WEBVTT - Six Impossible Episodes: Possible Apocrypha 0:00:01.200 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from house 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:14.720 works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:18.919 Tray Pybe Wilson and I'm Holly frying Back. In about 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:22.920 February of last year, we tackled six topics in one episode, 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:24.560 and they were all things that people had asked us 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:26.920 to talk about, but for one reason or another, we 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:30.000 couldn't really make a whole standalone episode out of each 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:32.839 of them. People seem to really like that one. We 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:36.160 called it six Impossible Episodes. So about six months later 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:41.520 we did six more impossible episodes, which were similarly things 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:44.400 people had asked us to talk about that we couldn't 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:47.000 really do a whole show on. And both of those times, 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:51.400 the biggest culprit was just a lack of information. Either 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:56.760 there's not a lot actually known about what was being requested, 0:00:56.880 --> 0:01:01.319 or not a lot of information available to us, or 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:03.560 in some cases just not quite enough to make a 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:08.040 whole thirty minute story out of. Uh So, people seem 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:09.679 to like that one too, And if we follow that 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:12.560 basic six months or so pattern, we're basically a little 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:16.760 bit overdue for another six impossible episodes. So we're doing 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:19.760 Wednesday and today's has a little bit of a different theme. 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:22.360 These are all subjects people have asked us to talk about, 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:26.479 and they are impossible, not just for an overall lack 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:31.040 of information, although that is sometimes true, but also because 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:34.800 the events and the people themselves, or the reason that 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:37.080 has people have asked us to talk about it I 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:40.200 might not ever have actually happened. So this is like 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:44.720 possible apocrypha. We're using the more casual meaning of apocrypha, 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:50.080 they're not the religious meaning of apocrypha. Yeah, in some 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:52.320 of these cases, there's lots of information, but none of 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:55.840 it is corroborated, right, And in some cases we are 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:57.960 going to talk about one thing that actually really did 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:01.200 for sure happen, but the reason that people asked us 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:04.160 to talk about it did not happen. First up, we're 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:07.120 going to talk about the Battle of Curancbes. We don't 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:10.160 know if we are accurate on that pronunciation, but that 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:13.040 is uh the way it was heard in research. So 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:16.239 this shows up on a lot of lists of weird 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:21.240 military history or most absurd battles ever. Thought shows up 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.040 in books about military blenders, you know, things like that, 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:26.560 And it's the kind of story people pull out to 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:31.360 try to illustrate purported military incompetence. Yeah, if somebody wants 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:35.000 to basically make the military the butt of a joke. 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:38.359 This is one of the stories that people will trot out, 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:42.160 and the basic gist of it is that in Austria 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:45.560 and Russia were both at war with the Ottoman Empire 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:49.200 and that fall. According to the story, the Austrian army 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:53.680 fell victim to an enormous friendly fire incident in which 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:57.400 ten thousand troops were killed, and that is what is 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:00.720 known as the Battle of curan SPEs. And here is 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.359 how the history of the eighteenth century and of the 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:07.160 nineteenth till the overthrow of the French Empire, with particular 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:10.919 reference to mental cultivation and progress, which was a piece 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:15.520 printed in eighteen forty five, describes this situation. According to 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:18.160 that text, the Austrian army was en route to take 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.440 up a new position near the town of Curancives. Then 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:24.520 quote on the march thither, the army was seized with 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:28.120 the most unaccountable panic. Believed themselves to be threatened by 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:31.639 the enemy, fell into disorder and mistook their own troops 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:35.920 from the Sclavonian frontier for enemies. The regiments fired upon 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:39.119 one another looked everywhere for an enemy, where in reality 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:42.080 there was none, and all attempts on the part of 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:45.080 the emperor in person to stop the firing and put 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:49.000 an end to the confusion were in vain. So the 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:52.400 emperor in question who appeared in person was Holy Roman 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:55.720 Emperor Joseph the Second, and according to this story, he 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:58.040 had gotten separated from the rest of the fighting force, 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:00.840 and he sort of came upon us melee with only 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.160 one attendant with him. Sometimes, in some retellings of this 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:07.600 story and the whole kerfuffle, he was knocked off of 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:11.880 his horse into a river. And in some versions of 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:14.440 the story, the cause of this chaos in which the 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:17.560 army attacked itself was a peddler or perhaps a camp 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:21.560 of roma selling schnops or some of their alcohol. Some 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:25.120 scouts on patrol bought and consumed a great deal of 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:28.240 the schnops, and then apparently on a lark, built some 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:32.400 fortifications for themselves, and they're imbibing, and when another group 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:35.960 of Austrian infantry approached, the inebriated scouts thought they were 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:39.880 the enemy. Shots were exchanged and things escalated from there. 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:44.479 The Ottoman Empire's army purportedly stumbled onto the scene of 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:46.760 the incident a couple of days later, and then they 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:51.039 found the bodies of about ten thousand men, and with 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:54.000 the bulk of this fighting force out of the way, 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:57.640 the Ottoman Empire captured the city of Kranzes with basically 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:01.520 no resistance. There are just so many reasons to question 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:05.839 this incident. Number One, information about it is incredibly sparse, 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:08.960 which seems kind of unlikely if ten thousand people were 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:12.200 actually killed by their own side. Number Two, the written 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:14.720 record on it doesn't seem to start until more than 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:18.480 fifty years after this event supposedly took place, and this 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:21.320 is particularly weird considering that the emperor, who lived until 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:27.600 February was purportedly there. That source we read from earlier 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:31.800 points back to Austrian Military magazine of eighteen thirty one, 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:35.320 which is an incredibly vague citation. A lot of the 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:38.560 more modern retellings of the story, like lists on the 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:43.760 Internet that people pass around about military ridiculousness, really seemed 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:46.160 to be drawn from an old version of the current 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:48.839 Wikipedia article, So that would have been the version that 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:51.800 existed back when these lists and things were written, and 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:54.960 that version presents it as a completely factual event that 0:05:55.000 --> 0:06:01.200 definitely happened. It also cites no sources. Uh ustrates one 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:06.040 of the difficulties of citing Wikipedia as a source. Yeah, 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:09.960 it's one of the reasons we do not ever use it. Uh. 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:12.240 You know, it's it is a fun tool of the Internet, 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:17.159 but for us, it is not really verifiable enough source. Yes, 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:21.680 there are definitely good reasons, like they're great things about Wikipedia, 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:24.520 but we we do not use it as a as 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:27.719 a source for our shows. Yeah. And the most likely 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:31.240 scenario is that there was some kind of confusing and 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:35.039 chaotic friendly fire incident, but the odds are that it 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:37.800 was not nearly at the scale that is reported in 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:44.200 these various fantastical versions of the story. Yeah, and I 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.080 think probably something did happen, but not not the thing 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:50.719 that people like to use to prove a point that 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:59.080 maybe doesn't even need to be proven. It really is 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:00.919 one of the stories of people tried out to be 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:03.359 like and this is how the military waste your money, 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:05.800 and I'm like, this is not You're not supporting your 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:08.480 argument with this story that like number one, even if 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:11.480 it were true, was hundreds of years ago and not 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:17.720 in the nation whose military you're talking about anyway. Uh, 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:24.760 So the next possibly an apocryphal person is somebody a 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:26.440 lot of people have asked us to talk about, and 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:28.880 that is Tomoy goes In, And she's really one of 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:31.920 our most requested figures in Japanese history, and for good reason. 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:36.600 She's described as this twelfth century Japanese warrior woman. She 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:40.040 was described as beautiful and fearless and an expert with 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:43.560 both a sword and a bow, really highly skilled on 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:46.800 horseback and uh and and a little bit of a 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.280 departure from what might be expected of her gender. She 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:52.840 led men into battle. She's described in the epic The 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:57.200 Tale of Haka as quote prepared to confront both demons 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:00.880 and gods, a warrior equal to a thousand men. So 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:02.840 she's really got a lot in common with a lot 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:05.320 of other historical warrior women who we've talked about on 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:08.920 the show, like Budhica and Zenobia and the Amazons of Dahomey. 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:13.680 Goes In is a title meaning young lady or young one, 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:17.160 and there's enough historical information to suggest that there probably 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.320 was a young woman named to Moe involved in the 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:23.280 gen Pay War near the end of the Hayon period 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:25.720 in Japan, and we've talked about the hay On period 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:28.760 in our previous episode on say Shanagon, it was what 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:31.240 was happening in Japan at roughly the same time as 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:34.800 the medieval period in Europe. The gen Pay War was 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:38.960 between the Ta and the Minamoto clans, so the Minamoto 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:42.120 clans victory led it to establish the show Gunate that 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:45.439 would rule Japan from eleven ninety two to thirteen thirty three. 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:50.559 So Moee served in the army of General Kiso no Yoshinaka, 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:54.120 who was part of the Minamoto Clan, between eleven eighty 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:56.800 one and eleven eighty four. She seems to have been 0:08:56.800 --> 0:08:59.200 present at at least three battles, getting the better of 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:02.600 seven mounts and warriors in the first one, commanding a 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:05.760 thousand warriors in the second, and beating a parterior a 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:09.640 particularly fearsome opponent known as owned A no Ha Chiro 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:14.160 moroshij in the third. A number of accounts suggests that 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:17.840 she survived the war because Kiso no Yoshinaka, outnumbered and 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:21.480 preparing to fight to the death or possibly mortally wounded himself, 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:24.679 ordered to Moi to go, perhaps because it would have 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:27.120 been considered shameful for him to die beside a woman. 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.560 Or perhaps because the outlook was so grim that her gender, 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:35.520 which apparently had not been an issue before, suddenly was Otherwise, 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:38.040 There really no very little about her. We don't know 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:40.679 who her parents were, Juan or where she was born, 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:43.680 whether she was married or had children, or what happened 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:46.560 to her after the war was over. Different accounts of 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:49.880 her life give wildly different information about all of this, 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:53.000 including different ages at the time of the war, as 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:56.800 well as different family connections, both as related to her 0:09:56.840 --> 0:09:58.840 parents or siblings who she may or may not have 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:01.920 been married to. All all of that stuff is kind 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:05.120 of a fog of contradictions, and we don't even know 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:07.559 in what capacity she wound up on the battlefield in 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:10.360 the first place. There are some accounts that describe her 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:13.800 as a female warrior or a female general, but others 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:17.520 call her a servant, even a nun or someone's mistress, 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.840 among other descriptions. A lot of the sources that describe 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.840 all these details are from later on in Japanese history, 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:27.240 and many of them are definitely fictitious or at least 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:30.480 embellished versions of the truth, And a lot of the 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:33.720 sources that write about her draw directly from the tale 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:36.880 of the Tale of the Hicca, which really spent some 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:39.480 time circulating as an oral history before it was ever 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:43.840 written down. Some people draw comparisons between this epic and 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:47.760 like the Iliad and how the Iliad is. I mean, 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:52.840 the Iliad has probable historical roots that like, we don't 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:56.000 really read it as the history of what actually happened, 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:59.840 so there are some comparisons between that and this epic 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.240 or Tamoi goes In was mentioned for the first time. 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:05.280 Tamoi goes and also became a character and many, many, 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:08.760 many stories both inside and out of Japan that have 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:12.720 gone on in all of the centuries since since she 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:16.439 was first mentioned in this poem. And Kristen and Caroline 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.200 from our sister podcast Stuff Mom Never Told You actually 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:22.520 dealed into this question a little bit in their August 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:26.319 episode entitled Samurai Women. It's a really interesting episode that 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:27.960 I recommend you listen to if you want to learn 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:31.760 more about this topic in general. H as is the 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:33.400 case with a lot of the things that we're talking 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:35.600 about today, I have a feeling that there probably was 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:39.679 a young woman known as Tomoe who was involved in 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:45.400 some way, but the the almost godlike stature that that 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:52.120 she has been given in later retailings, probably embellishment. We're 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:53.800 going to talk about some more things after a sponsor 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:57.959 break that sounds great, including including a really creepy thing 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:01.760 that people ask us about every Halloween that I love. Yes, 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:15.000 so we get a lot of requests to talk about 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:21.080 the terrifying cannibal Sanny Bean, especially around Halloween. I was 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.400 sure the people in Scotland would probably say that differently, 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:27.520 but then I watched videos of Scottish people talking about 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:30.679 it and they all said sanny Bean. So sanny Bean was. 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:33.839 Sanny Bean is a really famous figure in Scotland, and 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:37.640 according to the lore, sanny Bean more properly known as 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:42.600 Alexander Bean, and his wife abandoned their home in East Lothian. 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:45.199 They wound up living in a cave on the coast 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:49.599 of Scotland, and there they turned to a life of cannibalism. 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:53.280 They murdered traveler travelers on a nearby road, then took 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:56.480 them back to the cave, cooked them and ate them 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:58.800 and in a maneuver that sounds like something out of 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:02.600 that super wonderful but also terrifying X Files episode with 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:06.800 the Peacock family, uh, Sawny Bean and his wife Black 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:11.400 Agnes Douglas had children, and their children intermarried among one another, 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:15.640 forming an incestuous cannibal clan that terrorized the neighboring region 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:20.480 for at least twenty five years. Supposedly, this all played 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.080 out sometime in the fifteenth century, and when the king 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:26.080 heard that people were going missing thanks to somebody who 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:30.200 actually escaped sawny Bean's clutches, he sent soldiers to capture 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:32.640 the whole group of them. The women and the children 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:34.560 were put to death first by being burned at the 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:36.840 stake while the men were forced to watch, and then 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.960 the men were themselves hanged. And this story is really 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:44.440 entrenched in Scottish folklore, especially in the southwestern part of 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:47.840 the country around Ayrshire, where it allegedly all took place, 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:51.240 and there are even tours to sawnny Bean's supposed cave 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:57.240 for tourists and the fans of the Grizzly. But there's 0:13:57.280 --> 0:14:00.079 no evidence that any of this ever happened. There's no 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:02.640 archaeological evidence of a family living in a cave and 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:05.200 cooking and eating other people there. There are no no 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:07.720 royal records of a man hunt followed by a man 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:11.680 a mass execution. There are no records of survivors saying 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:14.640 their families had fallen victims to cannibals on the road 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:17.240 in that part of Scotland, and even though it all 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.240 supposedly happened around the fifteenth century, the first mention of 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:23.240 it in writing didn't come along until seventeen thirty four, 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:26.720 in a book called quote the Lives and Actions of 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:30.280 the most Famous highwawand Highwaymen, which was printed in London 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:33.640 under a pseudonym. Not really sure who originally wrote it. 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:36.680 There are a few undated chat books that may have 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:40.240 come out before seventeen thirty four, but they definitely do 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:42.720 not date all the way back to the fifth, fifteenth, 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:45.280 or even sixteenth centuries by any stretch. They are a 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:49.320 lot more recent than that. It's certainly possible that there 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:52.880 was a cannibalistic murderer in southeastern Scotland sometime around the 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:56.240 fifteenth century, and that this became the basis for the 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:59.720 Sawny being legend. But given how many of the first 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:02.640 written and accounts of it were penned and published in England, 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:05.320 it is actually a lot more likely that somebody made 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:08.400 it up to portray Scotland is a dangerous inbred place 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:11.960 just loaded with depraved killers. Uh. This may not have 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:15.400 even been intentional. This extremely maccab's story may have just 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:19.239 captured the imaginations of writers who already thought that Scotland 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.280 was not really a good place to visit. This all 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:24.760 kind of makes the fact that Sawny Bean has become 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:27.720 a source of tourism dollars in Scotland today kind of 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:31.960 a cool turnabout. It's like it was originally mentioned either 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:37.040 to implicitly or explicitly paint Scotland is a dangerous place. Uh, 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:40.160 not so much anymore. Even if there wasn't a Sawny 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:43.120 Bean or someone sort of like him living in Scotland 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:45.680 in the fifteenth century. This story has been around at 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:48.640 least since the eighteenth century, so it does have kind 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:51.840 of a history of its own. And now we're going 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:54.480 to get to a topic that I personally love and 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:57.360 wish we could do a real episode on because we 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:02.920 had a ton of request about Lan. You tried multiple time. 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:07.240 It is like I will try to kind of like 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:12.240 do some research and see where any like actual heart 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:15.680 evidence is and it just never quite like I pull 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:17.520 the thread and it just pulls off and is a 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:21.520 tiny fragment of something, it's never anything substantial enough to 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:24.840 really be a standalone episode, and it becomes also very 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:28.400 difficult to figure out which parts of the story are 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:32.240 true and which parts are mythology and which parts. As 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:35.840 we've talked about in many episodes throughout our years on 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:39.440 this podcast, there are some where the mythology and the 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:41.760 truth really kind of getting meshed in a way that 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:45.720 it is impossible to figure out what degree which of 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:50.480 them is driving the bus. So the first written reference 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:53.640 to Mulan is in the Ballad of Mulan also known 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:56.640 as Ode of Mulan, which is a Chinese poem from 0:16:56.680 --> 0:17:00.320 the fifth or sixth century. This poem follows the pattern 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:02.520 of folk songs that were popular at the time, so 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:07.359 it's definitely conceivable that there were some folk songs about 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:12.080 this character before the poem itself was composed. And the 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:15.640 poem begins with Mulan weaving it a loom, and she's 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:18.560 worried because the con has called for troops, and on 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:21.159 the list of men who are required to report for 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:24.879 duty is Mulan's father. But her father is old and 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:27.439 she has no older brothers, and so she wants to 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:30.040 buy a saddle and a horse and serve in her 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:33.520 father's place. In the poem, she does this, she buys 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:35.600 the horse in the saddle, as well as a bridle 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:37.719 and a whip, and she reports for duty dress as 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:41.520 a boy. She serves nobly for ten years, but when 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:44.199 it's time for the con to recognize her for her 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:47.200 achievements and offers her promotion, she says she only wants 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:50.520 a fast horse to take her back home. As with 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:54.679 Tomoi goes in. Mulan's story became incredibly popular in China 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:57.960 in the centuries after this ballad was first composed, a 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:01.160 whole collection of stories, song and tales have talked about 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:03.600 Lulan who dressed as a boy to serve in the 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:06.320 army in place of her father. But there's really just 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.200 not a lot of detail about who that original fifth 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:12.400 century woman might have been, or even if she was real. 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:16.400 We have no idea now and I wished, I wish 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:19.040 there were more detail, because, as we've talked about before, 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:22.119 the ladies that that dress up as men to go 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:24.520 to war like those tend to be some of my 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:27.960 favorite stories. They are, and it's a great Disney movie. 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:32.960 And now we're going to take another quick sponsor break. 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:35.840 Before we get our last to our last two impossible 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:50.120 episodes on our an ultimate Impossible episode. At around three 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:54.400 o'clock in the morning on March fourteenth, nine year old 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:57.800 Katherine Genevies, who was known as Kitty, was murdered on 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:00.080 her way home from work at a bar in queen Is, 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:02.879 New York. And this is not apocryphal at all. That 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:07.399 definitely really happened. She fought back against her assailant for 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:11.760 about forty minutes, during which time she was stabbed repeatedly, 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:15.760 and she was eventually raped. This attack ended in the vestibule, 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.800 the vestibule of her own building. We've had a huge 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:22.360 uptick in request for this one lately, and I think 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:25.160 it's because it appeared in an episode of Girls as 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:28.359 Like a Play. Also, as I discovered as I was 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:32.560 researching this, the perpetrator died recently. Yeah, it's kind of 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:34.639 been one of those things that's hovering on the edges 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:38.480 of social conscience lately. Uh. And allegedly the and the 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:41.679 reason why people ask us to tell this story is 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:44.600 it thirty seven or thirty eight other people stood by 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:47.840 and did nothing while Kitty Genevies fought four and then 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:50.719 of course lost her life. As reported in the New 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:54.720 York Times on March seven, nineteen sixty four, quote, for 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:57.960 more than half an hour, thirty eight respectable law abiding 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:01.560 citizens in Queens watched a killers stock and stab a 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:05.680 woman in three separate attacks in kew gardens. And according 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:07.840 to the New York Times, the reason for three separate 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:12.320 attacks was that twice someone hearing a commotion outside turned 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.560 on a light, which scared the perpetrator away. And according 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:17.840 to that same New York Times article, it was only 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:21.159 when the ambulance came that people actually came out of 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:25.800 their homes. Winston Moseley, he was captured a few days 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:28.760 later during a burglary, confessed to the crime, as well 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:31.119 as the murders and sexual assaults of two other women 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:33.879 in New York. He was ultimately tried only for his 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:37.320 crimes against Genevese, for which he was convicted after a 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:39.440 second trial. The first one actually ended up in a 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.520 hung jury. As we noted a moment ago, he spent 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:45.359 almost fifty two years in prison, and he died in 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:49.280 April of sixteen at the age of eighty one. Back 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:52.320 in the nineteen sixties, this murder led to a lot 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:56.160 of research and discussion about whether ordinary citizens are morally 0:20:56.280 --> 0:20:59.959 or legally obligated to report crimes, and it also led 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:02.720 to a lot of research into the bystander effect. So 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:04.879 this is the idea that people are less likely to 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:07.920 help when there are other people around. Basically they think 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:10.360 that one of those other people has already taken care 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:13.880 of the situation. And the bystander effect, also known as 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:16.959 the diffusion of responsibility, is also a real thing, just 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:21.199 as this murder was a very real thing. Yeah, I know, 0:21:21.320 --> 0:21:24.720 I personally have been, say, driving down a busy highway 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:27.760 and I see someone trying to change a car by 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:31.080 the side of the road, Like, people are a lot 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:33.960 less likely to stop if there are lots of people 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:37.240 on the highway, then if it's fairly deserted and you're 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:39.520 thinking that person might not get help from someone else, Like, 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:43.560 this is a real phenomenon that definitely exists. The case 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:46.440 also spawned a number of places to start adopting Good 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:48.760 Samaritan laws, and it was one of the factors that 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:50.719 led to the adoption of nine one one is an 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:55.200 emergency number. However, this number of thirty seven or thirty 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:58.159 eight people, which is included with just about every single 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:00.680 mention of Kitty Genevise and is the thing that people 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:04.840 remember most about this case was actually greatly exaggerated. It 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:08.800 apparently came from a casual conversation between the police commissioner 0:22:08.840 --> 0:22:11.000 and a journalist, and it was meant to simply be 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:14.320 an estimate of how many witnesses the police had interviewed, 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:17.840 not an estimate of how many people had failed to act. 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:21.680 The actual number of interviewees seems to be uh forty nine, 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:24.080 not thirty seven or thirty eight, but that would have 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:27.240 included people who had absolutely no information to share because 0:22:27.280 --> 0:22:29.360 they weren't at home or they didn't wake up from 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:33.680 the noise. And the words of researchers who thoroughly reviewed 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:36.080 all of the evidence and then published their findings in 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:40.000 the journal American Psychologists in two thousand seven quote. Using 0:22:40.119 --> 0:22:43.680 archive material, the authors show that there is no evidence 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:46.920 for the presence of thirty eight witnesses, or that witnesses 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:52.280 observed the murder, or that witnesses remained inactive. Some of 0:22:52.320 --> 0:22:54.959 those people who were interviewed also thought that what they 0:22:55.000 --> 0:22:57.480 were hearing was a domestic dispute and that it just 0:22:57.520 --> 0:23:00.919 simply wasn't their business. Others didn't think there was much 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:03.240 of a point in calling the police, since in those 0:23:03.280 --> 0:23:06.480 pre nine one one years there really wasn't a central 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:09.480 dispatch or a way of handling emergency calls, so police 0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:13.840