The Exploding Whale (1970)
This Day (An America 250 History Show)
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.5 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 November 2023
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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It’s November 12th. This day in 1970, a small town in Oregon decides that the best way to get rid of a massive whale that has washed up on its shores is by… dynamiting it into oblivion.
Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss why the plan went so awry, pay tribute to the one local who was trying to warn everyone — and discuss how footage of the incident became one of the first viral videos.
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia. |
| 0:07.0 | My name is Jody Avergan. |
| 0:09.0 | This day, November 12th, 1970, I'm not sure what it says about our listeners, that this is one of the |
| 0:17.3 | most requested stories that we have heard about and not gotten to yet on this show. |
| 0:21.6 | But this day, November 12th, 1970 on a remote beach south of |
| 0:26.7 | Florence, Oregon, a 45-foot long sperm whale has washed up onto the beach. The town is confused about how exactly they are going to get rid of this thing, and they decide that the best answer is to blow it up. |
| 0:40.0 | And not just blow it up, but to blow it up using way too much dynamite. |
| 0:46.0 | I don't know I don't have to say much more beyond that. |
| 0:49.0 | This is the exploding whale in Oregon from 1970. |
| 0:52.0 | There are videos of it floating around on the internet. |
| 0:54.4 | It is one of the most miraculous things |
| 0:56.3 | in American history. |
| 0:57.6 | And let's talk about it here, as always, |
| 0:59.2 | Nicole Hemmer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there. Hello Jody. Hey there. Happy |
| 1:06.7 | exploding sperm whale day. Maybe we all commemorate it every year. |
| 1:13.0 | We will get to how this story got kind of rescued |
| 1:15.8 | and sort of has become this sort of interesting meme. |
| 1:18.2 | A lot of it is due to the humorous Dave Barry |
| 1:20.7 | who kind of discovered this and started writing about it. And he's referred to it the same way that I referred to it in the intro as kind of maybe the greatest thing that's ever happened in American history. |
| 1:28.0 | So, we'll see if you agree. |
| 1:31.0 | But I don't know. How does a 45 foot sperm whale end up lodged on a |
| 1:35.3 | beach and thrust the town into figuring out the hell do we do next? I think this is |
... |
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