282: This Week: Ali, Argo, Gunpowder

October 30, 1974. Kinshasa, Zaire.

Muhammad Ali is walking down a dark tunnel along with some other people on either side. We know it’s Ali because he’s wearing a white robe with his name written on the back. At the end of the tunnel, we can see some lights in the distance. For a brief moment, Ali and the other people are obscured by the darkness as they turn into silhouettes against the light on the other side.

Then, as they continue walking, the sound of people can be heard as we can see what the lights are.

The tunnel opens up into a huge stadium filled with people. Except the people aren’t just in the stands, they’re on the field as well. It’s nighttime, which explains the darkness as well as the stadium lights that we could see through the tunnel. Most of the light, though, is coming from a bunch of lights mounted over a boxing ring set up in the center of the stadium.

We can clearly see that Will Smith is the actor portraying Muhammad Ali now as he’s walking through the crowd toward the ring.

Now, the camera cuts to the boxing ring as we see Ali climbing through the ropes to get inside. Once inside, he bounces around a bit to get loose. A line of photographers and media outside the ring take photos of Ali as he gets ready for the fight.

There are some other people in the ring with him, but there doesn’t seem to be another boxer. Someone tells Ali that George is making them wait. A moment later, the camera cuts to another boxer with his entourage making his way through the crowd. They cheer the new arrival as he enters the ring with Ali.

We can hear the crowd chanting “Foreman,” which tells us that this is Charles Shufford’s character, George Foreman.

Wearing a red robe with matching red shorts, Foreman bounces around as he gets loose for the fight. His gaze stays on Ali as he does, which is a look that Ali matches.

An announcer addresses the crowd as Foreman and Ali are tended to by people that I can only assume are their trainers—the movie doesn’t really mention specifically who they are at this point. But it doesn’t really have to for us to get the point that both boxers are getting ready for a fight.

The announcer continues in French, introducing the boxers to the crowd. After he announces the man from Louisville, Kentucky as the “Louisville Slugger”, he says the name Muhammad Ali and the crowd cheers loudly. Then, he introduces the other boxer from Texas, George Foreman! The crowd cheers loudly again.

He goes on to say something else, but the camera doesn’t really focus much on the announcer anymore as we can hear Ali trash talking Foreman from across the ring. Then, Ali and Foreman step up to the middle of the ring. A referee wearing a black and white striped shirt is between them giving them instructions. Holding a mic, he tells the two boxers they know the rules but he wants a clean fight. No hitting low. Ali keeps mouthing off against Foreman, causing the ref to ask him to be quiet and listen to the instructions or he’ll disqualify Ali.

The two boxers take their corners as the ring empties of everyone but three men: Ali, Foreman, and the referee.

Then, the bell rings and the fight begins.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Ali

That sequence comes from the 2001 biographical film directed by Michael Mann that is called Ali. The event it’s depicting is The Rumble in the Jungle, which was the heavyweight championship boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, happened this week in history on October 30^th, 1974.

The movie was correct to show it happening in a stadium, too. It happened in the football stadium—that’s soccer for those of us in the United States—known as the 20^th of May Stadium in Zaire. At least, that’s what it was called back in 1974. Today, the stadium called the Stade Tata Raphaël in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

While the movie doesn’t mention the number of people there, it’s clear the stadium is packed. And it really was. The stadium’s capacity is 50,000 people, and over 60,000 people attended the fight that night. It’s gone down in history as one of the greatest sporting events in the 20^th century—maybe even all of history.

The movie was also correct with the announcer’s mention of Ali being from Louisville, Kentucky and his opponent George Foreman being from Texas. Houston, to be more precise. Although I couldn’t find anything in my research to suggest the announcer called Ali the “Louisville Slugger.” Ali’s nickname was “The Greatest.”

Something else that isn’t mentioned in the part of the movie we talked about today is that George Foreman was the favorite against Ali. With a record of 40-0, Foreman was a 4-to-1 favorite to beat Ali, who had a 44-2 record going into the fight.

The movie was also correct to show Ali jawing and trash talking Foreman. That’s something a lot of boxers do—or any athlete, I guess. But especially when it comes to a championship fight between two people with the records like Foreman and Ali had. So, it’s probably no surprise that Ali would do the that, too.

In fact, Ali even went to the lengths of writing a poem for George Foreman:

Last night I had a dream, When I got to Africa,

I had one hell of a rumble.

I had to beat Tarzan’s behind first,

For claiming to be King of the Jungle.

For this fight, I’ve wrestled with alligators,

I’ve tussled with a whale.

I done handcuffed lightning

And throw thunder in jail.

You know I’m bad.

just last week, I murdered a rock,

Injured a stone, Hospitalized a brick.

I’m so mean, I make medicine sick.

I’m so fast, man,

I can run through a hurricane and don’t get wet.

When George Foreman meets me,

He’ll pay his debt.

I can drown the drink of water, and kill a dead tree.

Wait till you see Muhammad Ali.

Of course, not all of Ali’s trash talk was as poetic as that, but he was certainly creative in his trash talk haha!

When it came time for the fight itself, he was ready. Probably moreso than ever since the fight had to be delayed. It had been set for September 25^th, that’s the 24^th in the U.S. due to time zones, but it had to be pushed back after Foreman got a cut in a sparring session that required stitches. So, it was pushed back to October 30^th.

At first, Ali’s tactic of using his speed to begin the fight didn’t work to tire Foreman. After the first round, Foreman had started landing punches on Ali. So, he changed his approach.

In the second round, Ali leaned on the ropes and covered up. He let Foreman punch his body and arms so much that Foreman tired himself out without landing hits that’d earn points. As he did this, Ali looked for opportunities to focus on hitting Foreman in the face. As a result, Foreman started to tire out while his face also started to puff up from the punches Ali managed to land here and there.

It took more than one round to fully tire out Foreman, but a few rounds of Ali’s tactic started to work. With each round, Foreman started to tire more and more. In the 8^th round, Ali took advantage of his tiring opponent with a combination of punches that ended with Foreman stumbling. He managed to get to one knee, but the referee called the fight.

In the end, the underdog Muhammad Ali defeated George Foreman in the 8^th round with a knockout. Aside from the excitement of being a championship bout with the underdog winning, another big reason why the Rumble in the Jungle has gone down in history as a great sporting event is because of Ali’s technique of leaning on the ropes to take punches and tire out his opponent. Later, Ali called it “rope-a-dope.”

If you want to watch the fight as it’s shown in the 2001 movie, it starts about two hours and 14 minutes into Ali. And we covered that movie in more depth way back on episode #11 of Based on a True Story.

November 4, 1979. U.S. Embassy, Iran.

Our next movie has a black screen and with white text, those words we’re so familiar with: “Based on a true story.” Then it tells us the date and location that we just mentioned.

We can hear the chants of a crowd and the scene cuts to a man in an olive-green jacket waving an American flag as it burns. The camera moves and we can see the man is standing on a balcony of some sort overlooking the chanting crowd below. Since English is the only language I speak, I’m not sure what they’re chanting, but it’s pretty obvious that this is not a happy crowd.

They have signs with Arabic writing on it and they have raised fists that they punch the air with as they’re chanting. Some of the signs have the photograph of a man with a white beard. The camera shows shots of a variety of the men and women in the crowd, and we can see hands of the people at the front of the crowd shaking a heavily chained gate.

In the next shot, we’re inside the building on the other side of the gate. A woman on the phone looks out the window at the angry crowd. They’re a little distance off as there’s a parking lot and a brick wall keeping the crowd out of the embassy complex. In another room, a couple men are looking out of a window at the crowd, too.

One of them taps the window and says they’re supposed to be bullet proof, right? The other guy chuckles and remarks they’ve never been tested.

Elsewhere in the building, people are waiting for visas. The movie did tell us this is the U.S. Embassy, after all. I paused the movie to count there are 22 people sitting in yellow chairs in the waiting room. But there must be more in the room, because we could see someone at the window being helped and a few more people looking out the windows, too.

There’s a brief shot from the perspective of a helicopter flying over the crowd before going back to ground level. The chanting continues as a lone man climbs the gate and jumps over to the other side. Then, another man follows him. Now three people are climbing over at once.

Inside the building, we can see a man watching from the window. He returns to others to let them know people are climbing over the walls. He says he’s going to go close up his office. Back with the crowd, someone cuts the chain holding the gate with bolt cutters. Once cut, the gates fly open and the crowd rushes through.

One of the Americans inside is talking angrily on the phone, saying he needs the police there right away. Others are on radios, talking with the security team—Marines who are falling back from the perimeter after the breach. We see an order coming through, ordering them to immediately destroy any sensitive materials.

Then, another man on the phone is yelling the order to burn everything now! There are documents in the embassy they don’t want to fall into the hands of the crowd. They start burning all the files from cabinets, the safe, and so on.

Outside, the crowd rushes across the parking lot to the embassy building itself.

Back inside, files are being thrown into shopping carts so they can be taken to where they’ll be burned. The Marines offering security for the embassy start grabbing their helmets. Someone reminds them not to shoot anyone, we don’t want to start a war. They grab canisters of what I’m assuming is CS gas—or tear gas as it’s often called—and have orders to hold the crowd off for an hour. That’s what they need to burn the classified documents.

Now we can see the crowd breaking through the glass in basement windows. There are bars in the windows, still, so it’s not like they can get through quickly. But it’s clear it’s only a matter of time before they find their way inside.

The Americans inside are arguing about what to do. It’s been 45 minutes, and the Iranian police haven’t shown up. They’re not coming. We have to go. We have to evacuate.

Meanwhile, the Marines have started shooting tear gas into the crowd through windows. It definitely affects those nearby, but it doesn’t work to disperse the whole crowd. Others are working on prying the bars off the basement windows they broke. More tear gas gets shot at those people before they can get inside.

Back to the group of Americans arguing about what to do, they point out that on the embassy grounds they’re in the United States of America. The moment they leave, they’re in Iran. But, it’s now or never to leave or stay and it seems like they’ve decided they need to go.

By the front door, one of the Americans in riot gear takes off his helmet and mask. This is Bill Tangradi’s character, Alan Golacinski. He says he’s going to go outside to try and reason with the crowd. The instant he walks outside, the angry crowd grabs him and puts a blindfold on him. With a gun pointed to his face, the crowd forces Golacinski to be the one to get the Marines inside to open the front door.

It works.

The Marines open the door and try to get just their comrade, but the angry mob surges through the doors. Now, they’re inside.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Argo

That sequence comes from the 2012 movie starring and directed by Ben Affleck called Argo. The event it’s depicting is the start of what we now know as the Iran hostage crisis, which started this week in history on November 4^th, 1979.

The movie does a pretty good job showing how it started, although there is more to the story.

The crowd was a bunch of Iranian college students who were supporting Ayatollah Khomeini. He’s the guy with a white beard that we see in the movie on the posters in the crowd. Khomeini, in turn, was the religious leader of the Iranian Revolution that overthrew the dynasty that had ruled Iran since 1925. That revolution saw the government in Iran change from the Imperial State of Iran that had heavily relied on the United States through the Cold War into the Islamic Republic of Iran, a theocratic form of government that’s in power today.

The man who led the government that was overthrown in the revolution was a man named Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. After being ousted from power, Pahlavi was granted asylum in the United States. But Khomeini’s new government demanded that Pahlavi be returned to face a trial for crimes he was accused of committing during his rule. The U.S. refused, and many in Iran then aligned the U.S. with Pahlavi’s crimes.

In the movie we hear the people in the U.S. embassy talking about how they’re in the United States but going outside means they’re in Iran, and while that’s a common held belief that the land embassies hold belong to the country that’s not really true. So, the U.S. embassy in Iran might be run by the U.S., but it’s not like the land underneath it is technically United States. What is true, though, is that embassies have special privileges due to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

But that’s getting into technicalities.

It’s a big deal to mess with one country’s embassy in another country.

Just like we see in the movie, the crowd that gathered outside of the U.S. embassy in Tehran that day didn’t seem to care about these technicalities. In fact, even though the movie doesn’t show this, the events of November 4^th weren’t the first time the American Embassy was targeted. The first hostage was a Marine named Kenneth Kraus, who was taken after Iranian militants stormed the embassy and captured him on February 14^th, 1979. The embassy was returned to U.S. control within a few hours and Kraus was released six days later. There was also a plan in September of that year.

November 4^th was different.

Early in the morning, a crowd of somewhere between three and five hundred people assembled outside embassy walls. Just like we see in the movie, they did have bolt cutters to cut the chains on the embassy gates. Some sources suggested that the students didn’t plan for anything other than a peaceful protest inside the embassy grounds. But even if that was the initial plan, what really happened that day resulted in 52 Americans from the embassy being taken hostage. It sparked what’s still considered a turning point in relations between Iran and the United States as those hostages were held captive for 444 days, from November 4^th, 1979 until January 20^th, 1981.

If you want to watch how the day unfolded in a movie, check out 2012’s Argo. The day of November 4^th is how the movie starts as the rest of the movie is how the CIA and Canadian government teamed up for a covert operation to rescue some of the embassy members who managed to escape capture by the crowd only to find themselves stranded in Iran.

We covered the true story behind that movie in more depth on another early episode of Based on a True Story—episode #17.

November 5, 1605. London, England.

A lone man is sitting a box, looking at what appears to be a pocket watch in his hands. He’s playing with the top, opening and closing it so it makes a “clink” noise. It’s dark all around him. The box he’s sitting on is in the center of a dirt pathway that seems to be in a basement of some sort. But, it’s not the basement of a house, but rather a huge structure. You can’t see the ceilings over his head, but rather a line of huge stone arches going off into the distance.

Although we can’t see anyone else in there with him, we can hear a muffled voice. He looks up in the direction of the camera, which cuts to another shot where we can see the woman behind the voice.

She’s telling a group of men that they’re not allowed to enter. Master Percy has leased the cellar in the name of his patron, the Earl of Northumberland. The men seem to be wearing armor and some a couple are carrying torches to light their way in the darkness.

The man in front ignores the woman and walks up the cellar door, followed by the rest of the men. He rattles the handle. It’s locked. Turning to the men behind him, he orders them to break it down.

Inside the cellar, we can see the man who was sitting on the box. He’s standing now as he hears the pounding of the men trying to break down the door. Behind the box, he starts to light something. It takes a couple tries, but he manages to start a spark and the fuse starts to burn. Then, he grabs his sword from on top of the box and waits for the men on the other side of the door.

A moment later, the door gives way. He pulls the sword from the scabbard and stands between the men entering the cellar and the fuse behind him.

We can see his breath in the cold air as he stares defiantly at the men entering the cellar. He takes a few steps closer to them and starts to swing his sword through the air. The armed men walking into the cellar take stock of the scene in front of them. The man keeps waving his sword at them and yelling as a fuse burns along the ground. With the light from the fuse’s fire, we can see a stack of barrels a few steps from the box where the fuse was lit.

The man in charge turns to someone next to him and orders him to cut the fuse. He rushes forward, but the man with the sword strikes and slashes the man to the ground. Another man attacks and he, too, is bested by the man waiting for them. The leader of the men attacks now, and after a brief sword fight he manages to get a punch in, knocking him to the ground. A kick now, and another punch. Bloodied, the man tries to defend the fuse as it burns. But, with a final punch, he’s knocked nearly unconscious.

The leader kneels on him now, forcing the delirious man to watch as they cut the fuse and undo the work he’s done.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the TV series Gunpowder

That sequence comes from the final episode of the 3-part miniseries from 2017 called Gunpowder. The event it’s depicting is what history remembers as the Gunpowder Plot, which took place this week in history on November 5^th, 1605.

You’ve probably heard the nursey rhyme based on the plot that was popularized by the movie V For Vendetta. In that movie, it focuses mostly on the first few lines but here’s the full version of the traditional poem:

Remember, remember!
    The fifth of November,
    The Gunpowder treason and plot;
    I know of no reason
    Why the Gunpowder treason
    Should ever be forgot!
    Guy Fawkes and his companions
    Did the scheme contrive,
    To blow the King and Parliament
    All up alive.
    Threescore barrels, laid below,
    To prove old England’s overthrow.
    But, by God’s providence, him they catch,
    With a dark lantern, lighting a match!
    A stick and a stake
    For King James’s sake!
    If you won’t give me one,
    I’ll take two,
    The better for me,
    And the worse for you.
    A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,
    A penn’orth of cheese to choke him,
    A pint of beer to wash it down,
    And a jolly good fire to burn him.
    Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!
    Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!
    Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!

So, what really happened?

Well, the series was correct to show Guy Fawkes—he’s the man who was playing with the pocket watch, then guarding the fuse and slashing with his sword at the attackers in the series. He’s played by Tom Cullen.

Some sources say that happened on the evening of November 4^th, while others say it was just after midnight on November 5^th. The plot itself was set to go off on November 5^th when Parliament returned to session, the barrels of gunpowder would be blown to destroy Parliament when the session opened again on November 5^th.

The series was also correct to mention the names of Percy and the Earl of Northumberland.

While Guy Fawkes is most commonly associated with the plot because he was the one found with the barrels, it’s not like the whole idea was a one-man show. There were 13 conspirators involved, and one of them was a man named Thomas Percy. His relative, Henry Percy, was the 9^th Earl of Northumberland. The leader of the plot was Robert Catesby, who is played by Kit Harington in the series.

The reason behind the plot is too complex for today’s episode—if you want to see us cover the Gunpowder series in more depth let me know—but in a nutshell, the reasons were both political and religious.

A couple years earlier, in 1603, Queen Elizabeth I died. She was called the Virgin Queen as she never married and didn’t have any children, so when she died the throne went to the nearest heir. That was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary was Elizabeth’s first cousin twice removed. But, of course, she was executed after being found guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth. That’s a whole other story that we’ve covered in other episodes, but Mary had a son named James and so he became King James in 1603. Technically James I of England and Ireland and James VI of Scotland, but our story today focuses on England.

For the decades of Elizabeth’s reign, Catholics had found their beliefs stifled. She had established the Church of England, which broke the Pope’s authority in England.

On his initial ascension to the throne, some of the powerful Catholics in England felt like James might treat them better than Elizabeth had. That started to change quickly, though, due in no small part to Catholic plots against James’ life in an attempt to put a Catholic on the throne. But that’s one of those things in history where we don’t really know the full story.

But, as far as we understand it, the idea was to remove the Protestant King James I from the throne and replace him with his cousin, Lady Arbella Stuart. So, in a way a lot like the plot to replace Elizabeth I with Mary Stuart that ended up costing Mary her life. That’s all outside the scope of our story today, but if you want to know more about the 1603 plot then do a search for the “Main Plot.”

The result of this was that James wasn’t quite as friendly to Catholics. In early 1604, James had a meeting at Hampton Court where he sided with the Puritans against the Catholics. A month later, he publicly announced his “utter detestation” of Catholicism.

So, a few months later, in May of 1604, the devout Catholic Robert Catesby started a plan to blow up Parliament. Inside would be King James I, his wife, the queen, and their eldest son. At the same time, they’d kidnap James’ daughter elsewhere and put her on the throne as a puppet queen.

That was the plan.

They rented out a vault underneath the House of Lords—that’s the huge room that I was describing from the series with the stone arches going off into the distance. That explains why it’s so dark; it’s basically a basement cellar. We also see the fuse illuminating the darkness to show barrels stacked up.

Except in the true story, the conspirators covered up the barrels with coal and firewood to make it less conspicuous. But that’s not as good of a visual on screen.

The were barrels of gunpowder, hence the plot. Once the fuse hits the barrels: Boom!

Some sources vary on the amount of gunpowder used, like in the poem we heard there were threescore barrels. Most historians say there were 36 barrels of gunpowder. That’s about 3,000 pounds, or 1,360 kilograms, or about 1.5 tons worth of gunpowder.

That’s a big boom.

But, just like we see in the series, the explosion never happened. Well, maybe it wasn’t just like we see in the series—I’m sure the series makes the discovery more tense with the sword fights than it probably was. And we’ll find out why here in a moment, but in a nutshell, here’s an outline of what happened.

In May of 1605, the conspirators were ready to blow up Parliament. But, blowing up the building wasn’t the plan—they needed the people inside to remove King James from the throne. So, they waited until Parliament was to open on November 5^th. Guy Fawkes was the one in charge of guarding the cellar until then.

By late October, an anonymous letter alerted those in charge that there was a plot afoot. The conspirators were aware that their plot may be discovered, but Fawkes informed Catesby that nothing appeared to be changed in the cellar. So, they decided to keep on.

The king himself was shown the letter about the plot on November 4^th, and he ordered men to search the buildings.

One difference between what we see in the series and what really happened was that Guy Fawkes opened the door for the men searching the cellars—those men were led by Thomas Howard, the 1^st Earl of Suffolk. Fawkes had no issue opening the cellar doors because the barrels of gunpowder were covered with firewood. It looked innocent.

Well, except for the fact that there was a huge amount of firewood—you know, enough to cover up 1.5 tons of gunpowder.

So, it wasn’t a woman outside the door who mentioned Thomas Percy, but rather it was Fawkes himself who mentioned Percy’s name. Normally, that wouldn’t have been an issue. But Suffolk was aware of a possible plot and Percy maybe being involved, so the mention of his name warranted further investigation of the cellar with a large amount of Percy’s firewood in it.

The men searched the firewood and found the gunpowder. Fawkes was arrested and tortured until he gave up the names of his conspirators. That happened a few days later on November 9^th.

So, the plot was uncovered, albeit not in quite as exciting a manner as we see in the series. I couldn’t find anything to suggest that Fawkes had already lit the fuse, although as we heard from the poem it definitely is a popular belief…and we do know that Fawkes was caught with a lantern. That lantern is in a museum in Oxford today, if you want to see it, so regardless of whether or not he had already started the fire—he certainly had the means to.

Some say he didn’t start it yet, though. After all, he was discovered next to the plot around midnight on November 5^th. That’s the day of Parliament opening, but it’s not like they open in the middle of the night. So, even if he had blown up the building in the late hours of November 4^th or early morning hours of November 5^th, it wouldn’t have successfully fulfilled the plot. As we just learned, if all they wanted to do was blow up an empty building, they could’ve done it back in May.

If you want to watch how the plot was uncovered in the series, check out 2017 Gunpowder series. It’s a 3-part miniseries about the events leading up to the plot, but we started our segment today at about 25 minutes into the final episode.

November 5, 1955. Hill Valley, California.

We’ve already done our three events this week, but I had to throw in one more.

Sitting down in the driver’s seat of the DeLorean, Doc Brown explains to Marty McFly how his new invention works. You turn on the time circuits first. Three digital displays turn on, and he explains that one shows you where you’re going, one shows you where you are, and one shows you where you were.

He goes on to explain to Marty who is filming this with his VHS camcorder, let’s say you want to see the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Doc Brown types in the date of July 4^th, 1776. Or maybe you want to witness the birth of Christ. He types in another date and we can see the display switch to December 25^th in the year 0000.

After a moment’s pause, Doc talks about what he calls a red-letter date in the history of science: November 5^th, 1955. He types the date into the display as he repeats the date.

Marty asks what happened that day.

Doc says that’s the day he invented time travel. He goes on to recall how he was standing on the edge of his toilet hanging a clock. The porcelain was wet, he slipped and hit his head on the edge of the sink. When he came to, he had a vision of the flux capacitor—the device that makes time travel possible.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Back to the Future

I’m sure you already figured out what movie that’s from, but as a refresher that was from the 1985 film called Back to the Future. And the event it’s depicting is, of course, fictional. It’s not like Doc Brown really invented time travel on November 5^th, 1955, because, for one, Doc Brown isn’t real.

But there’s a couple other dates mentioned there, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t correct the movie a little bit. While the dates of July 4^th, 1776, and December 25^th, 0000, may be easily recognizable: That is not when the Declaration of Independence was signed, nor was that the date when Christ was born, like Doc Brown says.

The Declaration of Independence was signed on August 2^nd, 1776. The reason July 4^th is the holiday observed as Independence Day is because that was when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve the Declaration of Independence. They then signed it later, although to be fair the actual date of signing has been debated some—most agree it was probably August 2^nd.

As for the day Jesus was born, there’s even more debate about that. But again, most people agree that it was not on December 25^th in the year 0000. After all, the shepherds were tending their flocks in the fields at night. Most don’t do that in the winter, so people assume he was probably born in the spring or summer.

Most don’t think he was actually born in the year 0000, either, but more likely that he was born sometime between 7 BCE and 4 BCE. Although, again, we don’t really know for sure.

But, of course, that’s a lot more in-depth than the movie would care to get so I can give it a break there. With that said, though, if you want to learn a little more about the history of the Declaration of Independence, we talked a bit about that on BOATS This Week for July 4^th, back on episode #260. As for the other date, we learned more about the history of Christmas with my sister-in-law, actually, who has written a book about the history of Christmas. That was back on episode #145.