Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full 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. The law specifically forbid it. No one except
Speaker 1: doctors were allowed to dissect corpses. The act was considered
Speaker 1: a desecration of the dead. Therefore, only the bodies of
Speaker 1: criminals were permitted to be studied, and once analyzed, even
Speaker 1: they had to receive a decent burial. He wasn't a doctor, though,
Speaker 1: so he took to dissecting bodies in secrecy, in relative secrecy.
Speaker 1: He was just seventeen at the time, and the majority
Speaker 1: of the cadavers he worked with came from the monastery
Speaker 1: of Santa Spirito in Florence, Italy, and with the full
Speaker 1: permission of the Catholic Church. He had always been interested
Speaker 1: in the human form. When he was just thirteen, he
Speaker 1: studied under a famous sculptor, and by the time he
Speaker 1: reached adulthood, his talent for documenting the intricacies of the
Speaker 1: human form had not gone unnoticed. Back then, doctors and
Speaker 1: medical students relied on such drawings. Importance was given to
Speaker 1: the understanding of how bones and muscles lie under the skin.
Speaker 1: When he was just fifteen, he showed so much potential
Speaker 1: that the statesman known as Lorenzo de Medici, a k a.
Speaker 1: Lorenzo the Magnificent, became quite impressed with the young man's
Speaker 1: talent and incredible understanding of the human form. Not only
Speaker 1: did Medici take him in and raise him alongside his
Speaker 1: own children, who became his childhood friends, the statesman also
Speaker 1: granted him a special room to continue his dissection. Soon
Speaker 1: he joined the Florentine Center for Humanism. Like many young
Speaker 1: and aspirational students in the field, he poured over drawings, sculptures,
Speaker 1: and skeletons. The ultimate goal was scientific naturalism, the highly
Speaker 1: detailed and accurate portrayal of the subject in a natural setting.
Speaker 1: After the death of his mentor, Lorenzo de Medici, he
Speaker 1: offered to create a large wooden cross complete with a
Speaker 1: life size sculpture of Christ, in exchange for the new
Speaker 1: Statesman's permission to continue his studies and to obtain more
Speaker 1: corpses and it worked now. Since cadavers were prone to decomposition,
Speaker 1: he would quickly make molds of muscles in various positions
Speaker 1: for later reference. He spent years dissecting countless human corpses
Speaker 1: and even those of animals, mostly horses. Though cardinals and
Speaker 1: other leaders frequently remarked that experienced and trained physicians and
Speaker 1: scholars themselves knew less about the human physique than this
Speaker 1: young man, and that he dissected more than men he
Speaker 1: had in a lifetime of service. His knowledge and talent
Speaker 1: caused some jealousy among even the most revered of his peers.
Speaker 1: They didn't always agree, and they often clashed when they met.
Speaker 1: For years, he drew his discoveries with the most striking detail,
Speaker 1: but later he began to doubt his abilities and destroyed
Speaker 1: most of his drawings. His rivals may have played down
Speaker 1: his talents, but others did not. Unlike most artists, he
Speaker 1: rechieved recognition and fame well within his own lifetime. Today,
Speaker 1: thousands flocked to see his works. You see, he wasn't
Speaker 1: a physician or even a philosopher, and while he did
Speaker 1: create intricate and detailed illustrations for medical use, he wasn't
Speaker 1: even an anatomist. No, he was an artist and one
Speaker 1: of the best. Later, Pope Julius the second commission him
Speaker 1: the artists that we've come to note today as Michelangelo
Speaker 1: for one of his most famous works, the Sistine Chapel.
Speaker 1: The chapel ceiling is his most famous painting, and the
Speaker 1: marble statue David his most famous statue. The depiction of
Speaker 1: God creating Adam perfectly illustrates the human brain. Other panels
Speaker 1: also demonstrate Michelangelo's vast knowledge of human anatomy. The Statue
Speaker 1: of David took Michelangelo two years to complete. It's fine
Speaker 1: anatomical details impressed city leaders, who decided David should reside
Speaker 1: in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, where everyone could see
Speaker 1: the breathtaking statue up close, instead of seeing it high
Speaker 1: on a cathedral. Ledge and Michelangelo's envious rival, the first
Speaker 1: Renaissance man himself, Leonardo da Vinci. Yes, he also dissected
Speaker 1: cadavers for the sake of art, and while the two
Speaker 1: men didn't agree on many things, they both believe that
Speaker 1: when it came to portraying the human body, art is
Speaker 1: not only better when it imitates life, but also death.
Speaker 1: America loves to celebrate first the first president, the first
Speaker 1: telephone call, the first time Edison turned on a light bulb,
Speaker 1: charting new territories, and performing feats no one has done before,
Speaker 1: especially intrigues us. And often it's these tales of adventure
Speaker 1: that have the most incredible journeys to take us on.
Speaker 1: For example, on July six of nineteen sixty nine, Neil
Speaker 1: Armstrong became the first person to walk on the Moon
Speaker 1: before spacecraft, though we were celebrating airplanes. On nineteen seven,
Speaker 1: Charles Lindberg was the first person to cross the Atlantic solo.
Speaker 1: And before that, well, there's another amazing story to tell.
Speaker 1: On April eighteen forty four, The New York Sun reported
Speaker 1: the sensational adventure of several men and their balloon trip
Speaker 1: from England to the United States. The headlines that day
Speaker 1: read astounding news by Express via Norfolk the Atlantic cross
Speaker 1: in three days. As you might imagine, crossing the Atlantic
Speaker 1: in such a short time was nothing less than astounding.
Speaker 1: Accompanying the detailed five thousand word article was an illustration
Speaker 1: of the balloon, named the Victoria. At the Helm was
Speaker 1: the inventor of the first steam powered airship and famed
Speaker 1: aeronaut himself, Thomas Monk Mason. Two crewmen and five of
Speaker 1: Mason's friends helped steer the craft, while author Harrison Ainsworth
Speaker 1: chronicled the journey. The article listed eleven oh seven a
Speaker 1: m as the moment the balloon left the ground in
Speaker 1: North Wales. They gathered at daybreak, but waited until a
Speaker 1: dense fog had lifted. For a few moments. The crew
Speaker 1: held their breath as the balloon cleared the cliffs. Found
Speaker 1: the ascent force greater than we had expected, the journal read.
Speaker 1: The gorges and cliffs along the ocean's edge had been
Speaker 1: nothing short of romantic and breathtaking. One of the crewmen
Speaker 1: noted that the mountains they passed over in the south
Speaker 1: looked small in comparison to when traveling through them on
Speaker 1: the ground. Once at sea, the crew lowered the balloon
Speaker 1: Along the way. They passed over a few ships sailing below,
Speaker 1: and the men took to cheering them and yelling as
Speaker 1: the balloon flew past. By night, the winds had increased,
Speaker 1: pushing the balloon even faster. The wind, along with the
Speaker 1: night air and the atmosphere, made the men rather cold,
Speaker 1: and they wrapped themselves in blankets. The next day, though
Speaker 1: the balloon shifted more northward then anticipated, and the wind
Speaker 1: had died down a bit. This morning, we had again
Speaker 1: some little trouble with the rod of the propeller, which
Speaker 1: must be entirely remodeled for fear of serious accident. The
Speaker 1: journal stated, the wind has been blowing steadily and strongly
Speaker 1: from the northeast all day, and so far fortune seems
Speaker 1: bent upon favoring us. By night, though the sea oddly
Speaker 1: appeared to glow by the light of the moon and stars.
Speaker 1: By the third day, though the crew was exhausted. Around
Speaker 1: one pm that day, they finally spotted land off the
Speaker 1: coast of South Carolina and were overjoyed. By the time
Speaker 1: they touched down on Sullivan's Island in Charleston County, the
Speaker 1: wind had nearly died down. The final entry read, we
Speaker 1: have crossed the Atlantic fairly and easily crossed it in
Speaker 1: a balloon. Who shall say that anything is impossible hereafter
Speaker 1: and readers were enthralled. People instantly scrambled to buy the paper,
Speaker 1: and The Sun sold an impressive fifty thousand copies. Everyone
Speaker 1: wanted to have a keepsake of history in the making.
Speaker 1: There was one small problem though. Two days after it
Speaker 1: had been printed, the newspaper revealed that the whole thing
Speaker 1: had been a hoax. You see, the first balloon to
Speaker 1: cross the Atlantic wouldn't happen for another one hundred and
Speaker 1: forty four years, when the Double Eagle two made the
Speaker 1: trip in eight in a little less than six days.
Speaker 1: Though the men in The New York Sun's story really
Speaker 1: did exist, they'd been in on the hoax from the start,
Speaker 1: and the whole thing had been created and written by
Speaker 1: one author, a man who the paper didn't pay a
Speaker 1: single sent despite the tremendous profit they earned from it.
Speaker 1: That author's name a struggling right named Edgar Allan Poe.
Speaker 1: Oh and there's more, you see. Curiously, pose great hoax
Speaker 1: went on to inspire another great storyteller by the name
Speaker 1: of Jules Verne. He would write his beloved novel Around
Speaker 1: the World in Eighty Days in eighteen seventy two, although
Speaker 1: despite the modern film version, his original never had a balloon.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me, Aaron Manky in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television
Speaker 1: show and you can learn all about it over at
Speaker 1: the World of Lore dot com. And until next time,
Speaker 1: stay curious.