Where is Mont Blanc's summit REALLY?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 เม.ย. 2024
- Sabrina Cruz, Melissa Fernandes and Taha Khan from 'Answer in Progress' discuss a question about a suspect summit situation.
LATERAL is a weekly podcast about interesting questions and even more interesting answers, hosted by Tom Scott. For business enquiries, contestant appearances or question submissions, visit www.lateralcast.com
GUESTS:
Sabrina Cruz: @answerinprogress, / nerdyandquirky
Melissa Fernandes: @answerinprogress, / mehlizfern
Taha Khan: @answerinprogress, / khanstopme
HOST: Tom Scott.
QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe.
RECORDED AT: The Podcast Studios, Dublin.
EDITED BY: Julie Hassett.
GRAPHICS: Chris Hanel at Support Class. Assistant: Dillon Pentz.
MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com).
FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott.
© Pad 26 Limited (www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2024. - บันเทิง
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So strange it wasn't the British stealing it.
Let's be fair, the English are definitely the worst, but only because they were forced to go everywhere by sea so learnt to get more places easier and thus could steal more.
Europe, in general, was fond of stealing stuff for decades (particularly Western Europe).
We Brits would have made sure everyone knew about it if we had it.
just because we were the best doesn't mean we were the only
Dutch has always been as bad as the British at it, just ask the (former) East Indies.
Let us never forget: "'Damn,' said Amsterdam... 'We gotta start pillaging some stuff.'"
1:52 actually, the Netherlands and France do share a border on Sint Maarten!
Although in fairness it's not very near the Alps.
@@petertaylor4980 For some definition of "near"
@@petertaylor4980they is nearer to the alps than their actual colonies, it might as well be next door
@@Nazuiko Well, Italy doesn't have that many colonies left, after "winning" two world wars by switching sides when their side had nearly lost.
@@MyRegardsToTheDodoitaly never switched sides, in WW1 they got out of a treaty that was already broken and in WW2 they had a full blown civil war with one side still supporting the axis. I dont care if its a meme, its just reddit-tier historical misinformation like the thing about france and surrendering
"The wheel spins and lands on ... France!" despite three other european countries mentioned.... Though i think dutch stereotypes also counted
"The wheel is 50% France."
As a Dutch, I can say the stereotypes are facts. If they put a windmill on it and tried to drain Mount Blanc, would still be correct.😁
1:40 As a Dutchman I can tell you this is very true. Whenever I go on vacation somewhere and I think about how remote I am and how few people I have seen, sure enough, I encounter another Dutch person that day.
*as a tulip person
I've run into my uncle's neighbours on holiday in asia once 😂 they were at a different hotel but came to the bar at ours
@@guyunger Right, please excuse my mistake.
@@guyunger I identify as a netherboy
I've always joked that I travel half a state away to see the neighbors because we bump into each other way more than you'd think 2 hours from home.
I was guessing it has something to do with the french revolution or the napoleonic wars, that the netherlands at some point "conquered" mont blanc due to some weird international law technicality.
My mind went to the same place
2:32 the subtitles are such a delight.
0:42 - Leave it to T.S. to say the most British thing that ever Britished.
T. S. Eliot? Indeed.
Actually in French the "h" is silent so he got it right by accident.
Nah without it it would be pronounced Frenk
when someone sighs in france:
**
It is..., but not the way he did it! 😆
Guessing now that it is because someone took a piece and it's sitting in a Dutch museum somewhere. Like the artist who chiselled the tip from the peak of a British mountain, and also stuck it in a museum, prompting outrage of all sorts.
SPOILER BELOW:
Can't believe that was actually the answer, and that it's happened at least twice.
British being outraged on having thwir things stolen into a museum, now *that's* irony.
If I had a penny every time someone takes home the peak of the mountain...
that my first guess right after i heard the question lol
I knew about this because The Tim Traveller has mentioned this in several of his videos.
My thought was that there should be a Tim Traveller video where he goes to visit all three summits of Mont Blanc.
@@WyvernYT That sounds *exactly* like the sort of things he'd do.
All Hail the Tim!
Ah, maybe I've heard this before from one of his videos - I knew the answer straight away, but just thought it was a lucky guess.
I knew this immediately as I have seen this tip in the museum. Several times even. It is not prominently displayed. It is in a large cabinet with rocks and minerals, and is just labelled “summit of the Mount Blanc”.
Teyler’s museum is worth a visit. It us the oldest Dutch museum. Quite a bit of the museum is dedicated to science history.
As a Dutch guy I feel like I can confidently confirm that we do in fact always appear where you least expect us
No, that's the Spanish!
@@RJSRdg Oh really.. The Spanish, and with which weapons exactly?
@@joostvhts Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
@@RJSRdg *diabolical laughter*
someone's done this to Scafell Pike (England's highest mountain) too. no one will stop the Dutch from claiming high mountains!
Considering summit is a discriptor, I'd say once that granite was chipped off it no longer counts as anything other than ore.
I'm from the Netherlands but didn't know this. It wasn't in my geography class. I looked up the museum and it's one I've not visited yet, but is on my wishlist. So I guess I should find a day to go there and to see the top of the Mont Blanc.
I made up this whole story in my head about Hapsburg weirdness with the HRE, Austria, the Austrian and Spanish periods in Netherlands, the War of the Spanish Succession, like maybe there was a quirk between the Treaty of Rastatt and the Treaty of Utrecht that maybe somebody missed a comma, and Mont Blanc was technically part of the Netherlands for 18 months and maybe the Treaty of Amiens in 1802 messed something else up with Sardinia and accidentally used a wrong version of Piedmontese territory to draw the boundaries which meant that the last valid treaty dealing with Mont Blanc was the one that accidentally threw it in with the Netherlands.
And then it turns out that all that was wrong and it's just like that one guy who stole an inch from the top of Scafell Pike as an art project.
that was also my go to case of the Netherland for a short period of time throughout ether war or royal marriage shenanigan ending up whit owning a part of the Mountain Mount Blanc is located.
Like im 99% sure that Sweden at one point owned something in French/Spain whit no land or sea connection whit Sweden, because Sweden joined someone in a war and wanted to come out of it whit something after the loser said well I paid the other belligerents and now all-out of cash.
and Sweden contributed 400Arms witch normally is worth 450-600 Ducat but I dont have 450 Ducat so I guess you get nothing.
Sweden looking at the Map... I claim that farmstead in Bulgur worth 403 Ducat here is a spare Ducat in change.
gott erhalte franz den kaiser unser gute kaiser franz
I didn't have that sort of detail, but I was also expecting a treaty thing and european royal families forgetting about a whole peak.
"I don't know European history, sounds like a them problem" I love that line.
Love how Tom remarks on Taha’s pronunciation of Saussure when all 4 of them have been saying MonTTT BlanKKK throughout the episode. Final consonants are almost always silent in French, particularly after an N.
Who cares… Fun episode, fun gang.
Yeah, it was hurting my ears from the very beginning. Like, how could neither of them ever hear how the name of the highest European peak is pronounced?
I am Dutch and I was smiling 😁
Answer In Progress is always my favorite guests on this show. Loved this episode!
I CAME UP WITH THE ANSWER AND DISMISSED IT OUT OF HAND FOR BEING TOO OBVIOUS! I am so angry at myself!
It's 1802, the Netherlands and France _do_ share a border.
I know this one! Thank you, QI. :D
I'm Dutch and I've been to that museum and I've still never heard of that story! Teyler's is a beautiful museum for science and art in Haarlem full of geological stuff, old scientific instruments and all that.
The QI clip can be found by searching for "QI | Where Is The Highest Peak Of The Alps?" Notice they say "The Highest Peak Of The Alps" not Europe.
Quite interesting
I was going to guess either that someone had taken part of the summit away with them or that there's some Dutch Caribbean island with a mountain called Mont Blanc that's even higher than the famous one.
The wheel spins and lands on France!
My first guess: there's two peaks, and the method of measuring changes which one's taller.
Who knows the answer from QI
Lateral getting geopolitical with ignoring Europe's highest mountain Elbrus.
"Europe's highest mountain Mont Blanc..."
Mt. Elbrus: "excuse me?"
I think that back in 1802, people thought of Mount Elbrus as being in Asia. There have been many arguments, historically, about where the boundary between Europe and Asia should be drawn.
Yeah, I always found that a little strange. If you point out Elbrus on a map (east of the black sea), I'd never say "yes, that's part of Europe".
@@JohnDoe-ti2np while that may be true (the border is arbitrary, so I can believe it was different in 1802), the first sentence is in present tense, so it implies, that
- the long-standing dispute between Italy and France IS still ongoing (which I assume to be true, but I did not verify that).
- Mt. Blanc IS at the moment the highest peak in Europe (which is not true).
My guess was that Mont Blanc is in what was the Principality of Orange. The princes of Orange ended up in what is now The Netherlands and the royal family is the House of Orange.
No one expects the Dutch inquisition!
Shouldn't that be "The Dutch Acquistion"? (with apologies to Monty Python)
Another one I actually knew for some reason. No recollection of where I read this.
I knew this one immediately because I saw a tumblr post a while back about someone taking the top of a different mountain for an art exhibit
In 2007 a fictional short film by Mels van Zutphen, titled The tip of Mont Blanc about bringing "the top of the mountain" back to Mont Blanc, was screened at the Dutch Film Festival.
My guess would have been Napoléon gave it to the same brother or cousin he put in charge of The Netherlands.
So you're telling me The Netherlands just Carmen Sandiegoed the mountain? Okay, sure, I'll say we run with that.
I've heard this somewhere else recently. Did QI do it?
Damn, I got that idea within first minute!
Is there any way to watch the full video? I can see the podcast links on the website but not sure where the video is? Any help greatly appreciated
Currently it's 3 video highlights a week, plus a full audio show. Our podcast platform provider has a video facility in beta testing.
So the highest place in Europe is in Holland? That certainly matches my experience...
1:50 They actually do, even if its not well known.
It's on the island of St Martins/St Marteens
As someone from The Netherlands, yes, you find Dutch people everywhere, even if you don't expect them. The only holiday where I did not run into other Dutch people was to Russia in 2022.
I actually would love to see everyone's reaction when the question is read, so I wonder if you guys would consider just showing everyone when that happens?
This was my first thought, not surprised.
My next guess would have been "ha! a different mount blanc!"
My initial guess was this had something to do with Napoleon and his brother that he installed on the Dutch throne. Nope!
I’m sure Toycat also would have claimed it in his video a few days ago, had he known it was up for grabs :P
Somehow ive heard about this
Never heard the story but I got it straight away with a guess lol
I've been to see it, actually. Teyler's is a pretty nifty little place.
(I think I was actually going to submit this as a question idea at one point, but not sure if I actually did.)
Because, of course!
The only thinkg that surprised me was that it was Dutch who did it and not the British.
This was a question on QI
As soon as they said
“And is now in a museum somewhere” I went… Teylers.
just so you know, france and the netherlands do share a land border. just not in europe.
I actually got this one straight away and couldn't believe how long it took them to get it - the journey was enjoyable though.
Also, I'm not even French and that hurt my ears!
FRIENDS!
I think I have something it my head about a country putting a rock on top of mountain and claiming the mountain. Is this that?
They claimed the Ancient Right of Possession Maketh The Owner
Dutch people are tall. The mountain is tall. Clearly, the mountain must be Dutch.
My guess was way off. I thought maybe Dutch royalty decided to climb the mountain where they were very pregnant and suddenly gave birth at the summit. Therefor the Dutch declared that part of their territory so the royal baby was born on home soil. Sounds a bit silly for a pregnant princess to climb a mountain now that I spell it out..
It ended quite abruptly
I was thinking this might be a Trade Mark thing.
You mean the way Toblerone chocolat is no longer allowed to use an immage of the Matterhorn because it is not ‘made in Switserland’? Ikea being ‘Dutch’ because the company is registerred in the Netherlands etc?
Fans of linguistics will probably recognize that surname: Horace Bénedict de Saussure was the great-grandfather of Ferdinand de Saussure, the 'father of modern linguistics'. There were a few other notable scientists in the family as well.
My first thought was that it is just the Dutch trolling.
I was so confident that a mountain on Aruba or similar was called Mt Blanc and was the highest peak in the Netherlands. All Tahas answers to the questions seemed to be confirming it.
The (Carribean) isle of Saba is a volcano (Mount Scenery) and a special municipality within the Netherlands. So you are somewhat right! The highest point of European The Netherlands is a hill shared with Germany and Belgium.
"just the tip"
There is nothing strange about stealing the tip of a mountain. It's strange that it is not in the British Museum
Wait, that's not the only time that's happened. Someone did that to the highest mountain in the UK, and UK, ironically, demanded that a stolen piece of it's heritage to be returned to it's homeland.
I guessed napoleon lol
surprisingly it wasn't related to napoleon
...or is it?
Soooo reverse colonialization.
G E K O L O N I S E E R D
Is that a map of Hawaii on Taha's wall, or just chipped paint? 🤔
I'd better make dinner. I read Mont Blanc, but I was picturing blancmange.
Shouldn't the question be 'Why' rather than 'How'?
I didn't know that Carmen Sandiago was Dutch.
She isn't, but the guy her fence sold it to, was hired to procure it for someone wearing wood clogs.
if they did this in Denmark they would change their highest mountain (again).
My first guess: did someone steal the top?
The granite in the peaks are free! You can just take them! I have 438 granite
not to be confuesed with the mont blanc ski resort in Québec
The first thought I had was is there a totally red flag already? And then I thought if the Netherlands claimed the top on mouth blanc then if would stop the other 2 countries from arguing over it.
Sometimes I think I'm thinking to sensibly. 😋
Just the tip?
Tim the Traveller summits all over the place and I am certain has been to the highest point in NL. He has been to the highest point in Belgium ... all of them.
The highest mountain in Europe is Mount Elbrus in Russia.
That did not sound like the end of that sentence 🤨
3:55 Be careful, they might insult you and fart in tour general direction.
"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elder berries.
Seems there is a difference in opinion how much counts as Europe on the map. Maybe it is within the definition of "Western Europe" to skip Russia and the Caucasus Mountains, or maybe people think of the European Union as the only countries that count as Europe. I don't know which definition is used here. Mount Elbrus in is 5,642 m (18,510 ft), whereas Mont Blanc is 4,805.59 m (15,766.4 ft) above sea level.
The line is the Turkish straight, the Caucasus and the Ural mountains for what counts as Europe. While the Caucasus are the border, it's not like there's a definitive line you can use to say "Europe vs Asia". It looks like there is contention on which continent it should be considered as. Eyeballing it, it does look like it's closer to the European side, but I'm not an expert.
Guessing before watching: They stole a rock from the top of the mountain and took it back to the Netherlands, so now the former highest point is theirs
Edit: yay im smart
Hey, you could piss off the Germans, too-- acquire a piece of that granite from the museum and craft a pen out of it!
Shocked and appalled that linguistics graduate Tom Scott did not recognise Horace Bénédict de Saussure as a relative of Ferdinand de Saussure, absolute icon of any basic linguistics or semiotics class!!! Also Horace is Swiss, not French, so I don't think we can claim outrage for any potential mispronunciations.
It sounds like a “them” problem… 😂
Elbrus objects to the wording of this question...
Mont Blanc isn't Europe's highest moutain. Mt. Elbrus is.
Gekoloniseerd?
"Don't reveal that we're North American!" Y'know, we United Statesians always get mocked for our lack of geography knowledge, so it's nice that a Canadian can be in the line of that fire for once 😂 (That said... I'm personally absolute shit at geography. Always have been, always will be, because rote memorization *sucks* in my brain.)
QI klaxon for Europe's tallest mountain
No, it's the Spanish you don't expect!