Isaac Newton's Nemesis • Puppet History

[Music] welcome one and all to puppet history online university today we'll be taking an ever winding look at yet another chapter in the heavy heavy book we call history while our guests ruthlessly compete for the coveted title of history master i am obviously your beloved host the professor thank you ryan bergara are you ready sure oh oh enthusiasm special guest keith hammersberger are you ready oh i'm so excited it's great to be here i love puppets i love history i love the show well it sounds like you're both ready to go let's crack in before we get into our story have either of you ever had a nemesis yeah yeah i i had a nemesis when i played french horn um she was named hannah and she was the best french horn player until 16 at the time she won uh you know a couple things i won a couple of things then i moved away from you i guess i lost right i ran away uh what happened to her i don't know well let's revive the feud yeah i guess i could find her no don't bother i'll find her no no no no i'll start harassing her online brian uh how about you i think you know who mine is or do i oh yeah i think so interesting you know where's the stupid hat taut's credentials that he didn't earn things like that what are you talking about me either you or or zack cornfeld one of the two oh is that corn diddy burn no it's the professor right he's my nemesis okay all right rude we're friends i'm gonna set you on fire okay today's journey into history deals with a pair of nemesis on one side a rascally crook on the other the warden of the royal mint of england will they ever get along spoiler they will not so if you were going to market in england in the 17th century your pocket would be jingle jangling with some walking around money in the form of silver coins before 1662 these coins were hand struck meaning some large adult man literally smashed bits of silver into molds to make them as a result they weren't quite uniforms criminals could clip around the ends of the coins with no one the wiser get enough of these little silver shavings and you could melt them down into plate silver or even more coins lending new credence to the expression it takes money to make money you know that's i knew that that's why our quarters have the the ridges okay you're getting ahead of me here and i gotta say i'm just a jelly bean just for that well to combat clipping in 1662 england phased out the strong dude with a hammer process in favor of the horse-powered machine process horse money baby the machines were actually horse powered how was it a moving machine didn't horses used to like pull mills and stuff you tie into like a big crank and just make them walk in circles for a long time certainly cruel for the horses kind of like a water mill but horses yeah yeah i don't know if that's accurate i mean do you think they taught a horse to pull a lever with this team this new method of manufacturing standardized the size and shape of the coin and most importantly as keith said gave the coins a grain on the edge so any coin that had been clipped could easily be identified despite this change however counterfeiting remained a huge problem in england it's time for trivia and a chance at history points what was this problem hey they didn't take the old coins out of circulation b it was easy to make your own coining machine or c only silver coins were machined gold and copper coins were still minted by hand [Music] ryan what do you got i went with b diy it was easy to make your own coining machine how about you keith i went with c and i only used the context clues of the fact that not all of our coins have ridges uh because not all of our coins used to be made with silver as well that's true well points to no one well after keith explained that i really thought he was right yeah i know right i really thought i was right too but what can you do a lot of thought into it and i appreciate it that's good well in the 1690s around 30 years after the new coins began to be made by machine the secretary of the treasury estimated that still only one in every 200 coins in circulation was made in the new manner and so clipping continued to the point that in 1697 england reclassified the activity as high treason possessing any part of a machine that could counterfeit would result in a convict being quote torn pulled us under and destroyed drawn and quartered for forging quarters i assume that means they just get pulled apart by horses which is yeah that's usually how they used to do it some classic europe now that's horsepower right there well this threat of a violent death may have stopped some counterfeiters but not one in particular and so the first half of our rivalry has finally arrived meet william challener william challenger was born in the mid-1650s in warwickshire england like all cool teens he apprenticed as a nail maker and soon began using his metalworking skills to forge coins over the years he increased his criminal repertoire expanding into thievery and gilding he just had that on a business card thievery and guild thievery and gilding i guess you know not much just walking around cocktail parties yes i do thievery and gilding beavering you're interested in any challenger thrived in his underhanded dealings in part because he selectively slipped into the role of concerned citizen at opportune times for instance when propaganda against the royal regime began popping up around london the government offered one thousand pounds to anyone who turned in the publisher so challenger found a leaflet hired a printer to make 40 copies and then he turned in the printer nasty what a dirty little double crop he's a he's a nasty little man hey you know what i respect the hustle now had challenger stuck to small-time crimes he may have been able to live a full life of ill-gotten luxury but you know our lovable crook daddy was after that big fish he set his sights beyond scamming fellow criminals focusing on oh hang on a sec let me check my records here ah yes that's right the royal mint the place where england made the actual friggin coins now sure you may be thinking why not con the royal mint it's nothing more than a bunch of lazy bureaucrats right well unfortunately for challenger his rival at the royal mint would not be an ordinary pencil pusher but instead a man with a rather formidable reputation who was the warden of the royal mint a the real life inspiration for sherlock holmes b arguably the smartest man to ever live or c a genie that will stop it nothing to make my life a living hell even though i followed his silly rules to the letter and i don't owe him anything wait the third option is a genie a or b because genies aren't real and they're pretty sure it's tough i wish i wish it seems like the guests always win no matter what so i figured out yeah it is true it's not true that's not true i'm going with b smarty pants oh we got a couple boys i want to see who you consider arguably one of the smartest people on earth so i'm curious well points to you both in an act of hubris that must have been as unbelievable at the time as it is now in retrospect challenger decided he had a decent chance of pulling one over on the warden of the royal mint who as of april 13 1696 was none other than sir isaac newton oh are you kidding me holy oh damn okay yeah that's fair well born to an illiterate family in wolvestorp england on january 4th 1643 isaac newton was a weak baby who wasn't expected to survive a day spoiler he did and went on to revolutionize science and mathematics as we know it so hell yeah all the weak babies out there my brother was a weak baby and he's genius really he had baby meningitis you know that's bad so but you know he he came out great it worked out i mean when i was a baby i was told i had very dry skin like a lizard like a reptile i looked like a reptile when i came out of my mom you did not look like a reptile you can i have pictures how could you possibly be dry this is not a dry experience it's the wettest you'll ever be yeah not me not me it looked like i was chilling in joshua trees before nine months of moisture yeah it's nine months of swimming in your own pee bro surely after graduating college newton began making a reputation for his relentless search for truth as well as his ability to hold a grudge to illustrate what a petty sourpuss he was a brief tale in 1686 newton sent a completed manuscript to the royal society which was basically just a collection of geniuses one of the members robert hook raised an unsubstantiated accusation of plagiarism instead of giving hook an acknowledgement which was all hook really wanted newton scrubbed any reference to hook in his manuscript and basically cut all ties with the royal society until hook was dead at which point newton became the president of the organization jesus christ wait would you say until he was dead is there any suspicion that newton had anything to do with it oh oh what i mean can we say it isaac newton is probably a murderer that manuscript by the way wasn't just some essay it was the first section of his principia mathematica which revolutionized science and contained the three laws of motion the literal foundation of modern physics no big deal whatever you know what i'm kind of curious here look this is i'm i'm riffing i'm going off book but here we here we go for a history point name one of the laws of motion there's three jesus uh well i know there's one that's like an object in motion will stay in motion unless oh yeah unless it hits something right oh no jelly bean for keith he's talking about inertia well he he worded it a little more you know poetically so i'm gonna you said name the law a little scumbag ron you'll get a tenth of a jelly bean for that that's crazy because i'm gonna demonstrate to you how inertia works after this video ends mr professor oh are you are you gonna do that yeah i think i will [Music] you step foot into this theater and baby you're in a world of pain okay let's move along after publishing principia and inventing calculus for good measure newton was as internationally famous as a scientist could be and more or less done with redefining knowledge as the world knew it so he sought to seek a political appointment of some kind nothing fancy just something with a dece paycheck to keep him away from the pulse-pounding rock and roll life of academia so in 1696 newton took a gig as warden of the mint while the position of warden of the mint had historically been little more than a title and a paycheck newton got the gig the same year england was finally getting around to replacing all those old hand-hammered coins with the new machine pressed ones and unlike his predecessors newton took his job very seriously on may 2 1696 newton swore an oath regarding his new position what was the oath a to preserve the integrity of his majesty's currency even at the expense of his life be to pursue counterfeiters against his majesty to the ends of the earth or c to never show anyone the special little coin machine this one's tough they're all pretty good all right ryan what do you put i'm gonna put b the pursuit of counterfeiters okay because it seems to drive the plot forward here sure and keith i thought that but i went with c because i didn't think he'd give his life because why would he do that b was like two on the nose and c just sounded like something he'd be like i'll show nobody the machine well let's see what happens it's our big secret no one can see it oh here we go isaac newton it is i the oath master raise your hand i've got gotta administer this oath tell me the oath and i shall take it for endeavor to fulfill my duties to the best of my admittedly extraordinary abilities okay uh do you isaac newton i isaac newton i didn't say repeat after me but if if you want to do that go ahead i isaac newton's i isaac newton do solemnly swear but no matter what that no matter what may transpire on earth or in the kingdom of god i shall i shall not show anyone this funky little machine we've got what oh see it i will not show anyone this funky little machine we've got what does it do it puts the edges on coins uh anyway that's it good luck uh something like 10 of all coins in circulation are fake so you know get cracking well done well done i feel good i feel really good wow points to king hey that was wild yeah the government seemed pretty sure that the key to their money problems was the edging machine so newton had to swear to never reveal it meanwhile our favorite grifter william challenger always looking for an angle had hatched a fresh con and baby oh it was a scorcher challenger appeared before a parliamentary committee and straight up hurled an accusation of counterfeiting at the mint itself he then suggested he be offered the job of improving the currency and even gave some suggestions for how he would do so to the committee on february 15 1697 the committee ordered isaac newton indisputably the smartest man in all of the british isles to give challenger the tools he needed to demonstrate his ideas however newton as you'll remember had taken an oath not to reveal the edging machine to anyone but if there's one thing newton knew it was how to experiment so he gave challenger's proposed changes a try what happened when newton tested challenger's suggestions a the result was a coin so difficult to reproduce it's still used as the standard today b the suggested adjustments caused the edging machine to squirt ink into newton's face or c um the methods were that's a tough one that's a tough one that's tough tough but fair right hey too good too good coin too good i went with c and i think this is where newton starts to chase down this guy being like this guy is just a lying crook god damn it keith that makes sense but b makes no sense because there shouldn't be ink in a coin press yeah it'd be funny though i love it though sporting in his face very good very funny classic cartoon keith gets a history point yeah yeah of course his name were he was just he was making it up so he could get his grubby little paws on that machine so yeah he was clearly lying he'd never even seen the machine obviously newton didn't let challenger inspect the machine which meant that for our lovable flim-flam man forging coins was going to be much more difficult on the bright side it meant challenger finally had plenty of time to dedicate to his other love counterfeiting paper currency as we've seen however newton isn't one to let bygones be bygones so he made it his personal mission to expose challenger for what he was a dirty rotten con man keith great job you nailed the trajectory of this to the letter no that was uh that was solid logic i tip my hat to you i'm not wearing one but if i was it'd be tipped well thanks i'll tip my hat to you it's hard to do that was good thank you i don't have uh muscles in my arms clearly that's just a fun fact about me now you know challenger was working with some scuzzy dudes and in 1697 newton learned that a member of challenger's group of nerdy wells john pierce had told a justice of the peace about a new forgery operation challenger was heading newton had peers arrested and brought to the mint and slipped him a fiver a tacit bribe to continue ratting on his pal scuzzy dudes man you just can't trust him while newton was smart challenger was an experienced criminal challenger's gang noticed pierre's visit to the tower of london then the location of the royal mint and figured he was ratting on them so challenger's gang turned pier's ass in for counterfeiting essentially sending a signal to newton that his source wasn't going to work out for him a furious newton bailed piers out of prison and kept at it to arrest challenger newton was going to need witnesses but tracking them down was proving difficult why a the police were corrupt b the police were incompetent or c the police didn't exist hmm i'm going to go with the evergreen a oh corrupt i'm gonna go for c keith you're a you're a power contestant on this show i gotta hand it to you a jelly bean for keith uh yes exactly there were no official police in policeless societies however it's not as if all the world is anarchy in fact newton had himself appointed a justice of the peace so he could enter houses suspected of coining he also hired undercover agents to populate pubs and prisons feeding him information what what's his actual job with the mint because it seems like he's created his own new job which is to catch one guy but what's his real job phase out the old coins crack down on counterfeiting in general so i guess this does fall under his jurisdiction yeah but he does seem to be sinking a lot of time into it i would imagine some of his co-workers were not stoked at this point i'm guessing he has like a cork board in the office with little strings tied to them going full conspiracy god you gotta know working with isaac newton was insufferable every morning you get a little coffee from the coffee machine and he's like see that coffee pouring into that cup see how that works what's the name for that if only someone uh figured that out oh wait a minute awful so eventually newton had assembled what he felt was a strong case and challenger was arrested perhaps suspecting newton's case wasn't all that strong challenger prepared a defense that was also a counter assault he contested that newton had made up the charges as retribution for challenger's attempt to shed light on newton's own corruption at the mint the slippery con man demanded the mint be investigated at once it was a classic i know you are but what am i defense there's no balls on this guy dude this guy is really ballsy also seems to be very uh unflappable in the in the face of a great threat i'll tell you what all this unflappableness will really pay off in the end in a moment of uh extreme flappableness oh do they do they turn into birds uh no that'd be cool though that'd be cool baller dude birds yeah you're yeah dude hell yeah central to convicting challenger would be the sworn testimony of a few men especially a mr thomas holloway who challenger had tried to plant in the mint in order to steal tools while accusing newton of fraud was bold the more effective part of challenger's defense was paying holloway 20 pounds to flee to scotland so with the star witness suddenly absent and the other two witnesses recanting their statements challenger was freed nice when you say flea you mean like temporarily or like uproot mood i think he was just like hey go take a little vacation eat some haggis look for nessie hop on back in a couple weeks i'd do it yeah no one me too that certainly would shape my tambourine yeah now because challenger had hilariously accused the mint of corruption early the next year in february of 1698 the house of commons appointed a committee to start investigating those claims newton probably pissed us all hell laid out a detailed and multi-pronged defense and no corruption was found obviously because challenger just made it all up at the end of the day challenger essentially used the hearing to rub newton's face in the fact that he hadn't been caught yet i love it look i love this petty funny man after being freed from prison challenger set upon a new counterfeiting scheme forging 50 pound lottery tickets it's a bit mucky but let's just say he was essentially printing coupons for a free 50 pounds now to accomplish this challenger had to borrow some money to get a copper plate engraved so he could print the tickets unfortunately the guy he borrowed the money from turned out to be working for the committee that was investigating the mint whoops so in his own attempt to irritate newton he done did his own undoing in november of 1698 challenger was arrested on charges of forging lottery tickets but the copper plate was nowhere to be found weakening the case he's getting sloppy oh he's getting oil right he's like late 40s yeah he's turning into like ray leota in the third act of goodfellas here they had like scratch-offs i i don't think they were little bingo scratch-off things if you want to read up on this just search for britain's weird lottery ticket scheme from late 1600s given our homework assignments well that's why that is online university right that's true i guess now to newton's chagrin forging lottery tickets didn't fall under his purview as the warden of the mint so he was not going to be the one bringing charges against his rival well that didn't stop newton though who continued to build a different case against challenger one that would be under his jurisdiction and obviously that nerd went above and beyond by early 1699 newton had at least 44 depositions against challenger and he had informants planted in challenger's prison to keep tabs on the counterfeiter's activity newton had other witnesses pulled out of prison to meet him at a pub so he could get their stories also by this point that old rascal thomas holloway had returned from scotland so newton had him arrested remember this is all for a case other than the one challenger was being held on dang so he's really ready it doesn't seem like he's going to wiggle out of this one maybe who knows we gotta build a little suspense [Music] i think that's enough suspense okay that's enough uh now in march of 1699. oh wait sorry long paragraphs you killed the suspense in the off chance that newton was having second thoughts about the world of hurt he was preparing to bring down upon challenger that sentiment would have been quickly squashed as challenger apparently told one of newton's secret informants he quote would pursue that old dog the warden to the end so long as he lived there's almost like a friendly polarity going on here i think they're excited by the uh the back and forth right if one of them actually defeated the other they'd have nothing to live for i guess that's the classic that is the classic nemesis thing yeah like yeah joker batman sherlock holmes and moriarty ash and gary oh pokemon oh yeah yeah i don't i don't know i don't know my pokemon good enough i'm sorry stash and gary ash and gary yeah fashion carrie gary such a dick now in march of 1699 newton must have figured he had built a strong enough case on his own as the lottery ticket charges were dropped and replaced with separate charges brought by newton running out of options to get away once again challenger needed a way out and fast how did challenger attempt to skeve his way out of this one this is an open-ended question oh huh i have no idea i have an idea ryan when you're locked in please make eye contact with me keith i can see you're locked in based on your eye contact and i'm sure ryan you're locked in yeah i'm locked in i i've made eye contact with you as you hold it hold it okay what's your answer uh it's not very imaginative but escape and run away that's that's all i can read that's really the only play i think he has classic i went um accuse him of more both pretty strong but as is the case with a lot of open-ended questions uh both of you are wrong unfortunately he actually famed madness oh he played the insanity he's all crazy now huh kind of interesting to do that you know when you murder someone or something but uh it's weird to be like i was crazy i expertly forged coins and lottery tickets what was i thinking well i i'll tell you how it worked out for him uh it didn't they didn't believe him as for newton he had a pretty unique legal strategy in the courtroom let's see how it all played out [Music] there we go oh look at the way that man standing very cute all right there we go okay everyone settle down or come to order whatever we're here to try william challener against charges brought forth by isaac here newt what did he do verily i say unto his majesty's systemable court that the rascal challenger made 100 counterfeits of five separate denominations in two different metals in a single day that's it sounds kind of impossible do you have witnesses i have six scoundrels criminals really each more disreputable than the last do they have uh evidence practically none basically all here say okay well uh look i'm not really supposed to do this but we all know this dude is guilty by now so uh yep hi treason challengers to be hanged the guy's still there [Music] [Laughter] so you know certainly not the best example of due process now a bit desperate challenger wrote to newton begging him to intervene and stop his execution since you know his trial was kind of a sham and this is where he becomes a little more flappable i'll let him take it from here bill oh dear sir do this merciful did oh my offending you has brought this upon me over god's sake if not mine keep me from being murdered oh dear sir nobody can save me but you oh god my god i shall be murdered unless you save me oh i hope god will move your heart with mercy pity do this thing for me i am your near-murdered humble servant wow yeah i mean yeah he definitely grappled there yeah he really changed his tune pretty quickly kept saying the word murder a lot dear murdered humble servant that's a that's a change to the business card yeah anyway on march 22 in 1699 challenger was hanged while newton had unmistakably won the day challenger went to the grave knowing that newton was still unable to in a legitimate court setting prove he had committed his crimes possibly to rub this fact in the geniuses face the day before he died challenger sent newton the missing copper plate that likely would have sealed a conviction on the lottery charges that is boss now uh isaac newton was knighted by queen anne on april 16 1705 he served the royal mint until he died in 1727 and his legacy is nearly unmatched in all of history as for challenger well certainly the deck was stacked against him there's a lesson here about not choosing a grudge holding once in a millennium super genius as your rival sure but there's also a message about staying true to yourself challenger must have known he was unlikely to ever actually triumph over the mighty newton but he kept needling him until the very end except the part where he begged for his life even against undeniable odds though there's honor in sticking to your guns maybe i mean the gallows are also there so it's up to you how much honor you want i don't buy that he didn't think he was going to beat him i do think he thought he was going to get away with it hence the groveling at the end how do they decide who gets hanged and who gets horse pulled that's a fair question i would way rather be hanged than horse poles that's not ideal sounds gross it's not pretty to look at i'll tell you that i'm sure because then there's also like a couple minutes after of you rolling around without a you know just like a bloody torso and looking at all your limbs being pulled away by horses yeah just your head looking down at the hole oh no holy well rip anyway that concludes our history lesson i'm gonna go tally the scores to see who receives the coveted cup and title of history master while i do that please enjoy this special performance from a clipped coin you know keith you might be the first guest on this entire show that has actually legitimately beat me so congratulations thank you oh wow here we go that's a coin hey i have a little rough around the edges yeah i've been through get a little song for you if you'd like to hear it yes okay here we go go on and take me in your pocket i will write randy newman buy a little gumbo do some laundry i'll provide but i'll tell you man lately i ain't feeling right i feel rough around the edges [Music] they got me wondering where the [Music] [Applause] [Music] randy doesn't deserve this he deserved better i'm hoping just maybe they clipped me enough there won't be nothing left except a pile of me that's just dust and who knows because the wind could be blowing by lift that pile on upward let me see that pale blue sky [Applause] [Music] newman is alive right he's alive so uh i don't know i hope not i mean i hope he is but i mean i hope not jesus i hope not in the sense that he would never have to uh see that i thought that was great i i thought it was really beautiful and longer than i expected the song to be that's how i described it too long [Music] wow oh gosh that was a sad one yeah i feel bad for that guy it was tough to be a coin let's see how we did you guys are not gonna believe this but boy oh boy oh boy keith is our history master and so he has rightfully earned the coveted cup ryan thank you for trying keith go claim your reward what's gonna happen to me yo just just poke around here we go really great work today ryan oh my god look i'm actually not upset at this one because he rightfully earned it so i'll give credit where it's due yeah just like all the other uh contestants you know that's not true oh yeah well keith's back hey keith how's it going yeah i got all i got jelly beans i gotta i you earned it buddy once again keith thank you for being here and enjoy your little coveted cup thank you all for watching puppet history we'll see you next week [Music]

Channel: Watcher

Views: 1,905,056

Rating: 4.980423 out of 5

Keywords: puppet history, puppet history songs, musical history, musical, shane madej, ryan bergara, ryan bergara and shane madej, shane madej and ryan bergara, watcher, ruining history buzzfeed, ruining history, buzzfeed, history, destruction of pompeii, trivia, quiz, game show, animated history, animation, educational, puppets, puppet show, funny, Isaac Newton, William Chaloner, English History, counterfeit, counterfeiting scheme, rivals, nemesis, buzzfeed unsolved, ryan and shane

Id: ybBxueA5OuA

Length: 31min 33sec (1893 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 11 2020

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[u/JRRTB]

The song deserves awards!