Episode 12 Horrible Histories

# Terrible Tudors, Gorgeous Georgians, Slimy Stuarts

# Vile Victorians, Woeful Wars, Ferocious Fights, Dingy Castles

# Daring Knights, Horrors that defy description, Cut-throat Celts

# Awful Egyptians, Vicious Vikings, Cruel Crimes

# Punishments from ancient times, Roman, Rotten, Rank and Ruthless

# Cavemen savage, fierce and toothless, Groovy Greeks

# Brainy sages, Mean and Measly Middle Ages

# Gory Stories, we do that

# And your host, a talking rat

# The past is no longer a mystery

# Welcome to Horrible Histories. #

This week in Good Day Magazine, it's our Brunel Special.

BRISTOLIAN ACCENT: Oi, down here! Hello.

We've got an exclusive interview with a little giant.

Hey, less of the little!

I'm six foot tall if you include the hat.

Yes, it's Isambard Kingdom Brunel,

the man behind the Clifton Suspension Bridge,

the Great Western Railway

and the transatlantic steamship, the SS Great Britain.

Read how the most famous engineer in Victorian Britain is also

an amateur magician.

Watch as I make this half sovereign disappear before your very eyes.

Find out how Brunel got a half sovereign coin

caught in his throat

and then invented a machine to dislodge it.

It's not working!

And read how Brunel's father saved the day.

Dad, you're so embarrassing! I'm still choking.

His dad invented a machine that turned him upside down...

Oh!

..to dislodge the coin.

Oh, look at that! It worked. Well done, Dad.

Plus the miraculous story of a lucky escape from one of Brunel's bridges.

I fell from Clifton Suspension Bridge,

but my huge Victorian skirt acted as a parachute and I survived,

though my dress didn't.

I landed in a ton of mud.

Read my shocking story, only in Good Day Magazine.

So don't be caught short.

I'm not short!

Buy your copy of Good Day Magazine today,

price only a half sovereign coin.

But be careful not to get it stuck in your throat.

Like me!

Brunel was a Victorian engineering genius

but it took his dad's brains to dislodge a coin he swallowed.

Brunel knew the coin was missing when he checked his change

and realised he was a little short.

I heard that! >

Sorry.

Another brainy Victorian was a certain Mary Anning.

CLEARS THROAT

Excuse me.

I'm looking for a Mary Anning. She sells shells.

-Sea shells?

-On the seashore.

You sure?

Yes, I'm sure she sells sea shells on the seashore.

Are you sure that the shells she sells are sea shells?

Yes, the shells she sells on the seashore are sea shells,

I'm sure. Have you seen her?

No. But there is a woman down there selling fossils, look.

Thank you.

Good day, young lady.

I'm what they call a geologist. I study old rocks and fossils

and so on.

Yeah, I do know what a geologist is.

I'm sure you do, you clever thing.

I say, look at this, everyone! An incredibly rare

and important fossil I found right here on Lyme Regis beach.

Err, I think you mean that I found.

Why, yes. You picked it up off the beach because it looked nice

and pretty, no doubt, but it takes a proper geologist like me

to recognise it for what it really is.

The tail of a plesiosaur.

No, the wing of a Terrorsaur.

Really?

I know more about dinosaurs than virtually anyone else in the world.

I've been discovering their bones down here for years.

If I wasn't a woman, I'd be rich and famous now cos of my finds.

Instead, I'm down here on the beach with my brother,

selling my collection to make ends meet.

My, what an imagination you have!

No, it was me who discovered the first ichthyosaur skeleton

and worked out it was a dolphin-like dinosaur, so.

Now I know for a fact that isn't true

cos this Royal Society papers, published by a very famous

scientist, said it was, um...

Well, it doesn't say who it was who found it, but finding it's the easy

bit. It's cleaning it and preparing it that's the really hard work.

Well, that was me as well.

Look, love. Just cos you found the odd fossil doesn't make you

some sort of expert or something.

The odd fossil? I've been discovering fossils my whole life!

I found ammonites, I found belemnites, I found coprolites...

Coprolites? What are they?

-Fossilized dinosaur poo.

-Oh, goodness!

Yeah, I was the first to identify all of these, so.

Look, if this were true, I'm sure I'd have met

you in London at the Geological Society.

Well, I'm not allowed to join, am I, cos I'm a woman?

All right, calm down!

Oh, no. I am calm cos I discovered another dinosaur today.

Really, which one?

You!

That is an ammonite.

That's a belemnite.

And that is a coprolite.

Oh, and have another belemnite while you're at it!

Elephant catapult?

ELEPHANT TRUMPETS

CRASHING

Huh.

Yes, us ancient Greeks came up with a lot of new words,

and they helped us explain our groundbreaking ideas.

Hello, there. I'm an ancient Greek scientist.

Science, it's all Greek to me.

Of course it is. I'm Greek!

That's why I'm able to tell you about the wonders

of the ancient Greek universe.

It's amazing!

Even though we ancient Greeks lived a very long time ago,

we were amazing scientists.

It was us that worked out that rainbows are a natural

phenomenon and not the work of the gods.

They're not made of magic. They're natural, like waterfalls

and hamsters.

It's amazing!

It was an ancient Greek called Xenophanes who worked out that

because we find seaside fossils on the tops of mountains,

the surface of the Earth must have risen and fallen over the years.

It's ancient Greek scientific fact.

How else did they get there? They can't walk. They're fossils!

It was us ancient Greeks who first worked out that the nervous

system is linked to the brain, all matter's made up of atoms

and the sun is the centre of the Milky Way.

They were all ancient Greek scientific facts.

All of them! Look at the big brain on us - pwch!

We're amazing! We even invented steam power and vending machines.

Well, that's all for this week. Thanks for watching and...

Sorry, Brian. Sorry. Where's all the crazy stuff?

What you talking about?

Well, normally you tell all the crazy stuff and then I've got to get

these fellas to come in and cart you away. So come on! let's hear all

this mad scientific rubbish that you ancient Greeks believed in.

Well, there isn't any. We're just really smart.

Oh, right. That's lunch everybody.

Thanks, lads. Cheers, Brian.

-OK?

-All right.

Oh, I nearly forgot.

We also believed that the planet Earth is floating in water.

OK, lads. Usual business.

And that in India, there are ants as big as dogs that dig up gold

and eat camels.

It's ancient Green scientific fact. Amazing!

You've probably heard of Tutankhamun.

But have you heard of THIS mighty pharaoh?

Hello. I have come to pitch the story of the greatest

pharaoh of all time.

You must be King Tut.

Tut! I am Ramesses the Great.

Ohargh! Big head alert!

We'll be the judge of who's great around here, Mr Ramalamadingdong.

My name is Ramesses.

So is King Tut, like, just a nickname?

I'm not King Tut. I am Ramesses II!

The Second? You were the Great a minute ago.

I ruled Egypt for 66 years. Tutankhamun died

when he was just 18.

A boy pharaoh. I like that.

We could give him a pet, like a talking sphinx.

-Is Robin Williams available?

-I love Robbie Williams!

Rob-in Williams.

I love Robbie Williams!

I am not the boy pharaoh! I am Ramesses the Great.

Ohargh!

Would you please stop doing that?

Tantrum! Did anyone say diva?

In his short reign, Tutankhamun achieved nothing.

I made Egypt the richest, most powerful place on the planet.

I waged great wars that changed the course of history.

I built countless gigantic monuments.

Oh, now we're getting somewhere. So you built the pyramids?

Well, no. They'd been there for a long time before I became pharaoh.

So you built the Sphinx?

Yeah. Again, that was somebody else, way before my time.

But I made loads of other stuff.

The temples at Abu Simbel, the entire new city of Pi-Ramesses

and, of course, my incredible mortuary temple, the Ramesseum.

Did you have a famous tomb, like King Tut?

Now I've heard of that. It was filled with incredible treasure.

His tomb was rubbish! It was all hidden underground.

It was nothing compared to mine.

I'm telling you, it's my story you want.

OK, we're onboard.

We are so totally not onboard.

Did King Tut, by any chance, have a talking camel?

-Why not? Eddie Murphy.

-Eddie Murphy!

Will you stop going on about King Tut?

I am the greatest pharaoh of all time!

Me, me, me!

Aruba, aruba, aruba!

Why has nobody heard of me? It's so unfair.

Oh, temper, temper!

Tut, tut, tut!

Oooh! So annoying, people!

Bye-bye, Rambo, Rampelstiltskin. What is his name?

Oh, who cares?

It was quite common for posh Egyptian tombs to be stolen.

When Tutankhamun died, his fancy tomb was nicked by his uncle

who had him shoved in a hidden underground one instead.

But this meant it wasn't easy for grave robbers to find it,

so it remained intact with its treasures

until it was discovered in the 1920s.

Which is why Tutankhamun is so famous today. Hm.

Yes, those ancient Egyptians loved fancy buildings,

so there was an awful lot of construction work.

Stonemason, yeah?

Right, go and join the crew working on the Sphinx. Cheers, mate.

Oh, I can't wait! Imagine actually being part of the team that builds

Egypt's brand-new capital city, Pi-Ramesses, from virtually nothing.

Seven square miles of mansions, temples, canals, lakes,

statues and houses for 300,000 people!

I hope I get on a pyramid team.

All right, pharaoh statue. Cheers, mate.

Or a needle. Some of those needles are amazing.

50 foot high, 200 tonnes.

I can't wait to tell everyone back home about this.

Temple Oorah. Thanks, mate. Next.

All right, chief? I am raring to go, so just put a hammer in my hand

and point me in the direction of the...

Horse toilets.

Horse toilets?

Horse toilets.

Horse toilet?

-Yeah, it's where horses go...

-I know what it is, mate!

I left my family hundreds of miles away and walked here.

I had to hire slaves to look after my farm so I could be part

of Ramesses II's magnificent project and you want me to build a...

Horse toilet.

I'll be a laughing stock!

There's nothing wrong with building a horse toilet, right?

Come and have a look at the first one we done.

Look at that, heh?

Years of engineering and genius have gone into designing that, yeah?

The pillars hold the horse in place, perfectly positioning it

so it can do its business in the hole.

Imagine it, yeah?

The pharaoh's cavalry,

10,000 horses, all going to the toilet at once in front of us.

I'd rather not.

Well, not only is it cleaner, but we're also collecting all the

horse wee to help tan the leather, to make the armour, the weapons.

Your horse toilet, mate, is helping make Egypt

the powerhouse of the world.

I've never thought of it like that.

These horse toilets are amazing! I'll do it.

Good on you, mate.

Thanks. Only, if anyone asks...

-Oh, I'll tell them you're working on the Sphinx.

-Thank you. Cheers.

-Ta, ta. All right.

-All right. I can get started.

Oh, horses only!

Oh, sorry.

Unbelievable!

Hello and welcome to the News at When. When?

Around 70 years ago when the United States of America

and the Soviet Union, centred around modern-day Russia,

decided to try and settle the growing argument over who was

superior in a way that was quite literally out of this world.

Here with more details on this starry story is our very own

Space Cadet, Bob Hale, with this Space Race report. Bob.

Thank you, Sam.

Well, the year is 1945, World War II has just ended, and after years

of having to be battle buddies, America and the Soviet Union can

now finally embrace the fact that they don't much like each other.

You see, these two superpowers run their countries in very

different ways called Chalk and Cheese.

Err, I mean Communism and Capitalism.

So have grown to distrust each other intensely.

But luckily, both of them captured some of the German rocket

scientists who built Hitler's wartime missiles,

which suggests a rather exciting way to settle which superpower is best.

Rocket pack jousting.

No? OK, then. How about using missile technology to put

a man into space?

Yes, the space race is on with an early lead going to...

America!

Who, to find out if it's possible for living creatures to survive

space travel, start firing monkeys, dogs,

mice and rhinos into outer space, though not rhinos.

And with the Soviets following suit, soon loads of animals

are sent off into starry skies, with many of them never coming back.

I guess they liked it up there... What?

Oh, right. Rest in peace, guys.

Anyway, now the race really starts hotting up, as both sides rush

towards the next major milestone, putting an man-made craft into orbit

around the Earth, with the points, this time, going to...

the Soviets!

Yes, in 1957, Sputnik One,

a radio beacon the size of a beach ball becomes the...

Thank you. Really helpful, honestly.

Yes, Sputnik becomes the first ever satellite,

but America's not far behind, and in 1958, they launched Explorer One,

which is about the size of a grapefruit.

Don't even think about it.

And while it's even Stevens, score wise, the Soviets are now on a roll.

They send an unmanned rocket right round the moon,

launch a probe to photograph its surface and,

in 1961, after successful tests using a dummy... Yes, very funny...

Russia's Yuri Gagarin becomes the first ever man in space

and America starts getting pretty sick of second place. So,

in 1961, US President John F Kennedy announces that America will

attempt the impossible, to put a man on the moon.

"Not because it is easy, but because it is hard."

The exact same reason why I keep trying to set the clock on my oven.

So a new series of rockets, known as the Apollo Programme,

are dedicated to mooning.

Err, err, I mean the moon landing. But disaster strikes

when a fire during launch simulation kills the crew of Apollo 1,

meaning Apollo's two, three, four, five, six

become unmanned flights to perfect the design.

Until finally, in 1968, the USA gets some badly-needed points

when the crew of Apollo 8 become the first men in history to

orbit the moon. And just one year later,

America is finally ready to do what mankind has always dreamt of,

teaching a pig to tap dance!

Huh? Oh, a moon landing.

That makes more sense with all of this. I see. No, no, no, no, fine.

So Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong climb aboard Apollo

11 with the aim of beating the Soviets, once and for all.

Their mission is simple. fly to the moon, land on the moon,

walk on the moon, leave the moon, fly home and Bob's your uncle,

though only if you're my nephews. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Well, since the navigation computer was about as powerful

as a chip inside a modern toaster, I'd say pretty much anything.

But the date's been set, the cameras are primed and the eyes

of the world watch with bated breath, which is difficult for eyes,

as on July 20th, 1969,

the Lunar Module, Eagle,

separates from the Command Module, Columbia, and...

land on the moon! Yes, the space race is finally won!

A scoreboard-shattering victory to the US of A, as Neil Armstrong

takes one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind.

The Soviets accept defeat, wave goodbye to a moon they never

reached and turn their attention to building space stations,

leaving America to build a moon colony with a burger bar

and a coffee shop, right?

Wrong! In fact, only 12 people ever set foot on the moon

and no-one's been there since 1972.

A tragic oversight that I'm going to rectify right now.

Yes, it's time to take one small step for Bob Hale,

but one giant leap

with the good people at Bob Hale's Space Rocket Industries.

Goodbye, Sam. I've always loved you. Will you wait for me?

-No.

-Well, I'm not going, then.

Fine.

BEATBOXES

# What's going on? There's a horse in the hospital. #

You, you, you! Welcome to me make show.

This week, we is in the Middle Ages. Leave it!

And we is going to be making some gold, yeah?

Yeah. Ha ha!

Showing us how it's done is my main man, all the way from Italy,

the alchemist Bernard De Treviso.

-Give it up!

-Bon giorno.

Oh, OK. Oh, we're going for three.

Bernie, tell us about yourself, man.

Well, I've travelled the world

and spent my entire fortune studying the ancient art of alchemy.

What is that, like, a hocus pocus sort of...

It's Middle Ages science.

OK, we're cool, bruv. We're cool.

I bought a secret recipe for making gold off a monk

in France.

First of all, you're going to need some eggs.

Whoa, hang on! We's going to be making GOLD out of EGG?

Which I'm cool with, by the way.

Then you're going to need to mix the eggs with the horse dung...

Dench.

..and leave it to rot for a little while.

And then you're going need to heat the mixture.

So here's some I prepared earlier.

Oh, man! No, seriously. That smells like my sister's kid's nappy!

Eww! Oh, is that... And is that supposed to turn into gold?

Don't be ridiculous! No.

You take some lead.

You put the lead in the mixture.

For real.

And then the lead turns into the gold.

Right. And it works?

Well, you see for yourself. I made this nice necklace for you.

Err, no. Thanks, but no, thanks. I ain't wearing that!

You know, I don't believe you've ever made gold out of this

recipe, for sure.

Well, give me a chance! I've only been trying for eight years.

Right, listen to me, yeah? You can't make gold out of egg and poo

and lead and tin.

What was I thinking?

I should have tried eggs and vinegar.

Shut up!

That's what a Belgian alchemist told me.

I bought his recipe as well.

Now, listen. Hold up, man. Hold up, mate, yeah?

Get real! Look at me in my eye, yeah?

No-one is ever going to get minted out of this!

Well, you say that.

You should see how much I paid the monk for the recipe.

All right, then. Whoa, whoa, whoa! What you doing? What you doing?

Costume! I've only got one of these.

So annoying!

SPLAT!

It's true. That Italian fella really tried to make gold out of horse poo.

Ergh!

Yes, in the Middle Ages, some people did some really stupid things.

# Stupid death, stupid death, They're funny cos they're true, woo!

# Stupid death, stupid death, Hope next time it's not you! #

Ha hee.

Blah, blah, blah! You're talking rubbish, you two.

I'm the star of this show. Me!

You two are nobodies. Ooh!

I did a funny. Nobodies cos you've got no bodies.

Ha ha! I just can't turn it off. Next.

Ooh, goody! Three for the price of one.

And you are?

Who said that?

-Erm, I did.

-And you are?

I asked you first.

How dare you! Answer the question of the King.

-Which king?

-I am John, King of Bohemia.

Oh, right! Got you. I'm Death, by the way.

I would have thought my general look was a DEAD giveaway!

I'm also known as King John the blind.

Oh, that's embarrassing. But never mind. Tell us your story.

OK, so it is, err... start of Hundred Years' War,

I've allied myself with the French.

It is 1346, we are lining up against the English

and the Welsh at the Battle of Crecy.

-Sounds crazy!

-OK. It's a bit of

a disadvantage being blind in battle, as you can imagine.

As I can imagine.

So I asked my bodyguards to tie their horses to my horse with

horse reins.

And then, I can be directed at the enemy,

so I charge full headlong into the battle.

And, umm... how did that work out for you?

Not so good. We were all slain.

LAUGHS

Oh, sorry I'm late for battle. I got a bit tied up.

You know, with the reins?

Err, we weren't late.

Whatever! You're through to the afterlife.

Yeah, it doesn't work.

All right, all right! I was a bit strapped for a joke. Ooh!

Strapped, like, you're strapped to them.

-That kind of works.

-Show him out, you two.

Now, which way are we going, guys? You've got to tell me.

I like this guy.

Yeah, it's true. My tied-up joke was a bit ROPEY!

LAUGHS

I'm like a laugh machine gun. Laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh,

laugh, laugh, laugh!

Reload! Laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh!

LAUGHS

No? Oh.

# Stupid death, stupid death, Hope next time it's not you! #

Hoo, hoo!

Morning, Chivers. Riffing hot day, what? I need a swim.

Er, madam, I'm not sure you should...

Oh, stuff and nonsense! I'm a member of the Carlton Ladies' Club and

I will go for a swim in my club's pool when I blooming well want to!

But madam! Have you not heard?

Room for a small one?

Ooh!

They've drained the pool.

They're keeping pigs in it to help the war effort.

Good for them!

PPRRRRRTT!

Ugh! Does this mean they're members?

I don't know what the fuss is all about.

I love swimming in poo!

LAUGHS

It's true, though.

The Ladies' Carlton Club did keep pigs in the swimming pool.

With a war on, the government needed everybody to help produce food.

Welcome to Homefront Gardening with me, Alan Smallbog.

And what a delightful ornamental garden we find ourselves in today.

It's the proud work of one Margery Brighton Belle.

Hello, Margery.

Good morning, Alan. It's a pleasure to have you here.

Thank you. Now what we're going to be doing today is making some small

changes to your garden

to bring it up-to-date with what's going on in the wartime

gardening scene.

We want to see the sort of thing that you might

find in the gardens of Buckingham Palace itself.

Well, that sounds lovely.

So I take these gorgeous roses and chrysanthemums.

Well, that has taken eight years of tender loving

care to get them blooming just right.

So let's just...

get rid of them and replace them...

..with these.

Carrots and turnips!

But that won't work at all!

The whole garden will be completely unbalanced.

You can't plant carrots and turnips in my ornamental flower bed!

You're not wrong, Margery. Best just dig them all up.

That'll look horrible!

That's as maybe, but just think of all the food you'll be growing.

There's a war on, people are hungry.

You said it was going to be like the King's garden at Buckingham Palace.

It is! It's what he's doing there.

-What?

-He's setting an example.

The country needs food and you can't eat chrysanthemums.

Just follow the details on this handy government Dig for Victory

pamphlet and plant veg where your posh flowers used to be.

But this is the wrong time of year to be planting these vegetables.

And these need to be spaced further apart.

This government pamphlet is giving people completely

the wrong instructions.

So it is! We needn't have dug up your beautiful flowers.

Are you sure you can't eat chrysanthemums, Alan?

Why?

Cos you're going to eat these.

What?

Come here, you!

You've ruined our garden!

History really was horrible, especially in the Stone Age.

Now, if you want horrible, check us Romans out.

No, Saxon times were the worst.

I think you'll find we Stuarts had it really bad.

Oh, chill out, guys! There's always been horrible history.

Get a load of this.

# Stone Age brought you speech, Farms, the wheel and fire

# Then metal was explored which meant we could make swords

# To kill and build empires

# Think Ancient Egypt was nicer?

# Pharaoh's tombs, lovely shrines?

# But some were living graves for hundreds of poor slaves

# And pig's eye was our cure for the blind

# Greek civilisation our creation

# Drama and Philosophy

# But Sparta praised lying, celebrated dying

# And Hippocrates drank wee

# We're History

# We brought you bloodshed

# Greek excursions to battle the Persians

# Disembowelling our dead

# Together we made the world

# A little bit grim

# We're History

# Could be fairly dim

# We Romans brought you roads

# And public medicine

# A Gladiator fighting, Feeding men to lions

# Burning Christians, That kind of thing, you know

# Then came the Middle Ages

# Saxons, Normans, Vikings, Celts

# A time of invasion, feudalism, Famine, Black Death,

# Bubos and welts

# 1066 saw Harold in a fix as William conquered all

# What was the bettin' an arrow in his retina

# Would lead to his downfall?

# We're History

# We brought invasion and strife

# We attacked monasteries, Said, "Give us gold, please"

# Then we took your life

# Our crusades meant slaughter wherever we'd go

# We're History

# Was it pretty? No.

# Tudor Stuart Georgian monarchs Next in line

# Brought progress in science and art

# Also beheadings, Burnings, civil war

# Breed an economy, for a start

# We're History

# We gave you plague and disease

# Travelled, found the Incans, Spread smallpox in a blink and

# Brought them to their knees

# Dogs, cats and the French blamed for plague along the way

# We're History

# Not such happy days

# Victorian technology went hand-in-hand with poverty

# Kids up chimneys and down mines

# Improvements to the world did pick up despite some violent hiccups

# Two World Wars, millions died

# We're History

# Our times smelly and gory

# We reigned over you and told you what to do

# And that is this story

# Thought we were amazing though you may quibble

# We're history

# And we made it horri...

# ..Ble

# We're History. #

Can't get enough of Horrible Histories?

Then go to the CBBC Website and click on the link.

See you there.

# The past is no longer a mystery

# Hope you enjoyed Horrible Histories. #