The Discovery of King Richard III — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Some mysteries are just waiting to be  solved and some end up revealing themselves.
2. 0:06When the King of England, Richard III, was thrown into his grave 500 years ago
3. 0:11it started one of the biggest mysteries of all time.
4. 0:14Centuries of lies, rumors, myths and mistakes
5. 0:19led to his burial site becoming  shrouded in mystery
6. 0:22and the question was "where did he go?"
7. 0:25All of this led one lady to a small parking lot in England
8. 0:28where, all of a sudden, an enormous  clue revealed itself.
9. 0:32This is the story of how one of England's most famous Kings vanished
10. 0:35and the incredible work that went into tracking him down.
11. 0:39We modeled the entire thing to show you how his body was found
12. 0:42and the 500-year-old DNA test  that proved it was really him.
13. 0:48When The Battle of Bosworth came to an end Richard III was found dead.
14. 0:52His enemy Henry Tudor immediately declared himself King
15. 0:55and Richard's body was taken off to the town of Leicester
16. 0:58and put on display for the whole town to see.
17. 1:01according to records, he was buried unceremoniously beneath
18. 1:05the Grey Friars Church and a monument was eventually placed above his grave.
19. 1:09But 40 years later Henry VIII began taking down the Catholic church
20. 1:13and in just 5 years, every church  across the country was shut down
21. 1:18and many were demolished
22. 1:19including Grey Friars.
23. 1:21The land where it once stood was eventually bought by the mayor of Leicester
24. 1:24and a mansion was built on top of the site.
25. 1:27Although the monument had been destroyed
26. 1:29the mayor knew exactly where Richard was located
27. 1:32and so he placed his own monument to mark the spot.
28. 1:35But in 1611, a story was published that would completely alter the course of this mystery.
29. 1:41Written by historian John Speed, it stated that when the church was demolished
30. 1:46Richard's body had been taken out by an angry mob and buried under the nearby Bow Bridge.
31. 1:52Although it wasn't clear where  the story came from, people started to believe it
32. 1:56and over time it became the truth.
33. 1:59By the 1800's, everyone knew this story and eventually a plaque was placed
34. 2:03next to the bridge to mark the spot of Richard's burial.
35. 2:07A few years later a skeleton was found in the river
36. 2:10and people believed they had  actually found the body of Richard III.
37. 2:14By the 21st century, the actual whereabouts of the king were a complete mystery.
38. 2:19The mayor's mansion that once marked his grave was long gone
39. 2:23and the original Grey Friars church was now buried under several layers of buildings.
40. 2:27But in the early 2000’s, members of the Richard III society started looking for him.
41. 2:33thanks to modern technology they were able to  recreate Richard's burial using InVideo AI
42. 2:40just kidding…
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56. 3:30In order to find Richard III, the search team had to go back through the history books
57. 3:35and figure out what really  happened after he was buried.
58. 3:38They started looking into John Speed’s story of Richard being buried under the bridge
59. 3:43and that’s when they came across something really interesting.
60. 3:46John had traveled to Leicester in 1611 to look for Richard’s grave
61. 3:50and to make a detailed map of the city.
62. 3:53But when he got there, all he found was an overgrown field and no monument.
63. 3:57The search team took a closer look at his map
64. 3:59and they realized that the Grey Friars church had been drawn in the wrong location
65. 4:03and it had actually been drawn in the location of the similarly named Blackfriars church.
66. 4:07Speed had clearly gone to the wrong church and that’s why he didn’t find a grave.
67. 4:12If he had gone to the right place
68. 4:14he would have come across the Mayor's mansion
69. 4:16with a monument marking where Richard lay.
70. 4:19Since he hadn’t found a grave, he invented the story of Richard being buried under the bridge.
71. 4:24This was most likely inspired by the real story
72. 4:26of a local priest who actually was dug up and thrown in the river years before.
73. 4:31All of this proved that Speed’s story was actually false
74. 4:34and the team could focus their efforts on looking for the Grey Friars church.
75. 4:38But any evidence of the church had long since been covered by buildings
76. 4:42and so finding it would be a huge challenge.
77. 4:45The earliest map that showed any detail was from 1741
78. 4:49and it showed the Grey Friars area, which at that point
79. 4:52contained the Mayor’s mansion and the surrounding gardens.
80. 4:55The monument that once marked Richard’s grave
81. 4:58would have stood somewhere in this area.
82. 5:00By overlaying more modern maps
83. 5:02it showed that a road was eventually built through the area
84. 5:05and today’s buildings had been built on top of the gardens.
85. 5:09By the 21st century, the Grey Friars area had been almost completely covered by buildings
86. 5:14and the remaining bits of land had been turned into parking lots.
87. 5:18In 2005, Philipa Langley, who was leading the research
88. 5:22came to one of these parking lots to investigate.
89. 5:24When she was there, she had a strong feeling that she was in the right place
90. 5:28and then, as if by magic, a sign revealed itself.
91. 5:32Although this ‘R’ was obviously just a reserved parking spot
92. 5:36she felt like this was the place to start digging.
93. 5:39And so, several years later
94. 5:40a team of archeologists led by Philipa finally got permission to dig.
95. 5:44But they only had enough money to dig up a fraction of the parking lot
96. 5:48and so they had to be very efficient.
97. 5:50They knew that churches were typically positioned from east to west.
98. 5:53And so, they planned to dig three trenches
99. 5:56that would hopefully overlap with part of the church.
100. 5:59On the 25th of August, exactly 527 years since Richard was buried
101. 6:03the team started digging the first trench.
102. 6:06The whole project was expected to take around 2 weeks
103. 6:09and the chances of actually finding a grave seemed almost impossible.
104. 6:14But amazingly, just 6 hours into the first day
105. 6:18they came across a skeleton, just a few meters away from the letter ‘R’.
106. 6:22It had major damage to the skull and a uniquely curved spine.
107. 6:27Richard was often referred to as a hunchback, with one shoulder being higher than the other.
108. 6:31This curved spine and the damage to the skull
109. 6:35was a big sign that they had just found Richard III.
110. 6:38But in order to really prove it was him, the team had to use every modern technique imaginable.
111. 6:44One method was to take DNA from the skeleton
112. 6:47and see if it matched with a known descendant of Richard III.
113. 6:51One of the best chances was to look for the mitochondrial DNA
114. 6:54but this type of DNA only gets passed down by mothers.
115. 6:58And so, the team had to hope that there was an unbroken line of female generations that led all the way to Richard III.
116. 7:06Amazingly, there was.
117. 7:07By looking instead at Richard III’s sister
118. 7:10they were able to track down 16 generations
119. 7:13of females, all the way to a woman called Joy Brown.
120. 7:16Sadly, she had passed away
121. 7:18but her son Michael Ibsen was still alive.
122. 7:21The same DNA that Richard got from his mother
123. 7:24should have also been passed down to Michael Ibsen.
124. 7:27But if just one of these points in the family tree was incorrect
125. 7:30it would throw the whole thing off.
126. 7:32And so, to make it more certain, they traced down another line of females
127. 7:37which led to a woman called Wendy.
128. 7:39By comparing her DNA with Michael’s, they were able to confirm that they were both related to each other
129. 7:45and therefore direct descendants of Richard III’s mother.
130. 7:49Before they could get DNA from Richard’s skeleton
131. 7:52they sent it off to do carbon dating tests, which would determine the age of the skeleton.
132. 7:57Our bodies all absorb carbon-14
133. 7:59but when we die, the carbon-14 starts to decay at a known rate.
134. 8:03By calculating how much carbon-14 was left in the skeleton
135. 8:07the scientists could determine how long the body had been dead for.
136. 8:11As it turns out, the results initially showed
137. 8:13that the body was a few decades older than Richard’s.
138. 8:16But what the results also showed was that whoever it was
139. 8:20they had a protein-rich seafood diet
140. 8:23which would have only been possible for someone living a high class life.
141. 8:27This was a crucial bit of information
142. 8:29because a diet like this would have altered how much carbon-14 was lost.
143. 8:33Factoring this in, the new results showed that the skeleton was almost certainly from the time of Richard’s death.
144. 8:40At the same time, the results from the DNA test were in
145. 8:43and they showed a clear match between Michael and the skeleton
146. 8:46proving that it was almost certainly King Richard III.
147. 8:49And now, time for the Primal Space Giveaway.
148. 8:52Thewinner of the previous giveaway is Landon. Congrats!
149. 8:55In the next video, we’ll be giving away this awesome Richard III framed print.
150. 9:00All you need to do is sign up at the link below
151. 9:02like the video and leave a comment saying what you thought about this amazing discovery.
152. 9:07Thank you very much for watching and I’ll see you in the next video.