William and Marry had a child named Anne. William was not married to Marry and so they were ostracized by their town. So they left their little Irish town and moved to South Carolina. Her mother died when she was 13 and Anne developed a temper. William tried to get Anne married. Anne didn’t listen and got married to a penniless sailor. Anne’s father disowned her and the couple set off to the Caribbean, a Pirate hot spot.

Anne’s husband, John Bonnie, hunted pirate all the time. This left Anne all alone on the shore. She soon came to enjoy the company of pirates. She grew bored of her husband and his absences. She soon met Captain Calico Jack, one of the dashing pirates of the era. Jack asked John to devoiced Anne. John refused and Anne left him anyways for Jack. Anne became a pirate.

After going to Cuba to give birth Jack’s child Anne and Jack stole a ship. Anne had to dress up at as a man as woman were seen as bad luck on a ship at sea. She also killed anyone who raised an objection. Soon another woman Mary Reed, joined the crew. Historians speculated the two were romantically involved.

In 1720 a pirate hunter cornered Calico Jack and the crew. They started to fight but most of the crew as black out drunk. So Anne and Mary fought with Jack. When Jack ordered the crew to surrender Marry and Anne refused to surrender.

Once caught both of the woman were found guilty. However there sentences where delayed due to both of the being pregnant. Mary died of fever in prison but Anne was released later. She gave birth to eight more childern before dying at the age of 80.

You know when you pull up someone’s Wikipedia article and there is an entire section just about their nose that this has to be good. Tycho Brahe born in Sweden in the 1500s but was the heir to several Danish families. Tycho was the last major astronomer to work without a telescope. At the time the heliocentric, the model where the sun is at the center of the solar system, and the Ptolemaic system, where the earth is the center of the solar system, were still being hotly debated. Well, this man, you see he decided that yes everything orbits the sun BUT the sun orbits earth. Kepler actually stole Tycho’s data and  later used it to make the three laws of planetary motion. Now that you know who this person is lets talk about all the weird things they did cause it’s weird.

In 1566, while at university, Tycho got in a sword fight. He lost his nose in this duel. This duel was over who was a better mathematician. So Tycho did the reasonable thing and glue a bronze nose to his face.

After publishing some work he received support from the crown. At one point the money the crown was spending on was 1% of the budget. Tycho used this to throw massive parties. He also got a pet elk. The elk died at one of the parties when it got drunk and fell down the stairs. Tycho also hired a dwarf named Jepp (that’s his actually name I kid you not) to be his Jester. Tycho thought that Jepp had psychic powers.

Tycho died in 1601. He died because he refused to get up to pee during a banquet as it would be a a breach of etiquette. This caused his bladder to rupture and he died eleven days later. Words cannot describe how funny I find the astronomer who had a drunk pet moose, a psychic dwarf named Jeff, and died because he was too polite to get up from the dinner table.

Normally I write about funny wacky things that happen in history but I thought today I want to write about one of my favorite stories and one of the first stories known to man, the Epic of Gilgamesh. It’s a tale about how one person can change us for the better, what we do when that person is gone, and coming to terms with the fact that one day, like all living things, we must die too, no matter how invincible we seem.

The story starts out with Gilgamesh, the king of Urk who is 2/3 god, and he is possibly the worst human to ever live. He fight people, he doesn’t care about his people, and he invokes a law that allows him, the king of Urk, to sleep with any lady on her wedding night, whether they want to or not. He is so bad that the gods come together and talk about what to do about him. They decide to make him an equal, Enkidu. Enkidu is part beast and wild. He lived with animals in the forest until he was spotted by trappers. The trappers went to the temple and the temple gave the a prostitute to give to Enkidu. After spending ten days with her he became more man like and was rejected by the animals in the forest. He lived a simple life with people until he heard about the horrible things Gilgamesh was doing. He decided to go to Urk and stop him. There him and Gilgamesh have an epic fight which leads to tie. They agree to be friends and Enkidu seems to keep Gilgamesh out of trouble and Gilgamesh stops hurting his own people and spending more time doing things with Enkidu.

Enkidu and Gilgamesh go on adventures together and this gets the attention of the goddess of love and war. She asks Gilgamesh to be her love and he tells her no, all the lovers she has had have wound up with nothing but misfortune. She returns to heaven in a rage and asks her father to unleash the bull of heaven on Urk. Her father agrees and they send the bull, that will cause nothing but trouble and 7 years of famine to Urk. Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the bull and the goddess comes down from heaven to yell at them. Enkidu throws part of the bull at her and she asks her father to punish them for kill the bull. Her father agrees and decides to kill Enkidu slowly. Enkidu wastes away on his bed with Gilgamesh by his side. Gilgamesh refuses to believe his friend is dead for days before realizing that he too is mortal and will one day die. Gilgamesh then desperately tries to seek out immortally going through many trials and traveling to the ends of the earth.

After a while he his told about a plant the will regenerate a person at the bottom of the ocean. Gilgamesh rushes to the plant and takes it. Planning it on sharing with the elders of Urk, a far cry from what he would’ve done with the plant in the beginning of the Epic. But wile he is bathing a snake steals and eats the plant. Once Gilgamesh realizes what has happened he is devastated. He returns home and begins to show an elderly man around Urk and while the Epic doesn’t say to the reader he seems more calm, at peace, and understands that one day he must die too.

In the 17th century England had a massive counter fit coin problem. The English mint used hand pressed coins that allowed people to “clip” off the edges of the coin to melt down and make more coins. In an attempt to combat the massive amount of counterfeit coins in 1662 England, they changed to horse powered machines. This made all the coins the same size and gave the coins ridged edges to prevent clipping. However, they never took the old coins out of circulation so even after the machine had been in use for 30 years only 1 in every 200 coins was made on the new machine. This was becoming a problem and in 1697 it was declared high treason to counterfeit coins.

Enter William Chaloner. He was a counterfeit coin maker. He was sneaky and sly. He would hire people to do illegal things and then turn them in for money. Now Willian decided that he wanted to scam the Warden of the Royal Mint. Now comes our second player on the scene, Sir Isaac Newton, Warden of the Royal Mint. Yep, this dude tried to scam Sir Isaac Newton.

William Chaloner told Parliament that the Mint was the one that creating all the counterfeit currency and that he should have he job to improve the currency. He then gave some suggestions and Parliament ordered Newton to do as William said. Welp they didn’t work and now Newton, the most smartest man alive, was trained on William. Unfortunately Newton has been known to hold extreme grudges and all his time was dedicated to catching William in the act.

Newton found a witiness, John Peers, Newton bribed him and told him to rat on Chaloner. Chaloner found out and tuned Peers in for other crimes. Newton, Infuriated, bailed out Peers. Newton prepared a case and arrested Chaloner. Chaloner then bribed the witnesses for recant or go away. Chaloner then, on the stand accussed Newton of being corrupt and trying to silence Chaloner for what he told Parliament. This made Newton very mad as the Mint was investigated and a committee was founded to investigate the Mint. Nothing was found but Newton was still mad.

Chaloner then decided forge paper currency and lottery tickets. He then proceeded to buy the equipment off the person leading the anti corruption committee that was investigating the Mint. Chaloner was arrested. However, they couldn’t find the equipment which weakened the case against him the wasn’t under Newton jurisdiction. Newton then threw a fit, took people out a jail to testify against Chaloner, and built a case against Chaloner. Newton then prosecuted Chaloner and since counterfeit was treason Chaloner was executed. I don’t know what he expect, Sir Isaac Newton was the smartest man alive at the time.

Colombia is often I place that I personally forgot about the moment my world history class in highschool ended the South America unit. However Enchanto has put it back on my radar and I have been looking over the history of it and one person has caught my eye. Her name, Policarpa, the teenage spy.

Policarpa was neck deep in the revolution. Back in Spain Napoleon had dethroned the Spanish king and put his brother in charge. While the revolutionaries had been working long before the king was dethroned they started saying that they were keeping Colombia safe for when the king comes back. Enter Policarpa.

Policarpa was 13. She ran messages and passed information to rebel groups. She was so good at it she gained a reputation for it. After a few years the local police caught on and she had to skip town. She wound up working in a spy ring in a larger city where she fell in love. There she worked using her sowing skills to get jobs in royalist houses where she would steal documents and pass them along to the rebels.

This didn’t last forever. Policarpa’s boyfriend was caught and had documents incriminating her. She was arrested and for some reason the govern thought executing the a teenager and her boyfriend in a public square would make him more popular. Well obviously it didn’t.

3 years after her death there was a play preformed about her life. Right before the execution scene the crowd rioted attempting to save her and the play had to be cut short. Today Colombia’s woman’s day is on the day of her execution.

Mansa Musa was the richest dude to live. Technically he wasn’t a king but he also was. Mansa was the title for the king of Mali. You see Musa was the chief and most trusted advisor to the king, however the king had an obsession with finding out what was on the other side of the Atlantic ocean and took a trip to find out. He put Musa in charge and never came back.

Mansa Musa was insanely rich. He was very rich to start off with but then he used his smarts to redo the tax system in the Mali Empire and gain even more wealth. He was so wealthy that when he went on the Haji, a Muslim pilgrimage, he brought thousands of slaves and soldiers, each carrying golden rods and dressed in fine silks, his favorite wife brought 300 servants, and brought hundreds of camels each carrying around 300lbs of gold. Every Friday he built a new Mosque to worship.

It is said that his wife told him that he missed her nightly swim in the Niger river. Mansa Musa then BUILT A SWIMMING POOL IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SAHARA DESERT. She used it once.

Mansa Musa then went to Egypt. The Sultan of Egypt invited Mansa Musa to visit him. Mansa Musa then stayed for three months. He gave away SO MUCH GOLD. He spent so much gold that it upended the Economy and reduced the value of gold by about 25%. This is called hyperinflation, hyperinflation is one of the worst things you can do for an economy. Mansa Musa then tried to fix by borrow more gold which fixed it, until he got back home and repaid the debts, which added more gold to the economy and ruined the Egyptian economy, again.

Well, Egypt was connected to other countries and the crashing the Egyptian economy crashed the economy on Saudi Arabia and in Europe. So yeah, this dude was so rich and spent to so much money that the world had to take a second to process all of it.

Louis the XV of France had a large diamond necklace made for his mistress Madame Du Barry. This necklace cost around 15.1 million US dollars today and made from diamonds. Before the necklace could be complete he passed away. Louis’s grandson then banished Madame Du Barry from court. Suddenly there was no one to pay for this very expensive necklace and the jeweler, Boehomer, was starting to panic.

He went to the new king Louis XVI and asked him to buy the necklace. No one in the world could afford a necklace like this and besides, it would look great on Louis’s new wife, Marie Antoinette. Louis refused and when Boehomer tried to sell it to Marie she declined. Mare said the money could be used to better France rather than buy necklaces and Boehomer left, wondering what the fate of this necklace would be.

Enter the biggest idiot and an opportunistic woman, Cardinal Rohan and Jeanne Remy. Cardinal Rohan had fallen into Marie’s mother bad graces and Marie held the same grudge. the Cardinal was desperate to et back in the good graces of the queen and Marie, every the con woman, sensed an opportunity. She told  the Cardinal that she and the queen were friends and she might be able to help him get back in her good graces and so the Cardinal began talking to the “queen”. This was in fact not the queen, this was Jeanne.

The Cardinal became enamored with the queen and asked Jeanne for a meeting. Jeanne agreed and dressed up her husband’s lover to look like the queen. The Cardinal fell for it and the letters continued and “the queen” asked the Cardinal to get the necklace for her and that she would totally pay it back.

Well he got the necklace for her and Jeanne sold it. When time came to pay and the Queen didn’t pay the Cardinal confronted her directly which queen told him that she never ordered the necklace and she had no idea who Jeanne was. Jeanne was arrested and sent to prison but for some reason the public loved her and it made the Queen look bad. Many thought that it was a front and the queen really did order the necklace.

Several parts of this are really funny when you dig into it. For one Jeanne slipped up several times in her letters as “the queen” to the Cardinal. French royalty signed letters with their Baptismal name which is normally a first name, several to a dozen middle names, and last name. Jeanne signed the letters and Queen Marie of France. So yeah, I guess it just takes the world’s dumbass cardinal to steal a king’s necklace.

Darius the Great of Persia was never meant to come to the throne. His connection to the throne was through his great-great grandfather king Teispes. Only through a swords through the knee, an earless imposter and… question decisions with a horse did Darius rise to the Persian throne. Surprisingly only the last one was done by him.

Our story starts off with Cambyses II and Smerdis. Cambyses was a cruel wrathful man. When looking him up there are two stories that demonstrate his cruelty. When an advisor of his father tried to give him advice he order the man to be killed and sent his officers after him. When the officers caught him they then hid the advisor thinking Cambyses would be regretful to kill the old man. The next day when Cambyses was regretful of his actions the officers brought the advisor back in he was over joyed… and then had the officers killed for disobeying him. Another story says that when a solider told him he drinks too much Cambyses order the man’s son to be brought to him, had his guard bring him is bow, turn back to the man, said “If I am so drunk then this shot will miss” and proceeded to shoot the man’s son through the heart.

Cambyses decided he wanted to go invaded Egypt and ordered his brother to come with him out of fear of him taking the throne while he was away. He found his brother too annoying and sent him home then remembered his reason for bringing his brother with him. Cambyses then order a soldier (supposedly it’s the same soldier who told him he had a drinking problem) and told him to kill Smerdis. The solider did so and all seemed well.

They then got word that Smerdis was on throne of Persia and Cambyses thought that it must be an imposter! He remembered years ago that his father had cut of the ears of priest who looked like Smerdis and who name… was… also Smerdis? Cambyses mounted his horse to confront the fake Smerdis back in Persia but was careless, stabbed himself with a sword on accident and died.

Anyways back in Persia some of the nobles found out the Smerrdis suddenly didn’t have any ears and knew he was a fake. This lead to a coup and the man who killed Smerdis dramatically declaring he had killed the real Smerdis and the one on the throne was a fake before throwing himself off a tower. The nobles then had to decide who would be king. Logically we would assume they elected one or traced back the blood line to find the next eldest male family member. Did they though? No they didn’t, they decided that whose never horse neighed at the rising sun first would get to be king.

It’s very, very, gross so if you would like to skip this part I wouldn’t blame you. So Darius’s slave snuck into Darius’s stallion’s favorite Mare’s stable and touched it in some spots. So his hand smelled like horse and when the sun rose he held his hand up to the Stallion’s nose and the Stallion, smelling his favorite Mare, let out a great neigh and rose on it’s rear legs.

And that’s how Darius the Great became king. If you’ve ever heard of the battle of Marathon where the Greeks fought the Persian army that’s when Darius was king. He lived until 486 B.C.E. But that’s one heck of a way to pick a king.

In 1518 a plague swept through the town of Strasbourg, France. The Church, City Council, and doctors flocked to the scene of plague wonder what they should go watching the victims move about. This was no ordinary Plague, this was a Dancing Plague.

Yes, this is ridiculous and yes this actually happened. While today we look at it and laugh about people be forced to dance to sick a beat but some sources place the kill count around 15 people a day. Though this number is highly debated and no sources coming from Strasbourg itself claim there were any deaths. There are few modern theories about how the plague happened. Such as food poison and stress induced mass hysteria. Both of these theories a very logical and have evidence to back them up unlike the theories in 1518 which were demonic possession, overheated blood, and tarantula bites (tarantulas don’t live in a France I have zero clue why they thought it was a tarantula bite when the most north place Tarantulas live is Italy).

The dancing plague started out as one woman dancing in the street, unable to stop. Soon more woman and more woman started to dance and soon there was a large crowd of people dancing in the street. The city council hired musicians hoping that maybe if the crowd had their fill of dancing they would stop. Doctors started to bring some of the people into their homes and tried to sure them while the church held mass exorcisms and prayers for the afflicted. In the end they brought the dancers to shrine for a local saint and bless the crowd of people dancing. This caused them to stop dancing and their lives returned to normal. Of all the ways to die I think death by the dancing Plague has to be the strangest I have ever heard.

WWII was a strange and deadly time. An entire country was swallowed whole and atrocities were being committed. among all the death and sadness there was on Corporal who provided hope to their fellow soldiers and boosted their moral through the toughest times. His name was Corporal Wojtek. He was known to pick new soldiers up by their feet and throw them, he liked to chase the oranges used in grenade practice, and he was a bear.

While some of the Polish army was moving through the Iranian mountains they came across a small boy. In this small boy sack there was a bear cub. The boy said that he had found the cub in a cave after presumably it’s mother had been shot by hunters. The soldiers battered with boy and soon they had themselves a bear.

Corporal Wojtek would get spooked by birds circling over head and run to his fellow soldiers seeking comfort. He would sleep in a wash bin by their bed and was generally the most adorable thing. There is the cutest picture of him in someone’s coat, which I cannot post due to copy right but I highly recommend you check it out.

Wojtek also learned how to turn on the showers and one day caught a Persian spy in showers. Once the spy had been caught he was given sweet meets and an extra long shower. Wojtek loved something more than sweet meats and showers though. He loved to eat lit cigarettes.

Wojtek also helped in battles. During one battle in Italy he cared ammunition and food around help the soldiers. His caretakers and fellow soldiers noted that normally he liked to just carry the empty ones around but this time he cared the full ones.

After the war Wojtek lived in a small village in Scotland where he liked to attend children’s birthday parties. Eventually he was moved to a zoo where he died at the ripe age of 22. His death was due to issues with his digestive system. I wonder if it had something to do with all the lit cigarettes.