Stone Cold

devoted an entire nonfiction book to the sport. Bull Fighting got its start way back in seven eleven a d as part of a coronation ceremony for a king. And if that performance space feels familiar, the and ring the circular stadium, that's for a very good reason. Bullfighting sprung out of Rome's gladiatorial games, back when the Roman Empire still ruled over Spain. There are three phases or stages

of a traditional bullfight. In a cape stage, the matter door holds his cape up to the bull, taunting him and encouraging him to charge. This display is meant to show off the bull strength. In the piccador stage, Picadores on horseback poke and anger the bull with lances. Once the bull has been properly amped up, Bandarierro's run on foot and stick the bull with colored darts. The final

stages the killing stage. That's when the bull, weakened by all the previous action, is forced into its final battle with the matador. If the matter door does his job successfully, it's over for the bull in a matter of moments, and the ring is cleared for the next contender. All in all, it's violent and cruel sport, but one deeply rooted in Spanish history. Over the years, some bullfighters have

emerged as celebrities known all over the world. Manolette became a household name thanks in parts of both Hemingway and Orson Welles, the latter of whom befriended the young fighter and spoke highly of his skills at Hollywood dinner parties. After Manolette's death in nineteen forty seven, Louis Miguel Domin England rose to become a champion unlike anyone the sport had ever seen, often referred to as the best bullfighter of the twentieth century, and men continued to dominate bullfighting.

Even today, though women have made it to the forefront on occasion. Conchita Citdron born in n became one of the most famous bullfighters in the world. However, it was a female bullfighter known only as La Roverte who made the biggest splash. At the turn of the century, she had found only modest success in the ring as a novelty. Women at the time weren't often welcomed in bullfighting circles, as they were considered to be too delicate for such

a dangerous sport. However, La Riverte had no trouble keeping up with the men. Audiences loved her. She became an inspiration for little girls who wanted to chart different paths than that had been planned for them, and unsurprisingly, some men had a problem with that. If La Roverte wouldn't leave bull fighting behind, then they would find a way to take bull fighting away from her, and that's exactly

what they did. In night, seven years after her career had taken off, the Spanish government passed a law banning women from the sport. They cited the idea of women fighting bulls as immoral. La Riverte didn't seem to mind, though she had a backup plan and a secret one that no one else knew. During her last fight, after she had teased and pierced her final bull, La Raverte shocked the crowd by ripping off her wig and fake assets, revealing her true identity to be that of a man

named Austin Rodriguez. The audience went wild, and not in a good way. Rather than embrace Augustine and root for him, they turned on him the way they'd seen it. They had been defrauded for seven years by a man pretending to be a woman. His career never recovered, and Augustine retired to Majorca, where he eventually died in obscurity. Fortunately, the laws were reversed years later, and women eventually returned to the ring. In the best part, none of them

had to wear a wig to get in. In the mid eighteen hundreds, flecks of shiny metal found in a water wheel led to hundreds of thousands of Americans migrating west. Their goal was to strike it rich in what would come to be known as the California Gold Rush. Half a century later, Beaumont, Texas, became the site of another kind of rush. This time, the bounty was oil and The discovery ignited a fervor across the state. People came in from all over, mostly by train, and all that

traffic meant wear and tear on the tracks. In fact, it took an army of workers to keep the trains running smoothly, and one such person was G. W. Davis, a repairman who eventually found himself at the center of a bizarre story if only he'd lived to tell about it. You see, Davis had contracted an illness known as Bright's disease, which caused inflammation and the kidneys. Not much was known at the time about how to treat such a sickness, which had already claimed the lives of a North Dakota

senator and poet, Emily Dickinson. Unfortunately, Davis's prognosis wasn't good. He was watched around the clock by a team of doctors who did all that they could, but were ultimately unable to save him. On February seven, one month after being died nosed, he passed away, and the care he had received in that time left his family destitute the cemetery where they planned on burying. Davis took pity on

the family and offered to house his body temporarily. Once they had obtained the funds for a proper burial, he'd be moved to a permanent plot. Weeks passed by as Davis's family scrimped and saved, and when they were finally ready, they asked the cemetery to move the corpse. A family friend went out to oversee that move. He watched them excavate, heaving shovel fulls of dirt away as they dug six feet down, but something wasn't right. As they reached the coffin,

they noticed a strange sight. Apparently, the grave had filled with almost two ft of this colored water, covering the coffin entirely. The grave diggers brought in a pump to siphon out the liquid before attempting to lift the coffin, and then ran into another problem. The coffin wouldn't budge. They thought that perhaps the often had also filled with water, rendering it too heavy to move, but when they opened it up, they realized that something else had happened. Entirely

Davis's body was still inside, however, it had transformed. Rather than decomposed like a normal corpse, it had turned to solid stone. A news article at the time described Davis's body as having been chiseled from marble by an expert sculptor. His hands were still folded across his chest, and except

for the hair and clothes, everything was perfectly preserved. More workers were called in to hoist the casket out, and while efforts were made to keep the particular circumstances from Davis's family, the rumors surrounding his condition spread and they eventually found out. What followed was a battle to keep their beloved relative out of the hands of greedy collectors, people who would have paid top dollar to own the morbid artifact for their own collections or to add it

to a traveling side show. The family asked to have the body transferred to a secret location known only to them and the family friend who had watched over the initial burial. Upon reaching his resting place of the last few months, they found the ground to have been disturbed, and, fearing the worst, they dug it up. They were right. G W. Davis's stone form had disappeared from its grave.

Everyone was considered a suspect, from the random strangers who had offered money for the body, to the family and friends who had participated in his burial, and yet no charges were brought against a single person. No clues had been left behind follow the perpetrator. Several local papers covered the discovery, but nothing ever turned up The thieves identities are still unknown to this day, as is the location of the body, if it still exists at all. We're

all we know. Davis is still out there somewhere, waiting to be rediscovered. Stone dead, of course. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.

I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.