December 23, 2024 • 37 mins
Want to know why George Washington's eggnog was so potent? Or how new immigrants partied on Ellis Island? Or what was the wildest party to ever take place at West Point? Or the very particular way that Thomas Edison changed the way we make shrubbery more festive? You're in luck! Will and Mango get the lowdown on just a few of the historical parties they weren't invited to.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Guess what, Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
What's that?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Well?
Speaker 3 (00:13):
So, I was looking to the history of Christmas lights
this week, and I was trying to figure out who
exactly is to blame for the yearly chore of untangling them.
I don't know if you deal with this, but it's
sort of a nightmare around.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Here in my house. It's Ruby. Ruby is always the culprit.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
You didn't have to tell me that. I already knew
that it was Ruby. But I was looking a little
further back, further back than Ruby even and my search
led me all the way back to Thomas Edison's Christmas party.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
This was back in eighteen eighty.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Now, to be clear, Edison didn't invent Christmas lights, just
in case you were curious about that, and he didn't
technically invent the light bulb. But by all accounts, he
was the first to string lights together and use them
as yule Tide decorations, which I did not know before
this episode.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
That is pretty awesome. Can I tell you something ridiculous?
On Friday, I snuck into this reading of a new
musical in the works about Nikola Tesla and Edison. And
the Edison character was incredible. It was almost like d V.
Diggs as like Jefferson in Hamilton. He was like this big, funny,
(01:17):
smarmy showman of a character. And so I've been thinking
about Edison all weekend before you mentioned this.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
But you know, I've always read about Edison that he
was like kind of a workaholic, and it's kind of
stunning to think of him getting into the holiday spirit here. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Yeah, I mean your perception is spot on, and Edison
was definitely a workaholic and very much working on the
night in question. In fact, the whole goal of his
holiday get together was to try to convince a group
of investors and New York City officials to let him
wire the city for electricity. So to that end, he
invited them out to his laboratory. This was in Menlo
Park on the evening of December nineteenth, eighteen eighty, and
(01:58):
to help sell them on the idea of electric lighting,
he arranged an eye catching spectacle to greet them at
the train station. It was two rows of electric lamps
strung across wires. It was such a novel sight that
the New York Times reported on it two days later,
writing the train arrived at Menlo Park at five point
thirty one. Darkness had settled down upon the bleak and
(02:18):
uninviting place which mister Edison had chosen for his home.
But the plank walk from the station to the laboratory
was brilliantly lighted by a double row of electric lamps,
which cast a soft and mellow light on all sides.
The incandescent horseshoes gave out a yellow light which shone
steadily and without the least painful glare, and were beautiful
(02:40):
to look upon. Pretty fun description.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
So first of all, I love that the New York
Times is writing about New Jersey as a bleak and
uninviting place, which feels like yeah. But I also loved
that Edison wasn't trying to kick off a new holiday tradition.
He was just trying to win business and impress his dinners.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
No, that's exactly right. There's no indication that he meant
for the lights to be associated with Christmas. He was
just hosting a party around the holidays, and the lighting
seemed to fit the mood. But Edison maintained that same
sense of showmanship inside his lab as well. After giving
the group the grand tour the facility, he led them
up to the building's second story, which was almost completely dark,
(03:21):
and then on Edison's signal, the room lit up with
about forty electric lamps. It revealed this lavish bread of
food provided by the famous Delmonico's restaurant.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Pretty great.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
That is pretty fancy. So it sounds like he went
all out.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
He did, and the effort seems to have paid off
because Edison's company did eventually secure the rights to provide
electricity in Lower Manhattan. And not only that, one of
his longtime colleagues, Edward Johnson, used the opportunity to introduce
the first intentional Christmas lighting display. Now, this was in
December of eighteen eighty two. Johnson decided to show off
(03:56):
his home's electricity and promote Edison's company. He commissioned a
string of lights made specifically for his Christmas tree, and
once they were ready on December twenty second, he positioned
the tree at the front of his home so it
would be visible through the windows, and then he turned
it on for.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
The first time.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
There were eighty bulbs total, each about the size of
a walnut, and they glowed in colors red, white, and blue.
But Johnson didn't stop there, so to make the spectacle
even more grand, he installed on an electric crank beneath
the floor that allowed the tree to rotate. Like this
guy was innovative. He was getting it on the rotating
tree thing.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
That is amazing. It also feels like the wires would
get tangled in that situation, but I like the innovation.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Yeah, yeah, And you know, as you'd expect, Johnson's revolving
glowing Christmas tree dazzled passers by and through large crowds
every night that it was lit. And this spectacle was
newsworthy too, because at the time people generally lit their
trees with wax candles clipped to the branches, which actually
these days just sounds terrifying. I don't know, they didn't
all catch any fire, but you know, the safety of
(04:59):
electric Christmas lane lights became a major selling point in
the coming decades. And while Christmas trees today are mostly
strung with LED lights instead of their old incandescent cousins,
we still owe a big debt of thanks to Thomas
Edison and of course Edward Johnson forgetting the tradition rolling.
But Edison's bright idea for his dinner party is just
the first of nine unforgettable holiday gatherings we'll talk about today.
(05:21):
So let's get into it. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome
(05:44):
to part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always
I'm joined by my good friend Mangeshaw Ticketer and on
the other side of that soundproof glass helping himself to
a third slice of fruit cake. I mean, that's it's
a big slice too. It's impressive. That's our friend good
pretty great. Actually, I'm pretty jealous at this point. That's
our friend and producer Dylan Fagan. Now the strange part
(06:05):
is he seems to be genuinely enjoying it, which I
didn't think was actually allowed with a fruitcake.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
I don't know what your feelings are.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
That is really the last thing to go at the
holiday party, but it feels like Dylan's really on it.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Yeah, and it usually goes in the trash, honestly, and
it makes the trash weigh like fifty pounds more, but
not on Dylan's watch.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
So thank you for your service, buddy.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So Will. Since he start us off with the origin
of Christmas lights, I want to give you the backstory
on an even more old school Christmas decoration, and that
is the Nativity scene. And whether it's a live performance,
a long display, or a bunch of figurines on a mantle,
scenes depicting the birth of Christ have long been a
staple of the Christmas season. In fact, the very first
(06:48):
Nativity scene is thought to have been created more than
eight hundred years ago, and this was in Gareccio, Italy.
It was orchestrated by none other than Saint Francis of Assissi,
who you know. It was one of the most revered
saints in Catholic history, my mom's favorite saint in fact,
because of his love for animals. But he made the
scene as a way to make the Christmas story feel
(07:10):
more real for his fellow countrymen.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
So I'm trying to picture this.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Did he just set up the little scene outside of
a village church or what did he do exactly?
Speaker 1 (07:18):
It was a little more elaborate than that. So first
he obtained permission from the Pope in Rome because no
one had actually recreated the birth of Jesus before and
he didn't want it to be seen as blasphemous or
anything like that. So then he wrote home to one
of his friends in Grecio, and he asked him to
find a cave in the countryside where they could stage
(07:38):
the scene. And in the letter Francis explained his motivation.
He wrote, quote, I want to do something that will
recall the memory of that child who was born in Bethlehem,
to see with bodily eyes the inconveniences of his infancy,
how he lay in the manger, and how the ox
and donkey stood by.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
And I do think it's fair to say if he
made people travel all the way out to a distant cave,
then he kind of nailed it on the inconvenience front.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah. But by the time Francis arrived at Greccio in
mid December, his friend had actually found a suitable cave.
He'd stalked it with a hayline manger as well as
two live animals, this ox and this donkey that Francis
had asked for. And once everything was ready, Francis invited
his fellow friars and all the farmers in the region
to come see the major scene during Christmas Mass. Now,
(08:24):
Francis himself preached the homily that evening in the cave.
It was illuminated by firelight, and crowds came from miles
around bearing candles and torches, and several of those in
attendance actually claimed to witness miracles at the mass. So,
for example, there were no figures or actors present in
the scene, but witnesses reported that a real, live infant
(08:45):
suddenly appeared in the empty manger, and in the weeks
that followed, all these miraculous healings for such to take
place in the grotto where the mass was held, so
sick animals and pregnant women were leisurely cured just by
touching the straw and the manger where the baby g
Jesus had materialized.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Yeah, I mean that definitely explains why we have a
pretty solid date for when this happened. Like, putting a
manger in a cave might not be worth reporting on,
but when you talk about these events that people are
reporting happen there, you know the magic that happened there,
it's likely the type of event people will remember.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah, and word of the Nativity scene did make the Browns.
Saint Francis's recreation prompted other churches in Italy to stage
their own scenes in the following years. And then over
time the practice spread to churches and other countries, as
well to town squares and eventually into private homes. But
for those who favor authenticity, you can actually still make
the trip to where the tradition was born. The hermitage
(09:39):
where Francis staged the First Nativity is still there outside
the town of Correccio, and each Christmas the townspeople gather
there and mount a live historical reenactment of Saint Francis
and the First Nativity minus the infant Jesus.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Right right, Well, my.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Next fact is about a holiday party that Saint Francis
would not have approved of, though he might have at
least appreciated the theming here, because, according to New York Magazine,
the Bloomberg Company's two thousand Christmas party was based off
of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
I mean, I can see how like gluttony gets into
the mix, but but how do you put something like
wrath into a Christmas party?
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Well, apparently it attracted a lot of people. Michael Bloomberg
himself was there. He attended along with fifteen hundred British
employees at the company's London office. And if the tabloid
rumors are true, it was the country's most extravagant office
party to date. The party is said to have cost
one million pounds, which is the equivalent of about two
point seven million dollars in today's money, and it took
(10:39):
a full ten days to set up all the decor
and the attractions that were part of it.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
So I'm very curious. Now what were some of these attractions?
Speaker 3 (10:48):
I mean just the usual holiday fair like, you know,
a makeshift casino, a sushi bar, some neck massage stations,
a couple manicure boosts, not to mention ten different open bars,
including one that was just a t off filled with
candy and truffles.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Of course I like that. So it feels like you're
covering like pride, slop, maybe greed and glutten me there.
But what about things like envy and luston and again wrath,
which I'm very curious about.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yeah, it's a good question. I'm not sure about wrath,
but lust is a pretty easy one. They had dedicated
a quote lust room that featured a twenty five foot
wide bed decked out in purple satin, which feels a
little weird for an office party.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
This is gross.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, the less said about that one and the better
I think.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
And as for Envy, they were live musicians and drag
queens performing in the whole night, and some of them
were said to wave around fistfuls of cash while shouting money.
Ain't it gorgeous? So that's the way they covered off
on that. But the wildest part is that even though
Bloomberg faced some moral backlash for the decat an event,
he still won his campaign for New York mayor the
(11:52):
following year.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Well, I feel like everyone loves someone who could throw
a good party. But I want to head back to
some more whole holiday territory from our next back, because
it's actually about the Christmas parties thrown on Ellis Island.
So for the first half of the twentieth century, the
island's Immigrant Reception Center was America's main port of entry.
(12:14):
As we've talked about before, they had roughly eighty percent
of the nation's immigrants passing through its gate each year,
and with that many people to inspect and process, some
families were obviously stuck there during Christmas holidays. So thankfully,
immigration officials did their best to keep things feeling festive
by throwing an elaborate Christmas party for the detainees.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Wow, so I've never heard of this before. So how
many manicure boosts did they have there?
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Pretty sure zero? But that doesn't mean the staff didn't
plo out all the stops when it came to decorating,
especially during the center's busy early decades. So according to
Atlas Obscura quote, the Great Hall, with the soaring vaulted
ceilings and glossy tiled halls, featured nine Christmas trees, each
decked with color lights. At one end of the hall,
a giant glowing electric sign read Merry Christmas, likely the
(13:03):
first electric sign many of the immigrants had ever seen.
Each balcony, railing and pillar was wrapped gracefully in evergreen
roots and American flags. The largest tree in the room,
often topping thirty feet, stood at the opposite end of
the gallery. Under its branches, immigrants peered at the hundreds
of neatly wrapped packages, one for each person held at
(13:23):
Ellis Island on Christmas Day.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
I mean, that does sound lovely, but it does make
me think though, like, what about all the Jewish immigrants
who were housed there at the same time.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
So Ellis Island didn't offer a Honka party until the
nineteen forties. That was a little over a decade before
its closure in nineteen fifty four. And while Jewish immigrants
were still given gifts and invited to attend the Christmas Party,
you know, many chose to sit out for obvious reasons.
But another shortcoming of the Ellis Island parties was that
they didn't account for immigrants who had no prior knowledge
(13:53):
of Christmas. So, for instance, there's this one story from
the New York Carol Tribune about this young Chinese boy.
His name was San Lee. He had to stay in
Ellis Island through Christmas, and the nurses tried to cheer
him up by arranging a visit from Santa But since
the boy obviously had no concept of Santa Claus, he
was totally freaked out with this like plump guy and
(14:15):
this shows up just laughing by his bedside, I can imagine,
reportedly under the covers, until the nurses were finally able
to convince him that Santa Claus was, as the Tribune
put it, a beneficent old gentleman of the Western world.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
On a title.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
I feel like we should just call him that from
now on, but I can imagine like, if you've never
heard of this concept before and then suddenly this figure
shows up, that would be terrifying completely.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
And I do want to mention that while the Ellis
Island parties had some serious cultural and religious blindspots, they
did try to be very inclusive. So, for example, guests
at the nineteen thirty one party enjoyed such diverse acts
as a Japanese xylophonist, a Spanish ten, a German Christmas carol,
and a Hungarian folk dance. And then to cap it
(15:05):
all off, Oh Holy Night was sung in every language
spoken at the island, or almost every language, because according
to one reporter, the Chinese singers didn't have a translation
to the song, so they assisted by humming instead.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
You know, I'm not sure this fact is as wholesome
as you thought it was, Mango, because I feel like
I'm picturing a room full of very baffled people who
were just kind of going along with all this because
they weren't allowed to leave. But it's definitely an interesting scene.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah. I mean, maybe wholesome isn't the right word for
a mandatory Christmas party, but I will say one poignant
thing that stuck out to me. In all the reporting
is that apparently the immigrants faces were said to light
up when they heard the language of their mother tongue
in song, and so even though the lyrics probably didn't
mean much to them, the singing did give them the
(15:51):
sense of delonging, which I'm sure felt nice.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, yeah, now that makes sense. Heart well.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
As fun as these holiday parties sound, there is one
crucial element they've all been.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Lacking so far.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Fruitcake.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
No, not fruitcake. There's always fruitcake. That's actually the problem.
I was actually talking about eggnog, mango, the fruitcake of beverages.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
So well, I know, and I hope I'm not revealing
too much that you used to love egnog? Do you
still ever drink eggnog?
Speaker 3 (16:19):
I love eggnog so much. In fact, I loved it
so much as a kid. We're talking the non alcoholic variety.
I loved it so much as a kid that all
of our family passwords, like to get into computers, or
if you know, somebody was coming to pick you up
and had to say the family password, it always involved eggnog.
I loved it so much, and it made me so
(16:40):
hyperactive that my parents would have to dilute it with
just some milk, because I would drink so much of it.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
That is amazing. So tell me about this eggnog fact you've.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Got anyway, Well, I just wanted to share more about
my history with egnog, but no, I'll get to this.
So one interesting thing I learned this week is that
while today's egnog is generally just a kid friendly mix
of eggs, milk, sugar, cream, and of course spices, the
eggnogg of old almost always included alcohol. The hot drink,
originally known as posset, was developed in Britain during the
(17:12):
Middle Ages, and it was typically made from curdled milk
and spiced wine or ale.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Hot curdled milk with spiced wine sounds really advertized.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
You wouldn't buy that if you saw that on the box.
But it was also high class, and at first it
was enjoyed almost exclusively by the upper class, so you
had to be a sophisticate to enjoy it. But when
the drink made its way to colonial America, it became
more widely available thanks to the colony's abundance of dairy
farms and sugar and rum, and in fact, the American
(17:43):
eggnog became so popular that even George Washington tinkered with
his own private recipe.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
So I should remember this because our friend Ethan brought
it in to our office at Mental Claws, the recipe,
and then we decided to make a day of it,
and we like all made this eggnog and it was delicious,
but it was like insanely alcoholic.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Yeah, yes it was. It's probably not the right mix
for a midday office party. But not only did George
include the standard rum, he also threw in sherry, brandy
and of course whiskey.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
So do you have any instances of agnog really making
a party turn into a party like that being the
key ingredient.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Lots of examples, but we're gon we're gonna stick with
one here at a highly boozy agnog was certainly part
of a memorable Christmas party thrown at that famous West
Point Military Academy. This was in eighteen twenty six, at
a time when the school was desperately trying to shake
its reputation as kind of this rowdy and undisciplined academy.
So to that in west Point strict superintendent this was
(18:45):
Colonel Sylvanas Thayer. He had banned the consumption of alcohol
on campus, including at the school's annual Christmas party. Now,
obviously that was an unpopular move among the cadets, so
a few days before Christmas, a group of them sneaked
out at night, wrote across the Hudson River and bought
about four gallons of whiskey from a local tavern. They
(19:05):
then smuggled the booze back to campus and stashed it
away until late Christmas Eve. So they lay low until
after midnight at some point, and then these two officers
stationed in the barracks, Captain Hitchcock and Lieutenant Thornton, finally
went to bed. So the cadets then mixed up a
giant batch of eggnog and spent the next several hours
drinking and partying without any interruption. However, at around four
(19:29):
in the morning, Thornton and Hitchcock awoke to the sound
of basically a frat party on every floor of the barracks,
So the two officers rushed to break up the various gatherings,
but the inebriated cadets weren't having any part of that,
and so some students threatened their superiors with swords and
wooden beams, and at least one of them pulled out
a pistol, so it's a pretty potent egnog I think,
(19:50):
though thankfully he missed his shot and the bullet struck
the door jam instead of Hitchcock door jam.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
That sounds so dangerous.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
It's wild, But believe it or not, that was just
the beginning. So after this near miss, Hitchcock sent for
the commandant to help put a stop to the chaos.
But because the cadets were too drunk to understand what
was happening, they assumed he had called in the artillery
men stationed in campus. So face with the threat of
armed guards, the cadets started taking up arms and trying
(20:20):
to fortify the barracks against intruders. So they broke apart furniture,
smashed windows, ripped the banisters from the stairways. Then they
busted up all the cups and dishes and scattered the
shards all over the floors.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
They basically home alone.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Bit they totally home alone this whole situation, and the
artillery men never arrived, of course, as they hadn't been
called in the first place. But the Commandant of Cadets
did show up, and thankfully he was able to call
on the riot, confiscate what remained of the eggnog, and
that was the end of the party.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
That is insane. So so what happened to these cadets,
I'm assuming some of them were punished, right.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Well, some of them were. Out of the two hundred
and sixty cadets, about ninety of them were identified as
participants in the riot, Indicting all of them would have
reinforced the school's negative image, so instead they are only
expelled the most aggressive of the bunch. It was about
nineteen cadets and total.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I'm still a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
But can you imagine if they just been graduating one
that year because there had been an eggnog party?
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Yeah, too much eggnog really did them in pretty wild.
And you know, the rest of the partygoers were let
off the hook, including future Confederate President Jefferson Davis his
future General Roberty Lee, both of whom were students at
West Point during the Agnog riot. And in case we're wondering,
the annual Christmas party is no longer a tradition at
West Point.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Which is probably a good call. Actually, my next fact
is also about a rowdy gathering in late December, but
this one involves just two people. The eccentric Danish astronomer
Tycho Brahe and his third cousin made her up Parsburg,
which is spelled like mader Up, though I assure you
I didn't. So this was back in the year fifteen
(21:59):
sixty six when both were young men studying astronomy. This
is in Roastock, Germany. One day in early December, Braa
and his cousin get into a heated argument at a
friend's engagement party, most likely over a disagreement about a
mathematical formula because they were both astronomy nerds. Now the
other partygoers were able to talk them down before things
(22:20):
got out of head. But then two weeks later the
boys were at it again, and that time things took
a violent turn. So it all goes down on December
twenty ninth, when a bunch of students gathered at a
local pub for some post Christmas revelry. After another evening
of heavy drinking Brahe and Parsburg, they decided to resume.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Their earlier argument.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
I guess they just can't stop arguing over mathematics, and
both men were carrying swords at their hips, as was
the customer at the time. So once they had thoroughly
offended each other, they reached for their blades and oh my, yes, insane.
Wait so but honestly, is this still over in math formula?
Like they're about to throw down and have a sword
fight over who is the better mathematician. Yeah, it's about
(23:02):
as nerdy as a duel, looking get, but it still
came with some serious consequences for Tychobrahjiks. So the fight
ends with him losing a significant chunk of his nose.
Though the exact extent of the injury is unclear, some
historians think he lost the majority of his nose. Contemporary
depictions show him wearing a prosthesis that only covers the bridge,
But in either case, the whole thing wasn't very flattering
(23:25):
for him, because while a small doing scar on the
cheek was considered a mark of bravery, something that's like
kind of handsome, etc. Like having half your nose sliced
off is obviously less becoming, and Bray ended up wearing
a fake brass nose for the rest of his life.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
I mean, it's.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Insane, But the funny thing is that he really seemed
to embrace the eccentricity that came with having a metal nose,
and actually his personal life only gets increasingly weird from
that point on. After finishing his studies, he moves to
an island with a castle and an observatory. This is
financed by the King of Denmark, and while living there,
he hires a dwarf jester named Jep who he believes
(24:05):
to be psychic. He makes him sit under the dining
room table during every single meal. It's all very very confusing.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
What on earth, Mango, It's so weird.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Apparently he also had a pet elk in the castle
that liked to drink beer, so they would drink together.
But one night the elk had a little too much
to drink fell down the stairs to his death. It's
all very very absurd.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Oh my gosh, I mean, it feels like Jef should
have seen that one coming. And actually, remind me again.
I know we remember his name from all of our
science classes, but remind me what tych o'brie was known
for besides being a psychopath.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Obviously.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Yeah, so Brian made sizeable contributions to the field of astronomy. So,
using the most precise instruments of his day, he was
able to track the movements of the planets and the stars,
and he did this with surprising accuracy. His observations actually
lead to the discovery of a rare supernova. And this
is all the way back in fifteen seventy two, And
he also created this incredible series of important essays on
(24:59):
the movement of comments. He actually would have been even
more accomplished, except at the age of fifty four, after
attending a royal banquet in Prague, he ends up falling
sick and dies a short time later, and again continuing
with the weirdnesses of his life. The cause of his
death has long been debated, but most historians think it
was because brahe grank accessibly at the banquet and then
(25:22):
waited too long to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
What like, this guy's life was weird enough, but you're
saying he died because he didn't feel like getting up
to pee.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Well, I mean it wasn'tok like he was lazy, it's
because he was polite weird. So there was a societal
custom at the time that said guests shouldn't excuse themselves
to use the bathroom until their host does at first, So,
rather than seeming rude, which feels strange, for him, because
he seems like the type of person who wouldn't be
caught up with politeness. He ends up staying seated and
(25:54):
winds up damaging his urinary cracks so badly that it
kills him a few days later.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Oh my god, that is so wild.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
It's a good tip for anyone hosting a party this
holiday season. You should let your guests know that it's
okay to get up and use the bathroom. We don't
want anybody pulling a brahe as they call it.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Think we just saved a few lives right there.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Well, yeah, we did.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
This podcast saves lives, so all right, Well, switching gears
a little, I do want to tell you about a
much tamer military Christmas party than the one Throne at
West Point that we were talking about. Now, this one
took place against all odds. It was actually in the
Belgian trenches of the First World War, and it's commonly
referred to today as the Christmas Truce. So the way
(26:34):
this went is that on Christmas Even nineteen fourteen, French,
German and British soldiers laid down their weapons for one
night and had an impromptu Christmas party right there in
no man's land now, according to accounts from the soldiers,
men who had been shooting at each other just a
few hours earlier, again shaking hands, exchanging gifts, singing carols together,
(26:56):
and they passed around cigarettes and whiskey, and even played
a game of side on the snow covered battlefield.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
So I have heard of this before, mainly because of
the soccer game that took place, but I was never
really sure if it actually happened or not. It almost
seems like one of those things that is apocryphal, like
it's too sweet to be true.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yeah, no, you're right, it does seem that way.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
But it helps to remember that this happened just a
few months into the war, so neither side had a
clear understanding of what they were fighting for beyond this
vague notion of freedom, and at that point, no one
could imagine that the war would drag on for another
four years, and so once winter said in, many of
the soldiers on the Western Front were more concerned with
surviving the cold than they were with killing their enemies.
(27:42):
So with that context in mind, it's easier to imagine
why French and British soldiers would be open to a
holiday ceasefire, especially on Christmas Eve. When they heard the
singing coming from the German trenches, they thought, you know what,
we'll join them, and according to one account, the English
soldiers began belting out their own carols in response, until
eventually the two sides were all.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Singing in unison.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
It was such a moving experience that the following morning,
troops from either side made their way across the battlefield
and agreed to set aside their differences for the next
twenty four hours. Now, of course, none of this was
sanctioned by commanding officers on either side, and plenty of
soldiers kept right on fighting through Christmas in other parts
of the region, but the truce proved to be a
(28:25):
deeply cherished moment for the regiments that took part in it,
and after the war was over, many of the men
told their families about the event, against the wishes of
army leadership, of course, and years later the published accounts
of various soldiers revealed the full details of the Christmas truth.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
I really love that I had no idea those sort
of depth of it, and it's pretty wonderful. But I
know we've got two more of fus to go, so
let's take a quick break.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
You're listening to Part Time Genius, and we're looking back
at nine holiday gatherings that we wish we'd been invited to,
or actually maybe not in some cases. But all right, Mago,
you're up next. What's your last party fact on the list? Well,
up to this point, we've mostly talked about Christmas party.
So I thought i'd jump ahead to New Year's Eve
and tell you how that song all Lang Sign became
(29:26):
the official anthem of the holiday. You know, I actually
didn't know that song could be traced back to a
single occasion.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Well, not the song itself. That's believed to have been
written like way back in the seventeen eighties by the
Scottish poet Robert Burns. The translation of the title is
since long ago, and it was commonly sung in Scotland
when friends parted ways, and by the eighteen eighties it
was used to ring in the New year as well.
A handful of Americans also adopted the practice in the
early twentieth century, but it wasn't until New Year's Eve
(29:55):
nineteen twenty nine that the tune became linked with the
holiday on a national So this is a night when
this Canadian American violinist. His name is Guy Lombardo performed
Allline sign with a ten piece band at the Roosevelt
Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. He had been introduced to the
song as a child in his native Ontario, which happened
(30:15):
to be home to a large Scottish population, and he
thought the nostalgic farewell tune was the perfect way to
close out his shows. So Lombardo's band launch into the
number just as the clock struck midnight, and it was
heard not only by New York partygoers, but by radio
listeners who were tuning in from all over the country.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
And so how did this work?
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Like everyone just collectively agree that it was the song
to play at midnight from that point on.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Well, I mean, that's the power of radio, right But
it wasn't right away. Lombardo and his band continued to
play in New Year's Eve shows in New York for
almost half a century, and every single time they did,
the Scottish song was the first tune they played at
the stroke of midnight, So people kind of became accustomed
to hearing it until finally it just didn't feel like
years without it. And while tons of artists have put
(31:03):
their own spins on the track over the years. When
the big ball drops in Times Square, it's actually still
Lombardo's version of old lying sign that rings out for
all of us to hear.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Wow. I mean, that is a wild legacy to have.
It's impressive.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Well, you and I were on the same wave link, Mango,
because my last fact is also about a New Year's
Eve party, but not just any New Year's Eve party,
because as far as I can tell, this is the
only one on record to be held inside of a
thirty ton dinosaur.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
I don't know if you found any.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Others in that side of a dinosaur.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
This happened back in eighteen fifty three, which makes it
even more impressive because these days it feels like anybody
can just make a giant dinosaur. But this is when
natural history artists and sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins hosted a
New Year's Eve dinner party inside a full scale model
of an iguanadon. The event was held as a publicity
stunt to advertise Hawkins's latest upcoming project, which was a
(31:57):
display of the world's first dinosaur sculptures at the Crystal
Palace Park in London.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
So if he had a whole series of dinosaurs like,
what made him pick out the Iguanadog.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
It's a good question. So Hawkins chose the iguanadon to
host the meal because it was the largest of the
thirty three concrete dinosaur models that had been commissioned for
the exhibit. True to the animal it was based on,
the sculpture measured approximately nine feet high thirty three feet long.
As for why the dinosaur sculptures were made in the
first place, they were meant to be one of the
(32:27):
new sort of premiere attractions at the Crystal Palace's big
reopening in eighteen fifty four. So at the time, the
public had only seen illustrations of dinosaurs in the occasional
incomplete skeleton I guess, and it was hard to get
a sense of the animal's true scale. So as a result,
dinosaurs weren't a subject of public fascination at the time,
But the Crystal Palace company saw dinosaur's true potential. They
(32:50):
wagered that these life size replicas would be enough to
capture the public's interest and draw a big crowd for
opening day. So Hawkins New Yar's Eve dinner party was
a way to build excitement for the exhibit and kind
of wet the public's appetite for these big concrete dinosaurs.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Oh, I kind of love that. So so who was
invited to this dinner?
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Well, there were twenty one guests in total, including leading scientists, businessmen,
and journalists, and the guest of honor was Professor Richard Owen,
a trained doctor and aspiring palaeontologist who coined the term
dinosaur or terrible lizard, and he did so just eleven
years before Hawkins party. He was also the researcher who
advised Hawkins on the design of these dinosaur models, though
(33:30):
it's worth noting that the models were based on the
knowledge at the time and aren't considered scientifically accurate today.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah, that makes sense, But I love that these guys
still got to eat dinner inside a giant dinosaur carbon.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
I mean I kind of want to know everything about this,
like what was on the menu, Like anything more you've
got I'd love to hear.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Actually, the meal consisted of eight courses, including a mock
turtle soup, mutton cutlets, and partridge stew. You know, your
typical meals. And as for the seeding, any of the
guests set inside the iguanadon's open back cavity. Now, we
don't know the exact arrangement of the tables or chairs,
but a drawing published and illustrated London News does provide
(34:10):
a few clues. So the most likely scenario is that
eleven guests were seated in a row inside the belly,
and the rest were seated at a perpendicular table just
behind the iguanadon, creating this t shaped table setting. The
drawing also shows the model surrounded by a tall stage,
which enabled the guests and the weight stuff to climb
inside a little bit more easily. After a few courses,
(34:33):
Hawkins reportedly gave a short speech and Owen followed it
with a brief presentation about the sculptures. According to Hawkins,
the dinner party got pretty rowdy from there, or as
he puts it, quote the roaring chorus was so fierce
and enthusiastic as almost to lead to the belief that
the herd of iguanadons were bellowing.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
I love that, and it sounds totally preposterous, but yeah,
destruction I still love to think about. They got to
ring in the new year from inside this massive, hollowed
out dinosaur. It's pretty pretty awesome.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Yeah, it's definitely on my bucket list now for sure.
And it should go without saying, but Hawkins Dinner Party
was a huge success. The press is coverage stoked excitement
for the exhibit's debut, and when the big day finally came,
the dinosaurs did not disappoint. The lifelike recreations helped make
dinosaurs a subject of mainstream interest for the first time,
and for the next half century, more than a million
(35:27):
people came to see the models every year.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
So are these models still around? Like? Could I book
a dinosaur to throw a dinner party in?
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Well, the original Crystal Palace unfortunately caught fire in nineteen
thirty six, but thankfully the concrete dinos were durable enough
to survive the fire, and so most of them still
stand at the Crystal Palace Park two this day, and
thanks to refurbishments, they now look better than ever, though
I'm not sure you can run them out.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Well, it is hard to imagine a better holiday party
than the one hosted inside a dinosaur. And since you're
the one who told us about it, I think you
get the trophie this week, which by trophy I mean
this delicious prepackaged fruitcake.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Joan, Wow, this suddenly doesn't feel like much of a victory.
But you know what, I think I'm going to donate
this to Dylan. It feels like the right holiday thing
to do.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
All right. Well, that's it for today's Part Time Genius.
I know Will and I are both taking off for
the New Year's but we can't wait to be back
with new episodes in the meantime. Just thank you so
much for listening. It really means the world to us.
From Will, Mary, Gabe, Dylan and myself, we really appreciate you.
Happy Holidays. Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope
(36:48):
and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by Will Pearson and
me Mongagetikler and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy.
Today's episode was engineered produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan
with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced
for iHeart by Katrina Norvell and Ali Perry, with social
(37:09):
media support from Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shory.
For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio
app Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Guess what, Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
What's that?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Well?
Speaker 3 (00:13):
So, I was looking to the history of Christmas lights
this week, and I was trying to figure out who
exactly is to blame for the yearly chore of untangling them.
I don't know if you deal with this, but it's
sort of a nightmare around.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Here in my house. It's Ruby. Ruby is always the culprit.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
You didn't have to tell me that. I already knew
that it was Ruby. But I was looking a little
further back, further back than Ruby even and my search
led me all the way back to Thomas Edison's Christmas party.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
This was back in eighteen eighty.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Now, to be clear, Edison didn't invent Christmas lights, just
in case you were curious about that, and he didn't
technically invent the light bulb. But by all accounts, he
was the first to string lights together and use them
as yule Tide decorations, which I did not know before
this episode.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
That is pretty awesome. Can I tell you something ridiculous?
On Friday, I snuck into this reading of a new
musical in the works about Nikola Tesla and Edison. And
the Edison character was incredible. It was almost like d V.
Diggs as like Jefferson in Hamilton. He was like this big, funny,
(01:17):
smarmy showman of a character. And so I've been thinking
about Edison all weekend before you mentioned this.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
But you know, I've always read about Edison that he
was like kind of a workaholic, and it's kind of
stunning to think of him getting into the holiday spirit here. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Yeah, I mean your perception is spot on, and Edison
was definitely a workaholic and very much working on the
night in question. In fact, the whole goal of his
holiday get together was to try to convince a group
of investors and New York City officials to let him
wire the city for electricity. So to that end, he
invited them out to his laboratory. This was in Menlo
Park on the evening of December nineteenth, eighteen eighty, and
(01:58):
to help sell them on the idea of electric lighting,
he arranged an eye catching spectacle to greet them at
the train station. It was two rows of electric lamps
strung across wires. It was such a novel sight that
the New York Times reported on it two days later,
writing the train arrived at Menlo Park at five point
thirty one. Darkness had settled down upon the bleak and
(02:18):
uninviting place which mister Edison had chosen for his home.
But the plank walk from the station to the laboratory
was brilliantly lighted by a double row of electric lamps,
which cast a soft and mellow light on all sides.
The incandescent horseshoes gave out a yellow light which shone
steadily and without the least painful glare, and were beautiful
(02:40):
to look upon. Pretty fun description.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
So first of all, I love that the New York
Times is writing about New Jersey as a bleak and
uninviting place, which feels like yeah. But I also loved
that Edison wasn't trying to kick off a new holiday tradition.
He was just trying to win business and impress his dinners.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
No, that's exactly right. There's no indication that he meant
for the lights to be associated with Christmas. He was
just hosting a party around the holidays, and the lighting
seemed to fit the mood. But Edison maintained that same
sense of showmanship inside his lab as well. After giving
the group the grand tour the facility, he led them
up to the building's second story, which was almost completely dark,
(03:21):
and then on Edison's signal, the room lit up with
about forty electric lamps. It revealed this lavish bread of
food provided by the famous Delmonico's restaurant.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Pretty great.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
That is pretty fancy. So it sounds like he went
all out.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
He did, and the effort seems to have paid off
because Edison's company did eventually secure the rights to provide
electricity in Lower Manhattan. And not only that, one of
his longtime colleagues, Edward Johnson, used the opportunity to introduce
the first intentional Christmas lighting display. Now, this was in
December of eighteen eighty two. Johnson decided to show off
(03:56):
his home's electricity and promote Edison's company. He commissioned a
string of lights made specifically for his Christmas tree, and
once they were ready on December twenty second, he positioned
the tree at the front of his home so it
would be visible through the windows, and then he turned
it on for.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
The first time.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
There were eighty bulbs total, each about the size of
a walnut, and they glowed in colors red, white, and blue.
But Johnson didn't stop there, so to make the spectacle
even more grand, he installed on an electric crank beneath
the floor that allowed the tree to rotate. Like this
guy was innovative. He was getting it on the rotating
tree thing.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
That is amazing. It also feels like the wires would
get tangled in that situation, but I like the innovation.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Yeah, yeah, And you know, as you'd expect, Johnson's revolving
glowing Christmas tree dazzled passers by and through large crowds
every night that it was lit. And this spectacle was
newsworthy too, because at the time people generally lit their
trees with wax candles clipped to the branches, which actually
these days just sounds terrifying. I don't know, they didn't
all catch any fire, but you know, the safety of
(04:59):
electric Christmas lane lights became a major selling point in
the coming decades. And while Christmas trees today are mostly
strung with LED lights instead of their old incandescent cousins,
we still owe a big debt of thanks to Thomas
Edison and of course Edward Johnson forgetting the tradition rolling.
But Edison's bright idea for his dinner party is just
the first of nine unforgettable holiday gatherings we'll talk about today.
(05:21):
So let's get into it. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome
(05:44):
to part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always
I'm joined by my good friend Mangeshaw Ticketer and on
the other side of that soundproof glass helping himself to
a third slice of fruit cake. I mean, that's it's
a big slice too. It's impressive. That's our friend good
pretty great. Actually, I'm pretty jealous at this point. That's
our friend and producer Dylan Fagan. Now the strange part
(06:05):
is he seems to be genuinely enjoying it, which I
didn't think was actually allowed with a fruitcake.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
I don't know what your feelings are.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
That is really the last thing to go at the
holiday party, but it feels like Dylan's really on it.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Yeah, and it usually goes in the trash, honestly, and
it makes the trash weigh like fifty pounds more, but
not on Dylan's watch.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
So thank you for your service, buddy.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So Will. Since he start us off with the origin
of Christmas lights, I want to give you the backstory
on an even more old school Christmas decoration, and that
is the Nativity scene. And whether it's a live performance,
a long display, or a bunch of figurines on a mantle,
scenes depicting the birth of Christ have long been a
staple of the Christmas season. In fact, the very first
(06:48):
Nativity scene is thought to have been created more than
eight hundred years ago, and this was in Gareccio, Italy.
It was orchestrated by none other than Saint Francis of Assissi,
who you know. It was one of the most revered
saints in Catholic history, my mom's favorite saint in fact,
because of his love for animals. But he made the
scene as a way to make the Christmas story feel
(07:10):
more real for his fellow countrymen.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
So I'm trying to picture this.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Did he just set up the little scene outside of
a village church or what did he do exactly?
Speaker 1 (07:18):
It was a little more elaborate than that. So first
he obtained permission from the Pope in Rome because no
one had actually recreated the birth of Jesus before and
he didn't want it to be seen as blasphemous or
anything like that. So then he wrote home to one
of his friends in Grecio, and he asked him to
find a cave in the countryside where they could stage
(07:38):
the scene. And in the letter Francis explained his motivation.
He wrote, quote, I want to do something that will
recall the memory of that child who was born in Bethlehem,
to see with bodily eyes the inconveniences of his infancy,
how he lay in the manger, and how the ox
and donkey stood by.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
And I do think it's fair to say if he
made people travel all the way out to a distant cave,
then he kind of nailed it on the inconvenience front.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah. But by the time Francis arrived at Greccio in
mid December, his friend had actually found a suitable cave.
He'd stalked it with a hayline manger as well as
two live animals, this ox and this donkey that Francis
had asked for. And once everything was ready, Francis invited
his fellow friars and all the farmers in the region
to come see the major scene during Christmas Mass. Now,
(08:24):
Francis himself preached the homily that evening in the cave.
It was illuminated by firelight, and crowds came from miles
around bearing candles and torches, and several of those in
attendance actually claimed to witness miracles at the mass. So,
for example, there were no figures or actors present in
the scene, but witnesses reported that a real, live infant
(08:45):
suddenly appeared in the empty manger, and in the weeks
that followed, all these miraculous healings for such to take
place in the grotto where the mass was held, so
sick animals and pregnant women were leisurely cured just by
touching the straw and the manger where the baby g
Jesus had materialized.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Yeah, I mean that definitely explains why we have a
pretty solid date for when this happened. Like, putting a
manger in a cave might not be worth reporting on,
but when you talk about these events that people are
reporting happen there, you know the magic that happened there,
it's likely the type of event people will remember.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah, and word of the Nativity scene did make the Browns.
Saint Francis's recreation prompted other churches in Italy to stage
their own scenes in the following years. And then over
time the practice spread to churches and other countries, as
well to town squares and eventually into private homes. But
for those who favor authenticity, you can actually still make
the trip to where the tradition was born. The hermitage
(09:39):
where Francis staged the First Nativity is still there outside
the town of Correccio, and each Christmas the townspeople gather
there and mount a live historical reenactment of Saint Francis
and the First Nativity minus the infant Jesus.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Right right, Well, my.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Next fact is about a holiday party that Saint Francis
would not have approved of, though he might have at
least appreciated the theming here, because, according to New York Magazine,
the Bloomberg Company's two thousand Christmas party was based off
of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
I mean, I can see how like gluttony gets into
the mix, but but how do you put something like
wrath into a Christmas party?
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Well, apparently it attracted a lot of people. Michael Bloomberg
himself was there. He attended along with fifteen hundred British
employees at the company's London office. And if the tabloid
rumors are true, it was the country's most extravagant office
party to date. The party is said to have cost
one million pounds, which is the equivalent of about two
point seven million dollars in today's money, and it took
(10:39):
a full ten days to set up all the decor
and the attractions that were part of it.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
So I'm very curious. Now what were some of these attractions?
Speaker 3 (10:48):
I mean just the usual holiday fair like, you know,
a makeshift casino, a sushi bar, some neck massage stations,
a couple manicure boosts, not to mention ten different open bars,
including one that was just a t off filled with
candy and truffles.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Of course I like that. So it feels like you're
covering like pride, slop, maybe greed and glutten me there.
But what about things like envy and luston and again wrath,
which I'm very curious about.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yeah, it's a good question. I'm not sure about wrath,
but lust is a pretty easy one. They had dedicated
a quote lust room that featured a twenty five foot
wide bed decked out in purple satin, which feels a
little weird for an office party.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
This is gross.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, the less said about that one and the better
I think.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
And as for Envy, they were live musicians and drag
queens performing in the whole night, and some of them
were said to wave around fistfuls of cash while shouting money.
Ain't it gorgeous? So that's the way they covered off
on that. But the wildest part is that even though
Bloomberg faced some moral backlash for the decat an event,
he still won his campaign for New York mayor the
(11:52):
following year.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Well, I feel like everyone loves someone who could throw
a good party. But I want to head back to
some more whole holiday territory from our next back, because
it's actually about the Christmas parties thrown on Ellis Island.
So for the first half of the twentieth century, the
island's Immigrant Reception Center was America's main port of entry.
(12:14):
As we've talked about before, they had roughly eighty percent
of the nation's immigrants passing through its gate each year,
and with that many people to inspect and process, some
families were obviously stuck there during Christmas holidays. So thankfully,
immigration officials did their best to keep things feeling festive
by throwing an elaborate Christmas party for the detainees.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Wow, so I've never heard of this before. So how
many manicure boosts did they have there?
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Pretty sure zero? But that doesn't mean the staff didn't
plo out all the stops when it came to decorating,
especially during the center's busy early decades. So according to
Atlas Obscura quote, the Great Hall, with the soaring vaulted
ceilings and glossy tiled halls, featured nine Christmas trees, each
decked with color lights. At one end of the hall,
a giant glowing electric sign read Merry Christmas, likely the
(13:03):
first electric sign many of the immigrants had ever seen.
Each balcony, railing and pillar was wrapped gracefully in evergreen
roots and American flags. The largest tree in the room,
often topping thirty feet, stood at the opposite end of
the gallery. Under its branches, immigrants peered at the hundreds
of neatly wrapped packages, one for each person held at
(13:23):
Ellis Island on Christmas Day.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
I mean, that does sound lovely, but it does make
me think though, like, what about all the Jewish immigrants
who were housed there at the same time.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
So Ellis Island didn't offer a Honka party until the
nineteen forties. That was a little over a decade before
its closure in nineteen fifty four. And while Jewish immigrants
were still given gifts and invited to attend the Christmas Party,
you know, many chose to sit out for obvious reasons.
But another shortcoming of the Ellis Island parties was that
they didn't account for immigrants who had no prior knowledge
(13:53):
of Christmas. So, for instance, there's this one story from
the New York Carol Tribune about this young Chinese boy.
His name was San Lee. He had to stay in
Ellis Island through Christmas, and the nurses tried to cheer
him up by arranging a visit from Santa But since
the boy obviously had no concept of Santa Claus, he
was totally freaked out with this like plump guy and
(14:15):
this shows up just laughing by his bedside, I can imagine,
reportedly under the covers, until the nurses were finally able
to convince him that Santa Claus was, as the Tribune
put it, a beneficent old gentleman of the Western world.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
On a title.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
I feel like we should just call him that from
now on, but I can imagine like, if you've never
heard of this concept before and then suddenly this figure
shows up, that would be terrifying completely.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
And I do want to mention that while the Ellis
Island parties had some serious cultural and religious blindspots, they
did try to be very inclusive. So, for example, guests
at the nineteen thirty one party enjoyed such diverse acts
as a Japanese xylophonist, a Spanish ten, a German Christmas carol,
and a Hungarian folk dance. And then to cap it
(15:05):
all off, Oh Holy Night was sung in every language
spoken at the island, or almost every language, because according
to one reporter, the Chinese singers didn't have a translation
to the song, so they assisted by humming instead.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
You know, I'm not sure this fact is as wholesome
as you thought it was, Mango, because I feel like
I'm picturing a room full of very baffled people who
were just kind of going along with all this because
they weren't allowed to leave. But it's definitely an interesting scene.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah. I mean, maybe wholesome isn't the right word for
a mandatory Christmas party, but I will say one poignant
thing that stuck out to me. In all the reporting
is that apparently the immigrants faces were said to light
up when they heard the language of their mother tongue
in song, and so even though the lyrics probably didn't
mean much to them, the singing did give them the
(15:51):
sense of delonging, which I'm sure felt nice.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, yeah, now that makes sense. Heart well.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
As fun as these holiday parties sound, there is one
crucial element they've all been.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Lacking so far.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Fruitcake.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
No, not fruitcake. There's always fruitcake. That's actually the problem.
I was actually talking about eggnog, mango, the fruitcake of beverages.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
So well, I know, and I hope I'm not revealing
too much that you used to love egnog? Do you
still ever drink eggnog?
Speaker 3 (16:19):
I love eggnog so much. In fact, I loved it
so much as a kid. We're talking the non alcoholic variety.
I loved it so much as a kid that all
of our family passwords, like to get into computers, or
if you know, somebody was coming to pick you up
and had to say the family password, it always involved eggnog.
I loved it so much, and it made me so
(16:40):
hyperactive that my parents would have to dilute it with
just some milk, because I would drink so much of it.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
That is amazing. So tell me about this eggnog fact you've.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Got anyway, Well, I just wanted to share more about
my history with egnog, but no, I'll get to this.
So one interesting thing I learned this week is that
while today's egnog is generally just a kid friendly mix
of eggs, milk, sugar, cream, and of course spices, the
eggnogg of old almost always included alcohol. The hot drink,
originally known as posset, was developed in Britain during the
(17:12):
Middle Ages, and it was typically made from curdled milk
and spiced wine or ale.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Hot curdled milk with spiced wine sounds really advertized.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
You wouldn't buy that if you saw that on the box.
But it was also high class, and at first it
was enjoyed almost exclusively by the upper class, so you
had to be a sophisticate to enjoy it. But when
the drink made its way to colonial America, it became
more widely available thanks to the colony's abundance of dairy
farms and sugar and rum, and in fact, the American
(17:43):
eggnog became so popular that even George Washington tinkered with
his own private recipe.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
So I should remember this because our friend Ethan brought
it in to our office at Mental Claws, the recipe,
and then we decided to make a day of it,
and we like all made this eggnog and it was delicious,
but it was like insanely alcoholic.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Yeah, yes it was. It's probably not the right mix
for a midday office party. But not only did George
include the standard rum, he also threw in sherry, brandy
and of course whiskey.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
So do you have any instances of agnog really making
a party turn into a party like that being the
key ingredient.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Lots of examples, but we're gon we're gonna stick with
one here at a highly boozy agnog was certainly part
of a memorable Christmas party thrown at that famous West
Point Military Academy. This was in eighteen twenty six, at
a time when the school was desperately trying to shake
its reputation as kind of this rowdy and undisciplined academy.
So to that in west Point strict superintendent this was
(18:45):
Colonel Sylvanas Thayer. He had banned the consumption of alcohol
on campus, including at the school's annual Christmas party. Now,
obviously that was an unpopular move among the cadets, so
a few days before Christmas, a group of them sneaked
out at night, wrote across the Hudson River and bought
about four gallons of whiskey from a local tavern. They
(19:05):
then smuggled the booze back to campus and stashed it
away until late Christmas Eve. So they lay low until
after midnight at some point, and then these two officers
stationed in the barracks, Captain Hitchcock and Lieutenant Thornton, finally
went to bed. So the cadets then mixed up a
giant batch of eggnog and spent the next several hours
drinking and partying without any interruption. However, at around four
(19:29):
in the morning, Thornton and Hitchcock awoke to the sound
of basically a frat party on every floor of the barracks,
So the two officers rushed to break up the various gatherings,
but the inebriated cadets weren't having any part of that,
and so some students threatened their superiors with swords and
wooden beams, and at least one of them pulled out
a pistol, so it's a pretty potent egnog I think,
(19:50):
though thankfully he missed his shot and the bullet struck
the door jam instead of Hitchcock door jam.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
That sounds so dangerous.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
It's wild, But believe it or not, that was just
the beginning. So after this near miss, Hitchcock sent for
the commandant to help put a stop to the chaos.
But because the cadets were too drunk to understand what
was happening, they assumed he had called in the artillery
men stationed in campus. So face with the threat of
armed guards, the cadets started taking up arms and trying
(20:20):
to fortify the barracks against intruders. So they broke apart furniture,
smashed windows, ripped the banisters from the stairways. Then they
busted up all the cups and dishes and scattered the
shards all over the floors.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
They basically home alone.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Bit they totally home alone this whole situation, and the
artillery men never arrived, of course, as they hadn't been
called in the first place. But the Commandant of Cadets
did show up, and thankfully he was able to call
on the riot, confiscate what remained of the eggnog, and
that was the end of the party.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
That is insane. So so what happened to these cadets,
I'm assuming some of them were punished, right.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Well, some of them were. Out of the two hundred
and sixty cadets, about ninety of them were identified as
participants in the riot, Indicting all of them would have
reinforced the school's negative image, so instead they are only
expelled the most aggressive of the bunch. It was about
nineteen cadets and total.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I'm still a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
But can you imagine if they just been graduating one
that year because there had been an eggnog party?
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Yeah, too much eggnog really did them in pretty wild.
And you know, the rest of the partygoers were let
off the hook, including future Confederate President Jefferson Davis his
future General Roberty Lee, both of whom were students at
West Point during the Agnog riot. And in case we're wondering,
the annual Christmas party is no longer a tradition at
West Point.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Which is probably a good call. Actually, my next fact
is also about a rowdy gathering in late December, but
this one involves just two people. The eccentric Danish astronomer
Tycho Brahe and his third cousin made her up Parsburg,
which is spelled like mader Up, though I assure you
I didn't. So this was back in the year fifteen
(21:59):
sixty six when both were young men studying astronomy. This
is in Roastock, Germany. One day in early December, Braa
and his cousin get into a heated argument at a
friend's engagement party, most likely over a disagreement about a
mathematical formula because they were both astronomy nerds. Now the
other partygoers were able to talk them down before things
(22:20):
got out of head. But then two weeks later the
boys were at it again, and that time things took
a violent turn. So it all goes down on December
twenty ninth, when a bunch of students gathered at a
local pub for some post Christmas revelry. After another evening
of heavy drinking Brahe and Parsburg, they decided to resume.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Their earlier argument.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
I guess they just can't stop arguing over mathematics, and
both men were carrying swords at their hips, as was
the customer at the time. So once they had thoroughly
offended each other, they reached for their blades and oh my, yes, insane.
Wait so but honestly, is this still over in math formula?
Like they're about to throw down and have a sword
fight over who is the better mathematician. Yeah, it's about
(23:02):
as nerdy as a duel, looking get, but it still
came with some serious consequences for Tychobrahjiks. So the fight
ends with him losing a significant chunk of his nose.
Though the exact extent of the injury is unclear, some
historians think he lost the majority of his nose. Contemporary
depictions show him wearing a prosthesis that only covers the bridge,
But in either case, the whole thing wasn't very flattering
(23:25):
for him, because while a small doing scar on the
cheek was considered a mark of bravery, something that's like
kind of handsome, etc. Like having half your nose sliced
off is obviously less becoming, and Bray ended up wearing
a fake brass nose for the rest of his life.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
I mean, it's.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Insane, But the funny thing is that he really seemed
to embrace the eccentricity that came with having a metal nose,
and actually his personal life only gets increasingly weird from
that point on. After finishing his studies, he moves to
an island with a castle and an observatory. This is
financed by the King of Denmark, and while living there,
he hires a dwarf jester named Jep who he believes
(24:05):
to be psychic. He makes him sit under the dining
room table during every single meal. It's all very very confusing.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
What on earth, Mango, It's so weird.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Apparently he also had a pet elk in the castle
that liked to drink beer, so they would drink together.
But one night the elk had a little too much
to drink fell down the stairs to his death. It's
all very very absurd.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Oh my gosh, I mean, it feels like Jef should
have seen that one coming. And actually, remind me again.
I know we remember his name from all of our
science classes, but remind me what tych o'brie was known
for besides being a psychopath.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Obviously.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Yeah, so Brian made sizeable contributions to the field of astronomy. So,
using the most precise instruments of his day, he was
able to track the movements of the planets and the stars,
and he did this with surprising accuracy. His observations actually
lead to the discovery of a rare supernova. And this
is all the way back in fifteen seventy two, And
he also created this incredible series of important essays on
(24:59):
the movement of comments. He actually would have been even
more accomplished, except at the age of fifty four, after
attending a royal banquet in Prague, he ends up falling
sick and dies a short time later, and again continuing
with the weirdnesses of his life. The cause of his
death has long been debated, but most historians think it
was because brahe grank accessibly at the banquet and then
(25:22):
waited too long to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
What like, this guy's life was weird enough, but you're
saying he died because he didn't feel like getting up
to pee.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Well, I mean it wasn'tok like he was lazy, it's
because he was polite weird. So there was a societal
custom at the time that said guests shouldn't excuse themselves
to use the bathroom until their host does at first, So,
rather than seeming rude, which feels strange, for him, because
he seems like the type of person who wouldn't be
caught up with politeness. He ends up staying seated and
(25:54):
winds up damaging his urinary cracks so badly that it
kills him a few days later.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Oh my god, that is so wild.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
It's a good tip for anyone hosting a party this
holiday season. You should let your guests know that it's
okay to get up and use the bathroom. We don't
want anybody pulling a brahe as they call it.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Think we just saved a few lives right there.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Well, yeah, we did.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
This podcast saves lives, so all right, Well, switching gears
a little, I do want to tell you about a
much tamer military Christmas party than the one Throne at
West Point that we were talking about. Now, this one
took place against all odds. It was actually in the
Belgian trenches of the First World War, and it's commonly
referred to today as the Christmas Truce. So the way
(26:34):
this went is that on Christmas Even nineteen fourteen, French,
German and British soldiers laid down their weapons for one
night and had an impromptu Christmas party right there in
no man's land now, according to accounts from the soldiers,
men who had been shooting at each other just a
few hours earlier, again shaking hands, exchanging gifts, singing carols together,
(26:56):
and they passed around cigarettes and whiskey, and even played
a game of side on the snow covered battlefield.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
So I have heard of this before, mainly because of
the soccer game that took place, but I was never
really sure if it actually happened or not. It almost
seems like one of those things that is apocryphal, like
it's too sweet to be true.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yeah, no, you're right, it does seem that way.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
But it helps to remember that this happened just a
few months into the war, so neither side had a
clear understanding of what they were fighting for beyond this
vague notion of freedom, and at that point, no one
could imagine that the war would drag on for another
four years, and so once winter said in, many of
the soldiers on the Western Front were more concerned with
surviving the cold than they were with killing their enemies.
(27:42):
So with that context in mind, it's easier to imagine
why French and British soldiers would be open to a
holiday ceasefire, especially on Christmas Eve. When they heard the
singing coming from the German trenches, they thought, you know what,
we'll join them, and according to one account, the English
soldiers began belting out their own carols in response, until
eventually the two sides were all.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Singing in unison.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
It was such a moving experience that the following morning,
troops from either side made their way across the battlefield
and agreed to set aside their differences for the next
twenty four hours. Now, of course, none of this was
sanctioned by commanding officers on either side, and plenty of
soldiers kept right on fighting through Christmas in other parts
of the region, but the truce proved to be a
(28:25):
deeply cherished moment for the regiments that took part in it,
and after the war was over, many of the men
told their families about the event, against the wishes of
army leadership, of course, and years later the published accounts
of various soldiers revealed the full details of the Christmas truth.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
I really love that I had no idea those sort
of depth of it, and it's pretty wonderful. But I
know we've got two more of fus to go, so
let's take a quick break.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
You're listening to Part Time Genius, and we're looking back
at nine holiday gatherings that we wish we'd been invited to,
or actually maybe not in some cases. But all right, Mago,
you're up next. What's your last party fact on the list? Well,
up to this point, we've mostly talked about Christmas party.
So I thought i'd jump ahead to New Year's Eve
and tell you how that song all Lang Sign became
(29:26):
the official anthem of the holiday. You know, I actually
didn't know that song could be traced back to a
single occasion.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Well, not the song itself. That's believed to have been
written like way back in the seventeen eighties by the
Scottish poet Robert Burns. The translation of the title is
since long ago, and it was commonly sung in Scotland
when friends parted ways, and by the eighteen eighties it
was used to ring in the New year as well.
A handful of Americans also adopted the practice in the
early twentieth century, but it wasn't until New Year's Eve
(29:55):
nineteen twenty nine that the tune became linked with the
holiday on a national So this is a night when
this Canadian American violinist. His name is Guy Lombardo performed
Allline sign with a ten piece band at the Roosevelt
Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. He had been introduced to the
song as a child in his native Ontario, which happened
(30:15):
to be home to a large Scottish population, and he
thought the nostalgic farewell tune was the perfect way to
close out his shows. So Lombardo's band launch into the
number just as the clock struck midnight, and it was
heard not only by New York partygoers, but by radio
listeners who were tuning in from all over the country.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
And so how did this work?
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Like everyone just collectively agree that it was the song
to play at midnight from that point on.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Well, I mean, that's the power of radio, right But
it wasn't right away. Lombardo and his band continued to
play in New Year's Eve shows in New York for
almost half a century, and every single time they did,
the Scottish song was the first tune they played at
the stroke of midnight, So people kind of became accustomed
to hearing it until finally it just didn't feel like
years without it. And while tons of artists have put
(31:03):
their own spins on the track over the years. When
the big ball drops in Times Square, it's actually still
Lombardo's version of old lying sign that rings out for
all of us to hear.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Wow. I mean, that is a wild legacy to have.
It's impressive.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Well, you and I were on the same wave link, Mango,
because my last fact is also about a New Year's
Eve party, but not just any New Year's Eve party,
because as far as I can tell, this is the
only one on record to be held inside of a
thirty ton dinosaur.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
I don't know if you found any.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Others in that side of a dinosaur.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
This happened back in eighteen fifty three, which makes it
even more impressive because these days it feels like anybody
can just make a giant dinosaur. But this is when
natural history artists and sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins hosted a
New Year's Eve dinner party inside a full scale model
of an iguanadon. The event was held as a publicity
stunt to advertise Hawkins's latest upcoming project, which was a
(31:57):
display of the world's first dinosaur sculptures at the Crystal
Palace Park in London.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
So if he had a whole series of dinosaurs like,
what made him pick out the Iguanadog.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
It's a good question. So Hawkins chose the iguanadon to
host the meal because it was the largest of the
thirty three concrete dinosaur models that had been commissioned for
the exhibit. True to the animal it was based on,
the sculpture measured approximately nine feet high thirty three feet long.
As for why the dinosaur sculptures were made in the
first place, they were meant to be one of the
(32:27):
new sort of premiere attractions at the Crystal Palace's big
reopening in eighteen fifty four. So at the time, the
public had only seen illustrations of dinosaurs in the occasional
incomplete skeleton I guess, and it was hard to get
a sense of the animal's true scale. So as a result,
dinosaurs weren't a subject of public fascination at the time,
But the Crystal Palace company saw dinosaur's true potential. They
(32:50):
wagered that these life size replicas would be enough to
capture the public's interest and draw a big crowd for
opening day. So Hawkins New Yar's Eve dinner party was
a way to build excitement for the exhibit and kind
of wet the public's appetite for these big concrete dinosaurs.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Oh, I kind of love that. So so who was
invited to this dinner?
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Well, there were twenty one guests in total, including leading scientists, businessmen,
and journalists, and the guest of honor was Professor Richard Owen,
a trained doctor and aspiring palaeontologist who coined the term
dinosaur or terrible lizard, and he did so just eleven
years before Hawkins party. He was also the researcher who
advised Hawkins on the design of these dinosaur models, though
(33:30):
it's worth noting that the models were based on the
knowledge at the time and aren't considered scientifically accurate today.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah, that makes sense, But I love that these guys
still got to eat dinner inside a giant dinosaur carbon.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
I mean I kind of want to know everything about this,
like what was on the menu, Like anything more you've
got I'd love to hear.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Actually, the meal consisted of eight courses, including a mock
turtle soup, mutton cutlets, and partridge stew. You know, your
typical meals. And as for the seeding, any of the
guests set inside the iguanadon's open back cavity. Now, we
don't know the exact arrangement of the tables or chairs,
but a drawing published and illustrated London News does provide
(34:10):
a few clues. So the most likely scenario is that
eleven guests were seated in a row inside the belly,
and the rest were seated at a perpendicular table just
behind the iguanadon, creating this t shaped table setting. The
drawing also shows the model surrounded by a tall stage,
which enabled the guests and the weight stuff to climb
inside a little bit more easily. After a few courses,
(34:33):
Hawkins reportedly gave a short speech and Owen followed it
with a brief presentation about the sculptures. According to Hawkins,
the dinner party got pretty rowdy from there, or as
he puts it, quote the roaring chorus was so fierce
and enthusiastic as almost to lead to the belief that
the herd of iguanadons were bellowing.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
I love that, and it sounds totally preposterous, but yeah,
destruction I still love to think about. They got to
ring in the new year from inside this massive, hollowed
out dinosaur. It's pretty pretty awesome.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Yeah, it's definitely on my bucket list now for sure.
And it should go without saying, but Hawkins Dinner Party
was a huge success. The press is coverage stoked excitement
for the exhibit's debut, and when the big day finally came,
the dinosaurs did not disappoint. The lifelike recreations helped make
dinosaurs a subject of mainstream interest for the first time,
and for the next half century, more than a million
(35:27):
people came to see the models every year.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
So are these models still around? Like? Could I book
a dinosaur to throw a dinner party in?
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Well, the original Crystal Palace unfortunately caught fire in nineteen
thirty six, but thankfully the concrete dinos were durable enough
to survive the fire, and so most of them still
stand at the Crystal Palace Park two this day, and
thanks to refurbishments, they now look better than ever, though
I'm not sure you can run them out.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Well, it is hard to imagine a better holiday party
than the one hosted inside a dinosaur. And since you're
the one who told us about it, I think you
get the trophie this week, which by trophy I mean
this delicious prepackaged fruitcake.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Joan, Wow, this suddenly doesn't feel like much of a victory.
But you know what, I think I'm going to donate
this to Dylan. It feels like the right holiday thing
to do.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
All right. Well, that's it for today's Part Time Genius.
I know Will and I are both taking off for
the New Year's but we can't wait to be back
with new episodes in the meantime. Just thank you so
much for listening. It really means the world to us.
From Will, Mary, Gabe, Dylan and myself, we really appreciate you.
Happy Holidays. Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope
(36:48):
and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by Will Pearson and
me Mongagetikler and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy.
Today's episode was engineered produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan
with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced
for iHeart by Katrina Norvell and Ali Perry, with social
(37:09):
media support from Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shory.
For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio
app Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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