(calm music) - [Narrator] Everyone's
studied history at school, but did anyone else feel like
they were always learning the same old stuff? There's plenty of interesting things the history books left out, like what happened to the
bodies after big wars, why queen Elizabeth really
wore all that clown makeup, or some of the truly bizarre ways people tried to cure the plague. Have I piqued your interest? Then buckle up for this historical edition of the Ultimate Fact Show? (upbeat music) What was the Great Stink of 1858? In the summer of 1858,
an unbearable stench, later known as the Great Stink, brought the city of London to its knees. As people locked themselves indoors, they demanded that the government, which was barely functioning, tackled this increasingly smelly problem. But where was this horrendous
stench coming from? For centuries, England's most
famous river, the Thames, had been a dumping ground for all of London's various wastes: human, animal, and industrial. The problem, of course, is
that as London gradually grew from a tiny Roman fort into
a large metropolitan city, the amount of waste it produced also grew. People first speculated
that using the Thames as one big rubbish bin probably
wasn't such a good idea way back in the 1600s but they had no idea how to
fix the emerging problem, so business continued as usual, until the turn of the 19th century when the Great Stink could
no longer be ignored. The summer of 1858 was
a particularly hot one and the streets were now
failed with the wafts of centuries-old sewage that was cooking in the scorching sun. There were accounts of
people being struck down in the street by the sheer stench or by a plethora of alleged fatal diseases springing from the Thames. Members of parliament similarly suffered because their buildings
overlooked the river itself. The first course of action
was to douse the curtains in a mixture of chloride and lime. When that didn't eliminate the smell, they considered relocating from the Westminster area altogether, despite having only recently had their buildings constructed there. Eventually, English chemist
and physicist Michael Faraday penned a letter to the
Times newspaper titled "Observations on the Filth of the Thames" that pressured the government
into taking proper action. Faraday claimed that he'd
tossed pieces of paper into the river, which
immediately disappeared, proving that the whole river
was an opaque, brown fluid. In a record breaking 18 days, a bill was created, passed, and signed that would refurbish the
entirety of the river Thames by implementing a new sewage system and constructing
embankments along its sides. Finally, the people of
London could breathe a huge sigh of relief. Thank God for Michael Faraday. All right, I'm gonna need you guys to stop pinching your nose for a second and put those fingers
to good use elsewhere by heading on over to those
Like and Subscribe buttons. That way you can find
out more about the weird and wonderful things they
never taught you in school, plus a bunch more amazing content. Now, let's travel back in time again. (image whooshing) Why do babies in medieval
art look like ugly old men? You may have laughed at
the flat-faced horror that is cats in medieval art, but please allow me to raise you something even more
heinous: medieval babies. These so-called infants look
more like dwarfish old men whose sole purpose in life is
to tend to their allotments and polish their golf clubs. Were medieval artists just
really bad at drawing, or is there something deeper going on? You'll be surprised to learn
that these scary man babies were actually intentional. In fact, these depictions
can be interpreted as a way of distinguishing
between the medieval era, which began in the fifth century, and the Renaissance era,
which came afterwards, likely around the 14th century. In each of these eras, children were thought of in a
fundamentally different light, which in turn affected the
way they were portrayed in art and pop culture. You see, most of these medieval babies were actually depictions of Jesus that had been commissioned by churches, and medieval concepts of
Jesus were heavily influenced by the idea of the homunculus,
literally meaning little man, which imagined that Jesus was perfectly formed and unchanged. And so, this homuncular half-adult, half-child version of
Jesus became a standard for painting all children. What's more, artists of the medieval era were less interested in
realism or idealized forms than Renaissance artists were. But when non-religious art flourished, people were able to afford
paintings of their own babies. Unsurprisingly, they wanted their babies to look more like innocent cherubs than disgruntled pensioners. At the same time, children
were increasingly thought of as fundamentally innocent
and born without sin, and so, artistic depictions
of infants changed for the better from faces
only a mother could love to the little
butter-wouldn't-melt dough balls we know today. (image whooshing) How a 19th century
disease created vampires. Nowadays, vampires can be
found all over pop culture. Whether they're shacked up
in coffins in Transylvania or sparkling in the sunlight
like glorified pretty boys, it's hard to imagine life
without these fanged freaks. Most modern vampires can be
traced back to the publication of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" in 1897. But the origins of the vampire
as a concept run much deeper, and it's all thanks to a disease that ravaged North America and Europe. In the 18th and most
of the 19th centuries, a tuberculosis epidemic
gripped New England, ultimately wiping out 2% of the population and making it one of
the deadliest outbreaks in human history. At the time, there was no
vaccines or antibiotics to treat this highly
infectious bacterial disease. The only cure was to send
a patient to a sanatorium, which few could afford. Understandably, people were
terrified of the disease, but not quite as terrified as they were of tuberculosis patients. One 18th century doctor wrote, "The emaciated figure
strikes one with terror, "the forehead covered with drops of sweat, "the cheeks a livid crimson, "the eyes sunk, the breath
offensive, quick, and laborous." Victims also suffered
fatigue, appetite loss, and weight loss, as if something were sucking
the life out of them. Tuberculosis even became
known as the white plague because patients would
grow increasingly pale. So it's easy to see how such symptoms would eventually become characteristics of modern-day vampires. What's more, tuberculosis
was spread easily among family members, and it might take days for
the infected to show symptoms, sometimes even after the
original carrier had died. This led to blind panic that people were rising from their graves to suck the life out of
their surviving relatives. Desperate townspeople
responded by digging up graves and ritualistically mutilating their dead to stop them from bothering the living. Sometimes, the cadaver
would simply be exhumed, flipped over, and reburied. In more extreme cases, the
heart was removed and burned while the family members inhaled the smoke on the hope that it would prevent the further spread of the disease. Those New Englanders really
weren't taking any chances. Geez, sounds like a pretty
scary time to be alive. And we thought we had it bad in 2020. But here's a killer question for you, which historical period
would you most like to travel back to if you
had the chance and why? Let me know in the comments below. I'm genuinely curious. Now, let's get back to it. (image whooshing) Was Elizabeth I poisoned
by her own makeup? Queen Elizabeth I is as
famous for her clown makeup as she is for ordering the
execution of her own cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots. Her unusual cosmetic appearance
has been long represented in movies, but what's the story behind it? Back in 1562, when she was 29 years old, Elizabeth was struck down with what she thought was a violent fever. She was ordered to remain in
bed at Hampton Court Palace. But her worst fears soon came true. She had the dreaded smallpox. This deadly viral disease had no cure and was highly contagious. It began as an illness that led to a rash, which then developed in
small blisters, or pustules, that would split before
drying and forming scabs that left scars. In short, it wasn't very pleasant. At first, the queen refused to believe she had contracted the pox, but she quickly became so ill
that she could barely speak. And just seven days into her illness, it was almost certain that she'd die. After all, around 30%
of those with smallpox did not survive. But then, Elizabeth
miraculously recovered. As soon as she was fit enough
to rise from her sick bed, she set about restoring her former beauty. She may have escaped the illness, but she was left with a
permanent reminder of the disease in the form of terrible scarring from the skin lesions on her face. So she started covering her
pockmarks with a white makeup known as the Venetian ceruse, a mixture of vinegar and lead. Yes, lead. You see, women at the time
strived for a paler face because it symbolized youth and fertility. The problem is that ladies
usually left ceruse on their face for at least a week, which would inevitably
result in lead poisoning. At the same time, ingredients
in common facial cleansers included rosewater, honey,
eggshells, and mercury, another mixture with a potential to kill. The cherry on this deadly cake
was the bright red pigments Elizabeth used on her lips, which contained additional heavy metals, as well as eyeliner using black coal and special dilating
eyedrops known as belladonna. As she aged, Elizabeth
applied more and more layers of makeup to her face to keep
her youth from slipping away, right up until her death
on March 24th, 1603. While the exact cause of
Elizabeth's death is unknown, some suggested blood poisoning,
pneumonia, or cancer, she was said to be suffering
from fatigue, memory loss, and digestive problems, as
well as significant hair loss. Can you guess what all
these are symptoms of? Yep, lead poisoning. Talk about a killer face. (image whooshing) Who was Typhoid Mary, the
original super-spreader? Before the likes of COVID-19
and the Spanish flu, there was the twisty tale of Typhoid Mary. In 1869, Mary Mallon was born in Cookstown in County Tyrone, Ireland. She left Ireland behind as a teenager, and by the 1900s she was working as a cook in rich households in New York. She enjoyed her position
managing the kitchen staff in the houses of wealthy
families in Manhattan, and her signature dish
was peach ice cream. But things weren't so peachy. Between 1900 and 1907, Mary cooked in the
homes of seven families. In every single one,
people fell sick or died, yet each time Mary had escaped undetected to take up new work elsewhere. Was she some secret ax murderer
or poison-loving psychopath? Not quite. You see, Mary was an asymptomatic
carrier of typhoid fever, a fatal bacterial infection. She just didn't know it yet. When a researcher called George Soper, who'd been hired by the
family of one of the victims, identified Mary as a typhoid
carrier, he tracked her down. Instead of holding her hands up, Mary chased Soper out of her
kitchen with a carving fork, refusing to believe his claims. But the New York
authorities were desperate to halt her trail of death, so in 1907 they exiled her
to the isolation facility on North Brother Island on
the river outside New York. It seems pretty brutal, but before the invention of antibiotics, this was the safest way to
contain contagious diseases. And so, Mary Mallon was held
in solitary confinement, but she had not given up. She planned legal action,
garnered a newspaper campaign, and was eventually granted freedom if she promised to never
work as a cook again. At first, she worked as a laundry maid, but it wasn't long until
she returns to cooking under a string of aliases. At one point, she even took a job in the kitchens of a hospital. It's impossible to tell how many deaths Typhoid Mary was
responsible for in the end, but some accounts suggest
there might be as many as 50. When authorities managed to
track her down again in 1915, she was sent straight back to isolation where she lived in
confinement for 23 years until her death in 1938. The real sting in this tale
is that the typhoid bacterium can live in cold food, but
is destroyed by cooking. So, if Typhoid Mary's signature dish had not been peach ice cream, she may not have become one of history's most notorious super-spreaders. (image whooshing) Did people in medieval
times really not bathe? When you imagine a medieval person, you probably picture a stinky
peasant in grubby clothing. In fact, the popular opinion seems to be that no one of this era ever bathed, but is that really true? It seems that most medieval
people were actually very aware of basic personal hygiene. Health manuals from the Middle Ages stated that washing hands and
cleaning the entire body was essential for removing dirt and grime. Kings and noblemen could
afford the luxury of bathing in a private wooden tub that would be filled
by servants using jugs, and would often entertain
guests in the same way. Meanwhile, some wealthy monasteries
could also pipe in water and take baths. The monks of Westminster
Abbey were even required to take four baths a year
at Christmas, Easter, the end of June, and the end of September, although whether these rules
were followed is hard to know. For most people though, public bathhouses, which were popular throughout
Europe, were the only option. Even the smallest of towns
could have a bathhouse connected to the local bakery because they could make use of the heat coming from the ovens. By the 15th century,
feasting in town bathhouses had become as popular as
going out to a restaurant was some four centuries later. Just imagine tucking into dinner with a bath full of naked strangers. Although public bathhouses
were widely popular, they gradually fell out of flavor because of their potential to encourage elicit, ahem, relations. By the 16th century, bathhouses
were in rapid decline as people also started to avoid
them over fears of diseases, like the Black Death and syphilis. So medieval people may not
have been hygiene experts, but they certainly knew a thing
or two about taking baths. (image whooshing) Why did women faint so
much in the 19th century? If 19th century literature
is to be believed, most women had trouble
staying on their feet throughout the Victorian period. Instead, they spent most of their time inexplicably fainting at
even the slightest emotional or physical shock. There are actually a couple
of theories as to why this so-called swooning was so common. Firstly, women wore corsets
known as tight-lacers from a young age to accentuate the natural curves of the body. The problem was that
these were held together by a system of extreme
lacing that wreaked havoc on their bodies. Ribs were displaced, lungs were squashed, and other organs were compressed
or rearranged in a way that made it hard to
pump blood, digest food, or even breathe. And if it wasn't their torturous corsets that caused them to
faint into their couches, it was the ludicrous layers of clothing. Even in the summer months, a
lady wore a corset, underwear, a bustle pad, a full skirt, petticoats lined with
steel hoops, and a bonnet. As a result, many women overheated, while some simply fainted under the sheer weight of the garments. Another more sinister
explanation for all the swooning is chronic poisoning. Arsenic was used in pretty much everything in the Victorian period, even though they knew it was dangerous. About 80% of all wallpaper
contained the stuff, while it also appeared
in fabrics, confections, pigments, paints, and more. What's more, other toxic substances, like mercury and lead, were
commonly found in makeup. Given that basically everything
women came in contact with gave off toxic fumes, it's
no wonder they exhibited the effects of poisoning by fainting. However, some have
pointed out that swooning was often feigned by a woman because it became
associated with femininity and made a women seem
delicate to potential suitors. But there was perhaps
an even racier reason why a woman might faint on purpose: the so-called fainting room. This was a room where
a woman would be sent to a fainting spell or
other forms of hysteria, and it came with a particular perk. Besides being able to relax in peace, women were also treated by
a vigorous pelvic massage from a doctor or even their own husbands. Scandalous. (image whooshing) People tried to cure the Black Death by rubbing chicken butts on their wounds. Between 1328 and 1351, the Black Death is
thought to have wiped out one third of Europe's population. Victims of the plague would
usually die within a few days, but not before the illness'
multitude of nasty symptoms, including fever, severe vomiting,
bleeding from the lungs, gruesome boils all over the body, made those final days hell on earth. The disease was so terrifying and fatal that people were unsurprisingly
desperate to find a cure. Although doctors were
simply unable to prevent or successfully cure the
plague during this outbreak, they did come up with
some pretty wacky ideas that many were willing to try. One of the most bizarre
was the Vicary Method, named after English doctor
Thomas Vicary, its inventor. To try it out, you'd have
to get a hold of a live hen, shave its butt, and then strap it to
your swollen lymph nodes. When the chicken inevitably got sick and was therefore drawing
the illness from the person, it would be washed and reattached until only the chicken
or the victim survived. Surprisingly, the Vicary Method
was one of the most popular widespread cures for the plague, despite officially
curing absolutely no one. Another similar harebrained cure involved finding and killing a snake,
chopping it into pieces, and rubbing the various
parts over swollen buboes. This is because the snake
was synonymous with Satan throughout Europe, so people believed that evil
could be used to draw evil, that is the disease, from the body. Sounds like a load of hocus pocus to me. (image whooshing) What happened to all the bodies after big battles in history? Throughout history, humans
have buried their dead. But what happens when lives are lost at unprecedented rates on the battlefield? Well, it differs throughout history, so let's focus on the
practices of different groups from various significant periods. The ancient Greeks were known to collect and to bury their dead in keeping with their
religious customs of the time. Plus, they didn't wanna
risk annoying the gods. For the sake of practicality, mass graves or cenotaphs were
sometimes created near cities so that the fallen could be buried near the place they were born. The Spartans, on the other hand, buried their dead on the battlefield, alongside their weapons and armor and with a tombstone that read, "In war." This practice was actually
considered a special honor because those who died outside the battle were buried in unmarked graves. But by the Middle Ages,
all that had changed. Instead of respecting
and honoring the dead, there seemed to be a wanton disregard for what happened to a
soldier after he was slain. After battles, like the
Battle of Hastings in 1066, corpses were either left
dead on the fields to rot or were piled in mighty heaps, but not before they'd been
stripped of their valuables. Shortly afterwards, they were
promptly buried in mass graves or even sometimes mass cremated. And yet, medieval mass graves
are notoriously elusive and only a handful have been
examined by archeologists in Western Europe after
being discovered by chance. Moving swiftly on,
things looked even worse for those who died during
the Napoleonic Wars. During this period, the
looting of fallen soldiers, either by locals or
even their own comrades, was disturbingly common. There have even been
accounts of wounded soldiers miraculously surviving their injuries only to wake up stark
naked on the battlefield. Talk about waiting until the body is cold. If that wasn't bad enough, it seems that the bodies themselves were sometimes just as valuable. In fact, human scavengers
would scour the battlefields for the bodies of healthy young men and would rob them of their
teeth for use as dentures. This gruesome practice was so common during the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 that dentures were known as Waterloo Teeth for a decade after it ended. Some sources even suggest
that parts of soldiers, like a severed thumb, were sometimes taken from the battlefields as grim souvenirs, while another stomach-churning act saw the bones of the dead collected, ground up into fertilizer,
and then sold across Europe. Thankfully, these heinous
practices soon fell out of favor. During both World War I and World War II, individual units were
responsible for the disposal of their own dead, according to individual
rules about how things like mass graves should be constructed. There were even some units,
like the United States Quartermaster Graves Registration Service, that were tasked with finding and burying every slain soldier. Thanks to the GRS, many
fallen soldiers, civilians, and allies were buried
with care, attention, and respect they deserved, and had their locations passed on to the relevant authorities. (image whooshing) Did medieval people really
throw poop out the window? It seems like medieval
people have got a bad rep when it comes to all
things hygiene related. One of the grossest things
they're remembered for is chucking their own
excrement out of the window long before toilets existed. But it turns out this practice
wasn't nearly as common as history class would have you believe. First and foremost, medieval
people were well aware that human waste could spread disease. They just didn't know how yet. Plus, most buildings were one story, so throwing your own poop out the window would only mean you'd end up smelling it every time you wanted
to get some fresh air. In medieval London, people
were responsible for the upkeep and cleanliness of the street
outside their own house, and dumping waste, human
or just plain trash, was actually illegal in most
major cities in England. Anyone caught out could incur hefty fines, and if the perpetrator
could not be identified, then the whole street
would be charged instead. There's even one account of
a man being kicked to death by his neighbors for
chucking smoked fish skin onto the street. For all these reasons, people weren't carelessly
throwing poop buckets onto the street below. There were even such
things as street rakers whose job it was to survey the pavement and ensure that the streets
stayed relatively clean and free of waste. Just be glad that Saturday job
doesn't exist anymore, kids. So, where did medieval people poop? In most houses with no indoor
plumbing, a chamber pot, which would be dumped into a nearby river, was the most popular option. Meanwhile, larger, wealthier homes would have enclosed latrines, a type of rudimentary toilet, that led to a deep communal cesspit. Sounds like a real crappy time. Which of these historical
facts blew your mind the most? If you're not done
boosting your brains yet, why not check this video out? It's about the biggest lies you were told by the history books. Thanks for watching, guys. (upbeat music)
