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.
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Thursday, October 20, 2016
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.
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.
Thursday, October 13, 2016
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 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.
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
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 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.
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