Did Cleopatra win Rome with her looks? Did gladiators always fight to the death? And did Romans have a special room for throwing up? Three myths, two minutes.

Sources
Cleopatra: https://lexundria.com/plut_ant/27/prr (Plutarch, Life of Antony 27) and https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1491/was-cleopatra-beautiful/
Gladiators: https://www.history.com/news/did-gladiators-always-fight-to-the-death and https://www.badancient.com/claims/gladiator-deaths/
The vomitorium: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/purging-the-myth-of-the-vomitorium/ and https://www.history.com/articles/vomitoriums-fact-or-fiction

The Old Mess is voiced with AI and produced by Fola at Echoes Within Media.

Did Marie Antoinette really say "let them eat cake"? Chris, Jessica and Gerald follow the line from a philosopher's memoir to a pastry crust and a Chinese emperor, find out who really made the guillotine, bust three rapid-fire myths, and visit a Spanish village where the devil jumps over babies.

0:00 Cold open: who said it?
0:41 Part 1: brioche, not cake
1:33 Part 2: Rousseau's "great princess"
2:40 Part 3: the line's older owners
4:18 Part 4: why it stuck to her
5:49 Bonus mess: who made the guillotine?
7:02 Rapid-fire mess
7:51 The Mess Report
8:23 Strange but Logical: El Colacho

Sources
Emperor Hui of Jin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake and https://en.5000yan.com/history-of-china/western-jin-dynasty/idiot-emperor.html
"Let them eat cake" (Rousseau, Marie-Therese): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake and https://www.history.com/articles/did-marie-antoinette-really-say-let-them-eat-cake
Marie Antoinette's 1775 letter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake and https://www.historyofroyalwomen.com/marie-antoinette/marie-antoinette-and-the-let-them-eat-cake-myth/
The guillotine: https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/france-adopts-guillotine and https://francetoday.com/learn/history/did-you-know-the-guillotine-and-cutting-edge-technology/
The croissant: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/croissant-really-french-180955130/ and https://www.chowhound.com/1620365/marie-antoinette-croissant-myth-france
Salem: https://www.history.com/articles/were-witches-burned-at-the-stake-during-the-salem-witch-trials and https://historyofmassachusetts.org/witches-burned-stake-salem/
The iron maiden: https://www.history.co.uk/articles/the-iron-maiden-medieval-torture-device-or-modern-myth and https://www.livescience.com/55985-are-iron-maidens-torture-devices.html
El Colacho: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/el-colacho-baby-jumping-festival-murcia-spain and https://www.thelocal.com/20150608/baby-jumping-festival-lands-in-burgos-spain-2015-colacho

The Old Mess is voiced with AI and produced by Fola at Echoes Within Media.

Three myths in under two minutes. Did George Washington really have wooden teeth? Was the Declaration of Independence signed on the fourth of July? And did JFK call himself a jelly doughnut in Berlin? Chris, Jessica and Gerald find out, and Gerald is wrong a record number of times.

The Old Mess is voiced with AI and produced by Fola at Echoes Within Media.