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- [00:00]
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This is Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford from Therapy for Black Girls. You know that Amazon has millions of books, so you can find one that gives you just the reading feeling you're looking for. You know, like if you're looking for a relaxed feeling, like with a beach read, Amazon has got it covered. Or if you're looking for more of a terrified ah with evil twins or things lurking in the woods or something, Amazon's got you. I mean, even if you want an AW teen romance, Amazon has it covered too. Amazon books. That reading feeling awaits.
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Welcome to Erin Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. For hundreds of years, arguments and feuds were handled one of two ways, either with a healthy conversation or with a duel. Up until the late 18th century, those duels were mostly carried out with swords until guns became the weapon of choice. Funny enough, the object of a duel wasn't to kill the other person. It was only to achieve a sense of justice that honor had been restored to the wronged party. Now a duel was considered an appropriate way to seek retribution for a long time. But what happened if someone felt that their honor had been besmirched in a less serious way? Where did they go for satisfaction? Well, if they were a German college student in 1871, then they had an alternative. According to a book from that time, students at Leipzig University would challenge each other to a special kind of face off, but not one that would leave the other side bleeding out from a bullet wound. Rather, they might pass out from drinking too much alcohol. They were called beer duels, and they were part of a lengthy set of rules known as the Beer Code. According to the code, students, usually male students, that is, would be split off into two groups depending on their drinking abilities. Newcomers were called foxes, while experienced drinkers were referred to as beer boys. A fox could become a beer boy either by waiting two semesters or passing a drinking test. Often, beer boys would challenge each other to different drinking related competitions, such as who could drink the most beer in a given period of time. Anyone who declined the challenge faced ridicule and embarrassment and even more drinking. But sometimes things got out of hand and one drinker would offend a beer boy. They might call them a name like a sage or a beer baby. When that happened, the wronged party would challenge the offender to a beer duel. But there were no swords or pistols in a beer duel. The only weapon allowed was beer. I know. You didn't see that one coming, did you? And the rules were surprisingly complex. Different challenges and responses were often given, depending on whether the offense had been carried out on purpose or accidentally. Sometimes the offended party had to demand a beer duel himself, and other times the offender had the option to call for a duel. Either way, though, these incidents always ended the same way. Everyone drank a lot. And just as with an actual duel involving weapons, challengers and challengees had to choose their own seconds or representatives to handle the logistics of each confrontation. Umpires maintained order and officiated the proceedings as well. Considering these were drunk college students drinking the night away, their rules were thorough and impressive. Now, beer duels were only one manner of retribution. Beer boys had other ways to demand justice for perceived offenses, such as the order ex plano. This gave any beer boy the right to force a fox to drink, usually to teach them a lesson for being too arrogant. Refusal to drink led to more shame for the fox, and this extended beyond the university. According to the rulebook, any man of a higher semester drinking in a nearby beer village had the right to force someone lower to them to drink. And if that person refused, the challenger was allowed to dump his beer on their head. And finally, the university beer code had something called the Grand Cerevis. This was reserved for those times when everybody has been drinking for a while and they were too far gone to see reason. If a beer boy felt insulted by someone's remarks late into the evening, the Grand Cerevis was the equivalent of sworn testimony in a court of law. Only what someone saw or heard during the course of the evening could be spoken of in order to put the matter to bed for good. The Grand Cerevis was not to be used frivolously. It was the last resort to settle any and all disputes so as to avoid further arguments or worse. I suppose. It seems the Germans have always been serious about their beer. The beer code is perfect evidence of their dedication. To offend a beer boy was no joke, Lest you wanted to wind up an object of ridicule or find yourself being peeled off the floor after passing out from drinking. Perhaps something could be learned from their rulebook. Maybe we could avoid a lot more problems in the world if we shared a beer or three together every now and then. And to that I say cheers.
- [05:40]
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This is Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford from Therapy for Black Girls. There are millions of books on Amazon, so there's a reading feeling for everyone. So if you're after that excited haha feeling like when you discover you have a lot in common with Vikings or something, Amazon has books for you. Or maybe you enjoy the sort of nervous haha that comes when the hero barely escapes the zombies. Or maybe you like the smug that comes when the villain gets what he deserves. You know, Amazon has it all. Amazon books. That reading feeling awaits.
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Gifting is hard, but here's a hint. Give the gift of connection from US Cellular. Not sure what that means. Here's a slightly more specific hint. You can choose four free phones and get four lines for $90 a month from US Cellular. Your family wants new phones. How do we know? They told us. The good news is that compared to wrapping presents, you're great at getting hints. So take the hint and get them. Four free phones and four lines for $90 a month. US Cellular built for us.
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The sun blazed overhead as the crowd gathered in the square, fanning themselves in the tropical heat. Their soft murmurs quieted as the man of the hour was led to his place on the gallows. It was July 7th of 1730. Before the day was out, the pirates, Olivier Lavasseur, would meet his end. As the crowd watched, the wind weathered pirate pulled something free from the strap around his neck. It was a small locket. Find my treasure, he said in the French, hardened by the wind and the waves. And as he threw the necklace into the crowd, he shouted his last words. Only one may understand it. Olivier Levasseur's life ended that hot summer day on the island of La Reunion, a French colony off the coast of Madagascar. But his legend was only beginning. Inside the dead man's locket was a code that hid the location of one of the greatest buried treasures in history. Olivier Levasseur wasn't always a pirate. Born sometime in the late 1680s to a wealthy family in northern France, he initially studied to become an architect. In the early 1700s, though he set his sights instead on a naval career. So when France became involved in the War of Spanish Secession, he received permission from the king to sail as a privateer, plundering enemy ships for the glory of France. By the time the war ended in 1714, Olivier found that he had a taste for murder and mayhem on the high seas. So when he was ordered to return to Paris instead, he became a pirate, sailing under his own flag. Olivier quickly gained a fearsome reputation, too. He was known by some as the Buzzard, for the way that he stripped gold from a ship like meat from a carcass Others called him the Mouth, in honor of the vicious verbal lashings that he would give to his victims. He struck terror across the high seas, plundering ships from the Caribbean and West Africa all the way to the Indian Ocean, which is where, in 1721, he launched his most famous attack. In April of that year, Olivier happened upon a Portuguese galleon named Our lady of the Cape leaving the Indian port of Goa ladened with treasures. Our lady had run into a storm and, fearing that she would sink, had dumped any extra weight. In this case, that meant all 72 of her cannons. Olivier and her crew captured the ship easily and made off with thousands of pounds of treasure. However, their biggest prize was a huge cross of solid gold studded with rubies, emeralds and diamonds. The heist was legendary, and Olivier and his crew were rich men a thousand times over. The story even made its way into Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island. In 1724, the French government offered amnesty to any remaining French pirates sailing the seas. All they would have to do was give up a large share of their riches. Unwilling to part with his fortune, Olivier refused amnesty and was hunted for six years. Fight. Finally, he was caught in Madagascar in 1730 and sentenced to hang. And moments before he died, he tossed that necklace to the crowd, which contained a cryptogram with 17 lines. Hidden somewhere in the code was the key to his great treasure. Over the years, many have tried to decipher Olivier's code. It's widely accepted that it's a pigeon cipher where letters are replaced with symbols. What's not quite as easy to figure out is what exactly the symbols spell out. After many attempts over the years, a man named Reginald Cruz Wilkins found a new lead in the 1940s. Reginald believed that since the Knight Templars used similar ciphers, Olivier's code must have something to do with them. However, he also hypothesized that it had something to do with the Freemasons, King Solomon, or the Twelve Labors of Hercules. Needless to say, Reginald died in 1977 without ever having cracked the code. Even with Reginald's theories, it's not clear what exactly the cipher points to. It could be a map or a riddle, but some believe the whole thing might just be a hoax. Olivier Levasseur was certainly a fabulously wealthy pirate, but he died in 1730. The first mention of the code he supposedly gave to the crowd at his execution wasn't until 1934, 200 years after his death. Whether the code is a treasure map straight out of Robert Louis Stevenson, or just an elaborate hoax. People have dedicated their whole lives to discovering the truth. So maybe, just maybe, hiding under the sand on some long forgotten island, Olivier's treasure lies waiting. Here's hoping after 300 years, X still marks the spot. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts or learn more about the show by visiting curiositiespodcast.com the show was created by me, Aaron Manke, in partnership with How Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series and television show and you can learn all about it over@theworldoflore.com and until next time, stay curious.