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: Growing up, everyone got bored in school from time to time.
Speaker 1: One of the things that can make for an especially
Speaker 1: uninteresting class is learning seemingly useless information. When in life
Speaker 1: will we ever use long division, or understand tectonic plate subduction,
Speaker 1: or need to recall all fifty state capitals. Well, there
Speaker 1: was one young girl in two thousand and four who
Speaker 1: paid attention to seemingly useless information in her school, and
Speaker 1: it ended up saving dozens of lives. Tilly Smith's parents
Speaker 1: saved all they could to take her and her sister
Speaker 1: away on a Crispmas holiday to Thailand. They thought that
Speaker 1: it would be a nice break from the cold winter
Speaker 1: in England and they had never been able to take
Speaker 1: the girls on a holiday before. Little did they know
Speaker 1: they picked an extremely fateful time to go to Southeast Asia.
Speaker 1: The family enjoyed their time in Thailand. At first, the
Speaker 1: jungle was beautiful, the hotels were very accommodating, and the
Speaker 1: weather was warm. That was until the morning of December
Speaker 1: twenty sixth, when they were walking along the beach near
Speaker 1: their hotel. The sky was gray and the water seemed strange.
Speaker 1: Tilly looked around and was surprised how far the water
Speaker 1: had receded. The waves weren't gently coming and going as usual,
Speaker 1: but had instead retreated all the way back to the horizon.
Speaker 1: There were swimmers and whole boats left in the sand,
Speaker 1: wondering where the water had gone. It confused everyone around Tilly,
Speaker 1: but the phenomenon intrigued her. It seemed familiar somehow, and
Speaker 1: that's when she remembered back to just a few weeks earlier,
Speaker 1: when she was bored in class. Her science teacher had
Speaker 1: been talking about something called a tsunami and showed a
Speaker 1: video of one in Hawaii, where beforehand all the water
Speaker 1: was sucked away from the beach. Tilly's heart started to pound,
Speaker 1: and she knew what she needed to do. She told
Speaker 1: her parents that this was a sign of a tsunami
Speaker 1: and they needed to get off the beach. Her parents
Speaker 1: had never heard the word before they barely knew what
Speaker 1: she was saying. She kept screaming at them that they
Speaker 1: had to go back. Her younger sisters started to cry,
Speaker 1: but her parents were just annoyed. Her father took her
Speaker 1: sister back to the hotel to try and calm her down,
Speaker 1: but her mother insisted on continuing their walk. She thought
Speaker 1: Tilly was just acting out. It was agonizing. Tilly wanted
Speaker 1: to save herself, but she didn't want to leave her
Speaker 1: mom behind. Ultimately, she felt she had no choice. If
Speaker 1: her mom wouldn't listen, she would have to leave her.
Speaker 1: She ran back to the hotel, where she found her
Speaker 1: father and her sister in the lobby. They were talking
Speaker 1: with a security guard who happened to be Japanese, and
Speaker 1: when Tilly's father repeated the word that she had used, tsunami,
Speaker 1: he knew exactly what it meant. He ran to the
Speaker 1: beach and saw the water receding. By then, the giant
Speaker 1: wave could already be seen on the edge of the horizon.
Speaker 1: Hotel staff were quickly to evacuate the entire beach, including
Speaker 1: Tilly's mom. The wave was hot on their heels and
Speaker 1: it crashed down onto the beach just as they made
Speaker 1: it to the lobby, They screamed and ran farther inside
Speaker 1: as the wave blew through the doors and windows and
Speaker 1: flooded the building. It was terrifying, but the walls were
Speaker 1: enough to protect them from the worst of it. They
Speaker 1: had survived. In the hours that followed, they learned that
Speaker 1: this had been just one of many deadly waves that
Speaker 1: had emanated from an underwater earthquake off the coast of Indonesia.
Speaker 1: Two hundred and thirty thousand people died throughout Southeast Asia,
Speaker 1: locals and tourists alike. Tilly and her family had to
Speaker 1: witness as hotel staff and fellow tourists cope with the
Speaker 1: loss of loved ones Over the next few days. It
Speaker 1: wasn't uncommon to see people sobbing on the plane ride
Speaker 1: back home. Today, the word tsunami is one that many
Speaker 1: people know in part because of this disaster, which was
Speaker 1: one of the deadliest in modern history. Curiously, it's believed
Speaker 1: that about one hundred more people would have died that
Speaker 1: day if Tilly hadn't remembered a seemingly useless bit of
Speaker 1: trivia that she learned in school and worn the security guard.
Speaker 1: It's a reminder that no knowledge is useless, okay, except
Speaker 1: maybe for long division. All Gustav ever wanted was to
Speaker 1: work in the family business, but his family wanted no
Speaker 1: business with him. It hadn't started out that way. When
Speaker 1: Gustav was born in eighteen thirty two near Dijon, France.
Speaker 1: His tight knit family was essential to raising him. His
Speaker 1: parents spent nearly all their time at their charcoal business,
Speaker 1: leaving young Gustav to be raised by his grandmother. As
Speaker 1: he grew older, his uncle, Jean Baptiste, took a special
Speaker 1: interest in his education. Jean Baptiste had a business distilling
Speaker 1: vinegar and owned a chemical plant in Dijon. While Gustav
Speaker 1: was an okay student, he gladly spent hours listening to
Speaker 1: his uncle talk about chemistry, mining, theology, and philosophy. His
Speaker 1: uncle's teaching set Gustave on the path to school, where
Speaker 1: he studied chemistry at one of France's most prestigious universities,
Speaker 1: and it was during this time that something drew Gustav
Speaker 1: to engineering as well as chemistry. It's possible that it
Speaker 1: was the eighteen fifty five World's Fair in Paris, which
Speaker 1: his mother bought him a ticket to, wandering the chan salize,
Speaker 1: and gazing up at the magnificent structures newly built for
Speaker 1: the fair, young Gustav found himself inspired. This shift in
Speaker 1: interest proved to be lucky for him, because when Gustav
Speaker 1: returned home later that year after school, things had irrevocably
Speaker 1: changed his whole life. Gustav had had a plan. He
Speaker 1: would get an education, then go to work for his
Speaker 1: beloved uncle, distilling vinegar and working with chemicals. But this
Speaker 1: wasn't to be. We don't entirely know what happened, but
Speaker 1: somehow the family began to feud and Gustav's uncle refused
Speaker 1: to take him on as an assistant. With his well
Speaker 1: laid plans in complete disarray, Gustav had to figure out
Speaker 1: what he was going to do with the rest of
Speaker 1: his life. He started assisting a brother in law who
Speaker 1: ran a foundry, and then worked as a secretary to
Speaker 1: a railroad engineer, and when that fell through, a stroke
Speaker 1: of good luck finally befell him. The railroad engineer got
Speaker 1: Gustav a job designing a bridge for the railway. For
Speaker 1: the first time, Gustav was designing and engineering something real,
Speaker 1: an elegant bridge made of iron, and he found that
Speaker 1: Not only did it suit him, but he was brilliant
Speaker 1: at it. He had a special talent for creating graceful
Speaker 1: yet sturdy iron structures that revolutionized railway travel in France.
Speaker 1: His bridges weren't just functional, they were breathtakingly beautiful, proving
Speaker 1: that engineering could be both practical and artistic. This talent
Speaker 1: didn't go unnoticed, and soon enough his work was in
Speaker 1: demand far beyond France. His innovative designs reached Spain, Portugal,
Speaker 1: and even South America. Gustav spent the next few decades
Speaker 1: leaving his mark on the architectural world. He built railway
Speaker 1: stations in Hungary and churches in Peru, Fulfilling his childhood dreams.
Speaker 1: He designed several pavilions for the Paris World's Fairs in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty seven and eighteen seventy eight, and in eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty one he was even asked for help by a
Speaker 1: sculptor creating a gift from Paris to the United States,
Speaker 1: and so Gustav created the solid internal structure for the
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty foot tall Statue of Liberty. But
Speaker 1: Gustav's most famous work had not yet been conceived. That
Speaker 1: would come in eighteen eighty nine, at the grandest Paris
Speaker 1: World's Fair ever. For the fair, a public competition was
Speaker 1: announced for the exposition's centerpiece. Gustav and two other engineers
Speaker 1: had been working on an idea for a colossal metal
Speaker 1: tower one thousand feet tall, meant to evoke strength and grace.
Speaker 1: They entered the competition and won. They had convinced the judges.
Speaker 1: Now to convince the rest of France. There were critics
Speaker 1: who simply believed the tower could not be built. They
Speaker 1: claimed the design was too shoddy and the materials wouldn't
Speaker 1: hold up. Others simply said that it would be an eyesore.
Speaker 1: A tall, modern metal tower against the beautiful neoclassical architecture
Speaker 1: of Paris. It was unthinkable. One person even called it
Speaker 1: a giant, ugly street lamp. Undeterred, Gustav set to work.
Speaker 1: Using more than eighteen thousand iron parts and over two
Speaker 1: point five million rivets, his team erected a tower unlike
Speaker 1: anything the world had ever seen. It stood as the
Speaker 1: tallest man made structure in the world and held that
Speaker 1: record for over forty years. At first, many Parisians hated it. Writers, artists,
Speaker 1: and intellectuals signed petitions calling it a monstrosity, but as
Speaker 1: the years passed by, the tower became not just an
Speaker 1: accepted but the city's most beloved landmark. Today, millions of
Speaker 1: visitors flocked to it every year, proving that great design
Speaker 1: often takes time to be appreciated. And over one hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty five years after his masterpiece first grace the
Speaker 1: city skyline, Gustav's name is still one of the most
Speaker 1: recognized in Paris when it came to making Marvel's Alexandra.
Speaker 1: Gustav Eifel is one engineer who towered above the rest.
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: Worldolore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.