- It's the real life Frankenstein experiment
that tried to bring a murderer back from the dead
but wound up killing a man instead.
This is "Dark History".
[music playing]
London, December 5, 1802--
at 4:30 PM, a man named George Foster
leaves a tavern with his estranged wife and daughter.
At 5:00 PM, a nine-year-old girl spots the family taking a walk
along the Paddington Canal.
Later that evening, George Foster was seen at a pub
sharing a drink with a friend--
his wife and daughter no longer with him.
The next morning, John Atkins, a boatman on the Paddington Canal
begins his day's work.
But something's not right.
He inspects beneath the bow of his boat
and discovers the body of George Foster's daughter.
Atkins is ordered to sweep the canal.
Three days later, he finds the body of Foster's wife
mere yards from where she had enjoyed lunch
with husband and daughter.
Foster is arrested for the murders.
Rumors swirled that the trial was fast
tracked through the influence of a Mr.
Pass, the right-hand man of Giovanni Aldini, a respected
physicist and professor.
George Foster is found guilty.
He's sentenced to death and dissection.
It was customary at the time to cut the bodies of murderers
into pieces making it more difficult for them
to rise from the dead with God's chosen on Judgement Day.
But the body of George Foster would not be dissected.
Instead, it is delivered to Giovanni Aldini, who
is sorely in need of a fresh corpse for a rather
macabre experiment.
Aldini is the nephew of Luigi Galvani, a renowned scientist
who had developed a method of stimulating
muscles with an electrical current called galvanism.
Aldini is eager to use this technique
to try to reanimate the dead.
On a cold and dark January night,
a number of doctors and curiosity seekers
gather in an operating theater.
Word had spread that Giovanni Aldini would
attempt to raise the dead.
Aldini begins his experiment by connecting conducting
rods to a powerful battery.
He then carefully applies the electrified rods
to Foster's face.
Slowly, the jaw begins to quiver.
And the muscles of the face contort
into a grotesque grimace.
The audience watches with a rising mixture
of fear and intrigue when suddenly
Foster's left eye pops open.
With a terrified gasp, many in the crowd leave.
What happens next is so horrifying that it literally
scares a man to death.
Aldini uses a conducting rod to probe Foster's body.
Suddenly the corpse clenches its fists and punches the air.
Its back arches violently-- legs kicking back and forth
as if trying to outrun its eternal damnation.
The body clanging against the metal operating table
mixes with the screams of onlookers
to produce a morbid cacophony that echoes
throughout the operating theater.
Mr. Pass, who secured the body of George Foster,
is so disturbed, so shocked, so horrified
he has a heart attack, going to his own grave
believing that he had helped bring
someone else back from theirs.
Aldini would continue his experiments, touring the globe,
becoming world famous, and inspiring
Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein".
He also developed a small battery for the use
of experimenting on the dead.
That invention would become the basis for our modern day
cell phone battery.
So be careful the next time you answer your phone.
[ringing]
It could be the dead calling.