Narrator: 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.
Narrator: ...to fatal gladiator fights...
Joyce Salisbury: Every day was carnage day.
You could see broken limbs, severed limbs.
The crowd wanted blood, and that they got.
Narrator: ...to knights wielding lethal lances...
Shane Adams: A shard came up into the king’s helmet
and entered in through the king’s eye.
Narrator: ...history is full of contests
with players fighting for their very survival.
Aaron Irvin: These are all of the people who we have conquered,
forced to kill each other for your pleasure.
Narrator: 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.
Guy Hepp: And among those pots they discovered
human cremains, or cremated human bone.
Narrator: Some archaeologists believe
these remains come from players
of the notorious Maya ball game
that originated some 3,000 years ago.
Michael Livingston: It is an incredibly brutal and hard game
that could be at times a battle of life and death.
Narrator: Though venues differ,
most games take place at a large stone court
in the center of town.
Michael Livingston: 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.
Dan Dickrell: 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.
Narrator: 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.
Narrator: 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.
Narrator: One of the earliest written mentions of the game
comes from a legend in the Maya’s most sacred text, the Popol Vuh.
Guy Hepp: 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.
Michael Livingston: 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.
Narrator: 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.
Narrator: They’re also extremely violent.
It was a very deadly game because the amount of injuries that these players endured.
Narrator: 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.
Shane Adams: Just imagine being hit by a sledgehammer.
Well, that’s what it felt like to be hit by this rubber ball.
- It hurts. - Michael Livingston: 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.
Dan Dickrell: 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.
Narrator: 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.
Narrator: But according to other accounts,
human remains might have been used in a different way.
Guy Hepp: 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.
Michael Livingston: 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.
Narrator: This has led some historians
to speculate that after a match,
the defeated team could lose more than their pride.
Larissa Tracy: 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.
Guy Hepp: 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.
Michael Livingston: 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.
Narrator: But the Maya ball game
isn’t the only ancient sport
where humans were sacrificed.
Narrator: 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.
Rebecca Simon: 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.
Narrator: Among their most dangerous pastimes is chariot racing.
Aaron Irvin: 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.
Shane Adams: 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.
Narrator: 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.
Aaron Irvin: 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.
Narrator: 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.
Shane Adams: 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.
Christine Axen: 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.
Kelly Devries: 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.
Joyce Salisbury: 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.
Narrator: But the ancient Romans
hold other bloody contests, including beast hunts.
Aaron Irvin: 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.
Kelly Devries: 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.
Joyce Salisbury: 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.
Narrator: But the animals aren’t always the victims.
In one particularly brutal form of punishment,
damnatio ad bestias,
they are used to execute criminals.
Kelly Devries: 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.
Joyce Salisbury: 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."
Narrator: 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.
Joyce Salisbury: 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.
Narrator: 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.
Narrator: But there’s one infamous ancient pastime
where the brutality is undisputed.
Narrator: 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.
Rebecca Simon: 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.
Narrator: 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.
Rebecca Simon: People are very drawn to this.
It almost brings out your primal instinct
of watching these fights happen.
Narrator: The practice is first used
as a way to honor the dead.
Christine Axen: 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.
Aaron Irvin: 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.
Narrator: Rome’s leaders know the political value
of sponsoring such public games,
none more so than Julius Caesar.
Shane Adams: 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.
Aaron Irvin: 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.
Narrator: 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.
Narrator: Gladiators are divided into different archetypes,
each with distinct weapons.
Aaron Irvin: 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.
Shane Adams: 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.
Narrator: Ultimately, the fate of gladiators
is in the hands of the Emperor.
Joyce Salisbury: 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.
Narrator: Those who survive become legends.
Rebecca Simon: 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.
Narrator: 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.
Narrator: 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.
Kelly Devries: 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.
Christine Axen: 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.
Joyce Salisbury: 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.
Narrator: Commodus is eventually murdered
by the Roman wrestler Narcissus at the behest of the senate.
Christine Axen: 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.
Narrator: 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.
Narrator: 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.
Narrator: Jousting sprang from 11th century medieval military training
and cavalry exercises,
but quickly becomes a popular form of entertainment.
Shane Adams: 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.
Rebecca Simon: And your armor is only about the width of a coin,
so you have to withstand this blow.
It can have really devastating results.
Larissa Tracy: 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.
Shane Adams: 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.
Narrator: 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.
Narrator: 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.
Rebecca Simon: 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?
Larissa Tracy: 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.
Kelly Devries: 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.
Rebecca Simon: 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.
Shane Adams: 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.
Kelly Devries: After his wound,
I mean, we do see Henry become evil.
Larissa Tracy: 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.
Kelly Devries: Only his last wife,
Catherine Parr, will be in there cleaning the wound every day
till he finally dies.
Narrator: But Henry’s is one of many jousting incidents that influences history.
Narrator: France, 1559.
King Henry II hosts a jousting tournament.
Shane Adams: 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.
Michael Young: 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.
Shane Adams: The next pass, the lance hit proper and true,
breaking the lance, and a shard of lance came up into the king’s helmet.
Shane Adams: 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.
Narrator: 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.
Larissa Tracy: 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.
Narrator: Jousting proves that even the most skilled competitors
can suffer unlucky consequences.
But there’s another even deadlier game
entirely left up to chance.
Ed O’Donnell: 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.
Greg Jackson: This is one of the deadliest games ever conceived of.
Your best odds are five out of six that you’re gonna survive.
Ed O’Donnell: 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%.
Narrator: The origins of this dangerous game are murky at best.
Ed O’Donnell: 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.
Rebecca Simon: 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.
Narrator: 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.
Narrator: Austin, Texas, 1938.
At a party to celebrate his 21st birthday,
Thomas H. Markley plays a fatal game of chance.
Greg Jackson: 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.
Narrator: 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.
Michael Shelden: 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.
Narrator: Before long, the game catches on,
attracting some now famous players.
Greg Jackson: 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.
Michael Shelden: 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.
Greg Jackson: 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.
Narrator: From there, Russian roulette takes hold
in the entertainment industry.
Greg Jackson: 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.
( gunshot )
Narrator: 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.
Greg Jackson: 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.
Narrator: 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.
Michael Shelden: "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.
Narrator: These fictitious accounts
keep this adrenaline-fueled deadly game alive
in the popular imagination,
with lethal consequences.
Michael Shelden: 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.
Greg Jackson: 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?
Narrator: While winning a deadly game could bring bragging rights,
fame, and fortune,
the price for losing could be your life.
( crowd cheering )