Hello, this is Matt and McKinley from History Dispatches.
We are the father -son duo bringing you the weird, the wild, the wacky, and the craziest tales from across time.
From the Ice Bowl to the Great Heathen Army and the head of Oliver Cromwell, the same head they kept on a pike for three years.
Yep, all here on History Dispatches.
New episodes every weekday.
Find out more at historydispatches .com or wherever you get your podcast app.
Do you find it hard to sleep at night?
Then the Sleep Cove Podcast can help you.
Hi! I'm Christopher Fitton, the voice and clinical hypnotherapist behind Sleep Cove.
Sleep Cove features sleep hypnosis, meditations and bedtime stories, all designed to help those of you who struggle at night to achieve a restful and peaceful night's sleep.
Search for Sleep Cove on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and see why Sleep Cove helps millions of people sleep deeply all night long You're listening to an airwave media podcast Well Hello, my name is Mick and I have been turned into...
a turtle. April Fools everybody!
If I got turned into a turtle I'd be more like a Ninja Turtle, I'd be like Michelangelo, you know?
Well, anyway, this episode is kind of April Foolsey themed.
I've got two hoaxes.
Oddly enough, both of these hoaxes began in 1917.
They have nothing to do with each other, but that's just a weird coinkydink, as they say.
I hope you enjoy it.
I hope maybe you celebrate April Fool's Day in some fun way, and if you're listening to this episode after or not anytime around April Fools, that's okay.
These are just hoaxes that happened that you can laugh about any time of year.
This is The Past and The Curious.
My name is Mick Sullivan, and I am not a turtle.
Perhaps the name Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sounds familiar to you.
He was a writer from England who was busy writing words for books and short stories during much of the late 1800s and early 1900s.
A lot of people read his words and still do.
One of his writings based on the true story of the Mary Celeste helped make that ghost ship pretty famous.
You may have heard about the Mary Celeste on this very show.
But if Sir Arthur or the Mary Celeste ring no bells for you, perhaps this name will.
Sherlock Holmes. That's right, he created Sherlock Holmes, the greatest detective in history.
Well, um... Okay, the greatest fictional detective in history.
Okay, the greatest fictional detective that was probably stolen, at least in concept, from another fictional story by a guy named Edgar Allen Poe, there we go.
I prefer inspired by.
Of course you do, Artie Conan.
Well, anyway, Mr. Sir Arthur, creator of Sherlock, whose powers of observation, reason and deduction were legendary, was actually involved in one of the most impressive hoaxes in world history.
But it didn't really start out as a hoax, exactly, and he definitely wasn't the hoaxer.
He was the hoaxed, and he wasn't alone.
Now the people behind the hoax were two girls, cousins in England, who probably meant no harm.
It all began with a pair of wet shoes.
Francis Griffith was nine years old and her mother was fussing at her about wet shoes.
But I ask in the same situation, who wouldn't have come home with wet shoes?
A beautiful day, lush green landscape, cool comforting shade from the trees above, and a small stream bubbling across the land.
Francis was alone with her older cousin having an adventure.
Of course she waded through the water of that gentle stream, and of course this left her with wet shoes.
But when her mom demanded an explanation, she said she was playing with fairies.
Oh Francis, really, fairies?
Her mother seriously doubted it.
Tiny little winged magical creatures, not likely.
But Francis's cousin Elsie was older.
She was 16 and she wasn't gonna leave her little cousin hanging out to dry.
I mean sure the shoes could use it but you know what I mean she had her cousins back.
It's true she told the family, and they could prove it.
They would just require the use of one camera!
Now lucky for her, her dad had recently acquired a new camera.
This was not very common in 1917, and while Elsie had certainly known about the camera, which is probably why she brought it up, she had never used it before.
This camera took a negative image on a glass plate, which would then be developed and used to print photos.
But it was a far cry from the cameras of today.
With a digital camera or you know, a camera on your smartphone, you can take an incredible number of pictures in a short stretch of time.
As many as you want really.
But not this camera.
One shot. That was all Elsie would get to capture the image of a magical fairy to prove to her parents and her aunt that they weren't pulling any legs.
The first picture she ever took would have to be a good one.
Her dad probably chuckled to himself as he loaded it up with a glass plate and then sent her on her way to their fairy hunt.
When they returned a few hours later, they handed over the camera.
He developed the photo later.
Now, just so you know, Frances had lived most of her life in South Africa, but when World War I began, her father, who was in the British military, was called to Europe.
So the family moved to West Yorkshire, England and they lived with Frances' aunt and uncle, and their 16 -year -old daughter.
Now despite a significant age gap, the cousins became best friends, and as it would turn out, secret keepers for a secret they would share for decades to come.
As you might imagine, World War I brought much stress and sadness to the lives of many people.
War has a way of doing that.
And maybe that played a role in their story?
People wanted to believe in beauty and magic in the face of such terrible events.
At least once the word got out.
When Elsie's father developed the photo later that night, he found a picture of Francis resting on the ground looking content while four small winged fairies frolicked about in front of her.
A few danced. One was even playing a musical instrument.
Of course, he laughed it off.
Elsie was a good artist. These were surely drawings that she had placed before she took the picture of her younger cousin but the girls were insistent, fairies, I tells you.
Not long after they borrowed the camera a second time and headed out alone again into the beautiful landscape.
Now young Frances took the picture the first she ever took in her entire life and when this one was developed it showed her older cousin seated on the grass reaching out to a little gnome.
The family felt like they were getting pranked but the girls admitted nothing and Elsie's father stopped lending the camera.
Then life went on. By chance a few years later Elsie's mother attended a lecture and the speaker was wondering about the possibility of fairy life.
About the chance that there were creatures in the world that people weren't aware of or couldn't see.
And he wasn't alone, many people were looking into possibilities like this.
Some people believed that children might have a better chance of seeing magical creatures.
So she showed speaker the photos that the two girls had taken a few years before.
Before long, the story exploded.
Now, people weren't 100 % convinced that the pictures the girls had taken were real, but they weren't 100 % sure that they weren't either.
This was still a time period when many people were interested in spiritualism, trying to find a connection between the living world and what they imagined might be beyond.
One person very interested in such things was Sherlock creator himself Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
He was actually in the middle of writing an article about the possibility of such a world.
So when he saw the pictures of the fairies he had a lot of feelings.
First he was aware that they might be fake and considered that someone was trying to him to react and embarrass himself because not everybody believed it was possible to meet real life fairies but on the other hand if they were real he thought boy oh boy could this be huge so when he got involved and declared his curiosity and desire to learn more about Francis and Elsie's experience well let's just say things got out of hand mr sir arthur believes us Yeah, Coney Doe himself hasn't Sherlock'd it.
What do we do? Well, we can't come clean now He's like the most famous writer in England.
That'd be embarrassing for him.
So what that sounds like his problem Let's just keep playing along I guess Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sent them each a new camera and the girls realized this meant that he'd like them to take some more pictures So they did Ultimately, they took 5 different photographs of ferries between 1917 and 1920.
It was not easy to go viral in the 1920's with a handful of pictures you took with a glass plate camera.
But Elsie and Francis sure did.
After Mr. Ser Doyle published them in an article those photos were seen all around the world.
They became known as the Coddingly Ferries.
And about the Coddingly Fairies, he wrote, the recognition of their existence will jolt the material 20th century mind out of its heavy ruts in the mud.
And will make it admit that there is a glamour and a mystery to life.
It's a nice thought, and he was clearly eager to believe that there was more than meets the eye to the world around us.
For the next 60 years, the girls said nothing.
Life went on, but no one saw any fairies.
Many historians believe that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle went to his grave believing that it was true.
But it's hard to say for sure.
So were the fairy photos real?
Well, the fairies weren't real, no, but the creativity, clever Her use of art and technology and commitment to a prank that got blown out of proportions certainly was real.
Elsie was a good artist and she had a book with models from the time period.
Stylized fashionistas known as Gipson girls.
She traced a few of those, used her great skill with watercolor paint to alter them, added wings and other imaginative details and then cut them out, used hat pens to position them on the English countryside.
Some people noticed the hat pens in the photos.
Some people pointed out that the figures clearly looked flat, two -dimensional.
Others pointed out that the fairies had contemporary fashionable human hairstyles.
Would a timeless fairy really style her hair to match today's popular fashion trends?
Hmm. But more than enough, people were willing to overlook these details and believe.
In 1983 they came clean and admitted that it was all a prank.
They had never intended to fool the world or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
They only wanted to prank their parents and have a bit of fun.
But it got out of control and they just went with it.
And it might have never happened at all if Frances's mom hadn't scolded her over wet shoes.
But it did happen, and when asked if she felt bad about it, this is what Francis said.
People often say to me, don't you feel ashamed that you have made all of these poor people look like fools?
They believed in you, but I do not, because they wanted to believe.
At least the girls fooled people into believing something magical and beautiful.
Because it can sure go the other way.
Hello fellow grown up, I have kids.
There are probably kids in your life, and we groanies certainly want to do the best for our children and set them up for success.
So if your child is struggling with a specific subject, or they need help with a subject, or if your child is ahead and not getting challenged enough in class, well then I'd you to know about IXL.
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It offers practice in math, english language art, science, social studies, and all along it adapts to each child meeting them where they are.
Plus, Ixl encourages students to be curious and empowers them to choose how they learn.
I've been there, probably will be there again.
It's part of raising kids, I think.
Sometimes we find ourselves catching up or Or other times, we focus on getting ahead on learning, which is always great for confidence.
Well, everything on iXl is organized by grade, subject, topic, subtopic, making it simple to find activities for the exact skills that you are covering so it's easy to use and time -saving.
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Grown -ups, groanies, groanie -bolognes, do you have a brain?
Of course you do you beautiful creature, but does your brain seem to be at full capacity with to do's, errands, birthdays, homework assignments and maybe what's for dinner on Thursday?
Well, I'm here to tell you folks, we recently got a Skylight calendar in my home and it is a game changer.
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Skylight Calendar syncs the entire family schedule into a sleek digital display, and it has made mornings easier, it has made planning the week easier, keeping a grocery list is easier, it makes chores and tasks for the kids easier.
My kids are involved in marking stuff off the list, it's great.
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Skylight Calendar was designed to connect the digital and non -digital worlds while bringing families together.
It is a Wi -Fi connected digital display that showcases your family schedule with clarity, color, and brilliance in either a 10 or 15 inch HD touchscreen.
This all -in -one Smart Calendar syncs seamlessly with Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Outlook, and more giving you customizable views for daily, weekly, or monthly planning.
You will be able to manage events, chores, and grocery lists while assigning colors to each of your family members, and eliminating excuses for not knowing what they need to do.
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Right now, Skylight is offering our listeners $30 off their 15 -inch calendars by going to skylightcal .com slash curious.
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Thanks grody balonies!
Now it's time for You Have 30 Seconds!
This one comes from the state, no, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
My name is Linnea from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
the story is about Milton Hershey.
Milton's name was Hershey was an incredible man with a tough start too unsuccessful by the students and could not have children.
Mr. Hershey still would not give up and eventually he bought Hershey chocolate.
A chocolate company that made candy for everyone to eat, he even made a place for his workers to stay.
Milton Hershey created milk chocolate by experimenting with cocoa flour sugar and milk.
Today, Milton's chocolate is still very enjoyable.
Very enjoyable indeed my family made s'mores this week and We used Hershey's chocolate, I mean Not an advertisement.
It's just the truth Thank you so much. You did a fantastic job.
You made me a little hungry, but I can deal with that If anyone else out there you if you have a you have a you have a you have a you have a 30 seconds It's real simple.
Just record it send it to us at hello at the past and the curious just you know like a voice message thing very easy, I think the hard part's making it 30 seconds long.
It's quiz time, it's quiz time, it's quiz time, time time!
Here we are again friendlies, it's quiz time!
And the first question is as follows in 1876 in Brazil voters were so upset with crooked candidates in the São Paulo City Council election that they elected an outsider candidate a real outsider Who was it?
Oh, well it was a rhinoceros a Rhinoceros named Kakariko.
This Rhino won the election with over 100 ,000 votes But she was not allowed to serve her term Because she was a rhino Okay, question number two.
In 1996, the restaurant chain Taco Bell played a prank claiming that they had bought the naming rights for which American historic site.
According to the joke, they claimed that the Liberty Bell was now to be known as the Taco Liberty Bell.
This probably seemed absurd at the time.
But now, sadly, maybe not so much. Anyway, question number three.
Since the 1930s there have been silly stories about a weird animal that is a mix between a jackrabbit and an antelope.
What is this cryptid, fictional, hoaxy creature called.
This cute weird strange little fella is known as the Jackalope.
It is large rabbit, jackrabbit, which is actually a hare, with antelope horns.
And of course it is not real, but that has never really stopped anyone from believing a lot of things.
So the Coddingly Fairy hoax wasn't the only hoax of 1917.
There was another and this other hoax didn't center around the beauty of the countryside or the magic of mysterious life.
It centered on something much more common, something far less magical.
The Bathroom. This hoax remembered as the bathtub hoax was a harmless tongue -in -cheek celebration of the fixture of bathrooms that we know love and soak in today.
Sure they may not be as fantastic as fairies and gnomes but bathtubs are great in their own way.
And hey fairies and gnomes probably have use the bathroom too.
So... maybe it was something about World War I that put some people in the mood to have a little fun and others to be willingly fooled.
Maybe people were looking for an escape, if you know what I mean.
One famous well -known writer, social critic, and journalist of his time was certainly feeling the need to lighten things up.
So in 1917 he published an essay about the obvious that what he had written was fake, but it turns out people couldn't tell the fact from the fiction, and they took him at his word. You probably hear a lot about media literacy today, and how important it is to be able to recognize the truth from lies when getting information about the world, be it in print, audio, video, or any other online sources.
And that's nothing new.
Hopefully you can spot something fake when you hear it or see it.
Or think critically about why it's being said.
People in 1917 dealt with the same problems but when it came to the bathtub hoax many failed.
The well -known writer H .L.
Mencken published this essay in the New York Daily Mail.
It was titled A neglected anniversary.
Sounds sad, right? Just you wait.
In it, he claimed that 1917 was the 75th anniversary of the bathtub in the United States of America.
Yes, that's right, according to Mencken's article, Americans had only been taking baths and tubs since 1842.
too. And as terrible as that might sound and smell, it seemed even more terrible to Mr. Menken that his fellow Americans were NOT going to celebrate this momentous anniversary of Tub Time.
Can you believe Americans would just let an opportunity like this to celebrate the Tub go down the drain?
The story of the tub began, according to Mencken's Fake article, in London, in 1828, when Lord John Russell first introduced the bathtub to the world.
John was a real person, don't get me wrong, and he probably took plenty of baths in his fancy aristocratic life, but he did not invent the bathtub.
He was a politician who held probably as much interest in soapy water filled troughs as the next guy.
At any rate, Mencken claimed that an American man from Cincinnati, Ohio visited England, saw this fictitious tub, fell in love, and in 1842 returned to take the very first bath in America.
This Cincinnati man's new tub was gigantic.
Seven feet long, made of fine mahogany and enameled iron, and filled with cold water or warm as his piping was reportedly wound around the flue of his fireplace.
The thing was so impressive that when he showed it off to seven friends at his annual Christmas party, four of them could not help themselves and took turns leaving the party so they could soak in the tub.
Say, I'd very much like to take one of those uh, what do you call it again?
A -both? Abeth? A bath.
A bath? Bath. Bath?
Bath? Bath? Yeah, close enough.
Of course, when the public found out about it, they were angry.
How could you not be?
What a frivolous, wasteful and downright weird thing baths could be.
Plus, you're probably gonna get sick from the tub, they thought.
And the backlash extended across the country, according to Mencken.
As more people got tubs, rich people primarily, the poor and the middle class fought back in shock with shamings, taxes and mean articles written in papers about the blight of the bathtub.
According to Mencken, this backlash did not stop Vice President Millard Fillmore.
While visiting Scentsy in 1850, he made a pilgrimage to the first bath in America and respectfully requested to have a soak.
Later that year, Zachary Taylor got sick and died putting Fillmore in the White House as president.
And among his first orders of business was to install a bathtub in the presidential mansion.
The article goes on and on with more fabricated stories about the birth of the bathtub and its impact on American society.
There were health concerns, legal cases, practically any kind of drama and unrest you can name.
This article about BathTubs had it.
One thing the article did do was make the people of Cincinnati feel pretty good about themselves.
Quickly, they went from not having a single drop of knowledge or care about the history of bathing, to overflowing with pride and perhaps a bit of smugness about their city's pivotal role on the frontiers of hygiene.
Hoot -ay! That's Cincinnati, baby!
Birthplace of William Howard Taft, Skyline Chili and the bathtub!
Sorry Cincinnati listeners, but two out of three aint bad.
Remember Mencken's article was intended as a joke, and he thought it would be obvious.
How could the first bath in America have been taken in 1842?
He figured people would get the joke.
Was he right? Oh, he was worse than right.
He was wrong. In the years since, much of what he wrote as a joke had been quoted, cited, reprinted, and referenced in other histories of the bathtub.
So not only did he fool his contemporaries, but his hoax has made fools of people in the future.
His future at least. Let's say it stops here.
No more bathtub lies, guys.
No more. So how long have people been taking baths?
Like, for real? Well, it's hard to say.
Let's just say a really long time.
Heck, the ancient Greeks would get together and bathe in gigantic pools.
It was a totally social thing they talked they played games.
They eat food in a bathing pool naked But the Greeks were okay with that They do exercise and train for competitions at the gymnasium together completely nude as well In fact, the word gymnasium actually means something like place for naked exercising So think about that the next time you're in gym class Actually Maybe don't … maybe don't think about that.
But it wasn't just the Greeks.
Romans loved baths, too, and though fashions and social practices came and went, most people bathed between now and then.
Though during some eras of mass illness, like during the Great Plague, there was some belief that water, which opens up your pores, could allow sickness to get in.
So many notable people, like Thomas a Becket, for example, did not bathe terribly often.
They even might have taken pride in not getting wet for years.
When he died, people were a bit disgusted to find his underwear was infested with lice.
But that's better than the Marquis de Argenz, a friend of Frederick the Great.
After taking his undershirt off for the first time in four years, it removed significant amounts of his skin too so there's no way to say that he was fresh and clean but as for someone who was so fresh and so clean clean and who probably said things like I love when you stare at me we should mention the Sun King himself France's Louis XIV.
He had a very special tub installed at the Palace of Versailles way back in the 1600s.
Made of fine marble and inset into the floor, his tub was not filled with something as boring as water.
Bah! The Sun King was like H2O.
More like H2No. His lavish bathtub was filled with perfume, while the alternative of stinking from not bathing might have been worse, it's still likely that Louis' overpowering odor was offensive to other noses around him.
There were certainly public and private facilities for bathing in America in the 1700s as well, though the regular bathers did not bathe as much as we do today in most cases.
By the way, it would also appear that the first bath in the White House was installed by Andrew Jackson.
But I've actually heard stories of a bathtub in John Quincy Adams' White House too, which would have been before that.
Those stories may not be true, though, because they are usually tied to the false story of him having a pet alligator that he kept in the tub.
As much as I wanted to believe it, he never had a pet alligator, so I questioned the tub part of the story too.
Furthermore, if you need evidence about John Quincy Adams in bathtubs, it's been said that John Quincy Adam liked to swim naked each day in the nearby Potomac River, which may have been kind of a bathing ritual on its own.
In any case, he probably would have fit in with those ancient Greeks, huh?
If any poor soul had further questions about baths by the time of the American Civil War, a helpful woman named Dr. Harriet Austen was there to help.
She published a book in 1861 one called Baths and How to Take Them.
This riveting read was a manual with detailed advice on every step from filling the tub to drying the body and everything in between, and it offered several types of bath options for those looking for a little variety.
Among the menu of bath choices she offered, there was the half bath, so -called because about half the person is immersed in water.
The dripping sheet.
It is an excellent bath.
The plunge. This is a very pleasant and, if taken cold, a very exhilarating form of bath.
In any case, her most important advice was as follows.
As a rule, ten or eleven o 'clock in the day is the best hour for bathing.
No bath should be taken immediately after or before a meal.
Care should be taken to have the feet warm when coming for a bath.
In cases where they are habitually cold and cannot be warmed by exercise it is often well to take a warm foot bath for a few minutes before a general bath.
Next the patient lays aside all his clothing and wets his forehead and top of the head in bath or cool water and if the bath is continued beyond a few minutes a wet towel or cap should be kept on the head and of course most importantly soap should never be used except for persons who bathe very seldom or who are very dirty.
So bathing has come a long way after all But maybe don't take all of her advice, especially the soap part.
And don't believe H .L.
Minkin's bathtub history.
It was all a hoax! Thank you for listening to episode 104 of the Past and the Curious.
My name is Mick Sullivan, it has been Mick Sullivan and will continue to be Mick Sullivan.
I wanna thank my friend, Ms. Lynn of Good Words Podcast. and what if world for her reading of that important and seminal work of nonfiction literature Bats and How to Take Them.
Thanks, Ms. Lan. It's very cool that you listened to this show and if you enjoyed it I think the coolest thing that anyone in the world can do is tell someone else about it.
Spread the word, that's really all I want.
I just want more and more people to hear this show and enjoy it.
So, if you know somebody who you think might like it, let them know, please, I'd appreciate it.
There are some people that I need to thank, Patreon supporters.
That is incredibly helpful, that has helped me keep doing this for eight years now.
So thank you to all of the Patreon supporters, but this month I want to thank Someone in Winchester, Virginia named Kel Rhodes.
Kel! Kel Rhodes. Winchester, Virginia.
Also a Commonwealth like Pennsylvania from earlier on the episode and like Kentucky where I am.
That's cool. So I wish you the best, Kel.
Glad you enjoy the show.
And not a Commonwealth, but still awesome.
The State of New York.
The city of Port Jefferson, New York.
The person is Alice Turner!
Alice! Thank you so much. I am glad that you are out there listening to the show as well Hope you enjoyed this episode and I hope you continue to enjoy Maybe I'll see all of you down the road somewhere That goes for everyone listening.
Thank you for your for your Thanks for listening.
What else can I say?
My name is Mick Sullivan.
This has been the past and the curious be nice to people Learning is good.
It's good to be curious.
It's good to be honest. It's good to be nice to people up.
So, let's keep doing that, OK?
Thanks! All you need is a few minutes to start your day off with something historic when you listen to the This Day in History Podcast. Every day, there's a new episode for you to listen and learn about what happened that day way back when.
So, listen and subscribe to This day in history wherever you get your podcasts.
That's this day in history wherever you get your podcasts.
We've all been there.
You're standing in a museum staring at a painting and all you can think is, I don't get it.
To me, knowing the story behind an artwork is a huge part of knowing how to look at it.
I'm Amanda, the host of the Art of History podcast, where we view history through the lens of some really great works of art.
Each episode we dive deep into the bigger picture behind some familiar and maybe not so familiar pieces.
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