Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm 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. Water.
Speaker 1: It's one of the most essential resources around. Most of
Speaker 1: our bodies and most of the planets are made up
Speaker 1: of it. Nowadays, we take water for granted, very literally.
Speaker 1: You turn on the tap and water flows indefinitely. It
Speaker 1: never crosses your mind that there is a finite amount.
Speaker 1: The sky is blue, the earth is round, and water
Speaker 1: comes out of a faucet. Our ancient ancestors used to
Speaker 1: spend every day of their life ensuring that they had
Speaker 1: access to clean water. They developed ingenious methods for supplying it,
Speaker 1: methods that have shaped our modern world more than we realize.
Speaker 1: Four thousand years ago, for example, an ancient people began
Speaker 1: to make their way north from the Maya civilization in Mexico.
Speaker 1: Their entire worldview was different. They had no concept of
Speaker 1: how big the earth is or their place in it,
Speaker 1: no scientific method to give them answers to where the
Speaker 1: weather comes from or what it might be like one
Speaker 1: day after the next. And the Sonoran Desert where they
Speaker 1: were headed, is not an ideal place to live. There
Speaker 1: is so little moisture there that everything has evolved to
Speaker 1: protect what little water it can get. The cacti will
Speaker 1: prick you, and the rattlesnakes will poison you. There's an
Speaker 1: insect there known as the tarantula hawk that's basically a
Speaker 1: massive wasp with orange wings. It sting is the most
Speaker 1: painful of any insect on the planet. It will leave
Speaker 1: you in such excruciating pain that you won't be able
Speaker 1: to form a coherent thought for five whole minutes, which
Speaker 1: of course will feel like five out. So naturally, our
Speaker 1: desert people stuck to the Salt and Ghia rivers, and
Speaker 1: they thrived. They traded with other ancient people in Mexico
Speaker 1: and southern California and formed an empire. But as their
Speaker 1: population grew into the tens of thousands, they could no
Speaker 1: longer confine themselves to the river banks. They had to
Speaker 1: venture further into the desert. Now, given the dangers we've discussed,
Speaker 1: one would think that they might have just tried some
Speaker 1: population control. We all know that humans aren't great at that, though,
Speaker 1: so instead they began to dig. They dug canals fifteen
Speaker 1: feet deep and forty five feet wide, lengthening the rivers
Speaker 1: further into the desert. When the water flow was too weak,
Speaker 1: they narrowed the canals, creating a pressure. When it was
Speaker 1: too strong, they widened the canals. And they did this
Speaker 1: for over one thousand miles, making adjustments for every hill
Speaker 1: and valley. Soon their civilization numbered as much as eighty thousand,
Speaker 1: and then just like that, they disappeared. Hundreds of years later,
Speaker 1: a new civilization arrived in the desert, American settlers looking
Speaker 1: for gold. One of those settlers, a man named Jack Swilling,
Speaker 1: stumbled across a massive underground ditch while he was working
Speaker 1: his gold claim. He realized that it went on for miles,
Speaker 1: eventually connecting to a river. So with the help of
Speaker 1: sixteen other miners, he dug out the canals and reconnected
Speaker 1: them to the Salt River. Soon he had water flowing
Speaker 1: again in the desert, allowing for thousands of miners to
Speaker 1: drink from the canals and grow crops. Darryl Dupa, an
Speaker 1: English lord who had come to settle in the area
Speaker 1: was moved by the site of this new civilization born
Speaker 1: out of ancient canals. He took it all in and said,
Speaker 1: a city will rise Phoenix, like new and beautiful from
Speaker 1: the ashes of the past. And so Phoenix, Arizona was born. Today,
Speaker 1: Phoenix continues to get its water from improved versions of
Speaker 1: the same canals dug by the ancient Sonorans. They are
Speaker 1: now called the Johokum, a word from the more modern
Speaker 1: Pima Native Americans that means those who have vanished, and
Speaker 1: Arizonans do well to remember that name and its meaning,
Speaker 1: because as much as the Johokum civilization flourished, it ended
Speaker 1: just as quickly, and the prevailing theory is that they
Speaker 1: moved on after they finally ran out of their most
Speaker 1: valuable resource, water. The canals are susceptible to drought, and
Speaker 1: Arizona has experienced one for fifteen years. Though modern advances
Speaker 1: allow for greater water pumping and storage, the system is
Speaker 1: experiencing more strains than ever, and in our modern world,
Speaker 1: various corporate interests compete for the water on top of
Speaker 1: what has already needed to sustain the local lives. Today,
Speaker 1: Phoenix is the fifth largest city in America. But if
Speaker 1: its occupants don't learn from history, their city, risen from
Speaker 1: the ashes of the past, will be reclaimed by the
Speaker 1: desert where the rattlesnakes and the tarantula hawks are waiting. Officially,
Speaker 1: then national drink of England is tea. But if you've
Speaker 1: spent any time in the United Kingdom, then you know
Speaker 1: that another beverage reigns supreme in the hearts of many Brits,
Speaker 1: a drink that causes millions to race to the nearest
Speaker 1: watering hole every day at quitting time. I'm talking, of course,
Speaker 1: about beer. Yes, the British loved their pints and have
Speaker 1: for centuries. In the sixteen hundreds, beer was almost more
Speaker 1: popular than water, which was easily contaminated, especially in urban areas.
Speaker 1: The brewing process killed a lot of the bacteria that
Speaker 1: made water dangerous at the time. As a result, beer
Speaker 1: was seen as not just more nutritious, but also healthier,
Speaker 1: and according to a lot of people, it just plain
Speaker 1: tasted better too. It wasn't uncommon for working men to
Speaker 1: have a beer with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Many would
Speaker 1: average eight to ten beers a day. This drinking habit
Speaker 1: became a major problem in sixteen oh seven, when one
Speaker 1: hundred and four English settlers crossed the Atlantic to establish
Speaker 1: the colony of Jamestown. Upon their arrival, one of the
Speaker 1: colonists first acts was to establish a town brewery. But
Speaker 1: simply erecting a building didn't do them much good because
Speaker 1: none of them actually knew how to brew. You see,
Speaker 1: virtually all of the initial colonists were men, and in
Speaker 1: the seventeenth century, brewing was a task that had been
Speaker 1: traditionally done by women, often in their own home kitchens,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't the only skill the colonists lacked. Most
Speaker 1: of them couldn't sew, cook, bake bread, or make cheese,
Speaker 1: all of which were essential skills for basic living. So
Speaker 1: as the months passed, their food stores waned and their
Speaker 1: clothes became more threadbare and ragged. Without female companions, many
Speaker 1: of the colonists became lonely, even depressed, and yet one
Speaker 1: of their most consistent complaints was the frustratingly poor supplies
Speaker 1: of beer. Within a few years, men were abandoning the
Speaker 1: colonies in droves. England was on the verge of giving
Speaker 1: up on the whole venture altogether, but Sir Edwin Sandy's
Speaker 1: of the Virginia Company convinced them to give it one
Speaker 1: more shot. They would send another ship of colonists to Jamestown.
Speaker 1: Only this one would not carry men, but young women,
Speaker 1: all eligible brides who hopefully would marry the existing colonists
Speaker 1: and save Jamestown front collapse. Now, as you might expect,
Speaker 1: the company had a hard time finding women willing to
Speaker 1: give up their lives in England and make the trip.
Speaker 1: To convince them, the company offered to pay the women's dowries,
Speaker 1: allowing poorer women to move up the social ladder. But
Speaker 1: they couldn't just send anyone. The company sought out young
Speaker 1: women who had the skills that the male colonists lacked,
Speaker 1: and one of the most important skills they were looking
Speaker 1: for was the ability to brew beer. The first ship
Speaker 1: of roughly one hundred women arrived in sixteen twenty, with
Speaker 1: more to follow soon. The next year, the colonists planted
Speaker 1: their first crop of hops, a crucial ingredient in beer
Speaker 1: and ale. After fourteen years, the Jamestown colonists were finally
Speaker 1: on their way to a functional brewing industry. But the
Speaker 1: road before them wasn't easy. They lacked many of the
Speaker 1: ingredients typically used in English beverages, and warm summers made
Speaker 1: brewing alcohol difficult in general to get by, the female
Speaker 1: brewers had to be incredibly creative. Instead of barley, they
Speaker 1: used whatever vegetables they could get their hands on, things
Speaker 1: like corn, pumpkin, molasses, ivy, and even common weeds. They
Speaker 1: experimented constantly, creating complex recipes involving ginger root, sage, rye,
Speaker 1: and more. The resulting drinks had little in common with
Speaker 1: English beer, but they did the trick. The brewing industry blossomed,
Speaker 1: and by seventeen seventy the American colonies were awash with alcohol,
Speaker 1: with the most popular drinks being cider, rum and beer.
Speaker 1: Now that changed in seventeen seventy five with the start
Speaker 1: of the American Revolution. Beer was still associated with England
Speaker 1: and drinking it was suddenly viewed as unpatriotic. In its place,
Speaker 1: whiskey rose to become the most popular form of alcohol.
Speaker 1: Everything comes full circle, though, and today beer is back
Speaker 1: on top as America's favorite alcoholic beverage. Cracking a cold
Speaker 1: one on July fourth is once again a patriotic pastime,
Speaker 1: so long as your beer of choice is brewed in
Speaker 1: the good old us of a. 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 Worldoflore dot com.
Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.