Drain the Oceans: Secrets of American History | MEGA EPISODE | National Geographic

Key Concepts

• Russian Colonial Alaska
• Kad'yak Shipwreck: A three-masted sailing ship that sank in 1861 in Icon Bay, Alaska, with its mast forming a cross.
• Icon Bay: A sacred burial place and the location where the Kad'yak sank.
• Ice Trade: The historical business of harvesting and selling ice, specifically by the Russians in Alaska to San Francisco during the Gold Rush.
• Whaling Disaster of 1871: The event where 32 whaling ships were trapped and lost in the Arctic ice off the coast of Alaska.
• Yankee Whaling: American whaling practices, particularly during the 19th century.
• Prohibition Era: The period in the United States from 1920 to 1933 when the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol were illegal.
• Rum-running: The illegal smuggling of alcohol, particularly during the Prohibition era.
• Bill Dwyer Syndicate: A rum-running ring allegedly led by "Big Bill" Dwyer, with connections to future Mafia figures like Lucky Luciano.
• Purple Gang: A vicious gang of Jewish gangsters in Detroit during the Prohibition era.
• Santo Cristo de Burgos: A Spanish Manila galleon that sank off the coast of Oregon in 1693.
• The Cheasapeake Flotilla: An American naval force that fought in the war of 1812 lead by Commodore Joshua Barney
• Lucona: A ship that exploded in the Indian Ocean with six people killed.
• Udo Proksch: Businessman accused of blowing up the Lucona to defraud an insurance company.
• Marine archaeology: Underwater archaeology.

The Kad'yak Shipwreck Discovery

• The Legend and Initial Investigation:

  • Mike Yarborough, an archaeologist, contacted Brad Stevens about a legend of a ship named "Kad'yak" that sank in Icon Bay in 1861.
  • The Kad'yak was said to have drifted unmanned after hitting a reef, sinking in a lagoon with its mast resembling a Russian Orthodox cross.
  • Stevens began researching the Kad'yak, discovering it was a three-masted sailing ship with copper sheathing.
  • The captain, Illarion Arkhimandritov, survived and charted the coastline, taking a final bearing to the ship's mast.

• Locating the Wreck:

  • Stevens spent years trying to match Arkhimandritov's cryptic compass bearings to the landscape.
  • He eventually marked an "X" on a chart based on his best guess of the bearing's origin.

• The First Dive and Initial Finds:

  • In July 2003, Stevens and a team, including filmmaker Stefan Quinth, dived in Icon Bay to search for the Kad'yak.
  • The initial dive yielded nothing, but a subsequent dive team found small bits of metal, potentially copper sheathing.
  • Later dives revealed a cannon and an anchor, suggesting a shipwreck.

• Professional Archaeological Survey:

  • Nine months later, a professional team from East Carolina University, led by Frank Cantelas, surveyed the wreck.
  • The archaeologists uncovered the wooden remains of a hull, ballast rocks, ship timbers, three anchors, and a pile of rusted metal machinery.

• Identifying the Ship:

  • Stevens researched Russian trading activity in Kodiak, discovering that the Russians harvested ice on Woody Island for sale in San Francisco.
  • The rusted metal machinery might be part of an "ice elevator" mentioned in documents about the Kad'yak.
  • A key discovery was an object embedded in the seafloor with Cyrillic writing, which Jenya Anitchenko identified as "Kad'yak."
  • The object was the hub of the ship's wheel, confirming the wreck's identity.

• Understanding the Sinking:

  • Captain Arkhimandritov's letters described the ship hitting a reef in 1860 and being abandoned but remaining afloat.
  • The ship was full of ice, which kept it afloat for three days before it drifted to Icon Bay.
  • The mast stuck out of the water, forming the shape of a Russian Orthodox cross.
  • Winter storms broke up the ship, scattering the bow to the west and the rest of the ship on the other side of the reef.

The Whaling Disaster of 1871

• The Disaster and Initial Search:

  • In 1871, a fleet of over 30 whaling ships was trapped by sea ice off the north coast of Alaska.
  • 32 ships were lost, but 1,200 people on board survived.
  • Randy Beebe, an airline pilot and Arctic exploration enthusiast, discovered that locals had been salvaging debris from the wrecks for generations.

• Finding Clues on the Beach:

  • Beebe's team found ships' timbers and a flensing tool on a beach west of Point Franklin.
  • They found portions of sheet copper with a maker's mark ("A.B.") from a Connecticut copper company.
  • An expedition with a small inflatable boat and sonar failed to find wreckage offshore.

• NOAA's Expedition:

  • In 2015, NOAA launched an expedition to map the seabed and find the remains of the whaling ships.
  • The mission coordinator, Brad Barr, noted that the disaster ended Yankee whaling in the early 20th century.
  • Sonar scans identified six features that appeared to be manmade.
  • A drop camera system revealed a mass of heavy wood, sections of a hull, broken ribs, and stone ballast.

• Identifying the Wrecks:

  • Pieces of copper sheathing were visible on sections of planking.
  • Another site revealed ship's hardware, including an anchor and metal bars with loops.
  • Studying the last 19th-century whaling ship in existence helped identify the metal bars as chain plates, part of the standing rigging.
  • Bracket-shaped pieces of iron were identified as knees, used to hold the tryworks (whale oil furnaces) in place.

• Solving the Mystery of Survival:

  • Mapping data revealed a raised feature, a sandbar or reef, parallel to the shoreline.
  • The sandbar stopped the ice, leaving an open channel of water between the sandbar and the beach.
  • The crews used whaleboats to row to other ships waiting outside the ice.

Prohibition and Rum-Running

• The Lizzie D and William P. Maloney:

  • Steve Nagiewicz, a scuba diver and marine archaeologist, discovered a shipwreck far offshore in the late 1990s.
  • The wreck contained wooden walls and many bottles of whiskey.
  • Nagiewicz sketched the wreck, noting a single-piston steam engine, a thick propeller shaft, and a large propeller blade, suggesting a tugboat.
  • Nagiewicz taught marine archaeology at Stockton University and used the university boat to scan the seafloor, but couldn't find the wreck.

• Lost Ships Identified

  • A sunken tugboat named Lizzie D found in 1977 with cases and cases of whiskey was studied.
  • The sides were gone on the Lizzie D, but the ribs, a boiler, a propeller shaft, a propeller, and a large tow bed were still there.
  • Agnes McCardle's letter to the assistant district attorney complaining about her missing brother on the William P. Maloney with a cargo of liquor.
  • The William P. Maloney went missing around November 16th, 1928
  • The Lizzie D. and William P. Maloney are two tugboats similar in construction and both operating in the same area a couple of years apart.
  • Nagiewicz theorized that both tugboats were rum-runners during the Prohibition era and sank due to being overloaded with heavy cargo.
  • A rum-running boat were easy to hide in two tugboats coming in and out of the city.

• The Bill Dwyer Syndicate and Lucky Luciano:

  • Christian Cipollini, a Mob history researcher, connected the tugboats to the Bill Dwyer Syndicate.
  • Dwyer's ring was linked to Lucky Luciano, creator of the Five Families of New York.
  • Nagiewicz believed that Lucky Luciano was providing a need of alcohol that everyone wanted
  • Prohibition and bootlegging was the real kick starter of the Mob.

• Inland Bootlegging in Detroit:

  • Matt Zuidema, a scuba diver and diving instructor, found an upside-down Model T truck in the Detroit River.
  • The truck was near the Hiram Walker Distillery in Canada, which produced Canadian Club Whisky.
  • Marty Gervais, a researcher of the Prohibition, said that the boats cross the Detroit River passing right by the location of the Model T Truck.
  • During the winter, cars pulling boats with skis underneath crossed the ice.
  • The Detroit River was the highway during the Prohibition where four-fifths of all the liquor went from Canada into the United States.
  • The Purple Gang ran the bootlegging in Detroit, who made alliance with Lucky Luciano to distribute booze across the Midwest and beyond.
  • Zuidema concluded that the truck fell through the ice.

The Rotarian Investigation

• The Rotarian: A Floating Speakeasy

  • Erik Petkovic investigated the shipwreck Rotarian.
  • There was a mystery about some shady or criminal undertones to the vessel.
  • The wreck was ten miles offshore in Lake Michigan.
  • They found piles of bottles hidden under the decking.
  • There was an absence of documents of paddle steamers called Rotarian.
  • Ross Baxter used ROV to create a 3D space of the wreck at one time.

• Chicago Democratic Party and Al Capone

  • The Rotarian was owned by the Cook County Democratic Party.
  • William "Big Bill" Thompson was the mayor of Chicago and was in league with Al Capone.
  • The underworld can't operate without the upper world cooperating.

• The Rotarian Sinks

  • There was a fire in the pilothouse.
  • In 1929, there was the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
  • After the St. Valentine's Day Massacre Al Capone got jailed for tax evasion in 1933.
  • The city towed out the vessel to the middle of Lake Michigan and sunk it.

The Santo Cristo de Burgos

• The Mystery of the Beeswax Wreck:

  • Craig Andes, beachcomber, found beeswax and porcelain.
  • There was stories about the locals natives about men from other nations being washed ashore.
  • Robert Kentta and Dick Basch recalled stories that there was a cannon battle back and forth and that one of the ships sank.

• Clues from the Beach:

  • Craig Andes found a huge beam from the ship.
  • A board was tested and determined that it was made of tropical hardwood, and didn't grow in North America.

• The Search for the Wreck:

  • Art Trembanis and Chrissy Curran searched for the beeswax shipwreck.
  • The mission was to stewardship when there are far-flung discoveries.
  • Multi-beam sonar was used and autonomous underwater vehicle has sonar and to progressively explore.
  • The remotely operated vehicle has a live feed.
  • The environment was turbulent and they couldn't see much optically.

• The Clues from the Beeswax and Porcelain:

  • There were carved symbols on the beeswax blocks, and was determined that the beeswax smelled like beeswax.
  • There was an article from 1891 of over a ton of wax lately dug from the ground near Nehalem.
  • In 2010, a lab analysis of a beeswax sample using a mass spectrometer revealed this molecular makeup and it confirmed the sample was beeswax.
  • The test found pollen from Southeast Asia.
  • Vanessa Litzenberg researched the porcelain, and found that they were Chinese.
  • The sherds were from large plates and cups matching the European desire for large meals and mugs of hot chocolate.
  • They came to a mean date of 1690.

• Determining What the Ship Was and the Santo Cristo de Burgos:

  • Scott Williams looked up ships that were missing at sea for at least the last 200 years.
  • Scott Williams began to look at cargo manifests.
  • A dive team was exploring the waters outside Manila Bay and made an unprecedented discovery.
  • A 17th century Spanish galleon was found.
  • Its 6,000-mile trip to Mexico passed just south of Oregon.
  • The Santo Cristo de Burgos was lost in 1693.
  • A tsunami did hit the Oregon coast in 1700.

• Santo Cristo Found:

  • There was two spots to potentially survey, based off fisherman.
  • There was what might be a broken mast.
  • There was what looked to be a bow and stern.
  • A 3D copy in forensic detail was to make.
  • Experts said that the vessel has a length of 130 feet and a width of 41 feet.

The War of 1812 Lost Vessels Found

• Searching for ship wrecks:

  • A ship wreck to archaeologist, is like a crime scene.
  • Donald Shomette, an author that was obsessed with the Cheaspeake flotilla, wanted to find the ships that went missing in the war of 1812.
  • Ralph Eshelman met Donald and then teamed up with him.
  • Ralph and Donald surveyed the area and then found a ship with a turtle shell.
  • They discovered some significant artifacts like muskets and swivel guns.

• Finding the Fleet

  • Tina Loney traveled down to see the records of the war of 1812
  • Her ancestor's name was Ezekiel Loney
  • Patrick O'neil show to Tina that Ezekiel Loney was a former slave.
  • Also that Ezekiel then signed up to assist the British in exchange for freedom.
  • They realized that where the vessels went missing, were in wetland areas.
  • They discovered at these sites surgical kits, parts of skeletons and personal items.
  • John approached Josh to survey the Tangier Island
  • British needed a staging area for their offensive in the Chesapeake to control the bay, attack commerce, and attack our cities

• Tinas ancestor aids the British Invasion

  • Tina was excited to see that her ancestor Ezekiel had finally gained freedom and was able to help with his British counterpart.
  • The British attacked and burnt the White House.
  • The war finally ended and the nation started coming together.

The Dinosaur Age Unlocked

• Titanosaurs:

  • Kenneth Lacovara looked for dinosaur bones.
  • He ended up in a trip to Patagonia, a place where no paleontologist had been working there in about 1000 km
  • Kenneth then found a massive femur.
  • He invited his friend Matthew Lamanna out the next year.
  • The dinosaur was named a Dreadnoughtus which means fears nothing.
  • Kristyn Voegele reconstructed the muscles digitally.

• Well preserved dinosaurs:

  • Donald Henderson went on a field trip to dig with some miners.
  • They ended up seeing a slab that was too perfect to ignore.
  • The miners then contacted a paleontologist and he contacted them.
  • A technician, Darren Tanke noticed what the miners thought to be bone, was actually part of what they were looking for
  • They then dug it out and pulled some stringers and cables to bring the bone with them, but something went wrong, and they ended up destroying the bone.
  • What was found was not just bone, but fossilized dinosaur skin as well.
  • Mark Mitchel reassembled the bone and later was named after.
  • The dinosaur was discovered that it had the color reddish brown with a compound Benzothiazole.
  • It floated with high levels of gas that bloated the corpse and eventually sank and became trapped.

• Tyrannosaurus mass grave:

  • Alan started his day like any other normal day, commuting to his destination to look for rocks.
  • He then took a visit to a location that had turtle fossils.
  • He started digging and came across a fossil, they thought what could this be?
  • They dug around and realized that it was the bone of a tyrannosaurus.
  • They quickly discovered that the location of the first bone was not alone.
  • Katja Knoll discovered that the more they dug, the more bones they were able to find, the more the numbers increased.
  • Then all their minds were blown because there were more than two bones.
  • They compared the different feet and realized that they had different aged skeletons.
  • Then a geochemist ran some test and found out that they all had the same rare earth element.

Finding the Lucona

• The Lucona, the Missing Uranium and Murder Trial:

  • David Mearns, a marine geologist, joined Eastport International and was assigned to find the Lucona.
  • The Lucona sank in 1977 in the Indian Ocean, killing six people.
  • Udo Proksch, an Austrian businessman, was suspected of blowing up the ship to defraud the insurance company.
  • The judge in the case, Hans Leiningen, ordered the wreck to be found to prove the case.

• The Search:

  • The team had a team of ten people, including ROV operators Bill Lawson and Greg Gibson and naval architect Gerhard Strasser, led by Don.
  • The search area was determined based on the survivors' accounts.
  • The team broke a record by searching in depths beyond 4,000 meters.

• The First Sonar Contacts:

  • After days of searching, small bits of targets are seen, more objects then were shown at the end of the search line.
  • There large sized objects, some the sizes of the ship itself.

• ROV Inspection and Challenges:

  • The ROV was deployed to film the wreck, but the sonar was inoperative.
  • The ROV was navigated blindly through the pitch-black depths.
  • They saw mounds of sediment and the hull of the ship, but the name "Lucona" was buried.
  • Proksch claimed the cargo was uranium processing equipment.
  • The cargo hold was full of scrap metal, not uranium processing equipment.

• Repairs and Further Investigation:

  • The team went to Sri Lanka to repair the ROV and its sonar.
  • Back at the wreck, the sonar was working again, allowing for safer navigation around the debris field.
  • They found identifiable letters and numbers, stenciled on the cargo: B-10, XP-13, XB-19 in red.
  • These matched the numbers on the manifest.

• Identifying the ship:

  • David realized they needed to identify what company made the products.
  • They then were able to find the company name of Zapata.

• Determining the cause of explosion:

  • It was the torpedoes from the Russian army or the arms deal with some dangerous individuals.
  • They could see the paint had been discolored.
  • It was clear that the explosion went of from the inside.

• Forensic Evidence and Conviction:

  • The jury was able to decide that the Lucona was no accident, this was a plan by a criminal
  • He was 14 years on the run, but the evidence that they found was convincing.

Conclusion/Synthesis

These expeditions and investigations highlight the blend of technology, meticulous research, and insightful interpretation required to uncover maritime history. From locating the Kad'yak and understanding the complexities of the Russian ice trade, to the tragic story of the whaling disaster of 1871, the Prohibition era rum-running of William P. Maloney, the finding of a fleet of lost vessels and the Santo Cristo de Burgos, and the story of the Lucona. They transform mysteries into verifiable accounts and connect these events to broader historical narratives. Also the scientific investigation of the tyrannosaurus rex, the importance of fossils, chemistry and collaboration. These stories underscore not only the challenges faced by those who lived in these times but also the enduring power of human determination, perseverance, and the stories themselves, which survive to be discovered and retold.