Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full 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. The closing song of the musical Little Shop
Speaker 1: of Horrors bears a stern warning don't feed the plants,
Speaker 1: and for good reason. Though they may seem harmless, certain
Speaker 1: species of flora can be hazardous to humans and animals alike,
Speaker 1: and though none of them have ever eaten people, at
Speaker 1: least that we know of, several have been known to
Speaker 1: make person wish they'd never been born. Water hemlock, for example,
Speaker 1: which is commonly found in the western half of the
Speaker 1: United States, can cause seizures and crippling abdominal pain prior
Speaker 1: to death if eaten. White snake root is a white
Speaker 1: flowered herb that bears a strong resemblance to baby's breath,
Speaker 1: but unlike baby's breath, it's deadly to humans. So much so,
Speaker 1: in fact, that even drinking milk from cows that have
Speaker 1: eaten it has been known to cause nausea and even death,
Speaker 1: but there is one plant that is toxic in a
Speaker 1: different way. It has left several casualties in its wake,
Speaker 1: but not due to its ingestion. Those who met their
Speaker 1: end fail to heed one simple warning. Don't touch the gimpy.
Speaker 1: Gimpy is considered a shrub, but you wouldn't think so
Speaker 1: based on its size. It's technically a small tree which
Speaker 1: can range in heights from three to ten feet. It
Speaker 1: grows in the rainforests of northeastern Australia and features wide
Speaker 1: leaves shaped like hearts, ironic given what happens to those
Speaker 1: who make the mistake of touching them. The leaves looks
Speaker 1: soft and furry, but each one is covered in thousands
Speaker 1: of tiny harpoon like hairs brush against their broad green surfaces,
Speaker 1: and the hairs will lodge themselves in the skin, releasing
Speaker 1: a toxin that causes pain unlike anything ever felt before.
Speaker 1: Educator and scientist Marina Hurley has written about the gimpy
Speaker 1: gimpies defense mechanism in the past, describing the sensation as
Speaker 1: being burnt with hot acid and electrocuted at the same time.
Speaker 1: And that's no exaggeration. Hurley spent three years exploring the
Speaker 1: Australian rainforest studying the gimpy gimpie while clad in protective
Speaker 1: gear and welding gloves. Even her precautions weren't enough to
Speaker 1: stop the tiny follicles from penetrating her skin. Her reaction
Speaker 1: was so severe she was hospitalized and told to avoid
Speaker 1: the plant for the rest of her life. Even standing
Speaker 1: near its stinging fibers, which are constantly being shed into
Speaker 1: the air, can cause reactions worse than spring allergies. Coughing, sneezing,
Speaker 1: and nose bleeds have all been reported by people unfortunate
Speaker 1: to get within a few feet of them. The only
Speaker 1: way to relieve the pain of a gimpy gimpy sting
Speaker 1: is to slather the area in hot wax and rip
Speaker 1: the hairs out. Not exactly a day at the spot,
Speaker 1: Just be careful. Some strands may break off even more,
Speaker 1: getting stuck for good and bringing no end to the suffering.
Speaker 1: Stories of gimpy gimpy encounters are harrowing and dates all
Speaker 1: the way back to the nineteenth century. A surveyor named A. C.
Speaker 1: McMillan had taken his horse through a patch of it
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty six, the horse grazed it, and two
Speaker 1: hours later it died from the pain. Decades later, a
Speaker 1: World War Two soldier accidentally fell into the plant during
Speaker 1: training and spent the next three weeks strapped to a
Speaker 1: gurney writhing and screaming in agony. Ernie Writer, a botanist
Speaker 1: studying the plant in nineteen sixty three, was stung all
Speaker 1: over his face, chest and arms. He endured the pain
Speaker 1: for two years before it finally subsided, although he claimed
Speaker 1: it returned every time he took a coal shower. But
Speaker 1: perhaps the most tragic tale is that of another soldier
Speaker 1: who found himself with the urgent need to relieve himself
Speaker 1: in the forest. He didn't have toilet paper to clean
Speaker 1: himself up with, so he reached for the nearest leaf instead.
Speaker 1: The burning became so unbearable he took his own life
Speaker 1: to make it stop. Clearly, the gimpy gimpie is not
Speaker 1: something to be trifled with, like the eastern brown snake
Speaker 1: or the box jellyfish. It's a living species with one
Speaker 1: of the most dangerous defense mechanisms on Earth. There's a
Speaker 1: reason why it often goes by its other more ominous name,
Speaker 1: the suicide plant. Everyone has to start somewhere if they
Speaker 1: want to move up in the world, from the mail
Speaker 1: room clerk who works their way to the corner office
Speaker 1: to the young violin student practicing with dreams of the Philharmon.
Speaker 1: People don't often start out at the top. It takes
Speaker 1: hard work, determination, and a healthy dose of blind luck.
Speaker 1: Harry got his start on a dairy farm in rural Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: Born in eighteen seventy nine, he eventually became a resourceful
Speaker 1: and opportunistic child. The main job his parents had given
Speaker 1: him was to tend the farm, but he also started
Speaker 1: milking the cows on the side to earn extra money.
Speaker 1: When he got older, he raised frogs in a pond
Speaker 1: he dug himself, selling them to local restaurants who made
Speaker 1: frog's legs. Harry hadn't come from a big family, which
Speaker 1: was probably why he wanted one of his own as
Speaker 1: he got older. After his marriage to Blanche Edna Hysen
Speaker 1: in nineteen hundred, the couple got to work on growing
Speaker 1: their brood, sixteen children in all. Harry's mother and aunt's
Speaker 1: also moved in with him, which made for a pretty
Speaker 1: crowded house. Of course, it took a lot of money
Speaker 1: to feed those hungry mouths. Harry thankfully made a decent
Speaker 1: living working for his father in law's canary before finding
Speaker 1: his way to managing a dairy farm in Pennsylvania, a
Speaker 1: job that obviously reminded him of his childhood days. Harry
Speaker 1: enjoyed his work, and he was quite good at it too,
Speaker 1: but he also knew that there were bigger opportunities out there.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixteen, he answered an ad placed by a
Speaker 1: man named Milton. He owned several dairy farms in a
Speaker 1: town an hour north of Harry, and hired Harry to
Speaker 1: work at one of them. A year later, though, he
Speaker 1: was promoted to manager at a new farm where cows
Speaker 1: were milked by machines instead of a farmer's bare hands,
Speaker 1: and that was an exciting glimpse of the future. Sadly,
Speaker 1: it was also a costly endeavor, one that Milton had
Speaker 1: no choice but to shutterer. In nineteen nineteen, Harry, looking
Speaker 1: to make ends meet between jobs, took his newfound unemployment
Speaker 1: as a scignist start his own company making confections. His
Speaker 1: sweet treats were popular in the local stores, but he
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to keep up with demand. Unless he
Speaker 1: improved his manufacturing process. This required capital to buy better tools.
Speaker 1: He raised enough funds to buy the equipment he needed
Speaker 1: by selling stock in his new company. It didn't help, though,
Speaker 1: He went under quickly and was forced to work three
Speaker 1: jobs to feed his growing family. But Harry continued to
Speaker 1: experiment with candies and confections out of his basement. On
Speaker 1: the side. He even went to work for Milton again,
Speaker 1: who gave him a job in the shipping department at
Speaker 1: one of his factories. And it was here where the
Speaker 1: struggling candy maker found exactly what he needed to get
Speaker 1: his new business off the ground. Harry launched his new
Speaker 1: company in n and sold candies to local department stores.
Speaker 1: Milton wasn't mad, though. He didn't see his employee as competition,
Speaker 1: but as a customer. You see, Milton was Milton Hershey,
Speaker 1: founder of the Hershey Candy Company, and he was selling
Speaker 1: Harry all the chocolate he needed to make his own products.
Speaker 1: Among them were chocolate bars, nuts and raisins coated in
Speaker 1: milk and dark chocolate, plus an entirely new creation. You see,
Speaker 1: another candy maker had been having trouble fulfilling orders from
Speaker 1: a particular customer with a very specific request. They had
Speaker 1: asked for something no one else was making, and Harry
Speaker 1: saw a way to step in and save the day.
Speaker 1: He fulfilled the order and decided to sell the new
Speaker 1: product this part of his line as well. It was
Speaker 1: a simple concept really around disc of chocolate filled with
Speaker 1: a filling in the center. He sold them for a
Speaker 1: penny apiece, and sales boomed immediately, so much so that
Speaker 1: during World War Two, when sugar and other materials became
Speaker 1: too expensive to obtain, he canceled production of all his
Speaker 1: candies except this one. In the end, it became his
Speaker 1: signature product, a combination of two great tastes that worked
Speaker 1: great together the filling in his chocolate peanut butter and
Speaker 1: thanks to its popularity, Harry's product is still around today.
Speaker 1: We all just know it by his last name. Harry
Speaker 1: Burnett Reese, creator of the Reese's Peanut Butter cup, would
Speaker 1: go on to become a millionaire thanks to his tenacity
Speaker 1: and creativity, and he gave us all something to chew on.
Speaker 1: How's that for a suite ending. I hope you've enjoyed
Speaker 1: today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
Speaker 1: free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
Speaker 1: by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created
Speaker 1: by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,