0:00 In the summer of 1859, the United States and the British Empire deployed warships, heavy artillery, and hundreds of combat troops over a dead pig.0:11 Mm-hmm.0:11 In episode twenty-seven we watched Tsar Ivan send an insult across the sea to Elizabeth after a botched proposal, but this right here makes sixteenth-century diplomacy look positively sober.0:26 Shhh, close your eyes now, beta.0:28 The ceiling fan is spinning slowly, the jasmine by the window is cool, and the world is far too silly to lose sleep over.0:37 On June fifteenth, 1859, an American farmer named Lyman Cutlar settled on San Juan Island, right between Washington Territory and Vancouver Island.0:48 Now, I know how that sounds, but hang on.0:52 Both countries claimed that scrap of dirt because the 1846 treaty said the boundary ran through the middle of the channel, only there were two channels.1:03 So both sides just moved right in.1:06 Accha, and Cutlar looked out at his garden one afternoon and found a large black Berkshire boar rooting through his potato patch.1:16 So he shot it dead.1:17 That hog belonged to Charles Griffin, a manager for the Hudson's Bay Company.1:23 Lyman walked over, confessed, and offered Griffin three dollars for the trouble.1:29 Griffin said that pig was an imperial prize boar and wanted one hundred.1:34 Lyman refused to pay, Griffin threatened to have British authorities arrest him, and the American settlers immediately called for the United States military to protect them from British aggression.1:49 And that, friend, is why you check the record.1:53 Brigadier General William S.1:55 Harney sent sixty-six soldiers from the Ninth Infantry under Captain George Pickett, yes, THAT Pickett, to throw up earthworks and plant an American flag right on the beach.2:08 The governor of Vancouver Island, James Douglas, saw that flag and sent three British warships carrying sixty-two guns and over four hundred royal marines into the bay.2:21 Pickett looked at those gunships, turned to his men, and said they would fight to the last drop of blood.2:29 By August, Pickett had four hundred and sixty-one men and fourteen field guns dug into the ridge, staring down five British vessels carrying over two thousand men.2:41 For months, two great empires sat staring at each other across a potato patch, with orders not to fire first, but each fully prepared to burn down the hemisphere if the other blinked.2:55 Whoo, boy.2:56 Rear Admiral Robert Baynes finally showed up on the flagship, took one look at Douglas, and refused to land the marines.3:05 He plainly told the governor he wasn't fixing to plunge two great nations into a general war over a squabble about a pig.3:14 A very sensible man.3:16 When the news finally crawled to Washington D.C., President James Buchanan was completely stunned.3:23 He dispatched General Winfield Scott to negotiate, and both nations agreed to keep a joint military occupation of just one hundred men each until someone could sort out the paperwork.3:37 They spent twelve years stationed together on that island, sharing rations, playing games, and celebrating each other's national holidays.3:48 Swear on my tackle box, that is the honest truth.3:52 It was finally sent to arbitration under Kaiser Wilhelm the First of Germany, who gave the island to the Americans in 1872.4:01 And what did the little one learn?4:04 Hmm?4:04 The mighty roar of empires can be set off by a single tuber, yet quiet common sense usually has to clean up the mess afterward.4:14 Well.4:14 That is about the size of it.4:16 A hog ate a spud, two empires aimed their cannons, and nobody died except the breakfast bacon.4:23 Now sleep, kanna.4:25 The story will wait for you.4:27 Goodnight.
