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Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is

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Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,

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Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

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Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

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Speaker 1: of Curiosities. You probably already know this, but there are

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Speaker 1: plenty of examples throughout history of questionable medical practices that

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Speaker 1: somehow work their way into being common knowledge. For instance,

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Speaker 1: drilling holes into the skull to alleviate headaches, or selling

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Speaker 1: heroin over the counter, even to children just to treat

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Speaker 1: a cough, or using ketchup for well many symptoms not

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Speaker 1: involving French fries. Let's just say that. So to hear

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Speaker 1: that the Romans had similarly questionable methods of dental hygiene

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Speaker 1: in the heyday of their empire shouldn't be all that surprising.

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Speaker 1: It began right around the year one a d, though

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Speaker 1: the actual point of origin isn't known, and perhaps it's

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Speaker 1: one of those things best left unknown. One of those

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Speaker 1: who was the first to do it questions that we

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Speaker 1: don't really want to know the answer to. But around

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Speaker 1: that time, Romans started figuring out the cleansing qualities of

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Speaker 1: decomposing urine. You see, when urine, human or otherwise by

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Speaker 1: the way, decomposes, it becomes ammonia, which has some pretty

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Speaker 1: intense cleansing qualities. It's an industrial stain remover, after all,

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Speaker 1: and has been used to treat stains of all kinds,

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Speaker 1: from clothing to well teeth. This practice became so commonplace

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Speaker 1: that Roman authors like Catalysts, freely attested to how his

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Speaker 1: teeth retained such whiteness from regular application of both human

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Speaker 1: and animal urine. As they say, if you've got it

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Speaker 1: flaunted right, as long as you don't care exactly how

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Speaker 1: you got it. I guess you would think that such

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Speaker 1: a product would be easy enough to come by in

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Speaker 1: most densely populated places on the planets at the time,

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Speaker 1: and for the most part it was easy enough for one.

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Speaker 1: Throughout Rome, there were public jars where citizens could relieve themselves,

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Speaker 1: and those jars would then be collected until fully decomposed

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Speaker 1: into ammonia, at which point it would be resold to

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Speaker 1: the Roman public as a tool for better dental hygiene. Apparently, though,

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Speaker 1: that wasn't enough urine for the high society of Romans

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Speaker 1: eager to keep their teeth white and shining. During the

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Speaker 1: reign of Emperor Nero, Rome began to import jars of

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Speaker 1: urine from the Portuguese, because nothing says culture like imported

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Speaker 1: jars a p In fact, it was such a popular

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Speaker 1: import that Nero placed attacks on all jars, requiring citizens

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Speaker 1: to chalk up a little extra for Caesar if they

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Speaker 1: wanted to indulge in the cleansing benefits of what they

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Speaker 1: could just produce in jar themselves. While Nero is known

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Speaker 1: for his share of atrocities and his wide regarded as

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Speaker 1: one of the worst Roman emperors of all time, perhaps

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Speaker 1: the strangest addendum to his resume is being the first

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Speaker 1: Roman emperor to put attacks on p It didn't take

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Speaker 1: long for anyone boasting pearly white teeth to bear the

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Speaker 1: insults of the common folk. Thus began the saying you're

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Speaker 1: full of piss, because well, there was only one way

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Speaker 1: to get such white teeth at the time, and it

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Speaker 1: wasn't through laser whitening or bleaching, at least not bleaching

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Speaker 1: as we know it. And let's take a moment to

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Speaker 1: mention that these jars were often watered down with either

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Speaker 1: water or goat's milk, So the density of urine might

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Speaker 1: not have been that high, but that doesn't take the

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Speaker 1: primary cleaning ingredients out of it, and we all know

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Speaker 1: by now what that ingredient was. This wasn't a fad.

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Speaker 1: The Romans gave us all kinds of lasting inventions, the aqueduct,

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Speaker 1: for instance, or the postal service, but being the first

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Speaker 1: to discover the cleansing quality of urine didn't end in

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Speaker 1: the Roman days. Urine was a mainstay in mouthwash for

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Speaker 1: almost twenty more century, only being phased out in the Sevres.

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Speaker 1: But hey, if decomposed urine isn't your thing, there have

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Speaker 1: been other bizarre things used as mouthwash as well. Maybe

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Speaker 1: next time I'll tell you all about the many uses

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Speaker 1: of tortoise blood. As a famous paranormal exterminator once said,

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Speaker 1: call it fate, call it luck, call it karma. I

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Speaker 1: believe everything happens for a reason to some being in

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Speaker 1: the right place at the right time isn't a matter

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Speaker 1: of happenstance. It was meant to be the direction we

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Speaker 1: lead in life. They say, isn't by chance? Someone made

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Speaker 1: it happen, Whether that be our own design or that

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Speaker 1: of a higher power. Whatever your belief, though, you have

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Speaker 1: to admit that some things that occur just can't be explained,

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Speaker 1: and when everything lines up just rights, the impossible often

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Speaker 1: becomes possible. On the evening of April fourteenth of eighteen

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Speaker 1: sixty five, President Abraham Lincoln and his wife arrived at

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Speaker 1: Ford's Theater for a performance of a comedy play our

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Speaker 1: American cousin. Lincoln had an unsettling dream only days before

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Speaker 1: in which the President had been killed by an assassin,

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Speaker 1: and despite his own misgivings about attending the show, he

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Speaker 1: chose to do so anyway. At ten fifteen pm, actor

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Speaker 1: and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth entered the Presidential box

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Speaker 1: and fired a single shot at the back of Lincoln's head.

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Speaker 1: The wound eventually killed him and sent the nation into mourning.

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Speaker 1: Booth escaped after jumping from the box onto the stage.

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Speaker 1: He was apprehended weeks later. Meanwhile, arrangements had to be

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Speaker 1: made for the president's funeral. Lincoln's body lay in states

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Speaker 1: in the White House several days later, where the public

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Speaker 1: could come and visit. A funeral was held on April nineteenth,

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Speaker 1: and crowds gathered from all over to pay their respects,

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Speaker 1: after which throngs of mournful Americans followed the casket to

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Speaker 1: the Capitol. Finally, the late that it was loaded onto

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Speaker 1: a funeral train bound for Oak Ridge Cemetery in Illinois.

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Speaker 1: Lincoln may have been born in Kentucky, but he had

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Speaker 1: always considered Springfield, Illinois his home. However, before the train

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Speaker 1: reached its destination, it had to make several stops hundreds

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Speaker 1: in fact, to allow the grieving public along the way

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Speaker 1: to pay their respects. It passed through Baltimore, Maryland, and Harrisburg,

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Speaker 1: Pennsylvania on April, followed by a stop for a few

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Speaker 1: days in Philadelphia. After that, New York City came next.

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Speaker 1: Lincoln's casket was paraded down Broadway at around two pm

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Speaker 1: on August. Mounted police led the procession, with military generals

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Speaker 1: close behind. Roughly eleven thousand American soldiers marched as well,

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Speaker 1: while various local groups and organizations made up the crowds

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Speaker 1: along the sidewalks. Mason's laborers, parents and children dressed in

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Speaker 1: black clamored to get a view of Mr. Lincoln's coffin

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Speaker 1: as it made its way down the Avenue. Meanwhile, residents

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Speaker 1: of the homes and mansions along Broadway leaned out of

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Speaker 1: their windows to watch the event, including an elderly couple

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Speaker 1: and their grandchildren. A photo taken from a high vantage

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Speaker 1: point beyond the parade managed to capture the occasion, preserving

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Speaker 1: the image of the people marching down the street, as

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Speaker 1: well as the sea of mourners on the sidelines, and

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Speaker 1: in the top left of the photo, peeking out from

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Speaker 1: a second story window of someone's home, the photographer coughts

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Speaker 1: a curious onlooker, one of those rare right place, right

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Speaker 1: time moments I mentioned earlier. He was a small boy

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Speaker 1: of only seven years old, the grandchild of an elderly

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Speaker 1: couple who lived there. He had come with his brother

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Speaker 1: for a visit and to witness the president's hearst go by.

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Speaker 1: The boy was a native New Yorker, born on East

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Speaker 1: twentieth Street in Manhattan to wealthy parents in eighteen fifty four.

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Speaker 1: As that adventurous young man grew older, he joined the U. S. Army,

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Speaker 1: then became a cattle rancher at West before returning to

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Speaker 1: New York to enter the world of politics. He worked

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Speaker 1: his way up through the New York State Assembly, to

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Speaker 1: the Board of Police Commissioners, the governorship, until finally becoming

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Speaker 1: the twenty five President of the United States. Yes, the

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Speaker 1: little boy who watched Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession from a

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Speaker 1: New York City window was none other than Theodore Roosevelt.

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Speaker 1: Like I said, right place, right time, and for one

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Speaker 1: brief moment, two presidents were within feet of each other

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Speaker 1: under the most surreal of circumstances. Coincidence perhaps, but at

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Speaker 1: the very least it was more than a little curious.

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Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet

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Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn

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Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.

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Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership

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Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show

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Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,

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Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the

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Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.

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Speaker 1: Yeah h