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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 Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy. Today we're going

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Speaker 1: to start our episode with a housekeeping tip from King Ludwig,

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Speaker 1: the second builder of Neuche Bonstein and patron of Wagner.

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Speaker 1: Sarah take it from here, all right. So, if you

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Speaker 1: enjoy really opulent multi course dinners with your imaginary friends,

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Speaker 1: but you don't want a bunch of servants and footman

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Speaker 1: interrupting the changing of the course, is interrupting the service,

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Speaker 1: you should install a trap door dinner table. So that way,

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Speaker 1: when you're done with your plate, or when Louis fourteenth

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Speaker 1: is done with his plate, you simply press a button

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Speaker 1: and then wait in your settings will descend into the floor,

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Speaker 1: and soon enough the whole table will reappear, freshly laid out,

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Speaker 1: new food, new plates, and you can get back to

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Speaker 1: entertaining your guests. That is a true story, and it's

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Speaker 1: no wonder that Ludwig is part of a popularly requested

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Speaker 1: trio of topics, the king himself, his castles, and his composer.

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Speaker 1: And there's a lot of lovable weirdness here in this story,

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Speaker 1: and some eccentricities, plus some enormous building projects and bizarre

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Speaker 1: royal families, which you know how much we love those,

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Speaker 1: and you know who knows. We might even mention our

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Speaker 1: most favorite theme of all, which are most loyal listeners

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Speaker 1: will know what that is right away. But to start off,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna go for another common theme, which is sad

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Speaker 1: royal childhoods. So Ludvig the Second, who is also known

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Speaker 1: as Louis the Second, was born in Munich at Nimfenburg

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Speaker 1: Palace on August, which interestingly was the same day and

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Speaker 1: same hour that his grandfather and namesake was born, and

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Speaker 1: he is a vital Spock, a member of Europe's longest

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Speaker 1: ruling dynasty. They ruled Bavaria continuously from eleven eighty to

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen, which is when the last of their line

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Speaker 1: was forced to abdicate at the end of World War One,

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Speaker 1: and initially this family ruled as dukes and duke electors.

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Speaker 1: Some were Holy Roman emperors, but by eighteen o six

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Speaker 1: their duchy is raised to a kingdom by Napoleon and

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Speaker 1: they become kings. Max the First, Ludvig the Second Great

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Speaker 1: grandfather is the first vittle spot king, but Livig grandfather,

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Speaker 1: King Ludvig the First, is more famous for his womanizing

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Speaker 1: than anything else, and he's even decorated the Nippenberg Palace

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Speaker 1: with portraits of all these gorgeous society women. It's called

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Speaker 1: the Gallery of Beauties. You can still see it today.

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Speaker 1: I liked author Michael White described it as a room

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Speaker 1: of high class pin ups. But um, this is a

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Speaker 1: pretty conservative state, so people would like their king to

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Speaker 1: at least keep this discreet. And he loses it completely

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Speaker 1: when he meets Lola Montez, who is a beautiful old

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Speaker 1: Irish woman who's pretending to be a Spanish aristocrat. She

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Speaker 1: is a trip. We have to cover her in a

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Speaker 1: later punchet, Yeah, we we might, And they have this

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Speaker 1: very open relationship. People really don't like it, and the

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Speaker 1: king is forced to abdicate in favor of his son,

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Speaker 1: Maximilian the Second, and this is of course Lidvig the

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Speaker 1: seconds father. So Maximilian is not a big fan of

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Speaker 1: being a king though he would really rather be a

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Speaker 1: professor study read books. And he's also not interested in

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Speaker 1: his son. So this gives you a little background on

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Speaker 1: what Lidvig's childhood is going to be like and his mother,

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Speaker 1: Marie of Prussia, is exactly the opposite of her husband

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Speaker 1: in every way except one. But she's also completely uninterested

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Speaker 1: in her children and spends maybe an hour a day

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Speaker 1: with them at the very most. She's athletic and pretty

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Speaker 1: and is proud to say that she's never read a book.

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Speaker 1: So I don't think she can hang with us there, No,

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Speaker 1: not at all. We should also say that Livig's parents

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Speaker 1: are cousins, and that his family, aside from his parents

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Speaker 1: being cousins, is severely inbred. Another thing to keep in

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Speaker 1: mind as we go on. So Little Ludwig becomes heir

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Speaker 1: to the throne at two and a half, and life

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Speaker 1: is pretty sad for a crown prince. He's lonely, he's neglected.

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Speaker 1: He's also pampered though, because every wish must be catered to,

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Speaker 1: and he's very undisciplined. And the birth of his brother

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Speaker 1: Otto only further splits this very limited attention, and especially

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Speaker 1: this is bad when Otto starts to suffer from hallucinations

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Speaker 1: and requires a lot more care and attention than Livic himself.

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Speaker 1: And his childhood, as Sarah points out, is actually a

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Speaker 1: lot like the palace he was born in. It's very formal,

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Speaker 1: it's grand, but it's also isolated. And so perhaps it's

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Speaker 1: no wonder that he turns to elaborate reimaginings of medieval

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Speaker 1: architecture as an adult. But since architecture is such an

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Speaker 1: important part of Ludvig's later life, we should into a

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Speaker 1: little more detail about his childhood architecture. He grows up

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Speaker 1: around the Victuals Box. Official home is in Munich. They

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Speaker 1: don't spend or at least Ludvig doesn't spend a terribly

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Speaker 1: large amount of time there because being in Munich means

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Speaker 1: work in business, and two didn't do a lot of family.

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Speaker 1: And Livig instead grows up at Hohenschwangau, which is about

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Speaker 1: forty miles away from Munich, and it was a palace

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Speaker 1: built by his father, and the walls there are covered

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Speaker 1: in murals of German legends and you can actually see

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Speaker 1: these today, they're still there. And uh, these legends, along

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Speaker 1: with biblical stories, really fuel this poor lonely young boy's imagination.

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Speaker 1: So you're bored at home, you read some Bible stories,

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Speaker 1: maybe you dress up like a nun. This is what

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Speaker 1: he does and are shy imaginative boy is also really

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Speaker 1: obsessed with his own power. It's not all these sweet

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Speaker 1: imaginative At one point, he tries to strangle his younger

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Speaker 1: brother and instead of apologizing, he says that Otto is

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Speaker 1: his vassal and had disobeyed him. And he steals from

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Speaker 1: a shop and tells the governess it doesn't matter because

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Speaker 1: everything will belong to him someday. So very healthy mindset. Yeah, So,

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Speaker 1: becoming Crown Princess Ataler was obviously the first major event

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Speaker 1: in Livig's life, really shaping who he became in his future.

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Speaker 1: But the second major event in his life is his

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Speaker 1: discovery of Richard Wagner at age thirteen. And I'm really

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Speaker 1: tempted to talk more about the composer in a later

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Speaker 1: episode because he's really interesting and really controversial, but for now,

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Speaker 1: we're just going to say that Ludvig loved Wagner in

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Speaker 1: caps on my outline. Yeah, he wants to be Wagner's

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Speaker 1: Swan Knight. He loves the music, he loves the big,

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Speaker 1: elaborate theatrical sets, and most of all, he loves the

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Speaker 1: stories because, after all, a lot of Wagner's music is

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Speaker 1: based on those same Teutonic legends that Lidvig has literally

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Speaker 1: grown up seeing around his bedroom walls. Yes, his imagination

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Speaker 1: comes to life in a moody teenager. And our moody

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Speaker 1: teenager became a moody king when his father died in

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty four, possibly of syphilist This might be our

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Speaker 1: other new theme. And eighteen year old Lidvig inherits the throne.

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Speaker 1: And he looks like a king. He's very tall, he's

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Speaker 1: six four, he's slender, he has a thick, curly black hair.

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Speaker 1: He's extremely handsome. He looks like what Prince Charming should be.

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Speaker 1: People go crazy when they see him during the funeral procession.

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Speaker 1: And he's a romantic hero as well as the king. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it almost only helps that he's so moody and so bookish.

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Speaker 1: It adds to this the handsome, brooding men exactly so.

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Speaker 1: Like we said earlier, though, he's really obsessed with Wagner,

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Speaker 1: and one of the first matters of business when he's

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Speaker 1: king is to send for the composer, and the very

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Speaker 1: indebted Wagner moves to Munich, makes all these immediate financial

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Speaker 1: demands like I need a new theater. King Ludwig, and

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Speaker 1: Ludvig is happy to oblige the politicians. However, um freak out.

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Speaker 1: To put it in nice historical terms, they're also getting

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Speaker 1: really worried, not only because Ldvig is spending so much

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Speaker 1: money on this composer, but because Ludvig really loves Wagner

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Speaker 1: like I loves loves Yes. He writes sham passionate letters,

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Speaker 1: and Wagner, who's smart enough to work his job, returns

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Speaker 1: in kind. Wagner at the time is of course hooking

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Speaker 1: up with his mistress and future wife, Kalsima, who's the

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Speaker 1: daughter of Frm's list and the woman largely responsible for

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Speaker 1: later creating the cult of Wagner, and once the team

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Speaker 1: king told Wagner that he would give up his king

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Speaker 1: ship and come live with him, Wagner realized perhaps things

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Speaker 1: have gone a little too far, had to talk him down,

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Speaker 1: hides the woman in his bed, and eventually the Bavarian

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Speaker 1: cabinet says that enough is enough, and Wagner is kicked

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Speaker 1: out after a year. Yeah, we don't want another Lola Montez, everybody,

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Speaker 1: so moving on from this early infatuation, Ludwig seeks consolation

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Speaker 1: in his best friend who is this cousin Sissy also

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Speaker 1: the Empress of Austria, and she's a little out there too,

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Speaker 1: like a lot of the victuals box. She suffers from interaxia,

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Speaker 1: she suffers from manic depression. But she really understands Ludwig,

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Speaker 1: and she understands the problems he's facing and is able

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Speaker 1: to talk to him. You know. They write letters to

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Speaker 1: each other, and suddenly he's engaged to her little sister, Sophie.

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Speaker 1: And you might wonder how this extremely awkward young man

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Speaker 1: comes together with this beautiful young woman and their apparent interests.

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Speaker 1: Shared interest was Wagner, of course, and I feel like

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Speaker 1: today they would meet on some sort of internet message board.

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Speaker 1: If we're both attractive and we both love Wagner, we

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Speaker 1: should probably get married. So they get their official photos

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Speaker 1: made up, they planned the wedding, and then he starts

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Speaker 1: to get cold feet, and he pushes back the wedding date.

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Speaker 1: He asks his doctor to certify him as unfit to marry,

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Speaker 1: and finally he tells Sophie that there is not the

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Speaker 1: love which is necessary for a matrimonial union. So burn Sophie,

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Speaker 1: And that, of course is because he was probably gay

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Speaker 1: and in addition to his obsession with Wagner and his

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Speaker 1: secret diaries disclosed liaisons with lots of actors and maybe

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Speaker 1: some military officers, and they were destroyed in World War Two.

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Speaker 1: But a lot of his inner turmoil seems to have

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Speaker 1: come from guilt about his sexuality, because he was a

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Speaker 1: devout Catholic. But this is an all to say that

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Speaker 1: Ludvig is totally isolated from matters of state. At this

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Speaker 1: point of what we've described so far might sound like

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Speaker 1: somebody who isn't going to work every day, um, But

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Speaker 1: that isolation really comes later. In eighteen sixty six, he

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Speaker 1: actually enters the Seven Weeks War on the side of

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Speaker 1: Austria against Prussia. UM. But at the defeat of Austria

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Speaker 1: he signs an alliance with Prussia and works to reconcile

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Speaker 1: these two big powers in Germany. So this alliance with

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Speaker 1: Prussia comes into play in eighteen seventy when there's a

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Speaker 1: war against France and he sticks with Prussia, avoiding a

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Speaker 1: potential Franco Austrian Bavarian alliance and Prussia wins, and then

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Speaker 1: at the urging of Bismarck, Ludvig actually helps put out

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Speaker 1: the call to all the other princes of Germany to

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Speaker 1: unite into this German Empire under the rule of the

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Speaker 1: Prussian king, who is from there on out known as

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Speaker 1: the Kaiser. But Ludvig is kind of disappointed with aspects

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Speaker 1: of this new arrangement. It's not exactly what he had

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Speaker 1: hoped it would be. His territory isn't expanded, and you know,

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Speaker 1: as as one of the kings who's not the Kaiser,

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Speaker 1: he doesn't have as much power as he liked. And

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Speaker 1: he thought there would maybe be some sort of sharing

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Speaker 1: of the crown between his state and Prussia, and that's

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Speaker 1: not how it worked out. So he's still King of Bavaria,

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Speaker 1: but now it's just a state and not a kingdom.

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Speaker 1: And again he's a bit of a figurehead, so you

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Speaker 1: know why bother he retreats into increased solitude. And what

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Speaker 1: do you do when you don't really have a kingdom

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Speaker 1: to run, you don't have your composer to live with,

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Speaker 1: and you really don't want to get married. You build

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Speaker 1: your own kublican right or three of them. Soldvig builds

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Speaker 1: three castles and designs three more, and they occupy him

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Speaker 1: during his increasingly isolated life. That starts in the eighteen

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Speaker 1: seventies and from this point on he's mostly alone. He

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Speaker 1: dines alone, he goes to his theatrical performance as a own.

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Speaker 1: He switches to this vampire like nocturnal schedule where he

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Speaker 1: gets up at five pm UM. But his first major

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Speaker 1: building project, he doesn't. He doesn't start off right away

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Speaker 1: with a huge castle. He starts off with a remodeling project,

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Speaker 1: and that's redecorating his father's castle and his childhood home

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Speaker 1: at hohen Schwamgau. And he must have caught a nice

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Speaker 1: view from there because he starts to plan a bigger project,

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Speaker 1: which of course is Nisch von Stein across the lake.

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Speaker 1: And this is seriously the Disney Castle. And while it's

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Speaker 1: not the most elaborate of his creations, it's definitely the

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Speaker 1: most recognizable. It's a reimagining of what a medieval castle

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Speaker 1: looks like with plenty of French Rococo and Bavarian Baroque

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Speaker 1: thrown in. And it's planned by a theatrical designer, not

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Speaker 1: an architect, and it's basically Wagner themed, with Swan shaped

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Speaker 1: taps and an indoor grotto from Venusberg. The opening apparition

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Speaker 1: in Wagner's opera Townhouser, and it takes seventeen years to construct.

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Speaker 1: It's actually never finished, and Ludvig only spends about six

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Speaker 1: months their total all added up together. So the next

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Speaker 1: place he builds is Linderhof, which is of homey or

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Speaker 1: sort of residents, and it's about twelve miles from Nu Schwanstein,

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Speaker 1: and he builds it between eighteen sixty nine and seventy eight,

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Speaker 1: and it's actually modeled on China on though so not

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Speaker 1: terribly homy to most of the still an elaborate palace.

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Speaker 1: He really liked the Bourbons. His coaches and his slaves

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Speaker 1: were staffed by coachman dressed in reproduction Louis the fourteenth Livery.

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Speaker 1: He would spend about two weeks of every month at

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Speaker 1: this house and had a harmonium set up for Wagner

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Speaker 1: along with that disappearing table we mentioned in the intro.

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Speaker 1: But it's here that he starts all the weird stuff,

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Speaker 1: waking up at five pm, dining with his imaginary friends,

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Speaker 1: then going out for midnight carriage rides as he again

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Speaker 1: just retreats more and more from society, but he sticks

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Speaker 1: with the Wagner theme for this place. To Linderhoff has

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Speaker 1: the Venus Grotto another Venus grotto imagined again from town Hauser,

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Speaker 1: and he would row around in the man made lake

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Speaker 1: on this gilded seashell. You can look up pictures of this.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. Sara sent me one today and we

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Speaker 1: decided that might be a better use of our time.

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Speaker 1: And the lake is actually illuminated by one of Bavaria's

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Speaker 1: first power plants, because who wants a dark, creepy cave

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Speaker 1: made out of plaster needs to have all these cool

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Speaker 1: blue and red lights. It also had a moorish pavilion

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Speaker 1: with a peacock theme perfect for opium smoking if you're

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Speaker 1: so inclined, and a hunting cabin with plenty of faux

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Speaker 1: wood stumps and fake trees again Disney Alert. But his

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Speaker 1: final big project was Haren Hemsey, which was constructed between

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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy eight and eighteen eighty five. And this time

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Speaker 1: you really honors the Bourbons and even tries to upstage

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Speaker 1: them because the castle is a copy of their PSI,

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Speaker 1: only bigger and better. Yeah, it has an even grander

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Speaker 1: hall of mirrors where he would read under the light

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Speaker 1: of seventy nine candelabras with one thousand, eight hundred forty

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Speaker 1: eight candles. It seems like you need a lot of

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Speaker 1: servants for that. Or he would take a bath in

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Speaker 1: this marble tub that took eight hours to heat and fill.

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Speaker 1: And we didn't mention this yet either. The castle was

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Speaker 1: built on an island in the middle of an Alpine lake,

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Speaker 1: a very exclusive island. I would imagine, a very exclusive island.

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Speaker 1: It's gonna make it harder to build too, if you

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Speaker 1: have to row everything out to the island well, and

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Speaker 1: this castle is his downfall. Only twenty of the seventy

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Speaker 1: rooms are finished. It cost more to build than nishevon

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Speaker 1: Stein and Linderhoff together, and he only spends nine nights there,

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Speaker 1: so multiply these candles by nine nights exactly. So this

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Speaker 1: makes us come to the question how did Ludwig pay

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Speaker 1: for all this? And initially he financed these castles himself.

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Speaker 1: He saw himself as a modern son king, and accordingly

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Speaker 1: he thought he needed to celebrate this through the construction

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Speaker 1: of castles through the patronage of artists such as Wagner

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Speaker 1: and others. But it's not that long before he runs

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Speaker 1: out of money. Obviously, he starts to borrow in his

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Speaker 1: own pay way way ahead. He tries to get loans

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Speaker 1: from the Shawl of Iran, from the Turkish Sultan, from

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Speaker 1: the Duke of Westminster. He even orders his cabinet to

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Speaker 1: find loans and is very threatening and forceful when they're

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Speaker 1: coming up short. And so by eighteen eighty six he's

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Speaker 1: being sued for debt, which is terribly embarrassing, and he

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Speaker 1: has this hair brand plan to rob a London bank.

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Speaker 1: Doesn't work out, so the government is starting to get

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Speaker 1: seriously worried, like is our king crazy or is he

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Speaker 1: just spending way too much money? Either way, this has

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Speaker 1: got to stop. He was certainly lonely, he told an

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Speaker 1: aide de camp. Sometimes I call one of the domestic

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Speaker 1: servants or postilions and asked him to tell me about

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Speaker 1: his home and his family, otherwise I would completely forget

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Speaker 1: the art of speech. And in his private journals he

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Speaker 1: appeals to dead rulers for help. Louis the fourteenth, Charles

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Speaker 1: the first of England. These are his friends, and it's

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Speaker 1: interesting a lot of the stuff I read about these

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Speaker 1: castles and about Ludvig. Apparently the tour guides refrain from

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Speaker 1: calling him the mad King anymore, which has long been

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Speaker 1: his nickname. It makes sense. It's not a very nice

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Speaker 1: thing to call someone. Sorry for using it in our title.

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Speaker 1: Little Eccentric is more often used today. But his family

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Speaker 1: definitely has some mental health issues. His brother Otto, who

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Speaker 1: we mentioned at the beginning, is schizophrenic and he's put

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Speaker 1: into an asylum. His aunt Alexandra is put into a

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Speaker 1: convent because she's positive she's swallowed a glass grand piano.

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Speaker 1: But if Livig is crazy, he's very lucid at times too.

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Speaker 1: He writes these eloquent letters, he studies French history and literature,

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Speaker 1: and he's even politically astute when he actually tries, you know,

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Speaker 1: when he's not worrying about his castle castles or his

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Speaker 1: opera and actually gets to work. Well. His best friend,

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Speaker 1: I think, says it best Sissy, and she said he's

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Speaker 1: not mad enough to be locked up, but to abnormal

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Speaker 1: to manage comfortably in the world with reasonable people. So

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Speaker 1: that's the assessment from the person who knew knew him

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Speaker 1: better than anyone. Yeah. So finally the fiddles Box, worried

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Speaker 1: that Livig would bankrupt their family, go to the Prime

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Speaker 1: Minister and say that, well, you know, we'd be okay

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Speaker 1: if you deposed the king, and so a panel of

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Speaker 1: doctors declare living insane without seeing him. It's kind of

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Speaker 1: like the tabloid um. And the noted chiatrist doctor Bernhard

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Speaker 1: von Gutten is one of these, and so on June tenth,

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Speaker 1: Prince Leopold, who is Ludwig's uncle, declares himself Prince Regent

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Speaker 1: and Otto will be king officially, Otto the first and

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Speaker 1: Lidvig is at Nisch von Stein when the delegation finally

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Speaker 1: comes to arrest him, and the soldiers and peasants try

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Speaker 1: to stop them, try to save Ludwig, but he's led away.

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Speaker 1: He's taken to the viddles Box castle Berg, which is

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Speaker 1: on Lake Starnberg, and he's attended there by the doctor,

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Speaker 1: and that's when things start to get kind of weird.

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Speaker 1: On June thirteenth, he asks to attend mass but is refused,

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Speaker 1: and later in the day, after a huge meal lots

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Speaker 1: of wine, he gets Dr Gooden to walk along the

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Speaker 1: lake with him, but they don't come back, and a

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Speaker 1: search party finds that the king has drowned face up,

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Speaker 1: which is strange because he was a very good swimmer.

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Speaker 1: He was only in four ft of water. Dr Gooden

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Speaker 1: is also dead, so what happened there? Obviously a lot

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Speaker 1: of theories about this, and the main assumption for many

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Speaker 1: years is that the king committed suicide because he had

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Speaker 1: no future. He was essentially a prisoner, and Dr Guten

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Speaker 1: drowned trying to save him. Others have suggested that he

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Speaker 1: was perhaps trying to cross the lake to meet people

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Speaker 1: sent by Sissy and escaped to Austria and escaped to her,

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Speaker 1: and then others say he was murdered, maybe even that

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Speaker 1: he was shot and not drowned at all, And we

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Speaker 1: would probably no more I feel if we opened his

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Speaker 1: crypt in Munich at St. Michael's. All of the victuals

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Speaker 1: box are interred there and they have identical cripts, but

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Speaker 1: his stands out because it's always covered with flowers. And

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Speaker 1: he's still very popular despite the fact that he nearly

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Speaker 1: bankrupted his family. His castles are to a among Bavaria's

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Speaker 1: main attractions. Who doesn't want to go see the Sleeping

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Speaker 1: Beauty Castle? Yeah? Well, and interestingly they started to become

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Speaker 1: these major attractions. I think within weeks after his death

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Speaker 1: people were paying to go to them. So in the

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Speaker 1: long run, it's been a pretty good investment for Bavaria.

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Speaker 1: I'd say Ludvig's own memorial is far simpler than any

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Speaker 1: of these castles. It's across in the lake at the

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Speaker 1: spot where he drowned that Sarah and I were talking about.

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Speaker 1: It's always so strange for us to talk about these

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Speaker 1: subjects who are supposedly so well loved. We keep reading,

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Speaker 1: you know, the well loved so and so, but we

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Speaker 1: have no idea how these people are actually viewed in

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Speaker 1: their own country. Yeah, if you're in Bavaria, let us

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Speaker 1: know what you think about Ludwig. It always says a

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Speaker 1: little funny thing. Supposedly you people love this guy, but

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe not. It's easy enough to see though,

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Speaker 1: why he would be so well loved. He's a gentle

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Speaker 1: pacifist king. He's extremely eccentric, but that only makes him

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Speaker 1: more interesting. It's also always interesting, like we talked about

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Speaker 1: in our Emperor Norton podcast, to try to diagnose people

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Speaker 1: posthumously and figure out what sort of mental illness Ludwig

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Speaker 1: was grappling with any was in fact anything at all,

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Speaker 1: And that's one of the reasons I think people are

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Speaker 1: so interested him. That end, his gorgeous castle and this

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Speaker 1: mysterious fate that we simply do not have the answer to. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: that mention of Norton brings us to listener mail. So

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Speaker 1: our first emails from Derek in California, and he was

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Speaker 1: of course writing about the Emperor Norton podcast and he

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Speaker 1: actually mentioned that he's seen Norton's grave that would want

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Speaker 1: cemetery before. But his message was mostly about how his

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Speaker 1: father is a part of the historical society e Clampus Vitas,

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Speaker 1: and he said that they have gatherings that go on

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Speaker 1: for a couple of days, they involve a fair amount

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Speaker 1: of alcohol, and that this idea itself was formed during

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Speaker 1: the gold Rush. But probably the most interesting part is

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Speaker 1: he said that one of their slogans is no Known Cure,

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Speaker 1: which means that after you complete your initiation ceremony, which

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Speaker 1: is kept secret to everyone outside of the group, then

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Speaker 1: you were a member for life. So he's hoping for

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Speaker 1: a podcast on this group. Um, let us know what

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Speaker 1: you guys think. Cool historical society, but I don't know,

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Speaker 1: maybe we should form our our own historical a drinking

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Speaker 1: one or irregular type. I have another Grave of visiting email.

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Speaker 1: It's from Kyle and he recently went on a tour

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Speaker 1: of St. Louis Cemetery number one and visited Marie Lebo's

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Speaker 1: grave and sent us all kinds of pictures. But he

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Speaker 1: also said while on the tour, the tour guide told

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Speaker 1: the story of the wishing on her grave. She said

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Speaker 1: that when your wish came true, you were supposed to

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Speaker 1: come back and circle your exes, and none of the

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Speaker 1: exes are circled, as you can see from the pictures

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Speaker 1: he sent us. She did encourage us to make a

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Speaker 1: wish on her tomb, though without the desecration part. And

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Speaker 1: he said also that he'd included a picture of a

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Speaker 1: ridiculous looking pyramid shaped tomb that is the future resting

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Speaker 1: place of Nicholas Cage. Oh dear, it's it's hard to

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Speaker 1: follow that. If you would like to send us any

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Speaker 1: cool pictures are interesting facts where at history podcast how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. We're also on Twitter and Facebook

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Speaker 1: if you want to find out what we're up to.

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Speaker 1: Our Twitter is missed in history, and please feel free

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Speaker 1: to check out our homepage. We've got a cool article

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Speaker 1: on castles if you search for it at www dot

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00:25:31,720 --> 00:25:35,800
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com For more on this and

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00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:38,960
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Visit how stuff works dot com

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00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:40,680
Speaker 1: and be sure to check out the stuff you missed

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Speaker 1: in History Glass Blog on the how stuff works dot

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Speaker 1: com home page