Mystery of the Hope Diamond (2010) - full transcript
The program tells the history, both documented and supposed, of the Hope Diamond including the source of the legendary curse. Then the mystery of the deep blue color and red phosphorescence is partially explained.
It's night at the museum.
Inside the Smithsonian
institution in Washington,
The last visitor has left.
The dinosaurs are alone.
The north Atlantic right whale
has only guards for company.
But on this night,
something strange is happening.
The most famous and mysterious
diamond in the world
is being taken from
its bomb-proof cabinet.
The Hope Diamond,
at 45.5 carats,
the biggest deep blue diamond
ever discovered,
is about to go under the drill
to reveal its inner secrets.
Hundreds of millions of atoms
will be blasted out of it
and open up a window
into a world
over a billion years old.
The Hope Diamond
is one of the world's
most unique creations.
It's a little bit
like a meteorite
that's fallen to the earth
from outer space.
The Hope Diamond
does not just contain
a scientific mystery.
It has also spawned
a legendary curse.
It's got this
fabulously complicated
and dramatic history.
There are so many twists
and turns and dramatic events
and horrible deaths
along the way.
Behind the Hope Diamond
lies the greatest jewel robbery
in history,
a glittering American heiress
struck by tragedy
and an executed king and queen.
The idea that here's
this diamond
that has touched the neck
of Marie Antoinette,
that was stolen
from an idol in India
and has this magical power.
For half a century
the Hope Diamond has been
america's crown jewel.
Now, to Mark the anniversary,
Master Craftsmen
at Harry Winston
are creating a new setting
selected by the American people.
When you look at the Hope,
you are not the same.
This transforms your vision
into the world of gems.
This is the astonishing story
of the Hope Diamond.
The national museum
of natural history
in Washington, D.C.
Here, protected by a thick layer
of bullet and bomb-proof glass,
lies the most visited exhibit
on the planet.
It attracts about as many
visitors as the Mona Lisa.
What makes the Hope Diamond
so special and alluring
is its unique combination
of size, near perfect clarity
and deep blue color.
It towers over
the single carat diamond
typical of an engagement ring,
but the Hope also contains
one mysterious property
that is the subject
of a long running
scientific puzzle.
One night in the late 1960s,
scientists in South Africa
placed the Hope Diamond
under ultraviolet light.
Nothing happened...
Until the light
was switched off.
Incredibly, the diamond emitted
an almost supernatural red glow.
It continued to glow
for up to a minute,
an effect never seen before.
Dr. Jeffrey post, curator
of the national gem collection,
has studied the Hope
for two decades.
This glow was something
that clued US in to the idea
that there had to be something
about this diamond
that made it different
than most other diamonds.
We've never seen this intensity
in any other diamond.
But what was that something
creating this mysterious
red glow?
Some believed the answer
could be found in history
or even in legend.
But for the Smithsonian's
experts,
it was a question
that only science could solve.
The first stage
of their investigation
was to go back in time,
to planet earth
billions of years ago.
What eventually became
the Hope Diamond
was first created
around 100 miles below
the surface of the earth
in a layer called
the upper mantle.
Like every other diamond,
it began life as a cluster
of carbon atoms.
Under extreme pressure and heat,
the atoms formed into the rigid
crystal structure of diamond.
But to get to the surface,
a diamond has to survive
a perilous journey.
The diamond is a passenger.
We've got molten magma
that's now pushing, erupting
towards the surface
of the earth.
It carries the diamond with it.
Now this eruption is so violent,
it gets to the surface
of the earth
in a matter of a few hours.
These diamonds are traveling
at 30, 40 miles per hour.
The diamond could have been
destroyed during this.
If the diamond traveled
too slowly to the surface,
it would change from diamond
to graphite.
Again, the diamond
would be destroyed.
You know, maybe
one in a million,
one in a billion diamonds
that are down there
actually make it to the surface.
After the diamond crystal
survived its journey
to the surface,
the molten rock cooled
and solidified,
entombing the diamond.
Over millions of years,
the molten volcanic rock eroded,
releasing the diamond
to be washed along rivers
in the sub-continent of India,
finally coming to rest
in gravel deposits.
And that was where,
in the mid 17th century,
human eyes first gazed upon
the largest deep blue diamond
the world has ever seen.
The Hope Diamond was about to
embark on a 350-year journey.
It would pose a set of riddles
encompassing science, history
and a legendary curse.
But it wasn't until
the early 20th century
that the story of a curse
first emerged
and captured
the public imagination.
At the center of events
was a famous American heiress...
Evalyn Walsh McLean.
1910.
Evalyn and her husband ned
are on vacation in Paris.
They receive a visit
from one of the world's
most famous jewelers...
Pierre Cartier...
a man on constant lookout
for wealthy customers.
Cartier tells Evalyn
an amazing story.
He's recently acquired a diamond
of unparalleled color, size
and beauty
and with a history to send
shivers up the spine.
The explorer who discovered it,
he says,
stole it from the eye
of a hindu goddess
in an Indian temple.
He was then ripped apart
by wild dogs.
Ever since,
there has been a curse
on whoever owned the diamond.
A French queen wore it and was
beheaded at the guillotine.
The next owners, one of
the richest families in Europe,
were plunged
into financial ruin.
But far from scaring
Evalyn away,
Pierre Cartier's story
only whets her desire
for the diamond.
Evalyn was totally
taken by Cartier's story,
I think she was
entranced by him.
Cartier stage-managed it
so beautifully,
so he was telling the story
and all the time
holding in front of him
this package with
the diamond in it.
For Cartier,
Evalyn is a prime catch.
She agrees to a deal...
she'll buy the Hope Diamond
for $180,000,
over $4 million
in today's money.
But there's one proviso...
if the legendary curse
brings anything terrible
within the next six months,
she'll get her money back.
Evalyn reveled in her diamond.
So here's Evalyn
at home wearing...
She's wearing a gem
around her neck.
And there's the Hope.
She loved the camera.
She'd become her own
kind of director.
Evalyn Walsh McLean's life
had been a true
rags-to-riches story.
She was born in 1886,
the daughter of a gold miner
who struck it rich in Colorado.
At the age of 22,
Evalyn married ned McLean,
whose family owned banks,
a railroad
and the Washington post
newspaper.
Buying the Hope Diamond
was the most exciting moment yet
in the spectacular life
of Evalyn and ned.
They lived a very opulent
life, had everything.
They even built golf holes
when ned became...
was close to senator
and then president Harding.
She had fountains at the estate,
so these were...
this was like being in a massive
Hollywood movie in a way.
Evalyn owned many houses.
The largest one still standing
is a fabulous mansion
which was once
the most expensive property
in Washington, D.C.
Today, it's the home
of the Indonesian embassy
and Evalyn's great-grandson,
Joseph Gregory,
has come to visit.
When you first walk into
the entry hallway of the house,
you see the Tiffany glass
that's in the middle
of the entry hallway.
Now, how many people
during that time
would have something like that?
Not even the president
of the United States
could afford
something like that.
Celebrities, politicians,
even the American president,
Warren g. Harding,
all flocked to Evalyn's parties,
knowing they were in
for an unforgettable night
with the Hope Diamond
at the center
on a most unusual model.
She had a great Dane named Mike,
and Mike would sometimes
wear the Hope Diamond.
Evalyn never believed
that the Hope Diamond curse
would strike her.
But nearly 10 years after she
first laid eyes on the diamond,
her fairytale life
would be shattered.
Death and disaster
would strike her family.
It was a series of events
that would cement
the idea of a curse
in the popular imagination.
Was there something strange
or supernatural
about the Hope Diamond?
Could it be related
to the mysterious red afterglow
that scientists first noticed
in the 1960s?
Looks very much like
a glowing Ember, for example,
in a barbecue grill at night.
You look at these glowing coals,
and that's really what
the diamond reminds me of.
Smithsonian scientists
were beginning to think
of a daring experiment
which they hoped
would show the world
that the riddle of the red glow
was a matter of science,
not superstition.
But while science
would be one tool
to investigate the diamond,
history would be another.
Was there evidence
in the Hope Diamond's journey
to support the idea of a curse?
What was fact
and what was legend?
One thing was certain...
in the mid 17th century,
a French explorer,
Jean baptiste Tavernier,
traveled to an ancient kingdom
in India
in search of precious gemstones.
At that time, India was
the only place in the world
where diamonds
had been discovered.
Historian Omar Khalidi
has studied Tavernier's
own account of his travels
to a place called golkonda.
It was a time when the kingdom of golkonda
was at the height
of its prosperity
and the center
of the world gem trade,
and the purpose
of Tavernier's journey
was to buy diamonds for the
royalty and nobility of France.
Tavernier writes
of visiting a temple
containing a large hindu idol.
"The great idol on the altar
has two diamonds for his eyes,
and the smallest
of these diamonds
weighs about 40 carats."
Tavernier then relates
an extraordinary story
of a local jeweler
who extracted a diamond
from one of the idol's eyes
and was horribly punished.
"As he was about to leave in the morning,
this thief, they say,
died at the door
and the idol performed
this miracle
as a punishment of sacrilege."
Many Indians believed
that diamonds had inherent qualities
which, depending on their color,
could signal danger.
Diamonds had
significance beyond wealth.
White diamonds were signs
of prosperity;
red diamonds were associated
with bravery;
whereas the blue diamonds
were associated
with misfortunes, ill omen,
bad luck and so forth.
On December 6, 1668,
Tavernier appears at
the French court in versailles
carrying an enormous
blue diamond.
There is no record
of him revealing
where or how he's obtained it.
Tavernier's client is
Europe's most illustrious king...
Louis xiv of France.
For historian Lucy Worsley,
Tavernier's glittering diamonds
were the perfect match
for the monarch who called
himself "the sun king."
When Louis xiv was here,
this room was full of light
through the windows,
from the mirrors,
from the candles,
from the silver furniture
and also from the king himself
and the diamonds that he
might have been wearing.
Louis was
the biggest spender of the age.
He single-handedly sparked the
world's obsession with diamonds.
Louis xiv really
created the market in diamonds.
Up until him, the jewel
that everyone had wanted
was the Pearl,
pearls were the thing,
but suddenly Tavernier
arrives from India
with all of these
fabulous new stones,
and Louis xiv buys 40 big ones
and 1,200 little ones,
has them cut,
starts wearing them,
suddenly everyone
wants diamonds,
they're the new craze.
Tavernier grows rich
from this new European craze,
netting the equivalent
of nearly $10 million
for his Indian diamonds,
but the most desirable of all
and Louis' favorite
is an enormous
115-carat dark blue.
But Louis is not fully satisfied
with the diamond Tavernier
has brought him.
He's willing to cut down
a 115-carat diamond
to create something
even more dazzling.
The science of cutting diamonds
to enhance their brilliance
is still new,
but Louis' court jeweler
will create perhaps
the ultimate example.
He grinds and polishes
63 new facets
to create the French Blue.
In the process,
he shrinks it to 69 carats.
It was really a masterful
cutting job of the day.
I mean, you can only imagine
how long it must have taken,
how painstaking
it must have been
with the tools available
at that time,
but what resulted was what was
considered at the time by many
to be the world's
most beautiful diamond.
For four decades,
the French Blue is in the emblem
of the order
of the golden fleece,
part of the French crown jewels.
But by the end
of the 18th century,
time is running out
for the decadent French royals.
And for the queen,
Marie Antoinette,
diamonds will not turn out to be
a girl's best friend.
In July 1789,
public anger spills over
into full blown revolution
against Louis xvi
and his diamond-loving queen.
Pierre Cartier will later relish
telling Evalyn Walsh McLean
that Marie Antoinette
wore the French Blue
around her delicate neck,
a neck that will soon be chopped
by the guillotine.
The crown jewels are moved
to this building,
the royal warehouse,
for safekeeping.
They will not be safe for long.
September 1792.
A gang of professional thieves
commits the greatest heist
in history.
The robbers climb up the outside
of the royal warehouse.
They break into the jewel room
and take off
with a glittering haul.
Amazingly, no one
notices the theft
and they return
over the next five nights.
By the end, they get away with
nearly all the crown jewels,
a priceless collection
that includes the order
of the golden fleece
with its dazzling
French Blue Diamond.
It will never be seen again.
So what happened
to the French Blue?
In 1812, 20 years
after the theft
of the French crown jewels,
a mysterious blue diamond
appears
in a jeweler's shop in London.
A memorandum authenticates
its size and shape.
It compares to the French Blue,
but there's
one obvious difference.
It's a completely
different size.
The French Blue is 67 carats,
a little more than 67 carats.
This gem is 44 carats,
and the question is
at that time, in 1812,
at the time of this memorandum,
nobody was really asking whether
these diamonds were the same,
so this was thought to be
just a new diamond.
The new London blue's
next destination
has never been proved,
but the finger points
to none other
than the future British king,
George iv.
It's just so tempting
to think that George iv
was the ideal purchaser.
Who else could have afforded it?
Who else would have wanted it?
But what we don't have
is any kind of documentation
from the royal archives
or connected
with George personally,
saying, "yeah,
I bought the diamond."
In 1830, George IV dies.
Shortly afterwards,
the London blue diamond
reappears again
in documented historical fact.
It's bought by the man
who will give the diamond
its famous name,
a wealthy British banker,
Henry Philip Hope.
In 1851 the Hope Diamond
goes on display
at the great exhibition
in London.
It's a sensation.
But a French gem expert now puts
forward an extraordinary theory.
He suggests
that the Hope Diamond
might be a re-cut version
of the French Blue,
which had disappeared
in the French revolution.
The theory would remain unproven
until as recently as 2005,
when scientists from
the Smithsonian and new Mexico
finally solved the mystery.
Using computer-aided geometry,
they modeled both diamonds.
They then created a replica
of the French Blue
and a mold that
precisely fit it.
The next move was to insert
the smaller Hope Diamond
into the mold
and inject it with wax.
They found that the Hope Diamond
would fit snugly
inside the French Blue.
There was only one conclusion.
The Hope Diamond
that we know today
is in fact the only
surviving piece
of the stone that was
originally sold
to king Louis xiv of France
in 1668.
So did those
who possessed the diamond
during this murky period
suffer from a curse?
George IV certainly met
an agonizing end.
He died in pain, overweight
and suffering from gout.
Fortune would also not smile
on the Hope family.
In 1887, 21-year-old
lord Francis Hope
inherits the family estate,
art collection
and famous blue diamond.
But he's about to lose it all
thanks partly
to an American showgirl
named may yohe.
He treated her extremely well,
he wanted to impress
this American gal.
He actually was part owner
of the lyric theatre in London,
and he arranged for her
to get a contract there
and become a leading lady.
He financed,
he owned the newspaper,
and he really promoted
and marketed her
because he wanted her to shine.
But for lord Francis Hope,
may yohe turns out to be
a ruinous extravagance.
To maintain her lifestyle,
he gambles away the equivalent
of $75 million,
squandering the family fortune.
In 1901, may leaves him
and later makes a Hollywood
movie of their life,
blaming their downfall on
the curse of the blue diamond.
Lord Francis is forced to sell
the Hope Diamond.
He dies financially ruined.
For several years, the gemstone
crisscrosses the Atlantic,
looking for a buyer,
until finally Pierre Cartier
finds Evalyn Walsh McLean.
[Jazz music playing]
In her early years of owning it,
the Hope Diamond had brought
Evalyn nothing but pleasure.
The curse was just a story.
But then a series of tragedies
struck her family
and propelled the curse
onto the world stage.
While Evalyn is away
at the Kentucky derby,
her 9-year-old son vinson
is playing near the road
in front of their estate
in northwest Washington.
The boy runs out in front
of a passing Ford model t.
[Horn honks]
[Crash]
He's knocked to the ground,
his head smashing
into the concrete.
Vinson!
My god, what happened?
A few hours later,
vinson Walsh McLean dies
and the family's misfortune
becomes headline news.
Get some help, man.
And on the next day
in the papers,
in the New York times
and following in other papers
around the country,
people speculated
was this yet another instance
of the curse
of the Hope Diamond?
Evalyn Walsh McLean's dream life
is shattered in an instant.
After vinson's death,
the bad luck multiplies.
The Washington post
goes bankrupt
and the McLean family fortune
is decimated.
Evalyn's marriage falls apart.
Her husband ned ends up
in an insane asylum,
and their only daughter commits
suicide at the age of 25.
Evalyn always insisted she
didn't believe in the legend,
but when she died at 60
after a lifetime of tragedies,
she had become the embodiment
of the curse.
Her lavish collection of jewels
was put up for sale
with the Hope Diamond
as the star attraction.
Whether it was science,
history or legend,
one thing seemed clear...
the Hope Diamond
was unlike any other,
and the discovery in the 1960s
of its mysterious red glow
or phosphorescence,
as scientists call it,
only reinforced the mystery.
Why does it show this,
this very intense phosphorescence
that seemed to be unusual
and perhaps even unique
to the Hope Diamond?
To test whether
the Hope really is unique,
Jeff post needs to compare it
with other blue diamonds,
but blues are very rare.
Jeff and his colleague
Eloise Gaillou
travel to New York City's
diamond district
to the one man
he knows can help, a dealer...
Alan Bronstein.
We've gotten together
about 90 blue diamonds for him,
which have a variety of shades
and have a variety
of saturations
and grayness modification,
so that is, that's a large
number of blue diamonds
to have in one place to study
at one time.
Using a spectrometer to
measure the wavelengths of light,
they flood the stones
with ultraviolet.
When they turn off the light,
their instrument picks up
the phosphorescence.
Ok, so we have
a really strong peak
in the blue/green portion
of the spectrum,
just the opposite of what we see
in the Hope Diamond.
We were surprised to see that,
in all of the blue diamonds
that we've looked at so far,
and it's approaching
80 blue diamonds,
all of them show
a phosphorescence.
All blue diamonds glow,
but the experiment shows
that each has its own
distinctive signature.
Some red like the Hope,
others blue/green...
and none shines as intensely
or for as long as the Hope.
So why do blue diamonds have
this eerie phosphorescence?
The fact that we only see
this particular kind of
phosphorescence in blue diamonds
strongly suggests
that it is correlated
with the presence of boron.
Boron is an element like carbon,
a basic building block of nature
found, for example, in soap.
But it's extremely rare
deep in the earth
where diamonds are formed.
The Hope Diamond glows
far more intensely
and longer than any
of the smaller diamonds,
so what impact might boron
be having inside it?
To find out, Jeff post
will have to take
a sample from the Hope Diamond.
The only way to do that seems
almost unthinkable.
He will have to drill
into america's crown jewel.
His experiment
would not be possible
if the diamond were still
adorning someone's neck.
But thanks to
a surprising donation,
the Hope became
a specimen for science.
After Evalyn Walsh McLean died,
the next owner was the jeweler
to the stars, Harry Winston.
Many believe Harry Winston will
simply remount the Hope Diamond
and find a new buyer,
but he knows it might now
be a hard sell.
Think about it this way...
he knew of the curse story.
He knew also
that the cost itself,
the price of the stone,
went into the millions.
To find a client willing to buy
a quote, unquote "cursed" stone
for that amount of money
might have been a huge problem.
Instead, Winston
begins to think of an act
of extraordinary philanthropy...
he will donate the Hope Diamond
to the Smithsonian institution.
But when the news
of his intention leaks out,
not everyone is delighted.
A vocal minority is petrified by
what might happen to the nation.
One American writes
to the Smithsonian...
"With our neighbor Russia
able to blow our country
to pieces
in a few hours
of missile bombardment,
it would be insane to tempt fate
by having anything to do
with this ghastly gem."
Actually, people even
bypassed the Smithsonian.
They wrote
to president eisenhower
and they said, "are you crazy?
This Hope dia...
this diamond is cursed."
But the Smithsonian
doesn't flinch.
They accept the diamond.
You would think Winston
would send his priceless diamond
in an armored car.
Instead, what does he do?
What he always did.
He mails it by regular post.
Today, here came
a brown paper wrapped package
sent by registered mail
for $152 postage.
New York diamond merchant...
Winston's
unusual delivery method
ensures news coverage
throughout the country.
A gift to the Smithsonian
worth a million dollars...
the Hope Diamond, the biggest
blue diamond in the world.
The jewel is put
in a specially designed safe
where the public can view it
through bullet-proof glass.
With the Hope Diamond
coming here,
Harry Winston's vision
started to unfold...
that is, to build a great
national gem collection.
As he liked to say,
we don't have a king and queen,
but we should have
our crown jewels.
50 years after Harry
Winston gave Hope to america,
his company has offered
to create
an anniversary party dress
for the diamond...
a new, temporary setting
using modern design techniques
to showcase its brilliance.
Our rule in this studio
is to start with no limitation.
With no constraint of price,
of size, of craziness,
of anything.
What you want to do is
enhance the color and the size
and the life of that stone
without overpowering.
From 25 initial sketches,
the Smithsonian selects
three finalists...
But the final selection
is in the hands
of the Hope Diamond's
true owners.
We really wanted to involve
the American audience,
the American public,
to have them choose the necklace
that would surround
the Hope Diamond.
The fate of the Hope Diamond,
it's all in your hands!
Hope takes on
a new design for a famous jewel.
The public will get to decide
what setting it will have.
Starting today, you can
help pick one of those settings.
As the Hope Diamond
goes on display
for the first time
out of its historic setting,
over 100,000 votes flood in.
And the winner is...
Embracing Hope.
Creating such a complex setting
will take a pound of platinum,
over 300 baguette diamonds,
and months of painstaking work.
But some might wonder:
By changing the setting,
even temporarily,
could they be invoking
the legendary curse?
Over the centuries,
the diamond has acquired
an unsavory reputation
as a producer of bad luck.
Within a year of
its donation to the Smithsonian,
the Hope appeared
to claim another victim...
the mailman James Todd.
He was injured by a truck,
his wife died
and his house burned down.
Over the years, letters
have continued to arrive
at the national gem collection
warning of the curse.
But for Jeff post,
all the curse stories
are fantasy
or simple coincidence.
For 50 years, the Hope Diamond
has brought the Smithsonian
nothing but good luck
and fascinating
scientific puzzles.
For him the real story
is buried far deeper,
in the science of its creation.
In fact, in many ways
the more incredible part
of the Hope Diamond story
is the one that started perhaps
two or three billion years ago
deep in the earth's
upper mantle.
It's 7:30 pm
at the national museum
of natural history.
The last members of the public
leave, and all goes quiet.
Tonight, Jeff post will remove
the Hope Diamond
and subject it
to an audacious experiment.
The goal of doing this work
isn't to try to dispel a curse.
The goal is to learn
about the Hope Diamond
and its history and its origin.
He and his team are
about to do the unthinkable...
drill into the Hope Diamond
to extract atoms
and unravel its DNA.
They're using a time of flight
secondary ion mass spectrometer.
It's an instrument
more often used
to test chemical substances,
for example,
for traces of steroids.
They're about to open a window
into a world more than
a billion years old,
when the diamond was created.
The instrument fires beams
of tiny particles
called gallium ions
onto the surface
of the Hope Diamond.
The ions blast a crater
invisible to the naked eye
from which hundreds
of millions of atoms
are sucked back
into the machine,
where they're sorted by weight
and counted.
It sounds a bit destructive
and in fact it is a little bit
of a destructive process.
Blasting is perhaps
too strong a word,
but it gives you the idea.
It'll be gouging or blasting
a small little tiny crater
into the diamond.
It will sort of drill down
through the surface
into the next several
layers of atoms,
knocking out
some of those atoms,
and we will be making
a very tiny little hole
in the Hope Diamond.
He hopes to finally
reveal exactly what happened
when the Hope Diamond was born.
Two months pass.
Hundreds of millions of atoms
have been extracted
and analyzed.
This photo, taken
under ultraviolet light,
indicates areas where
the samples were taken,
but the holes are far too tiny
to see with the naked eye.
The presence of boron is
just as Jeff post anticipated,
but the headline result
is that there's only
a tiny amount of it,
and the big surprise is that
it's not evenly distributed.
Boron makes
the Hope Diamond blue,
but its uneven distribution
gives a new insight
to that blueness.
The Hope Diamond probably
isn't uniformly blue.
What we're seeing with the eye
is actually a summation
of all of the blue,
different shades of blue
in the diamond,
sort of a mosaic of blues
in a sense,
and that the blue color
varies slightly
with the concentration,
the amounts of boron
that are present.
But the most significant outcome
is to show that it's
the boron atoms...
acting with the carbon
and another unidentified atom
in the diamond...
that are producing
the mysterious red glow.
When an ultraviolet light ray
passes through the diamond,
it strikes a carbon atom
and spins off an electron,
which gets trapped
in the unidentified atom.
At the same time,
a positive charge spins off
from the carbon atom
and gets trapped in the boron.
Attracted by
the positive charge,
the electron jumps
to the boron atom.
It's that collision that causes
the burst of red light.
This process happens
over and over
in the diamond lattice,
and because some boron atoms
are farther away
from the unidentified atoms,
the glow continues
for up to a minute.
Science has explained
the Hope Diamond's
inner secrets,
which leaves only the curse.
Back in 1910, Pierre Cartier
had told Evalyn Walsh McLean
his amazing story...
the explorer who'd stolen
the Hope Diamond
from the eye of a hindu goddess
and been ripped apart
by wild dogs;
the French queen who'd worn it
and lost her head;
the family who'd been ruined.
All struck down
by the legendary curse.
America's library of congress
houses an extensive collection,
which Richard Kurin used
to research the Hope's curse.
The more he found out,
the more holes he discovered
in Cartier's story.
Tavernier wasn't killed
by wild dogs.
He died of old age in Russia.
There was no evidence
that Marie Antoinette
ever even wore the French Blue.
You know, when it
was sold to the mcleans,
the New York times
on the front page said,
"this is an ancient curse."
As I started to go through
the historical records,
I did not find any mention
of any curse of the Hope Diamond
before the 1900s.
"Remarkable jewel a hoodoo."
"Hope Diamond has brought
trouble to all who've owned it."
If the curse was real,
its owners could be expected
to have lived short lives,
but did they?
Kurin went back
through the records
and investigated
all their lifespans.
The average
life expectancy of people
that have owned
the Hope Diamond, direct owners,
is about 72 years old.
That is quite a long lifespan,
considering that we're talking
about people, you know,
like Tavernier
and kings of France
that lived in the 17th
and 18th centuries.
You find that actually people
that have owned the Hope Diamond
lived extraordinarily
long lives,
longer than the average.
There could only be
one conclusion...
the curse was an invention,
the brainchild
of Pierre Cartier,
who fabricated
the tallest of tales
to whet Evalyn Walsh McLean's
appetite for the diamond.
Cartier's brilliant sales pitch
had created for the Hope Diamond
a legendary mystique
that elevated it
into one of the world's
most valuable artifacts.
It has survived great journeys,
dramatic disappearances
and radical re-designs.
And now, it's about
to get another.
Harry Winston is putting
the finishing touches
on the Hope Diamond's
new setting.
In order to create a piece of art
that's wearable,
that actually conforms
to the wearer's neck,
is always a challenge.
And what we are doing
in this case
is we are actually hinging
every single setting.
And in order to create this
fluid, very feminine design,
in platinum, with 300 stones
and 60 carats of diamonds,
it's a tremendous amount of
workmanship that goes into it.
We've actually accomplished
a necklace
that would normally take
about a year to make
within about 8 months.
So for US it was
a bit of a labor of love.
David Schwartz and
his team bring the completed setting
to the natural history museum.
The embracing Hope necklace.
Oh, my gosh. Wow!
That is spectacular!
All we need is a diamond
in the center there.
Schwartz:
Yeah, that's all we need.
It's ready for the Hope.
It does look like it was
made for it, doesn't it?
Exactly.
Now the tricky part.
It's been a hundred years
since the Hope Diamond was put
in a new setting.
One wrong move could damage the
world's most valuable gemstone.
But it's in masterful hands.
Pavel bespalko has been crafting
jewelry for over 30 years.
One of his secrets
is listening to chopin
to maintain his concentration.
Winston has brought
his work bench from New York
to ensure he has
everything he needs.
That's it!
A single screw is all it takes
to hold the set diamond
in its ribbons of platinum.
I find the design
extremely inspiring.
I just personally love it.
You really see there
the two hands
of somebody holding the world,
holding the rarest gem on earth.
And it is a symbol of generosity
when you put your two hands
like that.
To showcase the new setting,
the museum has tapped
a hometown girl:
Estee lauder model hilary rhoda.
I'm actually
from Chevy chase, Maryland,
and that's why it's also
really nice to come back here
and to the Smithsonian
and shoot this amazing diamond
on my neck.
It does feel heavy.
I'm feeling very expensive
right now.
My mom and I were walking
into the museum today
and she's like,
"you know it's cursed, right?"
And I was like, "what? No!"
I looked it up, and you know,
apparently it's just
an urban myth, right?
I'm hoping?
50th anniversary party dress
will be on display for a year
before the diamond returns
to its historical setting.
We focus a lot on
the history of the Hope Diamond.
We're thinking about that
as something that's always
happened a long time ago,
which in a sense it has,
except tonight is
part of history, too.
And the history of
the Hope Diamond continues.
And as long as people come
to see this diamond
or have an interest in it,
whatever happens to it
will become part of that story.
It's fun to in a sense
be a part of this moment
in its history
and realize that it is
something very special.
Her birthstone is the diamond,
and her monogram is h.R.H.,
her royal highness,
which is, I think,
very fitting, very regal.
This stone carries
more than 350 years
of the most incredible history,
and that makes the Hope Diamond
the rarest gem
and the most mythical stone
on earth.
Inside the Smithsonian
institution in Washington,
The last visitor has left.
The dinosaurs are alone.
The north Atlantic right whale
has only guards for company.
But on this night,
something strange is happening.
The most famous and mysterious
diamond in the world
is being taken from
its bomb-proof cabinet.
The Hope Diamond,
at 45.5 carats,
the biggest deep blue diamond
ever discovered,
is about to go under the drill
to reveal its inner secrets.
Hundreds of millions of atoms
will be blasted out of it
and open up a window
into a world
over a billion years old.
The Hope Diamond
is one of the world's
most unique creations.
It's a little bit
like a meteorite
that's fallen to the earth
from outer space.
The Hope Diamond
does not just contain
a scientific mystery.
It has also spawned
a legendary curse.
It's got this
fabulously complicated
and dramatic history.
There are so many twists
and turns and dramatic events
and horrible deaths
along the way.
Behind the Hope Diamond
lies the greatest jewel robbery
in history,
a glittering American heiress
struck by tragedy
and an executed king and queen.
The idea that here's
this diamond
that has touched the neck
of Marie Antoinette,
that was stolen
from an idol in India
and has this magical power.
For half a century
the Hope Diamond has been
america's crown jewel.
Now, to Mark the anniversary,
Master Craftsmen
at Harry Winston
are creating a new setting
selected by the American people.
When you look at the Hope,
you are not the same.
This transforms your vision
into the world of gems.
This is the astonishing story
of the Hope Diamond.
The national museum
of natural history
in Washington, D.C.
Here, protected by a thick layer
of bullet and bomb-proof glass,
lies the most visited exhibit
on the planet.
It attracts about as many
visitors as the Mona Lisa.
What makes the Hope Diamond
so special and alluring
is its unique combination
of size, near perfect clarity
and deep blue color.
It towers over
the single carat diamond
typical of an engagement ring,
but the Hope also contains
one mysterious property
that is the subject
of a long running
scientific puzzle.
One night in the late 1960s,
scientists in South Africa
placed the Hope Diamond
under ultraviolet light.
Nothing happened...
Until the light
was switched off.
Incredibly, the diamond emitted
an almost supernatural red glow.
It continued to glow
for up to a minute,
an effect never seen before.
Dr. Jeffrey post, curator
of the national gem collection,
has studied the Hope
for two decades.
This glow was something
that clued US in to the idea
that there had to be something
about this diamond
that made it different
than most other diamonds.
We've never seen this intensity
in any other diamond.
But what was that something
creating this mysterious
red glow?
Some believed the answer
could be found in history
or even in legend.
But for the Smithsonian's
experts,
it was a question
that only science could solve.
The first stage
of their investigation
was to go back in time,
to planet earth
billions of years ago.
What eventually became
the Hope Diamond
was first created
around 100 miles below
the surface of the earth
in a layer called
the upper mantle.
Like every other diamond,
it began life as a cluster
of carbon atoms.
Under extreme pressure and heat,
the atoms formed into the rigid
crystal structure of diamond.
But to get to the surface,
a diamond has to survive
a perilous journey.
The diamond is a passenger.
We've got molten magma
that's now pushing, erupting
towards the surface
of the earth.
It carries the diamond with it.
Now this eruption is so violent,
it gets to the surface
of the earth
in a matter of a few hours.
These diamonds are traveling
at 30, 40 miles per hour.
The diamond could have been
destroyed during this.
If the diamond traveled
too slowly to the surface,
it would change from diamond
to graphite.
Again, the diamond
would be destroyed.
You know, maybe
one in a million,
one in a billion diamonds
that are down there
actually make it to the surface.
After the diamond crystal
survived its journey
to the surface,
the molten rock cooled
and solidified,
entombing the diamond.
Over millions of years,
the molten volcanic rock eroded,
releasing the diamond
to be washed along rivers
in the sub-continent of India,
finally coming to rest
in gravel deposits.
And that was where,
in the mid 17th century,
human eyes first gazed upon
the largest deep blue diamond
the world has ever seen.
The Hope Diamond was about to
embark on a 350-year journey.
It would pose a set of riddles
encompassing science, history
and a legendary curse.
But it wasn't until
the early 20th century
that the story of a curse
first emerged
and captured
the public imagination.
At the center of events
was a famous American heiress...
Evalyn Walsh McLean.
1910.
Evalyn and her husband ned
are on vacation in Paris.
They receive a visit
from one of the world's
most famous jewelers...
Pierre Cartier...
a man on constant lookout
for wealthy customers.
Cartier tells Evalyn
an amazing story.
He's recently acquired a diamond
of unparalleled color, size
and beauty
and with a history to send
shivers up the spine.
The explorer who discovered it,
he says,
stole it from the eye
of a hindu goddess
in an Indian temple.
He was then ripped apart
by wild dogs.
Ever since,
there has been a curse
on whoever owned the diamond.
A French queen wore it and was
beheaded at the guillotine.
The next owners, one of
the richest families in Europe,
were plunged
into financial ruin.
But far from scaring
Evalyn away,
Pierre Cartier's story
only whets her desire
for the diamond.
Evalyn was totally
taken by Cartier's story,
I think she was
entranced by him.
Cartier stage-managed it
so beautifully,
so he was telling the story
and all the time
holding in front of him
this package with
the diamond in it.
For Cartier,
Evalyn is a prime catch.
She agrees to a deal...
she'll buy the Hope Diamond
for $180,000,
over $4 million
in today's money.
But there's one proviso...
if the legendary curse
brings anything terrible
within the next six months,
she'll get her money back.
Evalyn reveled in her diamond.
So here's Evalyn
at home wearing...
She's wearing a gem
around her neck.
And there's the Hope.
She loved the camera.
She'd become her own
kind of director.
Evalyn Walsh McLean's life
had been a true
rags-to-riches story.
She was born in 1886,
the daughter of a gold miner
who struck it rich in Colorado.
At the age of 22,
Evalyn married ned McLean,
whose family owned banks,
a railroad
and the Washington post
newspaper.
Buying the Hope Diamond
was the most exciting moment yet
in the spectacular life
of Evalyn and ned.
They lived a very opulent
life, had everything.
They even built golf holes
when ned became...
was close to senator
and then president Harding.
She had fountains at the estate,
so these were...
this was like being in a massive
Hollywood movie in a way.
Evalyn owned many houses.
The largest one still standing
is a fabulous mansion
which was once
the most expensive property
in Washington, D.C.
Today, it's the home
of the Indonesian embassy
and Evalyn's great-grandson,
Joseph Gregory,
has come to visit.
When you first walk into
the entry hallway of the house,
you see the Tiffany glass
that's in the middle
of the entry hallway.
Now, how many people
during that time
would have something like that?
Not even the president
of the United States
could afford
something like that.
Celebrities, politicians,
even the American president,
Warren g. Harding,
all flocked to Evalyn's parties,
knowing they were in
for an unforgettable night
with the Hope Diamond
at the center
on a most unusual model.
She had a great Dane named Mike,
and Mike would sometimes
wear the Hope Diamond.
Evalyn never believed
that the Hope Diamond curse
would strike her.
But nearly 10 years after she
first laid eyes on the diamond,
her fairytale life
would be shattered.
Death and disaster
would strike her family.
It was a series of events
that would cement
the idea of a curse
in the popular imagination.
Was there something strange
or supernatural
about the Hope Diamond?
Could it be related
to the mysterious red afterglow
that scientists first noticed
in the 1960s?
Looks very much like
a glowing Ember, for example,
in a barbecue grill at night.
You look at these glowing coals,
and that's really what
the diamond reminds me of.
Smithsonian scientists
were beginning to think
of a daring experiment
which they hoped
would show the world
that the riddle of the red glow
was a matter of science,
not superstition.
But while science
would be one tool
to investigate the diamond,
history would be another.
Was there evidence
in the Hope Diamond's journey
to support the idea of a curse?
What was fact
and what was legend?
One thing was certain...
in the mid 17th century,
a French explorer,
Jean baptiste Tavernier,
traveled to an ancient kingdom
in India
in search of precious gemstones.
At that time, India was
the only place in the world
where diamonds
had been discovered.
Historian Omar Khalidi
has studied Tavernier's
own account of his travels
to a place called golkonda.
It was a time when the kingdom of golkonda
was at the height
of its prosperity
and the center
of the world gem trade,
and the purpose
of Tavernier's journey
was to buy diamonds for the
royalty and nobility of France.
Tavernier writes
of visiting a temple
containing a large hindu idol.
"The great idol on the altar
has two diamonds for his eyes,
and the smallest
of these diamonds
weighs about 40 carats."
Tavernier then relates
an extraordinary story
of a local jeweler
who extracted a diamond
from one of the idol's eyes
and was horribly punished.
"As he was about to leave in the morning,
this thief, they say,
died at the door
and the idol performed
this miracle
as a punishment of sacrilege."
Many Indians believed
that diamonds had inherent qualities
which, depending on their color,
could signal danger.
Diamonds had
significance beyond wealth.
White diamonds were signs
of prosperity;
red diamonds were associated
with bravery;
whereas the blue diamonds
were associated
with misfortunes, ill omen,
bad luck and so forth.
On December 6, 1668,
Tavernier appears at
the French court in versailles
carrying an enormous
blue diamond.
There is no record
of him revealing
where or how he's obtained it.
Tavernier's client is
Europe's most illustrious king...
Louis xiv of France.
For historian Lucy Worsley,
Tavernier's glittering diamonds
were the perfect match
for the monarch who called
himself "the sun king."
When Louis xiv was here,
this room was full of light
through the windows,
from the mirrors,
from the candles,
from the silver furniture
and also from the king himself
and the diamonds that he
might have been wearing.
Louis was
the biggest spender of the age.
He single-handedly sparked the
world's obsession with diamonds.
Louis xiv really
created the market in diamonds.
Up until him, the jewel
that everyone had wanted
was the Pearl,
pearls were the thing,
but suddenly Tavernier
arrives from India
with all of these
fabulous new stones,
and Louis xiv buys 40 big ones
and 1,200 little ones,
has them cut,
starts wearing them,
suddenly everyone
wants diamonds,
they're the new craze.
Tavernier grows rich
from this new European craze,
netting the equivalent
of nearly $10 million
for his Indian diamonds,
but the most desirable of all
and Louis' favorite
is an enormous
115-carat dark blue.
But Louis is not fully satisfied
with the diamond Tavernier
has brought him.
He's willing to cut down
a 115-carat diamond
to create something
even more dazzling.
The science of cutting diamonds
to enhance their brilliance
is still new,
but Louis' court jeweler
will create perhaps
the ultimate example.
He grinds and polishes
63 new facets
to create the French Blue.
In the process,
he shrinks it to 69 carats.
It was really a masterful
cutting job of the day.
I mean, you can only imagine
how long it must have taken,
how painstaking
it must have been
with the tools available
at that time,
but what resulted was what was
considered at the time by many
to be the world's
most beautiful diamond.
For four decades,
the French Blue is in the emblem
of the order
of the golden fleece,
part of the French crown jewels.
But by the end
of the 18th century,
time is running out
for the decadent French royals.
And for the queen,
Marie Antoinette,
diamonds will not turn out to be
a girl's best friend.
In July 1789,
public anger spills over
into full blown revolution
against Louis xvi
and his diamond-loving queen.
Pierre Cartier will later relish
telling Evalyn Walsh McLean
that Marie Antoinette
wore the French Blue
around her delicate neck,
a neck that will soon be chopped
by the guillotine.
The crown jewels are moved
to this building,
the royal warehouse,
for safekeeping.
They will not be safe for long.
September 1792.
A gang of professional thieves
commits the greatest heist
in history.
The robbers climb up the outside
of the royal warehouse.
They break into the jewel room
and take off
with a glittering haul.
Amazingly, no one
notices the theft
and they return
over the next five nights.
By the end, they get away with
nearly all the crown jewels,
a priceless collection
that includes the order
of the golden fleece
with its dazzling
French Blue Diamond.
It will never be seen again.
So what happened
to the French Blue?
In 1812, 20 years
after the theft
of the French crown jewels,
a mysterious blue diamond
appears
in a jeweler's shop in London.
A memorandum authenticates
its size and shape.
It compares to the French Blue,
but there's
one obvious difference.
It's a completely
different size.
The French Blue is 67 carats,
a little more than 67 carats.
This gem is 44 carats,
and the question is
at that time, in 1812,
at the time of this memorandum,
nobody was really asking whether
these diamonds were the same,
so this was thought to be
just a new diamond.
The new London blue's
next destination
has never been proved,
but the finger points
to none other
than the future British king,
George iv.
It's just so tempting
to think that George iv
was the ideal purchaser.
Who else could have afforded it?
Who else would have wanted it?
But what we don't have
is any kind of documentation
from the royal archives
or connected
with George personally,
saying, "yeah,
I bought the diamond."
In 1830, George IV dies.
Shortly afterwards,
the London blue diamond
reappears again
in documented historical fact.
It's bought by the man
who will give the diamond
its famous name,
a wealthy British banker,
Henry Philip Hope.
In 1851 the Hope Diamond
goes on display
at the great exhibition
in London.
It's a sensation.
But a French gem expert now puts
forward an extraordinary theory.
He suggests
that the Hope Diamond
might be a re-cut version
of the French Blue,
which had disappeared
in the French revolution.
The theory would remain unproven
until as recently as 2005,
when scientists from
the Smithsonian and new Mexico
finally solved the mystery.
Using computer-aided geometry,
they modeled both diamonds.
They then created a replica
of the French Blue
and a mold that
precisely fit it.
The next move was to insert
the smaller Hope Diamond
into the mold
and inject it with wax.
They found that the Hope Diamond
would fit snugly
inside the French Blue.
There was only one conclusion.
The Hope Diamond
that we know today
is in fact the only
surviving piece
of the stone that was
originally sold
to king Louis xiv of France
in 1668.
So did those
who possessed the diamond
during this murky period
suffer from a curse?
George IV certainly met
an agonizing end.
He died in pain, overweight
and suffering from gout.
Fortune would also not smile
on the Hope family.
In 1887, 21-year-old
lord Francis Hope
inherits the family estate,
art collection
and famous blue diamond.
But he's about to lose it all
thanks partly
to an American showgirl
named may yohe.
He treated her extremely well,
he wanted to impress
this American gal.
He actually was part owner
of the lyric theatre in London,
and he arranged for her
to get a contract there
and become a leading lady.
He financed,
he owned the newspaper,
and he really promoted
and marketed her
because he wanted her to shine.
But for lord Francis Hope,
may yohe turns out to be
a ruinous extravagance.
To maintain her lifestyle,
he gambles away the equivalent
of $75 million,
squandering the family fortune.
In 1901, may leaves him
and later makes a Hollywood
movie of their life,
blaming their downfall on
the curse of the blue diamond.
Lord Francis is forced to sell
the Hope Diamond.
He dies financially ruined.
For several years, the gemstone
crisscrosses the Atlantic,
looking for a buyer,
until finally Pierre Cartier
finds Evalyn Walsh McLean.
[Jazz music playing]
In her early years of owning it,
the Hope Diamond had brought
Evalyn nothing but pleasure.
The curse was just a story.
But then a series of tragedies
struck her family
and propelled the curse
onto the world stage.
While Evalyn is away
at the Kentucky derby,
her 9-year-old son vinson
is playing near the road
in front of their estate
in northwest Washington.
The boy runs out in front
of a passing Ford model t.
[Horn honks]
[Crash]
He's knocked to the ground,
his head smashing
into the concrete.
Vinson!
My god, what happened?
A few hours later,
vinson Walsh McLean dies
and the family's misfortune
becomes headline news.
Get some help, man.
And on the next day
in the papers,
in the New York times
and following in other papers
around the country,
people speculated
was this yet another instance
of the curse
of the Hope Diamond?
Evalyn Walsh McLean's dream life
is shattered in an instant.
After vinson's death,
the bad luck multiplies.
The Washington post
goes bankrupt
and the McLean family fortune
is decimated.
Evalyn's marriage falls apart.
Her husband ned ends up
in an insane asylum,
and their only daughter commits
suicide at the age of 25.
Evalyn always insisted she
didn't believe in the legend,
but when she died at 60
after a lifetime of tragedies,
she had become the embodiment
of the curse.
Her lavish collection of jewels
was put up for sale
with the Hope Diamond
as the star attraction.
Whether it was science,
history or legend,
one thing seemed clear...
the Hope Diamond
was unlike any other,
and the discovery in the 1960s
of its mysterious red glow
or phosphorescence,
as scientists call it,
only reinforced the mystery.
Why does it show this,
this very intense phosphorescence
that seemed to be unusual
and perhaps even unique
to the Hope Diamond?
To test whether
the Hope really is unique,
Jeff post needs to compare it
with other blue diamonds,
but blues are very rare.
Jeff and his colleague
Eloise Gaillou
travel to New York City's
diamond district
to the one man
he knows can help, a dealer...
Alan Bronstein.
We've gotten together
about 90 blue diamonds for him,
which have a variety of shades
and have a variety
of saturations
and grayness modification,
so that is, that's a large
number of blue diamonds
to have in one place to study
at one time.
Using a spectrometer to
measure the wavelengths of light,
they flood the stones
with ultraviolet.
When they turn off the light,
their instrument picks up
the phosphorescence.
Ok, so we have
a really strong peak
in the blue/green portion
of the spectrum,
just the opposite of what we see
in the Hope Diamond.
We were surprised to see that,
in all of the blue diamonds
that we've looked at so far,
and it's approaching
80 blue diamonds,
all of them show
a phosphorescence.
All blue diamonds glow,
but the experiment shows
that each has its own
distinctive signature.
Some red like the Hope,
others blue/green...
and none shines as intensely
or for as long as the Hope.
So why do blue diamonds have
this eerie phosphorescence?
The fact that we only see
this particular kind of
phosphorescence in blue diamonds
strongly suggests
that it is correlated
with the presence of boron.
Boron is an element like carbon,
a basic building block of nature
found, for example, in soap.
But it's extremely rare
deep in the earth
where diamonds are formed.
The Hope Diamond glows
far more intensely
and longer than any
of the smaller diamonds,
so what impact might boron
be having inside it?
To find out, Jeff post
will have to take
a sample from the Hope Diamond.
The only way to do that seems
almost unthinkable.
He will have to drill
into america's crown jewel.
His experiment
would not be possible
if the diamond were still
adorning someone's neck.
But thanks to
a surprising donation,
the Hope became
a specimen for science.
After Evalyn Walsh McLean died,
the next owner was the jeweler
to the stars, Harry Winston.
Many believe Harry Winston will
simply remount the Hope Diamond
and find a new buyer,
but he knows it might now
be a hard sell.
Think about it this way...
he knew of the curse story.
He knew also
that the cost itself,
the price of the stone,
went into the millions.
To find a client willing to buy
a quote, unquote "cursed" stone
for that amount of money
might have been a huge problem.
Instead, Winston
begins to think of an act
of extraordinary philanthropy...
he will donate the Hope Diamond
to the Smithsonian institution.
But when the news
of his intention leaks out,
not everyone is delighted.
A vocal minority is petrified by
what might happen to the nation.
One American writes
to the Smithsonian...
"With our neighbor Russia
able to blow our country
to pieces
in a few hours
of missile bombardment,
it would be insane to tempt fate
by having anything to do
with this ghastly gem."
Actually, people even
bypassed the Smithsonian.
They wrote
to president eisenhower
and they said, "are you crazy?
This Hope dia...
this diamond is cursed."
But the Smithsonian
doesn't flinch.
They accept the diamond.
You would think Winston
would send his priceless diamond
in an armored car.
Instead, what does he do?
What he always did.
He mails it by regular post.
Today, here came
a brown paper wrapped package
sent by registered mail
for $152 postage.
New York diamond merchant...
Winston's
unusual delivery method
ensures news coverage
throughout the country.
A gift to the Smithsonian
worth a million dollars...
the Hope Diamond, the biggest
blue diamond in the world.
The jewel is put
in a specially designed safe
where the public can view it
through bullet-proof glass.
With the Hope Diamond
coming here,
Harry Winston's vision
started to unfold...
that is, to build a great
national gem collection.
As he liked to say,
we don't have a king and queen,
but we should have
our crown jewels.
50 years after Harry
Winston gave Hope to america,
his company has offered
to create
an anniversary party dress
for the diamond...
a new, temporary setting
using modern design techniques
to showcase its brilliance.
Our rule in this studio
is to start with no limitation.
With no constraint of price,
of size, of craziness,
of anything.
What you want to do is
enhance the color and the size
and the life of that stone
without overpowering.
From 25 initial sketches,
the Smithsonian selects
three finalists...
But the final selection
is in the hands
of the Hope Diamond's
true owners.
We really wanted to involve
the American audience,
the American public,
to have them choose the necklace
that would surround
the Hope Diamond.
The fate of the Hope Diamond,
it's all in your hands!
Hope takes on
a new design for a famous jewel.
The public will get to decide
what setting it will have.
Starting today, you can
help pick one of those settings.
As the Hope Diamond
goes on display
for the first time
out of its historic setting,
over 100,000 votes flood in.
And the winner is...
Embracing Hope.
Creating such a complex setting
will take a pound of platinum,
over 300 baguette diamonds,
and months of painstaking work.
But some might wonder:
By changing the setting,
even temporarily,
could they be invoking
the legendary curse?
Over the centuries,
the diamond has acquired
an unsavory reputation
as a producer of bad luck.
Within a year of
its donation to the Smithsonian,
the Hope appeared
to claim another victim...
the mailman James Todd.
He was injured by a truck,
his wife died
and his house burned down.
Over the years, letters
have continued to arrive
at the national gem collection
warning of the curse.
But for Jeff post,
all the curse stories
are fantasy
or simple coincidence.
For 50 years, the Hope Diamond
has brought the Smithsonian
nothing but good luck
and fascinating
scientific puzzles.
For him the real story
is buried far deeper,
in the science of its creation.
In fact, in many ways
the more incredible part
of the Hope Diamond story
is the one that started perhaps
two or three billion years ago
deep in the earth's
upper mantle.
It's 7:30 pm
at the national museum
of natural history.
The last members of the public
leave, and all goes quiet.
Tonight, Jeff post will remove
the Hope Diamond
and subject it
to an audacious experiment.
The goal of doing this work
isn't to try to dispel a curse.
The goal is to learn
about the Hope Diamond
and its history and its origin.
He and his team are
about to do the unthinkable...
drill into the Hope Diamond
to extract atoms
and unravel its DNA.
They're using a time of flight
secondary ion mass spectrometer.
It's an instrument
more often used
to test chemical substances,
for example,
for traces of steroids.
They're about to open a window
into a world more than
a billion years old,
when the diamond was created.
The instrument fires beams
of tiny particles
called gallium ions
onto the surface
of the Hope Diamond.
The ions blast a crater
invisible to the naked eye
from which hundreds
of millions of atoms
are sucked back
into the machine,
where they're sorted by weight
and counted.
It sounds a bit destructive
and in fact it is a little bit
of a destructive process.
Blasting is perhaps
too strong a word,
but it gives you the idea.
It'll be gouging or blasting
a small little tiny crater
into the diamond.
It will sort of drill down
through the surface
into the next several
layers of atoms,
knocking out
some of those atoms,
and we will be making
a very tiny little hole
in the Hope Diamond.
He hopes to finally
reveal exactly what happened
when the Hope Diamond was born.
Two months pass.
Hundreds of millions of atoms
have been extracted
and analyzed.
This photo, taken
under ultraviolet light,
indicates areas where
the samples were taken,
but the holes are far too tiny
to see with the naked eye.
The presence of boron is
just as Jeff post anticipated,
but the headline result
is that there's only
a tiny amount of it,
and the big surprise is that
it's not evenly distributed.
Boron makes
the Hope Diamond blue,
but its uneven distribution
gives a new insight
to that blueness.
The Hope Diamond probably
isn't uniformly blue.
What we're seeing with the eye
is actually a summation
of all of the blue,
different shades of blue
in the diamond,
sort of a mosaic of blues
in a sense,
and that the blue color
varies slightly
with the concentration,
the amounts of boron
that are present.
But the most significant outcome
is to show that it's
the boron atoms...
acting with the carbon
and another unidentified atom
in the diamond...
that are producing
the mysterious red glow.
When an ultraviolet light ray
passes through the diamond,
it strikes a carbon atom
and spins off an electron,
which gets trapped
in the unidentified atom.
At the same time,
a positive charge spins off
from the carbon atom
and gets trapped in the boron.
Attracted by
the positive charge,
the electron jumps
to the boron atom.
It's that collision that causes
the burst of red light.
This process happens
over and over
in the diamond lattice,
and because some boron atoms
are farther away
from the unidentified atoms,
the glow continues
for up to a minute.
Science has explained
the Hope Diamond's
inner secrets,
which leaves only the curse.
Back in 1910, Pierre Cartier
had told Evalyn Walsh McLean
his amazing story...
the explorer who'd stolen
the Hope Diamond
from the eye of a hindu goddess
and been ripped apart
by wild dogs;
the French queen who'd worn it
and lost her head;
the family who'd been ruined.
All struck down
by the legendary curse.
America's library of congress
houses an extensive collection,
which Richard Kurin used
to research the Hope's curse.
The more he found out,
the more holes he discovered
in Cartier's story.
Tavernier wasn't killed
by wild dogs.
He died of old age in Russia.
There was no evidence
that Marie Antoinette
ever even wore the French Blue.
You know, when it
was sold to the mcleans,
the New York times
on the front page said,
"this is an ancient curse."
As I started to go through
the historical records,
I did not find any mention
of any curse of the Hope Diamond
before the 1900s.
"Remarkable jewel a hoodoo."
"Hope Diamond has brought
trouble to all who've owned it."
If the curse was real,
its owners could be expected
to have lived short lives,
but did they?
Kurin went back
through the records
and investigated
all their lifespans.
The average
life expectancy of people
that have owned
the Hope Diamond, direct owners,
is about 72 years old.
That is quite a long lifespan,
considering that we're talking
about people, you know,
like Tavernier
and kings of France
that lived in the 17th
and 18th centuries.
You find that actually people
that have owned the Hope Diamond
lived extraordinarily
long lives,
longer than the average.
There could only be
one conclusion...
the curse was an invention,
the brainchild
of Pierre Cartier,
who fabricated
the tallest of tales
to whet Evalyn Walsh McLean's
appetite for the diamond.
Cartier's brilliant sales pitch
had created for the Hope Diamond
a legendary mystique
that elevated it
into one of the world's
most valuable artifacts.
It has survived great journeys,
dramatic disappearances
and radical re-designs.
And now, it's about
to get another.
Harry Winston is putting
the finishing touches
on the Hope Diamond's
new setting.
In order to create a piece of art
that's wearable,
that actually conforms
to the wearer's neck,
is always a challenge.
And what we are doing
in this case
is we are actually hinging
every single setting.
And in order to create this
fluid, very feminine design,
in platinum, with 300 stones
and 60 carats of diamonds,
it's a tremendous amount of
workmanship that goes into it.
We've actually accomplished
a necklace
that would normally take
about a year to make
within about 8 months.
So for US it was
a bit of a labor of love.
David Schwartz and
his team bring the completed setting
to the natural history museum.
The embracing Hope necklace.
Oh, my gosh. Wow!
That is spectacular!
All we need is a diamond
in the center there.
Schwartz:
Yeah, that's all we need.
It's ready for the Hope.
It does look like it was
made for it, doesn't it?
Exactly.
Now the tricky part.
It's been a hundred years
since the Hope Diamond was put
in a new setting.
One wrong move could damage the
world's most valuable gemstone.
But it's in masterful hands.
Pavel bespalko has been crafting
jewelry for over 30 years.
One of his secrets
is listening to chopin
to maintain his concentration.
Winston has brought
his work bench from New York
to ensure he has
everything he needs.
That's it!
A single screw is all it takes
to hold the set diamond
in its ribbons of platinum.
I find the design
extremely inspiring.
I just personally love it.
You really see there
the two hands
of somebody holding the world,
holding the rarest gem on earth.
And it is a symbol of generosity
when you put your two hands
like that.
To showcase the new setting,
the museum has tapped
a hometown girl:
Estee lauder model hilary rhoda.
I'm actually
from Chevy chase, Maryland,
and that's why it's also
really nice to come back here
and to the Smithsonian
and shoot this amazing diamond
on my neck.
It does feel heavy.
I'm feeling very expensive
right now.
My mom and I were walking
into the museum today
and she's like,
"you know it's cursed, right?"
And I was like, "what? No!"
I looked it up, and you know,
apparently it's just
an urban myth, right?
I'm hoping?
50th anniversary party dress
will be on display for a year
before the diamond returns
to its historical setting.
We focus a lot on
the history of the Hope Diamond.
We're thinking about that
as something that's always
happened a long time ago,
which in a sense it has,
except tonight is
part of history, too.
And the history of
the Hope Diamond continues.
And as long as people come
to see this diamond
or have an interest in it,
whatever happens to it
will become part of that story.
It's fun to in a sense
be a part of this moment
in its history
and realize that it is
something very special.
Her birthstone is the diamond,
and her monogram is h.R.H.,
her royal highness,
which is, I think,
very fitting, very regal.
This stone carries
more than 350 years
of the most incredible history,
and that makes the Hope Diamond
the rarest gem
and the most mythical stone
on earth.