Dana B | Dana Learns
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00:00Oh it's the newly married Mr. Beers. Look at that ring.
00:05Don't say it.
00:07Well I heard you had a hard time getting it off.
00:09Everyone says that but that's not fucking true.
00:11You resized it.
00:12I post one picture where it looks a little tight
00:15and everyone says it's, I'm fat and I have fat fingers.
00:18Look how easy that was.
00:19Well the good news is that if it does get stuck
00:21you've got plenty of grease and lard around the house to loosen it up.
00:26Yep.
00:27In fact my guess would be that most of the time that finger is greasy.
00:31You know.
00:32Sticking it into a bucket of KFC.
00:35Uh oh.
00:36The ring's stuck.
00:37Oh never mind.
00:38Maybe that's why it's easy to come off.
00:40Good thing my fingers are slipping.
00:42I've had bacon and ice cream today.
00:44Your newly beloved bride has really entered the reality.
00:50Yeah.
00:51We're going.
00:52We're going towards 300.
00:54Sorry baby.
00:57What kind of a ring is that?
00:58What's that made out of?
00:59What'd you go with?
01:00Gold.
01:01Gold?
01:02Yep.
01:03Metal for today's lesson.
01:04Mining?
01:05I'm going to do the gold rush.
01:06Oh!
01:07California baby.
01:08Do you know anything about it?
01:10I know they fucking got gold.
01:11The California gold rush.
01:13Yeah.
01:141849 to 1855.
01:16Okay.
01:17Some incredible things came as a result of this.
01:20Okay.
01:21Including, probably most notably, that California became a state.
01:24Oh!
01:25I was going to say gold.
01:26Well sure.
01:27Yeah.
01:28You know.
01:29Yeah.
01:30That was big.
01:31Obviously.
01:32I'd say probably the most notable thing if it's named the gold rush.
01:35Nobody's calling it the state rush.
01:37In 1848, in Coloma, California, James W. Marshall discovered gold at Sutter's Mill.
01:46Do you think you would have gone out there?
01:48If they said there's a chance that you'll get rich, or there's a chance you'll be beheaded,
01:53I would go.
01:54But there were two ways to get there.
01:55Overland or by sea, right?
01:56Yeah.
01:57You take a wagon.
01:58Yeah, but I see that's my point.
01:59I don't know if you would have been able to.
02:01I would have gotten the wagon.
02:02Go the wagon route.
02:03Get the fuck out of here.
02:04I would have gone on the wagon and I would have made those horses.
02:08Spend a lot of money on repairing the broken axles.
02:12They're not going to break.
02:13Lot of oxen that you'd have to put a bullet between their horns.
02:18They've broken down.
02:20I'm not breaking down oxen.
02:22The gold was discovered actually in January of 1948.
02:25But as soon as word got out, that's when people just started coming in droves.
02:30So was it just one bro that was fucking whipping his pickaxe all over the joint?
02:35Yeah, so James Marshall was employed by Johan John Sutter to help him build his mill.
02:42He was building his mill for him.
02:43He was a carpenter.
02:44There was a creek that ran by the mill.
02:47And one day he went down to the creek and he noticed just these tiny little flecks of minerals.
02:52Something shiny.
02:53Something shiny caught his eye.
02:55You know what I mean?
02:56I'd fucking jump in there.
02:57Yeah, yeah.
02:58He went in and he sort of collected a little bit and he started performing some tests on it.
03:02And he knew metals and minerals at that point.
03:04He was a metal man.
03:05Yeah, and he did some tests which were that he was able to pound these little gold pieces and flex into different shapes.
03:11Because gold is very malleable.
03:13Malleable might as well mean fucking Chinese to me.
03:17Well, it's workable.
03:19Bendable.
03:20You know, you can manipulate it into different shapes.
03:22Yeah, like...
03:23Play-Doh.
03:24Like that?
03:25There you go.
03:26Or a tooth, say, or...
03:27A tooth?
03:28Yeah, a gold tooth, you know?
03:29Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
03:30I'm sorry.
03:31Yeah, you scared me.
03:32I could see you being a gold tooth kind of guy.
03:33Ah!
03:34Yeah, me too.
03:35Yeah.
03:36I'm trying to think of like why I would need one, but...
03:38Well, you keep having four ice creams at night.
03:40We're not going to talk about the ice creams.
03:41That has nothing to do with the ice cream.
03:43Mm-hmm.
03:44It's more if like someone punches you and your tooth falls out.
03:46Okay.
03:47Like if I got in a fight, let's say.
03:48Mm-hmm.
03:49We don't have to turn it into the fat guy.
03:50We could be the tough guy.
03:51That's fine.
03:52Yeah.
03:53You're fighting someone because they took your ice cream.
03:56Fuck you, dude.
03:57Mm-hmm.
03:58Come on.
03:59I don't know what else would make you so mad.
04:01Just cut you in line for the ice cream cones.
04:04Yeah.
04:05So he finds the gold and he confirms that it is gold and within a matter of days, Sutter
04:14has to shut down his mill because everybody who's working for him gives up and starts going
04:20to find gold.
04:21Why wouldn't Marshall just keep his mouth shut and do it all by himself?
04:27Sounds like he was actually a pretty noble guy.
04:29I mean, he immediately brought the gold straight to his boss, Sutter, and said, I think I've
04:34found some gold here.
04:35Yeah.
04:36I'd probably do something similar.
04:37I feel like my boys wanted some gold.
04:39Yeah.
04:40Come over, fellas.
04:41Let's go digging.
04:42Give me 10%.
04:43I would make sure I got most of the profits.
04:46Yeah.
04:47I'd get walked all over.
04:49I'd give it pretty easily.
04:50You'd be lucky to get any.
04:52If Dave found out I was digging for gold, it's his.
04:55Yeah, right.
04:56You're right.
04:57Never mind.
04:58People descended upon his land like locusts.
05:00Wow.
05:01As soon as word got out.
05:02Yeah.
05:03That there was gold to be had.
05:04Okay.
05:05And within, I don't know, a year or so, there were over 300,000 people that traveled to
05:10California to try their luck at finding gold.
05:12Is gold discovery just kind of random?
05:15Like, couldn't it be anywhere?
05:17Like, could it be where we are right now if we looked hard enough?
05:22I mean, you'd have to believe that the people who spend their lives trying to find gold have
05:32probably combed over Chicago.
05:34Well, it's just something to consider.
05:37When they say gold rush, that makes me think of like an avalanche.
05:41Well, it refers to the people that came out.
05:44Okay.
05:45In huge hordes.
05:46So it's not an avalanche of gold.
05:49There was so much gold found that it basically, the influx of people who'd come to find it
05:54and the money that they found as a result of discovering the gold, powered the building
05:59of the California economy and its growth in population such that in 1950, it became a state.
06:07It's like, uh, hey, you want the city of opportunity, New York City.
06:13Let's go move there.
06:15It's like gold opportunity.
06:17Okay.
06:18Yeah.
06:19I mean, that's really a vague connection.
06:21I was just trying to say something.
06:22I had a feeling.
06:23I couldn't imagine what you were going to do.
06:26I was trying to think of like, oh, we're in Chicago.
06:29Why do people come here?
06:31What do they look for?
06:32They look for fucking fat foods.
06:35I don't know.
06:37That's probably why I'm here.
06:38I don't know.
06:39Did you move here for the deep dish pizza?
06:42I don't know, but some people might.
06:44What a great place to raise a family.
06:46Yeah.
06:47They'll be well fed.
06:48There were a few reasons why it ended.
06:50Most of the surface accessible gold had been depleted by that point, right?
06:56So all the gold that you could just find by walking over it or the stuff that was in the streams
07:00and rivers and stuff, that had been found and taken.
07:02Okay.
07:03At which point, the only way to really get more gold was to have pretty intensive mining operations built, right?
07:12Which meant that anyone who stuck around to continue working there became a wage laborer for a bigger company that had all the hydraulic equipment.
07:20And then we'd just get a fucking excavator in there.
07:23Fucking...
07:24I mean, it's 1852.
07:25Someone should have been like, hey, I'll buy this fucking thing.
07:28Yeah.
07:29And we'll go to the crater, the Earth's crater, and we'll get all the gold.
07:32The Earth's crater.
07:33The Earth's...
07:34Core?
07:35Core.
07:36Sure.
07:37Sure.
07:38I'm thinking about crust.
07:39Sure the crust, yeah.
07:42Crust.
07:43Crust.
07:44Yeah.
07:45It's called crust.
07:46You're a big crust guy.
07:47I know, yeah.
07:48Yeah.
07:49I mean, that's crazy if you just think about it.
07:50It's called crust.
07:51I know.
07:52It's like everyone else thinks of pizza, but it's really the Earth.
07:55It really is.
07:56And then there's the core.
07:57Mm-hmm.
07:58Uh, yeah.
07:59They should have dug to the core.
08:00But the other...
08:01Okay.
08:02So another reason why...
08:04Another reason why the gold rush ended, as I said, a lot of the gold had been found
08:10in 19...
08:11Excuse me.
08:12In 1859, silver was discovered across the Sierra Nevadas in Nevada.
08:19Okay.
08:20Something called the Comstock Load.
08:22Oh.
08:23Which diverted a lot of people to go rush off and try to go mine silver.
08:26Yup.
08:27So...
08:28The old load of 59.
08:29Yeah.
08:30And that's load L-O-D-E.
08:32Oh, come on.
08:33That's no fun.
08:34I got them both.
08:35There you go.
08:36Silver and gold.
08:37Yup.
08:38Now you just need platinum to summon the demon of metal.
08:41Or bronze.
08:42Yeah.
08:43There you go.
08:44Or copper.
08:47Or...
08:48There's others.
08:49Nickel.
08:50Right?
08:51Yeah.
08:52That's the gold rush, brother.
08:55Thanks, Francis.
08:56See you next time.