WEBVTT - Playing Cards? You Got That Right! 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:11.319 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:14.080 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:16.960 and Jerry's here too, so that makes this a rough 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:20.360 and tumble, root and tooting episode of Stuff you Should Know. 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:26.320 How you doing? I'm great? How are you pretty good? 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:30.040 You just celebrated a birthday just twenty four hours ago, 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:36.080 and dude, happy birthday, Chuck. Thanks man. How do you 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:40.280 feel good? Feel great? I feel I'm tired today, but 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:43.680 not because of birthdays. I'm just I don't know, I'm 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:47.000 tired today. Do you remember the times back, years back 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:51.320 when you would be tired because of your birthday? Right exactly. 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.200 It's like that day after right exactly. Now you're just 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:58.480 tired because you're a full year older. Yeah. I was 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:03.000 tired before my birthday too. But we're not talking about 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:05.600 being tired or birthdays, Chuck, are We were talking about 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:10.280 playing cards? Yeah, this one. Dave Russ helped us out. 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:13.399 This is chock full of fun little nuggets that I 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:16.600 think next time you're playing cards with people, you can 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:19.520 just kind of pepper these in. Yeah, and they'll love 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:22.640 you for it. They'll say, give us another one. Yeah. 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:25.240 This is one of those. It just has lots and 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:28.280 lots and lots of little fun factoids. And yes, I 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:32.800 said factoids. Yeah, they're ten percent of a fact that's right. 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:38.679 Anyone will get that. A couple of people will on 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:42.600 the Army page. I'm sure so, Chuck. We talked a 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:46.120 lot about playing cards before in our Tarot episode, Yeah, 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:49.000 And one of the things we talked about was that 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:53.640 it's a myth that playing cards developed from taro, which 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:55.360 is what I had always thought too. I don't know, 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:57.400 I don't remember if I said that on the Tarot episode, 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:00.920 but it was quite the opposite, and cards were around 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:04.640 long before Tarot cards were, even though they are related. 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:09.720 Tarot cards were originally invented as new Trump cards basically, 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:12.720 and then they kind of evolved into the cartomancy and 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:14.920 all that stuff and just took off from there and 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:19.240 went on their own path. But playing cards themselves are 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:22.959 much much older, and there's a lot of debate about 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:26.640 exactly where the first playing cards were developed, and a 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:29.799 lot of people say China. Obviously China invented a bunch 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:33.400 of stuff, and it's possible China did invent playing cards, 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:37.679 but they seem to have possibly invented them in isolation, 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:40.480 and they may or may not have influenced the playing 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:44.440 cards that we trace our lineage back to our playing 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:48.200 cards today, trace that's lineage back to Yeah, and they 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.800 may not be as far as the original Chinese cards 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.560 go as old as they think, because you know, some 0:02:55.600 --> 0:03:01.440 people point to this game called the yazyge. Yeah, I'll 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:05.080 go with that, Okay, y e z I separate word 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:09.280 ge called the Chinese leaf game. And this was like 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:13.600 ninth century CE Tang dynasty time, and for a long time, 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:16.480 people I think were like, well, the leaves and the 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:20.920 leaf game were pieces of paper and probably cards. But 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:25.840 then more, you know, scrutiny has landed on. No, maybe 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:28.720 the leaves were just like a rule book or a 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:31.520 log book that you wrote stuff down because it was 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:34.280 really a dice throwing game. Or it could have been 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:36.480 more like dominoes, and the cards are used in that 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.800 way but not used like actual playing cards. But we 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:43.760 do think we know pretty sure that the Chinese eventually 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:47.400 did get their playing cards in isolation in the thirteenth century, 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:50.680 not I mean pretty close to when Europe got them. Yeah, 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:54.200 So twelve ninety four is the first unambiguous reference to 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:58.520 actual what we would call playing cards in China. Europe 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:01.760 they showed up in thirteen five, so that is a 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:05.400 really really short amount of time for China to have 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:10.640 influenced Europe. That's not where European cards came from. Instead, 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:15.000 European cards came from the mom Luke Empire, which I 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:17.960 believe we also talked about in the Tarot episode two, right, 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:23.320 I think so in Egypt. Yeah, And it's it's interesting 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:28.680 like these cards came about because of or they got popularized, 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:31.640 I guess because of trick taking games, like not the 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:35.279 exact games we play today like yuker in spades and hearts, 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:38.960 and I think bridge is another one, but the kind 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:41.200 of a similar thing where you have, you know, a 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:44.839 suit that takes the hand aka the trick, right, and 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:47.479 there's usually a trump card or a trump suit. And 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:50.400 these were like among the very first card games, and 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:54.599 apparently in medieval times they were wild for this game. Yeah, 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:56.960 these kinds of games. They went so nuts that some 0:04:57.080 --> 0:04:59.120 officials were like, you have to stop playing that. We're 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:01.560 going to actually ban in it. You don't, we don't 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:03.680 get it, and you guys are into it, so we're 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:06.479 gonna say you can't do that anymore, right, But those 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:10.880 mom luke cards from Egypt were pretty similar to what 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:13.919 we have today, right, Yeah, so there's fifty two in 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:17.680 a deck, which is all we have today. Four suits, check, 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:26.800 thirteen cards, pursuit, yes we have okay, yeah, yeah, because 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:30.360 yes that's right. So yes, that thirteen times four is 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:33.159 fifty two. Well, I think where I'm getting mixed up 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:36.320 is they had a number one card, but they did 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:39.800 not have a queen. Is that the swap correct? Okay? 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:42.640 So yeah, they had a one card one through ten, 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:45.400 and then they had courts in cards, which we call 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.800 court cards or face cards today. But like you said, 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:51.279 they didn't have a queen. The queen wasn't introduced until 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:55.359 the French in the i think the fifteenth century, said no, 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.640 we need to feminize this a little bit and much 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:01.520 fur the better. But back in the Arab world they 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:03.920 were like, no, we're not doing that. This is the 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:08.480 third twelfth thirteenth century. Um, we're just gonna go with 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.880 the malik, the king, the naib malik, which would be 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:17.000 the king's like right hand man. Sure, the Thani naive 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:22.599 which would be the king's right hand man, right hand man, Yes, 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:26.560 and Um, that was it. Those were the those in 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:30.120 addition to one through ten, those were your thirteen cards 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:34.360 in each suit and the suits themselves, Um, the like 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:38.200 the cards had a lot of similarities to what we 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:41.839 think of today, Like they had pips. Each suit was 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:44.920 represented by a symbol that's called a pip um And 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:48.120 I knew that somewhere in the back of my head. 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:51.160 I'm not sure why. But if you looked at one 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:54.160 of these cards, one of these very ancient mom Luke 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:58.560 deck cards, Um, there would be say like um, thirteen 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:02.360 or say eight pips on one card. That's the aid 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:05.040 of say cups. If there were eight cups of it, 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:08.839 just like today, if there's eight little spades on there, 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:11.520 that's the aid of spades. I mean, this is it 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:13.640 follows in a really old tradition, I guess is what 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:17.800 I'm trying to say in a really really clumsy way. Well, 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:20.320 the difference is they didn't write a number eight. They 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:23.480 just had eight of the pips pictured to represent that number. 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:25.880 And we still have that. We just added the number 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.360 as well. Exactly. We've got both, yes, and we'll get 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:31.760 to there, because it's I think the history of how 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:34.960 these things sort of change from country to country as 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:39.000 they became the leading manufacturers. Is pretty interesting, it really is. 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:42.880 That's a will take over from here every century or so. Yeah, 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:45.040 and I think it looks like as far as Europe goes, 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:47.360 the Spanish and the Italians were the first to start 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:52.840 manufacturing and using playing cards. They were called are called 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:58.600 Latin decks, and they had as their four suits the cups, 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:04.000 the coins, the swords in the clubs. But instead of 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:06.720 I don't think we mentioned that a polo stick was 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:11.080 the club and the mamluke cards, Spain said, what the 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:14.680 heck is polo? Our clubs look like something you beat 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:16.560 someone over the head with, So that's what we're gonna 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:20.000 go with. Yeah, they look like real Captain caveman type stuff. Yeah, 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:24.320 it's kind of cool. So um, the Spanish being among 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:27.600 the first to start adopting these decks is pretty pretty 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:31.160 appropriate because they were under rule by the Moops or 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:35.200 they had been for you know, just a few centuries before, 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:38.079 so they were in a lot of contact with their 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:42.080 Muslim neighbors. So for that to be imported to Spain 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:44.800 and then probably trickle over to Italy, that makes a 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:48.040 lot of sense. And so um, that's kind of reflected 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:51.479 in what the Spanish word for playing cards is naipas 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:56.360 anaipees and the Arabic name for playing cards is naive 0:08:56.840 --> 0:09:02.800 n a apostrophe ib clearly descended from it. And that's 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:05.320 one of the things that really fascinates me about playing 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:10.599 card history is like, yes, there's neat like symbolism and 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:13.839 weird stuff going on, but it's all explicable and it 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:17.120 all follows like in this neat tradition that was built 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:20.199 upon and change but really still kind of kept like 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:25.400 the general guard rails that it was originally set up with. Yeah, 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.360 and there the changes are like kind of fairly minor, 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:31.959 and they usually have to do with whatever made the 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:34.920 most sense in that country. For instance, in Spain, not 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:37.400 knowing what a polo club was, right, but they're like, 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:39.280 you can hit somebody over the head with that, so 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.760 we'll replace it with the club. Yeah, we'll use the smasher. Right. 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:46.440 And there are some speculation in theories about what these 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.280 initial and this is in the medieval society, what these 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:54.000 four suits represented. But one of the theories that kind 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:56.599 of makes sense, I think, is that the sword was 0:09:56.679 --> 0:10:00.439 for the military or the nobles, the cup for the clergy. 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:03.520 The coin for the merchants makes sense, and the club 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:07.840 for the peasants. And then in Europe we moved to Germany, 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:10.720 they kind of took over in the fifteenth century as 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:15.560 making as being I guess champion cardmakers. Sure, and they 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:19.360 replaced the cup with a heart. It's getting a little 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:22.120 more like we know it now. Yeah, the club was 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:26.960 replaced by an acorn, which is a type of masts. 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:30.480 The sword becomes a leaf, but if you look at it, 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:33.840 it's sort of a similar shape is what we would 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:37.440 know as a spade. Yeah, it's like an ivy leaf almost. Yeah. 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:41.199 And then the coin because there were nuts about falconry 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:45.360 in fifteenth century Germany and falcons head bells attached to 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:48.840 the hawks and falcons. I guess why don't they call 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:54.080 it hawkry? I think falcons take the cake in falconry. 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:56.599 You know, hawks place second fiddle to it. They're like 0:10:56.720 --> 0:11:03.079 the the Thanny naihib to the to the falcons. You know. 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:05.520 The joke here in Atlanta that I use is, whenever 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:07.319 we see a hawk or a falcon, and we have 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:11.959 both obvious as Evan inspired sports teams, Uh, it only 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:14.360 says is that a hawker a falcon, and I said, well, 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:16.240 you'd know it's a falcon if it flew into a 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:20.280 tree and then hit the ground. What does that mean 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:24.200 the reference to the Atlanta falcons. Oh, I see, yeah, 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:26.439 like it was like I'm flying so high and then no, 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:29.559 not anymore all of a sudden. Yeah exactly. But I 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:31.480 mean this isn't the same apply to the hawks too, 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:35.839 never get off the ground. No, you could kind of 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:40.720 interchange them. Yeah, but anyway, the falcons and hawks had bells, 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:45.240 and the coin on the German cards became a bell 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:48.600 because they were wild about falconry. Yeah, it's very cute. 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:52.240 The Germans had definitely the most rustic pips of all time. 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:56.800 I mean, an acorn. Come on, that's wonderful. So the 0:11:56.880 --> 0:12:00.280 Germans are going along. This is the fifteenth century. They 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:04.199 dominated that as far as the card manufacturing went, and 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:08.840 then the French took over in the sixteenth century and Ruin, 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:13.400 which is kind of in the northwest of France, became 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:16.800 the playing card capital of Europe. And one of the 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:19.880 reasons it became the playing card capital of Europe, as 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:22.920 we'll see, is because they put out so many playing 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:27.160 cards and their production increased so dramatically that it's just 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:30.959 mind boggling. And as a result, the pips that the 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:34.600 French adapted are the ones we still use today, even 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:36.400 though we have different names. They were the ones who 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:39.400 came up with the designs we used today. Yeah, so 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:44.240 they were hearts and clovers. Self explanatory. They had the diamonds, 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:49.760 but their diamonds were represented paving tiles called carol. And 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:53.880 then the pike, which is the spear tip. I guess 0:12:54.040 --> 0:13:00.439 is the spade right, just right? But they didn't yeahlways 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:02.280 give me with that. They don't. They didn't call it 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:04.200 a spade at the time. But they did a couple 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:07.440 of key things as far as what we recognized as 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:10.040 playing cards today, as they came up with the red 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:13.520 and the black colors, very big deal to differentiate that 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:16.720 and to make card tricks more fun. And then they, 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:18.679 like you said, they manufactured a ton of them. And 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:22.240 they did this because they standardized the pips so that 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:24.760 they could be stenciled on and it was a lot 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:28.360 cheaper and a lot faster than hand drawing or doing 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:32.040 woodcuttings and hand painting these decks of cards, which was 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:37.160 super expensive and time consuming. Yes, and it made the cards, 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:41.320 the deck of cards incredibly unattainable to the average person 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:45.680 back in the you know, up to the sixteenth century 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:48.840 when the French took over. And once the French took 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:54.400 over and started producing these cards on mass, card playing 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:57.599 was just it just took off like a rocket. And 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:00.920 people had already loved playing cards, but now more people 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:03.800 could love playing cards. And it was because they figured 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:07.240 out how to print these things, you know, more cheaply 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:10.800 and more quickly. So that's why we use the French 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:13.000 card today, just by virtue of the fact that they 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:15.720 produced so many that it became like the dominant type 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:18.160 of card in the world. And then the other reason 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:22.160 I saw is that England eventually adopted the French card 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:25.120 and then kind of put their own twist on it, 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:29.800 basically just renaming it. And then British colonialism is one 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:32.240 reason why so many people around the world used the 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:34.800 French deck today. So they took the French deck and 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:38.320 spread it around the world. Yeah, and so the English, 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:40.440 like you said, they sort of they used the same 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:44.440 pip icons. I was about to say logo, but I 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:48.040 guess they're icons, and they just sort of changed the meaning. 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:51.440 So the clover they went back to calling it the club, 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:54.240 even though it's a clover when you look at it. 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:56.800 So that's why you've you've ever wondered, why the heck 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:59.360 did they call that thing a club. That's why it's 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:03.840 a tip to the mouth of the ogs, right, yeah, exactly. Yeah, 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:06.960 the spade looks like sort of the head of us 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:11.200 a spade, a type of shovel. But we think that 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:14.360 the suit name actually, probably, and this makes a lot 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:18.440 of sense, is the anglicized version of espada, which means 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:21.600 sword in Spanish, because sword was the original suit. And 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:23.800 then the diamond they just called the diamond. But they said, 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:26.480 you know what, this has nothing to do with dumb 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:30.040 paving tiles. Let's just call it a diamond. And as 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:33.840 Dave so aptly puts, a heart is just a herd? 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:36.200 Is that an actual song? Or are you making up 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:38.880 your aunt that just made that up? But I bet 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:40.440 you there's a song that goes a heart is just 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:44.480 a heart? Well you really, you really do that in actuality? Huh? Well, 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:47.720 that didn't really count. It's usually more like and by 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:49.160 the way, we heard from a lot of listeners who 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:53.360 do this. I know. Yeah, you're death so far from yeah, 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:55.040 I don't. I didn't think I was unique in anyway, 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:58.760 but it's Um, it's usually like sung to the lyrics 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:00.880 or sung to the tune of an other song, right, 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:03.560 like when you're a heart, You're a heart all the 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:10.160 way like that exactly. I looked up that where that 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:12.320 heart shape came from, because if you think about it, 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:17.880 our hearts don't really resemble that very much like the 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:22.440 human heart. Yes, and I know I cannot find the 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:25.040 original source. There's a lot of debate over it, but 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:29.360 it's centuries old, and prior to it, when it first 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:34.760 started to emerge, um, the heart was kind of iconogrified, 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:41.200 m agrifized. I don't know. I think you had it right, okay, 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:44.680 um as a kind of a pine cone shape. Oh, 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:47.680 which is a little more accurate. But I like the 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:51.800 new heart icon new meaning centuries old, but the most 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:54.920 recent one. Ye mean, that'd be very funny if it 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:59.000 looked like the actual human heart. Yeah, he just you know, 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:01.480 the guy in Temple of Doom just pulls out like 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:05.480 this hard emoji from the guy's chest. Uh. Should we 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:08.800 take a break? Yes, I think we should. All right, 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:10.720 We're gonna take a break and get to those face 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:39.080 cards right after this. All right, so we mentioned the courts, 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.280 and cards aka face cards is how we know them today. 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:47.200 They represented the royal court, of course, and just like today, 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:50.000 back then they were the the you know, the champion cards, 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:52.800 the most valuable on the deck. We'll get to the ace. 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:55.440 There was no ace card yet, and I think the 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:57.119 story of the ace card is pretty cool anyway, so 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:02.960 we'll save that. Uh, but these cards were all men until, 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:06.040 like you mentioned before, the French introduced the queen, and 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:08.440 here to me is one of the first really fun 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:12.720 facts of the episode that I love is for a 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:15.640 long long time, and I guess they don't do it anymore. 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:18.960 But in the UK and in British India they would 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:22.680 follow what they called Commonwealth rule or British rule, which 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:25.720 is to say that the king and the queen can 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:29.960 flip flop in which one is better in status depending 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:32.399 on who the monarch is at the time. So if 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.440 you have a woman on the throne, then the queen 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:38.640 is the top card, just below the ace or until 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:43.639 the ace was came along. Yeah, pretty cool. Yeah, agreed. Well, 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:47.520 something I didn't realize is that for many centuries, the 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:51.159 kings the queens and the jacks, which were at the 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:57.200 time called the knaves, were actually modeled on historical figures. Yeah, 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:02.240 like Charlemagne was the of hearts. I believe King David, 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:06.840 the guy who killed um Goliath, he was spades, Julius 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:10.680 Caesar was diamonds, and Alexander the Great was clubs. Had 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:12.920 no idea, but like, if you look at a super 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:17.120 old deck and I'm guessing somewhere around probably up into 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:20.520 the nineteenth century, at some point you could say, yeah, 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:24.320 of course that's Charlemagne. I'd recognize him anyway. Look at 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:27.960 that beard on King David, right, he's juggling a rock yep. 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:30.560 Do we should we go through? The queens and the 0:19:30.640 --> 0:19:33.200 jacks are just suffice to say that they stood for people. No, 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:35.920 I think we should give him a shout out. The 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:44.520 queens were Palace of Athena, Judith, Rachel, and Argene, which 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:48.480 could be an anagram for Regina. That's all over the 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:52.359 place if you if you search Argene, the only thing 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:55.000 that comes up is the card name, So there doesn't 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:58.320 seem to have been a historical person named Argene. Yeah, 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:00.560 this is one of those upon research that it's kind 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.520 of like it's difficult to corroborate some of this stuff. 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:06.560 But you see the same facts everywhere, which a lot 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:09.200 of times, you know, when we did our episode on 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:12.000 how to research stuff, well that can be a big 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:15.520 red flag. Yeah, but maybe this is a case where 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:17.320 it's not so much a red flag and just like 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:21.800 lore that people have just agreed upon. Yeah, because you know, 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:24.840 if it is, if there is a red flag attached 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:27.119 to it, we usually turn it up eventually, and this 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:29.920 one just didn't seem to have it. But yes, I'm 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:32.760 with you. It smelled like it, but upon a much 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:35.840 deeper smell, I was like, Okay, this might this might 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:39.240 actually work. Who were the jacks? The jacks were Hector, 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:42.639 who was the hero from the Greek city of Troy, 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:47.320 Etienne de Vignoles, who was a hero of the Hundred 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:51.280 Years War in France. Okay, Ogier the Dane who was 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:57.480 Charlemagne's night and either Judah maccabee or Lancelot was the 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:02.200 Nave of clubs, and Jude mcabee was from the Hannakas story. 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:06.200 Lancelot was one of King Arthur. Yeah, the Maccabees. So yeah, 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:08.280 if depending on the deck you had it would it 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:10.879 would basically you would you just knew back in the 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:12.639 day that if you're playing the King of Hearts, that 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:15.560 was Charlemagne right there. It wasn't just this yeah, generic 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:20.960 weird looking king. Um, it was supposed to be somebody, Yeah, 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:26.600 a brand name king exactly. And speaking of brand name kings, 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:30.240 the god to talk about the suicide king, definitely, that 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:32.800 is the king that looks like he's stabbing himself in 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:35.600 the head with a sword. That is the one if 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.000 you're looking at a modern deck of cards, that's the 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:40.400 King of Hearts, And that's the one that looks most 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:43.280 different from the other kings in that he has four 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:47.960 hands and does not have the mustache, which is interesting. Yeah, 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:50.280 and like I said, appears to be stabbing himself with 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:53.359 a sword. For a long time, there was a legend 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:56.600 that that's how Charlemagne took his life, but we know 0:21:56.720 --> 0:22:01.080 that's not true, right because he died of pleurisy. But 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:06.480 what they now think is that the early French decks 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:09.679 Anglo French decks had a King of Hearts with an 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:13.280 axe above his head, and that just printing over time, 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:16.040 the axe went kind of further and further down until 0:22:16.080 --> 0:22:18.400 it was behind his head such that you couldn't even 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:22.080 see the axe blade, and so I guess that axe 0:22:22.200 --> 0:22:24.680 handle just became a sword, looking like it was going 0:22:24.720 --> 0:22:26.720 into the king's head. Yeah. And now that you know, 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:29.600 so like that axe was originally it was like the 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:32.480 King of Hearts was captured in the back swing, like 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:35.720 he was about to chop somebody with his axe, right, yeah. Yeah, 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:38.080 And now if you know that, you can see that 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:41.120 the King of Hearts is now just doing the same 0:22:41.160 --> 0:22:44.120 thing with a sword. He's in the back swing. Yeah, 0:22:45.800 --> 0:22:49.520 lob someone's head off, right, but not his own. Yeah, either. 0:22:49.600 --> 0:22:53.359 One The important point is someone's head is about to 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:56.000 come off. They don't care whether it's lob or lop. 0:22:57.000 --> 0:23:00.560 Look at that. No mustache, Yeah, no mustache. And one 0:23:00.640 --> 0:23:04.080 other thing, the King of Diamonds now is the only 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:07.159 one with an axe, which I never noticed before. I 0:23:07.280 --> 0:23:10.240 didn't either. I mean, you don't often, or at least 0:23:10.280 --> 0:23:12.639 I don't often sit around and look at it a 0:23:12.800 --> 0:23:16.360 deck of cards like I play cards, but I never 0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:18.360 study them because it's sort of one of those things 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:22.560 that's so ubiquitous in your life over the years that 0:23:22.680 --> 0:23:26.680 you don't really it's interesting. Might tie into our semantic 0:23:26.800 --> 0:23:32.120 assaciation short stuff coming up. Nice tease. But let's talk 0:23:32.119 --> 0:23:35.440 about that Ace card, because it took a while for 0:23:35.560 --> 0:23:37.280 the Ace, and it has a really neat story of 0:23:37.400 --> 0:23:39.200 how it happened. But it took a while for the 0:23:39.240 --> 0:23:43.120 Ace to become the high card because when the Ace 0:23:43.200 --> 0:23:46.520 eventually did come along, it was the number one and 0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:49.280 it was the lowest card. It was the worst card 0:23:49.320 --> 0:23:53.120 on the deck. It was so lowly that they referred 0:23:53.160 --> 0:23:56.399 to it as an AS, which was the least valuable 0:23:56.480 --> 0:24:00.960 coin in the Roman Empire. But then the French changed that, right, yeah, 0:24:01.160 --> 0:24:03.720