All language subtitles for Historys.Greatest.Machines.with.Dolph.Lundgren.S01E03.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

[tense music]

- You may have heard the saying,

good things come
in small packages.

For machines, that's
not always true,

because some challenges
are so great,

only a huge machine
can tackle them.

Tonight, a supersized craft
meant to rule the oceans

during the Cold War.

- It really does look
like some sort of hybrid

between a plane, a battleship,

and some sort of sea creature,

- And the massive,
ancient war machine

engineered to take down cities.

- It's comparable in size
to a 13-story building.

It's the biggest siege machine

ever built during
the ancient period,

- Plus, weighing in at 188 tons,

Hitler's giant
World War II tank.

- The main shell is
going to be so powerful

that it can destroy an enemy
tank from two miles away.

- I'm Dolph Lundgren.

On screen, I'm all
about the action,

but off screen, I have
degrees in engineering.

I even studied at MIT.

I learned that machines

and the people behind them
can transform the world.

Join me as I explore the
gears, grit, and genius

behind History's
Greatest Machines.

[intense music]

Having a bigger machine
than your rivals

can give you a sizable edge.

Take this one, developed
by the Soviets.

It's still the biggest
airplane ever built.

But calling it a plane is like
calling Mount Everest a hill.

[tense music]

- The space race of the 1960s
and 1970s never really ends.

It just slides into the 1980s,

with the Soviets
and the Americans

each trying to
outdo one another.

- NASA's space
shuttle is America's

first reusable space vehicle.

The USSR responds in 1984
with the Buran spacecraft.

- [John] The Buran
needs to be transported

from its manufacturing
site to the launch site,

about 1,300 miles.

And by the way,
it weighs 62 tons.

- Airplanes have transported
spacecraft before.

In the US, we
modified Boeing 747s

to transport the space shuttles,

and the Soviets think, "Huh,
maybe we could do that."

- [Dolph] But the Soviets don't
have a plane big enough, yet.

- [Natalia] A
state-of-the-art manufacturer

called the Antonov Design
Bureau is based in Kyiv.

Its chief designer
is Viktor Tolmachev.

He's hard at work at
the An-124 Ruslan,

the biggest cargo
jet of its day.

It's designed to carry
tanks and locomotives.

So when Moscow says
that they need a plane

that can carry a space
shuttle on its back,

Tolmachev doesn't have
to start from scratch.

- [Dolph] Tolmachev's
team beefs up their design

so it's enough to carry
a 62-ton spaceship.

[intense music]

This is the result:

the record setting
Antonov An-225 Mriya,

Ukrainian for "The Dream."

- Most commercial
airliners have two engines.

There are six powerful turbo
fan engines on the Antonov,

and the wingspan is 300 feet.

That's longer than the entire
Wright Brothers' first flight.

- The landing gear for
something this massive

takes 32 wheels spread
across seven sections

to distribute the weight

so the aircraft doesn't crush
the runway underneath it

every single time it lands.

- It weighs more
than 628,000 pounds,

making it the heaviest
airplane ever built.

- [Dolph] Next
comes the big test.

- Engineers build
three massive pylons,

each equipped with
special adapters

to lock the shuttle into place.

- It flies nonstop

to the shuttle's launch
spot in Kazakhstan.

The An-225 does its job

and gets the Buran
where it needs to go.

- [Dolph] For the moment at
least, it's living the dream.

- The An-225 becomes
a big hit worldwide

when it goes over the
1989 Paris Air Show

with the Buran
attached on the back.

Even aviation experts
are going, "What?!"

- [Paul] The French press
nickname it Le Geant du Ciel,

"The Giant of the Sky."

- [Dolph] But there's
trouble on the way;

the operating costs
are also gigantic,

at a time when the Soviet
Union is crumbling.

- An-225 guzzles fuel
like no other airplane.

It has 18 tanks

that hold nearly 100,000
gallons of jet fuel.

That makes it the world's
most expensive plane to fuel.

[crowds cheering]

- [Dolph] Less than five months

after the monster
plane's public debut,

the Berlin Wall comes down.

[tense music]

Then, in December 1991,

the Soviet Union
itself collapses.

- Suddenly, the mighty
An-225 has no purpose.

It gets rolled into a
hangar outside Kyiv.

- [Natalia] So for years, The
Dream sits there gathering dust.

It's just too big for anyone
to do anything with it.

- [Dolph] In 1997,
it gets a lifeline.

The global economy's booming,

and suddenly, there's a
demand to move massive cargo,

like generators and
turbines around the world.

- When there's money to be
made and a machine to do it,

people get to work.

Engineers pull back
the hangar doors,

and they give the giant new
engines and updated avionics.

- [Dolph] When the An-225 rises
into the sky again in 2001,

flying Ukrainian colors, it's
not carrying a space shuttle.

- The Mriya is carrying
390,000-pound generators.

This thing is carrying
entire locomotives.

It's being chartered

for hundreds of tons
of humanitarian aid.

- [Natalia] It carries the
biggest single cargo load ever,

419,000 pounds.

That was a generator transported
to a German power plant.

- [Dolph] The plane
gets so much attention

that whenever it
arrives at an airport,

fans turn up to watch.

- The Perth Airport
actually sells tickets

to see this thing.

- [Dolph] Mission after mission,

The Dream thrives
in its new role

as super cargo delivery machine.

[tense music]

Until 2022, when
Russia invades Ukraine

and targets Kyiv.

- The airfield is one of
the Russians' first targets.

During the Battle of Antonov
Airport, the An-225 Mriya

is destroyed in its hangar,
burned to the ground.

The irony is that
this majestic, giant,

miracle marvel of a plane
was created by the Soviets

and destroyed by the Russians.

- A sad end for an
amazing machine.

But another Soviet giant
is just as impressive.

In 1967, a US spy satellite
passing over the Caspian Sea

sights something bigger
than a jumbo jet.

The object so alarming, CIA
analysts give it a nickname:

the Caspian Sea Monster.

[tense music]

- [Rutledge] When CIA analysts
get the images of this craft,

they immediately
order more pictures,

because they can't
figure out what it is.

Is this supposed to be a plane,

is this a warehouse,
is this a boat?

- The Americans have stumbled
upon a secret Soviet project

known as KM or "Ship Prototype."

This gargantuan machine is
built to test a radical idea.

- [Dolph] It's an idea that
belongs to a Soviet engineer

named Rostislav Alexeyev.

- Alexeyev is not an aircraft
designer by training.

He actually starts
out in ship building.

He designs hydrofoils, devices
that use wing-like struts

to lift ships out of the
water so they can go faster.

- His obsession is a phenomenon
called the ground effect.

When a wing flies very low
over a flat surface like water,

it squeezes the air beneath it,

and this provides a source of
lift, keeping the aircraft up.

- It's like when
you put your hand

outside the window of a car,

you feel that force in your
hand, you feel that lift.

- Ground effect lets
a huge, heavy craft

fly much faster and more
efficiently than a ship,

and it does so without
climbing into the sky

where it might be
trackable by radar.

- [Dolph] In the late
1960s, the Soviets see this

as a chance to solve one of
their biggest Cold War problems.

- US aircraft carriers
rule the seas,

and because they're
powered by nuclear power,

they can actually
stay out a lot longer,

and they're protected
by the F-4 Phantom jets,

which are insane at the time.

So the Soviet Navy knows
they need something

with a lot of firepower that
can get to these carriers fast.

- [Natalia] Alexeyev
solves the problem

with what sounds impossible:

a craft that will carry
missiles at jet speeds

close to targets, be
invisible to radar,

and is so fast that
it cannot be captured

by enemy ships or submarines.

[intense music]

- [Dolph] This is the
Lun-class ekranoplan.

Construction begins in the late
1970s in a secret shipyard.

- [Rutledge] The
Lun is colossal.

It's 250 feet long,

the wingspan is about the
size of a football field,

and a takeoff
weight of 400 tons.

- [Paul] Part of the reason
the Lun looks a little like

a spaceship is the
eight turbo fan engines

mounted all the way
forward towards the nose.

The reason they're
so far forward

is so that at low speeds,

the turbo fans can blast
air underneath the wings

into the ground cushion,
which helps create lift

to get the craft
above the water.

- [Rutledge] It really does
look like some sort of hybrid

between a plane, a battleship,

and some sort of sea creature.

- [Tony] So it's flying about
10 to 20 feet above the water

at about 300 miles per hour.

That's eight times faster
than an aircraft carrier,

and it's flying
beneath its radar.

- The reason it's so big is it
carries six cruise missiles,

which are all about
the size of a city bus,

that are each capable of
carrying a nuclear warhead.

This thing is armed.

- [Dolph] The Soviets now have
what they've always wanted:

an aircraft carrier killer.

[rocket roaring]

- Soviet planners are thrilled.

They're imagining
squadrons of Luns

coming out of the Black Sea,

going after real US
aircraft carriers

with a barrage of missiles
taking these things out,

all while flying undetected,

just above the
surface of the water.

- In the late 1980s,

the Soviet build a giant sea
skimming monster of a machine

called the Lun-class ekranoplan,
or the Lun for short.

It's specifically designed to
destroy US aircraft carriers,

and in 1987, it's ready
to show what it can do.

[intense music]

- [Paul] On the Caspian
Sea in the late 1980s,

the Lun-class is set to
test fire its weapons.

It skims just above the waves
at over 300 miles an hour.

Six hatches on its
back snap open,

and one by one, the
P-270 Moskit missiles,

each one capable of traveling
at twice the speed of sound,

are fired.

- The targets are
hulks and barges

that are actually held in place

to sort of simulate the
US aircraft carriers

that they'd be going after,

and the missiles just skim
right above the water.

- These are live missiles
with dummy warheads,

and they obliterate the target.

The Lun performs exactly
as it was supposed to.

- [Dolph] But before
it could wreak havoc,

it's defeated by the same
forces as the Antonov.

- [Natalia] The Soviet
military is underfunded,

and quirky projects like the
Lun become harder to justify.

Only one Lun ever
enters service.

- [Paul] For years,
the only flyable Lun

is mothballed at the
Kaspiysk naval base,

just gathering dust and
rust on the Caspian shore.

[tense music]

- [Dolph] In 2020, engineers
decide to tow it to a beach

where they're planning a
military museum complex.

- The move does not go smoothly.

When they try to beach
it at the planned site,

the craft's enormous
hull runs aground

short of its intended position.

- [Rutledge] The machine
is simply too big

and too awkward to reposition,

so there it stays, like
a beached sea monster.

- Sometimes a huge machine
is tough to handle.

The city of Seattle
learns that the hard way

when their major highway is
on the verge of collapsing.

For help, they turn to a monster

that can go deep underground.

[tense music]

- [Natalia] On
February 28th, 2001,

a 6.8 magnitude
earthquake shakes Seattle.

- We'll provide whatever
resources are necessary

to help the people.

- The Alaskan Way Viaduct,

the city's elevated,
double-deck freeway,

only shows minor damage.

But it's pretty clear that

if there's another earthquake
like this, it's toast.

- [Rutledge] This
viaduct transports

like 100,000 vehicles a day,

and it's what connects downtown
Seattle to its waterfront,

which is a huge
tourist attraction.

So it's not just about safety,

it's also about the financial
stability of this whole town.

- [Dolph] In 2009,
they find a solution,

and it's anything but ordinary.

- The city decides to
replace the viaduct

with a deep bore tunnel

that's hundreds of
feet below the surface

and two miles long.

It'll be able to
withstand earthquakes,

and reconnect Seattle with
the nearby Elliot Bay.

- To handle the volume
of commuter traffic,

it will have to carry
a double deck highway

inside of one single tube.

What this means is,

carving out a space of
57.5 feet in diameter.

It would be the widest
road tunnel in the world.

- The problem is, the largest
boring machines out there

top out at 47 feet, and
they need 57 feet plus.

- [Dolph] The only answer,

invent the world's
largest tunnel borer.

Made in Osaka, Japan,

it takes two years to build

and comes with a price tag
in line with its size.

- This machine costs
about $80 million,

and it's called Big Bertha,

named in honor of
Bertha Knight Landes,

who was the city's first female
mayor back in the 1920s.

- [Dolph] In 2013,
Bertha arrives in Seattle

in 41 separate and
enormous pieces.

- Crews reassemble her

at the launch pit in
the SODO district,

and it takes almost three months

to put her together.

[intense music]

- [Rutledge] Bertha's
numbers are jaw dropping.

She's 57.5 feet wide,

which is the equivalent of
putting a five story building

down on its side.

At 326 feet long,

she's almost as long
as a football field,

including the end zones.

This is 13 million
pounds of digging power.

- Just the cutter
head on the front

weighs four million pounds,

and then there's 260 teeth

that rotate and grind
through soil and rock.

- She's designed to
carve a 1.7 mile tunnel.

And as Big Bertha goes,

she's laying the concrete
at the same time.

So commuters are walking
around up on the surface,

the whole time having no idea

that there is a steel
monster from Japan

eating its way
underneath the city.

- [Dolph] Then, just
1,000 feet in, disaster.

In December 2013,
Bertha stops dead.

- Bertha's cutting blades
and main bearing seal

are both broken.

For two years, she sits
underneath Seattle

with no one knowing what to do.

- [Dolph] Finally, engineers
come up with a plan,

an underground rescue mission.

- They dig 120-foot repair
shaft just in front of Bertha,

where they then take
the whole nose cone off,

pull it out, repair
all the broken parts,

then they put it back in
and it goes back to work.

I mean, this is one of the
most complex repair missions

on any piece of equipment ever.

[tense music]

- [Dolph] On April 4th, 2017,

Bertha finally breaks
through to daylight.

- Bertha has bored out this
amazing 1.7 mile tunnel.

It's sleek, it's
earthquake resistant,

and replaces a
crumbling eye sore

with a state-of-the-art highway

that passes underneath the city.

- Bertha has since retired.

She was custom built
for this job in Seattle.

However, she inspired
plenty of other machines

that were built afterward

that have gone on
to tunnel in Italy,

Hong Kong, and Eastern Europe.

So at the end of the day,

it's literally a
groundbreaking machine.

- In early 1942, the
momentum of World War II

is shifting in Europe.

Hitler decides he wants a
wonder weapon to turn the tide,

and demands a tank designed
to crush the competition.

[intense music]

- [Natalia] On the Eastern
Front, the Red Army

is fielding powerful,
new, armored tanks,

like the KV-1 and
the T-34 tanks,

and there are rumors
of the Americans

preparing to arm
their British allies

with the new Sherman
tanks in Africa.

- Hitler hates the
fact that the enemy

has these great weapons,

because Germany is
responsible for the creation

of the V-2 rocket, which is
the first ballistic missile,

the Messerschmitt Me 262,
the first fighter jet.

They make railway cannons so big

that they can lob
shells the size of cars.

- [Martin] Swarms of T-34s had
harassed German fighting forces

during the battle of Moscow.

Hitler didn't like them,
and he's also aware

of the fact that the
Soviets are designing

tanks that are even
bigger than that.

He wants to get ahead of
that trend by designing

the biggest possible tank
that can be imagined.

- Hitler wants a
tank so invulnerable

that no shell can pierce it,

and so powerful that it
can destroy any enemy tank

before it gets close.

- [Dolph] Enter
Ferdinand Porsche,

the same Porsche who
designs sports cars

and the Volkswagen Beetle.

- Porsche pitches his
idea of this monster

called Mammut, or Mammoth,

which he named after the
12-foot tall wooly mammoth.

- Hitler realizes the irony

and decides he wants
to change the name.

Instead of calling
it the Mammoth,

he's gonna call it the Maus.

[intense music]

- [Martin] The Maus
is gargantuan.

It's 188 tons.

It weighs as much as
four Sherman tanks.

- Its armor is going
to be 10 inches thick.

Its turret is gonna
weigh 55 tons.

That's almost the same weight
as a full Sherman tank.

And its armament is going
to be a 128-millimeter gun,

the same anti-aircraft guns

that are being used to
bust bombers up in the sky.

- The plan is for the main
shell to be so powerful

that it can destroy an enemy
tank from two miles away.

- [Dolph] In late 1942,
Porsche and his engineers

build a full scale
mockup of the Maus.

- The mockup is made of wood,
but it is built to exact size,

complete with massive
turret and guns.

So, what it's meant to do

is it's meant to showcase
to Hitler and his generals

just how massive this
machine is gonna be.

- [Dolph] Hitler orders
construction to proceed.

By the end of 1943, the
first prototype, known as V1,

rolls out of the factory.

- The prototype doesn't
have a turret yet

because the engineering for the
turret is a major challenge.

Just with the chassis of the
vehicle, no turret, 120 tons.

It's already massive.

Then they get to the version two

that is equipped with
the actual turret

and the 128 millimeter gun,

so that they can now
test fire this vehicle.

- On the testing
grounds of Kummersdorf,

the tank looks like
a wonderful toy.

It's incredibly impressive.

The gun is smashing
into bunkers,

which have eight or
nine-foot-thick walls.

- [Dolph] As powerful as it is,

the tank's weight is
its own worst enemy.

It's slow.

- For context, a Sherman tank

goes 28 miles per hour.

The Soviet T-34 goes
32 miles an hour.

The Panzer, eight.

Eight miles per hour.

A bicycle is faster than that.

- [Dolph] The Maus is so heavy,
no bridge can support it.

So engineers come up with
an outrageous solution.

- It's not gonna bother
trying to take the bridges.

It's just gonna drive
straight into the river,

along the river bed,
and up the other side.

Part of this is because
it's been fitted

with a 40-foot snorkel.

But it can't do it alone.

There already has to be
another Maus on the other side,

running a wire down to
provide the electricity

for the engines to actually
pump as they go through.

- The tank is also too
heavy to transport by rail,

because it'll tear
up the train tracks,

and it's too big to conceal
from aircraft surveillance.

- You know what that
looks like to an enemy.

You might as well
paint a target on it,

because that's gonna be the
first thing they shoot at.

- This is a weapon that really
doesn't make a lot of sense

to anyone, except
for Adolf Hitler.

- [Dolph] At first, the
German's intend to build

200 of the steel giants,
an entire battalion.

Let's just say,
it doesn't happen.

- They build two, that's it.

And in 1945, as Soviet forces
are pushing into Germany,

both prototypes are captured.

- They take the parts of
the two surviving prototypes

and they mash them together.

It's almost like a
Frankenstein monster.

They bring this thing
temporarily to life

and take it to Moscow.

- Today, that lone Maus,
put together in one piece,

stands at the
Kubinka Tank Museum.

Spectators come
and look up at it

like they're observing some
kind of steel dinosaur.

- So as much as we like
to consider the Maus

as Hitler's folly,
the reality here is,

it marks a very natural
and predictable evolution

of size, scale, and firepower.

And if the Maus had
entered production,

it could very well
have changed the course

of World War II battles.

- Imagine standing on
the walls of your city

in the fourth century BCE.

Suddenly, a massive
tower appears,

is moving towards you,
it's loaded with weapons,

and it's 12 stories tall.

[tense music]

- [Don] It's 323 BCE.

Alexander the Great
is dead in Babylon.

No heir is ready
to take his place.

His empire, which stretches
from Greece to India,

falls apart almost instantly.

- Alexander's former
generals carve up the empire.

They create shaky
alliances that rarely last,

and one general, Demetrius I,
is getting very restless.

- [Dolph] That's
where Rhodes comes in.

- The island of
Rhodes is a jewel

of the Eastern Mediterranean.

It's tremendously rich,
it's strategically located,

and it's an ally of
Ptolemy of Egypt,

one of Demetrius's chief rivals.

- Rhodes' merchants
control grain routes,

maritime trade, naval bases.

If Demetrius can take
Rhodes, he controls the sea.

- [Dolph] But Rhodes
is not an easy target.

- It has a number
of foreign allies

that are prepared to
send troops and supplies.

It has a sizable navy.

And it also has,

as any well-fortified
city does in this era,

large, impressive walls.

- [Don] The city has tall watch
towers to keep an eye out,

these deep moats,

which slow down anyone
trying to get too close.

They have archers
positioned along the walls.

This is a tough place to take.

- Demetrius has a siege
tower called the Helepolis,

The Taker of Cities.

- [John] It's a wooden tower

that lets the attackers
have the high ground.

Its walls shield the soldiers
as they fire their weapons,

making it harder for the
defenders to land a hit.

- [Dolph] But to take Rhodes,

the Helepolis needs to
be bigger, much bigger.

Demetrius wants to
scale up this machine

so that its mere presence

will terrify Rhodes
into surrender.

- Demetrius tells Greek
engineer Epimachus to build

the largest siege tower
the world has ever seen.

- Epimachus takes
the original concept

of the Helepolis from
30 years earlier,

and he's gonna upgrade
its dimensions,

give it some more armor,

and add a bunch of the
latest and greatest weapons.

[intense music]

- [Dolph] When Epimachus
rolls out the new Helepolis,

it dwarves everything
else on the battlefield.

- [John] This thing is 130
feet tall and 65 feet wide.

It's the biggest siege
machine ever built

during the ancient period.

- It's mostly made of wood,

but one of the major
innovations is,

Epimachus covers the
wood with iron plates

to shield it from fire
and enemy attacks.

- The size of this thing
plus its iron plates

means it is heavy.

It weighs 320,000 pounds,

and it takes 3,400 men
to move it into its place

on its eight
15-foot-tall wheels.

- It's split into nine levels,

each packed with weapons.

At the bottom are
the battering rams,

as well as a pair
of huge catapults

that can hurl
180-pound projectiles.

From there, you get
a 60-pound catapult,

and then three more
of the same size

on the floor above that.

The rest of the floors
each have smaller catapults

that can fire 30-pound shots,

and openings for troops

to fire arrows and
bolts at the enemy.

- [Dolph] The only way
to put it to the test

is by taking it to
the battlefield.

- This depiction
of the Helepolis

moving toward the city walls,

it's the moment of truth.

- [John] The new and
improved Helepolis

subjects them to a nonstop
barrage from its catapults.

The goal is to breach a wall,

but it needs to get
a little closer.

- Of course, the
defenders of Rhodes

see the Helepolis as
their greatest threat.

They concentrate all of their
defensive strength against it.

- [Dolph] As the machine grinds
closer to the city walls,

the Rhodians unleashes
surprising tactic

that could stop
it in its tracks.

- [John] You know what an island
city under siege has a lot of?

Seawater, mud, and raw sewage,

so that's what they
pour on the ground

outside of their walls,

and it turns the area into
a muddy, disgusting mess.

- [Dolph] The tower,

thought to be an
indestructible super weapon,

grinds to a halt.

- It's bogged down in, let's
be polite and call it mud.

Demetrius is left
with no choice.

It's too heavy to move forward,
too heavy to move backwards.

It pains him, but he
has to leave it behind.

Demetrius and his army retreat.

- [Dolph] 10 years
after the siege ends,

Rhodians repurpose
fragments of the battle

into something truly
larger than life.

- They melt down the
weapons left behind,

including the
Helepolis's iron plates.

They sell the rest
of the equipment,

and with the money
and the melted metal,

they build a monument
to their victory,

the 107-foot-tall statue
called the Colossus of Rhodes,

one of the seven wonders
of the ancient world.

- So in a twist of history,

the greatest siege
engine ever built,

the machine designed
to destroy Rhodes,

actually bankrolls its
most famous monument.

- A dam may not
seem like a machine,

but it's actually an intricate
system of moving parts

that not only controls flooding,

but generates electric power.

And in the early 20th
century, designers in the US

set out to build the
world's biggest one.

[tense music]

- In the 1920s, the Colorado
River is 1,400 miles

of violence and
unpredictability.

Flooding from
springtime snow melts

will routinely wash away
things like farms, bridges,

railway tracks, and
parts of small towns.

- If the Colorado can be tamed,

this means providing
stable drinking water

to a lot of smaller cities

that could really grow
into something big.

The city of Los
Angeles, Phoenix,

this sleepy little town
known as Las Vegas.

- [Dolph] And it's
not just about water.

The river's force can be
used to generate electricity.

- [Natalia] Electricity is
more than just convenience.

It's the driver that builds
cities, powers agriculture,

and can transform
the entire Southwest.

But in order to do
that, you need to build

the biggest hydroelectric
plant in the world.

- [Dolph] But a
hydroelectric dam

has never been pulled
off at this scale.

- John L. Savage is the
chief designing engineer

for the US Bureau
of Reclamation.

He's studied the
Colorado River closely,

and he knows there's a
place called Black Canyon.

It has tall, narrow
walls made of solid rock,

and he believes it's the ideal
site to build a dam this big,

but it requires getting
really creative.

[intense music]

- [Dolph] Engineers choose
a gravity dam design,

meaning the wall will be as
big and heavy as possible

to provide strength.

But size alone won't be enough.

- The real innovation
will be the curve.

The wall of the dam
marches upstream,

which means the
water won't just slam

directly into the
wall of the dam.

Instead, the force
is carried sideways

so the water actually
hits the canyon walls,

making the dam one of the
strongest to ever be built.

[tense music]

- [Dolph] Congress approves
funds for the project in 1928.

- A side effect of
the Great Depression

is that there is no shortage
whatsoever of willing labor.

Ultimately, over 20,000 men

are going to work
on this project.

- [Dolph] Three years
later, construction begins,

despite the economic turmoil
caused by the Great Depression.

- They have to create four
massive diversion tunnels

to redirect the water
of the Colorado River

away from the dam
construction site.

- [Greg] Each tunnel needs
to be about 4,000 feet long,

four tunnels total, with
the diameter being 56 feet.

That's a lot of
rock to dig through.

- [Dolph] Phase
one of the build,

dry out the Black
Canyon riverbed.

What comes next is some
of the most dangerous work

of the entire project.

- The canyon walls
need to be smoothed out

so that the concrete will
properly bond with the rock.

- [Sami] Whatever you
might think of your job,

be grateful that
you have that job,

and that you're
not a high scaler.

High scalers are the guys

that are lowered into
the canyons on rope,

and in some cases,
these guys are dangling

about six, sometimes 700
feet above the canyon floor.

- [Greg] Jackhammers,
drills, dynamite;

these are the tools
of these brave men

dangling off of ropes
as they clear off

and smooth out the canyon walls.

- A jackhammer at the time
weighs about 44 pounds,

and you're holding this tool
up against the canyon wall,

and the only thing that's
keeping you from falling

off the equivalent of
a 60-story building

is a rope around your waist.

- [Dolph] By 1933, the
canyon walls are smooth

and they're ready for the
dam wall to be poured.

That requires more than
three and a quarter million

cubic yards of concrete,

- 3.25 million cubic
yards of concrete,

you could pave a
two-lane highway

from San Francisco to New York.

- [Hakeem] They can't pour
it in one giant slab.

They have to build
it in sections,

kind of like Lego blocks.

- This wall rises
into the desert sky

726 feet tall,

which is bigger than
a 60-story skyscraper.

It's 660 feet wide at its base,

bigger than two football fields.

- [Dolph] By 1935,

crews turn to the next phase
of the project, electricity.

They install giant turbines

that will spin with
the river water.

- [Natalia] They're the
largest turbines ever built.

Each one is nearly
19 feet across,

weighs dozens of tons, and is
as tall as a two-story house.

- [Dolph] Above each turbine
is an even bigger generator

that converts that raw
energy into electricity.

Then the big moment
comes, to turn it all on.

[intense music]
[water rushing]

- They seal off the
diversion tunnels

and that stops the flow,

re-diverting the Colorado River

back along its original
path toward the dam.

- [Sami] They have the
pressure to generate power.

And on October 26th, 1936,

generator number one,

which is the Nevada wing of
the powerhouse, goes online.

It transmits electricity
to Los Angeles.

- Once all the turbines kick
on, this hydroelectric dam

is more powerful than
anything else on Earth.

- [Natalia] The Hoover
Dam turns Las Vegas

into the city of lights.

It literally powers the growth
of Los Angeles and Phoenix.

It reshapes the
American Southwest.

- Most giant machines are
invented to do big jobs

and solve big problems,

but some are made just
have a little fun,

like the new kind of truck

built by an off
roader in the 1980s

that ended up igniting
a monster craze.

[intense music]

- On 21st, 1981,
contractor Bob Chandler

and a couple of his friends
take a pair of junk cars

out to a field
outside of St. Louis.

- Bob is curious
what would happen

if he got into his insanely
large custom Ford pickup truck

and decided to drive
over some cars.

- This is an entirely
out-there idea.

No one's done this before.

- [Rutledge] As you
watch, you're seeing

all of the hallmarks

of this trend that you know
to be about monster trucks;

this massive thing
driving over cars,

crushing 'em like beer cans.

- [Dolph] Bob has no idea
how much of an impact

this video will have
on American culture.

But rewind six years earlier,
when Bob buys a truck.

[tense music]

- [Natalia] In 1975, Bob heads
to a dealership in St. Louis

and buys a brand new
Ford F250 XLT 4x4.

- [Rutledge] Bob's a regular
guy, a construction contractor.

He's the kinda guy that
likes the challenge,

likes to do it himself.

If he sees somebody goes,
"Ah, it's not gonna work,"

he thinks, "I can make it work."

- [Dolph] Bob decides
he's going to make a truck

like no one's ever seen.

- But he's frustrated
by the lack of access

to parts in St. Louis,

so he decides not just
to build up his truck,

but to build a business.

So he teams up with his neighbor

to launch Midwest
Four Wheel Drive.

- [Greg] Bob keeps
building and rebuilding,

making a bigger and stronger
version of his custom F250.

[intense music]

- [Dolph] What Bob creates
is the first monster truck,

a machine bigger,
stronger, and tougher

than anything on
or off the road.

- Bob drops a massive
460-cubic-inch V8

under the hood of this F250,

but then he realizes,

these tires aren't gonna
do anything with that.

It's way too much power.

That's twice the
power the truck had.

So what's he do?

He puts on some
48-inch tractor tires,

three times the size of the
original wheels and tires.

- Bob rips out the
undercarriage from his truck

and replaces that

with a 2.5-ton undercarriage

from an army vehicle.

He now has a nine foot tall
Frankenstein of a truck.

- One of the
employees at the shop

jokes that Bob has a big
foot on the accelerator.

The name sticks,

and eventually becomes the
nickname for Bob's giant truck.

- [Dolph] Bigfoot becomes how
Chandler markets his business.

He enters it in tractor
pulls across the Midwest.

The truck is a novelty at best.

But then Bob comes up with that
stunt that changed the game,

the car crush test.

- The car crush video that
Bob and his boys shot,

it's shown on a
loop in his shop,

and customers just
can't get enough of it.

- [Rutledge] But
people start talking,

and pretty soon, promoters
are approaching Bob,

asking for him to
come to their events

to do that in front of a crowd.

Suddenly, this looks a lot
like a great business idea.

- [Dolph] And with
every appearance,

the word grows and grows,

until the performance that
puts Bigfoot over the top.

[tense music]

In 1983, Bigfoot rolls into
the Pontiac Silver Dome.

- [Austin] 72,000
fans jam the seats.

That is an NFL-sized crowd

eager to see Bigfoot perform.

And when Bob mashes
the throttle,

the result is mindboggling.

This sort of backyard stunt has
become a cultural phenomenon.

- [Dolph] The
monster truck craze

launches Bob and his new
sport to international fame.

And Bigfoot, it
keeps getting bigger.

[intense music]

- [Rutledge] In 1986,
he builds Bigfoot 5,

which is 15.5 feet tall.

- The truck's 10 foot tires
are the real monsters.

They come off a 1950s
US Army overland train.

It's a vehicle designed to
traverse arctic terrains.

They each weigh 2,400 pounds.

That's like a single compact
car at all four corners.

- Fans swarm it
everywhere it goes.

Reporters are talking about it

like it's this mechanical
freak of nature.

- [Greg] It's as
tall as a giraffe.

Bob needs a ladder to
get into his truck.

This thing is so gigantic,

the state registers
it as a mobile home.

- [Dolph] Bigfoot
is so different,

it literally rewrites
the record books.

- [Austin] Guinness World
Records comes calling,

but they don't have a category

for world's tallest,
heaviest pickup truck;

they have to invent one.

The 28,000-pound Bigfoot 5

creates a new world record

simply by existing.

- [Dolph] From TV shows, video
games, clothes, and toys,

the industry spins off
into a merchandising empire

worth hundreds of
millions of dollars.

- Bob is an icon.

He's not just a person
that invented a sport,

he's a person that
started a phenomenon.

It's one guy that
started with a dream,

and now, it draws
millions of fans.

- From monster trucks
to ancient siege towers,

from colossal dams to
sky-shaking aircraft,

the world's largest
machines are built

to achieve things
smaller ones can't.

Sometimes size does matter.

[intense music]