Strange Stories in History 2

[Music] 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 stabbed 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 moyca 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 yusupov 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 princess 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 1st 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 iced over river prince felix yusupov and 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 climber 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 suang 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 8 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 north east 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 arcentive 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 the 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 ice carrier project habakkuk secret weapon of world war ii during the early 1940s german u-boats were sinking allied ships delivering vital supplies from the united states to britain in the atlantic ocean an inventor called jeffrey pike working under the combined operations headquarters came up with the concept of a floating unsinkable platform to launch aircraft from to defend these convoys his solution was an indestructible aircraft carrier made from ice while it sounded too far-fetched to become a reality winston churchill enthusiastically approved the idea pike identified ice as the material because of shortages in steel and aluminium it would also take less energy to manufacture he drew up plans for the bird ship the iceberg would be leveled to provide a runway and a bridge it would then be hollowed out inside to shelter up to 150 aircraft fuel tanks and living accommodation it would be powered by an electric generator driving 20 propellers the sheer scale of the vehicle and the thickness of its ice hull at 40 feet or 12 meters thick would make it unsinkable in 1943 a scale model prototype measuring 60 by 30 feet or 18 meters by 9 meters and weighing 1 000 tons was constructed to test the concept at patricia lake alberta canada where the climate was suitable the prototype powered by a single horsepower motor worked surviving throughout winter and summer however ice as a building material could be brittle so pycreat named after jeffrey pike was developed which was a mixture of 14 wood pulp and 86 ice this made it easy to work with and it melted slower and was a stronger material winston churchill excited by the results of the prototype ordered a full-scale ice ship to be constructed named hubback and the canadians confidently planned to make this happen by 1944. the project was eventually abandoned due to several reasons rising costs and material demands on the war effort its slow speed of just six knots and the fact that portugal had also given permission to use airfields in the azores a group of islands in the atlantic but overall the idea was perhaps just too far-fetched the great emu war in australia in 1932 a strange war would see a conflict between humans and emus following the first world war australian and british veterans were given plots of land by the government so they could become farmers these farmers were struggling to grow their crops in the difficult conditions and the great depression had caused wheat prices to fall from 1922 emus the indigenous soft feathered birds that are flightless were a protected species but they had become classed as vermin when twenty thousand of the birds ate crops across western australia the ex-soldiers turned farmers requested aid from the australian military asking the minister of defense sir george pearce for machine guns and ammunition major gpw meredith of the seventh heavy battery of the royal australian artillery led two soldiers armed with lewis light machine guns and ten thousand rounds of ammunition they confidently believed it would be easy to take down the masses of emus at point-blank range with such a weapon the war was postponed to the 2nd of november because of heavy rainfall they traveled to the district of campion where they cited around 50 emus and opened fire however the speed and ability to scatter into small groups made the emus able to dodge the fire and move out of range most got away and only a handful were killed two days later they spotted one thousand emus and planned to ambush the birds they again scattered and dodged the fire even at close range and only 10 emus were killed and one of the lewis guns jammed one of the soldiers said the emus have proved that they are not so stupid as they are usually considered to be each mob has its leader always an enormous black plume bird standing fully six feet high who keeps watch while his fellows busy themselves with the wheat at the first suspicious sign he gives the signal and dozens of heads stretch up out of the crop a few birds will take fright starting a headlong stampede for the scrub the leader always remaining until his followers have reached safety the next tactic was to mount one of the lewis guns on a truck this failed too because the ride was bumpy and the emus were too fast making accuracy impossible the idea came to an end when a lone emu got caught in the steering wheel on november 8th after the negative media coverage at the humorous failure to cull the emus and discussion in the australian house of representatives the group withdrew they had used up 2 500 rounds of ammunition and killed just 200 emus major gpw meredith said in retrospect if we had a military division with the bullet carrying capacity of these birds it would face any army in the world they can face machine guns with the invulnerability of tanks a second attempt on the 12th of november was made after more emu attacks on crops it was more successful claiming 986 kills using 9860 rounds at a rate of 10 rounds per confirmed kill given these poor efforts in the end it was the emus that were victorious in the great emu war it was only after the government introduced bounties on the emus in 1934 that the mass culling was effective today emus are protected under the environment protection and biodiversity conservation act of 1999. the actress kidnapped by kim jong-il to make movies for north korea the year was 1978 and a freighter was secretly heading from hong kong across the east china sea to pyongyang the north korean capital on board was a most precious and unusual cargo the iconic south korean actress 52 year old choi yunji who had just been kidnapped by the north korean secret service throughout the 1950s and 60s choi had been immensely popular in south korea she founded a film company with her husband and director shin sang oak and made over 130 movies winning numerous awards including the prestigious gran bell award which is regarded as the south korean version of the oscars choi's career suffered after her divorce from shin in 1978 in an attempt to revive her now failing acting career she flew to hong kong to meet with what she thought was a businessman who wanted her involvement in a new film production company he was setting up when she arrived in hong kong she met the businessman who was named wang dang il and was treated well eating at luxurious restaurants but strangely there was very little business talk joy also noticed that there were always strange men following her from a distance taking photos a few days later she was greeted by a business associate of wang named li sanchi who was accompanied by her daughter they were to keep choi entertained while wang was occupied with a business matter after some sightseeing and shopping choyunchi was lured by lee to repulse bay for another potential opportunity to meet a businessman who would help her run a performing academy but it was a trap and all of a sudden two men grabbed choi sedated her and bundled her into a speedboat choi yun-chi had been kidnapped by the north korean secret service so why had the celebrity been kidnapped by the north korean communist regime well it was on the instruction of the son of the north korean dictator at the time kim jong-il it was said he was mad about movies and not only saw their potential for spreading internal propaganda but also to help promote north korea and its values overseas kim jong-il is said to have owned over 15 000 films he particularly liked the james bond movies and was a big fan of sean connery he wanted to improve the north korean movie industry which he saw as full of ideology and dogma and he was impressed by the movies of capitalist countries even praising them because of the work ethic behind the industry to do this he felt he needed fresh established talent from the capitalist south which could transform the stagnant north korean movie industry and this became his reasoning for kidnapping joy once choi had arrived in north korea after her abduction kim jong-il imprisoned her in isolated luxurious guarded accommodation then he spent the next five years trying to impress and spoil her by taking her to lavish parties grand government ceremonies giving her expensive gifts she was given a tutor to teacher of the virtues of the north korean state and much emphasis was put on showing her the cultural wonders of the regime over the next few years choi was taken regularly to operas musical pageants museums and historical landmarks in the meantime choi's ex-husband shin sang a renowned film director with whom she had made some of her best movies with became worried that he had not heard from his ex-wife for six months so he decided to fly to hong kong to find her once there he too was kidnapped by the north korean secret service who took him to pyongyang but he was treated more harshly and resisted being indoctrinated after two failed escape attempts he was put in prison for two years as punishment and tortured it was not until 1983 during a banquet that came through that choi and shin were reunited by the north korean regime and became aware they had both been in the same situation kidnapped five years before kim jong-il insisted they both started making movies together for his regime and demanded they both remarry each other to give the project an air of respectability it's claimed that he wrote the first movie that shin was to direct for in 1984 called an emissary of no return it was a period drama set in 1907 about a korean emissary who tries to win western support against the japanese occupation of korea at the time the movies choi and shin made were surprisingly varied though most had an anti-japanese or anti-capitalist undertone to them such as 1985's moralizing fantasy musical the tale of shim chong in the same year shin made his last and most expensive north korean movie this was called hugasari it did not star choi and was about a godzilla type creature running amok a japanese crew who had worked on godzilla created the special effects after being tricked into thinking they were working on a chinese movie overall the movies the pair produced for the north korean regime were cheap and poorly made though one of the films the 1985's salt did receive some acclaim choi won the best actress award for it at the 14th moscow international film festival and it also got surprisingly good reviews by international critics then after nearly 10 years of being in north korea the couple managed to give their bodyguards the slip on their way back from attending the 1986 berlin film festival they stopped in vienna austria where they escaped to the u.s embassy to request political asylum for decades the u.s government was aware of the problem with north korea abducting people it's estimated that at least several hundred people have been kidnapped since 1953 though some sources claim the true figure is as high as 3 800 people it's theorized that north korea did this for a number of reasons but chiefly to steal people's identities and get them to teach north korean intelligence officers the customs and languages of their native countries choi and shin were both granted asylum and lived quietly in america until 1999 choi never made any films ever again afterwards but in 1992 shin did make the low budget american martial arts comedy three ninjas knuckle up under the name of simon sheen although it was a commercial flop eventually they felt it was safe enough to return to south korea on their return choi was treated with much reverence and nostalgia that in 2014 she was awarded by the order of cultural merit the corpse which still attends meetings strange stories in history jeremy bentham was an english philosopher of utilitarianism and a social reformer from 1769 when bentham was just 21 years old he requested in his will that upon his death he wanted his body to be dissected by a friend the physician and chemist george fordyce he had long hoped that the dissection of his body could further help to educate medical teaching in anatomical lectures during his lifetime medical research was developing into the science that we know today in 1830 two years before his death he developed this paper titled auto icon or farther uses of the dead to the living which was part of his will bentham died on june 6 1832 at age 84 at his home in queens square place in westminster london england his friend and physician thomas southwood smith followed bentham's instructions to dissect his body and turn it into an auto icon for display at university college london the head was embalmed and his skeleton covered with a frame and stuffed with linen tau with his favorite clothes placed over the top and he was posed in a chair as if engaged in thought but this wasn't the only request bentham wrote that his body or auto icon should be wheeled into meetings between friends and disciples commemorating the founder of the greatest happiness system of morals and legislation the myth developed here that his auto icon would be wheeled out to every university council meeting where he would be listed as present but not voting bentham had imagined that auto icons could take part in theatrical performances and be made to move using strings and wires like a puppet and for auto icons to replace statues and monuments to people bentham's auto icon was acquired by university college london on gower street in 1850 where it still sits to this day in a wooden box in the south cloisters of ucl's main building bentham wanted his head to be specifically mummified to resemble how he did when he was alive unfortunately the embalming process did not go entirely to plan bentham's head preservation went badly because of the mummification process which was based on the requested method used by the maoris of new zealand its suspension over sulfuric acid didn't help either the result was a rotting and discolored head with glass eyes which looks so bad that a wax head featuring some of the original hair was made as a replacement even though this was a macabre sight the real mummified head nevertheless was eventually put on display placed at the feet of the wooden box with the body after it was found in 1898 suspended in the body's rib cage it became the target for many student pranks including some say football practice in 1975 some students from king's college london stole the head and held it in ransom for a hundred pounds and then down to ten pounds to be paid to a charity shelter it was eventually discovered all the way in a locker in an aberdeen railway station in scotland now it is locked away securely refrigerated in the vaults of university college london many things probably influenced jeremy bentham's decision to be turned into an auto icon one of these was his utilitarianism philosophy which said that an action is right to be taken if it tends to promote the happiness of the performer and the people affected by the action or maybe his sense of humor as it is said that he carried the two glass eyes in his pockets for 10 years to show friends what he was going to become while the idea that he attends every university meeting is a myth he does attend meetings every now and then during college anniversaries but to do it every time would damage him beyond repair because of his vision that education should be more widely available to those who are not wealthy or part of the church he is seen as the spiritual founder of university college london where he's placed [Music] this u.s pilot shot down an american plane and got the kill why war so often forces us to make the most difficult decisions that a person could ever have to make american general norman schwarzkopf jr once said the truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do the hard part is doing it and on february 10 1945 over the island of baton in the philippines united states army flight lieutenant louis edward curtis was facing that dilemma he was lining up his p-51 mustang fighter nicknamed bad angel ready to shoot down a transport plane attempting to land at a japanese held airfield his finger hovered over the firing button that would unleash a devastating burst of fire from his aircraft's six heavy machine guns but while he knew it was the right thing to do this experienced fighter ace with nine confirmed kills to his name was so very hesitant to push the firing button why was he so reluctant and taking so long to open fire only the night before he had not a care in the world he had gone on a date for the first time with a 19 year old us army nurse he had just met she was beautiful sophisticated but so down to earth she was of russian descent that gave her a wonderful air of mystery and had the glamorous name of svetlana valeria shostakovich turned out that she had been an aspiring hollywood starlet having just had a small role in the smash hit musical film bathing beauty before giving it all up to do her patriotic duty for the war effort curtis smiled at the memory of her and his mind focused on the terrible job at hand before him so with a heavy heart he aimed at one of the transporters wing-mounted engines and opened fire almost instantly it burst into flames and his propeller moments later stopped spinning but the plane was well built and of a sturdy design maintaining its descent to land at the japanese airfield at bataan so lieutenant curtis with a grim resolution now switched his plane's attention to the other side of the aircraft and fired at the other engine again moments later that engine too was engulfed in flames with thick black smoke trailing from it now powerless the plane started to plunge downward thankfully its pilot successfully ditched it in the nearby sea lieutenant curtis had just made his 10th kill by shooting down an american army c-47 transporter he had potentially murdered its crew and all of the passengers on board it so who was lieutenant curtis and what events had forced him to take such drastic action he had been born in indiana in the united states on november 2nd 1919 and in 1942 at the age of 23 he graduated as an army fighter pilot the following year curtis was sent to the war in europe and served in both north africa and italy there he flew the twin-engine p-38 lightning fighter with great success and would amass eight confirmed kills in less than six months and was awarded two distinguished flying cross metals for bravery on april 1943 he shot down three german bf-109 aircraft in cape van and tunisia the next month he shot down two more bf-109s near vallisidro and sardinia on june 24th he ran into an italian machi c202 and shot it down in such a short amount of time curtis was a flying ace in august 1943 he was in a large-scale dogfight with german fighter planes all over southwest italy when his aircraft became separated from his squadron after shooting down one bf-109 he saw a p-38 in trouble so went to its aid and shot down another bf-109 reaching the score of eight destroyed and two damaged one of his engines had taken serious damage in the dog fighting and soon his second engine was damaged by flak fire curtis was forced to crash land on a beach in enemy held territory in southwest italy he ended up being captured and was held for many months in an italian prisoner-of-war camp curtis escaped before the germans took over the camp after the italian armistice he was held by his former italian guards and allowed to walk away he and other xpows survive deep in german territory for many months until they reach the allied lines afterwards curtis received a prisoner of war medal with the war in europe starting to come to an end he was transferred to the far east to fight the japanese there he would fly the iconic p-51 mustang long-range fighter a few months after arriving while flying his plane nicknamed the bad angel he shot down his ninth kill an armed japanese mitsubishi ki-46 ii dino reconnaissance plane on february 7th 1945. this now made him a rare kind of ace having shot down an aircraft from all three of the major axis powers germany italy and japan but then just three days later on that faithful day of february 10 1945 while carrying out ground attacks on a japanese airfield he was to earn a more distinct and sad notoriety for on that day he was going to earn the dubious honor of being credited with shooting down a fellow u.s military plane on that day curtis and three other p-51 mustangs from his squadron departed from a field in mangalden central luzon they were to perform a reconnaissance mission on a temporary airstrip being used by the japanese on the southern tip of formosa taiwan when they didn't find anything returned back flying over the island of bataan in the philippines curtis and wingman lieutenant schmitka flew to the north half while lieutenant scali and lacroix headed to the south when scalia attacked an airfield on the bataan island curtis and schmidtke joined them squadron shot down two japanese aircraft and shot three other enemy planes on the ground before they could take off but now the ground defenses had been manned a japanese anti-aircraft fire shot up into the skies the attack resulted in lacroix being shot down by the flack luckily he managed to bail out in time and survived an emergency landing in the nearby sea critters circled the spot to confirm the pilot had safely gotten out of the sinking plane it was then that he spotted a large plane attempting to land at the japanese airfield at first he thought it was a japanese copy of an american dc-2 i'm flying over to the plane to investigate he was horrified to see it was a u.s army c-47 dakota transport plane initially when he noticed the landing gear coming down and spotted the american markings he thought it was a us aircraft captured by the japanese he couldn't believe a u.s transporter was landing straight into enemy territory despite him trying to raise it on the radio as well as trying to make it veer off course by flying in front of it several times it did not respond or alter its course unknown to curtis it had developed a faulty radio as well as being completely lost and was virtually out of fuel more still the dakota's pilot did not understand what all the fuss was about as he thought he was about to land at an allied airfield not an enemy held one so curtis felt he had to take the drastic action of firing at the transporter by disabling both of its engines luckily the dakotas pilot managed to land the transporter in one piece on the adjacent sea all 12 crew and passengers managed to get off the stricken plane safely onto a life raft before the plane sank they even managed to rescue the shutdown pilot la croix and brought him on board the life raft with much relief he circled overhead offering them his protection for as long as he could but with dust quickly approaching and with curtis's mustang running dangerously low on fuel he was forced to return to his base some miles away the occupants of the life raft had to endure a night in the shark-infested subuyan sea but the next day curtis returned escorting a consolidated pby catalina seaplane that rescued all the survivors it was only then that he discovered that one of the two nurses on board the dakota was fed lana his date from two nights before and in another twist he was officially credited with shooting down the dakota thus earning him an american kill to his tally svetlana must have been the forgiving type as they continued dating and after the war they married on the 2nd of april 1946 they stayed happily married until curtis's death on february 5th 1995 just five days short of the 50th anniversary of him shooting down her plane you

Channel: Simple History

Views: 1,741,550

Keywords: simple history, animated history, educational, education, strange stories, weird history, rasputin, man who wouldnt die, bodies on mt everest, mummified bodies, jeremy bentham, emu war, kim jung il, north korea, ice ship, curdes, This U.S. Pilot shot Down an American plane and got the Kill, Why?, The Great Emu War, 1932, weird wars

Id: lhc478WkPZE

Length: 36min 8sec (2168 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 24 2021