Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of curiosities. Mankind's fear of the other
Speaker 1: is dangerous. It has led to colonization and destruction, as
Speaker 1: well as the erasure of entire cultures, all because differences
Speaker 1: were perceived as threats. A people that looks different or
Speaker 1: lives outside with the dominant culture deems as acceptable is
Speaker 1: suddenly put on the defense. For example, Thanksgiving as taught
Speaker 1: as a unity story between two different groups coming together
Speaker 1: to celebrate the harvest. In reality, the Wampanoag tribe didn't
Speaker 1: trust the Puritans, who had come ready to negotiate at
Speaker 1: a protection treaty with the native people, in essence a
Speaker 1: contract of mutually assured destruction. After all, the Puritans hadn't
Speaker 1: left England just for religious freedom. They had also wanted
Speaker 1: to establish a theocracy, and if the Wampanoag had gotten
Speaker 1: in the way, they would have been removed through violence
Speaker 1: by the Europeans. Hundreds of years later, another local population
Speaker 1: would also come under fire, just not how they expected.
Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty five, a rash of robberies and kidnappings
Speaker 1: across the Midwest were being reported by the Choctaw tribe.
Speaker 1: What had started out with the disappearance of livestock and
Speaker 1: crops quickly turned darker as children started going missing. The
Speaker 1: tribe organized a search party, led by a group of
Speaker 1: seven foot tall warriors known as the Light Horsemen, who
Speaker 1: ventured into the wilderness. They rode for hours, armed with
Speaker 1: rifles and side arms, in the dead of summer, the
Speaker 1: sun beating across their backs before they decided to stop
Speaker 1: near a river and rest. After a quick meal to
Speaker 1: refuel and recharge, they set back out for another long
Speaker 1: journey through the woods. They were determined to find the criminals,
Speaker 1: one way or another, and they would not return home
Speaker 1: until justice had been served. Almost an entire day of
Speaker 1: NonStop riding passed before something was spotted in the distance.
Speaker 1: The leader of the party, a half Choctaw half French
Speaker 1: general named Joshua la Fleur, told the men to stop
Speaker 1: and wait. He pulled out the telescope he kept at
Speaker 1: his side for a closer look. The horses moved around
Speaker 1: in place, agitated by something no one else could see.
Speaker 1: La Fleur spotted movement ahead. It must be them, he thought.
Speaker 1: The Bandits had been known to hang around this area,
Speaker 1: and now the time had come for the general and
Speaker 1: his gang to exact their vengeance. They charged forward, their horses,
Speaker 1: pounding the grass with their strong hoofs, while the men
Speaker 1: shouted their arrival. And then it hit them, not a weapon,
Speaker 1: nor a bullet, but an odor, powerful and nauseating, unlike
Speaker 1: anything they had ever smelled in their lives. The horses
Speaker 1: bucked and whinnied and protest Some of the men fell
Speaker 1: to the ground, gasping for air, some sort of reprieve
Speaker 1: from the stench. After a few minutes of frenzied coughing,
Speaker 1: the men looked ahead to a clearing where they saw
Speaker 1: the cause of the wretched smell. It was a mound
Speaker 1: of dirt and mud, overflowing with human remains. The decay
Speaker 1: had drawn out swarms of flies that hovered around like
Speaker 1: black clouds. Behind the mountain of death at the edge
Speaker 1: of the woods across the clearing were three figures, the
Speaker 1: Bandits themselves. The floor and his men gathered their horses
Speaker 1: and pressed onward, holding their noses as best they could.
Speaker 1: It was now or never, they thought, but the figures
Speaker 1: refused to move, refused to run away from the fight,
Speaker 1: and the Choctaw warriors, who rushed toward them with their
Speaker 1: weapons drawn the floor got to them first, with a
Speaker 1: saber and pistol held out in front of him. He
Speaker 1: never saw it coming. His horse fell to the ground dead,
Speaker 1: and the general rolled several feet away. He got a
Speaker 1: better look at the bandits, who now appeared to be
Speaker 1: as big as him, if not bigger, and covered in hair.
Speaker 1: He fired on the one that had brought down his horse.
Speaker 1: The bullets disappeared into his mat of fur, but didn't
Speaker 1: stop it. It only angered it. The creature reached out
Speaker 1: towards the floor, grabbed him by his head, and well,
Speaker 1: that was the end of the general. The other men
Speaker 1: watched it happen and drew their rifles. They also fired
Speaker 1: into the three bandits who had mass sacred the people
Speaker 1: of their tribe, managing to bring down two of them.
Speaker 1: The third tried to escape into the woods, limping away,
Speaker 1: but the soldiers wouldn't have it. What these men, these beasts,
Speaker 1: had done, was unthinkable, and there was no way they
Speaker 1: were going to be allowed to do it again. One
Speaker 1: of the warriors tackled the remaining bandits knife in hand,
Speaker 1: and finished the job. When the dust had settled, the
Speaker 1: survive members of the search party examined the bodies of
Speaker 1: their attackers closely. They had stood upright like men. They'd
Speaker 1: moved like men. But they've been stronger, bigger, harrier than
Speaker 1: any men they'd set their eyes upon before. They were enormous,
Speaker 1: hulking brutes who bore only a passing resemblance to actual
Speaker 1: human beings. Their bodies were brought back to the tribe
Speaker 1: and burned, while the deceased Choctaw were given proper burials.
Speaker 1: The survivors waited for a reprisal from other members of
Speaker 1: the beast's own tribe, but it never came. Instead, what
Speaker 1: had transpired has gone down in history as the only
Speaker 1: battle on record of the human Bigfoot War of eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty five. Desperation can be quite a motivator. In the
Speaker 1: original Thousand and one Nights, a king finds out his
Speaker 1: wife has been unfaithful and has her killed. He then
Speaker 1: marries a series of women and orders the same fate
Speaker 1: the morning after their wedding nights, so that they never
Speaker 1: get a chance to commit the same infidelity. Once there
Speaker 1: are no more women left in the kingdom. His adviser's daughter, Shaherazade,
Speaker 1: volunteers to become his next bride. The advisor is hesitant,
Speaker 1: but allows her to sacrifice herself. On their wedding night,
Speaker 1: she begins to tell a story to the king, but
Speaker 1: she doesn't finish it. He refuses to kill Shahrazade until
Speaker 1: she can complete the story, which she does the following night.
Speaker 1: As soon as she's done, however, she begins another tale,
Speaker 1: and the cycle starts over. And it's her desperation to
Speaker 1: stay alive that gives birth to a collection of stories
Speaker 1: that have influenced cultures and literature all over the world.
Speaker 1: Her desperation didn't just allow her to keep her head,
Speaker 1: it gave her security. She became too important to discard,
Speaker 1: much like a young Italian scientist in Scotland around. His
Speaker 1: name was John Damien, and he arrived promising great, big
Speaker 1: things to King James, the fourth King. James allowed Damien
Speaker 1: to set up a laboratory inside Sterling Castle in order
Speaker 1: to carry out his experiments under a watchful eye. The
Speaker 1: king was in search of something important, something that had
Speaker 1: eluded rulers and explorers for thousands of years. Every culture
Speaker 1: had a different name for it, the elixir of life,
Speaker 1: the elixir of immortality, and occasionally the Philosopher's Stone, and yes,
Speaker 1: for fans of a certain boy wizard, it's that Philosopher's stone.
Speaker 1: The king gave Damien everything he needed, money, time, resources,
Speaker 1: all in the pursuit of a substance that would not
Speaker 1: only bring eternal life, but turn any other material into gold.
Speaker 1: And Damien certainly took advantage of his benefactor's generosity. Records
Speaker 1: from the time denote the purchases of all sorts of
Speaker 1: scientific equipment, including cauldron's, glass, flasks, and other materials. He
Speaker 1: spared no expense and bought whatever he needed whenever he
Speaker 1: needed it, including copious amounts of whiskey. Like many rulers
Speaker 1: throughout history, King James sought to control and maintain his
Speaker 1: wealth by any means necessary. This often involved research into
Speaker 1: the supernatural when realistic solutions proved too time consuming or unsuccessful. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: after about seven years, it didn't look like Damien was
Speaker 1: any closer to eternal youth than when he started. Instead,
Speaker 1: he turned his eyes towards the heavens. Specifically, he wanted
Speaker 1: to get as close to them as possible, dreams of
Speaker 1: wealth and immortality were set aside as. The alchemist became
Speaker 1: obsessed with making man fly. He watched birds, how their
Speaker 1: wings caught the wind and propelled themselves up higher and higher,
Speaker 1: how they could glide on a current of air for
Speaker 1: seconds before needing to flap it end. Damien studied the
Speaker 1: mechanics until he thought he'd figured it out. He began
Speaker 1: designing wings for himself based on his observations, even going
Speaker 1: so far as to include feathers in the final product.
Speaker 1: To that end, he ordered eagle feathers, but could only
Speaker 1: get hen feathers at the time. No matter, feathers were
Speaker 1: feathers right, and these would have to do. There was
Speaker 1: only one problem. Damien worked alone. He had no one
Speaker 1: to test his theory or his new fangled contraption, which
Speaker 1: left only one other possibility. He'd have to test it himself.
Speaker 1: So at the end of September in seven, he strapped
Speaker 1: his feathered wings to his back and climbed to the
Speaker 1: top of Sterling Castle, and then he jumped Onlookers applauded
Speaker 1: as Damien took to the skies. He was a man
Speaker 1: of conviction who bravely tested his scientific advancements on himself
Speaker 1: when no one else would. If only his conviction was
Speaker 1: enough to keep him airborne. You see, Gluing feathers together
Speaker 1: and flapping his arms didn't have the intended effect. He
Speaker 1: felt like a stone just after takeoff. He managed to survive, though,
Speaker 1: thanks to a well placed pile of dung waiting below.
Speaker 1: A bruised and smelly Damien blamed his failure on his
Speaker 1: choice of feathers, claiming hen's feathers were more attracted to
Speaker 1: the ground than eagles feathers would have been. That didn't
Speaker 1: sound very scientific, though, perhaps he should have sought some
Speaker 1: advice from a good friend of his back in Italy,
Speaker 1: who had also been sketching plans for his own flying machines. Together,
Speaker 1: they might have had more success, or at least brought
Speaker 1: more of their drawings to life. That friend, by the way,
Speaker 1: was none other than Leonardo da Vinci. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Manky 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.