[mysterious music]
Would you believe that one of America's greatest presidents
was a pioneer in the wrestling ring?
[crowd cheers]
- Wrestling today is a billion dollar spectacle,
and you've got all these iconic moves
that have developed over time.
- But the chokeslam traces its origins back
to a rather unexpected figure.
- Or that peregrine falcons owe their existence
to one of the weirdest creation stories
in the animal kingdom.
- The origin of these falcons is
a strange form of breeding,
the falcon copulation hat.
- This hat is not worn by the falcon,
it's worn by a human being.
- How about the twisted tale behind a popular phrase?
- If someone is accused
of speaking out against the government,
a king or queen could order
that that person's tongue is cut out.
- To make sure that the message was
transmitted to the rest of the population,
the tongue would be fed to a royal cat.
[cat yowls]
- These are the origin stories so strange,
they can only be described as unbelievable.
[dramatic music]
Wars have been started
over some of the most unimaginable things:
tea, pigs, even pastries.
But one war stands above the rest
when it comes to its bizarre beginnings.
- It's the early 18th century,
Spain and England are
wrestling over who will control
the vast resources of the North American continent.
- Spain feels very strongly that they are
100% entitled to control of trade in the Atlantic
because they keep telling everybody,
"We discovered America."
There is a tenuous treaty that's developed
called the Treaty of Seville,
and as part of this treaty,
Spain is given the privileges to board
any British ships and inspect them.
- [Dan] Britain plays nice
until a hotheaded captain named Robert Jenkins
sails in around 1731.
- Captain Jenkins is in charge
of an actual smuggling ship called the Rebecca,
and the Spanish board and investigate
the ship to seize contraband and smuggled items.
- Instantly, there's a lot of tension.
People start yelling.
[crowd shouts indistinctly]
There's a language barrier,
so they're yelling at each other in languages
the other crews cannot understand.
- In the middle of this chaos and confusion,
one of the Spaniards draws a sword
and wields it in such a way
[sword swooshes]
that he slices off Jenkins' ear.
Jenkins stumbles backwards.
He's gushing blood out of the side of his head,
and the Spaniard then castigates him by saying,
"Pick up your bloody ear and take it back to England
as a lesson to you people that this is what happens
when you challenge Spanish authority."
- Jenkins does indeed pick up his ear
and he decides, fine, we're gonna sail back to England,
but he doesn't go right to his superiors
and tell them what happened.
It's unclear whether he's embarrassed or what,
but he does keep that ear.
He actually puts it in a jar and has it preserved.
- [Dan] It might seem like a strange keepsake,
but seven years later,
Jenkins' preserved ear becomes the spark
Britain's been waiting for.
- The trade conflict with Spain is
reaching a boiling point
and Jenkins is summoned to the House of Commons
to testify about Spanish transgressions.
- With Jenkins clutching the jar in one hand
with his severed ear floating around inside of it,
he relates the happenings of that day on Rebecca
to the members of the House of Commons,
telling the story in the most animated way possible
and it has the desired effect of filling them with outrage.
It is then widely reported
in the popular press and reaches the people.
- The English decide, we gotta teach Spain a lesson.
They are ready for blood at this point.
So they set sail and they invade
the Port of La Guaira in Venezuela
and thus begins the War of Jenkins' Ear.
- This war stretches on for nine years.
407 ships on both sides are destroyed
and over 55,000 have lost their lives.
England has gained nothing.
It's a little bit of a waste of a severed ear if you ask me.
- [Dan] Of the hundreds of thousands of people involved
in the conflict,
one person is conspicuously absent.
- Interestingly, Jenkins himself, a master seaman,
never fights in the War of Jenkins' Ear.
He never fights in his own war.
After his performance in parliament,
he essentially disappears from the historical record.
Some speculate that Jenkins could just have been a blowhard,
a storyteller.
Maybe he lost his ear in a pub brawl.
But none of that actually matters
because it catalyzed the British public to fight
against the hated Spanish and wage a nine-year long war.
- An ear isn't the only trivial thing to start a war.
Next up, how one tiny tale sparked
an international incident.
- In the first Balkan war,
Greece and Bulgaria are allies.
They fight together to defeat the Ottomans
and take over huge chunks of land
in Thrace and Macedonia.
But there's a problem.
Once they have become the victors,
then the question comes of, okay, who gets what?
- So after overthrowing the Ottoman Empire,
Greece and Bulgaria get into their own war
against each other,
the Second Balkan War.
- This fighting between Greece and Bulgaria goes on
for a long time,
right through the First World War.
But when the war ends,
it's almost like the whole world collectively takes
a little breather,
and for seven years there is
this very fragile sense of peace in the region.
- [Dan] That is, until one unlikely catalyst
crosses the line.
- On October 19th, 1925,
a Greek soldier stationed at his post,
which is across the border from Petrich in Bulgaria,
has this dog that's become his buddy.
It was just a stray,
but they've clearly kind of become family.
- The dog at one point, though,
unaware of political boundaries,
wanders away from the guard shack
toward the Bulgarian border.
The Greek soldier comes out and cries out after the dog
and continues calling him back
even after the dog has crossed the border into Bulgaria,
and the Bulgarians on the other side of the border interpret
this as an act of war,
and they open fire,
[gunfire bangs]
killing the Greek soldier.
- After hearing the shots, other Greek soldiers run over
and they open fire on the Bulgarians.
A Greek captain intercedes and he tries to make peace,
but the Bulgarians
[gunshot bangs] shoot him dead.
- In response to the incident,
the Greek prime minister, Theodoros Pangalos, demands
that the Bulgarian government pay a sum of $95,000
to the family of the dead soldier.
In today's dollars, that would amount to 1.7 million.
- [Dan] When Bulgaria refuses to pay within 48 hours,
Greece launches a swift and aggressive response.
[gunfire bangs]
- The Greeks pillage and loot the town of Petrich,
and end up occupying several villages
in the immediate vicinity of it,
thus beginning the War of the Stray Dog.
- After days of bloodshed,
and 50, mostly Bulgarian deaths,
Bulgaria appeals to the League of Nations for help.
The League of Nations orders an immediate ceasefire
and orders the Greeks to leave.
When the Greek army doesn't,
the League of Nations sends in their own troops
to forcibly remove them.
And on October 29th,
10 days after a soldier's wayward pooch strayed
over the border,
the War of the Stray Dog is finally over.
[crowd cheers]
- In the end, Greece is found at fault
for invading Petrich
and the country is ordered to pay
3 million Bulgarian levas,
which is about a million dollars today.
- As for the dog,
let's hope he found himself a new home,
somewhere outside of a war zone.
- Have you ever been on a treadmill at the gym
and thought, "This is torture?"
Well, that's because this machine you love to hate
has some punishing origins.
- In the 1800s in Britain,
the death penalty isn't just reserved
for the highest of crimes like murder or treason.
It's used for pretty much anything.
If you do something wrong,
there's a solid chance that you are going to be
executed by the state.
[crowd shouting]
By the early 1820s,
the British public start to criticize this.
They say, you know, maybe we shouldn't just kill
anyone for any minor infraction.
And so by 1823,
the Judgment of Death Act comes out,
which allows judges the freedom
to not have someone executed.
- Although there are far fewer executions,
you now have far more prisoners.
British jails are overcrowded
and the prison population is
a large cohort of bored men with very little to do all day.
- [Dan] Meanwhile, around the same time in 1818,
a civil engineer named William Cubitt invents
a device to help farmers grind grain called the tread wheel.
- Farm laborers line up in a row and walk in unison,
thus turning the cylinder,
which is attached to a shaft, then grinds meal.
There's one problem with the tread wheel,
which is that it's very labor intensive.
You need a lot of men to operate over a very long period of time.
It's not very cost effective.
- [Dan] But William Cubitt has
a clever solution for the labor shortage,
and it comes with a captive workforce.
- Cubitt goes to
the Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline
and pitches this as a device to improve
the lives of all the inmates
in these overcrowded prisons
because they can learn the habits of industry,
and he calls it the penal tread wheel.
- [Dan] Prison officials fall in love with the idea,
and start putting them in penitentiaries
all around London.
- By 1824, you've got
54 penal treadmills in prisons all across Britain,
three in Wales.
Some of them are used to grind grain,
but others just for the pure punishment.
This is the very definition of hard labor.
You'll have about 20 prisoners
and they will walk anywhere from six to 10 hours,
walking the equivalent of halfway up Mount Everest.
We're talking about a little over 16,000 feet.
- It causes exhaustion, rheumatism.
There are also grave accidents,
sometimes badly constructed tread wheels collapse,
causing serious injury,
even death.
- In addition to the physical torture of this device,
it's also psychologically damaging.
Inmates are not allowed to say a word
to anyone next to them.
All they can do for those 10 hours is
stare at a wall and walk.
- [Dan] Over time, however, the treadmill runs its course.
- Finally, the Prisons Act of 1898 puts a stop
to the penal treadmill,
saying it's too cruel, it's inhumane.
No one's getting better
because they're forced to walk miles on end.
And a few years later,
all penal treadmills are gone from the entire country.
- [Dan] But the torture device makes
a surprising comeback thanks to a clever reimagining.
- A man by the name of William Edward Staub figures
that the treadmill might actually be
something that could be pretty good exercise.
And so in 1960, he develops and introduces
the first ever commercial treadmill.
Now, we can't say for certain
that William Staub looked at the penal treadmill
and used that as his inspiration,
but a lot of the mechanics are
pretty similar to that penal treadmill.
- If the treadmill was built to keep you moving,
this next move is designed to stop you cold.
[crowd cheers]
- Wrestling today is a billion-dollar spectacle.
You've got stadiums that are packed to the rafters
with tens of thousands of spectators
all watching to see what crazy moves
these performers are gonna be doing in the ring.
And one that has become
probably the most iconic is the chokeslam.
[body thuds]
- Some people contend that it traces its origins
back to a rather unexpected figure,
the great emancipator himself, Abraham Lincoln.
- [Dan] Long before he was president,
Lincoln was just a kid trying to survive
and learning to fight back.
- Abe Lincoln is born in a one-room cabin in Kentucky.
Abe's mother dies when he's young ,of milk sickness.
His father is a brutal man, frequently beats him.
He grows into a gangly, lanky young man
with a high, squeaky voice,
and it seems everywhere he goes,
he is an easy target for bullies.
- But he's fighting in the streets
and this slowly but surely develops
an ability we wouldn't suspect of our late president.
- [Dan] By his early 20s, the once-scrawny boy
has grown into a 6'4" powerhouse.
- Abe leaves home, relocates to New Salem, Illinois,
and becomes friendly with a local man named William Berry.
Berry is a town drunk,
but he also wants to open a bar.
They form a partnership and they open
Berry and Lincoln's.
The bar is a rough establishment.
Abe has to both tend bar and serve
as bouncer, getting rid of rowdy drunks.
- One night at the bar,
there's a promoter and he sees Lincoln wrestling
some of these rough and tumble kind of guys,
and he tells him, "You know what?
I really think that you would make a splash
on the wrestling scene."
- [Dan] And just like that,
Abraham Lincoln, the professional wrestler, is born.
- Abe's bouncing around Illinois,
making a name for himself.
- Over the course of a decade,
Abe Lincoln wrestles in 300 matches
and only loses a single bout.
- [Dan] Key to his near-perfect record,
a signature finishing move first seen in 1831.
- In New Salem, you have a local gang called
the Clary's Grove Boys,
and they're hearing about Abe Lincoln talking smack
and saying that, you know, he's the toughest fighter
in the frontier and stuff.
And so the gang's leader,
a guy by the name of Jack Armstrong,
who is a wrestler in his own right,
decides, "I'm gonna challenge this tall drink of water."
- A large crowd forms around the ring,
and at first, Abe and Jack, they're just circling around,
both hesitant to make the first move,
but pretty soon, it's on.
And Abe starts dominating.
[wrestlers grunt]
- But it's not enough for Abe to just win the match.
He wants to send a message.
Lincoln takes his hand and he wraps it
around the throat of Jack Armstrong, strangling him,
and then Lincoln proceeds to lift
Armstrong off of the ground and then slam.
- [Dan] A crowd-pleasing move
that cements Lincoln's reputation
not just as a fighter,
but as a leader in the making.
- Many historians believe
that Abe's presence in the ring helped launch
his political career.
When Lincoln is running for Illinois Senate in 1858,
national news begins reporting on his wrestling career
and it reflects well on him.
He is a fighter.
He is scrappy.
He has what it takes as a politician.
- In 1992, the rail splitter himself earns
a postmortem career high by being inducted
into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.
- Some origin stories begin with a problem,
others with a wild idea.
This one blends both,
and it all hinges on one unforgettable act of teamwork.
- For decades, the falcon has been a huge status symbol,
and in fact, it becomes the national bird for Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
- If you're a wealthy prince,
or a sheik, or from a prominent family,
you're likely gonna own one or two falcons.
They even have beauty contests for these falcons.
I mean, they're looking for features like who has
the thickest ankles, the best feathers,
the most golden hue.
- The US white gyrfalcon are
arguably considered the most coveted falcons on Earth.
A purebred can go for an insane amount of money.
- In 2001, an auction showcases
a pure white gyrfalcon
that goes for over a million dollars.
In fact, as unbelievable as it sounds,
in 2017, a falconer buys out
an entire plane to transport his 80 falcons,
giving each one their own seat.
- [Dan] But getting your hands on one of these exclusive birds
isn't as simple as it used to be.
- The origin of these immaculate falcons
are all thanks to a strange form of breeding,
the falcon copulation hat.
- This hat is not worn by the falcon.
It's worn by a human being.
The falconer puts on the falcon copulation hat,
walks around the falcon's chambers
rocking his or her head,
imitating the call of the female falcon.
[falcon calls]
And somehow, that excites
the male falcon.
- When the falcon appears ready,
the breeder turns his back to the male
and the male flies down onto the copulation hat
and attempts to mate with it.
The dimples in the hat catch the valuable semen,
and the breeder then uses a syringe to extract every drop.
One tube of semen is enough to fertilize
several falcon eggs.
- [Dan] A month later, a bird fit for a prince is born.
It does make you wonder though,
why the funny hat?
- In the 1940s,
biologists and conservationists notice
steep declines in peregrine falcon populations.
The culprit is the popular insecticide, DDT.
It accumulates in food chains
so that predators at the top,
like peregrine falcons,
get a lot of it in their diet.
The DDT weakens the structure of the shells of their eggs,
so that simply the weight of the female sitting on her eggs
is enough to crush them and kill the babies
long before they have a chance to hatch.
- [Dan] By the 1970s, the peregrine falcon is
on the verge of extinction
when a falconer named Lester Boyd invents
the copulation hat.
- The only way to save these falcons is
to breed them in captivity.
But a peregrine falcon isn't naturally going to want
to mate with a hat.
So Boyd uses a technique called sexual imprinting,
where from a very young age,
the falcons are trained to associate
the hat with mating.
- And it works.
The population of peregrines begins to grow again
as birds are bred in captivity
and released back out into the wild.
The copulation hat opens up the possibility
for controlled breeding,
not only of peregrines,
but of other falcon species,
especially in the Middle East.
[falcon calls]
- Sometimes preserving a species means
putting on a funny hat.
Other times, it means rewriting the rules of biology.
- For decades, scientists believed
there was no way that you could clone anything as complex
as a mammal.
But in 1986 in Scotland,
scientist Ian Wilmut and his crew decide
they're going to try it with a sheep.
- Ian and his team attempt this technique known
as somatic cell nuclear transfer.
The idea is, you take the nucleus from an adult cell
and transfer it into an egg cell.
Inside the nucleus is the DNA
and the DNA has the code that builds the entire sheep.
So if you take the code and put it in a new egg,
you're making a copy of that original sheep.
[sheep baas]
- For 10 years, they performed
the same technique over and over again,
but the scientists fail more often than they succeed.
After 277 tries,
only 29 of the embryos survived more than six days.
- [Dan] Finally, on the morning of July 5th, 1996,
Ian Wilmut wakes up to the news he has been waiting for.
- A baby lamb that is a clone of an adult lamb
has successfully been born,
and they give it the name 6LL3.
- Well, that doesn't stay for very long.
The stockman who's helping them,
he decides, you know, you should name this Dolly,
after Dolly Parton.
- [Dan] Dolly opens up the floodgates.
Soon, scientists are cloning everything from pigs to horses,
but one animal is more stubborn than the rest.
- Dogs constantly prove impossible to clone,
partly because the eggs are released
at a much less mature stage than other mammals.
- Finally, in 2005,
a Korean scientist named Woo Suk Hwang cracks the code.
Someone on the team figures out
that there's another way to harvest the eggs.
If they harvest them from the fallopian tubes,
then they're gonna be much more mature,
and now they're viable.
- [Dan] After more than 100 attempts, one finally survives.
- They name him Snuppy,
which is a combination of the letters SNU,
for Seoul National University,
and the word puppy.
- It's pretty amazing
and Snuppy goes on to live a really full dog life,
dying just 13 days after his 10th birthday.
And his legacy lives on.
Snuppy's DNA is used to create
10 more clones in 2008,
and four more in 2017.
- Amid the chaos of World War I,
a trend quietly took hold in bedrooms all across Britain
and it changed how we dressed for sleep forever.
- In the 21st century, we are very accustomed to seeing
people in their pajamas.
They have become a leisure garment.
People will wear pajamas when they're out walking their dog,
when they go to get their hair done,
anytime they wanna be comfortable.
But in the early 1900s,
it was not common to see people in pajamas
because in the Western world,
nobody was wearing them.
- Both men and women are wearing either night shirts
or nightgowns down to their ankles to go to bed.
It is unheard of for a woman to go to bed in pants.
- [Dan] But when bombs start falling from the sky,
the way people prepare for bed will never be the same.
- On January 19th, 1914,
two German Zeppelins end up dropping bombs
on Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn
on the Eastern British coast.
Deadly Zeppelin attacks become a regular thing
in daily British life.
When these attacks occur,
typically they're heralded by air raid sirens.
[siren wails]
These attacks often occur in the early morning
or late at night,
and people are woken from their beds
and have to flee to air raid shelters.
- People don't have the time to change clothes.
It's a panic situation and you have to get to shelter.
So this means there are all of these women
running around the streets of London in their nightgowns,
which pose a couple of different problems.
For one, these nightgowns are ankle length.
Long gowns do not lend themselves to ease of movement.
And for another thing,
it is not really something that most people would want
to be seen in publicly.
- This is an age of decorum.
Women can't be seen in this state of undress
running through the streets of London,
able to be ogled by other women's husbands and strangers.
- And that's when women's magazines start
putting forth this idea of a solution.
And that solution is practical nightwear.
- Pajamas start to be sold in England
as a sort of loose fitting jacket and pant combination.
- The pajama suits a whole litany of needs
in this wartime situation.
You can run in them,
something that you cannot do in an ankle-length nightgown.
They have pockets sewn into them,
so you could quickly grab valuables
and dash out into the street.
And most importantly, for these survivors,
you maintain a sense of dignity
as you are fleeing for your lives.
- There is always a lot of talk
about all of the technological advances
that often come with wartime.
So if you're listing out the advancements that we have
thanks to World War I,
you can put in there trench warfare, mustard gas,
and pajamas.
- A decade and a half later,
the British are going to need something better
than a comfy pair of PJs to get through an air raid.
[tense music]
- In 1935, there's great anxiety
among the British people,
because Hitler has come to power.
He's re-arming Germany in violation
of the Versailles Treaty from World War I,
and the British know that one key element
of Hitler's rearmament is
the building of a massive air force called the Luftwaffe.
- Adding to the anxieties are
these intelligence reports that suggest
that Germany is on the cusp of developing a death ray,
an invisible beam that can vaporize
people, buildings, maybe even entire cities.
- It's a weapon that sounds like science fiction,
but this is an era where even more outlandish weapons were
actually being tested and fielded.
So back then, it seemed quite feasible.
- The British are stuck.
What do you do, how do you fight a death ray?
Well, the best defense is a good offense:
build your own death ray.
- [Dan] The British gather some of
the most brilliant scientific minds on the planet
and get to work.
- What would it take to create a radiation or particle beam
that could be used to shoot down attacking aircraft?
The idea is that this weapon could
cook the pilot, killing him,
or could be used to detonate a bomb onboard the aircraft.
This team spends months running the numbers,
doing simulations, and guess what?
They come up with nothing.
- Their experts can't come up with a solution.
So they turn to the general public
and they have a contest,
who can figure out the death ray?
It's sort of like crowdsourcing your ultimate weapon.
- [Dan] Unfortunately, British civilians also come up short.
- In a last-ditch effort,
the British Air Ministry turns
to a celebrated and renowned radio engineer
who works with the BBC Radio Service,
Robert Watson-Watt.
They ask him how high of a frequency would it take
to literally melt an airplane out of the sky?
The laws of physics simply say, "Not gonna happen,"
and that's because the radio waves that you send
towards the aircraft just bounce off.
But it's in these calculations
that Watson-Watt has a real, genuine eureka moment.
- These radio waves that bounce off of targets
can be picked up by antenna.
By measuring the time it takes
for the signal to return,
Watson-Watt can calculate the relative position
of the aircraft.
So this means they might be able to detect
invading aircraft long before they can see or hear them.
- [Dan] Cautious but intrigued,
the Air Ministry requests a demonstration.
- On February 26th, 1935, the Royal Air Force takes
an old bomber and they fly it
between two BBC radio masts that are positioned
six miles apart.
Positioned between these two towers sits
Robert Watson-Watt, his assistant,
and an Air Ministry official.
They sit in front of a cathode ray tube
with a green indicator light.
Over and over again as the bomber passes overhead,
the green light turns on.
While this was no death ray,
these three men alone are
essentially seeing the dawn of radar.
- This is crazy.
There can be a plane so far away that no naked eye,
no pair of binoculars could ever pick it up,
and yet by sending out radio signals
and waiting for them to come back,
you can pick it out of the sky.
It's like a comic book superpower.
- [Dan] Four years later, radar proves its worth,
empowering an outmatched British Air Force to outwit
and outlast the mightier Luftwaffe
in the Battle of Britain.
- Radar technology today is ubiquitous on the planet.
It's used in our daily lives.
We even get speeding tickets based off of it.
It was all due to someone coming up
with a crazy idea to build a death ray.
- Ironic, that what started as a weapon
to shoot down aircraft
ends up being the greatest advancement in airline safety.
- Choosing a best man is a major decision.
They have important duties like holding the rings,
making a speech that might get the groom in trouble,
and planning a raging bachelor party.
But the role has strayed very far
from its original purpose.
- In 16th century Gothic Germany,
if you're a young man, say in your 20s,
it's time to start thinking about taking a wife.
However, you may be in a village
where there are no available single women for you to marry.
In these situations, the groom-to-be will hire
a group of dudes known as bride knights,
and go raid another village,
riding horses, carrying swords,
and from that village, kidnap a wife.
That doesn't fly today.
We're talking 16th century Gothic Germany.
Once the groom and his posse of bride knights have
obtained a bride-to-be,
they take her to the church and attempt
the marriage ceremony,
but they are subject to counter attack.
- Just remember, this woman does not wanna be
at this wedding.
It is a kidnapping.
So in a lot of cases,
the bride's family then formed their own posse
to come and try and get the bride back.
- During the ceremony, the couple is
at their most vulnerable.
Thus, the bride knights will stand assembled,
facing the congregation.
So if the bride's angry brothers and cousins
burst through the door,
the bride knights are at the ready
and the best man is the last line of defense.
[swords clang]
In those days, the best in best man doesn't mean
best friend.
It means he's the best swordsman of the bride knights.
- Nowadays, the best man is
still in the same location next to the groom,
but his job is completely different.
He's no longer the best fighter,
and he no longer aids in a kidnapping.
It's become a lot more wholesome.
- 1,500 years earlier in Greece,
something else is being stolen,
only it doesn't have an expert swordsman to protect it.
- Today, vending machines are a $15 billion a year industry.
More than 100 million people a day buy
anything from a bag of chips to a cooked pizza,
even underwear.
- [Dan] But the first vending machine on the planet,
let's just say you better not kick it
for stealing your coins
because it might send you straight to hell.
- In early Christianity,
purifying with holy water against evil spirits was
called khernips,
and it's something very important to worship.
- Outside of many temples at the time,
it's customary to have an urn or vessel of holy water,
which people either imbibe,
anoint themselves, or used to wash their hands
before entering.
- However, early Greek Christians start
thinking that the holy water is
a cure-all for all of life's ailments.
As a result, churchgoers are taking the holy water at will
and the church elders are obviously a little miffed.
- [Dan] That's because there's not an endless supply
at the time.
- In the Greek church, holy water is
produced once a year on January 6th
in the Feast of Epiphany.
This container of holy water is expected to last
the entire year.
It is not meant to be squandered.
- The potential for a holy water drought leads
church authorities to begin searching for solutions,
and they turn to a very inventive figure,
known as Hero of Alexandria.
- Hero is this genius mathematician,
engineer, inventor.
He's been credited with inventing the syringe,
the first steam engine.
So if you need a machine,
he's the guy to talk to.
- Hero invents an ingenious device,
essentially a fountain inside of a box
that can only be activated by a compulsory donation.
- Now that people have to pay,
they become much more careful stewards
of this limited resource.
- You put a coin in the urn, it hits a lever.
The weight of the coin releases a plunger.
The perfectly measured dose of holy water comes out a spout.
The plunger closes again,
no more holy water,
and the church gets its much-needed tithes.
It's genius in its simplicity today,
but for the time, it's an engineering marvel.
- It's hard to believe the vending machine was
created to distribute a holy sacrament,
an incredible point to ponder
the next time you buy a bag of chips.
- Ever wonder where
some of our most common expressions come from?
Take the phrase, "cat got your tongue."
Believe it or not, the strange history
behind this saying might leave you lost for words.
- Cats were widely venerated in ancient Egypt.
Gods including Sekhmet and Bastet
were in the image of cats.
The creatures were considered holy
and cats served very practical uses,
including keeping rats and mice out of grain supplies.
- For the wealthy and for Pharaohs,
it's very common to keep cats on hand
because they're believed to be
the bringers of good fortune and protectors.
They are so beloved in this culture
that it is not uncommon for people to adorn them with jewels
and dress them up as extravagantly and finely
as any member of the royal family.
- [Dan] Cats were not only symbols of luxury,
they also played a crucial role
in the criminal justice system.
- In ancient Egypt, if someone is accused of blasphemy,
of lying, of speaking out against the government
or against established religion,
they can pay a pretty steep price.
If those accusations are deemed valid by the ruler,
a king or queen could order
that person's tongue is cut out.
- In some cases, to make sure
that the message was transmitted
to the rest of the population,
the tongue would be fed to a royal cat.
[cat yowls]
Whether or not this grisly practice is the actual
origin of the expression, "cat got your tongue,"
it sent a pointed and decided message
to rowdy members of the public.
- Not every cat has it so lucky.
If you were a South American feline in the 1300s,
certain Aztec traditions might have you on edge.
- In the Aztec religion,
animals were often sacrificed to a higher power.
Some of the most highly prized
and valued animals for sacrifice were
animals that were noble and bold,
like the jaguar or the crocodile.
But obviously, a jaguar or a crocodile could kill you
so they're not the easiest animals to obtain.
But there's a loophole.
- In lieu of sacrificing actual animals,
they create the animal in effigy, using balloons.
- [Dan] However, they're quite different
from the ones we see clowns making at fairs
or birthday parties today.
- Aztecs create these balloon animal effigies using
cat bowels, AKA the intestines of cats.
They discovered that pulling the entrails from a dead cat,
turning them inside out,
and then cleaning them up
actually turns the intestines into a latex-like material.
- After the cat intestines are fully prepared,
they're cut into shape
and then sewn together using vegetable fiber thread
to make the overall shape of the animal
that they wish to sacrifice.
- [Dan] Cats were ideal but not always available.
So, priests had to get creative.
- Sometimes they would also use pigs.
But when you run out of cats and pigs,
the next best option are human intestines.
- So next time you're blowing up balloons
and you're complaining about the nasty latex taste,
imagine if you were actually blowing up mammal bowels,
pig, cat, human, whatever.
It's nastier.
You got the good balloons.
- The truth behind many beginnings
is stranger than fiction.
The best man who started as a kidnapper,
a funny hat integral to breeding prized falcons,
and a president who first found fame
chokeslamming in the wrestling ring.
These are the origins so odd,
they are truly unbelievable.