Episode #092321: The Statue of Liberty

You've seen her there in NY Harbor, standing tall. But do you know the story of how she came to be? Learn all about the Statue of Liberty today.

AI Summary

# Stuff You Should Know - The Statue of Liberty

This episode explores the fascinating history behind one of America's most iconic monuments, the Statue of Liberty, which was actually a gift not from the French government, but from everyday French people who raised funds through innovative crowdfunding methods. Josh and Chuck dive into how visionary Édouard de la Boule dreamed up the idea in 1865 as a symbol of democracy and freedom, how sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi designed it (using his mother's face and wife's body, which gets appropriately weird), and the incredible engineering challenges that Gustave Eiffel solved to make it structurally sound. They cover the mind-blowing construction process that involved plum lines, pantographs, and hammering thousands of copper sheets into shape, plus how American newspaper tycoon Joseph Pulitzer's crowdfunding campaign helped complete the pedestal and launch one of history's first viral fundraising efforts.

Movies Discussed

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

2000

★ 7.6

"on like those cop procedurals like CSI or whatever, they'll have like the red dowels — Josh compares the plumb line measurement technique used on the Statue of Liberty to methods shown in CSI crime shows." — Josh

Planet of the Apes

1968 1h 52m

★ 7.6

"we know that the restoration worked at least until the year 3978, thanks to the Planet of the Apes movies — Chuck references Planet of the Apes as a joke about the Statue of Liberty still standing in the distant future." — Chuck

Seinfeld

1989

★ 8.3

"it's like the Seinfeld gag when they uh, when they talk about uh, we're gonna try and like make up some airtime — Josh references a Seinfeld joke about flying faster to make up airtime, comparing it to a point about speed." — Josh

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