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True stories of survival cannibalism! · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
0:13
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck. Right, there's Jerry and this is
0:18
Speaker 1: stuff you should know, right, Chucker, how are you, sir?
0:22
Speaker 1: I'm good? How are you great? Just toothless and happy good.
0:30
Speaker 1: I'm halfway there to your tooth to the pre when's
0:36
Speaker 1: your next visit? Well, I go in tomorrow to make
0:39
Speaker 1: sure the implant is looking good. I can tell you
0:43
Speaker 1: that it looks great, and then in August is what
0:46
Speaker 1: I'll actually get the post and crown. Man. I'm really
0:50
Speaker 1: sorry that you have to do all this. Thanks many,
0:53
Speaker 1: It sucks. Yeah, that's why I'm sorry you have to
0:56
Speaker 1: do it. And I can't. Not that I wear my
0:57
Speaker 1: my flipper much anyway, but right now he was like,
1:00
Speaker 1: don't even wear your flipper while the implants in there,
1:02
Speaker 1: And I was like, all right, is that why you're
1:04
Speaker 1: wearing overalls today? That's right. Uh, let's see Chuck. Chuck,
1:10
Speaker 1: if you ever tasted human flesh? No, but I think
1:14
Speaker 1: you asked me that same question when we did our
1:16
Speaker 1: regular cannibalism episode. Yeah. Probably, but this is the subject
1:21
Speaker 1: so nice. We had to serve it twice. Well, we've
1:24
Speaker 1: actually talked about some other stuff too, like we did
1:26
Speaker 1: a whole dinner party episode. We talked about the Essex
1:30
Speaker 1: and the whaling episode. Oh yeah, Um, we've talked about
1:35
Speaker 1: cannibalism a lot. Like if there's a um, a tag
1:39
Speaker 1: cloud would be decent size chuck, we should say. Um,
1:44
Speaker 1: if you guys didn't get this from the title, we're
1:47
Speaker 1: talking about cannibalism, and some of the stuff we're talking
1:49
Speaker 1: about gets pretty graphic and grizzly. So if you have
1:52
Speaker 1: a weak stomach or you're a little kid and you
1:54
Speaker 1: don't want nightmares, uh, maybe don't listen to this one.
1:58
Speaker 1: Very good sir, And now let's move on to Survival Cannibalism.
2:02
Speaker 1: So again, people go listen to our cannibalism episode because
2:05
Speaker 1: it was a particularly good one. If you ask me, um,
2:09
Speaker 1: did we talk Surely we talked about the Uruguayan rugby team.
2:14
Speaker 1: I don't know if we did or not. Is it
2:16
Speaker 1: just that I'm so familiar with the story that or
2:19
Speaker 1: actually we probably did, but we're going to revisit it today. Okay, Well,
2:22
Speaker 1: let's go back way back in time and the Uruguayan
2:27
Speaker 1: National rugby team is flying through the Andies on the
2:30
Speaker 1: way to play the Chili Chilean rugby team for a match,
2:36
Speaker 1: and they don't make it. They don't. They're plane crashes
2:40
Speaker 1: on a mountain something like thirteen thousand feet above sea level,
2:45
Speaker 1: basically in the middle of nowhere. That's right. A fair
2:48
Speaker 1: Child F two to seven of the Uruguayan Air Force
2:53
Speaker 1: had forty passengers and five crew members, including that rugby team.
2:58
Speaker 1: And you know it was pretty much mostly just the
3:01
Speaker 1: rugby team, right, Yeah, they charted it, okay, but I
3:03
Speaker 1: think there were some other folks. There were some kids there. Really,
3:08
Speaker 1: I think I knew that. So, um, here's the deal
3:12
Speaker 1: with the Andes mountains. Uh, it's only a hundred and
3:15
Speaker 1: seventy meters wide, but they're very tall and peaky. So
3:22
Speaker 1: the tallest one, um is almost seven thousand meters and
3:26
Speaker 1: it's the highest peak on the American continent. And uh,
3:31
Speaker 1: the fair Child as a plane could only ascend a
3:34
Speaker 1: seven thousand meters, so they had to find like low
3:38
Speaker 1: spots to make that passage. It's called poor planning. Well,
3:43
Speaker 1: I would guess that the uruguayne rugby team would agree
3:46
Speaker 1: with me that that was poor planning. No, I don't
3:48
Speaker 1: think so. Like this pilot had made this passage. I
3:52
Speaker 1: had the number in here, but many many many times
3:54
Speaker 1: before may have been eighty. UM. So I don't know
4:00
Speaker 1: if it was poor planning, but it was. Here's what happened.
4:05
Speaker 1: They're flying, they take a sharp descent at about three
4:10
Speaker 1: thirty in the afternoon, and they dipped below the clouds
4:14
Speaker 1: because of these strong air pockets. So the captain was like, everyone,
4:18
Speaker 1: fasten your seat belts. This is a little bumpy right now.
4:21
Speaker 1: I don't think they felt like they were in real
4:22
Speaker 1: danger yet. And then it entered a strong downward air
4:26
Speaker 1: current and it said violently dropped several hundred meters. So
4:31
Speaker 1: this uh. Following that, there was a second sharp ball.
4:33
Speaker 1: And at this point people looked out the window and
4:36
Speaker 1: saw they were below the clouds and they saw mountains
4:39
Speaker 1: like you know in their face, and they realized that
4:42
Speaker 1: this is not good. They tried to gain altitude, could not.
4:47
Speaker 1: The right wing broke off when it hit a mountain.
4:51
Speaker 1: When that broke off, it went backwards, UH, cut off
4:55
Speaker 1: the tail and then the at that point several like
4:59
Speaker 1: four or f We're just pulled out at that point
5:01
Speaker 1: and died, sucked out of the plane, sucked right out,
5:03
Speaker 1: immediately fell to their death. Uh. Then the left wing
5:07
Speaker 1: was ripped off, and what you've got is just part
5:09
Speaker 1: of the fuselage remaining, and it goes sliding down the
5:12
Speaker 1: mountains like a like a toboggan. Um. And by all accounts,
5:16
Speaker 1: they thought they were done for, like, there's no way
5:19
Speaker 1: we're gonna stop. Um. But as luck would have it,
5:22
Speaker 1: they did slow down. They entered a valley and slowed down,
5:27
Speaker 1: but with such force that the seats like ripped from
5:31
Speaker 1: their bolts and they crashed through like the luggage compartment
5:36
Speaker 1: and came to arrest. So how many survivors there were,
5:40
Speaker 1: I'm not quite fair. Another forty people on the plane.
5:44
Speaker 1: Seven people survived the initial crash out of the forty five. Okay,
5:47
Speaker 1: so that's bad enough, right, Yes. And they're like, okay,
5:49
Speaker 1: we're stranded up in the andies. The temperatures like negative
5:54
Speaker 1: thirty negative thirty degrees fair, right, which is negative thirty
5:58
Speaker 1: four celsius. Too bad, It wasn't just negative forty. Um.
6:02
Speaker 1: So they're they're like, but at least we have the
6:04
Speaker 1: fuselage of this plane to act as an an impromptu
6:07
Speaker 1: shelter while we figure out what's going on. Yeah, let's
6:09
Speaker 1: take stock of our supplies. Let's see, we've got some
6:12
Speaker 1: wine and we've got some chocolate, and that's it. Yeah,
6:15
Speaker 1: but very much, it said, a few more snacks, but
6:17
Speaker 1: it was very very very very little food. Um. And
6:21
Speaker 1: then a short time after they crashed and they had
6:24
Speaker 1: taken stock and we're trying to like figure out what
6:27
Speaker 1: to do, an avalanche came and buried the plane, buried
6:30
Speaker 1: some of the people alive inside of it. Yeah, so
6:33
Speaker 1: eight more people died, I think. Yeah. And previous to this,
6:36
Speaker 1: they actually had a working radio, uh, and there was
6:39
Speaker 1: a search party, and after ten days they literally heard
6:42
Speaker 1: on the radio that they're presumed dead and the search
6:45
Speaker 1: was called off. So your spirits broken. Then the avalanche
6:49
Speaker 1: comes and that kills eight people right off the bat,
6:52
Speaker 1: I think you said, including the guy who was the
6:54
Speaker 1: team captain, who had emerged as the leader of the survivors.
6:59
Speaker 1: So he died in the avalanche. Yeah. So then they're
7:01
Speaker 1: trapped in there for a few days, and as as
7:03
Speaker 1: people are dying, they start making pecks. This is a
7:06
Speaker 1: There was a team. First of all, there was a
7:08
Speaker 1: rugby team, and then there were family members all among
7:12
Speaker 1: the rugby teams, so it was a very like tight right,
7:15
Speaker 1: And so they started making packs that if if if
7:19
Speaker 1: I die, you guys eat me, so that like you
7:22
Speaker 1: can try to survive. Somebody's got to make it out
7:25
Speaker 1: of here alive, so be sure to eat me. Yeah.
7:29
Speaker 1: And they had cleverly found a way to get fresh
7:31
Speaker 1: water by melting snow, using metal from the seats um
7:36
Speaker 1: and dripping it into those empty wine bottles. So they
7:38
Speaker 1: they it was remarkable that they were surviving at all.
7:41
Speaker 1: So they were all very religious or Roman Catholic, and uh,
7:47
Speaker 1: you know, you're not supposed to eat people, so for
7:50
Speaker 1: religious reasons, a lot of them had a lot of
7:52
Speaker 1: problems with the notion of doing so. Um, but they
7:56
Speaker 1: you know, they did what they had to do in
7:57
Speaker 1: the end. So they sent out a A A I
8:01
Speaker 1: don't know if you'd call it a search party. What's
8:03
Speaker 1: the opposite of a search party to brave dudes? Yeah,
8:07
Speaker 1: but those those were kids, um, and they went on
8:11
Speaker 1: like a ten day trek, and finally we're found by
8:14
Speaker 1: a Chilean shepherd who was working the mountain, and um
8:19
Speaker 1: who he went and got a search party. Mustard and
8:22
Speaker 1: brought him back, and they found the guys. A bunch
8:25
Speaker 1: of them survived through in part survival cannibalism, but definitely
8:30
Speaker 1: more than just that. These guys just didn't didn't just
8:32
Speaker 1: lay down and die. It was their their spirits were
8:35
Speaker 1: still up somehow. That's right, dude. In the end, uh,
8:38
Speaker 1: sixteen people ended up surviving this ordeal amazing weeks and
8:43
Speaker 1: weeks and weeks in the Andes Mountains and freezing temperatures.
8:45
Speaker 1: And they made a great movie. I've not seen it.
8:48
Speaker 1: Is it good? Yeah? That is good? Um. Of course,
8:51
Speaker 1: you know, in typical Hollywood fashion, it was all white dudes. Yeah,
8:55
Speaker 1: isn't Ethan Hawk one of the guys. Ethan is one
8:58
Speaker 1: of the guys. Vincent Spano is Italian. Oh but hey,
9:02
Speaker 1: you don't know the difference between an Italian and you're going. Yeah,
9:05
Speaker 1: they were all white dudes, but um, or maybe not
9:08
Speaker 1: all but the lion chair of them, of course. So um.
9:11
Speaker 1: Aside from that, it was it was a good movie.
9:14
Speaker 1: And I remember we definitely talked about this because I
9:16
Speaker 1: remember telling the story being a kid, and like the
9:19
Speaker 1: book was a really big bestseller and I thought it
9:22
Speaker 1: was a soccer teams. I didn't know the difference between
9:24
Speaker 1: rugby and soccer. If you listen to our soccer podcast,
9:28
Speaker 1: you might think, I still don't know the difference. Uh So,
9:32
Speaker 1: up next, Chuck is Jamestown. This is actually a fairly
9:37
Speaker 1: recent revelation. Apparently, if you were a scholar and historian
9:41
Speaker 1: of colonial America, you were in the know that there
9:46
Speaker 1: was persistent legends and rumors that the people in Jamestown
9:51
Speaker 1: had resorted to cannibalism during the winner of sixteen o nine,
9:56
Speaker 1: sixteen ten. Yeah, there were five historical accounts of of
10:00
Speaker 1: the years that people pointed to, and these are like
10:02
Speaker 1: first person diaries from the people who were there at
10:05
Speaker 1: the time, saying it was so bad that we ate
10:08
Speaker 1: anything in sight, including dead people the end, But there
10:13
Speaker 1: was nothing to back it up. So I guess the
10:15
Speaker 1: historians were like these colonists trying to show off, or
10:20
Speaker 1: they're using hyperbole, maybe like they were saying, I was
10:23
Speaker 1: so hungry I could eat a horse, but they were
10:25
Speaker 1: using cannibalism instead of the horse, because they actually did
10:28
Speaker 1: eat the horse. Well. Then, finally, a couple of summers
10:30
Speaker 1: ago in two thirteen, some archaeologists who were excavating Jamestown
10:36
Speaker 1: came upon a tresh heap where they found the butchered
10:39
Speaker 1: bones of horses and human teeth and a partial skull.
10:44
Speaker 1: And when they examined the teeth in the skull, they realized, like,
10:48
Speaker 1: oh wow, these are butcher marks right here. They weren't
10:51
Speaker 1: just exaggerating or showing off. They really did engage in
10:54
Speaker 1: cannibalism in Jamestown. Yeah, and this is the only artifactual
10:58
Speaker 1: evidence of cannibalism by europe ends ever. Supposedly, that's what
11:04
Speaker 1: it says, um. And with science, it's pretty remarkable what
11:08
Speaker 1: you can do these days. They actually did three D
11:11
Speaker 1: reconstructions and examined this skull and learned a lot about
11:16
Speaker 1: this fourteen year old girl that they called Jane. Uh.
11:21
Speaker 1: She was found buried a couple of feet down two
11:23
Speaker 1: and a half feet down, but in a in a
11:25
Speaker 1: trash heap, a huge giveaway seventeenth century trash heap in
11:30
Speaker 1: the cellar inside the site at James Fort. So these
11:37
Speaker 1: colonists died in the winter of sixteen o nine, and
11:39
Speaker 1: they found what they called multiple chop marks on the
11:42
Speaker 1: girl's skull um clearly interested in cheek, meat, muscles of
11:46
Speaker 1: the face, tongue in the brain, and they think that
11:49
Speaker 1: the person who at least was responsible for harvesting the
11:53
Speaker 1: flesh in the brain from the head was not an
11:56
Speaker 1: experienced butcher. The marks on the forehead are hesitant, and
12:01
Speaker 1: apparently they they couldn't stand or staring at them while
12:04
Speaker 1: they were doing this, so they turned her over and
12:07
Speaker 1: then from the back of the head that's when the
12:09
Speaker 1: marks became a little more confident and where they finally
12:12
Speaker 1: cleaved her skull open. So they've turned her over and
12:15
Speaker 1: that's when the butcher marks start to get a little
12:18
Speaker 1: more confident, and apparently that's where they were They managed
12:21
Speaker 1: to access her skull by cleaving it into from behind.
12:24
Speaker 1: That's right. They also found cuts and saw marks and
12:27
Speaker 1: stuff along her lower jaw uh that they said was
12:31
Speaker 1: made to get the meat. Who said that in this article?
12:35
Speaker 1: I read arbies from uh. But here's the remarkable thing.
12:43
Speaker 1: They use isotope studies to find out a lot about
12:46
Speaker 1: this girl. So they know from examining examining her shinbone
12:50
Speaker 1: that she was fourteen, really sad. But the good news
12:53
Speaker 1: is like she wasn't murdered, No, she starved to death.
12:57
Speaker 1: Well goodness bad. I guess it's sad anyway you look
13:01
Speaker 1: at it, although that's not necessarily true. There were there's
13:03
Speaker 1: a lot of disease that was spreading through Jamestown at
13:06
Speaker 1: the time as well, so as possible, she died of
13:08
Speaker 1: other causes that aren't quite as bad as starvation. Where
13:12
Speaker 1: here's the deal Jamestown was. It's not what you learned
13:16
Speaker 1: about in elementary school, like, it was doing very poorly
13:19
Speaker 1: at this point. People were starving. The local Native American
13:23
Speaker 1: tribe that were once friendly with them had cut them
13:27
Speaker 1: off and and they actually showed up in sixteen o
13:30
Speaker 1: seven or six sixteen o seven during the worst drought
13:34
Speaker 1: in the region in centuries. So it was a really
13:38
Speaker 1: just inauspicious beginning. And they called this period, especially during
13:43
Speaker 1: the winter of sixteen o nine and sixteen ten, the
13:45
Speaker 1: starving time. It was the capital escent Capital t so
13:49
Speaker 1: you know it was significant. So, Uh, in sixteen o nine,
13:53
Speaker 1: they're already in bad shape and then three hundred new
13:55
Speaker 1: settlers show up. Uh, what's for dinner? On the six
13:59
Speaker 1: years They were in bad shape when they got there
14:02
Speaker 1: because they had a rough crossing. And so they believe
14:04
Speaker 1: from studying isotopes in this girl's teeth that um a
14:09
Speaker 1: few things. One that is she came over on those
14:12
Speaker 1: six boats, that she hadn't been there long. Um too,
14:17
Speaker 1: that she was either a served as a maid to
14:21
Speaker 1: a family of high status, was from a family of
14:24
Speaker 1: high status, because they found that she had a lot
14:26
Speaker 1: of protein. Um, and then they determined that she's It's
14:29
Speaker 1: amazing what they can determine that she was from probably
14:32
Speaker 1: the southern coast of England because they water that she consumes.
14:37
Speaker 1: While she's got her little baby teeth are forming an infancy,
14:42
Speaker 1: you can tell years later where that came from. Son,
14:45
Speaker 1: leave it to the Smithsonian. Those guys hats off. So
14:49
Speaker 1: after eating horses, dogs, cats, rats, mice, they ate, leather,
14:56
Speaker 1: they ate, they ate anything they could get their hands on,
14:59
Speaker 1: they f only did resort to uh eating humans. Now
15:04
Speaker 1: we have evidence of it and by spring of sixteen,
15:07
Speaker 1: only sixty people had survived. Isn't that amazing? It is
15:13
Speaker 1: because three hundred came over on the boat, So I
15:15
Speaker 1: don't know how many are already there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Man,
15:20
Speaker 1: it's a bad jam. It's a bad jam, all right.
15:25
Speaker 1: Uh should we take a break. Yeah, let's take a break,
15:27
Speaker 1: all right. I need to regather myself, so Chuck. I
15:51
Speaker 1: believe we talked about this one before too, because it's
15:53
Speaker 1: so astounding. But there was a guy named Richard Parker
15:58
Speaker 1: and he was working aboard a yacht that was sailing
16:02
Speaker 1: from England to Australia. And the name of the yacht
16:05
Speaker 1: was the Mignonette. Do you know what I was sailing there? Uh? No,
16:09
Speaker 1: A rich dude bought it in Australia and it was
16:12
Speaker 1: just like literally being delivered to him. I guess I
16:16
Speaker 1: did kind of know that. Yeah, I didn't know. I
16:18
Speaker 1: just thought it was some expedition or something like. No,
16:20
Speaker 1: I do kind of remember that from when we talked
16:22
Speaker 1: about it before. When do we talk about this cannibalism?
16:26
Speaker 1: So the Mignonette is sailing to Australia. A couple of
16:28
Speaker 1: months in the trip, it sank because it's not supposed
16:32
Speaker 1: to sail from England to Australia. It was not built
16:35
Speaker 1: for that really. Yeah, and they even kind of fortified
16:38
Speaker 1: it apparently and didn't work. So on board there's a
16:44
Speaker 1: cabin boy, seventeen year old named Richard Parker. Have you
16:48
Speaker 1: ever seen cabin Boy? The movie? Great movie? Yeah? You
16:52
Speaker 1: kid me, Chris Elliott, Yeah, I was I think I
16:54
Speaker 1: saw that in the theater. I was so excited. Yeah,
16:58
Speaker 1: David Letterman's in that too. Sure he is a weird cameo.
17:02
Speaker 1: Uh so cabin boy. Cabin boy Richard Parker, uh seventeen
17:07
Speaker 1: years old and he um there there's an old tradition
17:11
Speaker 1: called the custom of the sea where you are in
17:13
Speaker 1: bad shape and you draw lots, and whoever draws the
17:16
Speaker 1: short straw um says, you know, kill me and eat me. Well,
17:20
Speaker 1: they say, all right, I won't hold it against you.
17:23
Speaker 1: When you guys, that's probably how it goes. So they
17:27
Speaker 1: considered drawing lots, and then the captain Thomas Dudley said, nah,
17:35
Speaker 1: let's not even bother. Look at Parker. It smells like onions.
17:39
Speaker 1: I don't like how the kids looked. Ever, well, it's
17:42
Speaker 1: pretty sad. They literally were like, I don't think we
17:44
Speaker 1: even need to draw lots, like he's clearly the one
17:46
Speaker 1: that needs to go. He was malnourished. He was skinny.
17:50
Speaker 1: Uh he It sounded like from the accounts I read
17:53
Speaker 1: that he was. They were having to kind of care
17:56
Speaker 1: for him, like he fell overboard at one point and
17:58
Speaker 1: they had to rescue him. More trouble, Leny's word. He
18:00
Speaker 1: drank sea water and got himself sick, and everyone's like,
18:03
Speaker 1: you don't drink seawater, Richard. So they said, I think
18:07
Speaker 1: we're just gonna take care of this without a vote.
18:11
Speaker 1: And um, he didn't have family or anything like that.
18:14
Speaker 1: He was a kid. So Dudley jabs a pen knife
18:17
Speaker 1: in his neck. Not a good way to go, Joe
18:20
Speaker 1: Pesci style, you're gonna dispatch be dispatched. That's not a
18:24
Speaker 1: good way to go. A pen knife in the neck. Now,
18:27
Speaker 1: I don't know how I mean on they were on
18:29
Speaker 1: a little dinghy at this point. I don't know. That's
18:31
Speaker 1: just like a seagull. And then hit him over the
18:34
Speaker 1: head and then you can stand him with the pen
18:36
Speaker 1: knife once he's out. You don't just go from zero
18:39
Speaker 1: to pen knife in the neck. Hey, I agree, Uh,
18:43
Speaker 1: no arguments here to go. Peesci style is barbaric. So
18:47
Speaker 1: they killed him with the pen knife, ate his flesh,
18:49
Speaker 1: drank his blood, and just a few days later they
18:52
Speaker 1: were found. Um, I don't know if they would have
18:54
Speaker 1: survived those few days or if that haunted them for
18:57
Speaker 1: the rest of their lives. They're rescued ronically by a
19:00
Speaker 1: German ship called the Montezuma. It was the famous Aztec
19:04
Speaker 1: king who eight people and made me poop. That's right.
19:09
Speaker 1: Oh really yeah, huh, that's interesting. It gets even more
19:13
Speaker 1: interesting though, while they were tried for murder I know
19:16
Speaker 1: where you're going, and found guilty, but people felt pretty
19:19
Speaker 1: bad for them. They were like, yeah, we've all met
19:22
Speaker 1: Richard Parker. He did smell like onion. Uh. And so
19:25
Speaker 1: six months later they were released from prison. But here's
19:28
Speaker 1: where it does get a little weird. Oh me, yeah,
19:31
Speaker 1: so I love this. This is eighteen eighty four, right
19:35
Speaker 1: when this happened. Um, in eighteen thirty eight, a little
19:41
Speaker 1: guy named Edgar Allan Poe wrote a short story about
19:46
Speaker 1: a boat that sank and some guys were in a
19:49
Speaker 1: lifeboat and a guy got killed and eaten, and the
19:54
Speaker 1: guy who got killed in Eaton's name was Richard Parker.
19:58
Speaker 1: In that awesome it's pretty weird. The narrative of Arthur
20:01
Speaker 1: Gordon Pim of Nantucket was the short story. And um,
20:06
Speaker 1: I saw something that pointed out like many other things
20:09
Speaker 1: didn't match up. I was like, that's really all you
20:11
Speaker 1: need to call it a startling coincidence, you know. Apparently,
20:16
Speaker 1: also the guy who wrote the Life of Pie named
20:19
Speaker 1: the Tiger Richard Parker as well, did you know that
20:22
Speaker 1: I haven't seen that movie or read the book. I
20:25
Speaker 1: haven't read the book. Movie was really good. I heard
20:27
Speaker 1: nothing but good things. Yeah, I've just never been in
20:29
Speaker 1: a Life of Pie mood, you know what I mean?
20:31
Speaker 1: The name sort of it's kind of like, yeah, it's Pie.
20:36
Speaker 1: Do I care about his life? No? It's a good
20:38
Speaker 1: movie though, all right. Moving on to uh, Alfred or
20:43
Speaker 1: Alfred Packer? Who knows? I heard it was Alfred, but
20:48
Speaker 1: I've seen it both ways, illiterate gold miners in the
20:53
Speaker 1: Old West? Who knows that's right? Uh, February Alfred. He's like,
21:00
Speaker 1: he's a gold miner, he's a prospector, and he wants
21:03
Speaker 1: to go to the high mountains of Colorado to find
21:06
Speaker 1: gold and apparently makes like half of the trip and
21:10
Speaker 1: then stops in the winter and stays with the Ute
21:13
Speaker 1: tribe and they're like, you need to just stay here
21:16
Speaker 1: until spring, don't go any further. He says, no, no, no,
21:19
Speaker 1: I got this. I'm going to continue on. Thanks for
21:23
Speaker 1: the warning. So he goes on with his his friends
21:27
Speaker 1: and um eventually wanders out of the woods alone. Yeah,
21:34
Speaker 1: he went in with five other dudes, came out alone,
21:37
Speaker 1: that's right, and said who me, Oh, I'm just the
21:40
Speaker 1: sole survivor of the group. A storm hit and everybody
21:44
Speaker 1: went their separate ways. Let's not talk about it again. Yeah,
21:48
Speaker 1: he said, my feet got frozen and I couldn't keep up,
21:50
Speaker 1: and I don't know what happened to those dudes. And
21:53
Speaker 1: they're like, oh really, He's like, okay, fine, all right,
21:56
Speaker 1: yeah I killed one of them, but it was in
21:57
Speaker 1: self defense. And they're like what He's like, all right, okay, alright,
22:02
Speaker 1: we ate some of the other dudes, but they died naturally. Well,
22:06
Speaker 1: the reason they first said, wait a minute, what's going
22:09
Speaker 1: on here? As he said that I don't know what
22:10
Speaker 1: happened to those guys, and they said, well, why do
22:12
Speaker 1: you have their personal belongings in your pack? And he went, oh, well,
22:18
Speaker 1: I know I've got wallets full of money from these guys, right,
22:21
Speaker 1: so maybe I should come somewhat clean. So the story
22:24
Speaker 1: keeps changing every time they asked him. Uh. They eventually
22:28
Speaker 1: he's in jail. Is very kg. He's in jail at
22:32
Speaker 1: this point, um obviously while he's being questioned and all
22:35
Speaker 1: this stuff, But the jail was basically a log cabin.
22:38
Speaker 1: No jail can hold Alfred Packer. No, especially not to
22:42
Speaker 1: jail in eighteen seventy four in Colorado, so he busted out,
22:45
Speaker 1: goes on the lamb for nine years. They catch him
22:48
Speaker 1: in Wyoming, liver under the leaving under the alias John Schwartz.
22:53
Speaker 1: Actually somebody who was part of another expedition that he
22:58
Speaker 1: was on, a guy named French. He recognized him, just
23:03
Speaker 1: happened to run cross paths with him. It was like
23:05
Speaker 1: you no way, Yeah, wow, that's bad luck. I guess,
23:09
Speaker 1: good luck. Um. So he was convicted of manslaughter and
23:14
Speaker 1: sentenced to forty years, released on parole in one after yes,
23:20
Speaker 1: seventeen years. Yeah, and supposedly died of vegetarian at the age.
23:25
Speaker 1: That's what they say, and it sounds to me like, yeah,
23:31
Speaker 1: that's what I think. He Well, he's become a beloved
23:33
Speaker 1: figure there. I guess. There's a statue of him on
23:36
Speaker 1: the campus of you see it Boulder. Well, yeah, they
23:39
Speaker 1: named their cafeteria after him, and with the subheading have
23:44
Speaker 1: a friend for lunch. Terrible. Those college students back in
23:48
Speaker 1: the sixties had a real sense of humor, and of
23:51
Speaker 1: course the South Park guys wrote cannibal the musical after him.
23:56
Speaker 1: So Alfred Packers Survival Cannibalist, what degree? We don't know?
24:01
Speaker 1: That's right, I need another break, sir, I'm hungry. Is
24:07
Speaker 1: that is that awful? We'll be back right after this. Okay,
24:31
Speaker 1: did you get to eat, buddy? No, not yet. Your
24:35
Speaker 1: forearms looking pretty good, though. I'd make I'd make a
24:38
Speaker 1: nice meating meal. Well, you know, one of the great
24:41
Speaker 1: revelations in my adult life is that when you're eating meat,
24:44
Speaker 1: you're not eating anything but muscle. Did you realize that? When?
24:49
Speaker 1: Did you realize that? When you told me on the show?
24:52
Speaker 1: I know that I go over some stuff more than once,
24:56
Speaker 1: but it was a big revelation I know. And that's
24:59
Speaker 1: why red meat is red, because it has more red
25:02
Speaker 1: blood vessels. Those are those are muscles that you use
25:07
Speaker 1: more often dark meat. I'm sorry. So like in in
25:10
Speaker 1: a chicken, the dark meat are muscles that the chicken
25:13
Speaker 1: uses far more frequently than say, like the breast, which
25:16
Speaker 1: is white, So there's fewer blood vessels, so it's dark
25:19
Speaker 1: compared to the white meat. Interesting, it's mind blowing. You
25:22
Speaker 1: like dark meat? I like it. I like it all.
25:25
Speaker 1: I used to just be like oh no, white meat
25:27
Speaker 1: only please, And then I like really started trying dark meat.
25:31
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, that's good stuff. Now I'm less like
25:34
Speaker 1: bring it on. Right service choice, that's what I always say,
25:38
Speaker 1: wide or dark service choice. And then I'm like, no, no no, no, mixed.
25:45
Speaker 1: I'm not going to leave this in your hands. And
25:47
Speaker 1: they say this diner is so wacky. The Franklin Expedition, Yes,
25:55
Speaker 1: this one is. Uh, this is a good one. Uh,
25:59
Speaker 1: Sir John frank when at the age of sixty, had
26:02
Speaker 1: already taken too expeditions, ah, dangerous ones. Yeah sixty. Also,
26:11
Speaker 1: we're talking the eighteen fifties, forties. That's old. Yeah, that's
26:19
Speaker 1: that's an old dude. So hats off to him for
26:22
Speaker 1: doing it again. Salty old swarthy seamen act. So. Um,
26:27
Speaker 1: they were looking for the northwest passage from Europe to
26:30
Speaker 1: Asia up in the Arctic. I guess right, going that
26:34
Speaker 1: would be going westward, westward, northwest. Oh yeah, northwest passes.
26:41
Speaker 1: I never thought about that before. But there's no southeast
26:45
Speaker 1: passage or northeast passages there. I don't know who cares,
26:50
Speaker 1: right anyway, Franklin's leading this expedition, and um, there are
26:55
Speaker 1: a hundred thirty four dudes. Yeah, I've seen another couple
26:59
Speaker 1: of numbers, but we'll just we'll go with that and
27:01
Speaker 1: they're never heard from again. Yes, and they were not Uh,
27:06
Speaker 1: they were pros. They weren't a bunch of dummies that
27:09
Speaker 1: just said, let's you know, take a bag of rice,
27:12
Speaker 1: it's a beef turkey. They had five years of food. Uh.
27:17
Speaker 1: They went to a provision er. I didn't really know
27:19
Speaker 1: this how this worked. I figured they just went shopping.
27:22
Speaker 1: But you would, like you would find someone to get
27:25
Speaker 1: all your provisions for the trip, like they would win
27:28
Speaker 1: the bid and you would hire them. So they hired
27:30
Speaker 1: a guy named Stephen Goldner. Uh. And he apparently was
27:35
Speaker 1: in a rush because I guess they just cut it
27:37
Speaker 1: close time wise and hastily put together, um, five years
27:42
Speaker 1: worth of food and tens soldered him shut. Eight thousand
27:46
Speaker 1: tins of food eight thousands. Uh, he soldered them shut.
27:51
Speaker 1: Apparently that's how they say in the UK, So shout
27:54
Speaker 1: out UK, right, um, And here's the quote I saw
27:57
Speaker 1: was that, Uh, the lead dripped like melted candle wax
28:03
Speaker 1: down inside the surface. That's a bad soldering job, it is.
28:07
Speaker 1: And we just an episode on lead. So you know
28:09
Speaker 1: that if lead is in your canned goods, that is
28:12
Speaker 1: no goods. So this expedition had to uh two ships,
28:19
Speaker 1: and they were really well outfitted ships. They had internal heat.
28:23
Speaker 1: Hot water was piped throughout the cabin so they they
28:26
Speaker 1: could stay warm. They had UM railroad engine screw propellers.
28:31
Speaker 1: They were um fitted with iron. They were iron clad
28:35
Speaker 1: in parts to break through ice. They were really nice ships.
28:38
Speaker 1: The Arabis and the Terror. Yeah, very poorly named. Yeah,
28:42
Speaker 1: the Terror is not what you want to name a
28:44
Speaker 1: ship on an expedition, right, No. And the Arabas. I
28:47
Speaker 1: looked it up because I was just curious. And apparently
28:49
Speaker 1: in Greek mythology, Uh, it's the place where you would
28:52
Speaker 1: go right after death. It's the personification of darkness. So
28:56
Speaker 1: terrible names, the Terror and the Arabas. So chuck. They
29:01
Speaker 1: found at least one of the ships. Yeah, just two
29:03
Speaker 1: years ago. Okay, they discovered the wreck of the h M.
29:06
Speaker 1: S Erebus offshore of King William Island underwater. Is trapped
29:12
Speaker 1: in ice underwater, but they think that it was trapped
29:16
Speaker 1: in ice is how they originally because they were stuck.
29:20
Speaker 1: There's a big mystery with the Franklin Expedition because even
29:23
Speaker 1: if they were stuck, they had plenty of supplies, five
29:27
Speaker 1: years worth the supplies to wait until it thought enough
29:30
Speaker 1: to sail at least go back. So why would they
29:35
Speaker 1: abandon these these ships. It's a it's a huge mystery,
29:38
Speaker 1: and a lot of people say, well it was the lead.
29:41
Speaker 1: Look at the behavior. They apparently took lifeboats, dragged them
29:45
Speaker 1: across the tundra. They had non essentials on board with
29:48
Speaker 1: things like silverware. You'd have to just be totally off
29:51
Speaker 1: your nut to be on like a survival expedition to
29:55
Speaker 1: go find help, and you bring along silverware. So everybody
29:59
Speaker 1: pointed to what was the duce's named, Richard Golding's work,
30:02
Speaker 1: terrible salt soldering work, Stephen Goldner, and that his that
30:07
Speaker 1: the lead had had poisoned these guys and clouded their judgment,
30:11
Speaker 1: that they kind of went mad. But apparently they did
30:13
Speaker 1: some They they some of the bodies have since been found,
30:16
Speaker 1: and they did some forensic analysis of it and said, actually,
30:19
Speaker 1: now these guys have lots of lead poisoning, but it's
30:22
Speaker 1: distributed evenly throughout their bones, like they were just poisoned
30:25
Speaker 1: by lead throughout their lives. It wasn't acute poisoning from
30:28
Speaker 1: this soldering work. So it just remains a mystery. I
30:32
Speaker 1: guess it does. And some Inuit tribes reported seeing um
30:38
Speaker 1: about forty guys, forty white men that were in bad
30:42
Speaker 1: shape that they sold some seal meat too, and uh,
30:46
Speaker 1: when one of the search parties came across the Innuit tried,
30:48
Speaker 1: they told him the story. And I think over the
30:51
Speaker 1: years they've been finding, you know, piles of these bodies
30:55
Speaker 1: in different locations. And uh, the Inuits first where the
31:00
Speaker 1: ones who said, yeah, we actually saw one of their camps,
31:02
Speaker 1: like after we ran into the guys, we think we
31:04
Speaker 1: found him again, all dead like the following year, and
31:08
Speaker 1: there was like human bones and their kettles and stuff
31:11
Speaker 1: like that. So they definitely resorted to to uh, survival
31:15
Speaker 1: cannibalism at some point. Yeah, it said, um the direct
31:18
Speaker 1: quote was from the mutilated state of many of the
31:21
Speaker 1: bodies and the contents of the kettles, it is evident
31:23
Speaker 1: that our wretched countrymen had been driven to the last
31:26
Speaker 1: dread alternative cannibalism. Kind of dramatic, yeah, for sure. So check.
31:31
Speaker 1: Let's do one more, huh. Okay, let's do our famous
31:34
Speaker 1: top ten, consisting of six tops boy, this one is
31:39
Speaker 1: super super sad like. There's not much joking about this.
31:43
Speaker 1: I mean, none of this has been funny, but we're
31:46
Speaker 1: trying not to just depress everyone. But the Siege of
31:48
Speaker 1: Leningrad is one of the saddest moments in world history.
31:53
Speaker 1: It's when the Nazi forces uh invaded, bombarded over three
32:00
Speaker 1: years against what is now St. Petersburg, and basically for
32:04
Speaker 1: nine hundred days cut them off in an effort to
32:08
Speaker 1: starve out a city of three three point three million people.
32:14
Speaker 1: And it worked. Yeah, it's it's a great effect. Three
32:17
Speaker 1: point three million people. A million died over the three
32:21
Speaker 1: year siege. Yeah, and eight hundred thousand of those died
32:23
Speaker 1: from starvation. Eight hundred thousand people nuts. So the government
32:27
Speaker 1: nobody could get to it. The Nazis had formed a
32:30
Speaker 1: ring around the city and we're defending it and just
32:33
Speaker 1: trying to They were bombing it every day, but they
32:35
Speaker 1: were also well aware that they were purposefully starving the
32:39
Speaker 1: population as well. Inside um, the people had a ration
32:43
Speaker 1: of bread once a day, a piece of bread about
32:47
Speaker 1: the weight of a bar of soap. Yeah, manual laborers
32:50
Speaker 1: got two hundred and fifty grams of bread. But apparently
32:53
Speaker 1: the bread was cut with pine shavings, and they were
32:57
Speaker 1: subsisting on three hundred calories a day. Yeah, if you
33:00
Speaker 1: were in the army, you would get things like um,
33:04
Speaker 1: fern leaf soup and um cream of nettle, probably not
33:10
Speaker 1: even cream, but like broth of nettle soup. So people
33:12
Speaker 1: were joining the army just for that, just to have
33:14
Speaker 1: that every day. Yeah, here's some of the things that
33:17
Speaker 1: they use as food substitutes. UM, cotton seed cake, uh macaroni,
33:23
Speaker 1: which is in quotes made from flax seed for cattle meat,
33:27
Speaker 1: jelly produced from boiling bones and calf skins, yeast soup
33:33
Speaker 1: from sawdust, fermented sawdust, joiner's glue, boiled and jellified, toothpaste,
33:40
Speaker 1: cold cream. Basically, it said they even licked dried pasteuff
33:45
Speaker 1: wallpaper because there was a rumor that it was potato based.
33:49
Speaker 1: Anything for calories. I mean, that's how desperate things were. Yeah,
33:52
Speaker 1: and and not to stephen calories, but like vitamins too.
33:55
Speaker 1: Apparently they were sweeping the tobacco shavings from a tobacco
34:01
Speaker 1: factories ventilation system because tobacco is vitamin C in it unbelievable,
34:06
Speaker 1: vitamin B one of those too. So what happens is
34:09
Speaker 1: a crime wave starts breaking out, as you would expect
34:11
Speaker 1: in a city that large that's starving to death, like
34:14
Speaker 1: people literally just laying dead in the street, like everywhere
34:17
Speaker 1: you look right. And apparently not just laying dead in
34:19
Speaker 1: the street, they were half eaten, some of them laying
34:22
Speaker 1: dead in the street. Yeah, and they they kept this
34:25
Speaker 1: under wraps for many, many years because they didn't want
34:28
Speaker 1: people to know the world to know how ugly it was.
34:31
Speaker 1: But we have a lot more information now. But um,
34:34
Speaker 1: you would have these ration cards to get this, you know,
34:37
Speaker 1: the tiny allotments of food that they had, and so
34:41
Speaker 1: if their relatives die, they would hide the bodies so
34:44
Speaker 1: they could still use the ration card. And then these gangs,
34:47
Speaker 1: these teenage gangs of teenage boys started breaking out where
34:51
Speaker 1: they would mug you for food in your ration card. Uh.
34:54
Speaker 1: One eight year old killed his two younger brothers for
34:57
Speaker 1: their cards. Uh. One guy murdered his grandmother and boiled
35:01
Speaker 1: an eight her liver. And a seventeen year old stole
35:04
Speaker 1: a corpse from a cemetery and put it through a
35:06
Speaker 1: meat minzer. So it's like one of the most shocking
35:11
Speaker 1: things that I've ever heard in world. History, and it
35:13
Speaker 1: isn't much talked about. I mean, you hear about the
35:15
Speaker 1: Siege of Lennon Grand, but I mean the details of
35:19
Speaker 1: it are just horrifying. Yeah, it was pretty whitewashed, I
35:21
Speaker 1: think when I studied it in college. But um, well
35:24
Speaker 1: that's because the Soviets just denied the horror of the
35:28
Speaker 1: whole thing. Two thousand people were arrested for cannibalism. Um
35:32
Speaker 1: five eighty six were executed for murdering people and eating them.
35:37
Speaker 1: And it said most people arrested were women. Apparently mothers
35:42
Speaker 1: would smother like their youngest kids to feed to the
35:44
Speaker 1: other kids. Man, what a horrible time. Alrighty, that's a
35:50
Speaker 1: nice uplifting way to leave people. Yeah there's others one,
35:53
Speaker 1: there's others that we haven't touched upon. So if you
35:55
Speaker 1: want to learn more about it, you can just type
35:57
Speaker 1: survival cannibalism into the search bar how stuff works dot com.
36:00
Speaker 1: And since I said that it's time for basebook questions,
36:07
Speaker 1: I can't think of a more inappropriate way to end
36:09
Speaker 1: this show into take social media questions and laugh. But
36:15
Speaker 1: maybe we need to laugh now. Let's all right, I've
36:18
Speaker 1: got a hilarious one. All Right, this is from lu
36:22
Speaker 1: Jen If you had one, if you had to eat
36:24
Speaker 1: one food for the rest of your life, what would
36:26
Speaker 1: it be? Fried chicken? Oh yeah, easy, mom. Would be
36:30
Speaker 1: either a really good Indian curry or a really good
36:34
Speaker 1: Japanese curry. Either one of those would be happy. So
36:37
Speaker 1: a curry, A curry, A good one, though, great one?
36:43
Speaker 1: Are you well? And food? Fried chicken? I'm gonna if
36:46
Speaker 1: if it's a meal, I'm gonna say fried chicken, mashed
36:47
Speaker 1: potatoes with gravy and corn bread or biscuit or something.
36:51
Speaker 1: What about green Yeah? I love it, um, but dealer's choice,
36:56
Speaker 1: like you said, okay, green beans, collared whatever, But that
37:00
Speaker 1: would be my meal. First good one. That was hilarious.
37:05
Speaker 1: This is from Jeff Ruth. Why doesn't John Candy get
37:08
Speaker 1: comedic props that he's due? Great question, I agree. One
37:13
Speaker 1: of the great great comic actors of our time. Yeah,
37:16
Speaker 1: it's great. Sad, sad that we lost him. Uh. He
37:19
Speaker 1: was huge at the time. I mean, everybody knew John Candy.
37:22
Speaker 1: He was in some major, major motion pictures, many of
37:26
Speaker 1: which were surrounded by him. I think he's gotten tons
37:28
Speaker 1: of props. So what are you saying, Jeff? Wake up,
37:30
Speaker 1: Wake up? Also because he was Canadian. Okay, good answer. Uh,
37:36
Speaker 1: here's one from Lily Highum, what is it like for
37:39
Speaker 1: Jerry producing stuff you should know? Well, here's Jerry's answer.
37:45
Speaker 1: All right, yeah, nice eliminating. That's always Russell Redman. What's
37:50
Speaker 1: your favorite breed of cat? And don't lie, because I'll
37:53
Speaker 1: know Russell. I mean, I think I'll probably go with
37:58
Speaker 1: the breeds that I have right now because they're dear
38:01
Speaker 1: to me. So I'm gonna say a tabby in a
38:03
Speaker 1: main tune. Okay, and yeah, are you ready for this question?
38:10
Speaker 1: Charlie Manson asked, Chuck always wears a baseball cap. Is
38:13
Speaker 1: there a reason for this? Chuck? I think you should
38:17
Speaker 1: tell them right now you're not wearing a baseball cap.
38:20
Speaker 1: I'm not because, as most of you know, my beloved
38:22
Speaker 1: Last Chance Garage had that have had for twenty years
38:25
Speaker 1: was lost in Austin, Texas and is in a dumpster
38:28
Speaker 1: somewhere in Austin, Texas. I don't know if that's true.
38:31
Speaker 1: I think it's adorning the hat of a hipster in Austin, Texas. Seriously,
38:35
Speaker 1: if you're in an Austin, keep an eye off for
38:37
Speaker 1: that thing. It says last Chance garage. It's black circle
38:42
Speaker 1: emblem smells like twenty years of Chuck. No one else
38:46
Speaker 1: would want to wear that hat. I'm guarantee you. But
38:48
Speaker 1: now I don't wear a hat that much anymore because
38:50
Speaker 1: of that. I love that hat. Okay, alright, l I
38:53
Speaker 1: p okay. Jack Mayhan says, what is your favorite automobile
38:57
Speaker 1: and why? Uh? Mine is probably the AMC Pacer, just
39:01
Speaker 1: because it's pretty cool looking. I'm not a big car guy,
39:04
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna go with the nineteen sixties VW Beetles
39:09
Speaker 1: because I drove them and I still love him. I
39:11
Speaker 1: saw beautiful looking beetle the other day. Cherry restored that
39:15
Speaker 1: this guy was driving, and I was just like, man,
39:18
Speaker 1: I'm getting another one one day. Totally do it, Chuck,
39:22
Speaker 1: I am. I'm gonna have a real nice one. Okay.
39:24
Speaker 1: Um Bryant Tarbell, Oh Tarbell, why do you tempt me? So?
39:30
Speaker 1: Described to flate Gate in one word, we go at
39:32
Speaker 1: it a lot on Facebook. He's our friend from Boston.
39:35
Speaker 1: In one word, uh, two words, three words, Tom Brady Cheetah.
39:41
Speaker 1: Oh moving on? Well, I think a score one for Chuck. Uh.
39:48
Speaker 1: Tara Dickinson asks this catch up a sauce or a condiment.
39:52
Speaker 1: I think it's probably both. I don't think it has
39:54
Speaker 1: to be one or the other. I did it. Don't
39:56
Speaker 1: be dumb on the origin of ketchup. Did you know
39:58
Speaker 1: it's vieting a musing origin? No idea? Really? Cat is
40:03
Speaker 1: that pounced? Really? And is that why it's spelled uh
40:07
Speaker 1: as cats up? Yes, that's exactly right, that's the tradition spelling. Yeah.
40:11
Speaker 1: And did you know like originally before tomatoes weren't introduced
40:14
Speaker 1: until like the late nineteenth century, but they were. The
40:16
Speaker 1: British were making versions of this stuff, um, like from
40:21
Speaker 1: the like mid eighteenth century, and they were using things
40:24
Speaker 1: like walnuts and anchovies and all sorts of weird stuff mushrooms.
40:28
Speaker 1: It's more like a fish sauce. That's how catsup started. Really? Yeah?
40:32
Speaker 1: Is that why it's got vinegar in it today? Probably?
40:35
Speaker 1: Probably idea? Don't remember why. I think it might just
40:39
Speaker 1: have been originally a preservative. Gotcha? I'll do one more
40:44
Speaker 1: for me. This is from Caleb James Wyant. Would either
40:49
Speaker 1: of you ever consider running for public office? Um? For me?
40:54
Speaker 1: Not a chance. No, never had any interest whatsoever. Um.
41:00
Speaker 1: And I wouldn't be allowed to anyway, they would expose
41:04
Speaker 1: me so quickly for past crimes against humanity, They would
41:09
Speaker 1: dig stuff up on me, and I would be disqualified.
41:12
Speaker 1: So now, for many reasons, I think that's a great
41:14
Speaker 1: way in this great If you want to get in
41:17
Speaker 1: touch with us, you can visit us on Facebook at
41:20
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can
41:22
Speaker 1: tweet to us at s y s K podcast. You
41:25
Speaker 1: can send us an email to stuff podcast at how
41:27
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com has always joined us at our
41:29
Speaker 1: home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
41:37
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
41:40
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com