Cursed Histories S01E03
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00:00At the orders of Soviet dictator
00:28Joseph Stalin, a team of archaeologists unseal an ancient tomb in Uzbekistan, part
00:34of the Union of Soviet Socialists Republic. Inside, they find the corpse of a warlord
00:42and a sinister message for anyone who dares disturb him.
00:48What these Soviet archaeologists were uncovering were the mortal remains, the body of one of
00:55the most terrifying figures in history.
01:00Locals warn the team not to exhume the remains, but Stalin ignores them and pushes them ahead.
01:08Little do they realise the tomb is cursed.
01:13And if this once powerful tyrant is disturbed, it could unleash the destruction of a nation
01:21by another, more sinister force.
01:26Three days after opening the casket, Stalin's country is invaded by a foreign enemy.
01:32Startled and unprepared, he is about to face the toughest battle of his decade-long reign.
01:40But who did this cursed tomb belong to? And could heeding its warning truly have prevented
01:46the greatest land invasion in history?
01:53We're in the 1940s, and Joseph Stalin is dictator of Russia.
02:00And at this time, the USSR is expanding into Central Asia, absorbing places like Uzbekistan into the ever-growing empire of the USSR.
02:16Like Hitler, Stalin is believed to have been influenced by superstitions or beliefs related to the potential power of relics.
02:25Uzbekistan possesses something that is of great interest to Stalin.
02:30The tomb of the 14th century ruler, Timur.
02:35So Timur emerges in the history books as one of the great builders of a medieval empire.
02:42This figure was a nomad of the Turkic Mongol peoples,
02:50who lived in the mountain ranges that are now part of Uzbekistan in the mid to late 1300s.
03:00He was thought to be, or at least claimed to be, a descendant of Genghis Khan.
03:09Genghis Khan was the fearsome and legendary warlord who united the Mongol tribes
03:14and founded the largest land empire in history during the 11th and 12th century.
03:23As a great warlord, you can expect to have a few injuries.
03:27And Timur definitely has a number of injuries.
03:31So much that his disabilities in his arm and on his right side and his leg
03:36has people start calling him Timur the Lame, which in Europe becomes Tamerlane.
03:43These injuries are badges of honour.
03:46They become part of who he is.
03:48And woe betide anyone who disrespects him for them.
03:52After the leader of Baghdad insults Timur, he orders his soldiers to kill two citizens each
04:03and return to him their skulls.
04:06This they diligently do.
04:09And with those skulls, Timur builds 120 towers.
04:15By the early 15th century, Timur's army stretched from modern-day Turkey to northern India,
04:24forming the vast Timurid Empire, one of the greatest Asia has ever seen.
04:30But it comes at a cost.
04:32Timur's rapid conquest is forged by the blood of his enemies
04:36and results in the slaughter of over 17 million people.
04:40It's December 1404 and Timur is leading a huge army in the direction of China.
04:50He is determined to overthrow the Ming dynasty.
04:55But he has picked a really tough time in the year when the steppe is frozen.
05:02It's covered in ice.
05:04Marching on China in the winter turns out to be a very bad mistake.
05:09And Timur falls ill, most likely with pneumonia.
05:14And the doctors are struggling to keep him alive.
05:18Ultimately, they fail.
05:22Timur's loyal soldiers carry his remains through their blustering mountain passes
05:27to the empire's capital of Samarkand.
05:30Here they lay him to rest in Ghori Amir, a regal mausoleum where he will eventually be joined by his heirs,
05:40who promise to carry the Timurid legacy forward.
05:43One of the challenges Timur's legacy faces is that the structure of power worked in such a way that he didn't have one successor.
05:52In fact, what he had done was handed out different territories to his sons,
05:56which was actually a common practice amongst many of the imperial powers in the region.
06:01The problem in this case, of course, is the sons started to fight against one another in order to create their own and re-establish their own power.
06:09And this brought to an end, within less than a hundred years, his great dream of the largest empire in the region.
06:18Filling the political vacuum with the descendants of a prominent 14th century Mongol chieftain called Shaban.
06:28In the 16th century, the Shabanid dynasty takes over and they move the capital to Bukhara.
06:37And as a result, Timur's remains and his legacy are left forgotten.
06:45But some will never forget, because even in death, Timur ensures his power will live on.
06:53As local legend goes, this ferocious leader was buried with two cautionary notes etched into his tomb.
07:01An omen for anyone foolish enough to rattle his eternal rest.
07:06The mausoleum which holds Timur's body sits quiet until 1941, when the Russians arrive under the dictator Joseph Stalin.
07:23Joseph Stalin took power in the Soviet Union in the 1920s after the death of Lenin.
07:31And he stamped his authority on the Bolshevik party, on the Soviet Union, very quickly through a series of bloody purges against even his own old comrades.
07:45Even though Stalin was officially a communist, he admired some of those great authoritarian figures of the past, like Timur, who he sought to emulate to become the modern expression of these great dictators of the past.
08:07Itching for a glimpse of the ruthless Mongol leader, Stalin commissions a team of archaeologists and filmmakers to travel to Samarkand, in the southeast of Uzbekistan, to retrieve Timur's corpse.
08:26One of the key players and team members of this excavation was Mikhail Gerasimov.
08:35And we have to mention him, because without him, we would not have what is known as facial reconstruction today.
08:46Gerasimov combines his knowledge in archaeology, anthropology, paleontology and forensic sciences
08:54to study the relationship between the human skull and facial tissue.
09:00In this process, he will determine the subject's age, gender and cranium shape, which allows him to meticulously sculpt facial reconstructions with modelling clay.
09:13Gerasimov's work is widely acclaimed across the Soviet Union, having produced realistic reconstructions of famous long-past figures like Yaroslav the Wise and Prince Andrei Bogolyovsky, prominent rulers during the 11th and 12th centuries.
09:32Gerasimov was tasked with restoring the head of the mighty Timur, allowing the world to peer into the eyes of one of Asia's fiercest mercenaries.
09:44News of the expedition spreads quickly, horrifying locals who were all too aware of the repercussions.
09:52Before the team can open the decrepit crypt, Samarkand's religious leaders intervene.
09:59The keeper of the mausoleum, a man called Masud Aliyev, attempts to translate this epitaph that is over the tomb.
10:11It reads,
10:13When I rise from the dead, the world shall tremble.
10:16Adhering to science rather than superstition, Gerasimov is unbothered.
10:25But he decides to send word to Moscow before moving forward.
10:29When Stalin hears that the keeper of the mausoleum has been spreading these warnings about a curse, he responds with anger.
10:40He declares him a saboteur and demands that he's arrested immediately.
10:45On June 16th, when they entered to excavate, the first bodies that they start to dig up are actually the sons and grandson of Timur.
10:57Malik Kaimov is a young filmmaker on the archaeological team who is tasked with covering the story.
11:04One day, as Kaimov is taking a break from the crypt sweltering heat, he is approached by a group of elders who share a chilling piece of advice.
11:19Elders translate this ancient Arabic text, which says that if the tomb is disturbed, malevolent forces will be unleashed and a war will ensue.
11:35The fear in the eyes of these elders is so deep and so convincing that Kaimov brings them back to the team.
11:45And the team are so outraged to hear yet more rumours of this curse that they chase away the elders with sticks.
11:56Finally, after resisting a barrage of supposed rumours, Gerasimov reaches the tomb of Timur.
12:04On June the 19th, a large slab of black jade covering the warrior's body is lifted.
12:10Almost instantly, a pungent odour of aromatics and resins fills the mausoleum.
12:19You have to wonder if perhaps this is actually the curse that is confronting them.
12:27The cause of an odour like that would be the various spices, herbs and resins that are used not just in embalming but also to keep the body smelling better as the embalming works and the decomposing takes its own effect.
12:50The real curse is yet to be revealed.
12:56Eager to examine Timur's bones, Gerasimov hastily reaches into the casket and suddenly notices another engraving chiselled into its walls.
13:05This time, it's more direct, reading, whomever opens my tomb shall unleash an invader more terrible than I.
13:20The men must face a decision.
13:23Heed the threat of a ruler long dead or follow the orders of their reigning commander.
13:28What's worse, the six, seven hundred year old warning or the current person in charge, which is Joseph Stalin.
13:42I think they're more worried about what's happening in their life in that moment than they would be of a presumed curse or warning from the past.
13:52This pursuit of the body of Timur was followed by a need to prove that it was the authentic body.
14:00The team of scientists who arrived intended to do just that.
14:03And so when they brought the body back to Moscow, of course, the first thing we want to do is verify that it really is his body.
14:09And when they did a forensic investigation, they discovered the body bore all the hallmarks of the accounts they knew of Timur.
14:16To complete this newfound portrait of Timur, Gerasimov begins his work reconstructing the conqueror's face.
14:24Meanwhile, a storm is brewing on the borders of the Soviet Union.
14:28At the start of the Second World War in 1939, Stalin signs a pact, a peace treaty with Hitler known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
14:43Now, Stalin believes that by signing this, he is stopping the Third Reich from invading the Soviet Union.
14:51These men had similar ambitions, even though they developed a temporary alliance.
14:58These were men who were not going to be restrained for very long by the ambitions of the other.
15:03Hitler is thinking about Liebensraum, the idea of expanding territory, German territory, into the Soviet Union as part of expanding Hitler's own conquered area.
15:21Beyond Stalin's eerily quiet borders lies a band of three million Nazi soldiers patiently waiting their command.
15:31Just as prophesied, exactly three days after Timur is exhumed, German military radios crackle to life with the whisper of a single word, Dortmund.
15:43The wrath of Europe's most vicious invader is unleashed on Soviet territory.
15:51Hitler launches Operation Barbarossa.
15:5580% of the German army descend on Soviet Russia.
16:01That equates to three million German soldiers.
16:05This is the largest land invasion in human history.
16:09The soldiers are backed up by something like 3,000 tanks and 2,500 military planes and this huge force then moves into the Soviet Union.
16:26Could this be the fury of a centuries-old curse?
16:29Hitler's armies catch Stalin and his forces off guard, allowing the Nazis to move quickly along the vast front.
16:41Unaware of the sheer size of the invasion upon him, Stalin attempts to retaliate.
16:47He orders the Red Army to launch a counteroffensive, but it might be too late.
16:54Stalin watches in horror as the bloodbath unfolds.
16:57With each failed defense, was he reminded of those menacing words scribbled inside Timur's tomb?
17:05Whomever opens my tomb shall unleash an invader more terrible than I.
17:12Defeat looms on the horizon.
17:15Could this supposed curse be to blame?
17:18After all, who could conceive of a more terrible opponent than Adolf Hitler?
17:23In 1942, Joseph Stalin reflects and decides to return Timur's body to the tomb.
17:33When they get back to Uzbekistan, Stalin has arranged for a proper Islamic burial for this war leader.
17:42The religious leaders of Uzbekistan re-seal Timur's jade sarcophagus and seemingly his dangerous hex with it.
17:51Just as the Third Reich is on the cusp of claiming victory, fate takes a turn at the Battle of Stalingrad.
17:58The Battle of Stalingrad is really the turning point for the Soviet Union and for Stalin when they finally begin to stop the Nazi advance and turn the war in their favor.
18:14The question has to be posed, did stirring Timur's remains, did taking his body from its resting place make Operation Barbarossa that more terrifying and bloodthirsty than it otherwise would have been?
18:31Perhaps this tragedy was all but a mystical coincidence.
18:36Or maybe it is truly a tale of a curse reversed.
18:41Regardless, locals and visitors are now wise to Timur's promises.
18:46His bones and the burden they carry remain protected in this tomb today.
18:53But Gerasimov's intricate carving lives on.
18:57A grim reminder of the face that killed millions of men, women and children.
19:02After pouring his musical genius onto these pages for more than a year, Austrian composer Gustav Mahler pens the final note of his latest masterpiece.
19:24Although sequentially the ninth symphony in his repertoire, Mahler refuses to call it so, for he believes in the so-called curse of the ninth, the belief that a great maestro's ninth symphony is coupled with the kiss of death.
19:42Mahler was a bohemian composer who was famous during the Romantic era, which came to an end in the early 20th century.
19:55Mahler himself starts to become superstitious, paranoid, open to the idea of otherworldly influences out there having some bearing on what's going on in his life.
20:08Be it by chance or truth, Mahler has read, heard and witnessed this misfortune befall many artists before him that have written their ninth symphony.
20:21After his quick rise to fame in the early 19th century, Beethoven deals with a series of health issues and personal family issues.
20:33And as a result, his fame starts to decline.
20:39In the 1820s, Beethoven is ready for his comeback.
20:43So he starts composing a whole series of musical compositions, including the ninth symphony.
20:52Under the tense pressures to produce, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 takes nearly two years to complete.
21:02The final piece brings listeners on a choral journey through 70 minutes of marvellous movements before finishing with a grand ode to joy.
21:11Beethoven premieres the work in Vienna to a roaring crowd that showers him with five standing ovations.
21:22One can only imagine how overwhelming it would be to be at that first performance in a crowd of other people while watching its composer who is deaf and who has just made his magnum opus and played it for you live.
21:38It seems Symphony No. 9 is his crowning achievement.
21:46Moved by this incredible reception, Beethoven quickly returns to the drawing board to sketch the soundscape of a tenth piece.
21:54Before he can get anywhere close to finishing, Beethoven falls severely ill.
21:59Beethoven was battling a high fever, swollen limbs and respiratory problems.
22:10And in 1827, he slips into a coma.
22:13Just as his soul falls silent, a vicious storm infiltrates the city.
22:20With a flash of lightning and a loud clap of thunder, Beethoven rises out of his sleep one last time to shake a clenched fist at the skies above.
22:30With that, he exits the world with a final bow, leaving behind an incomplete symphony and perhaps the first trace of a deadly curse.
22:44Well, Franz Schubert emerges as one of the most prolific and important composers of the early 19th century.
22:51He was a great admirer of Beethoven's, and he was very much influenced by this senior composer.
22:58In his final days, Beethoven is visited by Franz Schubert, who takes a moment to share with Beethoven a piece of his own work that actually wins Beethoven's praise.
23:12Schubert quickly becomes known for his innovative compositions and intense work ethic.
23:22In 1815, he writes 20,000 bars of music, all the while working full time as a teacher.
23:32Establishing himself as a musical mastermind, Schubert's vast body of work includes nearly eight completed symphonies by 1825.
23:40Schubert composed a vast body of work for somebody of his age, but intriguingly, he doesn't finish his eighth symphony.
23:53Instead, he jumps straight into the ninth.
23:57Schubert titles this new masterpiece The Great C Major.
24:02Though destined for praise, The Great C Major is never premiered by Schubert himself.
24:08Amidst his creative crescendo, he comes down with a painful illness that puts a stop to his work.
24:17Could it be that the same fate of his idol is now consuming Schubert as well?
24:23In 1828, at the young age of 31, Schubert follows Beethoven to the grave.
24:32A full decade after his death, his prized ninth symphony is found scribbled across the dusty pages of a manuscript.
24:41Could the number of The Great Work have doomed Schubert to an early demise?
24:45And if so, who would this ominous outcome befall next?
24:50Austrian Anton Bruckner is both a composer and an organist, known for his bold style.
24:58His music delivers auditory outbursts and unexpected turns that often leave his audiences reeling in existential dread.
25:07Bruckner's Ninth Symphony is not an easy listen.
25:13It's full of dissonance. It's an ugly composition.
25:17Bruckner really wasn't putting something in front of his fans that was something pleasurable to listen to.
25:23It was quite the contrary. It was something intended to make them feel very ill at ease.
25:28But regrettably, it's a composition that he will never complete.
25:35In 1896, Bruckner dies of a stroke before he can note the final movement, another star possibly taken by the Ninth.
25:45But what dangers might the number nine denote to usher in such tragedy for these classical greats?
25:50Nine resonates historically as a mystical, magical number.
26:00You can look at the use of nine in Christian and Islamic traditions and other Judaic traditions,
26:07in terms of this idea of a cyclical life, death, rebirth, the number three, three, three, that leads to nine.
26:15One can almost say the ninth can be like the completion of a cycle.
26:20Taken literally then, could a composer's Ninth Symphony merely mark the end of their musical purpose?
26:29Uncertainty lingers as the Romantic era spills beyond the turn of the century, reverberating through classical concertos and seizing the unlucky.
26:39This is a curse from which no one can hide, not even those wise enough to attempt evasion.
26:48And that's exactly what Austrian composer Gustav Mahler attempted to do towards the end of the Romantic era of music during the early 20th century.
26:58Kindertortenlieder was one of Mahler's most notable and infamous pieces of work.
27:08And it was about the grieving over the death of children.
27:14Kindertortenlieder was based on a collection of five poems written by the German poet Friedrich Ruckert, who had lost two young daughters.
27:23And his wife at the time was like, why are you doing this?
27:28You are asking for trouble by sending these poems to music.
27:33Playing out his wife's premonition, within a few years of the publishing of Kindertortenlieder, Mahler's young daughter Maria is taken by scarlet fever.
27:44Mahler may have had a carefree attitude towards the idea of curses and the supernatural before the death of his daughter, which occurs after the Kindertortenlieder.
27:59But especially with his wife accusing him of having brought the curse on by what he was writing.
28:05Mahler became superstitious and paranoid, convinced that otherworldly forces were out to get him.
28:15Knowing that the deaths of the great composers of the late Romantic period befell them after or during their writings of their ninth symphonies,
28:23and having just completed his own eighth, Mahler worries he's on the cusp of disaster, so Mahler designs a plan to cheat destiny.
28:34Despite the semblance to a symphony, his ninth will not be numbered such.
28:40Instead, he calls it Das Lied von der Erde, or Song of the Earth.
28:45Believing he beat the curse, he continues on to write his tenth symphony, sneakily labelling it as his ninth.
28:55But no decoy will dupe the powers that be.
28:59And in December of 1910, he starts to develop symptoms in his throat that make him worry, tickles.
29:08And gets sicker, and is diagnosed with endocarditis, which leads to pneumonia, and eventually kills him.
29:21Mahler's death marks the sombre reprise of the alleged curse of the ninth.
29:26And in his shadow, several others will follow.
29:29Although dying of natural causes, English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams died just four months after his ninth and final symphony was performed.
29:40And just a few years ago, American composer David Maslanka took his own life, having only written nine symphonies.
29:49Any composer who can count their symphonic repertoire to ten should consider themselves lucky.
30:00In the words of Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg, who influenced 20th century classical music, wrote,
30:07It seems as if something might be imparted to us in the tenth, which we ought not yet to know, for which we are not ready.
30:17Those who have written a ninth stood too close to the hereafter.
30:20A short journey west from the buzz of New Orleans, you'll find the quiet wetlands of the Manchek Swamp.
30:37Its still scenery, lush with towering cypress trees, invites boaters in for a tranquil escape.
30:45But visitors, beware. Along with the snakes, gators and insects lurking in its murky waters, a cursed town lies below the bog.
30:59In this swamp, there used to be a town with dozens of families that lived here in the early 20th century before it was all washed away.
31:10The people in the surrounding areas of what used to be Frenier believe that what happened that fateful day was down to the cursed song of a folk healer.
31:25In 1915, the town of Frenier, Louisiana, was swallowed by the swamp.
31:30And a local legend claims that an incantation of a voodoo priestess manifested its demise.
31:42Frenier was a small community settled by German immigrants in the early 19th century.
31:48And it was a self-sufficient community. The town relied on the logging of cypress trees and the farming of cabbages to sustain itself.
32:01Perhaps more so than a lot of other settlements, it was especially remote.
32:05I mean, we have to think about the fact that it had no roads there until well into its history.
32:09And the only way to get to Frenier was by boat at the time.
32:14When the railway does show up, it connects southern Louisiana to Illinois.
32:20So in a way, Frenier now has this lifeline that sort of opens it up a little bit.
32:26With limited resources, Frenier and its surrounding communities were also void of doctors.
32:32Anyone suffering from an ailment was forced to either treat themselves or make the arduous journey to the big city miles away.
32:42That is, supposedly, until a new neighbour moves in.
32:47What we know from the census records was that Julia Brown was born sometime around 1845 in New Orleans.
32:56Some years later, she marries a man called Celestine Brown, and the two of them raised three children together.
33:06Around the turn of the century, the government grants Celestine Brown a 40-acre agricultural plot near Frenier, and they move there.
33:19The Browns settle in a small cabin on the edge of the bayou.
33:22Celestine spends his time tending to the land, while Julia is said to grace the community with a miraculous gift.
33:33Folk healers were, for lots of communities, including Frenier, in the middle of the 19th century, the only choice.
33:41Julia Brown is the classic folk healer in that she is relying heavily on herbal remedies to alleviate illness.
33:52She's also a midwife, so she's delivering a lot of babies.
33:56And there's the spiritual aspect of it as well, prayer, and even just the placing of her hands on those who are ailing with positive results.
34:06As the story goes, Julia's curative abilities quickly make her a beloved figure in Frenier, and many locals begin referring to her as Aunt Julia.
34:18Some, however, say her skills are so extraordinary that they fear her to be a voodoo queen, summoning her powers from a well of dangerous magic.
34:29Voodoo as it's understood and practiced in the U.S. is an amalgam of older religious practices brought over by enslaved people from Africa, combined with particularly Catholic Christianity.
34:50Around 1910, Julia's husband Celestine passes away, sending her into a long period of grief.
34:59Locals say she retreats to her small cabin and spends most of her time rocking in a chair on her porch, plucking the strings of a guitar and singing eerie premonitions across the bayou.
35:11Julia is still processing the loss of her husband.
35:19She's going through a grieving process.
35:22Nevertheless, at the same time, the towns still want her healing services.
35:28They still want her midwifery services, and they are pestering her.
35:33And you can imagine that after a period of time for Julia this must have been incredibly annoying, offensive,
35:42and a mutual hostility begins to arise between Julia and the town.
35:50With such a reliance on Aunt Julia, the townspeople grow spiteful.
35:55She receives little pity while mourning her loss, nor any respect for her years of remedial work.
36:02So the legend says she begins to croon a cursed song.
36:09Rumour has it that the former residents of the town reportedly heard Julia rocking back and forth on her porch,
36:20knitting a black yarn, and singing a song with worrying lyrics.
36:28Some accounts say that that day, while Julia was sitting on the porch, she sang the lyrics,
36:37Someday I'm gonna die, and I'm gonna take the whole town with me.
36:43Julia, despite having removed herself from the day-in and day-out capacities of a folk healer and Frenier,
36:53was still very much liked, and according to a lot of people at least, she was very well-intentioned.
37:00These people believed that the lyrics of the song were either misunderstood or misinterpreted.
37:05The question is, was Julia singing a song that she would bring this curse upon the town herself,
37:14or was it indeed a warning to the others in Frenier to get out while you can?
37:21Unsure of whether the song is a warning, a promise, or a curse,
37:26many folks decide it's wise to keep a distance from this once adored woman.
37:35Then, on September the 28th, 1915, superstition rattles the town.
37:44Julia Brown has died.
37:46Julia dies on a rainy night at the age of 70, all alone, and ushers in a tumultuous storm.
37:56Shortly after she dies, her funeral is held in the town,
38:02and people ensure that they're present to pay their respects.
38:06Perhaps this was to make peace with her spirit,
38:10so the sinister song wouldn't come true.
38:13Raindrops hit the roof as the townspeople, ridden with guilt and fear, pay their respects.
38:21But it may be too late to make amends.
38:26Just as they hammer a final nail into the wooden box holding Julia's casket,
38:32the skies crack open and the wind rushes in with a deafening howl.
38:38The Louisiana coastline is being hit by this enormous hurricane that is blowing in with devastating impact from the Gulf of Mexico.
38:52We now recognise the great hurricane of 1915.
38:58And even though storm categorisation wasn't around at the time,
39:03it is recognised as having been a category four storm.
39:07At 4pm on September 29th, the funeral service for Julia is being held in a small chapel.
39:19But then the heavens open.
39:22The hurricane has arrived and people simply run pell-mell out of the chapel,
39:29just leaving Julia there.
39:30They don't care what's going to happen to her.
39:33The real danger of the storm was the surge,
39:36which inundates the town with 13 feet of water.
39:40The surge completely swallows the homes, which were built on only 8 feet of elevation.
39:46There is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
39:50The storm's ferocious eyewall passes.
39:52There's really nowhere for the citizens to go.
40:03There's the railway depot, which a lot of people manage to get to,
40:08but the storm pummels it and the building collapses, killing 25 people.
40:13A lot of people try to go to the schoolhouse, it is just torn apart,
40:17it's ripped apart by the hurricane.
40:18One of the survivors is able to cling on to an upturned cypress tree
40:26and describes what is going on at that time.
40:30It's so horrifying that he's actually muffling his ears
40:35to drown out the screams from other people that aren't going to survive this hurricane.
40:42350 lives are taken by the storm, including 60 people in Frenier and its surrounding communities.
40:53The fortunate few to survive returned home to nothing more than a bog littered with bodies and lumber.
41:00On October 1st, the storm finally abates and a small number of residents who hadn't been in town at the time return.
41:12What they are confronted by is a scene of complete devastation.
41:16The houses are completely flattened, the shops, the chapel, everything is utterly destroyed.
41:26And of course, the people who lived in Frenier have been killed en masse.
41:31You can imagine any natural disaster, a hurricane for instance, when you're not expecting it, it seems sudden.
41:44And people try to find explanations as to why this is happening to us.
41:48Sometimes from those attempts to find an explanation comes the idea of a curse.
41:52This is something which we did wrong towards a person or persons.
41:58This is why we are suffering this misfortune.
42:01And that is definitely what those taunts people must have thought, that this is the curse of Julia Brown.
42:08Julia Brown's corpse is recovered, but her casket is never found.
42:13Some wonder, could this wreckage be the outcome of her melodic omen?
42:17Could this be a curse coming true?
42:19When you hear the story of a black woman and a black husband coming and setting up in this town that was largely a German settlement in a period where slavery was still a very fresh memory,
42:35you have to imagine that there would be some tensions that would make that relationship, you know, ambiguous, if nothing else, between the different members of society.
42:45But the fact that she was a woman who earned a reputation as a local healer would have made her quite a powerful local figure.
42:54But in a town that is miles and miles away from any established medical professional, if anything goes seriously wrong, anyone who seems to have otherworldly knowledge or power could become someone of suspicion when a crisis happens.
43:13Regardless of where this story came from, it's enough today to scare people away from the lost town of Frenier.
43:24Today, some visitors claim to hear the ghostly screams of drowning citizens.
43:30Others insist they've seen Julia herself standing on the edge of a moonlit marsh.
43:37Some still believe that Frenier fell to an otherworldly curse.
43:42But it's more likely that Aunt Julia was sadly victim to a tale rooted in discrimination.
43:48All we know for certain is that the Manchek swamp holds the souls of a town and the truth of this mystery with it.
43:58with it.
43:59with it.
44:00with it.
44:05with it.
44:08I'll see you next time.
44:12Stay in the moment.