1
00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:27,680
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome

2
00:00:27,720 --> 00:00:31,160
Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you so

3
00:00:31,240 --> 00:00:36,440
Speaker 1: much for tuning. In today's episode, ask A, ask a

4
00:00:36,560 --> 00:00:41,760
Speaker 1: couple of interesting questions. One I think one good place

5
00:00:41,800 --> 00:00:46,600
Speaker 1: to start here would be the court of public opinion.

6
00:00:47,360 --> 00:00:50,560
Speaker 1: Here today in social media, we know that people are

7
00:00:50,720 --> 00:00:55,040
Speaker 1: often I don't know, what would you say, punished by

8
00:00:55,120 --> 00:00:57,760
Speaker 1: the court of public opinion before they get to you know,

9
00:00:57,800 --> 00:01:02,920
Speaker 1: a court of law. Um canceled, canceled, Yeah, canceled. Well,

10
00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:06,240
Speaker 1: what would you what would you say? Is the is

11
00:01:06,280 --> 00:01:11,800
Speaker 1: the most um enduring public humiliation that happens today? Hi,

12
00:01:11,920 --> 00:01:19,520
Speaker 1: I'm bed Hi, I'm no public spankings really well, you know,

13
00:01:19,600 --> 00:01:22,200
Speaker 1: anything that happens in the stockade, because they can just

14
00:01:22,280 --> 00:01:24,240
Speaker 1: do with you what they will. So, you know, they've

15
00:01:24,240 --> 00:01:27,520
Speaker 1: got you all prone and strapped up, and people can

16
00:01:28,040 --> 00:01:30,680
Speaker 1: publicly spank you if they wish. I guess you could

17
00:01:30,760 --> 00:01:33,080
Speaker 1: kick them or something. But they also throw vegetables at

18
00:01:33,200 --> 00:01:35,160
Speaker 1: that one and pilloried is that what they call that

19
00:01:35,160 --> 00:01:37,399
Speaker 1: when they just kind of have you out in the square. Yeah,

20
00:01:37,480 --> 00:01:40,880
Speaker 1: that's a nasty one. But the subject of today's episode

21
00:01:41,200 --> 00:01:43,440
Speaker 1: is a much more nasty one. In terms of just

22
00:01:43,560 --> 00:01:46,280
Speaker 1: like bodily harm. Um. You know, this one is what

23
00:01:46,319 --> 00:01:48,480
Speaker 1: I would call adding insult to injury, and it's the

24
00:01:48,520 --> 00:01:52,560
Speaker 1: idea of tarring and feathering, which it's origin story, Like

25
00:01:52,640 --> 00:01:53,960
Speaker 1: a lot of things we talked about on the show,

26
00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:57,480
Speaker 1: goes back way farther than I realized. Yeah, agreed. And

27
00:01:57,760 --> 00:02:03,400
Speaker 1: to your point about canceling superproducer Casey Pegram, you know,

28
00:02:03,960 --> 00:02:08,040
Speaker 1: I would say the most um embarrassing form of public

29
00:02:08,200 --> 00:02:14,360
Speaker 1: humiliation currently is probably just just in levels of pettiness.

30
00:02:14,400 --> 00:02:17,960
Speaker 1: The most uh humiliating form currently is when someone non

31
00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:22,760
Speaker 1: consensually turns you into an embarrassing meme. Uh. That's you know,

32
00:02:22,840 --> 00:02:26,760
Speaker 1: that'll stay with you, but it won't physically harm you

33
00:02:27,400 --> 00:02:30,720
Speaker 1: the way that you would imagine tarring and feathering might

34
00:02:30,800 --> 00:02:33,840
Speaker 1: harm people. Now nowadays, we use it almost as a

35
00:02:33,919 --> 00:02:37,120
Speaker 1: figure of speech, right, we're saying, like so and so

36
00:02:37,440 --> 00:02:42,519
Speaker 1: was tarred and feathered on Twitter for their opinion about um,

37
00:02:43,160 --> 00:02:46,160
Speaker 1: I don't know, like a movie that hasn't aged well,

38
00:02:46,400 --> 00:02:49,440
Speaker 1: or for a line from an interview where they said

39
00:02:49,520 --> 00:02:54,560
Speaker 1: something horrible like when uh, whenever an actor turns out

40
00:02:54,680 --> 00:02:57,040
Speaker 1: not to be as good of a person as the

41
00:02:57,160 --> 00:03:01,040
Speaker 1: characters they portrayed. But as you said, no, tarring and

42
00:03:01,120 --> 00:03:07,240
Speaker 1: feathering was a real thing. This is a ancient well,

43
00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:11,400
Speaker 1: this is a very old punishment that used to be

44
00:03:11,560 --> 00:03:15,239
Speaker 1: dished out in real life. Uh what are we talking

45
00:03:15,280 --> 00:03:17,200
Speaker 1: about that when we say how old it is? I

46
00:03:17,240 --> 00:03:19,799
Speaker 1: think a lot of us associated with what the time

47
00:03:19,840 --> 00:03:22,520
Speaker 1: of the US colonies. I think of as as like

48
00:03:22,600 --> 00:03:24,959
Speaker 1: frontier justice, you know, running someone out of town on

49
00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:28,239
Speaker 1: or rail, you know, uh, tarn and feathering them and

50
00:03:28,240 --> 00:03:31,120
Speaker 1: and and parading them through the square. You know what

51
00:03:31,200 --> 00:03:33,000
Speaker 1: I mean. That's what I think of. But it turns

52
00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:34,880
Speaker 1: out it goes back to you have to correct me

53
00:03:34,920 --> 00:03:37,240
Speaker 1: if I'm wrong here, man, I didn't do my due diligence.

54
00:03:37,280 --> 00:03:42,160
Speaker 1: But uh, Richard the Lion Heart was the first royal

55
00:03:42,560 --> 00:03:46,240
Speaker 1: ever known to um take up the practice of tarring

56
00:03:46,320 --> 00:03:48,520
Speaker 1: and feathering. And wasn't either Robin Hood King. Wasn't he

57
00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:51,880
Speaker 1: the good King? That was like away on holiday or

58
00:03:51,920 --> 00:03:54,600
Speaker 1: some something fighting in the Crusades, If I'm not mistaken,

59
00:03:54,760 --> 00:03:57,680
Speaker 1: Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. Yeah, that's right, Richard the

60
00:03:57,720 --> 00:04:00,760
Speaker 1: Lion hurt played by Sean Connery. I think it's right.

61
00:04:00,800 --> 00:04:02,360
Speaker 1: He was only in it for a minute. It was

62
00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:04,440
Speaker 1: Sean Connery, you got there? Or you know what else

63
00:04:04,440 --> 00:04:06,000
Speaker 1: Sean Connery is in that you make a reference to

64
00:04:06,040 --> 00:04:07,960
Speaker 1: all the time then that I had never seen, which

65
00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:11,440
Speaker 1: is any history buff should watch this because it's absurd. Highlander?

66
00:04:11,720 --> 00:04:15,160
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's It is a ridiculous movie on so

67
00:04:15,280 --> 00:04:18,960
Speaker 1: many levels. But the historical reenactment parts, I would say

68
00:04:19,080 --> 00:04:22,840
Speaker 1: rival Braveheart in their elaborateness and also probably in their

69
00:04:23,320 --> 00:04:27,400
Speaker 1: historical inaccuracies. Well, there's one thing about Highlander. There's a

70
00:04:27,480 --> 00:04:31,000
Speaker 1: there's a fatal flaw in Highlander, which is this, how

71
00:04:31,040 --> 00:04:34,000
Speaker 1: can you make how can you build a universe where

72
00:04:34,120 --> 00:04:38,240
Speaker 1: the entire point of everything is that there can be

73
00:04:38,520 --> 00:04:43,160
Speaker 1: only one and there's like five and then make a franchise? Yeah, exactly.

74
00:04:43,680 --> 00:04:46,520
Speaker 1: I don't understand what it is. Maybe you can explain.

75
00:04:46,560 --> 00:04:48,280
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to go off on a tangent, but there's

76
00:04:48,320 --> 00:04:50,960
Speaker 1: no listen to me. What is it? What is is

77
00:04:50,960 --> 00:04:53,680
Speaker 1: the Highlander the thing? Or is he just the Highlander

78
00:04:53,720 --> 00:04:56,800
Speaker 1: because he lives in the Scottish Islands? What is the thing?

79
00:04:56,920 --> 00:04:59,239
Speaker 1: What is the quickening? I don't understand any of it. Okay,

80
00:04:59,279 --> 00:05:04,480
Speaker 1: so the main spoilers count down three to one spoilers,

81
00:05:04,520 --> 00:05:09,520
Speaker 1: So The main thing is that the Highlanders the protagonist

82
00:05:09,680 --> 00:05:13,799
Speaker 1: because he comes from the Highlands, but he is one

83
00:05:13,960 --> 00:05:19,240
Speaker 1: of several ultimately extraterrestrial entities, uh, and they have to

84
00:05:19,880 --> 00:05:24,839
Speaker 1: compete with one another for the ultimate prize, which I

85
00:05:25,040 --> 00:05:27,560
Speaker 1: sort of forgot now that I got, you know what,

86
00:05:27,640 --> 00:05:30,120
Speaker 1: I got like two thirds of the way through the

87
00:05:30,200 --> 00:05:33,360
Speaker 1: elevator pitch for this. I don't remember why. I don't

88
00:05:33,360 --> 00:05:35,960
Speaker 1: remember what happens at the end. The quickening, though, is

89
00:05:35,960 --> 00:05:38,400
Speaker 1: where they get all the knowledge of the person they killed.

90
00:05:38,640 --> 00:05:41,640
Speaker 1: So it's sort of like if you ate something, if

91
00:05:41,680 --> 00:05:43,720
Speaker 1: you you know, if you're a meat eater and you

92
00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:48,000
Speaker 1: ate chicken sandwich and you were you know Highlander rules,

93
00:05:48,160 --> 00:05:51,520
Speaker 1: then you would know all the experiences that chicken had

94
00:05:51,680 --> 00:05:54,440
Speaker 1: when when you consumed it. Are like Kirby and Super

95
00:05:54,440 --> 00:05:59,279
Speaker 1: Smash Brothers, where we eat your opponent, you absorbed their powers. Well,

96
00:05:59,360 --> 00:06:01,600
Speaker 1: I think the takeaway here is that it's a completely

97
00:06:01,640 --> 00:06:03,599
Speaker 1: nonsensical film that has a lot of fun, has some

98
00:06:03,640 --> 00:06:07,000
Speaker 1: really ridiculous accents. Because he got Sean Connery, He's supposed

99
00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:08,719
Speaker 1: to put the only reason I brother up because Sean Connery,

100
00:06:08,800 --> 00:06:10,400
Speaker 1: Richard Leonard, I swear to got ready to get back

101
00:06:10,400 --> 00:06:12,080
Speaker 1: to the topic. Sean Connery is supposed to be a

102
00:06:12,080 --> 00:06:16,040
Speaker 1: Spaniard clearly sounds like Sean Connery. Christopher Lambert is supposed

103
00:06:16,040 --> 00:06:18,880
Speaker 1: to be Scottish. Has this a morphous like you know,

104
00:06:19,080 --> 00:06:23,680
Speaker 1: Swiss accent. That's all I'm gonna say about wonderful movie. Though, well,

105
00:06:24,040 --> 00:06:29,080
Speaker 1: you know, Sean Connery's character has this infuriating little ear ring.

106
00:06:29,279 --> 00:06:32,560
Speaker 1: I don't know why it bugs me, but anyhow, Yes,

107
00:06:32,960 --> 00:06:37,880
Speaker 1: Sean Connery is uh has created a lot of great rules.

108
00:06:37,920 --> 00:06:40,960
Speaker 1: The best part of robin Hood Prince of Thieves is

109
00:06:41,040 --> 00:06:43,599
Speaker 1: the first ten minutes. I'll stick to my guns on

110
00:06:43,640 --> 00:06:46,119
Speaker 1: that one. Uh. It's it's the only part I still

111
00:06:46,200 --> 00:06:49,719
Speaker 1: keep watching. But that was during the age of Kevin Costner,

112
00:06:50,120 --> 00:06:53,279
Speaker 1: and as anyone can tell you, robin Hood Prince of

113
00:06:53,320 --> 00:06:57,400
Speaker 1: Thieves very much not historically accurate, and the crusades of

114
00:06:57,480 --> 00:07:01,279
Speaker 1: their own bag of badgers. But you're right, Richard the

115
00:07:01,320 --> 00:07:06,880
Speaker 1: Lionheart did in real life. He did have a written

116
00:07:06,960 --> 00:07:10,840
Speaker 1: proclamation about tarring and feathering. It's one of the first

117
00:07:10,840 --> 00:07:15,120
Speaker 1: written mentions of it. He says, very specific I love this, Yeah,

118
00:07:15,200 --> 00:07:20,760
Speaker 1: he says, uh. Any thief who's discovered on his uh

119
00:07:20,840 --> 00:07:24,120
Speaker 1: on his ships on his sea vessels during the crusades.

120
00:07:24,880 --> 00:07:27,840
Speaker 1: He says, this will happen to them. He shall first

121
00:07:27,920 --> 00:07:32,280
Speaker 1: be shaved, then boiling pitch shall be poured upon his head,

122
00:07:32,720 --> 00:07:35,920
Speaker 1: and a pustion of feathers shook over it, so that

123
00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:39,400
Speaker 1: he may be publicly known. And at the first land,

124
00:07:39,480 --> 00:07:42,600
Speaker 1: whether ship's putting, he should be cast on the shawl.

125
00:07:43,080 --> 00:07:48,880
Speaker 1: M shaved. Sorry, that's the part that goving the specificity

126
00:07:48,880 --> 00:07:52,640
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, And you know it's the whole thing

127
00:07:52,680 --> 00:07:56,040
Speaker 1: about tarring and feathering. We know it was never meant

128
00:07:56,080 --> 00:07:59,000
Speaker 1: to be a death sentence. It was just meant to

129
00:07:59,680 --> 00:08:02,400
Speaker 1: burn a little and you know it'd be humiliating, and

130
00:08:02,440 --> 00:08:05,320
Speaker 1: you know you'd be naked and covered in black goo

131
00:08:05,640 --> 00:08:09,120
Speaker 1: and feathers. How absurd looking they must have been, right,

132
00:08:09,560 --> 00:08:12,320
Speaker 1: and then paraded through town or or put off on

133
00:08:12,400 --> 00:08:16,360
Speaker 1: the next board of call um. But we also know

134
00:08:16,560 --> 00:08:18,880
Speaker 1: that there were a lot of different methods for how

135
00:08:19,200 --> 00:08:22,880
Speaker 1: this practice was carried out, and depending on the type

136
00:08:22,960 --> 00:08:27,360
Speaker 1: of materials that were used, absolutely could be deadly and

137
00:08:27,400 --> 00:08:31,239
Speaker 1: people could get really really severe burns, and he wouldn't

138
00:08:31,240 --> 00:08:33,360
Speaker 1: die from the burns themselves. But as we know, we

139
00:08:33,440 --> 00:08:36,800
Speaker 1: talked about World War One and things like you know,

140
00:08:36,920 --> 00:08:40,680
Speaker 1: dying from your injuries because of infection and sepsis. That

141
00:08:40,760 --> 00:08:44,040
Speaker 1: was absolutely on the table here. Um, your skin would

142
00:08:44,080 --> 00:08:47,719
Speaker 1: burn and blister. And after the you know, the humiliation,

143
00:08:47,960 --> 00:08:51,000
Speaker 1: the parading and all of that. Uh, it's not like

144
00:08:51,040 --> 00:08:53,319
Speaker 1: they had like a nurse on call to take care

145
00:08:53,440 --> 00:08:55,839
Speaker 1: of you, right, Yes, So this is the thing we

146
00:08:56,160 --> 00:09:00,040
Speaker 1: have to bust. A couple of myths about tar. I

147
00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:04,199
Speaker 1: think a lot of us nowadays when we hear the phrase,

148
00:09:04,480 --> 00:09:08,960
Speaker 1: we think that it is immediately fatal. It's obviously dangerous.

149
00:09:09,320 --> 00:09:12,800
Speaker 1: Don't tar and feather your friends as a prank. But

150
00:09:12,960 --> 00:09:16,000
Speaker 1: the tar that Richard the Lionheart is talking about, and

151
00:09:16,040 --> 00:09:20,760
Speaker 1: the tar that was used in pioneer days was overwhelmingly

152
00:09:20,960 --> 00:09:25,120
Speaker 1: most likely to be a less fatal version of tar,

153
00:09:25,320 --> 00:09:28,719
Speaker 1: because I think when we are thinking about tar nowadays,

154
00:09:29,080 --> 00:09:32,360
Speaker 1: we're thinking about stuff that would be used with asphalts

155
00:09:32,400 --> 00:09:38,319
Speaker 1: and pavement, right. Uh, these public humiliation tactics used a

156
00:09:38,400 --> 00:09:42,320
Speaker 1: different kind of tar. Maybe, no, maybe we can talk

157
00:09:42,360 --> 00:09:44,920
Speaker 1: a little bit about those different kinds. Because let's see,

158
00:09:44,920 --> 00:09:49,400
Speaker 1: there's tar, there's pine tar, and then there's pitch right

159
00:09:49,840 --> 00:09:53,720
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. Um, And you know when you think of

160
00:09:53,960 --> 00:09:58,640
Speaker 1: pine tar, that's sort of that Carolina tar Heels type

161
00:09:58,679 --> 00:10:03,000
Speaker 1: situation that's made from boiling down tar rich pine trees.

162
00:10:03,440 --> 00:10:06,960
Speaker 1: And that's where the name of their sports sports ball

163
00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:09,640
Speaker 1: team came from. Which one is it basketball? I think

164
00:10:09,640 --> 00:10:12,400
Speaker 1: it's basketball the tar Heels. It's a college thing. And

165
00:10:12,800 --> 00:10:16,280
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it's water polo. Man, that's real big

166
00:10:16,280 --> 00:10:20,680
Speaker 1: in the Carolina's water Marco polo competitive marco polo. To

167
00:10:20,760 --> 00:10:25,320
Speaker 1: keep it historically sound, um. But eventually these wood tars

168
00:10:25,320 --> 00:10:28,960
Speaker 1: were replaced by petroleum based selts that are super tough

169
00:10:29,000 --> 00:10:30,880
Speaker 1: and you know their oil base, and they take a

170
00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:34,320
Speaker 1: very long time to change shape. They hold their shape.

171
00:10:34,360 --> 00:10:35,920
Speaker 1: In fact, there was a thing that the Guinness Book

172
00:10:35,920 --> 00:10:38,640
Speaker 1: of World Records did called the Pitch Drop Experiment, which

173
00:10:38,640 --> 00:10:41,000
Speaker 1: is one of the longest running lab experiments in the

174
00:10:41,080 --> 00:10:44,520
Speaker 1: history of the publication. Uh. They've been tracking a cone

175
00:10:45,040 --> 00:10:49,360
Speaker 1: of unheeded pitch over time as it's been slowly forming

176
00:10:49,440 --> 00:10:54,679
Speaker 1: and releasing droplets since nineteen thirty for over eighty five years. Uh.

177
00:10:54,720 --> 00:10:57,840
Speaker 1: And that there's a really great Mental Floss article talking

178
00:10:57,840 --> 00:11:00,920
Speaker 1: about this very subject, the sticky history of tarring and feathering.

179
00:11:00,920 --> 00:11:03,319
Speaker 1: But Ben I must ask you, I mean, we talked

180
00:11:03,360 --> 00:11:07,520
Speaker 1: about how It certainly was possible to die from this

181
00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:11,040
Speaker 1: because of largely from not being treated if it lay

182
00:11:11,080 --> 00:11:13,000
Speaker 1: stayed on for too long, or if it heated up

183
00:11:13,000 --> 00:11:16,200
Speaker 1: to too high a temperature. But we know that most

184
00:11:16,280 --> 00:11:19,120
Speaker 1: people didn't die from this, and it certainly wasn't intended

185
00:11:19,200 --> 00:11:22,520
Speaker 1: to kill you. So why what gives? How did they

186
00:11:22,559 --> 00:11:26,520
Speaker 1: not die? Right? Right? That's the that's the weirdest revelation

187
00:11:27,200 --> 00:11:31,080
Speaker 1: when we learned about this practice. So in most cases,

188
00:11:31,600 --> 00:11:35,120
Speaker 1: tarring and feathering was not meant to kill people. We

189
00:11:35,200 --> 00:11:39,720
Speaker 1: have to understand that, uh that if someone wanted to

190
00:11:39,880 --> 00:11:42,360
Speaker 1: kill somebody at this point in time, they would just

191
00:11:42,480 --> 00:11:45,360
Speaker 1: kill them. They would stone them to death, they would

192
00:11:45,360 --> 00:11:49,240
Speaker 1: have you know, horses tear them apart, they would behead them.

193
00:11:49,640 --> 00:11:54,160
Speaker 1: Tarring and feathering was meant to humiliate, and because it

194
00:11:54,240 --> 00:11:58,360
Speaker 1: was meant most times to be non fatal, they would

195
00:11:58,440 --> 00:12:01,920
Speaker 1: use pine tar. The weird thing about pine tart is

196
00:12:01,960 --> 00:12:06,720
Speaker 1: that it has a low melting point around a hundred

197
00:12:06,960 --> 00:12:11,559
Speaker 1: and thirty degrees to forty degrees fahrenheit, or for everybody

198
00:12:11,559 --> 00:12:14,160
Speaker 1: in the rest of the world outside of the United States,

199
00:12:14,440 --> 00:12:18,960
Speaker 1: that's fifty five to sixty degrees celsius. This is hot, right,

200
00:12:19,080 --> 00:12:22,600
Speaker 1: This is definitely enough to make you uncomfortable. It can

201
00:12:22,679 --> 00:12:27,440
Speaker 1: give you burns, but it's not It's nowhere near the

202
00:12:27,480 --> 00:12:32,400
Speaker 1: threat level of melting oil or petroleum based tar. And

203
00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:36,000
Speaker 1: it's interesting because there was also I didn't know this,

204
00:12:36,120 --> 00:12:41,280
Speaker 1: there was also a sort of spectrum of tarring and feathering,

205
00:12:41,480 --> 00:12:44,160
Speaker 1: Like if they didn't really want to hurt the person,

206
00:12:44,559 --> 00:12:46,880
Speaker 1: they might have just heated up the tar a little

207
00:12:46,880 --> 00:12:50,160
Speaker 1: bit and then rubbed it on the individual, just rubbed

208
00:12:50,160 --> 00:12:53,880
Speaker 1: it on their skin to get enough of adhesive space

209
00:12:54,160 --> 00:12:58,000
Speaker 1: for feathers to stick. So it would still hurt, and

210
00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:01,840
Speaker 1: of course your public reputation would never, never fully recover,

211
00:13:02,240 --> 00:13:05,760
Speaker 1: but you wouldn't be covered with burns like that guy

212
00:13:05,840 --> 00:13:08,480
Speaker 1: in that movie dark Man. Do you guys remember dark Man?

213
00:13:08,800 --> 00:13:10,640
Speaker 1: You know, the thing I always remember about dark Man

214
00:13:10,760 --> 00:13:14,160
Speaker 1: was they triggered the bomb with that little drinking bird situation.

215
00:13:14,360 --> 00:13:16,640
Speaker 1: You know, the drinking bird. What do you call that?

216
00:13:16,679 --> 00:13:19,280
Speaker 1: There's a name for it. And it also demonstrates a

217
00:13:19,360 --> 00:13:24,240
Speaker 1: scientific principle is a capillary action. I'm no bird scientist here, obviously,

218
00:13:24,280 --> 00:13:29,000
Speaker 1: but yeah, definitely remember dark Man. It was Sam Raimi movie.

219
00:13:29,040 --> 00:13:31,480
Speaker 1: He was sort of like a weird kind of noir

220
00:13:31,720 --> 00:13:36,920
Speaker 1: superhero vigilante Batman esque figure with burns and bandages. He

221
00:13:36,960 --> 00:13:41,600
Speaker 1: could make fake uh fake face mask, but they would

222
00:13:41,600 --> 00:13:44,080
Speaker 1: wear off after a certain amount of time. I can't

223
00:13:44,080 --> 00:13:48,480
Speaker 1: remember what the time limit was. Uh, yeah, it's dark Man.

224
00:13:48,559 --> 00:13:51,439
Speaker 1: I wonder if that aged well, Casey, I would defer

225
00:13:51,480 --> 00:13:53,240
Speaker 1: to you on that. Did you ever see Dark Man?

226
00:13:53,559 --> 00:13:55,280
Speaker 1: I don't remember if I actually thought or not. I

227
00:13:55,280 --> 00:13:58,439
Speaker 1: definitely remember the movie from when I was a kid. Um.

228
00:13:58,480 --> 00:14:01,040
Speaker 1: I probably caught part of it on cable at some

229
00:14:01,080 --> 00:14:03,040
Speaker 1: point or something, but it definitely feels like one of

230
00:14:03,040 --> 00:14:05,880
Speaker 1: the less um talked about Sam Raimi movies to have

231
00:14:05,960 --> 00:14:08,440
Speaker 1: come out of that period, which was indeed, wasn't it. Uh,

232
00:14:08,800 --> 00:14:12,000
Speaker 1: it's famous guy. It's a certain set of skills, yeah,

233
00:14:12,080 --> 00:14:15,280
Speaker 1: Liam Neeson, Yeah that's the one. Yeah. Well Liam, if

234
00:14:15,280 --> 00:14:17,800
Speaker 1: you're listening, we thought you did a pretty swell job

235
00:14:17,800 --> 00:14:22,040
Speaker 1: in dark Man. Favorite recent Liam Neeson's story, by the way,

236
00:14:22,240 --> 00:14:25,680
Speaker 1: is that he was somewhere and he was filming a

237
00:14:25,760 --> 00:14:29,040
Speaker 1: movie and there was a horse that appeared on on

238
00:14:29,080 --> 00:14:31,720
Speaker 1: the set of this film, and he said the horse

239
00:14:31,800 --> 00:14:35,640
Speaker 1: recognized him from another movie. And to me, that's hilarious

240
00:14:35,920 --> 00:14:39,120
Speaker 1: because I have this picture of Liam Neeson walking onto

241
00:14:39,160 --> 00:14:42,000
Speaker 1: the set and the horse going what up. That's pretty

242
00:14:42,080 --> 00:14:45,520
Speaker 1: much the perfect movie star thing to say, I think, Yeah,

243
00:14:45,640 --> 00:14:49,240
Speaker 1: but yeah, sure, Liam Neeson has fans. You know everywhere

244
00:14:49,840 --> 00:14:52,520
Speaker 1: there were a lot of fans of tarring and feathering.

245
00:14:53,840 --> 00:14:57,520
Speaker 1: But we you know, let's go back to the spectrum idea, right, no,

246
00:14:57,800 --> 00:15:00,880
Speaker 1: because we know that alan on one end, on the

247
00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:04,480
Speaker 1: very light end of the spectrum, you would basically have

248
00:15:04,680 --> 00:15:09,200
Speaker 1: somebody held down and a group of people would rub

249
00:15:09,560 --> 00:15:12,960
Speaker 1: pine tar on them and then throw feathers on them,

250
00:15:13,000 --> 00:15:18,520
Speaker 1: assumedly leering and jeering and and making horrible faces the

251
00:15:18,680 --> 00:15:20,960
Speaker 1: entire time. You know, I'm picturing it like the camera

252
00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:23,680
Speaker 1: perspective of this shot in the movie where it's from

253
00:15:23,680 --> 00:15:25,800
Speaker 1: the perspective of the one being tart and feathered, and

254
00:15:25,840 --> 00:15:28,240
Speaker 1: all these people are just like leering over them, and

255
00:15:28,280 --> 00:15:30,880
Speaker 1: they have to be making horrible what's the word looking

256
00:15:30,920 --> 00:15:33,200
Speaker 1: for kind of sinister faces while they're doing I'm just

257
00:15:33,240 --> 00:15:35,440
Speaker 1: putting that out there. Oh yeah, and they're making they're

258
00:15:35,520 --> 00:15:39,480
Speaker 1: they're making weird chance that probably don't make sense outside

259
00:15:39,520 --> 00:15:44,360
Speaker 1: of the context. You know, they're liked did Dodd do?

260
00:15:45,120 --> 00:15:47,920
Speaker 1: And Uh, that's like a very hurtful thing to say.

261
00:15:48,040 --> 00:15:51,640
Speaker 1: I guess because back because back then everyone's talked like

262
00:15:51,680 --> 00:15:55,440
Speaker 1: Andy Bernard so, but but we know that there was

263
00:15:55,480 --> 00:15:58,600
Speaker 1: another side where someone would say, we want to cause

264
00:15:58,720 --> 00:16:02,720
Speaker 1: people perman injury or even kill them, and then they

265
00:16:02,720 --> 00:16:05,520
Speaker 1: would use a different type of tar. Yes, just so Ben,

266
00:16:05,640 --> 00:16:07,880
Speaker 1: like we were talking about cold tar, any of these

267
00:16:07,880 --> 00:16:12,320
Speaker 1: petroleum based tars, Uh, we're going to heat up too much,

268
00:16:12,440 --> 00:16:16,320
Speaker 1: much higher temperatures to cause excruciating pain, not like the

269
00:16:16,440 --> 00:16:21,480
Speaker 1: light touch of the of the pine tar. This would potentially,

270
00:16:21,680 --> 00:16:25,560
Speaker 1: you know, really cause you some horrible, horrible torture and

271
00:16:25,800 --> 00:16:29,840
Speaker 1: uh cause you to get infected because that the burns

272
00:16:29,840 --> 00:16:35,160
Speaker 1: would be so severe. But overall the survival rates were okay. Um,

273
00:16:35,200 --> 00:16:38,800
Speaker 1: and we do have some records to back that up. Uh,

274
00:16:38,800 --> 00:16:43,440
Speaker 1: it would seem that typically tarring and feathering was survivable,

275
00:16:43,800 --> 00:16:48,080
Speaker 1: if humiliating process and that and that was in the

276
00:16:48,080 --> 00:16:50,840
Speaker 1: olden days, Zoe. We actually are gonna take tarring and

277
00:16:50,880 --> 00:16:53,840
Speaker 1: feathering into more contemporary times, which is kind of where

278
00:16:53,840 --> 00:16:56,120
Speaker 1: I thought it originated. But I guess now that I'm

279
00:16:56,160 --> 00:16:59,280
Speaker 1: thinking back in my mind, I'm picturing that kind of

280
00:16:59,480 --> 00:17:04,080
Speaker 1: medieval tarring and feathering too, you know. Yeah, yeah, I

281
00:17:04,160 --> 00:17:06,240
Speaker 1: do want to point out though this This is an

282
00:17:06,280 --> 00:17:11,520
Speaker 1: interesting thing about tarring and feathering. Sometimes if someone just

283
00:17:11,640 --> 00:17:16,600
Speaker 1: needed to be publicly shamed, but for some reason, the

284
00:17:16,640 --> 00:17:19,320
Speaker 1: mob this is mob rule. For some reason the mob

285
00:17:19,359 --> 00:17:21,960
Speaker 1: didn't really want to hurt them. Then you might get

286
00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:24,480
Speaker 1: a deal where someone would just put the tar gently

287
00:17:24,640 --> 00:17:28,560
Speaker 1: over your clothes. You would not actually be naked anyhow,

288
00:17:28,560 --> 00:17:33,399
Speaker 1: You're right. Tarring took off. It eventually went global for

289
00:17:33,480 --> 00:17:37,160
Speaker 1: a couple of interesting reasons. Uh, you know, we know

290
00:17:37,200 --> 00:17:41,240
Speaker 1: that hundreds of years after Richard the lion Heart wrote

291
00:17:41,280 --> 00:17:45,080
Speaker 1: this proclamation to tar and feather thieves, it was being

292
00:17:45,240 --> 00:17:51,159
Speaker 1: used across Europe for any kind of social social violation, right,

293
00:17:51,280 --> 00:17:54,800
Speaker 1: any kind of stepping outside of status quo or or

294
00:17:54,840 --> 00:17:58,159
Speaker 1: the various morays of the time. And one of the

295
00:17:58,200 --> 00:18:01,120
Speaker 1: reasons it's spread around the world, it makes sense when

296
00:18:01,160 --> 00:18:05,680
Speaker 1: you think about it, is because tar and pitch were

297
00:18:05,880 --> 00:18:10,080
Speaker 1: ubiquitous on ocean going vessels and they were docks and shipyards.

298
00:18:10,520 --> 00:18:13,800
Speaker 1: That stuff was just getting transported across the globe, as

299
00:18:13,920 --> 00:18:16,240
Speaker 1: was the idea. We know that this was Richard the

300
00:18:16,280 --> 00:18:19,359
Speaker 1: Lionheart who more or less came up with this, or

301
00:18:19,400 --> 00:18:20,600
Speaker 1: I don't know if he came up with it maybe

302
00:18:20,640 --> 00:18:23,280
Speaker 1: he saw it being done elsewhere at his travels. We

303
00:18:23,320 --> 00:18:25,919
Speaker 1: don't have very specific details on that. We do know

304
00:18:25,960 --> 00:18:28,080
Speaker 1: that he was the one that popularized it, and that

305
00:18:28,200 --> 00:18:32,280
Speaker 1: came from surprise surprises time at sea. So exactly right, then,

306
00:18:32,359 --> 00:18:35,159
Speaker 1: all of what the feathers I guess for betting they

307
00:18:35,200 --> 00:18:38,200
Speaker 1: would have the feathers for like stuffing pillows and uh

308
00:18:38,240 --> 00:18:41,080
Speaker 1: and and duvets or what. I just don't picture them

309
00:18:41,280 --> 00:18:43,720
Speaker 1: like living in the level of comfort on a ship

310
00:18:43,800 --> 00:18:47,600
Speaker 1: to have like a nice comfy down pillow or duvet,

311
00:18:47,840 --> 00:18:50,680
Speaker 1: you know, and nobody thinks about the source of the feathers.

312
00:18:50,680 --> 00:18:54,160
Speaker 1: You're right, those poor chickens because they think of when

313
00:18:54,160 --> 00:18:57,200
Speaker 1: they think of tarring and feathering, they probably just think

314
00:18:57,240 --> 00:19:00,680
Speaker 1: of the fact that they're getting plucked because some other

315
00:19:00,800 --> 00:19:03,840
Speaker 1: jerk did something wrong. That's not that's true. Well, to

316
00:19:03,920 --> 00:19:05,639
Speaker 1: be fair, Ben, let's okay, we're kind of having a

317
00:19:05,720 --> 00:19:09,119
Speaker 1: cyclical little thought process here. But let's think about this.

318
00:19:09,160 --> 00:19:11,159
Speaker 1: If they're eating chickens, you gotta pluck the chickens, and

319
00:19:11,200 --> 00:19:13,280
Speaker 1: you might as well save the feathers and do something

320
00:19:13,320 --> 00:19:16,400
Speaker 1: with it. Why not, you know, paste them all over

321
00:19:16,480 --> 00:19:19,800
Speaker 1: some poor sap with boiling you know, hot sticky liquid. True?

322
00:19:19,960 --> 00:19:22,359
Speaker 1: Why not? Plus you know you have a lot of

323
00:19:22,359 --> 00:19:24,560
Speaker 1: time to think on a ship, right, That's how you

324
00:19:24,600 --> 00:19:26,840
Speaker 1: come up with this kind of stuff. Eventually all the

325
00:19:26,880 --> 00:19:30,120
Speaker 1: potatoes get peeled. Like, have you guys ever heard of bastinado.

326
00:19:30,880 --> 00:19:34,679
Speaker 1: It's a very specific type of punishment or torture where

327
00:19:35,160 --> 00:19:39,479
Speaker 1: someone is prone and then someone take you basically whipped

328
00:19:39,480 --> 00:19:42,720
Speaker 1: the bottom of people's feet, just the bottom of their feet,

329
00:19:43,040 --> 00:19:47,520
Speaker 1: because it means like they can't walk. It's I think

330
00:19:47,560 --> 00:19:50,159
Speaker 1: it's probably more dangerous than tarring and feathering. Yeah, if

331
00:19:50,160 --> 00:19:52,560
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, isn't that what Saddam Hussein, one of

332
00:19:52,640 --> 00:19:56,320
Speaker 1: his psychotic sons did to that soccer team? Uh that

333
00:19:56,440 --> 00:19:59,520
Speaker 1: when they lost? I think he whipped, had had them whipped,

334
00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:01,919
Speaker 1: had them whipped about the bottoms of their feet. Are

335
00:20:01,920 --> 00:20:07,880
Speaker 1: you talking about the notorious sociopath. I wouldn't be surprised,

336
00:20:07,960 --> 00:20:12,040
Speaker 1: but uh, you know, tarring and feathering. I'm just saying,

337
00:20:12,119 --> 00:20:15,000
Speaker 1: if it seems oddly specific, it's one of very many

338
00:20:15,040 --> 00:20:23,840
Speaker 1: oddly specific forms of punishment. Totally. So let's go to

339
00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:27,320
Speaker 1: the American colonies in our chronology, because no, I think

340
00:20:27,920 --> 00:20:32,320
Speaker 1: your initial thought was that this was something from pioneer days.

341
00:20:32,680 --> 00:20:35,560
Speaker 1: My initial thought was that this was something with like

342
00:20:35,640 --> 00:20:41,360
Speaker 1: the thirteen US colonies. While the practice maybe older than that,

343
00:20:41,440 --> 00:20:44,639
Speaker 1: we know it was definitely in play during both of

344
00:20:44,680 --> 00:20:48,160
Speaker 1: those eras. Maybe we could talk a little bit about

345
00:20:48,800 --> 00:20:52,600
Speaker 1: tarring and feathering during the colonies. I mean, it's surprised

346
00:20:52,680 --> 00:20:55,760
Speaker 1: it was common enough that it's surprising it wasn't mentioned

347
00:20:55,760 --> 00:20:58,000
Speaker 1: in Hamilton's. I was about to say the same thing, man,

348
00:20:58,040 --> 00:21:01,320
Speaker 1: Everyone's uh, Hamilton's is of mind right now, and I

349
00:21:01,400 --> 00:21:03,840
Speaker 1: proposed that we replaced the national anthem with just the

350
00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:07,320
Speaker 1: entire soundtrack for Hamilton's. It'll take a while, but you know,

351
00:21:07,440 --> 00:21:09,640
Speaker 1: I think it would be a little more on than

352
00:21:09,720 --> 00:21:12,439
Speaker 1: the current one, with that secret racist verse that no

353
00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:14,520
Speaker 1: one talks about, or I guess they're talking about it now,

354
00:21:15,119 --> 00:21:19,200
Speaker 1: but yeah, Francis Scott Key apparently not the best dude. Surprise, surprise,

355
00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:22,280
Speaker 1: But yes, it's true. Ben it became kind of a

356
00:21:22,320 --> 00:21:27,240
Speaker 1: form of political retaliation for poorer classes. Um In sixteen

357
00:21:27,400 --> 00:21:31,320
Speaker 1: nineties six, a historian by the name of Benjamin h

358
00:21:31,520 --> 00:21:35,240
Speaker 1: Irvin pointed out this, saying that quote an angry crowd

359
00:21:35,280 --> 00:21:38,919
Speaker 1: imposed the punishment upon a London bailiff who attempted to

360
00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:42,359
Speaker 1: arrest a debtor. Um. And this was all about you know,

361
00:21:42,800 --> 00:21:45,639
Speaker 1: during the American Revolution or the kind of fervor that

362
00:21:45,720 --> 00:21:49,199
Speaker 1: led up to the American Revolution. Um. And this was

363
00:21:49,720 --> 00:21:54,439
Speaker 1: patriots that were acting out against their you know, oppressors

364
00:21:54,440 --> 00:21:58,760
Speaker 1: in the form of of English um. You know, representatives

365
00:21:58,800 --> 00:22:01,240
Speaker 1: that we're supposed to be over seeing these colonies, and

366
00:22:01,240 --> 00:22:04,440
Speaker 1: they weren't having it. Yeah, there's there's an interesting thing

367
00:22:04,480 --> 00:22:08,399
Speaker 1: here too. Uh So you might have heard the old

368
00:22:08,480 --> 00:22:11,080
Speaker 1: Yankee Doodle song, right, but if you live in the US,

369
00:22:11,160 --> 00:22:13,960
Speaker 1: you definitely heard it where they have the line calling

370
00:22:14,040 --> 00:22:17,040
Speaker 1: something macaroni. You guys remember that, Yeah, a feather in

371
00:22:17,080 --> 00:22:20,440
Speaker 1: his hat right right, and called it macaroni. It's an

372
00:22:20,440 --> 00:22:28,360
Speaker 1: intensely confusing line nowadays. But macaroni was like a somewhat

373
00:22:28,400 --> 00:22:31,240
Speaker 1: tongue in cheek pejorative term, the same way that people

374
00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:36,000
Speaker 1: would call each other or others hipsters nowadays. Macaroni was

375
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:40,720
Speaker 1: a term for people who were thought to be hyper fancy.

376
00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:45,399
Speaker 1: They were like, you know, uh, they they had high

377
00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:51,000
Speaker 1: flies manners, Yeah, Dandy's exactly, and they they had they

378
00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:53,679
Speaker 1: liked macaroni. That's where the name came from because it

379
00:22:53,720 --> 00:22:56,720
Speaker 1: was seen as an exotic Italian dish. So a lot

380
00:22:56,760 --> 00:23:01,600
Speaker 1: of British folks in the colonies were seeing as UH

381
00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:04,960
Speaker 1: being quote unquote macaroni. There were too fancy and you

382
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:07,600
Speaker 1: had to tar and feather them to teach them a

383
00:23:07,680 --> 00:23:10,639
Speaker 1: lesson and take them down a notch. But it wasn't

384
00:23:10,720 --> 00:23:13,160
Speaker 1: one side or the other of this conflict that were

385
00:23:13,240 --> 00:23:16,560
Speaker 1: more prone to tarring and feathering during the American Revolution.

386
00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:19,640
Speaker 1: It was actually these uh you know, angry mobs on

387
00:23:19,720 --> 00:23:23,240
Speaker 1: both sides of the issue, whether it was pro British

388
00:23:23,400 --> 00:23:27,560
Speaker 1: or Patriots that were very fond of tarring and feathering

389
00:23:27,600 --> 00:23:31,520
Speaker 1: people they did not agree with. It became this very

390
00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:36,600
Speaker 1: go to sort of humiliation slash punishment slash torture. I

391
00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:39,800
Speaker 1: guess during these times because of all of that pine

392
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:43,160
Speaker 1: tar that was available because of the ships in the shipyards,

393
00:23:43,160 --> 00:23:45,119
Speaker 1: and especially like in New York City, which we know

394
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:48,280
Speaker 1: as a harbor, is a port city, So it makes

395
00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:53,520
Speaker 1: perfect sense that patriots and British UH supporters alike were

396
00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:57,320
Speaker 1: inspired to carry this out on each other um and

397
00:23:57,400 --> 00:24:00,520
Speaker 1: sort of out tar and feather one another. And like

398
00:24:00,560 --> 00:24:03,760
Speaker 1: we said before, it was a way of humiliating these

399
00:24:03,760 --> 00:24:06,639
Speaker 1: British tax collectors because as we know, that was one

400
00:24:06,680 --> 00:24:09,800
Speaker 1: of the biggest impetus is for the American Revolution was

401
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:13,040
Speaker 1: no taxation with our representation these uh you know, this

402
00:24:13,119 --> 00:24:15,800
Speaker 1: is like the equivalent of shooting the messenger without actually

403
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:19,960
Speaker 1: killing them. When these British laisons would come, you know,

404
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:24,040
Speaker 1: to make their collections and we're like no, no, no, no,

405
00:24:24,080 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 1: We're gonna drag you through the streets, cover you and

406
00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:29,639
Speaker 1: pitch and pour chicken feathers all over you just to

407
00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:32,400
Speaker 1: make you look like a jerk. And speaking of insult

408
00:24:32,520 --> 00:24:36,520
Speaker 1: to injury, what if you were going to get tarred

409
00:24:36,600 --> 00:24:40,240
Speaker 1: and feathered by the local bullies or politicians or mob

410
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:43,680
Speaker 1: of your town, but they didn't have tar and they

411
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:46,880
Speaker 1: didn't have feathers. What if you got the off brand

412
00:24:47,320 --> 00:24:51,359
Speaker 1: you know, like uh, the no name generic version of

413
00:24:51,359 --> 00:24:55,040
Speaker 1: tar it and feathery. That actually happened in the eighteen

414
00:24:55,119 --> 00:24:59,480
Speaker 1: hundreds as the practice spread away from the coast and

415
00:24:59,520 --> 00:25:04,120
Speaker 1: into the interior of the United States. Uh, people would

416
00:25:04,119 --> 00:25:08,400
Speaker 1: get tarred and feathered quote unquote with easier to find materials.

417
00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:10,399
Speaker 1: If you weren't by a shipyard and you didn't have

418
00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:13,240
Speaker 1: wood tar, for instance, you might end up tarring and

419
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:19,240
Speaker 1: feathering someone with syrup and cat tails. Imagine, imagine not

420
00:25:19,240 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 1: not being good enough for the name brand tarring and feathering,

421
00:25:23,320 --> 00:25:26,480
Speaker 1: the plucky younger brother of tarring and feathering syrup and

422
00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:31,119
Speaker 1: cat tails that just seems sticky and gross. Does this?

423
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:33,880
Speaker 1: I don't see where like they heat the syrup like

424
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:35,880
Speaker 1: like like like you would for like a nice pancake

425
00:25:35,920 --> 00:25:40,480
Speaker 1: breakfast like. Uh, Well, if you heat anything, uh to

426
00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:42,639
Speaker 1: a high enough temperature, it's going to be dangerous. It

427
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:45,760
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what the material is. But we do know

428
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:49,280
Speaker 1: that there was another danger with tarring and feathering. So

429
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:54,159
Speaker 1: tarring and feathering definitely has an upsetting, disturbing history. So

430
00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:56,160
Speaker 1: we're we're taking a little bit of a turn. We're

431
00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:59,440
Speaker 1: having fun with this, but we do need to mention

432
00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:04,359
Speaker 1: some real life terrible things about tarring and feathering. First off,

433
00:26:04,720 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 1: most of the time, tarring and feathering, at least in

434
00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:12,439
Speaker 1: the US, was not something handed down to uh, to

435
00:26:12,560 --> 00:26:15,919
Speaker 1: a defendant in a court of law. It was something

436
00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:19,920
Speaker 1: that was meted out by angry mobs, which means they

437
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:25,439
Speaker 1: frequently in addition to tarring and feathering, someone beat the

438
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:29,400
Speaker 1: ever loving snot out of them, you know, breaking their

439
00:26:29,480 --> 00:26:32,119
Speaker 1: limbs and stuff man's par for the course. You're not

440
00:26:32,119 --> 00:26:35,000
Speaker 1: gonna get tar and feather without getting knocked around a

441
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:37,160
Speaker 1: little bit, you know, it just goes with the territory.

442
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:40,000
Speaker 1: But here's a story that I didn't know anything about

443
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:43,119
Speaker 1: that I found really interesting. Joseph Smith, as we know

444
00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 1: as the founder of Mormonism. He um, oh gosh, I

445
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:49,720
Speaker 1: always get the details of the of the story a

446
00:26:49,720 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 1: little incorrect. But he received some tablets from an angel.

447
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:58,320
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken. Um. And then he uh used that

448
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:01,080
Speaker 1: did he receive the tablets or he wrote the town?

449
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:04,240
Speaker 1: He wrote them? He wrote the tenants of Mormonism. There

450
00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: are gold plates. Uh. This is Joseph Smith in the

451
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:13,679
Speaker 1: religion of the Latter day Saints. He received Uh. He

452
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:17,000
Speaker 1: received these golden plates and had to translate them to

453
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:20,880
Speaker 1: a to a language that people could understand. This came

454
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:24,639
Speaker 1: from the direction of an angel called moroney. Are you

455
00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:28,800
Speaker 1: sure it was a macaroni? Yeah? Yeah, just kidding. It's bad.

456
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:31,639
Speaker 1: I apologize. Please please don't tar and feather me from

457
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:34,680
Speaker 1: my horrible dad joke game today. But yeah, Joseph Smith

458
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:38,240
Speaker 1: had a bit of a brush with feathers and tar. Gosh,

459
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:40,840
Speaker 1: I'm gonna roll downhill? Is the way that this is

460
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:45,320
Speaker 1: rolling um, because a Mormon minister named Sydney rigged in

461
00:27:46,119 --> 00:27:48,840
Speaker 1: and a friend of his, who was in fact Joseph Smith,

462
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: were actually almost killed, almost murdered by an angry mob

463
00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:57,040
Speaker 1: who literally pulled them from their homes uh in the

464
00:27:57,040 --> 00:27:59,879
Speaker 1: middle of the night as they slept, beat the living

465
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 1: crap out of them, also tried to force feed them acid.

466
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 1: I'm assuming it's not the fun kind of asset. It

467
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:08,600
Speaker 1: would be like the kind of asset that would like

468
00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:11,879
Speaker 1: burn your esophagus. I want to know more about this,

469
00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:16,320
Speaker 1: I see it saying tried to assume they failed because

470
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 1: we don't know of any stories of Joseph Smith, like

471
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:22,640
Speaker 1: not having a face. Um. But yeah, and then they

472
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:27,440
Speaker 1: hard and feathered them and left them for dead. This mob, also,

473
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:32,920
Speaker 1: by the way, UH, may have attempted to castrate Joseph Smith. There.

474
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 1: There's still conflicting accounts about that, but we have in

475
00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 1: writing his own description of what happened to him. Apparently,

476
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 1: they tore every article of clothing off his body except

477
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:52,840
Speaker 1: for his shirt collar and then the tar that was

478
00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:55,040
Speaker 1: put on and made him look like he was covered

479
00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 1: in blood. He said his wife fainted when she saw

480
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:01,720
Speaker 1: him because as she thought that he had had such

481
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:07,920
Speaker 1: grievous injuries. Um. And he he says he had to

482
00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:12,280
Speaker 1: spend the night scraping and removing tar and washing himself

483
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:14,920
Speaker 1: over and over again with the help of his friends,

484
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 1: like it wasn't a one man job. And in the

485
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 1: morning he was able to put clothes on, but he

486
00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 1: was so coated with tar that he literally couldn't not

487
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:26,720
Speaker 1: be naked. Not to be a complete bummer, but it

488
00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:28,960
Speaker 1: reminds me of like you know, when when there's oil

489
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:32,440
Speaker 1: spills and you see penguins or other you know, aquatic

490
00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:36,320
Speaker 1: creatures covered in petroleum. Even if it's not heated to

491
00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:40,480
Speaker 1: boiling temperatures, that stuff still is is really difficult to

492
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 1: get off. Um. So yeah, that would be it would

493
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:52,480
Speaker 1: be a real, a real to do. Yeah. If we

494
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 1: move further up in the timeline, uh, we have to

495
00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:59,800
Speaker 1: realize that not only is tarring and feathering older than

496
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:03,920
Speaker 1: men people believe, it was also around longer than a

497
00:30:03,960 --> 00:30:09,200
Speaker 1: lot of people might like to think, right, we know that, Uh,

498
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:12,400
Speaker 1: in the US even in the twentie century, in the

499
00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:16,800
Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds, people were still touring and feathering. Folks they

500
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 1: disagreed with, Yeah, and It's interesting how stuff like this

501
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:22,760
Speaker 1: does tend to evolve a little bit over time, but

502
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:25,600
Speaker 1: this one stayed largely the same in the United States

503
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 1: as a form of mob justice in the twentieth century,

504
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 1: even um, in the anti Bellum days. Here we are,

505
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 1: this is where my mind went. It wasn't see, it

506
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:38,200
Speaker 1: wasn't it wasn't the medieval days. It wasn't the American Revolution.

507
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 1: It was this kind of kind of you know, town

508
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:45,680
Speaker 1: square mob justice situation that my mind always went to

509
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:48,040
Speaker 1: in picturing this with a little bit of a redneck

510
00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 1: e twang to it. Just gonna put that out there.

511
00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:53,360
Speaker 1: Um So yeah, in the anti Bellum days, um, a

512
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:57,080
Speaker 1: lot of African African Americans and civil rights activists were tartan.

513
00:30:57,400 --> 00:31:01,520
Speaker 1: That's why. That's exactly why, uh, I feel bad for

514
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 1: even remotely being light about this. It's true. A particularly

515
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:09,520
Speaker 1: famous case involved a gentleman named John Minz, who was

516
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 1: a German American farmer. In nineteen eighteen, he was dragged

517
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:17,200
Speaker 1: from his home in Minnesota, UM. He was whipped and

518
00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:21,360
Speaker 1: and terrorized with weapons, and then tarred and feathered and

519
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 1: forced to march across the border to South Dakota, UM

520
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:27,800
Speaker 1: and he was you know, warned if he ever returned,

521
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 1: he would be killed. And in this case he was

522
00:31:30,960 --> 00:31:33,920
Speaker 1: exclusively being you know, punished because he was a German

523
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:36,760
Speaker 1: American and it was during World War One. He was

524
00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:38,840
Speaker 1: told he would never be allowed to come back. If

525
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 1: he returned, he would be killed. He tried to sue

526
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:43,800
Speaker 1: them in who did this to him? Um, only to

527
00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:48,200
Speaker 1: have the jury declared them completely innocent of all charges.

528
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, what was the deal with the judge

529
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 1: to ben Then there's some tricky stuff there. So what

530
00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 1: a kangaroo court? The judge in this case, a real

531
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 1: winner named wilbur fo you told the jury in this

532
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:05,840
Speaker 1: in this court, he told the jury that they should

533
00:32:05,880 --> 00:32:10,000
Speaker 1: consider this guy disloyal to the US when they were

534
00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 1: thinking about the verdict. So basically, the judge said, now

535
00:32:14,360 --> 00:32:20,080
Speaker 1: before you reach your conclusion, members of the jury, remember

536
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:25,120
Speaker 1: that this guy's German and that's super messed up from

537
00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:29,600
Speaker 1: from where we're coming from. So yeah, so it wasn't fair.

538
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:33,040
Speaker 1: He later got a new trial, uh, and ended up

539
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:35,720
Speaker 1: settling out of court for the equivalent of about eighty

540
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:39,200
Speaker 1: four grand today. So that's the price for getting tarred

541
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 1: and feathered. Currently, we also know in Europe during World

542
00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 1: War Two or after shortly after World War Two, women

543
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: who had had intimate relationships with invading German soldiers were

544
00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:57,960
Speaker 1: sometimes subjected to taring and feathering, which is an absolute

545
00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 1: travesty of course. Um. Yeah. Continue. In two thousand and seven,

546
00:33:02,640 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: a guy in Ireland and Belfast was tarred and feathered

547
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:09,240
Speaker 1: like this. This is still kind of going on. People

548
00:33:09,280 --> 00:33:13,920
Speaker 1: are still occasionally getting covered with tar and feathers. Yeah.

549
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:17,040
Speaker 1: And as recently as the eighties, an Alabama woman went

550
00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:20,160
Speaker 1: to court for the tarring and feathering of her ex

551
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:24,280
Speaker 1: husband's uh fiancee at the time, um, using a tar

552
00:33:24,520 --> 00:33:28,200
Speaker 1: like material that you would use to like weather proof

553
00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:31,320
Speaker 1: your house or like steal your roof or whatever. Um.

554
00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 1: And and she she described her act of vigilante justice

555
00:33:35,240 --> 00:33:39,240
Speaker 1: as standing up for a sense of community decency. Um,

556
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:43,760
Speaker 1: you know, because this was she considered this person, uh

557
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:47,480
Speaker 1: home wrecker of some sort. So yeah, there's definitely a

558
00:33:47,520 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 1: historical precedent for this type of behavior. And you know,

559
00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:54,720
Speaker 1: even though she you know, kind of claimed this historical

560
00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:57,640
Speaker 1: president and president and tried to make some sort of

561
00:33:58,160 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 1: grandstanding gesture to the court, she was convicted. And this

562
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:04,560
Speaker 1: is also from that lovely mental phloss article on the

563
00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:07,720
Speaker 1: history of tarring and feathering. We have another case as

564
00:34:07,800 --> 00:34:11,680
Speaker 1: recently as seventeen when protesters not with a person tard

565
00:34:11,719 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 1: and feathered a monument of Jefferson Davis in Arizona, UM

566
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 1: and this was after the Charlottesville Virginia UM Neo Nazi

567
00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:24,279
Speaker 1: marches are white supremacist marches, so we're seeing a lot

568
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 1: of that. I'd be surprised if we don't see more

569
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:30,360
Speaker 1: tarring and feathering of some of these racist monuments across

570
00:34:30,400 --> 00:34:34,520
Speaker 1: the country. So there you have it, folks, taring and feathering.

571
00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:41,320
Speaker 1: It started because the materials were easily available and authorities

572
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 1: centuries ago decided it would be uh more appropriate to

573
00:34:47,280 --> 00:34:52,840
Speaker 1: humiliate someone than to murder them. However, tarring and feathering

574
00:34:53,239 --> 00:34:56,680
Speaker 1: uh evolved over the great game of telephone that is

575
00:34:56,800 --> 00:35:00,279
Speaker 1: human history, and it was at times fa a doll.

576
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:06,359
Speaker 1: The big takeaway from this incredibly cartoonishly specific form of

577
00:35:06,360 --> 00:35:11,160
Speaker 1: public humiliation and punishment is I would say, it's just this.

578
00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:15,520
Speaker 1: If you have objections with people, or you have problems

579
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:19,359
Speaker 1: with people, why not talk it out with them? Why

580
00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:23,360
Speaker 1: not take them to court? Why not? Uh, why not

581
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:30,239
Speaker 1: find another less dangerous way of canceling them. I don't know,

582
00:35:30,400 --> 00:35:33,400
Speaker 1: I like, I don't it's harding and feathering someone just

583
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:36,480
Speaker 1: seems so extra, you know what I mean, it really is,

584
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:38,840
Speaker 1: um And you you know, it's you talked about the

585
00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:41,640
Speaker 1: specificity and some of the kind of creative flare that

586
00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:44,840
Speaker 1: goes into some of these punishments and tortures throughout the years,

587
00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:46,920
Speaker 1: and this is one that really has kind of stood

588
00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:49,640
Speaker 1: the test of time. And I'm fascinated by that. Um.

589
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:53,879
Speaker 1: I guess maybe because it is typically not that lethal. Uh,

590
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:56,240
Speaker 1: And it's mobile. You can kind of parade people around,

591
00:35:56,239 --> 00:35:58,319
Speaker 1: whereas the stock caves people have to come to you

592
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:01,680
Speaker 1: to humiliate you, which I would see as being interesting

593
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:03,799
Speaker 1: because then you've got like a place to go, you know,

594
00:36:03,920 --> 00:36:06,960
Speaker 1: let's go throw you know, rotten vegetables at the bad

595
00:36:07,040 --> 00:36:10,359
Speaker 1: man in the square. Um. But yeah, we don't see

596
00:36:10,360 --> 00:36:13,920
Speaker 1: that one anymore either, except at the Renaissance Fair. Rotten vegetables.

597
00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 1: Oh that's that's a good one. I think that's cool. Yeah, yeah,

598
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 1: well it's you know, it's again it's like you gotta

599
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 1: you know, you use all the feathers that you have

600
00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:23,400
Speaker 1: on the ship. You gotta use those rotten vegetables somewhere,

601
00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:25,719
Speaker 1: so you might as well throw them at an adulterer

602
00:36:25,920 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 1: or something. Well, I'm thinking, you know, before I sound

603
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:34,320
Speaker 1: to uh glib or whimsical about it, I guess you

604
00:36:34,360 --> 00:36:37,160
Speaker 1: would want to. I'm such a softy. I don't. I

605
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:39,800
Speaker 1: don't want to seriously hurt people. I would want really

606
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:42,839
Speaker 1: ripe vegetables, right, so they smell bad, but they're not

607
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:45,920
Speaker 1: hard enough to hurt someone, you know what I mean,

608
00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:50,600
Speaker 1: A good splatter you wanted. Yeah, yeah, so you get it.

609
00:36:50,719 --> 00:36:53,880
Speaker 1: You get it anyway. That's our show, folks. Thanks so

610
00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:58,960
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Before we bid you do, we

611
00:36:59,040 --> 00:37:01,960
Speaker 1: have to ask or I have to ask Casey, what's

612
00:37:02,080 --> 00:37:04,319
Speaker 1: what's your take on on Tar and Feathering? Did you

613
00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:07,960
Speaker 1: was this episode interesting to you or did you already

614
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:09,759
Speaker 1: know about all this? No, A lot of this was

615
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:12,759
Speaker 1: new to me. Um. I kind of associated it more

616
00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:14,719
Speaker 1: like the whole wild West thing, So to find out

617
00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:17,360
Speaker 1: that it had a whole life before then was really interesting.

618
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:19,959
Speaker 1: And the fact that it still happens here and there

619
00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:25,440
Speaker 1: is uh disturbing Casey on the case. Thanks as always

620
00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:28,799
Speaker 1: to you, super producer, Casey Pegram. Thanks as always to

621
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:32,359
Speaker 1: our peer podcast or Eve's Jeff Coat. Check out her

622
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:34,960
Speaker 1: show This State in History when you have the chance.

623
00:37:35,560 --> 00:37:40,760
Speaker 1: Thanks also to what I describe as our magnetic north

624
00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:43,520
Speaker 1: of the show, a guy we will never tar and feather,

625
00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:46,560
Speaker 1: our research associate, Gaye Bluesier. Thanks to Alex Williams, who

626
00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 1: composed our theme. Christopher hasciotes here in spirit anyone else

627
00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:53,239
Speaker 1: that I forgot? My mom? Your dad? Isn't his birthday today? Ben?

628
00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:55,719
Speaker 1: Or was that yesterday? I was yesterday? That's so kind

629
00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:59,360
Speaker 1: of you to remember, Yes, Happy birthday, Happy birthday to

630
00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:01,759
Speaker 1: the kind is? Can I call him to colonel? Is? That?

631
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:04,239
Speaker 1: Isn't that something we say? Yeah? I mean you can.

632
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:06,640
Speaker 1: He's the kind of guy. His joke would be like

633
00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:08,839
Speaker 1: you can call me anything but late to debt or

634
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:11,879
Speaker 1: very good. Yeah, he's the emperor of dad jokes. But yeah,

635
00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:14,920
Speaker 1: yeah yeah. And also no, thanks to you for taking

636
00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:18,719
Speaker 1: this strange journey today. I am super glad to be

637
00:38:18,800 --> 00:38:21,560
Speaker 1: able to say that the three of us have a

638
00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:25,880
Speaker 1: record so far of not being tarred or feather. Indeed,

639
00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:36,680
Speaker 1: we'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from

640
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:39,480
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

641
00:38:39,560 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,