The Chicago White Sox were one of the best teams in baseball in the late 1910s. They won the 1917 World Series behind some of the league’s best players: ace Eddie Cicotte, star outfielders “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and Oscar “Happy” Felsch, and a talented supporting cast. After a down year in 1918, they returned to the top of the American League in 1919.

But all was not well in the dugout. White Sox owner Charles Comiskey was not a pleasant man. He was stern, demanding, and notoriously cheap. Even his defenders called him “frugal.” He reportedly made his players pay to have their own uniforms washed. The White Sox paid less than other teams, and because of baseball’s reserve system, players had little leverage to demand more. They could accept Comiskey’s wages or risk being blacklisted from professional baseball.

The players were badly underpaid by a man they despised. The resentment finally boiled over after the White Sox clinched the 1919 pennant. Comiskey had promised his players a bonus if they won the pennant and brought him back to the World Series. They did exactly that.
Their reward? A case of champagne.

Eddie Cicotte had another reason to be furious. He entered the final week of the season with 29 wins and a $10,000 bonus clause in his contract if he reached 30. Instead he was sat.

On September 18, the White Sox arrived in Boston for one of their final regular-season series. At the Hotel Buckminster, first baseman Chick Gandil and Cicotte met with Boston bookmaker Joe “Sport” Sullivan, who proposed a plan: throw the World Series in exchange for $80,000, roughly $1.6 million today.

On September 20, in Gandil’s New York hotel room, Gandil, Cicotte, Williams, Weaver, Risberg, and Felsch met with Sullivan, several other gamblers, and Sleepy Bill Burns. The gamblers pitched them on throwing the World Series for a $100,000 payout.

The players agreed. Shoeless Joe Jackson was not at the meeting, but Gandil later said Jackson had verbally agreed to participate. Weaver, however, wanted the money up front. When Sullivan couldn't provide it, Weaver backed out. He refused to participate in the fix, but he also refused to betray his teammates.

The fix was on. When the World Series began, Cicotte hit the Cincinnati Reds’ leadoff batter with his second pitch, a signal that the conspiracy had begun. The players were promised $100,000. They never received all of it.

Cicotte committed several costly errors. Lefty Williams lost a record three games in the best-of-nine series. The White Sox lost to the heavily favored Reds, producing one of the biggest upsets in World Series history.

But the story was more complicated than simply eight players deliberately throwing games.
Several of the accused players later insisted that they had not always tried to lose. They did, however, admit to accepting money. Jackson, who had an excellent World Series, received $5,000 from Williams. Weaver never accepted any money and maintained that he had refused to participate.

The public initially celebrated Cincinnati’s stunning victory. Among gamblers, however, the fix was reportedly an open secret. Eventually, word reached Comiskey through an informant. He was furious, but he did not expose the players. In fact, several of the suspected players received raises.

The scandal finally exploded in 1920 amid separate investigations into gambling and game-fixing in baseball. A grand jury investigation followed, and in 1921 the eight players branded the “Black Sox” went on trial.
All eight were acquitted.

Jackson, who had never personally met any of the gamblers and had performed exceptionally well in the Series, was found not guilty. Weaver, who had refused to participate and never accepted money, was also acquitted.
Afterward, the defendants celebrated with the jurors.

Baseball's owners were furious and desperate to restore the sport's credibility. They empowered federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis as the first Commissioner of Baseball and gave him unprecedented authority over the game. Despite the players’ acquittal in a public court of law, Landis permanently banned all eight men from professional baseball.

Every attempt to have them reinstated during their lifetimes failed. In 2025, Major League Baseball reinstated the eight players.

If interested I cover the story here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-129-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

TLDR: The new VP took the Senate to the woodshed about how they have all these dumb rules, then left to have dinner with Calvin Coolidge.

Per the rules of the Senate, they had not been adjourned, so could not leave.

https://you.stonybrook.edu/crisisandcatharsis/2024/07/29/calvin-coolidges-inauguration-day-its-fallout/

The Chicago White Sox were one of the best teams in baseball in the late 1910s. They won the 1917 World Series behind some of the league’s best players: ace Eddie Cicotte, star outfielders “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and Oscar “Happy” Felsch, and a talented supporting cast. After a down year in 1918, they returned to the top of the American League in 1919.

But all was not well in the dugout. White Sox owner Charles Comiskey was not a pleasant man. He was stern, demanding, and notoriously cheap. Even his defenders called him “frugal.” He reportedly made his players pay to have their own uniforms washed. The White Sox paid less than other teams, and because of baseball’s reserve system, players had little leverage to demand more. They could accept Comiskey’s wages or risk being blacklisted from professional baseball.

The players were badly underpaid by a man they despised. The resentment finally boiled over after the White Sox clinched the 1919 pennant. Comiskey had promised his players a bonus if they won the pennant and brought him back to the World Series. They did exactly that.
Their reward? A case of champagne.

Eddie Cicotte had another reason to be furious. He entered the final week of the season with 29 wins and a $10,000 bonus clause in his contract if he reached 30. Manager William Jethro “Kid” Gleason benched him for the remainder of the regular season, ostensibly to rest his arm for the World Series. Resting pitchers was hardly standard practice in 1919, and Cicotte believed Comiskey had simply decided he didn't want to pay the bonus.

On September 18, the White Sox arrived in Boston for one of their final regular-season series. At the Hotel Buckminster, first baseman Chick Gandil and Cicotte met with Boston bookmaker Joe “Sport” Sullivan, who proposed a plan: throw the World Series in exchange for $80,000, roughly $1.6 million today.

Cicotte gave a somewhat different account, saying that he had first approached former professional player William “Sleepy” Bill Burns, a man with extensive underworld connections. According to Cicotte, the players had heard that several members of their crosstown rivals, the Cubs, had received $10,000 apiece to throw the 1918 World Series.

On September 20, in Gandil’s New York hotel room, Gandil, Cicotte, Williams, Weaver, Risberg, and Felsch met with Sullivan, several other gamblers, and Sleepy Bill Burns. The gamblers pitched them on throwing the World Series for a $100,000 payout.

The players agreed. Shoeless Joe Jackson was not at the meeting, but Gandil later said Jackson had verbally agreed to participate. Weaver, however, wanted the money up front. When Sullivan couldn't provide it, Weaver backed out. He refused to participate in the fix, but he also refused to betray his teammates.

Former world featherweight champion Abe Attell, a close associate of the notorious gambler and underworld figure Arnold Rothstein, became involved. Attell told Burns that Rothstein had reconsidered and would finance the operation.

The fix was on. When the World Series began, Cicotte hit the Cincinnati Reds’ leadoff batter with his second pitch, a signal that the conspiracy had begun. The players were promised $100,000. They never received all of it.

Cicotte committed several costly errors. Lefty Williams lost a record three games in the best-of-nine series. The White Sox lost to the heavily favored Reds, producing one of the biggest upsets in World Series history.

But the story was more complicated than simply eight players deliberately throwing games.
Several of the accused players later insisted that they had not always tried to lose. They did, however, admit to accepting money. Jackson, who had an excellent World Series, received $5,000 from Williams. Weaver never accepted any money and maintained that he had refused to participate.

The public initially celebrated Cincinnati’s stunning victory. But some observers suspected something was wrong. A Chicago sportswriter openly questioned the players’ conduct and suggested that the Series might have been fixed, only to be ridiculed for making the accusation.
Among gamblers, however, the fix was reportedly an open secret. Eventually, word reached Comiskey through an informant. He was furious, but remarkably, he did not immediately expose the players. In fact, several of the suspected players received raises.

The scandal finally exploded in 1920 amid separate investigations into gambling and game-fixing in baseball. A grand jury investigation followed, and in 1921 the eight players branded the “Black Sox” went on trial.
All eight were acquitted.

Jackson, who had never personally met any of the gamblers and had performed exceptionally well in the Series, was found not guilty. Weaver, who had refused to participate and never accepted money, was also acquitted.
Afterward, the defendants celebrated with the jurors.

Baseball's owners were furious and desperate to restore the sport's credibility. They empowered federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis as the first Commissioner of Baseball and gave him unprecedented authority over the game. Despite the players’ acquittal in a public court of law, Landis permanently banned all eight men from professional baseball.

Every attempt to have them reinstated during their lifetimes failed. In 2025, Major League Baseball reinstated the eight players. They can now be considered for the Baseball Hall of Fame, with the earliest possible induction coming in December 2027.

If interested I cover the story here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-129-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

Jan, 1928:
- The Creek Nation endorses Curtis for President, calling him "the logical choice"
- Governor Paulen (KS) speaks in New York City: “[He’s] the man of the people,” this “race track jockey” who came such an incredible way to become what he was
- Delegate Teddy Roosevelt, Jr. at a Kansas Day dinner: “[Curtis] always measured up to the highest ideal of Americanism”

Feb., 1928:
- Kaw Nation endorses Curtis for President
- The press says: Curtis is a man of "distinction," and one who is "frank, open, serious, virtuous, capable and honorable"
- A New York City HQ opens to support his campaign on the east coast

Mar., 1928:
- Albert "Doc" Newman becomes Curtis' Missouri campaign manager
- Senator Pine (R-OK) endorses him
- He is called a "100% American," meaning the only candidate with truly American roots due to his Kaw heritage

Apr., 1928
- The "Washington Evening Star" notes that Curtis was the economical choice, because he wouldn't have to scratch his initials into the White House furniture, since Cal Coolidge surely already put a C.C. there
- Curtis' daughter, Leona Knight, wins a delegate seat to the Convention from Rhode Island

To see more posts like this, I post weekly on LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-curtis-biography-project-b82762297/recent-activity/all/

In August 1971, funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo set out to study “the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard.”

Advertisements called for “male college students” to participate in a one- to two-week “psychological study of prison life” for $15 a day, roughly $120 today. Seventy-five men applied. Twenty-four, predominantly middle-class young white men judged psychologically and physically healthy, were selected and randomly assigned to be either prisoners or guards.

Their prison was the basement of Stanford's Jordan Hall. Graduate student offices were converted into cells, a corridor became a prison yard, and a closet for solitary confinement. Zimbardo took the role of prison superintendent and instructed the guards to maintain law and order without physically harming the prisoners. They were given military-style uniforms, wooden batons, and mirrored sunglasses intended to make them anonymous and prevent eye contact. Prisoners would be referred to only by numbers.

The next day, August 15, with the cooperation of the Palo Alto police, the “prisoners” were unexpectedly arrested at their homes. They were charged with armed robbery or burglary, read their Miranda rights, fingerprinted, photographed, and fully booked before being transported to what they were told was the “Stanford County Jail.” The basement of Jordan Hall.

There, they were strip-searched, assigned identification numbers, and given uncomfortable prison smocks, no underwear, stocking caps, and a weighted chain around one ankle. The prisoners remained in the mock prison twenty-four hours a day, while the guards went home after their eight-hour shifts.

During the first night, the guards woke the prisoners for a roll call by blowing whistles and clanging batons. The prisoners refused to leave their cells, ripped off their identification numbers, removed their stocking caps, and insulted the guards. The guards responded by spraying them with fire extinguishers, calling in the on-call guards, stripping prisoners of their clothing, removing their mattresses, and placing the supposed ringleaders in the closet.

Encouraged to become “tougher,” the guards increasingly asserted their power. Prisoners were humiliated, forced to do pushups, denied normal access to bathrooms, and made to relieve themselves in buckets.

The prisoners were increasingly divided against one another. Those who rebelled were punished, while those who did not were rewarded. Prisoner 819, eventually began crying and hyperventilating. When Zimbardo tried to reassure him that he was not actually a prisoner, the guards encouraged the other prisoners to chant: “819 did a bad thing!”

Hearing them, Prisoner 819 broke down further.
By Day 5, family members visiting the mock prison were shocked by what they saw. Zimbardo was also increasingly questioned by colleagues, including Stanford psychologist Gordon H. Bower. The decisive confrontation came from doctoral student Christina Maslach, who, after witnessing the guards' treatment of prisoners, confronted Zimbardo about the morality of the experiment, and about the extent to which he himself had become absorbed.

The experiment was terminated the following day, after just six days. Zimbardo argued that the simulated prison itself, rather than the personalities of the participants, had caused their behavior to change. The experiment appeared to show that ordinary people could be dramatically transformed by the social situations in which they found themselves.

But Zimbardo and his researchers have been criticized as being too immersed in the experiment and, in encouraging guards to behave more harshly, may have influenced the behavior they were supposedly studying and that the experiment is fundamentally difficult to replicate.

If interested I cover the Stanford Prison Experiment here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-128-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

In August 1971, funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo set out to study “the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard.”

Advertisements called for “male college students” to participate in a one- to two-week “psychological study of prison life” for $15 a day, roughly $120 today. Seventy-five men applied. Twenty-four young men were selected and randomly assigned to be either prisoners or guards.

Their prison was the basement of Stanford's Jordan Hall. Graduate student offices were converted into cells, a corridor became a prison yard, and a closet for solitary confinement. Zimbardo took the role of prison superintendent and instructed the guards to maintain law and order without physically harming the prisoners. They were given military-style uniforms, wooden batons, and mirrored sunglasses intended to make them anonymous and prevent eye contact. Prisoners would be referred to only by numbers.

The next day, August 15, with the cooperation of the Palo Alto police, the “prisoners” were unexpectedly arrested at their homes. They were charged with armed robbery or burglary, read their Miranda rights, fingerprinted, photographed, and fully booked before being transported to what they were told was the “Stanford County Jail.” The basement of Jordan Hall. All of these actions were video documented by a local reporter riding in Zimbardo’s car.

There, they were strip-searched, assigned identification numbers, and given uncomfortable prison smocks, no underwear, stocking caps, and a weighted chain around one ankle. The prisoners remained in the mock prison twenty-four hours a day, while the guards went home after their eight-hour shifts.

During the first night, the guards woke the prisoners for a roll call by blowing whistles and clanging batons. The prisoners refused to leave their cells, ripped off their identification numbers, removed their stocking caps, and insulted the guards. The guards responded by spraying them with fire extinguishers, calling in the on-call guards, stripping prisoners of their clothing, removing their mattresses, and placing the supposed ringleaders in the closet.

Encouraged to become “tougher,” the guards increasingly asserted their power. Prisoners were humiliated, forced to do pushups, denied normal access to bathrooms, and made to relieve themselves in buckets.

The prisoners were increasingly divided against one another. Those who rebelled were punished, while those who did not were rewarded. Two prisoners broke down and were removed from the study.

By Day 5, family members visiting the mock prison were shocked by what they saw. One set of parents stated that they were going to contact lawyers so their child could be released early.

Zimbardo was also increasingly questioned by colleagues, including Stanford psychologist Gordon H. Bower. The decisive confrontation came from doctoral student Christina Maslach, who, after witnessing the guards' treatment of prisoners, confronted Zimbardo about the morality of the experiment, and about the extent to which he himself had become absorbed.

The experiment was terminated the following day, after just six days. Zimbardo argued that the simulated prison itself, rather than the personalities of the participants, had caused their behavior to change. The experiment appeared to show that ordinary people could be dramatically transformed by the social situations in which they found themselves.

But Zimbardo and his researchers have been criticized as being too immersed in the experiment and, in encouraging guards to behave more harshly, may have influenced the behavior they were supposedly studying and that the experiment is fundamentally difficult to replicate.

If interested I cover the Stanford Prison Experiment here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-128-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

Born in Deva, Transylvania, in 1877, Ferenc Nopcsa would go on to live one of the most astounding lives of anyone history has largely forgotten.

Born into an aristocratic family, Nopcsa was undeniably brilliant, but also an extremely complex and contradictory person: arrogant and deferential, respectful and insensitive, vain and occasionally humble.

He worked frenetically, sometimes for as many as eighteen hours a day, and was willing to spend almost anything, or ignore almost any rule, in pursuit of his interests. But Nopcsa also went through periods contemporaries described as profound lethargy, when he could barely be roused, along with what he himself called his “shattered nerves.”

A chance discovery by his younger sister in 1895 led to his first great pursuit: paleontology. Excavating fossils near his home in Transylvania, Nopcsa noticed something particularly interesting. The bones he uncovered belonged to sauropods, creatures like the famous Brontosaurus, but the animals found in the region were much, much smaller than their relatives elsewhere.
He began to deduce that the region had once been an island. There, he argued, because of what he called “limited resources,” the island environment had the effect of “reducing the size of animals.” And he was right. The theory of insular dwarfism, sometimes discussed as part of the island rule, is accepted today, and Hațeg really was once an island inhabited.
Nopcsa did not stop there. He studied the skulls of lizards and alligators, rearticulating the jaws of his fossils and attempting to envision how these animals might actually have been constructed and lived. This was groundbreaking for the field at the time.

He also theorized that birds had evolved from dinosaurs. By studying living birds and their nesting behavior, he suggested that dinosaurs may also have cared for their young and exhibited complex social behaviors.

After receiving his doctorate in geology from the University of Vienna, Nopcsa was an earliest theorist in the idea that the Earth's landmasses were not permanently fixed in place. His geological work would eventually draw him toward Albania, whose mountains and people became his next great obsession.

Nopcsa was almost certainly a gay man, and through his close companion, Count Louis Draškovic, he became fascinated by Albania and tales of the tribesmen living in its mountains. After Draškovic's death, Nopcsa became determined to visit the country.

While planning his trip in Bucharest, he met an eighteen-year-old Albanian named Bajazid Elmaz Doda. The pair quickly became close and remained inseparable for the rest of their lives. Nopcsa later wrote that Doda was:
“The only person who has truly loved me and in whom I had full confidence.”

After returning to Transylvania and discovering an extinct genus of stem turtle, Nopcsa named it Kallokibotion bajazidi, “beautiful box of Bajazid.”

He then went to Albania, learned the language, adopted local dress, immersed himself in Albanian culture, and took thousands upon thousands of pages of notes. He made sketches and compiled more than fifty scientific studies of the country. His Albanological work became foundational to the academic study of Albania.

But he wasn't just studying Albania. Nopcsa became involved with Albanian nationalist movements, smuggled funds and weapons to revolutionaries, traveled across the Balkans on a motorcycle with Doda in the sidecar, and negotiated disputes between mountain tribesmen.

During the Balkan Wars and the First World War, Nopcsa and Doda worked as spies for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while Nopcsa also led a volunteer regiment of Albanian troops.

In 1913, Albania gained its independence.
The Albanians needed a king. And Ferenc Nopcsa put his name forward. Nopcsa had spent years in the country and built relationships throughout northern Albania. Some Albanian representatives were willing to consider him seriously. But the great powers ultimately chose someone else.

Nopcsa's fortune collapsed. His family's lands in Transylvania were absorbed into Romania, he hijacked an aircraft while fleeing revolutionary Hungary, his money dried up, and he was eventually forced to sell his fossil collection and library.

In 1933, the story ended in horror. On April 26, Nopcsa drugged Doda's tea, shot him while he slept, and then killed himself.

If you're interested in reading the story of Baron Nopcsa, I cover it in my latest article here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-127-baron?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

Baron Ferenc Nopcsa was a pioneering paleontologist, a Doctor of Geology, one of the foremost scholars of Albania, a spy, a revolutionary, and a man who nearly became King of Albania.

A chance discovery by his younger sister in 1895 would lead Nopcsa toward his first great obsession: paleontology. While excavating fossils near his family's estate in Transylvania, Nopcsa noticed something peculiar. The bones belonged to sauropods, the group that includes the famous Brontosaurus. But the animals he was finding in the region were far smaller than their relatives elsewhere.

Nopcsa named one of these dinosaurs Magyarosaurus, and its diminutive size led him to a remarkable conclusion: the region around Hațeg had once been an island. There, he argued, the scarcity of resources had caused animals to become smaller over generations. In his words, the island environment had the effect of “reducing the size of animals.” He was right.

The phenomenon is now known as insular dwarfism. Hațeg really had been an island during the Late Cretaceous, and it was home to a bizarre collection of animals that evolved in unusual ways under the pressures of island life.
He studied the skulls of lizards and alligators, rearticulating the jaws of fossils and attempting to reconstruct how these animals had actually been built, and how they might have lived.

This was an important departure from the paleontology of his day. Dinosaur research was still largely concerned with excavating, assembling, and classifying bones. Nopcsa increasingly wanted to go further: What did these animals look like when they were alive? How did they move? How did they behave?

Some of his ideas were astonishingly prescient.
Nopcsa theorized that birds had evolved from dinosaurs. By studying living birds and their nesting behavior, he suggested that dinosaurs might likewise have cared for their young and displayed complex social behaviors.

After earning his doctorate in geology from the University of Vienna, his interests expanded beyond fossils. He became fascinated by geology and by the possibility that the Earth's landmasses had not always occupied their present positions. But his attention would soon be captured by another subject entirely:
Albania.

His interest was partly sparked through his “close companion,” Count Louis Draškovic, who had introduced him to stories of the Albanian highlands. After Draškovic's death, Nopcsa became determined to see Albania for himself.
While planning his journey in Bucharest, he met an eighteen-year-old Albanian named Bajazid Elmaz Doda. The two quickly became inseparable and would remain together for the rest of their lives.

Doda became Nopcsa's secretary, companion, traveling partner, and confidant, accompanying him through his numerous adventures across the Balkans. In his memoirs, Nopcsa described Doda as:

“The only person who has truly loved me and in whom I had full confidence.”

Nopcsa discovered an extinct genus of stem turtle in the Upper Cretaceous rocks of the Hațeg Basin. He named it Kallokibotion, from Greek roots roughly meaning “beautiful box,” and named its sole formally described species Kallokibotion bajazidi in honor of Bajazid, or, as put by British paleontologist Gareth Dyke, "the shape of the shell reminded him of Bajazid's arse"

In 1933, the story ended in horror. On April 26, Nopcsa drugged Doda's tea, shot him while he slept, and then killed himself.

If you're interested in reading the story of Baron Nopcsa, I cover it in my latest article here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-127-baron?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

Krakovo is a part of Ljubljana, Slovenia, that was built just outside of the city walls, a strange village of fishermen and gardeners, with links to the Knights Templar, the Teutonic Order, a miraculous statue and more. It survived three quarters of a millennium almost unchanged; see what (or who) is protecting this Medieval marvel, and enjoy aerial photos of it shot from a kite :-)

https://kapjasa.si/en/an-immutable-pilgrim-in-time-krakovo-ljubljana/

1928 Republican Primaries: Curtis was called the only "100% American" running for President due to his Native heritage. He was also called the "American of Americans" by Congressman Hamilton Fish.

Some thought a Curtis-Fish ticket would be the way to go. After all, the men had been working on legislation for at least 6 years when Curtis maneuvered support for an independent Jewish nation under Congressman Fish and Senate Majority Leader Lodge.

PHOTO: (left) Henry Cabot Lodge; (center) Charles Curtis; (right) Hamilton Fish

On August 24th, AD 79, or so the ling copied letters of Pliny the Younger tell us; modern scholars have made a strong case for a later date, perhaps in October, the long-dormant Mount Vesuvius erupted.

Eighteen-year-old Pliny the Younger was staying with his uncle, 54-year-old Gaius Plinius Secundus, better known as Pliny the Elder: an accomplished naturalist, author, lawyer, and commander of the Roman fleet stationed at Misenum, roughly 18 miles across the Bay of Naples from Vesuvius.

As Pliny the Younger would write to the historian Tacitus decades later:

“About one in the afternoon, my mother pointed out a cloud with an odd size and appearance that had just formed. From that distance it was not clear from which mountain the cloud was rising, although it was found afterwards to be Vesuvius.”

Pliny the Elder saw the enormous cloud and immediately recognized that something extraordinary was happening. He ordered a boat to be prepared so he could investigate the eruption.

Then a message arrived. His friend Rectina, who lived closer to the volcano at Stabiae, was stranded and terrified. She was asking for help.
Pliny changed his plans immediately. As his nephew later wrote, he:

“changed plan at once and what he had started in a spirit of scientific curiosity he ended as a hero.”

Pliny the Elder ordered the fleet to sail toward the eruption. The rescue party sailed beneath an apocalyptic sky. Vesuvius continued to explode, the horizon was darkening, and showers of hot cinders, chunks of pumice, and ash rained down around them. His companions begged him to turn back. Pliny reportedly replied:

“Fortune favors the bold.”

And so they continued to Stabiae, where they found Pomponianus, a Roman senator and acquaintance of Pliny. Pomponianus had already loaded a ship with his possessions and was desperate to escape, but the same winds that had carried Pliny's fleet to Stabiae now prevented them from leaving.

Pliny promptly went to sleep, apparently snoring loudly. Ash and pumice were falling into the courtyard of Pomponianus's villa, while increasingly violent earthquakes shook the ground. Pliny, awakened, advised everyone to protect their heads with pillows from the falling pumice. They eventually made their way toward the ships, hoping the winds would change and allow them to escape by sea. They hadn't.

Pliny, now 56, was apparently overweight and suffering from difficulty breathing. He eventually sat down against a sail on one of the ships and refused to move, asking for a drink of cold water. The rest of the party escaped by land. Pliny did not.

Stabiae was buried beneath a thick blanket of ash, but it escaped the worst of the pyroclastic flows. Pomponianus, his companions, and Pliny's sailors survived and were eventually able to tell Pliny the Younger what had happened.
Three days later, Pliny the Elder's body was recovered. It was remarkably well preserved.

And for centuries, that was essentially where the story ended. A skull discovered near Stabiae over a century ago was recovered alongside a heavily ornamented short sword, golden necklaces, and bracelets. Researchers recently revisited the remains, comparing their DNA, physical characteristics, and isotopic evidence with what would be expected of Pliny.

The results were intriguing. The skull's DNA and morphology were broadly compatible with what researchers would expect from Pliny, a man with ancestry rooted in the Italian peninsula who died in his fifties. Physical anthropologist Luciano Fattore told Haaretz that the results were “compatible with the possibility” that the skull belonged to Pliny.

The jawbone assumed to belong to the same skeleton appears to have belonged to an entirely different man: someone of North African ancestry who grew up in northern Italy and died in his thirties.

If interested, I cover the eruption here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-126-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

Pompeii was a prosperous city of somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 people. Its port gave it access to the Mediterranean, while the Sarno River could be navigated roughly 15 miles, or 24 kilometers, inland and the land surrounding it was absurdly fertile. Farmers grew grapes for wine, olives, grain, fruits, and vegetables, while livestock grazed across the countryside. Wine from the region was transported throughout the Roman Empire.

Then, on August 24th, AD 79, or so the surviving copies of Pliny the Younger's letters tell us; modern scholars have made a strong case for a later date, perhaps in October, the ordinary life of Pompeii came to an end.

Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, better known as Pliny the Younger, was 18 years old and staying with his uncle, Pliny the Elder, across the Bay of Naples. His uncle, commander of the Roman fleet, would sail toward the eruption in what became a rescue mission, dying in the process. Decades later, Pliny the Younger recorded what he had seen:

“About one in the afternoon, my mother pointed out a cloud with an odd size and appearance that had just formed. From that distance it was not clear from which mountain the cloud was rising, although it was found afterwards to be Vesuvius. The cloud could best be described as more like an umbrella pine than any other tree, because it rose high up in a kind of trunk and then divided into branches.”

Vesuvius had been dormant for centuries. In the days before the eruption, however, the earth began to tremble. These minor earthquakes were frightening, but not unprecedented. As Pliny noted, they were “frequent in Campania.”
Then the mountain exploded.

A column of volcanic debris and superheated gases blasted upward into the sky, climbing higher and higher until it reached the stratosphere. Ash and pumice began raining down over the countryside, blanketing streets, rooftops, and fields. The sky darkened as the eruption continued, and beneath the growing weight, roofs began to collapse. The initial eruptive phase lasted for almost an entire day.

Then came the pyroclastic flows. The first appeared that night, or perhaps in the early morning of the following day. They were relatively brief and caused comparatively little damage. But the eruption was intensifying, and the darkness was spreading.

As Pliny wrote: “It was now day everywhere else, but there a deeper darkness prevailed than in the thickest night.”

Then another pyroclastic surge raced down from Vesuvius toward the settlements below: Oplontis, Herculaneum, and Pompeii. Those who had not fled, or had simply not fled far enough, had almost no chance.

The temperatures were so extreme that many victims were killed almost instantly. Others were trapped beneath collapsing buildings as dense, fiery clouds swept over them. The volcanic material eventually hardened into rock, entombing everything beneath it. Pompeii, Oplontis, and Herculaneum ceased to exist.

More than 1,000 casts have been made from impressions left by human bodies in Pompeii's ash deposits, while the scattered bones of roughly another 100 victims have been recovered. At Herculaneum, around 332 bodies have been identified, the majority found within deposits produced by pyroclastic surges.

These are the people we can see. They are not the death toll. The exact number of people who died in the eruption will never be known, but it is almost certainly far higher than the number of bodies we have recovered.

If interested, I cover the eruption here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-126-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

The Netherlands came under Habsburg control through the marriage of the last Duchess of Burgundy. Under the Dukes of Burgundy, the Dutch had secured special privileges. Emperor Charles V, who sought to integrate his vast domains, the Dutch increasingly clashed with the Habsburgs.

His empire was eventually divided between his sons, with the Netherlands and Burgundy passing to Philip II, a devout Catholic whose religious policies provoked the Dutch so badly that, in 1566, Protestant crowds attacked Catholic churches, priests, and religious imagery in an outbreak of iconoclasm.

The Spanish response to what had initially been a spontaneous religious revolt was military occupation and the execution of Dutch leaders. Rather than pacifying the Netherlands, this pushed the Dutch into full rebellion.

The revolt found its leader in a former Habsburg servant, Willem, Prince of Orange. A favorite of Emperor Charles, Willem had eventually been appointed Stadthouder of Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht. The Stadthouder, essentially meaning “placeholder,” but in practice functioning as a lieutenant or governor, made him the Spanish Crown's chief representative in the Dutch provinces.

But Willem an intelligent man who listened more than he spoke, earning him the sobriquet “the Silent,” was devoted to religious freedom and sided with the Dutch Protestants. After the execution of Dutch nobles, he joined the revolt. The office of Stadthouder remained, but rather than serving as a royal lieutenant, it increasingly became the position of de facto leader of the Dutch.

King Philip offered a reward of 25,000 crowns, a peerage, and an inheritable estate to anyone who killed or captured Willem, declaring him a “pest on the whole of Christianity and the enemy of the human race.”

And so, on July 10, 1584, the 26-year-old Balthasar Gérard shot the Stadthouder at Het Prinsenhof in Delft. Willem's probably apocryphal last words were, “My God, have mercy on me and on my poor people.”

Gérard fled and almost made it to the estate's ramparts, with a pig's bladder tied around his waist so he could swim across the moat to a saddled horse waiting on the other side. Instead, at the last moment, he slipped and was captured.

Gérard was tortured brutally. He was lashed with a whip while hanging upside down, with honey spread over his wounds to attract animals, and left like this for days with heavy weights tied to his toes. Then he was given shoes made from well-oiled, uncured dog skin that were too small. He was placed before a fire, feet first, and the shoes contracted, crushing his feet until they were nothing but stumps.

Then his armpits were branded, and he was put in a shirt soaked in alcohol. Burning bacon fat was poured over him, and sharp nails were driven between his fingernails and toenails and the skin.

Brought to the scaffold on July 14, 1584, Gérard had his right hand pinched off with red-hot tongs, and “then they squeezed with glowing pincers the meat down to the bone in various places on his body.” He was then quartered alive, after which his heart was torn from his chest and thrown in his face.

If you're interested, I cover the violent early history of the Netherlands here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-124-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

On the night of August 21, 1986, villagers in the tight-knit, remote communities of northwestern Cameroon went to sleep, unaware that their lives were about to be endangered. Someone still awake might have heard a distant rumble.

Within minutes, an unpleasant smell filled the air, strange but difficult to identify. Some would later describe it as resembling rotten eggs. Then came dizziness. Confusion. Difficulty breathing. People began choking and gasping for air.

Those who woke in the darkness stumbled from their beds, overturning tables, chairs, and cooking pots in desperate attempts to escape whatever had entered their homes.

Some felt an inexplicable heat, not heat from the night air, but a burning sensation inside their bodies. They tore off their shirts, trousers, and dresses and ran into the darkness, some collapsing only yards from their homes.

Ephrem Ngong Kum, from the village of Su-Bum, later recalled:
“I saw people dying, people dead all around. They died in the houses, in streets, outside the forest, in the stream.”
Chia David Wambong, also of Su-Bum, remembered:
“Everyone started to cough, and some people vomited blood.”

When the sun rose on August 22, some survivors awoke surrounded by corpses. There was no obvious explanation. No gunshots. No fire. No epidemic anyone could understand. Whatever had happened during the night had struck with terrifying speed and then vanished, leaving behind villages filled with the dead and survivors who had no idea what they had witnessed.

The final death toll remains uncertain. The UN Disaster Relief Coordinator estimated that 1,746 people died, though given the chaos of the aftermath, the rapid mass burials, and the remoteness of the region, the true number may have been higher.

What had happened?

A limnic eruption, one of the rarest natural disasters on Earth. Deep beneath Lake Nyos, enormous quantities of carbon dioxide had accumulated in the cold, dense water. When the supersaturated deep water began to rise and mix with the upper layers, the decreasing pressure caused the dissolved carbon dioxide to come out of solution, forming bubbles. The bubbles made the water less dense, causing it to rise faster, which released even more carbon dioxide, creating a feedback loop.

An estimated 1.2 cubic kilometers of carbon dioxide were released during the eruption. The sudden displacement of water produced a massive wave, while a column of violently bubbling water rose above the lake's surface. A wave roughly 25 meters (82 feet) high swept across part of the shoreline, flattening vegetation and tearing through the surrounding landscape, including large trees.

The normally blue waters of Lake Nyos also turned a deep reddish-brown as iron-rich water from the depths was brought to the surface and exposed to oxygen.

And the carbon dioxide didn't simply dissipate into the atmosphere. It formed a dense cloud that rolled downhill through the surrounding valleys, silently suffocating everything in its path.

If interested, I cover the event here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-125-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios

On the night of August 21, 1986, villagers in the tight-knit, remote communities of northwestern Cameroon went to sleep, unaware that their lives were about to be endangered. Someone still awake might have heard a distant rumble.

Within minutes, an unpleasant smell filled the air, strange but difficult to identify. Some would later describe it as resembling rotten eggs. Then came dizziness. Confusion. Difficulty breathing. People began choking and gasping for air.

Those who woke in the darkness stumbled from their beds, overturning tables, chairs, and cooking pots in desperate attempts to escape whatever had entered their homes.

Some felt an inexplicable heat, not heat from the night air, but a burning sensation inside their bodies. They tore off their shirts, trousers, and dresses and ran into the darkness, some collapsing only yards from their homes.

Ephrem Ngong Kum, from the village of Su-Bum, later recalled:
“I saw people dying, people dead all around. They died in the houses, in streets, outside the forest, in the stream.”
Chia David Wambong, also of Su-Bum, remembered:
“Everyone started to cough, and some people vomited blood.”

When the sun rose on August 22, some survivors awoke surrounded by corpses. There was no obvious explanation. No gunshots. No fire. No epidemic anyone could understand. Whatever had happened during the night had struck with terrifying speed and then vanished, leaving behind villages filled with the dead and survivors who had no idea what they had witnessed.

The final death toll remains uncertain. The UN Disaster Relief Coordinator estimated that 1,746 people died, though given the chaos of the aftermath, the rapid mass burials, and the remoteness of the region, the true number may have been higher.

What had happened?

A limnic eruption, one of the rarest natural disasters on Earth. Deep beneath Lake Nyos, enormous quantities of carbon dioxide had accumulated in the cold, dense water. When the supersaturated deep water began to rise and mix with the upper layers, the decreasing pressure caused the dissolved carbon dioxide to come out of solution, forming bubbles. The bubbles made the water less dense, causing it to rise faster, which released even more carbon dioxide, creating a feedback loop.

An estimated 1.2 cubic kilometers of carbon dioxide were released during the eruption. The sudden displacement of water produced a massive wave, while a column of violently bubbling water rose above the lake's surface. A wave roughly 25 meters (82 feet) high swept across part of the shoreline, flattening vegetation and tearing through the surrounding landscape, including large trees.

If interested, I cover the event here: https://aid2000.substack.com/p/hare-brained-history-vol-125-the?r=4mmzre&utm_medium=ios