"Five Minutes of Fire": China's Under Martial Law, Rock and Roller Cola Wars

<v Speaker 1>I'm Jason Colvin, I'm d Graves.
<v Speaker 2>Give us five minutes and we will give you the fire.
<v Speaker 1>Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Surely You Can't
<v Speaker 1>Be Serious Podcast Special Edition five Minutes of Fire. We
<v Speaker 1>are here talking about the lyrics of We Didn't Start
<v Speaker 1>the Fire by Billy Joel. We're covering only five minutes
<v Speaker 1>at a time, which is about to link with the song,
<v Speaker 1>so it works out kind of nicely. So please join
<v Speaker 1>us as we dive into some new lyrics today.
<v Speaker 2>All right, guys, So here are the topics that we're
<v Speaker 2>going to be covering today, all right, d In this
<v Speaker 2>final episode, we talk about China's under martial.
<v Speaker 1>Law and rock and Roller Cola Wars War. All right, Jason,
<v Speaker 1>tell me about China being under marshal law.
<v Speaker 2>The Tieneman Square protests, known in China as the June
<v Speaker 2>fourth incident, where student led demonstrations hell in Tienaman Square, Beijing, China,
<v Speaker 2>lasting from April to June of nineteen eighty nine. That
<v Speaker 2>the protests were preceded by the death of General Secretary
<v Speaker 2>Hugh Yao Bang. He was a pro reformed guy and
<v Speaker 2>a very very popular leader in China, starting in April fifteenth,
<v Speaker 2>many mourners spilled into tanem And Square to mourn the
<v Speaker 2>death of this leader. Soon these mourners became protesters. Grievances
<v Speaker 2>at the time included inflation, corruption, overall oppression. The protesters
<v Speaker 2>wanted more accountability, democracy, freedom of speech, due process, and
<v Speaker 2>freedom of the press. The government was not impressed. On
<v Speaker 2>April twenty second, the funeral takes place, which in turn
<v Speaker 2>leads to many protests. Three students actually kneel in front
<v Speaker 2>demanding to speak with the Premiere of China. The state
<v Speaker 2>led newspaper at the time writes and editorial condemning the protests.
<v Speaker 1>Because of this, the people.
<v Speaker 2>Really get mad now. Students begin a hunger strike. On
<v Speaker 2>May twentieth, the Chinese government declares martial law. On June third,
<v Speaker 2>the government begins to warn protesters to leave for their safety.
<v Speaker 2>What the protesters don't realize is that soldiers are waiting
<v Speaker 2>just a few blocks away. On June fourth, soldiers move
<v Speaker 2>in and begin shooting unarmed people, and in one of
<v Speaker 2>the most iconic moments of the nineteen eighties, on June fifth,
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty nine, one man takes on a column of
<v Speaker 2>Chinese tanks all right, D tell us about Roca.
<v Speaker 1>Roller Color Wars last one. Man, I know who We're
<v Speaker 1>going to jump back to eighty six, No, not nineteen
<v Speaker 1>eighty six. Eighteen eighty six? Whoa That is when John
<v Speaker 1>Smith Pemberton, a pharmacist from Atlanta, Georgia, who has his
<v Speaker 1>own stomach troubles after a lot of failed attempts, develops
<v Speaker 1>the original recipe for Coca Cola. By nineteen eighty eight,
<v Speaker 1>a bit of a con man named Asha Griggs Chandler
<v Speaker 1>buys the recipe he had partnered up with Pemberton, and
<v Speaker 1>then when Pemberton dies, he offered to buy the recipe
<v Speaker 1>from the son and wife at the funeral. He founds
<v Speaker 1>in eighteen ninety six the Coca Cola Company. Two years later,
<v Speaker 1>eighteen ninety eight, Caleb Bradham renames his Brad's Drink in
<v Speaker 1>to Pepsi Cola and forms the Pepsi Cola Company. In
<v Speaker 1>nineteen oh two, this begins the Cola Wars Wow Now.
<v Speaker 1>The two companies continued to introduce new products and new
<v Speaker 1>advertising techniques, including Coke's first celebrity endorsement and nineteen fifteen
<v Speaker 1>Contour bottle, until instability following World War one forced Pepsi
<v Speaker 1>to declare bankruptcy in nineteen twenty three. Pepsi declares bankruptcy
<v Speaker 1>again in nineteen thirty one, but recovers, begins selling its
<v Speaker 1>products for an affordable five cents per bottle, and reignites
<v Speaker 1>the Cola Wars through today. In nineteen seventy five, Pepsid
<v Speaker 1>develops a new advertising campaign called the Pepsi Challenge, where
<v Speaker 1>it pairs Pepsi against Coke in a blind taste test
<v Speaker 1>of random participants. It's so effective that during the peak
<v Speaker 1>of the Cola Wars, Coca Cola saw its flagship product
<v Speaker 1>losing market share to Pepsi, and it changed the formula,
<v Speaker 1>bringing in new Coke, regarded by much of the business
<v Speaker 1>industry as the worst marketing decision of all time, but
<v Speaker 1>the Cola Wars continue. Coke reintroduces classic Coke and a
<v Speaker 1>new facet in the Cola Wars is In the late eighties,
<v Speaker 1>Pepsi and Coke each begin hiring musicians rock and Rollers
<v Speaker 1>if you Will to promote their product. Coke hires Paul Abduel,
<v Speaker 1>Pepsi hires Michael Jackson. There is an incredibly famous and
<v Speaker 1>unfortunate fire that occurs during the filming of one of
<v Speaker 1>those commercials, leading to Michael Jackson's hair catching on fire.
<v Speaker 1>They continue to try to outdo each other by getting
<v Speaker 1>more and more musicians and celebrities to promote their product,
<v Speaker 1>and guess what, they're both still around. There you go,
<v Speaker 1>Although New Coke is dead and it's not in other
<v Speaker 1>countries just in the US.
<v Speaker 2>Wow, all right, d that's going to wrap up our
<v Speaker 2>series on We Didn't Start the Fire.
<v Speaker 1>Guys, we hope you enjoyed this. If you haven't heard
<v Speaker 1>the episodes, be sure and go back and check them
<v Speaker 1>all out. We loved doing this. This was a fun
<v Speaker 1>walk through forty years of US history and something different
<v Speaker 1>for us to do. We hope you will join us
<v Speaker 1>for our next season, where we're going to be starting
<v Speaker 1>off with a big Top five songs of nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 1>four and then rolling into all kinds of fun movies
<v Speaker 1>and music. For our new season.
<v Speaker 2>Go subscribe to the Shirley Can't Be Serious podcast wherever
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<v Speaker 1>Guys, remember that we do hours of research for just
<v Speaker 1>five minutes of products, So if you want to help
<v Speaker 1>us out financially, go over to Patreon dot com. Backslash
<v Speaker 1>Shirley Podcast and you can help us out for as
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<v Speaker 1>we cover one hit wonders of the eighties and nineties
<v Speaker 1>and beyond. Thanks guys, Thanks guys.