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Abandoned Engineering - Season 15 Episode 11 -
Churchill's Folly
Churchill's Folly
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00:00In New Jersey, a secretive facility
00:04infiltrated by a Soviet spy room.
00:08It's believed the damage they did to national security
00:10was incalculable.
00:13A palatial compound in Peru that held lavish parties
00:17for the country's elite.
00:19But something terrible was happening
00:21right underneath their feet.
00:26A subterranean labyrinth in Wales,
00:29at the heart of a booming global trade,
00:31but riddled with danger.
00:34He was working in this area, and unfortunately,
00:38the blast went off early.
00:41And an island stronghold in Greece besieged by the Nazis.
00:46This battle is such a disaster for the Allies
00:49that it gets called Churchill's folly.
00:59In the lowlands of New Jersey, USA, are the remains of a sprawling complex
01:09linked to a devastating infiltration.
01:11We're just a few miles from the Jersey shore in a typical residential area
01:21with wide, tree-lined streets.
01:23But this one area is set apart.
01:26Lots of wide open spaces, buildings that looked like they were constructed
01:32as part of a unified project.
01:35There appear to be theatres or lecture halls, so was this maybe a school or university?
01:42But other areas start to paint quite a confusing picture.
01:46One building has a room.
01:48It's all filled with inward-facing cards.
01:53It feels otherworldly, like something out of a sci-fi movie.
01:58You get the feeling that there was something very advanced and highly classified happening here.
02:03For decades, this facility was at the cutting edge of military research.
02:10But that would make it a target.
02:14You could argue that this was the worst case of internal espionage in American history.
02:27Melissa Ziobro became the official historian for this innovative complex in 2004.
02:33For close to 100 years, this site was essential to making sure that the US army was the best
02:40prepared and best equipped in the world.
02:42It was built to solve a fundamental problem that any military faces.
02:48How do you ensure accurate communication in the midst of battle?
02:52You can figure out where the enemy is strong, where it's weak, and then convey that information to your troops effectively and quickly, you have an edge.
03:08In May 1917, just a month after America joined World War I, a temporary camp was established here.
03:19It was dedicated to training the Army's Signal Corps.
03:22This was a group completely devoted to the correct transmission of information under the harshest conditions.
03:34They used telegraphs, telephones, even carrier pigeons.
03:38In recognition of the crucial role they played in defeating Germany in 1918, the camp was soon transformed into a permanent installation.
03:50In the gap between World War I and World War II, the world was changing rapidly.
03:55The aircraft carrier mechanized transport meant the wars of the future were going to take place over even larger expanses of terrain or ocean.
04:06That would strain the existing communications technology.
04:11New approaches would need to be developed, and soldiers would need to be trained to use all this new technology.
04:18We are in one of the barracks buildings on Barker Circle, the first permanent construction done here on base.
04:28They were very involved in early wireless technologies, early radio, they were testing air-to-ground radio.
04:36The high-tech innovations made here led to this place developing a nickname, the Army's House of Magic.
04:44But its official name was Fort Monmouth.
04:48During the 1930s, they made a pivotal breakthrough with a technology that would change warfare, radar.
04:58The radar systems developed here would be deployed on many fronts.
05:03One of the first was Hawaii, the home of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
05:08There are actually radars from Fort Monmouth at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
05:14They detect the incoming Japanese planes.
05:18Panicking at what they saw, they reported the incoming planes to their superiors.
05:22But the radar operators told, don't worry about it, it's probably birds, or maybe it's our own planes, because the technology was just so new.
05:31People didn't understand it, they didn't trust it.
05:33And, of course, then the Japanese attack happens.
05:38It's now back here at Fort Monmouth, the radar folks are at first horrified.
05:44They think that their technology has failed.
05:48Then they find out, no, it worked, but the warning wasn't heeded.
05:52This will go down in history as one of the great communications disasters in modern warfare.
05:58Japan's raid on Pearl Harbor turned out to be a spectacular success for them.
06:06Sunk much of the American fleet in the harbor, killed 2,400 American servicemen.
06:12It was an epic disaster for the U.S.
06:17Thrust into global war, Fort Monmouth's mission was now more critical than ever.
06:23Thousands of civilian engineers were brought into the Signal Corps to create vital new communication technologies.
06:35This would have been a highly classified facility.
06:38The anechoic chamber absorbed sound and electromagnetic rays and allowed personnel to test things like antennas and radars.
06:48As well as further advances in radar, they also developed groundbreaking backpack radios.
06:55These made a vital difference on the battlefield.
07:00The technologies coming out of Fort Monmouth were the envy of the world.
07:06And so there was a constant recognition that we might be infiltrated.
07:12Yet Fort Monmouth had already been compromised, with a mole embedded within its ranks.
07:20Julius Rosenberg joined the Army Signal Corps engineering laboratories in 1940.
07:26He worked as an engineer and inspector for them until 1945, but early in the war he had been recruited as a Soviet spy.
07:33The history here is tricky. The Soviets were nominally America's allies in fighting the Germans.
07:42But everyone knew the Soviets would again be America's enemies at some point after the end of the war.
07:50Julius Rosenberg was perfectly positioned to gather as much information as possible.
07:56And he wasn't operating alone.
07:59Julius Rosenberg and his handlers recruited two more people who worked at Fort Monmouth.
08:06Joel Barr and Alfred Sarant.
08:08Julius Rosenberg's spy ring copied more than 9,000 pages of top secret documents.
08:16Information about a hundred different weapon systems.
08:21In one case, Rosenberg obtained the actual unit of a proximity fuse.
08:26An incredibly vital piece of technology.
08:28He literally put it in a box and wrapped it up as a Christmas present for his Soviet handler.
08:35As World War II was morphing into the Cold War, Rosenberg continued to smuggle top secret material
08:42back to his Soviet overlords, now America's primary foe.
08:49In this dawning nuclear age, the stakes were higher than ever.
08:52He recruited his brother-in-law who worked at the post-war period's most important,
09:01most top secret project, Los Alamos, where they were doing the work to develop the atomic weapon.
09:10The information that Rosenberg passed on to the Soviets
09:13allowed them to greatly accelerate their own program to develop an atomic bomb.
09:29On the 29th of August 1949, the Soviet Union tested their first nuclear weapon.
09:35It was almost a carbon copy of the Fat Man bomb developed at Los Alamos.
09:43US intelligence investigated a potential leak, which eventually led them back to Rosenberg and
09:49his co-conspirators who began their betrayal at Fort Monmouth.
09:53U.S.
09:56Helped by a tip-off from the Russian handlers, Barr and Surant fled to the Soviet Union, where they
10:01spent the rest of their working lives developing new weapon systems for the communist regime.
10:07Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were not so lucky.
10:12Ethel's brother, David Greenglass, implicated the pair after his own arrest in June 1950 for leaking
10:20confidential information from Los Alamos.
10:24The Rosenbergs were put on trial in one of the most publicized and closely watched events in
10:33American history. They were both sentenced to death and executed at Sing Sing Prison.
10:41Two months later, in 1953, the Rosenbergs' connection to Fort Monmouth was pounced on by a
10:48fanatical anti-communist crusader, Joseph McCarthy.
10:56A flamboyant senator, Joseph McCarthy, was taking advantage of the concerns about communist
11:04infiltration to boost his own profile and career. McCarthy claimed that communists had infiltrated
11:11all sorts of branches of the U.S. government from the State Department to the military.
11:18So once McCarthy knows that Rosenberg had worked for the Signal Corps, Fort Monmouth is the home of
11:26the Signal Corps. He becomes convinced that surely there must still be a communist spiring operating.
11:33He actually visited the base as part of his investigation in the fall of 1953.
11:38He made a big show of how he was here and he was, you know, personally trying to root out these communists.
11:44The complete, wholehearted support now of the commanding generals in Fort Monmouth,
11:50who want to clean communists and potential estimated agents out of their organization.
11:54He went on to hold a series of hearings into the subversive activity he believed was still going on here.
12:04His allegations were reckless. They were flamboyant. They weren't really based on any inside information
12:10on his part. But any time McCarthy talked, he could be guaranteed a bank of TV cameras.
12:17Workers were suspended for anything from attending a benefit rally for Russian children to having
12:23a name similar to someone else who was a suspect. Based on McCarthy's allegations,
12:29the officials at Fort Monmouth suspended 42 employees. Of the 42 accused, all but two were reinstated by 1958.
12:40But 15 years later, in 1973, after a military reorganization, the Signal Corps was relocated.
12:53What remains behind here at Fort Monmouth is something known as the Electronics Command.
12:58And then we start getting into things like night vision technologies and GPS and early cell phones
13:03and on and on and on up through the global war on terror.
13:06The base was officially closed on September 15th, 2011. And with that,
13:13nearly a century of US Army occupation came to an end.
13:21But Fort Monmouth would have one more brush with fame.
13:26Bruce Springsteen, who is a Monmouth County native, practiced here in the expo theater that we're standing in.
13:32I have met Bruce. He is lovely. You know, he's just another Jersey Shore guy who happens to be an international rock star.
13:47Today, like many retired US military bases, there are plans for Fort Monmouth to be converted to various
13:54kinds of civilian uses, including business and housing.
13:58And there are plans underway to turn parts of the campus into a movie studio.
14:07In North Wales, near the Irish Sea, is a scarred landscape that helped inspire Tolkien's Mordor and Middle Earth.
14:16We're in the ancient, rugged mountains of Wales. It's one of the wettest parts of Britain, cloudy and misty, but the landscape has a special majesty.
14:31But the landscape around here isn't pristine. It's deeply scarred. And there are huge piles of rubble and debris everywhere.
14:39You see old structures, some of them in ruins, with all kinds of equipment laying around.
14:47Clearly, there's something in the hills here that was worth an enormous amount of human effort.
14:53This material was carved out of the land, transforming the region and creating a vast, unseen labyrinth.
15:02This material was carved out of the land in the mountains.
15:04When you descend into the mountainside, you enter a completely different world.
15:09It seems like there are miles and miles of tunnels, and then interspersed along them, these enormous cavernous rooms.
15:19But the material they were mining was prized across the world, from New York to San Francisco, even as far as Australia.
15:26At one time, half the buildings in New York were covered with this material.
15:36Phil Lee Jones has a deep connection to this site.
15:40He gives tours around this complex, where his forefathers once toiled.
15:48I can go back about five generations of my family working in these places, probably more.
15:54You can imagine all the machinery, all the wheels turning.
15:59It'd be a very noisy place, it'd be a very busy place.
16:04As far back as Roman times, humans have tried to extract a precious resource from this land.
16:12But into the mid-1800s, that extraction began to change it beyond all recognition.
16:18From rolling green hills, into the blackened landscape visible today.
16:24This whole enormous complex began with one man's determination to find his fortune in these barren hills.
16:36Entrepreneur John Greaves arrived here in the 1840s.
16:41Greaves was convinced there was a seam of what was known as blue-gray gold somewhere here.
16:47He just had to find it.
16:50That blue-gray gold was a precious rock called slate.
16:56Slate had been mined in these hills for many years, and there were little quarries all over the place.
17:01But the really good slate was found deep within the hills.
17:05He dug for three years and found nothing.
17:10The story goes that he sank his entire fortune into the search and was on the verge of bankruptcy.
17:16But it says something about what kind of leader he was, because his men were willing for a time to work for free.
17:23They also believed that he was on the verge of a great discovery.
17:29Then, in 1849, his prayers were answered.
17:33They found what's known as the Merioneth Old Vane, and they began to follow it deep underground.
17:39Eventually, they would dig out 250 chambers across 16 levels stretching 1,200 feet from top to bottom.
17:47And it's all connected by 25 miles of tunnels.
17:52This is the Lekweth Mine, in an area called Blenna Festiniog, which became known as the slate capital of the world.
18:05The slate from Wales has a reputation of being some of the best in the world.
18:09It's very smooth, has a beautiful colour, it weather as well.
18:13And despite being easy to split on one axis, it remains extremely durable.
18:20That makes it a wonderful building material.
18:23Highly resistant to fire and corrosion, it's also waterproof, lending itself perfectly to roofing.
18:31Slate roofs can last 100 years, even a couple of centuries.
18:36Wagons would be coming in with big slabs along the rail tracks here from underground.
18:42They'd come to these sewing tables, and then they were sewn into manageable blocks.
18:49And then they were transported down to these cubicles down over here,
18:54where then they would be turned into finished roofing slates.
19:01Into the 1850s, it was being exported to all corners of the globe,
19:06giving rise to the saying, Wales roofed the world.
19:10It was a fact not lost on the mine's owner.
19:14Greaves was an astute businessman, and he invested in a series of railways and shipping wharves to ensure
19:21that he could export his slate around the rest of the country and the world.
19:25As San Francisco was having a huge building boom due to the gold rush,
19:32a lot of the buildings were roofed with slate from this mine.
19:37Greaves' operations were proving to be a huge success.
19:42But even by the standards of underground mining, slate mines were particularly hazardous.
19:48It's hard to imagine just how dangerous and difficult this work was.
19:55First of all, no electric lights.
19:56So they're descending deep, deep, deep into the mountainside
20:01with a candle at best. They can see basically what's in front of their faces.
20:08The miners could be crushed to death by cave-ins, burnt by gas explosions or blown up by gunpowder.
20:16This is what happened with my grandfather. He was working in this area and unfortunately,
20:23the blast went off early and he lost the use of his hand. His hand was mangled, it was like that.
20:28Couldn't straighten his fingers out. He had a big scar on the inside of his wrist
20:33and blue freckles all over his hand. It's where the slate had gone in, underneath the skin.
20:37So I can't appreciate the dangers.
20:41But there was another unseen threat, perhaps the biggest of all.
20:47Mining and processing the slate was very dusty and the workers had no protection against it.
20:53They spent their lives breathing in harmful silica dust.
20:58The government was so concerned they did an inquiry into the death rate in these mines
21:03and they found that it was even worse than that of coal miners.
21:08The risks would eventually provoke the miners into action.
21:12In 1874, a mine workers union was formed.
21:17This is one of the first places where there was a real effort to unionize the workforce,
21:22to fight for some of their rights, to fight for greater safety, better pay.
21:27As this movement was gathering pace, Lekweth went through a period of transition.
21:34John Greaves died in 1880 and passed the operation over to his son, also called John Greaves.
21:40He was soon faced with a wave of strikes that swept across the region.
21:48And a recession, which dragged on into the 1890s and was compounded by a changing global market.
21:55There was increasing competition from cheaper slate brought in from abroad, including mines in Pennsylvania,
22:03which were originally set up by Welsh miners.
22:06So soon the miners of Wales were competing against some of their former countrymen.
22:12The industry's decline continued into the 20th century, exacerbated by the Great Depression and two world wars.
22:19It would never fully recover. Underground mining eventually ended here in the 1980s.
22:30That's the downfall of Welsh slate. It's the best in the world, but it's the most expensive in the world as well.
22:43The slate landscape of northwest Wales is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
22:50But Lekweth has been repurposed to boost employment.
22:57In 1972, the Lekweth slate caverns opened to the public as a tourist attraction.
23:04As well as historical tours, a company called Zip World has turned several former slate
23:10mines in the area into adventure playgrounds, which include the fastest zip line in the world.
23:19In Greece is the rugged island of Leros,
23:27a strategic outpost that's been the envy of leaders and dictators through the ages.
23:33On one of the largest peaks is a strange three-sided formation made of concrete.
23:44From the ground, this just looks like some concrete construction.
23:49But when you get above ground and you look down at this place,
23:52that is one strange three-sided structure down there.
24:00Though unique looking, it becomes clear that it doesn't stand alone.
24:04Low concrete buildings, tunnels, bunkers, towers with high vantage points.
24:16These must be some type of military structures, but they've fallen into disrepair.
24:22The people on this island suffered a lot. They were the victims of other people's war.
24:41They were the victims of other people's war. They were the victims of other people's war.
24:58On the Greek island of Leros, shattered structures are all that remain of a bitter conflict that ripped this quiet community apart.
25:08This modern sculpture was the acoustic mirror.
25:16It was a concave structure that trapped and amplified the sound of the incoming aircraft.
25:23Local resident Nikos Fokas has been entranced by these formations for decades.
25:28Leros is part of Greece today, but these structures date back to an era when the island was under foreign control.
25:59This aircraft warning system was part of an extensive network of fortifications,
26:05built in the 1920s and 30s on the orders of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
26:14Their purpose was to protect the island's greatest strategic asset,
26:18a port that would allow Mussolini to challenge the British navy's domination of the region's seas.
26:28This island is providing a massive naval base, a deep water port,
26:34that enables the Italians to keep sea power active against rival powers in the eastern Mediterranean.
26:43It was one of the largest naval bases they had outside of the mainland Italy.
26:53They had shipments, they had warships, they had the submarine base.
26:57They gave them total control of the area.
27:00Mussolini's rapidly expanding navy could now vie for supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean,
27:07able to refuel and resupply in safety under the protection of the island's fortifications.
27:13It wasn't until World War II that these defences would be put to use.
27:21By 1943, the region was largely occupied by the Axis powers of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.
27:32But when the Allied invasion of mainland Italy began in September,
27:35in September, Mussolini's regime crumbled and his army surrendered.
27:41The race was now on for control of Leros.
27:47The Germans rushed to seize all the areas held by the Italians, who are now seen as traitors.
27:53This made British Prime Minister Winston Churchill incredibly nervous.
27:58He, like Mussolini, saw these islands as strategically crucial.
28:04And he says, we have got to take these islands.
28:09But his American allies would have none of it.
28:13The American decision makers, Dwight Eisenhower in particular, want nothing whatsoever to do
28:19with trying to grab Italian-held Greek islands off the coast of Turkey.
28:26From an American point of view, if we're going to attack anything in the Mediterranean, it's Italy.
28:34But Churchill was hellbent on seeing his plans through, even if it meant the British going alone.
28:41Churchill rushed 3,000 British troops to the island to reinforce the 8,000-man Italian garrison,
28:48now stranded on Leros.
28:50They won the race against the Nazis, but a reckoning was coming.
29:02On September 26, the German air attack began.
29:06The Luftwaffe began a relentless campaign that lasted over 50 days.
29:12Nicholas Stalaglou was just nine years old when the bombardments began.
29:17Nicholas Stalaglou was just nine years old when the bombardments began.
29:21But the Germans didn't just target military positions, they attacked the islands, towns and villages.
29:43Sometimes 40 bombers came with each wave, and there were up to six waves per day.
30:04After seven weeks of relentless attack, in the early hours of November 12, a German invasion force approached Leros.
30:16Nearly 3,000 elite troops launched an assault across the island, hoping to claim the vital port for Nazi Germany.
30:23Some units landed right beneath this arsenal of weapons.
30:34These were the mounting bolts for the guns.
30:38The guns placed here were anti-ship guns.
30:42Everyone knows that a naval ship can never win in a gunfight against a shore battery.
30:49But the cannon on top of this steep peak had a fatal flaw.
30:56The gun is built to fire at something far.
31:01If you bring something up close, you can't depress the barrel far enough to shoot at it.
31:08This gun is fearsome at range. It is useless up close.
31:14German landing craft managed to sneak in under the blind spot of the guns.
31:20They started climbing up the hill.
31:24The Allied artillery troops stationed in this battery were about to be confronted with
31:29hand-to-hand combat against elite Nazi infantry.
31:36So, the German troopers that landed there were specially trained to climb the rocks.
31:41The fighting was close quarters, hand-to-hand fight, with handguns. It was actually like being on a street fight. It was that close.
31:50Once they secured positions on the rocky slopes, it was impossible to dislodge the German soldiers.
31:57Soon, the Allied troops were hemmed in on all sides.
32:01There were also some paratroopers that fell on the other side of the hill.
32:06And there were heavy losses on both sides. It took the Germans two days to conquer this gunpoint.
32:15With total control of the skies, the Nazis dropped waves of paratroopers onto the narrow neck at the
32:22centre of the island, splitting the Allied forces in two.
32:25After four days of bitter fighting, the Germans had the Allied HQ surrounded.
32:32At that point, the British commander surrendered. He was keen to avoid a massacre.
32:37Out of the 3,000 British troops on the island, almost 600 were killed, and the rest were either
32:44injured or taken as prisoners of war.
32:46The Italians lost nearly 300 men. And in total, 8,500 Allied troops were taken captive.
32:57This is said to be one of Germany's last victories in World War II.
33:03It's such a disaster for the British that it gets called Churchill's folly.
33:08Despite its obvious flaws from the very start, Winston Churchill remained defiant.
33:16Privately, he blamed the Americans. With their help, it might have been avoided.
33:22Germany occupied Leros until the end of the war. After their defeat, it returned to British control.
33:30The island finally became part of Greece in 1948.
33:35Since then, the gun battery ruins have sat abandoned, slowly crumbling down the mountainside.
33:42In recent years, the Greek cultural ministry declared Leros' World War II remains as an historic monument.
33:56Leros stands as a living museum of one of the most epic and tragic battles of World War II.
34:02Leros' World War II is a palatial compound designed by an owner living a double life.
34:21We can see farmland stretching out into the distance. But surrounded by modern structures is a building that looks really out of place.
34:30This building has a real mishmash of features with its ornate arches and tiling. There are also gothic spires, castle-like walls, and these towers.
34:45The gardens indicate wealth and opulence, which is mirrored inside.
34:50Decorative wallpaper, wood carvings, and stained glass windows. Whoever built this had some serious cash to play with.
35:00On a lower level, we find a trap door that leads to a dark dungeon-like space.
35:16It's a completely lightless network of narrow tunnels.
35:19They could have been for access or storage, but you can't help wondering if they had a more sinister purpose.
35:28Behind these illuminated and colored walls, there are terrible secrets that most of the Peruvians don't know.
35:37In the early 1800s, a vast estate growing sugar cane and cotton was acquired by an iconic figure in Peru's history.
35:54Hippolito Unanue.
35:57He was an academic and politician that supported Peru's fight for independence.
36:02After liberation from Spain was achieved in 1824, Unanue served as President of the Congress and the Minister of Finance in the New Republic of Peru.
36:14He died in 1833 and the estate passed to his son, José Unanue de la Cuba.
36:22José Unanue was determined to build himself the most luxurious home on the Peruvian coast,
36:29as well as have it serve as a tribute to his father.
36:33Construction began on this project in 1843.
36:39Local historian David Pino has spent years investigating this place,
36:44and has unearthed some surprises along the way.
36:47Legend has it that Unanue bought a Bavarian castle,
37:02stripped it of its doors, windows, and furniture, and transported them all the way here to decorate his own palace.
37:09Legend has it that Unanue bought a Bavarian castle, stripped it of its doors, windows,
37:17and furniture, and transported them all the way here to decorate his own palace.
37:22He was heavily influenced by North African Moorish architecture, and you can definitely see those influences.
37:32Its construction was a passion project and continued to evolve for decades.
37:39The many visitors who enjoyed these spaces knew it as Hacienda Unanue.
37:44The mansion hosted an array of people from the Peruvian elite, and regularly hosted lavish banquets.
37:56But just feet away from these extravagant parties lay the dark secret behind Unanue's wealth.
38:03The estate was run on a system of slavery.
38:24Unanue didn't just own enslaved people, his mansion also served as a marketplace.
38:29The slave trade in Peru had technically been abolished in 1821, but illicit imports of enslaved
38:54Africans into Peru continued, albeit in secret.
38:57It's believed the tunnels were used both to hold and punish the 400 enslaved people that Unanue's thought to have owned.
39:08This continued on the estate until 1854, when slavery was abolished by President Ramón Castilla,
39:15who became known as the Liberator.
39:17In the 20 years after emancipation, some 100,000 Chinese immigrants came to Peru.
39:35They were promised a better life, or coerced into leaving China by recruiters, and brought here to work as indentured servants.
39:44This system of forced labor was brutal, and it led to about half of these Chinese workers dying before the age of 40 for things like exhaustion, ill-treatment, but even suicide.
39:58But soon, these workers would be presented with an opportunity to seize freedom and enact a measure of revenge.
40:07In 1879, war broke out with Chile.
40:13The following year, an invasion force landed 40 miles south of Unanue.
40:18The Chilean army rampaged through the area, moving north towards the capital, passing through Cañete Valley.
40:30Many of these Chinese laborers joined the Chileans in ransacking these Peruvian estates.
40:36But their collaboration led to terrible reprisals from the local Peruvian peasants.
40:41In 1881, tensions boiled over and a riot broke out.
40:47In the ensuing violence and chaos, 1,000 Chinese workers were massacred, including on the Unanue estate.
40:58Peace only returned to the region in 1884, when the Chilean army withdrew.
41:04The following year, Jose Unanue died childless, and the estate passed through his nephew's family for generations.
41:14It continued operating with its traditional semi-feudal system that exploited poorly paid workers.
41:21But the 1960s would see seismic changes that would transform Peru.
41:28Revolution gripped Peru, and this place was right in the firing line.
41:32In 1968, Army General Juan Velasco Alvarado led a coup to seize control of the government and forcibly implemented agrarian reform across Peru.
41:47The estates were transformed into farming cooperatives, partly owned by the peasants who worked them.
41:54Jose Unanue's descendants were forced to leave, and the surrounding estate divided up among the poor.
42:03The palace itself was left abandoned, and its fittings and furniture looted.
42:13In 1972, Unanue Palace was declared a National Historic Monument.
42:19Despite it being open to the public, this abandoned building has suffered from lack of investment and has fallen into ruin.
42:28The
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