WEBVTT - Planting the Future 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:07.440 Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:14.440 iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:18.440 the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:22.119 of these amazing tales are right there on display, just 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:28.880 waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:39.920 She grew up in an African paradise. Born in nineteen 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:44.240 forty in Kenya, Wangari Mattai was surrounded by trees, plains, 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:47.279 and rivers. She could see all kinds of exotic animals 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:51.520 rights in her own backyard. By the time she reached adulthood, 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:55.360 new programs in the United States and Kenya encouraged Kenyan 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:58.800 women to receive the education they had previously been denied. 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:02.080 Wangari took advancevantage of this. She had grown up seeing 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:05.039 how women in Kenya were often treated. They were told 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:08.280 to submit to their husbands and be easy to control, 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:12.120 to not develop any skills outside of homemaking, and that 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:16.040 wasn't the life that Wangari wanted. She received an undergraduate 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:19.959 degree in biology at a university in Atchison, Kansas, of 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:23.520 all places, and then a master's degree in biological sciences 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:26.600 at a university in Pittsburgh. She then returned home to 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:30.080 Kenya and attended the University of Nairobi, where in nineteen 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:33.080 seventy one, she became the first woman in all of 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:37.920 East Africa to earn a doctorate a PhD in veterinary anatomy. 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:42.200 Her education was clearly an adventure unto itself, but her 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:45.520 story had only just begun, because as she worked at 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:48.800 the university, more and more women from local villages came 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:52.000 to ask for her help. Their water sources were drying up, 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:54.800 their trees were dying, and they were having to walk 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:59.400 farther and farther for food, water, and firewood. Wangari was 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:01.880 shocked to hear that the paradise she had grown up 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:05.520 in was falling apart. She set out to investigate and 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:09.440 found a clear cause of this problem. Large commercial farms 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:13.880 and tea plantations were diverting water for themselves and driving 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:18.760 the surrounding villages into desolation and poverty. These enterprises were 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.239 owned by the wealthy of Kenya and sometimes even by 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:27.960 foreign investors. Putting her degrees into incredible use, Wangari devised 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:30.880 a plan to plant hundreds of trees in the country, 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:34.240 not only would they provide the villages with food and firewood, 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:38.320 Their roots would help the rivers to retain more water. Eventually, 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:41.680 this project, founded in nineteen seventy seven, came to be 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:44.919 known as the Green Belt movement. The project wasn't just 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:47.920 good for the environment, though it also provided women with 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:53.519 employment and educational opportunities. Kenya was backsliding into anti women 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:56.880 policies at the time, once again denying them greater roles 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:01.520 in society. Planting trees helped to restore several villages, and 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.520 Whngari felt that Kenya was beginning to turn toward a 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:08.280 sustainable future, But by nineteen eighty nine, it was becoming 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:12.600 increasingly clear that the country's president, Daniel arat moy was 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:15.960 a corrupt dictator, more interested in selling off the country's 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:19.959 resources than helping its people. President Moi wanted to help 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:23.040 a British millionaire build an office park right in the 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:26.000 middle of Uhuru Park, a massive green space in the 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:30.400 center of Nairobi. Wungari couldn't stomach the idea of losing 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:33.320 so many trees in what was already an urban area. 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:37.840 She mobilized an international pressure campaign, bringing attention to the 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:41.240 issue and raising money to sue the government. The courts 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:44.200 sided with Wungari and the plan to build the office 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:47.560 park was blocked. But this is when President Moy decided 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:50.240 to show his true colors. He had Wangari and her 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:53.880 followers arrested and charged with treason. They were set to 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:56.680 be executed, but were saved at the last minute by 0:03:56.760 --> 0:04:00.600 humanitarian pressure from the United States. It might have been 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:03.280 surprising to the rest of the world, but Wangari had 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:05.680 seen her whole life how strong women were dealt with 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:09.320 in Kenya. She wasn't afraid, and she was determined to 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:12.880 keep fighting moist government. She continued to grow the green 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:16.680 Belt movement until it spread to thirty other countries, planting 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:20.919 literally millions of trees and providing employment and community for 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:25.119 many disenfranchised people. She spoke out at every opportunity about 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:29.360 corruption in Africa and how Western corporations were continuing to 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:32.960 create inequality there. By two thousand and two, the movement 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:36.360 had thrown its weight behind a candidate name m Y Kibaki, 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:40.600 a challenger to Moy's presidency. Kibaki won the election and 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:45.200 made Wanghari his environmental Minister. She had spent years doing 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:48.000 everything she could to give back to the country that 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.440 had provided her with such an idyllic childhood, not only 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:54.680 that she had transformed it into a more sustainable place 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:57.039 and a place where women could have more of a 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:00.280 chance at equality. Wangari had not done any any of 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:02.680 this for the accolades, which made it all the more 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:05.440 surprising to her when in two thousand and four she 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:08.400 became the first African woman to be awarded a Nobel 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:12.320 Peace Prize. This sent a clear message to Western corporations 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:15.560 that their plunder of Africa wasn't just bad for the environment, 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:19.839 it was bad for people. It was truly inhumane. It 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:22.839 might seem curious to some that the environment could be 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:26.640 so closely linked to justice, but after all, people can't 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.800 live without land and resources to provide for them, and 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:34.000 it takes brave, tireless individuals like Wangari to remind us 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:51.520 of that sacred connection between humanity and the earth. Elmer 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:54.159 was born in Maine in eighteen eighty, but by the 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:56.560 age of twenty he was headed west to start a 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:01.039 new life after his mother and grandfather died through the Midwest, 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.040 falling into a life of crime and joining a band 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:07.560 of outlaws. He was the explosives guy, but he never 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.680 quite got the hang of the job. For example, while 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.520 trying to crack a safe during a train robbery, Elmer 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:16.880 accidentally used too much dynamite and melted all the silver 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:19.720 coins he was trying to steal. A few months later, 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:22.080 during a bank heist, he managed to blow up the 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:26.600 entire bank except for the safe, which remained unopened. Like 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.080 I said, he was not the best at what he did. 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:32.880 One other failure took place in October of nineteen eleven. 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:36.440 That's when Elmer's crew tried to hijack a train carrying 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:39.880 four hundred thousand dollars as it passed through Oklahoma. It 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:41.599 was supposed to be one of the biggest heists in 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:45.320 US history, but when Elmer and his accomplices climbed on board, 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:48.560 they realized they had stopped the wrong train. The safe 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:51.480 was completely empty, and the would be bandits made off 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.680 with just forty six dollars and a jug of whiskey. 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:57.359 It would help the story if at this point you 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:00.480 just closed your eyes, gently, shook your head, and muttered 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:04.000 with a sigh, oh Elmer. The very next morning, law 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:06.640 enforcement caught up with Elmer, who was hiding in a 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:10.040 barn in Oklahoma. There was an hour long standoff that 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:12.680 involved a lot of shooting, but it ended when Elmer 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:15.520 was shot in the chest. His body was taken to 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:18.280 a local funeral home and EMBALMD. I mean, that was 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:20.960 their job, right and they did it well. But because 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:25.000 Elmer had no family, his body went unclaimed, not for days, 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:28.160 not for weeks, but for years. And that was when 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.600 the second act of his story began. At some point 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:35.559 two carnival promoters purchased Elmer's corpse from the funeral home 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:38.640 and propped him up as an exhibit in their traveling show, 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:42.400 promoting him as the outlaw who would never be captured. 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:45.840 And over the fifty years that followed, his body changed 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:49.280 hands over and over again, making the rounds through more 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:53.280 than a few traveling sideshows. And then in nineteen sixty 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:56.360 eight he was sold to the Hollywood wax Museum, But 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.360 when the museum closed for good later that same year, 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:03.120 Elmer's corpse got jumbled up among all the wax mannequins. 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:05.960 And that's a lot, isn't it. Few of us will 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:08.360 take such a journey in life, and Elmer did it 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:10.440 all while stiff as a board. He might not have 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:13.120 been good as an outlaw, but Elmer sure knew how 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:16.520 to get around. In the nineteen seventies, a camera crew 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:19.880 was setting up in an abandoned theme park in Long Beach, California, 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:22.640 called the House of Horrors. They were getting ready to 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:24.960 film an episode of a TV show called The Six 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:28.360 Million Dollar Man. Inside one of the creepy old rides, 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:32.920 which was decorated with skeletons and wax mannekins, the director 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:35.840 looked through the camera's viewfinder and told one of the 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:38.440 crew members to move a glow in the dark mannekin 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:40.520 that was hanging from a noose in the corner of 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:43.400 the frame. The crew member grabbed the hanged man by 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:45.720 the arm, and when he gave it a tug, the 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:49.760 arm snapped off. As the director and the cameraman laughed 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:52.520 about it, the crew member took a closer look and 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:54.959 in the center of the broken arm was a brittle, 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:58.600 white human bone. This was no mannequin. It was an 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:03.600 actual mummified corpse. The film crew stopped laughing and immediately 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.480 called the police. When the coroner's office took the mummy in, 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:09.199 they found a few bizarre hints to the man's identity. 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:11.679 His body was riddled with bullets that were more than 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:15.240 seventy years old. In his pockets, they found ticket stubs 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:18.240 to a wax museum, and in his mouth was a 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:22.439 corroded penny dated nineteen twenty four. It took a little 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:24.880 bit of detective work, but they eventually put a name 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:27.640 to the mummy. He was a wild West outlaw named 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:32.000 Elmer McCurdy. In April of nineteen seventy seven, Elmer was 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:35.920 finally buried in a cemetery in Oklahoma. Two feets of 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:39.160 concrete were poured over his grave to ensure that after 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:43.080 all the years of exploitation, Elmer would finally be able 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:50.080 to rest in one piece. I hope you enjoyed today's 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:53.520 guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This show was 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:57.760 created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:00.280 researched and written by the Grim and Mild team, and 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:03.400 produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.720 the people who make it over at Grimandmild dot com 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:10.040 slash Curiosities. You'll also find a link to the official 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:14.200 Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available in bookstores and online, 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:17.240 as well as ebook and audiobook and if you're looking 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:20.480 for an ad free option, consider joining our Patreon. It's 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:23.400 all the same stories, but without the interruption for a 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.360 small monthly fee. Learn more and sign up over at 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:32.360 patreon dot com. Slash Grimandmild, and until next time, stay curious.