Citation Needed - Vlad the Impaler

Episode Date: September 4, 2019

Vlad III Dracula, known as Vlad the Impaler (Romanian: Vlad Țepeș, Bulgarian: Влад Цепеш, pronunciation: [ˈvlad ˈtsepeʃ] ) or Vlad Dracula (/ˈdrækjələ/(Romanian: Vlad Dr��culea, pronunciation: [ˈdrəkule̯a] , Bulgarian: Влад Дракула); 1428/31 – 1476/77), was Voivodeof Wallachia three times between 1448 and his death. He is often considered one of the most important rulers in Wallachian history and a national hero of Romania.   Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

I think they'll be fine with it. You think the audience will be fine with us charging them on Patreon, but not putting out a show? Yeah, yeah, but we only do it like six times a year. I don't think so, Heath. I don't think you're gonna be all right with that, that's. So we're not even gonna try it. No.

We're not even gonna try it, man. No. I hate you guys. Oh God, what's that smell? Ah, gentlemen. Welcome to my killing field, Jesus. Yes, all a podcasting enemy's late bear and we, the only remaining audio entertainments.

Holy shit, tell me you got everybody. All of them. Are those the McElroy brothers? I love those guys. As did so many Cecil. Just why they had to go. It was the only way to truly rule the podcastersphere. Eli, look, I get it. This week's show is about Vlad the Impaler,

but you didn't have to do this. We do a good show. We just keep putting out quality product and people hear about it. You don't need to kill all the other podcasters. I also killed the dollop. Okay, admittedly, that does open the market up for us a bit. It would be rich, yeah, good job.

I like it. Okay, with that. Right? Synergy. Hello, and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we are experts because this is the internet and that's how it works now I'm Tom and I'll be sticking it to friends and enemies alike But I can't handle all this gore alone joining me today are two men who really skewer the idea of being fully engorged Cecil and me I thought a rotisserie chicken was just a breed with spikes sticking out of it

So the second day on that is not great. I gotta tell you that. A little bit pain. The second day of trying to fuck it. Yes. Why is the first day better? It's more delicious.

I don't know. Okay. Fresh. And also joining us tonight, Eli and Noah Noah the only two men whose appetite for destruction is only tempered by Opportunity and inertia. I can't even Genocide know I get it. I get it. I've been accused of having a lot of things time and appetite is not one of them All right, well, this is a great time to really stick into all of our listeners who aren't patrons. And if you like the show and you don't support us on Patreon,

we don't even know your name. So if you'd like to matter at least a little, join the ranks of our patrons, be sure to stick around to the end of the show and we'll tell you how, with that out of the way, tell us, Cecil, what person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon, or event. Well, we'll be talking about today. Well, we do know the name of patron Jessica Davis,

who picked this topic out. We're gonna be talking about Vlad, the impaler today. All right, thank you. And Noah, are you ready to tell us a criminally long and boring backstory, desperately unneeded set amongst the backdrop of an accidentally interesting historical figure? You hear me talking about you, Jessica.

You hear that shit. Now Tom, I had Trusskins written me into the fucking dot and I took it off for you sir for you and this is All right, so tell us Noah which famous WWE wrestler was All right, so here's the thing you have to keep in mind as we go through this story. Usually when a national leader achieves a... Usually when a national leader achieves as much historical notoriety as Vlad the Impaylor, they do so by vanquishing a ton of rivals and taking over a massive empire. Vlad was basically an on-again, off-again, middle manager

in the Holy Roman Empire. We only really remember him for two reasons. One is that he was spectacularly cruel, and the other is that he had a really cool name. Yeah, I mean, history is littered with 10,000 tad the complainers, exactly. Yeah, and all still better than whining about Chad the cock blocker. So that was

going to do it. I said him too. And Cecil Vito that. So okay, let's deal with his name first. Don't get me wrong. Vlad the impaler is a pretty cool sober. Okay, but that wasn't his name. That name was applied to him by later historians and shit. And even if it existed in his date, nobody would have had the guts to call him that his name was Dracula. And that was plenty cool, even before Bram Stoker borrowed it for Earth's most famous vampire. In early Slavonic, Dracula called meant dragon, and the A at the end meant son of. So Dracula literally means son of the dragon in old Slavic, but in Romanian, which is what he spoke, Dracula met son of the devil. So, by the way, this dude was predestined for bad asser.

Stop gumping my book, guys. My name means son of the dragon. Son of the dragon. Yeah. What a kind of sucked historically if he had ended up like an accountant, right? Yeah, right. I'm trying to show you a CPA shop.

Yeah. You know, like names are not destiny. My son's middle name is actually danger and he is not dangerous. Yes. Yes. That's dangerous. All right, so we talked about the name. Now let's talk about the cruelty.

So obviously Vlad the Impaler was a big fan of impaling, but he didn't just impale. He wasn't a one hit wonder. He also could have been called Vlad the emulator, Vlad the boiler, maybe even Vlad the Brunoiser. Hey, I'm a great bully abacer of humans. Also, I've been in touch with you. Right, right. But for whatever reason, it was the impaling that really stuck in everybody's imagination.

I love that in an Inoa essay, we all just breeze past through nature or whatever and pretend that yes, I also always knew that word. He said, absolutely new that word. Yeah, as you're saying, if anybody got me on that one, it was he saw one eighth and stice. In France, it's even smaller. That goes for a lot of things, Heath. So, yeah. Listeners, it's where they turn you into a Bruno. All right.

So, let's be clear what we're talking about with this impaling shit. So, you take a stake about the width of your arm and some 20 feet longer. So, you split open your victim, you grease up the stake, and you drive it through their abdomen from behind. You can do it from the front, but you don't come as fast. And you just look like an amateur overall. Exactly, right? So you drive the steak through the abdomen, then, and I don't know why I'm doing this in the second person, this is not a recipe. Then you raise the steak up vertically and you plant it in the ground.

Okay. Who said angle it is skew? This is serious. Really? Straight up. You know, the Scottish actually tried this first, but then they just kept throwing them everywhere and people flew off. It was a disaster.

You got to lift it up slower. You fucked this all up. So if you do this right, you don't pierce any of the internal organs. So the person at the top of that state could theoretically survive for days. Most often though people would bleed out in a matter of minutes.

And one of the things that Vlad really dug about this particular execution method is that if you run out of steaks, you could just shish kabobbit and knock out four or five enemies per state. Jesus Christ. There's like somebody like, oh God, I'm next to Jim.

For fuck this is. Yeah. Can I go tradesies? I want a different cedar. These assigned seats. Oh, you know past life, Cecil was stuck in front of me for two or three days. Yeah.

Cecil. Cecil, I spy with my little life. Oh, right. So now, and of course, another great thing about this particular execution method spy with my little line ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha up a good question. What is a good impeller? Is it the one who keeps you alive or the one who kills you super fast? Is that a tipping situation? Like with the lineup, I don't know. You know, I feel like if you get just the tip, you can't really call that impaling anyone. Definitely a tipping situation though. Yeah, so okay. So before we get this story started, I want to warn you that geography is a bit confusing. It won't matter to you, but it mattered to me. Okay. I had to like read about a bunch of countries that don't exist anymore, get invaded

by countries I'd never heard of, because this story takes place in the Holy Roman Empire in the 15th century, which was comprised of hundreds of kingdoms, principalities, duchy's, counties, Prince Bishop, bricks, and free imperial domains, many of which overlapped and all of which were variably loyal to the emperor. But basically, the whole area we're talking about is like modern day Romania and just south of that. Also, we're doing this podcast in America in 2019 and depending on when it's released, that might not exist anymore when you listen to this either.

You know that? There's a lot of this shit. This is a pretty important region in the late 1400s. This is one of the main places that the Islamic world is kind of rubbing up against the Christian one. So basically this whole region is caught between a Sultan and a Pope and that means, among other things, that if you want to rebel against your leader, there's usually somebody around willing to finance it.

All right. So Vlad was the second legitimate son of Vlad Drakul who got his moniker by joining a group called the Order of the Dragon. That's a militant group dedicated to holding the Ottoman advance into Europe. Now a lot of Vlad Jr.'s history is conjecture, but he's believed to have been born in Transylvania, sometime between 1429 and 1431. At the time of his birth, the kingdom of Malaysia was under the rule of his dad's half brother, but when he died in 1436, Vlad Sr. seized power.

The Order of the Dragon was just a group of guys that got together every other week to play tabletop RPGs and were t-shirts that said, ask me about my saving throw. It's really not as glamorous as they made it out to be, you know. Okay, if you don't want to come, Cecil, just tell me. Hot. I don't want to come. I will put you down as a maybe. I come. I will put you down as a maybe. Now, I should say seizing power here did not make Vlad's data king. Well, Asia was like this semi independent state that was ruled by a voyvody. I'm probably pronouncing everything wrong in this, by the way. But that's basically a governor slash military

commander, but who is still a vassal to the Ottoman sultan, at least on paper. God, I'm glad you cleared that part up. I was worrying about the war. I don't want to confuse you later. We just see that he's the voyvode of the relationship. Yeah. Now, okay, so little Vlad had a couple of brothers that are going to play important roles in this story.

Murcia was his eldest brother and the heir to his dad's throne. He also had a younger brother named Rado, as well as a couple of illegitimate brothers. And after dad refused to back an Ottoman invasion of Transylvania, the whole clan, him and all his brothers were ordered by the Sultan to come to Gallipoli to demonstrate their loyalty. They get there. Guys like, so, I'm really sorry if I'm way off base here, but I got to ask, are you guys fucking vampires? Because you seem to have teleported here,

just like really quickly. I mean, I see you walking really slowly now, like you slowed down. I said down now, that's really obvious. Your name's Dracula, I'm just saying, like it's not. Yeah, I'm a ridiculous question. All right, so once they get there, the Sultan throws all of them in prison.

But eventually he agrees to release Vlad Senior and Murcia, provided they remain loyal All right, so once they get there, the Sultan throws all of them in prison, but eventually he agrees to release Vlad, senior and mercia provided they remain loyal. And just to make sure that they would, the Sultan kept Vlad, junior and Rado is hostages, which seems kind of weird, but I guess it was a common demonstration of allegiance back then, like you keep a couple of my kids and then kill them if I misbehave. Yeah, in 15th century, me is like jumping up and down on his royal sofa and spilling grape juice everywhere, regaining my sweet, sweet freedom.

Ha ha ha ha. We'll see, yeah, no, that's the problem with that method. Not everybody gives a big fuck about all their kids, which by the way, seems to be the case with, yeah. Yeah. Oh, seems to be the case with Vlad Senior here too, because right after this, Vlad supported the King of Poland and Hungary in a crusade against the Ottoman Empire. Ooh, let's kind of cause some awkward negotiations, right?

Hey, can we give you guys Steve and Alan as hostages instead of Steve and Brian? Well, sure. Why? No reason, death to tyrants. What? Well, I said no reason. Take Alan. Alright, so for whatever reason, the Sultan didn't kill a little Vlad and Rodu at this

point. Eventually Vlad, senior, reenters the fold, kisses sultan sass and agrees to pay him an annual tribute yeah one son a year he was gonna give him a uh... but i'm good for two years time sir uh... okay so the sultan releases his kids but about the time they're getting home to elacia it's being invaded by the regent governor of hungry

uh... a dude named john hunt yaddy uh... so little vladen rago go hauling aspect of to the Ottoman Empire that they just escaped from. And during this invasion, big Vlad and Mercia are killed. I mean, you know what they say. If you love something, set it free. And if it loves you, and the entire region happens to be embroiled in a bloody conflict of barbarous violence, it will. That is what they said on semen out of place

guys name's john i know it's like me mercia and radoo uh... john so this obviously leaves little vladen and awkward spot uh... so he's the right full air to elacia but the Hungarian invaders you know had obviously installed somebody loyal to them which is a distant relation to Vlad by the name of Vladislav II.

And the Ottomans, so recently his enemies, are every bit as pissed about a Hungarian loyalist on the throne as Vlad is. So when John Hanyadi and Vladislav II raised an army to attack the Ottoman Empire, the Ottomans loaned Vlad an army to sneak in behind and take back Malaysia Well, it was a whole army and then five violinists to plink the sneaking theme song as the Guy Yeah So we had to carry the bushes to yeah, little kid with a banjo behind the violin's doing it for them Little baby with a cowbell behind Little baby with a cowbell behind

Feet us with a triangle we go back for a second to loaning someone an army How does it does someone walk around the army with a clipboard looking for scratches on it? What did I get the insurance on this because there's probably gonna be Yeah, bring it back decimated you're like it was decimated when I got I got Yeah, bring it back decimated. You're like it was decimated when I got it. I got that nosy fucking guy from inside with the clipboard Looking at the guys like this one has a cut on him. This one's right here. Jalob branch. Where did you take this army? Come on, you can pick any army in the aisle. You just picked the one that you like. Yeah, all right It didn't smell like this when I gave it to you. That's what I do. All right, it didn't smell like this when I gave it to you. That's what I do. It hurts.

All right, so a hidden audience, Vladislav's army is defeated in one of the region's most famous battles, the Battle of Kosovo. And if you want to know how seriously these motherfuckers took that loss, their bitterness over this defeat directly led to the instigation of the first world war, 466 years later. That's real. Look up. So after this humiliating defeat,

Vladislav turns the remnants of his army around and realizes they don't actually have a kingdom to retreat true now. That had to be an awkward one, like let's go home boys. I mean, let's go for shit. Yeah, let's go. Let's go.

Yeah, let's go. Well, it would turn out not to be too much of a problem because once the threat from Vladislav was neutralized, the Sultan didn't give much of a shit who ran well, Asia. So he withdrew his forces that had helped Vlad take the city. So even with his beat up ass army, Vladislav is able to force Vlad into exile. That marks the end of his first reign, which lasted something like three weeks. Not a great sign when your predecessor and successor are the same guy. Jesus. What do you mean, backsees? It's a nation statement.

All right. So we don't actually know a hell of a lot about what happens over the next several years of Vlad's life. He pops up in the Ottoman Empire in Moldavia in Transylvania. He tries to strike a deal with Hunyadi to gain support to retake his father's throne. He tries to stir up rebellion amongst a bunch of nobles that have been disted by the king of Poland, whose name by the way is something like Vladislavs just to make this even more confusing. And eventually he gets into Hanyadi's good graces enough to get tasked with defending the Transylvanian border. And yes, that would be the Transylvanian border with Wallachia. So like this guy just put Vladimir and Pailer in charge of an army whose job it is to look

at his rightful kingdom all day. That's awesome. You can imagine where this is going. Dragon fight. What? Okay, some of you can imagine where this is going. All right, well now that we've established what impaling is and is not and the fate of bygone countries now hangs in a tenuous historical balance.

It is a good time to buy an outdated map and take a break for a little apropos of and is not, and the fate of bygone countries now hangs in a tenuous historical balance. It is a good time to buy an outdated map and take a break for a little apropos of nothing. Ah ha, Vladimir Mucheska, we met at last. Mucheska Vladimir, the same. Meet my brother, Much Vladimir Valkeska of Roma Somalania. Hello. And you meet my brother, Valkesik, Muchemir of Transylvanasco. I'm sorry guys, I'm from America.

Can we stop? Stop what? What do you mean? It's just confusing. I mean, our names are all the fucking same and it's over the names of our countries. So like the other day, I wrote a declaration of war to myself by accident, it's ridiculous.

Oh yeah, who is that? I have done that to you. It hasn't done that okay so first we all like pick some different names so I'm gonna go first I'm gonna be Alan spawning I guess and yeah Alan spawning and my country is called holand? Okay, I shall be Vladimir. Come on, what do we just say? Why does he get to be Vladimir? I mean, my country is called Roman.

Yeah. That's super clearly just, that's my name. You just, that's come on now. I want to be Vladimir. Okay, okay, okay. Nobody gets to be Vladimir. I want to be flat. Okay, okay, okay. Nobody gets to be flat in here. Nobody gets to do that. And we're also getting rid of all the

ea endings to the country. No Romania, no Transylvania. It's just ea is out as a suffix. None of that. Okay, I call my country then. France. Seriously? You know that France is a thing, man.

It's a thing. It's a lot. Okay, and somehow I'm now clear on the landscape that I was going into this whole thing. So I'm not sure. I'm fucking, all right. Noah, when do we get to more indiscriminate barbarism? All right, we're getting there. So unfortunately, the historical record is pretty thin when it comes to Vlad's second invasion.

We know we had Hungarian support and we know he killed the fuck out of Vladislav and we know that it happened in 1456. That's about it. Probably happened in April, July or August. So what we do know is the aftermath of the invasion. This is where Vlad Dracula really starts earning his reputation. He's got a lot of grudges against a lot of nobles

that either Refuse to support his rule over the years or Refuse to support his father or Refuse to avenge his father or look that him funny. We don't know how many people he killed during this initial purge and the sources vary by orders of magnitude, but even the low numbers are in the several hundred range. Jesus, a goth kid holds a grudge against a bunch of people, ostracized them and he comes back and kills them all. Get an original story Dracula. Jesus. Nowadays, you need a bump stock or a Dick Kaney. All right, so now part of this, of course, was just vengeful blood lust, but part of it

is good governance back then, too. Okay, this is a pretty common tactic when you take over a throne that's propped up by a strong noble class. You kill half the nobles and then give all their money to the other half of them. So I really put that in the second half. I'm going to call it 50s on the other half of them. So I really put that up in half. I'm gonna call it 50s in the second half. Yeah, right, right. I was just a great method of upping the average field.

Yeah, let's just all agree to do this with the current crop of billionaires. What do you guys say? Let's just say two votes. Yeah. I like it. Well, you know what? I want them alive and poor though.

Ideally. That's better, you know what I mean? And all of them, not half. I want, I want a necromancer for David Koch and I want to watch him be a bus boy for fucking Rashida Tileb's gay mosque yacht. Or you want to see all this happen? I don't know if she's gay, but it's a gay,

I want to make it a gay party too. All right, so this is his second reign. That would go on for a half dozen years or so and he get plenty of chances to exhibit his trademark cruelty over that time. He was pretty much constantly a war with somebody or putting down a rebellion or killing a shit ton of people. He was pretty sure might be planning a rebellion

or not telling him about other people planning a rebellion or looking at him funny again. Yeah, now I'm picturing him at the trademark office, like with like a diorama of like 70 toy soldiers all like bleeding ketchup over popsicle sticks. He's like, okay, you have to picture this in scale now. Steve King is going to go next and he is really weird. So like Steve, Steve focused, he is a fancy built.

All right, so throughout this whole period, he still pay tribute to the Sultanate that his father had promised to secure his release in the first place But at some point he just decided to stop doing that because fuck that guy So the Sultan gets pissed and sends two emissaries to order Vlad to Constantinople But the last time he listened to the Sultan about something like that his whole family got arrested and he spent years as a hostage So he has the two emissaries killed and invades the Ottoman Empire Messenger guy walks in he's got a pull through his chest already. He's like, hey Vlad, Salten says you got to head to the DMV in Constantinople and you got to read register in person, that's the rule. Sorry, it's still your thunder, but you know, it took the liberty pre-impaalling

for your... Speed it right up. I thought how you were going to take this. All right, so obviously the Sultan race is a huge fucking army, 150,000 men. And he decides that Vlad's little brother, Rodu, would be a much better voyvote. Okay, so he lands his huge ass fleet with his huge ass army

and Vlad goes for a scorched-jurth tactic. Basically, he just burns everything between their army and where they're trying to get. So they have no shelter, no food, nothing to hide behind. And of course, because it's flat, he also leaves forests of dead people on stakes. And apparently, the scale of death was so great, the Sultan freaked the fuck out and turned his army around. Jesus.

Cross country skewer. The catchy model back then was Transylvania. We don't like our stakes rare. All right, so this is actually probably the most famous movement in Vlad's career. So I want to quote it length from a contemporary historian get ready for a crazy mispronunciation here. Chocolcondolas?

Delicious. Yeah, right. Well, actually, there's a lot more nougat in there than you think, but it's like, it's so hot. You know, so, uh, right. But actually, there's a lot more nougat in there than you think, but it's like, it's so fast. You know, so, uh, God. What would you do for a Chaco Connoise? All right, you guys kid, but his name is pretty bad ass too.

I looked it up. It means brass knuckle. So, apropos, nothing. Anyway, so here's Ch condolences report on the sultan the sultan coming across the scene. Fuck you, your Alan brass. Here's Alan's spawning on it. Quote, I want everybody to call me Bracknuffles. Bracknuffles. Shut up, Gordy. Get us another beer.

All right. So here's the quote, quote quote the sultans army entered in the area of impalements which was seventeen states long and seven states wide huge fucking area state is like a stadium wide uh... there were large stakes there on which as it was said about twenty thousand men women and children had been spitted quite a site for the turks and assaulting himself the sultan was seized with amazement and said that it was not possible to deprive his country of man who had done such great deeds, who had such a diabolical understanding of how to

cover in his realm and his people. He said that a man who had done such things was worth much. The rest of the Turks were dumbfounded when they saw the multitude of men on stakes. There were infants too affixed to their mothers on the stakes, and birds had made nests in their entrails. F***. Yeah, it was a huge nest of beauls. Stuck in a stifle. You could make a Turk duck in with the way this guy was.

Look, maybe my focus is wrong, but this seems, I wanna say tedious, right? Like, what? What? But first is gonna impale maybe the first 5,000 people, and then the rest is just drudgery. Am I wrong? You're just being tough.

Hey, man, you're done. And you're like 95,000th guy is still freaking out and you're like, oh really? You're the one who's gonna make it through man. Hey, Alan. Alan, yeah, are you listening? Alan, can you come over here? Mm-hmm. Okay, so how many impalings did we say?

Oh, though we landed on 20,000, pretty sure I said to it looks like you did maybe 5 or 10 and then just like Made the margins wider Like I can't be the only one struck by the Sultans reaction looking around at a mass slaughter of innocence this guy's reaction is like Okay, no, that's guy knows what he's doing Like oh wow that's pretty good. Um, yeah, okay. So the Sons Army does freak the fuck out and turn back from a direct engagement, but

they don't abandon the war. They start taking strategic towns and consolidating forces and stuff, and Vlad realizes he's going to need some help to push back a force of this size. So he turns to his buddy, uh, Matthias Corvines, the current King of Hungary, and after a long negotiation, Corvines throws the current King of Hungary, and after a long negotiation, Corvines throws Vlad in prison. Pretty soon they're going to realize every time they incarcerate this guy just comes out a better impaler, you know?

Right. Yeah, then he tried to strike a trade deal with China, or the deal. All right, so for about 15 years, Vlad would live as a prisoner. And it's really at this point that he became famous outside of his little world. Europe starts gobbling up stories about this modern day colligula

and it's because of that morbid curiosity that we still remember the guy today. Of course, we should keep in mind that many, if not most, if not all of these stories of his cruel acts were literary inventions or just like rumors, somebody decided to write down. So there's no way of knowing what he actually did, but there is virtually no record at all of this guy that doesn't go out of its way to say he was cruel as all fuck.

So with the caveats that they're all historically dubious, let me give you a few of these stories. I don't think that caveat is necessary. I think we've well established on this show that historical accuracy is not a mark we frequently claim it's here. I did that. I did all my shirt did. You sure did. You sure did.

I helped. You lost the shaken bake hit of the show. Yeah. In so many ways. That's, I'm literally in a short pitch that to people if I have to do like elevator shit. No.

All right, so according to Slavic oral traditions, he was in the habit of routinely rounding up the poor, the lazy, and the disabled, and having them burn to live in massive fires to motivate the workers. Yeah, that's a tradition still carried on by Jeff Bezos, the wholesaler. So that's all done.

That's all done. That's all done. By, it's still done. By the way, these same traditions also accuse him of having once had a woman executed because the shirt she made for her husband was too short. What? What? Oh, Vlad, you didn't have to do that.

I pulled her, I liked it. Now she's going to know. Yeah. Okay. This is a whole thing now. Okay, that's a whole thing now. Okay. That's a weird pairing for that story though. So it was like, okay, so he did a giant eugenics bonfire.

No reaction, really. And, and let me finish. Bad Heming was not tolerated either. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, called him the impeller. All right, so the bishop of Eager, a Eager, I don't know, recorded a rumor that while Vlad was in prison, he would capture rats and cut them into pieces

or impale them on tiny little pieces of wood. He has a doorbell. Right? Because he was unable to quote, forget his wickedness and quotes. Right? Because he was unable to quote, forget his wickedness and quotes. What? They toss his cell, the warden finds out. Hold it out, Bible, little fetus inside.

She's like, you know what? I'm gonna let him keep this. I'm on, like, I'm as if he's curious at this point. It's who he does. So we have a contemporary poet named Michael Beehive, I think, who wrote a long poem about Vlad called the story of a Bloodthirsty madman called Dracula of Malaysia At one point in the poem Vlad decides to impale two monks since they seemed really stoked about getting to heaven

And then when their donkey starts bragging and protest he has the donkey and pale as well That would have been better if it was a camel because they are famous for spitting so it would have been perfect ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha boo shit to sit not boo clean it off with pissed hits ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha the following anecdote quote. Turkish messengers came to Vlad to pay respects, but refused to take off their turbines

according to their ancient custom. We're upon and he strengthened their custom by nailing their turbines to their heads with three spikes. And quote. Sounds like the policy in Quebec. Yeah, it was good. Yes. I was gonna say that's the first draft of the Muslim ban.

You guys. All right, so I've got one more word of warning. This one's hard to listen to, even compared to the last one. So if your squeamish maybe hit that skip 30 seconds button a couple times, this comes to us from a popular German book from 1499 author unknown. Quote. Vlad had a big copper cauldron built and put a lid made of wood with holes in it on top. He put the people in the cauldron and put their heads in the holes and fasten them there, then he

filled it with water and set a fire under it and let people cry their eyes out until they were boiled. So cute, that's the fucking face. Yes, I can see the look on their fucking face. Yes, yes. This book continues and this is the really bad part. Quote, he ordered that women be impaled together with their suckling babies on the same stake. Keep skipping, the babies.

Keep skipping you at all. Yeah, I'm skipping. Yeah. The babies fought for their lives at their mother's breast until they died. Then, yes, there's a then. Jesus. Then, he had the women's breasts cut off

and put their babies inside head first, thus he had them and pailed together and quote, what the fuck? I mean, well, I mean, at least he wasn't separating kids from their parents. It's not the worst. Boyled alive, that's just a stock punishment. Yes, that's. Okay, so here's the thing though, as bad as all that shit is, that's a good resume in

15th century Europe, right? So eventually the ruler of Moldavia convinces Corvines to release Vlad if he promises to help him fight the Ottomans. So eventually Corvines agrees to do this, but he seems like he does it in kind of a snit. Like he releases Vlad and then he recognizes him as the rightful ruler of Malaysia, but he doesn't provide any military assistance or anything to help him retake his king. He's like, oh, I need a military in Krovinis is like, I don't know man, cut some tits off and stuff a baby in there. You love your kingdom so much, do you think?

I will get you out. It's off and stuff a baby in there. You're weird. You watch my collagen thing, you're an asshole. That's hanging around my house for three years. You know my peanut butter. All right. So for several years, he fucks around cashing in old favors, couch surfing, killing the people that irritate him.

Okay, pause. Can we just all agree that no one never gets any power? Can we just, this is not, it's not power. No power. Very nature of democracy has already agreed with the other answer. But eventually, there's another dust up with the Ottomans.

And Vlad basically says, look, I'll kill a ton of people for you if you let me take Wollatia afterwards. So skip ahead, a bunch of military victories and a bunch of staked corpses. And he eventually gets to retake his home This would mark his third frame and it would last about as long as his first He took Malaysia in December of 1476 and then was killed in battle defending it in December of 1476

Oh, man, that is so much pressure on the guy who killed him, right? Yeah I've done it. I've felt the mad murder of Vlad the Impaler. Hooray! So, what are you gonna do to him? Oh, alright, I'm gonna... Cut open his balls? Yeah. Come on, me.

Okay. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry guys, I'm sorry. Too far, gross, okay, I get it. What if I cut his hat off and put it on a stick, maybe? I mean, it's okay. I have like, I'm a man. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, okay, I get, I get, I get, I get it. What if I take the stick, put it up his butt, so he's like, shitting his head? Is that, how would that, that's kind of tasteless, man. Yeah, it feels, yeah, I like it. the stick put it up his butt so he's like shitting his head, is that? How would that? That's kind of tasteless, man. It feels... Yeah, I like it.

It's real hard to do. It feels weird. I like the last one. Now, in close, I want to point out that I'd be telling a way different story, probably if I was Romanian. Dracula is still considered a national hero by most Romanians and an overall positive historical character. And while they dispute a lot of the individual stories about his cruelty, and to be fair

most of those are probably bullshit anyway, but they don't really shy away from his mass occurs when they're elevating him. Instead, they basically say, yeah, but look at us on Rulie Fucker. Sometimes we just need stake to the ground by the thousand. I'm still, it does not seem like any historians outside of Romania are buying this revision. So we're gonna stick with the blood thirsty sociopath image that's worked so well for the rest of the world. Jesus Christ.

All right, Noah. I'm curious about this one. If you had it summarized what you've learned in one sentence, what would it be? Brim Stoker really softened this guy up. He did it. Jesus. All right, my friend, are you ready for the quiz? I am thirst and for it, sir. All right. I'm going to go first here. No, what was the bumper sticker on Vlad's vehicle? A, it was instead of Yosemite Sam. It said back off, but it was a stick figure removing another stick figure's spine.

It was political, Vlad 1476 for what's at stake? It's such an incredible decode. I like Spike. See, my other car is a spitfire. What? D. D. D's not actually a bumper sticker.

It was a placard, but it was hung in the back window. Baby on sword. All right, baby on sword makes for the best matching Bobblehead. I'm going with D. I have spare. Baby, yeah, it is. Sure. All right, baby on sword makes for the best matching Bobblehead. I'm going with D. I have spare paper. Yeah, sure. All right, Noah, which is the following is the best project for Vlad the Impaler's TV and movie career. Hmm. Is it a what about Shishka Bob? B, a Comedy Central spit roast of Ladiah Miller or see skew the right thing.

A Spike Lee joint. Spike Lee. Spike. That's a tough one. I will tell you what, when I think of forest of decomposing housemans, I think comedy central. So I'm going to go with B. It was B. Oh B. Correct well done all right Noah

What was Dracula's theme song he whistled while impaling his enemies? Hey, I'm good at being vlog B Zlawed to the bone see the good one of one. On a vlog luck. For D, born through B vlog. That's what I'm doing. That's what I'm doing. Alright, wait, honestly, okay. Just the concept of somebody whistling the bobo bobo bobo bobo bobo. Bay, part of bad to the bow.

I have to go with B. I love that image, so yeah, I'm going to do. Alright, you got me. Alright. Noah, torture naming conventions continue into the modern day. Which one is an example of that? A, rip torn. B, gene hackment. C, Bobby Flay.

Or D, John Hurt. Bobby Flay. I'm going to go with secret answers. E, Chuck Berry to Lie, and F. Roger Waterboarding, just to show that I put more effort into your joke. You forgot. You forgot, you forgot Gia Tina crisp per now, crisp per. Chris Prist, Eugene, never mind. Yeah, all right. Look, everybody understand the game.

I'm gonna decide that Eli is the winner. Woo, I choose you, Tom and Chris. This is not fair. Oh, but all right. All right, well, for Eli, Noah, he then sees Alarm Tom, thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week and by then, I guess I will be an expert on something else Thanks a lot for that between now and then you can head over and listen to Noah and Cecil show get off my lawn

To check out heathen Eli show what time are we recording? If you'd like to keep the show going. You can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash slash station pod or leave us a five star review everywhere you can. That really helps you should do that. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media or check the show notes. Be sure to check out our new website at citation pod.com

where you can buy tickets to our live show, hopefully still at this point. So go buy them. If you're lucky, you're right here. You have to try. Go get those tickets. killed all those podcasters like all of them? Yep, they go wild. I'm bad. Just look at all of them. Yeah, yep, yeah, man. You murdered Dan Carlin?

No, no, no, he did himself in 2016. Right, right, yep. He, he, who am I? Don't worry guys, Trump won't be so bad. My show is called Common Sense. Okay, that's, that's That's... It's pretty good. It's pretty good.