The Worst Punishments in Human History - Good Enough Reaction

hey everybody future Chris here before we get into this video today just want to give you a heads up this one is not for the faint heart so if you get queasy easily or get horrified easily by some pretty dark stuff having now done the reaction to this video and and I'm getting ready to edit and get it uploaded just fair warning this one's rough welcome back everyone to another reaction video we're going to take a look at a channel I have never looked at before it's called good enough and they only have seven videos on their Channel but he's got over 600,000 subscribers and every one of these seven videos has millions of views so uh some of you may be familiar with it it just showed up in my recommendeds in the last couple of days so we're going to take a look at their video called the worst punishments in human history I'll put a link in the description so that you can go and see the original content plus see the other videos on that channel if you like what you see I want to give a shout out and a thank you to Brandon Christian uh in North Carolina Brandon and I are going to get to meet here in a couple of weeks we're going to Italy together he's on our tour so thank you Brandon for your continued support as an executive producer level Patron uh and of course uh I am excited to share this journey of being in Italy for me anyway the first time uh with you so let's go ahead and dive into this video let's start with the bad and slowly work our way towards the stuff of nightmares number 10 the rat dungeon if you were alive in London England wait time out this is the least bad of these is something called a rat dungeon all right I'm intrigued during the medieval period you would have definitely heard about the rat dungeon since this punishment struck paralyzing fear into the hearts of even the most hardened criminals this was a cell I'm going to try not to pause too much here but uh that's the point of a lot of these punishments it's it's less about the actual pain and suffering inflicted on the person and much more about what it communicates to other potential Breakers of that Law whatever it might be uh in a day before everybody can read and write in a day before television and mass media how do you get the word out to people so that they have a proper level of fear of crossing the line well you do things like this you do things like drawing and quartering so that people are like well you know I can handle dying I can't handle going through that and that's the point that was located at the bottom of the London Tower where prisoners were Shackled and chained in complete darkness but here's the thing the dungeon was connected to the nearby River and just below the river's waterline so that when the water levels Rose all the rats that lived along the riverbed would be pushed out of the their shelters and forced to swim Downstream this would of course lead the hungry and angry rats towards the entrance of the dungeon where they would then come face to face with the prisoner but to The Unlucky prisoner he never actually saw anything and all he would hear were the soft scurries of the rat's feet entering the dungeon and in a matter of minutes these soft noises were in the hundreds and all around him these angry and aggressive rats would then begin to take small bites from The Prisoner who had had no way of defending himself now he might be able to shake the rats off for a few hours but eventually The Prisoner would pass out from Pure exhaustion exhaustion pain uh shock you're probably not being fed well down there so uh you're not going to have the energy what a nightmare and while he slept the rats would continue to take bites from his flesh eventually when he would wake up he would discover hundreds of bites throughout his entire body but it didn't stop there the prisoner was left here for days or weeks on end depending on his crime but towards the end of the medieval period this form of punishment just got more and more deranged eventually becoming a form of execution where prisoners would just be thrown in the dungeon and forgotten about number nine so what I'm going to plan to do with these is I've got kind of my own list of some punishments I I think have been pretty horrifying throughout history so we're going to go through his 10 and talk a little bit about them uh give some context and things like that and then anything that is in that's not in his 10 that I had on my own list I'll share at the end nine the rack this was yet another punishment that took place in the London Tower the rack was a torture device that was used in many places throughout history this form of I was just going to say he he says it was another one that took place in the tower and it's the Tower of London that's what it's called Uh it was once the tallest building in London it's kind of overshadowed by pretty much everything now when you go there it's really close to one of the financial districts uh there in the city of London uh so it's actually also really close to White Chapel where the Jack the Ripper murders took place um so it's kind of overshadowed by all those buildings that are nearby but it was it once dominated the skyline of London uh but yeah it absolutely happened other places too a punishment was originally designed for getting a confession usually from criminals slaves or prisoners of war the device looked like a large ladder but instead of secure steps they would let's let's clarify from criminals or those accused of crimes I can think uh perfect example of this uh is an asku so an asku is um this is toward the end of Henry VII's Reign She's accused of being a heretic uh Henry VII even though he broke away from the uh from the the pope he didn't consider himself to have broken away from the Catholic church he just wanted to be the head of the Catholic church in England he still considered himself a good Catholic so we do ourselves a disservice when we think of Henry vi8 as being Protestant he wasn't at all he just didn't want to be under the influence of the Pope for purely personal and political reasons um so in ASU W would have been a Protestant heretic uh who was put on the rack and she was racked so badly that she couldn't even walk after this happened and uh she was eventually burned at the stake um like was the case with Heretics at that time um and it kind of went back and forth depending on who was the the Monarch you know when Henry VII's son Edward the 6 was King then it was Catholics that were suffering that um but uh yeah so the rack you could be a criminal but in many cases it was just somebody that the state considered to be a criminal not necessarily that you had done any real crimes actually rotate like a rolling pin you see when a prisoner was placed on the rack he would have his feet and wrists tied to a ratchet pulley system where two legal officials would slowly tighten the ropes and locking them in place placing an increasing amount of strain on the prisoner's shoulders hips knees and elbows with every single turn this was all done to get information but of of course A lot of the times the truth was not accepted as reality and the Prisoner would then begin to say whatever he believed the officials wanted to hear sometimes it would work and the prisoners would be let go while other times they would be tortured even more for lying when the whole ordeal was over prisoners were usually released with dislocated joints but often times they were left completely paralyzed that was the case in England in 1447 when a 25-year-old girl named oh there he's going to talk about it and ask you I don't think it's 1447 though 1547 let me take a look yeah an ascu was executed in 1546 Henry VII died in 1547 so we're about 100 years off on this one uh and she very famously According to some accounts was they hastened her death by putting a bag of gunpowder around her neck uh so that when the Flames hit it it would explode and kill her so she didn't die by the Flames named and ask you would be tortured on the rack for hours and hours on end and left completely paralyzed after all her joints were dislocated she was then carried on a chair and burned alive at the stake all this because she read and memorized scriptures from the Bible which she preached in private to a small group of women which were the exact women she refused to name and expose during her torture there you go you see during this time period if you followed any religion other than the Catholic Church you better not say a word to any anybody including your own husband yeah so um Steven Gardner is a bishop at this time and he's the one who's kind of leading all of this uh taking charge of the uh the persecution of Protestants and uh yeah there were a lot of things for which you could con you could be considered a heretic translating the Bible uh out of Latin and into your native tongue uh could sometimes be considered heresy uh preaching that communion was just symbolism and not the physical body and blood of Jesus could be a crime that you could be punished with death for a lot of other things as well and an ask you was guilty of those things which was the person that turned her in number eight ke hauling this brutal punishment was carried out at Sea on Sailors who would steal or be violent towards others and would usually result in Death kill hauling would start with a sailor having his arms tied with the Rope then looped around the entire circumference of the ship before being tied off to his feet the Sailor would then be thrown overboard while the group of men on board pulled on the Rope to slowly drag him around the outside of the ship including over the Keel which is how this punishment gets its name but a lot of the times the Sailor wouldn't even have to worry about it since they were dead before they ever reached it kind of just depends on how hard the guys on the Rope feel like working that day not only would the sailors be drowning and getting their backs and necks broken on the Keel they were also getting sliced apart like a cheese grater by all the sharp Barnacles on the outside of the ship but if by some miracle a sailor actually happens to make it all the way around the Ship Without Dying one of three things will happen one he would be sent for round two and for sure be dead by then two be freed and allowed back on the ship where he would then slowly die to infections or three live the rest of his life single and being made fun of since he was now fully covered in scars from head to toe number seven by elephants now we are getting to the part of the list where living is no longer an option this form of punishment has been used by many countries throughout history but was most recently used by India in the 19th century which is really not that long ago if you really think about it like no but I mean so many of the forms of punishment that were common uh aren't that long ago uh the last guillotin execution happened the year I was born in France uh we were still using firing squads and hangings in the 20th century your great grandma could have witnessed one of these what type of crimes would you have to commit to be crushed by an elephant you might ask well apparently if you failed to pay your taxes that was good enough and of course stealing or being an enemy soldier was also a great way to become a tortilla but the most disturbing piece in history was when the fourth m go emperor of India ordered an enormous amount of criminals to be crushed to death in a single day simply because he was bored and needed some entertainment the guy who forgot to pay his taxes crushed the man who stole an apple from the local market crushed the Little Orphan who jaywalked across the street crushed the man who murdered his neighbor and added his remains to a large pot of tomato soup then fed that soup to his family and watched them eat it from the Shadows with a creepy smirk on his face that's reminding me a little bit of the Scott tenman episode of South AR where he makes Scott's parents into Chile and feeds it to him he's H he's all right apparently he makes a damn good soup there are a few ways that this public there's definitely some major uh salmonella Vibes going on with this one you got to feel good if you are samonella Academy because he has spawned this entire genre of history videos using his kind of simplistic animation style uh this one I feel like gets closer to the spirit of his videos than most of the ones we've seen execution goes down but one thing always stays the same there's always a guy on top of the elephant controlling at every move and this was very intentional as this was meant to Showcase just how amazing the ruling class were I mean look at them they can control an elephant now be impressed the first method of execution was the one that you better pray for if this was going to be your fate here the criminals would have their arms tied behind their back and their heads placed on a pedestal where it was then crushed like a grape by the elephant's foot now the second method is much more cruel the criminal would be placed flat on the floor with their arms tied behind their backs then the elephants would be guided to walk over the person's body and hopefully the criminal would die on the first go but sometimes they just end up crushing a leg or an arm so the elephant then has to make a U-turn and try again and again and again the final and worst way is when a highly trained elephant was guided to slowly crush the person limb by limb they would first crush the arms then the legs and then poke holes in them with a Tusk until eventually dealing the final Blow To The Head or torso this is the more theatrical route that rulers like the fourth Mogul love to take and made for a truly traumatizing experience for everyone except for here's the deal for the fourth Mogul he loved it here's the deal we are horrified by this and we're thinking who would be entertained by this kind of thing look at the stuff we watch on TV look at the movies that we make the TV shows and the amount of Gore that is in those it's all simulated it's all fake but we're entertained by it the same way people would have been entertained by seeing the real thing which was the closest they could get to that kind of stuff so before we go judging these people let's take a a little bit of an introspective look at what we consider to be entertainment today so thinking of the the crushed to death thing makes me think of a story from American history early American history uh during the Salem Witch Trials which I think most people understand by now that witches or accused witches during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 weren't burned at the stake they were hanged uh there was one exception to the hangings as far as the deaths from the Salem witch trial it was a guy named Giles Corey whose wife Martha actually was one of the people hanged as a witch uh he he had actually originally testified against his own wife I'm wondering if it was just a way that he thought he could get out from being married to her but then he was accused himself and uh there were a lot of quirks to the law about how these things worked and Giles Cory UND stood that he was a wealthy guy had a lot of land a lot of property and he wanted to be able to pass that on to their children but he knew that if he was found guilty that his property would be taken and would not pass to his children even in the event of his death and so he refused to enter a plea under the law at the time you couldn't be put on trial until you plad guilty or not guilty and so by refusing to plead he couldn't be tried and so the way that they would make you plead is they would do this pressing uh they would lay you naked on your back on the ground uh and then they would place a board or a door on top of you and then slowly start adding rocks to this door that would slowly press on you until you couldn't take it anymore and then you would offer a plea well Jes Corey refused to do that and by the accounts I've read it's anywhere from 2 to three days that he's being pressed in his last words were more weight more weight until he was finally killed uh and it worked he was never found guilty because he was never put on trial so even though he died he was not guilty of the crime uh and his wife was hanged a few days later and the property did get passed on to their kids number six imp pelman probably one of the grossest and most cruel forms of punishment on the list this has been used by a few countries throughout history but was most recently used in in Egypt in the 17th century usually against criminals that were Highway robbers grave thieves or anyone who would try and start a rebellion a lot of grave thieves in Egypt throughout history so wow this punishment was start by having a criminal lay flat on their stomachs with their arms tied behind their back they would then be sliced open with a razor to increase the size of their back door and as soon as that incision was made the cut would be lathered with paste to instantly stop the blood they would then thrust in a long wooden steak that was the width of a man's arm which was sharply tapered on one end they then begin to hit the wooden steak with the Mallet pushing it further and further in and of course the steak was greased up beforehand to make this process a lot smoother and once the steak has popped out of the criminal's shoulder head or mouth they were pretty much long gone he is then planted next to a busy road like a Halloween decoration to remind everyone that this is what happens when you break the law and this is what I said at the beginning all of these punishments are about the message that they send to other potential violators of whatever law or ordinance or uh just following the wrong person that that person was guilty of this is about what it communicates to the to the populace they will be left there for the entire day and remove the following morning before the body begins to stink but wait there's another version of this as well you see on on some occasions the criminals would only be impelled just deep enough to keep them in place but not too deep that it would cause immediate death they would do this by having Stakes that had a seated position on them to prevent the person from sliding down any further they would then be placed on a busy road where they would suffer for hours and hours pleading to people walking by for help until eventually succumbing to their wounds this might be one of the first times that this is ever happened but I actually am finding myself regretting doing a reaction to this video not that he hasn't done a fantastic job in telling the story it's just the content itself it's the it's the subject matter that just horrifies me that we as human beings are that creative in coming up with these horrible ways to execute each other to punish each other to torture each other and I understand like none of these are things that like surprise me given you know what I know about history and I know many of you as well but it's just being reminded of him and the fantastic job that he is doing of animating this stuff in such a way that leaves little to the imagination number five poena koule poena koule is Latin for penalty of the sack and that's exactly what it was just a lot more terrifying and cruel this was an exclusive punishment for anyone that would murder their own family members this was first seen in the 2 Century in Rome but would later be used by the Germans in the 18th century this all begins with a convicted murderer being placed inside a thick leather bag but just to make sure the man isn't lonely they would then add a dog a rooster a Viper and a monkey I don't know what these animals did to deserve this but hey at least the evil family murderer doesn't die alone once all the animals are added inside the bag it is then sewn shut creating an almost airtight seal now you would think this would be horrible enough but no this is just the beginning because as soon as the bag is sewn shut it is then tossed into the ocean but don't worry later on these murderers would be given the option to either be placed inside the leather bag or be sent to perform at the Coliseum where they can perform the act of being mauled to death in front of all of their loved ones and peers you know at least they had the option number four rats I don't even know where go with that but okay let's continue this is one of the most sick punishments in all of human history and it involves the use of rats I will cover two of them here as they are very similar the first use of this form of punishment dates back to 1568 during the 80 years war again this is not that long ago that we're doing some of this stuff a Dutch leader named dric sooi would often use this method of punishment which involved placing a rat inside of a clay bowl that then placing it topside down on a prisoner's stomach chest face or groin then the back of the bull would be heated with either a torch or some coals causing the rat to go into a full-on panic trying to escape from the Heat and its only way out is to burrow into the human once inside it would continue to chew and tear apart whatever was in its way desperately searching for a way out eventually the rat finds its way out of the Maze and survives the same could not be said for the prisoner but the second method was much much worse and was highly secretive since it was used under the guidance of the dictator austo Pinos where he held power from 1976 jeez this is this is my lifetime through 1983 they called it the rectoscope and I'm sure you have already figured out where this is going yes it's exactly what you think they would place a tube on a prisoner's back door then insert a rat inside of the tube the rat would then begin to burrow its way in these people were so sick that they actually expected the prisoners to answer questions while this was going on eventually the rat would find its way in and begin to move forward to find its way out nobody really knows how many people died from this punishment but we do know that a ton of people went missing when this dictator was in charge number three humanity is sick we are sick sick sick sick I'm the the worst part is I've got my own list and I've got at least four things that haven't even shown up on this one yet three giting the last known use was in the early 1900s in Afghanistan this all came to light in 1921 when the National Geographics published this image in their magazine this was also used in the United States from time to time during the 17th and 18th century one notable example was in Boston Massachusetts where a few Pirates were hung at the Boston Harbor which served as a warning to any Sailors that were approaching Boston the jiting I've usually heard it pronounced jiting but um this was absolutely all about the message it sent because you were dis you were on display for people it's the same thing with putting heads on the Tower of London uh back in medieval times it was it was a very clear message sent to people now let's talk about England since they love this one little minor qu I have he keeps showing the British flag uh or the flag of the United Kingdom um and saying England if we're just going to say England just show the English flag which would just be a white flag with the uh the St George's cross in the middle the Red Cross there um especially when he's talking about earlier times when he's talking about like the 1500s form of punishment so much in England this was used on traitors murderers Pirates and thieves but after the year 1752 the murder Act was passed which required that all convicted murderers must be put to death by being publicly dissected or by giting of some sort and over 134 confirmed people met this fate the most common form of giting were actually cages and they looked like this it was an all steel cage that was shaped tightly to the form of a human body which was so tight that it would not allow the person inside to move they were then hung 30 ft or more off the floor usually on a public road or water hole to ensure that the most amount of people could witness this monstrosity but I can only assume this was more annoying than anything since every time you get thirsty and needed to fill up your container of water you would have to deal with the dying man begging you for a sip over here but the annoyance and torture of the public didn't stop there because after the criminals would die in the cages the body would be left inside to rot for years and years on end with the locals complaining that the smell of death was so pungent that they couldn't even sleep at night the and there are other forms of this as well uh different takes on these things uh example Robert ask who was one of the leaders of what was called The Pilgrimage of Grace during Henry VII's Reign uh it was tens of thousands of Catholics who were um in their minds peacefully protesting uh the fact that Henry VII was suppressing the monasteries he was dissolving the monasteries he was ending feast days and things like that old things that the Catholic church had done and um so he was hanged in Chains off the side of um I guess it was probably was it York Castle uh would have been at the time um York Castle now it's Clifford tow all that's left of it there's even been reports that some human remains stayed inside of these cages for over 20 years before a government official would finally remember to clean it out number two scaff ISM this was a form of punishment that was used by the ancient Persian Empire on anyone that would be convicted of murder first the criminal would be placed inside of a boat on their backs and tied down the boat had four holes cut out so that the person's arms and legs would be outside of the boat and in the water they were then force-fed large quantities of honey and milk until their stomachs were visibly full they would then proceed to lather their entire body with the milk and honey as well after all these steps were completed he was then pushed out to the middle of the lake where he was completely completely exposed to the heat of the Sun but the sun would soon become the least of his worries you see the reason they fed him milk and honey was not because it was a great last meal but because this combination causes a person to get extreme diarrhea which mixed with the sweet honey attracts rodents bugs wasps bees flies and whatever other animals live near the lake after being tormented by The Animals throughout the entire night you would think that the daytime maybe gets a little better no because as as soon as the sun rises the following day the person inside of the boat gets another gigantic meal of milk and honey and an additional lathering this would be done on a daily basis to prolong the punishment for as long as possible it was also well documented that the rodents would continuously attempt to burrow inside of the person through their back door they were probably trying to get a head start on their next meal a writer named John sonaris wrote in great detail about one of these incidents he would go on to say that it was one of the most horid and cruel forms of punishment since it was terribly long and seemed to have no end in sight he wrote about a man who survived for an entire 17 days before he finally died from his wounds apparently the Man spent his last few days with his entire face completely covered with wasp 17 days so we talk about capital punishment even today and the United States is one of the few kind of industrialized nations that still does capital punishment though it's on a a pretty limited basis bis considering how many people we have on death row in the various States um many states don't even do executions anymore some do a lot uh here in Ohio we we do executions but they don't happen very often um but uh we talk about it as a as a deterrent uh but then we also try to make it as Humane as one can uh a state sponsored execution um and there's still complaints about you know putting someone to death using uh the forms that we use that it's still cruel and unusual punishment which violates the Constitution but this right here is a deterrent I would feel like and I'm not justifying it by any means I would feel like this would cause a person to think long and hard before committing a murder uh you know a lot of times murders are motivated by what can be gained for the person they're trying to cover something up they're trying to achieve something they're trying to get someone out of the way so they can you know acquire wealth or status uh you have to weigh that when you're thinking about do I commit this murder and risk ending up like that versus just not having whatever it is that I'm hoping to accomplish by committing this murder not that murders are necessarily always done with a clear mind but you get my point and his flesh rotting away filled with swarms of parasites and worms all while being covered in his own filth number one the oet oet simply means to forget in French this was a punishment that was used in many places throughout history including in the London Tower which had a small and confined room called little ease Not only was this room pitch black it was also so small that prisoners can not sit stand or lay down while inside it and they would be left in this uncomfortable position for days on end one of the most famous ubets is not the one in the London Tower but in the neighboring District of Warwick inside of Warwick Castle here deep underground in the Castle's dungeons is a very small and narrow cell completely made of stone which has a metal door to close it shut prisoners were tossed inside of the cell and forgotten about as the name implies The Prisoner would just have to sit there and wait for their inevitable death which usually came in a few days from dehydration or starvation now of course this listen I don't want to quibble about levels of horrifying I feel like this is not number one compared to the other things that he's listed just being thrown in there and forgotten about seems a whole lot better than some of the other options like being impaled uh being gibbeted the previous one being out in the boat and smeared with milk and honey would be the best case scenario because in reality most of the time there would already be a rotting corpse inside of the cell to keep the new prisoner company the the previous occupier of the cell would serve as a daily reminder of his upcoming fate but that's not the only companions that he will have since the underground dungeons are completely infested with rats that have developed a taste for human flesh but wait there's more these uats existed in many of the castles throughout Europe and in recent times they have actually discovered these dungeons with dozens if not hundreds of human remains inside of it as proof that they were hardly ever cleaned like in leap castle of Ireland where in 19 00 during the Castle's renovation a worker found a small opening behind a wall inside of the chapel this hole had an 8ft drop that led to a large oblet and what the worker found inside shocked him since it was filled with so many skeletons that they needed multiple cart loads to clear it all out but just when you think the section is over it just keeps on giving you see there's been many stories of men who have been placed inside one of these Dungeons and kept alive for years and years on end surviving of crumbs of food and minimal amounts of water prolonging their inevitable demise for as long as humanly possible these cells were sometimes even placed on ground level so they can hear the voices and laughter of the people outside this reminds me too of uh situations where people have been walled into a room and then they would put food in there and sometimes they would live for years an experience that they will never get again in this lifetime okay wow um deep breath kind of I I almost feel like I don't even want to share the ones I would add to the list because it's been enough already uh but just a few more that I want to share uh with you from my own list okay so a couple for me uh Death By A Thousand Cuts is one that was used in the 20th century I think China use this one a lot you would be attached to a a post and they would just start slicing uh exposing your skin and uh just horrible stuff I'm not going to go into too much detail on any of these if you are the kind of person who wants to know more look it up uh being flayed alive this is known to have happened to some of the uh Disciples of Jesus in the Years uh following uh the events of the Bible um in fact you have Judas who took his own life and then maias who takes his place and out of those 12 then 11 of the 12 are executed in some way some of them pretty horrifying um I think it's Bartholomew may have been one of the ones who was flayed alive um sa in half this is where a lot of times they would hang you upside down and then use a saw to literally just cut you in half from between your legs up to your head uh and again I think at least one of the Disciples of Jesus was um at least the stories go that that's what happened to him this is supposedly what happened to the prophet Isaiah uh during his later years of life um and a lot of others through the years have had this happen crucifixion uh crucifixion is one I think most people are at least nominally familiar with uh and it was used it was kind of the Roman version of hanging drawing and quartering which was used uh extensively uh by the English uh it was a punishment for crimes against the state uh and you were put on display for people and crucifixion would sometimes cause uh death over the span of several days and if they wanted to hasten your death they would break your legs because the the reason crucifixion kills someone is not only exposure to the elements and things like that but also because uh in order to breathe in the position that you're in you actually have to push yourself up you could breathe in but you had a hard time breathing back out because of the the pressure that's put on your diaphragm and on your body and so you would push up on those nails through your feet in order to be able to breathe out and so they would break your legs so you could no longer do that and then you would basically suffocate uh to death uh so uh the reason we have the word excruciating uh to describe horrible pain in the English language comes from the word for crucifixion because it was considered such a horrible way to die so okay uh let's all take a deep breath and go watch uh like a a a nice warm fuzzy film or something to get that out of our system a little bit uh and I hate to even do this at the end of such a video but I want to thank Joseph finina Raphael Villa Riel uh thank you both so much for your support on patreon I really appreciate it we're going to do something really light-hearted tomorrow after that I promise thanks for watching we'll see you again soon

Channel: Vlogging Through History

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Id: QghQ0dojKHE

Length: 37min 12sec (2232 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 11 2024