WEBVTT - Six More Impossible Episodes 0:00:00.960 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, Fun Stuff 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:17.840 Works dot Com. Hello and Tracy Wilson. About six months ago, 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:20.800 we put out an episode that was called Six Impossible Episodes, 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:24.280 and it was six subjects that are really frequent listener requests, 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:26.599 but for some reason or another they could not really 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:30.319 stand on their own as individual episodes. And people seem 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:33.560 to enjoy that one. And since then we've collected another 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:36.880 heaping handful of topics that people are asking for a lot, 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:39.199 but which we can't quite be a whole show on. 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:45.040 So today six more Impossible Episodes. All right, These are 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:48.800 fun because it's a you know, a little less intensive 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:52.920 than digging super deep in like a long, full length episode, 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.720 and it's like a nice little shworket sport. Yes, and 0:00:56.120 --> 0:01:00.840 I am writing on an airplane four times in six days, 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:06.119 so that's why we're doing this today. Yeah, there, it's 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:08.760 going to be super fun. I love it. So. First one, 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:13.000 anytime we say anything about Paul Revere on our Facebook 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:16.040 posts or anywhere else on the internet, really at least 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:18.440 one person, but far more often it is more than 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.479 one asks the same question, which is, how come nobody 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:25.360 ever talks about Sybil Luddington, and so in case you 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:29.800 maybe aren't from the United States, on the eve of 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:33.039 the Revolutionary War, Paul Revere was part of a now 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:36.000 famous ride to spread the word of an impending attack, 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:39.640 and later on in the war, Sybil Luddington also made 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:44.280 a different but far less famous ride. So anytime we 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:47.840 say Paul Revere, it's like a call in response somebody 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:51.320 else says Sybil Lendington. You could use that as the 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:54.920 alternate to Marco Polo is a pool game, I'm pretty sure. So. 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:58.760 Sybil was born in Connecticut on April fifth, seventeen sixty one, 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:01.080 and when she was still a abe, her family moved 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:03.840 to Duchess County, New York, which lies along the New 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:08.200 York Connecticut border. Her father, Henry Luttington, had decades of 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:12.239 military experience, so as war loomed between Britain and its 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.800 colonies in North America, he quickly became a colonel and 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:18.640 was put in command of a regiment that was responsible 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.360 for guarding territory along the New York Connecticut border. This 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:25.560 is a pretty critical piece of land because it was 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:28.720 one of the primary ways that the Loyalists could reach 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:33.399 Long Island Sound from elsewhere farther inland. That's why when 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:36.880 Governor William Tryon and his men rated Danbury, Connecticut in 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:40.200 seventeen seventy seven, a rider was sent from Danbury to 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:43.600 the Luddington home in Duchess County to ask Sybel's father 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:48.160 to send help. Danbury was also strategically important, and it 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.440 was home to several Continental Army storehouses that were full 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:55.360 of food, munitions, and other supplies. So this rider that 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:58.920 had been dispatched was too exhausted to continue by the 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:01.600 time he got to the letting and home, and Colonel 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:04.920 Luddington needed to prepare for battle, so he sent his 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:08.240 oldest child, Sibyl, to muster his forces so they could 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:11.600 go to Danbury's aid. It's not totally clear whether she 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.200 volunteered for this task or whether she was sent, and 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.200 at this point, Sybil had just turned sixteen, and her 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:22.320 ride wound through forty miles of mostly wooded territory at night. 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:26.320 So Sybil's age and the length of her ride, which 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:29.480 was longer than Paul Revere's, are often held up as 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:32.359 reasons why she is really more deserving of a claim 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:35.480 than Paul Revere was. And then there's often this undertone 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:38.280 of well, she should have had that acclaim, and she 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.680 would have if she were a man. But as most 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:43.680 of these things go, there's more to it than that. 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:48.160 Paul Revere's ride is famous largely because of Henry Wadsworth 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:51.480 Longfellow's poem, first published in eighteen sixty one, and that 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:54.320 is the one that starts with listen, my children, and 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:56.920 you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:00.280 It's not a very historically accurate poem, which is why 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:04.040 a lot of people remember wrong things about Paul Revere's ride, 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:06.720 including that he was not the only one that was 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:09.240 on it. Right, the poem is only about him. But 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:13.400 this poem was written more than eighty years after the 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.760 ride in question took place, and it was written after 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:19.680 Longfellow visited the Old North Church in Boston, which is 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:23.559 more more formally known as Christ Church. And the Old 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:25.800 North Church is the one where the one if by 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:29.680 Land too if by Sea signal lanterns were hung. And 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:33.120 there are several likely reasons why Paul Revere is the 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:36.640 star of this poem and not someone else. Apart from 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:39.360 his ride to warn of the attack, he was a 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:43.480 prominent Boston citizen and an active participant in other parts 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.839 of the Revolutionary War. For example, he made an engraving 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:49.480 of the Boston massacre that we talked about in our 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:54.279 episode on that event. Paul Revere also served with Longfellow's 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:58.520 grandfather in the service, And just to be really basic 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:01.960 about it, I think we should add that Revere is 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:04.359 easy to rhyme things with. It is much easier to 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:08.960 rhyme things with than Luddington. So when Longfellow was writing 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:11.680 his poem about someone he had a family connection to, 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:14.480 whose ride connected to a place he had just visited, 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:18.640 Luddington's story hadn't even been written down yet. It survived 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.440 as family lore for roughly one hundred years before it 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:26.279 was actually published anywhere, and Sybil's great nephew, historian Lewis S. Patrick, 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:28.960 wrote about it in nineteen o seven, at which point 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:33.480 school children were already memorizing the Longfellow poem. So you 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:37.839 could totally make the argument that Civil Lettington's gender meant 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:39.960 she could not make a name for herself the way 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:42.919 Paul Revere did and later become famous thanks to a 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:47.400 historically inaccurate poem. We just don't really know anything about 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:49.400 her beyond the fact that when the war was over, 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:53.400 she got married to a Revolutionary word veteran named Edward Ogden. 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:55.919 They had a son, and they later opened a tavern, 0:05:56.000 --> 0:06:00.440 and she died on February eighteen thirty nine. Just was 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:04.400 not the sort of prominent, publicly facing citizen that Paul 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:07.920 Revere had been, and we don't have any primary source 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:11.480 documentation about her ride at all, and even tiny details 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:14.599 like how she spelled her name are different based on 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:18.919 the things like her tombstone, her signature, and census records 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:23.000 literally spelled differently in all of those places. So in 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:26.080 terms of no one talking about her, there are many 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.680 many children's books about Sibyl Lannington, and she was commemorate 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:35.560 commemorated on a bicentennial postage stamp in even when she lived, 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:38.640 George Washington himself came to her home to thank her 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:42.320 personally for having written to muster all the men after 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:46.480 the Battle of Danbury. There is a particularly fierce looking 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:49.400 statue of her in Carmel, New York, along with a 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:53.240 number of historical markers along her ride route. So her 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:57.919 story just was not well known at all outside of 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:02.040 her family and maybe local neighbor from the area when 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:06.480 the poem that made Paul Revere famous was written. Like, 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:11.640 that poem was solidly in the collective memory of America 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:17.040 before Sibyl Luddington's story was even written down at all. Yeah, 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:21.080 that poem has great scansion, and so it's really easy 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:25.160 to remember and it's really kind of engaging. But as 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:28.560 the sort of sad coda as well, Colonel Luddington's efforts 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:31.880 were also too late to save Danbury. The British burned 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:34.920 thousands of barrels of food along with tents, shoes, and 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:39.200 other supplies before Luddington and other reinforcements were able to arrive. 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:42.000 So that is the story of Sybil Lettington and also 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:47.000 why people talk about Paul Revere more. Uh. Next up, 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:51.200 we have one that was requested first by Diane long 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:54.000 enough ago that it is number fifty six on our 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:57.000 listeners submitted Ideas list, which is now hundreds and hundreds 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:01.200 of ideas long. It is the Capuchin Catacomb in Palermo, Sicily, 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:05.840 which are home to about eight thousand mummies. The Capucin 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:09.280 community in Palermo was established in fifteen thirty four at 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:12.360 the Church of Santa Maria de la Pacha. At first, 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:14.520 the Friars who lived there were buried in what was 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:18.000 essentially a mass grave, but about sixty years later the 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:21.920 monastery outgrew. That's that mass burial site, so the Friars 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:25.400 decided to dig a larger set of catacombs using natural 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:29.120 caves that already existed in the area. Doing this required 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:31.920 them to exhume the bodies that had already been buried, 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:34.560 and when they did, they found that forty five of 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:37.280 them had been naturally preserved and we're just in a 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:42.160 really pristine condition. Their bodies had dehydrated rather than rotting. 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:45.600 They interpreted this as a sign from God, and then, 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:49.600 rather than proceeding with what had essentially been planned as 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:53.160 a bigger mass grave, they decided instead to keep the 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:57.400 exhumed bodies intact and displayed them as religious relics, and 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:00.800 the new burial site that they created was built with 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:04.160 that end goal in mind. They also gradually refined the 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:08.960 caves natural preservation process into an intentional mummification, which included 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:11.840 removing the organs and stuffing the cavity of the bodies 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:15.120 with straw and placing the bodies on terra cotta tubes 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:18.240 to help them dry faster. The Friars used a number 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:22.240 of other preservation methods as well. Sylvestro of Gubio was 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:25.000 a sixteenth century Capuchin monk, and he was the first 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:29.080 to be buried in these new catacombs. Originally, the only 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:31.600 bodies that were placed in the catacombs were those of 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:34.280 Friars who were part of the Order after they died. 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:38.880 But eventually, as words spread about the catacombs, being mummified 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:42.360 and placed there after death became a mark of high status, 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:46.120 so the bodies of nobility and famous local citizens joined 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:49.679 that those of the Friars, and eventually the Order began 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:53.400 allowing the burial of anyone who requested it in seventy three. 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:56.439 One of the things that makes this place so compelling 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:59.240 is that the bodies, which are very well preserved, are 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.640 out in view you. They're dressed. Family members would even 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:06.120 come to change the body's clothes. And some are on shelves, 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:09.400 some hang from hooks, and some are in open coffin 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:14.400 like containers. Some are posed almost as though their taxidermy displays. 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:17.360 And there's one hall that's entirely the bodies of infants, 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:20.520 some of them in cradles, and although they're arranged into 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:26.120 approximate categories like professionals, priests, monks, virgins. Relatively few of 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:30.280 these bodies are actually identifying. The Friars stopped burying new 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:33.000 bodies there in eighteen eighty, and they made only two 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:37.200 exceptions afterward. One was Giovanni Patterniti, who was buried in 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:40.920 nineteen eleven, and the other was Rosalia Lombardo, who was 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:44.640 two years old and placed there in nineteen twenty. The 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:47.240 monks teamed up with the European Union to start a 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:50.640 conservation project on the site in two thousand eight, because 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:53.959 it has become a major tourist destination, but very little 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:56.120 had been done up to that point in the centuries 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:58.719 since it was first built to preserve it. We're going 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:01.080 to put an image gallery of some pictures of this 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:03.920 place on our website because it is incredible to look at. 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:08.040 But most of the information that's available about it in 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:10.880 English as of right now is sort of like travel 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:15.600 god type of stuff. It's it's a tourist attraction at 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:17.400 this point, and most of the things that are written 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:20.600 about it are written in that vein, so I could 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:25.960 not find enough richer information to make a whole episode 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:28.320 out of it, but so many people have asked, we 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:31.240 want to spend a whole time today. Cool, So before 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:33.360 we go to our next impossible episode, you want to 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:36.120 pause from a brief word from a sponsor sounds good. 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:41.280 Our most recent requests for our next subject, who is 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:45.640 jean Ditisson, came from Laramie and Mary and two different 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:49.120 emails very recently, and she, unfortunately, is yet another person 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:52.640 who falls into the not enough reliable information available in 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:56.199 English category. We've had some folks right in to tell 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:58.200 us that we just need to hire some people who 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:00.600 speak other languages, y'all. It's just the two of us 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:04.440 and NOL. Like, we don't have like a staff budget. No, 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:08.400 we we don't have a translation staff. We literally look 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:10.440 so many things up and we still get them wrong 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:13.960 because we are not fluent speakers of every language, because 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:16.559 it is just the two of us and NOL. Yeah, 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:18.960 and we do try to outsource whilm we can, but 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:23.000 sometimes it's just not feasible right when you're working, uh so. 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:27.439 Jeanne de Clisson was a noblewoman and a pirate. In 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:31.320 THTT three, her second husband, Olivier, the third Lord of Clisson, 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:34.960 was executed for treason upon the orders of King Philip 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:39.760 the sixth of France, so n pulled her money. She 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:42.960 bought a fleet of ships, She rallied the support of 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:46.160 other discontented nobles who were unhappy with Philip the six 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:48.600 for some reason, and then she went on a rampage 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:52.320 of terror and piracy. She purportedly painted her ships black 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:56.160 and died their sales red to make her fleet extremely impressive, 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.560 and she was nicknamed the Lioness of Brittany. I can 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:01.439 see why lots of people want to hear about her. 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:05.599 She's fabulous, though a little cutthroat and blood thirsty. M 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:10.640 She was so successful in her revenge campaign that she 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:12.920 won the support of King Edward the third of England, 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:15.920 who loaned her more ships and weapons so she could 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:18.960 more effectively fight against France. When she was done with 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:22.760 seeking revenge, she sought and gained sanctuary in the English Court. 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:26.800 And people like to send us Wikipedia articles at starting points, 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:29.559 which thank you, but we actually do not use Wikipedia 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:31.320 for our research, and we're going to talk about our 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:33.920 research a little bit more later. Uh. And the Wikipedia 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:38.920 entry for Jenne Dilisson does have more details about her life, 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:41.600 but they are basically sort of scattered sentences, and it's 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:45.480 not really documented in terms of sourcing. Yeah, so that's 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.880 not really a valid source for us, and it's it's 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:50.760 not even the thing the thing that you can do 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:53.240 we can see what the sources were and start from 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:57.320 there because it doesn't say where these random sentences of 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:03.400 facts came from. Who knows. So moving on. Uh, that 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:06.120 I think is the briefest of our six impossible episodes today. 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:09.440 Moving on, So we're not sure when the first request 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:12.400 came in to talk about the Kentucky meat Shower, but 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:15.000 there were a whole lot that came in after X 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:17.400 K c D put out comic number fifteen O one, 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:20.480 which is called Mysteries, and that charts a bunch of 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:24.960 historical mysteries based on how weird they are and whether 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:27.720 they can be explained or not. So the Kentucky Meat 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:30.080 Shower is in the quadrant for stuff that's both really 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.880 weird and also explained. And we have episodes about several 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:37.240 of the other mysteries that are in that comic, including 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:40.440 the Mary Celeste D. D. Cooper, the Oak Island money Pit, 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:43.760 I think, the delf Pass incidents, a bunch of them, 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.080 a lot of them, really, So yeah, I thought about 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:49.320 doing a whole episode that was just on the mysteries 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:51.600 from the comic that we haven't covered, And I think 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:54.840 some people actually did ask for that specifically. But some 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:58.560 of them are extremely recent and others are basically summarized 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:03.920 in a sentence. So on March three, eighty six, the Crouches, 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:07.320 who lived in Bath County, Kentucky, witnessed what appeared to 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:11.320 be meat falling from a clear sky. And these pieces 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:13.880 of meat were in various shapes and sizes, some of 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:17.360 them just little meaty whisps, and some chunks as big 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:20.440 as a person's hand. The New York Times later wrote 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:23.600 about this event under the headline flesh descending in a 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:28.200 shower and all capital letters. So it also sounds like 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:30.680 a weird um, like the kind of play that you 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:36.160 would see in an experimental college theater. Oh yeah, So afterwards, 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:39.400 Alan Crouch and his wife found that a strip of 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:42.280 their land about a hundred yards long and fifty yards 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:45.280 wide was just covered in chunks of this meaty substance. 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:48.200 Neighbors came by to look at it. Their cat ain't 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:53.440 some of it? Yeah, some people tasted it also. Uh. 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:55.880 They came up with various theories for what they thought 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:59.320 it tasted and smelled like, including mutton, venison, and bear, 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:02.640 and eventually people gathered up pieces of it and sent 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:05.920 it to various labs for testing, and the various labs 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:08.720 came back with various results, including that it was dried 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:12.640 frog spawn, that it was nostock, which is a cyanobacteria 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:16.280 that forms this gelatinous protective coding, or that it was 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:20.880 some actual type of animal flesh, And eventually the prevailing 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:26.840 theory became that it was actually brace vomit, my least 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:29.960 favorite thing in the world, vulture vomits, which would explain 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:32.720 why the cat was so drawn to it from from 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:36.240 vultures that had overindulged on something they had scavenged. That 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:38.120 makes it super gross. As we said that the cat 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:40.880 and a number of people ate some of it. So 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:43.680 there are not really a ton of books or historical 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:47.120 papers or peer reviewed whatever on this event. It's the 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:49.520 sort of thing that would be really fun to research 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:52.840 by going through old newspaper archives to figure out exactly 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:55.000 what people were saying about it at the time. And 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:58.040 the thing is, a writer named Matt Soniac has already 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:01.120 done that in the pages of Mental floss, so trying 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:04.200 to get a whole article together based on that exact 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:06.880 same process, which just feel a little bit too much 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:09.720 like we were cribbing off of his work. There is 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:12.920 a preserved piece of this meat at the Monroe loos 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:17.400 Nick Medical and Science Museum at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:21.200 If you are yearning to see what the vomity meat 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:25.600 looks like, I'm not look on your face pretty much 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:29.680 says it. Also, I won't say the V word anymore. Uh. 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:33.480 And and we have two more impossible episodes, one of 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:36.080 which makes us really sad that it's impossible, and we're 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:38.320 going to talk about them after another brief word from 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:41.159 a sponsor. Uh. That particular sponsor at this moment is 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.240 scare space the best way to create a beautiful website 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:47.720 or online store for you and your ideas. I have 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:49.919 been working online for my selling blog. 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Uh 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:47.000 make sure when you go and start your new trial 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:49.280 that you enter the offer code history to get teen 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:51.960 percent off your Squarespace account and show your support for 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:55.320 the show. So go build your free trial and then 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:56.760 if you just had you want to hang onto it, 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:58.960 then you can pay for it and keep going forever. 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:02.359 With all that stability, they're at your fingertips. Just go 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:06.040 to squarespace dot com. Enter your offer code history squares base, 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:10.160 Build it beautiful. Okay, as we said before the break, 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:13.720 our penultimate impossible episode makes us so sad that it's 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:18.119 been possible. One of our most frequently requested episodes, at 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:20.359 least after we did one on the night, which is 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:25.560 so people stopped requesting that one is infamous serial killer Elizabeth, 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:31.040 or more accurately, Elizabeth Bathory. And Elizabeth Bathory was actually 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:34.240 the second subject ever covered on our show, so when 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:37.119 people ask for an episode on her, we point them 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:40.600 back to that one, which being the second episode ever 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:44.560 on our show. It is only three minutes long, and 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:48.240 we don't normally put out duovers of previous hosts episodes. 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:50.800 History is basically infinite, and even if we would have 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:52.919 approached the subject in a different way from a previous 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:55.280 host take on it, there's just so much to cover 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:58.200 that we haven't already done. Uh. There is an exception. 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:03.960 I did a review of m um one of them, Zenobia, 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:07.600 just because that was like a personal zone of super 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.359 interest for me. But normally we don't usually backtrack on 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:13.560 those um But when it comes to Elizabeth Bathory, we 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:16.800 get so many requests and so many disappointed follow ups 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:19.200 when people realize that the old episode is quite brief, 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:21.560 that it made sense to at least talk about it. So. 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:25.639 Elizabeth Bathory was born in fifteen sixty into Transylvaane, his 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:29.720 ruling family. She was very wealthy, very beautiful, and very 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:32.639 well educated, and when she was eleven or twelve, she 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:36.159 was betrothed to a member of another prominent family, but 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:38.760 a couple of years later she actually had a child 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:42.680 by a different man, who her fiance purportedly killed by 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:47.560 having him castrated and then ravaged by dogs. Bathori's illegitimate 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:49.919 child was kept secret from the rest of the world, 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:52.640 and her marriage went ahead is planned when she was fourteen. 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:56.120 Her husband died when she was forty three. In between 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:00.199 their marriage and his death, she had four children. By 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:02.920 the time of her husband's death in sixteen o four, 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:07.520 there were rumors spreading that she was sadistic and cruel, 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:11.960 and these rumors really escalated after his passing. There were 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:15.399 stories that she tortured her servants and the daughters of 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:18.320 peasants who were living in the area. She was rumored 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:20.600 to drink their blood and bathe in it in order 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:25.199 to preserve her beauty and her youth authorities actually investigated her. 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:29.399 In sixteen ten, Count Georgie Thursoh, who was Bathori's cousin, 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:31.679 was sent by King Mattias to find out what was 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:34.760 going on, and he reportedly walked in on Bath three 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:38.680 conducting a torture session. He took depositions from people both 0:21:38.720 --> 0:21:41.760 within and outside of the estate, and he concluded that 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:44.399 Elizabeth had killed six hundred girls with the help of 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:48.480 her servants. She was placed under arrest that December. Four 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:51.679 people who were reported to be her accomplices were tried, 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:55.040 and three of them were executed. One was sentenced to 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:58.159 life in prison. She herself was never tried, but she 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:01.199 was confined to a window room in the castle for 0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:04.440 the rest of her life, which ended in sixteen fourteen. 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:07.160 She was found dead on August twenty one of that year. 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:11.000 There's some evidence to suggest that the claims against Bath 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:14.960 three were deeply embellished, or were in fact slander. King 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:17.840 Matthias owed Bath three a great deal of money, and 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:20.879 her family apparently waived that debt in exchange for getting 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:24.760 control of her captivity. Those same family members also got 0:22:24.760 --> 0:22:29.480 control over all of her land, so unfortunately it became 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:33.399 clear almost immediately when trying to research a full length 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:36.040 episode on Elizabeth Bathory that it just was not going 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:40.240 to happen. There are several brief articles about her from 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:43.479 reputable sources, but the couple of books that have been 0:22:43.560 --> 0:22:47.280 written about her in English were both self published. Now, 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:49.800 we're not knocking the idea of publishing your own work 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:53.000 or of reading self published work. Of course, you may 0:22:53.040 --> 0:22:55.080