today's video is sponsored by magellan tv a wonderful documentary streaming service for all
of you big brains out there their mission is to tell the great stories that have defined the human
experience and with more than 3 000 excellent programs available on magellan it's hard to stop
watching once you start they've got everything from the greeks to the great war plus modern
history biographies scientific profiles true crime and so much more and their team add more
content every week and what's one thing you love about paid streaming services there are of course
no ads now if you're still working through some of that leftover halloween spirit you might want to
check out magellan's popular halloween playlist or if you're more of a classic today i found out fan
looking for highly entertaining war content you can head on over and check out their eight-part
docu-series combat machines is good stuff i'd recommend it this holiday season you guys can
take advantage of a special deal with magellan by clicking on the link in the description below you
can snag a buy one get one free deal for an annual membership that way you can give the gift of
micellar and keep a little something for yourself win win it's content for days and days to let
magellan hook you and a friend up you'll be glad you did there's a link below and now today's video
a large unruly crowd of people can be a truly frightening thing and a dangerous one indeed crowd
stampedes have been responsible for some of the deadliest peacetime disasters in modern history
on december 30th 1903 a fire broke out at the iroquois theater in chicago resulting in the
deaths of 602 patrons many of the victims died not of burns or smoke inhalation but
crush injuries and asphyxiation as they piled up against the exit many of which
had been locked during performance to prevent patrons from sneaking into more expensive seats
more recently on september 24th 2015 a crowd stampede and crush resulted in the deaths of 2
431 muslim worshippers during the traditional hajj pilgrimage in mecca saudi arabia but few
crowd stampedes have proven more consequential to the course of modern history than that which took
place on may 30th 1896 on kodinker field in moscow during the coronation of tsar nicholas ii known as
the kodinka tragedy this incident was to prove to be one of the many sparks that would eventually
ignite the russian revolution and bring about the downfall of imperial russia and the romanov
dynasty and strangely it all started with a shortage of sausage and beer nikolai alexandrovich
romanov better known as nicholas ii was born on the 6th of may 1868 to saar alexander iii
and sarina maria theodorovna who ruled russia from march 1881 until alexander's untimely death from
kidney disease in 1894. due to the long official mourning period nicolai and his wife alexandra
were not crowned tsar and sarina of russia until two years later on may 26 1896. though peter
the great had moved the administrative capital of russia to saint petersburg in 1712 sars continued
to be crowned in moscow at the domitian cathedral in the kremlin fortress to mark the occasion a
series of magnificent celebrations were planned for the city hundreds of distinguished guests
from european aristocracy and foreign dignitaries descended upon moscow which was decked out with
flags triumphal arches and columns and thousands of electric lights concerts military parades and
royal processions were held on the city's grand avenues drawing crowds of tens of thousands
celebrations for ordinary russians were no less grand with grand duke sergey alexandrovich the
governor-general of moscow arranging a series of entertainments and gifts for the people of
the city these festivities scheduled for four days later on may the 30th would take place at kodinker
field a large open area on the outskirts of moscow the field which once served as a training ground
for the imperial army had previously hosted the coronation celebrations of alexander iii
and was judged sufficiently lord to accommodate the anticipated crowds grand duke sergey sped no
expense in making these celebrations as lavish as possible over 150 temporary theaters show
booths and pubs were erected on kondinka field and over 40 000 buckets of beer and
mead prepared for the occasion revelers would also receive a special gift package from the
imperial crown consisting of a bread roll from famous moscow baker phillipov a piece of sausage
some walnuts and sweets a piece of gingerbread and a commemorative enamel mug bearing the new
sars monogram all wrapped in a headscarf printed with images of the imperial couple and the kremlin
but even these generous preparations were to prove woefully inadequate though the issue of the gift
packages was not scheduled until 10 o'clock on the morning of the 30th on the evening of the
29th large crowds of muskebends had already begun to gather on kodinka field to secure their place
in line by the next morning the field was packed with an estimated half a million people nearly
half the population of moscow and far in excess of grand duke sergey's predictions in the crowd that
day was famous moscow reporter vladimir gilriovsky a veteran of the 1877-1878 russia-turkish war and
many other dangerous assignments though some 200 foreign correspondents had descended upon
moscow to report on the coronation celebrations koyurovsky was the only one covering the event
at cordinka and his reporting would provide one of the few first-hand accounts of the tragedy
that was about to unfold at first the reporter observed the festivities from a balcony at a
horse racing pavilion but he soon descended to mingle with the crowd it was then he realized
that something was very very wrong people were packed so tightly that he claimed that he could
barely swing an arm and when the reporter realized he had left his tobacco tin back
at the pavilion and attempted to wade back through the crowd he found himself nearly crushed to death
but the worst was yet to come at around 6am rumors began circulating among the crowd there wasn't
enough beer or gift packages to go around and that the commemorative enamel mugs also contained
a gold coin fearful of missing out people began stalling up to the long rows of buffet tables and
demanding that the artels or official attendants hand over the gifts intimidated by the angry
crowds the artels complied and as news of this rippled through the crowd the panic
turned into a full-on stampede making matters worse the terrified artels threw the grifts
to the ground causing people who stopped to pick them up to be knocked down and trampled to death
by the surging crowd the force of 1800 police and mounted cossacks tasked with crowd control proved
completely ineffective and the stampede carried on unabated guliyarovsky who found himself caught in
the deadly crush later described the ordeal above a million crowd steam began to rise looking like
a swamp mist the crush was terrible with many she did badly some fainted without being able to
get out or even fall deprived of feelings with eyes closed compressed as in a vice they swayed
along with the mass the tall fine looking old man who was standing next to me had not
breathed for a long time he choked in silence died without a sound and his cold corpse shook with us
next to me someone vomited he could not even lower his head it lasted not more than 10 excruciating
minutes i was absolutely losing consciousness and getting exhausted of thirst i fell down near the
fence of a running route i pulled out the grass and ate it it quenched my thirst and i went off
guyarovsky was fortunate to have been standing in an area where the cossacks managed to temporarily
break up the crowd allowing him to make his escape others however were not so lucky in another tragic
oversight the rosa buffet tables had been arranged perpendicularly to a large 64 meter long ravine
which had once been used for excavating clay and sand to make bricks this arrangement served to
funnel their stampeding crowd into the ravine where many ferlen were trampled or crushed to
death the uneven pockmarked ground of the field which had only been haphazardly covered in wooden
boards and sand also added to the death toll when the crowd finally dispersed and the dust settled
hundreds of bodies lay scattered around coding a field most were found in the ravine piled several
corpses high but 27 lay at the bottom of a nearby well into which they'd fallen and drowned many
bodies were found surprisingly far from the field shock and adrenaline having allowed the victims to
flee the scene before succumbing to their injuries in the end the official death toll was recorded as
1289 with the number of injuries estimated at anywhere between 1 200 and 20 thousand
news from kodinka quickly reached sar nicholas who was deeply affected by the tragedy later writing
in his diary saturday until now everything was going thank god like clockwork but today there
was a great mishap the crowd staying overnight at kadinka awaiting the start of the distribution of
lunch and mugs pushed against buildings and there was a terrible crush and awful to say trampled
around 1 300 people i found out about it at 10 and a half hours before the report of minister
of war vanosky a disgusting impression was left by this news nonetheless on the orders of grand
duke sergey all evidence of the tragedy was quickly cleared away and at 2 pm that same day
the tsar and sarina made an appearance in front of cheering crowds at kninkerfield nicholas was
scheduled to attend a ball that evening hosted by the french ambassador gustave montebello
and initially considered cancelling all further festivities out of respect for the victims of
kadinka in the end however he caved to pressure from his advisers and attended the ball anyway
this decision raised eyebrows among many attendees including chinese imperial commissioner lee hong
zhang who commented that no chinese emperor would have attended the ball under the circumstances
it's now believed that nicholas had no choice in the matter as declining the invitation would have
been perceived as a great slight and potentially jeopardized russia's recent alliance with france
indeed according to sergey whit nicholas's finance minister his majesty left that ball
soon evidently the catastrophe gave him a strong impression nicholas and alexandra spent most of
the following day visiting the engine hospital and ordered that nearly 90 000 rubles in aid and left
over wine from state banquets be given to the families of the dead and injured but the damage
was already done nicholas's decision to attend the french ambassador's ball and to not cancel
the rest of the coronation festivities left a sour taste in the mouth of many russian people who
came to see their new sar as tone death out of touch and uncaring this sense of indignation was
further exacerbated by the imperial crown's official policy of press censorship with
vladimir guyarovski's article in the newspaper ruski vedamosti being the only official sanctioned
account of kodinka furthermore the crown's official response to the tragedy was to dismiss
only a handful of minor officials including moscow chief of police alexander vlasovsky as a result
grand duke sergey became known to the public as the prince of kadinka while the new song received
the moniker of nicolas the bloody the general sense of gloom and foreboding in the wake of
the tragedy is perhaps best captured in vladimir gurovski's memoirs in which he recalled the words
of an old typesetter at his newspaper's printing house this means trouble nicholas's reign will
be no good those words were to prove prophetic a shy and retiring man more at home with his stamp
collection than affairs of state nicholas had never expected to become tsar at such a young age
only 26 when his father died in 1894 nicholas had received little instruction on his formal imperial
duties and proved ill-suited to task his reign being plagued by a series of disasters nicholas
presided over a series of anti-semitic pogroms across russia and in february 1904 declared war
on japan over disputed territories in manchuria and korea the resulting russia-japanese war
proved a disaster resulting in over 50 000 russian casualties and the annihilation of
the imperial fleet on january 22nd 1905 a group of peaceful protesters led by orthodox priest
father georgie gap unmarched on the winter palace in saint petersburg with a petition calling for
the end of the war universal suffrage and other reforms imperial guards and cossacks opened fired
on the crowd and killed 200 protesters an event which became known as bloody sunday this in turn
touched off the 1905 russian revolution which was brutally suppressed at the cost of a further 15
000 civilian lives the beginning of the end however came in 1914 as russia entered the great
war as was tradition for the tsars nicholas took direct command of the russian armed forces with
predictably disastrous consequences the russian army poorly trained and desperately short of
weapons ammunition and even boots suffered heavy casualties and a string of humiliating defeats and
in 1917 collapsed altogether this along with severe food shortages at home set the stage
for the february revolution which resulted in nicholas's abdication and the end of the
russian monarchy following the bolshevik's rise to power in the october revolution
nicholas and his family were transported to yekaterinburg in the ural mountains and executed
on july the 17th 1918 bringing the romanov dynasty to an end while no single factor or
event was uniquely responsible for the collapse of the russian monarchy the tragedy of kodinka on may
30th 1896 was instrumental in turning public opinion against nicholas ii and fermenting
revolutionary ideas among the russian people thus in one of those strange twists of history the fall
of the romanov dynasty was caused at least in part by a shortage of beer and sausage so keep that
in mind for your next dinner party so i really hope you found this video interesting if you did
please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe and thank you for watching
you