All language subtitles for Drunk History s05e00 Christmas Special

George Washington's like, look, we have
to attack the British on Christmas

night. Come on, man.

Charles Dickens writes a Christmas carol
in six weeks.

Are we still doing the show here?

President Roosevelt decides, I do not
want a Christmas tree here. So the kids

hatched a plan.

Dreams in the closet and the mother of
the saga.

Christmas, a celebration of life and
just having a good time.

Family, friends, spending time with
people you love. To Christmas.

17 years of friendship.

To you, Craig. To you, buddy. Thank you.

Again.

Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do
that. Craig, sing your favorite

song. Sorry,

I'm just trying to clean this up.

Hey, no, no.

Oh, you... Well, if you do it to me, I
have to do it to you. We're brothers.

Hi, I'm... Oh, boy.

Hello.

Hello, I'm Craig Anstead.

And today, we're going to talk about
George Washington crossing the Delaware

River. On Christmas Day.

So at the end of the year, 1776, the
Continental Army is camped out on the

shores of the Delaware River in
Pennsylvania.

George Washington is like, the
Continental Army is, it seems hopeless.

Across the river in Trenton, New Jersey,
is the Hessians. The Hessians are

German mercenary soldiers for the
British Empire.

And we're like, hey man, we're cool.

And we're making the money.

On December 23rd, Washington brings
General Hugh Mercer, who's a Scottish

general, and Captain Alexander Hamilton.

George Washington's like, look, we have
to attack the British on Christmas

night. They're going to be drunk.
They're going to be burping, you know,

shit. That's the night that's the least
expected.

So we have to move. We got to go. It's a
surprise attack.

So Mercer's like, you know, he's a
Scottish guy. He's like, you know, we

have munitions.

I don't even know how to do it. Think
about Sean Connery.

Mercer's like, well, we can't do this
now. We don't have the provisions.

And Alexander Hamilton's point of view
is, hey, that's exactly why we need to

attack, because the Hessians have...

Infinite musicians.

They have infinite, infinite, infinite
munitions, and we can capture all that.

So, all right, well, this is what's
going down. We got 5 ,000 troops. We're

going to cross the river, like 300 yards
wide.

You all right?

Yeah. We have to go full force and
attack, which is fighting against the

with their hired Hessian, German, and
army shit.

So the Germans, so the Germans, shit.

All right, so it's a German Christmas,
December 25th, 1776.

They're all celebrating.

Hey, it's celebration.

They have sausages and sauerkraut.

They're being festive. They're drinking
eggnog. That's exactly what the Germans

were doing.

Back to the three platoons.

They all set sail across the Delaware
River.

Mercer's, Washington, Hamilton.

Mercer, it's too much snow, too much
ice. We have to back off.

Jesus told me so.

So they back off.

You know, Hamilton falls to the wall. We
got to get across there, man. We got to

help Hamilton.

Or we got to help Washington.

Can't do it, man.

Too much snow, too much ice, too much.
It's too cold.

Washington says, we're getting across
this river. Dude, everyone knows the

from a painting. The painting is like a
pretty picture of this.

It was a lot more grimy and dirty than
the painting.

It's the wind, man, blowing 60, 70 miles
an hour. Little tiny icebergs smashing

up against these primitive boats that
are made out of cheap pine wood that's

been nailed together with... garbage,
nails, it's horrible.

Some of the soldiers have towels on
their feet. They don't have shoes. And

they're thinking, hey, man, this is
Christmas. I should be eating

man. Washington's like, hey, man, this
is the birth of our nation.

This is the birth of our nation. I mean,
it really is.

Thank you. Let me have a drink.

They roll up upon the shore, Trenton,
New Jersey. George Washington looks at

sun and he's like, hey, shit, we're
late.

Let's do this.

Washington and his soldiers march into
the fort of Trenton and sure as shit

catch the entire Hessian military off
guard. They start attacking the

Hey, Merry Christmas, mother...

They're not met with much resistance.
They're like, well, wait, we need to

fight, but we're kind of drunk and we're
kind of f***ed up.

Like mistletoe and jingle bells.

So by the time the battle was over,
Washington had captured over a thousand

Hessians and only four Continental Army
troops had died. And then they look,

there's all these supplies.

And then in the corner, there's a pile
of rum.

They all start pounding rum, getting
drunk.

So when they took these Hessian soldiers
back across the river after capturing

them, a lot of them were drunk just
putting them on boats. And people are,

falling off, shit -faced, trying to
get... It's just funny.

So this is the first major victory for
George Washington and his Continental

Army. And it made an announcement to the
entire world that, hey...

This Continental Army is a force to be
reckoned with. You can't underestimate

them.

I'm Craig Anastas.

And I had a little bit too much to
drink.

But hey, f*** it, right? Craig!

Merry Christmas.

Thank you.

Welcome to our show.

Want to do a quick shot? Sure. Let's do
one more.

In the name of giving, in the name of
Christmas, in the name of our lineage

our friends and our family and our
community and our world.

Amen.

Cheers. To you, brother.

To you.

Oh, yeah.

Hello, I'm Phil Hendry, and today we'll
be discussing the man who created modern

Christmas, Charles Dickens.

Holy shit. Yeah, man.

Thank you, Phil. Let's go for it.
Thanks, brother.

So Charles Dickens is a smash hit in
England. He's a very, very prominent

writer. And he's sitting there thinking,
I don't know, I've written Nicholas

Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, a
thing called Oliver Twist.

Now he wanted to speak about the, you
know, the degenerating aspects of

society. English society?

is a big hovel. It's a steaming mass of
just... And you've got poverty and the

ragged schools.

And the people are like, that's really
great, man. You've got another Oliver

Twist. I'd really appreciate it because,
man, you are boring me.

Suddenly everybody's leaving.

So now his publishers don't want to
publish him. The people are not all that

interested in his political points of
view because he's a long -winded, dull

creep.

And suddenly, in 1843, out of the blue,
comes an invitation.

I say, sir, you're invited to the
Athenium of Manchester. Come and drink,

cetera, et cetera, so and so forth.

So he goes up there and sees the big
sign. The Athenium of Manchester.

It was actually a place where the
working class and the poor could go to

educated people speak.

So he gives his speech, and he looks out
across this vast sea of paces.

Oh, man.

Woo!

Holy shit, dude.

And it is then that it hits him.

You are the regular people, the working
people, the people of England, but the

man that I see is overseeing all of
these people that I'm looking at

he's an asshole.

Is that the word? Yes, I'm looking for
the word asshole.

And that night he went out and he walked
and began to think about this tale.

My God, I saw in the face of those
people, I saw the very working man. I

man that I was and the boy that I was.
Those are the faces of all the suffering

people that I've been working with.
Yeah, you're my people, aren't you? Yes,

sir. In his mind, he's doing this. It's
not really happening.

So it began to coalesce in his mind. He
goes back to London.

And he's beginning to put this together
in his mind with the time of year.

Well, this is the birth of Christ, isn't
it? This is Christmas. He's thinking

about love and charity and how all of
that's missing in this world that he'd

been living in. And Dickens suddenly got
the idea for a tale of the working

class coming in touch with this
redemptive spirit of Christmas.

And he says, I saw the man that was
keeping them down.

Ebenezer Scrooge. And his sister had a
little boy who had what was called

tuberculosis of the bone. Tiny Tim, he's
thinking about this tale of these three

ghosts. That was the Christmas spirit of
whatever happened before.

The Christmas spirit of the future. The
Christmas spirit of now.

And he keeps writing, and he keeps
writing, and he keeps writing until his

gets tired, and he looks and he sees a
Christmas carol.

Charles Dickens writes a Christmas carol
in six weeks.

Right away? Gone.

Yeah. Wow.

Chuck Dickens, Charles, if you will.

I will. Went to his publisher, and the
publisher said, Chuck, you haven't had a

hit, baby, in years, man.

I'm not going to publish this.

So he leaves. He goes home, and he's
thinking, this is impossible, man. All

these guys are telling me the same
thing, that I stink on ice.

Bull! I'm going to self -publish.

Yeah, that's right. He has John Leach,
who was a very well -known illustrator,

do the illustrations.

I'm going to go ahead and bind this
stuff up. I can put it in multicolored

paper. I can give it a little kind of a
flash.

Give it a little, you know, a little
sell.

I print 6 ,000 copies.

Bang! Sells out. It was a hit. A
Christmas Carol is virtually

renowned. His fortunes take off again,
and he begins to perform A Christmas

Carol. Why, ladies and gentlemen, Mr.
Charles Dickens.

Hey.

Thank you, thank you.

Let me get my glasses.

All right, here we go.

A Christmas Carol.

You mind, anyone? All right, here we go.

One, two, and a one, two, three.

A Christmas Carol, one night... It's
all... Excuse my language.

And begin.

A Christmas Carol.

I'm Charles Dickens. Suddenly, the ghost
of Christmas present becomes the ghost

of Christmas past.

And Tiny Tim came bouncing down the
lane.

And he said, Father, I'm crippled. And
Bob Crescent said, No shit.

What else is new?

Are we still doing the show here?

Anyway, with the publishing of that
book, he reinvigorated the whole idea of

Christmas as a time of gift -giving and
a time of embrace, a time of warmth, a

time of sharing.

And by the way, Christmas Carol was
released on December the 19th, 1843.

174 years to the day tonight.

Cheers to Charles Dickens.

To you, man.

To you.

Let every heart rejoice and replace you,
and heaven and

nature sing, and heaven and nature sing,
and heaven and nature

sing. Nice.

It's a thing.

Hello, Zs. I'm Rich Fulcher, and today
we're going to talk about how Teddy

Roosevelt's children saved Christmas.

Pretty cool.

It was 1901.

Teddy Roosevelt was just elected the
president of the United States.

His motto was, speak softly and carry a
big dick.

Theodore Roosevelt is a huge
conservationist. You don't want to know.

Actually, I do.

Okay. Basically, in his lifetime, he had
five national parks, 18 national

monuments, 150 national forests. He
loved those trees so goddamn much.

And he thought, I don't want any tree
cut down. I don't want

Christmas trees in my White House.

So Theodore Teddy was a family man.

He had six kids, and he loved his kids.

Hi, I'm Archie.

Hey, I'm Quentin.

Hi, I'm Kermit. I'm Alice.

I'm Theodore Jr.

I'm Ethel. So he had all these kids, and
he was just brimming with, like, semen.

What was that?

A mouth fart.

It was a mouth fart?

Yeah. So, OK, so it's Christmas time.

Roosevelt would dress up as Santa for
Christmas and he would say, oh, sit on

lap and tell me what you want for
Christmas.

So Archie said to his dad,

Papa P, can I have a tree this year?

And dad says, no, I do not want a
Christmas tree here because it'll

ruin our forest.

This is the thing.

So the kids hatched a plan.

Archie said to Quentin, we need to cut
down a tree and show Daddy that

Christmas trees are the way to go for
everyone.

Let's go to the edge of the White House
lawn and chop the fucking Christmas

tree.

So, uh...

Sure enough, they cut down the tree and
they get the help of the White House

electrician, whatever that is.

Well, turn the lights on if they go off.

You're good at this.

So Archie asked the electrician. The
electrician said, sure, I can do it. I

put lights on the tree.

I'm a goddamn electrician. That's what I
do.

And so he put the lights in the tree and
then they put the tree in the

seamstress's closet.

The tree's in the closet and the
mother's a saga.

And they said, we're going to make Papa
believe in the trees.

The trees make you believe.

The trees make you sneeze below the
knees.

Cut to commercial.

What's your favorite Christmas song?

The Paul McCartney song.

I've been wanting to have a Christmas
time.

Right! What?

F*** me.

So, okay.

So, it's Christmas time.

It's exciting.

It's exciting!

They opened up the presents and
everybody was happy with the presents.

Then Archie and Quentin said, now's the
time to reveal the Christmas tree.

And they open the door, and there it is,
a Christmas tree with lights.

And sure enough, the president says, oh,
what a great surprise.

He appreciated the kid's ingenuity, but
he was also kind of like, hey, whoa,

this is kind of like not what I said to
do.

He decided to call his good friend and
fellow conservationist, Gifford Pinchot.

Theodore Roosevelt said, hey, come on
over and give my kids the what for about

this Christmas tree. So everyone gathers
round.

Gifford said, ha, ha, ha, ha, Pedro.

Actually.

If you chop down the biggest trees, it
leaves sunlight for the smaller ones to

grow, and there's less shit all over the
place.

Well, me.

So President Roosevelt decides to lift
the ban on Christmas

trees, and everyone is excited.

Daddy, so this means we can have
Christmas trees.

We're going to have Christmas trees
every year.

For eternity.

And from that point forward, he was a
changed man.

Thanks, in large part, to Archie and
Quentin, those two little f***abouts

chopped down the tree.

Oh, God, you little f***abouts.

Cheers, Rich. Merry Christmas.

We'd like to sing you a song.

See golden ring.

Holy night.

Sleep in heavenly peace.

Sleep in heavenly peace.

It's pretty good. Yep.

Good one. Double click.

Hippocampus.