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. Not everyone had it easy
Speaker 1: growing up. Many of us were forced to make our
Speaker 1: own way due to any number of hardships. Carl knew
Speaker 1: that better than most. He grew up in Germany, and
Speaker 1: his father had a certain kind of idea about how
Speaker 1: men should behave He told Carl's mother not to coddle him.
Speaker 1: His boy had to make his own way, forge his
Speaker 1: own path, like he had done so. Carl learned early
Speaker 1: on that he had to be self sufficient in order
Speaker 1: to get what he wanted or needed. By the age
Speaker 1: of two, he had learned to feed himself. By ten,
Speaker 1: his interest in music had led him to take up
Speaker 1: the violin, and with no one around to teach him,
Speaker 1: Carl taught himself instead. He got pretty good too, so
Speaker 1: good in fact, that when he turned sixteen, his parents
Speaker 1: sent him to a music conservatory to continue his education.
Speaker 1: Karl studied with some of the finest teachers in Germany
Speaker 1: for several years. After he graduated. He used his talents
Speaker 1: to take him far beyond what even he believed possible.
Speaker 1: Before he was old enough to drink, he was playing
Speaker 1: with international orchestras in sold out concert halls. His skills
Speaker 1: were so renowned he was invited to perform before the
Speaker 1: famous composer Johann Strauss in Vienna. He developed a little
Speaker 1: trick previously unseen during your average concert. Whenever he'd break
Speaker 1: a string, Karl would change it in the middle of
Speaker 1: the show while the rest of the band played on.
Speaker 1: Then he'd rejoined the group and continue the performance. But
Speaker 1: he didn't do it backstage or off to the side.
Speaker 1: He made it part of the act. It got so
Speaker 1: popular that he started using a weakened string in his shows,
Speaker 1: just so he would be forced to demonstrate his ability
Speaker 1: each time he played, and his talents were limited to
Speaker 1: just music or impromptu violin repairs. It's hard to imagine
Speaker 1: how someone might learn to shoot at a music conservatory,
Speaker 1: but Carl also managed to become an a smarksman. He
Speaker 1: was so good at it that he was said to
Speaker 1: shoot the spots off of playing cards. Of course, word
Speaker 1: about it spread, and the public wanted to see this
Speaker 1: new skill with their own eyes, so Carl added it
Speaker 1: to his repertoire anything to keep the people in their seats.
Speaker 1: Right Throughout his career, he shared his gifts with audiences
Speaker 1: all over the world. Carl even took his unique brand
Speaker 1: of music and marksmanship to America, where he eventually settled
Speaker 1: with his wife and gained citizenship. Carl had lived the
Speaker 1: kind of life most men only dream of, becoming a celebrity,
Speaker 1: both at home and abroad. But when his later years
Speaker 1: were up ended by the First World War, he saw
Speaker 1: a bigger calling for himself. He wanted to help the
Speaker 1: veterans returning from battle, specifically those who had lost limbs.
Speaker 1: To do this, he wrote and illustrated a guide book
Speaker 1: for them. It took him less than a month to finish,
Speaker 1: and it taught recent amputees how to use their feet
Speaker 1: for things they used to do with their hands. I
Speaker 1: know it sounds strange for a master violinist, a man
Speaker 1: who could change a broken string in the middle of
Speaker 1: a performance or shoot a playing card, to write a
Speaker 1: book about using one's feet to perform everyday tasks. Well,
Speaker 1: As the old saying goes, you have to write what
Speaker 1: you know, and Carl knew all about doing things with
Speaker 1: his feet, from shuffling cards to smoking cigarettes to writing
Speaker 1: his autobiography. Carl was a phenom with his feet. That's
Speaker 1: because he had no choice. Carl Anthan had been born
Speaker 1: without hands. It's wooden frame is unmistakable, the leather straps
Speaker 1: worn and cracked, waiting to envelop a new guest, and
Speaker 1: the helmet, once fastened to the head, it's capable of
Speaker 1: delivering two thousand volts straight through the body. They took
Speaker 1: something as simple as a chair a place of rest,
Speaker 1: and transformed it into an instrument of death. Little did
Speaker 1: Ben Franklin no when he first collected that bolt of
Speaker 1: lightning on a stormy night in seventy two, that his
Speaker 1: discovery would be used to power the ultimate method of justice.
Speaker 1: For over one years, the electric chair was designed as
Speaker 1: a more humane form of execution. Back in the late
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, a dentist, yes, a dentist, had heard about
Speaker 1: a man who had died instantly after grabbing onto the
Speaker 1: high voltage wires of a large electric generator. The dentist
Speaker 1: saw a way to use this electricity to do more
Speaker 1: than just power lights around town. It could be used
Speaker 1: to ensure a quick and painless end for death row
Speaker 1: inmates everywhere, especially after a recent series of botched hangings
Speaker 1: had landed in the newspapers. The Governor of New York
Speaker 1: established a commission to seek an alternative method, consisting of
Speaker 1: three members, a human rights advocate, a lawyer, and that dentist.
Speaker 1: The commission sought advice from experts such as Thomas Edison
Speaker 1: on how best to harness electricity as a means of execution,
Speaker 1: because justice was meant to be swift but not cruel.
Speaker 1: There's that word again, justice, I guess it's apt. The
Speaker 1: first electric chair went into use in eighteen nine, and
Speaker 1: ten years after its introduction, Charles Justice, and inmate at
Speaker 1: the Ohio State Penitentiary, came up with an idea. While
Speaker 1: serving his sentence, he'd been given a job of cleaning
Speaker 1: up the room where the electric chair was housed, the
Speaker 1: death chamber, as it was called. It was during one
Speaker 1: of his rounds when he noticed something about the chair,
Speaker 1: the restraints. They weren't strong enough to keep a man
Speaker 1: from shaking all over as the electricity course through him.
Speaker 1: This constant movement resulted in burned flesh, which offended witnesses
Speaker 1: and went against the whole more humane thing they'd been
Speaker 1: aiming for. Charles worked with prison officials to enhance the restraints.
Speaker 1: I mean, why not. He would have done anything to
Speaker 1: reduce his own sentence, and he certainly had the technical
Speaker 1: knowledge to make those changes. Instead of leather straps, he
Speaker 1: created metal clamps that fit over the prisoner's wrists and les,
Speaker 1: designed to reduce movement and the risk of burned skin.
Speaker 1: The results worked wonders for the prisoners, the witnesses, and Charles.
Speaker 1: When the time came for his parole hearing, he had
Speaker 1: no problem convincing the board he was ready for a
Speaker 1: second chance. After all, he'd been instrumental in making their
Speaker 1: executions more efficient and humane, just as they had intended.
Speaker 1: It's unclear how Charles spent his newfound freedom. Whether he
Speaker 1: traveled the world or sought a job as an engineer,
Speaker 1: will never know, though I can hazard a guess that
Speaker 1: whatever he did, it was far from legal. That's because
Speaker 1: ten years after he was released, Charles Justice found himself
Speaker 1: right where he'd started. He'd been convicted of murder and
Speaker 1: sent back into his old stomping ground, Ohio State Penitentiary.
Speaker 1: There was only one difference. Now, he would never be
Speaker 1: eligible for parole. He would never sleep in his own bed,
Speaker 1: or drink a beer or do anything again that a
Speaker 1: freeman might enjoy. He was the latest addition to Ohio
Speaker 1: State Penitentiary's death row, and on November nine of nineteen eleven,
Speaker 1: Charles Justice was strapped into the same chair he'd helped
Speaker 1: improve a decade earlier. You got to feel firsthand the
Speaker 1: metal restraints around his wrists and ankles, albeit only for
Speaker 1: a few moments. Seconds later, charles life came full circle. Justice,
Speaker 1: as they say, had been served. I hope you've enjoyed
Speaker 1: today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
Speaker 1: free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
Speaker 1: by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created
Speaker 1: by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over the world of Lore dot
Speaker 1: Come and until next time, stay curious.