Stuff You Should Know - Selects: How the Terracotta Army Works

Episode Date: December 11, 2021

In 1974, Chinese farmers discovered the first of what would number 7,000 terracotta soldiers meant to protect China's first emperor in the afterlife. Learn all about them in this classic episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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, 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. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi friends. If this were to be July 20th, 2015, and you're stuff you should know listener, you might be queuing up the following episode. But it's not. It's modern times. But I enjoy this one. So it's my selects pick. It's all about the Terracotta Army and it's called

How the Terracotta Army Works. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry. We're just hanging. Figure we press record and see what happens. Yeah. We are a Terracotta Army of three. Not very imposing or Terracotta. Did you go to the high museum and see this when it was around? No, I didn't. You know, Yumi did and I wish I would have gone, but I did not. Yeah, but she was quite blown away. It was awesome. And I didn't even, I hadn't heard of it until then. And then when I went and saw it, it was like, this is pretty amazing. What a great story. And then I wanted to podcast about it and then just sort of forgot. And now here it is a year later

or however long. Yes. It was a while ago. Yeah, it was. But it's still a pretty fascinating story. Yeah. And that exhibit, if you live on planet Earth, go to the website and see where it's going to be because it travels around. Oh, is it like the bodies exhibit? Yeah. I mean, there's this exhibit and then I think there's permanent exhibits elsewhere. There's a permanent exhibit at the site itself. It's pretty amazing. I think there may be one in London. I'm not positive. Well, London has everything. But they do. They really do. The only thing they don't have is 12 ounce beers. That's, yeah, because they're 16 ounce. That's right. Yeah. You don't need it. When I took a trip there, I was like, what's with all these tall boys? And they were like, what's

that? Oh, I get it now. Yeah. And it's not like you, when you go to the pub, you don't go in for a 12 ounce or you go for a pint. Yeah. And it's an imperial pint, right? Is that more than 16 ounces? Is that 16.9? Is that 1.9 ounces? I'll bet it is. Jerry, hold up fingers. Jerry said 20 ounces is an imperial pint. So I was wrong. 16 is a standard pint. Are you sure it's not 25, Jerry? That's called a double deuce. That's called a Coors double deuce. Double deuce is 22 ounces. 24 technically. Why? Well, because the 12 is a single, right? No, but a double deuce. Oh, a deuce deuce. I thought double deuce just meant we're going to put two beers into one can. That's the double beer. What are we talking about today?

I don't know. I'm thirsty all of a sudden though. You want a beer? It's Friday. I'd love a beer. Let me just reach into my bag here. Your cooler bag? I carry around like a purse. I wish, man. That'd be fun. Cooler, fanny pack. Drinking on the job like it's a 1950s. Yep. All right. Let's get serious, buddy. Okay, Chuck. On the morning of March 29, 1974, seven farmers set out to dig a well. So begins the article on howstuffworks.com. Yes, but it also begins this story. A pretty amazing story actually. Yeah, it's awesome. This was in the Chinese village of... Good luck. Zixiang. Oh, that was pretty good. That's what I'm going to say. And they were digging for water and got down about 13 feet

and hit something hard and dug up a terracotta face and head. Yeah. And we're like... Exactly. They were probably like, whoa. Yeah. Or whatever the Chinese expression for whoa would be. What was kind of universal? Oh, okay. I'm curious. We do have... We found out we're not banned in China, by the way. Yeah. So hello to all of our listeners out there in China. And will you let us know what whoa is in Chinese? Yeah. I think we should do a show sometime on universal sounds. Yeah. Like, I've heard different... Or read different things about how people laugh in different countries and how people remark of affirmation or decline something. Like, I think it'd be really interesting. Yeah. They're called idioms, right? Is that what it is? I think so. Like, here we might go,

huh? But somewhere else they might go, whoa. Yeah. What else? I don't know. We have focus here, terracotta army. Yes. So they alerted the government like any good citizen should and said, hey, I think we have something here you should come look at. Yeah. Because they dug down a little more and they found shards of the same type of pottery and a lot of it in kind of vague human form. And that's when they're like, there's something weird going on here. So let's contact the authorities. Yeah. And the authorities said, archeologists away and sent them out to the site. Because it was 1974, they said, hey, let's contact the Chinese government right away. That's right. I don't know if that would happen today. The Chinese people?

You think? I don't know. It depends on who they are. I would guess they probably were more likely to in 74 than today. All right. So what they knew, the government and experts and archeologists said, well, hold on a minute. You guys are digging near the burial ground of Qin Shui Huan Di. Nice job. And he was the first emperor of China and he had a huge mausoleum and I bet you anything that's what you guys have found. And it turns out they were right. The archeologists were right. So the legend had it that Qin Shui Huan Di, China's first emperor, had himself built a pretty awesome mausoleum. As a matter of fact, you couldn't even call it a mausoleum. It was called a funerary complex. It was so massive. Oh yeah. But as they started to dig and get further and

further along in this excavation, which they have still not even come close to completing from what I understand. I think like 1% or something. Yeah. It's the size of Manhattan. The size of Manhattan. His mausoleum. Yeah. They started to realize like it's even bigger than we ever thought. Like it wasn't lost. They knew that he was buried somewhere around this area. It was just, you don't go digging up emperor's tombs. No. But these farmers had found something pretty interesting and it was enough to get the archeologists over that and they started to dig. And they still have yet to excavate Qin's tomb, his actual tomb where he's buried. Yeah. And we'll talk about that later. But when they started to dig, they started to reveal like more

and more of these terracotta figures and they would stumble upon one room. And first they stumbled upon a room and they found chuck, like 6,000 of these things of infantrymen, all standing at the ready, all larger than life. They were about six to six and a half feet tall. Yeah. That's including the base. Yeah. All made of terracotta. Yep. Crossbows, finger on the trigger, dudes on horses. Well, those are in separate rooms. So first room was like 6,000 infantrymen. Yeah. It was lined up like a. Information. Information would be lined up. Then there was another room that had like specialists like cavalry, archers with crossbows. Blowdarters. Yeah. And then there was a third room that had I think 86 commanders. It was like the command room. So basically what they revealed

was this terracotta army information in this guy's grave. Yes. With the idea that he wanted protection in the afterlife because he was one of the great jerks of world history. He really, yeah. He was terrible. He was a tyrant for sure. He was a, he perhaps was responsible for the deaths of more than one million of his citizens. Okay. He also though got things done. Yeah. Let's talk about the guy. Okay. So he was the first emperor before him. China had seven kingdoms. Yeah. And in 481, all these kingdoms said, you know what? I want to be the main kingdom. So it started what was called the warring states. Yeah. Era of battling for land and superiority. And I saw this really neat documentary on that geo, I think, called China's ghost army. I think

it's what it's called. I posted a link on our podcast page for this episode. Totally worth watching. It's like an hour. But they say that before this, prior to this warring states era, when an emperor died in Qin, the Qin kingdom, they would kill the whole court. Hundreds of people would be buried alive with the emperor. Holy cow. And then this warring states, these battles and wars were so significant as far as casualties went. They're like, we can't do that anymore. We need them to go fight in the wars. Yeah. So they stopped that tradition. But it was because of this, the warring states era. Interesting. Can you imagine like 200 people just being mass buried alive together? No. Because the emperor died. I can't imagine. So let's get back to this

jerk, Qin. He overtook and basically was the first emperor, forced people to be in the army, built up a huge army. He relocated in his first year about 120,000 families. And that's like Stalin did that same thing. It's like you can't have ethnic unity and then that kind of collective thought and then potentially an uprising if you break up that kind of ethnic bonds by basically busing people in and out of different areas. Yeah, it makes sense. But this guy was doing it like a couple, like about 2,000 years before Stalin. Crazy. He burned all the books. He burned all the writings. Scholars that didn't jibe with his line of thought were buried alive or beheaded. Yeah, he was a piece of garbage. He was terrible. He assembled a

workforce of a million men to build about 5,000 miles of roads. And the Great Wall of China. Yeah, the first Great Wall of China. So while we said he was a jerk, you made a point. He got things done. I mean, he got a monetary system that was unified. Yeah, he also unified weights and measurements. He unified China from seven kingdoms into one country. And it's still that way today, 2,000 years later. And if you've noticed a similarity between Qin and China, that's because the country's named after him. Yeah. So he got things done, vital figure in China's history. But he did it. A brutal, brutal, controlling, murderous dictator. Right. He wasn't asking. No. And he also had a really conflated view of the empire that he'd put together. And

you can see this apparently in the money that he minted. There were different regions that he conquered, had different kinds of money. So he did create a single monetary system, I think you said. Yeah. And that money was square shaped with a hole in the center. It's kind of like a square donut. The ban liang coin. And that coin at the time in ancient China, the square represented the earth and the circle represented the sky or the heavens. And so what he was saying is that this earth, my empire, is even greater than the heavens that surround the earth. Yeah. That's how good I'm feeling about myself right now. You felt pretty good. Yeah. But he was paranoid. And I think that usually comes when you're on top and you get there by any means necessary. You're going to be

watching your back your whole life. Specifically, he came from the west and conquered eastward. So when he was buried, he had the terracotta army facing east to protect him because of all the badness he had done. And this is after he had killed hundreds of scientists that he commissioned to try and prolong his life. Yeah. So we talked about him actually in the bizarre medical treatments episode, I think, without realizing it, that he, back in the day, at the time, they believed mercury had some sort of life-enhancing or immortality bestowing properties. And he would take mercury pills. That's right. They think that that's ironically what killed him. But in addition to mercury, he sent out people that like find fountains of youth or whatever was the Chinese

legend version of that. Yeah. He was obsessed with remaining alive and simultaneously, like you said, totally paranoid with dying. Yeah. So he must have been a very tormented person. Yeah. He killed 480 doctors and scientists were killed who could not come up with a way to make him immortal. And again, buried alive or beheaded. Great. Not a good guy. All right. You want to take a break here and talk more about the terracotta army? Yes. All right. 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. 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 my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep. We know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are 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, 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.

I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you. It got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology,

it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Chuck, when we were talking about this guy, I think you painted a pretty good picture of him. I guess he comes to either he comes to grip with the idea that he's going to die, because at the time, he's trying to chase immortality. He's concocting a huge burial mausoleum for himself. I guess hedging his bets in case he does die. But by this time, Confucius and other scholars in China had basically philosophically debunked the idea of life after death. So this man was utterly crazy by his contemporary standards. And that shows if you

step back and really think about the attitude and the mentality behind what he was doing. But he at some point either came to grips with the fact that he was going to die, or he was just hedging his bets and thought he was going to remain immortal. But just in case, let me have this incredible grand funerary complex created and let's build the Terracotta Army to protect me in the afterlife. Yeah, it's really neat to look at the Terracotta Army now as art, but 8,000 soldiers. Like this guy was clearly cuckoo. He was off his rocker. He was a bad man. He was a bad man. All right, so shall we start with the army? Yes, let's. Because it's not all that he had commissioned, but the army is very, it's pretty significant. It is significant.

Like you said, they are in formation. So the front dudes are, they're kneeling down, they're bowmen, and they were famous. The armies they had then, and this is one of the reasons he took over. They figured out the crossbow, and they figured out how to shoot while riding a horse, and that was basically all she wrote. Yeah, everybody else is like your mother. Yeah, like down here with a sword on the ground, and you're shooting at me from 20 feet away with some weird metallic bolt. No fair. I guess not metallic, but wooden. Yeah. They weren't forging steel back then. I wonder when they did start. I don't know. Sounds like a podcast. It does. How steel works. Yeah, maybe a good one. I could see that. So you have these bowmen,

they have on their armor, their fingers on the trigger, they're incredibly detailed down to the soles of their feet. Yeah, they have their shoes they're wearing have like tread marks on the bottom. Yeah, they took great pride, these artists clearly, because they probably didn't want to get killed, because each of them had to sign in case it was a flaw, it could be traced back to who built this one, and I bet they were killed if they didn't like it. They most decidedly were. They found the stamps, which were ultimately the signatures of 83 different foremen, and each foreman had a team of apprentices working under him, and the reason that they did assign those stamps was so that he could have them killed if he didn't like how slow work was progressing,

if he didn't like what it looked like. And at first Chuck, they were like, well, this is clearly they just set up an assembly line. Molds were known to the Chinese back then, and that's the only way you could possibly create 7,000 figures from a terracotta army. And they found that, yes, actually the heads were created through molds, I think the arms were and stuff like that, but the bulk of them were created by this thing called coiling. Okay, so is that like 3D printing? Very much so, actually. They take clay and hammer until it's soft and pliable, and then you wrap it in like a rope around it, and then you mold it. And the thing, it really took these, there's people who are recreating it to try to figure out how they did it. I love that stuff. And they've examined

like broken pieces so they can see the inside, and they can see the coiling evidence very clearly, and they're like, it doesn't make any sense. Like, you can't quickly make all these figures in an efficient way by coiling. Why would they not just use molds? And finally, somebody realized like, this emperor was a bloodthirsty tyrant. He didn't care about efficiency. He cared about differences, distinctions. So while the heads, just the actual shape of the heads were made in molds, the bodies were made by hand, each one, through this coiling method. So where you could make like a molded body and maybe a week, it would take a month to do one body by coiling, and that's what they were doing because he wanted them different. That's crazy. Yeah. He just didn't

want to carbon copy soldiers. Exactly. Wow. So each one of these, the body was made by hand through this incredibly intensive coiling method. So they're starting from the ground up, obviously, with the base. Right. And then coiling their way up. The legs then were molded and affixed as well as the arms and torsos. No, not the torsos. Oh, not the torsos. No, that's not right. Okay, gotcha. But then the heads, they said they found eight different head molds. Yes. And that's just the big mold, not the faces. Right. The faces were done by hand individually as well. Right. Each face. Yeah, the hair. The different expressions. Yeah. Yeah, and the hair, warriors who had had the most kills had longer hair and a bigger

fun updo. Right. Bigger beehive. And so they took great care into making the most revered soldiers that have their hair matched as it should, basically as realistic as they could. Yeah. All the way around. If you're just an infantryman, you'd be wearing like one of those beanies, a beanie hat probably, with maybe like your bun just kind of sticking up off to the side underneath. If you're a general, you might be wearing a huge hat with a pheasant feather and a bow tying the whole thing underneath you. Pretty fancy. Yeah, very fancy. So these things were incredibly detailed. They weren't like a knockoff Star Wars figure that you would find in Bulgaria or something like that, you know? Yeah. Or China. Yeah, sure. That was way more

appropriate than Bulgaria. They probably make the real thing too. Yeah, these were very detailed. You wouldn't want to say lifelike. They're still artistic slightly, but they were pretty detailed still. Yeah. And the ones that you see now when you see them in the museum or you look it up on Google, they are not colored, but that is because of humidity and time. Yeah. But originally, they fired them in the kiln and they painted and lacquered them as well. That's right. I'd love to see those. Watch that National Geographic thing. They've redone one in the original colors that they think and they're almost garish. Wow. They're so different, like colorful, wise and lots of surprising lavenders and blues and purples and things, reds. Yeah,

colors used to be way more garish. Right. But so, okay, they were doing some assembly line stuff. Most of the bulk of it, though, was coiled by hand. Yeah. The faces, the hair, all done by hand. And then each one was painted by hand. Yeah. And then given a coat of lacquer, that's insane. Yeah. It's insane that Sky would have had an assembly line of 7,000 of these things built and unpainted, but he didn't. He went even more detailed. And apparently also, I learned from that documentary at the time, lacquer was an extremely expensive product. Oh, I'm sure. And he was using it on his terracotta soldiers. It still ain't cheap. And there wasn't just the soldiers. There was a strong man in another room and some, what do you call them, not circus

performers. Acrobat. Yeah, acrobat. And I looked up the strong man and he was noted for the detail of his biceps. And he had a gut, too. He did. He had a gut and some guns, gut and guns. He's missing his head, right? Yeah, I didn't see a head. Yeah. But yeah, he's got a, he's a big boy. He's built like Andre the Giant. Yeah. Kind of. All right. You want to take another little rest here. We'll take a quick nap. Okay. And then I'll nudge you awake. Okay. Very gently. All right. And then we'll finish up. 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. 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 band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Uh-huh. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, 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. I'm Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology,

my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Wake up, buddy. Time to finish the terracotta army. Oh, man. Oh, I got like crust in my eyes. Oh, look at you. Okay. I'm back, Chuck. Okay. So, Chene wasn't the only ruler to do this, right? No, he wasn't. Who else did it? Well, do you remember in our pyramids episode? Yeah. Although, if it hasn't come out yet, no one will know what I'm talking about, but you will eventually.

We talked about how the pyramid of Kufu was the pinnacle of pyramid building in dynastic Egypt. Yes. And then the pyramids got smaller because the ruler's cred, I guess, went down as people started to worship the sun instead. Yeah, great point that I'd never considered. Very similar thing happened in China as people, as the, well, the Qin dynasty only lasted for another four years after Qin Shui Huang Di died. And then the Han dynasty started. And the Han's apparently had a much easier hand with their subjects. And so as a result, even though they had terracotta armies buried with them, they were like a third to a sixth of the size of Qin's terracotta army. And they take that as a sign that this might and power over people

had diminished tremendously. Yeah. I think it was symbolic of a kinder regime. Right. And one that was not also booby-trapped with like very much like Raiders of the Lost Ark, apparently, Qin's tomb or the whole complex was booby-trapped with like blow darts and stuff. Crossbows. Ready to go. Yep. And also we did, one of the reasons why this thing was booby-trapped was to prevent looters because remember there's a historian that came along not too long after he's part of the early Han dynasty from what I understand. His name is Sima Qian. And Sima Qian is the one who first described Qin's mausoleum. And one of the things he described is that on the ceiling was a constellation made of pearls and gems. Crazy. Mountains had been chiseled

out of gold. Yeah. And that Qin's tomb itself was surrounded by a river of mercury. Because remember again, they said that it bestowed immortality. And from what I understand, a lot of what Sima Qian was talking about or writing has been proven correct. Yeah. So, and they've also found that in the soil around Qian's tomb where they think he's buried, there's higher than unusually high mercury levels. Yeah, like super high. Yeah. Yeah. So they think like, yeah, these crazy people buried him around a river of mercury. And who knows if there's a constellation of pearls and gemstones, maybe Sima Qian is right. Yeah. And that also makes it super dangerous to excavate still. Sure. Which is one of the reasons why they haven't done more there.

There are 600 pits that they have unearthed thus far, which is, like I said, I think only about one percent. And they're sort of afraid to look elsewhere because of the booby traps in the mercury. I don't blame them. So a few stats, 36 years to complete this army. Yeah. Or the tomb, I guess. Right. 700,000 laborers they estimate, 820,000 square feet, 100 feet deep with, I saw 8,000 warriors. This is seven. I've seen different numbers too. Let's just say between six and eight. Okay. 40,000 weapons and apparently these weapons are in really good shape. Well, yeah, I mean, they were like bronze swords and stuff like that. Yeah. They weren't made of like paper mache. So I guess they did have metal. Yeah, bronze at least. That answers that.

And each one of these terracotta soldiers weighs about 330 pounds. Yeah. Which is crazy because they're not even solid. Oh yeah, it wouldn't be right. So what is the coil on the inside, then they smooth out the outside? Right. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah. So we did mention that Emperor Han Ling Di, who came 53 years after Qin, had his smaller terracotta soldiers. There's also the Huishan site, which they found in 2002, another terracotta army, but they're all just a foot tall. They might as well not even be there. Symbolic and cute. Yeah. That also symbolic again of a kinder. What was the one quote from? Do nothing in order to govern. Yeah, not quite the same as Qin. That was Emperor Han Ling Di's quote. He was from motto. Qin was a little more,

do whatever you need to do to squash any disruption. Well, yeah, and Han Ling Di came along and said, you know what, we're going to not tax you guys that much and we're going to do a way with forced labor. Yeah. So let's party. He was like the Rodney Dangerfield of the Han Dynasty. I think he got respect though. Sure, that's true. So that's, he was the Rodney Dangerfield post-death, because Rodney has tons of respect. What was Rodney Dangerfield's epitaph, do you remember? I don't know. It's like one of the best ever. Someone I was on the Mark Maron's interview show, WTF was interviewed and they were talking about the old days hanging out with Rodney and just what a beast that guy was. What do you mean? Just party beast. Oh, yeah. Like legendary,

you hang out with Rodney and you're in for a long night. I can imagine. Yeah, but a really good guy. I found it, Chuck. What? His epitaph on Rodney Dangerfield's gravestone. Oh boy. There goes the neighborhood. So classic. Yeah, awesome. You buy it like that, you get a free bowl of soup. Oh, that was pretty good. Man, you are like the rich little of this podcast. You got anything else? Nope. If you want to know more about the Terracotta Army, go see it. And while you're doing that, you can type those words into the search bar at howstuffworks.com. Terracotta is one word, by the way, one word, Smithsonian Magazine. Oh, did they goof it? And since I shame Smithsonian Magazine, that means it's time for listener mail.

I'm going to call this animal imprint feedback. Hey guys, I'm currently listening to how animal imprinting works and could not even finish it because I had to write you. My godmothers, Dorsey and Susan live on own and run an urban farm in Austin, Texas on the east side. They have several animals such as chickens, bunnies, geese, miniature donkeys. Oh boy. And ducks. Recently, a mother duck had no interest in her babies and they got adopted by a chicken. That chicken got sick of them trying to play in all of the rain and we have all the rain we've been getting and left them on their own. A male goose named Gustavo took the baby ducks in and treats them as his own. On top of that, the next batch of baby ducks born, he went and took as his own.

Now, Gustavo has about 10 baby ducks that follow him around the nest with them. He has his own private army. That's right. And they're not terracotta. They're made of baby duck feathers. The softest army. I failed to mention that Gustavo is the face of the farm, greets people, follows around my godmothers and gives tours whoever stops by. So she says she finishes with, I started listening to y'all about five months ago and cannot stop. I start many of my sentences now with this podcast I was listening to. I say many random facts that I learned from you. I also teach high school world history and on the days I need the students not to talk, aka the days that I don't have a lesson plan.

That's Chuck's words. Man, this is a giggly email. I talk to or I play one of your episodes that applies to what we're learning and have them do book work. I find many of them not working and listening to your show instead. So that is from Christina Maudi and Christina. Thank you for your work as a teacher and hello to all your students and hello to your godmothers and Gustavo. Yes. Hello Ms. Maudi's class. Thanks for listening. Ms. Maudi. That's so nice. I'm sure that's what they call her. Yeah, that'd be great. They call her Christina. That's way too modern of a school for me. Yeah. And big ups to Gustavo. That's pretty cool. I want to take a Gustavo tour someday. Oh, and she sent a picture of Gustavo on the ducks too. Well, we should post that

somewhere. All right. Unless it's copyrighted. Let us know. If you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at SYSKpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast.howstuffworks.com and as always join us at our home on the web stuffyoushouldknow.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new I Heart 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

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