Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grim 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: Destruction has a way of leaving a trail through history,
Speaker 1: not just in the stories we continue to tell, but
Speaker 1: also in the physical evidence we can uncover if we
Speaker 1: dig deep enough. For example, deep deep below the streets
Speaker 1: of modern London, there's something called the Buddhica Destruction Layer.
Speaker 1: This small layer of red in the earth is a
Speaker 1: physical reminder of Queen Boudica's spectacularly deadly revolt against the
Speaker 1: wrong An Empire. The city as old as London have
Speaker 1: plenty of layers. They're usually all that remains of the
Speaker 1: land's extensive past, from old Roman roads to long lost
Speaker 1: defeated kings buried under parking lots. They've slowly been built
Speaker 1: up and become the London we know today. Unfortunately, many
Speaker 1: of those layers, most in fact, were created by fire.
Speaker 1: Fires were a common part of life, especially in a
Speaker 1: world before hydrants and organized fire departments. Instead, residents had
Speaker 1: to organize rapidly to take water from the nearest source,
Speaker 1: usually a well or a river, and form a bucket
Speaker 1: brigade to try and put the blaze out as quickly
Speaker 1: as possible. Sometimes they even succeeded before too much damage
Speaker 1: was done. London, like most old cities, was no stranger
Speaker 1: to fires. Budica and her revenge was just one of
Speaker 1: the first recorded examples. In the year sixty CE, she
Speaker 1: and other tribe leaders banded together and burned cities like
Speaker 1: Londinium to the ground, creating her destruction layer of red,
Speaker 1: brown oxidized ash. London has been built and rebuilt several
Speaker 1: times over the centuries, often flourishing in between those destructive fires.
Speaker 1: But not even a century after Boudica's revenge, Londinium was
Speaker 1: destroyed again. No one knows what caused the Hadriatic fire,
Speaker 1: or really even when it happened. Experts estimate sometime after
Speaker 1: Emperor Hadrian's visit in the early one twenties. London managed
Speaker 1: to stay intact for a few more centuries, although admittedly
Speaker 1: Saint Paul's Cathedral seems to have had terrible luck, burning
Speaker 1: down nine times before the next fire. In eleven thirty five,
Speaker 1: the Pentecost fire broke out near London Bridge, reportedly in
Speaker 1: the Sheriff's home, and then spread out from there. One
Speaker 1: chronicler said Saint Paul's burned to the ground again, but
Speaker 1: another disagrees. Given the building's history, I wouldn't be shocked
Speaker 1: if it had. Though. The Great Pentecost Fire destroyed London Bridge,
Speaker 1: made of wood, of course, as well as the homes,
Speaker 1: ships and other properties within two miles of the Thames.
Speaker 1: Despite the devastation of the blaze, though this wasn't London's
Speaker 1: deadly fire. That dubious honor happened years down the line.
Speaker 1: Like so many fires, the causes unknown. We can speculate
Speaker 1: about the unattended ovens, dropped pipes, or careless trash fires
Speaker 1: until the cows come home, but no one knows how
Speaker 1: this great blaze began. Some people, though, suspect the weather.
Speaker 1: You see, it was July tenth, and England, like many
Speaker 1: other places in the North Atlantic, was going through a
Speaker 1: bit of a warm spell. The roller coaster of climate
Speaker 1: change means that we might be able to imagine what
Speaker 1: it was like a hot day in July. Maybe it
Speaker 1: was sunny and bright or rainy and muggie, although given
Speaker 1: what happened next, I'm inclined to think it was very,
Speaker 1: very dry. Someone would have taken up the call to
Speaker 1: warn the neighbors that a fire had broken out from there.
Speaker 1: The news would have spread like well fire pun intended
Speaker 1: people would have scrambled for buckets, basins and washtubs to
Speaker 1: fill them and stand in line while the others evacuated children, animals,
Speaker 1: and valuables. The fire started south of the River Thames
Speaker 1: in Suffolk, so maybe they used river water, but they
Speaker 1: probably used whatever they could get their hands on. Still,
Speaker 1: it was no use. Between July tenth and July twelfth,
Speaker 1: they fought and fled from the fire as it burned
Speaker 1: through Suffolx Cathedral known as Our Lady of the Cannons
Speaker 1: or Saint mary Ovary, then most of Borough High Streets,
Speaker 1: a major street that connected the south bank of the
Speaker 1: Thames to London, and then it spread to London Bridge.
Speaker 1: Now the wind had picked up, carrying blazing cinders across
Speaker 1: the river to the Hugh guessed it. Wooden houses and
Speaker 1: their straw roofs near the northern end of the Bridge.
Speaker 1: From there, the fire jumped to the city of London itself.
Speaker 1: As people fled the inferno from Suffolk, they came crashing
Speaker 1: into people running from the fire that had broken out
Speaker 1: on the northern side. They were trapped in the middle
Speaker 1: of two terrible fires, and the wooden shops and houses
Speaker 1: on the bridge became ticking time bombs. It was only
Speaker 1: a matter of time before those went up as well.
Speaker 1: Some people jumped into the river trying to save themselves,
Speaker 1: but either drowned or were crushed by boats trying to
Speaker 1: rescue those who were stranded. Some of the rescuers themselves
Speaker 1: were pulled in and crushed desperate people trying to haul
Speaker 1: themselves on board. It was a terrible sight. The idea
Speaker 1: of putting wooden buildings on London Bridge had been the
Speaker 1: idea of King John of Magna Carta and Robin Hood fame,
Speaker 1: although at this point in time the bridge itself was
Speaker 1: built of stone. Many of the survivors must have been
Speaker 1: wondering if they should have listened to the mayor when
Speaker 1: he strongly recommended using stone over wood as a building material.
Speaker 1: As you can tell by now, and the mention of
Speaker 1: King John of the Magna Carta. This fire was not
Speaker 1: the Great Fire of sixteen sixty six that everyone talks
Speaker 1: about today. All told, an initial estimate put the death
Speaker 1: toll for the Great Fire of twelve twelve at three
Speaker 1: thousand people. Many historians disagree, as the population of London
Speaker 1: was just fifty thousand people at the time, and that
Speaker 1: number of dead would have been devastating. The city, though
Speaker 1: was soon rebuilt. As for London Bridge, it may not
Speaker 1: have fallen down this time, but it's luck would eventually
Speaker 1: run out. After all, how could we sing the song
Speaker 1: if it didn't. Going to the eye doctor isn't the
Speaker 1: most fun experience, although it sure beats sitting in a
Speaker 1: dentist chair. At some point during your exam, the optometrist
Speaker 1: might squeeze a few drops of liquid into your eyes
Speaker 1: in order to dilate them. This allows the doctor to
Speaker 1: see your optic nerve and diagnose potential underlying conditions, such
Speaker 1: as cataracts or macular degeneration. Today's eye drops may be uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: but they're a lot better than the ones made hundreds
Speaker 1: of years ago, because if you go back far enough,
Speaker 1: you might find that the people were putting very similar
Speaker 1: drops into their eyes to look more attractive, but at
Speaker 1: great cost. They were derived from a plant called belladonna
Speaker 1: or literally translated beautiful woman. Its full scientific name as
Speaker 1: Atropa belladonna or atropine, but most people know it by
Speaker 1: its more common money her deadly nightshade. The genus Atropa
Speaker 1: comes from Greek mythology. It was named for one of
Speaker 1: the three fates, Atropos, who would put the thread of
Speaker 1: life that had been measured and drawn by her other
Speaker 1: two sisters. And there was a reason for this name,
Speaker 1: given to the plant by Swedish botanist Carlinaeus in the
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds, because those who consumed it would find their
Speaker 1: own threads cut short. Records of its use go back
Speaker 1: as far as the fourth century BC, although Cleopatra was
Speaker 1: known to drop extracts of other night shades into her
Speaker 1: eyes in order to dilate her pupils. But why it's
Speaker 1: not like optometrist was a profession in ancient Egypt because
Speaker 1: belladonna extract helped make women more beautiful in their minds,
Speaker 1: at least that's how it was marketed. History is riddled
Speaker 1: with instances of poisons being used in cosmetics. Ancient Egyptians
Speaker 1: and Greeks darkened their eyelashes with antimony, a toxic chemical
Speaker 1: element full of sulfur, lead, copper, and silver. Thallium acetate
Speaker 1: was used in the late nineteenth century as a cure
Speaker 1: for scalp ringworm, but it didn't actually kill the ringworm.
Speaker 1: It just caused the user to lose their hair so
Speaker 1: the ring worm would be easier to treat. Afterward, it
Speaker 1: was marketed as a body hair removal cream, which poisoned
Speaker 1: women who applied it to their skin, and of course,
Speaker 1: arsenic was incorporated into everything from makeup to edible wafers
Speaker 1: as recently as the eighteen nineties. Belladonna drops did back
Speaker 1: then what they do now. They dilate pupils. The resulting
Speaker 1: effect is a glassy look in the woman's eye, making
Speaker 1: them appear lustrous and hopefully desirable. They were quite popular
Speaker 1: in the Renaissance era Italy, as a woman's eyes were
Speaker 1: believed to be the most beautiful part of her body.
Speaker 1: In fact, the sixteenth century painting Woman with a Mirror
Speaker 1: by the artist Titian was believed to depict a woman
Speaker 1: with big, dark eyes dilated by belladonna, though in order
Speaker 1: to achieve such an effect, the plant extract used did
Speaker 1: do something harsh to the eyes. For one, they paralyzed
Speaker 1: the nerve endings, which worked well for pain relief and
Speaker 1: stopping bad coughs in asthmetics, But if someone dropped too
Speaker 1: much into their eyes or worse, ingested a significant amount
Speaker 1: of it, other symptoms would start to appear. Dry mouth,
Speaker 1: an increase in body temperature, excitement, and an inability to
Speaker 1: swallow were just some of the side effects that doctors
Speaker 1: saw as a result of atropine poisoning. Long term use
Speaker 1: of belladonna drops had also been known to cause blindness.
Speaker 1: Poisoners have seen belladonna or Deadly nightshade as a tool
Speaker 1: in their arsenal as well. In nineteen ninety four, an
Speaker 1: Edinburgh biologist named Paul Agater was convicted of attempted murder
Speaker 1: after dosing his wife's tonic water along with a dozen
Speaker 1: other bottles in a local supermarket with the toxic chemical.
Speaker 1: The good news is that today optometrists use an alternative
Speaker 1: to belladonna when dilating their patient's pupils, especially where children
Speaker 1: are concerned, but the plant is still incorporated into a
Speaker 1: variety of medicinal products, including eyedrops. Just a much more
Speaker 1: reasonable level than before, because a doctor doesn't care if
Speaker 1: your eyes are sultry or seductive. They just want to
Speaker 1: see if you can see. 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 Manky 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 World of Loore dot com.
Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.