Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Nke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: In fifteen ninety three, a strange figure entered Buckingham Palace.
Speaker 1: It was a woman from Ireland of around sixty years
Speaker 1: of age, appearing in London for an audience with the
Speaker 1: Queen Elizabeth. I greeted this woman, and although the pair
Speaker 1: of them were about the same age, the stranger seemed
Speaker 1: much older. She was weather beaten, her skin showing the
Speaker 1: evidence of many years spent at sea. The two women
Speaker 1: spoke in Latin, which is the only tongue that they shared.
Speaker 1: The visitor had a petition to bring before the Queen.
Speaker 1: Her son and her half brother were both captured by
Speaker 1: Sir Richard Bingham, and she had come to implore Elizabeth
Speaker 1: to spare their lives. If legends are to be believed,
Speaker 1: this visitor refused to bow before the Queen, and, in
Speaker 1: open defiance to British authority. She had a dagger at
Speaker 1: her side. This defiant irishwoman was Grunia Nullia, but she's
Speaker 1: best known to us as Grace O'Malley. Her most famous
Speaker 1: name is her nickname in Irish folk history, Granule, the
Speaker 1: Pirate Queen of Connacht. Her meeting with Queen Elizabeth the
Speaker 1: First would become the stuff of legends, but it was
Speaker 1: only a small part of an already legendary career. Born
Speaker 1: to the chief of Clan O'Malley in County Mayo, she
Speaker 1: displayed a taste for adventure from an early age. According
Speaker 1: to legend, as a child, she wanted to accompany her
Speaker 1: father on a voyage to Spain. He refused, making the
Speaker 1: excuse that her long hair would get caught in the
Speaker 1: ship's rigging, so the young grace Es promptly cut off
Speaker 1: her hair. Her name ever since, Grannual translates to Grace
Speaker 1: of the chopped hair. Like many daughters of powerful men,
Speaker 1: she would be married off to another chief son for
Speaker 1: political reasons, but Grannual was never going to be content
Speaker 1: merely raising children and tending the homestead. She took the
Speaker 1: reins of her husband's clan and set sail, literally displaying
Speaker 1: a mastery of seafaring. She established trading routes with Spain
Speaker 1: and Portugal, and would become famous for leading raids on
Speaker 1: enemy ships herself. Her power was diminished slightly upon her
Speaker 1: husband's death in the mid fifteen sixties. By Irish law,
Speaker 1: a widow was entitled to only a third of her
Speaker 1: husband's property. She resettled on Claire Island with two hundred
Speaker 1: followers and a small fleet of three galleys, enough of
Speaker 1: a force to maintain influence on her nearby shipping lanes
Speaker 1: and charge a toll for anyone who dared pass through
Speaker 1: her territory. By fifteen sixty six, most of Klue Bay
Speaker 1: on the eastern coast of Ireland was under her control.
Speaker 1: She became known as a pirate queen and would fiercely
Speaker 1: defend her territory against the British and rival Irish clans alike.
Speaker 1: A legend during this time tells of how she found
Speaker 1: a shipwrecked sailor and fell in love. When he was
Speaker 1: slain by the McMahons, she personally led an assault on
Speaker 1: the McMahon castle of Duna, slaughtering those responsible. She married
Speaker 1: again in the late fifteen sixties, but once again refused
Speaker 1: to settle down. In fifteen seventy four, the British captain
Speaker 1: William Martin laid siege to her castle with a fleet
Speaker 1: of ships. To his surprise, what he thought would be
Speaker 1: an easy victory turned into a resounding defeat as the Irish,
Speaker 1: led by Granywall, repelled his forces. The tide turn for
Speaker 1: Ireland in the fifteen seventies, with clan leaders forced to
Speaker 1: submit to the British monarchy, and grannu All followed suit.
Speaker 1: But this did not mean that she was retiring, nor
Speaker 1: that she would not come into conflict with the Empire.
Speaker 1: When her second husband died in fifteen eighty three, she
Speaker 1: took command of his remaining followers, claiming her rights as
Speaker 1: a widow. She would not be cheated again. Years of
Speaker 1: fighting on and off with various English governors appointed to
Speaker 1: Ireland led her to that fateful meeting in fifteen ninety three. Granuall,
Speaker 1: after decades of violence, at heartbreak, sought the Queen's pardon
Speaker 1: for her own family and compensation for the losses that
Speaker 1: she had incurred against the English. To the court's surprise,
Speaker 1: she was granted everything she asked for. Her son and
Speaker 1: half brother would be spared, she would be left in peace,
Speaker 1: and in return, she would only attack England's enemies. From
Speaker 1: then on, the two queens parted in mutual respect, allowing
Speaker 1: Grannuall to live out her days in the home she
Speaker 1: fought so hard to protect. Records of her life dwindled
Speaker 1: towards the beginning of the seventeenth century, and in the
Speaker 1: following centuries she became a strange figure in history, half legend,
Speaker 1: half truth, a real woman who commands mythic respect from
Speaker 1: her people. To this day. It's widely believed that she
Speaker 1: passed away in sixteen o three, which, if true, would
Speaker 1: be a remarkable coincidence, because that was the very same
Speaker 1: year that saw the death of Queen Elizabeth the First,
Speaker 1: the woman who ruled the world, the one who grann
Speaker 1: you All faced as an equal. Chester didn't know what
Speaker 1: to expect when he was recruited to the Marine Corps
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty two, but it certainly wasn't this. He
Speaker 1: and twenty eight other Navajo men had made it through
Speaker 1: basic training together. They had crawled through trenches, zeroed in
Speaker 1: on targets, and trained with all kinds of weapons. But
Speaker 1: now sitting in a conference room Chester had just learned
Speaker 1: that they were about to face their toughest mission yet.
Speaker 1: Chester looked up as an unknown major stepped into the room.
Speaker 1: He glanced around the table, sizing up the Navajo recruits,
Speaker 1: and then he spoke. His orders were shorts and to
Speaker 1: the point. The group was to create a code in
Speaker 1: their native language. And then he left the room, locking
Speaker 1: them all in together. Chester and the others stared at
Speaker 1: each other. They were brand new recruits. They had barely
Speaker 1: had any cryptography training. How on earth were they supposed
Speaker 1: to develop a code. The Navajo code Talkers were a
Speaker 1: group of nearly four hundred Native Navajo speakers who used
Speaker 1: their native language to encrypt messages for marines during World
Speaker 1: War II. At the time, all radio broadcasts could be
Speaker 1: easily picked up by enemies listening in, so every important
Speaker 1: piece of information had to be sent via code. While
Speaker 1: probably the most famous, the Navajo were far from the
Speaker 1: first Native American soldiers to use their language for espionage.
Speaker 1: In World War One, American troops from the Comanche, Choctaw, Hope,
Speaker 1: and Cherokee nations used their native languages to send messages
Speaker 1: that their enemies couldn't translate. After the war ended, Germany
Speaker 1: and Japan sent students to the US to study these languages,
Speaker 1: and this may have looked like an innocent cultural exchange,
Speaker 1: but really these nations were preparing in case they needed
Speaker 1: to decode those languages in future wars. And for this reason,
Speaker 1: when the United States was drawn into World War II
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty one, the military was reluctant to use
Speaker 1: native code talkers again, at least until a Los Angeles
Speaker 1: engineer named Philip Johnston spoke up. Johnston was born and
Speaker 1: raised on the Navajo reservation, the son of Christian missionaries,
Speaker 1: and spoke the language fluently. In fact, he'd even acted
Speaker 1: as a translator when Navajo leaders negotiated a new treaty
Speaker 1: with President Theodore Roosevelt. He knew the language was incredibly complex.
Speaker 1: It was tonal, people spoke multiple dialects of it, and
Speaker 1: the language had no written alphabet. It was practically impossible
Speaker 1: for anyone to learn apart from growing up with Native speakers.
Speaker 1: If the military was looking for a code, Navajo was perfect,
Speaker 1: and the military agreed. By nineteen forty two, Chesternz and
Speaker 1: twenty eight other Natives speakers were the first Navajo code
Speaker 1: talkers working for the military. Although initially surprised by their mission,
Speaker 1: these Navajo soldiers quickly got to work, creating a complex
Speaker 1: system of codewords and descriptors, making it so even another
Speaker 1: Native speaker wouldn't be able to understand their transmissions. Part
Speaker 1: of the code was giving Navajo names to military vehicles,
Speaker 1: many of which did not have a word already in
Speaker 1: the Navajo language. So submarine became beschloh, which means iron fish,
Speaker 1: and Dahi tihi, meaning hummingbird, became the code term for
Speaker 1: a fighter plane. These Navajo code talkers were present at
Speaker 1: every major marine operation in the Pacific starting in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty two. They were widely credited with helping the Americans
Speaker 1: take Iwajima, a strategic island in the South Pacific. Over
Speaker 1: the course of the war, more than four hundred Navajo
Speaker 1: code talkers served in the Pacific theater. Their encyclopedic knowledge
Speaker 1: of the Navajo language and their own developed code let
Speaker 1: them receive a message, decrypt it in cryptosc sponts, and
Speaker 1: send it over the radio in just over two minutes.
Speaker 1: For a non native speaker, that same task would have
Speaker 1: taken hours. While the code talkers were treated like heroes
Speaker 1: by their fellow servicemen. The wider public had no idea
Speaker 1: what they had done for the war effort. The entire
Speaker 1: operation remained classified until nineteen sixty eight, twenty three years
Speaker 1: after the war. Finally, in nineteen eighty two, the code
Speaker 1: talkers were recognized nationally when President Ronald Reagan declared August
Speaker 1: fourteenth to be National Navajo Code Talker Day, and in
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, President George W. Bush gave gold
Speaker 1: Congressional Medals of Honor to the original twenty nine code talkers.
Speaker 1: After the war, the Japanese Chief of Intelligence admitted that
Speaker 1: one of the only codes they were never able to
Speaker 1: break was the Navajo one. Not bad for a bunch
Speaker 1: of fresh Marines who had never made a code before.
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 Mankey 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 show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore.
Speaker 1: Dot com and until next time, stay curious,