Stuff You Should Know - How Attila the Hun Worked

Episode Date: August 9, 2018

If you go to the Internet you'll see a few people championed as all-time greatest conquerors - Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and Atilla the Hun. Listen in today as Josh and Chuck dive into number three on this list, Atilla the Hun.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.

There's guest producer Dylan. Again, you know Dylan got a job here because he heard of How Stuff Works because he was a Stuff You Should Know fan. This might be the most thrilling moment of Dylan's life. The most thrilling two hours, either that or the most illusion-shattering two hours. I think that since Dylan started working here,

it's just been a slow anti-climax down, down, down, leading to this moment of rock bottom. We're like that guy, rag him out. Oh, how's it going? It's going terrifically. How are you Dylan, good? He knows he's a fan. Thumbs up.

He didn't even try to speak. Noel would be like, well, let me tell you. Yeah, let me see if I can find a microphone. He just shelves one of us out of the way. Dylan knows what he's doing. You know what, I couldn't help it when I was researching this, probably because we just did this,

is think about Genghis Khan. And if you go on the internet and type in Attila the Hun or Genghis Khan, there are so many nerdy websites where people pit fictional battles against historic leaders. Oh, really? Yeah, like who would have won in a cage match

Attila the Hun or Genghis Khan? Right, but there's like actual thought put behind it or is it just like, no, Attila was cool. No, Genghis was cool. There's a range from that to like the people who really put too much effort into it. And, but those are interesting to read. You know, like you got to remember guys,

like Genghis Khan had a thousand years of weaponry development to his advantage. And when it comes to personal fighting tactics as opposed to leadership, those are two different things to talk about. And then their voice changes until they become Toby from American Splendor. So Genghis Khan was what?

A thousand years after Attila the Hun, is that correct? Well, cause I thought the opposite. I thought he was BCE. And again, we just did a show on him and I already forgot. It says here, 1162 for Genghis. Right. And 406 for Attila the Hun. That is fascinating.

So, okay, yeah. I mean, Genghis had a lot of advancements in that thousand years for sure. Yeah, and I don't know. I couldn't help but compare these guys. So I might just sort of pepper that in here and there and comparing these, cause our own article starts out by mentioning Julie Caesar, Alexander the Great,

and Genghis Khan as some of the most brutal conquerors in antiquity. I really appreciate you moving to Genghis. Might as well. Sure. So Attila the Hun, he was around between, he was in the fifth century CE, right? 406 was, you know, they don't know exactly

about his birth date, but they're putting it around 406. No, we should do this chronologically, but I think we should say out of the gate that there is a lot of debate in the historical field of just how much we could say about Attila the Hun's early life. Yeah, I mean, over that period between him and Genghis, like there was a lot more record keeping too.

Right, that's a great point. We don't even know what language the Hun spoke necessarily. No, we have no idea. Apparently one of the things you can kind of glean what language people spoke is from their names. And a lot of the names associated with Attila the Hun and the Huns in general are Germanic. So they say, well, they spoke Germanic.

Other people say, well, no, by the time Attila the Hun came around in the fifth century, the Germanic tongue had spread far and wide. So that's probably not what their native tongue originally was. It's just lost the time. One of the reasons it was lost the time is because these were in the parlance of the day

total barbarians. They were nomadic horse people who lacked virtually anything resembling a government, anything like an economy, anything like the trappings of what you would call a civilization. They were, by definition, barbarians, right? Yeah. But all that aside, it's not to say

that civilization is just everything's perfect. Definitely has its own flaws, and barbarianism has its own amazements, right? But the thing that made the Huns definitive barbarians is because they would come through, sack your town, burn it down, kill you and your family, and then just move on. They would take your gold.

They had no desire to subjugate you, to rule you, to extract taxes, to maybe make you grow crops for them, nothing. It was basically pillaging, raping, and murdering is what the Huns were known for because that's what they did. Yeah, and I think the main difference that I found, well, plenty of differences,

but the main one between he and Khan was sort of like you said, like Genghis Khan wanted to rule the world and spread his empire as ruler of peoples. And Attila the Hun, by all accounts, wanted to collect gold. Right. But was also for all his ferocity, there are also scholars and historians who believe

that, man, I might get these names mixed up now that I'm all in my head about it. I've been just hanging on by my fingernail. There are a lot of scholars and historians who believe that Attila the Hun is, was also sort of a fair person and generally a man of his word and maybe rustled up a lot of these stories

to drive himself, to drive fear into his enemies and was not as brutal as maybe history believes in some cases. Yeah, but I, so you remember when we did the Genghis Khan episode, like there was a lot of examples of things you could point to and be like, they improved the world in these ways.

Right. You can count the ones about Attila the Hun like basically on your fingers. And when it was an example of him being like uncharacteristically magnanimous by sparing somebody's life, it was totally out of character for him. And like one of the things about Genghis Khan as well

is that if you surrendered without a fight, if you just said, we surrender, take our town, you would live and you would live now under the rule of the Mongols. Yes. But Attila the Hun, he and the Huns would kill you, kill your whole town, offering no resistance whatsoever did not guarantee in any way, shape or form,

survival when you encountered the Huns. They terrified people for hundreds of years in Europe. But at the same time, if you paid your, what do you call it, like the gangster movies? Tribute. Yeah, but like, you know, when you pay someone to... Protection money? Yeah, sort of like that.

Yeah. Protection from you, basically. Generally, and again, there are examples even in this article of ours where he went back on that. But generally, if you paid that gold, he would also leave you alone. Yep. Cause he didn't want to lose, like I said,

he wasn't trying to just conquer the world. So it seemed like he would only undertake a mission or a war if there was something in it for him other than just like expanding his kingdom. Yeah. Which on a modern map, eventually, what does it say here? Large portions of Eastern and Western Roman empires from Germany in the West to Romania in the South

to the Netherlands in the North and Russia and Kazakhstan in the East. And that was generally Attila the Huns area over about a 10-year span. Well, 19, I think. 19 what? 19 years. Oh, well, 19 years period, but in that 10-year span

is when he really like did a lot of his damage. Which is, dude, that's impressive. And put a big dent in the Roman Empire. That was another thing too, like you can say what you want about the guy. And I think it's worth pointing out. All of this is to say like nobody is 100% bad. And when you get this far away,

almost 2,000 years away, 1,500 years away from somebody, like their character just becomes cartoonish. So there is not a lot we can say, especially about the nuances of this guy's character. But you can point to what he did and say, this man changed the course of history and he definitely did. Especially by basically hastening

the fall of the Roman Empire. Right. There's pretty impressive stuff. I feel like we should almost take a break. That was a nice preamble. All right, let's do it. All right. We'll get back to his birth

and start over right after this. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back

into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64?

Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing.

Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast,

Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man.

And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life.

Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, so 406 C.E. is when they think Attila Bahan was

born in Pannonia, which what you would now say is Hungary. Yeah, because by this time, the hunts, well, they first appear in the Western record. And I think 91 C.E. Tacitus, the historian, Roman historian says, oh, yeah, by the way, there's these people out there called the hunts. They're a barbarian tribe who cares. Watch your back.

Well, he didn't even say that. He just basically said there's a barbarian tribe out there. But by the time Attila was born, the hunts had made a name for themselves as being fierce, fearsome warriors that just basically could overtake anybody and they had. Yeah, he was not born, his story is very different from Chinggis Khan's, and that he was born already into,

I guess, what you would consider royalty and privilege. Yeah, and they think the hunts came from Kazakhstan, I think you said, or their empire stretched all the way to Kazakhstan. Yeah, I mean Central Asia. They think that's where they probably originated. But by the time Attila was born, he was born on the Danube in Hungary,

which became the capital of the area they settled. Yeah, and you mentioned that the hunts were known as fierce warriors, much like Khan's army. They really made their hay on horses. I don't even know if that counts as a pun. It doesn't. It was just delightful. They were excellent horsemen.

I don't know if they rode those little squatty horses like Khan's army did. But they were great on horseback, apparently so great, that they kind of didn't get off their horses to do much in terms of battle. But even beyond battle, I saw that they held negotiations on their horses. Why not?

That they were characterized as being one with their horse. That was one thing, right? In the true sense? That was, I hope not. Mainly for the horse's sake. But the fact that they were amazing horsemen, that's check one in why they were basically impossible to defeat. Check two was they had a special kind of bow called

the hunn bow, right? Yeah, these things are beautiful. It was a recursive bow where the bow itself bent, curved back onto itself, which meant you had more torque, which meant you could shoot an arrow through armor at 100 yards. Yeah, there are all kinds of recurve bows, but this one was especially squatty and kind of short.

So it's recurved. It's not recursive? Yeah, recurve. OK, all right. Oh yeah, it was short, which meant it was mobile. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you picture just like a U-shaped bow, that's just a bow.

But a recurve bends back around to face the other way at both ends and both points. And this one was, like I said, especially squatty, and it's just cool looking. Like, bow enthusiasts collect these things. Right, I can imagine. Hunn bows. You say, this is a till of the hunn's very own bow.

Everybody says that. So wait a minute, so we've got two things now. We've got that they were basically one with their horse. They were so good on a horse. They could shoot arrows through your armor 100 yards away, almost 100 meters away, while on these horses. That's check two. And then number three is that they didn't fight

in any sort of coherent battle formation. It was just show up out in nowhere, ride around, start picking people off, scatter, regroup out of nowhere, show up again, pick more people off, scatter, regroup, and you had no idea that they were coming at any point in time. And they would just come and basically waste your army. And there was no formation that you could form against.

It was just chaos. Yeah, and fast. Yes. It's like before you knew what was going on, you're getting arrows slung your way. And like you said, from any direction, it wasn't like, here they come from the north. Like they were all over the place.

It says here in this one article you sent that the soldiers, they wore these heavy leather greased outfits, greased with animal fat, which appare. Sling good body outfits. Which is said, made them both supple and rain resistant. Maybe that was for the horses. And steel line helmets, chain mail, they're very nimble. They also use swords, of course.

And their leather boots, they rode horses so much they didn't even worry about hiking. So they would wear these leather boots that had very thin soles that, I guess, made your feet more responsive to stirrup action. I don't know. Sure. Or they were just more comfortable.

They're like isotoner boots. Did they make shoes? Oh, no, you're talking about the gloves. They make slippers, I think. Oh, really? I think so. I'll think of as Dan Marino when I hear that. Isotoner gloves.

And Ace Ventura. All right, so these are the Huns. They're nomadic. They're chaotic in battle. They're fierce. Their stories precede them. Their legend precedes them. So when you are getting attacked,

that's got to do a mental number on you. Especially when they came upon towns and cities, like sometimes entire cities, they would level them. Just utterly destroy. They would take everything they wanted, kill everybody that they wanted. They would take hostages and slaves and prisoners. But then they would just destroy the town.

And there was one town in Italy called Aquilia. Aquilia, I believe. No one knows where it was. They know it existed, but then the Huns sacked it. And now no one has any idea where it was because they just utterly destroyed the town. That was the kind of thing they would do. Almost just out of spite, just maliciously.

Because apparently Attila the Hun was known for using his fierce reputation in advantage when he didn't want to fight or thought that fighting was unwise. He could use his reputation to get you to surrender. And then maybe you would survive. Maybe you wouldn't. But they didn't necessarily need that

because they backed up the fierce reputation. They actually did these things that people feared them for. And they had a name for the Huns. And apparently specifically Attila the Hun in the Roman Empire, this pre-Holy Roman, they called them the flagellum day, the scourge of God. And this is what these Christians thought, that God had sent this horrible, almost devil figure

to come and wipe their towns from the earth because they weren't living upright enough. Yeah, and I saw some historians think that he might have even made that name up. Oh, really? It seems like he was a big promoter of his wicked ways just to scare people. Well, it's still working on me.

Because I'm passing all this stuff off. He was often drawn with goat's horns and things like that. And I think he encouraged this stuff. Well, he did famously say that wherever he's trod or passed, grass will never grow again. So yeah, he definitely would play it up. It didn't hurt his feelings that people said these things about him.

Right, so I don't think we mentioned yet. He took over, along with his brother, Bleda, B-L-E-D-A, when they were young. Their uncles actually, there was a lot of byarchy going on at the time with the Huns, which is a little bit unusual for a couple of people to split ruling duties. And their uncles jointly ruled the Hun Empire. Eventually, the brothers took over as co-rulers in 434.

And I think they even had their own territories that they're in charge of. It's not like they were together. And then eventually, Attila was like, yeah, I think I'd rather just really operate the show by myself. And he killed his brother. Killed his own brother. That's harsh.

I didn't see how, did you see? I didn't. I couldn't find it. No, I couldn't either. I saw once a story about a knight, I think, who killed his own brother. But his brother was a priest saying mass. And the knight came in and cut his own brother's head off

while he was saying mass. Wow. I'm like, if there is a god, that really upset him, I'm sure. So he and his brother co-rule, and they settled down a little bit on the great, what was known as the great Hungarian planes. A little less nomadic at this point were the Huns. Yeah, because they were weighed down with so much gold

and plunder, they couldn't ride around like they did. So have we reached the point where he's the single ruler now? Yeah, let's go ahead and get rid of his brother. So we should say, I don't know if this name came upon him ascending to being the co-ruler with his brother or the single ruler. But Attila means little father. They do not think that this is his birth name,

because no matter what age or period of history we're talking about, it'd be weird to name your son little father. They think it was a name of respect and affection is how I saw it put. And that they think that this was basically his king name was Attila. They have no idea what his real name was,

but they think that Attila was not it. No. But by the time he became ruler, like you said, he was born into a privileged household, he knew what to do from a very early age. His uncles as rulers brought him and his brother, Bleda, up to speak Latin. So maybe he did come up with Flajellum Dei,

Goth, which was another Germanic tribe who figure into this picture later on. And to understand diplomacy, military strategy, horsemanship, obviously, all of this stuff. So he was brought up to lead. So it was kind of natural that he would kill his brother and take over the entire Han Empire. Yeah, and another thing I thought was interesting

was even though he was sort of on a conquest for gold and riches, he lived sort of simply as a ruler. Like all of his upper subordinates, apparently, they did live the high life. And they drank from silver and gold chalices and had fancy clothes and big McMansions. Platform shoes. Platform shoes with goldfish in the heel.

And Attila lived in a log house with animal skins on the walls and drank from a wooden cup. And even though he wanted to get all this gold, it doesn't look like he lived that way, which is pretty interesting. Yeah, that really kind of opens up the guy for interpretation. Like it says a couple of things.

One, he's surrounded by all these material goods, but his tastes are extraordinarily simple. And he's stuck to it. He didn't try to show off at any point. He just was who he was as far as his tastes went. And then secondly, he also didn't demand that the people subordinate to him live like he lived. That says an enormous amount.

Like there's so many people at the top who want the people below them to act like them, to live like them, to behave like them. So for him to have, like there was a cult of personality around this guy. And for him to allow and maybe even encourage people to live their own way, totally counter to how he lived, I don't know, he's a complex figure.

Yeah, for sure. Should we talk about the Treaty of Margus? Yeah, this is a big turning point in history. Yeah, so this was in 434. And we're going back to when Bleda was still alive. They worked up a peace treaty called the Treaty of Margus with, what is this, the Eastern Roman Empire? Yes.

And they basically said, hey, if you return all these Hun refugees, basically people that fled my rule, return these people to us. How many were there? At least 14, but I think maybe 17. Yeah, like not 17,000, but 17. 17 people.

But that's how much he prized loyalty is how I saw it put. Yeah, like I want these people back. And he also didn't want them going off into the Roman Empire and stirring up rebellion to come take over the Hunnic Empire. Yeah, exactly. So if you return these people, we'll establish some trading rights that are fair. You guys pay us about 700 pounds of gold every year,

directly to me and my bro, and we'll lay off. And you can just kind of do your thing here in the Eastern Roman Empire. Yeah, it's extortion. Yeah. I saw that Attila was, he plundered in war and extorted in peacetime.

That's what he did. Oh, okay. So yeah, he said, we won't invade you if you pay us 700 pounds of gold a year. And he didn't for a while. He didn't, but then he said, there was another part of this too. He said that he wanted not just the traitorous Huns

who left or escaped his rule to be returned to him. He also wanted a Roman bishop who he believed had come into the Hunnic Empire and desecrated some graves and stolen grave goods from the graves. Yeah. To be handed over to him. And apparently the Eastern Empire emperor Thedosius II

said, hey man, I gave all of the Huns I could find in the empire over to you. And this bishop, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't think this is actually true. They didn't give over the bishop. And so Attila actually said, you guys just broke the treaty, were invading. And he did invade.

And they actually invaded through Margus and the guy who opened the gates of Margus to for them to the Huns was the bishop who stole the grave goods. So had the emperor handed over this guy, the invasion of Italy by the Huns would have never happened. And it, and it, and it, and it. Brrr.

That's the sound that played when he opened that gate. Apparently they got within about 20 miles of Constantinople and Thedosius II said, whoa, you're getting a little too close. How about 2,100 pounds of gold per year, three times as much gold. And I believe that that quelled Attila's desires for temporarily at least.

Temporarily. So that just meant with Attila that he just turned his sight somewhere else. You wanna take a break? Yeah, let's do it. Okay. Eh, eh, eh, eh. Eh, eh, eh.

Eh, eh, eh. On the podcast, HeyDude, the 90s called David Lascher and Christine Taylor. Stars of the cult classic show, HeyDude bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use HeyDude as our jumping off point we are going to unpack and dive back

into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64?

Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing.

Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it, and popping it back in, as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to, hey dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help.

This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me.

Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast

and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. OK, man, we're back. So the Eastern Roman Empire has said, all right, here, here, take some more gold, leave us alone. And he did for a little while.

But one of the things that Attila the Hun did was he created like a domino effect. There were other Germanic tribes of barbarians and making air quotes, everybody, who were in the area that got pushed out of the area and into the Roman Empire by the Hun. So the Huns pushed out the Alans, the Alans pushed out the Goths, the Goths pushed out some other tribes, and as a result, you now had other Germanic tribes

living in the Roman Empire. It's a big seed that got planted by the Huns because the Huns pushed everybody out and took over their empire, right? Yeah. This actually led to the downfall of the Roman Empire later on. Yeah, was that the Great Migration? Yeah, or the wandering of the nations. Now, is this when people split and just fractured the Roman

Empire? So, no. I didn't fully get that. So what happened was these different tribes got pushed into the Roman Empire. The Goths, the punks, the post-punks, and then the Emokids. And the vandals. The vandals.

Isn't that cool? So the Visigoths in particular got pushed into there, and they were living as Roman subjects under Roman rule, but they were not being treated very well by the Roman governors of the territories they lived in, and they eventually rose up against Rome, against the Roman Empire, and the areas where they lived. And these little battles and skirmishes

that Rome was having, or the Roman Empire was having, with these groups that would have otherwise not been in their borders, started to weaken the empire enough that it actually fell. I think it was the Goths that actually sacked Rome and crumbled the Roman Empire. And the whole reason they could make it to Rome was because they were in the Roman Empire already,

because the Huns had pushed them in there years before and set off this chain of events that led to maybe the most powerful empire in the history of the world. Yeah. Attila the Hun did that. It wasn't Susie and her banshees? No. Leading the Goths?

No. Did you like them? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, me too. They were great. I generally wasn't into that Goth thing, though.

Was she Goth? Yes. OK. I don't even know what counts. You didn't like the Curer or the Smiths? I guess the Smiths weren't Goth, but the Curer definitely was. You didn't like the Curer? I love the Curer, but really Goth?

Chuck, you're Goth. Really? My friend, you're Goth. All right. I'll get my mascara. OK. Yeah, I mean, some of those terms, I don't even know what the dividing line is.

I don't. You know? People are so hung up on that kind of thing. It's like, do you like the Curer? Yes. Good. You're smart for liking the Curer. They're great.

And you're a Goth. Should we talk about his weird marriage situation? Yes. So this was odd. He had, well, obviously he had a bunch of wives, because that's just the way it was back then. No one knows how many wives. I don't think it's anything like Chingus Khan,

where they think he fathered half the world's people, or anything like that. But he had a share of wives. And this was an interesting thing here. In the spring of 1450, there was a woman named Anna Rhea. And she was the sister of Valentinian, the third emperor of Western Rome. He was trying to marry her off to an aristocrat, as you do.

Like, you're my sister here. Take this husband. Go. He'll fit. Get out of my hair. I'm tired of hearing about it. And she was like, I don't really like this guy, who you're trying to hook me up with.

So I'm going to do a weird thing. He's got hair growing out of his nose. And he's like, everybody has hair growing out of their nose. It's the fifth century. So she sends her engagement ring to Attila. Said, hey, I don't want to marry this guy. Can you help me out? This is a very bizarre act.

It's a bizarre act, because Attila basically sees this as, oh, she wants to marry me. Because I've got this little wedding ring now I put on my pinky toe. And I'm going to go claim this bride. And I also want half of your empire as dowry. Yeah. Half of the Western Roman Empire, he demanded his dowry.

And he was coming to get anoria. What did you call her, honoria? Honoria, anoria. And it seems to me like anoria was kind of like immediately like, what? Yeah. I didn't really, I didn't, what? I didn't.

How is this woman not more famous? I don't know. Like, what a blunder. It's just a crazy blunder that led to a huge sacking of Rome. Yeah. And why, like I feel like there's part of the story missing. Why reach out to Attila the Hun? From what I saw, there was no, they'd never met before.

There was no interaction whatsoever. She just basically said, here's servant, take this ring to Attila the Hun. I don't know where he is. Go find him. He wasn't like met her years ago. And it's like, hey, if you ever need anything. Right, remember me from high school, anoria?

Give me a call. I'll sack whatever needs sacking. None of that happened, from what I understand. Right. I guess this dude was just the baddest, fiercest guy that anoria could think of. And she said, help. She really, really made a misstep in including the engagement

ring, or maybe even reaching out at all. But the engagement ring was, it gave Attila the Hun just enough entree to say, oh, this is a pretty good reason to invade the Western Roman Empire, which he did. That's right. Looking for anoria, that was the pretense. Yeah, but on his way, he took another wife, named Ildiko. I think so.

All right. And on their wedding night, he actually died. He was not known, especially for the time, to be a great drinker. I mean, he wasn't a tea totaler. No, but he was very moderate, temperate person as far as that stuff goes. Yeah, for the most part, he wasn't the rest of the Huns.

They were just getting wasted every night. Or the rest of the Western Roman or Eastern Roman Empire. He was basically the one large area ruler who wasn't just getting wasted and eating 500 turkey legs at a time. He was different in that sense, for sure. Yeah, he was the only one that didn't have gout. Yeah, I guess.

As far as I know. So he married this lady. Apparently, he did drink a little bit too much on his wedding night. And supposedly, he was prone to nosebleeds. And as the story goes, in the middle of the night, had some sort of massive nosebleed, also saw something about an artery bursting

and choked on his blood in his sleep and died. Yeah, that's supposedly how Attila the Hun died. Weird story. Yeah. But believable, I guess. Yeah, I mean, the alternative explanation is that Ildico murdered him or abetted an assassination that was carried out by, I think, either the Eastern or Western

Roman emperors. Either way, they think, I got the impression that that's the generally accepted ideas that he choked on his own blood. He basically died of natural causes. Which I mean, it's like, gosh, you overindulge one night and you pay for it with your life. But throughout his reign, we left out

a huge chunk of his history. Oh, sure. At some point, he turned his attention to Gaul, France, modern day France, Belgium area. And that's where he suffered his one defeat. So out of the entire 19 years, this guy was running around Eurasia, terrorizing it. He suffered one defeat.

And even then, it was really a draw. But he attacked Gaul. And I think with like 200,000 troops. Yes. It's amazing. And the Western Roman emperor got with the Goths and said, you guys, we've got to do something about this. And they managed to basically enter into a draw with the Huns

so much so that the Huns had to withdraw to their camp and eventually left Gaul after this. But it was supposedly one of the bloodiest battles in the history of the world. Yeah, they managed to fight him back after. And this is after the beginning was definitely going in the favor of the Huns. So it looked like the writing was on the wall.

And that was a big comeback. But imagine basically spending every day of your life engaged in conquest and battle. And you got one loss to your name. You've got to have one. Everybody's got to have the ups with the downs, right? Yeah. Well, let's talk about his burial after his death.

Yeah, this is pretty interesting. After he died, his horsemen, his followers, they cut off their hair, they smeared blood all over their face, and they slowly circled him on their horses. I guess just, I don't know if that was a sign of respect that normally happens, or if they were just reacting instinctively, or if it was some old ritual. But at any rate, they just slowly rode around his body

that was in a tent. Eventually, he went in three coffins, which makes me think that he could still be found. Because he was in a coffin of gold, silver, and iron, apparently. Like a, what is it, a Matryoshka nesk? Oh, I don't know. Matryoshka.

What is that? You know, the little Russian dolls that nest inside one another. Sure, Russian nesting dolls? Let's just call them that. Yeah. I didn't know they had a, I think it should name. Matroika.

Yeah? I think so. I love those. Yeah, they're great. And show me a child that's not delighted by one of those. Yeah. Little things inside of other things. I'll show you a dolerd.

So they put him in three coffins. According to legend, they divert a river, like fully dam up a river, and bury him in the river bed, and then release the river once again, so that his grave would never be found. They also killed the people who buried him so that they couldn't tell anybody. Yeah, who were slaves.

So there's actually, so this sounds like a total, like Paul Bunyan-esque tall tale, right? Yeah. There's actually historical evidence that this had been done at least two other times. The emperor Gilgamesh, you know, the epic of Gilgamesh? Sure. They believe that they found his resting place

under the Euphrates, and legend has it that they diverted the Euphrates to bury him in the river bed for the same exact reason. They think they've actually found Gilgamesh's burying place. And then, I think Theodosius, the first. The goth? Yeah, the goth king who was killed

in one of those battles in Gaul, the one that repelled Attila the Hun. Almost. I know. He was buried in a diverted river as well. Oh really? So they're saying like, they think this actually may have happened,

which means that if you search, I'll bet it was the Danube that they buried him in, but if you search a river, I would start with the Danube, because that's where the capital of the Huns was. Could they divert the Danube though? I don't know, maybe a part of it, who knows. That maybe one day Attila the Huns grave will be found,

especially as archeological technology advances. I guarantee you in 50 years, we're gonna have found Attila the Huns grave. Man, can you imagine? And it will be under a river bed. In three coffins. Yes. I really think that that's for real.

I believe it. Believe it. Oh wait, you said you did. Yeah. You got anything else? No, I mean, there's a lot of Attila the Hun stuff that we did not get to. Can I add one more thing?

Yeah. I wanna defend my use of barbarian. One of the, I think contemporary historians described the Huns as not making no use of fire. They even used fire supposedly. They didn't cook their food. They would eat roots from the ground and then raw meat that they would put

between their thighs and the saddle to tenderize it, I guess, and then they would eat that. Yeah. They're barbarians, okay? I saw that article that said something like half raw, and they said we say half raw because they would hold it between their thighs to cook it.

Yeah. Oy. You got some beef thighs there. You got some red stained thighs. That sounds like, I don't know what that sounds like on the menu, something that's been cooked from the thighs of a Hun. Right.

It's kind of like, it's one hipster step above sous vide cooking, really, if you think about it. Okay, now we're done. Nothing like the warm glow of a Hun testicle. It's like an easy bake of it. Man. Oh boy, it's going off the rails here. Yeah, it is.

So if you wanna know more about the Huns, you can type that word in the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com, and since I said that, it's time for Listener Mail. I'm gonna call this follow up to, we got a surprising amount of email from that goofy show we did on. The jobs?

Yeah. I know. There's like a high volume episode. Yeah. I was surprised. You never know. And by the way, we had a lot of people write in and say, by the way, there is still chariot racing.

It's called harness racing. Pin setters. And I take issue with that. Harness racing is harness racing. Those are not chariots. Oh yeah, okay. What about? I don't think it's the same thing.

There are pin setters and lamp lighters too. Basically it was a fraudulent episode. But I'm with you, harness racing is not chariot racing. No, like standing up in a wooden box being pulled by eight horses is not the same thing as a harness race. I've been to a harness race. I have too.

My dad used to take us to those. Really? Let us bet like a dollar on them. I don't think I ever won. Yeah. Which is probably good for my gambling bug. It never took off at a young age. Yeah.

Just the Skittles and poker. Yeah, I'm not a big gambler either. Okay. All right, so anyway, this is about lamp lighters. This is from Carlos in Mexico. Hey guys, I found this stuff you talk about about lamp lighting. Fascinating.

Like to add some extra info. Back in the day, people used to tip and or threaten the lamp lighters to leave the lamp near a park bench or something turned off so couples could have more privacy. You know what I'm saying? Like, hey, don't like that lamp. I got to cure some meat over here.

You know? The Hunway. The Hunway. In fact, there is a Spanish folk song by the Churrumbelis. Suggestion on how to pronounce it. Churrumbelis. Is it a DJ?

It's a C-H pronounced like a J-U, he says. Churrumbelis. All right. It's about a lamp lighter being harassed by couples every night to leave the lamp off. The chorus loosely translates as follows. Lamp lighter, go a little over there and leave this lamp off.

In love affairs, the light of lamp always gets in the way. And this song is from the song Ferrolero by the Churrumbelis. How about that? I think you made it through quite nicely. And this is from Carlos from Guadalajara and he also wants to suggest a topic. How CAPTCHA work. Oh, nice.

Did we not cover that? No. We could do a whole one on like CAPTCHA and the Turing test and all that, that'd be cool. Because CAPTCHA stands for something, right? Stands for computer automated. PAP test. PAP something test to tell computers and humans apart.

I know that's the end. Yeah, yeah. I think we did something about that on our dumb TV show. That's what it was. You're absolutely right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you want to get in touch with us

to find out what dumb TV show Chuck's talking about, good luck, because we don't talk about it any longer. You can follow us by going on to our website, stuffyoushouldknow.com, looking for all of the links to our social medias and then meeting us there. You can also send us an email to stuffpodcast and howstuffworks.com.

For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point,

but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass

on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.