Napalming Harvard's Soccer Field (1942)

This Day in Esoteric Political History

Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

History

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2023

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s July 4th. This day in 1942, researchers at Harvard conducted the first ever napalm test — right in the middle of Harvard’s soccer field.

Jody, NIki, and Kellie discuss how napalm was developed on campus, and why people thought it was a good idea to test a weapon of mass destruction in such a prominent location.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.
0:07.6	My name is Jody Avrogan.
0:11.6	This day it's our July 4th episode. It's a bit of a strange one, but let's go to Boston, Massachusetts, and let's go to present day Boston.
0:19.0	Imagine you are walking through the parking lot near Harvard Stadium and there's the big
0:24.7	stadium Harvard Stadium and around it there's what's now known as O'Hare Field
0:28.3	which is mostly used for the soccer team's practice. It's a very normal
0:32.4	looking athletic facility it's a very normal looking athletic facility.
0:33.7	It's a normal parking lot.
0:35.2	But then something catches your eye.
0:37.1	It looks like a parking sign, red and white,
0:39.5	but it's actually a historical marker,
0:41.7	a sort of unofficial historical marker, with a black and white picture on it from inside the
0:45.9	stadium and then the sign says napalm test number one July 4th, 1942.
0:53.7	Now, what is going on here?
0:55.1	Well, it turns out that on July 4th, 1942, the first ever test of Napalm
1:00.1	took place inside that stadium.
1:02.6	Let me read for you from the Harvard Crimson newspaper in 1942 a few months after this
1:07.4	incident.
1:08.7	This is what the Crimson reported.
1:10.4	As firemen and groundspeapers looked on from the sidelines and players hit volleys in the adjacent tennis courts, a group of scientists and assistants towed a 70-pound napalm bomb to the center of the field, bolting it to the top of a metal stand and then boom, they blew it up.
1:26.9	There is actually a photo of this moment.
1:28.7	It's absolutely wild.
	...

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