This is an iHeart Podcast. There's nothing like sinking into luxury. At washablesofas.com, you'll find the Anibay sofa, which combines ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price. And get this, it's the only sofa that's fully machine washable from top to bottom, starting at only $699. The stain-resistant performance fabric slip covers and cloud-like frame duvet can go straight into your wash.
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Shop now at washablefas.com. Add a little. to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. Ice Cube's Big Three is the surprise hit of the summer.
This Saturday, 4 p.m. Eastern on CBS with playoff elimination on the line. The most physical, fiercest, and competitive basketball in the world. Miami's Michael Beasley and Lance Stevenson must win to make the playoffs, and breakout star Dwight Howard of the LA Riot will battle Gary Payton's Boston squad in a du-a-dime match for both teams. Six teams are allowed for four spots, and all must win.
There's no crying in the big three, and the no-hold sparred action starts Saturday at 4 p.m. Eastern, 1 p.m. Pacific. Presented by iHeart. If you eat too many ultra-processed foods, you could be starving your gut microbes, and they'll get hangry.
That's one of many things I learned after working on a new audio course about the gut microbiome. You can learn how to keep your gut happy by listening to Try This from the Washington Post. I'm Christina Quinn. I host Try This. Dig in with me on practical advice for life's common challenges.
Follow Try This right now wherever you're listening. Seriously, try it. From Bitcoin believers to cautious first-timers, Kraken makes it easy to trade crypto in seconds. With over 350 tokens, tight spreads, and easy funding for your account with Plaid, PayPal, and Apple Pay, Kraken lets you trade, earn, and invest on your terms. Download Kraken today and get $10 in Bitcoin after your first trade of $10 or more.
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Homes.com is the only place where you can find specialized neighborhood guides with the in-depth insider info home shoppers want. Very in-depth info. Want to know if there's homes for sale in the area? We've got it. How long has a home been on the market?
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The Hope Diamond is the world's most famous. This blue diamond is widely believed to be cursed. With stories of misfortune and tragedy befalling those who owned or simply touched it. Here to take a closer look at the legend and the diamond's history is the Smithsonian's Richard Kern. Author of Hope Diamond, The Legendary History.
Of a cursed gem. Let's take a listen. It came to the Smithsonian in 1958. A guy who is an ex-police officer in New York City worked for Harry Winston's. He packaged this up brown paper bag, put the diamond in it.
Got on the New York subway to go to the Central Post Office. addressed it to Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. That was it. Two dollars and sixty-six cents. Newspapers said, What are you crazy?
Art Buck Wold wrote a column. Who in Washington is responsible for this? This is a cursed gem. Once we get this and it's acquired by the the National Museum of the United States, the U. S.
will be cursed. The idea was that the g gem was cursed by a Hindu Theory And it could harm the curse of the diamond, would harm the United States, and the Smithsonian had committed a terrible. Faux pas. The guy that delivered the diamond was James Todd. He actually drove it alone from the post office down here to the museum.
No SWAT team, no guns, nobody riding shotgun. He delivered it. He said it was all hoopla. in February, delivered in November. In February his wife died of a heart attack.
His dog got run over. He got hit by a car and broke both legs. And finally, His house burnt out. And people in Washington said, well, maybe there's something to this curse.
Now, the curse story was first told in a fancy hotel, Hotel Bristol, in Paris in 1910 by Pierre Cartier. Everybody knows Cartier, right? And Cartier came into the suite of an American couple, Evelyn and Ned McLean. You know McLean, Virginia? named after the McLains.
Riggs Bank, few other things. Mm-hmm. Cartier walked into their suite. Ned was a little drunk. Evelyn was always ready for something.
She'd bought other things from Cartier in the past. And Cartier took out a package. And he started telling her The story of a blue diamond. And Evelyn was very intrigued. Basically, Cartier said: Jean-Baptiste Tavrinet, who acquired the diamond, stole it from the Hindu idol and he was eaten by dogs.
Then it went to the French Louis XIV. By the time it got to Marie Antoinette over there and Louis XVI, they owned the diamond and they were guillotined. It went to the Hope family later, and Hope went bankrupt. It then went to the Turkish Sultan, who was undone by the young Turks in the revolution, and it was worn by his concubine, who had her throat slit. This is a pretty heavy tale by Cartier.
Now Cartier was right. about some things. In that time, India was the only known source of diamonds in the world.
So all the diamonds known to the Romans, known through antiquity, the Middle Ages, all came from India, prior to the discovery of diamonds in Brazil in the seventeen twenties and South Africa much later. And there Tavernet visited the mines and he was the first person, European person, to really report on how diamonds were got. A lot of the stories were Marco Polo's stories that were traced back to Sinbad's stories that were traced back to Alexander the Great's stories of how diamonds were mythically got. Tavernet. Wrote about the actual diamond techniques.
And these diamonds are alluvial diamonds. It's not the big pit diamonds that you have in South Africa. These diamonds are found in alluvial streams. They come up from volcanoes, they're carried by rivers, they end up resting someplace, they're covered by other sludge and other stuff. And so you only have to dig about 8 to 14 feet to get them.
But it takes a lot of labor. In this mine, where Taverney actually acquired the Hope, the diamond, the blue diamond, that was later, we know to be named the Hope. Um there were about 100,000 people working. to find literally a handful of diamonds a year. Very hard work.
And in the Collor mine in sixteen fifty three Tavernier acquired this roughly cut diamond of a hundred and twelve carats. Just to give your perspective usual engagement rings or what? One carrot. One carrot if the guy really loves you a little more. Very small.
112 is a lot of carrots. Tavernay sold that 112-carat diamond. It was called the Tavernnet Violet. Not that it was a different color. Violet in that time in French meant intense blue.
He sold that diamond to Louis XVI. It was recorded in the court sales, and he got the equivalent of $1.8 million for the diamond. When Tavernier came back and reported on his travels to India, his book was a bestseller. published in I think 1676. Everybody was reading Tavernet.
And in it, he had seven volumes, six to seven volumes. In one paragraph, or two paragraphs, he had this story. About that, he heard it had nothing to do with the violet or the blue diamond he acquired. It was just a story he heard in passing one night traveling around India. About a a temple where there was a great idol that had two diamonds for his eyes.
There was a forty karat diamond. A jeweler wanted to steal the diamond, got shut up in the tem took the diamond, got shut up in the temple at night. They opened the doors of the temple in the morning, and the guy was dead. And it was the wrath of the God. That story, that snippet, became the basis of every cursed diamond story in the West for the next 400 years.
In Tavernay's time, you had these Indian cuts. And again, it was just to, not really symmetrical to make the diamond shine, but just to get rid of deficiencies. The European Euro in Europe, you started having after the Renaissance the application of geometry, optics, thinking about and theorizing light. You started getting Europeans figuring out how to cut glass, how to make glasses, how to make telescopes, and how to cut diamonds.
so you can make stuff sparkle and shine and manipulate light. The secret to cutting diamonds is Olive oil. Yeah. Who would have known? Only a diamond could cut diamond.
You rub the diamonds together, and if you rub a diamond together with diamond, you'll get a lot of heat. And you can't really cut uh mold diamonds that way. The way you do it is you add olive oil to the thing and it lubricates the thing.
So that was the great innovation that allowed for diamond cutting in Europe. Here we're Europeans, here we're Indians so concerned about keeping the power of the gem in. As a protective force, and here were Europeans so intent on cutting the diamond to let this stuff out. That's basically the trope. In 1792, French Revolution, the French crown jewels, which had been taken away by the royal family, were stolen.
out of the the royal warehouse. and disappear from history. 1812, a forty four carat blue diamond without provenance is documented in London in the possession of this guy, Daniel Eliason. George the Fourth purchases that blue diamond from Eliasson, and it looks like he wore it during his coronation. I think it's a trophy against Napoleon.
Napoleon, you want this? Blank you. In your eye, it's around my neck. When he died in 1830, his last mistress tried to steal a lot of his treasures, the Duke of Wellington. Was the executor of the state.
He told Lady Cunningham, Give me back the diamonds and the gems, or off with your head. She complied. And Wellington was friends with Thomas Hope, a wealthy banker family. The Hope's actually made possible the Louisiana purchase. They're the ones that loaned the US the money for the deal.
George IV had so many debts, they didn't want to make them public because he would have bankrupted England. And so they try to sell off the non-kind of family, non-royal property. And Thomas Hope was a good friend of Wellington. They made a secret sale, and so this is why it goes to the Hope family to settle George's debts. He did not call it the Hope diamond, he called it number one.
His diamond was inherited by his Henry Thomas Hope, his nephew. It was displayed at the Crystal Palace, and it became known as one of the world's great diamonds. And when you read the catalogues, it's Mr. Hope's blue diamond, Hope's Blue Diamond, Hope's Hope Diamond. You know, it just gets to be the Hope Diamond that way.
And you've been listening to Richard Curran, and he's the author of Hope Diamond. legendary history of a cursed gem. And he gave this talk to the Library of Congress back in 2009. And we love drawing from this remarkable treasure, treasury actually, of American culture, history, and storytelling. And my goodness, the whole diamond was shipped to the Smithsonian through the Postal Service.
That just struck me. I love also that the Hope Diamond, of course, wasn't initially named the Hope Diamond. Mr. Hope called it number one. When we come back, more of the remarkable story of this cursed gem.
The whole time. Here on Our American Stories. Life's messy. We're talking spills, stains, pets, and kids. But with Anibay, you never have to stress about messes again.
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That's washable sofas.com. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. The reviews and ratings are in, and Ice Cube's Big Three is the surprise hit of the summer. This Saturday, 4 p.m. Eastern on CBS, with playoff elimination on the line, the stars will be flogging to Los Angeles to witness the most physical, fiercest, and competitive basketball in the world.
Miami's Michael Beasley and Lance Stevenson must win over Houston to make the playoffs, reeling from last week's savage beating at the hands of Chicago's possessed Montres Herald. Last time these teams met, Miami beat Houston, but they are a dangerous team having their manhood at stake. Then breakout star Dwight Howard of the LA Riot will battle Gary Payton's Boston squad in a do-a-die match for both teams. Will LA avenge their previous shocking loss to perennial basketball Boston rivals to survive? Six teams are allowed for four spots and all must win.
Don't miss the big three, the three-on-three basketball league everyone is talking about. There's no crying in the big three, and the no-hold spot action starts Saturday at 4 p.m. Eastern, 1 p.m. Pacific, followed by two games on Vice starting at 6:30 Eastern, presented by iHeart. Yeah.
If you eat too many ultra-processed foods, you could be starving your gut microbes, and they'll get hangry. That's one of many things I learned after working on a new audio course about the gut microbiome. You can learn how to keep your gut happy by listening to Try This from the Washington Post. I'm Christina Quinn. I host Try This.
Dig in with me on practical advice for life's common challenges. Follow Try This right now wherever you're listening. Seriously, try it. You don't need a thousand dollars to buy Bitcoin. If you just need a plan, Kraken lets you set up recurring buys so you can build your position over time.
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Not investment advice, crypto trading involves risk of loss and is offered to US customers through Paywood Interactive Inc. Terms and Conditions Apply. At homes.com. We do whatever it takes to get you the in-depth info on local schools you won't find anywhere else. Things like student-teacher ratio, test scores, and school programs.
and sometimes that requires attending school recitals.
So Many. Recitals. That's my son. Isn't he terrific? Yeah, a real prodigy.
Homes.com. We've done your homework. And we continue with our American stories and with Richard Curran, author of Hope Diamond, The Legendary History of a Cursed Gem. Let's pick up where we last left off. Around the same time 1858, the British government took control of India.
Queen Victoria, Empress of India, becomes Empress of India in the 1860s. And you had in 1868 a guy named Wilkie Collins wrote The Moonstone. People have read The Moonstone, or enough people.
Okay. It's about a cursed diamond. It's yellow. It's stolen from the eye of an idol. It comes to the British countryside.
It wrecks havoc on the family. And finally, it's returned. And the whole notion was that. Basically, that here's a cursed diamond.
Now, Wilkie Collins, when you go through his notes on writing the book. He's using what as a source material. Tavernet in that paragraph. But diamonds get started, diamond mining gets started. The first diamonds discovered 1868, and all of a sudden in South Africa you have a great new.
Explosion of the availability of diamonds. If you look at the United States before then, literally. a few hundred carrots being imported to the United States. After the discovery of diamonds in South Africa, It's huge. the biggest, biggest seller of diamonds in the world.
after the discovery in South Africa is The beers, nah. Tiffany. Sears Roebuck. Sears Roebuck, you want a diamond? One carat diamond?
$17.95. You don't like that? $11. We'll sell you two for 25. You want a three-carat diamond?
$38. 5-carat? $70. I'm not kidding. In the Sears Robot catalogs from the 1880s, diamonds are very cheap and they're trying to sell it to everybody.
And Tiffany invents the solitary setting in what, 1886. They have to invent uses for the diamond because there's too many diamonds around. And so Tiffany and others started saying, Well, if you love somebody, you'll give them a diamond. They try an investment strategy first. Buy a diamond as investment.
That doesn't work so well. Buy a diamond as love. Works real well. And so now they're selling diamond rings, diamond engagement rings, diamond necklaces, diamond watches, diamond and everything. Before that, there is no sustained tradition of diamond engagement rings.
None, zero, none. In the United States, the wealthy use diamonds for big, conspicuous display. I am more powerful than you. My wife will wear more diamonds than yours. And this gets to be a thing.
In New York it's called a diamond circle. in the Metropolitan Opera. And the idea is that diamonds start becoming a standard. If everybody can have diamonds, how do you isolate? or show your particular power or wealth other than having bigger diamonds.
So big diamonds becomes a thing in America in the late 1800s. Cartier acquires the diamond in 1909, and Cartier applied the Moonstone story to the Hope diamond.
Now Evelyn didn't mind that because Evelyn Walsh McLean said what was bad luck for other people was good luck for her. Her dad was a miner. And she was pure at heart and poor at heart. He struck it rich when she was about 10 years old. She said, All this stuff, Marie Antoinette, these kings, won't apply to me.
I'm a, you know, I'm a salt of the earth gal. I'm not a king or queen. I wasn't born rich. All this stuff isn't going to get to me. Cartier brought the Hope Diamond to Washington and sold it to them.
He came on a boat, a ship called the Lusitania, that's the one.
Okay. So he came on that ship. He tracked them down at their Washington home, the old office of the Washington Post, and he sold them the diamond for $180,000, which is $3.9 million today. And the curse made front-page headlines in the New York Times, Post, and other places. Florence Harding.
At that time, the senator's wife, later to become first lady, was very superstitious. She actually worried about the Curse of the Hope Diamond. She said, Evelyn, give it back. It's cursed. It's not good.
Bad stuff is going to happen. Her and Evelyn would go around Washington to astrologers and palm readers, some of whom would even come into the White House. And so the Hope Diamond was kind of there, as like this funny thing that was lurking. In 1919, The McLeans were in Kentucky for the Kentucky Derby. Their son, he was running across the street.
A car, a Model T Ford going eight miles an hour, hit him. He was knocked to the ground, suffered a concussion. and died. All of a sudden, Washington Post, other papers, another tragedy. in the wake of the Hope Diamond.
Who will next own this death gem? The malignant rays, the gem of disaster, right? Disaster, bad star. Evelyn McLean, great Washington hostess, supported GIs, charities, opened her home to GIs. She actually went to Walter Reed once a week.
and she let GIs play with the Hope Dive and she used it for charity. She even pawned the Hope Diamond. Here's her pawn ticket. for ransom in the Lindbergh kidnapping. Didn't work.
Her daughter Evie. committed suicide. was married to a senator. And so Evelyn was quite ambivalent about the curse.
Sometimes she believed it, sometimes she was very playful about it. She thought the curse was great wealth misspent. When she died, the estate didn't have much money in it. Harry Winston acquired the hope from the estate. And he used the hope To interest Americans in buying diamonds after World War II.
He believed that the U.S. diamond collection down in the Smithsonian was kind of a third-rate collection, putting it somewhere behind, you know, like Bulgaria or Croatia somewhere. And here was the U.S. as a superpower, and it really needed a big, massive national collection to mirror its political, economic, and military role after World War II. And so he created something called the Court of Jewels.
Why we didn't have a court in this country? Harry created his own. And he had women around the U.S. wear the diamonds for fashion shows to raise money for charity. And I've had many people around the country come back to me and say, I wore the diamond at the Pecon Festival or the Texas State Fair in 1954 or whatever.
And they have pictures. And the idea was to create Interest in gems, but also to make them historical and biographical at a time when synthetic diamonds were coming on the market and Harry wanted to stem that. because he was worried that he'd lose business. The Smithsonian used Diamonds that had been confiscated by smugglers coming into the U.S. to use those diamonds to acquire the Hope Diamond.
France requested to get the Hope Diamond in 1962. Charles de Gaulle appropriately tried to do what Napoleon could not: bring back the French crown jewels. And he said, You guys at the Smithsonian have hope diamond is really our French blue. We want it back. to display temporarily.
We said no. We kept saying no. The Secretary of the Smithsonian said no. Finally, he got a call. from some lady who lived in a white house down the block.
By the name of Jackie Kennedy. who said you have to say yes. And so we said yes. But Not being stupid, we're just as good as you all here. Not being stupid, we said at the Smithsonian, okay, if we're going to give up the Hope Diamond to the French, we need a hostage.
And that hostage was. The Mona Lisa. Mona Lisa. It's still an icon, a national treasure. A last credible estimate of its value, $200 million by Ronald Winston.
What I did Is I said, okay, let me look at all the lifespans of those people who've been associated with the Hope Diamond and see what age they live to. My hypothesis being that if you own the Hope Diamond or steward of the Hope Diamond or did something with the Hope Diamond, you would die younger than normal. It's not true. Curse doesn't seem to affect that whatsoever. And a special thanks to Richard Curran, author of Hope Diamond: The Legendary History of a Cursed Gem.
And it was from a speech, a story. He told at the Library of Congress back in 2009. And what a story he told. We learn that India for many centuries had been the primary source of diamonds, until, of course, the discoveries in South Africa. And everything changed, imports to America exploded, and the very first big seller of diamonds was none other than Sears Roebuck.
But soon the marketing kicked in and it was tied to love and scarcity. Prices shot up and the status of diamonds shot up. In came Harry Winston, the great jeweler, to promote his enterprise just so smart. The story of the Hope Diamond Here on Our American Stories. There's nothing like sinking into luxury.
At washablesofas.com, you'll find the Anibay sofa, which combines ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price. And get this, it's the only sofa that's fully machine washable from top to bottom, starting at only $699. The stain-resistant performance fabric slip covers and cloud-like frame duvet can go straight into your wash. Perfect for anyone with kids, pets, or anyone who loves an easy-to-clean, spotless sofa. With a modular design and changeable slip covers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style.
Whether you need a single chair, love seat, or a luxuriously large sectional, Anibay has you covered. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Right now, you can shop up to 60% off store-wide with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Shop now at washablesofas.com. Add a little.
to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. Ice Cube's Big Three is the surprise hit of the summer. This Saturday, 4 p.m. Eastern on CBS with playoff elimination on the line.
The most physical, fiercest, and competitive basketball in the world. Miami's Michael Beasley and Lance Stevenson must win to make the playoffs, and breakout star Dwight Howard of the LA Riot will battle Gary Payton's Boston squad in a du-a-dime match for both teams. Six teams are allowed for four spots, and all must win. There's no crying in the big three, and the no-hold sparred action starts Saturday at 4 p.m. Eastern, 1 p.m.
Pacific. Presented by iHeart. If you eat too many ultra-processed foods, you could be starving your gut microbes, and they'll get hangry. That's one of many things I learned after working on a new audio course about the gut microbiome. You can learn how to keep your gut happy by listening to Try This from the Washington Post.
I'm Christina Quinn. I host Try This. Dig in with me on practical advice for life's common challenges. Follow Try This right now wherever you're listening. Seriously, try it.
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Speaking of workouts, how would you rate your athletic program? Bro, we're in the middle of the state championship. Oh, so like a B plus then? Dude, get out of our huddle.
Well, at homes.com, we leave it all on the field to get you detailed information on local schools. Off the field! Off the field. Copy. All right, go sports.
How'd he even get in here? Homes.com. We've done your homework. This is an iHeart podcast.
