December 26, 2011 • 29 mins
In this two-part episode, we take a look at some of the most interesting historical finds of 2011, from one of Captain Henry Morgan's pirate ships to a rare portrait of Jane Austen discovered by British author Dr. Paula Byrne. Listen in to learn more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm to bling a chuk reboarding, and I'm fair out
and strange as it might seem, especially since we're history podcast,
the news can actually play a pretty big role in
(00:22):
what we choose to cover as topics. And that's because history,
or at least what we know about it, is constantly changing.
It's always evolving, and new discoveries are made, theories are formed,
old mysteries are sometimes solved, or sometimes they're made even
more complicated Ned Kelly case in point exactly. And in
all of these cases, one thing holds true. The breaking
(00:43):
news gives us a great opportunity to review what we
know about a particular topic, so it makes a great
opportunity for us to talk about them again. But of
course we don't have a chance to cover all of
the historical finds that are unearthed in any given years.
So last year we decided we would do a real
Newsy kind of topic a year end wrap up, and
(01:05):
we ended up recording an episode that covered a few
of big discoveries that we thought were either cool or
just I don't know. It's fascinating in some way that
appealed to us, and this year we've decided to do
the same, but we're going to step it up a
not too We're gonna do two episodes of historical finds,
(01:26):
things that have been unearthed in TWN that we just
thought were really neat. Yeah, and we've called it an
Earth in twenty eleven. That's the title. But of course,
not all of these discoveries literally came as the result
of digs and archaeological work. Some of the some of
them are just finds that came from all sorts of places,
from the ocean, for example, or even from someone's musty
(01:46):
old attic you never know, or somebody just putting two
and two together and making a new discovery from research,
or or finds that were already existing. Yeah, that's true.
Some of these that we're going to discuss our findings
based on things that were up either within the last
couple of years or in some cases decades ago. So
it's not something that was necessarily unearthed this year, but
(02:06):
the finding was unearthed, it just had some important component
of the process that happened in to make our list.
But this is of course by no means a comprehensive list.
I mean, we really had to to whittle it down,
pick and choose here. The only common thread, though, is
that there are discoveries that we found interesting, ones that
had some kind of interesting story behind them, and most
(02:30):
of them had some kind of tie into themes that
we've covered a lot, And I mean I found that
appealing for a yearine wrap up podcasts, we have hit
on themes this year. I don't know, shipwrecks comes to mind, medicine, medicine,
historic alcohol, historic dogs. So you're gonna notice a few
of those themes popping up in both of these episodes,
(02:52):
Yes you will. And that goes for the first one
that we're going to talk about, which is pirates. A
lot of people know Captain Morgan as a brand of rum,
Captain and Coke anyone, but Captain Henry Morgan was an
actual seventeenth century Welsh pirate and the wreck of one
of his ships was found off Panama by a team
of U S archaeologists this August. So just a little
(03:14):
background on Morgan and his ships. He was a privateer
sailing on England's behalf, so part of his work was
defending England's interests, and he also pioneered expeditions to the
New World. In the late seventeenth century, he went up
against Spain, which at the time had a pretty tight
grip on the Caribbean, and Morgan wanted to weaken Spain's
influence a bit by taking Panama City, and so in
(03:36):
sixteen seventy one he set out to capture a Spanish
fort called Castillo de San Lorenzo, which was on a
cliff overlooking the mouth of the Chagres River, the only
water passageway between the Caribbean and Panama City, and Morgan
and his men ultimately succeeded here, but they lost five ships,
including their flagship called the Satisfaction, in the process, and
(03:57):
that was due to some pretty rough seas that were
surround the fort and also a reef known as the
Lajas Reef nearby. So the discovery that these u s
archaeologists made this year is presumably from one of those
five ships, right. They made it by doing a magnetometer survey,
which looks for metal by finding any kind of deviation
(04:18):
in the Earth's magnetic field, and what they ended up
pulling up to the surface included a portion of the
starboard side of a wooden ships hall and a set
of unopened cargo boxes and chess that were covered in coral,
and of course everybody including us, thinking like, maybe this
is some kind of pirate treasure, maybe this is Captain
(04:40):
Morgan's treasure. So we were unable to find out whether
the cargo was opened at the time the story broke
um it had, it was yet to be determined, and
we haven't heard anything since then. But according to a
Discovering News article about the fine, there are at least
a few people out there who are hoping that the
boxes and chess contain gold or something that contain liquor.
(05:03):
And you can probably figure out why some folks might
be hoping for that. Yeah, it's because there's kind of
an interesting twist to this story. To the story of
this discovery. Though the research team included archaeologists and divers
from Texas State University and some other volunteers, the project
was actually funded by Captain Morgan, USA, the maker of
Captain Morgan's Room, and they stepped into help when the
(05:26):
research team ran out of funding, and that funding actually
allowed the team to do that magnet a meter survey.
So in a statement, Tom Herbs, the brand director of
Captain Morgan USA, said, quote, when the opportunity arose for
us to help make this discovery mission possible, it was
a natural fit for us to get involved. The artifacts
uncovered during this mission will help bring Henry Morgan and
(05:48):
his adventures to life in a way never thought possible.
So there you go. I'm kind of envisioning these Captain
Morgan commercials maybe in with like footage from the archaeological dives,
and maybe could if they were really willing to put
out some more money, some rolling stones satisfaction. I mean,
(06:10):
who knows it's it's a brilliant marketing move on there,
it sounds like it. But prior to making this discovery,
the team also found a collection of iron cannons in
the same general area last year. But I think we're
really most excited, as probably most people are, to find
out what's in the chest. Yeah, I mean, maybe it'll
be another entry for our Historical Spirits episodes. Maybe. So
(06:34):
moving on to the next couple entries on our list.
We mentioned earlier that we have talked about dogs some
this year, specifically war dogs, and they come up in
random podcast too. But we've got two interesting pieces of
news from that have to do with our canine friends.
We do. There were a couple of discoveries this year
(06:55):
that gave us some insight into the history of domesticated
dogs and the role that they played in humans lives.
The first for dog lovers especially maybe somewhat disturbing, though
so just be forewarned. In January, scientists released a new
analysis of a bone fragment found in Hine's Cave in
southwestern Texas, which evidence shows was occupied by a group
(07:17):
of hunter gatherers about nine thousand years ago. And scientists
performed genetic testing on the bone fragment and figured out
that it belonged to a dog rather than a coyote
or a wolf, for a fox or something else, making
it the earliest known evidence of dog domestication in the Americas.
It predates other examples by about eight thousand years, and
(07:37):
the dog was probably around twenty to thirty pounds and
may have been similar to some breeds of Mexican or
Peruvian dogs. But we mentioned some of you might not
like this story very much, and that's because this dog
was not just man's best friend. The bone fragment was
found in dried human feces, which suggests the dog might
(07:58):
have been man's best meal too, So it's good. Yeah,
there's a lot to learn about the rural domesticated dogs
played in humans lives over the years. I mean, they
could have been used for tours and things as well,
but they were food. We do have a more uplifting
dog related story though, hopefully yeah, hopefully, depending on how
(08:21):
you look at it. In February, Discovering News reported that
the burial remains of a husky like dog that lived
seven thousand years ago were found in Siberia, and it
was an unusual kind of grave pit because the dog
was buried uh in a in a site that also
contained the partial remains of five different human skeletons, and
(08:44):
DNA and stable isotope analysis showed that the dog ate
what humans ate today, probably better than most people can
say about their modern pampered dogs today. But this well
pampered dogs and on Sara eating pete or something. Um.
This dog, however, ate staff like fish and deer and
(09:04):
some small plants, so um. Researchers assume that it probably
lived and worked right alongside humans. Yeah, and there was
certain wear and tear on the dog skeleton that showed
that it probably helped transport loads during the course of
daily chores. Some fractures also suggested the dog may have
participated in hunting, although there's always the chance that its
(09:26):
injuries were the result of being struck by humans. However,
the fact that the dog was advanced in age when
it died and the way in which it was buried
indicates that it was likely cared for and cared about too.
Robert Losey, lead author of the study about the dog burial,
said in a Discovery News story about it quote based
on how Northern Indigenous people understand animal in historic times,
(09:49):
I think people burying this particular dog saw it as
a thinking, social being, perhaps on par with humans in
many ways. When I think it was even buried with objects,
to which seems like a very very kind of human
touch for for something like that. Moving on, though, we
have been talking about medicine a lot this year, and
this is kind of the ultimate entry in the medical
(10:11):
medicine related category. And this is a good example two
of a fine that the actual discovery happened decades ago,
way back in the seventies, but it's only recently that
new interpretation of what was found has has come up.
So back in the nineteen seventies, divers excavated the shipwreck
off the coast of Tuscany, and items aboard the ship
(10:34):
suggested that it was about two thousand years old, that
it had originated in Greece, and that when it went
down it was on some sort of trading mission. But
what caught the attention of researcher Emmanuela A. Petiti when
she later read about the ship's cargo, you know, the
discovery was this cash of medical supplies that had on board,
(10:56):
for instance, a copper bleeding cup we talked about blood
this year, to about that, to a surgical hook, viles,
a mortar, and most importantly a tin container that still
contained these quarter sized gray green pills, two thousand year
old pills that were underwater for all of that time.
(11:17):
Appetiti's husband, Alan Twade, is a historian in the Botany
department at the National Museum of Natural History who studies
just such ancient medicines. Except for that the whole of
his career, he's basically had to work off medical texts alone.
So Appetiti and to Wade knew that these tablets weren't
just interesting as shipwreck artifacts. They were the first known
(11:38):
samples of ancient medicine, according to Smithsonian Magazine. To Wade
said quote, I was going to do everything I could
to get them, and it took a little while. After
eighteen months negotiating with Italy's Department of Antiquities, to Aid
got two samples of the tablets and recruited Robert Fleischer,
who was the head geneticist at the Smithsonian Center for
(11:59):
conservator Shin and Evolutionary Genetics, to tackle the analysis aspect.
Because two aids work normally requires looking at tax as
he mentioned illustrations. I think already he speaks twelve languages,
so he needed to get somebody who could look under
the microscope on this one. And Fleisher was skeptical at
first because he didn't really think any viable genetic material
(12:20):
would be left after two thousand years, but he was convinced.
He got to work and started to extract DNA from
the tablets and compare it to the National Institutes of
Health gene Bank, which of course has records of all
sorts of plants. The first few ingredient lists that he
came up with weren't right. Twade could tell that they
(12:42):
contained plants not yet present in Greece two thousand years ago.
But finally, after seven years and using the most sophisticated
DNA techniques, Fleisher discovered a genetic makeup that jelled with
historical texts and that include carrot, parsley, alfalfa, celery, wild
in radish yarrow, hibiscus, and sunflower bound in clay sunflower aside,
(13:07):
which the researchers believe was a modern contaminant, those ingredients
fit the bill for a two thousand year old cure
for stomach ailments common of course among sailors exactly so
to Aid even thinks that this kind of tablet, I mean,
we mentioned it was a quarter size, so it's not
something you would just take as is. He figures it
(13:27):
was probably something you would drop in a glass of
water or wine or even vinegar, which sounds like it
would turn your stomach and then settle it. But who knows.
So there's one interesting last point to this uh this story, though,
in May of to Aide and his wife presented the
findings in Italy, and by chance they met with some
(13:50):
of the divers who had explored the wreck in the
nineteen seventies. And the divers were able to explain that
sunflower contamination. They said that they had kept their off
cygen tanks outdoors near the place where they were staying
before going out on the dive, and the area they
were staying was filled with sunflower field. So it's quite
possible that something got onto their dive tank and ultimately
(14:13):
onto the aluminum container or the tin container rather and
um onto the pills. It's good to have that explanation.
It was a big deal for to Wade to finally
see some of the medicine he studied in action, and
he told History dot Com quote, the information that you
have in a text is always exposed to the risk
of being only theoretical, and so until you have physical
(14:36):
evidence of what you have in the texts, you never
know what you're working on has been used in ancient
daily life and practice. And I thought this was such
an interesting multidisciplinary example here that both of uh these
researchers really needed the other researchers work to to make
sense of the find I thought it was pretty cool.
So our final entry for this list is probably the
(15:01):
favorite author of many of our listeners, at least she's
a common request just this month, the news broke that
British author Dr Paula Byrne had an earth a portrait
of none other than Jane Austin. And Austin is of
course best known for writing books like Pride and Prejudice
and Sense and Sensibility, but she initially published her books
anonymously and she wasn't well known until after her death.
(15:24):
So why is this new portrait such a big deal. Well,
according to a BBC news story about the recent discovery,
there are currently only two recognized portraits of Austin, which
I never realized before. One was a watercolor painter by
her sister Cassandra, whom Jane was really close to, and
that's the only portrait that's never been contested, and I
(15:44):
believe it shows her from the back, so not much
of a detailed portrait. Yeah. The new portrait, though, which
Burns husband Jonathan Bate picked up in an auction, is
a pencil drawing on vellum that has the words miss
Jane Austin inscribed on the back and it was probably
drawn around eighteen fifteen. Uh just for comparison there, Austin
(16:06):
died in eighteen seventeen, so late in her life and
it's supposed to bear a pretty good resemblance to Jane Austen,
or at least, since we don't have a terribly great
idea of what she looked like, at least bears a
resemblance to her family. Apparently, the sitter in the portrait
has quote the long straight Austin news. Burne is consulting
(16:28):
with various experts to have it authenticated. But of course
there are several reasons why people might be skeptical of
her new find. For one thing, it's been around for
a couple hundred years, so you could ask, okay, why
has it been authenticated before. Obviously the person who sold
it to her husband didn't think that it was genuine. Also,
Burne has a new book on Austin ready for a release,
(16:49):
so the timing of the story is really good publicity
for her in that respect. Maybe we should mention too
that the inscription on the back doesn't spell Austin with
any yes. If new story is correct, it spells it
with an eye, so that's a little a little twist
to although spellings from the eighteenth nineteenth century are a
little hard to rely on in the first place. But
(17:11):
that wraps it up for our News Minds of Part
one and brings us to Mega Listener Mail, an extended
listener mail segment. We have missed out on doing the
amount of listener mail we've wanted to lately, but we've
gotten so many great letters, postcards, emails from people about
(17:31):
episodes that we've done recently, which we've really enjoyed. We've
had a lot of fun with our research in the
last couple of months, and so we wanted to kind
of give you guys an idea of what people are
saying about some of the podcasts and some of the
little tidbits that they're throwing out us that we didn't
know before. Okay, so first we want to look at
a few emails regarding our Gunpowder Plot episodes. We did
(17:55):
two episodes about the Gunpowder Plot and received just tons
of emails and letters from people about it. People really
seem to enjoy it, or at least have something to
say about it from their own experienceal bonfire story. Yeah,
so we wanted to share a few of those. The
first one is from Heather and she says, my family
and I have just moved back to the States after
living in England for four years. My husband is a
(18:16):
brit and both my children were born there. We celebrated
Guy Fox Day each year while there. The local village
usually had a party at the village hall with food, sausages, candy, apples, etcetera,
and drink from the bar. For the adults. There was
a judging of the Guy, where the best of the
half dozen guys made by the village children was chosen.
These look basically like a scarecrow, old clothing, stuff with
(18:37):
straw or newspaper and decorated to look like anyone the
child wanted, usually someone famous. The winner got a prize
and then the guys may or may not have been
tossed on top of the bonfowery pile, depending on the
children's wishes. I liked that you could keep your effigy
if you wanted to. The patch of grass under the
bonfire site was usually black for the rest of the year,
which was funny to me. And she also corrects us
(19:00):
on one point which a few people did, so we
should mention this. She says, the penny for the guy
thing that children used to do in England was not
selling the guy, but collecting change to fund the guy
and the celebration. So thank you, Heather, Yeah, it does
make sense. Thank you for writing in and telling us
your traditions and for letting us know some more about
the Guy. And I think most of the people we
heard from writing in about Guy Fox Day were based
(19:22):
in England or they were transplants. But we did hear
from Jason who lives in Newfoundland, and he wrote that
Guy Fox Night is celebrated every year in my native
Newfoundland as well. Newfoundland, the most easterly point of North America,
was part of Britain until nineteen when it joined the
Confederation and became Canada's tenth province. Newfoundland's very unique culture
(19:46):
is heavily influenced by Ireland, Scotland and England, where most
of its people can lay claim to their ancestry. Um.
So that was neat to know that Guy Fox Day
really is something that people people take with them wherever
they go. It seems we had another one from Adam
which is on a more somber note, but I still
thought it was interesting to share. He says. Each year,
(20:08):
the government tries to promote the safety aspect of bonfire
Night by warning people to take care with sparklers and
not to pour petrol on the flames and things like that. However,
this year it seems that there may have been a
completely unforeseen tragedy from a fireworks display. One of the
worst motorway accidents in the UK, in which seven people
died in a multi car pile up, may have been
the result of fireworks smoke obscuring driver's vision. I don't
(20:31):
want to leave my letter on a somber notes, so
I will say that as a new dad, I had
the pleasure of taking my nine month old baby boy
Dylan to a public fireworks display in my hometown of Harwick, Essex,
which he loved and I can see us having many
happy bonfire nights to come, thanks in part to Guy Fox.
Probably the coolest piece of Guy Fox related mail we
got though with from Kelsey and Vermont. She's a bartender
(20:53):
there and she sent us a note on some lovely
stationary saying I'm finally writing to tell you that I
am a self proclaimed dork who enjoys creating drink specials
based on your historical tidbits, as I also like listening
on my way to work. Most of the drinks are
more clever than tasty, but I was pretty proud of
this one, so I thought i'd share. I call it
(21:15):
the Guy Fox, and the specials board would read remember
remember the fifth of November with Pama Campari and Gin
You'll dance in the street. It's bitter and sweet as
is all revolution. And she shared the recipe. Maybe we
could post that. We probably want to try it too,
don't we. Yeah, we need to try it. It sounds good.
(21:35):
I don't know all of the the ingredients, but she
has suggested brands and everything, so um, maybe we'll give
this a shot, uh and report back to you guys
in the new year. Next, we want to share a
few emails and letters related to the Emperor Maximilian episode.
We got a lot on this as well. People love Maximilian, yes,
(21:56):
And this first letter from Sarah we get a great
example of some thing that we see a lot, which
is people with their own expertise writing in to kind
of give us a different angle on a topic that
we've discussed, which we really liked. So Sarah has a
background in art history and archaeology and that's where she's
coming from, and she says, I was excited to see
that you released a podcast on Emperor Maximilian, and even
(22:17):
more so that you mentioned Edward Manet's series of paintings
on the subject of Maximilian's execution. I know you like
art history, so I thought i'd share a couple more
things about these works. In terms of what we see
in the painting, Manet's composition is clearly referencing a work
from the early nineteenth century, Francisco Goya's Third of May
eighteen o eight. Like in Mena's work, Goya is addressing
(22:38):
a contemporary political event involving an occupation by French troops
in this case of Spain, and the central incident of
the French soldiers firing on the Spanish is mimicked in
Mena's Maximilian paintings. Mane sited Goya in a number of paintings,
and in the case of these works, one of the
few times that either artist overtly referenced a highly political event,
(22:59):
and that email struck me too, because people do often
recommend that we cover the Third of May, so it
could be another one of these political art history combo episodes.
We also heard from a few people who had some
kind of personal insight on the Maximilian story because they
are from Mexico and they could give us a little
feel for how people really really what opinion they have
(23:23):
of Maximilian. There. The first is from Christo Ball, who
lives in California, and he says he's from Mexico, and
he says the mrs and I were visiting her family
near Berlin during the Christmas holiday, and since we were
so close, we decided to hop over to Vienna and
play tourists for a week. We did all the typical
touristy things like visiting castles, churches, Christmas markets and so on.
(23:46):
During the middle of our stay, we signed up for
a day tour that would take us to a couple
of different palaces and other landmarks throughout the city. Sometime
between visiting a three hundred year old church and a
four hundred year old palace, I asked the guide if
she knew where Maximilian was buried. Being from Mexico and
having visited some of the historical locations in the Motherland
having to do with that whole episode, I thought it
(24:08):
would be interesting to check out his crypt or wherever
he was interred for myself. Well before I was even
able to finish asking where he may be, the guy
gave me a really sour face and proceeded to explain
to the entire group how Maximilian was tragically murdered in Mexico,
to which I answered back that my understanding of events
was that he was executed as the leader of a
(24:29):
foreign nation that had unlawfully overthrown the true government of
the people. Surprisingly, she did not agree with my As
she put it, interpretation of events just goes to show
how history can be interpreted depending on where or how
you or yours were affected by it. So that was
pretty cool. He gives this perspective for both countries here
(24:51):
a rare thing. And we also heard from Pedro who
um said that I just listened to your Maximilian podcast,
and although it was a sad affair for or Maximilian,
I wanted to let you know that he's not seen
as a bad guy in Mexico. At least that's something right.
Historians have done good work spreading the word that he
was basically cheated into accepting the job and that he
was actually rather cool towards Mexican. Nevertheless, the myth of
(25:15):
Warez his defense of Mexican rights remains a strong part
of our chosen history. So I think most Mexicans will
see Maximilian as some sort of failed conqueror. So two
perspectives there are our Habsburg emperor. That last one makes
me feel a little better for poor Maximilian. And I
know a lot of people recommended a Kate Beaten comic too. Basically, Basically,
(25:40):
Pedro's email sums up how how Maximilian is depicted in
the comic. Um. Yeah, I just I like hearing, I
think with the Ludwig one to Bavaria, I like hearing
about how these historical figures are considered in different countries today,
what people's opinions of them are. Before we sign off
(26:01):
with this, listener mail Mega listener mail me, Yes, we
need to visit a segment that we have introduced recently,
which we're having a lot of fun with and apparently
listeners are too, And that's the love I listen while
I blank segment. So we're gonna just run through a
few of these, and I think you're going to be
(26:22):
impressed by what your fellow listeners do while they're well
they're checking out the podcast. So Melissa, for instance, in Jakarta,
listens while she's riding a motorcycle taxi. Rachel and long Beach, says,
my labmates and I now listen and learn free from
you guys while sorting mud samples, identifying insects, and sequencing
(26:43):
d NA cool. Brian in Ohio listens while working on
a dairy farm. He says, I manage a dred cow
dairy farm in Ohio, and I check cows to determine
if they are pregnant while I listened to stuff you
missed in history. Thank you for giving me some thing
interesting and fun to listen to while I'm out with
the cows. You're very welcome. Brian Margaret, who works at
(27:07):
Albert Einstein University, says that she likes to listen to
our podcast while trying to catch nematode worms for research.
Jacob listens while he or he listened while he took
this huge bike trip from Shanghai to Beijing. So we
went to China this year, Dablina, and we didn't even
know it. And Rebecca and Minneapolis says that she's a
(27:29):
graduate student in industrial hygiene and she works in my
college e lab culturing fungal spores for identification and remediation,
and that's what she does while she's listening to the podcast.
I look at mold spores under microscopes. And finally we
heard from twelve year old Maddie, who listens so much
(27:50):
that sometimes she said her mom takes away her iPod
ship so that she won't stay up all night. So
we thought that was cute. Thank you guys. Will share
some more on the next episode for sure, because y'all
are doing some interesting things all over the world. Yeah,
and if you want to keep sharing those things with us,
please write us where History Podcast at how stuff Works
(28:11):
dot com or you can look us up on Facebook,
or you can hit us up on Twitter at myston history.
And as always, you can find tons of articles on
tons of topics and a year end recap I believe
your end slideshow recap of by searching our homepage at
www dot how stuff works dot com. Be sure to
(28:35):
check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The How Stuff Works
iPhone app has a rise. Download it today on iTunes.
Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm to bling a chuk reboarding, and I'm fair out
and strange as it might seem, especially since we're history podcast,
the news can actually play a pretty big role in
(00:22):
what we choose to cover as topics. And that's because history,
or at least what we know about it, is constantly changing.
It's always evolving, and new discoveries are made, theories are formed,
old mysteries are sometimes solved, or sometimes they're made even
more complicated Ned Kelly case in point exactly. And in
all of these cases, one thing holds true. The breaking
(00:43):
news gives us a great opportunity to review what we
know about a particular topic, so it makes a great
opportunity for us to talk about them again. But of
course we don't have a chance to cover all of
the historical finds that are unearthed in any given years.
So last year we decided we would do a real
Newsy kind of topic a year end wrap up, and
(01:05):
we ended up recording an episode that covered a few
of big discoveries that we thought were either cool or
just I don't know. It's fascinating in some way that
appealed to us, and this year we've decided to do
the same, but we're going to step it up a
not too We're gonna do two episodes of historical finds,
(01:26):
things that have been unearthed in TWN that we just
thought were really neat. Yeah, and we've called it an
Earth in twenty eleven. That's the title. But of course,
not all of these discoveries literally came as the result
of digs and archaeological work. Some of the some of
them are just finds that came from all sorts of places,
from the ocean, for example, or even from someone's musty
(01:46):
old attic you never know, or somebody just putting two
and two together and making a new discovery from research,
or or finds that were already existing. Yeah, that's true.
Some of these that we're going to discuss our findings
based on things that were up either within the last
couple of years or in some cases decades ago. So
it's not something that was necessarily unearthed this year, but
(02:06):
the finding was unearthed, it just had some important component
of the process that happened in to make our list.
But this is of course by no means a comprehensive list.
I mean, we really had to to whittle it down,
pick and choose here. The only common thread, though, is
that there are discoveries that we found interesting, ones that
had some kind of interesting story behind them, and most
(02:30):
of them had some kind of tie into themes that
we've covered a lot, And I mean I found that
appealing for a yearine wrap up podcasts, we have hit
on themes this year. I don't know, shipwrecks comes to mind, medicine, medicine,
historic alcohol, historic dogs. So you're gonna notice a few
of those themes popping up in both of these episodes,
(02:52):
Yes you will. And that goes for the first one
that we're going to talk about, which is pirates. A
lot of people know Captain Morgan as a brand of rum,
Captain and Coke anyone, but Captain Henry Morgan was an
actual seventeenth century Welsh pirate and the wreck of one
of his ships was found off Panama by a team
of U S archaeologists this August. So just a little
(03:14):
background on Morgan and his ships. He was a privateer
sailing on England's behalf, so part of his work was
defending England's interests, and he also pioneered expeditions to the
New World. In the late seventeenth century, he went up
against Spain, which at the time had a pretty tight
grip on the Caribbean, and Morgan wanted to weaken Spain's
influence a bit by taking Panama City, and so in
(03:36):
sixteen seventy one he set out to capture a Spanish
fort called Castillo de San Lorenzo, which was on a
cliff overlooking the mouth of the Chagres River, the only
water passageway between the Caribbean and Panama City, and Morgan
and his men ultimately succeeded here, but they lost five ships,
including their flagship called the Satisfaction, in the process, and
(03:57):
that was due to some pretty rough seas that were
surround the fort and also a reef known as the
Lajas Reef nearby. So the discovery that these u s
archaeologists made this year is presumably from one of those
five ships, right. They made it by doing a magnetometer survey,
which looks for metal by finding any kind of deviation
(04:18):
in the Earth's magnetic field, and what they ended up
pulling up to the surface included a portion of the
starboard side of a wooden ships hall and a set
of unopened cargo boxes and chess that were covered in coral,
and of course everybody including us, thinking like, maybe this
is some kind of pirate treasure, maybe this is Captain
(04:40):
Morgan's treasure. So we were unable to find out whether
the cargo was opened at the time the story broke
um it had, it was yet to be determined, and
we haven't heard anything since then. But according to a
Discovering News article about the fine, there are at least
a few people out there who are hoping that the
boxes and chess contain gold or something that contain liquor.
(05:03):
And you can probably figure out why some folks might
be hoping for that. Yeah, it's because there's kind of
an interesting twist to this story. To the story of
this discovery. Though the research team included archaeologists and divers
from Texas State University and some other volunteers, the project
was actually funded by Captain Morgan, USA, the maker of
Captain Morgan's Room, and they stepped into help when the
(05:26):
research team ran out of funding, and that funding actually
allowed the team to do that magnet a meter survey.
So in a statement, Tom Herbs, the brand director of
Captain Morgan USA, said, quote, when the opportunity arose for
us to help make this discovery mission possible, it was
a natural fit for us to get involved. The artifacts
uncovered during this mission will help bring Henry Morgan and
(05:48):
his adventures to life in a way never thought possible.
So there you go. I'm kind of envisioning these Captain
Morgan commercials maybe in with like footage from the archaeological dives,
and maybe could if they were really willing to put
out some more money, some rolling stones satisfaction. I mean,
(06:10):
who knows it's it's a brilliant marketing move on there,
it sounds like it. But prior to making this discovery,
the team also found a collection of iron cannons in
the same general area last year. But I think we're
really most excited, as probably most people are, to find
out what's in the chest. Yeah, I mean, maybe it'll
be another entry for our Historical Spirits episodes. Maybe. So
(06:34):
moving on to the next couple entries on our list.
We mentioned earlier that we have talked about dogs some
this year, specifically war dogs, and they come up in
random podcast too. But we've got two interesting pieces of
news from that have to do with our canine friends.
We do. There were a couple of discoveries this year
(06:55):
that gave us some insight into the history of domesticated
dogs and the role that they played in humans lives.
The first for dog lovers especially maybe somewhat disturbing, though
so just be forewarned. In January, scientists released a new
analysis of a bone fragment found in Hine's Cave in
southwestern Texas, which evidence shows was occupied by a group
(07:17):
of hunter gatherers about nine thousand years ago. And scientists
performed genetic testing on the bone fragment and figured out
that it belonged to a dog rather than a coyote
or a wolf, for a fox or something else, making
it the earliest known evidence of dog domestication in the Americas.
It predates other examples by about eight thousand years, and
(07:37):
the dog was probably around twenty to thirty pounds and
may have been similar to some breeds of Mexican or
Peruvian dogs. But we mentioned some of you might not
like this story very much, and that's because this dog
was not just man's best friend. The bone fragment was
found in dried human feces, which suggests the dog might
(07:58):
have been man's best meal too, So it's good. Yeah,
there's a lot to learn about the rural domesticated dogs
played in humans lives over the years. I mean, they
could have been used for tours and things as well,
but they were food. We do have a more uplifting
dog related story though, hopefully yeah, hopefully, depending on how
(08:21):
you look at it. In February, Discovering News reported that
the burial remains of a husky like dog that lived
seven thousand years ago were found in Siberia, and it
was an unusual kind of grave pit because the dog
was buried uh in a in a site that also
contained the partial remains of five different human skeletons, and
(08:44):
DNA and stable isotope analysis showed that the dog ate
what humans ate today, probably better than most people can
say about their modern pampered dogs today. But this well
pampered dogs and on Sara eating pete or something. Um.
This dog, however, ate staff like fish and deer and
(09:04):
some small plants, so um. Researchers assume that it probably
lived and worked right alongside humans. Yeah, and there was
certain wear and tear on the dog skeleton that showed
that it probably helped transport loads during the course of
daily chores. Some fractures also suggested the dog may have
participated in hunting, although there's always the chance that its
(09:26):
injuries were the result of being struck by humans. However,
the fact that the dog was advanced in age when
it died and the way in which it was buried
indicates that it was likely cared for and cared about too.
Robert Losey, lead author of the study about the dog burial,
said in a Discovery News story about it quote based
on how Northern Indigenous people understand animal in historic times,
(09:49):
I think people burying this particular dog saw it as
a thinking, social being, perhaps on par with humans in
many ways. When I think it was even buried with objects,
to which seems like a very very kind of human
touch for for something like that. Moving on, though, we
have been talking about medicine a lot this year, and
this is kind of the ultimate entry in the medical
(10:11):
medicine related category. And this is a good example two
of a fine that the actual discovery happened decades ago,
way back in the seventies, but it's only recently that
new interpretation of what was found has has come up.
So back in the nineteen seventies, divers excavated the shipwreck
off the coast of Tuscany, and items aboard the ship
(10:34):
suggested that it was about two thousand years old, that
it had originated in Greece, and that when it went
down it was on some sort of trading mission. But
what caught the attention of researcher Emmanuela A. Petiti when
she later read about the ship's cargo, you know, the
discovery was this cash of medical supplies that had on board,
(10:56):
for instance, a copper bleeding cup we talked about blood
this year, to about that, to a surgical hook, viles,
a mortar, and most importantly a tin container that still
contained these quarter sized gray green pills, two thousand year
old pills that were underwater for all of that time.
(11:17):
Appetiti's husband, Alan Twade, is a historian in the Botany
department at the National Museum of Natural History who studies
just such ancient medicines. Except for that the whole of
his career, he's basically had to work off medical texts alone.
So Appetiti and to Wade knew that these tablets weren't
just interesting as shipwreck artifacts. They were the first known
(11:38):
samples of ancient medicine, according to Smithsonian Magazine. To Wade
said quote, I was going to do everything I could
to get them, and it took a little while. After
eighteen months negotiating with Italy's Department of Antiquities, to Aid
got two samples of the tablets and recruited Robert Fleischer,
who was the head geneticist at the Smithsonian Center for
(11:59):
conservator Shin and Evolutionary Genetics, to tackle the analysis aspect.
Because two aids work normally requires looking at tax as
he mentioned illustrations. I think already he speaks twelve languages,
so he needed to get somebody who could look under
the microscope on this one. And Fleisher was skeptical at
first because he didn't really think any viable genetic material
(12:20):
would be left after two thousand years, but he was convinced.
He got to work and started to extract DNA from
the tablets and compare it to the National Institutes of
Health gene Bank, which of course has records of all
sorts of plants. The first few ingredient lists that he
came up with weren't right. Twade could tell that they
(12:42):
contained plants not yet present in Greece two thousand years ago.
But finally, after seven years and using the most sophisticated
DNA techniques, Fleisher discovered a genetic makeup that jelled with
historical texts and that include carrot, parsley, alfalfa, celery, wild
in radish yarrow, hibiscus, and sunflower bound in clay sunflower aside,
(13:07):
which the researchers believe was a modern contaminant, those ingredients
fit the bill for a two thousand year old cure
for stomach ailments common of course among sailors exactly so
to Aid even thinks that this kind of tablet, I mean,
we mentioned it was a quarter size, so it's not
something you would just take as is. He figures it
(13:27):
was probably something you would drop in a glass of
water or wine or even vinegar, which sounds like it
would turn your stomach and then settle it. But who knows.
So there's one interesting last point to this uh this story, though,
in May of to Aide and his wife presented the
findings in Italy, and by chance they met with some
(13:50):
of the divers who had explored the wreck in the
nineteen seventies. And the divers were able to explain that
sunflower contamination. They said that they had kept their off
cygen tanks outdoors near the place where they were staying
before going out on the dive, and the area they
were staying was filled with sunflower field. So it's quite
possible that something got onto their dive tank and ultimately
(14:13):
onto the aluminum container or the tin container rather and
um onto the pills. It's good to have that explanation.
It was a big deal for to Wade to finally
see some of the medicine he studied in action, and
he told History dot Com quote, the information that you
have in a text is always exposed to the risk
of being only theoretical, and so until you have physical
(14:36):
evidence of what you have in the texts, you never
know what you're working on has been used in ancient
daily life and practice. And I thought this was such
an interesting multidisciplinary example here that both of uh these
researchers really needed the other researchers work to to make
sense of the find I thought it was pretty cool.
So our final entry for this list is probably the
(15:01):
favorite author of many of our listeners, at least she's
a common request just this month, the news broke that
British author Dr Paula Byrne had an earth a portrait
of none other than Jane Austin. And Austin is of
course best known for writing books like Pride and Prejudice
and Sense and Sensibility, but she initially published her books
anonymously and she wasn't well known until after her death.
(15:24):
So why is this new portrait such a big deal. Well,
according to a BBC news story about the recent discovery,
there are currently only two recognized portraits of Austin, which
I never realized before. One was a watercolor painter by
her sister Cassandra, whom Jane was really close to, and
that's the only portrait that's never been contested, and I
(15:44):
believe it shows her from the back, so not much
of a detailed portrait. Yeah. The new portrait, though, which
Burns husband Jonathan Bate picked up in an auction, is
a pencil drawing on vellum that has the words miss
Jane Austin inscribed on the back and it was probably
drawn around eighteen fifteen. Uh just for comparison there, Austin
(16:06):
died in eighteen seventeen, so late in her life and
it's supposed to bear a pretty good resemblance to Jane Austen,
or at least, since we don't have a terribly great
idea of what she looked like, at least bears a
resemblance to her family. Apparently, the sitter in the portrait
has quote the long straight Austin news. Burne is consulting
(16:28):
with various experts to have it authenticated. But of course
there are several reasons why people might be skeptical of
her new find. For one thing, it's been around for
a couple hundred years, so you could ask, okay, why
has it been authenticated before. Obviously the person who sold
it to her husband didn't think that it was genuine. Also,
Burne has a new book on Austin ready for a release,
(16:49):
so the timing of the story is really good publicity
for her in that respect. Maybe we should mention too
that the inscription on the back doesn't spell Austin with
any yes. If new story is correct, it spells it
with an eye, so that's a little a little twist
to although spellings from the eighteenth nineteenth century are a
little hard to rely on in the first place. But
(17:11):
that wraps it up for our News Minds of Part
one and brings us to Mega Listener Mail, an extended
listener mail segment. We have missed out on doing the
amount of listener mail we've wanted to lately, but we've
gotten so many great letters, postcards, emails from people about
(17:31):
episodes that we've done recently, which we've really enjoyed. We've
had a lot of fun with our research in the
last couple of months, and so we wanted to kind
of give you guys an idea of what people are
saying about some of the podcasts and some of the
little tidbits that they're throwing out us that we didn't
know before. Okay, so first we want to look at
a few emails regarding our Gunpowder Plot episodes. We did
(17:55):
two episodes about the Gunpowder Plot and received just tons
of emails and letters from people about it. People really
seem to enjoy it, or at least have something to
say about it from their own experienceal bonfire story. Yeah,
so we wanted to share a few of those. The
first one is from Heather and she says, my family
and I have just moved back to the States after
living in England for four years. My husband is a
(18:16):
brit and both my children were born there. We celebrated
Guy Fox Day each year while there. The local village
usually had a party at the village hall with food, sausages, candy, apples, etcetera,
and drink from the bar. For the adults. There was
a judging of the Guy, where the best of the
half dozen guys made by the village children was chosen.
These look basically like a scarecrow, old clothing, stuff with
(18:37):
straw or newspaper and decorated to look like anyone the
child wanted, usually someone famous. The winner got a prize
and then the guys may or may not have been
tossed on top of the bonfowery pile, depending on the
children's wishes. I liked that you could keep your effigy
if you wanted to. The patch of grass under the
bonfire site was usually black for the rest of the year,
which was funny to me. And she also corrects us
(19:00):
on one point which a few people did, so we
should mention this. She says, the penny for the guy
thing that children used to do in England was not
selling the guy, but collecting change to fund the guy
and the celebration. So thank you, Heather, Yeah, it does
make sense. Thank you for writing in and telling us
your traditions and for letting us know some more about
the Guy. And I think most of the people we
heard from writing in about Guy Fox Day were based
(19:22):
in England or they were transplants. But we did hear
from Jason who lives in Newfoundland, and he wrote that
Guy Fox Night is celebrated every year in my native
Newfoundland as well. Newfoundland, the most easterly point of North America,
was part of Britain until nineteen when it joined the
Confederation and became Canada's tenth province. Newfoundland's very unique culture
(19:46):
is heavily influenced by Ireland, Scotland and England, where most
of its people can lay claim to their ancestry. Um.
So that was neat to know that Guy Fox Day
really is something that people people take with them wherever
they go. It seems we had another one from Adam
which is on a more somber note, but I still
thought it was interesting to share. He says. Each year,
(20:08):
the government tries to promote the safety aspect of bonfire
Night by warning people to take care with sparklers and
not to pour petrol on the flames and things like that. However,
this year it seems that there may have been a
completely unforeseen tragedy from a fireworks display. One of the
worst motorway accidents in the UK, in which seven people
died in a multi car pile up, may have been
the result of fireworks smoke obscuring driver's vision. I don't
(20:31):
want to leave my letter on a somber notes, so
I will say that as a new dad, I had
the pleasure of taking my nine month old baby boy
Dylan to a public fireworks display in my hometown of Harwick, Essex,
which he loved and I can see us having many
happy bonfire nights to come, thanks in part to Guy Fox.
Probably the coolest piece of Guy Fox related mail we
got though with from Kelsey and Vermont. She's a bartender
(20:53):
there and she sent us a note on some lovely
stationary saying I'm finally writing to tell you that I
am a self proclaimed dork who enjoys creating drink specials
based on your historical tidbits, as I also like listening
on my way to work. Most of the drinks are
more clever than tasty, but I was pretty proud of
this one, so I thought i'd share. I call it
(21:15):
the Guy Fox, and the specials board would read remember
remember the fifth of November with Pama Campari and Gin
You'll dance in the street. It's bitter and sweet as
is all revolution. And she shared the recipe. Maybe we
could post that. We probably want to try it too,
don't we. Yeah, we need to try it. It sounds good.
(21:35):
I don't know all of the the ingredients, but she
has suggested brands and everything, so um, maybe we'll give
this a shot, uh and report back to you guys
in the new year. Next, we want to share a
few emails and letters related to the Emperor Maximilian episode.
We got a lot on this as well. People love Maximilian, yes,
(21:56):
And this first letter from Sarah we get a great
example of some thing that we see a lot, which
is people with their own expertise writing in to kind
of give us a different angle on a topic that
we've discussed, which we really liked. So Sarah has a
background in art history and archaeology and that's where she's
coming from, and she says, I was excited to see
that you released a podcast on Emperor Maximilian, and even
(22:17):
more so that you mentioned Edward Manet's series of paintings
on the subject of Maximilian's execution. I know you like
art history, so I thought i'd share a couple more
things about these works. In terms of what we see
in the painting, Manet's composition is clearly referencing a work
from the early nineteenth century, Francisco Goya's Third of May
eighteen o eight. Like in Mena's work, Goya is addressing
(22:38):
a contemporary political event involving an occupation by French troops
in this case of Spain, and the central incident of
the French soldiers firing on the Spanish is mimicked in
Mena's Maximilian paintings. Mane sited Goya in a number of paintings,
and in the case of these works, one of the
few times that either artist overtly referenced a highly political event,
(22:59):
and that email struck me too, because people do often
recommend that we cover the Third of May, so it
could be another one of these political art history combo episodes.
We also heard from a few people who had some
kind of personal insight on the Maximilian story because they
are from Mexico and they could give us a little
feel for how people really really what opinion they have
(23:23):
of Maximilian. There. The first is from Christo Ball, who
lives in California, and he says he's from Mexico, and
he says the mrs and I were visiting her family
near Berlin during the Christmas holiday, and since we were
so close, we decided to hop over to Vienna and
play tourists for a week. We did all the typical
touristy things like visiting castles, churches, Christmas markets and so on.
(23:46):
During the middle of our stay, we signed up for
a day tour that would take us to a couple
of different palaces and other landmarks throughout the city. Sometime
between visiting a three hundred year old church and a
four hundred year old palace, I asked the guide if
she knew where Maximilian was buried. Being from Mexico and
having visited some of the historical locations in the Motherland
having to do with that whole episode, I thought it
(24:08):
would be interesting to check out his crypt or wherever
he was interred for myself. Well before I was even
able to finish asking where he may be, the guy
gave me a really sour face and proceeded to explain
to the entire group how Maximilian was tragically murdered in Mexico,
to which I answered back that my understanding of events
was that he was executed as the leader of a
(24:29):
foreign nation that had unlawfully overthrown the true government of
the people. Surprisingly, she did not agree with my As
she put it, interpretation of events just goes to show
how history can be interpreted depending on where or how
you or yours were affected by it. So that was
pretty cool. He gives this perspective for both countries here
(24:51):
a rare thing. And we also heard from Pedro who
um said that I just listened to your Maximilian podcast,
and although it was a sad affair for or Maximilian,
I wanted to let you know that he's not seen
as a bad guy in Mexico. At least that's something right.
Historians have done good work spreading the word that he
was basically cheated into accepting the job and that he
was actually rather cool towards Mexican. Nevertheless, the myth of
(25:15):
Warez his defense of Mexican rights remains a strong part
of our chosen history. So I think most Mexicans will
see Maximilian as some sort of failed conqueror. So two
perspectives there are our Habsburg emperor. That last one makes
me feel a little better for poor Maximilian. And I
know a lot of people recommended a Kate Beaten comic too. Basically, Basically,
(25:40):
Pedro's email sums up how how Maximilian is depicted in
the comic. Um. Yeah, I just I like hearing, I
think with the Ludwig one to Bavaria, I like hearing
about how these historical figures are considered in different countries today,
what people's opinions of them are. Before we sign off
(26:01):
with this, listener mail Mega listener mail me, Yes, we
need to visit a segment that we have introduced recently,
which we're having a lot of fun with and apparently
listeners are too, And that's the love I listen while
I blank segment. So we're gonna just run through a
few of these, and I think you're going to be
(26:22):
impressed by what your fellow listeners do while they're well
they're checking out the podcast. So Melissa, for instance, in Jakarta,
listens while she's riding a motorcycle taxi. Rachel and long Beach, says,
my labmates and I now listen and learn free from
you guys while sorting mud samples, identifying insects, and sequencing
(26:43):
d NA cool. Brian in Ohio listens while working on
a dairy farm. He says, I manage a dred cow
dairy farm in Ohio, and I check cows to determine
if they are pregnant while I listened to stuff you
missed in history. Thank you for giving me some thing
interesting and fun to listen to while I'm out with
the cows. You're very welcome. Brian Margaret, who works at
(27:07):
Albert Einstein University, says that she likes to listen to
our podcast while trying to catch nematode worms for research.
Jacob listens while he or he listened while he took
this huge bike trip from Shanghai to Beijing. So we
went to China this year, Dablina, and we didn't even
know it. And Rebecca and Minneapolis says that she's a
(27:29):
graduate student in industrial hygiene and she works in my
college e lab culturing fungal spores for identification and remediation,
and that's what she does while she's listening to the podcast.
I look at mold spores under microscopes. And finally we
heard from twelve year old Maddie, who listens so much
(27:50):
that sometimes she said her mom takes away her iPod
ship so that she won't stay up all night. So
we thought that was cute. Thank you guys. Will share
some more on the next episode for sure, because y'all
are doing some interesting things all over the world. Yeah,
and if you want to keep sharing those things with us,
please write us where History Podcast at how stuff Works
(28:11):
dot com or you can look us up on Facebook,
or you can hit us up on Twitter at myston history.
And as always, you can find tons of articles on
tons of topics and a year end recap I believe
your end slideshow recap of by searching our homepage at
www dot how stuff works dot com. Be sure to
(28:35):
check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The How Stuff Works
iPhone app has a rise. Download it today on iTunes.
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