Cleveland Balloonfest '86

HISTORY This Week

The HISTORY® Channel

History, Education, Society & Culture

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 23 September 2024

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

September 27th, 1986. Just before sunrise in Cleveland’s Public Square, the city center is abuzz with thousands of volunteers working tirelessly to fill up balloons. The goal? To launch 1.5 million balloons into the sky at once - a record-breaking spectacle, organized by Cleveland's United Way. They hope this will bring money and inspiration to a city that desperately needs both. Why did Cleveland choose this colorful stunt to repair its public image? And should this day be remembered as a triumph… or a disaster? Special thanks to Dr. George Fraser, former marketing director for the United Way of Cleveland and CEO and founder of FraserNet Incorporated; Chris Quinn, editor of The Plain-Dealer in Cleveland; and Nathan Truesdell, documentary filmmaker. To stay updated: historythisweekpodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:58.0	The History Channel, original podcast.
1:05.0	History this week, September 27th, 1986. I'm Sally Helm.
1:08.0	In the wee hours of the morning, in Cleveland's public square, thousands of volunteers are filling up balloons. A lot of balloons.
1:21.5	This is part of a charity project organized by Cleveland's United Way, and they're planning to break a world record by releasing one and a half million balloons at the same time.
1:35.0	Inflating that many balloons is not easy.
1:38.4	The volunteers are mostly teenagers.
1:40.8	Part of the point here is to bring Cleveland's young people together, and they're seated at rows of tables equipped with helium tanks.
1:48.0	It's an assembly line. They fill a balloon, tie it off, and send it upwards, where it settles against this giant custom-engineered net.
2:00.0	They're calling themselves the balloon platoon, An announcer with a megaphone paces the rose,
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