The Anarchist Soup Plot (1916)
This Day in Esoteric Political History
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.6 • 982 Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2022
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s February 10th. This day in 1916, at an event attended by much of Chicago’s political and religious elite, an anarchist cook poisoned a batch of soup in an attempt to kill all two hundred attendees.
Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss why the plot failed, who the main suspect was, and whether any of the attendees ate soup again.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia. |
| 0:07.0 | My name is Jody Avergan. |
| 0:10.0 | This day, February 10th, 1916. Let's go to Chicago, Illinois. Let me try and paint the scene here. |
| 0:17.0 | It's the evening, there is a large gathering of some of the most prominent people in the city at the stately university club. |
| 0:24.9 | We're talking elected officials, business leaders, religious leaders, they are there to honor |
| 0:29.8 | the new Roman Catholic Archbishop George Mundeline. It also happens to be Abraham |
| 0:34.9 | Lincoln's birthday as well. They're celebrating that, but really this is all |
| 0:38.0 | about the new Roman Catholic Archbishop. The most elite of Chicago High Society are there. |
| 0:44.0 | Now, we don't have historical weather data. |
| 0:46.3 | I look this up going back that far. |
| 0:48.0 | I can't tell you exactly the weather on February 10th, |
| 0:50.6 | 1916th, but I'm going to go ahead and say that it was very cold outside, |
| 0:54.8 | which means that if you're inside, exactly, which means that if you're inside and you need to warm up, |
| 1:00.2 | what are you probably going to eat, Nicky Kelly? |
| 1:02.2 | What's your go-to warm-up food? |
| 1:03.7 | A little rental soup a little Midwest? |
| 1:05.9 | I was going to say chili. |
| 1:07.9 | Stew, beef stew, chili. |
| 1:10.9 | So soup is the subject of today's story because that is in fact what happens is |
| 1:17.6 | this crowd is served soup and not just soup. It is poisoned soup poisoned by what appears to be an anarchist cook who |
| 1:25.9 | pours arsenic into the soup being served to the Chicago elite. |
| 1:29.8 | This story is incredible. |
... |
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