This time, we finish up the incredible, horrible tale of the goings on in Leopold’s Congo from last time. We start off with someone calling him out for the terrible things going on, and it is completely ignored. Then other people come forward with news of people being mutilated, and it being completely ignored. Then, some Irish guy creates tires out of rubber, and things get even worse for the Congolese people. Finally, after years of mass killings and kidnappings, an unassuming worker for a shipping company notices some weird shipments coming and going and decides to do something about it. We finally have a hero in this story. We also had the World’s Fair in Belgium, and Leopold wanted to show off what he had in the Congo… Then, some dude years later made some candies. This part of the story is even worse than the first, but it kinda sorta ends well. As well as it can, I guess.

Boy oh boy… If you don’t know who this guy is, first off, lucky you. Second, I’m sorry that I’m about to change that. He was a simple man; all he really wanted was to take over the throne of Belgium from his father and own a colony somewhere that would help his country build its economy. After trying and failing for years to talk Parliament into building a colony somewhere he decided “F**k it. I’ll do it myself” and he BOUGHT THE CONGO. That means that any money that came from exporting any kind of natural resources would go to him and him alone. He even hired a pet explorer who would go there and “convince” the locals to sell the land they had been on for generations. After the construction was complete, the fun began… Harvesting natural resources, mostly ivory to start with. When the ivory trade started drying up, the beatings began… Did I mention this guy was a complete turd? This is only the beginning, though. Part 2 is going to be horrendous… Get episodes a week early, ad-free episodes, and content on Patreon: https://patreon.com/1159media

This episode holds a special place in my heart for a couple of different reasons. First, it happened in my home state of Vermont, and secondly, I got to spend a couple of hours hanging out with my little brother. We talk about fun trips we took in our childhood, hospital trips with Dad for an axe wound, the beauty of childbirth and even about this one time that a bunch of Confederate soldiers came down from Canada and robbed a series of banks in the Town of St. Albans to try and get some payback for perceived war crimes. They came up with a great, well-thought-out plan and executed it, until they realized the people of the Green Mountain State are VERY big fans of the 2nd Amendment. Oh, and the best part is, this great plan that they came up with was basically a comedy of errors and incompetence; they should have made off with WAAAAY more money than they did, but they were bamboozled by some of the locals. With all that said, somehow, this story ends in a way that nobody saw coming, the leader of the raid doing a complete 180 and completely redeeming himself as a human. This one was a ton of fun to do, and I think you’ll hear that in the recording!Get episodes a week early, and ad-free access to all episodes on Patreon: https://patreon.com/1159media