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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm Deblane chokerate boarding. And around

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Speaker 1: this time last year, Katie and I did an episode

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Speaker 1: on the artist michel Angelo. And it's a given that

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Speaker 1: michel Angelo, he's one of the most famous artists in history.

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Speaker 1: But according to the art historian Peter sim michel Angelo

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Speaker 1: has been surpassed and at least one head to head competition,

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Speaker 1: um and again at least in terms of what's being

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Speaker 1: written about him. Nobody's looking at the art show, attendance

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Speaker 1: or something here. But that raises the question who is

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Speaker 1: the upstart? Interestingly, it's another michel Angelo, except this one

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Speaker 1: who's named michel Angelo Maurice and he's better known as

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Speaker 1: Caravaggio and some who works at the University of Toronto.

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Speaker 1: He has studied books, catalogs and Scott Lili papers about

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Speaker 1: the two men published in the last fifty years, everything

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Speaker 1: kind of in that time range. And over time the

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Speaker 1: Caravaggio related work did in fact outpaced the writings on Michelangelo,

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Speaker 1: especially since the mid nineties or so. Yeah, so Caravaggio

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Speaker 1: is apparently quite popular right now, and um, if the

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Speaker 1: obsession has been growing for the past fifty years, it's

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Speaker 1: really reached new heights this year and last year, which

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Speaker 1: was the four hundredth anniversary of the artist's death. But

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Speaker 1: so far we've had to art world controversies. This is

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Speaker 1: in the past year too, art world controversies which have

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Speaker 1: played out in really dramatic headline fashion. We're going to

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Speaker 1: just read off a few of these headline counterheadlined selections

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Speaker 1: for you. One is from the BBC Vatican reveals Caravaggio

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Speaker 1: painting found in Rome and then later Vatican paper dismissed

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Speaker 1: his own Caravaggio claims it's a little embarrassing. We have

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Speaker 1: another one from the BBC Church Bones quote belonged to Caravaggio,

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Speaker 1: researchers say, but also unearthing doubts about Caravaggio's remains. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about that one a little bit

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Speaker 1: more because obviously it's an exhimission of related point for that. UM.

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Speaker 1: There have also been two big exhibits though on the

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Speaker 1: artists in the past year and this year as well.

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Speaker 1: One was of Caravaggio's art at the Scutieri Quirinale, and

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Speaker 1: the other was of his police trail at the Italian

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Speaker 1: State Archives. And that's really the catch of this episode

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Speaker 1: and probably the appeal of Caravaggio in general. He's not

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Speaker 1: just a compelling figure because he's so masterful an artist,

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Speaker 1: and he's not just compelling because he has this realist

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Speaker 1: style that is well before his time. And he's not

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Speaker 1: just interesting because he almost seems more like a photographer

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Speaker 1: than a painter who lived centuries ago. He's he's a

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Speaker 1: really bad guy. He's a bad boy. That's a good

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Speaker 1: way to describe him. And the documents relating to his

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Speaker 1: life are police documents and court documents, legal statements, things

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Speaker 1: like that. He did leave quite a paper trail, and

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Speaker 1: it does not really paint with pretty picture. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: so I guess that new paper Trails will focus on

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Speaker 1: the most But first we'll go back to the beginning.

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Speaker 1: He was born in fifteen seventy one, and he was

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Speaker 1: the son of an architect and a majordomo for the

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Speaker 1: Marquis of Caravaggio. He was apprentice later at age eleven,

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Speaker 1: to painter Simone Patrezano in Milan, and it was sometime

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Speaker 1: in his teens when he was sent off to Rome,

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Speaker 1: and that's where he settles into this bohemian underworld. He's

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Speaker 1: really poor and working for painters at that time who

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Speaker 1: were less able than him. They're less talented. Yeah, definitely struggling.

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Speaker 1: And these are kind of the lost years as far

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Speaker 1: as his record goes, which I guess with Caravaggio that's

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Speaker 1: a good thing, um, But they're not lost years as

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Speaker 1: far as his work goes. He painted about forty pieces

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Speaker 1: during this period, including Boy with a Fruit Basket and

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Speaker 1: the Young Bacchus. Those are probably two of his most

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Speaker 1: famous works. And finally in fift works like that must

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Speaker 1: have caught the attention of certain eyes because he sets

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Speaker 1: out on his own and he's brought to the attention

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Speaker 1: of Cardinal Francesco Damonte, who was a big shot in

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Speaker 1: the papal court. So this is his inn into the

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Speaker 1: more elite world of Rome, and he's soon invited to

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Speaker 1: live at the cardinals palace and uh, he's got room

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Speaker 1: and board and all these commissions, and by fifteven he

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Speaker 1: has a commission to decorate the Contrally Chapel in Rome,

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Speaker 1: which really puts him into the big league. He's only

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Speaker 1: twenty four years old, so he put in his his

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Speaker 1: difficult years early. Yeah, and it's not a really totally

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Speaker 1: smooth road all the way though. His work for the Chapel,

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Speaker 1: which included scenes from the life of St. Matthew, they

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Speaker 1: cost quite a stir at the time, and it's because

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Speaker 1: these scenes he painted, they weren't idealized in any way.

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Speaker 1: Matthew basically looks like a laborer off the street, a

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Speaker 1: common person, not a very pretty saint. Yeah. And from

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Speaker 1: there on out though, he does stick with these religious

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Speaker 1: subjects though that's mostly what he's working on. But um,

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Speaker 1: I mean, like you mentioned, the Matthew thing gives a

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Speaker 1: pretty good foreshadowing of this. His his work isn't pretty,

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Speaker 1: it's violent, and it's dark. Stylistically, he supposedly would use

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Speaker 1: a lantern hung in a dark studio to achieve this

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Speaker 1: really dramatic lighting effect. I mean, if you've I'm guessing

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Speaker 1: probably most of you if you're listening to this episode,

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Speaker 1: you've seen Caravaggio paintings, but they often look like a

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Speaker 1: photo where there's a big, strong beam of light shining

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Speaker 1: on the subject from one direction. Um. And another thing

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Speaker 1: he would do is pick poor models, so maybe St.

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Speaker 1: Matthew was right off the street. Um. He would use

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Speaker 1: laborers and and just people he ran into, perhaps even prostitutes,

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Speaker 1: which obviously it's gonna sometimes caused some trouble for him,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes his work was consequently rejected by its original commissioner. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The Caramel Lites, for example, thought that his death of

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Speaker 1: the Virgin looked a little too common and also a

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Speaker 1: little too dead. Yeah. They didn't want her to look

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Speaker 1: like a normal woman who had just died. They wanted

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Speaker 1: her to be shooting straight up to heaven. And this

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Speaker 1: kind of rejection, though, didn't really hurt Caravato's reputation. You

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Speaker 1: would think that that having your commissions rejected would be

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Speaker 1: a bad thing, but private buyers were very eager to

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Speaker 1: snatch up the rejected pieces, and his success really continued

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Speaker 1: to grow. He was moving and mingling in the highest

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Speaker 1: circles of Roman society, hanging out with cardinals, hanging out

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Speaker 1: with princes. So it seemed like he had risen above

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Speaker 1: that rough and tumble bohemian life that he started out in. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but he never really totally left that hard knock life

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Speaker 1: behind either. It said that he was given to wrath

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Speaker 1: and riot, and probably the best way to understand him

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Speaker 1: might be to first look up some images of his

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Speaker 1: art and then take a look at his police record,

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Speaker 1: which we're going to get into a little bit right now,

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Speaker 1: is pretty ridiculous. Yeah, it's kind of crazy actually. May fourth,

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Speaker 1: for example, he's arrested for carrying a sword without a

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Speaker 1: permit between two and three am. November nineteen six hundred,

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Speaker 1: he's sued over beating a man with a stick and

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Speaker 1: cutting the guy's cape with his sword at a three

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Speaker 1: am brawl. Then October two, sixteen oh one, he's accused

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Speaker 1: of attacking a man with a sword and insulting him,

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Speaker 1: adding insult to injury. April sixteen o four, he was

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Speaker 1: accused of attacking a waiter over an artichoke related dispute, which,

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Speaker 1: because I kind of love that one so much, we're

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Speaker 1: going to talk about it a little more in a

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Speaker 1: second October nineteenth, sixteen o four, arrested for pelting policemen

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Speaker 1: with stones. That's never good. May sixteen o five, he's

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Speaker 1: arrested for carrying a sword and a dagger to this

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Speaker 1: time without a permit. July sixteen oh five, he's accused

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Speaker 1: by a Vatican Notary of striking him with a weapon

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Speaker 1: from behind. So pretty good idea of the kind of

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Speaker 1: shenanigans that Caravaggio was up to. And um the documents

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Speaker 1: on view of the archives actually give us a closer

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Speaker 1: look at some of these incidents. I mentioned the artichoke one.

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Speaker 1: We have the waiters statement, which it'll let you know

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Speaker 1: that a lot is based on tone. And it's kind

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Speaker 1: of hard to tell here what exactly happened, but here

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Speaker 1: it goes. About seventeen o'clock lunchtime, the accused, together with

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Speaker 1: two other people, was eating in the Moor's restaurant where

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Speaker 1: I work as a waiter. I brought them eight cooked artichokes,

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Speaker 1: four cooked in butter and four fried in oil. The

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Speaker 1: accused asked me which were cooked in butter and which

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Speaker 1: fried in oil, and I told him to smell them,

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Speaker 1: which would easily enable him to tell the difference. That's

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Speaker 1: where tone is important. He got angry and without saying

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Speaker 1: anything more, grabbed an earthenware dish and hit me on

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Speaker 1: the cheek at the level of my mustache, injuring me slightly.

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Speaker 1: And then he got up and grabbed his friend's sword,

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Speaker 1: which was lying on the table, intending perhaps to strike

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Speaker 1: me with it, but I got up and came here

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Speaker 1: to the police station to make a formal complaint. So

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Speaker 1: you know a guy who's who's easy to anger, I

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Speaker 1: guess yeah. He seemed to get riled up pretty easily.

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Speaker 1: He was even accused of throwing stones at his landlady's

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Speaker 1: window after she sued him for cutting holes in the

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Speaker 1: ceiling to make his painting. That's the best part. So

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Speaker 1: you know, this is this is obnoxious behavior, violent, um,

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Speaker 1: potentially lethal behavior, and carrying illegal swords around is not

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Speaker 1: a good way to stay out of trouble. But he

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Speaker 1: reached a new level May sixteen or six when he

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Speaker 1: killed a man. He can't really take that back. And um,

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Speaker 1: the circumstances behind this murder are kind of interesting. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The deceased was Rernuccio Toomassini, and he was murder on

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Speaker 1: a tennis court in Rome, And so you've probably heard

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Speaker 1: that because the location was a tennis court, the dispute

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Speaker 1: was somehow related to a game of tennis, or some

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Speaker 1: historians have suggested that it was related to a dispute

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Speaker 1: over a woman. But either way, something that happened in

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Speaker 1: the heat of the moment um, you just let your

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Speaker 1: passions get to you and get into a fight, and

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Speaker 1: then Renuccio is suddenly dead. But court documents from the

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Speaker 1: time show that it really looked a lot more like

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Speaker 1: an organized war, not just this argument that started suddenly. Right.

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Speaker 1: For one thing, it's not exactly a tennis court where

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Speaker 1: this happens. It's a Palacorta court in the Campo Marzio area,

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Speaker 1: which was Caravaggio's neighborhood. Paul Acorta is kind of like tennis,

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Speaker 1: except there's somehow string involved. We're not really sure how

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Speaker 1: it works. Like an explanation of Palacorta for any still

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Speaker 1: practicing sport enthusiasts. Yes, email us. The other thing was

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Speaker 1: there were eight men who participate hated in this fight,

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Speaker 1: and they were chosen ahead of time. They weren't just

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Speaker 1: random onlookers. So, as you said, it wasn't just in

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Speaker 1: the heat of them homet It wasn't people who got

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Speaker 1: mad about something that happened to a game and decided

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Speaker 1: to become part of this. It was planned. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: Caravaggio himself was there with three other guys. One was

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Speaker 1: a captain in the Papal Army again showing he does

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Speaker 1: have friends in high places. And one of his friends

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Speaker 1: was also badly injured and arrested after the fact. And

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Speaker 1: it's during this guy's trial where it comes out that

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Speaker 1: the fight was probably started over a gambling debt, so

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Speaker 1: something that they could mull over for a little while

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Speaker 1: and get their friends together. But Caravaggio is injured in this,

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Speaker 1: but he escapes. He's not injured bad enough that he's arrested.

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Speaker 1: He gets out of Rome. He's terribly concerned about what

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Speaker 1: will happen to him, and rightly so, because he's condemned

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Speaker 1: to death in absentia by Pope Paul the fifth. So

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Speaker 1: the first place he goes is to the estate of

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Speaker 1: the marquis of Caravaggio's relative so Um, a friend of

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Speaker 1: his dad's friend. Essentially, from there he goes to Naples

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Speaker 1: in early sixteen and seven, and he starts painting again.

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Speaker 1: And just remember, throughout his entire flight he's still painting,

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Speaker 1: which I think is so interesting. I mean, obviously it's

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Speaker 1: partly to make a living, but that you would still

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Speaker 1: have it in you when you're running for your life, right,

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Speaker 1: and he has to keep moving. He moves on from

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Speaker 1: Naples to Malta, where he not only keeps painting, but

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Speaker 1: he's received into the Order of Malta, which is kind

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Speaker 1: of confusing because it's something that requires papal permission. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and the Pope has just condemned him to death. I

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Speaker 1: think that's interesting. And of course, all the while his

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Speaker 1: friends back in Rome were working to get a papal dispensation.

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Speaker 1: That's the only way he could be pardoned. But I

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Speaker 1: would kind of want those files to be handled in

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Speaker 1: reverse order, I think, and and get my life spared

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Speaker 1: before I received into the Order of Malta. But either way,

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Speaker 1: he's expelled from the Order of Malta not that long after,

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Speaker 1: and he's jailed. He escapes from jail and goes to

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Speaker 1: Syracuse in Sicily in October sight, and from there he

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Speaker 1: goes on to Messina and then to Palermo, all the

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Speaker 1: while still working. And it's kind of interesting. Art historians

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Speaker 1: have commented on this work because obviously you're going to

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Speaker 1: look at at anything done under such for circumstances, but

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Speaker 1: apparently he really simplifies things and scales it down, but

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Speaker 1: it's still just as skilled and well executed as ever.

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Speaker 1: The only way for him. To really get arrest is

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Speaker 1: to get the pope's pardon at this point, but Caravaggio

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Speaker 1: has friends in high places, like we mentioned, so they've

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Speaker 1: been working on this. Seems like a pardon might actually

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Speaker 1: be on the horizon. Finally, Caravaggio ends up moving to

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Speaker 1: Naples again, but when he's there, he's attacked at the

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Speaker 1: door of an inn and horribly disfigured on his face,

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Speaker 1: and people even get reports that he's dead. By July

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Speaker 1: sixteen ten though, he's finally well enough to sail again,

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Speaker 1: so he sails for Rome, but he's arrested along the

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Speaker 1: way and the boat with all his stuff leaves him

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Speaker 1: behind while he's in jail, so he's trying to chase

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Speaker 1: down this boat. He gets as far as Porto Ricole,

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Speaker 1: where he dies at thirty eight, so he never reaches

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Speaker 1: the boat, never gets his pardon while he's alive. He

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Speaker 1: is actually pardoned three days later. After three days later,

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Speaker 1: so um, yeah, that's that's sad to say the least,

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Speaker 1: and it's interesting though, but the circumstances around his death

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Speaker 1: are appropriately controversial too. He's often believed to have died

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Speaker 1: alone on the beach, which is terribly depressing and probably

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Speaker 1: seems plausible, right, But his first biographer, Giovanni Biony, sort

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Speaker 1: of made things even worse. He painted a picture um

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Speaker 1: saying quote, finally having arrived in a place on the beach,

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Speaker 1: he was put in bed with a high fever and

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Speaker 1: having no human help. Within a few days he died

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Speaker 1: as miserably as he had lived. I think that makes

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Speaker 1: it worth It makes it seem like, not only does

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Speaker 1: he die alone on the beach, somebody puts him in

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Speaker 1: bed and then leaves him and then abandons him. Then

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Speaker 1: he dies alone, definitely taking it up a notch. But

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Speaker 1: his death was really not quite that dramatic. Records from

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Speaker 1: the Archives exhibit show that Caravaggio was found delirious on

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Speaker 1: the beach, but then he was taken to the hospital

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Speaker 1: and he died there two days later, presumably not entirely

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Speaker 1: abandoned by everyone at the hospital. Um. It's still unclear

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Speaker 1: though what killed him, right, Maybe it was malaria, could

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Speaker 1: have been not maybe the Knights of Malta, or maybe

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Speaker 1: even the pope. I mean, during his successful, the very

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Speaker 1: stressful career on the run, he was kind of afraid

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Speaker 1: that Papal hitman were after him. Yeah, it was a

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Speaker 1: concern of Caravaggios at least, But we also have to

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Speaker 1: address those bones that were supposedly Carrathaggios and identified as

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Speaker 1: his last summer um. First of all, though, why would

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Speaker 1: this even be an issue here? You know, presumably an

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Speaker 1: artist is famous as Caravaccio would have a monument and

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Speaker 1: a marker set up immediately after his death. But even

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Speaker 1: though it's pretty hard to believe, after Caravaccio's death, he

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Speaker 1: faded into obscurity almost immediately. I mean, he had an

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Speaker 1: influence on later artists, but people pretty much forgot who

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Speaker 1: he was until he had this big resurgence at the

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Speaker 1: beginning of the twentieth century. So that's why we knew

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Speaker 1: he definitely died in Porto Coole, but we didn't know

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Speaker 1: exactly where he was in Silvio Vincetti, who is the

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Speaker 1: president of a private organization that seems to go around

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Speaker 1: and I d the remains of illustrious deceased Italians, which

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Speaker 1: as Dante announced that his team had identified bones of

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Speaker 1: Caravaggio from the Porto Coole crypt. Yeah, and you may

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Speaker 1: be asking how did they do this? So here's a

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Speaker 1: little bit about their method. They examined eleton's at the crypt,

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Speaker 1: eliminating ones that didn't fit Caravaggio's specs. Basically, they carbon

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Speaker 1: dated things down to one skeleton, and then they tested

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Speaker 1: that sample against the DNA from families who were named

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Speaker 1: MAURICEI or Mauricio from Caravaggio. So they did this basically

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Speaker 1: because Carvaggio didn't have any kids of his own, and

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Speaker 1: the committee couldn't find his actual descendants, his siblings descendants,

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Speaker 1: I should say, so they kind of had to take

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Speaker 1: their best guests. Yeah, and that's one thing that makes

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Speaker 1: people a little uncomfortable with this finding. But the group

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Speaker 1: also concluded that the presumed Caravaggio skeleton had suffered from

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Speaker 1: lead poisoning, which would would also add up for an

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Speaker 1: artist at the time had suffered from syphilis and had

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00:17:46,720 --> 00:17:52,679
Speaker 1: died from sunstroke. But art historians have been really, really

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00:17:52,760 --> 00:17:56,080
Speaker 1: skeptical of this claim, to say the least. The New

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Speaker 1: York Times article that we mentioned earlier had quote from

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Speaker 1: quite a few art historians with varying tone of dismissal,

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00:18:05,600 --> 00:18:09,960
Speaker 1: but I included one trim Tamaso Montinari of the University

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00:18:09,960 --> 00:18:13,080
Speaker 1: of Naples, who said, quote in the four hundredth anniversary

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Speaker 1: of Caravaggio's death. This committee has concocted a compelling discovery,

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Speaker 1: thinking it will attract tourists. It's all very depressing. Yikes. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so're not very confidence inspiring. No, not at all. So

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Speaker 1: I guess I'm hoping that we'll find out more in

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Speaker 1: the four hundred and first anniversary of Caravaggio's death, because

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Speaker 1: I don't like my my exlamations to be depressing in

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00:18:39,080 --> 00:18:41,840
Speaker 1: up in the air. Yeah, you don't want your exclamations

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Speaker 1: to be disproved and almost immediately. No, No, I'd like

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00:18:45,720 --> 00:18:49,840
Speaker 1: there to be solid evidence behind them. So that about

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00:18:49,960 --> 00:18:54,880
Speaker 1: wraps it up for this illustrious yet troubled painter. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure lots of you, especially those of you who frequently

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00:18:58,400 --> 00:19:01,600
Speaker 1: request that we cover more art his story, have favorite

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Speaker 1: Carcaggio stories, or maybe some of you have even gotten

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00:19:05,359 --> 00:19:07,919
Speaker 1: to go to these exhibits in Rome and you can

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00:19:07,960 --> 00:19:10,320
Speaker 1: tell us a little more about him. Apparently the art

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00:19:10,359 --> 00:19:14,960
Speaker 1: exhibit was lit very dramatically, with a dark room with

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00:19:15,359 --> 00:19:19,040
Speaker 1: spotlights on each canvas, so if you saw that, let

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00:19:19,160 --> 00:19:21,840
Speaker 1: us know how it was. Sounds interesting, um, and I

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Speaker 1: guess that brings us to listener mail. This one's from

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Speaker 1: Daniell in Canada, and I'm very sorry if I just

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00:19:31,119 --> 00:19:35,800
Speaker 1: muspronounced your name, She says, I just finished listening to

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Speaker 1: the podcast on seventeenth century Dutch tulip Mania, and it

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Speaker 1: made me think of another story about tulips. I live

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Speaker 1: not far from Ottawa, which is the capital of Canada

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Speaker 1: and located in Ontario, and one of the things that

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Speaker 1: Ottawa is known for is their annual Tulip Festival. The

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Speaker 1: history of the Tulip Festival is that it started as

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Speaker 1: a way of recognizing Canada's role in liberating the Dutch

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Speaker 1: during World War Two, and specifically for providing safe harbor

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Speaker 1: for the Dutch royal family. The Tulip Festival's website does

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00:20:02,400 --> 00:20:04,480
Speaker 1: a much better job of explaining this, and she gives

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00:20:04,520 --> 00:20:08,280
Speaker 1: it to us here. It's www dot Tulip Festival dot

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Speaker 1: c a. But essentially, during World War Two, the Canadian

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00:20:11,760 --> 00:20:15,200
Speaker 1: government temporarily declared a room at the Ottawa Civic Hospital

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Speaker 1: to be Dutch territory so that Princess Marguerite could be

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Speaker 1: born a Dutch citizen on Dutch soil as a thank

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Speaker 1: you the people of the Netherlands and the new Princess's mother,

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00:20:24,359 --> 00:20:28,080
Speaker 1: Princess Juliana, sent many gifts to Canada, including a hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand tulip bulbs. The festival is now almost sixty years

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Speaker 1: old and it's the largest tulip festival in the world,

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Speaker 1: and the tulip is Ottawa's official flower, which, as the

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Speaker 1: event site notes, makes Ottawa the tulip capital of North America.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, I thought that was a really sweet story,

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Speaker 1: and actually a few people sent it to us. We

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00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:49,359
Speaker 1: got a similar story from Christina and Toronto and John

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Speaker 1: who also told us about a Tulipmania board game, which

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00:20:54,640 --> 00:20:58,560
Speaker 1: sounds awesome. Um, definitely want to check out. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I love games about commodity. What if the notities involved

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00:21:01,720 --> 00:21:04,639
Speaker 1: were tulips? That would be so much fun. Um. I

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Speaker 1: just have one more of these Tulip or Holland related

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Speaker 1: emails to share, and this one is from Yost. Initially,

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00:21:13,320 --> 00:21:15,359
Speaker 1: he emailed to let us know that the Kingdom of

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00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:19,040
Speaker 1: the Netherlands does not consist of the Antilles anymore, since

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Speaker 1: they were dissolved on October tenth. And I was really

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00:21:23,520 --> 00:21:28,960
Speaker 1: shocked to see that information because after doing the most

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00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:31,959
Speaker 1: of the big research on the tool of episode, I

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00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:34,239
Speaker 1: looked at to make sure I knew exactly what the

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Speaker 1: Netherlands were, and I looked on the official website of

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Speaker 1: the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions, which apparently is

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00:21:41,840 --> 00:21:44,480
Speaker 1: not updated yet. I sent them an email after I

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00:21:44,600 --> 00:21:48,520
Speaker 1: got this this correction, alerting them out of awkward. Yes,

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00:21:48,840 --> 00:21:51,640
Speaker 1: that's a little awkward to do now that you mention it.

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Speaker 1: But he also shared a really interesting story and I

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Speaker 1: kind of like it because it has the pronunciation in

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00:21:57,040 --> 00:22:00,040
Speaker 1: it that no one no one can fault us for

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00:22:00,040 --> 00:22:04,399
Speaker 1: for mispronouncing. But here it goes. During the German occupation,

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00:22:04,560 --> 00:22:07,680
Speaker 1: the Allied bombers and accompanying fighters had to fly over

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00:22:07,760 --> 00:22:10,639
Speaker 1: Holland to reach Germany. As a result, a lot of

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Speaker 1: plans were shot down over Dutch ground. If the pilots

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00:22:13,680 --> 00:22:16,480
Speaker 1: were lucky enough to survive and not get caught by

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00:22:16,520 --> 00:22:19,320
Speaker 1: Germans going to the crash site, they fell into the

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00:22:19,359 --> 00:22:23,040
Speaker 1: hands of the resistance and were smuggled back to England. Obviously,

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00:22:23,080 --> 00:22:26,800
Speaker 1: they were disguised as normal Dutch citizens during their transport.

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00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:31,160
Speaker 1: When German patrols encountered people they felt were not true Dutch,

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00:22:31,200 --> 00:22:38,320
Speaker 1: they would order them to say, shinkafigan, that's my best approximation. Um,

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00:22:38,359 --> 00:22:41,119
Speaker 1: this is the name of a Dutch coastal town. For

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Speaker 1: non native Dutch speakers, it is almost impossible to make

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00:22:45,760 --> 00:22:50,199
Speaker 1: the truck sound the way a Dutch would, since it

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00:22:50,320 --> 00:22:53,840
Speaker 1: is a sound distinguished to our language. If the persons

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00:22:53,840 --> 00:22:56,359
Speaker 1: would fail the test, Germans knew they were dealing with

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00:22:56,400 --> 00:23:01,000
Speaker 1: British or Americans, and the proper action was taken. So um.

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Speaker 1: I listened to a few different pronunciations of this word,

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Speaker 1: and the best I can tell, it's sort of a

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00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:10,119
Speaker 1: combination of the t an s sound from a snake

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00:23:10,240 --> 00:23:14,640
Speaker 1: in an s h like chicaf andingen. But I don't

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Speaker 1: think I would pass this test unfortunately, So it's good

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Speaker 1: I was not a pilot flying over Holland in World

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00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:25,360
Speaker 1: War Two. In many ways, in many ways, but um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: thank you. I mean, I thought that was a really

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00:23:26,800 --> 00:23:30,680
Speaker 1: interesting story, and thanks for sharing it. Yeah, we love

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Speaker 1: the sun more. We have an email address that you

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00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:36,440
Speaker 1: can send them to its history podcast at how stuff

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00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:39,200
Speaker 1: works dot com. You can also find us on Facebook

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00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:42,280
Speaker 1: and at Twitter at MS industry, and we also have

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00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:45,000
Speaker 1: a blog and Blina and I have been working on

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00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:49,119
Speaker 1: updating it regularly, so in case you went and didn't

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00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:52,200
Speaker 1: see anything posted in the past few months. Um, there's

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00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:56,280
Speaker 1: lots of stuff now brimming with so you can come

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00:23:56,359 --> 00:23:59,200
Speaker 1: check us out and you'll find the blogs by visiting

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00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:03,000
Speaker 1: the house stuff Works homepage at www dot how stuff

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00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 1: works dot com. For more on this and thousands of

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00:24:09,520 --> 00:24:12,280
Speaker 1: other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. To learn

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00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:15,159
Speaker 1: more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in

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00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:18,200
Speaker 1: the upper right corner of our homepage. The how stuff

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00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:21,680
Speaker 1: Works iPhone app has a rise. Download it today on iTunes,

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Speaker 1: m