Speaker A
Hey, you sleepy little fellow. You've had a long day, so time to hit the hay.
Explore brutal ancient sports like the Mesoamerican ballgame and Calcio Storico, uncovering history, rules, and cultural significance.
Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.
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Key Takeaways
- Ancient sports like ōllamaliztli were extremely brutal and physically demanding, involving heavy rubber balls and high injury risk.
- Mesoamerican ballgames had significant political and ceremonial roles beyond mere sport, including gambling and symbolic warfare.
- Calcio Storico is a historically violent Italian sport with roots in ancient Roman and Greek games, still played in Florence today.
- Many myths about these sports, such as routine human sacrifice of players, are misconceptions clarified by historical evidence.
- Modern sports often lack the raw physicality and cultural significance of these ancient brutal games.
What the video covers
- The video explores some of the most brutal sports in history, starting with the ancient Mesoamerican ballgame ōllamaliztli, dating back to 1650 BC.
- It discusses the evolution of the ballgame through various Mesoamerican civilizations, highlighting the use of heavy rubber balls and the physical dangers involved.
- The Mayan version of the sport involved keeping a heavy rubber ball airborne without using hands or feet, resulting in frequent injuries and even deaths.
- The video clarifies myths around human sacrifice in the sport, explaining that professional players were not sacrificed but prisoners of war forced to play were.
- It introduces Calcio Storico, a violent historic Italian sport combining elements of rugby, football, and boxing, formalized in the late 16th century.
- Calcio Storico's origins link to ancient Roman and Greek ball games, and it was played during festivals or as soldier training.
- The video critiques modern soccer for its perceived lack of physicality compared to historical brutal sports.
- Historical context is provided about the political and gambling aspects of these ancient sports, including wagers by Aztec emperors.
- The video uses humor and cultural references, such as The Road to El Dorado and modern sports commentary, to engage viewers.
- It includes detailed descriptions of the sports' rules, equipment, and societal roles, emphasizing their brutality and cultural importance.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Overview of Brutal Sports
- 07:00The Ancient Mesoamerican Ballgame ōllamaliztli
- 21:00Mayan Ballgame Rules and Physicality
- 31:00Political and Gambling Aspects of Mesoamerican Sports
- 42:00Myths and Realities of Human Sacrifice in Ballgames
- 53:00Introduction to Calcio Storico and Its Origins
- 71:00Formalization and Rules of Calcio Storico
- 84:00Comparison to Modern Sports and Cultural Reflections
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
All right, good night. The most brutal sports in history. [music] There's really nothing like whacking a ball or two around with the bros. So much so that history has no shortage of sports in which you can do just that.
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But, if you've ever wanted to have your frontal lobe caved in with a solid rubber ball, then look no further than the ancient Mesoamerican sport of ōllamaliztli, the oldest known sport in history that revolved around using a ball. Now, for you '90s kids like
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myself, images of the Mesoamerican ball game may throttle your thinker with fleeting images of the classic DreamWorks animated film, The Road to El Dorado, which features a whole scene focused on the sport. The problem is there are a few inaccuracies with how it
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was portrayed, but all's forgiven since the bulk of the budget was put towards hips rather than history. Now, before someone slaps their Dorito powdered mitts on their keyboard with a comment correcting me for using the term ancient to describe the sport, it is ancient.
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Now, sure, the Mexica or Aztec were still playing ball even after the Spanish showed them the Conquistador in the early 1500s, but the earliest known evidence of ōllamaliztli actually dates all the way back to the Olmec around 1650 BC. So, yeah, pretty freaking
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ancient. As far as the Olmec go, however, the only thing we really know is that they invented and played the game. Unfortunately, there's really no surviving historical evidence of any rules or anything. What we do know is that the game was played under the same
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basic premise as any future iterations as far as using the same rubber balls and courts, but beyond that, nothing.
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Jumping through the following 2,000 years or so, the game evolved across the many many different Mesoamerican civilizations who were better record keepers. But, the general idea was more or less the same. Ball, court, walls, and hoops. Now, if one looks at the
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historical portrayals of the sport, you'd immediately assume that the goal of the game was to get the ball through the hoop, and you'd be wrong. Kind of.
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And I'll get to that in a second. The Mayan version of the sport, called pits, peaked in play around the years 250 to 900 AD. The sport itself was similar to that of modern volleyball. In the center of the arena, called the tlachtli, was a
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chalked line that divided the court in half. Although there were many variations of the sport, the most popular version required players to keep a ball in the air while passing it to the opposing team. A dense, heavy-ass solid rubber ball that could weigh as
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much as 10 lbs. Hey, do you have 10 lb balls? Uh, yeah. Why? Well, THEN HOW DO YOU WALK?
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[laughter] UH, YOU FREAKING GOT ME, DUDE. Before you even humor the thought of you slapping around a 10 lb solid sphere like you know you couldn't, players were forbidden from using their hands or feet to keep the ball in the air. Instead,
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hips, legs, chest, and booty cheeks were required to slam that thing around. If the ball made it across the line and the other team failed to keep it airborne, your team got a point. Despite using basic protection like hip guards and
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knee pads, the rubber ball itself was a force to be reckoned with. The sheer momentum behind the ball was enough for players to find themselves sustaining broken bones, being battered with bruises, and bleeding their own blood.
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Of course, the ball was not the only threat. While you were ducking and diving and dipping to prevent your opponent from scoring, you ran the risk of colliding with other players or slinging your skull into the solid stone
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walls that lined the arena. Colonial chronicler Diego Durán specifically noted the particularly brutal injury sustained in the sport. He noted that players were horribly bruised across their bodies with some players even dying from repeated blows to their tummies thanks to internal bleeding and
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organ damage. Now, if a player did manage to get the ball into one of those ornately decorated hoop holes, that player's team was instantly declared the winner, no matter the current score.
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But this was very rare. So much so that anyone who did it was legitimately revered for years after the fact, forever remembered as that one guy that put that ball through the hoop that one time. What a legacy. For the vast
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majority of the Mesoamerican societies across time, the sport was not only played for sport. In fact, there was a lot of historical evidence that points to societies like the Maya or the Mexica using the game for political means. As
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an example, Aztec emperor Ahshayakats wagered his riches against an opposing emperor's farmlands and lost.
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So there was also, of course, the gambling aspect of it. Spectators were known to risk all kinds of belongings, money, property, even their subjectively repugnant children.
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[snorts] Outside of the degenerate lifestyle, there is a prevailing myth that losers were sacrificed for being losers.
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Yes and no. In the traditional version with two professional competing teams, this was never the case. They were simply professional ball players. Teams won and lost all the time. However, there is historical evidence in Aztec codices and Spanish documents that
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alluded to some societies forcing freshly enslaved prisoners of war to compete against a professional team. The slaves, of course, always lost as the game was more of a symbolic and ceremonial kick in the dick. Those prisoners were then sacrificed shortly
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after, but they were already destined to have their chest cavities violently fisted anyway, not exclusively because they lost a simple ball game. Oh well, more blood for the sun god.
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Now if you're a greasy blooded Italian like I know I'm not, you're probably very familiar with Calcio Storico.
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Despite having the ability to use more than just their piggies, Calcio Storico translates to historic football. In reality, it's like a combination of rugby, non-American football, and freaking bare-knuckle boxing. That's cuz you're allowed to beat the ever-loving caca out of your opponents to win the
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game. A quick side note, why the heck do we not get this sport for the World Cup?
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Instead, we have to watch dudes kick a ball back and forth for nearly 2 hours while they over-dramatically fall to their knees in a Walmart for catching a gentle breeze across their ankles.
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[screaming] Pretty pathetic. Anyway, the rougher and tougher sport of Calcio Storico reportedly takes inspiration from the ancient ball-slapping Roman sport of Harpastum, which itself was inspired from the ancient Greek sport of Pheninda. The earliest traces of Calcio Storico itself begins in the late 15th
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century as an unregulated and chaotic throwdown in the streets of Florence, Italy. This version is very similar to medieval mob football, which, as the name implies, pitted whole towns of medieval European peasants against each other in a muddy mash as they wrestled
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around for the town ball. Calcio, however, was usually played during festivals or other communal events where many Florentines and foreign adults from differing neighborhoods would pinch together their fingers and initiate a challenge. An alternate origin story claims that the sport of Calcio may have
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been used as a strength and agility training for young soldiers. But whether you were chilling in a town or killing for the crown, the game was played the same. The game was formally formalized by big-bearded fagioul Giovanni de'
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Bardi in 1580, transforming the commoner game into an aristocratic sport. He wrote the rules. 27 players on each team would be positioned within a field roughly 80 by 40 m in size. For the Americans, that's about 80 by 40 m in
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size. Oh, yeah, and the whole field was covered in sand. Why sand? Well, besides being coarse and getting everywhere, sand is great for traction and absorbing energy when you fall to the ground. It's also great at soaking up any that
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will inevitably spill. Each team consist
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you had to do was take the ball and get it in the opposing tent while defending your own.
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Oof, way too slow. And now you're down a few teeth, but you've got more. Now, before you try to signal the ref like a little [ __ ] what just happened to you was completely fair game. In their
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mission to score a goal, players were permitted to do anything and everything to chalk up one for the team. Punching, kicking throwing kissing tackling pinning down, all valid moves. Huh?
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What? No, I said kicking. The ball itself could be carried, passed, or kicked around the field. As a fun bonus, no substitutions were allowed. Every single player must fight through exhaustion and injury until the 50-minute game was over. Broken noses,
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busted eye sockets, shattered teeth, and racked ribs were very common. Now, of course, that's not to say that the sport was one big unregulated brawl. Each defensive or offensive maneuver needed purpose. You couldn't just walk up to Giuseppe and clock him in the jaw for no
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reason. Beat the pasta, think a pasta. The sport was the pride and joy of Florence for over 100 years before slowly fading into obscurity once the aristocracy focused on more artsy-fartsy forms of entertainment like opera and dancing. However, Calcio Storico was
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revived in 1930 and has since become an annual tradition with a game being played within the heart of Florence, Italy every single June. Seriously, why is this lukewarm brown bathwater version of this sport way more popular?
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It's just foul. [music] Transitioning now from Greece to Greece, we have the downright brutal Pankration.
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What, do pronounce it pankration? You're silly. This was an ancient unarmed all-out test of combative strength.
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That's because the name pankration translates to all of power or almighty. Appropriately so, cuz competitors were giving it their all in the ways of beating the piss out of their opponents.
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Believed to have been invented by Greek demigod legends Heracles and Theseus as a means of defeating their enemies, pankration was brought into the mainstream with its debut in the Greek Olympic Games in 648 BC. Many beefy bros fought tooth and nail in the games to
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prove themselves the superior warrior. The sport itself also yielded military benefits. Turns out that many ancient Greek soldiers would find themselves SOL if they were ever disarmed of their armaments. So, being taught how to grapple and wrestle your enemy as a last
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resort would at least give you a literal fighting chance at survival. Pankration was most famously adapted by none other than those walking bulging biceps known as the Spartans. They, of course, opted for the most brutal and violent form of
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the sport. You see, in the Olympic version, pretty much any maneuvers were allowed, save for two. Biting and gouging. You were not allowed to sink your fangs into flesh, nor allowed to jam your thumbs into eye sockets. Yeah,
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the Spartans did not care about that. Their reasoning was that in dire die situations, you're going to do whatever's necessary to not die.
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Ancient Greek writers, such as the famous Herodotus, documented the Spartans' remarkable abilities to throw them off the floor with their enemies while being completely unarmed. Now, pankration for sport rather than survival was a different matter. It was pretty much like mixed martial arts as
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we know it today, but with some slight differences. For instance, weight classes straight-up didn't exist. So, some 5-foot-nothing little chode could end up getting paired up against someone built like a brick [ __ ] There were also no time limits. Matches continued
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on in perpetuity until someone formally surrendered or died. Thankfully, referees were on the sidelines to make sure that rules were being followed. If someone decided to cosplay as a pitbull and treat you like a tender newborn, the ref would jump in and give the violent
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violator a well-deserved whacking with a thin rod. Suffice to say that these fighters were no strangers to getting beaten within an inch of their lives.
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They would often find themselves held in full-on chokeholds or having their little fangers being bent backwards or broken. Ankles were forcibly twisted, tendons torn, elbows bent well beyond their normal range, and kneecaps gone kaput. It was not pretty. Oh, yeah, I
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forgot to mention, to make the spectacle more spectacular, every participant had their dicks out. Yeah, the original Olympics were all done with dudes in the nude. Something about celebrating the human form or something. It's all well and good, but uh
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I'd be a tad hesitant to dangle my wangle out if some guy could potentially grab at my apples and provide me a textbook example of testicular torsion, which was a legal move, by the way. To no surprise, there's many many
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well-documented instances of participants being sent across the river Styx as a direct result of the sport.
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Perhaps the most famous example was that of Arrhichion. Already a two-time Olympic pankration champion in 564 BC, Arrhichion was ready to go for gold a third time, but he ended up getting more than he bargained for. After squabbling
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with his opponent for some time, Arrhichion found himself trapped in a seemingly fatal chokehold. Unable to escape, he began losing blood flow and started to go sleepy-bye. Right before slipping out of consciousness, though, Arrhichion found a sudden desperate
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surge of strength, managing to get a hold of his opponent's foot and popping that sucker from its socket.
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[screaming] The sudden and indescribable pain instantly snapped his opponent out of his headlock maneuver, but in doing so, Arrhichion's neck was also snapped.
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Minus one ankle, the unknown opponent had formally surrendered as Arrhichion's lifeless body flopped to the ground. He was dead. But that begs the question.
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Did he win? You bet your olive oil balls he did. Despite being dead as a doornail, Olympic officials officially crowned a corpse as champion.
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[music] Arrhichion had won his third and final Olympic crown. Now carved into legend, a marble statue of the naked champ was erected in his hometown. It's actually still on display today at the Museum of Olympic Games in Olympia. Ironically
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enough, without a head. [music] Oh boy, thanks to the Italians. You know, there's probably a lot of people out there that believe the best way to get out their aggressions is through violence, and they're probably either in a cell or in the ground.
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But history has taught us that the most effective way of settling your differences was through an iconic all's out, balls out brawl. You see, the city of Venice experienced escalated gang violence between two factions dating as far back as the late 13th century. You
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had the rowdy eastern Castellani clad in red, and the boisterous western Nicolotti donning black. Both sides consisted mainly of burly laborers such as shipbuilders, fishermen, masons, and blacksmiths. You also had other low-income professionals looking to get some licks in like artisans and even
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merchants of Venice. If you up pick me, do I not to bleed? The two clans would clash in random throw downs throughout the city streets causing property damage and inadvertently dragging innocent bystanders into their cartoon fighting clouds. Woo!
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I need to be more careful. So, in 1421, sick of all the stabbing and grabbing, city officials pushed these saucy little spaghettis to instead duke it out on various bridges throughout the city.
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This shrunk down the inevitable skirmishes to concentrated pockets instead of the entire city streets.
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Bridges were in open areas and over water, so potential property damage was minimized. Thus, the Venetian Bridge Wars began. "Well, that doesn't sound like much of a sport." you might say, flaring your hairy nostrils. I'm [snorts] getting there.
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Relax. The earliest instances of the Venetian Bridge Wars were more or less actual wars. They were highly disorganized unregulated and excessively violent as street brawls tend to be. There were no rules. Armored combatants could arm themselves with clubs, swords, spears, pretty much
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whatever you had to smack, prod, or whack with a rod. To no surprise, many people got killed, which, in the eyes of the city officials, was a huge no-no.
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Sure, you could punch someone's teeth down their throat, but you weren't allowed to punch them 6 ft under.
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But, apparently, there was no real rush cuz it took nearly 180 years for the Venetian Bridge Wars to introduce rules and regulations to reduce the number of fatalities.
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That's reduce, not eliminate. Around the year 1600, the Venetian government banned any and all weaponry. Instead, if you wanted to dish out the pain, it would be with your own god-given damage dealers. Although it sometimes varied, a war would begin with a single champion
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from each side. They would go mano a mano as the crowds behind them eagerly awaited a victor. After a short scuffle, the opposing crowds collided like a wall of death at a Lamb of God concert. As for the rules, this was your basic game
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of King of the Hill. Fight back your opponents and establish territorial control. The game was over once one team had entirely forced the other side from the bridge. Since there were no walls or rails, combatants often found themselves
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flung into the waters below. But, after a brief dip in the drink, assuming you were still conscious, it was time to get your slippery self out and back into the brawl. Your team needs you, after all.
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Well, looks like you got clobbered by a roof tile, delivered first-class to your ocular cavity from a nearby spectator.
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Yeah, this sport was one that tens of thousands flocked to see, surrounding the bridge high and low. After all, why get yourself into a rowdy rumble when you could just huck [ __ ] at people from a distance and face no real consequence?
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Cowards. Now, as for team sizes, they were whoever you could get to fight for you. So, hundreds or even thousands of people could rush a single bridge in hopes of bringing glory to their side.
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But, yeah, that glory came with a price. Fractured jaws, broken ribs, smashed skulls, inverted teeth, crushed limbs, all expected injuries from the fisting festivities. Despite the banning of weaponry, each event was still a healthy revenue bomb for local undertakers.
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Venetian records detailed in Robert Davis's War of the Fists, describe numerous deaths ranging from being crushed beneath the stampeding crowd to whacking one's noodle on the stone bridge as they fell. Not to mention, the inevitable drownings. So, after
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centuries of what had become traditional acts of violence, the Venetian Bridge Wars finally took their toll. After a particularly savage scuffle on September 29th, 1705, the High Council of Venice had called it quits, formally banning the wars and forcing the two sides to
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figure out some other way to vent their hatred towards each other. They would have loved Super Smash Bros. The Most Bizarre Epidemics in History.
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Getting sick sucks, but getting really sick really sucks. A simple cold is like, "Yeah, yeah, whatever." But, if you contract something that can invert your teeth and delete your eyes, it's not going to be a simple recovery.
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There's been quite a few weird diseases throughout history that have caused some rather bizarre symptoms. Take for instance, the English sweating sickness.
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Now, the English sweating sickness was a sickness in England that made you very sweaty. First appearing in 1485 at the tail end of the medieval era, the disease quickly became colloquially known as the sweat TM. See, they even
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added the fancy little e on the end. Its origins remain a mystery with some historians speculating that a group of smelly French mercenaries were the first ones to get down with the sickness.
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[laughter] The disease may have migrated over to England near the conclusion of the brutal War of the Roses, which wiped nearly 100,000 asses from the map. The first known documentation of the disease comes from, ironically enough, French physician fella Thomas Le Forestier in
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1485. He was living in London at the time and actually had contracted the disease himself. So, being a responsible human, he had committed his experiences to paper, writing about his symptoms so that the knowledge may be studied by
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others within the medical community. The disease was also well documented in detail by English unphonetic last name having guy John Keys in 1552.
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Yeah, this illness lasted a while. Building off of the pre-modern miasma theory, it was widely believed that most diseases, not just the sweating sickness, spread through what they referred to as corrupt air. Well, if there's anything you know about medieval
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England, you know that it was stinky. Streets were filthy, water was gooped with poop, and the air could curl your nose hairs. Until the Great Stink of 1858, proper sanitation just really wasn't given much attention. While miasma theory was flat-out wrong, some
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alternate propositions were a bit more off-base. Some theories pointed to astrological origins for the disease.
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Some blamed Mars, others blamed Saturn. Keys himself blamed the stars. In one of his detailed reports, he said, quote, "To this may be joined the evil disposition by constellation, which hath a great power and dominion in all earthly things." But, we of course know
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that astrology is a bunch of big brown baloney. Now, I firmly trust that you have the critical thinking skills to realize that the English sweating sickness's iconic symptom was impromptu perspiration. I mean, sweat just started flooding out of every pore, with
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physicians noting the startling and alarming suddenness of it all. Along with dripping out of your skin holes, the infected came down with immediate and strong existential dread, with crippling fear and anxiety. This was further accompanied by violent shivering, pounding headaches, and
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overall exhaustion. The profuse sweating caused extreme dehydration, intense thirst, and heart palpitations. One of the deadliest symptoms, as innocent as it may seem, was the overwhelming urge to sleep. This was the telltale sign that the disease had reached its end
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game. Physicians were given extreme caution to not let their patients fall asleep, lest they wake up in a cleaner, cloudier afterlife.
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Wake up! Now, all of this, the sweating, chills, fear, sleepiness, death, all that, happened within just 24 hours of initial infection. A single day to go from all righty to nighty-nighty. Le Fustier himself had documented even more rapid
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deterioration, with death in as little as 3 hours from initial symptoms. This stuff was nasty and terrifying.
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Surviving the first 24 hours, if you were even lucky enough to do that, usually meant that you would be in the clear, but historical records estimate a fatality rate of 30 to 50%.
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This also was not a one-time occurrence. The English sweating sickness made its mark on history a total of five different times, first starting in 1485 and making a final appearance in 1551.
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The worst of it came in 1528, where it spread across most of Europe within months, hilariously skipping over and completely sparing France, whom I mentioned may have started the whole thing. All in all, tens of thousands of people had died. Here's the kicker,
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though. Widespread diseases like this typically target the weak, the destitute, deprived, and downright downtrodden, right? Well, according to Le Fossier and Keys, the largest affected demographic wasn't scrawny peasant kids or dilapidated elders. No, the English sweating sickness instead
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seemed to target middle-aged, healthy, wealthy men. The theory is that this demographic was more social and confined to smaller communal environments, allowing for easier transmission. How's the day, my good man? Pretty moist, Tom.
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Pretty moist. [music] Hola, Mexico. Looks like you're up to bat for a weird disease. Right around the time that the English perspiration meant English expiration in the mid-16th century, the Mexica were getting shaken up by the cocoliztli epidemics. The term
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cocoliztli here being the equivalent of pestilence in the Nahuatl language. If you watched my video about surviving the Aztec Empire, you know that that funny little tl pronunciation, the sound, is on purpose. What's slightly less funny though were the estimated 12 to 15
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million deaths attributed to these epidemics, the deadliest in Mexican history. Now, this all took place across the Mexican Plateau, right in this region here, but it is known to have spread as far as modern-day Guatemala.
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The first signs of the disease began to show up around 1545 in the Valley of Mexico, right in the heart of what used to be the Aztec Empire. As you know, the Spanish came along in 1519 and essentially converted the once-thriving
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empire into a Walmart parking lot in just 2 years flat. In addition to using superior weaponry and strategic alliances with neighboring societies to steamroll the Aztecs, the Spanish also brought with them an unintentional biological advantage, smallpox. This took a healthy chunk out of the Mexica
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population, killing off roughly 8 million people, or roughly a third of the whole dang thing in 1520. But, 25 years later, the cocoliztli decided it wanted to pump those rookie numbers up.
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Like the English sweating sickness, the symptoms of Cocoliztli were immediate and severe. You were in the thick of it within just a few hours at most. Initial symptoms included high fever, headaches, and intense vertigo. You know, similar to that spinny feeling you get when them
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beers start looking a little too friendly? Drink us. You know you want to. Mhm, you got it, mister. Please drink responsibly. Beer cans don't talk. It's just too dang bad that these rather simple symptoms would soon evolve into
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complete horror. During the ominously named hemorrhagic stage, victims would begin bleeding out of every single orifice they owned. Your eyes, your ears, your nose, your mouth, even your bee hole and hoo-ha or dangly bits all the way down south. Coupled with
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excruciating abdominal and chest pain, as well as painful swelling underneath the skin, this was just an actual nightmare. The Mexica and the Spanish tried their best to treat the sick, but nothing was working. The Spanish tried quarantining the ill, bloodletting, and
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even the most powerful remedy of all, thoughts and prayers. The Mexica tried various herbal medicines and their own spiritual healing practices, but it was all in vain. People were simply dying too quickly.
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The infected could suffer in utter agony for up to 4 days before finally experiencing some relief. Cuz they died.
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During its initial release in 1545, Cocoliztli ravaged the Mexica population, culling around 80% of the herd. The sequel hit the shelves in 1576.
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This version was slightly less deadly, but still terrifying all the same. It cut down the remaining Mexica population by an additional 50% before burning itself out in 1580. Within just 56 years, the entire Mexica population had fallen from about 22 million down to
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less than 2 million. Now, the Spanish were still affected, but not nearly to the extent of the Meshika. This was mainly due to the fact that the Meshika were more susceptible with their more exhaustive labors and poorer nutrition
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than that of their Spanish counterparts. Their immune systems were weaker, so the disease pressed the advantage.
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Modern hypotheses point their fingers to either an alternate form of salmonella, some kind of rodent-borne fever, or a conglomeration of various diseases that just so happen to strike all at once.
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But to me, that just sounds like a giant I don't know. What is mostly agreed upon, however, is that it's highly unlikely that cocoliztli was a Spanish-borne disease, simply because the pathogenesis was drastically different compared to that of known
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European diseases. So, it was just probably something local. More like home-field disadvantage. Let's jump back from a society known for ripping out hearts to one that wants to lick the inside of your skull. These are the Fore. They live in a small province
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right at the base of the shaft of the country of Papua New Guinea. Being a remote society, they pretty much remained uncontacted by foreigners up until around the early 1940s when the Pacific theater of World War II began to
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boom. Once they were properly contacted, the foreigners did what foreigners do best. They showed up and started shifting the culture. Australian explorers had introduced the Fore people to the concept of hygiene and the establishment of constructing dedicated roads for quicker and safer travel.
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Pretty good way to nudge a developing community in the right direction. Another colonial influence was to deviate from rather primitive Fore activities like village warfare. I know, kind of hypocritical, right? Well, there was also a push to abandon many
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traditional values, one of which being endocannibalism. Now, this wasn't a savage beat your buddy over the head then drag your teeth across his face type cannibalism. This was a mourn your buddy because he just died from natural causes then drag your
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teeth across his face type cannibalism. Very different. Unfortunately for the Fore A, disease does not abide by rules of respect and ritual. Biting a brain is biting a brain, which is exactly where Kuru came from. A fatal and completely
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incurable neurodegenerative disorder. Stemming from the consumption of infected brain tissue, Kuru is a prion disease. Now, this is where biology is just crazy to me. All right, so here this is a simple protein. It's multifunctional in nature, repairs
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cells, builds muscles, whatever you want it to do within reason. But, if in the highly unlikely case that it decides to fold in on itself in a weird way, it becomes a prion, completely rewriting its entire biological mechanism. Now,
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instead of being a universal helper, just turns everything to [ __ ] For the case of Kuru, these prions mess with the neurological function and make your brain go all stupid, causing unusual, involuntary symptoms. The moment a person is infected, the biological clock
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starts ticking. Dr. Carleton Gajdusek, who was the first to discover the disease in 1957, and who also has a very disturbing history of convictions that I will not go into here, observed over 200 Kuru cases and recorded the stages of
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their progression. Because of cultural practices, it was mainly women and children who took the brunt of the illness. That's because Fore A women were responsible for preparing the remains for whoever was going to be on the menu that day. Women and children
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feasted on the more tender, tasty, and nutritious organs, like the brain. The men pretty much sat on the sideline and watched.
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You guys want some? Nope. No, we're good. According to Dr. Gajdusek, the earliest telltale sign of an infection was the simple loss of balance or coordination. This was followed up by slight twitches and the occasional headache. These symptoms were
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minor, with the infected still being able to walk and function independently. For now. After a few months, the neurological deterioration became much more evident. A few stumbles here and there quickly evolved into frequent falls and villager demeanors were
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shifting entirely. Victims at the intermediate stage experienced drastic mood swings from fearful and anxious to aggressive and agitated. There was also the disease's signature, an uncontrollable, unnerving laughter.
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At this point, the writing was pretty much on the wall. Crawl forward a few more months and the infected were completely bedridden. They can't think, they can't talk, they have zero control over their own bodies. A side effect of
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that is the inability to eat or drink anything properly. You know, you need coordinated expansion and contraction of muscles to swallow food or have a little flippy sip. If the kuru didn't kill you, the malnutrition would. So, when you
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think about it, the very violent but quick deaths earlier in this list were a blessing in disguise. Sure, you were blasting blood out your back door, but at least they were only doing it for an afternoon. With kuru, you were just
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wasting away over the course of several months, unable to do anything about it. Death occurred usually within a year of initial symptoms. Even today, there is no known cure for prion disease. So, until then, maybe hold off on the
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cranium crunching. [music] Now, I just know that some of you have been hoping that this was on the list.
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The dancing plague of Strasbourg is one of those events where, as bizarre as it was, countless credible eyewitnesses all completely agree on exactly what happened. They just have zero freaking explanation of exactly why it happened.
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So, yeah, this all took place in Strasbourg in the Alsace region of what is now modern-day France. I've actually been there. See this? I took this picture. See how beautiful it is there?
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[music] Back in July of 1518, however, Strasbourg was part of the Holy Roman [ __ ] It was actually a very important part, serving as a strategic, wealthy, and politically independent city for over 400 years. That's 1.6 Americas long. Well, with it being such
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a crucial entity of the empire, it'd be pretty embarrassing if some kind of weird phenomenon swept through and disrupted things.
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[music] Um, what are you doing? Whatever do you mean? Come on, kids. We're leaving. According to this Wikipedia article I just found laying on the ground, a lovely lady named Troffea decided to start throwing it back right outside her home in the
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middle of the day. Seems innocent enough at first, but uh she just didn't stop. Save for a few frantic meal breaks or collapses from exhaustion, Troffea let loose for several days. Instead of scaring them off, all of her dancing actually
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encouraged many of her fellow Strasburgers to join in. She's good. And thus, the plague had spread. Now, you might assume that these onlookers were just doing a tad bit of toe tapping, but you'd be very wrong. They were really pushing the limits of their
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tendons tensile strength as they were whipping their limbs to and fro, basically bayblading themselves around the street and letting them rip. Now, going alls out balls out dancing can be fun for about 30 seconds, but when it goes on for days, that's when mental and
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physical health starts to trend downward. From a distant perspective, watching everyone doing their shimmy shams looks like a good time, but once you got closer, you realize that something was horribly wrong. The enthusiastic dancers reportedly held an empty but panicked expression as if they
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were being puppeted by some unknown force. The dead stare of unbridled torture, coupled with these medieval peasants quite literally dancing their feet to the bone, warranted intervention, especially when 15 were dancing themselves into a freshly dug grave each and every day. Oh, we need to
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do something. Everyone was quick to offer their suspicions. The church blamed evil spirits, the doctors blamed hot blood, neither of which offered any proper solution. Very helpful. Taking matters into their own hands, city officials attempted the reverse psychology route, setting up stages and
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hiring musicians to provide a proper venue for the dancers, encouraging the wacky rascals to keep on dancing. And they did. At the peak of its spread, over 400 people were getting jiggy with it. Some doing it thanks to a crippling
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psychogenic illness, and others just cuz it looked like fun. the fun was done. After 2 months of the plague, it started to die down, mostly because the actual sick people cha-cha slid into the great beyond, taking it to
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the top with one hop. Anybody else just in it for the bit kind of went on with their lives. Any remaining dancers were promptly carted off for spiritual cleansing, which reportedly worked thanks to a little thing called the
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placebo effect. In the end, while this may have been a simple case of mass hysteria brought on by the harsh stresses of just existing medieval Europe, some historians blame bad bread.
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Ergotism, a fungal poisoning originating from contaminated grain, does exhibit symptoms ranging from hallucinations to uncontrollable convulsions, so sure, why not? Just remember, if you ever see someone dancing by themselves in public, they're either an insufferable influencer or on drugs. Or both.
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Probably both. History's most one-sided wars. [music] There's that quote about all being fair in love and war, but I don't think that someone swinging their sword at an Ordnance BL 5-inch howitzer artillery cannon would find it very fair.
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Well, that's pretty much what happened during the Battle of Omdurman. Now, if you're familiar with African history around the turn of the 20th century, you know that it was nothing short of a [ __ ] show. European powers were grabbing
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anything and everything they could get their hands on to see what natural resources could be tapped into. As for the British, one of their more tactical moves was seizing control of the Egyptian territory from the Ottoman Empire in the late 1880s. Why Egypt?
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Well, because Egypt has the Suez Canal. Basically, a super sweet shortcut connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea and thus the Indian Ocean. Guess who owned India at the time? Also the British.
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So, instead of slogging the freshly plundered raw materials all the way around the scenic circumference of Africa, merchants could just speed run that [ __ ] through the Suez, potentially saving months of sailing.
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Now, with the seizure of Egypt came a bit of a bonus. Some territory to the south known as Sudan, but it came with some baggage of its own. If Egypt were to be the crisp clean shirt in the deal,
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Sudan was going to be the pants. And these pants were about to be shat. So, while the British now controlled Sudan on paper, it wasn't really the case in reality. At least not yet. Throwing even more chaos into the mix were the not so
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modest Mahdists, an independent Islamic group that rose up and rebelled against their Ottoman and Egyptian oppressors, establishing their own state in the Sudanese territory back when the Ottomans controlled the region just a decade earlier. They didn't give a
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flying flip that the British were now the technical rulers of the land. Oppressors were oppressors. As a matter of fact, they were feeling a bit big in the britches after just toppling the Ottoman control, so they were eager to
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start round two. The British though initially wanted to abandon Sudan, declaring it too much of a political and financial burden to deal with what with all the squabbling and what not. They would instead leave the Mahdists to have
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their own land and not intervene. However, continued Mahdist aggression led to the death of one Charles Gordon, a renowned British general who was tasked with evacuating civilians from the Sudanese spit-sounding capital city of Khartoum. Mahdist soldiers slaughtered around 10,000 innocent
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civilians in the wake of Charles' assassination. This single act switched British opinion from indifference to vowing vengeance. Thus, in 1896, the British began the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan. This war lasted about 3 years with British forces steamrolling the Mahdists in virtually every
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encounter. Well, if it's so one-sided, why did it take 3 years? Good question. This was actually by design. You see, the British were slowly advancing into Sudan building a supply railroad behind them the whole way so as to not have supplies run dry and be
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caught with their pants down. An issue that had previously plagued the British in the past. The conquest culminated in the Battle of Omdurman on September 2nd, 1898. Oof, just lasting a single day, huh? Talk about foreboding. Yeah, so
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this battle wasn't so much of a battle as it was a full-blown massacre. Here's where the one-sidedness kicks in. About 26,000 British and Egyptian troops faced off against over 50,000 Sudanese warriors. Seems like a slam dunk for Sudan, but sheer size is no match for
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optimal equipment. Remember that supply railway I just mentioned? Well, it supplied the British front lines with 17,000 rolling block rifles, 8,000 bolt-action rifles, 44 artillery cannons, and 40 state-of-the-art water-cooled Maxim automatic machine guns.
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Oh, yeah. There was also a handful of naval gunboats ready to tear [ __ ] up from the banks of the Nile. The Mahdists, you know, they tried. They had several thousand firearms seized from previous battles as well as a few dozen
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artillery but yeah, they were either poorly maintained or those operating them were poorly trained. The unlucky fellows not equipped with firearms instead brandished the old reliable sword and shield. And it went just about as well as you'd think.
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The Mahdists were completely and utterly destroyed. According to 23-year-old British Lieutenant Winston Churchill, yes, that Winston Churchill, approximately 11,000 Mahdist soldiers lay dead, 16,000 wounded, and over 4,000 captured. The rest either surrendered or just fled. As for the British, less than
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50 soldiers were killed in battle. A testament to the sheer imbalance of weapons technology and tactical warfare.
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After the battle, the Mahdist state was effectively dismantled, cementing British dominance in Sudan. [music] Sometimes wars can be won without inflicting any real damage. You just have to be well-versed in the art of intimidation. Even if you're a tiny
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pushover, you can still get your way if you make yourself seem scary enough. [screaming] The Kettle War is a prime example of this tactic. At the end of the Eighty Years' War back in 1648, the Dutch gained independence from the Spanish. In
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addition to establishing their own little republic within the Netherlands, the Dutch had full access to a gaping mouth, the mouth of the Scheldt River.
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This was a critical trade route for many cities just south of the newly-formed republic, cities that were still under smelly Spanish control. So, the Dutch took advantage of the situation.
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Oh, yeah. Time to close the river. The Dutch cut off all trade access through the Scheldt, completely crippling the economies of the downstream cities. Instead, trade was diverted through the Dutch ports of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, allowing them to flourish into dominant trade hubs.
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The funny thing though, nothing would be done about it for 136 years. But in the late 1700s, there was a new sheriff in town for the Holy Roman Empire, Joseph II, and he did not like the Dutch doing what
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they were doing. As a rather ambitious reformer, he was aiming to make his empire the main political and economic power in Europe. But the whole closure of the Scheldt thing was a big old turd in the punch bowl of his plans, so he
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needed to act, and act he did. Having just gotten their strunts kicked in by the British during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War in 1784, Joseph II decided to take advantage of a now weakened Dutch Republic. The demand was simple, open up the river or go to war.
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Now, when your territory is like this and another territory threatening you looks like this, it might be best to just let them have this one. In reality, however, the Holy Roman Empire's army was fairly scattered across the mainland, being particularly small and
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ill-equipped near the Netherlands. So, the immediate threat was minimal at best. As a show of force, though, and to keep up the illusion of strength, Joseph sent out a small squadron of three naval warships led by the heavily armed,
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no-nonsense heaven flagship, Le Louis. The ships were sent to the mouth of the Scheldt to sit there and look intimidating. The Dutch, however, called the empire out on their bluff. On October 9th, 1784, they intercepted the three opposing warships with one of
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their own, the Dolphin, and it was looking to blow some holes into other ships. In an act of intimidation of their own, the Dolphin fired a single warning shot towards Le Louis.
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A soup in the morning, a soup at night, a soup every day makes me feel right.
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Oh, man. Now I'm super depressed. The warning shot from the Dolphin whizzed through the galley of Le Louis, causing the casualty of a single soup kettle. Hilariously, the crew of Le Louis surrendered immediately, chalking up a victory for the Dutch Republic with
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a single cannon shot. Joseph II, not to be embarrassed, declared full-on war, but no violence ever came of it.
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Instead, both agreed to negotiate. The result? The Scheldt remained closed, but the Dutch would compensate the Holy Roman Empire a hefty sum for the inconvenience, around 2 to 10 million Dutch guilder, or roughly 120 to 600 million dollars in today's money. I'd
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say that compensates for the soup. [laughter] War and drugs is a pretty solid combination, but when said substances are used in warfare, it becomes a whole other matter entirely.
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Let's touch back on the early 1800s. Despite being halfway around the world, the British Empire still commanded trade in the Indian Ocean, even stretching into the Pacific with one of their main suppliers being Imperial China. The Qing Dynasty was doling out all kinds of
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goods to the Brits, including earthy herbs, soft silks, precious porcelain, and the iconic British life fuel, tea. While this trade was good for the British consumer, the rather one-sided trade imbalance left British merchants a tad miffed. The British Empire was
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absolutely hemorrhaging silver to pay for all of the goods with no reciprocity. The Chinese simply had little to no interest in British goods like wool or cotton. And that was a problem as British silver reserves were drying up, putting a damper on the
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liquidity of trade in the region. So, what do you do if there's no demand?
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You force it. The British began secretly exporting Indian-grown opium into Chinese ports. Smugglers paid for the opium with silver, which then paid for more Chinese goods, completing a more sustainable trade loop. British merchants were happy, Chinese smugglers were happy, the majority of the Chinese
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population were suffering crippling addiction. You know how it goes. So, yeah, it's no surprise that opium demand soon turned exponential. From 1797 to 1833, opium imports soared from 680,000 lb a year to over 5.1 million lb a year. I mean, it was a
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silver gold mine. Even a American merchants got in on the action, selling Turkish opium to China. But this started to tip the scales too far in the other direction. Now with the Chinese silver reserves reaching unsustainable levels, not to mention the effects on the
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general population. Before, the average British consumer was just sipping their Chinese tea from ornate porcelain cups while relaxing in their comfy silk robes. Now, the average Chinese consumer was struggling to detach themselves from their pipe. Although the Chinese emperor
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had outright banned opium usage, it didn't stop the average fellow from getting their fix. Millions upon millions were addicted, leading to a drastic decline in productive laborers, merchants, farmers, and teachers. Well, in 1839, the Chinese emperor put his
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silky slippered foot down. Severe punishments were put in place for anyone dabbling in deals of opium. All imports of the stuff were seized and destroyed.
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Famously, the kickstart of the Opium War was the seizure and destruction of over 2.9 million pounds of opium in one go.
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The British were not pleased with getting shafted out of payment for the product, so they demanded reparations.
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At cannon point. Just a year later in 1840, a British naval fleet positioned itself off of China's eastern coast and began bringing the heat, bullying various islands into submission as to establish a base of operations. Let's take a look at the roster for both
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sides. The British in this campaign commanded over 19,000 soldiers and 37 ships. Standing in China's corner, though, was an estimated 100,000 mobilized infantry. China had the numbers, but Britain had the technology.
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Chinese fortresses, demolished. Resistance groups, destroyed. Innocent civilian generational homesteads, deleted. Campaigning up the Pearl River, the British blasted their way to the Chinese commercial heart of Canton, still hell-bent on getting their compensation.
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Sir, the British are here. Both parties sat down at a pretty cool-looking table and agreed to peace terms. But, the overarching powers in charge, mainly the Qing emperor and the British foreign secretary, refused said terms, prompting the supersaturated British to withdraw
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from the Pearl and shoot up the Yangtze River to clog any and all economic arteries. This forced China to renegotiate the peace conditions, resulting in the drafting of the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842. As a result, opium usage remained illegal, but new trade
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ports would be open to British imports, which hilariously enough was still royal [ __ ] tons of opium. The island of Hong Kong was ceded to the British as a colony, and China was forced to pay nearly 26 million silver dollars in
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reparations to the British. This comes out to roughly 830 million dollars in purchasing power, or roughly 1.3 billion dollars in silver value alone. Now, there was a second opium war a few decades later, but just like a bunch of
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farmers winning two donkey auctions, the Chinese got their asses handed to them a second time.
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[music] Ah, this one's a classic. Now, I briefly ran through this one in my history facts you wouldn't believe are true video, but let's revisit it with a deeper understanding and some better artwork.
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The Anglo-Zanzibar War holds the record as the shortest war in known human history, lasting just 38 minutes. I mean, your commute home is probably longer than that.
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You're listening to D101 the Shaq. All other radio stations can suck a dick dick DICK DICK DICK.
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THE REASONING BEHIND THE WAR was very simple. By the end of the 1800s, Zanzibar was a major trade hub off the eastern coast of Africa. Whoever controlled it had massive influence in the region's exchange of goods, including spices, ivory, and the
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frequent slave or two, including all profits that go with it. With European powers scrambling for Africa, Britain needed to cement its ability to control trade. Hence, the discussion about it taking Egypt in the first chapter. But, Zanzibar was also unethically up for
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grabs. A treaty was signed in 1890, and the nation of Zanzibar, while remaining independent, became a British protectorate, meaning that the British technically held power over Zanzibar, but it could self-govern with guaranteed British protection should things go awry.
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On August 25th, 1896, the British Empire's favorite Sultan, along with his esteemed beard, received a sudden and premature ticket to paradise. Some believe he may or may not have been poisoned, but no proof has ever surfaced to support that claim. What's suspicious
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though is that the Sultan's less impressive facial hair having cousin, Khalid bin Barghash, decided to claim the throne for himself while the previous Sultan's body was still warm.
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Oh, and fun fact, this same guy lost out on the throne just 3 years prior. Highly suspicious, one might say, fingering their mustache. Unfortunately for Khalid, only a British approved Sultan could sit on the throne. Unfortunately for the British, he didn't give a [ __ ]
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In case you didn't know, the name Khalid in Arabic means immortal or everlasting. A name that was about to be put to the test using multiple British gunboats just strapped to the tits with cannons and machine guns. On August 26th, the
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very next day after the Sultan had just died, Khalid was given an ultimatum. Surrender by 9:00 a.m. the next morning or be converted into a fine red mist.
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Khalid refused, not believing that the British had the balls to actually do anything about it. As a precaution, he had assembled a small army of his own including a few outdated cannons and guns, but the comparison of firepower
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was laughable. Multiple warnings were given to the usurper the next morning up until an hour before the deadline.
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However, the warnings fell on deaf ears. [music] The clock struck the hour, 9:00 a.m. The air was still with a deafening silence so quiet you could hear a subscribe button click.
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The order was given. The gunboats unleashed their volleys on the Sultan's palace for 38 minutes.
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Suffice to say, it was completely destroyed. After the guns fell silent, over 500 men and women, mostly innocent civilians, lay dead. The British suffered only one injury, a simple splinter from flying debris. As for Khalid, he snuck off into hiding but was
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eventually captured and exiled. [music] That afternoon, the British placed a new approved Sultan in place and within a few weeks a new palace was built. Happy ending for most.
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This episode of Chat History is called Emu War. Listen, I know the subject has been beaten to death worse than a wife at an alcoholic's convention, but now it's my turn. Back in 1932, the inverted hellhole that is Australia had one heck
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of a problem. After the Great War, returning veterans needed something to help them cope with the fact that they just lived through the most traumatic event of their lives so far. In order to supply such a remedy, the Australian
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government encouraged returning veterans to settle on remote farmland out west. This relaxing, freeing, open-air experience hypothetically would do the mind and body good for the recovering war heroes. But with a lack of farming experience and putting said low-level
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farmers in less than ideal agricultural conditions, it became way more of a burden than a life of leisure. Oh, yeah, and that Great Depression thing was going on. Well, you thought that that was just a United States thing? No, no,
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no, no, no. It was a worldwide catastrophe. To throw even more salt in the wound, wheat prices were taking a pounding. So, not only was it a pain to grow, but yielding any wheat, ironically enough, wasn't netting much bread. But
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then comes the main villain of the story. With environmental, mental, mental, and financial odds stacked against them, the Aussies faced one more foe.
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The dreaded emu. Beh. Actually, it was more like 20,000 emus. A massive mob of the flightless birds had migrated from more central regions of the Outback towards the west in search of cooler temperatures and more fruitful areas for public mastication.
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Unfortunately for the aspiring farmers, such a source of sustenance was their main cash crop, the wheat. [music] The emus swarmed the farmlands consuming everything in their wake. So, the farmers phoned the government. "Oi, government, these right [ __ ] are eating
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all me crops." The news spread quickly, making it all the way up to the Minister of Defense, who approved a military intervention to deal with the pest problem. The solution? A few lead pills administered through an ergonomic dispenser.
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They were going to shoot them. Deployed onto the field were two Lewis light machine guns with approximately 10,000 rounds and a military vehicle for mobility. The basic idea was to scare off the flocks and send them back where
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they came from, or at least somewhere that wasn't farmland. But, things of course didn't go according to plan. To make up for the fact that they're flightless, emus are extreme sprinters capable of topping out at around 30 mph.
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Also, keep in mind that emus can stand as tall as 6 and 1/2 ft and weigh over 130 lb. So, these feathered balls of rage were no pushovers. "Right up, let's open her up." The emus were slippery little devils,
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able to weave in and out of the gunfire pretty effectively. They ran around all over the place tearing up crops in the process. But, the real kick in the dick here is that they refused to relocate away from their new found food source.
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After a few weeks, only a few hundred emus were slain, barely a dent in the total population. So, the government tried again, improving ambush tactics and rallying locals to help out. They were way more successful, bringing the kill count to about 1,000. Still only
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about 5% of the estimated population. The Australian government threw in the towel, with the public deeming the operation a waste of government resources amidst a global economic crisis. Despite staring down the barrel of a machine gun, the emus were declared
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the victors, for now. In addition to erecting more effective fencing, the government turned to the everyday citizen for help, providing free or subsidized ammo for some good old fashioned giant bird hunting. Within just 6 months, over 50,000 bounties had
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been claimed and paid out. And over the next few decades, this number grew to nearly 300,000.
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Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys. The silliest deaths in history. Sometimes it's your own pride that can get the best of you. This is Hans Steininger, and this is his beard. Hey, my eyes are up here. Looking like the
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wisest wizard in the world, Hans was a public spectacle in the 16th century and also a well-respected politician. Cuz, I mean, come on. Who you going to vote for? Majestic and marvelous beard boy Hans or the lame and lackluster
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clean-shaven Franz? Und zat is how I will be lowering taxes while simultaneously providing affordable health care und housing for all.
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All right, but where's your beard? Hm? I I don't have one. This [cheering] guy stinks!
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But behind that big bushel of bristles beats a kind heart. One that legitimately cared for his town and its people. So much so that Hans was elected as mayor for six consecutive terms for the town of Braunau am Inn, a town that
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resides on the border between modern-day Austria and Germany. It's also the birthplace of another famous facial hair haver, albeit far less loved by history.
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But that's another story. Measuring in at over 4 and 1/2 ft in length, Hans's big ass beard was his defining feature and was certainly a testament to his patience and care in many aspects in his life. If you can brush your beard, you
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can untangle legislative issues. If you can oil up your whiskers, you can lubricate the political machine. So, it goes without saying that cosmetology and political science are of equal value.
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At least from a college degree standpoint. However, Hans's biggest asset would be his downfall, quite literally. On September 28th, 1567, a fire broke out in the town, which was a much bigger threat back then than it is today. Since the extent of firefighting
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tactics were just pathetic pails of water, a single small fire could reduce your whole town to cinders real quick.
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Hans, who usually tucked his beloved beard into a leather pouch for safekeeping and uninhibited travel, let his lusciously long locks whimsically whip in the wind as he ran to help with the fire. Skuttling down some stairs in a panic, Hans had accidentally slammed a
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piggy right on his own facial pubes, causing him to slip and trip down THE ENTIRE STAIRCASE.
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HE SNAPPED HIS NECK AND THE town was devastated. Not by the fire, but by the loss of their beloved mayor. Before being buried, the townsfolk had Hans's beard gently removed and chemically preserved, immortalizing his legacy. The forever facial hair is still on display
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in a museum in the town today. You know his ghost is pissed, though. Ever have an extreme case of the sleepy hahas where you find anything and everything to be complete comedic gold to the point of not being able to even
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breathe? Now try to imagine this soggy Scooby Cheerios doing that. This is Chrysippus, a rather influential Greek Stoic philosopher in the 3rd century BC. In case you don't peruse that corner of YouTube, Stoicism is the philosophy that you only ever need to focus on what you
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can control in your life. Anything reasonably outside of that control, hakuna smatatas, not my problem-us, which is a pretty solid philosophy, especially in this age of doom and gloom social media designed to make you perpetually paranoid and pissed off.
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Chrysippus was also a huge proponent of logical reasoning, having created an original system of propositional logic.
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Stuff like if, then, and or statements that we use to describe the world around us today. For example, if you are not subscribed to this channel, then you're dead to me. Simple logic. The basic idea is that any and all things happen for a
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reason. Well, I'm sure Chrysippus would have a hard time understanding the logic and reasoning surrounding his rather untimely death. According to legend, Chrysippus at the fermented old age of 73 got trashed at a feast. In his slizzard state, he had stumbled upon a
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donkey who was munching on some figs. Registering at least a 6.9 on the ancient Greek comedy scale, the masticating mule was a hilarious sight to behold, prompting Chrysippus to exclaim, quote, "Now give the donkey some pure wine to wash down the figs."
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This added punchline sent the lord of logic over the edge. [screaming] Chrysippus reportedly hurled himself into a fit of laughter so intense that he had collapsed, foaming at the mouth.
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Despite some nearby party-goers attempting to help him, he had knocked himself dead with his own joke. But the question is, can you actually die from laughter? Sure you can. It's rare, but medically possible. If you laugh your ass off to the point of it being an
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uncontrollable fit, that actually puts a lot of stress on your heart. So, if you have a weak heart, you're probably going to exacerbate some underlying conditions, leading to a heart attack.
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You also have the possibility of losing consciousness if you laugh yourself out of breath for long enough. But you have to hear or see something exceptionally funny for that to happen, so don't worry. You're safe here. Now, of course,
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this recount of events is debated by historians. The guy who documented this particular death was ancient Greek biographer Diogenes Laertius, who lived a few hundred years after Chrysippus's death, so he was far from an eyewitness.
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Diogenes nuts. On top of that, he also wrote an alternative, more mundane account of the comical death, simply writing that Chrysippus died of alcohol poisoning after drinking too much undiluted wine. But I guess he needed to spice some things up for his readers.
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If there was ever proof that the universe has a cruel sense of humor, then it's the curious case of American lawyer and politician Clement Vallandigham. Howdy. Though he resided in the Union state of Ohio during the mid-1800s, Clement was adamantly against
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the Civil War, calling it quote a wicked, cruel, and unnecessary war. Which is fine, but being a member of the Copperhead faction of the anti-war Democrats, Clement was a very vocal Confederate sympathizer, speaking out against President Lincoln and the
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abolition of slavery. To which Lincoln was all and sent him to the South to live amongst his Confederate companions in 1863. Clement, who was clearly not about that life, snuck aboard a ship and shipped himself off to Canada before
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sneaking back to his home state of Ohio to perform rather inconsequential political mumbo-jumbo for the next few years. But after the war was over, Clement attempted to run on political platforms while still advocating for slavery. However, he suddenly switched
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his views with the Democratic New Departure policy of 1865, which basically 180'd the Democratic Party's stance on slavery once they realized that it fell out of favor in the public's eye. So, being branded as a no-good slavery supporter for life meant
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the figurative death of his political career. Instead, he turned to a career in law, which would soon lead to his literal death.
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Huh? On June 17th, 1871, Vallandigham met his demise while defending his client, Thomas McGean, a young fellow accused of shooting and killing one Tommy Myers.
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Clement claimed that Myers had, in fact, not been murdered but accidentally shot himself with his own gun while getting up to stand. Clement vowed that he could demonstrate this before the court, proving McGean's innocence. And so he did. Now, when reenacting a scene that
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results in someone accidentally blowing a hole through their own tummy, you want to make sure that you have safety measures in place that would physically prevent you from doing the same thing.
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Clement didn't do that. Instead, he had mistakenly used a loaded pistol. While demonstrating the scene as Myers, Clement attempted to draw the seemingly harmless firearm from his coat pocket as he stood up.
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And he blew a hole through his own tummy, just like Myers. Clement Vallandigham died just 12 hours later from his injuries. The verdict?
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Not guilty. McGean was acquitted and was a free man, until he was murdered a few years later, that is.
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[music] You can tempt death all you like, but eventually he's going to get what's his.
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That's what big old Bobby Leach found out in 1926. Born in itty-bitty Bridgend, England in 1858, Leach grew up to be quite the daredevil.
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Unfortunately, most of Bobby's early life is lost to time, completely shrouded in mystery. We do know that around the 1880s, he had left boring old England for a more exhilarating life in the States. Apparently an excellent swimmer, Leach eventually landed a gig
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as a professional high diver with the greatest show on Earth, the Barnum & Bailey Circus. There, he performed daringly dangerous feats in front of thousands of eager onlookers.
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This had quenched the adrenaline-thirsty void in his life for a while, but eventually he retired from the circus life at the age of 50 in order to extend his life expectancy a bit. But that logic was tossed aside rather quickly,
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as in the early 1900s, Bobby decided to settle down as a humble businessman. At Niagara Falls.
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Well, now that's a proper waterfall, isn't it? Initially content with just opening up a restaurant, Leach noticed the ever-increasing tourists flocking from afar to see a bunch of water spill over a cliff. So, this gave him an idea.
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The daredevil was back. Between 1906 and 1911, Leach performed various stunts around the falls, including parachuting from the nearby Honeymoon Bridge to the river below. Over the years, Leach continued to push the envelope, coming up with more and more dangerous stunts
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to draw larger and larger crowds. Eventually, he faced his biggest challenge, the falls themselves. And on July 25th, 1911, entombed in a customized giant metal barrel, Leach took the plunge and survived. Sure, he had gashed his forehead, broken his jaw, and all of his
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kneecaps, but he was still kicking. Bobby Leach became the second person to survive the trip, right behind 63-year-old Annie Taylor. After recovering in the hospital for several months, Leach became a celebrity. Over the next several years, he had plans to
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make a second bound over the falls, but it never came to be. Why? Well, because in 1926, he went and slipped on a dang orange peel, snapping his leg in half, which went and got infected with gangrene, ultimately killing him a few
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days later. Remember that death always gets the last laugh. [music] Having served the shortest presidential term in United States history, you know something must have gone down. Well, it was President William Henry Harrison's health bar. The withering president had
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a pretty impressive career before assuming office. He enlisted in the US Army in 1791 at the age of 18 and quickly rose through the ranks, serving in the American Indian Wars, which sought to expand US territory further west against native tribes, which they
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did. Satisfied with his service, Harrison decided to retire from the military at 25 and toss his hat in the ring for a career in politics. Recognized for his leadership skills on the battlefield, then President Guy John Adams gave
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Harrison control over the territory of Indiana as governor with the goal of expanding that territory for statehood eligibility. One consequence of this territorial expansion was the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, which only further displaced natives from the area in order
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to allow more settlers to, well, settle. [music] This success cemented Harrison's legacy as Indiana would eventually become its own state in 1816. But leading military campaigns from afar, that's boring as [ __ ] Harrison missed being in the middle of the action, so he
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came out from his military retirement to fight in the War of 1812, serving as a major general for the US Army against the smelly redcoats who weren't too happy seeing the US's throbbing expansion. A bunch of people died and
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the war ended in pretty much a stalemate, but the outcome solidified the US as a world power, being able to at least defend itself from a foreign power. This really boosted national morale and pride, and with no restrictions put in place, the US just
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kept on manifesting that destiny in the coming years. Now back in a time of peace and having successfully satisfied his war boner, Harrison fell back into politics, serving in the House of Representatives, the Senate, and eventually running for president. His
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opponent was eighth president Martin Van Buren, whose first term experienced an economic depression with the Panic of 1837. Of course, Van Buren was given the blame for the economic downturn, even though it began over a month before he
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was even in office. The economy stagnated, unemployment rose, and the people were properly pissed. So, it's no surprise that when seeking reelection, it was now Harrison who would be the favorite to win.
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Aw. Harrison won in a landslide, 234 electoral votes to Van Buren's 60. But that wouldn't matter in about a month.
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Elected in 1841 at the age of 68, Harrison was getting on in his years.
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Either a stubborn old goat or a complete idiot, he had the habit of being extremely under prepared for the weather. For example, he delivered his inaugural speech in the bitter cold and rain for two hours straight with no
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overcoat or weather appropriate clothes. Connected with the subject is the character of the currency.
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[gasps] The idea of making it exclusively metallic, however well intended, appears to me to be fraught with Oh, this is going to suck.
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Harrison continued to endure exposure to the elements over the next few weeks, eventually contracting a deadly case of pneumonia. Despite his doctors jacking him to the tits with drugs and relying on good old fashioned bloodletting, Harrison died on April 4th, 1841,
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exactly 1 month after being elected. [music] When you were a kid, did you ever try jumping off of a sofa using a blanket as a makeshift parachute, but you failed to calculate that the blanket had the proper coefficient of drag necessary to
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minimize your acceleration due to gravity, leaving you crashing to the floor and a possible concussion?
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[music] Just me? Well, take that scenario and scale it up to adult size. Except, this is your blanket, and this is your couch.
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Meet Franz Reichelt, the mastermind behind the parachute suit prototype. An Austro-Hungarian tailor and inventor, Franz became hyper-fixated on developing a sort of wearable parachute. He had identified a gap in the market with the rise of humanity's newest invention, the
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powered aircraft. [music] Seeing reports of pilots forced to launch themselves out of their airborne contraptions if things went south, Franz vowed to come up with a solution to save lives. So, he got to work in 1910 with some initial designs, testing the
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prototypes by strapping them onto makeshift dummies and hucking them off of a five-story ledge. Surprisingly, the dummies managed to hit the ground at less than fatal speeds.
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Not bad. But, there was a problem. The prototype weighed 150 lb, and no pilot's going to lug all that extra weight onto an aircraft, even if it would potentially save their life. But, Franz would not give up. After all, you have
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to fail many times before you succeed. But, it did help that there was also some monetary encouragement. Turns out that France's Aeronautic Club held a parachute-esque design competition, which offered a cash prize to the tune of 10,000 francs. Considering that the
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average wage of an unskilled French laborer at the time was only a few francs a day, that prize was nothing to sneeze at. Over the next year, Reichelt was unable to replicate his initial success with any of the lighter
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redesigns. But, to his logic, it wasn't a design problem, it was a height problem. Anyone who has even taken a basic physics course knows that this is a bad idea. You fall exponentially faster the longer you're airborne thanks
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to acceleration due to gravity. But what's a bunch of stupid science [ __ ] going to do to stop an avid adventurer from fulfilling his dream and lining his pockets? Nothing. But the pavement will.
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But Franz, determined to test his designs from a higher height, pleaded with the Parisian prefecture of police to allow him to run an experiment from the Eiffel Tower. Despite numerous rejections, they eventually gave in. On the bitter cold morning of February 4th,
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1912, and to the surprise of everyone, Franz arrived on site in his dumpy-looking parachute suit. Now, the police only gave Franz permission to perform this stunt on the grounds that dummies would be used, not that he would be doing the jumping himself. This guy
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was so confident in his invention, boasting to news journalists of how successful it was going to be. But apparently the police didn't feel like stopping him. So, after a bunch of preparations, Reichelt made the leap.
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But his parachute suit failed to properly deploy. So, the poor fellow plummeted 187 ft to his death, achieving nothing but a Franz-shaped dent in the cement. Terrifying mythical creatures from around the world, again.
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[screaming] If you're from my neck of the woods or are fans of a certain hockey team, you might be familiar with the Jersey Devil.
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Let me set the mood. It's a dark, stormy, cliche spooky night where we find this withering old broad. This is Mother Leeds, a presumed witch on the verge of slopping out her 13th crotch goblin.
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Problem is, she didn't actually want this child because, well, 12 children is doable, 13 is just absurd. So, during this pregnancy, she had wished that the devil himself would take this child from her. And that's apparently enough to
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make a binding contract. The baby was born and looked as cute as a button, but as it aged, it began to evolve into a twisted monstrosity, transforming into the Jersey Devil. It is described as having a horse-like body, a goat head, a
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forked tail, and large menacing wings that allow it to soar through the pine trees of southern New Jersey in the United States. But, is he real? Well, back in 1909, there was a moment of panic as several reports across the
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states of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey stated sightings of the winged beast. Some claims involved the killing of livestock, an attack on a trolley car, and even an attack on a social club. The reported attacks caused mayhem on local businesses, and schools
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closed out of fear. The Philadelphia Zoo even put up a $10,000 reward for the capture of the creature, which still remains unclaimed to this day. So, if you ever find yourself unlucky enough to actually be in New Jersey itself and are
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traveling down the empty county roads in the dense pine barrens, keep an eye to the night sky as he hunts for prey. If you don't catch a glimpse, your hairs may stand on end when you hear his bloodcurdling screeches, but also his
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fresh rhymes. Ever have the insatiable craving for the flesh of a fellow human? Well, you might just be a wendigo, or you need to seek some professional help, or both. Just a little ways up into the great white
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north of Canada is where we find the origins of the wendigo legend. Stemming from the folklore of the indigenous Algonquin Native American tribe, the wendigo is said to either be an evil spirit or a creature in its own right.
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It is described as a thin emaciated corpse with [music] long sharp claws on its little fingies.
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Its skin is sallow and gray, giving it a sallow and gray appearance. It also sports a stylish deer skull and antlers, which is a great distraction from the fact that you have 0.67 seconds left to live now that you've seen one.
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The wendigo mercilessly hunts down any prey that gets lost in the woods on dark, cold, wintery nights. It is never satisfied when it feasts and must relentlessly seek out more prey. Every time it does feed, it grows larger in
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proportion, but always looks like it skipped every gym day possible. A wendigo can grow as large as 15 ft, which I mean, at that point you might as well just give up as they have exceptional hearing and eyesight, so
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there's no point in hiding. Oh, yeah, I said they because there can be multiple.
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But, if you are feeling like these Wendys need to go, you can test your luck in ripping one's heart out and setting it on fire to banish it to the shadow realm forever. Just remember that there are others waiting nearby.
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[music] Let's take a skip across the pond to Ireland, the home of rain, redheads, beer, and the dullahan. Never heard of the dullahan? Well, I'm going to tell you about the dullahan. He is known as the harbinger of death, a foreboding
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figure that leaves nothing but destruction in his wake. The dullahan is described as a headless horseman with clothes and a horse blacker than black, giving him the appearance of a character you have yet to unlock.
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He carries his head in one hand and a human spine whip in another, which he uses to whip out the eyes of anyone who dares to look upon him.
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Oh, look, the dullahan. Hey, the dullahan is also a bit of a party pooper, showing up on holidays and festivals to fill his quota of bodies and to step on your cake. On my cake?
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So, if you want to avoid this guy, there's two possibilities. One is that you're his target and there's absolutely nothing you can do, so but if you're not his intended victim, be sure you're carrying at least a single gold coin in your pocket or
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wearing gold jewelry as the dullahan hates gold for some reason. You ever see a dullahan chasing down a blinged-out rapper? Didn't think so.
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Right across the Irish Sea is Scotland. It's like Ireland, but more Scottish, and they've got some pretty interesting creatures in the repertoire. But today, we will be looking at the Each-Uisge.
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Yeah, doesn't sound how it looks, does it? The Each-Uisge is a malevolent water spirit that takes on the form of a horse because Each-Uisge literally means water horse in Scottish Gaelic. So, what does it look like? Pretty much a wet horse.
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Some interpretations have it with fins or claws, but a wet horse just seems funnier to me.
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What isn't funny is why it is so evil. The malevolent mare is said to roam the nearby sea, but can trot around on land where you may even be able to mount and ride the demonic horse if you've got the
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stones for it. The problem is, once you've climbed aboard, you become permanently stuck to its back if it smells or even sees water, and you know, being a water spirit, that's pretty much a given. Once you've locked onto the
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saturated state, it makes a beeline for the sea. It can breathe underwater. You can't.
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So, you can see why you'd be in a bit of a pickle. The Each-Uisge will drag you down to the darkest depths where you will be ripped from its back and consumed, with only your stinky liver remaining to float to the surface as
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proof of your demise. Maybe you shouldn't ride on the back of a demonic horse, I don't know. But if you feel like you don't stand a chance, I suppose you could load up a blunderbuss full of silver to convert the horse demon into
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pasta sauce. But first, make sure it's not just a normal horse you're aiming at.
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[music] The Black Plague wasn't fun for anyone. Millions died to an invisible force that ravaged Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa. So, what's the best way to make sense of such an unknown cause of death?
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Why, make up a horrifying mythical nightmare creature, of course. In Norway, you may hear tales of the Pesta, a decrepit old witch that was the personification of the Black Plague itself. She is described as a dusty old hag dressed in black with the typical
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dead sunken eyes. You've seen this stuff before. I mean, how scary could it really be?
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[sighs and gasps] Grandma Plague is always traveling either on foot, by boat, or even flying with no true destination but only with the intention of spreading desolation and despair. She could show up to your house at any moment. Grabbing some
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breakfast? Pesta. Doing laundry? Pesta. Petting your cat? Check again because you're petting the Pesta and she loves it. This crusty old [ __ ] comes equipped with either a broom or a rake which according to legend determines the
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magnitude of death that she will leave behind. So, remember this. If you see a rake, a few are left in her wake. If you see a broom, you're all [ __ ] Unfortunately, since she is the representation of the plague, there is
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no way to truly defeat her. Your best bet is to maintain your distance from others and practice good hygiene. Either that or you can give her a quick spray of bleach.
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If you've ever glanced at a mirror and taken a look at the gorgeous creature standing before you, then you know what a doppelganger looks like. Or at least you know what your doppelganger looks like because that's what a doppelganger
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is. An identical non-biologically related copy of you. So, sorry twins, you got to sit this one out. You guys are creepy enough as it is. Originating from German folklore, it's unknown what this creature's true form is as it
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instantly mimics the first person it lays eyes on. These mischievous little scamps will try to ruin your reputation by committing evil deeds and tricks while assuming your identity. So, it could be a valid excuse to relieve you of responsibilities for your actions.
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Farted in class? Nah, wasn't me. Terrible credit score? Wrong guy. Mass arson? My hands are clean. Even if you're innocent and all that, what's concerning is that the doppelganger can actually start to influence your own decisions by planting evil thoughts in
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your head by means of telepathy. So, if you're sweating bullets as you're tempted to swipe the officer's service weapon when he stops you for a minor traffic infraction, that's just a doppelganger talking, but you have to resist. Just don't resist the officer or
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you'll end up looking down a barrel. Hey, you. Finally awake. But if you do have to prove your innocence when side-by-side with your copy, there's a couple features that can tell you two apart. For one, the doppelganger has no shadow, so that's an
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easy giveaway. It also lacks a reflection, so it could just be a vampire that looks like you or is the doppelganger. Either way, that thing isn't you. You're you.
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Aren't you? History facts that are wrong. [music] This is probably one of the first things we all learned about in school when discussing ancient Egypt.
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Tens of thousands of slaves enduring endless hours of intense forced physical labor while barely being fed or provided with adequate water. Drop a sack of sand, chisel something at the wrong angle, devout masochist? You're getting a whipping.
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Ah, well, it's all poppycock. While there were slaves, they were mainly prisoners of war or household servants who tended to their landlords, but they weren't really part of the main labor force. Instead, laborers in ancient Egypt were conscripted using the corvée
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duty system, a way to pay off taxes through manual labor. According to the book The Pyramid Builders of Ancient Egypt, which discusses the pyramid builders of Ancient Egypt, farmers were usually pulled from their laborious crop dusting for construction work whenever
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the Nile went all flooded during the summer months. While the snobby rich upper-class folk avoided manual labor by just paying off their tax burden, them smelly poors were tasked with construction of temples, tombs, and pyramids. Laborers who worked on the
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pyramids, as well as other large structures way back in the ancient times, were actually well provided for.
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This makes sense as having a weakened labor force due to neglect or malnutrition doesn't really pay great dividends. Can't exactly move giant rocks when you're completely emaciated.
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Small villages have been discovered built specifically for housing laborers. These sites also contain various animal bones and plentiful [music] bread jars showing a high quality diet. But of course, the system wasn't perfect.
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Thanks to some classic upper class corruption, sometimes things didn't always go right for these laborers, but they had the power to stand their ground.
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Dating all the way back to 1170 BC, written evidence has been found of an artisan strike while constructing a tomb for then Pharaoh Ramesses the third. The artisans complained about a lack of promised rations and outright refused to
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continue their work, dropping their chisels and their hammers to march right up to the ruling classes temples to make their demands. WHAT DO WE WANT? FOOD.
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WHEN DO WE WANT IT? FOOD. After chitchatting with the local vizier, the workers were able to secure the rations and continue their work. Now don't get me wrong, the labor that these guys endured was backbreaking, extremely strenuous, and downright exhausting, but
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they weren't outright enslaved or mistreated as historians previously thought. [music] We've all heard the legends about King Tut's tomb, right? If you disturb an ancient king's burial grounds, you'll be cursed, doomed to die a horrible death.
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Well, it's not so. You'd probably cough a bit from inhaling millennial old mummy powder, but that's about it. Now, there has been evidence of some ancient tombs inscribed with curse-like carvings. For example, ancient warlord and Egyptian noble Ankhtifi wrote that, quote, "Any
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ruler who shall do evil or wickedness to his coffin, may the gods not accept any goods he offers, and may his heir never inherit." Similarly, an inscription on the tomb of 10th century BC ruler Khentika Ikheki warns that any impure
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men who enter this tomb, "There will be judgment, an end shall be made for him.
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I shall seize his neck like a bird, and I shall cast the fear of myself into him." Now, in a culture that was super superstitious, anyone coming across warnings like that WOULD BE LIKE OH, [ __ ] A GHOST!
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prompting them to 180 right out of the room. When King Tut's tomb was discovered in 1922, no such written reprimands or warnings were ever found.
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In reality, the rumor of King Tut's curse revolves around one George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, fifth Earl of Carnarvon, a rich English white dude who funded the whole expedition that led to the discovery of a sandy sarcophagus. He
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died a whole 4 months after the opening of the tomb. After which a journalist did what journalists do and printed a whole bunch of sensationalized fake news attributing Lord Carnarvon's death to an inexplicable curse.
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He To no surprise, the media ran with it making claims of a written curse being uncovered with the tomb, though this never happened. So, how did Lord Carnarvon die? He done got bit by a mosquito.
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The resulting bump was accidentally slashed while he was shaving, making a pretty nasty cut that later got infected. The old chap died of blood poisoning at the age of 56. The dedicated believers have tried to attribute other deaths to the curse, but
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they're really grasping for straws. Of the 58 people who were present at the opening of the tomb, only eight had died within a dozen years of the discovery and by various means ranging from cancer to murder to natural causes. The
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majority of the men went to live on full, healthy lives. At least they didn't steal any spooky slabs, that might have been a different story.
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[music] When you think of Spartans, you probably think about them slippery shiny hunks of warrior man meat as portrayed on the silver screen. A society of strict and viciously trained bloodthirsty warriors who could decimate any opposing army.
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But while you're thinking about oiled up, shirtless, muscular men, you might question if this portrayal is historically accurate.
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[gasps] It's not. In reality, the Greek city-state of Sparta had no professional army. Although growing up with militaristic training, the purpose was not to create warriors, but perfected, hardened, and respectable citizens who could serve to defend their homeland if
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need be. That little element of perfection is where some rumors of Spartan eugenics come in. It is believed that ancient Spartans practiced infanticide, the act of killing deformed or undesired babies as a way to strengthen the Spartan society. However,
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the biggest downfall of this myth is that there's only one historical source that alludes to this barbaric practice, and it's this guy, Roman historian Plutarch. He wrote that Spartan elders would examine newborns for imperfections or weaknesses.
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Good. Good. Bad. Good. What the Hello daddy. Ew. If any were ever found, they would just eat us to fetus off the Taygetus mountainside. This ensured that only the best of the best would be able to thrive to crushing adulthood. But this bit of
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literature is almost certainly a bunch of baloney. While historians can't confirm with 100% certainty, they can confirm with 99.9% certainty that this just flat-out never happened.
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Excavations around the proposed baby-chucking sites have failed to present any supporting evidence. There have been a few adult remains discovered, but no teeny-tiny toddler tibias were ever among them. If you needed more convincing, Plutarch's writings date some 600 years after the
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height of Spartan civilization. So it might have just been some silly Spartan slander. That would be like if future archaeologists in the year 4000 unearth fan fiction from today about how medieval Europeans would just [ __ ] their
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britches to ward off witches. Sure, it's questionable, but you could kind of see that happening, right?
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Despite what you may think, death was not the goal of gladiator battles in the Roman Colosseum. If it was, Rome would have run out of them real quick. Now, keep in mind that the Colosseum was active for over 400 years, hosting a
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plethora of different events ranging from gladiator battles to public criminal executions to full-fledged naval battle reenactments with the entire Colosseum being flooded. Pretty wild, right? Well, gladiator battles were basically the equivalent of today's UFC or boxing matches, just with swords
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and spears instead of fists. These fights were spectacles of sport and the gladiators were the athletes. You had some super famous gladiators, rookie gladiators, and everything in between.
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While some gladiators were slaves, criminals, or prisoners of war fighting for their chance of freedom, most of the big old brutes fought for fame and fortune, or just the high-octane dopamine rush of being able to legally stab someone in the kidney and getting
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praised for it. Roman citizens were hyped to watch two dudes duke it out in a sweaty, sandy, sassy struggle of strength, but things were a lot more exciting than just the vanilla missionary position 9-5 white picket fence one and a half children ass
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sword and shield type gladiators. Nope. Actually, there were about 30 different types of gladiators ready to clang and bang away at each other. You had your dual-wielding dimachaerus, the trident-chucking retiarius, the silly-looking scissor, and the all's out balls out cestus, among other DLC
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characters. So, imagine that you're living your boring Roman life sitting in your boring Roman house, scratching your boring Roman balls, when you suddenly catch wind of the gladiator battle of the century. Two andabatae pitted against each other. You'd lose your
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[ __ ] Why would you lose your [ __ ] Cuz andabatae were condemned criminals fighting each other completely blind.
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Yeah, as a form of punishment, two criminals equipped with nothing more than a sealed helmet and a rusty sword were dumped out into the arena and forced to square off. It's like watching two blindfolded kids trying to whack a
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piñata, except they're both potential piñatas. Now, while formal gladiator duels were not to the death, of course some still died. But, it was more common to die by bleeding out after the match had been called by the referee. Oh,
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yeah, they had referees. These were often retired gladiators tasked with making sure that the rules of battle were being followed and stopping fights before final blows were dealt. You see, gladiators were expensive investments, so their managers wanted them alive for
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as long as possible, unless they start all over leveling up another rookie from scratch. So, with all that being said, professional gladiator battles were not performed for the sake of death, just for the thrill of the fight and the
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potential of death. Ancient myths are tough for modern historians to interpret as historical writers across time have their own biases. Depending on how they felt about a certain historical figure, they could cement their legacy in history as a
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smart fellow or fart smeller. The prevailing myth that Roman Emperor Nero diddled his fiddle as Rome burned to the ground is one that should go up in smoke. It's commonly believed that Nero, having descended into madness over the
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course of his reign, started the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD. A disastrous and destructive inferno that destroyed nearly 3/4 of the Roman capital.
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Accusations claim that Nero didn't really like the look of Rome and wanted to rebuild it in his own vision with a lavish and gaudy golden palace. So, a conveniently timed fire would have been a great opportunity to do so. The fire
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is suspected to have started in a shopping district stockpiled with flammable goods. Once the fire started, it was nearly impossible to contain.
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Rome was a dense city. Streets were narrow, housing structures were wooden, and the wind was a blowing. This set of conditions provided the perfect environment for the big old fire to really roar. The blaze lasted for nine whole days, decimating 10 of Rome's 14
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districts. But, was Emperor Nero to blame? Not at all. According to Tacitus, one of the most influential Roman historians at the time, Nero was not near Rome when the fire started. He was actually several miles away in the
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coastal town of Antium, but he rushed back home to Rome once he caught wind of the disaster. When he did get back, Nero actually funded relief efforts and opened up private gardens and other structures for shelter to those
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affected. Despite these efforts, Nero still came under scrutiny from the nobles who hated him, claiming that he should have responded sooner and provided more assistance.
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Freaking Nero, dude. I bet my scorched ass cheeks he started that fire himself. Yeah, you're right. He probably did.
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Guys, he was literally miles away in another city. What did you do? And that's how rumors start. In actual fact, there is no historical evidence that Nero started the fire, and especially no evidence that he played the fiddle when Rome burned. Mostly
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because the fiddle wouldn't be invented for another 900 years. It's probable that the claim is part of Christian propaganda, as Nero famously blamed them for the fire, leading to their persecution. So, who really got the last laugh? It was Nero. He burned a lot of
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Christians. [music] It's possible that your middle school history textbooks may have toyed with the idea that ancient Aztecs, or even the greater Mexica people as a whole, saw the invading Spanish conquistadors as god-like figures. More specifically, history has suggested that the Aztec
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ruler Moctezuma, or Montezuma, however you want to pronounce it, believed that the arrival [music] of the Spanish coincided with the prophesized return of Quetzalcoatl, the Mesoamerican feathered serpent god of creation. But, we now know that it's all, as the Spanish say,
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a bunch of caca. It's certainly true that the native Mexica people were stunned and confused by the appearance of the foreign invaders with their fancy horses, gunpowder, and white skin, but there's no evidence explicitly stating that they were thought of as gods. Letters written
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by Hernán Cortés himself about his conquest never mention being mistaken for or being interpreted as a god in any way, shape, or form. And this is further supported by the writings of Spanish conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who chronicled Cortés's conquests in
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real time. One passage highlights a conversation between Cortés and Moctezuma in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. Conversation basically had Moctezuma being like, "Yeah, people around here think I'm a god, that I'm all about gold and silver and precious
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stones, but look, you see that? Flesh and blood, my dude. We're both the same. I know that you're just a bunch of foreigners and not some otherworldly divine beings. That would just be silly." To which Cortés replied, "So, where did this idea come from?"
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Well, it actually started to surface decades after the Aztecs were conquered. Publications of Spanish conquest alluded to the idea that Cortez and his men tried to pass their weapons off as magic and their horses off as intelligent aggressive beasts. So, it was mainly a
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sensationalized retelling of events portraying the Mexica people as more feeble-minded all while embellishing the Spanish image. As it turns out, the Aztec weren't bamboozled by some distrustful deity. The Spanish completely steamrolled the Aztec with the help of guns, alliances to Aztec
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rivals, and every European explorer's iconic weapon, disease. It was less, "Oh my god." And more, "OH MY GOD." THE GREAT DEPRESSION WAS TRULY A financial disaster not only for the US but for the entire globe. Most of you
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out there might recall learning that the stock market crash of 1929 caused the Great Depression, but in reality, it was just the signal that [ __ ] had hit the financial fan. Nothing more than a devastating effect from a much more
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threatening underlying cause. If you're unaware, the world economy is a constant struggle for balance of supply and demand with price being the end result.
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Lots of demand and no supply, prices go up. Lots of supply but no buyers, prices go down. Sure, that's a bit oversimplified, but you get the idea.
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The Great Depression was a catastrophic chain of events stemming from US overproduction of goods. You see, in the early 1920s, the world had entered a time of peace at the end of World War I.
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This led to an industrial boom. Not for war machines, but for consumer goods. Mass production was going wild and factories were farting out new products like crazy. To sell these products, companies began aggressive advertising campaigns. The news, radio, magazines,
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and everything just screamed in your face to buy the latest and greatest doohickey. And the people did. But how could customers afford all of this lavish spending?
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Yep, the establishment of consumer credit. Cars, appliances, clothes, homes, all purchased on credit. But the United was not the only beneficiary of a peacetime economy. European and Asian markets began producing their own goods, selling these products to the US for
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cheaper prices, which caught the eyes of consumers looking to save a few pennies here and there. The big American companies, seeing potential profits leaving their grubby hands, were pissed and lobbied Congress to protect their interests. In order to do so, the
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Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922 was passed. This raised American tariffs increasing the consumer cost of foreign goods as to thin out the competition and force Americans to buy American products. Europe and Asia promptly responded in kind, and soon a tariff war
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commenced. All this sounds a bit familiar, doesn't it? Now, in order to keep a super long story super short, here's what happened next. Demand shrank as American companies and farms overproduced their goods. Too much stuff and no one to buy
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it means less sales. Less sales means less profit for these companies, and with less company profit, that means they're going to start handing out pink slips. With lots of people laid off, lots of people have less money to spend,
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so companies lose even more money. And if they lose enough of it, they go bankrupt. Now, when companies went bankrupt, at least back in the 1920s, the banks that supported them failed.
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And when the banks failed, people's money straight-up vanished thanks to the lack of FDIC insurance. Everyone loses their [ __ ] and rushes to withdraw money from whatever banks are still standing, but there's not enough physical cash to
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meet that demand. Now, all of a sudden, no one has money. So, what happened to it all? The banks lent it out to all the rich people placing speculative bets on the stock market. Now, when there's a lot of market speculation, stock market
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prices get unreasonably high. Unreasonably high prices aren't very sexy, so no one else wants to buy them.
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Instead, they sell to take profits. But, when these profits are taken, that stock price drops. When stock prices drop, any remaining shareholders lose potential profit, which is no bueno. So, they panic sell whatever shares they have.
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And when there's enough seller momentum across the board, the entire stock market crashes. So, banks have failed, blue-collar workers have lost their life savings overnight, millionaires have lost their fortunes, factories have folded, and farmers have hung up their
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tools. Not only did this [ __ ] the United States, but the entirety of global trade. The United States could not meet critical export demands, and foreign economies selling raw materials such as sugar, rubber, and lumber lost their biggest customer, and thus most of
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their money, impacting their economies. The Great Depression was without doubt one of the worst economic disasters of the modern age. The American economy struggled until the United States entered World War II in 1941, where demand for production and labor picked
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right back up. To put it simply, the 1929 stock market crash did not cause the Great Depression. It was the writing on the wall that the system was breaking. Afterward, the banking system was overhauled and the stock market
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heavily regulated to prevent history from repeating [music] itself. And we'll see how that goes.
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Human sacrifice is a noble tradition that has been going on since the dawn of civilization. Whether it's to make your king happy, appease the gods, or just a creative way of getting rid of an annoying neighbor, you can bet that a
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classic heart-stealing, skull-splitting sacrifice will get the job done. So, let's take a look at how different societies used to willingly depopulate themselves for the greater good.
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Imagine you spend most, if not all of your life, serving one guy, the pharaoh.
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Well, one day he just keels over from choking on a scarab, and you say to yourself, "Oh, thank god. Your years of servitude are over." Only to find out that the pharaoh handpicked you and your buddies to serve him in the afterlife.
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To make matters worse, you look around to see all of your bros celebrating like Ra himself just showed up to the party.
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"Are you freaking kidding me?" you say to yourself as a sword is rammed into your delicate tummy. Your body is then mummified, and you're entombed with pharaoh and the boys for all eternity.
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This is basically how retainer sacrifices went. Since pharaohs were seen as gods in human form, they were treated as such, requiring countless servants to tend to their every need.
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Like a lot of civilizations, ancient Egyptians believed in an afterlife where you could continue to do what you do without the fragility of mortality. Of course, pharaohs didn't want to spend eternity having to do things themselves.
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That's for poor people. So, there were instances where pharaohs would arrange to have servants or even close family members sacrificed to accompany them into the next life. Evidence shows that those chosen for eternal untipped servitude willingly gave their lives as
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a sign of everlasting devotion to their pharaoh. Dumbasses. Examination of the bodies showed no signs of struggle or trauma, suggesting that they most likely cast themselves into the shadow realm sipping on an arsenic brusky. Retainer sacrifices were rare and some of the
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only evidence of its practice dates back to the first dynasty of Egypt around 3000 BC, but it has also been seen in other ancient cultures like Sumerians and Chinese. Though, the practice seemed to have faded in popularity as time went
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on. My guess is the pool for volunteers dried up once they realized they could just be like, "Yeah, sure pharaoh. We'll be right behind you." Wink.
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Imagine you take the time to build a nice bridge to cross a pesky river.
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Hm, that's a It's a nice bridge right there. But, it suddenly gets washed away by a rush of water because rivers, am I right? "Oh, toots," you say, slapping your knee. But, you don't let it get you down just yet. You can rebuild. And so
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you do, but damn it. Huh, looks like something really doesn't want you building a bridge there. The gods? A nature spirit? Poor structural integrity from a lack of engineering experience?
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Whatever the case, you're left with no choice. You have to reliably cross that river. Time to start sacrificing. Japan is no stranger to odd practices to appease spirits, and hitobashira is one of them. Translating to human pillar, the practice was used to basically bless
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new construction projects with good fortune. Dang, this project is 3 weeks behind schedule. Well, [music] in you go Martha.
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Sir, sir, the budgets have just been coincidentally increased. It's a miracle. [cheering] It was a common belief that disturbing the earth for means of construction would piss off the local spirits around the land, cursing [music] the structure to an untimely demise. Well, that's not
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so great for their portfolios ROI, so builders needed some insurance that their castles and bridges were going to at least have a few centuries of durability against some spooky specters.
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Victims or volunteers would be handpicked to sacrifice themselves to serve this greater purpose. In their sacrifice, they would become a guardian spirit for the structure, protecting it from natural elements or enemy attacks.
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To be honest, I'd give up my life so a Denny's could serve for all eternity.
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Famous sites that used some human reinforcement are the Maruoka Castle in Sakai and the Matsuejo Castle in Matsue.
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Those being sacrificed would be provided a small comfy hole in which to be buried alive, forever entombed under or near the new construction. The practice was common up until the 16th century when people started to realize [music] yeah, that makes no sense, and declared
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it inhumane. Although, there is evidence that the practice continued up to the 20th century. I guess some traditions just don't die, but the people do.
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[music] Ah, Mayans. Probably the first thing you think of when you hear human sacrifice in your everyday conversations.
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Decapitation, ripping out hearts, throwing people in pits, they had it all. Dating as far back as 250 AD, the Mayan people were big on human sacrifices an ultimate offering to the gods if they really wanted something dire, be it fertility to save them from
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famine or rainfall to save them from drought. The unfortunate thing is that droughts and famine eventually subside naturally, so the Mayans never got a good feedback loop that their sacrifices were in vain. They really just kept doing it until their problems were
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solved. And to their credit, there was definitely no lack of imagination on how to lower their population density either. Those eligible for the privilege of getting sliced and diced onto the village charcuterie board were typically high-value prisoners of war from rival
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societies as they were seen as a better offering to the gods. These smelly unpopular captives would typically be forced into labor building all of the structures that their friends just died for. Oh, yeah, ritualistic offerings were also performed for things like new
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construction or appointing a new ruler. Nothing like breaking ground by shoving the shovel into your buddy's skull.
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Thanks, gods. The main goal of sacrifice was to extract blood from their victims as tribute. Of course, getting your sacrifice to bleed was the easy part, but Mayans like to put on a good show.
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Lobbing heads off, ripping their still beating hearts from their chests, and chucking their bodies down a bunch of steps, slamming numerous arrows into their chests, simple cutting and draining, all very effective at getting that sweet red good good out from their
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bodies. The blood was often smeared across images of the gods that they wish to appease with the remaining blood and corpse-y bits burnt to complete the tribute. In case you were wondering, Aztecs performed very similar sacrifices, though a bit more grand. For
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example, during the reconsecration of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan, it is estimated that more than 80,000 prisoners were sacrificed, reducing crime rate 143% overnight.
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[music] Even though we are grateful every day for the invention of olive oil, Greece has a pretty dark history. When times were looking grim, thanks to the usual suspects of famine, war, or plague, it was deemed necessary to make a sacrifice
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to purify the community. Roughly translating to scapegoat, pharmakos was the ritualistic sacrifice or exile of a person or group of people. Those typically chosen for the task were slaves, cripples, or criminals. You could even be chosen if you were just
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plain ugly. Those people were seen as impure and a blight on their society, thus causing all of the misfortunes.
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Tomatoes not growing right? Just blame Nasty Nick down the road. Yeah, he's guilty. The ritual can go one of two ways.
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Either the victim is completely sacrificed or is just exiled. Typically, full-on sacrifice was reserved for the worst of criminals, where they could just be thrown off a cliff into the sea or burned on a pyre. Although, it has to
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be said that many modern history dorks say this probably never happened, so who knows? There are stories from Athens that each year during a harvest festival called Thargelia, the ugliest man and woman would be well-fed and paraded through the city. Ah, this is This is
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nice. But, then they would just get absolutely demolished with sticks and branches and kicked out of the city. Well, that's what you get for ruining my tomatoes.
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Marriage can be one of the happiest moments in a person's life. You dedicate the rest of your life in sharing prosperity, safety, and care for your partner. But, what happens once till death do you part becomes reality?
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[music] Why? You sacrifice yourself, of course. Back around 320 AD, Hindu women would often opt into the practice of sati, in which they would sacrifice themselves to the funeral pyre of the recently deceased husbands. This was seen as an
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ultimate sacrifice and a sign of utmost devotion as they would follow their loved ones into the spirit world. The grieving widows would either softly lay next to their dearly departed or 720 laser flip their way onto the funeral
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pyre as it burned, which was pretty metal. [music] As time went on, women became a little bit more reluctant to just throwing themselves willy-nilly into fire because, like, maybe they wanted to live instead. But, thanks to good old
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societal pressures, these women were more or less forced to the flame. Widows who had no children were seen as nothing but a burden on society since they could not remarry and therefore had no further use. According to a website I found when
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researching this, the practice of sati was highest between the 15th and 18th centuries with as many as 1,000 widows blazing it each year. I mean, I've heard of hot single women in my area, but this is ridiculous. Thankfully, the practice
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was officially banned in 1829. So, there you have it. Societies have gone through a lot of sacrifices throughout history and still do even today. For example, I sacrifice my time making these videos trying to convince you that I'm funny
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and you sacrifice your time confirming that I'm not. But hey, that's showbiz, baby. Hey guys, today's topic's all about humanity's greatest achievement.
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[music] Cheese. And unless you're lactose intolerant through genetic inferiority, there's really nothing like a good slice of cheese to brighten up your day. It comes in all kinds of flavors and textures, too, like smooth, salty, and absolute garbage. But have you ever
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asked yourself, what is cheese? As appetizing as it sounds, cheese is just curdled milk.
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But which milk? Any milk, really, assuming that you have a healthy and legal supply. And once you have your fresh, delicious, hair-free milk, just let it outright spoil.
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No way, you say, but yes way. Curds and whey. Curds are the gross little floating pieces at the top and whey is the milk sweat that's left behind. Add in some flavors to your curds and voila, you have cheese. Of course, someone will
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say that the process is a little bit more complicated than that and they'd be right, but this is a history video, so that begs the question, where did cheese even come from? Cheese is one of those inventions that was made by accident,
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like potato chips, Post-its, and you. According to official historic cheese lore, a merchant in ancient Europe or Asia or some somewhere in this area, stored milk for his travels in the best container he had at the time, a sheep's
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stomach. After a day of traveling in a hot desert, something magical happened. Good golly, am I thirsty.
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says the merchant wiping sweat off of his brow. I can't wait to tear to this hot, delicious, refreshing milk.
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The merchant found that in addition to drinking his milk, which was now suspiciously salty, there were also some chunks to chew on as a snack, ruining the need for his provisions of Oreos. It turns out that the sheep stomach
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contained rennet, an enzyme that delicately convinced the milk to change from a liquid to a solid. Word of this marvelous chewy milk spread far and wide, making cheese more popular than Jesus, who wouldn't exist for thousands of years. Earliest known evidence of
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cheese making dates back over 8,000 years in what is now Switzerland. I know, the Swiss making cheese, big shocker, right? But more evidence has been found all across the world from the country of Africa to the continents of
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Italy. Since food preservation techniques back then were nothing more than just salting and drying, cheeses were often salty and dry. It would be a long while before cheeses that we know would start popping up. Cheddar was invented around the 1100s, Parmesan in
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1597, and Gouda a century later. In today's world, there are over 2,000 types of cheese ranging from white American cheese to edible. Some countries even formed cheese boards, which provides a sort of patent on their cheeses, basically saying, "Hey,
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this is my cheese. Go make your own." Just like how champagne can't really be called champagne unless it's from the champagne region in France, Parmesan or Parmigiano-Reggiano can't be called as such unless it's from that particular region in Italy. Lucky
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for me, I can just pick it up at my local grocery store. Checkmate, Italy.
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All cheese types can be categorized into a basic system, organizing them based on their moisture content, like some kind of moist meter. First up, you have your fresh cheeses. These are your sloppiest mega wet cheeses like ricotta and
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mozzarella. Really good for making a nice calzone or some fresh Italian boba tea. Next up are the soft cheeses like brie and camembert.
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These cheeses are generally smooth and creamy and are good as spreads on like bread and stuff. Third are the semi-soft cheeses like provolone and munster, which aren't as soft as the soft cheeses, otherwise they would be classified as soft cheeses. These are
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good for some good ass sandwich making. Fourth, we have the semi-firm cheeses or as I like to call them Here you can find cheddar, gouda, or gruyere. Great for charcuterie parties and lunchables for the kiddos. Finally, we have the fully erect hard cheeses
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like parmesan and asiago. Perfect for harassing your local Italian restaurant waitress, this grade is great for grating and are typically your most flavorful cheeses as well as the most pungent. Just like gamers, the smellier it is, the better it is. It should be
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said that there is also a category of blue cheeses for distinguished people who love the complex, bold, and sour flavors of actual mold. No matter the type of cheese you choose, culinary nerds will always tell you that you're
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not pairing it with the right complimentary food or drink in order to earn your first class ticket to flavor town. Look, if I want to shove a handful of shredded mozzarella down my throat at 2:00 in the morning, then let me. Don't
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recommend to me that I wash it down with a 2012 Sancerre Blanc because I did that.
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But it was a beer. Nowadays, cheese is still enjoyed as a staple of modern cuisine all across the world, but mainly in France where it is typically served sliced with fruit or bread after a main course. In the cultural hub that is the
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United States, we serve it as an appetizer sliced in a sort of stick shape where it is then breaded and fried providing key nutrients for us to grow big and strong. Remember that no matter how you slice it, cheese is a delicious
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addition to any meal, so feel free to eat it to your heart's content until it fails from all of the excess sodium.
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History's good as boys. Being a good boy is not limited to any one animal. It could be a dog, a cat, a bat, a rat, or even your 4-year-old little cousin when he isn't kicking your shins. That being said, our first good
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boy is Gustav. Ever since he was just a little embryo wriggling in his egg, he wanted to serve his country. So, when it was time to leave the nest, he decided to enlist in the military. Despite parental pressures not to. After some
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intense training with his new human counterpart, Frederick Jackson of Cosham, Gustav earned his wings and was officially made a service pigeon for the British Royal Air Force during World War II.
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So, which one is yours? Oh, that handsome little pigeon right in the middle there.
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Ugh, pervert. Early in his career, Gustav was part of the Belgian resistance carrying messages out of German-occupied Belgium. But, since the Germans had previously occupied Belgium for 4 years during World War I, the Belgians knew the drill.
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Oh, honey, it looks like the the Germans are back. [groaning] I'll go get the mallet.
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After a long, successful run of sending messages in and out of Belgium, Gustav would be assigned his most important role yet. On June 6th, 1944, Gustav was aboard an Allied landing ship headed towards the beaches of Normandy. If you
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know your history, you're familiar with that date being D-Day, when Allied forces decided to penetrate a very German France. Unfortunately, our feathered friend was not well-versed in combat, so he was tasked with delivering critical news back to the UK about the
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mission. Gustav held the message in his little footsie and took wing. 150 whole miles against a 30-mph headwind. Bro was After just over 5 hours of continuous flight, the message was received, being the first official update on D-Day's
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mission status since the fleet went radio silent to avoid detection. For his service, Gustav was given a Dickin.
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Yeah, a Dickin Medal for his bravery, which is the animal equivalent of the British Victoria Cross or the US Medal of Honor. Gustav eventually retired from service and lived out the rest of his days with his best friend and former
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trainer, Fred Jackson. He went to the greatness in the sky as a war hero and an official good boy. By the end of the war, a total of 32 carrier pigeons were awarded a Dickin Medal. For instance, the comically but fashionably named
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William of Orange, who saved over 2,000 soldiers with a single message carried over 250 miles in just over 4 hours. 10 years after his retirement, he was reportedly a, quote, "grandfather of many outstanding racing pigeons." [music] Our next good boy was actually a good
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girl with a badass name. Meet Sergeant Reckless, a United States Mongolian war horse during the Korean War. And no, that's not just a funny title like calling a rabbit Captain Puffers.
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Reckless actually held the rank of staff sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. This absolute tank of a war horse was purchased in 1952 off of a stable boy in Seoul, South Korea for 250 smackers. Apparently, the young fragile
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boy needed money to buy an artificial leg for his apparently even more fragile sister.
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Always some kind of Disney Pixar tragic backstory, isn't it? Reckless was taken in by the United States Marine Corps and trained to be a pack horse for a regiment specializing in anti-tank armaments. Not surprisingly, the platoon took to her very quickly and she was
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immediately one of the gang, allowed to roam freely amongst the camp and poke her head in around the tents. Uh, do you mind?
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She was known to eat nearly anything that was available. Chocolate, eggs, beer, the Marines' treasured supply of delicious and nutritious crayons. She even once ate a small pile of poker chips, if you can believe that.
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All right, fellas, I'm all in. Uh, god damn it, I fold. Being a pack horse and all, Reckless' main duty was to carry supplies and ammunition to the battlefront, but she even managed to carry wounded off of the field to
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safety. And she was a pretty smart girl, learning her supply routes after only a few trips, unlike me who still uses the GPS to make sure I take the same exit that I've taken 50 times before.
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Recalculating. Idiot. But, Reckless's claim to fame came in March of 1953 during the Battle for Outpost Vegas. In a single day, this heroic equine managed to make 51 resupply trips to the front lines solo.
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No handler needed. Across those trips, she totaled over 9,000 lbs of ammunition over 35 mi of travel. She's the definition of understanding the assignment. She did sustain two minor wounds in the battle, but was promoted to corporal shortly after the battle had
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ended with another promotion to sergeant after the entire Korean War ended. For her services, she was awarded two Purple Hearts, a Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, and was included in her unit's Presidential Unit Citations, among other military honors. Yeah, nothing could
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stop this anti-tank warhorse. Next up, Simon. Look at this handsome little man. Now, before you comment, no, this isn't Unsinkable Sam. This is Simon. How do I know? Well, his tag is for the HMS Amethyst, which is the ship
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that Simon served on. But, I'll get to that in a bit. Just know that most of, if not all, stories of Unsinkable Sam mistakenly use Simon's picture instead with his tag cropped out.
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It's quite the scandal, and I won't stand for it. Anyway, in 1948 on a cold Chinese morning in China, little Simon was doing cat things in a dockyard in Hong Kong.
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He was found by a 17-year-old naval seaman named George Hickinbottom, who was a crew member of the locally docked British frigate, the HMS Amethyst.
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But, little Simon was not in such good condition. He was estimated to be about a year old at this point and was pretty malnourished. I'm going to keep you and love you forever. Meow. And so, Simon was smuggled onto the ship.
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However, due to small obvious signs of cat activity, Simon was almost immediately discovered, but was instantly adored by the crew. Cuz I mean, come on. How could you not? Look at him. It ended up being a solid deal
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as Simon would hunt rats aboard the vessel, providing him a reliable source of food and ridding the crew of pests.
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Everything seemed well and good on a mission up the Yangtze River until the incident.
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[music] Halfway up the river, the Amethyst came under fire from a group of Chinese People's Liberation Army field guns. The little bastards were absolutely relentless. The rounds struck the captain's quarters where Simon was stationed. He sustained serious wounds,
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but was rushed to the medical bay for treatment. His burns were tended to and shrapnel was removed, but he was not expected to survive. But, you should never doubt Simon. The fearless little feline ended up making a full recovery
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and went straight back to work cuz them rats got too comfy with him being out of commission for a bit. Simon's KC skyrocketed along with the crew's morale. Mites, the captain? He He's [ __ ] dead? Don't ruin this for us.
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After the incident, Simon became an instant celebrity, gaining publicity all over the world. For his services, he was granted the Dickin Medal, a Blue Cross Medal, and the Amethyst Campaign Medal.
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He was even given the rank of Able Seacat for his exceptional rat-hunting abilities. Little Simon was a huge star.
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When he was finally able to move to his new home in England, Simon was required to be placed in quarantine per regulations. It was here that Simon tragically contracted a virus and was granted 50% opacity on November 28th,
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1949 at just 2 years of age. The entire Amethyst crew and hundreds of other adoring fans attended his funeral in the Ilford Animal Cemetery in East London, where he loafs bonely to this day.
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Moving on, we have this prestigious primate right here, Corporal Jackie the Baboon. His story begins in the 1910s in South Africa when he was found roaming around a farm. The owner, Albert Marr, took Jackie in as a pet because why not
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have a pet baboon? Over the next few years, the two grew close and were like family, but of course, the world decided to slam a wedge into the family as well as millions of other families around the globe when World War I broke out. Albert
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was drafted into the South African army in 1915, but refused to leave Jackie at home, to which Albert's commanding officers were like, "All right, the baboon can come." And so, Jackie was made the mascot for the Third South African Infantry Regiment,
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complete with his own little uniform and hat, rations, and his own little paybook. To no surprise, he was adored by the regiment. In true soldier fashion, Jackie would salute his superior officers, march with the regiment, eat with his own fork and
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knife, and would even light other soldiers' cigarettes. He was such a good boy. Outside of just entertainment and morale, Jackie proved to be a valuable asset to the team. His heightened senses allowed him to be alerted to incoming
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attacks well before human soldiers would be able to. The war did end up taking Jackie and Albert far from home, with one of their first major combat encounters being the Battle of the Somme in 1916 France. Both Jackie and Albert
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survived quite a few high-casualty battles across their tour. While serving in Egypt, Albert was shot in the shoulder.
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And Jackie stayed with him and tended to his wounds while awaiting medical aid. Jackie, I don't know if I'm going to make it, buddy.
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Nonsense Albert. Despite both him and Albert sustaining wounds, they both survived the war. Jackie was awarded a Medal of Valor for his bravery and was promoted to corporal. Both he and Albert returned home to South Africa. Although Jackie
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managed to survive years under fire during the war, he ultimately perished in a fire in 1921 at home. But he was still a good boy.
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[music] Now, unless you're a Hollywood elite, you don't often want to become friends with a natural predator. But the Polish military had a different idea in 1942 during a little-known event called World War II. A Syrian brown bear cub was
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adopted and given to the 22nd Artillery Supply Company of the Polish military. The troops instantly loved the bear because what else was there to do? They ended up naming him Wojtek, which loosely translate to happy warrior because he was a happy boy indeed. The
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troops raised the cub by feeding it condensed milk from a vodka bottle and then eventually various fruits and syrups. The bear grew attached to the soldiers, copying their every move. When the soldier slept, he slept. When it was
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time for a nice morning coffee and cigarette, Wojtek would drink coffee and eat a cigarette. When being saluted, Wojtek would salute back.
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He was an ideal and loyal companion, despite being a giant [ __ ] bear.
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After the company was assigned to fight alongside the British during the Italian campaign, the British displayed their signature racism against bears, forbidding Wojtek from being transported with the troops since he wasn't a soldier. So, as a big pierre de [ __ ] to
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the Brits, Wojtek was immediately enlisted as a private into the Polish military. Oh, so you can have pigeons, but you draw the line at bears?
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Whatever. Now officially being part of the 22nd Company, his main job was to transport crates of ammunition to troops, which he was very successful at doing. He would lift large crates of artillery shells onto trucks, a job that
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normally required the strength of four men. It was noted that he never dropped a single crate, lest he obliterate his entire fan base and you wouldn't be hearing much about him today, other than that one idiot bear who dropped a bomb
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and and everyone. For his work, he was promoted to corporal and became the official symbol of the 22nd Artillery Supply Company.
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Once World War peacefully concluded, Wojtek spent the rest of his days in the Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland, where he would be frequently visited by his military pals. Adoring fans would often toss cigarettes for Wojtek to munch on as a treat. He kicked the honey pot 16
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years later at the age of 21. At ease, soldier. Although he never received any medals for his service, Wojtek was beloved by many across Europe and is immortalized with several statues across Poland, the UK, and even Italy.
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[music] [music]
Topics:ancient sportsMesoamerican ballgameōllamaliztliCalcio Storicobrutal sports historyMaya civilizationAztec culturehistorical sports rulesancient gamessports injuries
