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The UnBelievable with Dan Aykroyd S03E17
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00:00Warning, what you're about to see could be disturbing to some viewers.
00:05Viewer discretion is advised.
00:13Would you believe that one of America's greatest presidents was a pioneer in the wrestling ring?
00:20Wrestling today is a billion-dollar spectacle, and you've got all these iconic moves that have developed over time.
00:28But the chokeslam traces its origins back to a rather unexpected figure.
00:34Or that peregrine falcons owe their existence to one of the weirdest creation stories in the animal kingdom.
00:40The origin of these falcons is a strange form of breeding, the falcon copulation hat.
00:48This hat is not worn by the falcon, it's worn by a human being.
00:53How about the twisted tail behind a popular phrase?
00:58If someone is accused of speaking out against the government, a king or queen could order that that person's tongue
01:05is cut out.
01:07To make sure that the message was transmitted to the rest of the population, the tongue would be fed to
01:14a royal cat.
01:17These are the origin stories, so strange they can only be described as unbelievable.
01:37Wars have been started over some of the most unimaginable things.
01:41Tea, pigs, even pastries.
01:44But one war stands above the rest when it comes to its bizarre beginnings.
01:51It's the early 18th century.
01:53Spain and England are wrestling over who will control the vast resources of the North American continent.
02:01Spain feels very strongly that they are 100% entitled to control of trade in the Atlantic.
02:08Because they keep telling everybody, we discovered America.
02:13There is a tenuous treaty that's developed called the Treaty of Seville.
02:17And as part of this treaty, Spain is given the privileges to board any British ships and inspect them.
02:26Britain plays nice until a hot-headed captain named Robert Jenkins sails in around 1731.
02:31Captain Jenkins is in charge of an actual smuggling ship called the Rebecca and the Spanish board and investigate the
02:39ship to seize contraband and smuggled items.
02:43Instantly, there's a lot of tension.
02:45People start yelling.
02:48There's a language barrier, so they're yelling at each other in languages the other crews cannot understand.
02:54In the middle of this chaos and confusion, one of the Spaniards draws a sword and wields it in such
03:01a way that he slices off Jenkins' ear.
03:07Jenkins stumbles backwards.
03:08He's gushing blood out of the side of his head.
03:11And the Spaniard then castigates him by saying,
03:15Pick up your bloody ear and take it back to England as a lesson to you people that this is
03:19what happens when you challenge Spanish authority.
03:23Jenkins does indeed pick up his ear and he decides,
03:27Fine, we're going to sail back to England.
03:30But he doesn't go right to his superiors and tell them what happened.
03:34It's unclear whether he's embarrassed or what, but he does keep that ear.
03:38He actually puts it in a jar and has it preserved.
03:41It might seem like a strange keepsake, but seven years later, Jenkins' preserved ear becomes the spark Britain's been waiting
03:48for.
03:48The trade conflict with Spain is reaching a boiling point and Jenkins is summoned to the House of Commons to
04:00testify about Spanish transgressions.
04:03With Jenkins clutching the jar in one hand with his severed ear floating around inside of it,
04:09he relates the happenings of that day on Rebecca to the members of the House of Commons,
04:14telling the story in the most animated way possible.
04:17And it has the desired effect of filling them with outrage.
04:21It is then widely reported in the popular press and reaches the people.
04:27The English decide, we've got to teach Spain a lesson.
04:30They are ready for blood at this point.
04:35So they set sail and they invade the port of La Guayra in Venezuela and thus begins the War of
04:43Jenkins' Ear.
04:46This war stretches on for nine years.
04:50407 ships on both sides are destroyed and over 55,000 have lost their lives.
04:57England has gained nothing.
04:59It's a little bit of a waste of a severed ear, if you ask me.
05:04Of the hundreds of thousands of people involved in the conflict, one person is conspicuously absent.
05:11Interestingly, Jenkins himself, a master seaman, never fights in the War of Jenkins' Ear.
05:17He never fights in his own war.
05:20After his performance in Parliament, he essentially disappears from the historical record.
05:25Some speculate that Jenkins could just have been a blowhard, a storyteller.
05:29Maybe he lost his ear in a pub brawl.
05:32But none of that actually matters because it catalyzed the British public to fight against the hated Spanish and wage
05:39a nine-year-long war.
05:42An ear isn't the only trivial thing to start a war.
05:46Next up, how one tiny tale sparked an international incident.
05:53In the first Balkan War, Greece and Bulgaria are allies.
05:58They fight together to defeat the Ottomans and take over huge chunks of land in Thrace and Macedonia.
06:07But there's a problem.
06:09Once they have become the victors, then the question comes of, okay, who gets what?
06:16So after overthrowing the Ottoman Empire, Greece and Bulgaria get into their own war against each other.
06:23The Second Balkan War.
06:27This fighting between Greece and Bulgaria goes on for a long time, right through the First World War.
06:33But when the war ends, it's almost like the whole world collectively takes a little breather.
06:39And for seven years, there is this very fragile sense of peace in the region.
06:46That is until one unlikely catalyst crosses the line.
06:51On October 19, 1925, a Greek soldier stationed at his post, which is across the border from Petrish in Bulgaria,
07:00has this dog that's become his buddy.
07:02It was just a stray, but they've clearly kind of become family.
07:06The dog at one point, though, unaware of political boundaries, wanders away from the guard shack toward the Bulgarian border.
07:16The Greek soldier comes out and cries out after the dog and continues calling him back, even after the dog
07:23has crossed the border into Bulgaria.
07:27And the Bulgarians on the other side of the border interpret this as an act of war.
07:34And they open fire, killing the Greek soldier.
07:39After hearing the shots, other Greek soldiers run over and they open fire on the Bulgarians.
07:44A Greek captain intercedes and he tries to make peace, but the Bulgarians shoot him dead.
07:52In response to the incident, the Greek prime minister, Theodoros Pangalos, demands that the Bulgarian government pay a sum of
08:01$95,000 to the family of the dead soldier.
08:05In today's dollars, that would amount to $1.7 million.
08:11When Bulgaria refuses to pay within 48 hours, Greece launches a swift and aggressive response.
08:19The Greeks pillage and loot the town of Petrik and end up occupying several villages in the immediate vicinity of
08:26it, thus beginning the War of the Stray Dog.
08:29After days of bloodshed and 50, mostly Bulgarian deaths, Bulgaria appeals to the League of Nations for help.
08:38The League of Nations orders an immediate ceasefire and orders the Greeks to leave.
08:43When the Greek army doesn't, the League of Nations sends in their own troops to forcibly remove them.
08:50And on October 29th, 10 days after a soldier's wayward pooch strayed over the border, the War of the Stray
08:58Dog is finally over.
09:01In the end, Greece is found at fault for invading Petrish, and the country is ordered to pay 3 million
09:09Bulgarian levas, which is about a million dollars today.
09:14As for the dog, let's hope he found himself a new home, somewhere outside of a war zone.
09:22Have you ever been on a treadmill at the gym and thought, this is torture?
09:26Well, that's because this machine you love to hate has some punishing origins.
09:32In the 1800s in Britain, the death penalty isn't just reserved for the highest of crimes like murder or treason.
09:41It's used for pretty much anything.
09:44If you do something wrong, there's a solid chance that you are going to be executed by the state.
09:51By the early 1820s, the British public start to criticize this.
09:55They say, you know, maybe we shouldn't just kill anyone for any minor infraction.
10:00And so by 1823, the Judgment of Death Act comes out, which allows judges the freedom to not have someone
10:09executed.
10:12Although there are far fewer executions, you now have far more prisoners.
10:18British jails are overcrowded, and the prison population is a large cohort of bored men with very little to do
10:28all day.
10:29Meanwhile, around the same time, in 1818, a civil engineer named William Cubitt invents a device to help farmers grind
10:37grain called the treadwheel.
10:39Farm laborers line up in a row and walk in unison, thus turning the cylinder, which is attached to a
10:45shaft, then grinds meal.
10:47There's one problem with the treadwheel, which is that it's very labor-intensive.
10:50You need a lot of men to operate over a very long period of time.
10:54It's not very cost-effective.
10:55But William Cubitt has a clever solution for the labor shortage, and it comes with a captive workforce.
11:02Cubitt goes to the Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline and pitches this as a device to improve the
11:11lives of all the inmates in these overcrowded prisons,
11:15because they can learn the habits of industry, and he calls it the penal treadwheel.
11:21Prison officials fall in love with the idea and start putting them in penitentiaries all around London.
11:27By 1824, you've got 54 penal treadmills in prisons all across Britain, three in Wales.
11:34Some of them are used to grind grain, but others just for the pure punishment.
11:39This is the very definition of hard labor.
11:42You'll have about 20 prisoners, and they will walk anywhere from 6 to 10 hours, walking the equivalent of halfway
11:51up Mount Everest.
11:52We're talking about a little over 16,000 feet.
11:56It causes exhaustion, rheumatism.
12:01There are also grave accidents, sometimes badly constructed treadwheels, collapse, causing serious injury, even death.
12:11In addition to the physical torture of this device, it's also psychologically damaging.
12:17Inmates are not allowed to say a word to anyone next to them.
12:21All they can do for those 10 hours is stare at a wall and walk.
12:27Over time, however, the treadmill runs its course.
12:32Finally, the Prisons Act of 1898 puts a stop to the penal treadmill, saying it's too cruel, it's inhumane,
12:41no one's getting better because they're forced to walk miles on end.
12:45And a few years later, all penal treadmills are gone from the entire country.
12:51But the torture device makes a surprising comeback, thanks to a clever reimagining.
12:57A man by the name of William Edward Staub figures that the treadmill might actually be something that could be
13:03pretty good exercise.
13:04And so in 1960, he develops and introduces the first ever commercial treadmill.
13:09Now, we can't say for certain that William Staub looked at the penal treadmill and used that as his inspiration,
13:15but a lot of the mechanics are pretty similar to that penal treadmill.
13:22If the treadmill was built to keep you moving, this next move is designed to stop you cold.
13:31Wrestling today is a billion-dollar spectacle.
13:34You've got stadiums that are packed to the rafters with tens of thousands of spectators all watching to see what
13:41crazy moves these performers are going to be doing in the ring.
13:45And one that has become probably the most iconic is the chokeslam.
13:53Some people contend that it traces its origins back to a rather unexpected figure, the great emancipator himself, Abraham Lincoln.
14:02Long before he was president, Lincoln was just a kid trying to survive and learning to fight back.
14:10Abe Lincoln is born in a one-room cabin in Kentucky.
14:14Abe's mother dies when he's young of milk sickness.
14:18His father is a brutal man, frequently beats him.
14:22He grows into a gangly, lanky young man with a high, squeaky voice.
14:28And it seems everywhere he goes, he is an easy target for bullies.
14:34But he's fighting in the streets.
14:36And this slowly but surely develops an ability we wouldn't suspect of our late president.
14:43By his early 20s, the once scrawny boy has grown into a six-foot, four-inch powerhouse.
14:48Abe leaves home, relocates to New Salem, Illinois,
14:52and becomes friendly with a local man named William Berry.
14:56Berry is a town drunk, but he also wants to open a bar.
15:01They form a partnership, and they open Berry and Lincoln's.
15:05The bar is a rough establishment.
15:08Abe has to both 10 bar and serve as bouncer, getting rid of rowdy drunks.
15:13One night at the bar, there's a promoter, and he sees Lincoln wrestling some of these rough-and-tumble kind
15:19of guys.
15:20And he tells him, you know what?
15:21I really think that you would make a splash on the wrestling scene.
15:24And just like that, Abraham Lincoln, the professional wrestler, is born.
15:29Abe's bouncing around Illinois, making a name for himself.
15:33Over the course of a decade, Abe Lincoln wrestles in 300 matches and only loses a single bout.
15:39Now, key to his near-perfect record, a signature finishing move, first seen in 1831.
15:47In New Salem, you have a local gang called the Clary's Grove Boys.
15:52And they're hearing about Abe Lincoln talking smack and saying that, you know,
15:56he's the toughest fighter in the frontier and stuff.
15:58And so the gang's leader, a guy by the name of Jack Armstrong,
16:02who is a wrestler in his own right, decides,
16:05I'm going to challenge this tall drink of water.
16:09A large crowd forms around the ring, and at first, Abe and Jack,
16:12they're just circling around, both hesitant to make the first move.
16:16But pretty soon, it's on.
16:21And Abe starts dominating.
16:25But it's not enough for Abe to just win the match.
16:28He wants to send a message.
16:29Lincoln takes his hand, and he wraps it around the throat of Jack Armstrong, strangling him.
16:34And then Lincoln proceeds, lift Armstrong off of the ground, and then slam.
16:42A crowd-pleasing move that cements Lincoln's reputation not just as a fighter, but as a leader in the making.
16:50Many historians believe that Abe's presence in the ring helped launch his political career.
16:58When Lincoln is running for Illinois Senate in 1858,
17:02National News begins reporting on his wrestling career, and it reflects well on him.
17:08He is a fighter.
17:10He is scrappy.
17:11He has what it takes as a politician.
17:18In 1992, the rail splitter himself earns a post-mortem career high
17:23by being inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.
17:29Some origin stories begin with a problem, others with a wild idea.
17:34This one blends both, and it all hinges on one unforgettable act of teamwork.
17:41For decades, the falcon has been a huge status symbol, and in fact, it becomes the national
17:48bird for Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
17:53If you're a wealthy prince or a sheikh or from a prominent family, you're likely going to own
17:59one or two falcons.
18:00They even have beauty contests for these falcons.
18:05I mean, they're looking for features like who has the thickest ankles, the best feathers,
18:10the most golden hue.
18:12The U.S. white gerfalcon are arguably considered the most coveted falcons on Earth.
18:21A purebred can go for an insane amount of money.
18:25In 2001, an auction showcases a pure white gerfalcon that goes for over a million dollars.
18:33In fact, as unbelievable as it sounds, in 2017, a falconer buys out an entire plane
18:40to transport his 80 falcons, giving each one their own seat.
18:46But getting your hands on one of these exclusive birds isn't as simple as it used to be.
18:51The origin of these immaculate falcons are all thanks to a strange form of breeding,
18:58the falcon copulation hat.
19:03This hat is not worn by the falcon, it's worn by a human being.
19:08The falconer puts on the falcon copulation hat, walks around the falcon's chambers,
19:16rocking his or her head, imitating the call of the female falcon.
19:22And somehow, that excites the male falcon.
19:29When the falcon appears ready, the breeder turns his back to the male,
19:35and the male flies down onto the copulation hat and attempts to mate with it.
19:42The dimples in the hat catch the valuable semen,
19:46and the breeder then uses a syringe to extract every drop.
19:50One tube of semen is enough to fertilize several falcon eggs.
19:56A month later, a bird fit for a prince is born.
19:59It does make you wonder, though, why the funny hat?
20:02In the 1940s, biologists and conservationists notice steep declines in peregrine falcon populations.
20:11The culprit is the popular insecticide, DDT.
20:15It accumulates in food chains, so that predators at the top, like peregrine falcons,
20:20get a lot of it in their diet.
20:23The DDT weakens the structure of the shells of their eggs,
20:28so that simply the weight of the female sitting on her eggs is enough to crush them
20:34and kill the babies long before they have a chance to hatch.
20:39By the 1970s, the peregrine falcon is on the verge of extinction,
20:43when a falconer named Lester Boyd invents the copulation hat.
20:47The only way to save these falcons is to breed them in captivity.
20:52But a peregrine falcon isn't naturally going to want to mate with a hat,
20:58so Boyd uses a technique called sexual imprinting,
21:01where from a very young age,
21:04the falcons are trained to associate the hat with mating.
21:09And it works.
21:11The population of peregrines begins to grow again
21:15as birds are bred in captivity and released back out into the wild.
21:20The copulation hat opens up the possibility for controlled breeding,
21:25not only of peregrines, but of other falcon species,
21:29especially in the Middle East.
21:32Sometimes preserving a species means putting on a funny hat.
21:36Other times it means rewriting the rules of biology.
21:42For decades, scientists believed there was no way
21:45that you could clone anything as complex as a mammal.
21:48But in 1986, in Scotland,
21:51scientist Ian Willmott and his crew
21:53decide they're going to try it with a sheep.
21:57Ian and his team attempt this technique
22:00known as somatic cell nuclear transfer.
22:03The idea is you take the nucleus from an adult cell
22:07and transfer it into an egg cell.
22:10Inside the nucleus is the DNA,
22:12and the DNA has the code that builds the entire sheep.
22:16So if you take the code and put it in a new egg,
22:19you're making a copy of that original sheep.
22:23For 10 years,
22:24they performed the same technique over and over again,
22:27but the scientists fail more often than they succeed.
22:30After 277 tries,
22:33only 29 of the embryos survived more than six days.
22:37Finally, on the morning of July 5th, 1996,
22:41Ian Willmott wakes up to the news he has been waiting for.
22:44A baby lamb that is a clone of an adult lamb
22:48has successfully been born,
22:50and they give it the name 6LL3.
22:54Well, that doesn't stay for very long.
22:57The stockman who's helping them,
22:59he decides, you know,
23:00you should name this Dolly after Dolly Parton.
23:04Dolly opens up the floodgates.
23:06Soon, scientists are cloning everything from pigs to horses.
23:10But one animal is more stubborn than the rest.
23:15Dogs constantly prove impossible to clone,
23:18partly because the eggs are released
23:20at a much less mature stage than other mammals.
23:23Finally, in 2005,
23:26a Korean scientist named Wusok Wong cracks the code.
23:29Someone on the team figures out
23:31that there's another way to harvest the eggs.
23:33If they harvest them from the fallopian tubes,
23:36then they're going to be much more mature,
23:37and now they're viable.
23:40After more than 100 attempts,
23:42one finally survives.
23:45They name him Snuppie,
23:47which is a combination of the letters S-N-U
23:50for Seoul National University,
23:51and the word puppy.
23:54It's pretty amazing,
23:55and Snuppie goes on to live a really full dog life,
23:59dying just 13 days after his 10th birthday.
24:02And his legacy lives on.
24:05Snuppie's DNA is used to create 10 more clones in 2008,
24:09and four more in 2017.
24:16Amid the chaos of World War I,
24:19a trend quietly took hold in bedrooms all across Britain,
24:23and it changed how we dressed for sleep forever.
24:27In the 21st century,
24:29we are very accustomed to seeing people in their pajamas.
24:32They have become a leisure garment.
24:34People will wear pajamas when they're out walking their dog,
24:37when they go to get their hair done.
24:38Anytime they want to be comfortable.
24:40But in the early 1900s,
24:43it was not common to see people in pajamas,
24:46because in the Western world,
24:48nobody was wearing them.
24:52Both men and women are wearing either night shirts
24:55or night gowns down to their ankles to go to bed.
24:58It is unheard of for a woman to go to bed in pants.
25:02But when bombs start falling from the sky,
25:04the way people prepare for bed will never be the same.
25:09On January 19th, 1914,
25:12two German zeppelins end up dropping bombs on Great Yarmouth
25:15and King's Lynn on the eastern British coast.
25:18Deadly zeppelin attacks become a regular thing in daily British life.
25:24When these attacks occur, typically, they're heralded by air raid sirens.
25:29These attacks often occur in the early morning or late at night,
25:32and people are woken from their beds and have to flee to air raid shelters.
25:38People don't have the time to change clothes.
25:41It's a panic situation, and you have to get to shelter.
25:44So this means there are all of these women
25:46running around the streets of London in their night gowns,
25:50which pose a couple of different problems.
25:53For one, these night gowns are ankle length.
25:56Long gowns do not lend themselves to ease of movement.
26:00And for another thing,
26:02it is not really something that most people would want to be seen in publicly.
26:08This is an age of decorum.
26:10Women can't be seen in this state of undress
26:12running through the streets of London
26:13able to be ogled by other women's husbands and strangers.
26:19And that's when women's magazines
26:21start putting forth this idea of a solution,
26:24and that solution is practical nightwear.
26:28Pajamas start to be sold in England
26:30as a sort of loose-fitting jacket and pant combination.
26:33The pajama suits a whole litany of needs
26:37in this wartime situation.
26:39You can run in them,
26:40something that you cannot do in an ankle-length nightgown.
26:44They have pockets sewn into them
26:46so you could quickly grab valuables
26:48and dash out into the street.
26:50And most importantly for these survivors,
26:52you maintain a sense of dignity
26:55as you are fleeing for your lives.
26:58There is always a lot of talk
27:00about all of the technological advances
27:02that often come with wartime.
27:04So if you're listing out the advancements
27:06that we have thanks to World War I,
27:08you can put in there
27:09trench warfare, mustard gas, and pajamas.
27:14A decade and a half later,
27:16the British are going to need something better
27:17than a comfy pair of PJs
27:19to get through an air raid.
27:24In 1935, there's great anxiety
27:26among the British people
27:27because Hitler has come to power.
27:29He's rearming Germany
27:30in violation of the Versailles Treaty
27:32from World War I.
27:33And the British know that one key element
27:34of Hitler's rearmament
27:36is the building of a massive air force
27:38called the Luftwaffe.
27:43Adding to the anxieties
27:45are these intelligence reports
27:48that suggest that Germany
27:50is on the cusp of developing a death ray.
27:54An invisible beam that can vaporize people,
27:58buildings, maybe even entire cities.
28:02It's a weapon that sounds like science fiction,
28:05but this is an era where
28:06even more outlandish weapons
28:08were actually being tested
28:09and fielded.
28:10So back then,
28:12it seemed quite feasible.
28:14The British are stuck.
28:15What do you do?
28:16How do you fight a death ray?
28:18Well, the best defense
28:20is a good offense.
28:21Build your own death ray.
28:23The British gather
28:24some of the most brilliant
28:25scientific minds on the planet
28:27and get to work.
28:28What would it take
28:29to create a radiation or particle beam
28:31that could be used to shoot down attacking aircraft?
28:35The idea is that this weapon
28:36could cook the pilot, killing him,
28:38or could be used to detonate a bomb
28:40on board the aircraft.
28:41This team spends months running the numbers,
28:44doing simulations,
28:45and guess what?
28:46They come up with nothing.
28:48Their experts can't come up with a solution,
28:50so they turn to the general public,
28:52and they have a contest.
28:55Who can figure out the death ray?
28:57It's sort of like crowdsourcing
28:59your ultimate weapon.
29:01Unfortunately, British civilians
29:03also come up short.
29:06In a last-ditch effort,
29:08the British Air Ministry
29:10turns to a celebrated
29:12and renowned radio engineer
29:15who works with the BBC radio service,
29:17Robert Watson Watt.
29:19They ask him,
29:20how high of a frequency
29:22would it take
29:23to literally melt an airplane
29:25out of the sky?
29:26The laws of physics
29:28simply say,
29:29not gonna happen.
29:31And that's because
29:32the radio waves
29:33that you send towards the aircraft
29:35just bounce off.
29:37But it's in these calculations
29:39that Watson Watt
29:41has a real, genuine eureka moment.
29:45These radio waves
29:46that bounce off of targets
29:47can be picked up by antenna.
29:49By measuring the time
29:50it takes for the signal to return,
29:52Watson Watt can calculate
29:53the relative position of the aircraft.
29:55So this means they might be able
29:56to detect invading aircraft
29:57long before they can see or hear them.
30:00Cautious but intrigued,
30:02the Air Ministry requests
30:03a demonstration.
30:06On February 26th, 1935,
30:09the Royal Air Force
30:10takes an old bomber
30:11and they fly it
30:13between two BBC radio masts
30:15that are positioned
30:16six miles apart.
30:17Positioned between
30:18these two towers
30:19sits Robert Watson Watt,
30:20his assistant,
30:21and an Air Ministry official.
30:23They sit in front
30:24of a cathode ray tube
30:25with a green indicator light.
30:27Over and over again,
30:29as the bomber passes overhead,
30:31the green light turns on.
30:33While this was no death ray,
30:35these three men alone
30:36are essentially seeing
30:38the dawn of radar.
30:40This is crazy.
30:42There can be a plane
30:43so far away
30:44that no naked eye,
30:45no pair of binoculars
30:46could ever pick it up,
30:47and yet by sending out
30:49radio signals
30:50and waiting for them
30:51to come back,
30:51you can pick it
30:53out of the sky.
30:53It's like a comic book
30:54superpower.
30:58Four years later,
30:59radar proves its worth,
31:01empowering an outmatched
31:02British Air Force
31:03to outwit and outlast
31:05the mightier Luftwaffe
31:06in the Battle of Britain.
31:09Radar technology today
31:11is ubiquitous
31:12on the planet.
31:13It's used in our daily lives.
31:14We even get speeding tickets
31:16based off of it.
31:17It was all due
31:18to someone coming up
31:20with a crazy idea
31:21to build a death ray.
31:25Ironic that what started
31:26as a weapon
31:27to shoot down aircraft
31:28ends up being
31:29the greatest advancement
31:31in airline safety.
31:34Choosing a best man
31:36is a major decision.
31:37They have important duties
31:38like holding the rings,
31:39making a speech
31:40that might get the groom
31:41in trouble,
31:41and planning a raging
31:42bachelor party.
31:44But the role has strayed
31:45very far
31:46from its original purpose.
31:49In 16th century
31:51Gothic Germany,
31:52if you're a young man,
31:53say in your 20s,
31:54it's time to start thinking
31:56about taking a wife.
31:58However,
31:59you may be in a village
32:00where there are
32:01no available single women
32:03for you to marry.
32:04In these situations,
32:06the groom-to-be
32:07will hire a group of dudes
32:09known as bride knights
32:11and go raid another village
32:15riding horses,
32:17carrying swords,
32:18and from that village
32:20kidnap a wife.
32:22That doesn't fly today.
32:24We're talking 16th century
32:26Gothic Germany.
32:29Once the groom
32:30in this posse of bride knights
32:31have obtained a bride-to-be,
32:34they take her to the church
32:35and attempt the marriage ceremony.
32:38But they are subject
32:39to counterattack.
32:41Just remember,
32:42this woman does not
32:43want to be at this wedding.
32:45It is a kidnapping.
32:46So in a lot of cases,
32:49the bride's family
32:50then form their own posse
32:52to come and try
32:53and get the bride of back.
32:56During the ceremony,
32:57the couple is at their most vulnerable.
33:00Thus,
33:01the bride knights
33:02will stand assembled
33:03facing the congregation.
33:06So if the bride's angry brothers
33:08and cousins
33:08burst through the door,
33:09the bride knights
33:10are at the ready,
33:11and the best man
33:12is the last line of defense.
33:16In those days,
33:18the best and best man
33:19doesn't mean best friend.
33:21It means he's the best swordsman
33:24of the bride knights.
33:26Nowadays,
33:27the best man
33:28is still in the same location
33:30next to the groom,
33:32but his job
33:32is completely different.
33:34He's no longer the best fighter,
33:36and he no longer aids
33:37in the kidnapping.
33:38It's become a lot more wholesome.
33:431,500 years earlier in Greece,
33:46something else is being stolen.
33:48Only it doesn't have
33:50an expert swordsman
33:51to protect it.
33:53Today,
33:54vending machines
33:54are a $15 billion
33:56a year industry.
33:58More than 100 million people a day
34:00buy anything
34:01from a bag of chips
34:03to a cooked pizza,
34:05even underwear.
34:08But the first vending machine
34:09on the planet,
34:10let's just say
34:11you better not kick it
34:12for stealing your coins,
34:14because it might send you
34:15straight to hell.
34:18In early Christianity,
34:20purifying with holy water
34:22against evil spirits
34:23was called kernibs,
34:25and it's something
34:25very important to worship.
34:28Outside of many temples
34:29at the time,
34:30it's customary
34:30to have an urn
34:31or vessel of holy water,
34:33which people either imbibe,
34:36anoint themselves,
34:36or use to wash their hands
34:38before entering.
34:40However,
34:41early Greek Christians
34:42start thinking
34:43that the holy water
34:44is a cure-all
34:46for all of life's ailments.
34:48As a result,
34:49churchgoers are taking
34:51the holy water at will,
34:53and the church elders
34:55are obviously a little miffed.
34:59That's because
34:59there's not an endless supply
35:01at the time.
35:02In the Greek church,
35:04holy water is produced
35:05once a year on January 6th
35:07and the Feast of Epiphany.
35:09This container of holy water
35:10is expected to last
35:11the entire year.
35:13It is not meant
35:14to be squandered.
35:15The potential
35:16for a holy water drought
35:19leads church authorities
35:21to begin searching
35:22for solutions,
35:23and they turn to a very inventive figure
35:27known as Hero of Alexandria.
35:31Hero is this genius,
35:33mathematician,
35:34engineer, inventor.
35:35He's been credited
35:37with inventing the syringe,
35:39the first steam engine.
35:40So if you need a machine,
35:44he is the guy to talk to.
35:46Hero invents
35:48an ingenious device,
35:50essentially a fountain
35:52inside of a box
35:54that can only be activated
35:55by a compulsory donation.
35:59Now that people have to pay,
36:01they become much more careful stewards
36:03of this limited resource.
36:06You put a coin in the urn,
36:08it hits a lever,
36:09the weight of the coin
36:11releases a plunger,
36:12the perfectly measured dose
36:14of holy water
36:15comes out a spout,
36:16the plunger closes again,
36:18no more holy water,
36:19and the church
36:20gets its much-needed tithes.
36:23It's genius in its simplicity today,
36:25but for the time,
36:26it's an engineering marvel.
36:29It's hard to believe
36:30the vending machine
36:31was created
36:31to distribute a holy sacrament,
36:34an incredible point to ponder
36:35the next time
36:36you buy a bag of chips.
36:40Ever wonder
36:41where some of our most
36:42common expressions come from?
36:44Take the phrase,
36:45cat got your tongue.
36:46Believe it or not,
36:47the strange history
36:48behind this saying
36:49might leave you
36:50lost for words.
36:54Cats were widely venerated
36:56in ancient Egypt.
36:58Gods, including Sekhmet
37:00and Bastet,
37:01were in the image of cats.
37:02the creatures
37:04were considered holy,
37:06and cats served
37:07very practical uses,
37:09including keeping rats
37:11and mice
37:11out of grain supplies.
37:13For the wealthy
37:15and for pharaohs,
37:16it's very common
37:17to keep cats on hand
37:18because they're believed
37:19to be the bringers
37:21of good fortune
37:21and protectors.
37:22They are so beloved
37:24in this culture
37:25that it is not uncommon
37:26for people to adorn them
37:27with jewels
37:28and dress them up
37:30as extravagantly
37:31and finely
37:32as any member
37:32of the royal family.
37:35Cats were not only
37:36symbols of luxury,
37:37they also played
37:38a crucial role
37:39in the criminal
37:40justice system.
37:42In ancient Egypt,
37:44if someone is accused
37:45of blasphemy,
37:47of lying,
37:48of speaking out
37:48against the government
37:49or against established religion,
37:51they can pay
37:52a pretty steep price.
37:55If those accusations
37:56are deemed valid
37:58by the ruler,
37:59a king or queen
38:00could order
38:02that that person's tongue
38:03is cut out.
38:04In some cases,
38:06to make sure
38:07that the message
38:09was transmitted
38:10to the rest
38:10of the population,
38:11the tongue would be fed
38:13to a royal cat.
38:20Whether or not
38:21this grisly practice
38:22is the actual origin
38:23of the expression
38:25cat got your tongue,
38:26it sent a pointed
38:28and decided message
38:30to rowdy members
38:31of the public.
38:33Not every cat
38:35has it so lucky.
38:36If you were
38:37a South American
38:38feline in the 1300s,
38:40certain Aztec traditions
38:41might have you on edge.
38:44In the Aztec religion,
38:46animals were often
38:47sacrificed
38:48to a higher power.
38:50Some of the most
38:51highly prized
38:52and valued animals
38:53for sacrifice
38:54were animals
38:55that were noble
38:55and bold,
38:56like the jaguar
38:58or the crocodile.
39:00But obviously,
39:02a jaguar
39:03or a crocodile
39:03could kill you.
39:05So they're not
39:06the easiest animals
39:08to obtain.
39:08But there's a loophole.
39:11In lieu of sacrificing
39:12actual animals,
39:14they create the animal
39:15in effigy
39:16using balloons.
39:18However,
39:19they're quite different
39:20from the ones
39:21we see clowns
39:21making at fairs
39:22or birthday parties today.
39:25Aztecs create
39:26these balloon animal
39:27effigies
39:28using cat bowels,
39:30a.k.a.
39:32the intestines
39:32of cats.
39:35They discover
39:36that pulling the entrails
39:38from a dead cat,
39:39turning them inside out,
39:40and then cleaning them up
39:42actually turns the intestines
39:44into a latex-like material.
39:47After the cat intestines
39:49are fully prepared,
39:50they are cut into shape
39:52and then sewn together
39:53using vegetable fiber thread
39:54to make the overall shape
39:56of the animal
39:57that they wish to sacrifice.
39:59Cats were ideal,
40:00but not always available.
40:03So priests
40:04had to get creative.
40:06Sometimes they would
40:06also use pigs,
40:07but when you run out
40:08of cats and pigs,
40:10the next best option
40:11are human intestines.
40:14So next time
40:15you're blowing up balloons
40:16and you're complaining
40:17about the nasty latex taste,
40:19imagine if you were
40:20actually blowing up
40:23mammal bowels,
40:24pig, cat, human,
40:25whatever.
40:26It's nastier.
40:27You got the good balloons.
40:30The truth behind
40:32many beginnings
40:32is stranger than fiction.
40:34The best man
40:35who started as a kidnapper,
40:36a funny hat
40:37integral to breeding
40:38prized falcons,
40:39and a president
40:40who first found fame
40:42choke-slamming
40:42in the wrestling ring.
40:43These are the origins.
40:45So on,
40:46they are truly
40:47unbelievable.
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