Hey there, and welcome to What You Didn't Hear,
the podcast where we dig into history's group
chat and spill the tea no one bothered to include
in the textbooks. I'm Zane Gould, your guide
through the weird, wild, and we -seriously -never
-learned -this -in -school side of history. Every
episode we pick a date, today, last week, 500
years ago, and find the historical moments that
flew under the radar. The awkward duels, the
petty politics, the weird inventions, the scandalous
letters. You know, the good stuff. So if you're
into time travel without jet lag, obscure facts
that make you sound smart at parties, and stories
that make you say, wait, that actually happened?
You're in the right place. Let's get into it.
Here's what you didn't hear on October 15th.
October 15th is the day in 1815 that Napoleon
Bonaparte began his exile on the island of St.
Helena following his defeat at the Battle of
Waterloo. But maybe you already knew this, so
let's slide back and dig into some of the other
stories history forgot. Pushing back to the year
533, on October 15th, Byzantine General Belisarius
makes his formal entry into Carthage, having
conquered it from the Vandals. The Byzantines
were a continuation of the Roman Empire and considered
its eastern half. They considered themselves
Roman and upheld Roman law. The Vandals were
a Germanic tribe known for destruction and migration
across Europe. They sacked the city of Rome in
the year 455. In 439, the Vandals captured the
city of Carthage and established it as the capital
of their North African kingdom, due to its strategic
position for their navy. They held Carthage as
the capital of their kingdom, which lasted for
almost a century until General Belisarius of
Eastern Roman Empire overtook the capital, officially
ending the North African kingdom of the Vandals.
It is believed that Belisarius is of Thraco -Roman
descent and was born in modern -day southwest
Bulgaria. His service to the Eastern Roman Empire
is expansive. Belisarius fought in the Iberian
War from 526 to 532. the Vandalic War from 533
to 544, the Gothic War, and the Lasic War. During
the Gothic War, despite being heavily outnumbered,
his army recaptured the city of Rome and held
out against the Ostrogothics in the siege of
Rome. Now we push forward to the year 1520. Big
gap, I know. To when King Henry VIII ordered
bowling lanes be built in his Hampton Court Palace
and Whitehall Palace. Bowling was a favorite
sport of King Henry VIII, and he placed restrictions
on bowling in England, prohibiting the general
public from playing and reserving it for the
wealthy and elite who could afford land and lanes.
His claimed goals in banning the public from
participating in the sport were to promote archery
and control gambling. Archery was a vital skill
for the English military, and Henry VIII believed
if commoners were allowed to bowl, they would
slack on their archery practice. And keeping
with the idle hands thought process, Henry VIII
believed that gambling on the sport of bowling
encouraged idleness among the poor. Only a couple
years later, on the other side of the pond, King
Charles V of Spain appoints Hernan Cortes the
governor of Mexico. Cortes was a conquistador
during the first wave of Spanish settlers to
colonize the Americas. During his expedition
from Cuba to the mainland, his journey was formally
cancelled, but in an act of open mutiny, he ignored
the orders to return and pressed on to Mexico.
After battling with coastal natives, Cortes conquered
the region of Veracruz, and to ensure that there
was no chance for his men to retreat or abandon
their expedition, he had his ships scuttled.
In fall of 1519, his army marched to Tenochtitlan
and were peacefully received by Moctezuma. However,
once received in his palace, Cortes took the
Aztec emperor hostage, leading to the destruction
of the Aztec empire and Cortes being named the
governor of Mexico by the king of Spain. In 1582,
Pope Gregory XIII conquers Julius Caesar when
the Gregorian calendar is introduced in Spain
and Portugal. Nearly 200 years later, in 1764,
Edward Gibbon observes a group of friars singing
in the ruined Temple of Jupiter in Rome, which
inspires him to begin his research and historical
writings about the decline and fall of the Roman
Empire. In New York in 1786, the first officially
recorded temperature of 32 degrees, or zero Celsius,
is marked on October 15th. In 1827, Charles Darwin
is admitted into the University of Cambridge.
On the same day, forward to 1860, Grace Bedell
wrote to Abraham Lincoln from New York, requesting
that he grow out his beard because you would
look a great deal better for your face is so
thin. all the ladies like whiskers and they would
tease their husbands to vote for you lincoln
replied on the eighteenth of october and grace
biddell's letter inspired abraham lincoln to
grow out his whiskers eighteen years later on
the same day the edison electric light company
is incorporated A company being incorporated
means it has been legally registered as a separate
entity from its owners through a formal process
with the state. This process creates a legal
distinction, meaning the company can sue or be
sued and its owner's personal assets are protected
from business debts and liabilities. In sports,
Charles Old Haas Radburn pitches his 60th win
of the season in 1884. for the MLB Providence
Grays in an 8 -0 victory over the Quakers in
Philadelphia. Just 10 years later, in France,
Alfred Dreyfus is arrested and accused of espionage,
an event known as the Dreyfus Affair. The Dreyfus
Affair was a political scandal that divided the
Third French Republic from 1894 until its resolution
in 1906. The scandal began in December of 1894
when Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a 35 -year -old
French artillery officer of Jewish descent, was
wrongfully convicted of treason for communicating
French military secrets to German embassies in
Paris. He was sentenced to life imprisonment
and sent overseas to the penal colony of Devil's
Island, where he spent the following five years
imprisoned in very harsh conditions, and will
remain in France for 1905 when Claude Debussy's
symphonic sketch, Le Mur, premieres in Paris.
In 1917, the Dutch exotic dancer Mata Harry is
executed by firing squad for conspiring with
Germany and spying for Germany during World War
I. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge declares
the Statue of Liberty a national monument. The
Statue of Liberty was built between 1875 to 1884
in France. The statue was then disassembled into
350 pieces. Packed into 214 crates and shipped
to New York Harbor aboard a French vessel, it
arrived on June 17, 1885. In literature, Ernest
Hemingway's To Have and Have Not is published
on October 15, 1937. And in 1952, on the same
day, Charlotte's Web, written by E .B. White,
is published by Harper and Brothers. In 1966,
the Black Panther political party is created
by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland,
California. On the same day and same year, President
Lyndon B. Johnson signs a bill creating the Department
of Transportation. Jumping forward to 1980, the
Nobel Prize in Economics is awarded to Lawrence
Klein for creating econometric models and applying
them to the analysis of economic fluctuations
and policies. His work led to the development
of large -scale computer models, like the LINQ
model, which integrate data from numerous countries
to forecast economic trends. For today, this
is where I will stop. I've wanted to end with
a bit of news regarding the podcast moving forward.
I have completed writing the first deep dive
episode, but I have not found time to record
it and edit it just quite yet. It is becoming
a little bit difficult to keep up with one episode
every other week and everything else going on
currently in my life. I will be moving the show
to one episode a month for the specific days
and one deep dive a month. I promise the first
is coming, but I want to make sure it is a quality
episode. I hope in the future I can move back
to every other week for the regular episodes,
but the student life is keeping me very busy
lately. Now on to something more exciting. The
return of Blind Date Through Time, the only dating
show where the contestant, you, flirts with mystery
and history to find a timeless connection. Here
is this week's mystery dating profile. Username,
RoughRider42. Location, somewhere between the
Badlands and the White House. Occupation, former
rancher, police chief, war hero, and something
else. About me. By day, I enjoy long hikes through
uncharted wilderness, boxing matches with close
friends, and reorganizing entire naval fleets.
By night, I read obscure historical tomes and
write books faster than most people write emails.
I once gave a speech after being shot in the
chest. Ask me how that went. I've disappeared
into the Amazon jungle and emerged with a map.
I've charged up hills and into history. I trust
in action over talk, but when I talk, people
listen. Looking for a partner unafraid of a little
danger. Someone who can ride at dawn and debate
at dusk. You value honor, intellect, and the
occasional bear hunt, figurative usually. Must
appreciate strong coffee and stronger wills.
If you faint at the sight of blood or books,
move along. Bonus points if you've ever run a
country, wrangled cattle, fought for a just cause,
or carried a big stick, metaphorically or otherwise.
If you think you know who this week's mystery
dating profile is, let me know via social media.
And to close the episode off, the history of
a commonly used phrase, bite the bullet. Bite
the bullet originates from military practice,
most likely from battlefield surgeries before
the invention of anesthesia. To cope with the
intense pain, soldiers were given a bullet to
bite down on, which helped them endure the procedure
without crying out or biting their tongue off.
That is all I have for this episode of What You
Didn't Hear. As always, thank you for listening.
If you're just finding the podcast, I encourage
you to go back and listen to the previous episodes,
and I hope you'll stick around for future episodes.
Please leave a review on whatever podcast platform
you're listening on, as this is the second best
way for new people to find the show. The first
best way is for you to share it with your history
-intrigued friends. Until next time, this is
What You Didn't Hear.