The Terrifying Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius • Puppet History

[Music] welcome one at all to puppet history online university today we'll be taking an ever winding look at yet another chapter in the heavy heavy book we call history while our guests ruthlessly compete for the coveted title of history master i am obviously your beloved host the professor a thank you brian bergara are you ready he puts beloved in front of their own name in their own i did not write that our producers wrote that you sure said it special guest matt real are you ready it's pronounced real or real sorry yeah i'm ready then let's crack in now before we begin have either of you ever been to italy no uh no i have not thank you for those verbose answers this is gonna be a great episode now in the first century ce much like today you could do a lot worse than living near the coast of southern italy the weather is temperate the sea a rich azure and the land is bountiful yes sir it's no great leap to say the area around present-day naples has historically been a true mediterranean paradise with one brief and extreme exception the 36 hours when this idyllic heaven turned into hell on earth today we're talking the pompeii circumstance oh oh i love it i don't love it but well it's exciting we don't love all the horrible things that happened throughout history but we love to talk about them i mean you might but i don't you just said you love it i don't remember that well in 79 ce the roman empire was thriving it was still adding to its territories and would continue to do so for another 40 years the colosseum was about to open hell yeah that's like the equivalent of like an arc light right it's their staples center nice so roman citizens were looking forward to lives of enjoying progress and dominating the mediterranean a mere 150 miles from the capital in rome pompeii was an important industrial hub and port the city's socioeconomically diverse population of around 12 000 enjoyed public baths theaters brothels and no fewer than 150 bars and taverns pompei's farmers were famous for their onions and for their vineyards whose wine who boy resulted in tremendous hangovers [Music] reportedly now there was one practice popular in ancient pompei that today we'd maybe find surprising as it's usually against the law answer this question correctly for a history point what modern-day crime was surprisingly common practice in pompeii graffiti b identity theft or c performing unlicensed surgery okay i left my thing over there i have to get it oh that's i'm sorry ryan are you locked in no i'm making another hold on nino [ __ ] it whatever a graffiti sure why not you went for graffiti matt what did you put it's absolutely b identity theft point to ryan as the answer is graffiti pompeii was a lousy with the stuff in the roman world graffiti was considered a respected form of writing visitors would write their reviews of the city on the wall like an ancient trip advisor campaign messages and advertisements were also common such as one scribbling that proclaimed collatus the thracian the lady's choice among gladiators ancient lovebirds would even use graffiti to flirt with one instance reading quote health to you victoria and wherever you are may you sneeze sweetly huh more to the point one wall of a brothel has etched in it paul's per is [ __ ] here what now paws purists [ __ ] here well i mean it's informative i now know where posters was [ __ ] most creative among the tags though were the insults examples include sonny as to cornelius go hang yourself corydon is a country bumpkin oh a papress no art bald and oh a papress thou art no ball player i don't know who a papris was but roasted two times it's just twitter yeah basically it's it's social media i'm gonna start tweeting at every uh los angeles clippers basketball player thou art no ball player i think that's amazing for a history point each of you is to write an insult directed at the other in the style of pompeii graffiti the insult that cuts closest to the quick will earn a history point i feel like i know ryan better than he knows me he might yeah oh hang on i gotta write it like they wrote it yeah i mean you know certainly uh points for style and for effort ryan let's see i'm actually struggling here to think i don't want to insult man bring it you coward jesus christ ryan why don't we start with you yes not my best work uh matthias mustache is as large as he is stupid oh yeah it's better than mine bergara thou have poor taste in things in general you know what ryan i'm gonna give that one to you not only did you insult his character but also his appearance which is frankly very rude well you made me do it so you know you're you're a rotten man or thing or whatever you are damn don't call me rotten as interesting as ancient is pompeii isn't world famous for its street art but for its neighbor mount vesuvius the morning of august 24th 79 ce might have seemed like a normal one for the folks living in the shadow of vesuvius perhaps the papres was losing a ball game and kaleidos the thracian was getting juiced at the gym what did anyone have to worry about oh that demo volcano why that lazy thing hadn't erupted in about 700 years as one then 18 year old would one day recall quote there had been noticed for many days before the trembling of the earth which did not alarm us much as this is quite an ordinary occurrence now was vesuvius was that's like situated on top of any kind of like fault line of some sorts like what actually caused it to erupt uh it's a volcano it's a volcano yeah volcanoes aren't necessarily on fault lines well i guess i don't know much about why do volcanoes erupt over time is it a buildup of gas yeah it's like pressure uh you know stuff aren't you a professor some taco bell yeah yeah yeah maybe a little too much fire sauce 20 miles across the bay of naples from pompeii that 18 year old gaius plinius kaikilius secundus better known as pliny the younger was chilling in a villa he was staying in the town of mycenum with his mom plynia and his uncle plenty of the elder that's right three folks sharing a villa all basically named pliny wait is it i thought it was pliny yeah but that's wrong oh lenny the younger would go on to write two letters of great historical importance detailing the events that we're about to unfold when his uncle was actually a pretty big deal too at the time pliny the elder was 55 years old heavyset and the unfortunate operator of a weak windpipe not sure why we know that but cool he was also the commander of the roman fleet at mycenum and in addition to his military accolades possibly the best damn naturalist in all the ancient world having written a 37 volume work called simply natural history if you're wondering why he never wrote a 38th volume stay tuned was it easier to be a naturalist i would guess because back then it was like hey here's a bird that no one has ever written about you know hey it's red and everyone's like he's right that bird is red around midday plinya noticed an unusual cloud forming to the east across the bay and asked her naturalist brother what he made of it lenny the elder put down his plenty the book put on his pliny the shoes and climbed to a higher vantage point to see what all the fuss was about as his nephew would write quote a cloud was ascending the appearance of which i cannot give you a more exact description of than by likening it to that of a pine tree it shot up to a great height in the form of a very tall trunk which spread itself out at the top into a sort of branches for context when young pliny says very tall he means it at its maximum height the cloud of ash reached 18 and a half miles into the sky that's one third of the way to space something the plinies didn't even know existed yet yeah that would be uh probably look like there's a crack in the earth also i don't really know like i know he's sort of blazing the trails with his naturalist writing but i don't know how much experience they have with volcanoes yeah had anybody like climbed to the top and looked inside and been like well it looks hot in there is that what's inside a volcano is it just like a toilet bowl i mean i don't think they're all cartoon toilet bowl volcanoes i don't think they would know right because it's 800 years since it had ever erupted yeah they don't have the context and i guess the sheer fact that he was like it looked like a big tree probably suggests that yeah they don't know what a volcano is clearly something was going on near vesuvius but it wasn't until pliny the elder received some mail that he decided to go check it out for a history point what no no hang on i'm sorry go ahead the cloud is in the air yeah for a while a couple days no no this is one day and he received the mail the same day we actually looked into this to try and figure out how this male arrived on his doorstep and there's not a lot of details about it primary sources yeah you know we try our best but uh some history is just a mystery for a history point what was in the letter that spurred pliny the elder to act a a tavern owner worried that his elderly patrons wouldn't be able to flee the city b a soldier stationed in pompeii nervous about abandoning his post to help citizens evacuate or see a rich lady worrying about her house why would they talk to him just because he's a smart well you know he was a a military man and i think they figured in times of emergency maybe we should turn to this guy who is uh good under pressure all right ryan what'd you put i put c rich lady likes her digs rich lady likes her digs and matt see oh we got a couple of sea dogs out there that's a call back to the other episode didn't work in that one either yeah i think we're about to find out in the form of an incredible uh reenactment completely historically accurate of him reading a letter some mail for you uncle plenty nephew plenty read this correspondence aloud to me now it's from rectina wife of basis sounds like a villa at the foot of vesuvius is in trouble she can only escape by sea and wants you to come pick her up retina who wife of bassist vs who husband of wreck t listen they're rich in their trouble okay in that case i shall launch the roman fleet also how did she send that letter nobody knows weird that nephew pliny sounds exactly like a john mullaney character yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah oh [ __ ] it's bonnie congrats so throughout history the only surefire way to get someone in government to act is to have a rich lady complain apparently the karen that's true exactly yeah so uh an ancient character ancient karen now to plenty of elders credit he set sail not only to save rectina but also to rescue all the towns along the coast when he asked his nephew if he wanted to tag along clinton younger replied uh no dead men tell no tales pliny the elder captaining the roman fleet set sail across the bay of naples straight towards vesuvius as he got closer however the going got a little dicey the sea was rapidly retreating risking the ships running aground the mountain was shedding giant pieces of itself which were rolling down and blocking the shore and all the wild cinders pumice and burning rock rained down upon the ships lenny the elder had a decision to make turn back or press on as debris crashed down upon his ships what did pliny the elder famously say to his ship's pilot a fortune favors the bold b if you are weak in crisis you are weak indeed or c if you want the rainbow you gotta put up with the rain oh damn those are all good i've heard the first one but i don't think it was him you guys are locked in yeah all right ryan what'd you put i'm gonna go b for bravery b for private rica that sounds the most old english it sounds most of the times all right and map b when the [ __ ] gets going you also get going um points to no one what it was a fortune favors the bold that was him wow in this moment why would he be getting any fortune from this yeah that's that doesn't even make sense no the quote is saying fortune favors the bold so if you make bold choices fortune will favor you do you get that oh i see he's talking about just in general as a way to live life not that there's going to be fortune waiting at the end of the proverbial rainbow yeah he's not planning to go toward the volcano and find a pot of gold i hope that's the last thing he ever said on earth because that's a very funny last question uh fortune favors the bold then he just gets hit right in the head gonna be okay splat all right moving along now hang on a second that sounds familiar oh hey everybody oh wow it's our old pal the propeller from the britannic good to see you buddy looks like you're uh doing another season huh oh yeah well you know a lot to cover history's very long so you got some fancy new friends this season seems like well you know always new folks stopping by sure hey you remember my uh my song from season one yeah that was a lot of fun well uh i mean how you how you been uh otherwise oh yeah well yeah i'm here with a word from our sponsor skillshare oh nice i love a sponsor keeps the theater lights on tell us about it pal well after my guest spot on your show last season i realized i'm a i'm a pretty creative guy you know can't just spend my whole life hauling big old boats around i'm in artiste sure yeah that's where skillshare comes in it's an online learning community for creative folks like you and me oh wow they got thousands of inspiring classes on a whole range of topics like illustration design photography video and more me i've got my site set on tinseltown baby so i'm exploring the ins and outs of filmmaking thanks to classes like creative video storytelling and editing taught by nikki stevens oh that sounds fun and educational things are really taking off for me in a big way i'm optioning a screenplay of my biopic we're still trying to cast the lead but we're in talks with topher grace oh wow i guess i can see the resemblance hey look most of the classes are under 60 minutes so you can squeeze them in anywhere they're great for people of all skill levels whether you're just a creative gambler or a full-on professional and there's no ads and with an annual subscription it's less than ten dollars a month wow that's a steal yeah and the first 1 000 subscribers to click the link in the description will get a two-month free trial of premium membership so you can explore your creativity did you say free yeah did you not hear me no no i was i was just trying to hype it up okay del close look i don't need you yes anding me left and right over here why don't you just stick to your little stories anyway i gotta zoom with topher to lock this thing down let me know if you need me later in the season yeah i'll see if i can pencil it in i'm real busy now all right good seeing you buddy well i'm a propeller an awfully creative feller ah what a guy all right where were we ah yes now finding the direct route to vesuvius impossible to navigate pliny the elder pointed his ships nine miles south of the mountain to the estate of his friend pomponianis back-to-back questions oh when pliny the elder arrived at his friend pomponionises his first course of action was a saddle up all the horses and make for pompeii b evacuate pomponiunis family to the relative safety of the coast or c ask for dinner in a bath i really want it to be c because that would be very funny but i do believe it's b let's hit the serve all right ryan's going b and matt grub a dub dub he's going scrub a dub dub alright well let's find out oh holy [ __ ] holy [ __ ] holy [ __ ] ah pomponi in us my dear friend troubling times oh thank god you're here jesus christ oh no oh that guy who died a couple years ago what about him oh no plenty the mountain is exploding what should we do this is gonna blow over any minute try to rule out meanwhile i am beat uh i'm gonna take a nap uh it would be great if you could have someone wrestle up some dinner and draw me a bat no thank you are you kidding me that's crazy i know i buy it what do they say why worry till there's something to worry about right well not really though the mountain was falling apart i feel like that constitutes work i'll point to matt plinning the younger speculates his uncle's actions may have been an attempt to calm everyone down but still that's that is a bold choice i was just about to say do you think this is performative bravado or something like that to maybe even convince himself that he's a big man when they drain the tub it's just bricks of [ __ ] while plenty slept things uh well they didn't get better courtyard leading to pomponiuses was rapidly filling with stones and ashes and if they didn't want to be trapped they needed to get a move on somebody woke plenty the elder and as plenty of the younger would later write quote they consulted together whether it would be most prudent to trust to the houses which now rocked from side to side with frequent and violent concussions or fly to the open fields where the cal signed stones and cinders fell in large showers and threatened destruction what did pliny the elders group decide to do hey stay inside and hope another nap would do the trick b type pillows to their heads and run to the shore or c it's the end of the world orgy time baby oh no oh boy much to think about oh boy much to think about oh no i dropped my pen let's go with c bone town baby ryan's going with bone town okay love to hear it and matt c orgy time i mean that's right you're reading the room i also feel like i've i know that people were frozen in ash doing the nasty just a second i don't think i'd be able to zone out you know like disassociate from the moment and actually like partake in sex if i knew there was like the world was on fire although maybe it's just insane oh like the best sex ever oh no points to neither of you are you kidding me that's right little pillows wow that's cute it's adorable it's kind of dumb that's somewhat logical i suppose if you got hit by a smaller rock this dude is zigging and zagging he's taking a bath and then after that's like oh let's tie pillows to our heads like that's crazy to me plenty of the elder with his pillow crown made it back to the shore but found the sea too rough to flee that way now perhaps realizing fortune had abandoned the bold pliny laid down on an unfurled sail and asked for some cold water suddenly flames and sulfur gas dispersed his party as plenty of the younger writes quote lenny the elder raised himself up with the assistance of two of his servants and instantly fell down dead suffocated as i conjecture by some gross and noxious vapor having always had a weak throat r.i.p to a real one meanwhile across the bay of naples for plenty of younger and plenia things were only marginally better by the morning after the first eruptions the buildings in mycenum were teetering on the brink of collapse from all the seismic activity plenty of the younger his mother and a panic-stricken crowd decided to flee with their chariots unable to travel over the shaking ground everyone set off on foot ash fell all around them and they had to brush it off to keep ah you know what i'm just gonna have plenty of younger speak for himself plenty night came upon us not such as we have when the sky is cloudy oh and there is no moon but that of a room when it is shut up and all the lights put out you might hear the shrieks of women the screams of children and the shouts of men some lifting their hands to the gods but the greater part convinced that there were now no gods at all in the final endless night of which we have heard had come upon the world damn wow i mean i guess if i knew the end was coming i thought about it a little bit more there will be a part of me that's like stoked to see you know like the after credit scene yeah i know what's happening first is shooting fire and that's not a thing you knew it could do i guess you'd assume this was it yeah you'd be like all right well we'll see what happens in the sequel by the next morning light began to return to the world but as pliny writes quote every object that presented itself to our eyes which were extremely weakened seemed changed being covered deep with ashes as if with snow plinier and her son had survived while the experiences of the plenties sound downright hellacious their accounts were from the fringes of vesuvius's devastation in pompeii circumstances were worse than my puppet brain could ever imagine by the time plinia asked pliny the elder about that strange cloud to the east that same cloud had already blocked out the sun for the residents of pompeii evacuating at this time would turn out to be your only chance of survival seven hours later the eruptions had become more violent and pompeo was buried in about nine feet of ash and pumice at this point those who hadn't fled were either already dead or trapped by blocked doors or collapsed roofs this is when things started getting bad started getting bad yeah starting undercell you just said their house was crashed by nine feet of ash i couldn't help but like think what i would do if i was in this situation and you were like really [ __ ] you couldn't run away i feel like i'd probably ride it out and just die i'd be like you know what i'm just gonna hunker down here yeah and then i'd be done for i'm a big let's stay in place and see what's up i mean i'm not gonna go outside so we'd all die is what we agree i guess so i'm soft yeah me too literally now falling debris is one thing ceaseless earthquakes are another but the real problem to watch out for in a volcano are the pyroclastic flows pyroclastic flows are clouds of ash toxic gas and burning rock that surge along the ground at 60 to 100 miles per hour increasing temperatures to around 750 degrees fahrenheit early the next morning came the largest of several pyroclastic flows that dealt the final blow to pompeii in two minutes the city streets were covered in an additional eight feet of hot ash and anyone who hadn't already escaped would have asphyxiated yikes so just a big wave of death basically you know i reflected on my position in fact i think i actually might do the thumbs up oh yeah actually t2 judgment day that's very funny because as i was talking about that i was imagining that scene where she's looking at the chain-link fence and she's like in total mount vesuvius rained hell upon pompeii for 36 hours when it was all over the average depth of the debris on top of the town was 20 feet what percent of pompeii's residents perished due to vesuvius a approximately nine percent b approximately 17 or c approximately 33 percent all right going c 33 percent and maddie c 33 no points for either okay what approximately 17 is the number we're looking for the only nugget of optimism to come out of this story is that most of the residents were able to evacuate before the pyroclastic flows devastated the town still of pompei's approximately 12 000 residents 2 000 sadly perished still a fair amount of people yeah but it's like we've been talking about this for what eons now i mean i don't want to be like oh it's a couple thousand people but i thought it was worse what was that percentage of people doing when everyone was evacuating were they just like i don't believe it yeah i'm not buying it volcano i'll believe it when i see you they were on facebook talking about how it was a democratic hoax yeah yeah the lame stream media pushing this volcano narrative cut to 12 hours later and they're like the first attempted excavations of pompeii besides survivors trying to recover buried belongings in the aftermath began in the 3rd century ce but the thick layers of ash and pumice proved too tough pompeii then sat buried and forgotten for more than 1200 years until modern excavations began in the 18th century vesuvius is still an active volcano last experiencing a medium-sized eruption in 1631 which resulted in at least 4 000 casualties and triggered a tsunami but that was almost 400 years ago what about today we've arrived at our final question and thus the final opportunity for history points how many people today live in the region around vesuvius and this is a free right all right ooh prices right rules or what all right ryan i put a 4 000 candle wicks oh that's [ __ ] oh bit tactless but uh matt what'd you put i put 60 000 people because that's what they are that's right people double points for you for recognizing some humanity and being uh closest to the answer three million people what in the [ __ ] the city of naples sits a mere eight miles away oh [ __ ] all of the surrounding areas have evacuation plans in case mount vesuvius erupts but still it's the most populated volcanic area in the world that is crazy it's nutty well that concludes our history lesson i'm going to go tally the scores to see who receives the coveted cup and the title of history master while i do that please enjoy this special performance from mount vesuvius i can't wait to get okay didn't you say pompeii was 12 000 people back in the day yeah so you thought that they didn't even replace that much yeah i figured they'd go way down not go three million people get on with it people get on with it i mean we're what are we doing we're on a barren wasteland waiting to get our [ __ ] rocked big time that is true we're as dumb as they are dang son i find this very rich that my candlewick joke was called tactless and here he is singing a song as the volcano people change what a beautiful morning oh my god he's a little grumbly though pompeii a beautiful day check me chill and in a geological way i am vesuvius some say the grooviest okay now they know in the west coast bay excuse me huh how about you see ya i got a little case of planetary diarrhea so uh oh i'm gonna blow ashes up the asses of the masses below [Music] gonna bury [Music] [Music] please i beg of you come on everybody pompeii if i don't know that they're singing so much as screaming i'll take it let's do the chorus one more time [Music] [Music] i liked that the song contained both the phrase i hate to do this while also containing the phrase blow ashes up the asses well i think he's just so you know he's working through some stuff all right let's see how we did ryan bergara who thinks bears are scarier than volcanoes that is not true has come in second place congratulations ryan wait wait wait wait wait a second that means the history master is not really thank you man wonderful work wait a second let's hush uh matt if you'll go to your front door right now uh there is a prize waiting for that real yes go get your trophy so we could talk about the bear comment i've never stated that i think bears are the scariest animal in the world you're on record is always talking about oh bears oh [ __ ] that oh there's the scariest thing in the world bears are the scariest predator in the world they are the apex predator you're a little baby aren't you a bear would make light work out of you can i eat these yes as you can see they are sealed and safe for these times that is the coveted cup and you so rightly deserve it you are the history master and i am very proud of you thank you uh ryan all thank you also for participating uh thank you for watching puppet history we'll see you next week here comes

Channel: Watcher

Views: 1,565,243

Rating: 4.9798188 out of 5

Keywords: puppet history, puppet history songs, musical history, musical, shane madej, ryan bergara, ryan bergara and shane madej, shane madej and ryan bergara, watcher, ruining history, ruining history buzzfeed, history, mount vesuvius, mount vesuvius eruption, pompeii, destruction of pompeii, destruction of pompeii ad 79, pompeii city italy, history of italy, history of pompeii, trivia, quiz, game show, animated history, animation, educational, matt real, puppets, puppet show, funny

Id: Kn9tr1nhU7E

Length: 29min 57sec (1797 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 21 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Can’t believe Ryan said he thinks bears are scarier than volcanoes smdh

[u/BossDulciJo]

Somehow watching this while literally awaiting evacuation orders as a raging wild fire gets closer and closer actually helped calm me down.

[u/[deleted]]

Did the professor always have hands!!

Also here’s one of my favorite things about Pompeii if you want a harrowing perspective on the chaos and destruction. Keep in mind these people believed they were being divinely punished.

[u/SerPorken]

The songs at the end are SO GOOD damn!