Waterloo Soldiers Were Ground Up To Fertilizer

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Waterloo is connected with historical disasters, thanks to Napoleon Bonaparte and ABBA. On that Belgian battlefield, 60,000 soldiers were killed. What those troops had no idea was that they would become an important element of English gardening. The fields were cleared a year after Waterloo. All exposed soldier and horse bones were collected by companies. They ground the bones into a powder to save space. This was routine practice on many of Napoleon's other battlegrounds, including Leipzig and Austerlitz.

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At the time, newspapers said that they dragged "more than a million bushels of human and inhuman bones." The French army was crushed up in Yorkshire factories, marking their second defeat at the hands of the English. After putting the man in "manure," the remnants were combined as an addition in fertilizer. The marrow oil was extremely beneficial, outperforming "nearly any other item." With a positive spin on this widespread grave robbery, modern newspapers declared that "a dead soldier is a most valuable commodity of commerce." The substance, which was sent in large quantities to Doncaster, aided in the growth of the plants in England's agricultural hub. It might be purchased by local farmers to help them raise their own crops. A generation of Europeans ate meals prepared with the assistance of dead bodies. Hannibal Lecter would be pleased and satiated.

Venerable Pope Pius XII’s Climatic Death

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The Venerable Pope Pius XII had only one desire. He refused to be embalmed. He wanted his body to be buried just as God had created it. His Holiness, no doubt, did not want to explode. Pope Pius XII's reign had proven to be particularly divisive outside of Catholic circles by the time he died in 1958. Historians have disputed the merits of the Pope's leadership throughout the buildup to and aftermath of World War II. Aside from such discussions, the pontiff's history received a final and frightening blow. Galeazzi-Lisi, a papal Court doctor, was appointed only via nepotism. Galeazzi-Lisi was friends with Pius XII (while then Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli) before he became Pope, yet he was hopelessly unprepared to be designated as the Pope's personal physician.

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Galeazzi-Lisi, a charlatan with no medical experience, invented his own embalming system. Galeazzi-"aromatic Lisi's osmosis" procedure drenched the body in natural oils, evoking the oil rituals of early Christian leaders. The body lay covered in cellophane for 24 hours. Scientists abandoned this procedure because it permits internal gases in the organs to build up as the corpse decays. The corpse burst open while being carried in procession while stewing in the Mediterranean heat.

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Galeazzi-Lisi was obliged to re-embalm Pius overnight after the corpse exploded. It was already too late. Pius XII's nose and fingers were already gone. The body was blackened by decomposition. Mourners wept over a "emerald green" corpse displayed in St. Peter's Basilica. The smell caused nearby guards to pass out. The careers of Pius XII and Galeazzi-Lisi were both ended on the same day. He won his place in history via incompetence. He is the only individual who has ever been expelled from the Vatican.