1 00:00:04,160 --> 00:00:07,520 Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of 2 00:00:07,520 --> 00:00:14,480 Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of 3 00:00:14,560 --> 00:00:18,520 Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all 4 00:00:18,560 --> 00:00:22,640 Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting 5 00:00:22,720 --> 00:00:28,920 Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. 6 00:00:36,800 --> 00:00:40,120 Speaker 1: Most restaurants pride themselves on the freshness of the food 7 00:00:40,159 --> 00:00:43,120 Speaker 1: they serve. They'll stand at your table and discuss how 8 00:00:43,159 --> 00:00:46,680 Speaker 1: the chickens led happy, satisfied lives before they ended up 9 00:00:46,680 --> 00:00:49,320 Speaker 1: on your plate, or how the greens were harvested from 10 00:00:49,360 --> 00:00:53,080 Speaker 1: local farms only a mile away. Nothing tastes quite as 11 00:00:53,120 --> 00:00:55,880 Speaker 1: crisp as a let us leaf straight from the dirt. 12 00:00:56,640 --> 00:00:59,920 Speaker 1: But in nineteen eleven, one place didn't care about farm 13 00:01:00,080 --> 00:01:03,000 Speaker 1: to table. In fact, it refused to serve anything freshly 14 00:01:03,040 --> 00:01:06,480 Speaker 1: made for a very good reason. It all happened in 15 00:01:06,560 --> 00:01:10,280 Speaker 1: Chicago at the Hotel Sherman. Four hundred guests had gathered 16 00:01:10,280 --> 00:01:13,920 Speaker 1: in the hotel's Louis the fourteenth room for a special 17 00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:18,360 Speaker 1: five course meal lasting two hours. Among the elite clientele 18 00:01:18,760 --> 00:01:22,000 Speaker 1: was the city's mayor, the health commissioner, and a number 19 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:25,480 Speaker 1: of politicians from Washington, DC, and New York, all who 20 00:01:25,560 --> 00:01:29,200 Speaker 1: had arrived with hefty appetites. On their plates were things 21 00:01:29,319 --> 00:01:33,919 Speaker 1: like April egg salad and roast February CAPAN. The menu 22 00:01:33,959 --> 00:01:37,800 Speaker 1: didn't hide anything either. It explained where every ingredient had 23 00:01:37,840 --> 00:01:41,000 Speaker 1: come from in detail, including how long ago it had 24 00:01:41,040 --> 00:01:44,280 Speaker 1: been prepared. For example, the chicken had been kept in 25 00:01:44,400 --> 00:01:48,480 Speaker 1: Chicago cold storage for almost a year. Mayor iich And Green, 26 00:01:48,560 --> 00:01:51,960 Speaker 1: the VP of the National Poultry, Butter and Egg Association, 27 00:01:52,440 --> 00:01:55,440 Speaker 1: told everyone that your CAPAN received its summons to the 28 00:01:55,480 --> 00:01:59,760 Speaker 1: Great Unknown along about last Saint Valentine's Day. Now it 29 00:01:59,800 --> 00:02:02,560 Speaker 1: was late October, None of the ingredients had come from 30 00:02:02,600 --> 00:02:07,160 Speaker 1: local farms or suppliers, and everything being served was months old. 31 00:02:07,600 --> 00:02:10,440 Speaker 1: So why were these high ranking officials willing to test 32 00:02:10,480 --> 00:02:14,680 Speaker 1: their taste bunds and their stomachs with old food? Because 33 00:02:14,680 --> 00:02:17,680 Speaker 1: the times had changed and the new age was upon them. 34 00:02:17,880 --> 00:02:21,240 Speaker 1: This luncheon was called the Cold Storage Banquet, and it 35 00:02:21,280 --> 00:02:23,880 Speaker 1: was designed to showcase the benefits of a brand new 36 00:02:23,919 --> 00:02:28,640 Speaker 1: technology refrigeration. You see, in the days before this banquet 37 00:02:28,760 --> 00:02:31,560 Speaker 1: was held, food was stored in a number of different ways. 38 00:02:31,800 --> 00:02:35,200 Speaker 1: It was often smoked, salted, pickled, or kept in root 39 00:02:35,240 --> 00:02:38,919 Speaker 1: sellers underground. People of means might have stored their ingredients 40 00:02:38,960 --> 00:02:42,000 Speaker 1: in ice houses during the spring and summer months, while 41 00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:45,839 Speaker 1: others had individual ice boxes in their homes and apartments. 42 00:02:46,320 --> 00:02:49,400 Speaker 1: In fact, ice became a major part of daily life. 43 00:02:49,720 --> 00:02:52,120 Speaker 1: What used to be cut from frozen lakes and shipped 44 00:02:52,120 --> 00:02:55,200 Speaker 1: to the cities was soon made in factories and delivered 45 00:02:55,280 --> 00:02:58,959 Speaker 1: right to homes and businesses. Many houses had ice boxes 46 00:02:59,200 --> 00:03:02,600 Speaker 1: to store their milk and other perishable items. It was 47 00:03:02,600 --> 00:03:05,359 Speaker 1: a rough time in America, where people often died from 48 00:03:05,480 --> 00:03:09,359 Speaker 1: food based illnesses, but by nineteen eleven, refrigeration was being 49 00:03:09,400 --> 00:03:12,360 Speaker 1: introduced to the masses, and it promised to end food 50 00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:16,919 Speaker 1: poisoning and other food born problems. Now, ingredients and leftovers 51 00:03:17,040 --> 00:03:20,600 Speaker 1: could be stored for longer at lower temperatures, without worrying 52 00:03:20,639 --> 00:03:23,920 Speaker 1: about bacteria or needing to replace a large block of 53 00:03:23,960 --> 00:03:27,120 Speaker 1: ice every few days. But of course, not everyone was 54 00:03:27,240 --> 00:03:30,519 Speaker 1: quick to embrace this new fangled technology. In fact, the 55 00:03:30,639 --> 00:03:34,200 Speaker 1: US government had considered passing laws that would impose strict 56 00:03:34,200 --> 00:03:37,200 Speaker 1: time limits on how long things like meat and dairy 57 00:03:37,480 --> 00:03:41,440 Speaker 1: could be held in cold storage, so to assuage the 58 00:03:41,520 --> 00:03:45,840 Speaker 1: fears and demonstrate the value of refrigeration. The industry sponsored 59 00:03:45,880 --> 00:03:49,080 Speaker 1: a special luncheon comprised only of foods that had been 60 00:03:49,120 --> 00:03:53,120 Speaker 1: in long term cold storage, and the plan worked. The 61 00:03:53,160 --> 00:03:55,000 Speaker 1: head chef of the hotel there said that it was 62 00:03:55,040 --> 00:03:58,160 Speaker 1: the best luncheon he had ever served, and one congressman 63 00:03:58,280 --> 00:04:00,840 Speaker 1: argued that the chicken was even more flavor than a bird, 64 00:04:00,920 --> 00:04:05,480 Speaker 1: and I quote advertised as freshly killed. Overall, people were 65 00:04:05,560 --> 00:04:08,040 Speaker 1: quite pleased with the meal they had eaten, and soon 66 00:04:08,160 --> 00:04:12,480 Speaker 1: enough the idea of cold storage was everywhere, although not 67 00:04:12,680 --> 00:04:17,159 Speaker 1: everyone was thrilled. Critics believe refrigeration would alter the taste 68 00:04:17,200 --> 00:04:20,200 Speaker 1: of food, and not for the better. In some ways, 69 00:04:20,200 --> 00:04:22,880 Speaker 1: that is true, but the benefits of keeping things fresher 70 00:04:22,920 --> 00:04:27,320 Speaker 1: for longer far outweigh the changes in flavor. General Electrics 71 00:04:27,320 --> 00:04:30,719 Speaker 1: started producing home refrigerators that very same year, although they 72 00:04:30,720 --> 00:04:34,719 Speaker 1: were prohibitively expensive. A new fridge cost about one thousand dollars, 73 00:04:34,800 --> 00:04:37,839 Speaker 1: twice the amount of a new car. But eventually those 74 00:04:37,880 --> 00:04:41,039 Speaker 1: costs came down and refrigerators found their way into every 75 00:04:41,120 --> 00:04:44,160 Speaker 1: home in America. And of course you know how this 76 00:04:44,279 --> 00:04:47,240 Speaker 1: story ends. Today, we store almost all of our fresh 77 00:04:47,240 --> 00:04:50,760 Speaker 1: food in the chilling embrace of our refrigerators. Preserving it 78 00:04:50,800 --> 00:04:53,880 Speaker 1: for weeks at a time, and to think we might 79 00:04:53,920 --> 00:04:56,640 Speaker 1: not have had them today if not for four hundred 80 00:04:56,640 --> 00:05:00,760 Speaker 1: brave politicians willing to risk their lives a slice of 81 00:05:00,880 --> 00:05:18,760 Speaker 1: one year old apple pie. What's your favorite dinosaur? That's 82 00:05:18,760 --> 00:05:21,680 Speaker 1: a question that you might not have heard since elementary school. 83 00:05:21,680 --> 00:05:23,960 Speaker 1: But I like to think that whether you're nine or 84 00:05:24,080 --> 00:05:27,599 Speaker 1: ninety nine, your answer still says something about you. As 85 00:05:27,640 --> 00:05:30,600 Speaker 1: for me, my favorite dinosaur is the triceratops, because of 86 00:05:30,680 --> 00:05:33,359 Speaker 1: good things come in threes. Right now, you might be 87 00:05:33,440 --> 00:05:37,120 Speaker 1: a velociraptor enthusiast, or a t rex fan, or a 88 00:05:37,200 --> 00:05:41,360 Speaker 1: lover of pterodactyls. You might even prefer the more peaceful brontosaurus, 89 00:05:41,520 --> 00:05:44,479 Speaker 1: you know, those long necked, tiny head tree lovers. That's 90 00:05:44,520 --> 00:05:48,160 Speaker 1: the one. Except for one little detail, your favorite dinosaur, 91 00:05:48,240 --> 00:05:52,719 Speaker 1: the Brontosaurus, may have never actually existed. The whole mix 92 00:05:52,800 --> 00:05:55,560 Speaker 1: up dates back over one hundred and forty years, when 93 00:05:55,600 --> 00:05:59,080 Speaker 1: two American paleontologists were duking it out in a conflict 94 00:05:59,120 --> 00:06:01,800 Speaker 1: known as the Bone Wars. You see, in the late 95 00:06:01,839 --> 00:06:05,880 Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, you couldn't talk about paleontology without talking about O. C. 96 00:06:06,080 --> 00:06:09,640 Speaker 1: Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope. These two men were pioneers 97 00:06:09,640 --> 00:06:12,720 Speaker 1: in the field. They began their career as friends and colleagues, 98 00:06:12,720 --> 00:06:15,839 Speaker 1: but that didn't last for long. In eighteen sixty eight, 99 00:06:16,120 --> 00:06:18,640 Speaker 1: Cope showed Marsh a quarry that he was digging in, 100 00:06:18,760 --> 00:06:21,440 Speaker 1: and shortly after Marsh struck a deal with the quarry's 101 00:06:21,480 --> 00:06:25,200 Speaker 1: owner giving him exclusive rights to fossils found in it. Essentially, 102 00:06:25,240 --> 00:06:28,880 Speaker 1: he planned to steal Cope's specimens right out from under him. 103 00:06:29,279 --> 00:06:32,960 Speaker 1: After that, it was all war. A few years later, 104 00:06:33,080 --> 00:06:36,600 Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy seven, a wealth of dinosaur fossils were 105 00:06:36,600 --> 00:06:40,640 Speaker 1: discovered at a dig site near Morrison, Colorado. Marsh and Cope, 106 00:06:40,880 --> 00:06:44,040 Speaker 1: each desperate to one up each other, used every dirty 107 00:06:44,040 --> 00:06:47,560 Speaker 1: trick they knew to protect their fines and to sabotage 108 00:06:47,640 --> 00:06:50,960 Speaker 1: their rivals. There are stories of the two bribing each 109 00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:54,279 Speaker 1: other's workers, spying on their dig sites, and even straight 110 00:06:54,360 --> 00:06:57,680 Speaker 1: up stealing fossils from each other. There are even reports 111 00:06:57,680 --> 00:07:01,440 Speaker 1: of the two paleontologists ordering their work to smash fossils 112 00:07:01,520 --> 00:07:04,839 Speaker 1: left behind so the other men couldn't collect them. The 113 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:07,800 Speaker 1: entire time too, both Marsh and Cope were in a 114 00:07:07,839 --> 00:07:11,680 Speaker 1: competition to make more discoveries, publish more papers and have 115 00:07:11,840 --> 00:07:15,080 Speaker 1: more articles in the news. But in the rush to 116 00:07:15,160 --> 00:07:19,080 Speaker 1: make new discoveries sometimes things got a bit confusing, Like 117 00:07:19,120 --> 00:07:22,880 Speaker 1: how in eighteen seventy seven, Marsh's team uncovered a brand 118 00:07:22,920 --> 00:07:26,680 Speaker 1: new skeleton in Morrison, Colorado. Of course, Marsh was a 119 00:07:26,760 --> 00:07:29,680 Speaker 1: static to find that, hiding under tons of rocks and 120 00:07:29,760 --> 00:07:33,640 Speaker 1: debris was a nearly perfect specimen of an unknown dinosaur. 121 00:07:34,040 --> 00:07:37,200 Speaker 1: The creature had four limbs, a whiplike tail, and an 122 00:07:37,200 --> 00:07:40,200 Speaker 1: incredibly long neck. The only thing missing was the new 123 00:07:40,240 --> 00:07:44,200 Speaker 1: dinosaur's head. When a museum asked for a reconstruction of 124 00:07:44,200 --> 00:07:46,960 Speaker 1: the skeleton to show in its collection a few years later, 125 00:07:47,120 --> 00:07:49,680 Speaker 1: Marsh put a skull he found near the skeleton on 126 00:07:49,760 --> 00:07:53,160 Speaker 1: top to complete it. He named the animal the Apotosaurus, 127 00:07:53,240 --> 00:07:57,360 Speaker 1: which comes from the Greek deceptive lizard. By eighteen eighty five, 128 00:07:57,720 --> 00:08:02,080 Speaker 1: Marsh had made dozens of discoveries the Apotosaurus, still trying 129 00:08:02,120 --> 00:08:05,360 Speaker 1: to outpublish cope. He was excited when his team shipped 130 00:08:05,400 --> 00:08:08,920 Speaker 1: him the bones of a new dinosaur. This was another 131 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:12,240 Speaker 1: species of a long necked leaf eating dinosaur, this time 132 00:08:12,360 --> 00:08:15,559 Speaker 1: complete with a skull. Not wanting to waste any time, 133 00:08:15,840 --> 00:08:19,120 Speaker 1: Marsh gave it a cursory examination then declared it a 134 00:08:19,160 --> 00:08:24,720 Speaker 1: brand new species, the Brontosaurus, meaning thunder lizard. The only problem, 135 00:08:25,040 --> 00:08:28,440 Speaker 1: the Brontosaurus and the Apotosaurus were one and the same. 136 00:08:28,760 --> 00:08:32,880 Speaker 1: The brontosaurus skeleton was just more complete than the apotosaurus fossil, 137 00:08:33,120 --> 00:08:36,880 Speaker 1: including the correct skull. Marsh was so desperate to defeat 138 00:08:36,920 --> 00:08:39,839 Speaker 1: Cope that he didn't even realize the dinosaur he had 139 00:08:39,880 --> 00:08:44,360 Speaker 1: just named had already been discovered by him. For nearly 140 00:08:44,400 --> 00:08:48,600 Speaker 1: one hundred years, Cope's two long necked dinosaurs became fixtures 141 00:08:48,600 --> 00:08:52,480 Speaker 1: in the public's imagination. The Brontosaurus especially, became a star 142 00:08:52,520 --> 00:08:56,160 Speaker 1: of movies, books, and classrooms around the world. It wasn't 143 00:08:56,240 --> 00:09:00,400 Speaker 1: until nineteen seventy nine that the confusion was finally clear up. 144 00:09:00,880 --> 00:09:04,160 Speaker 1: That year, two paleontologists who had heard rumors about the 145 00:09:04,160 --> 00:09:07,920 Speaker 1: two long neck similarities, dug into the data. The more 146 00:09:07,920 --> 00:09:11,160 Speaker 1: they researched, the more they realized the two dinos were 147 00:09:11,200 --> 00:09:14,840 Speaker 1: actually one. Finally, nearly one hundred years after it was 148 00:09:14,880 --> 00:09:18,480 Speaker 1: first assembled, the two paleontologists put the right skulls on 149 00:09:18,559 --> 00:09:22,840 Speaker 1: Marsh's original Apotosaurus. Then they made an announcement to the world. 150 00:09:22,920 --> 00:09:26,280 Speaker 1: There was no such thing as a brontosaurus. The long 151 00:09:26,320 --> 00:09:29,280 Speaker 1: neck dinosaur that Marsh found was the one and only 152 00:09:29,360 --> 00:09:34,200 Speaker 1: a Potosaurus. They'd finally uncovered the truth. Well that's what 153 00:09:34,240 --> 00:09:36,760 Speaker 1: they thought they'd done. But thirty six years later, in 154 00:09:36,840 --> 00:09:41,240 Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, science threw a wrench into their conclusions. That year, 155 00:09:41,280 --> 00:09:44,560 Speaker 1: a study was conducted that compared every long necked dinosaur 156 00:09:44,600 --> 00:09:48,559 Speaker 1: fossil that had ever been discovered, and the results were surprising. 157 00:09:48,880 --> 00:09:51,520 Speaker 1: It turned out that Marsh was right all along. The 158 00:09:51,559 --> 00:09:56,520 Speaker 1: Brontosaurus and the Apotosaurus were two different, distinct dinosaur fossils. 159 00:09:57,160 --> 00:10:04,360 Speaker 1: No bones about it. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided 160 00:10:04,400 --> 00:10:07,800 Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on 161 00:10:07,840 --> 00:10:10,840 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting 162 00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:15,600 Speaker 1: Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me 163 00:10:15,800 --> 00:10:19,400 Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make 164 00:10:19,480 --> 00:10:23,000 Speaker 1: another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, 165 00:10:23,120 --> 00:10:26,080 Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all 166 00:10:26,080 --> 00:10:30,160 Speaker 1: about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until 167 00:10:30,200 --> 00:10:33,840 Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.