WEBVTT - Six Impossible Episodes by Request 0:00:01.200 --> 0:00:04.160 Welcome to steph you missed in history class from how 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:13.840 Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:17.119 I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. It is 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:22.680 time for six Impossible episodes. Our last few six Impossibles 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:25.760 have had a running theme. We had a set of 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:29.639 six stories that were about frontline heroism from soldiers and spies, 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:32.680 and before that we had six episodes that sound a 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:36.440 lot like episodes we had already done. Before that, there 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:40.040 were six stories that might have been apocryphal, maybe not. 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:43.840 And so today we once again have six short stories. 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:46.519 As these things go, but this time it's kind of 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:51.320 a hodgepodge. These are all frequent requests, several of them 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:55.040 very heavily requested, and we're going to talk about them 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:58.279 all in one go. Um, they don't have a lot 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:01.720 of thematic commonality among one another except the fact that 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:04.240 people have asked us to talk about them. And just 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:06.919 a quick note that a couple of these are quite violent, 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:09.560 and the first one includes a couple of brief mentions 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:13.880 of rape and sexual assault. So first up in July 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:17.120 of this year, which we are recording in, we got 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:20.560 a whole lot of requests via email and social media 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:24.720 to do a podcast about Olive Yang. Yang died on 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:27.800 July thirteenth at the age of ninety, and their obituary 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:31.600 got a lot of attention. Yang was born Yang Kin 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:35.520 sue In and what was then British Burma and is 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:38.680 now more commonly known as Myan mar This was in 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:41.919 the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia, that's our region along 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:45.039 the border of jan Mart, Laos and Thailand, was a 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:47.800 major supplier in the global opium trade for a lot 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:51.279 of the twentieth century. Yang was descended from the royal 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:53.840 house of the Shan state of ko Lang, but the 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:57.880 family fled the region during Japanese invasions in World War Two. 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:03.360 Yang defied gender expectations and was described as a tomboy, 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:07.080 wearing boy's clothes and carrying guns, and having no desire 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:10.480 at all to marry or become a mother. In their 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:15.240 later years, Olive, whose native language has no gendered pronouns uh, 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:18.200 what asked to be called Uncle Yang. And all of 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:21.040 this together is why for this episode we are going 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:24.640 with the pronoun they when we reference Olive. In spite 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:27.959 of their protests, Yang was forced into an arranged marriage 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:31.440 with a younger cousin. Yang's mother died before the wedding 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:34.320 day and their father was in very ill health, But 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.920 the wedding went on as planned, and Yang then left 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:41.200 with this unwanted duty of providing an air refused to 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:44.840 do it, reportedly throwing a chamber pot at the groom 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:49.480 on their wedding night. Yang's son Jipou was ultimately conceived 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:54.960 through marital rape. Even before Gepoo was born, Yang had 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:57.640 already left the family and fallen in with bandits and 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:01.280 opium traders. With a reputation Asian for a fiery temper 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:04.800 and always being armed, they wound up being offered the 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:08.440 command of an army of three hundred men. On the 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.880 way in a take command, Yang's caravan encountered some drunken 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:16.720 officers trying to extort bribes, so Yang kidnapped the officers 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:18.560 and brought them along the rest of the way to 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:23.240 the outpost. This ruffled some feathers. Yeah, there's a lot 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:26.280 of I'm gonna do what I want, and then people 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:29.440 being like, okay, that was maybe maybe that that is 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:33.280 going to raise some eyebrows. After gp was born in 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:36.320 the one, Yang left him with a wet nurse he 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:38.880 went on to be raised by a series of uncles. 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:42.200 Yang then turned their attention to developing the trade routes 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:45.120 that would turn the region into the world's largest supplier 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:48.320 of opium for a time, commanding a fighting force of 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:51.120 up to a thousand men and developing a reputation for 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:56.240 being particularly fierce. During the Cold War, the United States 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:59.760 wanted to influence policy and military outcomes in parts of 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:02.960 the war world where it wasn't really supposed to be operating, 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:05.960 and this was especially true when it came to attempts 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:09.600 to stop or roll back the spread of communism. Without 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:13.440 the ability to publicly intervene, the United States instead turned 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.520 to a number of covert programs to try to achieve 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:20.720 the same end. One of these was codenamed Operation Paper, 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:24.880 in which the CIA funded and armed various militias, most 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:29.640 of them involved in opium trafficking. These forces included remnants 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:34.360 of the Chinese Nationalist Army Cooman Tang or KMT, which 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:37.480 had been defeated by Mao Zedong in nineteen forty nine. 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:42.480 Some of the KMT were under Yang's command. Yang's troops 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:44.919 were on the receiving end of these covert air drops 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:48.080 at least once. In nineteen fifty two, Yang's force crossed 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:50.960 the border into Thailand illegally to retrieve weapons that had 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:54.960 been dropped by an unmarked CIA owned aircraft. The government 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:57.960 of what was then Burma complained to the UN General Assembly. 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:01.599 Yang was later arrested sentenced to five years in prison. 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:04.840 A couple of years after being released, Yang took over 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:08.080 the former army of their elder brother, who had advocated 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:11.560 his role in the Shan government, and thus became the 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:15.440 region's de facto leader. In nineteen sixty three, Yang was 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:18.520 captured again and spent more than six years in prison, 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:22.600 much of it in solitary confinement. They later reported to 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:26.200 relatives that they were repeatedly tortured and sexually abused while 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:30.239 behind bars. After their second release from prison, Yang found 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.640 that one of their lieutenants, Losing Han, had essentially taken 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:37.520 over the opium trade that Yang had built. Losing Han 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:40.440 wound up being a far more notorious name in the 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:43.239 opium trade than Yang did, at least until more recently. 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:48.920 Following some news coverage, Yang described themselves as a lesbian, 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:52.080 and their relationships were often the fodder of gossip columns 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:56.160 and tabloids. Including a reported relationship with actress Wah Wah 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:59.960 Win Schui in ten Win Schwi did nine that really 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.479 lationship in spite of having lived in a house that 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:05.640 Yang owned and giving the interview in question in a 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:09.440 rebuilt house that sat on the same property. Not all 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:13.440 of Yang's life was so notorious or sensationalized. Though later 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:16.559 on their active time and the opium trade was essentially over, 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:19.960 but Yang still had really extensive connections within all of 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:23.560 these criminal organizations, which led to their being recruited to 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:27.359 try to negotiate peace agreements with those organizations on behalf 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:31.080 of the government. So obviously there is a lot going 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:35.000 on here. Al of Yang is a fascinating and complicated 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.760 character who was connected to the opium trade, international dispute, 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:43.040 and covert CIA programs. Me and mar has been in 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:45.240 the news a lot over the last few years, but 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:47.680 for a range of reasons, its history hasn't really been 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.960 covered on our show. So it's not surprising at all 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:54.080 that people asked for more. But here's the thing about 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:56.359 trying to make a whole episode about all of Yang. 0:06:56.800 --> 0:06:59.880 In terms of what's available in English, pretty much all 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.640 of this information goes back to reporting done by Gabrielle Poluke, 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:06.600 which was picked up and redistributed by the World from 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:09.440 p r I. Other outlets that picked it up from 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:12.600 there either go back to Poluke's reporting or to Poluke 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:15.640 herself in interviews. So it's clear from all of this 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:19.800 reporting that other information about al of Yeng exists, but 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:22.440 most of that isn't really information that we can get 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:25.760 to as an English speaking podcast on the other side 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.440 of the world. And Poluke is reportedly working on a 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:30.880 book according to the Washington Post, about all of this, 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:34.800 and we would absolutely read that. We absolutely want that's 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:36.680 going to be a running theme in this show. There 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:39.080 are going to be several people who if there were 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.800 you know, uh and uh maybe not official, but if 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:45.400 there were a comprehensive biography on their life, then probably 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:48.040 we could do a complete episode. And they are all 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:51.200 biographies that I would jump on the opportunity to read. 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:54.080 Next up, we have another request that came in from 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:56.680 a lot of people thanks to the Internet, and that 0:07:56.800 --> 0:07:59.920 was the nineteen seventeen Silent Parade, which was also the 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.560 subject of a Google Doodle, which is what led so 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:05.480 many people to ask about it. The Silent Parade, known 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:09.000 at the time as the Negro Silent Protest Parade was 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:13.080 a protest that took place on July seventeen on Fifth 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:16.240 Avenue in New York City. The n double a CP 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:20.400 organized this protest in response to Jim Crow Laws, ongoing 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.520 lynchings and a riot in East St. Louis in which 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:26.320 a white mob had killed more than one hundred black 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:29.840 residents and destroyed the homes of about six thousand more. 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:33.679 The riot had taken place over July one through the third, 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:36.959 and that had been sparked in part by striking white 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:40.720 workers resentment that black strikebreakers were replacing them at a 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:43.800 box site processing plants. So taken from the letter that 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:46.079 was distributed in advance of the march, sort of as 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:49.800 instructions quote, we marched because, by the grace of God 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:52.880 and the force of truth, the dangerous hampering walls of 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:57.200 prejudice and inhuman injustices must fall. We marched because we 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:00.800 want to make impossible a repetition of way go Memphis 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:03.880 and East St. Louis by rousing the conscience of the 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:07.120 country and bring the murderers of our brothers, sisters, and 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:10.240 innocent children to justice. We marched because we deem it 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:13.040 a crime to be silenced in the face of such 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:15.440 barbaric acts. So that goes on with all of the 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:18.280 reasons that they are marching, and they also gets into 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:22.200 procedures for the march. And then the letter ended quote 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:27.280 Yours in righteous indignation, Reverend Chaz Martin, Secretary. A list 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:30.680 of mottoes, first signs and banners was distributed in advance 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:35.840 of the march as well, including make America Safe for democracy, Mothers, 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:39.319 do lynchers go to Heaven, two hundred thousand black men 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:42.920 fought for your liberty in the Civil War, and Tracy's 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:47.000 favorite pray for the Lady Macbeth's of East St. Louis. Uh. 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:49.520 There have been a couple of different interpretations that have 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:52.440 been circulated for that last one, one being that it 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:55.640 referenced the white women of St. Louis who had egged 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:59.040 on the mob. So about ten thousand people, all of 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:01.920 them black, partici the pated in the silent March. The 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:04.960 organizers went first, and then children and then women who 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:07.160 were all dressed in white, followed by all the men 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:10.800 who were in dark suits. The protesters included W. E. B. 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:15.040 Du Bois and James Walton Johnson, James Weldon Johnson later 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:17.800 wrote about it and his autobiography, saying, quote, the streets 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.480 of New York have witnessed many strange sites, but I 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:24.000 judge never one stranger than this. Among the watchers were 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:27.600 those with tears in their eyes. This was certainly an 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:30.720 important event in civil rights history. It was one of 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:33.960 the first, if not the first, non violent mass protest 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:37.800 against racism and racist violence. And the fact that all 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:41.079 the marchers were black was also important. At this point, 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:45.160 most civil rights organizations and activities were integrated, in part 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:48.559 because the idea was so contentious that seeing white people 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:52.560 involved made it somewhat more palatable to other white people. 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:57.360 Having white people involved also offered at least some degree 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:01.400 of protection, Like there are so many stories about violence 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:03.240 during the civil rights movement, and this is a little 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:05.000 bit earlier than what a lot of people think of 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:09.160 as the movement. Um, So it wasn't a guarantee of safety, 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:12.680 but it was like a slight measure of safety sometimes. 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:16.520 So it's likely that there's enough information about this march, 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:19.560 and archives are special collections to make it into a 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:22.720 whole episode. But in terms of what's publicly available to 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:26.280 us right now, that's the overview and we're gonna have 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:28.240 some more stories, but first we're gonna pause for a 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:36.160 little sponsor break. Next up on our list. We have 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:40.640 gotten several requests for the Massacre of Glencoe, including from 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:45.280 Haga and Neil Ramona, ros Leia Megan, and almost certainly others, 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:47.240 and a lot of these came in around the time 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:50.280 of the Game of Thrones episode The Reigns of Castomir, 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:54.280 which also led to requests for another historical event known 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:57.960 as the Black Dinner. The Glencoe Massacre was one of 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:01.200 many bloody events in Scottish history that followed in the 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:04.559 wake of the Glorious Revolution. We talked more about the 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:08.000 Glorious Revolution in our podcast on the Jacobite Rising of 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:10.640 seventy five, and we will link to that in the 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:14.000 show notes, but very briefly, King James the seventh of 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:17.000 Scotland and second of England was Catholic, and when he 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:21.360 had a son, James Francis Edward Stewart, Protestants became concerned 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:24.719 about having another Catholic in the line of succession. So 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:27.880 Protestants in Scotland and elsewhere had hoped that James would 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:30.360 die without an heir and then be succeeded by a 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:34.240 Protestant monarch. With that no longer a possibility, some prominent 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:37.080 Protestants got in touch with William of Orange and basically 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:39.360 invited him and his army to come to England and 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.800 take over. So he did, and William and his wife 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:46.280 Mary became monarchs in sixteen eighty nine. Obviously, that's very 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:51.040 highly condensed. That's the speed round version. A number of 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:54.040 Scottish clans remained loyal to King James into the House 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.840 of Stewart for both political and religious reasons. This was 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:00.160 the basis for the Jacobite movement that we cover in 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.760 that previous episode and just f y I also makes 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:07.239 up the first chunk of the Outlander TV show and books. 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.880 The new monarchs, William and Mary, recognizing the threat that 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.360 that the Jacobites posed both to their reign and to 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.160 the overall stability of the kingdom, tried to secure the 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:20.280 Scottish clans loyalty. It took a very stick and carrot approach. 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.200 They offered an indemnity to the clans that agreed to 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:26.720 sign an oath of allegiance to them, while authorizing attacks 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:29.840 against the clans that didn't. As time went on, though 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:32.520 the focus got a lot more heavily on the stick 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:35.600 than on the carrot. This deadline for signing this oath 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:40.760 of allegiance was January one of six, and this presented 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:44.320 a number of logistical problems. Most clan chiefs needed to 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:46.840 travel somewhere to sign the oath in the presence of 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:50.440 a magistrate or sheriff, and winter in Scotland made that 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:54.079 rather difficult. Also, many of the clans had already sworn 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:56.920 an oath to James Stewart and they couldn't sign another 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:59.839 one until they were released from that first oath, and 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:04.600 that didn't happen until mid December. So a number of factors, 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:08.240 including travel, weather and the magistrate not actually being present 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:11.559 when they got there, Captain McDonald's of glen Coe from 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:15.920 meeting the January first deadline. Alistair McLean, chief of the clan, 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:18.520 arrived in time to do the signing, but he couldn't 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:22.520 actually do it until January six. Alistair McLean was not 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:24.880 the only chief in the area who missed the deadline, 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:28.120 but for whatever reason, he was the only one who 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:30.920 was not included in an indemnity that was issued for 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:35.720 everyone who had Instead. McLean and the McDonald's of glen 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:39.800 co were subject to punishment by the quote utmost extremity 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:42.800 of the law. It may have just been an oversight 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:45.200 or an intentional effort to make an example of the 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:48.800 McDonald's of glen Cove for having been publicly loyal to 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:53.400 the Stewarts, but the elements of that are still unclear. Regardless, 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:57.120 and early February, soldiers arrived at glen Coe seeking shelter. 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:00.240 They reported that they had been assigned to Fort will Um, 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:02.440 which was not too far away, only to find that 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:05.840 the fort was already past capacity. So the soldiers were 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:09.640 billeted in the McDonald's homes, and then on February thirteenth, 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:12.880 starting at about five in the morning, the soldiers, along 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:16.280 with others who joined them from Fort William, massacred members 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:20.160 of the McDonald plan there in their homes. Alistair McLaine 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:22.760 was the first to be killed, while he was rising 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:26.880 from his bed by soldiers who were his guests. About 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:29.920 thirty eight people were killed in the massacre on the thirteenth, 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:33.720 but since the soldiers also burned people's homes, many more 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:38.040 died of exposure. After the actual conflict was over three 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:41.680 years later, a Scottish Parliamentary Commission described it as quote 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:45.440 murder under trust. The Campbell clan has long taken the 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:49.480 blame for having orchestrated and executed this whole thing. There 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:52.360 was certainly a long standing feud between the Campbells and 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.920 the McDonald's, and the Campbells were heavily represented among the 0:15:55.960 --> 0:16:00.440 military units that committed the massacre. But the Jacobite backdown 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:04.120 was really a much bigger issue than the Campbell McDonald feud. 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:08.280 The Campbells might have, and some would say definitely did, 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:11.840 taken the opportunity to exact some kind of justice after 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.160 years of skirmishes and cattle raids, but it was really 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:18.160 William and Mary who put such a sharp focus on 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:20.880 rooting out the Jacobites in the first place. We didn't 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:23.480 do a full episode about this one, largely because the 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:26.840 Game of Thrones episode that prompted so many requests came 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.400 out in at which point you couldn't turn around without 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:33.560 running into an article about the Glencoe massacre, so ours 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:36.280 kind of would have been redundant, And after that it 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:39.360 started to feel like the moment had really passed. That 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:41.520 was even more true after we did our show on 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:45.240 the Jacobite rising of since it covers so much of 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:48.200 the same territory. The Black Dinner, on the other hand, 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:50.120 which is the other thing that everyone asked us to 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:52.840 talk about in response to this Game of Thrones episode 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:55.880 that's often summed up as a paragraph, so we are 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:57.960 going to include it. This kind of a bonus seventh 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:02.040 Impossible episode. In four team forty, sixteen year old William, 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:05.720 Earl of Douglas and his younger brother David were invited 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:08.280 to visit King James the Second of Scotland, who was 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:11.280 then ten, at Edinburgh Castle. So yes, this is a 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:13.560 completely different King James and the one we were talking 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:17.400 about earlier in this segment. After being served the head 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:19.720 of a black bull, which was a symbol of death, 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:22.480 the two boys were taken out into the yard, given 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:26.040 a mock trial, convicted of treason, and beheaded. All of 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:29.199 this connects to an ongoing power struggle between the monarch 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:31.399 and the Douglas clan. At this point really more like 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:34.600 the monarch's advisors because the monarch himself was only ten 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:37.560 uh So basically the idea was that they were trying 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:41.840 to check the Douglas influence. But the whole story is 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.840 really full of said to have and may have been, 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:48.679 and it's really not clear who arranged this or what 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:53.000 their endgame was. Now to completely change gears, Oh yeah, 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:56.520 we're like so completely, so get ready because if you 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:00.400 may have a bump as we grind through the um. 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:03.680 Next up, Marian Downs, who is known as the mother 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:08.800 of pediatric audiology and requested most recently by Lee and Megan. 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:12.720 Unlike so many other doctors we've talked about on the show, 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:15.720 Downs didn't spend her whole life planning to go into medicine. 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:18.240 She dropped out of college in the nineteen thirties to 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:20.960 get married and have children, which was really common among 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:24.159 female undergraduates at the time. Once her children got a 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:27.040 little older, though, she decided she wanted to go back 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:29.600 to school. And this was right after the end of 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:33.119 World War Two, when colleges and universities were flooded with 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:36.440 returning soldiers pursuing an education under the g I Bill. 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:39.480 So when Downs went to register for classes at the 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:42.600 University of Denver, she picked a course of study by 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:45.959 finding the shortest line, and that line was for speech 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:49.639 pathology and audiology. Now didn't really know what that was 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:52.560 when she enrolled but she really excelled at it, and 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:56.679 she's known today for her pioneering work in infant hearing screenings. 0:18:57.720 --> 0:18:59.920 I love when someone just sort of stumbles a degree 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:04.200 and exactly what happened has doubled into the short line 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:07.720 of greatness. Uh. In terms of the brain, a person's 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:10.760 language ability develops a lot in their first two years 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:14.080 of life, regardless of whether that language is verbal or 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:18.600 non verbal. And when Down started practicing, most children didn't 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:20.639 really get their hearing checked until they were three or 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:23.639 four years old, and even then that was usually because 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:27.160 the child's parent was concerned that perhaps their speech was delayed. 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:30.439 And Downs thought this was a huge disservice, that missing 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:33.040 out on those early years of language development was actually 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:37.160 setting people up for lifelong trouble with all aspects of communication, 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:41.600 including reading, and she was, of course right. So she 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:45.080 started testing children's hearing while they were still babies and 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:47.040 fitting them with hearing aids when they were as young 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:50.280 as a year old if they needed one. She encountered 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:53.919 a lot of resistance to this, in addition to everything 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:57.000 that comes along with being one of very few women 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:00.840 in a male dominated field. Other doctor insisted that a 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:04.160 child's brain wasn't ready to handle a hearing aid until 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:07.679 age three or four, and that her work was damaging. 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:12.000 From a neurology perspective, Downs was right. Her naysayers were 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:16.480 wrong that that just refusing to fit children with hearing 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:19.080 aids meant that the people who were hard of hearing 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:22.520 and with a little support could learn to, you know, 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:25.640 listen and speak, like just denying that brain development time 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:28.360 for a couple of years meant that the brain development 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:32.000 wasn't happening at all. In nineteen sixty three, Down started 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:37.280 the first systematic infant hearing screening program in Denver, Colorado. Today, 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:41.080 percent of children born at hospitals and birthing centers in 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:44.159 the United States have their hearing tested as soon as 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:47.720 they are born, maybe not literally the delivery room, but 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:50.879 before they leave the hospital or birthing center, they have 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:53.800 a screening. So these tests, of course, are very different 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:56.359 today than they were in the sixties. When Downs was 0:20:56.400 --> 0:20:59.199 creating her testing protocol, she was using a device to 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:03.200 play specific sounds and then observing babies responses to them. 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:05.280 So some of the cues that she was looking for 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:08.600 could be really subtle, especially in newborns. There were things 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:12.080 like blinking or widening, their eyes are moving a little bit, 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:15.320 so you have to be really good at observation. Today, 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:17.919 the screening is usually use a device that plays a 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:22.480 tone into the ear and then measures basically the echo 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:25.040 from the inner ear. That's a bit of a simplification, 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:28.360 but it's an analogy. Another test which is often done 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:31.240 if that first one UH suggests that the child might 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:34.760 have hearing loss, that one measures like the actual brain 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:38.840 stem response to sounds using little sort of electrode attachments. 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:41.960 And today there's also some debate about what the best 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:44.960 strategy should be for deaf and heart of hearing babies, 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:47.640 But at this point there is a lot of evidence 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:49.600 backing up the fact that there needs to be some 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:53.080 kind of strategy. Children who don't begin to learn language 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:55.080 in their first months of life really miss out on 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:58.440 critical brain development and the effects of that missing space 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:03.040 are lifelong. Yeah, there's a whole a hole at this 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:06.800 point body of research about everything from you know, the 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:10.760 ability to comprehend language to be able to express themselves, 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:14.159 to children who don't begin to learn some sort of language, 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:17.600 either verbal or nonverbal, having trouble reading and not being 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:20.199 able to to read well. For basically the rest of 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:23.240 their life. So in addition to her work as a doctor, 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:26.560 Downs was also a teacher. She published nearly a hundred 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:29.919 books and articles on audiology during her career. Towards the 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:32.199 end of her life, she also wrote shut Up and 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:34.959 Live You know How, a ninety three year old skuide 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:37.880 to living to her rifled age. I kind of want 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:42.359 to read it now. Uh. Downs died on November at 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:44.879