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00:00She had reported that they were flying near Howland Island but couldn't see it
00:04and that their fuel was running dangerously low.
00:08After the final message, silence fell over the airwaves and the Electra disappeared.
00:15The search for the lost treasure of France's emperor follows the path of his boldest invasion.
00:21The vast fortune and money and treasures his men had accumulated and carted along with them had disappeared
00:27and has not been found to this day.
00:30So what could have become of Napoleon's stolen loot?
00:35A daring explorer vanishes in the cold, unforgiving waters of the Arctic.
00:40Hudson, his son, and a few loyal men were set adrift in icy, uncharted waters.
00:45Centuries later, the question remains, did he vanish into the Arctic's merciless expanse
00:49or somehow survive against all odds?
00:53The chain of history has many missing links.
00:56Prominent people, priceless treasures, extraordinary artifacts, their locations still unknown,
01:06lost to the fog of time.
01:08What happens when stories of the past become vanished history?
01:17In 1937, Amelia Earhart embarked on an audacious journey to circumnavigate the globe,
01:35piloting a cutting-edge Lockheed Electric 10E with navigator Fred Noonan.
01:40Their flight was a feat of daring and innovation, pushing the boundaries of human endurance and aviation technology.
01:48Erhart Noonan's journey began on May 21st, 1937, in Oakland, California, before heading east.
01:56By the time they reached Lai, New Guinea on June 29th, they had traveled an astounding 22,000 miles over 21 flight days.
02:05The next leg to Howland Island was critical.
02:09It was a refueling stop on their route through the vast Pacific.
02:14Howland Island was a tiny, uninhabited coral atoll, barely a speck in the endless ocean.
02:18To help their approach, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca was stationed nearby,
02:23emitting smoke signals and transmitting radio communications.
02:25But logs from the Itasca reveal a troubling reality.
02:29Many of their transmissions went unheard by Earhart.
02:31While her responses were occasionally received, they were fragmented and unclear.
02:35On July 2nd, 1937, at 8.43 a.m., Earhart's final confirmed transmission came through.
02:44She had reported that they were flying near Howland Island, but couldn't see it,
02:48and that their fuel was running dangerously low.
02:52After the final message, silence fell over the airwaves, and the Electra disappeared.
02:57The world was left with one of history's greatest mysteries.
03:03What happened to Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan?
03:07Amelia Earhart's final flight was the culmination of a career defined by groundbreaking achievements in aviation.
03:14From setting transcontinental records to becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic,
03:21she captivated the world.
03:22Earhart discovered her passion for aviation after World War I, following a chance encounter with pilots.
03:31She moved from Kansas to California in 1920, and by 1922, she had already set the women's altitude record at 14,000 feet,
03:41showcasing her determination to push boundaries.
03:45But Earhart wasn't just a pilot.
03:47She became a symbol of possibility and empowerment.
03:52As the first woman vice president of the National Aeronautic Association,
03:56Earhart championed opportunities for women in flight.
04:00At Purdue University, she served as a professor and counselor,
04:04encouraging women to embrace engineering and science.
04:08Amelia's first attempt to circumnavigate the globe began with high hopes.
04:11On March 17, 1937, she and her team successfully flew the first leg from Oakland to Honolulu in under 16 hours.
04:19But three days later, disaster struck.
04:21During takeoff, the electric ground loops,
04:24a maneuver where the aircraft veers uncontrollably during taxi or takeoff.
04:27As she attempted to correct a rightward drift on the rain-slicked field,
04:30her adjustments overcompensated and caused the electric to spin sharply to the left.
04:34This damaged the plane and forced the team to call off the flight.
04:37By June 1937, Earhart was ready to try again.
04:43This time, she and Fred Noonan would leave from Miami and fly from west to east.
04:48Over the next month, they traveled more than 20,000 miles,
04:53stopping everywhere from South America to Africa, India, and New Guinea.
04:57But what would become the final leg of their journey was fraught with peril.
05:03The flight from New Guinea to refuel on tiny Howland Island
05:06was 2,500 miles over the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean.
05:13The Electra carried 1,000 gallons of fuel.
05:17That's about 20 hours worth.
05:19But strong headwinds, overcast skies, and communication breakdowns
05:23likely reduced their margin for error.
05:26Despite their preparation, they were flying into a region
05:30where even a slight navigational error could mean disaster.
05:35When radio contact with the Coast Guard cutter Itasca fell silent,
05:40the enormity of the situation became clear.
05:43President Roosevelt ordered an unprecedented search effort
05:46spanning 250,000 square miles of ocean.
05:50George Putnam, Amelia's husband, even financed private searches
05:55but by October, 1937, all efforts had come up dry.
06:00Earhart's final radio transmission, 42 days into their journey,
06:05was a faint echo lost to the Pacific where many believe the truth behind their silence lies hidden.
06:12One theory suggests a tragic yet straightforward conclusion.
06:15Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan ran out of fuel and were forced to ditch their plane into the Pacific near Howland Island,
06:21a huge and unforgiving expanse of open ocean.
06:24Amelia Earhart's last reported message.
06:29We are on the line 157, 337, suggested they were following their planned path.
06:36But navigational miscalculations could have led them astray,
06:39and overcast skies could have obscured their view of Howland Island,
06:44which is just a tiny atoll.
06:46Critically low on fuel, they would then have had no choice but to try an emergency landing at sea.
06:54The Pacific near Howland Island is one of the most remote and inaccessible regions on Earth.
07:02Its ocean floor plunges to depths exceeding 17,000 feet,
07:06with powerful currents constantly reshaping the seafloor,
07:10making any recovery effort an extraordinary challenge.
07:13In 2009, a non-profit group called the Waite Institute
07:18used deep-sea robots to search thousands of square miles.
07:23The missions did expand our understanding of the seafloor,
07:27but they didn't find the Electra.
07:30The crash and sank theory offers a logical explanation for their disappearance,
07:36but the complete absence of wreckage raises questions.
07:40Could the vastness of the ocean conceal their fate?
07:45Or does the lack of evidence suggest there's more to the story?
07:50Other theories propose Earhart and Noonan may have found refuge far from Howland Island,
07:57only to face an entirely different fate.
08:01Nikuma Roro, a remote coral atoll in the Phoenix Islands,
08:04sits along the 157-337 line of position mentioned in Earhart's final transmission.
08:11As fuel dwindled and their view of Howland Island remained obscured,
08:15Earhart and Noonan may have followed the 157-337 line southeast towards Nikuma Roro,
08:22hoping to find refuge on the coral atoll surrounded by deep ocean.
08:26This wasn't a random heading.
08:29The 157-337 line was a precise navigational strategy
08:33calculated from the rising sun using celestial navigation.
08:37Fred Noonan, a master of this technique, would have plotted this line well in advance.
08:41After their disappearance, hopes were sparked by reports of a series of faint radio transmissions.
08:48121 distress signals were received by radio operators over the next 10 days,
08:55and it was thought that at least 57 of them could potentially have come from the Electra.
09:02Decades of investigation have uncovered compelling clues
09:06suggesting that Nikuma Roro may be the Electra's final resting place
09:10and the site of a desperate struggle for survival.
09:14In 1940, a British colonial officer made a chilling discovery on Nikuma Roro,
09:21a human skull and bones, along with remnants of a woman's shoe,
09:26near what appeared to be a makeshift camp.
09:29Subsequent investigations uncovered bottles of cosmetics,
09:32a sexant box, which is an essential tool for navigation,
09:35and shells and bones from fish, turtles, and birds that appear to have been eaten.
09:39These clues hinted a resourceful survivor struggling to endure in this isolated atoll.
09:43The initial analysis of the human bones found they belonged to a short European man.
09:50But while they've since been lost,
09:52a more recent re-evaluation of the measurements using modern forensic software
09:57suggests they're actually more likely to belong to a tall European woman,
10:02right around the same height and build as Amelia Earhart.
10:05Yet despite years of investigation, no evidence conclusively ties Erhart or Noonan to Nikuma Roro,
10:15or to the human remains discovered there.
10:18As the search for answers moves beyond Nikuma Roro,
10:22the trail leads to a theory that shifts the focus to a possibility rooted in the shadowy waters of the Pacific
10:29and the tumult of pre-war tensions.
10:33It's possible that Erhart and Noonan, unable to locate Howland Island,
10:37may have veered off course and flown north toward the Japanese-controlled Marshall Islands.
10:42Eyewitness accounts passed down through generations of Marshallese locals
10:45tell of a silver plane landing on the remote shores of Milley Atoll.
10:49In 2017, interest was reignited in this theory by a photograph discovered in the U.S. National Archives.
11:01The grainy photos seem to show a man and a woman resembling Noonan and Earhart
11:06sitting on a dock at Jeluit Atoll with what looked like the Electra nearby.
11:12It sparked speculation that the Japanese Navy had captured them and taken them to Saipan.
11:18But the story fell apart when researchers discovered the photo in a 1935 Japanese travel book
11:25two years before Earhart vanished.
11:29Still, advocates of the Marshall Islands theory point to other intriguing clues.
11:35It's been proposed that Earhart had a contingency plan, a Plan B,
11:39to head for the Marshall Islands if Howland Island could not be located.
11:44Some suggest her radio silence was deliberate,
11:47masking an intelligence mission to scout Japanese installations in the Pacific.
11:53Without concrete evidence, no wreckage, no documents, no records,
11:58the claim is impossible to prove.
12:00Some people still find the Marshall Islands idea compelling,
12:04another theory looking to provide an answer to one of the world's great mysteries.
12:10For decades, the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan
12:15has captivated the world, inspiring relentless investigations and countless theories.
12:22The crash and sank theory offers a simple and tragic conclusion.
12:27An aircraft lost to the vast Pacific, swallowed by an unforgiving sea.
12:32But without wreckage or definitive proof, the mystery lingers, keeping doubt alive even today.
12:40The Nikuma-Roro theory paints a vivid picture of survival.
12:45A plane stranded on a coral reef, faint radio signals calling for help,
12:50and traces of a makeshift camp.
12:53But the clues, while compelling, remain frustratingly incomplete,
12:57leaving us with a puzzle where the pieces don't quite fit together.
13:03In the end, we may never know what happened.
13:07Amelia Earhart once said,
13:09adventure is worthwhile in itself.
13:12Her life, her journey, and her disappearance
13:15remind us that sometimes the pursuit of the extraordinary is its own reward.
13:20By 1812, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte
13:33had already conquered Europe, from Portugal to Poland,
13:37from the Baltic Sea to Italy.
13:39But to get at the powerful British Empire,
13:42he had to defeat Russia,
13:44a feat he estimated he could achieve within a few weeks,
13:47backed by an army of over 600,000 strong.
13:51At first, Napoleon seemed to have the upper hand.
13:55His condamé chased the Russians eastward as they retreated.
14:00His soldiers would collect huge amounts of loot and treasure,
14:03everything from priceless religious icons to gold and silver
14:07that Napoleon hoped to use to fund future campaigns.
14:11There are stories of thousands of cartloads filled with riches.
14:17But by the time Napoleon had abandoned his Russian conquest
14:21and the remnants of his broken army had returned to Western Europe,
14:25the vast fortune and money and treasures his men had accumulated
14:29and carted along with them had disappeared
14:31and has not been found to this day.
14:33So, what could have become of Napoleon's stolen loot?
14:40Napoleon's invasion force was the largest in European history.
14:44And with an army that size,
14:46delivering a constant supply of food can be a daunting challenge.
14:50But one of Napoleon's guiding principles was,
14:53the army feeds itself.
14:54Well, the army didn't exactly feed itself.
14:58That was a nice way of saying that his army plundered riches and food
15:02from whatever area they were marching through,
15:05providing money to fund his current and future campaigns
15:08and food to sustain the troops each day.
15:11For Napoleon, it simplified things greatly.
15:14On June 22nd, 1812, Napoleon and his Grand Army
15:18crossed the Niemann River and marched on to Vilnius,
15:21expecting their first battle.
15:23But there was no fight.
15:24The Russian army had already withdrawn, so the chase was on.
15:28Tsar Alexander I responded to Napoleon's strategy
15:32with a brutal scorched earth campaign,
15:35destroying roads, bridges, livestock, and food supplies
15:39in the places where his own people lived,
15:43leaving almost nothing behind for Napoleon's army to live on.
15:48Throughout that summer, there was no way for Napoleon
15:51to properly supply his forces
15:53as they chased the rapidly withdrawing Russians.
15:56Even before fighting any of their battles,
15:58they'd started dying by the thousands of thirst, starvation,
16:02disease, and heat exhaustion,
16:04and were losing about a thousand horses a day to the same things.
16:09On September 14th, 1812,
16:12Napoleon and his army reached Moscow,
16:15ready to negotiate Tsar Alexander's peaceful surrender
16:18or to take the city by force.
16:21But the Tsar wasn't there, nor his army.
16:24Moscow had been abandoned and set aflame,
16:28as per Alexander's orders.
16:30The Grand Army looted the city of its riches
16:33while Napoleon waited for the Tsar to give in.
16:36All the while, his troops' supplies of food and water
16:39grew lower and lower
16:41because the Russian command had ordered the city's food stores
16:44to be destroyed before its evacuation.
16:48Napoleon waited 36 days.
16:50Finally, on October 18th,
16:52he ordered his army to retreat,
16:53and they left Moscow with 50,000 carts and wheelbarrows
16:56loaded with loot and gold bullion.
16:58They even took things like the massive crucifix
17:00from Ivan the Great's cathedral,
17:01which they displayed as a symbol of victory as they retreated.
17:05It was a catastrophic retreat.
17:09That fall, rain turned roads into mud.
17:12In November, the temperatures plummeted
17:14as low as minus 22 Fahrenheit.
17:17The men suffered frostbite and snow blindness.
17:20For food, some were left to broil
17:23and eat their own dying horses seasoned with gunpowder
17:27or cats, handles, axle grease.
17:31Some even resorted to cannibalism.
17:33By mid-November,
17:35the 600,000 men of the Grande Armée
17:38were down to only about 36,000.
17:42Some speculate that the bulk of Napoleon's treasures
17:45for Moscow never made it
17:47to more than a quarter of the way back to Paris.
17:50At the end of November, with the Cossacks,
17:53who were politically independent fighters
17:55cooperating with Russia, chasing and firing on them,
17:59the French scrambled to build two bridges
18:01across the Berezina River
18:02in a desperate attempt to get away.
18:05And that might be as far as Napoleon's loot traveled.
18:09It's possible that untold amounts of Napoleon's gold
18:13and other booty lie deep under the silt
18:15of the Berezina River.
18:16That river crossing was chaotic and absolutely hellish.
18:22This wasn't an orderly retreat by any means,
18:24but the Russian artillery bombarding them,
18:26people panicked and trampled one another
18:28to get on the bridges,
18:29which repeatedly collapsed under the immense weight,
18:32killing around 15,000 soldiers and civilians.
18:35The wagons of treasure would have sunk straight down.
18:37Once Napoleon and his main force were across the river,
18:42he ordered the bridges burned
18:44to keep the Russians from following.
18:46Tens of thousands of stragglers
18:48were left on the other bank
18:50to be captured or killed
18:52or to drown as they tried to swim
18:54through the freezing water.
18:57If any amount of the treasure
18:59survived beyond the Berezina crossing,
19:02those who carried it may have reconsidered its value,
19:04from war booty to make them rich
19:07to something that might just get them home alive.
19:11Those of Napoleon's men
19:13that managed to travel the 200 miles
19:15to Vilnius in Lithuania
19:17may have spent much of the booty they'd kept
19:19on food or accommodation.
19:23Vilnius is known as the city built on human bones,
19:27and there's a grim reason for that.
19:29About 20,000 of Napoleon's soldiers made it there,
19:32but they were in very bad shape.
19:33Many had frostbitten extremities
19:34that had turned gangrenous.
19:36All were starving.
19:38Starving soldiers fought over food and shelter.
19:42Many of those who didn't have gold to pay with
19:45froze to death outside.
19:47One witness described thousands
19:49of frozen corpses lining the streets,
19:53stacked three stories high,
19:55waiting to be collected.
19:56Such descriptions may be hard to imagine or believe,
20:02and it's easy to think
20:03they must have been exaggerated over the years.
20:06But with time, occasionally, comes proof.
20:10In 2002, municipal workers demolishing old buildings
20:14just outside of Vilnius discovered a mass grave.
20:17Thousands of human skeletons arranged neatly,
20:20layer upon layer.
20:21With the skeletons were buttons from military uniforms
20:24stamped with their unit numbers,
20:26scraps of blue cloth,
20:28and a crushed infantryman's helmet.
20:32None of the skeletons showed any signs
20:34of having died in battle.
20:35And aside from one gold 20-franc Napoleonic coin,
20:38no booty was found with them.
20:40By many contemporaneous accounts,
20:41people were diligent in separating the war dead
20:43from their gold.
20:44And so far, the archaeological record
20:47supports those observations.
20:48The account claims the army was still carrying chests
20:52filled with 10 million gold francs
20:55on its way to Vilnius.
20:57While under attack,
20:58a colonel gave Napoleon's treasury,
21:00the emperor's personal stash,
21:02to some nearby guards for safekeeping.
21:05But the officer claimed every coin was returned
21:08after the danger had passed.
21:10So if that's true, where are they?
21:13Some experts believe that there may not be a single place
21:18where Napoleon's lost treasure now lies.
21:21And that the key to what happened to it
21:23is in the moment the Grand Armée
21:25changed from being predators to prey.
21:29From the time Napoleon began his retreat from Moscow,
21:32his soldiers and all of his cartloads of war booty
21:35were targets.
21:36The Russian army, and especially the Cossacks,
21:39chased, hunted, and harassed them.
21:41They picked off their rear guards
21:43and stole their booty whenever they could.
21:47The Cossacks were skilled, and they were relentless.
21:50Napoleon, who one might expect would be upset with them
21:53for preying on his troops,
21:55was actually instead greatly impressed.
21:57He said he could go all the way around the world
22:00if he had them in his army.
22:04Some of the soldiers who tried to carry smaller amounts
22:07of treasure in their own backpacks
22:08would have made it all of the way to Vilnius,
22:11but many of them would have been overtaken by the Russians,
22:14killed or taken prisoner.
22:16The loot they carried wasn't any help.
22:18It only slowed them down.
22:21The loss of Napoleon's plundered trophies and treasure
22:24wasn't only an embarrassment or a loss of face.
22:27It represented the failure of the entire campaign
22:30and signaled the beginning of the end for the emperor.
22:35Napoleon tried to put a positive spin on things
22:37when he returned to France.
22:39He said,
22:40all had gone well.
22:41Moscow was in my power,
22:43even though it was an empty, burning city when he arrived.
22:47And he said,
22:48the cold of the winter caused a general calamity.
22:51The cold of the Russian winter did make things harder
22:55for Napoleon's troops,
22:57as did the heat of the Russian summer.
22:59But what really failed them
23:01was Napoleon's planning and leadership.
23:04In the end,
23:05his philosophy that his army could feed itself
23:07was neutralized by Tsar Alexander's policy
23:10of scorching the earth.
23:14Napoleon's invasion of Russia
23:16is to this day
23:17one of the deadliest military campaigns in history.
23:21What ultimately became of the plundered loot
23:23his army hauled behind them
23:25may never be discovered.
23:27But what's almost certain to be found
23:29is more evidence of those doomed
23:31by one man's unrealistic ambitions.
23:44In the early 1600s,
23:47as European empires pushed the boundaries
23:49of their world maps,
23:50one explorer sailed into uncertainty
23:53with extraordinary courage and ambition.
23:56Henry Hudson,
23:58driven by visions of an elusive northern route to Asia,
24:01ventured through ice-choked seas
24:03and uncharted coasts.
24:05Four bold voyages
24:06carved new lines on maritime charts.
24:09But his final journey
24:11would end with a sudden betrayal,
24:13leaving behind one of history's greatest mysteries.
24:16In the early 17th century,
24:21most European trade routes to Asia
24:23required long voyages south,
24:25around the tip of Africa.
24:27Hudson sought a daring alternative,
24:30a shorter northern waterway
24:32known as the Northwest Passage,
24:34a route that could change the balance
24:36of global trade forever.
24:39Hudson's groundbreaking Arctic mapping
24:41expanded the known world
24:43and opened the door for Dutch colonization
24:45in what would become New York.
24:47But his relentless pursuit
24:49of the Northwest Passage,
24:51coupled with a habit of defying orders
24:53and straining his crews,
24:55placed mounting pressure
24:56on every expedition,
24:58which set the stage for the conflicts
25:00that would mark his final journey.
25:02In 1611,
25:04after a brutal winter trapped in James Bay,
25:06the crew of Hudson's discovery
25:08reached their breaking point.
25:09Starvation, illness,
25:10and Hudson's alleged favoritism
25:12triggered a mutiny.
25:13Hudson, his son,
25:14and a few loyal men
25:15were set adrift
25:15in icy, uncharted waters.
25:18Centuries later,
25:19the question remains,
25:20did he vanish into the Arctic's
25:21merciless expanse
25:22or somehow survive against all odds?
25:24By the early 17th century,
25:28improved sharks,
25:29growing maritime expertise,
25:31and the lingering promise
25:32of a shortcut to Asia
25:34only intensified Europe's hunger
25:36for a solution.
25:38Hudson entered this stage
25:39armed with lessons from the past,
25:41determined to succeed,
25:43where others had failed.
25:46In 1609,
25:48Hudson was hired
25:49by the Dutch East India Company
25:51to search for the Northeast Passage
25:53to Asia
25:54by sailing through the Arctic
25:56north of Russia.
25:57He set sail on his third voyage
25:59aboard the Half Moon
26:00with a crew of 17.
26:03But when ice blocked his path,
26:05Hudson ignored his orders.
26:08Instead of returning home
26:09to Amsterdam,
26:10he headed west,
26:12across the Atlantic,
26:14hoping to discover
26:15a different route to the Pacific,
26:17the Northwest Passage.
26:20Hudson chartered the coast
26:22of North America,
26:23navigating from Newfoundland
26:25to present-day Manhattan,
26:26before venturing 150 miles
26:28up the river
26:29that now bears his name,
26:31reaching as far as Albany.
26:33Rather than returning
26:34to Amsterdam,
26:35Hudson docked in England,
26:36where he secured support
26:38for yet another expedition,
26:40while the Half Moon
26:41returned to the Dutch
26:42without him.
26:43These actions angered
26:45his Dutch employers,
26:46but opened lucrative trade opportunities
26:48and solidified his reputation
26:50as an explorer willing to risk
26:52everything in pursuit of discovery.
26:54In April 1610,
26:59with the backing
27:00of the British East India Company
27:01and other influential figures,
27:04including the Prince of Wales,
27:05Hudson embarked
27:06on his most ambitious voyage yet.
27:09After leaving London
27:10aboard the 55-ton Discovery,
27:13he ventured to Iceland
27:14and the rugged coasts of Labrador,
27:17driven by the dream
27:18of finding an open passage
27:19to China.
27:20Hudson had a crew of 23,
27:24including his son, John,
27:25and lifetime associate,
27:26Robert Duet.
27:27But early in the voyage,
27:29he made the controversial decision
27:31to bring aboard Henry Green,
27:33a volatile figure
27:35tasked with spying on the crew,
27:37a choice that hinted
27:39at the tensions
27:40brewing beneath the surface.
27:43Despite Fikes breaking out on board
27:45and members threatening to leave,
27:47Hudson managed to push farther
27:48than any of his previous expeditions.
27:49Eventually,
27:51he crossed the strait
27:51that now bears his name
27:52and entered the vast,
27:54uncharted waters of Hudson Bay.
27:56Hudson and his crew
27:58spent months
27:59searching the shores
28:00of Hudson Bay
28:01for a route to the Pacific,
28:03and tensions on board
28:04the Discovery were growing.
28:07Eventually,
28:07his crew began openly disagreeing
28:09with his decisions,
28:11but Hudson ignored their warnings,
28:13cracked down on descent,
28:15and insisted on pushing forward.
28:19Hudson's relentless drive
28:22to push onward,
28:23despite the crew's growing doubts,
28:25only deepened the cracks
28:26in his fragile command.
28:30As months passed
28:31and winter closed in,
28:32they sailed south to James Bay,
28:34where it became clear
28:36they'd reached a dead end.
28:37Trapped by ice
28:38on the shores of James Bay,
28:40the crew endured
28:41a brutal winter
28:42of freezing temperatures,
28:44dwindling supplies,
28:45and scurvy.
28:47By the spring of 1611,
28:49tensions aboard the Discovery
28:51were ready to explode.
28:53The crew had become suspicious
28:55that Hudson was hoarding rations
28:58for his favorites,
28:59including his son
29:00and the ship's carpenter,
29:01which deepened the divide
29:03between the captain
29:04and his men
29:05and fueled simmering resentment.
29:08And when the ice
29:09finally began to thaw,
29:11instead of keeping
29:11his promise to sail home,
29:13Hudson instead revealed
29:15plans to push further west.
29:18The crew was already weakened,
29:20demoralized,
29:21and without any faith
29:22in the vision
29:23or leadership of their captain.
29:24This final betrayal,
29:25coupled with months of hardship,
29:27sparked a full-blown mutiny.
29:29In June,
29:29the crew cast Hudson,
29:30his son,
29:31and seven loyal men adrift
29:32in the small open shallop,
29:34leaving them to the mercy
29:35of the Arctic.
29:36The Discovery sailed away,
29:37and with it,
29:38the last trace of Hudson.
29:41The Arctic's thaw
29:42brought no relief
29:43to Henry Hudson's
29:44fragile command.
29:45However,
29:46some maintained
29:47that his final moments
29:48were decided
29:49not by the biting cold,
29:51but by the hands
29:52of those who once
29:53followed him.
29:55Some think
29:56Henry Hudson
29:57might have been murdered
29:58by his own crew.
30:00After months of frostbites,
30:01scurvy,
30:02mind-numbing confinement,
30:05it might have only
30:05taken a spark
30:06to ignite
30:07a violent reaction.
30:10Although mutineers
30:11later claimed
30:12they cast Hudson
30:13and his loyalists
30:14adrift
30:15with adequate supplies,
30:17the ship's deck
30:18told another story.
30:20Dark,
30:20crusted bloodstains
30:21on the ship's deck
30:22hinted at a violent
30:24confrontation
30:24before Hudson
30:26disappeared
30:26into the Arctic.
30:28This scene
30:28would suggest
30:29that the final moments
30:30aboard the Discovery
30:32were anything
30:32but orderly.
30:36Not everyone
30:37accepts that Hudson
30:38perished amid ice
30:39and betrayal.
30:40Another theory suggests
30:41his fate led inland,
30:43weaving him
30:44into the stories
30:45and landscapes
30:46of those who call
30:47the region home.
30:50Some believe
30:51that Hudson
30:51and his men
30:52survived by forging
30:53new bonds
30:54with indigenous communities.
30:55Accounts from Cree elders
30:56describe a band
30:57of pale strangers
30:58arriving near James Bay
30:59in the early 1600s.
31:01One figure
31:02was notably red-haired,
31:03adorned with striking jewelry
31:04and exuded authority.
31:07The Arctic's relentless conditions
31:08would have demanded
31:09ingenuity and cooperation,
31:12making cultural integration
31:13a plausible means
31:14of survival.
31:16Although there's
31:16no solid proof,
31:18a mention by explorer
31:19Samuel de Champlain
31:20of English youths
31:22in the company
31:23of the Algonquin
31:23supports this
31:25intriguing possibility.
31:27The survival theory,
31:29though fascinating,
31:30faces challenges.
31:32Without solid
31:32archaeological proof
31:34or documented encounters,
31:36the idea of Hudson's crew
31:37blending seamlessly
31:39into indigenous life
31:40seems more hopeful
31:42than certain.
31:43In a land that hides
31:45its secrets beneath ice,
31:47there may be
31:47a far harsher explanation.
31:49Not everyone believes
31:52Hudson's story
31:53ended with warm hearths
31:55and new alliances.
31:56Another theory
31:57points to a colder conclusion,
32:00shaped by the unforgiving nature
32:02of the Arctic itself.
32:04In 1823,
32:06an explorer named
32:07Douglas Claverin
32:08is said to have found
32:09some graves
32:10on the island of Spitsbergen,
32:12far to the north
32:14of mainland Norway,
32:15including one
32:16marked with the name
32:18Henry Hudson.
32:19Leading to speculation
32:20that Hudson's boat
32:21could have been blown
32:223,000 miles
32:24across the North Atlantic
32:25by southwesterly gales.
32:28According to some accounts,
32:30his crew exhumed
32:31a well-preserved body,
32:32bringing it aboard the ship.
32:34However,
32:34as the warmer climate set in,
32:36the body began to decompose
32:38and they allegedly
32:38cast it overboard.
32:40This strange tale,
32:42though intriguing,
32:43was never documented
32:44in the ship's log
32:45and exists only
32:47in the writings
32:48of Archibald Smith,
32:49an associate of Clavering.
32:52Henry Hudson's legacy
32:54stands at the crossroads
32:55of ambition,
32:56exploration,
32:58and human endurance.
32:59While his voyages
33:01broadened horizons
33:02and fueled empires,
33:04clearing paths
33:05for future expeditions,
33:06whaling industries,
33:08and settlements,
33:09his disappearance
33:10proves that discovery
33:11often extracts
33:13a heavy toll.
33:16Hudson's travels
33:17helped reshape the world.
33:19It expanded Europe's
33:21understanding of it
33:22and its geography,
33:23brought news of the river
33:24that now bears his name,
33:26and set the stage
33:27for Dutch colonization
33:28in North America,
33:30pushing open doors
33:31that would enrich
33:32European empires
33:33and devastate
33:34indigenous nations.
33:35And he charted
33:36Arctic waters
33:37as no European
33:38had ever mapped before.
33:41But Hudson's
33:42unwavering hunt
33:43for the Northwest Passage
33:44came at a human cost.
33:47His disregard
33:47for orders
33:48and the uneven distribution
33:50of scarce resources
33:51stoked resentments
33:53that,
33:53in the frozen darkness
33:54of James Bay,
33:55flared into mutiny.
33:57That single desperate act
33:59left questions
34:00that still haunt us
34:01centuries later.
34:02Whether he succumbed
34:03to Arctic hardship,
34:05fell victim
34:05to his own crew's fury,
34:07or slept quietly
34:08into indigenous communities,
34:10Hudson's fate
34:11embodies the thin line
34:12between success
34:13and disaster
34:15in the golden age
34:16of exploration.
34:19Henry Hudson
34:20ventured boldly
34:21into realms
34:21few dared to navigate.
34:23His disappearance
34:24remains a testament
34:26that not all
34:27who journey
34:27into uncharted worlds
34:29return with their stories.
34:35Before 221 BCE,
34:43there was no China.
34:45But then,
34:45Zhao Zhang,
34:46a young king,
34:47rose up
34:48and by the power of will
34:50forged seven warring states
34:52into one
34:53and proclaimed himself
34:54China's first emperor.
34:57He desired to have a seal
34:58that all would recognize
34:59and none would dare question.
35:02An object of lasting permanence
35:04to sustain his dynasty
35:05for 10,000 generations,
35:08the heirloom seal
35:09of the realm.
35:12Seals had been used
35:13in that part of the world
35:14for hundreds of years before,
35:16as early as
35:17the 11th century BCE.
35:20These weren't the wax seals
35:22some might think of.
35:23These were more like stamps
35:25carved out of wood
35:26or stone
35:27or sometimes
35:29made of bronze
35:30or copper
35:31and dipped into
35:32a thick red ink.
35:35They were used
35:36as signatures
35:36to mark contracts
35:38or to sign paintings
35:39or sometimes
35:40pressed into clay
35:41as a potter's mark.
35:42One person
35:43might own various seals
35:44for a variety of purposes.
35:46Many were small,
35:47producing an impression
35:48about the size
35:49of your small fingernail,
35:51but the largest
35:51might be about
35:52four inches square.
35:54China's first emperor
35:56ordered a seal made,
35:57only one,
35:58and that was part
35:59of its power
36:00and significance.
36:02Its name translated
36:03into English
36:03was
36:04Jade Seal
36:05Passed Through the Realm.
36:07He intended
36:08to hand it down
36:08to all those
36:09in his bloodline
36:10and it was one
36:11of the most
36:11historically significant
36:13jade artifacts
36:13ever made.
36:16The seal did
36:17pass through the realm.
36:18It didn't just serve him,
36:19but a whole series
36:20of dynasties
36:22that followed
36:22and generations to come.
36:24But by the end
36:25of the first millennium CE,
36:27the heirloom seal
36:28had disappeared
36:29and centuries later
36:31we're left wondering
36:32what happened to it
36:33and could it ever
36:35be rediscovered?
36:38Zhao Zhang
36:39was born in 259 BCE
36:41during the Warring States period.
36:44After his father's death,
36:45he ascended
36:46as the king
36:46of Qin State
36:47and over the next 25 years
36:50ended two and a half
36:51centuries of conflict
36:52by conquering
36:53every competing state
36:54to form a unified country.
36:57The imperial seal
36:58was then ordered
36:59to be carved
37:00for his personal use.
37:03The seal is said
37:05to have been inscribed
37:06with a sentiment.
37:08Having received
37:09the mandate from heaven,
37:11may the emperor
37:12lead a long
37:13and prosperous life.
37:15Two things there.
37:17One,
37:18that people
37:18should believe
37:20Zhao Zhang
37:20had a divine right
37:22to rule.
37:23and two,
37:25he had a preoccupation
37:26with staving
37:27off death.
37:29Zhao Zhang
37:30is said to have sought
37:31to achieve
37:32his own immortality
37:33through alchemy
37:34and magic.
37:35He had a sprawling
37:36underground mausoleum
37:37built for himself
37:38guarded by thousands
37:40of terracotta warriors.
37:41As for ensuring
37:42his dynasty's longevity,
37:44he ruled harshly
37:45and even tried
37:46to suppress opposition
37:47and subversive thought
37:49by burning books.
37:52Zhao Zhang's brutal methods
37:53weren't entirely successful.
37:55In fact,
37:56they backfired.
37:57Not only did his
37:58Qin dynasty
37:59not last 10,000 generations,
38:02as was his wish,
38:03but after his death,
38:04rebellion promptly broke out.
38:06His dynasty was overthrown
38:08and all of his surviving
38:09Qin imperial family members
38:11were systematically killed.
38:12But while the Qin dynasty fell,
38:16the heirloom seal survived.
38:18It was passed down
38:19from one emperor
38:20to the next
38:21through the Han dynasty
38:22and beyond.
38:24It did become
38:24the symbol of stability
38:25Zhao Zhang designed it to be,
38:28at least right up
38:29until the 900s or so
38:30when it disappeared.
38:33One theory
38:34held by many historians
38:36suggests the paranoia
38:38of Zhao Zhang
38:39increasingly experienced
38:40throughout his reign
38:41and his perceived need
38:43for protection
38:43may have had some basis
38:45in fact.
38:48There's a very good chance
38:49the heirloom seal
38:50of the realm
38:51was destroyed
38:52when China's capital
38:53was looted and ransacked
38:55by rebels
38:55or by the warlord
38:57Zhu Wang
38:58in the late 9th century
39:00at the end
39:01of the Tang dynasty.
39:04The Tang dynasty
39:05had reestablished
39:06Cheng'an
39:06in the country's northeast
39:08as the capital.
39:09It was surrounded
39:09by mountains
39:10as natural barriers
39:11so it was believed
39:13to be as militarily impregnable
39:14as any city could be.
39:16Cheng'an was the eastern terminus
39:18of the Silk Road
39:19and it was a wealthy,
39:21vibrant city.
39:22It was also possibly
39:23the world's most populous
39:25at the time
39:25with about 3 million people.
39:28This is where
39:28the imperial palace
39:30was built
39:30and that's where
39:31the heirloom seal
39:32of the realm
39:33was kept.
39:34But in the end,
39:36the Tang rulers
39:36had committed
39:37the same fatal errors
39:39as Zhao Zhang
39:39had centuries before.
39:41They looked after themselves,
39:43not their people.
39:44There was an uprising
39:45and Cheng'an
39:46was attacked repeatedly
39:48by peasant rebels
39:49and by opportunistic warlords.
39:51When the imperial palace
39:53was seized,
39:53the last Tang emperor
39:54fled,
39:55leaving his treasures,
39:56including the heirloom seal
39:58unprotected.
39:59It was then,
40:00sometime between
40:01874 and 884 CE
40:04that it could have
40:05been destroyed.
40:06At the very latest,
40:08the imperial seal
40:09was lost to history
40:10during the following era,
40:12the period
40:12of the five dynasties,
40:14from 907 to 960 CE.
40:17But that doesn't necessarily
40:18mean that it was
40:19physically lost by then,
40:21just that we have
40:22no records of it,
40:23so we don't know
40:24exactly when it vanished.
40:26There have been claims
40:26it even reappeared at times
40:28during the centuries since,
40:30but no historians
40:31have been able
40:31to confirm it.
40:33Some researchers believe
40:34the fact that
40:35the imperial seal
40:36of the realm
40:37hasn't been seen
40:38in all these centuries
40:39is actually a good sign.
40:42Those in the imperial palace
40:44at Cheng'an
40:45knew the Tang dynasty
40:47was in danger,
40:48and they must have known
40:50that continued assaults
40:52on the palace
40:52were likely to occur,
40:54so they might have
40:55smuggled the seal
40:56to some safe place
40:58and hidden it.
40:59With those who knew
41:00the imperial seal's
41:02hiding place
41:02possibly killed
41:03during the sack of Cheng'an
41:04or executed afterward,
41:07the seal may still
41:08lie safe,
41:09wherever they hid it,
41:10still waiting
41:11to be rediscovered.
41:13This practice
41:14of hiding treasures
41:15in advance
41:16of an anticipated attack
41:17and those treasures
41:19subsequently being
41:20lost to history
41:21is a fairly common occurrence.
41:23In 1970,
41:24a trove of treasures
41:25was discovered
41:26in the village
41:26of Hojongkun.
41:28Silver and gold jewelry,
41:30a wine vessel
41:31carved out of agate,
41:32and all kinds of valuables
41:33from the coffers
41:34of China's elite,
41:36all of which had been
41:37hidden during a time
41:38of unrest
41:39and forgotten.
41:40If the heirloom seal
41:42of the realm
41:43was intentionally hidden,
41:45finding it
41:46would be a monumental task,
41:48a four-inch stone cube
41:50buried somewhere
41:51in China.
41:53And there doesn't even
41:54really seem to be
41:54any agreed-upon theories
41:56about where you should
41:57even start looking.
41:59One school of thought
42:01suggests that if the imperial seal
42:03has survived,
42:04archaeologists may not need
42:06to go far
42:07to find it.
42:09The last tongue emperor
42:10knew that continued attacks
42:12on Chung'ung
42:13were likely to occur,
42:14but they didn't know
42:16exactly when
42:17those attacks
42:18might happen.
42:19So it's conceivable
42:20the last assault
42:22came as a surprise
42:23and the jade seal
42:24was simply abandoned
42:26in the chaos
42:27and lost among the rubble
42:28of the imperial palace.
42:31If that theory is true,
42:33it would dramatically narrow
42:35the area that needs
42:37to be searched.
42:38So far,
42:39the seal still
42:40hasn't turned up.
42:42The heirloom seal
42:43of the realm
42:44was lost to history
42:45by the period
42:46of the five dynasties,
42:47which had succeeded
42:48the fall of the Tang.
42:50But that's not
42:51the end of the story.
42:53We don't know
42:54that the seal
42:55was actually physically lost
42:57until hundreds of years
42:58after the end
42:59of the Tang dynasty,
43:00because even at the start
43:02of the Ming dynasty
43:03in 1369,
43:04the new emperor
43:05was determined
43:06to get it back.
43:08From 1271,
43:09the Mongols,
43:10starting with Kublai Khan,
43:11ruled China.
43:12And when the Mongols
43:13were finally defeated
43:14about a century later,
43:15the first Ming emperor
43:17is said to have been
43:18determined to relocate
43:19the heirloom seal.
43:21According to one account,
43:23the Ming emperor
43:24carried out a raid
43:25and stole one
43:27of the personal seals
43:28of the Mongol emperor.
43:30However,
43:30it turns out
43:32the Mongol
43:32owned 11 seals.
43:35And the one
43:36taken from him
43:37was not
43:38the imperial seal
43:39that Zhao Zhang
43:40had made
43:40almost 15 centuries earlier.
43:43So,
43:44it's yet another dead end.
43:47The lump of jade
43:49that was once carved
43:50into the heirloom seal
43:51of the realm
43:52must certainly still exist
43:53in some form.
43:54It may one day
43:56be found intact
43:57or it may continue
43:59to lie indefinitely
44:00in one or many pieces
44:02in the earth
44:03from which it was
44:04first taken.
44:05his pieces of blood
44:07change
44:08and limits
44:10of the
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