Deep Dive
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Hello, everyone. Sakuya here. And I'm Gabby. And welcome back to the podcast, my hoes. Welcome back. And I, oh, God, it has been an interesting time here. What did we even say last time with what it is in your life? Last time, it was the day with the plumbing issue. Oh, yes. Before they had to come fix the drywall. It was like a whole thing, guys. So a week later, we found a house. We got a house. We bought a house, which is awesome. So we sold our house last week. We bought a house this week.
It's just a little bit chaotic. We leave Scotland next week. Things are happening. Life is so simple. Like, I cannot imagine just how could it ever be more simple than what we're doing? Guys, guys, guys. We were like, we're never buying another fixer-upper. Guess what the fuck we bought?
Steven, you want to tell? All right. We bought not just a fixer-upper. I need to tell the story of this because this is a sideboard. Can I just... Go for it. Go for it. We bought the fixer-upper. I mean, when I tell you fixer-upper, I mean, this house has been on the market for so long. Keep in mind, this is a market where houses go on sale for like a day. Okay. This house has been on the market for so long. We were like, you know what? It's too good of a deal to pass up. We must.
So we bought it and I feel like we're going to just do a lot of work on it now and it'll be worth a lot and it'd be really pretty. So that's what we did. Mind you, we went and looked at over like a dozen different houses. This was the second house that we ever went to view. And we shit talked things so much. Every single house we saw, we'd be like, you know what? At least it's not that house that we saw where they didn't do anything to it because that house is so ugly. I just don't understand why they didn't fix it up. It's so beautiful. It'd be so beautiful if they just did this, this, this, this, this.
And we kept coming back to that house. So we kept talking because if they had just done a few key things would be gorgeous. And then we sat down and we looked at each other and we were like, hey, so every house we've seen has been kind of disastrous, except for this house. That would be beautiful if they just did all of these things. We know what they should have done to it for it to be beautiful. And it would be so perfect. Why don't why don't we do this?
And so we bought the house because we knew what we wanted to do and they didn't do it. So we might as well. And that's where we're at. So wish us luck in this massive home renovation. Yeah. It's going to be fun. And honestly,
We love chaos. Every single time we're like, we're going to take it easy. Guess what? We take on a project. And this is the new project. So if you see Gabby and I just everywhere all across the internet, you're like, damn, wow. These guys are producing so much stuff. They're making so many videos. They're doing all these things. We have no choice. We have no choice. We literally have to pay for an entire home renovation now at this point. This house is going to be a massive dump of money. But when it is done, it might be pretty.
That is a gamble we took. See, that's what I told myself. My team. Okay. When I met you, I was like, this man needs so much help, but that is a risk I will take. And here we are. I think it worked out. So I don't know. I don't make bad bets. I hope not. Otherwise, this says so many horrible things about myself. Anyway.
Anyway, yes, of course. We have just dropped a lot of lore, obviously, about ourselves now at this point. And I wanted to do more stuff for Wacky History. We talked about this a couple times where we've done more interesting things. Like we did the whole thing on cutlery. We've done...
different things that are not just war and conflict, which don't get me wrong, I love covering a lot of that, but there's so many aspects of history. I feel like that's not what people necessarily follow you for. They follow you for potatoes, tomatoes, weasels, pets, ferrets, you name it. Ironically, one of the guys, we were just at a medieval fighting event. We were at Metal AF where I was one of the
not comment. I was a commentator. That's the term. So I was a commentator live stream that they were doing on it. And I had a guy come up to me specifically say, oh man, dude, I love your episode on potatoes. And I went, that's the first one.
That's the first one. And even with all of its shitty audio quality, you who is listening to this right now, if you have not listened to that episode, that is still by far the most popular episode that we've ever produced. And the audio quality of that thing is terrible. Anyway, we want to do more things like that again. And since we are going to be swamped for a little bit there because he has to focus on like his YouTube channels.
He was like, hey, Gabby, can you research an episode for me? Second episode in two weeks, guys. Sorry. If you guys hate these, do not tell me because I get enough hate as it is. But tell him, email him. Do not email me. Also, if you get any ideas of things that you want to see, also let us know. And any kind of weird history thing that you want, that you want to deep dive on, we will do. So without further ado, let's go ahead and dive in to Gabby.
That is what we were doing today. Royal pets, weird pets, things that people have had that make us turn our heads. Now, I'll say this right now. We have two of the most clingy pets, which have made us really think about the fact that people throughout history also probably had very high maintenance pets or, you know, weird ones, wacky ones, ones that definitely today would likely be illegal pets.
And of course, that thought led to a Google search, which led to me telling Gabby that she needed to research the weirdest pets in history. So here we are. So here's the thing. Throughout history, people have kept a wide array of pets. Now, whether any of these animals should have been kept as exotic pets is not exactly the question that we are answering here today. But in a time before PETA ever existed, royals were the ones that typically had the means, time, and ability to obtain and keep exotic pets.
Yeah, it was a very interesting time. I mean, who is just... Okay, okay, picture this. You're just like the village baker and someone gives you a kangaroo. What are you going to do with that? You live in Italy. You're going to let it stamp its feet on the dough and produce like a special like, oh yes, this is... Kangaroo feet bread. It's a...
Yeah. Of this region. Or you release it in special. The French did that at one point. Or no, the Austrians did it with giraffes. Could you just have the kangaroo make wine in France? You could stop the grapes. Oh, that's a brilliant idea. Oh, my God. Okay. See, the Australians, Australia actually grows a decent amount of wine, if I recall. So they're missing out on a key opportunity here of combining two things the tourists would definitely buy and probably not be a health hazard.
Well, anyway, I just feel like it makes sense that only mainly royalty would have these exotic pets because what is the random person who is barely feeding themselves going to do with a giraffe? They're usually going to end up giving it to a monarch or a noble anyway. Like, you're right. They literally could not afford to feed or take care of that kind of creature. They could barely afford to take care of themselves. Wasn't white elephant... So, like, white elephant gifts, you know, they're kind of terrible gifts. Wasn't that...
didn't it come from the fact that they would gift white elephants to someone and it kind of bankrupt them because taking care of one was so demanding? Yeah. So the legend, the legend or story that is associated with it is that in Thailand, or at least the ancient kingdom like Siam before Thailand was a thing for the modern state, is that elephants in Southeast Asia have a lot of
I don't know what they're trying. They're very important. And to have a white elephant, an albino, like that is something that holds great religious meaning. So one would be given this elephant that is a sacred beast. And that's something that you think, oh, this is amazing. This is an honorable thing. I have been gifted a divine gift, if you will. Except here's the problem.
You have to pay to upkeep everything. And now paying to upkeep a normal elephant is expensive. A white elephant, because it is quite literally sacred, they have to have special food, special procedures, special habitat, special everything that is constructed for them. The temple and religious facilities that would be associated, that would actually take care of and worship that elephant. It is extremely, extremely expensive to the point that
The joke would go that a person would be given a white elephant to bankrupt them. That's the entire purpose. And you couldn't turn down the gift. That's the entire point.
And so that's the thing. Many different monarchs would utilize exotic animals, status symbols to show off their great influence being able to obtain such an animal for their collection. The more rare, the more exotic, the larger their collection of animals that an individual had, the greater the show of wealth and connection, which was a big thing. That's why zoos, we did a whole episode on zoos. Zoos were not a thing back in the day. You had royal menageries,
which were zoos, but they were private zoos for the king. And that's pretty much it. Yeah. A lot of these were like parts of menageries. I think Josephine. Was it Josephine? I don't know. A lot of them had menageries. Yeah, they did. I want a menagerie, but I can't even get a farm because we keep moving into the city. Technically speaking, the house that we're going to has horses in the backyard.
We got the horses in the back. Sorry. It's been stuck in my head ever since we put in the offer on the house because the horses are literally in the back, you guys. That is what it's like in parts of Kentucky. Once we move in, you can come visit and pet the horses that we don't own. Gabby, Gabby, don't tell people on the internet now that they can come and visit our house. Oh, actually, never mind. We had to move because you guys kept leaking our address. Sorry. Please don't do that. We love you.
So anyway, then, here are a few of the exotic pets that monarchs have kept in the past. We're going to start with these, then go into the types of pets the average person kept in the past. Eventually, that's going to be a whole other episode in and of itself because I found a whole fascinating story about colonial animals and pets. Squirrels. We're not going to spoil it right now. Basically, people used to keep squirrels as pets. It was a really common thing.
Anyway, first up, as Gabby said, we have Napoleon's wife, Josephine. She, this is the thing that Gabby put in here. She had an excellent movie made about her last year. It was not supposed to be about her. It was supposed to be about Napoleon. But for whatever reason, the Napoleon movie that Ridley Scott made is a complete travesty in the sense that it spends like 90% of the freaking movie focusing on his relationship with his wife. It was a romance, okay? When men embrace the fact that romance novels are kind of fire.
I mean, they were in a toxic relationship though, but like, Oh, incredibly. They kept coming back to each other. And I think that's art. It's poetic.
Like if you were emperor and I ruined a lot of things about your emperor-ness, I would like you to still be hung up on me decades later. It just would make me really happy because I'm a little bit toxic. Yeah. Okay. Gabby. Yeah. Thank you for admitting that because literally everything that you've said describes exactly that. Yeah. And I just think Ridley Scott perfectly captured that. Uh-huh. Yeah. So tell us about Josephine's
Okay. I forgot what pet it was. I'm so sorry. Honestly, the fact that you said Josephine's pet makes it seem like you're implying that it was Napoleon. Um, I think I just won my taxes. Yeah? I just switched to H&R Block in about one minute. All I had to do was drag and drop last year's return into H&R Block and bam, my information is automatically there. So I don't have to go digging around for all my old papers to switch? Nope. Sounds like we just leveled up our tax game.
Switching to H&R Block is easy. Just drag and drop your last return. It's better with Block. Hello, my name is Matt. And I'm McKinley. We are the father-son team that brings you History Dispatches. History Dispatches is a short daily history show where we talk about topics from all over the world and all throughout history. We talk about people, places, events, and even objects. While anything is fair game, we have a soft spot.
for the weird, the wacky, and the obscure things you may have never even heard of. Do you have any examples? How about Wojtek, the bear who rose to the rank of corporal in the Polish army? Or the Great Emu War? Or how about the biggest treasure take in the history of piracy? That sounds cool, but do you have a story about the head of Oliver Cromwell? Or one about the ancient library of Alexandria? And a story about the first woman to climb Mount Everest would be cool.
Well, we got those as well. Every weekday, there's something new and fun. Sweet. So how do I get this trove of goodness? All you have to do is go to HistoryDispatches.com or just look for History Dispatches in your favorite podcast app. I mean, yeah. Napoleon was basically Josephine's pet by all consideration. By the movie standards. Yeah, by the movie standards. Anyway, yeah, as Gabby said, Empress Josephine had a pet orangutan. Yeah, an orangutan that she named Rose. Napoleon. Oh. No. Okay.
Can you imagine? Okay, I'm not going to lie. The idea of an orangutan dressed up like Napoleon with just like the little tuck suit, little pot belly that sticks out in the long hand that sticks down one side of it with the tri-corner hat. I feel like it'd be really, really funny and we should get an orangutan and do that as a tribute. As a tribute. Yes.
Somebody listening to this has to be a zookeeper. Can you do that? It'd be really funny. And you can send me a photo. Just give. Go to the ape section and just start putting up tri-corner hats and different things and see if they try them on. Please. Please. Oh, my God. Yeah. So here's the thing. Here's the thing, right? She didn't just have this as a pet.
The emperors had a collection of exotic pets, but the orangutan was one of her favorites. It was so near and dear to her that she would dress it in human clothing and then had it dine at the table with her and her husband, which honestly just goes to show that no matter who you are, even if you're the emperor of France, if your wife is doing some weird shit, you sit at a table and eat dinner with an orangutan and pretend that that's just normal. I did have to write that in there. Considering the conversations that Gabby and I have on the way back from different places, especially after she's had a couple of drinks in her. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, that's kind of how it goes. If I were to get a pet orangutan and then I was like, hey, it's going to eat dinner with us. Would you just be cool?
You know, you wouldn't be cool with it, but you would humor me. You know who wouldn't be cool with it? - Who? - Our five-year-old. - No, Joya. - About to be six-year-old. - Joya would go, "What?" - Yeah. She'd roast me. - A monkey is not supposed to be at the table. Joya, that's not a monkey. It's an ape. What? - She's like really conscious now, capable of judgment and all of that stuff that six-year-olds do.
And now I love my dog so much. A lot. She judges me for it. I'm like, girl.
I mean, if you didn't exist, this would be my child. So I guess why she judges me a little bit. Fair enough. And you know, as cute as all this sounds. Yeah. For those of you that are looking for a happy ending to this, it's a story about Napoleon. What did you really expect for a happy ending? The orangutan ends up passing away less than a year after it arrived in France. So this thing did not even really get to experience anything.
That's it. I don't know what they expected because you take an animal like that and you bring it to a palace and you dress it up in clothing. Were they even feeding it the right food? See, I tried to figure that out, but I don't even know if they knew what the right food was. No, in most cases, they just didn't really understand a lot of these things for what was necessary. That's not the worst one, though. It kind of gets like
Worse for some other animals that were just absolutely not meant to be where they were. Oh, absolutely. Next up on this list, we have King Henry III's polar bear, which if you've ever had the opportunity to visit the Tower of London, you would have likely learned at that time that they used to house a lot of exotic animals like that area was the menagerie for the king. It was huge. But now there is just a lot of ravens now.
Anyway, up until the 19th century, the Tower of London had an entire collection of exotic animals that were gifted royals. And as we mentioned earlier, the large collection of exotic animals more influential seemed. And this is because being gifted an animal was part of an international diplomacy sort of thing for medieval rulers. Like people would straight up just give gifts of things because that's how you showed off. You go to a place. Ah, yes, here's a fancy chair that was carved by my finest craftsman.
Here's a gift of exotic fruits. Here's a literal polar bear. Yeah. So a lot of their, what are those things called where you send like a, it's like a care package, but like to a king. A bear.
No, because they would send a bunch of things, you know, they'd send, it was like diplomatic. Yeah, well, you'd send an envoy, right? Yes, an envoy. And your envoy would then have... So they'd have like a diplomat and then some food, maybe. State gifts, I think, was what it was called, like state gifts, I think. Yeah, but basically they'd also include just like an animal if they had a really cool one, like, hey, here's this whole giraffe.
In fact, I know historically more than anything that could be happening. You want an elephant? Here's an elephant. You know how Rome conquered a whole bunch of stuff and then killed a lot of animals in the Colosseum?
No. Well, they did. They killed a lot, like millions of animals died. Why would you tell me that? But one of the things that they would have as a requirement is that they had all these client states that, you know, they control different areas. And part of the tax upon the region or part of their client obligations is that the rulers of that area had to provide a number of animals. They were given as gifts to the state, basically. Really? Yeah.
Did they just wanted the animals to have them? Yeah, because the more exotic of a spectacle that you could put on for slaughter inside of the Coliseum, the better. Okay. That was a choice. Yeah, that was a thing. I love that you shared that. Thank you. I'm sorry for scarring you here. You're the one that's been looking into a lot of the stuff here, all right? I love knowledge. It's just so good, even if it's upsetting. Uh-huh.
Which, yeah, the thing you put in here, you said, oh, I think current geopolitics would be so much better if occasionally the United States gifted a random bald eagle to China every now and then. They already do that. Well, it's not the bald eagle. China does that with pandas. I know they give us pandas occasionally, but what do we give them exactly? Exactly. Money.
Okay. We owe them a lot of money too. So maybe we should give them a bald eagle or two. Give them a bald eagle. They're giving us pandas. What are we giving them? Okay, but pandas suck. They do. Okay, I know. I know pandas would be extinct if we didn't do literally everything for them except for the physical act.
of procreating. Okay? But that doesn't mean they suck. It just means they suck at staying alive. That's the whole point of a zookeeper is to keep the panda alive. Okay. I would need to... So the more that I've learned over time about pandas, the more they have actually kind of pissed me off just as a concept. But they're cute. Okay, anyway. So...
stay on task okay anyway anyway james is gonna have to cut out so much or he's gonna leave it all in to piss off everybody no this whole point is this is this this is this is just off the cuff we've also had several drinks in us so anything that you hear at this point um i'm sorry not sorry get over it anyway the next exotic pet attraction on this list is the polar bear as i said that was gifted to henry the third by king hakon of norway now we are not
100% sure that the white bear that he had was in fact a polar bear, but it's a fairly safe conclusion to jump to given the context. Now, the thing is, the care of animals was incredibly expensive. I mean, we talked about that whole thing with the white elephant in the first place. And the sheriffs of London were charged with taking care of the menagerie at the Tower of London, including feeding this bear. The thing was, Henry decided that the bear should in fact be charged of feeding himself.
which I mean, I kind of get because how fricking expensive. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Polar bears, if it was a polar bear, right? Polar bears are not like brown bears or black bears or other stuff like that, right? They don't eat a variety of different things along with fish and everything else. They are, polar bears are pure carnivores. That's what they are. So the idea of having to, in the medieval times, constantly feed this thing a massive source of meat
That would be very expensive, right? So Henry decided the bear should in fact be charged with feeding himself. So he had the sheriffs muzzle him and then lead him by a long chain down to the River Thames so that the bear could fish for himself.
Which, I mean, hey, English industrial efficiency, I guess. Like, it's not necessarily a bad plan. But again, imagine if you were the guy that was in charge of muzzling and then leading a freaking polar bear, if it was a polar bear, by chains. I don't think that would really work. It was the sheriffs, though. I'm assuming it was like their little, like, police force, if that's what that means. Yeah, basically, like a sheriff was the... Right, so they were...
fallen told to take care of the menagerie. Yes. Including the whole polar bear. So I'm assuming they just took their least liked cadet and they were like, hey, my guy, you're on polar bear duty. There's no way you can do that with just one guy. The thing is, they was like, he would lead him along by a chain and then they have like a really long rope so he can get into the river and just do his little like polar bear thing.
And then it started to draw such an audience because people would come from around and like locals and foreigners alike were like, oh, my God, there's a bear in the river. And I don't know. Aren't polar bears more aggressive? They are. That's the thing. That's what's making me think. That's why I was like, hey, we're not 100% sure it was a bear, a polar bear. Because if it was, I'd assume.
When they took the muzzle off for it to actually fish for itself, it would have turned on the zookeeper in person. So here's the thing. I need to stress this right now because I firmly stand behind Gabby when she says that. There are very few animals that are innately aggressive towards humans.
If I were a polar bear, I'd be neatly aggressive towards humans because have you seen what we've done to their habitat? Polar bears in general are. It would be on site. That's the thing. That's the thing. Most bears will not attack humans unless you're stepping into their territory or they won't hunt you unless they are desperate for food. Polar bears? No. No, they will.
It is on site. If they see a human, they see a dog, they see polar bears will hunt you. So, I mean, I remember seeing all these videos on TikTok and other stuff like that where it's in the Arctic and they have polar bear cage shields around the entrances of
the compounds that they stay in, right? And it's all these cute videos of like, oh, the person kind of going out and taking a video. And oh, look, there's a polar bear and he's going right into the cage and he's like sniffing in and he's like nuzzling against the machinery and whatnot. Oh, it's so cute. You know, that thing is actually trying to figure out how to get in so it can eat your ass. And that's what people have to be told in the comments. Like, no, this thing is not cute. It is actually trying to figure out how to get in and kill you.
But I would be okay with it killing me because it's very, very cute. And I think that maybe when it was about to like bite my head off, it might think, wow, she's so cool and different. I don't think the bear was thinking that. I thought, I guess it would probably just be thinking, dark meat.
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I don't know what I expected you to say.
But touche. Because I was trying to say something unhinged and then you won that. Good job. Great work. You're welcome. Yeah. Anyway, next up we have King Charles X's giraffe. Now this giraffe was the first giraffe on French soil. On June 20th, 1827, a crowd of more than 100,000 people gathered in the streets of Paris to see the newest arrival to the royal family of Charles X. And that arrival was a young giraffe.
Now, before this point, no such animal had ever been in France. And this giraffe was, in fact, the first on European soil since the one that was gifted to Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence.
Now, the giraffe was a gift from Muhammad Ali, the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt. It was captured in Sudan and sent as a diplomatic gift to King Charles X of France, and it was one of a series of diplomatic gifts that were sent to European leaders, as one was also sent to George IV of Britain and one to Francis I of Austria.
Again, world leaders would honestly, if you want to really settle things down, considering how high tensions are right now, if they just gave each other animals, things might be a little bit calmer, though. Actually, wait, hold on. No, I take that back. Didn't there's a whole thing. Was it the didn't Putin get gifted puppies?
by a leader. Either Prune was gifted puppies or he gifted puppies to someone. And I don't remember what this was, but I remember there was a whole viral clip from years ago of like
Putin with a bunch of puppies. Does he still have them? No, I think they were either a gift to the president of Turkmenistan or it was a gift vice versa. And I don't remember. I'm going to need to... You don't look that up. I'm looking it up now. This is such a random search. Putin and puppies. Gift. Yeah, Putin and puppies state gift. Look at that and see what pops up. I don't remember what the context of that story was. Let's see what Google says. Um...
So it was, yeah, Turkmenistan. Oh, I was right? Damn. What's with world leaders giving Vladimir Putin puppies as gifts? Oh, Washington Post wants me to pay. I can't. I can't. To read the story about the Turkmenistan president gifting Putin puppies. Okay, okay. So Turkmenistan's president, Gurbanguly.
I can't say his name. I'm so sorry, you guys. But he bought a gift for Putin. And that gift was a shepherd puppy dog, which he picked up by the scrub of his neck and handed to Putin, who seemed to be surprised but pleased with the canine and gave it a cuddle and a kiss. Do you think he kept it? I don't know. I've never looked into this beyond. He named the puppy Bernie, which means faithful in Russia.
So apparently the gift was supposed to be a connecting factor between the two leaders because he said, we have a common friend. This is the world's unique alibi dog.
So see, this is from Time. I'm like, it's literally like Time magazine or whatever. But yeah. So that whole thing about state gifts, that's still technically a thing is gifting each other animals. See, I need to be a world leader because I would be so good at being gifted a puppy. I'd keep it and I'd be like thankful and we'd be best friends forever because you gave me a dog. Yes, you would.
Anyway, this giraffe then. This giraffe was very young when she was captured, but they started the long process then of having to transport her to France because, you know, it takes a long time to move an animal that size. She was captured on like a little hunting trip. Her mother was killed pretty quickly on that little hunting trip. And then they took the baby giraffe who was like already over six feet tall.
To, you know, keep as a pet, I guess. Basically, yeah. And you have to transport it then. Exactly. It takes a long time. It was in Sudan. The hunting party was in Sudan. Yes. So they're taking her from Sudan all the way to Paris, France. My God. Which is around 4,000 miles for anyone who is wondering. She was carried by camel and accompanied by several cows that were there to provide her with milk.
And by the time she was placed on a ship in Alexandria heading to Marseille, she was so large they had to cut a hole in the ship so that she could stick her head out of the top. When she arrived in Marseille, it was decided that she would not be sent around the Atlantic coast or up the Rhône to Paris. Since she had to make that journey then on foot, they had her spend the winter in Marseille and then make her walk on foot all the way to the capital, which was a 550 mile walk.
She would walk the entire way, accompanied by a natural history professor, mounted guards, and again, some cows.
The journey in total ended up taking 41 days, and the giraffe was dressed in a custom-made raincoat in order to, I guess, protect itself. And knowing that his giraffe was arriving, the king himself was so eager to meet her that he had to be reminded, apparently, that he needed to have decorum. A.K.A. all of his advisors and people at court are telling him, like, dude, you need to chill out. I understand you're getting a giraffe, but please, calm down.
But finally, she arrived in Paris on June 30th, where she had an audience with the king at the Chateau de Saint-Claude. The giraffe, named Zarafa, was then taken to her new home at the Jardin des Plantes, where she would live for 17 years. Which, I gotta say, considering everything we talked about with royal animals and menageries, that is remarkable. Because I talked about this more within the history of zoos and menageries and that kind of thing, but animals that went into menageries...
Typically didn't live very long. Because they didn't have the knowledge to care for them appropriately, right? They didn't have the knowledge or the food or just horrible conditions. Like there were a bunch of cases. You know how when you go to a zoo and you go to the lion habitat, it's a huge, big area that they inhabit? Yeah. Menageries in that case were oftentimes, imagine if a lion was in this room and that is its habitat, is this room that we are in right now, our bedroom.
That would be horrible for a lion. This is horrible for me, honestly. Yeah. It's too cold. So you can see why it is that an animal like that tended to die very quickly after a couple of years. That is what happened. Now, I can't say precisely how well they treated the giraffe in that sense. That's why I'm saying it's remarkable that she lived that long.
Which, yeah, she was incredibly lucky, as the giraffe that was meant for George IV of Britain ended up suffering badly from the journey and only lived for two years, while the Austrian giraffe only survived for less than a year after crossing the Alps. Not exactly a good thing. After her death in 1845, Zaraffa was taxidermied, and you can actually still find her body today in the Museum of Natural History in El Rochelle.
Also, I don't know if any of you have kids, but if you do, you probably have the little giraffe toy named Sophie, like Sophie the giraffe.
Our daughter, Joya, had one, and she was actually inspired by Zarafa when she was created back in 1961. I don't know any children that have not had a Sophie the Giraffe. Like, you know, the little giraffe toy. It's like a teether. It was the it baby toy of the 2020s. Not even the 2020s. It was 2019. Every single French kid has had that. Like, the 90s, 80s, maybe? Like, yeah.
It's still a big thing. I understand that, but it wasn't a big, I know it wasn't a big thing when I was a kid growing up. So it didn't come to America. Well, you're American though. Yeah, so that's what I'm talking about. Like it was a big thing here in America where it started to come across. I don't know if it's, I don't think it's a big thing in America. I just think like,
those of us who had it buy it for our kids if that makes sense like oh okay you know what i mean like i don't necessarily think sophie the giraffe is like that big of a deal i don't know but it's an amazing teether plus the kids love giraffes i remember joya was on like a giraffe kick from the moment she loved giraffes because of sophie the giraffe like that was like a teether squeaky toy best friend like
You name it. Sophie's awesome. That's true. But they should just call her Zarafa. Stay true to the inspiration. Well, our next story then is about a rhinoceros because, you know, of course it is after everything else that we've been doing here. The rhinoceros named Genda was the first rhino to be seen in Europe since the time of ancient Rome. In fact, the last account of a rhino in the area was by Pliny, who spoke of one that was kept at the time of Pompey the Great from 106 B.C. to 48 B.C. So a long, long time ago.
This rhino arrived in Lisbon, Portugal in 1515, which created quite a stir, which is understandable. Again, it's been like over 1500 years since one was in Europe. And so it all started in 1514 when Alfonso de Albuquerque, who was the governor of the Portuguese Indies, wanted to build a fortress in the kingdom of Gambia, which was ruled by King Otofaro.
Now, King Modophar denied this request, but in consolation, he gifted Afonso a female rhino named Gandai.
Alfonso then sent the rhino to King Manuel I as a gift because also that is kind of what was done back in the day is I'm a local noble. I have been given a gift by someone. It's a really nice gift. Ooh, you know how I could use this even better? I could give this gift that I was just given to the guy above me and I can ingratiate myself with him. So he then gives, the count gives the gift to a duke. The duke then takes the gift and gives it to the king.
Kind of was a domino game of gifts back in the day. That is quite literally how this whole thing would work. It's like hot potato, but with like a whole animal. Yeah, pretty much. So this rhinoceros, again, caused a stir upon its arrival due to the fact that A, it was massive. And B, as I said before, one had not been seen on European soil in a very long time. Ganda was given residence at the Palacio de Riviera.
But then, Manuel I recalled that there were a lot of stories about how much elephants ate rhinos, so he decided, and I quote, this is the perfect time for the scientific method, aka, fuck around and find out. End quote. That is a beautiful thing that Gabby has put in here. And since he had a small elephant that he kept as a pet, he organized a fight between the two. However, it is said that before the animals could even fight, the elephant ended up getting spooked and fleeing. Wow. That is...
That is a story. I feel like he got his answer. He got his answer. I mean, to be fair, he did conduct the scientific method, if you will, I guess. Then in 1515, Manuel I gifted Gendar to the Pope as he was trying to gain his support. Literally exactly what I just said is that you just pass it along to the next guy up the ladder. Gendar was placed on a ship along with other offerings and it left in December of 1515. However,
Off the coast of Genoa, a storm ended up sinking the ship and the entire crew, along with the rhino, ended up perishing. It's said that Gandar died because of the bonds that held her, because otherwise she would have been able to swim. Upon hearing of the death, Manuel ordered that the rhino's body be recovered and taxidermied and then still sent to the Pope. Next up, then, we have a more reasonable pet, a capuchin monkey. Now, I say reasonable because, of course, at this point, we've covered a giraffe, rhino, elephant, polar bear, and...
I mean, you do the math. Orangutan. Orangutan, yeah. This is far more reasonable. Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine of Aragon, was captured in royal portraits holding a little monkey, which is believed by historians to be a Panamanian white-faced kuchip. So the thing about this is I... So I was trying to find multiple sources. I was trying to find like a book or somebody's freaking graduate dissertation thesis because I...
I love those. They go so in depth. It's like, wow, you spent all this time doing that. Love that for you. You know what you're getting. Hey, you know what they weren't doing? They weren't monkeying around.
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Boo. Anyway, all they have about this monkey is that it was in some photos. OK, we don't know if she loved this monkey. We don't know if she hated this monkey. So I found this whole page from this one person who wrote it. He was like the monkey reminded her of home. But we don't know that. It was like a lot of...
I feel like they were giving context of potentially what could have been the case, but there's no proof of it, right? Like there's no way for us to know how she felt about this capuchin. And that stressed me out so badly because I could have written, I could have written like half a page on this.
What is it called when you're just kind of like... Extrapolate. You were extrapolating upon the information. Well, the person was extrapolating and I could have taken the extrapolation and put it in here and been like, guys, 100%, this is what it was because she was homesick and this was like going to help her with her homesickness. But I didn't want to do that. So all I have for you is she was in some photos with a monkey. And so we think
She may have probably, possibly liked this monkey. Probably.
Maybe. Yeah, sorry all. There's just really not a lot about this one. It's interesting. But that's it. The whole thing with monkeys is like commonly royals had monkeys, but we don't really have much else to go off of in this case. In fact, growing up, my wife regularly saw a guy called the Coconut Man who was a man that would drive around the island buying coconuts. And he had a pet monkey that kind of knew how to drive his car. So it's more common than you think. But Catherine of Aragon's Capuchin couldn't really do that. I guess she just existed to be
painted into paintings. I don't know. What if she just held the monkey for the painting and didn't even like it? We don't know. We don't know. We don't know. I mean, the most famous example we talk about for queens or kings or whatnot that definitely love their pets. That's got to be Queen Elizabeth II. It's got to be like Queen Elizabeth II.
Everyone knows what I'm talking about as soon as I say this. She was known for her corgis. However, as a child, she didn't have a corgi there. She had a chameleon as a pet at first. I don't know if it was at first, but it was like her pet that she had as a little kid. So during the Second World War, Lord Louis... Louis? Would it be Louis? Or would it be Louis? Because at this point, we're talking about it would be British chameleons.
I'm now confused. Hold on. Hold on. This is going to sound so dumb. I know I'm pausing here at this exact moment that I'm saying this here. Right, Gabby? But would it be Louis or Louis? Because if it's French, it's Louis. But if it's L-O-U-I-S in like British English, is that Louis or Louis? And I feel like I'm having crisis now while trying to say this. Okay. So let's think in one direction. I can walk you through this. Okay. Follow me right now. Okay. So we know Liam Payne.
- We know Harry Styles. We know Louis Tomlinson. - I don't know who that is. - He's the other member of One Direction. - I didn't know who that is. - His name is spelled Louis and it's pronounced Louie. And he's from… I assume he's British because he's part of One Direction. He was a British boy band. And he's called Louis Tomlinson. - Oh, okay. Well, I just learned something here today. - You don't know the members of One Direction? - No, I don't. - Zayn Malik and then Niall Horan. - Uh-huh. - Okay.
After this episode, you will be learning. No, we're not. Because you're insecure. No, we're not. Don't know what for. No. Uh-uh. Uh-uh. Uh-uh. Uh-uh. Anyway, Lord Louis Mambun had brought Queen Elizabeth and her sister, Princess Margaret, a chameleon. In an account from a royal nanny, it was said that Queen Elizabeth was so excited to have a chameleon that her and her sister immediately placed him in a large box and put him on a red book that caused him to immediately change red. I guess they freaking loved it.
It is said that Queen Elizabeth would carry him around all the palace and hold him up in areas where there were bugs that flew around so that he could feed. When the chameleon eventually died, she insisted that he have a proper funeral, so a gatekeeper made a small white coffin and the two princesses went out to bury him. However, before they could bury him, the then-princess Elizabeth insisted that they make sure that he was in fact dead, so that he could be buried.
So they had to undo the entire coffin to make sure that he was actually dead before burying him under a flower shrub. Because, you know, I guess sometimes you don't really know when it comes to small animals. They could be just pretending. Not even small animals. People, I guess. Like, haven't there been cases of people being buried alive? Yes. Okay. Don't say that to me. Okay. But that was a very specific illness. I need you to stab me when I'm dead.
So that you could be for sure that I'm dead. That was a very specific illness. Very specific. Very rare. Okay. Gates, it's not like that. How would you know if you have it? Genetic testing, I'm sure, is what they could do now. I don't know. I'd have to look at that. In fact, that would make a good episode. But I don't think I can do it with you because it will freak you the hell out. No, no, no, no, no. You cannot do that with me because I, every single time I'm going to bed, I have this moment of just fear that I'm going to wake up in a coffin.
My grandmother died in her sleep. So that's probably what that is. Anyway, this isn't therapy. I'll go to that eventually. Let's just continue on. You know who else could probably use therapy? What a segue. I didn't know what else to say for this here. We're talking about Caligula next. This is the final one. All right. This is the final. We've done this for enough. Like, look, this wouldn't be an episode about exotic pets if we didn't hit upon the one pet that wasn't really exotic at all in comparison to anything we've talked about.
but what was done definitely did make it exotic. The pet in question is, in satatus, the horse.
See, he wasn't exotic. So I was like, should I put him in here? Yeah, you should have. Because, I mean, I find this to be interesting because it allows me to talk about one of the big theories of history that a lot of fun fact people near it. Fun historical fact that they just completely go along with without actually addressing. But if I had a horse or you had a horse or any of us had a horse that was like our best friend, our sole horse. Yes.
- A soul, okay. - Do you know what a soul horse is? It's like your soul dog, your soul cat, like the dog or the cat or the horse that you vibe with the most. - I know, but when you say soul horse, you sound like the most Kentucky girl I could possibly imagine. - I know, but I don't believe in like a soul pet because I've never had like a soul dog, like all of my dogs, like my three main dogs that I've had, I could say they're all my soul dogs. So I like to believe they're just like reincarnated into like the same, you know, repetitive dog. But if you- - Like a dog's purpose. - Right.
Don't bring that up. I'll burst into tears right now. But if you had a horse that was like your best friend, would you not make him a trusted advisor? I would. Guys, listening to this in the comments, would you make your bestie, your best pet ever a trusted advisor? If you were like emperor,
of Rome, I feel like that's just reasonable. So as Gabby is talking about here, most of us are probably familiar with the story about Caligula the Mad, the guy who was the ruler of the Roman Empire from 37 to 41 AD. The thing is,
It is said that he made his horse consul, which I know, again, we've talked about Roman government positions a number of different times in the past. So you should be able to recognize that this is quite literally the highest ranking position in the Senate besides the frickin emperor. Now, why did he do this? Well, it largely depends on who you ask.
See, according to the ancient statesman Suetonius, Caligula believed that Suetonius, his favorite racehorse, was a more worthy candidate for government office than most mortals and was determined to make him a consular of the Roman Senate. Now note that wording, more worthy.
Now, people have claimed that Caligula did this in a fit of madness, and some historians do agree. The historian Dio claimed that Satatus would be like swathed in jeweled collars and rich purple blankets, which, my God, that is extremely wealthy back in the day, lived in a marble stall and ivory manger, just beautiful.
Hopious amounts of wealth for a freaking horse. It is said that the horse was given his own palace so that he could receive guests in style, which was feted by Caligula at banquets.
But here's the thing. If you go and look at the story more critically, Caligula's celebration of his favorite horse was probably less of a sign of him being insane and more about just how much disdain he held for his fellow politicians, which, again, he absolutely despised them. Like, yes, Caligula loved particularly mocking, disparaging the outwardly fawning and inwardly treasonous aristocrats that made up the Roman Senate.
Like, I'm not getting political when I say this. This shouldn't be a political statement in the first place. But I'm sure that for anyone who is listening now, you would probably agree with the statement.
The Roman politicians were the same as politicians today, largely two-faced snakes. On one hand, they would tell him how amazing he was, like the senators of Caligula, and then in the exact same moment, they would call him the light of Rome, the savior of the state. They would, in the same breath, turn to whisper in the ear of another senator about how best to remove the emperor from power and stab him in the back violently.
Caligula was popular among the people of Rome in his early years, and the Senate was definitely jealous of this. So why the horse then?
Well, as Aloys Winterling would write in Caligula Biography, achieving the consulship, like to become consul, that remained the most important goal of an aristocrat's career. That was, and I'm sidelined, side note on this again, this was the peak position for the Roman Senate. To equip the emperor's horse with a sumptuous household,
and to destinate for consulship is something that satirized the main aim of aristocrats' lives and laid it open to ridicule. Caligula placed his horse on the same level as the highest-ranking members of society and by implication equated them with a horse. Basically, the common theory that most historians seem to accept now is that Caligula didn't do this because he was insane, did it specifically as a massive insult in middle fingers to the senators.
Which, Gabby, I got to say, you've oftentimes asked what things would be like if you were ruler of a country, you were that petty. I am. That would be you. I would make Booker, I trust, I would make Booker like the heir to the throne. Booker's my dog, in fact, nobody knows. He's my best friend ever. And honestly, I'd make him heir to the throne. Joy would be pissed, but you know what? She doesn't want to be heir to the throne. It's too much responsibility. She wants to be a ballerina and an artist. She's a famous artist.
Yeah, she has said herself multiple times to us. Yeah. Yeah. We were like, what do you want to be when you grow up? And she was like, I'm a famous artist. As in she's she's taken her artwork to show and tell at school. So I don't know. I love the confidence. We're laughing now, but this this recording might come as a record in the future, depending upon what she does. Who knows? That would be hilarious. Right.
Ultimately, the Senate would end up getting the last laugh. Caligula's reign would be ended when he was assassinated by conspiracy of officials and guards in 41 AD, and the Senate that he hated, that would survive, and its members would be the ones to supply the history books, so to speak. Like these were the guys, the ones that were hated and mocked by Caligula, that were writing the history about Caligula.
And so this guy would be remembered as a mad pirate, which look, hey, he very well likely was, but it's also distinctly possible that he was not nearly as bad or as mad as what was written about him. Like there's no historical record of what happened to Insatatus the horse afterwards, but you know, I like to think that maybe they'd allowed him to keep his jeweled harness and retire. But considering that it's Rome, there's a decent chance that he got turned into glue in revenge because it's Rome.
And that's how things kind of went. Anyway, my friends, that is the end of things today. And I think that was a wonderful note to end things on here. Anyway, next time we're going to do an episode on this. We're going to talk about colonial pets and the whole thing with squirrels that I want to do. Look forward to that. And I ask that you all leave a review and make sure to check us out on Patreon. Much love. Appreciate it. I'll talk to you all later. Goodbye, my friends. Bye. Do you find it hard to sleep at night?
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