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Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is

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Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,

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Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

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Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

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Speaker 1: of Curiosities. In sixteenth century Rome, six individuals step forward

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Speaker 1: to comment on the socio political issues of the day,

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Speaker 1: back when speaking out against the rich and powerful could

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Speaker 1: be met with violence or even death. Still, the consequences

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Speaker 1: didn't stop them. They refused to stay quiet, and in

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Speaker 1: doing so, cemented their place in history as champions of

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Speaker 1: free speech. The first was Pasquino, a tailor so talented

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Speaker 1: he managed to work his way into the Vatican. Nobody

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Speaker 1: there paid much attention to a tailor, and so they

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Speaker 1: didn't think twice when discussing sensitive topics around him, Pasquino

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Speaker 1: would eavesdrop and collect valuable bits of gossip, which would

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Speaker 1: then be spread to his friends and family. Then there

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Speaker 1: was Marforio, who spent much of his time in the water,

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Speaker 1: lazing and about. He would often carry with him funny

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Speaker 1: poems and satires written by others, showing them to all

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Speaker 1: who passed by, and those pieces were almost always directed

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Speaker 1: toward powerful government figures, which I'm sure made a lot

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Speaker 1: of people very uncomfortable. Then there was abbott Luigi, who

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Speaker 1: actually worked in government, despite his disdain for it. He

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Speaker 1: spent most of his time at the Palazzo Vedoni Cafarelli,

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Speaker 1: a massive palace designed by a student of the great

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Speaker 1: artist Raphael He openly admonished his peers and superiors whenever possible.

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Speaker 1: Madame Lucreza was the only woman among the bunch. She

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Speaker 1: had suffered some terrible accidents during her life which affected

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Speaker 1: her face. Still she didn't let it stop her from

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Speaker 1: spreading her biting critique at those at the top. Next

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Speaker 1: there was Ill Babuino. Although that wasn't his real name,

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Speaker 1: he was called that the Italian phrase for the baboon,

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Speaker 1: due to his unfortunate looks and deformities. Maybe it was

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Speaker 1: because he felt like half a man that he grew

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Speaker 1: so angry at his country's leaders. And finally, there was

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Speaker 1: Ill Faciano. He was a humble water salesman during a

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Speaker 1: time when the Roman aqueducts were in desperate need of repair.

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Speaker 1: He like the other five people of his time, was

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Speaker 1: not afraid to voice his opinions, and he suffered greatly

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Speaker 1: for it. People in town sometimes threw stones at him,

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Speaker 1: which badly damaged his face. These six figures were rebels

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Speaker 1: at a time when rebellion, especially against the Church, was

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Speaker 1: a dangerous endeavor. They were known as the Congregation of Wits,

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Speaker 1: and modern rebels can pay tribute to them today. They

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Speaker 1: were the original kings and queen of Roman gossip, and

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Speaker 1: they still hang around all over the city. That's because

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Speaker 1: their statues, known as the talking Statues of Rome, they

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Speaker 1: hadn't been created with satire in mind. Pasquino was actually

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Speaker 1: a representation of Menelais, the mythical king of Sparta who

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Speaker 1: married Helen of Troy. Marforio loved the water because he

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Speaker 1: was a sculpture of a river god thought to be

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Speaker 1: either Jupiter or Neptune, and Madame Lucretz's face wasn't always deformed.

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Speaker 1: Back in her heyday, she was thought to have been

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Speaker 1: a statue of the Egyptian goddess Isis. The toga clad

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Speaker 1: abbot Luigi was the statue of a magistrate conveying ill

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Speaker 1: will toward the pope, which didn't sit well with Vatican leaders.

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Speaker 1: Ill Babuino was a mythical half go taff Man creature,

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Speaker 1: and il Facino depicted a more modern sixteenth century man.

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Speaker 1: Like I said, these statues weren't satirical creations in and

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Speaker 1: of themselves. Instead, romans imposed that on them. They would

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Speaker 1: write on these statues or stick little poems and critiques

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Speaker 1: of authority to them in the middle of the night.

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Speaker 1: If they were ever caught, they could face jail or

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Speaker 1: have their offending hand cut off. Heck, if the graffiti

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Speaker 1: was bad enough, execution was even an option. Despite the punishments, though,

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Speaker 1: people continue to put up their writings for generations, and

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Speaker 1: as those in power got tired of seeing them, the

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Speaker 1: statues were either vandalized or moved elsewhere. Mexican painter Diego

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Speaker 1: Rivera once said, the role of the artist is that

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Speaker 1: of the soldier in the revolution, and while the original

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Speaker 1: artists behind these statues might not have been revolutionaries, those

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Speaker 1: in the lower class who used them certainly were back then,

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Speaker 1: though the authorities hadn't yet learned the most important rule

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Speaker 1: on the Internet today, never read the comments in Risk

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Speaker 1: sponds to Virginia O'Hanlon, a New York Sun editor named

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Speaker 1: Francis Church stated without a doubt that, yes, Virginia, there

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Speaker 1: is a Santa Claus. Fans of class at Christmas films

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Speaker 1: know those words all too well. However, it was another

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Speaker 1: line in Virginia's original letter that encapsulated the public's belief

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Speaker 1: in the media. If you see it in the Sun,

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Speaker 1: it is so you see. Before cable news and am

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Speaker 1: radio turned everyone into skeptics, people had faith in what

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Speaker 1: they read and listened to. If it came from the

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Speaker 1: mouth or pen of a trusted journalist, it must have

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Speaker 1: been true. And then in all hell broke loose. On October,

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Speaker 1: the day before Halloween, a radio broadcast went out all

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Speaker 1: across America. When it did, it caused a panic from

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Speaker 1: coast to coast and everywhere in between. The first bulletins

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Speaker 1: came in from an observatory in Chicago, where it was

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Speaker 1: reported that explosions had been spotted on the surface of Mars.

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Speaker 1: Minutes later, an earthquake was felt only miles outside of Princeton,

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Speaker 1: New Jersey. Originally thought to be a media rite, a

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Speaker 1: later update revealed another impact not far from Trenton. It

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Speaker 1: was clear that New Jersey was under attack Onlookers and

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Speaker 1: police watched. As the top of the unidentified object came off,

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Speaker 1: something emerged from inside, its wide black eyes, reflecting back

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Speaker 1: at the crowd. A hum could be heard, getting louder

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Speaker 1: and louder as the creature extended its long, snake like tentacles. Suddenly,

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Speaker 1: a fire engulfed the officers approaching the craft. More explosions

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Speaker 1: followed than reports of the dead started coming in. Forty

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Speaker 1: people had been found burned to the bone in a

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Speaker 1: nearby field. The United States military had been dispatched to

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Speaker 1: several counties in New Jersey as martial law was declared

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Speaker 1: throughout the state. One hour later, the broadcaster came back

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Speaker 1: to announce what you most likely already know that everyone

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Speaker 1: had been listening to, a dramatization of the classic H. G.

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Speaker 1: Wells sci fi story The War of the World's presented

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Speaker 1: orson Wells. The aftermath of the broadcast is widely known

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Speaker 1: and still debated today. Despite the sensationalist headlines from newspapers

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Speaker 1: like The New York Times, it's unclear just how much

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Speaker 1: of the country truly panicked during the program, but it

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Speaker 1: was enough to force the police to actually visit the

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Speaker 1: station to shut things down. Page boys and CBS employees

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Speaker 1: had to hold them back as well as continued to

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Speaker 1: push the envelope. Meanwhile, CBSS switchboard was overrun with calls

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Speaker 1: from Midwestern towns where riots had broken out mobs had

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Speaker 1: flooded the streets. In the town of Concrete, Washington, the

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Speaker 1: phone lines were so overloaded that they shored it out,

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Speaker 1: causing a town wide blackout that probably didn't help to

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Speaker 1: calm their fears. The story of Wells presentation isn't that unknown.

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Speaker 1: It's a cautionary tale, meant to symbolize that we need

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Speaker 1: to vet information instead of taking it at face value. However,

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Speaker 1: America's response to the War of the Worlds was only

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Speaker 1: the tip of the iceberg, because the broadcast was recreated

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Speaker 1: six years later in Chile. It had been rewritten to

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Speaker 1: fit the new setting, of course, but all the telltale

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Speaker 1: signs were still there, reports of explosions, death, and mass hysteria.

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Speaker 1: Except unlike in America, where many folks suspected they were

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Speaker 1: listening to a work of fiction, Chileans had no idea.

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Speaker 1: The governor really fought aliens had invaded. He was so

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Speaker 1: scared he organized the Chilean military to fight them off.

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Speaker 1: Then in the show was changed again for an Ecuadorian audience.

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Speaker 1: The only difference in this case was that the riots

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Speaker 1: didn't start until after the broadcast was over. Upon learning

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Speaker 1: that the whole thing had been a hoax, locals burned

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Speaker 1: down both the radio station and the newspaper building. Twenty

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Speaker 1: people lost their lives that day, and over three fifty

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars in damage was reported. Among those arrested for

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Speaker 1: the crimes were three of the broadcasters themselves, who had

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Speaker 1: caused the panic in the first place. Today, as so

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Speaker 1: much of the news that's reported has shifted towards entertainment,

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Speaker 1: it's more and more difficult to the fiction Amongst the fact.

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Speaker 1: Conspiracy theorists want us to believe that everything is a

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Speaker 1: massive plot or cover up run by the world's elite.

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Speaker 1: The rest of us are left searching through it all

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Speaker 1: for the truth, like searching for needles in a haystack.

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Speaker 1: I know we often lament that our world just isn't

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Speaker 1: what it used to be, but some things haven't changed.

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Speaker 1: After all, that old bit of advice is still as

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Speaker 1: relevant as it's ever been. Don't believe everything you hear.

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Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet

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Speaker 1: of Curiosities, subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn

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Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.

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Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership

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Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show

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Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television

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Speaker 1: show and you can learn all about it over at

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Speaker 1: the World of Lore dot com. And until next time,

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Speaker 1: stay curi is m