October 31, 2025 • 23 mins
Holly talks about the unsubstantiated stories associated with the Villa de Vecchi in northern Italy. Tracy talks about getting angry about a passage she read in Wednesday's show.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class, A production
of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Holly Frye and
I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Wilson.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
We talked about Villa's de Vechi week.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, two of it.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
There were a couple things that I didn't include. The
episode ran a little bit shorter than usual, and I
had had these things in and I pulled them out.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
One is a thing that I didn't pull out. It's
just a random thing.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
But I just could not substantiate them. And they were
odd enough that I would have felt weird even trying
to I mean just trying to talk around them. I
was like, surely there should be a record of this,
Like it just became a weird thing.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
One was that allegedly there was actually a fire there
at some point. I don't know if this is true.
I never found any news stories about it.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Nothing.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
And the reason why I was like, I don't know
that this is accurate is that when you do look
at pictures, I haven't seen anywhere it looks like there's
charring or you know, fire damage that you would normally see.
It's possible there is, and I just haven't seen pictures
but I just do not know. The other was that
(01:22):
there was a report that the reason the government finally
took some steps to try to close the site with
like wire fencing and whatever is that somebody had actually
fallen when the upper floor caved in because the upper
floor is not there anymore, and that they were injured
and that's why. But I also could not find any
(01:43):
substantiation of that one, although that would certainly make sense
as a catalyst to take steps, but it also could
have just been that they got around to it on
their list of things to think about. I don't know. Yeah,
I understand the it is to want to look at
(02:03):
a place that is overgrown and was once beautiful and
is now a mess to make up ghost stories about it,
Sure I do, But I really think, yeah, these ones
are unfounded. Yeah, I'm sorry, most haunted house in Italy.
I don't believe you are. When the like the origin
(02:28):
story of the ghosts is apparently just not really a thing,
that doesn't make it a little weird. Yeah, ironically there
is no I found zero mention of the ghost of
Sidoli being there, which would have made more sense, sure
since he was the architect that was there working. Yeah,
(02:52):
I have also had the experience of trying to research
something for the show, having like one set of information
of what's available in English, and then finding the Wikipedia
page for the country where that place is and looking
(03:14):
at it out of curiosity and sometimes finding wildly different
information and often more just the amount of information is
much different, which is not I mean, it's not surprising
that a person who was really important to the history
of a particular place that is not the United States
(03:35):
where we live, and is also not a place that
has a lot of cultural and historical ties to the
United States. Right, Totally reasonable and normal for there to
be way more information about that person in that other
place than here.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
But occasionally when this happens, I'll like see the Wikipedia
page in this other place, and I'll do the same thing.
I'll look at it and I will like translated, just
to be out of curiout like what does it say?
How does it compare? And occasionally go, yeah, this is
this is very different, and trying to sort of figure.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Out where where where the divergence.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Happened in like the factual yeah, the like where where
did that come from? Not so much where did the
ghost stories come from? But like where did this completely
different story about a murder arise? Right, And this is
a case where like there, I feel like places like
(04:38):
this have this unique problem in terms of finding the
root of that because, especially if they are in a
foreign country from where native English speakers live, visitors will
go there and locals will tell them stories to goad
them on that then get repeated as though they are fact,
(04:59):
while those locals are probably snickering at the Dindong tourists
who bought everything hook line and sinker, and so it
becomes trickier to be like, okay, but then there are
also allegedly locals that believe it's haunted, so right, yeah, well,
and I mean I've had that experience in the United States.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
We went on a.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Ghost tour one time in New Orleans that I feel
like that ghost tour was a lot grounded in reality
most of the time. Yeah, but there were a couple
of particular stories that after we returned to our respective
homes from our visit to New Orleans, I was like,
that would be a great podcast episode, and I went
to look it up and I was like, oh no,
(05:39):
that story was made up, saying but I can't even
find you know, an origin point for something that could
have been distorted into that story. Yeah, I also that
you said in the episode, like the like Wikipedia articles
are not a source that we use for the show.
One of the things that I do on Wikipedia sometimes
(06:02):
is scroll immediately to the bottom of the article to see.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
If there are books that I am not aware of.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Because as the quality of search engine results has gotten
worse and more driven by ads and whatnot, sometimes I
will find a reference to the book in the source
list of a Wikipedia article that I might not have
found otherwise. Same do it all the time. I am
now using a plugin for Chrome that just strips out
(06:31):
all of the AI summaries and AD links, which is
very helpful, but still, like the results themselves sometimes are
less helpful than they used to be. In my personal life,
I use Wikipedia for stuff like looking at the list
of TV episodes from specific television shows when I'm trying
to figure out, like, where did I leave off watching this?
(06:54):
My watch history has gotten cleared somehow, that kind of thing,
anything that has a fandom association with it. A lot
of times the Wikipedia page will be incredibly robust about
like that particular entertainment property or whatever. Very helpful anyway.
Wikipedia has uses, is what I'm saying. Yeah, even if
(07:16):
those uses are not you know, researching episodes of the show.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, I'm not anti Wikipedia at all.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
We just always we try to do primary sources as
often as possible, right, and then you go to secondaries, etc.
And we've always said, like on the Halloween episodes, especially
when you're talking about paranormal things or haunting stories, we're
not as hardcore about those rules. But this one, even so,
I was like, I literally took this from a Wikipedia
article and I wanted transparency about it. Yeah. Yeah, for sure,
(07:47):
we'll talk about a depressing thing, oh sort of, and
then a funny thing, Okay. I have looking at pictures
of places that are dilapidated Holmes is very melancholy for me. Yeah,
because on the one hand, I'm fascinated and it's like, oh, spookyky,
(08:08):
And on the other I'm like, it happens less with
smaller or it happens less with big palatial homes like
this and more with smaller homes. But I just like,
I don't know if it's that I'm too empathetic about
the whole thing, and I'm like, this was a place
that somebody loved once and they felt like this was
(08:30):
their special place and their like, you know, their hopes
and dreams were into this space and now it's just junk.
And I find that very depressing. Yeah, because I am
sentimental about inanimate objects. It happens all the time. Yeah, listen,
(08:50):
I'll I see one sad shoe in the road, and
I'm sad because like, where is the other shoe? What
happened here? That's me. Here's the funny thing. I was
looking at pictures from inside Villadeveki in Greece, which again
you are allowed to go into and you can buy
tickets to go visit, but it also does have a
(09:12):
lot of graffiti. But I don't know why. It cracked
me up. While I was looking at these pictures, somebody
had very very carefully spray painted the URL for their SoundCloud.
Oh that's hilarious. And I'm like, on the one hand,
I'm like, honey, do you think people are like taking
(09:35):
this down or like taking a picture to go visit
your SoundCloud because you did a graffiti. But then on
the other hand, I'm like, is this very astute because
they know this is a place that's photographed a lot Yeah,
that presumably those photos are going online and now everyone
will know about their SoundCloud.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
I didn't go to their SoundCloud site, but I did
think it was funny. I'm waiting for the time there's
like a graffiti QR code. I'm sure someone's done it
already for the stencil, but it seems like that would
be very arduous. You got to get out your cricket
and custom cut that biz. But I'm waiting. I'm waiting.
(10:12):
The age is coming. Sound cloud graffiti. I don't know
why that cracked me up. To very carefully spray paint
an entire url is very funny to me. That's just
inherently hilarious. That's like the nerdiest graffiti artist of all time.
Are you going out tagging? Yeah, let me make sure
(10:33):
I spell check it first, Like, yeah, I love everything
about it. Listen, we need our giggles where we can
get them. We talked about the Hammersmith Ghost murder this week.
(10:53):
We did, and I stopped you as we were recording
because you were about to be real Ti Rady in
a perfectly valid way about the language of the law
that allows for the nuance of mistaken understanding.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Yeah, which I.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Completely agree with, although I feel like in Great Britain
it may work differently than it does here. Right, So
we live in the United States. I don't know why
the word United States didn't want to just come out
of my mouth just then, but we live in the
United States, so we like that's the context we're operating
out of. But when I was reading that whole, all
(11:32):
the legal language, it made me super angry because the
basic idea of what that boiled down to is that
if a person believes that someone else is a threat,
even if that is an unreasonable belief, if they were
(11:55):
genuinely laboring under that unreasonable belief, can use it as
a defense. So if you think wildly with no basis
that someone is a threat to you, and you shoot
and kill them, you can still use that thinking they
were a threat as a defense even though it was unreasonable.
(12:17):
And we have similar laws in parts of the United States.
And when the United States, we are also living in
a society that for centuries spread racist misinformation about really
anyone who was not white, but especially about black people,
and very especially about black men, presenting black men as
(12:41):
uniquely dangerous to everyone else, and that has been used
as a defense so often in people murdering unarmed black
people in particular, also unarmed people of other races, saying well,
I thought that this person was dangerous, right, and I
don't think that is a good defense. I do think
(13:05):
that it is incumbent on all of us not to
kill one another. And so having to read this language
that was like, oh, yeah, this is actually fine, if
not fine, but like this is appropriate to use as
a defense, I was like, no, I think if you
are under the absolute unfounded misapprehension that someone is threatening
(13:27):
you and you kill them because you're scared, that's not
a good defense. I think I agree with you one
hundred percent. I think, and I could be wrong. So
any of our listeners from Britain who want to set
the record straight, the way that it is handled in
courts there is different than here insofar as there has
(13:50):
to be enough evidence that it would be reasonable for
them to have come to that conclusion, you know what
I mean. They can't just say this person looked scary
and they happened to be in my yard, so I
got scared and shot them. There has to be and
he did this and this and this, and there has
to be evidence behind it. Yeah, you know, in that case,
(14:11):
that nineteen eighty three case, there's all the stuff about
like that guy told me he was a police officer,
but then he couldn't produce any credentials that proved that, right,
and he you know, he obviously was lying to some degree,
which kind of fed the problem that he was just
that he was in fact doing what you're talking about,
(14:32):
going after a young black kid, that he was doing
that kind of profiling wrong thing.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
So it's I.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Think there is more room for that kind of discussion
and nuance in courts in Britain to establish a reasonable
like that, yes, a reasonable person might think this was
the situation versus the way it is often handled here,
where you just have to say they were on my
property and I was scared.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Well, And part of my frustration here is that, like,
because of the centuries of propaganda that has been steeped
throughout society in the United States, it's possible to build
an incredibly racist argument that someone was reasonable in feeling
that they were threatened, right, which is like just a
(15:22):
whole other.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Layer of it.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
The definition is really like how you perceive reasonability, I
think at that point, Yeah, not to make light of it.
But I really do think, like what is considered reasonable
to some people, it's not reasonable to us writers, and
I think some municipalities are a little more stringent in
their assessment of that.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, anyway, that was my my tirade, I guess. Yeah,
it is wild to me in this that. I mean,
it kind of speaks in this story to how well
liked Francis Smith was then even the victim of his
accidental shootings, family members were like, no, yeah, uh, he
(16:12):
really was purposely taking this dumb risk. Yeah, which is interesting.
That kind of feeds into some like similar similar things
that continue to happen today that it's like taking us,
you know, an unwise risk is not grounds for being
summarily executed in the street.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
No, not at all, not at all, not at all.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, which is like a point that was made in
the trial was that like even if he had been
on purpose pretending to be a ghost.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
That's not something you kill somebody over. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, yeah, it's a very interesting case. I'm so fascinated
by scenarios as evidenced this year maybe of like mass
hysteria and like group fear, that this one was very
(17:09):
interesting to me, Like where an entire community can get
so heightened where but what's really fun. Fun is not
the right word because it does involve a murder. But
what's really really interesting is how Hammersmith had enough people
that were really amped up over this that they were
sending you know, people were going out and hunting patrols
(17:31):
are happening, and at the same time, like London was like,
oh Hammersmith, I mean, those dang dongs think they're ghostly.
It's an interesting thing in like cultural pockets within larger
metro municipalities that just have their own beliefs or you know,
(17:52):
they get caught up in the thing.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yeah, now we have that, but.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
It's all segregated down into communities online, Right's right? Yeah
to me? If you are in this community that has
been gripped by the possibility that there is a ghost,
and it seems likely that, if not a ghost, there
is at least someone all in white who has been
scaring people on purpose, and the way such things are
(18:20):
handled is often with community patrols. It's reasonable to me
for the community patrol to question that person. Ye, well, yeah,
I question the guy that happens to be out at
night in all in all white clothes, the fact that
it jumped immediately to shooting him. I'm like, I don't
(18:41):
fully follow Well, he.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Called out for him twice and he didn't answer.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Yeah, and to me, that's still not a reason to shoot.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Well. No, but like, I mean, I think in that
moment of fear.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yeah, again, keeping in mind that this was two hundred
years ago, when our understanding of the world was a
bit different. Yeah, I can see we're in that moment
of fear. Somebody might do that. I'm not happy about it.
I don't want that to happen. But I also am
kind of one of those people that's like, you know what,
this man had the pants scared off of him, and
(19:17):
he reacted in a way that was not great but
is understandable, particularly because he did say like, hey, who
are you and Thomas didn't want to reply, and the
fact we kind of glossed through it. But that in
that testimony that his mother in law gave about his
previous altercation with someone thinking he was a ghost, his
(19:41):
response was not oh, no, I'm so sorry. It didn't
even occur to me that I would look like a ghost.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
It was I'm gonna punch you in the head. Like, clearly.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
He was not participating in trying to ease anybody's minds
about the situation. He sure sure, Like that is a
man that seems all ready for five Like, oh my gosh,
I thought you were a ghost. Really, I will punch you,
Like what is the that's not a logical reaction either, rights,
(20:11):
it's a lot of problems. Yeah, yeah, don't punch people.
Don't shoot people, is the moral of the story. Yeah,
don't do it. At least don't punch people for wearing
white work clothes at night. Well, he was going to
punch the guy for thinking he was, you know, a ghost,
even though he yeah, yeah, so you don't everybody be cool?
(20:36):
Which is the problem is that we don't. We live
in a world where everybody can't be cool and there's
guns cool, just mind your mind your business. We could
all just be hanging out having snacks, trick or treating.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
The other thing that I think is germane here is
that Graham the shoemaker came forward. Nobody believed him because
they didn't want to. There may have been a perception
that he because he did it the day after the sentencing,
that he was trying to help mitigate the final outcome
(21:12):
for Francis Smith, but also because people didn't want to.
But what's interesting is that he faced no repercussions whatsoever,
even though I mean it sounds like, according to a
lot of accounts, he was out there not just scaring
people but touching them in ways that might be considered assaultive.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Oh you know what I mean, Like, yeah, he's.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Putting his hands around somebody. If he's putting his arms
around someone, if he's putting his hands on someone's throat,
that would be considered assault in my book. Oh sure,
he didn't seem to face any repercussions for any of that.
So the whole thing has problems. That's annoying. There's layers
of things. Everybody be cool. So this Halloween, I hope
(22:00):
that you have a wonderful celebration, however you celebrate it.
If you do, I hope that you have so much
fun that involves no violence whatsoever, that no one assaults
you in any kind of way. With the one very
niche exception of if you pay to go into some
sort of haunted attraction where you know that you are
likely to be in some way assaulted by someone in
(22:23):
the spirit of fun that you have consented to. That's
my one, very niche exception. I hope that you have
a wonderful time and that you celebrate with delicious things,
maybe a yummy candy corn flavored cocktail. I'm working on
one right now I'm very excited about. And that as
you go into this weekend, you have some relaxation time.
(22:43):
Maybe you're going to recover from your Halloween revelry. If
you don't have time off, maybe you have to clean
up the yard after your Halloween decorations, or just be
like me, leave that stuff up your around.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
It's great.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
I hope everybody is kind to one another and that
we all take care of each other rather than an is,
rather than immediately jumping to violent reactions. We all need
each other to be cool. We will be right back
here tomorrow in a classic episode, and then on Monday
we will have something brand new. Stuff you missed in
(23:16):
History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class, A production
of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Holly Frye and
I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Wilson.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
We talked about Villa's de Vechi week.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, two of it.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
There were a couple things that I didn't include. The
episode ran a little bit shorter than usual, and I
had had these things in and I pulled them out.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
One is a thing that I didn't pull out. It's
just a random thing.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
But I just could not substantiate them. And they were
odd enough that I would have felt weird even trying
to I mean just trying to talk around them. I
was like, surely there should be a record of this,
Like it just became a weird thing.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
One was that allegedly there was actually a fire there
at some point. I don't know if this is true.
I never found any news stories about it.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Nothing.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
And the reason why I was like, I don't know
that this is accurate is that when you do look
at pictures, I haven't seen anywhere it looks like there's
charring or you know, fire damage that you would normally see.
It's possible there is, and I just haven't seen pictures
but I just do not know. The other was that
(01:22):
there was a report that the reason the government finally
took some steps to try to close the site with
like wire fencing and whatever is that somebody had actually
fallen when the upper floor caved in because the upper
floor is not there anymore, and that they were injured
and that's why. But I also could not find any
(01:43):
substantiation of that one, although that would certainly make sense
as a catalyst to take steps, but it also could
have just been that they got around to it on
their list of things to think about. I don't know. Yeah,
I understand the it is to want to look at
(02:03):
a place that is overgrown and was once beautiful and
is now a mess to make up ghost stories about it,
Sure I do, But I really think, yeah, these ones
are unfounded. Yeah, I'm sorry, most haunted house in Italy.
I don't believe you are. When the like the origin
(02:28):
story of the ghosts is apparently just not really a thing,
that doesn't make it a little weird. Yeah, ironically there
is no I found zero mention of the ghost of
Sidoli being there, which would have made more sense, sure
since he was the architect that was there working. Yeah,
(02:52):
I have also had the experience of trying to research
something for the show, having like one set of information
of what's available in English, and then finding the Wikipedia
page for the country where that place is and looking
(03:14):
at it out of curiosity and sometimes finding wildly different
information and often more just the amount of information is
much different, which is not I mean, it's not surprising
that a person who was really important to the history
of a particular place that is not the United States
(03:35):
where we live, and is also not a place that
has a lot of cultural and historical ties to the
United States. Right, Totally reasonable and normal for there to
be way more information about that person in that other
place than here.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
But occasionally when this happens, I'll like see the Wikipedia
page in this other place, and I'll do the same thing.
I'll look at it and I will like translated, just
to be out of curiout like what does it say?
How does it compare? And occasionally go, yeah, this is
this is very different, and trying to sort of figure.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Out where where where the divergence.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Happened in like the factual yeah, the like where where
did that come from? Not so much where did the
ghost stories come from? But like where did this completely
different story about a murder arise? Right, And this is
a case where like there, I feel like places like
(04:38):
this have this unique problem in terms of finding the
root of that because, especially if they are in a
foreign country from where native English speakers live, visitors will
go there and locals will tell them stories to goad
them on that then get repeated as though they are fact,
(04:59):
while those locals are probably snickering at the Dindong tourists
who bought everything hook line and sinker, and so it
becomes trickier to be like, okay, but then there are
also allegedly locals that believe it's haunted, so right, yeah, well,
and I mean I've had that experience in the United States.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
We went on a.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Ghost tour one time in New Orleans that I feel
like that ghost tour was a lot grounded in reality
most of the time. Yeah, but there were a couple
of particular stories that after we returned to our respective
homes from our visit to New Orleans, I was like,
that would be a great podcast episode, and I went
to look it up and I was like, oh no,
(05:39):
that story was made up, saying but I can't even
find you know, an origin point for something that could
have been distorted into that story. Yeah, I also that
you said in the episode, like the like Wikipedia articles
are not a source that we use for the show.
One of the things that I do on Wikipedia sometimes
(06:02):
is scroll immediately to the bottom of the article to see.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
If there are books that I am not aware of.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Because as the quality of search engine results has gotten
worse and more driven by ads and whatnot, sometimes I
will find a reference to the book in the source
list of a Wikipedia article that I might not have
found otherwise. Same do it all the time. I am
now using a plugin for Chrome that just strips out
(06:31):
all of the AI summaries and AD links, which is
very helpful, but still, like the results themselves sometimes are
less helpful than they used to be. In my personal life,
I use Wikipedia for stuff like looking at the list
of TV episodes from specific television shows when I'm trying
to figure out, like, where did I leave off watching this?
(06:54):
My watch history has gotten cleared somehow, that kind of thing,
anything that has a fandom association with it. A lot
of times the Wikipedia page will be incredibly robust about
like that particular entertainment property or whatever. Very helpful anyway.
Wikipedia has uses, is what I'm saying. Yeah, even if
(07:16):
those uses are not you know, researching episodes of the show.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, I'm not anti Wikipedia at all.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
We just always we try to do primary sources as
often as possible, right, and then you go to secondaries, etc.
And we've always said, like on the Halloween episodes, especially
when you're talking about paranormal things or haunting stories, we're
not as hardcore about those rules. But this one, even so,
I was like, I literally took this from a Wikipedia
article and I wanted transparency about it. Yeah. Yeah, for sure,
(07:47):
we'll talk about a depressing thing, oh sort of, and
then a funny thing, Okay. I have looking at pictures
of places that are dilapidated Holmes is very melancholy for me. Yeah,
because on the one hand, I'm fascinated and it's like, oh, spookyky,
(08:08):
And on the other I'm like, it happens less with
smaller or it happens less with big palatial homes like
this and more with smaller homes. But I just like,
I don't know if it's that I'm too empathetic about
the whole thing, and I'm like, this was a place
that somebody loved once and they felt like this was
(08:30):
their special place and their like, you know, their hopes
and dreams were into this space and now it's just junk.
And I find that very depressing. Yeah, because I am
sentimental about inanimate objects. It happens all the time. Yeah, listen,
(08:50):
I'll I see one sad shoe in the road, and
I'm sad because like, where is the other shoe? What
happened here? That's me. Here's the funny thing. I was
looking at pictures from inside Villadeveki in Greece, which again
you are allowed to go into and you can buy
tickets to go visit, but it also does have a
(09:12):
lot of graffiti. But I don't know why. It cracked
me up. While I was looking at these pictures, somebody
had very very carefully spray painted the URL for their SoundCloud.
Oh that's hilarious. And I'm like, on the one hand,
I'm like, honey, do you think people are like taking
(09:35):
this down or like taking a picture to go visit
your SoundCloud because you did a graffiti. But then on
the other hand, I'm like, is this very astute because
they know this is a place that's photographed a lot Yeah,
that presumably those photos are going online and now everyone
will know about their SoundCloud.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
I didn't go to their SoundCloud site, but I did
think it was funny. I'm waiting for the time there's
like a graffiti QR code. I'm sure someone's done it
already for the stencil, but it seems like that would
be very arduous. You got to get out your cricket
and custom cut that biz. But I'm waiting. I'm waiting.
(10:12):
The age is coming. Sound cloud graffiti. I don't know
why that cracked me up. To very carefully spray paint
an entire url is very funny to me. That's just
inherently hilarious. That's like the nerdiest graffiti artist of all time.
Are you going out tagging? Yeah, let me make sure
(10:33):
I spell check it first, Like, yeah, I love everything
about it. Listen, we need our giggles where we can
get them. We talked about the Hammersmith Ghost murder this week.
(10:53):
We did, and I stopped you as we were recording
because you were about to be real Ti Rady in
a perfectly valid way about the language of the law
that allows for the nuance of mistaken understanding.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Yeah, which I.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Completely agree with, although I feel like in Great Britain
it may work differently than it does here. Right, So
we live in the United States. I don't know why
the word United States didn't want to just come out
of my mouth just then, but we live in the
United States, so we like that's the context we're operating
out of. But when I was reading that whole, all
(11:32):
the legal language, it made me super angry because the
basic idea of what that boiled down to is that
if a person believes that someone else is a threat,
even if that is an unreasonable belief, if they were
(11:55):
genuinely laboring under that unreasonable belief, can use it as
a defense. So if you think wildly with no basis
that someone is a threat to you, and you shoot
and kill them, you can still use that thinking they
were a threat as a defense even though it was unreasonable.
(12:17):
And we have similar laws in parts of the United States.
And when the United States, we are also living in
a society that for centuries spread racist misinformation about really
anyone who was not white, but especially about black people,
and very especially about black men, presenting black men as
(12:41):
uniquely dangerous to everyone else, and that has been used
as a defense so often in people murdering unarmed black
people in particular, also unarmed people of other races, saying well,
I thought that this person was dangerous, right, and I
don't think that is a good defense. I do think
(13:05):
that it is incumbent on all of us not to
kill one another. And so having to read this language
that was like, oh, yeah, this is actually fine, if
not fine, but like this is appropriate to use as
a defense, I was like, no, I think if you
are under the absolute unfounded misapprehension that someone is threatening
(13:27):
you and you kill them because you're scared, that's not
a good defense. I think I agree with you one
hundred percent. I think, and I could be wrong. So
any of our listeners from Britain who want to set
the record straight, the way that it is handled in
courts there is different than here insofar as there has
(13:50):
to be enough evidence that it would be reasonable for
them to have come to that conclusion, you know what
I mean. They can't just say this person looked scary
and they happened to be in my yard, so I
got scared and shot them. There has to be and
he did this and this and this, and there has
to be evidence behind it. Yeah, you know, in that case,
(14:11):
that nineteen eighty three case, there's all the stuff about
like that guy told me he was a police officer,
but then he couldn't produce any credentials that proved that, right,
and he you know, he obviously was lying to some degree,
which kind of fed the problem that he was just
that he was in fact doing what you're talking about,
(14:32):
going after a young black kid, that he was doing
that kind of profiling wrong thing.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
So it's I.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Think there is more room for that kind of discussion
and nuance in courts in Britain to establish a reasonable
like that, yes, a reasonable person might think this was
the situation versus the way it is often handled here,
where you just have to say they were on my
property and I was scared.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Well, And part of my frustration here is that, like,
because of the centuries of propaganda that has been steeped
throughout society in the United States, it's possible to build
an incredibly racist argument that someone was reasonable in feeling
that they were threatened, right, which is like just a
(15:22):
whole other.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Layer of it.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
The definition is really like how you perceive reasonability, I
think at that point, Yeah, not to make light of it.
But I really do think, like what is considered reasonable
to some people, it's not reasonable to us writers, and
I think some municipalities are a little more stringent in
their assessment of that.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, anyway, that was my my tirade, I guess. Yeah,
it is wild to me in this that. I mean,
it kind of speaks in this story to how well
liked Francis Smith was then even the victim of his
accidental shootings, family members were like, no, yeah, uh, he
(16:12):
really was purposely taking this dumb risk. Yeah, which is interesting.
That kind of feeds into some like similar similar things
that continue to happen today that it's like taking us,
you know, an unwise risk is not grounds for being
summarily executed in the street.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
No, not at all, not at all, not at all.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, which is like a point that was made in
the trial was that like even if he had been
on purpose pretending to be a ghost.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
That's not something you kill somebody over. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, yeah, it's a very interesting case. I'm so fascinated
by scenarios as evidenced this year maybe of like mass
hysteria and like group fear, that this one was very
(17:09):
interesting to me, Like where an entire community can get
so heightened where but what's really fun. Fun is not
the right word because it does involve a murder. But
what's really really interesting is how Hammersmith had enough people
that were really amped up over this that they were
sending you know, people were going out and hunting patrols
(17:31):
are happening, and at the same time, like London was like,
oh Hammersmith, I mean, those dang dongs think they're ghostly.
It's an interesting thing in like cultural pockets within larger
metro municipalities that just have their own beliefs or you know,
(17:52):
they get caught up in the thing.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yeah, now we have that, but.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
It's all segregated down into communities online, Right's right? Yeah
to me? If you are in this community that has
been gripped by the possibility that there is a ghost,
and it seems likely that, if not a ghost, there
is at least someone all in white who has been
scaring people on purpose, and the way such things are
(18:20):
handled is often with community patrols. It's reasonable to me
for the community patrol to question that person. Ye, well, yeah,
I question the guy that happens to be out at
night in all in all white clothes, the fact that
it jumped immediately to shooting him. I'm like, I don't
(18:41):
fully follow Well, he.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Called out for him twice and he didn't answer.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Yeah, and to me, that's still not a reason to shoot.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Well. No, but like, I mean, I think in that
moment of fear.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yeah, again, keeping in mind that this was two hundred
years ago, when our understanding of the world was a
bit different. Yeah, I can see we're in that moment
of fear. Somebody might do that. I'm not happy about it.
I don't want that to happen. But I also am
kind of one of those people that's like, you know what,
this man had the pants scared off of him, and
(19:17):
he reacted in a way that was not great but
is understandable, particularly because he did say like, hey, who
are you and Thomas didn't want to reply, and the
fact we kind of glossed through it. But that in
that testimony that his mother in law gave about his
previous altercation with someone thinking he was a ghost, his
(19:41):
response was not oh, no, I'm so sorry. It didn't
even occur to me that I would look like a ghost.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
It was I'm gonna punch you in the head. Like, clearly.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
He was not participating in trying to ease anybody's minds
about the situation. He sure sure, Like that is a
man that seems all ready for five Like, oh my gosh,
I thought you were a ghost. Really, I will punch you,
Like what is the that's not a logical reaction either, rights,
(20:11):
it's a lot of problems. Yeah, yeah, don't punch people.
Don't shoot people, is the moral of the story. Yeah,
don't do it. At least don't punch people for wearing
white work clothes at night. Well, he was going to
punch the guy for thinking he was, you know, a ghost,
even though he yeah, yeah, so you don't everybody be cool?
(20:36):
Which is the problem is that we don't. We live
in a world where everybody can't be cool and there's
guns cool, just mind your mind your business. We could
all just be hanging out having snacks, trick or treating.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
The other thing that I think is germane here is
that Graham the shoemaker came forward. Nobody believed him because
they didn't want to. There may have been a perception
that he because he did it the day after the sentencing,
that he was trying to help mitigate the final outcome
(21:12):
for Francis Smith, but also because people didn't want to.
But what's interesting is that he faced no repercussions whatsoever,
even though I mean it sounds like, according to a
lot of accounts, he was out there not just scaring
people but touching them in ways that might be considered assaultive.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Oh you know what I mean, Like, yeah, he's.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Putting his hands around somebody. If he's putting his arms
around someone, if he's putting his hands on someone's throat,
that would be considered assault in my book. Oh sure,
he didn't seem to face any repercussions for any of that.
So the whole thing has problems. That's annoying. There's layers
of things. Everybody be cool. So this Halloween, I hope
(22:00):
that you have a wonderful celebration, however you celebrate it.
If you do, I hope that you have so much
fun that involves no violence whatsoever, that no one assaults
you in any kind of way. With the one very
niche exception of if you pay to go into some
sort of haunted attraction where you know that you are
likely to be in some way assaulted by someone in
(22:23):
the spirit of fun that you have consented to. That's
my one, very niche exception. I hope that you have
a wonderful time and that you celebrate with delicious things,
maybe a yummy candy corn flavored cocktail. I'm working on
one right now I'm very excited about. And that as
you go into this weekend, you have some relaxation time.
(22:43):
Maybe you're going to recover from your Halloween revelry. If
you don't have time off, maybe you have to clean
up the yard after your Halloween decorations, or just be
like me, leave that stuff up your around.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
It's great.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
I hope everybody is kind to one another and that
we all take care of each other rather than an is,
rather than immediately jumping to violent reactions. We all need
each other to be cool. We will be right back
here tomorrow in a classic episode, and then on Monday
we will have something brand new. Stuff you missed in
(23:16):
History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Medal of Honor: Stories of Courage
Rewarded for bravery that goes above and beyond the call of duty, the Medal of Honor is the United States’ top military decoration. The stories we tell are about the heroes who have distinguished themselves by acts of heroism and courage that have saved lives. From Judith Resnik, the second woman in space, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice, these are stories about those who have done the improbable and unexpected, who have sacrificed something in the name of something much bigger than themselves. Every Wednesday on Medal of Honor, uncover what their experiences tell us about the nature of sacrifice, why people put their lives in danger for others, and what happens after you’ve become a hero. Special thanks to series creator Dan McGinn, to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society and Adam Plumpton. Medal of Honor begins on May 28. Subscribe to Pushkin+ to hear ad-free episodes one week early. Find Pushkin+ on the Medal of Honor show page in Apple or at Pushkin.fm. Subscribe on Apple: apple.co/pushkin Subscribe on Pushkin: pushkin.fm/plus
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com