This is an I-Heart podcast.

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Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of IHeart Radio.

Hello and welcome to the podcast.

I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and I'm Holly Fry.

This episode is coming out on New Year's Eve, and so we're taking a look at a fun New Year's Eve

from the past.

It's a dinner party that took place on New Year's Eve in 1853, inside a life-sized sculpture

of an iguanadon. Or, to be more accurate, a life-sized sculpture of an iguanadon, or to be more accurate, a life-size mold of an iguanadon,

which was one step in the process of making the final sculpture. They were still in an

iguanadon, though. That's the important part. This iguanadon sculpture was being made for London's Crystal Palace Park.

And we have an episode on the Crystal Palace that was re-released as a Saturday classic on January 30th, 2021.

The Crystal Palace was designed by Joseph Paxton for the great exhibition that was held in Hyde Park in London in 1851.

The Crystal Palace was made from cast iron and glass, like an enormous greenhouse, and it served as an exhibit hall.

The Great Exhibition ran for six months from May to October of 1851, and Parliament had ordered that the Crystal Palace had to be removed from Hyde Park after it was over.

Paxton established the Crystal Palace Company under a royal charter and found donors to help pay to

deconstruct, move, and rebuild the palace, and buy a location for it to be moved to.

That location was on Sydenham Hill in southeast London on the grounds of a former mansion

called Penge Place.

That mansion had only been about 20 years old, and it was demolished for the relocation

of the Crystal Palace.

Cruz started reassembling the Crystal Palace in this new location in August of 1852.

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