Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in history class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm Trasevie Wilson. And if there's a thing we get
Speaker 1: lots of requests for it is more maritime and shipwreck story. Yep.
Speaker 1: So we're going to head back to the ocean today.
Speaker 1: And this particular incident is often held in a particularly
Speaker 1: tragic light because it seems that in the sinking of
Speaker 1: this ship, which was the s s Arctic, the what
Speaker 1: we now today perceive as a rule of women and
Speaker 1: children first and the captain goes down to this ship,
Speaker 1: those things did not hold true. Uh, none of the
Speaker 1: women or children aboard the vessel survived the sinking spoiler alert.
Speaker 1: And the captain did survive, even though he did not
Speaker 1: expect to. Yeah, he did not abandon ship, but he
Speaker 1: did survive the ordeal. We'll also talk about this whole
Speaker 1: women and children first idea, Yeah, and the episode once
Speaker 1: we have all this context in our belts. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: some cool modern statistical analysis that's been done as well
Speaker 1: as some research on sort of where that concept came from,
Speaker 1: and it puts things in an interesting light. I think
Speaker 1: when we talk about shipwrecks, so we're gonna start talking
Speaker 1: about the s s Arctic. And it was completed in
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty and by every account it was a really
Speaker 1: glorious ship. She was the third of four Atlantic steamers
Speaker 1: in the Collins fleet, and they were recognized as just
Speaker 1: the finest of their time when they were introduced. The
Speaker 1: other ships were the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Baltic
Speaker 1: and uh the pride of the Collins Line of New York,
Speaker 1: which was founded by Edward Knight Collins. The Arctic was
Speaker 1: a wooden hull, panel wheel steamer that was designed to
Speaker 1: carry both cargo a small amount and up to two
Speaker 1: hundred passengers, although the passenger space was expanded to accommodate
Speaker 1: two eight passengers in eighteen fifty one. And it was
Speaker 1: two eighty five feet long, which is about eighty seven meters,
Speaker 1: and it weighed in at two thousand, eight hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty six tons. Although it launched on January one, eighteen fifty,
Speaker 1: it's maiden voyage didn't happen until October twenty seven of
Speaker 1: that year. And like her three sister ships, the Arctic
Speaker 1: could maintain a speed of twelve knots, which is really
Speaker 1: fast for the time, and in February of eighteen fifty
Speaker 1: to the Arctic set a record for the fastest eastbound
Speaker 1: crossing of the Atlantic, hitting a speed of more than
Speaker 1: thirteen knots and sustaining it for a while. When the
Speaker 1: Arctic started its career, it was part of a lucrative
Speaker 1: contract that the Collins Line had with the United States
Speaker 1: government to be a mail runner between America and Great Britain.
Speaker 1: And in addition to their income from mail service, they
Speaker 1: competed with the well established Cunard line, which came out
Speaker 1: of Britain for passenger service. Yeah, and initially the Collins
Speaker 1: line did very well against Cunard. Their ships were really
Speaker 1: again beautiful, they were brand new. They could run several
Speaker 1: nuts faster than the Kenard fleet. But the cost of
Speaker 1: ongoing maintenance of this advanced machinery that was in the
Speaker 1: Colin ships did draw off some of their competitive edge.
Speaker 1: Uh and sometimes it would put their ships out of
Speaker 1: rotation while they were being serviced. So when you see
Speaker 1: sort of business analysis of the situation, it's like Collins
Speaker 1: arrived on the scene and initially stole a lot of
Speaker 1: business from Kinnard, and then it kind of leveled out
Speaker 1: as it became apparent that, you know, they couldn't always
Speaker 1: be running all of the ships, and it did cost
Speaker 1: a lot, so their their initial wide profit margin shrank
Speaker 1: a little bit as it had to be allocated into
Speaker 1: just maintaining the fleet. On Wednesday September, the S s
Speaker 1: Arctic departed from Liverpool on what would it be its
Speaker 1: last voyage. On board were two three passengers and a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty or so crew members. The captain was
Speaker 1: James C. Loose and on September twenty seven, so a
Speaker 1: week into the voyage, the ship entered into a thick
Speaker 1: fog while it was approaching the Grand Banks, which is
Speaker 1: southeast of Newfoundland, Canada. Also in the fog was the
Speaker 1: French vessel Vesta, which is was headed for Grand Vie, France.
Speaker 1: When the Vesta was spotted, they sounded the alarm, but
Speaker 1: both ships were traveling at full speed and it was
Speaker 1: just too late. A collision was unavoidable at that point.
Speaker 1: And while it may sound incredibly reckless for a ship
Speaker 1: to be running a headful in dicey visibility, it was
Speaker 1: actually policy at this time in the Colins Line to
Speaker 1: run through a fog as quickly as possible so that
Speaker 1: they could clear the visual obstruction in the shortest possible time. Yes,
Speaker 1: this policy was as unwise as it sounds, though it
Speaker 1: was not uncommon for ships to do this at the
Speaker 1: time because the Vesta was doing a similar thing. So
Speaker 1: I feel like it's important to mention that this was
Speaker 1: not a poor judgment call on the captain's part. That
Speaker 1: was just standard operating procedure to get into fog and
Speaker 1: gun it. It does in sort of a Hindenburgh kind
Speaker 1: of a situation. In hindsight, what a poor idea. Both
Speaker 1: of the ships were damaged in the collision, and initially
Speaker 1: it was believed that the Vesta, in spite of having
Speaker 1: this iron hull, had been damaged much worse. This belief
Speaker 1: was so pervasive that the passengers and the crew of
Speaker 1: the Vesta started traveling to the Arctic h But it
Speaker 1: became quickly apparent that the Arctic was sinking and was
Speaker 1: not going to help anybody in the situation, and the
Speaker 1: Arctics wooden hull had been basically annihilated by the iron
Speaker 1: hull of the Vesta. There were multiple holes, and the
Speaker 1: ship quickly took on water and the speed of the
Speaker 1: ocean rushing in through these multiple large holes caused a
Speaker 1: panic aboard the Arctic. The captain directed the crew to
Speaker 1: point the ship toward the closest land, which was Cape Ray,
Speaker 1: and they started to accelerate toward it, but they took
Speaker 1: on more and more water and started to sink faster.
Speaker 1: Within four hours, the ship's furnaces were taking on water
Speaker 1: and that just stopped the steamer dead. And meanwhile, the
Speaker 1: panicked crewmen did not follow the captain's orders to prioritize
Speaker 1: the lives of the women and children, and instead many
Speaker 1: of them jumped into the lifeboats themselves. The first attempts
Speaker 1: to launch the lifeboats resulted in those boats being destroyed
Speaker 1: and the men aboard were lost. Subsequent boats did launch successfully,
Speaker 1: but most of them were lost at sea. A large
Speaker 1: raft that was assembled from the wreckage started out with
Speaker 1: nearly eighty passengers, but all but one of them were
Speaker 1: eventually swept into the water, and only two of the
Speaker 1: lifeboats reached Newfoundland, carrying a total of forty five men,
Speaker 1: and two thirds of those men uh were I think
Speaker 1: it's thirty one men and fourteen as the numbers too
Speaker 1: words were crew members and only fourteen were passengers. Captain
Speaker 1: Loose had tried to save his unconscious son, although was
Speaker 1: the ship continued to break apart. He was hit in
Speaker 1: the head by a piece of debris and killed. The
Speaker 1: captain managed to scramble aboard a paddle box and use
Speaker 1: it as a raft, and he and two other men
Speaker 1: were eventually picked up by the Cambria. The Cambria was
Speaker 1: captained by John Russell, and it picked them up on September.
Speaker 1: So all one hundred nine of the women and children
Speaker 1: that were aboard were killed, as well as one forty
Speaker 1: nine male passengers and two crew members. And then I
Speaker 1: think we should have a note on these numbers because
Speaker 1: the actual number of deceased fluctuates a good bit amongst accounts,
Speaker 1: you'll see anywhere from two to three fifty one listed.
Speaker 1: Uh So the counts, even in women and children, passengers
Speaker 1: and crew, should not be taken as absolute. Some passengers
Speaker 1: managed to make it to the Vesta and they would
Speaker 1: have been theoretically reported, and others were picked up adrift
Speaker 1: in the water, but they there wasn't always a clear
Speaker 1: line of record as to what had happened to everybody.
Speaker 1: So even like the captain's account, which we'll get to
Speaker 1: in a bit, he lists the two thirty three passengers,
Speaker 1: but other historical accounts will list different ones, So just
Speaker 1: keep that in mind that there's some spongy nous to
Speaker 1: the math on this whole thing. Well, and at the
Speaker 1: point that he was rescued, he'd been in the water
Speaker 1: for a couple of days, so we we do not
Speaker 1: we cannot imagine his mental state, although based on his description,
Speaker 1: which we'll get too shortly, it was an extremely rough
Speaker 1: experience as you would imagine. Also aboard the ship during
Speaker 1: this wreck where e k Collins's life and his children
Speaker 1: and they, naturally, based on the numbers that we just said,
Speaker 1: did not survive. The Vesta did manage to make ports
Speaker 1: in St. John's three days after the collision, and accounts
Speaker 1: of the time kind of talked about the great skill
Speaker 1: of her captain at managing to to take that damage
Speaker 1: ship into port. But before we get to the next
Speaker 1: little bit of business and how this affected the Collins line,
Speaker 1: would you like to take a moment and talk about
Speaker 1: our sponsors. Let's do that, So let's get back to
Speaker 1: what happened once people realized the death toll. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: as uh, news of this horrible incident reached news Uh
Speaker 1: outlets and the shore. The disproportionate amount of the crew
Speaker 1: survivors versus passenger caused a major scandal on both sides
Speaker 1: of the Atlantic, and it really really set in motion
Speaker 1: what was eventually the financial ruin of the Collins Line.
Speaker 1: While the American Maritime Company had initially been a huge
Speaker 1: threat to the established Qunard Line of Britain, the singing
Speaker 1: of the Arctic, followed by the disappearance of the p
Speaker 1: Cific daring a voyage in eighteen fifty six, meant that
Speaker 1: the Collins line was basically finished. Despite attempts to revive
Speaker 1: their reputation with a new and larger vessel named the Adriatic,
Speaker 1: they went bankrupts just a few years after the Pacific
Speaker 1: was lost. And as a point of interest, the Cunard
Speaker 1: line is still in business today. They did quite well
Speaker 1: for themselves and survived UH. And now we get to
Speaker 1: Captain Loose's account of what happened. So on October fourteenth
Speaker 1: of eighteen fifty four in Quebec, that captain wrote a
Speaker 1: letter to E. K. Collins to describe the incident and
Speaker 1: notify him of his family member's deaths, and the letter
Speaker 1: begins with Dear sir, it becomes my painful duty to
Speaker 1: inform you of the total loss of the Arctic under
Speaker 1: my command, with many lives, and I fear among them
Speaker 1: must be included your own wife, daughter, and son, of
Speaker 1: whom I took a last leave the moment the ship
Speaker 1: was going down, without ever expecting to see the light
Speaker 1: of another day. To give you an accoun out of
Speaker 1: the heartrending scene. He goes on to say that about
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes after leaving the deck at noon, he heard
Speaker 1: hard starboard called out from the officers of the deck,
Speaker 1: and immediately after the crash, Loose himself believed that the
Speaker 1: primary goal that he and the crew should focus on
Speaker 1: should be the rescue of the people aboard the Vesta.
Speaker 1: They really did think that the Vesta was the one
Speaker 1: that was going to go down, and his account says
Speaker 1: that his first officer took six men and one of
Speaker 1: the boats with the intent that they were going over
Speaker 1: to the Vesta to collect people to bring back to
Speaker 1: the Arctic. He also describes the general state of panic
Speaker 1: and the abandonment of the women and children. He writes,
Speaker 1: finding the leak gaining on us very fast, notwithstanding all
Speaker 1: our very powerful efforts to keep her free. I resolved
Speaker 1: to get the boats ready and as many ladies and
Speaker 1: children placed in them as possible. But no sooner had
Speaker 1: the attempt been made than the firemen and others rushed
Speaker 1: into them in spite of opposition. Seeing this state of things,
Speaker 1: I ordered the boats astern to be kept in readiness
Speaker 1: until order could be restored. When, to my dismay, I
Speaker 1: saw them cut the ropes in the bow and soon
Speaker 1: disappear astern in the fog. Another boat was broken down
Speaker 1: by the persons rushing at the davits, and many were
Speaker 1: precipitated into the sea and drowned. This occurred while I
Speaker 1: had been engaged in setting the starboard guard boat ready
Speaker 1: and placed the second officer in charge, when the same
Speaker 1: fearful scene is what the first boat was being enacted.
Speaker 1: Men leaping from the top of the rail twenty feet,
Speaker 1: pushing and maiming those who were in the boat. So uh,
Speaker 1: quite clearly not exactly noble or chivalrous behavior. And just
Speaker 1: as a quick side note, when we reference fireman in
Speaker 1: this instance you probably know by context, but they mean
Speaker 1: the people that are working in the in the steam
Speaker 1: engine area, not firemen in the modern sense of people
Speaker 1: that deal with fires. One of his officers, who was
Speaker 1: a Mr. Dorian, did try to get a boat filled
Speaker 1: with women and children. Low did. But when when an
Speaker 1: alarm sounded signaling that the shop the ship was sinking,
Speaker 1: the boat was really hastily shoved off with no oars
Speaker 1: or other safety equipment. Yeah, it sounds like he trying
Speaker 1: to keep the oars out of the boat on purpose,
Speaker 1: so that these gentlemen that were rushing the boats and
Speaker 1: just trying to take them would not be attempted to.
Speaker 1: But as a consequence, those oars got left behind when
Speaker 1: the boat was shoved off without sort of a proper check.
Speaker 1: Uh and Loose describes the sinking, and he says, in
Speaker 1: an instant, about a quarter to five pm, the ship
Speaker 1: went down, carrying every soul on board with her. I
Speaker 1: soon found myself on the surface after a brief struggling
Speaker 1: with my own helpless child in my arms, And when
Speaker 1: again I felt myself impelled downwards to a great depth,
Speaker 1: and before I reached the surface the second time, had
Speaker 1: nearly perished and lost the hold of my child. As
Speaker 1: I again struggled to the surface of the water, a
Speaker 1: most awful and heartrending scene presented itself to my view.
Speaker 1: Over two hundred men, women and children struggling together amidst
Speaker 1: pieces of wreck of every kind, calling on each other
Speaker 1: for help and imploring God to assist them. Such an
Speaker 1: appalling scene. May God preserve me from ever witnessing again.
Speaker 1: Loose goes on to give an account of losing his
Speaker 1: son and watching the others die slowly around him during
Speaker 1: the days of drift, and it's truly harrowing, it really is.
Speaker 1: It's so it's one of those letters that's clearly written
Speaker 1: from the point of view of a man who is
Speaker 1: trying to do his job and write a report, and
Speaker 1: it is clearly messed up by the whole thing. Um.
Speaker 1: And it should be noted that he captained nine other
Speaker 1: vessels before taking his position on the Arctic, and he
Speaker 1: had lost only two of them, which is actually quite
Speaker 1: a good record. Uh. He was considered to be a
Speaker 1: really skillful navigator and a very able captain. And according
Speaker 1: to his obituary, when he returned to his hometown of Yonkers,
Speaker 1: New York, after this incident, he quote found two long
Speaker 1: lines of citizens formed through which he walked, receiving warm
Speaker 1: congratulations and hearty welcome. He then went on to work
Speaker 1: for more than two decades as an inspector for the
Speaker 1: Great Western Marine Insurance Company, and he died in July
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy nine of heart disease. He was seventy nine
Speaker 1: years old. And we're gonna pause one more moment, uh,
Speaker 1: and take another word from a sponsor, and then we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about some modern analysis of this stuff.
Speaker 1: So now, like, let's look at this whole idea of
Speaker 1: women and children first. Yeah, that's one of those things
Speaker 1: where it's a good question to ask where it came
Speaker 1: from and sort of how that happened, and it's uh.
Speaker 1: In an interesting coda to this issue, there was a
Speaker 1: study that was performed by the Upsala University in Sweden
Speaker 1: and it was published in July, and it suggested that
Speaker 1: women and children actually have the least likelihood of survival
Speaker 1: in a maritime disaster. This study was co authored by
Speaker 1: two economists, Mikhail Ellender and Oscar Ericsson, and they analyzed
Speaker 1: data from eighteen shipwrecks that happened between eighteen fifty two
Speaker 1: and two thousand eleven. They only included the instants that
Speaker 1: involved at least a hundred people with at least five
Speaker 1: percent surviving and at least five percent dying. And these
Speaker 1: statistics took into account the fates of more than fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand people from thirty countries. Yeah, and that's those numbers
Speaker 1: kind of gave me a bit of a jolt at first,
Speaker 1: and like, fift people, but it's only eighteen shipwrecks. And
Speaker 1: when you're thinking about it in the context of a
Speaker 1: shipwreck like this, where it's roughly three people, that seems
Speaker 1: impossible math. But then when you think about the more
Speaker 1: modern ones. Cruise liners, for example, can carry anywhere between
Speaker 1: two to six thousand people depending on their size, So
Speaker 1: that kind of makes up for those what seems like
Speaker 1: a big number gap maybe on first look. Uh. And
Speaker 1: the Titanic, which was included in this study, had three
Speaker 1: times more women survived the incident than men, but this
Speaker 1: turned out to be the exception rather than the rule.
Speaker 1: A similar outlier was the HMS Birkenhead, which sank in
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty two, and in fact, the women and Children
Speaker 1: First rule is sometimes referred to as the Birkenhead drill
Speaker 1: because that ship sinking off the coast of South Africa
Speaker 1: is usually recognized as the first time that order was
Speaker 1: ever given, So all of the women and children that
Speaker 1: had been aboard the Birkenhead did actually survive, while many
Speaker 1: soldiers just stood there silently, sinking with the ship into
Speaker 1: shark infested waters. According to Ellender and Ericson's findings, women
Speaker 1: were only half as likely to survive a shipwreck as men.
Speaker 1: Crew members had an eighteen point seven percent greater chance
Speaker 1: of survival than passengers, and only seven out of sixteen
Speaker 1: captains actually went down with the ship and their data set.
Speaker 1: And furthermore, UH women had the worst survival rates on
Speaker 1: British vessels, even though the women and Children first order
Speaker 1: is documented is having having been given much more frequently
Speaker 1: on British ships than other vessels. Yeah, and today people
Speaker 1: look at it as sort of a victory in British sensibility. UH.
Speaker 1: In particular, prior to this research, there had been a
Speaker 1: theory that selfish behavior would more likely erupt on fast
Speaker 1: sinking ships, while a slower sinking would allow people who
Speaker 1: were involved to stay calmer and exhibit more socially accepted
Speaker 1: behavior patterns. But Elfinder and Ericson found that it was
Speaker 1: actually the captain's behavior rather than a time sensitive situation
Speaker 1: that tended to determine the cruise behavior. So in only
Speaker 1: five of those eighteen sinkings that they studied was the
Speaker 1: women and children first order issued by a captain. Ellender
Speaker 1: frames this information as an insight into human behavior. He says,
Speaker 1: although maritime disasters are tragic events, they can contribute to
Speaker 1: our understanding of how people behave under extreme stress and
Speaker 1: when it is a matter of life and death. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's one of those things where, um, it's
Speaker 1: easy to kind of vilify people or kind of judge
Speaker 1: them for their behavior, but I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: how I would react in such a moment. I don't
Speaker 1: think you know until you're in it. Yeah, well, as
Speaker 1: you've undergone very specific like emergency style training, right. Well,
Speaker 1: And in their particular study looks generally at the question
Speaker 1: of men and women, but not some of the other
Speaker 1: factors that influence who makes it off the ship and
Speaker 1: who doesn't. Like on the Titanic, for example, um, first
Speaker 1: class women and children had a pretty astounding survival rate,
Speaker 1: but women and children and steerage did not so much.
Speaker 1: So it was not quite so much women and children first,
Speaker 1: as it was rich women and children first when it
Speaker 1: came to the Titanic in particular, I kind of after
Speaker 1: I read your notes, I kind of went down this
Speaker 1: rabbit hole of the whole idea of women and children
Speaker 1: first and where it comes from and what it means
Speaker 1: today when since when it first came about was in
Speaker 1: the eighteen fifties, and and that was a very different
Speaker 1: aunt time in terms of gender relation and gender relations
Speaker 1: and uh, sort of the perception of women as both
Speaker 1: whether women were perceived as weak or strong, and whether
Speaker 1: women were perceived as like actual autonomous people or objects.
Speaker 1: And so I kind of went down a crazy rabbit
Speaker 1: hole of that, and it reminded me in a way
Speaker 1: of how I've I've traveled by ship several times in
Speaker 1: the past few years, and we always have a safety drill,
Speaker 1: and the safety drill is always about getting everyone off
Speaker 1: the ship. It's about like every person knowing where they
Speaker 1: need to go to get on a lifeboat, and every
Speaker 1: ship having enough lifeboat accommodations for every person on the
Speaker 1: ship to make it off safely. And the only real
Speaker 1: reference to children that has come up in the ships
Speaker 1: that I have been on has been that um for
Speaker 1: the parents. If their children are not with them, the
Speaker 1: parents are to go to their lifeboat station and their
Speaker 1: children will be brought to them by crew because all
Speaker 1: the children have to have a little wristbands or whatever
Speaker 1: on saying this is my lifeboat station. So it's like
Speaker 1: there are still special accommodations for children, but other accommodations
Speaker 1: seem to be based on like, uh, actual threats to
Speaker 1: people's safety, people who may have a mobility impairment that
Speaker 1: needs to be assisted with getting off the ship, and
Speaker 1: not so much based on gender or class. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it is also a very different time in terms of
Speaker 1: now this is kind of always referenced as part of
Speaker 1: the Titanic's legacy. Now there are enough lifeboats for everyone.
Speaker 1: They did that on purpose, yes, whereas there were not.
Speaker 1: That was not standard operating procedure for a very long time.
Speaker 1: So it did become a matter of who do we
Speaker 1: save And there have been some interesting discussions if you
Speaker 1: kind of trawl around the internet and like maritime interest
Speaker 1: boards at all, uh, where discussions will come up of well,
Speaker 1: women and children are less likely just physically to survive
Speaker 1: something like hypothermia adrift at sea than men might, so
Speaker 1: in saying women in children first, are we in fact
Speaker 1: doing everyone to die? And that gets into a very
Speaker 1: interesting arena of discussion and can get very heated very quickly,
Speaker 1: So you're not ready for very grown up angry talk.
Speaker 1: Don't visit those boards. It definitely does seem to come
Speaker 1: from a sense of like chivalry, and what we might
Speaker 1: classify today is benevolent sexism, which we I don't think
Speaker 1: we've talked about that on this podcast, but but we
Speaker 1: have on our our prior podcast before talked about the
Speaker 1: idea that they're sometimes sexism is intended to to be benevolent,
Speaker 1: even though it doesn't really play out that way when
Speaker 1: you follow it to its logical end um. So it's
Speaker 1: framed that way rather than in any kind of practical
Speaker 1: sense of actually ensuring the survivability of the group. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it gets into a very interesting stuff and I like
Speaker 1: that there. Um. The study that was done in Sweden
Speaker 1: to analyze all of this covered such a nice wide
Speaker 1: range of you know, eighteen fifties to modern day cruise ships,
Speaker 1: because that's a pretty wide variety. For example, now we
Speaker 1: have enough boats for everybody, but even so they're finding
Speaker 1: that still men have better survival rain well, and the
Speaker 1: differences between first class and what used to be called
Speaker 1: steerage are much different now. Yeah. So that's today's maritime story. Uh,
Speaker 1: we'll have more, I'm sure, but everybody loves a good
Speaker 1: shipwrecked tail, and it did. This one is interesting to
Speaker 1: me because it did bring up so many, um interesting
Speaker 1: questions about, uh, how people handle panic and fear and yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't judge anybody. I don't. I don't know what
Speaker 1: I would do. Do you have listener mail? I do,
Speaker 1: And this one is actually a listener mail in which
Speaker 1: I am going to call out to our listeners as
Speaker 1: well for help and answering it. Uh. So this came
Speaker 1: from our listener Lucy, and she is excited because she's
Speaker 1: going to New Orleans in February, and she says, I'm
Speaker 1: super excited. However, a little overwhelmed at what to do
Speaker 1: in just three point five short days. We are staying
Speaker 1: in the French Quarter, and I was wondering if you
Speaker 1: could give me some ideas of things I can't miss
Speaker 1: out on. I plan on going to oak Allley one morning,
Speaker 1: and I want to see the Madame LaLaurie mansion and
Speaker 1: I want to check a cemetery or two, but which one?
Speaker 1: Also we like food and hole in the wall bars,
Speaker 1: so I answered her already, and I mentioned Matary Cemetery,
Speaker 1: which is the famous one that's near the end of
Speaker 1: the Red Street car line. I also mentioned the Ogden
Speaker 1: Museum of Southern Art, which I love, the insectarium, which
Speaker 1: I love. If you go to New Orleans and you've
Speaker 1: never been and you like bugs, you have to run there. Uh.
Speaker 1: And for food. Unfortunately, my favorite restaurant closed a few
Speaker 1: years back, but there's a it's actually a chain. There
Speaker 1: are three locations of this one called the Ruby Slipper,
Speaker 1: but it's a fun little place to pop into for brunches. Uh.
Speaker 1: And she'll also be there for part of the early
Speaker 1: part of Mardi Gras. And one thing that she is
Speaker 1: going to have a really good chance to see is
Speaker 1: the Crew of Barcus, which is a parade that is
Speaker 1: centered around dogs and it happens in the French Quarter.
Speaker 1: I love it. Uh. But those were my ideas. But
Speaker 1: I know we have listeners in New Orleans and listeners
Speaker 1: that love New Orleans, and I bet they have even
Speaker 1: better ideas than I have, So uh, right into us
Speaker 1: and let us know with your thoughts and I will
Speaker 1: pass those on or you can post them. Uh. So
Speaker 1: if you want to write to us with those thoughts,
Speaker 1: you can do so at History Podcast at Discovery dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also post them on Facebook at Facebook dot
Speaker 1: com slash history class stuff. Uh. You can tweet them
Speaker 1: to at mist in History. We're also available on Tumbler
Speaker 1: if you want to check that out at Misston History
Speaker 1: dot tumbler dot com. And you can always visit us
Speaker 1: on Pinterest. So though it's probably not a great place
Speaker 1: to put travel ideas, probably not, but I'm also selfishly
Speaker 1: going to use any suggestion as we get from my
Speaker 1: own itinerary next time I go to New Orleans, uh,
Speaker 1: the city I really really love. So if you would
Speaker 1: like to learn more about what we talked about today,
Speaker 1: you can go to our website and type in the
Speaker 1: word shipwreck and one of the articles that comes up
Speaker 1: to is taken by the Sea eleven real life shipwrecks,
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