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 to bling a chuk reboarding, and I'm fair out
Speaker 1: and strange as it might seem, especially since we're history podcast,
Speaker 1: the news can actually play a pretty big role in
Speaker 1: what we choose to cover as topics. And that's because history,
Speaker 1: or at least what we know about it, is constantly changing.
Speaker 1: It's always evolving, and new discoveries are made, theories are formed,
Speaker 1: old mysteries are sometimes solved, or sometimes they're made even
Speaker 1: more complicated Ned Kelly case in point exactly. And in
Speaker 1: all of these cases, one thing holds true. The breaking
Speaker 1: news gives us a great opportunity to review what we
Speaker 1: know about a particular topic, so it makes a great
Speaker 1: opportunity for us to talk about them again. But of
Speaker 1: course we don't have a chance to cover all of
Speaker 1: the historical finds that are unearthed in any given years.
Speaker 1: So last year we decided we would do a real
Speaker 1: Newsy kind of topic a year end wrap up, and
Speaker 1: we ended up recording an episode that covered a few
Speaker 1: of big discoveries that we thought were either cool or
Speaker 1: just I don't know. It's fascinating in some way that
Speaker 1: appealed to us, and this year we've decided to do
Speaker 1: the same, but we're going to step it up a
Speaker 1: not too We're gonna do two episodes of historical finds,
Speaker 1: things that have been unearthed in TWN that we just
Speaker 1: thought were really neat. Yeah, and we've called it an
Speaker 1: Earth in twenty eleven. That's the title. But of course,
Speaker 1: not all of these discoveries literally came as the result
Speaker 1: of digs and archaeological work. Some of the some of
Speaker 1: them are just finds that came from all sorts of places,
Speaker 1: from the ocean, for example, or even from someone's musty
Speaker 1: old attic you never know, or somebody just putting two
Speaker 1: and two together and making a new discovery from research,
Speaker 1: or or finds that were already existing. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: Some of these that we're going to discuss our findings
Speaker 1: based on things that were up either within the last
Speaker 1: couple of years or in some cases decades ago. So
Speaker 1: it's not something that was necessarily unearthed this year, but
Speaker 1: the finding was unearthed, it just had some important component
Speaker 1: of the process that happened in to make our list.
Speaker 1: But this is of course by no means a comprehensive list.
Speaker 1: I mean, we really had to to whittle it down,
Speaker 1: pick and choose here. The only common thread, though, is
Speaker 1: that there are discoveries that we found interesting, ones that
Speaker 1: had some kind of interesting story behind them, and most
Speaker 1: of them had some kind of tie into themes that
Speaker 1: we've covered a lot, And I mean I found that
Speaker 1: appealing for a yearine wrap up podcasts, we have hit
Speaker 1: on themes this year. I don't know, shipwrecks comes to mind, medicine, medicine,
Speaker 1: historic alcohol, historic dogs. So you're gonna notice a few
Speaker 1: of those themes popping up in both of these episodes,
Speaker 1: Yes you will. And that goes for the first one
Speaker 1: that we're going to talk about, which is pirates. A
Speaker 1: lot of people know Captain Morgan as a brand of rum,
Speaker 1: Captain and Coke anyone, but Captain Henry Morgan was an
Speaker 1: actual seventeenth century Welsh pirate and the wreck of one
Speaker 1: of his ships was found off Panama by a team
Speaker 1: of U S archaeologists this August. So just a little
Speaker 1: background on Morgan and his ships. He was a privateer
Speaker 1: sailing on England's behalf, so part of his work was
Speaker 1: defending England's interests, and he also pioneered expeditions to the
Speaker 1: New World. In the late seventeenth century, he went up
Speaker 1: against Spain, which at the time had a pretty tight
Speaker 1: grip on the Caribbean, and Morgan wanted to weaken Spain's
Speaker 1: influence a bit by taking Panama City, and so in
Speaker 1: sixteen seventy one he set out to capture a Spanish
Speaker 1: fort called Castillo de San Lorenzo, which was on a
Speaker 1: cliff overlooking the mouth of the Chagres River, the only
Speaker 1: water passageway between the Caribbean and Panama City, and Morgan
Speaker 1: and his men ultimately succeeded here, but they lost five ships,
Speaker 1: including their flagship called the Satisfaction, in the process, and
Speaker 1: that was due to some pretty rough seas that were
Speaker 1: surround the fort and also a reef known as the
Speaker 1: Lajas Reef nearby. So the discovery that these u s
Speaker 1: archaeologists made this year is presumably from one of those
Speaker 1: five ships, right. They made it by doing a magnetometer survey,
Speaker 1: which looks for metal by finding any kind of deviation
Speaker 1: in the Earth's magnetic field, and what they ended up
Speaker 1: pulling up to the surface included a portion of the
Speaker 1: starboard side of a wooden ships hall and a set
Speaker 1: of unopened cargo boxes and chess that were covered in coral,
Speaker 1: and of course everybody including us, thinking like, maybe this
Speaker 1: is some kind of pirate treasure, maybe this is Captain
Speaker 1: Morgan's treasure. So we were unable to find out whether
Speaker 1: the cargo was opened at the time the story broke
Speaker 1: um it had, it was yet to be determined, and
Speaker 1: we haven't heard anything since then. But according to a
Speaker 1: Discovering News article about the fine, there are at least
Speaker 1: a few people out there who are hoping that the
Speaker 1: boxes and chess contain gold or something that contain liquor.
Speaker 1: And you can probably figure out why some folks might
Speaker 1: be hoping for that. Yeah, it's because there's kind of
Speaker 1: an interesting twist to this story. To the story of
Speaker 1: this discovery. Though the research team included archaeologists and divers
Speaker 1: from Texas State University and some other volunteers, the project
Speaker 1: was actually funded by Captain Morgan, USA, the maker of
Speaker 1: Captain Morgan's Room, and they stepped into help when the
Speaker 1: research team ran out of funding, and that funding actually
Speaker 1: allowed the team to do that magnet a meter survey.
Speaker 1: So in a statement, Tom Herbs, the brand director of
Speaker 1: Captain Morgan USA, said, quote, when the opportunity arose for
Speaker 1: us to help make this discovery mission possible, it was
Speaker 1: a natural fit for us to get involved. The artifacts
Speaker 1: uncovered during this mission will help bring Henry Morgan and
Speaker 1: his adventures to life in a way never thought possible.
Speaker 1: So there you go. I'm kind of envisioning these Captain
Speaker 1: Morgan commercials maybe in with like footage from the archaeological dives,
Speaker 1: and maybe could if they were really willing to put
Speaker 1: out some more money, some rolling stones satisfaction. I mean,
Speaker 1: who knows it's it's a brilliant marketing move on there,
Speaker 1: it sounds like it. But prior to making this discovery,
Speaker 1: the team also found a collection of iron cannons in
Speaker 1: the same general area last year. But I think we're
Speaker 1: really most excited, as probably most people are, to find
Speaker 1: out what's in the chest. Yeah, I mean, maybe it'll
Speaker 1: be another entry for our Historical Spirits episodes. Maybe. So
Speaker 1: moving on to the next couple entries on our list.
Speaker 1: We mentioned earlier that we have talked about dogs some
Speaker 1: this year, specifically war dogs, and they come up in
Speaker 1: random podcast too. But we've got two interesting pieces of
Speaker 1: news from that have to do with our canine friends.
Speaker 1: We do. There were a couple of discoveries this year
Speaker 1: that gave us some insight into the history of domesticated
Speaker 1: dogs and the role that they played in humans lives.
Speaker 1: The first for dog lovers especially maybe somewhat disturbing, though
Speaker 1: so just be forewarned. In January, scientists released a new
Speaker 1: analysis of a bone fragment found in Hine's Cave in
Speaker 1: southwestern Texas, which evidence shows was occupied by a group
Speaker 1: of hunter gatherers about nine thousand years ago. And scientists
Speaker 1: performed genetic testing on the bone fragment and figured out
Speaker 1: that it belonged to a dog rather than a coyote
Speaker 1: or a wolf, for a fox or something else, making
Speaker 1: it the earliest known evidence of dog domestication in the Americas.
Speaker 1: It predates other examples by about eight thousand years, and
Speaker 1: the dog was probably around twenty to thirty pounds and
Speaker 1: may have been similar to some breeds of Mexican or
Speaker 1: Peruvian dogs. But we mentioned some of you might not
Speaker 1: like this story very much, and that's because this dog
Speaker 1: was not just man's best friend. The bone fragment was
Speaker 1: found in dried human feces, which suggests the dog might
Speaker 1: have been man's best meal too, So it's good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot to learn about the rural domesticated dogs
Speaker 1: played in humans lives over the years. I mean, they
Speaker 1: could have been used for tours and things as well,
Speaker 1: but they were food. We do have a more uplifting
Speaker 1: dog related story though, hopefully yeah, hopefully, depending on how
Speaker 1: you look at it. In February, Discovering News reported that
Speaker 1: the burial remains of a husky like dog that lived
Speaker 1: seven thousand years ago were found in Siberia, and it
Speaker 1: was an unusual kind of grave pit because the dog
Speaker 1: was buried uh in a in a site that also
Speaker 1: contained the partial remains of five different human skeletons, and
Speaker 1: DNA and stable isotope analysis showed that the dog ate
Speaker 1: what humans ate today, probably better than most people can
Speaker 1: say about their modern pampered dogs today. But this well
Speaker 1: pampered dogs and on Sara eating pete or something. Um.
Speaker 1: This dog, however, ate staff like fish and deer and
Speaker 1: some small plants, so um. Researchers assume that it probably
Speaker 1: lived and worked right alongside humans. Yeah, and there was
Speaker 1: certain wear and tear on the dog skeleton that showed
Speaker 1: that it probably helped transport loads during the course of
Speaker 1: daily chores. Some fractures also suggested the dog may have
Speaker 1: participated in hunting, although there's always the chance that its
Speaker 1: injuries were the result of being struck by humans. However,
Speaker 1: the fact that the dog was advanced in age when
Speaker 1: it died and the way in which it was buried
Speaker 1: indicates that it was likely cared for and cared about too.
Speaker 1: Robert Losey, lead author of the study about the dog burial,
Speaker 1: said in a Discovery News story about it quote based
Speaker 1: on how Northern Indigenous people understand animal in historic times,
Speaker 1: I think people burying this particular dog saw it as
Speaker 1: a thinking, social being, perhaps on par with humans in
Speaker 1: many ways. When I think it was even buried with objects,
Speaker 1: to which seems like a very very kind of human
Speaker 1: touch for for something like that. Moving on, though, we
Speaker 1: have been talking about medicine a lot this year, and
Speaker 1: this is kind of the ultimate entry in the medical
Speaker 1: medicine related category. And this is a good example two
Speaker 1: of a fine that the actual discovery happened decades ago,
Speaker 1: way back in the seventies, but it's only recently that
Speaker 1: new interpretation of what was found has has come up.
Speaker 1: So back in the nineteen seventies, divers excavated the shipwreck
Speaker 1: off the coast of Tuscany, and items aboard the ship
Speaker 1: suggested that it was about two thousand years old, that
Speaker 1: it had originated in Greece, and that when it went
Speaker 1: down it was on some sort of trading mission. But
Speaker 1: what caught the attention of researcher Emmanuela A. Petiti when
Speaker 1: she later read about the ship's cargo, you know, the
Speaker 1: discovery was this cash of medical supplies that had on board,
Speaker 1: for instance, a copper bleeding cup we talked about blood
Speaker 1: this year, to about that, to a surgical hook, viles,
Speaker 1: a mortar, and most importantly a tin container that still
Speaker 1: contained these quarter sized gray green pills, two thousand year
Speaker 1: old pills that were underwater for all of that time.
Speaker 1: Appetiti's husband, Alan Twade, is a historian in the Botany
Speaker 1: department at the National Museum of Natural History who studies
Speaker 1: just such ancient medicines. Except for that the whole of
Speaker 1: his career, he's basically had to work off medical texts alone.
Speaker 1: So Appetiti and to Wade knew that these tablets weren't
Speaker 1: just interesting as shipwreck artifacts. They were the first known
Speaker 1: samples of ancient medicine, according to Smithsonian Magazine. To Wade
Speaker 1: said quote, I was going to do everything I could
Speaker 1: to get them, and it took a little while. After
Speaker 1: eighteen months negotiating with Italy's Department of Antiquities, to Aid
Speaker 1: got two samples of the tablets and recruited Robert Fleischer,
Speaker 1: who was the head geneticist at the Smithsonian Center for
Speaker 1: conservator Shin and Evolutionary Genetics, to tackle the analysis aspect.
Speaker 1: Because two aids work normally requires looking at tax as
Speaker 1: he mentioned illustrations. I think already he speaks twelve languages,
Speaker 1: so he needed to get somebody who could look under
Speaker 1: the microscope on this one. And Fleisher was skeptical at
Speaker 1: first because he didn't really think any viable genetic material
Speaker 1: would be left after two thousand years, but he was convinced.
Speaker 1: He got to work and started to extract DNA from
Speaker 1: the tablets and compare it to the National Institutes of
Speaker 1: Health gene Bank, which of course has records of all
Speaker 1: sorts of plants. The first few ingredient lists that he
Speaker 1: came up with weren't right. Twade could tell that they
Speaker 1: contained plants not yet present in Greece two thousand years ago.
Speaker 1: But finally, after seven years and using the most sophisticated
Speaker 1: DNA techniques, Fleisher discovered a genetic makeup that jelled with
Speaker 1: historical texts and that include carrot, parsley, alfalfa, celery, wild
Speaker 1: in radish yarrow, hibiscus, and sunflower bound in clay sunflower aside,
Speaker 1: which the researchers believe was a modern contaminant, those ingredients
Speaker 1: fit the bill for a two thousand year old cure
Speaker 1: for stomach ailments common of course among sailors exactly so
Speaker 1: to Aid even thinks that this kind of tablet, I mean,
Speaker 1: we mentioned it was a quarter size, so it's not
Speaker 1: something you would just take as is. He figures it
Speaker 1: was probably something you would drop in a glass of
Speaker 1: water or wine or even vinegar, which sounds like it
Speaker 1: would turn your stomach and then settle it. But who knows.
Speaker 1: So there's one interesting last point to this uh this story, though,
Speaker 1: in May of to Aide and his wife presented the
Speaker 1: findings in Italy, and by chance they met with some
Speaker 1: of the divers who had explored the wreck in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies. And the divers were able to explain that
Speaker 1: sunflower contamination. They said that they had kept their off
Speaker 1: cygen tanks outdoors near the place where they were staying
Speaker 1: before going out on the dive, and the area they
Speaker 1: were staying was filled with sunflower field. So it's quite
Speaker 1: possible that something got onto their dive tank and ultimately
Speaker 1: onto the aluminum container or the tin container rather and
Speaker 1: um onto the pills. It's good to have that explanation.
Speaker 1: It was a big deal for to Wade to finally
Speaker 1: see some of the medicine he studied in action, and
Speaker 1: he told History dot Com quote, the information that you
Speaker 1: have in a text is always exposed to the risk
Speaker 1: of being only theoretical, and so until you have physical
Speaker 1: evidence of what you have in the texts, you never
Speaker 1: know what you're working on has been used in ancient
Speaker 1: daily life and practice. And I thought this was such
Speaker 1: an interesting multidisciplinary example here that both of uh these
Speaker 1: researchers really needed the other researchers work to to make
Speaker 1: sense of the find I thought it was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: So our final entry for this list is probably the
Speaker 1: favorite author of many of our listeners, at least she's
Speaker 1: a common request just this month, the news broke that
Speaker 1: British author Dr Paula Byrne had an earth a portrait
Speaker 1: of none other than Jane Austin. And Austin is of
Speaker 1: course best known for writing books like Pride and Prejudice
Speaker 1: and Sense and Sensibility, but she initially published her books
Speaker 1: anonymously and she wasn't well known until after her death.
Speaker 1: So why is this new portrait such a big deal. Well,
Speaker 1: according to a BBC news story about the recent discovery,
Speaker 1: there are currently only two recognized portraits of Austin, which
Speaker 1: I never realized before. One was a watercolor painter by
Speaker 1: her sister Cassandra, whom Jane was really close to, and
Speaker 1: that's the only portrait that's never been contested, and I
Speaker 1: believe it shows her from the back, so not much
Speaker 1: of a detailed portrait. Yeah. The new portrait, though, which
Speaker 1: Burns husband Jonathan Bate picked up in an auction, is
Speaker 1: a pencil drawing on vellum that has the words miss
Speaker 1: Jane Austin inscribed on the back and it was probably
Speaker 1: drawn around eighteen fifteen. Uh just for comparison there, Austin
Speaker 1: died in eighteen seventeen, so late in her life and
Speaker 1: it's supposed to bear a pretty good resemblance to Jane Austen,
Speaker 1: or at least, since we don't have a terribly great
Speaker 1: idea of what she looked like, at least bears a
Speaker 1: resemblance to her family. Apparently, the sitter in the portrait
Speaker 1: has quote the long straight Austin news. Burne is consulting
Speaker 1: with various experts to have it authenticated. But of course
Speaker 1: there are several reasons why people might be skeptical of
Speaker 1: her new find. For one thing, it's been around for
Speaker 1: a couple hundred years, so you could ask, okay, why
Speaker 1: has it been authenticated before. Obviously the person who sold
Speaker 1: it to her husband didn't think that it was genuine. Also,
Speaker 1: Burne has a new book on Austin ready for a release,
Speaker 1: so the timing of the story is really good publicity
Speaker 1: for her in that respect. Maybe we should mention too
Speaker 1: that the inscription on the back doesn't spell Austin with
Speaker 1: any yes. If new story is correct, it spells it
Speaker 1: with an eye, so that's a little a little twist
Speaker 1: to although spellings from the eighteenth nineteenth century are a
Speaker 1: little hard to rely on in the first place. But
Speaker 1: that wraps it up for our News Minds of Part
Speaker 1: one and brings us to Mega Listener Mail, an extended
Speaker 1: listener mail segment. We have missed out on doing the
Speaker 1: amount of listener mail we've wanted to lately, but we've
Speaker 1: gotten so many great letters, postcards, emails from people about
Speaker 1: episodes that we've done recently, which we've really enjoyed. We've
Speaker 1: had a lot of fun with our research in the
Speaker 1: last couple of months, and so we wanted to kind
Speaker 1: of give you guys an idea of what people are
Speaker 1: saying about some of the podcasts and some of the
Speaker 1: little tidbits that they're throwing out us that we didn't
Speaker 1: know before. Okay, so first we want to look at
Speaker 1: a few emails regarding our Gunpowder Plot episodes. We did
Speaker 1: two episodes about the Gunpowder Plot and received just tons
Speaker 1: of emails and letters from people about it. People really
Speaker 1: seem to enjoy it, or at least have something to
Speaker 1: say about it from their own experienceal bonfire story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we wanted to share a few of those. The
Speaker 1: first one is from Heather and she says, my family
Speaker 1: and I have just moved back to the States after
Speaker 1: living in England for four years. My husband is a
Speaker 1: brit and both my children were born there. We celebrated
Speaker 1: Guy Fox Day each year while there. The local village
Speaker 1: usually had a party at the village hall with food, sausages, candy, apples, etcetera,
Speaker 1: and drink from the bar. For the adults. There was
Speaker 1: a judging of the Guy, where the best of the
Speaker 1: half dozen guys made by the village children was chosen.
Speaker 1: These look basically like a scarecrow, old clothing, stuff with
Speaker 1: straw or newspaper and decorated to look like anyone the
Speaker 1: child wanted, usually someone famous. The winner got a prize
Speaker 1: and then the guys may or may not have been
Speaker 1: tossed on top of the bonfowery pile, depending on the
Speaker 1: children's wishes. I liked that you could keep your effigy
Speaker 1: if you wanted to. The patch of grass under the
Speaker 1: bonfire site was usually black for the rest of the year,
Speaker 1: which was funny to me. And she also corrects us
Speaker 1: on one point which a few people did, so we
Speaker 1: should mention this. She says, the penny for the guy
Speaker 1: thing that children used to do in England was not
Speaker 1: selling the guy, but collecting change to fund the guy
Speaker 1: and the celebration. So thank you, Heather, Yeah, it does
Speaker 1: make sense. Thank you for writing in and telling us
Speaker 1: your traditions and for letting us know some more about
Speaker 1: the Guy. And I think most of the people we
Speaker 1: heard from writing in about Guy Fox Day were based
Speaker 1: in England or they were transplants. But we did hear
Speaker 1: from Jason who lives in Newfoundland, and he wrote that
Speaker 1: Guy Fox Night is celebrated every year in my native
Speaker 1: Newfoundland as well. Newfoundland, the most easterly point of North America,
Speaker 1: was part of Britain until nineteen when it joined the
Speaker 1: Confederation and became Canada's tenth province. Newfoundland's very unique culture
Speaker 1: is heavily influenced by Ireland, Scotland and England, where most
Speaker 1: of its people can lay claim to their ancestry. Um.
Speaker 1: So that was neat to know that Guy Fox Day
Speaker 1: really is something that people people take with them wherever
Speaker 1: they go. It seems we had another one from Adam
Speaker 1: which is on a more somber note, but I still
Speaker 1: thought it was interesting to share. He says. Each year,
Speaker 1: the government tries to promote the safety aspect of bonfire
Speaker 1: Night by warning people to take care with sparklers and
Speaker 1: not to pour petrol on the flames and things like that. However,
Speaker 1: this year it seems that there may have been a
Speaker 1: completely unforeseen tragedy from a fireworks display. One of the
Speaker 1: worst motorway accidents in the UK, in which seven people
Speaker 1: died in a multi car pile up, may have been
Speaker 1: the result of fireworks smoke obscuring driver's vision. I don't
Speaker 1: want to leave my letter on a somber notes, so
Speaker 1: I will say that as a new dad, I had
Speaker 1: the pleasure of taking my nine month old baby boy
Speaker 1: Dylan to a public fireworks display in my hometown of Harwick, Essex,
Speaker 1: which he loved and I can see us having many
Speaker 1: happy bonfire nights to come, thanks in part to Guy Fox.
Speaker 1: Probably the coolest piece of Guy Fox related mail we
Speaker 1: got though with from Kelsey and Vermont. She's a bartender
Speaker 1: there and she sent us a note on some lovely
Speaker 1: stationary saying I'm finally writing to tell you that I
Speaker 1: am a self proclaimed dork who enjoys creating drink specials
Speaker 1: based on your historical tidbits, as I also like listening
Speaker 1: on my way to work. Most of the drinks are
Speaker 1: more clever than tasty, but I was pretty proud of
Speaker 1: this one, so I thought i'd share. I call it
Speaker 1: the Guy Fox, and the specials board would read remember
Speaker 1: remember the fifth of November with Pama Campari and Gin
Speaker 1: You'll dance in the street. It's bitter and sweet as
Speaker 1: is all revolution. And she shared the recipe. Maybe we
Speaker 1: could post that. We probably want to try it too,
Speaker 1: don't we. Yeah, we need to try it. It sounds good.
Speaker 1: I don't know all of the the ingredients, but she
Speaker 1: has suggested brands and everything, so um, maybe we'll give
Speaker 1: this a shot, uh and report back to you guys
Speaker 1: in the new year. Next, we want to share a
Speaker 1: few emails and letters related to the Emperor Maximilian episode.
Speaker 1: We got a lot on this as well. People love Maximilian, yes,
Speaker 1: And this first letter from Sarah we get a great
Speaker 1: example of some thing that we see a lot, which
Speaker 1: is people with their own expertise writing in to kind
Speaker 1: of give us a different angle on a topic that
Speaker 1: we've discussed, which we really liked. So Sarah has a
Speaker 1: background in art history and archaeology and that's where she's
Speaker 1: coming from, and she says, I was excited to see
Speaker 1: that you released a podcast on Emperor Maximilian, and even
Speaker 1: more so that you mentioned Edward Manet's series of paintings
Speaker 1: on the subject of Maximilian's execution. I know you like
Speaker 1: art history, so I thought i'd share a couple more
Speaker 1: things about these works. In terms of what we see
Speaker 1: in the painting, Manet's composition is clearly referencing a work
Speaker 1: from the early nineteenth century, Francisco Goya's Third of May
Speaker 1: eighteen o eight. Like in Mena's work, Goya is addressing
Speaker 1: a contemporary political event involving an occupation by French troops
Speaker 1: in this case of Spain, and the central incident of
Speaker 1: the French soldiers firing on the Spanish is mimicked in
Speaker 1: Mena's Maximilian paintings. Mane sited Goya in a number of paintings,
Speaker 1: and in the case of these works, one of the
Speaker 1: few times that either artist overtly referenced a highly political event,
Speaker 1: and that email struck me too, because people do often
Speaker 1: recommend that we cover the Third of May, so it
Speaker 1: could be another one of these political art history combo episodes.
Speaker 1: We also heard from a few people who had some
Speaker 1: kind of personal insight on the Maximilian story because they
Speaker 1: are from Mexico and they could give us a little
Speaker 1: feel for how people really really what opinion they have
Speaker 1: of Maximilian. There. The first is from Christo Ball, who
Speaker 1: lives in California, and he says he's from Mexico, and
Speaker 1: he says the mrs and I were visiting her family
Speaker 1: near Berlin during the Christmas holiday, and since we were
Speaker 1: so close, we decided to hop over to Vienna and
Speaker 1: play tourists for a week. We did all the typical
Speaker 1: touristy things like visiting castles, churches, Christmas markets and so on.
Speaker 1: During the middle of our stay, we signed up for
Speaker 1: a day tour that would take us to a couple
Speaker 1: of different palaces and other landmarks throughout the city. Sometime
Speaker 1: between visiting a three hundred year old church and a
Speaker 1: four hundred year old palace, I asked the guide if
Speaker 1: she knew where Maximilian was buried. Being from Mexico and
Speaker 1: having visited some of the historical locations in the Motherland
Speaker 1: having to do with that whole episode, I thought it
Speaker 1: would be interesting to check out his crypt or wherever
Speaker 1: he was interred for myself. Well before I was even
Speaker 1: able to finish asking where he may be, the guy
Speaker 1: gave me a really sour face and proceeded to explain
Speaker 1: to the entire group how Maximilian was tragically murdered in Mexico,
Speaker 1: to which I answered back that my understanding of events
Speaker 1: was that he was executed as the leader of a
Speaker 1: foreign nation that had unlawfully overthrown the true government of
Speaker 1: the people. Surprisingly, she did not agree with my As
Speaker 1: she put it, interpretation of events just goes to show
Speaker 1: how history can be interpreted depending on where or how
Speaker 1: you or yours were affected by it. So that was
Speaker 1: pretty cool. He gives this perspective for both countries here
Speaker 1: a rare thing. And we also heard from Pedro who
Speaker 1: um said that I just listened to your Maximilian podcast,
Speaker 1: and although it was a sad affair for or Maximilian,
Speaker 1: I wanted to let you know that he's not seen
Speaker 1: as a bad guy in Mexico. At least that's something right.
Speaker 1: Historians have done good work spreading the word that he
Speaker 1: was basically cheated into accepting the job and that he
Speaker 1: was actually rather cool towards Mexican. Nevertheless, the myth of
Speaker 1: Warez his defense of Mexican rights remains a strong part
Speaker 1: of our chosen history. So I think most Mexicans will
Speaker 1: see Maximilian as some sort of failed conqueror. So two
Speaker 1: perspectives there are our Habsburg emperor. That last one makes
Speaker 1: me feel a little better for poor Maximilian. And I
Speaker 1: know a lot of people recommended a Kate Beaten comic too. Basically, Basically,
Speaker 1: Pedro's email sums up how how Maximilian is depicted in
Speaker 1: the comic. Um. Yeah, I just I like hearing, I
Speaker 1: think with the Ludwig one to Bavaria, I like hearing
Speaker 1: about how these historical figures are considered in different countries today,
Speaker 1: what people's opinions of them are. Before we sign off
Speaker 1: with this, listener mail Mega listener mail me, Yes, we
Speaker 1: need to visit a segment that we have introduced recently,
Speaker 1: which we're having a lot of fun with and apparently
Speaker 1: listeners are too, And that's the love I listen while
Speaker 1: I blank segment. So we're gonna just run through a
Speaker 1: few of these, and I think you're going to be
Speaker 1: impressed by what your fellow listeners do while they're well
Speaker 1: they're checking out the podcast. So Melissa, for instance, in Jakarta,
Speaker 1: listens while she's riding a motorcycle taxi. Rachel and long Beach, says,
Speaker 1: my labmates and I now listen and learn free from
Speaker 1: you guys while sorting mud samples, identifying insects, and sequencing
Speaker 1: d NA cool. Brian in Ohio listens while working on
Speaker 1: a dairy farm. He says, I manage a dred cow
Speaker 1: dairy farm in Ohio, and I check cows to determine
Speaker 1: if they are pregnant while I listened to stuff you
Speaker 1: missed in history. Thank you for giving me some thing
Speaker 1: interesting and fun to listen to while I'm out with
Speaker 1: the cows. You're very welcome. Brian Margaret, who works at
Speaker 1: Albert Einstein University, says that she likes to listen to
Speaker 1: our podcast while trying to catch nematode worms for research.
Speaker 1: Jacob listens while he or he listened while he took
Speaker 1: this huge bike trip from Shanghai to Beijing. So we
Speaker 1: went to China this year, Dablina, and we didn't even
Speaker 1: know it. And Rebecca and Minneapolis says that she's a
Speaker 1: graduate student in industrial hygiene and she works in my
Speaker 1: college e lab culturing fungal spores for identification and remediation,
Speaker 1: and that's what she does while she's listening to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I look at mold spores under microscopes. And finally we
Speaker 1: heard from twelve year old Maddie, who listens so much
Speaker 1: that sometimes she said her mom takes away her iPod
Speaker 1: ship so that she won't stay up all night. So
Speaker 1: we thought that was cute. Thank you guys. Will share
Speaker 1: some more on the next episode for sure, because y'all
Speaker 1: are doing some interesting things all over the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you want to keep sharing those things with us,
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