February 19, 2009 • 24 mins
Since 1901, about 16 adventurous souls have gone over the falls in search of fame, usually in a barrel or sphere. Tune in as our resident experts take a look at the history of Niagara Falls in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is Chuck Bryant.
I'm doing sign language. Josh, are you do you do
have finger fumblers? Uh? No, but since you brought it up,
(00:21):
we have a finger fumbler good blood, bad blood, not
to jump the gun that that has nothing to do
with this podcast. Can you sign that out for him? Okay,
Well to anyone who knows sign language, give good blood,
bad blood shot. Oh and that also reminds me Chuck.
One of our listeners sent in a I guess a
um mind melt rightser size, make a clockwise circle on
(00:47):
the floor with your right foot while writing the number
six on a pad of paper. I tried it. It
is really tough. It made me crazy. Yeah. Things like
that really get to Chuck. So Chuck, that's a good
thing that we had this little bit of banter, because
I had like no introduction whatsoever for this one convenient
How about this? Have you ever been in Niagara Falls?
I have not? Yeah, no, I haven't. And I even lived,
(01:13):
you know, in the north or not the north, the Midwest,
but the northern Midwest. It's not too far from Ohio. No,
it's not that far, especially Toledo. So um. But yeah,
never made it up there. And actually, the the only
time I've ever really seen Niagara Falls, um, was on
what Superman two where Clark Kent and Lois Lane Honeymoon.
If I remember correctly, that's the only time you've seen
(01:34):
Niagara Falls. Yeah, that's the most I've seen of it. Yeah,
it's not the only time. I don't live in a cave, chuck. Um,
So I do know a few things about Niagara Falls.
You want me to lay it on you, I will
tell you this, Chuck. Every year, Niagara Falls attracts about
twelve million visitors, right, it's a huge tourist attractionation now, um,
(01:56):
and from what else? From research, I've also found that, Um,
if you stand there long enough, somebody's going to go
in what do you mean, hell on the Niagara River
and they're going to go over the falls if you
stand there long enough. And now we may be talking
like months years, who knows, but they do pull about
twenty bodies out of the bottom of the falls every year. Yeah,
(02:19):
sadly it's a it's a suicide destination for for some folks. Yeah,
and that was just suicide's right. Yeah, but there are
a subgroup of humans running around over the last hundred
or so years who actually go over the falls on purpose.
That old cliche going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
There's actually a lot of people who have done that,
(02:41):
and it's usually a barrel. Yeah, yeah, especially the old
timing people. They went over in barrels. All of them,
oh yeah, all of them modified. And then you know,
as we progressed further into the twentieth century, the barrels
became you know, a little better, a little stronger, but yeah,
pretty much all barrels or balls spheres. Sixteen uh, if
I'm not mistaken, sixteen people have done so from two
(03:04):
thousand three, and as far as I could find, the
guy who did it in two thousand three was the
last one. I couldn't find anybody who's tried it more recently. Right,
his is the most amazing. But we should probably save that.
People don't tell it off a little bit. Yeah, we
want to, we want to pay it out slowly. So Chuck,
let's talk about the falls a little bit. How how's
your geography terrible? You want me to handle it? Well? No,
(03:26):
I mean I can. I can give you a few
facts here and there, but geography as a whole is
not my strong suit. All right, we'll give us a
few facts here there. Geographically speaking, if you've never been
to Niagara Falls, you might think that it's one set
of falls, and if you've seen the famous photos, but
is actually three sets of falls, which I'm sure you
know Horseshoe Falls, Yeah, that's the Canadian one, right, Uh, yes,
(03:47):
the American falls, that's the American American and the lesser
known and smaller bridal Veil Falls, right. And I know
you have some good numbers on these. Well, I can
tell you that this three fall set up that we
see in Niagara Falls today, or people unlike me who
go to Niagara Falls see today, Um, it's actually only
about five years old. Uh. The the falls actually a
(04:10):
road these days because they've hit some serious bedrock. They
erode backward about four to five ft a year. Yeah
that's a lot. It is a lot, but they've eroded
much much more quickly than that over time. And also
I should say that the the the entirety of of
Niagara Falls is only about fifteen thousand years old. Uh.
It was the result of the last ice age. At
(04:31):
the end of the last ice age. Um. But okay,
so so it's um eroding backward five five ft a
year um. And eventually it hit a point and the
river went down enough, the water flow went lowered enough
that it hit this island, which split it into two. River.
(04:52):
The Niagara River was split into two, and actually there's
a second smaller island, Luna Island, that split it into
three and created Bridal Veil Falls. Um. But this island,
called Goat Island, is actually named after a herd of
hapless goats that froze to death on the island. Um.
In they belonged to a goat herder named John Steadman,
(05:12):
and that's why Goat Island is called goat Islands. The
goats were they no, they were freezing goats. Yeah. So
that's that's a little bit about Niagara Falls. Oh. I
should probably give some stats here because I know everybody
loves stats. Do you have any stats? And now I'm
usually statman, but the can I take your your role today? Okay, So,
Horseshoe Falls is by far the biggest one. UM it's
(05:34):
a hundred and sixty seven foot drop. Then it hits
the made of the miss pool and actually goes down
about another hundred and eighty feet. So if you plunged
right down to the maid of the miss pool, UM,
what is that, that's like almost four hundred feet, right,
it's quite a bit. That's a significant drop. Um, it's
a there's a twenty foot brink and the water goes
over that brink at about six hundred thousand gallons per second.
(05:58):
It's a lot of water. Yeah, So you know, if
you went over the falls and survived, you've still got
this water beating down on you at that kind of rate,
which you could easily die. And even though um, Horseshoe
Falls is much bigger and there the the water volume
is is much greater. That's the one that people go over,
and they go over Niagara Falls because American Falls. UM
(06:20):
it puts water out about a hundred and fifty thousand
gallons a second. But the hundred and seventy six ft
dropped to the bottom about a hundred and six feet
of that is rock. You dropped seventy ft right on
this huge tumble of rocks. It's not a good idea
to go over that one. It's nice to look at.
It is very pretty, especially bridal bill falls just falling
in the background, Superman flying around saving people. So um,
(06:44):
so okay, there are people who go over the falls,
Chuck and um, do you know much about Daredevil's I
think is a pretty fair description to these people. Well,
I wrote an article on daredevils. Was that your article?
It was? It was a great article. I actually went
back and referenced that and I saw that there's a
picture of the first person and you go over the
falls in your article, right? Who was a woman? Yeah?
(07:04):
And Edison Taylor. But backtracking again, we're saving our anecdotes
of the people who went over So yeah, we're talking
about Daredevil's right, right, what about that one's study? Which
one the one with the testosterone? Oh right, yeah, Daredevil's
have a uh what is it? A higher level of
testosterone but a lower level of um satisfaction. I looked
(07:28):
it up. Serotonin. Uh, and it's serotonin one of the
things that does It's a neurotransmitter and UM it ecks
the curb impulsiveness. So apparently high levels of testosterone and
low levels of you know, a neurotransmitter that curbs impulsiveness
equals daredevil. Right. So that's one explanation. Another explanation is
found actually in some poor lab mice who had the
(07:50):
UM the staffman gene bread out of them, the infamous
staffman gene. Yeah, it was about to be infamous. Um.
This gene produces a protein right that allows UM nerve
cells to UH to communicate with one another in the amygdala,
and the amygdala is known to UM allow us to
(08:10):
form fear memories. Memories from fear a version like put
your hand on a hot oven. Your amygdala is going
to be like, oh, we can't do that again. Some
hot stove is what they generally say. But a hot
ovens bad too. Okay, hot oven, hot stove, I know
what you mean. UM. So the so these mice are
they were actually called in this article rather sensationally UM
(08:31):
daredevil mice. They they showed no kinds of traditional mice fear.
They explored open spaces, UM, they really didn't have much
of an aversion to receiving electric shocks. Basically, these mice
are leading a pretty hard life. I think up at
Cornella Rutgers, right, and I know that daredevil's often say
that they don't fear things like most people do. So
(08:52):
it's not like they're just overcoming this thing and they
just have to jump off of out of the plane.
They really it just doesn't affect them, which I can't
even begin to conceive of that. I have a little
bit of that to me. I used to repel and yeah,
stuff like that, but there was a little bit of
fear involved. But I was one of those that was
overcoming the fear as opposed to yeah, you're a self
actualized person. I was all right, well, Chuck, let's meet
(09:15):
some of the idiots. You've gone over Niagara Falls. Yes,
And at this point, as our attorneys would be so pleased,
I will say that you should certainly never ever ever
try to do this because it's very easy to die
trying this as a stunt. Conscientious and self Actually, I
think the fact that sixteen people have gone over, eleven
of which have survived. In the nine years two people
(09:36):
went over and survived twice, correct, which but five people died,
So yeah, and horribly too. We'll get to some of
those guys, right, So why don't we start at the beginning.
The first person to go over Niagara Falls on purpose,
as you said, was a woman Annie Edson Taylor in
one right, Yeah, which is pretty funny to think about
way back then. But yeah, she did this actually on
(09:57):
purpose as a stunt to try and make money. Yeah,
fame and fortune is pretty much the dominant reason people
have for um going over the faults, right, right, And
she was sixty three at the time, spinster. Yeah, she
didn't use listerine. She claims she was forty three and
got away with that, so she must have been in
pretty decent shape. But she packed a pickle barrel with
(10:19):
a made it air tight and packed it with pillows
and and stuffed herself in there and made it over,
survived and did not make a lot of money off
of it. She was she was smart enough to um
compress air to make it buoyant. And um she also
took her cat with her, Yeah, and they both lived. Yeah.
I guy took his turtle later on to someone else.
(10:40):
We'll get to him, sonny boy. Um, But yeah, she
went over. She and the cat made it. But yeah,
the fortune and fame that she saw it was elusive
she found and penniless, which is just sad. Yeah, I
don't like that term. Though, no one's penniless. I'm sure
someone does. But did she really not have a penny?
Come on, I don't know, I mean openny and not
teno one? Was? That's a lot? You know, they should
(11:01):
just say she died poor. Okay, that's just a personal
piece or broke, yeah, busted, Well her barrel busted. Okay,
So who's up next? Um, let's see, how about well
the first man was ten years later, Bobby Leech. Yeah,
he's kind of a stunt man, right, Yeah, he's a
circus guy. And uh, July nineteen eleven, he got into
(11:24):
a steel barrel and uh floated, you know, eighteen minutes
downstream and went over and survived. He broke both his
jaw and both of his kneecaps and spent six months
in the hospital. Not fun, No, But the the horrible
ironic twist to Mr Leach's life is that fifteen years
later he slipped on an orange peel, broke his leg,
(11:46):
it became infected, it was amputated, and two months later
he was dead of complications ultimately from slipping on an
orange peel. Right, and if that had been been an appeal,
it would be a three Stooges episode would have been
just painful to read, right it was. So he lived
but perished in a odd accident, which is interesting. You
know me check, I have um some fairly grizzly tastes,
(12:08):
all right. Um, So I think the guy with the
coolest death of the Niagara Falls tragedies was Charles Stevens.
He went over in Actually haven't heard this guy, so
you haven't laid on you. Um. He went over in
an oak barrel, all right. Uh. And it wasn't modified
or reinforced in any way, but he modified the interior.
(12:29):
He had an anvil at the bottom serves ballast so
it would stay upright. Um. And he had his feet
strapped to the anvil for some reason. Um. And uh,
he had arm straps inside the barrel, so he was
his arms were in there he he went over. Um.
Apparently when he hit the bottom, the anvil broke through
(12:49):
the bottom of the barrel and dragged him down with it.
And all they ever found of Mr Stevens was his
arm still in the arm strap inside. He was left
of the oak barrel. I kid, do not planning. Yeah,
that's yeah, it was. It actually was his his whole
his whole stunt was racked with poor planning other people
who had already gone over, um, and who who lived
around the river. And we're kind of old sea dogs. Um,
(13:12):
we're begging the guy to um, you know, test it out,
give it a try, reinforce it. Um, just do take
all these extra precautinus. He just wouldn't do it. So
as soon as you said he had an anvil in
the bottom, I kind of foresaw that coming, Yeah, Josh.
Another one that I thought was really sad um that
parish was George Status in nineteen thirty. He is what
(13:35):
Peter Tosh would call him mystic man. Yes, he was
chef in New York. He went over with his pet turtle.
Sunny Boys talked about a hundred year old turtle named
sunny Boy, supposedly, and Um, this one's really sad because
he actually went over, perhaps successfully, and was stuck behind
(13:55):
the curtain of water and eighteen hours and no one
could get to him. And they don't know for sure
whether he survived the fall. But if he did, that
means he spent um, you know, three to eight hours
is all the air he had and he actually perhaps
suffocated suffocated. What I took from it was that they
examined him and found that yeah, he he most likely
(14:16):
had suffocated, but the turtle made it. Yeah, sunny Boy
made it. And the whole reason Mr Stapa Kiss took
Sonny boy Um was so that if he died, Sunny
Boy could tell the tale. And Sunny Boy never really
said anything talking turtle. I think that says at all
mystic man. Do you want me to do another one? Okay?
(14:36):
I love this guy, Nathan Boya. He's the first African
American to go over, and he was also he kind
of bucked the trend of fame and fortune. Uh. The
reason Mr Boya went over was because it was something
he just had to do. He felt he had to do. Really,
that's what he said. Yeah. So he goes over in
nineteen sixty one, and this guy was pretty sharp. He
(14:57):
took an oxygen tank with him filled with thirty hour
is of air. Um. I believe he had a rebreather
and he went over in a h I think it
was a metal ball. He dubbed the Plunge of Sphere. Right,
he did have a rebreather which removes carbon dioxide. Yeah,
it's like scuba exactly. Yeah. So Um, he went over
in the falls. He went over the falls. Uh he Um.
(15:19):
He was successful. I think he got a little banged up,
but not not too much. And he was also the
first person to be fined for breaking a law that
was enacted um a couple of years earlier after another
guy died. Um that it's that makes it that made
it illegal to go over Niagara Falls on purpose. So
he paid a hundred bucks, which in two thousand eight
(15:40):
dollars I looked up with seven five and today's dollars. Yes,
as a find. But he was the first one to
ever be fined for doing it, because I believe the
find today is ten grand or more, yeah or more. Yeah.
And it's performing a stunt without a license. Is that
what it is? Yeah? And they've never given a license
to anybody to do it, which it just seems like
a bad idea because that's a lawsuit right there. Um.
(16:04):
Do you want to skip ahead to the most recent
and most amazing or did you have another one? You? Well,
we can go back. Where do we have to do
it chronologically? No, we don't. I want to talk about
the most recent two thousand three. Well, let's do it,
because this guy went over without anything, and he's the
only person known to go in on purpose without any
(16:25):
kind of flotation, no barrel, no nothing, just close on
his back. And there's been speculation over the years whether
or not he was suicidal or um wanted fame and fortune.
He apparently said that he was in fact depressed for years,
and his friends came out later and said, yeah, he
talked about trying to commit suicide, and so when he
(16:46):
went to Nagre, he literally stood on the other side
of the rail and was contemplating it, and a woman
behind him, who he did not know, sarcastically said, so,
what are you gonna do? Jump? And he said, yes, ma'am,
I think I will. And he did so, and he
jumped in, and just a few moments later plunged over
a horseshoe falls and said that it felt like I
(17:08):
was being swallowed by a living organism. I was flying
straight down at a tremendous speed, and the force was
so great I thought it would rip my head off.
Then it became dark, my ears popped, and I was
trapped under forty ft of water. Was beating the living
heck out of me. No, he didn't, and I couldn't
even get to the surface, and I remember thinking, well, Niagara,
I think you've beaten me. And he said, then he
(17:29):
was pushed forward and felt the sun on his face.
What's the guy's name, Kirk Jones? Cool? So Kirk survived.
He told a story to Outside magazine among others, and
um apparently said it filled them with the will to live.
So I would imagine, so good for him, kind of
like surviving a plane crash. Right, yeah, exactly, except not
quite well yeah, maybe the same, you know, part of
(17:50):
the brain, Yeah, I think so. So, okay, can we
go back one because there was one other one favorite mentioned? Um, okay,
so can we go back? And can I do one
more venture back in time? Sure, we'll go back to
heady days at the end of the Reagan era, my
junior year in high school when still wow, really, I
know you're always marveled at my like five years older
(18:12):
than you get over. Okay, alright, sorry, um so. So
it was the end of the Reagan era, but Nancy
Reagan's influence was still very clearly um imprinted upon the
National psyche. In particular, two guys named Peter Debon Hardi
and Jeffrey Petkevich, right, and they decided that they were
going to go over the falls in a barrel, and
(18:33):
um they did, and I think a ten ft long
metal barrel that was completely enclosed. And the reason that
they wanted to do this was because they wanted to
make a statement against drugs. And if you look at
their barrel, there's a picture of it in the article,
it says drugs kill, right, So what they're what they're
(18:54):
saying clearly is that it's your it's smarter to go
over Niagara Falls in a barrel than it is to
do rugs. The problem is is that's just wholly untrue,
which is why there's a two million illicit drug users
worldwide and only sixteen people who've ever gone over the
ragor falls on purpose and were surely endorsing anything. But yeah,
going over the falls in a barrel is virtual suicide.
(19:16):
It is that kind of struck me. That reminded me.
Actually there was the other guy that was trying to
raise awareness for the homeless. Yeah, what was that. Yeah,
he went over in a jet ski and the plan
was to leap off the jet ski and his he
had a rocket parachute that was going to open. But
there was some kind of malfunction and he died. I'd
say the worst of all was Jesse Sharpe. He didn't
(19:38):
even have a parachute, and he didn't wear a helmet,
and he didn't wear a life preserver, and he went
over in a kayak on purpose because he wanted a
job in the stunt industry. So I feel very badly
for Jesse's family. Yeah he perished, Oh yeah as well. Yeah.
I think they found his kayak and that was it, right,
So I think the lesson the takeaway, Josh is uh, daredevil,
(20:00):
legitimate business. Uh, going over the falls in a barrel
not a good idea? No, And and stay off drugs kids,
So chuck Audible dot com time, Yeah, our sponsors, and
then maybe a little listener mail. Can we can go
to that very special listener mail I'm looking forward to
And that means it's time for listener mail, not only
(20:21):
listener mail, Josh, this is hi Ku theater, you know,
Can we get a special Hiku theater sound effect? Wellbviously,
I bet it's in there by the time we listen
to this. I have seven high kus and they're short
because they're high cous and we get them from our listeners.
Sometimes they're in the form of corrections. Sometimes they're just
pool hikus. Okay. Uh. This one was related to the
(20:42):
Airprane Airprane airplane crash from Sarah and Loan, which I liked. Hello,
that's my seat? Sorry? Can I squeeze by you? Wow?
This is awkward? Okay? Which is do you show them
the front of your body or the rear of your body? Again?
It comes back to fight club a lot. That's right, Uh,
workplace boredom. I will follow this under that one finger
(21:03):
on keyboard carpal tunnel sets in slow. My cubicle life
is from a boardworker Brianna j O'Sullivan. It's depressing Brianna
Maggie Savage of Dover, New Hampshire. Sin this one about
the hypoallergenic cats episode Cats and dogs are swell to
darn their fur an odd cell, but hey, what the heck?
(21:25):
That's in light. Our friend Mary Anne, teaching English and
Thailand says this village and Thailand nothing but rice and noodles.
I crave cheddar cheese. Yeah, I've read that one too.
Have you checked out her blog? It's pretty good. It
is very good. Uh. Aaron when sent this his podcast
routine control all delete, fresh cup of coffee in hand.
(21:47):
Together we start great maybe flo that's very hopeful. This
is my favorite. This is from a sixteen year old
Timothy Sinclair of Albany, California. Hikus can be strange and
in unexpectedly refrigerator. That is my favorite. We have a winner,
can we get what? What's the what's the hiku writer's name?
(22:07):
The last one that was Timothy Sinclair? And I think
he deserves a T shirt. I agreed, Timothy. Send us
your address and T shirt size to our email. Please.
But that's not all. Oh keep him coming, do not?
I only have one more. And this was actually sent
today by Eric Jones of Maryland. And Eric just hiked
the entirety of the Appalachian Trail and we actually conversed
a bit today, uh via email, sent pictures. I'm a
(22:30):
hiker myself, so we kind of wrapped back and forth
about his experience, and he seems like a very cool guy.
So he wrote us a little hiku story about hiking
the eight team. So here it is two thousand and eight.
I took a long walk on the Appalachian Trail, started
in Georgia. Seven months later finished on Mountain. Thank you,
(22:52):
came home, bought iPhone, found you guys, then downloaded every
show since March played sequentially in two weeks. I learned
so much and I'm still learning. Thank you for your
time and for your excellent work mentioned me on air.
I like the high coups that end with the question
marks or refrigerator. That's pretty good. That's the best one, Timothy.
(23:14):
Did you find out? Did you find out if Eric
hiked naked? As I hear is a trend to view
on the a t Judging from the photos he sent,
he did not, but they were really gorgeous pictures. You
should look. Well. Thanks you hate nature, so thanks to
It's not the hate nature is kind of a slug, right, um,
So thank you to everybody who sent us high kus
or any kind of mail. If you want to send
(23:36):
us a high coup or a high guys, you can
send that to uh stuff podcast at how stuff works
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Does it how stuff works dot Com brought to you
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(23:59):
you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is Chuck Bryant.
I'm doing sign language. Josh, are you do you do
have finger fumblers? Uh? No, but since you brought it up,
(00:21):
we have a finger fumbler good blood, bad blood, not
to jump the gun that that has nothing to do
with this podcast. Can you sign that out for him? Okay,
Well to anyone who knows sign language, give good blood,
bad blood shot. Oh and that also reminds me Chuck.
One of our listeners sent in a I guess a
um mind melt rightser size, make a clockwise circle on
(00:47):
the floor with your right foot while writing the number
six on a pad of paper. I tried it. It
is really tough. It made me crazy. Yeah. Things like
that really get to Chuck. So Chuck, that's a good
thing that we had this little bit of banter, because
I had like no introduction whatsoever for this one convenient
How about this? Have you ever been in Niagara Falls?
I have not? Yeah, no, I haven't. And I even lived,
(01:13):
you know, in the north or not the north, the Midwest,
but the northern Midwest. It's not too far from Ohio. No,
it's not that far, especially Toledo. So um. But yeah,
never made it up there. And actually, the the only
time I've ever really seen Niagara Falls, um, was on
what Superman two where Clark Kent and Lois Lane Honeymoon.
If I remember correctly, that's the only time you've seen
(01:34):
Niagara Falls. Yeah, that's the most I've seen of it. Yeah,
it's not the only time. I don't live in a cave, chuck. Um,
So I do know a few things about Niagara Falls.
You want me to lay it on you, I will
tell you this, Chuck. Every year, Niagara Falls attracts about
twelve million visitors, right, it's a huge tourist attractionation now, um,
(01:56):
and from what else? From research, I've also found that, Um,
if you stand there long enough, somebody's going to go
in what do you mean, hell on the Niagara River
and they're going to go over the falls if you
stand there long enough. And now we may be talking
like months years, who knows, but they do pull about
twenty bodies out of the bottom of the falls every year. Yeah,
(02:19):
sadly it's a it's a suicide destination for for some folks. Yeah,
and that was just suicide's right. Yeah, but there are
a subgroup of humans running around over the last hundred
or so years who actually go over the falls on purpose.
That old cliche going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
There's actually a lot of people who have done that,
(02:41):
and it's usually a barrel. Yeah, yeah, especially the old
timing people. They went over in barrels. All of them,
oh yeah, all of them modified. And then you know,
as we progressed further into the twentieth century, the barrels
became you know, a little better, a little stronger, but yeah,
pretty much all barrels or balls spheres. Sixteen uh, if
I'm not mistaken, sixteen people have done so from two
(03:04):
thousand three, and as far as I could find, the
guy who did it in two thousand three was the
last one. I couldn't find anybody who's tried it more recently. Right,
his is the most amazing. But we should probably save that.
People don't tell it off a little bit. Yeah, we
want to, we want to pay it out slowly. So Chuck,
let's talk about the falls a little bit. How how's
your geography terrible? You want me to handle it? Well? No,
(03:26):
I mean I can. I can give you a few
facts here and there, but geography as a whole is
not my strong suit. All right, we'll give us a
few facts here there. Geographically speaking, if you've never been
to Niagara Falls, you might think that it's one set
of falls, and if you've seen the famous photos, but
is actually three sets of falls, which I'm sure you
know Horseshoe Falls, Yeah, that's the Canadian one, right, Uh, yes,
(03:47):
the American falls, that's the American American and the lesser
known and smaller bridal Veil Falls, right. And I know
you have some good numbers on these. Well, I can
tell you that this three fall set up that we
see in Niagara Falls today, or people unlike me who
go to Niagara Falls see today, Um, it's actually only
about five years old. Uh. The the falls actually a
(04:10):
road these days because they've hit some serious bedrock. They
erode backward about four to five ft a year. Yeah
that's a lot. It is a lot, but they've eroded
much much more quickly than that over time. And also
I should say that the the the entirety of of
Niagara Falls is only about fifteen thousand years old. Uh.
It was the result of the last ice age. At
(04:31):
the end of the last ice age. Um. But okay,
so so it's um eroding backward five five ft a
year um. And eventually it hit a point and the
river went down enough, the water flow went lowered enough
that it hit this island, which split it into two. River.
(04:52):
The Niagara River was split into two, and actually there's
a second smaller island, Luna Island, that split it into
three and created Bridal Veil Falls. Um. But this island,
called Goat Island, is actually named after a herd of
hapless goats that froze to death on the island. Um.
In they belonged to a goat herder named John Steadman,
(05:12):
and that's why Goat Island is called goat Islands. The
goats were they no, they were freezing goats. Yeah. So
that's that's a little bit about Niagara Falls. Oh. I
should probably give some stats here because I know everybody
loves stats. Do you have any stats? And now I'm
usually statman, but the can I take your your role today? Okay, So,
Horseshoe Falls is by far the biggest one. UM it's
(05:34):
a hundred and sixty seven foot drop. Then it hits
the made of the miss pool and actually goes down
about another hundred and eighty feet. So if you plunged
right down to the maid of the miss pool, UM,
what is that, that's like almost four hundred feet, right,
it's quite a bit. That's a significant drop. Um, it's
a there's a twenty foot brink and the water goes
over that brink at about six hundred thousand gallons per second.
(05:58):
It's a lot of water. Yeah, So you know, if
you went over the falls and survived, you've still got
this water beating down on you at that kind of rate,
which you could easily die. And even though um, Horseshoe
Falls is much bigger and there the the water volume
is is much greater. That's the one that people go over,
and they go over Niagara Falls because American Falls. UM
(06:20):
it puts water out about a hundred and fifty thousand
gallons a second. But the hundred and seventy six ft
dropped to the bottom about a hundred and six feet
of that is rock. You dropped seventy ft right on
this huge tumble of rocks. It's not a good idea
to go over that one. It's nice to look at.
It is very pretty, especially bridal bill falls just falling
in the background, Superman flying around saving people. So um,
(06:44):
so okay, there are people who go over the falls,
Chuck and um, do you know much about Daredevil's I
think is a pretty fair description to these people. Well,
I wrote an article on daredevils. Was that your article?
It was? It was a great article. I actually went
back and referenced that and I saw that there's a
picture of the first person and you go over the
falls in your article, right? Who was a woman? Yeah?
(07:04):
And Edison Taylor. But backtracking again, we're saving our anecdotes
of the people who went over So yeah, we're talking
about Daredevil's right, right, what about that one's study? Which
one the one with the testosterone? Oh right, yeah, Daredevil's
have a uh what is it? A higher level of
testosterone but a lower level of um satisfaction. I looked
(07:28):
it up. Serotonin. Uh, and it's serotonin one of the
things that does It's a neurotransmitter and UM it ecks
the curb impulsiveness. So apparently high levels of testosterone and
low levels of you know, a neurotransmitter that curbs impulsiveness
equals daredevil. Right. So that's one explanation. Another explanation is
found actually in some poor lab mice who had the
(07:50):
UM the staffman gene bread out of them, the infamous
staffman gene. Yeah, it was about to be infamous. Um.
This gene produces a protein right that allows UM nerve
cells to UH to communicate with one another in the amygdala,
and the amygdala is known to UM allow us to
(08:10):
form fear memories. Memories from fear a version like put
your hand on a hot oven. Your amygdala is going
to be like, oh, we can't do that again. Some
hot stove is what they generally say. But a hot
ovens bad too. Okay, hot oven, hot stove, I know
what you mean. UM. So the so these mice are
they were actually called in this article rather sensationally UM
(08:31):
daredevil mice. They they showed no kinds of traditional mice fear.
They explored open spaces, UM, they really didn't have much
of an aversion to receiving electric shocks. Basically, these mice
are leading a pretty hard life. I think up at
Cornella Rutgers, right, and I know that daredevil's often say
that they don't fear things like most people do. So
(08:52):
it's not like they're just overcoming this thing and they
just have to jump off of out of the plane.
They really it just doesn't affect them, which I can't
even begin to conceive of that. I have a little
bit of that to me. I used to repel and yeah,
stuff like that, but there was a little bit of
fear involved. But I was one of those that was
overcoming the fear as opposed to yeah, you're a self
actualized person. I was all right, well, Chuck, let's meet
(09:15):
some of the idiots. You've gone over Niagara Falls. Yes,
And at this point, as our attorneys would be so pleased,
I will say that you should certainly never ever ever
try to do this because it's very easy to die
trying this as a stunt. Conscientious and self Actually, I
think the fact that sixteen people have gone over, eleven
of which have survived. In the nine years two people
(09:36):
went over and survived twice, correct, which but five people died,
So yeah, and horribly too. We'll get to some of
those guys, right, So why don't we start at the beginning.
The first person to go over Niagara Falls on purpose,
as you said, was a woman Annie Edson Taylor in
one right, Yeah, which is pretty funny to think about
way back then. But yeah, she did this actually on
(09:57):
purpose as a stunt to try and make money. Yeah,
fame and fortune is pretty much the dominant reason people
have for um going over the faults, right, right, And
she was sixty three at the time, spinster. Yeah, she
didn't use listerine. She claims she was forty three and
got away with that, so she must have been in
pretty decent shape. But she packed a pickle barrel with
(10:19):
a made it air tight and packed it with pillows
and and stuffed herself in there and made it over,
survived and did not make a lot of money off
of it. She was she was smart enough to um
compress air to make it buoyant. And um she also
took her cat with her, Yeah, and they both lived. Yeah.
I guy took his turtle later on to someone else.
(10:40):
We'll get to him, sonny boy. Um, But yeah, she
went over. She and the cat made it. But yeah,
the fortune and fame that she saw it was elusive
she found and penniless, which is just sad. Yeah, I
don't like that term. Though, no one's penniless. I'm sure
someone does. But did she really not have a penny?
Come on, I don't know, I mean openny and not
teno one? Was? That's a lot? You know, they should
(11:01):
just say she died poor. Okay, that's just a personal
piece or broke, yeah, busted, Well her barrel busted. Okay,
So who's up next? Um, let's see, how about well
the first man was ten years later, Bobby Leech. Yeah,
he's kind of a stunt man, right, Yeah, he's a
circus guy. And uh, July nineteen eleven, he got into
(11:24):
a steel barrel and uh floated, you know, eighteen minutes
downstream and went over and survived. He broke both his
jaw and both of his kneecaps and spent six months
in the hospital. Not fun, No, But the the horrible
ironic twist to Mr Leach's life is that fifteen years
later he slipped on an orange peel, broke his leg,
(11:46):
it became infected, it was amputated, and two months later
he was dead of complications ultimately from slipping on an
orange peel. Right, and if that had been been an appeal,
it would be a three Stooges episode would have been
just painful to read, right it was. So he lived
but perished in a odd accident, which is interesting. You
know me check, I have um some fairly grizzly tastes,
(12:08):
all right. Um, So I think the guy with the
coolest death of the Niagara Falls tragedies was Charles Stevens.
He went over in Actually haven't heard this guy, so
you haven't laid on you. Um. He went over in
an oak barrel, all right. Uh. And it wasn't modified
or reinforced in any way, but he modified the interior.
(12:29):
He had an anvil at the bottom serves ballast so
it would stay upright. Um. And he had his feet
strapped to the anvil for some reason. Um. And uh,
he had arm straps inside the barrel, so he was
his arms were in there he he went over. Um.
Apparently when he hit the bottom, the anvil broke through
(12:49):
the bottom of the barrel and dragged him down with it.
And all they ever found of Mr Stevens was his
arm still in the arm strap inside. He was left
of the oak barrel. I kid, do not planning. Yeah,
that's yeah, it was. It actually was his his whole
his whole stunt was racked with poor planning other people
who had already gone over, um, and who who lived
around the river. And we're kind of old sea dogs. Um,
(13:12):
we're begging the guy to um, you know, test it out,
give it a try, reinforce it. Um, just do take
all these extra precautinus. He just wouldn't do it. So
as soon as you said he had an anvil in
the bottom, I kind of foresaw that coming, Yeah, Josh.
Another one that I thought was really sad um that
parish was George Status in nineteen thirty. He is what
(13:35):
Peter Tosh would call him mystic man. Yes, he was
chef in New York. He went over with his pet turtle.
Sunny Boys talked about a hundred year old turtle named
sunny Boy, supposedly, and Um, this one's really sad because
he actually went over, perhaps successfully, and was stuck behind
(13:55):
the curtain of water and eighteen hours and no one
could get to him. And they don't know for sure
whether he survived the fall. But if he did, that
means he spent um, you know, three to eight hours
is all the air he had and he actually perhaps
suffocated suffocated. What I took from it was that they
examined him and found that yeah, he he most likely
(14:16):
had suffocated, but the turtle made it. Yeah, sunny Boy
made it. And the whole reason Mr Stapa Kiss took
Sonny boy Um was so that if he died, Sunny
Boy could tell the tale. And Sunny Boy never really
said anything talking turtle. I think that says at all
mystic man. Do you want me to do another one? Okay?
(14:36):
I love this guy, Nathan Boya. He's the first African
American to go over, and he was also he kind
of bucked the trend of fame and fortune. Uh. The
reason Mr Boya went over was because it was something
he just had to do. He felt he had to do. Really,
that's what he said. Yeah. So he goes over in
nineteen sixty one, and this guy was pretty sharp. He
(14:57):
took an oxygen tank with him filled with thirty hour
is of air. Um. I believe he had a rebreather
and he went over in a h I think it
was a metal ball. He dubbed the Plunge of Sphere. Right,
he did have a rebreather which removes carbon dioxide. Yeah,
it's like scuba exactly. Yeah. So Um, he went over
in the falls. He went over the falls. Uh he Um.
(15:19):
He was successful. I think he got a little banged up,
but not not too much. And he was also the
first person to be fined for breaking a law that
was enacted um a couple of years earlier after another
guy died. Um that it's that makes it that made
it illegal to go over Niagara Falls on purpose. So
he paid a hundred bucks, which in two thousand eight
(15:40):
dollars I looked up with seven five and today's dollars. Yes,
as a find. But he was the first one to
ever be fined for doing it, because I believe the
find today is ten grand or more, yeah or more. Yeah.
And it's performing a stunt without a license. Is that
what it is? Yeah? And they've never given a license
to anybody to do it, which it just seems like
a bad idea because that's a lawsuit right there. Um.
(16:04):
Do you want to skip ahead to the most recent
and most amazing or did you have another one? You? Well,
we can go back. Where do we have to do
it chronologically? No, we don't. I want to talk about
the most recent two thousand three. Well, let's do it,
because this guy went over without anything, and he's the
only person known to go in on purpose without any
(16:25):
kind of flotation, no barrel, no nothing, just close on
his back. And there's been speculation over the years whether
or not he was suicidal or um wanted fame and fortune.
He apparently said that he was in fact depressed for years,
and his friends came out later and said, yeah, he
talked about trying to commit suicide, and so when he
(16:46):
went to Nagre, he literally stood on the other side
of the rail and was contemplating it, and a woman
behind him, who he did not know, sarcastically said, so,
what are you gonna do? Jump? And he said, yes, ma'am,
I think I will. And he did so, and he
jumped in, and just a few moments later plunged over
a horseshoe falls and said that it felt like I
(17:08):
was being swallowed by a living organism. I was flying
straight down at a tremendous speed, and the force was
so great I thought it would rip my head off.
Then it became dark, my ears popped, and I was
trapped under forty ft of water. Was beating the living
heck out of me. No, he didn't, and I couldn't
even get to the surface, and I remember thinking, well, Niagara,
I think you've beaten me. And he said, then he
(17:29):
was pushed forward and felt the sun on his face.
What's the guy's name, Kirk Jones? Cool? So Kirk survived.
He told a story to Outside magazine among others, and
um apparently said it filled them with the will to live.
So I would imagine, so good for him, kind of
like surviving a plane crash. Right, yeah, exactly, except not
quite well yeah, maybe the same, you know, part of
(17:50):
the brain, Yeah, I think so. So, okay, can we
go back one because there was one other one favorite mentioned? Um, okay,
so can we go back? And can I do one
more venture back in time? Sure, we'll go back to
heady days at the end of the Reagan era, my
junior year in high school when still wow, really, I
know you're always marveled at my like five years older
(18:12):
than you get over. Okay, alright, sorry, um so. So
it was the end of the Reagan era, but Nancy
Reagan's influence was still very clearly um imprinted upon the
National psyche. In particular, two guys named Peter Debon Hardi
and Jeffrey Petkevich, right, and they decided that they were
going to go over the falls in a barrel, and
(18:33):
um they did, and I think a ten ft long
metal barrel that was completely enclosed. And the reason that
they wanted to do this was because they wanted to
make a statement against drugs. And if you look at
their barrel, there's a picture of it in the article,
it says drugs kill, right, So what they're what they're
(18:54):
saying clearly is that it's your it's smarter to go
over Niagara Falls in a barrel than it is to
do rugs. The problem is is that's just wholly untrue,
which is why there's a two million illicit drug users
worldwide and only sixteen people who've ever gone over the
ragor falls on purpose and were surely endorsing anything. But yeah,
going over the falls in a barrel is virtual suicide.
(19:16):
It is that kind of struck me. That reminded me.
Actually there was the other guy that was trying to
raise awareness for the homeless. Yeah, what was that. Yeah,
he went over in a jet ski and the plan
was to leap off the jet ski and his he
had a rocket parachute that was going to open. But
there was some kind of malfunction and he died. I'd
say the worst of all was Jesse Sharpe. He didn't
(19:38):
even have a parachute, and he didn't wear a helmet,
and he didn't wear a life preserver, and he went
over in a kayak on purpose because he wanted a
job in the stunt industry. So I feel very badly
for Jesse's family. Yeah he perished, Oh yeah as well. Yeah.
I think they found his kayak and that was it, right,
So I think the lesson the takeaway, Josh is uh, daredevil,
(20:00):
legitimate business. Uh, going over the falls in a barrel
not a good idea? No, And and stay off drugs kids,
So chuck Audible dot com time, Yeah, our sponsors, and
then maybe a little listener mail. Can we can go
to that very special listener mail I'm looking forward to
And that means it's time for listener mail, not only
(20:21):
listener mail, Josh, this is hi Ku theater, you know,
Can we get a special Hiku theater sound effect? Wellbviously,
I bet it's in there by the time we listen
to this. I have seven high kus and they're short
because they're high cous and we get them from our listeners.
Sometimes they're in the form of corrections. Sometimes they're just
pool hikus. Okay. Uh. This one was related to the
(20:42):
Airprane Airprane airplane crash from Sarah and Loan, which I liked. Hello,
that's my seat? Sorry? Can I squeeze by you? Wow?
This is awkward? Okay? Which is do you show them
the front of your body or the rear of your body? Again?
It comes back to fight club a lot. That's right, Uh,
workplace boredom. I will follow this under that one finger
(21:03):
on keyboard carpal tunnel sets in slow. My cubicle life
is from a boardworker Brianna j O'Sullivan. It's depressing Brianna
Maggie Savage of Dover, New Hampshire. Sin this one about
the hypoallergenic cats episode Cats and dogs are swell to
darn their fur an odd cell, but hey, what the heck?
(21:25):
That's in light. Our friend Mary Anne, teaching English and
Thailand says this village and Thailand nothing but rice and noodles.
I crave cheddar cheese. Yeah, I've read that one too.
Have you checked out her blog? It's pretty good. It
is very good. Uh. Aaron when sent this his podcast
routine control all delete, fresh cup of coffee in hand.
(21:47):
Together we start great maybe flo that's very hopeful. This
is my favorite. This is from a sixteen year old
Timothy Sinclair of Albany, California. Hikus can be strange and
in unexpectedly refrigerator. That is my favorite. We have a winner,
can we get what? What's the what's the hiku writer's name?
(22:07):
The last one that was Timothy Sinclair? And I think
he deserves a T shirt. I agreed, Timothy. Send us
your address and T shirt size to our email. Please.
But that's not all. Oh keep him coming, do not?
I only have one more. And this was actually sent
today by Eric Jones of Maryland. And Eric just hiked
the entirety of the Appalachian Trail and we actually conversed
a bit today, uh via email, sent pictures. I'm a
(22:30):
hiker myself, so we kind of wrapped back and forth
about his experience, and he seems like a very cool guy.
So he wrote us a little hiku story about hiking
the eight team. So here it is two thousand and eight.
I took a long walk on the Appalachian Trail, started
in Georgia. Seven months later finished on Mountain. Thank you,
(22:52):
came home, bought iPhone, found you guys, then downloaded every
show since March played sequentially in two weeks. I learned
so much and I'm still learning. Thank you for your
time and for your excellent work mentioned me on air.
I like the high coups that end with the question
marks or refrigerator. That's pretty good. That's the best one, Timothy.
(23:14):
Did you find out? Did you find out if Eric
hiked naked? As I hear is a trend to view
on the a t Judging from the photos he sent,
he did not, but they were really gorgeous pictures. You
should look. Well. Thanks you hate nature, so thanks to
It's not the hate nature is kind of a slug, right, um,
So thank you to everybody who sent us high kus
or any kind of mail. If you want to send
(23:36):
us a high coup or a high guys, you can
send that to uh stuff podcast at how stuff works
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Does it how stuff works dot Com brought to you
by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are
(23:59):
you
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