WEBVTT - Six Impossible Episodes 0:00:01.080 --> 0:00:04.040 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:13.320 Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:16.479 I'm Tracy D. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. Over the 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:18.680 last couple of years the Holly and I have been 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:21.520 on this show, we have gotten literally hundreds and hundreds 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:26.160 of requests from listeners, and maybe five percent of them 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:28.560 are requests that we get over and over and over 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:32.920 and over again, And unfortunately a handful of those most 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:36.519 requested episodes are also ones that we can't really do 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:40.840 a whole show on. Sometimes there's just not enough information 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:47.040 available about the thing. Sometimes the information exists somewhere, but 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:49.200 there's not a way that we can really get to it. 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:52.240 It's either uh, not in a language that we speak, 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:55.480 or it's so spread out among so many different things 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:58.000 that it would take way more time than we can 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:00.400 really put into a show that puts out two new 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:06.759 episodes in a week. Or sometimes they're just there's information, 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:11.000 but it's so far removed from primary sources that it 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:15.440 just doesn't feel that reliable. Occasionally we actually get emails 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:16.720 from people who kind of go, I want you to 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:19.440 do an episode on this. I know the information is 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:22.039 out there, because my friend is doing his master's thesis 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:25.240 on it, and I'm just gonna go ahead and put 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:27.920 it out there. We cannot do a master's thesis level 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:30.840 of work for a podcast that comes out twice a week. 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:33.720 We would be on like a Dan Carlin hardcore history 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:36.280 kind of schedule if if that were the time that 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:38.319 we could put into every episode. So what we're gonna 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:41.920 do today is to take six of these things that 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:44.600 are impossible to do an episode on their own, and 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:48.080 we're gonna just run through them in one show. So 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:52.560 that is our six impossible episodes for today. So first up, 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.160 we're gonna talk about Mary Fields, who is also known 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:57.880 as Stagecoach Mary. And this is a person who a 0:01:57.920 --> 0:01:59.800 lot of people here about for the first time through 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:02.840 a post on Badass of the Week, which, if you're 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:05.279 not familiar with that site, the language is a bit blue, 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:08.040 so maybe do not google it after this episode and 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:11.399 read it allowed to an elementary school class or other 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:17.080 small children, etcetera. Here's what we do know about Stagecoach Mary. 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:20.200 She was born a slave in Tennessee in eighteen thirty 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:22.840 two and was owned by a family called the Dunns. 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:26.600 She had one of the Dunn's daughters Dolly basically grew 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:29.720 up together, and Mary learned to read and write while 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:33.480 she was still a slave. After slavery was abolished, she 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:37.040 moved to Toledo, Ohio with Dolly Dunn, who was going 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:41.040 there to become a nun. Dolly Dunn became known as 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:45.080 Mother Amadeus, and she eventually moved to Cascade, Montana to 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:48.720 teach at a school for Native American children. For a while, 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:51.920 Mary stayed behind in Ohio, but when Mother Amadeus became 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:57.680 extremely ill, they sent for her. Mother Amadeus eventually got better, 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:01.720 and Mary stayed in Cascade. Did odd jobs around St. 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:05.240 Peter's Mission, and she basically acted as a protector for 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:08.280 the nuns. She also got a job delivering the mail 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:11.520 by stagecoach, which made her the first African American woman 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:15.320 to work delivering US mail. And we talk in our 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:19.240 Charlie Parkhurst episode about what a demanding and dangerous job 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:24.000 stagecoach driving was, and Mary apparently took to it tremendously. 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:27.440 She was extremely reliable as a driver, and she developed 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:31.480 a reputation for fighting, brawling, and taking guph from absolutely 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.320 no one. Uh There are a number of stories of 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:37.080 her knocking men out with one blow under a variety 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.280 of circumstances, and this is also why she wound up 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:43.160 not working for the convent anymore. Uh. It was the 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:46.200 combination of her personality and her work that earned her 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:51.880 that nickname Stagecoach Mary. Eventually she retired from stagecoach driving 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:55.320 and opened a laundry and she became a really beloved 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:59.200 figure in Cascade, which actually made her birthday a holiday. 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.000 And stage Coach Mary died in nineteen fourteen. She was 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:05.040 eighty two at the time, and she is buried just 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:09.800 outside Cascade, Montana. In terms of information about her, there's 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:12.840 a children's book about her, as well as a documentary 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:16.400 called Discovering Mary, and that's by a woman named Joyce Fitzpatrick. 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:19.599 I haven't seen the film itself, but she talks about 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:24.000 picking up tidbits of information for years before making the film, 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:26.800 and the film itself actually started out more as a 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:30.520 documentary of her recording her own process of looking for 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:34.400 more information about Mary Fields. So when for People first 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.880 started asking us to do an episode about stage Coach Mary, 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:42.520 there was actually a crowdfunding project in the works somewhere 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:46.000 about a documentary. I'm not sure if it was this 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:49.680 documentary or a different one. But now almost two years 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:52.839 later when I went looking for it again, all traces 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:55.880 of that have vanished into the ether. So at the 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:58.479 time I was like, hey, when this documentary comes out, 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:01.480 maybe we will be able to get enough to do 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:05.719 a whole episode on this person. And it's it evaporated. 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:09.240 I don't I don't know what happens to it. So 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:11.840 if it does come out, there's alway still with possibility. 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:15.120 We'll see. But next step in our impossible episodes is 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:18.120 the London beer flood. And you may remember the episode 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:21.080 in our archive about the Boston molasses flood, which was 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:24.600 back in the era of Katie and Sarah in nif 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:28.160 of that in Boston's North End ber sending a fifteen 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:32.040 foot wave of molasses that ripped buildings off their foundations 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:35.440 and killed more than twenty people and also injured another 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:39.440 one hundred and fifty. So the London beer flood was 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:42.880 a lot like that, except that it was beer, and 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:45.719 it was about a hundred years earlier, and it's also 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:49.560 we have a similar amount of information about it as 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:53.320 about the Boston molasses flood, except that episode on the 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:55.880 Boston Molasses flood is from back when the podcast was 0:05:55.960 --> 0:06:00.200 only fifteen minutes long. Yeah, there was a lot us 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:02.360 flushing out of all of the details at that point. 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:05.880 And so for the London beer flood. On October seventeenth, 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:10.000 eighteen fourteen, a three story tall beer vat of fermenting 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:13.359 beer broke at a brewery and unleashed a fifteen foot 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:17.240 high wave of porter and as the wave roared through 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:20.400 the brewery, it broke taps off other vats, which caused 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:24.159 a chain reaction that then flooded the surrounding area with beer. 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:29.719 Some sources report this having happened at the Horseshew Brewery 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:33.560 on Tottenham Court Road, and other sources say it was 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:37.280 the Mrs Henry mu and Company on Bainbridge Street. So 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:40.560 to kind of solve that mystery, those two streets intersect 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:45.520 with each other, uh And the second the Mew Brothers 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:48.560 bought the brewery in eighteen forty one, so this is 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:51.520 sort of two different ways of describing the same brewery. 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:54.200 And eight people were killed in the beer flood and 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:57.760 many buildings were destroyed. There was no drainage in the streets, 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:00.760 so the beer basically had nowhere to go except through 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:03.800 people's homes, so it just went right into them and 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:06.240 right through them. And two of those people that were 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:08.840 killed for a mother and daughter who were having tea 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:12.000 in their home and then were swept away. Five more 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:14.040 were a family who had been killed in their basement 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:16.360 while they were in the process of mourning their two 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:19.480 year old child who had just died. A brick wall 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:24.040 collapsed and killed another woman named Eleanor Cooper. There was 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:27.760 an inquest after has happened. One of the hoops holding 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:31.200 the vat together had actually broken and slipped off earlier 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:34.720 in the day, but apparently this wasn't a really unusual occurrence. 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:36.840 It happened sometimes and they would go and fix it. 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:40.600 When George Crick, who was a seventeen year employee of 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:43.840 the brewery, reported the incident to his boss, he was 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:45.840 told that it would not be a problem and he 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:49.880 was instructed to delegate replacing the hoop to a different employee. 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:53.200 The inquest determined that this was an act of God 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:57.120 and the brewery was cleared of all around doing. There 0:07:57.120 --> 0:08:00.280 were no restitutions paid, and actually the taxes is that 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.640 the brewery had previously paid on the beer that it 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:08.440 was brewing were waived. One of the longstanding rumors about 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:10.680 this flood is that people rushed to the streets with 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:13.960 pots and pans to try to get free beer. This 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:17.320 is almost certainly false and probably stems from an effort 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:20.800 to sort of insult the people living there, because many 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:25.040 of them were Irish. The brewery did eventually resume operations, 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:29.320 but then it closed in n one, the two hundredth 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:32.920 anniversary of the London Beer Flood was in and at 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:36.280 that point there was this just huge number of articles 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:38.560 that came out about it, and I was really hopeful 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:40.720 at that point that hey, we'll have enough information to 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:44.160 do a whole episode now, But all the articles basically 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:46.600 said the facts that we just told you. There wasn't 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:49.680 a lot of additional information that came out around the 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:53.400 two hundredth anniversary. So the middle part of this episode 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:56.040 is going to cover two subjects that have brought on 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:59.280 a load of request, but they are really really difficult 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:02.480 to substantially. So before we dive into those, Tracy, do 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:04.760 you want to pause for a word from a sponsor, Well, 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:09.000 let's do that, alrighty. We've gotten several requests to talk 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:11.520 about Edward more Drake, and we got a lot more 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:15.080 after he was a character in the most recent season 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:17.720 of American Horror Story. But if you take all the 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:22.160 supposedly out of Edward Mordraake story, there's not a lot 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:25.600 of words left in it. So what we do know 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:30.960 supposedly is that Edward Murderke was the son of an 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:34.160 upper class or noble family in England, and he's said 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:37.280 to have been rather a good looking man, except for 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:39.000 the fact that he had a second face on the 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:43.080 back of his head. The most lengthy documentation we have 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:47.400 of this is from Curiosities of Medicine, being an encyclopedic 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:51.440 collection of rare and extraordinary cases and the most striking 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:55.000 instances of abnormality in all branches of medicine and surgery, 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:58.480 derived from an exhaustive research of medical literature from its 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:03.880 origin to the present day, abstracted, classified, annotated, and indexed, 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:07.040 and that is by George M. Gould and Walter L. Pyle, 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:10.440 and that came out at about eighteen nineties six. So 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:14.720 that entry goes. The following well known story of Edward Mordrake, 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:18.160 though taken from lay sources, is of sufficient notoriety and 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:21.600 interest to be mentioned here. Quote one of the weirdest 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:24.960 as well as most melancholy stories of human deformity, is 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:27.520 that of Edward mor Drake, said to have been heir 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:30.320 to one of the noblest peerages in England. He never 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:33.360 claimed the title, however, and committed suicide in his twenty 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:37.440 third year. He lived in complete seclusion, refusing the visits 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:39.959 even of the members of his own family. He was 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:43.320 a young man of fine attainments, a profound scholar, and 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:47.120 a musician of rare ability. His figure was remarkable for 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:49.800 its grace and his face. That is to say, his 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:54.160 natural faith was that of an antinous But upon the 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:56.400 back of his head was another faith, that of a 0:10:56.440 --> 0:11:00.360 beautiful girl, lovely as a dream, hideous as a devil. 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:04.080 The female face was a mere mask, occupying only a 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:07.480 small portion of the posterior part of the skull, yet 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:11.319 exhibiting every sign of intelligence of a malignant sort. However, 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:14.520 it would be seen to smile and sneer while more 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:17.800 Drake was weeping. The eyes would follow the movements of 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:21.360 the spectator, and the lips would jibber without ceasing. No 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:24.360 voice was audible, but more Drake aversed that he was 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:26.760 kept from his rest at night by the hateful whispers 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:29.760 of his devil twin, as he called it, which never sleeps, 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:32.319 but talks to me forever of such things as they 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:36.040 only speak of in hell. No imagination can conceive the 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:40.439 dreadful temptations it sets before me, for some unforgiven wickedness 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:43.320 of my forefathers. I am knit to this fiend. For 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:46.720 a fiend it surely is. I beg and beseech you 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:49.240 to crush it out of human semblance, even if I 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:52.560 die for it. Such were the words of the hapless 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:56.400 more Drake to man version treadwill has physicians. In spite 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:59.920 of careful watching, he managed to procure poison whereof he died, 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:03.200 leaving a letter requesting that the demon face might be 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:07.480 destroyed before his burial quote lest it continues, it's dreadful 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:10.560 whisperings in my grave. At his own request, he was 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:13.560 interred in a waste place, without stone or legend to 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:16.520 mark his grave. And we wanted to point out that 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:20.760 there are variations on spelling. So if you go look 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:24.000 at this, this is a transcription uh in. In this 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:26.240 particular one that we read, they leave the R out 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:28.520 of more drake, so it's more dick. So you may 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:30.599 see it either way. If you go looking like it 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:36.280 show notes or whatnot. So, Uh, there are a number 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:39.280 of conditions that can cause someone's who appear to have 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:47.679 a second face or like remnants of facial structures. Um, 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:50.960 but what these two doctors, they were really doctors, the 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.000 guys he writes this book. Uh, what they are reporting 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:58.599 is something that this guy supposedly said to two different physicians, 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:04.079 and it all sounds the tone is more like rumor 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:09.440 than actual medical evidence. The whole thing goes into like 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:15.760 the probably apocryphal category. There's just not there's no real documentation. 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:19.200 And it's very convenient that he says he was buried 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:21.520 with no stone or no marker, Like we have no 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.360 way to prove that this person ever actually existed because 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:29.000 all we have to go on is this third party account. Yeah, 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:31.520 it's it's such a compelling story and I know people 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:33.320 love it, but it also when you kind of break 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:35.360 it down, it reads like a checklist of all of 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:40.560 the the vital elements of any sort of juicy, Like 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:44.320 it's you can't substantiate it, and the details are baked 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:46.960 into the story that you can't substantiate it, Like no, 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:49.000 and he will never be found because he didn't want 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:51.160 to be found. It was grave is unmarked, and no, 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:54.280 his doctors told us, but we don't really know those doctors, 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:58.360 and so it's all, yeah, it's not going to happen. 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:02.000 Our next story is similarly a story that people really 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:04.240 really love a whole lot. But we've gotten a lot 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.800 of requests for a lot of them come in around Halloween, 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:10.040 but they come in through the rest of the year also, 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:13.080 And these are for Robert the Haunted Doll, who is 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:18.000 sometimes also called Robert the Enchanted Doll, and in the 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:21.480 words of the Key West Art and Historical Society quote, 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:24.720 Robert is a one of a kind, handmade doll created 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:28.000 around the turn of the twentieth century, standing forty inches 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:31.240 tall and stuffed with woodwool known as Excelsior. He is 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:34.720 dressed in a sailor suit at once for painted features 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:39.840 not unlike those of a jester. So, just to be 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:43.440 pretty upfront, this thing looks creepy. Um. The paint is 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:46.680 worn off of its face, so it has creepy flat 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:49.240 black eyes, and the nose and mouth are sort of 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:52.080 hard to define from the rest of the face. It's 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:55.120 got this wooden head that's also got some pitting in it, 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:57.760 so the whole thing is a little bit unsettling and 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:01.240 unnerving to behold. Yeah, I think a lot of people 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:05.800 find old dolls creepy. This is a very old doll, 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:08.160 and then it has this creepy story to go along 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:11.360 with it. Robert was a gift given to a little 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:14.920 boy named Robert Eugene Otto, who later became known as 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:17.800 Gene rather than Robert, and it was given to him 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:20.640 when he was four years old. This was in nineteen 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:23.960 o four, and it's a little There are different accounts 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:27.240 of exactly who gave it to him. The original origin 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:29.320 and all the stories as the Bahamas, but it's not 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.680 quite clear whether it was the maid who was from 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:35.120 the Bahamas or if it was the maid's daughter, because 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:38.440 some people report that it was a little girl. Either way, 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:41.840 the doll is about the same size as Jean himself 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:45.880 was at the time, and Jeane named the doll Robert 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:50.240 after himself. Jean also gave Robert his own room in 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:53.400 the attic with his own toys, and he eventually started 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:57.440 blaming this doll for his own misbehavior. Eventually, Robert took 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:00.560 the blame for anything unwelcome that happened to Jeane, and 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:04.360 along the way. Other people who were not Jeane started 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:07.760 reporting weird things about the doll. People looking through the 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:10.720 window from the street said that they would see it 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:13.760 move from one side of the attic turret to another. 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:17.000 People inside the house said that they could hear it 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:21.120 walking around and giggling above them while they were downstairs, 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:23.880 and some people even said that they saw the doll 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.160 the dolls expression change as though it was listening to 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:31.480 their conversations. Jean eventually became an artist, you know. He 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:34.320 grew up, and he married, and his wife is reported 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:36.600 to have hated the doll and demanded that it be 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:40.080 locked in a chest. Eventually, after both Jean and his 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:43.320 wife died, their home was made into the Artist House Hotel. 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:47.640 Myrtle Reuter, who bought the home in nineteen seventy four, 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:51.600 donated the doll to the East Martello Museum twenty years later, 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:54.240 and the doll was on display at the museum, which 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:56.760 is an old fort, and the doll also has its 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:00.760 bear with him. Museum staff reported that dirty cameras and 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:05.359 other electronics often failed around the doll. Museum patrons have 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:08.600 written him letters of apology after taking his photograph without 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:11.800 having permission, and then they would experience bad luck later. 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:15.320 All of this sounds pretty underwhelming, considering that a lot 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:18.560 of the blog posts that you find about Robert uh 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:21.560 describe the doll as evil or possessed or the most 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:25.359 haunted doll in history. Those kinds of posts aren't generally 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:27.520 those sorts of things we can use as sources for 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:30.360 the podcast. And what we do know about the doll 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:32.480 for sure is that it's a doll, and it creeps 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:35.560 people out. And I will admit that, I though I'm 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:38.800 still a little nervous talking about Robert without his permission, 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:42.560 Really I hope nothing bad befalls us. That sort of 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:45.159 makes me chuckle, because usually I'm the more superstitious of 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:46.760 the two of us, and I don't have it for 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:53.040 this one. Well, ghost stories scare me, even though I 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:57.960 would follow myself generally skeptical about such things. Interesting, we've 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:01.120 all learned a little about Tracy today before we get 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:06.439 to the next two stories that are particularly wacky. Do 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:10.080 you want to take another word from a sponsor to 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:13.960 get back to our last two impossible episodes? These are 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:17.520 also hard to substantiate, but they're not nearly as paranormal 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:20.200 in their origin as the two that we had before 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:23.560 the break. We're going to start first with the lost 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:26.119 Army of camp by Ses. And this actually was a 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:28.840 really welcome suggestion the first time that we got it, 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:32.000 because I had been looking for some interesting ancient history 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:34.840 to talk about. Uh, and so I got this, and 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:36.439 I was very excited. And then as soon as I 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:38.040 looked into it, I went, that's not going to work. 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:42.600 Greek historian Herodotus wrote about camp by Ses to sending 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:45.480 an army of fifty thousand soldiers on a mission to 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:48.160 destroy the Oracle of Ammon. And this is the same 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:51.800 oracle that Alexander the Great later visited. He did that 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:56.280 in the year three thirty two BC. After this visit, 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:00.360 Alexander the Great reportedly started to think of himself as 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:06.440 the Sun of Ammon. And this particular event purportedly happened 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:10.560 almost two hundred years prior to Alexander's visit. The oracle 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:14.199 had refused to recognize Cambyses as sovereign over Egypt, so 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:18.200 Cambyses sent an army out from Thieves to the oasis 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:20.879 of Siwah, where the Temple of Ammon was located, to 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:25.879 destroy the oracle. But the army never arrived. So here's 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:29.000 what Herodotus had to say about that. As for those 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:31.960 who were sent to march against the Ammonians, as they 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:35.119 set out and journeyed from thieves with guides, and it 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:37.480 is known that they came to the city of Oasis, 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:41.040 inhabited by the Samians, said to be of the Ascreonian tribe, 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:45.359 seven days march from Thebes across sandy desert. This place 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:48.760 is called in the Greek language Islands of the Blessed. 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:52.160 Thus far it is said the army came after that. 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:55.200 Except for the Ammonians themselves and those who heard from them, 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:58.160 no man can say anything of them, for they neither 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:01.639 reached the Ammonians nor were turned back. But this is 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:05.520 what the Ammonians themselves say that when Persians were crossing 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:09.000 the sand from Oasis, probably the oasis of Carga, to 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:12.680 attack them, and we're about midway between their country and oasis. 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:16.680 While they were breakfasting, a great and violent south wind arose, 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.440 which buried them in the masses of sand which it bore, 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:23.439 and so they disappeared from sight. Such is the Ammonian 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:27.760 tail of this army. And that's most of all we 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:32.080 know about it a sandstorm buried in army, maybe, but 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:35.800 a lot of historians think the whole thing is completely apocryphal. 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:40.400 Every once in a while, researchers will find in scare 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:43.520 quotes the army. Usually what they have found is some 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:47.560 shards of pottery and some bones. Some of these finds 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:52.120 are outright hoaxes, and others have been a little more substantive, 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:55.360 like there really is pottery and there really are bones, 0:20:56.160 --> 0:21:00.080 but often they're The research itself is still questionable in 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:03.640 some way, like people have gone and done they're searching 0:21:03.680 --> 0:21:07.119 without actually getting permission to be in Egypt in the 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:10.640 first place, and then they've presented findings as a documentary 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:14.440 film rather than through the typical channels that you announce 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:17.879 academic findings, like through a journal that is subject to 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:23.119 peer review. Lastly on our list of six impossible episodes 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:29.080 is Julie Darbignen. We get a lot of request for her. 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:34.359 She's portrayed as a swashbuckling, cross dressing bisexual opera singer 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:39.880 with romantic adventures to rival Casanova's, which is pretty exciting. 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:43.359 Lots of the most lots of the more recent requests 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:45.679 are also accompanied with a link to the post that 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:50.560 was written about her at the Rejected Princess's blog. Here's 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:55.000 a snippet of her entry in Curiosities of Biography or 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:59.080 Memoirs of Wonderful and Extraordinary Characters, which came out in 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:03.639 eighteen forty five. This female, who acquired extraordinary celebrity as 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:06.240 a singer in France in the seventeenth century, was one 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:09.959 of the numerous instances in which a stage heroin, fortified 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:13.159 by public favor and presuming on the magic of a 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:17.320 melodious voice, defied the laws and institutions of a country 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:21.080 by which she was supported, and committed with impunity, crimes 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:26.639 which would have doomed a common unaccomplished desperado an ignominious death. 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:31.560 This romantic and indecorous adventurer, who dressed, fought and made love, 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:34.080 and conquered like a man, having been married at an 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:38.880 early age. Fortunately for her husband, Monsieur Manpaq, quitted him 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:42.159 a few months after their nuptials for the superior attractions 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:45.840 of a fencing master, a weapon which she afterwards handled 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:51.480 with destructive dexterity against many antagonists. While today's accounts of 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:54.960 her tend to talk about her escapades pretty gleefully. Earlier 0:22:55.000 --> 0:22:59.959 retellings are unsurprisingly a bit less glowing. In this particular, 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:02.240 her account goes on to describe her wooing a young 0:23:02.320 --> 0:23:05.240 lady and then when that young lady had second thoughts, 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:08.800 burning down her house which is where Lampin was staying, 0:23:09.720 --> 0:23:13.159 abducting her, and then holding her captive until they were discovered. 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:16.600 The trouble with an episode on Lama Pan is that 0:23:16.720 --> 0:23:20.240