06,440 --> 00:16:07,840 steam catapults, and. 323 00:16:07,759 --> 00:16:10,080 Speaker 1: They sailed right to the same region that Purier I 324 00:16:10,200 --> 00:16:14,320 is supposedly mapped on that fifteen thirteen parchment Queen Maudland. 325 00:16:14,519 --> 00:16:18,120 Speaker 2: Yes, and their objective was not pure science. It was 326 00:16:18,200 --> 00:16:21,840 highly strategic. As these German flying boats swept over the interior, 327 00:16:21,879 --> 00:16:25,000 they were physically opening their bomb bay doors and dropping 328 00:16:25,120 --> 00:16:29,320 thousands of custom made heavy aluminum darts embedded with the swastika. 329 00:16:29,360 --> 00:16:32,000 Speaker 1: They were just carpet bombing the ice with territorial markers. 330 00:16:32,039 --> 00:16:32,840 It's so ominous. 331 00:16:32,879 --> 00:16:35,399 Speaker 2: They were literally piercing the ice to claim it. And 332 00:16:35,440 --> 00:16:38,320 the motivation was tied directly to the looming Second World War. 333 00:16:38,720 --> 00:16:41,080 Germany relied heavily on imported whale oil. 334 00:16:41,320 --> 00:16:43,600 Speaker 1: Oh right, they use it for margarine to feed people, 335 00:16:43,879 --> 00:16:45,919 and nitroglycerin too. 336 00:16:45,919 --> 00:16:49,240 Speaker 2: Yes, for manufacturing munitions. They wanted to establish a sovereign, 337 00:16:49,320 --> 00:16:52,240 secure whaling base in the southern Ocean that wasn't controlled 338 00:16:52,240 --> 00:16:56,399 by the British or Norwegians. They named this territory Neuschwabenland. 339 00:16:56,480 --> 00:16:58,919 Speaker 1: It just shows how fast this place went from a 340 00:16:58,960 --> 00:17:02,840 frozen wasteland and to a crucial piece on the global chessboard. 341 00:17:03,240 --> 00:17:06,960 But then WWII officially erupts and everybody abandons the ice 342 00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:09,880 to fight the war naturally, But it's what happens immediately 343 00:17:09,920 --> 00:17:12,400 after the war that absolutely baffles me. I mean, the 344 00:17:12,519 --> 00:17:15,160 ink on the surrender treatise is barely dry. In nineteen 345 00:17:15,200 --> 00:17:17,799 forty five, and by nineteen forty six, the US launches 346 00:17:17,839 --> 00:17:18,680 Operation High. 347 00:17:18,599 --> 00:17:22,200 Speaker 2: Jump, officially designated as Task Force sixty eight. It remains 348 00:17:22,240 --> 00:17:25,720 the largest single Antarctic expedition ever mounted in human history. 349 00:17:25,799 --> 00:17:26,440 Speaker 1: It's staggering. 350 00:17:26,480 --> 00:17:31,440 Speaker 2: Thirteen ships, right, Thirteen ships including an aircraft carrier, submarines, destroyers. 351 00:17:31,640 --> 00:17:35,319 They brought thirty three aircraft, most notably the massive Martin 352 00:17:35,359 --> 00:17:36,720 PBM Mariner flying. 353 00:17:36,480 --> 00:17:40,200 Speaker 1: Boats, and almost five thousand military personnel in nineteen forty six, 354 00:17:40,279 --> 00:17:43,319 a staggering force. If I try to rationalize this timing, 355 00:17:43,400 --> 00:17:47,160 it makes my head spin, like the global economy is shattered, 356 00:17:47,240 --> 00:17:50,559 Europe is in ruins, and the US military decides this 357 00:17:50,680 --> 00:17:53,920 is the exact perfect moment to send a heavily armed 358 00:17:54,000 --> 00:17:57,839 armada full of combat hardened veterans to the South Pole. 359 00:17:58,160 --> 00:18:00,240 What is the official explanation for that? 360 00:18:00,799 --> 00:18:03,519 Speaker 2: The stated military objective was that they needed to train 361 00:18:03,559 --> 00:18:07,680 personnel in extreme polar conditions to prepare for a potential 362 00:18:07,720 --> 00:18:09,680 conflict with the Soviet Union in the Archet. 363 00:18:09,839 --> 00:18:11,759 Speaker 1: Okay, sure, the Cold War is starting. 364 00:18:11,599 --> 00:18:15,799 Speaker 2: And securing Arctic readiness was a paramount strategic concern. The 365 00:18:15,839 --> 00:18:18,599 shortest flight path for Soviet bombers was directly over the 366 00:18:18,640 --> 00:18:22,279 North Pole. High Jump gave them a massive, unpopulated test 367 00:18:22,319 --> 00:18:25,519 ground to see how naval vessels and aircraft carriers would 368 00:18:25,559 --> 00:18:26,920 actually operate in pack ice. 369 00:18:27,200 --> 00:18:29,079 Speaker 1: I mean, I get that, but the sheer scale of 370 00:18:29,119 --> 00:18:32,319 it has fueled so much historical speculation. It's like ignoring 371 00:18:32,319 --> 00:18:34,759 your attic for fifty years and then suddenly sending a 372 00:18:34,799 --> 00:18:37,839 swat team in five thousand contractors up there with flashlights. 373 00:18:38,200 --> 00:18:40,319 Because they weren't just testing cold weather gear. They were 374 00:18:40,359 --> 00:18:43,519 doing these massive aerial surveys using magnetometers. 375 00:18:43,880 --> 00:18:48,440 Speaker 2: That introduction of the airborne magnetometer is a crucial scientific leap. 376 00:18:48,920 --> 00:18:51,680 It was originally developed during the war to detect the 377 00:18:51,680 --> 00:18:56,319 magnetic anomalies of submerged enemy submarines, but that the scientists 378 00:18:56,359 --> 00:19:01,119 attached to High Jump repurposed it by flying magnetometers over 379 00:19:01,119 --> 00:19:04,839 the Antarctic ice. They weren't looking for submarines anymore. They 380 00:19:04,839 --> 00:19:08,839 were mapping the magnetic signatures of the bedrock buried miles 381 00:19:08,880 --> 00:19:09,920 beneath the ice sheet. 382 00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:12,400 Speaker 1: They're trying to see what was physically under the continent. 383 00:19:12,480 --> 00:19:15,160 And I mean the operation wasn't a walk in the park. 384 00:19:15,240 --> 00:19:18,000 The environment actively fought them, Like the story of the 385 00:19:18,039 --> 00:19:21,119 George One, the Mariner flying boat that crashed in a 386 00:19:21,200 --> 00:19:23,319 wide out on Thurston Island. 387 00:19:23,160 --> 00:19:25,599 Speaker 2: Leaving the crew stranded in the ice for weeks. 388 00:19:25,880 --> 00:19:29,920 Speaker 1: Yeah, but the data they eventually brought back fundamentally changed everything, 389 00:19:29,960 --> 00:19:33,079 because throughout the nineteen fifties, the floodgates just opened. The British, 390 00:19:33,119 --> 00:19:37,039 the Soviets, the French, the Argentinians, Everybody's rushing down there 391 00:19:37,079 --> 00:19:40,680 to build these permanent, heavily fortified research stations. 392 00:19:40,240 --> 00:19:44,559 Speaker 2: Which created a highly volatile diplomatic situation. Various nations were 393 00:19:44,599 --> 00:19:47,720 slicing the continent up like a pie, and their territorial 394 00:19:47,759 --> 00:19:50,000 claims were directly overlapping. 395 00:19:49,559 --> 00:19:52,319 Speaker 1: A recipe for disaster. During the Cold War. 396 00:19:52,240 --> 00:19:56,440 Speaker 2: Exactly, the international community recognized that Antarctica could easily become 397 00:19:56,519 --> 00:20:00,000 the next theater of war, so following the International Geophysics 398 00:20:00,200 --> 00:20:03,000 Year of nineteen fifty seven, they achieved a very rare 399 00:20:03,079 --> 00:20:05,279 moment of diplomatic consensus, which. 400 00:20:05,160 --> 00:20:08,359 Speaker 1: Leads directly to the nineteen fifty nine Antarctic Treaty. It's 401 00:20:08,440 --> 00:20:12,000 really an incredible document. Over fifty countries eventually sign it, 402 00:20:12,319 --> 00:20:15,160 and it essentially freezes all territorial claims. 403 00:20:15,279 --> 00:20:17,920 Speaker 2: It explicitly mandates that the continy shall be used for 404 00:20:17,960 --> 00:20:22,240 peaceful purposes only, no military basis, no weapons testing, no 405 00:20:22,359 --> 00:20:25,640 nuclear explosions, no radioactive waste disposal, just. 406 00:20:25,759 --> 00:20:27,480 Speaker 1: Pure science and shared data. 407 00:20:27,559 --> 00:20:32,119 Speaker 2: It represents a massive centralization of geographic authority. The fragmented 408 00:20:32,160 --> 00:20:37,119 era of independent exploration was over. Antarctica was formalized. Its boundaries, 409 00:20:37,160 --> 00:20:40,440 its rules of access, its nomenclature, it was all standardized 410 00:20:40,440 --> 00:20:41,759 by the major global powers. 411 00:20:42,119 --> 00:20:46,160 Speaker 1: And that transition, that mechanism of centralized authority, formally standardizing 412 00:20:46,160 --> 00:20:49,279 the globe is the exact perfect bridge to the second 413 00:20:49,319 --> 00:20:51,200 half of this deep dive, because. 414 00:20:50,960 --> 00:20:53,480 Speaker 2: The same bureaucratic momentum was at work elsewhere. 415 00:20:53,680 --> 00:20:57,359 Speaker 1: Yes, while they were permanently writing Antarctica onto the bottom 416 00:20:57,400 --> 00:21:01,000 of the map, there was this massive quiet erasure happening 417 00:21:01,039 --> 00:21:03,960 across the top of the map during that exact same 418 00:21:04,079 --> 00:21:05,720 nineteenth century window. 419 00:21:05,519 --> 00:21:09,799 Speaker 2: Right as global cartography was formalized, we see the systematic 420 00:21:09,799 --> 00:21:12,799 disappearance of an enormous geographical entity. 421 00:21:13,160 --> 00:21:16,240 Speaker 1: For researchers who study archival maps from the sixteenth, seventeenth, 422 00:21:16,319 --> 00:21:20,359 and eighteenth centuries, there is this glaring anomaly. We're talking 423 00:21:20,359 --> 00:21:24,160 about tartaria, a fascinating subject if you look at maps 424 00:21:24,240 --> 00:21:28,799 by the absolute titans of early cartography like Abraham Ortelius 425 00:21:29,359 --> 00:21:33,160 or gerardis Mercader. The guys who basically invented modern map making. 426 00:21:33,440 --> 00:21:37,079 You see the word tartaria spanning an incomprehensible amount of land. 427 00:21:37,240 --> 00:21:40,119 Speaker 2: It stretched from the Caspian Sea in the west, completely 428 00:21:40,160 --> 00:21:43,119 across the frozen expanse of Siberia, all the way to 429 00:21:43,160 --> 00:21:44,240 the Pacific Ocean in the. 430 00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:46,720 Speaker 1: East, and dipping all the way down into Central Asia 431 00:21:46,759 --> 00:21:49,960 and the borders of China. It wasn't some tiny little kingdom. 432 00:21:49,680 --> 00:21:53,519 Speaker 2: And the nomenclature was highly structured too. Cartographers divided into 433 00:21:53,519 --> 00:21:57,200 specific administrative blocks. You had tartaria, deserta or empty tartary. 434 00:21:57,480 --> 00:21:58,920 He had great Tartary covering the. 435 00:21:58,880 --> 00:22:03,039 Speaker 1: North, independent tartary in the central steps Chinese tartary. For 436 00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:06,079 hundreds of years, it was just an accepted standard part 437 00:22:06,119 --> 00:22:08,400 of the European geographical lexicon. 438 00:22:08,640 --> 00:22:11,839 Speaker 2: But then during that exact same nineteenth century window where 439 00:22:11,920 --> 00:22:15,000 naval captains are finalizing Antarctica. 440 00:22:14,359 --> 00:22:18,359 Speaker 1: The word tartaria experiences a mass extinction event on paper. 441 00:22:19,039 --> 00:22:21,880 You look at atlases printed after eighteen fifty and it 442 00:22:21,960 --> 00:22:25,200 is just gone, completely replunged by the Russian Empire, the 443 00:22:25,319 --> 00:22:28,000 king Dynasty Manchuria Siberia. 444 00:22:28,480 --> 00:22:31,680 Speaker 2: So we have to examine the mechanism behind this erasure. 445 00:22:31,359 --> 00:22:34,319 Speaker 1: Right because If I ask a mainstream historian, they'll tell 446 00:22:34,359 --> 00:22:37,920 me Tartaria was never actually a unified sovereign empire with 447 00:22:37,960 --> 00:22:39,359 a centralized government. Right. 448 00:22:39,559 --> 00:22:43,279 Speaker 2: Yes, the mainstream academic consensus relies on the distinction between 449 00:22:43,279 --> 00:22:45,799 descriptive geography and political geography. 450 00:22:45,960 --> 00:22:47,799 Speaker 1: Okay, what does that mean in practice? 451 00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:50,960 Speaker 2: Well, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, European map makers 452 00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:54,359 had virtually no empirical data about the interior of northern Asia, 453 00:22:54,839 --> 00:22:57,440 so they relied on a descriptive catch all term. It 454 00:22:57,519 --> 00:23:00,920 was derived from the nomadic tatark In federations that historically 455 00:23:00,960 --> 00:23:02,759 dominated the Eurasian step. 456 00:23:03,319 --> 00:23:07,000 Speaker 1: So Tartaria was essentially just a European shorthand for those 457 00:23:07,559 --> 00:23:10,279 vast unknown lands controlled by nomadic horsemen. 458 00:23:10,400 --> 00:23:14,759 Speaker 2: Precisely, it was the geographical equivalent of writing here be dragons, 459 00:23:14,960 --> 00:23:16,960 but using an ethnic identifier instead. 460 00:23:17,039 --> 00:23:18,000 Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. 461 00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:21,640 Speaker 2: And then the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries witnessed the aggressive 462 00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:26,480 expansion of centralized empires. The Romanov dynasty in Russia systematically 463 00:23:26,559 --> 00:23:28,920 conquered and annexed the Siberian land. 464 00:23:28,759 --> 00:23:31,039 Speaker 1: Mass, pushing eastward exactly. 465 00:23:31,200 --> 00:23:34,319 Speaker 2: And as they pushed east, they sent dedicated surveying teams. 466 00:23:34,799 --> 00:23:38,640 The unknown void of Tartaria was mapped, mathematically, measured, and 467 00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:41,599 culturally absorbed into the Russian state apparatus. 468 00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:44,480 Speaker 1: So the argument is just that as map making evolved 469 00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:48,319 from these vague guesses into precise borders based on taxation 470 00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:52,400 and sovereignty, the useless catch all term was discarded. It's 471 00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:54,359 just basic cartographic evolution. 472 00:23:54,119 --> 00:23:57,400 Speaker 2: That is the standard historical mechanism. Yes, it wasn't a 473 00:23:57,440 --> 00:24:02,000 malicious conspiracy. It was the bureaucratic formalization of conquered territory. 474 00:24:02,279 --> 00:24:07,720 Speaker 1: But that simple bureaucratic explanation definitely doesn't satisfy everyone today 475 00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:11,200 because over the last few years there has been this massive, 476 00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:17,279 highly viral alternative history theory, the Tartaria hypothesis. 477 00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:18,839 Speaker 2: And it has gained significant traction online. 478 00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:21,559 Speaker 1: It really has, and the researchers driving this theory aren't 479 00:24:21,599 --> 00:24:23,519 just looking at the old paper maps. They're looking at 480 00:24:23,559 --> 00:24:26,720 the physical landscape of the nineteenth century. They argue that 481 00:24:26,759 --> 00:24:31,519 Tartaria was an actual, highly advanced global civilization that was 482 00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:36,799 violently overthrown and intentionally erased by like a coordinated cabal 483 00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:38,880 of nineteenth century industrialists. 484 00:24:39,079 --> 00:24:42,160 Speaker 2: It is a fascinating study in how modern audiences interpret 485 00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:45,680 historical anomalies because the core of their argument actually moves 486 00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:48,839 away from the steps of Asia and focuses heavily on 487 00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:53,240 an architectural phenomena buildings. Yes, proponents point to the sudden 488 00:24:53,319 --> 00:24:57,839 explosion of monumental, highly intricate stone architecture that appeared across 489 00:24:57,839 --> 00:25:01,119 North America, Europe and Asia during the mid late eighteen hundreds. 490 00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:02,920 Speaker 1: And I mean, I have to admit, when you look 491 00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:06,319 at the specific photographs they reference, the visual dissonance is 492 00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:10,160 absolutely staggering. You look at these archival photos of places 493 00:25:10,200 --> 00:25:13,759 like Omaha, Nebraska, or Melbourne, Australia, or San Francisco in 494 00:25:13,799 --> 00:25:15,000 the eighteen seventies, and. 495 00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:16,720 Speaker 2: The streets are unpaved exactly. 496 00:25:16,799 --> 00:25:20,759 Speaker 1: The streets are literally muddy quagmires. People are driving wooden 497 00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:24,680 horse drawn wagons, and yet towering over these dirt roads 498 00:25:24,759 --> 00:25:29,519 are these colossal monolithic structures built in Greco Roman or 499 00:25:29,519 --> 00:25:35,240 box Art styles. Massive stone columns, intricate vaulted domes, hundreds 500 00:25:35,279 --> 00:25:37,799 of thousands of tons of perfectly cut masonry. 501 00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:41,720 Speaker 2: So the theory poses a provocative question. Did the people riding 502 00:25:41,759 --> 00:25:45,160 in those horse drawn buggies, who lacked modern power tools 503 00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:50,000 and diesel cranes truly possessed the industrial capacity to quarry, transport, 504 00:25:50,039 --> 00:25:54,400 and erect those complex buildings in such short documented time frames. 505 00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:56,920 Speaker 1: And the Tartaria theory people say absolutely not. They argue 506 00:25:56,920 --> 00:26:00,079 these buildings weren't built by nineteenth century immigrants or local governments. 507 00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:01,400 They say they were already. 508 00:26:01,079 --> 00:26:04,160 Speaker 2: There, surviving remnants of a global Tartarian empire. 509 00:26:04,519 --> 00:26:06,799 Speaker 1: Right, And the narrative we're taught that they were built 510 00:26:06,799 --> 00:26:10,799 as state capitals or post offices or railway stations is 511 00:26:11,039 --> 00:26:14,480 just a lie invented by the elite who supposedly found 512 00:26:14,559 --> 00:26:18,079 these structures, dug them out of the mud, and repurpose them. 513 00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:22,319 Speaker 2: It is a radical reimagining of the industrial era. But 514 00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:24,200 to really address this, we have to look at the 515 00:26:24,359 --> 00:26:27,880 documented mechanics of nineteenth century construction and logistics. 516 00:26:28,039 --> 00:26:30,799 Speaker 1: Let's debunk it, or at least look at the mainstream 517 00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:31,720 counter argument. 518 00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:37,039 Speaker 2: Mainstream architectural historians completely reject the hypothesis by pointing to 519 00:26:37,079 --> 00:26:40,799 the very real technological revolutions of that era. First, the 520 00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:43,480 visual distance between a mud road and a stone palace 521 00:26:43,759 --> 00:26:46,279 is easily explained by municipal funding structures. 522 00:26:46,359 --> 00:26:47,440 Speaker 1: Oh like, who's paying for what? 523 00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:50,720 Speaker 2: Exactly? The federal or state government had massive capital to 524 00:26:50,759 --> 00:26:54,400 construct a monumental post office to project power and permanence, 525 00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:57,200 but the local city council often lacked the tax revenue 526 00:26:57,200 --> 00:26:59,039 to actually pave the surrounding streets. 527 00:26:59,279 --> 00:27:02,279 Speaker 1: Ah okay, you can afford the palace, but you can't 528 00:27:02,279 --> 00:27:05,519 afford the driveway that totally tracks. But what about the 529 00:27:05,519 --> 00:27:08,680 physical logistics? How do you cut and move that much 530 00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:12,680 stone without modern hydraulics. I actually dug into the engineering 531 00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:15,160 patents of the time for this, and the answer is steam. 532 00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:18,680 Speaker 2: Steam power completely revolutionized masonry. 533 00:27:18,839 --> 00:27:21,759 Speaker 1: Yeah, the invention of the steam powered stone channeler by 534 00:27:21,799 --> 00:27:25,079 George Wardwell, before that you had to extract limestone with 535 00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:28,559 manual labor disguise, with wedges and sledgehammers. 536 00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:31,000 Speaker 2: Which took forever. But the steam channeler was a track 537 00:27:31,039 --> 00:27:34,799 mounted machine that drove massive steel chisels into the bedrock, 538 00:27:35,240 --> 00:27:38,440 cutting vast blocks of stone with incredible speed and precision. 539 00:27:38,519 --> 00:27:40,000 Speaker 1: And once you cut the stone, you have to move it, 540 00:27:40,079 --> 00:27:42,640 which is where the nineteenth century railway explosion comes in. 541 00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:45,519 By the late eighteen hundreds, you had this incredibly dense 542 00:27:45,599 --> 00:27:49,359 rail network connecting huge limestone quarries in places like Indiana 543 00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:52,680 right to the open centers. You didn't knee horses. You 544 00:27:52,759 --> 00:27:56,319 loaded thousands of tons of pre cut limestone directly onto 545 00:27:56,359 --> 00:27:58,079 reinforced flatbed railcars. 546 00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:00,960 Speaker 2: The rapid construction times are also explained by a shift 547 00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:05,160 in techniques. A lot of these massive buildings weren't structural 548 00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:08,119 stone all the way through. They utilized early forms of 549 00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:10,079 structural iron and steel framing. 550 00:28:10,319 --> 00:28:10,920 Speaker 1: Oh right. 551 00:28:11,039 --> 00:28:14,319 Speaker 2: The Grand Greco Roman columns and intricate facades were often 552 00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:18,680 just exterior cladding, a heavy stone skin hung on an 553 00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:22,799 industrial metal skeleton. Plus, the massive labor force was provided 554 00:28:22,839 --> 00:28:27,119 by millions of highly skilled European immigrants, including master masons, 555 00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:29,480 who brought generational knowledge to the Americas. 556 00:28:29,519 --> 00:28:31,640 Speaker 1: Oh okay, that makes perfect sense. But we also have 557 00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:34,119 to talk about the world's fairs because these are heavily 558 00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:37,200 featured in the Tartaria theory. Events like the eighteen ninety 559 00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:41,359 three World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago or the nineteen oh 560 00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:42,960 four Saint Louis World's Fair. 561 00:28:43,039 --> 00:28:44,440 Speaker 2: The temporary cities. 562 00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:49,079 Speaker 1: Right, they built entire, sprawling cities of breathtaking classical architecture, 563 00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:51,319 only to tear them down or let them burn a 564 00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:54,640 year later. The Tartaria proponents argue this is proof of 565 00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:57,880 the erasure that they were intentionally destroying the old World 566 00:28:57,960 --> 00:28:59,400 structures after showing them off. 567 00:28:59,519 --> 00:29:03,400 Speaker 2: But again, the architectural science provides the real mechanism. The 568 00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:05,759 vast majority of the buildings that those fares were never 569 00:29:05,799 --> 00:29:08,519 meant to be permanent. They were built using a temporary 570 00:29:08,519 --> 00:29:11,880 material called staff staff What is that. It's a mixture 571 00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:16,000 of plaster of Paris hemp fiber and Portland cement molded 572 00:29:16,039 --> 00:29:20,200 over cheap wooden frames. It was basically theatrical set design 573 00:29:20,279 --> 00:29:21,440 on a colossal scale. 574 00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:24,319 Speaker 1: Oh wow, so it just looked like solid marble from 575 00:29:24,359 --> 00:29:25,920 a distance exactly that. 576 00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:29,559 Speaker 2: They were hollow, highly flammable, and structurally designed to last 577 00:29:29,559 --> 00:29:33,160 maybe a few months. The rapid demolition wasn't a cover up. 578 00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:35,880 It was simply cleaning up a temporary plaster city before 579 00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:36,839 it collapsed on people. 580 00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:41,359 Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, So when we objectively balance the fringe theory 581 00:29:41,519 --> 00:29:45,880 against the actual documented mechanics that steam channelers, the trains, 582 00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:50,119 the structural steel, the narrative of a lost advanced civilization 583 00:29:50,279 --> 00:29:51,200 kind of falls apart. 584 00:29:51,319 --> 00:29:51,759 Speaker 2: It does. 585 00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:54,880 Speaker 1: But and this is a big butt, that doesn't mean 586 00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:58,240 the erasure of the word Tartaria from the maps isn't 587 00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:01,599 a profound historical event. In its no, not at all. 588 00:30:01,759 --> 00:30:04,640 Speaker 2: We don't need a lost civilization of advanced Masons to 589 00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:08,279 recognize the immense cultural tragedy of the nineteenth century. Right. 590 00:30:08,559 --> 00:30:12,880 The erasure of Tartaria from the maps represents the very real, 591 00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:18,200 very violent homogenization of the globe. Vast networks of diverse 592 00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:25,319 nomadic cultures, complex trade routes, and regional identities were systematically absorbed, standardized, 593 00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:28,759 and bureaucratically overwritten by expanding empires. 594 00:30:29,319 --> 00:30:32,160 Speaker 1: The map basically became less descriptive of the people who 595 00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:35,079 actually lived there and more descriptive of the governments that 596 00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:38,799 tax them exactly, which brings our two incredible threads perfectly 597 00:30:38,839 --> 00:30:43,079 together today. The nineteenth century was the era of standardization. 598 00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:47,559 As the centralized scientific institutions were gaining the logistical power 599 00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:50,599 to finally reach the bottom of the world and permanently 600 00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:52,720 ink Antarctica onto the map. 601 00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:56,960 Speaker 2: The exact same centralized political forces were scrubbing the ambiguity 602 00:30:56,960 --> 00:31:00,000 from the top of the map, erasing vast regional ideas 603 00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:03,680 like Tartaria in favor of rigid imperial borders. 604 00:31:03,759 --> 00:31:06,359 Speaker 1: It's the ultimate synthesis. The story of Antarctica and the 605 00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:08,240 story of Tartaria are really just two sides of the 606 00:31:08,279 --> 00:31:11,559 exact same coin. They reveal the massive gaps in our 607 00:31:11,599 --> 00:31:15,079 collective knowledge, and they show us how knowledge is actively managed. 608 00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:19,319 Speaker 2: Antarctica is a physical gap in our geography, an environment 609 00:31:19,440 --> 00:31:23,119 so hostile it kept its secrets hidden beneath miles of ice, 610 00:31:23,319 --> 00:31:25,279 defying our physical ability to reach it. 611 00:31:25,359 --> 00:31:28,640 Speaker 1: And Tartaria represents a conceptual gap in our historical memory, 612 00:31:29,079 --> 00:31:32,880 a casualty of political cartography, and the forward march of empire. 613 00:31:33,119 --> 00:31:36,279 Speaker 2: Both of these threads force us to confront how curated 614 00:31:36,319 --> 00:31:37,599 our reality actually is. 615 00:31:37,799 --> 00:31:40,440 Speaker 1: They really do, and they force you, listening right now, 616 00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:44,000 to realize that history is not a clean, complete book 617 00:31:44,039 --> 00:31:46,960 that we just read from front to back. It's incredibly messy. 618 00:31:47,519 --> 00:31:50,279 When a new continent is confirmed, or when an empire 619 00:31:50,359 --> 00:31:54,000 redraws a border, the past doesn't just vanish cleanly. 620 00:31:53,799 --> 00:31:54,680 Speaker 2: At least traces. 621 00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:59,440 Speaker 1: It leaves ghostly impossible coastlines on maps drawn in fifteen thirteen, 622 00:32:00,119 --> 00:32:04,039 leaves towering monolithic stone buildings and cities that seem way 623 00:32:04,079 --> 00:32:06,559 too young to hold them. It forces us to act 624 00:32:06,599 --> 00:32:09,599 not just as passive students, but as active investigators. We 625 00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:12,119 have to constantly question the documents, the logs, and the 626 00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:13,720 motives of the people who drew the lines. 627 00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:16,559 Speaker 2: I have a very humbling perspective. It reminds us that 628 00:32:16,599 --> 00:32:18,480 our current map of the world and our understanding of 629 00:32:18,519 --> 00:32:21,599 the timeline is merely the most recent draft. 630 00:32:21,599 --> 00:32:23,400 Speaker 1: Yeah, the current version of the software. 631 00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:26,839 Speaker 2: We operate within the limitations of our current eras technological 632 00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:29,720 and political paradigms, just like the map makers of the 633 00:32:29,759 --> 00:32:33,000 sixteenth century and the explorers of the nineteenth century operated 634 00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:37,279 within theirs. We have to continuously apply critical thinking to 635 00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:39,759 enrich our understanding of the human story. 636 00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:43,799 Speaker 1: Which leads me to one final incredibly provocative thought for today, 637 00:32:44,079 --> 00:32:47,359 a concept that builds on the physical mechanisms we've been discussing. 638 00:32:48,119 --> 00:32:51,680 We know, as a matter of verified modern geological science 639 00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:54,920 that the miles of pack ice covering Antarctica are currently 640 00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:58,000 hiding an ancient, complex physical landscape. 641 00:32:58,119 --> 00:33:01,200 Speaker 2: Thanks to ground penetrating radar, we know there are massive 642 00:33:01,279 --> 00:33:04,599 subglacial mountain ranges like the Gambertseevs. 643 00:33:04,039 --> 00:33:07,640 Speaker 1: And vast liquid water systems like Lake Vostok, just sealed 644 00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:10,160 beneath the ice for millions of years. 645 00:33:10,119 --> 00:33:14,039 Speaker 2: A hidden topography we are only just beginning to model mathematically. 646 00:33:13,799 --> 00:33:18,200 Speaker 1: Right, So my question is, what else is the ice preserving. 647 00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:22,519 I mean, if ancient cartographers like Peri Ras or Orange 648 00:33:22,519 --> 00:33:27,599 Fine truly did inherit their coastal geometries from older fragmented charts, 649 00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:32,200 could the ice of Antarctica hold the exact physical records 650 00:33:32,279 --> 00:33:34,079 of the cultures that originally mapped it. 651 00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:36,160 Speaker 2: That is a staggering possibility. 652 00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:39,240 Speaker 1: If the Earth's climate has shifted drastically in the deep past, 653 00:33:39,759 --> 00:33:43,039 could the answers to our missing history, the literal missing 654 00:33:43,079 --> 00:33:45,200 pieces of the puzzle we talked about at the start, 655 00:33:45,559 --> 00:33:48,559 be frozen solid in the bedrock at the absolute bottom 656 00:33:48,559 --> 00:33:51,240 of the world, just waiting for our technology to finally 657 00:33:51,279 --> 00:33:51,720 catch up. 658 00:33:52,079 --> 00:33:55,440 Speaker 2: It's a possibility rooted in the ongoing revelations of glaciology 659 00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:59,319 and archaeology. It guarantees that Antarctica will remain the ultimate frontier, 660 00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:02,400 not just for climate study, but potentially for the deepest 661 00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:03,480 layers of human antiquity. 662 00:34:03,519 --> 00:34:05,160 Speaker 1: And that is exactly where we want to turn this 663 00:34:05,200 --> 00:34:08,079 conversation over to you. What do you think after exploring 664 00:34:08,079 --> 00:34:12,280 the atmospheric chemistry of volcanic winters, the logistical improbabilities of 665 00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:15,800 the eighteen twenty discoveries, the mathematical projections of ancient maps, 666 00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:19,239 and the industrial mechanics behind the architectural booms of the 667 00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:21,079 nineteenth century. Where do you. 668 00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:23,199 Speaker 2: Stand, we really want to hear your perspective. 669 00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:26,840 Speaker 1: Are the sudden discovery of Antarctica and the bureaucratic erasure 670 00:34:26,880 --> 00:34:31,079 of Parteria just the natural, messy, growing pains of modern 671 00:34:31,159 --> 00:34:35,079 history formalizing the globe? Or do you believe these anomalies 672 00:34:35,159 --> 00:34:38,800 point to an older, forgotten, inherited chapter of human knowledge 673 00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:41,400 that we are only just beginning to piece back together. 674 00:34:42,079 --> 00:34:44,039 Please leave a comment and let us know your thoughts, 675 00:34:44,199 --> 00:34:47,360 your theories, and what specific part of this deep dive 676 00:34:47,639 --> 00:34:50,760 I mean. This investigation challenged your assumptions the most. 677 00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:54,519 Speaker 2: Your critical analysis and diverse viewpoints are what make these 678 00:34:54,679 --> 00:34:58,119 explorations so valuable. We deeply appreciate you joining us for 679 00:34:58,159 --> 00:34:59,960 this extensive examination of the history. 680 00:35:00,639 --> 00:35:02,679 Speaker 1: We absolutely do. Thank you so much for joining us 681 00:35:02,679 --> 00:35:05,199 on this edition of Thrilling Threads. We have plenty more 682 00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:08,840 mind bending investigations into histories hidden mechanisms coming your way. 683 00:35:09,199 --> 00:35:13,280 Until next time, keep questioning the map, keep examining the evidence, 684 00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:15,679 and keep looking for the missing pieces of the puzzle.