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The story of the man who gave his name to sideburns.
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"Sideburns" as we now call them, go back a long way.
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A mosaic from Pompeii depicts Alexander the Great with a pair.
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They were a sign of authority with the Hindu military class
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known as Kshatriya.
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And the Meiji warriors of 19th Century Japan.
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In Victorian England, they were called side whiskers and were worn
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by important gentleman like Prince Albert and Charles Darwin.
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Men with lavish facial hair were known as whiskerandos.
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The style had several nicknames, including Piccadilly weepers
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named after Piccadilly in London, where men sporting this kind of
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facial hair would hang out.
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And Dundrearies after Lord Dundreary,
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an exaggeratedly bewhiskered character in Our American Cousin,
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a popular play of 1858.
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It was this play that another man with distinctive whiskers
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was watching when he was assassinated... Abraham Lincoln.
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But the term we now use - sideburn - dates back to a rather unfortunate
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soldier of the American Civil War, General Ambrose Burnside.
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Whilst still a young man, he was left standing at the altar by his fiancée
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who ran out of the church crying...
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Later, as a commander in the Union Army,
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Burnside's military career was less than brilliant.
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He was considered ineffective at The Battle of Antietam
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and held responsible for the Union's crushing defeat at Fredericksburg.
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And when he discovered that his former fiancée
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had become a Confederate spy,
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Burnside had her seized and kept under house arrest for months.
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Despite these setbacks, before his death in 1881,
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Burnside had become a household name.
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Not for his military service or misfortunes in love,
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but for his luxuriant facial hair.
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It was so striking that the name Burnside whiskers was used to refer
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to the combination of a moustache and side whiskers.
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In the British Army,
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side whiskers were always joined together by a moustache
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because until 1916, soldiers were banned from shaving their top lips.
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Eventually the syllables were reversed to give us sideburn.
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Very bushy sideburns that cover the cheeks are known as
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mutton chops because they look like a cut of meat.
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Sideburns were worn by rebellious Teddy Boys in the 1950s and favoured
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by movie stars and heavy rockers in the '60s and '70s.
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They were less popular during the clean shaven '80s,
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but have roared back into fashion with today's hipsters.
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The Sides of March campaign recently encouraged men to grow sideburns
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to raise funds and awareness about male suicide.
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In 2015, a new catwalk trend emerged for women's sideburns -
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the next phase in the never-ending pursuit of the hirsute.
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Thanks for watching! :)
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