The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3409: Pickelhaube
Engines of Our Ingenuity

The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3409: Pickelhaube

B2Upper-intermediateSeptember 21, 20263 min

Episode: 3409 We trace the long life of a silly helmet. Today, a puzzling headpiece.

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Today, a puzzling headpiece. The University of Houston presents this series about the

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B2 · Upper-intermediate

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  • 23 harder words (B2 and up) in the whole episode.

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0:00

This is the Engines of Our Ingenuity, made possible by the friends of KUHF, Houston. Today, a puzzling headpiece. The University of Houston presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run and the people whose ingenuity created them. I have this old German helmet from World War I given to my mother by an American lieutenant

0:34

back from the war. Olive drab with a spike rising from the top, but look more closely. We realize that it's just olive drab felt covering a light metal frame. I'm sure I could drive an ice pick through it, certainly no protection from a bullet.

0:51

It turns out it has a name. It's called a Pichlhaube, literally a spike bonnet. That's a funny-sounding name, even in German. And the Prussians had begun using this sort of helmet way back in 1842.

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