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- [00:00]
Roald Dahl
There are more ways than ever to listen to History Daily ad free. Listen with Wondry plus in the Wondery app as a member of Noiser plus at noiser.com or in Apple Podcasts. Or you can get all of History Daily plus other fantastic history podcasts@intohristory.com it's the evening of September 19th, 1940 and the skies above the Sahara Desert in East Libya. One year Into World War II, 24 year old British pilot Officer Roald Dahl dips the wing of his fighter plane and searches the ground for his destination. After joining the Royal Air Force last month, Rual received orders to support the squadron battling Italy for control of North Africa. Roual was assured that his squadron's airbase was in this area, but as dusk falls, he can't find it and he's almost out of fuel. With one last check of the horizon, Rural realizes he's going to have to land here in the desert and hope for the best. Ruhaul throttles back, swings his plane toward a flat area of sand and descends to the ground as gently as possible. Raal touches down and applies the brake, but as he skids and shudders to a stop, one of his wheels hits a boulder concealed by the sand. The plane's nose is pulled violently to the ground and Ruald's head snaps forward, hitting a sharp metal gun sight. At the same time, the aircraft's fuel tank ruptures and then ignites. Now, only semi conscious, Roual uses the last of his energy to unclip his harness and try to crawl out of the cockpit. Heaving himself out of the plane, Raal drops to the ground and then begins to hear bullets fly through the air. Confused and terrified, Raal wonders if he stumbled onto an enemy position, but then realizes it's his plane's own machine guns that are firing off in the heat of the fire. All Raal can do is crawl a few yards away before he slumps into the sand, unconscious. Raal will later learn that the location he was given for his squadron's airbase was incorrect. His crash landing occurs in a no man's land between the British and Italian lines, but thankfully a British rescue party will get to him before he succumbs to his wounds. Although Rouhl survives a crash and returns to active duty, the after effects of his head injury will eventually end his flying career but incidentally kickstart his literary life, turning Rouhl into one of the world's most popular children's authors. After the publication of Charlie and the chocolate factory on January 17 ruul 1964.
- [02:45]
Jorge Gaviria
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- [03:18]
Roald Dahl
From Noiser and Airship I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is History. Daily history is made every day on this podcast. Every day, we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world. Today is January 17, 1964. Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory hits bookshelves. It's early summer, 1942, at a restaurant in Washington, D.C. two years after Rual Dahl crashed his plane in North Africa. Ruaul is sitting with another man, talking fast and with animated gestures, ignoring his plate of smoked salmon as he excitedly recounts his previous scrape with death. A lot has happened since then. After five months convalescing following his crash landing in the Sahara Desert, Ruaul was cleared for duty again. He became a fighter ace by shooting down five enemy planes over Greece and Egypt. But Ruhal was plagued by severe headaches resulting from the injuries sustained in his crash. As a result, he flew for less than a year before leaving active service and being sent to the US as an assistant attache at the British Embassy in Washington. But today, Ruhal is leaving that bureaucracy behind to be interviewed by a journalist who wants to write about the former fighter pilot's desert crash and recovery for the Saturday Evening Post. Rule laughs as he describes how he felt when his eyesight finally returned after several days of being blind. But his smile fades when he notices the journalist's stressed demeanor and the messy scrawl on his notepad. Raoul realizes he's been talking so fast and excitedly that the journalists can't keep up. To make amends, Rouhl offers to quickly write up his wartime experiences himself. He'll give this account to the journalist who can use it to write his article. The relieved writer agrees to call the next day to pick it up. So that night, Rouhl spends about five hours at a desk writing a detailed description of his crash landing. But when the journalist reads Rouhl's account, he's astonished at how well written it is. So rather than alter a word, the journalist sends it to the newspaper and asks them to print it verbatim, with Rouhl credited as the writer. A few weeks later, Rouhl's article appears in print, but he discovers that the editor did not completely follow the journalist's instructions. Several passages of the article have been rewritten to make it more sensational. The article is given a misleading shot down over Libya, despite no enemy shots being fired at Rouhl. What? Any unease Rouhl feels about his words being twisted disappears when he receives a check for $187, the equivalent of $3,500 today. Not only is Rawal now a published writer, he begins to think he might even earn a living from it. Rouhl is inspired to write more, and he moves into composing fiction. Whenever he has time away from his responsibilities at the embassy, he works on a short story about little creatures with horns and long tails that sabotage airplanes and join the war against Nazi Germany. Rouhal thinks he might submit the tale to a magazine, but first he shows it to a British businessman who's visiting Washington. When he reads it, this man loves the story, and with Rouhl's permission, he sends it to a friend in California who might be interested in buying it. Walt Disney. Soon, Roald agrees to a deal with the Walt Disney Company and hands over the rights to the story that they plan to make into an animated movie called the Gremlins. Over the next 18 months, the Disney machine goes into overdrive. Rouhl visits the studios to help storyboard the movie. Disney arranges the publication of the Gremlins as an illustrated book. Charlie Chaplin and Spencer Tracy are among the Hollywood stars who dress as Gremlins as part of the marketing effort. But the project falls apart when Disney's illustrators begin to make changes to the story. Remembering how uneasy he felt when the editor of the Saturday Evening Post altered his Crash Landing article, Rouald pushes back. He refuses to accept Disney's revisions to the Gremlins, and Disney ends up canceling the production of the movie. But Ruhald doesn't give up on his new creative pursuits. After World War II ends, Rouald will be demobilized by the RAF and returned to England. With his military service over, Rouhal will forge a full time career as a writer, but initially with little success. Though he pens short stories, screenplays and novels, none achieve much repute. Only when Rouhal's agent suggests he try adapting his writing for a younger audience will Rouhl finally catch his break. History Daily is sponsored by acorns. Studying history is studying survival and and at the heart of survival most of the time is money. It's always been a challenge. From bartering livestock to trading crypto saving and investing feels aspirational. Something you want to do, but just not right now. In fact, last year, Save More Money was the most popular New Year's resolution in America. So how do you start for real? Acorns makes it easy to start automatically saving and investing so your money has a chance to grow for you, your kids and your retirement. You don't need to be an expert. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that fits you and your money goals. You don't need to be rich. Acorns lets you invest with the spare money you've got right now. You can start with $5 or even just your spare change. Head to acorns.com historydaily or download the Acorns app to start saving and investing for your future. Today, paid non client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns Tier 2 compensation provided investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor view important disclosures@acorns.com On January 5.
- [09:06]
Lindsey Graham
2024, an Alaska Airlines door plug tore away mid flight, leaving a gaping hole in the side of a plane that carried 171passengers. This heart stopping incident was just the latest in a string of crises surrounding the aviation manufacturing giant Boeing. In the past decade, Boeing has been involved in a series of damning scandals and deadly crashes that have chipped away at its once sterling reputation. At the center of it all, the 737 Max. The latest season of Business wars explores how Boeing, once the gold standard of aviation engineering, descended into a nightmare of safety concerns and public mistrust, the decisions, denials and devastating consequences bringing the titan to its knees. And what, if anything, can save the company's reputation now? Follow Business wars on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge business the Unraveling of Boeing early and ad free right now on Wondery.
- [10:12]
Roald Dahl
It's November 17, 1962, at a cottage in Buckinghamshire, England, 17 years after the end of World War II. Roald Dahl perches on the edge of his seven year old daughter Olivia's bed. He laughs as he tries to twist a colorful pipe cleaner into the shape of an animal. After the war, Ruhall became a journeyman writer, earning a small and irregular income. But he had no financial worries thanks to his marriage to Hollywood actress Patricia Neal. The couple met at a New York dinner party in 1951 and got married two years later. Ever since then, they've split their time between the United States and their cottage in England, and Patricia has carried on being the breadwinner. But recently, Ruhal has begun to enjoy some professional success. Last year, following a suggestion from his agent, Rouault published his first children's book, James and the Giant Peach. It was better received than most of his other works, so Rouhl is now working on a second children's book, Charlie's Chocolate Boy. But today, Rouhl has taken a break from writing to entertain his eldest daughter, who's recovering from a bout of measles. Rouald shows Olivia the animal he's made from the pipe cleaner. It's supposed to be a giraffe, but admits it looks more like a dog. Olivia smiles weakly. She starts trying to make her own animal, but her fingers fumble and she struggles. Ruaul's brow furrows as he asks Olivia whether she's okay. And his daughter replies that she feels really tired. As Raoul anxiously watches her for the next few minutes, he realizes it's more serious than that. His daughter's condition rapidly worsens and Olivia loses consciousness. Ruol phones for an ambulance, but it's too late. Within only a few hours, Olivia dies in hospital. A post mortem reveals she had developed a neurological complication, a rare inflammation of the brain caused by the measles virus. Olivia's death plunges Ruhol into grief. He begins drinking heavily to numb the pain, and he increases the dose of the medicine he takes for back pain from his wartime crash landing. When he's not in bed, he spends hours each day at Olivia's grave in the nearby churchyard. Weeks later, with the pain of Olivia's death as strong and fresh as ever, Rouel makes his way to a hut in his garden. This is his writing sanctuary, a place where he works with no distractions. Raoul hasn't stepped foot in here since Olivia died. But today he tries to resume his old writing rituals. He places a flask of coffee on the desk. He closes the blinds. Then he opens a green covered notebook and begins writing. For the next few hours, Rouhl describes Olivia's last day, her sudden deterioration, the rush to the hospital, and the last moments he spent with her. When he's finished, Raoul puts the notebook in a drawer, having no intention of letting anybody see what he's just written. This is just his private way of working through his grief. And the next time Rouhl returns to his riding hut, he brings a framed painting of Olivia and hangs it on the wall. Usually, Rouol won't allow anything in the hut that might distract him. But the painting gives him the motivation to resume work on Charlie's chocolate boy. Gradually, Rouald refines the plot, determined to make it the kind of book that 7 year old Olivia would have loved to read. The original version had a mischievous Charlie visit a chocolate factory, only to be sucked into a machine and turned into chocolate himself. Rouald ditches that plot almost entirely. Instead, he has Charlie find a golden ticket eligible for admission to a chocolate factory run by an elusive genius, Willy Wonka. This new version of Charlie is modeled on Olivia. He's polite, well mannered, and his good behavior is rewarded in the book's ending. Ruhl renames his more positive and life affirming story Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and its release to the public on January 17, 1964. And thanks to Rouhl's existing relationship with an American publisher, the story hit shelves first in the United States, where it proves immediately popular. The initial print run of 10,000 books sells out in a month and the publisher rushes to get more copies into bookstores. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory will become so popular that it will catch the attention of Hollywood. But as with his first experience with movie executives, Rohl will find the process of making a film a frustrating one. It's spring 1971 at the Paramount Pictures studio lot in Los Angeles, California. Seven years after the publication of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl is watching a rough cut of a movie version of his wildly popular children's book. It should be an exhilarating experience, but unfortunately, Ruhal isn't enjoying it at all. In the years since Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was released in print, Ruhl has become a writer in demand, and not just for children's literature. Rouhl has also written the screenplays for the Hollywood movies yous Only Live Twice and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. But both times he was disappointed by major revisions to his scripts. Today, Ruhl realizes that the same thing is happening again. He becomes increasingly annoyed as he identifies huge changes that the director has made to Rahl's screenplay. And as the screening comes to an end, Rouhl's anger bubbles over. The dialogue in the last scene is completely different to what he wrote in the screenplay. But what frustrates Rouhl most is that the movie shifts the focus away from Charlie, the character he lovingly based on his own daughter, and instead fixates on Willy Wonka. Even the title of the movie has been altered to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. And Gene Wilder's albeit brilliant portrayal of the eccentric factory owner still isn't what Rouhl had in mind when he wrote the book. After leaving the studios angry, Rouhl writes to his agent and disowns the film. He also comes to a decision. In the future, Rouhl will have nothing to do with Hollywood. Instead, he'll focus on what he does best, writing children's books. Rouhl will compensate for the disappointment of the movie version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by writing a sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. And he'll write another 11 children's books over the next 20 years. Today, more than 300 million copies of Ruhl's books have been sold, making him one of the world's best selling children's authors. And despite Ruhall's own protestations, two more Hollywood movies have been inspired by his most popular work, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a book which shot Roald Dahl to fame after it was first published on January 17, 1964. Next on History Daily, January 20, 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt is sworn in for an unprecedented and never to be repeated fourth term as US President. From Noizr and Airship, this is History Daily hosted, edited and executive produced by me, Lindsey Graham Audio editing by Mohammed Shazib Sound design by Misha Stanton Music by Lindsey Graham. This episode is written and researched by Scott Reeves. Executive producers are Alexandra Curry Buckner for Airship and Pascal Hughes for Noiser. You were made to travel the world and the seven seas and countless lakes and innumerable rivers and one perfect pond. Get Travel ideas from ChatGPT on Expedia. Made to travel.