Every Garage edition takes its wander through the calendar, and this week Jeremy Cordeaux led his audience through the eleventh of August — a date crowded with distress signals, tech pioneers, cherished entertainers and one of the twentieth century’s most consequential decisions.
Save Our Souls
It opened at sea. On this day in 1909, the SS Arapahoe, in trouble off Cape Hatteras, became the first American ship to send the SOS distress call. The moment carried Jeremy down a cheerful detour: what did they use before SOS? The answer he settled on was CQD — the earlier signal SOS replaced — alongside the enduring myth that the letters stand for “save our souls.”
The Pioneers
The date has handed the world a run of inventors and creators. Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple and a pioneer of the 1970s personal-computer revolution, was born on 11 August 1950 in San Jose. In 1914, John Bray patented animation. And in 1896, Harvey Hubbell patented the pull-chain light bulb socket — hallelujah, said Jeremy, for that small mercy.
The Storytellers
Two beloved names share the day, one joyful and one shadowed. Enid Blyton — creator of the Famous Five and the Secret Seven, and among the most-read authors in the world — was born on 11 August 1897.
And Robin Williams, star of Mork & Mindy, Dead Poets Society and Good Will Hunting, died on this day in 2014, aged 63. It drew from Jeremy a reflective aside on how many comedians have wrestled with depression — why, he wondered, would someone devoted to making the world laugh carry such sorrow within? A sad thought, he admitted, and one he didn’t claim to understand.
The Pedestal And The Surrender
History’s larger currents run through the day too. In 1885, $100,000 was raised in the United States to build the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty — the French had given the statue, Jeremy noted, but not the base, so Americans passed the hat around.
And in 1945 came the moment that ended a world war. Jeremy corrected the neat version: the Allies did accept Japan’s surrender, and pointedly chose to keep Emperor Hirohito in place. A very wise decision, he argued — Hirohito was the glue holding the country together through the occupation. The Americans, he added, have not always been so shrewd in the conflicts since.
A Calculated Humiliation
Jeremy lingered over the surrender ceremony aboard the USS Missouri and the symbolism the Americans built into it. They wore open-necked army shirts — generals, admirals and all — while the Japanese delegation stood in full military dress. It was, in his telling, a deliberate display of contempt, a quiet humiliation staged for history. Look at the photographs, he suggested, and the message is plain.
The Rest Of The Ledger
The date closed with its customary mix. Al-Qaeda was formed at a meeting involving Osama bin Laden in 1988. English and Dutch fleets took Dunkirk in 1695. Hamnet Shakespeare, the playwright’s son, died aged eleven in 1585. And, bringing it home, Chris Hemsworth — Thor himself — was born in Melbourne in 1983.
From a distress call to a superhero, it was another of Jeremy’s reminders that history is woven from the momentous and the trivial alike — and that both deserve a moment of our attention.
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Catch the complete Garage edition of The Court of Public Opinion, recorded live around the dining room table.
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