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Common Roots · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Alexander the Great is known for his military conquests, but
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  Speaker 1: if you think he was just a great warrior, you're
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  Speaker 1: missing the forest for the trees, because Alexander's greatest talent
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  Speaker 1: was in his ability as a strategist and an engineer.
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  Speaker 1: And this was never more true than in three point
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  Speaker 1: thirty two BC, when Alexander laid siege to the island
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  Speaker 1: of Tire. Tire was an island nation near the modern
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  Speaker 1: day border between Israel and Lebanon. It was heavily fortified
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  Speaker 1: on all sides, with walls that went right up to
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  Speaker 1: the shore. Alexander arrived from the north after conquering several
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  Speaker 1: coastal cities belonging to the Persian Empire. He wanted to
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  Speaker 1: push east and confront the Persian king Darius, but he
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  Speaker 1: didn't want to leave the Persians with access to the Mediterranean,
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  Speaker 1: Tire had to fall. Alexander was highly educated, having been
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  Speaker 1: taught by none other than the philosopher Aristotle, so while
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  Speaker 1: other conquerors had previously looked upon Tire and saw an
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  Speaker 1: unconquerable fortress, Alexander simply saw it as a difficult problem
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  Speaker 1: to solve. The king and his advisors studied the landscape
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  Speaker 1: and realized that there were large stone ruins on the
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  Speaker 1: mainland leftover from the original ancient incarnation of Tire. They
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  Speaker 1: also noticed that there was a natural land bridge leading
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  Speaker 1: from the land to the island, with only a few
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  Speaker 1: feet of water washing over it. Alexander put two and
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  Speaker 1: two together and immediately started construction of a causeway using
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  Speaker 1: the stones from the old city. Once the causeway construction
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  Speaker 1: reached out about seventy five percent of the way to
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  Speaker 1: the city, the builders encountered a problem. The water suddenly
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  Speaker 1: got much deeper, and so the causeway would now take
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  Speaker 1: much longer to finish. But once again Alexander didn't give up,
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  Speaker 1: ordering massive towers filled with catapults and other siege weapons
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  Speaker 1: to be constructed on the edge of this new causeway.
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  Speaker 1: These protected the workers and they battered the city while
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  Speaker 1: the construction continued. However, now it was the Tyrant's turn
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  Speaker 1: to prove their ingenuity. They sailed out toward the Causeway
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  Speaker 1: from both their northern and their southern harbors, and as
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  Speaker 1: their ships got closer, Alexander's eyes went wide when he
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  Speaker 1: saw what they were transporting. The Tyrants had filled their
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  Speaker 1: ships with flammable materials, and as the ships hurtled toward
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  Speaker 1: the siege towers, their pilots lit the boats on fire
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  Speaker 1: and weighing them down in the back so that their
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  Speaker 1: bows would reach up out of the water and crash
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  Speaker 1: into the towers. The tyrants soldiers then jumped out of
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  Speaker 1: the boat and swam for the safety of the city
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  Speaker 1: behind them. The flaming boats crashed into the towers, reducing
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  Speaker 1: them to ash and setting the causeway on fire. Alexander
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  Speaker 1: was enraged, but he knew that he couldn't allow his
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  Speaker 1: enemy to outsmart him, and so he tried a new tactic.
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  Speaker 1: He summoned ships from all over Greece. He split some
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  Speaker 1: of the larger ships into pears, and he suspended battering
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  Speaker 1: rams between them with ropes. These ships then sailed toward
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  Speaker 1: the Tieran walls and began swinging their battering rams between them,
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  Speaker 1: trying to create a breach, but once again it was
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  Speaker 1: tires turn to respond. This time they rolled huge boulders
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  Speaker 1: from their harbors up onto the walls, and then they
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  Speaker 1: rolled those boulders over the edge, crashing them down onto
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  Speaker 1: the cliffs at the base of the walls. And now
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  Speaker 1: the battering rams could no longer reach their target. But
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  Speaker 1: Alexander would not be deterred. He sent more ships to
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  Speaker 1: tie ropes around the boulders and tow them away, and
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  Speaker 1: in response, the tyrants fired arrows that severed the ropes,
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  Speaker 1: and to count After this, Alexander replaced the ropes with chains.
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  Speaker 1: It was a game of constant one upmanship, and it
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  Speaker 1: was dragging on for months, costing many many lives. Something
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  Speaker 1: obviously had to give. Finally, Alexander realized that he simply
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  Speaker 1: needed to try all of his various methods at once,
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  Speaker 1: rather than focusing on one at a time, and so
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  Speaker 1: he sent his ships to attack the northern and southern
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  Speaker 1: harbors while also battering the walls. And by this point
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  Speaker 1: his workers had also finished constructing the causeway, which now
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  Speaker 1: went right up to the island. The tyrants were forced
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  Speaker 1: to defend too many different parts of the city at once.
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  Speaker 1: When one of the battering rams finally breached the southern wall,
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  Speaker 1: troops started to pour in, And meanwhile, Alexander led his
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  Speaker 1: men from one of the siege towers on the causeway,
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  Speaker 1: taking over the walls that had challenged him for so long.
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  Speaker 1: And he showed no mercy when he got there either.
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  Speaker 1: The protracted siege had made him furious. He killed six
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  Speaker 1: thousand tyrants and crucified another two thousand. The remaining thirty
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  Speaker 1: two thousand were taken as slaves. In the end, all
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  Speaker 1: of his education had failed to teach him the value
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  Speaker 1: of human life. Curiosity leads us to wonder what Alexander
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  Speaker 1: might have accomplished if he had set his mind to
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  Speaker 1: improving lives rather than taking them. Everyone knows the story
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  Speaker 1: of Camelot, but few know that there was an Eastern
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  Speaker 1: European kingdom with an almost equally fantastical history, and unlike Camelot,
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  Speaker 1: this place was real. The kingdom was known as Kievan
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  Speaker 1: russ and its impact on Europe can still be felt today.
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  Speaker 1: The story of this kingdom begins all the way back
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  Speaker 1: in the year Age sixty two, and so many of
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  Speaker 1: the details of the founding have been lost at time.
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  Speaker 1: This is most important when it comes to the ethnic
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  Speaker 1: makeup of the russ people, which is still somewhat debated
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  Speaker 1: to this day. The most commonly accepted narrative is that
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  Speaker 1: the lands were settled first by the Eastern Slavs, an
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  Speaker 1: ethnic group from Central Europe, and these Slavs were beset
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  Speaker 1: on all sides by different enemy tribes and lacked the
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  Speaker 1: means to defend themselves. They supposedly reached a deal with
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  Speaker 1: a group of legendary warriors, the Vanagarians, who were Viking
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  Speaker 1: raiders from Sweden. The Vanagarians were invited to Novgorod to
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  Speaker 1: rule as kings. They took the city as their new capital.
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  Speaker 1: As the Vanagarian kings and Slavic villagers intermingled, they became
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  Speaker 1: one people, the Rus. Their leader, the Viking king Rurik,
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  Speaker 1: set about conquering the surrounding lands. He then sent two
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  Speaker 1: of his best warriors with an army south to conquer
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  Speaker 1: the legendary city of Constantinople. But on their way they
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  Speaker 1: encountered a city on a hill. It was well fortified
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  Speaker 1: and served as a strong base from which to raid
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  Speaker 1: the surrounding areas and Eventually they were able to conquer
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  Speaker 1: the city, which was called Kiev. Now the Rus officially
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  Speaker 1: become the Kiev and russ After King Rurik died, his
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  Speaker 1: closest ally Oleg, became regent until Rurik's young son Igor
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  Speaker 1: could come of age. Oleg was known for his cunning
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  Speaker 1: and his sense of strategy. Although his base of power
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  Speaker 1: was in Novgorode, Rurik's two generals still ruled Kiev. He
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  Speaker 1: conquered more and more of Eastern Europe until arriving at
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  Speaker 1: the southern city under a white flag. He invited the
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  Speaker 1: two generals out of Kiev to meet with him, and
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  Speaker 1: they foolishly complied, allowing Oleg to kill them both and
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  Speaker 1: take Kiev as his new capital. Oleg seemed unstoppable at
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  Speaker 1: this point. In fact, there was a prophecy stating that
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  Speaker 1: the only thing that could kill him was his prized stallion.
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  Speaker 1: Why that is is still unclear. But even more unclear
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  Speaker 1: is why Olig did what he did next. Instead of
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  Speaker 1: killing the stallion, he sent it to a stable in
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  Speaker 1: Kiev to be well cared for. After several years, word
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  Speaker 1: came to Olig that the stallion had finally died of
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  Speaker 1: old age, and so Oleg returned to Kiev and to
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  Speaker 1: the stable, where they lit a funeral pyre for the horse,
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  Speaker 1: and once it was reduced to ash and bone, Oleg
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  Speaker 1: walked forward and smashed his heel down on the horse's skull.
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  Speaker 1: Unfortunately for him, there was a snake hiding beneath it,
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  Speaker 1: and it slithered out, biting him in the ankle, killing him.
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  Speaker 1: Rurik's son Igor came to power at that point, but
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  Speaker 1: he was assassinated by a rival tribe. His widow, Olga,
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  Speaker 1: not to be confused with O'leg, set out on a
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  Speaker 1: legendary quest for revenge. She had emissaries from the rival
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  Speaker 1: tribe buried alive. She invited some of their wise men
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  Speaker 1: to Kiev, claiming that she wanted peace, and then trapped
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  Speaker 1: them in a bathhouse and burned it to the ground.
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  Speaker 1: But her most infamous action was when she laid siege
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  Speaker 1: to the capital city of the rival tribe. She had
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  Speaker 1: her men tie pieces of hot coal to the legs
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  Speaker 1: of various small birds, and when the birds flew away,
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  Speaker 1: they eventually nested in the trees and the rafters around
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  Speaker 1: the city. The hot coals came into contact with dry
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  Speaker 1: wood and straw and eventually lit the entire city on fire.
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  Speaker 1: Olga got her revenge. At its height, the Kingdom of
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  Speaker 1: Kievan Russ spanned from the Baltic Sea in northern Europe
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  Speaker 1: to the Black Sea in the south. They spread trade
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  Speaker 1: and culture throughout the continent. Some of the kings and
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  Speaker 1: queens even became saints within the Eastern Orthodox Church. But
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  Speaker 1: eventually in fighting between various princes left them vulnerable to
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  Speaker 1: invasion from the Mongols, and the kingdom was destroyed in
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  Speaker 1: twelve forty. However, the legacy of these people has still endured,
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  Speaker 1: and today the people of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia all
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  Speaker 1: claimed the Kievan Rus as their common ancestor. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: this is a factor in the ongoing conflict between Ukraine
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  Speaker 1: and Russia. The Russian state believes the Ukraine belongs under
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  Speaker 1: their control, as they see themselves as the inheritors of
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  Speaker 1: the Kievan Russ legacy, and of course Ukrainians know that
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  Speaker 1: they have just as much claimed that legacy as their
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  Speaker 1: Russians and prefer their well deserved independence. It's a choice
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  Speaker 1: that shouldn't be ignored, not least of all because of
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  Speaker 1: the historical accuracy of it. All because while common ground
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  Speaker 1: is good and valuable, it's never enough to justify taking
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  Speaker 1: away a nation's freedom. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
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  Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
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  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
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  Speaker 1: Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me
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  Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make
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  Speaker 1: another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
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  Speaker 1: about it over at the Worldolore dot com. And until
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  Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.