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. It can be dangerous to stand between someone
Speaker 1: and their next meal. Anyone who's put their hand near
Speaker 1: the food bowl while their dog is eating can attest
Speaker 1: to that, and avoiding a lion while it hunts a
Speaker 1: gazelle is just plain common sense. In seventeen sixty six, though,
Speaker 1: the people of Nottingham, England, weren't hunting down a gazelle. Now,
Speaker 1: they had their sights on something else, and when it
Speaker 1: looked like they weren't going to get it, they made
Speaker 1: sure to let everyone know. It all started at the
Speaker 1: Nottingham Goose Fair, a traveling carnival dating backup thousand years
Speaker 1: maybe more that visited the area every October. Back then,
Speaker 1: instead of rides or games of chance, the Goose Fair
Speaker 1: was mainly a food festival. It began as a livestock
Speaker 1: market where animals of all kinds, including geese were traded
Speaker 1: among fair goers. Over time, it branched out into other
Speaker 1: kinds of food as well, but especially cheese. In fact,
Speaker 1: it became a primary reason people attended the fair, but
Speaker 1: never more important than in seventeen sixty six. You see,
Speaker 1: in the months leading up to the event, a poor
Speaker 1: harvest threatened Europe with a nationwide food shortage. People were
Speaker 1: scared and the markets reacted accordingly. High demand resulted in
Speaker 1: skyrocketing prices. Flour, wheat, corn, and yes, cheese all saw
Speaker 1: an uptick in prices, prices that were beyond what most
Speaker 1: people could afford. But when the Nottingham Goose Fair came
Speaker 1: around that year, the prices were the only things rising.
Speaker 1: Tempers had gotten pretty heated too. Just one week earlier,
Speaker 1: cheese had been selling for anywhere between fourteen and twenty
Speaker 1: two shillings per oneweight at Coventry markets. The following week,
Speaker 1: the Goose Ferreri saw prices double by today's standards. That
Speaker 1: put the cost of cheese at nearly two hundred pounds,
Speaker 1: too pricey for locals just trying to get by. Adding
Speaker 1: insult to injury, there was more cheese present at this
Speaker 1: fair than in previous years. All of it just out
Speaker 1: of reach from almost everyone in attendance. Things came to
Speaker 1: a head on October second, when a group of merchants
Speaker 1: from nearby Lincolnshire traveled to Nottingham. They had come to
Speaker 1: buy hundreds of pounds of cheese, which they planned to
Speaker 1: sell in their own county, but the locals didn't take
Speaker 1: too kindly to having their cheese bought by out of
Speaker 1: towners only to be sold elsewhere. They were hungry and desperate.
Speaker 1: A group of young men stopped the merchants on the road,
Speaker 1: surrounding their caravan and offering and ultimatum either share their
Speaker 1: cheese with everyone else or get the cheddar kicked out
Speaker 1: of them. A fight broke out shortly after that, with
Speaker 1: a mob of fed up fair goers taking their anger
Speaker 1: out on the local shops. They broke windows and liberated
Speaker 1: hundreds of cheese wheels, rolling them into the streets and
Speaker 1: hurling them out into open spaces. The mayor of the
Speaker 1: town attempted to regain control of the crowd, but failed.
Speaker 1: A straight cheese wheel even rolled into him and knocked
Speaker 1: him down. Things only escalated from there, with Nottingham residents
Speaker 1: taking up arms and putting up roadblocks to keep the
Speaker 1: traders from getting away with their cheese. The mob also
Speaker 1: boarded a boat to hauling cheese and seized that cargo
Speaker 1: to the owner of the boat offered to give them
Speaker 1: money or sell them his cheese at a lower price,
Speaker 1: but they were too angry to reason with. Another crowd
Speaker 1: attempted to raid a nearby warehouse, but they were chased
Speaker 1: out by armed workers. Still, those looters were able to
Speaker 1: run off with some of the cheese, which prompted the
Speaker 1: warehouse owner to form a posse to hunt them down. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: they didn't get too far. While detaining several who they
Speaker 1: believe were rioting, the posse was attacked with stones and
Speaker 1: they were forced to retreat. The time had come to
Speaker 1: call in the reinforcements. The fifteenth Dragoons, a British cavalry regiment,
Speaker 1: arrived in Nottingham and opened fire into the crowd. One man,
Speaker 1: a farmer named William Eggleston, was killed in the skirmish.
Speaker 1: He hadn't been part of the riot, though, he'd just
Speaker 1: been standing near his own cheese protecting it from looters.
Speaker 1: It took several days before the military was able to
Speaker 1: restore the peace. Despite the violence of the Nottingham Cheese
Speaker 1: Riot of seventeen sixty six. The Goose Fair continues to
Speaker 1: visit to this day, although the livestock trading of old
Speaker 1: has given way to carnival rise in games. Hasn't been
Speaker 1: a cheese fueled mob there in over two hundred fifty years,
Speaker 1: and I'd call that news pretty gooda World War Two
Speaker 1: was a unique time in history when Americans and Europeans
Speaker 1: banded together to take down a common enemy. Not everyone
Speaker 1: took up arms, though many hosted scrap drives to collect
Speaker 1: metal and rubber that would go toward building ships and airplanes. Others,
Speaker 1: like actors and musicians, flew overseas to put on shows
Speaker 1: for the troops. Edda van heemstru put on shows too.
Speaker 1: She was born in Brussels, Belgium, in n to a
Speaker 1: Dutch baroness and a British businessman. Her early years were
Speaker 1: filled with turmoil, though, as her father left the family
Speaker 1: and joined a fascist organization back in England when she
Speaker 1: was just six. Though her life had just gone through
Speaker 1: a major upheaval, she always had one constant dance. Edda
Speaker 1: was enrolled in ballet lessons at a young age, a
Speaker 1: skill that would serve her well later in life. She
Speaker 1: returned to the UK when she was seven to attend school.
Speaker 1: As she got older, Edda was swept into the chaos
Speaker 1: that was the Second World War. Her mother took her
Speaker 1: and her siblings act to her hometown in Arnhem in
Speaker 1: the Netherlands. It had been a neutral territory during World
Speaker 1: War One, and Eda's mother hoped it would remain that
Speaker 1: way throughout this new war as well. The young Edda
Speaker 1: was soon enrolled at the Arnham Conservatory, where she focused
Speaker 1: more on her ballet lessons. Around nineteen forty, though, the
Speaker 1: war finally reached their doorstep. The Nazis invaded the Netherlands
Speaker 1: and the family suffered great losses. To stay safe, they
Speaker 1: went underground, quite literally. Eda survived in the basement of
Speaker 1: her home by eating tulip bulbs after their food supply
Speaker 1: was cut off by the Germans. But as she fought
Speaker 1: to go on a movement was stirring around her. She
Speaker 1: joined the Dutch Resistance, a group of freedom fighters comprised
Speaker 1: of local churches, the Communist Party, and other groups. The
Speaker 1: resistance had fought for days as the Germans marched into
Speaker 1: the Netherlands. They held the line at areas like the Hague,
Speaker 1: Rotterdam and elsewhere. During the various battles, many lives were
Speaker 1: lost on both sides, and entire towns were reduced to ash.
Speaker 1: Among the rubble were properties once owned by Edda's mother. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Edda did her part, but not as a fighter. She
Speaker 1: became a courier, taking messages to Allied airmen who had
Speaker 1: been shot down. She also helped deliver the resistances underground
Speaker 1: newspaper Now. During one of her deliveries, she ran into
Speaker 1: a group of German soldiers. She had to think quick
Speaker 1: on her feet to avoid capture or worse, so she
Speaker 1: picked flowers for them and acted as though she didn't
Speaker 1: know what was going on. They reviewed her papers and
Speaker 1: let her go. But perhaps her greatest contribution to the
Speaker 1: resistance was her dancing. Edda dance during events called Black Evenings,
Speaker 1: concerts held in people's homes to help raise funds for
Speaker 1: the resistance. To hide their actions from the Germans, windows
Speaker 1: were covered and audiences held their applause. The money was
Speaker 1: then used to shelter Jews hiding out in the Netherlands.
Speaker 1: Edda and her mother attended their first Black Evening as
Speaker 1: guests in April of nineteen After that the girl was hooked.
Speaker 1: She began performing in them herself while a friend of
Speaker 1: hers played the piano. She performed in costumes designed by
Speaker 1: her mother. Outside the homes, resistance guards kept watch for
Speaker 1: German soldiers who might have been in the area. Eda
Speaker 1: was strong, maybe even stronger than some of the people
Speaker 1: actually fighting. She was barely a teenager, running messages to
Speaker 1: Allied soldiers during the day and dancing for audiences at night.
Speaker 1: The lack of food meant that she was malnourished, and
Speaker 1: she suffered from acute anemia, among other ailments. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until her mother got the family out when things started
Speaker 1: to turn around. In n After the war, le Van
Speaker 1: Heemstra's moved to Amsterdam and Edda resumed her ballet lessons.
Speaker 1: She studied under a woman named Sonia Gaskell, a prominent
Speaker 1: Dutch dancer and choreographer. Her mother was forced to work
Speaker 1: two jobs to keep food on the table, her wealth
Speaker 1: having been destroyed during the war along with her homes.
Speaker 1: Eda meanwhile earned a scholarship to study ballet at a
Speaker 1: British dance company called Rombert. She moved to London and
Speaker 1: supported herself by doing some modeling on the side. Sadly,
Speaker 1: her time at the ballet came to an end after
Speaker 1: a review of her dancing, Rombert told her she was
Speaker 1: too tall to ever become a prima ballerina. Van Hiemstra
Speaker 1: didn't take it too hard, though, she pivoted to another
Speaker 1: passion of hers acting. But the odds are good that
Speaker 1: you've never heard of Eda. That's because Van Heemstra was
Speaker 1: her mother's maiden name, part of an identity she adopted
Speaker 1: during the war to avoid problems with the Germans. Her
Speaker 1: real name was Audrey Rustin, but when it came time
Speaker 1: to pick a stage name, she swapped out Rustin for
Speaker 1: the other name in her father's hyphenated surname, and with
Speaker 1: that the star was born Audrey that Burn. I hope
Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. This was
Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Mankey 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 at the World of Lore
Speaker 1: dot com and until next time, stay curious. Yeah M