How Did This Bird Change History? | QI

This clip is from QI Series K, Episode 7, 'Knowledge' with Stephen Fry, Alan Davies, Jo Brand, Jimmy Carr and Graham Linehan.

[LoneManProductions]

First they're talking about storks, then they're talking about the Spanish Inquisition.

I wasn't expecting that.

[imaginative-monkey]

Imagine the African hunter had been searching for the stork for a few days, because he was SURE it's fallen somewhere nearby...

[julianevans]

Odd that they thought 'birds disappear or submerge in water in winter' before they thought 'maybe they go somewhere else'.

[JamesBD]

For the longest time, there were many theories for why birds seemed to disappear during the winter - some more bizarre than others.

Some thought the birds were shapeshifters and changed into other animals during the winter lol

[leaffinite]

Youtube recomended this video after a roller coaster one and Im amused that both ended with Alan going

[Yamahaxttt]

So the stork survives with a spear through his body and a flight from Africa to Germany, only for the Germans to kill him and put him in a museum.

[twocvbloke]

So basically, this bird raised a very important point... :P

[NewMessage]

The storks have to get babies somehow... STI's are just an occupational hazard.

[thCenturyMeerkat]

Love to see a classic episode of QI with Stephen, Alan, Jo Brand and Jimmy Carr. Really very strange for them to have left a completely empty chair next to Jimmy - usually they have another guest there? What a mystery. Oh well, can't have been anyone important.

[thatevilducky]

that guy next to Jimmy looks like a matchup of John Barrowman and Michael McIntyre

[jakobrygh]

Of course African swallows are non-migratory, so they could have possibly brought the coconuts, it would have to come with the stork.

[spunkybackpack]

Fun fact, this is actually the last recorded instance where Graham Linehan went a full four minutes without tweeting something deranged. It was complete fluke that it was caught in camera.

[patspc]

A vicar in Henry the eighths reign said having seen barnacles on a ship in the Thames, he knew where the barnacle geese came from !!! Strange but true.

[andrewclifton]

I think Alan is wrong about the Spanish Inquisition using impalement. They used various methods of torture - but executions were quite rare (less than 3% of cases) and where generally dealt with by the secular authorities, typically by burning at the stake. Impalement has been used as a punishment by many autocratic regimes, over the centuries; notably within the Ottoman empire; in Europe, it's especially associated with Vlad III of Wallacia, commonly known as Vlad the Impaler or Vlad Dracula (son of the dragon).

[zedcarr]

I never knew that butterflies migrated. I just thought they died when winter came. 🤔

[ashleywebster]

Not one mention of the real victim in all this. Somewhere in Africa a tribesman watched his lunch fly off towards the horizon, taking his best spear with it. Now that's a bad day! 😁

[JonatasAdoM]

Lovely how the comments will make people know about they don't want people to know.

[necymamaril]

Informational and funny 😆, a good combo for comedy programs. The British people are smart people.

[greensteve]

As soon as I saw the spear I knew this one!

[Nauseaa]

I feel a few folk want to approve of airbrushing people from history. We know how that ended.