Dan Snow Reveals History Facts Which Will Blow Your Mind! | Private Parts Podcast

down before we kick off the podcast we do a very special thing that is slightly awkward for you not for me um because we like me I guess be uncomfortable um so you have to look down the camera and you have about 30 seconds to describe Who You Are okay there's that and you could listen you can say what you can say you can say you could say I'm a father you've got a synopsis on Twitter proud dad always the tale isn't it he's like a do a Maximus uh my name is Maximus okay we're ready for it my name is Dan snow and I use every single platform the internet has given us to gossip about dead people that is the greatest intro I think we've ever had that that is I think that was the first um thing that I wanted to ask you we get asked these questions right about if you could have a dinner table and you could have people who would sit around the dinner table and who you would have and all those kind of things if you could have four people dead or alive who would you have you can't ask me that I can't ask yours I I don't know [ __ ] about physics but I do know that apparently if you know the Italian school that mass is the same across every you're always the same you're the mass of the sex doesn't change energy Beyond Mars yeah it could be on earth your weight is definitely apparently that's not true what do you mean I don't know I mean but apparently it's not true so if you ask a physicist is mass constant their head will explode yeah is this quantum physics apparently yeah so I don't know listen all like you now know as much as I know about this so my point being is extended way of saying that if you ask someone who loves history and things of History all the time what their four favorite people from history on a dinner party table would be I my head explodes okay that's such a cop-out finished I'm gonna give it to you obviously buddy but what I'm saying he's a professional he's going on an arc come on Darlings teasing us oh my God but the point but like it I spend all day every day thinking about that it's brute whereas most people don't spend too much time thinking about history say God you know buddhica Abraham Lincoln Martin Luther King it's quite easy but for me I'm like just would they get on I don't know because of course that thing she wrote that one time in the letter but she'll she contradicts it later so you get Neurosis yes I'm in a flat flat Panic it's my least favorite question you get anxiety about table seating I get incredible anxiety about whether Alexander the Great is gonna be such a dick that Nelson is going to fall out what would you kill I'm still trying to get them around the table I I so basically there's obviously 100 million I mean endless people like Emperor Theodora Who Rose from being a I think you charitably would call her a a kind of a dancing girl Entertainer you know certainly someone from the very very un like an underclass in the Eastern Roman Empire she Rose to become Empress in her own you know astonishingly powerful and Brilliant woman so you'd have to say you'd have to have her because she's the dancer no in the country she's the intellectual she's the intellectual to have someone who's lived that kind of life would be amazing um I would you know there's there's oh God Shackleton Shackleton the one out of there wouldn't you because he was extraordinary Nelson well my one favorite story is that Nelson and Wellington Admiral General two greatest military minds of their time possibly of any time they met once 20 minutes in an ante room in the outside sort of Office of the foreign secretary's office basically they were both due to have a meeting no one knows what was said in that room Nelson left that meeting was dead within 18 months Wellington said in his older years I don't think I've ever had such an extraordinary conversation get out of here yeah and Wellington was a man who hated everyone who's completely he was the famous special about Wellington is it you at a intellectual disdain for his social equals and a social disdain for his intellectual equals he just hated everybody because they were stupider than him and less Posh than he hated everybody and famous say that but Nelson was high pressure very tough but he's like he's managing but so to have Nelson like Wellington else to know what happened that conversation with amazing to have them in the room be cool so that they would be cool um you know fascinating leaders though you know typically leaders have that sort of attitude though you know we you talk at the likes of church and things of that Churchill you know suffer with depression was you know a grumpy guy you know all these kind of things and why with that sort of um do you have to have that slightly sociopathic mind I mean what is it what do I suppose my question is this what do all military leaders or leaders in general have typically in common well that's a really good point I've been thinking a lot about this recently because I actually am someone who I'm a little bit less bulletproof than I was when I was in my 20s and I suffer from you know I get anxiety about a cat sometimes up at night worrying about things I don't want to listen to my podcast you know whatever so and I think that is objectively a really tiny concern like we want to lose I mean get on with it right but Liz truss has basically brought the entire Financial system to its knees has destroyed her own credibility well I don't know but she's got Vladimir but by the way side note Vladimir Putin talk about using nuclear been weapons yeah like this is objectively an incredibly challenging day at work right and and he actually just kind of well I'm like is is it I can I've real depressingly I've now realized I couldn't do that I think I would have a physical breakdown yeah and these people don't do that so how does how did the German command World War II fight and when it was hopeless for like two or three years towards the end of the one they just got up every day and ordered people to go to their deaths and knowing it could do no good whatsoever wow so I think there must be a level of sociopathic I think it's going to survival of the fits I think people like me would go actually I just don't think I fancy being an up and coming position I think I'll just go and start a podcast whatever so I think you the ones left in it must be like hard as nails or so sympathic well you know I don't know I'm not a psychologist but like there is something going on there I agree and it's just like walk to there you know you think you look at Trump and Johnson they're so similar right it's Trump and Johnson clearly they've got a thing which I I definitely sympathize with they will say whatever they say they need to say whatever they need to say to get them through the next five minutes yeah they would it's just pure there's a problem here and I'm like I put it in the top you know when your wife is yelling at you so you're like I put it in the top drawer yeah and then at least that's going to cause an absolute problem later on right but it's Gonna Get You Out of This immediate five minute situation and then you can deal with that problem tomorrow and then it goes and then that's the Donald Trump goes there they planted those documents and now that now it's in a court of law like well if they plant the dog if you're suggesting documents X1 said he's like oh geez I was joking but then it's like and you just do something to get through this thing and like you just event and sometimes it works has there been a period of history or British politic uh political history where there's been such a mess yeah yeah there's always been like useless kind of figureheads this feels like I think we've got the Italian new territory yeah I mean the interesting is the mid 19th century there was a big mess but they were pretty impressive people like your boy Aberdeen and Gladstone those guys Russell so they were like objectively pretty cool I even though they then got a mess because life is hard politics is hard The Great Potato Famine happened like you know it is difficult and night nightmarish there was a period at the end of the American Revolutionary War when it was a shambles we had like four six prime ministers in two years or three years so that was a three or four years so that was a that was a nightmare and they were not super impressive so I think the times you know the times do produce you know that it's tough to be a great prime minister when everything is going to tits up around you right and so but it is there is something there does seem to be something about modern politics like they're not selling their best are they no but then who would want that like that we're all saying like I don't well I'm certainly saying I couldn't I couldn't do that job did you did you read that did you read the book uh fire and fury did you uh Trump you're the Trump one which was fascinating because when it was when Trump was elected he described it as the like the show the theater show The Producers yeah it was like the biggest disaster that actually then won them the election and Trump Annie walked into room he turned she he walked into a room and they came out and went all right let's do this because didn't think he was going to win did he I love that expression the dog that caught the car you know the way dogs lights run along and then eventually catch the cold what the hell are they gonna do with it it's giant aluminum it's like Trump and breaks it we're like Yay let's do this thing oh my God we've done it and I think that's so Hitler had that when I was when the second world war broke he had been assured that Britain would not declare war against him if he invaded Poland and then he invaded Britain declared war against him when he invaded Poland and he looked up at his foreign secretary who was pale and and he just went what now because we've got a big problem now right we do not want to fight Britain yeah and um and so yeah and it's that same thing it's like yeah this will be fine and then it actually happens but with the with these conversations it's so easy especially with your mind for us to jump because we have so many questions and and also uh our audience wanna you know we're not there we're not the biggest uh guys on History oh yeah hey hey we don't we don't but however what is so fascinating having you on is that there is this lack of knowledge or history at the moment and because people see it as a subject they see it um as tedious and people want you know present we're so present now with Tick Tock social media all those different things let's see and and the next entertainment entertaining thing then actually forget our history and your background is a historian that's that's who and what you are that's a big statement for us not it's not what you are crowd does yeah proud Dad you're a proud dad but but where did that love history start so that's the weird thing about me I've never seen history as something that's dead and buried I came for a family journalist my mum dad both journalists and cousin journalists and the whole Furniture so also and they were cons they were literally the definition of modern day and future all they did was Chase about looking for whatever the best plane crash that political crisis that strike whatever it is so they will but they through that you realize that the history is where all this stuff comes from so you're not delving back looking into history just because you have a kind of weird artistic fascination with Henry VII's wardrobe or some people aren't good luck to them you're looking at history because you need to understand what on Earth is going on right what is going on in Ukraine what is Israel doing what is Iran doing what's everyone doing why what is belasconi doing like what if you want to start you if you want to know about the future you want to know if president what present Putin's gonna do next right you don't know what is in the future so the only Playbook you got is the past so you might as well have a quick look at that wow I never thought of it that way there you go and so why is why have we why did we do brexit why did Trump happen why we'll speak English like if you're interested in the world which we all love interesting these amazing Fascinating People that humans and the weird stuff we do yeah it's good to look at them in the present but the first thing you do is go like what happened to that look at you with your friends this is a classic like you know with mates or family members you've got to understand anything about what they how they're manifesting what how they go through the day you've got to look at their past of course you do look at the trauma they've suffered the bereavement the the childhood trauma the bad luck the good luck the privilege in my case think you know I've been incredibly Lucky in my life that's why I'm sitting here all confident in perky right but because nothing bad's ever happened to me right I'm a child of extraordinary privilege so I think that we all know that in our mates then we see it in our families and our communities but the center of countries and Empires and hold the whole human race we're just a product of of our past yeah but I don't think but I don't think people realize that like you know when you when you outline it very simply like that of course we do you know if you look at therapy the I guess as you said the biggest thing with therapy is we go back to our past what has happened and therefore we can understand the future and that is it's our only Playbook I never thought of it that way I was I listened to you on that you're on an Australian History Podcast and you were talking about is this when you're researching this is when I was research yeah straight to Australia where is it going to be good it wasn't late last night um and you would sort of you'd mentioned what you just said but then talking about the other side of it where actually like you know sometimes holding on to history too much yeah it can be negative you know you've got issues in Israel and people that just they don't forget what happened 100 years ago and they're killing each other over it so there is that kind of like other side of it which can be and that's what does my head negative because I'm I'm here all day can anyone remember your history and then you're like yeah but not that much like you know hang on and if you go to Northern Ireland you're just like whoa this is a even today like it's such these communities just divided by these things happen hundreds of years ago so I guess the answer is like therapy I guess the answer is you go back you explore it you work it out and then you and then you understand that it doesn't it doesn't make it doesn't it's not Destiny yeah the past isn't Destiny the past is pushing us towards these different areas it doesn't mean we've got to be like that you know and I think that's something I've worked on if I look at my past and you know there's bits that I'd like to be better at and change I'm not saying just going well I grew up in a pretty misogynistic well zone of your misogynist like you know you've got to go geez I grew up that's interesting how I grew up and some of those assumptions I need to I need to kind of that's some things I need to work on and so I guess that's the line but it's gaining self-awareness though right that's the self-awareness that you gained throughout life as you were saying that I was also thinking about the other whole side of it which is not just like I'm in Jerusalem why can't I cross this roadblock to East Jerusalem because of the Six Day War in 967. I think there's another like that's obviously I was actually in Texas I don't know you'd be standing there saying that to everyone as well although I wasn't well that's the thing in some parts of the world people are very aware you know as you just said there too where the history shows on a taxi once and there was a in uh on the West Bank and there was a huge traffic jam and there was an Israeli checkpoint up ahead and I said to this Palestinian taxi driver I was like hey what happened here and he I'm joking not he said in the 7th Century Muhammad captured Jerusalem so his description of why we were in stationary traffic began in the 7th Century with the Islamic uh capture of Jerusalem that was literally so I'm like okay well here let's do this but I mean yeah that's like that's like not realizing who's in your car and then suddenly when you say you go oh [ __ ] I was like the best audience ever I'm like no I agree it did actually like I'm let's get into it like it's it is that this is where the traffic jam Story begins but as but as you're saying that I'm reminded like people might still be thinking like yeah this is fine but maybe I don't actually it's it is it's about history is also about like a mindset which is it's it's it's it's um be don't like whether it's religion whether it's political leaders whether it's promises made whether it's fake news it's about bringing that stalker mindset which is be skeptical be cynical search for evidence do your own research to see on the internet for you by people who haven't done their own research like like I I like challenge yourself like seek out seek out like why am I being told this piece of information who is this person telling me this is it likely to be true right and that's why history actually we're all running around here what do we do about fake news Well history is like the it's like the vaccine it's like the shot for fake news because you just encourage people to go is it in your opinion likely that Hillary Clinton is running a pedophile ring out of a pizza parlor I know slightly I guess history is about um your best kind of educated estimation of taking like it's it's pulling research from all sides nothing's ever definite right that's sick as because you weren't there so you have to which is quite useful now as well because we are so misled as you said yeah well that's exactly to teach you humility so basically I realize I have no idea what is going on inside Danny street today and I've literally we're following people on Twitter and sort of half telling them but I don't know what's going on right we got pretty good access we've got all these sources coming at us on Twitter and so everyone's telling us the news and yeah you don't really know what is going on deep down how so what chance have we got of understanding what's going on a thousand years ago two thousand years ago at the court of Augustus or William the Conqueror so just have some humility it's all our best guess we're all we're all making a judgment based on the evidence available and therefore be it I think it takes away that kind of arrogant certainty I think yeah I think that as a as a as a method across everything is super useful that's a way to avoid like arguments because it's like I'm not saying it's definitely true this is just what I've kind of balanced probability is probably this we could be wrong yeah but as a historian then there's there it sort of lays itself to this question if you if you're about the past and thinking about that and sort of trying to understand it in lots of ways and you're fascinated by it there's a there's a chatter host in America who does all these questions um but one of the questions is is that he asks his guess he says what happens when we die and so if I was going to say that to you as a historian and say well what happens when we die then what what do you think happens right well what I would the only thing I would say is I have been in some pretty mad places I've been in Egyptian tombs I've been in the basement the remains of Aztec Pyramids temples I've been to Maori parasites in special sites of special religious significance in New Zealand I've been in soaring Gothic Cathedrals here in Western Europe I've been in stone circles or right across again Northwest Europe I've been in amazing Inuit sort of spiritual burial ground you might call it up in the Arctic Circle in Canada so what I can say is that there's no that the suggestion that this seems to me that every culture makes up their own has their own theory about what happens after we die and that there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of agreement between them and it's not based on much evidence so therefore that our ideas about death are very much formed in life and formed by by the way there's that theory of the of the elephant where you've got so there's like 10 different you know people or civilizations all standing around the elephant but they can only hold on or grasp a particular part of their own elephant so they're all you know they're all grasping onto the same thing but they only get that one perception so the one that is on the side of the elephant thinks that it's a wall the one that's on the trunk thinks that it's like a pipe so they they're all trying to sort of access the same thing but they've all got very different viewpoints to it yeah I love that which I quite like yeah that's really nice yeah except that unlike the elephants so far as far as we can tell none of those cultures that I mentioned seem to have been proved right as it were like the Egyptians didn't live forever in those tombs like you know there's not um I mean that's not in the physical not the physical sense no Perhaps Perhaps in a way that we can't understand of course that they are still there Tutankhamun is having great old time with his many many pairs of boxer shorts that was buried is that where they go yeah Ryan seem to [ __ ] disappear I'll tell you if you need spells okay it's one of those really awkward things the museum in Cairo is like here's our very exciting collection of hundreds of pairs pants and we need to curate them all because they're all so special but you're like they are all identical edges pants you do become less uh less of a risk-taking man because you know you've been to the co you've been to Congo you've been to Syria you've been to all these places these war-torn areas you know putting yourself in danger a lot of the time and and do then stop doing that because yeah well that was just a horror show can you explain what happened that must be amazing I spent my whole 20s being like Johnny big bollocks I'm trying to go to Warzone since the BBC never sent me to any of them and then and then finally because you were too tall I had no obvious skills get down no obvious reason or skills you're just like shut up go and present this card they're going to pretend to bring about Welsh cast so I kept saying well the thing is I find about war journalism it's all you know it's like bang bang what's that amazing I what I would like to see is like why are these people fighting like one at White like on a deeper level like why are these people fighting so in the case of Syria like you go all the way back and you talk about different sects of Islam and you talk about French colonization you talk about how Lebanon was like hacked off Syria and given to it like in made independent country and bits were nicked by turkey and all this kind of stuff and so that I used to go on about this and I talked about that in terms of Afghanistan Syria and they ignored me and you couldn't make this up I I actually was in the hospital with my wife having had our first child and I got a phone call and it was like that idea we've been going for ages they want to go for it they want to go for the Syria idea I'm like well actually I am yeah yeah Welsh castles and Tweed jackets can I take a kid is the paternity so I then I did it and actually I did it against Robert and it was all it was a very very scary and awful experience hey it was um it was scary because you're in a war zone and B it was awful because I wasn't I I was very reluctant and it's almost like you know almost like when you when you're playing football when you go for attack you want to go in for the tackle then they're starting to get injured I just basically was terrified the whole time and hovering about and and um and then we got you know we got that program made and then we did one more which is in the Congo which was equally it meant some case actually slightly more scary because it's lesser it was just more instability there and sort of crime and violence that we're worried about on the roads and stuff anyway and and actually the the fizzing it's amazing again talk about being a sociopath the the fizzing adrenaline in your blood constantly when you're there is extraordinary like you're can you describe that yeah there was it I can only describe it as fizzing you're heightened awareness so it's like a fight or flight but all but all the time super weird so you're you're just sometimes obviously it reaches a climax but even when he was like get up and have breakfast you're just there's a there's a everything is heightened as it keeps coming back to that word fizzing your by arteries of physics but I thought and that's bad for you obviously in the long term and and and uh it's kind of um and by the way I was doing nothing compared to be like all the gearing all these lifelong War corresponds who do that all the time probably quite addictive well that's the type when you come back from it right and you don't have that yeah that's the problem this is that yeah so I then got and I thought I am I hate this I really am hating I felt so I felt very selfish I wasn't an aid worker I wasn't a soldier trying to do my bit I was just there you felt very selfish and I couldn't bear to think that my daughter you know awful and so uh so I came home and I remember and I remember taking off whether it was from uh you know we didn't talk about Damascus we took the board and then we take off out of Lebanon Beirut or from Congo took off left Kinshasa and I remember ah and then two weeks later I was on a dual Carriage wedding and it was raining and I was doing some lame thing and I had a sudden little flash I was like well I wish I was back there no way yeah and I went oh none of that yeah yeah that way Madness lies but I had this litter and I really noted it and said that I'm not gonna do that but I had this it was when I was on a dual character looking at stupid I'll never forget that little gray crash barrier that we have in Britain around you know yeah that's lame I wonder if it was that yeah you're right but where does that come from well it was something you're right it was yeah I guess it was a living living every day in the second and getting through it you get addicted to that stress hormone apparently well like that's what it must have been but that again so look at colleagues who really do that for a living I did I dip my toe in the water but you think oh yeah well that's just that's a scary you're dancing with the devil yeah but but but that type of Journalism you you must really thrive on because that that has everything you you you kind of want and you dream about right that for me if I had been if I was asked to do what if I was given a budget and a show and told do what I want to do it would be do that which was go to unstable places in my world and explain why it's like not in a kind of three four minute format but like 20 minutes why they're a mess and and just go into the history go into that deeper past and talk about where those prejudices where those fault lines are come from that is my so weird because like you know I say family journalists study history University didn't pursue a formal professional history career in academic and stuff left abandoned that to go and work at Lucy so I felt I sit right in between the two that's what I can do and that's how I could be different and then uh no one wanted that so um we're gonna stop there for part one I'm loving this we're gonna come back for part two where we have more questions and I want to talk about when you want to save 25 people on a little dinghy boat and took them back from Cali yeah looking forward okay see you in part two foreign welcome back to part two of private part still here with Dan snow um Dan you've worked with your dad a lot yeah yeah uh privileged blessing um hard at times what do you think it was a it was an amazing privilege he is uh he was he's one of the best broadcasters generation he has this a huge he had a huge passion a lot of broadcasters want to be something else like a lot of them you know some of them want to be um writers I just wish I was writing a great big book and or some of them want to be actors or some of them want to be my dad absolutely loved the thing he was allowed to do which was take complicated ideas and make them simple on the television and use pictures and words together to create that and then and then increasingly Graphics he was ahead of his time he used graphics and animations to bring that picture together that was his Jam that was his Kink and so I and I kind of I'm obviously a little bit like that so I just watched him and we'd be in meetings and they'd say you know we'd love to go back and explain the history of the arab-israeli conflict we haven't got time to that you've only got a minute so just just dad's like I can do that in a minute and you go away for like a day and write no script and it would be a thing and it was not a word over that wasn't needed to be there you know it was it was a and so he really taught me that there is a dignity and a oh and a just joyfulness about doing telling it's not a kind of do Telly because you want to be on Strictly or you want to say you want to have a best-selling book he did it because he absolutely loved doing it and I think I think that's I think I've inherited that so I've learned a huge amount from it of course enormously privilege to to to have to had that break and and that he was a journalist at the BBC took me out of nowhere and put me on a show with him incredibly lucky incredibly lucky and it's a lot of sense of luck and privilege that is absolutely yeah been cured for 20 years yeah but I believe I feel like that's doing yourself a disservice I I think that's very easy to to go down that idea of okay I but no but I don't I think people create their own luck and yeah maybe you were handed unique situation but that doesn't you know that doesn't take anything away from what you've done I don't and anyway whatsoever well I just I sort of rambled over that very it would have been worse if you were [ __ ] yeah no I got them I got a bizarre opportunity and I was rowing in the auction Cambridge boat race it's a very boring event usually and they so they use uh clips from row it's going oh my life's so hard um it's got to I've got to go to lecturers and then train twice a day and so and then they I was said student but I was talking about my history I walked around Oxford and showed them history stuff and was pointing things out why I love studying history there in this great historic City and someone saw it and said let's get him doing a show with his dad and then my dad said no and it's funny I remember being nice they said no it's a ridiculous thing too and I remember being 19 and thinking well that's kind of nice that big problem BBC comes knocking all the time you know and I wasn't that fast I'm like okay Dad whatever and I've had a year or two UNIF to finish and I was going to do Miami and move on to things like that and then they asked again the following year because and amazingly it is 20 years ago this week it is the sick was the 60th anniversary of the battle of in the desert in Egyptian World War II it's now the 80th anniversary this week and um and and they said you know Dan could do the soldier on the front line and and your dad he could do General Montgomery back at the sort of looking at the bigger bigger picture and dad said yeah maybe and then that was one thing and I fell in love I mean I was a few months later I was in Egypt of you know going across the desert experience you guys have had and through minefields with Bedouin looking for kind of burned out tanks from 60 years before and I thought this is the best thing I have ever done and I can honestly say I'm very lucky I still feel that today when I that is fantastic just very very lucky that is amazing I've got some questions for you that um okay go that we've been sent um one of them is what is what are and this may be quite hard what are the three biggest myths in history okay the most important myth in history yeah yeah Vikings did not have horns on there yeah they didn't have one for the helmets they were Flats the tapestry made it look like they were yeah they could have had ear flaps that's true but no they just there's no archaeological evidence or written evidence or picked or haven't ever found anywhere that you have a massive horn on your helmet have you ever heard never get never let the truth get away in a good story because you just ruined them sorry man you just ruined that okay what's another one give us another one okay this is a good mess okay I can't wait Napoleon yeah was not really that short he was average he's like five seven her average height for that for Britain for French people at the time yeah it was British propaganda they kept calling him like a little the little Tyrant really he liked it we did with Hitler and his weird bollocks yeah although Hitler apparently didn't have something yeah he's still holding on to that that'll come out later he actually did have two we just made it out give us give us number three what's number three there's a couple I mean one is it Jesse Owens was not snubbed by Hitler at the Berlin Olympics in fact Hitler sort of waved him no way it was mass races and thought and and said directly things about African-Americans but he waved to him and in fact he was by the stubbed by the American president when he returned home who didn't uh that's a great myth no another myth is that medieval Scholars no one really thought the world was flat that's a kind of the Flat Earth thing is oh yeah goodness I'm on the same page yeah so that was so no one's ever no one ever thought that I mean probably some occasionally people must have thought well it's not a historical thing no like all clever people in the Middle Ages would write their books about geography and speculate the world was round because you know you can see when you're looking out to sea you see the Mast of a ship it sort of gradually appears and you realize you're seeing a kind of curved you're over a curve what about uh best historical death I know what really you okay so your kids have uh I I know they're sort of How It's 1086 1086 yeah they're story times we have big story times huge oh my Lord I've been honestly go to bed at four just to have Story Time best historical really dark image of me like stroking your hair and reading your story I've had that image for a few days now and I'm and I'm excited by it I'm excited by it um well I did a bit gruesome deaths aren't they um yeah we like that the the rumor about Catherine the Great and the horse is certainly not true that's that's complete slander um we have got the death oh that's quite fun there was that American general in the American Revolution uh Civil War who said they couldn't hit an elephant at this dist and then he got no way yeah I remember a shot but a sniper yeah yeah that's a good one um George IV I mean I don't know if it's a good I think good death is a dark thing yeah everything that can go wrong in the human body went wrong I don't know why I'm laughing it's a poor man he was but he was a drug adult poor thing Lost His sight lost his hearing morbidly like it's incredibly obese but didn't he have didn't he have gonorrhea which I think he met well yes I think he may have done I I he but he had a I think yesterday he had a pretty powerful sexually tremendous disease and then he said they found in his in his company died they found a nunce outfit as well which no one quite knows how God there was a nun's outfit yeah Lucy where's the top that's getting that back on your Str you've got a pretty powerful sexually transmitted and someone has left a nuns Habit in your cupboard Richard the first it's got uh he brutal death oh what this is Discount we've gone dark now yeah but we like this he's got a crossbow in the shoulder fired by a kid oh now she's brutal for like the toughest warrior in Europe and it is so and then it got septicemia and so he basically just died of like after 10 days like unimaginable pain is it really because it poisons your blood yeah and it's just sort of your body's I mean just shocking and you've sort of on his deathbed he was trying to put his old Affairs in order and say who should be king after him all that kind of stuff I quite like King John his little brother what happened there he was he lost his basically his Empire by the end time of his death his Empire was basically East Anglia yeah I know sure but it's not as nice as most of France Britain and Ireland um he uh crossed he caught dysentery whilst in East Anglia crossed the wash to Lincolnshire and lost the crown jewels in the wash When the tide came in lost the crown jewels just gone yeah just gone so they're all down by the way that is a panic by the way they're still there right so yeah yeah so yeah let's go and find it wow a lot of that Line's been reclaimed now so it's farmless so they think it's in there somewhere it's pretty cool and then he died of that dysentery a few days later in the Newark in Lincolnshire so again I don't know if that's a cool death or I had true or false um Marble Arch was the I mean was the uh I well I added was the gateway to uh the the uh gateway to Buckingham Palace backing Palace and it was the Queen's country house so I think that is a Hyde Park Corner Hyde Park is that Arch was like the triumphal gateway to back in Palace Marble Arch you're right she don't actually know why it was built but it was tyburn it was where you got taken to be hanged so all these people that always get the feels in like big old houses and museums oh I think there's a ghost here like there are no ghosts here if you want ghosts tens of thousands of people torn to shreds killed the most unimaginable suffering and you like walk around h m or like yeah it's all fine here don't bring me your feels don't bring me your ghosts like oh I think there's like a Jane austeny ghost in this country Pub oh shut up what do you think about what do you think about people who believe that they were Napoleon in a past life or these sort of like okay here we go are you keep sharing it was uh Genghis speaking of death Attila the Hun I think burst a blood vessel in his brain when he was having sex with his new no it was a lot younger than him he's putting in a good good stint there for his friends and now I want to roll now it's okay Lord Palmerston now Britain's greatest Prime Ministers he this is allegedly we don't know this he may or may not have been having sex with a parliament on a billiard table that's super sexy it's so specific as well yeah that was the end of him because he was dead that is so I love that but okay I I also don't you have this so many Amazing Stories you know you you I saw that you went back to the Arctic to sort of cover shackleton's Journey how was that cold amazing what was the experience like doing something like that well that was the most that was the highlight of my career really because we went to look for a shipwreck of Shackleton who if people will may have heard the name but he's responsible for the most extraordinary journey of survival in human history he's [ __ ] he attempts to get to the Antarctic he doesn't make it his ship is crushed by the ice he lives on that ice for some months he then takes him to open rowing boats crosses the freezing cold miserable rough ocean many of his men have frostbite some of them they are at the limit of their endurance they arrive at a tiny scrap of land called Elephant Island one has a heart attack when they land that's how hard they've been pushed he then realized they'll die if they stay there for the winter and he and six men leave on 800 mile Open Boat journey across the roughest stretch of ocean on planet Earth the Southern Ocean to get to South Georgia they know they make it by the skin like how they make it I have no idea they then have to hike across sahaja or the first people in history to cross South Georgia a great mountain range in the middle covering glaciers in Winter and they do it in 36 hours and almost die doing that and they're on a ration of half a biscuit each other like a massive attack complaining about the tube journey is my favorite he's fascinating so yeah so his and then he goes back and rescues everyone they all return home tragically some of those people then killed in the first world war when they arrived I believe God it's really extraordinary oh my god um and and so there's obviously there's a lot more to that story than I've just told it but it was his ship is sankets in 3000 meters of water um under under the sea ice three two three meters of sea ice in uh the Weddell sea which is the most horrific stretch of ocean on Earth because it it's a huge Whirlpool it's it's crushed in by the Antarctic Peninsula and the rest of Antarctica so you get this big cul-de-sac effect of this multi-year sea ice kind of piling up and grinding against each other so it's very difficult to go look for anything we took a big modern ship down South African ship pilot captained by the first black African Antarctic Captain uh Captain knowledge bengu who grew up in a you know denied opportunities under apartheid South Africa and then got a job when Nelson Mandela came in is now this well one of the world's best ice pilots and so we looked and we sent these five million pound drones to the seabed three thousand meters down and conducted a survey with that about a month and even the end the drones found the ship incredibly I mean wow it's just the most amazing thing and they didn't just find it they the ship was intact sitting on the seabed hadn't broken up and smashed up so the brass lettering on the stern endurance was twinkling there perfect and because there's no were you emotional when you said I was very emotional yeah it was it really I felt emotion even though I that because that is insane it was insane it was insane the idea though they watched it 268-ish years ago they watched it simply the waves and they were very emotional when they saw it go down that was the end of endurance but it turns out it wasn't the end it's actually the end of a chapter yeah he's enjoyed exactly and so we were it was very very special and it was it was I've never had a reception around the world it's made the images it just touched people in a particular way I don't know why I think it you come back to this history point you know people found it Fascinating People kept saying what's the point of doing this you know what about those hungry children in the world I'm like I know I can't explain why this is fascinating because on one level it's absurd and it made me think about art art is both pointless totally pointless but it's also everything like it can make it doesn't help us eat doesn't help us procreate doesn't help us find shelter like all those basic things and yet we humans find it astonishing music art you know we are inspired it makes our days better it changes our lives and so in a way people at home were just sitting there and they were looking at and their devices and they saw that picture of insurance and it meant something to them and I think that's okay I think we should let people find that incredible and exciting it's a sense of purpose and history and and living and everything and that's what makes it like that's what makes it tick right exactly yeah Shackleton was amazing I always hear this incredible story um and you're gonna correct me but uh where it wasn't Shackled and maybe it's his right hand man who said um I'm gonna go on a walk and maybe sometime what is can you what is this oh Scott that was actually the that was a previous Expedition which was Scott who was server checked on uh on a on a expression before that and they were they'd got to the South Pole they were meant to get be the first humans get the South Pole they discovered the Norwegian flag when they got there which was unbelievable so they'd arrived just after the Norwegian Expedition they staggered back and one member called Captain Oates realized that he was slowing down the Expedition and so he's in his tent and he says to the rest of them I'm just gonna just gonna head out so maybe sometime and he's walked off into the Wilderness just let himself man what leadership it's just amazing then you you have um also uh I saw that you did a citizens arrest in Notting Hill once I know that was really chased town I was watching I this sounds I was fascinated by like civil unrest in our city and like because I've read about it because you came back when you dressed in the spandex in a little mask on his vision Hunter I hope I was like I this it was all kicking off around Notting Hill then like I was like I want to see this like this is a riot like it's very interesting and um yeah someone who reads about riots all the time in revolutions and it was really lots of really interesting things watching I basically walked down the street after this partic one group of looters and it was really interesting and they would they were they like were if there were like families walking up the street they would open ranks and close again they weren't nasty like that but they would go to off license and smashed it all up and they went around the corner and they went to the shoe shop on Portobello Road and smashed it and took all the shoes and then I was just what's standing there watching and inside these police sirens went up there and so suddenly all of these guys kept coming out this little hole in the window of the shoe shop and they were like pinging out it's like computer games like Ping Ping and they were like pinging past me like this because I'd end up just watching and got in the wrong place and then the police car started coming up and then the last guy came out and I looked at the stir and drop the shoulders and so and he had a huge armful of um Clarks and then and then he'd come towards me and I just went by that in the shoulder and at the last time he looked around his face just went straight into my shoulder and he went down no poor guys and they're like yeah he lost guy and then I kind of sat on him and then the police guy was right there and they went oh you leave here at me and then and then I went okay and then they went thank you and then it turned out weirdly because I I was like I was really I don't know it's kind of a rip it was a weird experience to make a decision yes that was flat yeah no I didn't win I think it was before I went to any of those sections um and it turned out that they actually had been one of the nastier gangs that had actually held people up at knife point in a restaurant so like he actually ended up going to prison quite a long time and stuff so it was kind of interesting but um because I would have felt bad if it'd been like a casual I'd sort of have wrestled with it over the years and thought but it made me feel better that he was like you know yeah was that right was that wrong Posh guy whacking someone yeah I get that you you've also we said before the break is that you you did this a fantastic thing where you got on a boat and you went all the way across the Cali and picked up 25 people because of the um uh yeah actually I signed the ash cloud and brought them back and we're told you can't do this but you brought 25 people back yes what was that like I just been filming this program on dunk the Dunkirk evacuation so I got to know all these guys with motorbike likes motor boats and power boats I love how you immerse yourself into these historical things remember it and then repeat them I know so that was the weird thing so I felt really she was a week or two later I rang these well what originally I rang one of the owners of one of the original Dunkirk boats I said honey Come On Let's do let's do it again let's go and get them he was like no she's in refit at the moment the paint and I'm like come on so anyway I went back to the business so I went back to the powerboat drive and they thought would be fun so we went and we We rescued um in the end the French did not want us there was an absolute nightmare but we managed to get like a chunk of people off um it was just fantastic that was fun just quickly before you what what are they there are these incredible moments in history that you look back on and you you think about Dunkirk or whatever it is and you there's a real sense of Pride and like we came together as a nation and did that what really shines for you in history that you go the the there was this moment and this is just fantastic that everyone came together to to help support whatever it is well there's something really although there are always people like round the fringes like nicking stuff from blitzed houses there is obviously something amazing about the Blitz and about the companionship that people showed here in the UK when cities were were so badly damaged and the sharing that went on there's a side story as well where people some people did take advantage and there was a bit of anger because lots of Posh people had sort of bomb shelters in the West End of London and the EastEnders like hang on a minute but on the whole I think that is true that we kind of we really did there was a sense of coming together to achieve a common goal we're a weird species being blown to [ __ ] or like a deadly virus for us to go actually let's maybe get along trying to appreciate this what the worst thing is I'm like this even I find history as therapy because I do find sometimes when you spend your day studying like Genghis Khan you're very very happy to be alive today and actually you're very happy to be like today when you look at medicine for example until the late 19th century people who had access to doctors were more likely to die than people who didn't have it so if you were more like quacks the doctors were more likely to kill you than just relaxing in your little Hut in the middle of Lancashire if you're like a posh London I'll go the doctor had to sorted out you might get dead because of that so so you're incredibly lucky to be alive today you know and uh in terms of medicine in terms of well despite what's going on the world we're still very lucky and so that helps me to maybe sometimes step back from my own my phone's not working you know and and uh and you just got it and actually so again weirdly think about history it actually helps you to be more in the present I think it helps you to appreciate what we have um the luck that certainly me and many of us listen to this podcast it enjoys um and so actually again it's not a bowl about the past it's about living a better life in the present that's a great way to kind of finish up on as well is because you have one question yeah but it is but we we live in this situation at the moment it's very Doom and Gloom we look at the news we get upset but actually if we do go back and look at history we're actually living in an okay period we're 100 right we're we're living in a remarkable period we've got climate crisis we've got to deal with we've got Vladimir bloody Putin we've got a few dictators but on the whole with hundreds of millions of people have been left out of poverty in the last 50 years um that we are we live a lot we're living much longer we're pain-free we don't our kids don't die so I I think we we got we've got lots to work on but I think we should take heart and we should be and feel happy and excited that we live today um the one question I want to ask just obviously my question is better than yours that's the problem isn't it yeah it's blown me away that way um it was just to do with them monarchy because obviously the queen has now passed away and what what do you think that is going to mean for the monarchy in the UK because like I've noticed since she's passed has like been a kind of bit of a re-examination to what like monarchy means in this kind of a bit of a negative kind of I think it's the monarchies obviously insecure right because it's kind of a Mad system um you wouldn't make it up it sort of worked it worked because the queen was particularly good at it I think and it sort of works in some ways because Louis look at Liz truss or we look at Boris Johnson or we look at Jeremy corbyn we think we don't really want those people to be our head of state as well so maybe let's not if it ain't broke let's not try and fix at the moment but I think eventually it's it's a pro it's problematic the days of believing that God chose a representative to rule over us are gone and therefore monarchy's kind of it's kind of running on fumes to a certain extent right and they make a good job of it and those fumes might last 100 200 years but I think inevitably when there's a big a time of transition is a time of great danger to these institutions and we'll start to kind of go and I think you're going to see a huge thing around the coronation it's going to be a very difficult winter for people and Charles is obviously really aware we don't want to be spending 100 down yeah they're trying to downplay it and they're like then it'll be you know the money's Gonna Change everyone's like how much that costing us you know and before you know like I think these I think a transition is a time of threat and the queen was that bridge to a past where it was more accepted and now people are more questioning and so I think it'll be interesting to see if it survives but definitely her passing is yeah a threat threatening of the institution I think that's a great asset Dan listen um you have so much going on you have uh your own podcasts and things like where can we find all of your things and everything that's going on I'm incredibly lucky like you guys you're taking advantage of all the tech changes that's been to to build kind of online audience I've got my own History Channel History hit TV which is subscription video and demand it's like Netflix just for history folks just for history hey I'm subscribing later I mean trust me your father-in-law is they're gonna love it for their Christmas present anyway great Christmas present that's correct yes subscriptions are available to a gift and then yeah the history of podcasts which is great fun and yeah so and then social all the stuff you guys do Social Media stuff it's you know it's a great privilege to be to be working this year when when you can go out and do so much of it for yourself that has been a complete privilege thank you so much for entertaining us thank you for entertaining everyone on the podcast everybody will see you next week goodbye

Channel: Private Parts

Views: 44,112

Keywords: Private Parts Podcast, Jamie Laing, Francis Boulle, Made In Chelsea, UK Podcast, Alex Mytton, Comedy Podcast, Entertainment Podcast

Id: PuhMA0QYZcI

Length: 48min 20sec (2900 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 14 2022