Welcome to the History Tricks where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

A quick note before we begin, parents, you might want to listen to this one before you have children and two teens in the room with you.

This episode does contain inevitable references to violence, drug use, and mature themes.

Thanks so much. We will leave the decision up to you.

And here's your 30-second summary.

She was the best of emperorses, she was the worst of emperorses.

Her's was a life of cunning cruelty, her's was a life of innovation, good or evil, brilliant or reckless.

Her legacy is a tale of two emperorses, but which one is true?

The End.

Let's talk about Dowager Empress Su Chi.

But first, let's drop her into history in 1835 for the first and as yet only time in US history, the national debt was $0.00 and 0 cents.

Hans Christian Anderson began publishing fairy tales and the first foreign embassy and the first sugar plantation were established in Hawaii.

PT Barnum Circus began touring, Adelaide Stevenson, Andrew Carnegie, Samuel Clemens, and Ronnie Lakshmi by were born, and on November 29th 1835, a baby girl was born, who would grow to become Empress Su Chi.

Yeh-Hinara Qing was born on November 29th in 1835 in Beijing, China, the oldest child of the five children of Yeh-Hinara, Huai-Sang, and Lady Fuca.

I have never had more phonetic spellings and notes than I have in this particular one. It's crazy.

Well, and given the fact that translation into our alphabet is really inefficient, half the time I'm going to get the continent combinations wrong.

Though we will do the best we can with great respect to all involved.

In chances are we will make some mistakes, so please forgive that.

Well, the woman who history would later know as Su Chi has many names throughout her story.

I think we chose different pathways. I changed them as I got to them. Susan left her as Su Chi. I'm not sure which we'll ever see.

I'll try to keep up with you. I think that noting when her name changed is important, and I have that in my notes, but it changes so often that even I was getting confused.

And the spelling of it, depending on the sorcerer reading, also changes.

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