Jackson and Crocker added hundreds of miles to their route by heading north through Oregon instead of cutting straight east — specifically to dodge the Nevada desert that had stranded Alexander Winton two years earlier. It was almost certainly the decision that got them to New York.
Where this was said
At 29:23 · chapter starts 26:20
May 23, 1903 was a warm Saturday that turned rainy in the afternoon — and that didn't stop Jackson and Crocker from heading east. The San Francisco Examiner ran a brief note about a horseless carriage attempting a sea-to-sea journey; the Chronicle ignored it entirely. Almost immediately, a tire blew out, setting the tone for the western leg. Tires were a constant headache: the roads were brutal, replacement tubes were nearly impossible to find out west (because almost no one had cars), and the two men learned to stockpile used tubes whenever they hit a town. Gear fell off the car at regular intervals — cooking utensils, multiple pairs of Jackson's eyeglasses — lost forever somewhere back along the trail. And then there was the question of where to go: rather than cutting straight east, they made the critical decision to head north through Oregon and into Idaho, adding hundreds of miles but sidestepping the Nevada desert that had already doomed Winton.
Jackson and Crocker departed San Francisco on Saturday, May 23, 1903, during a hot spring afternoon that turned rainy — and almost immediately blew a tire.
Kierkegaard lost five of six siblings and his mother before adulthood, grew up under a shame-ridden father, fell in love, proposed, then mailed back the ring and fled to Berlin. His inability to live up to his own most important commitment became the engine of his entire philosophical project.
Casanova escaped from Venice's inquisition prison, met Voltaire, Catherine the Great, Benjamin Franklin, and Mozart — then died completely alone in a Slovak castle, broke, telling stories to children who thought he was a crazy old man. His 2,000-page memoir sat unread for decades. A life full of fireworks that meant nothing.
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.
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