Jefferson was originally planned for Washington's right side, but the granite proved insufficient and the half-carved face had to be blasted off and relocated. Washington's faint lapel outlines are still visible — remnants of a plan to show torsos that never materialised due to funding shortfalls. The mountain is as much a monument to what was abandoned as to what was built.
Where this was said
At 49:20 · chapter starts 43:35
The construction of Mount Rushmore is one of the great engineering stories of 20th-century America. Around 90% of the rock removal was achieved through dynamite blasting. For the fine detail work, men hung from bosun chairs — essentially wooden garden seats suspended by cables hundreds of feet above the ground — wielding heavy drilling machinery to chisel presidential features into billion-year-old granite. The eye technique is particularly ingenious: Borglum carved a deep recess with a protruding stone that creates an illusion of light and life, giving the faces their uncanny sense of presence. Over 14 years with 400 workers, not one person was killed — one of the most remarkable safety records in American public-works history. There were near-misses, including a cable car brake failure that sent one worker to hospital with a broken bone. The longer-term toll was different: many workers later suffered lung disease from breathing siliceous granite dust.
Around 90% of the rock removal at Mount Rushmore was achieved through dynamite blasting, with fine chiseling only used in the final stages to capture facial details.
Ninety percent of Mount Rushmore was carved by dynamite; the fine detail work was done by men hanging in bosun chairs — wooden garden-seat-style rigs suspended hundreds of feet above the ground. Over 14 years and 400 workers, not a single person was killed on site, though many later suffered lung disease from breathing siliceous granite dust.
Mount Rushmore took 14 years to build with 400 workers using dynamite, yet not a single worker was killed during construction — one of the most remarkable safety records of any major American public works project.
Factories that replaced coal engines with electric ones in the early 1900s got only 6% efficiency gains. Those that redesigned their entire factory around electricity got a 3x productivity improvement. Swapping AI tools into your existing structure will give you 6%. Rebuilding around AI will give you 10x.
Lebanese terrorists backed by Iran were holding American hostages throughout the Reagan presidency. Reagan had loudly campaigned against negotiating with terrorists — putting him in an impossible position that his team quietly decided to ignore.
During the Iran-Iraq War, the US openly supplied Iraq with weapons, training, and intelligence. At the same time, Oliver North was secretly funneling missiles to Iran. The US was playing both sides of a shooting war.
Oliver North traveled to Iran under the alias 'William P. Goode' with a fake passport. CIA Director William Casey allegedly gave him cyanide pills so he could kill himself rather than be tortured if captured. He returned safely and the deal moved forward.
The Pentagon sold missiles to the CIA for $3,700 each. The CIA sold them to Richard Secord at cost. Secord sold them to Iranian middleman Ghorbanifar for $10,000 each. Ghorbanifar charged Iran even more. The profit — including $3 million in interest in one Swiss account — was diverted directly to fund the Nicaraguan Contras.
America secretly transferred 2,000 missiles and missile parts to Iran in 8 shipments over more than a year. Only 3 of 7 hostages were released. Three more were taken. The net result was zero freed hostages and a full-blown constitutional scandal.
On October 5, 1986, a CIA Contra supply plane flew a weapons drop at 2,500 feet in broad daylight. A Sandinista soldier shot it down. The only survivor, Eugene Hasenfuss, had borrowed a parachute from his skydiving brother. He was captured, paraded in front of cameras, and told the Sandinistas everything he knew.
The CIA supply operation used a front company called Southern Air Transport, widely known to be a CIA cover. Crew members of the downed plane carried their Southern Air Transport employee IDs in their wallets. One also had a business card directly linking him to Oliver North's office in Washington.
When the scandal broke, Oliver North and his secretary Fawn Hall conducted what became known as a 'shredding party,' destroying a day's worth of documents. The full truth of Iran-Contra may never be known because of what was fed through that shredder.
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