The Story of Rudolf Diesel | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. welcome to stuff you should know a. production of iHeart. Radio hey and welcome to the podcast I'm. Josh and there's Chuck and Ben here. sitting in for Jerry and uh this is. stuff you should know uh. uh what you're not going to pick up the. the the ball the Baton yes uh we are. doing episode today on Rudolph diesel.

invention of or inventor of the diesel. engine uh and this was prepared for us. by uh Anna green one of our writers and. Anna did a a great job very exhaustive. look but this was a listener suggestion. and I went back to look at who it was. and it turns out there were three emails. over the past like couple of years to. investigate Rudolph diesel um Scott. Simpson I don't think my friend Scott. Simpson who's also a comedian but who. knows okay um Christian.

coiner and then very mysteriously Leo. and Jenny oh no last name yeah Leo and. Jenny the last name isn't in Jenny right. no the middle initial is n and the last. name is Jenny yeah so thanks for these. uh suggestions cuz this was I didn't. know anything about the guy didn't know. anything about the diesel engine and now. I feel good enough to get a Jeopardy. answer or two correct for sure um yeah. call us Ken I had no idea about this. either I didn't realize that diesel is.

technically a proprietary eponym or at. least a proper noun uh if you see like. that diesel engine the D should be. capitalized because it was invent it's. named after its inventor Rudolph diesel. who uh was working around the turn of. the last century and a little bit before. a little bit after uh and he was a. German Kid born in. Paris um to a father who um well his. father is a bit of a character as we'll. see in some of the worst ways um but who. was just a uh he was an interesting.

person who made his own way in the world. and changed it radically the irony is he. changed it in ways that were the. opposite of what he wanted to or how he. wanted to change the world yeah for sure. uh and like many inventors his story. starts out as a child who was sort of. obsessed with figuring out how things. worked uh a tinkerer who uh would take. apart things we we've heard this story.

kind of time and time again someone who. would like disassemble things in their. house put them back together uh as a kid. in Paris he was um working for his dad. uh a lot of the time or in school and in. 1867 came across his first internal. combustion engine at the Paris World's. Fair yeah when he um saw the the Auto. Engine Nicholas Auto's coal gas engine. like I said at the World's Fair yeah and. this was a big deal other people had. invented um internal combustion engines.

before but Nicholas Autos was like the. culmination of it it was like the the. real deal so uh the fact that it really. struck uh young Rudolph diesel this. would have been oh he would have been 15. 19 no he would have been nine yeah. imagine being a 9-year-old kid and. seeing a internal combustion engine and. saying to yourself this is what I want. to dedicate my life to that was the kind.

of kid Theodore diesel was right um and. again it was a it was a a big deal that. that he saw this this engine or I should. say the engine itself was a big deal but. they didn't stick around Paris for much. longer um that was 1867 within three. years the Franco Prussian war broke out. and the diesel family said we need to. get out of France let's move to London. and they did and the whole family took a. downward turn from there yeah I mean I. get the idea that uh it was just sort of. moved uprooted moved to a new country.

and had a lot of time getting good work. mhm uh because their family did not live. well there um thankfully uh at least for. Rudolph a few months after getting there. um he was 12 at the time his aunt and. uncle said come back to Germany come. back to urg live with us uh the your. uncle here uh Kristoff Barnacle will. help pay for your schooling uh he. enrolled at the Royal County trade. school for three years while his family. stayed in London so when he graduate in.

1865 his dad said hey need you to come. back to London and get some get get a. job and help us out like your schooling. is over Rudolph said nine I'm G to stay. here I want to be an engineer which. means I need to keep going to school so. he he denied his father and enrolled at. the. technicia uh hula munin there in what we. call Munich Germany um he got a. scholarship to go there and very um. what's the word I'm looking for when.

something happens it's very important. and. auspicious n um no. Resolute no not the sort of the opposite. of coincidence uh purposefully yeah. perly yeah perpendicularly just very. importantly there I will say met one. Carl Von Linda uh who would be his a big. person in his life his employer at one. point and a mentor and friend I get what. you're trying to say I can't think of. the word either kind of like it was.

auspiciously like a I said auspicious as. fate would have it no is auspicious. right predetermination. predestination someone I know this is. the kind of stuff people like are I'm. like I like stuff you should know but. there's a lot that I don't like about it. too you. know where I was leading with that was. um from that point where he met uh Von. Linda and was in school he became. fascinated by another proprietary EPM.

engine the steam. engine invented by Danny. steam. right uh no he came across the um Carno. cycle right wasn't that another thing. that really kind of struck struck him. floated his. boat yeah besides Danny steam's. invention yeah well the caros cycle is. this it is a theoretical engine external. combustion engine that um where every. bit of energy put into it produces work.

so it's 100% efficient it's essentially. impossible but it's theoretically. possible and that combined with Auto's. internal combustion engine really um. kind of came together to give uh Rudolph. diesel like his his purpose in life his. mission in life and then like you said. when he um fortuitously met Carl Von Lyn. that's the word yeah everything came. together because now he had a mentor a.

patron a guy who gave him a job right. out of um right out of school and and. when you take like the fact that his. family was using their luggage in London. as the furniture in their house and his. aunt and uncle came AC call in and said. let's just pluck you out of this. situation and put you on the road to. your destiny and then you're going to go. forth and change the world literally. your invention is going to fuel the. Second Industrial Revolution and put us.

where humans are today you can largely. thank Rudolph Diesel and his invention. for that um it's it's just mindboggling. the series of events that happened to to. do that and the effect that it had on. the world no absolutely um he moved back. to Paris uh eventually in 1880 and like. you said he went to work for uh Carl Von. Linda I think it said Linda I'm not sure. how hard to pronounce I just imagine him. being like a 70s mom. I think in German it wouldn't be Lind I.

think it would be Lind like with a e at. the end sure but I don't know about. Linda you know like Linda's Bagels right. uh he worked for for. Linda as an ice guy he he had a ice. machine company and he was all kinds of. things he was an apprentice for a little. while he eventually became a salesperson. over this decade that he worked for him. but one of the other cool facts and this. is the Jeopardy question maybe one of.

them y it's like what other famous thing. did Rudolph diesel invent he invented. and got a patent for the Ice Cube yeah. yeah I was like I when I saw that I was. like well wait does that mean he. invented the ice cube yes indeed Rudolph. Kel the inventor of the diesel engine. also invented the ice cube yeah which I. guess is the means of I mean maybe they. just never thought of freezing ice in. cubes before I guess but think about it. Chuck we would be lacking one quarter of. NW UA had Theodore diesel not come along.

or Rudolph diesel not come along that's. a good point um so he graduated like. like we kind of put the cart in front of. the horse um but he graduated uh and. went on to get that job with Linda Carl. Von Linda um but when he did graduate. from school he had the um highest grades. in the history of the entire school one. of the reasons why he was a very serious. student he was not some even though he. was um well Tak care of and funded he.

was you know and he had a scholarship he. worked his tail off uh and and took his. his um his studies very seriously so. this kid was like he was pretty put. together for you know his age for. sure yeah absolutely um so you know I. said he worked there for a decade within. that decade for about six or seven years. of it he after inventing the Ice Cube. which would help found in wa mhm and I. guess prevent iced tea from just being.

tea right or hot tea sure or even tepid. tea right tepid tea that's that's your. rapper name it really. is yeah I'm neither hot nor cold you. have to say it like you're slightly. annoyed I'm tepid te yeah exactly um he. started working on engines again this. this idea popped back into his head this. memory of the Carno cycle of like gosh. there's got to be a way to make Danny. steam's engine more efficient and for.

about six or seven years he worked on. and uh trying to develop an ammonia. powered heat engine uh ammonia was too. volatile so he eventually ends up back. in Berlin uh with his by this time he. had a wife Martha and three children and. started working like in Earnest on the. internal combustion engine and I believe. filed a Patton in. 1892 uh yeah I feel like um we should.

take a break and then come back and talk. about like you know how what what like. this guy wasn't working in a vacuum so. what environment what world he was. working in when he was trying to come up. with this diesel engine all right let's. do. it you know stop stop you should know no. stop you know st stop you should know. stuff you should know.

s. y. [Music]. y should. [Music]. know so um Chuck I found a BBC article. that kind of put the stakes out there. pretty well about what was driving in. part Rudolph Diesel's obsession with. creating a a super efficient engine and. one of the things they said was that. there was a ton of horses I think they. said in a city of 500,000 people there. were probably about a 100,000 horses and.

all of them were walking around pooping. and peeing everywhere all over the place. so an alternative to uh. horsepower was very uh desirable and we. already had steam power but steam power. had its own thing going on uh and in one. in one way one of the big weaknesses of. steam power is that it required tons and. tons and tons of coal because you use. coal to heat a boiler to boil water. create steam to run a piston and then. the piston turns the chemical energy of.

the coal into the mechanical work that. that turns something or makes something. go up and down or does whatever probably. has something to do with gears I don't. get it but there was already back in the. 1860s a book by a guy named Stanley. jevin or Jon uh called the Cole question. and this guy was already warning about. Peak Cole essentially pointing out like. Cole is a non-renewable resource. everybody and we are using it really. really fast this guy was already ringing. the alarm about it and the Rudolph.

diesel was exactly the kind of person. who this whose ear was out for this kind. of thing so in addition to replacing the. really inefficient steam engine in in. addition to replacing like letting the. horses go retire and be put out to. pasture and then also about you know. coming up with something that doesn't. use coal all of these things came. together to kind of give him this. mission in this drive yeah absolutely um. he went back Idea Idea wise at at least. to the auto engine uh again an internal.

combustion engine but Auto's engine used. a spark uh like you know a spark plug to. ignite the fuel and Diesel still thought. there's got to be a better way um we I. don't think we need that spark I think. we can use highly compressed air that. gets so compressed and so hot it will. ignite and ended up sort of using this. idea from a uh a Tinder Box that he saw. mhm uh that was a basically a sparkless.

way to ignite Tinder and it was like a. sort of like a syringe it it was larger. it was about the size of a like a. bicycle pump but like a glass syringe. that compressed air such that it would. eventually provide that ignition and he. was like Hey if it works there it could. work in an engine yeah and the genius of. all this is so again steam engines are. powering the Industrial Revolution. they've done their thing they've. completely changed the world but again. they're really in efficient I think. they're about 10% efficient so 90% of.

the energy in the coal is lost to heat. to the environment only 10% terrible. actually yeah it's really really. inefficient and so one of the Geniuses. of um an internal combustion engine in. the first place but also specifically. Diesel's engine is it says let's what if. we just got rid of all the stuff that. led up to that piston moving and just. like make the engine that piston. and if you compress air enough you're.

compressing the molecules uh really. tightly really quickly it causes them to. um become excited which causes them to. put off heat and if you compress it. enough it produces enough heat that it. can ignite uh fuel in that piston. causing the Piston to move up and down. and that's ultimately what you're after. is making that piston move up and down. so he got rid of all that stuff the. piles of coal the big boiler full of. steam the steam itself and took the. whole the whole process right to the the. Piston itself. and it worked really really well it.

turned. out yeah eventually um and you know we. should probably talk a little bit about. his big idea with this it wasn't just he. had he had other drives besides making. an engine that worked more efficiently. um he was he had this idea of helping. the the common person and uh you know. while while Danny steam's invention may. have powered the Industrial Revolution. what what did it do for the The Artisan. in the countryside or the Craftsman or.

the small business person and I think I. can build an engine that's small enough. that runs on cheap fuel that doesn't. require much of any maintenance if. you're kind of keeping up with it uh or. you know repair as long as you're. maintaining it rather that it can. Revitalize the countryside and and make. people people in rural areas give them. the same sort of uh chance to succeed by. having the power of an engine at their. disposal right yeah because those Steam. engines were so big and required so much.

labor they just sucked people from the. countryside and Consolidated them in the. cities and he wanted to do the opposite. and so if you have a light portable. efficient engine that people in the in. the rural areas can use yeah like you. said it give them it put them on equal. footing with the industrialists of the. city but also you mentioned cheap fuel. too one of his dreams was to um make his. diesel engine run on vegetable oil. essentially biodiesel is essentially. what he was trying to do and it was a. viable idea for a really long time.

basically the entire time he was alive. and that would have really given people. in rural areas a leg up because they. could have grown their own fuel to power. the engines that they had at their. disposal to run their arts and crafts. fairs yeah so he had he had big Ideas uh. he filed his patent he went to try and. get funding uh a lot of skepticism. obviously in that in the financial. Marketplace uh at the time and he got a. couple of guys enrich Von Butz and.

friederick kup uh to give him some money. uh Von buts for his part was a managing. director at uh machine Fabric alburg and. also said hey you can take some of my. factory space to work on this stuff so. Rudolph moved to alburg um in 1893. started working on this engine uh with. that sort of Tinder Box idea in mind and. uh the one thing he couldn't figure out. he was like a no compressing air. can ignite this thing but I just don't.

know how much pressure I'm going to need. and for a little while it got a little. dangerous in that machine shop yeah. there I guess there was no way to to. work it out on paper first he had to. figure it out like in real life by. compressing air yeah essentially and. adding some uh combustible fluid to it. or fuel to it so um he did that his. first working prototype uh he. demonstrated in the lab I don't know if. it was a demonstration I think they just.

tried it the first time and the um it. compressed air so um much I guess and. produced so much heat that the engine. blew up and like you said blew. throughout the lab like pieces of the. engine went flying but when like you can. just imagine in the movie like they Rise. Up from behind like some big crate and. everybody's hair is standing on it and. there's smoke coming off of there um. he's like it worked in that he proved. that if you compress air you could. create enough heat to to ignite.

something you didn't need a spark you. didn't need coal or a boiler you like. his engine could work and it had just. been. proven yeah for sure uh the second one. went much better uh it did not explode. the third one was the big sort of moment. um when the bell rang it it ran on. kerosene uh he was 39 years old which is. pretty incredible to think about and. felt comfortable enough to do a public. test on February 17th 1897 in front of.

an audience there at the machine fabric. uh Factory for the employees and. Engineers uh a few other uh firms were. there and it was a really big big. success and he in that he achieved uh. not only a working engine but it was had. a a basically invisible and almost. odorless exhaust and reached an. efficiency of. 26.2% compared with Danny steam's measly. 10% yeah and you're like well it's you. know not that much better that is a.

mindboggling Improvement in efficiency. over the ex the the existing technology. that was just out of the gate it was. revolutionary uh and like you said I. think um uh friederick coup is that how. you pronounce his last name yeah he was. an early investor and I was like that. name sounds very familiar and I went and. looked him up on Wikipedia in honor of. my reformed view of Wikipedia um and I. found out that was in fact who I've been.

calling crup the same crup or C family. that the gave rise to the Tyson c um. International Mega conglomerate uh from. Europe uh you it might be corrup. actually okay so Tyson CR you're. familiar with that company right they're. just enormous sure two PS yeah that's. right um and so I was reading a little. bit about friederick K on Wikipedia and. little known fact he used to ride a. giraffe everywhere he went.

oh as you. do uh I have a few quotes if I may um. because it's really hard to overstate. like you were saying what a leap forward. this was in technology um uh the one of. his biographers uh a man Nam uh his last. name is brunt said it was the the most. disruptive technology in history wow uh. Winston Churchill called it the most. perfect Maritime masterpiece pie of the. century and if you're wondering what.

Maritime has to do with it we'll get to. that just wait and then no less than. Edison said it was one of the greatest. achievements of mankind wow so that's. how big of a deal the diesel engine was. yeah and again so um Rudolph is like. what like this is happening like I'm. making this happen like this the people. in the country in the the rural Country. Side are going to be safe like this. whole um industrialization thing is. going to be reversed in kind of mellowed. out and smoothed over and the world's.

going to be saved essentially um and it. just did not quite go that way I mean. just the very fact that you had Winston. Churchill weighing in on how great it. was kind of gives you an indication that. it did not go the way that he. wanted yeah well one thing that did go. the way he wanted was he made a ton of. money off this thing um once he had a a. working prototype uh people started. literally lining up to get a license for. this thing um just a license to to build. it like they had to figure out how to.

build it and how to mass produce it and. everything um but he ended up selling 22. different licenses over a two-year. period in 1897 and 1898 alone uh to. people like uh Watson and yaren and. yarian in Scotland Augustus Augustus. Bush um bought the United States and. Canadian license for what would be $9. million today um basically Fiat in Italy. like people buying licenses uh hand over.

fist basically uh and eventually he. would um even sell all of his rights and. patents to the general diesel company. for three and a half million marks and I. tried to convert that to US dollars in. 2024 what did you get did you try yeah. what did you get I got 11 a half million. US Dollars. Today I oh boy I got $350 million. well I don't you could be right I went.

to a German inflation calculator first. and converted three and a half million. marks from 1898 to 20 23 or 24 marks and. then well they're Euros now though right. but there was a selection you could CH. convert it to Euros or marks Deutsch. marks oh okay and I I clicked deuts. marks I'm almost positive and then um I. took that and exchanged it at today's. rate for US Dollars that's how I came up. with it but I mean you know me and math.

King buttons and stuff like that I'm I'm. not that good at it no I think your. methodology was better what I did was I. went back to see what the Deutsch Mark. to US dollar was in 19 or in 1898 and. pulled a few. economists I converted that to US. dollars from to 1898 US Dollars and then. did a calculation so that's probably. that's the wrong methodology no I but I. mean it's crazy that they would be so. wildly different wildly off so what was. yours like 300 million.

yeah and mine was like 11 and half let's. split the difference and say it was. about 160 million marks or US dollars. today well I think your I think your. methodology is better but either way he. made a lot of money off of this thing it. ran off of like you said uh potentially. vegetable oil but you know kerosene. peanut oil all kinds of things and it. was uh or could have been a boon to the. you know this big idea that he had of of. the people in the countryside. had it not been for the war machine yeah.

so one of the things that all of these. International companies who had licensed. the right to make diesel engines were. supposed to do was as they were. developing their own versions any. technological breakthroughs were. supposed to be shared with all the other. lenses so the diesel engine itself would. be cooperatively developed. internationally kind of like a a human. undertaking among among the global. community and I guess that worked for a. little while but then like you said when. the first World War War started to come. around and tensions Rose um the diesel.

engine came to be the center of an arms. race between the UK and Germany and. despite being German of German Heritage. a German citizen having created the. diesel engine in Germany uh Rudolph. diesel was not a fan of the Kaiser was. not a fan of the ultra nationalism that. was starting to develop in Germany that. helped lead the world to World War I and. he's like I kind of like the UK and. where they're coming from these days I'm. going to move there and actually help. them with their arms race to create the.

diesel engines that will be used to. power this new scary technology called. submarines yeah uh in 1912 he co-founded. the Consolidated diesel engine company. uh with a a British engineer named. George Carell's and the submarine and. that's why Churchill said it's the most. perfect Maritime Masterpiece of the. century is all of a sudden you had. submarines that didn't require tons and. tons of coal on board tons and tons of. soldiers to shovel that coal these big.

dangerous coal uh ovens uh you had this. like super efficient um engine inside. this thing it was like it totally. revolutionized how submarines operated. and thus how the war went yeah I looked. up George Carell's too on Wikipedia and. apparently he was known to giggle like a. school girl at dirty. jokes really. no no no I'm making a comment on. Wikipedia but I'm just.

kidding crap I'm sorry it wasn't. intended to mislead you I I it was. really a Target it was targeted at. Wikipedia well part of the reason that. always works is because you're so good. at at digging up these Arcane facts and. so I tend to just be like holy cow. listen to that wow that's really. something giggled like a school girl you. say I just got joshed I'm sorry you got. caught in the drag net is what it was. so uh should we take another break sure.

all right let's take another break we'll. talk a little bit more about. diesel. stop you know stop stop you should know. no. stop know stop stop you should know stop. you should know s y y y k s.

[Music]. know so while all this is happening uh I. mentioned that he got married and had. three kids um they were all in Berlin. together in 1890 but when he moved to. alburg like I said to develop this. engine his he left his family behind uh. for five years uh then the family moved. to Munich and then finally he said you. know we got to reunite the family I'm. going to build uh my magnificent most. magnificent idea aside from that engine.

sure will be this Mansion uh from. architect Max Litman and it was it was. quite a mansion and in fact even though. he had a lot of money uh the way things. turned out with him financially I dare. say that he overdid it a bit there was a. bike track indoor bike track for his. kids I mean state-of-the-art stough one. yeah two three four five. bathrooms a lot for back then for sure. and I'm not talking ouses I mean.

bathrooms I mean I don't have five. bathrooms in it's 2024 there was a staff. it's not that impressive because. everybody had a staff back then right. yeah I don't have a staff but still it. was like a it was a a big deal and and. Not only was it a a beautiful amazing. Advanced mansion that he helped design. this um put an end or a punctuation mark. on Years of Living away from his family. in different countries like dedicating. his life to this diesel engine and. taking good care of them for what I.

could understand but not being a part of. the family he was a part of creating the. diesel engine and so by building this. Mansion he was coming back home coming. back to his family and. and starting a new chapter restarting an. important chapter of his. life yeah but it was a chapter marked by. some poor health um I saw that he got. migraines suffered from migraines uh. Scout um I know that he dropped a ton of.

money on this Mansion I don't think that. like ruined him or anything but he also. made some bad financial investments. apparently and they're they're kind of. conflicting stories about how how bad. off the family was but as we'll see in. the end it turns out that they weren't. doing so great uh in the financial. department after all I saw yeah I saw um. a lot of his early engines did not work. very well they weren't reliable and so. there was a lot of customers that wanted. their money back um initially so like.

you said there's a big debate over just. how bad off they were and Douglas brunt. uh one of his recent biographers from. 2024 is at odds with a biographer from. the 70s named John Frederick Moon Moon's. like he he was destitute and desperate. this guy was in dire Financial streets. Douglas brunt who again wrote much more. recently 40 years 50 years more recently. good god um he he was like no actually I. think that this was like a 1890s phase.

and that you know after the turn of the. century started to make his money back. again and that he was on okay Financial. footing yeah um he was still really. wrapped up in this uh this big idea of. um you know saving the common person uh. in 1903 he wrote a book called or. published one at least in 1903 called. solidarity colon even back then uh the. rational economic salvation of. mankind uh when he talked about you know.

sort of this um basically socialist. ideas that he you know of of the class. division uh being you know not not a. good thing and unfortunately nobody I. don't think it was a very good book no. one really read it much no tell them. what that One reviewer. said yeah there was One reviewer that. called it a real pain to read That's not. it's not a glowing review no not what. you're looking for yeah um but in. writing that book in conjunction with. creating the diesel engine um he was.

quoted as having said that he solved the. social question like he's like here's. the engine here's the here's what we're. trying to do I basically just saved the. world and he said that he was able to do. what all the nations combined were. unable to throw out the. Rockefellers and it just did not happen. that way as a matter of fact um when did. he publish that book. 1903. 1903 over the next 10 years years he was. still in a position and his engine was.

still in a position that it wasn't. entirely clear which way it was going to. go it wasn't World War I fully yet um it. was just the very beginning of it I. think um he he there was still a really. good chance that diesel engines would. run on vegetable oil it was very much up. in the air and in um September of 1913. September. 20 9th I. believe uh he went on a fateful trip. more than three-h hour TR but it was not.

that much more like less than 24 hours I. think um to go do a groundbreaking of. the company that he co-founded with. George. Carell's yeah I got name Alfred LOM uh. who was another engineer who was a pal. of theirs and um a few days before this. we should mention that he right before. he went on this trip he gave his wife a. a brand new um overnight bag and said. here's this bag don't open it. until next week MH uh very mysterious.

thing to do but he went to uh gent and. got on the SS Dresden on the 29th with. those three other two guys um had dinner. with them uh seemed like they had a good. time and they were all in good spirits. then he was like all right dinner's over. I'm going to go to bed and he was never. seen again no the next morning uh his. companions George Carell's and Alfred um. they went to go r him and say hey let's. party this morning and uh he he didn't.

answer so he went in his room his bed. was not slept in his nightclothes were. laid out on the bed uh his travel bag. was there his watch was on his travel. bag um and there was he was just nowhere. to be found so they informed the captain. who had the ship searched and in short. order they found his coat and hat and on. Deck near a railing and his coat had. been neatly folded which is not a good. sign uh and when they made land in. London. they he was just not there he was no.

longer on the ship at some point um. somewhere in the English Channel almost. to the North Sea Rudolph diesel just. vanished off the SS Dresden that's right. and what was in that leather bag that he. gave his wife 20,000 German marks no. idea how much that is in today's US. dollars but it was a significant amount. of money let's say it was a lot of money. and there were also Financial records. basically showing that they were broke. um so that sort of seemingly at least at.

this point in his life puts to rest the. question that there were financial. troubles yeah um so you know here's some. money but our accounts are empty um The. Disappearance was a very big deal. obviously and right away uh because he. had made a lot of enemies he the Kaiser. vilhelm did not like him um John D. Rockefeller did not like him and there. were you know people saying like could. could one of them had him killed is it. foul play was it just an accident was it. a suicide like no one no one knew and.

seemingly no one knows for sure even. though most people agree that it was. suicide yeah the folded coat kind of. says something that it wasn't just. falling overboard that kind of does away. with that one and that was the initial. one too because he had he had been said. to have been in High Spirits George. Carell said that um at after dinner as. they walked some they walked him back to. his state room he said I'll see you. tomorrow um there another evidence or.

another bit against the idea that uh it. was suicide his watch like I said it was. set on his bag but it was laid out in. such a way that he could see what time. it was when he would be laying down in. bed not something you do po up your. watch yeah like you don't really go to. that trouble if you don't think that if. you think like I'm going to addend my. life in a couple hours that doesn't. matter and then George krell's also told. that New York Times that he did that um. Rudolph did not suffer from giddiness I.

guess that means that he would not have. answered the call of the Void is what he. was. saying yeah this whole idea of murder. none of it really holds up to scrutiny. when you investigate either uh the fact. that the the Germans came after him. because he didn't help them build you. know their engines for the submarines. for the war or. Rockefeller uh so those generally don't. hold up when you look into them more. closely and like I said most people say. it was suicide but they the the uh what. was his first name brunt's name douglas.

douglas brunt who wrote the mauricea. biography has a theory that he did not. die at all and that he was um it was. sort of faked basically and by the. British and he was shuttled away to. Canada where he could continue working. on these engines for the war yeah there. was a New York Times article in 1914. that said that as much that he'd been. rumored to to be working in Canada m. that is probably not true because about.

11 days I think 11 days after he went. missing a body um washed up so okay it. depends on who you ask me or Chuck it. turns out um his body either turned up. at the mouth of a Dutch River and was. taken ashore and taken into town and um. was identified or viewed by one of his. sons as almost certainly his dad but not. a positive identification cuz it was too. decomposed or. well I don't think the Dutch River part.

is uh debated Oh I thought it was I. thought they were out to seea no no no I. I saw everywhere I saw it was at the. mouth of a Dutch River okay um he was. just pulled out of the water um but I. saw in a lot of places. including uh the brunt's biography that. uh the body was returned to the water. because it was just so uh unrecognizable. and and um you know rotted by that point. which is really gross doesn't make any.

sense that they put the body back in the. sea but kept the belongings that he had. that I saw uh also disputed I saw that. there were uh everything from glasses. case to a pocket pin knife to a pillbox. and I even saw one say that was an ID. card recovered I don't think that's true. because that's that's literal positive. identification unless it's you know. planted right on somebody to make it. seem like a suicide uh other most places. I saw didn't mention an ID card but they. did say that the son identified the.

items and said yeah those are my dad's. things and then mysteriously uh among. his possessions was found the tooth of a. giraffe I don't believe that that's. good you're like no that's the one true. thing right uh so um I mean that's no. one knows what happened to him there's. no solution to that puzzle um yeah I'm. going with that was his body. um you think yeah.

suicide probably everything I saw was. that he was in dire Financial Straits. and I mean plenty of people have died by. Suicide for that reason too um so it's. it's entirely possible I don't know. enough to be like yep that's it but. that's probably where I lean I would say. uh well regardless of what happened the. the you know the invention of that. engine was uh you know you heard the. quotes it changed the history of the. world lot of ways and uh such that just. a couple years ago in 2022 uh a full 96%.

of trucks in the EU run on diesel. engines and uh here in America it's a. little bit different because we've been. um had a LoveHate relationship with. diesel over the years as far as trying. to phase it out or other people saying. no it's a superior fuel um but about 23%. of fuel in the US is diesel fuel still. yeah and the reason why people say it's. um Superior is because even though. there's more CO2 there's more carbon in.

diesel fuel diesel burns more. efficiently um than gas so it actually. releases less CO2 than gas does even. though there's more CO2 and Diesel. because less is burned over the course. of say 50 miles or something like that. so it's true but it still it does it is. a polluter if you're trying to get away. from fossil fuels diesels included in. there too I remember having a couple of. friends back in the day that had like a. a hand me hand me- down old you know'.

70s mercedesbenz Diesel from their. parents or something or their Grandpa. Grandpa died and they got one of those. you know chuggy engines I just remember. they were very loud and it seemed like. they just did nothing but spew black. smoke yeah I know the diesel smoke is. just so noxious too um it seemed like it. I mean maybe they were old cars or not. running right I have no idea but that's. sort of my only memory of diesel engines. no I'm with you yeah they're still like. that. uh if you want to know more about Diesel. and his engine then just go read uh.

Douglas brunt's book on it and since I. mentioned Douglas brunt for one last. time it's time for listener. meal uh I'm going to call this Harvard. followup with the old Puritans episode. uh Hey guys in your recent episode on. Puritans you mentioned the founding of. Harvard I'm a graduate of the Divinity. School and learned an interesting tidbit. I believe it was in the' 60s and the. Divinity School had fallen on kind of. hard times enrollment was down wasn't. attracting the best students or teachers.

so Harvard had the sensible business. idea of selling it off the court. declared though that if Harvard sold a. Divinity School the the university would. have to close its doors because the. original charter states that the purpose. uh to be educating a quote learned. learned clergy end quote uh so if they. stopped doing that the school was no. longer following its Charter another. wise choice later the university doubled. down its support and some three decades. or so uh after it was the institution in. which I spent 3 years on my way to a.

masters of divinity uh during. orientation the dean of the school said. to us you all belong here so either we. are not as Elite as you had assumed or. you are brighter than you had thought. either way you belong here welcome what. a great message that's pretty cool uh. keep up the great work guys uh you were. uh you guys are a gift in such divided. and divisive times thanks for that that. is from Eric uh Wickstrom thanks Eric. Eric Wickstrom thanks Reverend speaking.

of reverends that's funny that mention. of uh how attendance was down in the 60s. so much that they were going to sell the. Divinity School reminded me of Reverend. lovejoy's origin story um from The. Simpsons and he was saying it was the. early' 70s the 60s were over and people. were ready to feel bad about themselves. again so good yeah uh if you want to be. like Reverend Eric uh you can email us. too especially with additional info we. didn't know that's interesting we love. that stuff you can send it to stuff.

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