What is going on everyone? Welcome back to the world according to Briggs my name
is Briggs and I like to talk a lot actually really some people call some
people paint others cure deadly diseases I talk a lot today we're gonna talk
about a city that's been all over the news Baltimore Maryland it's right here
in case you don't know about an hour or so up the baltimore-washington Parkway
from Washington DC so Baltimore has been getting some bad press lately things
have been brought up in the news painting the Charm City in a really bad
light yeah that's their nickname the Charm City the
thing is this they have their challenges and they have their issues but they
aren't the worse than anything every city has problems but Baltimore's aren't
as bad as they're making it seem these days most dangerous they came in third
poorest they came in sixth the worst schools there were only 16 and the worst
all-around city they came into 13th so they're not the absolute worst they're
not doing great they have some issues but you know they didn't even make the
top ten and overall worst Baltimore is filled with good people that care about
their city talk to someone from Baltimore about Baltimore and I promise
you they will tell you it's a great city what is going on in Baltimore in the
news is what they did to Chicago a few years back they made Chicago seem like
it was like this war zone they have some bad things they had some murders but
else have 10 times as many people is the next city on the list basically they're
making Baltimore seem far worse than it is Baltimore is a historic city with a
lot to offer over the last several years they've become a tech city in 2018
Forbes magazine ranked Baltimore as the fourth hottest tech spot in the country
so that's really good news bright future there but enough of all that today's
list is about the weird things in Baltimore stats and rankings are nice
but more interesting are the strange happenings places and people of
Baltimore and now the disclaimer if you're from Charm City or know about
Baltimore you've probably heard some of these if not all of these 90 percent of
the people watching this right now haven't keep that in mind before you
leave your comment all right so why don't you grab a pit beef and a natty
Boh and watch my top 10 strangest things about Baltimore
number ten street lights the very first street lights were established here in
Baltimore in 1817 it was discovered that hydrogen gas lamps could be used to keep
the streets lit at night hydrogen gas lamps were used until
electricity was you know sometime later they used to have a dude that would walk
around the streets lighting these things up every single night good thing we
figured out electricity you'd have to have an army of lamplighters to cover
Baltimore these days it's huge then of course you'd have the hooligans going
around blowing out all the lamps at night
sort of like taggers I guess they would be blowers what if they made it a felony
and you got arrested for it and goes down on your record as here a felonious
blower nobody wants that on the record that's disgusting gas lights in
Baltimore have been gone for 62 years now the gas light era in Baltimore came
to an end on August 14th 1957 when then Mayor Thomas LJ D'Alessandro jr.
extinguished the last gas lamp in Little Italy number 9 dentistry Baltimore is
very big on teeth the world's first dental school was established in 1840
some say doc holliday even studied here for some time before graduating in
Pennsylvania if you aren't sure who that is he's an old West gun slinger and
friend of Wyatt Earp he was one of the men at the OK Corral
and it said that he fired the first shot so yeah that's interesting Baltimore is
very proud of their dentistry you know that because they got the Museum of
Dentistry located in the city but that place is just packed with people every
weekend especially kids George Washington's wooden dentures are in the
Museum of Dentistry did any of you hear that when you were in school George
Washington had wooden teeth well he had several pairs they were made out of
varying combinations of rare hippopotamus ivory human teeth and metal
fasteners they weren't made of wood the teeth would easily turn brown without
regular care or cleaning and their occasional nasty appearance may have
first got the ball rolling with the rumor that he had wooden teeth number 8
the six pack the six pack we're talking about six pack of beer not something I
haven't had since I was 20 any time you go by a six pack of beer you can think
the good people of Baltimore for this at the time in the 1940s the national
bohemian Brewing Company now Pabst Brewing Company started selling beers by
the half dozen since it seemed that four were too few and eight seemed to be it
too much they decided to just go with six per
pack I wonder if they did any research on that or just guessed do they do like
a study with different control groups one group was given eight beers one was
given four beers and then one was given a placebo of non-alcoholic beer then
they'd have to go bowling and if they did really really bad you knew they
didn't drink any beer if they did really really good you know they had too many
and if they were just kind of mediocre they only had four beers you know you
ever notice that bowling is the only sport that being drunk actually helps
your performance that and hitting a knuckleball in baseball number seven the
Ravens the Baltimore Ravens is an NFL football team that's hijacked from
Cleveland Ohio the city of Baltimore told the Browns football team from the
city of Cleveland by making a sweetheart deal to the then owner of the Browns Art
Modell he relocated to Baltimore basically after threats of legal action
from the city of Cleveland and the fans a compromise was reached in early 1996
that allowed Modell to establish the Baltimore Ravens as a new franchise
while retaining the contracts of all the Browns players we got to take all the
people and stuff like that he just couldn't take much else the Browns
intellectual property including the team name logos colors training facility in
history we're kept in a trust and the franchise was regarded by the NFL as
suspended with a new team to be established by 1999 either through
expansion and relocation the Browns were announced as an expansion team in 1998
and they resumed play in 1999 and I've been happy ever since well not really
because they've sucked up until like last year
almost that whole time until like last year they have sucked horribly and I'm a
fan I'm still a fan even though they suck that long as you could imagine
there's a lot of things wrong in my head but back to the Ravens many people don't
know it but the mascot actually dates back almost 175 years to nine 1845 when
Edgar Allen Poe's the Raven was published great poem great piece of
literature even if you're not into it read the Ravens someday piece of art
anyway since the famous writer died on a park bench in Baltimore he was poisoned
I totally felt necessary for the Raven to represent the city
Nevermore number six the USS Constellation docked in the Inner Harbor
is the last civil war ship that's still floating today the constellation was
commissioned on 28 July 1855 and after a hundred years of service in 1955 she was
decommissioned and she had been decommissioned in 1933 and then
recommissioned 1940 just in case there's any ship
nerds out there about to give me an angry comment anyway by this time she
had seen some better day so after they completed a restoration process she was
taken to her permanent berth constellation dock in her Harbor Pier
one on July 4th she was designated a
national landmark on 23 May 1963 and in 1994 it was condemned as an unsafe
vessel so like I said this ship has seen some good days and some bad days the
constellation was put into dry dock at Sparrow Point in 1996 and a nine million
dollar rebuilding and restoration project was undertaken and completed in
July of 1999 an attempt safeguard the wood they kind of painted it this
fiberglass paint now it's like got this weird aqua blue color too it's kind of
strange but hey that's what they went with as of 2015 the organization
responsible for the ship's maintenance enlisted local inmates for repair and
cleanup on the ship I wonder if any of those inmates are felonious blower's
number five Baltimore Airport the Baltimore Airport is an interesting one
to say the least actually strange is a better word the full name of the airport
is the Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport
but most people just call it the Baltimore Airport or BWI since the
airport can be pretty stressful BWI offers many amenities like spas a gym a
meditation room as well as hiking and biking trails really hiking and biking
trails all within the airport it's not just nearby like in some woods near
there it's like surrounding the airport like right on the fits in the airport
property it's weird I've been through this Airport a couple times and it's a
lot smaller than I thought it would be they only see like 250 flights a day to
give you an idea how small that is O'Hare and Chicago sees about a thousand
a day Atlanta and Dallas see in the 900s Los Angeles is lax they see 750 kind of
small I thought it'd be much bigger that's weird
number 4 railroad drama the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is the oldest railroad
in the country I hate the word railroad because it's like a tongue twister to me
anyway the B&O Railroad is so special it even got a spot in monopoly always got
to get all four of the railroads always the B&O line was a major part of the
western expansion B&O started service in 1830 things were going smooth until
violence broke out in 1877 during the great railroad strike when the B&O
Company tried to lower the wages of the rail
rail rope rail workers damnit of the rail workers between the workers and
National Guard were kind of broke out ten people were killed and some of the
railway had been burned because they start burning things anyway
isn't that like the first thing you learn in Business School don't lower the
wages of current employees bad things happen when you do that anyway ten
people were killed and I promise you not one of them was in the meeting where
they decided to lower the wages number three John Hopkins John Hopkins is very
prestigious private research university located in Baltimore the University was
named after John Hopkins I say that in case the name didn't tip you off that it
was named after a dude named John Hopkins anyway he was an entrepreneur
who had many ties to the B&O Railroad at his death Hopkins donated his fortune of
seven million dollars to fund the hospital and university in the area at
the time his fortune would have converted to today's money about one
hundred and fifty million dollars so he gave him a good chunk of change because
of this great honor with the donation the hospital and university were built
in his name in 1876 just three years following his death the good news is he
wasn't in on that meeting about lowering the wages and he wasn't the dude that
called the National Garden to crack some skulls so he was a decent dude I guess
number two the great Baltimore fire in 1904 Baltimore experienced a horrific
fire which was named the Great Baltimore fire is it my imagination or does like
every major city have a great fire in their history I mean I get it they had a
lot of wood buildings back in the day but were they like using kerosene soaked
newspaper as insulation or something this fire raged for two days in February
of 1904 and it took twelve hundred firefighters both professional and
volunteers from the surrounding counties to keep it under control
140 acres of the city were destroyed 3,500 residents were left unemployed
amazingly no one died but the damage totaled about 150 million dollars which
converted to today's money is about almost four billion dollars 3.84 that's
amazing that's a lot what's really amazing is nobody died I would have at
least expected one person would have died like the guy drinking moonshine all
day that was light enough fireworks to celebrate Independence Day five months
early he should have died and number one the Telegraph the
electric telegraph was the first ever text messaging device the very first
telegraph was invented in 1774 and could only be used between two rooms this
wasn't very useful I mean it was just the next room what was that good for
other than sending a message to your wife bring me another natty Boh the
Orioles are an Extra Innings I mean that's about it but it wasn't until 1844
after many revisions that Samuel Morris was able to make an electric telegraph
travel 44 miles from Washington DC to Baltimore
Samuel Morris was also the inventor of Morse code if you don't know what the
Morse code is congratulations you're probably under the age of 30 I learned
the Morse code when I was in the army don't know why I never used it once well
except I used it to tap your a dick every night for a month on the wall
between me and the dick that lived in the next room he was a dick Baltimore
was essentially the birthplace of the Telegraph all right so that's my top 10
strangest things about Baltimore I hope you guys enjoyed it hope you got some
information out of it don't forget all the links below if you haven't already
subscribed please do so and there's a link below for my podcast if you guys
are into podcast that's down there still working my way through it and learning
but it's down there I'll leave a link everybody have a great day be nice to
each other