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Hello, History this Week listeners. It is Sally here. We cover stories from all around the world on this show and today's episode is sponsored by the language Learning program Rosetta Stone. Our producer Ben is here to tell you all about them.
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Thank you, Sally. So we're in the holiday season and here at History this week we try to give you the gift of knowledge, ideas that can help you better understand the world. Well, another way to better understand the world, literally, is to learn a new language. So think about giving someone the gift of Rosetta Stone this holiday season. Rosetta Stone immerses you so that speaking, listening and thinking in that new language all becomes natural. Their True accent feature gives you real time feedback on your pronunciations so you'll blend right in. And you can bring Rosetta Stone wherever you go on your computer or by.
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Using the mobile app.
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Don't put off learning that language. There's no better time than right now to get started. Today, History this Week listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off. Visit rosetta stone.com history that's 50% off. Unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your Life. Redeem your 50% off at rosettastone.com history today for yourself or as a gift that keeps on giving. The holidays are all about sharing with family meals, couches, stories, Grandma's secret pecan pie recipe. And now you can also share a cart. With Instacart's family carts. Everyone can add what they want to one group cart from wherever they are so you don't have to go from room to room to find out who wants cranberry sauce or who should get mini marshmallows for the yams or collecting votes for sugar cookies versus shortbread. Just share a cart and then share the meals and the moments. Download the Instacart app and get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes. Plus enjoy free delivery on your first three orders.
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Serve service fees and terms apply. Today's podcast is sponsored by Midi Health. At any given time, 61% of adult women say they want to lose weight. But for many, that's easier said than done. If you've had trouble losing weight, don't lose hope. Midi Health uses a deep understanding of women's hormones and a combination of weight loss medications to create a customized plan for each user. Midi Health can help you achieve more effective and sustainable weight loss by addressing hormone imbalances. Many can also prescribe proven weight loss medications that help you experience reduced appetite and increased feelings of fullness when paired with hormone optimization. You're not just managing your weight, you're also supporting your body's natural processes, which means you can overcome those weight loss plateaus that in the past have been so difficult to move beyond. So if you're ready to combine the power of hormones with the power of weight loss medications, visit join MIDI.com today. Discover how this innovative approach can lead you to lasting success. That's joinmidi.com the History Channel original podcast history this week winter 1476 I'm Sally Helm. It was probably late December, but it could have been early January. The date is a bit of a mystery, and so is the person that we're talking about. A man whose headless body has just been found lying in a marsh. When he was alive, Vlad III was described as an ashen faced man with sunken eyes and a pointed chin. He was the prince of an area called Wallachia in modern day Romania. In Vlad's time, it's a borderland sitting on the edge of the Ottoman Empire. It's long been a war torn place, no stranger to violence or to the ravages of plague and disease. But Prince Vlad III has brought his own particular brand of cruelty. Even in his childhood, it's said that the young Vlad liked to stand at his bedroom window and watch as criminals were led to their executions. He spends his teenage years in exile, a prisoner of the Ottomans. And when he returns to the throne in Wallachia, he seems determined to exact vengeance. His older brother had been brutally murdered by nobles. Vlad rounds up those same nobles and others and has them impaled. That means a stake is driven horizontally through their chests or sometimes up through their bodies vertically. I'll let you imagine the details. But Vlad has such a taste for this particular brand of punishment that people start calling him Vlad the Impaler. He also has another name, one that he inherited from his father, Dracula. Dracula doesn't just punish his enemies. He seems to be a fan of torture in general. A poem from the time reads, it was his pleasure and gave him courage to watch human blood flow. And it was his custom to wash his hands in it as it was brought to the table. So when it becomes clear that Dracula's days are numbered, there were probably a lot of people who were secretly happy. Winter 1476. At this point, Dracula has had a rough couple of years. His younger brother betrayed him, but he's now fought his way back to the throne. He's still in peril, though. He has enemies everywhere. And less than two months after he becomes prince again Dracula's mangled, headless body is found by some monks laid out in that marsh. There are a lot of stories about what exactly happened. Dracula might have been killed in a battle with the Ottomans, who have long been his enemy. Or he might have been stabbed by an Ottoman assassin and then beheaded. It's said that his head does indeed make it back to Constantinople, where it's displayed on a stake. The Impaler now impaled. But of course, Dracula's death is not the end of his story. Over the following centuries, he sticks around in European folklore, popping up time after time, typically as the villain. His story mingles with stories of blood sucking demons that have been around for centuries. And by the 1800s, in Europe, vampire stories are really taking hold. You know, undead beings that suck the blood of the living, that can be warded off by garlic and killed with a stake through the heart. In 1897, the writer Bram Stoker releases the book that becomes the king of the genre, Dracula. It tells the story of an undead nobleman from Transylvania who travels to England to terrorize a seaside town and hunt a particular woman. Transylvania is pretty close to Wallachia, and many people believe that Stoker was drawing not just from ancient folklore, but also from the legend of the real Dracula, Vlad the Impaler. And Stoker has clearly tapped into something powerful. A monster story with a twisted romance underneath. His novel famously gets remade in 1922 as a movie by the German director F.W. murnau. The movie is called Nosferatu. In the movie, Count Dracula is replaced by Count Orlok. But nevertheless, it's so close, close to Bram Stoker's story, that a judge actually rules it a copyright violation and says that all copies of the movie should be destroyed. But much like the vampire at its center, the film doesn't die. It becomes a cinematic touchstone, helps define the idea of a horror movie. And there is now a new installment in that genre from a person who is known for mixing the supernatural with with rigorous historical realism. The director Robert Eggers, whose new remake of Nosferatu brings us into the minds of people in 1800s Germany confronting a baffling plague with a supernatural origin.