Historical Artifacts

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John Brown's Sword Used in Bleeding Kansas (1856) (lemmy.world)

submitted 8 months ago by PugJesus@lemmy.world to c/historyartifacts@lemmy.world

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[–] Numberone@startrek.website 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

The podcast "American Carnage" is a great journey if you don't know anything about John Brown. They mention this sword in the podcast, it's got a hollow compartment in it that contains liquid mercury. The mercury flows forward when it's swung in a slash, changing the weight distribution of the blade to kill the enemies of abolition with greater prejudice. Based

Edit: My only source for this was the podcast I mentioned, so take it with a grain of salt. I hope it's true though. It's such an interesting idea for a sword.

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago

You sure about that? I can't find any reliable source saying as much.

[–] lurch@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 months ago

I hope they took the mercury out or the chamber has some non-metal finish, because mercury is one of those metals that gets absorbed into other metals making them brittle and weak and ultimately destroying the object.