June 24, 2021 • 11 mins
On this day in 1374, a dancing mania outbreak began in Aachen, Germany. / On this day in 1932, Khana Ratsadon, or the People’s Party, overthrew the government of King Rama VII, ending 700 years of absolute monarchy under the kings of Siam.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, y'all, Eve's here. Today's episode contains not just one,
but two nuggets of history. Consider it a double feature.
Enjoy the show. What's up? Everyone? Welcome to this Day
in History class, where we bring you a new tidbit
from history every day. The day was four in aakin, Germany,
(00:30):
people began writhing, screaming, and dancing uncontrollably. It was the
beginning of a major outbreak of a phenomenon called dancing mania.
Some of the earliest accounts of dancing Mania and Europe
date back to the seventh century. The affliction would move
like an epidemic, causing people to shout and dance wildly
until they reached a point of exhaustion. The Barefoot friar
(00:53):
Johann Paulos once told a story about an outbreak in
a village in Saxony in the twelfth century, but the
thirteen seventy four appearance of the phenomenon that began in
Germany was the first major outbreak of the dancing plague.
The phenomenon was also known as Koreomania, Saint John's Dance,
Saint Guy's Dance, and Saint Vitus's Dance, among other names.
(01:18):
The outbreak of thirteen seventy four was first described in Aachen,
starting on June thirteen seventy four, but from there it
spread across Europe, particularly to other parts of Germany, the
Netherlands and Belgium. In his eighteen thirty two monograph, German
physician Eustace Friedrich Hecker wrote of the ailment, which he
(01:38):
called quote a strange delusion. He said the following it
was a convulsion which, in the most extraordinary manner infuriated
the human frame and excited the astonishment of contemporaries for
more than two centuries, since which time it has never reappeared.
It was called the dance of Saint John or of St. Bidas,
(01:59):
on account of the mechantic leaps by which it was characterized,
and which gave to those affected, whilst performing their wild
dance and screaming and foaming with fury all the appearance
of persons possessed. He described people dancing in circles, holding hands,
shrieking out spirits names, gasping for breath, and falling to
(02:19):
the ground. They hit their heads against walls, walked into
rivers and danged for hours and quote wild delirium. Some
people reportedly danced themselves to death. By the sixteenth century,
dancing mania was thought of as an affliction sent by
a saint or a punishment from God. Some people called
on St. Vitus, hence the name St. Vitus's dance. Some
(02:42):
people thought it was possession and that the affected were
attempting to cure themselves through dancing. Still, others, like philosopher, physician,
and mystic pair of Celsius, believed that the phenomenon was psychogenic.
Paracelsus broke dancing mania down into three categories, Corea and lativa, Correa,
leshiva and Correa. Naturalists Korea imagined ativa meant it came
(03:05):
from the imagination, Korea Lashiba meant it came from sexual desires,
and Korea naturalists meant it was an organic medical disorder.
Magistrates and priests treated dancing mania through interventions like prayer, exorcisms,
and hiring dancing partners, though Paracelsus recognized the futility of
such treatments and said care should be up to physicians.
(03:29):
People have also attributed the phenomenon to social turbulence. The
Black Death, a pandemic that killed millions of people in
Europe and Asia, caused widespread devastation, despair, and fear. Some
authors suggested that dancing mania was a kind of stress
induced psychosis that developed in response to plague, starvation, and
(03:51):
other horrors and conflicts. Others said that the phenomenon stemmed
from food poisoning from rye affected by ergot, was a
showing of religious ecstasy, or was just elaborate trickery on
the part of impoverished people trying to get over on others.
Dancing mania is now considered a mass psychogenic illness, as
(04:11):
symptoms spread quickly but have no identifiable cause. In Strasbourg, France,
in fifteen eighteen, there was another outbreak of dancing mania.
The town banned public gatherings and designated areas for people
to dance in and a variant of the phenomenon also
popped up in Italy in the fifteenth century and lasted
until the seventeenth. It was called tarantism as it was
(04:35):
linked to the bite of the tarantula. At the time.
People with tarrantism would dance to music until they fail,
attempting to cure their illness. Hysteria was often pegged as
the cause of tarantism, and women who were affected what
was once called St. Vitus's Dance, is now known as
Sydenham's Career, a neurological disorder characterized by involuntary movement of
(04:57):
body parts and facial muscles, but the exact cause of
dancing mania is still a mystery. I'm Eves, Jeff Coo
and hopefully you know a little more about history today
than you did yesterday. You can follow us on Twitter,
Instagram and Facebook at t d I h C podcast.
(05:20):
If you haven't listened to a new show I host
called Unpopular, you can get it anywhere you listen to
this stand History Class. Thanks again and we'll see you tomorrow. Hey, y'all.
(05:42):
I'm Eves and welcome to the Standard History Class, a
podcast for people who can never know enough about history.
The day was the Siamese political party Canna Rat Sadan
or the People's Party, overthrew the government of King Rama
(06:06):
the Seventh, ending seven hundred years of absolute monarchy under
the Kings of Sayam. The bloodless coup resulted in the
introduction of democracy and the first constitution of Thailand. Since
seventeen eighty two, the Kingdom of Siam or modern day Thailand,
had been ruled by the Chakri dynasty, beginning with Rama
the First, who founded the capital city Bangkok. Throughout the
(06:30):
nineteenth century, much of Southeast Asia was colonized by the British, French,
and Dutch. Siam was never subjected to colonial rule, but
Rama the Five, who reigned from eighteen sixty eight to
nineteen ten, set out to modernize the kingdom. He introduced
social and governmental reforms that were based on Western models.
(06:50):
The old ruling families rejected his reforms, but from the
mid eighteen eighties to the early nineteen hundreds, Rama the
Fifth overhauled the administration, the established military conscription, abolished slavery,
and made other major changes in the country. The king
was committed to modernization, but he was also committed to
maintaining Thai traditions and independence. He instituted all these reforms
(07:14):
under the guise that they would save c M from
the threat of Western colonialism. If CM looked civilized to
colonial powers, then it would supposedly avoid Western invasion. Rama
the fifth son and successor Rama the sixth, also worked
on modern i CM and welcomed the adoption of some
European ideals. His reforms upset members of the aristocracy and nobility,
(07:38):
as well as groups of progressives and radicals. In nineteen twelve,
a group of military officers conspired to overthrow the king,
but the plot failed. There's debate over the main causes
of the nineteen thirty two revolution. What the rise of
Western educated commoner elites who would become dissatisfied with politics
and CM played a significant role in the event. Rama
(08:02):
the Seventh ascended the throne in n He created the
Supreme Council of State, made up of senior princes who
had served in previous administrations. They quickly let go of
commoners who had been appointed in the civil service in military.
During Rama the Seventh rule, returning Western educated students grew
disillusioned with the status quo. In n seven, a small
(08:26):
group of military and civilian students gathered in Paris with
the intent of founding a party to bring change to
c M. This group of seven people called themselves the Promoters,
and they decided to stage a coup to end absolute
monarchy in the country. To achieve this goal, they formed
the Canna Rat Sadan or People's Party. The Promoters worked
(08:47):
on gathering supporters. Meanwhile, CM was facing economic problems. The
Great depression made it to the country. By nineteen thirty
the value of rice, CM's major export felled drastically. Land
values also fell, so the government had to make a
bunch of budget cuts. By nineteen thirty two, the People's
(09:07):
Party was made up of more than one hundred students,
military officers, and non royal government officials. On the morning
of June nine, thirty two, while the King was away
from Bangkok, the People's Party led the coup. The promoters
seized control of the army as well as post and
telegraph offices, and they arrested royal officials who were part
(09:28):
of the ruling group. Armored vehicles and troops gathered at
the Throne Hall in the Royal Plaza, and one of
the promoters read the Knar Ra Saddan manifesto declaring the
end of absolute monarchy and the establishment of a constitutional state.
Rama the seventh was playing golf in the South of
sam when he got news of the coup. He agreed
(09:49):
to the demands for a new constitutional system, and by
December of that year he had promulgated a new constitution.
A State Council and National Assembly were established, but conflict
between the Kadnar rat Sadan and the king continued. A
couple of years after the revolution, Rama the Seventh left
for England and in he abdicated the throne, spending the
(10:12):
rest of his life in England. Though the coup was
a major turning point in Thai history, the next few
decades were still characterized by political unrest and rule by
military governments. I'm Eve Jeff Coo and hopefully you know
a little more about history today than you did yesterday.
And if you have any commerce oar suggestions, feel free
(10:32):
to send them our way. We're at this day at
i heeart media dot com. If you want to send
us an email, you can also hit us up on
social media. We're at t D I h C podcast.
Thanks so much for listening to the show and we'll
see you tomorrow. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
(10:55):
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, y'all, Eve's here. Today's episode contains not just one,
but two nuggets of history. Consider it a double feature.
Enjoy the show. What's up? Everyone? Welcome to this Day
in History class, where we bring you a new tidbit
from history every day. The day was four in aakin, Germany,
(00:30):
people began writhing, screaming, and dancing uncontrollably. It was the
beginning of a major outbreak of a phenomenon called dancing mania.
Some of the earliest accounts of dancing Mania and Europe
date back to the seventh century. The affliction would move
like an epidemic, causing people to shout and dance wildly
until they reached a point of exhaustion. The Barefoot friar
(00:53):
Johann Paulos once told a story about an outbreak in
a village in Saxony in the twelfth century, but the
thirteen seventy four appearance of the phenomenon that began in
Germany was the first major outbreak of the dancing plague.
The phenomenon was also known as Koreomania, Saint John's Dance,
Saint Guy's Dance, and Saint Vitus's Dance, among other names.
(01:18):
The outbreak of thirteen seventy four was first described in Aachen,
starting on June thirteen seventy four, but from there it
spread across Europe, particularly to other parts of Germany, the
Netherlands and Belgium. In his eighteen thirty two monograph, German
physician Eustace Friedrich Hecker wrote of the ailment, which he
(01:38):
called quote a strange delusion. He said the following it
was a convulsion which, in the most extraordinary manner infuriated
the human frame and excited the astonishment of contemporaries for
more than two centuries, since which time it has never reappeared.
It was called the dance of Saint John or of St. Bidas,
(01:59):
on account of the mechantic leaps by which it was characterized,
and which gave to those affected, whilst performing their wild
dance and screaming and foaming with fury all the appearance
of persons possessed. He described people dancing in circles, holding hands,
shrieking out spirits names, gasping for breath, and falling to
(02:19):
the ground. They hit their heads against walls, walked into
rivers and danged for hours and quote wild delirium. Some
people reportedly danced themselves to death. By the sixteenth century,
dancing mania was thought of as an affliction sent by
a saint or a punishment from God. Some people called
on St. Vitus, hence the name St. Vitus's dance. Some
(02:42):
people thought it was possession and that the affected were
attempting to cure themselves through dancing. Still, others, like philosopher, physician,
and mystic pair of Celsius, believed that the phenomenon was psychogenic.
Paracelsus broke dancing mania down into three categories, Corea and lativa, Correa,
leshiva and Correa. Naturalists Korea imagined ativa meant it came
(03:05):
from the imagination, Korea Lashiba meant it came from sexual desires,
and Korea naturalists meant it was an organic medical disorder.
Magistrates and priests treated dancing mania through interventions like prayer, exorcisms,
and hiring dancing partners, though Paracelsus recognized the futility of
such treatments and said care should be up to physicians.
(03:29):
People have also attributed the phenomenon to social turbulence. The
Black Death, a pandemic that killed millions of people in
Europe and Asia, caused widespread devastation, despair, and fear. Some
authors suggested that dancing mania was a kind of stress
induced psychosis that developed in response to plague, starvation, and
(03:51):
other horrors and conflicts. Others said that the phenomenon stemmed
from food poisoning from rye affected by ergot, was a
showing of religious ecstasy, or was just elaborate trickery on
the part of impoverished people trying to get over on others.
Dancing mania is now considered a mass psychogenic illness, as
(04:11):
symptoms spread quickly but have no identifiable cause. In Strasbourg, France,
in fifteen eighteen, there was another outbreak of dancing mania.
The town banned public gatherings and designated areas for people
to dance in and a variant of the phenomenon also
popped up in Italy in the fifteenth century and lasted
until the seventeenth. It was called tarantism as it was
(04:35):
linked to the bite of the tarantula. At the time.
People with tarrantism would dance to music until they fail,
attempting to cure their illness. Hysteria was often pegged as
the cause of tarantism, and women who were affected what
was once called St. Vitus's Dance, is now known as
Sydenham's Career, a neurological disorder characterized by involuntary movement of
(04:57):
body parts and facial muscles, but the exact cause of
dancing mania is still a mystery. I'm Eves, Jeff Coo
and hopefully you know a little more about history today
than you did yesterday. You can follow us on Twitter,
Instagram and Facebook at t d I h C podcast.
(05:20):
If you haven't listened to a new show I host
called Unpopular, you can get it anywhere you listen to
this stand History Class. Thanks again and we'll see you tomorrow. Hey, y'all.
(05:42):
I'm Eves and welcome to the Standard History Class, a
podcast for people who can never know enough about history.
The day was the Siamese political party Canna Rat Sadan
or the People's Party, overthrew the government of King Rama
(06:06):
the Seventh, ending seven hundred years of absolute monarchy under
the Kings of Sayam. The bloodless coup resulted in the
introduction of democracy and the first constitution of Thailand. Since
seventeen eighty two, the Kingdom of Siam or modern day Thailand,
had been ruled by the Chakri dynasty, beginning with Rama
the First, who founded the capital city Bangkok. Throughout the
(06:30):
nineteenth century, much of Southeast Asia was colonized by the British, French,
and Dutch. Siam was never subjected to colonial rule, but
Rama the Five, who reigned from eighteen sixty eight to
nineteen ten, set out to modernize the kingdom. He introduced
social and governmental reforms that were based on Western models.
(06:50):
The old ruling families rejected his reforms, but from the
mid eighteen eighties to the early nineteen hundreds, Rama the
Fifth overhauled the administration, the established military conscription, abolished slavery,
and made other major changes in the country. The king
was committed to modernization, but he was also committed to
maintaining Thai traditions and independence. He instituted all these reforms
(07:14):
under the guise that they would save c M from
the threat of Western colonialism. If CM looked civilized to
colonial powers, then it would supposedly avoid Western invasion. Rama
the fifth son and successor Rama the sixth, also worked
on modern i CM and welcomed the adoption of some
European ideals. His reforms upset members of the aristocracy and nobility,
(07:38):
as well as groups of progressives and radicals. In nineteen twelve,
a group of military officers conspired to overthrow the king,
but the plot failed. There's debate over the main causes
of the nineteen thirty two revolution. What the rise of
Western educated commoner elites who would become dissatisfied with politics
and CM played a significant role in the event. Rama
(08:02):
the Seventh ascended the throne in n He created the
Supreme Council of State, made up of senior princes who
had served in previous administrations. They quickly let go of
commoners who had been appointed in the civil service in military.
During Rama the Seventh rule, returning Western educated students grew
disillusioned with the status quo. In n seven, a small
(08:26):
group of military and civilian students gathered in Paris with
the intent of founding a party to bring change to
c M. This group of seven people called themselves the Promoters,
and they decided to stage a coup to end absolute
monarchy in the country. To achieve this goal, they formed
the Canna Rat Sadan or People's Party. The Promoters worked
(08:47):
on gathering supporters. Meanwhile, CM was facing economic problems. The
Great depression made it to the country. By nineteen thirty
the value of rice, CM's major export felled drastically. Land
values also fell, so the government had to make a
bunch of budget cuts. By nineteen thirty two, the People's
(09:07):
Party was made up of more than one hundred students,
military officers, and non royal government officials. On the morning
of June nine, thirty two, while the King was away
from Bangkok, the People's Party led the coup. The promoters
seized control of the army as well as post and
telegraph offices, and they arrested royal officials who were part
(09:28):
of the ruling group. Armored vehicles and troops gathered at
the Throne Hall in the Royal Plaza, and one of
the promoters read the Knar Ra Saddan manifesto declaring the
end of absolute monarchy and the establishment of a constitutional state.
Rama the seventh was playing golf in the South of
sam when he got news of the coup. He agreed
(09:49):
to the demands for a new constitutional system, and by
December of that year he had promulgated a new constitution.
A State Council and National Assembly were established, but conflict
between the Kadnar rat Sadan and the king continued. A
couple of years after the revolution, Rama the Seventh left
for England and in he abdicated the throne, spending the
(10:12):
rest of his life in England. Though the coup was
a major turning point in Thai history, the next few
decades were still characterized by political unrest and rule by
military governments. I'm Eve Jeff Coo and hopefully you know
a little more about history today than you did yesterday.
And if you have any commerce oar suggestions, feel free
(10:32):
to send them our way. We're at this day at
i heeart media dot com. If you want to send
us an email, you can also hit us up on
social media. We're at t D I h C podcast.
Thanks so much for listening to the show and we'll
see you tomorrow. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
(10:55):
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
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