Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. Tico Brahe, whose name is pronounced in an
Speaker 1: assortment of ways by speakers of different languages, got a
Speaker 1: very brief name drop in our episode on Johannes and
Speaker 1: ELIZABETHA Javelius. Previous hosts of the show, Sarah and Deblina,
Speaker 1: did an episode on him back on December sixth, twenty ten,
Speaker 1: so this episode was originally recorded not long after Tikobrahe's
Speaker 1: remains had been exhumed to try to determine whether he
Speaker 1: died of poisoning. Those tests were still in progress at
Speaker 1: the time, but in November of twenty twelve, researchers announced
Speaker 1: the concentration of mercury in his system was not enough
Speaker 1: to have caused his death. Another paper published in twenty
Speaker 1: twelve concluded that his nose prosthesis had been made of brass,
Speaker 1: which is another question that had come up in this episode.
Speaker 1: That was not the end, though. Research published in twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen examined the presence of several medals in brajes hair
Speaker 1: and bone samples, including iron, arsenic, silver, and gold. While
Speaker 1: he did have higher amounts of all of these metals
Speaker 1: than was typical for people at the time, those levels
Speaker 1: dropped off about two months before his death, with one exception,
Speaker 1: and that was gold. That level stayed the same, and
Speaker 1: it's possible his gold exposure was ongoing through something like
Speaker 1: cutlery or wine with gold leaf in it. And yet
Speaker 1: another paper, this one published in twenty eighteen, concluded that
Speaker 1: Brahe had diffuse idiopathics skeletal hyperstosis or DISH, which is
Speaker 1: a type of arthritis involving the connective tissues around the spine.
Speaker 1: This paper's authors said they could not establish a definite
Speaker 1: or specific diagnosis for him, but noted that comorbidities associated
Speaker 1: with DISH and metabolic syndrome could have been possible causes
Speaker 1: of death. In particular, this paper mentioned things like an
Speaker 1: increased risk of stroke and cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and benign
Speaker 1: prostate swelling, which could have been what caused him to
Speaker 1: be unable to urinate. Brahy was also known to drink
Speaker 1: a lot of alcohol, so the effects of excessive alcohol
Speaker 1: consumption were noted as possible contributing factors in this paper
Speaker 1: as well. There is also a brief mention of November
Speaker 1: in this episode, which, just to be clear, is not
Speaker 1: just about celebrating mustaches but also about raising money and
Speaker 1: awareness for men's health. So enjoy Welcome to Stuff you
Speaker 1: missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3: I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm Deblina Chocolboardy. And the central
Speaker 3: figure of today's episode is one that's been requested quite frequently.
Speaker 3: It's Tico Brahe, the famous Danish astronomer of the sixteenth
Speaker 3: century who is remarkable because he made a lot of
Speaker 3: his observations with the naked eye. Essentially this was pre
Speaker 3: the invention of the telescope.
Speaker 2: Yeah, impressive stuff. And I think people keep on requesting
Speaker 2: him because he's been in the news a lot recently
Speaker 2: because of a certain dig that's.
Speaker 3: Going on an exhimation and.
Speaker 2: Simation, which most of you know that's like the theme
Speaker 2: of the podcast. So I was really pleased when you
Speaker 2: pick this one. To Lena, I was like, you're you're
Speaker 2: learning fast.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I want to blend, so this is
Speaker 3: my chance. But the news that Sarah's referred to is
Speaker 3: Tikobraha's remains were brought up for the second time. He
Speaker 3: was exhumed in November. For about a week. His remains
Speaker 3: were taken from the tomb that they rest in Prague,
Speaker 3: and scientists they did this because they want to get
Speaker 3: a better idea, some more insight into the unusual circumstances
Speaker 3: that surrounded his death.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I mean, for a long time, people have
Speaker 2: thought that he died of a bladder infection.
Speaker 3: I know, it's kind of unfortunate, it's an unfortunate reputation
Speaker 3: to have, but people thought that he died because while
Speaker 3: he was at a banquet at the Emperor's court in Prague,
Speaker 3: he refused to excuse himself to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 2: So he's like a good example for teaching your kids,
Speaker 2: don't hold it too long, don't go ahead it say
Speaker 2: you need to go. He claimed he had a good excuse.
Speaker 3: He thought it would be rude, basically a breach of
Speaker 3: court etiquette to do that in the middle of this dinner.
Speaker 3: But suffice to say, what happened is he returned home
Speaker 3: and he was unable to urinate after that experience. That
Speaker 3: was the case for actually eleven days can you imagine,
Speaker 3: sounds agonizing until he finally died on October twenty fourth,
Speaker 3: sixteen oh one. So this is kind of the backstory
Speaker 3: to it. There have been varying reports. People said that
Speaker 3: his bladder burst, it had become twisted somehow torn. It
Speaker 3: was kind of unclear. Kidney disease was also proposed as
Speaker 3: a possible suspect in the situation. Even at that time, though,
Speaker 3: there were some rumors going around, some murmurings that maybe
Speaker 3: murder had been involved because Tiko was basically a healthy guy.
Speaker 3: He was about fifty four to fifty five years old,
Speaker 3: didn't have any illness, so it was a little suspect,
Speaker 3: and he had enemies, and he had enemies definitely.
Speaker 2: We'll find out later.
Speaker 3: Sure. So fast forward to the nineteen nineties, the prop
Speaker 3: National Museum happens to be in possession of Tiko's mustache.
Speaker 2: As I thought, this was really like timely news because
Speaker 2: it's November, you know, the whole mustache month.
Speaker 3: I did not know this.
Speaker 2: You're supposed to grow mustache if you are so able
Speaker 2: to do so, in November to celebrate mustaches. So I mean,
Speaker 2: I feel like maybe they dug him off to coincide
Speaker 2: with this.
Speaker 3: Probably not, but cheers well, they actually that was his
Speaker 3: first exhumation in nineteen oh one where they got the mustache,
Speaker 3: So maybe they celebrated November at that time as well.
Speaker 3: Maybe basically they got the mustache, and then in nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety one they brought it back out the Prog Museum.
Speaker 3: They sent a few hairs over to some researchers in
Speaker 3: Denmark and they discovered something at that time. They discovered
Speaker 3: some really high mercury levels in Tico's system. It was
Speaker 3: about one hundred times above normal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so in nineteen ninety six Danish and Swedish
Speaker 2: scientists decided to do a few more tests on those hairs,
Speaker 2: and this time they used a proton microbe, which was
Speaker 2: more sophisticated technology, and they found out that all that
Speaker 2: mercury hadn't accumulated over years and years, It had all
Speaker 2: come in one single dose, which was only about thirteen
Speaker 2: hours before he died. So suddenly this seemed very suspicious,
Speaker 2: very likely the cause of death, not this burst bladder
Speaker 2: or kidney disease or something.
Speaker 3: Right, So that's basically what they're trying to get more
Speaker 3: information on with this current exhumation. The question still lingers
Speaker 3: even if they find out if it's murder, who would
Speaker 3: want to murder Tico? And why?
Speaker 2: Yeah, what did he do? That's so wrong.
Speaker 3: So that's a little bit of what we're going to
Speaker 3: look into in this episode. But first we're going to
Speaker 3: take you back to the beginning, so we always do
Speaker 3: as we do. He was born Tiga Brahe actually with
Speaker 3: a different, slightly different first name, on December fourteenth, fifteen
Speaker 3: forty six, in an area that would now be considered
Speaker 3: South Sweden, but it was then part of Denmark.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and his parents were nobles, but they didn't have
Speaker 2: that big of an influence on his life because of
Speaker 2: something that happens at age two. Yes, he was kidnapped,
Speaker 2: and he's kidnapped by his uncle, Jorgen Brahe. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: kind of the strange part. His dad apparently.
Speaker 3: Made a deal with Jorgen before Tico was even born,
Speaker 3: and the deal was that if the child was a boy,
Speaker 3: Jorgan could adopt him. You see, Jorgan he didn't have
Speaker 3: a son, so therefore he didn't have an heir, so
Speaker 3: he really wanted this to occur. But after Tiko actually
Speaker 3: showed up, Auto kind of changed his mind.
Speaker 2: He changed the deal, or maybe his wife mentioned something
Speaker 2: like no, I'd really rather not give away my first born.
Speaker 3: That could also be an aspect of it.
Speaker 2: But fortunately Otto and his wife have a second son
Speaker 2: named Steen, and at this point Jorgan is like, well,
Speaker 2: Tico is mine. I mean, if you have two sons,
Speaker 2: I'm at least taking one of them. And Tico's father
Speaker 2: was pretty upset about this at first, that his son
Speaker 2: got swiped by his brother. Yeah, he was.
Speaker 3: He threatened to murder his brother Jorgan at first, but
Speaker 3: then he eventually relaxed about it a little bit and
Speaker 3: he saw the benefits that this situation could potentially present.
Speaker 3: He saw that, Okay, my brother Jorgan, he is lord
Speaker 3: of Trannicker Castle. He's very wealthy, he's very well educated.
Speaker 3: So he saw after a while that Tico could be
Speaker 3: on the track to a pretty sweet inheritance if he
Speaker 3: stayed with his uncle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that both of his sons might end up with
Speaker 2: a better future.
Speaker 3: Right, And so Jorgen being well educated and his wife
Speaker 3: inga they sent Tico on the track to getting a
Speaker 3: good education too. By all accounts, they were very loving
Speaker 3: parents and he had like really good childhood. So in
Speaker 3: about fifteen fifty nine, when he was about twelve or
Speaker 3: thirteen years old, Tiko went to the University of Copenhagen
Speaker 3: and was there until about fifteen sixty two. His main
Speaker 3: area of study there was law, which is what his
Speaker 3: uncle wanted him to do, but it was.
Speaker 2: Kind of the expected job for a.
Speaker 3: Man of his class exactly. But it didn't take a
Speaker 3: little It didn't take very long for a couple things
Speaker 3: to happen while he was there. First off, he started
Speaker 3: writing his name as Tico instead of Tiga, which was
Speaker 3: the more modern style. And then most significant, he witnessed
Speaker 3: a total eclipse of the sun on August twenty first,
Speaker 3: fifteen sixty And this was just an amazing phenomenon to
Speaker 3: him because it was something that had been predicted and
Speaker 3: that it actually came to be, and he was just
Speaker 3: sort of fascinated by the fact that this was possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he knew there must be something behind astronomy, and
Speaker 2: so he started to study it more. He started to
Speaker 2: go out and study the stars at night, even though
Speaker 2: his family was trying to get him to focus on
Speaker 2: law and not be out stargazing. But after leaving school,
Speaker 2: he toured Europe and went all over Wittenberg, Rostock, Basil, Augsburg.
Speaker 2: But instead of visiting all the courts and doing the
Speaker 2: things he should have done as this young nobleman, he
Speaker 2: spent time studying at a few universities exactly.
Speaker 3: He was at the University of Leipzig from about fifteen
Speaker 3: sixty two to fifteen sixty five. His uncle actually sent
Speaker 3: him there again to study law, but of course he
Speaker 3: kept gazing at the stars. In fifteen sixty three, he
Speaker 3: had what was his second significant astronomical experience, so to speak,
Speaker 3: which was the first recorded observation of the overlapping of
Speaker 3: Jupiter and Saturn. And this was significant because it was
Speaker 3: something that was sort of off from what other scientists
Speaker 3: had predicted. So he had studied the works of Ptolemy
Speaker 3: and Copernicus. But what this showed him was that a
Speaker 3: lot of what was known at the time about the
Speaker 3: positions of the planets and the stars wasn't exactly accurate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So he knew there was room for him and
Speaker 2: room to improve on what was already known.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So he dedicated his life at this point to
Speaker 3: studying astronomy in stars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And he kept on traveling, kept on studying astronomy
Speaker 2: and at rostock. He actually got into an argument with
Speaker 2: another student over a mathematical point, which seems like as
Speaker 2: good a thing as any to get into that argument over.
Speaker 2: They take it pretty far. They fight a duel, and
Speaker 2: some people say it was a drunken duel. That doesn't
Speaker 2: sound too surprising, but it ends with the other student
Speaker 2: slicing off part of Tica's nose and a big part,
Speaker 2: a big part of it. And to deal with that,
Speaker 2: he had an artificial nose created, which was supposedly made
Speaker 2: of either silver or gold. And that was I mean,
Speaker 2: that's probably what he's best known for it.
Speaker 3: That's the fake nosake. Yeah, and we'll talk a little
Speaker 3: more about that later. But during this period he did
Speaker 3: something else that was a little scandalous. He'd already angered
Speaker 3: his family by studying astronomy, which wasn't as respected as
Speaker 3: the law, and then he went off and married a
Speaker 3: woman who was basically considered a peasant. Her name was
Speaker 3: Kirsten Jorgen's daughter. She was the daughter of a parson,
Speaker 3: and family and friends never really accepted her. I mean
Speaker 3: for a long time. They had eight kids, I think,
Speaker 3: and they were considered illegitimate because.
Speaker 2: The marriage was so beneath him, right.
Speaker 3: Never really recognized it.
Speaker 2: But I mean, he's doing all right financially at least,
Speaker 2: even if they're not recognizing his family he's still this
Speaker 2: wealthy nobleman. And when his father and uncle both die
Speaker 2: in fifteen seventy one, he inherits his uncle's estate and
Speaker 2: at least part of his father's estate. So he's he's
Speaker 2: got all the resources he needs to continue his studies
Speaker 2: and really launch himself fully into astronomy.
Speaker 3: Yes, so then he sets up his own sort of
Speaker 3: small observatory and lab on another relative's property, just to
Speaker 3: totally devote herselves. Right and there, on November eleventh, fifteen
Speaker 3: seventy two, he made what is perhaps considered his most
Speaker 3: significant discovery. He noticed what he called a new star
Speaker 3: and it was brighter than Venus and located where no
Speaker 3: star was supposed to be in the Cassiopeia constellation, and
Speaker 3: he published a work about it called De Nova Stella,
Speaker 3: which is the New Star translated.
Speaker 2: This was really big news for the intellectual community at
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it shook them up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because they figured that we know everything we could
Speaker 2: never know about where the stars are. The stars do
Speaker 2: not move, you don't get a new one, and so
Speaker 2: this was major news for them. Yeah.
Speaker 3: It almost was controversial. It rubbed some people the wrong way.
Speaker 3: They didn't want to believe it. But now we know
Speaker 3: what he observed was a supernova or the explosion of
Speaker 3: a dying star. But you know, at the time, just
Speaker 3: the fact that he'd seen something there that was different
Speaker 3: was a big deal. So after this, Tico becomes pretty
Speaker 3: famous throughout Europe. He's a well known and well respected astronomer,
Speaker 3: and he has a dream of establishing even larger, a
Speaker 3: very large observatory, and he plans to do so in
Speaker 3: Germany until King Frederick the Second of Denmark convinces him
Speaker 3: to stay. Basically makes them an offer he can't refuse.
Speaker 3: It makes them a pretty sweet offer. Frederick is basically
Speaker 3: Frederick the second becomes a patron of sorts for Tiko,
Speaker 3: possibly because his life had been saved by Tico's uncle,
Speaker 3: so reason that could factor into it. But I think
Speaker 3: part of it was also that here's this fabulous, famous astronomer,
Speaker 3: and I don't want to lose him. I want him
Speaker 3: to stay in my country. So all these things combined
Speaker 3: maybe convince him to offer Tico the entire island of
Speaker 3: then and fit the bill for the construction of a
Speaker 3: large observatory in house and essentially makes the villagers Tico's tenants.
Speaker 2: So basically he can get rent from there.
Speaker 3: He can get rent from them duties. It's an awesome
Speaker 3: deal from Tico's point of view. So he gets to
Speaker 3: build his observatory, picks his own architect, and he calls
Speaker 3: it Uranaborg, which translates to Castle of the Heavens, and
Speaker 3: it's complete with It's a pretty swanky place, even complete
Speaker 3: with indoor plumbing, which is zoronic too, I think, considering
Speaker 3: his unusual death. Yeah, it is a little ironic. But
Speaker 3: he designs his plumbing himself, and it was very uncommon
Speaker 3: at the time, so it's always something that you'll see
Speaker 3: mentioned about Urannaborg, even though it's kind of a funny
Speaker 3: thing to mention, I guess. And this was considered the
Speaker 3: world's first large research institute. So he has all these
Speaker 3: assistants that help him and he is just observing away
Speaker 3: and they.
Speaker 2: Do a lot of work there. All of Tico and
Speaker 2: all of his assistants catalog the positions of at least
Speaker 2: seven hundred and seventy seven stars, some people say it's
Speaker 2: more like one thousand stars. And the work replaces Ptolemy's.
Speaker 2: It becomes the standard astronomical text, I guess, or data set.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a pretty big deal. And then in
Speaker 3: the fifteen eighties he came up with what he thought
Speaker 3: to be his biggest achievement ever, and that was a
Speaker 3: theory about the Solar system that contradicted Copernicus. Basically, he
Speaker 3: hoped with this, he hoped to eventually confirm this with
Speaker 3: his data.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just to give you a rundown of how
Speaker 2: these theories differed, Copernicus thought that the Sun was the
Speaker 2: center of the universe and all the planets revolved around
Speaker 2: the Sun. But Tico thought that the Earth stayed put,
Speaker 2: it remained in this stationary position, and the Sun and
Speaker 2: the Moon revolved around the Earth, orbiting the Earth, and
Speaker 2: the other planets orbited the Sun. So it was kind
Speaker 2: of a mish mash, I guess.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a little topsy jervey compared to Copernicus's theory.
Speaker 3: And of course now we know that Copernicus was actually correct,
Speaker 3: but that came later on. So all of his data
Speaker 3: collecting and all of his observations later in life were
Speaker 3: to help confirm this theory. Up until this point, he
Speaker 3: appears to have led a charmed life, as has got
Speaker 3: An Island as his observatory to two estates from his family.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's well known, he's well respected. But then
Speaker 3: in fifteen ninety six things start to go south a
Speaker 3: little bit. Frederic the Second has died and his son,
Speaker 3: Frederic's son, that is, Christian the assumed the throne of
Speaker 3: Denmark and Norway, and he's not a spond of Tico.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you mentioned earlier that you saw different accounts
Speaker 2: of that. Maybe Christian just doesn't like Tico and wants
Speaker 2: to completely shut down his operation. Maybe it was more
Speaker 2: of a budgetary issue, you know, he just didn't have
Speaker 2: room to fund this astronomer as much as his father had.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I mean Tico was not cheap. He was
Speaker 3: living large out on the island of Then, throwing parties, drinking,
Speaker 3: eating lots, and really not treating his tenants very well
Speaker 3: at all. So because of this clash with Christian the Fourth,
Speaker 3: he ends up moving to Prague with his wife, where
Speaker 3: Emperor Rudolph the Second gave him refuge and he continues
Speaker 3: his work there. But really at that point he had
Speaker 3: collected the majority of the data that he was going
Speaker 3: to collect over the course of his lifetime, so he
Speaker 3: has all of that. He's still working with it. He's
Speaker 3: still observing things, but at this point most of his
Speaker 3: life's work is complete.
Speaker 2: Time to analyze everything he's gone.
Speaker 3: And what happened to the island and his large observatory. Well,
Speaker 3: Christian the fourth reportedly had it torn down, so unfortunately
Speaker 3: it doesn't exist today. We can't even visit this place.
Speaker 2: You're anibor indoor plumbing and everything, you know.
Speaker 3: So while he's in Prague, another significant thing happens. Tico
Speaker 3: takes on an assistant named Johannes Kepler in sixteen hundred.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Kepler is a very different guy, and away
Speaker 2: from Tico, he comes from a different background. He's not
Speaker 2: a nobleman, but by the time they meet, he's got
Speaker 2: a good reputation. He's a respected scientist, and he's also
Speaker 2: a Copernican, so opposite opposite theories. They don't believe the
Speaker 2: universe works the same way, so he thinks that the
Speaker 2: planet's orbit. Then it seems like it would be really
Speaker 2: hard to have a productive partnership with another astronomer if
Speaker 2: you had such a fundamental difference. But it seems like
Speaker 2: they could have worked well together.
Speaker 1: They could have.
Speaker 3: Worked well together. Kepler was a theory guy and Tiko
Speaker 3: was the data guy, so if they had put their
Speaker 3: heads together, who knows what could have happened. But it
Speaker 3: turns out that they had kind of a tough working relationship.
Speaker 3: But Keupler really wanted to work with Tico because he
Speaker 3: had come up with sort of his own theory about
Speaker 3: the orbits of the planets. He thought that they were spheres,
Speaker 3: one inside of the other, and so he really wanted
Speaker 3: to work with Tiko so that he could use his data.
Speaker 3: But then, of course he comes to Tico, and Tiko's
Speaker 3: totally stingy with all his observations in his data.
Speaker 2: And completely at odds with his own beliefs. You don't
Speaker 2: want your data to prove something that disproves what you've
Speaker 2: been working on.
Speaker 3: Sure, so, as we mentioned that the two butted heads,
Speaker 3: they argued. Kepler even walked out and left at one point,
Speaker 3: and then Ticokin of came back and relented and they
Speaker 3: came back together. But then, of course Tico dies suddenly
Speaker 3: in sixteen oh one, and Kepler after that point becomes
Speaker 3: the Imperial Mathematician in Prague, which gives him access to
Speaker 3: all of Tico's data. So what he wanted, I got it.
Speaker 3: He's finally got what he needs.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, though, once he has all this data he's been
Speaker 2: waiting for for so long, it doesn't confirm his theory
Speaker 2: about the spherical orbit.
Speaker 3: That's true. At least he knows this, and he did
Speaker 3: confirm Copernicus's view of the Solar system and come up
Speaker 3: with the important laws of planetary motion that he's still
Speaker 3: known for today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Kepler's work definitely benefits from having this data,
Speaker 2: which of course comes from Tika's death.
Speaker 1: So suspicious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and these findings about the mercury poisoning came out,
Speaker 2: a lot of people started thinking, well, what did this
Speaker 2: guy have to gain from it? And it makes him
Speaker 2: a pretty likely suspect, but there's no proof.
Speaker 3: There's no proof. A lot of people suggest that he
Speaker 3: might be a suspect, but there's no real hard proof.
Speaker 3: I don't think to support that.
Speaker 2: Fortunately, we have some other suspect.
Speaker 3: There are some other suspects lined up here. One suspect
Speaker 3: is the Jesuit Order. They could have been to blame
Speaker 3: because they didn't really like the influence that Tico had
Speaker 3: as a Protestant over Prague's Emperor Rudolph the Second, So
Speaker 3: that was what would have made them a suspect. Their
Speaker 3: motive in it, I guess, And there are others that
Speaker 3: think that Christian the fourth may have had something to
Speaker 3: do with it, since he's not a fan, no, not
Speaker 3: a big fan of Tiko at all, so he might
Speaker 3: have had a score to settle there.
Speaker 2: And there's been some sort of recent theorizing about that front,
Speaker 2: at least, hasn't there.
Speaker 3: Yes, there has a guy named Peter Anderson who is
Speaker 3: a Strasburg German studies expert. He a couple of years
Speaker 3: ago came up with a scenario that has Christian the
Speaker 3: Fourth as a mastermind and a plot that also involves
Speaker 3: Tiko's distance cousin, Eric Brahe, And it's assumed in this
Speaker 3: scenario that Eric Brahe is the killer. And the reason
Speaker 3: Anderson came up with this theory is that he found
Speaker 3: he discovered Eric Brahe's six hundred page diary in the
Speaker 3: Royal Library of Stockholm, and he says it contained some
Speaker 3: pretty definitive evidences. It shows Eric Brahe going away on
Speaker 3: this huge mission. Around this time, he's wrangling an invitation
Speaker 3: to the banquet that Tico attended, the one where he
Speaker 3: didn't use the bathroom. The entire time. And it also
Speaker 3: shows that Eric visited Tico at his home after the
Speaker 3: banquet and the day's following yep. And he also expresses
Speaker 3: some remorse in his diary in his writings.
Speaker 2: So there's one theory for you. But other people think,
Speaker 2: and this is not maybe not quite as exciting and scandalous,
Speaker 2: but some people think that Tico's death was accidental mercury poisoning.
Speaker 2: That because he was also a bit of an alchemist,
Speaker 2: he might have tried to cure himself by dosing himself
Speaker 2: with too much mercury and accidentally dying from it.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 3: That's another possibility. And unfortunately, scientists say that we'll never
Speaker 3: know the truth because even though they can find out,
Speaker 3: they might find out if it's murder or if it
Speaker 3: was accidental poisoning, but after four undred plus years, it's
Speaker 3: unlikely that they'd be able to identify a specific killer.
Speaker 3: So this may have to remain a mystery.
Speaker 2: We do have one thing we can look forward to though.
Speaker 3: Yes, they may solve the mystery of the fake nose,
Speaker 3: and that came about the first time they exhumed Tico
Speaker 3: Brahe in nineteen oh one. They discovered that the metal
Speaker 3: plate that was his nose prosthesis. Yes, it was missing.
Speaker 3: It was not in his tomb, and when they sort
Speaker 3: of tested the area, they found copper there rather than
Speaker 3: silver and gold, which everyone thought was So they're hoping
Speaker 3: to test now and see if they can figure out
Speaker 3: what the nose was actually made of. Was it silver
Speaker 3: and gold? Was it a silver and copper alloy.
Speaker 2: Maybe he had multiple news Maybe.
Speaker 3: He had multiple ones. That's also a theory. Maybe he
Speaker 3: had one for special occasions and one for just everyday use.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to send us a note, our email addresses
Speaker 1: History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, and you can subscribe
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