Speaker 1: You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what, Mango?
Speaker 1: What's that?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: So, I was looking to the history of Christmas lights
Speaker 3: this week, and I was trying to figure out who
Speaker 3: exactly is to blame for the yearly chore of untangling them.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you deal with this, but it's
Speaker 3: sort of a nightmare around.
Speaker 1: Here in my house. It's Ruby. Ruby is always the culprit.
Speaker 3: You didn't have to tell me that. I already knew
Speaker 3: that it was Ruby. But I was looking a little
Speaker 3: further back, further back than Ruby even and my search
Speaker 3: led me all the way back to Thomas Edison's Christmas party.
Speaker 2: This was back in eighteen eighty.
Speaker 3: Now, to be clear, Edison didn't invent Christmas lights, just
Speaker 3: in case you were curious about that, and he didn't
Speaker 3: technically invent the light bulb. But by all accounts, he
Speaker 3: was the first to string lights together and use them
Speaker 3: as yule Tide decorations, which I did not know before
Speaker 3: this episode.
Speaker 1: That is pretty awesome. Can I tell you something ridiculous?
Speaker 1: On Friday, I snuck into this reading of a new
Speaker 1: musical in the works about Nikola Tesla and Edison. And
Speaker 1: the Edison character was incredible. It was almost like d V.
Speaker 1: Diggs as like Jefferson in Hamilton. He was like this big, funny,
Speaker 1: smarmy showman of a character. And so I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about Edison all weekend before you mentioned this.
Speaker 2: That's amazing.
Speaker 1: But you know, I've always read about Edison that he
Speaker 1: was like kind of a workaholic, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: stunning to think of him getting into the holiday spirit here. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean your perception is spot on, and Edison
Speaker 3: was definitely a workaholic and very much working on the
Speaker 3: night in question. In fact, the whole goal of his
Speaker 3: holiday get together was to try to convince a group
Speaker 3: of investors and New York City officials to let him
Speaker 3: wire the city for electricity. So to that end, he
Speaker 3: invited them out to his laboratory. This was in Menlo
Speaker 3: Park on the evening of December nineteenth, eighteen eighty, and
Speaker 3: to help sell them on the idea of electric lighting,
Speaker 3: he arranged an eye catching spectacle to greet them at
Speaker 3: the train station. It was two rows of electric lamps
Speaker 3: strung across wires. It was such a novel sight that
Speaker 3: the New York Times reported on it two days later,
Speaker 3: writing the train arrived at Menlo Park at five point
Speaker 3: thirty one. Darkness had settled down upon the bleak and
Speaker 3: uninviting place which mister Edison had chosen for his home.
Speaker 3: But the plank walk from the station to the laboratory
Speaker 3: was brilliantly lighted by a double row of electric lamps,
Speaker 3: which cast a soft and mellow light on all sides.
Speaker 3: The incandescent horseshoes gave out a yellow light which shone
Speaker 3: steadily and without the least painful glare, and were beautiful
Speaker 3: to look upon. Pretty fun description.
Speaker 1: So first of all, I love that the New York
Speaker 1: Times is writing about New Jersey as a bleak and
Speaker 1: uninviting place, which feels like yeah. But I also loved
Speaker 1: that Edison wasn't trying to kick off a new holiday tradition.
Speaker 1: He was just trying to win business and impress his dinners.
Speaker 3: No, that's exactly right. There's no indication that he meant
Speaker 3: for the lights to be associated with Christmas. He was
Speaker 3: just hosting a party around the holidays, and the lighting
Speaker 3: seemed to fit the mood. But Edison maintained that same
Speaker 3: sense of showmanship inside his lab as well. After giving
Speaker 3: the group the grand tour the facility, he led them
Speaker 3: up to the building's second story, which was almost completely dark,
Speaker 3: and then on Edison's signal, the room lit up with
Speaker 3: about forty electric lamps. It revealed this lavish bread of
Speaker 3: food provided by the famous Delmonico's restaurant.
Speaker 2: Pretty great.
Speaker 1: That is pretty fancy. So it sounds like he went
Speaker 1: all out.
Speaker 3: He did, and the effort seems to have paid off
Speaker 3: because Edison's company did eventually secure the rights to provide
Speaker 3: electricity in Lower Manhattan. And not only that, one of
Speaker 3: his longtime colleagues, Edward Johnson, used the opportunity to introduce
Speaker 3: the first intentional Christmas lighting display. Now, this was in
Speaker 3: December of eighteen eighty two. Johnson decided to show off
Speaker 3: his home's electricity and promote Edison's company. He commissioned a
Speaker 3: string of lights made specifically for his Christmas tree, and
Speaker 3: once they were ready on December twenty second, he positioned
Speaker 3: the tree at the front of his home so it
Speaker 3: would be visible through the windows, and then he turned
Speaker 3: it on for.
Speaker 2: The first time.
Speaker 3: There were eighty bulbs total, each about the size of
Speaker 3: a walnut, and they glowed in colors red, white, and blue.
Speaker 3: But Johnson didn't stop there, so to make the spectacle
Speaker 3: even more grand, he installed on an electric crank beneath
Speaker 3: the floor that allowed the tree to rotate. Like this
Speaker 3: guy was innovative. He was getting it on the rotating
Speaker 3: tree thing.
Speaker 1: That is amazing. It also feels like the wires would
Speaker 1: get tangled in that situation, but I like the innovation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And you know, as you'd expect, Johnson's revolving
Speaker 3: glowing Christmas tree dazzled passers by and through large crowds
Speaker 3: every night that it was lit. And this spectacle was
Speaker 3: newsworthy too, because at the time people generally lit their
Speaker 3: trees with wax candles clipped to the branches, which actually
Speaker 3: these days just sounds terrifying. I don't know, they didn't
Speaker 3: all catch any fire, but you know, the safety of
Speaker 3: electric Christmas lane lights became a major selling point in
Speaker 3: the coming decades. And while Christmas trees today are mostly
Speaker 3: strung with LED lights instead of their old incandescent cousins,
Speaker 3: we still owe a big debt of thanks to Thomas
Speaker 3: Edison and of course Edward Johnson forgetting the tradition rolling.
Speaker 3: But Edison's bright idea for his dinner party is just
Speaker 3: the first of nine unforgettable holiday gatherings we'll talk about today.
Speaker 3: So let's get into it. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome
Speaker 3: to part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always
Speaker 3: I'm joined by my good friend Mangeshaw Ticketer and on
Speaker 3: the other side of that soundproof glass helping himself to
Speaker 3: a third slice of fruit cake. I mean, that's it's
Speaker 3: a big slice too. It's impressive. That's our friend good
Speaker 3: pretty great. Actually, I'm pretty jealous at this point. That's
Speaker 3: our friend and producer Dylan Fagan. Now the strange part
Speaker 3: is he seems to be genuinely enjoying it, which I
Speaker 3: didn't think was actually allowed with a fruitcake.
Speaker 2: I don't know what your feelings are.
Speaker 1: That is really the last thing to go at the
Speaker 1: holiday party, but it feels like Dylan's really on it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it usually goes in the trash, honestly, and
Speaker 3: it makes the trash weigh like fifty pounds more, but
Speaker 3: not on Dylan's watch.
Speaker 2: So thank you for your service, buddy.
Speaker 1: So Will. Since he start us off with the origin
Speaker 1: of Christmas lights, I want to give you the backstory
Speaker 1: on an even more old school Christmas decoration, and that
Speaker 1: is the Nativity scene. And whether it's a live performance,
Speaker 1: a long display, or a bunch of figurines on a mantle,
Speaker 1: scenes depicting the birth of Christ have long been a
Speaker 1: staple of the Christmas season. In fact, the very first
Speaker 1: Nativity scene is thought to have been created more than
Speaker 1: eight hundred years ago, and this was in Gareccio, Italy.
Speaker 1: It was orchestrated by none other than Saint Francis of Assissi,
Speaker 1: who you know. It was one of the most revered
Speaker 1: saints in Catholic history, my mom's favorite saint in fact,
Speaker 1: because of his love for animals. But he made the
Speaker 1: scene as a way to make the Christmas story feel
Speaker 1: more real for his fellow countrymen.
Speaker 2: So I'm trying to picture this.
Speaker 3: Did he just set up the little scene outside of
Speaker 3: a village church or what did he do exactly?
Speaker 1: It was a little more elaborate than that. So first
Speaker 1: he obtained permission from the Pope in Rome because no
Speaker 1: one had actually recreated the birth of Jesus before and
Speaker 1: he didn't want it to be seen as blasphemous or
Speaker 1: anything like that. So then he wrote home to one
Speaker 1: of his friends in Grecio, and he asked him to
Speaker 1: find a cave in the countryside where they could stage
Speaker 1: the scene. And in the letter Francis explained his motivation.
Speaker 1: He wrote, quote, I want to do something that will
Speaker 1: recall the memory of that child who was born in Bethlehem,
Speaker 1: to see with bodily eyes the inconveniences of his infancy,
Speaker 1: how he lay in the manger, and how the ox
Speaker 1: and donkey stood by.
Speaker 3: And I do think it's fair to say if he
Speaker 3: made people travel all the way out to a distant cave,
Speaker 3: then he kind of nailed it on the inconvenience front.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But by the time Francis arrived at Greccio in
Speaker 1: mid December, his friend had actually found a suitable cave.
Speaker 1: He'd stalked it with a hayline manger as well as
Speaker 1: two live animals, this ox and this donkey that Francis
Speaker 1: had asked for. And once everything was ready, Francis invited
Speaker 1: his fellow friars and all the farmers in the region
Speaker 1: to come see the major scene during Christmas Mass. Now,
Speaker 1: Francis himself preached the homily that evening in the cave.
Speaker 1: It was illuminated by firelight, and crowds came from miles
Speaker 1: around bearing candles and torches, and several of those in
Speaker 1: attendance actually claimed to witness miracles at the mass. So,
Speaker 1: for example, there were no figures or actors present in
Speaker 1: the scene, but witnesses reported that a real, live infant
Speaker 1: suddenly appeared in the empty manger, and in the weeks
Speaker 1: that followed, all these miraculous healings for such to take
Speaker 1: place in the grotto where the mass was held, so
Speaker 1: sick animals and pregnant women were leisurely cured just by
Speaker 1: touching the straw and the manger where the baby g
Speaker 1: Jesus had materialized.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that definitely explains why we have a
Speaker 3: pretty solid date for when this happened. Like, putting a
Speaker 3: manger in a cave might not be worth reporting on,
Speaker 3: but when you talk about these events that people are
Speaker 3: reporting happen there, you know the magic that happened there,
Speaker 3: it's likely the type of event people will remember.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and word of the Nativity scene did make the Browns.
Speaker 1: Saint Francis's recreation prompted other churches in Italy to stage
Speaker 1: their own scenes in the following years. And then over
Speaker 1: time the practice spread to churches and other countries, as
Speaker 1: well to town squares and eventually into private homes. But
Speaker 1: for those who favor authenticity, you can actually still make
Speaker 1: the trip to where the tradition was born. The hermitage
Speaker 1: where Francis staged the First Nativity is still there outside
Speaker 1: the town of Correccio, and each Christmas the townspeople gather
Speaker 1: there and mount a live historical reenactment of Saint Francis
Speaker 1: and the First Nativity minus the infant Jesus.
Speaker 2: Right right, Well, my.
Speaker 3: Next fact is about a holiday party that Saint Francis
Speaker 3: would not have approved of, though he might have at
Speaker 3: least appreciated the theming here, because, according to New York Magazine,
Speaker 3: the Bloomberg Company's two thousand Christmas party was based off
Speaker 3: of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can see how like gluttony gets into
Speaker 1: the mix, but but how do you put something like
Speaker 1: wrath into a Christmas party?
Speaker 3: Well, apparently it attracted a lot of people. Michael Bloomberg
Speaker 3: himself was there. He attended along with fifteen hundred British
Speaker 3: employees at the company's London office. And if the tabloid
Speaker 3: rumors are true, it was the country's most extravagant office
Speaker 3: party to date. The party is said to have cost
Speaker 3: one million pounds, which is the equivalent of about two
Speaker 3: point seven million dollars in today's money, and it took
Speaker 3: a full ten days to set up all the decor
Speaker 3: and the attractions that were part of it.
Speaker 1: So I'm very curious. Now what were some of these attractions?
Speaker 3: I mean just the usual holiday fair like, you know,
Speaker 3: a makeshift casino, a sushi bar, some neck massage stations,
Speaker 3: a couple manicure boosts, not to mention ten different open bars,
Speaker 3: including one that was just a t off filled with
Speaker 3: candy and truffles.
Speaker 1: Of course I like that. So it feels like you're
Speaker 1: covering like pride, slop, maybe greed and glutten me there.
Speaker 1: But what about things like envy and luston and again wrath,
Speaker 1: which I'm very curious about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a good question. I'm not sure about wrath,
Speaker 3: but lust is a pretty easy one. They had dedicated
Speaker 3: a quote lust room that featured a twenty five foot
Speaker 3: wide bed decked out in purple satin, which feels a
Speaker 3: little weird for an office party.
Speaker 1: This is gross.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the less said about that one and the better
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: And as for Envy, they were live musicians and drag
Speaker 3: queens performing in the whole night, and some of them
Speaker 3: were said to wave around fistfuls of cash while shouting money.
Speaker 3: Ain't it gorgeous? So that's the way they covered off
Speaker 3: on that. But the wildest part is that even though
Speaker 3: Bloomberg faced some moral backlash for the decat an event,
Speaker 3: he still won his campaign for New York mayor the
Speaker 3: following year.
Speaker 1: Well, I feel like everyone loves someone who could throw
Speaker 1: a good party. But I want to head back to
Speaker 1: some more whole holiday territory from our next back, because
Speaker 1: it's actually about the Christmas parties thrown on Ellis Island.
Speaker 1: So for the first half of the twentieth century, the
Speaker 1: island's Immigrant Reception Center was America's main port of entry.
Speaker 1: As we've talked about before, they had roughly eighty percent
Speaker 1: of the nation's immigrants passing through its gate each year,
Speaker 1: and with that many people to inspect and process, some
Speaker 1: families were obviously stuck there during Christmas holidays. So thankfully,
Speaker 1: immigration officials did their best to keep things feeling festive
Speaker 1: by throwing an elaborate Christmas party for the detainees.
Speaker 3: Wow, so I've never heard of this before. So how
Speaker 3: many manicure boosts did they have there?
Speaker 1: Pretty sure zero? But that doesn't mean the staff didn't
Speaker 1: plo out all the stops when it came to decorating,
Speaker 1: especially during the center's busy early decades. So according to
Speaker 1: Atlas Obscura quote, the Great Hall, with the soaring vaulted
Speaker 1: ceilings and glossy tiled halls, featured nine Christmas trees, each
Speaker 1: decked with color lights. At one end of the hall,
Speaker 1: a giant glowing electric sign read Merry Christmas, likely the
Speaker 1: first electric sign many of the immigrants had ever seen.
Speaker 1: Each balcony, railing and pillar was wrapped gracefully in evergreen
Speaker 1: roots and American flags. The largest tree in the room,
Speaker 1: often topping thirty feet, stood at the opposite end of
Speaker 1: the gallery. Under its branches, immigrants peered at the hundreds
Speaker 1: of neatly wrapped packages, one for each person held at
Speaker 1: Ellis Island on Christmas Day.
Speaker 3: I mean, that does sound lovely, but it does make
Speaker 3: me think though, like, what about all the Jewish immigrants
Speaker 3: who were housed there at the same time.
Speaker 1: So Ellis Island didn't offer a Honka party until the
Speaker 1: nineteen forties. That was a little over a decade before
Speaker 1: its closure in nineteen fifty four. And while Jewish immigrants
Speaker 1: were still given gifts and invited to attend the Christmas Party,
Speaker 1: you know, many chose to sit out for obvious reasons.
Speaker 1: But another shortcoming of the Ellis Island parties was that
Speaker 1: they didn't account for immigrants who had no prior knowledge
Speaker 1: of Christmas. So, for instance, there's this one story from
Speaker 1: the New York Carol Tribune about this young Chinese boy.
Speaker 1: His name was San Lee. He had to stay in
Speaker 1: Ellis Island through Christmas, and the nurses tried to cheer
Speaker 1: him up by arranging a visit from Santa But since
Speaker 1: the boy obviously had no concept of Santa Claus, he
Speaker 1: was totally freaked out with this like plump guy and
Speaker 1: this shows up just laughing by his bedside, I can imagine,
Speaker 1: reportedly under the covers, until the nurses were finally able
Speaker 1: to convince him that Santa Claus was, as the Tribune
Speaker 1: put it, a beneficent old gentleman of the Western world.
Speaker 2: On a title.
Speaker 3: I feel like we should just call him that from
Speaker 3: now on, but I can imagine like, if you've never
Speaker 3: heard of this concept before and then suddenly this figure
Speaker 3: shows up, that would be terrifying completely.
Speaker 1: And I do want to mention that while the Ellis
Speaker 1: Island parties had some serious cultural and religious blindspots, they
Speaker 1: did try to be very inclusive. So, for example, guests
Speaker 1: at the nineteen thirty one party enjoyed such diverse acts
Speaker 1: as a Japanese xylophonist, a Spanish ten, a German Christmas carol,
Speaker 1: and a Hungarian folk dance. And then to cap it
Speaker 1: all off, Oh Holy Night was sung in every language
Speaker 1: spoken at the island, or almost every language, because according
Speaker 1: to one reporter, the Chinese singers didn't have a translation
Speaker 1: to the song, so they assisted by humming instead.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm not sure this fact is as wholesome
Speaker 3: as you thought it was, Mango, because I feel like
Speaker 3: I'm picturing a room full of very baffled people who
Speaker 3: were just kind of going along with all this because
Speaker 3: they weren't allowed to leave. But it's definitely an interesting scene.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, maybe wholesome isn't the right word for
Speaker 1: a mandatory Christmas party, but I will say one poignant
Speaker 1: thing that stuck out to me. In all the reporting
Speaker 1: is that apparently the immigrants faces were said to light
Speaker 1: up when they heard the language of their mother tongue
Speaker 1: in song, and so even though the lyrics probably didn't
Speaker 1: mean much to them, the singing did give them the
Speaker 1: sense of delonging, which I'm sure felt nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, now that makes sense. Heart well.
Speaker 3: As fun as these holiday parties sound, there is one
Speaker 3: crucial element they've all been.
Speaker 2: Lacking so far.
Speaker 1: Fruitcake.
Speaker 3: No, not fruitcake. There's always fruitcake. That's actually the problem.
Speaker 3: I was actually talking about eggnog, mango, the fruitcake of beverages.
Speaker 1: So well, I know, and I hope I'm not revealing
Speaker 1: too much that you used to love egnog? Do you
Speaker 1: still ever drink eggnog?
Speaker 3: I love eggnog so much. In fact, I loved it
Speaker 3: so much as a kid. We're talking the non alcoholic variety.
Speaker 3: I loved it so much as a kid that all
Speaker 3: of our family passwords, like to get into computers, or
Speaker 3: if you know, somebody was coming to pick you up
Speaker 3: and had to say the family password, it always involved eggnog.
Speaker 3: I loved it so much, and it made me so
Speaker 3: hyperactive that my parents would have to dilute it with
Speaker 3: just some milk, because I would drink so much of it.
Speaker 1: That is amazing. So tell me about this eggnog fact you've.
Speaker 3: Got anyway, Well, I just wanted to share more about
Speaker 3: my history with egnog, but no, I'll get to this.
Speaker 3: So one interesting thing I learned this week is that
Speaker 3: while today's egnog is generally just a kid friendly mix
Speaker 3: of eggs, milk, sugar, cream, and of course spices, the
Speaker 3: eggnogg of old almost always included alcohol. The hot drink,
Speaker 3: originally known as posset, was developed in Britain during the
Speaker 3: Middle Ages, and it was typically made from curdled milk
Speaker 3: and spiced wine or ale.
Speaker 1: Hot curdled milk with spiced wine sounds really advertized.
Speaker 3: You wouldn't buy that if you saw that on the box.
Speaker 3: But it was also high class, and at first it
Speaker 3: was enjoyed almost exclusively by the upper class, so you
Speaker 3: had to be a sophisticate to enjoy it. But when
Speaker 3: the drink made its way to colonial America, it became
Speaker 3: more widely available thanks to the colony's abundance of dairy
Speaker 3: farms and sugar and rum, and in fact, the American
Speaker 3: eggnog became so popular that even George Washington tinkered with
Speaker 3: his own private recipe.
Speaker 1: So I should remember this because our friend Ethan brought
Speaker 1: it in to our office at Mental Claws, the recipe,
Speaker 1: and then we decided to make a day of it,
Speaker 1: and we like all made this eggnog and it was delicious,
Speaker 1: but it was like insanely alcoholic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes it was. It's probably not the right mix
Speaker 3: for a midday office party. But not only did George
Speaker 3: include the standard rum, he also threw in sherry, brandy
Speaker 3: and of course whiskey.
Speaker 1: So do you have any instances of agnog really making
Speaker 1: a party turn into a party like that being the
Speaker 1: key ingredient.
Speaker 3: Lots of examples, but we're gon we're gonna stick with
Speaker 3: one here at a highly boozy agnog was certainly part
Speaker 3: of a memorable Christmas party thrown at that famous West
Speaker 3: Point Military Academy. This was in eighteen twenty six, at
Speaker 3: a time when the school was desperately trying to shake
Speaker 3: its reputation as kind of this rowdy and undisciplined academy.
Speaker 3: So to that in west Point strict superintendent this was
Speaker 3: Colonel Sylvanas Thayer. He had banned the consumption of alcohol
Speaker 3: on campus, including at the school's annual Christmas party. Now,
Speaker 3: obviously that was an unpopular move among the cadets, so
Speaker 3: a few days before Christmas, a group of them sneaked
Speaker 3: out at night, wrote across the Hudson River and bought
Speaker 3: about four gallons of whiskey from a local tavern. They
Speaker 3: then smuggled the booze back to campus and stashed it
Speaker 3: away until late Christmas Eve. So they lay low until
Speaker 3: after midnight at some point, and then these two officers
Speaker 3: stationed in the barracks, Captain Hitchcock and Lieutenant Thornton, finally
Speaker 3: went to bed. So the cadets then mixed up a
Speaker 3: giant batch of eggnog and spent the next several hours
Speaker 3: drinking and partying without any interruption. However, at around four
Speaker 3: in the morning, Thornton and Hitchcock awoke to the sound
Speaker 3: of basically a frat party on every floor of the barracks,
Speaker 3: So the two officers rushed to break up the various gatherings,
Speaker 3: but the inebriated cadets weren't having any part of that,
Speaker 3: and so some students threatened their superiors with swords and
Speaker 3: wooden beams, and at least one of them pulled out
Speaker 3: a pistol, so it's a pretty potent egnog I think,
Speaker 3: though thankfully he missed his shot and the bullet struck
Speaker 3: the door jam instead of Hitchcock door jam.
Speaker 1: That sounds so dangerous.
Speaker 3: It's wild, But believe it or not, that was just
Speaker 3: the beginning. So after this near miss, Hitchcock sent for
Speaker 3: the commandant to help put a stop to the chaos.
Speaker 3: But because the cadets were too drunk to understand what
Speaker 3: was happening, they assumed he had called in the artillery
Speaker 3: men stationed in campus. So face with the threat of
Speaker 3: armed guards, the cadets started taking up arms and trying
Speaker 3: to fortify the barracks against intruders. So they broke apart furniture,
Speaker 3: smashed windows, ripped the banisters from the stairways. Then they
Speaker 3: busted up all the cups and dishes and scattered the
Speaker 3: shards all over the floors.
Speaker 1: They basically home alone.
Speaker 3: Bit they totally home alone this whole situation, and the
Speaker 3: artillery men never arrived, of course, as they hadn't been
Speaker 3: called in the first place. But the Commandant of Cadets
Speaker 3: did show up, and thankfully he was able to call
Speaker 3: on the riot, confiscate what remained of the eggnog, and
Speaker 3: that was the end of the party.
Speaker 1: That is insane. So so what happened to these cadets,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming some of them were punished, right.
Speaker 3: Well, some of them were. Out of the two hundred
Speaker 3: and sixty cadets, about ninety of them were identified as
Speaker 3: participants in the riot, Indicting all of them would have
Speaker 3: reinforced the school's negative image, so instead they are only
Speaker 3: expelled the most aggressive of the bunch. It was about
Speaker 3: nineteen cadets and total.
Speaker 2: I'm still a lot of people.
Speaker 1: But can you imagine if they just been graduating one
Speaker 1: that year because there had been an eggnog party?
Speaker 3: Yeah, too much eggnog really did them in pretty wild.
Speaker 3: And you know, the rest of the partygoers were let
Speaker 3: off the hook, including future Confederate President Jefferson Davis his
Speaker 3: future General Roberty Lee, both of whom were students at
Speaker 3: West Point during the Agnog riot. And in case we're wondering,
Speaker 3: the annual Christmas party is no longer a tradition at
Speaker 3: West Point.
Speaker 1: Which is probably a good call. Actually, my next fact
Speaker 1: is also about a rowdy gathering in late December, but
Speaker 1: this one involves just two people. The eccentric Danish astronomer
Speaker 1: Tycho Brahe and his third cousin made her up Parsburg,
Speaker 1: which is spelled like mader Up, though I assure you
Speaker 1: I didn't. So this was back in the year fifteen
Speaker 1: sixty six when both were young men studying astronomy. This
Speaker 1: is in Roastock, Germany. One day in early December, Braa
Speaker 1: and his cousin get into a heated argument at a
Speaker 1: friend's engagement party, most likely over a disagreement about a
Speaker 1: mathematical formula because they were both astronomy nerds. Now the
Speaker 1: other partygoers were able to talk them down before things
Speaker 1: got out of head. But then two weeks later the
Speaker 1: boys were at it again, and that time things took
Speaker 1: a violent turn. So it all goes down on December
Speaker 1: twenty ninth, when a bunch of students gathered at a
Speaker 1: local pub for some post Christmas revelry. After another evening
Speaker 1: of heavy drinking Brahe and Parsburg, they decided to resume.
Speaker 2: Their earlier argument.
Speaker 1: I guess they just can't stop arguing over mathematics, and
Speaker 1: both men were carrying swords at their hips, as was
Speaker 1: the customer at the time. So once they had thoroughly
Speaker 1: offended each other, they reached for their blades and oh my, yes, insane.
Speaker 1: Wait so but honestly, is this still over in math formula?
Speaker 1: Like they're about to throw down and have a sword
Speaker 1: fight over who is the better mathematician. Yeah, it's about
Speaker 1: as nerdy as a duel, looking get, but it still
Speaker 1: came with some serious consequences for Tychobrahjiks. So the fight
Speaker 1: ends with him losing a significant chunk of his nose.
Speaker 1: Though the exact extent of the injury is unclear, some
Speaker 1: historians think he lost the majority of his nose. Contemporary
Speaker 1: depictions show him wearing a prosthesis that only covers the bridge,
Speaker 1: But in either case, the whole thing wasn't very flattering
Speaker 1: for him, because while a small doing scar on the
Speaker 1: cheek was considered a mark of bravery, something that's like
Speaker 1: kind of handsome, etc. Like having half your nose sliced
Speaker 1: off is obviously less becoming, and Bray ended up wearing
Speaker 1: a fake brass nose for the rest of his life.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's.
Speaker 1: Insane, But the funny thing is that he really seemed
Speaker 1: to embrace the eccentricity that came with having a metal nose,
Speaker 1: and actually his personal life only gets increasingly weird from
Speaker 1: that point on. After finishing his studies, he moves to
Speaker 1: an island with a castle and an observatory. This is
Speaker 1: financed by the King of Denmark, and while living there,
Speaker 1: he hires a dwarf jester named Jep who he believes
Speaker 1: to be psychic. He makes him sit under the dining
Speaker 1: room table during every single meal. It's all very very confusing.
Speaker 2: What on earth, Mango, It's so weird.
Speaker 1: Apparently he also had a pet elk in the castle
Speaker 1: that liked to drink beer, so they would drink together.
Speaker 1: But one night the elk had a little too much
Speaker 1: to drink fell down the stairs to his death. It's
Speaker 1: all very very absurd.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I mean, it feels like Jef should
Speaker 3: have seen that one coming. And actually, remind me again.
Speaker 3: I know we remember his name from all of our
Speaker 3: science classes, but remind me what tych o'brie was known
Speaker 3: for besides being a psychopath.
Speaker 2: Obviously.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Brian made sizeable contributions to the field of astronomy. So,
Speaker 1: using the most precise instruments of his day, he was
Speaker 1: able to track the movements of the planets and the stars,
Speaker 1: and he did this with surprising accuracy. His observations actually
Speaker 1: lead to the discovery of a rare supernova. And this
Speaker 1: is all the way back in fifteen seventy two, And
Speaker 1: he also created this incredible series of important essays on
Speaker 1: the movement of comments. He actually would have been even
Speaker 1: more accomplished, except at the age of fifty four, after
Speaker 1: attending a royal banquet in Prague, he ends up falling
Speaker 1: sick and dies a short time later, and again continuing
Speaker 1: with the weirdnesses of his life. The cause of his
Speaker 1: death has long been debated, but most historians think it
Speaker 1: was because brahe grank accessibly at the banquet and then
Speaker 1: waited too long to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 3: What like, this guy's life was weird enough, but you're
Speaker 3: saying he died because he didn't feel like getting up
Speaker 3: to pee.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it wasn'tok like he was lazy, it's
Speaker 1: because he was polite weird. So there was a societal
Speaker 1: custom at the time that said guests shouldn't excuse themselves
Speaker 1: to use the bathroom until their host does at first, So,
Speaker 1: rather than seeming rude, which feels strange, for him, because
Speaker 1: he seems like the type of person who wouldn't be
Speaker 1: caught up with politeness. He ends up staying seated and
Speaker 1: winds up damaging his urinary cracks so badly that it
Speaker 1: kills him a few days later.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that is so wild.
Speaker 3: It's a good tip for anyone hosting a party this
Speaker 3: holiday season. You should let your guests know that it's
Speaker 3: okay to get up and use the bathroom. We don't
Speaker 3: want anybody pulling a brahe as they call it.
Speaker 1: Think we just saved a few lives right there.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, we did.
Speaker 3: This podcast saves lives, so all right, Well, switching gears
Speaker 3: a little, I do want to tell you about a
Speaker 3: much tamer military Christmas party than the one Throne at
Speaker 3: West Point that we were talking about. Now, this one
Speaker 3: took place against all odds. It was actually in the
Speaker 3: Belgian trenches of the First World War, and it's commonly
Speaker 3: referred to today as the Christmas Truce. So the way
Speaker 3: this went is that on Christmas Even nineteen fourteen, French,
Speaker 3: German and British soldiers laid down their weapons for one
Speaker 3: night and had an impromptu Christmas party right there in
Speaker 3: no man's land now, according to accounts from the soldiers,
Speaker 3: men who had been shooting at each other just a
Speaker 3: few hours earlier, again shaking hands, exchanging gifts, singing carols together,
Speaker 3: and they passed around cigarettes and whiskey, and even played
Speaker 3: a game of side on the snow covered battlefield.
Speaker 1: So I have heard of this before, mainly because of
Speaker 1: the soccer game that took place, but I was never
Speaker 1: really sure if it actually happened or not. It almost
Speaker 1: seems like one of those things that is apocryphal, like
Speaker 1: it's too sweet to be true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, you're right, it does seem that way.
Speaker 3: But it helps to remember that this happened just a
Speaker 3: few months into the war, so neither side had a
Speaker 3: clear understanding of what they were fighting for beyond this
Speaker 3: vague notion of freedom, and at that point, no one
Speaker 3: could imagine that the war would drag on for another
Speaker 3: four years, and so once winter said in, many of
Speaker 3: the soldiers on the Western Front were more concerned with
Speaker 3: surviving the cold than they were with killing their enemies.
Speaker 3: So with that context in mind, it's easier to imagine
Speaker 3: why French and British soldiers would be open to a
Speaker 3: holiday ceasefire, especially on Christmas Eve. When they heard the
Speaker 3: singing coming from the German trenches, they thought, you know what,
Speaker 3: we'll join them, and according to one account, the English
Speaker 3: soldiers began belting out their own carols in response, until
Speaker 3: eventually the two sides were all.
Speaker 2: Singing in unison.
Speaker 3: It was such a moving experience that the following morning,
Speaker 3: troops from either side made their way across the battlefield
Speaker 3: and agreed to set aside their differences for the next
Speaker 3: twenty four hours. Now, of course, none of this was
Speaker 3: sanctioned by commanding officers on either side, and plenty of
Speaker 3: soldiers kept right on fighting through Christmas in other parts
Speaker 3: of the region, but the truce proved to be a
Speaker 3: deeply cherished moment for the regiments that took part in it,
Speaker 3: and after the war was over, many of the men
Speaker 3: told their families about the event, against the wishes of
Speaker 3: army leadership, of course, and years later the published accounts
Speaker 3: of various soldiers revealed the full details of the Christmas truth.
Speaker 1: I really love that I had no idea those sort
Speaker 1: of depth of it, and it's pretty wonderful. But I
Speaker 1: know we've got two more of fus to go, so
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Part Time Genius, and we're looking back
Speaker 3: at nine holiday gatherings that we wish we'd been invited to,
Speaker 3: or actually maybe not in some cases. But all right, Mago,
Speaker 3: you're up next. What's your last party fact on the list? Well,
Speaker 3: up to this point, we've mostly talked about Christmas party.
Speaker 3: So I thought i'd jump ahead to New Year's Eve
Speaker 3: and tell you how that song all Lang Sign became
Speaker 3: the official anthem of the holiday. You know, I actually
Speaker 3: didn't know that song could be traced back to a
Speaker 3: single occasion.
Speaker 1: Well, not the song itself. That's believed to have been
Speaker 1: written like way back in the seventeen eighties by the
Speaker 1: Scottish poet Robert Burns. The translation of the title is
Speaker 1: since long ago, and it was commonly sung in Scotland
Speaker 1: when friends parted ways, and by the eighteen eighties it
Speaker 1: was used to ring in the New year as well.
Speaker 1: A handful of Americans also adopted the practice in the
Speaker 1: early twentieth century, but it wasn't until New Year's Eve
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty nine that the tune became linked with the
Speaker 1: holiday on a national So this is a night when
Speaker 1: this Canadian American violinist. His name is Guy Lombardo performed
Speaker 1: Allline sign with a ten piece band at the Roosevelt
Speaker 1: Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. He had been introduced to the
Speaker 1: song as a child in his native Ontario, which happened
Speaker 1: to be home to a large Scottish population, and he
Speaker 1: thought the nostalgic farewell tune was the perfect way to
Speaker 1: close out his shows. So Lombardo's band launch into the
Speaker 1: number just as the clock struck midnight, and it was
Speaker 1: heard not only by New York partygoers, but by radio
Speaker 1: listeners who were tuning in from all over the country.
Speaker 2: And so how did this work?
Speaker 3: Like everyone just collectively agree that it was the song
Speaker 3: to play at midnight from that point on.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, that's the power of radio, right But
Speaker 1: it wasn't right away. Lombardo and his band continued to
Speaker 1: play in New Year's Eve shows in New York for
Speaker 1: almost half a century, and every single time they did,
Speaker 1: the Scottish song was the first tune they played at
Speaker 1: the stroke of midnight, So people kind of became accustomed
Speaker 1: to hearing it until finally it just didn't feel like
Speaker 1: years without it. And while tons of artists have put
Speaker 1: their own spins on the track over the years. When
Speaker 1: the big ball drops in Times Square, it's actually still
Speaker 1: Lombardo's version of old lying sign that rings out for
Speaker 1: all of us to hear.
Speaker 2: Wow. I mean, that is a wild legacy to have.
Speaker 2: It's impressive.
Speaker 3: Well, you and I were on the same wave link, Mango,
Speaker 3: because my last fact is also about a New Year's
Speaker 3: Eve party, but not just any New Year's Eve party,
Speaker 3: because as far as I can tell, this is the
Speaker 3: only one on record to be held inside of a
Speaker 3: thirty ton dinosaur.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you found any.
Speaker 1: Others in that side of a dinosaur.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: This happened back in eighteen fifty three, which makes it
Speaker 3: even more impressive because these days it feels like anybody
Speaker 3: can just make a giant dinosaur. But this is when
Speaker 3: natural history artists and sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins hosted a
Speaker 3: New Year's Eve dinner party inside a full scale model
Speaker 3: of an iguanadon. The event was held as a publicity
Speaker 3: stunt to advertise Hawkins's latest upcoming project, which was a
Speaker 3: display of the world's first dinosaur sculptures at the Crystal
Speaker 3: Palace Park in London.
Speaker 1: So if he had a whole series of dinosaurs like,
Speaker 1: what made him pick out the Iguanadog.
Speaker 3: It's a good question. So Hawkins chose the iguanadon to
Speaker 3: host the meal because it was the largest of the
Speaker 3: thirty three concrete dinosaur models that had been commissioned for
Speaker 3: the exhibit. True to the animal it was based on,
Speaker 3: the sculpture measured approximately nine feet high thirty three feet long.
Speaker 3: As for why the dinosaur sculptures were made in the
Speaker 3: first place, they were meant to be one of the
Speaker 3: new sort of premiere attractions at the Crystal Palace's big
Speaker 3: reopening in eighteen fifty four. So at the time, the
Speaker 3: public had only seen illustrations of dinosaurs in the occasional
Speaker 3: incomplete skeleton I guess, and it was hard to get
Speaker 3: a sense of the animal's true scale. So as a result,
Speaker 3: dinosaurs weren't a subject of public fascination at the time,
Speaker 3: But the Crystal Palace company saw dinosaur's true potential. They
Speaker 3: wagered that these life size replicas would be enough to
Speaker 3: capture the public's interest and draw a big crowd for
Speaker 3: opening day. So Hawkins New Yar's Eve dinner party was
Speaker 3: a way to build excitement for the exhibit and kind
Speaker 3: of wet the public's appetite for these big concrete dinosaurs.
Speaker 1: Oh, I kind of love that. So so who was
Speaker 1: invited to this dinner?
Speaker 3: Well, there were twenty one guests in total, including leading scientists, businessmen,
Speaker 3: and journalists, and the guest of honor was Professor Richard Owen,
Speaker 3: a trained doctor and aspiring palaeontologist who coined the term
Speaker 3: dinosaur or terrible lizard, and he did so just eleven
Speaker 3: years before Hawkins party. He was also the researcher who
Speaker 3: advised Hawkins on the design of these dinosaur models, though
Speaker 3: it's worth noting that the models were based on the
Speaker 3: knowledge at the time and aren't considered scientifically accurate today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense, But I love that these guys
Speaker 1: still got to eat dinner inside a giant dinosaur carbon.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I kind of want to know everything about this,
Speaker 1: like what was on the menu, Like anything more you've
Speaker 1: got I'd love to hear.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Actually, the meal consisted of eight courses, including a mock
Speaker 3: turtle soup, mutton cutlets, and partridge stew. You know, your
Speaker 3: typical meals. And as for the seeding, any of the
Speaker 3: guests set inside the iguanadon's open back cavity. Now, we
Speaker 3: don't know the exact arrangement of the tables or chairs,
Speaker 3: but a drawing published and illustrated London News does provide
Speaker 3: a few clues. So the most likely scenario is that
Speaker 3: eleven guests were seated in a row inside the belly,
Speaker 3: and the rest were seated at a perpendicular table just
Speaker 3: behind the iguanadon, creating this t shaped table setting. The
Speaker 3: drawing also shows the model surrounded by a tall stage,
Speaker 3: which enabled the guests and the weight stuff to climb
Speaker 3: inside a little bit more easily. After a few courses,
Speaker 3: Hawkins reportedly gave a short speech and Owen followed it
Speaker 3: with a brief presentation about the sculptures. According to Hawkins,
Speaker 3: the dinner party got pretty rowdy from there, or as
Speaker 3: he puts it, quote the roaring chorus was so fierce
Speaker 3: and enthusiastic as almost to lead to the belief that
Speaker 3: the herd of iguanadons were bellowing.
Speaker 1: I love that, and it sounds totally preposterous, but yeah,
Speaker 1: destruction I still love to think about. They got to
Speaker 1: ring in the new year from inside this massive, hollowed
Speaker 1: out dinosaur. It's pretty pretty awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's definitely on my bucket list now for sure.
Speaker 3: And it should go without saying, but Hawkins Dinner Party
Speaker 3: was a huge success. The press is coverage stoked excitement
Speaker 3: for the exhibit's debut, and when the big day finally came,
Speaker 3: the dinosaurs did not disappoint. The lifelike recreations helped make
Speaker 3: dinosaurs a subject of mainstream interest for the first time,
Speaker 3: and for the next half century, more than a million
Speaker 3: people came to see the models every year.
Speaker 1: So are these models still around? Like? Could I book
Speaker 1: a dinosaur to throw a dinner party in?
Speaker 3: Well, the original Crystal Palace unfortunately caught fire in nineteen
Speaker 3: thirty six, but thankfully the concrete dinos were durable enough
Speaker 3: to survive the fire, and so most of them still
Speaker 3: stand at the Crystal Palace Park two this day, and
Speaker 3: thanks to refurbishments, they now look better than ever, though
Speaker 3: I'm not sure you can run them out.
Speaker 1: Well, it is hard to imagine a better holiday party
Speaker 1: than the one hosted inside a dinosaur. And since you're
Speaker 1: the one who told us about it, I think you
Speaker 1: get the trophie this week, which by trophy I mean
Speaker 1: this delicious prepackaged fruitcake.
Speaker 3: Joan, Wow, this suddenly doesn't feel like much of a victory.
Speaker 3: But you know what, I think I'm going to donate
Speaker 3: this to Dylan. It feels like the right holiday thing
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, that's it for today's Part Time Genius.
Speaker 1: I know Will and I are both taking off for
Speaker 1: the New Year's but we can't wait to be back
Speaker 1: with new episodes in the meantime. Just thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening. It really means the world to us.
Speaker 1: From Will, Mary, Gabe, Dylan and myself, we really appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Happy Holidays. Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by Will Pearson and
Speaker 1: me Mongagetikler and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was engineered produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan
Speaker 1: with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced
Speaker 1: for iHeart by Katrina Norvell and Ali Perry, with social
Speaker 1: media support from Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shory.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: app Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.