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00:00A rural structure in Wisconsin linked to the founding of an American institution.
00:07It was a kind of hotbed for political movement that would profoundly affect the country.
00:14An isolated stronghold in Greece that incurred a sultan's wrath.
00:19Tens of thousands were killed, enslaved, or forced to flee.
00:26And a compound in Seattle, rocked by a high-profile military scandal.
00:32There was tremendous pressure on the American government to assure the world that they would get justice.
00:47On the Greek island of Hyos, our clifftop ruins, once the scene of a vicious massacre.
01:00We're just a couple of miles inland, but we feel worlds away from the famous beaches and turquoise waters this
01:07place is known for.
01:09It's arid and craggy, with steep-sided mountains and deep ravines.
01:15You can't imagine this was ever an easy place to live.
01:20And then you notice it. It's a town clinging to the hillside.
01:24Given how well it blends with the surroundings, it's pretty clear that this place was designed to be secret and
01:30hidden.
01:32Among the devastated remains, there are few clues as to who lived here.
01:37This must have once been a bustling settlement.
01:41It's now a ghost town.
01:45All the buildings have been built right on top of each other.
01:48So the people here were clearly petrified of something.
01:52But who or what was it?
01:56For centuries, the residents of this isolated town stayed concealed.
02:01But in the aftermath of a rebellion, they found themselves surrounded by a brutal force, fueled by revenge.
02:09They were there to carry out the sultan's orders, complete annihilation.
02:20Archaeologist Olga Vassi has spent more than 30 years unearthing the secrets of the islanders who once sheltered here.
02:27In the 15th century, the island of years suffered from pirates.
02:33There were Catalans, there were Turks, many nationalities, but the raids were frequent.
02:40So people had to withdraw to remote places, invisible from the sea.
02:48But hiding wasn't their only defense.
02:51The town sits upon a rock face at 1,300 feet.
02:55And on either side are these really deep gorges.
02:58And there's only one way in and out, one single gate.
03:04The residents closed the gate.
03:06They were completely protected.
03:09Of course, they could not stand a long siege, but only a raid.
03:15This is the town of Anavatos.
03:18More than two miles inland, hidden inside their mountaintop fortress,
03:23the residents were protected from the frequent coastal pirate raids.
03:27But their safety came at a cost.
03:31Life was very hard in Anavatos.
03:33The houses were very small.
03:35There were no amenities at all.
03:38No water supply.
03:40The population built a cistern to store what little rain fell in this arid climate.
03:46It was just enough to eke out an existence.
03:51Anavatos was very poor.
03:54Its residents were farmers.
03:56They are cultivating fig trees, not in big quantities.
04:00And they had the sheep, pigs, and cattle.
04:06Cut off from the world, the people here cared little about the Italian merchants who ruled
04:12Chios for centuries.
04:13They continued to speak Greek and follow the Orthodox faith, as generations before them had done.
04:22For more than 100 years, life at Anavatos remained relatively unchanged, until 1566, a new empire arrives, the Ottomans.
04:33The Ottoman Empire controlled large swaths of the Middle East and North Africa.
04:39As well as modern-day Greece, their domination of the region brought a new peace to Anavatos.
04:46They had this really powerful navy, so the threat of piracy really dissipated.
04:52This meant that the residents didn't have to cram inside the fortified village for safety.
04:57They could start to spread out and build bigger homes outside the walls.
05:02For more than 200 years, Chios was largely at peace under Ottoman control.
05:09It seemed as if the harsh life of the residents was beginning to eat.
05:14But in the early 1800s, a movement was gathering peace in mainland Greece, which would change the fate of the
05:22island.
05:24Over the years, revolutionaries in Greece began to fight and organize for independence,
05:29hoping to overthrow their oppressors and gain freedom.
05:33But rebellions are expensive, so they went to wealthy expat communities in the US, Britain, and across Europe for support.
05:40After years of gathering resources and people, on March 25th, 1821, a national uprising began.
05:49But not on Chios.
05:52There were more than 100,000 people living on Chios, who were now in an impossible position.
05:59Their island was more than 100 miles across the Aegean Sea from mainland Greece, where the rebellion had launched.
06:06But Turkey, home of the Ottoman Empire, was right on their doorstep.
06:11Chios is just a little more than four miles across the water from mainland Turkey.
06:15If they took up arms against their occupiers, they're incredibly vulnerable to Ottoman attack.
06:21But in March 1822, the Greek Revolution would arrive, whether they liked it or not.
06:28A band of rebels from the nearby island of Samos landed here and began launching attacks on the Ottomans.
06:35People from Samos persuaded local people to join the revolution.
06:44The Ottomans responded by sending tens of thousands of troops to the island.
06:51Their orders were to unleash hell on rebels and civilians alike.
06:56It would become known as the Chios Massacre.
07:07For two weeks, their army would massacre, torture, and imprison thousands and completely level towns.
07:15And Avatos wouldn't be spared either.
07:19In April 1822, Ottoman soldiers had made it to the foot of the mountain.
07:26When they saw them approaching, the residents, terrified, retreated behind the old fortified walls.
07:33The attack was only for revenge.
07:36And Avatos was not a military station.
07:38They knew nothing about arms.
07:40So they were really panicked.
07:44But this was now a siege, with only one way in or out.
07:54In 1822, the residents of Avatos on the island of Chios were surrounded by an enemy force.
08:03After a Greek rebellion against their Ottoman overlords, revenge was swift and violent.
08:11Suddenly, the Ottoman troops are rushing inside, and their orders are kill or enslave the population of the town.
08:19They came in, and they slaughtered the residents.
08:26Some people ran into the church because they thought that since a church is a sacred place, it would be
08:33respected.
08:34But it was not.
08:38These soldiers simply set light to the church, burning to death everyone that was sheltering inside.
08:48Tradition says that the floor of the church still bears the blood of the people slaughtered.
08:56But that wasn't the end of the horror.
09:01We are standing now on the top of the hill.
09:05There's a legend that some people tried to escape slavery by jumping from the cliffs.
09:13It's said that they've jumped to their death rather than meeting such a horrible fate.
09:20In what became known as the Hios Massacre, the population of Anavatos and the island was decimated.
09:29It's said that 25,000 were killed, 45,000 enslaved, and tens of thousands more fled.
09:37Four-fifths of the population gone.
09:42News of what happened here spread like wildfire across the globe, and rallied support for the Greek cause.
09:51People from France, from America, started to support more strongly the idea of the Greek Independence War, and this led
10:00to the final victory.
10:01In 1832, Greece finally gained its freedom, but Hios wasn't included in the treaty.
10:10After the devastating response to the uprising, little opposition remained on the island, and it stayed under Ottoman control for
10:18another 80 years.
10:20Those who survived continued to live in Anavatos, but soon disaster would strike once more.
10:27Only 50 years after this horrible massacre, there was a massive earthquake, and like much of the island, Anavatos is
10:35left in ruins.
10:37In the years after the quake, some of the town's residents settled at the bottom of the hill, while others
10:44departed for good, leaving the ancient settlement to fall into ruin.
10:54Since 1998, Olga and her team have been working to excavate and restore the abandoned old town.
11:02While many of these buildings have been for years devoid of life, one person was drawn to the quiet majesty
11:10of this ghost town.
11:13Mrs. Smaragda first visited Anavatos as a child in 1949, long before there were paved roads here.
11:21Seeking a peaceful retirement, she returned in the 1990s to make it her home, with only her animals for company.
11:32I've enjoyed my life. I traveled, I had fun, I partied.
11:37In 1991, I left everything behind, and I came to Anavatos, more than anything, for peace of mind.
11:44I wouldn't change it. It doesn't compare to any place in the world.
11:55In Seattle, on the edge of the Puget Sound, a scenic park bears traces of a miscarriage of justice during
12:04a national crisis.
12:10It's a 534-acre expanse of hiking trails and wilderness.
12:17But across the site are these smart properties that don't look like your typical park buildings.
12:23The houses are boarded up. The windows are boarded over.
12:29This is a neighborhood that has been shut down.
12:35Inside, the buildings are in a really bad state of disrepair.
12:39There's peeling paint, holes in the walls, and exposed rafters in the ceilings.
12:44Trying to piece together what this place was used for isn't easy.
12:50One of these buildings has got cages in it.
12:56Big cages.
13:00These cells would hold men accused of a breakdown of order and a brutal killing.
13:06But not all was as it seemed.
13:09This starts as a scuffle, and it turns into a riot, and then a murder.
13:15The court-martial brings in its verdict.
13:18Guilty.
13:30In 1985, I was a young news reporter, and I was assigned to one of the most dull, boring assignments
13:38you could have at that age.
13:39The local community was trying to decide what to do with a sewage treatment plant.
13:46But there was more in this park than just a sewage plant.
13:49When a park ranger pointed out a strange headstone in the military cemetery,
13:54it would send Jack Hammond on a decades-long hunt for the truth.
14:00It says Guglielmo Olivotto, Italian soldier.
14:05And it's said that he died on August 14, 1944.
14:10What was an Italian soldier doing being buried in an American graveyard in World War II?
14:18When you see something like this, it just piques your curiosity.
14:22I had no idea how big it would become.
14:30In a quiet Seattle park are the scattered remains of a once sprawling facility.
14:37When the United States Army began construction here in 1898, many considered it a remote outpost.
14:46That would soon change.
14:49At the start of World War II, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor,
14:53this was one of the main avenues for soldiers and material to be sent across to the Pacific.
15:02Port companies, which were American soldiers trained to unload and offload ships in combat zones,
15:11were preparing in Seattle to deploy to the war in the Pacific.
15:20This is Fort Laughton.
15:2320,000 troops, including these port companies, were stationed here.
15:28But reflecting wider society, they were not all treated equally.
15:34More than one million African-American men and women served during World War II.
15:39But at this point in history, the military is still legally segregated.
15:44The United States Army tried to keep black soldiers in subservient roles and away from combat.
16:02And so you see a large number of black men assigned to the port companies.
16:11In 1943, during the Allied victory in North Africa, huge numbers of Italian soldiers were captured.
16:19Many of them were brought to Fort Laughton as POWs.
16:23This building would have had not just Americans, but a considerable number of Italian prisoners of war.
16:32Those who were willing to pledge allegiance to the Allies were given the opportunity to work in return for pay,
16:40and they formed what were called Italian service units.
16:45The Italian soldiers, for the most part, absolutely loved being here.
16:50Italy was poor, it was at war, but here they were given meals, they were treated pretty well.
16:58But a gravestone in the Fort Cemetery hints that relations at the base were strained.
17:05Guglielmo Olivotto, now buried here, was part of the 28th Italian service unit stationed at Fort Laughton.
17:14They lived in barracks in a remote corner of the base, right next to the segregated black American port companies.
17:24August 14, 1944 was a big day for these black soldiers because on August 15, they were supposed to ship
17:31out.
17:32As soldiers and sailors have done since the dawn of time,
17:37here are some soldiers who are going to cut loose in town before shipping out.
17:44At the very same time, Italians too were able to leave the base and do much the same thing.
17:53When both groups returned to the fort that night, it would result in a tragic confrontation.
18:00Drunken insults are exchanged and an Italian soldier hits the black soldier hard enough to knock him out.
18:08Other black soldiers started to shout out,
18:11hey, we've just been attacked for 40 minutes.
18:15It was just an all-out melee.
18:18The military police were finally alerted to the riot taking place in this secluded part of the base.
18:25They restored order, but it soon became clear that someone was unaccounted for.
18:35Early in the morning, one Italian soldier was found hanging on some wires on the assault course.
18:45It was the body of Private Guglielmo Alibotto, and he had been lynched.
18:50The prime suspects were the African-American soldiers of the port companies.
18:55In the days after the riot, 400 port company soldiers were imprisoned,
19:02while the authorities tried to determine who to charge with rioting and murder.
19:08This is the guardhouse.
19:12The biggest suspects would be housed here, which was the most secure place.
19:18A formidable military lawyer named Leon Jaworski was brought in to prosecute the Army's case against 43 black soldiers.
19:27Just four months after Alibotto's death, the all-white military court reached their decision.
19:35They found, of the 43 defendants, 28 of them guilty of rioting, and two of them guilty of manslaughter.
19:46The sentences ranged from six months in prison to 25 years of hard labor.
19:52All but one of the black soldiers convicted were dishonorably discharged.
19:57It seemed that justice had been done.
20:00But when you look closer, you see that that is not what happened here.
20:06It turned out that an important piece of evidence was admitted from the court-martial proceedings.
20:12During their research, Jack and his wife discovered that another branch of the Army had investigated the riots and the
20:20murder.
20:21Their findings were handed over to the lead prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, but crucially, not to the defense.
20:30My wife came across this amazing report by General Cook that was classified for 50 years.
20:38And in that big report, we were able to find that the Army had every reason to know that these
20:45black soldiers pretty much didn't do what they were being accused of.
20:50And beyond that, the reasons the riot went on had all been completely covered up by Leon Jaworski.
20:59Jaworski was a guy who was determined to get a victory, not necessarily justice.
21:05He had convinced this military trial that black soldiers were upset about Italians because they were being given no better
21:15rights than these former enemies, these prisoners of war.
21:21But there was more evidence of animosity between white GIs and the Italians, which boiled down to white Americans being
21:29resentful of Italian soldiers dating local white women.
21:32They attracted the attention of a lot of the young ladies in Seattle, many of whom's boyfriends or husbands were
21:39overseas.
21:41Italian-Americans had been labeled enemy aliens facing internment camps, mass surveillance, and a wave of discrimination.
21:50Yet in some people's eyes, the captured Italian soldiers here were being treated far too well.
21:58And it was a story really all across America of an increasing resentment of why are these Italians being given
22:06so much freedom.
22:08The classified Cook Report proved Jaworski withheld evidence of these tensions from the defense,
22:15allowing him to present a one-sided story of these black American soldiers being guilty beyond the shadow of a
22:22doubt,
22:23an incomplete account that the all-white jury was all too willing to believe.
22:28The report also revealed explosive new evidence about who really murdered Olavoto.
22:37In 1944, an Italian POW named Guglielmo Olavoto was murdered during a riot at Fort Lawton.
22:46An all-white jury convicted 28 black soldiers of rioting, and two for the manslaughter of Olavoto.
22:55But in 2002, while reinvestigating the case, Jack Hammond and his wife uncovered classified documents that revealed who actually killed
23:06Olavoto.
23:07We suddenly realized who had the means, the motive, and the opportunity.
23:13One white MP in particular, by the name of Clyde Lomax, the man we later learned, was himself quite racist,
23:20who disliked the Italians.
23:23He was the one who came across the beginnings of the riot, who decided not to immediately intervene or call
23:30for help.
23:31He was the one who disappeared when Olavoto was found missing.
23:37And he was the one who found Olavoto at 5 o'clock the next morning.
23:43And the U.S. Army has told us since that if he were still alive, they would have prosecuted him
23:49for Olavoto's murder.
23:51Jack and his wife published their findings in 2005, shedding new light on the mistrial and scapegoating of all 30
23:59black American soldiers.
24:02In 2007, the U.S. Army Review decided to drop all of the charges.
24:10The Army also granted honorable discharge to the men.
24:14But at the time of the ruling, only two of the defendants were actually still alive.
24:18I can't speak for the families except to say that some of them were clearly and understandably overjoyed to know
24:25that their husband or father or grandfather had been exonerated from this.
24:30But for many others, it was delayed justice.
24:33And delayed justice is not the same as real justice.
24:44In the 1970s, most of Fort Lawton was converted into a city park.
24:50For more than 30 years, Seattleites enjoyed it with little idea of the miscarriage of justice that took place here.
24:59This is the story that belongs to these men who were here, young, away from home, trying to do their
25:06duty.
25:06In a time of war, and yet having to have this giant injustice for their entire life.
25:16In the heart of London, on the banks of the River Thames, stands a towering structure, witness to the city's
25:24darkest days.
25:30In an area of modern skyscrapers, there's this 10-story Art Deco building.
25:38It's imposing, striking, and looks entirely out of place.
25:44It sits right on the waterfront, and you can imagine that the river was crucial to its original purpose.
25:51But inside the vast edifice, there is little evidence of what that purpose was.
25:58It's like something out of a dystopian movie.
26:01With these massive holes in the floor, there are deadly consequences if you're not careful.
26:08Once a vital lifeline for the city's population, this complex became collateral damage during a brutal war.
26:18But the greatest danger would not come from afar, but right next door.
26:25The catastrophe holds the record for the largest single explosion in London.
26:37At one time, this was part of the Port of London, which was the busiest and the most commercially successful
26:44port, probably in the entire world.
26:48Fiona Rule has spent over a decade studying this historic area known as Silvertown.
26:56Silvertown was part of the Port of London, which was an enormous complex of enclosed docks, warehouses, and factories that
27:05lay along the banks of the Thames.
27:08It would become the beating heart of the capital city's trade and manufacturing.
27:14But in the early 1800s, this future seemed inconceivable.
27:20The Docklands were a radical solution to the growing problem of the Thames.
27:26Goods and materials were flooding in from every corner of the British Empire.
27:30Ships were fighting for space.
27:32The Port of London was thrown into chaos.
27:36Silvertown was uninhabited marshland, which many thought was impractical to develop.
27:42But a visionary engineer named George Parker Bitter believed it could be transformed into a dock capable of handling hundreds
27:51of thousands of tons of shipping every year.
27:55It would cost over $150 million in today's money.
28:01Constructors began to dig deep to drain the marshland.
28:07The new Victoria Dock opened in 1855.
28:11It became a hive of activity, providing thousands of jobs.
28:15Over the next 50 years, many factories were built and hundreds of thousands of workers flocked to new neighbourhoods created
28:24in the area.
28:24Among them was the family that built this structure.
28:29Vernon and Sons wanted to construct a building that would be the perfect example of its kind.
28:36In 1905, they opened Millennium Mills.
28:41It was one of the largest bread flour factories in Europe.
28:49When it was in operation, the grain would have been taken right up to the top floor, and then, as
28:55it was being processed, it would come down floor by floor.
28:59The mill was built using a revolutionary construction material, reinforced concrete, its strength and durability even under extreme temperatures guarded
29:10against the dangers of the mechanized flour-making process.
29:15Because of the heat, friction, and very fine particles of grain dust floating around in the air, these mills were
29:23particularly susceptible to fires, and even violent explosions.
29:29Despite the owners' best efforts, a tragic accident would lay waste to Millennium Mills.
29:35But it would not come from inside these walls.
29:40At the beginning of World War I, the Ministry of Munitions were looking for a place where they could produce
29:45their munitions.
29:46They identified a building just a few hundred yards away.
29:50The former chemical factory began producing vast quantities of TNT in the heart of Silvertown, surrounded by thousands of homes
29:59and businesses.
30:00It was a risky decision, but in the name of the war effort, the Ministry pressed ahead anyway.
30:05But this decision would soon backfire.
30:13In 1917, the Millennium Mills flour factory in London's Silvertown was sitting beside a ticking time bomb.
30:23During the First World War, the government had opened a new munitions factory right next door.
30:32A fire broke out, detonating 50 tonnes of TNT.
30:38The blast could be felt right across London, and the shockwaves heard over 100 miles away.
30:43Burning debris was sent hurtling out of the factory, and some of it landed on the mills, and the mill
30:49was left to burn.
30:53It was London's largest explosion on record.
30:57The entire area and the mills lay in ruins.
31:02The blast tragically killed 73 people and injured 400 more.
31:08Thousands of people were left homeless.
31:13Out of the ashes, Millennium Mills rebuilt its operation, bigger than ever, renovating the entire structure.
31:22But soon, it would be caught in the crosshairs once more.
31:26The mill had recovered from the Silvertown explosion, but by the end of the 1930s, a new war was on
31:33the horizon.
31:34The mills would soon fall victim to the devastating new face of war, the Blitz.
31:40As German bombers reached London in 1940, they set their sights on civilian targets, and Millennium Mills and Victoria Dock
31:48became prime targets.
31:51On the 7th of September 1940, the Millennium Mills sustained every damage.
31:58Despite the carnage caused by Hitler's Luftwaffe, in 1953, the mill was rebuilt a second time, and they entered a
32:07period of prosperity and productivity.
32:11However, the boom wouldn't last, and the next threat to Millennium Mills came not as destruction, but replacement.
32:22The demise of the Port of London can be summed up in one word, containerisation.
32:27Once these enormous ships started to be used, they were simply too big to get down the Thames.
32:35In 1993, the mills finally closed their doors for the last time.
32:43For many years, these towering structures remained abandoned as the modern city grew around them.
32:50But their haunting decay would soon find them a place on the silver screen.
32:56These ruins piqued the interest of some big names in Hollywood.
33:01The derelict mills featured in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, The Batman, and many other films.
33:08Today, there are plans to transform them into a hub of work and creative spaces, surrounded by thousands of new
33:16homes.
33:20In the rural town of Fillmore, Wisconsin, is a compound with links to a national sensation.
33:34We're in the beautiful Wisconsin countryside.
33:37It's a small community, but a look at the graveyard will tell you this place has deep roots.
33:45By the main road, a timber-framed structure appears to stand alone.
33:51This building has almost a European look to it.
33:55This is the kind of architecture you'd see in England or the German states in the 1600s,
34:00but it's very rare in the United States.
34:02You see the remains of a large cellar behind the building.
34:06The product that was made here would become something of a sensation across the country.
34:12But the changes it brought about would shift the country's political landscape into what we see today.
34:23Retired history professor Michael Besh first visited this unusual structure in 2019.
34:30I came out here, looked at the place, and I got drawn in.
34:36He quickly realized there was more here than initially meets the eye.
34:41It's become quite a journey.
34:42We're discovering something every time we come here.
34:47Many of the original buildings now lie in ruins,
34:51but the central structure gave Michael a clear indication of their roots.
34:56It's what we call a half-timbered construction.
35:00So you've got timbers going crosswise and then filled in the middle with bricks.
35:04And then they also put stupper over the top.
35:09It was erected by a man named Ernst Klessig.
35:13He was part of a wave of immigrants fleeing Europe for Wisconsin after a series of failed revolutions in 1848.
35:23In Germany, many residents believed they would find better prospects if they could emigrate to the United States.
35:30In fact, from 1830 to around World War I, about 90% of German immigrants chose the U.S. as
35:37their home.
35:38The whole upper Midwest became a land where you were as likely to hear German in your local market as
35:46English.
35:47Ernst quickly settled down in eastern Wisconsin and started a family farm in the image of his previous home.
35:54In 1850, he married another German, Liberta Petsch, and they began building Saxonia House.
36:03This construction was common in the area that the family came from, which is in Saxonia in Germany.
36:10Well, it was totally unique for this part of the country.
36:14It was much more than just a family home.
36:17The size of the structure reflects its function as an inn, the local church, and a space capable of hosting
36:25social gatherings.
36:26At its heart was a product, the driving force behind the whole operation.
36:32Tucked away in the trees are the remnants of this business.
36:37It was actually built by hollowing out a hillside, building the archway over the top, so it's a built cave.
36:47This cave was part of a brewery Ernst constructed in 1860.
36:52It would produce a drink completely new to many across the U.S.
36:57This was a beer produced at lower temperatures, and it produced a lighter, crisper drink, a lager.
37:04If you look at some of the famous names in American beer, like Pabst, Schlitz, Miller, those companies got their
37:12start during this era.
37:16At Saxonia House, the Klessig's business was becoming a considerable operation, and they had the capacity to produce about 1
37:24,000 barrels a year.
37:27Saxonia was a social hub, reflecting German traditions with drinking and dancing.
37:32But this lifestyle wasn't embraced by everyone.
37:38And soon, violence would erupt as a wave of nativism swept the nation.
37:47In the 1850s, Saxonia House in Wisconsin was operating as a lager brewery and meeting hall,
37:54a focal point for the German immigrant community to drink, dance, and socialize.
38:00But they faced a backlash from authorities, driven by the powerful temperance movement.
38:06A lot of those people were suspicious of these hardy immigrants getting together and brewing this beer
38:13and enjoying these oversized mugs of refreshing lager on a Sunday afternoon.
38:21This tension didn't just happen in Wisconsin, but across the country as German taverns and beer became more and more
38:30popular.
38:32So-called nativist parties, such as the Know Nothing Party, were gaining traction, running on an anti-liquor, anti-immigration
38:40ticket.
38:41They began to crack down on taverns, on beer drinking, and on this kind of culture in general.
38:51In Chicago, in the summer of 1855, tensions came to a head in what became known as the Lager Beer
38:59Riot.
38:59These riots were a response to increased licensing fees, but also Sunday closure laws.
39:08A protest by supporters of eight German saloon keepers who violated these laws sparked a brutal police crackdown,
39:16ordered by the nativist mayor.
39:18It resulted in one death and several dozen arrests.
39:23These shocking events mobilized immigrant voters across the Midwest.
39:28Groups began to meet at places like Saxonia House to discuss politics.
39:35These German immigrant activists were known as 48ers, inspired by the 1848 revolutions that had swept across Europe.
39:4548ers were known in Germany as people who pushed for democracy and human rights.
39:50So they found a natural home here in the U.S. in a growing political party.
39:54They called themselves the Republican Party.
39:58The party had formed in nearby Ripon, Wisconsin, and the 48ers were at the heart of its development.
40:05Their overriding idea was freedom, self-expression, ability to pursue your own interests, your own desires, your own business.
40:14So those ideas would have been talked about here.
40:18This Republican Party would become the driving force to ending slavery, the conflicts over which, of course, led to the
40:27Civil War.
40:29Through that period, Saxonia House continued to operate as a tavern because, of course, the Civil War didn't have as
40:34much of a disruptive impact in regions like this.
40:39Ernst Klessig died in 1864, and his wife took over the running of the brewery with her new husband.
40:47But by the early 1900s, the family moved on for good.
40:52The building and farm changed hands several times subsequently.
40:56Eventually, it was left vacant and began to fall into disrepair.
41:04In the late 90s, the Klessig family's descendants held a reunion here.
41:10The Friends of Saxonia House Group was created, and they purchased this land in 1999.
41:18In addition to the house, there are plans to build and restore other buildings on the property to make it
41:23a visitor's attraction.
41:25And, of course, there will be a beer hall.
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