1 00:00:04,080 --> 00:00:07,480 Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of 2 00:00:07,480 --> 00:00:13,840 Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is 3 00:00:13,960 --> 00:00:17,960 Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, 4 00:00:18,280 --> 00:00:21,640 Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display, 5 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:27,600 Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet 6 00:00:27,840 --> 00:00:39,559 Speaker 1: of Curiosities. When it comes to advancements in science, education 7 00:00:39,760 --> 00:00:43,320 Speaker 1: is key. Each generation learns from those who came before them, 8 00:00:43,360 --> 00:00:47,840 Speaker 1: studying their experiments and findings. Students then apply what they've 9 00:00:47,960 --> 00:00:52,000 Speaker 1: learned to keep things moving forward. Often children get their 10 00:00:52,040 --> 00:00:55,760 Speaker 1: first taste of scientific exploration at home. They might receive 11 00:00:55,760 --> 00:00:59,200 Speaker 1: a microscope for Christmas, or a chemistry set on their birthday, 12 00:00:59,520 --> 00:01:04,080 Speaker 1: mixing baking soda and vinegar to produce volcanic explosions in 13 00:01:04,120 --> 00:01:08,000 Speaker 1: their kitchens. But one scientist discovery led to a new 14 00:01:08,120 --> 00:01:12,400 Speaker 1: kind of educational toy, one that was far more dangerous 15 00:01:12,480 --> 00:01:16,880 Speaker 1: than anyone realized. His name was William Crooks, born in 16 00:01:16,920 --> 00:01:20,480 Speaker 1: England in eighteen thirty two. William came from a big family, 17 00:01:20,600 --> 00:01:23,200 Speaker 1: the oldest of eight surviving siblings out of a total 18 00:01:23,240 --> 00:01:26,800 Speaker 1: of sixteen. Though his father and grandfather had been Taylor's 19 00:01:27,200 --> 00:01:30,360 Speaker 1: Williams set out on his own path. He enrolled at 20 00:01:30,400 --> 00:01:33,160 Speaker 1: the Royal College of Chemistry when he was just sixteen, 21 00:01:33,480 --> 00:01:36,840 Speaker 1: paying his own way while living at home. He was 22 00:01:36,880 --> 00:01:40,479 Speaker 1: also responsible for buying his own materials, including the chemicals 23 00:01:40,600 --> 00:01:43,720 Speaker 1: used in his academic experiments. But his hard work paid 24 00:01:43,720 --> 00:01:46,400 Speaker 1: off and he earned a scholarship for his sophomore year. 25 00:01:46,920 --> 00:01:50,880 Speaker 1: William worked his way up, assisting the school's director, August 26 00:01:51,040 --> 00:01:54,280 Speaker 1: Wilhelm von Hoffmann in the lab and with his research. 27 00:01:55,040 --> 00:01:58,200 Speaker 1: As he got older and gained more experience, William also 28 00:01:58,240 --> 00:02:02,680 Speaker 1: made connections with scientists from other fields. Michael Faraday, for example, 29 00:02:02,880 --> 00:02:08,080 Speaker 1: experimented with electromagnetism and electro chemistry. The physicist George Stokes 30 00:02:08,280 --> 00:02:12,079 Speaker 1: studied fluid dynamics and how light traveled. It's likely that 31 00:02:12,120 --> 00:02:15,680 Speaker 1: both men influenced William heavily as he pursued his true 32 00:02:15,720 --> 00:02:21,079 Speaker 1: passion optical physics. Now, optical physics dealt with the study 33 00:02:21,120 --> 00:02:24,440 Speaker 1: of light and how it interacted with matter. William's father 34 00:02:24,600 --> 00:02:27,120 Speaker 1: noticed this fascination with optics when the boy was just 35 00:02:27,280 --> 00:02:30,600 Speaker 1: nineteen and built him a lab right in the family garden. 36 00:02:31,040 --> 00:02:34,320 Speaker 1: Over the next several decades, William utilized several new testing 37 00:02:34,400 --> 00:02:39,000 Speaker 1: methods including spectral analysis to track how matter reacted to 38 00:02:39,120 --> 00:02:43,760 Speaker 1: electromagnetic radiation, and in eighteen sixty one, his techniques helped 39 00:02:43,840 --> 00:02:48,399 Speaker 1: him discover a brand new element for the periodic table, thallium. 40 00:02:48,520 --> 00:02:52,880 Speaker 1: William wrote papers, he developed new tools, and published numerous 41 00:02:52,919 --> 00:02:57,440 Speaker 1: findings over the course of his life. In though everything changed, 42 00:02:57,840 --> 00:03:01,040 Speaker 1: Marie Currey and her husband Pierre disc covered radium, and 43 00:03:01,160 --> 00:03:05,440 Speaker 1: news of the breakthrough traveled around the world. Naturally, journalists 44 00:03:05,440 --> 00:03:08,679 Speaker 1: sought out experts for their opinions on the finding, and 45 00:03:08,760 --> 00:03:11,640 Speaker 1: one of those experts happened to be William Crooks. By 46 00:03:11,720 --> 00:03:14,960 Speaker 1: nineteen o three, he had already started experimenting with radium 47 00:03:14,960 --> 00:03:17,680 Speaker 1: on his own. He had taken a screen treated with 48 00:03:17,800 --> 00:03:20,880 Speaker 1: zinc sulfide and placed it close to a small amount 49 00:03:20,880 --> 00:03:24,600 Speaker 1: of radium, observing as the elements alpha radiation caused a 50 00:03:24,680 --> 00:03:29,760 Speaker 1: fluorescent reaction. Unfortunately, during his tests, he spilled some of 51 00:03:29,760 --> 00:03:33,080 Speaker 1: the radium over his workplace. Not wanting to lose a 52 00:03:33,120 --> 00:03:37,320 Speaker 1: single grain of the expensive substance, he employed his microscope 53 00:03:37,360 --> 00:03:39,840 Speaker 1: to help him find it all. He noticed during his 54 00:03:39,880 --> 00:03:42,080 Speaker 1: search that some of the radium had wound up on 55 00:03:42,120 --> 00:03:45,800 Speaker 1: the zinc sulfide screen, which caused tiny flashes of light 56 00:03:46,080 --> 00:03:50,200 Speaker 1: to explode before his eyes. William realized that he needed 57 00:03:50,200 --> 00:03:53,440 Speaker 1: a way to safely examine these flashes, so he created 58 00:03:53,480 --> 00:03:56,520 Speaker 1: a device to contain the reaction. It was a metal 59 00:03:56,560 --> 00:04:00,600 Speaker 1: tube with a smaller zinc sulfide screen. Inside, a needle 60 00:04:00,800 --> 00:04:03,560 Speaker 1: held a tiny grain of radium at its tip close 61 00:04:03,600 --> 00:04:06,760 Speaker 1: to the screen, the proximity of which could be adjusted 62 00:04:06,920 --> 00:04:10,680 Speaker 1: thanks to a thumb screw. The reactions inside were viewed 63 00:04:10,720 --> 00:04:14,160 Speaker 1: through a lens, which helped to seal the radioactive material 64 00:04:14,240 --> 00:04:18,279 Speaker 1: inside the tube. He called it a spintheroscope, from the 65 00:04:18,440 --> 00:04:24,560 Speaker 1: Greek spin thyro voglia, meaning scintillation. William died in nineteen 66 00:04:24,680 --> 00:04:29,039 Speaker 1: but the popularity of his spintheroscope continued to grow. It 67 00:04:29,160 --> 00:04:32,200 Speaker 1: proved so popular, in fact, that it became a hot 68 00:04:32,240 --> 00:04:35,280 Speaker 1: toy for kids growing up in the nineteen forties and fifties. 69 00:04:35,760 --> 00:04:40,400 Speaker 1: The Gilbert's You two thirty eight Atomic Energy Kit contained 70 00:04:40,440 --> 00:04:44,279 Speaker 1: everything the budding nuclear physicists needed to smash the atom, 71 00:04:44,320 --> 00:04:47,080 Speaker 1: all from the comforts of their bedroom. The kits even 72 00:04:47,160 --> 00:04:52,839 Speaker 1: included a small amount of radioactive uranium or Yes. William 73 00:04:52,839 --> 00:04:56,279 Speaker 1: Crooks might have given us thallium and the cathode ray tube, 74 00:04:56,560 --> 00:05:01,359 Speaker 1: but his legacy, however, indirectly exposed children to something a 75 00:05:01,400 --> 00:05:20,120 Speaker 1: bit more dangerous, nuclear powered toys. Conflict resolution is an 76 00:05:20,160 --> 00:05:23,280 Speaker 1: important part of any relationship. Being able to work through 77 00:05:23,320 --> 00:05:26,640 Speaker 1: our differences means we can form stronger bonds and collaborate 78 00:05:26,720 --> 00:05:29,960 Speaker 1: more closely. It may take something as simple as a conversation, 79 00:05:30,320 --> 00:05:33,600 Speaker 1: or as elaborate as multiple discussions in a conference room 80 00:05:33,600 --> 00:05:37,280 Speaker 1: with the help of a mediator. Old sitcoms occasionally had 81 00:05:37,320 --> 00:05:40,839 Speaker 1: episodes where two characters who disliked each other would suddenly 82 00:05:40,920 --> 00:05:43,520 Speaker 1: find themselves locked in a room or a closet together, 83 00:05:44,040 --> 00:05:47,240 Speaker 1: forced to work until help arrived. They would talk through 84 00:05:47,279 --> 00:05:50,159 Speaker 1: their issues until by the end of the episode they 85 00:05:50,160 --> 00:05:54,400 Speaker 1: came to a mutual understanding. But that was fiction. Real 86 00:05:54,440 --> 00:05:58,080 Speaker 1: problems take real solutions, and sometimes the worst thing to 87 00:05:58,160 --> 00:06:00,640 Speaker 1: do is lock people in a room and for the best. 88 00:06:01,279 --> 00:06:04,599 Speaker 1: For over a millennia, though, the residents of Glencast, Scotland, 89 00:06:04,720 --> 00:06:08,800 Speaker 1: did just that, well, sort of. They understood that it 90 00:06:08,839 --> 00:06:12,480 Speaker 1: was beneficial to squash any conflict between two parties. They 91 00:06:12,520 --> 00:06:14,720 Speaker 1: also knew that life in the village would be tough 92 00:06:14,800 --> 00:06:17,480 Speaker 1: if people were getting into fights all the time, so 93 00:06:17,520 --> 00:06:19,640 Speaker 1: they came up with their own way to bring about peace, 94 00:06:20,080 --> 00:06:23,599 Speaker 1: and it didn't require a conference room at all. Glen 95 00:06:23,640 --> 00:06:27,080 Speaker 1: Coe was no stranger to conflict. On February thirteenth of 96 00:06:27,120 --> 00:06:31,200 Speaker 1: sixteen ninety two, soldiers from the Scottish government killed thirty 97 00:06:31,240 --> 00:06:34,680 Speaker 1: members of Clan McDonald who had refused to align themselves 98 00:06:34,720 --> 00:06:37,480 Speaker 1: with William the third and Mary the Second, the country's 99 00:06:37,560 --> 00:06:40,280 Speaker 1: new king and queen. But even though the monarchy was 100 00:06:40,400 --> 00:06:44,040 Speaker 1: violently forcing the stubborn clans into loyalty, the chiefs of 101 00:06:44,080 --> 00:06:46,640 Speaker 1: those clans found a more civilized way of dealing with 102 00:06:46,680 --> 00:06:49,640 Speaker 1: their differences. In fact, they had already figured out how 103 00:06:49,640 --> 00:06:52,760 Speaker 1: to keep the peace without using violence at all. One 104 00:06:52,800 --> 00:06:56,000 Speaker 1: way was by imposing fines on the chiefs for infractions 105 00:06:56,040 --> 00:06:59,200 Speaker 1: committed by their clansmen. If the two parties were having 106 00:06:59,200 --> 00:07:02,599 Speaker 1: a significant agreement, though the kind that couldn't be peacefully 107 00:07:02,640 --> 00:07:06,160 Speaker 1: resolved or quickly resolved, there was a place they could 108 00:07:06,160 --> 00:07:09,600 Speaker 1: go to hash things out. It was called the Island 109 00:07:09,640 --> 00:07:13,800 Speaker 1: of Discussion, located in luck Levin. The tiny Island of 110 00:07:13,800 --> 00:07:16,680 Speaker 1: Discussion was one of seven islands in the area. The 111 00:07:16,720 --> 00:07:19,840 Speaker 1: people of Glencoe marooned the arguing parties there with a 112 00:07:19,880 --> 00:07:23,920 Speaker 1: bundle of cheese, oatcakes and whiskey until they had worked 113 00:07:23,920 --> 00:07:26,960 Speaker 1: out their problems. They were not allowed to leave until 114 00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:30,600 Speaker 1: they were done, and they did this for over fifteen 115 00:07:30,760 --> 00:07:34,640 Speaker 1: hundred years. No matter how heated things got, it seems 116 00:07:34,680 --> 00:07:37,200 Speaker 1: like almost everyone was able to come to some kind 117 00:07:37,240 --> 00:07:40,400 Speaker 1: of understanding. In fact, in all the time the island 118 00:07:40,440 --> 00:07:43,880 Speaker 1: was used for conflict resolution, only one murder was said 119 00:07:43,920 --> 00:07:47,120 Speaker 1: to have taken place, but lack Levin was home to 120 00:07:47,200 --> 00:07:50,440 Speaker 1: more than just one island. The others were also used 121 00:07:50,480 --> 00:07:54,160 Speaker 1: to vary in degrees. For example, once a land dispute 122 00:07:54,160 --> 00:07:57,280 Speaker 1: was solved on the Island of Discussion, those involved were 123 00:07:57,280 --> 00:08:00,000 Speaker 1: whisked away to a different island where the paper were 124 00:08:00,160 --> 00:08:04,040 Speaker 1: was drafted to validate the agreement between both individuals, hence 125 00:08:04,120 --> 00:08:08,520 Speaker 1: its name the Isle of Covenant or Ratification. Yet another 126 00:08:08,600 --> 00:08:11,120 Speaker 1: island in luck Levin, was used as the final resting 127 00:08:11,160 --> 00:08:14,360 Speaker 1: place for many of Glencoe's clans for hundreds of years, 128 00:08:14,520 --> 00:08:16,800 Speaker 1: and like the Island of Discussion and the Isle of 129 00:08:16,800 --> 00:08:20,400 Speaker 1: Covenant or Ratification, this one was an island of peace, 130 00:08:20,880 --> 00:08:23,280 Speaker 1: not just for the dead, but for the living as well. 131 00:08:23,680 --> 00:08:26,720 Speaker 1: Even if they were in conflict, clans would still share 132 00:08:26,720 --> 00:08:30,080 Speaker 1: the work of keeping the place clean and maintained, and 133 00:08:30,200 --> 00:08:33,880 Speaker 1: even when someone left Glencoe or the surrounding area, their 134 00:08:33,920 --> 00:08:36,800 Speaker 1: final request was often to be returned and buried on 135 00:08:36,880 --> 00:08:39,960 Speaker 1: that island. The last person to do so died in 136 00:08:40,080 --> 00:08:45,320 Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two, having moved to London years before. Glenco's 137 00:08:45,360 --> 00:08:47,959 Speaker 1: clans have no shortage of ways to keep the peace, 138 00:08:48,440 --> 00:08:50,880 Speaker 1: but it's hard to beat a good old fashioned time out, 139 00:08:51,320 --> 00:08:53,880 Speaker 1: even more so when that involved an entire island for 140 00:08:53,920 --> 00:08:58,240 Speaker 1: them to sort out their problems, plus the cheese and whiskey. 141 00:08:58,360 --> 00:09:01,240 Speaker 1: And I'm sure some parents out there I would love 142 00:09:01,280 --> 00:09:07,560 Speaker 1: to do the same. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided 143 00:09:07,600 --> 00:09:11,000 Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on 144 00:09:11,080 --> 00:09:14,079 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting 145 00:09:14,200 --> 00:09:18,800 Speaker 1: Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me 146 00:09:18,960 --> 00:09:22,640 Speaker 1: Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make 147 00:09:22,679 --> 00:09:26,240 Speaker 1: another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, 148 00:09:26,320 --> 00:09:29,280 Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all 149 00:09:29,320 --> 00:09:32,840 Speaker 1: about it over at the World of Lore dot com. 150 00:09:32,880 --> 00:09:35,359 Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.