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- [00:00]
Tracy V. Wilson
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:05]
Holly Fry
Everybody knows Shaq, but off camera he's.
- [00:07]
Lowe's Advertiser
Just a regular guy.
- [00:08]
Shaquille O'Neal
People never believe me when I say I'm just like them. I take out the trash, do dishes and I struggle with moderate obstructive sleep apnea or osa. And a lot of adults with obesity also struggle with moderate to severe osa. You know those scary breathing interruptions during sleep, the loud snoring, choking and daytime fatigue? I knew I had to talk to my doctor. Don't sleep on the symptoms. Learn more at don'tsleeponosa.com this information is.
- [00:33]
Holly Fry
Provided by Lilly, a medicine company in.
- [00:35]
Lenovo Advertiser
The heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech@lenovo.com dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming and performance that won't quit. Push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors for the next era of gaming. Upgrade to smooth high quality streaming with Intel Wi Fi 6e and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search power up@lenovo.com lenovo.
- [01:01]
Holly Fry
Lenovo listen to your elders, honey. You might know them from their viral videos, but now the Old Gays are pulling back the curtain with their podcast Silver Linings with the Old Gays brought to you in partnership with I Heart, Ruby Studio and Veeve Healthcare. Hosts Robert, Mick, Bill and Josay share their favorite pride, memories and the importance of celebrating all year long in honor of Palm Springs Pride. So check out Silver Linings with the Old gays on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:34]
Lowe's Advertiser
Want Black Friday prices without the crowds? Lowe's gets it. Shop their early Black Friday deals and beat the rush. $99 is all you need to grab a select 7 foot pre lit artificial Christmas tree for the holidays. And don't sweat what gifts to get dad. They have up to 40% off select tools and accessories going on now. That's how Lowe's celebrates Black Friday. Early selection varies by location while supplies last.
- [02:01]
Holly Fry
Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.
- [02:11]
Tracy V. Wilson
Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
- [02:14]
Holly Fry
And I'm Holly Fry.
- [02:16]
Tracy V. Wilson
Listener Josiah, who has sent us just a ton of very good episode suggestions. Sent in a request for an episode on the 1819 Balloon Riot. We do have a number of episodes on balloons and ballooning, including the Montgolfier Brothers and Sophie Blanchard and S.A. andre's attempt to get to the North Pole by balloon. And we have mentioned in those episodes that balloons became a huge fad starting in the late 18th century and into the 19th century. I don't think we have ever talked about how much rioting was associated with that. We have talked more about excitement and not about tearing stuff apart. This 1819 incident that Josiah Quested was not the only riot to talk about. In other words, we are going to cover several in this episode, but it is not all of the balloon riots. Over the course of my research, I found various like mentions of other riots as kind of asides or mentioned in footnotes or a newspaper article would say blah blah, blah, similarly to the thing that happened this other time. But then I was not able to find a lot of detail about that other time briefly mentioned. It's also possible that there were other more documented balloon riot incidents that I just didn't happen to stumble over while working on this.
- [03:46]
Holly Fry
These riots all involved large balloons filled with either hot air or a lighter than air gas like hydrogen or coal gas, which is a mix of mostly hydrogen, methane and carbon monoxide. The ones that we're talking about took place in France, the uk, the US and Australia. But the earliest precursors to these kinds of balloons came from another part of the world. They date back to the third century BCE in China. These were flying lanterns, also called sky lanterns, that were made from paper and open at the bottom. A candle or some other source of flame suspended under the opening he the air inside, causing the lantern to float. Sky lanterns are quite small. You can launch them from your hands. And by the 18th century, various scientists and inventors were trying to figure out how to use that same principle to make much larger balloons.
- [04:42]
Tracy V. Wilson
The first successful launches of balloons that were big enough to carry human beings took place in France. After testing various materials and designs, brothers Joseph Michel and Jacques Etienne Montgolfier made a balloon from cloth and paper that had a diameter of about 33ft or 10 meters. They lit a fire under the opening of this balloon to fill it with hot air, and they successfully sent it aloft on June 4, 1783. They did not have anybody aboard that first time. That balloon stayed in the air for about 10 minutes. On September 19, they sent a duck, a rooster and a sheep up in a slightly smaller balloon, and all of those animals returned to earth safely. Hooray.
- [05:32]
Holly Fry
From there, the Montgolfier brothers tried tethered balloon flights with people on board. And then their first untethered flight with a human crew was on November 21, 1783. We talked about the Montgolfier brothers in more detail in our episode on them that ran as a Saturday Classic. On January 28, 2023, while the Montgolfier.
- [05:55]
Tracy V. Wilson
Brothers were working on hot air balloons, other people were working on balloons filled with some other gas or gas mixture. Professor Jacques Charles commissioned brothers Anne Jean Robert and Nicolas Louis Robert, who is sometimes also called Marie Noel Robert, to build a balloon. They took a demonstration flight from the Champ de Mars in August of 1783. This was a varnished silk balloon filled with hydrogen gas. They made that hydrogen gas by pouring sulfuric acid onto iron filings.
- [06:31]
Holly Fry
This balloon successfully went aloft without a crew, but from there it drifted to the northeast of Paris. When it landed near the village of Jeunesse, people who didn't know what it was reportedly attacked it with things like sticks and pitchforks. On December 1st of that year, Nicolas Louis and Jacques successfully went aloft themselves in a hydrogen balloon which which was launched from the Tuileries Gardens.
- [06:57]
Tracy V. Wilson
Within a year, more than 180 balloon launches had taken place all around Europe, often before just enormous crowds. When the Montgolfier brothers sent those animals aloft, an estimated 130,000 people had been watching, including King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. When Robert and Charles took their first flight, it was reportedly before a crowd of 4, 400,000 people, which would have been more than half the population of.
- [07:28]
Holly Fry
Paris, and people were fascinated. Letters and diary entries from the late 18th century are full of references to balloons and which launches people had seen and how big the crowds were and what the balloon looked like. This includes numerous letters from American visitors who were in France for the negotiations of the Treaty of Paris that formally ended the Revolutionary War, so that includes Benjamin Franklin. Balloon hats for ladies came into fashion with puffy crowns and wide brims, and balloons were emblazoned on every kind of souvenir imaginable. A broadside called Balloon Wish, printed in Boston read quote. In this wild romantic age, what fantastic whims engage high and low and old and young, all with balloon madness. Rung balloon hats and frying pans, balloon ribbons, balloon fans, balloon gauzes, balloon caps, balloon hoops or balloon traps.
- [08:26]
Tracy V. Wilson
Balloons and balloon launches were also depicted in stories, novels, poems, plays and visual artwork. As an example, in 1784, the Covent Garden Theater, which we just talked about in October staged a play called Harlequin Junior or the Magic Cestus, in which past podcast subject Joseph Grimaldi was supposed to handle a real floating balloon that was scaled down for use on the stage. However, the theater scrapped this part of the show after deciding it was Quote, very offensive and in some degree dangerous in the confined air of the theater. That decision makes sense because they had to burn material under this balloon. To inflate it in the theater just seemed like a bad idea, given the known propensity of theaters to catch on.
- [09:16]
Holly Fry
Fire in the theater lit by candlelight at this point. So if the balloon fell in the wrong place, double trouble. The culture in parts of Europe was so saturated with balloons that some people actually got sick of hearing about them almost immediately. In September of 1783, English author and playwright Samuel Johnson wrote a letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds that said in part, quote, I have three letters in this day all about the balloon. I could have been content with one. Do not write about the balloon. Whatever else you may think proper to.
- [09:52]
Tracy V. Wilson
Say, that cracks me up. It's also kind of sad that he died a few months later. So one of his final frustrations was balloons.
- [10:01]
Holly Fry
Balloons.
- [10:05]
Tracy V. Wilson
The term balloonomania appeared in writing for the first time two years later in a letter from past podcast subject Horace Walpole to Madame du Deffand. After Jean Francois Pilatre de Rosier died in a balloon crash while trying to cross the English Channel, Walpole wrote, quote, the balloon Omania is, I think, a little chilled, not extinguished by Rosier's catastrophe. Walpole also expressed concerns about whether balloons would be used for military purposes. And that was something people had started thinking about basically right after those very earliest launches. We talked about that more in our episode on the balloons of World War II 2 that came out in March of 2023.
- [10:50]
Holly Fry
This 18th century fascination with balloons was interconnected with ongoing discoveries in the sciences that had started to evolve in the 16th century and the European intellectual movement that has come to be known as the Age of Enlightenment. People were similarly fascinated with experiments with electricity that were also happening around the same time. By necessity, balloon launches were the most public of all the various experiments that were going on. The balloons were huge, and even if they were launched from some out of the way place, people could still see them in the air.
- [11:25]
Tracy V. Wilson
People made and launched hot air and gas balloons in all kinds of places, beyond just England and France and beyond just Europe. But in these two countries, there was kind of a competitive rivalry going on, but there were also some differences in how ballooning developed in those two countries. A lot of balloon experiments in France were under the auspices of the French Academy of Sciences, and that meant that until the French Revolution, they were effectively being overseen by the scientific community and ultimately the monarch. But in England, the Royal Society didn't take up that same level of interest in ballooning. So the ballooning community in England was more made up of, like adventurers who might work with scientists or allow scientists to bring instruments on board. But they could be focused a lot more on excitement and spectacle and showmanship than on research and discovery.
- [12:21]
Holly Fry
But it was clear from the beginning that balloon launches could spark a backlash if they did not go as planned. On January 16, 1784, just weeks after humans had successfully flown in balloons for the first time, Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to Dutch scientist Jan Ingenhaus. Franklin had previously sent Ingenhouse everything he had learned about balloons, and he said that if Ingenhaus sent someone to France, Franklin was sure they could learn whatever they needed to figure out how to make one for themselves. From there, he said, quote, if you undertake to make one, I think it extremely proper and necessary to send an ingenious man here for that purpose. Otherwise, for want of attention to some particular circumstance or of being acquainted with it, the experiment might miscarry, which, being in an affair of so much public expectation, would have bad consequences, draw upon you a great deal of censure and affect your reputation. It is a serious thing to draw out from their affairs all the inhabitants of a great city and its environs, and a disappointment makes them angry. At Bordeaux lately, a person who pretended to send up a balloon and had received money of many people not being able to make it rise. The populace were so exasperated that they pulled down his house and had liked to have killed him.
- [13:42]
Tracy V. Wilson
We will talk about some other exasperated populaces after a sponsor break in the.
- [13:51]
Lenovo Advertiser
Heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech@lenovo.com Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming and performance that won't quit. Push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors for the next era of gaming. Upgrade to smooth high quality streaming with Intel Wi Fi 6e and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the Tech Search power up@lenovo.com lenovo.
- [14:17]
Shaquille O'Neal
Lenovo.
- [14:22]
Holly Fry
Listen to your elders, honey. You might know them from their viral videos, but now the Old Gays pull back the curtain. On their podcast Silver Linings with the Old Gays, brought to you in partnership with iHeart's Ruby Studio and Veeve Healthcare for a very special bonus episode. Hosts Robert, Mick, Bill and Jahsay talk about how pride has evolved over the years and their favorite memories, all in celebration of Palm Springs Pride. Because pride should be celebrated all year round. Listen to these fabulous friends swap stories exploring how queer life has evolved over the decades and the silver linings they've collected along the way. Each episode dives into hot topics, from safe sex and online dating to untangling Gen Z lingo, as well as insights on how music, art and fashion show up in queer culture. So check out Silver Linings, a show about how pride ages like fine wine available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Everybody knows Shaq, but off camera, he's.
- [15:26]
Lowe's Advertiser
Just a regular guy.
- [15:27]
Shaquille O'Neal
People never believe me when I say I'm just like them. I take out the trash, do dishes, and I struggle with moderate obstructive sleep apnea, or osa. And a lot of adults with obesity also struggle with moderate to severe osa. You know, those scary breathing interruptions during sleep, the loud snoring, choking and daytime fatigue? I knew I had to talk to my doctor. Don't sleep on the symptoms. Learn more at don't sleep on osa.com.
- [15:50]
Holly Fry
This information is provided by Lilly, a.
- [15:52]
Lowe's Advertiser
Medicine company want Black Friday prices without the Crowds? Lowe's gets it Shop their early Black Friday deals and beat the rush. $99 is all you need to grab a select 7 foot pre lit artificial Christmas tree for the holidays. And don't sweat what gives to get dad? They have up to 40% off select tools and accessories going on now. That's how Lowe's celebrates Black Friday. Early selection varies by location while supplies.
- [16:18]
Tracy V. Wilson
Last in 1784, printmaker Jean Francois Janinet, who had started calling himself an artist physicist, worked with Abbe Laurent Antoine Miolin, who lectured in physics to build a balloon. Their design actually involved three balloons. There was the primary hot air balloon and a gas filled balloon that would float above it, and then a balloon filled with cold air that would hang below it. They wanted to study the atmosphere and the behavior of the three balloons and the gases within them from the gondola that was suspended below. They had financed their project primarily by selling tickets to the launch, and that was the case for a lot of balloonists. Even like the hardcore scientific balloonists, a lot of times were funding things with ticket sales.
- [17:16]
Holly Fry
They planned to take off from Luxembourg Gardens in Paris on July 11, 1784. Although they had made some successful test flights, this public launch failed when they were not able to adequately fill the hot air balloon. It's not clear whether the balloon caught fire during the attempt to fill it, or if angry onlookers set it alight. But it did catch fire, and once it was burning, outraged ticket holders burst into the launch area, tearing pieces off of the balloon and breaking up the viewing stands to throw into the fire. One of the people who witnessed this was Benjamin Franklin Batch, grandson of Benjamin Franklin, whose diary entry about the day describes some of the carried off balloon pieces as big enough to make a mattress. Afterwards, Miolon and Janine were ridiculed in the popular press, including people writing satirical songs about them.
- [18:11]
Tracy V. Wilson
The September 8, 1819 riot that inspired this episode took place in Vauxhall Gardens, not the ones in London, but gardens in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that had been named for them. I think people in England also say that more like Vauxhall, the balloon belonged to a French aeronaut known as Monsieur Michel, who was going to go up in the balloon and then parachute down from it. This was just a few days after a failed balloon launch by a different aeronaut in Camden. And Camden is just on the other side of the Delaware river from Philadelphia. So a lot of people from Philadelphia had gone to Camden to try to watch, and they had not been able to see a balloon.
- [18:59]
Holly Fry
Vauxhall Garden was surrounded by a tall wooden fence and hundreds of people had paid a dollar apiece, significant money in these days, to come inside to watch. People who did not have a dollar or just didn't want to pay it tried to get a glimpse from the outside, and the crowd included people who traveled in from Camden or from other places around Philadelphia. The balloon was big enough that the top would be visible from the ground outside the fence once it was inflated, and people also climbed onto roofs and into trees to get a better view. Counting the ticket holders and the people outside the fence, roughly 30,000 people were estimated to be there.
- [19:39]
Tracy V. Wilson
Monsieur Michel started filling the balloon with gas at about 2pm and at 7pm it still was not ready. According to an article in the Rhode Island American published about a week after the incident. One of the reasons it was filling so slowly is that an impatient spectator had thrown a rock at it and that rock had made a hole that was continually letting gas out of the balloon. On the other hand, the Washington, D.C. daily National Intelligencer said this rock puncture happened after the balloon had been somewhat filled at least, and was partially aloft. Most of the documentation I found on this whole incident was in news reports, and all of them are slightly different from one another.
- [20:25]
Holly Fry
Vendors were selling food and drink at this event, and after a while a lot of the spectators were intoxicated. A detail that most of the accounts agree upon is that a boy in his mid teens climbed the fence. In some accounts, one of the garden Attendants struck and killed him. In others, the boy struck someone inside the fence with a stick, and that person either hit him back or hit a couple of children who happened to be nearby. Rumors spread that either this teenager or a young child had been killed, or maybe one of them really had been killed. All of this unclear.
- [21:04]
Tracy V. Wilson
Whatever exactly the details, it sparked a riot in which the onlookers from the outside of the fence burst through it, tearing the balloon to shreds and and lighting a lot of the garden on fire, including its pavilion and benches. Musicians had been hired to play for the day, and rioters smashed their instruments. People robbed the vendors of their food and their alcohol and other wares, and somebody stole all the ticket money, which was about $800.
- [21:34]
Holly Fry
Multiple people were injured, and by 9pm Vauxhall Gardens was basically destroyed. Its owner sold the property in the aftermath, and it changed hands a couple of times before eventually being rebuilt and reopened as an outdoor theater.
- [21:50]
Tracy V. Wilson
In 1838, an ascent that was supposed to take place in Cremorne Gardens in London similarly went wrong. The event was described this way in a 1907 book about the gardens quote. It was announced to ascend on May 24, and people began to assemble in the grounds at noon. By 7 o' clock, there were nearly 5,000 spectators, and behind a huge tarpaulin, the balloon was supposed to be in process of inflation. The balloon was attached to a platform in the middle of the lake, and its peculiarity was that it had to be inflated by chopped straw, burnt in a brazier under the orifice of the bag. The size of the furnace had been miscalculated, and after the balloon had twice been set on fire, the intrepid aeronaut decided not to ascend. Some of the spectators considered that at any rate, the balloon could be punished, and a well directed volley of stones soon left the monster prostrate on the lake. An attempt was made to drag it onshore and tear it in pieces, but at this moment, the cord broke. Some of the rowdier spirits now sought out the proprietor, hoping to duck him in one of his own ponds. And when this failed, they attacked the glass planes of the lions. Conservative does not seem like a great idea. But suddenly the police appeared and Vesuvius burst forth in all of its fury. And when the fireworks were over, the visitors quietly dispersed. In case that last bit is not totally clear, this park had a panorama of Mount Vesuvius, and they set off fireworks from there at night, and they basically started the fireworks display to try to get everybody to focus on something Else.
- [23:37]
Holly Fry
A riot in Sydney, Australia, on December 18, 1856 was also similar. French balloonist Pierre Magre hoped to make Australia's first successful balloon flight. Roughly 5,000 people had gathered by 2pm, which is when he was supposed to start inflating the balloon with hot air. But he didn't actually get started until 3pm and the crowd continued to grow and to become more and more impatient. As the balloon slowly filled. People started to doubt that it was even possible to inflate the balloon because it seemed like the material was just too heavy.
- [24:13]
Tracy V. Wilson
They added more fuel to the fire, things started to move a little bit faster and eventually the balloon did start to ascend. But the cords that had been used to tether it were dangling and one of them got caught in something. The effort to untangle that trailing cord wound up releasing a lot of the hot air out of the balloon.
- [24:33]
Holly Fry
As the balloon started to deflate, people from the less expensive outer part of the viewing area rushed to the inside. Either the balloon caught fire or someone set it on fire. I feel like that's a frequent refrain in this episode. Somebody had possibly kicked the fire that had been used to fill it. And then people started chanting, burn the balloon, burn the balloon. The fire spread to the tent where the wine and straw used for fuel had been stored and that caught fire as well. Maghra was forced to flee.
- [25:06]
Tracy V. Wilson
During the early stages of its inflation, this balloon had been suspended from a cord that was draped between two poles. And in this chaos, people started knocking down the poles. One of them hit two children as it fell. 11 year old Thomas Downs was reported to have died of a skull fracture. Two days after this, an inquest found Meg to be responsible, describing him as the, quote, perpetrator of the sham balloon incident and censuring him.
- [25:38]
Holly Fry
A little more than a year later, on February 1, 1858, Joseph Dean went aloft in a balloon filled with coal gas, taking off from Cremorne Gardens in Melbourne, Australia, and succeeding where Pierre Magra had not. Then, on February 15, Charles Henry Brown did the same. Both men had been hired by George Coppen, who was a theater entrepreneur who also funded both of the ascents.
- [26:05]
Tracy V. Wilson
But according to Brown's account, this crowd was angry with him when he returned. This might have been because they got bored since he had taken off really late in the day. Or it could have been because Cobbin had offered a reward for the safe return of the balloon. If something went wrong with the launch, people might have wanted to claim that reward, even though nothing had gone wrong and Brown was still in possession of the balloon.
- [26:33]
Holly Fry
In Brown's words, on my descent I was treated in a most brutal manner by the people assembled. Why, I know not, but they tore the hair from my head, bruised, crushed, and almost suffocated me, besides damaging the polloon by tugging at and trampling on it. This does not apply to Mr. Hugh Peck of Collingwood, to whom I am under the obligation of returning the balloon to Cremorne in safety and declining to receive any remuneration for his trouble. Mr. Needham of the Gasworks assisted in extricating me from the savages.
- [27:07]
Tracy V. Wilson
Probably the most thoroughly documented and well known balloon riot took place in Leicester, England in 1864, and we will get to that after a sponsor break.
- [27:20]
Lenovo Advertiser
In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech@lenovo.com Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming and performance that won't quit. Push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors for the next era of gaming. Upgrade to smooth high quality streaming with Intel Wi Fi 6e and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the test. Search power up@lenovo.com lenovo Lenovo.
- [27:52]
Holly Fry
Listen to your elders, honey. You might know them from their viral videos, but now the Old Gays pull back the curtain on their podcast Silver Linings with the Old Gays, brought to you in partnership with I Hearts, Ruby Studio and Veeve Healthcare. For a very special bonus episode. Hosts Robert, Mick, Bill and Jahsay talk about how pride has evolved over the years and their favorite memories, all in celebration of Palm Springs Pride. Because pride should be celebrated all year round. Listen to these fabulous friends swap stories exploring how queer life has evolved over the decades and the silver linings they've collected along the way. Each episode dives into hot topics from safe sex and online dating to untangling Gen Z lingo, as well as insights on how music, art and fashion show up in queer culture. So check out Silver Linings, a show about how pride ages like fine wine. Available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. And now Superhuman Shack.
- [28:55]
Shaquille O'Neal
I keep telling them not to say that. I'm no superhuman. Believe it or not, I struggle with moderate obstructive sleep apnea, or osa. In adults with obesity. Moderate to severe OSA is a condition where breathing is interrupted during sleep, with loud snoring, choking, gasping for air, and even daytime fatigue. Let's just say it can sound a lot like this. Sound familiar? Learn more@don'tsleeponosa.com this information is provided by.
- [29:21]
Holly Fry
Lilly a medicine company.
- [29:22]
Lowe's Advertiser
Want Black Friday prices without the crowds? Lowe's gets it. Shop their early Black Friday deals and beat the rush. $99 is all you need to grab a select 7 foot pre lit artificial Christmas tree for the holidays. And don't sweat what gifts to get dad. They have up to 40% off select tools and accessories going on now. That's how Lows celebrates Black Friday. Early selection varies by location while supplies last.
- [29:54]
Tracy V. Wilson
The 1864 Lester balloon riot involved a balloonist who had become particularly well known because of an earlier incident that did not involve a riot. That was Henry Tracy Coxwell. Coxwell was born in 1819 and had trained originally as a dentist, but he had shifted a lot of his focus to ballooning after taking his first balloon flight at the age of 25. He undertook numerous balloon launches primarily in and around London, including in London's Vauxhall Gardens and Cremorne Gardens, which were ticketed money making entertainment events.
- [30:35]
Holly Fry
This earlier incident also involved Dr. James Glaisher. Glacier was born in 1809 and he was a meteorologist who wanted to conduct experiments aboard balloons. He undertook 28 balloon ascents during his career, many of them with Coxwell, often with funding from the British association for the Advancement of Science.
- [30:57]
Tracy V. Wilson
The two men had launched from Wolverhampton, England on September 5, 1862. Glacier was equipped with photographic plates, wet bulb thermometers, a hygrometer and other instruments to study the atmosphere and weather as they ascended to high altitudes. They also had several pigeons aboard to see how those pigeons would fly at high altitudes. We don't really need to get into the detail, but only one of the pigeons seems to have survived this journey.
- [31:29]
Holly Fry
By 1:40pm they had reached an elevation of about 4 miles or more than 21,000ft. They continued to ascend, and about 10 minutes after that Glacier realized he could no longer see the mercury column in the wet bulb thermometer or the hands of his watch or any other fine detail on any of his instruments. Glacier asked Coxwell for help, but just then the balloon's valve line became entangled and Coxwell had to fix it.
- [31:58]
Tracy V. Wilson
Glacier had already noticed that Coxwell seemed winded, and Glaser had attributed that to the physical work that he was having to do around the balloon. But shortly after Coxwell went to fix this valve line, in Glacier's words, I laid my arm upon the table possessed of its full vigor, but on being desirous of using it, I found it powerless. It must have lost its power Momentarily trying to move the other arm, I found it powerless also. Then I tried to shake myself and succeeded, but I seemed to have no limbs, and looking at the barometer, my head fell over my left shoulder. I struggled and shook my body again, but could not move my arms. Getting my head upright for an instant only, it fell on my right shoulder. Then I fell backwards, my back resting against the side of the car and my head on its edge. In this position, my eyes were directed to Mr. Coxwell in the ring. When I shook my body, I seemed to have full power over the muscles of the back and considerably so over those of the neck, but none over either my arms or my legs, as in the case of the arms, so all muscular power was lost in an instant. From my back and neck, I dimly saw Mr. Coxwell and endeavored to speak, but could not. In an instant, intense darkness overcame me, so that the optic nerve lost power suddenly, but I was still conscious with as active a brain as at the present moment. Whilst writing this, I thought I had been seized with asphyxia and believed I should experience nothing more, as death would come unless we speedily descended.
- [33:40]
Holly Fry
Glacier, then lost consciousness, and a few minutes later became aware of Coxwell trying to rouse him. Coxwell had nearly lost consciousness as well and had started to lose control of his limbs. Coxwell had realized that they had to get to a lower altitude, and since he couldn't use his hands, he had managed to open the valve to release some of the gas from the balloon by grabbing the cord with his teeth. Coxwell still couldn't use his hands by the time Glacier regained consciousness, and Glacier tried to treat them by pouring brandy over them.
- [34:14]
Tracy V. Wilson
The last barometer reading that Glacier was able to record as they ascended suggested that at that point they were at an altitude of about 29,000ft, and then after that, he had lost consciousness. But they were still climbing when he lost consciousness, and they are estimated to have reached an altitude of 37,000ft, or just over 7 miles. In other words, in the cruising altitude range for today's commercial airliners.
- [34:41]
Holly Fry
Neither man fully understood what had happened to them physiologically at that elevation, but as word spread about the terrifying flight, it was obvious to everyone that they would have died if Coxwell had not managed to open that valve. This experience did not discourage Glacier from his scientific pursuits on balloons, though. He got back to work almost immediately after regaining consciousness, and 21 of his scientific balloon flights happened after this one.
- [35:10]
Tracy V. Wilson
Almost two years later, on July 11, 1864. Coxwell, who was famous from this earlier Experience planned a balloon ascent that was to take place at a forester's fete at a race course in Leicester. The Foresters are a friendly society, also known as a mutual aid society, which had been established as the ancient Order of Foresters in 1834. For this, Coxwell was going to test a new balloon called the Britannia, and it was going to be attached to the car that he had used for his experimental flights with Glacier. The plan was for a group of passengers, including two women, to go aloft with him.
- [35:51]
Holly Fry
Coxwell later wrote a letter to the editor at the Times describing what had happened. He noted that no real barrier had been erected around the launch site and that he had to, quote, beg hard for a policeman to be present. He had heard that There were only eight on site for an event with an estimated 50,000 people. According to an eyewitness statement, no arrangements had been made for keeping the ground around the balloon clear. There was just a temporary barrier which was quickly knocked down by the crowd. And that made it impossible for Coxwell to do what he needed to do with the balloon before the flight could even begin.
- [36:27]
Tracy V. Wilson
According to Coxwell, quote, early in the afternoon a gentleman reported to be a provincial aeronaut gave it out that the balloon then present was not my largest and newest balloon, but a small one. This was a cruel libel and aroused, I was told, an angry feeling among the visitors. The lack of policemen to maintain order soon manifested itself, for on a band entering the balloon ground, the boards were carried at once and thousands of persons broke in and harassed my operations excessively. It was in vain that I entreated for and that several gentlemen succeeded in clearing an open space. The deficiency of strong barriers having afforded access, all subsequent attempts to stop the tide of human pressure proved unavailing.
- [37:17]
Holly Fry
The crowd demanded that he take off immediately, but he couldn't. Some supports that had been put up to hold the balloon while it was being inflated needed to be taken down, but the crew that was supposed to do that wasn't even there. Coxwell threatened to let the gas out of the balloon unless the crowd got itself under control because they were creating a dangerous situation. Situation. Police officers arrived and they started trying to clear the area around the balloon. But when Coxwell started releasing the gas, the crowd became enraged and attacked it. There were also rumors that police officers had struck a woman.
- [37:55]
Tracy V. Wilson
A police sergeant led Coxwell away from all of this, but in his words, quote, my clothes were soon torn. And then the cry was raised, rip him up, knock him in the head, finish him. Etc. All of which would have inevitably been executed had I not followed the inspector's advice.
- [38:14]
Holly Fry
The crowd set fire to the balloon car and tore the balloon to pieces. Many of these pieces were then sold as souvenirs. The balloon's hoop was not flammable, and the crowd paraded it around the streets.
- [38:29]
Tracy V. Wilson
Coxwell attributed this incident to a lack of foresight and not providing enough policemen for a forester's vet. He asked the foresters for compensation for this incident and for the destruction of his equipment, but because of the Aid Society's rules, this wasn't something they could just do immediately. There was like a whole process that had to happen before giving away the society's money. Other people in Lester raised funds totaling more than 800 pounds to try to compensate him.
- [39:00]
Holly Fry
Although Glacier doesn't seem to have been involved in this ascension attempt, the destruction of the balloon and the card that he had used for his experiments did cause a setback in his meteorological research. He later returned to the sky in one of Coxwell's old balloons equipped with a new car, but it seems like the two men had a more personal falling out at some point after this. The details regarding that don't seem to be well documented.
- [39:27]
Tracy V. Wilson
The 2019 movie the Aeronauts stars Eddie Redmayne as James Glacier, but Henry Tracy Coxwell is just not depicted in the movie.
- [39:36]
Holly Fry
It seems like this was one of the last big balloon riots, not because of some kind of change in the psychology and dynamics of sometimes drunken crowds, but because ballooning stopped being such a huge fad and it stopped drawing those kinds of crowds of expectant onlookers.
- [39:54]
Tracy V. Wilson
And that is balloon riots. I have some listener mail to take us out. This actually is from a little bit ago. This is from Christy who wrote after after our episode on Soap. Christy wrote and said Dear Holly and Tracy, I love listening to the podcast during my commute. I probably only have my PhD in symhc if I was the kind of student who skips classes because I've listened for a very long time. But I've also had a couple of year plus gaps. In your recent episode on Soap, you mentioned an earlier, not technically soap product related to wool. It's a bit of a tangent, but I thought you might enjoy hearing about suant fermentation. It's a method of cleaning raw wool that relies on fermentation of natural sweat and minerals in the wool with rainwater to create a cleaning substance. Supposedly also stinks like you wouldn't believe, so I may put off trying it until I have somewhere it wouldn't bother me to let it sit. Thank you so much for the work you put into thoughtfully selecting and researching topics, presenting them with care, and sharing them in a way that is both personable and informative as a pet tax. Please see my 10 year old dog Zelda. While we usually say she is a Sheba Husky mix looks like Sheba size of a husky, her adoption paperwork listed four different variations on breed mixes and a DNA test said she was a mutt. High percentage of Asian slash arctic breeds and a moderate percentage of terrier. All my best Christy. This is a cute little puppy doll. I am not good at describe. I'm like what? What do I want to say about this dog? A kind of fox like face and ears and a mostly kind of buff and tan color coat. Looking very happy sitting under some hydrangeas in bloom. Thank you so much for sending this dog picture and about suet for my vacation. Not a thing that I had ever heard of and in fact misread when reading the email. Initially as suit which is not quite the same thing. Not at all the same thing really. If you would like to send us a note about this or any other podcast, we're at history podcast@iheartradio.com and you can subscribe to the show on the iheartradio app and anywhere else you like to get your podcasts. Stuff youf Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows in the.
- [42:39]
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- [43:05]
Tracy V. Wilson
Lenovo.
- [43:09]
Holly Fry
And now Superhuman Shack I keep.
- [43:12]
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- [43:37]
Holly Fry
Lilly, a medicine company.
- [43:39]
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The holidays are back at Starbucks, so.
- [43:41]
Tracy V. Wilson
Share the season with a peppermint mocha.
- [43:43]
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- [43:54]
Tracy V. Wilson
Shh. Enjoy your roomy seat as we get you to your destination in pure peace and quiet. Plan your relaxed ride in the quiet car@amtrak.com Amtrak retrain travel this is an iHeart podcast.