Charlemagne's Elephant

[@devtrev85]

I think it’s outstanding that @thehistoryguy always lets us know when sources are absent or questionable. Pop history is the Wild West of fact and you need a sheriff like THG to keep things civil.

[@JoycenatorGaming]

Yeah, in a world where almost no one mentions their sources or when there are conflicting reports, this type of presentation is as important as ever

[@JarthenGreenmeadow]

​@@JoycenatorGaming "no one mentions their sources" The worst thing is when people decide THEY know which story makes the most sense and present it as fact despite literally no one having a clue what happened.

[@johngregg5735]

The hard part about giving an elephant as a gift is wrapping it so it doesn't look like an elephant.

[@harryface1633]

Wrap it to look like a giraffe. 😂

[@phredphlintstone6455]

Put some bricks in the box too., so that they can't figure it out from the weight

[@sullivanspapa1505]

Hide it in the trunk

[@timan2039]

In this case someone let the elephant out of the bag and there went the surprise.

[@HollyMoore-wo2mh]

🤣🤣🤣 I want to thank everyone for the comments.

[@plasmaburndeath]

An Elephant never forgets, and while history might forget the details, THG does us great service by bringing us back into the rooms where it happened.

[@sandrataylor3723]

Loved this episode. History has always fascinated me. I'm nearly 70 and still love learning. Thanks for all the hard work that you put into these episodes of history that needs to be remembered.

[@TheCatBilbo]

I learn something new, all of the time! Somethings really amaze me: "how have I only JUST found this out?!" is a regular exclamation.

[@ghowell13]

I always loved hearing stories of this elephant as a child. Thanks, THG!!!

[@TM-du3bg]

it is incredible to imagine a war elephant would have been used against the Danes in Northern Europe, one could only imagine what the Danes would have felt due to such an encounter

[@MichaelJohnson-tw7dq]

They would have mistaken it for an obese Swedish woman

[@robertweldon7909]

It really doesn't matter to me what the subject might be, the historical story presented by Lance each time draws me into events and people who don't ever get remembered when history is discussed. I'm a person who is curious about things from history. If were not for videos like this, much of what I know about history would be mostly flawed. Great job Lance, even elephants deserve to be remembered.

[@51WCDodge]

Woman got a bus in London, carrying a picture of Elephants. The driver, a friend, said 'Nice Picture! Is it a Shephard?' (Meaning David Shepard, famous Elephant Artist) . The woman apparently looked carefully at the picture, slowly raised her eyes and said 'Nah I fink it's an Elephant'

[@HollyMoore-wo2mh]

🤣🤣🤣 Good one.

[@51WCDodge]

@@HollyMoore-wo2mh Absolutley true!

[@HollyMoore-wo2mh]

@@51WCDodge Wow but it is cute. Thanks for sharing.

[@orbyfan]

That reminds me of the man who called out to his wife that there was an elephant in their back yard. "What's he doing?" "He's picking the cabbages with his tail; and you wouldn't believe what he's doing with them."

[@goodun2974]

"Elephant Company" is a great book about the use of elephants by the Allies for building roads and railways in Southeast Asia during WWII, and their escape over treacherous mountains to India when the Japanese invaded Burma.

[@Cobbmtngirl]

I feel so bad for that elephant!! They are very social animals. He was taken from his home & family to a life of sadness & loneliness. Heartbreaking.

[@MultiChippymunks]

I always love a good elephant history story. Thank you

[@RetiredSailor60]

Good Wednesday (Hump Day) History Guy and everyone watching from scorching Ft Worth tx

[@loraweems8712]

Hello! We are in Olney (90 mi N of Ft Worth) and we're melting up here too! Hubby was a Keeper at the Ft Worth Zoo for 25+/- years...

[@shawnr771]

The humidity is high enough near Waco it is more like a steam bath.

[@hbhkennel918]

Y'all have a real winner of a cop in FTW. Ofc. Krueger slammed a 60 y/o grandma to the ground and knocked her out. Piece of garbage.

[@shawnr771]

Thank you for the lesson. An African elephant has large ears shaped like the continent. The flap them to help cool their bodies. The Asian elephant has smaller ears.

[@petuniasevan]

Also the Asian elephant has a slightly bifurcated skull, making its head appear double domed. It's very distinct and different from the African elephant's head shape. Plus, African elephants are wrinklier.

[@shawnr771]

@@petuniasevan Thank you for the information.

[@mathewfinch]

Fun fact: humans and chimpanzees are more closely related to each other than African elephants are to Indian elephants.

[@ThePerfectRed]

Charlemagne allegedly enjoyed saying "There is an elefant in the room!" and watching peoples reactions when they realized there really was.

[@MrsJHarrington]

Your videos sir are always interesting and informative, well researched too. I wish I had a degree in history, I had always wanted to be a history teacher or historian. This was a very interesting video about Charlemagne’s elephant, I learned some things about Charlemagne I did not know before. Thank you for being here on KZbin sir! 😊

[@ricksaint2000]

Thank you History Guy

[@MrMatteNWk]

5:21 "Where's my elephant?! Where's my elephant?!" Village elder: "Hey, they're playing The Elephant Song!"

[@juanlapuente833]

Great information and research work! North African elephants did were tamed and used in combat in ancient times, although they could have gone extinct a few centuries before Abdul-Abbas, it might have been one of these last survivors, based on the geographic proximity. It would be interesting to do the genetics of that ivory. to tell.

[@Harley-D-Mcdonald]

Elephants are good critters. Thanks for another great video.

[@rickbrandt9559]

Journey of "the Wildflowers Highway" inspiring !!! 😇

[@jamesmeppler6375]

Big ups! Always appreciate some good history. Specially stuff we barely remember

[@communistcomputergod6449]

Elephants kinda sparked my interest in school. Hannibal’s war elephants to be exact. Back then in 5th grade during history class, when my teacher showed us a painting representing the second Punic war, depicting elephants riders. And I immediately got interest, and history had me at “…marched with war elephants through the ALPS to attack Rome”

[@rwarren58]

The period was about as far back as we could go with elaborate outfits and the terrible (not all) art. It’s always soothing to learn a new slice of history.

[@Nicksonian]

After extensive ancestry research I found a possible line back to Charlemagne himself. I was amazed that the great ruler might be part of my ancestry…until I found an article that said that virtually every one of European ancestry can trace their roots back to Charlemagne.

[@HollyMoore-wo2mh]

Same but on my husband's side - the surname Martel.

[@rumpelpumpel7687]

you might also be able to trace your ancestry line back to Attila or Genghis Khan ^^ after some centuries ... it all gets really blurry since you know it's basically a pyramide. 10 generations back means 512 relatives/ancestors only within the last ~350 yrs. If you go back to the year 800 AD you end up with over 500,000,000 ancestors of yours living in that time period xD There's got to be some famous folks among them, right?! BUT the theoretical math does not add up in reality. It's estimated that only 200,000,000 - 300,000,000 ppl lived on our planet around the 8th century. And the further you go back, the more great-great-[...]-grandparents theoretically, but at the same time, the further back you go, the less ppl actually live on this planet. Soooo i dont really know what to think since im neither a theoretical nor a practical mathematician :)

[@footrot17]

Yeah that how family trees work

[@mayoite160]

That means you're a relative of the late Sir Christopher Lee as well

[@jasonmoskowitz246]

Wait til you consider Charlemagne, Solomon, and Suleiman the Magnificent as being the same guy…

[@Jami-vm1zv]

My heart hurts for those poor elephants and their treatment. It must have been pure terror for them.

[@pudgeboyardee32]

I happen to be from St. Louis. I can hop in my car, drive 20 minutes, walk into the city zoo for free and see a half-dozen elephants. Did it all the time as a kid. Not the driving part. My neighbor ran the primatology department at the zoo for most of that time so I always knew when we got new animals or exhibits or got tickets to special activities. I'm grateful I don't have to wait three quarters of a millennium for something I consider so much a part of my life. I am not a king. Yet I could show you my favorite turtles, huge ones, at that zoo. Not species, individual animals I could point out and say,"he likes his neck being rubbed." Because I've had the privilege of getting to meet them. Most of that wasn't even really special access, I got to do that stuff with activities that were awarded via raffle. Staff was allowed an allotment for friends, idiots like me, and family to attend. Lots of other people my age can do the same. Some people like this elephant or that one. That's a level of familiarity regular people didn't used to get. It's nice. People have friendly gossip about damn-near other-wordly creatures, and it's not seen as anything but normal. Of course that penguin was a jerk, I've seen that one you're talking about, he's ALWAYS been a jerk. Stuff like that.

[@HM2SGT]

I am reminded of a song on a record when I was a small child (around 1971): *_What's In The Elephant's Trunk?_* 😊

[@SB-129]

2:57 You have to love not only the imagination but the Simpsons-esque style the monk was illustrating in.

[@Benson_aka_devils_advocate_88]

There were elephants in Arizona as recently as 15,000 years ago and probably sooner.

[@EGRJ]

Can't ignore this story.

[@NavigatEric]

Thank you Lance, nice episode.

[@mattgeorge90]

Another great episode!

[@StevenDietrich-k2w]

It's our 48th anniversary today and it has quit raining here in our part of the midwest. Going to be a great day.

[@rwarren58]

Congrats! True love is something special.

[@Torby4096]

Happy Anniversary 🎉

[@stonewallrussians]

Congratulations to you both. Here’s to sunny weather

[@kernpetersen4901]

Who cares?

[@timbossard6383]

Happy anniversary.

[@BasicDrumming]

I appreciate you and thank you for making content.

[@AllHailDiskordia]

There is also this tale of a guy, who was tasked to bring an elephant from near India to Greece, as a gift from Alexander to Aristoteles

[@johnnystall9683]

They started to need last names by then. Colorful, however, Pepin the Short and Isaac the Jew.

[@timbrwolf1121]

My last name was originally spelled Chauvin. It means misogynist. 😂 luckily not related to that ancestor by blood. Thinking about it is funny though some dude hated women so fucking much that his name was basically John the woman hater in French 😂

[@thomasrussell4674]

About Mahouts: In the Joan Armatrading song Drop the Pilot she says "drop the man out, I am the easy rider"

[@MmntechCa]

The greatest philosopher of the 1990s once asked the great question of the time: "where's my elephant?!"

[@mayoite160]

It's so fascinating that the originally united front of the Islamic expansion crumbled so quickly and that the Abbasids were already cooperating with "infidels" against their Umayyad co-religionists. "Abul Abbas" translates to "father of Abbas", the honoured ancestor of the Abbasid dynasty, and could therefore have been derogatory. OTOH "Abdul Abbas" translates to the more innocuous "slave of Abbas" and was more likely to have been the original moniker bestowed on him by the Abbasid ambassadors.

[@robertjensen1438]

What weighs more? an elephant or a human? The human. Elephants dont know how to use a scale. What do you get when you throw an elephant in the pool? Wet. What do you get when you throw two elephants in the pool? Swimming trunks.

[@goodun2974]

What do you get when you hand an elephant one end of a tin can on a string? A telephone trunk line.

[@51WCDodge]

Where does the Elephant sleep? Any where it wants!

[@thefunkosaurus]

Why do elephants drink? To forget.

[@hannahbrown2728]

What do you call an Elephant at The North Pole? Lost.

[@HollyMoore-wo2mh]

Why don’t elephants use computers? Because they’re afraid of the mouse.

[@davidjacobs8558]

In the year 1411, Japanese Shogun gifted an Elephant to Korean King. Shogun wanted a copy of Tripitaka Koreana in exchange. Japanese Shogun got that elephant from Indonesian King in 1408. That elephant killed a school teacher who came with his pupils to see the animal, and teased it little too much. So the Elephant was banished to some islands and there is no record of how it died after that.

[@tommy-er6hh]

A timeline c. 8500 BC Nevalı Çori, (Turkey) settlement religious monuments [also Gudang Padang Megalithic Site (Indonesia) possibly built]. Also world temperatures rise to near modern levels, slowly oceans rise, glaciers retreat more. The freshwater Ancylus Lake (forerunner of Baltic) connects to North Sea. Forests creep up into N Europe & Russia tundra areas, reducing population there. Humans inhabit Cyprus. Also dwarf mammoths of Crete go extinct. c. 7100 BC Last sabertooth cat goes extinct in Argentina. c.6500-5900 BC Earliest sign found of humans on Crete, Sicily, and Malta. c. 5400 BC Sumerian civilization begins in South Iraq. Sumer & Eridu cities founded c. 5500 to 2750 BC Cucuteni-Trypillia culture in Romania/Ukraine area had as large towns/cities as Sumer in Mesopotamia had. c. 5370 BC Giant ground sloth extinct, last in Argentina. c.4000 BC The Austronesian Peoples settle Taiwan, from there they will move into Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Madagascar, and across the Pacific. Also the last of the Mediterranean island dwarf elephants go extinct on Tilos island in Aegean. c. 3900 BC 5.9 kiloyear Bond event Atlantic cooling and drought, with more Sahara desertification forcing people move to the Nile. Also Semitic peoples from Syria spread into Mesopotamia, Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, & more. c. 1780 BC last woolly mammoths killed on island off Siberia. c. 100 AD Tengri Shamanic Huns in Crimea and Caucasus. Pagan Scandinavians begin to use Runes influenced by Roman script. Also the Syrian elephant goes extinct due to ivory hunting. Teotihuacan city (Mexico) introduces Quetzalcoatl. 380-524 AD (maybe earlier, unclear) Himyarite kingdom (SW. Arabia/Yemen) becomes Rabbinical Jewish, in 523 persecuted Christians in Arabia, so the Himyarites are destroyed by Miaphysite Christian Ethiopia 525 at the request of the Orthodox E Roman Empire. c. 400 AD The north African elephants go extinct.

[@kellybasham3113]

Love your videos

[@hwizell7478]

Is there gas in the car? Yes there’s gas in the car- Steely Dan “Kid Charlemagne”

[@goodun2974]

I think the people down the hall know who we are...... The song was written about Owsley Stanley who cooked LSD and built the sound system for the Grateful Dead.

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

Great video...👍

[@hia5235]

Incredible

[@johnking6252]

Great story. Makes me sad knowing that elephants are more human than the humans. A lonely existence in a far away land . 🌎✌️🌍

[@dn88s]

How could elephants be more human than humans?

[@bigunone]

Full page color cartoon I saw in a adult magazine in the 70s showed 2 border guards in a mountain pass, an army is coming with an elephant in front one guy is saying " You tell them they can't pass!"

[@garykooienga9990]

I've heard, anecdotally, that one of the Renaissance popes was given a rhinoceros. Details perhaps? Also, the emperor Tiberius as having a great and horrible reptile. Again, any info here? I always look to THG for clarity in matters of needling half-truths and prevarications. Thanks.

[@RaimoHöft]

Current story line in the german Comic "Mosaik"... the three "Abrafaxe" are delivering the elephant from Bagdad to Charlemagne. 😃

[@janlindtner305]

Denmark's finest order is the Order of the Elephant, the rider is a Morian, founded in 1460. Heraldically, the war elephant is believed to symbolize the champions of Christianity and the elephant is an old symbol of chastity and godlin👍👍👍

[@jeffersenpierrelouis7053]

Boss like!!!❤

[@genericfabricrefresher3163]

HE NEVER QUITS, HE NEVER MISSES, HE IS T H E HISTORY M A N

[@BigboiiTone]

5:50 it's like Bevis and Butthead in antiquity and as elephants

[@mitsein]

The story also shows that conflicts between Christians and Muslim and Jewish communities like the Crusades were not inevitable. Those tragedies were choices. Understanding this is especially relevant today.

[@goodun2974]

Arabs controlled much of Spain for some 500 years; it was a time of relative peace between the rulers and the Jews and Christians in the region, and educated men of the differing faiths collaborated to compile information on engineering and science, translating them into Greek and Latin, which any educated person knew how to read.

[@debbralehrman5957]

Thanks👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🐘

[@frankgulla2335]

Well, THG, you have found a really strange "tale of history" Thank you.

[@jackpavlik563]

There better be a pirate riding this pachyderm….

[@johnseawind9558]

"I once shot an elephant in my pajamas. what he was doing in my pajamas, I'll never know!" -Groucho Marx

[@erikm8372]

I’m gonna sound like a total Star Wars nerd, which I’m really not tbh, but maybe? Lol, the image at 8:30 of the elephant sort of resembles… an Ithorian alien! 🤣 Mainly it’s the side-mouth and the upturned trunk, resembling the Ithorians’ head shape and their “side-mouths” on either side of their neck. Sometimes I you’ll see random pictures and it’s clear where screenwriters or movie producers got their inspiration… lol. Basic…

[@mickeyargo]

For the first time, I noticed you were wearing cufflinks. I only saw the backside of the sleeve, so I don't know what the other side looked like. I have no interest in buying the bow ties you wear on channel, since I do not wear a bow tie (or any tie for that matter) but might be interested in adding to my cufflink collection since I wear them every day at work!

[@TheHistoryGuyChannel]

I do usually wear French cuffs. But I don’t have custom links for sale.

[@inoshikachokonoyarobakayar2493]

I feel bad for the pair of Elephants in the Paris Zoo during the Franco- Prussian War. 💔 War is hell

[@steveshoemaker6347]

Well i don't know much about the Charlemagne's Elephant.....But i can tell you about big white Elephant's do exist cause i have seen quite many of them when i was drunk when i was younger.....Thank THG🎀

[@donaldhill3823]

Very interesting. Have you done a video explaining when European monarchs 1st came into contact with what appears to be African Lions. Royal Coats of Arms in Europe seem to often have African Lions, yet I’m not aware of Lyons similar to African Lyons ever existing in wild of Europe .

[@KentoLeoDragon]

Breaks my heart thinking about how horrible the lives of these poor animals must have been.

[@johnlewisiii2076]

Do the various illusions of the horns curving sharply and upwards from the skull give an indication of origin? I think of elephants as having horns that protrude downward from the skull and with much shallower arc.

[@Kampfwageneer]

Charlemagnes elephant that sounds like some sort of logic experiment like Shrodingers cat. Until you enter the circus tent it is unknown whether the Saxons have been converted to Christianity

[@crystalclear6864]

That was interesting

[@allendyer5359]

"It is certain" you are on cue, "Without a doubt" and not behind the 8-ball on all this ivory tusk stuff. "You may rely on it!"

[@tecumsehcristero]

I love and respect that you use AD/BC instead of the very ridiculous CE/BCE. Neil Degrasse Tyson makes a fantastic argument why AD/BC should be used and CE/BCE should be abandoned.

[@jameshudson169]

The most famous elephant? hello?! JUMBO!!

[@anthonycalbillo9376]

History and elephants?! I love elephants!! My dream on my bucket list, one is to ride an elephant.

[@bigsarge2085]

🐘

[@s4usea]

And his means in Arabic servant of the lion. Good story

[@JesseOaks-ef9xn]

It is interesting that a relative of modern elephants existed in North America at the time the ancestors of the tribes of Indians came to North America.

[@GailGurman]

Considering how family oriented elephants are, Abdul-Abbas must have been extremely lonely having made to spend most of his life not only alone, but so far away from any other elephants. Incidentally, this video included at least two images of an elephant with a snake entwined around it. Any idea what that's about? And in the image near the end, there are legs of some other animal sticking out near the front of the elephant. What's that about?

[@jeffbangkok]

Good evening

[@williamchamberlain2263]

"Charlemagne's Elephant" is what the courtesans used to call it

[@acharyajamesoermannspeaker6563]

Interesting. Was is covered why the elephant was depicted as having a serpent wrapped around it? Surviving northern European winters would be no minor issue for elephants.

[@ronaldpoppe3774]

A very Strange elephant story is from Erwin Tennessee where an elephant was tried for murdering his handler and was hanged by a wrecking Derek at the railroad depot in 1916.

[@rtk3543]

That's terrible.

[@jonathangorham4083]

Could you do a video on the "Night of the Long Knives"

[@onliwankannoli]

At first glance I thought this was something about that guy that misspells “the.” Then I noticed it was the History Guy. 😂

[@Shatterverse]

The monks who made all those books that that nonsense is drawn in had no idea what anything in the outside world was like lol. They were just making shit up based off of vague descriptions that were fifth hand from some guy. Assuming they weren't just made up by somebody, or the effective equivalent of cryptids that people thought were real but aren't. At least with the mythological creatures they didn't have a real thing to mess up.

[@GhostofJamesMadison]

Im still not entirely convinced Charlemagne existed, let alone his elephant lol

[@Revolver1701]

Elephants are still in Europe. They paint their toenails red so they can hide in strawberry patches. Have you ever seen an elephant hiding in a strawberry patch? See how good it works.

[@markryan4873]

And not many people know this - Tarzan died while picking strawberries! The original story was elephants hiding in plumtrees and painting their balls red.

[@HollyMoore-wo2mh]

One of the video that I have watched said that Julius Caesar brought an elephant with them to invade England. IMO - not for the amount of time that Caesar was there. I still cannot imagine an elephant crossing the English Channel. AND I have watched SO many videos of digs in Britain NO ONE and I mean no one has found ANY evidence of an elephant in Britain. I want contemporary evidence of Rome bringing an elephant to Britain. HECK I am even questioning the amount of boats and MEN they brought.

[@amadeusamwater]

No pirates?

[@tomray8765]

The paintings of it look like they were done from verbal descriptions.

[@167curly]

Hello THG. I think that I read that the royal menagerie at The Tower of London included an elephant which was a gift to a Middle Ages English king

[@TheHistoryGuyChannel]

That was the elephant of Henry III, gifted, purportedly, on a crusade in the 13th century, some 450 years after Charlemagne.

[@EnTeaJay]

Great story, as usual only one suggestion: don’t say CorDOva. The correct pronunciation is CORdova(Córdova). 😊

[@jeaniebottle6758]

That's a hell of a fat animal, what's it called? TY 👍🏻👍🏻

[@EcclesiastesLiker-py5ts]

He looks so angry

[@reallyseriously7020]

7:36 The artist had clearly never seen a woman.

[@SmackheadGaming]

History guy sounds like the grand nagus

[@youwontgetme]

ah

[@FrancisFjordCupola]

That thumbnail looked a bit more like a Siamese donkey-hydra-hyena crossover.

[@gradyrm237]

Elephants are better than people. Indeed, the majority of animals are as well.

[@termsofusepolice]

That poor elephant appears to have been constantly under attack by anacondas. A hard life indeed. Not sure Kid Charlemagne was worthy of being commemorated by that fabulous Steely Dan song.

[@Erox006]

i never knew it was touring europe ??

[@TealCheetah]

I wonder if they ate the elephant when it died?