Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke'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: If you're a fan of true crime documentaries, you know
Speaker 1: a lot of stories follow a similar pattern. A killer
Speaker 1: is caught, convicted, and carted off to prison to serve
Speaker 1: a life sentence. Rarely do we hear stories about what
Speaker 1: happens after someone goes to jail. But there's one man
Speaker 1: who's famous for what he accomplished behind bars. His work,
Speaker 1: which was all done while he lived in solitary confinement,
Speaker 1: cemented him as one of history's most prolific self taught science,
Speaker 1: and it earned him the nickname the Birdman of Alcatraz.
Speaker 1: His real name was Robert Stroud. He was born in Seattle, Washington,
Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety, but he dropped out of school and
Speaker 1: ran away to Alaska when he was just thirteen years old.
Speaker 1: And well, he did not walk the Strait and Narrow.
Speaker 1: In nineteen oh nine, eighteen year old Robert killed a
Speaker 1: man in a bar fight. He pled guilty demandslaughter and
Speaker 1: was sentenced to twelve years in prison. He spent three
Speaker 1: years at McNeil Island before being transferred to Levenworth, a
Speaker 1: facility notorious for its poor living conditions and cruel treatment
Speaker 1: of inmates. Robert hated Levenworth. He was known amongst the
Speaker 1: staff as a problem, and he definitely was. In nineteen sixteen,
Speaker 1: when he was twenty six years old, Robert stabb then
Speaker 1: killed a prison guard. As you might imagine, actions like
Speaker 1: this were generally frowned upon, and in Robert's case, they
Speaker 1: landed him on death row. But in a strange twist,
Speaker 1: then President Woodrow Wilson commuted Robert's sentence to life, which
Speaker 1: I'm sure seemed wonderful to Robert's at first. But the
Speaker 1: problem was there was a huge catch. Robert would spend
Speaker 1: the rest of his days in solitary confinement. He was
Speaker 1: only allowed to leave a cell once a day for
Speaker 1: exercise in a private prison yard. It was during one
Speaker 1: of these exercise breaks that Robert found a bird's nest.
Speaker 1: Inside were three injured baby canaries. For whatever reason, maybe
Speaker 1: sympathy maybe boredom, Robert smuggled the baby birds back to
Speaker 1: his cell. He gave them water and food from his
Speaker 1: own meager rations. Now these canaries didn't stay secret for long.
Speaker 1: The sound of their chirping filled the hall where Robert lived.
Speaker 1: But the warden thought maybe these feathered friends could be
Speaker 1: good company for the inmate, so he allowed Robert to
Speaker 1: keep them. With nothing to do except sit in his
Speaker 1: cell and care for his birds, Robert became really interested
Speaker 1: in ornithology, which is a fancy word for bird science.
Speaker 1: He asked the warden for some ornithology textbooks, and the warden,
Speaker 1: who noticed that Robert's behavior had become much better since
Speaker 1: he got these pets, happily obliged. Now, even though Robert
Speaker 1: only had a great school education, he read the books
Speaker 1: front to back and learned everything he possibly could about birds,
Speaker 1: biology and behavior. Over the next few years, he bred
Speaker 1: his canaries, going from three birds to over three hundred.
Speaker 1: Solitary confinement all of a sudden, wasn't so solitary anymore.
Speaker 1: As you might imagine, These many canaries posed a logistical problem.
Speaker 1: Robert's cell was cramped with homemade bird cages. Not to
Speaker 1: mention the smell which permeated the entire hallway. Still, the
Speaker 1: warden continued to allow it. But then roberts encountered a problem.
Speaker 1: One of his birds fell ill. Using his textbooks, he
Speaker 1: diagnosed his pet with a bacterial infection known as avian
Speaker 1: hemorrhagic septocemia. It was a contagious disease, and before long
Speaker 1: it started spreading to his other birds. Avian hemorrhagic septocemia
Speaker 1: had no known cure, but Robert, who'd been living in
Speaker 1: solitary confinement for years with no friends except his canaries,
Speaker 1: wasn't going to sit by and let his beloved birds die.
Speaker 1: He asked the warden for laboratory e quips and various chemicals,
Speaker 1: and again the warden said yes. Robert turned his cell
Speaker 1: into a science lab, and after much trial and error
Speaker 1: and many canary funerals, he did it. He created a cure.
Speaker 1: Robert later published his findings and wrote two full length
Speaker 1: books on ornithology, and in the process he cemented himself
Speaker 1: as one of the world's foremost ornithological experts, all from
Speaker 1: inside his prison cell. Obviously, Robert Stroud wasn't perfect. He
Speaker 1: was later caught using that same lab equipment to distill alcohol.
Speaker 1: The warden, who had placed so much trust in him,
Speaker 1: felt betrayed. As a punishment, Robert was transferred to Alcatraz,
Speaker 1: which is where he got his nickname. But despite being
Speaker 1: called the Birdman of Alcatraz, he wasn't actually allowed to
Speaker 1: bring any of his canaries with him. Robert Stroud passed
Speaker 1: away in nineteen sixty three. He spent a total of
Speaker 1: fifty four years incarcerated, and forty two of those were
Speaker 1: spent in solitary confinement. The Birdman of Alcatraz left behind
Speaker 1: a complicated legacy, but still he's a testament to what
Speaker 1: you can accomplish when you have determination, a dream, and
Speaker 1: a whole lot of free time on your hands. Everyone
Speaker 1: wants to leave their mark on the world, something that
Speaker 1: stays behind long after you're gone. Most of us have
Speaker 1: seen cave paintings, animals being hunted, and little handprints left
Speaker 1: by people who are deep in the ground. But there
Speaker 1: are other examples that really get to the hearts of
Speaker 1: how weird and funny humanity is and how we have
Speaker 1: fundamentally always been the same. The tombs of ancient Egyptian
Speaker 1: kings are littered with thousands of pieces of ancient graffiti
Speaker 1: from ye old tourists, including one inscription from a disgruntled
Speaker 1: Roman that read, I visited and I did not like
Speaker 1: anything except the sarcophagus. In moments of stress, bored or
Speaker 1: maybe both people get fidgety and they tend to doodle.
Speaker 1: In war zones, there are significantly fewer notebook margins available,
Speaker 1: but docks, chunks of destroyed buildings, and bar countertops are
Speaker 1: still open for one or two little pieces of scribbling.
Speaker 1: For soldiers in the Atlantic and Pacific theaters during World
Speaker 1: War II, there was a shocking amount of time between pushes,
Speaker 1: so they started to play a game. There's some debate
Speaker 1: over how and where it started. Some think that it
Speaker 1: was a shipyard in Massachusetts that was churning out ships
Speaker 1: for the war effort. According to that story, there was
Speaker 1: an inspector in the yard who had the check that
Speaker 1: the rivets were functioning properly, often climbing down into tight
Speaker 1: spaces and leaving check marks as he went. One day,
Speaker 1: the inspector realized that someone was tampering with his check marks.
Speaker 1: Workers knew that if inspectors had to come back a
Speaker 1: second time, their pay would be increased. After thinking for
Speaker 1: a while, he devised a new system, something a little
Speaker 1: more personal and permanent. The inspector began marking his completed
Speaker 1: checks with a spray can, leaving his own name be Soon,
Speaker 1: Kilroy was Here was stamped on hundreds of pieces of machinery.
Speaker 1: Soldiers across the Atlantic and Pacific were getting introduced to Kilroy, and,
Speaker 1: without knowing the original meaning, decided to make it their
Speaker 1: own inside joke. Kilroy was here, complete with the little
Speaker 1: doodle that began appearing anywhere and everywhere. This is only
Speaker 1: one version of Kilroy's origins. Other accounts, though, point to
Speaker 1: a man named Francis J. Kilroy Junior from Florida who
Speaker 1: was very sick. According to the story, he wrote, Kilroy
Speaker 1: will be here next week on the wall of his barracks.
Speaker 1: But what's more interesting is that other countries had their
Speaker 1: own versions of Kilroy. Australian soldiers had fo during World
Speaker 1: War One, also a big nose cartoon peeking over a wall.
Speaker 1: Mister Chad appeared in England with his own nose coming
Speaker 1: from the Greek symbol for omega. Wherever he really came from.
Speaker 1: Kilroy became an integral part of World War Two, A
Speaker 1: meme that spread from soldier to soldier and country to country.
Speaker 1: In moments of lonely isolation, a little joke from home
Speaker 1: could go a long way. It's hard to believe such
Speaker 1: an innocent, little drawing would draw the attention of Hitler
Speaker 1: or Stalin. When I say Kilroy was everywhere, I mean it.
Speaker 1: The ruins of cities, the insides and outsides of tanks,
Speaker 1: painted on airplanes, and the ordinance fired. Yes, that's right.
Speaker 1: Some manufacturers with a sense of humors started slapping Kilroy
Speaker 1: on Air Force missiles that were being launched against the Nazis. Now,
Speaker 1: the rest of the story might be more fiction than fact,
Speaker 1: but I think you'll agree that it's too good a
Speaker 1: story not to pass up. Over the course of the war,
Speaker 1: Kilroy became a sign of hope for Allied forces, especially
Speaker 1: after they started making breakthroughs further into Axis territory. The
Speaker 1: more Kilroys were there, the more Americans were there. For
Speaker 1: the Nazis, However, Kilroy became something more sinister. Apparently, Hitler
Speaker 1: and several other high ranking Nazis wondered if Kilroy was
Speaker 1: some kind of an American spy A lah James Bond.
Speaker 1: His signature seemed to be everywhere, discovered right before or
Speaker 1: right after a massive Allied attack, it seemed reasonable to
Speaker 1: assume he was a super soldier or a master spy
Speaker 1: who had infiltrated Axis territory. According to one story, which
Speaker 1: may or may not be exaggerated, Hitler even ordered a
Speaker 1: contingent of soldiers to track down the American, but shockingly,
Speaker 1: no one ever found Kilroy. Stalin shared their paranoia too. Apparently,
Speaker 1: at the Potsdam Conference in Germany, American forces had to
Speaker 1: use the bathroom and, in the time honored tradition, doodled
Speaker 1: on the wall of the stall. When the Great Man
Speaker 1: himself had to use the head, he was unamused to
Speaker 1: discover Kilroy had already made it their first. Allegedly, he
Speaker 1: told his officials to find whoever it was responsible and
Speaker 1: do away with them. Kilroy is still everywhere if you
Speaker 1: know where to look. Stories place him at the Arc
Speaker 1: de Triomphan Paris, on Mount Everest, at the Great Wall
Speaker 1: of China, and even on the Moon. Now those are
Speaker 1: all unconfirmed tall tales, of course, but there's one place
Speaker 1: I know you'll find him if you look. See if
Speaker 1: you visit the World War II Memorial in Washington, DC.
Speaker 1: You'll find monuments to those that served in the Atlantic
Speaker 1: and Pacific, and in two different spots you can see
Speaker 1: a little bald head peering over a wall, reminding everyone
Speaker 1: that Kilroy was there. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
Speaker 1: Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me
Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make
Speaker 1: another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
Speaker 1: about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until
Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.