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- [00:00]
Lindsey Graham
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 night of July 14, 1916 in northern France in the middle of World War I. The Battle of the Somme has been raging for three weeks near the tiny French village of La Boisselle, British troops have punched a hole through the German lines and are in a desperate fight to take control of a nearby hill. Waiting in reserve, ready to support the attack, are soldiers from the 11th Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers. A sudden explosion lights up the night sky ahead, illuminating the pale face of a slender and smooth skinned British lieutenant. The 24 year old officer crouches in a trench beside his men, waiting for orders to join the attack. All around him is an eerie land of unnatural shadows, of deep craters, shattered trees and the bloated bodies of the dead. There's a whistle and the lieutenant knows it's time for him and his men to advance to take the hill or die trying to. Prior to the Battle of the Somme, the British generals hoped the engagement would provide the breakthrough they needed to win the war against Germany. But the offensive fails miserably. For the cost of almost half a million British casualties. The Germans are pushed back only six miles. The young British lieutenant John Ronald Reule Tolkien survives the battle, but several of his close friends die in the fighting. Then, in October 1916, J.R.R. tolkien Falls severely ill with a disease caused by lice known as trench fever. The following month, Tolkien is sent home to England to recuperate. He doesn't see action for the rest of World War I, but Tolkien never forgets the terrible things he saw, the friendships he made in the trenches, or those he lost years later. His experiences will inspire him in the creation of an epic novel unlike any written before. Long after the Battle of the Somme, the first volume of Tolkien's the Lord of the Rings trilogy will become one of the best selling books of all time and change English literature forever. Following its publication on July 29, 1954, History Daily is sponsored by Etruby. Lately you may have been hearing about a serious but rare heart condition called attr Cardiac amyloidosis, or ATTR cm. Because symptoms can be similar to other heart conditions, it may take time to be diagnosed diagnosed, but learning more about ATTRCM and a treatment called Atrube, also called Acharamidus, could be important for you or a loved one. Atruby is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with ATTRCM to reduce death and hospitalization due to heart issues. In one study, people taking Atrube saw an impact on their health related quality of life and 50% fewer hospitalizations due to heart issues than people who didn't take a truby, giving you more chances to do what you love with who you love. Tell your doctor if you're pregnant, plan to become pregnant or are breastfeeding and about the medications you take. The most common side effects were mild and included diarrhea and abdominal pain. If you have attrcm, talk to your cardiologist about attruby or visit attruby.com that's att ruby.com to learn more.
- [03:36]
Nick
Basketball game Crushed it and the day's just getting started. Now kicking it with my crew when I need a quick snack. Gogo Squeeze Active Fruit blend with electrolytes Pouches are always in the star lineup made with real fruit and select electrolytes and mmm, so tasty. From workouts to hangouts to whatever's next Igo with Gogo Squeeze Active Snag yours on your next store run. Available on Amazon.
- [04:07]
Lindsey Graham
From Noser 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 July 29, 1954, the publication of the Lord of the Rings. It's a Tuesday morning in England, sometime in the early 1930s, more than 20 years before the publication of the Lord of the Rings. At the Bird and Baby Pub in central Oxford, JRR Tolkien settles himself down in a chair by the fireplace. He's now in his early 40s and is a professor at the University of Oxford. He takes a sip from his glass of beer and glances at his watch. His friends are running late, so Tolkien takes the opportunity to prepare his pipe. In a few moments time, he's happily puffing away, a wreath of smoke rising above his head. After Tolkien left the British army in 1920, he embarked on an academic career. He was enrolled at Oxford before the war and returned there as professor of Anglo Saxon studies in 1925. But amid his research and teaching responsibilities at the university, Tolkien had another interesting writing While he was serving in the trenches during the war, he began to construct a fantasy world in his mind. It was called Middle Earth. After leaving the army, Tolkien began expanding this world and writing stories about it. He was encouraged by another academic A man named Clive Staples Lewis. CS Lewis will later find fame as the author of the Chronicles of Narnia books, but in the 1920s, he was just another young Oxford academic who shared Tolkien's interest in writing. Since their first meeting in 1926, the two men have become friends and are now the leading members of a literary discussion group, an informal club of Oxford men who call themselves the Inklings. They meet twice a week to read and discuss each other's latest poems and stories. Today, Tolkien has something he wants to share with the group. He looks up from his table by the fire as C.S. lewis bundles into the room, followed by two other members of the Inklings. The three late arrivals jostle in around Tolkien's table with their drinks, apologizing for their tardiness. The academics quickly fall into familiar, easy conversation. They talk about their work, their students, or the latest university politics, until finally Lewis cuts them off, saying, well, has nobody got anything to read to us? Tolkien smiles and reaches for a leather satchel by his feet, Flipping open its clasps. He removes a handwritten manuscript. The others move their beers aside, making room on the table. And then, in a low voice, little more than a mutter, Tolkien begins to read the first page. In a hole in the ground, there lived a Hobbit. It's October 8, 1937, a few years after Tolkien first shared a story called the Hobbit with his friends. Tolkien now sits in his office at Pembroke College at the University of Oxford, reading his morning copy of the Times newspaper. Halfway down page 20, a short column catches his eye. It's a review of a newly published book. It begins. All who love that kind of children's book, which can be read and re read by adults, should take note that a new star has appeared in that constellation. Tolkien smiles. It's a review of his book. Set in his fantastical world of Middle Earth, the Hobbit is the story of Bilbo Baggins. His adventures with a group of dwarves take him from his comfortable underground home to distant forests and mountains, where Bilbo does battle with a fiendish dragon named Smaug. The book made it into print almost by chance. Tolkien had abandoned the Hobbit unfinished in the mid-1930s, but several friends had already read it. Among them was a young woman named Elaine Griffith. She was a former pupil of Tolkien's, and in 1936, she was working on a revised translation of the Anglo Saxon epic poem Beowulf when she remembered her old professor's book. Alain recommended it to her publishers Allen and Unwin one of the top publishing companies in the country. Its founder, Stanley Unwin, passed the manuscript to his 10 year old son Rainer, who loved it. On the back of the boy's recommendation, the publishing house asked Tolkien to finish the story so they could publish it. Tolkien got to work, and by mid August 1936 his book was finally ready. The following year, the Hobbit was released. Now in his university office, Tolkien carefully folds up the Times newspaper. He thinks to himself he must thank the man who wrote that review, his dear friend C.S. lewis. But it's far from the only glowing response the book gets. Sales for the Hobbit exceed all expectations by Christmas 1937, Tolkien's publishers are rushing a second edition off the presses after selling every copy of the first, and it isn't long before there's talk of a sequel. In a letter to Tolkien, his publisher writes, a large public will be clamoring next year to hear more from you about Hobbits. Tolkien starts work almost immediately, but the sequel to the Hobbit will take him many years to complete. When Tolkien is finally finished, a very different kind of book will emerge, one that will change the face of literature and sear J.R.R. tolkien's legacy into the ages. History Daily is sponsored by Indeed. We've all done it. Try to take in all the grocery bags in one trip, but what happens when you can't manage it? A bruised banana? Some squished bread? It's often at the worst moment when you find out you need an extra pair of hands. And if you're running a business, the stakes are higher than. Well, dropping stakes on the when it comes to hiring fast, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites with Indeed sponsored jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page so you can reach the people you want faster. And it makes a huge difference. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on indeed have 45% more applications than non sponsored jobs. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed and History Daily. Listeners will get a $75 sponsored job credit. To get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com hiring on this day, just go to Indeed.comonthis day. That's Indeed.com onthis day. Terms and conditions apply. If you're hiring, Indeed is all you need.
- [10:50]
Jack
Hey Jack, I got some trivia for you. You ready?
- [10:52]
Lindsey Graham
Nice.
- [10:53]
Jack
Which company's iconic fleece jacket was inspired by a toilet seat cover? Gotta be Patagonia. What's next? Okay, which sneaker was banned by the NBA but then became the most iconic basketball shoe in history. Air Jordans. Come on, give me something hard. All right, what energy drink used to play plant empty cans in nightclubs to fake its own popularity? That was Red Bull. Legendary move by a legendary brand. Instant classic. This is Nick and this is Jack. We're best friends, ex finance guys and resident 90s cultural experts. And every week on our podcast, the Best Idea yet, we explore the untold origin stories behind the products you're obsessed with and the bold risk takers who made them go viral. From the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the iPhone to the most powerful force in business, Costco's Kirkland brand. Follow the Best Idea yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast. You can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. And if this podcast lasts longer than 45 minutes, call your doctor.
- [11:59]
Lindsey Graham
It's August 1943, 11 years before the publication of the first book in J.R.R. tolkien's epic, the Lord of the Rings. In his home in Oxford, Tolkien pushes back from his writing desk in frustration. He pulls his pipe from his jacket pocket and chews on it as he walks across his book lined office toward the doors out to the backyard. It's late and the gardens are dark, but Tolkien needs the fresh air. He's been working on the sequel to the Hobbit for five years. The early chapters had come to him quickly. They continued in the style of the Hobbit, with Bilbo Baggins and his nephew Frodo as the main characters. But the more Tolkien wrote, the darker, grander, and more complicated the story became. Tolkien has written more than 30 chapters of the Lord of the Rings, but he's hardly halfway through the story, and lately progress has ground to a halt. He's been distracted by his academic commitments and his family life, and by World War II, which has been raging for almost four years. But the biggest cause of the delay has been Tolkien's perfectionism. He has an obsessive need to revise and rework what he's written, making sure every detail of his fictional world fits perfectly together. Walking in his garden at night helps the sun parched lawn glows silver in the moonlight, and Tolkien's thoughts wander more freely through the still darkness to his land of wizards, dwarves, orcs, and Hobbits. Before long, a light goes on in the house behind him. Tolkien turns to see his wife silhouetted against the doorway. She calls, telling him it's time for bed, and warily he heads inside. Tolkien's struggles continue for six more years, until finally, in the autumn of 1949, his great epic is complete. But no sooner does Tolkien finish the book than he falls into a dispute with his publishers that makes Tolkien lose hope that the Lord of the Rings will ever reach the public. It's September 19, 1952. Three years have passed since Tolkien finished the Lord of the Rings, and the one copy of his epic masterpiece sits in a drawer at his home in Oxford. Tolkien is at his desk writing when the doorbell rings. The now 60 year old professor gets up, crosses his office and heads for the door. Outside is a young man in his mid-20s, Rainer Unwin, the boy who first read the Hobbit in 1936 and convinced his father's company to publish it. Now he works for that company and he's come to Oxford to secure the sequel to the Hobbit. Tolkien invites the young man in for a cup of tea. By the time Tolkien finished the Lord of the Rings, his relationship with Alan and Unwin's was strained. Years earlier, after the success of the Hobbit, Tolkien offered the company another book he'd written, the Silmarillion. It was a collection of stories, myths and poems about Middle Earth that Tolkien had begun writing in 1917. As he worked on the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien became convinced that for readers to properly understand Middle Earth, the Silmarillion needed to be published alongside his new book. But Alan and Unwin turned it down. Tolkien stewed over the rejection for years. Then, not long after he finished the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien was contacted by one of Alyn and Unwin's rivals, Collins Publishing Company. The people at Collins were interested in both the Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion. Tolkien jumped at the opportunity. He refused to offer the Lord of the Rings to Alan and Unwin and began negotiations with Collins. But the Silmarillion was far from complete. Tolkien insisted he needed time and money to polish and refine the collection. And hearing this, Collins got cold feet. In April 1952, they pulled out of negotiations and suddenly Tolkien was gripped with the fear that neither of his books would be published by anyone. So he went back to Allen and Unwin. Hat in hand, he wrote to the company, I have rather modified my views. Better something than nothing. He asked whether the company was still still interested in publishing the Lord of the Rings on its own. They very much were. As soon as he could, Rainer Unwin hurried to Oxford to meet with Professor Tolkien. And now, over cups of tea, he and Tolkien discuss the book privately. Rayner thinks the Lord of the Rings is strange and worries that it won't have the broad mainstream appeal to children or adults that the Hobbit did. But he also thinks it's a work of true genius, that even if the book makes no money at all, it deserves to be published. At their meeting, Tolkien entrusts his one copy of the book to Rayner, who takes it back with him to London. It quickly becomes clear that publishing the book in a single volume is impossible. They just can't make the finances work. Reluctantly, Tolkien agrees to split the Lord of the Rings into three parts. The release date of the first, entitled the Fellowship of the Ring, is set for July 29, 1954. Allen and Unwin order an initial print run of just a few thousand copies, but what they don't realize is that they are about to unleash a publishing phenomenon which will transform not just Tolkien's life, but the future of popular culture around the globe.
- [17:11]
Nick
Before the Internet ruled our lives, AOL brought America Online with email and Instant messenger. By 2000, AOL was so powerful, it bought media giant Time Warner. This was a deal that was supposed to bring us into the future, revolutionize media. But instead, it became one of the messiest corporate disasters in history. So what went wrong? The dot com crash? Culture clashes? Or something deeper? Business wars gives you a front row seat to the biggest moments in business and how they shape our world. Because when your flight perks disappear, your favorite restaurant chain goes bankrupt, or new tech threatens to reshape everything overnight, you can bet there's a deeper story behind the headlines. Make sure to follow Business wars on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast. And you can binge all episodes of Business the AOL Time Warner Disaster early and ad free. Right now on Wondery.
- [18:10]
Chico Felitti
Everyone has that friend who seems kind of perfect for Paddy. That friend was Tessie Ray. Until one day I texted her and.
- [18:19]
Lindsey Graham
She was not getting the text. So I went to Instagram. She has no Instagram anymore. And Facebook. No Facebook anymore.
- [18:26]
Chico Felitti
Desiree was gone. And there was one person who knew the answer.
- [18:31]
Lindsey Graham
I am a spiritual person, a magical person, a witch.
- [18:35]
Chico Felitti
A gorgeous Brazilian influencer called Kat Torres, but who was hiding a secret from wondering. Based on my smash hit podcast from Brazil comes a new series, Don't Cross Cat, about a search that led me to a mystery in a Texas suburb.
- [18:53]
Lindsey Graham
I'm calling to check on the two missing Brazilian girls. Maybe get some undercover crew there. The family are freaking out. They are lost.
- [19:01]
Chico Felitti
I'm Chico Felitti. You can Listen to Don't Cross Cat on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [19:18]
Lindsey Graham
It's the morning of July 29, 1954, at a bookshop in Oxford. The shop's owner has just had a delivery of the latest releases. Among them is a book by a local author, a professor at the university up the road. It's a handsome volume. There's a striking motif on its white front cover, a circle ringed with strange, ornate text surrounded by a single staring eye. Above it, in bold, dark letters, is the title, the Fellowship of the Ring. The bookseller checks the listed price inside the book. 21 shillings. That's a lot. But the bookseller remembers reading the author's previous book to his children many years ago and how much they enjoyed it. The shop is quiet, so the man sits down behind the counter, flicks open the book and reads the first few pages. When the shop closes that evening, he takes the book home with him and finishes it as quickly as he can. The story grips him and leaves him hungry for more. But the shopkeeper will have to wait. The second volume of the story, the Two towers, follows in November 1954, and then the final part comes nearly one year later, in October 1955, almost 20 years after Tolkien began writing the epic story, the shopkeeper and the rest of the world can finally enjoy Tolkien's fantasy masterpiece in full. With each year that passes, sales of the book increase. By the mid-1960s, the Lord of the Rings is a cult phenomenon, especially on the campuses of American universities, where students proudly wear pins and badges declaring Gandalf for President and Frodo Lives. In the coming decades, the Lord of the Rings will be Translated into roughly 50, 50 languages and will go on to sell as many as 150 million copies, making it one of the best selling books of all time, with popular film, television and radio adaptations only furthering the book's appeal. Yet for all its success around the world, there remains something distinctly English in character about the Lord of the Rings. The roots of the book lie in the ancient myths and languages which Tolkien loved in the English countryside where he spent his childhood, and in the terrible war which, as a young soldier, he barely survived. Today, the Lord of the Rings still stands apart as an unsurpassed literary achievement, one which, after years of struggle and hard work by its author, J.R.R. tolkien, was finally revealed to the world for the first time on July 29, 1954. Next on History History Daily, July 30, 1966 England defeats West Germany to lift the world cup in the country where soccer originated from Nouser and Airship. This is history. Daily hosted, edited and executive produced by me, Lindsey Graham Audio editing by Molly Bond Sound design by Derek Behrens Music by Lindsey Graham. This episode is written and researched by William Simpson. Executive producers are Steven Walters for Airship and Pascal Hughes for Noiser. Tipping Culture is out of control. Yesterday I tipped someone just for handing me a napkin.
- [22:29]
Jack
So when hotels.com gives me up to.
- [22:31]
Lindsey Graham
20% off for being a member, I finally get tipped. And you know what? It feels good. Hotels.com, members save up to 20% off.
- [22:38]
Jack
At hundreds of thousands of hotels.