The Black Hole of Calcutta: People Will Only Take So Much Before They Snap

This week's edition of History's Mystery: We Never Learn is somewhat kairotic, given the recent election.  As many (hopefully all) of you probably know, Donald Trump is widely criticized for his angry rhetoric, especially towards Muslims, racial minorities and women.  Shortly after his historic victory over Hillary Clinton on November 8, riots and protests erupted across the country, and the hashtag #NotMyPresident went viral on all platforms of social media.  This is what happens after you treat a certain person (or in this case a group of people) poorly for too long.

The story I have for you all today is the Black Hole of Calcutta.  There's not much to it, to be honest.  Our journey begins in the mid-1700s.  As is the grand tradition of European nations, England was colonizing different continents.  This tale in particular took place on the Asian subcontinent of India.  Britain and France were the world's two largest empires at the time, and naturally were constantly trying to one-up each other in pretty much everything. In the late 1600s, Britain had a port in the city of Calcutta, and as the years went on they continued to fortify it to protect it from any possible French attack.  The Indians were getting increasingly mad.  They were angry to begin with because India wasn't Britain's land to begin with, so they had no right to be there anyway.  The continuation of foritfying the port of Calcutta was only adding to the anger.

The Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-daula, eventually had had enough of the nonsense.  He told the governor of Calcutta to tell the Brits to stop fortifying.  And what did the British do?  Ignored him.  Surprise, surprise.  The Indians did not come to play.  They marched on Calcutta with hundreds of elephants and scores of cannons.  Thousands of people died.  Heaps of British officials ran for cover in the ships and left the port with like, two men to defend it.  (I'm kidding, there were about 200)  On June 20, 1756, 146 prisoners were herded into a jail called the "Black Hole".  It was 18 ft. by 14 ft. with two small windows.  Because of the small area, large number of people, intense Indian summer heat, and only two small windows, most of the prisoners suffocated.  Only twenty-three people survived.

The Indians' reactions are not uncommon for this sort of thing.  In the words of my wise European history teacher, "People will only put up with so much crap before they snap."  Examples of this can be seen throughout history, from the Boston Tea Party, which followed the Black Hole of Calcutta by only a few short decades, to the French storming the Bastille, to the East German riots, to the Arab Spring in 2010, and even to the Black Lives Matter and #NotMyPresident protests and riots that are going on right now.  Throughout the centuries, people in power have been trying to oppress their citizens, and for centuries the citizens have been rising up and demonstrating that they won't take any more of it.  So the next time someone posts on Facebook about people "whining about the outcome of the election", feel free to tell them that this sort of thing has been going on for centuries, and in fact, this country would not be here if it weren't for reactions like these.

Charles II of Spain: West Virginia...Yikes!

This week's installment of History's Mystery: We Never Learn will be somewhat of a risqué post.  If you get offended by it, I am terribly sorry, but facts are facts, y'all.

It's no secret that West Virginia is notorious for its inbreeding, at least in the olden days.  If you were a West Virginian in the 1800s, it probably wasn't uncommon for your parents to be first cousins.  I think that problem has mostly been sorted out, but I haven't been to West VA since 1999, and I was at a hotel then, so I really can't say for sure.  But, I digress.

That is one thing that West Virginia and modern historic Europe (and probably earlier too) have in common!  The inbreeding was LUDICROUS!  Monarchs wanted to ensure that the crown stayed in the family, so they set up their kids with their cousins from distant ruling kingdoms.  The worst case of this was seen in Charles (or Carlos, if you will) II of Spain.

Poor Chuck.  He was a sad creature.  Charles was of the House of Hapsburg, an ancient ruling family of Europe.  There were two groups of Hapsburgs, the Spanish and the Austrian.  Charles II of Spain was of the Spanish Hapsburgs.  (duh)  He was born November 6, 1661 and ascended to the throne at age four.  His family tree is more of a family wreath.  See for yourself. (image courtesy of scienceblogs.com)

The Hapsburg family intermarried to keep the crown within its family.  

The Head of Cromwell: Pettiness

This installation of History's Mystery: We Never Learn will be a spinoff of last week's tale.  Last week, we covered the topic of the Stuart McDouble, featuring the crazy Puritan Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell.  This week, I will be specifically talking about our old friend Cromwell and his craziness.  Some might even say he lost his head (HAHAHAHAHA)

To recap, Lizzy I died heirless, so the Scots ruled Britain.  The English didn't like the Scots, kicked beaheaded them and kicked out his kid, installed a war hero, found out that war hero was crazy, and then brought the Scots back after the nutjob keeled over.  Pretty exciting stuff.

It was no secret that Oliver Cromwell was a jerk.  You couldn't drink or swear in Britain.  What the hell, right?  So after he died, Charles II came back to England and boy was he mad.  Like, he was livid.  You come into my house, disrespect my family, fight against my father, and then have the nerve to behead him and turn England into a crazy convent where the only rules are no fun and be sad.  It was a pretty solid case for old Chuck.  He had every reason to be mad at Cromwell.  Hate him, despise him, loathe him.  The normal procedure for rubbing it in someone's face that you're in charge and they're not would be making him ride backward through the town center on a donkey (that happened to a Pope in Rome once).  But, Cromwell was dead, he was already six feet under and pushing daisies, so naturally Charles couldn't do that.  So what did he do instead?  Cut off his head.

Confused?  Yeah.  You're probably thinking, well gosh, Allison, how could Charles do that if Cromwell was already buried?  Pretty simple: Chuck the Second dug up old Cromwell's body and cut his head off.  He was pretty heated.

But, did it stop there?  Of course not!  When did Europeans ever not overreact?  It's practically in their blood to be dramatic.  Not only did Charles II cut off Cromwell's head, but he put it on a pike and put that pike on top of the Westminster Abbey.  And it stayed there for 25 years.

Now, that is petty.  That's one thing that we as a species haven't lost: our lust for revenge.  We're so desperate to see people suffer (see: Schadenfreude) that we will do the simplest of things to see them uncomfortable or even in pain.  Perhaps we don't go so far as to cut someone's head off, but judging by the number of times I scroll through Twitter and see tweets or retweets about pettiness, I think it's safe to say that we have not yet outgrown being petty.

The Stuart McDouble: Admitting our Mistakes

One of the hardest things to do in life is say sorry.  Let's all admit it, it's embarrassing, it almost feels like your pride is going down the drain.  Admitting that you did something wrong is very difficult, but it ultimately makes things better.  This reigned true in seventeenth century Britain as well, but it wasn't just one person, it was the whole country.

This week, I'm going to talk about what my high school European History professor called the "Stuart McDouble".  (The order of the rulers is James-Charles-Cromwell-Charles-James, hence the McDouble reference)  When Lizzy I kicked the bucket, she left the throne without an heir (because she was a strong, independent woman who didn't need no man.  But that kind of messed up the whole monarchical system).  So, the throne went to the closest living relative, which was the son of Mary Queen of Scots, whom she had beheaded (she was reluctant about it, don't get me wrong, but she did it nonetheless).  This happened to be James VI of Scotland, who then became James I of England, so he was known as James VI and I.  Monarch naming systems, gotta love 'em.  He was also bisexual, but that doesn't matter, it's just a fun fact.

James and the English did not get along well.  Traditionally, the Engish were always the progressives of Europe.  Parliament wanted to give the people more rights, but James was a pretty absolute monarch, so they disagreed on that front.  Tensions grew, and when he died, his son, Charles, took over.  In addition to the already existing hatred, his wife was Catholic, which so did not fly with the Protestant English.  To make a long story short, he started a civil war, lost that war, was tried for treason, found guilty, and then beheaded.  He did have a son, who was exiled.

Oliver Cromwell, an English Civil War hero, was named Lord Protector of the kingdoms of England, Ireland, and Scotland.  He became a crazy Puritan dictator who enforced ridiculous laws on the British Isles, such as making cursing illegal.  He also started unnecessary wars with the Spanish and the Dutch.  He died on September 3, 1658.

The English realized they messed up.  They realized that having a Stuart on the throne would be better than Cromwell.  They were so upset about what went down with Cromwell, they travelled to continental Europe to ask Charles II (the son of Charles I) to come back to England and restore the house of Stuart to the throne.  Now that is an embarrassing apology.  And, as they say, the rest is history.

People have been apologizing for centuries!  This is one thing that hasn't changed: people mess up!  Even better, they admit they were wrong!  People are still messing up today, and they are still apologizing.  Keep apologizing, people.  It'll do ya good.

Dancing Plague: ...what even

THON is probably the most intense dance marathon you can think of.  46 hours of straight dancing?  Only for the kids could someone agree to do something so ridiculous.  People dance for a lot of reasons...for a cure, with the stars, to prove they think they can, even for a revolution.  Dancing was even prohibited at one point!  In colonial America, dancing was considered the work of the Devil and it even led to the death of nineteen people.  Dancing has a great history in cultures all across the world, but probably nothing as strange as the Dancing Plague of 1518.

The Dancing Plague was possibly one of history's weirdest epidemics.  As the name suggests, this is when people danced uncontrollably!

The whole ordeal began in July of 1518 in Strasbourg (part of the Holy Roman Empire) when a woman named Frau Troffea started dancing in the street and didn't stop for four to six days.  Days!  That's a ridiculous amount of time!  We need no further proof that the human body is capable of incredible things.  But, I digress.  By the end of the week, 34 other people joined Frau Troffea and her crazed dancing.  Within the month, the number skyrocketed to 400 people.

Historical doctors, in the grand tradition of being indubitably spot-on with their diagnoses, prescribed more dancing to cure the dancing epidemic.  Naturally many people died from this "cure" due to heart attacks, strokes, or sheer exhaustion from the nonstop dancing.

For centuries, historians have tried to figure out what caused this epidemic.  Eugene Backman, author of Religious Dances in the Christian Church and in Popular Medicine, sought a biological or chemical reasoning behind the dancing.  Their findings?  The most likely reason was ergot, a type of mold that grows on damp wheat.  Erotamine is a psychoactive product of ergot, which is structurally related to lysergic acid diethylamide, and is what lysergic acid diethylamide was originally made from.  That's right folks, over 400 people of the Holy Roman Empire were high on LSD and couldn't stop dancing because of it.  And, as they say, the rest is history.

You know, I sat and thought long and hard about this story.  How am I supposed to relate this to the present day and how people are now?  After a good hour and a half of staring at my laptop trying to think of how this tale of a recreational drug epidemic could relate to the 21st century.  My conclusion...I can't.  This week, I've decided to entertain you with this story and to take the opportunity to say that perhaps humanity has progressed in the hundreds of thousands of years we have been here.

The Dutch Tulip Mania: Materialism

I think that I understand wanting material items better than almost anyone.  The other week, I spent $108 in the bookstore and I only bought three things!  Anyone who slightly knows me knows that it goes without saying that I have a spending problem.  I also know that I'm not the only one who has this issue.  If you're an uncontrollable spender like me, don't worry, you're not alone!  In fact, people have had this problem for centuries.  I know it's pretty obvious with monarchs of the past buying extravagant things when their people were literally starving (I'm looking at you, Marie Antoinette), but today I'm here to talk about an example of this crazed spending that was shared by all classes of people and happened relatively recently.  This week, I'll be talking about the Dutch Tulip Mania.

The Dutch Tulip Bulb Mania should techincally be referred to as the Tulip Bulb Bubble, but I'll touch on that later.  The Netherlands is famous for its tulips, and this goes back centuries.  It all started when the Sultan of Turkey gave tulip seeds to Ogier de Busbecq, the ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire.  He distrbuted the seeds to various cities of the HRE, one of which being Amsterdam.  The flowers were very popular among the people of Europe because of the intense color.  These tulips were not easy to grow; it took about 7-12 years for a bulb to grow from a seed.

Due to the intense colors of the tulips, they quickly became very popular.  Their popularity mixed with their rarity caused prices to soar.  Prices reached their peak in 1636-1637.  One tulip bulb went for about 2,500 florins.  To put that in perspective, with 2,500 florins, one could buy four lasts of wheat, four lasts of rye, four fat oxen, eight fat pigs, twelve fat sheep, two hogsheads of wine, four tuns of beer, two tons of butter, 1,000 pounds of cheese, one complete bed, a suit of clothes, and a silver drinking cup.  In today's money, that's about $238,273.  Pretty crazy stuff.

However, in February 1637, prices sharply dropped because of buyers refusing to show up at a bulb auction (probably because the auction was held in Haarlem, the site of a bubonic plague outbreak). This enormous price increase and sharp decrease is called a "bubble", and the bubble "burst" when the prices fell.  As they say, the rest is history.

The Dutch Tulip Mania, or simply tulipmania, is a great example of people's materialism.  The bulb became so popular that people were willing to spend up to ten times the amount of an average guilder's annual income for a flower.  This ridiculous spending hasn't gone away, as people continue to spend exorbitant amounts of money on materialistic things, such as $65 on a Penn State pullover when there's one on the sale rack for $15.  So the next time your mom yells at you for buying something she deems unnecessary, remind her that people once spent today's equivalent of almost half a million dollars on a flower.

The Great Schism of the West: Stubbornness

Basically everyone in the world knows who the Pope is.  He lives in the Vatican City and preaches to the entire population of Roman Catholics on Earth.  He's been there for a while.  However, not every country was so keen on this at one point.

Back in the day (the fifteenth century), the Church was a pretty big part of everyday life.  Back then, there were no denominations of Christianty: if you were a Christian, you were a Catholic.  Most, if not all, countries incorportated religion into their laws.  This often meant paying a sum of your income to the Church every year (called tithes).  The Church also did some other questionable things, such as selling indulgences to people, which basically said that if you paid a certain amount of money, you would get time off your sentence in purgatory.

The other countries of Europe (aka not Rome) started to become a little uneasy with the tithes.  They noticed that everything, not just the churches, in Rome was getting nicer.  They soon put two and two together and realized that all of this money that was going to Rome was from their citizens.  They could be benefitting from the profit.  They weren't very happy.  But, because they didn't want to anger God, they couldn't tell the pope he was wrong due to ex cathedra (literally speaking from the seat of Peter {in the Bible, Jesus promised Peter that it was impossible for the Pope to say something false or incorrect while seated on his papal throne]).

How did the other countries combat this theft?  By nominating their own Pope, of course!  There was still a Pope in the Church, but other countries elected a Pope from the French city of Avignon.  Some of the countries were obviously not too thrilled about this, but enough countries backed him up that the disagreeing countries couldn't really do anything about it.  So, for a number of years, there were two Popes.

Eventually, the Romans decided that enough was enough and elected another person to take the place of both Popes.  However, when he got to the Vatican, the other two popes refused to acknowledge him as Pope, everyone claimed that they were the rightful Pope, and basically excommunicated each other.  So now there were three Popes and no solution in sight.

Eventually, the Council of Constance was called by one of the Popes and they got two of the Popes to agree to resign but sadly had to excommunicate the third.  They then elected a new pope, the Orthodox Church decided to split from the Catholic Church (because it was an independent Church who don't need no Pope), and, as they say, the rest is history.

This event definitely shows that human beings are and have been stubborn, a prime example being the Pope that had to be excommunicated. If people really want something, they'll stick with it, no matter what it takes.