All language subtitles for Dark.Marvels.S01E08.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH

From ritual Maya games
played with killer balls

possibly made
from human heads...

A captive victim
sacrificed against their will.

The person who dies, there
is a decapitation involved.

To fatal gladiator fights...

Every day was carnage day.

You could see broken
limbs, severed limbs.

The crowd wanted
blood, and that they got.

To knights wielding
lethal lances...

A shard came up
into the king’s helmet

and entered in
through the king’s eye.

History is full of contests

with players fighting
for their very survival.

These are all of the people
who we have conquered,

forced to kill each
other for your pleasure.

Now we explore the dark origins

of the world’s deadliest games.

Not all inventions are
made with good intentions.

Unlock the twisted history

behind the world’s
darkest marvels.

Chiapas, Mexico, 2020.

While excavating beneath
the Temple of the Sun

in the ancient
Maya city of Tonina,

a team of researchers
discovers a hidden tunnel...

and a chamber
filled with 400 pots.

And among those
pots they discovered

human cremains, or
cremated human bone.

Some archaeologists believe

these remains come from players

of the notorious Maya ball game

that originated some
3,000 years ago.

It is an incredibly
brutal and hard game

that could be at times
a battle of life and death.

Though venues differ,

most games take place
at a large stone court

in the center of town.

When we’re talking about
the Mayan ball game,

we usually associate
this with ball courts.

We see variations
of the ball game

across Mesoamerican and
ancient American cultures.

Unlike our ball courts today,

which are always
standardized, right?

A basketball court is
always the same size.

These varied incredibly.

The court that the Maya
ball game is played on

has a similar layout even
though the sizes differ.

It’s a narrow I-shaped field,

and then on the interior
there are slanted walls

that keep the ball contained
from the people in the stands

or the people that are watching.

Teams of two to six players

volley the ball back and forth,

keeping it in the air
while trying to gain territory

on their opponent’s side
and score in their end zone.

If a player manages to get
the ball through a stone ring

mounted high on the wall, he
automatically wins the game.

It’s sort of like soccer,
but you are not allowed

to touch the ball with
your hands or your feet,

but the rest of
your body is fair.

To the Maya, the
ball game is more

than a form of entertainment.

Archaeological records
indicate it carries great

religious and
political significance.

These games likely took place
at calendrically significant times.

I’ve even seen interpretations

that it was kind of
a proxy for warfare.

It could be a way to work
out intergroup conflicts,

border politics, and
those sorts of things.

One of the earliest written
mentions of the game

comes from a legend in the Maya’s
most sacred text, the Popol Vuh.

The Popol Vuh tells the
story of the hero twins

Hunahpu and Xbalanque
growing up and learning

that they are actually
ballplayers and not farmers.

And ultimately, they
go out to the ball court

and they start to play.

The game is rambunctious,
the game is loud,

the ball is bouncing off

those sort of galley
ways on the side.

And the lords of the underworld
Xibalba hear the twins playing,

and they call them
to come down to play.

In the land of the
dead, essentially.

They’re trying to
trick these hero twins,

trying to cause them pain,

trying to cause them
suffering, trying to kill them.

And ultimately
the hero twins win.

They defeat the lords of the
underworld in the ball game.

They ultimately ascend to
be the sun and the moon,

and this sort of
symbolizes the ways

in which the ball game itself
is where you can play out

the cycling of life and death

in real time with an audience.

Unlike some modern
day sporting events,

the ancient Maya games are long.

For those of you who
think a tennis game is long,

you’ve never seen
a Mayan ball game.

The games were very intense.

Sometimes it would
go on for hours,

sometimes even days.

They’re also extremely violent.

It was a very deadly game because the amount
of injuries that these players endured.

Most of which come
from the ball itself.

We do have some
eyewitness accounts

recorded by the
Spanish conquistadors.

There are some
discussions of the ball game,

the fact that people
might be injured

in just the playing
of the ball game.

That they might even die

from the injuries sustained
from being hit by the ball.

The ball might vary
in size from, you know,

something like a softball to something
like a melon, and weigh up to ten pounds.

You know, the weight
of a modern bowling ball.

But this is solid
natural rubber.

Just imagine being
hit by a sledgehammer.

Well, that’s what it felt like
to be hit by this rubber ball.

- It hurts.
- In some of the imagery we have,

they have thick rubber
belts to protect themselves,

because the ball
would have hurt so much

and you wanted to
have a good game.

The construction of the ball

is like a primitive
vulcanized rubber.

So it would bounce.

They found the right
number of ingredients

to effectively vulcanize
rubber through the introduction

of sulfuric juice from
the morning glory

and then sap from a local tree.

Those two together
with a combination of heat

would create this material
that would make the ball.

Even though it’s
heavy, it can bounce,

and they figured
this out so long ago.

Some archaeologists believe

that the recent discovery
of human remains

under the Temple
of the Sun in Tonina

suggests the Maya used a
grisly alternate source of material

for making the ball.

There is sufficient amount of
sulfur in the body of a human

so when that body is converted
into ash through cremation,

you introduce it into a heated
environment with the rubber,

a certain amount of
vulcanization can occur

and creates that bouncy rubber.

You know, if you don’t
have the morning glory juice,

human remains are
potentially a substitute.

But according to other accounts,

human remains might have
been used in a different way.

In the Popol Vuh,
there is a representation

of briefly using an actual
human head to play the ball game.

I think it’s probably
speculative to say

that a real human head
would have been used as a ball.

But some of the
famous art, for example,

that shows ballplayers standing
over a ball that contains a human skull,

may be kind of symbolically
referring to the relationship

between sacrifice
in the ball game

and not necessarily showing us

that they’re using an
actual human skull as a ball,

though some researchers have
speculated that that’s possible.

If there’s a sacrifice,

the person who dies, there
is a decapitation involved,

and we have some
artwork that has survived

that shows that head is actually
used as a ball in the game.

It becomes a place
where life and death collide,

and that actually does match

what we see in some
of the stonework,

which is that this was a game

that could have absolutely
deadly consequences.

This has led some historians

to speculate that after a match,

the defeated team could
lose more than their pride.

The suggestion is
that the whole idea

of the game itself
was a ritual sacrifice.

It’s reenacting the
battle of the gods of life

with the gods of death
from the Popol Vuh.

And so ritual
sacrifice afterwards

would be an honor to those gods.

It may be that the person

who is sacrificed
on the ball court

is actually sort of
the team captain

of either the winning
or losing team.

That person may be
voluntarily being sacrificed

or they may be a captive victim

who is being sacrificed
against their will

in essentially a rigged game.

There is a school of thought

that the winners
actually were killed.

That by winning this game,

you were becoming a sacrifice
for the greater population.

So it was actually something
you wanted to achieve.

"I wanna win the
game, and I will then die,

but in so doing give life to
the population around me,"

and that that was a great honor.

But the Maya ball game

isn’t the only ancient sport

where humans were sacrificed.

- From the 8th century B.C.
- to the 5th century A.D.,

Rome is a dominant world power

with an insatiable lust
for bloody entertainment.

Ancient Roman culture
really loved this bloodsport,

and it was for anybody of any
class, including enslaved people.

Everybody went to the games.
Everybody went to the arena.

Among their most dangerous
pastimes is chariot racing.

Chariot races early
in Rome’s existence

were connected to the
most important festivals,

the most important events that
were put on on behalf of the gods.

People from all over came
to watch these chariot races.

They were a very awesome
spectacle of entertainment,

and they knew that that’s
what the people wanted to see.

To create a place
for mass spectacle,

King Lucius Tarquinius Priscus

builds Rome’s first stadium
in the 6th century B.C.

Known as the Circus
Maximus, this vast oval arena

could hold a quarter
of Rome’s population.

Because the purpose
of the Circus Maximus

was so central
to day to day life,

it was built so it could contain

upwards of 250,000 people.

It looks very much like a
racetrack, but only larger.

This is an enormous
structure that has the capacity

to hold as many people
as five Yankee stadiums.

The Circus Maximus measures
the length of 5 1/2 football fields,

and it is 387 feet wide.

The track itself
is half a mile long.

It would take 15 minutes
for the chariots to go,

and you would have 12 teams.

I can’t imagine the chaos.

When the spring-loaded
gates would drop,

the start of the
race would begin,

and that’s where the
collisions would start happening.

There were so many horses
at high speeds without control,

really without rules.

The chariots themselves
had spikes on the wheels,

so if they got in close
to another charioteer,

that could destroy a wheel
and cause the chariot to flip over.

People are not just
gonna come and sit

and watch horses
go around in circles.

There has to be some
sort of thrill behind it.

There has to be some bloodshed.

Chariots races were
designed to be dangerous.

We’re seeing high-speed of
chariot racing up to 40 miles per hour,

and horses drawing
an open back chariot

that would have the
combatant standing in it.

So people could get
dislodged, trampled by horses,

caught in reins, dragged.

Collisions between the chariots
were common and purposeful.

There’s a lot of destruction
because men are being pulled

by horses at a rapid
rate. So they could die.

And when they die,
the crowd gets excited.

Kind of like NASCAR.

If the car blows up, we love it.

That’s what the Roman
chariot races were.

Of course, every
day was carnage day.

You could see broken
limbs, severed limbs.

It makes NASCAR look easy.

This was an incredibly
devastating sport

if you made a mistake.

But the ancient Romans

hold other bloody contests,
including beast hunts.

Hunting events were famous

for their destruction
of hundreds of animals.

And in fact, some
of the earliest events

were leopard hunts,

primarily because
Roman territory

was overrun with
wild African leopards.

The fiercest animals from all
over the empire are presented.

Sometimes it’s hunters
fighting the animals,

demonstrating that they can win.

Sometimes they hook
animals on animals.

Hundreds of
thousands of animals,

whole species of animals

were taken to various
Roman arenas for the games,

and they would face
off against each other.

It’s like watching a zoo
if the cages were open.

They wanted to see
a tiger against a lion.

They wanted to see an
elephant against a rhino.

Some of the most
popular and iconic

was an elephant
linked to a rhinoceros,

as the two giants
would attack each other.

So, by having the animal fights,

people watching are secure

that they are in
charge of nature.

The crowd wanted the
blood, and that they got.

But the animals aren’t
always the victims.

In one particularly
brutal form of punishment,

damnatio ad bestias,

they are used to
execute criminals.

They wanted to see
criminals being eaten by lions,

criminals eaten by tigers
and facing against predators.

Criminals didn’t last
long. They didn’t win.

These types of displays
were quite deadly indeed.

You know, to watch a human
being get mauled by a lion,

it’s gotta say something
about the human race

and for those people that
actually went there to witness it.

But it wasn’t just criminals.

We’re talking, you know, the
Romans throwing Christians

into the arena to get mauled
by these lions or other animals.

There are some examples

of Christians waiting to
be sent into the arena.

And one says, "Oh, I hope I
get a leopard. They kill quickly."

"I hope I don’t get a
bear. They maul us."

An early instance
of wild animals

used to execute Christians
happens under Emperor Nero

when he targets a small
group as scapegoats

for the Great Fire
of Rome in 64 A.D.

The Roman emperor Nero

is remembered for
being cruel and ruthless.

He tortures Christians in
strange and exotic ways.

And when Christians
are executed,

it’s to the beasts
or the flames.

As Christianity spreads,

more accounts begin to surface,

including letters by
Ignatius of Antioch,

who is allegedly
fed to the lions

and becomes a Christian martyr.

They had people
who were willing to die

rather than be converted.

Many of the stories that
we have of them today

are probably 90% invented.

Maybe some of them are
real people who really died,

but the stories told
about them afterwards

are filled with embellishments.

But there’s one
infamous ancient pastime

where the brutality
is undisputed.

Directly in the center of Rome

stands the ancient
world’s most storied arena,

the Colosseum.

Built in the 1st century,
the Colosseum is renowned

for the brutal entertainment
that took place there.

The Colosseum is one of
the most fantastic marvels

to survive since
the ancient period.

It’s still in phenomenal
condition in Rome today.

It could hold up
to 50,000 people.

It’s unimaginably huge.

And so people were
drawn to it from all over,

and it was known to be
a massive celebration.

When events are held,

they could include anything

from mock battles or beast hunts

to the violent
deaths of outlaws.

But the main event
is always the same...

Gladiator combat.

People are very drawn to this.

It almost brings out
your primal instinct

of watching these fights happen.

The practice is first used

as a way to honor the dead.

Gladiator games kind of
emerged from this tradition

kind of like a blood rite,

and they’re brought
into the Roman Empire

in 264 Before the Common Era.

Games connected
to funerary events

is something that’s
actually pretty common

throughout the
Indo-European peoples.

These are groups
that include the Greeks,

but then also the
Hittites, the Persians,

shedding blood on
behalf of the deceased.

And it’s with this tradition
that we see the starting point

of gladiatorial contests
within the Roman world.

Rome’s leaders
know the political value

of sponsoring such public games,

none more so than Julius Caesar.

Julius Caesar could see
the people’s attraction

to this type of violence

and started to use it
as a political campaign

to be able to, well,
entertain the people.

And if you entertain the
people, then you win their votes.

You win their votes, and
you retain your leadership

for years and years
and years to come.

This opens the
door for all Romans

who are ambitious,
who are looking for office,

who are looking
to gain popularity,

to likewise put on
these massive shows.

The Romans come to expect that
these massive events are normal.

Prized above all,

gladiator games that come
with the promise of death.

These gladiators, most
of them were slaves.

They were prisoners,
and they had a chance

to finally fight
for their freedom.

Romans began dressing up the gladiators
as peoples that they had conquered.

What the gladiators
turned into then

was a representation
of Roman dominance.

These are all of the people
who we have conquered

forced to kill each
other for your pleasure.

Gladiators are divided
into different archetypes,

each with distinct weapons.

So you had the Hoplomachus,

who was modeled
after the Greek hoplite,

armed with a
spear, with a shield,

and a small sword at his belt.

You had the Thraex, who was
modeled after the Thracians,

with a curved what
was called a sika,

a kind of reverse curved blade

that was specially
designed to hack off limbs.

Now, of course,

in the arena, most
people think that gladiators

were these massive
strong men, killers,

but also they were
trained to not necessarily

every strike make a kill strike.

They were trained to be
able to just show blood,

to be able to cut
flesh in such a way

that the person
would still be able

to continue fighting

and would be able to survive

for future fights to come.

So you can just
imagine how the sand

was filled with blood.

Ultimately, the
fate of gladiators

is in the hands of the Emperor.

Sometimes, of course,

if someone is pinned down,

the crowd would be involved.

And they would be asked,

"Do I kill him or
do I save him?"

Now, Hollywood
indicates thumbs up

as a way of saving someone.

But probably the
reverse was true.

A thumb up meant, "Put the
blade up here and kill him."

Thumb down, meant lay the
blade down and he’s saved.

Those who survive
become legends.

Career gladiators
are very similar

to career athletes today.

People will support
specific fighters.

You can buy items of clothing.
You can buy little figures.

One such legend is the
notorious gladiator Spartacus.

Spartacus was a
slave in attendance

at a gladiatorial school

who started an
uprising in southern Italy

that swelled to the thousands
upon thousands of people.

Spartacus winds
up dying in battle

fighting for his freedom.

And as a result of
this kind of treachery,

the Romans have 6,000 men
crucified along the Appian Way.

But not all
gladiators are slaves.

In a surprising
twist on tradition,

Emperor Commodus
steps into the arena.

He has claimed to
have 1,000 victories

over other gladiators.

Those who were fighting
Commodus could not win.

They could not kill the Emperor.

They may have wanted
to, but they couldn’t do it.

Commodus knew this.
He stacked the deck.

He put men together that he knew
he could take. He did all the slaying.

But we know that he
was playing some tricks

and that he would
have, you know,

improper weapons for them
and special ones for him,

or that they would be
throwing fake things at him,

just all for the
spectatorship of it

and not at all to prove

his actual skills
on the battlefield.

Commodus doesn’t think
of himself as an emperor.

He doesn’t have to adhere
to the rules of the games.

He doesn’t realize that he
has to listen to the crowd,

that his future depends
on how popular he is.

It doesn’t take
them long to kill him.

Commodus is eventually murdered

by the Roman wrestler Narcissus
at the behest of the senate.

After his death,

it became clear just how much
the Roman public hated him.

And as was tradition with
an unpopular emperor,

they tear down and destroy
all the statues of Commodus.

Not a trace remains.

Gladiator games
start to fall out of favor

by the 3rd century,

due in part to the
rise of Christianity.

But a thousand years later,

crowds cheer for a
different type of warrior,

the knight in shining armor.

While many associate jousting

with chivalrous knights
and their adoring maidens,

the reality is much more brutal.

In jousting, the rules are
simple. The execution is not.

That is the ultimate thing
with the sport of the joust.

It is a very dangerous sport.

Just riding a
horse is one thing.

But to ride a horse in a suit of
armor upwards of 140 pounds,

that changes
riding just on itself.

Then you add a
12-foot-long lance

that’s couched
underneath your arm,

but it’s still sticking
out in front of you

upwards of nine to 10
feet, that ten-pound lance

now feels like 50-60
pounds at the tip.

Jousting sprang from 11th
century medieval military training

and cavalry exercises,

but quickly becomes a
popular form of entertainment.

In the sport of jousting,

though there are
different styles,

it’s basically rounds
off to you get points

for striking the target area,
points for breaking your lance.

You’re charging in one direction

at upwards of 30 miles an hour,

and then all of a sudden,

you’re finding yourself
going backwards

with this 2,000-pound

armored horse
landing on top of you,

crushing you into the ground,

which was quite deadly indeed.

It is such a violent impact,

the only way I can describe
it is by being hit by a car.

And your armor is only
about the width of a coin,

so you have to
withstand this blow.

It can have really
devastating results.

An early example of a
joust that turns deadly

is in the 13th century
in Neuss, Germany,

where 80 knights lay dead,

some speared through the
chest, some trampled by horses.

They used actual war lances,

and the lances were not blunted.

They were tipped
with spear tips.

So when they jousted, it
was a joust to the death.

By the 16th century,

jousting evolves into
more organized competition,

with formal rules,
but it’s still dangerous,

as evident from an
infamous face-off.

England, 1536.

King Henry VIII enters a jousting
competition at Greenwich Palace.

So, Henry VIII was
an avid sportsman.

He loved to wrestle.
He loved to fight.

He played tennis. He
was a real athletic person.

And for the joust, that
was the cherry on the top.

It was the most competitive
thing that Henry VIII could do,

and he promoted jousting
and jousting competitions.

And in this competition,

Henry was going up
against one of his friends,

and unfortunately for Henry,
he was struck hard enough

that it just unseated
him enough,

and when a knight’s in armor.

I myself, I’m 415 pounds
in my suit of armor,

and as you start to rock
over, that amount of weight

could also bring
your horse down.

And unfortunately, that’s
what happened to Henry.

Just that inertia
took the horse’s feet

from underneath it,
and he was crushed.

Basically, not
just from the joust,

but from his horse
landing on top of him.

His leg is pierced and
becomes extremely injured.

In fact, he’s actually
unconscious for hours.

It’s believed he might die.

And this is a
very, very big deal

because he does
not have any sons yet.

So who would possibly
succeed the throne?

It’s entirely possible that
the injuries he sustains

stay with him for
the rest of his life

and potentially caused
the neurological problems

that lead him to paranoia.

Now, he had all kinds
of other problems.

He had ulcers on his legs that
wouldn’t heal because he had gout.

Whether the lance had
caused the wound on his thigh,

or the horse caused
the wound on his thigh,

it creates an
ulceration in his leg.

The whole thing is just gross.

I mean, the whole
bedchamber must have smelled,

and you can imagine the
linen bandages around this

that had to be removed and
that had caked with this puss.

It’s constantly festering.

It’s angry, and it’s smelly.

That’s the big thing.

People could smell
Henry coming down the hall

from many feet away.

Instead of cauterizing it
or keeping it sealed up,

the surgeons actually say he
should keep the wound open

and have the air come in
and try to have the air heal it,

and also so that the puss
can continuously be drawn out.

The leg injury never fully
heals, and so as a result,

Henry VIII is unable to
participate in sports after this.

So his physicality changes.

He goes from being
someone in prime shape

and will eventually
start gaining weight

until he becomes
extremely obese.

And it was said
because of the stress

of watching her husband
get into this wreck

and he himself becoming injured,

Henry’s wife Anne
Boleyn, the queen,

was close to giving
birth and lost the child,

his potential only heir.

After his wound,

I mean, we do see
Henry become evil.

And he starts worrying about
his line of succession even more,

which drives the events that
lead him to behead Anne Boleyn,

marry Jane Seymour,
marry Anne of Cleves,

then behead Catherine Howard.

Only his last wife,

Catherine Parr, will be in there
cleaning the wound every day

till he finally dies.

But Henry’s is one of many jousting
incidents that influences history.

France, 1559.

King Henry II hosts
a jousting tournament.

King Henry II of France
had a five-day celebration

for his daughter’s wedding
and his sister’s wedding.

He was jousting
against a dear friend,

Gabriel de Lorges,
Count of Montgomery,

a person that he’d
been jousting against

time and time again
without any problems.

Both of them professionals.

Henry’s wife
Catherine de’ Medici

had urged him not
to engage in this joust

because of a prophecy

from the prophet Nostradamus.

Nostradamus had foretold
that the younger lion

would defeat the
older one in battle.

That he would be
wounded in the eye

and that two wounds
would become one.

In that joust, the
count struck Henry

and almost unseated him.

He came back and
regained his balance.

And then even though his
wife Catherine de’ Medici

tries to stop him
from jousting again,

he gets back on his horse.

The next pass, the
lance hit proper and true,

breaking the lance, and a shard of
lance came up into the king’s helmet.

The king, instead of wearing
a proper jousting helm,

was wearing a beston helm,

a helmet that had bigger
openings for ocularium

for them to be
able to see out of.

Well, that opening allowed
a lance to come in through

and entered in
through the king’s eye.

The king survived
for ten more days.

His surgeons were
telling him, you know,

we’re basically just a
"wait and see" situation.

Meanwhile, the
pressure was building up

on the back of the king’s brain,

and ultimately the king died

because of a hematoma
from that injury.

A conservative Catholic,

Henry II rigorously suppressed
all protestant worship,

and his death ignites
years of religious turmoil.

Henry II’s death
creates the problems

that France will have for the rest of the
16th century and into the 17th century.

It will create the animosity

between Protestants
and Catholics.

And it’s this freak accident

in the noble sport of jousting

that kills a king,

and that affects the lineage

that irrevocably changes

the history of the
European monarchy.

Jousting proves that even
the most skilled competitors

can suffer unlucky consequences.

But there’s another
even deadlier game

entirely left up to chance.

The rules of Russian roulette
are actually quite simple.

You take a gun, you pop out all
the bullets but one, spin the chamber,

and then the gun is passed
from person to person,

each one putting it to their
head, pulling the trigger,

and with each click,
and no gun going off,

that means that the next
person now has worse odds.

And so each time
the trigger is pulled,

the chances of the gun going
off and killing the person rise.

This is one of the deadliest
games ever conceived of.

Your best odds are five out of
six that you’re gonna survive.

With each pull of the trigger,

the laws of probability indicate

that it gets more likely

that there’s gonna
be a fatal shot.

So the first person
that pulls the trigger

has a 16.7% chance
of killing themselves,

The next person, it’s 20%.

The next person, it’s
25%, on up to 100%.

The origins of this dangerous
game are murky at best.

The legend of Russian roulette

is that it originates in 19th
century Russian prisons

where sadistic prison
guards forced prisoners

to play Russian roulette.

But the historical
record indicates

that there’s very little
evidence for any of this.

The first real description
that we come across

about Russian roulette
comes from the 1840 novel

"The Hero Of Our Time"
by Mikhail Lermontov.

In the final chapter, the
two characters place a bet

about whether or not
free will or fate exists.

So to prove that there is fate,

one of them picks up a
pistol, aims it at his temple,

and presses the trigger,
but nothing happens.

He then takes the gun, and
he aims it up at the ceiling,

and this time a bullet
actually hits the ceiling,

thus proving that fate is real.

Lermontov’s novel ties Russia

as the birthplace
of this dark concept.

But in the 20th century,
the term "Russian roulette"

becomes part of
global pop culture,

sometimes with
lethal consequences.

Austin, Texas, 1938.

At a party to celebrate
his 21st birthday,

Thomas H. Markley plays
a fatal game of chance.

Thomas Markley, a young Texan
with a bright future ahead of him.

He’s recently pushed through
university, gotten his education.

On his 21st birthday,
he plays Russian roulette,

and he loses.

That’s the first death

in the United States
from Russian roulette.

Markley’s tragic death
occurs only one year

after the term Russian roulette

is coined by writer George
Surdez in a work of pulp fiction.

George Surdez,

in an article for "Collier’s
Magazine" in 1937,

actually uses the
phrase Russian roulette

to describe exactly what we
today think of as Russian roulette.

Even the Oxford English
Dictionary cites that

as the first example of
the use of that phrase.

Before long, the
game catches on,

attracting some
now famous players.

Malcolm X is well-known
for his contributions

to the Civil Rights movement.

On his path to coming to
some of those ideas though

was a darker phase, the phase
that took him ultimately to jail.

Part of what led him to
jail was a burglary ring

that he participated
in and kind of ran.

Malcolm X wanted to
impress his fellow burglars.

He wanted them to know that
he was one hell of a strong guy,

that he would take risks,

and he used to say that he
had played Russian roulette.

He describes this
in his autobiography.

He mentions using
Russian roulette

as a way to demonstrate
his prowess, his dominance.

So he picks up the
gun, gives it a spin,

puts it up to his
head, pulls the trigger.

Nothing.

And then he does
it again, and again.

And of course, every
single time he’s doing it,

that cylinder’s clicking away.

So those who are watching,

they’re sure that death
is just around the corner.

What they don’t know is that
he’s actually palmed the round.

Rather than actually
loading it in the gun,

he took the bullet and he
put it into the palm of his hand.

So he was in no danger,

but had the bullet
actually been in there,

he would have been.

From there, Russian
roulette takes hold

in the entertainment industry.

So, in 1954 it was reported

that Johnny Ace...
A blues musician,

celebrated,
brilliant musician...

He decides to give Russian
roulette a go, and he loses.

Freddie Prinze in the 1970s,

at that point he’s a young
twenty-something comedian,

and he plays it frequently.
He doesn’t think much of it.

He’ll call his friends,
kind of laugh about it.

He plays in front
of his manager,

spins the cylinder, goes for it.

While Prinze eventually dies

from a self-inflicted
gunshot wound

on January 29th, 1977,

it’s not from Russian roulette.

However, it has been estimated

that well over a thousand
people in the U.S.

have died from playing the game.

But perhaps the most famous
example of Russian roulette is fictional.

Hollywood films over
several decades glamorized it.

It’s what made it
seem like a way

to demonstrate
manliness, bravado,

in an extremely
unhealthy, dangerous way.

The game plays a major part

in the 1979 Oscar
winner for Best Picture

"The Deer Hunter."

Starring Robert de Niro,
Christopher Walken, and Meryl Streep,

the film uses Russian
roulette as a metaphor

for soldiers fighting
in the Vietnam War.

"The Deer Hunter"
uses Russian roulette

to great effect and
to frightening effect.

It’s always been a
kind of desperate resort

for people who felt so downfallen
that they didn’t want to live

and wanted to see if they
could take a chance and go.

But it’s also been seen
as a way of testing your will,

of proving really
whether you cared enough

to continue playing or not.

These fictitious accounts

keep this adrenaline-fueled
deadly game alive

in the popular imagination,

with lethal consequences.

It’s common to
have copycat crimes,

and I think when Russian
roulette is popular in the culture

and people are talking about it,

somebody’s going to be tempted

to try to do that particular act

because we’ll always
have bored and depressed

and anxious and
desperate people.

If more than a thousand
Americans have died

since the 1940s
playing this game,

that’s very serious.

In my opinion, this
grew out of literature.

It grew out of pulp fiction,

and society at
large convinced itself

that there was a
deeper history to it.

And once society decided that
Russian roulette was a thing,

it seeped to existence.

Regardless of its
origins, it’s very real now.

It really speaks to the
power of the written word,

of literature.

Russian roulette is part
of a long historical trend

of people being attracted to not just
dangerous games, but deadly games,

games where they
might in fact lose their life,

like jousting in the
medieval period.

Why would anybody do that?

While winning a deadly game
could bring bragging rights,

fame, and fortune,

the price for losing
could be your life.