Latest / Ridiculous History / A Ton of Inventors Died Due To Their Own Inventions, Chapter Two: Li Si and the Five Pains

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A Ton of Inventors Died Due To Their Own Inventions, Chapter Two: Li Si and the Five Pains · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
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Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you
0:30
Speaker 2: so much as always for joining us. Let's hear it
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Speaker 2: for the man, the myth, our one and only super producer,
0:37
Speaker 2: mister Max Williams.
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Speaker 3: It's me.
0:41
Speaker 4: No, I don't actually have the crazy voice any longer.
0:44
Speaker 4: I am well again.
0:45
Speaker 5: Oh no, oh yeah, I'm sorry. I said no.
0:48
Speaker 3: I'm glad that you're feeling better Max, that you're on
0:50
Speaker 3: the other side of the weather. Is that a thing?
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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, the other side of the massive Atlanta snowstorm.
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Speaker 5: Oh jeez, yeah.
1:00
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, well not quite a snow apocalypse, because thankfully
1:05
Speaker 2: our fair metropolis has dealt with it better than they
1:09
Speaker 2: did in the past. Now you may be asking yourself,
1:13
Speaker 2: if you're listening for the first time, who was that
1:16
Speaker 2: person with a handsome voice who chimed in to talk
1:19
Speaker 2: with Max. Why it's none other than mister Noel Brown.
1:24
Speaker 2: It was me alone, very guisers say. They also called
1:29
Speaker 2: me ben Bollen pretty often. It's a thing I can't shake.
1:33
Speaker 2: We are back from a holiday break, and, as our
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Speaker 2: super producer Max alluded to, we all survived. I would
1:43
Speaker 2: say we thrived during the recent snow in Atlanta.
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Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, And to your point, Ben, are city managers
1:52
Speaker 3: or powers that be or whatever they seem to have
1:54
Speaker 3: learned from the aforementioned previous snow apocalypse, which was pretty awful,
1:58
Speaker 3: and I think they may be overdated this time. I'm
2:00
Speaker 3: letting us know that the inclement weather was coming and
2:03
Speaker 3: getting their six salt trucks out on the streets, because
2:06
Speaker 3: I drove around the next day and it was totally fine.
2:08
Speaker 5: So it was perfectly pleasant.
2:10
Speaker 2: And what were you saying, Bro, You were telling me
2:12
Speaker 2: earlier that you felt you had received maybe too many
2:18
Speaker 2: emergency notifications.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, there were three. I think I was at IKEA.
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Speaker 3: Actually it's one of those things where you hear everybody's
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Speaker 3: phone go off at the same time. It was a
2:29
Speaker 3: very wordy warning about winter weather. I did not intend
2:33
Speaker 3: that to be as illiterative as it was, but I'm
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Speaker 3: here for it. But better to overworn than underworn. So yeah,
2:40
Speaker 3: I think it was overall a weather success. We weathered
2:44
Speaker 3: the weather successfully.
2:46
Speaker 4: And I would say, like, you know, one thing that
2:49
Speaker 4: is beneficial from like you know, the COVID days is
2:52
Speaker 4: working remote for many of us, especially here at our company,
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Speaker 4: is quite easy. I mean, it's like I remember Snowpocalypse
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Speaker 4: is back when I was still a bartender and they
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Speaker 4: found out I lived near a Morta.
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Speaker 5: Station which Martyr was running, and I worked every day
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Speaker 5: for Snowpocalypse.
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Speaker 3: It was fun. I bet well. I heard the italics. Indeed, well,
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Speaker 3: good good on you, Max. You were what they call
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Speaker 3: an essential worker. Said that in italics a little bit too.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yes, I hope we think.
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Speaker 3: They're not essential, Max. I just mean the idea of
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Speaker 3: essential workers was a little bit of a middle finger
3:27
Speaker 3: kind of thing, because you know, they're essential when they're needed,
3:30
Speaker 3: but they don't really get treated well other times of
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Speaker 3: the year.
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Speaker 2: Shout out to the firefighters in Los Angeles area. So
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Speaker 2: we are kicking off part of our new year with
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Speaker 2: a continuing series. You'll recall previously on Ridiculous History, our
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Speaker 2: exploration of inventors who, one way or another died at
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Speaker 2: the hand of their own creations or discoveries, and full
4:00
Speaker 2: disclosure please be my account of Bill of Buddies here, guys,
4:04
Speaker 2: I I one hundred percent thought it would be a
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Speaker 2: one off episode, and then just the fact that so
4:14
Speaker 2: many inventors died trying to fly may part one, a
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Speaker 2: two part series.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, a real Icarus kind of situation.
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Speaker 2: Huh yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. In today's exploration, we're
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Speaker 2: going to start with some inventors you may not have
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Speaker 2: heard of. At least one we can ease into it.
4:42
Speaker 2: I thought we'd all enjoy this with a man who
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Speaker 2: was often called the worst inventor ever, and not without good.
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Speaker 3: Reason, but also not because he was some kind of slouch.
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Speaker 3: I mean, the guy was brilliant. We're talking about Thomas
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Speaker 3: Midgley Junior born May eighteenth of eighteen nine and a
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Speaker 3: lovely little burg called beaver Falls in Pennsylvania. Really idyllic
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Speaker 3: little community, I imagine. I've never been there, but it
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Speaker 3: just you can't have a place called beaver Falls and
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Speaker 3: it not be a lovely, little family kind of town.
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Speaker 3: But this guy had some big ideas, and he's known
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Speaker 3: universally pretty much as one of the world's worst inventors.
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Speaker 3: Not because he was bad at inventing. He was quite good,
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Speaker 3: as we mentioned. The problem is some of the stuff
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Speaker 3: this guy decided to focus his immense talents on have
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Speaker 3: created long lasting health ramifications for just about everyone.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. The thing is Tommy is really talented. His talents
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Speaker 2: are focused on creating inventions that are insidious. He specializes
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Speaker 2: in poisonous chemicals. It is not hyperbole to say his
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Speaker 2: inventions haunt the global population today, animals, humans, plants. We're
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Speaker 2: all involved. We have all been infected by this inventor.
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Speaker 2: We still don't know the full consequences of all the
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Speaker 2: crazy family show, of all the crazy poop he made.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's not to say that he set out
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Speaker 3: to destroy the world.
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Speaker 5: Quite the opposite. He set out to improve the world.
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Speaker 3: It's just as often as the case when inventions become
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Speaker 3: so incredibly valuable so quickly, often those ramifications or the
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Speaker 3: future fallout of said inventions are the last thing on
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Speaker 3: people's minds. So what are we talking about here?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, great point, Noel. To understand just how wild
6:37
Speaker 2: this guy's story is, we have to learn a little
6:40
Speaker 2: bit about automobiles, specifically internal combustion engines. Let's dawn our
6:47
Speaker 2: old car stuff caps for a moment. Harnessed explosions, Yes, exactly, Max,
6:54
Speaker 2: give us some crazy propaganda music, perfect behold the automobile.
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Speaker 2: Each day, billions of these contraptions harness explosions from a
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Speaker 2: special juice made of long dead plant and animal matter
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Speaker 2: powering the modern world. Look that cut the music perfect. Look.
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Speaker 2: If we try to explain the process of internal combustion
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Speaker 2: engines to any alien visiting Earth, the idea that we
7:28
Speaker 2: take small amounts of high energy density fuel, we push
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Speaker 2: it into a very small space and ignite it and
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Speaker 2: make an expanding gas to explode, they would think we
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Speaker 2: were stupid.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, when you describe it like this, it sounds like
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Speaker 3: something that you'd see in like a wily coyote cartoon,
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Speaker 3: like made by Acme, like some sort of like wheel
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Speaker 3: with a series of rockets mounted on the outside of it.
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Speaker 5: Somehow, it's still what we use today.
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Speaker 3: There have certainly been improvements in the efficiency of combustion engines,
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Speaker 3: et cetera. But it's still you in that same dead
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Speaker 3: plant and animal juice, and it's still harnessing those same
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Speaker 3: many explosions.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's still a work in progress. Humanity is
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Speaker 2: figuring out the kinks of this, and I mean kinks
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Speaker 2: as in malfunctions. Back in the day, these engines could
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Speaker 2: be incredibly loud, and they would experience something called engine.
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Speaker 3: Hello, who's dare knock?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, these engines could make sounds that for the driver
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Speaker 2: would appear to be knocks or taps, and our guy,
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Speaker 2: Tommy Midgley Junior, he took that personally, as the meme say,
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Speaker 2: he looked into it. He figured out a compound tetra
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Speaker 2: ethyl led. He discovered, yeah, could be added to gas
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Speaker 2: and it would make the engine run a bit more smoothly.
8:55
Speaker 2: It would prevent that engine knocking in automobiles. That's right,
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Speaker 2: He's the guy who put lead in gasoline.
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Speaker 3: It's because of this guy that we still to this
9:06
Speaker 3: day weirdly, sort of like ashtrays on airplanes, see unleaded
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Speaker 3: gas on the gas pump, like just in case we
9:13
Speaker 3: need to be reminded of this very dark time in
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Speaker 3: the history of the automobile. Because yeah, it's nothing special
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Speaker 3: about it. It's just led, the same stuff that poisoned
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Speaker 3: the Romans and apparently, according to a recent study, was
9:26
Speaker 3: responsible for lowering their IQ over the course of generations.
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Speaker 3: This stuff is no joke. It is straight up poison
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Speaker 3: and has been phased out, I would say, nearly entirely
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Speaker 3: from American society, oh one hundred percent.
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Speaker 2: It also led to oh gosh, keep it. It led
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Speaker 2: to perhaps certain aspects of violence in the United States
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Speaker 2: and other previous civilizations. Our buddy Tommy is not done yet, Noel.
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Speaker 2: He also figures out that a certain chlorofluorocarbon makes an
10:06
Speaker 2: excellent refrigerant CFC's.
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Speaker 3: I believe he learned about those in ecology class, you know,
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Speaker 3: back in middle school, and at first people loved it.
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Speaker 3: Thomas received lots of metals, you know, and accolades for
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Speaker 3: his innovation, his work as a chemical company executive and researcher,
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Speaker 3: first for the chemical anti knock agent, also the extraction
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Speaker 3: of bromine from seawater what could go wrong?
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Speaker 2: Sure?
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Speaker 3: And also the use of fluorine to produce refrigerating compounds.
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Speaker 3: All of these were very popular at the time, but
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Speaker 3: much like asbestos, turns out they were not good.
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Speaker 5: For people's long term health.
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Speaker 3: And yet at the time, I don't know, Ben, do
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Speaker 3: you think it was because the technology didn't exist to
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Speaker 3: look into these types of health ramifications or did people
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Speaker 3: just not care?
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Speaker 2: I mean, I would say ninety percent the former, ten
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Speaker 2: percent the latter. The answer is so easy right for
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Speaker 2: people living at the time, that the question becomes why
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Speaker 2: would we look too deeply into this?
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Speaker 3: Sure?
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Speaker 5: And we got this was known as a miracle material
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Speaker 5: you know.
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Speaker 3: I mean that was literally what it was referred to
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Speaker 3: as in marketing, and I'm sure these innovations from Midgley
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Speaker 3: were treated much the same way. Like this guy is
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Speaker 3: single handedly propelling us forward into the future.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely, and to be fair, we can look back with
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Speaker 2: the benefit of retrospect and say, yes, his inventions and
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Speaker 2: discoveries were bad. It's important to realize at the same time,
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Speaker 2: Tommy himself is not an on purpose evil dude. In fact, Noel,
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Speaker 2: he was kind of a renaissance man to your earlier point.
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Speaker 2: He simply did not grock the full effects of the
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Speaker 2: things he created, and he never imagined the scale at
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Speaker 2: which his inventions would be deployed, which means he could
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Speaker 2: not logically understand the consequences involved. But what do we
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Speaker 2: mean whill we say he's a renaissance man despite being
12:18
Speaker 2: an accidental sith lord Folks, Mitchelli is one of the
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Speaker 2: most creative chemists who ever lived.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true. Not only that, he was a poet,
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Speaker 3: and I think he knew it. I'm never gonna not
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Speaker 3: make that joke. It's not gonna do it. Whoa that
12:34
Speaker 3: kind of rhyme? Anyway, here's an example of some of
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Speaker 3: his work, which lends us a little bit of insight
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Speaker 3: into the dark future that he had a hand in creating,
12:43
Speaker 3: a little foreshadowing here, Ben, you found this Jim Dandy
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Speaker 3: piece of work.
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Speaker 5: Why don't you bless us with a reading?
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Speaker 2: Ooh, let's round robin it. There's a there's a bit
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Speaker 2: of a excerpt here. M would I feel old age
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Speaker 2: approaching and it's his intended And my nerves are growing
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Speaker 2: roughten and my breath is growing short.
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Speaker 3: And my eyes are growing dimmer, and my hair is
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Speaker 3: turning white. And I lack the old ambitions when I
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Speaker 3: wander out at night.
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Speaker 2: Too many men, my senior may remain when I am gone.
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Speaker 2: I have no regrets to offer, just because I'm passing on.
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Speaker 3: We did a little Scottish brogue there, man, I like that.
13:30
Speaker 3: Wrapping it up, bring it home. Let this epitaph be
13:34
Speaker 3: graven on my tomb in simple style. This one did
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Speaker 3: a lot of living in a mighty little while.
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Speaker 5: Huh.
13:44
Speaker 3: Not really highly of himself there too, Huh yeah, so
13:46
Speaker 3: best poet nah.
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Speaker 5: But a rhyme he could he could turn a he
13:52
Speaker 5: can you can bust out a rhyme?
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Speaker 2: He could pat a couple.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, as a poetry is supposed to be right.
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Speaker 3: It's got a rhyme, Come at me, come out of
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Speaker 3: the Internet.
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Speaker 2: So it was not lead poisoning from his gasoline experiments
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Speaker 2: that killed Tommy. Tommy is fifty one years old and
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Speaker 2: he contracts polio and loses the use of his legs.
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Speaker 2: And I want to shout out our pal Dylan Tennessee
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Speaker 2: pal Fagan from stuff. They want you to know who
14:22
Speaker 2: was talking with me about this? This guy gets polio.
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Speaker 2: Polio is disastrous in his era, so he puts his brilliant,
14:31
Speaker 2: tony starkish mind to the problem and he invents a
14:36
Speaker 2: Pulley system over his bed. The idea being he can
14:40
Speaker 2: lift himself into a sitting position and then from there
14:45
Speaker 2: he can get into whatever apparatus he's using for mobility.
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Speaker 2: Unlike his other inventions that wrecked the human world, this
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Speaker 2: one had immediate, observable consequence, and so it came to pass.
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Speaker 2: On November second, nineteen forty four, Thomas Midgley Junior got
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Speaker 2: caught up in the ropes of the system he invented
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Speaker 2: and was strangled to death.
15:14
Speaker 3: I can't put my finger on it, but I've seen
15:17
Speaker 3: this exact scenario like parodied in film and maybe TV,
15:23
Speaker 3: like somebody you know having some sort of contraption that
15:26
Speaker 3: was designed to help lift somebody you know what it
15:29
Speaker 3: was in Twin Peaks. I recently saw it in an
15:31
Speaker 3: episode of the first season of maybe the second season
15:34
Speaker 3: of Twin Peaks, where a character built a doctor character
15:39
Speaker 3: I can't remember the names, built something like this and
15:41
Speaker 3: it had hilarious and disastrous consequences. Did not go well.
15:46
Speaker 3: It's rife for physical comedy. But no, it did in
15:49
Speaker 3: fact end the life of Thomas Midgley Junior. He seems
15:53
Speaker 3: like he should be a Sir Thomas Midgley Junior.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well we can.
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Speaker 5: Night him popously, can we? Can you do that? The
16:03
Speaker 5: knighthood of ridiculous history bad Inventors?
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Speaker 2: All right, there we go, yes, and before we feel
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Speaker 2: too bad, the guy is only fifty five years old.
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Speaker 2: His early death is definitely a tragedy for his loved ones.
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Speaker 2: Consider this again. His inventions, his big breakthroughs, greatly contributed
16:25
Speaker 2: to the environmental problems everyone hearing this show faces today,
16:31
Speaker 2: so much so that we still do not know the
16:35
Speaker 2: full consequences of this. He poisoned three generations of children.
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Speaker 2: He increased the risk of skin cancer and other skin
16:44
Speaker 2: problems related to the exposure of ultraviolet light. He is
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Speaker 2: a big player in the world of global warming, even
16:53
Speaker 2: though he did not know that's what he was doing.
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Speaker 3: Well, And you mentioned Ben that he was also like
16:58
Speaker 3: a chemical company executive. There's part of me that feels
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Speaker 3: like we maybe shouldn't always, you know, condemn the inventor
17:08
Speaker 3: of the thing, but maybe more so the industry that
17:11
Speaker 3: you know, took it and ran with it. And we
17:13
Speaker 3: certainly know that there are inventors that often wish or
17:17
Speaker 3: have mixed feelings about their inventions, like Oppenheimer. You know,
17:21
Speaker 3: he certainly did not feel great about the way the
17:24
Speaker 3: atomic bomb was used and had a very complicated relationship
17:27
Speaker 3: with that legacy. So I don't know, Ben, was Thomas
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Speaker 3: Middley Junior also out there like pushing this stuff hard
17:34
Speaker 3: in his role as an executive.
17:36
Speaker 2: M Yeah, it's a great question. Being an expert, even
17:40
Speaker 2: world class in one discipline of science, say chemistry, does
17:45
Speaker 2: not automatically make one a world expert in other fields
17:51
Speaker 2: of science, such as ecology.
17:54
Speaker 3: It's a very American story kind of I don't know.
17:56
Speaker 3: I just.
18:03
Speaker 2: And with this we're going to go to a story
18:06
Speaker 2: that you have doubtlessly heard, perhaps not in full of
18:11
Speaker 2: another inventor who died by their own hand. Noel, could
18:15
Speaker 2: you do the honors?
18:17
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're talking about Marie Curry.
18:19
Speaker 3: And if anybody saw that just okay, Beetlejuice sequel that
18:24
Speaker 3: came out late last year, the character of Lydia Dietz's
18:29
Speaker 3: daughter dresses up as Murray Currey for Halloween, or sort
18:33
Speaker 3: of as the ghost of Marie Currey.
18:35
Speaker 2: I haven't seen that one.
18:36
Speaker 5: It was okay, it was fine. It's a cute movie.
18:38
Speaker 3: I've enjoyed it more than a lot of what Tim
18:40
Speaker 3: Burton has been putting out there lately.
18:42
Speaker 5: But it wasn't the best. But I did think that
18:45
Speaker 5: this costume was kind of.
18:46
Speaker 3: Cute and very on brand for the demure gothy character
18:50
Speaker 3: played by Jenna or Tega. I think she did a
18:53
Speaker 3: fine job. So. Marie Currey born Maria Solemia Skladawska on
18:59
Speaker 3: November seventh, eighteen sixty seven was a poish chemist, and
19:02
Speaker 3: she and her husband essentially altered the course of humanity
19:08
Speaker 3: when they discovered not just radium, but also polonium.
19:13
Speaker 2: Yeah.
19:13
Speaker 5: Two very useful and deadly elements.
19:18
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. I think about this, How crazy is it?
19:24
Speaker 2: How significant is it? How monumental is it to discover
19:30
Speaker 2: an entirely new element, something that goes up on the
19:33
Speaker 2: periodic table let alone? Two right right? Not once but
19:38
Speaker 2: twice they did this. Ed Marikirie is the person who
19:42
Speaker 2: coined the term radio active. Speaking of a two for
19:47
Speaker 2: this scientist won the Nobel Prize not once, but twice,
19:52
Speaker 2: first Nobel Prize nineteen oh three, when he and her
19:56
Speaker 2: husband Pierre get the Nobel Prize in physics, and then
20:00
Speaker 2: again in nineteen eleven when she wins the Nobel Prize
20:05
Speaker 2: in chemistry. Everybody is over the moon about this, but
20:11
Speaker 2: they're only supporting her after she becomes sort of a
20:17
Speaker 2: scientific winner. Her original life was anything but cozy. Let's
20:23
Speaker 2: go to our friends at grunge dot com, who have
20:26
Speaker 2: a fantastic summation of the misogyny Cie faced pretty much
20:32
Speaker 2: until she won that first Nobel Prize right.
20:35
Speaker 3: Growing up in a time when new governments had banned
20:38
Speaker 3: women from attending higher education facilities, Marie Currey was determined
20:41
Speaker 3: to receive an education. Even though she was the top
20:44
Speaker 3: of her class in Warsaw she was unable to continue
20:47
Speaker 3: her education at the university. She sought education through a secret,
20:51
Speaker 3: underground series of classes designed for continuing education for Polish women,
20:54
Speaker 3: known as the Floating University. Working at a deal with
20:58
Speaker 3: her sister where one would work and send the other
21:00
Speaker 3: to college and then reverse roles, she was eventually able
21:03
Speaker 3: to attend the Sorbonne in Paris, France, Sorbonne University, very
21:08
Speaker 3: very famous institution of learning.
21:10
Speaker 2: Dude, she prestiged it. No spoilers for prestige. I love
21:15
Speaker 2: this quote you're sharing because she's a woman in a
21:18
Speaker 2: male dominated field where dudes hate women. And you may
21:24
Speaker 2: be asking yourself, as stute ridiculous historians, why did Marie
21:30
Speaker 2: Curie and her husband win that first Nobel Prize? Why
21:34
Speaker 2: did she win it herself in nineteen eleven. It's because
21:40
Speaker 2: between that time her husband died in a street accident.
21:44
Speaker 2: It was nineteen oh six, and so now, on top
21:47
Speaker 2: of being discriminated against for her biological identity, she's also
21:53
Speaker 2: a single mom. She's left to raise her their two
21:57
Speaker 2: children alone, without a dad to walk down the street
22:01
Speaker 2: for a second here. I recently read something nol that
22:05
Speaker 2: really stuck with me. I don't think we should call
22:08
Speaker 2: single parents single parents because they're doing twice the work, right,
22:13
Speaker 2: So I think we should call them double parents.
22:16
Speaker 3: I love it, Ben count me in. So of course,
22:18
Speaker 3: her groundbreaking discoveries ultimately led to her early passing. Similar
22:24
Speaker 3: to Thomas Midgeley, Currie wasn't fully aware of what she
22:29
Speaker 3: was playing with the consequences involved in the discoveries. After
22:34
Speaker 3: her husband died, Currie took over his teaching position and
22:37
Speaker 3: became the first female professor at Sorbonne, where she was
22:42
Speaker 3: wholly committed to her research and is often known to
22:45
Speaker 3: carry around test tubes of radium on her person, tucked
22:49
Speaker 3: in her lab coat. Her work with radium ultimately led
22:52
Speaker 3: to the discovery of the first portable X ray machine,
22:54
Speaker 3: but she did not know the deadly ramifications of radioactive exposure.
23:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, in nineteen thirty four, this groundbreaking scientist dies from
23:08
Speaker 2: a condition we call a plastic anemia. It was look,
23:14
Speaker 2: I'm supposed to say, almost certainly, but it was definitely
23:17
Speaker 2: caused by the high radium exposure that she experienced throughout
23:22
Speaker 2: her research. If you go to the Mayo Clinic, you'll
23:25
Speaker 2: learn that a plastic anemia is a rare bone marrow disease.
23:31
Speaker 2: It's essentially your bone marrow, which is supposed to produce
23:36
Speaker 2: all your red blood cells. It stops, it falls short.
23:41
Speaker 2: When you have this condition, and without having these red
23:45
Speaker 2: blood cells, you'll get fatigue, shortness of breath, we're bruising,
23:50
Speaker 2: other nasty symptoms. This is a true story. No, When
23:54
Speaker 2: Marie Curi dies as a result of her own discoveries,
24:00
Speaker 2: her body is so riddled with radioactive atoms that she
24:05
Speaker 2: is buried in a casket made of lead, and the
24:09
Speaker 2: public doesn't Yeah, right, and the public doesn't know about
24:13
Speaker 2: this until way, way after the fact.
24:17
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right.
24:17
Speaker 3: Because the French government wanted to move the curious bodies
24:21
Speaker 3: to be honored at the Pantheon to celebrate them as
24:25
Speaker 3: French history icons. However, when they approached the grave, they
24:29
Speaker 3: detected traces of radium and polonium, which were the elements
24:33
Speaker 3: that Curis studied. Workers initially came across a wooden coffin,
24:38
Speaker 3: but when they opened them they saw an intact lead
24:42
Speaker 3: coffin inside.
24:45
Speaker 2: And this was nineteen ninety five when this was discovered. Yeah,
24:51
Speaker 2: the boffins look into the trace amounts of radium and polonium,
24:58
Speaker 2: and they say, look, this is not enough to harm
25:01
Speaker 2: anyone else. So thankfully, the authorities decide to move this
25:07
Speaker 2: posthumous married couple to wooden caskets for burial at the
25:11
Speaker 2: aforementioned pantheon. The curies changed the world. There's there's no
25:19
Speaker 2: two ifs ands or butts about it. But oh there's
25:23
Speaker 2: another butt, the third butt we've got. I think we
25:26
Speaker 2: have time for one more story, which is super metal,
25:39
Speaker 2: like metal in terms of vibe the horns.
25:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, the name, this guy's name should be written in
25:45
Speaker 3: illegible font let's just put it that way least. See
25:49
Speaker 3: and the five pains trigger warning for anyone that doesn't
25:54
Speaker 3: like nastiness. This is about torture, okay, And so if
25:58
Speaker 3: you don't want to go on this, feel free to
26:02
Speaker 3: skip ahead and will actually just feel free to maybe
26:04
Speaker 3: get off right now. In two twenty one BCE, China unify,
26:08
Speaker 3: putting an end to a chaotic period of warring states
26:13
Speaker 3: and various fiefdoms, combining all of them under the control
26:16
Speaker 3: of the Shin dynasty.
26:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, and one of the pivotal figures in this expansion
26:23
Speaker 2: in the rule of this dynasty is a guy named
26:27
Speaker 2: Li Shi He's born to commoners, everyday people around two
26:33
Speaker 2: to eighty BCE. Now, I love every day people. I
26:37
Speaker 2: am everyday people. You are too. So on paper, this
26:42
Speaker 2: guy's absolute success story. He starts off as a simple
26:47
Speaker 2: clerk in local government and against all odds, he ascends
26:53
Speaker 2: through the strict paranoid hierarchy of China at the time
26:58
Speaker 2: to become one of the most most influential men in
27:02
Speaker 2: the imperial court. He had the riz that's the best
27:05
Speaker 2: thing we could say. He's a smooth talker.
27:08
Speaker 3: He was early. He was the proto rizzler, in fact,
27:12
Speaker 3: a real cool customer at least. She gained a lot
27:15
Speaker 3: of influence over the first Emperor Xiang, and he essentially
27:20
Speaker 3: was kind of whispering in this dude's ear Machiavelli style.
27:25
Speaker 3: He convinced the king to do all sorts of I
27:30
Speaker 3: guess political maneuvers. He was responsible for all kinds of
27:34
Speaker 3: innovations and political inventions, such as bribing enemies who could
27:38
Speaker 3: be bought and assassinating the ones that couldn't. Also was
27:41
Speaker 3: a big fan of tricking neighboring states into you know,
27:46
Speaker 3: getting under the thumb of the emperor through just outright
27:51
Speaker 3: subterfusion lies. He was also a fan of controlling information.
27:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he was. It's a huge advocate of collecting
28:02
Speaker 2: and burning all books that were counter to the narrative
28:06
Speaker 2: of jan. He said, the only books we got to
28:11
Speaker 2: keep are the books about medicine, divination, and agriculture, essentially
28:18
Speaker 2: for their time, the stem books, right.
28:22
Speaker 5: Yeah, put it that way, but you're right.
28:23
Speaker 2: Yeah. The king, by the way, was super down with
28:28
Speaker 2: all of this. It's ethically disgusting, but it does kind
28:32
Speaker 2: of make sense. Given the fragility of the new Empire.
28:35
Speaker 2: They wanted to erase competing versions of history, and Leashi
28:41
Speaker 2: was super good at doing that.
28:43
Speaker 5: And you know how we see this all the time.
28:46
Speaker 3: The kind of closer you are to a king figure
28:50
Speaker 3: like this, the harder you fall when you fall out
28:54
Speaker 3: of favor with said powerful individual. One thing that Lisha
29:00
Speaker 3: she a little four shouting there. One thing that least
29:02
Speaker 3: she is most remembered by in Chinese history. In addition
29:07
Speaker 3: to his political savvy was his inventiveness when it comes
29:11
Speaker 3: to methods of torture and execution. Enter the five Pains.
29:17
Speaker 3: The five p's pretty gnarly. It looks like we're gonna
29:24
Speaker 3: describe what well in your mind resemble an Accountibal Corpse
29:29
Speaker 3: album cover.
29:30
Speaker 2: It is so gross. All right. So around this time
29:33
Speaker 2: as he's as he's rising up in the ranks and
29:36
Speaker 2: doing dangerous whispers. It's sometime between twenty nineteen and twenty
29:41
Speaker 2: thirteen BCE when he becomes chancellor. He is one of
29:45
Speaker 2: the two highest ranking non royal family members in the land,
29:51
Speaker 2: and he pitches the following to the dynasty. He says, Look,
29:56
Speaker 2: if we got a bad criminal, weset an example. So
30:00
Speaker 2: the first thing is we cut off their nose, okay, one,
30:04
Speaker 2: and then we cut off and then we cut off
30:08
Speaker 2: a hand.
30:09
Speaker 3: Just one okay, two pains?
30:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then we cut off a foot.
30:14
Speaker 3: The same foot as the hand or opposite side or
30:17
Speaker 3: a dealer's choice.
30:18
Speaker 2: Interesting, right, So what makes it worse?
30:21
Speaker 5: Yeah, you're not gonna walk away from this spoiler alert.
30:23
Speaker 2: So that's three pains.
30:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, we got three pains down.
30:26
Speaker 2: Yeah. The next one is we cast treat them okay cool? Yeah.
30:30
Speaker 3: So they cut it like like the dela Phosaurus in
30:33
Speaker 3: the Jurassic Park.
30:34
Speaker 2: Not what an interesting reference for that.
30:38
Speaker 3: Sorry, I always remember that they didn't do it in
30:40
Speaker 3: the movie, but in the book. Uh Nedrie gets his
30:44
Speaker 3: guts handed to him. Yeah, and that scene always stuck
30:48
Speaker 3: with me. So that's four pains down.
30:50
Speaker 2: Yeah. The fifth and final pain is death not not
30:56
Speaker 2: any reasonable form of death, literally cutting the body in half, a.
31:02
Speaker 5: Little baroque adding insult to injury if you.
31:04
Speaker 2: Will, an example. Right, And so the five pains is
31:09
Speaker 2: used multiple times to quell, you know, dangerous religious ideologies,
31:16
Speaker 2: et cetera. Any outside forces find their leader, subject them
31:21
Speaker 2: to the five pains, you know, and it is quite
31:26
Speaker 2: successful in securing the or i should say, cementing the
31:32
Speaker 2: power of the empire.
31:34
Speaker 1: Yeah.
31:34
Speaker 3: It's weird though. Is it really loyalty if you are
31:38
Speaker 3: just operating with fear?
31:41
Speaker 2: Right? Is it really love if you're operating out of fear?
31:44
Speaker 5: And Ben, I mean I just wanted to bring up too.
31:46
Speaker 3: I mean, in your studies of geopolitics and stuff, and
31:49
Speaker 3: I know that you are very up on Chinese politics,
31:53
Speaker 3: it's very interesting to me that this kind of tamping
31:56
Speaker 3: down of descents and this type of tamping down and
31:59
Speaker 3: control of information, it's.
32:01
Speaker 5: Not really that different.
32:03
Speaker 3: I mean, they don't do the five pains anymore, but
32:06
Speaker 3: it's still information is kept under lock and key over there.
32:10
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, they're a little touchy. I think it's okay
32:14
Speaker 2: to say that the PRC is a big fan of
32:18
Speaker 2: a single, unified narrative. And this is what we're getting to.
32:25
Speaker 2: Everything is swell from Leashy's perspective until about two eight BCE.
32:34
Speaker 2: This guy is convicted of treason. His crimes are to
32:39
Speaker 2: be held to account, says the governing power. He is
32:45
Speaker 2: sentenced to death, ed Noel max Fellow ridiculous historians. Dare
32:51
Speaker 2: we guess the manner of his execution?
32:54
Speaker 3: Isn't it ironic? Yeah?
32:56
Speaker 2: I don't think.
32:57
Speaker 3: I really do think you got it his own invention,
33:00
Speaker 3: the five Pains woof ouch, because he.
33:05
Speaker 2: Was alive long enough to think about it. They cut
33:09
Speaker 2: off his nose and he's probably thinking, damn.
33:12
Speaker 3: This is familiar, not just despite his face, despite his
33:16
Speaker 3: entire existence, his entire body.
33:19
Speaker 2: Get a hand and he's like, ah, maybe this is
33:22
Speaker 2: just some wackado coincidence. Then they get a foot, then
33:26
Speaker 2: they go for his Australia Dirty way to die.
33:31
Speaker 3: Not good, not good. Fine, I think we navigated that
33:34
Speaker 3: grizzly topic just fine. Ben, It wasn't I think it
33:38
Speaker 3: was too gratuitous. But yeah, not cool weird thing to
33:41
Speaker 3: be known for and also a really weird and horrific
33:43
Speaker 3: way to die that you yourself were responsible for him.
33:46
Speaker 2: Yes, and in the spirit of continuing our explorations, we
33:52
Speaker 2: want to tell you the following. First, there are many
33:56
Speaker 2: inventors who invented many amazing things and did not die
34:01
Speaker 2: as a result of their explorations. Second, there's a smaller
34:08
Speaker 2: yet significant population of inventors who did indeed expire as
34:14
Speaker 2: a result of their discoveries. Thinking of more recent examples
34:18
Speaker 2: like James W. Hezelden in September of twenty ten, the
34:24
Speaker 2: guy who bought the segue Company and then drove a
34:28
Speaker 2: seguey off.
34:29
Speaker 3: A cliff off a cliff in equally wily coyote fashion.
34:33
Speaker 5: Yeah, quite acme, it's true.
34:36
Speaker 3: It's very acne indeed. But man, I think we got
34:39
Speaker 3: a couple that we didn't get to today that I
34:42
Speaker 3: think of being an ongoing series. Let's keep adding to Ben.
34:45
Speaker 3: But thanks for bringing these to us today, Bud.
34:48
Speaker 2: And thanks for tuning in, fellow ridiculous historians. Big big
34:52
Speaker 2: thanks to our super producer, mister Max Williams, Big big
34:56
Speaker 2: thanks to our our whole team of re search associates,
35:01
Speaker 2: as well as Alex Tiajuana Williams, who composed this slap
35:05
Speaker 2: and bop and has not died of a result of
35:08
Speaker 2: his musical.
35:09
Speaker 3: Acumen no no, nor from driving a segue off a cliff. Thankful,
35:14
Speaker 3: We love that guy.
35:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, agreed.
35:17
Speaker 3: Huge thanks to Chris Frasciotis and Nave's chef cos Here
35:19
Speaker 3: in Spirit, aj Bahamas, Jacobs the Puzzler, Jonathan Strickland the quiztor.
35:24
Speaker 2: Big thanks to Rachel Big Spinach Lance, I should say,
35:29
Speaker 2: Big Spinach thanks to Rachel Big Spinach Land.
35:32
Speaker 3: Ooh ooh, and let's do a new thing we've been
35:33
Speaker 3: doing for the new year, since we still haven't gotten
35:36
Speaker 3: the keys back to our social media accounts for ridiculous
35:39
Speaker 3: history as a show. Why not check us out as
35:41
Speaker 3: individual human people because we are those and we exist
35:44
Speaker 3: on the Internet. I am exclusively on Instagram at how Now,
35:48
Speaker 3: Noel Brown, Ben. Where can folks find you?
35:51
Speaker 2: Well, first off, say the right words to a mirror
35:54
Speaker 2: in the dark, or call my name at a crossroads. Yeah,
35:58
Speaker 2: I'll come back to you. Also, you can find me
36:02
Speaker 2: at Ben Bullen. In a burst of creativity on Instagram
36:06
Speaker 2: or some derivation thereof wherever apts are used. We also
36:12
Speaker 2: want to thank our fellow rude dudes over Ridiculous Crime
36:16
Speaker 2: and you know Noel Max. You guys, thank you for
36:22
Speaker 2: not killing yourselves with these wonderful inventions.
36:26
Speaker 3: You're welcome.
36:27
Speaker 5: We'll see you next time, folks.
36:35
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
36:39
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.