DayStrider: Tales from a Time Traveler

Feb 23rd: The Little Frozen Hero

• Truman Pastworthy • Episode 8

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The amazing inventions and discoveries that happened on February 23rd are the result of some persistent folks that never gave up.  Make some time to explore the richness of today: 

  • The invention of the first penny candy
  • The coming of age of the most important metal in your lives
  • A colorful retelling of a crazy temper tantrum that happened on this day   

If it's a special day for you or for someone you care about, why not learn a little more about today by listening to some fun, engaging stories.  If you need some great gift ideas, we have those too (along with links to where you can find them on Amazon).

I mentioned two fun YouTube videos as well as an MIT report, here they are (these links worked in early 2024 - not sure how long the links will be available):

  • Mr. Beast’s YouTube video link
  • MatPat’s YouTube video link
  • The MIT Aluminum Foil Hat Study link


Gift ideas for folks who celebrate February 23rd for any reason:

Full disclosure:  If you use these gift idea links, I will make a small commiss

Text me your favorite time travel movie!!!


~~~ DayStrider Fun ~~~


Do you want to be mentioned here in the podcast? Or do you want me to do a shout-out for a loved one? All you need to do is send me an e-mail: daystriderstories@gmail.com


Better yet, you can record your own shout-out by leaving me a voice message using this SpeakPipe link


Do you have a story that you wish to share? Join me as a guest and let’s tell the world together! Once again, just send me an e-mail or find me here on Facebook: Truman Pastworthy


If you had as much fun listening as I did creating this episode, please click "follow" in your favorite podcast platform . . . oh . . . and even better - why not share it with a friend (or three)! I’m betting you know just the perfect person who would enjoy today’s stories!


If you feel adventurous, how 'bout writing a great review? :-)



SPEAKER_01:

Welcome Seekers! If February 23rd is your special day, or if it's special for someone you care about, then come stride through history with me. I've got some great stories to share with you about some things that happened on this day in the past. This special day in history witnessed the birth of the very first penny candy, the day the 13th element came of age, and a temper tantrum still celebrated 40 years later. That's some great company to be in, my friend, so let's get to it. Welcome, seekers, to the enchanting world of Daystrider, the podcast where we embark on a daily journey through history. I'm your travel guide, Truman Pastworthy, and together we'll explore some fascinating stories that happened on this exact day, but from some time in the past. From groundbreaking inventions to remarkable birthdays and extraordinary events to quirky national holidays, we've got it all. So kick back, relax, and open your mind for some lighthearted stories that'll leave you saying, huh, I never knew that happened on this day. Alrighty then, let's get to it. Have you ever tried a Tootsie Pop? Surely everyone has had one of those at some point in their life, right? When you're having one, have you ever wondered how many licks it takes to get to the tootsie in the center? For real, I'm asking, have you? Surely that thought has crossed your mind, either spontaneously, or someone said it out loud, or it was in a commercial that you saw, maybe. Well, either way, I'm asking you now, how many do you think? 100? 200? 500? Luckily for us, people have actually performed this experiment and documented it on YouTube and other places, as you'll find out. So seven years ago, Mr. Beast, you've heard of him, right? He made a 12-minute video of basically him licking a Tootsie Pop to see how many licks it would take. And he used a counter, and every time he licked, he clicked. As I was typing up my show notes for this segment... I had his video going in the background, and I was chuckling the whole time because I'm listening to his licking noises, which he did not try to hide or muffle for the entire time that he recorded the video. Believe it or not, 367,000 people watched that video. And then, about three years ago, MatPat from the Food Theory YouTube channel wanted to repeat that experiment, and he used several of his friends to help. They actually did a control test with four scores, and then varied the experiment to alter the amount of saliva and the heat in the room and other things to try to improve their scores, if you want to call it that. So this one is actually worth your time to watch because there's plenty of entertainment in it. And crazy enough, seven and a half million people have watched that video. So the Tootsie Pops they were licking on, they were invented about 35 years after the actual Tootsie Roll was invented, which happens to be on this day in 1896. Whoa, wait a second, Truman. Everyone might want to know how many licks it took for everybody to get to the center. Oh, come on. I'm not going to spoil it. You've got to go watch those videos for yourself and you'll see, right? But, hey, before you go try to watch them, let me tell you about Leo Hirschfeld's sweet little invention, the Tootsie Roll. Leo was an Austrian immigrant who came to America in the 1890s. And if you want to picture him, he looks like an Anthony Hopkins type, but with dark black hair and a mustache. Now, in the 1890s, it happened to be a very challenging time for everyone. There was a recession going on, and so starting a new business in a new country was a huge challenge. But Leo was undeterred. His father was a candy maker, and so he knew he could come up with something and give it a go. But he wanted his something to be unique and different from what everyone else was doing. So just for some perspective, in the late 1890s, there were no refrigerators. They came along in 1930s. And there was no air conditioning. They came along in the 1900s. So you can imagine what it would be like when you're holding chocolate on a warm summer day with no refrigeration, no air conditioning. You get a melty mess, right? It melts fast and gets messy. So Leo wanted a chocolate candy with no mess. So he started blending in caramel and taffy to thicken up his chocolate, but keep the chocolate flavor. He had to preserve that flavor. And he tried different ways of baking it and mixing it. He tried different ways of cooling it and drying it. And finally, he came up with something that worked, as you know. He decided to roll it up and snip it out into bite-sized pieces and then wrap them individually. And from there, his invention went viral. Oh, and where'd he get the name? Well, he had given his daughter Clara the nickname Tootsie, and so he simply decided, I'm going to name my candy after her. Tootsie, roll. And there you have it. And so this unique candy was chocolate that didn't melt. It was also unique because it was individually wrapped. And it was also unique because it was sold for a penny a piece. So at the time, most candy was not wrapped, and it was sold by the ounce or by the pound. So all of these unique features helped him stand out in a difficult financial time, and that led to his overwhelming success. Now, as you know, we love our stories here at Daystrider, and there's definitely a good one that goes along with the Tootsie Roll. But it's going to sound a bit too hard to believe. And I have researched this one up and down, and based on what I can tell, enough of this story actually happened. So I'm going to just share it in all of its glory. All right, so it's December 1950, and we're at the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea during the Korean War. And at this time in the year, December 1950, the place was frozen over. Temperatures were below negative 20 degrees every day. The 1st Marine Division of the U.S. is surrounded by 10 Korean military divisions. Yes, 10. And so quite literally, these Marines are fighting for their lives. And the hero of their story is none other than the Tootsie Roll. So the Marines were surrounded, and they were running out of ammo and food and all of their other supplies. Their equipment was breaking down, and many vehicles were damaged with bullet holes. Things were getting grim. But hey, their radios worked, and they could call in for supplies. Now, in case you didn't know, the military loves to give code names to everything. And they had a code name for their mortar ammunition, which they used the phrase Tootsie Rolls. So for those of you who don't know, a mortar is an explosive device where you drop the device into a tube, and when it hits the bottom, it triggers the propulsion to shoot the explosive up into the air and far into the distance. And you can use that to blow up the enemy and make a way for yourself. Well, they were running low on these mortars, and so they called in the order for more Tootsie Rolls. So here's where it gets a little quirky, right? Either the Marine who received the message, hey, you need to order more Tootsie Rolls, actually thought they meant order some candy, chocolate candies, or the Air Force guy who received the order for the Tootsie Rolls actually thought they meant, hey, we need to give them some chocolate candies. So one of those two, no one knows really which one it is. I think neither the Marines nor the Air Force want to take credit for this mistake. But the fact is they asked for Tootsie Rolls and Tootsie Rolls were delivered. Now as a little background, Tootsie Rolls were already a staple for all military folks by the 1950s. The candy was issued to soldiers in World War II, which was a decade before, and it was a huge hit. Tootsie Rolls had this sugary boost that gave energy to the soldiers, and it boosted their energy levels. It boosted their morale. Everything was good. It didn't melt or get messy in the MREs if it was really hot out. And if it was really cold, they froze. But as soon as you put them in your mouth, they can soften up and become edible. So now let's get back to our airdrop. It's negative 20 degrees, and everything was frozen. Even water was frozen. And the gas in the vehicles would stay frozen if they didn't keep their vehicles running. So these crates of Tootsie Rolls were a blessing in disguise. The soldiers, of course, gobbled them all up and got the energy boost they needed and the morale boost to keep moving and keep fighting. But not only that, they actually used some of the chewed up Tootsies, right? They thawed them out in their mouth, used the chewed up Tootsie and plugged bullet holes in the hoses of their vehicles and parts of their engines. And once the Tootsie froze back up in the negative 20 degrees, the leaks were fixed and the vehicles could run. And this is what the survivors claim happened. They were actually able to use Tootsie Rolls to save their vehicles and help get them out into safety. Now, some of the soldiers also describe on their march out of the Chosen Reservoir, they describe a trail of thousands of little Tootsie Roll wrappers that were dropped on their march to freedom. I'm telling you, this is true. This is what survivors and their family members continue to claim to this day. And they actually have every year, they have a reunion and the remaining survivors and their families meet and they talk, you know, catch up on old times. And on every table at these events is a little dish of our heroes, the Tootsie Rolls, individually wrapped. And of course, they're donated by Tootsie Roll Industries, which is awesome. Okay, so let me do a spoiler alert here and say I'm going to share the lick counts with you so you don't have to actually go find those videos and look them up for yourself. So Mr. Beast, he was able to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop in 270 licks. And yes, like I said, he literally filmed an entire 11 minutes of him doing so. So Matt Pat from The Food Theory, he had tried it himself as well, and he said it took him 341 licks. But he was not happy that Mr. Beast had a lower lick count. And so the food theory group set up a control test and their average was 364 licks. Now this count is consistent with several major universities that have also tried to determine the number of licks it takes to get to the center. Yes, I'm serious. The University of Wisconsin, 319. University of Michigan, 411. Purdue University, 364. These major schools... have conducted tests to see how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. Awesome, isn't it? So when food theory changed their variables, they did exercises and they increased their saliva count and ensured they had the longest lick possible on each stroke. Sounds great, doesn't it? They got what they wanted and Matt Pat's group got 117 licks and they bested the beast. How about that? Of course, Mr. Beast didn't know he was in a competition, but hey, that's beside the point. So, happy birthday, Tootsie Roll. Roses are red. Violets are blue. It'd make my day if you wrote a review. Can't think of the words that you'd like to tell? Type, I got a few laughs and learned something as well. Have you heard that tinfoil hats can protect you from the government? You know, because they send electromagnetic rays into your brain? Or perhaps you've seen movies and learned that tinfoil hats can prevent aliens from reading your mind. Yeah? Well, the Tinfoil Hat Club, it's a real thing. And you can look it up and read all about the conspiracy. You can also chuckle to yourself because foil hats can no longer be made from tin. They're now made from aluminum. But hey, these conspiracies were sufficient enough to trigger interest in big-brained people to actually study them and publish their findings. Yes, it's true. So some MIT students did just that in 2005. And what do you think they learned? After they borrowed some expensive MIT monitoring equipment and fiddling around with electromagnetic waves and actually document their results? Well, I'm going to tell you. But first, let's learn a little bit about this aluminum stuff. Because it's everywhere, but it's also nowhere. Huh.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes,

SPEAKER_01:

aluminum is everywhere. It's all around you. It's way high above you. It's below you. It's around you. You're probably touching it right now. And for some of you, it's even in you. Aluminum is the third most common metal. And up high above the Earth in our atmosphere, there are 8,500 satellites orbiting the Earth, all of which made from mostly aluminum. If you use powdered makeup products, then you applied some aluminum to yourself today. Your mobile phone that you're using right now to listen to this episode, it's about 25% aluminum. And if you take medicine for heartburn or ulcers or acid reflux, aluminum is an ingredient in those. Look around real quick. In your kitchen, you have a full set of aluminum appliances. In your cabinets, you have aluminum pots and pans. In those drawers, you have aluminum foil and probably aluminum baking sheets. I'm sure in that aluminum fridge, you can find an aluminum can or two. Public service announcement, please recycle those aluminum cans. Out in your garage, the one with the aluminum doors, you probably have an aluminum bat or aluminum golf clubs. And your car, it's about 12% aluminum. All right, so who's tired of me saying the word aluminum? Well, if you were going to turn this episode into a drinking game, rule number one, you must be drinking from an aluminum can. Aluminum, drink. Aluminium. Aha, aluminium. Yes, that is a correct way to say aluminum, and the Europeans used that word aluminium. And there's a quick story behind that, but we have to go all the way back 5,000 years to the Egyptian times when they discovered these white flecks in the clay that they called alum. The clay that contained these alum flecks made stronger pottery than other clays, and it also helped their dye stick better to cloth when they were doing dyeing. And so alum was pretty important to the Egyptians, and it had been throughout time. Let's flash forward quite a few years to where the French had discovered that these flecks were also in a rock called bauxite, and they called these flecks alumina. And in 1808, an English chemist was playing around with electric current and zapping melted bauxite. Don't ask me why, but that's what he was doing. And he was able to separate the alumina, those white flecks, out from the rock, and the resulting metal, he called it, aluminum. But of course, his hoity-toity English friends thought that name was sus, and so he quickly changed it to aluminium. You know, so it would go better with other elements like lithium. and cadmium and radium. So aluminum made it more bussin', right? All right, I'll stop trying to slang up my game here to keep the youngins engaged. By the way, sus is negative and bussin' is positive. But anyway, aluminum and aluminum are both correct ways to say it. All right, so let's refocus our telescope here, people, and get back on track. Oh, by the way, The inner lining of telescopes are made from aluminum because of its reflective properties. All right, refocusing here. Earlier, I said aluminum was nowhere. It's nowhere because you actually can't find chunks of aluminum just sitting around in the Earth's crust. Alumina flecks are stuck to clays and rocks and other substances, and you have to use an electric current to separate it out from whatever it's clinging to in the dirt. Okay, so having to zap clay or rocks to get these alum flecks to separate made it expensive, right? You can imagine that's expensive. In fact, in the mid-1800s, aluminum was the most precious metal in the whole world. It's documented that Napoleon, when he had dinner parties for his ruling elite, he'd let the regular rich folks use his gold plates and his silver dinnerware, and he reserved the aluminum plating and cutlery for the inner circle elite and himself only. So, how did aluminum lose its lofty status as Napoleon's elite dinnerware and become common foil used to wrap sandwiches and used by conspiracists to protect humanity? Well, that story should be the poster board for where there's a will, there's an A. As in aluminum drink. Enter chemist Charles Hall. Charles was one of those kids who loved mixing things and trying to concoct new substances. If you want to picture him, he looked a little like Ryan Gosling with the bigger nose. And he was so into his chemistry experiments that his family built him a special shed out behind the house where he toiled away. He had to pause his chemistry experiments to go to college. And when he graduated and returned home, he steadfastly toiled and experimented in his shed with alumina and other substances. And for about five years, he was trying and trying to figure out how to get these flecks to separate. He tried chemical baths and different types of electrical charges. And eventually, after those five years, Eureka! He struck gold! He struck aluminum! And on this day, in 1886, Charles Hall discovered an affordable and efficient way to zap alumina and separate it and actually make chunks of aluminum. Of course, after him, there were others who further refined the process of aluminum, and now, as you know, it's everywhere. We just learned about all the places you can find it. Aluminum is also used in alloys where they combine aluminum with other metals to make supermetals. Some of those are superior at conducting electricity, some are super strong, and some are super resistant to corrosion and damage, and so on. For me, I think the best use of aluminum is in the construction of airplanes. Airplanes amaze me. Big, huge tubes of metal, full of people and luggage and fuel, and they can actually fly. And by the way, airplanes, 80% aluminum. All right, let's get back to our MIT students and their conclusion on the aluminum foil hat study. So they discovered that the foil hats actually increase the conductivity of certain wavelengths that the FCC uses for GPS locations. Also, the hats increase the effectiveness of the wavelengths used by businesses for mobile phone technology. So these aluminum foil hats, they actually do the opposite of what people want them to do. All right, so I'm going to leave you with the final concluding sentence from the MIT report. You tell me if you can catch their sarcasm. It requires no stretch of the imagination to conclude that the current helmet craze is likely to have been propagated by the government, possibly with the involvement of the FCC. We hope this report will encourage the paranoid community to develop improved helmet designs to avoid falling prey to these shortcomings. Aluminum, drink! A time traveler's delight, we whisk you away to historical events that happened this day. If the tales you've heard bring a fun little smile, please share with your friends. Make their day worthwhile. Alright, it's time to talk about basketball and share a crazy story that occurred on this day in the past. Now many of you may recall from the December 21st episode that we learned that the sport was invented in 1891 by James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts. As a quick shameless plug, If you haven't listened to that episode, it's a great one and features a couple other inventions that occurred on that day in history. Okay, so today's story takes us to Indiana, a state that is very passionate about its basketball. So much so that when James was visiting there in 1936, so this is about 45 years after he invented the sport, he was watching the spectacle of the Indiana State High School Basketball Tournament. And he was so impressed with what he witnessed during his time there that he was quoted as saying, basketball was born in Massachusetts, but it grew up in Indiana. Wow. Great words from the inventor of the sport. So as fate would have it, I was talking with my friend Kira at a holiday party after that episode published. And I knew she was a graduate of Indiana University, but I had no idea how into basketball she was. She immediately shared with me her passion for the sport and and its legacy and folklore at IU, and she wrote an essay as the final for her history class, and it was about basketball. We both knew right away that we needed to get her on here as a guest to share her story. The only thing was we needed to find an appropriate day in history that worked. Well, that's when serendipity breezed its way in, and you'll see why I say that in a moment. But first, let's meet Kira.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, yes. Thank you so much for having me, Truman. I'm so excited to be here today. So yeah, my name is Kira Mahoney. I graduated this past May from Indiana University with degrees in political science, American history, also civic engagement and journalism. You were very busy. Yes. I was. And honestly, five years ago, I barely knew anything about IU besides the fact that my mom went there. I knew I wanted to go to a big school, a spirited school at that. And my mom was from the Midwest and she was like, hey, let's visit my alma mater, Indiana. And honestly, from the minute I got to Bloomington, I really fell in love with the place and the people. And when I love places, I really love to learn about their history. So when it was time for my senior year thesis, I focused on basketball. And the title of my thesis was The Belief in Basketball, Hoosier Hysteria, Bob Knight, and the Influence of the Indiana Basketball Tradition in the 20th Century to Now. And honestly, basketball was a big part of my life too growing up. My best friends I still have to this day were my best friends on my eighth grade basketball

SPEAKER_01:

team. Very nice. That is outstanding. So you attended the basketball games at IU, right? So what's that like? What's that experience in that gymnasium?

SPEAKER_02:

Truman, there is nothing like a basketball game at Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Indiana. Fox announcer Gus Johnson famously nicknamed the arena the Carnegie Hall of College Basketball. And its builders actually did this on purpose. See, they didn't want anyone to have a bad view of the action. So the arena is actually less circular and more long, with most of the seats going up all the way on the wall on two sides of the

SPEAKER_00:

court. Really?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Because of this, yeah, sitting in Assembly Hall in the nosebleeds is genuinely terrifying.

SPEAKER_01:

Trust me. Feel like you're going to fall forward into the court?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, absolutely. But trust me, the atmosphere is insane. It's the volume. It's the energy. The genuine love and passion those fans have for the game, their state, and the Hoosiers team.

UNKNOWN:

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01:

Awesome. So basketball, not just at the collegiate level, but it's also huge at the high school level in Indiana. Isn't that true?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So many have seen the 1986 film Hoosiers.

SPEAKER_00:

The

SPEAKER_02:

movie is roughly based off this legendary, quote unquote, Milan miracle. where essentially a ragtag team from a small rural town of Milan, Indiana, with a school enrollment of only 161 students, went on to win the Indiana State Basketball Championship in the winter of 1954. That doesn't seem possible. They didn't think it was either, but they defeated the wealthy and much larger Muncie High School. Unlike most states, Indiana had a single class tournament in which every high school competed for the same championship at that end of the season. This was a tradition that began in 1911 and actually ended in 1997. But the fervor around this competition created, for fans, the dubbed Hoosier hysteria.

SPEAKER_01:

Hoosier hysteria.

SPEAKER_02:

Hoosier hysteria. Basically, these Hoosiers really believed in the idea that five guys or girls from any small town could make this sort of Cinderella run to statewide glory. Hoosiers love this story and love their tournament. And actually, it's super emblematic of the state's pioneer history, which I found in my research, which was really cool. And this belief that anything's possible with hard work.

SPEAKER_01:

I love it. Anything is possible. I love that, Kira. Thank you. So one of the things that I read in your essay was something interesting about the size of high school basketball gyms.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. A super fun fact about all of this is that Indiana actually has 14 out of 16 of the biggest high school gyms in the country. The largest is Newcastle Fieldhouse of Newcastle High School, and it caps spectator seating at 8,424 seats. That's

SPEAKER_01:

probably bigger than some colleges.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So that's like just over half the IU Assembly Hall Stadium. And that one just seems so amazing to me all the time. So it really blew my mind. And I really can't emphasize enough that these basketball games, especially at the high school level, were really community events for the Hoosiers. We're going back to the early 1900s. Towns gathered to get out of the cold in the winter to socialize and root on their local teams. In a lot of cases, in gyms that held more fans than there were residents in their towns. I also just want to make a note When I say Hoosiers, I am referring to people from the state of Indiana. They are called Hoosiers. And also that's the name of our Indiana mascot. The mascot. If that got confusing, that's what it is.

SPEAKER_01:

The mascot of the school and people from Indiana are all Hoosiers.

SPEAKER_02:

All Hoosiers.

SPEAKER_01:

All Hoosiers. Yes. Okay. All right. So for those of you who don't follow college basketball, Bobby Knight was a coach of Indiana Hoosiers for about 30 years, during which time his and his team's accomplishments are numerous. and illustrious. They won the Big Ten regular season title 11 times. They've been to the Final Four five times and were national champs three of those times. And they were the last team to ever go undefeated all the way through to the national championship. And then Coach Bobby, he is in both the College Hoops Hall of Fame and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Yeah. Yeah. He is one of only three people to have coached on and played on a national champion basketball team. And he was the very first coach to win 900 games. And that's the highest of the highlights. He still has a longer list of other accomplishments. Well, let's take us now to February 23rd, 1985. So as fate would have it, Kira, 16 years after that night, you were born. So happy birthday. Today's your birthday, Kira.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you so much, Truman. I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. So let's situate this now. Let's get back into the framework here. So in the long history of Bobby's career, we're four years after he's won the second NCAA championship. And this past summer, he didn't take any time off to decompress. Instead, he led the Olympic team to a gold medal win. And heading into the season, the team was ranked number five, preseason polls, climbed to the number three ranking with an 11-3 record. And then the wheels started coming off. Losses started piling up and the coach was starting to get enraged. At one practice, he kicked the whole team out and sent them home. At another practice, he made the team run sprints until somebody puked.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

that's awful. In some games, he was benching starters. And in one game, he even benched the entire starting five and started four freshmen and one of the other players in their place.

UNKNOWN:

Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

He kicked the leading rebounder off the team earlier that season. So everyone was frustrated. And on this night, on February 23rd, another Big Ten rival, Purdue, was in town. Purdue is also an Indiana basketball team, right? Big time basketball.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

yeah. And four minutes into the game, coach was enraged. And he thought that the foul that the ref had just called was a BS foul. And he got in his face and yelled at him. And the ref gave him a technical. So, yes, he did. For the listeners who don't know, a coach can get a technical foul called against them. When that happens is one of the players on the other team gets to shoot free throws. So the coach was fuming and he turned and he stomped towards the bench and he was looking for something to throw. Normally his sport coats hanging on the back of his chair, but it wasn't there that day. He didn't wear it that day. So he picked up the chair, nothing else to grab, picked it up with both hands, step onto the court and let it fly, tossed it out onto the court. Kind of like an underhand toss. It went up in the air and then it bounced and then it slid along the court to where the player was shooting the free throws. 17,000 fans stunned silent. Players, coaches, refs, no one knew what to do. Something like this never happened. The announcers were without words and eventually the ref called another technical and they kicked Bobby out of the game. And then, of course, the place erupted. The fans are all chanting, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby. They were going crazy. And the TV cameras caught most of that incident of the chair throwing. And when Coach's mom saw it at home on her TV, she said, oh, Bobby, oh, no.

SPEAKER_02:

I didn't know that part. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. So you've heard this story, Kira. And that incident, what's interesting is the players on the bench, they were not surprised when the chair got thrown.

SPEAKER_02:

No.

SPEAKER_01:

Do you think it surprised anyone at

SPEAKER_02:

IU? Courses, my teacher bragged that she was in assembly hall that night playing in the band. She was there and she bragged about it. And it was one of the first things she told us. And she was like, I've never heard the arena so loud and I'll never hear it again. That amazing. So yeah. And in general, I mean, it's just an iconic tough guy moment that college kids and Hoosier fans love to get behind. The entire basketball hall was screaming his name. Like you said, Bobby, Bobby. While he was getting his

SPEAKER_01:

course. Wow. That's crazy.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And then you mentioned in your essay, there's a replica of a flying chair that's set up on the wall or whatever in a, in a local restaurant. Is that true?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. I mean, yes. Yogi's Bar and Grill in downtown Bloomington, one of me and my friend's favorite spot. has a folding red chair mounted to its wall. And it is not the only one. Okay? It's not. I can confidently say that most, if not all, the sports bars in downtown B-Town, as we like to call it, have a chair reference of some sort assigned. Photo, a cartoon, you name it, it's there. The red chair is a symbol in Bloomington, Indiana.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow. So that is something that the rest of the world is like, what is going on here? And Bloomington is celebrating. Totally. Totally. That's funny. And so everybody's into it, right? So now you're kind of like, yeah, this is our thing.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it

SPEAKER_01:

is.

SPEAKER_02:

Now there are benches. There's not chairs. Or they're mounted to the ground, actually. It's one of the two, but there's no way that anyone in the NCAA now can pick up their chair and throw it to the person at the free throw line, even if it's your biggest rival in the entire world.

SPEAKER_01:

They've Bobby Knight-proofed it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02:

While I was at IU, actually, I got to experience some pretty historical moments in Coach Knight's legacy. I'd also like to mention when I was a freshman, I... Yeah. When I was a freshman, I stood in the student section as Coach Knight returned to the court at Assembly Hall for literally the first time in 20 years since he had been fired. Wow. It was pretty intense. I mean, he was in his signature red sweater. He was led onto the court by a squad of his former players.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm sure.

SPEAKER_02:

Including one man, Mike Woodson, who was Big Ten Player of the Year in 1980 and That would just happen to become Indiana's basketball's 30th head coach just two seasons later, my junior year. Coach Knight's ghost literally haunted Assembly Hall even before he died. The championship banners are a hallmark of the arena. And Hoosiers are so nostalgic about his coaching reign. And how can they not be? He did bring glory. How can they not? He did bring glory to their state and school. And for those reasons, he will always be a legend. And of course, college kids loved his savage side.

SPEAKER_01:

Savage.

SPEAKER_02:

Savage. Knight was tough and people love tough. And except me, I guess, I see him as problematic. And it's really up to interpretation. But again, he put us on the map. And for that, he's forever iconic. So

SPEAKER_01:

forever iconic. Well, I'll tell you what, Kira, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your thoughts about this. There's no way I could have explained it or articulated as well as you did. So that's fantastic. Much appreciated.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you so much for having me, Truman.

SPEAKER_01:

All righty. If you enjoyed Kira's colorful stories and her insightful thoughts, you should make time to check out the full interview. We cover the main point of her history essay, and she shares some other stories about Coach Bobby Knight and events that happened at IU. And there you have it, folks, some great stories to share with your someone special to celebrate February 23rd. Once again, those are the invention of the Tootsie Roll, the evolution of aluminum, and Bobby Knight's chair-throwing temper tantrum. Let's reflect a moment. on Leo's candy quest and Charles' metal melting. Both were trying to solve a problem by experimenting with different approaches and strategies, and after significant effort, they both hit the jackpot, amazingly 10 years apart from each other. If you have a big problem that you want to solve, try looking at it in different ways and using different approaches. Don't give up. Your eureka awaits. All right, so after you share your special stories, you can also mention the following famous folks who celebrate their birthday today. Josh Gad, do you like warm hugs? Olaf says this in Frozen, or Josh Gad says it for him. He's not only famous for his antics in the movie Frozen, he's also done Broadway shows, and he's been in other movies. And if you listen to our bonus episode, you'll discover that Kira is a big Josh Gad fan as well. Emily Blunt's birthday is also today. She is a British actress who played in The Devil Wears Prada, The Young Victoria, and The Girl on the Train, to name a few. And I bet a dollar that she drinks her sodas from an aluminum can. Daymond John was born on this day as well. He's currently one of the sharks on the Shark Tank TV series, and he made his fortune by starting the FUBU clothing line. He also has a podcast called That Moment with Daymond John. Maybe we can get him on our podcast. What do you think? According to famousbirthdays.com, the 50th most famous person born on February 23rd is Princess Estelle. She's the Duchess of Ostergötland, and she's in the line of succession to the Swedish throne. And she's the first female in Swedish history to be born with a right to inherit the crown where no male can supersede her. You go, girl. Okay, do you need a great gift idea for your loved one? Well, after you share these great stories, you can have them open up a gift that is customized to their birthday, February 23rd. I have several great ideas for you, and as always, you can find links to these in the gift ideas section of our show notes. Tootsie Rolls and Tootsie Pops are easy choices, but for your readers out there, there are some great book options about the Chosen Reservoir Marines that are sure to be a gift that no one else is giving them. If you want to do a gag gift, they have some interesting aluminum foil hats that I found. But in the same link, there's a cool and shiny aluminum foil bucket hat. Actually, I think it's not actually aluminum, but it is metallic and it's cool looking. If your loved one literally has everything, you could go for an aluminum can crusher. I bet they don't have one of those. I know. I know. I'm here for you. You want to go the frozen route with Josh Gad? Well, there's lots of cool Olaf stuff available. And you can explain that his voice was born on this day. And, of course, you can give your loved one a warm hug. February 23rd is Banana Bread Day, so perhaps a fancy banana bread mix or banana bread recipe book. Those are good ideas. Strangely enough, February 23rd is also Curling is Cool Day. I'm serious. So you could get them a fun curling t-shirt, or they also make... family room curling sets, and tabletop curling sets if you want to try to really impress them. So actually, if you think about it, there's lots of customized gifts related to February 23rd available as options for you. As always, if those gift ideas aren't cool enough, you can always give them a shout-out right here on this podcast. If you want to try the old-fashioned way, you can email me and give me their name and something interesting to say, and I'll include it right here with all these fun facts and stories. Or... If you want to try out a new feature we've added, you can record your very own shout-out to your loved one, and we can include that here on the podcast. For example...

SPEAKER_02:

Happy birthday, Kira, my golden birthday queen, my bestest friend. I don't know what I would do without you. You know me better than I know myself, and I'm so grateful for this 12-year friendship. Thank you for being my stylist, my photographer, my workout partner, and my therapist. You're really such an inspiring and hardworking person, and I can't wait to see what this year has in store for you. I love you more than you love 5 o'clock at the beach, and you may be my step-cousin-in-law, but in reality, you're like my sister. The Blair to my Serena for life, and I can't wait to celebrate you this weekend. 23 never looked better. Te amo, mejor amiga.

SPEAKER_01:

You can find the link to do that in the show notes. And as always, if you have a story that just needs to be shared about any day in the past, Send me an email and let's connect. Now, while you're thinking about all that, how about clicking the follow button on your podcast app so that you get notifications when the next episode is released? If you are listening to this show on the Apple podcast platform, you should know that the Spotify listeners have clicked the follow button more than you have. Now, we can't let them get so far ahead, can we? So if you click follow, we can get you all caught up. But don't tell the Spotifyers I said that because we don't want anyone to know you're chasing them. In all seriousness, if you had as much fun listening as I did creating this episode, then sharing it with a friend or family member would be incredible and sincerely appreciated. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, this is Truman Pastworthy reminding you that every day has a great story. And we'll be striding through them all to find some more goodies for you. Now get out there and make your own great story today.