264: What Is a Planet?

Mark Podcast
Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto (indicated by arrows) by detecting its movement in the six days between when these two photos were taken.

Ever since the discovery of the eighth planet, Neptune, astronomers speculated about a possible ninth planet. Some, like American Percival Lowell, used mathematical analysis of the orbit of Uranus to trace the undetected planet’s gravitational effects.

In 1930, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, building on Lowell’s work, discovered the ninth planet. Or did he? (This is a special Christmas episode of the podcast.)

(Correction: Clyde Tombaugh received his degrees in astronomy from the University of Kansas. In an earlier version of this episode, I mistakenly said they were from Kansas State University. I apologize for the error, and the podcast and transcript have been corrected.)

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

eDream

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

263: Discussion Is Useless

Mark Podcast
Japanese newspaper reporting the assassination of Prime Minister Inukai.

The decade of the 1920s began and ended with global economic slowdowns. Between them, Japan was hit with a devastating earthquake.

As Japan struggled with its economic problems and rebuilding from the disaster, right-wing Army commanders took it upon themselves to seize control of Manchuria, which they saw as essential to Japan’s economic and military security.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“Kojo no Tsuki” (“Moon Over Desolate Castle”)
Composed in 1901 by Taki Rentaro. Public domain.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

262: The Long March

Mark Podcast
Mao Zedong in 1938.

By 1929, Chiang Kai-shek had realized Sun Yat-sen’s vision of a united China. But much of “united” China was still controlled by warlords, Communists, and the Japanese. Of these, Chiang regarded the Communists as the gravest threat.

As for the Communists, they were forced to abandon their efforts to foment the revolution through organizing China’s small urban proletariat and increasingly the Party came to accept Mao Zedong’s argument that the revolution would spring from China’s numerous disenchanted rural peasant farmers.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

The Nanjing Decade

“Wa Ha Ha”
Traditional. Public domain.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

261: The Great Crash III

Mark Podcast
A Nazi Party SA member and some civilians (his family?) offer a salute at the Bad Harzburg rally in October 1931. (Photo: German Federal Archive.)

The early stages of the economic collapse appeared in the United States, though the slowdown in international trade (exacerbated by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act) affected everyone.

Then in 1931, bank failures began in Austria and spread to Germany and other countries in Europe and South America, as the overlapping financial crises plaguing the world combined into the Great Depression.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“The Saint Louis Blues”
Composed in 1914 by W.C. Handy. Public domain.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Image courtesy of the German Federal Archive and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0 license. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

260: The Hunger Chancellor

Mark Podcast
A German Army field kitchen distributes free meals to Berliners in 1931.

Germany was already experiencing an economic recession when the US stock market crashed and new, higher reparations payments under the Young Plan came into effect.

Struggling American banks called in their German loans, further squeezing the German economy. The government chose to respond with tight austerity measures that deepened the suffering of the German people.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Symphony No. 9 in D minor
Composed in 1824 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Public domain.
Performed by the Skidmore College Orchestra. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Image courtesy of the German Federal Archive and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0 license. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

259: The Great Crash II

Mark Podcast
Depositors of Bank of United States protest after the closure of the bank and the loss of their deposits.

At first, it appeared the harm done by the stock market crash could be contained. No banks or businesses failed, and it was hoped that the economic damage would be minimal.

But in the agricultural regions of the United States, the crash plus a poor harvest in 1930 pushed many American farmers, who were already struggling, into bankruptcies. Rural banks in the Midwest and South began to fail, and then the failures spread to New York City and beyond.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Symphony No. 9 in D minor
Composed in 1824 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Public domain.
Performed by the Skidmore College Orchestra. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

258: The Great Crash I

Mark Podcast
Crowds gather outside the New York Stock Exchange in October 1929, on the news of plunging share prices.

Many people were worried that speculation had overtaken good sense in the rapid rise of share prices in the New York Stock Exchange, including President Hoover.

But for every naysayer, you could find two experts hailing the ever-rising stock market as merely an indicator of how modern technology was leading the US to permanent prosperity. Nevertheless, the naysayers were proved right in October 1929.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Symphony No. 9 in D minor
Composed in 1824 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Public domain.
Performed by the Skidmore College Orchestra. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

257: An Orgy of Speculation

Mark Podcast
A period share certificate for General Motors. During the Roaring Twenties, GM became the most profitable corporation in the world, and a darling of Wall Street.

Europe began a fragile economic recovery in 1924. In the United States, ever-rising corporate profits fueled an ever-rising stock market, until Wall Street began drawing away needed investment capital from Europe, and beyond.

In the US, the Federal Reserve was divided between those who wanted to raise interest rates to dampen the stock market, and those who wanted to lower them to support the Europeans.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“The Charleston”
Composed by James P. Johnson and Cecil Mack. Public domain.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

256: When the Levees Broke

Mark Podcast
Poultry and livestock take refuge atop a levee during the Mississippi flooding of 1927.

The year 1927 saw historic flooding in the Mississippi Valley. Hundreds of thousands were left homeless. Most of the victims were African American, but flood relief mainly went to whites.

Herbert Hoover, who had been called “The Great Humanitarian,” was put in charge of flood relief. But even as the Mississippi receded, a different kind of flood was affecting Wall Street and the global economy.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“It Had to Be You”
By Isham Jones and Gus Kahn. Public domain.
Performed by Frank Milne. Public domain piano roll, transcribed for MIDI by Kevin Chan and used with permission. Thanks, Kevin! Source.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

255: Mussolini Is Always Right

Mark Podcast
Omar al-Mukhtar (center) in the custody of the Italian Army. He would soon be executed.

By 1927, Mussolini had what amounted to dictatorial power in Italy. He used it at home to crack down on his political opponents.

He also cracked down in Libya. Officially an Italian possession since 1912, Italy had only ever controlled a few coastal enclaves. Now, the Fascists would employ modern weaponry to end the resistance there.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“Istakhbar Mezmoum”
Traditional. Public domain.
Performed by Lazaar Ben Dali Yahia. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.