In the chilly Berlin winter of 1863, two talented American palaeontologists got talking at an otherwise unremarkable scientific meeting. The younger of the two was a tall and handsome 23-year-old named Edward Drinker Cope, who wore his thick hair slicked sideways and talked a lot. He had been sent to Europe by his genteel Philadelphian family to put an ocean between him and a young lady they deemed unsuitable.
The man he was talking to was Othniel Charles Marsh. He'd been born to a poor farming family in rural New York, but had the benefit of a very rich uncle to fund his education. At 32 years old, Marsh was reserved and a little pompous. He wore a drooping walrus moustache and his hair was beginning to thin.
Before they met, each man was enjoying the early fruits of promising careers studying fossils, geology and natural history – both were talented, ambitious and had access to family money. After their Berlin meeting, they would go on to name a roll call of the world's most iconic dinosaurs: Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Diplodocus and enormous Pterodactyls among them.
These two men were also about to embroil themselves in one of the bitterest feuds in the history of science. What began amicably in Berlin would descend throughout their lives into all-consuming jealousy, via subterfuge, spying and sabotage. Their warring troupes would brandish weapons at one another over the fossil-beds of the western US, and each man would pen lengthy character assassinations spilling over dozens of thirsty pages in the sensationalist press.
But as 1863 drew to a close in Berlin, neither of them knew anything about all that. They spent a few days together and toured the city before parting, exchanging addresses so they could keep in touch.
Marsh already had two degrees when they first met, and was undertaking further study at the University of Berlin courtesy of his uncle George Peabody, one of the major financiers of the 19th Century. Cope had no degrees, though he was already accruing a slew of scientific papers to his name.
Cope and Marsh had interests in common – in particular, the emerging science of palaeontology. Strange and often very large bones apparently unrelated to living species had been cropping up all over North America for many years, and science was now catching up with them to describe the prehistoric past of the continent, and the world.