Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. For quite some time, there has been an
Speaker 1: ongoing debate as to whether a tomato is a fruit
Speaker 1: or a vegetable. Of course, it has long been established
Speaker 1: as a fruit, but there are still holdouts out there,
Speaker 1: not unlike flat earthers who cling to their antiquated beliefs
Speaker 1: that the tomato is a vegetable solely because it is
Speaker 1: often eaten among other vegetables. But there was a time
Speaker 1: when the debate around tomatoes was much more venomous to
Speaker 1: It was definitely got off to a bad start in history.
Speaker 1: It all began when they were accused by a fourteenth
Speaker 1: century Catholic naturalist of being man breaks in disguise and
Speaker 1: thus condemned by God. Things didn't get any better when
Speaker 1: tomatoes were first brought back from America by Cortes. No
Speaker 1: one dared eat them, because well, no one knew what
Speaker 1: would happen if you did, But then when someone did,
Speaker 1: it didn't go well. People began to get sick from tomatoes,
Speaker 1: sometimes even dying. The tomato was only partially at fault, though,
Speaker 1: you see. The actual culprit was the tableware at the time,
Speaker 1: which was made of pewter, containing a remarkably high concentration
Speaker 1: of lead and a twist that could tie together a
Speaker 1: historical fiction mystery novel. It was the acid of the
Speaker 1: tomatoes that brought the lead out. Thus began the tomatoes
Speaker 1: unfortunate nickname the poison Apple, and it faded from the
Speaker 1: dietary habits of everyone. Some theorized that the poison came
Speaker 1: from the tomato skin, which could coat the stomach and
Speaker 1: cause stomach cancer, while others blamed tomatoes for appendicitis. Whatever
Speaker 1: the case, it simply wasn't worth the risk. That is
Speaker 1: until one Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson he'd had enough of
Speaker 1: the poor reputation of his beloved garden snack. Colonel Johnson
Speaker 1: knew as we do, that tomatoes were not dangerous to humans,
Speaker 1: but he had a very doubtful public around him, frequently
Speaker 1: pointing fingers and calling him mad. For eating these supposedly
Speaker 1: deadly forbidden fruit. Johnson loved tomatoes so much that he
Speaker 1: offered a yearly prize to whoever could grow the largest,
Speaker 1: although at the time they were still only used for
Speaker 1: decorative purposes and nothing more. Finally, Johnson decided to do
Speaker 1: something bigger. He announced that he would eat a tomato,
Speaker 1: which by then had earned another nickname, the wolf peach,
Speaker 1: and he would do it on the steps of the
Speaker 1: courthouse for all to see. That morning, he emerged from
Speaker 1: his mansion to the cheers and jeers of nearly two
Speaker 1: thousand people. Dressed in his usual black suit, he walked
Speaker 1: down the street towards the courthouse, the crowd in tow
Speaker 1: and a fireman's band playing a tune to commemorate the occasion.
Speaker 1: He mounted the steps, tomato in hand, and turned to
Speaker 1: the crowd, delivering his mission for the occasion. To help
Speaker 1: dispel the tall tales, he said, the fantastic fables that
Speaker 1: you have been hearing, and to prove to you that
Speaker 1: it is not poisonous, I am going to eat one
Speaker 1: right now. The crowd cheered and jeered some more, expecting
Speaker 1: to see what would surely be a gruesome death of
Speaker 1: epic proportions as this foolish man ate a fruit not
Speaker 1: only poisonous but also perhaps condemned by God himself, And
Speaker 1: as the tomato passed into the gullet of the colonel,
Speaker 1: the crowd was perhaps a little disappointed that he wasn't
Speaker 1: smitten by a bolt of lightning, or at least left
Speaker 1: convulsive on the ground from stomach pains. No, Johnson didn't
Speaker 1: die on the steps of the courthouse that day. He
Speaker 1: lived on and proved that tomatoes were never poisonous, and
Speaker 1: if they ever were condemned by God, perhaps he'd lightened
Speaker 1: up a bit. Over the years, the actual history of
Speaker 1: this event was passed down orally from postmaster to historian
Speaker 1: before being written down for the first time nearly a
Speaker 1: century later. So while the dramatics of this event may
Speaker 1: well be embellished, the result of the event is not,
Speaker 1: and much like the tomato over the century, this event
Speaker 1: earned itself a nickname the Salem Tomato Trials, making it
Speaker 1: hands down the second most famous trial to ever occur
Speaker 1: in Salem, well, that is, Salem, New Jersey. Language is
Speaker 1: ever changing words enter and leave our lexicon all the time.
Speaker 1: For example, almost nobody channels their inner Teddy Roosevelt and
Speaker 1: uses bully to express approval anymore. On the flip side,
Speaker 1: words like bird a side and tater tots were inducted
Speaker 1: into the Oxford English Dictionary in two thousand twenty one.
Speaker 1: For every rolodex that goes the way of the dinosaur,
Speaker 1: there's a conscious uncoupling that takes its place. But many
Speaker 1: words stand the test of time and we can chart
Speaker 1: their origins back hundreds even thousands of years. And one
Speaker 1: such word happened to come from ancient Greece, and it
Speaker 1: was all thanks to one man. His name was Klistones,
Speaker 1: and he was known as the father of Athenian democracy.
Speaker 1: Clisthenes was a Greek lawmaker who had enough of the
Speaker 1: tyrants in control. With assistance from the Spartans and a
Speaker 1: noble Greek family, he was able to overthrow the person
Speaker 1: in charge and install a democratic system of government instead.
Speaker 1: Suddenly Athenians were not beholden to the whims of a
Speaker 1: few rich and powerful families. They could now vote their
Speaker 1: own best interests instead. The familial tribes of old were
Speaker 1: replaced with new tribes based on where they lived or
Speaker 1: their dems, and it was leave that as many as
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty nine dems existed at one time.
Speaker 1: Along with a democratic system of voting, Clystones also introduced sortition,
Speaker 1: a way of choosing individuals for government roles based on
Speaker 1: criteria other than their hereditary or family relations. He did
Speaker 1: everything in his power to give the people a voice,
Speaker 1: one they had been lacking under their previous rule, and
Speaker 1: nowhere was that more obvious than one other civic practice
Speaker 1: Clystones established in Athens. It was a form of voting,
Speaker 1: but rather than holding an election for a position within
Speaker 1: the community, people instead voted to exile someone, and for
Speaker 1: a period of ten years a concept was a safety mechanism,
Speaker 1: a way to prevent potential tyrants from rising to power
Speaker 1: and destroying democracy. Each year Athenians were asked whether they
Speaker 1: would like to nominate someone to leave. If a majority
Speaker 1: voted yes, then another election would be held two months later,
Speaker 1: in which votes would be cast either against or or
Speaker 1: the exile. But citizens didn't cast their votes on pieces
Speaker 1: of papyrus, Such a precious medium was too expensive for
Speaker 1: something that could be soon discarded. Instead, they used what
Speaker 1: they already had available, pottery. After all, so many of
Speaker 1: their stories were already painted and carved into vases, cups,
Speaker 1: and bowls. It made sense that the broken shards of
Speaker 1: those vessels could be reused in some way. In fact,
Speaker 1: the idea of using broken pieces of clay for writing
Speaker 1: dates back thousands of years to the ancient Egyptians. Much
Speaker 1: of these objects still exist today thanks to Egypt's dry
Speaker 1: desert climates, were able to gain more insight into the
Speaker 1: daily lives of the ancient Greeks and the ancient Egyptians
Speaker 1: because of them. But whereas the Egyptians used the pottery
Speaker 1: shards for everything from medical prescriptions to dream diaries, the
Speaker 1: Athenians primarily used theirs to get rid of unwanted citizens.
Speaker 1: One by one, each voter would tell ascribe the name
Speaker 1: of the person they wanted gone. Since many Athenians were
Speaker 1: illiterates and could not write themselves. The scribe would then
Speaker 1: carve the name into a piece of clay, which was
Speaker 1: then tossed into a large urn with the others. Finally,
Speaker 1: the vote counters tallied up the results by sorting the
Speaker 1: shards into different piles, one for each name. The pile
Speaker 1: with the most pieces indicated which person had to leave
Speaker 1: as long as their name had been etched into at
Speaker 1: least six thousand shards. If the korun wasn't met, then
Speaker 1: the vote didn't count. The whole process of exiling someone
Speaker 1: had been designed by Clysnes around broken fragments of pottery,
Speaker 1: also called ostraca. This is where the term for banishing
Speaker 1: someone from a community, or ostracizing them came from. Sadly,
Speaker 1: the first victim of the practice of someone who probably
Speaker 1: never expected to have it used against them. It was Clistines,
Speaker 1: the man who had introduced it in the first place.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,