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. It was an Alaskan hunters
Speaker 1: pot luck. I know those are a lot of unrelated words,
Speaker 1: but let me try to unpack them for you. You see,
Speaker 1: state laws in Alaska ban the sale of game meat,
Speaker 1: so if you were to swing on down to the
Speaker 1: local steakhouse, you aren't going to find caribou on the menu,
Speaker 1: no matter how badly you might want to try it.
Speaker 1: Of course, no one can stop you from eating something
Speaker 1: you hunted yourself. So a common event all across the
Speaker 1: state is for hunters to invite a few friends over
Speaker 1: for a meal. Maybe everyone brings their own hunting related dish,
Speaker 1: or perhaps there's just one main dish that everyone will share.
Speaker 1: It's different each time, depending on the success they've had
Speaker 1: that season. With all that said, Dale had had a
Speaker 1: very successful hunt. He had brought home meat from a
Speaker 1: prized catch, something to be proud of, so he invited
Speaker 1: a few friends over to celebrate and partake in the bounty.
Speaker 1: The trouble was there wasn't a lot of meat to
Speaker 1: go around, so he did what people have done for centuries.
Speaker 1: He made a stew out of it. Dale cut up
Speaker 1: carrots and potatoes, diced some onions, and crushed some garlic,
Speaker 1: and put the whole thing on the stove for a
Speaker 1: good long simmer. By the time guests arrived that evening,
Speaker 1: there was a rich aroma filling. The house wine was poured,
Speaker 1: bowls were filled, and then every single one of the
Speaker 1: eight people around the table dug into their meals. Dale
Speaker 1: wasn't a celebrity chef, so don't expect something amazing to
Speaker 1: have taken place. According to one interview, everyone managed to
Speaker 1: finish their portion, but no one remembers anyone going back
Speaker 1: for seconds. I get it, there's nothing unusual or curious
Speaker 1: about a gathering of Alaskan's around the dinner table enjoying
Speaker 1: a nice stew that one of them cooked up. But
Speaker 1: this was no ordinary dinner party, and the meal was curious.
Speaker 1: That's because the meat in dale stew was from a bison,
Speaker 1: a bison that died over fifty thousand years ago. Reggie
Speaker 1: was a bit of a practical joker. Sure, he was
Speaker 1: a physicist by training and used his skills to help
Speaker 1: the British military defend itself from the Germans during World
Speaker 1: War Two. But trickster nature was always right there near
Speaker 1: the surface. It said that in the nineteen thirties, while
Speaker 1: he was a research fellow at Oxford, he called up
Speaker 1: one of the other professors to carry out a prank.
Speaker 1: The first few times he called, Reggie immediately hung up
Speaker 1: as the man was answering. Finally, after sowing the seeds
Speaker 1: of frustration and doubt, he called and pretended to be
Speaker 1: a representative from the telephone company and reported a faulty line.
Speaker 1: He then went on to ask the professor to run
Speaker 1: a series of tests to see if the problem was
Speaker 1: on his end. Those tests included tapping his pencil on
Speaker 1: the phone, standing on one leg, and dipping the receiver
Speaker 1: into a bowl of cold water. Much to Reggie's enjoyment,
Speaker 1: the professor followed all of the instructions to a t.
Speaker 1: Let's be honest. Though the college campus is no stranger
Speaker 1: to practical jokes. In fact, Steve Wozniak, one of the
Speaker 1: founders of Apple Computer, engaged in his own fair share
Speaker 1: of fund Wozniak actually built a sort of signal jammer
Speaker 1: for early televisions and would carry it in his pocket
Speaker 1: in the dorm and cause TV shows to cut in
Speaker 1: and out, much to everyone else's frustration. But most people
Speaker 1: grow up, they move on and leave those college pranks
Speaker 1: behind them. Steve Wozniak went on to help found one
Speaker 1: of the most culturally significant companies of the last century,
Speaker 1: and Reggie went on to work for British military intelligence.
Speaker 1: His training as a physicist allowed him to help the
Speaker 1: British avoid the bombing raids that the Germans continuously sent
Speaker 1: their way. The Germans had developed a technology they called
Speaker 1: the nick and bine, which was a method of guiding
Speaker 1: airplanes to a very specific target using a pair of
Speaker 1: radio beams that intersected over the location. Reggie's first assignment
Speaker 1: was to find a way to bend one of those
Speaker 1: beams and throw off the German bombers, and it worked.
Speaker 1: Rather than dropping bombs on major cities, the German planes
Speaker 1: were guided out into the countryside, where their bombs did
Speaker 1: much less damage. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
Speaker 1: of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
Speaker 1: and television show and you can learn all about it
Speaker 1: over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.