1 00:00:03,760 --> 00:00:07,840 Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history 2 00:00:08,039 --> 00:00:11,200 Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are 3 00:00:11,320 --> 00:00:14,680 Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. 4 00:00:16,200 --> 00:00:29,400 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Ernest Hemingway described bull 5 00:00:29,480 --> 00:00:32,879 Speaker 1: fighting as the only art in which the artist is 6 00:00:32,920 --> 00:00:35,760 Speaker 1: in danger of death and in which the degree of 7 00:00:35,800 --> 00:00:38,960 Speaker 1: brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter's honor. 8 00:00:39,680 --> 00:00:42,000 Speaker 1: He loved it so much, in fact, it became part 9 00:00:42,040 --> 00:00:45,800 Speaker 1: of his debut novel, The Sun Also Rises. He eventually 10 00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:50,760 Speaker 1: devoted an entire nonfiction book to the sport. Bull Fighting 11 00:00:50,840 --> 00:00:53,360 Speaker 1: got its start way back in seven eleven a d 12 00:00:53,760 --> 00:00:57,000 Speaker 1: as part of a coronation ceremony for a king. And 13 00:00:57,080 --> 00:01:00,680 Speaker 1: if that performance space feels familiar, the and ring the 14 00:01:00,720 --> 00:01:04,959 Speaker 1: circular stadium, that's for a very good reason. Bullfighting sprung 15 00:01:04,959 --> 00:01:08,080 Speaker 1: out of Rome's gladiatorial games, back when the Roman Empire 16 00:01:08,160 --> 00:01:12,920 Speaker 1: still ruled over Spain. There are three phases or stages 17 00:01:13,160 --> 00:01:16,559 Speaker 1: of a traditional bullfight. In a cape stage, the matter 18 00:01:16,640 --> 00:01:19,440 Speaker 1: door holds his cape up to the bull, taunting him 19 00:01:19,480 --> 00:01:22,720 Speaker 1: and encouraging him to charge. This display is meant to 20 00:01:22,760 --> 00:01:26,640 Speaker 1: show off the bull strength. In the piccador stage, Picadores 21 00:01:26,760 --> 00:01:30,319 Speaker 1: on horseback poke and anger the bull with lances. Once 22 00:01:30,400 --> 00:01:34,319 Speaker 1: the bull has been properly amped up, Bandarierro's run on 23 00:01:34,360 --> 00:01:38,200 Speaker 1: foot and stick the bull with colored darts. The final 24 00:01:38,280 --> 00:01:41,720 Speaker 1: stages the killing stage. That's when the bull, weakened by 25 00:01:41,760 --> 00:01:45,119 Speaker 1: all the previous action, is forced into its final battle 26 00:01:45,160 --> 00:01:48,720 Speaker 1: with the matador. If the matter door does his job successfully, 27 00:01:48,760 --> 00:01:51,160 Speaker 1: it's over for the bull in a matter of moments, 28 00:01:51,480 --> 00:01:54,440 Speaker 1: and the ring is cleared for the next contender. All 29 00:01:54,440 --> 00:01:58,440 Speaker 1: in all, it's violent and cruel sport, but one deeply 30 00:01:58,520 --> 00:02:03,480 Speaker 1: rooted in Spanish history. Over the years, some bullfighters have 31 00:02:03,520 --> 00:02:07,840 Speaker 1: emerged as celebrities known all over the world. Manolette became 32 00:02:07,880 --> 00:02:10,640 Speaker 1: a household name thanks in parts of both Hemingway and 33 00:02:10,840 --> 00:02:13,919 Speaker 1: Orson Welles, the latter of whom befriended the young fighter 34 00:02:14,240 --> 00:02:17,240 Speaker 1: and spoke highly of his skills at Hollywood dinner parties. 35 00:02:18,120 --> 00:02:22,600 Speaker 1: After Manolette's death in nineteen forty seven, Louis Miguel Domin 36 00:02:22,720 --> 00:02:26,120 Speaker 1: England rose to become a champion unlike anyone the sport 37 00:02:26,200 --> 00:02:29,359 Speaker 1: had ever seen, often referred to as the best bullfighter 38 00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:33,079 Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, and men continued to dominate bullfighting. 39 00:02:33,160 --> 00:02:36,079 Speaker 1: Even today, though women have made it to the forefront 40 00:02:36,160 --> 00:02:40,600 Speaker 1: on occasion. Conchita Citdron born in n became one of 41 00:02:40,639 --> 00:02:43,880 Speaker 1: the most famous bullfighters in the world. However, it was 42 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:47,600 Speaker 1: a female bullfighter known only as La Roverte who made 43 00:02:47,639 --> 00:02:51,120 Speaker 1: the biggest splash. At the turn of the century, she 44 00:02:51,200 --> 00:02:54,280 Speaker 1: had found only modest success in the ring as a novelty. 45 00:02:54,680 --> 00:02:57,639 Speaker 1: Women at the time weren't often welcomed in bullfighting circles, 46 00:02:57,880 --> 00:03:00,600 Speaker 1: as they were considered to be too delicate for such 47 00:03:00,600 --> 00:03:04,600 Speaker 1: a dangerous sport. However, La Riverte had no trouble keeping 48 00:03:04,680 --> 00:03:08,000 Speaker 1: up with the men. Audiences loved her. She became an 49 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:11,280 Speaker 1: inspiration for little girls who wanted to chart different paths 50 00:03:11,280 --> 00:03:15,000 Speaker 1: than that had been planned for them, and unsurprisingly, some 51 00:03:15,080 --> 00:03:18,680 Speaker 1: men had a problem with that. If La Roverte wouldn't 52 00:03:18,760 --> 00:03:21,519 Speaker 1: leave bull fighting behind, then they would find a way 53 00:03:21,560 --> 00:03:25,240 Speaker 1: to take bull fighting away from her, and that's exactly 54 00:03:25,240 --> 00:03:29,160 Speaker 1: what they did. In night, seven years after her career 55 00:03:29,200 --> 00:03:32,520 Speaker 1: had taken off, the Spanish government passed a law banning 56 00:03:32,560 --> 00:03:35,880 Speaker 1: women from the sport. They cited the idea of women 57 00:03:35,880 --> 00:03:40,160 Speaker 1: fighting bulls as immoral. La Riverte didn't seem to mind, 58 00:03:40,200 --> 00:03:44,160 Speaker 1: though she had a backup plan and a secret one 59 00:03:44,320 --> 00:03:48,520 Speaker 1: that no one else knew. During her last fight, after 60 00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:52,240 Speaker 1: she had teased and pierced her final bull, La Raverte 61 00:03:52,400 --> 00:03:56,400 Speaker 1: shocked the crowd by ripping off her wig and fake assets, 62 00:03:56,920 --> 00:03:59,320 Speaker 1: revealing her true identity to be that of a man 63 00:03:59,480 --> 00:04:04,560 Speaker 1: named Austin Rodriguez. The audience went wild, and not in 64 00:04:04,600 --> 00:04:08,720 Speaker 1: a good way. Rather than embrace Augustine and root for him, 65 00:04:08,760 --> 00:04:11,200 Speaker 1: they turned on him the way they'd seen it. They 66 00:04:11,240 --> 00:04:14,200 Speaker 1: had been defrauded for seven years by a man pretending 67 00:04:14,240 --> 00:04:18,440 Speaker 1: to be a woman. His career never recovered, and Augustine 68 00:04:18,480 --> 00:04:24,400 Speaker 1: retired to Majorca, where he eventually died in obscurity. Fortunately, 69 00:04:24,520 --> 00:04:28,120 Speaker 1: the laws were reversed years later, and women eventually returned 70 00:04:28,120 --> 00:04:31,760 Speaker 1: to the ring. In the best part, none of them 71 00:04:31,839 --> 00:04:47,120 Speaker 1: had to wear a wig to get in. In the 72 00:04:47,160 --> 00:04:50,440 Speaker 1: mid eighteen hundreds, flecks of shiny metal found in a 73 00:04:50,480 --> 00:04:54,640 Speaker 1: water wheel led to hundreds of thousands of Americans migrating west. 74 00:04:55,200 --> 00:04:57,919 Speaker 1: Their goal was to strike it rich in what would 75 00:04:57,920 --> 00:05:01,160 Speaker 1: come to be known as the California Gold Rush. Half 76 00:05:01,160 --> 00:05:04,799 Speaker 1: a century later, Beaumont, Texas, became the site of another 77 00:05:04,880 --> 00:05:08,080 Speaker 1: kind of rush. This time, the bounty was oil and 78 00:05:08,160 --> 00:05:11,800 Speaker 1: The discovery ignited a fervor across the state. People came 79 00:05:11,800 --> 00:05:14,440 Speaker 1: in from all over, mostly by train, and all that 80 00:05:14,480 --> 00:05:18,240 Speaker 1: traffic meant wear and tear on the tracks. In fact, 81 00:05:18,320 --> 00:05:20,640 Speaker 1: it took an army of workers to keep the trains 82 00:05:20,720 --> 00:05:24,440 Speaker 1: running smoothly, and one such person was G. W. Davis, 83 00:05:24,760 --> 00:05:27,720 Speaker 1: a repairman who eventually found himself at the center of 84 00:05:27,760 --> 00:05:31,200 Speaker 1: a bizarre story if only he'd lived to tell about it. 85 00:05:32,320 --> 00:05:35,359 Speaker 1: You see, Davis had contracted an illness known as Bright's disease, 86 00:05:35,440 --> 00:05:38,960 Speaker 1: which caused inflammation and the kidneys. Not much was known 87 00:05:39,000 --> 00:05:41,560 Speaker 1: at the time about how to treat such a sickness, 88 00:05:41,680 --> 00:05:44,200 Speaker 1: which had already claimed the lives of a North Dakota 89 00:05:44,320 --> 00:05:50,119 Speaker 1: senator and poet, Emily Dickinson. Unfortunately, Davis's prognosis wasn't good. 90 00:05:50,600 --> 00:05:52,560 Speaker 1: He was watched around the clock by a team of 91 00:05:52,600 --> 00:05:55,560 Speaker 1: doctors who did all that they could, but were ultimately 92 00:05:55,640 --> 00:05:59,440 Speaker 1: unable to save him. On February seven, one month after 93 00:05:59,480 --> 00:06:02,800 Speaker 1: being died nosed, he passed away, and the care he 94 00:06:02,839 --> 00:06:08,000 Speaker 1: had received in that time left his family destitute the 95 00:06:08,040 --> 00:06:10,880 Speaker 1: cemetery where they planned on burying. Davis took pity on 96 00:06:10,920 --> 00:06:14,599 Speaker 1: the family and offered to house his body temporarily. Once 97 00:06:14,600 --> 00:06:17,240 Speaker 1: they had obtained the funds for a proper burial, he'd 98 00:06:17,240 --> 00:06:20,880 Speaker 1: be moved to a permanent plot. Weeks passed by as 99 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:24,440 Speaker 1: Davis's family scrimped and saved, and when they were finally ready, 100 00:06:24,640 --> 00:06:28,760 Speaker 1: they asked the cemetery to move the corpse. A family 101 00:06:28,800 --> 00:06:32,480 Speaker 1: friend went out to oversee that move. He watched them excavate, 102 00:06:32,800 --> 00:06:35,680 Speaker 1: heaving shovel fulls of dirt away as they dug six 103 00:06:35,720 --> 00:06:40,000 Speaker 1: feet down, but something wasn't right. As they reached the coffin, 104 00:06:40,080 --> 00:06:43,719 Speaker 1: they noticed a strange sight. Apparently, the grave had filled 105 00:06:43,720 --> 00:06:47,200 Speaker 1: with almost two ft of this colored water, covering the 106 00:06:47,240 --> 00:06:51,200 Speaker 1: coffin entirely. The grave diggers brought in a pump to 107 00:06:51,320 --> 00:06:53,920 Speaker 1: siphon out the liquid before attempting to lift the coffin, 108 00:06:54,440 --> 00:06:58,080 Speaker 1: and then ran into another problem. The coffin wouldn't budge. 109 00:06:58,839 --> 00:07:01,640 Speaker 1: They thought that perhaps the often had also filled with water, 110 00:07:01,839 --> 00:07:04,760 Speaker 1: rendering it too heavy to move, but when they opened 111 00:07:04,800 --> 00:07:08,400 Speaker 1: it up, they realized that something else had happened. Entirely 112 00:07:09,560 --> 00:07:14,480 Speaker 1: Davis's body was still inside, however, it had transformed. Rather 113 00:07:14,520 --> 00:07:17,240 Speaker 1: than decomposed like a normal corpse, it had turned to 114 00:07:17,400 --> 00:07:20,800 Speaker 1: solid stone. A news article at the time described Davis's 115 00:07:20,840 --> 00:07:24,360 Speaker 1: body as having been chiseled from marble by an expert sculptor. 116 00:07:24,720 --> 00:07:27,800 Speaker 1: His hands were still folded across his chest, and except 117 00:07:27,800 --> 00:07:32,480 Speaker 1: for the hair and clothes, everything was perfectly preserved. More 118 00:07:32,520 --> 00:07:35,280 Speaker 1: workers were called in to hoist the casket out, and 119 00:07:35,320 --> 00:07:38,520 Speaker 1: while efforts were made to keep the particular circumstances from 120 00:07:38,640 --> 00:07:42,720 Speaker 1: Davis's family, the rumors surrounding his condition spread and they 121 00:07:42,720 --> 00:07:46,240 Speaker 1: eventually found out. What followed was a battle to keep 122 00:07:46,280 --> 00:07:49,440 Speaker 1: their beloved relative out of the hands of greedy collectors, 123 00:07:49,800 --> 00:07:52,200 Speaker 1: people who would have paid top dollar to own the 124 00:07:52,240 --> 00:07:56,000 Speaker 1: morbid artifact for their own collections or to add it 125 00:07:56,040 --> 00:07:59,800 Speaker 1: to a traveling side show. The family asked to have 126 00:07:59,840 --> 00:08:02,720 Speaker 1: the body transferred to a secret location known only to 127 00:08:02,800 --> 00:08:05,080 Speaker 1: them and the family friend who had watched over the 128 00:08:05,120 --> 00:08:08,720 Speaker 1: initial burial. Upon reaching his resting place of the last 129 00:08:08,760 --> 00:08:11,840 Speaker 1: few months, they found the ground to have been disturbed, and, 130 00:08:11,920 --> 00:08:15,120 Speaker 1: fearing the worst, they dug it up. They were right. 131 00:08:15,880 --> 00:08:19,640 Speaker 1: G W. Davis's stone form had disappeared from its grave. 132 00:08:21,120 --> 00:08:24,400 Speaker 1: Everyone was considered a suspect, from the random strangers who 133 00:08:24,400 --> 00:08:26,760 Speaker 1: had offered money for the body, to the family and 134 00:08:26,800 --> 00:08:29,720 Speaker 1: friends who had participated in his burial, and yet no 135 00:08:29,920 --> 00:08:33,160 Speaker 1: charges were brought against a single person. No clues had 136 00:08:33,200 --> 00:08:37,400 Speaker 1: been left behind follow the perpetrator. Several local papers covered 137 00:08:37,440 --> 00:08:42,760 Speaker 1: the discovery, but nothing ever turned up The thieves identities 138 00:08:42,800 --> 00:08:45,920 Speaker 1: are still unknown to this day, as is the location 139 00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:49,160 Speaker 1: of the body, if it still exists at all. We're 140 00:08:49,160 --> 00:08:53,360 Speaker 1: all we know. Davis is still out there somewhere, waiting 141 00:08:53,360 --> 00:09:01,160 Speaker 1: to be rediscovered. Stone dead, of course. I hope you've 142 00:09:01,240 --> 00:09:05,199 Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe 143 00:09:05,240 --> 00:09:07,839 Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the 144 00:09:07,880 --> 00:09:12,640 Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was 145 00:09:12,760 --> 00:09:16,560 Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. 146 00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:20,120 Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is 147 00:09:20,240 --> 00:09:23,640 Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can 148 00:09:23,720 --> 00:09:26,040 Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore 149 00:09:26,320 --> 00:09:30,000 Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.