Scary History Compilation Series 1

hello simple history fans don't forget to subscribe and click the notification bell for more history videos the plague doctor the 17th century in italy 1656 through 57 devastating outbreaks of bubonic plague in naples rome and genoa killed approximately 200 to 400 000 people it's unknown where this deadly plague originated but it's said to have spread from naples where restrictions and precautions were non-existent in these cities plague doctors were hired to treat plague patients especially for the poor who could not afford treatment the doctor's costume was designed to protect them from what was thought of as evil smells or bad air which was seen as the cause of infection at the time this is now known as the medically obsolete miasma theory in reality the plague was caused by the bacterium yersinia pestis which exists in fleas found on rats the infected would have flu symptoms followed by swollen and painful lymph nodes gangrene and vomiting of blood with death following within a week from infection some historians point to charles delorme as the inventor of the costume which was modeled after soldier's armor the most striking feature was a bird beak-like mask with crystal glasses the mask was more than aesthetic and acted as a respirator filled with dried flowers or spices which the doctor breathed through protecting them from contagions the doctor would also wear a long moroccan leather gown that tucked into the mask to prevent contact with the patient and the surface was waxed to prevent miasmas sticking to the surface a friar named father antara maria da san banavantura observed that those who worked in the plague house while wearing the waxy robe did not catch the disease he noted that it stopped fleas nesting on the person and was therefore close to discovering the true reason behind the plague unfortunately he discounted the fleas as merely an annoyance rather than carriers of the disease and furthermore as the clothing didn't protect the wearer from miasmas he would discount the value of waxed robes as well the doctor would also wear gloves boots and a wide brimmed hat to show his profession and hold a wand or cane to examine and issue instruction without touching the patient methods of treatment for the miasma which was really the plague were ineffective remedies included bloodletting and the use of leeches on the affected areas prescriptions of toads or spiders were also given to absorb the bad air the plague doctor's appearance was quite terrifying for patients as it was a sign of impending death and they were kept out of the way of the public due to the nature of their profession how long did a person's head stay alive after being guillotined beheading as a form of execution has been around for centuries by 1792 during the time of the french revolution it had become a highly efficient and quick form of execution in the shape of the now famous guillotine king louis xvi himself signed the bill that made the guillotine the official method of execution the guillotine was a tall wooden structure first used in revolutionary france for beheading someone using a heavy slanted blade and suddenly dropped down a set of vertical grooves it would usually chop the condemned person's head off in one clean action whereupon the severed head would unceremoniously drop into a basket below dr joseph ignis guillotine who it was named after claimed that the guillotine made execution as painless as possible however later on the device was also known as madame la guillotine la dam the lady le verve the widow le resoa nationale the national razor and louis but was the execution by it truly painless there is a famous story about the execution of charlotte corday by the guillotine in 1793 during the french revolution just after she had been beheaded a member of the crowd leapt forward and slapped poor charlotte across the face to see if she was still conscious it's reported that her face then blushed at the indignity of being slapped there are even stories of how heads blinked after being guillotined antoine levassiere was a french scientist at the height of the french revolution in 1794 he was condemned to death during the reign of terror and supposedly agreed to blink after his head was guillotined as one last experiment for science his servants noted that lavoisier blinked up to 15 seconds after the execution though there are many stories like this claiming that lucid decapitation or consciousness exists momentarily after beheading and though these stories are based on real people and real events they are most likely exaggerations or anecdotes that have become embellished over time by countless retellings however it's often been wondered by scientists how long the head keeps on functioning after it's been guillotined from the body one of the chief reasons for the introduction of the guillotine was that it was deemed to be very humane but some factions in the medical community were seriously questioning this dr samuel thomas summering theorized that in fact a decapitated head could continue to live and feel for up to a full 15 minutes after being guillotined and therefore the suffering was worse than death by hanging but dr jean celedo a leading pioneer of modern day medicine at the time counter argued that the difference between killing a person or a butcher killing an animal by severing its head resulted in the same effect immediate death and total end of life others such as pierre jean george cabanas argued that victims did not suffer once guillotined because the nape of the neck is where death can be caused instantly in people and animals the twitches and the severed heads were in his opinion purely mechanical muscle movements without consciousness there has been many well-documented cases of animals like chickens cockroaches frogs snakes and praying mantises surviving for a long period of time after they've been decapitated for example there are many accounts and videos of rattlesnakes that have been beheaded and still have been able to bite people with their head because the guillotine was used in france all the way up until 1977 there has been scientific research carried out using more advanced methodology on actual guillotine human heads it has been widely reported that sometimes you will see some eye and mouth movements from a guillotined head but today scientists are mostly convinced that this is just involuntary reflex actions that linger on in the aftermath but still doubt and conflicting reports linger about this whole issue one of the most compelling accounts of consciousness being said to still exist for a significant amount of time after being guillotined was in 1905 henry langille was executed by the device in orleans france dr gabriel borrio observed that the decapitated head was still twitching and when he called out the man's name his eyes looked upwards and stared directly at the doctor it was claimed that this lasted for between 25 to 30 seconds though later in 1939 the journal of the american medical association thought wario was exaggerating his account of what happened as other witnesses that had been present at the execution said life only seemed to last for a maximum of 10 seconds and that the man's reactions were less pronounced today scientists agree that once the victim is guillotined the separated head and the body dies from a combination of things shock blood loss loss of blood pressure and anoxia which is the total depletion of the level of oxygen within the body the separated body as such lives for about another 60 seconds until the heart finally stops beating as for the decapitated head scientists say that it can technically have enough oxygen stored for metabolism to continue for about seven seconds though parts of the body may live on for a very short time after being guillotined the catastrophic effect of being decapitated means that any consciousness would be extinguished almost instantly so for about two to three seconds the brain may still be functioning but any intelligence would be in a fixed unresponsive comatose state unaware of anything but there has still not been conclusively proven evidence one way or another if consciousness really remains significantly after decapitation maybe in time we'll find out what really happens in those short moments before life is extinguished the axe murdering teacher 1892 it was early in 1892 just outside of the small town of fall river in massachusetts usa at the borden's family farm there was a scene of a brief but deadly cold-hearted killing spree for in the barn lay the beheaded bodies of a dozen or so innocent victims all killed by the farm owner retired 70 year old banker andrew borden his wife abby and one of his daughters emma were practical farming folk and understood the need for the killing having themselves regularly slaughtered chickens and pigs for the dinner table so this killing to them was no different and they busied themselves collecting the bodies ready to be cleaned up and made into pies but andrew's other daughter lizzie was much more sensitive about seeing her beloved pigeons being slaughtered for she had raised them since they had been born more as pets unlike others who simply saw them as yet another food source on the farm lizzie and her father had never been close and she had always resented him for marrying a woman called abby gray a few years after her mother's death lizzie's relationship with her stepmother abby had deteriorated even further when she had found out that her father had bought several properties in secret what distressed lizzy was that the benefactor was her stepmother at the expense of herself and her sister emma a house was even purchased for sarah grey whitehead abby's younger half-sister a few months later there would be more slaughter at the borden farm on the morning of august 4th 1892 lizzie was in the barn and heard a strange noise from the house she rushed into the house and into the sitting room what she saw was truly horrifying lying dead on the couch was her father his face badly disfigured as someone had struck him several times with a hatchet killing him almost instantly lizzie then summoned the maid bridget sullivan but didn't let her go into the sitting room feeling that the sight of her dead father would be too much for the young maid earlier lizzie's 64 year old stepmother had told bridget that she was out visiting a sick friend she was found shortly after mr borden's body was discovered she was lying face down in the guest room upstairs she had also been murdered having been savagely hacked to death from behind with a hatchet but what was noticeable about her death compared to her husband's was it had been much more violent and intense as if the assailant had hated the victim something that was later brought up at the murder trial and the hatchet thought to have been used to kill both victims may have in fact been the same one used by lizzie's father to kill her much beloved pigeons a few months earlier the police investigated and put together the following timeline the timing of the deaths were most odd the medical examiner concluded that the stepmother was killed from behind at around 9 00 a.m while cleaning the guest room floor but the father was not killed until about 11 a.m he'd arrived home at approximately 10 45 a.m unexpectedly having been out on business most of the morning he had then gone into the sitting room to take a nap lizzie discovered her murdered father at 11 10 am it did strike the police as strange that in such a small three-story house nothing untoward was seen or heard is going on by either lizzie or the maid the whole morning yet two people who had been brutally murdered went unnoticed by the pair of them the maid's explanation for this was that she had spent the entire morning cleaning the outside of the house on the instructions of the stepmother mrs borden she was then resting from her duties in the third floor room while lizzie claimed she was in the barn searching for lead sinkers for an upcoming fishing excursion the police did carry out a search of the house but later admitted that it was only a cursory inspection and they did not carry out a thorough search until two days later on august 6th at the inquest into the deaths the medical examiner noted mr borden had been killed by being struck at least nine times with a hatchet one blow slicing through his eyeball the stepmother had been killed by 17 deeper more intense blows to the back of her head lizzie's testimony at the inquest was all over the place making little sense and she contradicted herself continually also some of the things she said were simply not true like she said she helped her father put on his slippers before he took his faithful nap but the crime scene photographs clearly showed him still wearing his shoes on august 11 1892 the police arrested lizzie based on her confused answers at the inquest and on the fact that she had the most to gain from the death of her father and stepmother her father was a wealthy man and with the stepmother dead the two sisters stood to inherit a small fortune the trial of lizzie borden began in june 1893 and became a national sensation at one stage during the trial both victims skulls were admitted as evidence forcing the proceedings to halt temporarily as this gruesome sight had caused lizzie to faint but there was no solid evidence that lizzie committed the murders and to the community she had a spotless character teaching sunday school lizzie was also the treasurer and secretary of the local branch of the christian endeavor society which helped to promote the society's message of leading an earnest christian life among its members so with her being so highly respected in the community the jury had no problem finding her innocent lizzie never left fall river her and her sister moved into a modern house in the wealthy neighborhood of the hill she died 35 years later of pneumonia on june 1st 1927 her younger sister emma died a few days later of a kidney disease neither ever married the press and investigators never stopped hounding lizzie who mostly were convinced that she had carried out the murders no one else was ever tried for the crime and to this day it's officially seen as an unsolved case so who did murder andrew and abby borden on that fateful morning in 1892 the suspects are as follows the older daughter emma borden at 36 years old and a spinster emma was unlikely to find a husband in an era where women were normally married off by their early twenties could it be that she was fearful of her stepmother inheriting everything if her father died meaning she faced an old age of abject poverty as she had neither a profession nor a husband to support her so maybe she had a possible motive but at the time of the murder she had an alibi she was visiting friends 15 miles away and also her character was seen as impeccable the resentful 25 year old maid from ireland bridget sullivan abby borden was very strict and some would say she was mean when it came to how she treated her maid insisting on the day of the murder that bridgette cleaned the outside of the house thoroughly despite the maid's protest that she was ill and that it was in the middle of a particularly bad heat wave could it be she simply snapped and brutally killed abby in a rage and later the father in order to cover up her crime the highly respectable 32 year old younger daughter lizzie borden did the police get it right in the first place but didn't have enough evidence to prove it was her it is true lizzie had much to gain from the death of her father and stepmother for if her elderly father died her stepmother was due to inherit his vast fortune and abby had many relatives on top of this andrew borden despite his wealth was frugal the borden house lacked indoor plumbing and electricity while andrew's cousins lived on the hill a neighborhood for the wealthy which he could easily afford to live could it be that lizzie feared she would never get her hands on what was rightfully hers would she go to any lengths possible to live on the hill but if lizzie had carried out both the murders did she change out of a blood-stained dress twice or did she walk around for nearly two hours in a blood-stained dress which seems inconceivable but the fact of the matter was that the police didn't search the house properly for evidence until two days later giving lizzy plenty of time to get rid of any incriminating evidence it is true that lizzie was found in the kitchen by her sister and family friend burning what lizzie claimed to be an old paint stained dress this may seem incriminating but we must bear in mind that this was the morning of august 7th the day after the house had been thoroughly searched by the police for evidence could it be that lizzie's explanation regarding burning the dress was the correct one and as for her shambolic and contradictory statements at court can it be simply due to the side effects of the morphine she had been prescribed by her doctor at the time for stress and anxiety there is another theory it might have been manslaughter from diminished responsibility as lizzie's mother had suffered from seizures that made her violent and go into uncontrollable rages which she had no recollection of afterwards it is said that lizzie suffered from this too but it seems hardly possible that if this was true she had an episode that lasted over two hours could it be a relative then there was the strange case of lizzie's maternal 59-year-old uncle a mr john vinnica morse the night before the murders he had arrived unexpectedly with no luggage at the borden's house this wasn't unusual as he often arrived unannounced like this to discuss business with his brother-in-law andrew it is said that despite the heat he would wear the same clothes for two days at a time uncle john left the next morning to visit some nephews and nieces returning later that day after the murders had been committed the police considered him a suspect for a while as his alibi at the time of the murders seemed just too perfectly detailed and rehearsed also it didn't help that he once trained as a butcher and seemed to be quite emotionally unaffected by the murders but the police concluded that he was just very eccentric and cold-hearted there was also the inescapable fact that his alibi being several miles away at the time of the murders checked out so the police dismissed him being a possible suspect and continued to look at other suspects was it a murderous intruder the farm was secluded and the family were well known to be rich so an opportunist thief was not too far-fetched an ocean murdering one of the residences in the area might make sense if the thief had been discovered but for the murderous thief to hide and wait for two hours and then kill the returning husband but not the two other women in the house does seem far-fetched even so it was known that andrew borden was quite an unpopular man in town and had made many enemies in his business dealings was it a serial killer five days before the trial a local woman was hacked to death with a hatchet in her kitchen by a portuguese immigrant named jose correa de mello she had been struck 23 times to the head jose was later convicted of the woman's murder the prosecution believed it was a burglary gone wrong even though it must have seemed strange to have two murders so close together in such a small town nobody thought there was a link between the two cases despite the murder sharing similarities such as being committed in broad daylight and the murderer entering and leaving unseen it is worth noting that jose according to official records didn't come to america until after the bordens were murdered was it a combination of people could it be that lizzie had an accomplice could her accomplice have been the maid and could they have carried out the murder together with lizzie paying her off with her inheritance it is true that bridgette left the family employment shortly after the murders but accounts differ regarding what happened to her next some say she found employment elsewhere and eventually married while another more tantalizing account was that she suddenly and mysteriously came into a large amount of money and was never to be heard of again an intriguing combination of people and events could it be that abby was killed by an intruder or serial killer who then fled or left the scene whereupon lizzie seizing the opportunity murdered her father later hoping to blame it all on the other murderer it might seem far-fetched but maybe lizzie was desperate enough to carry out such a fiendish plan again not realizing that science had advanced far enough to figure out the time of the two deaths were two hours apart could it be that lizzie hired someone to do the killings this would account for the fact there was no bloody dress or that no killer was ever found with her father and stepmother dead she could easily pay off her accomplice quite handsomely the case remains nearly 130 years later unsolved at the time of the trial public opinion was that lizzie was innocent but soon enough the public turned against her and this can be best summed up by a popular children skipping rope rhyme at the time lizzie borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks when she saw what she had done she gave her father 41. the cannibal escape australian penal colony prisons are notoriously hard places to get out of with their high walls locked doors searchlights and guards everywhere but what if your prison was a penal colony in australia back in the 18th and 19th century for all they needed to keep the convicts in were a few guards as the surrounding barren wilderness or shark-infested ocean would deter even the most aspiring escapee so if you were going to escape such hellish conditions you'd have to be extremely tough and determined the harshness of the situation demanded it and probably the most gruesome of all escapes involved a convict named alexander pierce pierce was an irishman who had originally been convicted for stealing six pairs of shoes he was sentenced to seven years in an australian penal colony since arriving in van diemen's land penal colony australia in 1821 he had been nothing but a troublemaker while there he continued his crimes and was further convicted of numerous offenses including stealing ducks turkeys and a wheelbarrow and twice was found guilty of being drunk and disorderly and his latest conviction was for forging an order with the intention to defraud for these crimes he was repeatedly given a lashing and on one occasion was sentenced to six months on a chain gang finally in 1822 he was sent to sarah island this penal colony was one of the worst of them all and you were only sent here if you had been disruptive at one of the other less strict penal colonies for sarah island in canada was on a desolate windswept spot next to the island's harbor and was surrounded by a vast jungle despite all this shortly after pierce arrived there he already managed to escape into the jungle with seven other convicts the escapees headed towards the settlement of hobart 90 miles away but after 15 days they were hopelessly lost and hadn't eaten for days so the group felt they had no choice but to resort to cannibalism the first victim was an easy choice for the men alexander dalton was an unpopular member of the gang because back in the penal colony he volunteered as a flogger where he whipped the other convicts deranged with hunger robert greenhill grabbed an axe and smashed it into dalton's skull the gang then feasted on his organs and flesh at this stage two of the group fearing they might be next decided to leave and went their separate ways the remaining members of the group drew straws and thomas bodenham drew the shortest one he knelt down and was killed by an axe blow to the back of the head then was subsequently served up as lunch it was a week later and starvation was looming for the group once more a fight broke out between two of the convicts it occurred when john mathers was foraging for roots and desperation to find something to eat green hill crept up on him and attacked him presumably to try and eat him this led to the rest of the group joining in the fight resulting in mathers being killed and becoming the next meal for the three remaining hungry group members then a few days later a group member named matthew travers was bitten on the foot by a venomous snake and died after a prolonged fever several days later after his moon had become gangrenous he became the two remaining group members next meal now only alexander pierce and robert greenhill were left they both vowed to work together in order to get to civilization but their trust soon evaporated and one night pierce butchered green hill with an axe pierce then continued his journey alone on the way raiding an aboriginal campsite for food in order to survive finally he reached civilization and soon ended up falling in with a gang of sheep rustlers but after nearly four months on the run pierce was recaptured and consumed with guilt confessed to the murders and the act of cannibalism but such was the disbelief of his story that the authority simply didn't believe him and sent him back to serve an extended sentence on sarah island this might have been the end to the story but a few years later in 1824 he escaped again with the help of a fellow convict a young man named thomas cox a few weeks later further down the coast a ship stopped to investigate a beach fire and found pierce eating him pierce ended up confessing no less than three times to his crime of cannibalism before his execution once to the magistrate then to the base commander and lastly the night before his execution to a priest each time the details differed slightly but the overall message was always the same he had killed or taken part in killing his fellow escapees and ate their bodies it was said he showed some remorse for having done these wicked deeds subsequently he was convicted of murder and cannibalism he was hanged for his crimes on july 19 1824 there is no record of what he requested for his last meal the blackout ripper 1942 world war ii world war ii on the home front for the british was tough but they were resilient having endured the terrible blitz from september 1940 to may 1941 during the attacks the germans had tried to relentlessly bomb the british into submission by mass aerial attacks killing around 43 000 civilians and wounding another 139 000 in total by 1942 the intensity of these bombings had died down though the germans still carried out regular bombing raids especially in london in february 1942 the british had endured nearly three years of blackouts and two years of german air raids to the point they had become very much a part of daily life though for the british the grim realities of war were never that far away on february 8 1942 the shocking news came that the mighty british fortress of singapore was under attack by the japanese but also on that day there was a gruesome discovery much nearer to home in an air raid shelter in central london a woman's body laid lifeless on the floor it appeared that she had been strangled to death the grim reality was the likely culprit was not a german but a british citizen thus started the week-long reign of terror of the blackout ripper [Music] day one sunday february 8 1942 victim evelyn hamilton location air raid shelter near marble arch in london age 40 years old occupation pharmacist hamilton was last seen on the evening of that day she had left her boarding house to get a late supper her body was discovered the next morning in an air raid shelter she had been strangled to death and her handbag had been stolen day two monday february 9 1942 victim evelyn oatley also known as neda ward location in the victim's flat at wardor street in soho london age 35 years old occupation part-time actress and prostitute on the day soap rationing was finally introduced in great britain a woman was discovered dead in her flat in soho central london in some ways her murder did not surprise the police as the victim known as nida was a well-known prostitute but what was shocking was the savagery of her death she had been strangled and her throat slit her body had been horribly mutilated with a number of items a razor blade a can opener and hair tongs but the police did find one important clue and that was from the clumsily discarded can opener on it were fingerprints but frustratingly it matched none on the police's criminal databases though helpfully it suggested the murderer was left-handed the second murder was only a 30-minute walk away from the previous day's murder and strangulation had been the cause of death in both cases but what really worried the police was the second murder was so much more violent than the first day three tuesday february 10 1942 victim margaret florence lowe also known as pearl location in the victim's flat at gazfeel street marylebone age 43 years old occupation prostitute on tuesday february 10th the day started with good news that the american allies who had been in the war less than two months had sunk the japanese destroyer to nazushio but for the british metropolitan police there was a more pressing matter trying to solve the murder of the two women unaware there had been another murder about a mile away from yesterday's murder but the body was not discovered until three days later on friday the 13th it had been another prostitute a 43 year old known as pearl who had been butchered in her flat she had been strangled but with a silk stocking or scarf and her body had been horribly mutilated with a knife a razor blade and a candle fingerprints had been found on a candle day four wednesday february 11th 1942 victim doris johannae also known as doris robson location in the victim's flat at sussex garden in paddington age 32 years old occupation prostitute and housewife the next day the police no longer had any doubt they had a serial killer on their hands for in a ground floor flat they discovered 32 year old doris like the other women she had been strangled and her body left horribly mutilated by now both the police and newspapers started to realize the four murders could be linked the british newspapers dubbed the killer the blackout ripper and started to draw parallels with the famous victorian serial killer jack the ripper day five thursday february 12 1942 then there was a lull just as the press was whipping the british public into a frenzy all went quiet had the killer learned to cover his tracks better day six february 13 1942 victim greta hayward location piccadilly circus london age 32 years old occupation unknown that evening a young woman named greta hayward was waiting for her boyfriend in piccadilly circus in central london a young man in an raf uniform had started to chat with her and then he had offered her a large amount of money but she explained that she was not that kind of girl then moments later he attacked her dragging her into a nearby doorway where he started to strangle her luckily the attack was interrupted by a night porter passing by forcing the attacker to flee into the night victim catherine mulcahy also known as kathleen king location near paddington train station london occupation prostitute later that evening a mile or so away at a flat near paddington railway station a prostitute known as kathleen king was entertaining a young man suddenly the man turned violent and attempted to strangle her but kathleen managed to fight him off and scream for help the man then fled in a panic and in a clumsy attempt at trying to buy her silence he threw a five-pound note at her in all these incidents and murders there was a distinct modus operandi so the police thought they were all being done by the same man the attacks were all on women who were or might be prostitutes they were all carried out in the evening or early hours all took place in central london strangulation or attempted strangulations were used each time where there was an opportunity the victims bodies were horribly mutilated so who was the assailant could it be that the murders were all related was an under-resourced london police force jumping to the conclusion that it was a serial killer's work as it was easier to investigate them as one case rather than individual ones the london police force had lost many of its best men to the armed forces and was stretched thin from its civil defense duties from 1939 to 1945 crime rose by 50 percent and an undermanned police force could not cope with the habitual looting and racketeering in the capital as well as the social problems arising from desperate and homeless citizens so was it convenient to overlook the subtle differences between the cases like in the evelyn hamilton case robbery may have been a motive as she was carrying around 80 pounds in cash which would be worth about 2 600 pounds today this was because she was in the process of moving north for a new job the two attacks on the night of friday the 13th were clumsy could they have been the acts of an enraged drunk a complicated relationship another possibility was that some of the victims had tangled and complicated relationships could they have been the cause of their demise for instance evelyn oatley had abandoned her lancasterian poultry farmer husband to head to london to pursue an acting career and dora chuanae led a double life as both a housewife and secretly as a prostitute her elderly husband had no idea that doris would entertain men while he worked the night shift as a hotel manager could it be a copycat killer this is not unheard of for by midweek the murders were in all the newspapers could this have emboldened some maniac to carry out similar murders to satisfy their sick desires or a cunning murder to settle a score but made to look like the blackout river to throw the police off the scent was it a serial killer the intensity and modus operandi would suggest so and london had seen serial killers before like jack the ripper from 1888 to 1889 and george joseph smith the brides in the bath murders from 1912 to 1914 with all these possibilities the police had to put together all the pieces of the puzzle on who the blackout ripper was at the scene of the attack on greta hayward the attacker had left behind his gas mask case in the shop doorway the gas mask's case carried the identifying number 525 987 and raf records revealed that it belonged to 28 year old officer cadet gordon frederick cummins he was promptly arrested on monday february 16th at the nearby raf barracks for the assault it was discovered that he had no criminal record he seemed happily married to a secretary and was doing well for himself in the raf having recently been promoted from leading aircraftmen in a ground crew unit to an officer cadet training to fly supermarine spitfire fighter aircraft but soon things would start to unravel for cummins and the pieces would start to fall into place about this short reign of terror it was found out that cummins was in fact a womanizer and he was left-handed but there was also damning hard evidence linking cummins to the murders the police found a cigarette case in his uniform pocket belonging to one of the victims margaret lowe in a search of his quarters detectives found a fountain pen that had belonged to doris juanae but what sealed his fate beyond a doubt was his fingerprints on the can opener used to mutilate evelyn oatley's body it took the jury just 35 minutes to find cummins guilty an appeal in early june 1942 was dismissed and he was hanged at wandsworth prison on june 25th 1942 during an air raid cummins protested his innocence to the very last moment and his wife stood by him until the end believing he was innocent spring-heeled jack victorian legends 1838-1904 spring hill jack was a phantom type figure who was meant to have terrified london and then later the rest of england the description of him would vary greatly but it was always menacing and sinister he was a pale looking man breathing out blue and white flames with razor sharp metallic claws on his fingertips and fireballs for eyes he looked like the devil dressed as a gentleman sometimes he was a hideous monster with a deformed face his alleged attacks were numerous though no one was ever seriously hurt in any of the claimed encounters with spring-healed jack some were scratched but mostly his victims were left terrified the only thing his attacks shared in common was spring hill jack's ability to escape afterwards by effortlessly jumping over tall walls and leaping with great agility from rooftop to rooftop where this character got his name from we are unsure but most likely it was because jack was one of the most popular names in the victorian era sometimes there would be a number of reported attacks in a matter of weeks then he would disappear for months or sometimes years at a time there is no doubt his popularity was enhanced greatly by his exploits being heavily sensationalized by the press especially the hugely popular penny dreadfuls which love to print lurid far-fetched tales of gruesome intrigue and adventure but also more respectable media like the times reported on him regularly it all started on january 9 1838 there had been growing public concerns about strange sightings from different parts of london so many that the lord mayor of london sir john cowan was forced to address the issue when he received an anonymous complaint that it was all part of an elaborate prank supposedly two members of high society had a wager that one of them in three different disguises as a ghost a bear and a devil would visit several villages near london and cause mischief the mayor was not convinced the story was true but the next day the newspapers nationally took up the story and on january 11th the mayor felt compelled to show the public a huge pile of letters he had received from across london complaining of similar pranks or sightings subsequently a reward was then offered for the culprit's arrest a famous and much publicized encounter with jack happened just over a month later on february 19th in london when a teenage girl jane aslop answered the door to what she thought was a police officer who said they had caught springhill jack nearby and requested a candle jane went and got a candle as requested on her return the man threw off his cloak and she later said he had a most hideous and frightful appearance breathing blue and white flames from his mouth while his eyes looked like red balls of fire he then began tearing at her gown with what seemed like metallic claws her screams caused her sisters to come running to her aid and the creature fled into the night leaving jane terribly upset and in shock several more sightings were reported quickly afterwards all over london and one newspaper falsely claimed that in stockwell brixton camberwell and vauxhall several people had died of fright and others had had fits because of their terrifying encounter with spring-healed jack real panic started to spread and people's belief in him was quickly reinforced by parents telling their misbehaving children that if they did not go to bed quietly spring hill jack would come and get them such was his notoriety he became a firm favorite in churches on a sunday where he was regularly used as a metaphor for sinful behavior in the 1870s the army even set up traps after centuries reported being attacked in the night with a wet fish or an icy hand by spring hill jack for nearly 70 years he was spotted in places as far afield as birmingham wolverhampton and lincoln the last reported sighting was in liverpool in 1904 and after that spring-healed jack quietly faded into history never to be heard or seen of again so what are we to make of the phenomenon that was spring-heeled jack is it simply mass hysteria fueled by media sensationalism or could it be one of the more far-fetched theories put forward one of the most credible theories was it was indeed a prank that was later continued by copycats his more inhuman abilities exaggerated by the media and mass hysteria a common feature of the encounters with jack with the many props he seemed to use to enhance his appearance to make himself more menacing like masks metallic claws cloaks and helmets some even suggest it could have been the marquis of waterford who was famous for drunken brawling brutal jokes and vandalism he was also known for erratic behavior problems with women and police officers earning him the title the mad marquis and was said to do anything for a bet this seemingly mass hysteria was fueled regularly by the media for over 70 years but over a hundred years later we are now close to knowing the truth behind spring hill jack how did people try to cure the plague flagellant 14th century european continent the black death more commonly known as the bubonic plague swept through europe beginning in the mid 14th century however this was not the first instance of the bubonic plague in the middle ages rumors about the great pestilence reached the european continent all the way from the middle east and asia before the plague itself was brought by ship the plague wrought contagion horror and death upon the people of europe from the time it landed in sicily gradually spread over the continent and even to the british isles the bubonic plague is characterized first by swelling lymph nodes in the armpits and groin known as buboes these buboes would swell to the size of an egg sometimes even to the size of an apple bringing severe pain to the victims the next stage of the sickness was the pus and blood that would seep from the swellings this was followed by terrible aches and pains fever vomiting and diarrhea people at the time had no idea how the plague spread believing that even touching the victim's clothing would cause contagion however the true cause of the plague were the fleas carried between houses by people and animals specifically rats the contagion spread throughout the continent as healthy people fled into the countryside and even across the english channel trying to escape infection but in reality they were bringing the infected fleas with them the plague spread quickly throughout europe killing up to 50 million people and infecting even more due to the intensity and horror of the black death without a plausible explanation at the time people in the middle ages cast blame on a variety of things the largest of which being the wrath of god in the middle of the 14th century some people believe the way to appease god's wrath was to kill those they saw as heretics this meant that thousands of jews foreigners the impoverished and other religious pilgrims were killed in an attempt to please god however while some people tried to cure the plague by punishing others some tried to cure it by punishing themselves this form of religious self-punishment was known as flagellation and it experienced a revival on a new scale because of the black death flagellate groups emerged in italy eastern europe germany and the low countries and spread throughout europe flatulence were religious zealots who tried to atone for their sins and therefore cure the plague through public displays of penance this atonement was based in the imitation of the way jesus suffered as he was whipped by roman guards before being crucified for the sins of the world the flagellants would whip themselves publicly several times a day traveling to different towns in a procession every 33 and a half days gaining more followers in each town they went to some groups of flatulence differentiated themselves from other citizens by wearing hoods over their faces but exposed their backs to show their wounds this provided an element of modesty and humility into the act of flagellation they were not to be viewed or worshiped as holy beings themselves but their actions were meant to be viewed as atonement for the sins of all humanity the whips consisted of three leather cords that had knots on each end which sometimes had metal nails or iron spikes embedded so that the flagellate would draw even more blood and possibly a tone even deeper for their worldly sins flagellant's blood could be seen spattering walls roads and bystanders and some saw the blood as a holy relic eventually pope clement vi condemned the action of the flagellants as heretical because he viewed them as potential usurpers of catholic power that caused trouble and instilled false hope on october 20th 1349 the flagellant movement was officially condemned in a bull and church leaders were ordered to suppress it with the end of the bubonic plague in the late middle ages the flagellate movement had all but disappeared however it was not the flagellants and their actions who cured the plague sanitation and cold weather finally killed off the remnants of the fleas carrying the plague leaving the european population devastated but still surviving which trial swimming test the 16th to the 18th century back in the 16th to the 18th century countries like england and america believe they had a problem with witches there was a genuine fear that witches were hiding amongst the population so a variety of tests were devised to uncover them failing any of these tests usually meant you're condemned as a witch and burnt at the stake but one of the most famous and cruelest of these trials was the swimming test or as it was often called in europe the flotation test primarily it was most common in britain where confusingly it was outlawed by henry iii in 1219 but openly endorsed by king james the first in 1597 there were also cases recorded in countries like germany sweden switzerland and the american colonies the tradition of being judged by water can be dated back as far as the 3rd century bc and became law in england under king athelstan in the 10th century the swimming test was when women who were accused of being witches were tied up and thrown into a nearby river or lake in front of a crowd the most popular methods of tying up a suspected witch would be to tie their thumbs to the opposite toes cross bound or simply have their hands tied up behind their back sometimes the accused were sown inside a sack either way it would have made it almost impossible for them to swim if the suspects stayed afloat they were deemed to be a witch as it was thought that they spurned the sacrament of baptism when they had made their pact with the dark forces water is an agent of baptism so it was seen as rejecting the guilty they would then be executed by burning or hanging if they sank they were pure of heart and would be dragged out of the water by a rope tied to them and deemed innocent there was the added problem that a lot of the suspects ended up drowning anyway before they could be pulled out the practice lingered on well into the 1700s but as the age of reason and science dawned it soon fell into disfavor cucking and ducking stools the 13th to the 17th century cucking stools were popular as a type of punishment in britain in the 13th and 14th centuries it was used to socially humiliate people from minor infractions like women gossiping too much or for a tradesman found to be dishonest the word cucking comes from the saxon cucking stool meaning literally defecating chair as they were originally modified commodes which were a covered chamber pot in a wooden seat in the cucking stool punishment the culprit would be paraded through their own town or village strapped to a stool that was either carried around on planks or on a wheeled carriage the aim was to degrade them into feeling ashamed of their actions the ducking stool was a 16th and 17th century form of punishment derived from the earlier cucking stool the ducking stool punishment would always end in the ducking of the guilty person in water often repeatedly in front of a large crowd the ducking stool was also a popular form of punishment in the new american colonies in 1662 it was entered into the statute books of the state of virginia in that in the case of slander by a man's wife if the fine was over 500 pounds of tobacco and the husband refused to pay the fine the wife was ducked by a ducking chair once for every 500 pounds of tobacco he refused to pay the maximum fine under this law was 5 000 pounds of tobacco for slander thus a wife could be potentially ducked up to 10 times dunking was a more serious version of this and was a trial by ordeal so when a woman was suspected of being a witch they often used dunking as a test of her guilt or innocence the suspect was tied to a wooden or iron chair sometimes surrounded by a simple but sturdy iron cage the chair was attached to a long wooden beam and the chair was then lowered into the water which was normally a river or pond the suspected witch was immersed in the water strapped to the chair and was left submerged for 10 to 20 seconds and then taken out and given the opportunity to confess this process was usually repeated until the victim either drowned or gave up and confessed if they did confess they were usually hanged or sometimes burnt as a witch if they drowned they were deemed to be innocent and their place in heaven was guaranteed though the preferred way of testing for a witch at that time was the swimming test the woman suspected of being a witch was tied up and thrown into a nearby river or lake in front of a crowd again if they floated they were witches if they sank they were pure of heart and hopefully be dragged out of the water alive before they drowned the last recorded case of a ducking stool being used was in 1817 when sarah leaked was going to be ducked in the local pond but as the water was so low they instead just wheeled her about the town for a while in a chair jibbeting gruesome execution methods in history the gibbet was an instrument used to perform public executions its usage can be traced back as early as classical antiquity gibbeting also known as hanging in chains is the method of leaving a body hanging after execution such as from the gallows or even after the victim was drawn and quartered however sometimes the victim was placed in the gibbet alive and left to die jibbeting can be seen very early in history as it is referred to in the old testament of the bible the construction and style of the gibbet was different depending on the region and period and usually made by a blacksmith and were quite expensive the jibba itself was a type of gallows with an arm projected from the top which was used to hang the bodies of criminals either after an execution or as a form of execution however what made jibbing so different from other forms of hanging was that the criminal was hung using chains and then left until their body had completely decomposed the body was often left hanging until the victim's clothes had rotted off their body a cage was made of iron and often connected to the wooden arm so that the body was preserved for as long as possible this was to extend the humiliation of the victims as the public viewed their bodies deterioration in rot moreover gibbets were often located by major roadsides and other prominent locations criminals were left hanging on posts around 20 to 30 feet high in order to be seen far and wide they sometimes remained in place for decades gibbeting was most often used for traitors murderers highwaymen pirates and sheepstealers and was used only on male criminals it was intended to serve as a deterrent to others from committing similar offenses a famous example of gibbeting was when john hutchins was convicted and condemned to death for the murder of a mr john sparks in 1684. hutchins was a prominent solicitor in early modern london while sparks was just a waterman or a river worker according to the account of his execution hutchins fell into lewdness and debauchery becoming familiar with the company of prostitutes and ale houses the murder of john sparks occurred on a night he had been in the ale house for many hours and had come outside to find several watermen tormenting the local prostitutes hutchins and sparks fell into a dispute and hutchins after drawing his sword stabbed him through the torso in a violent and drunken rage while hutchins did not confess to the murder of john sparks he confessed that he was a debauched person john hutchins was convicted of murder and because he would not confess to his crime he was condemned to the shameful death of the gibbet on december 17 1684 john hutchins was hanged by the neck until dead and left on the gibbet for less than an hour until his body was cut down and then buried in unhallowed ground due to his sinfulness pirates were sometimes executed by hanging on exhibit erected close to the sea or a river their bodies would be left dangling until they had been submerged by the tides three times in london execution dock is located on the north bank of the river thames in whopping after tidal immersion particularly notorious criminals bodies could be covered in tar and displayed in jibbet cages a little further downstream at either cuckhold's point now the location of pageants crescent or black wall point located at the tip of the greenwich peninsula such a faith befell captain william kidd in may 1701 whose corpse was left up for three years as a warning to other pirates of the possible consequences of their actions while gibbeting was an infrequent method of public execution prior to the 18th century it was in 1752 that the murder act also known as the an act for better preventing the horrid crime of murder was passed in great britain making the practice more popular particularly the murder act made post-mortem punishments such as gibbeting customary as it was thought of as a form of collective retribution and vengeance against murderers so rather than being buried murderers were to be dissected or left hanging in chains the murder act was passed in 1752 due to the actions of the hawkhurst gang the hawkhurst gang were a group of smugglers who during the 1740s committed frequent violent crimes throughout southeast england their crimes included smuggling tea and alcohol robbery and brutal murders one of the most notable crimes of the hawkhurst gang was the murder of richard hawkins a farm laborer and someone they suspected of stealing their tea hawkins was tortured punched kicked and whipped to death then his body was weighted down with rocks and submerged in a local lake where it lay undiscovered for nine months when members of the hawkhurst gang were finally caught 75 of them were imprisoned or hanged for their crimes and 14 of those were jubited due to the severity of their crimes the last use of the gibbet in the united kingdom occurred in 1832 almost 100 years after the murder act was passed when two last gibbets were made for william jobling in jarrow and shortly after james cook and lester it was outlawed in the united kingdom in 1834 due to the barbarity of the act there are 16 remaining gibbets in england one of them still holds the skull of its unlucky occupant the great plague of london 1665-1666 in the spring of 1665 an epidemic of the bubonic plague emerged in london england the plague began in the parish of saint giles in the fields a poor area outside of london's walls and a spring turned to a hot summer it became an epidemic the second plague pandemic is speculated to have started in china and spread through europe through trade the bubonic plague is caused by the bacterium yersinia pestis which is transmitted by fleas that live on rats victims would have symptoms including fever coughing up blood and painful buboes blisters and bruises on the body victims typically died within days of catching the illness the poorest areas were the most unsanitary with rubbish and waste littering the streets and were therefore the artists hit by the plague doctors were also too expensive for most people although their treatment was limited in its effectiveness because they thought miasmas or bad air was the cause of the plague the rich meanwhile as they could afford to fled the city king charles ii the nobility parliament and most merchants lawyers and doctors fled while the poor remained the lord mayor and aldermen also remain to keep order and stop the disease spreading further in june the mayor closed the gates of london to people without a certificate of health as the roads were bottlenecked from people trying to escape the city by autumn seven thousand people were dying from the plague every week in the city watchmen were employed to enforce a quarantine if a person was infected or had died of the plague their old family would be locked away with them in their house sealed from the outside and kept guard over a red cross was then painted on the door to distinguish it soon enough the old family would be infected and would suffer the same way a common sight was also drivers of dead cars with piles of bodies who moved around the streets calling bring out you're dead and the dead would be buried in mass graves as winter came the spread of disease was slowed down from december 1665 people started to return to london and by february 1666 the death toll had decreased to a level that was safe for the king to return it is estimated that up to 100 000 people died in london from the great plague after the great plague the great fire of london would again engulf the city in disaster but it may also have helped kill off some of the rats and fleas carrying the plague rasputin the man who wouldn't die december 30th 1916. gregory ephemovich rasputin was born on january 21 1869 in siberia russia to a peasant family and led a simple life until he reached the age of 28 when it's alleged that he had a religious awakening during a pilgrimage and after that became a wandering self-proclaimed holy man throughout rasputin's life there were constant rumors of him being involved in debauchery drunkenness womanizing strange occult rituals and belonging to a mysterious cult but despite all this by 1906 rasputin was a popular high society figure in saint petersburg and had become friends with sar nicholas ii and his family by now he had become known simply as rasputin and the tsar's wife queen alexandra increasingly saw him as a prophet and a visionary who could heal her hemophiliac son alexi over the next 10 years rasputin's influence over the royal family and their political decisions grew and grew this caused much resentment amongst the russian people and politicians there were attempts to curtail his power and it was even an assassination attempt for on july 12 1914 a 33 year old deeply religious peasant woman called jonah guseva stab rasputin in the stomach while he was visiting his home village of pocroskoi rasputin was seriously wounded and nearly died guseva claimed that rasputin was a false prophet and the antichrist she was later judged insane and sent to a mental asylum for her crime world war one was going badly for russia due to poor leadership and logistical problems by december 1916 its armed forces were on the brink of collapse during this time both rasputin and the royal family had become incredibly unpopular many feared that rasputin's influence over the royal family was seriously affecting the war effort so a group of nobles and politicians plotted to kill him this was led by prince felix yusupov and his young friend grand duke dimitri pavlovich on the night of december 29th 1916 the two of them invited rasputin to a small party at the moyka royal palace what happened next is open to debate as much of it has become hearsay sensationalism half-truths and urban legend as rasputin was always seen by the public as a mysterious figure and his death soon became a tale of his mystic almost superhuman powers the popular account about his death is that waiting for him at the palace were prince felix yusupov and grand duke dimitri pavlovich while upstairs were several co-conspirators including the renowned opposition politician vladimir puriskevich once at the palace prince yusupov offered rasputin tea and cakes that had been laced with enough cyanide to kill three or four men but this seemed to have no effect on him so the prince gave him some madeira wine also laced with cyanide but again this seemed to have no effect on him even after drinking three glasses apart from getting him a little more drunk then prince yusuf went to get a revolver and came back and shot rasputin in the chest rasputin promptly collapsed on the floor and seemed to be dead prince yusupov then left the palace with the other co-conspirators one of whom was wearing rasputin's hat and coat in the hope that it would give the impression that rasputin had left the palace to return home a short while later the princes returned to the palace and much to his surprise the supposedly dead rasputin left up and attacked them then rasputin staggered into the palace courtyard where it is said he was shot two more times it is then claimed that rasputin was beaten by prince yusupov with a dumbbell and in the early hours of the morning of december 30th 1916 was carried to a nearby bridge and thrown into the freezing malaya nevca river below it is said that rasputin was last seen very much alive thrashing about in the freezing cold water as he floated down river clinging to a lump of ice two days later on january 1 1917 rasputin's dead body was found under the ice-covered river approximately 650 feet downstream from the bridge some of the details of his murder may have been untrue or exaggerated but what we do know for certain comes from the official autopsy carried out on rasputin's body we know that rasputin had been shot three times and one of those shots was in the forehead at very close range and was the cause of his death that the coroner could find no trace of any poison anywhere in his body he also concluded that rasputin was most likely dead when his body was dropped into the river there were also deep cuts and bruising on his body but they were not believed to be from a beating as commonly claimed but to have been done post-mortem when rasputin's body was dumped into the river through a fishing hole that had been carved into the icedover river prince felix yusupov at grand duke dimitri pavlovich's role in rasputin's murder was quickly discovered queen alexandra was so angered by the murder that she wanted both of them shot straight away by firing squad without trial but instead prince yusupov was exiled to his country estate and archduke pavlovich was sent to serve in a russian army garrison in persia as for rasputin he was buried on january 2nd 1917 the day after his body was discovered at a small local church in a ceremony attended by the royal family and a few close friends shortly afterwards the russian revolution occurred sar nicholas ii was forced to abdicate bringing an end to the russian empire the mummified bodies used as landmarks on mount everest while mount everest offers death at every corner mountaineers continue to try to scale it it is unknown how many bodies are on the mountain but some say there are more than 200 there are several dangers the higher the climate gets to the summit the stronger the winds become which can blow a climber off the mountain sending them plummeting to their deaths lower oxygen levels also make breathing difficult and a climber may stop for a brief rest only to never wake up again frostbite can also occur in minutes the corpses of the unlucky victims of everest are well preserved due to the cold climate posed in their last moments in the clothing they set off with on their way to the summit frozen in time the rescue of an incapacitated person is so dangerous when high up the mountain that attempting it can result in your own death so the bodies are often left where the person died one of the first attempts to reach the summit of mount everest was by george mallory who was part of a number of british expeditions in the 1920s in 1924 along with andrew irvine he set off from advanced base camp never to return apart from his ice axe and an oxygen cylinder irvine has never been found mallory's body was discovered in 1999 his corpse still preserved but sun bleached with a taut rope around his waist and a puncture in the front of the skull it is suggested that the pair fell and the axe struck mallory in the head the most famous corpse is green boots thought to be sawang pao-jor who was an indian climber who died in 1996 a deadly year in everest's history which would see 15 people die trying to reach the summit he became separated from his party when he sought shelter in an open-mouthed cave at eight thousand five hundred meters or twenty seven thousand nine hundred feet he shivered in the cold until he died in a fetal position wearing fluorescent green mountaineering boots every climber attempting the northeast ridge route to the summit will pass green boots in 2006 english climber david sharp would do just this stopping in the cave to rest he froze in a sitting down position unable to move and appeared to have a severely frostbitten nose but was still alive sharp had opted to climb alone without a sherpa and without enough oxygen and no radio to call for help around 40 climbers passed him by either missing him or assuming he was dead potentially mistaking him for green boots some climbers eventually found sharp and tried to supply supplementary oxygen however because he could not get up to continue he had to be left to die francis arsentiev and her husband sergey arsentiev were part of a climbing group descending back to camp from 8 000 metres high but they had to do it during the night and on low oxygen supplies which was incredibly dangerous at one point she went missing and sergey chose to turn back to look for her despite the dangers on the way he passed a team of uzbek climbers they had found her alive and frostbitten but she could not move so they tried to move her down as far as they could until their own oxygen also depleted to dangerous levels forcing them to give up their rescue francies and sergey would not make it back to base camp the next morning ian woodle and cathy o'dowd along with several uzbeks discovered francis still alive pleading for help however the difficult location and -30 temperature eventually forced them to abandon the rescue where she would die sergey's body was later discovered by the same team who found george mallory today the preserved mummified bodies on mount everest are used as markers by climbers as they aim towards the summit a grisly reminder of the dangers the mountain poses subscribe and click the notification bell for more 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Channel: Simple History

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Keywords: simple history, animated history, educational, education, scary history, comp, supercut, halloween, treehouse, great plague, plague doctor, teacher, Andrew Borden, lizzie borden, crime, mystery, horror, scary, Abby Gray, whodunit, wealth, Bridget Sullivan, John Morse, usa, america, trial, barn, business, mansion, law, guillotine, french revolution, france, King Louis XVI, blackout ripper, mummified bodies, everest, london, fleas, rasputin, cannibal killer, witch trials, ducking

Id: IpUhLQ71PZ4

Length: 72min 27sec (4347 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 26 2020