Bones and All

Published Sep 12, 2024, 9:00 AM

Today's featured curiosities will have leave eager to dig into the past.

Pre-order the official Cabinet of Curiosities book by clicking here today, and get ready to enjoy some curious reading this November!

Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. History is full of unpopular taxes. Some, like Britain's taxation of colonial tea, were met with pushback or even revolution, But a few taxes in history stand out for being not just unpopular but downright strange, like a tax on fireplaces in England during the Middle Ages, or one on animal sacrifices in the time of the Roman Empire. Governments have tried taxing everything from clocks to wallpaper and card games, even newspapers and hats, but all of these pale in comparison to a tax instituted by Czar Peter the Great in the seventeenth century. The ruler stunned nobles and peasants alike when he announced a new tax law that changed the face of Russia forever, and I mean literally, because Peter wasn't taxing a product. His target was beards. The roots of the beard tax can be traced back to sixteen ninety seven, when the twenty five year old Czar embarked on a grand tour of Western Europe. The trip was meant to be educational, a way for Peter to learn about the culture, politics, and military prowess of his neighbors. For two whole years, he traveled the continent incognito, even working as a day laborer in the dockyards of Britain's Royal Navy. Peter quickly became enthralled with the culture of Western Europe, which seemed infinitely more modern than his own country. By the time he returned home in sixteen ninety eight, he was convinced that Russia needed a serious makeover. First thing on the chopping block men's facial hair. It seems that those long beards that were common throughout Russia were out of style in other countries. This was mostly practical too, Like heavy coats, beards made more sense in a country known for its brutal winters. But there was a religious component too. The Russian Orthodox Church treated long beards as a symbol of piety, and virtually all monks and priests wore their facial hair untrimmed, but Peter didn't care. He saw the beards as a symbol of the country's refusal to modernize and decided that they had to go. At a party celebrating his return, he announced a nationwide ban on beards. It was such a strange idea. At first, people thought that the Tsar was joking, and that wouldn't have been surprising. Peter the Great was a notorious jokester, known for throwing destructive feasts and parties. He kept a close group of friends who called themselves the All Justting and all Drunken Synod of Fools and Gestures. Heavily drinking and participating in pranks was literally a requirement for being in the club, and one of the main targets for their jokes was the Orthodox Church. At times, they would even dress up as bishops and perform mock marriage ceremonies to make fun of the clergy. So, knowing all of that context, the beard tax probably seemed like yet another joke aimed at riling up the church, but the Czar was deadly serious. This time. He demanded that his noble friends shave on the spot or have their beards ripped out by the roots. Then he had the police to hunt through the streets and perform forced shavings of the public. Individuals who wanted to keep their facial hair could do so as long as they paid a fee. Nobles were charged more than peasants, but everyone who paid received a token with the image of a beard engraved on it. By showing it to the police, Russians could avoid being shaved in the streets so long as they didn't forget their token at home, and the Russian people, as you might imagine, were appalled. Forced shavings felt like an affront to their faith and their culture. A few years after the tax was instituted, it sparked a bloody uprising. A group of soldiers published a letter stating that they refused to submit to foreign fashion. Hundreds of commoners and merchants joined them, and they took over several towns. Peter responded by sending two detachments of troops to crush the revolt. Approximately three hundred and sixty five rebels were caught and taken to Moscow, where they were tried, tortured, and executed. And you have to say, anyone who wondered whether the Tsar was serious now had their answer. Despite being wildly unpopular, the Russian beard tax remained in place for decades, long after Peter's death. It was finally repealed in seventeen seventy two by Catherine the Great. Modern historians might find it ironic that a female ruler gave Russian men their beards back, but the people didn't care. They were just happy to have one less tax to pay. So much of our history is hidden, buried under layers of dirt and silt. It's just sitting there, waiting to be dug up, like a toy in a sandbox. Thanks to hundreds of years of excavation and study, we've been able to learn about and understand the creatures and civilizations that came before us, From dinosaurs and ancient burial practices to magnificent structures and old tools. We know a lot more about our world than we used to. But every once in a while we unearthed something that defies explanation. It forces us to confront the limits of our understanding. In eighteen thirty two, in a town in Massachusetts, about fifty miles south of Boston, a young woman named Hannah Cook had been digging in a nearby sandbank. She was collecting sand for cleaning purposes, as it worked wonders as a scouring agent. But she found much more than just some natural cleaning products. She stumbled upon something big. It had been buried in the sand for a long time. It was a human skeleton. There was something strange about it. For one, the skeleton had been discovered sitting down with its legs tucked under its chin. But the other notable thing about it was how it was dressed. According to a report written by doctor Phineas W. Leland in eighteen forty three and I quote, covering the sternum was a triangular plate of brass, somewhat corroded by time, and around the body was a broad belt made of small brass tubes four or five inches in length. As for the body itself, an Illinois lawyer in eighteen thirty seven noted how the skull had deteriorated, but the teeth were mostly intact. They indicated the body had been that of a young man. There was still even a little bit of skin in certain places, like around the shoulders and on the back. This lawyer suggested that the body might have been embalmed to some degree, but the question remained, who did this skeleton belong to. Could it have been a member of an indigenous tribe from the area. A historian in the late eighteen hundreds claimed that the body had been buried according to wamp and Noah customs, so it was possible. Others argue that the remains had been those of a Phoenician, or an ancient Egyptian or a Carthaginian who had come to North America many centuries earlier. By the way, this theory was thrown around a lot at the time to explain how the pre Columbian city of Chichenitza was built by other cultures who had come and colonized the Americas. But that theory didn't hold weight either. After all, we know the Mayans built Chichenitza. And of course, it was even suggested that the whole thing had been a hoax, although no motive or culprit was ever determined. Eventually, the skeleton was sent to the Fall River Athenaeum for further study, and that's where it was observed by one man, in particular, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poets and author thought that maybe the remains were Norse, meaning they had belong to a Viking. He wrote a poem titled The Skeleton in Armour, which told the story of a Viking warrior who sailed to a new land with his bride and built a life with her until her untimely death. The poem was published in eighteen forty one, two years before a tragic accident that would change the fate of the actual skeleton forever. You see, in eighteen forty three, two young boys had been firing a small cannon when they ignited a fire. That fire grew into an uncontrollable blaze that destroyed twenty acres of Fall River. Numerous buildings were lost in the inferno, including the post office, two hundred family homes, and the Athenaeum. The skeleton was consumed by the fire. Then, six decades later, in nineteen oh three, the corner of Hartwell and Fifth Street was honored with a bronze plaque. It read, a skeleton in armor was found near this spot by Hannah Cook in the month of May a d Eighteen thirty one. Hannah probably appreciated being remembered for her discovery rather than what came after it. You see, in eighteen ninety two, her great niece was tried and acquitted for a horrible crime. She had allegedly murdered her parents, and that girl's name Lizzie, Lizzie Borden. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the Worldolore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.

Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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