A Gap in the Timeline: A Medieval Vanishing Act in the Phantom Time Hypothesis

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Ever wondered if you've been singing the wrong lyrics your whole life? You’re not alone! Join Don, Doug, and Ron as we laugh at our younger selves, recalling those hilarious moments of confidently singing incorrect lyrics. From Ron thinking an auto mall jingle said “keys on thin ice” to Doug’s entertaining mumbling to Puddle of Mudd's "Blurry," this episode is a celebration of those amusing musical missteps. It’s all about the joy of reliving those cringe-worthy yet endearing memories.

Next, we take a reflective turn as we explore how our minds can sometimes deceive us. Have you ever misremembered a passage from a beloved childhood book or confused the Pledge of Allegiance as a kindergartener? We certainly have, and these personal anecdotes highlight the unreliable nature of memory. From the Y2K bug to historical misconceptions, we question how we validate the information we think we know. It’s a fascinating look at how perception shapes our understanding of time and events.

Finally, hold onto your hats as we dive into a theory that could shake the foundations of history: What if the 6th to 9th centuries never existed? We examine architectural anomalies and the possibility that Charlemagne and his grand achievements were mere fabrications. Explore the mysterious dome of Aachen Cathedral and the evolution of dating systems, from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. This episode is a thought-provoking journey through the mysteries and quirks of our past, inviting you to question everything you thought you knew about history.

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Episode Transcript

Don (00:26):
Hello, Hello everybody.
Welcome back to The Uncannery.
I'm Don.

Doug (00:32):
I'm Doug

Ron (00:32):
and I'm Ron.

Don (00:34):
And we're here on a beautiful day.

Ron (00:36):
It's a beautiful day.
It's a beautiful day to beinside, it's beautiful to be
talking amongst friends.

Doug (00:41):
Can I push for outdoors at least one time, though?
I know that we're gonna getsome bird sounds, maybe a little
bit of wind, but it mightchange the atmosphere completely
.

Ron (00:50):
It could it could take us out of our doldrums.
Is that what you're saying?

Doug (00:53):
no, I don't even think we're in the doldrums, it's just
like keep it wild, let'sthey're outside now I'm
perpetually in the doldrums.

Ron (01:00):
I don't know if it comes through in my voice.
Just Just want everyone to know.

Don (01:02):
We should do it when it's storming, though.
That way it's, you know,creative atmospherics behind us.

Ron (01:08):
Yeah, yeah, the pathetic fallacy.
It's that way that the theweather mirrors our content.
There you go, yeah, perfect.

Doug (01:17):
Sounds good.

Ron (01:18):
It's time to move outside.
Give us a second folks we got.
Give us a second folks We'vegot to set this up so well.

Don (01:24):
I'm glad you guys are here.
I would like to talk todayabout a topic that I think is
really super interesting.
But before we get to my topic,I have a question I've been
wondering about.
I was thinking recently,actually I was having a little
nostalgia moment back to myteenage years and singing music
in the car with my friends, andI was wondering you guys ever,

(01:45):
uh, have any songs you used tosing out loud, you know the
lyrics, and you're just beltingthem out so confident and then
somebody tells you that you'resinging the lyrics wrong all the
time, all the time.

Ron (01:57):
No, that's not true, I'm just yes anding here no, but
yeah, of course.
So the first one that comes tomy mind isn't like a song that
would be sung, I guess I mean, Idid used to sing it because I
have a brain that really trapsad jingles.
Oh yeah, I remember too many adjingles.

Doug (02:19):
I mean, all of our brains are wired for that.
That's the reason that thepeople who make jingles make the
big bucks yeah, it's soridiculous.

Ron (02:27):
But yeah, they do yeah, and so the one that I always
remember hearing in the car as akid was a like an auto mall, uh
, ad, uh for keys.
Uh, in van nyes, which is acity in Southern California, and
the jingle went keys, keys,keys, keys on Van Nuys, keys,

(02:49):
keys, keys, keys on Van Nuysyeah, and we'll keep going.
But I always thought it waskeys on thin ice, and I would
like sing this among my friendsbecause we would just be, like
you know, bored and just makingnoises at each other.

Doug (03:03):
Keys keys, keys, keys on Van Nuys, keys, other keys, keys
, keys, keys on that ice it'slike a lost beach boys track.

Ron (03:12):
It is like it's very good, barbara ann.
Yeah, yeah, you're right.
Literally it's not lost, it'sstolen.
Yeah, it's stolen.
And the?

Doug (03:21):
beach boys stole from, it's gonna beless.

Ron (03:24):
But the idea in my head was like oh, these keys, you got to
get them.
They're so hot, they're burningthrough the ice.

Doug (03:31):
They're built in the ice.

Ron (03:33):
So you better get your keys while you can, because we're
not going to have any cars insix months.

Don (03:36):
For sure, and that makes total sense, because ice in Van
Nuys is not going to last verylong?

Doug (03:41):
No, not at all not going to last very long at all, at all
.
The most concrete city everpoured.
I took it so differently thatthe keys are in trouble, like
you're on thin ice young manyeah what keys on van eyes are.
Did they specialize in acertain automotive brand?

Ron (03:57):
I don't know uh, kias, yeah , let's say that yeah kias on
van eyes, now Nuys.

Doug (04:03):
Now that's going to be the new, but I just imagine it's
like all these terrible Kiasthey're the rotten ones.
They've done jail time.
You want a wild one.

Ron (04:14):
Doug, you got one.

Doug (04:16):
Yeah, I do, I'll never forget.
I want to say it was eithersixth or seventh grade when
puddle of mud came out.
Do I even know the name of thesong?
Puddle?

Don (04:28):
of mud.

Doug (04:28):
Puddle of mud.

Don (04:29):
Yeah, that's a deep cut yeah.

Doug (04:32):
There you're looking at, um, like post grunge, I think
it's like so you've got theclassic wars doing this thing,
yeah, like it's a lot of that.
But the famous chorus uh sayscan you take it all away?
Can you take it all away andshove it in my face?
But then there's a part afterthat that I don't even know what

(04:54):
the words are.
I just phonetically kind of saysomething that's close to it
and I've never even bothered tolook it up, so I always get get
to that part.
It's like it's over near my face, it's buying and I'm ready Like
kind of sounds like Spider-Man,Kind of sounds like Spine.

Ron (05:12):
Spider-Man is me.

Don (05:17):
What are you even saying when you sing?
That?
You're just making noises.

Doug (05:19):
Yeah, it's just phonetics, Like I'm just thinking of the
vowel sounds opening and closingin a certain way close to what
his mouth is doing.

Don (05:28):
that's it so the lyric is this pain you gave to me oh, I
was gonna say explain again tome, I.

Ron (05:51):
I think that's closer explain again to me.

Doug (05:54):
This pain you gave to me is so dumb.

Ron (05:56):
Give me a break but that's very, it always very keeping
with the genre.
Yeah, like, yeah, that was thattime it's always gonna be to me
.

Doug (06:12):
No, even they're more clear, I think, than that.
But yeah, the the uh mumblemouth is quintessential to that.
So that wasn't.
I wasn't even corrected, Ithink.
Like anytime I've seen thatwith other people, we always
just break in the laughter atthat part because nobody knows
what he's saying right there,except now I do, but now you do
and you're still refusing toaccept the uh the truth, of

(06:34):
course, gonna hang on to allright, yeah it's way better.

Don (06:36):
This way it's your.

Doug (06:36):
Uh, it's your prerogative, I guess I think like if I was
at a puddle of mud concert andhe was like anybody want to come
sing with me?
I think I could literally belike looking at him and do the
same thing and he'd be like he'sgot it, yeah, it's always been
about the energy man.

Don (06:55):
Words are a construct that's right, very puddle of mud
point of view, yeah so mine, I,I, I knew all along it wasn't
the right lyric, but I wasn'tever able to hear what the right
lyric was and I didn't careenough to do any research on it.
But it was man for Man's EarthBand.

Doug (07:14):
Oh, I know.

Don (07:15):
Blinded by the Light.
Wrapped up like a douche.

Ron (07:19):
Yeah, yeah, Blinded by the light.

Doug (07:31):
They're for sure saying douche yeah.

Don (07:33):
Yeah, it totally is.

Doug (07:34):
So the lyric is actually Feminine hygiene products.

Don (07:38):
Revved up like a douche.
Another runner in the nightyeah, but this is actually a
cover.
Did you know man for man Wasactually covering?

Doug (07:45):
Yes, bruce Springsteen and Bruce.
Actually I think you can hearhim a little bit.
Yeah, bruce makes sense.

Don (07:52):
It's a different lyric.
Bruce doesn't sing the samelyric.

Ron (07:56):
Really I thought he said deuce.

Don (07:58):
No, he, I know it's not that, it says caboose.

Ron (08:05):
Ripped up like a caboose at the end of the tree Made me at
the lake Mary caboose in a boost.

Don (08:13):
Cut loose like a deuce.

Ron (08:15):
Oh, he does say deuce, but he still says deuce, but I think
when he says deuce.

Doug (08:19):
I don't know, Do we have that one cued?

Don (08:23):
I don't, that's all right.
That's all right.

Doug (08:25):
That's all right.

Don (08:26):
So here's, bruce.

Doug (08:28):
Yeah, yeah, beautiful.

Don (08:38):
His is a lot clearer that it's not a douche.

Ron (08:41):
I think even Bruce.
I read that Bruce has commentedon the cover and been like, yes
, they say douche and he's likepissed you know when they're
sitting on there, and they didthat cover.

Doug (08:51):
It didn't come out the way that we wanted it to.

Don (08:54):
Thanks, Bruce.

Ron (08:55):
I don't do drugs.
I don't.
I've been clean, I'm a good man.

Doug (09:00):
This is my friend, obama Do you hear Bruce's rhythm
section on that.
Oh, I know, so good, so good.

Ron (09:11):
Any others, enter Sandman I always heard I'm still light
Like it's like a hockey game.
Yeah, yeah, which is a coolerlyric?

(09:33):
It makes sense?
I don't know if there was an adthat did do that like a beer ad
.
That changed the lyric, but Ijust always heard Amstel Light
and no one I knew ever drankAmstel Light.
I don't even know why it was inmy brain, yeah.

Doug (09:51):
That is strange.

Don (09:51):
Yeah, Doug any others.

Doug (09:55):
I'm not off the top of my head.
I want to say that there wassomething Beatles related at a
certain point, but it's notcoming to me right now.

Don (10:04):
There's one running around right now, but it's not coming
to me right now.
There's one uh running aroundright now because it's uh, it's
taylor swift um, it's a seasonof swift.
It is um from uh blank spacewhich is yes, right, the classic
starbucks got a long liststarbucks lovers yeah, which I

(10:25):
think is cooler.

Ron (10:27):
Yeah, to me that sounds more like contemporary or like
like kind of fun.
Yeah, yeah, because, like you,you write a person's name on a
starbucks cup and then what doyou do?
You drink it, you love it, thenyou chuck it, you toss it.
I think it's a beautiful yeah,taylor, swiftian metaphor.
So she's like we?

Doug (10:46):
yeah, there's got to be some like underling uh
songwriter right now that shouldwrite a song called starbucks
lovers.
Yeah, it would be a hit.

Ron (10:54):
We could check spotify this guy 20 of them yeah phoebe
bridgers, if you hear this,please write.

Doug (11:00):
Starbucks lovers like you you are the candidate that would
just make this really special.

Don (11:05):
Any Adele fans Sure Got a great voice.
Yeah, yeah.
So apparently in this song shelikes to shave penguins.
Let's see.
Yeah, I've made up my mind,don't need.

Ron (11:20):
Should I give up, or should I just keep chasing pavements?

Don (11:26):
Yes.

Ron (11:27):
Yeah, I hear that, totally yeah.

Doug (11:30):
Chasing pavement.
Yeah, it's a really strangephrase to me, chasing pavements,
plural Penguins can be shaved,pavements can't be chased.

Ron (11:41):
Yeah, see, it's a logic problem right, it's for sure All
right how about one more, andit's a logic problem.

Don (11:44):
Right, it's for sure.
Um, all right, how about, uh,one more, and this one's a deep
cut, it's so it uh.
Remember the bangles.

Doug (11:52):
Oh yeah.

Ron (11:53):
Yeah, um the.
I mean no, I'm too young, butyes, no Did I wear it out?

Doug (11:59):
Have I watched Mo Rocca talk about the bangles on VH1
classic?

Don (12:08):
Yeah, all right.
So this is the lyric that ismisheard and it's.
Doesn't it matter that I haveto feed the buffalo Parmesan.
Ready, okay, ready, all rightready okay.

Doug (12:37):
I have no idea what's going on there.
The parmesan is really astretch it is, well it's.

Don (12:42):
It would be like a fancy British person saying parmesan,
yeah, yeah, um.
Do you know?
There's a name for this uhphenomenon a mishearing, uh
lyric no so all right time tolearn a lit term.

Ron (12:58):
Yes, please all right, I've got my notebook good.

Don (13:00):
this is called a mondegreen M-O-N-D-E-G-R-E-E-N.
It was coined in 1954 by anAmerican writer named Sylvia
Wright, who was writing anautobiographical story about her
childhood.
A book of poems that her motherused to read to her when she

(13:23):
would go to sleep called theReliques of Ancient English
Poetry, which included theBonnie Earl Amore, a poem by
Thomas Percy, and had the lineoh ye highlands and ye lowlands,
oh, where have you been?
They hath slain the Earl Amoreand Lady Mondegreen, is what she
would heard.
So apparently in this story shethought they killed the Earl

(13:44):
and they killed this lady andtwo deaths and go to bed Like I
don't know why you'd read thatto your kid.

Doug (13:50):
Yeah.

Don (13:51):
But uh, apparently, as an adult, she actually looked at
the book again and that's notwhat it says.
Um, they had slain the Earl ofMurray and laid him on the green
, like they put him down on thelawn.

Doug (14:03):
Lady Mondegreen lives on.

Don (14:04):
That's right.
So the word Mondegreen isactually a Mondegreen, so that's
a little Mondexception going onwith the term.

Doug (14:14):
But you just created Mondception.

Don (14:16):
That's right.

Doug (14:17):
A lot of things happening on the Uncannery folks.
You heard it first here.
You heard it first here.

Ron (14:22):
Did she ever talk about which one she preferred?
Because I feel like if you growup with one narrative you're
going to, it'll always be thatfor you, right?

Don (14:30):
Well, I wonder if, looking at the rest of the poem like how
does it make sense that there'stwo people dead of the poems
about this one?

Doug (14:37):
guy right.

Don (14:38):
Like there had to be a logic problem that her childhood
brain wasn't paying attentionto as she was going to sleep.

Ron (14:43):
If there's a lord, there's got to be a lady, right?

Don (14:45):
Right, well, that's true, but they wouldn't have different
names.
They wouldn't be Lord Murray.

Ron (14:53):
A side lady Side lady Mondagrain Mondapurple.

Don (15:01):
Sorry, it's getting real dumb out here.
Did you all have the experienceof when you learned that
metallica wasn't singing aboutamstel light or?
Uh, like I know, you don't careabout puddle of mud, apparently
but um, I had the correctversion, so like was it was it
ever?
Was it shocking that you hadlearned a different?
I actually have that shockexperience with a different, a

(15:22):
different mondegreen.
But what about, like?
Was it surprising that the guywasn't selling keys, I think in
like the cases of mine.

Ron (15:30):
They were always sort of nonsensical, so for me it was a
relief, like oh, okay, thatprobably makes sense like I
wasn't that tied to what thekeys guys wanted me to know.
Um, trying to, I feel like Ihave.
I don't know if they areattached to songs, but I do have
memories that uh like, oh, Iremembered it this way and I
thought it was way cooler thisway, I think.

(15:51):
Um, I remember my mom readingtrumpet of the swan to me and eb
white, if I'm correctlyremembering that like kids book
about a swan that learns how toplay a trumpet and there was
like a passage in there that Ialways remembered thinking was
really cool and it was somethingabout like the dad swan was
talking to the swan and he waslike you gotta be careful not to

(16:15):
like dive.
Go back to diving.
Don't dive into the lake and beunder there too long, because
it'll be nice and calm andpeaceful and you will be like
lured by the comfort of howquiet and peaceful it is under
the lake and then you're gonnadrown and die.
Uh, and this was like sagegoose advice and I remember
that's like the only part ofthat book I remembered as a kid,

(16:37):
thinking like wow, that's cool.
And I went back to it, likewhen I was in college, to see if
I could find that to use it insomething.
And I think it was a little bitdifferent than how I remembered
it, like wasn't quite thatmetal or something, and I was
kind of disappointed but ormaybe it is I don't know,
someone tweet us about EB whitequotes.

Doug (16:56):
Well, don you you kind of passed over Polo mud very
quickly but my reaction.

Ron (17:03):
music critics of the 1990 mud very quickly Um, but my
reaction it was early.

Doug (17:07):
Two thousands, brother.
Um the.
You notice, my reaction wasanger immediately.
Because it's like it.
It almost feels ridiculoushearing the in quotes.
Real thing Actually there is noquotes on that, but it really
is.
See, I'm having trouble lettinggo, even through the words that

(17:27):
I'm choosing right now.
You can see, yeah, I thinkthere's a certain amount of
attachment.
It feels like the rug's beenpulled out from under you a bit
At least that's my experience.

Don (17:36):
So mine was learning the Pledge of Allegiance in
kindergarten.
Oh yeah, we pledge allegianceto the flag.
One nation under God, invisible.

Doug (17:46):
Right right.

Don (17:48):
Was definitely what I heard and believed as a kindergartner
, and it makes total sense,because who can see God?

Ron (17:53):
Yes, yes, right, and also the country.
Very much is divisible.

Don (18:00):
Famously has divided Famously has divided.
My kindergarten vocabularydidn't include the word
indivisible, and so Ispecifically remember when I had
friends who had a differentopinion about how it went, and
fighting them that no, it'sabout invisible.
God, it's not like.
What is this word that you'resaying?

(18:21):
And then I saw it on the walland it wasn't invisible and I
thought they spelled it wrong.

Ron (18:28):
And I was like Don, why aren't you saying the Pledge of
Allegiance anymore?

Don (18:32):
I've been hurt.
That's right, because God isnot invisible.

Doug (18:35):
I love the idea that that would be part of the declaration
, like in case people didn'tknow One nation under God, you
can't see him.

Don (18:45):
He's omn See ya For sure.

Doug (18:47):
Absolutely Proud.

Don (18:50):
All right.
Well, how about if we uh, wechange gears for a second?
Let me ask you a differentquestion Um, what year is?

Ron (18:56):
it Easy.
I love it when we start easy.
Yeah, don, it is the year 2024.

Doug (19:05):
It's weird Sometimes when Don stares at me for too long I
go.
He wants me to say somethingelse but I'm going to also
confidently say 2024.

Ron (19:12):
Here we got him.
This time, Doug, we got him onthe ropes.
It's 2024, Don All right?
Follow-up question.

Don (19:18):
How do you know?

Doug (19:23):
See, this is what I was worried about.

Ron (19:24):
Don, because intelligent people.
You walked right into my trap.
Intelligent people have figuredthis out for me and they've
relayed this information to me,Don.
Well, I have no reason not totrust them.
So just because somebody elsetold you, you believe it.
Yeah, that's how I know how acombustion engine works, right?

Don (19:45):
So you always believe everything people tell you.

Ron (19:47):
Of course, if they pass a certain set of criteria that I
have decided.

Doug (19:57):
What are your qualifications for?
Yes, it's this year.

Ron (20:00):
This person is underpaid.
Oh, these are my qualificationsfor an expert.
They're underpaid.
They uh have been repeated.
The things they say have beenrepeated by more than 20 other
people and 19 you're out, yeah,yeah and um.
They're on reddit, no I don'tknow.

Doug (20:23):
I started the subreddit 2024.
Yeah, um, for me it's.
The y2k bug did not go throughas we anticipated.
Therefore the year 2000 existed.
That was like the big momentfor me.
I said, if all computers crashin the year 2000, then we know
we got it wrong.
But they kept on spinning.
So that was a big life eventfor me and I I said, yep, it

(20:44):
really is the year 2000.

Don (20:45):
So the turn of the millennia is a marker for you.

Doug (20:49):
I was waiting in anticipation with my AOL
American Online 6.0 discs that Iwas going to have to reload
With 300 free hours 300 freehours and dial-up sound ready to
go, just in case, everythingwas wiped out and I was holding
on to my $17 that I'd earnedfrom allowance, which is all the
money I had in the world, and Iwent as long as Y2K bug does

(21:10):
not hit, then it really is theyear 2000.
As we know, it didn't.
We kept going, the computerskept running, so it had to be
the year 2000.

Ron (21:16):
As long as Y2K doesn't wipe out these $17 in my pocket.

Doug (21:20):
Yeah, I'll pocket.

Don (21:27):
yeah, yeah, I'll be good, I'm ready for them.
Out of there.
They vanished in the thin air.
What does it mean to either ofyou that it's the year 2024?
Like last year was 2023, nowit's 2024.
I'm assuming next year we'llcall it 2025 good assumption so
what, uh, what does that numbermean to you?

Ron (21:41):
it means we're in the future, at any point, uh,
cybernetic humans can occur.
Um.
What do you mean?
What does it mean to me?

Don (21:51):
like so so well, if we're counting sequentially, right.
So next year's going to be 2025.
What are we counting from like?
Why?
Oh sure why are we at 2024 andnot at just like 1000 would be a
much rounder number.

Doug (22:04):
Anno Domini, I believe, is the expression that we use.

Ron (22:08):
The new one is what Common Era we use, Common Era now.

Doug (22:11):
But it's the same date right.

Ron (22:13):
0 AD or 1 AD is the same as 1 CE.

Don (22:18):
Correct?
Yeah, but what is the one?
Why are we counting from thereand why not the year before?

Ron (22:24):
Oh, it's the death of Jesus Christ.
Right Is the traditionalCatholic.

Doug (22:28):
That's the year Jesus dies in oh, he's born, oh Anno.

Ron (22:32):
Domini would be year of our Lord.
Anno Domini.
I thought Domini was death fora second.

Don (22:38):
Some people think that the AD means after death.

Ron (22:40):
Oh yeah, that's what I was always told.

Don (22:42):
Yeah, it's a common, it's a common thing, but it's Latin
and it is uh, as, as I don'tknow, the demon in Doug is
telling us um, it's uh.
It means year of our Lord inLatin Um, and uh, and so we are

(23:03):
counting from one.
But what?
What happened in year one?
We already said it.
What was jesus?

Ron (23:07):
born, jesus born, yeah so um and this is julian calendar.
Am I right um?

Don (23:15):
at the time it was invented ?
Yes, it was the julian calendar.
We're not using the juliancalendar now?

Ron (23:20):
we're not, we are not.
Oh, the gregorian.
We, we are the Gregorian.
Are we in Russia.

Don (23:26):
Funny story about Russia and the Julian calendar coming,
so hang on to your hat Spoilers.
Yeah, so, yeah, so we'reostensibly counting from the
birth of Jesus, which wasbelieved to have occurred in 1
AD.
It's no longer believed to haveoccurred in 1 AD.
It's no longer believed to haveoccurred in 1 AD.
We think there was a mistake.

(23:46):
But setting that aside for asecond, what if I told you that
it's not 2024?
.

Doug (23:55):
I'd be ready for the follow-up immediately.

Ron (23:57):
I might be primed to believe that Really.

Don (24:01):
Because I'm not well-known, underpaid and 20 people will
repeat what I have said.

Ron (24:06):
Yes, you make too much money.

Doug (24:08):
You got too much cheddar yeah.

Don (24:12):
So what if I told you it was actually 1727?

Ron (24:15):
1727, that's going to be harder to swallow.

Doug (24:18):
Yeah, we're missing a lot of years in there.

Ron (24:20):
Yeah, I don't see like tricorn hats on Main Street.

Don (24:25):
No, not wearing your powdered wig, yeah.

Doug (24:28):
Going back in time.

Ron (24:31):
Is that the dinosaur ride?

Doug (24:35):
Only if you grew up in Southern California in a very
specific era, when there was aride at Knott's Berry Farm in
Buena Park, are you going toknow that reference.
So I apologize to all of ourother listeners.

Don (24:46):
So, ron, to go back to your criteria, what if I told you
there was an expert that saidit's 1727?

Ron (24:52):
Certain experts.
Uh, I'm very my hackles getraised because everyone's an
expert now.
Don Um, but I would hear himout, cause I got nothing else to
do.

Don (25:04):
Let me tell you what he said.
His name is Herbert Illig.
He's a German historian andpublisher.
No-transcript we should bewearing uh powdered wigs, but

(25:35):
he's saying it is 1700 if wecount continuously from the
proposed birth of of uh jesusthis would would support Doug's
claim about why 2K didn't happen.
That's right.
We've still got a couplehundred years before the
computers blow up, right $17 issafe still.

Doug (25:53):
I need to go back and find my AOL disks.

Ron (25:58):
They're future artifacts now, yeah, shoot, okay.
So why I need him to unravelthe threads here?
How did 300 years get invented?

Don (26:12):
So he's got a lot of evidence, but his primary
hypothesis is that two powerfulpeople, a guy named Pope
Sylvester II and Holy RomanEmperor Otto III, colluded to
change their dates.
They looked around he says thatthey were alive in the 6th to

(26:33):
7th century, 7th to 8th century,and they looked at each other
and said, hey, wouldn't it becool if, instead of being the
Pope and the Holy Roman Emperorhere in the 7th century, we just
changed it?
And who's going to know?

Ron (26:47):
So that we would be the Pope and the King in the first
Emperor.
Sorry, otto, we would be in thefirst millennium.
That's the idea.
That sounds cooler.
That sounds cooler.
That's it.

Don (27:03):
Just because it sounds cooler, we'd be remembered as
the powerful people in the worldin the year 1000.
Who's going to remember who wasthe pope in the year you know,
694 nobody's going to know that,but the pope in the year 1000
is this a time when, like uh,sort of christian doctrine was
that like the world would end inthe next 100 years anyway?

Ron (27:24):
is that?
Do they think they're going tobe?
Like the world would would endin the next hundred years anyway
?
Is that?
Do they think they're going tobe like the, the last Pope and
King, or something?

Don (27:31):
Possibly.
They're um, just like, justlike contemporary times.
There's a series of predictionsabout when the end of the world
would happen.
They thought it would happen inin the year 500.
Then they thought it wouldhappen in the year 600.

Doug (27:46):
And so I was going to ask you then 602.
Has there?
Ever really been a time where,like Christianity is not pushing
for end of the world, I meancause, a lot of the events are
contingent on the end is is nigh.

Ron (27:58):
Every generation must have their end, like in history,
every single generation musthave their end of the world
moment.
Have their end.
Like in history, every singlegeneration must have their end
of the world moment.
Right for us, it was the mayancalendar right, what was that?

Don (28:08):
2010, 2012, yeah, yeah, right.

Ron (28:10):
So, and for doug it was y2k , so y2k baby I want to know
what gen z's end of the?
It might just be the end of theworld.
Yeah, it already happened, manelection 2024.

Don (28:22):
I think that's right.

Ron (28:24):
Okay, so they just think it's cool.
There's got to be more illigthan they think it's cool right.

Don (28:31):
Well, that's why he thinks that they did it.

Ron (28:33):
But he's got more evidence than just you know how could how
also could a pope and anemperor conspire to change the
calendars?

Don (28:41):
well, because who's keeping track of the calendars?
Like the only reason that thecalendar mattered at that time
was to celebrate the religiousfestivals, and the Pope is the
one that gets to decide whenthose are.
So they're in charge of thecalendar and for everyday Joe
working in the fields orwhatever, it doesn't matter that
it's May 23rd, because May 23rdsucks as much as May 22nd.

Ron (29:01):
Hey, one of those is my birthday.
It's not so bad.

Don (29:06):
The sun came up, the sun went down he also looks at
things like um, architecturalevidence, um, and basically he
got two, two main points aboutarchitecture.
One of them is related to alater point, but he looks at at
the style of architecture in thesixth century we got roman
style arches.
And then you look at the styleof architecture in the 6th
century and we got Roman stylearches.
And then you look at thearchitecture in the 10th century

(29:29):
and it's the same.
There's no difference.
Like, in that 300-year periodarchitecture didn't change for
the most part.
If you look at any other300-year period, like if we go
back and look at a building thatwas built in the 1600s 300 year
period, like if we go back andlook at, um, you know, a
building that was built in the1600s, you could tell that,
apart from a building built inthe 1950s, cause, the
architectural style, theconstruction methods, the

(29:50):
construction materials, allthose things change between the
sixth and the ninth century.
That's not true.

Ron (29:55):
Right.
So okay, if we're taking atraditional view of history,
what are the things that, uh,traditional historians,
non-ilwigian historians, wouldtell us transpired during the
six hundreds and the ninehundreds?
That's like, so what?
That's Byzantine empire.
That's like, uh, that's thelike, early dark ages, or early

(30:16):
middle ages and Constantine theseventh.

Don (30:18):
uh is the Byzantine emperor , and he might be involved in
this conspiracy too.
So it might be all part of it,might be a trio rather than a
duo doing this, but what Illigsays and to bring your other
point is that basically nothinghappens.

Ron (30:34):
Right the 600s and the 900s .

Don (30:36):
There's nothing important in the world that happens, minus
one thing which we'll get to,but for the most part nothing,
and we used to call it the darkages.

Ron (30:45):
Right, right.

Don (30:46):
I was going to say the records that do exist are forged
or somehow uncredible, sobasically there's nothing.

Ron (30:56):
I thought that was always part of the narrative of the
dark ages, though right, whichis like oh.
In the power vacuum of thecollapse of the Western ages,
though right, which is like oh,when the power in the power
vacuum of the collapse of theWestern Roman Empire, you just
had, like, all these feudingwarlords and nothing really
happened because, like, it'shard to create new stuff and
probably make sick new buildingsif like there's a new warlord

(31:19):
every month, right?

Don (31:20):
Right, and what Illig says is that it doesn't.
That is true, but that is truebecause it was just an invented
time period.

Ron (31:28):
Okay, hmm, All right, what happened?
What was the one importantthing that happened?
Charlemagne oh yeah, he's cool.

Don (31:39):
Then I remembered, and I remember it.
So Charlemagne is known forhe's called the father of Europe
, right?
He unified the continent, hespread, he's the first Holy
Roman emperor, so he's theancestor, I guess, of Otto, and

(32:01):
he was supposed to have ruledfrom 7 48, or live from seven,
48 to eight, 14.
And in that time he unifiedEurope, um, founded the judicial
system, invented the jury, um,he founded the Holy Roman
emperor, he protected the Popehe like.
So what Illig says isCharlemagne is credited with so

(32:23):
many things, he has to be afiction.
One person cannot have done allthe things that he is credited
with having done in that shortperiod that he was supposedly
the ruler of the Holy RomanEmpire.

Ron (32:36):
And is this part of Otto and Pope Sly's idea of erasing
the like?
Oh he, we should.
We should change the time,because we all know charlemagne
didn't exist and we'll just plugcharlemagne in.
Did they invent charlemagne?
They?

Don (32:51):
invented charlemagne, that's.
That's what ill exists.

Ron (32:53):
Yes wow, okay, but if you're gonna, okay, I'm trying
to be, I'm trying to be an evil,conniving medieval pope.
Uh, if I want to rule in theyear 1000, because I think it
sounds cool and it raises mycachet amongst history, my
legacy, why would I invent a guywho's cooler than me?
That's a good point.

Don (33:14):
But you need something to fill in that time period, right,
rather than invent 30 guys todo cool things.

Ron (33:21):
It's easier to do one, just do one guy.

Don (33:26):
Charlemagne is credited with building an important
cathedral.
His cathedral is in a citycalled Aiken and it was built in
the year 800, basicallySometime between 790 and 800,
which would be in this phantomperiod, and 800, which would be

(33:48):
in this phantom period.
So supposedly he built thiscathedral in a in a time period
that Illig says did not exist.
And here's the here's theconundrum about this cathedral.
The cathedral in the main partof it that was built by
Charlemagne has an octagonalcupola, so it's got a octagonal
shaped hall that is severalstories tall, it's 150 feet tall
and it's 50 feet wide and it ismounted by a stone roof.

(34:12):
This building technique didn'texist in the 800s.

Ron (34:18):
Oh man, this is some alien stuff.

Don (34:21):
So there are domes that are earlier than that.
I think the Pantheon in Romeright Built by the Romans.
That was built out of concretethough, so it's.
it was liquid and they made adome over it, but this one in
Aiken is is carved stone.
It's thinnest part is 30 inchesthick, so it's it's many, many
tons of weight in a 50 foot domeacross the expanse.

(34:45):
And in history, when we haveother domes, like the dome in
Florence, the St Peter's in Rome, there are predecessor
buildings that lead up to it.
So you start with a dome that's, you know, 10 feet wide, and
then it grows and it grows andit grows.
Aitken Cathedral stands alone.
It's the only building in theninth century that has this

(35:07):
architecture.
There's no like samplebuildings before it, there's
nothing that comes after it.
It's like by itself.
And then we've got about 600years before they build another
dome.
Whoa, 600 years.

Doug (35:17):
But doesn't this just mean that Charlemagne was that great
?

Ron (35:20):
Yeah.
They're going to reinventarchitecture for the man,
because he is I get that it'sweird, but this is my problem
always with like the alienancient alien built the pyramids
thing, which is like I think itjust sort of like undercuts the
ingenuity of people, like evenancient people were smart.
And also you can do a lot when,like you command thousands of

(35:41):
slaves so it's like yeah, at theexpense of like it's hard if
they die.
Yeah, right, like so, uh, Iguess what I'm saying is like,
I'm not 100 convinced by that,because it's like every now and
then something crazy does happen, right?

Don (35:56):
but then why didn't they continue to do it afterwards?
Because maybe they were likethat was a lot of work.

Ron (35:59):
That that was not worth it, it's not that it's not that
cool, right, yeah, like maybelabor relations changed at that
point.
It's hard to muster that manypeasants to put their labor into
.
I don't know.
Ask the name of the Rose Guyer.

Doug (36:14):
What's the Umberto Eco.
Yeah, man, is that a great book.

Ron (36:21):
So I don't know, that can happen right.

Doug (36:26):
I mean like.

Ron (36:27):
Are there other cathedrals being built at this time and
they all just.
That's the problem.
This is the only one.

Don (36:32):
And it's anachronistic in its architecture.

Ron (36:37):
Okay, I'll give a point to Illig, but it's a small point.
He needs like 50 points and I'mgiving him one point 20?
How much does he make 20 people?

Doug (36:46):
make the expert 50 points, makes history 100 points,
religion yeah.

Don (36:54):
All right, let's uh, how about, if we turn the page for a
second, we'll talk about adifferent historian.
So we'll, we'll try to get some, uh, some points in this.
Uh, this theory, um, uh, thisis a Hungarian named Gyula Toth,
who looked at and separately,so he is not associated with
Illig, he didn't study withIllig, but he looked at Illig's

(37:15):
work and he said, oh my gosh,this makes total sense.
No, no, here we go, because inHungarian history there's a
series of books that arecollectively called the
Hungarian Chronicles and they'rewritten in the Middle Ages, so
learn the 12th century to the14th century, and there's three

(37:35):
of them that I know of, and theyrecount basically the history
of Hungary from its founding towhat would have been the
contemporary period.
The problem is, as a historicaldocument, there's two problems
with it.
One of them is that it includessome legendary content, so
content that is known to befictional but is being purported

(37:55):
as history.
But the bigger problem is thatthese All the erotica in it.

Ron (38:01):
Is that the other problem?
That's right.
It is not All the erotica in it.
Is that the other problem?
That's right?

Don (38:06):
It is not.
It's that the description ofknown historical events is out
of order.
In the Hungarian chroniclesthey happen to be off by about
300 years.

Ron (38:18):
Okay, that's great.
It's over Two points.
Two points, two points, so Gula.

Don (38:22):
Toth says well, thank you, illig, because now we understand
why these chronicles have thesemisdated events.
It's not that they happened inthe wrong order or anything like
that, just that they did happenin the right order and they
were recorded in Hungarian inthe right order, but in the
Western historian they addedthese 300 years.

Ron (38:48):
So Toth, this is.

Don (38:49):
Toth, isn't it Okay?

Ron (38:50):
He's.
I'm assuming this has been aperpetual problem in Hungarian
historical studies.
Is that, like I guess I don'tdo, other like Hungarian
historians vouch for thesechronicles?
Or for a long time has it beenlike, yeah, the chronicles are
cool, there's some interestingstuff there, but we don't need
to take it all seriously andit's toast, like sort of being

(39:12):
contrarian or radical in thathe's like no man.
The chronicles have always beenit.

Don (39:17):
They've been problematic because of of these issues.
Um, but in the way that youknow, we have earlier texts in
English that are similar to this, where a blending even Beowulf,
for example blends a history,actual history of Denmark with,
you know, legendary content offighting monsters and dragons,
and so it doesn't necessarilynegate either side of it, but

(39:39):
because it's blended, it makesit more complicated to unravel
one from the other.

Ron (39:44):
um, so, yeah all, right, but the 300 years does is is
pretty convenient and convenient, or just the truth that we've
pulled.

Doug (39:54):
We finally uncovered it.
That's right that's right.

Don (39:57):
Um, it both points out another, another interest,
interesting aspect of this uh,this problem, this problem with
the, the timeline and thechronology of history.
Um, we assume that, um, uh,dates have always been right.

Ron (40:13):
Yeah, of course.
Um, if you have a day, yougotta have a date but it hasn't
always been that way actually.

Don (40:21):
Um, it hasn't always been that way actually.
Do you guys know?

Ron (40:27):
when we came up with ADBC timing, if I had to guess, it
was going to be one of theseNymian councils or something,
right, nymian council, or Nicaea?
Yeah yeah, nymian is a lion,right, nymian?

Don (40:38):
is a lion, that's true.

Doug (40:40):
Yeah.

Don (40:41):
We will talk about the Council of Nicaea, but that's
not when they invented countingthe system.
No, okay, it was invented by aguy named Dionysius Exigius, who
was a monk living in the 6thcentury, so in 5, somewhere
between 525 and 532, he devisedthis system.
The reason that he did wasbecause up until then, we had

(41:04):
been counting dates fromdifferent earlier events.
So there was, the primary waywe were counting back then was
to count from the date of theconsul of Rome taking his seat.
So it'd be like the seventh yearof Caesar's reign or the eighth
year of Augustus's reign wouldbe like the seventh year of

(41:24):
Caesar's reign or the eighthyear of Augustus's reign, and by
the time the sixth centuryrolled around, they were
counting still from Diocletian,who was famously one of the
Roman emperors who persecutedChristians.
So Dionysius says why are wecounting time from this guy who
killed all of our, you know,friends?

(41:44):
It wasn't contemporary andDiocletian was several hundred
years before then, but theystill had been counting since
then.
So instead of counting fromfrom him taking the seat, uh,
Dionysius idea was hey, let'scount from another important
date.
So he picked, um, the birth ofJesus, and which would make
sense as a monk, that would beimportant to him.
So he invented the ADBC timing.

(42:07):
And so he looked at the Gospelof Matthew and decided that it
said that the date of Jesus wasthe 15th year of a certain
emperor's reign in Rome.
So he picked that date.
We think he was wrong.
Reign in Rome.
So he picked that date.

(42:27):
We think he was wrong.
So, uh, so current belief isthat Jesus was probably born
like around four BC, but wehaven't changed the dating
system.

Ron (42:32):
Is it just more trouble than it's worth at this point?

Don (42:35):
Well, cause I think the the important thing is that we have
a convention and we all areagreeing.
Right, but, uh, but theinvention comes from from
Dionysius in the sixth centuryand it has to do with his
computation of the date ofEaster.
He was actually working on atable of dates so that priests
around the world would be ableto figure out when Easter was.

(42:55):
But the problem, getting backto Toth, is that that's one
system we have for dating is thesystem that was invented in the
sixth century by this monk, butwe also have other systems the
founding of Rome.
So Roman calendar was actuallycounting two different ways.
It was counting from thefounding of Rome.
It also then would count fromthe date of Rome.

(43:21):
There's a 752 year differencebetween that date and the AC, ad
, bc, ac DC.

Doug (43:30):
AD.

Don (43:30):
BC date.
If you're looking at a Greekhistory, then they're going to
count from the first Olympicgames, so the difference from
then to the AD BC would be 775years.
There are some texts that datethings from the death of
Alexander the great, so that'dbe 323 years difference.
Um, there's then the Juliancalendar, and this is the one

(43:54):
that you guys brought up before.
Um, what do you know about theJulian calendar Anything?

Doug (43:58):
I was actually just going to say Ron brought it up.
I've never referred to acalendar as the Julian calendar
and I would love the background.

Ron (44:05):
Oh, this is where they change.
I'm an idiot, but I think thisis where they change the names
of months right when we get theJuly and all that.

Don (44:15):
July is named after Julius Caesar.
They do that after.
So, if you guys remember ourcalendar episode a couple weeks
ago.
So Rome had a 10-month calendarand that's why the months at
the end of the year are allmisnumbered.
So November should be the ninthmonth, october should be the

(44:37):
eighth month.
Based on the prefixes, decembershould be the 10th month.
So there was a 10-monthcalendar and then there would
just be winter after it.
So after december was over, wejust didn't count until the
spring equinox came.
So we counted on the experts totell us when the spring equinox
would happen and that would bethe start of the new year.
So there just was this deadperiod where nothing wasn't

(44:59):
happening, nothing was growing,it just was winter.

Doug (45:01):
We didn't count, um, we were just waiting for the spring
equinox it's amazing that ifyou don't put time attached
something I mean like thatinstantly, I just went how much
more bleak is winter?

Don (45:11):
yeah like time has stopped.
It's not even worth evaluatingwhatever is happening in these
events they figured that out too, though, and so they invented
the months of january andfebruary really early, so that
was like 700 years before JuliusCaesar.
But Caesar does do an importantthing with the calendar, and
this happens in 46 BC, which iscalled the year of confusion.

(45:32):
46 BC, it was actually 445 dayslong.
Oh cool, because Caesar was he?
He not by himself, he hadn'thelped, but he was trying to
standardize the calendar so thatthe calendar would get back in
sync with the seasons.
So their calendar had begun todrift.

(45:53):
The spring equinox is nothappening when it was supposed
to, and that, of course, isimportant for things like
harvesting and planting, and soit was important that the
calendar match what was actuallyhappening on the planet, and up
until up until then, there wereum people who were in charge of
, uh, of deciding when thespring equinox would happen, and
in Rome they started to kind ofabuse that power, so if they

(46:16):
didn't like who was in charge,they would end the year and say
the spring equinox is now, eventhough it was nowhere near.
This is like a precursor toPuxatani Pete.

Ron (46:24):
Is it like Exactly?

Don (46:27):
We have turned over our tyranny to a muskrat Puxatawney.

Doug (46:33):
Phil so.

Don (46:35):
Caesar standardized the number of days in the month.
So the current layout of daysin the month comes from Julius
Caesar's revisions in 40.
So he did them in 46 AD, butthey took place in 45 AD the
January 1st.
He also invented this idea thatwe're going to have 365 days

(46:56):
per year, except.

Ron (46:59):
On a leap year.

Don (47:00):
On a leap year.
He invented the leap year, yeah.
So in the Julian calendar aleap year happens every four
years.
So every year that's divisibleby the number four is a leap
year.
Ad, bc timing.
So what Toth?
So all that has to do with Tothsaying let's look at some of
these events in history and,oddly enough, some things seem

(47:30):
to happen more than once.
Or you know, the same city willbe invaded more than once and
the number of years apart isabout 44 years.
So he's saying I wonder ifevery 44 years decides, hey,
let's go invade Rome again, orif, in the process of that
history being recorded andcopied and recorded and copied

(47:51):
by humans over time, that it'sthe same battle, the same event
just being recorded?

Doug (47:56):
twice Duplicated because of how something wow, yeah.

Don (47:59):
So one example that Toth brings up is Attila the Hun.
Are you familiar with Attilathe Hun?

Ron (48:03):
Yeah, I've played his video games.

Don (48:06):
Nice.
So the Hun part of Attila theHun is actually the root of
Hungarian, so he comes from thepart of the world that we call
Hungary today and famously was acaptive in Rome and then
invaded the city and overthrewas part of a sack of Rome.
But here's a strange thingPrior to Attila the Hun, who did

(48:28):
most of his things in the 400s,440s, in 410, there was a Goth,
also from the east side ofEurope, who invaded Rome and he
sacked Rome in 410.
44 years later, in 452, attilathe Hun sacks Rome Um sounds
familiar right.
There's a battle in Gaul in 406led by Alaric the Goth in 450.

(48:53):
There's a battle in Gaul led byAttila the Hun.
Uh, after everything is done,um Alaric dies in 410.
44 years later, attila the Hundies in 453.
So he's looking at theseparallel events saying I wonder
if this is the same guy.
Attila the Hun and a Larik theGoth are not two different
people who did the exact samethings 44 years apart?

(49:15):
But rather is one story that,over hundreds of years being
copied, it got out of syncbecause a scribe was looking at
it thinking it was the juliandate and another scribe was
looking at it thinking that itwas the adbc date but his name
is alaric.

Ron (49:33):
His name is alaric the god, yeah and which starts with an,
a does start with, names arealways getting kind of
permutated in these sorts ofrecords, though, right, like
that's not an actual argument,right, it's hard to know, like
what was a person's actual name.
Frequently it's just what wasthe popular or even like
vernacular version of their namebased on the region right.

(49:55):
Right, that is interesting.
That's pretty cool.
Three points, illig Three, sowe're up to four?

Don (50:01):
Well, because you had one point before.

Ron (50:05):
Oh no, no, up to four or four.
Well, because you had one pointbefore, so oh no no, this new
tally is three.
I gave them two for the hungrything, and now I'm giving them
three for a lark.
All right, tough critic howabout math?

Don (50:11):
will math do it for you?

Ron (50:12):
my weakest point on oh man tough for me as well, but math
is math is a science and if wecan apply science to this fudgy
field, then that could be asizable chunk of points at the
end of this for itig.

Don (50:24):
All right.
So we talked about JuliusCaesar redoing the calendar in
46 BC.
The trouble is, the earthdoesn't actually rotate as
slowly as the Julian calendarassumes it does.
So on the Julian calendar, ayear is actually 365.25 days.

Ron (50:48):
Yes.

Don (50:48):
Right, because we're having a leap year every four years.
The actual number is 365.2423days.

Ron (51:00):
I mean, we got pretty close .
I think we could give it tothem Pretty close.

Don (51:04):
So it's 365 days, five hours, 49 minutes, 1.1 seconds.
That means he's off by about 11seconds a year yeah, we're
losing time, so are we gainingtime?
So time is going longer thanthe earth is rotating, yeah, so
what's happening is things startslipping backwards.
So the ver vernal equinox thatthat uh should be happening in

(51:28):
March starts slipping backearlier and earlier and earlier
in March, about one day every120 years or so.

Ron (51:35):
That would explain the weather this year.

Don (51:40):
So this is actually why we have the Gregorian calendar,
which we mentioned before.
So we are on what's called theGregorian calendar, which is a
revision to the calendar done byPope Gregory in 1582.
And his mathematicians helpedhim out with it and they
corrected for this drift andthey basically said that we're

(52:07):
going to have a leap year everyyear that's divisible by four,
except for centenary years thatare not divisible by 400.
So it's taking one leap yearout every 300 years.
So the year 2000 was a leapyear, but the year 2100 is not
divisible by 400, so it will notbe a leap year that's much more
accurate.
by that calendar we're not goingto have, we'll have an extra
day added in our calendar, likein the year 3370.

(52:28):
So it takes all your kids,that's right.
So good job for Gregory.
But here's the trouble is thatby the time Gregory and his
mathematicians figured this outin the year 1582, it's already
been 1500 years since JuliusCaesar came up with this plan.

Doug (52:44):
So we're off.

Don (52:45):
We're off.
We're adding a day about every120 years, right, so by 1582
from Julius Caesar's revision ofthe calendar in 45 BC.
It should have been a 13 daycorrection.
We should have drifted 13 days,which means that the spring
equinox is happening 13 daysearlier in the month than when

(53:06):
uh, when we wanted it to.

Doug (53:08):
It seems like there's an easy fix here.
You said 13 days, hi governmentdeclaration.
Oops, we messed up on the mathdays.
We're closed.
It's holidays for 13 days.
It doesn't count as time.
Back to work on Monday.

Ron (53:21):
Yeah, exactly.

Doug (53:22):
And then bust out the kegs find a dog, have some fun, find
that dog.

Don (53:29):
Pet a dog.
It's almost like you lived backthen, Doug, because you know
what they did.
Government declaration wemessed up on the calendar.

Doug (53:36):
Good leadership.

Ron (53:36):
That's all I'm going to say Doug for king.

Don (53:41):
It's declaration by the Pope Gregory, but actually the
problem is the time goes theother way.
So it's declaration by the popegregory, but actually the the
problem is the time goes theother way.
So it's not that we had theseextra days.
We needed to burn.

Ron (53:50):
Oh no, we took it out of their salary.

Don (53:54):
Everybody went to bed on october 4th, 1582 and tomorrow
when they woke up it was october15th I mean I'm okay with it.

Doug (54:05):
We're closer to Halloween and I love Halloween, that's
true.

Don (54:08):
Not in 1582,.
You wouldn't love Halloween.
We get burned at the stand.

Doug (54:13):
I love that too.
Come on.

Don (54:16):
I love seeing a burning, so it was a big deal, though
People in the streets protestinglike give us back our time, you
stole our time.

Ron (54:23):
That's like harvest season.
Now you got to harvest twice asfast, right?
I don't know yeah.

Don (54:30):
But do the math If you go to bed on the 4th, you wake up
on the 15th.
How many days?

Ron (54:36):
did he take away 11?

Don (54:38):
10.
Oh, 10 days, yeah, but itshould have been a 13 day
correction right.

Ron (54:43):
So he meant why didn't they commit?

Don (54:45):
how many years would he be missing if you didn't do that
three extra days?

Ron (54:51):
let me guess 300.

Don (54:55):
So illig says look, even pope gregory knew about this
conspiracy.
That had happened hundreds ofyears before and he was
continuing to cover it up byonly making a 10 day correction
Instead of a 13 day correction.
That would put him back in linewith the Julian calendar In 45
BC.

Doug (55:11):
Okay, here's the thing.
Let's just use the same logic,folks 300 year vacation Coming
your way.

Ron (55:19):
Stop the prices.
Non-taxable, non-taxable.

Doug (55:23):
So we can get caught up with this actual day.
Enjoy yourselves.
We want to fast track us to theFrench Revolution.
Let's get it going.

Don (55:34):
So what do you think?
We on board with the league now.
Have I convinced you all?

Doug (55:40):
I'm very, very close.
Who are like the big counter?
Do we have any big counterarguments to this?
Everybody else.

Don (55:56):
Not a single person except Toph in the Illig court
historian named walkerhoffenheim, who, um in 2004,
published a study that thatagreed that the aiken cathedral
that we talked about probablyisn't a, um, an 8th century or
9th century building, that it isprobably, more closely, uh,
belongs in the 11th to 12thcentury based on its building

(56:19):
methods, but um, so there's somesome oddball here, and there.

Ron (56:22):
back Back to the cathedral.
Is that just a thing that thelocals were like, oh yeah,
charlemagne built that, becausethat's a part of our history?
Like is it we're saying like itactually was built in the 11th
century, but people just thoughtit was Charlemagne?
Is that what they're saying?
Or can we radiocarbon date itto the 800s?

Don (56:40):
So the cathedral publishes itself that it was built in the
800.
Okay, so finished around theyear 800 or so, um, but uh,
historians are looking at itsaying I'm not sure um
charlemagne's buried there.

Ron (56:54):
Okay, well, sure, but there's probably if charlotte
charlemagne, corpses right rightso well, here's what's also
difficult for me.

Doug (57:04):
The counter argument to this, the everyone else category
, is it was the dark ages.

Don (57:10):
It was tough for history that's their argument, correct,
like I know I'm being crazy,incredibly, uh generalistic here
.

Doug (57:16):
But I mean, that is the counter argument.
It's not a very strong one, youknow it's tough.

Don (57:22):
What's their proof?

Doug (57:24):
right, you know what I mean.
It's it's very convenient.
Yeah, I like this way too much,but but how?

Ron (57:31):
how are our um our mainstream historians?
How are they countering thethis pernicious attack on the
calendar we love and know today?

Don (57:42):
any thoughts like what, what, what would?
How would you attack it?
What would be your?

Ron (57:47):
I would say I would call him a fascist and log off.
No, I mean it's, it's a lot.
I still think the motivation isflimsy, Like the two guys were
just like oh, I'd be sick to bein 1000.
Man, I need more.
There's got to be more there.

Don (58:08):
Is there anything in history that could be recorded
that you guys can think of?
That wouldn't be.
You couldn't fake that.
People around the world wouldall agree this event happened at
a particular date and time.

Doug (58:23):
No, would all agree.
This event happened at aparticular date and time?

Don (58:27):
Hmm, no, because, like a tale of the Hun, like we can't
tell for sure, because I've gotdifferent accounts of that and
even stories that focus just onthe tale of the Hun.
Like it's usually a date range,Like it's between these three
years that he sacked Rome.
It's not like a date and time.

Doug (58:42):
And when you say history like we're not alive for it,
that's what you mean yeahthey're saying like a single
date, that everyone is like thisis a real date.

Don (58:50):
This is a date that this thing happened.

Ron (58:52):
Yeah, okay, the yes I can, and it's the.
It's the impact of the asteroid65 million years ago that's
right.
Everybody who's alive back thenknew exactly oh, I thought you
meant contemporary historianstoday.

Don (59:06):
Well, it could be the same system.
Is there something that canhappen that everybody agrees?
That's the moment that happened.
Look around the universe.

Ron (59:17):
Why the universe Don.

Doug (59:19):
Position of stars in the sky.
Yeah, is that it.

Don (59:22):
Or random objects that fly across the sky.
Ah, okay, periodic, periodic,oh comets, great comet, and we
have other records in china andjapan that record those dates
and those dates okay, here we go.

Ron (59:35):
Yeah, so this is he's.

Don (59:37):
He's stuck in europe mindset right, right, he's like
no one else existed right.
So looking at, looking at theastronomy records of other
cultures, including WesternEurope, everything lines up.
There's no like missing periodof dates because of that.
So that's the primary evidenceagainst Illig's point.

Ron (59:59):
Does he counter this in any way?

Don (01:00:02):
He hasn't published since the 90s so I don't like he still
holds strong to his belief, butum, he's uh so do we think this
guy was like a, a flash in thepan, hot, renegade historian?

Ron (01:00:13):
He made it onto Forbes for a month and he was like I'm, I'm
, I'm upsetting theestablishment.
And then that was his claim tofame.

Don (01:00:20):
And then the establishment was like no, this guy actually
isn't.
And then I think so, and I thinkone thing that makes his, his
uh theory really interesting toto people is that it is somewhat
based on observable phenomena.
Like you can go to thatcathedral and observe that it is
built in a way that might notmatch the time period that it

(01:00:41):
says it was built, um, so that's, that's observable.
It's the uh, the 10 daycorrection.
Um, that uh, that Gregory didin 1582 is observable.
Like it's there.
There there's multiple recordsthat say it was a 10 day change,
um, but not everybody adoptedthe change at the same time.
Uh, so in the UK we didn'tadopt it until 1753, I think.

(01:01:04):
Um, so that would have been theUnited States at the same time.
So again, there's 150 yearsthat happened where we're on the
Julian calendar and Italy isnot and France is not.
So there's actually in lettersand things that are written back
and forth from England toFrance, there's multiple dates.
So there'll be a Julian dateand there'll be a Gregorian date

(01:01:24):
, so you can get a letter fromFrance that is, you know, 10
days ahead, and you get aresponse from England.
That is like happened in thepast, because it was you know or
it happens in the future, eventhough it's in the past.
Um so, but did we figure out,like, how did Julian, how did uh
Gregory, uh, miss that 10 days?
What happened to those threeextra days, that math?

(01:01:44):
That's astronomy, math, likethat's not something that can
just be made up.

Ron (01:01:50):
Yeah, I don't, I'm.
I got nothing there.
What was he doing?

Don (01:01:54):
You actually mentioned it.
You mentioned it before.

Ron (01:01:56):
Oh no.
Yeah, something about thin ice,bring it in again.

Don (01:02:08):
No, it has to do with the Council of Nicaea.

Ron (01:02:09):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don (01:02:10):
Yeah, so Council of Nicaea is called in 325 to deal with
the terrible heresy calledArianism, but one of the other
projects that it has is to pickthe date for Easter.

Doug (01:02:25):
Oh yeah.

Don (01:02:26):
Easter prior to that had mostly been celebrated on the
Hebrew festival of Passover,because the biblical accounts
put Jesus' crucifixion onPassover.
But in 325, they come up withthis system.
Do you guys know when Easter is?
What's the rule for when Easterhappens?

Doug (01:02:45):
Third Sunday.

Don (01:02:46):
Yeah, some.

Ron (01:02:47):
Sundayay.
Sunday is good, all right, wegot the right day, but it's not
even.
It can be a march or it can bein april, am I wrong?
Yeah, so it's got to be likewhat the heck am I?

Don (01:02:56):
12 sundays from january it's the first sunday after the
first full moon after the vernalequinox.

Doug (01:03:07):
Okay, sounds pagan, it does Right.

Don (01:03:12):
It's.
It's not, but it does soundthat for sure it's a.
It's so it because of thecalculation for Passover and the
Jewish calendar.
The Jewish calendar is a lunarcalendar and Passover is the
first full moon of spring.

Doug (01:03:24):
Okay.

Don (01:03:25):
So they needed it to be that.
But they needed it to be aSunday because it was the
Christian belief, and so Sundaywas the holy day, and so they
needed to draw a line about whenthe spring equinox was.
And so the Council of Nicaea,in 325, picked March 21st as the
equinox.
So according to the church rule, the equinox happens on March
21st as the equinox.
So according to the church rule, the equinox happens on march

(01:03:46):
21st.
Astronomically, it can happenanywhere from march 19th to
march 22nd.
So, um, just depends upon therotation speed that particular
year.
But, um, because 325 decidedmarch 21st was the equinox,
gregory wasn't trying to fix thecalendar all the way back to
Julius Caesar, he was trying tofix the calendar back to 325.

(01:04:09):
So the 300 years that Illigthinks is missing is not
actually missing, because theyalready took care of it in the
Council of Nicaea.

Ron (01:04:22):
This is a very fascinating to me like concept that some guy
would be like we got to like.
I'm sure he was or is a.
He's alive, right?
Yes, I'm sure he's a trainedhistorian, right?
He probably went to auniversity, he's got degrees,
he's he's read primary texts.
Is this is this like, uh, hejust found his like little

(01:04:42):
loophole.
Like, just found his likelittle loophole.
Like, oh, there's somethingweird here.
I gotta post this as fast aspossible and and maybe make a
name on this, um, because, likeyou said, it seems fairly
debunkable, fairly easy.
How much time did you spendtelling us this argument?
And then you spent 30 secondsbeing like yo, china also exists
indeed they do.

(01:05:06):
We've been talking about it forabout 45 minutes so, like I mean
, clearly this guy uh, uh, is,is capable, has the capacity to
understand these.
You know why he is wrong.
Um, I do find these sorts ofpeople interesting, like why,
why would he need to stick tothat, unless he is?
That's where his money getsmade, that's how he's getting

(01:05:27):
booked to talk, right?
I kind of get that.
It's like the, it's likedinosaur man all over again.
But are there other reasons whyhe feels like?
Does he have a manifestoexplaining why this is his
project, why it needs?

Don (01:05:44):
to be.
He's got a couple, yeah, butthey're published in the 1990s
and mostly they go over whatwe've been going over and he
does lectures and things likethat.

Ron (01:05:50):
But besides explaining why this is the case, does he
explain his motivation forpropagating it?
Is it just like he literallyloses the truth, Ron.

Doug (01:05:59):
I think it's because of people like you.
And this is what I mean.
You sat this whole podcast andsaid I'll give him another point
here and he's somewhere rightnow going.
It's only four points and he'slike just desiring he wants the
full 50.
I mean like that's when thework becomes the ego, becomes
the narrative, you become thisperson I guess I'm just like

(01:06:20):
interested in people who need tohold on to a wrong idea.

Ron (01:06:24):
Right, like especially academics, when the whole
concept of academics seems to bebuilt on adjusting one's
viewpoint in the light of newevidence or new argument.
Right, and why can't this guydo that?
So that's why I'm wondering isthere a deeper reason?

(01:06:45):
Like you said, he's German.
Does this in some way?
Is this attached to anationalist project in some way?
Does it heighten the prestigeof figures that he finds
important in history, orsomething like Not?

Don (01:07:03):
directly nationalistic, but I think that it is a, a product
of growing up with a, a, abelief in nationalism, because
it's a, it's a completelyEurocentric, as you point out,
it's a completely Eurocentricview of the world.
So if Europe was the only placethat existed, it would be a lot
harder to debunk what he'stalking about.
Yeah, so if you, if you,imagine Europe as the center of

(01:07:27):
the universe, then then it makesa lot more sense that this
could possibly be a conspiracyand the.
The thing that I think isinteresting about it is that he
uses, like I say, observablephenomenon, and you know logic
and math to uh, to try to provethat this, this time, is missing
, and so it makes me realize howtenuous our understanding of

(01:07:51):
history actually is.

Ron (01:07:54):
Yeah, yeah, um it.

Don (01:07:56):
It's based on a set of facts.
There's a certain observableset of things that actually
happen, but if you can thinkabout your own life like we live
in the 21st century, um it's it.
Everybody you know can publishthe.
The democracy of being able topublish an idea online now, like
we're doing, uh right, for free.

Ron (01:08:14):
And very kind of you to call these ideas widespread, and
but then think about how oftenyou record what has happened in
your daily life, like I never do.

Don (01:08:25):
Yeah, yeah, no.
So go back a thousand years or1500 years to when, um, most
people can't read or write.
Like, who's writing all thisstuff down?
Yeah, the.
The amount of actual firmevidence we have for events in
history is is actually prettysparse, and what history
actually is is the story thatweaves those facts together.
So it's more about thatnarrative than it is about the

(01:08:48):
actual.
Oh, this was recorded inhistory and and it is, you know,
on a dead rock foundation forsure happen.
This is the way we understandit to have happened.
But as our understandingchanges, as our culture changes,
right, that history, that story, that narrative can change too
yeah, I think about, um, edwardgibbon.

Ron (01:09:08):
Are you guys familiar with edward gibbon?
He, he wrote the decline of thedecline of the roman empire.
Yeah, british historian in 18thcentury.
I want to say, um.
So I remember reading the firstvolume of that and it was
interesting, um, because hiswhole theory was like, like, he
was kind of credited as like thefirst guy to write like this

(01:09:29):
omnibus explanation of, like,what happened to the roman
empire and today his theoriesare like not considered uh,
factual, right, like he's he'sgoing back and reading a lot of
primary historians from theRoman empire but he very much
has a kind of narrative that hewants to promote which is like
he's a big and this is theenlightenment.
He's a big enlightenment guyand his kind of end thesis is

(01:09:52):
that the Roman empire collapsedbecause they admitted the
Christians and the Christiansmade them soft, like like it got
rid of their warrior cultureand they started, you know,
losing battles and then theyfell into like hedonist, like
he's like the Eastern RomanEmpire.
Is this hedonistic, horrible?
You know, they're wearingpurple and people are dressed as
cats and like they're justthey're doing terrible things.

(01:10:13):
It's all downhill and it's notlike rooted in sort of like a
material analysis that I think,like most modern historians try
to try to hold themselves to thestandard of um.
But that was like the biggest,that was the biggest game in
town for hundreds of years.
That's that.
That was what everyone thoughtthe fall of the roman empire was
because men became less manlyand they abandoned their warrior

(01:10:34):
culture.
Um, and that was at least whatI've been told, or like the
analyses I remember reading atthe time maybe it's changed,
it's been a few years, but thatEdward Gibbon was very much
trying to use the Roman empire,uh, to promote enlightenment
ideas, right Like.

Doug (01:10:50):
Oh, the Roman empire used to be great.

Ron (01:10:52):
It was a democracy and intellectualism flourished.
But as soon as the dictatorscame in and they started blah,
blah blah and it was like ananalog for it.
This is why Europe needs toliberalize via the enlightenment
and why democracies need toreturn to Europe, was his main
thesis at the time.

Don (01:11:10):
Which we've even done in our own country, right Like the
scandal of the Republicannomination debates a year ago,
was what was the cause of thecivil war?
Like we're still arguing aboutthis in 2023.

Ron (01:11:24):
Right.

Don (01:11:24):
Um, because there uh you know, there was a narrative that
was produced after the South umsurrendered that cause
hypothesis.

Ron (01:11:34):
Exactly.

Don (01:11:35):
That it was about um, um, you know, maintaining a
tradition and a history and aand instead of about the
economics of free labor.

Ron (01:11:43):
Yes, exactly, it was about the state's rights, uh, but not
about the state's rights tomaintain the enslavement of, you
know, hundreds of thousands ofpeople.
Um, right, and that that becamea project, which I think I mean
clearly.
If it's, if this was happeningin 2023, a lot of people still
believe or are invested in thatstory of American history, right

(01:12:04):
, which, again, is not factualbut helps explain feelings you
have or identities you've beentold you have, and things like
that, right.

Don (01:12:14):
There's a historian named Paul Vane who published a essay
on epistemology in the 1980s,and he brings up this issue that
that history and readers ofhistory are reading a narrative
of facts and and the he uses theword reconstitution that the

(01:12:34):
historian looks at there there'slike a series of points, and
then has to fill in those gapswith a narrative that makes
sense in order to arrive at theend point.
And that seems to be whathistory is about.
It's a backwards explanation ofa very sparse set of details in

(01:12:56):
order to arrive at a conclusionthat fits our current culture.
I was I uh when I was little.
Um, my dad used to listen to uh,to uh AM radio, knx 1070 on the
way to school and was the newsradio was, you know, traffic
every five minutes, kind of a uha station, but, um, he never
changed the dial of the radio.
And so at nighttime, when wewould be driving home from

(01:13:19):
grandma's house or whatever,they would play old radio dramas
from the 1930s, 1940s.
So you used to listen to theLone Ranger.
I found them on iTunes and theway that Native Americans are

(01:13:42):
portrayed and the way thatWestern culture is portrayed in
those 1930s stories iscompletely offensive to our 21st
century understanding of how torepresent ethnic minorities and
other cultures, and the factthat Tonto, the way that he
speaks, he was played by anIrish Shakespearean actor.

(01:14:02):
Like he, you know, and that'sacting baby, you can do anything
, but they, they're, you know,they're called engines and and
they're portrayed as savage.
And they're called savages andlike all these things that that
are completely offensive tothose, those ethnicities and to
those cultures and we wouldn'tthink of as appropriate today.

(01:14:23):
But in the 1930s and 40s it wasthe accepted way to view that
history and for sure there wasproblems and for sure it was
oppressive to those people backthen.
I don't mean that it wasn'tsomething that they were aware
of when it was happening.
For sure they were, but thehegemic society thought of it as
an okay way to to be inclusiveright, right, right, hey, at

(01:14:46):
least they're here, right, yeah,yeah, but yeah obviously, from
our perspective today, that haschanged and that's that fluidity
of our understanding about howhistory like.
it doesn't change that there wasa wild west, it doesn't change
that there were battles betweenthe U S army and and native
American tribes.
But our understanding today isthat the stories we've been told

(01:15:07):
might be from only oneperspective, and there there
probably is another perspectiveto how that happened which,
dealing with the same set offacts, might result in a
different narrative Totally, andthen the different set of
feelings attached to thosenarratives right and different
way to view not only the past,but also the contemporary moment
, right, the present.

Ron (01:15:24):
Um, I think it's the same thing that we saw with all the
debates about the statues beingtorn down, right, which is like,
oh like, if we take down thesestatues, we're losing a part of
our history, and which I alwaysdisagreed with because, like, I
don't think a statue, a statueisn't there to serve as a
historical fact or a reminderthat, hey, this person existed
at statues always a valuestatement about who should be

(01:15:47):
memorialized, right.
Like there aren't statues ofIrwin Rommel around just so we
can be like oh, remember Rommel,he existed right, like you put
up statues of people you want tovenerate, and so I thought that

(01:16:08):
was like a fun might be puttingit the wrong way, because I
think it was very visceral anddangerous for some people to
have those conversations and totake those actions.
But it was a eye openingconversation to see how society
had evolved in our.
In our, the way we digest a lotof those historical narratives
has progressed and changed theway we digest.

Don (01:16:21):
A lot of those historical narratives has progressed and
changed, which makes it toughwhen people we have debates
about what should be in schoolsand what history should be
taught and how it should betaught, and the cry often is you
know, just teach the facts.
Like, don't teach the opinion,just teach the facts.
But when we're talking abouthistory, everything is an
opinion, it breeds opinion.
Yeah.

Ron (01:16:37):
What like just what gets selected.
You can't do all facts right,so which facts get selected and
which facts get ignored, right,right, this is also part of the
Columbus Day, I think.
Debate, right, like, oh, whyshould it be Columbus Day?
Well, because I think a lot ofpeople had a hard time with that
, because the only part of thathistory they were taught was
about the arrival of Columbusand the Europeans, and there was

(01:17:00):
a absence of facts regardingthe native peoples who were here
prior, so they just didn't havethat knowledge or that
narrative that they were everattached to.
So when you say history isdifferent, I get it.
It's like the songs, I get it.
Now, don I get it?
Why you're telling us aboutsongs?
Because now maybe we have avisceral reaction to, but I grew
up thinking it was this but Ithink that's the fun part about

(01:17:23):
history.
I like it when things changeLike that's.
You know some like Illig is abad change, right, right, not a
great change, but we get to likeat least assess it.
We listen, we hear them out,right.
And then we say oh yeah, maybe,right.
And then we say oh yeah, maybe.
And then you hear the otherside and you say oh yeah, nah.

(01:17:45):
But like we can do that witheverything, and I get that some
people don't like going throughthat process, but I think it's
fun, I like it.

Don (01:17:48):
It gets stale, but that part about being emotionally
attached to our beliefs comesinto play as well, and there's
been a relatively recent studyby a British researcher named
Gregory Travers.
There's been a relativelyrecent study by a British
researcher named Gregory Traverswho highlighted the point.
His study highlights the pointthat people don't change their
mind because you convince themwith facts.

(01:18:09):
People are emotionally investedin what they believe, right?
So if you grew up believingthat history was a certain way,
you grew up believing that.
You know, native Americans weresavages.
You grew up believing thatsociety, you know, uh, native
Americans were savages.
You grew up believing that, um,society should be a certain way
.
And now we want to tell you ohno, we are accepting of people
with different gender identitiesor different, um, sexual

(01:18:30):
identities, and that's not yourbelief.
Like, a set of facts isn'tgoing to change your mind.
Yeah, you have to change theemotions that are attached to
that.

Doug (01:18:38):
Change the heart.
I um, this will be interesting,cause I am only about a hundred
pages into it right now.
But I'm reading a book calledbetween two fires right now,
which is about, um, this era ofthe black plague, in which
they're adding fantasy elementsto it, in which, like a very
Milton ask, lucifer is the onewho started the black plague.

(01:19:00):
Like it's like, okay, god isgone, we're going to just have
free reign, let's have the BlackPlague go.
And what's interesting is allthe events surrounding it, from
this knight who's been betrayedby this Norman group that he was
with and he becomes a brigandin this time because there's
more money in that.
I think I've never been moreinvested in, like, probably this

(01:19:21):
era that is always just lookedat as like, well, everybody died
during that time.
Now I am 100% more investedbecause there's kind of this
frame narrative and this poeticlicense that I'm very aware of
that's being taken.
You know that there's fantasyelements added to it, but the
poetry is what gives it thatemotional charge.
And now I'm an invested in theblack plague which, again, up

(01:19:42):
until this point, the thetouchstones that I have, is like
that's the era where everybodydied Oops, cats, rats, you know,
like all of these things, orEdgar Allen Poe stories Right
and and again, or this book thatI'm reading, and then it
becomes this entirely differentthing in which the history kind
of comes alive.

Don (01:19:59):
So well, next time I'm going to tell you about a plague
it's not going to be the blackplague, but we'll hang on to
that till till next time.
It's my turn.

Doug (01:20:08):
You guys got turns before I go, so that means I got to
finish this book and, yeah, he'sgoing to spoil the plague book
for you.

Don (01:20:15):
But, but I want to thank you both for for a good
conversation about the year 1727that we are currently living in
.

Doug (01:20:24):
It's good to be here.
Yeah, everyone take out yoursailing yacht Powdered wigs.

Ron (01:20:27):
And down with the establishment, monarchists and
other 1700s things.
Thank you, don, that was superfun.

Doug (01:20:38):
Yeah.

Don (01:20:38):
Brilliant.
See you next time on theuncannery.
Thank you.