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. Some people have a calling.
Speaker 1: A famous musician might be drawn to the guitar at
Speaker 1: a young age, sparking a long and prolific career. A
Speaker 1: best selling author's pension for telling stories might one day
Speaker 1: land her books on a million bookshelves all over the world.
Speaker 1: For fisherman Frank Samuelson and George Harbow, they're calling was
Speaker 1: the Open Sea, well, the open Sea and ten thou dollars.
Speaker 1: You see, both men were born in Norway in the
Speaker 1: latter half of the nineteenth century and joined the Merchant
Speaker 1: Marines in their youth. They sail all over the world
Speaker 1: together as they served their country, but took particular liking
Speaker 1: to the East coast of the United States, specifically Jersey City,
Speaker 1: New Jersey. So after they had completed their tours, both
Speaker 1: men made their homes in New Jersey, where they built
Speaker 1: quiet lives for themselves, trawling for clams up and down
Speaker 1: the coast. Surprisingly, digging for clams did not prove to
Speaker 1: be as glamorous as it sounded, and soon Frank and
Speaker 1: George found themselves wanting more. They missed the wind in
Speaker 1: their faces and the salt in their hair, the opportunity
Speaker 1: for action around every corner. It was just before the
Speaker 1: turn of the century when George stumbled upon something that
Speaker 1: would catapult them back into what they loved. He'd been
Speaker 1: reading a popular men's lifestyle magazine called The National Police
Speaker 1: Gazette when he came across an open letter from the
Speaker 1: magazine's publisher, a man named Richard Fox. In it, Fox
Speaker 1: offered anyone brave enough to row across the Atlantic Ocean
Speaker 1: a prize of ten thousand dollars that's over quarter of
Speaker 1: a million dollars in today's currency. This was it just
Speaker 1: the thing to get them out of their rut and
Speaker 1: find their true purpose again. The men quickly set to
Speaker 1: work building their majestic skiff, which they dubbed the Fox
Speaker 1: after their intended beneficiary. They drained their savings accounts constructing
Speaker 1: the eighteen foot rowboat out of oak and South Jersey pine,
Speaker 1: fitting it with two benches, several watertight compartments for supplies,
Speaker 1: and a rail along the bottom in case it tipped over.
Speaker 1: They didn't take a lot with them other than the
Speaker 1: food they brought with them. The men carried only what
Speaker 1: they needed to navigate and steer, including a compass, a sextant, ores,
Speaker 1: and special suits made of oil skins. If you've ever
Speaker 1: seen the image of a fisherman on a box of
Speaker 1: frozen fish sticks, you'll know what oil skins are. George
Speaker 1: and Frank left New York bright and early on the
Speaker 1: morning of June six. From there they rode for fifty
Speaker 1: five days over thirty two hundred nautical miles Great Britain,
Speaker 1: covering on average about fifty miles per day, and boy
Speaker 1: were their arms tired. National Police Gazette publisher Richard Fox
Speaker 1: met the duo in Paris at the dinner held in
Speaker 1: their honor, where he presented each of them with a
Speaker 1: gold medal to mark their journey. Conspicuously absent though we're
Speaker 1: the ten thousand dollars he'd promised them, but for some
Speaker 1: reason that didn't bother George and Frank. They used their
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes of fame to go on a lecture tour
Speaker 1: around the world, talking about how they had built their
Speaker 1: boat and accomplished their feet. It was the ted talks
Speaker 1: of their time. However, it was on their return trip
Speaker 1: home when trouble arose like a rogue wave. Now, one
Speaker 1: might have thought that a journey of almost thirty two
Speaker 1: hundred miles in a rickety old roboat would have helped
Speaker 1: them to overcome any problem thrown their way, and sure
Speaker 1: they had their fair share nothing that couldn't be overcome
Speaker 1: with a little elbow grease and some ingenuity. They battled
Speaker 1: forty ft waves, heavy rains, avoided collision with an ie sburg,
Speaker 1: and countless other perils on their voyage. So it's no
Speaker 1: surprise that when it came time for the men to
Speaker 1: return to the United States, they decided to let someone
Speaker 1: else do the sailing. George and Frank, as well as
Speaker 1: their famous rowboats, boarded a steamship home. The idea was
Speaker 1: to give their exhausted arms arrest after such a long
Speaker 1: and arduous journey. Unfortunately, fate had other ideas. Just as
Speaker 1: the steamer reached Cape Cod, it ran out of coal.
Speaker 1: George and Frank were stuck with no idea as to
Speaker 1: when they'd be able to get moving again. But they
Speaker 1: weren't too bothered by it because they had a plan.
Speaker 1: They did what no one else on the ship was
Speaker 1: prepared for. They located their trusty rowboat, lowered it into
Speaker 1: the water, and then settled in for the most enjoyable
Speaker 1: activity possible. They rode themselves home. Some talents have a
Speaker 1: universal appeal. A good musical performance, a beautiful painting, a
Speaker 1: functional and inspiring architectural design. These are things that almost
Speaker 1: everyone can appreciate. Other talents, though, are a bit less mainstream.
Speaker 1: They sit at the edges, and while a few people
Speaker 1: might find them interesting, the vast majority of the world
Speaker 1: is either disinterested, unprepared, or both. In the case of
Speaker 1: one man, it might be easier to say that his
Speaker 1: skill was simply not their cup of tea or slice
Speaker 1: of cake. Well, you'll get the idea in a moment.
Speaker 1: The world had never seen someone quite like Tarre, and
Speaker 1: they certainly weren't ready for him. He was born in
Speaker 1: France in the seventeen hundreds, and from the very beginning
Speaker 1: everyone could tell he was different. It wasn't in his
Speaker 1: looks or the way he spoke. It was how his
Speaker 1: stomach was kind of a bottomless pit. By the time
Speaker 1: he was a teenager, he could easily eat his weight
Speaker 1: in beef, each day and somehow never gain a pound.
Speaker 1: His mouth could stretch wider than average, and people who
Speaker 1: knew him at the time described his figure as of
Speaker 1: all things skinny. However, his appetite was so grand his
Speaker 1: family couldn't afford to feed him. That meant that they
Speaker 1: couldn't afford to keep him either, and just like that,
Speaker 1: Tarar was on his own. He didn't starve, though. To
Speaker 1: be honest, it wasn't a challenge for someone with a
Speaker 1: talent for stuff in his face to find work as
Speaker 1: a sideshow act. He fell in with a group of
Speaker 1: street performers who kept him fed and quickly exploited his
Speaker 1: outrageous metabolism. Audiences didn't just want to see him eat
Speaker 1: hundreds of pounds of steak and chicken, though, the man
Speaker 1: with the iron stomach began varying his diet with less
Speaker 1: edible additions, including rocks, corks, and live animals. If he
Speaker 1: could fit it in his mouth, he ate it and
Speaker 1: got paid pretty well to do it too. Unfortunately, he
Speaker 1: also paid for it. You see, Tarar was a notoriously
Speaker 1: foul smelling individual who ran into serious intestinal troubles because
Speaker 1: of his sideshow work. After a particularly long hospital stay,
Speaker 1: he realized he needed to do better for himself and
Speaker 1: his stomach, so he joined the French military. But although
Speaker 1: his newfound sense of purpose should have been enough to
Speaker 1: sustain him, he became just as sick, not eating as
Speaker 1: he did when he was It was while he was
Speaker 1: wandering around the bases medical ward when military scientists decided
Speaker 1: to perform some tests on Tarar's incredible appetite. They realized
Speaker 1: that when his enormous stomach was empty, it became a
Speaker 1: perfect way of transporting messages to imprison soldiers across enemy lines.
Speaker 1: If only they'd train him a little better before sending
Speaker 1: him out into the field. You see, it didn't take
Speaker 1: long for Tarar to be spotted and captured. Soon after
Speaker 1: he was being questioned about his reasons for being there, Tarar,
Speaker 1: naive and afraid, told them all about the box in
Speaker 1: his stomach that contained a note. So they chained him
Speaker 1: to a toilet and waited patiently for his um deposit.
Speaker 1: If only it had been worth the weight, the message
Speaker 1: said nothing, well, nothing that meant anything of a great
Speaker 1: deal to the enemy nor the imprisoned soldier. The entire
Speaker 1: ordeal had been nothing more than a test to see
Speaker 1: whether his gut would be a viable way of smuggling
Speaker 1: information in the long term. Tarar was eventually released to France,
Speaker 1: where he resumed his civilian life, searching for food wherever
Speaker 1: he could find it. And he was sick of it.
Speaker 1: He had been studied and exploited and all it had
Speaker 1: gotten him was the torture of an upset stomach. Soon after,
Speaker 1: he checked himself into a local hospital in hopes of
Speaker 1: a cure. He couldn't live with this affliction any longer. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: medicine at the time just wasn't very advanced, and treatments
Speaker 1: consisted of filling his insides with illicit drugs to see
Speaker 1: how they performed, but nothing helped. Tar spent his nights
Speaker 1: wandering the halls looking for something to eat. He branched
Speaker 1: out from his usual fare of everyday objects and started
Speaker 1: eating off menu. He drank patients blood and ate limbs
Speaker 1: in the morgue. Sometimes he escaped and feasted on the
Speaker 1: entrails discarded behind butcher shots or stray dogs and cats
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood. One day of fourteen month old child
Speaker 1: went missing, and although Tarar was never accused of anything outright,
Speaker 1: it was enough to have him evicted from the hospital.
Speaker 1: Years later, Tarar would find himself back there one last
Speaker 1: time as a corpse. Doctors tried performing an autopsy on him,
Speaker 1: but they didn't get too far. The odor coming off
Speaker 1: of his body simply made a full examination all but impossible. Now,
Speaker 1: any number of things could have killed the man who
Speaker 1: literally ate everything in his path. After all, his gigantic
Speaker 1: stomach was riddled with countless infections caused by his strange
Speaker 1: dining habits. But no, Tarar wasn't undone by rocks or
Speaker 1: corks or even human limbs. It wasn't cats or dogs
Speaker 1: or all those rotten butcher cast offs. No, the man
Speaker 1: who seemed to be able to eat anything without consequence
Speaker 1: died of something entirely unrelated, taking his reputation for an
Speaker 1: iron stomach with him to the grave completely intact. So
Speaker 1: what did kill the man who seemingly could consume anything
Speaker 1: he wanted? Tuberculosis, a sickness known through popular culture by
Speaker 1: a very different name, consumption. I hope you've enjoyed today's
Speaker 1: guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by
Speaker 1: visiting curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by
Speaker 1: me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I
Speaker 1: make 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 World of Lore dot com.
Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.