August 27, 2024 • 9 mins
Partying is supposed to be all about providing entertainment for family, friends, or people you want to impress. But frequently, it’s about entertaining yourself. Some of history's wildest parties involved setting guests on fire, making them eat until they vomited, or making them have sex with strangers.
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 (00:00):
Hey, we all like to party, and we all like
to see how other people party, right, especially celebrities and
other big shots. But how about a royal party where
you eat until you're stuffed and then you're forced to
vomit so you can eat some more, or being carried
to the countryside with a queen mikes you do farm work.
Then there's the New York City dinner party where formally
(00:21):
dressed guests had to climb on horseback to eat their meal.
I'm Patty Steele. Spending a fortune to entertain yourself at
your guest's expense. Next on the backstory. The backstory is back.
Don't you like to peek into other people's lives and
see how they spend their time, especially when it comes
(00:44):
to celebrities and other folks with money to blow. It's
pretty clear that money makes entertainment showier. But for thousands
of years, free time was mostly all about physical or
artistic activities, as well as the occasional crazy feast. Head
back ten thousand years to Mesopotamia, where they invented the
(01:05):
wheel in their spare time, by the way, and it
seems they also spent free time doing things like hunting, boxing, wrestling,
and gardening, and they created art, lots of music, and
even played board games. Yeah, ten thousand year old board games.
All of those things were also popular in civilizations around
the world, Greek, Roman, Mayan, Asian, and throughout European cultures,
(01:28):
but a whole lot of people with more money and
power than necessary liked to show it off by coming
up with something even more outrageous than foot races or
mile in recitals. Now, this guy was infamous for his
insane parties. The Roman emperor Nero held feasts in his
rotating dining room. No really, the round room fifty feet across,
(01:53):
rested on a huge pillar and four spheres that rotated
the room using flowing water. What went on above was
even wilder. Nero would stuff his guests with elaborate, gluttonous feasts,
but the lucky partiers were only allowed to leave, and
then only temporarily for two reasons, if they were going
(02:13):
to make themselves vomit so they could come back for
more food or to go have sex. And get this,
Nero would cover himself with the skins of wild animals
and have some of the men and women tied to
posts so that he could ravage them pretending to be
a wild beast. A party only ended when he said so,
(02:34):
and the doors were unlocked. How do you send regrets
for that kind of RSVP? Then there's the Ball of
the Burning Men in Paris in thirteen ninety three. This
is not the Burning Man festival. This is completely different,
it seems. The very young French King Charles the sixth
was known for having lots of psychotic episodes throughout his life.
(02:54):
In order to calm him down, there were a lot
of parties, but in this case it led to total pandemonium.
At this ball, six nights, including the twenty four year
old insane King Charles, dressed as wild men. Their linen
costumes were soaked in dark resin and covered in flax,
so they looked hairy and scary. The object was that
(03:17):
the rest of the guests had to take turns guessing
who was underneath the crazy disguise. Candles and torches, of course,
had been banned from the room because the resin was
highly flammable, But the King's brother, It's always adobe brother,
showed up drunk with a friend carrying a torch. One
of the dancers caught fire and the blaze quickly spread
(03:39):
to all six dancers, only the young king was saved.
A monk in attendance wrote that men were burned alive.
They're flaming genitals, dropping to the floor with blood everywhere
some party. After that, King Charles Uncles took over running France.
He was not considered capable, but he wasn't the only
out of control partier among the French. The kings and
(04:02):
queens there were famous for their ridiculously lavish parties, some
of which lasted for days or even weeks, and cost
in today's money, hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars.
Take Marie Antoinette, who of course eventually lost her head
partly due to the extravagance of the royals. She desperately
wanted some escape from the rigid life she had to
(04:24):
lead in the Palace of Versailles since marrying the future
king at the age of fourteen. Even before she met him,
everything she did was watched over by dozens of people
in the French court. There were members of the aristocracy
in her room from the moment she woke up until
the moment she went to bed, who did everything from
watching her go to the bathroom to getting her dressed
(04:46):
and undressed. Didn't that make you crazy? Well? Yeah, and
she needed an escape, so she had a little hamlet
or peasant village built about a half mile from the palace,
but still on palace grounds. She'd go there with her
closest friends and a bunch of servants and dressed like
a peasant straw hats, muslin dresses. She had about a
(05:07):
dozen cottages built there, stables and barns for animals, a
small stream, a lake, extensive gardens. Her friends would also
dress down, and they would help in the gardens and
barns and enjoy dinner, music and lots of chat when
they were done with their back to nature activities. Of course,
and then there's this crazy high end dinner party. Now
(05:30):
it's March of nineteen oh three and New York millionaire CKG.
Billings you got to love that name, decided to throw
a dinner party. He was a huge horse racing fanatic,
and he wanted to celebrate his newly completed exquisite stables,
which included two lavish entertainment suites on the upper level
at a training ring for his show horses on the lower.
(05:52):
You need a full on banquet to celebrate that right,
so why not have that banquet at your own private stable.
Nah York Times called Billings the American horse king. He'd
inherited a gas company, had had so much money to spend.
He told the press as well as his guests, that
the party would be formal and take place in the
ballroom at a restaurant that was the social hot spot,
(06:15):
Sherry's on Fifth Avenue. On that cool March night, Billings
guests arrived at Cherri's and went up to the ballroom
in their black and white evening where, of course, big surprise,
the room was decorated with fake turf plants and painted
scenery that resembled the English countryside, and guess what, no tables. Instead,
(06:36):
the guests were asked to mount live horses, which had
ridden the freight elevator up to the ballroom. The waiters
were in riding gear, and they brought oats for the horses.
The guests, again all on horseback in those tuxes, had
trays mounted on their horse's saddle, and the waiters brought
dish after dish after dish. The food included high end
(06:58):
delicacies popular at the time, including caviare and turtle soup.
Fresh trout dyed blue with vinegar, rack of lamb with
glazed vegetables, guinea hens with lettuce, heart salad, and asparagus
with hollandaise sauce. For dessert, plumbayed peaches and ice cream,
all that while sitting in an unexpected saddle. Great Now
(07:21):
to wash it all down, there was plenty of Scotch wine,
including crude champagne and bottled ginger ale for Billings, who
never drank on horseback. Apparently, when dinner was over, the
guests dismounted to watch a variety show, probably very relieved,
while the horses took the freight elevator back down. I'm
sure they were relieved too. As a parting gift, each
(07:43):
guest got a sterling silver horseshoe inscribed with the menu
for the evening. And yes, there are photographs of CKG.
Billings dinner on horseback on the internet if you want
to take a peek. What's interesting is, as technology has advanced,
less and less of what we do to entertain ourselves
centers around in person socializing, even with less lavish events
(08:07):
where we could share good times with family, friends and
even strangers. Although I think I'd have to take a
pass on flaming genitals and maybe even the eight course
meal on horseback. Hope you're enjoying The Backstory with Patty Steele.
Follow or subscribe for free to get new episodes delivered automatically,
(08:30):
and feel free to dm me if you have a
story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty
Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele.
The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis
Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser.
(08:50):
Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday
and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with
comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty
Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening
to the back Story with Patty Steele. The pieces of
history you didn't know you needed to know.
Hey, we all like to party, and we all like
to see how other people party, right, especially celebrities and
other big shots. But how about a royal party where
you eat until you're stuffed and then you're forced to
vomit so you can eat some more, or being carried
to the countryside with a queen mikes you do farm work.
Then there's the New York City dinner party where formally
(00:21):
dressed guests had to climb on horseback to eat their meal.
I'm Patty Steele. Spending a fortune to entertain yourself at
your guest's expense. Next on the backstory. The backstory is back.
Don't you like to peek into other people's lives and
see how they spend their time, especially when it comes
(00:44):
to celebrities and other folks with money to blow. It's
pretty clear that money makes entertainment showier. But for thousands
of years, free time was mostly all about physical or
artistic activities, as well as the occasional crazy feast. Head
back ten thousand years to Mesopotamia, where they invented the
(01:05):
wheel in their spare time, by the way, and it
seems they also spent free time doing things like hunting, boxing, wrestling,
and gardening, and they created art, lots of music, and
even played board games. Yeah, ten thousand year old board games.
All of those things were also popular in civilizations around
the world, Greek, Roman, Mayan, Asian, and throughout European cultures,
(01:28):
but a whole lot of people with more money and
power than necessary liked to show it off by coming
up with something even more outrageous than foot races or
mile in recitals. Now, this guy was infamous for his
insane parties. The Roman emperor Nero held feasts in his
rotating dining room. No really, the round room fifty feet across,
(01:53):
rested on a huge pillar and four spheres that rotated
the room using flowing water. What went on above was
even wilder. Nero would stuff his guests with elaborate, gluttonous feasts,
but the lucky partiers were only allowed to leave, and
then only temporarily for two reasons, if they were going
(02:13):
to make themselves vomit so they could come back for
more food or to go have sex. And get this,
Nero would cover himself with the skins of wild animals
and have some of the men and women tied to
posts so that he could ravage them pretending to be
a wild beast. A party only ended when he said so,
(02:34):
and the doors were unlocked. How do you send regrets
for that kind of RSVP? Then there's the Ball of
the Burning Men in Paris in thirteen ninety three. This
is not the Burning Man festival. This is completely different,
it seems. The very young French King Charles the sixth
was known for having lots of psychotic episodes throughout his life.
(02:54):
In order to calm him down, there were a lot
of parties, but in this case it led to total pandemonium.
At this ball, six nights, including the twenty four year
old insane King Charles, dressed as wild men. Their linen
costumes were soaked in dark resin and covered in flax,
so they looked hairy and scary. The object was that
(03:17):
the rest of the guests had to take turns guessing
who was underneath the crazy disguise. Candles and torches, of course,
had been banned from the room because the resin was
highly flammable, But the King's brother, It's always adobe brother,
showed up drunk with a friend carrying a torch. One
of the dancers caught fire and the blaze quickly spread
(03:39):
to all six dancers, only the young king was saved.
A monk in attendance wrote that men were burned alive.
They're flaming genitals, dropping to the floor with blood everywhere
some party. After that, King Charles Uncles took over running France.
He was not considered capable, but he wasn't the only
out of control partier among the French. The kings and
(04:02):
queens there were famous for their ridiculously lavish parties, some
of which lasted for days or even weeks, and cost
in today's money, hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars.
Take Marie Antoinette, who of course eventually lost her head
partly due to the extravagance of the royals. She desperately
wanted some escape from the rigid life she had to
(04:24):
lead in the Palace of Versailles since marrying the future
king at the age of fourteen. Even before she met him,
everything she did was watched over by dozens of people
in the French court. There were members of the aristocracy
in her room from the moment she woke up until
the moment she went to bed, who did everything from
watching her go to the bathroom to getting her dressed
(04:46):
and undressed. Didn't that make you crazy? Well? Yeah, and
she needed an escape, so she had a little hamlet
or peasant village built about a half mile from the palace,
but still on palace grounds. She'd go there with her
closest friends and a bunch of servants and dressed like
a peasant straw hats, muslin dresses. She had about a
(05:07):
dozen cottages built there, stables and barns for animals, a
small stream, a lake, extensive gardens. Her friends would also
dress down, and they would help in the gardens and
barns and enjoy dinner, music and lots of chat when
they were done with their back to nature activities. Of course,
and then there's this crazy high end dinner party. Now
(05:30):
it's March of nineteen oh three and New York millionaire CKG.
Billings you got to love that name, decided to throw
a dinner party. He was a huge horse racing fanatic,
and he wanted to celebrate his newly completed exquisite stables,
which included two lavish entertainment suites on the upper level
at a training ring for his show horses on the lower.
(05:52):
You need a full on banquet to celebrate that right,
so why not have that banquet at your own private stable.
Nah York Times called Billings the American horse king. He'd
inherited a gas company, had had so much money to spend.
He told the press as well as his guests, that
the party would be formal and take place in the
ballroom at a restaurant that was the social hot spot,
(06:15):
Sherry's on Fifth Avenue. On that cool March night, Billings
guests arrived at Cherri's and went up to the ballroom
in their black and white evening where, of course, big surprise,
the room was decorated with fake turf plants and painted
scenery that resembled the English countryside, and guess what, no tables. Instead,
(06:36):
the guests were asked to mount live horses, which had
ridden the freight elevator up to the ballroom. The waiters
were in riding gear, and they brought oats for the horses.
The guests, again all on horseback in those tuxes, had
trays mounted on their horse's saddle, and the waiters brought
dish after dish after dish. The food included high end
(06:58):
delicacies popular at the time, including caviare and turtle soup.
Fresh trout dyed blue with vinegar, rack of lamb with
glazed vegetables, guinea hens with lettuce, heart salad, and asparagus
with hollandaise sauce. For dessert, plumbayed peaches and ice cream,
all that while sitting in an unexpected saddle. Great Now
(07:21):
to wash it all down, there was plenty of Scotch wine,
including crude champagne and bottled ginger ale for Billings, who
never drank on horseback. Apparently, when dinner was over, the
guests dismounted to watch a variety show, probably very relieved,
while the horses took the freight elevator back down. I'm
sure they were relieved too. As a parting gift, each
(07:43):
guest got a sterling silver horseshoe inscribed with the menu
for the evening. And yes, there are photographs of CKG.
Billings dinner on horseback on the internet if you want
to take a peek. What's interesting is, as technology has advanced,
less and less of what we do to entertain ourselves
centers around in person socializing, even with less lavish events
(08:07):
where we could share good times with family, friends and
even strangers. Although I think I'd have to take a
pass on flaming genitals and maybe even the eight course
meal on horseback. Hope you're enjoying The Backstory with Patty Steele.
Follow or subscribe for free to get new episodes delivered automatically,
(08:30):
and feel free to dm me if you have a
story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty
Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele.
The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis
Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser.
(08:50):
Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday
and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with
comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty
Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening
to the back Story with Patty Steele. The pieces of
history you didn't know you needed to know.
Popular Podcasts
1. 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.
2. Stuff You Missed in History Class
Join Holly and Tracy as they bring you the greatest and strangest Stuff You Missed In History Class in this podcast by iHeartRadio.
3. Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.