00:00Have you always wondered why we shake hands?
00:03Turns out the handshake is an ancient symbol of peace, friendship, and spreading colds since about 5 BC.
00:10It wasn't originally about saying,
00:13Hi, long time no see.
00:14No, the Greeks did it to show that they weren't about to stab each other.
00:17Then the Romans took it up a notch.
00:19They went for the forearm grasp.
00:21Less of a handshake and more of a...
00:24I'm checking your sleeve for knives.
00:25Fast forward to the 18th century, and the Quakers in England felt that all those royal bows, curtsies, and tipping of the hat were just way too fancy.
00:35So they said,
00:36No need for flourishes. A simple handshake will do.
00:39And that pretty much normalized the handshake for all.
00:42But a plain old handshake just wasn't enough for some.
00:46So the 1920s jazz culture gave us a high five, reportedly created in 1977.
00:52Always wondered.
00:52Stream it now, wherever you get your podcasts.
Comments