WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.700 Imagine standing in downtown Omaha, Nebraska. 00:00:04.860 --> 00:00:07.719 You're surrounded by brick buildings, paved roads, 00:00:08.259 --> 00:00:10.419 maybe a coffee shop on the corner. Right, a normal 00:00:10.419 --> 00:00:14.939 city. Exactly. Now imagine looking up and seeing 00:00:14.939 --> 00:00:18.120 a predatory fish the size of a school bus swimming 00:00:18.120 --> 00:00:21.899 like 50 feet above your head. Oh wow, just casually 00:00:21.899 --> 00:00:24.059 hunting above the coffee shop? Right, hunting 00:00:24.059 --> 00:00:27.910 in this warm, shallow sea. because today we are 00:00:27.910 --> 00:00:30.929 diving into the history of a place you only think 00:00:30.929 --> 00:00:33.009 you know. Yeah that's a great way to put it. 00:00:33.170 --> 00:00:35.490 Because I mean when most of us fly from New York 00:00:35.490 --> 00:00:37.729 to LA and we look down in the middle of the country 00:00:37.729 --> 00:00:40.909 there's this tendency to just see geometry. Just 00:00:40.909 --> 00:00:43.450 endless squares of green and brown. Exactly. 00:00:43.909 --> 00:00:46.549 We mentally file it away under flyover country 00:00:46.549 --> 00:00:49.329 and go back to watching our movie. Which is, 00:00:49.409 --> 00:00:51.789 frankly, a massive missed opportunity. Yeah. 00:00:52.090 --> 00:00:54.789 Oh, totally. It is entirely too easy to dismiss 00:00:54.789 --> 00:00:57.009 what you can't see up close. We assume that because 00:00:57.009 --> 00:00:59.229 the landscape looks uniform from 30 ,000 feet, 00:00:59.369 --> 00:01:01.229 well, its history must be completely uniform, 00:01:01.270 --> 00:01:03.729 too. OK, let's unpack this because the stack 00:01:03.729 --> 00:01:06.129 of notes and research we are looking at today 00:01:06.129 --> 00:01:09.269 reveals that Nebraska isn't just a quiet stretch. 00:01:09.420 --> 00:01:12.599 of flat farmland. Not at all. It is actually 00:01:12.599 --> 00:01:14.719 the ultimate American crossroads. Yes. I mean, 00:01:14.799 --> 00:01:16.739 it's a place that has seen some of the most radical 00:01:16.739 --> 00:01:19.980 geological, political and demographic transformations 00:01:19.980 --> 00:01:24.840 in the entire continent's history. So welcome 00:01:24.840 --> 00:01:28.439 to the deep dive. Prepare to throw out literally 00:01:28.439 --> 00:01:30.719 every assumption you have about the middle of 00:01:30.719 --> 00:01:33.319 the map. We are going to explore why Nebraska's 00:01:33.319 --> 00:01:35.659 story really matters to anyone interested in 00:01:35.659 --> 00:01:38.239 how America was built because time and time again 00:01:38.239 --> 00:01:41.319 this territory acted as a radical testing ground. 00:01:41.480 --> 00:01:44.379 Right. It was a laboratory for everything from 00:01:44.379 --> 00:01:48.400 aggressive corporate marketing campaigns to groundbreaking 00:01:48.400 --> 00:01:51.760 just unprecedented political progressivism. But 00:01:51.760 --> 00:01:53.400 to really understand how this testing ground 00:01:53.400 --> 00:01:56.379 was built we have to rewind the clock like Way 00:01:56.379 --> 00:01:59.260 past the pioneers. Way past the first humans, 00:01:59.480 --> 00:02:01.340 even. We have to go back about 80 million years 00:02:01.340 --> 00:02:03.980 to the Mesozoic era. That image of the giant 00:02:03.980 --> 00:02:06.680 fish over Omaha. Yeah, that wasn't a joke. That 00:02:06.680 --> 00:02:09.840 was real. Back then, three quarters of Nebraska 00:02:09.840 --> 00:02:12.759 was completely submerged under what geologists 00:02:12.759 --> 00:02:16.199 call the Western Interior Seaway. And it wasn't 00:02:16.199 --> 00:02:18.340 just an empty expanse of water either. No, it 00:02:18.340 --> 00:02:21.659 was teeming with these massive marine reptiles. 00:02:21.780 --> 00:02:26.120 You had mosasaurs, you know, long -necked plesiosaurs, 00:02:26.379 --> 00:02:28.840 and this absolute nightmare creature called the 00:02:28.840 --> 00:02:31.969 Zephactinus. The Zephactinus. Which is just a 00:02:31.969 --> 00:02:34.250 terrifying predator. It really was. It was a 00:02:34.250 --> 00:02:36.889 carnivorous fish that grew larger than any modern 00:02:36.889 --> 00:02:39.069 bony fish swimming in the oceans today. Like 00:02:39.069 --> 00:02:41.270 how big are we talking? We're talking up to 20 00:02:41.270 --> 00:02:44.009 feet long. That is wild. Yeah. And for millions 00:02:44.009 --> 00:02:46.090 of years, the mud at the bottom of that shallow 00:02:46.090 --> 00:02:48.870 sea was constantly trapping the fossilized remains 00:02:48.870 --> 00:02:51.330 of these sea monsters, just compressing them 00:02:51.330 --> 00:02:54.189 over eons and turning them into the thick layers 00:02:54.189 --> 00:02:56.729 of limestone that still actually lie in Nebraska's 00:02:56.729 --> 00:02:58.949 ravines today. But, you know, seas don't last 00:02:58.949 --> 00:03:01.789 forever. Fast forward a million years to the 00:03:01.789 --> 00:03:04.789 Cenozoic era. The land begins to rise, the climate 00:03:04.789 --> 00:03:07.330 shifts pretty dramatically, and that massive 00:03:07.330 --> 00:03:10.009 inland sea finally drains away. Leaving behind 00:03:10.009 --> 00:03:13.189 dry land. Right. The seabed turns into ancient 00:03:13.189 --> 00:03:16.789 forests and eventually grassy plains. And the 00:03:16.789 --> 00:03:19.189 wildlife roaming these new plains is just wild 00:03:19.189 --> 00:03:21.710 to think about. You had native species of horses, 00:03:22.110 --> 00:03:25.050 camels, rhinoceroses. Right, native rhinoceroses 00:03:25.050 --> 00:03:28.139 in Nebraska? Yeah. and even tigers just walking 00:03:28.139 --> 00:03:30.120 around. But then, of course, the climate turns 00:03:30.120 --> 00:03:32.319 again. The Pleistocene Epoch arrives, which is 00:03:32.319 --> 00:03:35.759 the Ice Age. Right, the big freeze. Massive continental 00:03:35.759 --> 00:03:38.500 ice sheets push down from the north, and they 00:03:38.500 --> 00:03:41.460 cover the eastern part of the state. These glaciers 00:03:41.460 --> 00:03:44.039 are so heavy and powerful. They actually drag 00:03:44.039 --> 00:03:46.340 giant boulders all the way down from Canada. 00:03:47.180 --> 00:03:49.599 Geologists call them glacial erratics. And as 00:03:49.599 --> 00:03:52.319 those massive ice sheets moved, they essentially 00:03:52.319 --> 00:03:55.819 ground the earth down to a powder, like a giant 00:03:55.819 --> 00:03:59.280 millstone. Wow. So when the ice finally retreated 00:03:59.280 --> 00:04:01.919 as the planet warmed up again, it left behind 00:04:01.919 --> 00:04:05.439 this incredible, wind -blown, hyper -silty sediment. 00:04:05.699 --> 00:04:07.819 It's known as Loess. Loess, right? Yeah. And 00:04:07.819 --> 00:04:10.099 that is absolutely critical to the entire human 00:04:10.099 --> 00:04:11.860 history that follows. You know, trying to visualize 00:04:11.860 --> 00:04:13.680 all this geology, I think of it kind of like 00:04:13.680 --> 00:04:16.579 prepping a giant canvas. OK. How so? Well, first, 00:04:16.939 --> 00:04:19.579 the prehistoric ocean laid down a thick base 00:04:19.579 --> 00:04:22.240 coat of nutrient -rich limestone and sea mud. 00:04:22.410 --> 00:04:25.850 Then, millions of years later, these glaciers 00:04:25.850 --> 00:04:28.670 acted like massive orbital sanders. Oh, I like 00:04:28.670 --> 00:04:31.709 that. Just grinding everything flat and dusting 00:04:31.709 --> 00:04:34.610 the entire landscape with this rich, silty loess. 00:04:34.949 --> 00:04:37.930 So my question is, this incredibly fertile farmland 00:04:37.930 --> 00:04:40.529 we see today, it's essentially the byproduct 00:04:40.529 --> 00:04:43.509 of ancient sea mud and glacial dust. Exactly. 00:04:43.589 --> 00:04:45.810 And what's fascinating here is how geology is 00:04:45.810 --> 00:04:49.029 never just trivia, it's destiny. Destiny, that's 00:04:49.029 --> 00:04:51.870 a strong word. But it's true, that specific combination 00:04:51.870 --> 00:04:55.110 of ancient seabed and glacial till, it literally 00:04:55.110 --> 00:04:57.449 laid the permanent groundwork for the state's 00:04:57.449 --> 00:05:00.050 future agricultural dominance. The rich soil 00:05:00.050 --> 00:05:02.069 was essentially a ticking clock. Waiting for 00:05:02.069 --> 00:05:04.170 someone to use it. Right. As soon as the climate 00:05:04.170 --> 00:05:06.449 stabilized into the grassy plains we recognize 00:05:06.449 --> 00:05:09.350 today, that flat, incredibly fertile landscape 00:05:09.350 --> 00:05:12.029 became an irresistible magnet. First for indigenous 00:05:12.029 --> 00:05:14.730 populations, and then eventually for global empires. 00:05:14.910 --> 00:05:18.009 Yeah, the human timeline here is incredibly dynamic. 00:05:18.389 --> 00:05:20.990 It wasn't just one homogenous group wandering 00:05:20.990 --> 00:05:24.750 the plains. You had very diverse language families 00:05:24.750 --> 00:05:27.689 converging on this specific geography because 00:05:27.689 --> 00:05:30.110 of its resources. Right. Like for over a thousand 00:05:30.110 --> 00:05:32.930 years, the Algonquian -speaking Arapaho lived 00:05:32.930 --> 00:05:34.589 in the western part of the region. And you had 00:05:34.589 --> 00:05:36.970 the Codon -speaking Pawnee. Yeah. And the Siouan 00:05:36.970 --> 00:05:39.709 -speaking Omaha, who strategically settled along 00:05:39.709 --> 00:05:42.589 the eastern river valleys, they used those waterways 00:05:42.589 --> 00:05:45.550 for agriculture and trade. building these really 00:05:45.550 --> 00:05:47.670 complex societies based on the rhythms of the 00:05:47.670 --> 00:05:50.029 plains. But then the European empires show up 00:05:50.029 --> 00:05:52.790 on the continent and they quickly realize that 00:05:52.790 --> 00:05:55.350 whoever controls the center controls the future 00:05:55.350 --> 00:05:58.189 of North America. Which kicks off a massive scramble. 00:05:58.269 --> 00:06:01.029 Totally. The initial European claims were vast, 00:06:01.230 --> 00:06:03.589 ambitious and honestly often made by people who 00:06:03.589 --> 00:06:06.649 had never even seen the land. Like in 1682, the 00:06:06.649 --> 00:06:09.089 French explorer La Salle just casually claims 00:06:09.089 --> 00:06:11.029 all the territory drained by the Mississippi 00:06:11.029 --> 00:06:13.670 River for France. Just calls dibs on half the 00:06:13.670 --> 00:06:16.810 continent. Pretty much. But the Spanish Empire, 00:06:17.009 --> 00:06:19.189 who were heavily fortified down in the southwest 00:06:19.189 --> 00:06:22.069 around modern -day New Mexico, they viewed this 00:06:22.069 --> 00:06:25.389 exact same central plains region as their northern 00:06:25.389 --> 00:06:27.750 frontier. Wait, hold on. I need to stop you there. 00:06:27.750 --> 00:06:30.149 Sure. Because when I think of early European 00:06:30.149 --> 00:06:32.670 exploration out there, my mind instantly goes 00:06:32.670 --> 00:06:34.970 to the Louisiana Purchase. You know, Thomas Jefferson, 00:06:35.170 --> 00:06:37.509 Lewis and Clark. I just think of Americans moving 00:06:37.509 --> 00:06:41.800 west. Why were Spain and France fighting this 00:06:41.800 --> 00:06:44.600 violent high stakes chess match in Nebraska? 00:06:45.050 --> 00:06:48.149 decades earlier. It all came down to trade monopolies 00:06:48.149 --> 00:06:51.269 and indigenous alliances. The French were aggressively 00:06:51.269 --> 00:06:53.730 trading weapons and goods with tribes on the 00:06:53.730 --> 00:06:56.170 plains. And the Spanish saw this as a direct 00:06:56.170 --> 00:06:58.269 security threat to their southwestern colonies. 00:06:58.730 --> 00:07:01.170 They needed to know exactly how far French influence 00:07:01.170 --> 00:07:03.670 had spread. Which leads to a massive, decisive 00:07:03.670 --> 00:07:06.629 confrontation in 1720. This is long before America 00:07:06.629 --> 00:07:08.949 was even a concept. Right. The Pedro de Villasor 00:07:08.949 --> 00:07:11.740 expedition. Yeah. The Spanish government in Santa 00:07:11.740 --> 00:07:14.360 Fe sends Villasur North with a military force 00:07:14.360 --> 00:07:16.899 to essentially hunt down the French and intimidate 00:07:16.899 --> 00:07:19.759 the local tribes. But near the juncture of the 00:07:19.759 --> 00:07:22.139 loop and Platte Rivers, which is right around 00:07:22.139 --> 00:07:25.500 modern day Columbus, Nebraska, it all goes terribly 00:07:25.500 --> 00:07:27.519 wrong for Spain. It was a complete disaster for 00:07:27.519 --> 00:07:30.540 them. Villasur's force is absolutely decimated 00:07:30.540 --> 00:07:33.360 in a surprise dawn attack by the Odo and Pawnee 00:07:33.360 --> 00:07:37.060 tribes. Villasur himself and 34 of his soldiers 00:07:37.060 --> 00:07:39.430 are killed. And if we look at the historical 00:07:39.430 --> 00:07:42.009 context, the sheer scale of that loss cannot 00:07:42.009 --> 00:07:44.930 be overstated because the destruction of the 00:07:44.930 --> 00:07:48.149 villager expedition permanently crippled Spanish 00:07:48.149 --> 00:07:50.430 imperial ambition in the central plains. They 00:07:50.430 --> 00:07:52.189 just couldn't recover. No, they simply didn't 00:07:52.189 --> 00:07:54.990 have the manpower or the resources to project 00:07:54.990 --> 00:07:57.949 power that far north ever again. So that single 00:07:57.949 --> 00:08:00.149 battle left the door wide open for the French 00:08:00.149 --> 00:08:02.910 to dominate trade and eventually for the Americans 00:08:02.910 --> 00:08:05.730 to purchase the territory. Which they do in 1803 00:08:05.730 --> 00:08:08.259 with the Louisiana Purchase. And a few decades 00:08:08.259 --> 00:08:10.819 after that, the U .S. military explorer John 00:08:10.819 --> 00:08:13.540 C. Fremont is outmapping the area. He's speaking 00:08:13.540 --> 00:08:16.300 with the Otoi people, and he learns their word 00:08:16.300 --> 00:08:19.100 for the wide, shallow river running right through 00:08:19.100 --> 00:08:22.079 the territory. The word is Nebraska. Nebraska. 00:08:22.420 --> 00:08:24.519 Yeah, which literally translates to flat water. 00:08:25.019 --> 00:08:26.860 And the French trappers had actually translated 00:08:26.860 --> 00:08:29.379 that exact same concept into their own language 00:08:29.379 --> 00:08:32.100 earlier, calling it the Platte River. And once 00:08:32.100 --> 00:08:35.220 the United States firmly controls this flat water 00:08:35.220 --> 00:08:38.320 territory, its geopolitical function completely 00:08:38.320 --> 00:08:41.159 changes. I mean, it transitions practically overnight 00:08:41.159 --> 00:08:44.600 from a contested imperial borderland into the 00:08:44.600 --> 00:08:47.440 literal physical highway of westward American 00:08:47.440 --> 00:08:49.740 expansion. And that highway gets officially drawn 00:08:49.740 --> 00:08:53.259 on the map with the Kansas -Nebraska Act of 1854. 00:08:53.740 --> 00:08:56.220 This legislation officially establishes the Nebraska 00:08:56.220 --> 00:08:58.679 Territory. Which was huge at the time. Massive. 00:08:59.059 --> 00:09:00.860 Initially, this territory stretched all the way 00:09:00.860 --> 00:09:02.899 from Missouri River to the Continental Divide 00:09:02.899 --> 00:09:05.620 and the Rocky Mountains. And the sheer volume 00:09:05.620 --> 00:09:08.419 of human traffic moving through this space is 00:09:08.419 --> 00:09:10.879 staggering. You've got endless lines of covered 00:09:10.879 --> 00:09:13.480 wagons heading to Oregon, prospectors rushing 00:09:13.480 --> 00:09:16.179 to the gold fields in Wyoming and Colorado, the 00:09:16.179 --> 00:09:18.440 riders of the Pony Express tearing across the 00:09:18.440 --> 00:09:21.620 plains. But an infrastructure that massive requires 00:09:21.620 --> 00:09:25.399 serious support. To sustain this migration, the 00:09:25.399 --> 00:09:28.059 U .S. Army established a network of forts, and 00:09:28.059 --> 00:09:30.500 Fort Tierney was one of the most vital. But we 00:09:30.500 --> 00:09:32.480 shouldn't picture these as like heavily armed 00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:35.759 military outposts expecting daily sieges. No, 00:09:35.759 --> 00:09:38.960 not at all. They were in practice vital civic 00:09:38.960 --> 00:09:41.179 infrastructure. They were essentially the ultimate 00:09:41.179 --> 00:09:44.159 19th century highway rest stops. Exactly. Like 00:09:44.159 --> 00:09:46.240 if you were a destitute traveler whose wagon 00:09:46.240 --> 00:09:49.279 had broken down, Fort Kearney offered blacksmithing 00:09:49.279 --> 00:09:52.120 and carpentry services for a fee. They provided 00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:54.759 emergency food rations, critical medical care, 00:09:54.879 --> 00:09:57.460 and the military commanders often acted as the 00:09:57.460 --> 00:10:00.179 only reliable local law enforcement for hundreds 00:10:00.179 --> 00:10:02.500 of miles. It was an absolute oasis on the trail. 00:10:02.779 --> 00:10:05.759 Totally. Now, as the decades pass and more areas 00:10:05.759 --> 00:10:08.059 out west settle, the federal government keeps 00:10:08.059 --> 00:10:11.000 carving pieces off of this massive Nebraska territory 00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:13.320 to create other administrative zones. Right. 00:10:13.460 --> 00:10:16.259 They slice off land to create Colorado, Dakota, 00:10:16.600 --> 00:10:18.700 Idaho. Yeah, the borders progressively shrink 00:10:18.700 --> 00:10:20.940 down to the familiar rectangle we see today, 00:10:21.620 --> 00:10:25.220 which brings us to 1867 and the brutal political 00:10:25.220 --> 00:10:27.279 fight for statehood. And here's where it gets 00:10:27.279 --> 00:10:30.220 really interesting. Oh, the statehood drama of 00:10:30.220 --> 00:10:33.340 1867 is just the perfect microcosm of American 00:10:33.340 --> 00:10:35.620 politics at the time. It's unbelievable. So the 00:10:35.620 --> 00:10:37.940 local politicians draft a state constitution 00:10:37.940 --> 00:10:42.220 in 1866, but they write in a clause that restricts 00:10:42.220 --> 00:10:44.639 voting rights strictly to white men. Right. They 00:10:44.639 --> 00:10:46.559 send this to Washington, D .C. for approval. 00:10:47.279 --> 00:10:49.740 The federal Congress looks at this document and 00:10:49.740 --> 00:10:53.210 flat out refuses. They pass a bill stating, Nebraska 00:10:53.210 --> 00:10:56.110 can only become a state if suffrage is not denied 00:10:56.110 --> 00:10:58.470 to non -white voters. But then the president 00:10:58.470 --> 00:11:00.789 steps in. Yes. President Andrew Johnson, who 00:11:00.789 --> 00:11:03.110 is fiercely battling Congress over post -Civil 00:11:03.110 --> 00:11:05.629 War reconstruction policies, actually vetoes 00:11:05.629 --> 00:11:07.710 the bill to admit Nebraska. He tries to kill 00:11:07.710 --> 00:11:10.309 it entirely. But Congress wasn't having it. No. 00:11:10.710 --> 00:11:12.929 The United States Congress rallies a supermajority 00:11:12.929 --> 00:11:15.450 and overrides the president's veto. Nebraska 00:11:15.450 --> 00:11:17.929 is forced to change its constitution and it finally 00:11:17.929 --> 00:11:20.529 becomes a state. To this day, Nebraska is the 00:11:20.529 --> 00:11:22.710 first and only state in the U .S. admitted through 00:11:22.710 --> 00:11:25.370 a presidential veto override. And if we connect 00:11:25.370 --> 00:11:27.429 this to the bigger picture, it is incredibly 00:11:27.429 --> 00:11:30.169 revealing. I mean, this wasn't just some local 00:11:30.169 --> 00:11:32.889 squabble. This early civil rights conflict at 00:11:32.889 --> 00:11:35.710 the federal level perfectly mirrored the intense 00:11:35.710 --> 00:11:38.830 national fractures of the post Civil War era. 00:11:39.029 --> 00:11:41.889 Yeah. Yeah. The fight over who legally had the 00:11:41.889 --> 00:11:45.149 right to vote in Nebraska placed this remote 00:11:45.149 --> 00:11:48.750 prairie territory right at the white hot center 00:11:48.750 --> 00:11:51.429 of American political evolution. But having a 00:11:51.429 --> 00:11:54.259 state constitution on paper is one thing. Actually, 00:11:54.340 --> 00:11:58.220 populating this newly -minted, massive, practically 00:11:58.220 --> 00:12:01.059 empty state required a completely different kind 00:12:01.059 --> 00:12:03.059 of campaign. Oh, absolutely. It required thousands 00:12:03.059 --> 00:12:05.299 of people willing to actually break the sod. 00:12:05.480 --> 00:12:07.500 And the entities driving that population boom 00:12:07.500 --> 00:12:09.700 weren't government agencies. They were massive 00:12:09.700 --> 00:12:11.960 corporate monopolies. The railroads. The railroads. 00:12:12.340 --> 00:12:14.620 Specifically, transcontinental titans like the 00:12:14.620 --> 00:12:17.320 Union Pacific and regional powers like the Burlington 00:12:17.320 --> 00:12:19.860 and Missouri River Railroad. Because to get these 00:12:19.860 --> 00:12:22.500 rail lines built, the federal government subsidized 00:12:22.500 --> 00:12:25.019 the construction... by handing the railroad's 00:12:25.019 --> 00:12:27.440 massive, staggering land grants. Like, how much 00:12:27.440 --> 00:12:31.740 land are we talking? We're talking 12 ,800 acres 00:12:31.740 --> 00:12:35.559 of free public land for every single mile of 00:12:35.559 --> 00:12:38.649 finished track the Union Pacific laid down. That 00:12:38.649 --> 00:12:41.929 is an insane amount of real estate. It is. But 00:12:41.929 --> 00:12:44.330 the railroads didn't want to just sit on an empty 00:12:44.330 --> 00:12:47.289 real estate portfolio. They became the most aggressive 00:12:47.289 --> 00:12:49.370 marketing boosters in the world. They opened 00:12:49.370 --> 00:12:52.250 glitzy sales offices in eastern cities and all 00:12:52.250 --> 00:12:54.769 across Europe. And they were selling this rich, 00:12:55.149 --> 00:12:58.490 glacial dust farmland for just five dollars an 00:12:58.490 --> 00:13:00.669 acre. They'd even give you a 10 percent discount 00:13:00.669 --> 00:13:02.970 if you paid in cash. And their target demographic 00:13:02.970 --> 00:13:06.059 was highly calculated. They aggressively marketed 00:13:06.059 --> 00:13:09.179 to European immigrants, offering these specialized 00:13:09.179 --> 00:13:11.879 package deals like travel agents. Exactly. They 00:13:11.879 --> 00:13:14.299 would transport entire families, their livestock 00:13:14.299 --> 00:13:16.480 and their farming equipment across the ocean 00:13:16.480 --> 00:13:19.000 and straight out to the plains. But wait, if 00:13:19.000 --> 00:13:20.820 the railroads were given all this incredibly 00:13:20.820 --> 00:13:23.659 valuable land by the government for free, why 00:13:23.659 --> 00:13:25.759 were they offloading it for just five dollars 00:13:25.759 --> 00:13:28.990 an acre? It seems counterintuitive. Yeah. Wouldn't 00:13:28.990 --> 00:13:31.309 a greedy corporation want to hold out and squeeze 00:13:31.309 --> 00:13:33.909 the settlers for higher prices once the territory 00:13:33.909 --> 00:13:36.169 was established? Well, because the land sales 00:13:36.169 --> 00:13:39.110 were just a loss leader. The real money was in 00:13:39.110 --> 00:13:42.169 the freight monopoly. The railroads understood 00:13:42.169 --> 00:13:44.889 that a completely empty prairie generates zero 00:13:44.889 --> 00:13:48.429 economic activity. By selling the land cheaply, 00:13:48.450 --> 00:13:51.110 they were artificially engineering a captive 00:13:51.110 --> 00:13:53.389 market. Oh, it's exactly like how modern tech 00:13:53.389 --> 00:13:55.789 platforms operate. What do you mean? Well, a 00:13:55.789 --> 00:13:58.379 tech startup will offer heavy subsidies. totally 00:13:58.379 --> 00:14:01.360 operating at a loss just to acquire a massive 00:14:01.360 --> 00:14:04.139 permanent user base. The railroads were doing 00:14:04.139 --> 00:14:06.899 the exact same thing in the 1870s. That was a 00:14:06.899 --> 00:14:09.360 very apt comparison. Their goal wasn't a quick 00:14:09.360 --> 00:14:12.159 real estate flip. They wanted lifelong dependent 00:14:12.159 --> 00:14:15.259 customers who had absolutely no choice but to 00:14:15.259 --> 00:14:18.299 use their freight lines to ship corn east and 00:14:18.299 --> 00:14:20.580 use those same lines to buy manufactured lumber 00:14:20.580 --> 00:14:23.419 and coal shipped west. Precisely. The infrastructure 00:14:23.419 --> 00:14:26.480 dictated the society and this engineered corporate 00:14:26.480 --> 00:14:29.320 driven migration totally restructured the social 00:14:29.320 --> 00:14:31.679 fabric of the state. Because of these marketing 00:14:31.679 --> 00:14:34.340 campaigns, Germans, Swedes, and Czechs just flocked 00:14:34.340 --> 00:14:36.659 to the state. They realized they could sell a 00:14:36.659 --> 00:14:39.519 tiny, exhausted plot of land in Europe and buy 00:14:39.519 --> 00:14:42.360 a massive, hyper -fertile farm in Nebraska for 00:14:42.360 --> 00:14:45.600 the exact same price. By the late 19th century, 00:14:46.059 --> 00:14:48.440 first and second generation European immigrants 00:14:48.440 --> 00:14:51.360 made up half of Nebraska's entire population. 00:14:51.519 --> 00:14:55.580 Half. That is a huge demographic shift. And this 00:14:55.580 --> 00:14:58.240 shift totally redefined daily life, particularly 00:14:58.240 --> 00:15:00.909 for women. Yes, very much so. Because in the 00:15:00.909 --> 00:15:03.610 early desperate days of breaking the prairie, 00:15:04.149 --> 00:15:07.009 basic survival required women to perform vital, 00:15:07.389 --> 00:15:10.409 grueling outdoor farm labor alongside the men. 00:15:10.690 --> 00:15:12.450 Everyone had to work the fields just to survive. 00:15:12.549 --> 00:15:15.529 Right. But as the state stabilized and farms 00:15:15.529 --> 00:15:17.950 actually became profitable, there was a shift 00:15:17.950 --> 00:15:19.909 toward what was called scientific housekeeping. 00:15:20.090 --> 00:15:22.409 Government extension agents and universities 00:15:22.409 --> 00:15:25.070 promoted this movement, redefining women's primary 00:15:25.070 --> 00:15:27.850 roles into managing the domestic sphere, handling 00:15:27.850 --> 00:15:29.970 the increasingly complex financial paperwork 00:15:29.970 --> 00:15:32.470 of the farm, and raising the next generation. 00:15:32.649 --> 00:15:34.809 However, there was a specific group of women 00:15:34.809 --> 00:15:37.529 who had a massive, tangible impact outside the 00:15:37.529 --> 00:15:39.789 home during this era. And those were the Prairie 00:15:39.789 --> 00:15:42.230 School women. In a rural environment where there 00:15:42.230 --> 00:15:45.149 were very few professional avenues for young, 00:15:45.309 --> 00:15:48.009 unmarried women, teaching became a crucial seat 00:15:48.009 --> 00:15:51.250 of influence. Because out on the plains, isolation 00:15:51.250 --> 00:15:54.490 was deadly. You needed deep community integration 00:15:54.490 --> 00:15:58.110 to survive. Precisely. Survival required communal 00:15:58.110 --> 00:16:01.250 effort. barn raisings, quilting bees, grange 00:16:01.250 --> 00:16:04.210 meetings. These Prairie School women were deeply 00:16:04.210 --> 00:16:06.509 involved in organizing these social lifelines. 00:16:06.629 --> 00:16:08.889 They weren't just standing at a chalkboard teaching, 00:16:08.929 --> 00:16:11.009 reading, and writing. They were community leaders. 00:16:11.230 --> 00:16:13.750 Yes, they acted as progressive social reformers 00:16:13.750 --> 00:16:16.730 who modernized the state's culture and, importantly, 00:16:17.230 --> 00:16:19.610 kept critical cash circulating within the local 00:16:19.610 --> 00:16:22.009 community economies. But let's be clear, that 00:16:22.009 --> 00:16:24.289 environment was a total pressure cooker. Oh, 00:16:24.289 --> 00:16:26.509 without a doubt. You've got this incredible mix 00:16:26.509 --> 00:16:29.940 of diverse European... trying to farm a landscape 00:16:29.940 --> 00:16:32.440 that can just turn on you in an instant. They're 00:16:32.440 --> 00:16:35.200 facing severe multi -year droughts. They're dealing 00:16:35.200 --> 00:16:38.259 with literal biblical plagues of grasshoppers 00:16:38.259 --> 00:16:41.039 devouring their crops in hours. Just absolute 00:16:41.039 --> 00:16:43.620 devastation. And on top of all that, they are 00:16:43.620 --> 00:16:46.360 completely financially beholden to these massive 00:16:46.360 --> 00:16:49.200 corporate railroads whose freight rates are bleeding 00:16:49.200 --> 00:16:52.899 them dry. So when the crops failed, the economic 00:16:52.899 --> 00:16:56.220 tension was unbearable. And in the 1890s, it 00:16:56.220 --> 00:16:58.740 exploded into radical new political movements. 00:16:59.080 --> 00:17:01.360 Because when drought hit in the 1890s, farmers 00:17:01.360 --> 00:17:04.799 faced total economic disaster. They felt completely 00:17:04.799 --> 00:17:06.640 ignored by the establishment Republican Party, 00:17:06.680 --> 00:17:08.799 which was heavily allied with the railroads. 00:17:08.839 --> 00:17:11.500 And they felt alienated by the Democratic Party, 00:17:11.559 --> 00:17:14.119 which was heavily focused on prohibition and 00:17:14.119 --> 00:17:17.440 urban issues back east. So with their livelihoods 00:17:17.440 --> 00:17:19.759 vanishing, they bypassed the two -party system 00:17:19.759 --> 00:17:23.539 entirely and turned to radical agrarian politics. 00:17:23.980 --> 00:17:27.019 movement. In 1892, these radicalized farmers 00:17:27.019 --> 00:17:29.559 actually hold a massive convention in Omaha and 00:17:29.559 --> 00:17:32.259 draft the Omaha platform. They demanded a graduated 00:17:32.259 --> 00:17:34.559 income tax, the direct election of senators, 00:17:34.779 --> 00:17:36.779 and government control of the railroads. Which 00:17:36.779 --> 00:17:39.680 were very radical ideas at the time. Extremely. 00:17:39.799 --> 00:17:42.160 And that progressive streak doesn't just flare 00:17:42.160 --> 00:17:45.559 up and die out, it becomes baked into the political 00:17:45.559 --> 00:17:48.660 DNA of the state, carrying right into the 20th 00:17:48.660 --> 00:17:51.680 century. Which brings us to a political powerhouse 00:17:51.680 --> 00:17:55.009 named George W. Norris. Norris was an incredibly 00:17:55.009 --> 00:17:57.130 influential figure. He served in both the U .S. 00:17:57.130 --> 00:18:00.450 House and the Senate. And in 1934, he leveraged 00:18:00.450 --> 00:18:02.569 the economic desperation of the Great Depression 00:18:02.569 --> 00:18:06.049 to successfully campaign for a fundamental, completely 00:18:06.049 --> 00:18:08.869 unprecedented change to how Nebraska's state 00:18:08.869 --> 00:18:11.069 government actually works. He basically looked 00:18:11.069 --> 00:18:14.269 at the standard bicameral legislature, having 00:18:14.269 --> 00:18:16.069 both a House of Representatives and a Senate, 00:18:16.529 --> 00:18:18.369 and argued that it was fundamentally broken. 00:18:18.390 --> 00:18:20.750 Right. He claimed it was an inefficient, outdated 00:18:20.750 --> 00:18:23.410 system based on the inherently undemocratic British 00:18:23.410 --> 00:18:26.029 House of Lords. Which is an incredibly bold argument 00:18:26.029 --> 00:18:27.869 to make to a bunch of prairie farmers. Yeah. 00:18:28.130 --> 00:18:30.569 But his logic was sound. He argued that having 00:18:30.569 --> 00:18:33.029 two houses just allowed politicians to pass the 00:18:33.029 --> 00:18:35.869 buck. Bills would go to these secretive conference 00:18:35.869 --> 00:18:38.009 committees where lobbyists could easily kill 00:18:38.009 --> 00:18:40.390 legislation behind closed doors without any public 00:18:40.390 --> 00:18:43.430 accountability. And it worked. He actually convinced 00:18:43.430 --> 00:18:46.029 the voters to pass a constitutional amendment. 00:18:46.250 --> 00:18:48.269 abolishing their own House of Representatives. 00:18:48.569 --> 00:18:51.130 They just voted it out of existence. Yes. They 00:18:51.130 --> 00:18:53.630 created a single house legislature and they made 00:18:53.630 --> 00:18:57.210 it completely nonpartisan, meaning candidates 00:18:57.210 --> 00:18:59.309 don't even have a political party listed next 00:18:59.309 --> 00:19:01.950 to their name on the ballot. Wow. To this day, 00:19:02.190 --> 00:19:05.150 almost a century later, Nebraska has America's 00:19:05.150 --> 00:19:08.269 only single house nonpartisan state legislature. 00:19:08.650 --> 00:19:11.769 It is a totally unique democratic experiment. 00:19:11.910 --> 00:19:14.369 Truly one of a kind. But the massive shifts in 00:19:14.369 --> 00:19:17.410 Nebraska didn't stop at the state house. Just 00:19:17.410 --> 00:19:20.450 a few years later, World War II breaks out, and 00:19:20.450 --> 00:19:22.730 the state's economy is violently transformed 00:19:22.730 --> 00:19:25.380 yet again. The scale of federal investment during 00:19:25.380 --> 00:19:27.720 the war was just staggering. The government needed 00:19:27.720 --> 00:19:30.720 vast, secure inland spaces to build munitions. 00:19:31.059 --> 00:19:33.240 So they constructed the Cornhusker Ordnance Plant 00:19:33.240 --> 00:19:35.819 in Grand Island, which began churning out aerial 00:19:35.819 --> 00:19:38.579 bombs in 1942. In the middle of the prairie. 00:19:38.960 --> 00:19:41.819 Exactly. And at its absolute peak, this single 00:19:41.819 --> 00:19:44.900 facility employed 4 ,200 workers. And what's 00:19:44.900 --> 00:19:47.920 amazing is that over 40 % of those bomb makers 00:19:47.920 --> 00:19:51.660 were women. They proudly called them WRWs, Women 00:19:51.660 --> 00:19:54.460 Ordnance Workers. The WRWs, yeah. And because 00:19:54.460 --> 00:19:57.119 so many women were working these grueling round 00:19:57.119 --> 00:19:59.559 the clock shifts at the plant, the Quaker Oats 00:19:59.559 --> 00:20:01.539 Company, which was actually contracted to manage 00:20:01.539 --> 00:20:04.559 the facility, had to innovate. They started one 00:20:04.559 --> 00:20:06.740 of the nation's earliest corporate child care 00:20:06.740 --> 00:20:09.299 programs just to keep the assembly lines moving. 00:20:09.500 --> 00:20:11.940 Which is wild to think about corporate child 00:20:11.940 --> 00:20:14.400 care in the 1940s. Right. And if that wasn't 00:20:14.400 --> 00:20:17.990 enough, Nebraska quietly became a major hub for 00:20:17.990 --> 00:20:20.109 prisoners of war. Yeah, you really wouldn't expect 00:20:20.109 --> 00:20:21.950 it. But at the height of the war, the military 00:20:21.950 --> 00:20:25.049 scattered 23 different POW camps across the Nebraska 00:20:25.049 --> 00:20:28.430 plains. From Scotts Bluff in the west to Fort 00:20:28.430 --> 00:20:31.250 Omaha in the east, they were housing thousands 00:20:31.250 --> 00:20:33.569 of captured Italian and other Axis soldiers. 00:20:33.950 --> 00:20:35.750 So what does this all mean? If you step back 00:20:35.750 --> 00:20:39.470 and look at this 15 year timeline. You have a 00:20:39.470 --> 00:20:42.789 rural farming state inventing a totally unique, 00:20:43.410 --> 00:20:46.269 streamlined government system while simultaneously 00:20:46.269 --> 00:20:49.450 building explosive ordinance for a global war, 00:20:49.970 --> 00:20:52.230 revolutionizing corporate child care and housing 00:20:52.230 --> 00:20:54.569 thousands of foreign prisoners on the prairie. 00:20:54.970 --> 00:20:58.089 It is absolute political and social whiplash. 00:20:58.190 --> 00:21:00.180 Whiplash is the perfect word. And this raises 00:21:00.180 --> 00:21:03.119 an important question. How do societies fundamentally 00:21:03.119 --> 00:21:06.220 evolve under extreme pressure? What we see clearly 00:21:06.220 --> 00:21:09.059 in Nebraska is that massive crises, like the 00:21:09.059 --> 00:21:11.140 devastating crop failures of the Great Depression 00:21:11.140 --> 00:21:13.880 and the global mobilization of World War II, 00:21:14.160 --> 00:21:16.400 they force a structural innovation. I didn't 00:21:16.400 --> 00:21:19.380 have a choice. No. These massive events fundamentally 00:21:19.380 --> 00:21:22.599 shifted Nebraska's economic reliance. Before 00:21:22.599 --> 00:21:24.859 the 1930s, social welfare and infrastructure 00:21:24.859 --> 00:21:27.160 were handled almost entirely by local counties, 00:21:27.500 --> 00:21:29.779 but the New Deal and the war shifted that dynamic 00:21:29.779 --> 00:21:32.619 forever, tightly integrating Nebraska into federal 00:21:32.619 --> 00:21:35.039 funding networks and federal agricultural guidelines. 00:21:35.299 --> 00:21:37.619 But their ability to absorb radical change doesn't 00:21:37.619 --> 00:21:40.380 just stop when the war ends in 1945. Let's fast 00:21:40.380 --> 00:21:42.779 forward to the late 20th century. Okay. The state 00:21:42.779 --> 00:21:45.960 is forced to keep adapting. You have major post 00:21:45.960 --> 00:21:49.480 -war changes like Governor Tymon in the 1960s 00:21:49.480 --> 00:21:52.440 completely overhauling the tax code, pushing 00:21:52.440 --> 00:21:54.519 through a sales and income tax to relieve the 00:21:54.519 --> 00:21:56.859 burden on property owners. Right. Then you hit 00:21:56.859 --> 00:22:00.140 the... devastating nationwide farm crisis in 00:22:00.140 --> 00:22:03.299 the 1980s that caused a tragic wave of bankruptcies 00:22:03.299 --> 00:22:06.059 and foreclosures across the plains. But then 00:22:06.059 --> 00:22:09.619 as we move into the 1990s, we see a massive demographic 00:22:09.619 --> 00:22:12.480 shift that redefines the local economy all over 00:22:12.480 --> 00:22:15.380 again. Specifically, we see a revitalization 00:22:15.380 --> 00:22:18.299 driven by a new wave of immigration into rural 00:22:18.299 --> 00:22:20.480 communities that were previously facing pretty 00:22:20.480 --> 00:22:22.279 steep decline. And I do want to pause here for 00:22:22.279 --> 00:22:24.279 a second because we need to be really clear about 00:22:24.279 --> 00:22:26.970 this immigration. border policy, labor economics. 00:22:27.490 --> 00:22:29.589 These are obviously highly politically charged 00:22:29.589 --> 00:22:31.829 topics today. People have very strong viewpoints 00:22:31.829 --> 00:22:33.609 on the left and the right. Right. Absolutely. 00:22:33.630 --> 00:22:35.809 So we are not taking a side here. We are not 00:22:35.809 --> 00:22:38.589 endorsing any specific political viewpoint. We 00:22:38.589 --> 00:22:41.049 are strictly impartially reporting the specific 00:22:41.049 --> 00:22:43.569 economic and historical data presented in our 00:22:43.569 --> 00:22:45.609 sources regarding Dawson County, Nebraska in 00:22:45.609 --> 00:22:48.809 the 1990s. Understood. But if we put modern politics 00:22:48.809 --> 00:22:51.890 aside and just look at that raw localized data, 00:22:52.430 --> 00:22:55.869 the mechanism of this change is Fascinatingly 00:22:55.869 --> 00:22:57.750 clear. It really is. The data centers on the 00:22:57.750 --> 00:23:00.430 city of Lexington. Now, Hispanic Americans had 00:23:00.430 --> 00:23:02.289 lived in this region since before statehood, 00:23:02.569 --> 00:23:04.950 but large -scale migration truly accelerated 00:23:04.950 --> 00:23:07.930 in the late 80s and 90s. In Lexington alone, 00:23:08.130 --> 00:23:10.490 the Hispanic population grew tenfold between 00:23:10.490 --> 00:23:13.670 1990 and 2000. Unfold, wow. Yeah, jumping from 00:23:13.670 --> 00:23:16.769 just over 400 people to about 4 ,000. They were 00:23:16.769 --> 00:23:19.630 arriving primarily to fill difficult, low -skill, 00:23:19.849 --> 00:23:22.750 low -wage jobs in hospitality, light manufacturing, 00:23:22.869 --> 00:23:24.950 and especially meat processing. Because in the 00:23:24.950 --> 00:23:27.210 1980s, Dawson County was in serious trouble. 00:23:27.609 --> 00:23:29.890 They were suffering from severe population decline 00:23:29.890 --> 00:23:32.490 and dropping employment rates. So when this massive 00:23:32.490 --> 00:23:35.089 migration wave hit in the 90s, there were vocal 00:23:35.089 --> 00:23:37.490 historical fears within the community that this 00:23:37.490 --> 00:23:39.930 influx of new labor would instantly depress local 00:23:39.930 --> 00:23:42.430 wages and drive up unemployment for existing 00:23:42.430 --> 00:23:44.549 residents. However, looking impartially at the 00:23:44.549 --> 00:23:47.109 data from that specific time and place, those 00:23:47.109 --> 00:23:49.990 economic fears proved entirely unfounded. Yeah, 00:23:50.190 --> 00:23:52.650 the new labor supply actually synergized perfectly 00:23:52.650 --> 00:23:56.089 with existing demands. Local businesses and agricultural 00:23:56.089 --> 00:23:58.130 processing plants realized they could profitably 00:23:58.130 --> 00:24:00.750 expand their operations precisely because they 00:24:00.750 --> 00:24:04.269 finally had a willing reliable labor force. So 00:24:04.269 --> 00:24:07.950 the net result of that specific 1990s demographic 00:24:07.950 --> 00:24:11.319 shockwave was an upsurge in overall employment, 00:24:11.779 --> 00:24:14.359 higher average wages across the board, and an 00:24:14.359 --> 00:24:17.039 undeniable economic prosperity that literally 00:24:17.039 --> 00:24:20.059 saved these declining rural towns from fading 00:24:20.059 --> 00:24:22.440 off the map entirely. Exactly. It was a vital 00:24:22.440 --> 00:24:24.400 demographic shift that provided the energetic 00:24:24.400 --> 00:24:26.740 labor necessary to pull the local agricultural 00:24:26.740 --> 00:24:29.460 economy out of a really dangerous tailspin. It 00:24:29.460 --> 00:24:32.700 is an incredible historical arc. And, well, It 00:24:32.700 --> 00:24:34.599 brings us to the end of our deep dive today. 00:24:34.720 --> 00:24:37.799 We've covered millions of years of profound transformation. 00:24:37.819 --> 00:24:40.140 It's a lot of ground to cover. It is. We started 00:24:40.140 --> 00:24:43.160 with massive, terrifying marine reptiles swimming 00:24:43.160 --> 00:24:46.140 over what would one day become endless cornfields. 00:24:46.140 --> 00:24:48.460 We looked at how indigenous tribes and European 00:24:48.460 --> 00:24:51.480 empires played a bloody geopolitical chess match 00:24:51.480 --> 00:24:54.039 over the rivers. We saw railroad monopolies acting 00:24:54.039 --> 00:24:56.200 like aggressive tech startups to populate the 00:24:56.200 --> 00:24:58.740 plains. Yeah. And the brilliant progressive political 00:24:58.740 --> 00:25:01.700 experiments of George W. Norris, the bomb factories 00:25:01.700 --> 00:25:05.049 of World War II, all the way up to the vital 00:25:05.049 --> 00:25:07.529 demographic shifts of the late 20th century. 00:25:08.069 --> 00:25:10.769 And this is exactly why we wanted to take you 00:25:10.769 --> 00:25:13.569 on this journey today. The next time you look 00:25:13.569 --> 00:25:15.890 at a map of the United States and you see that 00:25:15.890 --> 00:25:19.349 big rectangular shape right in the middle, we 00:25:19.349 --> 00:25:22.029 hope you don't just see a vast empty expanse 00:25:22.029 --> 00:25:25.200 of flyover country. Right? We hope you see a 00:25:25.200 --> 00:25:28.559 vibrant, dynamic, historical laboratory. A place 00:25:28.559 --> 00:25:30.799 where the very concept of the American identity, 00:25:30.980 --> 00:25:33.220 you know, who gets to vote, how we govern ourselves, 00:25:33.299 --> 00:25:35.039 how we survive the climate, and who does the 00:25:35.039 --> 00:25:37.839 hard work, was constantly being tested, broken 00:25:37.839 --> 00:25:40.619 down, and rewritten. Beautifully said. But there's 00:25:40.619 --> 00:25:42.279 one final thought from our research that I want 00:25:42.279 --> 00:25:44.180 to leave you with. Something to mull over on 00:25:44.180 --> 00:25:46.859 your own. OK, let's hear it. So in the 1990s, 00:25:46.960 --> 00:25:49.380 because Omaha is geographically situated right 00:25:49.380 --> 00:25:50.900 in the center of the North American continent, 00:25:51.220 --> 00:25:53.799 it became a massive hub for the telecommunications 00:25:53.799 --> 00:25:56.680 industry. Right. The fiber optic boom. Yeah. 00:25:56.920 --> 00:25:59.319 Fiber optic lines crossed there. Call centers 00:25:59.319 --> 00:26:01.700 were everywhere. At one point, telemarketing 00:26:01.700 --> 00:26:04.140 actually surpassed meatpacking and total employment. 00:26:04.160 --> 00:26:07.980 Wow. But by the 2000s, those Omaha call centers 00:26:07.980 --> 00:26:11.299 faced heavy, devastating competition from outsourced 00:26:11.299 --> 00:26:14.099 foreign operators in places like India. And it 00:26:14.099 --> 00:26:16.980 makes you wonder. Wonder what? Well, for centuries, 00:26:17.299 --> 00:26:19.680 Nebraska's entire economic power and identity 00:26:19.680 --> 00:26:22.079 came from being the physical crossroads of America. 00:26:22.279 --> 00:26:25.579 It was the wagon trails, the Union Pacific Railroad, 00:26:25.779 --> 00:26:28.759 the Lincoln Highway. But as the whole world transitions 00:26:28.759 --> 00:26:31.240 to a digital highway, where physical geography 00:26:31.240 --> 00:26:33.880 no longer dictates connection, how do places 00:26:33.880 --> 00:26:36.099 whose entire history is based on being in the 00:26:36.099 --> 00:26:38.799 middle reinvent themselves for the 21st century? 00:26:38.980 --> 00:26:41.140 That is a great question. The ancient glaciers 00:26:41.140 --> 00:26:43.500 may have sanded the state down into a flat, fertile 00:26:43.500 --> 00:26:45.940 canvas, but as we've seen today, people who live 00:26:45.940 --> 00:26:48.779 there never stop absorbing the future. Keep diving 00:26:48.779 --> 00:26:50.519 deep, and we'll catch you next time.