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 Candice Gipson, joined today by Josh Curious like
Speaker 1: a cat Quark. How's it going, Josh, it's going well,
Speaker 1: and thanks for having my curious self on your show. Candidate, Well,
Speaker 1: you know it's curious guy around. Actually, let me tell
Speaker 1: you what I'm curious about this time. You're ready. Gengis Khan.
Speaker 1: Genghis Khan. You know much about this guy, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be able to help me. I do. He was. He
Speaker 1: was pretty brutal. He was quite a warrior and quite
Speaker 1: a lover. He was very prolific lover. Half of a
Speaker 1: percent of the global population or direct descendants of this guy,
Speaker 1: so he got around, indeed. But he was also a really,
Speaker 1: really well established ruler. He introduced the concept of religious
Speaker 1: tolerance to the lands that he conquered. Equal treatment of women. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they said that his rule of law was so strong that, uh,
Speaker 1: a virgin actually could walk across Mongolia with a basket
Speaker 1: of gold on her head from one end to the
Speaker 1: other completely unmolested. So apparently it was pretty safe under
Speaker 1: CON's rule. But he was also a vicious, brutal killer.
Speaker 1: I mean, this guy killed a lot of people. If
Speaker 1: you weren't one of the subjects, you weren't really safe
Speaker 1: pretty much. Yeah, Well, if you oppose him, he had
Speaker 1: a he had a rule of thumb that if you
Speaker 1: gave up, you surrendered, he let you live. If you
Speaker 1: resisted him, you were dead as a door nail. And actually,
Speaker 1: when I was a younger man, I first got into
Speaker 1: con by reading in Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, which I
Speaker 1: really used to be into UM, that con actually killed
Speaker 1: one million, seven hundred and forty eight thousand people in
Speaker 1: one hour, which is nuts, right, So, I mean, you
Speaker 1: know about con is that is that even possible? Is
Speaker 1: that fact? Or is that fiction? Afread? Even conn? I
Speaker 1: know I can resist um to kill one million, seven
Speaker 1: hundred forty eight thousand people in a single hour a
Speaker 1: k A. Sixty minutes. That means twenty nine thousand, one
Speaker 1: thirty three people would have had to die every minute
Speaker 1: under his hands. Well, but couldn't you run around in
Speaker 1: a circle just murdering person after person. I don't really
Speaker 1: think it would have worked so well, not with you know,
Speaker 1: a bayonet or an ax. It takes time, you know,
Speaker 1: to to do it right. Essentially, what it all boiled
Speaker 1: down to was one million, seven hundred forty thousand is
Speaker 1: the population of a town called Nishipper, and Connaist people
Speaker 1: were there, and it just so happened that his favorite
Speaker 1: son in law was killed, and his daughter was pretty
Speaker 1: ticked off about it, and so she made a play
Speaker 1: for her father to murder everyone to make up for
Speaker 1: this one guy's death, and her father agreed, and so
Speaker 1: over the course of about ten days, the entire town
Speaker 1: was wiped out, men, women, children, infants, dogs, cats, dogs
Speaker 1: and cats. I know, pretty rough. But she still wasn't
Speaker 1: satisfied that vengeance had been achieved, so she asked her
Speaker 1: dad to order everyone beheaded, even all the corpse, and
Speaker 1: so all their heads were cut off and their their
Speaker 1: skulls were stacked in pyramids, and it made for a
Speaker 1: pretty dramatic scene and a pretty dramatic story too. Pretty gruesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm kind of glad you didn't read about that
Speaker 1: in Uncle John's at the Tender Age of twelve. You
Speaker 1: might have had nine yares that night. So well, thanks
Speaker 1: for clearing that up. You are so welcome, and if
Speaker 1: you want to learn more, read did Genghis Khan really
Speaker 1: kill one million, seven dty eight thousand people in one hour?
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