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Language: en

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Tom: I'm with Simon Willison, zeppelin expert.

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Simon: Hello!

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Tom: Simon, tell them something they don't know.

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Simon: So..

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In 1910 the airship America

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made the first ever attempt at a cross Atlantic crossing.

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And, on the way into the airship one of the engineers scooped up a stray cat,

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who'd been living in the hangar.

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The cat, they,

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they christened the cat Kiddo, put him on the airship.

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Said: "This will be great, we'll take him along, he can be the ship's mascot."

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Kiddo was not keen on this idea at all,

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kicked up a real stink,

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and so once they got out of the Atlantic they transmitted the first ever radio message from an aircraft,

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and the message was: "Roy, come and fetch this goddamn cat.""

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So, they sent a life boat out to fetch the cat.

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The cat was put in a bag, lowered down to a boat, really jumpy water,

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the cat was furious, the waves were too choppy,

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they couldn't rescue him.

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They ended up having to hoist him back on board.

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"So, okay, we'll take him with."

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The cat then settled down,

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obviously deciding the airship was a lot better than the bag.

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And, you know, it settled into the flight.

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They quickly discovered that he was the perfect companion,

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because cats are better than barometers:

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the cat would get grumpy before they hit bad weather,

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way before any of their instruments could detect it.

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That was all fine, but they were trying to cross the Atlantic.

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33 hours in, the airship broke,--

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possibly because of sand that they picked up earlier--

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they couldn't steer it, they found themselves adrift.

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They eventually spotted a Royal Mail ship out at sea,

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managed to signal SOS to them,

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got rescued by it.

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And I think they made the first ever aerial SOS call as well.

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And they were rescued, along with the cat.

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The airship floated off and was never seen again.

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The Royal Mail ship went back to New York,

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where Kiddo was put on display in the window of a fancy department store with a diamond necklace on

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as a celebrity cat,

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and he really did live the rest of his life out on the farm.

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Tom: Simon, thank you very much! That is something you might not have known.

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Simon: Thank you!

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