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SYSK Selects: Duels - A Guide to Throwing Down the Gauntlet · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, chuck here with a little Saturday select for you.
0:04
Speaker 1: I challenge you to listen to this episode on Duels
0:09
Speaker 1: because the name is cool and the topic is school.
0:11
Speaker 1: It is Duels Colin A guide to throwing down the Gauntlet.
0:15
Speaker 1: Here's a little, uh spoiler for you. The gauntlet was
0:18
Speaker 1: a glove. It's for March two thousand twelve, and I
0:20
Speaker 1: hope you dig it. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
0:27
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
0:35
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me.
0:38
Speaker 1: It's Charles W. Chuff Bryant and uh, you've got Stuff
0:42
Speaker 1: you Should Know on guard. Yeah, to see it means
0:47
Speaker 1: a touch in French. I thought this was one of
0:49
Speaker 1: the funniest openings of an article ever. By the way,
0:52
Speaker 1: did you like it? I thought that very first part
0:54
Speaker 1: was hysterical when I read it. Well, you know what,
0:56
Speaker 1: it just so happens. I don't have an intro for
0:58
Speaker 1: this one, so I think you might to read it.
1:00
Speaker 1: Should we just read it? Yeah? Ed Grabanowski never lets
1:04
Speaker 1: us down. No, he's good. The Grabster h this is
1:07
Speaker 1: how duels work. Ladies and gentlemen. Pistols at dawn the
1:11
Speaker 1: challenge is issued. To turn it down would leave you
1:14
Speaker 1: marked as a coward for life. You meet at the
1:16
Speaker 1: chosen spot, facing your opponent at a distance of twenty paces.
1:20
Speaker 1: Your dueling pistols are loaded, One or both of you
1:22
Speaker 1: could be severely wounded or killed. Today doctors are standing
1:25
Speaker 1: by them in the damage if possible, while your friends
1:28
Speaker 1: eye each other warily. Why is this all happening because
1:31
Speaker 1: you made fun of his hat? It's so good. It's
1:35
Speaker 1: about right too, if we find out and the rest
1:37
Speaker 1: of the article, Yeah, well done, grabster. It's not much
1:39
Speaker 1: of an exaggeration. Apparently, throughout the history of people or
1:44
Speaker 1: ever since, we've had swords at least um men have
1:47
Speaker 1: challenged other men to duels, and other people have died
1:51
Speaker 1: as the result. You know, I thought this is a
1:54
Speaker 1: great article. Um, I thought so too. This is definitely
1:56
Speaker 1: something I knew, like virtually nothing about. Yeah, surely, me too.
2:00
Speaker 1: But I did find out that things like uh, while
2:04
Speaker 1: West duels shootouts very very close to reality. Sure, they
2:10
Speaker 1: apparently happened to coincide at a time when dueling was
2:12
Speaker 1: very popular in America, and this kind of all it was.
2:15
Speaker 1: It was the Old West version of Pistols at Dawn
2:18
Speaker 1: and um as an aside, probably the best dueling movie
2:21
Speaker 1: of all time, The Quicken the Dead, The Quicken the Dead.
2:25
Speaker 1: It's exactly right. If you have not seen that, pause,
2:28
Speaker 1: pause this podcast, get off your treadmill, put your ice
2:31
Speaker 1: cream down, whatever you're doing, go watch The Quicken the Dead,
2:35
Speaker 1: and then come back and resume this podcast. Yeah. You know,
2:38
Speaker 1: what I always appreciate about that movie was that there
2:40
Speaker 1: were how many how many quick draws shootouts? Like, let's
2:45
Speaker 1: say they were ten in the movie. Each one of
2:48
Speaker 1: them was different. He filmed them different and had a
2:51
Speaker 1: different feel Like. I just thought that was so creative,
2:54
Speaker 1: like each one had its own little flavor. That's our
2:56
Speaker 1: Sam Raymie, he's so good man. I love that movie. Um,
2:59
Speaker 1: he's got new coming out, doesn't he? Mr Hollywood guy.
3:02
Speaker 1: Come on, he's got something coming He's not doing the
3:06
Speaker 1: New Spider Man. What's uh? I don't know. I think
3:09
Speaker 1: he might be working on another Evil Dead, like a
3:12
Speaker 1: modern remake the uptake, or he might just be producing that.
3:15
Speaker 1: If he does that, then'll be the second time he's
3:18
Speaker 1: remade the Evil Dead, because The Evil Dead two is
3:20
Speaker 1: a remake of the Evil Dead. Yeah, pretty much. Okay, alright, um,
3:24
Speaker 1: so chuck. A duel for anybody who doesn't know, is
3:28
Speaker 1: basically a one on one battle, as is evidenced by
3:32
Speaker 1: the etomology. And apparently we said entomology before. I don't
3:37
Speaker 1: know that. I don't like some eleven year old kid
3:39
Speaker 1: called us out on that. I think he might have
3:40
Speaker 1: misartus because I definitely hear the difference between etomology and entomology.
3:43
Speaker 1: Etomology etomology of the word duel is um, I think
3:47
Speaker 1: Latin right, duello, I'm sorry, dwell hum, which is a
3:54
Speaker 1: contraction of a duo two and bellum war obviously antebellum
3:58
Speaker 1: pre war. Oh I never realized that. Huh, okay, but
4:04
Speaker 1: duo too. It's basically a war between two individuals as
4:07
Speaker 1: a duel um, and it's been around for quite a
4:11
Speaker 1: long time. Um, I guess we should probably just get
4:14
Speaker 1: to the get to the meat of it first. Let's
4:16
Speaker 1: let's talk about duels and then we'll talk a little
4:18
Speaker 1: bit about the history. Yeah, let's just throw down the gauntlet.
4:21
Speaker 1: So somebody does throw down the gauntlet, and a gauntlet
4:24
Speaker 1: is a glove, and when you threw down a gauntlet
4:26
Speaker 1: at the feet of somebody that was at the height
4:29
Speaker 1: of dueling, um enough to issue a challenge, say, you
4:33
Speaker 1: and I are going to try to kill one another
4:36
Speaker 1: for a little bit, or not necessarily. We'll get to that. UM.
4:39
Speaker 1: When you went to a duel, you had a second
4:43
Speaker 1: which basically was the guy who came along a friend
4:47
Speaker 1: to trusted individual. Uh. It was it was like the
4:50
Speaker 1: best man at your death. He was there to like
4:53
Speaker 1: help you prepare your firearms or your sword. Um. He
4:58
Speaker 1: was there to basic we make sure you weren't ambushed. Um.
5:03
Speaker 1: He was supposedly a neutral third party, a second um.
5:07
Speaker 1: Supposedly uh and uh. Supposedly we would try to talk
5:11
Speaker 1: talk it down and diffuse it. That was the first
5:14
Speaker 1: role of the second. But I don't know how much
5:17
Speaker 1: I buy that. And Ed even points out like more
5:19
Speaker 1: times than not, the second would actually fight the other second,
5:23
Speaker 1: and sometimes there was third and force that would fight
5:25
Speaker 1: the other third and force. And that's I looked at
5:28
Speaker 1: this as it's the same as like a bar fight today.
5:33
Speaker 1: There's always usually like a friend nearby that's you know,
5:37
Speaker 1: he's got your back, but it's really between you and
5:39
Speaker 1: that jerk. But if things get out of hand, he
5:40
Speaker 1: like gets a beer bottle all of a sudden, then
5:43
Speaker 1: you get involved and his friend gets involved. So it's
5:46
Speaker 1: sort of like that, I think. Yeah, if he tries
5:49
Speaker 1: to get in the middle of the two things, he
5:51
Speaker 1: ends up like River Phoenix at the end of Stand
5:53
Speaker 1: By Me and takes a knife to the neck and
5:54
Speaker 1: dies in a bar. That was so sad, saddest ending
6:00
Speaker 1: a river Penix's character. Let's say, since he really died,
6:03
Speaker 1: then that's we should point that out. He had to
6:05
Speaker 1: say it ending in real life as well. Um, so, Chuck.
6:09
Speaker 1: When you declared duel, you could use any weapon, but
6:13
Speaker 1: for a very long time, basically all you had available
6:16
Speaker 1: to you was a heavy sword. Yes, and you had
6:19
Speaker 1: to use the same weapon, and depending on what code
6:22
Speaker 1: of dueling you were following, the challenger or challenge E
6:26
Speaker 1: would pick that weapon. Right. Um, and you mentioned dueling codes.
6:31
Speaker 1: There were several dueling codes, and the one that became
6:34
Speaker 1: the most widespread was the Dueling Code of seventeen seventy seven,
6:38
Speaker 1: the Irish Code um, which is cited extensively in this article.
6:43
Speaker 1: And I believe you're prepared to give everyone a treat
6:45
Speaker 1: and read some of the rules from the code. Yeah,
6:49
Speaker 1: the code Duello UH. It replaced UM the floss uh
6:54
Speaker 1: Duello Toorium, which was in the fourteen hundreds. The ill Duello.
6:58
Speaker 1: In the Germans had their own dueling code which UM.
7:04
Speaker 1: It was set by the fact Schuln dueling schools. Imagine
7:09
Speaker 1: there's was just because they were German. It was probably
7:12
Speaker 1: a little more hardcore, although everything was pretty hardcore back then.
7:16
Speaker 1: It was. But if you look at the dueling codes UM,
7:20
Speaker 1: a lot of the rules appear to be set up
7:24
Speaker 1: so that you don't kill the other person. The whole
7:28
Speaker 1: point of a duel is not to kill the other person.
7:31
Speaker 1: It's to regain honor. Dueling is the result of an insult.
7:35
Speaker 1: When somebody insults you and you challenge them to a duel,
7:38
Speaker 1: you were seeking to say, I'm going to get my
7:42
Speaker 1: satisfaction from you. Basically, you punked me out in public,
7:47
Speaker 1: and that can't happen, that's another way to put it,
7:49
Speaker 1: because I would be looked at as a coward, and
7:51
Speaker 1: that would be a knock on my family's and my
7:54
Speaker 1: ancestors honor. Even yeah, you had to protect the honor
7:58
Speaker 1: of your ancestors. Backwards and forwards in in space or
8:02
Speaker 1: time on either side of you. That's right, As I
8:06
Speaker 1: was saying, some of the uh, some of the rules
8:09
Speaker 1: are intended to prevent harm or injury, like you see
8:13
Speaker 1: people like facing away from each other and turning and firing.
8:16
Speaker 1: That was designed so that when you're using a clumsy
8:19
Speaker 1: seventeenth century firearm, the chances of you hitting anybody but
8:25
Speaker 1: a bystander way off in the distance is pretty low. Yeah.
8:29
Speaker 1: From what I gathered after reading a handful of these
8:31
Speaker 1: rules is that the Code Duello encouraged injury but not death. Yeah.
8:37
Speaker 1: What they didn't encourage was purposefully uh firing in the air,
8:42
Speaker 1: as sometimes happened when neither one of them really wanted
8:45
Speaker 1: to get hurt. They didn't really like that because that
8:48
Speaker 1: sort of takes all the the hutzpah out of the
8:51
Speaker 1: duel to begin with. You're very excited to read these rules,
8:54
Speaker 1: aren't you jumping ahead a little bit? No? No No, we're
8:57
Speaker 1: not there yet. Okay, Um, But one of the rules,
9:00
Speaker 1: uh was that the winner could pretty much do whatever
9:02
Speaker 1: they wanted it once you've won the duel. Let's say
9:05
Speaker 1: there's an injury. You could kill him if you wanted.
9:08
Speaker 1: You could just humiliate him if you wanted. You could
9:11
Speaker 1: be a good guy and say, you know what, my
9:14
Speaker 1: honor has been a squashed. It's great, so, uh, let
9:18
Speaker 1: me give you a hand up, little buddy. And you're
9:21
Speaker 1: a good person for doing that, I would say, So
9:24
Speaker 1: I could see you totally doing that, Chuck, That wouldn't
9:26
Speaker 1: I would have been that. There's no way I would
9:28
Speaker 1: have been dueling to begin with you. You could also
9:31
Speaker 1: cut the other person's head off after finishing him off,
9:34
Speaker 1: or maybe finish them off by cutting his head off
9:36
Speaker 1: and then posting it in a public place, right um.
9:39
Speaker 1: I said also that the Irish code is very widespread,
9:43
Speaker 1: so much so that this, to me is one of
9:45
Speaker 1: the facts of the podcast. It was reprinted in full
9:49
Speaker 1: as part of the Midshipman's Handbook of the U. S.
9:52
Speaker 1: Navy up until eighteen sixty two, when the Navy outlawed
9:57
Speaker 1: or band dueling among officers. But up until that time,
10:01
Speaker 1: it was like, Hey, you're probably gonna get in a
10:03
Speaker 1: duel at some point in time, and here's what the
10:05
Speaker 1: Navy says about that. And what the Navy says is
10:08
Speaker 1: what the Irish say. Women typically did not duel and
10:11
Speaker 1: when they did, uh, it says in the article here
10:14
Speaker 1: it was viewed on as an oddity and a strange,
10:17
Speaker 1: amusing spectacle, which like foxy boxing is today, well or
10:21
Speaker 1: the it's kind of like the first catfights. Yeah, is
10:24
Speaker 1: that sexist totally? But I mean that's what they That's
10:28
Speaker 1: apparently what they. They viewed duels among women as it
10:32
Speaker 1: was an amusement for men because women are just so stupid.
10:35
Speaker 1: But that that right, except except if you were dumb
10:39
Speaker 1: enough to make, uh that kind of judgment about Lamo
10:42
Speaker 1: pen Yeah, you probably would have had your head cut
10:45
Speaker 1: clean off your body. She was a genuine dueler swordswoman,
10:50
Speaker 1: and depending on who you talked to, it's either her
10:53
Speaker 1: father who trained her, or a lover who was a
10:56
Speaker 1: great fencer. And uh, however, I think she like the
11:00
Speaker 1: ladies as well, because later in her life, after performing
11:03
Speaker 1: in bars and dressed as a man, but not to
11:07
Speaker 1: like say hey I am a man. I think it
11:09
Speaker 1: was just like, hey, I'm more comfortable in these clothes.
11:11
Speaker 1: It's easier to move in these clothes exactly. Um, she
11:15
Speaker 1: uh dug up the corpse of a dead nun right
11:18
Speaker 1: put in the dorm room, set that room on fire
11:21
Speaker 1: to fake her own death so she could escape the
11:24
Speaker 1: convent with her female lover, Llamo pen So she was
11:28
Speaker 1: a pretty uh progressive rock and chick back then. Yeah,
11:31
Speaker 1: she was pretty cool. Um and that was after she
11:34
Speaker 1: retired from the opera Early Sea. Yeah, so she she
11:39
Speaker 1: was pretty cool. No Foxy boxing there, No, I don't
11:42
Speaker 1: even know what that is. I haven't seen that. It's
11:44
Speaker 1: exactly what it sounds like. Yeah, it was kind of
11:47
Speaker 1: big in the I think the eighties maybe the seventies
11:51
Speaker 1: of like just women like boxing one another but not
11:56
Speaker 1: really and then like it's it's incredibly sexist. There were
12:00
Speaker 1: a lot of fights at my school, my high school.
12:03
Speaker 1: I mean not like a lot, like it was a
12:04
Speaker 1: rougher school, but it always struck me even as a
12:07
Speaker 1: youngster that like, when guys would get in a fight,
12:10
Speaker 1: it was always horrific, and then when girls would get
12:13
Speaker 1: in a fight, the dudes would be sitting around laughing
12:15
Speaker 1: at it. I saw a girl fight in high school
12:17
Speaker 1: once that was really disturbing. It was more disturbing than
12:20
Speaker 1: any guy fight I've ever seen, because girls fight dirty. Yeah,
12:23
Speaker 1: both of these girls were fighting very dirty. It was
12:25
Speaker 1: really horrible. One of the I think like the assistant
12:29
Speaker 1: principal jumped in and got like smacked around and ended
12:31
Speaker 1: up backing off. Yeah, it was a bad fight. So
12:34
Speaker 1: there was nothing funny about that one. No, not at all.
12:37
Speaker 1: I mean, really, is there anything funny about anybody fighting? No,
12:40
Speaker 1: I don't think so, unless it's, like, I don't know, clowns. Yeah,
12:45
Speaker 1: clowns fighting, Yeah, that'd be funny. Clown fight. That's hilarious
12:49
Speaker 1: unless one of them dies, that's right. Uh chuck. So
12:53
Speaker 1: we mentioned that seconds are in charge of issuing apologies. Yeah,
12:57
Speaker 1: and you can't just go over and say, um, hey man, guys, sorry,
13:01
Speaker 1: he'll never do it again. Can he have his gauntlet back?
13:05
Speaker 1: That just doesn't work. There's standards, there's rules to issuing
13:09
Speaker 1: an apology, and as I understand, you're prepared to explain
13:14
Speaker 1: the rule from the Code Duello for issuing apology. I
13:17
Speaker 1: think even its rule number one, very first rule, as
13:20
Speaker 1: it should be. Let's hear, the first offense requires the
13:24
Speaker 1: first apology, though the retort may have been more offensive
13:28
Speaker 1: than the insult. Example, A tells B he is impertinent,
13:33
Speaker 1: ETCETERA B retorts that he lies. Yet A must make
13:38
Speaker 1: the first apology because he gave the first offense. And
13:42
Speaker 1: then after one fire b may explain away the retort
13:46
Speaker 1: by a subsequent apology. Very nice, thank you, thank you
13:50
Speaker 1: very much. Um. So, basically, no matter how bad the
13:54
Speaker 1: retort is from the first insult, Yes, whoever insults the
13:58
Speaker 1: other person first has to apologize first, right, then they
14:00
Speaker 1: shoot it one another and then the second person can apologize. UM.
14:06
Speaker 1: You also have rules to whether or not or how
14:09
Speaker 1: a um an apology can be accepted, or if an
14:12
Speaker 1: apology a verbal one is even worth anything at all?
14:16
Speaker 1: What situation that is it? Won't you? I point you
14:19
Speaker 1: to rule number five josh as a blow is strictly
14:22
Speaker 1: prohibited under any circumstances among gentlemen. So no hitting evidently,
14:28
Speaker 1: yeah no, or if you do, that's it. Yeah, there's
14:31
Speaker 1: no going back, No vertebal apology can be received for
14:35
Speaker 1: such an insult. The alternatives therefore, the offender handing a
14:40
Speaker 1: cane to the injured party to be used on his
14:42
Speaker 1: own back at the shame time, begging pardon and fightering
14:46
Speaker 1: on until one or both are disabled, or exchanging three
14:49
Speaker 1: shots and then asking pardon without profit of the cane. So,
14:53
Speaker 1: if you wanted apology after smacking someone in the face, um,
14:58
Speaker 1: but you didn't want the cane. You us had to
15:00
Speaker 1: shoot at each other three times, or I imagine maybe
15:03
Speaker 1: deal three blows with a sword. Right, But by this
15:07
Speaker 1: time seventeen seventy seven, firearms were all the rage for dueling,
15:11
Speaker 1: which we'll get to, um, So you've got to duel.
15:14
Speaker 1: All the apologies have been either not offered or rejected,
15:18
Speaker 1: and it's time for the duel. It's uh, there's certain etiquette, right.
15:24
Speaker 1: You mentioned, um that there's rules against not really doing
15:30
Speaker 1: this wholeheartedly, Like, if you're going to get into a duel,
15:33
Speaker 1: you have to do it wholeheartedly as as far as
15:35
Speaker 1: the Code duello um is concerned. But this is also
15:40
Speaker 1: one of the more frequently broken rules because most people
15:43
Speaker 1: who were in duels didn't really want to die, and
15:45
Speaker 1: they probably didn't want to kill the other person either,
15:47
Speaker 1: because I imagine when you're in a duel with somebody
15:50
Speaker 1: and that's your reality at that moment, and it's not
15:53
Speaker 1: just some guys and powdered wigs out, you know, in
15:56
Speaker 1: an apple tree, and it's avoid engraving or wood carving,
15:59
Speaker 1: but it's really what's going on in your world. Right then, Yeah,
16:02
Speaker 1: I'm sure you are acutely interested in not killing and
16:07
Speaker 1: not dying at that moment. Yeah, I would have applied
16:10
Speaker 1: them with alcohol. I would have been the guy being like,
16:12
Speaker 1: come on, man, you would have made a great second,
16:14
Speaker 1: like can we just have this ale here and talk
16:17
Speaker 1: it over and laugh about it? Right, it's funny, right,
16:21
Speaker 1: But they took it way more serious than So. There's
16:25
Speaker 1: this rule that says, man, if you're going to get
16:27
Speaker 1: in a duel, you have to do it all the way.
16:30
Speaker 1: It's called Rule thirteen. No dumb shooting or fighting in
16:34
Speaker 1: the air is admisionable. In any case, the challenger ought
16:40
Speaker 1: not to have challenge without receiving offense, and the challenged ought,
16:44
Speaker 1: if he gave offense, to have made an apology before
16:47
Speaker 1: he came on the ground. Therefore, children's play must be
16:51
Speaker 1: dishonorable on one side of the other end is accordingly prohibited.
16:54
Speaker 1: Very nice. Um, so you've got all these we need
16:58
Speaker 1: strickling Huh No, No, I think that's great. Okay. Um,
17:01
Speaker 1: so you you've got this rule that says you you
17:06
Speaker 1: do this all the way. But that's not necessarily how
17:08
Speaker 1: a lot of duels worked. Um, guys would agree ahead
17:11
Speaker 1: of time, like, hey, we're actually gonna do the duel
17:14
Speaker 1: but we'll both shoot into the air, um like you
17:16
Speaker 1: don't want to die, which, which, by the way, is
17:19
Speaker 1: what happened, is how Alexander Hamilton died at the hands
17:22
Speaker 1: of the treacherous Aaron Burr. Let's go ahead and talk
17:25
Speaker 1: about it. Well, they were political rivals. They were both
17:28
Speaker 1: um they were in a law firm together, and that's
17:31
Speaker 1: where they first learned to hate one another. And then
17:34
Speaker 1: they were in a very small country at the time.
17:37
Speaker 1: They were very big fish in the same small pond
17:40
Speaker 1: um and things got out of hand. And I can't
17:43
Speaker 1: remember who challenged to do a duel, do you. Uh? Yes.
17:47
Speaker 1: It was a series of insults. And this was at
17:50
Speaker 1: a time where the losing presidential candidate would become vice president. Yeah, yeah,
17:56
Speaker 1: which could you imagine that these days? Yeah, they'd be
17:58
Speaker 1: pretty awesome kind of. I think it'd be nice. It would.
18:01
Speaker 1: It would temper things, well, it would. I guess it
18:04
Speaker 1: was for balance of power. I don't know if it would.
18:07
Speaker 1: It was a consolation price, that's true. Uh. So they
18:10
Speaker 1: disliked each other. There were a bunch of insults, and
18:12
Speaker 1: Burr challenged Hamilton's and Weehawken, New Jersey, and uh, there
18:18
Speaker 1: are varying accounts um on what happened, But what we
18:22
Speaker 1: do know that happened, Hamilton's got shot, bird didn't. Whether
18:25
Speaker 1: or not Hamilton's fired in the air is a good guy,
18:27
Speaker 1: That's what I heard, or got hit and was like
18:30
Speaker 1: and fired up in the air never is debatable. Alexander
18:34
Speaker 1: Hamilton was a crack shot, had great timing, he had
18:37
Speaker 1: catlike reflexes. Aaron Burr shot Hamilton's Hamilton's fired into the air.
18:42
Speaker 1: Aaron Burr was actually, uh, I think arrested for murder,
18:45
Speaker 1: wasn't he? He was charged with murder and basically acquitted
18:49
Speaker 1: in the end. But um, this is a time when
18:52
Speaker 1: it was like kind of on the outs. They were
18:54
Speaker 1: beginning to outlaw dueling anyway, and it ruined his career,
18:57
Speaker 1: basically ruined his political career. From that point, people are like,
19:00
Speaker 1: who's on the twenty And by twenty, of course, I
19:04
Speaker 1: mean who's on the tin? Yeah, the ten dollar Bill
19:06
Speaker 1: Jackson's on the twenty. Alexander Hamilton's on the time. Stop emailing.
19:10
Speaker 1: You've got nothing but twenties O in your role so
19:12
Speaker 1: that I can't even tell you who's on the time.
19:14
Speaker 1: And did they even make dollar bills. Um, So, Chuck,
19:17
Speaker 1: let's get two seconds, which again I want to say that,
19:20
Speaker 1: um oh, before I got ahead of ourselves. I'm sorry. Um. Also,
19:24
Speaker 1: you should never duel at night. The only time when
19:27
Speaker 1: you can legitimately hold a duel at night, meaning that
19:30
Speaker 1: the same night of the offense. Um, it was when
19:33
Speaker 1: the person was going to be leaving town before daybreak.
19:37
Speaker 1: No need to even read that one. That speaks for itself,
19:39
Speaker 1: and that makes good sense. Basically, they're cooler. Heads prevailed
19:42
Speaker 1: generally the next day, h which is a great rule
19:46
Speaker 1: in marriage in life. I'm always a big fan of
19:49
Speaker 1: sleep on it. Why don't we sleep on it? Yep,
19:51
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. But and but sometimes the wife will
19:55
Speaker 1: still wake up just as angry the next day. It happens,
19:58
Speaker 1: But most times the worst is wake up in the
20:00
Speaker 1: middle of the night angry. Yeah, that's pretty bad when
20:05
Speaker 1: the rage of seething chucks sk So, Chuck, do you
20:30
Speaker 1: want to talk about seconds? Yes? Uh? Seconds Uh. They
20:35
Speaker 1: had very specific rules for the role of the second Um.
20:38
Speaker 1: They had to take care of the guns in the
20:40
Speaker 1: same way and load in the presence of one another.
20:42
Speaker 1: I can't shake the feeling that we're both in trouble.
20:45
Speaker 1: I know, Um, they would have to uh, Like I said,
20:49
Speaker 1: load the guns together and in front of each other,
20:52
Speaker 1: and the gun was already agreed upon. Um, they have
20:55
Speaker 1: a smooth a smooth boar. Yeah, and I think the
20:58
Speaker 1: rifle boar would would be a more accurate, longer distance shot.
21:02
Speaker 1: So they said, we can't use up. Yeah, it's like
21:03
Speaker 1: shot putting a football or throwing it in a tight spiral,
21:06
Speaker 1: which one is going to get further with more accuracy. Exactly.
21:10
Speaker 1: That makes sense. But yeah, so you want to load
21:13
Speaker 1: in the presence of one another, yeah, saying look, see
21:15
Speaker 1: the boar smooth, and we're doing it right here so
21:19
Speaker 1: everyone can see it. Their sports. Everyone pay attention. And
21:22
Speaker 1: we also mentioned how they are bound to offer or
21:26
Speaker 1: to try to get an apology generated to avoid a duel.
21:31
Speaker 1: They're supposed to according to the code. Uh. And then
21:34
Speaker 1: rule twenty five if if they can't come to any
21:37
Speaker 1: kind of resolution and the seconds clearly are eyeball on
21:41
Speaker 1: one another, like oh dude, you're going down to it's
21:44
Speaker 1: on between us. They had rules for that as well,
21:47
Speaker 1: like rule where seconds disagree and resolved to exchange shots themselves.
21:53
Speaker 1: It must be at the shame time and at right
21:56
Speaker 1: angles with their principles. I don't get the right angles thing.
21:59
Speaker 1: How is that physically possible? I don't know. I took
22:05
Speaker 1: that to mean they shoot from the same angle. That
22:08
Speaker 1: would be parallel, not right angle. Well, I don't think
22:12
Speaker 1: it meant right angle in the geometric sense. I think
22:14
Speaker 1: it meant the correct angle, as in the same angle.
22:18
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm wrong. Do you think it meant like geometry?
22:22
Speaker 1: I think the authors had put in a full day
22:24
Speaker 1: by the time they got to this rule. Or maybe
22:26
Speaker 1: at right angles it meant if these two are shooting here,
22:28
Speaker 1: then they have to shoot there, so they don't there's
22:31
Speaker 1: no crossfire coming at them. Okay, yeah, so they make
22:36
Speaker 1: a square. I don't know. We'll have to look into that.
22:40
Speaker 1: Um And then how do you know when a duels over,
22:42
Speaker 1: especially when it doesn't necessarily result in the decapitation of
22:46
Speaker 1: what when you cut somebody's head off and posted on
22:48
Speaker 1: a pike in the town square? The duels over? But
22:51
Speaker 1: there's also um more nuanced endings possible right rule number
22:56
Speaker 1: five if schualj are used, m the parties engage until
23:01
Speaker 1: one is well bloodied, disabled, or disarmed, or until after
23:05
Speaker 1: receiving a wound and blood being drawn. The aggression begs Paul,
23:09
Speaker 1: done right unless the unless the person who's disabled insists
23:12
Speaker 1: that it's only a flash point. Right. He does have
23:15
Speaker 1: a did you notice his his money Python reference in here? No,
23:19
Speaker 1: that's not definitely not the only article with the money
23:22
Speaker 1: python reference from him? What is it? Well? Later on
23:25
Speaker 1: he's talking about how nobles weren't allowed to work and
23:27
Speaker 1: they made money off of rent from their huge tracts
23:30
Speaker 1: of land. That's for money python. I don't remember that part.
23:34
Speaker 1: You remember that she's got huge tracts of land. I
23:38
Speaker 1: don't remember. That's a good part. Good for you for
23:42
Speaker 1: noticing that. I'm sure the grabstor he's always sneaking them
23:44
Speaker 1: in um. And also any wounds sufficient to agitate the nerves, yeah,
23:50
Speaker 1: or make the handshake must end the business of the day.
23:54
Speaker 1: I mean that would be that's kind of a loose
23:56
Speaker 1: if you ask me. Yeah, but that does mean that
23:59
Speaker 1: the rule is over. So that's uh. If you if
24:03
Speaker 1: you want to know more, if you want to know
24:05
Speaker 1: all the rules, you can get your hands on a
24:07
Speaker 1: pre eighteen sixty two U. S. Navy midship Men's Handbook.
24:12
Speaker 1: Apparently PBS has all of them as well on frontline site.
24:17
Speaker 1: We don't. I'm sorry, um, but chuck. Dueling was for
24:23
Speaker 1: a very long time the pursuit of nobles right. As
24:26
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, it was used to differentiate nobles
24:29
Speaker 1: from common people. Like in a lot of medieval Europe
24:33
Speaker 1: European countries, Um, commoners weren't allowed to duel. It was
24:38
Speaker 1: out it was illegal. Yeah, and before guns that a
24:41
Speaker 1: lot of commoners couldn't even afford swords because swords are
24:44
Speaker 1: expensive to make and even more expensive than firearms once
24:47
Speaker 1: they came around, so a lot of them couldn't duel
24:50
Speaker 1: in the traditional sense, although the Grabster points out that
24:54
Speaker 1: there were plenty of dual like circumstances among commoners too.
24:59
Speaker 1: It was just the bar fight. You just can't let
25:02
Speaker 1: the local fuzz find out what you're doing. And noblemen
25:05
Speaker 1: were expected to duel, right, And the whole point of
25:08
Speaker 1: dueling was the protection of honor, and honor as a concept,
25:12
Speaker 1: as the Grabster points out, is is not what we
25:14
Speaker 1: think of it today. Um. Honor is basically like if
25:18
Speaker 1: you were rich, if you have a title, if you
25:21
Speaker 1: are a member of an important family, you have honor
25:24
Speaker 1: automatically it's attached to you. Yeah, it doesn't mean that
25:26
Speaker 1: you were a good upstanding guy. It just means like,
25:29
Speaker 1: this is your station in life. You were you're blessed
25:31
Speaker 1: basically by being born rich and white exactly. It's like
25:34
Speaker 1: the one um and you have honor, and it's fragile,
25:40
Speaker 1: extremely at all times. Uh, it's prone to be insulted
25:45
Speaker 1: at the drop of the hat, at the drop of
25:46
Speaker 1: a glove, especially very nice, but even the drop of
25:49
Speaker 1: the hat. Um. And not only is your honor at stake,
25:52
Speaker 1: but the honor of your family for generations forward, generations backward,
25:57
Speaker 1: and any schmo of noble rank um. I imagine if
26:01
Speaker 1: a commoner came up and insulted your family, just cut
26:04
Speaker 1: their head off right there, and there's no duel. It's
26:06
Speaker 1: just death for the commoner, right. But if another person
26:09
Speaker 1: of nobility comes up in and soult your family honor,
26:12
Speaker 1: then you say it's on. I challenge you to a duel.
26:17
Speaker 1: At this point, and you've mentioned cowardice already, But at
26:20
Speaker 1: this point, the other person has a choice. Very socially speaking,
26:25
Speaker 1: they don't really have a choice. They do have a choice.
26:27
Speaker 1: They can either accept the duel or they can be
26:30
Speaker 1: a coward. And in the same vein, the person whose
26:34
Speaker 1: honor is insulted has a choice. They can either issue
26:37
Speaker 1: a challenge to a duel, or they can let it slide.
26:40
Speaker 1: Either way, if you let it slide or you shirk
26:43
Speaker 1: a duel, you're a coward. And that was a big
26:45
Speaker 1: deal back then. It wasn't just like, you know, Jimmy's
26:48
Speaker 1: a sissy because he wouldn't fight me at school. It
26:51
Speaker 1: was which haunts you for the rest of your life.
26:53
Speaker 1: You know that's true. But your family was was insulted.
26:57
Speaker 1: You could lose your honor, like they would take it
27:00
Speaker 1: away legally sometimes um, they could publish an account of
27:04
Speaker 1: it to the church who and you know in the
27:06
Speaker 1: church they're gonna tell everybody, Jerick Howard. It was not
27:11
Speaker 1: an abstract thing. Kings who would not uphold their honor
27:16
Speaker 1: could lose their noble ranking. They would just take it away,
27:18
Speaker 1: and you could actually be punished and excommunicated and your
27:22
Speaker 1: voting rights revoked for cowardice. Serious stuff. Back then. You
27:25
Speaker 1: could also be imprisoned and killed and just it just
27:30
Speaker 1: generally bad things fed to dragons probably. I don't know
27:32
Speaker 1: if you could be killed. I just I just said that, well,
27:35
Speaker 1: if a dragon's evening you you wish someone would kill you.
27:38
Speaker 1: A good point. Um, So I think probably the whole
27:43
Speaker 1: this whole code, this whole dueling code is and how
27:46
Speaker 1: refined it became was out of the frequency of dueling. Right. Yeah, apparently,
27:51
Speaker 1: like you said, these people um sat around with their
27:55
Speaker 1: huge tracts of land. Well they couldn't work. No, they
27:58
Speaker 1: like you couldn't were if you wanted to work, You
28:01
Speaker 1: couldn't if you were of noble noble blood. Yeah, I
28:05
Speaker 1: mean you literally could not hold a job even if
28:07
Speaker 1: if you're like if you found you were really good
28:10
Speaker 1: at something. But I really like Blacksmith in making these
28:14
Speaker 1: these shoes, these horts shoes. You're a nobleman, you have
28:16
Speaker 1: to make your money off of rent. So the end
28:19
Speaker 1: result of that is after a lot of sitting around
28:22
Speaker 1: in uh fox hunting and me drinking, you get a
28:26
Speaker 1: little bored, and so dueling kind of became a sport
28:30
Speaker 1: for board nobleman. Yeah, these young guys are like, well,
28:33
Speaker 1: got nothing better to do, so let me go down
28:35
Speaker 1: to the pub and uh throw down the gauntlet on someone,
28:38
Speaker 1: or just be really easily irritable to where anything that
28:42
Speaker 1: happens to me. You bought me in the bar and
28:44
Speaker 1: like all right, it's on. Or you looked at my lady.
28:47
Speaker 1: That was a big one. Yeah. Um. The other aspect
28:50
Speaker 1: of it wasn't just boredom. It was also that you
28:53
Speaker 1: were the better person. Yeah, in a field where you know,
28:57
Speaker 1: there is a definite set hierarchy. Earls are equal to earls,
29:01
Speaker 1: and dukes equal to dukes, and viscounts equal to viscounts.
29:06
Speaker 1: Um vice roys equal device roys. That whole kind of thing.
29:09
Speaker 1: I could continue, please do I don't. I can't continue.
29:12
Speaker 1: You called my bluff. Um, But this is a way
29:15
Speaker 1: to differentiate yourself among your rank by saying I challenge
29:20
Speaker 1: you to duel, and I won. And the reason that
29:23
Speaker 1: differentiates me is not only am I the winner, but
29:26
Speaker 1: it means that God favors me. And apparently that that
29:30
Speaker 1: was used. That was the predecessor to the legal systems
29:34
Speaker 1: we had today. Well, yeah, let's let's get to this.
29:37
Speaker 1: This is the commoners, uh would duel early on in
29:40
Speaker 1: the eleventh and twelve centuries. Um, you would have trial
29:44
Speaker 1: by combat. Sometimes it was like dunking a witch, Like
29:47
Speaker 1: if the witch floated, she was a witch and then
29:50
Speaker 1: she got burned out of the steak. If she drowned,
29:52
Speaker 1: then she wasn't really a witch and she was pure
29:54
Speaker 1: of heart. So if you win the duel, then you're
29:56
Speaker 1: in fact innocent of your crime. Yes, because God favored
29:59
Speaker 1: the winner of the duel, and more importantly, the guy
30:02
Speaker 1: who accused you was now dead, so you must be innocent.
30:05
Speaker 1: Although you may also fight a court appointed really professional duelists.
30:10
Speaker 1: That's awesome and I can't imagine beating that guy. Yeah,
30:15
Speaker 1: who would that? What was the uh well sky in
30:18
Speaker 1: the Max Mad Max three? Master Blaster? Yeah, Master Blaster.
30:23
Speaker 1: You would fight Master Blaster? Yeah you killed them. Boy,
30:26
Speaker 1: what a reveal that was when they took off his mask. Ye.
30:29
Speaker 1: Powerful stuff as watch sks. A lot of times if
30:53
Speaker 1: you were good at dueling, you would just use it
30:57
Speaker 1: to get out of stuff like Hey, I don't want
30:59
Speaker 1: to pay this bill, so let's duel about it and
31:02
Speaker 1: that'll settle it. And I know I'm really good with
31:04
Speaker 1: the sword, so you don't stand a chance. Yeah, it's
31:07
Speaker 1: all over, not just um debts, but also like if
31:11
Speaker 1: you had a political rival, um that later became really
31:15
Speaker 1: big in Missouri. Yes, Um, if you wanted somebody's land, anything,
31:22
Speaker 1: anybody who who had something you wanted or who you
31:24
Speaker 1: owed something to, you could just challenge them to a duel,
31:26
Speaker 1: kill them in their problem solved. This is one of
31:29
Speaker 1: the reasons why I think that noble classes were eventually
31:33
Speaker 1: removed from the face of the earth. Well, you mentioned Missouri.
31:37
Speaker 1: Between eighteen sixteen and eighteen twenty four, the the elect
31:41
Speaker 1: territorial elections became so fraught with dueling to get rid
31:44
Speaker 1: of your rival that, um, the first governor of California,
31:47
Speaker 1: Peter Burnett, said, Peter Burgh. Now, Peter Burnett said, it
31:51
Speaker 1: became desirable to kill off certain aspirants to get them
31:54
Speaker 1: out of the way. So in Missouri even just killed
31:58
Speaker 1: the dude before like and day and you're all set. Yeah.
32:01
Speaker 1: Can you imagine like New Gingrich and Mitt Romney dueling
32:04
Speaker 1: one another? No, because no. Um, So you've got dueling
32:12
Speaker 1: evolving from early legal uh, an early legal system, to
32:18
Speaker 1: the board noble classes, to the elimination of political rivals. Um.
32:25
Speaker 1: And it comes from even further back than that though.
32:30
Speaker 1: Like the the duel, the idea of one person battling
32:33
Speaker 1: another person in some sort of combat in a formal
32:37
Speaker 1: rule driven way Grabser goes back to jostin competitions in
32:42
Speaker 1: the Middle Ages, I think go back to glatiutorial combat
32:47
Speaker 1: further back than that, but um in Europe, in western Europe,
32:52
Speaker 1: northwestern Europe, it came from jousting, right, yeah, and it
32:55
Speaker 1: makes sense to me. Uh, like you said, the joust
32:58
Speaker 1: is pretty much a duel on horse back. Then you
33:00
Speaker 1: had the chivalric code, which sort of lines up with
33:03
Speaker 1: the code of the duel. And also you skipped right
33:06
Speaker 1: past what to me is one of the facts of
33:07
Speaker 1: the podcast. Oh no, I didn't know was coming. Go ahead,
33:10
Speaker 1: you go ahead. Well, when nights, uh only uh noble
33:15
Speaker 1: noblemen were allowed to be knights and to joust against
33:17
Speaker 1: one another. So they would raise their visor at the
33:20
Speaker 1: beginning to say, hey, look at me, I'm not descending
33:23
Speaker 1: along my assistant, who's a lot better at this than
33:25
Speaker 1: I am, as Heath Ledger did, As Heath Ledger did.
33:28
Speaker 1: What what was that first night? Yeah, that's a good movie.
33:31
Speaker 1: That was all right. Uh, So they would reveal their identities,
33:34
Speaker 1: and that Josh, as you know, was evolved into the
33:39
Speaker 1: military salute. Years later, had the lift of the visor
33:42
Speaker 1: evolved into the hand I guess yeah, pretty cool, very cool. Um.
33:47
Speaker 1: Eventually though, firearms came around and they found that, yeah,
33:51
Speaker 1: these incredibly heavy suits of armor that can protect you
33:54
Speaker 1: even from a joust. Generally, UM, are no match for
33:59
Speaker 1: this musket. The smooth board must get with terrible aim
34:02
Speaker 1: and accuracy, which cover it'll kill you. Yeah. In our
34:05
Speaker 1: night's podcast, it was kind of the end of the
34:06
Speaker 1: night exactly. It was also what the end of samurai. Yeah,
34:15
Speaker 1: guns ruined everything. Yeah, well they changed everything for the worst, um,
34:20
Speaker 1: and then you have UH as a result the no
34:25
Speaker 1: no more need for a heavy sword because there's no
34:28
Speaker 1: need for armor. Armor doesn't work. No heavy swords, which
34:31
Speaker 1: they do. An evolution and sword making, and you have,
34:34
Speaker 1: at least in Europe. I think Japan already had far lighter,
34:37
Speaker 1: more better swords. But um, in the West, the evolution
34:42
Speaker 1: of swords led to the sport of fencing as a
34:45
Speaker 1: direct result of dueling and the loss of armor, and
34:48
Speaker 1: it became more contest, especially after the Italian said, I
34:53
Speaker 1: don't want to die. Let's put a little put a
34:56
Speaker 1: little rubber tip on the end. That my sister was
34:59
Speaker 1: in defencing really college, you interesting, my oldest sister. I've
35:02
Speaker 1: always Uh, I've always wanted to try that. Well, I
35:06
Speaker 1: think you should go to town. You could take classes, right, totally.
35:10
Speaker 1: I think it's a kind of expensive startup. Sure, like
35:13
Speaker 1: the whole get up in in the a decent sword
35:15
Speaker 1: and all that, but a foil if in the vernacular.
35:19
Speaker 1: But I'm I'm sure once you got all that stuff,
35:22
Speaker 1: you're fine. Yeah, that would end up being like my
35:24
Speaker 1: venture into ice hockey, though I did just end up
35:25
Speaker 1: having a closet full of gear really gets used. I
35:28
Speaker 1: didn't know you're in the hockey. I was at one point, uh,
35:33
Speaker 1: mid twenties. Yeah, I learned how to ice skate pretty well,
35:37
Speaker 1: and then me and all my friends got hockey gear
35:39
Speaker 1: and we're like, hey, let's play, and uh that was
35:42
Speaker 1: pretty much where it ended. Yeah. Pistols. So Josh, when
35:47
Speaker 1: did you get into pistols? Well no, no, no, I
35:49
Speaker 1: didn't get into pistols ever. But um, when pistols came along,
35:54
Speaker 1: basically leveled the playing field because pistols are actually cheaper
35:57
Speaker 1: than swords and cheaper than get trained and fencing. You
36:01
Speaker 1: could just practice shooting, you know, coke cans in the backyard.
36:05
Speaker 1: So all of a sudden, it democratize it. It was
36:09
Speaker 1: no longer the sport of noblemen because anyone could do
36:12
Speaker 1: it right. And this is a time when um, the
36:15
Speaker 1: word cocktail was invented to describe the strong drink you
36:20
Speaker 1: had in the morning, like an old fashioned UM. So
36:23
Speaker 1: America was super drunk. So dueling seemed like a really
36:27
Speaker 1: good idea, and it took off as a sport, well,
36:29
Speaker 1: not as a sport, but basically as a as a
36:32
Speaker 1: socially accepted pastime because America doesn't have kings or dukes
36:36
Speaker 1: or anything, and there are a lot of guns at
36:38
Speaker 1: the time, and everybody started shooting one another duels well,
36:41
Speaker 1: which is one of the big reasons dueling began to die. Uh,
36:46
Speaker 1: I thought, and it pointed out that I was wrong.
36:48
Speaker 1: I thought it maybe because people called for the end
36:51
Speaker 1: of it and said, you know, this is wrong, we
36:52
Speaker 1: shouldn't be doing this. But since dueling began, the church
36:56
Speaker 1: and other legal bodies said said, we don't like this
36:59
Speaker 1: because it takes the Uh it kind of cripples a
37:02
Speaker 1: legal system because you're taking into your own hands. And
37:05
Speaker 1: the church didn't like it. They're like, we want to
37:06
Speaker 1: judge these people on their crimes. And it also kind
37:09
Speaker 1: of violates one of the big bigger commandments. Absolutely forget
37:15
Speaker 1: about the Crusades for that one. But sure, uh, military
37:19
Speaker 1: leaders didn't like it because it was killing off able,
37:22
Speaker 1: young bodied men. Yeah. And then later on war itself,
37:27
Speaker 1: like the Civil War and the First World War. Really
37:31
Speaker 1: we're like, hey, there's more serious things going on. People
37:34
Speaker 1: really die in battle, like it sort of became a
37:37
Speaker 1: bit of fools undertaking. Well what I understand. I think
37:41
Speaker 1: it also hit home to the horrors of combat, made
37:45
Speaker 1: people not want to kill one another as much. Yeah,
37:47
Speaker 1: like real deal combat. Yeah, and the Civil War and
37:50
Speaker 1: the First World War. Like you said, we're linked to
37:53
Speaker 1: declines in the US and Europe respectively of dueling. Um,
37:58
Speaker 1: and there is I guess. Also one of the other
38:02
Speaker 1: reasons dueling declined was because when it was exposed to
38:06
Speaker 1: the middle classes, it wasn't just super rich people killing
38:08
Speaker 1: each other anymore, which was the original purpose, which is
38:11
Speaker 1: why the lower classes are like, who cares? Dueling is fine, Go,
38:15
Speaker 1: that's fine, We're doing our own thing. And then once it's,
38:17
Speaker 1: like you said, democratized and spread to the middle and
38:20
Speaker 1: lower classes, it became a problem. And then eventually it
38:24
Speaker 1: was we were left with dueling Banjo's and that was
38:27
Speaker 1: about as serious as I got. I think that that
38:30
Speaker 1: is an excellent way to end this podcast. Dude, you
38:34
Speaker 1: got you can't. I'm not even gonna ask if you
38:35
Speaker 1: have anything more. If you want to learn more about
38:37
Speaker 1: dueling and you want to see some of these cool rules,
38:41
Speaker 1: you can type duel into the search bar at how
38:43
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. You can tweet to us at
38:46
Speaker 1: s y s K podcast. That's our Twitter handle. UM.
38:49
Speaker 1: You can also reach us on Facebook at Facebook dot
38:51
Speaker 1: com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us
38:54
Speaker 1: an email of the Stuff podcast to how stuff worce
38:56
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38:58
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39:04
Speaker 1: you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How
39:06
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit
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Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
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Speaker 1: to your favorite shows. H