Latest / Crime and Horror / He copied his father and destroyed his country - MrBallen

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He copied his father and destroyed his country - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

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  Speaker 1: Today, we have three stories about people who are absolutely
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  Speaker 1: sure they have found the solution to all their problems.
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  Speaker 1: But they're wrong, and other people have to face the consequences.
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  Speaker 1: But before we get into today's stories, if you're a
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  Speaker 1: of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's stories.
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  Speaker 1: Very late at night on May 19th, 2014, a young
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  Speaker 1: man named Yusuf frantically dug a shovel into the dirt
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  Speaker 1: behind his home in the city of Fez, Morocco. He
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  Speaker 1: was on the verge of absolute panic, so he kept
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  Speaker 1: trying to take deep breaths while he worked to calm
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  Speaker 1: himself down. But to be honest, this was basically impossible
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  Speaker 1: because lying next to the hole that he was currently
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  Speaker 1: trying to dig was a woman's dead body. So just
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  Speaker 1: a few hours ago, Youssef had actually been on a
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  Speaker 1: date with this woman. Her name was Mina El Houari,
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  Speaker 1: and she lived more than a thousand miles away in France.
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  Speaker 1: But she and Youssef had met online, and they had
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  Speaker 1: been talking long distance for a few months. And that morning,
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  Speaker 1: Mina had flown down to Morocco so they could finally
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  Speaker 1: meet in person. And Youssef had been incredibly nervous about
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  Speaker 1: this meeting. But when Mina had arrived at his house
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  Speaker 1: a few hours earlier that night to go on this date...
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  Speaker 1: Everything had actually gone exactly right. He had made her
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  Speaker 1: dinner and their conversation had been super easy and very
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  Speaker 1: lively and they were like laughing a lot of the time.
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  Speaker 1: It was like their chemistry online had perfectly translated to
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  Speaker 1: real life. It was great. That was until all of
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  Speaker 1: a sudden in the middle of their meal and in
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  Speaker 1: the middle of laughing and having this wonderful time, Mina
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  Speaker 1: had gotten this weird spaced out look on her face
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  Speaker 1: and then she abruptly collapsed on the floor. Yusuf had
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  Speaker 1: immediately rushed over to her to see if she was okay,
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  Speaker 1: but he quickly realized she hadn't just collapsed. She was dead.
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  Speaker 1: And Yusuf, he had no idea why or how this
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  Speaker 1: was even possible. I mean, nothing had happened. They had
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  Speaker 1: just been talking and laughing and eating, and then she
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  Speaker 1: just dropped. And it was so shocking that Yusuf hadn't
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  Speaker 1: been able to think straight. I mean, even now as
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  Speaker 1: he was digging this hole, his mind was a mess
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  Speaker 1: and it was hard to focus on anything. But he
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  Speaker 1: did have one sort of single clear thought that he
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  Speaker 1: just kept going back to that was driving his current behavior,
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  Speaker 1: which was everybody was going to think he killed her.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, the whole situation was undeniably weird and hard
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  Speaker 1: to believe. He knew the police would never buy that
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  Speaker 1: Mina had just randomly dropped dead immediately after flying to
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  Speaker 1: Morocco to meet him for the first time. Like, it
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  Speaker 1: immediately cast suspicion on Yusuf. I mean, he knew that
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  Speaker 1: what everyone was going to assume, police included, was that
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  Speaker 1: he had lured Mina there and then killed her. And
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  Speaker 1: there was no one else who saw what actually happened
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  Speaker 1: who could, you know, back up what he actually saw.
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  Speaker 1: And so it was just kind of his word against
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  Speaker 1: what people saw. And so he knew he looked incredibly guilty.
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  Speaker 1: And so to Yusuf, he felt like even in the
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  Speaker 1: best case scenario, he was going to very likely spend
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  Speaker 1: a long time in jail before his name was ever
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  Speaker 1: cleared of this. And worst case, he'd be convicted of
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  Speaker 1: a murder he didn't commit. And then he would just
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  Speaker 1: stay in jail. And so Yusuf had decided the only
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  Speaker 1: thing he could do, based on sort of his knowledge,
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  Speaker 1: at least as he saw it, of what had happened,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the only way he could protect himself was
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  Speaker 1: to try to cover everything up. Yusuf dug as fast
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  Speaker 1: as he could, constantly looking over his shoulders, you know,
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  Speaker 1: making sure his neighbors weren't watching or that nobody was outside.
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  Speaker 1: And then finally, after what felt like forever, when he
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  Speaker 1: felt like the hole was deep enough, he put the
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  Speaker 1: shovel down, And then he took Mina's lifeless body, he
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  Speaker 1: rolled her into the hole, and then he covered her
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  Speaker 1: right back up and just hoped that this was going
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  Speaker 1: to be enough to keep him from getting in trouble. Now, Yusuf,
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  Speaker 1: after this was done, had sort of half expected to
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  Speaker 1: feel relieved that he had, you know, taken care of
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  Speaker 1: this problem. But over the next few days, he was
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  Speaker 1: so anxious about getting caught that he felt sick to
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  Speaker 1: his stomach most of the time. I mean, he couldn't
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  Speaker 1: function at work and he canceled plans with his friends
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  Speaker 1: and he could He could barely sleep, and then one morning,
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  Speaker 1: his worst nightmare came true. He heard a knock on
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  Speaker 1: his front door, and he opened it up to see
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  Speaker 1: two police officers standing on his doorstep. Yusuf's heart pounded
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  Speaker 1: in his chest, but he somehow managed to stay relatively calm,
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  Speaker 1: and he smiled, and he invited the officers inside. They
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  Speaker 1: all sat down in the living room, and Yusuf, who's
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  Speaker 1: like super anxious, he's so worried, he's doing his best
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  Speaker 1: to appear normal, and as he's doing that, the officers
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  Speaker 1: explain to him that They were here to investigate the
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  Speaker 1: disappearance of Mina El-Houari. And Yusuf, pretty much the instant
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  Speaker 1: they said her name, he said, oh, I'm sorry to
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  Speaker 1: hear about that, but I don't know of anybody by
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  Speaker 1: that name. But as the words were leaving his mouth,
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  Speaker 1: he could hear the anxiety coming off his own voice.
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  Speaker 1: And he could tell the officers instantaneously did not believe him.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, one of the officers just right away leaned
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  Speaker 1: forward and said that according to Mina's family, the last
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  Speaker 1: time they spoke to her, She was leaving her tell
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  Speaker 1: to go meet Hugh. Yusuf froze for a moment, and
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  Speaker 1: then he opened his mouth to try and respond, but
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  Speaker 1: his mind just went completely blank. He couldn't believe how
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  Speaker 1: stupid he was to have not even considered the fact
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  Speaker 1: that Mina's family might know where she was going. He
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  Speaker 1: knew that trying to cover this up had just made
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  Speaker 1: him look way more suspicious, and now he couldn't think
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  Speaker 1: of any way to get out of this, except by
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  Speaker 1: telling the truth. And so Yusuf just began sobbing and
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  Speaker 1: he blurted out the whole story. Mina had been at
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  Speaker 1: his house that night and she just suddenly died and
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  Speaker 1: he panicked and he buried her in his backyard, but
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  Speaker 1: he insisted that he didn't kill her and he begged
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  Speaker 1: them to just do an autopsy because it would prove
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  Speaker 1: that he was not responsible. She was dead. He just
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  Speaker 1: buried her. The officers were shocked by what they were hearing.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, this immediate confession that The person they're looking
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  Speaker 1: for is dead. I mean, this was shocking. One of
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  Speaker 1: the officers immediately jumped up with a cell phone and
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  Speaker 1: called for a forensics team. And the other officer who
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  Speaker 1: had just heard this confession just looked at Yusuf and
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  Speaker 1: shook his head. And Yusuf, who was feeling horrible at
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  Speaker 1: this point, he just put his face in his hands
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  Speaker 1: and he cried and he thought to himself, what a
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  Speaker 1: horrible mistake he had made, you know, covering this up.
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  Speaker 1: And he knew now for sure he was going to
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  Speaker 1: be in an incredible amount of trouble. But there was
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  Speaker 1: a small silver lining, and that was, you know, despite
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  Speaker 1: definitely getting in trouble, they would see when they did
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  Speaker 1: the autopsy that he didn't do this. He had mishandled
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  Speaker 1: her death, no doubt. But he didn't kill her. So
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  Speaker 1: once that came out, it would show, like, what really
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  Speaker 1: happened here. That same day, Mina's body was exhumed from
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  Speaker 1: Yusuf's backyard, where he said it would be, and her
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  Speaker 1: body was taken to the coroner. And when the autopsy
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  Speaker 1: results came back, the police were actually kind of surprised
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  Speaker 1: because Yusuf was telling the truth. However, there was one
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  Speaker 1: thing Yusuf didn't know. Just like Yusuf had told the police,
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  Speaker 1: he was not responsible for Mina's random collapse on his
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  Speaker 1: floor during their date. Mina actually had undiagnosed diabetes and
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  Speaker 1: she had collapsed due to critically high blood sugar. So
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  Speaker 1: that part was true. But Yusuf's steadfast belief that he
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  Speaker 1: did not kill her was not correct. It would turn
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  Speaker 1: out that in his state of panic after Mina collapsed, Yusuf,
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  Speaker 1: who was very impulsive, had not been careful in confirming
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  Speaker 1: that Mina was actually dead. Because it would turn out,
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  Speaker 1: she wasn't. Mina, because of her diabetes, was in a
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  Speaker 1: diabetic coma. So when Yusuf buried her, she was still alive.
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  Speaker 1: He'd been so desperate to avoid getting in trouble for
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  Speaker 1: murder that he'd committed a murder. When the autopsy results
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  Speaker 1: came back, they showed Mina had died from suffocation after
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  Speaker 1: being buried in the ground, a truly horrific way to die.
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  Speaker 1: As for Yusuf, he was charged with involuntary manslaughter. Early
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  Speaker 1: in the afternoon of November 28, 1993, a young fisherman
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  Speaker 1: named Daniel haggled with a vendor at a bustling outdoor
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  Speaker 1: fish market in Manakara, which is a port city in Madagascar.
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  Speaker 1: This market was so loud, it was chaotic, and it
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  Speaker 1: was packed with hundreds and hundreds of locals. There were
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  Speaker 1: vendors who stood at their stands selling piles of fish
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  Speaker 1: out of plastic buckets on the ground or laid out
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  Speaker 1: on banana leaves and wooden pallets. And it was already
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  Speaker 1: getting very hot and the air was buzzing with flies
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  Speaker 1: while stray dogs wandered through the lines of customers. But
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  Speaker 1: Daniel was not buying from these vendors. He was selling.
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  Speaker 1: Because earlier that morning, he and his fishing crew had
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  Speaker 1: pulled in their nets and found a six foot long
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  Speaker 1: bull shark tangled up in their netting and for Daniel
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  Speaker 1: I mean this was literally the catch of a lifetime
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  Speaker 1: this shark had so much meat on it he was
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  Speaker 1: sure it would sell for more than his crew normally
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  Speaker 1: made in a whole month I mean this was huge
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  Speaker 1: and so Daniel and this vendor they haggle for a
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  Speaker 1: bit longer and then they finally settle on a price
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  Speaker 1: and Daniel like can't believe the vendor is going to
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  Speaker 1: pay that much money. I mean, this was an astounding
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  Speaker 1: amount of money. And then as the vendor pulled out
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  Speaker 1: a big wad of bills and began peeling off how
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  Speaker 1: much he was going to pay Daniel, I mean, Daniel
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  Speaker 1: couldn't believe it. This was not just the most money
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  Speaker 1: he had ever made at one time in his life.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, this was easily the most. But more than that,
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  Speaker 1: this was like literally the most cash he had ever
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  Speaker 1: seen in person all at once. This was life-changing money.
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  Speaker 1: And as soon as those bills were handed over to Daniel,
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  Speaker 1: for a moment he just looked at the money like,
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  Speaker 1: how can this be real? But then he folded them up,
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  Speaker 1: he stuffed it in his pocket, and then he handed
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  Speaker 1: off all the shark meat, and then he turned and
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  Speaker 1: he walked out of the market. Later that night, Daniel
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  Speaker 1: sat at the dinner table with his family while his
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  Speaker 1: uncle raised a cup to toast Daniel's big catch. The
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  Speaker 1: family had actually already spent a on this celebratory meal.
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  Speaker 1: The table was full of food and alcohol. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: this was a feast. And Daniel, he was feeling really proud.
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  Speaker 1: He was actually the youngest fisherman in his family. So
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  Speaker 1: the fact that he had been the one who made
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  Speaker 1: this catch was a really big deal. And so once
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  Speaker 1: his uncle finished this elaborate toast about how great Daniel was,
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  Speaker 1: Daniel just smiled and then downed his own cup in
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  Speaker 1: a single gulp. And the alcohol really burned his throat,
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  Speaker 1: but he managed to get it down without wincing. And
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  Speaker 1: then he told everyone to dig in. About six hours later,
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  Speaker 1: Daniel woke up covered in sweat. His tongue was tingling
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  Speaker 1: like he had just eaten something really spicy. And there
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  Speaker 1: was also this strange metallic taste in his mouth. He
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  Speaker 1: tried to sit up and he realized that actually his
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  Speaker 1: legs were tingly too. The burning sensation in his mouth
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  Speaker 1: kept getting worse and worse until Daniel was desperate for
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  Speaker 1: something to drink. He tried to stand, but he fell
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  Speaker 1: right out of bed, knocking over his lamp. And the
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  Speaker 1: crash brought Daniel's aunt and uncle running into the room.
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  Speaker 1: And Daniel, he told them to please get him some water.
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  Speaker 1: So his aunt, in a panic, she turned and she
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  Speaker 1: ran out and came back a few seconds later with
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  Speaker 1: a cup of water. Daniel, he grabbed the cup and
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  Speaker 1: starts chugging as fast as he can. But the water
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  Speaker 1: burned horribly and he spat it out and he screamed
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  Speaker 1: in pain. And then he turned to his aunt and
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  Speaker 1: he yelled at her, asking her why had she brought
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  Speaker 1: him scalding hot tea. But she just looked at him
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  Speaker 1: confused and said she hadn't. It was just regular room
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  Speaker 1: temperature water. A few hours later, and Daniel's symptoms were
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  Speaker 1: only getting worse. So his aunt, she went outside and
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  Speaker 1: she flagged down a man that was pulling a rickshaw
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  Speaker 1: and she asked him to please take Daniel to the hospital.
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  Speaker 1: And the guy said he would. And by the time
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  Speaker 1: they got to the hospital, Daniel, in addition to his
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  Speaker 1: other symptoms, now also had a pounding headache and he
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  Speaker 1: was beginning to fade in and out of consciousness. And
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  Speaker 1: so because of that, Daniel's aunt and uncle who had
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  Speaker 1: come with him had to physically help lift him off
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  Speaker 1: the rickshaw, and sort of carry him into the hospital.
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  Speaker 1: And then as soon as they were in the hospital,
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  Speaker 1: Daniel heard his aunt gasp. And so Daniel, he lifted
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  Speaker 1: his head up to see what she was reacting to.
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  Speaker 1: And for a second in his delirium, he thought maybe
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  Speaker 1: he was back at the fish market because there were
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  Speaker 1: people everywhere packed together and like a dense mob filling
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  Speaker 1: up every inch of the room. But then he realized
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  Speaker 1: this was not the fish market. This was the hospital.
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  Speaker 1: And these were all the other people trying to check
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  Speaker 1: in to the emergency room. But then Daniel's vision began
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  Speaker 1: to go and he was sort of in and out
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  Speaker 1: of consciousness again. And before he knew it, he was
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  Speaker 1: being laid out on a stretcher and carried over to
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  Speaker 1: this hallway, which was somehow even more crowded and more
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  Speaker 1: chaotic than the waiting room. And all around him, you know,
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  Speaker 1: despite not really having a good sense of what was
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  Speaker 1: going on, he could still tell that there were nurses
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  Speaker 1: and doctors running back and forth treating patients right there
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  Speaker 1: in the hall. And the patients all seemed to have
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  Speaker 1: gone crazy. Daniel could see there was one man who
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  Speaker 1: was writhing around in obvious physical pain while a nurse
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  Speaker 1: just sort of dabbed his forehead with a wet washcloth.
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  Speaker 1: And this man was shouting that the towel was too
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: hot while the nurse kept saying that it was not,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: it was cold. Other patients were complaining that it was
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: freezing in the hall, even though they were visibly sweating profusely.
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  Speaker 1: And a woman that Daniel couldn't quite see kept screaming
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  Speaker 1: about a hot stethoscope, which didn't even make any sense.
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  Speaker 1: It was totally surreal. It was like the entire city
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  Speaker 1: had descended on this hospital and everybody had gone mad.
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  Speaker 1: But then through all this madness, Daniel heard one of
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: the medical staff shouting that they needed more respirators because
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: they had just lost another patient. By the end of
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  Speaker 1: that day, this hospital was completely overrun with people all
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  Speaker 1: over the city who all had the same symptoms. including
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: numb or tingling limbs, headaches, confusion, and feeling that anything
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: cold was hot and anything hot was cold. Now, the
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: doctors and the medical staff had no idea what was
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: causing this outbreak. But very quickly, these patients began falling
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: into comas and then dying by the dozens. Ultimately, the
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: local medical staff, the local doctors, had to call in
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: a team of outside investigators, experts, to come in and
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: figure out what was going on here. And those investigators
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: tracked the outbreak backwards to where it all started, and
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: their search led them to the Manakara fish market and
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: to Daniel. It would turn out Daniel had been right.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: That huge shark that he caught really was the catch
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  Speaker 1: of a lifetime. But it would turn out the same
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  Speaker 1: qualities that made the shark so valuable also made it deadly.
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  Speaker 1: The shark was valuable primarily because it was huge, with
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  Speaker 1: enough meat to feed a whole community. But sharks basically
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  Speaker 1: keep growing until they die. So the reason that this
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: bull shark was so big was because it was so,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: so old. And during the many, many years it had
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: been alive, it had consumed an enormous amount of something
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  Speaker 1: called ciguatoxin. Ciguatoxin is a chemical compound produced by a
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  Speaker 1: very specific kind of algae. Fish eat this algae, and
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  Speaker 1: then sharks eat the fish, and the toxin builds up
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  Speaker 1: in the shark's bodies over time. Now, this is not
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: really a problem for the fish or even the sharks.
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  Speaker 1: But for the humans who eat those sharks who have
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  Speaker 1: this toxin in them, it causes ciguatera poisoning, which has
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  Speaker 1: very bizarre neurological symptoms, like feeling that anything cold is
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  Speaker 1: actually excruciatingly hot and vice versa. Now, in most cases,
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  Speaker 1: this is not fatal. But... Daniel's very, very old shark
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  Speaker 1: had spent literal decades accumulating ciguatoxin until its meat was
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  Speaker 1: off the charts toxic. And because the shark was so big,
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  Speaker 1: there was so much toxic meat. And that vendor who
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  Speaker 1: bought it from Daniel, he sold that meat to hundreds
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  Speaker 1: and hundreds of people at the fish market. And Daniel
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  Speaker 1: and his family died. They didn't buy any of this meat.
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  Speaker 1: They just kept a portion for their dinner that night.
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  Speaker 1: That was part of their celebratory meal. All told, around
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  Speaker 1: 500 people got sick from the shark. 188 of them
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  Speaker 1: wound up in the hospital, and 98 of them died.
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  Speaker 1: Which means Daniel's shark actually killed more people than every
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: single great white shark attack in recorded history combined. All
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  Speaker 1: by itself, this one bull shark made its species unique.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: the deadliest shark in the world. One morning in early
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  Speaker 1: May of 1896, a young man named Nicholas Romanov sat
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: in his palace in Moscow, Russia, listening anxiously as one
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  Speaker 1: of his advisors delivered their daily report. Nicholas was actually
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: just weeks away from being officially crowned as the next
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: ruler of Russia, the Tsar. And this report he was
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: getting was about the many decisions that Nicholas now had
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  Speaker 1: to make. Nicholas's family, the Romanovs, had been ruling over
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Russia for the last 300 years, and Nicholas's father had
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: just died. So now it was Nicholas's turn to step
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: up and lead the country. And this was pretty much
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: the worst thing that had ever happened to Nicholas. Partly,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: this was because he loved and admired his father, and
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: he was devastated that he was gone. But mostly, it
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: was because Nicholas didn't know anything about leading a country.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: He was a quiet person and would rather spend his
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: time reading or taking walks with his wife. And his
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: father really hadn't prepared him at all for this moment.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: He'd never taught Nicholas about the country he would one
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: day be running. Also, growing up, Nicholas had rarely ever
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: left their palace. So literally, he hadn't actually seen the
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: vast majority of Russia. He basically lived in a bubble.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: And so Nicholas just felt completely unprepared and unsure of himself.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: And then Nicholas's advisor began asking him all these questions
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: about what Nicholas wanted to do for his coronation ceremony
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: and the festivities around it, which would be taking place
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: in a few weeks. And as he sat there listening...
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: It's like Nicholas felt so overwhelmed he felt sick to
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: his stomach. But then Nicholas had this brilliant idea about
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: his upcoming coronation. I mean, he had lots of problems
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: to deal with, but it was like he had thought
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: of this perfect solution for what to do about the coronation.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: And it was so obvious he couldn't believe he hadn't
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: thought of it earlier. Nicholas didn't actually have to make
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: any of these decisions he was being asked to make himself.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: He could just copy his father, who had successfully ruled
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: over Russia for 13 years and obviously knew what he
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: was doing. He could just copy all of his decisions
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: about what he did when he was coronated. So Nicholas
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: interrupted his advisor and said he didn't want to answer
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: any more questions about this coronation. Instead, the organizers should
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: simply just recreate his father's ceremony and celebration. Use the
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: same location, the same food, the same everything. At this,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Nicholas's advisor sort of looked at him with a strange
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: look in his face and asked if Nicholas was really
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: sure about that. And Nicholas just nodded and said, yes,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: of course. So the advisor nodded and hurried off. And
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Nicholas exhaled with relief. After that, Nicholas just spent the
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: next few weeks in a much more relaxed state. He
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: obviously was going to have lots more problems and issues
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: that he would have to deal with as a czar.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: But really the coronation had become like the big stressful
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: thing for him because it was so soon and now
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: he had solved for it. And so he had just
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: gone back to reading and taking walks and just sort
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: of taking it easy. You know, the last few weeks
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: he was going to be able to do that before
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: he was officially czar and just allowed his organizers to recreate,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: you know, his father's coronation for him. And they did
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: just that, you know, per Nicholas's instructions. The organizers really
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: set up the exact same event they had held 13
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: years earlier for his father. They invited the general public
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: and they used the same venue for the festivities called
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: the Kadinka Field, which is just outside of Moscow. They
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: made sure there'd be the exact same food stalls set
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: up to hand out the same sausages and bread rolls
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: and little souvenir cups to the public. And the same
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: musicians were there to perform and entertain the visitors until evening.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Nicholas made his imperial entrance. It was all exactly the same.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: And then finally, after all the preparations had been made,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: the day finally arrived. Early in the morning on May 30th,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: so coronation day, a reporter named Vladimir Giliarovsky tried to
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: push his way through the huge crowd at Kadinka Field,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: this massive area that spanned over a mile wide with
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: a pavilion and stage in the middle of it. Vladimir
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: was there to cover the new czar's coronation, and he
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: was so far really impressed by the turnout. I mean,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the actual celebration hadn't even started yet, and already there
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: were hundreds of thousands of people packed into every inch
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: of this enormous field. Now, Vladimir remembered the celebration for
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Nicholas's father's coronation, but there had not been nearly as
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: many people at that one. And so Vladimir, at some point,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: he began trying to make his way over to the
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: food area, but he could barely move. The crowd was
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: so dense that each step he took was basically just
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: a small inch forward. It was like you couldn't go anywhere.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: And as Vladimir is trying to navigate this mob, he
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: heard someone yell something to the crowd. And all the
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: people around Vladimir started repeating what had just been yelled
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: to them. Like they were passing it along across the
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: entire crowd over and over again until it was like
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: everybody was yelling it. And as this happened, Vladimir felt
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: like the energy shift around him. The crowd who had
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: been sort of restless before, now it was like they
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: were all moving with a purpose, all moving at once.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Like everybody was trying to move in the same direction.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: And as this happened, as Vladimir was doing his best
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: to kind of go with the flow here, he began
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: hearing people scream. But before Vladimir, or anybody else for
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: that matter, could even react, everything just became a blur
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: of more screams and just mass panic with limbs and
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: bodies all shoving against him and falling at his feet.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: And then at some point, Vladimir was so compressed by
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: all these people that he couldn't move, he couldn't breathe,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: he couldn't scream. He was just stuck. So Nicholas Romanov
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: had decided he would copy his father's coronation celebration exactly
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: as it happened. He was just going to mimic that
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: exact same thing. And it would turn out that choice
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: seemed like a good one, but in practice was a
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: very bad choice. Because Nicholas, despite being Russian and living
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: in Russia and about to be in charge of Russia,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: did not know the first thing about his country. He
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: didn't know about the country's economics or politics or social issues.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: He lived in his bubble in the palace. And so
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: because of that, he didn't realize that the Russia that
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: he was inheriting was not the same one as the
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: one his dad had inherited. And it would turn out
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: this Russia was starving. At Nicholas's father's coronation celebration, they
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: had handed out bread rolls and sausages to the people
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: who came. And so Nicholas told his advisors to advertise
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: the same thing for his own celebrations. But in a
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: literally starving country, this meant when those advertisements went out
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: that there would be free food at this coronation, this
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: meant a gigantic horde of half a million starving people
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: showed up, not to see their new czar, but to eat.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: And the number of people who showed up looking for
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: food was way more than the organizers had planned for.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: And once all those people had descended on the field
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: and were eating that food, at some point, one of
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: those people saw the food was dwindling, and they yelled
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: out to the crowd that the food was almost gone.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: That was the phrase that the reporter, Vladimir, heard people
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: yelling and then repeating, which caused the panic. People began
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: to rush towards the vendors to get the food before
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: it ran out, and it caused a massive stampede. And
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: so for hours, the crowd shoved and pushed and fought
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: and ran over the bodies of people who had fallen. Ultimately,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: around 1,300 people were suffocated or trampled to death right
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: in that field. And that reporter, Vladimir, who had been
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: on the ground and saw it firsthand, he survived. And
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: he wrote a detailed article about how horrible it was.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: And the media generally blamed Nicholas for the whole thing.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: So Nicholas's reputation, which he tried to bolster by copying
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: his successful father, was completely destroyed before it even began.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: And in fact, for the rest of his reign, the
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: people called him Nicholas the Bloody. The country only continued
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: to face economic problems under Nicholas's reign. And in fact,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: 22 years after he became czar, after this tragedy at
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: the coronation, A group of revolutionaries murdered Nicholas the Bloody
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: and his family and ended monarchy forever in Russia. Thank
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: you so much for watching today's episode. Let me know
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: what you thought of it in the comments below. And remember,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: we have a whole playlist of Places You Can't Go
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: episodes ready for you to binge right now. So go
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: ahead and click here and give them a watch. All right,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: until next time, see ya.