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 Farah Dowdy and I'm reporting. And a while ago,
Speaker 1: in fact, right around Halloween, Katie and I talked about
Speaker 1: the McBeth curse, which is a pretty interesting, spooky subject.
Speaker 1: And I mean, there are lots of incidents of the Macbeth,
Speaker 1: the supposed McBeth curse, but one that we mentioned was
Speaker 1: the Astor Place riot and it's considered the worst, most
Speaker 1: violent theatrical riot in American history. And I thought about
Speaker 1: it again recently after reading Dan simmons book Drewid and Um.
Speaker 1: In it, William Charles McCready is actually a character and
Speaker 1: the story of this riot is recounted, and it kind
Speaker 1: of piqued my interest. Yeah, it has a lot of
Speaker 1: bizarre elements in it. We're going to look at theater
Speaker 1: his a little bit, the lives of these two famous
Speaker 1: actors who were sort of opposites, and British American Ford
Speaker 1: relations in the eighteen hundreds, and the early American class
Speaker 1: tensions and even some Tammany Hall politics. But the best
Speaker 1: part of it, we're looking at all of that in
Speaker 1: the context of a riot, So, I mean it's pretty exciting,
Speaker 1: and um, I guess just to kick us off, we'll
Speaker 1: go through our play bill and introduce the two main
Speaker 1: players in this drama. One is a British intellectual and
Speaker 1: the other is a rugged American. Right. Well, the British
Speaker 1: intellectual is William Charles McCready, and in eighteen forty nine
Speaker 1: May of that year, actually he was in the United
Speaker 1: States to perform a farewell engagement at Manhattan's finest theater,
Speaker 1: which was the Astor Place Opera House. McCready at this
Speaker 1: time was considered an intellectual actor, but one with a
Speaker 1: lot of intensity. And despite his aristocratic reputation and popularity
Speaker 1: with the finer sorts, finer classes, he had gotten into
Speaker 1: acting because he didn't have enough money to go to
Speaker 1: law school. Yeah, so he he had a humble element
Speaker 1: to his origins, which is conveniently forgotten later in this podcast.
Speaker 1: But at this point McCready was far along in his
Speaker 1: theatrical career. He's fifty six years old. I mean, after all,
Speaker 1: this is his farewell tour and he's a huge success.
Speaker 1: He played every major role. Uh. He debuted as Romeo,
Speaker 1: he played Hamlet, Iago Lear, Othello Richard the Third, but
Speaker 1: he was most famous for his Macbeth. It was his
Speaker 1: signature role, and he's also known for his decided ideas
Speaker 1: about how theater should be done. While managing two of
Speaker 1: London's finest theaters, Drewy Lane and Covent Garden, McCready was
Speaker 1: able to establish new expectations for productions. So he introduced
Speaker 1: things that were kind of revolutionary at the time. Actors
Speaker 1: would rehearse together, which seems obvious nowadays, but I guess
Speaker 1: they used to rehearse individually before. Yeah, at the time,
Speaker 1: I almost feel like a play was more about going
Speaker 1: to see the big soliloquies with your favorite stars, and
Speaker 1: so they would learn their lines in private and interpret
Speaker 1: them however they wanted, and then come together, and you
Speaker 1: have to imagine the end product would be sort of
Speaker 1: a mishmash, right, So McCready changed that and he made
Speaker 1: it more similar to what it is today, people rehearsing together.
Speaker 1: He also wanted the costumes to be more historically accurate,
Speaker 1: and the sets and props would compliment the plays, and
Speaker 1: probably most importantly, he revolutionized the way that Shakespeare was performed,
Speaker 1: because up until this point they would perform corrupted versions
Speaker 1: of these what seemed to us um like plays you
Speaker 1: could never touch, you know, why would you want to
Speaker 1: mess with Shakespeare? But at the time, like king Lear
Speaker 1: had a happy ending, a hundred and fifty years of
Speaker 1: king Lear with a happy ending. I don't really see
Speaker 1: the point. I don't even know how you do that.
Speaker 1: But I guess McCready didn't see the point of something
Speaker 1: like that either, And so at his houses when they
Speaker 1: at Shakespeare, they would do Shakespeare. It might be shortened,
Speaker 1: but it wouldn't be a corrupted version. Yeah, And in
Speaker 1: the United States there were also some major shakeups going
Speaker 1: on in the way Shakespeare was performed at that time
Speaker 1: as well, And it was all because of a guy
Speaker 1: named Edwin Forrest, who was an actor thirteen years McCready's jr.
Speaker 1: And a protege of Edmund Keane, who was regarded generally
Speaker 1: as the greatest English actor of his time, and forest
Speaker 1: emotionally intense frank performance of Othello in New York City
Speaker 1: in six had made his name, and like McCready, also
Speaker 1: brought that same intensity to his roles, and rugged good
Speaker 1: looks helped him as well a little bit. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was very all American and uh, it ultimately made him
Speaker 1: a hero of the Shakespeare loving working classes, which at
Speaker 1: the time, everybody loved Shakespeare. I mean, it was common reading.
Speaker 1: It was common for working class people to have Shakespeare
Speaker 1: partially memorized and to entertain each other by reciting soliloquies. Um.
Speaker 1: But just because Forest has impressed a large part of
Speaker 1: the American theater going population, some of the critics were
Speaker 1: less impressed, and the New York Tribune critic William Winter writes,
Speaker 1: it's really scathing commentary and calls Forest quote a vast
Speaker 1: animal bewildered by a grain of chene. That was harsh cutting.
Speaker 1: William Winter definitely, well, one thing, there was something that
Speaker 1: the two men had in conton the British and the American.
Speaker 1: They both had an interest in national play rights. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, we think of nineteenth century British literature as
Speaker 1: a time of great novels. But McCready really wanted people
Speaker 1: to focus on play. So he was encouraging writers of
Speaker 1: his time in his country to write more plays and
Speaker 1: get out there and focus on that. Forest meanwhile, set
Speaker 1: up a contest for the writing of American plays, and
Speaker 1: he gets some that he likes John Augusta Stone's Metamora
Speaker 1: and Robert montgomery Birds Gladiator, which was considered the beginning
Speaker 1: of native, homegrown American drama. Yeah, and Forest ideal out
Speaker 1: of all of this was to have American theater free
Speaker 1: itself from English plays. I mean, I'm sure he didn't
Speaker 1: entirely want to do away with someone like Shakespeare, but
Speaker 1: really have its own identity. So it's easy to see
Speaker 1: where this is going. It's easy to see how a
Speaker 1: professional rivalry between two men of such great stature in
Speaker 1: their own countries would develop, and they did become professional rivals,
Speaker 1: and the rift apparently stemmed from Forest tour of England
Speaker 1: in the eighteen thirties. He hissed during one of McCready's
Speaker 1: London plays, and yeah, it's very rude and um. Some
Speaker 1: accounts said that that was due to a misunderstanding, but
Speaker 1: I never found anything that provided further explanation in that,
Speaker 1: and I have a hard time imagining how you would
Speaker 1: accidentally hiss someone at a play. And Forest pretty much
Speaker 1: defended his actions, so all McCready was left to do
Speaker 1: was pretty much dismissed the whole thing. And he also
Speaker 1: wrote about how annoying and trivial. This whole situation was
Speaker 1: in his diaries, so he didn't really strike back per se,
Speaker 1: but he definitely expressed his displeasure. Yeah, we can imagine
Speaker 1: Forest saying I have a right to him and if
Speaker 1: I want, while McCready is just so annoyed by the
Speaker 1: whole the whole story and anything taking attention away from
Speaker 1: what's really going on the play. Yeah, but Forest followers
Speaker 1: were really devoted to him, and they saw macready style
Speaker 1: as um not emotionally intense enough. It was intellectual and cold.
Speaker 1: It wasn't their cup of tea. And so this back
Speaker 1: and forth feud begins between the followers of these two men.
Speaker 1: And it could be anything from um Forest followers causing trouble,
Speaker 1: you know, causing disturbances at McCready's plays, hissing or cat calling,
Speaker 1: to um McCready's followers making sure that the finest London
Speaker 1: literary society was closed. Forest, so just getting at each other,
Speaker 1: the followers just bickering back and forth for years, and yeah,
Speaker 1: went on for years. And there's more to it than
Speaker 1: just the acting aspect too. It was also about what
Speaker 1: the men stood for, and we've mentioned a little bit
Speaker 1: of that. It was the obvious national breakdown. McCready being English,
Speaker 1: Forest being American. It's the eighteen forties, but there's still
Speaker 1: some Anglo American tensions left over from the American Revolution
Speaker 1: and the War of eighteen twelve, so that stuff hadn't
Speaker 1: entirely disappeared. Yeah, that's hanging over over this whole story.
Speaker 1: But it's also about class. And McCready is the favorite
Speaker 1: actor of the elite and the New York aristocracy that
Speaker 1: just love everything about English society. And according to the
Speaker 1: theater professor Bruce McConochie, the Forest propaganda actually called McCready
Speaker 1: the pet of princes, which is that's pretty cruel, isn't
Speaker 1: it um, Whereas Forest have this bold style and these
Speaker 1: tammany hall connections, and he's of course the favorite of
Speaker 1: the working man. So it's a it's a class division, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean I think it was put well by
Speaker 1: Forest biographer Richard A. Moody. He said, no other actor
Speaker 1: could churn up the emotions of the American audiences as
Speaker 1: forested with his stormy kind of renderings of Shakespeare's tragic heroes,
Speaker 1: or his passionate, patriotic impersonation of any one of a
Speaker 1: half dozen freedom loving zeal it's struggling against tyrannical oppression.
Speaker 1: So kind of a long quote, but I think it
Speaker 1: expresses the way working class people identified with Forest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it expresses Forest effect on them too. Um. So clearly
Speaker 1: more is at stake than who's your favorite actor. And
Speaker 1: the newspapers label this rivalry the rich against the poor,
Speaker 1: so can see where this is going, definitely fueling it.
Speaker 1: So you'd think that promoters wouldn't go looking for trouble
Speaker 1: in this heated scenario by staging these two men playing
Speaker 1: the same role in the same city on the same night,
Speaker 1: But that's exactly what ends up happening. Yeah. So in
Speaker 1: early May nine, there are two placards all over New
Speaker 1: York City. One advertisers McCready at the Astro Placed Opera
Speaker 1: House playing Macbeth. The other advertisers Forest at the Broadway Theater,
Speaker 1: again playing Macbeth. Um. But the managers are hoping. They're
Speaker 1: not expecting a riot to come out of this. They're
Speaker 1: just hoping that they'll sell all their tickets and pack
Speaker 1: their houses and maybe people get a little stirred up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I can see that logic too, But they
Speaker 1: start to realize that that's not necessarily the case when
Speaker 1: a manager for Astro Place goes out and gives away
Speaker 1: some free tickets on May seven, forty nine, the day
Speaker 1: of the show, and when he returns to the opera house,
Speaker 1: he finds out that most of them have already been
Speaker 1: snatched up. He suspects that it wasn't all macready fans
Speaker 1: who wanted these tickets he was giving away. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: smell in trouble here, and so he asked the chief
Speaker 1: police for protection at the show, just in case anything
Speaker 1: goes down. Um. So it's the afternoon of the play
Speaker 1: and the crowd starts building in front of the theater
Speaker 1: long before the doors are set to open, and when
Speaker 1: they finally do open, there's just a rush to get in.
Speaker 1: And I can imagine going in the doors if you're
Speaker 1: a regular theater goer at this time, and looking around,
Speaker 1: it's not the normal crowd for Astor Place. The regulars
Speaker 1: are in their boxes, but the floor is packed with
Speaker 1: these tough looking men, and some are wearing shirt sleeves
Speaker 1: of you know, horror, and all of them are wearing
Speaker 1: their hats indoors and it seems like, I mean, that
Speaker 1: would be menacing. Something is up, something's going to happen.
Speaker 1: But they're all quiet and their patient. They're just waiting,
Speaker 1: but they're also obviously communicating with each other with the
Speaker 1: secret signals. Perhaps jokes. Yeah, some jokes get thrown around. Um,
Speaker 1: so it's it's um, something's going to happen, right, So
Speaker 1: then we have showtime. At about seven thirty, when the
Speaker 1: play is about to start, they start stomping. It's something
Speaker 1: called a tramp warning. Normally it would die off, but
Speaker 1: in this case it starts to get louder. The theater
Speaker 1: and chandeliers start to shake. Yeah, And when the play
Speaker 1: goes on, there are cheers from the boxes from these
Speaker 1: regular theater goers, these regular macready fan but there hisses
Speaker 1: and cat calls and cock crows from everyone else and
Speaker 1: kind of imagining different versions of the arrest development cock crows.
Speaker 1: Um McCready is drowned out when he tries to start
Speaker 1: speaking his lines, and he reacts pretty impressively to this.
Speaker 1: I would say, at first, he just folds his arms
Speaker 1: and he waits, you know, expecting that it. People start
Speaker 1: to get a little embarrassed and maybe it'll die out
Speaker 1: and they can't keep it up. Forever, right, he'll be
Speaker 1: able to continue his performance. Then he stalks the stage
Speaker 1: in front of the footlights. And I mean, this is
Speaker 1: a man who sort of got his start playing villains,
Speaker 1: um melodramatic villain. So I imagine he's got a great face,
Speaker 1: a great villainous face, and I imagine he's throwing it
Speaker 1: at the crowd as he stalks the footlights. And then
Speaker 1: finally he just tries to outshout them, and he gets
Speaker 1: part way through the act that way, even though nobody
Speaker 1: can hear him. The cries are completely drowning him out.
Speaker 1: Poor lady Macbeth enters and people shout obscenities at her,
Speaker 1: so she basically flees the stage. Yeah, it's just getting
Speaker 1: worse and worse instead of getting better. People thought maybe
Speaker 1: if a lady was on stage, the crowd might have
Speaker 1: a little more respect, But that's not quite what happens. Actually,
Speaker 1: projectiles start coming at the stage at that point, for
Speaker 1: potatoes than rotten eggs, Then a chair at McCready's head.
Speaker 1: According to Joel Tyler Headley's seventy three account, someone shouts,
Speaker 1: go off the stage, you English fool. Who three cheers
Speaker 1: from ned Forest. Yeah, and then another chair comes and
Speaker 1: so at this point McCready is worried he will be
Speaker 1: killed and this will be his final tour and his
Speaker 1: final performance of Macbeth. So he leaves the stage and
Speaker 1: the curtain comes down, and um, that seems like it
Speaker 1: should have been the end of this story. Unfortunately it's not. Um.
Speaker 1: Theodore riots weren't terribly uncommon during this time. People would
Speaker 1: riot over things like I thought the play was bad,
Speaker 1: or I thought the music was bad. Um. But this
Speaker 1: was going pretty far, and McCready certainly thought so, and
Speaker 1: he resolved to cancel the engagement go back to England
Speaker 1: on the next ship. But his American friends convince them otherwise. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they actually published a petition about out it. They um
Speaker 1: published this. It said to W. C. McCready, esquire, Dear
Speaker 1: Sir the undersigned, having heard that the outrage at the
Speaker 1: astor Place Opera House on Monday evening is likely to
Speaker 1: have the effect of preventing you from continuing your performances
Speaker 1: and from concluding your intended farewell engagement on the American stage.
Speaker 1: Take this public method of requesting you to reconsider your decision,
Speaker 1: and of assuring you that the good sense and respect
Speaker 1: for order prevailing in this community will sustain you on
Speaker 1: the subsequent nights of your performances. So pretty strong recommendation
Speaker 1: to stay or please evaculous. Yep. Exactly forty seven people
Speaker 1: sign this, among them Washington, Irving and Herman Melville. And
Speaker 1: so McCready agrees. I mean, if Washington, Rman and Herman
Speaker 1: Melville ask you to do something, yeah, definitely. And so
Speaker 1: he decides to perform may temph the same play again
Speaker 1: at Astra place. Yeah. But as soon as the placards
Speaker 1: go up to advertise this return of the macready engagement,
Speaker 1: other placards appear, and these ones are advertising forests playing
Speaker 1: the character of the gladiator in the Broadway theater on
Speaker 1: the same night, now that we know about gladiators, wondering
Speaker 1: if he had to put on a little books a
Speaker 1: little bit that one. Um. But there's another placard that
Speaker 1: goes up to and this one is a lot more dangerous.
Speaker 1: It's I mean, this is in all caps. You can
Speaker 1: actually see this placard. Maybe I'll post it on Twitter
Speaker 1: or Facebook. Um, but it says working men shall Americans
Speaker 1: or English rule in this city. The crew of the
Speaker 1: British steamer have threatened all Americans who shall dare to
Speaker 1: offer their opinions this night at the English Aristocratic Opera House,
Speaker 1: working men, freemen, stand up to your lawful rights. So
Speaker 1: pretty serious. They're insinuating that if you go protest at
Speaker 1: the Macready performance, English sailors will attack you. I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean drawing stuff before people assumed maybe it might
Speaker 1: go off, Okay, this time there was no question. It's
Speaker 1: gonna make people angry reading that, and there's gonna be trouble.
Speaker 1: And so in this case, the police are already plugged in.
Speaker 1: They're they're expecting some sort of trouble to go down
Speaker 1: this time, and they're actually already inside of the Astplace
Speaker 1: Opera House when the doors open. And so when the
Speaker 1: doors open, instead of this crowd rushing in, um, only
Speaker 1: ticket holders are allowed. Um, a few ruffians still get
Speaker 1: in to make a little trouble. But then the theater
Speaker 1: is locked, it's barricaded, the windows are all barricaded, and
Speaker 1: everything is ready for the show. Um. Still some of
Speaker 1: the people who made it in start their tramporning, and
Speaker 1: I just I can't imagine why you would go to
Speaker 1: this play. Imagine being locked and barricaded inside the theater. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'd have to be a big fan, you would have
Speaker 1: to be a super fan, a major. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was this final tour, I guess, so there's a motivation
Speaker 1: to go, and the petition and every kill that they
Speaker 1: killed at the theater as death by theater. But the
Speaker 1: crowd worse than the crowd inside, and the few that
Speaker 1: had gotten in. The crowd outside was the part that's
Speaker 1: really intimidating. It had gotten enormous, some estimates put it
Speaker 1: at about ten thousand to fifteen thousand people, and they
Speaker 1: knocked out the street lamps, they threw stones, they tried
Speaker 1: to break down the doors. Um and the police actually
Speaker 1: had to start worrying about an actual attack on the cready. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seemed like there would be an attack from the
Speaker 1: few people inside. And once they saw signs that an
Speaker 1: attack might be made, that they might try to snatch
Speaker 1: him off the stage, they started arresting a few of
Speaker 1: the rioters who were inside the theater, and supposedly this
Speaker 1: further insights the people outside if they get wind of this.
Speaker 1: But after a time and mc cready continues to act.
Speaker 1: After a time he leaves the stage. He sneaks out
Speaker 1: through a private door, supposedly disguised as an officer on
Speaker 1: horseback and escapes back to his hotel with friends. Um
Speaker 1: gets out of it before it gets any worse, so
Speaker 1: the performances over basically, then the militia has to arrive.
Speaker 1: The rioters rush at the cavalry, driving them into retreat.
Speaker 1: The infantry is battered by stones, and eventually it seems
Speaker 1: like they're going to have to retreat or fire the crowd.
Speaker 1: And there we should say to they're all of these
Speaker 1: paving stones ready because there's a construction site nearby, so
Speaker 1: it's like unlimited projectiles for the rioters conveniently enough. But yeah. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Commanding Officer Major General Charles Stanford gives the order to
Speaker 1: charge bayonet, but because the troops and the crowd are
Speaker 1: in such close quarters, there's no room to charge. So
Speaker 1: some of the crowd actually sees the soldiers muskets and
Speaker 1: there are repeated warnings. Nobody really wants to open fire
Speaker 1: on this crowd. Um repeated warnings to disperse or they'll
Speaker 1: have to shoot. Finally, the sheriff gives the order to
Speaker 1: fire blanks over the crowd's head because they realize their
Speaker 1: blanks and they're going over their heads. It only incites
Speaker 1: ridicule from the crowd and um, which is unfortunate. And
Speaker 1: then finally the order is given to fire point blank.
Speaker 1: But Low said that the metal be injured, not killed.
Speaker 1: And Um, it's it's not just that the orders are
Speaker 1: the people in charge are reluctant to give the orders.
Speaker 1: The men are are reluctant to carry them out. They
Speaker 1: don't feel right shooting um a civilian point blank in
Speaker 1: their inn city, which makes sense, definitely, It wasn't something
Speaker 1: that they wanted to do. But in the end they
Speaker 1: do end up shooting on their orders. And this is
Speaker 1: from an account of the terrific and fatal riot at
Speaker 1: the New York Astro Placed Opera House. At last, the
Speaker 1: awful word was given to fire. There was a gleam
Speaker 1: of sulfurous light, a sharp, quick rattle, and here and
Speaker 1: there in the crowd a man sunk upon the pavement
Speaker 1: with a deep groan or a death rattle. So by
Speaker 1: the third volley or so, the bystanders had dispersed, and
Speaker 1: by the fourth the shooting seems pretty much unnecessary, so
Speaker 1: they stopped. Yeah. Yeah, most people consider the fourth round
Speaker 1: was uncalled for. Um. But at the end of the
Speaker 1: whole thing, anywhere from twenty two to twenty four people
Speaker 1: were dead, depending on which account you look at, and
Speaker 1: most of them were bystanders, young working men with Irish
Speaker 1: last names. Approximately a hundred people are wounded. A lot
Speaker 1: of those are the soldiers hit by stones and um,
Speaker 1: you know, this rage about the whole thing continues for
Speaker 1: a little while. Their bonfires the next day to protest
Speaker 1: the masaker. Um. Eventually, though, the tension started to die
Speaker 1: down and McCready, of course, I mean he's not about
Speaker 1: to be lured into a second return. Um. He gets
Speaker 1: back to England as soon as possible for his farewell
Speaker 1: tour there. He retired playing Macbeth in eight fifty and
Speaker 1: in England, and he died twenty two years later. Um
Speaker 1: Forest though, has kind of a sadder fate. I would say, yeah,
Speaker 1: his reputation was seriously damaged after all of this, and
Speaker 1: especially later when he was best known for this lawsuit
Speaker 1: he was in with his actress wife. He sued his
Speaker 1: wife for divorce on the grounds of adultery, and he
Speaker 1: ended up losing the case, but he kept appealing it
Speaker 1: for the next eighteen years. It was kind of the
Speaker 1: scandal that was in the news, and he was kind
Speaker 1: of almost known for that more than his acting, seems well.
Speaker 1: And I mean he was known for these two scandals,
Speaker 1: two very apparently very big scandals in the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: and his name is attached to both of them. Maybe
Speaker 1: a little too much press um And according to Encyclopedia Britannica,
Speaker 1: Forest spent his later years in quote his gloomy Philadelphia
Speaker 1: mansion and he died only a few months before McCready. Um.
Speaker 1: But kind of a final note on this whole thing,
Speaker 1: if you're going to look at the broader history of
Speaker 1: theatrical riots, there's a really great website called Shakespeare in
Speaker 1: American Life. It's part of the folder Shakespeare Library and
Speaker 1: I used it a lot um for the ship the
Speaker 1: Shipwreck that Saved Jamestown episode two, which was about the tempest. Um.
Speaker 1: But it's great. You know, their placards, pictures of the actors,
Speaker 1: interviews with experts, um. And there's also some commentary from
Speaker 1: Professor Bruce McConochie, who we mentioned earlier. And um. Apparently
Speaker 1: theatrical riots had been really common before the Astra Place riot,
Speaker 1: but they didn't continue too long after it. And part
Speaker 1: of the reason why is because the municipal police department's
Speaker 1: got a lot stronger around the middle of the century,
Speaker 1: and so a riot like this just wasn't allowed to happen.
Speaker 1: Of course there's still riots, but riots in um a
Speaker 1: setting that should be so controlled, just didn't happen as much.
Speaker 1: I think that's a good thing. Yeah, I'm glad we
Speaker 1: can get the theater and piece these days. And that
Speaker 1: brings us to listener mail. This letter is from Bethany,
Speaker 1: and she says, Dear Sarah and Dablina, I just finished
Speaker 1: listening to all of the stuff you missed in history
Speaker 1: class podcasts and have really enjoyed them. But after listening
Speaker 1: to the episode about the five amazing astronomical discoveries, I
Speaker 1: just wanted to give Galileo some credit. While it would
Speaker 1: definitely be painful and foolish to look through a telescope
Speaker 1: at the sun, that's actually not how Galileo discovered sun spots. Rather,
Speaker 1: he would hold a piece of paper at the eyepiece
Speaker 1: of the telescope and trace the sun spots in the
Speaker 1: light that came through the telescope. I learned this while
Speaker 1: reading Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel, which I highly recommend. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you Bethany for that cool little insight into Galileo's discovery.
Speaker 1: Galilet's Daughter is actually one that's been on my list
Speaker 1: for a while books to read. Yeah, and definitely after
Speaker 1: the both the Tico Brahe podcasts and the Five Astronomical Discoveries,
Speaker 1: I'm a lot more interested in the strong to me
Speaker 1: now than I used to comman astronomy buff. Definitely, that's
Speaker 1: what happened. Um. If you have any other favorite galle stories,
Speaker 1: or if you have anything about theatrical history or Shakespeare,
Speaker 1: I mean, Shakespeare podcasts have been pretty fun. I gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go out and say that. Yeah, and there's
Speaker 1: many more that we could do. I mean, that's a
Speaker 1: great thing about Shakespeare. There's always more stories exactly. So
Speaker 1: if you have any great suggestions, feel free to email
Speaker 1: us at History Podcast at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: We're also on Twitter at Misston History, and we're on
Speaker 1: Facebook where I'm going to definitely post this claquer that
Speaker 1: helped incite the riot. Um And if you want to
Speaker 1: search for any fun articles, you can do so by
Speaker 1: going to our homepage at www dot how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
Speaker 1: becausit how stuff works dot com. To learn more about
Speaker 1: the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper
Speaker 1: right corner of our homepage. The How Stuff Works iPhone
Speaker 1: up has a rise. Download it today on iTunes Boom
Speaker 1: Boom m