An Iriot original.

I was born with a special gift.

The ability to mentally transform any situation into the worst-case scenario.

In my own brain.

My therapist calls my gift catastrophizing.

And that's why I'm uniquely qualified to scrutinize and analyze history's greatest disasters.

And find out who's to blame.

They say history repeats itself.

Not on my watch.

My name is Rebecca Delgado-Smith, and I am the alarmist.

Hey everyone, thanks for tuning into the alarmist, a comedy podcast where we talk about history's greatest tragedies,

and figure out who's to blame.

Today we're discussing the War of the Bucket.

Here's what you need to know.

In the dark of a medieval night in Italy, a group of soldiers from the city-state Modena

snuck into their neighboring rival city, Bologna.

The men padded down the cobblestone streets to the city's well,

which supplied the Bologna's citizens with fresh water.

Managing to avoid capture, the Modenese soldiers snatched the well's bucket,

set to be the only bucket in the entire city and scurried back to their own city

to display their stolen prize possession.

When the people of Bologna awoke to discover the theft of their precious bucket,

...