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00:00This is the Golden Gate, a mile of freezing, violent water.
00:04They said crossing it was impossible.
00:07But in 1920, San Francisco was dying,
00:10trapped on a peninsula completely choked by the sea.
00:13To go north, you risked your life on packed, rusty ferries through blinding Pacific fog.
00:20The best engineers alive looked at this water and called a bridge suicide.
00:25And honestly, they were right.
00:27It acts like a giant funnel.
00:30The entire Pacific Ocean crushes through a tiny gap, creating lethal riptides.
00:36But Joseph Strauss didn't care.
00:38He was a dreamer with a huge ego, and he wanted the job.
00:42The Navy fought him hard.
00:44They feared a bombed bridge would trap their entire Pacific fleet.
00:48Then the Great Depression hit.
00:51Men were starving in the streets.
00:53The city desperately needed jobs.
00:56Against all odds, they found the money.
00:59In 1933, the ultimate suicide mission finally broke ground.
01:04Building the North Tower was a breeze.
01:06The bedrock was sitting right there on the dry beach.
01:10But the South Tower was a nightmare.
01:13To make the math work, they had to build it in the open ocean.
01:17A hundred feet down, freezing temperatures.
01:20And currents so vicious they could tear a diver's air hose.
01:25Just to reach the site, workers had to hammer a fragile wooden pier straight into the Pacific.
01:30And nature immediately fought back.
01:33The legendary fog rolled in, dropping visibility to absolute zero.
01:37A lost cargo freighter, blinded by the weather, plowed straight through the pier.
01:43Weeks of labor, gone.
01:45They rebuilt it.
01:47But months later, a freak storm hit, washing millions of dollars of equipment out to sea.
01:52Imagine the toll on these guys.
01:55You fight the freezing ocean for months.
01:58And it just erases your work in an hour.
02:01To build the tower, they needed dry land.
02:04So, they decided to build a giant concrete bathtub.
02:08They dropped steel guide tubes to the ocean floor.
02:11But the bedrock was a jagged, sloping mountain.
02:14To flatten the rock a hundred feet down, they had to drill and blast.
02:18Dropping time bombs into the dark.
02:21The currents here are deadly.
02:23Divers could only drop down during slack tide.
02:27A tiny, 20-minute window.
02:29Imagine sinking into pitch black water, wearing 200 pounds of brass and lead.
02:34The clock is ticking.
02:36They descended into the gloom, feeling their way blindly along the jagged rock with heavy explosives.
02:41Working entirely by touch, they shoved dynamite deep into the bedrock.
02:46If the tide shifted early, they died.
02:50They pulled the divers up, hit the plunger, and shattered the ocean floor, over and over again.
02:57Slowly, brutally, they carved a perfectly flat plateau directly into the underwater mountain.
03:03With the floor leveled, they lowered the steel skeleton of the bathtub.
03:07It was the size of a stadium.
03:09Then came the pour.
03:12Using special funnels, they pumped millions of pounds of concrete to seal the bottom.
03:18Once the plug cured, they threw the pumps into reverse, sucking millions of gallons of seawater out of the tub.
03:25Look at this.
03:26I am standing a hundred feet below sea level in the Pacific Ocean, and my boots are dry.
03:32Inside this dry pocket, they poured the true foundation, a solid concrete island rising above the waves.
03:40The ocean threw everything it had at them, but human grit won.
03:45The base was finally set, but concrete is just the anchor.
03:49To cross a mile of water, they needed custom-forged steel, 83,000 tons of it, loaded onto ships and
03:58hauled thousands of miles through the Panama Canal.
04:02Every piece was coated in a bright red lead primer to fight off the vicious saltwater rust.
04:08The barges finally arrived at the gate.
04:11The brutal underwater war was over, but the danger was just beginning.
04:17Next, we build a steel tower taller than a 60-story skyscraper, by hand, in the fog.
04:24The men are heading into the clouds.
04:27Whatever you do, don't look down.
04:30The foundation was poured.
04:32Now, 83,000 tons of red steel had to climb into the clouds.
04:37These towers aren't solid blocks of metal.
04:39They are built entirely out of hollow steel cells.
04:42A solid tower would snap in an earthquake.
04:46This honeycomb design lets it physically bend and twist without breaking.
04:51But how do you lift steel 700 feet up?
04:54You invent a machine that climbs the building, the Creeper Crane.
04:58It hauled massive steel sections straight up from the rocking barges below.
05:02When the crane finished a section, heavy hydraulic jacks pushed the entire rig higher up the tower.
05:08But the crane just places the steel.
05:11It takes the rivet gangs to lock it together forever.
05:15Step 1.
05:16The heater bakes a solid iron rivet in a tiny forge suspended hundreds of feet in the air.
05:22Step 2.
05:24He throws the glowing molten iron directly across the open void, right through the freezing wind.
05:31Step 3.
05:32The catcher snatches the lethal hot metal out of the air using nothing but a tin cup.
05:37Step 4.
05:39They smash the hot iron with a pneumatic gun.
05:42As it cools, it shrinks, pulling the steel tight.
05:46I'm standing on an 8-inch beam, 500 feet up.
05:49No safety nets.
05:51No harnesses.
05:52One slip and you're gone.
05:54These men were doing the highest stakes physical labor on earth.
05:58Up here, they looked like ballet dancers.
06:01The biggest enemy wasn't the height.
06:03It was the wind.
06:05Sudden gusts constantly tried to throw them into the sea.
06:08They had to wrestle massive steel plates into place while the Pacific gales fought them every single inch.
06:15But they weren't just building a functional support column.
06:19They were building an architectural masterpiece.
06:22Architect Irving Morrow designed the towers to look like massive art deco doorways to the Pacific Ocean.
06:28He added massive vertical grooves to catch the light and shaped the cross bracing into a triumphant portal.
06:35Inside the legs, it was a dark, echoing maze.
06:39Workers climbed hundreds of feet of narrow ladders in the pitch black.
06:43Finally, after months of brutal high-altitude warfare, the tower reached its peak, 746 feet above the water.
06:52At the very top, they lowered the saddles, massive grooved blocks of steel that will hold the weight of the
06:58bridge.
06:59These saddles weigh hundreds of tons, but they aren't bolted down tight.
07:04They actually sit on massive steel rollers.
07:07When the sun hits the cables, the steel expands.
07:10These rollers let the saddle shift, preventing the tower from ripping apart.
07:15With both colossal towers finally standing, the massive empty gap between them was painfully obvious.
07:22The gap was 4,200 feet, the longest single span ever attempted by the human race.
07:29Before they could hang a bridge, they had to build the anchors.
07:32Massive deadweights buried deep in the shore.
07:35They buried gigantic steel hooks directly into solid bedrock and poured thousands of tons of concrete over them.
07:43A suspension bridge actively tries to rip itself apart.
07:47These anchors have to resist 50 million pounds of pulling force.
07:51To span the gap, they started with a single tiny wire, hauled slowly across the violent water by a small
07:58boat.
07:59Once connected, massive steam winches hauled that first wire out of the water and high into the sky.
08:06From that single wire, they hung a pair of terrifying swaying wooden catwalks across the entire mile-long gap.
08:13The catwalks swung wildly in the brutal wind.
08:17For the men working up there, the nightmare was just beginning.
08:21The main cables weigh 24,000 tons.
08:25You cannot physically lift something that heavy into the sky.
08:29So, if you can't lift the massive cable, you have to completely manufacture it, wire by wire, in mid-air.
08:37Welcome to the spinning wheel.
08:39The most brilliant piece of bridge-building technology ever invented.
08:44The wheel travels back and forth across the entire gap, laying down a single strand of wire every trip.
08:51Back and forth.
08:52Day and night.
08:54They are about to spin the most massive web of steel in human history.
08:59John Roebling invented this spinning tech decades ago, but Strauss had to scale it to an impossible size.
09:05To beat the punishing schedule, they built a dual-wheel carriage.
09:09It pulled two steel loops at once.
09:12Heavy carriages launched from both shores simultaneously.
09:16They crossed in dead-center mid-air, like a terrifying mechanical ballet.
09:20As the heavy wheel flew past, iron workers called comers had to wrestle the fast-moving steel by hand.
09:28If a single wire tangled or lost tension, an alarm screamed.
09:33The entire colossal machine stopped dead.
09:36Listen to that.
09:37Every single wire had to have the exact same tension.
09:41One loose wire, and the bridge fails.
09:44The timeline was absolutely brutal.
09:46The wheels ran 24 hours a day, slicing through the freezing fog.
09:52If you laid the wire from just one main cable end-to-end, it would wrap around the earth three
09:57times.
09:59After six brutal months, the raw material was ready.
10:0261 separate bundles of pure, high-tensile steel.
10:07Now for the brute force.
10:09Massive hydraulic jacks violently squeezed the chaotic bundles into a perfect tight circle.
10:14Immediately behind the jack, a wrapping machine spun a tight skin of wire to seal the cable from salt air.
10:21The result?
10:23A massive, completely solid, three-foot-thick artery of pure steel.
10:27The lifeline of the structure.
10:29This massive cable has to support its own crushing weight, plus the entire road, and still survive a hurricane.
10:37To hang the road, they violently bolted massive steel cable bands around the main artery at exact intervals.
10:45From these bands, they aggressively dropped the vertical suspender ropes.
10:49These are the actual lifelines for the road.
10:52With the suspenders hanging loose, the barges returned.
10:56It was time to violently haul the steel floor into the sky.
11:01Workers dangling in the void violently hammered massive steel pins through the joints, locking the heavy floor in place.
11:08You can't just build from one side to the other.
11:11The terrifying weight would instantly pull the towers out of balance.
11:15It's a high-stakes seesaw.
11:18Every time they hang a steel section, they must perfectly balance it on the opposite side.
11:23Beneath the floor, they built a highly complex steel truss network.
11:28This wasn't just for cars.
11:30It was for the wind.
11:32Bridges don't just sway.
11:34They can violently twist and tear themselves apart if the aerodynamics are wrong.
11:39To stop the bridge from twisting to death, Strauss engineered this massive, stiffening truss.
11:45It acts completely like a rigid spine.
11:47Slowly, agonizingly, the two massive halves of the heavy steel roadway crept toward each other in the dead center.
11:56November 1936.
11:58The final massive 10-foot gap remained.
12:02The entire colossal structure hung entirely in the balance.
12:05The massive cables completely expand in the heat.
12:09To fit the final beam, they literally had to completely wait for the exact temperature.
12:14When the temperature was perfect, the massive crane dropped the final steel beam.
12:18The gap was violently, finally closed.
12:22For the first time in human history, you could physically walk across the violent Golden Gate Strait entirely on steel.
12:29With the steel locked, they violently poured the thick concrete driving surface, adding millions of pounds of dead weight.
12:37As the crushing weight of the concrete was added, the giant cables stretched and settled entirely into their final curve.
12:45To stop the corrosive salt air, every single inch of steel had to be aggressively coated in a toxic red
12:51lead primer.
12:52The U.S. Navy demanded the bridge be painted in violent black and yellow warning stripes like a giant bumblebee.
13:00But the architect looked at the raw red primer against the deep blue water and realized the Navy was completely
13:07wrong.
13:08He fought to keep the primer color.
13:10He called it International Orange, highly visible in the fog and visually stunning.
13:15The massive structure was almost finished.
13:18But the brutal, violent reality of 1930s construction was about to collect its toll.
13:24The brutal, accepted industry math at the time was entirely terrifying.
13:29One dead man for every million dollars spent.
13:32This was a highly dangerous $35 million project.
13:36The brutal expectation was that 35 men were guaranteed to die.
13:40But Chief Engineer Strauss refused to accept that violent math.
13:44He became entirely obsessed with safety.
13:47In the finale, Strauss installs the most brilliant safety net in history.
13:52But even that violently fails to stop the ultimate tragedy.
13:55Strauss mandated safety gear.
13:58He modified heavy mining helmets, entirely inventing the modern hard hat.
14:02He aggressively fired men for showboating.
14:05He demanded special glare goggles and forced workers to heavily tie off their tools.
14:11But his most brilliant move was this.
14:13He spent over $130,000 on a circus-style safety net.
14:18The net was a massive financial gamble.
14:21It extended 10 feet out on both sides to catch anyone blown off the steel.
14:26The massive net absolutely worked.
14:28It safely caught exactly 19 men who violently fell from the massive steel.
14:33Those lucky 19 survivors formed a highly exclusive fraternity.
14:38They proudly called themselves the Halfway to Hell Club.
14:42For nearly four brutal years, Strauss defied the bloody math.
14:45But on February 17th, 1937, the massive structure violently fought back.
14:52Subscribe to my channel, NextGen Manufacturing.
14:55Hit the bell for new mega projects.
14:58Bye-bye.
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