Unraveling a Mapmaker’s Dangerous Decision

Overheard at National Geographic

National Geographic

Science, Society & Culture

4.5 • 10.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2021

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For much of recorded history, maps have helped us define where we live and who we are. National Geographic writer Freddie Wilkinson shows us how one small line on a map led to a bitter conflict in another country, thousands of miles away. For more information on this episode, visit nationalgeographic.com/overheard. Want more? Everyone knows Mt. Everest is the tallest mountain in the world, but exactly how tall is it? The science and politics behind finding that number is surprisingly complicated. A team from Nepal and China recently came up with a new official height. The world's second tallest mountain, K2, is only a few miles away from Hodgson's line and the Siachen glacier. Just a few months ago a team of 10 Nepalis completed the first winter climb of the mountain. The history of the Kashmir conflict is complicated. Here's a straightforward explainer of how it all started. Also explore: Magazine subscribers can read Freddie Wilkinson’s full article, including more details about Robert Hodgson’s life and our geography team's detailed maps of the Siachen glacier. If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please consider a National Geographic subscription. Go to natgeo.com/exploremore to subscribe today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	So I told them they didn't have a chance and for the sake of their wives and children,
0:11.7	they should vacate the area and go back.
0:15.3	Both of them this sunk and at that time I heard the cocking of weapons.
0:20.7	Once both of them caught their weapons I knew they meant business.
0:24.9	This is Brigadier Abdul-Rachman the Law.
0:28.6	An retired Pakistani Army officer.
0:31.4	His son helped him set up a Skype call with me from his home in Raoul Pindi, where I
0:35.6	could hear small children in the Muslim call to prayer in the background.
0:39.4	He's wearing a traditional wool poccle cap, a thick parka, and spoke through a long-grey
0:45.0	beard about events in 1989 that have made him famous in Pakistan.
0:51.1	I was nominated to personally lead this operation of assault on the enemy position and to dislodge
0:58.2	him from height to 215 weight.
1:01.5	Height 22158
1:04.6	And just about any other part of the world, this peak would be a major tourist destination.
1:09.4	A place ambitious climbers would flock to.
1:12.8	It's taller than the tallest mountains in North America, Africa, Europe, and Antarctica.
1:18.4	But in the Kera Koram, home to some of the world's most colossal mountains, known as
1:23.0	Bader-Deeven Name it, or dozens of other similar peaks around it.
1:27.6	It's referred to on maps only by its height and feet.
1:31.5	Nevertheless, it holds the significant if macabre distinction.
1:36.0	Never in the history of mankind has there been ground combat at the altitude of 21158 feet.
1:47.0	So this is a record.
	...

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