Bones and All

Today's featured curiosities will have leave eager to dig into the past.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.

(00:36):
History is full of unpopular taxes. Some, like Britain's taxation
of colonial tea, were met with pushback or even revolution,
But a few taxes in history stand out for being
not just unpopular but downright strange, like a tax on
fireplaces in England during the Middle Ages, or one on
animal sacrifices in the time of the Roman Empire. Governments

(00:58):
have tried taxing everything from clocks to wallpaper and card games,
even newspapers and hats, but all of these pale in
comparison to a tax instituted by Czar Peter the Great
in the seventeenth century. The ruler stunned nobles and peasants
alike when he announced a new tax law that changed
the face of Russia forever, and I mean literally, because

(01:21):
Peter wasn't taxing a product. His target was beards. The
roots of the beard tax can be traced back to
sixteen ninety seven, when the twenty five year old Czar
embarked on a grand tour of Western Europe. The trip
was meant to be educational, a way for Peter to
learn about the culture, politics, and military prowess of his neighbors.

(01:42):
For two whole years, he traveled the continent incognito, even
working as a day laborer in the dockyards of Britain's
Royal Navy. Peter quickly became enthralled with the culture of
Western Europe, which seemed infinitely more modern than his own country.
By the time he returned home in sixteen ninety eight,
he was convinced that Russia needed a serious makeover. First

(02:03):
thing on the chopping block men's facial hair. It seems
that those long beards that were common throughout Russia were
out of style in other countries. This was mostly practical too,
Like heavy coats, beards made more sense in a country
known for its brutal winters. But there was a religious
component too. The Russian Orthodox Church treated long beards as

(02:23):
a symbol of piety, and virtually all monks and priests
wore their facial hair untrimmed, but Peter didn't care. He
saw the beards as a symbol of the country's refusal
to modernize and decided that they had to go. At
a party celebrating his return, he announced a nationwide ban
on beards. It was such a strange idea. At first,

(02:45):
people thought that the Tsar was joking, and that wouldn't
have been surprising. Peter the Great was a notorious jokester,
known for throwing destructive feasts and parties. He kept a
close group of friends who called themselves the All Justting
and all Drunken Synod of Fools and Gestures. Heavily drinking
and participating in pranks was literally a requirement for being

(03:06):
in the club, and one of the main targets for
their jokes was the Orthodox Church. At times, they would
even dress up as bishops and perform mock marriage ceremonies
to make fun of the clergy. So, knowing all of
that context, the beard tax probably seemed like yet another
joke aimed at riling up the church, but the Czar
was deadly serious. This time. He demanded that his noble

(03:28):
friends shave on the spot or have their beards ripped
out by the roots. Then he had the police to
hunt through the streets and perform forced shavings of the public.
Individuals who wanted to keep their facial hair could do
so as long as they paid a fee. Nobles were
charged more than peasants, but everyone who paid received a
token with the image of a beard engraved on it.

(03:50):
By showing it to the police, Russians could avoid being
shaved in the streets so long as they didn't forget
their token at home, and the Russian people, as you
might imagine, were appalled. Forced shavings felt like an affront
to their faith and their culture. A few years after
the tax was instituted, it sparked a bloody uprising. A
group of soldiers published a letter stating that they refused

(04:13):
to submit to foreign fashion. Hundreds of commoners and merchants
joined them, and they took over several towns. Peter responded
by sending two detachments of troops to crush the revolt.
Approximately three hundred and sixty five rebels were caught and
taken to Moscow, where they were tried, tortured, and executed.
And you have to say, anyone who wondered whether the

(04:34):
Tsar was serious now had their answer. Despite being wildly unpopular,
the Russian beard tax remained in place for decades, long
after Peter's death. It was finally repealed in seventeen seventy
two by Catherine the Great. Modern historians might find it
ironic that a female ruler gave Russian men their beards back,
but the people didn't care. They were just happy to

(04:57):
have one less tax to pay. So much of our
history is hidden, buried under layers of dirt and silt.

(05:18):
It's just sitting there, waiting to be dug up, like
a toy in a sandbox. Thanks to hundreds of years
of excavation and study, we've been able to learn about
and understand the creatures and civilizations that came before us,
From dinosaurs and ancient burial practices to magnificent structures and
old tools. We know a lot more about our world

(05:38):
than we used to. But every once in a while
we unearthed something that defies explanation. It forces us to
confront the limits of our understanding. In eighteen thirty two,
in a town in Massachusetts, about fifty miles south of Boston,
a young woman named Hannah Cook had been digging in
a nearby sandbank. She was collecting sand for cleaning purposes,
as it worked wonders as a scouring agent. But she

(06:01):
found much more than just some natural cleaning products. She
stumbled upon something big. It had been buried in the
sand for a long time. It was a human skeleton.
There was something strange about it. For one, the skeleton
had been discovered sitting down with its legs tucked under
its chin. But the other notable thing about it was
how it was dressed. According to a report written by

(06:23):
doctor Phineas W. Leland in eighteen forty three and I quote,
covering the sternum was a triangular plate of brass, somewhat
corroded by time, and around the body was a broad
belt made of small brass tubes four or five inches
in length. As for the body itself, an Illinois lawyer
in eighteen thirty seven noted how the skull had deteriorated,

(06:45):
but the teeth were mostly intact. They indicated the body
had been that of a young man. There was still
even a little bit of skin in certain places, like
around the shoulders and on the back. This lawyer suggested
that the body might have been embalmed to some degree,
but the question remained, who did this skeleton belong to.
Could it have been a member of an indigenous tribe

(07:06):
from the area. A historian in the late eighteen hundreds
claimed that the body had been buried according to wamp
and Noah customs, so it was possible. Others argue that
the remains had been those of a Phoenician, or an
ancient Egyptian or a Carthaginian who had come to North
America many centuries earlier. By the way, this theory was
thrown around a lot at the time to explain how

(07:27):
the pre Columbian city of Chichenitza was built by other
cultures who had come and colonized the Americas. But that
theory didn't hold weight either. After all, we know the
Mayans built Chichenitza. And of course, it was even suggested
that the whole thing had been a hoax, although no
motive or culprit was ever determined. Eventually, the skeleton was
sent to the Fall River Athenaeum for further study, and

(07:50):
that's where it was observed by one man, in particular,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poets and author thought that maybe
the remains were Norse, meaning they had belong to a Viking.
He wrote a poem titled The Skeleton in Armour, which
told the story of a Viking warrior who sailed to
a new land with his bride and built a life
with her until her untimely death. The poem was published

(08:13):
in eighteen forty one, two years before a tragic accident
that would change the fate of the actual skeleton forever.
You see, in eighteen forty three, two young boys had
been firing a small cannon when they ignited a fire.
That fire grew into an uncontrollable blaze that destroyed twenty
acres of Fall River. Numerous buildings were lost in the inferno,

(08:35):
including the post office, two hundred family homes, and the Athenaeum.
The skeleton was consumed by the fire. Then, six decades later,
in nineteen oh three, the corner of Hartwell and Fifth
Street was honored with a bronze plaque. It read, a
skeleton in armor was found near this spot by Hannah
Cook in the month of May a d Eighteen thirty one.

(08:59):
Hannah probably appreciated being remembered for her discovery rather than
what came after it. You see, in eighteen ninety two,
her great niece was tried and acquitted for a horrible crime.
She had allegedly murdered her parents, and that girl's name Lizzie,
Lizzie Borden. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of

(09:22):
the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey
in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
and television show, and you can learn all about it

(09:44):
over at the Worldolore dot com. And until next time,
stay curious.