WEBVTT - 9 Head-spinning Facts about Hats 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:04.279 Guess what, mango. So in reading up for today's episode, 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:06.720 I stumbled into this story about the old trick of 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:09.319 pulling a rabbit out of the hat. Huh. And you know, 0:00:09.320 --> 0:00:12.039 while there's some dispute over who first created that trick, 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:15.239 it apparently debuted in the eighteen thirties, and it goes 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:17.560 all the way back to Mary Toft. Do you do 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:20.000 you know Mary Toft? I'm not sure I remember. I 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:22.520 wish you a magician. No, she was this legendary con 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:25.280 artist from the eighteenth century, and she managed to trick 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:29.360 doctors into believing she'd given birth to sixteen live rabbits. 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:32.000 Now why she wanted to trick them into thinking she'd 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:34.640 given birth to sixteen rabbits, I'm not sure, but she 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:37.760 managed to hold the doctors and even the royal family 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:39.760 at the time. But part of the reason she was 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:43.120 eventually discovered was that someone spotted her husband buying all 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:46.559 these baby rabbits just on the slide. Anyway, once it 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:49.919 was established that she was a fraud, magicians started parroting 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.760 her trick. In fact, in early renditions, they wouldn't just 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:54.720 pull one rabbit out of a hat, but a bunch 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:57.080 of them, which is so weird that magicians still do 0:00:57.120 --> 0:00:59.400 that rabbit and a hat trick right like it's a staple. 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.000 I know. But that's actually just the first of nine 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:04.120 hat facts that we've got for you today. So let's 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:28.000 dig in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:30.000 I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:32.320 good friend man guest Ticketer and on the other side 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:34.920 of the soundproof glass wearing a wide brimmed hat from 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:38.679 the what is that the Hamburglar collection is impressive? That's 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:41.840 our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. And of course we've 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.000 got our pal and had researcher Gabe Bluesier on the 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:46.280 line with us as well. How's it going Gabe? Hey, guys, 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:49.200 thanks for having me on. It's going well well because 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:51.640 I kicked off today's episode. How about I throw it 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:54.600 to you, Gabe for your first fact? Sure? All right? 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.600 Uh So, a year before he was killed, President Lincoln 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:02.600 had actually had another assassination attempt on his life, and 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:05.640 this was in August of eighteen sixty four. He was 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:09.000 out riding a horse who happened to be named Old Abe. 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:12.120 Also by the way, and uh he was three miles 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:14.240 away from the White House when someone took a pot 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:16.800 shot at him and the bullet just missed him, clipping 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:19.799 his stovepipe hat off his head, and the two abes 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:22.919 took off, and when soldiers found the hat later on, 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:27.240 they discovered that the bullet had gone right through the crown, which, 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:29.760 you know, it led everyone to believe that the lucky 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.960 top hat had actually saved his life. Oh wow, all right, 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:35.280 well that's a pretty crazy story. Okay, mango, what's your 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:38.800 first fact? Well, you know, since since Gabe had one 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:41.280 about Lincoln, I actually have one of Lincoln's hat as well, 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:44.639 and it's unfortunate that he wasn't wearing his lucky hat 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:47.240 at the FOURD Theater and instead it was sitting by 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:50.280 his feet during that performance. But that had actually has 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.720 its own story. So after the assassination Mary Todd, Lincoln 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:57.079 sent the President's hat to the Smithsonian, where there were 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:00.440 strict orders not to exhibit the hat under any circule stance, 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:03.520 and apparently they thought viewing the hat might induce too 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:06.560 much hysterian the public. So only a few people knew 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:09.000 about it, and for thirty years it was just hidden 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:11.800 away in the basement of the Smithsonian before it was rediscovered, 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:14.400 and of course today it's considered one of the Smithsonian's 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:16.920 most prized possessions. Yeah, I'd love to do a tour 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:19.720 one day of like the underground of the Smithsonian, not 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:21.200 just because like what do you see in the movies, 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:24.960 but there actually are just a ton of artistles. It's 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:26.680 just amazing. I don't know where you came up with 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:31.920 drawers full of birds. You haven't see that photo. It's amazing. 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:34.680 It's like this massive hall and they're like a few 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:38.360 curators who have just opened all the drawers and it's like, 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:40.360 like I want to say, hundreds of thousands of birds, 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:46.080 like just stuffed in for this hopefully dead. Well, I 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:47.600 did not know about that. We're going to have to 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:50.760 do an episode. I just didn't expect that to be 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:53.520 the response, Like all these things underground, you're like drawers 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:57.480 full of birds. Yeah, alright, Well back to the hats. 0:03:57.480 --> 0:03:59.160 I've actually got a weird one here. So have you 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:02.840 guys ever heard of the straw hat riots? Well, apparently 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:05.440 on September fifteen, that used to be a big day 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:08.520 for the hating community, known as felt Hat Day, and 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:11.200 it's when men switched over from wearing summer straw hats 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:13.480 for winter ones, and actually if you wore a hat 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:16.840 after that date, you were basically asking to get made 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:19.320 fun of. In fact, for a while, young hooligans in 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:21.640 New York City would use sticks and nails at the 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:24.400 end to fish these straw hats off, you know, passers 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:26.800 by that had them on, and then they would stomp 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:30.360 them flat, like really really nice kids. But in n 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:33.960 this felt hat day, hooliganism got out of hand, and 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:36.479 so many boys were out there stomping these hats that 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.200 the police were called in. There was a subhead in 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:42.400 the New York Tribune that read, quote, many youthful marauders 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:45.760 are arrested and seven are spanked by irate parents at 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:48.960 station like that. They counted the number of them who 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:51.159 were spanked. Anyway, I think it's safe to say that 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:55.040 they learned their lesson from this event. Alright, mano, what 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:58.680 do you got next? So? Uh, this is just something 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:00.760 I found that I thought was funny. It's in honor 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:04.000 of George Orwell's a hundred tenth birthday. These two Dutch 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:07.000 artists in the city of Utrecht decided to celebrate his 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:11.600 legacy by putting little party hats on all the city's 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:15.200 surveillance cameras, and uh, it's really funny. You should look 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:17.479 these pictures up because all these sort of like Big 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:19.840 Brother lenses around the town are all dressed up in 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:23.200 these super festive party hats. And the whole thing made 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:26.120 the cameras look ridiculous, but it actually drew attention and 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.479 it made people realize how much they're actually being constantly watched. Yeah, 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:31.719 oh that's pretty cool, all right. Actually, you know what, 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:33.280 there was another fact. I know we need to get 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:35.359 back to gay for another fact, but I meant to 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:37.960 mention this one after you talked about Lincoln's had I 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:41.240 know we talked about Lincoln's lost hat, but apparently Jackie 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:44.800 Kennedy's iconic pillbox hat has also gone missing. So while 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:46.640 her pink suit is an a vault in Maryland, it 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:49.440 supposedly won't be shown for a hundred years, but her 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:52.800 matching hat is nowhere to be found. Some hat conspiracy 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:56.320 theorists think that Jackieo's personal secretary, Mary Gallagher, that she 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:59.200 used to blame. She was the last one scene holding it, 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:00.840 and they think she might have sold it in an 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:05.120 online auction to you know, some fancy had collector or something. Yeah, 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:07.599 you just never know. But Mary has been spotted putting 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:11.240 Kennedy memorabilia up for auction before. Actually, so this could 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:14.320 actually be the case, but she's refused to discuss the matter. 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:17.400 That's crazy, alright, gay, but I feel like Mango and 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:18.920 I were hogging it for a minute. We want to 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.080 come back to you got another hat fact for us? Yeah, 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:24.760 here's a quick one, actually, um, and that's that Daniel 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:28.880 Boone didn't actually wear a coon skin cap, so most 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:32.200 of the time he wore a beaver hat. And in fact, 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:34.839 that's where the whole thing started. So when an artist 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:38.240 named Chester Harding painted Boone, he painted him in an 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:41.600 accurate beaver hat. But then when the princes of that 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:46.159 painting were sold, they hired a Daniel Boone impersonator to 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:50.600 hawk those prints. And unfortunately the impersonator you know, couldn't 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:53.400 afford a beaver hat, or maybe he just couldn't find one, 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:56.200 but either way, he showed up to sell in a 0:06:56.320 --> 0:07:00.360 lesser coon skin hat and for some reason. But three, 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:02.680 you just do you feel like you could spot the 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:08.320 difference between a beaver hat and a coon skin head? Yeah? Yeah, okay, 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:10.720 all right. Well, actually, I've got a cool fact about 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:13.680 Carmen Miranda. You know, the Brazilian singer and dancer who 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:16.480 was popular in the thirties and forties. Well, she was 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:19.600 iconic partly because she wore that giant fruit hat on 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:22.880 her head, which inspired the chiquita banana woman. But here's 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:26.080 what's interesting, So she actually used to make these elaborate 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.000 hats herself. She had worked as a millner in her 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:31.240 youth and a hat shop, and so she knew the 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:33.960 art and she modeled those crazy fruit hats on the 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:36.840 girls in Brazilian villages who used to carry the baskets 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:39.400 of fruit on their heads to market. That's pretty cool, 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.200 all right, Mago, what's your last fact? So you know, 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:44.720 what's the opposite of making an iconic hat yourself is 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:48.600 a shoplifting one. But that's what Slash, the bad boy 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:51.560 guitarist of Guns and Roses, did. So this is well 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:53.480 before they had a record deal. Slash was looking for 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:55.720 something fancy to wear at a thrift store and because 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:57.520 he claims he didn't have the money at the time, 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:00.240 I mean, this is how he justifies it. He found 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:01.840 a top hat and then just walked out of the 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:03.720 store with it, and he was lucky that no one 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:06.200 chased him out. But of course that's not the only 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:08.640 part of his outfit that he filched. Since the top 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:11.239 hat looked too plain on its own, he actually stole 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:13.640 a belt that he used as a hat band. And 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:15.920 so I mean, of course, the fact that he's so 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:18.360 happy to talk about all this stealing without feeling any 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:20.520 guilt kind of gives a little more credence to this 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:23.840 amazing theory. I saw online that Guns and Roses ripped 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:26.600 off their songs sweet Child of Mine from an Australian 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:30.000 band called Australian Crawl. Yeah, the song was out like 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:33.000 five years before, and apparently, I mean they say that 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:35.440 Guns and Roses was listening to like Australian rock at 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:37.559 the time. It's kind of crazy if you listen to 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:39.600 the suff to go back and listen to that right 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:43.440 after I look at the birds in the drawers. Okay, 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:47.040 gave you got one more fact for us. Yeah, so 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:49.920 this is a slightly sweeter one than that. But uh, 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:53.200 have you heard before that the hundred fleets on a 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:56.440 French chef's hat that they represent all the different ways 0:08:56.480 --> 0:09:01.480 they know of how to prepare an egg? Familiar that. Yeah, well, 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:04.600 it's an often repeated story, but it's actually hard to 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:07.920 find any evidence of this. I mean, French cooks like 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:11.160 Jacques Pepin will tell you how much they love eggs 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:15.839 and even used making perfect silky scrambled eggs as kind 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:18.480 of this test of whether you can work in their kitchens. 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:22.720 But Bon Appetite did some digging and they did find 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:26.240 a little bit of corroborating evidence for this. So apparently 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:29.200 the French cook who elevated French cuisine and kind of 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:34.360 put chefs in uniform, august Escoffe, he had one hundred 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:39.439 and forty three recipes for mastering eggs and he documented 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.920 them all in his legendary h three cookbook. I feel 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:44.920 like I could come up with maybe four ways to 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:50.560 love eggs, so that is impressive, and I want to 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:53.200 give you today's fact Off trophy. But I really feel 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:55.760 like the whole birds and drawers came out of nowhere, 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:58.800 and so I gave I don't know how you feel, 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:01.200 but I feel like we have choice but to give 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:04.040 mango the trophy today. What do you think you can 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:06.920 get behind that? Okay with that mango? Yeah, definitely, I'm 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:10.360 going to stuff d but listeners. We've loved hearing from 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:13.960 you guys so many ideas for future nine Things episodes, 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:15.920 so if you want to keep those coming, we would 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:17.880 love to hear from you. It's part time genius at 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:21.000 how stuff Works dot com. You can also call seven 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:24.280 Fact hot Line one eight four pt genius, or hit 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:26.560 us up on Facebook or Twitter. We'll be back with 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.240 a full length episode tomorrow. Thanks so much for listening.