John von Neumann

One man and his incredible intellect affected so many different disciplines. From game theory to computers to the Manhattan Project, von Neumann and his remarkable abilities helped shape the 20th century.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to steph you missed in history class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Frying and I'm Tracy B. Wilson, and today
we are going to delve into the life of a
man who really shaped the world we live in in

(00:22):
very tangible ways. And while he's quite well known in
mathematics and physics and even economics circles, he's not as
famous outside of academia as his contemporaries and colleagues such
as J. Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein. We are talking
about the Hungarian American genius John von Neumann, and from

(00:42):
pure mathematics two applied mathematics to physics to game theory.
He turned his intellect to many of the projects that
directly affected the course of the twentieth century, and that
includes the development of the atomic bomb as well as
the first computers. John von Neumann was born Neuman Janosh
on December in Budapest, Austria, Hungary. He was a child prodigy.

(01:07):
He liked to learn. He retained new information across a
wide range of topics. He was studying calculus by the
time he was eight, and he could already read classical
Greek by that time, and he likes to tell jokes
in classical Greek. If that's not the most charming thing,
like I know, I don't know many learned adults that

(01:30):
could do that. And yet here was an eight year
old star camp and his family was considered affluent. His mother,
margite Khan, had family money which had come from a
prosperous farm equipment company. They actually sort of lived in
this big, massive place with his mother's family, where her
siblings and their children also lived, and it was, by

(01:50):
all accounts, are really lovely and sort of amazing way
to grow up. And his father, Meeks Annoyment, worked in banking,
and his parents really encouraged his talent. They were definitely
um fans of education and cultivating intellect, and to make
a game out of his photographic memory, they would sometimes select,
for example, a page from the phone book and he

(02:12):
would have to look at it and then recite it
back from memory, and he was apparently really really good
at it. Uh and John, who later in his life
would go by Johnny once he had anglicized his name,
was also tutored by the best of Hungary's intellects. He
attended the Lutheran Gymnasium, which was considered to be the
top high school in Budapest. There he continued to excel

(02:35):
in math and language as he had as a child.
But when the Hungarian Communist Party seized control of the
government under the leadership of Bellacun In, the Neuman family
left the country. But because they were quite well off,
their story of running from Bellacun's regime, which only lasted
for four months, was definitely easier and more comfortable than

(02:58):
most refugee story that you might hear. Uh. They spent
time in Vienna, and they also spent time at a
resort on the Adriatic, and when they returned to Budapest
after Coon's four months rule, John picked right back up
and resumed his studies. Initially, he wanted to become a mathematician,
but his father was concerned that this would not be

(03:19):
a very lucrative career path. He was still passionate about math, though,
so instead of abandoning it, he studied chemistry at the
same time to ease his father's fears. I sort of
love that where he's like, I'm not willing to give
this up, but I hear you I will also do
this thing you think is more lucrative. Uh. And in
the meantime, as he was continuing his studies, a mathematical

(03:42):
paper he wrote while still in secondary school titled the
Introduction of Transfinite Ordinals was published in nine So today, uh,
for people who study mathematics and ordinal number is commonly
defined as a number that defines or identifies a thing's
position in a series. That definition is actually the work
of teenage von Neumann in this paper. In he graduated

(04:06):
from Zurich's Swiss Federal Institute with a chemical engineering degree
in that same year, his mathematical paper, The Axiomatization of
set Theory was published. The following year, he earned his
PhD in mathematics as puzmn Pat University. And he had
also minored during his PhD in experimental physics and chemistry.

(04:29):
So once again he was just overachieving academically in ways
that make most of us mortals feel very lazy. Yeah,
studying math and chemistry at the same time is uh,
Like that makes more sense to me because there is
so much of chemistry that requires um some complex math,

(04:50):
but then adding experimental physics. Having experimental physics chemistry and math.
It's like both experimental physics and chemistry rely on math,
but all three of those together, to me become a
very large pile of things to study. That is a
lot of disciplines. And apparently one of his favorite things
was to actually like look at textbooks and you know
how they will have diagrams at the back and formulas

(05:12):
that are like you, you will need to refer to
these to be able to to do some of the
work in the book. He would just go back and
memorize all of those things so he could just apply
them really quickly while he was learning in all of
these different disciplines, which is amazing. Yeah. As a post doc,
he studied under renowned German mathematician David Hilbert, who was

(05:33):
one of the most significant influences on twentieth century mathematics.
Their relationship as colleagues began after one von Neumann's set
theory paper was published and it got him on Hilbert's
radar just for the sake saying so radar wouldn't actually
be invented for another decade. Yeah, I was using it

(05:54):
as a a form of expression, and then I was like,
you know, all we should point out that radar didn't
exist yet. Just to be safe, considering how many emails
would get about decimate I understand. Yeah uh. And it
wasn't long before von Neuman was teaching, so from seven
to nineteen twenty nine he lectured at the University of Berlin,

(06:17):
and he moved from that position to teaching at the
University of Hamburg, where he worked until nineteen thirty. And
while he was teaching, he was also working on a
book based on the work that he had been doing
with Hilbert. The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, was published
in nineteen thirty two. This book resolved some issues of
quantum mechanics that had been at odds in the work

(06:38):
of his predecessors Schrodinger and Heisenberg, and von Neuman's writing
became very influential as a consequence, but his writings on
quantum mechanics weren't universally loved or even accepted. While some
physicists accepted the idea that von Neuman put forth of
indeterminacy of quantum theory with those scientists include Heisenberg, whose

(07:01):
own work on his uncertainty principle was related to it.
Albert Einstein, for example, did not accept it, but the
important thing was that von Neumann was making a name
for himself. He was basically at this point a superstar
in math circles, and people marveled at all the accomplishments
he managed at such a young age. He wrote papers

(07:22):
on multiple subjects and made significant marks in a wide
range of mathematical fields, and all of this when he
was still in his twenties. Von Neumann is also sometimes
called the father of game theory, and the inspiration for
his work in this area actually came from poker. His
paper Theory of Parlor Games was published in nineteen twenty eight,

(07:43):
and it explored mathematically the rational outcome of games through
strategy and how chance and bluffing play into the strategy
and outcome. In nine von Neumann traveled to the United
States as a guest of Princeton University, and the school
had asked the twenty five year old mathematician to deliver
a lecture on quantum theory, and his talk was so

(08:06):
well received that he was given the opportunity to continue
teaching as a visiting lecturer, and he had that job
from nineteen thirty to nineteen thirty three. Von Neumann had
just turned twenty six when he began teaching at Princeton,
and unfortunately his youth was something of a detriment, as
he didn't seem to fully understand that students needed a
little more time to catch up to his mathematical thinking,

(08:28):
which was lightning quick. There were complaints that he would
erase things from the blackboards almost as soon as he
had written them down. Yeah, to someone like him who
had like this amazing flash memory and could see a
thing and then be like, yep, if I get that
formula and can apply it to various things, like students
were like, we can't hold on, it is great for you. Uh.

(08:50):
And incidentally, he would actually later say of this time
that he felt like it was when his mathematical ability
started to drop off. He said later in his life
that his mind was not as sharp and able to
do advanced calculations in his head starting when he was
twenty six, but that his experience in the more developed
understanding of mathematics that he had achieved by that point

(09:11):
kind of helped make up the gap. Coming up, we're
going to talk about big changes in von Neuman's life,
but before we do, we will pause for a little
sponsor break. In nineteen thirty, the same year that that
Princeton visiting lecturer job began, von Neuman got married to

(09:34):
a woman named Marriotte Covesi. He started teaching at the
Institute for Advanced Study in ninety three. The institute, which
was founded in nineteen thirty, had, in the writing of
its founding director Abraham Flexner, the following mission quote. The
institute should be small and plastic, that is, flexible. It

(09:54):
should be a haven where scholars and scientists could regard
the world and its phenomena as their las obratry, without
being carried off in the mail storm of the immediate.
It should be simple, comfortable, quiet, without being monastic or remote.
It should be afraid of no issue. Yet it should
be under no pressure from any side which might tend

(10:15):
to force its scholars to be prejudiced, either for or
against any particular solution of the problems understudy. And it
should provide the facilities, the tranquility, and the time requisite
to fundamental inquiry into the unknown. Its scholars should enjoy
complete intellectual liberty and be absolutely free from administrative responsibilities

(10:35):
or concerns. I think that probably sounds like nirvana to
most people in higher education. Sounds a wonderful And when
the Institute started it's School of Mathematics in two it
hired Albert Einstein and mathematical topology innovator Oswald Veblen. And
Beblin incidentally had been the person who had invited von

(10:56):
Neumann to speak on quantum theory at for Inston. So
I von Nomen joining this mathematics faculty in nineteen thirty
three really shows how highly he was regarded. We should
be clear that while these people carried the title of
faculty and technically worked at what was called a school,
they weren't teaching. The Institute was and is a place
where great minds are hired to think and explore ideas

(11:19):
without the trappings of typical academia. Yeah, that's basically what
that flexner a bit that Tracy read was about, just
saying like, there's no you don't have to worry about
publisher parish, you don't have to worry about like students evaluating.
You just come here and think and we will publish
you know your findings, and we will educate the world
that way. And of course, during this time that von

(11:41):
Neuman was spending in the United States, there was massive
political shifts and upheaval happening back home. So when Hitler
was named Chancellor of Germany the same year that von
Neumann took his job at the Institute for Advanced Study,
the mathematician gave up his teaching positions in Berlin. Officially
they had sort of been still his but on hold.
While he visited the US, he spoke openly that he

(12:04):
felt that the Nazi regime was setting science in Germany
back by a significant margin. In nineteen thirty five, John
and his wife Maryette had a daughter, Marina, but the
family didn't stay together long. The couple divorced two years later,
and they were on good terms though, and it was
an amicable end. Mariette had fallen in love with a physicist,

(12:25):
and von Neuman soon started seeing a childhood sweetheart named
Clara Dan. Clara was married when she and John reconnected,
but divorced her husband, and she and von Neuman were
married in ninety eight. Yes, so just for clarity that
all happened in a very short period of time, like
between ninety seven and nine. Their life had ended and

(12:48):
they were both remarried, but they did. They really were
quite amicable. They worked together on various things going forward.
Throughout their lives. They shared custody of their daughter, and
by her accounts, you know, she really had both parents
very involved in her life. But in the midst of
all of this household shifting, von Neuman became a naturalized

(13:10):
US citizen in nineteen thirty seven at the age of
thirty three, and he also continued writing papers and introducing
ideas into the mathematics community. His theory of rings of
operators eventually came to be known as von Neumann algebras,
and he began to work in lattice theory, which is
an extension of the study of Bullian algebras, and he
made the move from pure mathematics two applied mathematics. In

(13:34):
nineteen forty, von Neuman was made a member of the
U S Scientific Advisory Committee, and in that capacity he
worked at the Maryland Aberdeen Improving Ground Ballistic Research Laboratories.
He also served on the Navy Bureau of Ordnance starting
in nineteen forty one, and he remained in that position
until the mid nineteen fifties. Yes, so all of his

(13:55):
ability to do those like incredibly complex calculations literally in
his head very very quickly, really became important to these
different agencies that were developing things like weapons, because he
could say, like, no, the trajectory will go like this,
the explosion will go like this. Uh, and he was
incredibly accurate. On September twenty, nineteen forty three, von Neuman

(14:16):
joined the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico. So uh,
it's a very brief, glossy version. The Manhattan Project was,
of course, the research and development effort of the United
States in cooperation with the United Kingdom to produce the
first atomic weapons. He had been invited onto the team
by Jay Robert Oppenheimer. His mathematical skills were critical to

(14:39):
the calculations that went into designing and building the first
atomic bomb. Von Neuman, along with four other Hungarian intellectuals
on the project, which were Theodore von Carmen, Leo Zilar,
Eugene P. Vigner, and Edward Teller, came to be known
by the nickname the Martians. And there are a number

(14:59):
of apoca full stories about how that that nickname came about,
but they kind of all boiled down to this same idea,
which is that these five men, all from Hungary, were
too brilliant to just be mere humans, and they must
be Martians disguising themselves as Hungarians to walk among us.
Like I said, there are sort of variations on the
specifics of that, but that's kind of the joke. But

(15:21):
all of them, who were transplants from a Europe that
had been severely changed by the rise of Hitler, really
were willing to do this because they wanted to help
in the war effort. For von Neuman, this was not
an out of the blue transition from academia to the
war effort. Von Neuman had already been assisting the British,
applying his acquired knowledge of non linear physics to analyze

(15:45):
shock waves and hydron dynamics and ultimately to help develop
chemical explosives With that knowledge, and once he arrived at
Los Alamos, von Neuman was instrumental in determining that an
implosion type design for the particular weapon was a better
option rather than a nuclear bomb that would have what

(16:05):
was called a gun type design. He was a primary
player in the design of the explosive lenses that were
used in implosion type bomb designs. These so called lenses
were actually a combination of chemicals, some of which burned
more quickly than others, and that was designed to control
the blast and to achieve a symmetrical explosion. And von

(16:28):
Neumann really worked through most of the atomic bomb's most
important development stages, and he was one of the people
present at the Trinity site when the first atomic bomb
was tested. Von Neumann was also one of the people
who decided where the first bombs would be dropped. He
became part of the target selection committee on in April
of as targets were assessed. It was his work in

(16:52):
mathematics that calculated data relating to projecting deaths, the blast size,
and detonation locations to max surmised the impact. While at
one point the committee considered dropping a bomb on the
Imperial Palace in Tokyo, von Neumann was one of the
voices who argued against it. And next up we are

(17:13):
going to get a little bit into von Neuman's return
to game theory and his work in computer science, which
we are all benefiting from literally every day at this point.
But first we'll have a word from one of our
fantastic sponsors. Throughout his work on the Manhattan Project, von

(17:35):
Neuman was also thinking once again of game theory, which
neither he nor anyone else had really done any significant
work in since his publication of Theory of Parlor Games
in so sixteen years after that paper, in nineteen four,
von Neumann published a book he co authored with Oscar Morgenstern,
who was a prominent economist. That book, Theory of Games

(17:57):
and Economic Behavior, which incidentally is still in print and
can be found in its entirety online, made game theory
incredibly popular. It is a dense read at more than
six hundred pages, but it got the intellectual community talking
about how game theory could be applied to all kinds
of different fields. Yeah, it suddenly became like the hot

(18:18):
topic to talk about game theory as it related to
everything from like business to leisure and everything in between.
Um von Neumann was also, as we've been mentioning leading
up to this, was also a very key figure in
the birth of modern computing. So what's commonly known as
any ACT, which is the Electronic numeracle integrator and computer,

(18:42):
was a project that von Neumann also had a hand in.
After World War Two, the U. S Army asked him
to work on that project as a consultant, and how
he got the job is actually a really interesting story.
So while he was waiting on a train platform, Herman H. Goldstein,
who was a mathematician and reserve officer of the Ordinance
Department who was kind of working in the liaison capacity

(19:02):
on this project, actually recognized von Neuman, who was of
course famous in UH, you know, math and physics and
economic circles, and he walked up and introduced himself, and
the two men had a brief conversation, and the result
was that Goldstein asked von Neuman to travel to Philadelphia
to work on any Act. Von Neuman built on the
work of anti acts designers John W. Mautley and J.

(19:24):
Pressper Eckert Jr. He shifted its design to make it
a programmable machine, and as he worked on the thirty
ton Behemoth, he also began to see what the next
generation of computer could be. And as an aside, UH,
the computer modeled weather forecasts that give us advanced warning
of hazards and conditions today also owe their genesis to

(19:47):
von Neumann because he led a team that harnessed Eniacs
power to create nu miracle weather forecasts. Von Neuman had
a concept of a computer architecture where a program and
data are Ard in the same memory that idea was
the first of its kind, and once he concluded his
work on any Act, he returned to the Institute for

(20:08):
Advanced Study and campaigned for a computer to be built
with this structure. The Institute's computer also used binary arithmetic
rather than decimal numbers, and initially this really seemed preposterous
when he proposed the idea that would eventually manifest as
the Institute's electronic computer project. Like they had nothing of
the kind. They were all doing their intellectual projects on

(20:29):
their own, and while some of a. Neuman's colleagues thought
it was a problematic concept and would just be a
waste of resources, there were others who supported and really
fully championed it, and eventually this electronic computer project was
set up in the basement of one of the institute's buildings,
fold Hall. At the same time, the Army wanted additional

(20:50):
computers built after the war, and based on von Neuman's work,
which had begun when any Act was not yet completed,
the Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer or EDVAC was built
at the More School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania,
just as any that had been the EDVAC was built
using von Neumann's so called logical design, which he laid

(21:14):
out in an initial report published on June, and we're
going to read a little bit from that because it's
so elegantly lays out what a computer is. He described
in his introduction exactly what is meant by the term
automatic computing system so quote. An automatic computing system is
a usually highly composite device which can carry out instructions

(21:37):
to perform calculations of a considerable order of complexity e g.
To solve a nonlinear partial differential equation in two or
three independent variables. Numerically, the instructions which govern this operation
must be given to the device in absolutely exhausted detail.
They include all numerical information which is required to solve
the problem under considerations, initial and boundary values of the

(22:02):
dependent variables, values of fixed parameters, constants, tables of fixed
functions which occur in the statement of a problem. These
instructions must be given in some form which the device
cansents punched into a system of punch cards or on
a teletype tape, magnetically impressed on steel taper, wire photographically
impressed on motion picture film, wired into one or more

(22:24):
fixed or exchangeable plug boards, this list being by no
means necessarily complete. All these procedures require the use of
some code to express the logical and the algebraic definition
of the problem under consideration, as well as the necessary
numerical material. Once seas instructions are given to the device,
it must be able to carry them out completely and

(22:46):
without any need for further intelligent human intervention. At the
end of the required operations, the device must record the
results again in one of the forms referred to above.
The results are numerical data. They are a specific part
of the numerical material produced by the device in the
process of carrying out the instructions referred above. As he

(23:07):
continued to explain his logical structure of a computer that
would be faster and more powerful than its predecessor, von
Neuman opted to use biological semiles likening various components of
the larger whole too Organs. This writing is the basis
of the modern computer, which is now called von Neuman architecture.

(23:29):
Von Neumann's efforts in computing during this time, particularly the
work that he published about their design, did not go
over well with Moushley and Eckert, who were applying for
a patent on their design. Do you recall they designed
any act And there's actually a really fantastic patent Moore's
Battle about early computers that would make an excellent episode
all on its own one day. But for the scope

(23:50):
of this one, it is enough to know that von
Neumann publishing all of his information on structure around the world,
and that work being picked up by various entities who
were developing their own computers was enough to be really
problematic for the any designers plans to get a patent.
After his work with the Army, von Neuman also worked
with the US Air Force and the Rand Corporation. At

(24:12):
the time, the two entities were collaborating on developing a
nuclear strategy, and von Neuman, in his game theory, became
important to that process. He was a proponent of striking
the Soviets with a hydrogen bomb to put a swift
end to their new efforts in nuclear warfare, while more
pacifist views ultimately prevailed. Von Neuman is credited with establishing

(24:34):
the concept of mutual assured destruction as a conceptual strategy.
He became a member of the Armed Forces Special Weapons
Project in nineteen fifty and he remained part of that
project for five years. In nineteen fifty four, von Neumann
was appointed to the Atomic Energy Commission, which served to
control the uses of nuclear technology and both weaponry and

(24:56):
non military uses. He served on the Commission until nineteen six,
and von Neuman was also awarded the Enrico Fermi Award
in nineteen fifty six, and that same year President Eisenhower
also presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In
nineteen fifty five, while working on the Atomic Energy Commission,
von Neuman was diagnosed with bone cancer. He died on

(25:18):
February eighth, ninety seven, at the age of fifty three,
in Walter Reid Army Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, and he
had spent his final days in a suite there like
he really had like this large area, And that was
in part due to respect for who he was and
what he had contributed, But it was also a matter
of national security, So according to his daughter's memoir, numerous

(25:41):
high ranking military officials came to see him at the
end to get as much information from him about his
top secret projects as possible before he died, so that
the information did not go with him, and additionally, a
rotation of eight airmens served as security, making sure von
Neuman didn't tell any military secrets to anyone other than
those with top secret clearance while he was under the

(26:03):
influence of medication or just from exhaustion from fighting the cancer.
In nineteen sixty the computer he had developed for the
Institute of Advanced Study was donated to the Smithsonian. And
what really emerges when you read about von Neuman's personality
is to me perhaps the most fascinating thing about him,
because while he was clearly a genius, he was also

(26:26):
pretty modest about those gifts. Despite an impressive list of accomplishments,
he also felt that he had never lived up to
what people had expected of a man of his talents
and natural intellect. And while the heady and intensely intellectual
nature of his work might lead to the assumption that
von Neumann was a solitary, nerdy type of person toiling
away at his formulas, he was anything but that. He

(26:48):
was very outgoing, very likable, and he managed to navigate
the egos and personalities of academia while being liked and
admired by his colleagues. Uh. But it makes me chuckle,
because I I recall professors of mine talking about having
what they termed knocked down, drag out fights as faculty
at faculty meetings. Oh yeah, I have, I have. We

(27:10):
both have friends in academia, and I hear like some
very dramatic argument type things. He didn't seem to have those. Yeah,
if someone with a natural talent like his could have
easily developed a superiority complex, but it really seems like
von von Neuman did not. Yeah. I get the sense
that he was very aware that his his thinking capacity

(27:31):
was at a level above most other people, But he
didn't seem um to to make that like a thing.
He didn't. That wasn't what defined him. He did, actually, though,
bump into some problems with colleagues, particularly later when he
was working in applied mathematics, due to the fact that
he would take some up someone's idea like he would
hear an idea, and because he was so smart, he

(27:53):
would often really quickly leap frog over what they had
figured out and have ideas about how it could all
be solved and how to implement the thing that they
had thought of initially. And to him this was just
a matter of solving problems and exploring ideas, but to
the people that he was mentally lead frogging in the process,
it was really frustrating. I imagine he never understood that

(28:13):
point of view because it never happened to him. Like
he was always so far ahead of everybody else, no
one else could do the same thing back to him.
Von Neumann's daughter, Maria von Neuman Whitman, wrote her memoir
entitled The Martians Daughter in and In this memoir she
relates his proclivity for expressing his emotional side through letters.

(28:35):
Through his writing, he advised her, as a young woman
about to graduate from college in the fifties, to postpone
her planned marriage. He was concerned that she would become
tied to a housewife's life and not fulfill her own
life's potential. She did not put it off. Uh. Yeah,
this really jumped out to me and was very striking

(28:55):
because many fathers of that era facing their own mortality.
This was basically written from his day up then would
probably urge their daughter like, yes, settle down, you will
have security. But von Neuman prized intellectual pursuit above such things.
He believed that everyone had a moral obligation to use
their intellect to its fullest possibility, and he wanted that
for his daughter as well as anyone else. Yeah. Well,

(29:17):
and I think like we're not at all casting disparagement
on people who choose to stay on the family today,
but at the time this was so much out of
the norm for young women. Ah. But it's striking that
that that was the TACKI tick on it. Biographer Norman
McRae wrote a von Neuman quote, the cheapest way to

(29:40):
make the world richer would be to get lots of
his Like, Yeah, that seemed like such a uh nice
way to kind of wrap up von Neuman's life. It's
interesting because obviously he had a hand in some incredibly
destructive things. I think his motivations were, you know, as

(30:01):
we mentioned, largely due to the fact that he had
had been uh in Europe when he saw things going
terribly poorly and wanted to change it. That's one of
those things that can always be debated. But he strikes
me as such a fascinating man. There's some really fun
footage that I stumbled across of him where he did
an appearance talking to school children and he has this

(30:24):
really beautiful Hungarian accent, and he seems so sweet. And
this one kid is asking him like, you're inventing always
new things and computers, and but who's going to run them?
And he's so like, well, we have to start training people.
We have to start training young people when they are young,
because if we wait until their adults and ask them
to get interested, they'll never know if they have natural
talent for it or not. We will have wasted years
of development. And he just had such a like complete

(30:48):
proponents angle on educating kids, which he had inherited, of
course from his parents and their parents before them, who
had all really promoted education. Uh. And it was just
very charming. So yeah, that's John Monnyman who fascinates and
delights me because I do I do, I do I do? Uh.

(31:09):
This listener mail is another lovely gift from our listener April,
and she writes, Hello Holly and Tracy Howdy from West Texas.
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I found these handkerchiefs that look perfect for a podcast.
Royalty to me, the unsinkable Margaret Brown captures the spirit
of stuff you missed in history class with her strength,
can do attitude and excellent sense of Style. I was

(31:31):
inspired after listening to the show about the Wasps to
visit their museum in Sweetwater. I made sure to stop
at the wishing well where graduates tossed in coins and
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their likeness of the roll Doll inspired Disney designed mascot Fifinella.

(31:55):
It's a cute little sticker that she sent us. Uh. And,
as you have probably already guessed, I have the epest
respect and admiration for your wonderful podcasts. One topic I
wish to discuss as the occasional complaint about the volume
of shows about women. To me, the podcast is not
called stuff you already got from History Glass and generally
the lesson, the lesser told stories are about the unsung

(32:16):
and marginalized. I love hearing about the lives of inspiring
people that make me say wow. Thanks to you, I
have the chance to be amazed several times a week.
Three cheers to the history ladies. That's so sweet. Thank
you so much, April And she wrote this on Adorable
Stationary with a kittie on it um, so thank you.
These handkerchiefs that she sent are these beautiful, delicate little
lace handkerchiefs. I love them. We also got some bookmarks

(32:39):
from her from the WASP Museum. Super sweet. Thank you,
thank you, thank you. If you would like to write
to us, you can do so at History podcast at
how stuffworks dot com. You can also find us across
the spectrum of social media as missed in History, and
you can find us at missed in History dot com. Uh.
You can also visit our parents site, which is how
stuff works dot com. I been anything you like in

(33:01):
the search bar and you will come up with a
wealth of options to explore and learn from. You can
go to our site, as I said, missed in History
dot com to find back episodes of every single episode
of the podcasts has ever existed, as well as show
notes on any of the ones that Tracy and I
have worked on together. So we encourage you come and
visit us at missed in History dot com and how

(33:21):
stop works dot com. For more on this and thousands
of other topics, visit how stop works dot com.