Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. When Mohmed, the second young Sultan of the
Speaker 1: Ottoman Empire, set his eyes on Constantinople in fourteen fifty one,
Speaker 1: there was nothing anyone could do to talk him out
Speaker 1: of it. And they tried, Oh, they tried. Because one
Speaker 1: does not simply conquer Constantinople. Mehmed wanted to do something
Speaker 1: truly great, something no sultan had ever done before. He
Speaker 1: wanted to take the capital city of Christianity. But he
Speaker 1: knew it wouldn't be easy, and he knew that he
Speaker 1: would have to get creative in order to accomplish this goal.
Speaker 1: Constantinople's defenses were quite literally impregnable thanks to modern technology.
Speaker 1: There were four layers of walls, a moat, and a
Speaker 1: chain that stretched across the Golden Horn to prevent any
Speaker 1: navy from getting close via the water. Given that it
Speaker 1: was situated on a particularly small and easily defensible plot
Speaker 1: of land. It's no wonder that the fortifications had held
Speaker 1: for centuries. Mahmed wanted to fix that or wreck that,
Speaker 1: I should say, but first he had to get past
Speaker 1: the walls and the moat. Despite how highly trained the
Speaker 1: Ottomans were, the Christians house inside the city would never
Speaker 1: have to meet them in battle if their opponents couldn't
Speaker 1: bring down the walls. Enter one particularly intrepid Hungarian name Orban.
Speaker 1: Orban was a Christian metallurgist who set out to sell
Speaker 1: his new invention to the highest bidder. He first took
Speaker 1: his invention to the Christians of Constantinople, but they couldn't
Speaker 1: afford his price. So Orbon did the thing that any
Speaker 1: good capitalist would do. He took it to a competitor.
Speaker 1: Mehmed the Second saw the value in Orban's invention and
Speaker 1: paid more than the asking price to have it done sooner.
Speaker 1: While Orban questioned the timeline, he agreed to make it
Speaker 1: happen for the Sultan, as well as personally overseeing the
Speaker 1: use of his revolutionary weaponry on the battlefield. Orban's weapon
Speaker 1: was unlike anything the medieval world had seen before, where
Speaker 1: Once there had just been catapults and tribute ches hurling
Speaker 1: stones at walls, and maybe the occasional small cannon. Now
Speaker 1: there was Orban's twenty seven foot long cannon. And yes,
Speaker 1: the cannon had a name, Basilica, although on the battlefield
Speaker 1: it would be known as the Bear and all the
Speaker 1: smaller variants would be known as Her Cubs. Basilica itself
Speaker 1: took a team of more than sixty oxen to carry
Speaker 1: to the battlefield and must have looked like a harbinger
Speaker 1: of death, which it would soon become in more ways
Speaker 1: than one. Mahmed and Orban prepare the cannons and aimed
Speaker 1: them at those impenetrable walls, about to find out just
Speaker 1: how strong they really were. It didn't take long, though,
Speaker 1: you see, the Bear and Her Cubs broke through the
Speaker 1: first couple of layers and created holes wide enough for
Speaker 1: the Christians inside to finally see the need to step
Speaker 1: out and counter attack. And while those battles raged on
Speaker 1: the field, Orban kept firing and firing and firing. In fact,
Speaker 1: they fired the Basilica so rapidly that the cannon's shell
Speaker 1: began to crack. After all, this was a brand new technology.
Speaker 1: With no time for testing before action. This was the
Speaker 1: field test, and Orbon was beginning to see the problem. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: Memed the second wasn't. When Basilica sat idle for several hours,
Speaker 1: Mahmed pressured the issue, demanding Orban to continue firing. Despite
Speaker 1: the incerns for the cracking shell. The inventor had no
Speaker 1: options either die at the hand of the ambitious yet
Speaker 1: impulsive sultan or risk death at the hands of his
Speaker 1: own creation. So he kept firing, and as the Christians
Speaker 1: turned the tide of battle against the Ottomans, Basilica did
Speaker 1: exactly what Orban feared it would do. It fired one
Speaker 1: last time, fracturing the shell down the middle, and then
Speaker 1: exploded right there in the middle of the Ottoman troops.
Speaker 1: The setbacks would eventually stop, though, and the Ottoman Empire
Speaker 1: would finally capture Constantinople, turning it into modern day Istanbul,
Speaker 1: the capital of Turkey. And while Orband's invention may have
Speaker 1: spelled his own demise, it was the beginning of a
Speaker 1: weapons game that would carry on right up to today.
Speaker 1: You might even say this was the moment when artillery
Speaker 1: design really blew up. M The birth of a child
Speaker 1: is a joyful occasion. New life is brought into the
Speaker 1: world to grow into someone who hopefully does a bit
Speaker 1: of good. Of course, the act of carrying and giving
Speaker 1: birth to that child, well that's a bit of a
Speaker 1: roller coaster. The morning sickness, the cravings, and the potential
Speaker 1: complications can all make the experience less than pleasant, But
Speaker 1: in the end it's worth it, although if you had
Speaker 1: to do it seventy times, you might think twice. Feodor
Speaker 1: Vassilyev was a Russian peasant born in seventeen oh seven.
Speaker 1: He was married to a woman whose name wasn't recorded,
Speaker 1: although it was believed to have been Valentina. But although
Speaker 1: history may have forgotten her name, it certainly hasn't forgotten
Speaker 1: what she did. Over the course of her life. From
Speaker 1: seventeen to seventeen sixty five, a period of forty years,
Speaker 1: Valentina Vasolyyev gave birth to sixty nine children. But let
Speaker 1: me say that again, in case you think I misspoke.
Speaker 1: Valentina gave birth to sixty nine children. That's an impressive
Speaker 1: sounding number, right. According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine,
Speaker 1: the chances of having twins is one in two d
Speaker 1: fifty pregnancies, triplets one in ten thousand, and quadruplets a
Speaker 1: whopping one in seven hundred thousand pregnancies. And sure those
Speaker 1: odds come down when fertility treatments come into the picture.
Speaker 1: But those weren't things that were available during Valentina's lifetime.
Speaker 1: Yet she gave birth to sixteen pairs of twins, seven
Speaker 1: sets of triplets, and four sets of quadruplets. And given
Speaker 1: that the pregnancy terms of triplets and quadruplets are on
Speaker 1: average shorter than those of twins or single children, Valentina
Speaker 1: was likely pregnant for eighteen full years of her life,
Speaker 1: and justice surprising to hear out of the entire brood
Speaker 1: of sixty nine children, only two died in infancy. Of course,
Speaker 1: it was clear that Fyodor loved growing his family, and
Speaker 1: because Valentina wasn't his only wife, he had more chances
Speaker 1: to do just that. His second wife gave birth to
Speaker 1: another eighteen kids. There were six sets of twins and
Speaker 1: two sets of triplets, bringing Theodor's grand total to a
Speaker 1: record setting eighties seven children. Literally you see, Theodore holds
Speaker 1: the Guinness World Record for fathering the most children of
Speaker 1: anyone on earth for the last two hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 1: Others have come close, though. Another Russian couple, Kekov Kirilov
Speaker 1: and his wife were said to have had fifty seven
Speaker 1: children during the mid seventeen hundreds, but nobody came close
Speaker 1: to Feodor and Valentina. However, that didn't stop the naysayers
Speaker 1: from trying to knock the couple down a few pegs.
Speaker 1: In the seventeen eighty three issue of The Gentleman's Magazine,
Speaker 1: an English periodical from the same time, a letter was
Speaker 1: published by a reader who had done the math. They
Speaker 1: suggested that the high number of children was actually the
Speaker 1: result of Feodor's promiscuous ways. A book published in seventeen
Speaker 1: ninety by B. Jay Herman mentioned Feodor's enormous family, but
Speaker 1: encouraged readers to view the case with a caution. He said,
Speaker 1: in fact, that was the common belief for most books
Speaker 1: and articles written about Feodore and his children question everything.
Speaker 1: In the late eighteen hundreds, the French Academy of Sciences
Speaker 1: tried to get the truth by reaching out to someone
Speaker 1: named M. Khanikoff from the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg.
Speaker 1: They were hoping for some guidance on how to pursue
Speaker 1: their investigation, to which Kannakoff told them not to bother.
Speaker 1: There were still Vassilyev's living in Moscow and they were
Speaker 1: getting sizeable favors from the government due to the size
Speaker 1: of their family. Over the years, the inquiries into the
Speaker 1: Vassoljev's died down, and eventually any evidence of the truth disappeared.
Speaker 1: Still that doesn't stop scientists and fertility experts today from
Speaker 1: questioning the history. All the biological information we have now
Speaker 1: tells us that it's unlikely that Valentina gave birth to
Speaker 1: that many children in her life. Her body probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: have allowed it, especially as she got older. But without
Speaker 1: definitive proof, all we can really do is speculate. So
Speaker 1: for now, the record stands eighty seven children, which is
Speaker 1: clearly a lot of mouths to feed. Of course, it
Speaker 1: also meant that there were plenty of hands to take
Speaker 1: care of all those chores around the house. I hope
Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works, I make another award winning show called Lore,
Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show and
Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.