Mini-Stories: Volume 22

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0:41Edward Jones, member SIPC. This is 99 % Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. Happy 2026, beautiful nerds. We are back and ready to kick off this new year with a fresh batch of mini stories. Usually, this is the place where I tease what's coming up on the episode. But in my attempt to wrest control over minis and get them back to their fundamentals, once again, we are continuing with this new, hopefully improved process that I mentioned in the previous minis episode. We have three producers. They're gathered here in a Zoom to tell me stories that I have not heard before. I am, again, unprepared. So let's get started.

1:18First up is producer Jacob Medina-Gleason. Happy New Year, Jacob. Thanks, Roman. Happy New Year to you, too. So I want to start 2026 off by talking about sports. OK. I'm not the biggest sports fan. I'm a women's basketball fan, and that's pretty much it. But the Olympics are a few weeks away, and I have an Olympics-ish mini for you. I love an Olympics-ish mini, so hit me. OK, so this is a story about a controversial swimsuit. It's called the Laser Racer. This is a racing suit that Speedo launched back in 2008. And the thing that made the Laser Racer so controversial is that Speedo really took advantage of the fact that World Aquatics was pretty lenient on what could be considered fabric.

1:59Okay, what do you mean by that? So the suit was made of like your pretty typical swimsuit material. But in some areas, like the abs and the lower back, the Laser Racer added a thin layer of polyurethane. And the addition of this rubbery material helped swimmers create less drag as they moved through the water. Well, interesting. So I'm no physicist, but drag slows you down. And so if you want to get faster, you want less of it. Absolutely. Yeah. It's why swimmers wear swim caps and why they're always freshly shaved. Right. So any swimmer with a laser racer suit kind of immediately has this advantage in the pool.

2:37So what did World Aquatics do about it? Because I imagine they want this stuff to be fair. Right. And that's the thing is that at first they didn't do anything. It was the IOC, the International Olympic Committee, that had to step in and issue a ruling because the 2008 Summer Olympics were coming up. And as it stood, only swimmers with a sponsorship from Speedo were going to be able to wear the suit. So if you're wearing Mizunos or whatever, you're immediately at a disadvantage. Yeah, because this thing had a lot of hype even before the Olympics. So the IOC ruled that the suit would only be allowed if it was made available to all competitors.

3:12So that's what happened. The suit was made available to everybody regardless of sponsorship. And the 2008 Olympics came and records were made at an unbelievable rate. Yeah. So this was the year that Michael Phelps won like eight gold medals. Yeah. And he did it in the Speedo Laser Racer. And he wasn't the only one breaking records. At the 2008 Olympics, there were 25 world records broken. And of the swimmers who medaled, more than 90 % of them were wearing this suit. I mean, I remember that being a very exciting year for swimming, but did people suspect that the suit was causing too much of an advantage?

3:46Like, was the suit banned after that? It started to raise some flags for sure. But what happened next is that other companies caught on to the idea that like, hey, adding polyurethane to these suits, it kind of works. So they decided, OK, we're going to take it up a notch. And they said, we're going to do it to the whole damn thing. So I've got this picture for you of this so-called rubberized swimsuit. And you let me know if you'd wear that, Roman. I mean, I probably could because it's like compression. So like it would like suck in your gut. Like it looks like they've poured this man into this suit.

4:16Yeah. I don't know how you get into something like this. Like really, really suck it in and pray. But anyways, a lot of companies caught on to this and they did their full body version of the suit. And during the 2009 World Aquatic Championships, another 43 records were broken. And in 2009 alone, 147 records were broken. Well, that's too many records at this point. That's a problem. Yeah, that's when World Aquatics finally decided that enough is enough and they ultimately banned the suit. But just to play devil's advocate here, which is a term I only learned the origin of when I talked to Jason for his many stories this year.

4:56You know, these suits, you know, if they become ubiquitous, wouldn't that just sort of even the playing field again? Like, you know, if everyone's wearing them, then the sort of differential advantage is gone. 100 percent. And there are people in the world of swimming who feel that way, that this ban was too strict. It was maybe a bit of an overcorrection. But I think there was something about all those records falling so quickly that really freaked people out. It was like progress is good, but like too much of it is really jarring. Yeah, I get that. I get that. And I have another tiny story here for you, Roman, about another controversial sports item.

5:29And this one will be more relevant when the Winter Olympics start in a few weeks. So let's talk about curling. I always want to talk about curling. Let's talk about curling. Yeah, so I'll start out by saying up front that I'm no curling expert. So if you are, please bear with me. But from my understanding, the brooms are used to sweep away debris and clear the path for the stone. And often you'd have two sweepers working to get the stone to where it needs to go. But in 2015, new broom heads completely changed the way that the game was being played. It all centers around high-tech fabrics used in curling brooms.

6:06It's believed certain broom heads manipulate the rock's path, speed, and even change or stop its direction. These could be performance-enhancing brooms. Yes, that's very possible. Performance-enhancing brooms. I love it. So these new heads, they kind of worked like microscopic sandpaper. And so the sweeper was able to more effectively control where the stone was going. And as a result, they didn't really need two sweepers like there had been before. And there was some outrage in the curling world, which led to the so-called sweeping summit in 2016, where they decided that this new broom head was not going to fly.

6:45I love the idea of sweeping summit. That's incredible. Love it. And actually, Roman, in these Olympics 2026, we almost had another broom controversy. But thankfully, earlier this year, the curling world got out ahead of this one and banned a new set of brush heads. So the Olympics should be an equal playing ground with no huge equipment advantage from one team over another. Thankfully, because I really like to watch curling just pure. Absolutely. A curling purist. Exactly. Thank you, Jacob. This is fascinating stuff. I appreciate it. Thanks, Roman.

7:23Okay, next up on our Zoom is producer Joe Rosenberg. Joe, what do you have for me? So, Roman, you'll recall that I did a story about the Titanic last year. The ship, not the movie. And this mini story is kind of a fun offshoot of that. Okay, so this is like the Titanic coda that never was. Yeah, although to be clear, no one needs to go back and listen to the Titanic episode to follow this story. But they should because it's a really good episode. It's a fun one. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, hey, definitely. It's the Titanic. Everyone loves the Titanic. And just a quick side note that I actually have like 10 Titanic stories.

7:59Because I found that if a story even just contains the word Titanic, suddenly, magically, everyone is like, fascinating, you know, like the pets of the Titanic. but really I wanted to tell this particular side story because the Titanic episode never really had like characters we follow on a journey. It was very technical. So today I wanted to correct for that by telling the tale of a single remarkable person named Violet Constance Jessup. And Violet Jessup's biography has the two things you want in a good story which is a great fact pattern and it culminates in an incredible climactic action set piece.

8:40Okay. Because her life is like, it's like Groundhog Day meets Titanic. Well, that sounds very ominous because I know what happens on the Titanic. So please continue. Yeah, it is. It's crazy. And yes, scary things will be happening momentarily. So set the stage for me here. Who is Violet Constance Jessup other than a woman with an incredible name? So Violet Jessup is born in 1887 in Argentina to Irish immigrant sheep farmers. She is the oldest of six children. And as a young woman, she dreams of becoming a nurse. But then before she can chase that dream, her father dies and her mother gets sick, meaning very early on, Violet has to become the family breadwinner.

9:24And so despite a lifelong fear of drowning and the fact that she has never learned to swim. And this fact won't come into play later at all. Okay, go ahead. Not at all. Not one bit, Roman. Violet signs up to work as a stewardess on passenger ships. Okay. And she eventually ends up working as a stewardess specifically for the White Star Line shipping company. And sure enough, in 1911, Violet is assigned to be a stewardess on the maiden voyage of the White Star Line's newest ocean liner. The largest ship in the world, designed by famous ship designer Thomas Andrews, sailing under the command of Captain Edward Smith and described in the press as practically unsinkable.

10:06The RMS Olympic. Oh, not the Titanic. Titanic hadn't been built yet, you know, or it was being built. And, you know, in reality, in this period in the 1900s, these shipping companies are coming out with larger and larger ships like every five seconds. And so at this moment in 1911, the quote unquote largest ship ever built is the Olympic. And tell me if this sounds familiar, because on one fateful trip in September of 1911, on a transatlantic voyage from Southampton to New York, a giant crash and shudder runs through the length of the ship. Because the Olympic's steel plated hull had been severely punctured on its starboard side below the waterline.

10:48I mean, that sounds very rare. Yeah. And what had happened was that the Olympic had actually collided with another ship, a British naval cruiser. And the damage to the Olympic was actually very serious. But thankfully, only two of her watertight compartments flooded. The rest stay dry. And the Olympic stays afloat. And very luckily, no one is killed. And so what did Violet Jussop make of this near-death experience or whatever it was? Right. Yeah. We don't know her thoughts at this early stage of the story. But it's probably something like, man, to think I was a stewardess during a gigantic collision on a transatlantic voyage of the largest ship in the world.

11:27What a once in a lifetime experience. But then I think you see where this is going. Fast forward seven months to April of 1912 when Violet is again picked to be on the maiden voyage of the White Star Line's newest ship, the largest ship in the world, designed by famous ship designer Thomas Andrews, sailing under the command of Captain Edward Smith and described in the press as practically unsinkable, the new sister ship of the Olympic, the RMS Titanic. Wow. And the Titanic is actually basically identical to the Olympic, just a tiny bit bigger. And on the Titanic's inaugural transatlantic voyage from Southampton to New York, as Violet is in her cabin getting ready for bed and has finished reciting a prayer to protect the ship, from fire and water.

12:19A giant crash and shutter runs through the entire length of the ship because its steel-plated hull had been severely punctured on its starboard side just below the waterline. Only this time it's an iceberg. At least there's a little bit of difference there. But I am seeing a familiar pattern playing out. Yeah. And ironically, one of the reasons so many people on the Titanic thought she was going to be fine and delayed getting onto lifeboats was because the Olympic hadn't sunk, right? Right. And so they thought the Titanic wouldn't sink either. That makes sense. I mean, like the Olympic had survived this collision and and with a gash along the starboard side.

12:54So, you know, you could get an iceberg be any worse. Right. Exactly. It sounds less bad, if anything. Right. Yeah. But of course, the Titanic does, in fact, sink. And this time, a bunch of White Star officers and officials who had been on the Olympic in that first crash are also on the Titanic. And this time they do not survive. They all go down with the ship. But I hope Violet Jessup survives, right? She does. She does. She actually initially stays in her cabin, but a steward comes down and convinces her the ship is really sinking. And Violet gets out of there. She gets on a lifeboat. And so by the skin of her teeth, Violet Jessup lives.

13:33At which point she is like, to think I survived the collisions of the Olympic and the Titanic. Sister ships. Sister ships. Surely life cannot get any crazier than this. But then in 1914. Oh, you were kidding me, Joe. I'm not kidding you. World War I breaks out and Violet fulfills her lifelong dream to train as a nurse with the Red Cross, which is the good news. The bad news is that she gets assigned as a medical stewardess on a white star line passenger liner, which has been converted for the war effort into the newest, largest hospital ship in the world. And the name of that ship is the HMHS Britannic, which is none other than the third and final sister ship of the Olympic and the Titanic.

14:25This is crazy. I promised you Groundhog Day meets Titanic, and I deliver Groundhog Day meets Titanic. Oh, my goodness. And once again, basically the exact same ship, just a little bigger, but like really the same. And this time, Britannic is declared to be even safer than the Titanic because after the Titanic sank, they gave the Britannic a full double-layered haul. But of course, there's just one problem. Do you want to guess what that is? Well, Violet Jessup is on board for one thing. Violet Jessup is on board. Violet Jessup has entered the chat, which is how it comes to pass. And I hate to say it.

15:04One morning in November of 1916, on a voyage from Southampton to Greece, a giant crash and shudder runs through the length of the ship because its steel plated hull had been severely punctured on its starboard side below the waterline. OK, well, here we go. So what was it this time that they crashed into or whatever? Well, this time they crashed into nothing this time. Well, or they did in a sense because the Britannic had struck a mine, a German mine. And Roman, I promised you a big climactic action set piece. And here it is. Because we actually have some tape of an interview Violet herself gave many years later describing what happened.

15:43I was upstairs in the pantry getting this nurse at breakfast. and all the staff, medical staff, dozens of doctors, you see, and nurses, they were all in the saloon at breakfast. Right. When suddenly, crash. Right. Well, no sooner did that crash happen that everybody stood up from their table and disappeared. And it was so different to the Titanic where there didn't seem to be any panicky movement, you know. So famously on the Titanic, everyone had been, you know, kind of very unbothered by the crashing sensation and didn't believe anything was wrong. But this time around, of course, everyone knows what happened to the Titanic.

16:30And but they're also like, you know, trained personnel on a medical ship in the middle of the war. And so Violet just races back to the cabin where she'd been helping this very sick nurse. and she helps get both herself and this alien nurse into their coats and then into their life jackets and they rush toward the lifeboats. But not before Violet goes to grab one highly critical item. After the Titanic, I used to, you know, moan that on the Carpathia, the Big the South, I couldn't buy a toothbrush and I couldn't live without cleaning my teeth, you see. And I must tell you this little joke about the family.

17:08why the next time you go on a boat, for God's sake, if it's going to sink, put your toothbrush in your pocket. So while the ship is beginning to tilt and Violet is helping get this sick crewmate to the deck, she's like, wait one second, I just have to grab my toothbrush. That is an amazing detail. I love it. I love it so much. For me, it's the high point of this whole story. And at this point, although everyone is rushing to the lifeboats, No one on the Britannic is sure yet whether the ship will ultimately sink or not, including Violet, because the ship's only tilting forward a little. But, and this is just a brutal piece of bad luck, during the voyage, the patients in the ship's hospital ward had complained about stifling heat.

17:56So against standing orders, the portholes on the side of the ship had been left open. And so after the explosion, even though only four compartments are flooded, Britannic tilts forward just enough that more water from the ocean begins flowing through the open portholes and into the rest of the ship. I mean, her bad luck truly cannot be stopped at this point. No, it's brutal. So while Violet is grabbing her toothbrush, the ship is beginning to sink faster and faster. But eventually she gets herself and her charge onto the deck and into the lifeboats. And almost everyone is now in the boats at this point.

18:37And they're still on the deck waiting for the orders to lower. But as the ship's angle gets worse, the officers in charge of two of the lifeboats panic and decide to lower their lifeboats just as soon as they're full, right away before any order is given. And one of those boats that lowers too early contains Violet Jessen.

19:09And so Violet, perplexed, looks around to see what it was that everyone else was looking at that made them jump out of the boat. And what's happening is that the ship's gigantic bronze propellers are half out of the water and they are still going at full steam. and they are sucking the two lifeboats towards them and they are just chopping the lifeboats and everything in their path into bits. So Violet is like, oh, s***. When I was left alone, you see, and I decided, which would it be better to be, cut to pieces or drown? I mean, I had to make the decision. So Violet has this choice, you know, get cut to pieces or drown.

19:51And so Violet says, you know what? I'll take my chances with drowning. and she jumps over the side. But I would assume that's okay, you know, that she doesn't swim because like she must have a life jacket on, right? You would think, but it's at this point that Violet realizes she has made a rookie mistake. I had this lovely coat. And instead of putting the coat over the life belt, I put the life belt over the coat. I could kill the passenger if they did that. And so when I went into the water, I went down miles with the weight of, you know, clothes, and came up under the boat. And I got a terrible blow on the head.

20:33And, you know, it did occur to me, if I get another like that, I'll be finished. Oh, my God. This is terrifying. So she's, like, stuck underwater underneath the boat. She is stuck underwater underneath the boat. And she is still heading along with the boat toward the spinning propellers. and she's incredibly disoriented and she describes the noise as just being like beyond anything she'd ever heard. But she kicks her way clear of the bottom of the boat and clear of the suction of the propeller just as the lifeboat gets chopped to pieces. Amazing. That's so incredible. Finally, she reaches the surface, still waterlogged in her coat with her nose just like barely out of the water until she sees another life jacket float by and she grabs it and manages to steady herself.

21:21So while she's clinging onto this life jacket in the water, Violet watches again as this time the Britannic, the third and final sister ship of the Olympic and Titanic, itself sinks faster and faster into the water. And in some ways, this round is the most terrifying because the Britannic is sinking in much shallower seas than the Titanic had been. So in this case, the ship is actually longer than the ocean is deep. So the ship's stern is still sticking out of the water when its bow smashes into the ocean floor. And Violet watches as the whole ship just judders and groans. And writing about it later, she said, quote,

22:26That's incredible. So for all those people who were waiting on other lifeboats and people that were still on the ship, Like, did they get off the ship when this happened, when it hit the ocean floor? Yes. So very, very fortunately, before the ship sank, the captain had ordered the propellers to stop so the other lifeboats could get away. And because the ship had only been on its way to pick up wounded, there's actually very few patients on boat. Oh. So 30 people die, but it could have been far worse. And most of those who died were the ones in those two boats that Violet had been on. And so once again, Violet Jessup is really lucky.

23:06Yeah. Well, it depends on how you look at it. We're also very, very unlucky. No, yes, exactly. I like your way better. Thank you. And, you know, some good luck continues because she eventually is picked up by another boat and pulled to safety. And when she gets to shore, she does, in fact, brush her teeth with her toothbrush, which apparently never left her side. And that's how Violet Jessup manages to survive the three disasters of the White Star Line's three sister ships, the Olympic, the Titanic and the Britannic. And after that, she went on to write a beautifully written memoir only to be published after her death under the title Titanic Survivor.

23:49That's only like the half or the third of it, actually. Like Titanic Survivor is really underselling the whole story. Yeah, I mean, it is quite possibly the most under-informative title of all time. But I also just have to say as a final note, Violet Jessup is not the only person this happened to, surviving all three of these ships. She's kind of the glamorous one. But there was one other guy. His name was Arthur Priest. He was a boiler room stoker for the White Star Lines. And we don't know much about him, but he actually outdoes even Violet because he survived, get this, four ship sinkings and two major collisions.

24:31Another one of these people where you can't tell if they're the luckiest person around you or the unluckiest person in the world. Exactly. Like, is their glass of luck half empty or half full? We'll never know. But I think the lesson of Violet Jessup is like, you know, you don't know if your next ship is going to sink. The best you can do is just grab your toothbrush and just keep your head above water. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, like, even if you don't know how to swim. She didn't know how to swim, Joe. It had to do with, like, she had tuberculosis when she was young. There was a lung thing.

24:59It's not her fault. Well, that's amazing. What a great story show. I really appreciate it. This is fun. Thank you so much, Roman. Stay tuned. We have one more mini-story after the break.

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