Survival and the Iconic Broadcast

I love sharing my drugs too. I love giving them away. My whole tour is basically about me traveling around the world, handing out LSD to strangers. That's so great. You're the pied piper of microdosing. Yeah, I like to think of myself as a shirppa. It's unexpected, you know coming for me, but that's where I'm at in my life This is an IiHart podcast Guaranteed human. If you've been sitting on an inspiring business idea, consider this your sign to take action and make it official by creating a website using Wakes harmony Tell Wix Harmony what you want and it will build the entire site for you That's right, all just from your own text prompts And of course, everything can still be edited by hand if you feel the need for distinct specifications. I mean It's your website, your call Try it at wix dot com slash harmony. That's wix dot com slash harmony. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. I'm going to be honest with you. I am online way more than I probably should be. And between me and everyone else at my house, we've got a zillion screens going on at any given moment. So when my internet slows down, it is a full That's why having fast, reliable internet that can keep up really matters and why you need Optimum's famously fast fiber Innet. Optimum fiber blows flaky five G out of the water and keeps it cool with the fastest and most reliable speeds that don't slow when things heat up. And right now, they have the deal of the summer, just thirty dollars a month for five years. So don't wait, callall eight eight eight for optimum. Visit optimum dot com or stop by your local optimum store today Famously Fast Fiber for thirty dollars a month for five years. You can't beat it Terms apply, see optimum dot com for details. Fonatics Fest NYC returns to the Jabbit Center july sixteenth through the nineteenth for the biggest sports event weekend of the summer. See stars like LeBron James, Tomrady, Araron Judge, John Cena, Jaylen Brunson, Serena Williams, and hundreds more, featuring more than five hundred athletes and celebrities, live shows. exclusive merch, rare collectibles, Snanics games with two million dollars in prizes. A full tailgate zone. in New York City's largest indoor FIFA World Cup final watchatch party. Fonatics Fest is the world's number one sports fan festival. Get your tickets etxpest d. com. That's betxpest d. com Welcome to SnaFoo, the show about history's greatest screw ups or shall we say the real eye opening disasters that kind of show us who we really are. I am your host, Ed Helmms and my guest today, and I honestly don't know any other way to say this. She's just a fucking badass She's a hilarious stand up, actor, writer, TV host, podcaster, producer and just general force of nature. She's written seven Number one, New York Times best sellers, which is honestly obscene Like how do they even allow you to do that? Her latest book is I'll haveave what She's Hving, which is yet another expression of her raw honesty, power and zero tolerance for bullshit. She hosts the incredibly popular advice podcast Dar Chelsea, and her latest Netflix special was Chelsea Handler, The Feeling U She's one of the funniest people on the planet and you probably know who I'm talking about. Welcome, Chelsea Handler Hi, G G afternoon, good evening. Yes, to all of our listeners, whatever time of day you are downloading this. What's happening? How are you I'm well, thank you, Ed. How are you doing I'm pretty splendid, I have to say. I mean, the world is burning down, but I'm trying to stay positive. I'm in this like deep state of denial. And so I'm just saying I'm great I too am also trying to remain positive, but Yes, it's very interesting. I find myself dipp dipping in and out of the news, but when I dip in, I feel so guilty for not having for having dipped out that I can, that it's a vicious, vicious cycle. I feel like I'm much better suited to handle the issues when I'm not reading about them all day. But so many people are impacted, it's impossible not to want to know what's happening. So it's a it's a good thing to be optimistic. There's that. I also feel like when you dip into things by yourself Like if you kind of get into the news or you get into the social media sort of like black hole by yourself, it's just like despair. You don't Whereas if you kind of engage with other people or if you're in a larger conversation, whether it's a dinner party or just a whatever, then at least you can commiserate and feel like there's I don't know more humanity to the hold sitations Yes, yes. it's very comforting to know other people, especially people in other countries when they're as concerned because I'm in Canada right now. I spend raer here in the winter and be Canadians immediately and whenever I'm at a dinner party, immediately just make a be line for me going, what is going to happen And I'm like,, but it makes me feel it's heartwarming to know so many other people are as concerned about our country as we are. I don't think there's any question how you feel, Chelsea Hayler. I know've been very. That's part of what's amazing about you. You crush it in so many different disciplines. Does any particular kind of outlet more easily to you or feel like sort of the most natural fit, whether it's writing books or doing stand upp or hosting like your podcasts, which one is kind of like the most fit You know, if I do the same thing over and over again, I have a low tolerance for that. So everything's a little bit different than the other thing. Like wrriting a book is a lot different than my standup, even though they're both storytelling. My podcast is like me giving advice to people that are calling in. so real people. I love communicating with real people. There's overlap with that doing stand upp. You know, I'm about to start this our this month called the High and Mighty Tour where I get to see and you know have like you know live audiences and thousands of people and you're right in front of them. And that also means a lot to me too. Definitely during times like this that we're experiencing when you can get up and really look out into the crowd and see definitely two strangers who definitely did not arrive together laughing together and rubbing shoulders together, likeike that makes me feel purposeful. Is touring hard is it F? Is it like, I'm sure it's those things, but what's hiring to travel all of the time and go to a different city each day, but I'm so used to this. You know, I've been doing this my whole life that I operate the best out of a hotel room. That's when I'm peeking. It's when I get back to my house where I start to go wait, w, where is everything?'ve I've grown so accustomed to being on the road that it's really not a big deal for me. I could tolerate a lot more travel than your average person. Yeah, it's just like whatever patterns you get into, you just want to kind of stay in that. All right, well, the subject of today, it's interesting we're talking about travel because the subject of today's Snafu is about that. I'm really psyched to have you on the show. so I wanted to pick something really It's sort of juicy and iconic. This one's pretty epic and memorable. Today we're going take a ride on the Hindenburg Oh yeah Yeah, that big o. Yeahah. very I mean it is It is the most phallic snafu in the repertoire. What do you remember or know about the Hindenburg disaster? Oh God, The Hindenburg is a German ship that was sunk Was was it suk did crash Okay, so. Yes, Esentially it's sunk from the sky Okay, so great First, I'm going to ground you with a little bit of airship history. So we're going to go back to the nineteen thirties, which was the golden age of Zeppelins. Now a Zelin is a large rigid airship It is not to be confused with a blimp, which is basically just like a big balloon Think of it as like a blimp is soft and a zeppelin has structures. So in aviation terms, a zeppelin is likeike an erect blimp if an direct blimp. Okay and but a passenger carrier. Yes. Well, they're used for all kinds of things that they can like they started out in World War one, they were actually used for bombing missions and reconnaissance. But was it all originated in Germany by a German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the late eighteen hundreds I wonder why Led Zeppelin, the band didn't name themselves Von Zeppelin. I love this. You just brought up such a cool little nugget of music history, which is that U I believe it was Keith Moon from the Who who was making fun of Jimmy Page When he first because Jimmy Page put this band together and they were originally called The New Yard Birds, I think. That's a terrible name. Yard Birds. It's a terrible name. And then Keith Moon on the whoo was like Yeah, you guys will go down like a lead balloon And so Jimmy Page just thought that was hilarious and decided to call the band Led Zeppelin In terms of backack to the who for a second, I just want to make a quick shout out to the Wh because I went to go see a show of theirs at the Hollywood Bowl a few months ago. And who is the lead singer of the Ho Dltery? Is it Roger Dltery Yeah Roger Daltrey's like eighty something years old or I mean, something like that. He's old. and he is out there with his little nugget body and his little belly, with his like stonewashed Leviis on and his, you know, high heeled rebox, whatever these old guys who are still performing at this level. Hoas. He's probably wearing Has fucking hoas. honestly. it's enough with the Hoas. I can't take it Anyway, he was with wearing his Hoas. You've got a pair on right I have to. I have planner fres. The most exciting thing about this Hindenburg so far is that there will be no hoas mentioned. Yeah exactly because it was too soon. And he was swinging in lieu of dancing because he can't really dance anymore. He was swinging his microphone around. It was the it was one of the best shows I've ever been to. And Roger Daltree was just like just screaming and jumping on the stage, going, h are you who And I was like this guy, I'm attracted to this guy. Like I was attracted at his tenacity, at his passion for his music. I mean, I've seen Springsteeen perform at this age, you know, similar ages. Yeah. It's pretty impressive what these guys are up to. And I would like to know exactly what peptides and blood transfusions they all have access to That's awesome. I'm so glad to hear that. That's and it's it's like Mc Jagger, right? The guy can just stillill move and groove at and he's like nine hundred at this point. Yeah, I mean, he's I don't know nobody can even keep track. He's already aged out of what we're keeping track of age wise. All right, well let's get a little more specific about what a zeppelin is. It's basically a fabric covered metal framework of transverse rings and longitudinal girders, kind of like a big metal ribcaage And inside are a number of bladders filled with either hydrogen or helium gas because those are both significantly lighter than air. However, only one of those gases is also highly flammable. Ed, which one is that? Well, let's just say there's a reason we don't give kids hydrogen balloons at parties So At first, Germany used Zeppelins as bombers and scouting craft during World War O, as I mentioned before. and they were surprisingly effective, but not everyone was buying the Zeppelin hype. One very early hater was Orville Wright In nineteen oh nine, the New York Times ran an article titled Wite sees No Hope in Zeppelin Airship. And I mean, come on, he's the inventor of the airplane. Of course he's gonna shit on arrival Absolutely. Air travel, right? Come on. Would you ride in like a blimp? Is that something that would be calledool? Yeah, I'm not scared of any sort of height air travel type thing situation. The higher the better is my theory. I was researching this story and I got so into the idea of riding in a blimp that I looked how you get tickets 's to ride on the Goodear B Uhh And are there tickets available for that?? No, they're not. They're only like occasional sort of like, butzz, you know, the charity buuzz auctions or whatever. Aren't Bimpps unmanned Oh no, they have little Men They They have men. They have little men. Little men Okay, so Count von Zeppelin died before World War O ended in nineteen seventeen The whole operation passed over to Hugo Eckner. Eckner was not into war blimps. He believed Zeppelins had enormous potential uh just in long distance travel. So he thought he was like, these can become the slow elegant floating luxuries cruisers of the sky. And that That's about a little bit too slow, even for World War one, No It's not these things were quick How many miles per hour? They could get up to like eighty or ninety miles an hour So okay, so nothing close to what a plane can accomplish. But a lot faster than a ship So when you're talking like transatlantic travel, the Hndenburg could cross the Atlantic in a couple of days as opposed to five or ten days on a cruise ship. Okay Yeah re pretty cool, I have to say. So this guy who's taken over the company, he's like, I think we can do luxury air travel on these things. And that brings us to the Hindenburg, which was named after former German president Paul von Hindenburg. Construction began in nineteen thirty one and it was the biggest airship ever built. There had been actually a lot of airship work over the last thirty years Like I said, they were used in World War O, but they were starting to be used for cargo and all these different kinds of things This thing was over eight hundred feet long, which is basically like A small stadium size Wow Yeah. Yet that up in the air is quite a feat Yeah, yeah. And's here's my favorite little dark detail. It was partially built using metal salvaged from another hydrogen airship that had already crashed, which It's less like recycling and more like tempting fate, I think. Well, I mean, listen, recycling had to start at some point. Chelsea, why do we keep equating the biggest ever built with best or like the smartest thing. I think that's a very American thing, even though we're talking about Germany right now. I feel like that's a very Western thing, right? The biggest and the best rather than the most efficacious or the most Yeah, bigger is America. Bter is America. We need the tallest buildings, We need the skyscrapers, We need the biggest phones. Remember when phones first came out and they were like little flip phones and then all of a sudden you were talking on a fucking iPad. Yeah Like why? Why do they keep going around in circles? Just leave them small and manageable I don't know. I find that to be a very American thing and a very war thing. Well, you're so right. also SUVs, right? There was a time in the eighties when cars got very small and efficient. and then all of a sudden everyone just wanted like these tanks. Right. And now we have that Tesla truck that is loitering around. Yeah They're very ugly. Yeah, they give off to me rooboc cop vibes. Yeah. It's like it's like eighties violence. It just looks like a violent vehicle. Fonaticsfest NYC returns to the Jabbit Center july sixteenth through the nineteenth for the biggest sports event weekend of the summer. See stars like LeBron James, Tom Brady, Aaron Judge, Sean Cinena, Jaylen Brunson, Serena Williams and hundreds more, featuring more than five hundred athletes and celebrities, live shows. exclusive merch, rare collectles, Sanatics games with two million dollars in prizes, a full tailgate zone, in New York City's largest indndoor FIFA World Cup final watchatch party. Fonaticsfest is the world's number one sports fan festival. Get your tickets now at fanaticsfest dot com. That's fanaticsfest dot com d Hey,'s Ry Reynold here from MitMobile Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited preremium wireless for fifteen dollarars a month is back So I thought it would be fun if we made fifteen dollars bills, but it turns out That's very illegal So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at mintmobile d. com slash swwitch. Upr payment forty five dollars for three months, ninety dollars for six months or one hundred eighty dollars for twel month plan reired fifteen dollars a month equival to taxes and feess extra, initial term only greater than fifty gigabytes slow netork busy ts. Hey, I'm Hota Cotty, host of the podcast, Joy one hundred one with Hota Cotney. Okay, if you know me You know this. I'm always searching for inspiration, for support and useful tools to help maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're gonna have these meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people, like when actress Olivia Mun shared how she overcame Fier health challenges that she never saw coming. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartum depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Olympic champ Seaan Johnson revealed why she had no choice but to be a gymnast. There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me red's given me a belief that we all have one of those treasures inside of us. We just have to find it. Listen to Joy one hundred one with Hoda Cotby on the IHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts Hi, I'm Greg Richard. It's hot out there. Chill out with a new air conditioner from PC Richard and Sun. Thousands in stock, every size, every BTU. pllus we guarantee the lowest prices. PC Richard and Son, the company you can trust This Hindenburg it was eight hundred feet long. It was absolutely massive, but it had cabin so underneath was this sort of structure in which the crew and the passengers would ride and it was really incredible. It had private cabins, a dining room with fine crockery, two promenades with large observation windows, a bar and a lounge that featured a custom built Blaner baby grand piano that was made from aluminum so that it would be a lot lighter. It was only three hundred and fifty pounds. Okay, just for some modern reference, do we know how many feet a seven hundred and forty seven is long? I love this question and I wish I could pull it up. Probably seven hundred forty seven feet Okay, Boeing seven hundred and forty seven is two hundred and thirty one feet long. Okay, great. This is four times longer And it sounds like it was before, I mean, obviously this were when planes came on this closer to when planes came on the scene to begin with. So they weren't into stacking us like Sardines in a plane. So they didn't know about that yet, whichich accounts for some of their luxury Like car, the lounge. Sure. Also it was it was so expensive to operate. they wanted to attract high paying customers. kind of like I mean Orant Express? Yeah, or the Titanic, which had like crazy first class accommodations For the wealthy passengers, the Hindenburg was essentially an airborne luxury hotels. graceful, glamorous, effortlessly refined. One of my favorite details is that they had a smoking room on The Hindenburg which seems insane because it was filled with hydrogen gas, which is highly explosive. The smoking room was like this pressurized room The room itself was pressurized so that nothing could leak into it And the theory was if there's a hydrogen leak, it'll keep it from entering the smoking room and we'll be fine. Absolutely. Well, the Hindenburg and the Titanic, which how many years apart were those two things? When was the Titanic? nineteen twelve. nineteen twelve. Okay, Titanic, nineteen twelve, nineteen thirty and then nineteen thirty one we're talking. Okay, great. Yeah. So it's not like fresh. So both of them had great Great big plans and huge demises. Yes So they an in those ways. Totally. It's a very apt comparison and it's often made. Basically they're both just a monument to human hubris. If you were to travel on a luxury airship, for like three or four days. What are you bringing with you? Well, probably LSD, deffinitely, some microdosing. You know how I feel about that. I would have to have alcohol. I would have to have some LSD. I would bring like a really good book because I would definitely get a book done in that amount of time. I would force myself to read a book before I could really enjoy, you know the luxury aspects because I feel like in order to have fun, I have to also put some stuff into my brain. So I would read a book, and then I would start to party And then I would mingle. and I would bring a friend that I hopefully I could either have sex with or just have a really good time with. That's a fricaking perfect. take I love the idea of going on a zeppelin like this because they don't fly that high. likere you're probably about a thousand feet up, maybe less And so you can really see what's around you. And it's a really beautiful flat people describe people who rode in these airships describe the ride as like very gentle and you're just floating. There's very little turbulence effect on the airship It just feels like such a cool special way get I mean, not everybody loves helicopters. I'm aware of this, but I love a helicopter ride. and one of the reasons I love a helicopter ride is because you are so close to the ground that you can actually see the terrain and the topography of what you're flying over rather than see it from, you know, thirty thousand feet in the sky. And so I was just on a helicopter two days ago. We went to these ice caves in Pememberton north of Whistler And so we took a helicopter drive through the mountains and you can spin around and with helicopters, people think they're so dangerous and you know, they're probably right. But with a helicopter, you can land three different ways. You can land with your propeller, you can land anywhere pretty much on a mountain. You know, a plane can't It doesn't have the ability to land on the jagged edge of a mountain whereas a helicopter can. And if the engines go out, you have the propeller. So that's like a good thing about helicopters. And also not being so high in the sky also really allows for a more enjoyable sightseeing adventure. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I am so with you. I love love a helicopter ride Okay, so finally, interesting detail about the Hindenburg on the tail fins. were a couple of massive swastikas. Yeah.. Yeah. Hugo Eckner actually, he had huge disagreements with the Nazis, but was apparently happy to take their money. And when it was done, it actually became a massive symbol of Nazi pride U hereere's the kicker. The Hindenberg was designed to be filled with helium, which is a very safe Gas. but instead it was filled with hydrogen. This is because The US had locked down the global helium supply under the helium Control Act of nineteen twenty seven. Who was trying to control the helium? What people were just using that at parties to get their voices high? You know, it has I guess it has a lot of industrial uses or something. It was a hot commodity back in the day. It still is because it's a limited there's only a finite amount of it of helelium. Yeah. well, why are they putting it in balloons then? I mean, shouldn't we hold ont to it Aree. I agree. Why are we putting it in children's party balloons? First of all, we should get rid of balloons altogether. Yes. Balloons are terrible for the environment. Yes, they are. And I know we're watching the world end right now, but there's no reason to accelerate it beyond what we're already doing Come on, humanity. let's do better. But evidently, and I don't know the reason why, but helium was America had a stranglehold on the world helium supply And they did not give it to anybody. The Hendenberurg design was was for helium, but then they were just like, I guess if we're not going to get helium, we'll just put hydrogen in there and interestingly that actually made it gave it more lift. Hydrogen is a lighter gas than helium. so it gave the whole airship more lift. They were able to add more cabins to the Hindenburg for passengers, but it was a lot riskier But they just decided like, hey, we're the Germans. We're like the kings of engineering. We've got this. We've got a lock on the safety protocols. It's going be all good. So here's a picture. Let's take a look Oh, I like that body type You do. All right. Torpulent things, you know? Things that are a little bit heavy and thick around the middle. All rightice new truncated, a little. G on. But that is but that is that is very long Yeah, it's huges it's four seven hundred forty sevens long Wow. That's amazing that they were able to get that in the sky. Yeah. And here's it's such a cool piece of engineering. You can definitely see the lateral struts through the skin of the blimp there. Yes. And then it also had these giant circular things inside And the little gondola there is where the pilots operated. The rest of the cabins and crew facilities, so forth were inside the belly of this tube Um I think you can kind of see the observation windows sort of cut into the side there. They look like gills in the front. So the guy who's the pilot is outside. Well, he's in that little gondola. But is he's dangingose to the elements? No, no, no, it's like a little cabin that's that's hanging from under there. I'm like this guy is just ye, flying free while everybody else is okay Wow. And then there were a series of bladders throughout the airship filled with the gas, but there were catwalks and various ways that crew could kind of like maneuver around inside the Zeppelin itself, which is really cool. And they would get to, you can also see the engines, the propellers off the side here, which were big diesel engines And and the crew could actually climb out onto those things and perform maintenance while in flight. So it was a Really cool just feat of design and engineering. Sounds like a great place for a birthday party. Yeah, right? It's like, do you want a helium balloon for your birthday party? or do you wna ride in a fucking balloon? You wna ride in a giant one? Yeah, come on, let's do it So we're going to get to the disaster in a second, but a lot of a lot of people forget that the Hindenburg actually made a lot of successful flights before it actually crashed. So in nineteen thirty six, the ship flew round trip across the Atlantic seventeen times, including trips to both the US and Brazil That same year, the Hindenburg made an appearance at the Berlin Smmer Olympics. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Gerbs thought it would be a powerful symbol of German strength and technological superiority. Which is an interesting take, given how this story ends. All this brings us to May of nineteen thirty seven. The Hindenburg sets off on a routine flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Lakehurst, New Jersey. On board, we have ninety seven passengers and crew. Now you might be wondering how much does the ticket cost? It was four hundred fifty dollars in nineteen thirty seven, which in today's dollars is about doars ten grand. Wow. Yeah That's almost exactly how much I'd like to pay for a flight It's like a lot of first class tickets on airplanes are in that zone. Yeah. E like those I I haven't been on one yet but I'm I want to I want to fly on one of those like Emirates, cabins. Yeah, where you just get your own frreaking hotel room. bathroom. You get shower and bathroom and then you get a bedroom in your room Like I just want to make a round trip Exactly. I don't even wantan to get off the dam. You want't even go to Singapore. You just want to fly there and then fly back. I love long flights. Me too. I love There's nothing that more excited than a ten plus hour flight I love it. We're weird that way. I don't know. I mean it's pretty luxurious. I also think in this case on the Hindenburg, if you're dropping ten grand on a ticket, you shouldn't have to ask But will it explode M It would sure. But That's not the intention of the flight to have anode. So obviously, you know, nobody is going to be like, Yeahah, there's a good chance this will explode. Yeah, no, should you should have a reasonable expectation that you're not going to explode, I feel like, for that ticket price. Or a reasonable expectation that you'll be landing. Eact when you're on a plane and people clap when they land when nothing untoward has happened. Yes. And you're like, this is an unnecessary reaction to what was supposed to be in the schedule? Right So you're not you don't support clapping for a pilot for a successful landing. Not unless you're landing on the Hudson, like Sully Sully interesteresting. then then that deserves a round of applause. Yeah. You guys, before we get off the plane, I just want to get get a round of applause for Sully E my gosh. while we're standing on the wing that's floating in the Hudson River I still think any airplane landing is like kind of a miracle. It's likem allm I'm all for like You're for the clapping. Yeah for the clapping Sonanatics Fest NYC returns to the Jabbit Center july sixteenth through the nineteenth for the biggest sports event weekend of the summer. S stars like LeBron James, Tomrady,raron Judge, John Cena, Jayaln Brunson, Serena Williams, and hundreds more, featuring more than five hundred athletes and celebrities, live shows. exclusive merch, rare collectles, Sonatics games with two million dollars in prizes, a full tailgate zone, and New York City's largest endndoorf FIFA World Cup final watchatch party. Sonnatics Fest is the world's number one spports fan festival. Get your tickets now at Betxpest d. com. That's betxpest dot com Hey,'s Ran Reynold here from Mit Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for fifteen dollars a month is back So I thought it would be fun if we made fifteen dollars bills, but it turns out It's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at mintmobile dot com slash switch. Upront payment forty dollars for three mons, ninety doll for six months one hundred eighty dollars for twel month, reired fifteen dollars month equalent to taxes extra. initial term only greater than fifty gigabytes slow netork is busy term. Hey, I'm Hota Cott, host of the podcast, Joy one hundred one with Hoda Cot me. Okay, if you know me You know this. I'm always searching for inspiration, for support and useful tools to help maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're gonna have these meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people, like when actress Olivia Mun shared how she overcame fierce health challenges that she never saw coming. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartum depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Olympic champ Seaan Johnson revealed why she had no choice but to be a gymnast. There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me it's given me a belief that we all have one of those treasures inside of us, we just have to find it. Listen to Joy one hundred one with Hoda Cotby on the IHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts Thays first times only happen once. That first kiss That first doess It's like the first time ever time As resorts, Jamaica. So may sixth, nineteen thirty seven, the Hindenburg arrives in Lakehurst Naval Air station and the weather is garbage. There's thunderstorms, delays, the Hindenburg circles for a while. This is It's nothing unheard of, but the vibes are definitely off. So finally at seven twenty five PM, the ship comes in to dock. It's an interesting process. In this instance, they were going to drop ropes from the from the Zeppelin that would then be attached to winches and they kind of pull it down to the ground gently. It also has ballast tanks inside of it full of water, which it can drop to change its sort of buoyancy in the sky. It's very cool technology. Anyway, it's coming in for the landing. It drops the winch cables and then E just goes horribly wrong and it's like the sky itself exes in just thirty four seconds, the largest airship ever built turns into a catastrophic inferno as it's still in the sky and it collapses down onto the airfield, in a massive massive explosion. It is truly an incredible thing to watch. You can Google the newsreel footage. It is It is wild. We can look at a photo here. You know what that reminds me of the Challenger Space Suttle, watching that implode. Yes, Yes. Wow So in this picture, it looks like it's crashing into a tower. That's actually a justust in the foreground, the Zeppelin is way in the background of this photo. It's just simply exploding This, I believe is the same photo that Led Zeppelin used on their first album cover Um Yeah. Really Yeah, and apparently, the Zeppelin family estate was outraged by this and tried to sue Led Zeppelin or something. But yeah, this is the beginning of the explosion. It then sort of drops and hits the ground and the whole thing is enveloped in flames There are a lot of harrowing firsthand accounts of what went down. One passenger was thrown out a window by his mother and survived. A cabin boy was miraculously saved by a ruptured water tank which ended up tipping over and drenching him so that he could then kick open a hatch and escape without burning And did he survive? He did. There's a really famous radio recording of Herb Morrison was recording a broadcast during this. It became one of the most iconic disaster broadcasts of all time. It's where we get the phrase, o the humanity. This is this is what he shouts in real time as he's watching the Hindenburg crash. It's a really wild recording. I suggest Googling it because it's just such a fascinating little nugget of history. But he's sort of narrating in a very calm like, oh here we are in Lakehurst, New Jersey with the famous Hindenburg Dirgible coming in for a le. I mean, I'm making this up, but then all of a sudden he's like, Oh no. Oh the fire starting. What is this? This is the worst catastrophe in humanity. And then he says, o the humanity. and that's like something people say to this day. Yeah, it is. It's interesting that that's how it was coined. Oh the humanity because it's o It's almost the opposite of humanity. What he thought he was witnessing was Total loss He thought everyone on board the Hindenberurg was just scorched. He was so mortified that he thought he was just witnessing a mass death as we will learearn there were A lot of survivors, which is incredible. when you watch the footage, it's totally incredible I would credit that with it not being a plane in the sky. don't you think? The proximity to the ground is a major factor. You could actually jump out. Oh for sure. and it's a much more gentle process the landing of Zeppelin is like sort of like a balloon coming down. And so it's inherently more Like there's no there's no high speed you all the things that that make air travel so much more inherently dangerous. Now disaster happens and there's no there's no decency, a moment of decency where anybody can back their comments are actually mourn for the loss of a life. Yeah. It's just an attack. So yeah.. God, I never thought I would want to be around during the Hindenburg, but now you're making melancholy and nostalgic Well That's what we do here at Snnafu. I didn't even know exactly what the Hindenburg was when we started this podcast. So look how far I've already come. I know. This is the fun. You get to come on and learn something, maybe have a few chuckles and yeah And I might tug at your heartstrings a little bit. Who knows Here's the wild part, despite the scale of this disaster, which was huge Out of the ninety seven people on booard the Hindenburg, only thirty five were killed That's thirteen passengers and twenty two crew members. Now there was also one of the groundworers also perished, which brings the total to thirty six. Now this is obviously still very tragic, but honestly, it's astonishing given That photo we just looked at. Right? Yeah, that's pretty incredible. that many people survived. Wow. I would never have guessed that Yeah, it's totally incredible. So what actually happened? Why did it explode The investigations that followed were murky. The US and Germany both had strong incentives not to take the blame. Germany pushed sabotage theories, quietly pointing to crew members. Others floated the idea that Hitler himself might have ordered it as a way to punish Hugo Eckner for being openly anti Nazi. Most historians today agree there's no solid evidence for sabotage No single cause was ever proven beyond doubt. The leading theory is that a static charge from the storm ignited a hydrogen leak somewhere in the zeppelin itself. What was their reasoning for using the hydrogen rather than the helium? because they didn't have access to the helium? Yeah, because we wouldn't give them any helium. Oh, okay, so they it wasn't a secret that they used the hydrogen No, no, they were they they definitely chose to use the hydrogen and they You know, they they thought they had enough safety protocols in place and to their credit, they had a lot of successful transatlantic flights with this thing. Right Okay. So they they just thought they could manage the risk. and it turns out they couldn't. there if you really, if you do some real deep dives on it, there are some some really interesting theories on what might have caused the The spark, all it would take is a spark prevailing theory is that it was a static charge from the storm So in the nineteen sixties, a former NASA scientist argued that it may not have been the hydrogen at all, but in fact, the flammable outer coating, that idea has some merit, but most scientists are skeptical of that However it started, the result was that the Hindenburg permanently killed the dream of airship travel and not because it was the first Zeppelin to burn. lotots had gone up in flames before. This one was just too big and too hyped and too public. It was like such a massive thing. All of a sudden the public is like, we ain't getting on those things anymore. Tell me this, if you have the answer to this, Ed So in terms of flight and air travel, this was happening while planes were also starting to be built or regular planes like you know what we know as jets or It was this a prelude to air travel. There's a lot of parallel development going on. because that would have been a totally different way to travel than what we're doing I mean, I don't know how long it would have lasted before, you know, there was another incident but I mean, it's an air ship we're talking about and we're talking about a blimp. You know what I mean? Like's a a whole different kind of air philosophy. Yeah, it is. and I I still kind of hope that it comes back. I mean, there are some companies that are trying to develop modern airships. they do have certain advantages. They're extremely efficient. They can be very effective in disaster recovery because they can deliver things very gently to you know horrible disaster areas or remote areas. I personally hope that it He starts to become passenger travel again because I'm I'm just so fucking psyched to ride a blimp. I don't know why. You are very passionate about it and I'm not disagreeing with you. kind of sounds like I just I worry about the alacrity with which you can get there. You know what I mean? Yeah Wh would Why would you opt for that when you can get somewhere in half the time? Its it's the slowness is the point Right Like that's we were just talking about how how long we love long flights. To me like I don't know, two or three days to get to Hawaii or whatever it's like, I'll take it. I'll just chill out. Yeah, that would be an interesting survey to see how many people would be willing to forego. People want to go to Hawaii, right? They want to go for seven days. They don't want to go for three days. If it takes you three days there and three days back, or maybe you just use it on the outbound and then you take a regular plane on the way home. It's very retro Yeah All right, so that is essentially the Hindenburg story. It's an Icarus story. We flew too close to the sun and we just we crashed and burned