Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: We've all lost something at one point. It could have
Speaker 1: been our car keys or the remote to the television.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was an earring or a little bit of
Speaker 1: money left over from party in the night before. Oftentimes,
Speaker 1: the best course of action is to retrace our steps
Speaker 1: and hope that we stumble upon the missing item along
Speaker 1: the way. But every once in a while, something disappears
Speaker 1: completely and it can't be found no matter how hard
Speaker 1: you look. And that is where Saint Fnorius comes in.
Speaker 1: Members of the Greek Orthodox Church who have lost something
Speaker 1: of importance may pray to Saint Fernorius, who will help
Speaker 1: them locate it. Little is known about Funorius, including the
Speaker 1: time in which he lived. His name was discovered in
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred a d by Hagorin soldiers who found the
Speaker 1: ruins of an old church on the island of Rhodes.
Speaker 1: After they had conquered the area, their leader ordered the
Speaker 1: men to rebuild the war torn walls of the city.
Speaker 1: Several church icons or religious artworks were discovered on the floor,
Speaker 1: including an icon of Saint Fernorius. Amazingly, it still looked
Speaker 1: as fresh as the date it was painted, and around
Speaker 1: the icon were twelve illustrated tableaus depicting Fernorius's life. Several
Speaker 1: were violent in tone, including one where he was being
Speaker 1: whipped by soldiers and pelted with stones. But no matter
Speaker 1: how much torture he was put through, it seems that
Speaker 1: Funorius came out victorious, with the last scenes showing him
Speaker 1: standing among the flames, his hands raised in prayer. Sometime later,
Speaker 1: three young deacons from Crete were taken captive by the
Speaker 1: Hagarines and brought to Rhodes. The deacons had gone to
Speaker 1: Cythera to be ordained, but now found themselves sold into slavery.
Speaker 1: They had been separated, with each priest held captive by
Speaker 1: a different master, but they all knew of Funorius. Each
Speaker 1: priest prayed to him day and night to be released.
Speaker 1: In response to those prayers, Fnorius appeared before their captors
Speaker 1: in order that the priest be freed from their homes
Speaker 1: or their masters would be punished. But his wishes were
Speaker 1: ignored and those masters tortured the priests even further, so
Speaker 1: Saint Fnorius did the job himself. He broke the priests
Speaker 1: free from their shackles and told their masters one last
Speaker 1: time to let them go or they would witness the
Speaker 1: power of God. Well. The next day, everyone living in
Speaker 1: the homes where the priests were being held woke up paralyzed,
Speaker 1: blind and in immense pain. With no other recourse. They
Speaker 1: asked the priests what they needed to do to be healed,
Speaker 1: and the priest told them that they would pray for them.
Speaker 1: Saint Fernorius made one last plea to the captors to
Speaker 1: let the priest go or they would never recover. By
Speaker 1: now they had finally seen the light. The masters immediately
Speaker 1: released all three priests and eventually regained their sight and
Speaker 1: their health, and the priests while they went back to
Speaker 1: their home on crete a copy of the icon of
Speaker 1: Saint Fernorius packed with them. Every year following their return,
Speaker 1: they held a feast of Saint Fernorius in his honor.
Speaker 1: Now Fenurius's name means to reveal and today, he is
Speaker 1: preyed to whenever something is lost, be it a wallet,
Speaker 1: a house key, or a set of priests, and to
Speaker 1: help the discovery process along, people would often bake a
Speaker 1: special cake named after the saint, called a fenor apita.
Speaker 1: Some say that the cake is made in honor of
Speaker 1: his mother, who is said to be cruel toward him.
Speaker 1: She will forever be a lost soul that he was
Speaker 1: never able to save. The cake is spiced and not
Speaker 1: made with eggs or dairy, so it's considered vegan or linton.
Speaker 1: Though recipes vary, it's often prepared with olive oil, orange juice, cinnamon,
Speaker 1: and cloves. The number of ingredients is also important. The
Speaker 1: person baking it will usually mix in seven or nine
Speaker 1: components because those numbers are important. To the Greek Orthodox Church,
Speaker 1: it said that one desperate woman promised Saint Fernorius thirteen
Speaker 1: cakes if he would help her find her lost dog.
Speaker 1: When the poach eventually did turn up, the woman baked
Speaker 1: all thirteen cakes just as promised. Another time, a mother
Speaker 1: baked a cake on behalf of each of her four
Speaker 1: children to help them find their future spouses. This belief
Speaker 1: in Fana Repida is real because those who bake it
Speaker 1: swear it works, and who's to say they're wrong At
Speaker 1: the end of the day, though, one lesson is clear.
Speaker 1: Belief is a curious thing, whether you're lost or found.
Speaker 1: One thing that most folks can agree on is that
Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin had a brilliant mind. He was an essential
Speaker 1: figure in the foundation of our country, a driving force
Speaker 1: behind the American Enlightenment, and a leading science of his day.
Speaker 1: He was also well eccentric, might be the best way
Speaker 1: to phrase it. Where to begin the paper on farting
Speaker 1: seems like a good place to start. His essay fart
Speaker 1: Proudly was written in seventeen eighty one, when he was
Speaker 1: ambassador to France. There were also his infamous air baths,
Speaker 1: during which he sat naked in front of open windows
Speaker 1: to ward off sickness. And we've previously heard here about
Speaker 1: the ten bodies in the basement of his London home
Speaker 1: that were discovered until nineteen ninety eight. Oh And he
Speaker 1: made the fur hat popular among the French elite during
Speaker 1: his time there. French women even began donning large wigs
Speaker 1: they called kofure out of Franklin. Oh And Franklin was
Speaker 1: also one of the world's first storm chasers. The Key
Speaker 1: and the Kite might be one of Benjamin Franklin's most
Speaker 1: famous moments. Everyone has heard of it, although we're not
Speaker 1: totally sure how the experiment actually went down. Allegedly, on
Speaker 1: June tenth of seventeen fifty two, Benjamin Franklin took a
Speaker 1: kite out into a storm to see if the metal
Speaker 1: key attached to the string would draw the lightning. One
Speaker 1: lucky strike later and eureka. Of course, historians don't actually
Speaker 1: know the dates, and it's very unlikely lightning actually struck
Speaker 1: the key, because if it had, the Great Benjamin Franklin
Speaker 1: might not have lived to tell the tale. What we
Speaker 1: can assume is that the key picked up a charge
Speaker 1: from the storm, and the shock Franklin got from touching
Speaker 1: it helped confirm that lightning was a form of electricity
Speaker 1: that could be harnessed. What many don't realize, though, is
Speaker 1: that the key and the kites were part of a
Speaker 1: series of tests that Franklin was conducting. The electrical question
Speaker 1: had been floating around in his mind since at least
Speaker 1: seventeen forty five, and he was most concerned with what
Speaker 1: the power of electricity could be used for everything we
Speaker 1: take for granted today, from light to heat and more
Speaker 1: lay ahead of him, and the possibilities were just too tempting.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if any of our listeners work or
Speaker 1: have worked in the emergency room, but I'm sure they
Speaker 1: could confirm for me that during the holidays the er
Speaker 1: is extra crowded. With the Fourth of July it's usually
Speaker 1: fireworks mishaps. For Christmas, it's problems with d decorations are
Speaker 1: slipping on ice. And with Thanksgiving, of course, it's cooking
Speaker 1: the turkey. Everyone seems to have a different opinion of
Speaker 1: the best way to do it. Some like to barbecue it,
Speaker 1: some grillet, some roasted in the oven. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: we've all seen the videos of folks trying to fry
Speaker 1: it in their driveways with mixed success. And did you
Speaker 1: know that Benjamin Franklin was extremely fond of turkeys. He
Speaker 1: firmly believed that they should be America's national bird and
Speaker 1: even got into a fight with John Adams and Thomas
Speaker 1: Jefferson over the subject. Adams was all for the eagle
Speaker 1: and Jefferson was for the dove. I'm sure you can
Speaker 1: all guess who won that round, And here's the crazy part.
Speaker 1: Franklin believed that his beloved electricity was in fact the
Speaker 1: best way to cook a turkey. In a seventeen forty
Speaker 1: nine letter to his friend Peter Collinson in London, Franklin
Speaker 1: explained that he was going to kill and cook a
Speaker 1: turkey for their dinner solely using electricity because it would
Speaker 1: make the meat uncommonly tender. Franklin used two light in
Speaker 1: jars for this experiment. These devices static electricity between two
Speaker 1: electrodes on the inside and outside of the glass jar,
Speaker 1: and Franklin was very confident in his hypothesis. But when
Speaker 1: he touched the jars to the turkey to start cooking it,
Speaker 1: something else happened. Instead. Franklin got a jolt from the experiment,
Speaker 1: a strong one if these spectators are to be believed.
Speaker 1: It was bad enough that he shook violently and got
Speaker 1: knocked out. When his friends did manage to revive him,
Speaker 1: he didn't remember what had happened. He was sore for
Speaker 1: days and experienced intermittent numbness, but luckily none of the
Speaker 1: after effects were permanent. Based on another letter written to
Speaker 1: a friend, Franklin largely seems embarrassed about his mishap. When
Speaker 1: he wrote to his brother, he gave permission for him
Speaker 1: to share the story with a fellow scientist, but begged
Speaker 1: them both to keep quiet about it. Franklin never tried
Speaker 1: to repeat his experiment again, and whenever he made note
Speaker 1: of his calamitous dinner party, the moral of the story
Speaker 1: always boiled down to another time honor nugget of wisdom.
Speaker 1: Don't try this at home. I hope you've enjoyed today's
Speaker 1: guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by
Speaker 1: visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by
Speaker 1: me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I
Speaker 1: make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
Speaker 1: about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until
Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.