Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Dead Drunk

Transcript

Dead Drunk · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: If you ask the average American what they know about
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Catherine the Great of Russia, they'll probably say nothing. And
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: that's a shame, because she was one of the more
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: effective rulers in Russian history. Catherine the greats was actually
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Prussian and her original name was Sophie. After she married
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: into the Russian royal bloodline, she quickly took power and
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: transformed the country from a stalled feudal state into a
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: modern imperial power. But that's only the tip of the iceberg.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: It's ironic that Americans don't know much about Catherine, because
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: they might just owe her their country. The story of
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Catherine's involvement in the American Revolution starts in seventeen seventy
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: five with a man named Sir Robert Gunning. He was
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the British ambassador to Russia at the time, and he
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: was given a difficult task request Russian military aid in America.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: It was a tricky situation for two reasons. For one,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Sir Robert needed to keep the British monarch, King George
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: the Third from looking like he was begging, and second,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: he really needed the request to be granted. The Americans
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: were doing much better than expected in the war. They
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: had both France and Spain on their side. Sir Robert
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: and his colleagues carefully drew up a ten point treaty
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: to present to the Russians, clarifying everything from the number
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: of troops they were asking for to how much the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: troops would be paid. They wanted to come across as
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: competent and authoritative. Gunning first met with Catherine's foreign policy adviser,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Nikita Pannon, who gave Sir Robert the impression that England's
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: request would be granted. Why shouldn't two monarchs help each
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: other out, But the matter still needed to be approved
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: by Catherine herself. Sir Robert met with her and Nikita,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: expecting to finalize the details of the arrangement, but he
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: failed to realize that Catherine had other plans. She treated
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: the request with some shock, and she would never agree
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: to send troops to America. She thought that the whole
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: America business was embarrassing. How could George have allowed it
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: to spiral so out of control? Nikita feigned shock as well,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: claiming that he thought the request was to send troops
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: to Spain and not America. To add insult to injury,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Catherine dictated a letter for Sir Robert to deliver directly
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: to King George. She used over the top language to
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: make it clear to her fellow monarch where she stood.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: She addressed it to my brother and claimed that the
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: American Revolution was and I quote, a rebellion which no
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: foreign power supports. Even so, she gave a firm no,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: in writing, nor can I stop thinking about what should
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: have resulted from our own dignity if two monarchies and
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: two nations had thus joined of our forces simply to
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: calm a rebellion. In other words, she thought it would
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: look tacky for two monarchs to team up just to
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: defeat the Americans. Little did Sir Robert know he was
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: caught up in a larger web that Catherine was weaving.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Catherine wasn't necessarily for or against the Americans. She followed
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the principles of the Enlightenment, which was an intellectual movement
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: in Europe at the time, emphasizing reason over superstition and
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: the rights of a common man within a monarchy. So
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: while she wouldn't have believed in the revolutionary concept of
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: American democracy, she would have seen George's heavy taxation of
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: the Americans as misrule. She also saw the opportunity to
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: broke her peace in Europe. By refusing to support the English.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: She further isolated them as they were already at war
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: with France and Spain. You may have wondered why so
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: few foreign powers intervened in the American Revolution, while in
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: seventeen eighty Catherine formed the League of Armed Neutrality, a
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: diverse coalition of nations like Denmark, Sweden, Portugal, and the
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Ottoman Empire that agreed to protect one another's shipping interests,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: and they all agreed not to enter the war on
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: either side. By seventeen eighty three, England had no real allies,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: and they agreed to end the war with both America
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: and France. The United States was born, and there was
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: peace in Europe. Catherine had established herself as a major
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: player in European politics, perhaps she would have behaved differently
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: if she had known how the future would unfold as
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: centuries later, the United States is Russia's greatest international rival. Oh,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: how curious history can be. No joke at the expense
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: of an entire nationality is ever fair or good, whether
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: aimed at underrepresented groups who can't defend themselves, or countries
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: with a heritage that folks in a certain era had
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: prejudice against. These wise cracks can often be insulting, but
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: in very rare instances you can see how real events
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: from history might have helped make those jokes possible. Take,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: for example, the Great Whisky Fire. It was a real
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: life tragedy that occurred in eighteen seventy five and one
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: of the largest fires in the Irish city of Dublin's history.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: The fire began in Malone's Bonded Storehouse, a building in
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: the Liberties, a Dublin neighborhood known for its pubs and distilleries.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: We don't know exactly what triggered the blaze, but in retrospect,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the situation was asking for trouble. Malone's storehouse alone held
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: some five thousand casks of undiluted whisky and others spirits.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: This can be dangerous since the volatile, high proof spirits
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: give off flammable fumes that can seep through the wooden containers,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: and on one hot summer evening in particular, those five
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: thousand casks were a powder keg waiting to go off.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Around eight pm that evening, smoke was seen drifting from
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: the storeroom. The first cask exploded, then another, and another,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: a chain reaction of bursting barrels, each one spraying hot,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: flaming liquor across the warehouse. Soon the entire building was
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: a billowing inferno. As the walls collapsed, a river of
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: flaming liquor was released. It flowed into the streets, igniting
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: everything in its path and plunging the liberties into chaos.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: In addition to pubs and distilleries, the neighborhood had several
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: large tenement houses, as well as pens where livestock were housed.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Soon the streets were teeming with squealing pigs, galloping horses,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: barking dogs, and entire families, all of them racing to
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: keep ahead of the spreading blaze. Meanwhile, a crowd gathered
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: to gawk at the fire. Some onlookers saw the river
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: of burning whisky as an opportunity for a free nightcap.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: While people ran home to get pots and pitchers, others
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: simply knelt and cut the whisky in their hands or
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: scooped it into hats or boots, and this revelry continued
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: well after the authorities arrived on the scene. The police
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: quickly arrested the most inebriated onlookers, some of whom were
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: now trying to rescue barrels of whisky from buildings that
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: had yet to catch fire. Meanwhile, the Dublin Fire Brigade
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: got to work controlling the blaze. Captain James Ingram quickly
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: realized that the fire would be a challenge to contain.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Dousing the streets with water would simply cause the flames
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: to spread to new areas, since the burning liquor would
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: float on top of the water. He tried building dams
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: of gravel to block the flow, but the whiskey soaked
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: right through, carrying the flames with it. At that point,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Ingram realized he needed something thicker. In a burst of ingenuity,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: he sent his men to the near by manure yards,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: where the excrement created by the city's countless horse drawn
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: carriages was stored. The firemen came racing back with wheelbarrows
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: full of dung, which they dumped onto the street to
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: block the burning liquor, and this thankfully contained the blaze
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: while rendering the whisky undrinkable. The fire and the party
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: were finally over, but the cleanup was still getting started.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: As dawn broke, authorities began to take stock of the damage.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Adjusted for inflation, six million euros worth of whiskey had
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: been destroyed, and that's not even accounting for the property
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: damage or the physical injuries. And thirteen people had been killed,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: although curiously none of them suffered from burns or smoke inhalation.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: In fact, they weren't directly affected by the fire at all.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: All thirteen of them had died of alcohol poisoning from
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: drinking the undiluted whisky. History is full of tragic tales,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: none deserving of a joke, So let's remember the Great
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Whisky Fire of eighteen seventy five for what it really was,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: an accident followed by a party that ended in a
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: curious disaster. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: and television show and you can learn all about it
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: over at the Worldolore dot com. And until next time,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: stay curious.