Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Coach Bible studied the crowd as his players emerged from
Speaker 1: the locker room. A sea of students in maroon and
Speaker 1: white erupted into wild applause. Their cheers could easily be
Speaker 1: heard across the field. He chewed his lip and wiped
Speaker 1: at his forehead with a damn towwel. It wasn't the
Speaker 1: Texas sun or even the bright stadium lights that were
Speaker 1: making him sweat. No, it was the Center College players,
Speaker 1: more specifically their offensive line. The nineteen twenty two Dixie Classic,
Speaker 1: what would become known as the Cotton Bowl college football game,
Speaker 1: was won for the books. Kentucky's Center College was undefeated.
Speaker 1: Texas A and M. Bible's team, Eh, not so much.
Speaker 1: But what the team lacked in athletic prowess, they more
Speaker 1: than made up for in enthusiasm. Coach Bible held his
Speaker 1: breath while his players lined up on the field for
Speaker 1: the kickoff. A referee blew the starting whistle, and two
Speaker 1: dozen athletes rushed towards one another with all their might.
Speaker 1: At first, things seemed to be going Bible's way. A
Speaker 1: and M received and returned the kickoff for forty five yards,
Speaker 1: which brought the team an early advantage that they weren't
Speaker 1: keen to lose. On the next play, A and M's
Speaker 1: running back and team captain Heinee Weir silently communicated his
Speaker 1: plan as an aside in reference to his name. I
Speaker 1: feel like heine should have been a tight end rather
Speaker 1: than a running back. No ifs ands or butts about it. Yeah, anyway.
Speaker 1: When the next whistle sounded, heine Weir dashed the thirty
Speaker 1: yard line. Every eye in the crowd watched A and
Speaker 1: M's quarterback throw the ball in a perfect arc that
Speaker 1: headed straight for Weir's waiting arms and slipped through his fingers.
Speaker 1: Weir had been brutally tackled to the ground, and by
Speaker 1: the look of him, he wouldn't be getting back up
Speaker 1: anytime soon. From there, things fell apart fast. By halftime,
Speaker 1: they were a sorry looking bunch. A and M's team
Speaker 1: was down four defensive players, a punter, and their captain.
Speaker 1: It would be enough to discourage any coach, and unfortunately
Speaker 1: for Bible, it was also enough to force a forfeit.
Speaker 1: You see, the rules of college football at that time
Speaker 1: dictated that a team have a certain amount of reserve
Speaker 1: players on the bench to substitute in case of an injury.
Speaker 1: Most of Bible's reserve players were already on the field,
Speaker 1: and the injured athletes wouldn't be playing anytime soon. It
Speaker 1: was the most important game of their season, and A
Speaker 1: and M was staring down the threat of disqualification. Luckily,
Speaker 1: coach Bible was a man who believed desperate times called
Speaker 1: for desperate measures, and so he turned to the stands.
Speaker 1: In the press box, a student named e King Gil
Speaker 1: was helping reporters identify players from the field when he
Speaker 1: saw coach Bible waving him down. Gil, a sophomore basketball
Speaker 1: player who was studying medicine, was very confused. He and
Speaker 1: the coach were by no means close. In fact, Gil
Speaker 1: had tried out for the team and been assigned to
Speaker 1: the bench for a few weeks, and then he moved
Speaker 1: on to basketball. A few weeks later, a sport that
Speaker 1: he was much better suited for. So why, in the
Speaker 1: middle of the biggest game of their season was Coach
Speaker 1: Bible asking for him. We're in a bad spot, gil,
Speaker 1: Bible explained, we have no one left. I need another player.
Speaker 1: Gill looked toward the center college players, terrifying in strength
Speaker 1: and already smiling victoriously. He didn't like where this was going.
Speaker 1: Coach Bible went on to explain that the team was
Speaker 1: all out of extra uniforms, as if that weren't enough,
Speaker 1: though locker rooms were closed until the end of the game. Instead,
Speaker 1: Captain Weir was waiting under the stadium bleachers to give
Speaker 1: Gil his sweaty, blood soaked uniform and take Gil's civilian
Speaker 1: clothes until the end of the game. Coach Bible put
Speaker 1: a hand on Gil's shoulder and looked him straight in
Speaker 1: the eye. This is still your team, and right now
Speaker 1: your team needs you. Pride flared in Gill's chest, and
Speaker 1: he agreed. He emerged moments later to wild cheers from
Speaker 1: the student section and a very appreciative football team. Gil
Speaker 1: never did get called onto the field that day, though,
Speaker 1: Instead he stood on the sideline ready to step in
Speaker 1: at a moment's notice to play, to bleed and maybe
Speaker 1: even lose for a team that he'd walked away from
Speaker 1: weeks before. He was the last line of defense against
Speaker 1: Center College and against Forfeit. Today, Texas A and M
Speaker 1: celebrates Gill's legacy in their own special way. Nearly everyone
Speaker 1: in the student section bears the number twelve on their
Speaker 1: person in some form, be it a necklace, attack, temporary tattoo,
Speaker 1: a baseball cap, or the more traditional jersey, and during
Speaker 1: football season, the entire student section stands for the duration
Speaker 1: of every game. The act sends a clear message at
Speaker 1: Texas A and M. The bench doesn't end at the sidelines,
Speaker 1: it starts in the front row. Some events in history
Speaker 1: seem predetermined. One small event leads to another, snowballing until
Speaker 1: major fallout occurs. It would take a genius to spot
Speaker 1: all the small things that led to the big ones
Speaker 1: and change the course of history before it happens. Zar
Speaker 1: Nicholas the Second of Russia must have felt this acutely.
Speaker 1: His entire reign was a series of unfortunate events that
Speaker 1: led to his demise, and it began on his coronation
Speaker 1: day with a free give way gone horribly wrong. In
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety six, Nicholas inherited a Russia on the brink
Speaker 1: of class warfare. For centuries, the country had failed to modernize.
Speaker 1: Along with the rest of Europe. Thirty eight percent of
Speaker 1: the country still lived as serfs, indentured workers with no
Speaker 1: more rights than an enslaved person. While Nicholas worked to
Speaker 1: abolish serfdom, it was often seen as too little, too late.
Speaker 1: The impoverished serfs flocked to the cities where the industrial
Speaker 1: revolution awaited them. They met with terrible conditions, operating dangerous
Speaker 1: machinery that often maimed or killed them. So that's one
Speaker 1: historical movement that was already working against the czar. He
Speaker 1: attempted to show the serfs a sign of goodwill by
Speaker 1: presenting them with gifts at the festivities on his coronation day.
Speaker 1: Tents were set up with small crates filled with pretzels, beer, bread, sausage, gingerbread, nuts,
Speaker 1: and sweets. These gift packages also included an enameled cup
Speaker 1: with the crown and coat of arms detailed on it.
Speaker 1: The tents were set up in a field that was
Speaker 1: typically used for training exercises by the military. It was
Speaker 1: filled with holes and ditches from these exercises. Furthermore, when
Speaker 1: people started to line up for their gifts, it soon
Speaker 1: became clear that there were far more people than expected.
Speaker 1: They had expected about two hundred thousand people. Instead, there
Speaker 1: were half a million. Rumors rippled across the crowd that
Speaker 1: the gifts had been poorly planned. There couldn't possibly be
Speaker 1: enough for everyone in the crowd. People began to push
Speaker 1: their way to the front, trying to make sure that
Speaker 1: they got their gift. On top of that, there were
Speaker 1: only eighteen hundred guards to try and corral half a
Speaker 1: million people. This wasn't going to end well. There's actually
Speaker 1: a science to how crowd crushes work. When that many
Speaker 1: people begin pushing on one another, the force effectively combines
Speaker 1: them into one large muscle that becomes impossible for anyone
Speaker 1: to resist. The force of the crush sent thousands toppling
Speaker 1: into the holes and ditches in the field. They fell
Speaker 1: on top of one another, suffocating. Eventually, though, the crush
Speaker 1: dissipated and most people were able to flee to safety,
Speaker 1: but somewhere between thirteen hundred and two thousand people were killed.
Speaker 1: The onlooking French ambassador felt that poor planning and a
Speaker 1: lack of medical facilities were to blame for the deaths.
Speaker 1: Nicholas arrived on the scene well after the bodies had
Speaker 1: been cleared away, and to him it didn't seem like
Speaker 1: such a big deal. Meanwhile, France and Russia had recently
Speaker 1: joined in a new alliance, and Nicholas had to ensure
Speaker 1: that the French knew that it was genuine. The French
Speaker 1: had planned a massive ball for that evening to celebrate
Speaker 1: his coronation. His brother in law and even a visiting
Speaker 1: Chinese ambassador all commented that it was not a good
Speaker 1: idea to attend after the tragedy, but Nicholas felt that
Speaker 1: he had no choice unless he wanted to risk the alliance.
Speaker 1: So that's a second historical movement that was working against him.
Speaker 1: The sight of the Czar at the ball that night,
Speaker 1: smiling and dancing with all his rich friends in curiated
Speaker 1: the public. The newspapers called him Bloody Nicholas. Author Leo Tolstoy,
Speaker 1: maybe the most renowned figure in Russian history, wrote a
Speaker 1: short story about the horrors of the tragedy. Nicholas visited
Speaker 1: the surviving victims in the hospital and donated money and
Speaker 1: further gifts to each of the families of the victims,
Speaker 1: but further disorganization meant that it took weeks to sort
Speaker 1: through all of the bodies and return them to their
Speaker 1: loved ones, to the serfs. It was all very emblematic
Speaker 1: of how little the nobles actually cared about them. By
Speaker 1: nineteen oh three, the country's labor party grew into the
Speaker 1: Bolshevik faction that would eventually rebel in nineteen seventeen, a
Speaker 1: third and final movement that spelled doom for the czar.
Speaker 1: A year later, the Bolsheviks killed Nicholas and his entire family.
Speaker 1: They say that hindsight is twenty twenty. Looking back, Nicholas
Speaker 1: might have wished that he had planned that giveaway a
Speaker 1: little better, or perhaps not gone to the party after
Speaker 1: the tragedy, or maybe done more to stuf serfdom itself
Speaker 1: and curb the exploitation of the Industrial Revolution. It's a
Speaker 1: curious thing to imagine, but he might have been doomed
Speaker 1: either way. Losing his alliance with the French or angering
Speaker 1: the rest of the nobility by completely abolishing serfdom might
Speaker 1: also have gotten him killed. Ultimately, he'll be remembered as
Speaker 1: the indifferent monarch who barely noticed when thousands of peasants
Speaker 1: died at his own party, the cups that were meant
Speaker 1: as gifts became known as the Cups of Sorrows. Curiously,
Speaker 1: many of those cups are still around today, and you
Speaker 1: can buy one online for about a thousand dollars funds
Speaker 1: that might buy you a lot of beer and pretzels.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. This show was created by me Aaron Mankey
Speaker 1: in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the
Speaker 1: Grim and Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn
Speaker 1: more about the show and the people who make it
Speaker 1: over at Grim and Slash Curiosities. You'll also find a
Speaker 1: link to the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available
Speaker 1: in bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobook.
Speaker 1: And if you're looking for an ad free option, consider
Speaker 1: joining our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without
Speaker 1: the interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and
Speaker 1: sign up over at patreon dot com, Slash, Grimandmild, and
Speaker 1: until next time, stay curious.