Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm editor Kandis gets soon joined by staff writer Jane
Speaker 1: McGrath Tyther. Jane Aaron O'Brien, one of our listeners, wrote
Speaker 1: to us asking for a podcast about South American history.
Speaker 1: She says, we talk a lot about American and European history,
Speaker 1: and she wants to know some juicy dictator stories, and
Speaker 1: there are a lot. We kind of have some juicy
Speaker 1: stuff for you today. It's not necessarily about a dictator
Speaker 1: per se, but it is about a body, a very
Speaker 1: very famous body that got shuffled around South America and
Speaker 1: parts of Europe before it was finally buried. That's right.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know about this story until we started
Speaker 1: researching for the podcast, and it's really fascinating. It is
Speaker 1: um doubtlessly you guys have heard of a prone or
Speaker 1: a vida, And if you're like me, you sat were
Speaker 1: the musical Avida starring Madonna about fifty times because it's
Speaker 1: just so great and and her her real life. There
Speaker 1: weren't any um loud musical numbers from the Casa Rosatta
Speaker 1: that I know of. I know she addressed people from
Speaker 1: the balcony. I don't think she threw up her hands
Speaker 1: and sang. But she did take the very famous Rainbow tour,
Speaker 1: and yes there was getture clothing and lots of jewels
Speaker 1: and furs on it. So I'm very excited to tell
Speaker 1: you about that. But first from background, Um, that's right.
Speaker 1: I didn't know much about Eva Perona before doing this,
Speaker 1: but she was a really fascinating figure. She was born
Speaker 1: in rural Argentina, and she really had a struggle because
Speaker 1: she was the youngest of five um born out of
Speaker 1: wedlock because her father had another family and father left
Speaker 1: her mother after Eva was born, and she struggled, and
Speaker 1: by the time she was a teenager, she she had
Speaker 1: been idolizing American movie stars and she wanted to enter
Speaker 1: the show business. So she left for Borenos Aires and
Speaker 1: she started a career in show business. Where or is
Speaker 1: she met Juan Perone, who was bound for great things
Speaker 1: in Argentina. He eyes he wanted presidency in nineteen forty
Speaker 1: six and Eva was given control of the Ministry of Labor.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's funny, you can say what you
Speaker 1: want about ever prom because I think that she is
Speaker 1: a very controversial figure. And to um to reference the
Speaker 1: movie one more time. When the film and the crew
Speaker 1: were filming scenes for Avida in Argentina, they met a
Speaker 1: lot of opposition from local people who were worried that
Speaker 1: their idea and the image of a Vida would be desecrated,
Speaker 1: that she would be portrayed in a very negative light.
Speaker 1: And I think that there are ways to honor the
Speaker 1: good things she did and still juxtaposed those with the
Speaker 1: so are sort of the seed things that were happening
Speaker 1: under the surface. So she did want to work for
Speaker 1: the Ministry of Labor, and perhaps this was due in
Speaker 1: part the fact that the Duarte family had lived in
Speaker 1: such poverty. And I think that she did have really
Speaker 1: good intentions for the poor people of Argentina, and she
Speaker 1: advocated things for like higher wages and voting rights for women,
Speaker 1: and also government subsidized housing for the poor. And it's
Speaker 1: important to know that at this time Argentina had had
Speaker 1: a great influx of wealth because after World War Two,
Speaker 1: a lot of the ward to our in European nations,
Speaker 1: they couldn't create their own crops, they couldn't grow their
Speaker 1: own wheat, things like cattle, and beef, and their livestock
Speaker 1: was down, so they had to import a lot of
Speaker 1: these things from Argentina. So Argentina hiked up export prices
Speaker 1: and taxism is able to generate a lot of money
Speaker 1: for its own economy. So finally under the Prone administration
Speaker 1: they were in a position to dull it out and
Speaker 1: use it properly. That's true. And speaking of World War two,
Speaker 1: um the whole political atmosphere at that time was very
Speaker 1: much influenced by, um the fascist dictatorships that we're going
Speaker 1: that we're had been going on in Europe at that time.
Speaker 1: UM One Parne is kind of known for suppressing freedom
Speaker 1: of the press and freedom of speech during that time.
Speaker 1: But it was also things that especially Ava really lagged onto,
Speaker 1: which were these issues of labor unions and stuff that
Speaker 1: that made her as pecularly popular with the people at
Speaker 1: the time. And you could say like she was even
Speaker 1: more than Princess Diana is in in England. That's a
Speaker 1: great comparison, and they sort of share the same sort
Speaker 1: of mythology, I guess because they both died rather young,
Speaker 1: so they did. And Avida, the nickname Avita, comes from
Speaker 1: the group of people called Los des commisados, which stands
Speaker 1: for the shirtless ones and the shirtless ones. The Spanish
Speaker 1: term had been used in a very derogatory manner to
Speaker 1: target people who are very poor and who lived in
Speaker 1: the slums of Argentina. But the Paronists essentially turned the
Speaker 1: term on its head and started using it in a
Speaker 1: very affectionate way. And we saw, or not we, because
Speaker 1: we weren't there, but history saw at this time Argentina
Speaker 1: sort of changed dramatically in a way because people would,
Speaker 1: you know, they would, they would move to the cities
Speaker 1: and they would build it up, and there was economy
Speaker 1: and there was industrial activity and things were flourishing. And
Speaker 1: Avida was very happy because she had been the mastermind
Speaker 1: behind all of this, and she didn't let people forget
Speaker 1: there were pictures of her plastered around the city. She
Speaker 1: made sure that wherever she went there was some sort
Speaker 1: of PR spokes person with her. There was always someone
Speaker 1: taking pictures. She was very much in the public eye,
Speaker 1: and I think she enjoyed that, Yeah, I think she did.
Speaker 1: She was very slow in terms of her PR tactics because,
Speaker 1: as you said, she always had photographers around her and
Speaker 1: she was always doing like photo ops basically doing charitable
Speaker 1: things and speaking of charities, um, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of politics going on here among the traditional elite UH
Speaker 1: and their conflicts with Eva. At the time. The official
Speaker 1: charity at the time was basically was called Aid Society,
Speaker 1: that's the translated translation into English. And she wanted to
Speaker 1: take charge of this and the traditional elite did not
Speaker 1: want her to. Some say it's because she came from
Speaker 1: humble backgrounds and they weren't really receptive to her. We
Speaker 1: can imagine that the women in the society were very elite,
Speaker 1: they were society women, and they didn't want to associate
Speaker 1: with Eva. That's right, and so, not to be outdone,
Speaker 1: started the Eva Perne Foundation and this basically, using this
Speaker 1: she ran the other official charity under to the ground
Speaker 1: because she cut off the government funding for it and
Speaker 1: she redirected it to her own charity. And she was
Speaker 1: able to fund schools and hospitals, which you know, all
Speaker 1: these things, orphanages, houses for the elderly, gave her more
Speaker 1: photo ops and it made her like, you know, more
Speaker 1: of a public figure that people loved. People were very
Speaker 1: and dear to her, and it helps when you're in
Speaker 1: the public eye to have a certain um appearance about you,
Speaker 1: and she she had this sort of shelacked beauty, you know,
Speaker 1: with the the perfectly quoft dyed blonde hair and they
Speaker 1: manicured nails, and the flawless makeup and the cature and
Speaker 1: the furs and the jewels. She was the whole package.
Speaker 1: And we mentioned that because of the taxes and all
Speaker 1: the revenue that Argentina was generating, they were able to
Speaker 1: uh disseminate a lot of that wells to the poor,
Speaker 1: but a lot of it also went to a vida's closet.
Speaker 1: And she even went, like I said, on the Rainbow Tour.
Speaker 1: This was a meet and greet opportunity for her to
Speaker 1: go across Europe and she met everyone from the Pope
Speaker 1: to General Franco and she really created a splash. But
Speaker 1: in the end it was her own enddoing, because by
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty one, when she was just about thirty three
Speaker 1: years old, she became sick with uterine cancer and she
Speaker 1: was bedridden, that's right. And it was about that same
Speaker 1: time that she got um a nomination for Vice President,
Speaker 1: which is testament to how popular she was. She was
Speaker 1: someone someone who had recently been champion women's suffrage, so
Speaker 1: I'm sure this is a huge um step forward for
Speaker 1: that country. But the army actually forced her to withdraw it.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure the details behind that, but anyway, she
Speaker 1: was she was dying of cancer at this time when um,
Speaker 1: when that happened, and she knew it, and the people
Speaker 1: around her who knew she was dying knew how special
Speaker 1: she would be even after death. And so one of
Speaker 1: the finest pathologists at the time, Dr Patriara, he was
Speaker 1: summoned and he was going to have a very extensive
Speaker 1: embalming process of his body, and so he began to
Speaker 1: prepare all of his materials and as symbol, all the
Speaker 1: supplies that he would need. And her hair was dye
Speaker 1: when last time, and her manicurist did her nails one
Speaker 1: last time, and then her body lay in state. She
Speaker 1: officially died on July nine pm, and her body land
Speaker 1: state at the Ministry of Labor, and people lined up
Speaker 1: for days and days and days, thirteen days to be
Speaker 1: exact to come and pay homage to Avida, until finally
Speaker 1: Dr ir got a little bit worried that they were
Speaker 1: going to soiler I reprobably damaged her body. So she
Speaker 1: was taken away and preparations were begun for the embombing process.
Speaker 1: That's right, And although he had done some work before
Speaker 1: she was laid out and displayed, he continued the work
Speaker 1: after the display for several more months, and um he
Speaker 1: was known. He was a famous embalmer at the time,
Speaker 1: which is interesting to me. I don't know how famous
Speaker 1: you can be as embalmer, but um he as far
Speaker 1: as I could tell, he never really divulged his complete
Speaker 1: details of the process of his embolming, but I did
Speaker 1: hear that he um he replaced her fluids with wax,
Speaker 1: And it's interesting. I don't know. Working here, I've learned
Speaker 1: a lot more about the embalming process than I ever
Speaker 1: wanted to know, which is row But um, but I've
Speaker 1: never heard of that before. And I guess it worked
Speaker 1: because to this day people say that her body is
Speaker 1: still intact. Isn't that wild? And it took about a
Speaker 1: year for him to complete the process. And we're not
Speaker 1: sure exactly about the cost of it, but estimates are
Speaker 1: around a hundred thousand dollars, not a lot. I mean,
Speaker 1: you think about the average cost of a funeral today,
Speaker 1: and that's just for the embalming process. We're not talking
Speaker 1: about her casket or the monument that was built for her.
Speaker 1: And this is where the story takes a really really
Speaker 1: juicy turn. That's right, we're not over just we've just begun, y'all. Um.
Speaker 1: The Prone government was on the verge of collapse because
Speaker 1: the food supplies it started to dwindle, and because there
Speaker 1: weren't a lot of grain crops left, it was affecting
Speaker 1: the cattle crops, and so they didn't really have anything
Speaker 1: to trade. They couldn't get colon oil, so everything was
Speaker 1: just all going to hack. And um, we had mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier that a lot of people had moved into the
Speaker 1: cities and things were industrious and they were booming. Well,
Speaker 1: now those areas returned n into Slam's unemployment was up
Speaker 1: and it was just a mass. And then add that
Speaker 1: to the fact that Eva had just died and and
Speaker 1: so one was not quite as popular as the headman
Speaker 1: and no, so the whole environment in Argentina was right
Speaker 1: for a coup and that happened in ve Prone was
Speaker 1: overthrown and he was exiled to Spain. But the cool
Speaker 1: leaders knew that if the Pronusts had Eva's body, they
Speaker 1: could use that as a bargaining chip and show it off,
Speaker 1: you know, to her loyal supporters to yeah. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: sort of a real snow white situation. They had this
Speaker 1: beautiful woman and in a glass coughin, and you know,
Speaker 1: you show it to someone you have a strong emotional
Speaker 1: attachment to them, you're not going to forget that you
Speaker 1: are still loyal to her husband. So they decided they
Speaker 1: were going to hide the body, that's right. And so
Speaker 1: they actually made even decoy bodies of even some of
Speaker 1: my believe were complete replicas of her body made of
Speaker 1: wax to throw people off. And they they sent decoy
Speaker 1: bodies to two different races, but they sent the real
Speaker 1: body uh to an undisclosed burial location in Italy, and
Speaker 1: they used a fake name on the grave site. So
Speaker 1: and and even before this, even before she got to Italy,
Speaker 1: there were some riom Moral and Argentina where the cool
Speaker 1: leaders tried to bury her in an unmarked grave plot
Speaker 1: and the guys were responsible for that. He got kind
Speaker 1: of creeped out because some somewhat superstitious stuff started happening,
Speaker 1: and so he stashed the body in an attic and
Speaker 1: then I was discovered, and then she eventually got shipped
Speaker 1: off to Italy, and so she was in Italy for
Speaker 1: a long time, and uh, one Perona at that time
Speaker 1: was living in exile in Madrid. He finally they finally
Speaker 1: allowed them to turn over the body to one Peron
Speaker 1: in Spain at the time, and so he kept it
Speaker 1: there for a little while. And when there was another
Speaker 1: military overthrow transition, they actually brought one Perone back to
Speaker 1: the presidency again in Argentina. And um, by this time
Speaker 1: they actually left his body there first. And um, so
Speaker 1: once Peronne is back in the presidency, but he soon dies.
Speaker 1: He actually doesn't last very long. Listen to year, I believe,
Speaker 1: and um meantime he's married again, his wife Isabella or
Speaker 1: Isabella and um, i've actually seen both ways. His wife
Speaker 1: at the time takes over, which is um. It's kind
Speaker 1: of controversial. She's non incredibly popular, and so in sort
Speaker 1: of a last ditch effort to win back the people's
Speaker 1: praise and in their favorite she actually has a body
Speaker 1: shipped back to Argentina where it belongs and put it
Speaker 1: next to her husband Wan Perune's body in the presidential palace.
Speaker 1: That's the way to get some clouds. And if you
Speaker 1: guys have been keeping track of the timeline. Here we
Speaker 1: know that Perune came back to Argentina and seventy one.
Speaker 1: I think he died around seventy four or so. So
Speaker 1: Ava's body has been unburied for twenty four years at
Speaker 1: this point in time. It's a good point. So she's
Speaker 1: in state and then finally it is time to bury her.
Speaker 1: And we want to do this right, you know. So
Speaker 1: they commission a company that manufactures bank vaults too and
Speaker 1: to create this incredibly intricate and incredibly like bomb proof,
Speaker 1: fireproof whatever proof coffin for Eva. And she's taken to
Speaker 1: the dou Arte family tomb and Buenos Aires and she's
Speaker 1: buried there at about twenty ft underground, and her sister
Speaker 1: was given the only key to the tomb and um
Speaker 1: supposedly it was sort of deck to the nines with
Speaker 1: security and it's completely burglary proof. It's set around as
Speaker 1: far as we know, it's still undisturbed. However, one prim
Speaker 1: was not so lucky. Even though his was made with
Speaker 1: bulletproof glass, thieves got in and they were able to
Speaker 1: cut off his hands. This disgusting, yeah, and it was
Speaker 1: a real scandal trying to track down who had what
Speaker 1: information about that crime and a lot of people die.
Speaker 1: It's a special slay. So I'm not sure that that
Speaker 1: is a solved case. Yet that's true, and people are
Speaker 1: still pretty preoccupied. Um, very attracted to the to the
Speaker 1: allure of Eva's body to this day. In the ninety nineties, Uh,
Speaker 1: this author named Thomas l. Roy Martinez actually wrote a
Speaker 1: book named Santa Evita, and uh, he he was able
Speaker 1: to get a lot of research from military informants who
Speaker 1: had contact with one perone when he was living in Spain, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And so he actually wrote a novel, not not a
Speaker 1: history book, but a novel about it because he said
Speaker 1: that the information that he found was so incredible that
Speaker 1: it needed to be told. The truth needed to be
Speaker 1: told in novel form. So when if you go look
Speaker 1: up this book, take everything with a grain of salt.
Speaker 1: But he does describe um very detailed accounts of of
Speaker 1: one keeping the corpse when he was living in Madrid,
Speaker 1: at least keeping the corpse in an open casket in
Speaker 1: his dining room. And Isabelle, his his new wife, had
Speaker 1: been combing his her hair daily. Yeah, very odd, pretty wild,
Speaker 1: but but it just goes to show that people want
Speaker 1: to buy this novel, people want to read more about
Speaker 1: this This dead Body kind of two extily because I'm
Speaker 1: obsessed with with Eva and her dead body. But that's
Speaker 1: the great thing about history, is so much of it.
Speaker 1: And we've made this comment before, Jane. A lot of
Speaker 1: the topics we talked about, they sound like they're made
Speaker 1: for the movies, or they're they're made for fiction. And
Speaker 1: you know, if it's true that there is nothing new
Speaker 1: under the sun, then I'm sure we'll hear another story
Speaker 1: like this again another day. But for now, Ms Aaron
Speaker 1: or Brian, that is your juicy South American scoop, And
Speaker 1: I hope it was juicy enough for you. It certainly
Speaker 1: was for me and for Jane as well, and in
Speaker 1: the intro. For more South American history and dictators stories,
Speaker 1: be sure to check out how stuff works dot com
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