Stuff You Should Know - Duels: A guide to throwing down the gauntlet

Episode Date: March 6, 2012

Pretty much everything you know about duels is true - it's a challenge to violence to defend honor. But did you know the U.S. Navy used to publish detailed guidelines in its midshipmen's handbook? Learn all there is to know about dueling in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to The War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And you got Stuff You Should Know on guard. Yeah, touche. It means touch in French. I thought this was one of the funniest openings of an article ever, by the way.

Did you like it? I thought that very first part was hysterical when I read it. Well, you know what? It just so happens. I don't have an intro for this one. So I think you might want to read it. Should we just read it? Yeah. Ed Grabinowski never lets us down. No, he's good. The Grabster. This is how duels work. Ladies and gentlemen, pistols at dawn. The challenge is issued. To turn it down would leave you marked as a coward for life. You meet at the chosen spot facing your opponent at a distance of 20 paces. Your dueling pistols are loaded. One or both of you could be severely wounded or killed the day. Doctors are standing by to mend the damage if possible, while your

friends eye each other warily. Why is this all happening? Because you made fun of his hat. So good. That is about right, too, as we find out in the rest of the article. Yeah, well done, Grabster. It's not much of an exaggeration. Apparently throughout the history of people, or ever since we've had swords, at least, men have challenged other men to duels, and other people have died as the result. Yeah. You know? I thought this was a great article. I thought so, too. This is definitely something I knew virtually nothing about. Yeah, officially me, too. But I did find out that things like Wild West duals shootouts. Yeah. Very close to reality. Sure. They apparently

happened to coincide at a time when dueling was very popular in America. And this comment, all it was, it was the old West version of pistols at dawn. And as an aside, probably the best dueling movie of all time. The quick and the dead. The quick and the dead. It's exactly right. If you have not seen that, pause, pause this podcast, get off your treadmill, put your ice cream down, whatever you're doing, go watch the quick and the dead, and then come back and resume this podcast. Yeah, you know what I always appreciated about that movie was that there were how many how many quick draw shootouts like 500? Let's say there were 10 in the movie. Let's say 500. Each one of them was different. He filmed them different and had a different feel. I just

thought that was so creative. Each one had its own little flavor. That's our Sam Raimi. So good, man. I love that movie. He's got something new coming out, doesn't he? Mr. Hollywood guy, come on. He's got something coming. He's not doing the new Spider-Man. I don't know. I think he might be working on another evil dead, like a modern remakey uptake. Or he might just be producing that. If he does that, that'll be the second time he's remade the evil dead. The evil dead, too, is a remake of the evil dead. Yeah, pretty much. So Chuck, a duel for anybody who doesn't know, is basically a one-on-one battle as is evidenced by the etymology. And apparently, we said entomology before. I don't know. Some 11-year-old kid called us out on that. I think

he might have misheard us because I definitely knew the difference between etymology and entomology. Etymology. Etymology of the word duel is, I think, Latin, right? Duelo? Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Duelum, which is a contraction of a duo to embellum war, obviously antebellum pre-war. Oh, okay. I never realized that. Yeah. Huh. Okay. But duo, too, it's basically a war between two individuals as a duel. And it's been around for quite a long time. I guess we should probably just get to the meat of it first. Let's talk about duels, and then we'll talk a little bit about the history. Yeah, let's just throw down the gauntlet. So somebody does throw down the gauntlet, and a gauntlet is a glove. And when you threw down a gauntlet at the feet of

somebody, that was at the height of dueling enough to issue a challenge saying, you and I are going to try to kill one another for a little bit. We're not necessarily, we'll get to that. When you went to a duel, you had a second, which basically was the guy who came along, a friend, a trusted individual. What's your wingman? It was like the best man at your death. He was there to help you prepare your firearms or your sword. He was there to basically make sure you weren't ambushed. Yeah. He was supposedly a neutral third party, a second. Supposedly. Yeah. And supposedly we would try to talk it down and diffuse it. That was the first roll of the second. But I don't know how much I buy that. And Eddie even points out like more times than not,

the second would actually fight the other second. And sometimes there was third and fourths that would fight the other third and fourths. And that's, I looked at this as it's the same as like a bar fight today. There's always usually like a friend nearby that's, you know, he's got your back, but it's really between you and that jerk. But if things get out of hand and he gets a beer bottle all of a sudden, then you get involved and his friend gets involved. So it's sort of like that, I think. Yeah. Or if he tries to get in the middle of the two things, he ends up like River Phoenix at the end of Stand By Me and takes a knife to the neck and dies in a bar. That was so sad. It was sad as ending.

Or River Phoenix's character, let's say, since he really died, then that's, we should point that out. He had a sad ending in real life as well. Yeah. Big time. So Chuck, when you declared dual, you could use any weapon, but for a very long time, basically all you had available to you was a heavy sword. Yes. And you had to use the same weapon. And depending on what code of dueling you were following, the challenger or challenger would pick that weapon. Right. And you mentioned dueling codes. There were several dueling codes. And the one that became the most widespread was the dueling code of 1777, the Irish code, which is cited extensively in this article. And I believe you're prepared to give everyone a treat and read some of the rules from the code. Yeah, the code

duelo, it replaced the Floss duellatorium, which was in the 1400s, the Il duelo in 1550. Apparently, the Germans had their own dueling code, which it was set by the Fechschulen dueling schools. I imagine theirs was just because they were German. It was probably a little more hardcore. Sure. Although everything was pretty hardcore back then. It was. But if you look at the dueling codes, a lot of the rules appear to be set up so that you don't kill the other person. The whole point of a duel is not to kill the other person. It's to regain honor. Dueling is the result of an insult. When somebody insults you and you challenge them to a duel, you're seeking to say, I'm going to get my satisfaction from you. Basically, you punked me out in public. And that can't happen. That's

another way to put it, because I would be looked at as a coward. And that would be a knock on my families and my ancestors honor even. Yeah, you had to protect the honor of your ancestors backwards and forwards in space or time on either side of you. That's right. As I was saying, some of the rules are intended to prevent harm or injury. Yeah. You see people like facing away from each other and turning and firing. Yeah. That was designed so that when you're using a clumsy 17th century firearm, the chances of you hitting anybody but a bystander way off in the distance is pretty low. Yeah. From what I gathered after reading a handful of these rules is that the Code Duelo encouraged injury but not death. Yeah. What they didn't encourage was purposefully firing

in the air as sometimes happened when neither one of them really wanted to get hurt. They didn't really like that because that sort of takes all the chutzpah out of the duel to begin with. You're very excited to read these rules, aren't you? Jumping ahead a little bit? No, no, no. We're not there yet. Okay. But one of the rules was that the winner could pretty much do whatever they wanted. Once you've won the duel, let's say there's an injury, you could kill them if you wanted. Yeah. You could just humiliate them if you wanted. You could be a good guy and say, you know what? My honor has been asswaged. It's great. So let me give you a hand up, little buddy. And you were a good person for doing that. I would say so. I could see you totally doing

that, Chuck. There's no way I would have been dueling to begin with. You could also cut the other person's head off after finishing them off or maybe finish them off by cutting his head off and then posting it in a public place. Right. I said also that the Irish code is very widespread, so much so that this to me is one of the facts of the podcast. Agreed. It was reprinted in full as part of the midshipman's handbook of the US Navy Navy up until 1862 when the Navy outlawed or banned dueling among officers. But up until that time, it was like, hey, you're probably going to get in a duel at some point in time. And here's what the Navy says about that. And what the Navy says is what the Irish say. Women typically did not duel.

And when they did, it says in the article here, it was viewed on as an oddity and a strange, amusing spectacle, which like foxy boxing is today. Well, or it's kind of like the first catfights. Yeah. Is that sexist? Totally. But I mean, that's what they, that's apparently what they, they viewed duels among women as it was an amusement for men because women are just so stupid. Right. Except, except if you were dumb enough to make that kind of judgment about Lamo Penn. Yeah, you probably would have had your head cut clean off of your body. She was a genuine dueler, a swordswoman. And depending on who you talk to, it's either her father who trained her or a lover who was a great fencer. And, however, I think she liked the ladies

as well. Because later in her life after performing in bars and dressed as a man, but not to like say, Hey, I am a man. I think it was just like, Hey, I'm more comfortable in these clothes. It's easier to move in these clothes. Exactly. She dug up the corpse of a dead nun, put it in a dorm room, set that room on fire to fake her own death so she could escape the convent with her female lover. Yeah. Lamo Penn. She was a pretty progressive rock and chick back then. Yeah, she was pretty cool. And that was after she retired from the opera. Early 1700s. Yeah. Yeah. So she, she's pretty cool. No foxy boxing there. No, I don't even know what that is. I haven't seen that. It's exactly what it sounds like. All right. Yeah. It was kind of big in

the, I think the 80s, maybe the 70s of like just women like boxing one another, but not really. And then like, it's incredibly sexist. There were a lot of fights at my school, my high school. I mean, not like a lot, like it was a rough of school, but it always struck me even as a young stir that like when guys would get in a fight, it was always horrific. And then when girls would get in a fight, the dudes would be sitting around laughing at it. I saw a girl fight in high school once that was really disturbing. It was more disturbing than any guy fight I've ever seen. Well, because girls fight dirty. Yeah. Both of these girls were fighting very dirty. It was really horrible. Yeah. One of the, I think like the assistant principal jumped in and got like

smacked around and ended up backing off. Wow. Yeah. It was a bad fight. So there was nothing funny about that one. No, not at all. Really? Is there anything funny about anybody fighting? No, I don't think so. Unless it's like, I don't know. Clowns? Yeah. Clowns fighting. Yeah. That'd be funny. Clown fight. That's hilarious. Unless one of them dies. That's right. Chuck. So we mentioned that seconds are in charge of issuing apologies. Yeah. And you can't just go over and say, Hey, man, guys, sorry, he'll never do it again. Can you have his gauntlet back? That just doesn't work. There's standards. There's rules to issuing an apology. And as I understand, you're prepared to explain the rule from the Code de Wello for issuing apology. I think even it's rule number one.

Very first rule as it should be. Let's hear it. The first offense requires the first apology. Though the retort may have been more offensive than the insult. Example, A tells B he is impertinent, etc. B retorts that he lies. Yet A must make the first apology because he gave the first offense. And then after one fire, B may explain away the retort by a subsequent apology. Very nice. Thank you. Thank you very much. So basically, no matter how bad the retort is from the first insult, yes, whoever insults the other person first has to apologize first, right? Then they shoot at one another. And then the second person can apologize. You also have rules to whether or not or how a an apology can be accepted. Or if an apology, a verbal one is even worth anything

at all, what situation that is, won't you? I point you to rule number five, Josh. As a blow is strictly prohibited under any circumstances among gentlemen. So no hitting evidently. Yeah, no. Or if you do, that's it. Yeah, there's no going back. No verbal apology can be received for such an insult. The alternatives therefore the offender handing a cane to the injured party to be used on his own back at the same time begging pardon and firing on until one or both are disabled or exchanging three shots and then asking pardon without proper of the cane. Right. So if you wanted apology after smacking someone in the face, but you didn't want the cane, you guys had to shoot at each other

three times. Or I imagine maybe deal three blows with a sword. Right. But by this time 1777 firearms were all the rage for dueling. Sure, which we'll get to. So you've got to do all the apologies have been either not offered or rejected. Yeah. And it's time for the duel. It's there's certain etiquette. Right. Yeah. You mentioned that there is rules against not really doing this wholeheartedly. Like if you're going to get into a duel, you have to do it wholeheartedly as far as the code duelo is concerned. But this is also one of the more frequently broken rules because most people who are in duels didn't really want to die. And they probably didn't want to kill the other person either. Right. Because I imagine

when you're in a duel with somebody and that's your reality at that moment. And it's not just some guys and powdered wigs out, you know, in an apple tree and it's a wood engraving or wood carving. Right. But it's really what's going on in your world right then. Yeah. I'm sure you are acutely interested in not killing and not dying at that moment. Yeah, I would have applied them with alcohol. I would have been the guy being like, come on, man, you would have made a great second. Like, can we just have this ale here and talk it over and laugh about it? Yeah. Right. It's funny, right? Yeah. But they took it way more seriously than I did. So there's this rule that says, man, if you're going to get in a duel, you have to do it all the way. It's called rule

13. No dumb shooting or fighting in the air is admissible in any case. The challenger ought not to have challenge without receiving offense and the challenged art if he gave offense to have made an apology before he came on the ground. Therefore, children's play must be dishonorable on one side of the other end is accordingly prohibited. Very nice. So you've got all these, we need Strickland, huh? No, no, I think that's great. Okay. So you've got this rule that says you do this all the way, but that's not necessarily how a lot of duels worked. Guys would agree ahead of time like, hey, we're actually going to do the duel, but we'll both shoot into the air. Yeah. But you don't want to die, do you? Which, by the way,

is what happened is how Alexander Hamilton died at the hands of the treacherous Aaron Burr. Let's go ahead and talk about it. Well, they were political rivals. They were both, they were in a law firm together, and that's where they first learned to hate one another. And then they were in a very small country at the time. They were very big fish in the same small pond. Yeah. And things got out of hand. And I can't remember who challenged who to duel, do you? Yes, it was a series of insults. And this was at a time where the losing presidential candidate would become vice president. Yeah, yeah. Which, could you imagine that these days? Yeah, that'd be pretty awesome. I think it'd be nice. It would temper things. Well,

it would, I guess it was for balance of power. Sure. I don't know if it would work. Or it was consolation prize. That's true. So they disliked each other. There were a bunch of insults in Burr, challenged Hamilton in Weehawken, New Jersey. And they're varying accounts on what happened. But what we do know that happened, Hamilton got shot, Burr didn't. Whether or not Hamilton fired in the air is a good guy. That's what I heard. Or got hit and was like, ooh, and fired up in the air. Never. Is debatable. Alexander Hamilton was a crack shot. He had great timing. He had cat-like reflexes. Aaron Burr shot Hamilton. Hamilton fired in the air. Aaron Burr was actually, I think, arrested for murder, wasn't he? He was charged with murder and basically acquitted in the end.

But this is a time when it was like kind of on the outs. They were beginning to outlaw dueling anyway. And it ruined his career, basically, ruined his political career from that point. Yeah. People are like, who's on the 20? And by 20, of course, I mean, who's on the 10? Yeah, the $10 bill. Jackson's on the 20. Alexander Hamilton's on the 10. Stop emailing. You got nothing but 20s, though, in your role. So that's why you... I can't even tell you who's on the 10. Yeah. And did they even make dollar bills? The war on drugs impacts everyone. Whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy, number one, is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs.

They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty, exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. Cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like, what we would call a jack move or being

robbed. They call civil asset. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you crave a good mystery? Tune in to the great detectives of old time radio podcasts featuring episodes of different detective dramas from the golden age of radio every day Monday through Saturday. The lineup of radio detectives currently includes Sam Spade, Dr. Tim Detective, Dangerous Assignment, Follow Vance, Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, and Tales of the Texas Rangers.

I'm your host Adam Graham, and I offer commentary and humor after each episode and also respond to your questions and feedback. Enjoy a good mystery before bed, while driving, or whenever you crave old school radio goodness. Listen to the great detectives of old time radio on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Chuck, let's get to seconds, which again, I want to say that, oh, oh, I got ahead of ourselves. I'm sorry. Also, you should never duel at night. The only time when you can legitimately hold a duel at night, meaning that the same night of the offense

was when the person was going to be leaving town before daybreak. No need to even read that one. That speaks for itself, and that makes good sense. Basically, their cooler heads prevail generally the next day, which is a great rule in marriage and life. Yeah, I'm always a big fan of sleep on it. Why don't we sleep on it? Yep, you're absolutely right. But sometimes the wife will still wake up just as angry the next day. It happens, but most times the worst is waking up in the middle of the night angry. Yeah, that's pretty bad when the rage is seething. So Chuck, do you want to talk about seconds? Yes, seconds. They had very specific rules for

the role of the second. They had to take care of the guns in the same way and load in the presence of one another. I can't shake the feeling that we're both in trouble. They would have to, like I said, load the guns together and in front of each other, and the gun was already agreed upon. They have a smooth bore. Yeah, and I think the rifle bore would be a more accurate longer distance shot, so they said we can't use that. Yeah, it's like shot putting a football or throwing it in a tight spiral. Which one's going to get further with more accuracy? Exactly. That makes sense. So you want to load in the presence of one another?

Yeah. Saying, look, see the bore? Smooth. And we're doing it right here so everyone can see it. Third, sports, everyone pay attention. And we also mentioned how they are bound to offer or to try to get an apology generated to avoid a duel. They're supposed to, according to the code. And then rule 25, if they can't come to any kind of a resolution and the seconds clearly are eyeballing one another like, oh dude, you're going down too. It's on between us. They had rules for that as well, like rule 25. Where seconds disagree and resolve to exchange shots themselves, it must be at the same time and at right angles with their principles. I don't get the right angles thing. How is that physically possible?

I don't know. I took that to mean they shoot from the same angle. That would be parallel, not right angle. Well, I don't think it meant right angle in the geometric sense. I think it meant the correct angle as in the same angle. Maybe I'm wrong. You think it meant like geometry? I think the authors had put in a full day by the time they got to this rule. Or maybe at right angles, it meant if these two are shooting here, then they have to shoot there so there's no crossfire coming at them. Okay. Yeah. So they make a square. I don't know. We'll have to look into that.

And then how do you know when a duel is over, especially when it doesn't necessarily result in the decapitation of one? When you cut somebody's head off and post it on a pike in the town square, the duel is over. But there's also more nuanced endings possible, right? Rule number five, if shawds are used, Mr. Trebek, the parties engage until one is well-blooded disabled or disarmed, or until after receiving a wound and blood being drawn, the aggressor begs pardon. Unless the person who's disabled insists that it's only a flesh wound. He does have a, did you notice his Money Python reference in here? No. That's definitely not the only article with the Money Python reference from him. What is it?

Well, later on, he's talking about how nobles weren't allowed to work and they made money off of rent from their huge tracts of land. That's for Money Python. I don't remember that part. You don't remember that? She's got huge tracts of land. I don't remember. Yeah, that's a good part. Good for you for noticing that one. Sure. Well, the grafter, he's always sneaking them in.

And also any wound sufficient to agitate the nerves. Yeah, or make the handshake. Must end the business of the day. I mean, that would be, that's kind of a loose, if you ask me. Yeah. But that does mean that the duel is over. So that's a, if you want to know more, if you want to know all the rules, you can get your hands on a pre 1862 U.S. Navy Midshipments Handbook.

Apparently, PBS has all of them as well on a frontline site. We don't. I'm sorry. But Chuck Dueling was, for a very long time, the pursuit of nobles, right? Yeah. As a matter of fact, it was used to differentiate nobles from common people. Like in a lot of medieval Europe, European countries, commoners weren't allowed to duel. It was out. It was illegal.

Yeah. And before guns, they, a lot of commoners couldn't even afford swords because swords are expensive to make and even more expensive than firearms once they came around. So a lot of them couldn't duel in the traditional sense. Although, the Grabster points out that there were plenty of duel like circumstances among commoners too. Right. It was probably just the bar fight. You just can't let the local fuzz find out what you're doing. Yes.

And noblemen were expected to duel. Right. And the whole point of dueling was the protection of honor and honor as a concept, as the Grabster points out, is not what we think of it today. I didn't know this. Honor is basically like, if you are rich, if you have a title, if you are a member of an important family, you have honor automatically. It's attached to you. Yeah. It doesn't mean that you were a good,

upstanding guy. It just means like this is your station in life. You were, you're blessed basically by being born rich and white. Exactly. It's like the 1%. And you have honor and it's fragile, extremely, at all times, it's prone to be insulted at the drop of a hat, at the drop of a glove especially. Very nice. But even the drop of a hat. And not only is your honor at stake, but the honor of your family for generations forward,

generations backward, and any schmo of noble rank. Yeah. I imagine if a commoner came up and insulted your family, you just cut their head off right there and there's no duel. It's just death for the commoner, right? Yeah. But if another person of nobility comes up and insults your family honor, then you say, it's on. I challenge you to a duel.

At this point, and you've mentioned cowardice already, but at this point, the other person has a choice. Very socially speaking, they don't really have a choice, but they do have a choice. Sure. They can either accept the duel or they can be a coward. And in the same vein, the person whose honor is insulted has a choice. They can either issue a challenge to a duel or they can let it slide. Either way, if you let it slide or you shirk a duel, you're a coward.

And that was a big deal back then. Yeah. It wasn't just like, you know, Jimmy's a sissy because he wouldn't fight me at school. Right. Which haunts you for the rest of your life, you know what I'm saying? That's true. But your family was insulted. You could lose your honor. Like they would take it away legally sometimes. They could publish an account of it to the church. Who, and you know, in the church, they're going to tell everybody. Yeah.

You're a coward. The church, God. It was not an abstract thing. King's who would not uphold their honor could lose their noble ranking. They would just take it away and you could actually be punished and excommunicated and your voting rights revoked for cowardice. Yep. Serious stuff back then.

You could also be in prison and killed. And just it just generally bad things fed to dragons probably. I don't know if you could be killed. I just, I just said that. Well, if the dragon's eating you, you wish someone would kill you. Good point. Um, so I think probably the whole, this whole code, this whole dueling code is, and how refined it became was out of the frequency of dueling. Right?

Yeah. Apparently, like you said, these people sat around with their huge tracks of land. Well, they couldn't work. No, they, like you couldn't work. If you wanted to work, you couldn't if you were of noble blood. Yeah. I mean, you literally could not hold a job even if you're like, if you found you're really good at something, but I really like blacksmithing. Making these shoes, these horseshoes.

You're a nobleman. You have to make your money off of rent. So the end result of that is after a lot of sitting around and Fox hunting and mead drinking, you get a little bored. And so dueling kind of became a sport for a bored nobleman. Yeah. These young guys were like, well, got nothing better to do. So let me go down to the pub and throw down the gauntlet on someone or just

be really easily irritable to where anything that happens to me. You bump me in the bar and like, all right, it's on. Or you looked at my lady. That was a big one. Yeah. The other aspect of it wasn't just boredom. It was also that you were the better person. Yeah. In a field where, you know, there is a definite set hierarchy.

Earls are equal to earls and Dukes equal to Dukes and Viscans equal to Viscans. Viceroy is equal to Viceroy is that whole kind of thing. I could continue. Please do. I don't, I can't continue. You called my bluff. But this is a way to differentiate yourself among your rank. Yeah.

By saying, I challenge you to duel and I won. And the reason that differentiates me is not only am I the winner, but that means that God favors me. Yeah. And apparently that that was used that was the predecessor to the legal systems we had today. Well, yeah, let's get to this. This is the commoners would duel early on in the 11th and 12th centuries. You would have trial by combat sometimes.

It was like dunking a witch. Like if the witch floated, she was a witch and then she got burned at the stake. If she drowned, then she wasn't really a witch and she was pure of heart. So if you win the duel, then you're in fact innocent of your crime. Yes, because God favored the winner of the duel. And more importantly, the guy who accused you is now dead. So you must be innocent. Although you may also fight a court appointed professional duelist.

That's awesome. And I can't imagine beating that guy. Yeah. Who would that, what was the most guy in the Mad Max 3? Master Blaster. Yeah. Master Blaster. You fight Master Blaster.

Yeah. You killed him. Boy, what a reveal that was when they took off his mask. Yeah. Powerful stuff. A lot of times if you were good at dueling, you would just use it to get out of stuff. Like, hey, I don't want to pay this bill, so let's duel about it and that'll settle it. And I know I'm really good with the sword, so you don't stand a chance.

Yeah, exactly. It's all over. Not just debts, but also like if you had a political rival. That later became really big in Missouri. Yes. Yes. Um, if you wanted somebody's land, anything, anybody who had something you wanted or who you owed something to, you could just challenge them to a duel, kill them and they're problem solved.

This is one of the reasons why I think that noble classes were eventually removed from the face of the earth. Well, you mentioned Missouri between 1816 and 1824. The, uh, the, uh, elect territorial elections became so fraught with dueling to get rid of your rival that, um, the first governor of California, Peter Burnett said Peter Berg, now Peter Burnett said it became desirable to kill off certain aspirants to get them out of the way. So in Missouri, you would just, you know, killed the dude before election day and you're all set. Yeah.

Can you imagine like Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney dueling one another? No, because no, I couldn't. Um, so you've got dueling evolving from early legal, uh, an early legal system to the board noble classes to the elimination of political rivals. And it comes from even further back than that though, like the, the duel, the idea of one person battling another person in some sort of combat. In a formal rule driven way. Grabster goes back to jousting competitions in the middle ages.

I think you can go back to gladiatorial combat. Sure. Further back than that. But, um, in Europe, in, uh, Western Europe, Northwestern Europe, it came from jousting, right? Yeah. And it makes sense to me, uh, like you said, the joust is pretty much a duel on horseback. And then you had the chivalric code, which sort of lines up with the code of the duel. And also you skipped right past what to me is one of the facts of the podcast.

Oh, no, I didn't. That was coming. But go ahead. You go ahead. Well, when nights, uh, only, uh, noble, noblemen were allowed to be nights into, uh, joust against one another. So they would raise their visor at the beginning to say, Hey, look at me. I'm not descending along my assistant who's a lot better at this than I am.

As Heath Ledger did. As Heath Ledger did. What, what was that? First night? Yeah, that's a good movie. That's right. Uh, so they would reveal their identities and that Josh, as you know, was, uh, evolved into the military salute years later, the lift of the visor evolved into the hand, I guess.

Yeah, pretty cool. Very cool. Um, eventually though, firearms came around and they found that, yeah, these incredibly heavy suits of armor that can protect you even from a joust generally, um, are no match for this musket, the smooth board musket with terrible aim and accuracy. Which covered, it'll kill you. Yeah. In our nights podcast, that was kind of the end of the night.

Exactly. It was also the, what, the end of, uh, Samurai? Uh, thanks so. They didn't have to do with the demodern Samurai as well. Yeah. Guns ruined everything. Yeah. Well, they changed everything for the worse.

Um, and then, uh, you have, uh, as a result, the no, no more need for a heavy sword. Right. Because there's no need for armor or armor doesn't work. No heavy swords. We're still doing evolution and sword making. And you have, at least in Europe, I think Japan already had far lighter, more, uh, better swords. Right.

But, um, in the West, the evolution of swords led to the sport of fencing as a direct result of dueling and the loss of armor. And it became more contest, especially after the Italian said, I don't want to die. Let's, uh, put a little, uh, put a little rubber tip on the end of that thing. My sister was in the fencing college. Yeah. Interesting. My oldest sister.

I've always, uh, I've always wanted to try that. Well, I think you should go to town. You could take classes, right? Totally. I think it's a kind of expensive startup. Oh, sure. Like the whole get up and the decent sword and all that, but a foil as if in the vernacular. But I'm, I'm sure once you got all that stuff, you're fine.

Yeah, that would end up being like my venture into ice hockey. I just end up having a closet full of gear. Really? That never gets used. I didn't know you're into hockey. I was at one point. When? Uh, mid twenties.

Okay. That was the whole gear, huh? Yeah. I learned how to ice skate pretty well. And then me and all my friends got hockey gear and we're like, Hey, let's play. Nice. And, uh, that was pretty much where it ended. There you go.

Yeah. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy. Number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I was being charged for conspiracy to distribute, uh, 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah.

And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly.

And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the I heart radio app, apple podcast or wherever

you get your podcast. Do you crave a good mystery? Tune in to the great detectives of old time radio podcasts featuring episodes of different detective dramas from the golden age of radio every day, Monday through Saturday. The lineup of radio detectives currently includes Sam Spade, Dr. Tim detective, dangerous assignment, follow Vance, yours truly Johnny dollar and tales of the Texas Rangers. I'm your host Adam Graham and I offer commentary and humor after each episode and also respond to your questions and feedback.

Enjoy a good mystery before bed while driving or whenever you crave old school radio goodness. Listen to the great detectives of old time radio on the heart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Pistols. So Josh, it wins you get into pistols. Well, no, no, no, I didn't get into pistols ever. But when pistols came along, basically leveled the playing field because pistols were actually cheaper than swords and cheaper than getting trained and fencing.

Yeah. You could just practice shooting, you know, coat cans in the backyard. So all of a sudden it democratized it. It was no longer the sport of noblemen because anyone could do it. Right. And this is a time when the word cocktail was invented to describe the strong drink you had in the morning, like an old fashioned. So America was super drunk, so dueling seemed like a really good idea and it took off as a sport.

Well, not as a sport, but basically as a as a socially accepted pastime because America doesn't have Kings or Dukes or anything. And there were a lot of guns at the time and everybody started shooting one another in duels. Well, which is one of the big reasons dueling began to die. I thought and pointed out that I was wrong. I thought it may be because people called for the end of it and said, you know, this is wrong. We shouldn't be doing this.

But since dueling began, the church and other legal bodies had said, we don't like this because it takes the it kind of cripples the legal system because you're taking it to your own hands and the church didn't like it. They're like, we want to judge these people on the crimes. And it also kind of violates one of the bigger commandments. Absolutely. Forget about the crusades for that one, but sure. Exactly.

Military leaders didn't like it because it was killing off able young bodied men. Yeah. And then later on war itself, like the Civil War and the First World War, really were like, hey, there's more serious things going on. People really die in battle. Like it sort of became a bit of fools undertaking. Well, I think it also hit home to the horrors of combat. Made people not want to kill one another as much.

Yeah, like real deal combat. Yeah. And the Civil War and the First World War, like you said, were linked to declines in the U.S. and Europe respectively of dueling. And there is, I guess, also one of the other reasons dueling declined was because when it was exposed to the middle classes, it wasn't just super rich people killing each other anymore. Which was the original purpose. Which is why the lower class were like, who cares?

Yeah. Dueling's fine. That's fine. We're doing our own thing. Like you said, democratized and spread to the middle and lower classes, it became a problem. And then eventually it was, we were left with dueling banjos. And that was about as serious as it got. I think that that is an excellent way to end this podcast, too. Great. I'm not even going to ask if you have anything more.

If you want to learn more about dueling and you want to see some of these cool rules, you can type dual into the search bar at howstuffworks.com. Yeah. Yeah. And I said, search bar, which means it's time for listener mail. Whoa. I'm going to say, whoa, from now on, apparently. Chuck, before we do listener mail, we should announce our big South by Southwest extravaganza

two days. Two days in March, we'll call it. Okay. March 11th, we will be live podcasting. And this is for our South by Southwest attendees and badge holders only, unfortunately, Driscoll hotel, Maximilian room, 3.30pm live podcast done. What's happening the next day? The next day from five to nine at Fido Irish pub at 214 West 4th Street in Austin.

We are going to be having a stuff you should know variety show. It's open to the public. You don't have to be a badge holder. It's free. No cover. And as a matter of fact, if you're one of the first hundred people through the door, you get a free ticket for a free drink. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah. And this is going to feature the likes of Hodgman. Eugene Merman is going to do some stand up for us. Awesome. The musical stylings of Lucy Wainwright Roach, who plays Jerry in our TV pilot, which we're going to premiere. And let's see.

Crooks local Austin band. And then the Henry Clay people are going to play some music as well. And again, we're going to be showing clips from our TV pilot. That's going to air on science channel. And this is the public debut. That's right. Yeah. So if you are in the, just let's just say the West from Texas to California,

or actually you could go from the East, just make a point to be there. That's all I'm saying. You can crash on my floor. Actually, you can't, but you can crash in your van. There you go. All right. Back to it. Okay.

Yeah, Josh, this is a shout out. Remember Joanne Stanalonis, who nominated us to get nominated for a Grammy award. Yeah. We were a Grammy nominated, nominated. Right. We didn't make it because we're not a celebrity reading our autobiography, which is the only people who get nominated for spoken word out. We're not Bill Cosby. But Joanne is the founder and CEO of the Amazon Institute, which we've talked about before.

And she's doing a lot of great work to help preserve the Amazon. Yeah. It is amazoninstitute.com. And they're having a little contest where you can win two round trip tickets to Bogota, Columbia. Awesome. And this is how you do it. You go to amazoninstitute.com.

Any listener who wants to can participate by clicking our projects in the navigation bar. And basically what you do is create a page on razu.com to fundraise for them. And between now and the end of June, June 29th at midnight Eastern, the page with the most funds gets to choose between two round trip flights to Bogota or one ticket to travel with her as your guide. Sweet. And it just covers airfare, but she says they'll hook you up with all the information and cheap places to stay and flights depart.

You got to be over 18 flights depart from New York, DC, Fort Lauderdale, Miami. I guess only. Okay. Because there are limitations and you can always get a connection to one of those cities. Sure. And travel dates are August through December of this year. Tickets provided by avianca airlines. And they use razu because it's very transparent.

You can see where all the money's going. Very cool. So Joanne, thank you for your participation with our show. Yeah, we appreciate that. And with the Amazon Institute and go out and win tickets to Columbia people. Give them the website again. It is amazoninstitute.com and you create a page to help them raise money on razu. What's the tab that you click?

Our projects. Awesome. And you could win a trip. Well, as always, Chuck, remember we put out the word for NGOs and nonprofits who need a good plug. We're always looking for those. Yeah. Yeah.

We want to hear about them. Send them to us. You can tweet to us at syskpodcast. That's our Twitter handle. You can also reach us on Facebook at facebook.com. And you can send us a nice, lengthy email at stuffpodcastatdiscovery.com. War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off.

The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is Tesla and Figaro, host of Straight Shot No Chaser on the Black Effect Podcast Network on iHeartRadio. On my podcast, we'll cover a number of topics, politics, black lifestyle, racial justice, and food for the soul to inspire you. My guests will include everyone from gangsters, pastors, politicians, activists, you name it, they pull it up. Come sip this truth with me. And like I always say, you can either use it or lose it, but I can't make you choose it.

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