Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Everyone has a dream when you're young. It
Speaker 1: might be to become an astronaut or a firefighter, or
Speaker 1: to play in a rock band in front of thousands
Speaker 1: of screaming fans. We live with our heads in the
Speaker 1: clouds because we don't want to face what's waiting back
Speaker 1: for us on Earth. Reality. Reality has a nasty way
Speaker 1: of knocking down our dreams, sometimes for good, but not
Speaker 1: for all. Brook Burbley, whenever his dreams were squatted out
Speaker 1: of the sky, he simply aimed higher. Albert Burblinger, let's
Speaker 1: call him AL for short, was born in the city
Speaker 1: of Ulm in seventeen seventy in the Kingdom of Prussia
Speaker 1: now part of Germany. The youngest of seven children, Al's
Speaker 1: parents were poor. His father worked in the city's armory,
Speaker 1: which Al would often visit when he was younger. As
Speaker 1: a result, he got a good look at the kinds
Speaker 1: of tools and machines that his father worked with. They
Speaker 1: might have been the inspiration for Al's dream of becoming
Speaker 1: a watchmaker. However, when he was thirteen years old, his
Speaker 1: father passed away. It's unclear what had become of his mother,
Speaker 1: although it's probably safe to say that she was also gone,
Speaker 1: because Al was sent to an orphanage until he became
Speaker 1: an adult. He never let go of his love of mechanics, though,
Speaker 1: but his new guardians had other plans. He was forced
Speaker 1: to apprentice with a local tailor, with the goal of
Speaker 1: one day establishing him as a tailor in his own right.
Speaker 1: But Al didn't want that. He wanted to build things,
Speaker 1: and not just watches. In his spare time, he tinkered
Speaker 1: with various inventions, such as they prosthetic device meant for
Speaker 1: those who had suffered from foot amputations. In fact, in
Speaker 1: eighteen o eight, he created the first ever jointed leg prosthesis.
Speaker 1: But soon Al began setting his sights higher, much higher.
Speaker 1: He grew a preoccupation with the concept of human flight.
Speaker 1: It all happened when he started watching how owls soared
Speaker 1: through the sky. He noted the shapes of their wings
Speaker 1: and how they spread out when the owls took flight.
Speaker 1: And then he got to work. He built something akin
Speaker 1: to a hang glider, which would allow him to fly
Speaker 1: short distances from the tops of vineyard walls and cottages.
Speaker 1: There and Ulm. Others in town didn't think that he
Speaker 1: could do it, though. The Guild of Tailor's even tried
Speaker 1: to expel him for his lack of focus on his trade.
Speaker 1: He was fined for wasting his time on his inventions,
Speaker 1: but Al refused to give up. King Frederick, the first
Speaker 1: of Rtemburg even promised him funding if he could prove
Speaker 1: that his idea worked now. That original plan was to
Speaker 1: leap from the all ministers one meter high roof, but
Speaker 1: few people believed that he would be successful. Instead, he
Speaker 1: was instructed to jump from a seven meter tall scaffold
Speaker 1: that had been constructed on top of a thirteen meter
Speaker 1: high wall overlooking the Danube River. His goal was to
Speaker 1: land on the other side of the river, a distance
Speaker 1: of about forty and so on May eighteen eleven, Al
Speaker 1: strapped into his glider as the King, his sons, and
Speaker 1: the Crown Prince of Bavaria looked on Al. However, I
Speaker 1: couldn't do it. He told everyone his glider had broken
Speaker 1: and that the flights would have to wait until the
Speaker 1: next day. But the King was leaving then to attend
Speaker 1: some royal business. His brother, Duke Heinrich, stayed to watch
Speaker 1: that event the following afternoon. So finally, on May thirty one,
Speaker 1: the time had come. Hours went by as Al waited
Speaker 1: for the winds to die down enough for him to
Speaker 1: safely launch himself. He had planned to jump at four pm,
Speaker 1: but one hour later, everyone, including the Duke, felt that
Speaker 1: they had waited long enough. A police officer, also sick
Speaker 1: of the delay, shoved Al off the wall, and the
Speaker 1: rest was history, but not in a way that aspiring
Speaker 1: aviator had hoped for. He dropped like a stone into
Speaker 1: the river below and had to be fished out by
Speaker 1: actual fisherman, and he was booed and jeered. His reputation
Speaker 1: was irreparably tarnished, and he not only lost the public's goodwill,
Speaker 1: but he also lost their business. He was no longer
Speaker 1: a tailor nor an inventor. Albrook Berblinger died without a
Speaker 1: single sent to his name at the young age of
Speaker 1: fifty eight. Hundreds of years later, however, his work was
Speaker 1: eventually vindicated. For one, experts realized that there was little
Speaker 1: to no chance that he would have ever gotten the
Speaker 1: glider in the air so close to the Danube, as
Speaker 1: the river created a down draft that would have kept
Speaker 1: his wings grounded. And second, researchers inspected his design and
Speaker 1: found no flaws. In fact, had he taken off from
Speaker 1: a more appropriate location, he most likely would have succeeded.
Speaker 1: All he needed was a better launching spot and some
Speaker 1: in urgement from his neighbors a little wind beneath his wings.
Speaker 1: At the top of the world resides the North Pole,
Speaker 1: comprised of the Arctic Ocean and numerous land masses, many
Speaker 1: of which are covered in ice. In June seventy one,
Speaker 1: the USS Polarists left New York to become the first
Speaker 1: vessel to reach the North Pole. The expedition was led
Speaker 1: by Arctic explorer Charles Francis Hall, with backing from the
Speaker 1: United States government. The ship's crew included the sailing master,
Speaker 1: engineers cook and astronomer, as well as chief scientist Amial
Speaker 1: Vessels and Frederick Meyer, the ship's meteorologist. The two German
Speaker 1: Men were highly educated and skilled, which made them valuable
Speaker 1: assets on the voyage, but it also rendered them insufferable
Speaker 1: to everyone else. Bessels and Meyer didn't think too highly
Speaker 1: of most of their fellow crew, especially Commander Hall, who
Speaker 1: they felt was not smart enough to lead them. With
Speaker 1: half the crew being German and the other half being
Speaker 1: made up of Americans, Swedes, and Danes, the ship was
Speaker 1: a veritable melting pot, one that seemed to be getting
Speaker 1: more heated by the day. Things started off okay, with
Speaker 1: the ship chugging along on its way north. However, by October,
Speaker 1: Commander Hall began to feel sick. He'd gotten a stomach
Speaker 1: ache after drinking a cup of coffee, which grew into
Speaker 1: delirium and partial paralysis. Dr Bessels tried to treat him,
Speaker 1: but Hall wouldn't let him. He didn't trust him at all.
Speaker 1: In fact, he believed that Vessels and the German side
Speaker 1: of the crew were plotting against him. Specifically, he felt
Speaker 1: that they had poisoned him, but there was no proof.
Speaker 1: His condition had gotten so bad by early November that
Speaker 1: he had no choice but to allow vessels to administer treatments,
Speaker 1: but sadly it was too late. Hall succumbed to whatever
Speaker 1: had been plaguing him on November eight. He was buried
Speaker 1: in a small basin off the northwestern coast of Greenland
Speaker 1: called Thank God Harbor. The crew still attempted to reach
Speaker 1: the pole that June. Three of the Polaris's whale boats
Speaker 1: were dispatched to navigate the icy waters, and one after
Speaker 1: the other, each boat was destroyed by the ice. Even
Speaker 1: the Polaris itself couldn't find a safe route to the pole,
Speaker 1: and the main objective of the whole voyage was abandoned.
Speaker 1: The ship eventually turned around and headed south back towards home,
Speaker 1: but months had passed since their attempt at the pole,
Speaker 1: and more ice had now moved into the waters they
Speaker 1: were traveling through. The Polaris collided with a berg on
Speaker 1: the evening of October fifteenth and began taking on water.
Speaker 1: The new commander, sailing Master Sydney Buddington, told everyone to
Speaker 1: toss cargo onto the nearby ice to reduce weight on
Speaker 1: the ship. Nineteen crew members, including Inuit hunters who had
Speaker 1: been on board, abandon the ship as well, and spent
Speaker 1: the night huddled together on the ice, expecting the Polarist
Speaker 1: to sink to the bottom of the ocean. The following morning, though,
Speaker 1: they woke up to find that the Polarists was about
Speaker 1: ten miles away and still a boat. It turned out
Speaker 1: that the leak wasn't as bad as they had originally thought. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: this group was stranded and the Polarists wasn't coming back
Speaker 1: for them. They had some food and a few small boats,
Speaker 1: but little else to survive. Luckily, the Inuit hunters knew
Speaker 1: how to keep everyone alive. They built igloos from the
Speaker 1: ice and caught seals that kept everyone well fed for
Speaker 1: some time. For months, they endured a harsh Arctic winter
Speaker 1: as the ice drift itself. One of the boats was
Speaker 1: broken down to create a fire. A crew member fashioned
Speaker 1: a deck of cards from some paper so that people
Speaker 1: could play games, and as time went on, animosity between
Speaker 1: the Germans and the others increased, so much so that
Speaker 1: it was believed that the armed Germans might kill one
Speaker 1: of the hunters. The group also had to contend with
Speaker 1: their ice flow breaking up beneath them. Sometime or on April,
Speaker 1: all nineteen survivors piled into the one remaining lifeboat and
Speaker 1: floated onward, hoping for a miracle, and on April eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy three, it finally came when they caught sight of
Speaker 1: a ceiling ship out in the distance. They were soon
Speaker 1: picked up. After having drifted a total of eighteen hundred
Speaker 1: miles over the course of six months, everyone had survived,
Speaker 1: along with those who had remained on the Polarists. They
Speaker 1: were eventually rescued by a whaling ship that July. Once
Speaker 1: all parties were back on dry land and inquiry was
Speaker 1: held to determine the truth behind Captain Hall's death, there
Speaker 1: wasn't enough evidence to pinned on vessels, so it was
Speaker 1: declared that Hall had died of a stroke instead, although
Speaker 1: the accusations followed vessels around for the rest of his
Speaker 1: life and probably for good reason. In nineteen sixty, almost
Speaker 1: one years after the expedition, an author who had been
Speaker 1: writing Hall's biography requested to travel to Thank God Harbor
Speaker 1: and exhume the body. He wanted to see for himself
Speaker 1: what had caused the captain's death. The corpse was in
Speaker 1: very good condition due to the perma frost around the coffin,
Speaker 1: and the writer was able to take samples of Hall's bone, hair,
Speaker 1: and finger nails back for testing. The results revealed the
Speaker 1: shocking truth behind the Captain's untimely demise arsenic and lots
Speaker 1: of it too. Vessels suddenly became a prime suspect once again,
Speaker 1: especially when it came out that both men had been
Speaker 1: pursuing the same woman back in New York, a sculptor
Speaker 1: named Vivey Reem. Vessels had most likely been jealous of
Speaker 1: Captain Hall when it became clear that Realm had preferred
Speaker 1: the latter's company to the not so good Doctors. But
Speaker 1: Vessels was gone. He had died in eight when he
Speaker 1: was only forty years old, ironically from a stroke, the
Speaker 1: same cause that was declared by the inquiry committee investigating
Speaker 1: Captain Hall's death. Some might call that karma, me I
Speaker 1: just see it as a stroke of bad luck. I
Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
Speaker 1: of Lore dot com and until next time, stay curious,
Speaker 1: ye