Selects: Fallout Shelters: Probably Useless (Let’s Never Find Out)

The advent of nuclear weapons and the Cold War kicked off a craze in the US for building rec rooms with foot-thick reinforced walls and outfitted with survival rations and board games. Would they work? Probably not. Find out (but not really) in this classic episode. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 2:35Josh Clark?

  Hey, guys, it's me, Josh. And Fallout shelters have been on my mind a lot lately. We've been doing some episodes about the Cold War, and they played a big role in that. And that second season of Fallout, the TV show based on the game, it's really good. And on Wednesday, I got trapped in the Fallout shelter in the basement of an abandoned school for 18 hours. And someone finally found me, and the fire department had to come cut a hole in the steel door with a huge saw. So I thought that maybe releasing our episode on Fallout shelters again as this week's select would be a good idea. It came out in 2020, and it's pretty good, and I hope you enjoy it.

• 3:23Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

• 3:32Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Kablooey-Clark.

• 3:38Josh Clark?

  There's Charles W. Bam Bam Bryant. And Jerry Radioactive Roland.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  Oh, boy.

• 3:45Josh Clark?

  And this is Stuff You Should Know.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  You still got it.

• 3:49Josh Clark?

  After all these years.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  You still got it.

• 3:53Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  Hey, I think before we get going, we should talk very briefly about our audiobook.

• 3:59Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Because this week in real time, we are each recording our respective parts for the audiobook. And first of all, we just want to tell everyone, there's going to be an audiobook version.

• 4:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, spoiler.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Of Stuff You Should Know: Mostly Incomplete Guide to Very Interesting Things.

• 4:18Josh Clark?

  Man, still.

• 4:21Josh Clark?

  An incomplete compendium of mostly interesting things.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we're trying to push that out as a, you know, get both, is what I say. But if you're into audiobooks, we're doing one. But also, I just want to make sure people know what they're getting.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  And I put this on the Stuff You Should Know Army page. They're not getting 27 new podcast episodes.

• 4:43Josh Clark?

  No.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  And they should know that, because our podcast is unscripted conversation. An audiobook is us reading an audiobook, and rather than just weirdly trading lines, reading from a script, which would, I think that would dash a lot of people's image of what we do.

• 5:01Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  We are each reading chapters, and I think they're going to mix in some stuff here and there. But yeah, I mean, it's going to be great and fun, but it's not podcast episodes. We don't get to just fart around and make jokes, like, we got to read our book.

• 5:16Josh Clark?

  We had, oh, man, we will be kept in line. If we tried to fart around and make jokes, it would not be good. There's this whole time as money ethos and yelling, sometimes crying. It's a real stressful situation, everybody.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  How did you, how'd that go for you yesterday? Did you enjoy yourself?

• 5:31Josh Clark?

  I just told you, there's a lot of yelling and crying, and it was very stressful. Yeah, it was fun. It was, it reminded me a lot of recording The End of the World.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 5:39Josh Clark?

  You know, I wrote those, and then I read them.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:41Josh Clark?

  So it was very similar to that, except a lot less heavy.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was slightly nervous at first, for some reason, after talking for 12 years, probably just because you weren't there. But then it was like, you know, it was, it was fine.

• 5:56Josh Clark?

  Did Fleet, the director, calm you, make you feel better?

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you know, I got, I got in my groove. I felt pretty, pretty comfy by the end of it.

• 6:03Josh Clark?

  Yep. So, I mean, it has, it is fun. It's definitely a lot of extra work this week, but it's kind of cool, you know? At the end, we're going to have a bona fide audiobook.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  That's right, and a bona fide book that you can preorder now. And we're also working on getting that preorder gift available to the UK and Australia and other parts of the world, because we have different publishers there. It's not like we were trying to exclude everyone.

• 6:26Josh Clark?

  No, no, but we are moving heaven and earth to get it done. And yeah, if you're in the US and Canada and you preorder, if you haven't gotten your poster yet, worry not, you're going to get your preorder gift eventually.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 6:39Josh Clark?

  Wow, so for the 15, 17 people who stuck around, prepare to learn about Fallout shelters, because that's ultimately what we're here to talk about today.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  That's right. Actually, before that, I have to say one more thing.

• 6:53Josh Clark?

  Oh, God.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  I posted that squirrel attack video on my Instagram, you know, that we talked about on the episode.

• 6:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Because people kept asking, and so I put it up. I'm at Chuck the Podcaster. If you want to see a squirrel go berserk and literally fly through the air and hit me in the leg, then you can, you can see that. And it's been beamed like 15,000 times now.

• 7:15Josh Clark?

  One of these days, I hope you'll fess up to what you did to provoke that squirrel.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  I mean, the whole thing's there. You see me exit my house, so.

• 7:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but I mean, we didn't know, like, what happened a half hour before.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:27Josh Clark?

  You know, that had been ongoing for the last week.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true. That's true.

• 7:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  No backstory.

• 7:32Josh Clark?

  So now, I think we're going to talk about Fallout shelters. Because Chuck, your house has a basement, but it's exposed on one side to the outdoors. It's not an in-ground basement, as far as I know. And hopefully, I'm not divulging too much information about your house, so weird fans will be able to find it and show up.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Well, actually, you know, one side of it is exposed to the world, but the other side is, you know, 10 feet of earth and red clay. Like, it could have been a great Fallout shelter, had it not been for that one side.

• 8:06Josh Clark?

  Sure, but there are things you could do, or could have done. I think we should use past tense here, because the need for a Fallout shelter, as far as a nuclear war goes, is vanishingly remote these days.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:20Josh Clark?

  I like to think. I don't think we should get into any fear mongering.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  No, I agree.

• 8:24Josh Clark?

  But there are a few things you could have done, or could do, to build a Fallout shelter with that, that, that good side, I guess. And we're going to talk about that today. But mainly, what we're talking about with Fallout shelters is almost kind of like this examination of the world psyche during the Cold War, to where, as the, the nuclear arsenals of the Soviet Union and the United States started to build up in step with one another, and we were suddenly in a nuclear arms race, where just 10 years before, there were no such thing as nuclear weapons, people started to realize, like, oh, man, if one of these goes off near me, I'm in big trouble.

• 9:05Josh Clark?

  And they started looking around to the government to say, hey, what should I do? And at first, the government was like, hmm, you know? Figure it out yourself. And then eventually, the government kind of got a little more involved, and before you know it, we had a national Fallout shelter program. As feeble and terrible as it was, at least we had one.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, what's really funny is when you read up on this stuff, and you learn that President Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, that is, asked Congress for $100 million to build public Fallout shelters.

• 9:39Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  That is such an adorable number now. That would build like 10 Fallout shelters these days.

• 9:45Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's like, that's maybe. That's like the amount of money that would take to get like a motorcade to the Capitol from the White House, basically, you know?

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it was a real threat back then. And I can't remember what episode. It may have been nuclear radiation. We did one on the disaster in Japan.

• 10:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  We've done a couple on this, but I know that I told the story of my father, like, having us sort of do 20% of a Fallout shelter when I was 10 or 12 years old, after the movie The Day After aired on television.

• 10:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I remember that.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you know, it was my brother and I taking out, digging out buckets of dirt and carrying them out in the woods and dumping them for probably three or four weekends, and then we stopped.

• 10:33Josh Clark?

  So you guys were 20% covered if something happened?

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we could have, yeah, it was pretty gross.

• 10:39Josh Clark?

  So was it akin to this, this, this shelter that we were going to go over at the end? Was it like that?

• 10:45Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, it eventually could have been, which is to say, a, you know, kind of a concrete room, underground, surrounded by earth.

• 10:56Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah, no, I'm saying like the kind where it's like you dig a trench and put some wood poles and earth over it.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  No, this is part of my basement. Like, my dad had a workshop, and on the interior wall of the workshop, he knocked down the cinder block wall, and we just started digging.

• 11:11Josh Clark?

  Oh, wow.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Which I'm sure was super safe to the foundation of the house.

• 11:15Josh Clark?

  Right. He's like, oh, it's probably not load-bearing.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 11:18Josh Clark?

  But yeah, there was definitely a point in time, especially during the height of the Cold War, where it was like, this is, this is, we're really in danger here. The world was just kind of walking around, just twitching and shaking at the idea of this. And part of the problem was not just the idea that a bomb was going to go off and just blow cities apart. Because apparently, there was this, one of the, the nuclear deterrent theories, the game theories that, that people kind of operated under, said, no, you know what? If we ever engage in nuclear war, we're, we're just going to be attacking military installations side to side. And so, we don't really have to worry about that for people

• 11:59Josh Clark?

  in New York, or DC, or, you know, Atlanta, wherever, any of the major metropolitan cities. We don't have to worry about those cities getting leveled. But, there's going to be a huge problem for the people living there, because there's such a thing as radioactive fallout. It's not just the bomb that gets you, it's the fallout afterward.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, if you're talking about a nuclear bomb, a nuclear warhead, it depends on what kind, you know, back then, it was, it was different than it is now. But, let's say a one megaton H-bomb, back in the day, would completely wipe out everything within about two miles from where it hit.

• 12:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and I know I said we weren't going to fear monger, Chuck, but I found out that there is a bomb in the US arsenal called the B-83, which is 1.2 megatons, and it can be carried around very easily by the B-2 bomber. So those exist.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  So, two miles, everything is gone. And this is from the blast. And a person, if you're like, five miles away from that bomb site, you're going to get hit with third-degree burns, just from that blast.

• 13:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you're going to be hating life. So, the blast is going to be bad enough. And again, yeah, just for, for people miles away, could be burned to death, incinerated, vaporized, just all sorts of terrible stuff. But, if you're living outside of that blast zone, you got problems in the radioactivity that's going to, to be generated by it. Because when those bombs explode, they release a lot of radioactive particles of different varieties. And those things go up in the air, and they get kind of carried around and stirred up in the atmosphere. But, a lot of them are heavy enough that they come back down, in basically around the area, in a larger area around the, the bomb's epicenter.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, and we should probably just go over some of these different types of radiation. Some of it, you might recognize from various Incredible Hulk comic books. But, you've got your alpha particles, your beta particles, you've got gamma rays, you've got neutrons.

• 14:00Josh Clark?

  The gamma rays is what got Hulk, right?

• 14:02Speaker 01

  I think so, right?

• 14:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  I'm pretty sure.

• 14:05Josh Clark?

  Because gamma rays are green, and Hulk was green.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 14:08Josh Clark?

  I think that's it.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  And you have those sweet, sweet purple pants that somehow still fit.

• 14:12Josh Clark?

  For sure.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  So, the alpha and beta particles, they are not great, but they are easily stopped, is probably the best way to say it.

• 14:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so, here's the thing. Like, everything I tried to read about this was, like, they, they would go to great lengths to be like, well, this one isn't, isn't like, that much of a problem. This one's way worse. And then finally, they'd throw up their hands and be like, actually, all of this is just going to be one big giant cluster. Because depending on the different type of radioactive particle, there, there's different situations where they're way worse than the other one. Like, a gamma ray is really bad, because it can go clear through several inches of lead, right into you, on the other side of the lead, through your body. And then, everything it comes in contact with, say, all of your cells, and tissues, and bones, and all that stuff, it really screws them up genetically, and you can develop cancer, and radiation sickness, and all that. That's pretty bad.

• 15:06Josh Clark?

  But then, you've got alpha particles, where they can be stopped by a piece of paper, they can't even make it through your skin, but, they could get all over, like, crops, in the water, and we drink them, and eat them, and then they cause all sorts, sorts of problems inside of you, too. So, there's really no good radioactive particle, as far as a fallout from a nuclear bomb is concerned.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, not at all. So, don't, you know, if you read up on this stuff, and it said, oh, a piece of paper, or a little bit of plastic, can stop beta particles and alpha particles, just think about the air you're breathing, the water you're drinking, the, the maize you're growing.

• 15:43Josh Clark?

  Sure. If you want to get traditional?

• 15:46Speaker 01

  It's all very dangerous.

• 15:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah, don't just be like, oh, this make a paper suit out of newspapers, and maybe a little paper tricornered hat out of newspapers, I'll be fine.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  But, like you said, when this bomb hits, that mushroom cloud goes up, everything's all mixed together. And, as the wind blows, these little, I think John Fuller, our old pal, wrote this one a long time ago, right?

• 16:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  For How Stuff Works, but-

• 16:09Josh Clark?

  Well, John Fuller.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  He said, there are lots of little, they're, they act like little tiny missiles, basically, that are just going off all over the place.

• 16:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that was the neutrons, right?

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Uh, I, yeah, I think the neutrons, specific, he called the missiles, but, they kind of all are.

• 16:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they are. They're, they're super high energy. And, gamma rays, like I said, they, they can pass right through you. Neutrons are a problem in the relative immediate blast area, because they're very heavy. So, they don't go nearly as far as, say, like, gamma rays, or X-rays, or alpha particles, or beta particles. But, they, they all do damage in their own unique, special, snowflake way.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's also, I mean, this stuff is being carried around by the wind, but the actual particles that you're seeing is, is actually Earth that is now enriched with this stuff, that is poofed up from that crater, where Earth, Earth used to be, I guess.

• 17:03Josh Clark?

  Right. And so, knowing all this, like, this was, this is like, why people started to be like, oh, okay, maybe we should start building fallout shelters, to, to live in, or inhabit for, you know, the immediate period after this, this nuclear attack, to give us a chance to survive, and hopefully, you know, make it a few weeks, and then things will die down, everybody will have forgotten about the whole nuclear holocaust, and we can come back out and restart civilization. That was the, really, honestly, if you get down to it, the, the thinking behind fallout shelters in, in the United States in the 60s and late 50s.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  All right, should we take a break there, then talk about these things?

• 17:44Josh Clark?

  I think so.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  Some more?

• 17:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  All right, we'll be right back, everyone.

• 18:01Josh Clark?

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• 18:24Josh Clark?

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• 19:02Speaker 05

  First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?

• 19:04Josh Clark?

  Hey, this is Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  That's Alan Goya, planning engineer at AT&T, and he's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, redefining the fan's experience. And, Alan's master plan made it all possible.

• 19:23Speaker 05

  It was going to rival anything that was already built. And that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.

• 19:31Josh Clark?

  That includes field services manager, Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.

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  To actually see the whole stadium light up, and data's flowing, is a beautiful thing.

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  What the fans experience, it's incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.

• 19:54Josh Clark?

  AT&T, connecting fans to what they love.

• 19:58Speaker 07

  Connecting changes everything. AT&T.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  You know, you're never done decorating your home. You know what I mean?

• 20:07Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it's a process. There's always something you could do, or buy, or update. The only question is, what's next? For us, our animals just wear out our rugs so quickly, it's usually a new rug.

• 20:17Josh Clark?

  Well, Chuck, whether you need a rug, or whatever is next for you, you can go to Wayfair. It's the smart place to get it.

• 20:24Speaker 01

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• 20:36Josh Clark?

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• 21:10Josh Clark?

  So Chuck, I think since we've got one act under our belt, we need to start the second act by telling everybody they can preorder our book.

• 21:20Josh Clark?

  Hey, I took some vitamins, you know, I've been taking vitamins as much as I can.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah?

• 21:25Josh Clark?

  And I've got this multivitamin, you know, like the worst a vitamin can taste. I've got that horrible vitamin taste just stuck in the back of my throat because it got stuck there for a half of a millisecond before it washed down and it's just left this terrible taste of vitamin coating back there and it's driving me batty.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  How, uh, how is your health with the vitamins? Can you tell the difference?

• 21:50Josh Clark?

  No, none.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  How's your pee? How's your urine?

• 21:52Josh Clark?

  It's bright yellow, which makes me just feel like such a chump, especially after our vitamin supplement episode.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Oh, right. Didn't we say like we pee most of it out?

• 22:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah. There's good ones for sure. And I like the thing I'm taking go in, but I just know that there's no telling right now.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  You're like, I'm using injectables now.

• 22:09Josh Clark?

  Pretty much snortable vitamins.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  So fallout shelters, uh, it's funny here and I'm glad John put it this way because it really makes a lot of sense. If you think about an SPF for sunscreen, it's the same exact way with a fallout shelter, you have a PF, a protection factor. And that is just very simply a representative of being in a fallout shelter or just being out in the open.

• 22:34Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  And FEMA put out a pamphlet called Standards for Fallout Shelters. And they said, you need a PF of 40.

• 22:43Josh Clark?

  At least.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. If you wanna, you know, and that, that puts you down to about 2.5% of the radiation, which I heard that number and I thought that was too much.

• 22:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah, no, I think what you're really shooting for is something like 300, that kind of thing. And they're saying like a minimum of 40 or else just you might as well just go lay out in the, in the radioactivity.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:06Josh Clark?

  For all the protection you're gonna get. Another way to look at that PF number is that it's the denominator and the fraction of the radioactive exposure that you get compared to being outside of the shelter. So PF of 40 would mean that you get 1/40. I'm more of a fraction guy than a decimal dude.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah?

• 23:26Josh Clark?

  How about you? You, you like decimals or fractions more?

• 23:29Speaker 01

  I don't like either one, but I think for our next live show in 2022, you should wear a shirt that says fraction guy and I'll have one that says decimal dude. And that'll just be our new tour outfit.

• 23:41Josh Clark?

  Fair enough.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  And you can have yours printed on a button down shirt, of course.

• 23:44Josh Clark?

  Okay. That's, yeah. Cause nothing looks better than good silk screening on a button down Oxford. Maybe by the time we go on tour again, this horrible vitamin taste will be out of my mouth.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Maybe so.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  So with fallout shelters, there's a couple of kinds. If you're going back to the 1960s that people were talking about, and that is the public one. And then the private one that you just build at your house, like we kind of didn't do. I went down a bit of a rabbit hole. It's, and this is be right up your alley, you probably did this.

• 24:18Josh Clark?

  Rabbit hole's pretty safe, I bet.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. It depends on how deep, I guess.

• 24:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  But, uh, if you start Googling 60s fallout shelters.

• 24:28Josh Clark?

  Oh, and I did.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Oh, boy. It's just a treasure trove of articles and pictures. I saw one that these people in Woodland Hills, a suburb of LA bought, or part of greater Los Angeles, bought a house not too long ago, a few years ago, and they found a, did you see this one?

• 24:47Josh Clark?

  No, I saw some in Milwaukee.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  This, oh, well, I saw that Milwaukee article too. That was great. But they found a 15 foot down, under the earth fallout shelter.

• 24:57Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  That was fully stocked. Like, it was like a time capsule from 1961.

• 25:02Josh Clark?

  And Brendan Fraser and Christopher Walken were living in it.

• 25:07Josh Clark?

  I can't remember who the mom was. Do you remember?

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Oh, I didn't see that.

• 25:10Josh Clark?

  Oh, you didn't?

• 25:11Speaker 01

  No.

• 25:12Josh Clark?

  It was a cute movie.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. Is that Encino Man?

• 25:15Josh Clark?

  No, no, no. This was a blast from the past.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 25:19Josh Clark?

  Encino Man was great too, because the weasel's in it.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  Oh, was he?

• 25:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, Paulie Shore.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I knew who that is. I just didn't.

• 25:27Josh Clark?

  Paulie Shore, Sean Austin and Brendan Fraser.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Sean Astin.

• 25:31Josh Clark?

  Whatever. That guy's rich enough. He doesn't care what I say.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  So I was looking at all these 1961 period products and just like getting tingly feelings in my body. Cause they were perfectly preserved for the most part, like faded and stuff. But there was a can, like a coffee can, but it said, multi-purpose food, Meals for Millions. And so I was like, I gotta find out what this is. And it turns out that Meals for Millions was a nonprofit from way back then that is now, um.

• 26:02Josh Clark?

  Heifer International.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  No, now it's, it's, it's transformed into another name these days. I think Freedom from Hunger is the new name.

• 26:10Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  But these two guys, Clifford Clinton and Dr. Henry Borsuk, took on this task of, Borsuk was a biochemist at Caltech. And they took on this project of trying to find the best food to feed, like the cheapest, absolute most bare bones thing you could put in a package to feed the hungry.

• 26:31Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  And that's what they came up with, was this stuff in a can. And it is 68% de-fatted soy grits, plus dehydrated potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes, onions, leeks, parsley and spices, fortified with vitamins and minerals. And it.

• 26:49Josh Clark?

  That's all right.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Comes in a can and you boil it up and eat it. And it was something like two cents per serving.

• 26:56Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  And it was a really ingenious idea, but this became, I think, kind of a popular thing for fallout shelters. Cause you could just stock cans and cans of this, like the most bare bones, caloric, uh, sort of healthy thing you could get.

• 27:08Josh Clark?

  Meals for Millions, that's pretty great. I did not expect it to actually be as healthy as what you just listed off.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would love to taste some of it.

• 27:17Josh Clark?

  Well, it just traveled to Woodland Hills. I know. But just call it food. What do you mean, multi-purpose food?

• 27:23Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 27:23Josh Clark?

  Is it like a pomade as well?

• 27:25Speaker 01

  Maybe. A sealant.

• 27:27Josh Clark?

  A food that I ran across, um, that was pretty popular, especially among government funded fallout shelters, was this kind of like wheat cracker that was made from vulgar wheat. And apparently they were inspired by some crackers that were found in Egyptian tombs that were still edible after a couple thousand years. So they're like, oh, that'd be perfect for fallout shelters. So they kind of recreated those.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Tasteless, edible?

• 27:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah, multi-purpose, apparently. You could shave with them too.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  You might could. That Milwaukee article is pretty cool though.

• 28:02Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  I think that it said that, um, at the time, there were like 3,000 plus personal shelters in the city of Milwaukee alone.

• 28:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah. The thing is, is like, that's, that's probably a pretty good number. The thing is there's no official numbers for the fallout shelters that were built around the, the Cold War. Because there were a lot of public or private ones, but there's also public ones too. So let's keep talking about the private ones first. Because if we're gonna follow the historical timeline, which I'm in favor of, um, around, I think the late 1950s, I think it was 1957, in, in the Eisenhower administration, there was a report that's now called the Gaither Report. And it basically said, um, here's everything we figured out about a nuclear war. Um, the cities are toast. People are going to die

• 28:54Josh Clark?

  en masse. Uh, we have no place to put them, for them to shelter in. And everybody's in a lot of trouble if there is a nuclear war. So really, the best thing we need to focus on is to prevent a nuclear war from happening. Well, that leaked out and people said, well, what are we gonna do? And this is when the government was like, I don't know, why don't you build some, some shelters and leave us alone? And so people started doing that. And it became like a huge craze. And so shelters in, in places like that home in Woodland Hills, or that one in Milwaukee, um, that are still around today in some cases, that became like a big deal. Like, um, uh, like adding like a really nice swimming pool

• 29:34Josh Clark?

  or adding like a, a rec room or something like that. People turned to fallout shelters and they started building them like crazy.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and from that Milwaukee, I think it was In Milwaukee was the name of the website. But from what they said was they were being marketed as sort of multi-purpose rec rooms that in case the, the S goes down, it's conveniently, um, you know, lined with concrete.

• 30:02Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  And you could just sort of easily convert it. And I guess you would have some stuff stashed there in either a closet or in, in bins or something. And when you're not using, you know, when there's no nuclear disaster, you're just using it as sort of a playroom or something.

• 30:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there was some decorator show in Chicago in the late 50s, I think. And they billed this thing as the living, or the family room of tomorrow.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:25Josh Clark?

  Where it was exactly what you described. It was like a normal functioning family room, but it just happened to be in a basement in like foot thick concrete encased under the dirt.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. I remember seeing when I was a kid, my brother and I did lots of sort of, uh, I mean, I guess it wasn't urban exploring, but.

• 30:44Josh Clark?

  Trespassing?

• 30:45Speaker 01

  Suburban exploring.

• 30:47Josh Clark?

  Sure, okay.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  And I remember a couple of distinct times that we saw vent pipes just coming out of the earth in the forest. And we never saw any entryway or anything like that. But that had to be some sort of fallout shelter, I think.

• 31:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah, probably.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  I mean, they were, they were near homes, but not like in the yard. We'd come across a couple of them in our various expeditions.

• 31:12Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Like, you know, just a clearly a vent pipe just coming out of the woodland forest floor.

• 31:16Josh Clark?

  Got you, got you. Yeah, I'm sure that's exactly what it was. I hope.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, we didn't dig around.

• 31:21Josh Clark?

  If not, have you ever seen that Hugh Jackman movie where like his wife is kidnapped?

• 31:27Speaker 01

  Prisoners?

• 31:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Man, that was really good.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:30Josh Clark?

  I mean, really good.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, great movie.

• 31:34Josh Clark?

  So, um.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  That's, uh, what's his face, that's doing the new Dune movie, Denis Villeneuve.

• 31:39Josh Clark?

  Oh, well, there you go. That's why it was so good.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's, he's a master.

• 31:44Josh Clark?

  I'm sorry, Chuck. I just, I can't not correct you. His name is Dennis. Dennis Villeneuve.

• 31:51Josh Clark?

  I'm sorry.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  Okay, I mispronounced it.

• 31:54Josh Clark?

  So, I was kidding. Anyway, there was the private fallout shelter trend that just blew up and became a thing. And then in 1961, President Kennedy sent a letter out. Surely it went out to more than just this, but if you were a Life Magazine subscriber, which was pretty substantial back in 1961, in the September 15th edition, you got a letter from President Kennedy basically saying like, hey, you know, this whole possibility of nuclear war thing, well, we've decided we're going to do something about it, we, the government, and we're going to start what's called the National Fallout Shelter Survey. And with

• 32:37Josh Clark?

  the survey, basically what we're going to do is send out government officials, and they're going to look at buildings all around the country and identify sites that have the potential of serving as a fallout shelter. And everyone says, well, that's great. So like a fallout shelter, so if like a nuclear bomb goes off over our city, we're going to be safe? It's like, no, don't be ridiculous. That would cost a lot of money. No, this is going to protect you if, from radioactive fallout. You'll have to survive the blast, but this will, this will hopefully protect you from the fallout afterward.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, we kind of laugh about that, but I mean, there's no way they could have built enough, like adequate shelters to protect all Americans from the blast.

• 33:19Josh Clark?

  No, I mean, there was a lot of Americans, apparently they did look at it at first, and it was going to be like 200 billion in, in 1961 dollars.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  That's another cute number, actually.

• 33:31Josh Clark?

  They were like, oh no, that's, we can't do that. We don't have that kind of money. So it was like you said, I think 100 and 190 million is what they ended up spending on it, which to me seems like a lot of money to, to send out some people to, to look at buildings and decide what was a fallout shelter and what wasn't.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, what's really funny is when you look at what people did around the world, what countries did around the world, and how it so jibes with how those countries are still today. So the US did what we did. The Soviets said that they built a big extensive system, and they had an advanced cooling system and all these filters protecting against everything, and provisions, food and water forever. And, you know, this is, this is the press release they put out, basically. Who knows what really happened?

• 34:20Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because I found that on like russiaSogreat.com or whatever. And I mean, it was, it was like an urban exploration of like an abandoned shelter, but you know, was this just like the biggest one? How many were like that? But supposedly, the Soviets boasted of a, a system that could protect most, most of their citizens from the blast.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  All right, so that makes sense. Sweden built 65,000, which covered about 70% of the population.

• 34:47Josh Clark?

  TS for the other 30%.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  Switzerland built enough shelters for everybody.

• 34:52Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  God bless them. The UK said, you know what, we're going to build enough for our military, our government, and the royal family.

• 35:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, chin up, everyone else.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  And then Australia said, nah, we'll take a pass. We're not going to build any because no one's going to mess with us down here.

• 35:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they're like, everybody's red on the beach. Everyone knows we're fine if the rest of the world's going up in flames.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  I think they're probably right. I mean, they were, they were, and especially back then, enough off the map, or off the path of, of the threat, that they didn't even need to sweat it.

• 35:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah. They're like, hey, what's all the, all the ruckus up there?

• 35:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:31Josh Clark?

  So, but the, so the US said, okay, we've got to do something. Let's at least build these fallout shelters that are going to protect people from radioactivity. And so they started building these, well, I shouldn't say building. They started going on to private property or public buildings and saying, hey, you got a really nice basement here.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:51Josh Clark?

  Can you take down the human skins and clean it up a little bit? We're going to put some bulgur wheat biscuits in here. We're going to put in some multipurpose food, don't ask. And we're going to turn this place into a fallout shelter. And on their way out, they would slap a sign, very iconic sign, which was a black circle with three inverted triangles, all pointing toward the center, that designated a fallout shelter. And they did this in yellow in the event of a, like a blackout during a nuclear war or something, so that you could easily see it.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, pretty cool. The company 3M made these for about a penny each, and they made about 400,000 of these signs. And they would stock these things with, you know, like medical first aid kits, some water drums.

• 36:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Those crackers that you talked about, that if you add water, could probably double up as like a cement patch.

• 36:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I guess, but I think people would wrestle you to the ground if you tried to use the water for anything but drinking after, you know, in the event of this.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Sure. I mean, that's one thing we didn't mention. If you go to build your own fallout shelter, you know, you should have some food, but water obviously is far more important. We've talked about that a lot, about how long the human body can go without food and water. Got to have a lot of water. I think I would stock it up with some of that Mike's mighty good ramen.

• 37:14Josh Clark?

  Sure. Of course.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  Which, by the way, we'd be remiss if we didn't point out that they actually sent us a coupon code for Stuff You Should Know listeners.

• 37:23Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  This, this is not an ad, but they, we, we talk about that ramen so much, they said, you know what, tell everyone Stuff You Should Know 20. We'll get them 20% off ramen if they want to order some.

• 37:34Josh Clark?

  Very nice. Do you write, write the number 20, or write out T W E N T Y?

• 37:39Speaker 01

  The number 20 after Stuff You Should Know.

• 37:41Josh Clark?

  So two zero?

• 37:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you could stock up your own fallout shelter. You can eat that stuff for lunch. Doesn't take up a lot of room, good calories.

• 37:49Josh Clark?

  It's multipurpose food.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  You got to use some water for it, though.

• 37:53Josh Clark?

  Right. But I mean, hey.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  Or you could collectively spit in it, I guess, and heat that up.

• 37:57Josh Clark?

  That's grody. You're going to get that water anyway, though, you know, because you're going to drink the juice.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  That's true. So back to the public shelters. They have these pretty well stocked. They said, there was an actual booklet in there that said, if you want a toilet, cut a seat out of a chair and put a bucket under it, and there's your toilet.

• 38:17Josh Clark?

  And so when that pamphlet came out in particular, the American citizenry said, like, for real, this is what our tax dollars are doing. This is what we're getting from our government. Cut a, cut a hole in the seat of a chair and put a bucket under there. That's your advice for the nuclear war that you're half responsible for having us live under the threat of, right?

• 38:37Speaker 01

  They said, we're not socialists. You take care of yourself.

• 38:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So the thing is, is like, people would, people would, right, people would read newspapers, or people would, like, watch the news or whatever, and they would be getting one channel of information that was saying like, yeah, here's what this, you know, what one megaton bomb could possibly do to you, or if this blew up over New York City, this is what would happen. And people would say, well, what's the point of having these fallout shelters? Because if a bomb goes off over New York City, all of those fallout shelters are going to be totally obliterated. There's no point for them. And the government in doing something like trying to at least lift some finger, make people feel less anxious,

• 39:24Josh Clark?

  actually had the opposite effect, because it drew a lot of attention and focus to the need for fallout shelters, while at the same time reinforcing the idea that these fallout shelters weren't going to be worth anything for anybody, unless maybe you lived in Topeka or somewhere where there, there wasn't what's known as a key target. So that you might actually survive in a fallout shelter that was well stocked and had few enough people. It could work, but for most Americans, especially ones in major cities, you're going to be in bad shape. And the fallout shelter program really kind of pointed that out.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  All right, should we take a break?

• 40:02Josh Clark?

  I think so.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  All right, we'll take our last break, and we'll be back right after this.

• 40:19Josh Clark?

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• 40:42Josh Clark?

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• 41:54Speaker 01

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• 42:06Josh Clark?

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• 42:19Speaker 01

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• 42:30Josh Clark?

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• 43:05Speaker 01

  So before we broke, you said something about unless you live in Topeka, doesn't Kansas have silos or no?

• 43:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah, as I was saying it, I was like, shh. Yeah, I'm glad you said something. At least they'll save us the emails.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  Okay, because that, you know, we did mention, but you know, we talked about game theory earlier about how the reasoning was, no, you don't need to worry if you're in a big city because there aren't military bases there.

• 43:29Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  But, you know, that is sort of goes the way of that war goes once anything goes wrong. So if one bomb from the opposition, from the enemy goes to somewhere it isn't supposed to go, then all bets are off, basically.

• 43:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  And then it's just bomb away.

• 43:49Josh Clark?

  Also, I want to give a shout out to Robert Clara from history.com who wrote, "Nuclear fallout shelters were never going to work," who wrote a pretty great article about how this whole program was kind of doomed from the start.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  It kind of says it all.

• 44:02Josh Clark?

  Because it was ill conceived, you know? But not only was it ill conceived, they were also like poorly stocked. Some of these things that were designated fallout shelters never got their supplies. Water drums were leaking. And then others worked really well, so well, in fact, that there's one they found at the Oyster Adams Bilingual School in DC, which is a school still functioning today, part of DC Public Schools. But there is a fallout shelter that's like a time capsule, basically, that has all of the original provisions in it, just frozen in time still.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  Wow. Yeah, like that house in California.

• 44:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah, basically. Except this was one of the designated public fallout shelters, but below a school.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, didn't they try to build them to house at least 50 people? And I think they had, they recommended for the personal ones that they be at least six and a half feet tall.

• 44:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  And that was one of the things that sort of would have been the toughest, I think, about fallout shelters, just so many of them were very, had very low ceilings.

• 45:09Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Obviously, there's no windows. I mean, it's bunker life is tough going. And they recommended two weeks, and which is nuts to me, like, there's no way I'm poking my head out after two weeks just to see if it's, how things are going up there.

• 45:24Josh Clark?

  Right. And I mean, like, there was some logic and reasoning to that, two weeks and that. There's that, you would have exceeded the half-life of a lot of the radionuclides that are that are created. But yeah, there's plenty that would still be around. Yes, it was, it was never, never going to work, like Robert Clara put it.

• 45:42Speaker 01

  No, and I think that was sort of the idea of what you were talking about with the public being so disheartened and feeling helpless about our civil defense was.

• 45:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Like, this is the general public, and they didn't think it seemed like a good plan.

• 45:58Josh Clark?

  But it makes me wonder, though, is that a good thing? Like, it sucks to have that kind of mental anxiety that we all collectively had during the Cold War, especially at the height of this stuff, like in the 60s.

• 46:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:09Josh Clark?

  But I think it might have actually been good because then the public was aware of just how dangerous things were and would prevent a kind of cavalier attitude toward nuclear war, because they knew what was at stake, and what was at stake were their very lives.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  Maybe. I mean, and maybe that's a bottom-up sort of, like a groundswell of public thought, ekes its way up into the, into government. And, you know, I mean, I guess we'll never know how close we ever got. I mean, I don't think we've ever done one on the nuclear, the Cuban Missile Crisis.

• 46:45Josh Clark?

  Have we not?

• 46:45Speaker 01

  I don't think specifically, but, you know, we've been on the brink in a, in a way that history has recognized, but I'm curious how close it's been in times that we never even knew about, you know?

• 46:56Josh Clark?

  There's one guy who celebrated every year, I can't remember what the day is, but it's basically like Save the World Day, where this one Soviet, I guess a missile commander, basically had a few minutes, was being told by his computers and all of his underlings that the US had launched a massive strike and that, you know, it was up to him to call and order this counter-strike, or call the people who would order the counter-strike. And he sweated it out. He said that there, he just didn't believe that the Americans would have launched an unprovoked, all-out nuclear strike like he was being shown. And he stayed his hand and literally saved the world from a nuclear war, like, by a

• 47:41Josh Clark?

  single-handedly. And the scary thing is, Chuck, is that has happened more than once.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sure.

• 47:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  It's funny that, like, we're basically the last generation that grew up with any knowledge of the threat of nuclear war like this.

• 47:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  Like, we sort of experienced the tail end of the Cold War.

• 47:59Josh Clark?

  Perfect generation.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's, it's hard to, and the Friendly Fire Podcast, which is one of my favorites, the war movie podcasts that our buddies Ben Harrison and Adam Pranica and John Roderick do, they're younger. Roderick's, you know, a few years older than me.

• 48:16Josh Clark?

  Way old.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  So way older than you. But John kind of drives this point home a lot about, like, it's really hard to put into words what that does to a set of generations when we're all sort of living under this, you know, very real threat that we could all die, the worst possible death. And, you know, not like, oh, you kids have got it made or anything like that, but it's, it's a different sort of mindset, you know?

• 48:45Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I mean, it definitely is, and it definitely affects you from, from every stage of your life, you know?

• 48:50Speaker 01

  I mean, it went away by the time we were in college, but, you know, I remember my early years, obviously, we were digging a fallout shelter. It was, it was a big threat, and

• 48:59Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Movies and TV reinforce that every day.

• 49:02Josh Clark?

  Yep. So if you wanted to build a fallout shelter, we have to say there was a time in addition to designating fallout shelters. By the way, if you find one of those old fallout shelter signs, hang on to it. You can pretty much take it, and unless there's a close-watching groundskeeper Willie type who takes care of that building, nobody's probably going to notice it's gone.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:28Josh Clark?

  And the US government has no idea how many are out there because they never kept track of the fallout shelters. There was no registry or anything.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, they shut, started shutting these down in the early 70s officially.

• 49:39Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  Started giving away the food, sent some of it to organizations in Africa and Bangladesh. And then those signs started, I think, in the mid 70s, started pulling those signs out, and I think finally, just three years ago, in 2017, they, they said that, they said that they got the last of the signs out of New York City.

• 50:00Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  Which, and I don't think we mentioned, it's hysterical that they built these fallout shelters in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

• 50:06Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  As if that would, you know, that would lead to good things.

• 50:09Josh Clark?

  Be spared.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:09Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  Or be spared.

• 50:10Josh Clark?

  Right. So, so if you, if you, if you did want to make a fallout shelter, there's, there was a pamphlet put out by Oak Ridge National Laboratory where they basically hired

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Oak Ridge Boys?

• 50:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah. They, they had a sideline in studying nuclear disaster survival. Well, like, you couldn't tell with their beard, you know?

• 50:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:32Josh Clark?

  But this pamphlet basically was the result of Oak Ridge hiring a bunch of families, regular old American families, and saying, "A nuclear war is happening right now. Go build a fallout shelter. Here's your instructions." And then seeing how easy it could be done, and then adjusting the instructions and so on and so forth, until they finally got to this pamphlet. And the pamphlet basically came up with this really good fallout shelter where you just basically dug a trench in the ground that was several feet deep, covered it with wood poles, covered the wood poles with something like cloth, the old bed sheet, something like that, put dirt on it, put shower curtains, something waterproof, and then put more dirt on that.

• 51:15Josh Clark?

  And they actually figured out that this particular fallout shelter had like a protection factor of like 300.

• 51:22Speaker 01

  Really?

• 51:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah. That, and it would also survive a blast that most houses would not survive.

• 51:27Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 51:28Josh Clark?

  Because you're, you're just basically hunkered down in the earth, and it would, it would work for you if you wanted to. And they said that it can be done. They used the example that two non-athletic, college-age girls did it in 36 hours. That was, that was how they were selling it.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  We got a couple of girl couch potatoes.

• 51:47Josh Clark?

  Right. Look at them.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 51:50Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 51:51Speaker 01

  I would, when I was reading about that, I was, I figured you'd get maybe a 20 out of that.

• 51:57Josh Clark?

  A 20, what do you mean?

• 51:58Speaker 01

  For PF.

• 51:59Josh Clark?

  No, a 1/300.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 52:02Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So there you go. Thank you, Oak Ridge Boys.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  Giddy up, oom Papa.

• 52:08Josh Clark?

  And since Chuck said that, everybody, it's time for listener mail.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  All right, I'm gonna call this a series of apologies to Australia.

• 52:20Josh Clark?

  Oh, boy. Yeah, I know what this is about.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  So before we get into the email, I do think we should address this, that we've had some ads running in Australia only that have been no good. And these aren't ads that we knew about, these aren't ads that we read. We have a separate company in Australia that's doing that for us, and everything is under review right now because we don't want these ads out there, so.

• 52:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's a new relationship, and we're kind of figuring each other out.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  That's right. But we do want to say that none of these ads were our decision. If you're out there and your interest has peaked and you're like, oh, my gosh, what are they talking about? I'll never know. They were, you know, they were ads for like mining companies and stuff like that, among other things.

• 53:05Josh Clark?

  Not super SYSK-type stuff.

• 53:08Speaker 01

  No, that's right. And we wanted to address it head-on. But also, we wanted to address our own foibles in the bilabongs terminology that we were talking about in the Wetlands episode.

• 53:20Josh Clark?

  Just shameful, man.

• 53:21Speaker 01

  It is. And this is something we should know, even though we are not Australians. But we use the term aborigines very sort of willy-nilly. And this is an email from Tanita. She said, "In the episode in Wetlands, you used a number of terms talking about bilabongs that were not correct terminology. The term aborigines is considered outdated and offensive, as it groups all Indigenous groups into one term and is connotations of colonial Australia. Some of the current terms and correct terms for traditional owners of Australia include Aboriginal people, Indigenous, First Nations people." And this is something that, you know, we just should have known, so.

• 54:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, plus, I mean, it applies to more than just the native people of Australia, too, you know? So, of course.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, and we got a bunch of emails from people that said, "If you really want to do right by these people, you need to research the exact people that you're talking about." Like the Palawa people from Tasmania, where she's from, or the Anaiwan people from the area around Armidale, where she lives now. And we didn't do that. And she said there were 250 different languages in Australia before invasion, only 120 are now spoken. Bilabong, in fact, comes from the Weirajurri language from central New South Wales and is now a common Australian English term. And that is from Tanita and many others.

• 54:49Josh Clark?

  Thank you so much for taking it easy on us, Tanita. That was very nice. Super Australian of you as well. Just laid back and nice and not at all like chest-pokie. So we appreciate that.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  That's right. And, you know, if you're in the United States and you're not quite sure what even this means, it'd basically be like just saying Africa as a lump-all term for like any tribe in Africa and the culture and the language that is very specific to that region.

• 55:18Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 55:18Speaker 01

  And we're not hip to that.

• 55:20Josh Clark?

  No. So, thanks again. Who was that? Tanita?

• 55:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:24Josh Clark?

  Okay. Thanks again, Tanita. Thanks again, Australia, for taking such good care of us over there. We appreciate you guys. And thanks to everybody who listens to Stuff You Should Know. And if you want to get in touch with us for any reason, no matter where you live in the world, no matter what language you speak, you can send us an email to [email protected].

• 55:47Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 56:03Josh Clark?

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