Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosity is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world
Speaker 1: is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an
Speaker 1: open book, all of these amazing tales are right there
Speaker 1: on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Bravery comes in all shapes its sizes.
Speaker 1: It might be the kid who stands up to the
Speaker 1: bully at school, or the person who asks their crush
Speaker 1: out on a date. Bravery doesn't have to mean putting
Speaker 1: one's life in danger. Of course, any action movie will
Speaker 1: tell you it means big muscles and even bigger guns.
Speaker 1: But one World War Two soldier proved Hollywood all wrong.
Speaker 1: His was a story about bravery that was almost too
Speaker 1: good to be true. And his name was Leo Major.
Speaker 1: Major was born in nineteen twenty one in Massachusetts. His
Speaker 1: parents were French Canadian, but his father had brought his
Speaker 1: mother's stateside while he was working for the American Railroad Company.
Speaker 1: Before Leo turned one, Mr Major moved every wooden back
Speaker 1: home to Montreal, Canada as he got older, Though the
Speaker 1: young Major didn't get along with his father and went
Speaker 1: to live with an aunt when he was just fourteen.
Speaker 1: There weren't many opportunities for work where he lived, but
Speaker 1: he did have a desire to show his father that
Speaker 1: he could make something of himself, so when he turned nineteen,
Speaker 1: he joined the Canadian Army. From the get go, Major
Speaker 1: did more than make something of himself. He proved everyone
Speaker 1: that he was a force to be reckoned with. He
Speaker 1: stormed the beaches of Normandy in nineteen forty four and
Speaker 1: single handedly captured a German armored personnel carrier. Then he
Speaker 1: took out a handful of s S patrolman a few
Speaker 1: days later, only to be or severely injured by a
Speaker 1: phosphorus grenade thrown by the enemy. The explosion cost Major
Speaker 1: one of his eyes, after which he was told to
Speaker 1: go back to England. He was told he could no
Speaker 1: longer work in this condition, but he disagreed, saying he
Speaker 1: only needed one eye to shoot with, and he was
Speaker 1: allowed to stay. Major was hurt again in nineteen forty
Speaker 1: five when the carrier he was writing was struck by
Speaker 1: a mine. The driver and the chaplain on board were killed,
Speaker 1: but Major survived with two broken ankles and a broken
Speaker 1: back that he refused to let fully heal. Against everyone's
Speaker 1: better judgments, he went right back to fighting. Nothing was
Speaker 1: going to keep him away. The Canadian Maverick returned to
Speaker 1: the front lines. He traveled to the Netherlands to help
Speaker 1: his fellow Canadians, as well as the Polish and British,
Speaker 1: clear the shipping route to Antwerp. Report there was instrumental
Speaker 1: in getting supplies to the Allies station North. The seventh
Speaker 1: Canadian Infantry Brigade took up a position just outside of
Speaker 1: the town as Wall in Holland, but had no intel
Speaker 1: on the enemy forces already there. Major and his comrade,
Speaker 1: Corporal Wilfred Arsenal, volunteered to check things out and report back.
Speaker 1: They set out around eleven o'clock that night of April thirteen,
Speaker 1: where they stumbled upon a German outpost. Corporal Arsenal was
Speaker 1: killed by several s S soldiers. Major returned fire and
Speaker 1: took them out before getting away. Armed with just a
Speaker 1: pair of guns and a bag of grenades, Major continued
Speaker 1: onto the Empties Wall with one goal in mind, liberation.
Speaker 1: The citizens were all in their homes due to a
Speaker 1: town wide curfew, but he needed a safe place where
Speaker 1: he could read the map in his jacket pocket. He
Speaker 1: knocked on a few doors and was ignored. No one
Speaker 1: would let him in, especially because on first glance he
Speaker 1: looked like a Nazi. He soon realized the only way
Speaker 1: he was going to get what he needed meant breaking
Speaker 1: into a house by force. His first attempt startled the
Speaker 1: young family with small children, but one glimpse of the
Speaker 1: Canadian flag on his uniform and they knew that he
Speaker 1: wasn't there to hurt them. Major studied his map with
Speaker 1: their blessing, and then ventured back out into town. He
Speaker 1: managed to locate a machine gun outpost and capture the
Speaker 1: ten soldiers inside using only his machine pistol and three grenades.
Speaker 1: He then found the German officers quarters and convinced one
Speaker 1: of the senior officers that he was one of an
Speaker 1: entire Canadian army ready to take control of the town.
Speaker 1: The Germans could leave now with their lives, or stay
Speaker 1: and face the consequences. Major even let him keep his
Speaker 1: gun as a show of good faith, and it worked.
Speaker 1: After locating the leader of the Dutch resistance, Major drove
Speaker 1: through town in a commandeered German military car, firing his
Speaker 1: machine gun at Nazi soldiers and vehicles along the way.
Speaker 1: Many of them had already fled, believing the Allies had arrived.
Speaker 1: Those who were still in the streets were gunned down
Speaker 1: by Major as he drove by, and the coast was
Speaker 1: finally clear. The resistance went to town hall and encouraged
Speaker 1: citizens to come out of hiding. Wall was finally free.
Speaker 1: Leo Major had almost single handedly liberated the town, capturing
Speaker 1: ninety three German soldiers and set the s S headquarters
Speaker 1: on fire. He had demonstrated bravery in the face of
Speaker 1: adversity many times before, never taking no for an answer
Speaker 1: and refusing to give up. But on the night of April,
Speaker 1: Leo Major became more than a brave soldier. He weighed
Speaker 1: a one man war on the Third Reich and turn
Speaker 1: himself into a living legend. His actions earned him the
Speaker 1: Distinguished Conduct Medal, as well as a pretty colorful nickname.
Speaker 1: They called him the one eyed Ghost. Our methods of
Speaker 1: communication are part of what sets us apart from other species.
Speaker 1: A written word has been a large part of how
Speaker 1: we communicate with others. Before technology, people frequently wrote in
Speaker 1: journals and to one another. In the entertainment world, musicians
Speaker 1: and authors wrote music and stories. Scholars and scientists passed
Speaker 1: along information and made critical nuts. Businesses kept track of
Speaker 1: receipts and orders. All of this writing is how we've
Speaker 1: gained knowledge about civilizations throughout time in the world, over
Speaker 1: census records, whether reports, news of the day. We owe
Speaker 1: much of what we've learned from the written word, and
Speaker 1: for as long as there have been letters, there have
Speaker 1: been people who decipher ancient language is no longer used.
Speaker 1: We've learned about historical events from history is most famous,
Speaker 1: and about the lives of everyday people as well. Without
Speaker 1: someone to decipher ancient languages, though, much of what we
Speaker 1: know would only be an educated guess, according to experts.
Speaker 1: In a Syriology, Adolph Leo Oppenheim had read more of
Speaker 1: the ancient language than any one of his generation. Like
Speaker 1: others in his field, he studied the history, the archaeological finds,
Speaker 1: and the language of Mesopotamia, a region that now covers
Speaker 1: Iraq and northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and parts of Iran.
Speaker 1: The language Oppenheim studied is called kunea form which is
Speaker 1: a set of symbols found in fifteen or more languages
Speaker 1: in ancient times. Symbols were used to form words starting
Speaker 1: as far back as the Bronze Age all the way
Speaker 1: through the Common era. Canea form and Egyptian hieroglyphs are
Speaker 1: two of the earliest systems of recorded writing, and among
Speaker 1: his peers no one was more qualified to read the
Speaker 1: four thousand year old Clay's tablet, written around seventeen fifty BC.
Speaker 1: The discovery had been made by British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley,
Speaker 1: who led an expedition with the University of Pennsylvania and
Speaker 1: British Museum in the Sumerian city of Ur. The crew
Speaker 1: had come across ruins during their twelve year dig from
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty two to nineteen thirty four. The clay tablet
Speaker 1: had been part of other similar tablets found on the
Speaker 1: site for years. The Babylonian tablets sat in storage until
Speaker 1: they became part of the British Museum's collection in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty three, but it wasn't until the nineteen sixties before
Speaker 1: the tablets found their way to Oppenheim at the University
Speaker 1: of Chicago for translation. The tablets all contained similar messages,
Speaker 1: but two things were clear. The site had belonged to
Speaker 1: a copper Merchant and customers had written the tablets. Tablet writing,
Speaker 1: by the way, was no small feat. The letter writer
Speaker 1: had to make the tablet with clay and water, and
Speaker 1: while the tablet was still wet, the writer used a
Speaker 1: read as a pen to inscribe the symbols onto the surface.
Speaker 1: Then the tablets were left to bake in the sun.
Speaker 1: The less important tablets were delivered and read, and then
Speaker 1: reused by soaking them in water, but the ones Wooly
Speaker 1: found had been kilned fired. The people who had written
Speaker 1: the Copper Merchant had all taken considerable time and effort
Speaker 1: to make and write the notes, much less sending a
Speaker 1: messenger to deliver them. In particular, Oppenheim noticed how lengthy
Speaker 1: the note was from one customer he identified as a
Speaker 1: man named Nanni. It's not clear exactly where Nannie lived
Speaker 1: in relation to the archaeological site, although he mentioned that
Speaker 1: the Copper Merchant was in enemy territory. Oppenheim and the
Speaker 1: other experts also determined that Nannie's clay tablet predated the
Speaker 1: others that Willy's team had found. Before Oppenheim passed away
Speaker 1: at the age of seventy in nineteen seventy four, he
Speaker 1: wrote a book on clay tablets that he transcribed through
Speaker 1: the years, including the ones Willie had found. As it
Speaker 1: turns out, Nannie's tablets is the very first of its
Speaker 1: kind in history. He'd been one of re customers who
Speaker 1: had either not received copper ingots from the merchant or
Speaker 1: had received subpart copper. That's right, long before the days
Speaker 1: of customer service, Nannie had written the oldest known customer complaint.
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 Manky 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: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.