Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of curiosities. Everyone needs a hero.
Speaker 1: I think it's fair to say that many of us
Speaker 1: have been inspired by the amazing lives of other people.
Speaker 1: Heroes give us a target, a destination that we might
Speaker 1: try and reach for ourselves. They drive us forward and
Speaker 1: call us to action. So it's no wonder that Charlie
Speaker 1: fell in love with the story of Sir John Franklin.
Speaker 1: He was a British naval officer in the first half
Speaker 1: of the nineteenth century who had a taste for adventure.
Speaker 1: This was a time when people were still trying to
Speaker 1: find an easier way to get from the Atlantic Ocean
Speaker 1: to the Pacific fick then sailing all the way around
Speaker 1: the tip of South America. They called this elusive route
Speaker 1: the Northwest Passage and assumed that it was somewhere north
Speaker 1: of Canada through the icy waters of the Arctic. Franklin
Speaker 1: had the experience to get the job done too. He
Speaker 1: was a rear admiral had served as governor of Tasmania
Speaker 1: and over the years had already helped explore the Hudson
Speaker 1: Bay in North America. He wasn't a slouch, that's for sure,
Speaker 1: and he was a fighter too. On one expedition that
Speaker 1: ended in eighteen twenty two, he and his crew got
Speaker 1: into such dire straits that at one point they were
Speaker 1: forced to try and eat their own leather shoes. But
Speaker 1: it was his last journey that he's best known for.
Speaker 1: His own expedition to find that undiscovered Northwest passage. He
Speaker 1: was given a large crew, food for three years, and
Speaker 1: two sturdy ships that you might have heard of, the
Speaker 1: Terror and the Arabas, named after the Greek god of darkness.
Speaker 1: If you know your history, then you know that the
Speaker 1: voyage was a failure. In fact, Franklin and his crew
Speaker 1: were never heard from again. And that's the story of
Speaker 1: inspiration that caught Charlie's attention. He read about it in
Speaker 1: his local Vermont newspaper when it happened in eighteen forty seven,
Speaker 1: and it stuck with him every day after that. He
Speaker 1: wanted to be an explorer like Franklin. In fact, he
Speaker 1: wanted to be the explorer who found Franklin. So he
Speaker 1: set out aboard a ship in eighteen sixty to do
Speaker 1: just that. He and the others made it about as
Speaker 1: far as Baffin Island, up in Frobisher Bay, and then
Speaker 1: winter caused them to stop and wait. He heard about
Speaker 1: Franklin from the local Inuit people and got the impression
Speaker 1: that the legendary explorer and his crew might actually still
Speaker 1: be alive. So after returning from that first voyage in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty two, he immediately began planning a return trip.
Speaker 1: He was this close to learning the truth and possibly
Speaker 1: even making his own great contribution to the world of exploration.
Speaker 1: Arlie could feel it in his bones. His second expedition
Speaker 1: began in July of eighteen sixty four and lasted five
Speaker 1: whole years on King William Island. Charlie was able to
Speaker 1: find the remains of Franklin's expedition, but it was nothing
Speaker 1: more than artifacts. No one had survived the tragedy of
Speaker 1: the Terror and the Erebus, and that was a realization
Speaker 1: that must have crushed Charlie's spirits. He didn't give up,
Speaker 1: though in some ways he'd succeeded. He gave the world
Speaker 1: a definitive answer about the Franklin expedition and closure was
Speaker 1: a good thing, but it also left Charlie believing that
Speaker 1: he was somehow faded to follow in Franklin's footsteps to
Speaker 1: leave his own mark on history through brave daring exploration,
Speaker 1: So he planned yet another trip. With funding from the
Speaker 1: US Congress and a ship of his own, Charlie headed
Speaker 1: out in July of eighteen seventy one to try and
Speaker 1: reach the North Pole. He had a crew of twenty
Speaker 1: five men with him, including a German physician named Dr Bessels,
Speaker 1: who was there to serve as his science officer. But
Speaker 1: even with all of those resources, things were rocky. His
Speaker 1: sailing master was a drunk who kept sneaking alcohol from
Speaker 1: the cargo area. Dr Bessels was constantly arguing with him,
Speaker 1: and the weather wasn't cooperating with their plans. In fact,
Speaker 1: even though they had gone farther north than any previous expedition,
Speaker 1: the sea ice was becoming too thick to move forward,
Speaker 1: so they guided their ship into a nearby bay for arrest.
Speaker 1: Side note, Charlie was so grateful for that bay that
Speaker 1: he named it Thank God Harbor, because why not? Right? Anyway,
Speaker 1: things didn't improve. In fact, as the winter got colder,
Speaker 1: the ice got thicker, and so their weight got longer.
Speaker 1: Days became weeks, weeks became months, and patient people became unbearable.
Speaker 1: At one point, Charlie left the ship on a short
Speaker 1: solo expedition to look around and see if there might
Speaker 1: be an their way through the ice. But after reading
Speaker 1: about all the personal issues on the trap ship, I
Speaker 1: also think he just needed some space to think. When
Speaker 1: he returned, he was exhausted and cold. The first thing
Speaker 1: he apparently did was asked for a cup of hot coffee,
Speaker 1: which was quickly rounded up for him and delivered to
Speaker 1: his cabin. A short while later, though, he began to
Speaker 1: complain about not feeling well. Within days he could barely
Speaker 1: talk or sit up in bed, and a short while
Speaker 1: after that he was dead. Later the crew took his
Speaker 1: body to shore and managed to dig a shallow gray
Speaker 1: for his coffin. They held a little funeral there in
Speaker 1: the frigid cold, and then waited for their chance to
Speaker 1: go home. It's interesting to note that Franklin was killed
Speaker 1: by the elements, but Charlie Charles Francis Hall, as history
Speaker 1: will remember him, was killed by something else. At least
Speaker 1: that's what two historians believed back in nineteen so they
Speaker 1: traveled north to Greenland Halloween in Charlie's footsteps, to the
Speaker 1: very shore of Thank God Harbor, where they searched for
Speaker 1: his frozen grave. And they found it. They found it,
Speaker 1: and they dug it up. Inside Charlie's corpse was little
Speaker 1: more than a skeleton with a bit of skin and
Speaker 1: tissue still attached, his head resting on a pillow as
Speaker 1: if sleeping. An American flag was draped over his body,
Speaker 1: but the entire coffin had flooded and was frozen, perfect
Speaker 1: conditions for preserving a body for certain kinds of testing.
Speaker 1: The two scholars, doctors Loomis and Paddock, took samples of
Speaker 1: Charlie's hair and fingernails and then brought them to Toronto
Speaker 1: for examination. What they discovered was that Charlie hadn't gotten
Speaker 1: sick and died at all. He'd been murdered. The trouble
Speaker 1: is on a ship as big as his, with twenty
Speaker 1: five other tired, trapped, and angry shipmates. Anyone could have
Speaker 1: been the suspect. Charles Francis Hall left Vermont to solve
Speaker 1: the history of what really happened to Franklin's expedition, and
Speaker 1: he managed to do that, but in the process he
Speaker 1: left us with a mystery of his own. We may
Speaker 1: never know for sure who killed Charlie, but maybe that's okay.
Speaker 1: Maybe this new mystery will inspire someone else to do
Speaker 1: great things as well. Everyone needs a hero, after all,
Speaker 1: even a dead one. There's so much advice out there
Speaker 1: that involves our heads. Keep a level head, don't lose
Speaker 1: your head, do your best to get a head in life.
Speaker 1: It's all in your head. You get the idea, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: But this focus isn't without justification. Think of all the rulers, traders, criminals,
Speaker 1: and soldiers who have literally lost their heads over the
Speaker 1: span of history, and well, it's all has become normal.
Speaker 1: In November of nineteen o four, Michigan business owner Herbert
Speaker 1: Hughes was getting ready for his hotel's weekly Sunday dinner.
Speaker 1: Part of that involved slaughtering the chickens that would be
Speaker 1: part of that night's meal. While it wasn't the most
Speaker 1: pleasant process, at least it was efficient. With a whack,
Speaker 1: he would remove the chicken's head and then pass the
Speaker 1: body to a maid for cleaning and gutting. Everything had
Speaker 1: been going fine, that is until she started screaming. With
Speaker 1: a shriek, the maid bolted from the room, leaving Hughes
Speaker 1: alone to figure out what had frightened her. It was,
Speaker 1: as you might expect, one of the chickens that had
Speaker 1: driven her away, but not for the reasons you might
Speaker 1: have assumed. No it wasn't the blood, and no it
Speaker 1: wasn't the process of gutting the bird or cleaning the
Speaker 1: feathers off. It was something a lot less expected. One
Speaker 1: of the chickens was still walking around the room without
Speaker 1: its head. I imagine there was a moment of shock
Speaker 1: for Hughes, but after he recovered, he began to see
Speaker 1: things in a more positive light. He decided to keep
Speaker 1: the hen around and even gave her a name, Biddy.
Speaker 1: He put his new headless chicken in a cage, gave
Speaker 1: her space to walk around that even fed her using
Speaker 1: a syringe to inject food down into her open esophagus.
Speaker 1: Biddy could do lots of normal chicken like things, such
Speaker 1: as flap her wings and sit on a perch, and
Speaker 1: most surprising of all, she showed no signs of pain
Speaker 1: or disease. Hughes new business opportunity when he saw one.
Speaker 1: Believing the notion that a living, breathing, headless chicken might
Speaker 1: bring in more patrons than ever before, he put Biddy
Speaker 1: on display for his guests, and it worked too. People
Speaker 1: flocked to his hotel no pun intended, I swear, and
Speaker 1: enjoyed watching the show. Sadly, though, it would all come
Speaker 1: to an end. Less than a month after it all began,
Speaker 1: poor headless Biddy passed away on novemb You might think
Speaker 1: that Biddy was one of a kind bird, but you'd
Speaker 1: be wrong. Roughly forty years later, in September of nineteen,
Speaker 1: a similar thing happened. A Colorado man named Lloyd Olsen
Speaker 1: tried slaughtering one of his chickens in the same way
Speaker 1: Herbert Hughes had and was just as surprised when his
Speaker 1: bird got back up and walked away sants head. Of course,
Speaker 1: Olson named his walking miracle Mike the Chicken. There didn't
Speaker 1: seem to be much the bird couldn't do either. He
Speaker 1: would walk around the yard, flap his wings, even crow
Speaker 1: like the other birds, except well without a head. It
Speaker 1: just sort of sounded like a low gurgling noise. But
Speaker 1: you get the idea. Maybe it was the more modern
Speaker 1: world that Mike lived in compared to Biddy, or perhaps
Speaker 1: Olsen had a better sense for publicity. But word about
Speaker 1: the Headless Chicken traveled far and wide. He even landed
Speaker 1: on the covers of magazines like Life and Time. Olsen
Speaker 1: took the bird on the road to traveling with sideshows
Speaker 1: and giving folks across the country a chance to lay
Speaker 1: eyes on the bird who lived sadly. In March of ninety,
Speaker 1: nearly two years after losing his head, Mike got a
Speaker 1: kernel of corn caught in his throat while out on
Speaker 1: the road. Olsen had forgotten his cleaning and feeding tools
Speaker 1: at the show the day before, and so he was
Speaker 1: helpless to remove the corn. With no way of saving
Speaker 1: his beloved bird, Olson had no choice but to say goodbye.
Speaker 1: Even now, seventy years later, Mike's hometown of Fruda, Colorado,
Speaker 1: remembers the remarkable chicken with a special holiday held in
Speaker 1: his honor. Mike the Headless Chicken Day celebrates the creatures
Speaker 1: short yet determined life with a series of events including
Speaker 1: a five k run, egg tosses, and live music, including
Speaker 1: of course, the Chicken Dance. It sounds unbelievable, I know,
Speaker 1: one chicken surviving a beheading is amazing, but two chickens, well,
Speaker 1: that almost seems too good to be true. Scientists say
Speaker 1: it has to do with the way a chicken's brain
Speaker 1: sits inside their head. Unlike our own brains, there's rests
Speaker 1: at a forty five degree angle near the top of
Speaker 1: the skull, and basic motor functions are carried out by
Speaker 1: the brain stem. So if the head is removed in
Speaker 1: a sloppy manner at just the right angle, the brain
Speaker 1: stem might actually remain intact, giving the chicken a second
Speaker 1: chance at life. Some might say chickens represent the best
Speaker 1: of us. They're carrying social creatures, they share child raising duties,
Speaker 1: and they fiercely protect their own. But perhaps there's one
Speaker 1: new lesson that Biddy and Mike can teach us even
Speaker 1: after all these years. Don't lose your head, but if
Speaker 1: you do, try to make the best of it. I
Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on podcasts, or learn more about the
Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
Speaker 1: created 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.